Torah & more… תורה ועוד

What is the big deal about the Burning Bush? Seriously, after all, we’re talking G-d! Couldn’t He have done something a little more grandiose? Some special audio-visual effects? A bush?? That’s all He’s got?
Decades have passed since Joseph and his brothers journeyed down to Egypt, and we turn a page to a new Book. In this one, we’re still introduced to many firsts, but unlike Genesis, these upcoming firsts have to do with our experience as a nation. For one, this is the first real diaspora experience. No longer a servant sent to fetch a wife or a young man visiting his uncle on temporary leave, but a whole People living away from their land, sharing a fate for good and bad.
We’re introduced to our first national leader. Up until now we had “forefathers and fore-mothers”; we had family leaders, inspirational characters, dreamers, warriors, great men and women, but none had to deal with a crowd of more than 600,000 all at once; none got to speak with G-d face to face. And yet, here’s how we first meet Moses:
“And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bore a son… (Exodus 2:1-2).
A man. A woman. A child. Nothing special. Does the Torah not know who is this man from the house of Levi? Who is the woman? We know. Later we get a precise family lineage, and we can trace it all the way back to Abraham, but for now, it doesn’t matter. Moses is not chosen because of his family connections, but because of who he is and how he chooses to spend his life. One of these moments is the Burning Bush.
What’s so special about that bush?
It says! “It burns and is not consumed”.
Well, how would anyone know that???
Usually when we see fire, we rush to put it out, or escape to get away.
In order to know that the fire is steady, on-going and divine, we need to actually stop from our race and usual preoccupations (and pick up our eyes from that text!), notice that there is something unusual and take a moment to check it out. This is what Moses does. Only then “when he (God) saw that he (Moses) had turned aside to see, God called to him… (3:3).
You see, God indeed could have done anything; we know that by definition. He is God. But the miracle is that He didn’t need to; the miracle is that Moses had the ability to notice the greatest and the littlest details around him, and find God’s presence within them, without the flashy stuff.
We often think, ‘oh, if only I saw the sea split, maybe I would believe’. Moses here reminds us that it’s not needed. Slow down for a moment and look at that bush. God’s presence is right here.
Shabbat Shalom.

Santa Katarina Monastery,
supposedly at the foot of Mt. Sinai.
To the left is the Burning Bush…

Just before his death, Jacob calls his sons and blesses them. We know how important his father’s blessing was to him when he was young; so much so, that he – and his mom – made sure he gets it rather than his brother Esau. We’re in the last Torah portion of the Book of Genesis and we might expect now the grown Jacob who learned his lesson to show us the best “blessing giving” in history. However, like so often happens in the life of our forefathers and mothers back then, as in our own, in spite of best intentions, we continue old pattern. Strangely, we are confronted with verses like:
“Reuven, you are my first-born, my might, and the first-fruits of my strength… unstable as water… you have ascended your father’s bed; then defiled it… Shimon and Levi… cursed be their anger for it was fierce, and their wrath for it was cruel; I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.” (49:3-7).
This style not only contradicts our imaginary “everything will be ok” blessing but also what just happened a few verses back in the same Torah potion: Joseph brought his own sons, Ephrayim & Menashe to be blessed by Jacob and lo and behold – Jacob gives both of them the same blessing; the same blessing we still pronounce every Friday evening: “And he blessed them that day, saying: ‘Through you shall Israel bless, saying: God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh” (48:20).
Maybe we should go back to the drawing board and ask: What does it mean “to bless” someone?
The Torah has different blessings: G-d blesses people and the world; People also pronounce a blessing that includes G-d; and people bless each other (mostly parents bless their children, but surprisingly in this portion, Jacob also blesses Pharaoh).
Rabbi Hirsch of the 19th century who is a genius in exploring Hebrew roots and conducting thorough “root-canals” to draw out their core meanings, says that b.r.ch – the root for bracha, blessing – has to do with “power growth”, “spur prosperity”. He connects therefore 2 other Hebrew words that superficially look unrelated. These are the words berech, knee, and brecha, pool, reservoir.  The knee is the power point joint, the limb that propels us, that makes us go down or jump to new heights. From here, we have the verb lehavrich, as in to settle down camels, or bow down in prayer, which is close to kneeling. A pool likewise is a place from which one can recharge and draw strength. Hirsch further connects it to other verbs like barak – a separate flash of lightening; and all the verbs that start with peh.resh and have to do with getting out on one’s own, developing, flowering and also getting wild.
A blessing if so, is no magic; no abracadabra. It can’t turn an Esau into a Jacob, a Reuven into Judah. Rather, it expresses the ability to truly see someone and wish for them to grow to be the best they can be, no matter the outward conditions and challenges.
To this day we bless our boys with “may you be like Ephrayim & Menash” because Joseph’s sons grew up in Pharaoh’s palace; in the place where it would be easiest to assimilate. Instead, they opted to join the brothers, their uncles and cousins, and become part of the Jewish people.
Not everyone has to join the Jewish people but as Shakespeare said in Prince Hamlet’s speech, “to be or not to be, that is the (only) question”. If to be able to be truly who we are – is what life is all about, then for someone else to see our core true self, believe in us, and wish for us to be that – is indeed, a blessing.

Shabbat Shalom.

ReJewvenate: 40 Plus and Not Screwed.

We first met when my article “40 plus and Screwed” was published at eJewishPhilanthropy this past summer. The storm around the article, and my immediate firing, has subsided, however, the issues raised then, further enforced by comments and conversations on and off line, did not go away and still need our attention.

Current trends and aging patterns, partially expressed in the recent Pew study again speak to the fact that the 40 plus age bracket, otherwise known as “boomers”, is the largest generation we currently have in our community. At the same time, it is bracket that gets most of the demands (pay for this or that, sit on the committee, board etc) and is least “purposefully served”, namely there is no “PJ Library” or “Masa” to engage and support this age group in its Jewish journeys, even though for many are just coming into their Jewish awareness, making first steps towards peace with exploring that part of their identity. Talk about Birthright for 40 or 50 plus and you’re met with laughter, and it’s not the money. We haven’t even made it that far. We just don’t think of investing in this age group. Yes, when the JCC brings in a speaker, the audience is largely over 40, but not because they were sought after; simply because they showed up.

Some of the reasons for that are obvious: we’re busy; we’re taking care of those younger and older. And yet, without understanding why we’re here, why we’re still needed, it will be hard to give that to others. In our “youth worshiping” culture, we tend to make sure our children have it all. They are the future, the promise! But this kind of structure is not sustainable on many levels, expressed (if flamboyantly) in the previous article. The Mishna in Pirkei Avot (5:25) offers us a different system where there is something new and relevant awaiting for each age group; something you can’t get before your time on credit. You have to be 40 for certain wisdom, 50 for certain understanding, 60 for certain honors, and so on. The spiral keeps going and growing, giving everyone a respectful place. Rambam in Mishneh Torah (Laws of Torah Study 1:4) insightfully writes: “If a parent wished to study Torah, and he has a child who must also learn, the parent takes precedence… the parent must not ignore his own study, for just as it a Mitzvah to educate the child, so, too, is the parent commanded to teach himself”. Now, as then, there is still a need and place for creating unique, meaningful engagements with Judaism for all.

My article last summer was a blog; it was “raw” as some said. It definitely needed to be followed up by a professional response. Towards this end, I created “reJewvenate”, a website that has just been launched last week, and is designed to serve as a hub for the 40 plus in the Jewish world and. Its purpose is to have a platform to share information and resources, primarily regarding learning, service and travel opportunities. But more than the specifics, it’s a first step to put this discussion somewhere, to brainstorm what is already happening, what needs and can be done, what ideas, partnerships and programs are out there that one can to join, where is a place to create something new is, and more.

So – let’s reJewvenate. It now needs you. I look forward to continuing our conversation.

* This article has appeared this morning in eJewishPhilanthropy

We lit Hanukkah candles and listened to Arik Einstein. In spite of his surprised passing, we too have a few disks of his songs encompassing dozens records, cassettes, albums and disks he left. Especially in light of recent headlines, this can sadly be “compared and contrasted” with the (rightful) outrage around singer Eyal Golan – and his father – seducing 15 year old girls. The nice thing is that Arik Einstein was not flawless, not pretentious. He got involved in his share of shtuyot (nonsense). But when he sang about “seeing her on the way to the gimnasya (“The” Tel Aviv high school), you knew it was just that: a longing for an impossibility anyone could smile and identify with, rather than a pick-up at the curb. Arik Einstein sang about the good old Israel we knew and love, about how you and I can change the world, about funny characters. Couple relationships in his songs were complex, tender and insightful. Expressions from his songs, skits and movies made it into Israeli slang (like sa le’at – drive slowly, the name of one of his albums).

One of the “fires” he found himself in, involved the song “Yechezkel”, about the life of Ezekiel, the Biblical prophet. It included words (by Haim Hefer) that were considered controversial, how Ezekiel is a “hella prophet”, and the “chicks” that follow him (in Hebrew, chatichot, the slang for “good looking girls” and “pieces” is the same word, referring to the dry bones vision). Sadly, the song offended the religious sects and was banned for a number of years, symbolic of walls that went up between some of the Israeli Jews and Judaism, walls that are now being challenged from any sides: Charedim (Ultra-Orthodox) in the IDF, open batei midrash (Jewish learning centers) and more.

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Last night, driving back from a Thanksgiving-Hanukkah dinner, we got into a conversation about how parents (not me, of course) should not treat their all grown-up kids as kids. Well, the sad cycle of life is that as a parent, you can remember yourself being 16 or 23 and thinking just that; as a child, you have no idea yet that one day you’ll be a parent who does exactly that to your own kids… That is because parenting isn’t a job that can be compared to anything else, and the relationship is a one and only in one’s life. “But my friends treat me differently” they say, and you go dah. After all, when you as parent, offer a cookie to your friends, they don’t think you’re babying them, they just say ‘thank you’. “My friends trust my driving” explains your baby as he gets behind the wheel, tsaring in disbelief as you clutching the seat with white knuckles, and  praying more fervently than in any High holy Days service. Of course, these are imaginary examples, but one way or another, at the end of the day, while parents and their children can be friendly, and on occasion can behave as good friends, they are not friends. The problem is we’re like the Syrian-African rift: we’re missing each other by an average of 25-35 years. Is there really a way to explain that to each other? Express that in a PC manner?

This week’s Torah potion gently shares an example of this fragile and careful balance. The reading of Miketz (always on Hanukkah) begins with Joseph in Egypt, solving Pharaoh’s dreams. Soon he’s whisked from prison to becomes second to the ruler, managing the resources of the rich country in times of famine. Then the brothers come to buy food and they meet for the first time in 17 years. In a complicated plot, Joseph orchestrates a situation where the brothers can “lose” Benjamin, like they got rid of him. Or not. This is not revenge, but an opportunity for tshuva (repentance). It has to happen before they can move on.

Here’s what’s interesting to our drive last night: Up until chapter 43:6, every time Jacob is mentioned, he appears as Jacob, Yaakov. But all of a sudden his name Israel, Yisrael is used. Jacob is a the “lower” aspect (see older post), while Israel is the higher one. The first one feels more depressed (especially in this situation), doubts, drags along. The latter is “higher”, inspired, intuitive, courageous, faithful, determined to do what is right.

Each one has both aspects too, but when do we use one or the other? That’s the dance of life (which sometimes can be viewed more as a tight-rope walk over an abyss…). Jacob himself struggles with it. We shouldn’t feel too bad if we do too.

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Thanksgiv-ukah, Saint Pat-urim, Suk-lloween Same’ach and the rest of what we still come up with – maybe enough. As an opportunity to learn more about the Jewish calendar, it’s great. It’s also fun to look for parve suganiyot to go with the turkey, but that’s about it.

The very first thing that happened with creation is distinction: this here is one thing, and this there – another. The water below was separated from the sky above; man was separated from the earth; woman from man. They kept interacting through their core roles and tasks but each had enough trouble dealing with its unique essence and expressing that. It’s not about better and worse. It’s about each person, each entity, each “thing”, and that goes to each holiday as well, being who and what he/she/it is, without making them all into a mushy tchulent… which reminds me…it’s time for Shabbat prep.

Shabbat Shalom & Hanukkah Same’ach.

In another life, I would have liked to be a family therapist to Jacob. “See”, he might say, slumping in the straw chair that I have right near the window, overlooking the Judean hills, “my grandpa tried to kill my dad, which that pretty much shut him off to the world. Yes, they never spoke again. We didn’t even live near him, especially after he remarried Hagar. What was he thinking? Anyway, not like my dad started out like a talkative guy, but seeing the knife? That really did it. And my mom? Just the opposite! She never takes no for an answer. If she wants to know what’s going on, she’d get G-d Himself to talk to her! Ah, four wives, and I still miss my mommy”.

We should wait because Jacob didn’t come to talk about his mom, or dad. There are other issues on his mind, but Jacob comes from a family that doesn’t talk emotions much. His dad, who loved his mom dearly, is not recorded speaking to her at all, while she only spoke to him once: on the verge of taking her life, Rebekah told Isaac that she’s had it (Genesis 27:46). His brother, likewise, could never quite express how he really felt about what was important to him. Notice, Esau only despised the birthright after he lost it, not before (25:35). Then why did he not say anything sooner? Maybe if the two brothers worked it out then, we would all have peace on earth by now.

By the time it came to Jacob’s own sons, he too followed his grandfather and father, and for his own reasons, favored the younger ones. In this week’s Torah portion Jacob opts to give Joseph a beautiful multicolored coat, a move that isn’t received well by his brothers, as if it’s not enough that the guy is walking around, telling everybody his dreams where all his family bows down to him. Someone should have maybe warned Jacob, but he’s like the rest of the family: once something pops into their head, that’s it. Some would say, stiff-necked; others would say, determined. Isn’t it funny how the same thing can be our greatest obstacle and our greatest strength at the same time.

We might wonder, what was it about joseph that made Jacob give him the coat? Why not anything else?? Jacob might have not known it but clothing around Joseph’s life becomes a significant matter. The first thing his brothers do when he comes to them is remove the embroidered coat which he was wearing. When Re’uven, the elder, comes back and sees that Joseph is gone, he tears up his own clothing. Later the brothers take the famous coat, and dip it in a slaughtered goat before sending it to their father, who in turn tears up his clothes in mourning.

Once Joseph was brought to Egypt, he was bought by Potifar, Pharoh’s court official, the chief of the cooks, and became successful. But behold, one day, Potifar’s wife “caught him in his garment and said: Lie with me! but he left his garment in her hand, fled and went out” (Genesis 39:12). Potifar’s wife told a different story to her husband: “The Hebrew servant whom you brought to us came to me to be playfully intimate with me, but when I called our loudly, he left his garment next to me and fled outside” (39:17-18). One again, Joseph was thrown in prison, and in the beginning of next week’s section, when Joseph will solve Pharaoh’s dream, he will be whisked from the pit, shaved and given a change of clothes. As he rises in power, he will receive new garments of fine linens.

Clothing is a complex matter, and not only for Joseph. The Hebrew word for it is begged, and the same root is used for both items to wear (bgadim) and treason (b’gida). That’s because clothing only represent outer appearance, which is often deceptive. The Torah specializes in things that are complex and thus dedicates much time to dress: Adam and Eve were naked and the first set of clothing was a gift to them from G-d, and much later, the Jewish people receive the mitzvah of tzitzit reminding us that the same things that can be a barrier can also be an opportunity to connect, for Joseph and for us.

Shabbat Shalom.

I’ve begun to think of the Hebrew alphabet as a combination of Chinese and English. It could be that this reflects the fact I do not know any Chinese. Nevertheless, what I mean is that just like in Chinese or old Japanese, the letters are pictures rather than sounds, while in English the letter migrated to be mostly sounds irrelevant of any original picture they represented, so too, one can see the Hebrew alphabet is a mix of pictures and sounds. On one hand, you can learn the Hebrew letters as just sounds: here, this is a Bet. It makes a “B” sound. Great! On the other hand, you learn that each letter started out from a picture, and as such, represents a whole idea that stands behind that symbol. The Bet therefore, is not just “b”. It is a “bayit”, a house. If you look at it carefully, you can see the walls, floor and roof, as well as the porch on the right side. In many words, it represents building something, like in the words av, ben & bat, all building family and continuity(wait, how come em / ima – mom – then has no bet? Next time…)

If we knew what each letter stands for, we could create a word, and indeed, this is what made the roots system. The challenge is that sometimes, the sometimes, those roots grew to such amazing trees, that some of their branches are too far to easily figure out what connects them.

Ya’akov is one such name. When he was born, we learned that his name comes from akev, heel, because he was holding his brothers foot. Were so used to it that we don’t think anymore how strange it is to name your child ankle, though it doesn’t make sense. Then we read about Yaakov & Esau and notice that Esau is using Yaakovs name as a verb: “vaya’akveni ze pa’amayim” – “and he deceived me twice already” (Genesis 27:36). We keep reading through the Torah and come across the Torah portion of “Ekev”, translated as “because”, and then we end up in Isaiah (40:4) who says, “vehaya ha’akov lemishor” – loosely translated as ‘the crooked will become straight, or flat’. In Modern Hebrew, ikvi means – regular, consistent, walking step by step. All these words come from ayin, kof, bet.

The letters making Ya’akov’s name can be scrambled to make other possibly related Hebrew roots: kof, ayin, bet makes the word keva – permanent, steady, while the root bet, kof, ayin, placing the bet for building first, makes the root for baka, breaking through, as in a plant sprouting (a flower bulb is a pka’at). We get the idea of something over all low and grounded.

Let’s leave this for a moment and explore Ya’akov’s second name.

In this week’s parasha, Ya’akov’s name is changed to Yisrael. Notice, that while Avraham only goes through a slight name change (Genesis 17:5) and Yitzchak’s name stays the same throughout his life, Ya’akov gets a whole new name: The angel he struggles with names him Yisra’el “ for you have become the commanding power before G-d and men, and you have prevailed” (Genesis 32:29). Some say Yisra’el comes from S.R.H – to rule or lord, while others say, it comes from Y.Sh.R – the root for straightforward.

Either way, when we put both names side by side, they help us understand each other: one relates to lower elements: a heel, a deception, a chain reaction, a crooked road or area. You read the list, and it makes you want to bow your head down. The other relates to higher and exalted feeling: victory, royalty, straight and open. Reading it, I want to lift my head proudly. Which way is it?

Rabbi Dardik in his drash on Shabbat Vayishalch at Beth Jacob, Oakland expanded on this, bringing in the Kotzker rebbe’s voice. The latter said that in the opening verse of this week’s reading, “And Jacob sent angel before him (lefanav)” the text really wanted to say “milfanav”, away from him. Rabbi Dardik then connected it to Rashi’s commentary of Genesis 18. There, three angels visited Abraham and only two visited Lot. Why? Because an angel is a being who can only fulfill one mission at a time, therefore, the one who told Abraham about the birth of his child, completed his task and stayed behind. Back to Jacob, if indeed, angels are one-tasked, Jacob from this point on, can no longer accept these beings in his life, as his life has become fully human, fully complex, fully multidimensional. This is expressed in his names.

Unlike others in the Torah, Ya’akov’s name change is not permanent or compete. From here on till the end his life, he will be called both, Ya’akov & Yisra’el, reminding us that like him, we also hold two, often conflicting aspects of ourselves within us. The pain and joy of experiencing and juggling them both, is what life is made of.

Shabbat Shalom.

The couples of the Torah continue to fascinate me. This week, we are visited by Isaac and Rebekah, the only couple of the forefathers who maintains a complete monogamous relationship. No maidservants, no second wives, and even in times of hardship, when they cannot conceive, they do not seek alternatives, but pray for each other. Did they learn from the previous generation? If we look at the psychological construct of our forefathers, we can notice the careful dance between continuity and change: the things they adopted from the parents and the things they’d rather not. This might be symbolized in Isaac, re-digging his father’s wells, before digging his own.

Isaac and Rebekah’s first meeting must be auspicious too: She is brought to him after carefully being picked by his father’s servant with special signs. How come he didn’t look for her by himself? We can guess, but the bottom line is, he didn’t. Isaac remains the more passive of the two, and she – the outgoing one. When she sees him, she falls off the camel. Notice the interesting order of things: first the text says she saw Isaac; then she fell off, then she questioned the servant: “Who is this man, walking in the field towards us?” (Genesis 24:65). But she knew already! Did the servant just confirm that it is indeed his master? And then she takes her shawl and wraps herself up, which means, she wasn’t wrapped in it during the journey?

I’m trying to picture the convoy, riding for some time now, approaching the Land of Canaan. Rebekah, probably sent with some of her maidservants, and at least with her nurse, Devora, carried on top. The days are long, and filled with lovely Mediterranean views, sort of like riding through present-day Italy and Greece (I don’t think they rode through endless desert. Based on geo-botanic research, the Land of Israel back then was covered in oak forests, on top of its fame as the land of ‘milk and honey’). Regardless, even that gets old after a while. Being Rebekah’s friends, I want to think the girls must be having some fun, chattering and joking, trying to each other’s scarves, playing housewives, guessing what life has in store, playfully teasing each other about the future and what would it be like.

Then they see this guy (giggle, giggle)! A guy! Walking in the field! In the middle of nowhere! Ooo, look, look, Rebekah, is that him?? Yoohoo, one calls mischievously; another maybe whistles, and another one yet, pulls Rebekah’s scarf and waves.

Isaac lifts up his eyes, and sees camels (verse 63); Rebekah lifts her eyes and sees Isaac (64). It might be because of the convoy’s size that he sees the whole, while he is just one, easier to identify. And yet, already then, she sees what escapes him, distinguishing critical details from a complex scene. This pattern continues this week, when Isaac is described as blind; so blind that he misses the meaning of the differences between his sons, leading to this week’s drama. If you’d like to join us, come for our monthly Shabbat afternoon chamin and chavruta as we explore this further.

Shabbat Shalom