Scrollers Preview - Parashat Yitro 2014

Covenants abound in the ancient Near East, with kings making pacts with vassals and with other kings. But as far as we know, no other ancient society other than Israel ever imagined a god entering into a covenant with a people. The heart of our parasha this week is the cutting of the covenant between God and our people at Mount Sinai. We’ve have covenantal moments before, in the Book of Genesis, between God and Noah, and then God and each of the patriarchs. But this is the first covenant in which both parties have a stake; this is the first one where, according to Everett Fox, “mutuality and conditionality” are a part of the deal.

The scene in which the covenant is made is one of revelation. Yet, this is not primarily a visual experience – it is an aural one. God speaks directly to Moses in the hearing of the people, out of a cloud of smoke atop a trembling mountain. Shofarot are blasting, and God’s words are heard above the noise.

The very moment of the people meeting God is described in only four verses. Yet many more verses are devoted to warnings about boundaries that the people must not overstep lest God “burst out” against them. And the balance of the parasha is made up of the laws that are revealed.

So, at the heart of the parasha is this moment of meeting, but it is only four verses long. What does this mean about how we are to understand our relationship with God? Is the experience of God’s presence more or less important than following the laws and sticking to the covenant? Why do we think that our ancient Israelite ancestors could imagine a covenant between a people and a god, when no one around them was doing this? What does this say about who we are and where we came from?

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Bo 2014

At the beginning of this week’s Parasha, everyone seems to know and acknowledge that Egypt is “lost,” everyone except for Pharaoh himself, that is. As the plague of locusts is about to descend, even his advisors have the chutzpah to confront Pharaoh and ask why he continues to refuse to the let the Israelites go. By the end of the Parasha, as the great cry is heard throughout Egypt over the death of the firstborn, Pharaoh finally relents. As God had predicted, Pharaoh “drives” the Israelites out of Egypt.

Woven through the narrative of the last three plagues are instructions for the Pesach sacrifice and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. These instructions are aimed at two audiences. First, they are meant for the Israelites in the story, the Pesach sacrifice being the source of the blood which, smeared on the doorposts, will protect them from the “Destroyer.” But these ritual instructions regarding the sacrifice of a lamb for each household and the seven day commandment to eat only unleavened bread are meant equally for the generations after the Exodus. The text makes explicit that these rituals are to become eternal reminders, passed down from parent to child. “And you are to tell you child on that day, saying: it is because of what God did for me, when I went out of Egypt.” (Exodus 13:8)

Woven through this narrative that is at the heart of our identity as Jews, we have here the first formally revealed laws in the Torah. And through the revelation of these laws, we are brought into the center of the story – it becomes ours.

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Miketz 2013

Dreaming and waking, forgetting and remembering, recognizing and hiding, “that we may live and not die.” These are the refrains, the poles of this week’s parasha.

Pharaoh dreams of skinny cows eating fat cows and skinny corn eating healthy corn, and when he awakens, he is anxious. The royal cupbearer who forgot Joseph at the end of last week’s parasha remembers Joseph now and recommends him to Pharaoh as a dream interpreter. Joseph is raised up from the dungeon to the heights of power, as Pharaoh entrusts the land and the storage and distribution of its produce to him during the famine. Joseph’s brothers come down to Egypt for food “that they may live and not die,” because of the famine in Canaan. Joseph recognizes them; they do not recognize him. As they bow in front of him, Joseph, who named his son “he who makes me forget my father’s house,” remembers the dreams he had while in his father’s house, of his brothers bowing down to him.

In this parasha, we are making our way towards Egypt, and toward nationhood. The brothers are now calling themselves by the collective, “we,” and we can envision the People forming. The themes of remembering and forgetting appear, themes which will dominate the Book of Exodus, in which the new Pharaoh does not know Joseph, God forgets us as we slave away for 400 years, and finally, God remembers the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. “That we may live and not die.” Egypt –our collective dungeon - is the place where we thrive – where we survive famine and multiply into a nation.

The parasha ends with a cliff hanger. Joseph is testing his brothers to see if they have turned around – to see if they will take responsibility for their brothers Shimon, and then Benjamin, and above all, their father. Perhaps this is a test of whether nationhood is something we are capable of. Perhaps a test of whether we will get out of Egypt alive – of whether we are worth remembering.

Happy Thanksgiving and Chanukah!

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Vayeshev 2013

Unlike Jacob and Isaac, patriarchs whom we follow closely from birth through adulthood to death, Joseph steps into the foreground of our story when he is already seventeen years old.  We did read of his birth to Jacob’s favored wife Rachel, a few weeks back. And, as we have come to expect, he was only born after his mother struggled with barrenness. But the narrative in between Joseph’s birth and this week’s Torah portion has nothing to do with Joseph. It is as if his story really begins this week.

The Joseph cycle echoes many of the themes of the stories that preceded it – sibling rivalry, deception, exile. But now these themes are brought to an intensity we haven’t seen before. 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.

We also are not only following the story of one future patriarch in this parasha. Joseph is clearly at the center of the story. But we also have a whole chapter 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” or “novella,”  ultimately takes responsibility for his own brother and father.

I look forward to exploring this story with you tomorrow! 

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Vayishlach 2013

According to Everett Fox’s commentary, Jacob encounters God at crucial life junctures, and in this Torah portion, Jacob encounters God three times. In most instances, God speaks to Jacob, reassuring him that God will be with him, that Jacob will be the one to carry on the covenant, that he will give birth to a nation. Sometimes God comes to tell Jacob it’s time to move on to the next phase of the journey.

But in the beginning of this parasha, God comes to him in the form or a man or an angel who wrestles with him, cannot overcome him, injures him, blesses him, and changes his name. In this episode, Jacob encounters God “face to face.” And the next morning, Jacob encounters his brother’s face for the first time in over twenty years – for the first time since Jacob ran away from Esau who wanted to kill him for stealing the first-born’s blessing. One of the key words in this parasha is “face.” Depending on where and when it appears, the word “face” suggests intimacy, close encounter, love, fear, and conflict.

The parasha is full of fear, conflict, love, loss, blessing and violence. There are moments of grace, as when Esau runs to Jacob and kisses him, shedding tears and reconciling with his brother. And there are moments of failure – Jacob hears of the rape of his daughter and doesn’t seem to know what to do.

Fitting then that this parasha would open with a wrestling match and would feature the word “face”. Sometimes Jacob is on top, sometimes on the bottom. His story is close up. He can’t escape the pain of burying his beloved wife; he is caught in an unexpected, tight embrace with his estranged brother. Sometimes he appears to be pinned down, unable to move or act. Other times he prevails. This week, Jacob stares in the face the realities of a life on the road with God.

I look forward to encountering this text, face to face with you, tomorrow!

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Toldot 2013

This week we make the transition from the first patriarch, Avraham, to the man who will be the last patriarch, Ya’akov. Isaac forms a bridge between the two, and we don’t really have a whole “cycle” of stories devoted to him. This week’s parasha shows Isaac rooted in the land, and repeating some of his father’s story, but the focus quickly moves to Ya’akov. And Ya’akov does have a cycle of stories, the longest cycle in the book of Genesis.

With Ya’akov’s life, we enter a very sensual, physical human realm. Like his grandfather, Ya’akov does have visions of God. But Ya’akov more often lives on the often raw and ugly plane  of struggle, deception, confrontation, love, money, and terrible loss. In these opening stories of Ya’akov’s life, Ya’akov gains the birthright and the blessing of the first born, which should belong to his twin brother Esav. We have a scene of suspense and drama as he pretends to be his brother and steals the blessing. This scene is very much on that human plane, and touches all five senses. We watch the blind Yitzchak touch Ya’akov’s deceptively hairy arms, listen to the sound of his voice, smell his clothes, taste the food he prepares.

Some Hebrew words we will watch for this week are “blessing”, “first-born”, and “trickster/deception.”

And as we read, we will keep in mind the question of what it means for us that by the end of this Ya’akov/Yisrael cycle, we all become known as this man’s children. 

Yippee, Yippee Chayai Sarah: Tale of a Western...no, Eastern Girl and her Camel Genesis 23:1 – 25:18 October 26, 2013 - Linda Sherman

What is the role of Matriarchs in the Torah and in Jewish society today?  There are a number of matriarchs (some reluctantly, some happily, some almost but not quite yet) right here in this room today.  What is our role, in studying the torah, in raising our families, in contributing to our communities?  How does this compare to our historical role, and what can we learn from our history that helps us today?

As everyone probably knows, this section begins with the death of Sarah.    Genesis 23:1 states, “And the life of Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years;/ these were the years of the life of Sarah”.  In Genesis 23:2, Sarah dies in Kiriatharba, apart from her husband Abraham, who came to mourn for her.  This sets off a very specific chain of events:

1.       Sarah’s death leads Abraham to purchase burial land.

2.       Abraham finds an appropriate wife for Isaac.

3.       All of Abrahams begats, his descendants are described, and the Abraham dies and is buried by two of his sons, Isaac and Ishmael.

At first glance, it seems to be very little about Sarah, and mostly about Abraham and the end of his life.  But it appears to actually be more about securing the covenant and ensuring it’s continuity thought the generations.  For example:

1.       Sarah’s grave is the first permanent legal presence in the land promised to Abraham and to their descendants.

a.      Is this why it is important that Abraham pay full price for it????

2.       Abraham ensures the covenant’s continuity by getting Isaac a wife, Rebecca, from his birthplace.

a.      What would have happened if Isaacs wife came from somewhere else???

3.       Abraham took a 2^nd wife – Keturah – and had many more sons with her, but gave all that he owned to Isaac when he died and sent these other sons “east”.

a.      What was the point in the story of having another wife and more kids if they weren’t going to have any significance to the story or our future???

4.       Isaac and Ishmael (son from Hagar) buried Abraham

a.      Why only these two sons?  Is there any significance to the fact that Isaac settles in the same place (Beer-lahai-roi) that Hagar took Ishmael to when she was wandering in the desert, and where she finally found water?

There is also a certain duality to this section.  Not unlike a piece of music where you have melody and harmony woven together, or point and counterpoint, there are a couple of different threads running through this section.  For example, there is are the very open and blatant actions of Abraham, the patriarch, in setting events in motion versus the more subtle, but equally important development of the matriarch, and the passing of the flame from Sarah to Rebecca.   The women in Abraham’s life appear to be subservient and subject to the whims of the men, but then they are also their own characters and they each play a significant role in ensuring the continuity of the covenant.  What do we know about each of them?

            SARAH           Abrahams partner for life, barren, gives slave to Abraham,

talks to God, LAUGHS at God.

            HAGAR           Slave, given to Abraham and first to give him offspring, fertile,

                                    banished by Sarah, but looked after by God, who shows her the well.

            REBECCA       Abraham’s hand chosen wife for his favorite son, or chosen by God,

                                    heroine, strong, playgirl image from 3,000 years ago, too good to be true, but

                                    falls off camel when sees Isaac for first time.

            KETURAH      Abraham’s last (3^rd) wife, fertile, but not important?  Why is she here?

Questions:

What is the role of women in a matriarchal society, and/or in our society today?  How is it the same/different?

Rebecca speaks only one word:  ELECH – I will go.  Abraham speaks the same word when he leaves his homeland on his journey.  What does this tell us about Rebecca’s character and about her journey?  How important is her role in perpetuating the covenant?

Were Sarah and Rebecca barren so they could only conceive through a miracle?

Isaac and Ishmael bury Abraham.  Both had their issues with him – one was almost sacrificed and one was banished to possibly die in the desert.  How does this bring their journey full circle?