The Song of the Trees: Shabbat Shira & Tu Bishvat

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

Shabbat, although repeated next week in the Ten Commandments, is already mentioned in this week’s reading. Contrary to life the way we know it, when we get rain from the heavens and bread from the ground, the miraculous journey the desert begins with the unthinkable: rain from the ground (some say, through a traveling well), and bread – from the sky. The people can go out and collect that sweet white stuff that is their food daily, but not on Shabbat. On Shabbat no manna will show up on the ground. Instead, they will get a double portion on Friday and Shabbat will be a day or rest. (Exodus 16:4-30).
When some do go out on the 7th day, unable to perceive how is this supposed to work out with us not working seven days a week, Moses is very angry with them, as if, they already suppose to know, and one wonders, why?
Maybe because from the Torah perspective, Shabbat is as old as the world. The first time we hear about it is as the 7th day of creation (Genesis 2:1-3), when G-d “rested”. Does G-d really need a break, or did He create a day for us?
As often is the case, the sages offer two conflicting ideas about this day. The first is described with this imagery: “In this world, a person picks figs on Shabbat, and the fig says nothing. But, in the world to come, the fig will scream and say – it’s Shabbat today!!”
The second quotes a verse from later in the Book of Exodus saying: “for it is holy to you” (31:14) and explains: “’to you’ namely, she (Shabbat) belongs to you and not you – to her” .
The first saying emphasizes Shabbat as an innate part of the world. Even a fruit of a tree knows of this day, and can advocate for its holiness. In the second, Shabbat is ours, and we get to do with it as we wish. If my way of “resting” is going to a soccer game, then so be it.
Which way is it? Yes.
There is something about Friday afternoon which I cannot explain, as if a soft blanket wraps the world and slows everything down. This is not about a specifically “Jewish” environment because the neighborhood I live in is as mixed as they come. It’s just a tiny, brief moment of greater peacefulness (yes, I wonder if it can be felt on a lonely island -). And yet, that something, if not captured, is quickly gone. That’s when the second saying comes in: Shabbat is ours. We get to decide. We get to act.
Nowadays there’s talk about the concept of “unplug” and making a “not to do” lists. Because the challenge of the Children of Israel in the desert is ours too. It is so hard to stop! There is always one more thing, one more dish to prepare, one more message to send, one more thing to write down, one more place to go to… but what if not. What if for 25 hours, everything can wait. What if I can get it into my mind that in spite of how highly I think of myself, and the importance of all I do, it is possible to make time for nothing, and allow me and the material world a break from each other? What would that look like?

This Monday is Tu Bishvat, literally “the 15th day of the month of the Hebrew month of Shvat (the construct “tu” being made of the Hebrew letters tet = 9 and vav = 6), which has been set aside as “the birthday of the trees”, or more correctly the “New Year’s” for the trees, already in the Mishna (so about 1800 years ago). Why would the trees need a birthday?? Because the Torah tells us how to treat the fruits of a tree that is 3, 4 or 5 years old, so counting the years of the trees was important and practical. But the day has also allowed an opportunity to honor and celebrate trees and nature. The Kabalists created a whole Tu Bishvat seder with different fruits parallel to the different worlds we experience (with a hard pit or core, with a hard shell and with neither), and in modern Israel, it became a day of planting and going out to celebrate nature.
Elsewhere in the Torah (Deuteronomy 20:19) it says, “ki ha’adam etz hasade” – “for humans are like a tree in the field”. Actually, if I understand the original correctly, the context is exactly the opposite: the topic is war and we are commanded not to chop down fruit tree. The Torah asks an obvious question: are trees like people and who can run away when a war is waged on them?
But the Torah has no vowel or punctuation marks, so maybe it is a statement, and maybe because of the deep nature of the issue (wondering how far we can actually run away, from which war, what does that mean etc -), the sages understood that people are indeed like trees of the field. Just like trees, in order to grow, we need a home and base (ground), nourishment (water), warmth and support (sun), and challenges to get stronger (wind). A tree is a reminder of the connection between heaven and earth, planted in the ground and reaching to the heavens. The metaphor is likewise handy in relationship with other people, especially as educators, parents, teachers. Thinking of people as trees means paying attention to who we are in our core; It means understanding that our differences and uniqueness is essential to who we are; it means thinking which branches help us and which ones block us and our sunlight; it means thinking of stuff that bore holes in us, and stuff that heals.
Perhaps one of the most beautiful essays I’ve ever read about trees is by Nobel Prize winner, Herman Hesse. Here is just a piece of it: “When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy. Life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let G-d speak within you and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads you away from home. But every step and every day lead you back again. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or nowhere at all”….
Shabbat Shalom.

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what’s ahead on the journey

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

Source: what’s ahead on the journey

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what’s ahead on the journey

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

If we were G-d, what would we do? ‘I’ll do whatever I want!’ ok, so let’s say we’d spend bazillion of years enjoying ourselves on a beautiful beach somewhere, and then another bazillion traveling around our amazing universe, and then some more on our favorite activity, whatever that means, and then, one day, we decided to create humans, and then decided to have a people (and I do realize how challenging are each of these statements -), what would be the first mitzvah we’d give them??
We could ask them “to believe”; we could tell them ”to be holy”; maybe circumcision would be a powerful one, or how about if everybody ate the same food?
All these are good, but would they really work? How would that people look some years later?
This week’s Torah reading introduces the first mitzvah given to the people: to keep common time, to have the same calendar, to be synchronized; to have the same Shabbat day from New Zealand to CA; to celebrate all holidays together.
This seems minor. A calendar? Oh, I thought it would have been something bigger, but if we think about it, we can quickly see what happens to people who do not hold the same calendar, who do not “sync” their “clocks”, and who do not spend any time together, doing some common things.
As a parent, especially when my kids were little, there was a buzz about “quality time”. The online dictionary even defines it as “time spent in giving another person one’s undivided attention in order to strengthen a relationship, especially with reference to working parents and their child or children.” The idea is, don’t worry if you’re busy, but get those two hours once in a while to really focus and really catch up, and you’re fine.
The reality is, of course focused time is great. My kids still remind me how we used to go to Borders to have hot chocolate and read books, one of one. But, life is not made of once in a while hot chocolate. It’s made of million little seemingly insignificant details that we can’t time, and that we benefit from floating in each other’s orbit to share. Space is one such dimension, time – is another.
This idea is so powerful that the superfluous words “in the land of Egypt” are added when G-d speaks to Moses and Aaron, instructing them with this mitzvah. Why the addition? Why mention where it was given? The Torah does so very rarely, because usually the location of where a mitzvah is given is insignificant. But perhaps here it needs to be emphasized lest we think that this is something we’re going to do only in the Land of Israel, but rather that this is something to take with us everywhere, inside and outside of the land, during our travels, at all times.
There are changing of observances of Rosh Hodesh, and questions around this mitzvah of the beginning of a new month, such as: if this is so important, why are we starting the current Jewish calendar year in the fall and not in April as “it says”? And why do we count with Persian- Babylonian names (and yes, we try to infuse Jewish meaning into names such as Elul and Adar) rather than 1st, 2nd, 3rd, as we do the days of the week? Each of these (and more) has historical-rabbinical answers. Still, the critical idea of communal time expressed in the solar-lunar calendar remains. That is a foundation. Once we know when, we learn more about what to do with that time, which for holy, which for mundane, which to sit a few minutes longer to write, and which to rush for Shabbat…

* * * * * * *
As mentioned elsewhere here, Moses is big on not only “let me people go”, but “let my people go so they may worship Me” (Exodus 7:17 and elsewhere), and yet, when Pharaoh starts giving in, trying to bargain how is this “worship Me” going to look (with cattle? with property? with kids? See Exodus 10:26), Moses comes back with:
“. . . [W]e will not know how we will worship the Lord until we arrive there.” “. . .וַאֲנַחְנוּ לֹא־נֵדַע מַה־נַּעֲבֹד אֶת־יְהֹוָה עַד־בֹּאֵנוּ שָׁמָּה”
The leader who speaks with G-d on a first name basis, all the time, who gets all the commandments “mipi hagvura”, from the Almighty’s own mouth, can still say, ‘really, until we get to wherever it is, we can’t know exactly what it is that G-d wants from us; we just have to be ready for anything, because after all, Pharaoh, we’re not dealing with a human, we’re not even dealing with you; we’re not dealing with anything predictable. We’re dealing with G-d, and regardless of how much ink will be poured over analyzing each syllable He says and each mitzvah He gives, we still need to remain open to what He wants from us right then and there’.
When it’s time, the Torah too, will be given in the desert, to remind us of this: yes, we need to follow instructions, and there’s lots of them. And at the same time, stay open to what’s ahead on the journey.
Shabbat Shalom.

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on the complicated journey to freedom and the patience we need to take with it*

Posted on January 8, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

The journey of a band of slaves going out to freedom is fascinating, mostly because it’s not just a long ago and far away, and not just a national story of some tiny people some place, but rather, something that each person can identify with. The struggle with various kinds of enslavement (physical, emotional, spiritual) and the complicated journey out is one we all face. One of my teachers compared the exodus from Egypt to a birth: first we’re inside the womb, well provided but constrained; then we’re pushed out (through water-) to freedom, only to discover , the journey has just begun, and that not all of it is “fun”. One way or another, this story has been a favorite from Louis Armstrong’s soul song to Prince of Egypt and more.
So this week we read, again, about the (the first seven) dramatic famous plagues, and it seems like the more often one reads it, the more questions arise. When we’re younger we “just know” the story and grow to think this is the way it suppose to go, but as we read it again – and again, it’s hard not to wonder, what is this? Why all these plagues? I mean, if G-d – or anyone for that matter- wants to get someone out of a bad situation, why not just go in and get them out? What’s this whole extravagant show for?? And the people? Didn’t they know they were in slavery? Didn’t they just want to go out??
Rashi, the medievalist commentator, points to Exodus 6:9 וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ אֶל-משֶׁה מִקֹּצֶר רוּחַ וּמֵעֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה – “and they couldn’t listen unto Moses due to impatience of spirit, and cruel bondage”. Drawing on the unique term “kotzer ru’ach” – literally meaning, shortness of breath, he says that someone whose breath (“ru’ach”, also wind, spirit, soul) is short, cannot have long breathing. Isn’t that stating the obvious? Rabbi Beni Lau explains Rashi: “This is like a person who is experiencing an asthma attack, and seeks immediate relief. As he reaches for his inhaler, someone tells them about an experimental new drug which might be available someday. The patient’s reaction is likely to be – I’m choking here, and you’re talking to me about something long term in the future? Likewise, the rulers of Egypt were pressuring the Children of Israel, leaving them breathless, unable to hear anything.
G-d then explains to Moses what’s the master plan, and how there will stages to the delivery from bondage. And again, we wonder, why? I get the guy with the asthma and the inhaler, but here we’re talking G-d! Why not just get the people out? After all, they are suffering so much and G-d can do anything!
Inspired by watching “Chatufim”, the Israeli TV drama that was bought in the U.S. and became Homeland, I realize the devastating pattern of enslavement even more. Chatufim tells the story of three IDF soldiers who are kidnapped and kept in captivity for 17 years. The complex and highly recommended show has left me with many issues to ponder, chief among them is the psychology of the kidnapped. It shows what happens to someone who is kept in isolation, beaten up (physically and emotionally) and at the same time, fed and cared for. Each one of these three components is critical and the combination is a “winning” recipe for creating complete dependence and enslavement of the kidnapped to his captives.
This is the pattern that repeats itself in various abuse situations, from that of POW’s to battered women to the Children of Israel in Egypt (we see it later, when the Children of Israel will moan “remembering the fish, which we were wont to eat in Egypt for naught; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic” Number 11:5). Heat stroked imagination? Or perhaps, not everything was bad in Egypt, or else slavery would not have been possible. Too much oppression ultimately begets escape, riots and revolts or the death of captive, a situation the oppressor usually actually wants to avoid. It takes the right mixture of isolation (in this case away from their land, from the silent G-d), harsh labor & torture (as in the back breaking work and killing of the baby boys) as well as care (“free food”) to create the ultimate slavery.
We often look at such situations and ask: Why didn’t the person who was in so much pain just walk out? If Egypt didn’t work anymore, why didn’t Jacob’s children just go home? Why didn’t the Jews of the 1930’s leave Europe? Why doesn’t a battered woman walk out on her abuser? Why doesn’t our hero in Chatufim cross the border, not even a few miles away, even though there are times he can??
The bottom line is, from where they (we-) stand at that moment – that is not possible. The successful captivator knows it. The successful redeemer must know it too. The carefully constructed web designed to keep one in, must be carefully undone to ensure a complete and safe journey out. And note: this is no different whether the captivator is an outside or an inside force, keeping us “jailed” within. Maybe we’re told here that even G-d takes time when delivering a band of slaves from under oppression and that while we too should be determined to go, we have to be patient with the journey ahead.
Shabbat Shalom.

  • edited from my 2013 post
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Darkness and New Beginnings

Posted on January 1, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

New Year’s Eve, Haifa, 2016. We’re walking back after watching the fireworks amidst raindrops, trying to figure out what is the origin of this custom we too got drawn into, and celebrate by default. I can’t help but bring up the Jewish roots of both Christmas and New Year’s. I can’t escape the parallels between Christmas and Hanukkah, both beginning on the 24th – in the evening – of their respective months, symbolically, or actually, 3 days after the winter solstice, and emphasizing the theme of lights. Christmas and New Years are also (the only?) two Christian holidays which start on the evening before, just like Jewish days (Genesis 1: “and there was evening, and (then) there was morning…”); and, If Christmas is Jesus’ birth, then New Year’s is the day of his brit (or bris, covenant of circumcision), which, I find that it is still observed as such in the Anglican and Lutheran Church. Before the Gregorian calendar, introduced in the 1500’s, in pre-Christian Rome, there was a Julian calendar, starting with January, and dedicated to Janus, the god of beginnings and Gateways.

Switch and turn to this week’s Torah portion, and find we are opening the Book of Shmot, or Exodus. Shmot literally means “names”, retelling us who came down to Egypt and what happened there. Interestingly, Genesis was about the journey of individuals, and when their linage was told, we heard about toldot, “the begets”, from the root of births. Now that we’re moving to the story of a People, we switch to the story of a Nation.

As we know, and read every Passover, and as is repeated in modern days, what started out as a short trip (to get some food) and quick relocation endeavor, turned into a long term settlement which span over generations. Now “a new Pharaoh rises, who knows not Joseph” (Exodus 1:8). First there is a plan, then hard work, then enslavement and bitter torture. The situation looks bad, and dark.

Then the next chapter opens, and like any good TV drama, the scene changes: while slavery is going on outside, we’re now in the home of some man and some woman of the tribe of Levi, names not mentioned; the woman is pregnant, and gives birth to a boy, who will grow up to be Moses, the leader who will be instrumental in the redemption of the people from their predicament.

And, it might be cliché, and it’s not the first time, nor the last (we are slow to learn!), but once again we’re reminded, that dawn comes after the darkest part of the night. Rav Kook is quoted to say that for a plant to grow, the seed must rot in the ground, a process which must be uncomfortable, painful, unwanted and so dark on many levels; a process we would much rather avoid, or talk about theoretically rather than go through, but turns out that is not possible. Coincidentally, this is what we should be celebrating today too: the beginning of longer days (later Shabbat 🙂 and more light.

Much ink has been spilled on the verse quoted above: “a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph”. What is this “knowing”? Did Pharaoh not study history? Is it really possible that anyone didn’t “know” that because of Joseph, Egypt and the whole region was saved? To gain some more insight, we should check the first time the word “to know” appears in the Torah, which was when Adam “knew” Eve and she bore a son (Genesis 4:1). The common translation is that they “had relations”, but if that is it, what would we do with Pharaoh here?? Turns out that “to know” is really “to connect”, and often on a deeper level. Adam and Eve’s connection bore a promise for continuity; Pharaoh, maybe “knew” Joseph in the way we think of knowing some random fact, but it didn’t mean anything to him; he was not connected to that fact and it didn’t matter to him, thus he really didn’t “know” it.

We can’t be connected all the time to everything; we can’t also live in eternal bright light, which by the way, is often how the afterlife is described, thus being a time when we are not alive in this world. But it’s interesting to think of darkness as a form of disconnect and of light – as a form of renewed meaningful connection, and from there, sort out where we’d like to light our flame.

Shabbat Shalom.

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weihnachten whining

Posted on December 25, 2015 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

I love Christmas. Maybe because I don’t have to do anything for it. And maybe because in a strange way it reminds me of my childhood: the very multicultural city I grew up in, when this was a simple, obvious reality, and not an overly used buzz word; the sparkling cards we got from friends and relatives abroad; and my own mother, fumbling with the radio dial to find Christmas songs, waiting to watch the midnight mass from Beth Lechem, just because it reminded her of her long lost childhood in Germany before the War.
On this Christmas morning Zoe, our golden lab, can sense that I’m not going to work and that we’re going on a longer walk, though it’s not Shabbat (she can tell I have my phone). The streets are quiet; the few people out are smiling; most stores are closed; there is the scent of wood burning stoves… I want to get in the middle of the almost empty freeway and yell: guys, let’s do this more often!!

*******

Dear fb friends who are writing messages such as “merry Xmas to all my Christian friends!”, please stop. Who are your Christian friends?? Do you not know their names? Would you really feel personally “blessed” when someone says, ‘happy yum kipur to all my jewy friends’?? Any benefits to that? and sorry for asking, but do you actually have “Christian friends”? I mean, are those who are not like you “Christian”, or are they celebrating the 25th of December because that’s what everybody does today? Do you know the details of their faith? And those of your “friendship”? How many of those do you have?? Then please, write them a real note.

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Two shorts on life (Vayechi) and a page from the Journal of…

Posted on December 25, 2015 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

My friends and I. For decades now we meet in each others homes, wherever those are, share food and drink and stories from our days. In good Israeli fashion, the conversation often ends with a deep sigh and a yihye tov comment, “it will be good”, as in, some day, somehow, someplace, somewhere, but surely not here, not now.
The Torah reading of this week talks about the death of two great leaders, Jacob and Joseph, father and son. There’s a lot about burial customs, and crying and mourning, but it’s still called Vayechi, “and he lived”, from the word chayim, life. As it’s been said, “everybody dies, but not everybody lives”. It’s all about ‘living one’s life’ and ‘what we do with ourselves in this world’, and ‘be here and now’, right?
Well, almost. Life has to have a present, for sure, but it also must have a future. Having only one of them ultimately creates some form of reckless living, and when taken to extreme we see those who only care about the “fun” in the world to come, or alternatively, the “fun” here without a tomorrow. While the notorious yihye tov looks at what’s hopefully coming, the setting of when it is said is usually already tov, often very tov.
* * * * * * *
The 1st grade students listen attentively as we read this week’s parasha and are immediately alarmed: “hey, how come Joseph instructs his brothers regarding his death? He was the second youngest! They are older! He should not die before them! That’s not fair”!!
Yes, my dear, it’s not fair. And to be totally fair, we don’t even know what fair really means.
* * * * * * *
The midrash is called by some a “lacuna filler”: it looks for holes in the text and adds content and color where there’s a gap. We’re told that the Children of Israel came down to Egypt with “70 souls”, but a careful count of the names reveals only 69 (Genesis 46:8-27)! Who’s missing? The midrash itself offers more than one answer. I picked one. Here’s a page from that person’s imaginary journal.

… after what happened, my mom just disappeared from the story. The gossipers just couldn’t stop: It’s probably her fault, they said, she brought it on herself; she was her “mother’s daughter”, the mother also “going out” when she wanted a night with her husband, and now that daughter, a young lady herself, the only daughter among 12 sons, “goes out” to visit with her girlfriends. Or maybe, said others, it was him, the good looking, insistent prince whose father ruled the ancient city, who fell madly in love, who didn’t know what love was, the one who was to be my father??
My father. I never got to meet him. My two uncles got to him first, the ones who worried so much about the family’s honor… were they brave or crazy? Only my saba (grandfather) was able to hold all these contradictions in his heart…
Saba. He got my mom to live in a small hut in a Canaanite village near Sh’chem, so that his overly zealous sons would not kill me too, determined to erase my father’s memory… That’s where I was born and where I spent my early years. Mom told me much about the special teachings G-d gave her great-grandfather, and I loved to listen. It was peaceful, so Iremember, and anyway, a child is never fully aware of the role she might be having in the grand drama of life, except one day…
I went to retrieve a little lamb hiding in a s’ne, a little thorn bush. As I reached over, all of a sudden I saw through the thicket my uncles in the valley below. They were yelling at each other, pulling something this way and that. Then I saw his colorful coat, blood dripping from it. Yes, I knew it was his, of course, everybody knew, mom told me all about it, and me, I just… already then, of course… but let me not get ahead of myself.
It slowly became obvious that my life was in danger too, and that my mom won’t be able to protect me, just like Jacob was not able to protect his beloved son… I too had no doubt of her love, but the burden was too big, with no father, no money, little sustenance, and a bad reputation, there was no future. Grandpa had me sent to Egypt, and a convoy of merchants took me to be the maid of Potifar’s wife…
That’s where we finally met, two Hebrew slaves in the palace, polishing someone else’s floor, trying to brighten our own dreams… I thought the world of him, right away; his eyes, his posture, his intelligent sayings… everything about him made sense, as if I’ve known him forever, as if I was finally home. Our lives were almost a reflection of each other… At first we were scared, but unable to stay away from each other, we would sit and talk till so late in the night, the palace still, the breeze in the bulrushes and the full moon over the Nile… he brought back to my life everything that was good in the world, wisdom, kindness, beauty, I was so happy! Slavery in that palace all of a sudden seemed like a blessing… and slowly we realized the miracle of us, how we were each others reflection…
But then, one day, I remember so clearly, it was late afternoon. He was sweeping the big yard, while I was walking behind Mrs. Potifar, holding the heavy fan for her on her way to her dinner, my arms straining. He looked up at me, and oh, that look! There was so much love in his eyes! It was as if he was saying, I’ll see you soon, my dear, I know your days are long but I’ll hold you gently till you fall asleep softly in my arms…
Unfortunately, I was not the only one who saw that look; not the only one who realized what that look says. For a moment I thought our secret was revealed but then, worse! She thought his loving look was directed at her!! Silly, lonely woman!! She wished! From that day on, she kept pestering him, on and on, calling him to her chambers for no real reason, breaking things purposely, “needing” stuff that “only he could do”… until… well, you know what happened…
More than two years he was in jail. And I couldn’t do anything to get him out. Instead I stole a small bucket which I filled with delicacies and hung from a long rope down to the dungeon. Sometimes, I would add little inspiring messages on papyrus, or sit outside singing for him…
Then, one day, chariots were sent, with well dressed messengers carrying fine linen, a change of clothing for him, what a commotion! Summoned back to the palace, he was asked to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, and was quickly declared second to the king. That’s when I was given to him as a wife, a perfect match, another well trained, well behaved servant from the palace, a dime a dozen. Little did they know about our love…
I bore him two sons, Efrayim and Menashe, and while they grew up here, we both taught them everything we know, so that one day, one day… we knew it was just a matter of time… yesterday they received their grandfather’s blessing. I stood in the corner, watching the old man and thinking about our journey, what it took us to get to this moment and what’s still ahead. For the first time in years, tears rolled down my cheeks and I just cried.

Shabbat Shalom!

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Who’s Plan & A Wonderful Meeting

Posted on December 19, 2015 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

Last summer I had a fabulous opportunity to meet a very dear friend whom I haven’t seen for more than 20 years. As I waited nervously, I looked around at the people passing by, wondering, ‘is that him’ ‘is that’… I could not imagine what he would look like and was afraid I won’t recognize him. Then he showed up and tapped me on the shoulder, and within seconds we were chatting as if no time has passed. Short of few wrinkles and some grey we both added, it seemed like nothing much has changed.
This week we read about an amazing meeting, when Joseph and his brothers reunite, “surprised” to discover he is the viceroy of Egypt, and yes, I put “surprised” in quotation marks because I can’t help wonder, how come Joseph’s brothers didn’t recognize him?
Sure, it’s been 20 years. And Joseph, who left is 17, grew and was now 37 years old. And he wore different clothing. And had a new name. And was “out of context”. But was he really? After all, if anyone, the brothers knew very well they sold him to a convoy going down to Egypt, the next door neighboring country, only a few miles away! And the convoy was of “Yishmaelites”, possibly distant relatives! And then, this beautiful, wonder child just vanished? And, when they heard about a great wise new leader there who saves the whole region from a horrible famine by “interpreting dreams”, they didn’t even have the slightest suspicion that their brother is there?
A careful read reveals that there is a lot of sub-text between the brothers until the final “I am Joseph” “sudden” cry (Genesis 45:3).
Joseph on his end knows who they are immediately and purposefully does not reveal himself. On the surface, this appears as revenge: he is now in power and can mistreat them as they have done to him. But a deeper insight shows otherwise.
Joseph until now, contrary to what we superficially tend to think, saw not much blessing in his dreams: the first set got him thrown in a pit and sold to slavery, while the second kept him in jail for two extra years. Only when he analyzes Pharaoh’s dreams, his fate changes. Upon meeting the brothers, he doesn’t know yet which way is this going to turn. Further, before revealing himself, he needs to know if the brothers have any second thoughts about what they have done to him. Had he, as second to Pharaoh just asked them, they would be likely to say, ‘of course we’re sorry’. Therefore, he had to recreate the situation where they can get rid of him again and see if this time they would do something else. The best way to find out is by putting Benjamin in harm’s way and seeing how they respond.
But how about the brothers?
Judah’s speech is one of the most moving encounters in the whole Bible. It is also one of the most inaccurate retelling of what happened prior, and full of mismatched details between the speech and reality. For example, Judah says, “my master has asked his servants if we have a father or brother (44:19) but Joseph never asked that. Judah also inserts a detail about Jacob which Joseph doesn’t know, that his father is still hopeful to see him.
Reading it so, turns out, Judah’s speech is constructed carefully so that if the person in front of him is not Joseph, none of those details would mean anything to a stranger; but if he is Joseph, then the message of care, remorse, love and hope would come across.
Only when those do, that is when Joseph “can’t hold it back”, asking all the leave as he reveals himself. The Torah if so, like in many other dialogs, demands that we look beyond the superficial content and try to hear the subtext; what’s really going on.

One trip, 3 plans…
With Jacob hears that his son is alive and well in Egypt, he plans his trip “down” there. Indeed, for Jacob, who already once reluctantly left his homeland, traveling away is a “down”, and what he tells himself is that he is just going to see Joseph before he (Jacob) dies for a short visit (Genesis 46:28).
Joseph, however, knows this can’t be a short visit for there are another five years of famine (45:6).
But G-d knows the bigger plan yet, which is revealed to Jacob on his way, in a nightly vision: “”Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt for these I will make you a great nation… (46:2-4), and clearly, it is going to take longer than a short visit or even five years to make a nation.
When G-d gives this vision, He calls Jacob – Yisrael, his “national”, spiritual name. Jacob finally is assured that unlike his father and grandfather, all his children will be united for one cause and become a whole nation. Towards the end of his life, even the challenges and hardship of life come together and make sense.
It’s a longer discussion whether Jacob was lucky or not to hear the full plan. At least we were left with a message that somewhere, Someone knows and Things are supposed to make sense, even when we don’t quite see it.

Shabbat Shalom

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Freud’s Parasha (shabbat shalom & sweet dreams)

Posted on December 12, 2015 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

Is this where Freud and Yung got their ideas from? Joseph is the king of dreams, and I am fascinated by what the people of long ago thought about the subject. Obviously, Joseph, his brothers, father and even Pharaoh who saw himself like G-d, all believed, in fact, in the power of the subconscious, and in dreams being a window into that world. They knew that there is “stuff” that our mind works out while we’re asleep, and that sleep is not entirely inactive (they probably didn’t “dream” that one day we will invent something that can make us even more inactive than sleep…). Rather sleep is a place to go through our fears, hopes, deep desires, and at times, stam (just) nonsense we’ve absorbed from our days.
I love the fact that the both Torah and Talmud speak about dreams, and yet, are not entirely clear. How can we be clear on stuff we’re not supposed to know about?? On the one hand, the Talmud states that dreams are one-sixtieth of prophecy (Brachot 57b), but it also says that no dreams are without nonsense (55a), and most importantly, that the interpretation of a dream depends on the explanation given by the interpreter (55b). A dream therefore can have either a good or a bad interpretation. Much of what it will be depends on what we put in our heads initially, what we remember, who interprets, which interpretation we accept, and most important, what we choose to do about it.
One of my favorite stories is a much later Chasidic tale about Reb Isaac who dreamed of a treasure near the bridge buy the palace in a far away city. When the dream came back a 3rd time, Isaac finally decided to “shlep” over there. But when he got there after days of travel, the bridge was heavily guarded and he couldn’t get near. Finally, one of the officers noticed him and asked him what’s he doing. Isaac told him about the dream and the guard laughed: “You poor man, you traveled all this way for a dream? Why, if I believed a dream I once had, I would travel back to the village where you came from and look for a treasure under the house of some man named Reb Isaac”… Isaac thanked him and traveled back home, realizing the treasure was there all along and at the same time knowing, he would have never found it had he not listened to his dream and gone on his journey (Paulo Coelho used that same story as the base for his Alchemist book-).
The story of Joseph is always read around Hanukkah. Both periods look especially dark and gloomy in history (Joseph’s time and the historical story of Hanukkah), but we are taught that davka (especially) when it’s dark and gloomy, an unexpected light begins to shine. Rav Kook spoke about a flower sprouting from a seed that must first rot in the depth of the earth, a process which might not be pretty or comfortable. In Hebrew, shachor – is “black” but shachar, which comes from the very same root, already means “dawn”, as if inside the darkness there is the potential for a new beginning, a hope, a light. This light might be obvious, or first just hinted in a dream.
Here’s to sweet dreams. Shabbat Shalom & Happy Hanukkah.

hanukkah.2015

 

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Next Love Story: Jacob & Rachel

Posted on November 28, 2015 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

What would a therapist tell Jacob and Rachel? When I look at commentary, I find the first one calling it the greatest love story ever, and the second – worst love story ever. Which way is it? Yes…
We know their romantic meeting at “the well”, the same place where his grandfather’s servant found his mom. One must wonder: Was there only one well? Did they all just know where to go?? Or perhaps water throughout these stories is symbolic of something else??
Jacob arrives to see the flocks and shepherds all wait to roll the stone which covers the well’s opening, supposedly so no one takes more water than deserving. In a familiar fashion, they too use the extra time to play “Jewish geography”: “He asked: ‘brothers, where are you from?” and they said, from Charan. He said: do you know Lavan the son of Nachor? They said, ‘we know’.”
As they speak, Rachel approaches with her “father’s flock”. Upon seeing her, Jacob draws near and rolls that giant stone and waters “the flock of Lavan, his mother’s brother”. A few verses later we’re told that he loved her (Genesis 29:1-18). In fact, he loves her so much that he is willing to work for her 7 years. And when tricked to marry her sister, another 7 years. And those endless hours of hard labor, all seem to him “as a few days in his love for her”.
In Hollywood it should have ended right there: a beautiful golden sunset on the horizon reflecting on the river, palm trees swaying in the light afternoon breeze. Slowly, with a knowing gaze, they walk up the path hand in hand up the path to tell her family, and… cut.
But the Torah is not Hollywood and soon after, things start going wrong. Living with her deceitful father, Jacob ends up with four wives, three of whom give him children. Those three do their part in building the family, cooperatively, quietly, as required, but Rachel is barren. How would they deal with it? In a similar situation, angels came to visit his grandparents, after grandma already went (ore than) the extra mile, giving Abraham her handmaid. His father prayed for his mom. What will happen here? Is Jacob too worn down by labor and family life to notice his beloved wife? Has she turned from the cheerful independent girl he seems to be at the well, to a nagging, needy, bitter woman?
She tries to talk to Jacob, but he doesn’t offer a prayer nor comfort, like Elkana will offer many years later to Hannah, his beloved wife who is also barren and watches her competition bear one child after another. But Jacob turns his back and goes to spend the night with Rachel’s maidservant, who gives him more of the desired sons.
He still loves her, as we see in this week’s reading, putting her and Joseph, the son she meanwhile bore to him, in the back when they meet Esau and his men presumably to protect them (33:1-7). And yet, when Easu asks, ‘who are all these’, she is included with all in Jacob’s reply, “I have plenty”.
Rachel dies on the road, while giving birth to her second son. She names him Ben-Oni, which can mean both ‘son of my grief’ and ‘son of my strength (also ‘rightful claim)’. Jacob is quick to change the baby’s name to Binyamin (Benjamin), thus confirming the positive meaning of the name his mother gave him. This is done right before she died. Because he was disrespectful and couldn’t wait? Because with her last breath she gave him a nod that it’s ok for him to do so? Yes.
Jacob buries Rachel on the road, though they are only about 10 miles from the Cave of Machpela, the family’s burial plot where all other couples were interned. Yes, you might say, in those days it took awhile to travel 10 miles, and yet, years later, Jacob’s sons will carry him all the way from Egypt to be laid to rest, by the way, next to Leah, her sister who was originally married to him by “mistake” and through a lie. Rachel will be later credited with watching over the Children of Israel in their journeys from and back to the Land. Touchy legends and poems will be composed by prophets and modern singers, but the bottom line is that in spite of their amazing love, they end up apart. Did he love her “too much”, so much that it all just “blew up”? And how did she feel about him? She wanted to bear his child, but did she love him too?? At that first meeting, Jacob “kisses Rachel, and bursts out crying”, so out of order! Could he feel right then and there, that in spite of it all, this will “not work”?
We often say that the Torah is a “guide book”, a “how to” book, a manual that provides guidance about life. We’re told what to do about food; about family, parents, sibling, children; about division of time, shabbat and holidays; there are countless laws and instructions regarding bodily functions, agriculture, labor… about so many things! So what about love? What about love?
But maybe love is like G-d. At best we can see G-d in our past but not in our future. It is likewise full of future, promise, and life, and yet equally unpredictable, unfathomable and unknown. And so it remains.
Shabbat Shalom.

Rachel_and_Jacob

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