Parashat Chaye Sarah

Genesis 23:1-25:18

This week’s reading, Chaye Sarah, begins and ends with sorrow. Our matriarch, Sarah, dies at the age of 127, leaving behind Abraham, patriarch of the Jewish people and ten years her senior, and son Isaac, now 37 and not yet wed. Abraham mourns and weeps over Sarah then begins the difficult process of purchasing a burial place for his beloved and interring her there. Nearly 40 years later, Abraham also dies. Though he is 175 years of age and dies “old and contented” (Gen. 25:8), our own lived experience suggests that his family bewails his passing even as they give thanks for the fullness of life that Abraham enjoyed. Finally, Ishmael, Abraham’s son through his concubine Hagar, also dies at 137.

Many decades separate the passings of Abraham, Sarah and Ishmael, yet the succession of their deaths within a single parasha leaves us bereft. Our history as a people, after all, begins with this family. The loss of Abraham and Sarah within one literary unit should rightly leave us feeling the sadness that comes when a whole generation of family dies out.

The parasha, however, is not to be characterized solely by feelings of loss. Between the passings of Sarah and Abraham is a beautiful story of love discovered late in life that gives us hope for the future. Soon after Sarah’s passing, Abraham takes measures to ensure that the blessings that God had bestowed upon him, will be vouchsafed by Isaac and his descendents. Chapter 24 of Genesis tells of Abraham’s servant Eliezer journeying to the city of Nahor, Abraham’s birthplace, to find there a wife for Isaac from among Abraham’s kin. The one who emerges as Isaac’s prospective wife is Rebecca, who at once shows herself to be a kind, generous person. Eliezer brings Rebecca to Isaac; the two wed; and “Isaac loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death” (Gen. 24:26). In between the loss of both parents, comes this “happily-ever-after moment” for Isaac. We have to think he deserves this pleasant outcome. After all, he had once been bound by his father on an altar and nearly sacrificed as a burnt offering.

This parasha illustrates a powerful truth about life. When confronted with pain and sorrow, as we ultimately all will be, it behooves us to be on the lookout for life’s beauty as well. We can hope that Isaac and Ishmael grow closer as they reunite at their father’s burial place. That would be nice for all concerned. While the Torah is silent on that count, it is very clear that the union of Isaac and Rebecca, ostensibly arranged by God with Eliezer as God’s helper, is intended as a moment of luminescence amid some darkness. No matter what straits we find our selves in, there will be those times when our hearts will be warmed and lifted. May we, as did our ancestors, recognize and appreciate those beautiful times when they arise.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Noach / פרשת נח

Torah Portion: Genesis 6:9 – 11:32

The second reading in the annual cycle of Torah readings, Parashat Noach, which we read this week, contains the stories of Noah’s Ark and the Tower of Babel and concludes with the genealogy of Abram, who, in next week’s reading, will become the first believer in the one God and have his name changed to Abraham. While the genealogy of Abram might be unknown to people not particularly versed in Torah, the stories of Noah and the Tower of Babel certainly have made their way into popular culture and are generally familiar to people in title, if not also in content. Regardless of where you stand in relation to these three chapters in the Book of Genesis (Bereishit, in Hebrew), I highly recommend that you read the stories (click here: Genesis 6:9 – 11:32) and look at them with fresh eyes.

As I read the story of Noach (Hebrew for Noah) this week, a new question arose for me: Did Noah experience feelings of guilt or regret upon boarding the ark? The Torah describes him as “a righteous man… blameless in his age” (Gen. 6:9). Our sages looked at this description and said he might have been more righteous than others in his day and age, but had he lived in Abraham’s generation, he wouldn’t have stood out at all. He certainly wouldn’t have equaled Abraham in righteousness. (For more on the debate over Noah’s moral stature, check out http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Weekly_Torah_Portion/noach_hillel5762.shtml.)

Our sage’s understanding of Noah’s character leaves me feeling disappointed with Noah. He didn’t argue with God when God announced the coming of the flood. He didn’t appeal to God’s sense of mercy as Abraham and Moses would later do. Noah didn’t… You fill in the blank. Surely, Noah could have done something on behalf of humanity and the created world, but he didn’t. Instead, he simply followed God’s command to build the ark and saved enough people and animals to allow for the repopulation of the Earth.

I’d like to redeem Noah, though. I’d like to imagine Noah had a conscience and that while on the ark for 360 days he reflected on his life before the flood. I’d like to imagine that he asked himself if he could have done things differently, if he could have done more to try to save humanity from near total annihilation. I’d like to imagine that Noah felt something, either guilt or regret: guilt for abandoning his friends and extended family, perhaps, or regret for not having seized an opportunity to do something great. Of these two possibilities, I believe regret would be the most beneficial for Noah and for future generations.

At a funeral today for a beloved rabbi and scholar, I encountered a colleague whom I hadn’t seen since moving to her city. She is very sick and doesn’t get out of her home much, and for whatever reasons, I hadn’t yet gone to visit her. As I greeted her today, she said, “I’m going to take this opportunity to do a guilt trip,” and she proceeded to remind me that she doesn’t leave home much and that she’d appreciate a visit every now and then. My response was to say, “I don’t feel that you’re laying a guilt trip on me. You are advocating for yourself and that’s a good thing.” If my colleague’s goal was to make me feel guilty, she failed. She did, however, leave me with a sense of regret for not having reached out earlier.

This encounter, set amid a funeral of someone I knew by reputation alone, got me to thinking about the difference between guilt and regret. I could have felt guilty about not having reached out to either of the rabbis, the living or the deceased, much earlier. The living colleague certainly thought I should feel guilty. But as I was leaving the funeral, I realized that the feeling I had most about my relationship with both rabbis was that of regret over not having taken the initiative to build a relationship with either. The deceased thrived on teaching Talmud. Might she not have gotten pleasure out of having me as an eager student or, at least, a colleague who wanted to benefit from her teaching? Might I not have learned much from her or discovered someone worthy of great respect? Might not the living colleague feel acknowledged by a visit from me? Might I not discover a new friend in this still unfamiliar city? In the end, I left the funeral with a sense of loss. I had missed opportunities to do mitzvot and to bring joy to others.

It was regret I felt as I drove home from paying my respects, not guilt, and I can live with that. After all, little good comes from guilt. While guilt surely has a role to play in getting us to apologize and repent, guilt is essentially just a form of self-rebuke that leaves us feeling diminished. Regret, on the other hand, comes from a place of loss. Unlike guilt, regret doesn’t make us feel smaller. It measures the amount of growth since we chose a path that left us wanting. It motivates us to seize opportunities for productivity and connection that we’d been blind to previously.

I hope that after the flood Noah regretted that he hadn’t stood up for humanity when given the chance. I hope that as he raised his family, he instilled within them a sense of mercy and justice and taught them to defend their fellow beings against harsh judgment. Of course, we don’t know what happened. All we know is that upon disembarking from the ark he built an altar and offered burnt sacrifices whose smell was pleasing to God and that later he planted a vineyard and got drunk. Still, we can imagine that there’s something more to the story than meets the eye and that Noah went on to become a person whose righteousness was truly outstanding in the eyes of God and humanity.

What we know from the Torah is that God would go from choosing a helper like Noah, who missed an opportunity to show true greatness, to choosing ambassadors like Abraham and Moses, who would stand up to God in the name of mercy and justice and argue on behalf of humanity. We have no reason to believe that God felt guilt for having destroyed creation, but as we look at the unfolding of our mythic history, we do have reason to believe that God felt regret for choosing one such as Noah and was motivated to do things differently, and better, when given another chance.

I think there’s a profound lesson here for us. Though we strive to live our lives free of regret, most of us do make mistakes. We often wish we could have, would have, done some things differently. It is my prayer that, in those moments of regret, we follow God’s model and resolve to do things better the next time. We can only hope that that is what Noah did as well.

Parashat Ha’Azinu / פרשת האזינו

Deuteronomy 32:1 – 32:52

This Shabbat is Shabbat Shuva, the Shabbat of Returning. It is so named after the reading from Prophets that exhorts us to return to God, a fitting message for the Shabbat that falls between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, a period known as Aseret Yemei Teshuva or Ten Days of Repentance.

Most of Ha-Azinu is a poem spoken by Moses prophesying Israel’s fall from God’s favor upon entering the land of Israel, but what I find most meaningful and apt for this time of year are the verses at the end of the parashah that speak of Moses’ death:

That very day the Lord spoke to Moses: Ascend these heights of Abarim to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab facing Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving the Israelites as their holding. You shall die on the mountain that you are about to ascend, and shall be gathered to your kin, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin; for you both broke faith with Me among the Israelite people, at the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, by failing to uphold My sanctity among the Israelite people. You may view the land from a distance, but you shall not enter it — the land that I am giving to the Israelite people. 

Here we have God telling Moses to climb Mount Nebo and there prepare to die. In essence, God is alerting Moses to the fact that his death is imminent. With this warning, Moses might have reviewed his life and asked himself how might he make the best use of the days that remain. Though he was soon to remove himself from his community, might he still be able to do things even a little differently?

I honestly cannot say what Moses might have been thinking as God instructed him to prepare for his death, but I do know that you and I could meet our end at any time and that we should very well be asking ourselves the question “How might I do things differently with the little time I have left?” Of course, it’s not enough to just ask the question. We must respond to the question and effect the change necessary to do those things we said we would do.

Psalm 90:12 reads: Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. This for me is the ultimate lesson of this Torah reading and of the Ten Days of Repentance. This is a time to acknowledge the frailty of life and to recommit ourselves to making each day count. Most of us will live long after tomorrow. Unlike Moses, we have it in our ability to change in meaningful ways, to “return” to God, to make a difference in the world.

Let us not wait until our days are limited by age or failing health. Let us not wait until we walk up our own Mt. Nebo. Let’s begin to number our days now.

Parashat Nitzavim-Vayeilech / פרשת נצבים־וילך
Deuteronomy 29:9 – 31:30

This Saturday night, in synagogues throughout the world, Jews will gather to recite penitential hymns in preparation for the Ten Days of Repentance, which come upon us next week. The S’lichot (literally “forgiveness”) service alerts us to the work of teshuva, or repentance, that awaits us from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur. Like the shofar blast heard each weekday during the month of Elul before Rosh Hashana, the S’lichot service stirs within us an awareness of our mistakes and motivates us to seek forgiveness and, ultimately, to change for the better.

The Torah reading this week, then, is nothing if not timely. In his final discourse to the Children of Israel, Moses prophesies that Israel will thrive in the Land they are about to enter but will then stray from God and God’s commandments. Israel’s sins will be grave and God’s punishment will be harsh, but God will be ready to receive Israel back into God’s goods graces once Israel turns again to heed God’s word. This process of turning back to God — this teshuva (literally “turning” or repentance) — is the very process that you and I are to undertake in coming days.

Moses assures his followers that the “Instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach” (Deut. 30:11). There is no secret to teshuva, Moses insinuates. God gave the Torah to Israel as a road map to connect with God. All Israel need do is follow that map.

So, too, with us. Though personal transformation does not happen quickly and without great effort, the truth is that God has endowed us with the capability to exam our souls, determine the ways we want to change, and effect the change we desire. With our own inner resources and with the guidance of Torah, we can, in fact, turn our lives around. We imagine even that during the Days of Awe God is poised to inscribe us in either the Book of Life or the Book of Death. The extent to which we perform teshuva with full sincerity tips God’s pen in our favor.

How beautifully our experience of turning back to God parallels that of our biblical forbears, who also had Life and Death set before then. “I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity,” Moses tells them. “For I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, to walk in God’s ways, and to keep God’s commandments, God’s laws, and God’s rules, that you may thrive and increase, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land that you are about to enter and possess…. I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life — if you and your offspring would live” (Deut. 30:15-19).

If Moses’ words sound like they were meant for our ears today, they were. Indeed, his message of hope and faith was intended not only for his generation but for all future generations of the Jewish People as well. Our tradition teaches us that God lovingly longs as much for our return as God longed for the return of Israel millennia ago. God truly yearns to reconnect with us, to fill our lives and our world with the goodness of the Divine Presence. Know this day, therefore, that we do have a choice. Through teshuva, let us turn toward Life.

Parashat Ki Tavo / פרשת כי־תבוא
Torah Portion: Deuteronomy 26:1 – 29:8

This week’s Torah reading offers an important lesson on gratitude. Speaking to the Israelites, Moses instructs them that, upon entering into the Land of Israel, they are to bring some of the first fruits of their soil in baskets to the Levites at a place of God’s choosing. Once they have set their offerings on the ground in front of the altar, they are to recite these words, which have become familiar to us through the Passover haggadah:

My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. We cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. The Lord freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O Lord, have given me. (Deut. 26:6-10)

Through this ritual, the Israelites will express their gratitude to God for having brought them out of bondage to a place of safety in their own land. The words they will recite focus succinctly on the grace that God had bestowed upon them. With this gesture of thanksgiving, Israel will go on to thrive in the Holy Land.

Given Israel’s history of complaining about hardships throughout during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, how refreshing it is that the narrative Israel will recite focuses solely on the loving kindness that God has bestowed upon her. Before we credit the Israelites with a stark change of attitude, though, we should note that Moses prescribes the exact words they are to say. Moses doesn’t assume that his people will naturally set aside their troubles and wax sincerely in gratitude before God. He provides the script that he hopes will lead to the attitude adjustment that God desires of them.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had such a script in hand at times when we’re inclined to rant on about all our suffering, to run through a litany of all that we lack? My daughter recently melted down, proclaiming that she has the worst life of anyone in the world. After listening to what was upsetting her, my wife and I affirmed her feelings and then asked her about all the good things in her life. Soon enough, Katie saw that life was not nearly as bad as she imagined it just moments ago, and she was in a place where she could feel grateful for all she has, even if she didn’t lay a basket of fruit on the ground before our feet.

As the New Year approaches and we take stock of our lives, we should know that is alright to express our regrets and setbacks from the previous year. At the same time, however, we need to keep a sense of perspective, and balance the negative with the good. Should we be stuck in a dark place, unable to express gratitude for our bounty, we should seek out someone like Moses who can hand us a rosier script that is as true as the script we find coming out of our mouths. Sometimes we, like our ancestors, just need to be reminded how good life is in order to carry on and thrive in our own lands.

Parashat Ki Teitzei / פרשת כי־תצא

Torah Portion: Deuteronomy 21:10 – 25:19

This weeks Torah portion, Parashat Ki Tetzei, contains more mitzvot (commandments) than any other parashah: 74, to be precise. Mitzvot can be divided into two categories. The first category is called “ben adam l’havero” or “between one person and another person.” These mitzvot include ethical instruction that guides us in our treatment of our fellow human being in business, at home, and out in the world. An example of this would be treat all your children equally (Deut. 21:15). Mitzvot ben adam l’havero also comprise civil and criminal legislation that tell us what to do if someone should commit a crime, kidnapping, for instance: If a man is found to have kidnapped a fellow Israelite, enslaving him or selling him, that kidnapper shall die; thus you will sweep out evil from your midst (Deut. 24:7)

The next set of mitzvot are “ben adam lamakom,” or “between a person and God.” These mitzvot deal mostly with ritual, Shabbat, keeping kosher, and the like. They address issues of how we worship, celebrate and honor God. An example of a mitzvah between a person and God from elsewhere in the Torah would be to keep the Sabbath holy.

In the midst of the litany of mitzvot this week, all of which pertain to ben adam l’havero, we find one that, on the face of it, doesn’t seem to fit into either category:

If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life (Deut. 22:6)

This mitzvah clearly deals with how we treat animals. It doesn’t tell us how to interact with another person, nor does it address how we relate to God. Do we need a third category of mitzvah for this mitzvah and others like it?

I would contend that this mitzvah is, in fact, a mitzvah ben adam l’havero and ben adam lamakom. How so? In directing us to shoo away the mother before taking her little ones or her unhatched eggs, this and similar mitzvot inculcate in us a sense of compassion and empathy. If we should care enough to shoo away the mother so she won’t see us taking her progeny, even more so should we care about the feelings of human beings. From this mitzvah about ethical treatment of animals comes an awareness of how ethically to treat human beings.

In what way is this mitzvah about us and God? By shooing away the mother, we protect her from being captured or hurt and we allow her to go on reproducing. In the future, some of the mother’s eggs will hatch and bear fledglings, who themselves will live long lives and also reproduce. Thus, this mitzvah enables us to be stewards of God’s creation and so deservedly belongs in the category of ben adam lamakom.

Ki Tetzei reminds us that all the natural world of which we are a part is integral to our existence as human beings. The way we interact with the world reveals something about how we interact with each other. Mitzvot pertaining to our treatment of animals, we have seen, also shape our treatment of human beings by sensitizing us to the feelings of creatures around us. At the same time, our relationship with nature also reveals something about our relationship to God. Any mitzvot that guide us in our interactions with nature, likewise encourage us to be mindful of our partnership with God, while also helping us realize that all the universe truly is God’s kingdom. As citizens of this kingdom, we ought to strive through mitzvot to build a world of love and trust for all, including for those who soar in the skies above.

Parashat Shoftim / פרשת שופטים
Deuteronomy 16:18 – 21:9

In this week’s Torah reading, Moses focuses on the theme of justice as he continues his final speech to the People of Israel before they enter the Promised Land:

You shall appoint magistrates (shof’tim) and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice. You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just.  Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you. (Deuteronomy 16:18-20)

On the face of it, it appears as if the shof’tim, commonly translated as “judges”, are the stewards of the just society that God intends for Israel in the Holy Land. “Justice, justice shall you pursue,” says Moses, intimating that it is through the shof’tim that justice will be established. The shof’tim, we learn, are to govern justly, judge without prejudice, and uphold the highest ethical standards. The law, in effect, resides in the hands of the shof’tim.

As we read on, however, we discover that the shof’tim are not the only arbiters of justice. In times of doubt, the judges are to appeal to an even higher authority, the Levitical priests. In addition to overseeing the Temple and the sacrificial rites, the priests are to resolve “matters of dispute in our courts,” such as controversies over homicide, civil law or assault (Deut. 17:8-9). The Torah envisions times when justice will elude the judges, thus, requiring them to defer to the priests.

Beyond the judges and the priests, there are still two more players in the pursuit of justice: kings and prophets. The former, which God permits Israel to enthrone only on the condition that God alone choose the king, must remain impartial in his governance and reject trappings of power, such as possessing many horses and having many wives. More to the point, however, the king must remain faithful to the Torah, keeping his own copy of God’s teaching to read throughout his life (Deut. 17:18-19). “Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows or deviate from the Instruction to the right or to the left, to the end that he and his descendants may reign long in the midst of Israel” (17:20). Through consulting the Torah and in his own dealings, the king himself is so to embody and uphold Israel’s ideals of justice.

Anticipating the foibles of human nature and the corruption that would inevitably creep into the systems of judges, priests and kings, God sets up the prophet as the final line of defense for the just society:

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your own people, like myself; him you shall heed. This is just what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb, on the day of the Assembly, saying, “Let me not hear the voice of the Lord my God any longer or see this wondrous fire any more, lest I die.” Whereupon the Lord said to me, “They have done well in speaking thus. I will raise up a prophet for them from among their own people, like yourself: I will put My words in his mouth and he will speak to them all that I command him… (Deut. 18:15-18).

Whereas judges, priests and kings, in their pursuit of justice, rely to a great extent on their own abilities to interpret God’s word, the prophets are asked simply to speak the words that God puts in their mouth, just as Moses had done. Theoretically, there is no interpretation involved; the prophets convey God’s intentions in their purest form. Beyond the prophets, there would be no other defenses. Should Israel fail to heed a prophet’s message to mend its ways, Israel would suffer dire consequences, which it does time and again.

It is this last point that I find most shocking. Despite the seemingly redundant, foolproof nature of Israel’s checks and balances to ensure justice in its society, the system routinely fails. On more than one occasion, Israel is exiled, its Temple left in ruins, its people battered. The system doesn’t work!

Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, human beings are not perfect and the margin of error in Israel’s system of checks and balances is great. While the system presumes that all the players know what justice looks like and that they can discern God’s will through various means, the judges, priests and kings simply can’t and don’t know God’s will all the time.

But what of the prophets? Even after hearing from the prophets exactly what God wants, Israel sometimes chooses to stay a course of self-destruction. Perhaps Israel often fails to know a true prophet from a false prophet and, therefore, dismisses the prophets as delusional. More tragically, though, Israel may simply be too stiffnecked, too self-interested to care; the prophet’s message falls on deaf ears.

Are we any different from our biblical ancestors? Not really. We do not always know what constitutes justice or what a just society looks like. Even if we are committed to living justly, we are often faced with difficult decisions about how to do that. We may desire to use natural resources in a way that we consider just; but what are the best ways to produce and use energy, for example, given current technologies and competing economic, ecological, and biological interests? In the case of our relationship with nature, our actions almost always come with consequences that some in our society consider unjust. What’s worse, too often our commitment to  justice isn’t there. We become too wedded to our own notions of what’s right and refuse to consider alternatives, or we simply become consumed by power and greed. Even if a true prophet came on the scene tomorrow, it’s not likely that he or she would be able to get the attention of enough people to make a difference. The world would continue to be in the same mess then as we find it today.

Because justice is often elusive, the Torah commands us emphatically to pursue justice actively, not to wait for justice to burst forth from heaven or “roll down like waters” (Amos 5:24). True, the pursuit of justice is difficult, and we’re destined to fail from time to time. Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon us to maintain the pursuit with open hearts and open minds, to remember that all life is interconnected. We mustn’t forget the words that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in 1962 from a jail in Birmingham: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” As we witness terrible injustices occurring daily both close to home and far away, let us recommit ourselves to the pursuit of justice for all.

Shabbat Shalom.