Parshat Vayishlach - A Small-Enormous Miracle: Chanukah and Death of the Nursemaid

What is the miracle of Chanukah, our next holiday starting in less than 2 weeks?

The Rabbis in the Talmud speak of the miracle of the oil.  They explain that the Jewish people discovered the small amount of pure oil not in a random clay jar but in the chotamo shel Kohen ha’Gadol, in the signet ring of the High Priest. 

The ring of the High Priest, a reminder of the time before Antiochus and the Syran-Greek occupation of the Holy Land, a symbol of purity, a symbol of light and the loving interaction of human beings in God in a holy place at holy moments.  There is a wistful side to this description as the Jewish people walk through the Temple, after the Greeks had defiled it and turned it into a pagan sanctuary, we can imagine the people remembering back to holidays there before the war and hoping to clean up and begin the journey toward renewal.

This small supply of pure oil makes a huge impact on Jewish history.  In this small treasure, a treasure that would be insignificant next to the vast amounts of oil needed to keep the menorah burning daily, there is memory and there is hope, there is sadness and there is strength.

We find the same cauldron of feelings in our parsha for this week, Parshat Vayishlach, in a moment that breaks the flow of action, that according to the Ramban stands out and interrupts the story of Jacob at a place beloved by us here, at Beth El, Bet-El the House of God.

The Torah explains:

וַתָּ֤מָת דְּבֹרָה֙ מֵינֶ֣קֶת רִבְקָ֔ה וַתִּקָּבֵ֛ר מִתַּ֥חַת לְבֵֽית־אֵ֖ל תַּ֣חַת הָֽאַלּ֑וֹן וַיִּקְרָ֥א שְׁמ֖וֹ אַלּ֥וֹן בָּכֽוּת׃ (פ) 

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

A woman named Devorah, a nursemaid whose name we only learn now at the end of her life, passes away and there is reason for tears, Allon-Bachut means the oak of weeping. 

Just as the small supply of oil was otherwise overlooked, so too was this special person in the life of our mother Rebekah, but now we realize in a moving and silent moment just how special she was.  More than just a servant, she was part of the family, like the oil, a reminder of the past, of growing up, and like the oil, the tree under which she’s buried points to the future, the Jewish people, offspring of Jacob, settling and building up the Land of Jacob, the Land of Israel.

Tonight, inspired by the loving tribute to Devorah, I would like us to lift up the memories of people in our lives who touched our lives in some small but meaningful way.  Like Devorah, they were not family, but we think of them as family, as part of our life, the large circle that surrounds us.  If those whom you’re thinking about now are gone, say a prayer for them as we remind ourselves of how they impacted our lives.  If they are still with us, consider the story of Devorah, nursemaid to Rebekah, an inspiration to reconnect, to tell them how meaningful was their influence and how it helped each of us to become the people who we are today. 

The Torah does not name Noah’s wife nor does it name the mother of King David (Nitzevet, Talmud) – but the Torah does tell us the name of Devorah, and that our ancestors mourned her like family. 

The Rabbis remember a small amount of oil in a ring that represented what was lost and what could be restored. 

The influence of both Devorah and the oil remind us of all those people who invested in us, loved us and cared about us even in a small way that now, through the reverse lens, made all the difference in the world.

Vayetze 2017: In Memory of Professor Neil Gillman z"l

I would like to dedicate this dvar Torah to Rabbi Neil Gillman z”l who passed away yesterday.  He was a much beloved teacher of Jewish theology at the Seminary, a teacher who helped so many of his students, including myself, to appreciate and explore the concepts of God, mitzvah, and more, to go beyond the halakhah, the practice of Judaism, to create a meaningful and soulful Judaism.  May his memory be a blessing. 

Professor Gillman taught that we cannot see God on our own, with our eyes, but we can sense God’s presence in the relationships between us, in the invisible, mystical network that connects us all.

To illustrate the point, he gives us the image of a basketball game.  He explains we can know the score.  The game score is concrete, 24 points to 22, but when it comes to a team’s passing game, we cannot see that in one concrete number.  The quality of the team’s passing game is something we discover over the course of the game, as we watch how the players work together and move the ball up and down court.

This past week I was critical of Jacob who takes advantage of both his brother and his blind father.  But I would not want to end our evaluation of Jacob there.  As with the passing game, we need to see what Jacob chooses to do in another situation rather than focus on only two points in time.  He uses his cleverness for dishonesty, and now he uses his cleverness to get himself out of a bind as we see with Lavan, his uncle, Jacob has met his match and received a solid comeuppance for his past choices.  Midah k’neged midah, measure for measure, Lavan tricks Jacob, giving him Leah as a wife instead of Rachel and then he exploits the moment to demand an additional 7 years of labor from him.

But Jacob concocts a scheme to remove himself from Lavan’s clutches, and we should appraise him also how he handles himself when he is in an adverse situation.

When Lavan hears Jacob’s proposal for building his own wealth by taking dark colored sheep as well as the spotted and speckled goats, the Me’am Lo’ez commentary suggests Lavan is thrilled with the idea.  Lavan knows that these will be the vast minority of his flocks.  He accepts the deal quickly because he does not want to take the chance Jacob may regret the deal and ask for the real wages he deserves for 14 years of labor.  (Me’am Lo’ez p. 587, Genesis Vol. 2)

It appears God helps Jacob here, according to Rashi God’s angels help him collect the animals he requests out of the flock.  Somehow, through creative breeding, he builds up the special flock from a mere pittance of wages into a huge flock far exceeding the original take.

Here, Jacob’s cleverness enables him to escape.  And like a great Black Friday shopper, he finds a great residual value for a very inexpensive price. 

We celebrate achievements of this kind all the time.  We thrill at the way Batman and James Bond escape from elaborate death traps.  We see investors on the stock market who in a moment, or over time, build wealth through times of uncertainty. 

But is this enough to redeem Jacob’s character?  As Professor Gillman would say, we must explore the darker places of theodicy, of God’s justice in the world, and so we cannot fully evaluate Jacob until we see how he behaves in the Joseph stories, when Joseph comes forward as a foil to Jacob, teaching his brothers accountability, and when Jacob, as far as he knows, experiences a loss he cannot repair with his wits, a loss that impacts what we come to know as his fragile heart.

Gillman reminded us always of the heart, of context, of the humanity, the human condition in Judaism.  He was famous for his lively debates with Rabbi Joel Roth who takes the position that Jewish law is pre-eminent over Midrash and theology.  But the lesson of those debates, one of which I had the privilege to witness years ago, was that, again, like the passing game, we cannot have a meaningful Judaism that is all in one category, but rather, our Judaism, our religious lives and perspectives, draw from the deep wells of both law, tradition, ritual, midrash and commentary, and theology, our contemplation of the most vast and perplexing questions of existence that together we seek to answer week in and week out.

May his memory be a blessing.  Amen.

Esau the Superhero

 One thing about superheroes, especially in the 21^st century, is they’re not always as popular as we might expect within the stories we tell about them.

The last time Superman flew across the movie screen the world was calling for him to step down or go back home to Krypton.  The last time the Avengers fought against the forces of evil, the US government sought to rein them in as a result of unintended tragic consequences of their battle.  When Batman last faced the joker and faced criticism, district attorney Harvey Dent said, “Well, I guess you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

Our ancestor Jacob appears this week in our Torah in a similar way, though it’s not the first time we see him in this light.  So many times Jacob accomplishes objectives by literally keeping others in the dark – which makes me think of the title of the Batman movie quoted above, ‘The Dark Knight’.  There are times that Bruce Wayne must act in a way that casts the guilt lens on himself in order to maintain the good image of another like Harvey Dent, but Jacob appears to pursue his goals primarily for his own good and at the expense of others.

He purchases the birthright from his brother Esau when his brother is exhausted and famished after the hunt.  For sure, he never says to Esau, are you sure you want to sell this to me?  Do you know what it means for you to sell the birthright?

And now, with Rebecca’s help he dresses up like his brother, and together they deceive and defraud both Esau and Isaac in one stroke.  We might say, Jacob already purchased the birthright in which case he’s entitled to the better blessing, but we can also say with assurance that the birthright wasn’t Esau’s to sell in the first place, kind of like the Brookly Bridge, although I hear it’s going for a great price this weekend in honor of TBEMC’s 100^th anniversary.

The darkness continues here as we retell the story of Jacob lying to his aged father who is blind.  We recall the instruction in Leviticus, Lifnay ee’vair lo titen michshol. Do not put a stumbling block before the blind.  Jacob, the one who as our tradition explains, stays in the camp studying Torah, clearly missed that key teaching.  Isaac is not as passive though as we might think.  The Mahari puts us inside Isaac’s mind as though Isaac says to himself, “Due to the fact that I’m doubtful about who is the person in front of me, I’m going to lengthen the conversation so that I can better know the voice and know who it is.”  But the Mahari also points out that Jacob is clever, and so he only answers in one word ‘Ani’ making Isaac’s job almost impossible.

The intention of portraying the superheroes as flawed makes them more like us, so we can better relate to them.  Jacob though he is our ancestor is out for his own interests, and we feel empathy for Esau as our Rabbis also did despite their criticisms of Esau and the way they connected him to Rome, the evil empire.

Just one example, a midrash tells us, “Esau shed 3 tears, one from the right eye, one from the left, and one down the middle of his forehead that was suspended between his eyes.  If that tear had fallen, the Jewish people would not ever have been redeemed from under Esau’s hands (Esau here as the embodiment of that later evil empire)…Due to those tears Esau inherited the fertile Mount Se’ir, and the Jewish people must, in their own tears that resulted from Jacob’s actions, request God to have mercy upon them.”(Yalkut)

How then do we read today’s Torah portion?  As an indictment of our ancestor, meant to encourage us today to hold ourselves accountable for the decisions we make?  Or do we read it simply as the mysterious unfolding of God’s plan that goes forward despite the pain of those who suffer in its wake? 

One other way we may read the story is by re-focusing our attention to redeem Esau in the hopes of restoring his image and integrity, the same way that the superheroes strive to redeem themselves when they cause harm.  Let’s remember how Esau redeems himself when he embraces his brother years later, and his only interested is greeting his brother and he has no interest in the gifts Jacob brings out of fear. 

Esau surmounts and surpasses his brother in that moment.  God must redeem and liberate us, but Esau finds it within himself.  That power, to find hope, to find the possibility of transformation within ourselves, is a superpower that we all have.

Lech Lecha 2017/5778: Warrior Teachers

Avram – Abraham is many things to many people.  He is an ancestor of the Jewish people as well as Christians and Muslims.  He was the first to accept the idea of the One God and to follow the voice of the One God to go toward the Holy Land.  He’s the first to plead with God, to intercede on behalf of others at Sodom and Gomorrah.  He was the first of our three ancient ancestral fathers and along with Sarai, the first to bring converts to their newfound faith.  He is a father to Isaac and Ishmael.

This week, we read about Avram the warrior, the lesser-known Abraham persona.  The one that the Rabbis of the past sought to diminish.  Some didn’t want to see him that way. 

When invaders enter the region, they kidnap Lot, his family and possessions, and carry them away on their way north.  A fugitive finds Avram, tells him what happened to Lot, and Avram collects a group of men to pursue them.  They pursue, overtake, and fight against them until they free Lot and his family.

The Rabbis say, he wasn’t mustering soldiers, he was mustering students of Torah.  But we know that like the Maccabees and the Israelis, we have to fight, even students of Torah must take up arms when there is a threat, but the fight is not always won with weapons.  Words spoken, even softly, are also powerful.

Two days ago, Tal Flicker, an Israeli judo athlete, won the Judo Grand Slam competition in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.  All Israeli athletes at the competition could not participate under the Israeli flag.  And when Tal Flicker won gold, they did not raise the Israeli flag nor play Hatikvah.  Instead, they raised the international judo flag and played the international judo federation anthem. 

While the flag went up and the oriental melody played, Flicker mouthed the words to Hatikvah, quietly to himself, in an act of what writer Yair Rosenberg calls ‘a moment of dignified defiance’. 

Our ancient Sages wished to make Abraham the warrior into a Torah teacher and scholar.  They even said ‘there was no one who observed the mitzvot like Abraham our ancestor’ (Nedarim 32a) even though he of course lived long before God gives us the Torah.  They said he didn’t even carry weapons when he left to go after Lot.  He took some dust and wheat that miraculously turned into weapons at the necessary time.

This past Thursday in Abu Dhabi, Tal Flicker, the warrior, made himself into a teacher of Torah.  Who is a warrior hero our ancestors ask?  Ayzehu gibor?  Ha’kovesh et’yitzro, the one who conquers his evil inclination.  Tal Flicker and his teammates could easily have lodged formal protests, banded together to sing the anthem out loud, even held up the Israeli flag, but they did not, nor did he.  Like our ancestor Channah, who prays fervently in a soft voice, moving her lips in prayer but not speaking it, Tal Flicker fights back against the enormous pressures in the same way because that’s the way to victory in this type of fight.  Patience, vision, self-confidence, and faith. 

Our Sages describe prayer as avodat ha’lev, the work of the heart, and again, Tal Flicker communicates this message in his own way, quote, “Israel is my country”, he said to Israel’s channel 2, “The anthem that they played of the world federation was just background noise.   I was singing Hatikvah from my heart.”

The prayers of the heart are powerful.  They come from a place that is unscripted, raw, and honest because they are unfiltered.  This Shabbat, as we continue in our service, let’s listen to those prayers and give quiet, dignified voice to them as much as to the prayers we sing out loud together. 

Avram was a teacher and a warrior though the Sages wished to diminish this aspect of his story.  Tal Flicker was a warrior and he became a teacher too, showing us how quiet and determined words can help us to hear and follow up on our prayers that come from the inside, that, with God’s help, we can believe in our own strength, our own ability, and our own faith to confront and overcome our challenges. 

Amen.

Ki Tetze: A Lesson from Mr. Rogers

I have fond memories of Mr. Rogers TV show.  One of the lessons he taught was based on a lesson his own parents taught him.  When something terrible happens, he teaches us the thing to do is to look for the helpers, to appreciate all the people who choose to go in to help, support, and make people safe.

Out of the horrible stories and images of flooding in Houston, one bright spot are the stories of those who have helped stranded dogs, picking them up off the rooftops of cars surrounded by water, of people on horseback with deep water around them opening up the gates for other horses to escape rising water, stories of those who drove cattle over flooded roads toward safer ground.

While the analogy is not exact, our Torah portion this week reminds the Israelites if they see a fellow Israelite’s ox or sheep, really any animal or anything, that has gone astray, we must not ignore it, we must return it.  Even if the owner is far away or we don’t know where the owner lives, it’s up to us to bring the animal home and care for it until the owner claims it.

The Torah emphasizes that for every lost animal or object, “Lo tuchal le’hit’alem” – An interesting choice of words here, you may not remain indifferent to it.  Why does the Torah phrase this in the negative?  Why not say, “Take good care of it” or “Look after it”.

The great Rashi explains, that ‘do not remain indifferent’ means do not close your eyes k’eelu ain’cha ro’eh oto, as though you do not see it. 

It can be more convenient to walk on by and avoid taking responsibility for the wandering animal.  It takes significant effort to lead the animal or animals, to feed them, and care for them.  It could be easier to move on and get on with our own responsibilities.  Many Israelites were herders, they already had their own flocks to feed.

But Rashi catches us at one of our human weak points.  He reminds us how often we look away when we should engage.   Elsewhere the Torah reminds us not to ‘avert our eyes’ from those among us in need and to provide for those like the stranger, widow, and orphan – those who could easily have been or have become invisible to the rest of the community.

In these weeks before Rosh Hashanah, the mitzvah of caring for and restoring the animal to its owner, the mitzvah of not remaining indifferent, transforms into a mitzvah not only about 4 legged creatures, but about us 2 legged creatures.  The New Year is a celebration of hope for the days ahead, but even more so it is a time to make certain each member of the community is recognized, welcomed, as part of our larger mishpochah, the big family.  The Haftarah we will read on Rosh Hashanah, the story of Chana is one of the quintessential reminders of what the holiday means.  Chana, a woman in an excruciating existential struggle, pours out her soul in a quiet and fervent prayer – She ‘shouts in a whisper’ (Reb Ziskind, Yesod ve’shoresh ha’Avodah) --  and just at the moment when she needs to most to be heard and her fervent prayers validated, the priest dismisses her on account of his unfamiliarity with intense but softly offered prayers.

Mr. Rogers taught us that one way of praying is looking for the helpers, appreciating them, thanking them.  Let us be the supportive presence around the mythical Chana, the help she does not receive except through a promise from God.  This season we each have the opportunity to be a helper, to make the best use of our voices, our hands, and abilities to who is feeling lost, disconnected, unheard, anyone who is feeling like an outsider or who is flooded with pain, suffering, and loss will know that we are there to guide them into the New Year.