Vayigash: Welcoming in 2023 - Send the light through!

At the end of the last episode of Downtown Abbey, Lady Grantham says, “It makes me smile, the way we drink to the future, whatever it may bring…”

 

There is nothing objectively different about the world when the clock strikes midnight.  We don’t live in the Cinderella story when midnight means the coach becomes a pumpkin and our nice clothes become our house clothes. 

 

What affects us is passing through the transitional time with the reflection on the past and all the unknowns for the future.

 

What do we do though when the future is not unknown, just hidden, when it’s standing right in front of us but we cannot see it.

 

If we knew the answers to our questions were within arm’s reach, would we act differently?  Would we feel less uncertain?

 

For the past couple of weeks, Joseph’s brothers have crisscrossed the border between Canaan and Egypt.  They’ve stood in front of their brother Joseph, and they’ve been unable to tell who he really is.  

 

We’d like to think if our sibling were dressed in different clothes, living in a different place, and speaking a different language we’d still be able to recognize them.  But, maybe not…maybe we see what we’re used to seeing from the perspective we have.

 

Rashbam explains Joseph has been holding back his true identity and keeping himself calm and poised when interacting with his brothers.  When they only see the Egyptian official, Joseph is scrutinizing them and wondering about the same question we’re asking today – what is thre future in front of me?  Who are these brothers of mine at this stage?

 

Rabbenu Bahya teaches us Joseph is unsure, and potentially afraid, of who these men are and how they will react when he reveals his identity to them.  He brings a midrash that tells us the brothers might still want to kill him, possibly to maintain the story they told their father and to finish the job they started long ago.  According to the midrash, he decides to open up to them and take the chance they’ll kill him rather than revealing to all the Egyptians in the room these men sold him into slavery.  So he orders everyone out of the room…

 

I suspect, in the moments before he re-introduces himself, Joseph is wondering whether he can have a future with his siblings…if the story comes out will it change his status or will Pharaoh punish them?...will his father Jacob be able to recover from the shock of finding out his son is still alive and will Jacob himself want ot punish the brothers for their treachery and lies?

 

Joseph makes a clear choice.  As he tells his brothers, God orchestrated everything that led up to this point in time.  God placed him in just the right situation to be able to help and support the family during the famine.  

In other words, he decides to show gratitude to God, to forgive the people who wronged him, and to use his power not for revenge but to support his family through the rest of the lean years ahead.

 

By the end of the Book of Genesis the entire family is reunited and all sons surround Jacob as his life winds down.  And so the Book of Genesis, a book that began with defying God, with a murder, with a flood, and generations of family conflict, anger, scheming, and violence, finally comes to a point of unity around the last of the patriarchs.  They’re all far from home, but they’re all together.  The suffering that will come along when a new Pharaoh steps in will not be the suffering of one family, but of a whole nation. 

 

Joseph is the one responsible for remaking the family.  He overcomes doubt and fear to embrace his brothers and reunite with his father.  

 

He teaches us the power of achdut, of unity, the power of gratitude, of forgiveness, and of the possibility we can evolve as people, avoid the pettiness that can come with grudges, and decide to set a new course through time…opening up new light into a place of darkness.

 

A long time ago when ships were dark below deck, and candles were dangerous on wooden ships, they’d place a deck prism, a cone shaped glass item that would draw the sun’s light and reflect it below the deck.  

 

Joseph is the deck prism – the conduit of light into a fraught time, a time of exile, a time when the prophecy to Abraham of his descendants becoming slaves in a land not their own is about to be fulfilled.  

 

We can be the deck prisms for 2023, sharing into the New Year everything we’ve thought about since our new year at Rosh Hashanah.  We can take our teshuvah and pay it forward into the New Year, and fill the dark winter days ahead with light, blessing, and all the mitzvah energy we can summon up. 

 

And so let’s do what Lady Grantham does, and toast to the New Year, whatever it may bring!

Vayishlach 2022/5783: Fear, and what's beyond it

 Does everyone remember reading in school the book 1984 by George Orwell?

 

The Party, with Big Brother as the head of it, uses prison room 101 to terrorize people with their worst fear.  Anyone being held by the authorities wishes for anything but being taken to Room 101.

 

It’s no surprise how powerful fear is for all of us.  Fear can cause us to become paralyzed, or, on the contrary, to act impulsively and irresponsibly.  When we’re full of fear we’re likely to be frustrated, anxious, exhausted, and unable to make good decisions.  When we’re full of fear it’s likely others will have more power over us, and we will have less agency in our lives than we otherwise might.  

 

Our tradition teaches us to fear God, but not anyone, or anything else.  Fearing God means for us to be aware, responsive, and cognizant of God’s Presence in the universe and also to be careful for our behavior with the idea God may inflict some punishment for misbehavior.  

 

But we moderate our fear of God when we remember about teshuvah, God’s permission for us to be human, to be mortal, fallible, and to recognize our wrongdoings so we can make different choices the next time.

 

Fear plays an important role in the events of this week’s Torah portion.  When Jacob hears Esau is coming toward him with his own entourage, Jacob fills up with fear, despite God’s repeated promises God will protect and guide him safely through life.  For the second time, Jacob pleads with God to save him.    Already God protected him when left home, and so we’d expect by this point Jacob would have few doubts about God’s promises.  

 

Rabbi Meir Levush, the Malbim, recognizes this dissonance and suggests Jacob has a different type of fear, an unnecessary or irrational fear.  Fear that is not based on a firm foundation is still a fear for us.  Until we come to terms with it, the fear feels as real as when there is an actual threat.  

We’ve all seen this type of fear in some form.  I saw it in my children when teaching them to ride a bike, or in fears of going to a doctor’s office.  

The Malbim teaches us Jacob himself recognizes the nature of his fear.

He says Jacob recognizes he’s not worthy of God’s salvation since he does not believe in God’s promises.  God made guarantees to Jacob’s ancestors, and to Jacob himself regardless of whether Jacob ever sinned at all, and so his own misdeeds should not even have been a concern.  For all these reasons, Jacob then turns to practical strategies he hopes will protect him and his family from the enemy he’s created Esau to be in his own mind.

 

Having faith does not mean we allow others to threaten us.  Not at all!   We live in strength and honor God in that strength of our hands and our spirit.  The Chanukah story is a good example of how physical and spiritual strength are two parts of our faith and relationship to God.  

 

Faith does mean though we realize we cannot control all variables of our lives or of the people or the events surrounding us.  And while we may not feel comfortable putting God completely in the driver’s seat, so to speak, at least we can give ourselves the kindness of realizing our limitations and celebrating our strengths.

 

As for fear without firm foundations, sometimes we can take a leap of faith, or find a way to experience something with a caring other person who talks us through it.  Jacob ultimately thinks he’s alone when facing his fear of Esau, and this fear will prevent him from a lasting repair of his relationship with Esau.  If he could have overcome his fear of the other, who knows where the story could have led?  Maybe instead of Esau’s descendants and Jacob’s descendants being enemies, they could have been civil to each other, or even friendly, and so let’s dedicate ourselves to identifying the fears we have that don’t have a firm foundation --  We never know what difference our overcoming these fears could have on ourselves, on our families and communities – as the great Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav teaches us, “The whole world is a narrow bridge and the most important thing is not to fear.”  Let’s walk the bridge in confidence and strength, together, holding each other up and opening our eyes to our potential for strength, for courage, for kindness, and for the blessings on the other side of fear.

 

 

 

 

Vayetze 2022/5783: To know, or not know, the future

 My grandmother Ruth Lewis of blessed memory loved to read.  She passed that love to my Mom who passed it down to me.  However, Grandma Ruth was not patient – she liked to turn to the last few pages of the book, read them, relieve the pressure of not knowing how things shape up, then return to the opening pages.  This way of reading makes me think about how we deal with unknowns, like, who’s going to win in Doha? 

 

The world’s been watching soccer in Qatar the past week – sure wins, upsets, who will make it to the next round?

 

But except for someone who’d like to cheat at sports betting, do we really want to know what is going to happen next?  Isn’t the drama about wondering whether my team will win, lose, draw, stay or go back home, as opposed to knowing how things turn out in the end, or rather, the existential level, knowing things actually do get tied up and closed out in the end, regardless of whether a certain team goes home with the trophy.  If nothing appears to be proceeding toward a conclusion of any kind, would we like that type of competition also?

 

In a more general way, we might ask do we prefer stories that have a known ending, or do we prefer stories whose ending or resolution remains beyond the pages of a book or the running time of a movie or TV show?

 

This is a question for us to think about today as we read the story of Jacob who runs away from home, all alone, walking through the country side as day turns into night.  And let’s remember Jacob is not ish sadeh, an outdoors person, like his brother Esau.  Jacob is an ish tam yoshev ohalim, a simple person who stays in the tents.  Esau is a hunter.  Jacob, according to our Sages, studies Torah in the ‘tents’ of Shem and Ever, kind of a primordial yeshivah.

 

The simple student finds himself in the middle of nowhere.  Having left Beersheva, he stops in a place called ‘hamakom’, the place, makes a sleeping spot with rocks and lies down.  Everything sounds peaceful, but he is in the dark, alone except for God’s Presence.  And even then, after the dream is over, after God promises to protect him along the way, and after God promises he will one day return home, after all that, Jacob is still uncertain about the future.

 

He makes a vow, “If God protects me, and feeds me and clothes me, and returns me home…then Ado-nai will be my God.”

 

God tells him what will happen, but he cannot accept it.  It may be for him, for us too, knowing things will resolve themselves could be just as disconcerting as not knowing.  If we know the result, we may question every thought and action about whether we’re helping events proceed to the result.  Or alternatively, we may over-relax and switch off our awareness and turn into a robotic version of ourselves.  Jacob does not trust God’s prophecy for him.  In a way, he’s just like his grandfather and grandmother who both laugh when God promises them they’ll have a child at their advanced age.

 

This conundrum is clearer if we assume for a moment the result or end is not what we are hoping for – how could we possibly live knowing events will lead us to pain, suffering, or worse?

 

Many years ago Rabbi Edward Feld, a mentor of mine, offered me some advice when I was going through a difficult time.  He counseled me to embrace the uncertainty, to accept I only had a certain amount of control.  What I think he was really saying to me was ‘Trust yourself’ – You know what’s right for you, and no matter what happens you will have choices to make.  Make the best choice you can and, like Jacob, keep going on.

 

I’m not sure if it was at this time that I added a moment of prayer to my daily schedule.  Every day at noon my phone notifies me to “Say the serenity prayer”.  I wonder if the serenity prayer would have made Jacob feel better and trust in God’s promise.  It does not always work for me, but it’s there.  I suspect many of you know it, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

 

Let’s come back to the question, do we prefer knowing the ending, or do we prefer discovering through the unknown?

 

Both preferences can be challenging.  We may be happy to know the ending, but unhappy when we find out how we’ll get there.  And we may be unhappy to be in the dark, but the end may light us up and raise us up.

 

This is why our tradition calls us to trust in God, because only God has the ability to see time in both directions, and in a world we help to with God’s Presence with our prayers, our Shabbat spirit, knowing and not knowing the result, the end, the resolution are equally unimportant, even irrelevant – only kindness, compassion, community, and the search for holiness matter.