Where Faith and Reason Intersect: Eikev

Where Faith and Reason Intersect

D’var Torah for Parashat Eikev

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

One of the more amusing characters in the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling is Sybil Trelawney, Professor of Divination.  Gifted with “the Sight,” also known as “the Inner Eye,” Sybil is a prophetess, a seer of future happenings.  Named after cultic figures of ancient Greece and Rome (the Delphic Sybils were oracles based at the temple of Apollo in Delphi, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus), Professor Trelawney provided equally puzzling predictions, most of them vague, ambiguous—and ultimately unreliable.

Fortunetellers, whatever their method, have always been in high demand.  Yet at best, their rate of success never exceeded the rate of probability. 

A far better method of foreseeing the future is rational thinking.  This week’s Torah portion, Eikev (“Consequences,” Deut. 7:12—12:25), recognizes this fact.  Expounding a theory of consequences, the portion specifies blessings and curses that are bound to result from following—or disobeying—God’s word.

Yet even causality has its limits.  All too often we see good deeds go unrewarded while evil seems to thrive.  Bad things happen to good people while the wicked seem to overcome any and all obstacles.  It’s enough to turn even the most faithful among us into incorrigible cynics.

The nagging doubts arise at the very opening of this week’s parasha:  “And it will be, because you will heed these ordinances and keep them… that Adonai your God… will love you and bless you and multiply you; God will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your soil, your grain, your wine, and your oil, the offspring of your cattle and the choice of your flock, in the land which God swore to your forefathers to give to you” (Deut. 7:12-13).  

One could, of course, repeat these words like a mantra until they become as real and concrete—or perhaps as meaningless—as the greetings we exchange with one another:  “How are you;”  “I’m fine, thank you”—pleasantries that often hide turmoil and confusion.

Or one could see them as guidelines, to be viewed with a healthy measure of skepticism:  Maybe.  If you’re lucky.

But what does luck have to do with faith?  The two are opposites on the spectrum of human belief.

The fact is that chaos and disorder are part of the universe we live in.  They exist within us as well as around us.  The cycle of life includes death and decay; the seeds of imperfection are sown within us.

Often enough, it is true, our choices do determine the course of our life.  But we do not live alone; there are others around us, whose choices affect us—for better or for worse. 

So what are we to make of the Torah’s theory of causality?  Can a portion like Eikev have any meaning for us post-Holocaust, post-Hiroshima humans?  What hope have we, mere dust specs in a meaningless universe, to effect lasting change for ourselves and for our progeny?

What kind of megalomaniac could come up with a more outrageous proposal than the one this portion would have us believe—that we can bring the Creator of the entire universe to recognize us?  To take note of us and bless us?  Or—even more preposterous—that we can actually reach such a vast cosmic force as God with any word, thought or deed, and make Him smile or frown upon us?

Yet, such is the power of faith that it can make us believe such things.

Life without faith would make us little less than insects; it would make life itself an insult.  Why be given the power of wonder and imagination, if not to ask, to doubt, to explore, to question God Himself?

The struggle we wage with the truth of Eikev elevates us spiritually and makes us more than the sum total of our physical parts.

And there’s more:  Our faith, newly discovered every day, reinforced with each smile we receive in return for a kind act, grows stronger because of our questioning.  We test God, yet God patiently responds to us time after time, each according to our deeds.  Sympathy begets sympathy; compassion effects love and faith; kindness results in more kindness. 

Torah isn’t theory.  It isn’t riddle-veiled prophecy, either.  It isn’t merely words thrown haphazardly, cynically or blindly.  Nor is it brainwashing—do this or else!  Judaism is never autocratic or dictatorial.  Rather, Torah is a faith-based course of action that encourages us to think, to question, to come up with our own choices.  It is a rational path that does not bid us forgo reason, but rather to take our chances.  It isn’t about magic or luck—it’s about faith.  It isn’t about the evil that some people do, but rather about the goodness we can choose to live by.

It is, after all, all about consequences.  We can take a meaningless world and bring meaning into it—by an act as simple, yet as painful, as asking “Why?”  And that is the truest blessing we can ever pray or hope for.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman

Overcoming Fear: Va'et'chanan

Overcoming Fear

D’var Torah for Parashat Va’et’chanan

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

When I was young and growing up in Israel, I joined the Scouts.  It was a great organization to belong to, and I was proud to put on the khaki uniform and the striped neckerchief.  Some of the best events were the kumzits (campfires) we had on the beach, where we boiled dark Turkish coffee and roasted potatoes after dark.  One scoutmaster was a terrific storyteller and told some ghost stories that had us shivering even though the night was quite warm.

One day the troop I belonged to started a fundraiser.  I forget what it was we were peddling, but we went in pairs door-to-door to make our pitch.  I came home quite late in the evening, way past suppertime.

My father was furious.  I had never seen him quite so angry, either before or since that day.

At the time, all I knew was that by coming home so late I broke a hard and fast rule.  Later in life, I understood my father’s anger better.

When my father arrived in Israel in the fall of 1939, he couldn’t know that he would never see his home or family again.  It was six years later that he learned how the Nazis had murdered his parents, his two brothers and beloved younger sister.  For the rest of his life, my father struggled with survivor’s guilt.  He could never get past the thought that he had abandoned them to their fate, that if only he were there, with them, he would have been able to help them and they would still be alive. 

When I didn’t come home at the expected time, my father immediately feared the worst for me.  From my perspective, his fear was unreasonable.  I knew little as yet of the very real dangers of the world after dark—but what could I know then about the working of a parent’s mind?  Fear isn’t always rational.

Perhaps that was the kind of anger Moses felt at the moment that this week’s Torah portion, Va’et’chanan (“I pleaded,” Deuteronomy 3:23—7:11) begins.  Told by God that he would not enter the Promised Land, Moses pleads with God for a second chance.  “Let me go in as an animal,” the Midrash has him beseeching God, “or even as a bird which can fly the length and breadth of the land.”  But God summarily refutes Moses’s pleas.

Angrily, Moses blames the people.  “It’s on your account that God has turned against me!”

But, as was the case with my father, the source of Moses’s anger at that moment was not bitterness or—God forbid! —hatred for his people.  Moses’s anger came from fear.  He knew the dangers of the land the Israelites were set to enter, and his fear was that, without his guidance, the Israelites would soon lose their way and disappear. 

The hazards that lay ahead weren’t only physical.  Moses reminds the people what happened to those who gave in to the temptations of Baal, the pagan deity who demanded human—particularly child—sacrifice.  God’s rage then knew no bounds.  “However,” Moses reminds the people, “you who cleave to Adonai your God are alive, all of you, today” (Deut. 4:4).  Their strength lies not in their size or numbers, but rather is inherent in the very rules and regulations that make them a singular people.  The fate of the Israelites, Moses teaches his people, indeed, their very survival, is entwined with their faith. 

But it would be an unwise parent who only teaches his children to follow rules.  The ability to adapt rules to situations that might come up in the unforeseeable future is the essence of wisdom and key to survival.  It isn’t only chukim u-mishpatim—statutes and judgments” (Deut. 4:5)—that God has given His people; it is also chochmat’chem u-vinat’chem—“wisdom and understanding” (Deut. 4:6).  A delicate balance must exist between the two.  One, rooted in tradition and the past, gives your children guidance; the other sets them free to grow and become independent individuals, capable of transforming the future.

As Moses repeats the Ten Commandments, the Sh’ma and the paragraph we know as the V’Ahavta, he also gives the Israelites the further instruction that they must teach these basic rules of their faith to their children and to the generations that follow them.

It is so, Moses teaches, that “you may prolong your days in the land you will possess” (Deut. 5:30). 

These words serve to fortify not only the Israelites; they also transform Moses.  Realizing that Israel’s connection with God, maintained throughout the generations, will sustain the people through all kinds of danger, Moses’s fear turns to faith. 

Moses can now face his people’s—and his own—future with a more peaceful heart.  He understands that he isn’t relinquishing his people to an unknown fate, but rather freeing them, letting them go forth to grow into the people that—with God’s help, of course—they must now become: a holy nation, a light to the world.

It is a culminating moment in Moses’s life and the start of a new phase in the evolution of the Jewish People.

© 2013 by Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Reflections on Tisha B'Av 5773

The Wall In Our Hearts

Reflections on Tisha B’Av 5773

July 16, 2013

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Few symbols are as potent as the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Left standing after the Romans destroyed the rest of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple in the year 70 CE, the wall, part of the external fortifications that surrounded the Temple, has withstood the rise and fall of empires and conquerors. 

The Western Wall—Ha-Kotel as it is called in Hebrew—is a place of wonder.  For centuries it was called the Wailing Wall.  Its stones have been smoothed by the touch of human hands caressing it, lips kissing it, eyes shedding tears on it.  It has heard the murmured prayers of countless pilgrims who came to beseech and plead for both personal and national redemption.  Countless scraps of paper containing personal petitions have been stuffed into crevices between its massive stones.

For Jews, the Wall represents the holiest of all places on this world.  It is, after all, the sole remnant of the Holy Temple first built by King Solomon in the 10^th century BCE.  Destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, it was rebuilt some 70 years later.  During the thousand years of its existence, the Temple was the focus of Jewish ritual.  Sacrifices could only be offered there, under the strict supervision of the Kohanim—the Levitical priests—and the High Priest, descendant of Aaron, brother of Moses.

When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, they left the Western Wall as a reminder of the fate that would befall the Judeans should they attempt any further revolt.  At the same time, the Romans minted a coin called Judaea Captiva.  They boasted—prematurely, it turns out—of the final annihilation of the Jewish People and their Holy Land.

For two thousand years, the Kotel stood as a sign of Israel’s defeat for all our enemies.  They gloated as they pointed to it, testimony, they claimed, of God’s rejection of His chosen people.

For us Jews, however, the Kotel remained a sign of unwavering hope.  “Next year in Jerusalem,” we sang at the Passover seder year after year.  Risking fortunes and lives, poets, philosophers and various people of all stations of life made the pilgrimage to cement their lot with that of the Kotel’s stones.

Some of the bitterest tears were shed in 1948, when the Jordanian army expelled Jews from the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem and forbade them access to the holy sites.

In 1967, however, Jerusalem was liberated by the Israel Defense Forces, and since then, a united city has proudly thrived under the blue and white colors of Israel’s flag. 

Through the many changes that took place around the Kotel, its stones remained silent, almost impervious.  That is the nature of symbols.  They don’t change; the design, the shape and even the colors remain the same. 

Today, after all that it has seen and witnessed, the Wall remains apart from any other structure worldwide.  For some, it is still a symbol of all that is forever changed and gone.  For others, however, it is a symbol of what might yet be. 

Today, Tisha B’Av—the day commemorating the destruction of the two Temples, a day historically reserved for national mourning—the Kotel is scene of many cultures coming together.  Thousands have been gathering at the site to bewail the terrible destruction; others, however, have come to celebrate its promise of renewal.  The sound of wailing and lamentation conflicts with the blaring calls of shofars that, for the hopeful, herald the imminent arrival of the Messiah.

There is no stronger power than that of faith.  Belief can hurt and destroy.  At the same time, however, faith can heal, restore and rebuild.

That, above all, is what the Kotel represents to me at this moment.

It is a physical barrier, dividing between many cultures.  The Jewish culture is on one side, the Moslem culture on the other.  There are those who, looking at its massive stones, see the past and bewail the destruction; and there are those whose perception penetrates into the almost human, and perhaps Divine, heart of the stone and see far into the future. 

Perhaps the stones aren’t silent after all.  Perhaps, to the attentive soul, they still reverberate, echoing the prayers and petitions of millions of human souls longing for solace and consolation.  Maybe the songs of praise and rejoicing come from somewhere far beyond the huge blocks of Jerusalem rock, from a place where past and future unite.

For thousands of years, the Kotel has been witness to time and events.  It has always served as a reminder of hatred and violence, of loss and separation.  It is all that, yes.  History cannot be denied.

Somehow, however, I can’t help believing that, though left as a ruin, it may yet also turn out to be something else—the foundation stone for a great bridge, one that will unite people and restore harmony and peace for the whole world.

On this day of national mourning, I am saddened to the depths of my soul by the suffering of the Jewish People—indeed by the suffering of all who have been oppressed because of their faith, gender, sexual orientation, physical and psychological challenges, or color of their skin.  But I also rejoice with the certainty that, despite all, we still have the ability to heal and create—the very image of God—embedded within us.

And today I pray that the powers of compassion and love, which unite us all as God’s children, overcome all the power of hatred that exists in this world, now and forever more.

Kein y’hi ratzon, may this be God’s will.

© 2013 by Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Tribes and Journeys: Matot-Mass'ei

Tribes and Journeys

D’var Torah for Parashat Matot-Mass’ei

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

It’s a simple matter to go to Israel today.  There are flights and cruises that can take you here year round, 24/7.  On the evening news tonight they interviewed a fitness nut who just kayaked to Israel all the way from the island of Cyprus, a distance of nearly 350 miles…  I personally like it a little bit less strenuous; not that it’s easy to fly for 10 ½ hours non-stop, but it sure beats rowing in six hour shifts with short breaks in-between for small snacks.

The path taken here in previous eras was much more arduous.  Coming from the west, some made it by foot, on horseback or by camel caravans, crossing the perilous deserts of northern Africa, or perhaps taking the northern route along the northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.  If from the east or south, the way was just as dangerous, with your company being spice- or slave-traders from India, Persia or Arabia.

My father left Europe in April 1939, on a rickety boat overloaded with other young men and women who had trained for weeks and months for a new life in Israel.  His boat slipped silently through the darkness, evading the British blockade until it came within a kilometer or so of the shore just north of Tel Aviv.  Then he and his fellow passengers jumped into the water and swam the rest of the way in.  Luckily, they were not observed or captured by the British.

My mother’s trip was longer and had many more stops, including a Nazi prison and several concentration camps.  She arrived by train, nearly 5 years after first leaving her childhood home.   Despite the difficulties and dangers—or perhaps because of them—my mother remembers every stop and station along the way.  She remembers to this day who was with her on any particular leg of the trip, and who was lost along the way, shot, hanged, or simply disappeared.  Every place has its story. 

It takes the Torah narrator a full chapter in this week’s double portion, Matot-Mass’ei (“Tribes and Journeys,” Num. 30:2—36:13), to list the 42 stops that the ancient Israelites made on the way from Egypt from the Promised Land.  42 stops in a journey that took 40 years to complete.

Each stop has its story and lessons.  Here Miriam died; here Moses and Aaron nearly lost their lives in a short-lived rebellion; here the Israelites devoured meat in such haste that they barely took time to chew the meat, let alone cook it.

Of course it wasn’t all disaster and calamity.  At Mount Sinai, the people received the Torah; at Eilim they found 12 wells of water and 70 date palms; at Abarim, the wicked Balaam’s intended curse turned into a beautiful and exalted song of praise:  Mah tovu ohalecha Yisrael—How lovely are your tents, O Israel!

It wasn’t an easy journey; each stop helped define the character of the people; each station refined and cemented their budding relationship with God.  There were times when they looked back at Egypt through rose-colored lenses; times when their faith was tested; and places where the Israelites tested Moses’s—and God’s—patience and love.  But through it all, they never lost sight of their intended goal.  Each stop was temporary, a place to recharge, or perhaps to learn something new about themselves—some new fact, law or regulation that would help them along the rest of their way.

During those 40 years, the Israelites met their future neighbors—Moabites, Ammonites, Midianites, Edomites and Amalekites.  They learned how to deal with these peoples.  Some tribes were peaceful; others were dangerous and treacherous.  Through their interactions with the different cultures they met along their way, the Israelites learned much about their own religion.  They saw things they could never repeat, practices that they found abominable.  From some—such as Jethro, the high priest of Midian—they learned to organize themselves into a well-structured society led by magistrates, judges and a council of elders. 

As they witnessed barbaric practices such as blood vengeance, the Israelites arrived at a different system of justice, one described in this portion:  a system of refuge cities to which a suspected murderer could flee until due process could be established, a system where witnesses and judges, not momentary passions, determined the course of justice.

One of the features of Facebook is Timeline, a listing of important places and events in one’s life:  born in this or that town, schooled in this school or another, with connections to this place or the other.  Each stop has a slew of memories associated with it.  It brings to mind people whose lives intersected with ours, teachers who guided us, places where nature impressed us with beauty or power.  Each stop along our life has helped shape us into the person we are today.

The same is true for us as a people.  Our forty years as wanderers in the Sinai wilderness turned us from a shapeless multitude into a nation.  The journey gave us a Law; it gave us purpose; and it gave us a goal.  Forty-two stops later, we were perched at the entrance to our Promised Land, prepared to inherit it and to start a new chapter in a new book.

It was true thousands of years ago, and it is still true to this day.  Only in the intervening centuries, there have been so many more stops along the way.  Each of us has a history, a list of places we’ve been.  From each of these we’ve taken something along with us, perhaps a memory, or maybe a certain turn of phrase, an accent, a special food, or a favorite song.

As I sat for our Shabbat dinner tonight with my family in Tel Aviv, I looked around me.  Each of us around the table originated from a different country—perhaps even two.  There was a mixture here of cultures and foods, songs and prayers that represented so many stops along the path our people has taken.  But we were and are one family, united in joy and love.

And so are we all, all around the globe.  We are all one family, one people, descended from the same ancient family of wanderers, united by history and religion, by belief and custom—but above all, by a common purpose and goal. 

We are Israel, and our story is the accounting of our tribes and our journeys, of the places we’ve been, the places we’ve stopped, and the longed-for Promised Land we are in the process of establishing for ourselves and for the generations to come.  It’s a story whose conclusion we have yet to reach, but whose past and present cannot be disputed.

It’s written in the scrolls of our lives.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman