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