Toldot: Honesty

Toldot 5775/2014

Honesty

If you search for tenderness

It isn't hard to find

You can have the love you need to live

But if you look for truthfulness

You might just as well be blind

It always seems to be so hard to give

Honesty is such a lonely word

Everyone is so untrue

Honesty is hardly ever heard

And mostly what I need from you

While Billy Joel’s song might be asking for honesty from a friend, today, knowing what happens in this week’s Torah portion, I feel compelled to sing this song to our ancestor Jacob.  While Jacob does receive a comeuppance for his moral mistakes, and while we might choose to forgive his father and grandfather, Jacob, who became Israel, the namesake of the Jewish people and nation – we might hope that he would be able to see ahead the impact of his actions.  The man who is ‘yoshev ohalim’, tent dweller, who in his tents studied the Torah, we would hope he might well know in his heart that lying, deception, and taking advantage of others are all wrong.  Unfortunately, he seems not to be aware of these truths.

Later, the great prophet Jeremiah warns us, “Beware everyone of his friend, trust not even a brother, For every brother takes advantage, every friend is corrupt in his dealings.’(Jeremiah 9:3)

Our Rabbis teach:  the ancestors who caused God to flood the world were guilt of, among other things, gezel, theft.  The world was full of theft and deception. 

Everyone was so untrue.

Those people washed away in the floodwater.

Bible scholar Nahum Sarna reminds us that the storyteller does not condone Jacob’s behavior.  For each of his wrongdoings, he experiences an equal dose of poetic justice whether from his Uncle Laban or by the tragedies that follow him when he enters the Promised Land after years of exile from the land of his ancestors.

Let’s focus on our story for a moment, a story that depends not so much on actions but on words, a story in which words make a difference.  Jacob may dress up like Esau and offer his father food prepared in the style Esau prepares, but in the end, Jacob says to his father, “I am Esau,” when Isaac asks him, “Who are you?” 

In this story of deception, words lose their meaning.  “I am Esau”, a name, the most meaningful, most noticeable, word to each of us, is nothing more than a mask.

I’m thankful to my colleague Rabbi Paul Jacobson for bringing to my attention the teaching of Rambam, Maimonides, who summarizes how we should think about the words we speak, “With truth, and an honest spirit and a pure heart.”(Hilchot Deot 2:6)  We should strive to do better than our ancestor Jacob did in the early part of his life, before he learned to be satisfied with what he had and could say to his brother, “Please accept my gift…for God has favored me and I have plenty.”  But, wait a second, listen to that line in Hebrew, “Kach na et birchatee…”  Take my blessing?  By saying this Jacob brings up the stolen blessing again, even as he seems to want to reconcile and make amends. 

And still we strive to do better, to speak in ways that honor the words we use and the people with whom we share these words.  Michal Kotler-Wunsh teaches that growing up she heard, “the Holocaust began with words…”. 

The story of Jacob, of taking the blessing, is a story that begs us to redeem, to save and revive words and their meanings.  If words love and justice, peace and fairness, mitzvah and ultimately life are to have meaning for us, then let’s think three times and speak once when we say them.

I dedicate this Dvar Torah tonight to the memory of the 4 victims of the terror attack on the synagogue in Har Nof, Jerusalem, Rabbis Moshe Twersky, Aryeh Kupinsky, Cary William Levine, and Avraham Goldberg, may their memories be for a blessing.  Their last act on this earth was reciting words, words of thanksgiving, blessing, love, and faith, names of God, appreciation of the world.  We can honor their memory by pursuing honesty in our speech, that leads to action, that God willing, helps to create the places we live, the places we pray, and the dialogue that we hope will knit this world together as the strands of conscience and life seem to be blowing and freezing in the winter winds.

Shabbat Shalom