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America, Sodom and Gomorrah

Rabbi Joshua Rose

5/31/20

 The Talmudic account of the ancient city of Sodom contains a do-or-die lesson for us in this American moment.  

As we look out on our burning cities, awash in chaos and rioting  it is hard  not to think about Sodom and Gomorrah - two cities which were destroyed by God on account of their wickedness.  The townspeople of the City of Sodom were said by the Mishnah to be without a share in this world or the World to Come because they were wicked (רעים) and sinners (חטאים).  While Sodom didn’t witness riots per se, attacks on property owners were listed among the crimes the rabbis associate with the city’s wickedness. We learn that the citizens

set their sights on property owners. They would take one and place him alongside a leaning wall and push it upon him, and would come and take his property….They would set their sights on property owners. They would give [one of them odorous]  balsam and the property owner would place it in his treasury. In the evening, the people of Sodom would come and sniff it out like a dog...they would come and dig there, and they would take that property.  (B. Talmud Sanhedrin 109a)

Many Americans are rightly outraged by the rioting, burning, looting, theft and generalized violence sweeping the nation’s cities.  Based on these talmudic narratives we can assume that rabbis would share our anger.  

Some argue that rioters should be given a moral pass because their actions are the inevitable result of injustice. I don’t like this line of thinking. First the argument robs people of moral agency and therefore undermines the philosophical underpinnings of progressive politics; it obscures the fact that the vast majority of victims of  injustice do not choose violence as an answer; and it is insensitive to the need for justice of those innocents victimized by such violence.  

However our Sages descriptions of the famously corrupt city of Sodom points to a different problem with focusing on the riots.  What separates the rabbinic account of this social disorder from so many American observers is that our Sages viewed the violence against property as part of a whole.  The looting was wicked (ra’ah) and part of a society awash in ra’ah v’cheit, evil and sin. The long litany of moral abuses and crimes against God places these attacks against property owners in a context of moral chaos. (Those excited to read of Divine wrath against ‘sodomites’ will be disappointed; while it remains a curious obsession of the moralists of American religiosity the rabbis’ focus is decidedly elsewhere).  

In midrashic and Talmudic texts Sodom was a city where the economically and socially vulnerable were brutally mistreated.  The account above is from a long Talmudic passage that bewails, among other things: selfishness, stinginess, violence, cruelty, inhospitality, theft, exploitation of widows and orphans, mistreatment of the poor and even those who seek to assist the poor, financial exploitation, and false judges who pervert justice.  In Jewish texts the emphasis is clearly and overwhelmingly on the exploitation of vulnerable people and the apparent total absence of an ethic of justice.  Sodom was a place where anyone’s vulnerability would be seized upon for profit and gain.  

In other worlds, the destruction of property decried by the rabbis doesn’t stand out in the Talmudic description. Property theft is unsurprising in Sodom because it is part of a poisoned moral ecosystem.  In fact the rabbis do not draw any special attention to it as they list horrors of the society.  

The rabbinic description of Sodom is a bit of a jumble. There seems to be no order, no causal progression of one kind of transgression to another.  A story of the have-nots stealing from the haves is placed without comment alongside a narrative of the wealthy brutalizing the poor, which in turn precedes a picture of an exploited widow.  The effect is a portrait of a society in the grasp of moral chaos.  Nowhere is there respect for the dignity of the other or a concern with the moral needs of the fellow person. 

Yet for Americans the riots are a singular sign of the loss of moral order: “If we can bring these paroxysms of violence to a halt with a curfew, if we can restore property to the victims, then the emergency will have passed.  As for the murder of George Floyd, certainly it was a wrong. But the justice system will do its work, and social and moral order will once again be restored.”  

But approaching the rioting and even the death of yet another African American man in this way misses the larger picture.  The violence of those who are rioting is wrong, cruel, immoral.  But it has to been seen as a continuum of violence. A riot cannot be excused  but it can shed light on the moral background against which it takes place.  

And our own alarm is equally revealing.  Why are we shocked by a burning car or the broken shop window but more or less indifferent to the rank racial injustice within our country?  How can we decry the damage done to business that employ people but remain unconcerned with the fact that poor people in America are increasingly desperate in their futile fight against poverty?  How can believe that a single jury might deliver justice to a murderous cop but continue to accept breathtaking imbalances in wealth and power right under our noses?  Every injustice is a form of violence. 

The rabbis understood that wickedness does not have a single form, is not identified by specific acts. Rather it is a moral choice made by individuals that comes to characterize the indifferent society.  America has adopted policies that continue to make the lives of the vast majority of poor people and people of color increasingly difficult, painful and short.  

A famous Midrash tells of God’s decision to go down to the corrupt cities and see if things are truly as bad as indicated by the cry of a particular victim.  God had heard a girl cry out. 

Rabbi Levi said: [God said]: ‘Even if I wished to keep silent, justice for a certain maiden does not permit Me to keep silent.’

For once happened that two girls went down to draw water from a well.

One said to the other, ‘Why are you so pale?’

‘We have no more food left and are ready to die,’ she replied.

What did she do? She filled her pitcher with flour and they exchanged [their pitchers], each taking the other’s.

When they [the Sodomites] discovered this, they took and burnt her.

Said the Holy One, blessed be He: ‘Even if I desired to be silent, justice for that young girl does not permit Me to keep silent.

How much longer will we make the mistake of being particular about which forms of violence will cause us to raise our voices? 

The Sodom and Gomorrah tale has another important lesson for us.  A careful reading leaves a sense of narrative imbalance, a frustration of our expectations as readers.  Abraham famously prevents God from destroying the cities on account of the fifty righteous people who might live there.  Then forty, and so on down to ten.  We want the story to end with ten righteous people raising their voices to save those around them, justifying Abraham’s interference with the Divine plan. Instead the patriarch wins the argument but God wins the day. The cities are destroyed.  

If the story is unfinished, though, it is because we are still writing it. We are right to insist on individual responsibility and that those employing violence and destruction should be held accountable.  But the true test of Sodom is whether we will continue to insist on our own moral responsibility as well.  Will God find a community of people to raise their voices against the wickedness they see?  Will we raise our voices and save our cities?  

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Parshat Shemot 5780 - Attunement (Podcast Transcript)

What made Moses Moses?  What is about him that led God to choose him to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt?

Some say courage.  After all, he had to confront the mighty Pharaoh. Others say faithfulness.  The task required a person who was somehow sure that this seemingly impossible undertaking would succeed. Others point to his triple identity - Israelite, Egyptian, Midianite - which granted him the outsider perspective central to questioning status quo.

All of these are true of Moses and help to explain his leadership.  But when we read very closely at key moments in the life of Moses we see that there was something else. 

We are going to look at two moments in Moses’ biography. The first, when he witnesses the suffering of the Israelites and the second is the burning bush. ]

After Moses is saved from the water - and Pharaoh’s death sentence - by Pharaoh’s daughter, Miriam takes her newborn brother to be weaned by his mother.  Some time passes, and then:

וַיִגְדַּ֣ל הַיֶּ֗לֶד וַתְּבִאֵ֙הוּ֙ לְבַת־פַּרְעֹ֔ה וַֽיְהִי־לָ֖הּ לְבֵ֑ן וַתִּקְרָ֤א שְׁמוֹ֙ מֹשֶׁ֔ה וַתֹּ֕אמֶר כִּ֥י מִן־הַמַּ֖יִם מְשִׁיתִֽהוּ׃

The child grew up and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, who made him her son. She named him Moses, explaining, “I drew him out of the water.”

וַיְהִ֣י ׀ בַּיָּמִ֣ים הָהֵ֗ם וַיִּגְדַּ֤ל מֹשֶׁה֙ וַיֵּצֵ֣א אֶל־אֶחָ֔יו וַיַּ֖רְא בְּסִבְלֹתָ֑ם וַיַּרְא֙ אִ֣ישׁ מִצְרִ֔י מַכֶּ֥ה אִישׁ־עִבְרִ֖י מֵאֶחָֽיו׃

Some time after that, Moses grew up and he went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed their labors. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen.

You might have noticed that we are told twice that he grew up - וַיִּגְדַּ֤ל - in these consecutive verses.  

Several commentators explain the repetition.  Rashi, for example, says that the first refers to physical growth and the second to his becoming elevated to a position of great importance in Pharaoh’s palace.   

Nachmanides, the great Torah commentator and Kabbalist, goes in a different direction.  He agrees with Rashi that the first vayigdal refers to the physical.  Then he says.

ואז הביאתהו לבת פרעה ויהי לה לבן כי לפני מלכים יתיצב, ואחרי כן גדל ויהי לאיש דעת:

Then his sister brought him to the daughter of Pharaoh, and he became her son because he was to stand before the king’ [see Proverbs 22:29]. After this, he grew to be an ish da’at, a man of understanding. 

What is a “man of understanding”?  The phrase, ish da’at, is used once in Tanakh, in the book Proverbs.  The commentators suggest there that it refers to a very deep level of reflection and spiritual contemplation.  No matter the precise meaning of the words, Ramban tells us that Moses was attuned to the world around him.  Why this matters to Ramban becomes clear when we read the rest of the verse, which continues:.

 וַיֵּצֵ֣א אֶל־אֶחָ֔יו וַיַּ֖רְא בְּסִבְלֹתָ֑ם וַיַּרְא֙ אִ֣ישׁ מִצְרִ֔י מַכֶּ֥ה אִישׁ־עִבְרִ֖י מֵאֶחָֽיו

He went out to his brothers and he saw their burdens. He saw an Egyptian man hitting a Hebrew man, one of his brothers. 

Another verbal repetition draws our attention: וַיַּ֖רְא בְּסִבְלֹתָ֑ם וַיַּרְא֙ אִ֣ישׁ   He saw their burdens and he saw an Egyptian. The Torah wants us to notice Moses notice.  Rashi emphasizes:  נָתַן עֵינָיו וְלִבּוֹ לִהְיוֹת מֵצֵר עֲלֵיהֶם.  “He focused his eyes and his heart to be distressed over [the Israelites].”  Both Rashi and Ramban amplify subtle clues in the text that help us understand what made Moses Moses.  All of Egypt knows what is happening to the Israelites and the moral crimes that are being committed. They are all implicated.  But only one of them, Moses, is committed to beecoming attuned to it all, to seeing past the assumptions of the society and the noise of daily life. Only he pays attention.

The second moment from Moses’ life that I’d like to examine is perhaps the most famous scene about awareness, the burning bush.  

The story picks up after Moses has fled Egypt to the neighboring nation Midian and married the daughter of the Midianite Priest.  The one time Prince of Egypt is now a shepherd. Here are the four verses that comprise the first part of the story:

וּמֹשֶׁ֗ה הָיָ֥ה רֹעֶ֛ה אֶת־צֹ֛אן יִתְר֥וֹ חֹתְנ֖וֹ כֹּהֵ֣ן מִדְיָ֑ן וַיִּנְהַ֤ג אֶת־הַצֹּאן֙ אַחַ֣ר הַמִּדְבָּ֔ר וַיָּבֹ֛א אֶל־הַ֥ר הָאֱלֹהִ֖ים חֹרֵֽבָה׃

Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and drove the flock far into the  wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

וַ֠יֵּרָא מַלְאַ֨ךְ יְהֹוָ֥ה אֵלָ֛יו בְּלַבַּת־אֵ֖שׁ מִתּ֣וֹךְ הַסְּנֶ֑ה וַיַּ֗רְא וְהִנֵּ֤ה הַסְּנֶה֙ בֹּעֵ֣ר בָּאֵ֔שׁ וְהַסְּנֶ֖ה אֵינֶ֥נּוּ אֻכָּֽל׃

An angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed.

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֔ה אָסֻֽרָה־נָּ֣א וְאֶרְאֶ֔ה אֶת־הַמַּרְאֶ֥ה הַגָּדֹ֖ל הַזֶּ֑ה מַדּ֖וּעַ לֹא־יִבְעַ֥ר הַסְּנֶֽה׃

Moses said, “I must turn aside to look at this marvelous sight; why doesn’t the bush burn up?”

וַיַּ֥רְא יְהוָ֖ה כִּ֣י סָ֣ר לִרְא֑וֹת וַיִּקְרָא֩ אֵלָ֨יו אֱלֹהִ֜ים מִתּ֣וֹךְ הַסְּנֶ֗ה וַיֹּ֛אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֥ה מֹשֶׁ֖ה וַיֹּ֥אמֶר הִנֵּֽנִי׃

When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush: “Moses! Moses!” He answered, “Here I am.”

Midrash Rabbah, part of what we call the Oral Torah, focuses on Moses’ attentiveness and offers two opposite readings of this scene.  

שֶׁהָיָה הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מְדַבֵּר עִם משֶׁה וְלֹא הָיָה מְבַקֵּשׁ לִבָּטֵל מִמְּלַאכְתוֹ

The Holy One was speaking with Moses and Moses did not desist from his work.  

הֶרְאָה לוֹ אוֹתוֹ דָּבָר כְּדֵי שֶׁיַּהֲפֹךְ פָּנָיו וְיִרְאֶה וִידַבֵּר עִמּוֹ, שֶׁכָּךְ אַתָּה מוֹצֵא מִתְּחִלָּה וַיֵּרָא מַלְאַךְ ה' אֵלָיו, וְלֹא הָלַךְ משֶׁה, וְכֵיוָן שֶׁבָּטַל מִמְּלַאכְתוֹ וְהָלַךְ לִרְאוֹת, מִיָּד (שמות ג, ד): וַיִּקְרָא אֵלָיו אֱלֹהִים.

He showed him this [burning bush] so that he would turn his face and look and speak with him.  This is why we find at the beginning of the verse An angel of HaShem appeared to him.  But we see that  Moses did not go [to look].  When he desisted from his work and went to see, immediately: God appeared to him. 

We can’t linger too long on this Midrash, but I want to point out something profound that is easy to miss.  It is before the miracle of the burning bush that God expects Moses’ attention.  That is, Moses could have attuned to God’s presence in the ordinary world but he was simply caught up in his labor.  It seems that the midrash is suggesting that it is not the combination of the flame and the voice of God that constitute the miracle. Rather the flame was a miraculous device merely to get the attention of Moses so he would hear a voice that had been ready, so to speak, all along.  When Moses turns and notices, God is revealed.

A very different teaching appears in the same section of the Midrash.  There it says that Moses noticed immediately and took five steps toward the bush.  When God observes Moses’ attentiveness, God immedately speaks with him. 

While these two midrashim are conflicted about whether Moses was at first sufficiently attuned to be engaged by God, the larger message is one that should grab us.  Redemption depends on attunement.  

 The Netziv, from the 18th century, expands on this.

אחר המדבר. במדבר מיבעי אלא המשמעות שהיה משתדל להנהיג במקום שהוא יותר מדבר. ונמשך אחר מקום מדבר. והוא כדי שיוכל לההבודד ולחקור אחר אלקות וכדומה. ומשום זה

We would have expected it to say in the wilderness.  The teaching is that he made an effort to drive the flocks to a place that was more desolate, and was drawn further and further into the wilderness. This was in order that be could isolate himself and reflect on God’s divinity.  

The Netziv sees Moses as engaged in a kind of meditation.  This may surprise some modern learners but contemplation and deep mental/spiritual focus are absolutely part of the Jewish tradition.  I don’t know that we can understand Moses throughout the rest of the Torah without accepting this.  Whether we want to follow the Netziv and say that the phrase ahar ha-midbar means Moses was engaged in contemplation, I don’t know. But it is clear from the Torah itself that Moses’ willingness to see and to pay attention by turning aside is at the root of the revelatory experiences that open the door to his engagement with God and his subsequent leadership of Israel. 

I want to be emphatic in saying that what the Torah and these commentators are saying is not akin to contemporary discussions of mindfulness and meditation.  Offer those practices as they are presented in a modern context are presented as tools for health and improvement of self.  As such they are very important and useful.  But in the Torah, Moses’ attunement is precisely what allows him to escape the self and to discover his purpose.   Attunement leads to revelation of a reality beyond what we see with our eyes. This attunement leads to our hearts opening. Our hearts opening leads us to notice the lives of others.  And noticing others leads us to acts of courage and goodness.  Where does Moses’ deep focus lead after this scene?  He stops runnig away from his intuition that there is terrible pain in the world.  He walks directly into the furnace of suffering that he witnessed when he first became a “man of understanding” so he can aid others, and thereby be a servant of God.

In this age of distraction we have to understand that all of the flashing elecrtonics or just the ordinary business of our lives, all the apps, conveniences, consumer goods, all the noise - these are not simply compromising our personal happiness.  They keep us inside of ourselves, and therefore away of the deep truth of our lives, away from God, and therefore away from our repsonsibility.  God needs us to pay attention.

Have a shabbat shalom. Thank you for listening.

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Vayechi - Transcript of Podcast

Shalom and welcome to Shikul Da’at.  I’m Josh Rose.  This week we close out the book of genesis with Parashat Vayechi.  I want to quickly look back at some of the themes of the book of Genesisi to shed light on our Torah portion.  

Where does Genesis begin?  Of course, at the beginning: Bereishit bara elokim et ha-shamayim v’et ha’aretz.  There is only God, the creative force, and no other.  God’s presence shapes the chaos, creating beauty, order, the proliferation of life.  A harmony among all the parts of the created world.

God completes creation - and blesses it. 

and almost immediately the world goes wrong.  It is human beings who undo the harmony and order created by God. Adam and Eve - the eternal pair -  break they bond with God through deception. They are to suffer the pain of labor - in both senses of that word - and expulsion from Eden. 

What follows is a legacy of the undoing of God’s work. Their son Kayin murders his brother Hevel. Over generations the world is consumed by violence.  Then the flood. In the Noah story many hints in the text, which we can’t go into here, indicate that creation itself is being undone. 

By the time the end of the Noah story passes in chapter 9, with its mysteriosly shameful episode of drunkenness and a hint of sexual violation, we begin to see that family is a central focus of Bereishit. The family is the central narrative and moral unit in the book.  in each generation, though, we see family trauma and pain.  

But now the story changes fundamentally because we meet Avram.  This extraordinary historical figure is able to hear amidst the noise of ordinary life the voice of God, to discern a spiritual-moral order within the world.  What makes Avram worthy of his new name, Avraham, however, is that he also understands his place and the place of his spiritual descendents in realizing that spiritual-moral order, in manifesting the Divine dream of harmony and peace.  God has a true partner in creation, and establishes with Avaraham an ongoing relationship but more important, a brit, a covenant that binds God to Abraham’s descendents and binds them to God. Those descendents - you and me, and all who will eventually join that covenant, are to be blessed by God and are to make themselves a source of blessing to all the people of the world.  

And then real life intrudes on this beautiful vision.  Abraham’s son and grandson, Isaac and Jacob do indeed carry on this relationship with God. But the familial theme rises up continuously to disrupt their lives.  Again and again families are torn asunder by pain and division.  Isaac is tricked by his son Jacob, leading his other son Esau to want to kill Jacob.  Jacob is then deceived by his uncle Lavan into marrying the wrong woman, and is mistreated by him for years. Along the way interlopers and foreign leaders add to the complications.  By the time we are introduced to Abraham’s great grandchildren - Joseph and his brothers - the spectre of fratricide appears for the third time in Genesis.  

The progenitors of the Israelite tribes throw their brother Joseph in a pit intending to kill him. This initial familial murderous betrayal casts the family into exile. Finally in our portion, Vayechi, Jacob, all of his sons and their families and Joseph are together in Egypt.  

This book that began with God’s perfect cosmic harmony,  sustained on earth by those who are to build in the land of Israel a commnity of peace and blessing concludes with a deeply divided family living in exile.  

Descriptively, Vayechi is our story.  We live in a fractured world, wounded by our own family stories, or suffering the divisions of the broader human community.  We live in exile, far from a perfected world and far from our spiritual home. 

God begins creating with light.  The Torah indicates God’s own assessment of the work God saw.  God saw that it was good.  Rashi’s opening comment on our Torah portion talks about blindness.  Ours is a parashah satumah - a closed portion, which means simply that it does not begin with a line break, but rather right in the middle of the paragraph where the previous torah portion ended.  Rashi, citing a midrash says

י יעקב ויחי יעקב. לָמָּה פָּרָשָׁה זוֹ סְתוּמָה? לְפִי שֶׁכֵּיוָן שֶׁנִּפְטַר יַעֲקֹב אָבִינוּ נִסְתְּמוּ עֵינֵיהֶם וְלִבָּם שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל מִצָּרַת הַשִּׁעְבּוּד, שֶׁהִתְחִילוּ לְשַׁעְבְּדָם; (דָּבָר אַחֵר: שֶׁבִּקֵּשׁ לְגַלּוֹת אֶת הַקֵּץ לְבָנָיו, וְנִסְתַּם מִמֶּנּוּ. בִּבְ"רַ:)

Why is this (Sidra) closed? Because when jaocb died the eyes and the hearts of Israel were closed because of the suffering of slavery which they then began to impose upon them. 

And that’s not the only evidence of lack of light or absence of seeing. Jacob’s eyes, the Torah tell us are dim with age, a blindness that is accompanied by his own spiritual blindness.  When Jacob gathers his sons toward the end of his life, he says 

וַיִּקְרָ֥א יַעֲקֹ֖ב אֶל־בָּנָ֑יו וַיֹּ֗אמֶר הֵאָֽסְפוּ֙ וְאַגִּ֣ידָה לָכֶ֔ם אֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר־יִקְרָ֥א אֶתְכֶ֖ם בְּאַחֲרִ֥ית הַיָּמִֽים׃

And Jacob called his sons and said, “Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come, or literally - at the end of days.

  But he doesn’t reveal what will befall them , leading the commentators to tell us that Divine vision had been removed from him.   Rashi, offering an alternative explanation for why the parashah is closed, says

  שֶׁבִּקֵּשׁ לְגַלּוֹת אֶת הַקֵּץ לְבָנָיו, וְנִסְתַּם מִמֶּנּוּ. בִּבְ"רַ: 

he wanted to reveal the ultimate end to his sons, but it was closed from him.  

 Between Berishit, beginning, and acharit ha-yamim, the final end, we behold only chaos and disappointment.

Over the course of this parashah, Jacob dies and the book closes with the passing of his favorite son, Joseph.  This book that started with the proliferation of life ends with death.  And we know that this hints only at more death to come.  In Exodus, when the Israelite babies are drowned in the River Nile, we know we have come as far as we can from Gan Eden, watered by the four Supernal Rivers that our Kabbalistic tradition tells us flowed with spiritual sustenance.

And yet.  Beneath the surface we begin to detect echoes of that initial Divine harmony, forces moving in the opposite direction, back to order and beauty.

Jacob gathers his sons together to bless them

וַיִּקְרָ֥א יַעֲקֹ֖ב אֶל־בָּנָ֑יו וַיֹּ֗אמֶר הֵאָֽסְפוּ֙ וְאַגִּ֣ידָה לָכֶ֔ם אֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר־יִקְרָ֥א אֶתְכֶ֖ם בְּאַחֲרִ֥ית הַיָּמִֽים׃

And Jacob called his sons and said, “hey-as-fu Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come.

הִקָּבְצ֥וּ וְשִׁמְע֖וּ בְּנֵ֣י יַעֲקֹ֑ב וְשִׁמְע֖וּ אֶל־יִשְׂרָאֵ֥ל אֲבִיכֶֽם׃

he-kab-tzu Assemble and hearken, O sons of Jacob; Hearken to Israel your father:

Can we hear in this coming together, this assembly of  sons who in their travails have been physically and emotionally divided, an intimation of a fitting cosmic healing.  God creates a world by dilineating and separating - the verb l’havdil appears repeatefly in the creation story.   Perhaps in this drawing of his sons together in blessing, Jacob is mirroring the primal divine harmony.  Delineation, separation is the primary creative act.  This primary Divine act we reflect back through a life of mitzvah, which is so often based on the recognition of distinctions: holy from profane, kosher from not kosher.  

And Jaocb’s spiritual act resonates on the earthly plane. Upon the death of Jacob, Joseph’s brothers know he might harbor resentment that he could now unleash. They come to him and plead. He weeps and embraces them, assuring them of his love.     This book so defined by familial division and estrangement ends with what appears to be a true and beautiful healing. 

Let’s look closely at the father’s beautiful blessing which occupies such a prominent place in the Torah portion.  In fact Jacob’s blessing of his grandchildren and children is the focus of the first five aliyot of Vayechi.  After the blessing the Torah says

כָּל־אֵ֛לֶּה שִׁבְטֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל שְׁנֵ֣ים עָשָׂ֑ר וְ֠זֹאת אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּ֨ר לָהֶ֤ם אֲבִיהֶם֙ וַיְבָ֣רֶךְ אוֹתָ֔ם אִ֛ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֥ר כְּבִרְכָת֖וֹ בֵּרַ֥ךְ אֹתָֽם׃

All these were the tribes of Israel, twelve in number, and this is what their father said to them as he bade them farewell, addressing to each a parting word appropriate to him.

Jacob then instructs them take him up to bury him in the land of Israel, teaching us and his sons, that the covenant with God is still in place. This dream of a healed world inspired by commitment to God wil not die with the last patriarch. And then:

וַיְכַ֤ל יַעֲקֹב֙ לְצַוֺּ֣ת אֶת־בָּנָ֔יו וַיֶּאֱסֹ֥ף רַגְלָ֖יו אֶל־הַמִּטָּ֑ה וַיִּגְוַ֖ע וַיֵּאָ֥סֶף אֶל־עַמָּֽיו׃

Jacob completed instructing his sons, drew his feet into the bed and expired, and was gathered to his people.

This beautiful and euphemistic description of his death contains words that we might suggest resonate with the creation story.  When Jacob insructs his sons, לְצַוֺּ֣ת , we hear this special verb from which mitzvah comes.  Genesis is bookended also, then, by this word, which appears for the first time here: 

וַיְצַו֙ יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהִ֔ים עַל־הָֽאָדָ֖ם לֵאמֹ֑ר מִכֹּ֥ל עֵֽץ־הַגָּ֖ן אָכֹ֥ל תֹּאכֵֽל׃

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.”

With this word, so central to the human-divine relationship, we are taken back at hte moment of Jaocb’s death to the first mention of death.  Does genesis close with the reminder - or the promise - that even in death we should be reminded of the eternality of the Divine promise?

The final sentence about Jacob’s final acts, begins with the word vay’chal.   The word means to complete and indicates the fulfillment of a project - it speaks to the beauty and fullness of Jacob’s life.  Where do we first encounter the word?  It appears twice in consecutive verses at the end of the creation story.

וַיְכֻלּ֛וּ הַשָּׁמַ֥יִם וְהָאָ֖רֶץ וְכָל־צְבָאָֽם׃

The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array.

וַיְכַ֤ל אֱלֹהִים֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י מְלַאכְתּ֖וֹ אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשָׂ֑ה וַיִּשְׁבֹּת֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י מִכָּל־מְלַאכְתּ֖וֹ אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשָֽׂה׃

On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done.

And these words which we chant each Friday night before Kiddush conclude this way: 

vayavareich elokim et yom ha-shvi-i.  

God completes, vayachal, creation and seals it with a blesing. 

Jacob blesses his children and then, vaychal, his life is complete.  

With these tentative observations I don’t want to draw sweeping conclusions about the literary intent of the holy book of Bereishit.  But we should focus on the ways in which hurt and hope, pain and possibility and of course exile and redemption and woven together as Bereishit draws to a close.  Vayechi is too complex and magnificent for us to try to label is as a happy or sad ending to Genesis.  In the twists of this story we are to see all of the dangers and difficulties that await the Jewish people in exile, as well as the heavenly hope that instills in us the knowledge that redemption is possible.  Jacob’s life and his death reverberate with the the promise that in our very lives resonates the vision of God’s promise of a world of beauty and blessing. 

Have a great week and thank you so much for listening

[rabbirose]

5780 Genesis Vayechi - The Beginning in the End

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[rabbirose]

Moving Self from the Center - Vayigash 5780

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[rabbirose]

Antisemitism and Chanukah’s Hopeful and Challenging Demand

Dear friends,

Chanukah begins Sunday night, as your children or grandchildren surely have reminded you. We are familiar with Chanukah’s powerful message of Jewish survival and independence. We recall the great battle against Seleucid religious oppression and Greek-Hellensitic cultural values.

I share this Chanukah message against the background of the by now well-known uptick in hateful antisemitic attacks. These vile gestures from people bred on hate or terribly misled, whose paranoic world view is satisfied only by the identification of some imagined enemy - they will not deter us. We must not despair, but we must take a stand.

With these recent shocking attacks hitting the headlines with frightening frequency these past weeks, Chanukah comes to deliever a message. At a time of increasing antisemitism seemingly from all quarters the determined resistance of our Maccabean forbears should inspire us. Jews have sent to the modern world the message that that we won’t be pushed around, diminished, or deterred and will protect our people and ensure our future. We should proudly identify ourselves as Jews, take special delight in our traditions, and must continue to fight to make sure that we and our children are safe.

The greater danger at this moment, however, is assimilation. Now, we usually mean by that word the abandonment of distinctly Jewish ways, habits, dress, the dissolution of Jewish rituals in deep waters of mainstream culture. When we were young we learned that the message was about the Maccabees fighting assimilation against Hellenism and that we were to do the same. In our highly integrated world and in our own syangogue community in which family members who are not Jewish are a welcome part of our synagogue family, the outlines of this story might be uncomfortable (Set aside the fact that this is a significant distortion of the actual story of Chanukah; see, for example this article from historian John Ma (http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/re-examining-hanukkah/).

But assimilation of a different kind ought to be our focus: the loss of Jewish religious values in the face the larger cultural sphere. I am less concerned with whether a little Jewish girl wears a kippah or has yet learned about kashrut than I am whether she understands that to be a Jew means to stand for something beautiful. I am less focused on whether the adults in our community are keeping Shabbes than I am about whether we feel called upon at this moment to be courageous and to deliver a truly counter-cultural message.

Chanukah means dedication and refers to the re-dedication of the Temple after it was sullied by our oppressors. In this moment we should fight the assimilation of Jewish values and dedicate ourselves to what our Torah and our God demand of us.

So, eight ideas for what it means to stand strong as a Jew at this time.

At a moment of shocking antisemitism and bigotry we dedicate ourselvse to hesed and shalom.

At a moment in which swaths of the polity find joy in screaming “you don’t belong here” we dedicate ourselves to rahamim (compassion) and hachnasat orchim, welcoming the stranger.

At a moment of rapacious capitalism and unimaginable inequality we dedicate ourselves justice and tzedakah.

At a moment of alarming materialsm we return to a life centered on Torah and love of God.

At a moment of ever increasing sexualization of women and girls we dedicate ourselves to the Torah’s teaching that women are created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of god, and that failing to view and treat women as full persons is a sin.

At a moment in which people are beholden to amusement and distraction we dedicate ourselves to spritual learning and kavanah (deep focus and attention).

At a moment of cynicism and nihilism we dedicate ourselves to hope and possiblity.

At a moment in which too many turn inward - out of cruelty or indifference - to their own circle, we remember God’s ancient charge that we be a blessing to all people and that all people are worthy of blessing.

May we stand united and strong as Jews. The ugly antisemitism of this moment will pass if we fight it. I truly believe that. The Jewish gift to the world are the values that it so desperately needs. May we, our children, and our children’s children always ward away the darkness with the light of Torah. This light sometimes looks to be in short supply, but is never, ever exhausted. Our rededication to it in each generation is the true miracle of Chanukah.

Shabbat Shalom and happy Chanukah!

Rabbi Rose

[rabbirose]

Finding God and the Other in the Present - Vayishlach 5780

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