"I dreamed a dream" - Dvar Torah: Vayeshev

Dream-marks

Vayeshev 2012/5773

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

With Les Miserables on the way, again, toward the silver screen, I imagine that the songs like “I dreamed a dream” will be back in our mouths and in our ears.  “I dreamed a dream” is a powerful song with a powerful message, a message of hope with a reality that hope may be left unfulfilled.  Fantine’s daughter Cosette will one day live a better life, but for the moment she does not know it and has no reason to expect it. 

When Joseph ends up in jail on Potiphar’s estate,  I imagine him in the same situation.  He was living the life of promise as head servant in the household, and now he loses his freedom again, now he is thrown into the jail, also called ‘the pit’, again – remember that his brothers toss him into a pit before they sell him as a slave.  At this point, while he gets notice and responsibility in the jail, his only potential help – the cupbearer’s good word to Pharaoh – does not happen and he remains in the ‘pit’.  The cupbearer forgets about him, chooses to forget, in the same way a new Pharaoh will one day also ‘not know Joseph’.

The future seems to be bleak, and this is the moment where the parsha ends.  A cliff-hanger.

Is the cupbearer behaving in an unethical manner by not advocating for Joseph who was his fellow prisoner, who shared with the cupbearer the prophecy that he would return to his post?

Avishai Margalit argues that there is an ethics of memory.  “One’s remembering a person now,” he writes, “is a strong indication that one cared at the time, at the very least, if not still.  If the cupbearer has forgotten Joseph, then we the readers of the story across the centuries begin to feel that he does not care for Joseph.  And our Jewish thinkers teach us that the cupbearer does not mention Joseph to Pharaoh at the time, and so, as time goes by the memory begins to fade as he returns to routine and Joseph continues to languish in jail.

Let’s give the cupbearer the benefit of the doubt.  He is just out of jail and does not want to ask for something right after he has received Pharaoh’s kind pardon.  Can we excuse, though, the forgetfulness afterwards? – the forgetfulness that he only overcomes when Pharaoh himself is in need of dream interpretation. 

Clearly, dreams in the Joseph stories leave marks both on the dreamer and those around him.  They dictate fate but not the way that the characters negotiate the events that they experience along the way.  And those marks that the dreams leave cause the cupbearer and Joseph’s brothers to have revelations that reflect back their own flaws as well as their teshuvah, their maturation and newfound awareness of responsibility.

As we get ready to celebrate Chanukah, the Les Miserables story of protest and a search for a more perfect freedom, the story of a parent who wishes a better future for his children, echoes for us in the stories of the Matitayu and his sons, the Maccabees, our ancestors in Israel.  They decided to keep the memory-marks of living under foreign rule in their hearts for inspiration so they would not forget their connections to their identity.  They believe that the ethics of memory demands a revolutionary response, that just as God remembers us when we cry out from slavery in Egypt, God will guide the people of Israel when we, the descendants of the Maccabees, continue to agitate for freedom, for respect, for the tradition that shapes us and that we have the privilege to continue to shape.

As the Zionist thinker AD Gordon once said, “Light will never defeat the darkness until we understand the simple truth, that instead of fighting the darkness, me must increase the light.”

Tomorrow night when we light the candles, let us look within to find the strength and courage that are the both the real gifts and the challenges of Chanukah.

Shabbat Shalom.

Post-Jewish Holidays Fatigue

Shabbat Braysheet 5773/2012

“Holiday Fatigue”

Rabbi Neil A. Tow ©

Slichot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Intermediate days of Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah

The fall holiday line up is full to overflowing.  It is an extraordinary time of self-reflection, re-connection to nature, family time, singing, praying, remembering, eating, building – deconstructing…

In all, between the holidays and weekdays in between required for preparation, some 3 weeks of sacred time that feels like a non-stop flight of hectic and haimishe holiness all in one.

Doctors and Rabbis in the US and Israel refer to the post-holiday feeling as ‘holiday fatigue’ – not an official term yet, but hopefully there will be an article in the American Medical Association journal soon.

There is a feeling, every year, that once the major fall holidays have passed that both individuals and Jewish communities feel exhausted, worn out, and cannot focus on upcoming events for a period of time until everyone has taken a deep breath and returned to routine.

This holiday fatigue has a mirror image as we pick up with the beginnings of the Noah story. 

God does not have holiday fatigue, rather, humanity fatigue is the condition.  God’s heart is hurting as God observes that human beings are evil from birth, that there is no good in them, except in Noach.  God regrets creating human beings and makes a plan to wipe out all humanity --- except for Noah and his family.

God has watched generations of humanity be born, live, and die, and we conclude that God’s decision comes as a result of observation, and our great thinkers like Chizkuni remind us that God did not create people knowing they would be lifelong sinners, since fear of God is not in the hands of God as the Talmud teaches, it is in human hands.

God holds off on the decision to wipe out humanity until fatigue appears to set in, until there appears to be no other choice, and no one to advocate for humanity either.

Our holiday fatigue is less consequential when compared to ending one stage of creation and re-creating the world, but we should not minimize either the positive feelings from the holidays or the holiday fatigue that we and our community may feel.

The fact that we feel something in the first place is crucial.  Good fatigue comes with intentional and meaningful activity.  We are not tired of the holidays, we are tired because we have put ourselves and our souls through a challenging process of review, because we have poured out our hearts in sincere prayers, because we have remembered and built together, strained our voices celebrating and made our feet sore carrying and singing with the Torahs.

The best way to ride the wave of post-holiday feeling is to not let the cord of energy break – to hang on and continue the journey into the New Year with everything we gained from the holidays in our spiritual toolbox.  As with muscle, we may strain muscle, but then it grows stronger.  The same is true for our Jewish lives and spirits – the holidays strain us and ask us to stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zones so that we might have a new perspective when we look back.

God holds onto the cord of holy energy by linking with Noach to bridge the generation of the flood with the generations of Abraham.  We hold onto the cord of holy energy by linking with messages, memories, and community.

How will we all navigate the post holiday letdown that makes us feel that we cannot stand through one more Amidah?  First we recognize it and appreciate that we made it to this point, that the simple truth still holds that worthwhile goals require effort, and that we need not shut down but keep our good humor and push off from the holidays from one strength to the next.

Shabbat Shalom. 

All You Might Eat - Ki Tetzte 2012/5772

Ki Tetze 2012/5772

All You Might Eat

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

It has become a family tradition the past few years to go apple picking on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend.  At the orchard where we go, the rules are that inside the site visitors can eat as many apples as they like.  To take the apples home, though, costs about $20 for a big bag. 

For the few hours that we spend there, if it is clear and dry, I might have two or three apples off the tree at most – and that usually is due to minor hunger and a major love of fruit and vegetables right off the branch or vine.

I think the orchard got its rules from the Torah, from our reading for this week, that reminds the Israelites that when they enter the Holy Land and plant vineyards, all Israelites may enter the vineyards that belong to others and eat from the grapes there to their fill – but they may not stock grapes into their own basket or other vessel to take home.

We can appreciate the taste of freshly picked produce, but we cannot hoard it.  There is tzedakah in making this food available and there is a limit to this tzedakah.

The Talmud clarifies the Torah’s teaching:  A person may take some of the grapes that he or she may be harvesting for the owner of the vineyard while in the process of harvesting. 

The original teaching does not stress that we are in the midst of a harvest.  The teaching sounds similar to the teachings about peah and leket, leaving the corners of the fields and the produce that drops to the ground available to anyone in need.  The Rabbis take the word for basket or vessel to suggest that we are in the midst of a harvest and we are referring to the workers.  And so we can assume that the Torah is telling us that the workers get hungry out in the fields and are in need themselves.

How much though does it take to be full, to feel full? 

On Thanksgiving, when there is an expectation that everyone will eat heartily from the feast, I tend to eat about as much as a regular dinner serving.  It feels as though I eat very little.

On an average night, when we cook just enough for the few of us at home, I believe I eat more, or it seems like I eat more, since I am satisfying a real need for food as fuel as we get ready for the evening’s activities.  There is a purpose to eating beyond the eating itself.

A commentary from the Korban Ha’ani teaches us that when we eat to our fill, we should eat according to the desire of our souls, meaning, we will know not only when we are full but when we feel good, energized, balanced, ready for the next step in our lives.

With just over two weeks until Rosh Hashanah, it is my prayer that the holidays will help us feel spiritually full and satisfied, that there will be meaning and moments that move us to tears and to dancing, that we will feel the holidays will point us in a good and positive direction this year.

I also pray, at the same time, that the holidays will challenge us to stretch our minds, our hearts, and our actions to fulfill the message of tzedakah that the Torah shares in the case of the vineyard – how can we share the best of ourselves with those in need?  Where are the people in need?  Who are they, whether right here among us or beyond the borders of our towns? 

May the days ahead, like the figurative grapes that we collect from God’s world during this time of reflection and renewal, be filled with sweetness and hope for a year of blessings.

Shabbat Shalom.

  

The Empire State Building Shootings - A Reflection

I tend to associate the Empire State Building with the mystique that is New York City.  It is a landmark and an icon that deserves credit for its design and for offering an amazing view of the city from its tower.  

Today, though, it joins the list of the places where those with guns and other lethal devices have turned their weapons on innocent people and caused terrible harm to others.  The wounds of Aurora, Colorado are for sure still fresh in our hearts and we will never forget the tragedies at schools such as Columbine and on college campuses and federal buildings, in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson, at the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11, and the list, tragically, goes on and on here and abroad as in Norway and too many other places around the globe...

The big picture question that wells up within me today after the incident at 34th St. in New York is why aggressors target innocents whether it be in attacks such as the one in New York or anywhere else? Is there some other way for people who are angry against a certain group, against the world, against some other religious group or country, to get out their 'angries' without harming the life of innocents?  

In the Hollywood comedy flick "Analyze This", Billy Crystal's character tells Robert DeNiro's character to 'hit a pillow' instead of going after other people.

While this example seems trivial, it suggests a simple premise that, ideally, we could provide ways for people across the world to manage their anger by directing it in non-lethal directions.  Angry at 'The West' for its 'degeneracy'?  Help us demolish homes and structures in festering slums in order to make room for new housing and sanitation projects.  Angry at the government for its inability to 'turn the economy around'?  Here is a free membership to your local boxing gym where an instructor will train you until you get exhausted and stop or until you become a contender in the ring.  Angry at the inability of social change organizations to create real and lasting change?  Help us by coming in to tear up old and dusty mission statements and strategic plans that you can then drop into the shredder for recycling.  I now understand that the initial murder in this shooting spree was a former employee shooting a boss or supervisor who fired him a year ago.  Angry about being fired or downsized?  You will now be an athletics training partner with paralympians and special olympians who may never have had the same abilities or opportunities to work as you, and we'll see how you feel after trying to keep up with their skills and spirit.  The possibilities are endless.

All these strategies are, I believe, rational approaches to a human tendency toward violence and conflict.  The inherent problem with such strategies, then, is that the people who commit the violence against innocents are not necessarily rational and we cannot necessarily identify them in advance.

And so the approach must be an approach that is educational and preventive.  Perhaps we might envision "Get Your Anger Out" centers on college campuses and in workplaces.  We might imagine character curricula in schools that teach and model ways to express anger in productive and constructive ways.

And in this educational effort we might wish to teach a Jewish teaching that I return to often.  'How do we know a person? -- By one's anger, one's pocket, and one's cup."

Working in reverse order:  We know someone by their 'cup', literally their drinking cup, meaning their temperance, their ability to make decisions about setting limits and their ability to set up a healthy relationship with both the people and things of the world.  We know someone by their 'pocket', by the way they use and spend their money and resources.  

Finally, we know someone by their 'anger':  What angers the person and how does he-she express that anger?

I challenge all of us to find ways to allow anger to be expressed in a healthy and constructive way in our country.  

The lives of innocent people depend on our efforts.

Parshat Va'et'chanan: Being #1

Parshat Va’etchanan 5772/2012

Being #1

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

In my love of both the Olympic message and Olympics competition, I have been watching as much coverage from London as I can.  If only the broadcast would come to the television without commercials!

To my pleasant surprise, there are a few commercials this year that share a positive and constructive message, despite the obvious, or not so obvious, sales pitch attached to them.  There is the message that we all have the potential to be ‘great’, to experience ‘greatness’ in our lives.  There is the message that we should set goals for ourselves to achieve our dreams, and that often the difference between winning and losing comes down to fractions of a second – or perhaps to minutiae for which we cannot necessarily predict or prepare.

It does also occur in the messages surrounding the Olympics that we recognize the extraordinary feats that the gold medal, #1 competitors achieve – that we recognize the hard work that each athlete puts in, the sacrifices they and their coaches and their families make to put them in position to be #1. 

It is this message that resonates and is in tune with the message of Shema Yisrael, the familiar prayer that comes from the holy words of this week’s Torah reading in parshat Vae’tchanan – the message that neither the world, nor God in fact, can be one, unified, whole until we create a world that makes the perception of that one-ness, unity, and wholeness visible, just as athletes, their families, and coaches are part of an effort to seek the often elusive #1 spot.

We do not control God and it is clear that we cannot control the world or the people in it such that we all might at once hear the unifying words of the prophet Zechariah saying, “Everyone will take upon themselves the recognition of God’s authority…”, familiar words from the Alenu prayer.  Also, God does not seem to want to impose strict control over us such that we lose our humanity.  Instead, we carry the Torah in our minds and in our back pocket as we search for guidance, much the same way as a traveler in an unfamiliar place turns to a guidebook to show the way through a place’s space and history.  The great Rashi teaches us that “Ado-nai Echad” is not descriptive but prescriptive – “God is One” is a hope, a vision of the future that will come to life only if the right pieces are placed at the foundation of our souls and our societies.

This lesson is also a foundation of the Olympic games themselves.  An athletic competition including representatives of 204 countries of the world is not a given, not something that would happen on its own much as we might hope for such an organic and natural event.  It takes an enormous investment of people power, time, energy, money, construction, planning, and significant obstacles of all kinds to put together.  When the flame passes from the host country to the next host at the end one wonders about the symbolism.  On the one hand the flame passes courteously from one host to the next, on the other hand the host country receives fire – fire that is hot and that can burn.

I would like to engage in a meditation with you, to develop a vision of a unified world, to inspire us to create it, and we will use the Olympics as the basis….Imagine that the population of the whole world walks through the gates and around the track at London’s Olympic stadium, million after million, billion after billion, every person fits into the stadium and everyone carries a torch and everyone gently puts his or her flame into the central cauldron, and everyone who is able contributes a few dollars into a tzedakah box whose base is on land and whose top touches the atmosphere as it fills up.  And then, as the games begin, we notice that every person is involved in one game or another, all pick up games, no medals, no one notices color of skin or gender, no one notices differences of dress, language, or culture.

How will we create a world that reflects the hopeful spirit of the Shema today, this Shabbat, through the end of this year 5772 – as we look 7 weeks ahead to Rosh Hashanah.  Let’s get a head start now so that by the time the fall holidays arrive, our best efforts will already be underway.

Bulgaria, Aurora, and Beyond...After the Destruction

Shabbat Matot-Masei

After the destruction

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

2012/5772

A storm of violence and destruction has plagued our world this past week.  Perhaps the amount of violence is no greater than any other week when things happen around the world outside the eye of cameras and reporters.  On July 14, a driver killed Paramus college student Gabrielle Reuveni while she was jogging in Pennsylvania during a family vacation.  On the 18^th anniversary of the bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, a homicide bomber detonated on a tourist bus in the Bulgarian city of Burgas on the Black Sea, killing 5 and wounding many more.  And last night a shooter opened fire in a movie theater in Aurora Colorado near Denver in an attack that reminds us of the fearful Columbine school attack that took place some 30 miles south and west in another Denver suburb in April of 1999.  The violence continues in Syria.

Waking up from these disasters we find ourselves now in the nine days before Tisha Be’Av, the ninth of Av, the summer season of mourning the way the Babylonians and the Romans destroyed our Holy Temples in Jerusalem, the way that we were expelled from England in 1290 and Spain in 1492, the mass deportation from the Warsaw Ghetto and more.  We are already in mourning, already in the darkest season of Jewish time, and still we are not prepared for terrible events that impact both our lantsmen and many, many more.

My reaction to all this is stunned silence, the same stunned silence that is the reaction of Aaron when his sons Nadav and Avihu are consumed by fire in front of the altar, the same silence that must consume Moses when God condemns him to die so close to the borders of the land where he has led the people since their liberation, the same silence that must fill the people as Moses will soon open his parting words to the people in what the great Rashi interprets as a rebuke for all their trespasses along the 40 year route from slavery to the eastern banks of the Jordan. 

And I turn to my community as well, to our kehilla, our holy pastiche of people that represents a small but faithful figurative reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.  Surrounded by our fellow community members we can join as one in the activity known as the ‘trust fall’, not literally, again in a figurative way.  I fall into, or lean on, my community when passing through a period of time like today where I feel I am stepping over so much rubble, where my soul feels bruised for all the gunshots, for the blast of the bomb, for the faces of parents filled with screams, tears, and shock. 

As we enter this second day of the month of Av, we recall the teaching of the Rabbis that when Av begins, we minimize our joys (as opposed to when Adar, the month of Purim, enters we increase in joy.)  We minimize joy – in a deliberate way we identify with past, and present losses by assuming a state of mind that we otherwise might wish to avoid.  And here, among the ashes, among the rubble, among the wounded, we lead each other gently through the tortuous and frightening path, holding hands, lifting each other up over the sharp edges of stones and broken glass, determined not to take anything for granted, neither the helping hand, the presence of loved ones and friends, nor the very breath that keeps us alive whether in our waking hours or through the nights of, hopefully, restorative sleep when we place our sleeping selves in God’s hand.

'Siblings Against Siblings' - Dvar Torah: Parshat Chukat

Siblings Against Siblings

Chukat 2012/5772

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

The fighting in distant wars, half-way or more around the world not only is distant, but for many of us it feels distant. 

When there is debate on Israel’s defense policy, we try to remind everyone that Israel is a small country, 290 miles in length and 85 miles wide at its widest point, similar to the size of New Jersey.  And we remind everyone to think about what it would feel like if there were regular rocket attacks on our State.

And then there are the battles that people fight very close to home – battles in which family members are pitted against other family members, where conflict arises from within, and the ancestral connections break down.  We might think here in this country about the ways that some brothers fought against one another during the Civil War on different sides in states such as Kentucky, South Carolina, and Virginia.

And now we have reached a low point in the conflict between the Orthodox leadership in Israel and Reform and Conservative Judaism in Israel, a conflict that the establishment has pursued with rigor as non-Orthodox Judaism has grown.

Recently, the Israeli Supreme Court, following a case initiated by the Reform movement 7 years ago, decided that some non-Orthodox Rabbis should receive government funding, as our Orthodox colleagues do – funding that would not come from the department of Religious Affairs, but from the Cultural and Sports Ministry – most likely for political reasons. 

This past Tuesday, a chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Moseh Amar, called for and held a gathering of Orthodox Rabbis and friendly Members of Knesset.  He called for this gathering in a letter.(Read excerpts.)

After hearing this letter, we know well why my colleagues in the Conservative-Masorti and Reform communities are outraged at the accusation that we and our congregants are ‘uprooting and destroying Judaism’ or acting as saboteurs or terrorists.  We must remember that Orthodox groups receive some $450 million in government funding in Israel and Masorti receives some $50,000.

The Orthodox initiated fight reminds us about the way that the people of Edom, our kin through the line of Esau, brother to Jacob, do not allow us to cross their lands during our wilderness journeys, even if we will ‘pay our way’ and cover the cost of taking supplies during our travels.  Moses sends representatives to Edom from ‘your brother Israel’.  Edom denies us passage and backs up the denial with a threat of force.

The Rabbi of Kutna, a Hasidic master, teaches us that the Rabbis shared a lesson – When we, the people of Israel, were enslaved in Egypt, our brothers in Edom prospered.  And so when we come to them and ask for passage through their lands, when Moses communicates to them, “You know all the suffering we’ve endured in Egypt,” we would expect that Edom, Edom that has prospered and enjoyed the bounty of many years, that Edom should be able to know just how much we have suffered, even though they were not with us in this suffering.

But they do not have the empathy we hope for, and they react in a painful way, as potential new oppressors just like Pharaoh.

This past Tuesday as Rabbis inside the Chief Rabbinate offices met to strategize about how to deal with the Court’s decision and as some 50 Masorti Rabbis protested outside for their rights, a miraculous event happened.  Both groups chose to pause and pray the Mincha-afternoon service at the same time, one group inside and one group outside.

The lesson here is clear – for Israel to prosper we cannot forget that we are all related, whether our relationships are warm and close as with Abraham and Sarah or cold and distant as with Jacob and Esau.  And we must remain committed to the Jewish teaching that suggests we do not rejoice when others suffer-that we all must seek to raise up one another with dignity, that the way of a democracy is to allow and encourage disenfranchised people to speak their minds and seek recognition and leadership – a pathway that is no different from the way that women here and abroad fought for the right to vote, or the way here that African Americans and other minorities, including Jews, fought to be treated equally by the same governments, and States, who crafted the Constitution’s “We the people.”

Shabbat Shalom.

"The Dialogue We Need": Parshat Korach Dvar Torah

There is a popular image that Jewish people are loquacious, effusive in communication with hand gestures, intonation, use of colorful Yiddish-isms and kibbitzing about all aspects of life in private and in public.

While it has been my pleasure to know many Jews who fit this description, I am also familiar with many who are quiet, reserved, and private.  My experience suggests that most, if not the majority, of Jews I know fall into the second category.

Of course – in reality most of us are somewhere in between, but I am interested to know the reasons that I have perceived what I see as a shift, again, a trend observed in a decidedly un-scientific way, something felt in the kishkes – a growing unwillingness in Jewish communities for individuals to speak up and speak out in constructive ways, a reluctance to enter into dialogue that could help communities grow in spirit and strength.

Korach, Datan and Aviram, leaders of rebellion among the people of Israel have no problems speaking out to make their voices heard.  They walk right up to Moses and Aaron to state their grievances.  If we can leave the circumstances of their recorded fate aside, we notice that their questions and issues are much different from the spoiled child complaints of the people for better water or food in the wilderness.  Their words suggest a well-thought-out proposal designed to create a constructive dialogue:  All of Israel are holy, they feel that Moses and Aaron have lorded it over them.  They seem to be coming together as a people, the hundreds of so-called ‘rebels’ to voice their thoughts.  Are we witnessing the beginning of democracy here?

Moses, to his credit, also speaks up to God saying to an angered God, “One man has sinned, will You unleash your anger against everyone?”  The Or Ha’chayim makes the astute observation that Korach has not really sinned to the extent of receiving the ultimate penalty.  He has only engaged in mumbling against God’s order.  Chizkuni observes that this verse is worded such as to suggest that there is no surprise here, that it is no surprise that Korach sins, or any other person among the people, since we have an inborn tendency toward this behavior.  Moses, once again, has the courage to speak up and speak out, not to roll with God’s intended response.

My hope is that all of us, myself included, might begin to be more willing to engage in constructive dialogue across the board:  about our synagogue, about issues that affect the Jewish community, about our own spiritual struggles and hopes.  There are many avenues for this dialogue:  with me and with leaders of our community, through the Jewish community relations council, the community relations advisory board, with local elected officials, the list goes on…

Well thought out and well intentioned dialogue, sharing issues and struggles so that we might find answers together, are all part of existing within a living Jewish community.  The real danger is that if we stay too silent, that our communities will disappear.  

This Shabbat I am inviting the exchange in our communities that can revitalize our connections with our institutions, that can revitalize the institutions themselves, and that can lead us to grow in our thinking and leadership.

While the Torah construes Korach as a leader of incitement, I suggest we take notice of his willingness for engagement.

Let’s begin the active dialogue today.

Shabbat Shalom.

Dvar Torah: Parshat Behalotcha "On the Road Again"

Parshat Behalotcha 2012/5772

“On the road again…”

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

On the road again -
Just can't wait to get on the road again.
The life I love is making music with my friends

And I can't wait to get on the road again.

Thank you to Willie Nelson for inspiration.

This song is one of the anthems of a free spirit, as it focuses on doing the things we like to do, not following a set plan, enjoying the moment without making deep connections beyond the strains of music – for sure, a noble and creative activity.

And once again – we are living out the journey of the Israelites through the wilderness, walking with them, thinking with them:  making their journey our journey as well.

Their journey, our journey, though is one in which God sets the itinerary and timeline.  God directs movement, when to stop, when to go, and how long to settle in between.  It is a direct journey as of now, a direct journey at a time when traveling was slow, difficult, and dangerous. A direct journey with God’s guidance is, then, the best of all possible situations, the most comforting and hopeful situation for the mass of our people.

But what does it feel like to not know where we are going next, not knowing whether we will need to pack up the very next morning or whether we will be staying for many months? 

We plan differently for an overnight visit or an extended stay of many months. 

Ovadiah Sforno (1470-1550) notices the way that we behave differently when we have a short stay or an extended stay.  When the Torah explains, “By the word of God they would camp, and by the word of God they would travel,” he reacts, “[They camp] also when time is limited and they cannot arrange themselves (comfortably)” and, “[They travel] also as the cloud (of God’s Presence) lifts after a long time when they have already settled in.”(Sforno to 9:23)

Sforno recognizes just how difficult it is to pick up quickly right after we stop and stay the night, and how difficult it is to move once we become accustomed to a place and fall into a routine.

He speaks to the seemingly tentative nature of human dwelling, the sense of dis-ease that accompanies a quick exit, with the hope that we might rest longer and set down roots, and the equal unease of pulling up tent stakes after developing a connection with a place. 

What makes our connection to a place?  What comprises the feeling – the land, the society, the people, the institutions, a mixture of all these things?

But the underlying question – the one that animates the wisdom of Sforno, is the question of what is the value of our connection to place?  Why do we need it?

With connection there can be peace, predictability, routine, familiarity, comfort, a home base – a safe haven. 

The Israelites yearn for this, we yearn for it.  Every refugee yearns for it, including the ones who risk their lives to cross into Israel, those who try to escape the fighting in Syria, and us as well – as we were forced to leave or chose to leave our homes across the centuries.  

No one wishes to be in the place of the refugee, we want to be settled and safe, but the Torah reminds us that sometimes we might become too safe, too secure, that we need to think about who we are, where we are, refresh our viewpoint so that we can be constructive and helpful, to see the injustice in the world and respond to it, to see where there are needs and fill them.

It is good for us to think about getting on the road again.

Dvar Torah - Bamidbar 2012/5772

Bamidbar 5772/2012

“Herding Cats”

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

The job of organizing and moving a huge group of people is daunting.  On most days, I am more than satisfied if I can get myself out of the house with all the things I need for the day ahead. 

The job of moving perhaps over a million Israelites, with their personal items and animals, then could be as hard as herding cats.  The Torah describes the people as they move as one large mass through the wilderness, but the march to the Holy Land cannot be as smooth or as easy as it appears in the Torah’s communal memory. 

The great Rashi teaches us that each tribe camps under its own flag, each with a different color flag so that members of the tribe will recognize their brothers and sisters.  Each flag displays the symbol that Jacob has given to each of his sons – the lion of Judah, and ox for Ephraim.  Abravanel thinks there are only 4 flags to make organizing the main tribes on each side easier, and the other tribes file in under these 4 flags.

Clearly, staying organized is important – we have discussed how God wants to teach the people to be independent and self-sufficient, that organizing in this way unifies the people and encourages responsibility and accountability.

There is more though going on here than a  deployment of people, overcoming the inertia of the crowd.

God wants the people, wants us, to plan for the future as best as we can knowing that the future is, at least in our eyes, unwritten.  God models for us the way to envision the journey and its end, knowing that along the way there will be events that spring up from the unknown. 

Sefer Bamidbar, the Book of Numbers, fourth Book of the Torah that we begin to read this week, is a Book of journey – the journey for our people as we leave Sinai and, at the end of the Book, end up on the borders of the Promised Land.  Along the way on this journey, the people scurry away from the path like a rabble of cats.  Moses and God try to herd them, knowing that, ultimately, God is guiding them and will guide them to the Land – that God will ‘bring in the herd’. 

In the end, when we look back on the course of the journey, we will notice that the cat-herding part of the story will be as significant as the well-ordered machine of the census and military style marching orders that we read at the beginning of the Book this Shabbat.  The routine, smooth sailing parts of any journey are usually not the stuff of memories.  Our minds are problem-solving mechanisms that tend to disregard the mundane (sometimes to our detriment).    

There are many across the world today who are trying to envision a future for themselves. Egyptians are voting for a president.  Syrian rebels continue their struggle.  Olympic athletes are gearing up for the London games starting at the end of July.  Students in school could not be more excited to study for finals…how well can we envision what we hope for in our lives?  How much can we open our hearts to not only visualize activities, but also to see ourselves in the way we interact with one another, in the way we hope to connect with other people?

This is the message and challenge of this week’s parsha and the whole Book of Bamidbar because, in the end, when we roll the Torah closed at the end of the fifth and final Book, the Israelites will still not be standing in the Promised Land, they will only be on its borders.  They will still only be able to envision crossing the Jordan.

Tazria-Metzora 5772/2012 - Jewish Spiritual Medicine

Spiritual Medicine

Dvar Torah Parshat Tazria-Metzora 2012/5772

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

The idea that the health of the mind and the health of the body are connected is not a new idea.  Preventive medicine is not a new idea either.  The idea of a Jewish spiritual medicine is not a new idea either, but it is an idea that we need to update and remake into a more relevant and useful system of knowledge and practice.

This week we return to Tazria- and Metzora, and among other physical conditions that the Torah describes is the condition that scholar Baruch Levine calls ‘scale disease’, a condition that does not match any known skin disease whether it be psoriasis, favus, or vitiligo and for sure not leprosy/Hansen’s disease.  None of the known skin diseases compare to the symptoms, duration, or treatments suggested in the Torah.  Nor are these conditions contagious in the medical sense.  The Torah teaches us that the only reason we may separate out the person afflicted with the scale disease is to ensure that others are not exposed to the ritual impurity – the Torah is clear that the scale disease itself will not pass to others.

Levine summarizes all the material about impurity and explains the underlying principle this way:  “Bodily impurity stands for the forces of death that are countered and reversed by God’s covenantal commandments, the forces of life.”

Scale disease is linked to the ‘forces of death’ since the body ‘appears to be wasting away.’.(Levine, 129)

We can think of this idea then as a core idea of Jewish spiritual medicine – a field that seeks to fully connect the mind, body, and spirit of faith and tradition.  It is a path toward knowledge and healing that depends upon mustering our inner resources as we seek to live in more connected ways to each other, to the world, to God.

The mitzvoth, the commandments of the covenant, are a spiritual discipline, no different than any exercise program or diet.  They help us toward self-awareness, they push us to work for causes that seek to make the holiness of life real for all people.  As we complete a mitzvah we put positive energy into the world such that we fulfill the wisdom of the Rabbis that doing one mitzvah leads to another, mitzvah goreret mitzvah.

As I’ve been watching the World War II documentary by Ken Burns, I’ve been struck by the testimonies of the vets.  One vet spoke about how when he left home his Mother told him to ‘be careful’.  He said it is impossible to ‘be careful’, impossible that by attitude or technique one could have guaranteed survival.  In such an environment, physical survival is paramount.

Fortunately, we do not live in a country at war, and we can through attitude and the mitzvoth bring changes to ourselves and our communities that may reduce conflict and increase understanding and tolerance among people.  The unknown is out there and fear is powerful – if I were living in Syria or Sudan now, I would be thick and oppressed with fear.  I am afraid at times even here in our quiet North Jersey towns.

If we are to progress as a people, we need a system of spiritual medicine that can help us to turn the tide of negativity and fear, turn the tide of fads and other magical solutions and focus on wisdom that comes right from our holy books, perhaps somewhat disguised through ancient language and history, but clear in the goal of pushing forward the extraordinary qualities of life itself – and the life giving message of the mitzvoth, 613 opportunities to release holy energy into the universe.