Torah & more… תורה ועוד

We are offered zero transition from the amazing experience of revelation at Mt. Sinai to a lot, A LOT! of laws, commandments, legal rulings… We will discover that we’re actually not here for the special effects, drama love stories, miracles and wonders. This was all intro. Rather, we’re here for a long term relationship with Him, and in order to make such a connection be meaningful and lasting, we need the daily details, not the occasional wow.
This is important to remember when reading Parashat Mishpatim, one of the most loaded in miztvot in the Torah: 53 all together: 23 “positive” (to do’s) and 30 “negative”. In my searches through commentary for this week’s reading, I came across a story about a community interviewing a new rabbi, who was “tested” with a complicated halachik question. Within a short time, he came out of the library with a blank piece of paper. To the astonished congregants, he explained: ‘The question you presented me with – is unreal. Usually, when I work to solve real-life challenges, I have “si’ata deshmaya” –help from Above, and now, nothing. You must have invented a query based on non-reality!’ The message is double: for one, halachik, legal rulings, go better with a little Help, and at the same time, it is not possible to hold a halachik-theoretical discussion that doesn’t have anything to do with real life. Halacha comes from the root lalechet, to walk; it’s a trail and it has a detailed, readable navigation map.
The Torah is super practical, super “tachles”, leaving very little to our imagination. We’re told how to put on – and tie – our shoes (right, then left, then left, then right ), which blessing to say when coming out of the bathroom (depending on what we did), what to say when we eat an apple, a tomato, a candy; how to treat old people, sick people, poor people, mourners, murderers. We’re not trusted to know almost anything simply by our “intuition” and “feelings”, let alone what’s right to do, so different from everything around us!!
The verse “eye for an eye” appears this week (Exodus 21:24-25). Gandhi is quoted to say: “If we believed in ‘eye for an eye’, we’d all be blind”, but the Torah’s intend is exactly the opposite: it asks us to be fair and precise. Supposedly, in the ancient world, if someone poked another’s eye, his own eye would be poked. If someone would drop a brick on another, the “brick-dropper” would have a brick dropped on him. That seemed “fair” and “progressive”. The Torah came to say – no.  How can anyone measure how much is an eye worth for someone? What if I don’t see well? What if I’m color-blind? And how do you measure someone’s foot? What if I limp and you’re a runner??
The Torah in essence said: make sure the punishment fair, measured, and fits the crime. An “eye for an eye” means, not more and not less. But how can we measure all this? You’re right, we can’t. Therefore, monetary values were assigned, which eventually became the modern world’s system of damages, compensation, etc.
The duties of husband to his wife also appear here in 3 words: “she’era, ksuta, onata”- her food, her clothing, her sexual rights (Exodus 21:10). The portion begins with how a master should treat his servant. It’s important to note that even after the Exodus and “freedom”, the Children of Israel had “slaves”, more in the sense of servant or someone who owed money, not as a cast of people. As we delve into the complexities of the situation, the questions arise: What should be done if such a servant has a wife? Does she go with him when he goes free? What if he came with her? What if they married while in captivity? What are her basic rights? Thus the Torah concludes: A husband owes his wife at least these 3 basic things: She’era, which usually is translated as food, but can also be spiritual food (from the Hebrew “she’er nefesh”); ksuta – clothing; onata – her sexual rights, and yes, I avoided “conjugal” because I couldn’t get a satisfying definition, and I wanted to be clear: her – rights. Already 3000 years ago the Torah said that the man is charged with satisfying his woman sexually, according to her needs and wishes. It is her right – and his duty, rather than the (sad, often common) opposite. We can trust the sages that they added sub-categories galore, so much so that another story tells about a student who hid under his rabbi’s bed, waiting for the rabbi to be making out with his wife. When the rabbi noticed him (right in the middle, so says the Talmud!), he called to him, surprised, to get out immediately, but the student (who was already a rabbi himself), said: “Torah hi velilmod ani tzarich” – this too is part of the Torah and I need to learn it! (Talmud Bavli, Brachot 62:1).
So who will pray for rain in California?
I don’t know.
So??What does that have to do with anything here?!
The fact that California only had 2-3 good rains since October is heavy on my mind; the fact that we’re barely thinking about beginning to think about it now, seems even worse. You can tag it to my Israeli genes, well trained in “saving water”, and yet, the unseasonably brown hills around us are daunting. The lack of real reaction is scary.
And what does Parashat Mishpatim have to do with it? Maybe it can remind us that the devil – and in this case, G-d, is in the details; that big things are made of lots of little pieces, and that we can’t be self-absorbed, oblivious to the what’s going on around us because that nothing is “somebody else’s” business.

Shabbat Shalom.

“If God indeed created everything, that means that God created evil; and if we hold that our works define who we are, then God would also be evil?!” This is a challenge posed by a professor to his students, “proving” that faith in God is nonsense.
A student raises his hand. “Wait, professor. Does cold exist?”
“Of course! Have you never been cold?”
The young man replies, “Well, in fact, sir, cold does not exist. What we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. A body or object transmits energy in the form of heat. At absolute zero (-460 degrees Fahrenheit), all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction. But cold, sir? We have created this word to describe how we feel when we have less heat. How about darkness? Light we can study, but we cannot measure darkness, so we created a word for lack of light. The same goes to the absence of noise and, finally, evil. Evil does not exist, sir, not unto itself. Evil is a word we made up to express the absence of what we define as good. Evil is a result we perceive, just like the cold and darkness that comes when there is no heat or light rather than a creation by God.”
“Well,” the professor answers, “have you ever seen, felt or heard God?”
“Professor,” the student tries again, “what if I asked the class if they had seen, felt or heard your brain?”
Legend has it (and it might be legend) that the student in this story is Albert Einstein, who also said, “God does not play dice with the universe,” implying a God, a universe and a relationship between them, a concept we find in this week’s Torah portion.
Yitro is named after Moses’ father-in-law. Originally a non-Jewish, Midianite priest, he was a spiritual seeker who opted to join the children of Israel after hearing about the miracles God had made for them.
The main event in this week’s reading, however, is the giving of the Aseret Hadibrot, known as the Ten Commandments but better translated as the Ten Statements, or just the Ten Things.
The top 10 include keep Shabbat, honor your parents and do not murder. But the opening is peculiar: “I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of Egypt from the house of bondage.” It doesn’t read like a commandment.
What is this?
The first thing it says is that, like it or not, there is a God, however we wish to define “God”; that God does things for us; and that we might want to consider that fact in our life. The sages draw a parallel between the top 10 and another set of 10: the statements with which the world was created (“And God said, let there be light…” etc., in Genesis 1), bringing us back to the idea of a creator, a universe and a relationship.
Isaiah, the prophet of this week’s Haftorah, says in another chapter that God creates “light and darkness, makes peace and creates evil” (Isaiah 45:7). When the rabbis borrowed this verse for morning prayer, they changed it slightly to say, “God creates light and darkness, makes peace and creates everything.” Even for our sages, it was hard to admit head-on that God is the creator of evil!
But in a way, it’s as if God had a decision to make when creating the world: make a simple world with no perceived absences and thus no choices for us; or make a more complicated world — with heat and cold, light and darkness, good and evil — and challenge us to figure it out. God chose to create this world, a world that allows us to become his partners in completing creation, so that we may choose how to live in it.
When we cross the sea, following Moses, are we upset because there is mud sticking to our toes, or can we see the “wow” of the water standing upright on both sides? Do we pick ourselves up and join, like Yitro?
The question before us therefore is different from what we might initially think. It’s not, “Do we believe?” or “Is there proof of God’s existence so I can believe?” — because there is always enough “proof,” both for belief and disbelief. Rather, the question is, “Do we want to believe?” That part of the relationship with the divine is on us.

This entry is inspired by my son’s bar mitzvah drash :-)It also appears this week in the jweekly: http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/70571/torah-even-our-sages-resist-the-idea-that-god-allows-evil-to-exist/

How many of us sing in the shower? What is it about the shower that makes us sing??
Maybe we inherited the combination of water and singing straight from this Torah portion, B’shalach, where we find the grand song, sung by everybody after the crossing of the Sea of Reeds.
There are so many wow things about this that it’s hard to know where to start. For example, the story of this birth of our nation as a birth of a human being, going from a place where everything is provided, dictated by someone else; a very tight and narrow place through water, like the passage of a baby through the birth canal, to open space, to freedom. Initially, we are very young and needy. We complain, oh, how we miss Egypt! The great food we had there! It was soooo good! What, were there no grave for us there so you took us here?! We complain a little like infants: We want what we want when we want it – now or sooner!!! Growing up is going to be a challenging journey.
Moses in turn, manages to comfort and sooth each of their concerns. There was a group who wanted to go back to Egypt; others wanted to fight the Egyptians; others still wanted to pray, while others wanted to give up their life jumping into the sea. Moses said:

“ויאמר משה אל העם אל תיראו, התיצבו וראו את ישועת ה’ אשר יעשה לכם היום, כי אשר ראיתם את מצרים היום לא תוסיפו לראותם עוד עד עולם. ה’ ילחם לכם ואתם תחרישון
To those who wanted to commit suicide, he said, rise and see God’s salvation; to those who wanted to go back to Egypt, he said, “The Egypt that you saw today (or – until today), you won’t see again”; to those who wanted to fight, he said, “Hashem will fight for you”, and those who wanted to pray, he said, “and you’ll be quiet”, as if, this is not the right time for prayer.
But this verse can be (of course) understood differently: “Hashem will fight for you, and you will keep quiet” is one way to understand it: “Fight” in Hebrew – yilachem – shares its root with bread – lechem, as in struggle for basic sustenance; tacharishun – can mean, be still, but it can also mean “you will plow”: (lehacharish – be quiet; lacharosh – to sow), perhaps sharing a form of purposeful, quiet participation and attentiveness. I’m not sure yet, but this same verse can be read: ‘you will plow and Hashem will give you bread’ describing the complementary partnership that is yet to come.
Yet, because for now, life outside of the womb is magical. For the Children of Israel, water came from the ground (in the form of traveling wells), and bread – rained from the heavens (in the form of manna).
The manna came down every day, except Shabbat, in the exactly right amount needed. Every day, the people went to sleep with no clear knowledge of the food for the morrow, except faith. Maybe that is also symbolized by the water coming from the ground, because water is often a metaphor for the Torah. Perhaps we can learn that their foundation was Torah; and perhaps therefore, it was possible to have more faith in the manna coming, whenever it might come.
Back to the song:
The sages teach that “a maidservant saw on the Sea more (miracles) than Ezekiel (the prophet) saw in his visions”. There were so many miracles to witness that even the prophets will have a hard time to match the kind of closeness to G-d in his revelations. That feeling of “wow” and exuberance by those who truly “saw” was captured by the song.
And yet, another layer: The song started out with Moses and the people, expressing their joy and longing for God to deliver them. But it wasn’t complete until Miriam joined it. Miriam, who’s name originally meant “bitter”; the little girl who stood by another water to watch over brother, float to safety, joins her brother, and with her, all the women, their tambourine and joyful instruments. Throughout the years in slavery, the women were the ones who pushed for surviving and thriving, and we’ll get back to that at another parasha. For now, we can just note that only when everybody got together, now the celebration would be complete.

And — The very best clips from “Prince of Egypt”. Enjoy!

Deliver Us

When You Believe

Shabbat shalom!

I learned the following Yehuad Halevi poem back in high school:
עבדי זמן, עבדי עבדים הם
עבד ה’ לבדו חופשי
על כן בבקש כל אנוש חלקו
חלקי עם ה’ אמרה נפשי
Here is my translation:
Time-bound servants – are slaves of other slaves
The servant of G-d, he alone is free
Therefore, when each human asked for their lot
I am with Hashem, said my soul to me

The issue and slavery and freedom is so pivotal that most of the Torah is dedicated just to that. To this day, a Jew is not supposed to eat even a piece of bread without blessing afterwards and mentioning “yetzi’at mitzrayim”, the Exodus from Egypt. The word mitzrayim literally means, “a narrow straight”, and, by contrast, the Land of Israel is referred to as “eretz tova u’rechava”, a wide and spacious place. Is this a Jewish Agency aliya sales pitch? Perhaps. Or perhaps “narrow” and “spacious” have little to do with the physical dimension of a place, because, after all Egypt is huge, Israel is small. So what is it about Egypt that was “narrow”? Slavery is, in essence, to “narrow” someone’s life and existence. The Israelites sank deeper and deeper into “slavery”, into “narrow mindedness”. In Hebrew, the same root gives us not only tzar (narrow) and mitzrayim (Egypt) but also the word tzarot, trouble, or as it’s better known in Yiddish, tzures.
What is slavery? It means we aren’t “free”. But what are these terms? We often equate freedom with “doing whatever I want”, but is that true freedom? Influenced by so many pulls – commercials on every street corner, the Jones’ new car, the newspapers, tv, and internet which enter our own homes to bombard us with crafty messages from within – are we truly “free”?
In his 4 succinct lines, Yehuda Halevi warns us that at the end of the day, what we can choose is only who we worship, not if.
This past Tuesday, Christmas eve, felt a little like “erev chag” here – people rushed to get their shopping done, stores closed early, the roads were busy with everyone trying to get home in time, and later that evening, the streets were still, peaceful and quiet all around. For just one day, something was more important. By contrast, don’t even get me started about Black Friday, and the pilgrimage festival to the modern temples; the fact that people have been trampled to death by others, dedicated to their idols and their worship.
The Torah understands the complexity of the issue. In this week’s portion, the beginning of the Ten Plagues, we’re also told that one can’t just be magically pulled out from slavery. It took time to get into it, and it will take time to get out. It necessitates a mind change and therefore needs stages along the way. The Children of Israel are described as having “kotzer ru’ach”, physically, shortness of breath, but also spiritually, shortness of spirit. That is the first thing to fix. The plagues don’t just try to impress Pharaoh but first and foremost give hope to the slaves, reminding them that there is something higher, another way of life and existence out there they should want to pursue. Then the journey can begin.
But, even after the magnificent power demonstration, the Children of Israel will not be sent to the desert “to do whatever they want”. The famous song “Let My People Go”, left out the last word:
“שלח עמי ויעבדוני”
Let My people go so they can worship Me”, says G-d, and we’re back to Yehuda Halevi. We’re called to choose, not freedom as recklessness but as a form of committed relationship.
Shabbat Shalom

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.