Turn it and turn it

Toldot (Gen. 28:5-9)

2008-12-26T14:54:00.004-05:00

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 married Canaanite women. My parents were displeased.
Jacob, the favored one, was told to marry one of his mother’s kin.
If I marry one of my father’s kin, my father will favor me again.

It did not work.
The silence of his parents is like the chill wind on a desert night.
Rebecca’s hard eyes look through me as if I were made of smoke –
her beloved Jacob is gone,
and he is the only one she longs to see.
Isaac is a broken man, dying by inches.
The Canaanite wives despise me.
My husband’s wounded eyes accuse me – I did not make it better.
If this is the fruit of the covenant, I want no part of it.

But wait –my monthly courses no longer flow.
There will be a child, and now I must make it better or leave,
with my husband or without him,
for my child will not enter into this world of unhappiness and despair.

In the Wilderness

2008-07-21T12:19:00.001-04:00

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 slaves into a people worthy of a homeland.

It is no coincidence that so many of the world's spiritual and philosophical traditions place such an emphasis on the retreat or wilderness experience, although Judaism, as is its wont, is unusual if not unique in focusing on the experience of an entire community. From Elijah to the Buddha, from John the Baptist and Jesus to Thoreau, eliminating distractions and confronting the bare bones of life has been seen as essential to spiritual growth.

Like Egypt, however, the wilderness is not only or even usually a physical location. Many of us have gone through traumatic events or devastating periods of our lives in which our psychological and emotional defenses are stripped away and even God seems to have abandoned us. Eventually we have emerged on the other side, stronger if nowhere near being tzaddikim. “What does not destroy me makes me stronger,” wrote Nietzsche, who confronted enormous physical and emotional suffering and was, in the end, destroyed by it. We will never know how many others are destroyed, spiritually, mentally or physically, without leaving the testament that he and others have left.

I cannot claim to have come through anything like what so many others have endured, although to each of us at the time, our “wilderness” seems endless and unspeakably dark. However, at the end of 1997, six months after I celebrated my bat mitzvah, I lost my dearest friend after a short, unexpected illness. Since he was not a close relative, I did not even have the healing rituals of Jewish mourning to ease the transition, except for the Kaddish.

The next four months of what was probably clinical depression and then my own life-threatening physical illness constituted the darkest part of my personal wilderness. On the first night, for one of the only times in my life, I could not even imagine the presence of God. Many of us never find God in that “dark night of the soul”; we are alone, facing only ourselves, with all of our flaws and failures – and emptiness. For us, a sense of the Divine only appears upon our emergence, after we have “bottomed out.”

In my case, it was only near the end of a week-long nightmare of delusion and delirium, caused by medication, illness, emotional distress, or a combination of all three, that I felt an overwhelming sense of love in the cosmos. This was not a generalized, diffuse love, but a deeply personal one, mediated through my close relationship with Carl and what I was starting to perceive as a “benign conspiracy,” as opposed to the malevolent ones that I had been imagining before. It seemed that all those who cared about me were going through an elaborate masquerade designed to help me break out of the place where I felt trapped. The elements of this benign conspiracy, of course, were also part of the delusion, but the fact of it was not. The initial feeling did not last, of course, but I feel that it was transformative.

I do not know if those of us who enter this “wilderness,” which may include most or all of the human race, ever really leave it. Perhaps we only come to the edges and glimpse the Promised Land. Like the journey of the Israelites, our journey is fraught with backslidings, rebellions and returns; as Helen Keller wrote in speaking of conversion: “For a long time we resolve like angels, but drop back into the old matter-of-fact way of life, and do just as we did before, like mortals.”

Perhaps we should not leave the wilderness, even if we could. If we do, we should take part of it with us, as we do with slavery when we celebrate Pesach. To come through and survive is not enough if we end up shutting out feelings and relationships because we are afraid of going through the pain again. Pain is not only a warning symptom that something is wrong, but a necessary prerequisite to empathy. Some children are born with an inability to feel physical pain, and not only can they lose fingers and toes because cuts and scrapes that they cannot feel become infected; they can also have difficulty understanding the pain, physical and emotional, of others.

We must never allow this to happen to us. Of course we must have barriers; we could not bear the pain of the world without either going insane of becoming emotionally paralyzed. But the barriers must be porous. We can neither move on without looking back nor remain mired in the past, In a way we must live on both levels at once, and with its emphasis on remembrance and sensitivity to all suffering, as well as its concrete, this-worldly prescriptions for tikkun olam, repairing the world, Judaism can guide us on this difficult path.

May 22, 2004
Cross-posted on "Servant of the Secret Fire"

Korach

2006-07-16T01:22:00.000-04:00

Numbers 17:16-24

The test of Aaron’s and Moses’ favor with YHVH against the leaders of the second of the two (conflated) rebellions (Korach and his family having been swallowed up by the earth); the flowering of Aaron’s staff.

Sh'lakh l'kha

2006-07-16T01:19:00.000-04:00

Numbers 15:8-16

The rules of offerings in fulfillment of a vow or of well-being; an explicit instruction that resident aliens shall follow the same ritual, and that “you and the stranger shall be alike before YHWH.” This brought up some discussion of the immigration debate, the ominous attempts to change “citizenship by soil” to “citizenship by blood” and the bizarre insistence by the administration that non-citizens (including those who are here legally) are not covered by the Bill of Rights, which only refers to “the people,” “persons,” the “accused,” or in the case of the 8th Amendment is couched entirely in the passive case: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

B'ha-alot'kha

2006-07-16T01:07:00.000-04:00

Numbers 10:11-34

The Israelites’ “journeys from the wilderness of Sinai“; the order of march; Moses, evidently not having much faith in God to guide them, attempts to persuade his father-in-law (whose name now appears to be Hobab rather than Jethro or Reuel, although I still think it could be ”Hobab, who was the son of Reuel, who was Moses’ father-in-law,“ which would make him a brother-in-law and eliminate one of poor Jethro/Reuel’s names), to go with them. We talked a lot in our study session about the nature and behavior of the ”cloud.“

Naso

2006-07-16T00:56:00.000-04:00

Number 7:1-41

Back to the penalty box with me – I’ve been bad again, so the next few posts will be summaries. This was my bat mitzvah portion, so one would think I would have had something brilliant to say about it, but evidently we dealt with the fourth aliyah, which had all sorts of wonderful things in it, like the priestly blessing, the nazirite vow, etc.

The fifth aliyah, on the other hand, is about the consecration of the Tabernacle after its completion and includes, in mind-numbing and repetitive detail, a list of the tribal leaders and their offerings, at least through the fifth day.

Chag Sameach

2006-06-01T21:18:00.000-04:00

Shavuot begins tonight – have a good one if you celebrate it. Originally an agricultural festival celebrating the barley harvest and the bringing of the “first fruits” to the temple, it was historicized by the rabbis of the Talmud to commemorate the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai, fifty days after Passover. (The Christian analogue is Pentecost, which bears a similar relationship to Easter.) Traditionally, the book of Ruth is read on Shavuot. Not only is it set at the time of the barley harvest; it also chronicles the acceptance of the Jewish covenant with God by Ruth, a young Moabite woman who becomes the great-grandmother of King David and by extension an ancestress of the Messiah. It is believed to have been written as a rebuttal to the xenophobia that ran rampant after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile, when many of those who had remained behind and married non-Jewish women were forced to abandon them, along with their children. Shades of today’s immigration debate, a great deal of which is fueled by xenophobia, whatever legitimate concerns there may be.

B'midbar

2006-05-29T22:49:00.000-04:00

Num. 3:14-39

The beginning of a new book (Numbers). The recording of the Levites (males from the age of one month), the names and numbers of the different clans and their duties. I've got some ideas kicking around in my head about this one on how the various parts of the Tabernacle – the coverings, screen, curtains, etc; the ark and other utensils from the sanctuary; and the "infrastructure" – bars, posts, sockets, etc. – could be compared to the "parts" that make up a human being, e.g., our external appearance, our inner self, and I'm not sure what it would be best to compare the third part to. Just some thoughts to be going on with.

B'har/B'chukkotai

2006-05-29T22:45:00.000-04:00

Lev. 26:9-46

The end of the list of blessings which YHVH will bestow upon Israel if the people follow the commandments, as well as all of the curses, at least in this part of the Torah. There are more of both in Deuteronomy (D'varim).

Emor

2006-05-29T22:42:00.000-04:00

Lev. 23:23-32

Commandments regarding the observance of Rosh Hashanah (at this time only the first day of the seventh month - yes, the new year begins in the seventh month - don't ask) and Yom Kippur.

Acharei Mot/K'doshim

2006-05-29T22:29:00.000-04:00

Lev. 19:15-32

Once again, I have to admit I've fallen down on the job, so here are some basic outlines that can also serve as placeholders in case any brilliant thoughts occur to me.

This was a wonderful fifth aliyah, jam-packed full of commandments of all kinds, ranging from impartiality in judicial decisions to reverence for elders, and including the "Golden Rule" (Lev. 19:18), as well as the less obviously uplifting prohibitions on mixing species of both animals and cloth, communicating with the dead, and eating blood.

Tazria-Metzorah

2006-05-03T10:55:00.000-04:00

At the moment I’m not even going to try this one, rumored to be known as “the rabbinical students’ nightmare” – certainly the bar/bat mitzvah’s nightmare. I do have to say, though, that the fifth aliyah of the double portion – the reintegration of the former “leper” into the community – is much more palatable than the fifth aliyah of Tazria alone, which is solely to do with diagnosis.

Sh'mini

2006-04-17T00:35:00.000-04:00

Lev. 10:16-20

Earlier in this portion, Aaron's two eldest sons, Nadav and Abihu, attempted to offer "strange fire" before YHVH and, not to put too fine a point on it, were zapped. Moses has told Aaron and his remaining two sons that they are not allowed to mourn, but must "buck up" and get on with their duties. In the fifth aliyah, upon discovering that the sacrifices were not eaten, as they should have been, but burned, Moses once again upbraids them, this time for doing it wrong. Aaron objects on the basis that after what has happened to them, he and his sons are not in a position to expiate the sins of the people, of which we are told, "When Moses heard this, he approved."

It seems to me first that the ritual being carried out improperly is the natural consequence of Moses' refusal to let Aaron and his two younger sons mourn, and perhaps his own anger stems from his knowledge of this. It is also a weakness of concentrating the leadership of an institution in a small, tightly-knit family group. Family tragedies happen, and what is to be done if the entire family is incapacitated with grief? It may be partly a reflection of this realization that when Moses chooses his own successor he goes not only outside of his immediate family, but outside of his tribe.

Secondly, Aaron's point seems to be not so much that he is unable to perform the ritual, but that there is something about him and his remaining sons that makes them incapable of expiating the sins of the people, even if they had done it. Rabbi Judith Abrams talks about the exemption of mourners from certain duties in her first volume of Talmud commentary, and theorizes that the experience of death shatters a person's connection with God to the point that they cannot perform these mitzvot. How much more so must this be true in a case such as Aaron's, where the deaths happened in the course of the performance of these same duties? Aaron is correct, and Moses acknowledges this.

Tzav

2006-04-09T16:58:00.000-04:00

Lev. 8:14-21

This week we are reading about the inauguration of Aaron and his sons into the priesthood - the High Priesthood in Aaron’s case. The fifth aliyah concentrates on two of the sacrifices, a bull offered as a sin offering and the first of two rams, which is an olah, or a whole burnt offering. Blood is daubed or poured in various places, such as at the bottom of the altar and, in the sixth aliyah, on various parts of the new priests’ bodies. All in all, this is a very messy business, the thought of which makes today’s services look a lot better. One of the local non-Orthodox rabbis commented once that a lot of sincere Orthodox Jews whom he knew, although they prayed every day for the restoration of the Temple, really were not looking forward to this part.

What, then, can we learn from this ritual, which seems so alien to our modern, urban sensibilities? Most of us, while unwilling to give up meat, get squeamish even thinking about how that makes it into those relatively neat packages in the supermarket. I believe that the answer is, in good Reconstructionist tradition, looking at the function of the ritual and its message about what we should expect from our leadership.

First of all, the par ha-chatat, or “sin offering” is sacrificed. Interestingly enough, this is done after Aaron and his sons have been washed, clothed in the gorgeous vestments (particularly for the High Priest) that had been made, and anointed with oil.These men have got to be feeling like they are pretty hot stuff. Wait a minute - now they have to undergo a cleansing from sin? To me, this says that our leaders, whether secular or religious, need to maintain a sense of perspective and humility. They need to remember that for all the trappings of their offices, they can make mistakes, and that sometimes it may be necessary for them to publicly acknowledge their errors. A similar function was served in ancient Rome, when the victorious general, during his triumphal procession, is said to have been accompanied by a slave intoning into his ear, “Remember that you are mortal.”

The second offering, the ram that is totally consumed - unusual among sacrifices in that none of it is used or eaten, may offend us even more. What an utter waste! Isn’t this the equivalent of burning a $100 bill, especially in a society that didn’t always get enough protein? However, the message of the whole burnt offering can be read to say, “Look, God - we are not holding anything back. We are giving ourselves, heart and soul, to serving You.” This is also something that a leader should do. It is difficult to remember, as our news is crowded with politicians all seeking personal gain, weighing any action they take based on whether it will help them raise more money or get re-elected, but this is the basis of any real tradition of public service. Thank God, this tradition is not dead. The self-aggrandizers and abusers of power may get the coverage, but those who stand up for principle no matter how they may be smeared are still there, and they are the ones who will earn our gratitude, even if it is belatedly or never expressed, as so often happens.

Vayikra

2006-04-04T02:13:00.000-04:00

Lev. 4:1-26

Atoning for sins committed unwittingly - for the high priest, entire community, and chieftain, but not for a regular person. That is in the sixth aliyah.

Vayekhel-P'kudei

2006-04-04T02:10:00.000-04:00

Ex. 39:2-21

A detailed description of the making of the High Priest’s ephod and breastpiece.

Ki Tissa

2006-04-04T02:07:00.000-04:00

Ex. 34:1-9

The carving of the second set of tablets after Moses broke the first set, and after his and God’s little “tiff” about whether or not God should exterminate the Israelites then and there. This aliyah also contains the “Thirteen Attributes” of God, which are chanted before the open Ark on holidays.

T'tzavveh

2006-04-04T02:04:00.000-04:00

Ex. 29:19-37

Continuation of detailed instructions for the ordination of Aaron and his sons as High Priest and not-so-high priests, respectively, starting with the sacrifice of the second ram. I’m sure there’s a wonderful d’var torah in that division, if I can only figure out what it is.

T'rumah

2006-04-04T02:01:00.000-04:00

Ex. 26:31-37

Specifications for the curtain that goes in front of the Ark of the Covenant, instructions for assembly, and the screen for the entrance to the “Tent” (of Meeting?).

Mishpatim

2006-04-04T01:57:00.000-04:00

Ex. 23:6-19

Some commandments that Jack Abramoff should really have read, about bribery, subverting the rights of the needy, and oppressing strangers, although of course the people he was involved in oppressing were here first and might consider him the stranger. The sabbatical year, Shabbat, Passover, Shavuot and, for the first time, that vexing “thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”

Yitro

2006-04-04T01:52:00.000-04:00

Ex. 19:7-19

This is the big sound and light show on Sinai. Before that, however, Moses goes back and forth between God and the people, acting as messenger-boy, as it were, although it’s not clear exactly why God needs someone to tell Him what the people said.

B'shallah

2006-04-04T01:48:00.000-04:00

Ex. 15:27-16:10

In the fifth aliyah for this portion the Israelites come to (and leave) the oasis of Elim and set out into the desert, where they begin to have second thoughts about leaving Egypt. God, needless to say, gets really annoyed. Neither God nor Moses seems to be cut out for this job, both having notoriously short tempers.

Back to the salt mines, I hope

2006-04-04T01:46:00.000-04:00

Well, we’re actually into Leviticus now, but I thought that what I would do was at least to post the names of the portions in between and the verses that we’ve been concentrating on, and maybe if I come up with something brilliant I can just add to that post.

Apology

2006-02-22T02:07:00.000-05:00

For anyone who may be checking out this blog for new material, I have to apologize. I'd set myself an "assignment" of writing something on the Torah portion every week, but the creative juices just haven't been flowing lately. I hope to be able to get back into the swing of things eventually, either with previous portions that I've missed or with future ones. Please check back occasionally.

Bo

2006-02-22T02:03:00.000-05:00

Ex. 12:21-28

..you shall say, “It is the passover sacrifice of YHVH, because He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but saved our houses. The people then bowed low in homage.”
- Ex. 12:27

This is the first of the four places in the Torah in which the Israelites are told by Moses to tell their children about the Passover experience, but there is a jarring difference between this passage and the one that is the most familiar to us. (Ex. 13:8: “It is because of what YHVH did for me when I went free from Egypt.”) Why the difference?

It is on the basis of the second verse that Jews of today are told that we should feel that we, too, were slaves in Egypt, but the words of the verse in our aliyah make it sound as if the whole thing happened to someone else, not even the ones who are to tell of it from firsthand experience. To be sure, there is the word “our” in “our houses,” but it sounds very generic and feeble compared to the power of the later statement.

An obvious difference is that, as of 8:21, the Israelites, including Moses, have not yet experienced the Passover event; it is not real even to them. How, then, can we make it real to ourselves? One simple yet powerful way is to use our own imaginations. Another, which takes more direct action, is to learn about contemporary situations which are similar and, for those people who still struggle under oppression, work to bring them the liberation that we experienced so long ago. Find firsthand accounts of the ending of American slavery or the Freedom Marches; think of what you were doing when you heard of the fall of the Soviet Union; work for those in Darfur, Tibet or any of a dozen other places who are still waiting for the angel to pass over their houses, and you may feel the beat of his wings.

Va-era

2006-01-29T23:55:00.000-05:00

Ex. 8:7-18 (Oops, I originally had Genesis - sorry.)

“But on that day I will set apart the region of Goshen, where My people dwell, so that no swarms of insects shall be there, that you may know that I YHVH am in the midst of the land.”
- Ex. 8:18

This verse is traditionally understood to mean that the Israelites were spared from suffering the effects of the last nine plagues, but we know that in the real world this is not so. Rebelling against oppression is not easy; in fact, it is more likely to make things worse for those who seek justice. Unfortunately, the story of the Israelite slaves being forced to hunt for their own straw and still turn in the same quota of bricks every day is much more true to life. Dissidents and rebels are smeared, ridiculed, ostracized and worse, even when their hearts are pure and their causes are just.

How, then, can this story speak to us in the modern world, where God does not protect the oppressed with miracles? I believe that the answer lies within the human spirit. There are many points in every revolution of this sort when the rebels can do one of three things: give up, become a mirror image of what they fight against, or persevere and remain true to their cause. There comes a time, perhaps a separate time for each participant who perseveres, when they are “set apart,” when the suffering, while it never ceases to affect them, does cease to matter in the face of what they are struggling for. When the marchers in the Civil Rights Era braved fire hoses and dogs, when the refuseniks in the Soviet Union went to prison, they knew that God was not going to magically protect them from harm, but they stood up for what they believed anyway. Their region of Goshen was within, and God was the Power that succored them there.

Quick thoughts on Sh'mot

2006-01-25T04:20:00.000-05:00

Exodus 3:16-4:17

The main thing that jumped out at me about this aliyah is the fact that, for all that God is supposed to be angry at Moses for lack of faith in the people, it really seems to me that God is the one who lacks faith. He tells Moses that if “they do not believe you or pay heed to the first sign (turning the rod into a snake), they will believe the second (the hand in the robe turning leprous). And if they are not convinced by both these signs and still do not heed you,” then Moses is to do the Nile-into-blood trick, although only with some water on the ground, not the whole river, which is much more impressive.

As for the reason why Moses is doing “Egyptian magic tricks,” which came up in our beit midrash last week, obviously he has to show the Hebrews that he can meet their oppressors on their own turf, as it were. Also, as someone else pointed out, the Hebrews have been part of that culture for quite a while, if not necessarily 400 years, so it makes sense that they would be impressed by the same things.

Va-yeishev

2005-12-28T14:26:00.000-05:00

Gen. 39:1-6

This very short aliyah, highlighting the rise of Joseph in Potiphar’s household after his sale into Egypt, ends with the statement that “Joseph was well built and handsome.” Generally the assertion is considered to be an introduction to the following episode, in which Potiphar’s wife attempts to seduce her husband’s good-looking young slave, but if that were so, it would make more sense at the beginning of the next aliyah. The present division seems to imply that Joseph’s appearance has something to do with his high status in the eyes of his master as well.

Despite centuries, possibly millennia, of admonitions from parents to children that “handsome is as handsome does,” and “You can’t tell a book by its cover,” modern studies show that good looks are still an advantage in everything from hiring to sentencing. It has even been suggested that we are biologically programmed to prefer a more symmetrical appearance as a sign of healthy genes in a possible mate.

Interestingly, especially in the light of the former argument, the same words that are used of Joseph are also used in describing his mother, Rachel. In their bald statement, “Leah had weak eyes; Rachel was shapely and beautiful,” the authors are setting up the reader to share the preference of Jacob for Rachel and his contempt for Leah. Remember, “Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses,” no matter how many sons they bear.

Midrash notwithstanding, in the actual text of the Torah Rachel cannot take credit for a single praiseworthy act; neither, of course, can Leah, but considering our biases, we somehow expect more from Rachel. At least Rebecca shows hospitality to Abraham’s servant and a superhuman kindness to animals in watering all of his camels, and, although we are told that she is beautiful, it is her actions that are the critical test of her suitability to be Isaac’s wife, not her looks.

Joseph, at least up to this point in the narrative, and arguably afterward, is like his mother in showing little promise of becoming a mensch. Although after the episode with Potiphar’s wife, he shows some sensitivity in noticing that his fellow prisoners are downcast by their troubling dreams, most of his later behavior is not particularly edifying.

On the other hand, we are told nothing of Judah’s looks, and as the fourth son of the despised Leah, his prospects are not promising. He also comes off badly compared to Joseph in his relations (in more than one sense) with his daughter-in-law Tamar in the episode recounted just before this aliyah. However, unlike his younger brother, he seems to undergo a true process of teshuvah, and despite paternal preference and Joseph’s natural charisma, it is Judah who becomes the ancestor of King David and, by extension, the Messiah, as well as the eponymous ancestor of the Jewish people.

L'shalom -

Va-yishlach

2005-12-26T14:27:00.000-05:00

Gen. 34:1-35:12

Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and was buried under the oak below Bethel; so it was named Allon-bacuth. - Gen. 35:8

I have lived a long life and seen three generations of my young mistress’ family grow to adulthood, but never have I been so grieved and ashamed as I have been by the actions of her grandsons Simeon and Levi. And the howls of despair and grief that come from the women’s tent as my youngest lady, Dinah, bewails her lost husband, are enough to break this old heart in two. The young fools! If she had been taken unwillingly, at least their sister would have been an honored wife, mistress of a household – and what is left for her now? But young men do not think of these things when their blood is up and their honor is wounded.

How I remember my first nursling, young Rebecca, running breathlessly home, her eyes alight with excitement and the bracelets that Abraham’s manservant had given her jangling about her wrists. Her brother Laban was no prize, but what if he had taken offense and slaughtered Eliezer and his party? I was not there when Jacob arrived in Paddan-Aram, but I can imagine Rachel, too, blushing and laughing after being thoroughly kissed in public by her normally cautious cousin. Her brothers, too, could easily have brought this story to a bloody and premature end.

And I must wonder, is that incident, so well known to the boys, one source of this unwarranted violence? The gods know, for all Rachel's beauty and charm, they have never forgiven her for being better loved than their more decorous mother. If they saw her behavior as unseemly, might they not have felt that she influenced their sister and, horrible as it is to think, might the brutal slaughter at Shechem not have been a reflection of their feelings toward their own father?

In the meantime, the women of Israel and those of Shechem, now united in the sorrow of our sister Dinah, are incidental casualties of these battles between men.

Va-yetzei

2005-12-26T14:21:00.000-05:00

Gen. 30:28-31:16

When Jacob decides to leave Laban and return to his ancestral land, he tells Leah and Rachel that Laban “has cheated me, changing my wages time and again.” But is this accusation a just one, borne out by the facts of the case as provided in the text?

Jacob’s main complaint is presumably Laban’s substitution of Leah for Rachel, but while his intent was obviously deceptive, Laban could certainly claim (along with many modern politicians) that his response to Jacob’s request was “legally accurate.” “Better that I give her to you than that I should give her to an outsider. Stay with me,” is, in the words of Etz Hayim, “a statement of consummate ambiguity naively accepted by Jacob as a binding commitment,” and Laban did, indeed, eventually allow Jacob to marry Rachel. Perhaps Jacob, whose previous experience in deception consisted of outright lies like “I am Esau, your firstborn,” can be forgiven for missing the subtlety in his uncle’s more sophisticated technique. However, Laban does not seem so different from the younger man who hastened out to meet Abraham’s servant only upon seeing evidence of his kinsman’s great wealth; it is hard to imagine that Rebecca told her favorite son nothing of her brother’s personality during those cozy years in the tents.

The only other time that wages are discussed is in the story told in our aliyah, that of the division of the flocks according to their markings, and in that incident there is more than enough discredit to go around. Laban and Jacob first attempt to outdo each other in a ritual of politeness worthy of Chip and Dale. Then Laban eagerly accepts Jacob’s specification of “wages,” believing that he is pulling another fast one on his gullible son-in-law. Perhaps this is the point at which the relationship could have been salvaged, if Laban had, perhaps out of his feeling for his daughters, overcome his own insatiable greed and protested that the division was not fair. If Jacob expected anything like this to happen after fourteen years he was certainly optimistic, if nothing else. If not, he had no reason to complain, especially since he had his own plan to turn the tables on his wily uncle.

Perhaps, however, even if he did want Laban to do the right thing, Jacob was equally at fault for setting the test and then feeling betrayed when the older man failed it. Perhaps the correct thing to do would have been to end the power games and unequivocally ask for the wages he felt he was entitled to, demanding that his father-in-law show equal candor. Unfortunately, this may have been as foreign to Jacob’s personality as honesty was to Laban’s, in which case there was no other way their relationship could have played out.

Tol'dot

2005-12-22T02:20:00.000-05:00

Gen. 26:30-27:27

REBECCA: Foolish old man! Thank God he has a healthy appetite for game, even in his old age. He provided me with the perfect opportunity to prevent the disaster that would come if he allowed his doting love for Esau to blind him to reality. I had the idea of substituting Jacob for his brother when it first became obvious that Isaac could not tell one son from the other in the dim light inside the tent, but the problem had always been how to make the switch. Now Isaac himself had solved it for me.

Please don’t think that I don’t love my older son, but he is a simple, uncomplicated man who acts on a whim, definitely not suited for the responsibilities that should by custom fall upon him as the eldest. Jacob, on the other hand, takes after me and my brother Laban. Even his hesitation came more from his fear of being caught than from any scruples about what I was asking of him. He feared appearing as a trickster to his father, not being one. On my side of the family, we always consider our own self-interest, even when acting for the greater good.

JACOB: All I could think was that my mother had gone mad. How could my father possibly mistake me for Esau, whom he loved so much? Yet he did, although there were a few times I was sure he had seen through the ruse. Esau wasn’t the only one whose sweat was on those furs by the time I was done! I was almost giddy with glee and relief when I emerged and gave my mother the signal that we had succeeded. The next thing I knew, I was being bundled unceremoniously out of the camp and sent on a long visit to Uncle Laban, beside whom I was an innocent babe when it came to manipulation.

ESAU: Maybe I should not have sold the birthright, but what right did my brother have to take advantage of my weaknesses? I would not have done it to him! And the Hittite women – my mother didn’t like them, but would she have liked my cousins Rachel and Leah any better if she had had to live with them? My mother was a queen in our encampment and would tolerate no rivals. I often thought it was a good thing that Sarah was already dead when Rebecca came to marry my father, or there would have been war between those two proud women. And my mother might have been the loser, too!

My sense of betrayal, when I arrived at my father’s side with the stew he had asked for and found that he had given my blessing to my brother, was like a physical blow to the gut. That he had not known me, that Jacob had been able to fool him with my clothing and skins on his hands, was the cruelest part, even more than the loss of the blessing. My howl was more of pain than of rage.

Later I came to see what happened as being for the best, as I was the one who stayed with my parents and cared for them into their old age, a blessing that my brother forfeited. The price that Rebecca paid, although she may have thought the gain worth it, was that she never saw Jacob again.

ISAAC: It was becoming obvious, even to my dimmed eyes, that Esau was not the one to carry on my legacy. First there was the incident with the birthright; oh, yes, I heard about that one! The servants laughed about it for days, how clever Jacob had taken advantage of his brother’s impulsive nature, but to me it showed how cheaply Esau held what I had almost died for. Then there were the wives, with their airs and their lack of respect for us and our ways.

So, when I felt my mortality coming upon me, I sent Esau out to hunt me some game and make me a stew, promising to give him my blessing when he returned. It was now up to God, and to Rebecca, who always believed that God helps those who help themselves. I knew she was listening; she is not so silent as she thinks she is, especially to one whose hearing is heightened in the absence of vision.

The skins were a lovely touch, though; they confused me momentarily.

Chaye Sarah

2005-12-22T02:05:00.000-05:00

Gen. 24:53-67

After that unnerving, dream-like experience with my father and the subsequent death of my mother, I fled. I could no longer bear the burden of being the focus of all his impossible expectations – that strange, God-touched man, my father.

And where did I go? I sought out my brother, Ishmael, whom I had not seen since I was a child. I barely remembered him, but in those memories he was a huge, god-like figure, strong and outgoing with a booming laugh that seemed to make the earth vibrate under my feet. I found him at Beer-lahai-roi, where his mother had first heard the voice of God – one more thing for which my mother had never forgiven her.

He was still the same, large and hairy and smelling of the outdoors, and he welcomed me with tears in his eyes and a bone-crushing hug. We spoke about the abandonment we had both suffered at the hands of our father, and how he had come to terms with it. Expansive in his feelings as well as his gestures, he had long ago forgiven Abraham, and had been in contact with him over the years. Yet he had not felt that he could get in touch with me.

“How was I to know what Sarah had told you?” he said sadly. “You were so young. I was tickling you and roughhousing with you, throwing you in the air, and you were squealing with delight. Perhaps she could not bear seeing us friends, or perhaps she really was afraid that I would hurt you.” I could only shake my head. Her bitterness had remained unabated, except maybe at the end, when she had stood in Hagar’s shoes, facing the death of her only child.

“Do you think that was why he did it?” I asked. “So that she would know what he and Hagar had felt, when she insisted that he cast you out?”

He did not think so. Abraham was utterly serious about his God, and would never use Him as an excuse for petty revenge. “There may have been an element of it, though, and of justice. Abraham and his God are both obsessed with justice.” However, his mother had lived many years, and I still suspected that the terror Sarah had felt had contributed to her death.

I returned home, however, more at peace than I had been for many months. On the first day afterward I was walking in the fields, my heart still aching for all the pain my family had put itself through, when I beheld a procession coming towards me. My father’s old servant, Eliezer, hastened up to me and presented a veiled woman to me as my cousin Rivkah, who was to be my bride. I could see her eyes sparkling at me behind the veil, and her voice, low and musical, reminded me of my mother’s. My heart lifted. This would be a new beginning. We would never tear the family asunder with jealousy and favoritism, as my parents had done.

Va-yera

2005-12-22T02:01:00.000-05:00

Gen. 21:5-21

With the last of my strength I flung my beloved child the last few feet into the only shade available, and moved slowly, feebly, like an old woman, to sit down and give way to despair. My eyes were dazzled by sun and sand, my skin blistering, and my lips and throat were parched. It seemed like hours ago that I had forced the last of the water down Ishmael’s throat, and now he moaned and tossed in a delirium that I could not bear to witness.

How could Abraham have done this to us - to his firstborn son, at least, however little he thought of me? Yet his eyes had borne a stricken look as he placed the supplies on my back, and there had been tenderness in the hand that brushed a stray lock of hair out of my eyes. As he bent over me, he had whispered some hurried instructions to the nearest oasis, but I had either misunderstood or made a wrong turning, an error we would pay for with our lives.

If only I had never gone back to Sarah! I had been deceived; it had been no divine being but a demon who had made such dazzling promises on that day when, out of fear and despair, I had run away from my mistress. My bones and Ishmael’s would whiten in the blazing sun, and only Isaac would father the great nation Abraham’s God had promised him. I slumped on the ground, sunk in my misery.

Ishmael gave another moan, and it was as if the voice which had spoken to me before spoke once again. In the deathly quiet around us, I heard a blessed sound, a tiny splash as some desert creature landed in water. Lifting up my eyes, I looked desperately around, trying to place the sound, and found it at last, only a few feet away from where I was lying. El-Roi had not lied to me after all, and I knelt by the spring to fill the waterskin, babbling thanks and apologies as my laughter mingled with my tears, and my tears with the water of life

Lekh L'kha

2005-12-21T02:40:00.000-05:00

Gen. 14:18-15:6

After the battle of the five kings against the four and the rescue of his nephew Lot, Abram lay in his tent, sleepless. Instead of the elation of victory, he felt a strange emptiness.

Not so strange, really, he thought. This day had seen the end of a dream, with none to replace it. Even after they had parted in the wake of their herders’ wranglings, he had believed that Lot would be his heir if he and Sarah had no son, which seemed increasingly likely.

Now, however, the breach between them was complete, and although Lot was a decent man, there was a fundamental flaw in his character. Abram had already known this, deep in his heart, when he had offered his nephew the choice of which land he would take and Lot, like a greedy child, had grabbed at the most attractive parcel as if it were a sparkling toy. A serious, thoughtful man, a potential leader, would have deferred to his elder, or at least consulted with him.

And yesterday, when they had burst into the encampment where Lot and his family were being held prisoner, Abram had seen the burning humiliation on the younger man’s face and the impotent fury in his eyes, and knew what he was thinking. Even when I go off on my own, my uncle still has to come in person to rescue me.

He acknowledged to himself that he should not have gone, should have let some of the other men free Lot, so that they could have met again as equals, not as a warrior freeing a hostage. Lot had spent his entire life trying to live up to his uncle’s reputation, and could not forgive Abram for the fact that he had failed. “If you should come before God, nephew,” Abram had told him once, “you will not be asked why you were not Abram. You will be asked why you were not Lot.”

No, Lot would not carry on his legacy. That task must go to his trusted servant, Eliezer, although that thought too disturbed him. Could a man be too selfless? A good man, the perfect servant, would not necessarily make a good leader. Decisiveness and a certain amount of self-interest, perhaps even ruthlessness at times, were called for, and he saw no sign of these things in Eliezer.

“After these things, the word of YHVH came to Abraham in a vision…”

Noah

2005-12-21T02:33:00.000-05:00

Gen. 9:8-17

In a sense, the fifth aliyah of this parashah is a recapitulation of creation, but with a difference. While God did indeed create the world and everything in it at the beginning of Bereshit, the only divine interaction with human beings and animals comes in the form of commands, to “be fruitful and multiply” and in Chapter 2 for Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.

This may be likened to a parent who provides everything for her child but does not communicate with him, except in the most basic sense of telling him what to do and punishing him when he disobeys. This parent has not made, and shown herself to have made, an unconditional emotional investment. Perhaps she has unreasonable expectations of perfection in the child. Then a tragedy happens, perhaps brought on by the actions of the parent herself, and she realizes her child does not have to be perfect; she loves him just the same.

After the flood God is in this position, at last recognizing that the contradictory creatures She has made are not going to do what they are expected to do, and accepts the situation. After laying down the basics of a human-centered system of justice, God makes an unconditional emotional commitment, not just to humanity but to all living creatures. The word b’rit is used seven times in this aliyah; this is surely not a coincidence. The fact that we divide the rainbow into seven colors, and its modern symbolic value of harmonious diversity, are only beautiful elaborations on this point.

Bereshit

2005-12-21T02:28:00.000-05:00

Gen. 4:19-26

It could be argued that the listing of Lamech’s four children by his two wives, and their crediting as “ancestors” of those who practice various callings, is ultimately meaningless. Even if their children intermarried with the descendants of Seth, in the end, through the bottleneck of Noah, they would still be the ancestors of all human beings.

However, perhaps this is the meaning that can be found in the passage. Although throughout history there have been clans and guilds that have restricted certain trades to their own members, and even talents such as music that seem to have a genetic component, there is no “natural” reason why an aptitude should not show up in any given individual, regardless of bloodline. Indeed, even if these men, and one woman, who according to the midrash was a singer, had no blood descendants, as the originators of their callings they are the ancestors of all who followed them. As the Talmud points out, a teacher is, in a sense, a parent to his or her students.

Another aspect of this genealogy that drives home the idea that biology is not destiny is the fact that these are said to be the descendants of Cain, the first murderer, who was cursed by God. Even their father Lamech is known for nothing but his song of vengeance and perhaps as the first polygamist. Yet this bloodline makes considerable contributions to human civilization. Cain himself does so in his founding of the first city, although even today cities are seen as a mixed blessing at best!

Finally, the midrash brings the descendants of Cain and those of Seth together at the end of this first period of primeval history by making Naamah the wife of Noah, thus making all of humanity one family, as it was at the beginning.