On Pinchas - Jane Century, D’var Torah for Dorshei Derekh

 

by Jane F. Century

Thank you for the opportunity to mine some of the many nuggets of wisdom that today’s parshat Pinchas has to offer us. 

In the interests of full disclosure, I need to preface my comments by saying that prior to this moment, I have given exactly one d’var Torah in my entire life, at the start of last month’s quarterly minyan meeting -- so I hope you will allow me some additional latitude with this one.   I also confess I am something of a spiritual omnivore, so you may find me referencing things outside the pale of the usual Jewish commentaries.

By way of additional background, I am the middle child in a family with a sister one year older than me and a brother three and half years younger than me. 

We grew up in suburban Minneapolis, where all three of us got bussed to after-school Hebrew school for five years from 3^rd grade to 7^th grade, to a place that was very broadly satirized by the Cohen brothers, who grew up there as well, in their movie A Serious Man.

My family was firmly middle class.  After my parents undertook the expense of celebrating a bat mitzvah and luncheon for my older sister when she turned 13 and knowing that my brother’s bar mitzvah would be coming around the bend in a few short years, my mother came to me privately when the time for my own bat mitzvah was approaching and asked me if I really wanted one.

I didn’t need a flash card to know what the right answer to that was. 

If I agreed to take one for the team, my mom promised they would throw me a lavish Sweet 16 party when the time came instead. 

I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for another d’var to find out how that went.

Back to Pinchas, which brings together four seemingly disparate stories with one common theme having to do with legacy. For me, this parsha speaks to two profound concepts: the legacies we hope to pass along to those who survive us, and the ways in which all of us leave unfinished business in our wake.

The first example of legacy in this parsha is the legacy granted by God to Pinchas, the grandson of Mose’s elder brother Aaron, after he slays a high-ranking Israelite official and the Midianite princess with whom he was publicly consorting. 

Pinchas kills them both, and by this act, he simultaneously atones for and halts a period of rampant idol worship and the terrible plague that arose in the wake of it

In gratitude, God grants Pinchas a covenant of peace, and the eternal covenant of kehunah for his zeal in atoning for the children of Israel.  In doing so, he elevates Pinchas - along with all his descendants to the role of priest.

Before that moment, only Aaron and his descendants where designated by God as Kohanim.  By blessing Pinchas in this way, God extends the number of those who will inherit the honor and weight of a priestly connection to the divine.  

This is special legacy has continued to be passed down through the millennia from fathers to sons to this very day, indeed to this very room in which we sit.

The second legacy noted in this parsha is the one that results when God commands Moses to undertake yet another census, the aim of which will be to allocate future shares of the promised land in perpetuity in proportion to the total number of men aged 20 and older in each of their fathers’ tribes.

While all this counting and divvying is taking place, the action moves to a third story related to legacy in the parsha – one that marks something of radical step for its time, in which the five orphaned daughters of Tzelophehad realize that in the wake of their father’s death, they have no way to claim their own fair share of the inherited wealth that property ownership would confer upon the men of their generation when they reach the promised land. 

 

At this time, women without brothers were excluded from inheriting property when their father died, a system that continues in many places in the world where women still struggle to be counted as equals. We can also see its echoes in the racist practices of redlining that not only denied certain categories of citizens the right to own their own homes but the chance to build and pass on the wealth that such home ownership could generate for their descendants. 

 

At the time of Moses, women were effectively prevented from inheriting their own family land, with all that implied for their own financial autonomy and freedom to enter into marriage agreements. These five brave women stood before Moses, Eleazer and the chieftains at the Tent of Meeting, and basically asked to be counted. 

 

Moses brought their case before God who promptly agreed that Tzelophehad's daughters have “indeed spoken justly” and instructed Moses that in future, “If a man dies and has no son, you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter.”

 

This brings us to the fourth and for me the most powerful example of legacy in the parsha as the people draw close to the Promised Land, in which God abruptly informs Moses he will not be allowed to enter.  The reason for this, we learn earlier, is that after the death of Moses’ older sister Miriam and the disappearance of Miriam’s well that had quenched the thirst of the Hebrew people throughout their wanderings in the desert, God instructed Moses to gather all the people crying out for water and bring forth water as he had done once before, this time by speaking to the rock.  Instead, Moses grows angry at the people for their ingratitude and hits the rock with his staff in frustration, unleashing not only water - but God’s ire.  Clearly, this was not the demonstration of a faith that God had in mind, and he makes Moses take the fall for it.

When we reflect on all that Moses experienced in one lifetime, it is hard to fathom what emotions must have passed through him on hearing that in one moment of anger he had forfeited his long-sought dream of entering the land of milk and honey.

That after a life that began with floating up to Pharoah’s daughter in a reed basket, being raised among royalty only to flee for his life after killing an Egyptian soldier he saw beating an enslaved fellow Jew, settling elsewhere to create a family for 40 years, speaking to God via a burning bush that he needs to prepare for the Exodus from Egypt, after repeated pleadings with Pharoah, after frogs, lice, vermin, etc, after the parting of the Red Sea and getting to the other side, after reminding people again and again that, unlike toilet paper, the supply chain of manna is infinite, so there is no need to hoard it, after carrying down Tablets 1.0, only to be greeted by the sight of a Golden Calf, and going back for Tablets 2.0, after beating back hordes of poisonous snakes with his own healing snake that becomes a symbol of healing to this day, and after responding again and again to the people’s seemingly endless doubts, misgivings and complaints, after all of this ardor and tzuris, it seems hard to conceive that Moses himself would be granted nothing more than a sneak peek from the top of Mount Abarim at the legacy others would inherit by dint of all his efforts on their behalf. 

Of all the people we meet in the Torah, Moses has the most direct, intimate experience with the Divine Presence across his long lifetime. He never serves as king.  Although he is the youngest in his family, I see him as the ultimate middle child between God and the people Israel and a skillful cajoler of both. He is also a prophet, a teacher and a devoted leader - of followers who do not always follow, who are mostly loyal, until they are not.

There are so many lessons to his legacy, we can barely count them.  And yet after everything he had done, after running the final lap of a grueling 40-year marathon of Biblical proportions, Moses suddenly learns - not only will he be prevented from crossing the finish line, but he won’t even live to set foot on the other side of it.  Instead, he will soon be gathered up with his siblings in the world to come and buried by God in an unmarked grave.

Moses later begs God in vain to give him a second chance to experience the “good land on the other side of the Jordan” when this same moment is recapitulated in Deuteronomy. But in this earlier parsha, when he is confronted with the chilling finality of God’s words, to his credit, he doesn’t hesitate.  He immediately opts to take one for the team.  His heart steps right up -- yet again -- to a place of compassion for his people, to urging God to replace him in a timely fashion, lest the people wander about like sheep without a shepherd.  And it is Joshua who will step into his shoes, rather than either of his own two sons. 

Beyond the themes of legacy, this parsha also speaks to two notions of time.  One is cyclical and the other linear.  The Jewish calendar binds us to countless cycles of recurring days and prayers rejoicing in everything from waking up in the morning to vanquishing our ancient enemies, days for grieving the loss of a loved one and for atoning for the prior year’s transgressions. Days in which we savor the miracle of each returning season of planting, flourishing and harvesting. 

We reconnect with all these recurring touchstones throughout the year like those cylindrical prayer wheels that hang in Tibetan monasteries that the monks reach out and spin as they pass while reciting their prayers.  Around and around we go through Rosh Hashana to Purim to Pesach to Shavuous and back.

But Mose’s life was a linear story.  For Moses, time stretched out like a Torah scroll that would only be unrolled – and never wound back to the beginning and repeated anew - except by all of us who inherited his legacy.

And tragically, for me at least, I feel we are witnessing in this present moment a foreshadowing of an age of non-recurrence that is unfolding before our very eyes, the legacy of humanity’s profound and shameful degradation and dismantling of the living web of land, sea and sky, which is already bringing an end to certain familiar cycles of migrations and seasons that our planet has witnessed over eons.

In the face of obvious signs of glacial melt and mass species extinction, we can no longer delude ourselves that the natural cycles and rhythms of recurrence we once relied upon as children will continue in our lifetimes. 

And here is where I’d like to take a big step sideways for a moment and take you on an imaginative journey by way of the ancient book of divination, the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Change, that some say dates back more than 5000 years, the source of which is said to be a divine oracle.  It is a book that fascinated the psychotherapist Carl Jung throughout his life. It is intended to be used as way of characterizing the essential nature of this very moment in time in which the person consulting it finds themselves. Consulting the I Ching can yield one or more of 64 possible responses or hexagrams.  Each has a name.  Interestingly Number 63 is called “After the End,” but the very last chapter, Number 64 is called “Before the End.”

I was struck recently by how closely the language of “Before the End” mirrors the literal and psychological moment of Moses reaching Mount Abarim and resonates powerfully with how we understand ourselves as we approach the completion of a long sought goal. 

I ask your indulgence in letting me read this passage and ask you to imagine Moses standing reading this to himself:

BEFORE THE END

“The accomplishment of a goal is in sight. It appears that long-impending matters may be brought to fruition with an acceptable amount of effort. Increasing clarity surrounds the meaning of situations once thought to be obscure. At the time of BEFORE THE END there is great promise for the future. A unique and sage viewpoint is present in human affairs. Order can be brought to chaotic situations.

“Because you are now unusually familiar with the elements involved in the object of your inquiry, you can evaluate and arrange them in whatever way necessary to achieve your aim. It should be a relatively simple matter to bring together groups of people in social or public-minded situations. By penetrating the psyche of each individual involved, you can arrange to gratify their needs within the group mechanism and thereby gain their co-operation.

“Yet, it would be a mistake to imagine that by achieving your aim you will bring matters to a close, that good judgment and order will prevail.

“The time BEFORE THE END can be compared to a lengthy trek over a high mountain. At some point, before reaching the peak, you can see in detail exactly how much farther you must travel.

“You will know what is involved in reaching the top because of your experience in the climb so far. However, when you do reach the peak, which has been in your sight for many long days of effort, you will have done only that.

“You will have acquired little information and no experience whatsoever about descending the other side. To rush up and over the top in an overly confident manner could bring disaster.

“In this passage The Book of Change warns at some length, of the dangers of proceeding without caution immediately BEFORE THE END. You must prepare yourself with wariness and reserve. The coming situation will be strange to you in every way, unlike any that you have experienced. In the near future you will not be able to draw upon the wealth of your acquired experience, for in many ways the time will be nothing short of a rebirth. The idea of rebirth here is a key to the meaning of the I Ching as a whole. The book ends with a new beginning, cycling back to the first hexagram, CREATIVE POWER, forever and ever into eternity.”  [Source:  The I Ching Workbook by R.L. Wing, December 19, 1979]

In this parsha, we stand as witnesses with Moses as he reaches both the pinnacle of his life and its end, calling us to imagine how we might feel if we stood in his shoes on Mount Abarim. The word Abarim means “passage.”  Is this moment a tragedy or a passage to a new era?  

Or as Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie, might say “All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.”

My questions for you:

1.     How do you yourself feel about the legacy of Moses and the way his journey ends?  Do you see it as tragic, as appropriate, as a necessary evil or as creating space for a rebirth?

 

2.     How much of your own identity and life pursuit is wrapped up in what you hope to leave behind as a legacy?

 

3.     In what ways, if any, have you prepared yourself for the massive changes in our environmental, political, and economic lives that signal things may never cycle back in our lifetimes to where they were before?

Mark Pinsky on Parshat Vayechi: Hope & Faith After There is an After

Parashah Vayechi: Hope & Faith After There is an After

    Offered by Mark Pinsky, Minyan Dorshei Derekh - January 2, 2021

My thoughts today on parashah Vayechi go to the hopes of the Israelites at the end of the parashah, after Joseph died, and what they might teach us about our own hopes and faith as we start the new year.

In 2020, “Hope” became a focus at Dorshei Derekh, inspired by Bobbi Breitman’s powerful call to action. Hope helped us see a different and better time and believe we could get there.

In fact, hope is on the rise in America. According to a new Axios public opinion poll out this week, “63% of poll respondents said they’re more hopeful than fearful about what 2021 holds in store for the world, while 36% said they’re more fearful.” This is a significant improvement over the prior Axios poll, when 51% were hopeful and 48% were fearful.

It is tempting to explain the rise in Hope by the election of Joe Biden, but the data don’t back that up. Remarkably, what is lifting our hopes is COVID--apparently, our can-do attitude that we will prevail over COVID.

To keep it in context, however. Axios headlined the story, “America Hopes 2021 Will be Less Terrible.”

And while nothing in our lives during COVID gives us easy beginnings or decisive ends, we binge-watch mini-series, re-watch movies with their prequels and sequels, and take comfort in the orderly resolves of Hollywood endings.

Vayechi delivers a great Hollywood ending to a great melodrama, the story of Joseph. The parashah, which begins with Jacob’s final moments, ends neatly with Joseph’s death, the final scene in the book of B’reishit and, profoundly, the final curtain on the story of our Patriarchs.

Before Jacob dies, he blesses his grandsons Menashe and Ephraim and then blesses his 12 sons--if you can call his critical assessments “blessings”--to make the 12 tribes of Israel. He makes Joseph swear to return his body to the Promised Land so he can rejoin Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Leah. Of course, Joseph does so with help from his brothers and Pharaoh.

 Returning to Egypt, Joseph reassures his brothers he has only good intentions and explains that God is with them, through him.

“Do not be afraid,” he comforts them. “For I am in the place of God. Even if you meant to do evil, God meant it for good, in order to bring about what is at present, in order to keep a numerous nation alive. And now, do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.”

Later, as Jospeh lays ill, he sketches in light strokes that the “numerous nation’s” destiny is in the Promised Land:

“I am dying,” he says. “And God will surely remember you again one day and bring you up out of this land to the land which God swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

Finally, echoing their father, his confidence waning with his breath, Joseph asks his brothers to return his body, too, to the Promised Land. “If God will remember you again one day, then you shall bring my bones up from this place.”

Fade. Cut. Print. That’s a wrap!

I have to tell you now that I struggle with Hollywood endings. Inevitably there is something facile in their solutions, some point at which the story conveniently overtakes the true meaning. If that sort of ending gives us hope, too often it’s false hope.

Studying Vayechi, I found myself focusing on the questions that are not answered, the tensions that are left unresolved, and the parts of the story around Vayechi that we cannot see or know. There is a big gap--maybe even a 430-year gap--between the end of Genesis and the first major action in Exodus. I am interested in what happened during that time between Genesis and Exodus because I want to know what the surviving Israelites experienced, felt, and thought.

What gave them hope? They kept their faith without living patriarchs or Torah. How?

Adina Abramowitz has taught us to recognize the time, in the words of Rabbi Arthur Waskow and his children David and Shoshana, “before there was a before.”

Vayechi raises for me questions about what goes on with and to and among the Israelites in the time “after there is an after” … after the Israelites mourn the loss of Joseph …  and before there is the next “before” … leading to the birth of Moses.

We don’t know whether the surviving Israelites understood what it meant that the Patriarchy had ended. Did that scare them? Did it cause a power struggle? As Sheila said eloquently last week, the Patriarchy produced a historically dysfunctional family.

What did they make of Jacob’s blessing of Menashe and Ephraim? Were Joseph’s brothers resentful? Distrusting? What did it mean to them that Jacob favored the younger, Ephraim, over his elder brother? We know they regretted what they had done to Joseph. I imagine they remembered that Jacob had outmaneuvered Esau since we know there are no family secrets in this story. What had they learned?

What did they make of Joseph’s promise that "G‑d will surely remember you, and bring you up out of this land to the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob”? Did they hear self-doubt in Joseph’s words?

How did they fear what the loss of Joseph (who was providing for them) would mean for them, their families, their tribes, and the Israelites? Without Joseph, Egypt ran differently.

Did they foresee the troubles ahead in Egypt? Did it occur to them that Joseph could not say WHEN they would return to Canaan or HOW? Surely that was on the Israelites’ minds--when to pack up to return to Canaan … to emigrate?

And how did they recall the conditional nature of Joseph’s request--“If God will remember you again one day, then you shall bring my bones up from this place,” he said. “If.”

I don’t know about you, but I would be feeling pretty nervous. I imagine the Israelites felt their faith and hope tested... Perhaps as WE do NOW. We live suspended in an uncertain and indeterminate present.

We are living in a time that is “after many afters” and “before many befores.”

With each moment we experience the amorphous time after COVID-19 took control of the world as we knew it and before the time we will conquer it.

Each of us in our own ways has sensed the fact that COVID-19 is a species-changing event, as I heard Ameet Ravital say a few months ago, and yet we must make decisions and choices about our futures before we know how different life will be after the pandemic.

We watch in unsettled anxiety after the 2020 Presidential elections and before we know...

-       Which party will control the Senate;

-       Whether Donald Trump will assault the Constitution one final time by refusing to leave office; and,

-       Whether democracy as we knew it will recover?

We wake up each day knowing that Climate Change has us descending quickly toward an unsustainable future, hoping that we can help produce systemic changes in how the world runs, fearing what will happen if we do not.

And we go about our lives after we have recognized that racial and other structural and systemic injustices define our world … and before we know how to be part of the healing or what life could be like when we are.

So what helped the Israelites find the hope and keep the faith to carry them across the narrow bridge that links the time after the last “after” in Genesis to the time before there is a new before in Exodus?

Of course, they remembered the Patriarchs, Joseph and his brothers delivered Jacob’s body to the Cave of Machpelah, and the Israelites delivered Joseph’s body--eventually--to the Promised Land.

The complex and perplexing sequence of Jacob blessing his grandsons before he blesses his sons seemed to give them faith and hope, too--as it gives us hope and faith still.

First Jacob claimed the boys as his own, telling Joseph, “Now, your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, shall be mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine no less than Reuben and Simon.”

Jacob claims them as his lineage apparently to cast the Patriarchal lineage and the covenants the Patriarchs made with Adonai beyond, or after, Joseph. “In them may my name be recalled,” Jacob explains, “And the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac.”

And then Jacob blesses his sons.

In a sense, Jacob passed on hope through his sons that the nations of Israel would continue what God had promised the Patriarchs. And he passed on faith through his blessing of Ephraim and Menashe and the Matriarchs, a weekly reminder that God was with the Israelites just as the Shechinah is with us as we enter 2021.

In the final cut, as good as Joseph’s story is, you can look at Joseph ultimately as a transitional character in it--as we all are in our own stories. If Adonai caused Joseph’s brothers to do wrong so that they would all get to Egypt, you might wonder if Adonai needed Joseph so that Jacob’s blessing of Ephriam and Menashe would sustain our faith after ever after. 

Discussion

-       What gives you hope and what sustains your faith as you prepare for the time “after there is an after” in our pandemic world? In our government and our nation? In our environment? In our society?

-       Did your parents or your grandparents give you something to carry across your lifespan so that the descendants of yours that you will never know will keep their faith?

Closing

My grandfather--my father’s father--always told his 12 grandchildren, “It’s deyn America”--”It’s YOUR America.” The older grandkids heard it as a judgement on their lifestyles and choices. The youngest of us, however, took it as a call to social action and civic responsibility. Shroyal, as everyone called him, still is a source of hope and faith for me, though he’s been gone almost 48 years.

 In his memory, I want to report that peaceful transitions of power DO still happen.

 Congratulations to Beth, who has cycled into the role of Outgoing Coordinator. Beth’s trust, confidence, and skills led us through tests in 2020 we never could have imagined.

I am sure we will all rally to support Ruth Loew, as she becomes Coordinator, and Mike Gross, as he joins the Mazkirut. Dorshei could not be in better hearts and hands.

Last, I want to thank everyone in our community for the kindness, support, and love you have shown me in my three years on the Mazkirut. I am grateful beyond words to you all.

 

 

 

 

Zekie Lieberman's Bar Mitzvah Derash on Bereshit

Mazel tov, Zekie and to your parents Beth Janus and Seth Lieberman, and your sister Nami. We are so proud of you!

Here is Zeke's Davar Torah.

Shabbat shalom. When I was reading through my Torah portion, I noticed something peculiar. Two times, God asked questions, probably already knowing the answers. This captured my attention because why would God ask these interrogations if God is all-knowing? Is there some deeper meaning behind them? The first instance is after Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge. God asks Adam where he is and Adam says he heard God and because he is naked, he hides. With only this one question, God asks Adam if he ate from the Tree of Knowledge. But why does God have to question? The second time is after Cain kills Abel. God asks Cain where Abel is. Cain then says, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”. This time God’s response is even more puzzling. God blames Cain when all he has done is ask if he is in charge of his brother. God is correct, but once again, why does God ask and jump to conclusions so quickly? Today, I will be exploring the possibilities of God’s perplexing and repetitive actions. Are there any other times in the Tanach when this happens? Let’s find out.

            What I discovered is that yes, there are many instances when God or God’s angels do something like this. One time this occurs is in Jonah. After God decides not to kill the people of Ninevah, Jonah says that he’d rather die than see the people not get punished. Next, God proceeds to ask what is wrong, when quite frankly, it is obvious! Another example of this is in Vayera. Hagar’s baby almost dies, and God asks what’s wrong. If a friend of yours almost loses someone close, you wouldn’t ask them what’s wrong. If anyone should know social cues, it should be God. Plus, God should have nothing to learn; God should know what’s wrong. But God always has reasons for God’s actions. An additional time is in Vayishlach. After wrestling with God’s Angel, the angel renames Jacob to Israel. Jacob then asks what the Angel’s name is. The angel asks why Jacob would ask. If someone wrestles you and renames you, wouldn’t you want to know his or her name? 

            We know God as an all-powerful, tells-you-what-to-do, serious being. It doesn’t seem like God is the type to laugh. Or so we think. I believe that God is being sarcastic. But this is not just humor, it’s humor with a deeper meaning. God’s strange questions are God’s way of conveying something to us—in these cases, that God is not always so formal. True, God’s questions do not seem like sarcasm, but the Torah would never say, “Gee, I wonder where Adam is.”. Sometimes, we can overlook these moments because the Torah’s way of expressing sarcasm is different, but we have to remember that this position is critical to our understanding of the Torah. 

            Sometimes people today use satire to open a new perspective on people or things. There is a YouTuber named Rob Lopez who made a video about if Airpods commercials were honest. He highlights all the unnecessary features: how they are lost easily, how they fall out of your ear, and most importantly how incredibly overpriced they are. Although the delivery was humorous, it questions why so many people buy this unnecessary product to go into a rich guy’s wallet when there people dying on the streets from hunger. Also, I saw a Key & Peele skit about if teachers got treated like football players. The skit went into an imaginary world where teachers got paid millions a year, there were teacher drafts, and the teacher’s choices of who to call on were competitive. Even though this was comical, it got me thinking. Why do football players get so much more attention? Should we do something about it? This is another example where comedy opened my eyes. Before watching this, I hadn’t really put much thought into it, but it gave me a new perspective.

Now that we think we have the answer, what should we learn from it? What we acquire from this is a more authentic relationship with God. We can look at God as more of someone to relate to, instead of an all-powerful, above us being. Sure, we still need God as our leader, but we will be more likely to want to follow God as someone slightly like us. This makes God more of a friend, as well as a leader. God is already different enough from us that we can distinguish, but this is a slight overlap in personality. After watching the fake Airpods commercial, we are still going to keep using Apple products, but we might rethink why we need all this. Maybe not get every single model every single year—a more authentic relationship with the products we buy. Relating to the Key & Peele sketch, people are not going to all of a sudden stop watching sports, but maybe we can advocate for teachers! There is so much we can learn from satire, even if it first doesn’t seem like it has a deeper meaning. 

For my mitzvah project, my sister Nami and I are creating another way to learn. We want to create an app that will help people decrease their animal product consumption. We know it’s unrealistic to make everyone vegan because it’s intimidating to change your diet so drastically, but if everyone ate slightly less meat and dairy, it would save hundreds of thousands, even millions, of animals. It would also significantly improve climate change. Users will log their food intake and the app gives them a “reduction score”. Whether you are a vegetarian looking to have a little less milk, or a big meat-eater trying to decrease your red meat consumption, the app will help you improve. In addition, the app may include a social aspect, so users can compare scores with their friends, family, or even complete strangers. Users will also be able to earn coupons to vegan or vegan-friendly restaurants or products. While Nami is exploring the coding side, I am focusing on the business side. Whether you want to reduce animal product consumption to help animals, help the planet, or improve your health, SaveDatCow will work for you.

I’d like to thank Rabbi Adam for helping with my D’var Torah, Rena for teaching me the material for today, all the relatives and friends that came here in person, and all the relatives and friends that came through Zoom. I’d also like to thank my sister Nami for helping with the app, the slideshow, and the siddur. Finally, a huge thank you to my parents for organizing the whole event.

 

Tazria-Metzora 5780 - mid-Pandemic

  Tazria-Metzora 5780, Minyan Dorshei Derekh

Maria Pulzetti

I’m sorry I’m not in the service with you today.  I miss sharing Shabbat services with all of you, but I’ve chosen, for now, not to use screens or electronics on Shabbat per my longtime practice.  Thank you so much to Tamara for offering to deliver this d’var, which I had agreed to do a couple of months ago, before I realized I would not be able to do so in person.

Here we are in late April 2020, reading this week’s double parsha, Tazria-Metzora, where the Torah sets forth the rules for certain situations – some extremely common, some less so – when a person has to limit contact with others.  The Torah calls this a state of tamei, which we can translate (inadequately) as ritual impurity.  In this state a person can’t touch other people or sanctified objects or porous food containers; clothing, bedding or furniture may require washing if they come into contact with that person; the person can’t go to the Mishkan, the place for communal worship; the person must wash with water; and in the most severe version, the affected person has to live apart from the community.    

It all sounds so familiar.

For all these circumstances, the Torah also sets forth procedures for returning people and objects to a regular, tahor, state.  I want to focus our discussion today on what it means to have a prescribed, routine means of transitioning from a state of limited contact to a state of reintegration, and on the particular reintegration ritual for a person separated from the community due to serious disease.

The ways that a person becomes tamei include childbirth, a skin affliction we’ll call leprosy, menstruation, seminal emission, sex, and irregular male or female discharge.  These are not obscure circumstances!  Menstruating women, couples who’d had sex the prior night, anyone who’d given birth in the past several weeks -- the restrictions on contact were not for a tiny group of the disfavored or most vulnerable people.  On some level the restrictions would fall upon almost every adult at some point, and presumably a pretty high percentage of the population on any given day. 

As I mentioned earlier, the Torah sets forth a reintegration ritual for each situation.  There is always a way to end the state of tamei and return to a state of tahor (ritual access, or the absence of social distancing).  In fact the text is more preoccupied with the return ritual than with the state of tamei itself.  For all of the conditions except leprosy, the Torah specifies an amount of time when the tamei state ends and the ritual may be performed.  For many of the conditions except childbirth, the period is 7 days.  Some of the rituals are private (for instance, bathing in water, washing one’s clothes), and some have a public component requiring sacrifices to be brought to the Mishkan.  The separation from regular contact is thus time-limited and predictable.  Being in a state of tamei is common, short, and fixable.

     

Reading the text this year, I was drawn to the description of treatment of people with the skin affliction we’ll call leprosy.  The sick person, whose condition is diagnosed by the kohen, has to live outside the camp until the kohen declares that the person has recovered.  Unlike the other conditions, this state of tamei does not have a fixed end date.  The open-ended timeline, the separation from community and from family, the potentially life-threatening illness, and the reliance on a powerful community leader to lift restrictions on mobility evoke so many of the circumstances and feelings we face in the coronavirus pandemic.  Some people will not heal and will not be granted permission to return, and they will die outside their family and community.  For others, the kohen will declare them recovered, and they will reintegrate.

The reintegration ritual is striking.  First the priest prepares a liquid of bird blood and red dye and sprinkles it on the person; the person then bathes, washes clothes, and shaves.  At this point the person may reenter the camp, but must remain outside their tent for seven days.  On the eighth day, the person goes to the Mishkan to offer sacrifices.  (The text provides a less costly sacrifice option, birds, for people who are poor.)  The kohen must sprinkle blood from the sacrifice and dab it on the person’s right ear, right thumb, and right big toe.  The kohen also dabs part of the oil on the right ear, thumb, and toe, and pours the rest of the oil over the person’s head. (Lev. 14:14-18).  The person is now tahor.

This ritual with dabbing sacrificial blood and oil on the ear, thumb and toe occurs only one other time in the Torah: for the ordination of Aaron and his sons, the high priests.  Before that ritual, too, the priests were separated for 7 days.  The ordination ritual, conducted by Moses, included dabbing blood of a sacrificed ram on Aaron’s and his sons’ right ears, thumbs and big toes.  (Lev. 8:23-24).  It also included sprinkling the oil used in the Mishkan on Aaron and his sons.  This process sanctifies the priests.  (Lev. 8:30). 

Why is the ritual for reintegrating the person recovered from leprosy so similar to the ritual for ordaining the high priests? 

Biblical scholar and Rabbi Tamara Eskenazi writes, “Leviticus concentrates on reconnecting the persons who have been isolated and on bringing them back to the center.  The more marginalized the ill persons have been, the greater the effort to bring them back into the fold. . . . Leviticus 14 illustrates the tremendous investment in the social and religious reconnection and rehabilitation of persons formerly stigmatized and excluded by virtue of the disease.  The most marginalized, isolated person is reintegrated with an elaborate ritual, comparable only to that of the ordination of the High Priest.”  So the Torah is teaching us here that a drastic, stigmatizing isolation requires an elaborate reintegration.

The ancient rabbis associate the leprosy diagnosis with death, not only because the disease was serious, but also because the text states that the sick person rends their clothing, an act associated with mourning. (Lev. 13:45).  Because the recovered leper had been in a state so closely associated with death, ritual is necessary to reenter community.  This helps us connect the leprosy condition to the birth- and reproduction-related states of tamei.  Childbirth and acts associated with potential or foregone reproduction also bring humans close to the liminal stages of life, where the boundaries between human action and Divine presence blur.  When people approach those boundaries, too, a period of limited contact followed by reintegration was required.

·         For states of tamei that involved fewer restrictions than leprosy, the reintegration rituals were simpler.  What practices do we have in our community for concluding periods of separation?  What reintegration practices might we envision for emerging from the current period of separation?

·         What can we learn from the teaching that life-threatening illness, isolation and stigma require affirmative and elaborate reintegration rituals?

·         The ancient rabbis and later commentaries blame the sick person for contracting leprosy as a result of sin, in particular lashon ha-ra.  In that framework, the isolation from community is a punishment as well as a means to prevent contagion.  Despite advances in our knowledge of medicine, the association of illness with fault or moral failure continues today.   In what ways do we blame and isolate people with chronic disease [e.g. substance use disorder, severe mental illness, type 2 diabetes, obesity] that some in our society blame on moral failing?  How might we as a Jewish community frame an approach to chronic disease that promotes prevention and healthy behaviors but does not fault those who are sick?

Conclusion:

Although the reintegration ritual for leprosy was unusual, one aspect of it is more common, an act that we associate with joy, abundance and G-d’s comfort: pouring oil over the head.  In the Psalm for Shabbat and in Psalm 23, the psalmists praise G-d for pouring oil over their heads.  In Psalm 23, this line is “You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”  May we find ways to ensure that all recovering from serious illness, and all reintegrating after a period of prolonged separation, experience Divine comfort and a cup that overflows.

The Yovel and Poverty Alleviation - Nami Lieberman

Seth, Nami, Zeke and Beth

Mazel tov to Nami Janus Lieberman and to her family Rabbi Beth Janus, Seth and Zeke. Nami became a bat mitzvah on Shabbat May 12 and we proudly share her Davar Torah, and will be sharing future b'nei mitzvah words of Torah!

Shabbat Shalom. This week’s double Parsha is B’har B’hukotai. When the Israelites originally entered Israel after the Exodus, each family was assigned a plot of land. This Torah portion explains the many rules about the land. There would be six days of work, and then one day of rest. Similarly, there would be six years to work the land and one year to let it rest. In the rest year, the people could only eat what was already grown. After seven seven year cycles, there would be a year called the Yovel or Jubilee. In the Yovel year, the land would not be worked, Jewish slaves would be freed, and everyone would return to their holding. That means that every family would go back to the land that was designated for them many years before. If someone gained more property or wealth, they were obligated to give back to people who lost property and wealth.

            The Yovel year, every fiftieth year, particularly stood out to me. Several things are left unclear. The plan is mentioned briefly, but the Torah doesn’t revisit the idea later on. Was the custom of everyone returning to their original property ever observed? We have no evidence either way. If this system was ever used, it would get rid of poverty every fifty years. So why does it say later, in Deuteronomy 15:11 “For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land.”?

            If the Yovel was not observed, was it supposed to be? What can we do to reduce or abolish poverty? The underlying question is: what is the purpose of the Yovel year if not to eradicate poverty? Some commentators say that the Yovel year actually harmed the poorer people because they could not work the land.

            What’s the point of the Yovel year and other forms of giving if we’re not going to solve all poverty problems? Why do something if we can’t do everything? We should do something because for those few people that we do help, we make a big difference.  If we all help as much as we can, maybe there is a possibility that things can change. By giving to others, we set examples for our peers. Eventually, many people are doing the right thing because of one small action. So we should do what we can, even if it won’t make a broad difference itself, because it can inspire everyone around you to do the same.

            Many famous rabbis and commentators have struggled to understand the purpose of the Yovel. Rashi says that these rest years are created for one main purpose, to let the land rest. He knew that crops grew better right after the rest years. I don’t like Rashi’s explanation because he doesn’t focus on the consequences for the people. Rambam gives two reasons for the rest years. One is the agricultural benefit and the other is that these years actually help needy people. He says that the acts of freeing slaves, canceling debts, and making sure needy people have food were created to teach sympathy towards others. If everyone saw how much needy people were being helped during these times, then maybe they would be encouraged to help in the future. I agree with Rambam because he acknowledges that the Yovel helps crops grow, but he also focuses on how it can make people better. Nehama Leibowitz says that the Yovel year was designed to keep an even distribution of wealth, thus helping the poor people. I like this opinion too because while we can always help people who don’t have enough, many people do not help them. However, I think that the benefits to the land are also key. These rules were logical as well as moral. The rest years helped crops grow by letting the nutrients replenish. The system was originally created to govern what happens to the land.

            I believe that the Yovel year should be a reminder for us all. If every fifty years nobody is extremely poor, then maybe we would try to keep everything that way. However, God knows that not everyone will do the right thing and that is why the Yovel needs to be repeated every fifty years. I think that the vision of the Torah is to limit and keep poverty within boundaries. In the ideal world there would be no poverty and everyone would have everything necessary to survive. While it would be amazing to live in a world like that, people need to change a lot in order for it to be possible. The best we can get is a little sneak peek every fifty years. While we do not practice the laws of the Yovel, the government raises money to give food and shelter for poorer people. But it’s still not enough. Even though we will never live in a perfect world, we still learn about these practices so we can get the world to a place as close to there as we can.

            Today, we can still try our best to improve the lives of others. For my Mitzvah project I went to Nicaragua and built a house for a poor family. Through an organization called La Esperanza Granada I funded and helped with the work for this family. I got to know a 12 year old girl and a 10 year old boy who live very different lives from my own. The family’s house was a corrugated iron lean to until my project. While their new house was nowhere near as nice as mine, my actions helped level the playing field. I took some time and money from my own life and gave it to the Nicaraguan family. The organization that helped us build the house also helped the kids go to school. My project was the Yovel on a much smaller scale. If everyone did small deeds like that, slowly the world would become better for everyone. We can all do our part by doing everything to help both poor and needy people. The most that each of us can do is help lots of people as often as possible and also inspire others around us to do the same. These actions are a form of Gemilut Hasadim because they are good deeds that individuals choose to do.

            Individuals contributing is great, but it can never solve the problem. The government mandates forms of giving, such as taxes. This is similar to Tzedakah because in Jewish law everyone is forced to give money and time to help others. Gracious people help, but often the people that have the resources are not the people who want to give. Because of situations like this, more of a difference is made if people are forced to help. The biggest thing our government does for people in poverty is raise taxes. The government takes money from the people and uses some of it to help people who can’t afford food, education, and housing. Similarly to the Yovel, taxes take from people who have more than their allotment and give to people who have less. Like the Yovel, taxes seem like they would solve all poverty problems. However, people who have more money are more reluctant to help, even if they are required by law to do so. Other people believe that giving mandated contributions is enough and because they pay taxes they shouldn’t do anything else. Some leaders in our government want taxes to be lower even though they have the money. Our world will not become a better place until everyone helps as much as they can.

            A lot of people were part of putting together this weekend. I want to thank Rebekah Robinson for teaching me the service and my Haftorah. Thank you to Camp Ramah and my teachers at Perelman and Barrack for teaching me about Judaism and how to be a good person. Thank you to Dorshei Derech for allowing me to leyn for money that went towards my Mitzvah project. Thank you to Rabbi Adam for helping with my Dvar and Rabbi Alanna for teaching BBMM. Thank you to Zekie for leading Ashrei and for being a fun brother when you’re not being annoying. Finally, I want to thank my parents, for figuring out the logistics for the whole weekend, for helping me learn my Torah, for helping with my Dvar, and for preparing me for this day. Shabbat Shalom.

Bechukotai - Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner on Inherited Fears and Trauma

Mazel tov to newly ordained Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner. Here is the davar torah she presented on the shabbat preceding her ordinationat RRC, connecting the curses of the parshah - being fearful even when threats are not there - with her experience as the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors.
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Parshat Bechukotai opens with a statement of conditional love. God announces:
אִם־בְּחֻקֹּתַ֖י תֵּלֵ֑כוּ וְאֶת־מִצְו‍ֹתַ֣י תִּשְׁמְר֔וּ וַֽעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָֽם

“If you follow My statutes and observe My commandments and perform them: I will give your rains in their time, the Land will yield its produce, and the tree of the field will give forth its fruit. And I will grant peace in the Land, and you will lie down with no one to frighten [you]… I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people.”

BUT, God then says:

“If you do not listen to Me and do not perform these commandments,
and if you despise My statutes and reject My ordinances and break My covenant
then I too, will do the same to you; I will order upon you shock, consumption, fever, and diseases of hopeless longing and depression. I will break the pride of your strength and make your skies like iron and your land like copper. I will incite the wild beasts of the field against you, and they will utterly destroy your livestock and diminish you. Your roads will become desolate. I will bring upon you an army, and you will be delivered into the enemy's hands.” This ancient litany of curses, known as the Tochecha, encompasses physical and mental illness, natural disaster and war. These plagues exist in our own time, of course, and I think that’s partly why the curses of Bechukotai speak real fear into our modern ears. But for me, what’s most poignant in the Tochecha is a more subtle threat that appears towards the end of the list, when God announces: “And those of you who survive I will bring fear into your hearts… the sound of a rustling leaf will pursue you; you will flee as one flees the sword, but there will be no pursuer.” The feeling of being pursued in the absence of a pursuer – fear unrooted in fact – is something I’ve been reflecting on lately, as I’ve begun to pay closer attention to my own experiences of fear and fearfulness. For me, fear lives in the belly, a lump of low-level dread. And sometimes, when I am particularly frightened of some imagined future, it radiates up into my throat. When I first began examining this fear in therapy a couple years ago, my therapist asked me: “What are you afraid of?” And, without planning on it, without any conscious thought behind my answer, I opened my mouth, and I said: “I’m worried everyone I love will be taken away from me and killed.” To be clear: My fear is utterly irrational, ungrounded in my actual experiences of life and loss. I grew up loved in a safe, middle-class home in Toronto, never persecuted for my religion, never experiencing war or trauma. But, but: I am a grandchild of Holocaust survivors. In recent years, researchers have been working on better understanding something called epigenetic inheritance: the fact that an individual’s lived experiences can leave genetic alterations in their DNA that can get passed on to subsequent generations.  In one surprising study that confirmed the existence of epigenetic inheritance, researchers gave male lab mice electric shocks every time the mice were exposed to the smell of orange blossoms. The Pavlovian result was that the mice eventually grew to shudder at even a hint of the smell. This was predictable. The surprise, however, was that the children and grandchildren of these traumatized mice also instinctively feared the smell of orange blossoms, even though they had never received any shocks, any sort of negative conditioning. Only last year, another study analyzed the genes of 32 Jews who had either been interned in a concentration camp, witnessed or experienced torture, or who had had to hide during the Holocaust. It then analyzed the genes of their children and grandchildren, and found identical increased mutations for stress disorders in the survivors and their offspring. It seems likely, then, that I didn’t only inherit my straight hair from my mother, or my light eyes from my mother’s father. I also inherited the memories of a trauma that I can never claim as my own. In the words of Yehuda Amichai, the Israeli poet, “I wasn’t one of the six million who died in the Shoah, I wasn’t even among the survivors. No, I was not in that number, though I still have the fire and the smoke within me, pillars of fire and pillars of smoke that guide me by night and by day.” So: it seems I bear the bodily wounds of a trauma I never lived, always anticipating, on some level, an enemy who is not there. And this is why Bechukotai is so heartbreaking for me –because curses– even curses that come true -are one thing. But to live in a fear that is rooted in belly and bone – a fear that does not protect us, precisely because there is nothing to be protected from – is a burden that no one should have to know, but so many of us do. In reflecting on the nature of fear – how it lives inside, how it feels in the body – I’ve noticed that fear can act like a horse’s blinders – preventing us from looking up, looking around, noticing the blessings of our lives. When we do not feel safe – when we are curled into ourselves like an involute – we can lose the ability to feel that we are blessed, even if our lives are awash in blessing. So what is the way forward? How do we honour inheritance, without allowing ourselves to dwell indefinitely in fear? I want to bring you back to the parsha – because I think it offers us two possible ways out of the darkness of ungrounded fear. Bechukotai opens with a list of blessings. But being blessed is not enough. To counteract fear, we also need gratitude – but not facile gratitude, not running through the streets lobbing thank-yous like bouquets of flowers. True gratitude requires and invites us to stop, look up, and notice blessing – to not be so focused on the imagined fears of the present, on the future we are so frightened of. If we can get out of the fear long enough to be present, to notice that we are, actually, all right, we can unclench. And breathe. So that’s one way out of fear – through seeing blessing, through light. The other way is to engage with the dark. In Hebrew, the word for curse is klala. But the root of this word – kuf lamed lamed, kalal – is also the Hebrew verb to burnish - to polish to a shine. If we allow tragedy to touch us – to not always live in fear of rustling leaf and the imagined blow, but rather to unclench and let the sting and the sweetness wash over us as they come – we have the opportunity to be slowly transformed. Loss and grief and sadness are the effects of our modern curses, and the cost that comes with loving people. But loss and grief and sadness offer us the opportunity to let life rub against us, wearing down our rough edges, our spikes that we pushed out in anticipation of pain. Life, if we let it, can polish us to a sheen. From the beauty of our burnished selves, we can shine and reflect light to others. And see ourselves more clearly, the darkness and the light that surrounds us. ~Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner, June 4, 2016

Fair Trade Shabbat - Parshat Kedoshim: Expanding Mitzvot in the Supply Chain

Kippah Crocheter Angelica Marta works 

with MayanHands, supporting herself and 

her family. Photo: Dina Tanners

Kedoshim: A Favorite Pick-and-Choose Parshah

May 14, 2016 - Betsy Teutsch

This shabbat is designated Fair Trade Shabbat, coinciding with World Fair Trade Day. Some of you know I am on the Fair Trade Judaica Advisory Board, so I was eager to take on linking today's Parshah, Kedoshim, with Fair Trade Principles. And of course I provided slave-free Equal Exchange Kosher Fair Trade Chocolate to amplify my teaching. [IF you're reading this rather than hearing it in person... go shopping!]

Kedoshim, Leviticus 19:1-20:27) is about an elusive topic, holiness. We sense holiness, but it is hard to define. Social justice advocates love this parshah because of its justice-promoting chestnuts, but there are also opaque and baffling instructions, as well as some we moderns find offensive.

First, some easy ones:

• Peah – Leave the corners of your field for the poor. There is no upward limit. You could harvest a chevron shape, where the corners are the same size as the field, making it 50/50
• No gathering of fallen fruits, they are for the poor and the stranger
• No defrauding
• No withholding of wages.
• You shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old
• No falsifying of weights
• You shall not wrong a stranger that resides in your land

Some less obvious paths to holiness:

• You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed (though it does not forbid companion-planting, where one pairs two different kinds of plants, a beneficial practice , a standard in permaculture and sustainable agriculture)
• You shall not mix two kinds of cloth (shatnez)
• You shall not destroy the sidegrowth of your beard

And then the ones that are 180 from where we are today: inappropriate prohibitions, such as the one against male-male unions. In our world they are not only legal, but a celebrated source of holiness for those in loving unions, in many Jewish communities.

The text does not define holiness; we are to be holy, set apart, for God.

I would submit that holiness is , l’havdil, like pornography. You know it when you see it. You feel it.

Clearly achieving this holiness requires a lot of every day, ordinary attention to behavior in the material world. It is woven into our interactions with others. If we were to make up a list of ways to achieve holiness as we live our daily lives, some of these Levitical principles would likely make our list; others would disappear.

Here we are 2500 years later in a complex globalized world of 7 billion people. We can’t leave the corners of our fields for the poor, since we mostly don’t raise our own food, and the world's poorest people, many of whom do raise our food, concentrate in the Global South.

The Fair Trade movement seeks to utilize our everyday market transactions to help the poor improve their lives, according them dignity and ensuring they can meet their basic needs. The opposite? Said Zach Teutsch, when I first described fair trade coffee a decade or so ago, must be unfair trade.

Initially the movement has been known for coffee production,  Fair Trade products include many others kinds of consumable food, flowers, clothing, housewares, crafts, and even Judaica like Fair Trade Judaica's Bar/Bat Mitzvah Collection, kippot and tallitot.

There are ten basic principles of Fair Trade. They expand the holiness in our daily consumption – creating more kedushah and allow us to help people help themselves out of extreme deprivation, Rambam's highest level of tsedakah. Here are a few examples:

Transparency throughout the supply chain. It is easy to take advantage of people who are unaware of the retail value of their products. Asymmetrical information is a form of exploitation, the opposite of fair.

No child labor. This is not prohibited by Torah, it was the pre-industrial norm. It is illegal, now, but not uncommon. Likewise no slave labor. Fair Trade certification is an extension of kashrut supervision, which applies to food.

Safe work conditions, setting forth goals which co-ops can work to attain. Cheap clothes et al are produced in factories that cut every possible corner. (Contrast that with leaving the corners open for the needy….)

FT guarantees equal rights regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, HIV status. This is a much higher standard than Torah or secular law.

Environmental standards are integrated into FT, unlike the conventional food supply chain where workers, the land and water and ultimate consumers are exposed to pesticides. This too is a higher standard, and missing from conventional kashrut supervision.

Q) How might we integrate Fair Trade standards, a sort of “consumption kashrut”, into our personal and household lives? Does having worker justice, environmental protection, and gender equity guarantees feel like holiness? Is this a spiritual practice, or just a form of consumption tax? Or tsedakah?

Q) How to we integrate fairly traded products into Dorshei Derekh and our shul?

Sometimes FairTrade is costly – it cuts out the middle-men so can be competitive, but products are usually higher quality, ergo costlier.

Q) How to we resolve conflicting Value Based Decision Making – local vs. buying a fair trade product from far away, or cost, or kashrut labeling? Organic, for example, does not equal Fair Trade. Or a FT product might not have kosher certification. My husband David loves his Starbucks French Roast. It's kosher, but not Fair Trade. 

PS - Elite Chocolate has no supervision of its supply chain. You can help a recent Ashira Abramowitz, a recent Bat Mitzvah girl in Israel, petition Elite to raise its standards,