Joshua Bell and Moses try out a new environment

I.Joshua Bell and Moses try out a new environment

At the start of this week's Torah reading, Sh'mot (Exodus 1:1-6:1), there are 70 Israelites living in comfort in Egypt; at its end, they number multitudes, but in slavery. Pharaoh has decreed the drowning of every male Israelite newborn in the Nile, but one such baby is pulled out of the water and survives:
When Moses had grown up, he went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed their labors. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. 12 He turned this way and that and, seeing no one about, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand 13 When he went out the next day, he found two Hebrews fighting; so he said to the offender, "Why do you strike your fellow?" 14 He retorted, "Who made you chief and ruler over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Moses was frightened, and thought: Then the matter is known! 15 When Pharaoh learned of the matter, he sought to kill Moses; but Moses fled from Pharaoh. He arrived in the land of Midian, and sat down beside a well (chapter 2:11-15).

The adult life of Moses, receiver of the Torah who led Israel out of slavery and guided them for 40 years in the desert to the borders of the promised land, begins with what was, at best, an act of vigilante justice, quite possibly an unjustified homicide. It is followed by an exile that, according to the rabbis, lasted... 40 years. Both of these 40 year stretches brought on tremendous amounts of suffering, but they had to happen: the Torah rules out short-cuts. Just as the Israelites weren't ready to enter the land right after leaving slavery, so, too, was Moses not ready to confront Pharaoh and liberate the Israelites; first he had to move out of Pharaoh's court and become a shepherd.

For those of us -- all those reading this newsletter -- who agonize over the unending oppression of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people by the injustice and violence of the conflict in the Middle East, it is essential to realize that a just peace (actually, anything approaching peace) will not arrive through a clever advertising campaign, or the much desired departure of an incalcitrant leader. It may not come during our lifetime, or even that of our children. Like Moses, who tended sheep in Midian for many years, we will have to channel our passions into the slow but steady job of daily nurturing our flocks.
When Joshua Bell played Bach on his Stradivarius in the Washington DC metro for 43 minutes last January 12th, only 7 people stopped to listen.

If Moses had not had the time, he would not have stopped to marvel at the sight of a bush burning unusually...


II. What Gandhi, the text, and Midrash have to say about the killing of the Egyptian

בני ישראל , אותה משפחה מורחבת בת 70 נפשות החיים ברווחה שהכרנו מסיפור יוסף (סוף ספר
בראשית ) מתרבים ומתעצמים כבר בתחילת פרשתנו , פרשת "ואלה שמות" (ספר שמות פרקים א-ה ).
על מצרים רובץ "איום דמוגרפי " והמנהיג החזק שם מחליט "לטפל בהם ," לסדר להם תעסוקה
מתאימה, להגביר את פריון העבודה שלהם (אוי , כמה מוכר ...) ולהוריד את הריבוי הטבעי בחצי ע"י
הריגת כל בן הילוד . לאחר נסיון אחד שנכשל בעקבות המקרה הראשון בהיסטוריה של סירוב
מצפוני (המיילדות העבריות שיפרה ופועה ) מצווה פרעה להשליך כל תינוק ממין זכר ליאור , אך גזירה
זו חוזרת אליו כבוברנג כאשר בתו מוצאת תינוק צף, מאמצת אותו ומנציחה את האירוע בהענקת
שמו : ”ותקרא שמו משה , ותאמר, "כי מן המים משיתהו ".
שיפרה , פועה ובת פרעה מצילות נפש , ומשה, איך הוא יתחיל את הקריירה ?
ויהי בימים ההם ויגדל משה ויצא אל אחיו וירא בסבלותם וירא איש מצרי מכה איש עברי מאחיו : ויפן
( כה וכה וירא כי אין איש ויך את המצרי ויטמנהו בחול (פרק ב: 11-12
ובכן , גם משה מציל נפש, אך תוך נטילת נפש. ומעניין לגלות מה יש לתורה שבעל פה להוסיף כאן על
הפשט:
א. למרות שאצל חז "ל דווקא אחיו אהרון הוא הדמות למופת ביישוב סכסוכים בדרכי שלום ( הלל
אומר הוי מתלמידיו של אהרן , אוהב שלום ורודף שלום אוהב את הבריות ומקרבן לתורה , פרקי אבות)
גם ממשה התאמצו להרחיק את האלימות . במקרה שלנו , למדו ממה שנאמר בהמשך הסיפור ,
”הלהרגני אתה אומר כאשר הרגת את המצרי " שמשה הרג באמירה ולא במכה פיזית (פרס יינתן למי
שמנחש מה היתה אותה מילה שהמיתה...). כך גם בשני המקרים של הוצאה להורג בתורה (נוקב
השם , בספר ויקרא כ“ד ; ומקושש העצים בשבת , בספר במדבר ט "ו ): למרות שברורה אשמתם ודינם ,
אין משה מוציאם להורג ללא ציווי מפורש מגבוה (כך מדגיש הרב שאול ברמן יל "א)
ב. במדרש מוצאים אשמות נוספות לאיש המצרי שהרג, מה שמלמד אותנו שלחז "ל לא היה נוח
לראות במשה מי שיהרוג אדם שאין עליו דין מוות (מה שמעיד שהכלל "בא להרגך השכם להורגו " לא
היה שגור בפיהם)
אינני יודע אם הדברים שאכתוב עכשיו הם בגדר הפשט או שייחשבו דרש, אך נדמה לי שאפשר
לפרש את בריחתו של משה למדיין כמחאה של הטקסט נגד הריגת המצרי , משום הדמיון לגלותו של
רוצח בשגגה לעיר מקלט , שאיננו רק מקום בטוח מפני גואל הדם , אלא גם מעין בית סוהר שבו מרצה
הרוצח את עונשו עד מות הכהן הגדול (במקרה של משה , עד מות פרעה, שהיה גם דמות פולחנית ).
אך לא רק משה נענש פה – כל עם ישראל ממשיך להיות משועבד עד אשר משה יכול לחזור
ולהתייצב מול פרעה. וכך ניתן לאמר שכפי שחז "ל קבעו ש"כל המאבד נפש אחת מעלה עליו הכתוב
כאילו איבד עולם מלא ", כך גם במקרה שלנו , החירות שעם ישראל זכאי לו אינו אלא שיעבוד ליצרים
ולכוחנות אם הוא מושג ע"י אלימות . משה איננו מצווה לפעול לשחרר את עם ישראל מכל רסן – צריך
לדייק כשמצטטים את הסיסמה "שלח את עמי ," שאינו מופיע כך אף לא פעם אחת , אלא "שלח את
עמי ויעבדוני " – לעבודת בורא כל הנשמות כולן .

What Joseph Didn't Know

What Joseph Didn't Know

וימאן אביו ויאמר ידעתי בני ידעתי

vay'ma'en aviv vayomer yada'ti v'ni yada'ti

his father stubbornly refused and said, my son, I know, I know (Gen. 48:19)


Four tense conversations between fathers and sons resonate in this verse, four generations seeking their destiny. Plagued with failing vision like his father in a similar situation (chapter 27), Jacob resists his son's attempt to lift his hand from his favored grandson's head; earlier, an angel succeeds in convincing his grandfather not to reach out his hand against his favored son (chapter 22). In each encounter, a metaphysical knowledge trumps custom and logic; in the case of Joseph, the seer, his sudden ignorance is especially stunning.

Jacob's testaments (chapters 48 and 49) casts the future of all of his sons, and in chapter 50, wary of the revenge that could follow their father's death (the same fear attached to Isaac's death, 27:41) the brothers inform Joseph of one last verbal request that Jacob made before dying, that he forgive his brothers' sin. Joseph has no way of knowing what Jacob knew, nor do we. When he saw Joseph's blood-stained coat, he deduced Joseph had died, but he never believed it, and stubbornly refused to be comforted (וימאן להתנחם vay'ma'en l'hitnahem). Did he figure out his sons' guilt and the fragility of Joseph's forgiveness? Or did fear bring them to confess, but also to give it the authority of Jacob's voice? In any event, Joseph complies, responding to the invocation of Jacob's will with Jacob's words to Rachel (30:2), התחת אלהים אני hatahat elohim ani -- am I instead of God? Comforting his brothers (וינחם אותם vay'nahem otam) and speaking to their hearts (50:21), perhaps he finally achieves that which his clairvoyance had always denied him.

There's more to the story that we don't know, and questions of how to apply it. Here are my top three:

1. What do we do with Jacob's deathbed revelation of his violent Amorite conquest (Gen. 48:22)? How does it fit with his condemnation of Simeon and Levi, first stated in chapter 34 and expanded in chapter 49? Rabbi Yehudah's answer is to spiritualize the violence: בחרבי ובקשתי' במצות ובמעשים טובים'--b'harbi uv'kashti – b'mitzvot uv'ma'asim tovim--for “my sword and bow” read “commandments and good deeds” (Genesis Rabba 97:6)



2. Why doesn't Jewish tradition use the Joseph story to teach forgiveness? Jonathan Sacks, the exception who proves the rule (http://www.chiefrabbi.org/thoughts/vayigash5766.pdf ), brings Maimonides to show that forgiveness can be granted without an apology.



3. “When people lack the ability to forgive, they are unable to resolve conflict. The result is division, factionalism, and the fragmentation of a nation into competing groups and sects. That is why Joseph's forgiveness is the bridge between Genesis and Exodus (Sacks, ibid).”

“He (Jacob, on his deathbed) indicates that Simeon and Levi should be allotted such a position in the future Jacob-Israel nation, that political and military powers of decision should never lie in their hands.” “It is of the most profound importance that here, at once, at the laying the foundation of the Jewish nation, a curse is laid on any and every transgression of the laws of morality and justice even if done in the interests of the public and the state. All other states and nations justify themselves by the principle that public and state interests sanctify everything. Cunning, trickery and force, which, in private life would be punished with prison and gallows are rewarded with civic honours and medals; the laws of morality only exist for private life, but in politics and diplomacy the only code recognised is the interests of the party or state. The original testament for the Jewish nation here lays a curse on all trickery and violence even if practiced for the most justified cause in the public interest, and perpetuates the teaching that even in public life and in the public interests, not only the ends but the means, too, must be pure. In no case does the end justify the means.” (S. R. Hirsch on Gen. 34: 25ff and 49:7).

Although these quotes could be the basis for polarizing questions, I'd rather leave them as unifying prayers.

posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

Netivoteha Shalom on Vayigash: Joseph of many colors

Joseph's intense family dynamics took over last week's column; I couldn't wait to continue my quest into Vayigash (Genesis 44:18-47:27) even while the Torah scroll was still open at Miketz (41-44:17). I dreamt last week (I'm being serious)...there's a lot on my plate...but that's not what I thought Netivoteha Shalom was for; and sure enough, this week we're back to a wider, inter-ethnic perspective, and with a vengeance (unfortunately, quite literally).

It seems that Joseph's prediction of a seven year famine was a well-kept secret known only to Jacob's family and Pharaoh's court, and that while Pharaoh prepared for it by stockpiling food during the seven years of plenty, the Egyptian people did not budget for it; thus we learn (Gen. 47:14) that they are starving but have no more money to purchase the food Joseph has stored. When they come pleading to him, he tells them he'll feed them in exchange for their livestock. After they have expended this resource, they return to Joseph saying, “We have nothing left but our carcasses and our land; why should we die , we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, we and our land will be enslaved to Pharaoh; give us seed, so that we live and not die, and the land won't be desolate (47:18-19).” Joseph accepts this offer and implements the arrangement.

Now all this is told within an envelope of preceding and following verses (47:11-13 and 47:27) that tell us that Joseph is looking after his family, settling them in Goshen and feeding them, and it ends with the formula ויפרו וירבו מאוד they were fruitful and multiplied greatly – reminding us of the idyllic blessing of Genesis 1, but more importantly, recalling the language of Exodus 1, which introduces the enslavement of Joseph's descendents. I began to wonder whether the connection between these two enslavements goes beyond the shared phraseology. Would it not add an unstated motive of revenge to the paranoia that is brought in Ex. 1:9-10?

An online search of traditional commentaries I use, and recommend, the Feinburg E-collection at www.Spertus.edu, pulled up the following comment by Siftey Cohen:

הוגד לי בחלום, שתם הכסף מארץ מצרים כדי שלא יהיה להם כסף, כדי שלא יקנו בני ישראל וישאו ויתנו בהם ויעשו סחורתם ויקשה עליהם יציאתם מאחר שלקחום בדמים, אם כשהיו בחנם רדפו אחריהם כל שכן כשהיו קנוים בדמים-- I learned in a dream (!) that "there was no money left in Egypt" (verse 15) kept them from purchasing the Israelites and trading in them, which would have made the Exodus more difficult; as it was, they pursued them, but had they paid for them, all the more so. I found this comment striking in its perception of Israelite vulnerability in a passage where Joseph's family is living in the lap of privilege; evidently, the memory of our enslavement in Egypt was so strong that it obscured the plain message of the text. But if this statement required some indulgence, what I found in the khumashim (Torah texts) that we put in our congregants hands really threw me for a loop.

Plaut (The Torah, A Modern Commentary, UAHC, 1981) provides the following introduction to this section (p. 293):

"We learn about the effects of the famine and, so it seems to many, the morally puzzling aspects of Joseph's economic and political management. Israel now dwells in Goshen, and a new chapter in his people's history is about to begin."

He is somewhat more explicit in his expansive afterword (page 298): "Because of the careful and unemotional accounting of the disenfranchisement of the Egyptian people and the apparent approval of Joseph's role in it, this section has been made "a show piece of anti-Semitic polemic" [von Rad]. Here is the Bible, it has been said, Jewry's sacred book, and look at the morality that, by its exaltation of Joseph, it obviously endorses [e.g., Gunkel]."

Plaut then proceeds to put Joseph's behavior in the context of the proper functioning of a civil servant in ancient Egypt, which brings him to conclude (p. 299): "To superimpose 20th century ideas of social and political morality on this story is, therefore, not helpful. Joseph served Pharaoh in his struggle with the Egyptian hierarchy. In so doing he saved the multitudes from starvation, and, apparently this was worth any price to them -- including a mortgage on their freedom. And it is altogether possible that they thought little of their freedom anyway. Jewish tradition sensed, long ago, that Joseph's actions might not have met with the same success had the Egyptians valued their freedom more highly. The Bible calls Egypt the "house of bondage" not only because Israel was enslaved there but also because its people accepted their own bondage as a normal condition of life." [In a footnote, Plaut gives a little in the other direction, stating, "Joseph's participation in bringing about this condition left later generations with a sense of uneasiness" and cites examples of positive attitudes to Egyptians elsewhere in the Bible.]

I am indebted to Plaut for sending me to von Rad, who opened my eyes to a hint of irony in the Egyptians' proclamation in verse 25: “You have kept us alive! we are grateful to my lord for making us slaves to Pharaoh." But aside from that, I'm left bewildered: I'm very sorry that anti-Semites go to town on this text, but this defence of the text and Judaism reeks of racism and blame-the-victim; and I can't find sources that corroborate his defamation of the Egyptians.

Sarna (The JPS Torah Commentary, 1989), too, seems ambivalent. On the one hand, ”Joseph's actions cannot be measured by the moral standards that the Hebrew Bible, especially the prophetic tradition, has inculcated in Western civilization. (p.322).” But then he goes on to suggest that the author of this story comes from another literary tradition/value system: “Rather, they must be judged in the context of the ancient Near Eastern world by whose norms Joseph emerges here as a highly admirable model of a shrewd and successful administrator (Sarna, JPS, pp. 322-323).”


I don't doubt that the Joseph story originates in wisdom literature, but looking at the broader context, not only the prophetic tradition but also the narrator here is indeed critical of Joseph, who saves one generation but enslaves many more; serving Pharaoh is not the same as serving God, or, in business terms, ethical behavior is ultimately profitable. When the Egyptians plead for their lives, למה נמות נגדך/לעיניך (“Why should we die in your presence/before your eyes”-- Gen. 47:15,19) we hear the echo of Esau's desperate הנה אנכי הולך למות, ולמה זה לי בכורה (“I'm about to die, what good will the birthright do me?”-- Gen. 25:32 ) made in trading his birthright for a stew. Yet, that transaction had limited validity, because otherwise, Jacob would not have had to deceive his father to receive Esau's blessing. It's shocking for Joseph to be denying the lesson his brothers learned when they realized their heartlessness which led to his sale: אשר ראינו צרת נפשו בהתחננו אלינו ולא שמענו (“We saw his desperation when he pleaded before us, but we didn't listen” – Gen. 42:21).

What it all boils down to is that we all find the Joseph we need: if we're looking for a devoted son and brother, we'll find it in the text (and even more easily in the Midrash), but it will also offer us someone struggling to find his place as a family member, and who is still locked in destructive patterns of selfish behavior; if it's a national savior, we'll find that, too, but if we're wary of being too close to Pharaoh (in his many manifestations) we'll also be able to see the long-term effects of selfishness on a national level, and the xenophobia that keeps us from commiserating and co-existing with the Other. The text is a magical mirror, to be handled with great care.

posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

Zecharia speaks spirit to Joseph's power

ישימך אלהים כאפרים וכמנשה – “May God make you as Efraim and Menashe (Gen. 48:20).” For a name that is etched deep in the warmest memories of many Jewish boys who received that blessing from their parents every Friday night, the name Menashe doesn't fare too well in Jewish tradition: from the Bible, where the 7th c. BCE Menashe is considered the worst Judean king because he spilt innocent blood (apparently not such a hard act to follow...), till modern Jewish literature, where Menashe Hayyim is the lead, tragic character in Agnon's great short story והיה העקוב למישור (The Crooked Straight), the bearers of this name face an uphill struggle.

The birth of Joseph's children comes at the apogee of his family life: sold into slavery by his brothers and mourned for dead by his father, he has arrived at the opposite end of the spectrum of success in his new life. The usual translation of Menashe's name is one that insists on Joseph's determination to put his Canaanite past behind him: כי נשני אלהים את כל עמלי ואת כל בית אבי “God has made me forget all my troubles, everything to do with my father's home”. The echo of these insightful words, spoken by the one whose ability to predict the future has taken him from the pit to the pinnacle, is still with us when the scene switches to Jacob's household as his brothers are sent to Egypt to purchase food from his storehouse.

If Joseph understood his own words and realized his success was dependent on his leaving his past, he could have just treated them as ordinary customers, sold them grain and set them on their way. But he doesn't: he can't. I'd rather read Menashe's naming this way: “God stripped away all my troubles (just as my brothers stripped my father's coat off of me), but he also took me completely away from my father's house (but not forever).” So Joseph procedes to bring his father's house in its entirety to Egypt, in stages: first, he manages to provoke the brothers into disclosing the existence of their additional brothers. Now notice how he forces them to bring Benjamin: first, by holding them all captive except for the one who will fetch Benjamin, and then holding “only” one and having all the others struggle with Jacob and recreate the scenes of his childhood which included tale-bearing and declothing (hence his accusations of spying and exposing nakedness).

The rabbinic texts follow the biblical text in its focus on the Joseph's role as savior of the family and the people Israel (but do they extoll his role as savoir of humanity? I haven't checked). There are midrashic claims that Joseph kept his brothers in a comfortable lock-up, and that he fasted, didn't drink wine, and sat in sackcloth, i. e., mourned his father's absence throughout their entire separation (cf. Encyclopedia Judaica, “Joseph”). Indeed, Joseph the Tsadik. But can Joseph possibly escape our censure for the thrice-repeated statement of bereavement, שכלתם, שכלתי, שכלתי that he puts on Jacob's lips -- the most gripping point in the entire story -- which makes clear that the Joseph story is really only the last chapter of Jacob's life -- when he forces him to part with the last remaining son of Rachel? Next week's joyous reunion will not be enough to sweeten Jacob's summary of his life (47:9) as one of suffering.

Jacob struggles with God and men, and passes this down to Joseph, who, never shaking off his father's house, does the same, but even better. His vision doesn't only multiply flocks, it nourishes all of civilization. Brought up in a home where children trick fathers, he can outdo them all, because he has a divine power that bestows upon him mundane power, which he exercises while divining (with the cup, since, as Rachel's son, he also uses the concrete to reach the intangible). Joseph's story is one of power, but not of spirit, which is the ultimate biblical story. Joseph will bring his family to him, down to Egypt. Like him, they will go down, into slavery and up to power. And down again. But what will count is spirit.

I was taught, and would like still to believe, that the rabbis of late antiquity didn't have much use for the legacy of the Maccabees; Hanukkah, their holiday, is not even mentioned in the Mishnah, and is given only a few pages in the Babylonian Talmud. These are the same rabbis who had us respond to this week's part of Joseph's story with a Haftarah that proclaims:

לא בחיל ולא בכוח כי אם ברוחי אמר ה' צבאות

Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, said the Lord Ts'va'ot (Zecharia 4:6)



Shabbat shalom v'Hanukkah sameah,

posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

Would you allow Judah's wife on the bimah? Netivoteha Shalom on Vayeshev

What are the the patriarchal stories all about? In classical terms, how are מעשי אבות סימן לבנים (maasey avot siman l'vanim)? For starters, these stories establish our faith in the one God, who will be known to their descendants as the God of our forefathers. The first act of faith in these stories is Abraham's receiving and obeying God's call to leave his homeland and "go to the land which I will show you". The Torah, which devotes its first 11 chapters to the story of mankind, will focus for the remaining 176 chapters on coming to, leaving and preparing to return to the Land. In fact, 17 out of the remaining 38 chapters of Genesis which comprise the stories of our founding family take place outside of the land and cover the two major segments of Jacob's life.

The promise of the Land lies ahead, in the future; in the present, the Land is hospitable only to a degree. Famines plague the Land, one of which is so severe that it brings the entire family back together again in Egypt, and will result in Israel's longest absence from the Land until the Roman exile during Late Antiquity. The Land is also lacking in suitable spouses for Abraham's descendants: Aram is where Abraham's servant has to go to fetch a wife for Isaac, and Jacob, who goes there seeking refuge, finds his spouses there as well. In both cases, their parents cast aspersions on the indigenous women -- Canaanite, Hivite or simply b'not ha'aretz.

Inexplicably, without any notice, this concern ends with Jacob; the issue is never mentioned again in the Biblical narrative, but when Judah marries the daughter of Shua the Canaanite (38: 2), the traditional commentators try to hold the line. Aside from Ibn Ezra and Rashbam, who insist on the literal meaning, everyone else I've read quotes verses to prove that Canaanite can mean a traveling salesman (of some other ethnicity, of course). Quoting the Talmud (Pesahim 50a), Ramban says: Jacob's sons married Egyptians, Moabites, Ammonites, and descendants of Ishmael and of K'turah; only with Simeon's son Sha'ul the son of the Canaanite is it really so, but the Rabbis taught that his mother was Dinah, who slept with a (real) Canaanite.

Similarly, when it comes to Tamar, who saves the day and keeps Judah's lineage alive, Ramban says:

וכן תמר היתה בת אחת מן הגרים בארץ, לא בת איש כנעני ביחוסו, כי חלילה שיהיה אדוננו דוד ומשיח צדקנו שיגלה לנו במהרה מזרע כנען העבד המקולל ורבותינו אמרו (ב"ר פה י) בתמר שהיתה בתו של שם, והוא כהן לאל עליון:

Tamar was also the daughter of a foreigner, and not of Canaanite descent, for how could our Lord David, our righteous messiah, may he speedily be revealed, derive from the seed of Canaan, the cursed slave? The rabbis claim (Gen. Rabba 85,10) that she was the daughter of Shem, El Elyon's priest.

The aversion to Canaan, based, as Ramban reminds us, on Noah's curse (Gen. 9: 25-27), is a tenet of biblical theology: the Land will be purged of the Canaanites because of their abominable acts, which Israel must not repeat lest they suffer a similar fate (Lev. 18). But the texts are not consistent, indicating a range of attitudes to the indigenous people. Alongside legislation calling for the annihilation of the indigenous Canaanites are historical passages that indicate there was co-existence and intermarriage.

The bigger picture, ideological as opposed to anecdotal, is that these stories indicate a grappling with the definition of the distinction of Israel: is it biological, i.e., one of geneology and descent, or does it have to do with values and behavior. Does Genesis portray the indigenous peoples of Canaan as abominable, and therefore to be kept apart from? In his JPS commentary on Genesis 34, upon which the relevant sections of Etz Hayim are based, מורנו ורבנו Nahum Sarna writes: This narrative exemplifies, once again, a major theme of the patriarchal stories: the sexual depravity of the inhabitants of the land. This has been illustrated by the accounts of Lot and the men of Sodom and by the repeated threats to the matriarchs Sarah and Rebekah. The “Helen of Troy” motif, discussed above (12:11) is here vividly represented.

The Sodomites indeed are seen as evil enough to justify their destruction (chapters 18-19), and retrospectively, to explain why Abraham declined that portion (chapter 13). However, in the episode concerning Sarah, Avimelech claims his innocence (20:4-5), which God acknowledges (20:6). In
chapter 26, when Isaac announces that Rebekah is his sister, she remains with him in his home; Avimelech reproaches Isaac for the immorality that could have resulted from his people thinking that she was available, and both Isaac and Rebekah are protected by royal decree. We are left with the story of Dinah (chapter 34), in which the text shows more sympathy to the people of Shechem than to Jacob's sons; even while it presents the feelings of outrage that her brothers feel, it does not endorse them. Was Dinah raped? Vaya'aneha does not necessarily mean by force. Was she kidnapped by Shechem and liberated by her brothers? It depends on one's point of view, and the text never gives us Dinah's perspective, let alone let her speak (as it does with Shechem, whose love is described more romantically -- vatidbak nafsho b'dinah bat yaakov vaye'ehav et hana'ara vayidaber el lev hana'ara -- than even Jacob's for Rachel); the text does not say that Dinah was kept against her will. If there is sexual depravity here, is it not in how the sons of Jacob bring about the wounding of the sexual organs of the Shechemites which allows them to possess (I'm trying to keep it clean...) the women of Shechem?

The Dinah story presents the option of a merger between the people of Shechem and the family of Jacob, for whose purpose the marriage of Dinah and Shechem would be instrumental; the circumcision of the male population of Shechem would seem to be at least on the way towards fulfilment of the religious requirements of the book of Genesis. Simeon and Levi use the impropriety of Shechem's violation of a taboo to thwart this objective; it's not clear what Jacob thought about the merger, but his initial reaction to the massacre, akhartem oti l'hav'isheni b'yoshev ha'aretz, bak'na'ani uvap'rizi you have made me stink among the indigenous, among the Canaanites and the Perizites [i.e., we are even lower than those scum], which focuses on his reputation among the indigenous people, indicates that he may have been favoring it. Still, when it is all over, Jacob purges his family of their household gods and pledges loyalty to God, as if to symbolically bury the merger option.

Ibn Ezra's comment on the purging of the foreign gods, albeit cryptic, is pregnant with meaning:

הסירו את אלהי הנכר - חלילה חלילה שישכב הנביא עם עובדת אלהי נכר . ופירושו תמצאנו בפרשת וילך משה How could the prophet sleep with a worshipper of foreign gods? Look for the answer in parashat Vayelech. Jacob is sent to Aram to avoid marrying an abominable Canaanite, but he ends up living with and marrying into a family of idolators. The untenable absurdity of the situation is never clearer than after the Dinah story, when Jacob's sons have wreaked that which he had feared from Esau, and his pariah status in the Land will force him now to live on the sword (the blessing that Isaac was able to scrounge up for Esau after Jacob stole the blessing that should have been Esau's). As the ritual of circumcision has become a weapon of deceit and an accessory to murder, pillage and perversion, Jacob realizes that his beloved wife has not only stolen her father's household gods, but worships them instead of his God, who is not answering her prayer for a second son; perhaps we now have now found a deeper meaning for the placing of the story of Dinah between the stealing of Laban's gods and their removal. The tragedy, of course, is that after being purged of these gods, Rachel dies -- God does not protect those that do not truly believe in God (an echo of the story of Haran in the furnace).

Is Ibn Ezra, sure of Jacob's status as prophet but troubled by the religious failings of Jacob's surroundings, not also grappling with the definition of the distinction of Israel?

posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

Netivoteha Shalom on Vayishlakh

I so looked forward to writing on Vayishlah. What could be more appropriate for today than the message of reconciliation embodied in the embrace of Esau and Jacob (chapter 33)? From its rocky start in Rebecca's womb (chapter 25), their relationship reaches the pits of the desperate sale of the birthright (ibid), Jacob's stealing of the blessing (chapter 27), and Esau's double death wish (ibid, for Isaac as well as for Jacob), but finds a dramatic breakthrough after 20 years of separation; and, towards the end of the parashah (chapter 35) , the brothers reunite to bury their father.

With such a past as Jacob's, it's hard to see him as an ideal role model, but I had high hopes of tracing an unambivalent refinement of his character as he grows older. I've always celebrated his clear stance against the violence wreaked by Simeon and Levi against the people of Shechem (chapter 34). Sadly, this week I came to realize that the text won't yield such a simple reading.

Shall I share my recent journey? I obviously thought I knew the route, but, for additional inspiration, I scanned the weekly email I get from MyJewishLearning to see what others had written. Almost all the vorts were upbeat, as expected, but I found myself flabbergasted reading...the summary of the parashah! I had not learned chapter 35 that way, so I went back and read it with the traditional commentaries, and took a closer look at chapter 34 as well. I had somehow forgotten that after killing all the circumcised males, Jacob's sons looted the city, "taking their sheep, their cattle, their donkeys, whatever was in town and in the field, their possessions, all their children and their women, everything in their homes (34: 28-29)." Could Simeon and Levi have done this on their own?

The summary, renders the beginning of chapter 35 thus:

Later, God said to Jacob, “Go to Beth-el and live there and make an altar to God.” Therein, Jacob had all the captives purify themselves, change their clothes and bring him their foreign gods. Jacob buried these gods under the oak tree...

Seems like Jacob was rather complicit! Well...with a quick phone call (last week, when I was visiting my parents, all I had to do was holler), I was shown that this passage finds a parallel in chapter 17; in both cases, in order to engage the Divine, the entire household undergoes a drastic purge: there, it was the removal of the foreskins, here, it is the removal of the family idols (e.g., what Rachel took from Laban). My hunch is that the description of the looting of Shechem, resembling as it does other parts of the Bible, is an editorial gloss; I believe the reference to the captives in chapter 35 in the traditional commentaries, and therefore in the summary on the website, is inferred by language similar to the rule of the captive woman (eshet y'fat to'ar) of Deut. 21.

However, even if Jacob comes out "clean" in this parashah, by the end of Genesis he has made his peace with the aggression, and even takes ownership of it: on his deathbed, he gives Joseph "an additional portion (shechem), which I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow (Gen. 48:22)." I am only consoled by the tradition (Rashi, Midrash Rabba) that spiritualized this violence, and reads "mitzvot" for "sword" and "prayer" for "bow" (the latter works better in English than in Hebrew!).

What did Jacob actually bury under the oak tree? Back then, people worshipped idols. And today? There's still a lot to bury.

posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

Ki Tavo: Well, Don’t Stop Now!

The person who wrote this piece is not the same one who is posting it. When I wrote it at the beginning of the week, I knew what I was going to write after just a quick glance at a few verses. Something kept me from posting it right away; maybe I missed the last minute pressure of finishing just before Shabbat, or maybe I felt I really should at least read through the parashah. And then, two days ago, a close friend and colleague told me that his daughter has contracted a multiple sclerosis. And then I finally read chapter 28... this week’s installment is dedicated to Deema bat Doris.

I don’t know if I’ll make it to shul this Shabbat, but if the synagogue I do go to reads the entire parashah, I won’t be able to hear shishi, the 6th reading, too well unless I’m sitting right next to the action (which means far from the women’s section, which creates another problem…). The traditional 6th reading, 28:7-69, is the longest aliyah in the Torah, but it is supposed to be read quickly and softly, so as not to upset the worshippers. Wrapped by eight verses of blessing that precede it, and a summary verse of narrative at the end, the core of the reading, 28:15-68, is a tocheycha (warning), telling Israel in minute detail the consequences it faces if it breaks the covenant. A difficult passage, not one for delicate ears.

This commentary, Netivoteha Shalom (Her Paths are Peaceful, not V’chol Netivoteha Shalom, All Her Paths are Peaceful (Proverbs 3:17), because if that were true, we could all go to the beach, with a lot of sunscreen, or better, long sleeve shirts, etc.) is dedicated to dealing honestly with difficult passages; unfortunately, mainstream Jewish tradition felt no need to shelter the listener from the difficult ones we’ve dealt with these last five weeks. In fact, in the case of ben sorer umoreh, the execution of the rebellious son (21:18-21) and ir hanidahat, the total destruction of the apostate city (13:13-19), where tradition mercifully declared that these cases never happened, nor will they (lo haya/hayta, v’lo atid/atidah lihyot), the only thing left of them is the telling: v’lama nichtav/nicht’va -- So why do we have these texts ? D’rosh v’kabel sachar -- Expound on them, and you will be rewarded. There is supposedly great merit in giving these passages the greatest possible exposure,or…maybe drosh/expound demands special conditions that torah reading as it’s practiced in the synagogue does not fulfill.

The texts that we have struggled with bespeak different values than the evolved Judaism we pride ourselves with today – and therefore we cannot simply sit passively and allow them to be read in the synagogue. We make such demands on our Christian co-religionists, regarding the Passion; shouldn’t we also be cleaning own act up? Reading these texts in a muted voice like a tocheycha would be a start; at least it would give a signal to the attentive listener that it’s not business as usual. But I think it would be better if we exercised our right to choose and simply read around these passages; these are weeks with magnificent Haftarot of Consolation from Deutero-Isaiah, and they could be the focus of the Torah service instead.

As much as I wished these passages didn’t exist, or had been tucked away in an apocrypha by earlier generations, I am not for ignoring or censuring them; they must be seen as a part of our journey and thoroughly and respectfully studied. We cannot afford to hamstring our access to our sources as they weave phrases from difficult passages into midrash (e.g. et biti natati la’ish hazeh in Tractate Kiddushin) and give them new life. And we must be capable and willing to approach others who have different sensibilities regarding these texts and engage them in dialogue. But in our own worship, these texts must not be celebrated, and that’s what torah reading is: pageantry, ceremony, choreography, melody; in short, a celebration.

There are some more difficult passages in Ki Tavo; e.g., while previewing the parashah at shul last week, 26: 18-19 caught my eye – I would not read those verses publicly. But I would definitely keep the tocheycha in the service. This week, if I’m there when and where it’s read, I’ll close my eyes, hold my partner’s hand and be grateful that we’re not reduced to eating placentas (it gets worse). We won’t run away from it -- we’ll rather find the time and the place to read it slowly and appreciate the tocheycha’s sad, sad description of the consequences of human failures (and maybe God’s wrath). They are so close to scenes from the Holocaust (remember, I’m writing from Germany…), but they are also going on in our own day, with the active participation of some of our loved ones and the collusion of our own politicians, to the benefit of our economic empire.

I’m closer to personal prayer than I’ve been for a long time. But here’s a public one for Ki Tavo: that the horrors that jolt us in sacred texts will not defeat us, and that we’ll find meaningful partnership in a community that has vision, takes responsibility and shares its blessings.

posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgram

: Netivoteha Shalom on Ki Tetzey: This is a Man's World...

Posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

I began this series of comments on Parashat Hashavua a few weeks ago while in western Germany, where the closest thing to a Torah commentary in the nearby Saarbruecken synagogue was a translation of the Bible... into Russian! I travel with CD ROM of basic sources, but it’s not that user-friendly, and was delighted to discover the same daf yomi website that Jerry Abrams mentioned a while ago, which included a livestreamed shiur in Haredi singsong that helped me with the Aramaic of Yevamot 78b-79a (on David and the Gibeonites)...I finally arrived this morning at a decent Jewish library in the Berlin JCC, and, after skimming through a good number of volumes, ranging from the Chofetz Chayim to Everett Fox, none of whom were addressing my concerns, I came across The Women’s Torah Commentary (ed. Elyse Goldstein) which hit the spot with Reconstructionist Rabbi Judith Gary Brown’s essay. Her opening paragraph reads as follows:

Parashat Ki Tetzey continues the enumeration of laws for the social well-being of Israel. In general, this parasha deals with laws that are focused on the private, inner workings of the Israelite community – specifically, who can be part of the community and how those within the community should interact with each other. But Ki Tetzey abounds with laws that truly challenge our women’s sensibilities.

Brown’s analysis focuses on 22:13-21, motsi shem ra, (or, to be exact, on the accused, rather than on the accuser). Below, I have outlined elements from this sugya and others in the parashah to show how great the challenge actually is. Meanwhile, allow me to bring Brown’s conclusion:

The rabbis of the talmudic period did progress to a somewhat more complex understanding of the role of women in society. Women were viewed less as objects and more as subjects in society. For example, in the case of rape, although the Bible provided only for the father receiving the bride-price of fifty shekels of silver (Deut. 22:28-29), the rabbis demanded that the rapist must also compensate the woman for her physical and psychological damage (Ketubot 43 a-b). And although, according to our biblical text, the rapist was compelled to marry the woman, under talmudic law, the girl could could refuse to marry the rapist (Ketubot 39b).

If we look to our texts as representative – evidence, if you will – of the development of our current social mores, we would see a progression towards our more balanced understanding of women’s and men’s roles in society. It is in this way that we can most powerfully experience the dynamic nature of our heritage. Our task, then, is to listen to the voice of history as we seek to uncover what the text is trying to tell us, and to honestly acknowledge our reactions to that text. We may not find the answers we want, but we will develop a better understanding of where we have been and how far we have traveled. And perhaps we will discover those who traveled this same path before us.

It is reassuring for me, as well, to discover those who travel the same path as I do.

Shabbat shalom,

Jeremy Milgrom


This is a Man’s World...

Ki Tetze is written for men. Men who go to war, men with their families, men who are executed, men who find their brothers’ lost animals, men in the town and in the field, in commerce and on the farm (and, unfortunately, men who are still being commanded to wipe out a nation, and this time, one that is not described as presenting any danger to Israel, only a bitter memory to her).

It deals with their bodily functions (semen, excretion).

It protects their genitals from being seized by an opponent’s wife

It addresses their sexual desires (eshet y’fat to’ar)

It regulates their treatment of their wives and children:

a. protecting the rights of inheritance of their first born sons;

b. establishing their control over their children’s behavior (even to the point of death, for boys, ben sorer umoreh, and for girls, if, upon marriage, it is discovered that they lost their virginity while still living at home)

c. setting a monetary value, to be given to their fathers, for the reputation of their daughters, if their daughters are unjustly defamed

d. setting a monetary value for their daughters’ virginity, to be paid to their fathers by the man who takes their virginity

e. establishing their right to get rid of undesirable wives for whatever reason – ervat davar

f. establishing, if they die without male heirs, their right to continuity by giving their widows to a yavam

Women are objects: a woman belongs either to her father or to her husband. They are given by their fathers to their husbands; when a man „takes“ her without her father’s permission, she must remain in this man's permanent possession. Women are acquired by sexual intercourse/rape. They are captured as booty in war. When a woman encounters her husband in a fight and tries to help him by grabbing his opponent’s testicles, her hand is cut off (her husband would not suffer this punishment). In each relationship that women find themselves, their tenuous status is underlined by concluding statements indicating under what circumstances they can be gotten rid of: if she is acquired according to procedure, she can be gotten rid of at whim, otherwise, only death, his or hers, will set her free.

In this parasha, women exist only in conjunction with their husbands and/or as sexual partners.

Whoops, there is one cause for celebration:

g. The parashah expects newlywed men to bring happiness to their wives for one year (good ol’ Deuteronomist!)

This is a man's world, but it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl.
He's lost in the world of man (yesh omrim: in the wilderness); he's lost in bitterness.

James Brown/B. Newsome

Netivoteha Shalom on Shoftim: Not Leaving Well Enough Alone!

I'm happy to report that my week started well when I found the following piece in the weekly posting of My Jewish Learning, one which fits quite nicely into our effort:

But nothing could keep me from writing my own...

Shabbat shalom,

Jeremy Milgrom

Tzedek zedek tirdof is on everyone's short list of feel-good biblical quotes , running neck-and-neck with another Deuteronomic favorite, Uvaharta bahayim. Our verse goes there as well: l'ma'an tihyeh, and beyond, v'yarashta et haaretz asher Hasem elohecha noten lach. Justice, life, inheritance, God's beneficence, the land -- the complete package; who could ask for more?

Of course, this last phrase about the land, which God gives you, is shorthand for what has been spelled out over the last few weeks. A slighty fuller version would read, "which Hashem takes from them and gives you (a la R.Yitzhak's polemic quoted in Rashi's opening comment on Genesis 1:1 -- thank you, Stephan Parnas, for reminding me of it). And here the completeness of the blessing begins to unravel. The absence of the other is not just a matter of style: Deuteronomy states clearly that not only must he disappear in order for you to inherit the land; God makes your own survival, l'ma'an tihyeh, conditional on his disappearance. As opposed to Va'etchanan and Ekev, our parasha spares us the gory details, and employs the phrase the land which God gives you. This formulation (which appears frequently in Deuteronomy) lets us imagine that God will take care of things so that we won't have to get our hands dirty*.

One short phrase from the opening verse establishes the framework and sets out the goal of the entire parasha: v'shaftu et ha'am mishpat tzedek. That this is God's justice is clear from the mixture of juridical instructions and ritual matters in which the prohibition of idolatry is dominant. It is an uncompromising justice, in which the death penalty recurs almost like a refrain. Human beings are referred to here as ha'am, a collective which mostly connotes the mass that must be ruled via intimidation, v'chol ha'am yish'm'u v'yira'u, lest it become unruly. And it is exclusive to the extreme: ha'am means Israel but astonishingly covers everybody -- because the indigenous amim don't exist any longer.

Clearly, there are two ways of incorporating these verses in our lives: we can either stick to the ethnocentricity of the p'shat, and claim privilege, as some do, or we can claim the privilege of embracing and furthering the development of the ideas of justice and compassion which have been the pride of Judaism for the rest of us. Slowly (too slowly for many of us) but surely (an overstatement, without a doubt), the rabbis moved us away from absolutist, violent intolerance to humane, peaceful coexistance, as they:

-- understood that Joshua boldly modified the herem pronounced in our parasha (20:10-18) against the indigenous Canaanites;
-- cancelled the herem completely because of how Sennacherib shuffled the nations;
-- virtually eliminated the death penalty that was anyway not being applied;
-- and recognized Islam and Christianity as sister monotheistic religions.

These are just some of the stations along a road that has led us to a Judaism that is not set on warring against the world but rather believes in being a part of the human family.

Recognizing that tzedek tzedek tirdof was once less inclusive Jewishly than it is today means more than just adding a footnote on the page. It demands that we be aware of the natural tendency of human societies to wear blinders that cause us not to see the other, that limits our own beneficence to those most like ourselves. While it is painful for us to find such deficient notions of God in our sacred texts, it is sobering to realize that despite our superior perspective, we are no less likely to continue to maintain, in practice even if not in theory, a sad inheritance: the tradition of exclusion.

-------------------------

* interestingly, in Zionist parlance, "getting your hands dirty" can carry positive connotations: "The Zionist ideal was for Jews to return to the land. This didn't simply mean living in the land to extend the rule of their home countries (as colonists did across the world), it meant returning to the land in a far more literal sense - actually farming it and getting their hands dirty in person". (); I recall hearing a member of Peace Now speaking proudly of armed self-defence as a rightful act of getting ones hands dirty.

Netivoteha Shalom on Re'eh: help complete the search for diamonds in Ir Hanidahat's rough

Mercifully (the parasha demands it) Short:

1. Sanhedrin 71a rules out the destruction of a Jewish city corrupted by idolatry when it declares:


עיר הנדחת לא היתה ולא עתידה להיות ולמה נכתבה? דרוש וקבל שכר


"Ir Hanidahat lo hayta v'lo atidah lihyot, v'lama nich't'va? drosh v'kabel sachar" ( v'idach, zil negotiate...)


2. God's promise to have mercy on Israel after they destroy the errant city (Deut. 13:18) is one of three verses that provide the basis for the statement in Yevamot 79a:

שלשה סימנים יש באומה זו: הרחמנים והביישנין וגומלי חסדים
רחמנים, דכתיב: ונתן לך רחמים ורחמך והרבך
ביישנין, דכתיב: בעבור תהיה יראתו על פניכם
גומלי חסדים, דכתיב: למען אשר יצוה את בניו ואת ביתו וגו

which establishes mercifulness, God-fearing bashfulness and generosity as Israelite/Jewish qualities

3. The passage in Yevamot deals with the story of David and the Gibeonites. I understand that Moshe Halbertal taught this sugya at the Hartman Institute a few weeks ago; does anyone have notes on his sessions?

Shabbat Shalom,

Jeremy Milgrom

Vaera 5767 -- The Theology of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach

Do you believe in miracles?

If you saw a mamash miracle, would it firm up your faith in God?

This week’s Torah reading, Va’era, is all about miracles. The poor abused Hebrew people – our spiritual and physical ancestors – were languishing in slavery in Mitzrayim, Egypt, the “straits” or a constrained place. A place that the Talmud calls the most impure of lands, the most distant from holiness because of their oppression and idol worship. And in this week’s Torah reading, God sets in motion the plan to bring that oppressed rag-tag lot of slaves into the Holy Land and turn them into a nation of priests. In our Torah reading for this week God brings one miracle after another – He turns all the water in Egypt red, he fills the whole country with frogs, even Pharaoh’s underwear according to the song. God brings on vermin, wild beasts, anthrax, boils, and hail. The big guns are saved for next week’s Torah portion, but that’s alright we have plenty of miracles in what we read this week.

A lot of modern, scientifically educated people have trouble taking this story literally. They have trouble believing in miracles. To them, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, Reb Shlomo, Neshama Carlebach’s Abba, would probably say “you don’t have enough imagination!”

Reb Shlomo taught “Everybody likes it when God does miracles for him. The question is, do you understand that you are a miracle, that your life is all miracles, that everything is a miracle? If you’re living on the level where miracles are part of your life, if your trust in God reaches the level of a miracle, then miracles will happen to you. If you’re not living life on that level, then miracles won’t happen to you.”

Or miracles will still happen to you, foolish you will just miss out on recognizing them. One of my favorite blessings is the blessing we say after using the bathroom—a blessing in which we praise God who created us in a miraculous and wondrous way with all these intricate parts that all work so precisely. I have it memorized and I say it every time I use the bathroom. Anyone who’s ever been constipated can certainly appreciate what a miracle it is when all your plumbing works properly!

I’m a second generation talmid of Reb Shlomo. I never had the zchut, the merit, to learn with Reb Shlomo myself. Sadly, he had already passed away by the time I got reconnected with Judaism after a lengthy time in the spiritual wilderness, which is really too bad since Reb Shlomo’s “House of Love and Prayer” in San Francisco was still around when I moved to the SF area. But I’ve learned a lot from his students, his words, and his music. Reb Mimi Feigelson was a student of Shlomo’s, and she was one of my teachers at UJ and at Yakar, an institute in Jerusalem that was heavily influenced by Reb Shlomo. I’ve also spent Shabbat at the “Carlebach Moshav” in Modi’in. One of the things Reb Mimi taught is that one requirement for everyone in rabbinical school is that they should find their rebbe. I don’t know if I’m a failure or an over-achiever – I’ve got lots of rebbes, Reb Mimi, Rebbe Dorff, Rebbe Shevitz, Rebbe Ezray, Rebbe Artson, Rebbe Heschel, Rebbe Nachman (Reb Shlomo taught everyone should have two rebbes, their personal rebbe and Rebbe Nachman who died almost 200 years ago), and I’d definitely include Reb Shlomo on my list of rebbes.

Reb Shlomo was a traditional maggid, a storyteller. He would tell traditional Hasidic stories with his own twist, and he would tell his own beautiful stories, some of them things that had happened to him, some of them ones that he made up as a metaphor. He never sat down and wrote a book of theology that described what he believed. Rather he dispensed theology in short verbal bursts as needed. Others listened, wrote them down, and collections of his stories are available in print and on the internet. Very much the same as with Rebbe Nachman, who would give amazing teachings on Shabbat, and his students would memorize them and write them down as soon as Shabbos was over.

You’d never know it from looking at my desk—the outside is not necessarily a clue to the inside—but intellectually I’m a compulsive organizer. I love picking up assorted stray facts I’ve accumulated and organizing them into some kind of coherence. Boil them down to a few bullet points I can remember. So what I thought I’d do this morning, in honor of Neshama Carlebach being here with us, is to try and do that with Reb Shlomo. What was Reb Shlomo’s theology? What are the key features of God and our relationship with God—and our relationship with each other, according to Reb Shlomo?

About five minutes into working on this project, I realized it was a sort of chutzpadik enterprise. I only know him second hand through his students, his recordings, and transcriptions of his stories. His very own daughter is going to be here, and I’m going to subject her to listening to my probably way off base analysis? Then I came across this teaching Reb Shlomo gave in Kislev of 5733: “What happens if I want to do something very holy very strong, and the whole world laughs at me? Then I must have holy chutzpa, azuz d’kdusha, holy arrogance.” So, if my enterprise seems a little chutzpadik, at least it’s holy chutzpa.

So here are the three bullet points that for me sum up a “theology of Reb Shlomo:”

• The world is powered by God’s love
• You have to believe
• You have to be you

We’ll look at each one of the three in turn. OK, so it’s not surprising that the founder of San Francisco’s “House of Love Prayer,” which opened in 1968, not long after the “Summer of Love,” a place that has been called the home of “Chasidic Hippies,” would talk about love a lot.

But Reb Shlomo’s love was much deeper than just the free-floating Age of Aquarius let’s all love one another. Reb Shlomo’s love is not JUST between people, although that’s important – it’s even more about the love between God and Mankind, and it’s deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition.
I’ve often taught that the world is powered by God. I tell people it’s like the sticker they might have on their computer that says “powered by Intel”—the world should have a sticker that says “powered by God.” But Reb Shlomo, I think, would take it another level, and the sticker would have a flower on it and it would say “powered by God’s love.”

Reb Shlomo taught “In Psalms it says, "G-d created the world with love." That doesn't mean that there is a world, and G-d loves the world. It means that G-d has so much love, that G-d had to create the world. Imagine some people just get together without loving each other, and then a baby is born. Why are they all so angry? Because they are missing the most important part -- you only create with love because G-d created the world with love.”

Even Yom Kippur – the day of Atonement, the day in which we are supposed to be trembling in our sneakers in shul, worried about which book we’re being sealed into, Reb Shlomo says is about love. The following is my retelling of Reb Mimi’s retelling of the story, so it might not be word for word the way Reb Shlomo taught it. A man named Moshe is riding a bus. On the bus he meets a woman, Shpritzele, and it’s “love at first sight,” he knows, for sure, that this is his beshert, his soul mate. The woman he has been looking for all his life. The 20 minutes on the bus are the most incredible he has ever had. They both have something else to do right now, but he writes down her phone number so he can call her later.

After getting back home, he reaches into his pocket to get the paper with the phone number and discovers a tragedy: the paper was cut, and he only has the first three of the seven numbers!

Heartbroken, he will not give up. He starts to call: 679-0000; 679-0001. He calls for hours. He is going crazy. Whenever he has a minute to spare he calls a few more numbers. “Shpritzele?” he always asks with hope. “Wrong number” the continual reply.

He is careless about parking his car. He pulls over, parks anywhere, gets out and tries another few numbers—this was before cell phones. He starts to receive a lot of parking tickets for parking in strange places.

Eventually, he has to go to court because of all these tickets. When he gets to the court, he is greatly surprised to see that the judge is his beloved Shpritzele.

How would you feel? Worried about the parking tickets? Or delighted to be together with your beloved, never mind that she’s a judge? Of course the love would way override the fear over the parking tickets. And that’s how we should feel on Yom Kippur, delighted, because this is the day we can come closest to the King, we can bask in God’s presence, never mind there’s a little judgment going on.

For Reb Shlomo, joy and love are both gifts from God, and they are related. He taught “If a person wants to know what level his joy is, it is very simple. If you feel one with the world, it is because you feel the oneness of G-d. So if you walk around and say you are filled with joy, but you can't stand people, it is not G-d joy.”

And love is the path to world peace – now there’s a 1960s world view, but it’s a beautiful world view, and it’s probably right. On the challenges of finding peace, Reb Shlomo said “The world would really like to have peace, but they don't know what it is, and they don't know how to get it. Imagine you go into a hardware store to buy ice cream. They won't have it, right? People would like to have peace, but they are always going to the wrong store. They talk to the wrong people about it.” So who are the right people? Peace doesn’t come through diplomats and negotiators, and certainly not through bombs. By Reb Shlomo, peace comes one person at a time: “I want you to know, every time one person yells at another person, you bring war into the world. And each time a person says words of love to another human being, he brings peace into the world.” He also said “The world needs happy people to speak joyously with each other. Then there is peace.”

Reb Shlomo was not dismayed that it seemed to be taking so long for peace to come to Israel. He said “You know friends, if you build a little bungalow, it doesn't take very long. But if you're planning to build Rockefeller Center, it takes very long. You know a lot of people are complaining, why doesn't Israel get its act together; why is it taking so long? So you know what we are saying... Gevaldt! What kind of house is G-d building if it takes so long? It must be an unbelievable house!”

And Israel is a house that needs to be built on love. Love is the antidote to hate. He quotes Yad HaK’tana who says “What do you do if you hate people for no reason, and you just can’t get out of it?” “The only way out,” Reb Shlomo advises, “is loving people for no reason. Just love, because love is a very holy fire that will drag out all the darkness of hatred.”

It’s no challenge to love people who are lovable. The real challenge is loving those who are difficult to love. In Poland, Reb Shlomo was asked how he could greet, shake hands with -- and even hug -- children of the perpetrators and even perpetrators themselves. Reb Shlomo answered, “If we had two hearts like we have two arms and two legs, then one heart could be used for love and the other one for hate. Since I have but one heart, then I don't have the luxury of hating anyone.”

Now some people look at the mitzvot, the commandments, like they are some kind of tax you have to pay for being Jewish. A burden to bear. Which as the wrong attitude. As Reb Shlomo describes, even the mitzvot are a reflection of God’s love: “We have 613 mitzvot, 613 laws. I don't like the word "laws," because they are not laws. The word law reminds you of police, some "straight" character sitting there telling you what to do. Very bad translation. Mitzva means that G-d gave us 613 ways to come close to Him. The ways are divided into two parts, 248 ways of reaching G-d by doing certain things, and 365 ways of reaching Him by not doing certain things. If there is a red light and I don't go, nothing happens, right? I just don't cross the street. However, if G-d's red light flashed and I stop when I have a chance to do wrong, then something happens inside me. Something happened to me; I walked a few steps higher.”

So how do we get to a world of love and peace? It takes belief. Now a lot of people have trouble accepting anything on faith, of relying on belief. But as Reb Shlomo shows, every single thing we know, even our intellectual capability to doubt, is built on a bedrock of belief. So Reb Shlomo taught “According to Chassidus the mother teaches the baby belief and the father teaches the baby truth. How do I know the truth? Unless I believe, I'll never get to the truth. Reb Nachman says the whole world is operating on the basis of belief. A child goes to school and the teacher teaches him the ABC, and the child completely believes the teacher. Imagine if the child would be an intellectual. "How do you know this A is an A and this B is a B?" Thank G-d we teach kids the alphabet while they still believe. The whole world is based on alphabets. The mother teaches the alphabet, which is the utmost of belief and the utmost of truth: this is really an alef, this really is a beit.”

Some people look at the stories in this week’s parsha, eight plagues, one more horrible and more miraculous and the next, and think, “if only I could see a miracle like that, then I’d really believe.” But the Midrash tells us that’s not so. After seeing all these miracles, and the two big miracles in next week’s parsha, darkness and the death of the first born, what do the people do when they get to the shore of the Red Sea? They stand there. They still didn’t have faith. They still didn’t believe God was going to take care of them. It wasn’t until Nachshon went in up to his neck – showing at least he believed – and the water started to part that everyone else was willing to move. Reb Shlomo teaches that because someone comes along and does some tricks we should believe him? He said “If I as a Jew need a miracle to show the world that I am chosen, that is depending on tricks. On the highest level, even G-d's miracles are tricks. True belief is much deeper than all that.”

It doesn’t mean Reb Shlomo didn’t believe in miracles – far from it. As I said in the beginning of this talk, if you don’t believe in miracles it means you don’t have enough imagination. Reb Shlomo taught “The holiness of the soul is really the holiness of imagination. What is a person who is really tied onto this world imagining? What is the whole thing of believing in the Messiah or not believing in the Messiah? It is a question of imagination, right? A person says, listen, I see the world. People believe in money, people believe in war. You will tell me that suddenly some day the Messiah is coming and on a donkey! - he'll blow a little trumpet, the whole world will come running, and everybody will say, ich ves, "Shalom Alehem!" It's crazy! It's a question of imagination. If you have good imagination why not? That's all there is to it. Why not?”

And everything – not just miracles – happens because of God’s plan. Reb Shlomo quotes the Baal Shem Tov who taught that “divine providence is so strong, whenever a wind blows, divine providence knows exactly where every leaf has to fall. Divine providence is on every leaf, knows exactly where this leaf has to fall. And this leaf has to fall there. So someone says to him, I can't believe that! Divine providence? G-d in heaven has plans for every little leaf? After a hurricane, where every leaf should fall? I can't believe that. The Ball Shem Tov says, you can't believe it? You don't want to believe it.” The rest of the story is the Baal Shem Tov gets a lesson on how it can be difficult to believe things even if you want to.

Now you might be tempted to argue, but what about free will? How can there be Divine Providence, everything planned by God, if there is free will throwing in an unpredictable variable all over the place?

Reb Shlomo responds by quoting the Chinuch. “The holy Chinuch says we believe in free choice. On one hand a person has free choice, so why get angry at somebody else? He has his free choice too, but on a higher level there is such a thing as divine providence. Despite my free choice of action, what somebody else does to me is my divine providence. What I do to you is completely free choice in my world, and I really shouldn't do anything wrong to you. If you do something wrong to me, in my world it was divine providence. In your world it was free choice, but in regard to me it was divine providence.” Which is another reason not to hold a grudge against other people – as Reb Shlomo points out, if you hold a grudge against someone, if you stay angry with someone, that means you don’t believe that it was God.

And Reb Shlomo teaches when you believe in God, nothing is impossible. After all, what’s too hard for God?

And this brings us to bullet point number three – you have to be you. It’s not enough to just believe in God – you also have to believe in yourself. Belief in God and belief in yourself are intimately connected. If your belief in God is strong, you won’t be afraid to be yourself. If your belief in God is shaky, you’ll be worried about pleasing other people all the time. Reb Shlomo quotes Rebbe Nachman: “He says the question is, are you G-d's servant, or people's servant? There is no in between. G-d says, "Look at yourself. What are you? You were my servant before. I gave you tough chutzpa to do right, and you prefer to listen to people. Okay, be a slave to them. Make up your mind who is your master." If you are G-d's servant, then you are the highest person in the world, because you know exactly what is right. if you know what is right, then you don't listen to anybody - just to what the soul of your soul tells you is right. When I lose my holy arrogance, then I am a slave to every shmendrik. The moment I am a slave to every shmendrik, I hate the shmendrik, because he is my master. Have you seen a slave loving his master?”

Not only that, he points out if you stick to your guns, the truth is people will like you better anyway. “If you have holy chutzpa, if you are strong enough to stand on you own two feet, nothing can bend you. Then the world really loves you. People mamash love you. If someone walks in with a yamulke, and everyone laughs at him, and he still wears it, they can keep on laughing. You know what the person who is laughing really thinks? "Gevalt! I respect him so much." If I wear a yarmulke and people say, "Take it off - this is not the place!" and I knock it off, people laughingly say, "Really a strong character, this person!" You know how people are? When you listen to them, they spit at you. When you don't listen to them, they love you. Craziest thing in the world!”

But who is this you that you need to be? As a Jew, Reb Shlomo would say you are both a part of an ancient tradition and a part of the world around you. He brings a great story about the lamed vav tzadikim, the 36 righteous people who support the world. Some of them were sitting around talking about the binding of Isaac, and one of them says I don’t see what was so great about Abraham’s test. If I heard God’s voice telling to sacrifice my son, wouldn’t I run right out and do it?” One of them answered, “Hah! Do you know why you would do it? Because you had a father Abraham who taught you to do it.”

We’re all part of that tradition – so how do we reconcile it with the modern world we live in? Reb Shlomo teaches it by analogy. “The Bible says Melki-Zedek greeted Abraham by offering him bread and wine. Our holy rabbis teach us wine, the older it gets, the better it tastes; bread is only good when it's fresh. The world needs both bread and wine, the world has such longing for new revelations, for new teachings, for new ideas, for new life. Yet, in the deepest depth, they are crying for old wine. Melki-Zedek, the high priest, tells Abraham, G-d's spokesman to the world, "If you want to bring G-d closer to the people and the people closer to G-d, you must know the secret of bread and wine, You have to know that when a person comes crying for bread, give him fresh bread. G-d has new things all the time. As we say in our prayers, G-d always renews the world. Abraham, you have to know that when people come crying for old wine, always have one drop of old wine for them. But, the deepest truth is G-d's word; anything which is holy, precious and beautiful, I knew yesterday.”

Now Reb Shlomo very definitely considered himself Orthodox all his life – but what he taught sounds very much like the “Tradition and Change” statement which is practically the motto of the Conservative movement. How do we manage to balance fidelity to tradition and halacha on the one hand with doing what’s right for us in this world?

Reb Shlomo and Reb Zalman Shachter-Shalomi, the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, were both early shlichim, emissaries, of the late Lubavticher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Both broke off from the Rebbe; Reb Zalman’s path allowed for a lot more halachic innovation, a lot more people choosing what work’s for them in the Reform model. Reb Shlomo remained committed to halacha but he was willing to meet people where they were, and that was why he split with the rebbe. The rebbe heard about the mixed crowds and so on at the concerts Reb Shlomo gave and he didn’t approve of such intermingling of the sexes. But Reb Shlomo saw that if wasn’t able to reach the kids where they were they would be lost – his attitude was if the patient is on life-support, you don’t worry about trimming their fingernails. Let’s get them off life-support first. Let’s bring their souls back into the Jewish orbit, then we can worry about the bringing them to the finer points of halacha.

Reb Shlomo was a big supporter of equality for women. He said “Women’s Liberation is a very holy thing.” But it wasn’t enough for Reb Shlomo that women should simply aspire to be like men. He said “What is equality? Do you want to be like a man, like a dopey man? There is no equality, because man doesn't have his place either. The whole world is degraded, and nobody has his place. G-d has no place in this world. Right now, before Messiah is coming, something is happening to the whole world. People will know where they are supposed to be. Woe to the woman who is equal to a man now, because the man is the biggest shmendrik in the world. What's so good about him? What's so good about being equal to a man who works like a dog and then comes home, watches television and snores?”

Equality does not mean being the same, and that’s as true on a large scale, among the different religions of the world as it is on a small scale, between individuals. Once upon a time, I thought being the same was the answer. I wrote a paper for a doctoral seminar in business school, a seminar about the interaction between business and society, where I came to the conclusion the world needed a new religion. I got an A+ for a paper called “Toward a New World Religion in the Next Period of History: An Initial Look at the Essential Elements.” I invented an epistemology, metaphysics and ethic. Now, of course, I think that’s a ridiculous idea. It simply shows how ignorant I was of my own religion. As Reb Shlomo taught, there’s no point in making a gefilte fish of the religions. He said “Thank G-d, the religions are getting together more and more, people are getting together. And I don't mean to make gefilte fish out of religions, which, sadly enough, hurts me a little bit. Some people think, let's make a gefilte fish out of all religions; everybody put a spoon in, and let's make a new soup. This is not what I am talking about. What's happening in the world is that everybody really wants to know: What do you think? What do you believe in?

“It doesn't mean that I have to change. If I see that somebody else has a beautiful nose, it doesn't mean that I have to take off his nose to put it on my face. He has his nose and I have my nose. I'm just looking at his nose and seeing that it is beautiful. You know, people have to realize that basically every religion is a revalation of G-d. All I can ask is, let me know a little bit of what G-d is revealing to you. But I have to do what G-d is revealing to me, because if I cut myself off from my own revelation, than again I'm not living up to G-d.”

So progress comes when we each find our real place in the world—both as individuals and as communities of religions, peoples, nations. As Reb Shlomo put it, “Everybody has a little brick for the Great Highway, and until everybody has put his or her stone in the right place, the Highway isn’t yet finished.” There’s no road for the Messiah until we each do that one piece, that one job, that we are uniquely qualified to do.

I’ll close with one final piece of advice from Reb Shlomo to all spiritual seekers, all who truly hunger for God. Reb Shlomo said “Full experiences of God can never be planned or achieved. They are spontaneous moments of grace, almost accidental." Bo Lozoff replied: "Rabbi, if God-realization is just accidental, why do we work so hard doing all these spiritual practices?" The answer: "To be as accident-prone as possible."

Shabbat Shalom

Reb Barry

Crossposted from Reb Barry's Blogspace

The next big idea?

The canonist commented recently about Gary Rosenblatt’s recent column, “In Search of the Next Big Jewish Idea.” His main thrust is that there won't be a next big Jewish idea... because there was never a big Jewish idea.
While the Jewish community remains deeply embedded in navel gazing, Jews are exiling themselves from Judaism. I commented briefly on this on Jewschool, pointing out that all the ink spilt, and all the blathering has not yet begun to address the real problem, which is that most Jews are indifferent to Judaism.
It's not that Judaism has nothing to offer, or even that Jews are too intellectually pure to be drawn in by a religion - lots of Jews are attracted to groups like Chabad, which feels authentic and warm, immigrants in Israel and Germany from Russia and former FSU states, are drawn in by fake Jews (i.e J4J etc types) - and if there isn't a stupider version of religion than that, I don't know what is.
No, the problem is that Judaism has gotten stuffy. It's not even the so-called legalism, after all, Reform and Reconstructionist movements don't have to deal with halakha if it isn't working for them, but they too are not succeding in drawing people in. Nope, the problem is that we're snobs.
I don't mean that we're intellectual snobs. The actual problem is that spirituality can't happen in a vacuum. It requires some foundation. In fact, any successful group requires some grounding.
1. There has to be a sense of safety for the participants.
This is a very basic need. If you want to be intimate with a person, you have to trust that they aren't going to betray you. This is true with a group as well; one has to know that when you open yourself to the group, the rules of the group will protect you. In a normal group this can be done in a lot of ways: one can sign a confidentiality agreement; one should make sure that the group starts on time; the moderator should know what the heck they're doing and be able to guide the group towards the ostensible goal.
All this also holds for a spiritual group. If you want people to come and participate, one has to make the space safe. While I don't love to indulge in psychobabble, this is a real problem for us. If it takes faith to open oneself towards another person, or towards a group, how much more it takes to open oneself to the infinite - even to reveal uncynically in this cynical culture we live in that one is willing to take the risk in having relationship with something that many people don't believe in at all - that takes a great risk. And yet, how do our synagogues foster this safety? As far as I can tell we don't.
The groups that - especially in "liberal" movements -come together largely don't know one another. They come to shul to participate in a project that they don't understand, that may not have any meaning for them, with people whom they only see in a setting in which they cannot engage with one another - they might as well be watching a movie for all the interaction they're having with one another. Maybe they'll chat and say hi briefly at the oneg afterwards. If they're lucky, they'll engage over religious school, or some other shul project, but by and large, our congregations don't congregate - we open ourselves to the infinite in a group of strangers, whom we don't know if they will support us, don't know if they even are working towards the same goals.
Moreover, where is our expert moderator? Rabbis in congregations should be willing to undergo that transport to the infinite as well. They should be able to express the emotion proper to the experience, whether it is tears, or laughter, joy or mourning. In truth, though, few of our rabbis do - at least not in any public setting. Our rabbis are trained to be speakers, not leaders. When was the last time you saw your rabbi break down in tears on Yom Kippur or Tisha B'av. And truthfully, deep down many of us don't want our rabbis to have those emotions - because then we might have to have them too. What would it be like to go to a shul where people got "out of control" like that - people laughing and singing with joy; crying, shaking with sorrow? For many of us reared in an intellectual and dry environment of "mumble your words and go home," having one's emotions public would be terribly frightening, and so if we saw a rabbi doing it they would automatically be labelled unprofessional.
I admit it - I wouldn't dare do it myself. Especially as a woman, it would mark me - I wouldn't be able to work, if I worked like that. But let's just suppose I found a congregation in which I was able to cry in front of the kahal and it wasn't the kiss of death. What would that be like? What kind of community might result? What kind of connection to God might we develop?

2. There's another problem, too. The rise of people attracted to what passes for mysticism these days doesn't really come out of a desire for a Jewish experience. As Americans, we're used to being able to act and live purely as individuals with no concern for the spiritual development of others. Chasidut has been, of recent, misread as the Jewish way to do this. It's not true of course, no more than the kabbalah center's magical nonsense has anything to do with kabbalah - or any other Jewish mysticism. Judaism is a challenge to our way of thinking as individuals - it requires us to live not as individuals who have rights, but as communities who have obligations. These living out of obligations have the outcome of giving those "rights," but they aren't the same thing because the emphasis is on my responsibility to see who else is around me and act to ensure that their needs are met, rather than focusing upon myself and demanding that what I am entitled to is provided. There is no entitled in Judaism, there is only obligation. Obligation builds relationship. Relationship opens us to God. Without obligation, we cannot have true Judaism.
So what do we do with the communities we are now building - the independant minyans that form around this age group, or that need, and disband when people are tired of them? Is it possible to redirect our desire to live traditionally and in joy towards a sense of obligation to support the comunity in a relatively traditional way; to support teachers to guide us (rabbis, in other words), to build mikvaot, to write Torahs, and to pay for all the infrastructures that a community needs to exist - and still to build that sense of immediacy and excitement. From where does that momentum come - but equally important, how do we get people to be truly intimate?
True intimacy does not exist where the relationship ends when it ceases to cause anxiety. Dating is fun, the sense of discovery of another; the heart pounding when they indicate their interest in you, too; the newness, the excitement. But high blood pressure only gets you so far - if all that one has is infatuation, it's an immature relationship, and it will end - no marriage will continue to be all highs - people get sick, they get older, they need to earn aliving, sometimes they have children, one needs to live in a world that requires us to be boring sometimes, to learn to tolerate the lack of novelty; part of maturity is to be able both to tolerate regularity and habit, and also to be able to induce excitement and novelty, without destroying the relationship, or going outside it to do so.
This is where we are not so good. We don't need to return to the days of supporting institutions without question, but we should be involved in constant growth, in faithfulness, in the intimacy of the every day. We don't just say brachot on Shabbat - that's not intimacy, it's infatuation.

Finally, we have to also turn our batei knesset into places where the kehila, the congregation, actually congregates. Why should our shuls be models of decorum? I'd rather daven in a shul where people are talking to each other, where the little children are running around yelling -is it hard to concentrate that way? Well, yes, to a certain extent - but if one is a regular, if one knows the service, it becomes less of a problem. And truthfully, a general hubbub can also be a source of quiet mind, if one uses it well.
I would like to see a shul where everything but the Kedushah and the Torah reading is interrupted for a person entering, that a few people will go up and say hello and chat with them, sit with the newcomer, show them more or less where we are in the siddur, offer to explain what that part of the service is about, ask after their kids - whether they know the people or not, whether they've ever been to the shul before or not.
In short, I imagine a shul where we're not so stuffy. Where people use their time there to connect to God, but also to connect to the people around them - even while we're praying.
A shul like that would have plenty of room for God. And more importantly, it would have plenty of room for us.