Turn it and turn it

Mahalat is the daughter of Ishmael whom Esau marries in an attempt to please his parents Isaac and Rebekah after the whole blessing fracas and the flight of Jacob. This "dvar torah" was actually written in 2007 when my congregation was studying the seventh aliyah. MAHALAT Pulling me by the hand, his smile confident and pleading at once – Esau brought me to his parents as a peace offering. Wounded and bewildered by Jacob’s betrayal he came to my father Ishmael, refuge of his family’s pain – my father – also the first-born, passed over by his father and his father’s God. Night after night I heard them thrashing it out by the fire – the anger, the hurt – my father’s assurance, “The pain will lessen, though the scars will never fade.” Esau looking up, our eyes meeting as I peer out at him from my mother’s tent – is his smile at a pretty girl the beginning of healing? No – he saw a bargaining counter – a channel back to his parents’ good graces. His thoughts ran thus: I marr

Looking at my description at the top of the page and my last few postings in particular, I sense a disconnect. It's not that I don't still care about those things I mentioned, but life seems a little "stale, flat and unprofitable" these days. So I thought that I would post my "confirmation" speech from 2004, the ending of which specifically talks about why we shouldn't allow ourselves to stop caring deeply and feeling strongly. I don't know, though - the life of "quiet desperation" may sometimes be harder to rise above than the kind of shattering experience I talked about in that speech. _________ B’Midbar – in the wilderness – is the name of the fourth book of the Torah, as well as of this week’s portion. This book covers most of the forty years that the children of Israel wandered between the Exodus and the entry into the Promised Land, with their ups and many, many downs, during which they are transformed from a motley crowd of former sl