Being Israel: Vayishlach 2016

Being Israel

D’var Torah for Parshat Vayishlach

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Dec. 15, 2016

Dedicated to the memory of my father, Ze’ev ben Aryeh v’Yona on the 100^th anniversary of his birth

One of the Torah’s most valuable lessons that it is vitally important to become a link in the golden chain of tradition, to receive tradition and then, in turn, to pass it on. 

In last week’s Torah portion, it was Isaac who learned this lesson.  This week, it is Jacob’s turn. 

Despite the Torah’s description of Jacob as a mild, simple man, he was anything but.  He was a wrestler, struggling from the womb on. First it was his twin brother, Esau; then his father-in-law, Laban.  In this week’s portion, Vayishlach (Gen. 32:4-36:43), Jacob confronts his guilty conscience, and he wrestles with a mysterious stranger who might represent his worst fears. 

Twenty years earlier, with little life experience and few possessions of his own, Jacob had to flee from his brother’s vengeful wrath, leaving forever the comfortable tents of his mother and father. Now an older, more mature and wealthy man, in charge of a large family and even larger flocks, Jacob is coming home. But first there’s the matter of Esau to settle.  And Esau, Jacob learns, is coming at him, armed and accompanied by four hundred horsemen. 

Jacob prepares for the confrontation the best way he can: he sends gifts to placate Esau; then he prays; and finally—just in case the first two aren’t effective—he prepares for war and for the tragic losses that are war’s inevitable consequence.

But the night before his fateful meeting with Esau, alone on a mountaintop, Jacob has an unexpected encounter:  He meets a mysterious stranger who engages Jacob in a wrestling match that lasts till dawn. Who this stranger might be is not made clear in the story. Some say it was Esau’s protecting angel, while others explain that it was the embodiment of Jacob’s own fears and doubts.  Jacob, in any case, believes this being to be an angel.

Jacob emerges victorious from this contest, but he is not unscathed.  At one point during the match, his thigh is injured, and the dawn sees him limping as he takes his first steps across the river and into the Promised Land.

It is only at this point that Jacob understands what his role in life must be. 

As a young boy, Jacob had learned of God’s promise; he must have first heard about it from his grandfather, Abraham, then in overheard conversations between Isaac and Rebecca.  At first, Jacob aspired to it.  He saw it as a crown, a pinnacle of fame and glory.  Tempted, he allowed himself to reach for it, to grasp it even at the price of deceiving his father and enraging his brother.  Now, however, he finally understands the full import of this blessing.  He realizes that being God’s chosen brings with it great responsibility, as well some very real dangers and perhaps even sacrifice and tragedy.

Now, humbled by this knowledge, hobbling under its weight and facing an uncertain future, Jacob is ready to take his rightful place in the line of tradition. He may be limping, an army is gathering and marching against him, but Jacob is buoyed by the blessing the angel had given him.  Just as the sun was rising, with his powers quickly fading, the angel changed Jacob’s name to Israel, saying, “You have striven with angels and peoples, and you have prevailed.”

Taking his first steps on the sacred soil of the Promised Land, Jacob senses something new:  He is no longer alone.  The full strength of his father’s blessing fortifies him. 

Jacob, now and forever more known as Israel, is finally ready to become a source of blessing himself. He has crossed over the river of eternity and become a link in an unending, golden chain of Tradition, bridging his and his family’s past into the future and into all eternity.  

He is now ready to face his brother and whatever the new day will bring.

He is Israel.

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman

Tradition, Faith and Hope: Toldot 2016

Tradition, Faith and Hope: D’var Torah for Parashat Toldot

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

December 2, 2016

Sally and I were fortunate this year to celebrate Thanksgiving with our children as well as with several members of our extended family.  Not everybody was there, but considering the hectic schedules, distances and other challenges associated with travel at this season, we were all counting our blessings to be together, to sit around the table and enjoy this wonderful holiday as one loving family.

As the younger generation concluded the sumptuous meal, they left the table, leaving us grownups to reminisce over the past and to shake our heads at the sad state of the world today.  We had promised in advance not to talk politics, so the conversation remained civil and cordial.  But that, of course, left little to talk about except the kids!

We, the adult members of the clan, have known each other for many years now, so we didn’t have to exaggerate.  We didn’t have to rhapsodize about how well our children have turned out, how successful and happy they are, and what a bright future still awaits them.  Instead, we shared some bits about their lives—those bits that they allow us to know and to share with others.  We talked about the past, when the kids were little; and we laughed at some of the escapades they were involved in as teenagers.

Our children are in a different phase of their lives today.  No longer little, no longer teens, they have embarked on their own independent paths, each only a few paces ahead or behind the others.

The common saying goes, “Little children, little problems; big children, big problems.”  It’s true.  When the kids were little, we were concerned with issues that in retrospect seem tiny and unimportant.  Today, we worry about the larger picture: How close are they to settling down? Where is the next stage of life going to take them? Who will be there for them when we are too old and weary?

As the Good Book says however, “There is nothing new under the sun.” I imagine these same discussions took place long before us, and will be repeated long after, too. 

I imagine that Abraham, too, worried in the same way about his son, Isaac.

Perhaps, lying awake late into the night, Abraham wondered if he had done right by Isaac when he almost sacrificed the boy to God.  There were few words exchanged between them as they climbed up the Mountain of God, and afterwards each went his own way, each lost in his own thoughts.  There weren’t many occasions to talk after that horrifying experience:  Isaac was often away from home, and when he came back, he tended to be silent and sullen.

Isaac preferred the wilderness and open fields to his father’s sheltering tent. Abraham, on the other hand, was worried by the lonely search for meaning that Isaac was on.

But Isaac, unlike his father, Abraham, actually enjoyed the solitude.  Also unlike Abraham, Isaac enjoyed keeping company with the Philistines, a Greek people who lived on the edge of the desert, along the Mediterranean coast.  To tell the truth, however, even when he was with them, Isaac always felt himself different.  He sensed their jealousy, their lack of understanding of his ways.  At times Isaac felt ostracized, perhaps even disliked by the Philistines.  Business projects he started with them were often scuttled at the last minute, so that he had to move away and start all over again.

In this week’s Torah portion, Toldot (Genesis 25:19—28:9) we learn how Isaac nevertheless succeeded in all his ventures—which made the Philistines dislike him even more.  Time after time he would dig wells to water his flocks, only to have the Philistine shepherds fill them with sand again. And yet, despite the setbacks, he only grew richer and stronger.

But Abraham still worried, even after Isaac married Rebecca.  Their twin boys—Jacob and Esau—were as different as could be from one another, both in character and appearance. With each parent clearly preferring one or the other of the two, there was little peace in the household.

Yet Abraham did not lose hope.

First of all, he had God’s promise that Isaac would be blessed by God just as he was.  Abraham had faith in this promise.

Additionally, Abraham had faith in his son, Isaac. Despite Isaac’s sorrows, he was a good man.  He also had Rebecca, an able keeper of the tents and household.

Abraham knew he had done everything he could to bring his son, Isaac, up right.  He may have made mistakes, but he always tried to atone for them.  He taught Isaac about God and about what God wanted of us—to pursue justice, to seek righteousness, to show compassion to all living things.

Though many years had passed since Abraham left his family and moved to Canaan, he held on to many of his family’s traditions, and he passed these on to Isaac.

Tradition, faith and hope sustained Abraham throughout his life, and now he hoped they would be there for Isaac as well.

In our own day, we too often find ourselves stressing over similar worries and concerns.  We worry about the future; we worry about our children.  We worry about our faith and our people.  We see our children straying from familiar paths, and we worry that they might lose their way and consequently be lost to us and to our people.  A mere 71 years after the Shoah, the Holocaust, we worry about the Promised Land and about the future of our people.  We see the assimilation and the loss of pride in our Jewish identity.  And we also see the ongoing hatred—today we have a word for it: anti-Semitism—and we worry about its tenacity, its viciousness, and its ferocity.  

Yet the very truths that sustained Abraham still hold true for us today:  We have God’s promise, which, 3600 years later, has withstood all tests, including the test of time.  Furthermore, we know our children and grandchildren to be good people.  We have done our best to educate them, to set them on the right path, to teach them our traditions and give them the spiritual nourishment we know will keep and sustain them in the future.  They, in return, have shown us time and again that they have lost nothing of what we’ve taught them.  No matter how far they seem to wander, they will return, just as Isaac returned, just as we ourselves have returned.  This is the faith Abraham held on to, the faith that guided all our ancestors.  And this is the faith that will also sustain us, our families, our Land and our people for as long as humankind exists.

May the glow of these Shabbat candles remind us that even the darkest and longest night is but a bridge toward the light. May our faith and traditions keep us safe and warm along all our journeys.  And may hope always be at our side to ward off all anxiety, fear and apprehension.

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman

Walking With Abraham, Standing With You: Vayeira 2016

Walking With Abraham, Standing With You

A Sermon for Shabbat Vayeira 2016

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

In our Scriptural readings from the Torah, this week we find ourselves studying the story of Abraham, the first patriarch of the Jewish People and also the father of the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  I find it interesting—and hopeful, especially in these troubled times in America and the world—that we all share this one forebear, that no matter how different our faiths may be, we all find in Abraham a common source of teaching and inspiration.

When we first encountered Abraham, he was picking up the pieces of his life.  At the age of 75, Abraham was uprooting. Called by God, he was leaving behind his family, homeland and people, in search of something vague, a place he knew existed, but that he knew not where.  All he knew was that God would tell him when he got there.

It couldn’t have been easy for Abraham to undertake this journey.  He was getting on in years; he knew that chances were that he would never see his family again.  The Chaldeans—the people he was leaving behind—were among the most advanced civilizations in the world at that time.  And what was he doing?  He was leaving for the Wild, Wild West, a lawless place inhabited by people whose language, customs and ways he did not know.

So why did he leave?  At age 75, probably not for fun or profit. He was already rich, successful and established. So why now?

He left because he felt himself endangered. 

Abraham was different from his fellow Chaldeans, and times were getting dangerous for people like him, who shared his world views, and particularly his religion.  As Abraham saw it, the gods that most people around him worshipped were mere idols, make-believe creatures whose main characteristics were that they were lazy, quarrelsome, jealous and ill-tempered, and that the best way to deal with them was essentially to appease them with wine and sacrifice, and pray that they would leave you alone, like wild animals after feeding time at the zoo.

On the other hand, Abraham’s belief, which he stubbornly held on to, was that there was only one God, a just and compassionate God who wanted people to be like Him:  just and compassionate.

The different beliefs led to two very different—and in many ways opposing—lifestyles.  What Abraham was looking for was a place where he could live and worship freely, without fear of persecution.

People have been fleeing persecution, seeking liberty, for as long as humanity has existed.  In fact, America was founded upon this principle. The social and political system that was created here is a democracy, guided by the principle that we, the people, have the right to participate in the selection and running of our government.  Our democracy enshrines freedoms we hold sacred, holy. 

Elections in a system such as ours never result in a unanimous vote. In a democracy, it’s a given that there will be different opinions and dissenting views. Elections are often divisive; all you have to do is look at what’s happening in our country today.  A mere fortnight after one of the ugliest election in people’s memory, you can see people hurling insults, pitching hate at each other. In the media, among ourselves and even within families, people are unfriending one another, refusing to speak to one another, going as far as to cancel Thanksgiving family dinners because of the election, and who supported which candidate.

Democracy is not perfect.  In fact, Winston Churchill once stated that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” But democracy is still the only system that allows us, the people, to have a voice, to place a person in office or take them out of it again. So far, this system has been more successful than all the others. Economically, socially, culturally—in every possible way, democracy has provided us with untold opportunities.  It has granted us the greatest number of freedoms and rights.  It has worked well—though not perfectly—for nearly 240 years now.

Still, what happened last week has left many of us in a state of shock and disbelief.  In poll after poll, we were led to believe in a different outcome. For many of us, this election was to be an affirmation of principles we believed in, that we worked hard for, and that took decades to accomplish.  But instead, we saw a swing in the other direction.

As a result of this election, there have been demonstrations, protests, marches and rallies.  We have also seen and heard mean and ugly words.  Symbols of hatred have been popping up in neighbors’ yards, in mailboxes, in the social media.  One of the most common of these symbols is the swastika, a fearful symbol that to the Jewish people has special, ominous meaning, as it represents death and destruction, reminding us of the Holocaust, the most terrible disaster our people has endured in the last 2000 years.

But it isn’t only Jews who are seeing these signs of hate.  All minorities—Muslims, gays, Latinos, African-Americans, immigrants—are feeling threatened by a wave of hatred and intolerance.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization, reports that since the election, there have been close to 500 incidents of hateful harassment and intimidation. In the larger picture, 500 isn’t a huge number.  But the cumulative effect has been to strike fear in the hearts of millions more.  These hateful acts have been taking place at K-12^th grade schools (!), on university and college campuses, in places of business, private homes and public houses of worship.  Even if we don’t experience the hate ourselves, television, the papers, the social media, all make sure we become witnesses to it.

One thing that we have learned from Abraham, the first Jew, the first recorded refugee from persecution, is that we are all responsible for one another.  Throughout our 3600 years of existence the Jewish People have learned that, in order to survive, we must be there for one another.  The legacy that the Founding Fathers of our country—all followers in Abraham’s footsteps—have left us, is that if America is to remain the Land Of The Free, we must be there for one another whenever we see acts of injustice, hatred, violence and intimidation.

Like yet another Abraham, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who fifty years ago marched in Selma, Alabama, alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King, arms linked to show support for those whose felt intimidated and disenfranchised, we too need to let all people—individuals and groups of all genders, races and beliefs—who are filled with fear, who see the hateful signs and words and know all too well what they mean, we need to let them know that we are there with them and will continue to be there for them. No individual, no group in America today need feel that they are alone.  WE STAND WITH YOU.  No one should feel afraid of his or her neighbor.  We still believe that “love your neighbor as yourself” is the most important rule of humanity, and we must stand up and defend it whenever we see it threatened.

Father Abraham heeded the call to leave his homeland. Despite his standing in the community, despite all the contributions he made to his society in religion, business, art, literature, and philosophy, Abraham felt unsafe in his own homeland.  And so he left all he knew and began his journey.  It’s a path we still find ourselves on today: A journey toward a land and a time when all people, in all their marvelous diversity, live in peace and harmony.  We don’t know when we will get there, but if our way of life is to survive, we cannot stumble and fall out along the way.

May our communities be strengthened by our pursuit of justice and compassion.  May our nation continue to be a shining beacon for all who feel oppressed and persecuted.  And may we all become messengers of hope, carrying forward the task of making America the great nation that it is and can be.  May we see the day when all people shall walk free, tall and unafraid, and may this day come soon.  Amen!

Pride And Arrogance: Noach 2016

Pride And Arrogance: A Lesson For Shabbat Noach

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Nov. 4, 2016

Noah must have led a very lonely life.  Of all his neighbors, in fact of all the men and women of his generation, he alone understood God’s ways.  He alone “walked with God,” he alone was deemed righteous, and he alone heard God’s voice.

When you are able to hear God’s voice, it isn’t likely that you hear much of anything else.  God’s voice is majestic, it’s overwhelming.  You might on occasion engage in some empty conversation with your neighbors, perhaps exchange meaningless pleasantries, but no more than that.  Your ear isn’t in sync with them; it’s always cocked to hear God’s voice, always eager for the next message, ever ready to do exactly what God tells you to.  It’s a lonely existence.

Then there’s pride to deal with.  It doesn’t take long to realize that you alone were found worthy, that you alone are God’s favorite.  Others may notice a distant rumble, but clear as daylight you know it to be God.  Others may see a cloud in the sky, but you know it is God’s anger about to burst out in a torrent, a flood.  The problem with pride, however, is that, even as you sit humbly at God’s feet it grows in small, incremental steps, stalking you, stealing on you. Your pride keeps you aloof, separate and distant from other people.  They don’t understand you; they don’t know you are in some deep conversation with the Almighty.  You are better than them, and you know it.

And when God tells you to build a huge ark and fill it with all different kinds of animals, you have little time or patience to listen to the problems of others.  It isn’t easy to find aardvarks in the Near East!

Pride is a common human trait, and up to a point it isn’t all that bad.  We are rightfully proud when we arrive at goals we had set for ourselves.  We are proud of our children and their achievements, when they reach milestones in their lives and, step by step, become independent. We are proud of our community, and we are proud of our nation when we all rise to uphold values we hold true and valuable to humanity.

But pride can also be a stumbling block, when it makes us, like Noah, blind to the suffering around us, unable to hear or respond to the voices that call out to us.

Our pride can affect our work, when it makes us unwilling to take criticism; when it convinces us that we alone know the right way to do things, that no one else can—or need to—help us do what we know best. Far from being team players, we go our own path, with little consideration for what others may think, believe or seek.

Pride influences the way we interact with others who may be less advantaged than us, when we can’t be bothered to help those who might need a hand.  We, after all, got to where we are by our own bootstraps, by our own hard work, by our diligence and natural talents.  Let them do the same now!

Pride affects how we relate to friends and even our family.  Knowing that you are always right means that the other person, by definition, is always wrong.  Your pride may lead you to keep pushing them, to keep scolding them, to treat even those who are closest to you with scorn and sarcasm.  Pride hinders you from accepting or seeing others as they truly are.  Instead, your ever-higher, always-unattainable expectations lead them to feel resentment, frustration, guilt and even self-hate.

There is no pleasing the proud and haughty, as often their glory is achieved at the price of humbling the other—be it child, spouse, sibling, or person of a different gender, nation, race or religion.

Pride is a slippery slope, but even Pride is as nothing before Arrogance. Pride, after all, may be justified:  You’ve done well; you’ve earned points, you’ve merited certain rights and privileges.  But whereas Pride can make you unreachable, Arrogance makes you untouchable.  You owe nothing to anyone or anything, no excuse or explanation, no apology or remorse, not even so much as a by-your-leave.  Laws, rules and regulations are not meant for you; they were created for simpletons, for the common masses, of which you are not.  When you are arrogant, you think you can get away with anything and everything.  You can say anything, do anything without fear of recrimination.  You are so certain of your superiority that sometimes you even manage to convince others of it.

This week’s Torah portion, Noach (Gen. 6:9—11:32), positions these two human traits, Pride and Arrogance, as bookends.  The portion starts with Noah, a person who, as the Torah tells us, “Was a righteous man, perfect in his generations.  Noah walked with God.”  He alone could hear God’s voice; he alone was privy to God’s intent to flood the earth, to destroy all living things, all that had “the merest breath of life in its nostrils.”  Noah alone heard God’s command to build an Ark to save himself.  Aloof and uncaring, Noah follows God’s directions to a T, to tragic results.    

But even an overly proud person may find redemption.  Deep inside the dark bowels of the ark he had built, overcome by guilt and remorse, Noah discovers pity and compassion.  Only then does God put an end to the misery.  The waters of the flood recede, and Noah’s descendants are given a second chance, an opportunity to rebuild what God had destroyed.

Not so, however, the Babylonians, generations later.  With their leader Nimrod, a mighty hero as ever existed, the Babylonians built a spectacular civilization, filled with splendor and beauty.  Their literature was famous throughout the land, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon became a world wonder.  But the Babylonians overreached.  In the story of the Tower of Babel, the Babylonians represent the epitome of dangerous arrogance and conceit.

For whereas Noah at least listened to God and did just as God told him, the Babylonians had no such intention.  Their belief in their own supremacy was so complete that they believed they could live above and beyond any rule, any law, human or divine. By building a tower so tall that its top would pierce the very heart of heaven, they planned to overtake God, to be even mightier than God.  The “name” they had wanted to create for themselves was intended to replace the Name of God.  God, of course, puts an end to this nonsense, dispersing the population and confusing their language so that no one could understand his fellow; and thus the empire fell.

The failure of Babylon was Arrogance.  It was arrogance that led not only to the collapse of their presumptuous tower, but in fact also to the downfall of their entire culture and civilization.  Their conceit, their single-minded intent was to be all-powerful and all mighty.  There could be no challenge or dissent from without or within. Anyone who dared to resist or who voiced opposition, was summarily silenced.

History has proven the Torah correct.  There is no redemption possible where arrogance exists.  

The collapse of the Babylonian Empire came as no surprise, but it also led to the possibility of new beginnings.  Out of the chaos, new creation: a new light emerges. Parashat Noach ends ten generations later with the birth of Abraham, a man who not only listened to God’s voice, but argued with it; a man who didn’t only walk with God, but also with all humanity at his side.  And the house he established some 3500 years ago, a house founded on the principles of goodness, justice and compassion, still stands to this very day.  

We are sitting in it now.

May we prove worthy dwellers of the tents of Abraham, blessed and privileged to follow in his footsteps, along God’s many pathways, but always in humility, gratitude and respect.

Ken y’hi ratzon.

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman