Scrollers Preview - Parashat Shemot, 2016!!

It feels like very good timing to begin the book of Exodus this Shabbat, as we enter a new year. The secular New Year, like Chanukah and Christmas, is about finding light at the darkest time of year – hence New Year’s fireworks, sparkly festive clothes and bubbly champagne.

As we open the book of Exodus, we find our people at its darkest hour, in exile, forced to serve Pharaoh in Egypt. But throughout the parasha, there is light. There is light in the midwives’ brave act, defying Pharaoh by not killing the Hebrew baby boys; in Moses’ mother’s decision to put her baby in a basket by the Nile, and in Pharaoh’s daughter’s act to save him. A small flame lights up a bush without consuming it. And God finally hears the groans of the Israelites and remembers the covenant.

These hopeful glimmers herald the beginning of a new kind of story – where brothers don’t kill or banish each other, but where Aaron speaks for Moses, who is slow of tongue. This new kind of story brings with it a new name for God: “Ehyeh.” Ultimately, the Exodus story will be the one that defines us most powerfully, as a people who know the heart of a slave, of a stranger. Our suffering will have been given purpose – to bring light to other peoples’ darkness.

So, as we begin this new book, I want to ask the question – is a story of suffering necessary in developing a sense of values, ethics and purpose in the world? Is it possible to become a people committed to justice and compassion without this story?

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Vayigash 2015

In this week’s Torah portion , the drama between Joseph and his brothers reaches its climax, with Joseph revealing himself to his brothers after Judah begs to serve Joseph as a slave in order to send Benjamin back to his father. After Joseph makes himself known to his brothers, he gives theological meaning to the events that have led up to this moment. He explains his brother’s sale of him to Egypt saying, in 45:8, “So, it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

The commentator Abravanel asks:

How does Joseph come to say: “So it was not you who sent me here but God”? Surely they deliberately and knowingly sold him to harm him. The fact that by a fluke the sale turned out well, did not mitigate their offence. A person is not judged by the accidental results of his deeds but by his intent. The accidental results are irrelevant to the moral dimension.

We will read some other commentaries, from Maimonides and Rashi, and see if we can come to our own understanding here of the play between free will and God’s Providence.

I look forward to sharing this next parasha in the Joseph novella with you!

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Vayeshev 2015

The Joseph cycle  - the only novella in the Torah - begins this week. Unlike the patriarchal stories that precede it, the Joseph story doesn't begin with his conception or birth. The spotlight shines on him, starting at age 17. There are other differences too.

While this extended story echoes many of the themes of the stories that preceded it – sibling rivalry, deception, exile, now these themes are brought to an intensity we haven’t seen before. Here we do not only have a pair of rival brothers here, vying for a blessing and a birthright. In this set of stories, we have a whole band of brothers who sell Joseph into slavery as an alternative to their initial impulse – to kill him in cold blood. The deception this time isn’t about who gets to receive a blessing. This time, the brothers trick their father into believing that Joseph has been torn apart by a wild beast. The protagonist in this story does not only leave home to sojourn with relatives out of fear of his brother. This time, Joseph is sold into captivity down to Egypt, the most foreign of foreign lands.  Whereas in previous stories, love has been prominent, here, hate takes center stage.

Another difference from the stories that have preceded this is the role of God. Here God recedes from a "character" directly acting and speaking into more of a power operating in the background. Instead of God coming to Joseph in a dream to make a covenantal promise, Joseph has a series of dreams that contain a message about his destiny. Instead of God making a pact with Joseph, as God does with Jacob, we learn that "God was with Joseph" in Egypt and that God blesses him with success in the house of Potiphar, and again when he is imprisoned. God doesn't speak to Joseph, as far as we know, but God is the power to whom Joseph attributes his ability to interpret dreams.

 

We also are not only following the story of just one future patriarch in this parasha. Joseph is clearly at the center of the story. But this cycle is not only about Joseph - we see the political identities of the 12 tribes starting to take form as well, as we get snippets of narrative about Reuben and Judah as well. In fact, a a whole chapter is devoted to Judah, who develops from a person whose idea it is to sell his own brother into slavery, to a man whose own sons are dying and who is deceived by his daughter-in-law Tamar, to a man who by the end of the cycle ultimately takes responsibility for his own brother and father.

 

These differences all seem to point us in the direction of the next book, Exodus. We begin to zoom the camera out from individual stories of a family to the view of a nation in relationship with God. This novella provides an important and dramatic bridge from the mom and pop and God stories of the first part of Genesis to the sweeping story of peoplehood that is to come.

Shabbat Shalom!

Scrollers Preview Parashat Lech L’cha 2015

I didn’t plan it this way, but it just worked out that this week, the week of Parashat Lech L’cha, I saw the movie, “The Walk,” about Phillippe Petit and his high-wire walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center. The film was breathtaking, in its beauty, and in its terror. It was hard to watch, and at the same time, impossible to look away, as Phillippe crossed what he calls, “the void,” between the two towers, hundreds of feet in the air.

This week, God calls to Avram from out of the void, and asks him to step into it. “Lech L’cha,” “Go forth, from your country, from your birthplace, from your father’s house – to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.”

Hannah Senesh writes, in a poem printed in the Women’s Torah commentary:

A voice called. I went.

I went, for it called.

I went, lest I fall.

At the crossroads

I blocked both ears with white frost

And cried

For what I had lost.

This week, Avram is called to depart from all he has ever known, to forgo his past, and to head into the void. He is called to do this by a voice that is greater than himself. And this voice promises blessing. Next week, that same voice will use a similar pattern, calling on Avram to forgo his future – to take his son, his only son, his precious one, Isaac – to the land of Moriah, and to offer him up as a burnt offering.

What does it mean to live on a high wire? What does it mean to be called to step into the void? What do we lose? What must we sacrifice? How are we blessed? Why do we go?

Scrollers Preview - Noach 2015

Parashat Noach encompasses the flood story, the Tower of Babel, and the genealogies that set up God’s calling Abram to set out for the land of Canaan.

The story of Noah has clear parallels with the story of Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The differences, however, are differences that make the story very clearly ours. For example, while Enlil wants to flood the world to wipe out humanity’s constant noise, God wipes out the world because God sees “how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh had corrupted its ways on earth.” The idea that God is horrified by category violation and lawlessness is quite clearly derived from Torah categories. The specifics of the Noah story both reach back to creation and forward to Abraham, the Mishkan, and into the prophets (where the Noah story serves as a useful metaphor for later exiles and redemptions).

The question then becomes not how or whether we borrowed the story, but why is this story placed here? How is it a useful hinge to get us from creation to Abram? What does Noah provide us that B’reishit didn’t? Additionally, how does the parasha shed light on later stories of sin, exile, redemption, and law-giving?

Scrollers Preview - Ki Tavo 2015

As we near the end of Deuteronomy, we will see this week a feature of royal documents and covenants. This parasha, known as the parasha of “tochecha,” or “rebuke,” ends with a long list of curses.  This is a typical way that kings would seal a covenantal document, asking the gods to curse anyone who disobeyed the laws within.

The Israelites are instructed on a number of rituals related to crossing over into the new land. This includes the ritual of bringing the first fruits to the Temple, of setting up stones inscribed with this “Torah” (probably the book of Deuteronomy,) and the ritual of declaring blessings and curses on two mountains. The text spells out the blessings and curses that seem to be a part of this ritual. But then, the majority of Chapter 28 (more than 50 verses in total,) lays on even more curses – terrible, graphic things that will happen to the Israelites if they break God’s covenant.

For me, the most interesting verses in this whole section are 28:47-48, which read, “Because you would not serve the Eternal your God in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything, you shall have to serve –in hunger and thirst, naked and lacking everything—the enemies whom the Eternal will let loose against you. He will put an iron yoke upon your neck until He has wiped you out.”

The reason God gives for bringing horrific plagues and curses upon us is that we did not serve God in joy and gladness over all that we have. Ultimately, this piece is about our lack of gratitude for what we already have – for the blessings we enjoy in each and every moment.

I don’t believe that the curses are meant to be taken literally – that men and women will literally be eating the flesh of their own children (probably the worst curse in the list). I think Deuteronomy is describing what happens to human beings when we are unable to experience and express gratitude for the blessings in our lives in the present moment. What happens when we get stuck in disappointment about the past, or in worry about the future, is that our minds and our hearts spiral into horrible negative thoughts; our spirits become empty; life becomes meaningless – cursed.

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Ki Tetzei 2015

Our parasha this week includes a collection of ethical laws regarding individuals, families, and neighbors, and how we are supposed to treat each other. There are also laws on treatment of animals. Dignity is the pervasive theme; although, we may not agree that all of these laws truly preserve human dignity in the ways we would want.

Here are some examples of laws in this parasha:

• What to do when you take a woman captive during war and you want to marry her – let her grieve, then you can marry her. If you don’t want her after a while, you can’t sell her as a slave but must release her.

• What to do with a defiant son – if his parents have put in a good faith effort as changing his ways and he resists, they bring him to the elders, and the community stones him to death.

• Do not ignore your fellow’s stray animal. Return it to him, or if you don’t know to whom it belongs, take care of it until the owner comes to claim it.

• Don’t muzzle an ox who is threshing a field of grain.

• You can take grapes off the vine or ears of corn from a field that you are walking through, but only what you can carry and eat immediately.

• Laws regarding a man who doesn’t like his wife anymore and accuses her of not having been a virgin when they married.

• Laws regarding the rape of an engaged woman if the rape occurs in a town or an open field. Laws regarding the rape of a virgin woman who is not engaged.

• Laws regarding leaving produce in the field for the stranger, widow and orphan.

On this parasha, the medieval commentator Nachmanides explores the question of the purpose of doing the mitzvoth. Does our observance of the commandments serve God in any way that actually benefits the Holy One? Are the commandments meant to bring us some kind of reward? Do the mitzvoth change us? Are they here to cultivate certain qualities in ourselves, or are they only important as a way to show our devotion to God?

Scrollers Preview - Parshat Re'eh 2015

Parashat Re’eh covers a wide-ranging set of laws and rules for the Israelites once they enter the land. First, we are told that the people will pronounce words of blessing and of curses from the top of two mountains when they cross over the Jordan river into the land.

Then we have laws that reflect main principles of Deuteronomy – strict monotheism and the centralization of worship in one location where God will cause God’s name to dwell.

We are told to destroy all sites where idolators used to worship (those idolators whom we have already conquered and dispossessed). According to Deuteronomy, our people up until now have worshiped God at various places. When they enter the Land they are only allowed to worship God at one central location where God will choose to “establish His name.” Because many people will live a significant distance away from this place, the laws about slaughtering for meat are being amended. You no longer have to bring every domestic animal you want to eat to the sanctuary first for slaughter. But you must not eat the blood – pour it out on the ground like water. Because “the blood is the life.”

We are warned to protect ourselves from seduction into worshiping other gods by false prophets, dream-interpreters, and even our own family members. God is testing our loyalty through them. They must be put to death. If a town has turned away from God, we need to kill all the inhabitants and destroy the town.

Along the same theme of setting ourselves apart from other peoples, we then have laws of mourning and of kashrut. We are told not to follow the ways of the other peoples, because we are a consecrated people “am kadosh.”

The next section of laws deals more with how we are to treat the poor in our midst. Every seventh year all debts are remitted. We are commanded to help our needy kinsman by giving and loaning to him readily. Included here are laws of indentured servitude and slavery. A postscript tells us to sacrifice all male firstlings. But if it has a defect, you do not sacrifice it but eat it in your settlement – but remember again to pour out the blood first.

Lastly, we have the laws of the Passover sacrifice, of Shavuot and Sukkot, the three pilgrimage festivals, and we are commanded to rejoice!

One of the questions I have this year is about the opening of the parasha – How are we to discern between blessing and curse? Is it so simple to distinguish between these phenomena in our lives?

I also want to spend some time on the section that deals with the poor in our midst. I’ll bring you a section of Talmud that I studied this summer that riffs on the verse in our parasha which says that we must provide “sufficient for his need,” meaning the need of the poor person. The rabbis discuss at length what “sufficient” actually means, and whether to use an objective or subjective standard for determining this.

Scrollers Preview - B'ha-alotecha 2015

In this week’s parasha, the Israelites finally make their way forward from Mount Sinai.

In preparation for taking down the Tabernacle, the Levites are purified and “offered up” to serve God. The text repeats the verb “heinif,” or in its noun form, “tenufah,” eight times to describe the Levites’ being “lifted up” as this offering to replace the 1^st-born of all Israelites. I’d like to explore this question of what this really means to us that the Levites are lifted up, and that they are standing in for the 1^st-born, who belong to God.

In the next chapter the Israelites receive further details regarding how and when they are supposed to march forward and when they are to make camp. It is all at the command of God, and they could be asked to disassemble the Mishkan and break camp at any time, day or night, whether a day or a month or a year has elapsed since they set up the current encampment. The commentators note what a burden this must have been, especially on the Levites. Here I’d like to look at what quality God is trying to cultivate in the Israelites by asking them to be prepared to leave at any moment.

Lastly, we have two chapters which get into the main theme of the Book of Numbers: rebellion. First, in Chapter 11, the people, inspired by the riffraff in their midst, complain bitterly about the lack of meat. This leads Moses to cry out to God for help. God responds by drawing from the spirit that had been placed upon Moses and sharing it with 70 elders.  Many lives are lost in a fire that breaks out and then a plague, embodying God’s wrath at the people.

Later, in Chapter 12, Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses and his leadership. God is not happy here either and strikes Miriam with tzara’at – snow white scales – as a punishment. In both chapter 11 and 12, God hears what the people are up to, God immediately gets angry and intervenes, and Moses is shown to be humble.

In chapter 11, Moses is fine with the spirit of prophecy being shared  with others. And in chapter 12, the text notes that Moses was a very humble man, and he even prays on behalf of his sister for God to heal her of the skin disease.  Another question for us to wrestle with – why is the Torah going to such great lengths to show Moses’ humility here? This book of Numbers will soon feature the moment when Moses lets his temper gets away from him; he will strike the rock to get water, and for this, he will be barred from entering the Promised Land. What is going on here?

Looking forward to our discussion of all of the questions, and yours as well.

Shabbat Shalom