Parashah Ponderings

Sephirat HaOmer: A Time for Counting and Praying

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This week’s Torah reading, Deuteronomy 15:19-16:17, a special reading for the final day of Passover, reiterates the mitzvot (commandments) to consecrate the first born of one’s herd or flock to God and also to observe the festivals of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot, each at its appointed time. In between the verses pertaining to Passover and Shavuot, meanwhile, we find this:

You shall count off seven weeks; start to count the seven weeks when the sickle is first put to the standing grain.  Then you shall observe the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot) for the Lord your God, offering your freewill contribution according as the Lord your God has blessed you. (Deut. 16:9-10)

The “standing grain” mentioned here is the omer, the sheaf of the first fruits of the barley harvest, which we learn about in Leviticus 23. The ritual of counting off seven weeks during the spring harvest between Passover and Shavuot is called in Hebrew “sephirat ha-omer” or “counting the omer.” For 49 nights, beginning with the second night of Passover and concluding on the evening before Shavuot, we are to recite a blessing praising God for commanding us to count the omer and then announce which day and week of the omer we are counting that night.

This ritual of counting the days of the spring harvest for seven weeks surely made a lot of sense to our biblical ancestors. On one hand, seven weeks was “the period of time required to complete the harvest.”[1] More importantly, though, until seven weeks had passed, it was not known whether the harvest would be successfully completed and plentiful enough to sustain life and not be damaged by late rain or pests.”[2] Our forebears spent the weeks of the harvest in a state of anxiety, praying that the harvest would sustain them through the scorching summer months.

The rabbis of the Talmud considered these seven weeks a period of semi-mourning for reasons that are not quite known to us. To this day, observant Jews will not get married, get their hair cut, or engage in celebratory activities such as dancing or listening to instrumental music during the counting of the omer. Only the 33rd day of the omer, the minor holiday of Lag B’Omer, provides a brief respite from these restrictions. Regardless of the rabbis’ reasons for enshrining the Omer in mourning customs and providing a day of relief, the meaning of the omer for traditional Jews is found first and foremost in the fact that God commanded the counting of the omer, and they feel duty-bound to fulfill that commandment.

What meaning, though, might the omer hold for less traditional Jews, Jews who neither live in an agrarian society nor feel bound by the dictates of Torah or the rabbis? Why do some of us non-traditional Jews bother pausing for a moment each night to recite the blessing and announce where we are in the counting of the omer? Not only do we no longer harvest our own food, but modern technology ensures that even in lean times we will have plenty of it, albeit possibly at a higher cost and with less variety. What is it about the omer that captures our spiritual imagination today?

To me, the omer is rife with personal meaning. First, the omer reminds me that not all people have the luxury to not worry where their next meal will come from. On the contrary, people living in developing countries, certainly in war-torn parts of the world, are highly dependent on their governments, on the good graces of the rest of the world, and on nature to provide for their needs. As one so far removed from the misery of millions, I see the omer as a structure for “counting my blessings” and praying that all human beings will one day enjoy the bounty I enjoy.

On another level, the omer connects my experience of liberation, celebrated during Passover, with my experience of God’s ongoing revelation, celebrated on Shavuot. On Shavuot, termed “the time of the giving of the Torah” by the rabbis, we remember when God revealed the Torah at Mt. Sinai. Whether that moment at Mt. Sinai is grounded in history or in sacred story, the moment signifies for the Jewish people that point in time when we committed ourselves to living lives of holiness, guided by our understanding of what God expects of us. During the omer, I feel grateful for my freedom and obliged to exercise my freedom in a way that affirms the covenant my ancestors and I made at Sinai.

Finally, the omer brings me closer to the Land and State of Israel. The Torah introduces the ritual of counting seven weeks with “When you enter that land that I am giving you and you reap its harvest…” (Lev. 23:11). By offering first fruits of the harvest and remaining in a grateful, if anxious, mood throughout the harvest, our ancestors gave thanks to God for bringing them into a place they could call home, a place where they could feel close to God, a place where they could become masters of their own destiny. Israel, with all its complexities, is still this place for the Jewish people. I am no less grateful for the existence of the Land and State of Israel today than were my biblical forebears.

While Israel exists as a blessing in my life, there remains one more meaningful aspect of the omer for me in connection to Israel: the tradition that asks me to keep my exuberance in check while counting my blessings demands that I keep my pride and joy in the Jewish homeland in check as well. Truth be told, the Zionist dream articulated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence nearly 67 years has yet to bear enough fruit to satisfy all Israel’s inhabitants. Until all Israel’s inhabitants equally benefit from the development of the country, until all her inhabitants equally feel the blessings of liberty, justice and peace, until all her inhabitants equally enjoy the full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture, I believe Jews everywhere must continue to pray for the bounty of Zionism’s harvest and, even more, help till the rich soil of Israel’s Jewish and democratic values to bring that harvest forth.

However you relate to this ancient custom of counting the omer, I pray that you, too, will count your blessings while maintaining awareness that for too many in our world their harvest has yet to yield its bounty or may never have been sown at all.

Chag Sameach,
Rabbi Dan

[1] Jeffrey Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy, (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996) , p. 156.

[2] Ibid.

Parashah Ponderings

The Power of Assembly

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Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei / פרשת ויקהל־פקודי
Torah Portion: Exodus 35:1 – 40:38

In an essay on this week’s Torah portion, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, an esteemed scholar and former Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, asks:

What do you do when your people has just made a golden calf, run riot and lost its sense of ethical and spiritual direction? How do you restore moral order – not just then in the days of Moses, but even now? The answer lies in the first word of today’s parsha: Vayakhel. (See http://www.rabbisacks.org/the-spirit-of-community-vayakhel-5775/.)

Referencing the debacle of the golden calf (Exodus 32), Rabbi Sacks points to a moment in the Torah when our people is divided, disillusioned, and focused only on their immediate needs. With this week’s Torah portion, however, unity, faith and purpose are restored when Moses assembles (vayakhel) the whole Israelite community, reminds them of the sanctity of Shabbat, and calls them to come together to construct the Tabernacle, God’s dwelling place in their midst. Sacks sees in this reconciliation of Israel with God an eternal lesson about the role of the faith community in countering the excesses of individualism, not only for the generation at Sinai but for us today as well.

Sacks merges the teachings of Charles Darwin and Alexis de Tocqueville to make an argument that in an ideal world faith communities would be critical to the functioning of a democratic society. For his part, Darwin demonstrates that though “the survival of the fittest” takes place on an individual level, human beings, nonetheless, survive as groups, utilizing language and communication, among other things, to create “larger and more flexible groups than other species” (Ibid.). This realization of Darwin’s helps explain a paradox:

If evolution is the struggle to survive, if the strong win and the weak go to the wall, then everywhere ruthlessness should prevail. But it doesn’t. All societies value altruism. (Ibid.)

For Tocqueville, religion functions to militate against this “ruthlessness” and enhance the “altruism” of which Darwin writes. These functions are essential to allowing democratic societies to flourish. Sacks writes:

The great danger in a democracy, said Tocqueville, is individualism. People come to care about themselves, not about others. As for the others, the danger is that people will leave their welfare to the government, a process that ends in the loss of liberty as the State takes on more and more of the responsibility for society as a whole. Ibid.)

Sacks argues that with separation of church and state religions are better able to create caring communities that decrease individuals’ reliance on the state for their welfare. Such reliance, Sacks believes, invites government intrusion into the personal lives of its citizens, which in turn leads to a deterioration of liberty.

Sacks concludes:

Vayakhel is thus no ordinary episode in the history of Israel. It marks the essential insight to emerge from the crisis of the golden calf. We find G-d in community. We develop virtue, strength of character, and a commitment to the common good in community. Community is local. It is society with a human face. It is not government. It is not the people we pay to look after the welfare of others. It is the work we do ourselves, together. Community is the antidote to individualism on the one hand and over-reliance on the state on the other. (Ibid.)

I wish Sacks’ idealism would become reality. However, since religious communities have yet to demonstrate their power to inculcate altruism universally and to reduce the human will toward power, I can’t accept his conclusion. Until religion evolves as Sacks would like, the state must act to ensure the welfare of its citizens.

That being said, I do believe Sacks expresses the loftiest goals of Judaism, if not all religions: to bring us closer to God and to create a more compassionate world. In my experience, the communal celebration of Shabbat and the communal effort to build community and repair the world have shown themselves to be two of the most transformative aspects of Jewish religion both for individuals and for the assembly of Israel.

Parashah Ponderings

Patience: The Virtue Lacking at Sinai

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Parashat Ki Tisa

Exodus 30:11-34:35

In case we forget the story about the Israelites’ ill-advised creation of a golden calf at the base of Mt. Sinai, Jewish tradition provides a ritual flare to jog our memories. During the High Holy Days we blow a shofar to awaken our souls to take an honest accounting of our deeds and to work to make change in those areas where we’ve fallen short. What we often overlook is the fact that the shofar itself must come from a kosher animal, such as a ram or a gazelle, but there is one kosher animal from which we may not make a shofar: a cow. Why? Perhaps, this is because using the horn of a cow (or a bull) as a shofar might have the opposite effect of that which is intended. Rather than lead us on the path of righteousness, a shofar from a bull might remind us of the incident of the golden calf and stir within us thoughts of idolatry and licentiousness.

Perhaps, too, there’s another reason: to teach us patience. It’s not that we have to search longer and harder for a ram’s horn than for a cow’s horn, and it’s not that it takes more time to blow a cow’s horn. I suppose the former is not the case, and I know nothing about the latter. No, the lesson about patience emerges not from any practical concern but from the story of the golden calf itself: as the Israelites grow impatient waiting for Moses to return from his 40-day-long campout atop Mt. Sinai, they seek an immediate fix for their pent-up craving for a connection to their God. In so doing, they press Aaron into fashioning a familiar representation of a deity out of the men’s gold jewelry (Supposedly, midrash teaches, the women refuse to hand over their bling.), outraging God to the point of wanting to obliterate the people, causing Moses to smash the tablets of the Ten Commandments, and setting off a series of drastic punishments by God and Moses against the Israelites, not to mention having Moses go back up for another 40 days to inscribe a new set of tablets (with a different set of commandments!). Patience truly is a virtue lacking in this sad tale.

The 11th-12th century Spanish philospher Judah Halevi in his work The Kuzari writes that the real sin of the Israelites is, in fact, their impatience. It was not in making the calf itself and celebrating a festival to God afterward. Scholar and rabbi Harvey Fields summarzes Halevi’s take by stating, first of all, only about 3000 of the 600,000 people who left Egypt actually requested that Aaron build the golden calf. It was hardly a majority of all the people. Furthermore, by building a “tangible object of worship like other nations” around them, they weren’t really rejecting God. As a matter of fact, one could argue that elsewhere in the Torah, God is the one who commands the people to make an object, i.e. the ark with the cherubim on top, as a marker of God’s presence. Halevi, Fields contends, sees no substantive difference between a golden calf and the ark with the cherubim. On the real sin of the Israelites, Fields writes:

Having waited so long for Moses to return, (the people) were overcome with frustration, confusion, and dissension. As a result, they divided into angry parties, differing with one another over what they should do. No long able to control their fears, a vocal minority pressured Aaron into taking their gold and cating into a golden calf…. If the people made a mistake, Halevi says, it was not in refusing to worship God, but in their impatience. Instead of waiting for the return of Moses or for a message from God, they took matters into their own hands and acted as if they had been commanded to replace their leader with a golden idol. Fields, Harvey J. A Torah Commentary for Our Time. (New York: UAHC Press, 1991). pp. 81-82.

The modern bible scholar Nehama Leibowitz disagrees with Halevi’s assessment of the nature of Israel’s sin, but draws a conclusion that could very well have come from Halevi himself. Leibowitz sees in the story a failure of leadershp on Aaron’s part and great sin on the part of the Israelites, to be sure. But ultimately, she suggests, the story points to the need for a sustained, deliberate commitment to study of Torah, a commitment that requires extraordinary patience. Fields explains that Leibowitz:

…sees in the story of the golden calf… a deliberate warning that human beings are capable of acting nobly at one moment and ugly at the next. Leibowitz observes that ‘we should not be astonished at the fact that the generation that heard the voice of the living God and had received the commandment ‘You shall not make other gods besides Me’ descend to the making of the golden calf forty days later. One single religious experience, however profoud, was not capable of changing the people from idol worshipers into monotheists. Only a prolonged disciplining in the laws of Torah directing every moment of their existence could accomplish that.’ (Studies in Shemot, pp. 554-556)

The Torah relates the tale of the Israelits’ sin to teach that yesterday’s charity may be followed tomorrow by selfishness and insensitivity. Each day is filled with new choices. The role of contant Torah study is to keep an individual asking, ‘What is the next mitzvah I must do?'” Ibid., p. 82.

Just as Halevi points out that a number of Israelites grow restless in Moses’ absence and take matters into their own hands beyond what God had commanded them, so, too, does Leibowitz show that human beings in all generations grow restless, or more accurately, distracted and indifferent, and fall back into old habits. Had the Israelites been more patient, they would have soon received the original Ten Commandments in pristine form. If people in our own day allow themselves the opportunity to study Torah and to develop spiritual practices over time, they will be more likely to make their study and their practice routine and, ultimately, to experience God in a consistent way, without having to reinvent the wheel everytime they have a longing.

We live in a fast-paced world that seems to get faster daily. Our attention spans follow suit; our minds and bodies have become conditioned to move from idea to idea, from activity to activity. We’ve lost the art of waiting quietly for change to take place over time. Maybe we should come back to the story of the golden calf more often to remind us of the dangers of our impatience.

Patience is, indeed, a sacred virtue well worth cultivating. Remember that next time you grow antsy waiting for the final blast of the shofar at the end of Yom Kippur.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Dan

Parashah Ponderings

“Serving God with Ears, Hands, and Feet” by Rabbi Joyce Newmark

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Parashat Tetzaveh / פרשת תצוה
Torah Portion: Exodus 27:20 – 30:10

This week’s lesson was written by Rabbi Joyce Newmark and first appeared in the New Jersey Jewish News, February 9, 2011. Rabbi Newmark addresses the very topic I was prepared to write about this week. I am grateful to Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor in Chief of the New Jersey Jewish News, for granting me permission to reprint the article here. You may read the original article at: http://njjewishnews.com/article/3501/serving-god-with-ears-hands-and-feet#.VO_PmPnF_ng. Enjoy!

Parshat Tetzaveh continues the theme begun last week — instructions for making the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary, and its furnishings — dealing with the people who will serve in the sanctuary, the kohanim (priests). We read about the elaborate vestments that were to be made for Aaron, the kohen gadol (high priest), and the special garments that were to be made for his sons. And we also read about the ritual of the kohanim’s consecration.

The Torah tells us that on the day of their ordination, Aaron and his sons were to be dressed in their priestly vestments. Aaron was to be anointed with special oil and then sacrifices were to be offered on behalf of the new priests.

The Torah then says: “Slaughter the ram, and take some of its blood and put it on the ridge of Aaron’s right ear and on the ridges of his sons’ right ears, and on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet.” This marking of ears, thumbs, and toes is obviously symbolic, but just what does it symbolize?

Rabbi Joseph Hertz’s Torah commentary explains: “The ear was touched with the blood, that it might be consecrated to hear the word of God; the hand, to perform the duties connected with the priesthood; and the foot, to walk the path of righteousness.” In other words, this ordination ritual was intended to symbolize piety and devotion to God and God’s Torah.

But there’s another explanation, found in Itturei Torah, a compilation of commentaries by Rabbi Aharon Yaakov Greenberg: “These three, the ear, the hand, and the foot, are what the Kohen and every leader must have: an ear to hear the cries of the Jews, to know and understand their needs and requirements; hands, not only to accept the offering due the priests, but also to bestow a blessing on whoever needs it; and feet which hasten to run and help whoever is in need.” That is, the kohanim were never to forget that their mission was to serve the people, particularly those in need.

So which is it? It seems clear to me it must be both. The kohanim were ordained to serve God and their fellow human beings. Torah and mitzvot are not an end in themselves, but a means to building a just and compassionate society. As we are taught in Bereshit Rabbah 44:1, “Rav said, the mitzvot were given only in order that human beings might be refined by them. For what does the Holy Blessed One care whether a person slaughters an animal by the throat or by the nape of the neck? Hence its purpose is to refine human beings.”

This is more than a nice teaching. In recent weeks I have had to dig my car out of huge mounds of snow many times. On several of these occasions, young men from a nearby yeshiva walked by singly or in pairs, some of them actually turning their heads so they could pretend they didn’t see me. I wondered: What good are their long hours of Torah study if none of these young men was willing to take a few minutes to help a 60-something-year-old woman struggling with a snow shovel only a few hundred yards from their beit midrash? Isn’t the point of learning to help bring God into the world?

The Torah tells us that Aaron and his sons were installed in the priesthood through the marking of their ears, hands, and feet. Moreover, the Torah also tells us (Shemot 19:6) that God has called us to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

Like the very first kohanim, we fulfill that destiny when we turn our ears, hands, and feet to the service of God and to the service of our fellow human beings.

Rabbi Joyce Newmark, a resident of Teaneck, is a former religious leader of congregations in Leonia and Lancaster, PA.

Parashah Ponderings

“You’re Such an Angel!” What Kind of Compliment Is That?

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Parashat Mishpatim / פרשת משפטים
Torah Portion: Exodus 21:1 – 24:18

All my life I’ve heard it said of kind, generous people that they are “angels.” Children who are especially loving are “angels.” The man who gives selflessly of his time and energy to help others is “an angel.” The wealthy woman who donates millions of dollars to charity is “an angel.” If an angel is one who carries out God’s will to make the world a better place, then we truly have angels all around us. Given the brokenness of the world in which we live, we could certainly use many, many more.

By calling someone an “angel” we recognize the actions of extraordinary people, if not their very beings, as holy. That said, there is an aspect of the heavenly angels, to which we intend to compare these beloved individuals, that, to my mind, is actually unflattering and terribly problematic. According to the sages, each angel in our sacred literature is tasked with one function, and one function only. Angels in the Torah, whether heavenly or human, are inherently narrow-minded, inflexible and unfeeling. They are unable to do anything that God hasn’t specifically instructed them to do, and they are incapable of operating from a place of discernment or conscience.

Take, for example, the malach, the angel, in this week’s reading, Parashat Mishpatim. Once God has finished enumerating a host of commandments to Moses atop Mt. Sinai, God renews the promise to bring the Israelites into Canaan, appointing an angel to guard the Israelites on their way and upon entering the land:

I am sending an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have made ready. Pay heed to him and obey him. Do not defy him, for he will not pardon your offenses, since My Name is in him; but if you obey him and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes. (Exodus 23:20-22)

Who is this angel and what is his purpose in “guarding” Israel? More importantly, if God’s name is “in him” and God is “el rachum ve’hanun,” a compassionate, merciful God (Exodus 34:6-7) who shows forgiveness, why isn’t this angel able to pardon Israel’s offenses? If Israel should defy the angel or, worse, God — as we know she does later through building a golden calf at the foot of the mountain while Moses remains encamped with God at the top of the mountain (Exodus 32) – are we to believe that this angel will essentially abandon Israel in battle?

To answer these questions, let us take a look at Genesis 18. There, three messengers come to Abraham and Sarah to inform Sarah that she will soon give birth; to heal Abraham after his circumcision; and to destroy the city of Sodom. According to rabbinic lore, the angels were Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel, each of whom was assigned sole responsibility respectively for the aforementioned tasks (Talmud Bava Metzia 86b). In his commentary on Genesis 18:2, Rashi writes plainly, “One angel does not perform two errands.” Thus, like Michael, Raphael and Gabriel, the angel that will “guard” Israel on her journey has only this errand to perform: to guard Israel, nothing more.

Because the angel of Exodus 23 has only to guard Israel from harm, it cannot also judge Israel and pardon or, for that matter, condemn her for her offenses. Rashi comments on Exodus 23:21: “He has been sent on a specific mission and can only perform that duty.” The angel can either guard Israel in battle or not. If not, the angel would simple be recalled to the heavenly realm and Israel would be left to fend for itself with disastrous consequences. The one to judge and either pardon or condemn would be God, not the angel.

Another explanation given by Rashi for why the angel cannot pardon Israel is that angels have no conception of what it means to pardon. He comments on Exodus 23:21: “(The angel) has no experience in doing so, for he is a member of the class of beings that never sins.” Even if the angel could perform more than one task, he couldn’t possibly do something outside his realm of comprehension.

Who is the single-minded angel charged with guarding Israel? According to Nachmanides, another medieval commentator, “Our sages call him Metatron, the one who shows the way” (commentary to 23:20). Here Nachmanides ascribes to Metatron the task of guiding, not guarding, Israel through the wilderness, which, to be sure, is another plausible interpretation of the Hebrew for “to guard you” lishmorcha.” In any case, Metatron is never named in the Torah, but only in later literature. For example, in the pseudepigraphical work 3 Enoch, Metatron guides the author on a mystical tour of heaven. In the foundational work of Jewish mysticism, the Zohar, Metatron is depicted as the very guide for Israel in the wilderness that we read about in this week’s portion.

Given the unswerving, pre-programmed, other-worldly nature of Metatron and his fellow angels, we have to wonder if calling someone an angel is, indeed, a compliment. It is in the sense that people who add blessing to our lives appear to us as messengers from God. The compliment turns sour, though, when we consider that the angels of the Torah can only do one thing and that without a conscience. The Torah’s angels simply do what God tells them to do without having the capacity to discern between right and wrong. The human angels that we experience in our world, on the other hand, are often complex individuals motivated by compassion, justice, and other noble intentions, and to compare them with such limited beings at Metatron strikes me as insulting.

I am not suggesting eliminating the use of the term “angel” from our lexicon of accolades. Surely, to see any human being as an agent of the Divine is to bestow upon that person high praise. Rather, let’s just be sure to give credit where credit is due; the loving child, the generous man, and the altruistic woman deserve far more glory than even God’s heavenly agents.

Parashah Ponderings

Moses, Jethro and the Work-Life Challenge

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Parashat Yitro / פרשת יתרו
Torah Portion: Exodus 18:1 – 20:23

As a father and husband who is also a rabbi, balancing my dedication to my work, on one hand, and my dedication to my family and my personal well-being, on the other hand, is often tricky. When does my service to the Jewish people begin to encroach on the time and energy I have to devote to my family or myself such that I need to give less to the former and more to the latter? Alternatively, when must the demands of my family life give way to the responsibilities of my profession? Getting this balance right is crucial for all concerned. I take solace in knowing that this struggle is not mine alone; I am hard pressed to think of any adult who isn’t in this exact same position.

We find some guidance through our work-life challenge in this week’s Torah reading, Parashat Yitro. In Exodus 18:2-7, Jethro, a Midianite priest and Moses’ father-in-law, sets forth from his home in Midian to the wildnerness to reunite Moses with his wife, Zipporah, and their sons, Gershon and Eliezer. Earlier in Exodus (4:20), Moses had taken Zipporah and their sons with him to Egypt after God sent him to free the Israelite people, but at some point Moses sent them back to live with Jethro. Once the Israelites were free and in the wilderness, Jethro made sure his daughter and grandsons were reunited with their father.

We don’t exactly know when or why Zipporah, Gershon and Eliezer returned to her father’s house. Rashi, a medieval biblical commentator, speculates that Moses, upon Aaron’s advice, sent them back to Midian to spare them the distress of life in Egypt. Indeed, Moses had wanted to keep his family together so they could bear witness to God’s liberation of Israel and, later, to the revelation at Sinai, but to keep his family out of harm’s way Moses opted to part from them. Perhaps, Moses had faith that they would all come back together in this moment just before God gives Israel the Torah at Mt. Sinai.

No sooner does Jethro arrive with Zipporah, Gershon and Eliezer, however, than Moses gets back to the work of governing the people. Only one day after seeing his wife and children for the first time in a long time, Moses is described as “sitting as magistrate among the people, while the people stood about Moses from morning until evening” (18:13).  In response to what he sees, “Moses’ father-in-law said to him, ‘The thing you are doing is not right; you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone…’ (18:17-18). Thus, Jethro advises Moses to set up a judiciary system and to share the responsibility of adjudication with a host of capable, fair-minded men, which is exactly what Moses does.

What is Jethro’s concern? It may be, as Rashi, suggests, that Jethro sees Moses as being disrespectful of his followers by having them stand all day while he sits. It may also be that Jethro envisions Moses failing as a leader because he is taking on more than he can handle as one person. Both are logical suggestions.

Nonetheless, I would like to suggest an alternate view to why Jethro speaks up when he sees Moses laboring as the sole judge of the Israelites: Jethro sees the potential for Moses to become consumed by his role as leader and prophet and to neglect his family. To be sure, this is what happens. Aaron and Miriam end up chastising Moses over Zipporah, “that Cushite woman,” in Numbers 12. One midrash on this encounter depicts Aaron and Miriam as calling Moses out on his treatment of Zipporah. They see that Zipporah feels abandoned by Moses, who refuses to engage in sexual relations with her. Unfortunately, sexual relations would render Moses spiritually impure and/or direct his focus away from God (Tanhuma, Tzav 13 at http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/zipporah-midrash-and-aggadah). In essence, the demands of his job restricts Moses’ ability to please his wife, and he is either unable or unwilling to negotiate with God in order to maintain peace in his family. One commentator, Ibn Ezra, sees the problem as so severe that he even entertains the possibility of the marriage ending in divorce (commentary on Ex. 18:2). To his credit, Jethro realizes that unless Moses achieves better work-life balance, Moses won’t be able to make Jethro’s daughter and grandchildren happy.

Jethro has something to teach all of us. First, don’t leave your loved ones behind as you wind your way through the wilderness of life. Protect them from harm, as Moses was coached to do, but barring any extenuating circumstances, include your family in on your journey. Some of the journey will involve mundane tasks of daily life or schlepping from one spot to another. But some of the journey will entail spectacular, peak moments when you can all experience a glimmer of God’s radiance. Both the mundane and the spectacular are necessary for a family to grow together and, it is important to add, for an individual to thrive as well.

Next, Jethro teaches us to work smarter, not harder, for the sake of our families and ourselves. Jethro understands the gravity of Moses’ situation; he doesn’t tell Moses to find a new job so he can take better care of his family. Rather, he provides Moses with a strategy that will help Moses better execute his duties and, at the same time, conserve time and energy for his wife and children. Our task is similarly to devise a strategy that will enable us to excel both as professionals and as providers for those whom we love.

Moses carried the weight of Israel on his shoulders. I, for one, don’t envy him. As difficult as it is for me or any of us to find that perfect balance between time on the job and time with one’s family, for Moses this balance was truly elusive. Despite Jethro’s attempts to help Moses succeed in this regard, for Moses a work-life balance that would satisfy him and his family may simply have been impossible to achieve.

Fortunately, few of us are in Moses’ position. While work and life may fall out of balance for us from time to time, we are always capable of resetting the scales.

Parashah Ponderings

From Servitude to Servitude: What’s the Difference?

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Parashat Beshalach / פרשת בשל
Torah Portion: Exodus 13:17 – 17:16

During the Passover seder, we recite “Avadim hayinu. Ata b’nai chorin. We were slaves. Now we are free.” With these words we unite with our biblical ancestors and celebrate our release from subjugation to Pharaoh in Egypt. We are free!

But are we really? A look at the language in this week’s Torah portion and in earlier chapters of Exodus leaves no doubt that we are, in fact, still avadim, just to a very different master: God.

In Parashat Beshalach, moments after escaping Pharaoh’s chariots and right before our ancestors sing and dance after crossing the Sea of Reeds, the Torah says something rather curious:

“And Israel saw the great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians; and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and Moshe avdo — God’s servant Moses” (Exodus 14:31).

How ironic that Moses takes the title “avdo — God’s servant” when, only 19 verses earlier, the Torah uses the same root word — avad — to harken back to Israel’s servitude to Pharaoh. Fearful that Pharaoh’s troops would overtake them, the Israelites cry out to Moses: “It would have been better to serve Egypt as slaves — ki tov lanu avod mitzrayim — than to die in the wilderness” (Ex. 14:12). The term that best captures Israel’s relationship to their former oppressors now describes Israel’s relationship to God!

In truth, the dual usage of the term avad appears much earlier in the story. For example, Moses refers to himself as an eved, or servant, to God in his encounter with God at the burning bush (Ex. 4:10). Additionally, God instructs Moses to tell Pharaoh to “let My people go that they may avaduni — serve me” (7:16). The message is that Moses and the Israelites are already servants to God even while suffering as slaves to the Egyptians. Once out of Egypt, however, Israel need only serve the One, Adonai Echad.

If, as the haggadah instructs, we are to view ourselves as if we, too, were freed from slavery in Egypt, then what does it mean for us now to be avadim to God alone, to have traded the bonds of slavery for the bonds of service to the Divine?

Each of us will answer this question differently. For many Jews, to vow allegiance to God and to serve God means to abide by the 613 mitzvot. In the most traditional communities, mitzvot are viewed as inviolable laws established by God at Mt. Sinai. For the Ultra-Orthodox and Modern Orthodox, to be a servant of God means to submit to all God’s commands, however stringently those commands are interpreted by individual sects.

Many liberal Jews, myself included, choose to view mitzvot as something other than laws and statutes imposed upon them by a Heavenly Ruler, who metes out rewards and punishments for either obeying them or violating them. For us, mitzvot are sacred folkways that guide us on a path of Godly living. To see myself as a servant of God and to walk that path of Godliness, therefore, I must allow myself to be guided by those mitzvot, even to some extent to feel bound by them ethically, morally, and spiritually.

Regardless of how one views mitzvot, mitzvot are certainly not shackles, and servitude to the Holy One is NOT slavery. True, from the outside mitzvot appear restrictive and sometimes they feel that way from within as well. More importantly, though, mitzvot remind us of our freedom to choose God as our sovereign, to receive God’s love, and to partner with God in furthering the work of creation. As Jews, we experience our freedom through the very mitzvot that hold sway over us in one way or another.

Speaking personally, being a servant to/of/for God means devoting myself to making the whole world a place in which Godliness prevails. Our liturgy refers to this process as “l’taken olam b’malchut Shaddai — to repair or perfect the world in God’s Kingdom.” Whether through prayer, through social justice or through simple acts of lovingkindness, I aim to bring into the world the goodness, compassion, and beauty that flow from the “Power that Makes for Salvation,” to borrow a term from Mordecai Kaplan, a prominent 20th century Jewish thinker. This Power, of course, is God, and it is to this Power that I give my allegiance and gladly direct my energies.

Let us be grateful that the experience in Egypt is but a distant memory. In Egypt, we were slaves to Pharaoh. Today, we are servants of the Holy One. In Egypt, we suffered in bondage. Today, our servitude provides comfort, joy, and empowerment. In Egypt, our avodah was senseless. Today, our avodah infuses our lives with holiness and meaning. Yes, we were avadim then, and we are avadim now. And, yet, today we are free.

Parashah Ponderings

From the Moment of Liberation, A Life of Watching

Daniel Aronson's avatarDaniel Aronson Leave a comment

Parashat Bo / פרשת בא
Torah Portion: Exodus 10:1 – 13:16

Our reading this week, Parashat Bo, marks the end of Israel’s enslavement in Egypt. We read about the final three plagues that God brings upon Pharaoh and his people: locusts, darkness and death of Egypt’s firstborn children and cattle; it is this final plague that finally prompts Pharaoh to declare: “Up, depart from among my people, you and the Israelites with you!” (Exodus 12:31). Though Pharaoh is caught by surprise by this final plague, the Israelites are well-prepared: they have marked their doorposts with the blood of the pascal lamb, the pesach offering, so the Angel of Death will pass over their homes. When they finally get the word from Pharaoh to depart, only their bread hasn’t risen; they, on the other hand, are up and ready to go.

This night of terror and liberation is referred to as “leyl shimorim,” “a night of watching” in our reading:

Leyl shimorim hu ladonai l’hotziam me-eretz mitrayim. Hu ha-laila hazeh ladonai shimorim l’chol bnai yisrael l’dorotam.

It was a night of watching of God to take them out of the Land of Egypt. That very night was to God one of watching for all the Children of Israel (Ex. 12:42).

Why does the Torah employ this term “leyl shimorim” to the night of Israel’s liberation? Whose watching is it: Israel’s or God’s? What exactly is God or Israel watching out for? As with most questions arising from a close reading of Torah, there is more than one answer. In fact, we learn here that the night of watching is both that of God and of the Israelites, each watching for something different.

On the face of it, it appears that the night of watching belongs to God. That’s the plain meaning of the Hebrew. God is watching over Israel, guarding and protecting God’s people. As the Angel of Death wreaks devastation upon the Egyptians, God checks the doorposts of the Israelites for the blood of the pesach offer, making sure that the Angel of Death stays far away from those homes. Thus, the leyl shimorim is one of God’s watching God’s own agent of destruction pass over the Israelites.

The medieval French commentator, Rashi, however, posits that the night of watching belongs to Israel. The Israelites had waited 430 years for this moment, so on this night they remain awake, eating their pesach offering with “loins girded and sandals on their feet” (Ex. 12:11). The Israelites eagerly anticipate God’s ultimate act of redemption. More accurately, they anticipate God becoming manifest through their own liberation.

On Passover, we are to emulate Israel’s readiness to be saved on that night of watching. The haggadah – the prayerbook we follow during the seder, the typically home-based evening meal and service – tells of five sages who stay up all night discussing the exodus from Egypt. As the sun begins to rise, their students interrupt their discussion and remind their teachers that the time to recite the morning prayers has arrived. The sages had become so engrossed in their learning that they lost track of time. Or, perhaps, they were reliving the night of watching experienced by their ancestors hundreds of years earlier, a night of anticipating Divine salvation. Perhaps they were modeling a vigilance that we should maintain all the time.

In our own day, not just during Passover but everyday, we are wise to put ourselves in the sandals of our biblical ancestors and to follow the lead of our rabbinic sages. Jewish religion aims to ingrain within us a readiness to behold God’s presence in our lives, to be aware of those moments of awe, majesty, and beauty that point to the One God, to witness God’s might. Judaism teaches that we are to say 100 blessings a day in part to keep us alert to God’s nearness.

Let ours be not a night of watching for a wondrous sign of God’s love, but a life of watching out for all kinds of manifestations of godliness in our lives, manifestations both magnificent and mundane. And may we do so with the faith that God continues to watch over us as God did for Israel during the night of our liberation.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parashah Ponderings

Pharaoh Wasn’t Good with Resolutions. Are You?

Daniel Aronson's avatarDaniel Aronson Leave a comment

Parashat Vaera / פרשת וארא
Torah Portion: Exodus 6:2 – 9:35

Here it is, the second week of January, and some of us are still sticking to our New Year’s resolutions. Others of us, not so much. Two weeks into the year and some have been to the gym as they had planned — three times each week at 5:30 a.m, are still on their new diets — no fat, low carb, more veggies, and are being kinder to their loved ones — “That’s alright, Dear. Insurance will pay for a new car door.” Others, not so much.

It should come as no surprise that in the long run the “others,” the ones who fail to realize what they had resolved to do, far outnumber the “some,” the ones who actually succeed. The success rate after a year, in fact, is only about 8%, according to a study by the University of Scranton. (See: http://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/. Surprisingly, the success rate after the first two weeks is actually 71%.)

Why such a high rate of failure over time? Here is one explanation, among many:

Timothy Pychyl, a professor of psychology at Carleton University in Canada, says that resolutions are a form of “cultural procrastination,” an effort to reinvent oneself. People make resolutions as a way of motivating themselves, he says. Pychyl argues that people aren’t ready to change their habits, particularly bad habits, and that accounts for the high failure rate. (See: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201012/why-new-years-resolutions-fail)

In other words, no matter how much we want to become the people we’ve always wanted to be, unless we’re ready to change the way we do things, it simply isn’t going to happen.

Take, for example, Pharaoh, the same Pharaoh that appears in our current series of weekly Torah readings, the Pharaoh “who knew not Joseph,” enslaves the Hebrews, and not only refuses to let them ago upon Moses’ insistence but makes their lives increasingly miserable. It takes ten plagues from God before Pharaoh agrees to let the Israelites leave Egypt. During four of these plagues he promised Moses that he would let the people go and then reneges once the plague is lifted, each time he becomes stubborn and his “heart hardens.” Even if throughout the first nine plagues Pharaoh had wanted to let the people and avoid future calamities, he just couldn’t shake the hardness from his heart and become a more conciliatory leader. He wasn’t ready to change his habits.

Early in the narrative, Pharaoh convinces himself that the signs from Moses’ God are no big deal. Twice, he sees that his own magicians can do the same “trick” as Moses: They can change water to blood and bring frogs up onto the land. (The magicians tried to replicate Moses’ feat with lice, the third plague, but they could not.) Why should Pharaoh change if what Moses is showing him isn’t all that unusual? Perhaps, Pharaoh thinks his behavior is normal and acceptable. Thus, when Pharaoh promises to free the people if Moses can make all the frogs go away, he has little incentive to follow through.

Over time the plagues get worse. After insects attack humans and cattle, after hail obliterates all living beings out in the open, including grass and trees, and after the darkness falls and immobilizes all the Egyptians, Pharaoh promises to let the people go if Moses makes the plagues go away, but time and again, he become stubborn. His heart hardens. Even mounting pressure from his own courtiers, who have come to fear the God of the Hebrews, can’t convince Pharaoh that change is necessary, that Egypt’s very survival depends on Pharaoh’s letting the Hebrews go.

That the Pharaoh of Exodus is wicked and evil is without question. But who’s to say that, during some of those later plagues when he said he would let the people go, he didn’t actually intend to make good on the promise? Isn’t it possible that at least during the plague of darkness Pharaoh sincerely resolved to soften his heart and let Israel go, but when it came time to fulfill the resolution, he simply couldn’t because he wasn’t ready to change?

Far from suggesting that any of us are evil like, I believe the Pharaoh can be an effective metaphor for our own intransigence.  Despite all we know about the good that will come about as a result of changing our habits, we still very often don’t take the steps necessary to effect that change and bring about that good. With Pharaoh, all the evidence says that letting Israel go from Egypt will lead to a termination of the terror befalling Egypt and an overall improvement of conditions for all concerned. Despite the evidence, though, Pharaoh won’t or can’t have a change of heart. In our lives, we can know for sure that changing the way we eat or exercise or relate to the people around us or any number of lifestyle changes will significantly improve our lives, perhaps even extend our lives. There is science to prove it. Yet, when faced with a choice, we opt for the status quo. We won’t or can’t change our habits, even though our situation may worsen.

There is no magic pill for producing the change we desire. For Pharaoh, change came only after seeing the death of his first born, and even then change came reluctantly. To be sure, Pharaoh actively sought to undo the change he had permitted. Even Moses takes on the role of liberator assigned to him by God after much protest. He wasn’t ready to become the new person God wanted him to be.

Though Moses is hardly a perfect role model for all matters, (for example, I wouldn’t look to Moses as an exemplar of anger management or work-life balance), Moses’s process of transforming himself into a leader, liberator, and law maker is instructive for us as we seek to fulfill our resolutions. What did Moses do that Pharaoh didn’t? He opened himself to encouragement and feedback. God didn’t acquiesce when Moses pushed back against the call to free his people, but rather kept helping Moses see how he could overcome the obstacles that Moses believed would prevent him from being the person God wanted him to be. Moses listened when God spoke. In addition, God provided Moses with a network and means to maximize Moses’s probabilities for success: Aaron, Miriam, Jethro, Joshua and others all came to Moses’s aid at crucial times to help him lead Israel through difficult times. Moses accepted the help from people he loved and trusted. Pharaoh, meanwhile, neither listened to his trusted advisors nor would he have accepted their help if offered.

As we continue reading about our redemption from bondage in Egypt, let us be mindful of the ways we’d like to feel freer in our own lives. Let us resolve to loosen the shackles of habits that keep us from experiencing optimal health or realizing our full potential. Resolving to change, after all, is a necessary first step. More importantly, though, let us muster the will to bring about that change. Rather than harden our hearts and dig in our heals, let us hear that call to change that propels us forward. Let us be our own liberators, our own Moses-es, allowing those around us to motivate us and support us in our work. Let us grow in faith, as did Moses, to know that we can overcome the odds and truly make a difference.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Dan

Parashah Ponderings

What’s in Exodus? Lots!

Daniel Aronson's avatarDaniel Aronson Leave a comment

Parashat Shemot / פרשת שמות
Torah Portion: Exodus 1:1 – 6:1 

This week we begin the second book of the Torah, Exodus or Shemot. The first five chapters of this epic tale tell of the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt, the birth and rescue of Moses, the call from God to Moses to free the Israelites, Moses and Aaron’s initial confrontation with Pharaoh, and Pharaoh’s response to Moses and Aaron, which is to exact upon the Israelites even harsher, more oppressive measures. The reading ends, however, on this hopeful note: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘You shall soon see what I will do to Pharaoh: he shall let them go because of a greater might; indeed, because of a greater might he shall drive them from his land'” (Exodus 6:1). We all know what happens next.

Shemot, whether the book or the parashah, presents much for us to ponder:

  • What can we learn about gratitude from this story? The Pharaoh “who knew not Joseph” (Ex. 1:8) shows no hint of gratitude to Joseph for his critical role in helping Egypt survive a terrible famine years earlier. Moses, on the other hand, demonstrates deep gratitude for his lineage (2:11-13) and heeds God’s command to free his kin.
  • How remarkable are the heroines of the Exodus story who courageously defy Pharaoh through acts of civil disobedience! Two midwives, Shifrah and Puah, let Hebrew boys live, despite Pharaoh’s order to all the midwives to kill them at birth (1:15-17). Later, Moses’s place their 3-month old son in a sealed wicker basket and float him down the Nile, where, too, Pharaoh’s daughter acts heroically by recovering baby Moses from the river. Pharaoh’s daughter even heeds the advice of a Hebrew girl to summon a Hebrew woman to suckle the baby. Unbeknownst to Pharaoh’s daughter, the girl and the woman are none other than Moses’s own sister and mother (2:1-10)!
  • Does it matter that biblical scholars long ago deduced that the story of the Exodus is more story than history, that there is no archeological record of someone named Moses nor of a trek by over a million Israelites through the wilderness, and that the story itself points more importantly to Israel’s growth as a nation with God at its center?

These are just a few aspects of the Exodus story that should cause us to stop and think. In fact, the questions that arise and the lessons that emerge through a close reading of this book are without number. In the weeks ahead, I will share just a handful of observations in an effort to shed light on certain parts of the story and to make help the story as a whole more meaningful for my readers.

This week, though, let me refer you to two essays and a collection of essays that address the three items I highlighted above: gratitude, civil disobedience, and historicity. I am sure you will find all these pieces interesting and informative:

Enjoy your learning and feel free to be in touch with comments and questions. I look forward exploring Exodus with you.