Finding Purpose In Calamity
Lessons from Parashat Vayigash (Genesis 44:18—47:27)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
The question of why bad things happen to good people is as eternal as humanity itself. The Bible deals with it many times and attempts to offer its own answers. The Torah teaches that bad choices and deeds result in bad consequences. There’s no doubt that there’s truth to this teaching, but it can’t explain the many times we see good people suffering for no reason at all—and certainly for nothing they themselves had done.
The Prophets, teachers of the Torah for nearly 800 years prior to the emergence of rabbis, realized that the Torah’s explanation is too simplistic. They offered an additional explanation: bad things happen so as to help us turn into better people. Proofing by pain, as it were.
But if that were so, surely there are many people among us today whose undeserved suffering would be considered great enough to turn them into living saints, angels treading earth.
The Bible’s book of Job is a multi-faceted discussion of this eternal question. Still in the end, God appears and flatly states that we can’t even begin to comprehend the reason for the many bad things that befall the best of us, since we have no inkling of God’s real purpose in designing the universe. We are, after all, nothing but dust and ashes, barely microscopic particles in the vastly larger picture of ongoing Creation.
Yet in this week’s Torah portion, Vayigash, we might be able to find some satisfaction, or at least consolation.
Vayigash (referring to Judah’s stepping forward to confess before Joseph and plead for the release of Benjamin) begins the transformation of the twelve sons of Jacob from the wily and irresponsible individuals they had been into the nation they are to become—B’nai Yisrael, the People of Israel. From the young boy that Joseph was when his brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt, he has grown into manhood and become the second most powerful man in all Egypt. He changed so much that his brothers did not—could not—recognize him. But they, too, changed in all those years. Their transformation wasn’t so much on the outside as it was internal, however, and it took several tests of their character for Joseph to recognize this. Now, finally, the time had come for re-acquaintance and reconciliation.
Understandably, the brothers are dumbstruck. Joseph takes the initiative and extends his forgiveness, telling them: “It was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father, and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph: God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not tarry. You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near to me, you and your children, your children’s children, your flocks and your herds, and all that you have. There I will provide for you, lest you and your household, and all that you have, come to poverty; for there are still five years of famine”’ (Gen. 45:8-11).
True to the message of Judaism, Joseph’s words are testament to the belief that there is a larger plan—one we cannot understand, but that sometimes we may get a glimpse into. But this plan does not preclude our human participation. At any moment during the story, Joseph could have taken a different route. It was his choice—and his alone—to bring about reconciliation. If he leaned toward revenge at earlier points in the story, now he allowed things to take a different direction. Listening to his brother Judah telling of their father’s grief, gazing once again upon his beloved younger brother, Benjamin, the wall of estrangement Joseph built up brick by brick simply melted away. It was a transformation as truly human as it is Godly. Memories of the lost past, of his happier childhood years—memories he tried to suppress for many years—resurfaced with unexpected strength, eliciting pity, compassion and an outburst of cathartic tears.
One can only imagine God sighing with relief and smiling through His own tears. Joseph made the right choice, thus setting his family—and the nation-to-be—firmly on a course toward redemption.
Imagining a reason behind everything that happens to us assumes that everything is predetermined and precludes human intervention. The reasons why things—good or bad—happen may sometimes be clear. However, it is up to us to find purpose and redirection from that point forward.
Years ago, my father of blessed memory received a letter from his brother. Written as he was being led to extermination by the Nazis, the uncle I never met managed to smuggle this letter to a Polish man on the other side of the fence. When the letter finally found its way to my father, two years after the end of the war, it left him devastated. Yet, unlike others who received such final letters and couldn’t pick up and restart their own lives, my father made a different choice. He took to heart his brother’s closing words: “Work for your homeland so that your children will not have to experience and live through what we did.” Throughout the remainder of his life, my father fulfilled those wishes. Israel is a stronger land and a stronger people today because of that choice.
Who will ever understand why evil exists in the world? Who will ever be able to tell why bad things happen to good people?
Though the reason may not be clear, these pivotal events can define the remainder of our lives. They can enable each of us to discover a new purpose for our existence. The past may define how we came to be who we are; but it is the path we choose to take from that point on that defines and shapes the future.
May we all discover moments of clarity such as those experienced by Joseph and my father. May we all find the strength to recover from times of darkness and bless the future with our choices of goodness and light, compassion and love.
© 2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, December 30, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Israel: The Blessing of Freedom
Israel: The Blessing of Freedom
D’var Torah for Parashat Vayishlach
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
In this week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4-36:43), Jacob sends gifts to his brother Esau in an effort to appease Esau’s murderous rage (vayishlach means “he sent”). Jacob further separates his vast camp into several groups: The flocks of animals go first, followed by his wives’ handmaidens and their children, then Leah and her children, and finally Rachel and Joseph. It is a desperate move Jacob makes, an attempt to protect at least some of his family if not all.
Jacob then remains alone on the far shore of the Jordan River for a long night’s vigil. One can only imagine his thoughts: the fear, the loneliness, perhaps even his yearning for a long-gone past that preceded all those troubles.
Yet, looking across the river and imagining his beloved family waiting for him there, his heart is also filled with an aching and overarching love. He knows the dangers they all face: Esau is headed towards them at the head of full contingent of armed men, bound for revenge.
And so, for the first time in his life, Jacob prays.
Up until now, God had appeared to him first, in dreams and visions. Now Jacob himself humbly comes to call on God, to remind God of the promise He had made so long ago to protect Jacob and to bring him home safely. If nothing else, along his many years in exile Jacob had learned the meaning of humility.
As the dark and gloom deepen both inside and around Jacob, he now faces yet another stumbling block: An unidentified stranger engages him in a wrestling match.
Who is this “man” as the Torah calls him, who wrestles with Jacob until the break of dawn?
There are many possible explanations. In folk tales, demons and trolls often dwell on the banks of rivers, extracting payment from anyone who would cross to the other shore (remember the wonderful children’s book Three Billy Goats Gruff?). The boatman must be appeased, the toll must be paid. So perhaps this mysterious stranger that Jacob meets is just such a demon.
It could, of course, be Jacob’s guilty conscience. Knowing that he has to face his past mistakes before he can move on, his struggle takes place within him, deep inside his psyche.
Some commentators propose that the mysterious “man” was none other than Esau himself, come to seek personal revenge.
In any case, whoever and whatever this apparition is, it has enough power to injure Jacob. Yet it is ultimately Jacob who has the upper hand. Jacob exacts a blessing from this spiritual essence (or angel, as most of us have come to understand his nature) just before first light, when it must disappear.
So what is the blessing that the angel gives Jacob? He changes Jacob’s name, telling him that from now on Jacob will be known as “Israel,” identifying him as one who has struggled with God and humans and triumphed over both.
But is that a blessing? That we continually struggle with God and with other people? Most people would rather have peace as a blessing, or perhaps just a small treasure. Why davka (particularly) a struggle? Where’s the blessing in an ongoing fight? We might come out victorious in the end, but wouldn’t we, just like Jacob, come out of this fight limping? In short, who needs it?
Yet I do see this as a blessing, one unmatched by almost any other form of grace. For what this striving with God means is that we don’t have to merely accept things as God’s will. We can challenge what seems to be God’s will just as we can challenge any person who claims to articulate what God wants of us. Because of the blessing Jacob receives from the angel—a blessing reiterated by God in chapter 35, verse 10—we can determine our own course and follow our own understanding of what “God’s will” means for us.
At about the same time that the Torah was being written, around the year 850 BCE, the great Greek playwright Euripides warned the people that to disobey the gods’ will was the surest way to bring about disaster and tragedy. Not so for us b’nai Yisrael, Children of Israel. The blessing of Jacob in this week’s portion negates this passive outlook and promises freedom instead. Even the Torah, the very embodiment of God’s will and word, may be interpreted and tailored to fit the needs of time and place.
The angel’s blessing assures Israel of freedom from tyranny—be it divine or human. The right to struggle with what some would call fate is a freedom we Jews cherish. It is indeed a special gift, a blessing. We may come out of the fight limping, but the gift cannot, will not, be taken away from us. It is the blessing of freedom.
© 2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat Vayishlach
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
In this week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4-36:43), Jacob sends gifts to his brother Esau in an effort to appease Esau’s murderous rage (vayishlach means “he sent”). Jacob further separates his vast camp into several groups: The flocks of animals go first, followed by his wives’ handmaidens and their children, then Leah and her children, and finally Rachel and Joseph. It is a desperate move Jacob makes, an attempt to protect at least some of his family if not all.
Jacob then remains alone on the far shore of the Jordan River for a long night’s vigil. One can only imagine his thoughts: the fear, the loneliness, perhaps even his yearning for a long-gone past that preceded all those troubles.
Yet, looking across the river and imagining his beloved family waiting for him there, his heart is also filled with an aching and overarching love. He knows the dangers they all face: Esau is headed towards them at the head of full contingent of armed men, bound for revenge.
And so, for the first time in his life, Jacob prays.
Up until now, God had appeared to him first, in dreams and visions. Now Jacob himself humbly comes to call on God, to remind God of the promise He had made so long ago to protect Jacob and to bring him home safely. If nothing else, along his many years in exile Jacob had learned the meaning of humility.
As the dark and gloom deepen both inside and around Jacob, he now faces yet another stumbling block: An unidentified stranger engages him in a wrestling match.
Who is this “man” as the Torah calls him, who wrestles with Jacob until the break of dawn?
There are many possible explanations. In folk tales, demons and trolls often dwell on the banks of rivers, extracting payment from anyone who would cross to the other shore (remember the wonderful children’s book Three Billy Goats Gruff?). The boatman must be appeased, the toll must be paid. So perhaps this mysterious stranger that Jacob meets is just such a demon.
It could, of course, be Jacob’s guilty conscience. Knowing that he has to face his past mistakes before he can move on, his struggle takes place within him, deep inside his psyche.
Some commentators propose that the mysterious “man” was none other than Esau himself, come to seek personal revenge.
In any case, whoever and whatever this apparition is, it has enough power to injure Jacob. Yet it is ultimately Jacob who has the upper hand. Jacob exacts a blessing from this spiritual essence (or angel, as most of us have come to understand his nature) just before first light, when it must disappear.
So what is the blessing that the angel gives Jacob? He changes Jacob’s name, telling him that from now on Jacob will be known as “Israel,” identifying him as one who has struggled with God and humans and triumphed over both.
But is that a blessing? That we continually struggle with God and with other people? Most people would rather have peace as a blessing, or perhaps just a small treasure. Why davka (particularly) a struggle? Where’s the blessing in an ongoing fight? We might come out victorious in the end, but wouldn’t we, just like Jacob, come out of this fight limping? In short, who needs it?
Yet I do see this as a blessing, one unmatched by almost any other form of grace. For what this striving with God means is that we don’t have to merely accept things as God’s will. We can challenge what seems to be God’s will just as we can challenge any person who claims to articulate what God wants of us. Because of the blessing Jacob receives from the angel—a blessing reiterated by God in chapter 35, verse 10—we can determine our own course and follow our own understanding of what “God’s will” means for us.
At about the same time that the Torah was being written, around the year 850 BCE, the great Greek playwright Euripides warned the people that to disobey the gods’ will was the surest way to bring about disaster and tragedy. Not so for us b’nai Yisrael, Children of Israel. The blessing of Jacob in this week’s portion negates this passive outlook and promises freedom instead. Even the Torah, the very embodiment of God’s will and word, may be interpreted and tailored to fit the needs of time and place.
The angel’s blessing assures Israel of freedom from tyranny—be it divine or human. The right to struggle with what some would call fate is a freedom we Jews cherish. It is indeed a special gift, a blessing. We may come out of the fight limping, but the gift cannot, will not, be taken away from us. It is the blessing of freedom.
© 2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, December 2, 2011
Fulfilling Jacob’s Vow
Fulfilling Jacob’s Vow
D’var Torah for Parashat Vayetzei
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Having to leave his home, his family and his land behind probably came to Jacob as a complete surprise and shock. After all, he WAS his mother’s favorite, and from early on in his childhood she had been telling him he was destined for greatness—far and beyond his twin brother Esau’s.
Yet, here he was, in the middle of nowhere, with only the clothes on his back and his staff, about to cross the border to a new land, in search of his own life—the life of a refugee.
It is perhaps possible, then, to forgive his attitude when, later that night, during the course of a bizarre dream, God appears to Jacob and promises to accompany him along all his journeys, to provide and care for him and ultimately to bring him back home in peace and glory. “IF you do all that,” Jacob responds, “then I will call you my God.” Then and only then. WHEN all those promises come true. This sulking teenager, sullen but ready to bargain.
Inwardly, however, Jacob believes he has no one to rely on but himself. So on he marches, towards the east, towards a new dawn.
To make a long story short—this portion (Vayetzei, Gen. 28:10-32:3) encompasses 20 years of Jacob’s life—it does all happen, just as God foretells. Yet, all the while, in real time as it all unfolds, Jacob still thinks it’s all his doing. His self-sacrificing hard work, his dedication, his devotion to his family—these are what got him to become such a success.
It takes Jacob nearly 21 years to come back to the home he had left behind as a young adult. He now has 2 wives, 12 children (11 of them sons), and herds upon herds of all sorts of animals—goats, sheep and camels, donkeys and other assorted domesticables. Not to mention 2 wives and 11 sons and the full family drama that unfolds around this scenario.
It also takes Jacob those 21 years to finally come to realize that God was always there, always watching him, always guarding him, just as God had promised in that earlier dream. At that time, Jacob came to understand that God has a Presence that appears at specific locations along one’s journey. Now he finally understands that God is within him wherever he is, all along the way.
Having come to that realization, Jacob has to fulfill a vow he made so many years ago—that if God does do as God had promised, Jacob will build a temple for God and there offer sacrifice and tithes.
Jacob’s journey—his own unfinished ladder toward tomorrow—marks the beginning of the story of Israel, the people. The name has yet to change (not till next week’s portion), but the character is set. Jacob’s story is Israel’s story. Refugees so many times, we struck roots at so many points along our journey. Everywhere we went, we sought—and found—God within us. Wherever we go, we still fulfill Jacob’s vow and build temples, shuls and synagogues.
The Midrash tells a tale of a king and a queen who couldn’t bear child. After so many years of longing and sadness, the king told his wife that she could go back home to her father’s house. As a kind of consolation, he gave her permission to take with her the most prized possession she wished for. Later that night, the queen threw a banquet and invited the king. With so much food and good wine, the king soon fell asleep. Quietly but quickly, the queen had him put on a coach and transported to her father’s house. When the king awoke the next morning, he realized where he was and asked for explanation. “But didn’t you tell me,” exclaimed the queen, “that I could take my most prized possession?”
So it is with God and Israel. Wherever we go, as far from home as we may wander, we always find God within us. Like Jacob, we raise our families as best as we can; we tend to our business, we are attentive and loving to one another as we can be. Practical and pragmatic, we shape our lives with our labor, conforming to custom and language as need be.
Like Jacob, the children of Israel, B’nai Yisrael, rely on themselves for a chance at success, only to realize, years later, that the hand of God has something to do with it from the start.
And so, still like Jacob, we fulfill Jacob’s vow. We build temples to our God where we can gather to thank God, to support one another at happy or unhappy occasions as needed.
How fortunate to be able to do that in the Land of Israel, as it was all meant to be. When I was in the Israeli army, I did my basic training at a base right near the Biblical Beth El. Shabbat there was one of those moments, an experience with the power to change one’s life. It did that to mine.
But it really can happen anywhere. Anyplace. At any time. Moments when God’s presence appears to us as though in a dream, and we know that we are indeed, Israel.
Shabbat shalom.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat Vayetzei
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Having to leave his home, his family and his land behind probably came to Jacob as a complete surprise and shock. After all, he WAS his mother’s favorite, and from early on in his childhood she had been telling him he was destined for greatness—far and beyond his twin brother Esau’s.
Yet, here he was, in the middle of nowhere, with only the clothes on his back and his staff, about to cross the border to a new land, in search of his own life—the life of a refugee.
It is perhaps possible, then, to forgive his attitude when, later that night, during the course of a bizarre dream, God appears to Jacob and promises to accompany him along all his journeys, to provide and care for him and ultimately to bring him back home in peace and glory. “IF you do all that,” Jacob responds, “then I will call you my God.” Then and only then. WHEN all those promises come true. This sulking teenager, sullen but ready to bargain.
Inwardly, however, Jacob believes he has no one to rely on but himself. So on he marches, towards the east, towards a new dawn.
To make a long story short—this portion (Vayetzei, Gen. 28:10-32:3) encompasses 20 years of Jacob’s life—it does all happen, just as God foretells. Yet, all the while, in real time as it all unfolds, Jacob still thinks it’s all his doing. His self-sacrificing hard work, his dedication, his devotion to his family—these are what got him to become such a success.
It takes Jacob nearly 21 years to come back to the home he had left behind as a young adult. He now has 2 wives, 12 children (11 of them sons), and herds upon herds of all sorts of animals—goats, sheep and camels, donkeys and other assorted domesticables. Not to mention 2 wives and 11 sons and the full family drama that unfolds around this scenario.
It also takes Jacob those 21 years to finally come to realize that God was always there, always watching him, always guarding him, just as God had promised in that earlier dream. At that time, Jacob came to understand that God has a Presence that appears at specific locations along one’s journey. Now he finally understands that God is within him wherever he is, all along the way.
Having come to that realization, Jacob has to fulfill a vow he made so many years ago—that if God does do as God had promised, Jacob will build a temple for God and there offer sacrifice and tithes.
Jacob’s journey—his own unfinished ladder toward tomorrow—marks the beginning of the story of Israel, the people. The name has yet to change (not till next week’s portion), but the character is set. Jacob’s story is Israel’s story. Refugees so many times, we struck roots at so many points along our journey. Everywhere we went, we sought—and found—God within us. Wherever we go, we still fulfill Jacob’s vow and build temples, shuls and synagogues.
The Midrash tells a tale of a king and a queen who couldn’t bear child. After so many years of longing and sadness, the king told his wife that she could go back home to her father’s house. As a kind of consolation, he gave her permission to take with her the most prized possession she wished for. Later that night, the queen threw a banquet and invited the king. With so much food and good wine, the king soon fell asleep. Quietly but quickly, the queen had him put on a coach and transported to her father’s house. When the king awoke the next morning, he realized where he was and asked for explanation. “But didn’t you tell me,” exclaimed the queen, “that I could take my most prized possession?”
So it is with God and Israel. Wherever we go, as far from home as we may wander, we always find God within us. Like Jacob, we raise our families as best as we can; we tend to our business, we are attentive and loving to one another as we can be. Practical and pragmatic, we shape our lives with our labor, conforming to custom and language as need be.
Like Jacob, the children of Israel, B’nai Yisrael, rely on themselves for a chance at success, only to realize, years later, that the hand of God has something to do with it from the start.
And so, still like Jacob, we fulfill Jacob’s vow. We build temples to our God where we can gather to thank God, to support one another at happy or unhappy occasions as needed.
How fortunate to be able to do that in the Land of Israel, as it was all meant to be. When I was in the Israeli army, I did my basic training at a base right near the Biblical Beth El. Shabbat there was one of those moments, an experience with the power to change one’s life. It did that to mine.
But it really can happen anywhere. Anyplace. At any time. Moments when God’s presence appears to us as though in a dream, and we know that we are indeed, Israel.
Shabbat shalom.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, November 18, 2011
Reflections at 49 Years
Reflections at 49 Years
D’var Torah on Parashat Chayei Sarah (Gen. 23:1—25:18)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
49 years ago I stood on a bimah for the first time and chanted Chayei Sarah as a bar mitzvah.
I can’t believe, of course, that 49 years have gone by. I still seem to be the same me. I know I’m older, but the child of 13—small for his age, sheltered, naïve—who stood up that one Shabbat morning in Los Angeles to chant and preach to the congregation is still inside me.
Of course much has really transpired in the intervening years. Almost an entire lifetime, it seems.
Much of what I’ve done in that span of time consists of pretty much what most people’s lives contain: School, family, job, perhaps a career or other change in mid-life.
Yet what have I learned in those years? I think that might be more interesting than a detailed description of all the minutiae that make up life.
The best way I can think of—tonight at least—to measure what I’ve learned is not by any conventional yardstick. Since it is the 49th anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah, tonight I’d like to measure what I’ve learned by referring to my Torah portion—Chayei Sarah.
You see, when I first studied this portion in the book of Genesis, I found it pretty boring. There were a lot of business transactions going on—the purchase of a burial cave; the purchase of a bride for Isaac… As a budding artist, I had little interest in the business end of life, least of all in the mortuary real estate business. More than that, however, as a budding young man, I was mortified at the mere thought of a bride being purchased for me in some far-off Arabian market. I secretly swore I’d have nothing to do with this portion ever again.
Yet, later on, as I matured somewhat and fell in love with the woman I married, I saw in the story of The Life of Sarah a beautiful romance. To this day I love the image of Isaac and Rebeccah, each at his or her end of a wide movie screen, first lifting their eyes and seeing there (violin music swelling) across the vast crimson and deep blue desert evening, the woman and man of their respective destiny.
Yet another twenty, thirty years later, I understood the labor that Abraham and Sarah took upon themselves to sustain their dreams. Making a life on the outskirts of civilization, in the open space between town and wilderness, wasn’t easy. There were herds and flocks to water and feed; servants and house to take care of; two head-strong women, each with her own son, fiercely protective and territorial, to maintain a respectful distance away from one another; two growing children to keep a wary eye out on. Not to mention a demanding God who must be obeyed or argued with as the situation might call for.
I felt Abraham’s utter exhaustion and Sarah’s fierce determination to protect Isaac. I heard her voice just before she died, forcing God’s hand to stop Abraham from taking the life of their son. I sensed the desperation she must have felt at that moment.
Most of all, I have come to learn from this portion the importance of passing on to a new generation the tradition I received from my parents.
It is a compelling impulse. We want to set up our children so that they become independent, leading their own lives, starting their own families. Everything we can teach them, we do. And when it’s up to them to take the reins in their own hands, we pray that they apply what they had learned to their own lives. We want to see that moment.
The portion is called Chayei Sarah, words that appear in the first verse of this parasha. They mean “the life of Sarah,” even though in the very next verse the Torah tells us of her death. Serving as opposite bookend at the other end of the portion comes Abraham’s death. It is when their work here on earth is done that the story can move on and become Isaac’s story. This Torah portion is not about death, but rather about what one does to make sure that life goes on.
I am sure there are more lessons to this story yet. I’m not quite there yet. Tradition allows a person to have a second bar mitzvah at the age of 83 years. I’d be curious to know what lessons the next twenty years hold for me. To date however, what I have learned is that you do anything and everything you can for your children to see them steady on their feet. It’s true when they first learn to walk; when they first go off to school, go for their first solo drive, or off on to their first prom. It’s doubly true when they first become independent in life. The tension is always there, of course—how much help are you willing to offer; how much are they willing to accept. How much would be too much and how much, not enough. A common joke has it that no matter how much you love them, your children in the end will sue you—either for loving them too much, or not enough.
It was only after he saw Isaac marry and find comfort and love with Rebecca that Abraham could move on to the conclusion of his own life story. It’s a sweet ending that, as a child, I couldn’t begin to comprehend. As a young adult, it was still too far off. Now, however, almost half a century later, I can begin to look to that point and begin to understand it. But I am not there yet, thank God. There’s much work left to be done; “miles to go,” in the words of Robert Frost. My kids aren’t married yet; they are yet far from setting up their own tents.
But that’s where I am in the story of my life, at least as measured against Chayei Sarah, the Torah portion that marks off the point at which I became a man. Hopefully, with God’s help there will be more to come, and I’ll be here to tell.
Shabbat shalom.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah on Parashat Chayei Sarah (Gen. 23:1—25:18)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
49 years ago I stood on a bimah for the first time and chanted Chayei Sarah as a bar mitzvah.
I can’t believe, of course, that 49 years have gone by. I still seem to be the same me. I know I’m older, but the child of 13—small for his age, sheltered, naïve—who stood up that one Shabbat morning in Los Angeles to chant and preach to the congregation is still inside me.
Of course much has really transpired in the intervening years. Almost an entire lifetime, it seems.
Much of what I’ve done in that span of time consists of pretty much what most people’s lives contain: School, family, job, perhaps a career or other change in mid-life.
Yet what have I learned in those years? I think that might be more interesting than a detailed description of all the minutiae that make up life.
The best way I can think of—tonight at least—to measure what I’ve learned is not by any conventional yardstick. Since it is the 49th anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah, tonight I’d like to measure what I’ve learned by referring to my Torah portion—Chayei Sarah.
You see, when I first studied this portion in the book of Genesis, I found it pretty boring. There were a lot of business transactions going on—the purchase of a burial cave; the purchase of a bride for Isaac… As a budding artist, I had little interest in the business end of life, least of all in the mortuary real estate business. More than that, however, as a budding young man, I was mortified at the mere thought of a bride being purchased for me in some far-off Arabian market. I secretly swore I’d have nothing to do with this portion ever again.
Yet, later on, as I matured somewhat and fell in love with the woman I married, I saw in the story of The Life of Sarah a beautiful romance. To this day I love the image of Isaac and Rebeccah, each at his or her end of a wide movie screen, first lifting their eyes and seeing there (violin music swelling) across the vast crimson and deep blue desert evening, the woman and man of their respective destiny.
Yet another twenty, thirty years later, I understood the labor that Abraham and Sarah took upon themselves to sustain their dreams. Making a life on the outskirts of civilization, in the open space between town and wilderness, wasn’t easy. There were herds and flocks to water and feed; servants and house to take care of; two head-strong women, each with her own son, fiercely protective and territorial, to maintain a respectful distance away from one another; two growing children to keep a wary eye out on. Not to mention a demanding God who must be obeyed or argued with as the situation might call for.
I felt Abraham’s utter exhaustion and Sarah’s fierce determination to protect Isaac. I heard her voice just before she died, forcing God’s hand to stop Abraham from taking the life of their son. I sensed the desperation she must have felt at that moment.
Most of all, I have come to learn from this portion the importance of passing on to a new generation the tradition I received from my parents.
It is a compelling impulse. We want to set up our children so that they become independent, leading their own lives, starting their own families. Everything we can teach them, we do. And when it’s up to them to take the reins in their own hands, we pray that they apply what they had learned to their own lives. We want to see that moment.
The portion is called Chayei Sarah, words that appear in the first verse of this parasha. They mean “the life of Sarah,” even though in the very next verse the Torah tells us of her death. Serving as opposite bookend at the other end of the portion comes Abraham’s death. It is when their work here on earth is done that the story can move on and become Isaac’s story. This Torah portion is not about death, but rather about what one does to make sure that life goes on.
I am sure there are more lessons to this story yet. I’m not quite there yet. Tradition allows a person to have a second bar mitzvah at the age of 83 years. I’d be curious to know what lessons the next twenty years hold for me. To date however, what I have learned is that you do anything and everything you can for your children to see them steady on their feet. It’s true when they first learn to walk; when they first go off to school, go for their first solo drive, or off on to their first prom. It’s doubly true when they first become independent in life. The tension is always there, of course—how much help are you willing to offer; how much are they willing to accept. How much would be too much and how much, not enough. A common joke has it that no matter how much you love them, your children in the end will sue you—either for loving them too much, or not enough.
It was only after he saw Isaac marry and find comfort and love with Rebecca that Abraham could move on to the conclusion of his own life story. It’s a sweet ending that, as a child, I couldn’t begin to comprehend. As a young adult, it was still too far off. Now, however, almost half a century later, I can begin to look to that point and begin to understand it. But I am not there yet, thank God. There’s much work left to be done; “miles to go,” in the words of Robert Frost. My kids aren’t married yet; they are yet far from setting up their own tents.
But that’s where I am in the story of my life, at least as measured against Chayei Sarah, the Torah portion that marks off the point at which I became a man. Hopefully, with God’s help there will be more to come, and I’ll be here to tell.
Shabbat shalom.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, October 28, 2011
Creation, Chapter Two: Comapassion
Creation, Chapter Two: Comapassion
D’var Torah for Parashat Noah
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Last week’s Torah portion, Breishit—named after the opening Hebrew word—contained the first value of human society: justice. In contrast, this week’s parasha, Noach, contains several more
Justice, we learn in Breishit, isn’t an arbitrary system. There is a higher authority which oversees a higher standard, one to which all must aspire. And the first rule issued by this higher being or intelligence, is not to commit murder. Life itself is sacred. It is God given. Life is a blessing God gives and which only God may retract.
Genesis, the portion which gives the entire first book of the Torah its title, is about Creation. It posits a God that creates, setting laws of time and physics in motion that all must obey. It is a system based on strict justice.
But just as God gives, God sometimes also takes away. As punishment for disobeying God’s sanction and eating of the forbideen fruit, Adam and Eve are cast out from the Garden of Eden. In this week’s portion, Noach—Genesis 6:9-11:21—all earth, all living creatures that breathes, walks the earth or flies above it, is taken away, undone. Corruption has reached such new depths that the whole of God’s creation drowns with waters that come flooding from below and with gushes and torrents that pour down from above. All life is completely wiped out.
All save for the slight remnant saved by Noach. Pairs of animals of all kinds, his three sons and their three wives, Noach and his own wife—they are the privileged few deemed worthy of redemption.
Exactly as God had instructed, Noach builds his ark; measure for measure. As though by magic, the summoned animals all appear. As the boarding of the animals begins, ominous clouds appear and gather overhead. With ever increasing alarm and speed, Noach rushes the last of the pairs into the ark. No sooner has he taken the last count and checked the last list, than an enormous thunder announced the storm. The overarching portal doors slam shut and are barred from the outside, and a sudden, shocking, silence descends.
Of course that silence didn’t last long. The thundering rain that suddenly began to fall produced an ongoing roar. The animals responded in kind, each from his and her compartment. Noach clapped his hands to his ears trying to drown out the noise, but to no avail.
Then, through it all, as he got accustomed to each sound and could identify its source, Noach began to perceive yet another sound—the echo of wailing, screaming and weeping. He heard the pawing on the outside the ark as the water began to raise it from the ground. He heard the scratching of nails and talons ripping at the wood, seeking refuge inside from the torrents. He thought he heard voices calling out to one another, to him, calling out names, cursing, praying, crying. But slowly these sounds began to diminish.
Finally all that was left was the sound of the rain as it fell relentlessly on.
On those terrible first nights, Noach learned many things about what being human meant.
Overnight it seems, responsibility bent his shoulders. He suddenly felt old. His once-strong body turned weak; his strong arms, accustomed to chopping wood, raising barns and building homes, were reduced to feeding animals, taking care of newly hatched chicks. And in the process, Noach learned to care for his charges.
It isn’t for naught that the rabbis taught that whoever saves a single human soul, it is as though he had saved a whole world in its entirety. Noach could now only ruminate on how little he did, and how many more worlds he could have saved.
He next learns about reliance. At first he relied only on himself and his own strength. Later, he learned to rely on God to show him the right way to use his abilities. Now, confined to the darkness of the ark, having to share his little world with so much life around him, he learns to listen to his own conscience, to hear the voices of the animals around him.
He learns the pangs of disappointment as he releases the raven and watches it fly away without even a glance back.
And then he learns about hope. He releases a white dove and watches it take wing, gain strength for a moment—only to lose it again and founder in the grey clouds and whipping winds. He takes it back gently, bringing it in through the ark’s only window, shielding it from the cold and wet air. Neither Noach nor his bird despair, however. They will try again, and this time the dove will succeed, it will find land, food, a tree to perch on and nest in.
Compassion and gratitude—those are the feelings of humanity, sparks of the Divine Presence within us, that Noach finally senses in him. And so, having learned his lessons, Noach is released from his captivity. The rainbow in the sky signals an everlasting covenant between humanity and its supreme judge. From now on, justice will forever be tempered with compassion. Those are the ground rules by which we all must coexist from that point on.
As with any covenant, both sides agree to abide by this agreement—God and Noach, and through Noach, all humanity.
© 2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat Noah
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Last week’s Torah portion, Breishit—named after the opening Hebrew word—contained the first value of human society: justice. In contrast, this week’s parasha, Noach, contains several more
Justice, we learn in Breishit, isn’t an arbitrary system. There is a higher authority which oversees a higher standard, one to which all must aspire. And the first rule issued by this higher being or intelligence, is not to commit murder. Life itself is sacred. It is God given. Life is a blessing God gives and which only God may retract.
Genesis, the portion which gives the entire first book of the Torah its title, is about Creation. It posits a God that creates, setting laws of time and physics in motion that all must obey. It is a system based on strict justice.
But just as God gives, God sometimes also takes away. As punishment for disobeying God’s sanction and eating of the forbideen fruit, Adam and Eve are cast out from the Garden of Eden. In this week’s portion, Noach—Genesis 6:9-11:21—all earth, all living creatures that breathes, walks the earth or flies above it, is taken away, undone. Corruption has reached such new depths that the whole of God’s creation drowns with waters that come flooding from below and with gushes and torrents that pour down from above. All life is completely wiped out.
All save for the slight remnant saved by Noach. Pairs of animals of all kinds, his three sons and their three wives, Noach and his own wife—they are the privileged few deemed worthy of redemption.
Exactly as God had instructed, Noach builds his ark; measure for measure. As though by magic, the summoned animals all appear. As the boarding of the animals begins, ominous clouds appear and gather overhead. With ever increasing alarm and speed, Noach rushes the last of the pairs into the ark. No sooner has he taken the last count and checked the last list, than an enormous thunder announced the storm. The overarching portal doors slam shut and are barred from the outside, and a sudden, shocking, silence descends.
Of course that silence didn’t last long. The thundering rain that suddenly began to fall produced an ongoing roar. The animals responded in kind, each from his and her compartment. Noach clapped his hands to his ears trying to drown out the noise, but to no avail.
Then, through it all, as he got accustomed to each sound and could identify its source, Noach began to perceive yet another sound—the echo of wailing, screaming and weeping. He heard the pawing on the outside the ark as the water began to raise it from the ground. He heard the scratching of nails and talons ripping at the wood, seeking refuge inside from the torrents. He thought he heard voices calling out to one another, to him, calling out names, cursing, praying, crying. But slowly these sounds began to diminish.
Finally all that was left was the sound of the rain as it fell relentlessly on.
On those terrible first nights, Noach learned many things about what being human meant.
Overnight it seems, responsibility bent his shoulders. He suddenly felt old. His once-strong body turned weak; his strong arms, accustomed to chopping wood, raising barns and building homes, were reduced to feeding animals, taking care of newly hatched chicks. And in the process, Noach learned to care for his charges.
It isn’t for naught that the rabbis taught that whoever saves a single human soul, it is as though he had saved a whole world in its entirety. Noach could now only ruminate on how little he did, and how many more worlds he could have saved.
He next learns about reliance. At first he relied only on himself and his own strength. Later, he learned to rely on God to show him the right way to use his abilities. Now, confined to the darkness of the ark, having to share his little world with so much life around him, he learns to listen to his own conscience, to hear the voices of the animals around him.
He learns the pangs of disappointment as he releases the raven and watches it fly away without even a glance back.
And then he learns about hope. He releases a white dove and watches it take wing, gain strength for a moment—only to lose it again and founder in the grey clouds and whipping winds. He takes it back gently, bringing it in through the ark’s only window, shielding it from the cold and wet air. Neither Noach nor his bird despair, however. They will try again, and this time the dove will succeed, it will find land, food, a tree to perch on and nest in.
Compassion and gratitude—those are the feelings of humanity, sparks of the Divine Presence within us, that Noach finally senses in him. And so, having learned his lessons, Noach is released from his captivity. The rainbow in the sky signals an everlasting covenant between humanity and its supreme judge. From now on, justice will forever be tempered with compassion. Those are the ground rules by which we all must coexist from that point on.
As with any covenant, both sides agree to abide by this agreement—God and Noach, and through Noach, all humanity.
© 2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, October 21, 2011
A Story Begins
A Story Begins
D’var Torah for Parashat B’reishit: Genesis 1:1—6:8
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Oct. 21, 2011
With the dawn of humanity came wonder.
Cave drawings represent some of the earliest examples of our interaction with divine forces that we saw everywhere. Nature was divine, its machination willed by gods of sun, wind and thunder, gods of oceans and gods of the underworld. Every tree had its spirit; every phenomenon carried a message from beyond.
We had no science, but we already had rational minds that never stopped asking questions. With the advent of the Iron Age, written manuscripts began to keep record of our questions. Each eon added its own mysteries, its own attempts to resolve the disturbing unknown with theories, stories and sagas.
The idea of monotheism wasn’t invented by the Jews. The Egyptian king Ikhnaton introduced a new religion, one based around a single god, Aton.
What the Jews introduced to the world was a belief in one God, but posited that God in a new place. This God would be the Creator of everything. Not a multitude of gods; not one god supreme over others. One God period.
The question of the Beginning was always there. Was there a single moment in which Everything began? Or was “It,” the universe, everything we see and know, there all the time, all infinite, eternal, with no beginning and with no end?
Genesis, the first book of the Torah, proposes in its very first sentence that only God is, was and will be eternally eternal. Everything else came into being at God’s instigation. God created it all, there was indeed one Beginning, and everything else has been flowing ever forward from that one moment on.
The stories of Genesis are not meant to be scientific in the modern sense of the word. They do, however, explain in terms anyone can understand what the ramifications of this Beginning are—what lessons there are for us to learn from it, what objectives for us to reach.
Clever children sometimes try to stump me with questions about the Genesis version of Creation. Where were the dinosaurs? Did God invent baseball?
The truth of Genesis, however, isn’t in the numbers. That’s what makes it hard for us modern, enlightened, scientifically educated people to understand. Genesis looks at the world with a view to the values people hold and the morals they try to live by. It isn’t a system that is based on accurate measurements and increments, but rather on the binary system of right and wrong.
However, Right and Wrong are not seen by the Torah as inflexible and unyielding; a wrong can usually be made right again, but not before consequences set in. The Pharaoh of the Exodus stands in direct contradiction to this compassionate view: his very heart had become as stony and adamant as the storehouses he had the Israelites build for him. But the whole point of the Torah is that for us normal folk, forgiveness is always possible. It’s always possible to make things better. Or at least, almost always. Even Cain gets a second chance after killing Abel. Humanity gets several chances moreover.
It’s a compassionate God that the Torah presents to the world. A loving God who creates out of love, out of need and out of care.
To be sure—God can be fierce. We’re talking a pretty powerful force here, if God is the Creator of the whole Known Universe, of the whole “It” around us. Yet this ineffably overpowering source of energy can be channeled, its flood of energy can be stemmed and redirected. If the stories of Creation show God as an ominous and dark force, a presence that can crush as easily as it can create, it is so because at this part of the story, humanity has not figured out yet what its role is. There is much to learn yet. This is only the Beginning.
© 2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat B’reishit: Genesis 1:1—6:8
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Oct. 21, 2011
With the dawn of humanity came wonder.
Cave drawings represent some of the earliest examples of our interaction with divine forces that we saw everywhere. Nature was divine, its machination willed by gods of sun, wind and thunder, gods of oceans and gods of the underworld. Every tree had its spirit; every phenomenon carried a message from beyond.
We had no science, but we already had rational minds that never stopped asking questions. With the advent of the Iron Age, written manuscripts began to keep record of our questions. Each eon added its own mysteries, its own attempts to resolve the disturbing unknown with theories, stories and sagas.
The idea of monotheism wasn’t invented by the Jews. The Egyptian king Ikhnaton introduced a new religion, one based around a single god, Aton.
What the Jews introduced to the world was a belief in one God, but posited that God in a new place. This God would be the Creator of everything. Not a multitude of gods; not one god supreme over others. One God period.
The question of the Beginning was always there. Was there a single moment in which Everything began? Or was “It,” the universe, everything we see and know, there all the time, all infinite, eternal, with no beginning and with no end?
Genesis, the first book of the Torah, proposes in its very first sentence that only God is, was and will be eternally eternal. Everything else came into being at God’s instigation. God created it all, there was indeed one Beginning, and everything else has been flowing ever forward from that one moment on.
The stories of Genesis are not meant to be scientific in the modern sense of the word. They do, however, explain in terms anyone can understand what the ramifications of this Beginning are—what lessons there are for us to learn from it, what objectives for us to reach.
Clever children sometimes try to stump me with questions about the Genesis version of Creation. Where were the dinosaurs? Did God invent baseball?
The truth of Genesis, however, isn’t in the numbers. That’s what makes it hard for us modern, enlightened, scientifically educated people to understand. Genesis looks at the world with a view to the values people hold and the morals they try to live by. It isn’t a system that is based on accurate measurements and increments, but rather on the binary system of right and wrong.
However, Right and Wrong are not seen by the Torah as inflexible and unyielding; a wrong can usually be made right again, but not before consequences set in. The Pharaoh of the Exodus stands in direct contradiction to this compassionate view: his very heart had become as stony and adamant as the storehouses he had the Israelites build for him. But the whole point of the Torah is that for us normal folk, forgiveness is always possible. It’s always possible to make things better. Or at least, almost always. Even Cain gets a second chance after killing Abel. Humanity gets several chances moreover.
It’s a compassionate God that the Torah presents to the world. A loving God who creates out of love, out of need and out of care.
To be sure—God can be fierce. We’re talking a pretty powerful force here, if God is the Creator of the whole Known Universe, of the whole “It” around us. Yet this ineffably overpowering source of energy can be channeled, its flood of energy can be stemmed and redirected. If the stories of Creation show God as an ominous and dark force, a presence that can crush as easily as it can create, it is so because at this part of the story, humanity has not figured out yet what its role is. There is much to learn yet. This is only the Beginning.
© 2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, September 30, 2011
The Song of Heaven and Earth
The Song of Heaven and Earth
D’var Torah on Parashat Haazinu (Deuteronomy chapter 32)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
For his last lesson to the Israelite people, Moses sings a song. His career is spanned by song: After crossing the Red Sea, he sings “The Song of the Sea” (which includes the Mi Chamocha we know from services); now, about to close this 40-plus year career, Moses sings again.
The poetry of parashat Haazinu is some of the most exalted in the entire body of Hebrew literature. The parameters of this poem are grandiose, as Moses calls upon the Earth and the Heavens to be his witness. Within the timeless expanse of sacred Eternity, Moses bids the Israelites to find themselves and their role in history.
Moses reminds the Israelites of the many times God had redeemed them—starting from the moment God had designated them to be His people from among all other nations. Despite their small size, God stood by them countless times, protecting them from their enemies with the ferocity of eagles shielding their young. The steadfast strength of Israel is not in its numbers or weapons, but rather in their faith in God.
There is bitterness is Moses’s voice. It isn’t merely that he won’t behold with his own eyes the glorious climax of all his work, the entry of the Israelites into the Promised Land. Some of his bitterness stems from the fact that this bitter punishment was brought about by the stubborn ways of the people. But more than that, Moses can see into the future and can foresee that the people will continue rebelling against God. Their needs satisfied, the lessons he has worked so hard to teach them will be forgotten. The Israelites will turn to other gods, losing their vision and purpose on Earth. They will lose their way and find themselves dispersed throughout the world. Whereas before, God had let Israel “draw honey from the rock and oil from the flinty rock” (Deut. 32:13), now the very earth will give way beneath their feet, and the wine they drink will turn poisonous.
Yet—as God turns and points to the very Heavens God had created—His wrath against Israel is not eternal. God takes an oath saying that as soon as Israel repents and turns back to Him, God will vindicate them and punish their tormentors for all the pain they had inflicted upon God’s Chosen.
Parashat Haazinu is always read on the Shabbat between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, as this is the very message the Holy Days convey to us. All Creation has a sacred purpose. Israel plays an important role in the plan that God had devised.
Betraying this role can only lead to disaster; but t’shuva—literally “returning,” but connoting also spiritual repentance and a return to God’s ways—will result in restored order to the universe and, on a somewhat smaller scale, in Israel’s restoration as well.
The choice is ours. Let us choose wisely.
© 2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah on Parashat Haazinu (Deuteronomy chapter 32)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
For his last lesson to the Israelite people, Moses sings a song. His career is spanned by song: After crossing the Red Sea, he sings “The Song of the Sea” (which includes the Mi Chamocha we know from services); now, about to close this 40-plus year career, Moses sings again.
The poetry of parashat Haazinu is some of the most exalted in the entire body of Hebrew literature. The parameters of this poem are grandiose, as Moses calls upon the Earth and the Heavens to be his witness. Within the timeless expanse of sacred Eternity, Moses bids the Israelites to find themselves and their role in history.
Moses reminds the Israelites of the many times God had redeemed them—starting from the moment God had designated them to be His people from among all other nations. Despite their small size, God stood by them countless times, protecting them from their enemies with the ferocity of eagles shielding their young. The steadfast strength of Israel is not in its numbers or weapons, but rather in their faith in God.
There is bitterness is Moses’s voice. It isn’t merely that he won’t behold with his own eyes the glorious climax of all his work, the entry of the Israelites into the Promised Land. Some of his bitterness stems from the fact that this bitter punishment was brought about by the stubborn ways of the people. But more than that, Moses can see into the future and can foresee that the people will continue rebelling against God. Their needs satisfied, the lessons he has worked so hard to teach them will be forgotten. The Israelites will turn to other gods, losing their vision and purpose on Earth. They will lose their way and find themselves dispersed throughout the world. Whereas before, God had let Israel “draw honey from the rock and oil from the flinty rock” (Deut. 32:13), now the very earth will give way beneath their feet, and the wine they drink will turn poisonous.
Yet—as God turns and points to the very Heavens God had created—His wrath against Israel is not eternal. God takes an oath saying that as soon as Israel repents and turns back to Him, God will vindicate them and punish their tormentors for all the pain they had inflicted upon God’s Chosen.
Parashat Haazinu is always read on the Shabbat between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, as this is the very message the Holy Days convey to us. All Creation has a sacred purpose. Israel plays an important role in the plan that God had devised.
Betraying this role can only lead to disaster; but t’shuva—literally “returning,” but connoting also spiritual repentance and a return to God’s ways—will result in restored order to the universe and, on a somewhat smaller scale, in Israel’s restoration as well.
The choice is ours. Let us choose wisely.
© 2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, September 23, 2011
From Infinity to Eternity
From Infinity to Eternity
D’var Torah for Nitzavim/Vayelech
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
A double portion—Nitzavim/Vayelech (Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30)—closes our Torah readings for this year. This powerful, last message that Moses delivers to the Israelites right before they enter the Promised Land is written in simple and direct fashion. God’s words shouldn’t be hard to understand. “No,” says Moses. “The word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it” (Deut. 30:14). Though many lessons can be learned from these two portions, this time I want to focus on a Hebrew word: Vayelech (“he went”), the title of the second half of the week’s reading. The complete verse (chapter 31, verse 1) reads: “Then Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel.”
Vayelech reminds us of another going, nearly five books earlier. “Lech l’cha,” God’s command to Abram, was to “go forth to a land which I will show you” (Gen. 12:1). Two going-forth’s, one at the beginning of our story, one at the end—or really yet another beginning.
Abram (he hasn’t yet received from God the additional “ha”) is told to “go forth”—but without any specific direction. God will let him know when he gets there. We can just imagine the old man getting up one day and saying to Sarai, “Wife, pack up the tents. We’re moving.” Perhaps because he has always been a wanderer, Sarai doesn’t ask why, where to or how far. She trusts his sense of direction: it hasn’t failed them yet. Abram, however, has no idea. He trusts God and just goes forward in the direction his heart tells him. The goal, he knows, would reveal itself in due time.
Moses, however, is altogether another story. When Moses goes forth, he does so with a specific purpose in his heart: to speak God’s words to the Israelites. He knows exactly where he is going and what he is going to do once he gets there. It’s a short line between two points, one from which he will not meander. Not for him the ambling about that Abraham liked to do. Moses is out of time now—he knows he has but a few short days left to live.
Though the Torah’s stories span many generations—400 years’ worth—it really is the journey of just one human life. Like Abram, we begin with little or no knowledge. But faith and trust lead us on. Trusting our sense of awe, we follow the road we believe in. The variables of life take each of us on a distinct and unique path. We meander, taking time to experience the moment and to ponder the meaning of our existence in it. Sometimes we lose our way or find that it is blocked, fenced off. Yet somehow, a roadmap always appears—all we have to do is open our eyes and we see it. And so, having made the journey, we reach a point where we know we are supposed to be. Suddenly it becomes clear why we did what we did. A purpose emerges. Unexpectedly, we also find that we have very little time left to do what we know we must now do.
Abraham and Moses are the bookends that define the arch of every human life. We begin by asking and learning; we end by teaching and explaining.
The irony here is that Abraham had the rest of his life before him when he heard God’s word telling him to go forth. But where was Moses going to? Ostensibly, to his death.
Yet his death is not the end. From that point on, Moses would live on in us and through us. Having told us God’s words, having commanded us to write them on stone, to recite them publicly at least once every seven years, to teach them diligently to our children, to sing them on special occasions—he made sure these words would live on and reverberate through the millennia.
How well Moses succeeded is clear. We are still reading these same words, writing them down and teaching them to our children. Better than once in seven years, we read (actually chant) the Torah in an annual cycle, making sure its words are inscribed in our souls, incised in our hearts.
Infinity turned into Eternity as Moses completes Abraham’s journey, as he goes forth to deliver God’s message to the people. That done, he will now turn around, climb the mountain one last time, and become part of the eternal enigma we call God.
Now it’s our turn to go forth, set out on a new beginning and find our own path. A new year begins.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Nitzavim/Vayelech
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
A double portion—Nitzavim/Vayelech (Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30)—closes our Torah readings for this year. This powerful, last message that Moses delivers to the Israelites right before they enter the Promised Land is written in simple and direct fashion. God’s words shouldn’t be hard to understand. “No,” says Moses. “The word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it” (Deut. 30:14). Though many lessons can be learned from these two portions, this time I want to focus on a Hebrew word: Vayelech (“he went”), the title of the second half of the week’s reading. The complete verse (chapter 31, verse 1) reads: “Then Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel.”
Vayelech reminds us of another going, nearly five books earlier. “Lech l’cha,” God’s command to Abram, was to “go forth to a land which I will show you” (Gen. 12:1). Two going-forth’s, one at the beginning of our story, one at the end—or really yet another beginning.
Abram (he hasn’t yet received from God the additional “ha”) is told to “go forth”—but without any specific direction. God will let him know when he gets there. We can just imagine the old man getting up one day and saying to Sarai, “Wife, pack up the tents. We’re moving.” Perhaps because he has always been a wanderer, Sarai doesn’t ask why, where to or how far. She trusts his sense of direction: it hasn’t failed them yet. Abram, however, has no idea. He trusts God and just goes forward in the direction his heart tells him. The goal, he knows, would reveal itself in due time.
Moses, however, is altogether another story. When Moses goes forth, he does so with a specific purpose in his heart: to speak God’s words to the Israelites. He knows exactly where he is going and what he is going to do once he gets there. It’s a short line between two points, one from which he will not meander. Not for him the ambling about that Abraham liked to do. Moses is out of time now—he knows he has but a few short days left to live.
Though the Torah’s stories span many generations—400 years’ worth—it really is the journey of just one human life. Like Abram, we begin with little or no knowledge. But faith and trust lead us on. Trusting our sense of awe, we follow the road we believe in. The variables of life take each of us on a distinct and unique path. We meander, taking time to experience the moment and to ponder the meaning of our existence in it. Sometimes we lose our way or find that it is blocked, fenced off. Yet somehow, a roadmap always appears—all we have to do is open our eyes and we see it. And so, having made the journey, we reach a point where we know we are supposed to be. Suddenly it becomes clear why we did what we did. A purpose emerges. Unexpectedly, we also find that we have very little time left to do what we know we must now do.
Abraham and Moses are the bookends that define the arch of every human life. We begin by asking and learning; we end by teaching and explaining.
The irony here is that Abraham had the rest of his life before him when he heard God’s word telling him to go forth. But where was Moses going to? Ostensibly, to his death.
Yet his death is not the end. From that point on, Moses would live on in us and through us. Having told us God’s words, having commanded us to write them on stone, to recite them publicly at least once every seven years, to teach them diligently to our children, to sing them on special occasions—he made sure these words would live on and reverberate through the millennia.
How well Moses succeeded is clear. We are still reading these same words, writing them down and teaching them to our children. Better than once in seven years, we read (actually chant) the Torah in an annual cycle, making sure its words are inscribed in our souls, incised in our hearts.
Infinity turned into Eternity as Moses completes Abraham’s journey, as he goes forth to deliver God’s message to the people. That done, he will now turn around, climb the mountain one last time, and become part of the eternal enigma we call God.
Now it’s our turn to go forth, set out on a new beginning and find our own path. A new year begins.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, September 16, 2011
The World-To-Come (And How To Get There From Here)
The World-To-Come (And How To Get There From Here)
D’var Torah on Parashat Ki Tavo
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
September 16, 2011
The Torah conscientiously avoids any talk of the afterlife. Not that the topic was ever far from anyone’s mind. In ancient days, death was everywhere. The widespread belief systems of the time all gave detailed descriptions of what happened after death. Early Judaism was the exception. In Judaism, it is this life that matters, not the one following.
It is curious that while literature and art from all periods of world history contain depictions of hell, feverish images that are the fruit of some very disturbed minds, only scant material about it can be found anywhere in the Jewish sources and texts.
Again, that isn’t because people didn’t think about it all the time; in fact, much of the art of Medieval Europe is a depiction of either hell or of the Last Judgment and the damnation of the non-believer. Dante’s Inferno is a guided tour of the ten circles of hell, each worse than its predecessor. None of that is part of the Jewish concept of the afterworld, a place and/or time that the ancient Rabbis called ‘Olam Ha-ba, “the world to come.”
Contrary to Christian belief, the Jewish concept of the World To Come was of a good place, the reward of the righteous. Envisioning it was one of the fantasies Jews would indulge in—the food one would eat, the look and feel of that coveted seat at the Eastern Wall of the synagogue, the discussions one would have about difficult issues in the Torah and Talmud!
Hell did exist, as much for the early Jews as for the non-Jews around them. Only it didn’t occupy the world to come. It could happen anytime, anywhere in this world, during one’s lifetime, not after.
The dreadful Hell that some think God had devised for sinners doesn’t hold a candle to the devilish, cruel hell that we human beings can create for ourselves and for one another.
This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo (“When You Arrive,” Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8) contains passages that do conjure up that nightmare—for that is what it is: A nightmare.
The portion contains some of Moses’s final words to the Israelites before they enter the Promised Land. He will not be at their lead from that point on. On their own, they would now have to rely on other leaders and visionaries. Moses instructs the people to write the words of the Torah on stone, to review and understand, to interpret and adapt throughout the generations. At least once a year, Moses instructs the Israelites to recite a formal account of their history (a ritual we still perform, 3000 years later, repeating its words verbatim when we read the Passover Haggadah). The basic rules of Judaism are then repeated: Honor your parents; do not push back your neighbor’s boundary stone; do not subvert justice in the case of the poor, the stranger, the widow and the orphan; do not take bribes; do not engage in acts of sexual depravity. And then come the lists of blessings and curses. If you do the right thing, you will be blessed. If you fail to do the right thing, you will be cursed.
The character and course of these blessings and curses are not unnatural. They all deal with the world we know—the seasons; the earth; the fruit of the grasses and trees; the fruit of the womb. Rather than the curses we see flying around in the exciting conclusion of Harry Potter, the curses we read about in Ki Tavo are the result of our own doings. Call them punishment, call them curses—what they really represent is the consequences of our actions and choices. For better—and they become blessings; or for worse—curses.
The horrors depicted in these chapters are so upsetting, that a tradition has evolved in synagogues where the whole portion is chanted on its appropriate Shabbat. The passages of Ki Tavo that contain the curses are chanted quickly and in a low, subdued undertone. Nobody really needs to be reminded of the horrors that surround us. They emerge out of the darkness, unbidden, in nightmares. They cause rubbernecking on the highways; they fill our newspapers with lurid detail.
So why do we read them anyway? To reinforce in us what we already know, as well as to teach the younger generation, which may not know yet, how terrible we can make our world—this world—with the choices we make; and, conversely, what a wonderful place it could be if only we followed these basic laws of humanity (Deut. 27:15—26).
Ki Tavo—“When you arrive.” Perhaps there is an afterlife and an afterworld after all. Ki Tavo implies we’re not there yet. It’s true. Just open up the newspaper and start reading. We are still so far from that wonderful place of blessings! Our world is anything but that.
But if we wait for God to spread some sort of holy blanket over us, one which would turn everything as though by magic into a blessing, we are bound for disappointment. If we wait, we will never get to that Promised Land. We have to create it ourselves. For us and for our children, not for eternity. Not for tomorrow—for today! Not tomorrow—but rather, now, starting at this moment. Only then will the words of this Torah come true: “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out” (Deut. 28:6). Blessed, indeed, in all our endeavors.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah on Parashat Ki Tavo
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
September 16, 2011
The Torah conscientiously avoids any talk of the afterlife. Not that the topic was ever far from anyone’s mind. In ancient days, death was everywhere. The widespread belief systems of the time all gave detailed descriptions of what happened after death. Early Judaism was the exception. In Judaism, it is this life that matters, not the one following.
It is curious that while literature and art from all periods of world history contain depictions of hell, feverish images that are the fruit of some very disturbed minds, only scant material about it can be found anywhere in the Jewish sources and texts.
Again, that isn’t because people didn’t think about it all the time; in fact, much of the art of Medieval Europe is a depiction of either hell or of the Last Judgment and the damnation of the non-believer. Dante’s Inferno is a guided tour of the ten circles of hell, each worse than its predecessor. None of that is part of the Jewish concept of the afterworld, a place and/or time that the ancient Rabbis called ‘Olam Ha-ba, “the world to come.”
Contrary to Christian belief, the Jewish concept of the World To Come was of a good place, the reward of the righteous. Envisioning it was one of the fantasies Jews would indulge in—the food one would eat, the look and feel of that coveted seat at the Eastern Wall of the synagogue, the discussions one would have about difficult issues in the Torah and Talmud!
Hell did exist, as much for the early Jews as for the non-Jews around them. Only it didn’t occupy the world to come. It could happen anytime, anywhere in this world, during one’s lifetime, not after.
The dreadful Hell that some think God had devised for sinners doesn’t hold a candle to the devilish, cruel hell that we human beings can create for ourselves and for one another.
This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo (“When You Arrive,” Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8) contains passages that do conjure up that nightmare—for that is what it is: A nightmare.
The portion contains some of Moses’s final words to the Israelites before they enter the Promised Land. He will not be at their lead from that point on. On their own, they would now have to rely on other leaders and visionaries. Moses instructs the people to write the words of the Torah on stone, to review and understand, to interpret and adapt throughout the generations. At least once a year, Moses instructs the Israelites to recite a formal account of their history (a ritual we still perform, 3000 years later, repeating its words verbatim when we read the Passover Haggadah). The basic rules of Judaism are then repeated: Honor your parents; do not push back your neighbor’s boundary stone; do not subvert justice in the case of the poor, the stranger, the widow and the orphan; do not take bribes; do not engage in acts of sexual depravity. And then come the lists of blessings and curses. If you do the right thing, you will be blessed. If you fail to do the right thing, you will be cursed.
The character and course of these blessings and curses are not unnatural. They all deal with the world we know—the seasons; the earth; the fruit of the grasses and trees; the fruit of the womb. Rather than the curses we see flying around in the exciting conclusion of Harry Potter, the curses we read about in Ki Tavo are the result of our own doings. Call them punishment, call them curses—what they really represent is the consequences of our actions and choices. For better—and they become blessings; or for worse—curses.
The horrors depicted in these chapters are so upsetting, that a tradition has evolved in synagogues where the whole portion is chanted on its appropriate Shabbat. The passages of Ki Tavo that contain the curses are chanted quickly and in a low, subdued undertone. Nobody really needs to be reminded of the horrors that surround us. They emerge out of the darkness, unbidden, in nightmares. They cause rubbernecking on the highways; they fill our newspapers with lurid detail.
So why do we read them anyway? To reinforce in us what we already know, as well as to teach the younger generation, which may not know yet, how terrible we can make our world—this world—with the choices we make; and, conversely, what a wonderful place it could be if only we followed these basic laws of humanity (Deut. 27:15—26).
Ki Tavo—“When you arrive.” Perhaps there is an afterlife and an afterworld after all. Ki Tavo implies we’re not there yet. It’s true. Just open up the newspaper and start reading. We are still so far from that wonderful place of blessings! Our world is anything but that.
But if we wait for God to spread some sort of holy blanket over us, one which would turn everything as though by magic into a blessing, we are bound for disappointment. If we wait, we will never get to that Promised Land. We have to create it ourselves. For us and for our children, not for eternity. Not for tomorrow—for today! Not tomorrow—but rather, now, starting at this moment. Only then will the words of this Torah come true: “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out” (Deut. 28:6). Blessed, indeed, in all our endeavors.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, September 2, 2011
Judging in 3-D
Judging in 3-D
D’var Torah for Parashat Shoftim (Deut. 16:18—21:9)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Whenever I read this week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, I am invariably struck by the irony in being told almost immediately, “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (Deut. 16:20) and, just a few verses later (17:2-5), being commanded to put to death anyone who strays from God’s path and worships other deities.
Granted, the people are warned to “investigate thoroughly” the matter. Still, is that justice? Sounds more like the kind of fury and zealotry that some people associate with the “Old Testament God.”
Yet isn’t it so? How else are we to read these passages?
When I think of the kind of “thorough investigations” that the Inquisition carried out in unmasking secret Jews during its reign of terror, I can practically see the bony finger of the Grand Inquisitor pointing to this chapter and verse as proof for permission to exercise cruelty and abuse. Under the guidance of the Inquisition (as in other totalitarian regimes), children were taught to inform on their parents, neighbors on neighbors. The property of the convicted “criminal” would then be divided between the Crown and the Church, with some smaller tip given to the informer.
Was that justice?
Yet, here it is, in the Bible’s own words.
Reconciling the irony was not easy, but by the beginning of the Common Era, the ancient Rabbis who constructed the Judaism we know and practice today came to a much different conclusion. They eliminated the death penalty altogether.
Fundamentalists who see the Bible as God’s own words, rigid, invariable and definitive, fail to understand the process of evolution that one can discern through the Bible. Often a stated law is meant not as a commandment, but rather to launch a whole discussion; the conclusion might be very different from the starting point. In the case of the death penalty, the discussion begins very early on. After all, how can a people who sanctify life also sanction taking a life?
This paradox occupied Jewish minds for centuries. One side cited the fundamentalist view. The other, more liberal, expressed the opinion that, if all life is sacred, any killing—even for a good reason—is immoral. The Talmudic Rabbis (1st—6th century) ordained that for a capital crime, a court must be comprised of 23 judges (and never less than two witnesses). After hearing the evidence, the judges must then part into two groups, one arguing for conviction, the other, for acquittal. A majority of one was sufficient to acquit, while a majority of two was needed to condemn.
The need to find some—any—extenuating circumstance was compelling. The Talmud rules that even in a case where all the evidence points to the guilt of the accused; even where all 23 judges agree among themselves on the guilt of the accused; yet, says the Talmud, in such a case, a miscarriage of justice had to be declared.
That is not to say that the accused is found innocent and acquitted. Rather, the inability of the court to find any—any at all—explanation for the actions of the accused means that this is “a court that obviously has very little understanding of who he is and what he has done. Such a court has disqualified itself from passing judgment on him.”
This explanation, offered by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, holds the key to understanding the cornerstone of Jewish Law, found in this week’s parasha: “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (Deut. 16:20). The course of justice is not always a straight line. It meanders through cause and effect, through the vicissitudes and inconsistencies of human experience. Similarly, the course of judgment is also complex. So many factors influence our perception, that something that may seem crystal clear at one moment may be clouded the next.
Hence the doubling of the word “justice.” It isn’t there for emphasis alone. It is also meant to show the difficulty and complexity of pursuing true justice. Depth vision is always a function of two or more angles and the way our brain reconciles the differences in perception.
Justice that is achieved without a measure of struggle is not possible for us humans. Pirkei Avot, the Mishanic tractate known as “Chapters of the Fathers,” teaches: “Do not judge alone, for no one can judge alone but the One.” Nor may we subvert justice by forcing our view on others, or by taking or giving bribes. Whereas the Torah and the rest of the Bible show argument and discussion (see Abraham’s argument with God in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 18:22-33), whereas the Talmud includes in its law discussions both the arguments of the winning side and those of the losing, no such process can be found in the vast records the Inquisition kept.
To point at any verse in the Torah and say, “So it is and so it must remain” is to ignore the progression and progress that characterize human nature. In fact, such a dim view of humanity barely recognizes that presence of God’s image in us.
Parashat Shoftim (“judges”) teaches us not only to follow laws blindly, but to understand them and let them evolve with us. It also teaches us to develop understanding of one another, of our own foibles as well as those of others; to be more accepting; to temper judgment with compassion. Thus Shoftim creates a more compelling image of God: a loving and just God, not a zealous, passionate and murderous one.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat Shoftim (Deut. 16:18—21:9)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Whenever I read this week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, I am invariably struck by the irony in being told almost immediately, “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (Deut. 16:20) and, just a few verses later (17:2-5), being commanded to put to death anyone who strays from God’s path and worships other deities.
Granted, the people are warned to “investigate thoroughly” the matter. Still, is that justice? Sounds more like the kind of fury and zealotry that some people associate with the “Old Testament God.”
Yet isn’t it so? How else are we to read these passages?
When I think of the kind of “thorough investigations” that the Inquisition carried out in unmasking secret Jews during its reign of terror, I can practically see the bony finger of the Grand Inquisitor pointing to this chapter and verse as proof for permission to exercise cruelty and abuse. Under the guidance of the Inquisition (as in other totalitarian regimes), children were taught to inform on their parents, neighbors on neighbors. The property of the convicted “criminal” would then be divided between the Crown and the Church, with some smaller tip given to the informer.
Was that justice?
Yet, here it is, in the Bible’s own words.
Reconciling the irony was not easy, but by the beginning of the Common Era, the ancient Rabbis who constructed the Judaism we know and practice today came to a much different conclusion. They eliminated the death penalty altogether.
Fundamentalists who see the Bible as God’s own words, rigid, invariable and definitive, fail to understand the process of evolution that one can discern through the Bible. Often a stated law is meant not as a commandment, but rather to launch a whole discussion; the conclusion might be very different from the starting point. In the case of the death penalty, the discussion begins very early on. After all, how can a people who sanctify life also sanction taking a life?
This paradox occupied Jewish minds for centuries. One side cited the fundamentalist view. The other, more liberal, expressed the opinion that, if all life is sacred, any killing—even for a good reason—is immoral. The Talmudic Rabbis (1st—6th century) ordained that for a capital crime, a court must be comprised of 23 judges (and never less than two witnesses). After hearing the evidence, the judges must then part into two groups, one arguing for conviction, the other, for acquittal. A majority of one was sufficient to acquit, while a majority of two was needed to condemn.
The need to find some—any—extenuating circumstance was compelling. The Talmud rules that even in a case where all the evidence points to the guilt of the accused; even where all 23 judges agree among themselves on the guilt of the accused; yet, says the Talmud, in such a case, a miscarriage of justice had to be declared.
That is not to say that the accused is found innocent and acquitted. Rather, the inability of the court to find any—any at all—explanation for the actions of the accused means that this is “a court that obviously has very little understanding of who he is and what he has done. Such a court has disqualified itself from passing judgment on him.”
This explanation, offered by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, holds the key to understanding the cornerstone of Jewish Law, found in this week’s parasha: “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (Deut. 16:20). The course of justice is not always a straight line. It meanders through cause and effect, through the vicissitudes and inconsistencies of human experience. Similarly, the course of judgment is also complex. So many factors influence our perception, that something that may seem crystal clear at one moment may be clouded the next.
Hence the doubling of the word “justice.” It isn’t there for emphasis alone. It is also meant to show the difficulty and complexity of pursuing true justice. Depth vision is always a function of two or more angles and the way our brain reconciles the differences in perception.
Justice that is achieved without a measure of struggle is not possible for us humans. Pirkei Avot, the Mishanic tractate known as “Chapters of the Fathers,” teaches: “Do not judge alone, for no one can judge alone but the One.” Nor may we subvert justice by forcing our view on others, or by taking or giving bribes. Whereas the Torah and the rest of the Bible show argument and discussion (see Abraham’s argument with God in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 18:22-33), whereas the Talmud includes in its law discussions both the arguments of the winning side and those of the losing, no such process can be found in the vast records the Inquisition kept.
To point at any verse in the Torah and say, “So it is and so it must remain” is to ignore the progression and progress that characterize human nature. In fact, such a dim view of humanity barely recognizes that presence of God’s image in us.
Parashat Shoftim (“judges”) teaches us not only to follow laws blindly, but to understand them and let them evolve with us. It also teaches us to develop understanding of one another, of our own foibles as well as those of others; to be more accepting; to temper judgment with compassion. Thus Shoftim creates a more compelling image of God: a loving and just God, not a zealous, passionate and murderous one.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, August 26, 2011
A Question of Choice
A Question of Choice
D’var Torah for Parashat Re’eh
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Parashat Re’eh (“behold”) continues Moses’s last sermon, addressed to the Israelites only days before they cross the Jordan River and enter the Promised Land.
The rules in these chapters—Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17—continue defining the identity of the People of Israel. We are Israel by dint of our religion, by practice and traditions, and by our connection to our people and homeland. The major categories of the laws covered in Re’eh are therefore: ritual and worship; food (both what we eat and what we don’t eat); a recollection of our basic philosophy that loyalty to God is shown by the love, loyalty and charity we show our family and community; and finally, a recap of the Three Holidays of Pilgrimage (Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot.
That’s a lot of material to carry in our backpacks!
And all of it highlighted, delineated, clarified and colorfully illuminated by examples. All is made clear and simple for all to understand and follow.
Yet one “detail” is somehow left blank. It is referred to by the word Ha-makom, meaning “the place.” You are supposed to bring your sacrifices, gifts and donations “El ha-makom asher yivchar Adonai”—“to the place which Adonai your God will choose.” Similarly, days of family celebrations and national commemorations are celebrated Ba-makom asher yivchar (“at the place which He will choose”).
What place might that be?
The historical background of the book of Deuteronomy roots it in Jerusalem. However, it becomes clear from passages within the text that there already existed communities of Jews who were living outside the Promised Land. From Moses’s view—high on top of Mount Nebo—he can see not only the entire Land of Israel, but also far beyond its boundaries and even into the future. He can see the entire Diaspora!
That’s why Moses summarizes these laws for us at this point. These laws, he seems to say, will keep on defining us as Israel, a people, no matter where we live and at what eon in our history.
Today there are Jewish communities all over the globe. The stories of how we got there are, one and all, fascinating. One of the books I read this summer is Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean by Ed Kritzler. Who would have ever thought, right? And yet, among the many Jews who followed Columbus to the New World, all looking for adventure, riches and romance (and in the process escaping the Spanish Inquisition), quite a few were swashbuckling “privateers,” “corsairs,” or in modern idiom—pirates. How they managed to maintain their Jewish identity despite their occupation, despite persecution and oppression, is truly a miracle.
Wherever the Jews went, they took the Torah with them. Its injunctions, morals, its system of rewards and punishments, these were the backbone of the faith on which we relied. What we ate—and refrained from eating; our practices and rituals; our traditions; our holidays; and most importantly, our relationships with one another—these kept us together as one nation. Despite geographical and temporal distance from sister communities all over the globe, Israel thus has remained one people.
So where is this “place” to which Moses alludes?
Certainly it is Israel; but it is also everyplace, everytime.
Yivchar Adonai–God chooses the place. But God’s choice depends on ours. God waits for us to act first: to follow the way of the blessing or the curse. When we choose to follow the laws that make us Israel, to remember who we are and what that means, God reciprocates and we sense the blessing—God’s Presence at that place. Ba-makom.
Parashat Re-eh is always read on this Shabbat, four weeks before Rosh Ha-Shanah. It comes at the end of summer, when we find ourselves back at home again. We’re back from camp or vacations; some of us have already returned our college sons and daughters to their dorm “homes.” Those who haven’t yet, will soon. Wherever we are at this season, facing a new year, now is the time to focus and restate—at least for ourselves—the moral principles that will guide us during the next year. At this time, in the words of the portion, we “behold the blessing and the curse,” a life glowing with meaning and purpose, or a life with no context, without love, without blessing or holiness. The choice is ours.
And then God beholds and sees, and God makes God’s own choices.
We are truly partners in holiness. May our Shabbat be blessed with peace wherever we are.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat Re’eh
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Parashat Re’eh (“behold”) continues Moses’s last sermon, addressed to the Israelites only days before they cross the Jordan River and enter the Promised Land.
The rules in these chapters—Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17—continue defining the identity of the People of Israel. We are Israel by dint of our religion, by practice and traditions, and by our connection to our people and homeland. The major categories of the laws covered in Re’eh are therefore: ritual and worship; food (both what we eat and what we don’t eat); a recollection of our basic philosophy that loyalty to God is shown by the love, loyalty and charity we show our family and community; and finally, a recap of the Three Holidays of Pilgrimage (Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot.
That’s a lot of material to carry in our backpacks!
And all of it highlighted, delineated, clarified and colorfully illuminated by examples. All is made clear and simple for all to understand and follow.
Yet one “detail” is somehow left blank. It is referred to by the word Ha-makom, meaning “the place.” You are supposed to bring your sacrifices, gifts and donations “El ha-makom asher yivchar Adonai”—“to the place which Adonai your God will choose.” Similarly, days of family celebrations and national commemorations are celebrated Ba-makom asher yivchar (“at the place which He will choose”).
What place might that be?
The historical background of the book of Deuteronomy roots it in Jerusalem. However, it becomes clear from passages within the text that there already existed communities of Jews who were living outside the Promised Land. From Moses’s view—high on top of Mount Nebo—he can see not only the entire Land of Israel, but also far beyond its boundaries and even into the future. He can see the entire Diaspora!
That’s why Moses summarizes these laws for us at this point. These laws, he seems to say, will keep on defining us as Israel, a people, no matter where we live and at what eon in our history.
Today there are Jewish communities all over the globe. The stories of how we got there are, one and all, fascinating. One of the books I read this summer is Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean by Ed Kritzler. Who would have ever thought, right? And yet, among the many Jews who followed Columbus to the New World, all looking for adventure, riches and romance (and in the process escaping the Spanish Inquisition), quite a few were swashbuckling “privateers,” “corsairs,” or in modern idiom—pirates. How they managed to maintain their Jewish identity despite their occupation, despite persecution and oppression, is truly a miracle.
Wherever the Jews went, they took the Torah with them. Its injunctions, morals, its system of rewards and punishments, these were the backbone of the faith on which we relied. What we ate—and refrained from eating; our practices and rituals; our traditions; our holidays; and most importantly, our relationships with one another—these kept us together as one nation. Despite geographical and temporal distance from sister communities all over the globe, Israel thus has remained one people.
So where is this “place” to which Moses alludes?
Certainly it is Israel; but it is also everyplace, everytime.
Yivchar Adonai–God chooses the place. But God’s choice depends on ours. God waits for us to act first: to follow the way of the blessing or the curse. When we choose to follow the laws that make us Israel, to remember who we are and what that means, God reciprocates and we sense the blessing—God’s Presence at that place. Ba-makom.
Parashat Re-eh is always read on this Shabbat, four weeks before Rosh Ha-Shanah. It comes at the end of summer, when we find ourselves back at home again. We’re back from camp or vacations; some of us have already returned our college sons and daughters to their dorm “homes.” Those who haven’t yet, will soon. Wherever we are at this season, facing a new year, now is the time to focus and restate—at least for ourselves—the moral principles that will guide us during the next year. At this time, in the words of the portion, we “behold the blessing and the curse,” a life glowing with meaning and purpose, or a life with no context, without love, without blessing or holiness. The choice is ours.
And then God beholds and sees, and God makes God’s own choices.
We are truly partners in holiness. May our Shabbat be blessed with peace wherever we are.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, August 12, 2011
Making the Ideal Real
Making the Ideal Real
D’var Torah for Parashat Va-et-chanan (Deuteronomy 3:23—7:11)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
August 12, 2011
The Promised Land is a promise waiting to be actualized.
Moses recognizes that truth—not without bitterness and some blame—as his pleas with God (va-et’cha-nan) to be allowed to enter the Promised Land are turned down in no uncertain terms. It will not be Moses who will lead the Israelites into their promised homeland, but rather Joshua.
Moses knows the road ahead is not going to be easy. The Land Of Canaan, as Israel was called at that time, was populated by fierce peoples whose physical prowess matched their ignorance and immoral practices. Israel will have to rely on another kind of strength to gain the Promised Land. Yes, there will be wars. Joshua, Moses’s long-time assistant, follower and companion, learned much during the years he served Moses. His orientation, however, was that of a general. He would lead the Israelites into battle, but he would also teach them how to remain true to the ethics and morals that God and Moses had taught the People.
It was God’s strength that freed the Israelites from Pharaoh’s grip; it will be with God’s strength that the Children of Israel will enter the Promised Land. With wisdom, understanding and faith they will have to make it their—and God’s—Promised Land.
From his perch on the top of Mt. Nevo in the land of Moab, Moses can see not only the whole country of Israel, he can also see far into the future. He knows the difficulties that the people will encounter in years to come. Israel—at the crossroads of the world’s trade routes—comes with a price. Not only will empires compete for control over this tactical spot; they will bring with them cultures and customs that will tempt the Israelites with their glitz and glitter. Yet the residence of the Israelites in the Promised Land is conditional upon their following God’s ways. Following the example of other peoples and other gods will undo the connection between the People and the Promised Land. Return to God—teshuva—will hasten also their ultimate return to the Land.
The mezuzah that adorns the doorways of Jewish homes contains a reminder of the loving and faithful relationship between God, the People and the Land of Israel. The Sh’ma and Ve-ahavta, written in tiny letters on a parchment that a mezuzah houses, are also central in our prayer service. These verses are quoted in this portion of the Torah. So are several other sections and verses that are prominent in holiday celebrations and our prayers. Together they contain the essence of our faith. But they are merely reminders. Our real charge is to actualize and maintain that relationship. That is done first through the pursuit of justice.
As his first act in preparing the Children of Israel to settle in the Promised Land, Moses establishes three refuge cities on the eastern shore of the Jordan River—yet before they cross the Jordan into Israel proper. These cities are to serve as sanctuary for hunted men and women until due process can be applied. Bloodshed is abhorrent to God regardless of where we live, in Israel or among the Nations. Justice is the first step in the conquest of any wilderness and the actualization of a Promised Land upon it.
The Ten Commandments, first iterated in Exodus, chapter 20, are repeated almost verbatim in this portion. More than the law against murder, which God imposes on all human beings, the Ten Commandments are addressed specifically to the Jewish People. These form as the core and basis for Judaism both as a legal religion and as a civil way of life based on rules of ethics and morality. The repetition of this code of laws forms the underpinning of the Covenant between God and Israel.
If we, the Jewish People, are to be recognized as a “great nation…, a wise and understanding people,” (Deut. 4:6), education of future generations must be yet another value intrinsic to our culture. The “Ve-ahavta” reminds us to “teach these words diligently to our children” (Deut. 6:7). These words are then followed by a similar instruction that we repeat at every Passover Seder: “When your son asks you… ‘What are the testimonies, the statues and the ordinances which the Lord our God has commanded you?’ You shall say to your son, ‘We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord took us out of Egypt with a strong hand’” (Deut. 6:20-21).
The belief in God and God’s protective relationship with Israel; the requirement to pursue justice; the importance of teaching these values to our children—these are the secret of Israel’s strength. These are the pillars upon which the Promised Land is built.
It is said that the Mashiach—the longed-for Messiah—is already among us. All that we are waiting for is for him to actualize. Similarly, wherever we live is the Promised Land. All we have to do is to actualize it: to build it and to maintain its structure, values and rules. Not an easy task, yet one we can all participate in, one word, deed or step at a time.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat Va-et-chanan (Deuteronomy 3:23—7:11)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
August 12, 2011
The Promised Land is a promise waiting to be actualized.
Moses recognizes that truth—not without bitterness and some blame—as his pleas with God (va-et’cha-nan) to be allowed to enter the Promised Land are turned down in no uncertain terms. It will not be Moses who will lead the Israelites into their promised homeland, but rather Joshua.
Moses knows the road ahead is not going to be easy. The Land Of Canaan, as Israel was called at that time, was populated by fierce peoples whose physical prowess matched their ignorance and immoral practices. Israel will have to rely on another kind of strength to gain the Promised Land. Yes, there will be wars. Joshua, Moses’s long-time assistant, follower and companion, learned much during the years he served Moses. His orientation, however, was that of a general. He would lead the Israelites into battle, but he would also teach them how to remain true to the ethics and morals that God and Moses had taught the People.
It was God’s strength that freed the Israelites from Pharaoh’s grip; it will be with God’s strength that the Children of Israel will enter the Promised Land. With wisdom, understanding and faith they will have to make it their—and God’s—Promised Land.
From his perch on the top of Mt. Nevo in the land of Moab, Moses can see not only the whole country of Israel, he can also see far into the future. He knows the difficulties that the people will encounter in years to come. Israel—at the crossroads of the world’s trade routes—comes with a price. Not only will empires compete for control over this tactical spot; they will bring with them cultures and customs that will tempt the Israelites with their glitz and glitter. Yet the residence of the Israelites in the Promised Land is conditional upon their following God’s ways. Following the example of other peoples and other gods will undo the connection between the People and the Promised Land. Return to God—teshuva—will hasten also their ultimate return to the Land.
The mezuzah that adorns the doorways of Jewish homes contains a reminder of the loving and faithful relationship between God, the People and the Land of Israel. The Sh’ma and Ve-ahavta, written in tiny letters on a parchment that a mezuzah houses, are also central in our prayer service. These verses are quoted in this portion of the Torah. So are several other sections and verses that are prominent in holiday celebrations and our prayers. Together they contain the essence of our faith. But they are merely reminders. Our real charge is to actualize and maintain that relationship. That is done first through the pursuit of justice.
As his first act in preparing the Children of Israel to settle in the Promised Land, Moses establishes three refuge cities on the eastern shore of the Jordan River—yet before they cross the Jordan into Israel proper. These cities are to serve as sanctuary for hunted men and women until due process can be applied. Bloodshed is abhorrent to God regardless of where we live, in Israel or among the Nations. Justice is the first step in the conquest of any wilderness and the actualization of a Promised Land upon it.
The Ten Commandments, first iterated in Exodus, chapter 20, are repeated almost verbatim in this portion. More than the law against murder, which God imposes on all human beings, the Ten Commandments are addressed specifically to the Jewish People. These form as the core and basis for Judaism both as a legal religion and as a civil way of life based on rules of ethics and morality. The repetition of this code of laws forms the underpinning of the Covenant between God and Israel.
If we, the Jewish People, are to be recognized as a “great nation…, a wise and understanding people,” (Deut. 4:6), education of future generations must be yet another value intrinsic to our culture. The “Ve-ahavta” reminds us to “teach these words diligently to our children” (Deut. 6:7). These words are then followed by a similar instruction that we repeat at every Passover Seder: “When your son asks you… ‘What are the testimonies, the statues and the ordinances which the Lord our God has commanded you?’ You shall say to your son, ‘We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord took us out of Egypt with a strong hand’” (Deut. 6:20-21).
The belief in God and God’s protective relationship with Israel; the requirement to pursue justice; the importance of teaching these values to our children—these are the secret of Israel’s strength. These are the pillars upon which the Promised Land is built.
It is said that the Mashiach—the longed-for Messiah—is already among us. All that we are waiting for is for him to actualize. Similarly, wherever we live is the Promised Land. All we have to do is to actualize it: to build it and to maintain its structure, values and rules. Not an easy task, yet one we can all participate in, one word, deed or step at a time.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, July 29, 2011
Stations Along the Journey
Stations Along the Journey
D’var Torah for Parashat Mass’ei
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
As holiday times approach, at our home we take out bags and bags of decorations that Hannah and Jonathan had made when they were little. Sally, who is the organizer in the family, keeps them all stacked, labeled and dated, all within easy reach. We love putting up these decorations, each of which reminds us of a specific time and place in our family life. Here is the “backpack” Chana made out of a paper shopping bag when she was in kindergarten and they pretended that they were Israelites leaving Egypt; there is the dreidle Yoni had made out of clay when he was about the same age. The decorations get more clever and sophisticated as the kids grow older. Each represents a stage in their development, steps along the road toward who they have become in time, the grown and mature young adults they are today.
We get a lot of pleasure as we look at these markers. They are filled with inventiveness, creativity and joy. There’s some nostalgia involved, to be sure, but in each we can already identify characteristics that will develop further with each year that passes. The decorations are a road map that helps us understand our children better even today.
Much in the same way, this week’s Torah portion, Mass’ei (“journeys,” the last portion in the book of Numbers, chapters 33-36), is a recap of all the stops that the Israelites had made during their years of wandering in the Sinai Wilderness. The indirect, meandering path they took from Egypt to the Promised Land was also a spiritual journey, an aliyah. Each of the forty-two stops mentioned in the Torah portion recalls a part of that journey; each is a stepping stone or a marker that represents not only a place in the map, but also a station in the growth and development of the Jewish People.
As we look at each of these stops, we recall the events that took place there. Some are joyful: The finding of water; the gift of manna; the gift of Torah itself. Other places remind us of failings and tragic events—the loss of hope; the death of Aaron; the quarrel at the Place of Bitter Waters.
While they are part of the specific story of the Exodus, the places and events symbolically also represent the life of each human being in all generations. The Lubavitcher Rebbe taught that “Pauses, interruptions and setbacks are an inadvertent part of a person’s sojourn on earth. But when everything a person does is towards the goal of attaining the ‘Holy Land’ – the sanctification of the material world—these, too, are ‘journeys.’”
Beyond recalling the roadmap, Parashat Mass’ei contains instructions for how the Israelites must live in the Promised Land once they get there. Judaism emerged from the primordial cultural muck that existed up until that time. The practices of the Canaanites—the people who dwelt in the Promised Land before the Israelites settled in it—were abhorrent to God not because of God’s jealous nature, but rather because they were immoral and brutal. Child sacrifice, injustice and abuse were normative among the Canaanites. In contrast, the Israelites are directed to establish different practices. The division of the Land is to be done according to each tribe’s size. No one tribe is to be allotted more or less than it needs. Above all, the Israelites are instructed to build six refuge cities, towns where an accused murderer could flee from the blood avenger until his case is judged by a proper court of justice. The shedding of innocent blood corrupts not only humanity, but also the earth itself.
The Promised Land is not a gift given lightly or arbitrarily. It’s a loan, replete with conditions of repayment of principal as well as accrued interest. Default—failure to maintain these conditions—means we lose our right to the land.
The road from “entitled” to “deserving” is not necessarily a straight or easy one. Just as children have to grow and mature, just as they must fall before they learn to walk on their own, so too must we learn that the blessings of life don’t become ours automatically. Along our own journeys, we grow from stage to stage, from station to station. I’m not sure if there are 42 stops or perhaps more. But in retrospect, as we retrace our steps, as we recall a particular song or dance, our first love, our first—or one hundredth—failure, the setbacks and successes along our lives, we realize that we too have matured along the way. Each step, each experience hopefully brings us closer to the Promised Land.
May we learn to take steps that lead us forthrightly, that add meaning, strength and purpose to our lives; may each stop along the way become filled with holiness. May our journeys brings us closer to our own Promised Land, and may we learn to enjoy its fruits in joy and peace.
Chazak chazak v’nit-cha-zek; let us be strong and of good courage, and may we all be thereby strengthened.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat Mass’ei
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
As holiday times approach, at our home we take out bags and bags of decorations that Hannah and Jonathan had made when they were little. Sally, who is the organizer in the family, keeps them all stacked, labeled and dated, all within easy reach. We love putting up these decorations, each of which reminds us of a specific time and place in our family life. Here is the “backpack” Chana made out of a paper shopping bag when she was in kindergarten and they pretended that they were Israelites leaving Egypt; there is the dreidle Yoni had made out of clay when he was about the same age. The decorations get more clever and sophisticated as the kids grow older. Each represents a stage in their development, steps along the road toward who they have become in time, the grown and mature young adults they are today.
We get a lot of pleasure as we look at these markers. They are filled with inventiveness, creativity and joy. There’s some nostalgia involved, to be sure, but in each we can already identify characteristics that will develop further with each year that passes. The decorations are a road map that helps us understand our children better even today.
Much in the same way, this week’s Torah portion, Mass’ei (“journeys,” the last portion in the book of Numbers, chapters 33-36), is a recap of all the stops that the Israelites had made during their years of wandering in the Sinai Wilderness. The indirect, meandering path they took from Egypt to the Promised Land was also a spiritual journey, an aliyah. Each of the forty-two stops mentioned in the Torah portion recalls a part of that journey; each is a stepping stone or a marker that represents not only a place in the map, but also a station in the growth and development of the Jewish People.
As we look at each of these stops, we recall the events that took place there. Some are joyful: The finding of water; the gift of manna; the gift of Torah itself. Other places remind us of failings and tragic events—the loss of hope; the death of Aaron; the quarrel at the Place of Bitter Waters.
While they are part of the specific story of the Exodus, the places and events symbolically also represent the life of each human being in all generations. The Lubavitcher Rebbe taught that “Pauses, interruptions and setbacks are an inadvertent part of a person’s sojourn on earth. But when everything a person does is towards the goal of attaining the ‘Holy Land’ – the sanctification of the material world—these, too, are ‘journeys.’”
Beyond recalling the roadmap, Parashat Mass’ei contains instructions for how the Israelites must live in the Promised Land once they get there. Judaism emerged from the primordial cultural muck that existed up until that time. The practices of the Canaanites—the people who dwelt in the Promised Land before the Israelites settled in it—were abhorrent to God not because of God’s jealous nature, but rather because they were immoral and brutal. Child sacrifice, injustice and abuse were normative among the Canaanites. In contrast, the Israelites are directed to establish different practices. The division of the Land is to be done according to each tribe’s size. No one tribe is to be allotted more or less than it needs. Above all, the Israelites are instructed to build six refuge cities, towns where an accused murderer could flee from the blood avenger until his case is judged by a proper court of justice. The shedding of innocent blood corrupts not only humanity, but also the earth itself.
The Promised Land is not a gift given lightly or arbitrarily. It’s a loan, replete with conditions of repayment of principal as well as accrued interest. Default—failure to maintain these conditions—means we lose our right to the land.
The road from “entitled” to “deserving” is not necessarily a straight or easy one. Just as children have to grow and mature, just as they must fall before they learn to walk on their own, so too must we learn that the blessings of life don’t become ours automatically. Along our own journeys, we grow from stage to stage, from station to station. I’m not sure if there are 42 stops or perhaps more. But in retrospect, as we retrace our steps, as we recall a particular song or dance, our first love, our first—or one hundredth—failure, the setbacks and successes along our lives, we realize that we too have matured along the way. Each step, each experience hopefully brings us closer to the Promised Land.
May we learn to take steps that lead us forthrightly, that add meaning, strength and purpose to our lives; may each stop along the way become filled with holiness. May our journeys brings us closer to our own Promised Land, and may we learn to enjoy its fruits in joy and peace.
Chazak chazak v’nit-cha-zek; let us be strong and of good courage, and may we all be thereby strengthened.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, July 22, 2011
Like A Rose Among the Thorns
Like A Rose Among the Thorns
D'var Torah for Parashat Matot
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
I never fail to be astounded by the paradox that is called humanity. We can be so wonderful on the one hand, and so evil on the other. No better example of this can be found than in this week's Torah portion, Matot (Tribal Chieftains), Numbers 30:2—32:42.
The parasha can be divided into three sections. The outer parts of the portion reflect the highest ideals. Chapter 30 further expands women's rights, a development that was begun much earlier with the laws of the "Sotah," the woman suspected of infidelity to her husband. In a society where survival was often accompanied by unspeakable brutality, women's rights was not exactly a hot topic. Yet in this chapter, at least with regard to religious rituals, while the final say over the behavior of wife or daughter is still the father's or husband's, the woman's opinion on the matter must clearly be considered. (As always, a widowed or divorced woman had by far greater control over her own life and religious behavior.)
Another ideal this Torah portion strives for is the individual's responsibility towards family and community. Though this may seem to be an obvious and intrinsic value for all—or, at least, most—human beings, we must always remember the savagery and selfishness that people are also capable of. No law ever exists independently of prevalent conditions. A stop sign is posted only at dangerous intersections. Laws are enacted only in situations where danger is perceived. The harsh realities of life and the basic needs of survival create an environment where it becomes easy to overlook the greater good of the community. The final section of "Matot" relates the desire of two and a half tribes—Gad, Reuben and half of the tribe of Manasseh—to settle in the hilly and fertile region of Gilead, on the eastern shore of the Jordan River. In the request they submit to Moses, these tribesmen refer first to their vast herds of livestock, and only later to the need to protect their wives and children. Left out altogether is any mention of responsibility to the rest of the People of Israel.
Moses is infuriated by this display of selfishness. He reminds the tribesmen of their relationship to the rest of the people, making them take an oath to participate in the conquest of the Promised Land even if their own holdings are to remain outside the actual borders of this Land. He also reminds them of the proper order of their more personal responsibilities—first the women and children, and only then the vast herds of cattle and sheep. The tribesmen agree to both conditions, an important lesson for all of us.
These outer sections of "Matot" teach lessons in human rights and proper values. One would hope that the Torah would be only about that. But the Torah also reflects the time in which it appeared, and the human condition in general. We can be idealistic; we might be capable of the highest achievements. But human beings are also capable of unspeakable savagery and cruelty. The middle part of this portion, a command issued by Moses to exterminate the entire tribe of Midian—men, women, children and livestock alike—reflects a side of Moses that rarely appears in the Torah (in fact, many Biblical scholars believe that these orders, in effect amounting to total genocide, were a later addition to the Torah).
The ancient rabbis were quick to expound on this section, teaching that Moses could not have meant the genocidal annihilation of an entire people, but rather the destruction of the concept implied by the Hebrew meaning of the word Midian—divisiveness or causeless hatred.
That may be so, but nonetheless the literal meaning of Moses's command cannot be disputed.
Survival is the name of the game of Life we are all part of. Society has created a vast legal and social superstructure whose purpose is to control the behavior that follows our basic need to survive. When this superstructure collapses—as it does all too often—terrible things happen. The true miracle of Jewish survival is not that we are still here, a people nearly four millennia old, but rather that the moral and spiritual essence of Judaism has continued to flourish despite the grim realities of life and our history. That moral essence is like a rose among the thorns. It is our hope and beacon, the shining light by which we stride in spite of the many setbacks, by which we advance despite the forces of evil that all too often are found within us, part and parcel of our humanity—the forces that drag us down.
The marvel of Matot is that, from our earliest days, we Jews have learned that survival is accomplished not only through war and violence (essential though these sometimes are)—but rather also through spiritual transcendence. Striving for the ideals taught us by God, Moses and the Torah, we have learned to rise from the ashes of chaos and become followers and teachers of the Law of justice, love and compassion.
One can only hope the flower survives on, just as it has so far.
© 2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, July 15, 2011
Envisioning the Future in the Present
Envisioning the Future in the Present
D’var Torah for Parashat Pinchas (Numbers 25:10—30:1)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
One of the moments I always look forward to with great anticipation whenever I fly to Israel is when I get my first glimpse of the Mediterranean coastline. If by night, that glimpse is always of the yellow lights that light up nearly the entire coast. If by day, the shore appears first through the haze, so thin you wonder if it’s your imagination playing tricks on you. But then, within moments, the line assumes form and depth, and you realize that you are being granted a vision of Israel that thousands of generations only dreamt of and never got to glimpse in their lifetimes.
Similarly, in this week’s Torah portion Moses is commanded to scale Mount Abarim, in Moab, just across the Jordan River, from where he will get a view of the Promised Land. He will not enter it, but he knows that the Children of Israel, the people he had led out of Egypt and then for forty years through the Wilderness, will.
His heart must be full of yearning and pining. The Midrash tells us that at that moment, Moses requested of God: “Oh Master of the Universe, I beseeched You to send someone else to Pharaoh instead of me; nor did I ask to lead this people, yet You insisted. Now that You decreed that not I, but another, should lead them into the Land, I beg You, do not do to him what You did to me….”
The fulfillment of one’s dream and lifework is a rare gift. Many leaders have set their nation on a sacred path only to have their life extinguished before seeing the goal realized. It’s the next generation that must continue the work—hoping to get it done or, at the very least, a few steps closer.
This is but one of the many examples in which the Torah reflects reality even as it tries to shape life and give it meaning and direction.
The jet flies over the coastline, all the while descending so that buildings, roads and cars begin to materialize. Sometimes the path to the runway is straight forward; othertimes, the plane flies further east, toward the Judean hills, then makes a sharp turn left, veers westward and comes in for a smooth landing. In the summer, the intense heat is the first sensation you feel. Then the reality of being in the Promised Land begins to set in.
Reality isn’t the dream, much as we would like it to be. People jostle while waiting in line to have their passports stamped, then wait again for their suitcases to arrive. The arrival hall is filled with noisy families, screaming children and countless drivers holding up signs with passengers’ names. Taxi drivers offer rides; pilgrims of various faiths, colors and garb mingle with weary business travelers impatient to come home. Tearful reunions mix with joyful welcomes and, if it so happens that a soccer team (or some famous rabbi) lands at around the same time as you, the reception by cheering supporters gets so loud you think you couldn’t possibly take in any more of this uproar.
And then you find yourself on the highway to wherever you are going—and even if you’ve never prayed before, you pray now for safe arrival as your ride winds in and out of lanes, avoiding taxis, trucks and countless motorcycles delivering pizzas or other takeout food and merchandise.
In the vein of art imitating life, Pinchas, this week’s Torah portion, reflects the reality of Jewish life as much as its ideals. Religious fanatics—represented by Pinchas himself, a grandson of Aaron the Priest, yet so far removed from his grandfather’s famous pacifism that he actually takes a spear and kills two people he thinks sin against God—abound in this Land. Not all are as zealous as Pinchas, thank God. However, there are some ultra-Orthodox Jews who would be glad to see Israel destroyed and parsed out to its enemies; and there are also those just slightly milder who throw stones, bottles, eggs and almost anything else handy at the police—enforcers of a secular law they see as not binding on them.
In this portion, the five daughters of Zelophechad demand due justice from Moses and God—and receive it after due consideration. That too reflects our people in Israel. There are few countries that take justice more seriously than Israel, where the law is argued and counter-argued not only by lawyers before a Supreme Court of Justice, but also by the common people who are as passionate about justice as they are about the unfairly high prices of cottage cheese and college tuition, about freedom of speech and the lack of affordable housing.
Politics in Israel mystify resident and stranger alike. The number of political parties, the constant shifting of the sands as factions and parties align and realign in a relentless quest of power and influence can leave you dizzy. Yet somehow a leader always emerges—as does a vocal opposition that spares no effort to bring that leader and his/her coalition down. In our Torah portion, as Moses begs God to appoint a good leader (yet another reason to pray in Israel), he asks for someone who will not allow himself to be swayed by either the masses or his own ambition, but rather one who will know both where the people must go and how to lead them there. In response, God tells Moses to appoint Joshua as this leader. Joshua is a warrior; at this moment of our people’s history, this is the kind of leader the people need—one who will lead them to victory and survival. So, too, is the case in modern-day Israel. Most of the nation’s leaders come from the ranks of Zahal, the Israel Defense Force. The war of survival is of primary concern to our people today no less so than when Moses was envisioning the future of his people from the top of the mountain in Moab.
Parashat Pinchas concludes with a reiteration of the rites and sacrifices that must be offered on the sacred holidays. A people whose leadership relies only on military might for its survival will not last long. Israel’s identity was always shaped by its belief in God. Our rituals may have changed; we no longer offer sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem. Yet, both in the Land of Israel and throughout the Diaspora, Jews celebrate their tradition and heritage in ways described in the Torah. Instead of animal sacrifice, we offer prayer, worship and the study of the ancient laws. That is what gives us meaning and direction; that has given our existence meaning during the days of slavery in the many Egypts in which we have dwelt; that has defined our relationship with one another and with our God during the many years we were wanderers in the Wilderness; that continues to give us purpose and direction even today, in the Promised Land.
Shabbat is nearly at hand in the Land of Israel. Stores have closed their doors as customers go home to prepare for this holy day of tradition, community and family. Tomorrow, my brother’s family will come up to Haifa to spend the day with my mother and me. We will eat traditional foods, relate memories and speak of future plans. The grandchildren—the future of our people—will continue to delight us with their joy of life and creative playfulness. The life of our people continues, its compass and directions set so long ago, its path appointed by God and envisioned by Moses from high ontop the mountain. It may not be perfect, but at least there’s hope that, if not in our day, then on some other day, we will yet make it so. But only if we follow the examples (minus the fanaticism) set by the Torah nearly four millennia ago.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat Pinchas (Numbers 25:10—30:1)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
One of the moments I always look forward to with great anticipation whenever I fly to Israel is when I get my first glimpse of the Mediterranean coastline. If by night, that glimpse is always of the yellow lights that light up nearly the entire coast. If by day, the shore appears first through the haze, so thin you wonder if it’s your imagination playing tricks on you. But then, within moments, the line assumes form and depth, and you realize that you are being granted a vision of Israel that thousands of generations only dreamt of and never got to glimpse in their lifetimes.
Similarly, in this week’s Torah portion Moses is commanded to scale Mount Abarim, in Moab, just across the Jordan River, from where he will get a view of the Promised Land. He will not enter it, but he knows that the Children of Israel, the people he had led out of Egypt and then for forty years through the Wilderness, will.
His heart must be full of yearning and pining. The Midrash tells us that at that moment, Moses requested of God: “Oh Master of the Universe, I beseeched You to send someone else to Pharaoh instead of me; nor did I ask to lead this people, yet You insisted. Now that You decreed that not I, but another, should lead them into the Land, I beg You, do not do to him what You did to me….”
The fulfillment of one’s dream and lifework is a rare gift. Many leaders have set their nation on a sacred path only to have their life extinguished before seeing the goal realized. It’s the next generation that must continue the work—hoping to get it done or, at the very least, a few steps closer.
This is but one of the many examples in which the Torah reflects reality even as it tries to shape life and give it meaning and direction.
The jet flies over the coastline, all the while descending so that buildings, roads and cars begin to materialize. Sometimes the path to the runway is straight forward; othertimes, the plane flies further east, toward the Judean hills, then makes a sharp turn left, veers westward and comes in for a smooth landing. In the summer, the intense heat is the first sensation you feel. Then the reality of being in the Promised Land begins to set in.
Reality isn’t the dream, much as we would like it to be. People jostle while waiting in line to have their passports stamped, then wait again for their suitcases to arrive. The arrival hall is filled with noisy families, screaming children and countless drivers holding up signs with passengers’ names. Taxi drivers offer rides; pilgrims of various faiths, colors and garb mingle with weary business travelers impatient to come home. Tearful reunions mix with joyful welcomes and, if it so happens that a soccer team (or some famous rabbi) lands at around the same time as you, the reception by cheering supporters gets so loud you think you couldn’t possibly take in any more of this uproar.
And then you find yourself on the highway to wherever you are going—and even if you’ve never prayed before, you pray now for safe arrival as your ride winds in and out of lanes, avoiding taxis, trucks and countless motorcycles delivering pizzas or other takeout food and merchandise.
In the vein of art imitating life, Pinchas, this week’s Torah portion, reflects the reality of Jewish life as much as its ideals. Religious fanatics—represented by Pinchas himself, a grandson of Aaron the Priest, yet so far removed from his grandfather’s famous pacifism that he actually takes a spear and kills two people he thinks sin against God—abound in this Land. Not all are as zealous as Pinchas, thank God. However, there are some ultra-Orthodox Jews who would be glad to see Israel destroyed and parsed out to its enemies; and there are also those just slightly milder who throw stones, bottles, eggs and almost anything else handy at the police—enforcers of a secular law they see as not binding on them.
In this portion, the five daughters of Zelophechad demand due justice from Moses and God—and receive it after due consideration. That too reflects our people in Israel. There are few countries that take justice more seriously than Israel, where the law is argued and counter-argued not only by lawyers before a Supreme Court of Justice, but also by the common people who are as passionate about justice as they are about the unfairly high prices of cottage cheese and college tuition, about freedom of speech and the lack of affordable housing.
Politics in Israel mystify resident and stranger alike. The number of political parties, the constant shifting of the sands as factions and parties align and realign in a relentless quest of power and influence can leave you dizzy. Yet somehow a leader always emerges—as does a vocal opposition that spares no effort to bring that leader and his/her coalition down. In our Torah portion, as Moses begs God to appoint a good leader (yet another reason to pray in Israel), he asks for someone who will not allow himself to be swayed by either the masses or his own ambition, but rather one who will know both where the people must go and how to lead them there. In response, God tells Moses to appoint Joshua as this leader. Joshua is a warrior; at this moment of our people’s history, this is the kind of leader the people need—one who will lead them to victory and survival. So, too, is the case in modern-day Israel. Most of the nation’s leaders come from the ranks of Zahal, the Israel Defense Force. The war of survival is of primary concern to our people today no less so than when Moses was envisioning the future of his people from the top of the mountain in Moab.
Parashat Pinchas concludes with a reiteration of the rites and sacrifices that must be offered on the sacred holidays. A people whose leadership relies only on military might for its survival will not last long. Israel’s identity was always shaped by its belief in God. Our rituals may have changed; we no longer offer sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem. Yet, both in the Land of Israel and throughout the Diaspora, Jews celebrate their tradition and heritage in ways described in the Torah. Instead of animal sacrifice, we offer prayer, worship and the study of the ancient laws. That is what gives us meaning and direction; that has given our existence meaning during the days of slavery in the many Egypts in which we have dwelt; that has defined our relationship with one another and with our God during the many years we were wanderers in the Wilderness; that continues to give us purpose and direction even today, in the Promised Land.
Shabbat is nearly at hand in the Land of Israel. Stores have closed their doors as customers go home to prepare for this holy day of tradition, community and family. Tomorrow, my brother’s family will come up to Haifa to spend the day with my mother and me. We will eat traditional foods, relate memories and speak of future plans. The grandchildren—the future of our people—will continue to delight us with their joy of life and creative playfulness. The life of our people continues, its compass and directions set so long ago, its path appointed by God and envisioned by Moses from high ontop the mountain. It may not be perfect, but at least there’s hope that, if not in our day, then on some other day, we will yet make it so. But only if we follow the examples (minus the fanaticism) set by the Torah nearly four millennia ago.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, July 1, 2011
Defying Death
Defying Death
D’var Torah for Parashat Chukat
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Dedicated to the memory of Barbara Levine, z”l
Parashat Chukat, Numbers 19:1-22:1, lists a series of tragic events that befall the Israelites on their way to the Land of Israel: Miriam dies; Aaron dies; and Moses, following a terrible bout with bitterness, anger and even momentary loss of faith, is told he will never enter the Promised Land along with the people he had led there.
As though in anticipation—and quite possibly with the intent of providing in advance the remedy for all the pain that must follow these events—the portion begins with a description of the ritual of the Red Heifer.
The sacrifice of the Red Heifer—a completely red cow, unblemished, possibly as young as a calf, certainly one that never has never been yoked to a plow—was meant to purify a person who had come in contact with a dead body. First commanded to Elazar, Aaron’s son who was elevated to his father’s position of High Priest after Aaron’s death, the ritual was one of the most intricate of all sacrifices. Obviously it was meant to counter the deep pain of loss and to ease the survivor’s reentry into the community.
A rare animal, that unblemished, perfectly red heifer! So rare, in fact, that according to one Talmudic sage, Rabbi Meir, the ritual was performed only seven times in all of Israel’s ancient history. According to other rabbis, it was actually offered nine times, with the tenth expected to be performed by the Messiah when he arrives.
As part of the ritual, the ashes of the sacrifice were mixed with fresh water (mayyim chayyim—“living waters”) and then sprinkled on the individual/s who had been touched by the death. Symbolically, the mixture represents the fusion of death and life. Its power stems from the profound understanding that a large part of our psychological and spiritual well being is dependent on the acceptance of death and life as parts of a larger whole.
Each of us experiences life in a unique and individual way. Similarly, we react to a close death with our own personal mix of feelings. Shock, pain, guilt, anger—and sometimes other emotions as well—often combine into a tangled web that we find difficult to extricate ourselves from. The journey back to life that each of us must then undergo is equally complex. But if we are to keep on existing as functioning, contributing members of society, we must learn to untangle our emotions and keep them under control.
During the years of the Holocaust, my father, of blessed memory, lived a fulfilling life in Israel. Building houses, paving roads and planting orange groves were to him the realization of the dreams and wishes of the entire Jewish People. Unbeknownst to him, however, during that same time his family was experiencing a different fate in Europe. Following the end of the war, my father received a letter from his brother. The uncle I never met wrote this letter as he was about to be deported to Auschwitz. The story he related was of the heroism, misery and death of my father’s entire immediate family— father and mother, another brother, a beloved sister.
By some coincidence, another person who lived on the same kibbutz received a similar letter on the same day. This person slashed his wrists after reading it.
My father swore to keep on living.
Many Holocaust survivors lost their faith in God during those terrible years, a phenomenon that continues with many Israelis to this day. They see themselves as part of the ongoing history; many even carry on the traditions and culture of Judaism. However, for them there is no God. Only life.
Of course, there were also those who held on to their faith, whose belief must have been shaken but who resisted living a life without God.
Yet others assimilated, hiding their past and their true identity.
How we relate to the tragedies around us and to the pain that comes in their wake may differ from one individual to another. What parashat Chukat (“The Law”) teaches is that we can best defy death by infusing purpose and meaning into our every breathing moment. Of course, this isn’t so simple. The challenge of bitterness and sorrow is sometimes too heavy a burden for us to bear. Personal tragedies have a way of changing us forever. Meaning is often lost in the confusion and disorder that ensue.
But that is precisely why the Red Heifer ritual was ordained: To give us a way to overcome our sorrows. Recognizing that life and death are parts of a larger whole is the first step. Immersing our bodies in a pool of fresh water, a mikveh, is the final rung. By engaging in this mitzvah, we let the blessing that is water surround us, comfort us, enfold us in its embrace.
The powerful force of life within us is kindled by the performance of mitzvot—the commandments. We overcome the challenge of death and chaos by bringing order and sanctity into life—ours as well as others’.
In a paper that my son, Jonathan, recently submitted, he wrote: “We comprehend the world by discovering what it is not, emerging from a life of chaos to a life of order and truth. It is impossible to exist without our counterparts. Without the other, we would never know the self. Without death, we would never know life.”
We challenge death when we permit the memory of our dead to become a blessing rather than a burden; when we dedicate the remainder of our own days to living a life of love, justice and sanctity. That is the significance of the well-digging song that appears near the end of this week’s portion: “Spring up, O well! All of you sing to it” (Num. 21:17). By the performance of mitzvot, by living a life of meaningful interaction with all around us, we live to the fullest. It is so that our life becomes the well that the Torah sings of, a source of blessing to all life around us.
©2011 Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat Chukat
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Dedicated to the memory of Barbara Levine, z”l
Parashat Chukat, Numbers 19:1-22:1, lists a series of tragic events that befall the Israelites on their way to the Land of Israel: Miriam dies; Aaron dies; and Moses, following a terrible bout with bitterness, anger and even momentary loss of faith, is told he will never enter the Promised Land along with the people he had led there.
As though in anticipation—and quite possibly with the intent of providing in advance the remedy for all the pain that must follow these events—the portion begins with a description of the ritual of the Red Heifer.
The sacrifice of the Red Heifer—a completely red cow, unblemished, possibly as young as a calf, certainly one that never has never been yoked to a plow—was meant to purify a person who had come in contact with a dead body. First commanded to Elazar, Aaron’s son who was elevated to his father’s position of High Priest after Aaron’s death, the ritual was one of the most intricate of all sacrifices. Obviously it was meant to counter the deep pain of loss and to ease the survivor’s reentry into the community.
A rare animal, that unblemished, perfectly red heifer! So rare, in fact, that according to one Talmudic sage, Rabbi Meir, the ritual was performed only seven times in all of Israel’s ancient history. According to other rabbis, it was actually offered nine times, with the tenth expected to be performed by the Messiah when he arrives.
As part of the ritual, the ashes of the sacrifice were mixed with fresh water (mayyim chayyim—“living waters”) and then sprinkled on the individual/s who had been touched by the death. Symbolically, the mixture represents the fusion of death and life. Its power stems from the profound understanding that a large part of our psychological and spiritual well being is dependent on the acceptance of death and life as parts of a larger whole.
Each of us experiences life in a unique and individual way. Similarly, we react to a close death with our own personal mix of feelings. Shock, pain, guilt, anger—and sometimes other emotions as well—often combine into a tangled web that we find difficult to extricate ourselves from. The journey back to life that each of us must then undergo is equally complex. But if we are to keep on existing as functioning, contributing members of society, we must learn to untangle our emotions and keep them under control.
During the years of the Holocaust, my father, of blessed memory, lived a fulfilling life in Israel. Building houses, paving roads and planting orange groves were to him the realization of the dreams and wishes of the entire Jewish People. Unbeknownst to him, however, during that same time his family was experiencing a different fate in Europe. Following the end of the war, my father received a letter from his brother. The uncle I never met wrote this letter as he was about to be deported to Auschwitz. The story he related was of the heroism, misery and death of my father’s entire immediate family— father and mother, another brother, a beloved sister.
By some coincidence, another person who lived on the same kibbutz received a similar letter on the same day. This person slashed his wrists after reading it.
My father swore to keep on living.
Many Holocaust survivors lost their faith in God during those terrible years, a phenomenon that continues with many Israelis to this day. They see themselves as part of the ongoing history; many even carry on the traditions and culture of Judaism. However, for them there is no God. Only life.
Of course, there were also those who held on to their faith, whose belief must have been shaken but who resisted living a life without God.
Yet others assimilated, hiding their past and their true identity.
How we relate to the tragedies around us and to the pain that comes in their wake may differ from one individual to another. What parashat Chukat (“The Law”) teaches is that we can best defy death by infusing purpose and meaning into our every breathing moment. Of course, this isn’t so simple. The challenge of bitterness and sorrow is sometimes too heavy a burden for us to bear. Personal tragedies have a way of changing us forever. Meaning is often lost in the confusion and disorder that ensue.
But that is precisely why the Red Heifer ritual was ordained: To give us a way to overcome our sorrows. Recognizing that life and death are parts of a larger whole is the first step. Immersing our bodies in a pool of fresh water, a mikveh, is the final rung. By engaging in this mitzvah, we let the blessing that is water surround us, comfort us, enfold us in its embrace.
The powerful force of life within us is kindled by the performance of mitzvot—the commandments. We overcome the challenge of death and chaos by bringing order and sanctity into life—ours as well as others’.
In a paper that my son, Jonathan, recently submitted, he wrote: “We comprehend the world by discovering what it is not, emerging from a life of chaos to a life of order and truth. It is impossible to exist without our counterparts. Without the other, we would never know the self. Without death, we would never know life.”
We challenge death when we permit the memory of our dead to become a blessing rather than a burden; when we dedicate the remainder of our own days to living a life of love, justice and sanctity. That is the significance of the well-digging song that appears near the end of this week’s portion: “Spring up, O well! All of you sing to it” (Num. 21:17). By the performance of mitzvot, by living a life of meaningful interaction with all around us, we live to the fullest. It is so that our life becomes the well that the Torah sings of, a source of blessing to all life around us.
©2011 Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, June 17, 2011
Fear and Arrogance: When We Fail the Test of Faith
Fear and Arrogance: When We Fail the Test of Faith
D’var Torah for Parashat Shelakh Lekha, Numbers 13:1—15:41
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
If last week’s Torah portion, Beha-alotecha, was all about “raising the light,” or elevating one’s existence to a state of holiness, this week’s portion, Shelakh Lekha, is about some of the ways in which we can fail to do so.
It’s always a good idea, before embarking on any endeavor, to check out all the possible outcomes. It isn’t so much fortune telling as it is about hedging one’s bets. Spying has always been associated with intelligent warfare—in fact, modern parlance uses that very word, “intelligence gathering” for something very ancient and very basic to human existence: Scouting out the land.
Shelakh Lekha is the command Moses receives to send out spies to scout the Promised Land. Twelve men, each a leader among his own tribe, are sent with specific instructions to gather information about the land—its topography, its nature, its yield—and about its inhabitants. Even though God had promised the Land of Israel to the People of Israel, how exactly is the handing-over going to take place? Would it be peaceful co-existence or—in greater likelihood—would it involve wars? And if so, what kind of resistance will the Israelites encounter?
Ultimately, Moses urges the spies to bring back proof of the Land’s fruitfulness. Was it worth the trouble to begin with?
After forty days, the scouts return. There’s no question about the worth of the land. The fruit they bring back—a single cluster of grapes so big it has to be carried on the shoulders of two of the men, as well as figs and pomegranates, life-giving symbols in their own right—are proof of the intense life force flowing within the Land itself.
However, the scouts claim to have seen giants in the land, fierce and evil, armed-to-the-teeth giants. “We seemed like grasshoppers before them,” the spies quake and wail, “and so must we have seemed to them.” What’s worse, eretz ochelet yosh-vei-ha hee, “the land consumes its own inhabitants!” (Num. 13:32).
Despite the minority opinion offered by two of the twelve spies—Caleb and Joshua—to the effect that “If Adonai is pleased with us, He will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us” (Numbers 14:8), the effect the spies’ account has on the Israelites is complete demoralization. Losing all faith, hope and courage, the Israelites express their deep desire to return to Egypt, and they nearly stone Moses and Aaron to death. Only God’s intervention saves them.
Letting their fears take charge was the failure of the ten false spies. They forgot about the secret weapon of Israel—God. There are no giants in the land—only in our imagination. And though it is a tough land to keep and cultivate, the fault lies not in the land itself, a “land flowing with milk and honey,” but in the cruelty and greed of those who strive to possess and use it for their own ends only. In punishment for their loss of faith, God decrees that the Israelites be wanderers in the wilderness for forty years, one year for each day that the faithless spies had scouted the Land.
Following Moses’s and God’s chastisement, the Israelites have a sudden change of heart. They decide to storm the Promised Land and take it by force. Which would have been fine, except that they were warned by Moses not to do that. God would not be with them, and they would be decimated by the fierce inhabitants of Canaan. Headstrong, many of the Israelites go ahead and charge up the hill, only to be destroyed as God and Moses had predicted. Their failure this time? Complete and exclusive self-reliance, again forgetting where the source of Israel’s strength ultimately lies.
From a total lack of confidence, the Israelites rush forward to supreme arrogance, a complete 360° turn that nets the same result: annihilation.
Shelakh Lekha deals with the basic human need to understand where we are going in order that we be better prepared for what we find when we get there. Facing an indeterminate future, it is best that we strengthen ourselves as best as we can. Confidence, this Torah portion teaches us, doesn’t only result from our own abilities. Nor is it luck. It is about preparedness, certainly; but it also is about faith and belief. The understanding that our existence and longevity as a people depend on our faith in God is an intrinsic part of our people’s history.
As a small minority in the families of nations, the Jews could not always rely on their own physical prowess for survival. Dependence on one superpower or another always proved only an illusory prop. Empires are notoriously fickle and unstable. Our faith in God, however, has always served to sustain us, in light as in darkness, through good times as through bad.
So why send spies to begin with? Why does God not only sanction this foray into the future, but commands it? To remind us that our strength comes from many sources, not least from our own resourcefulness; but also to teach that for us as Jews, there is only one answer to the question of our existence. We are here because God has a mission for us, and so long as we feel bound to that purpose, our faith—sustained by belief, ritual and mitzvot—remains the source of our strength.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat Shelakh Lekha, Numbers 13:1—15:41
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
If last week’s Torah portion, Beha-alotecha, was all about “raising the light,” or elevating one’s existence to a state of holiness, this week’s portion, Shelakh Lekha, is about some of the ways in which we can fail to do so.
It’s always a good idea, before embarking on any endeavor, to check out all the possible outcomes. It isn’t so much fortune telling as it is about hedging one’s bets. Spying has always been associated with intelligent warfare—in fact, modern parlance uses that very word, “intelligence gathering” for something very ancient and very basic to human existence: Scouting out the land.
Shelakh Lekha is the command Moses receives to send out spies to scout the Promised Land. Twelve men, each a leader among his own tribe, are sent with specific instructions to gather information about the land—its topography, its nature, its yield—and about its inhabitants. Even though God had promised the Land of Israel to the People of Israel, how exactly is the handing-over going to take place? Would it be peaceful co-existence or—in greater likelihood—would it involve wars? And if so, what kind of resistance will the Israelites encounter?
Ultimately, Moses urges the spies to bring back proof of the Land’s fruitfulness. Was it worth the trouble to begin with?
After forty days, the scouts return. There’s no question about the worth of the land. The fruit they bring back—a single cluster of grapes so big it has to be carried on the shoulders of two of the men, as well as figs and pomegranates, life-giving symbols in their own right—are proof of the intense life force flowing within the Land itself.
However, the scouts claim to have seen giants in the land, fierce and evil, armed-to-the-teeth giants. “We seemed like grasshoppers before them,” the spies quake and wail, “and so must we have seemed to them.” What’s worse, eretz ochelet yosh-vei-ha hee, “the land consumes its own inhabitants!” (Num. 13:32).
Despite the minority opinion offered by two of the twelve spies—Caleb and Joshua—to the effect that “If Adonai is pleased with us, He will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us” (Numbers 14:8), the effect the spies’ account has on the Israelites is complete demoralization. Losing all faith, hope and courage, the Israelites express their deep desire to return to Egypt, and they nearly stone Moses and Aaron to death. Only God’s intervention saves them.
Letting their fears take charge was the failure of the ten false spies. They forgot about the secret weapon of Israel—God. There are no giants in the land—only in our imagination. And though it is a tough land to keep and cultivate, the fault lies not in the land itself, a “land flowing with milk and honey,” but in the cruelty and greed of those who strive to possess and use it for their own ends only. In punishment for their loss of faith, God decrees that the Israelites be wanderers in the wilderness for forty years, one year for each day that the faithless spies had scouted the Land.
Following Moses’s and God’s chastisement, the Israelites have a sudden change of heart. They decide to storm the Promised Land and take it by force. Which would have been fine, except that they were warned by Moses not to do that. God would not be with them, and they would be decimated by the fierce inhabitants of Canaan. Headstrong, many of the Israelites go ahead and charge up the hill, only to be destroyed as God and Moses had predicted. Their failure this time? Complete and exclusive self-reliance, again forgetting where the source of Israel’s strength ultimately lies.
From a total lack of confidence, the Israelites rush forward to supreme arrogance, a complete 360° turn that nets the same result: annihilation.
Shelakh Lekha deals with the basic human need to understand where we are going in order that we be better prepared for what we find when we get there. Facing an indeterminate future, it is best that we strengthen ourselves as best as we can. Confidence, this Torah portion teaches us, doesn’t only result from our own abilities. Nor is it luck. It is about preparedness, certainly; but it also is about faith and belief. The understanding that our existence and longevity as a people depend on our faith in God is an intrinsic part of our people’s history.
As a small minority in the families of nations, the Jews could not always rely on their own physical prowess for survival. Dependence on one superpower or another always proved only an illusory prop. Empires are notoriously fickle and unstable. Our faith in God, however, has always served to sustain us, in light as in darkness, through good times as through bad.
So why send spies to begin with? Why does God not only sanction this foray into the future, but commands it? To remind us that our strength comes from many sources, not least from our own resourcefulness; but also to teach that for us as Jews, there is only one answer to the question of our existence. We are here because God has a mission for us, and so long as we feel bound to that purpose, our faith—sustained by belief, ritual and mitzvot—remains the source of our strength.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, June 10, 2011
Marching Orders
Marching Orders
D’var Torah for Parashat Beha-alotecha
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Dedicated to the graduating class of 2011
Late at night, when all the campfires had been allowed to die out, one light still remained, a beacon that pointed east, to the direction of the rising sun, toward the Promised Land. It was the light of the menorah, the seven-branch candelabra that stood at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.
Kept going by Aaron and his sons, the priests, the menorah did more than just cast light. Its purpose was also to show direction in the physical world of time and space. It became a symbol for the values that the Israelites tried to hold highest while wandering in the untamed wilderness.
The wilderness often creates its own laws. The harsh elements, the individuals and tribes that sometimes find refuge in the wilds, all help create a universe that is so different from the one we settled and civilized people are used to.
But the menorah, its lights burning steady, reminded the ancient Israelites of the obligations they had taken on, the dedication to higher standards and nobler ideals.
This week’s Torah portion, Beha-alotecha, refers to the act of lighting the menorah’s candles. A more literal translation of the title would read, “When you raise the lights.” The act reminds us of the focus and concentration you can see on the face of a person who lights Shabbat candles, taking care that the spark catch, that the new flame rise and become protected from the merest breeze.
Yet of the whole long portion (Numbers 8:1—12:16), only the first four verses refer to the lighting of the menorah. The many stories that occupy the rest of the portion could be seen as examples of other ways to “raise the lights.” The appointment of the Levites to the work of maintenance of the Tent of Meeting is a case in point. Nothing made the tribe of Levi more special—not its incidence or order of birth nor any other physical characteristic. Yet it was the Levites who were chosen by God to represent the rest of the people, to serve all the needs of the Tabernacle and—not least—to protect the Israelites from approaching too near to the Tabernacle and risking the fierce energy of the Divine.
Yet their very appointment to that post meant they were elevated from among the other Israelites. But like the lights of the menorah, their raised status came with function and purpose. They were to form an indispensible link in a chain, so many stops along a course that connected the people with God. Responsible to God, to Aaron and the priests and to themselves (and their families), the Levites were also responsible for the people’s spiritual wellbeing.
Moving on, chapter 9 has Moses reminding the people to celebrate Passover at its appointed time. Once again, the ordinary is elevated to a sacred position—not people this time around, but rather time itself. The holidays in general—and Passover in particular—remind us both of the relationship between God and us, and also of the importance of time. Our time here on earth is limited; by infusing it with holiness, we make it extraordinary; by making it special, we make it count.
Much of the portion is given to the journeys and some specific places where the wandering Israelites made camp. The orderliness in which those journeys were made, the attention and focus given both to direction and to the enormous mechanism of picking up and moving this very intricate organization (sometimes at a moment’s notice) make this uneventful travelogue stand out in better relief: This chapter is about sanctifying the space around us.
Kindling, elevating or raising the lights—the theme of this parasha—thus becomes a metaphor. It isn’t only about lighting a candle; it’s about sanctifying life; about taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary; it’s about overcoming the darkness that frightens and oppresses us—which sometimes is around us and just as frequently is found within us.
It’s a particularly appropriate message this weekend especially, when so many families celebrate graduations. Giving the invocation prayer at the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School this week, as I was watching the proceedings, reading the faces of graduating students and their parents, I was vividly remembering my daughter’s graduation from high school, and my son’s, four years later. The unexpected emotions came in waves, as I realized that these children were no longer children. They were beginning their own journey, setting out into their own wildernesses. We, the parents, of course felt enormous pride at their accomplishments. However, along with that, there was also apprehension as we all faced the unknown future.
We have so much to say to our children as they begin this new chapter in their life. Mostly it’s how much we love them; but also it’s how much we want them to be happy, to feel secure and of value to themselves as well as to others. Ironically, however, for many of us the words do not come out clearly or easily. Nor are these young adults prepared to hear them. They are now on their own, and everyone knows that.
If only we had a prepared text, some writings of wisdom that we could give them. Perhaps these words would not be read anytime soon. But later, when needed, they would be recalled.
Parashat Beha-alotecha is the very text we are looking for. It contains the perfect advice for anyone starting out on a journey, be they a new graduate or a middle-aged man starting out on his route towards old age. The message is to make every moment, every place and every person we meet a special one. To treat them all with respect; to light the spark within them and watch it grow; to recognize God’s image in every one of us, at every moment of our life, wherever we might find ourselves.
And so the Israelites marched on through the wilderness, overcoming every obstacle along the way, much as we still do today. Everywhere we went, we brought holiness along with us; we passed it on to our children, and they to theirs. In the words of the beautiful prayer by Rabbi Alvin Fine, it has indeed been a sacred pilgrimage.
May the graduates of the class of 2011 continue along this path; may they succeed in making their journey a sacred one; may their lights shine far into the future for years and years to come.
Amen.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat Beha-alotecha
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Dedicated to the graduating class of 2011
Late at night, when all the campfires had been allowed to die out, one light still remained, a beacon that pointed east, to the direction of the rising sun, toward the Promised Land. It was the light of the menorah, the seven-branch candelabra that stood at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.
Kept going by Aaron and his sons, the priests, the menorah did more than just cast light. Its purpose was also to show direction in the physical world of time and space. It became a symbol for the values that the Israelites tried to hold highest while wandering in the untamed wilderness.
The wilderness often creates its own laws. The harsh elements, the individuals and tribes that sometimes find refuge in the wilds, all help create a universe that is so different from the one we settled and civilized people are used to.
But the menorah, its lights burning steady, reminded the ancient Israelites of the obligations they had taken on, the dedication to higher standards and nobler ideals.
This week’s Torah portion, Beha-alotecha, refers to the act of lighting the menorah’s candles. A more literal translation of the title would read, “When you raise the lights.” The act reminds us of the focus and concentration you can see on the face of a person who lights Shabbat candles, taking care that the spark catch, that the new flame rise and become protected from the merest breeze.
Yet of the whole long portion (Numbers 8:1—12:16), only the first four verses refer to the lighting of the menorah. The many stories that occupy the rest of the portion could be seen as examples of other ways to “raise the lights.” The appointment of the Levites to the work of maintenance of the Tent of Meeting is a case in point. Nothing made the tribe of Levi more special—not its incidence or order of birth nor any other physical characteristic. Yet it was the Levites who were chosen by God to represent the rest of the people, to serve all the needs of the Tabernacle and—not least—to protect the Israelites from approaching too near to the Tabernacle and risking the fierce energy of the Divine.
Yet their very appointment to that post meant they were elevated from among the other Israelites. But like the lights of the menorah, their raised status came with function and purpose. They were to form an indispensible link in a chain, so many stops along a course that connected the people with God. Responsible to God, to Aaron and the priests and to themselves (and their families), the Levites were also responsible for the people’s spiritual wellbeing.
Moving on, chapter 9 has Moses reminding the people to celebrate Passover at its appointed time. Once again, the ordinary is elevated to a sacred position—not people this time around, but rather time itself. The holidays in general—and Passover in particular—remind us both of the relationship between God and us, and also of the importance of time. Our time here on earth is limited; by infusing it with holiness, we make it extraordinary; by making it special, we make it count.
Much of the portion is given to the journeys and some specific places where the wandering Israelites made camp. The orderliness in which those journeys were made, the attention and focus given both to direction and to the enormous mechanism of picking up and moving this very intricate organization (sometimes at a moment’s notice) make this uneventful travelogue stand out in better relief: This chapter is about sanctifying the space around us.
Kindling, elevating or raising the lights—the theme of this parasha—thus becomes a metaphor. It isn’t only about lighting a candle; it’s about sanctifying life; about taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary; it’s about overcoming the darkness that frightens and oppresses us—which sometimes is around us and just as frequently is found within us.
It’s a particularly appropriate message this weekend especially, when so many families celebrate graduations. Giving the invocation prayer at the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School this week, as I was watching the proceedings, reading the faces of graduating students and their parents, I was vividly remembering my daughter’s graduation from high school, and my son’s, four years later. The unexpected emotions came in waves, as I realized that these children were no longer children. They were beginning their own journey, setting out into their own wildernesses. We, the parents, of course felt enormous pride at their accomplishments. However, along with that, there was also apprehension as we all faced the unknown future.
We have so much to say to our children as they begin this new chapter in their life. Mostly it’s how much we love them; but also it’s how much we want them to be happy, to feel secure and of value to themselves as well as to others. Ironically, however, for many of us the words do not come out clearly or easily. Nor are these young adults prepared to hear them. They are now on their own, and everyone knows that.
If only we had a prepared text, some writings of wisdom that we could give them. Perhaps these words would not be read anytime soon. But later, when needed, they would be recalled.
Parashat Beha-alotecha is the very text we are looking for. It contains the perfect advice for anyone starting out on a journey, be they a new graduate or a middle-aged man starting out on his route towards old age. The message is to make every moment, every place and every person we meet a special one. To treat them all with respect; to light the spark within them and watch it grow; to recognize God’s image in every one of us, at every moment of our life, wherever we might find ourselves.
And so the Israelites marched on through the wilderness, overcoming every obstacle along the way, much as we still do today. Everywhere we went, we brought holiness along with us; we passed it on to our children, and they to theirs. In the words of the beautiful prayer by Rabbi Alvin Fine, it has indeed been a sacred pilgrimage.
May the graduates of the class of 2011 continue along this path; may they succeed in making their journey a sacred one; may their lights shine far into the future for years and years to come.
Amen.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, June 3, 2011
Checks and Balances
Checks and Balances
D’var Torah for Parashat Naso (Numbers 4:21—7:89)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
The Torah often teaches its lessons by first providing a picture of an ideal situation, then giving its total counterpart. The Ideal is a model of perfection itself—an impossible dream, a Garden of Eden that can only be imagined. Then comes the downfall.
The lesson must be extrapolated from between the two situations. How to reach for the Ideal without stumbling and then, just as importantly, how to rise again from the inevitable Downfall is rarely an easy task. There are far-reaching consequences to each and every one of our actions. Sometimes it’s impossible to undo the hurt that results from a missed opportunity, or from an action that somehow misses its mark—or worse, finds it.
The fourth book of the Torah, Numbers, begins with a perfect ordering. The Israelites undergo a system of organization in which every individual has a role and knows her or his place. Like a perfectly tuned symphony orchestra under the staff of Moses, its conductor, the Israelites travel in perfect harmony among themselves as well as with God. When the cloud that symbolizes God’s presence lifts off the Tent of Meeting, it is a sign to break camp and move on. When the cloud rests again, the Israelites stop. A pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night guide and protect the people on their journeys.
At least theoretically. Reality, however, soon sets in.
This week’s portion, Naso (“count” or “raise”), concludes the assignation of the various Levite clans to their particular chores in maintaining the service of the Tent of Meeting. What follows are examples of extremism, actions or behavior that go beyond the prescribed, that break the bounds of what is normal and harmonious.
The story of the sotah, the “wayward woman,” is the all-too-familiar tale of a love gone wrong. Suspicion and jealousy erupt into violence. Imagined or real, the outcome of over-zealous love is predictable. Among many societies in the Middle East, honor killing is still considered acceptable, even legal. What this portion of the Torah tries to have us learn is how avoid this outcome. The public trial of the woman results in face-saving for the jealous man, but has much more to offer for the woman—it is designed to save her life.
From the moment the woman is handed over to the priest, the fate of the sotah is out of her jealous husband’s hands. The priest represents sanctuary for her. Administering a terrible oath and a bitter potion—disgusting, yes; deadly, no—the priest ensures that spirits cool down without resorting to bloodshed. At least until the next time. It is a humiliating experience, to be sure, but it is far preferable to the common fate of women who are suspected of infidelity.
A similar exaggerated sense of devotion is exhibited by the Nazirite. A person who takes a special vow of commitment to God may make it for any length of time. For the duration, however, he or she must not drink anything alcoholic and even abstain from any and all grape products. There are at least two reasons for that. First—so that nothing would distract the Nazirite from his or her mission; total focus on the goal and the process of reaching it are expected of the Nazirite. Should this dedication be broken by accident, the Nazirite must start from the beginning, from square one.
Practice makes perfect, and perfection is the goal of this special devotee to God.
The second reason for the prohibition of alcohol for a Nazirite is that intoxication might make his or her actions even more extreme. Emotions heightened and inhibitions lowered make for a powerful combination. Without limits or restraints, extremism can turn into fanaticism, once again with predictably tragic results.
The rituals and sacrifices that surround the two cases of the Sotah and the Nazirite are meant to teach, but also to provide controls for extremist behavior. Everything is prescribed; every step of every ritual is clearly delineated. The individual in question cannot be allowed to break the social norms and thus cause a breach of holiness. Whether the over-zealous love is directed at God or at one’s spouse, the inherent danger to life and society is the same, and it must be kept under control. It’s the priest’s responsibility to keep the passions in check.
Following these two harrowing tales of extremism, parashat Naso continues with the famous three-fold blessing:
May God Bless you and keep watch over you;
May God’s light shine upon you and grant grace unto you;
May God’s countenance be lifted up towards you and may God bless you with peace.
It is through the harmonious interweaving of our lives that we bring God’s blessings into the world. Encouraged when we need support and restrained when our passions threaten to explode into violence, we try to keep on an even keel. Bamidbar, in the wilderness of life, sometimes the beasts can be found around us; at other times, however, we see them within ourselves. Navigating between the extremes, trying to stay away from the most exalted heights as well as from the most depraved lows, we look to God’s light for guidance.
We are forever trying to balance our love and longing for the Ideal with the realization that we can only go so far in reaching for it. Peace is found in the in the tension that we sense within ourselves, in the balance that we manage to maintain between what we want and what we cannot have. It’s a hard act, but one we must learn to master.
Dedicated, with love, to Yoni, on the 12th anniversary of his bar-mitzvah.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
D’var Torah for Parashat Naso (Numbers 4:21—7:89)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
The Torah often teaches its lessons by first providing a picture of an ideal situation, then giving its total counterpart. The Ideal is a model of perfection itself—an impossible dream, a Garden of Eden that can only be imagined. Then comes the downfall.
The lesson must be extrapolated from between the two situations. How to reach for the Ideal without stumbling and then, just as importantly, how to rise again from the inevitable Downfall is rarely an easy task. There are far-reaching consequences to each and every one of our actions. Sometimes it’s impossible to undo the hurt that results from a missed opportunity, or from an action that somehow misses its mark—or worse, finds it.
The fourth book of the Torah, Numbers, begins with a perfect ordering. The Israelites undergo a system of organization in which every individual has a role and knows her or his place. Like a perfectly tuned symphony orchestra under the staff of Moses, its conductor, the Israelites travel in perfect harmony among themselves as well as with God. When the cloud that symbolizes God’s presence lifts off the Tent of Meeting, it is a sign to break camp and move on. When the cloud rests again, the Israelites stop. A pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night guide and protect the people on their journeys.
At least theoretically. Reality, however, soon sets in.
This week’s portion, Naso (“count” or “raise”), concludes the assignation of the various Levite clans to their particular chores in maintaining the service of the Tent of Meeting. What follows are examples of extremism, actions or behavior that go beyond the prescribed, that break the bounds of what is normal and harmonious.
The story of the sotah, the “wayward woman,” is the all-too-familiar tale of a love gone wrong. Suspicion and jealousy erupt into violence. Imagined or real, the outcome of over-zealous love is predictable. Among many societies in the Middle East, honor killing is still considered acceptable, even legal. What this portion of the Torah tries to have us learn is how avoid this outcome. The public trial of the woman results in face-saving for the jealous man, but has much more to offer for the woman—it is designed to save her life.
From the moment the woman is handed over to the priest, the fate of the sotah is out of her jealous husband’s hands. The priest represents sanctuary for her. Administering a terrible oath and a bitter potion—disgusting, yes; deadly, no—the priest ensures that spirits cool down without resorting to bloodshed. At least until the next time. It is a humiliating experience, to be sure, but it is far preferable to the common fate of women who are suspected of infidelity.
A similar exaggerated sense of devotion is exhibited by the Nazirite. A person who takes a special vow of commitment to God may make it for any length of time. For the duration, however, he or she must not drink anything alcoholic and even abstain from any and all grape products. There are at least two reasons for that. First—so that nothing would distract the Nazirite from his or her mission; total focus on the goal and the process of reaching it are expected of the Nazirite. Should this dedication be broken by accident, the Nazirite must start from the beginning, from square one.
Practice makes perfect, and perfection is the goal of this special devotee to God.
The second reason for the prohibition of alcohol for a Nazirite is that intoxication might make his or her actions even more extreme. Emotions heightened and inhibitions lowered make for a powerful combination. Without limits or restraints, extremism can turn into fanaticism, once again with predictably tragic results.
The rituals and sacrifices that surround the two cases of the Sotah and the Nazirite are meant to teach, but also to provide controls for extremist behavior. Everything is prescribed; every step of every ritual is clearly delineated. The individual in question cannot be allowed to break the social norms and thus cause a breach of holiness. Whether the over-zealous love is directed at God or at one’s spouse, the inherent danger to life and society is the same, and it must be kept under control. It’s the priest’s responsibility to keep the passions in check.
Following these two harrowing tales of extremism, parashat Naso continues with the famous three-fold blessing:
May God Bless you and keep watch over you;
May God’s light shine upon you and grant grace unto you;
May God’s countenance be lifted up towards you and may God bless you with peace.
It is through the harmonious interweaving of our lives that we bring God’s blessings into the world. Encouraged when we need support and restrained when our passions threaten to explode into violence, we try to keep on an even keel. Bamidbar, in the wilderness of life, sometimes the beasts can be found around us; at other times, however, we see them within ourselves. Navigating between the extremes, trying to stay away from the most exalted heights as well as from the most depraved lows, we look to God’s light for guidance.
We are forever trying to balance our love and longing for the Ideal with the realization that we can only go so far in reaching for it. Peace is found in the in the tension that we sense within ourselves, in the balance that we manage to maintain between what we want and what we cannot have. It’s a hard act, but one we must learn to master.
Dedicated, with love, to Yoni, on the 12th anniversary of his bar-mitzvah.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
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