Shedding Light On Inconvenient Truths: Vayeishev.21

 Shedding Light On Inconvenient Truths: Vayeishev

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

November 26, 2021

Our history books are filled with lies. 

The way the stories are told is through an artificial design, based on a preconceived notion that “we” (fill in the pronoun with more specific titles and names) are headed toward a manifest destiny—be that what it might. What we perceive is a portrait only of the high points along the way—peaks of excellence and distinction. Failures, if at all noted, are seen as no more than momentary setbacks. 

The story of our American holiday of Thanksgiving is founded on just such a premise. In our imagination we see the early Americans as “pilgrims” (a religious image in itself), while the Indigenous Peoples of New England rise from their primitive status to something more noble as they help the struggling immigrants cope with the difficulties of survival in the New World. 

What we know today is that the real story was not quite so pretty.

Hanukkah is likewise based on a myth—the miracle of the tiny amount of “pure” oil that miraculously lasted for eight nights of candle-lighting at the Jerusalem Temple.  What is missing in the story is the dark reality of the bloody civil war that preceded this event, and the tragic aftermath that followed it.  

At first reading of this week’s Torah portion, Vayeishev (Genesis 37:1-40:23) we encounter a similar pattern. Even the title of the portion—"And Jacob dwelled—” is misleading. It might refer the reader to the earliest part of Jacob’s story, where Jacob is described as an innocent “dweller of tents,” a mild and civilized man. In this misleading view, Jacob has at last come home to rest. We want to believe that he can finally dwell in comfort and peace after all the toils he had lived through.  And yet what lies ahead is yet more tragedy, more trials and tribulations, more sadness and loss.

Vayeishev is, after all, where the story of Joseph and his brothers begins—a story of pride (and the inevitable fall), a story of betrayal, abandonment and injustice. Vayeishev is not a happy conclusion to a sorrowful life.

And yet, as Judaism teaches us, the spark of Redemption is embedded within the deepest darkness. In this portion, immediately after Judah’s despicable proposal to sell Joseph into slavery, he seems to descend even further into shameful behavior. His treatment of his daughter-in-law, Tamar, is inexcusable and immoral. Yet Judah will take to heart the lesson that he is about to learn. Overcome by remorse, he will assume responsibility for his deeds. And that will lead him toward reconciliation and, ultimately, the Redemption of the whole People of Israel. 

Of course, it’s hard to see the light in the midst of all this darkness. Only in retrospect can we see the sparks. What we learn the is that path forward begins with the smallest steps.

Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, has become symbolic of the rededication of the Jewish People to our mission and cause. But when the Maccabees first lit the fires of victory on the Temple Mount, that’s not how they saw it. The war was still raging. The road ahead was still long and dangerous. Judah the Maccabee, the great liberator of Jerusalem, would be killed, possibly betrayed by rival Jewish factions. His successors would fight among themselves for the power and glory of royalty and the High Priesthood, a bloody quarrel that in the end will lead to the fall of the Kingdom of Judea. Within a short period of time, the Romans will march victorious into Jerusalem. 

But even as the thousand-year-legacy of the kings and prophets of Israel comes to an end, a new era begins: the Rabbinic Period. It’s a new chapter, a mighty new volume, in the history of the Jewish People, filled with visions and glory no less glowing than what had come earlier.

Likewise the holiday of Thanksgiving in America. The cruelty and arrogance of the colonialists eventually do lead towards a miracle: A new nation and mighty nation is set to rise out of the darkness.

But what our history books fail to tell us is how this happens. The story we tell and retell glosses over the greed, cruelty and treachery. We prefer to focus instead on the qualities of generosity, love, and charity.

What we should learn from our history books is that reality is much more complicated than our myths would have us believe.

Judaism teaches that reality is infused with a Divine Purpose, that we are indeed moving forward toward some magnificent goal. But at the same time, Judaism does not ask us to ignore the darkness. It recognizes human behavior as complex, a mixture of bad and good, evil and holy. As difficult as they are to accept, the unadorned lessons of Vayeishev and Hanukkah are embedded in our texts, taught and repeated, lest we ignore and forget. 

Vayeishev begins with an unrealized dream. Jacob does not get to live the comfortable life he wishes for, and the road that lies ahead is anything but simple. His family life is about to become fractured, riven with jealousy and hate. He is about to lose his beloved son Joseph. Yet Jacob does not give up hope. Despite the darkness, he is confident that Redemption will yet arrive. 

Truth—as inconvenient and unpleasant as it may be—is a difficult burden to bear. We can’t escape our past; it’s a part of who and what we are today. But what this week’s Torah portion teaches is that we can fix our mistakes. Responsibility for past deeds isn’t easy to accept. Yet in order to move forward, that’s exactly what we need to do. Owning our faults is the first step toward Redemption. Taking responsibility for repairing the damage is next. That is the lesson that will become clear as the story of Joseph and his brothers begins to unfold.

© 2021 by Boaz D. Heilman

Of Angels and Men: Vayishlach.21

 Of Angels and Men

D’var Torah for Parashat Vayishlach

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

November 19, 2021

Since the dawn of awareness, people have experienced, imagined or dreamed of angels. The Midrash—Rabbinic commentaries from the first millennium of the Common Era—offers that the angels were created on the second day of Creation (or on the fifth—naturally there’s a second opinion [Breishit Rabba 3:8]). Likewise, right before the creation of the first human being, Adam, Genesis 1:26 reads, “And God said, ‘Let us make man’” (KJV), a verse that seems to imply that there was some discussion prior to the decision to go ahead with the plan. Rashi, the famed 11th century French rabbi and commentator, explains that this comes to show God’s quality of humility: God foresaw that, because of man’s more complex nature, the angels would be jealous of humans; “therefore God took counsel with them.” 

In a world filled with events no one could explain, the hand of angels was seen everywhere. Archeology has unearthed visual and literal proof of a world filled with all sorts of mythological, winged creatures able to defy the laws of physics and gravity. Early on, the Torah (Gen. 6:2) speaks of “Divine beings” (the Hebrew text actually reading, “Sons of God”) as it describes the extent of corruption that preceded Noah’s flood. 

And of course there are the cherubim, sometimes depicted as children (and giving rise to the adjective “cherubic,” meaning sweet and innocent). However, originally the term probably referred to much more powerful and dangerous beings. It was cherubim, after all, that God places to guard the locked gates of the Garden of Eden. Surely the text didn’t mean to imply that God would place sweet and innocent children there, or put fiery swords in their chubby little hands, to make sure human beings never again set foot in Eden!

Seraphim, ranked fifth in the Jewish hierarchy of angels, but first in the Christian, are similarly powerful. In his vision of heaven, the prophet Isaiah describes the seraphim as having six wings, with voices so loud that, as they cried out one to another, Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh Adonai Tz’va’ot (“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts,” Is. 6:2-4 KJV), their voices made the very gateposts of heaven tremble, while filling the entire palace with smoke.  

Angels appear to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, taking various—and often interchangeable—forms. They could appear as ordinary men, or else winged, or sometimes mysterious, like the one that, in this week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, Jacob finds himself wrestling with from dusk until dawn. First described as ish, a man, as the sun rises Jacob understands that this being is actually an angel, bearing a blessing of strength and hope, along with a new name for him: Israel. In the Torah, angels, whether innocent, powerful, or sometimes even terrifying, all have one thing in common: they bear God’s message, entrusted with carrying out God’s purpose on this earth. So it was with the Angel of Death on the night of the Exodus from Egypt; or the warrior angel that God promises would lead the Israelites during their years of wandering in the Sinai Wilderness (an offer that Moses rejects, demanding that God—directly, not through an angel—lead God’s People to the Promised Land).

In the later Biblical books, angels serve as healers, prosecutors or defenders of Israel in the heavenly Court of Justice. At other times they are teachers and interpreters of visions that even prophets have difficulty in understanding.

During apocalyptic times—such as the fall of empires—angels assumed even weightier roles. The Talmud speaks of four archangels—Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael—each standing to one respective side of God’s throne, each representing one attribute, or power, of God. 

In his Mishne Torah, Maimonides, the most prolific and authoritative Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, lists ten ranks of angels while explaining that angels have no physical bodies, but rather that they represent the various forces by which God manifests Godself in the world. With this explanation, Maimonides both negates previous understandings and sets up a new concept of angels, one that has become part of both Jewish mysticism and even modern, rational thinking. In this perspective, angels are non-corporeal. They are the spiritual guides that steer us and move us forward toward our goals. Angels are like atoms and subatomic particles, containing the force of creation, sent forth from an unknowable source with one particular mission: to interact with matter, to create or transform what is into what must be.

Angels appear frequently in Jewish folklore, literature and art. On Friday evenings, as we sing “Shalom Aleichem,” we welcome angels of peace into our homes. And at bedtime, as we say the Sh’ma prayer, we invoke the names of the archangels, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael, praying that they protect us from malevolent spirits of the night.

And yet, powerful as these ministers of God are, Jewish belief also holds that there is an even greater power: tzedakah—righteous deeds. That is so because angels are seen as incapable of making choices. An angel must carry out his mission precisely as commanded. Human beings, on the other hand, can freely choose. Acts of love and compassion, which come from the heart, have infinite power. Indeed, as the book of Proverbs proclaims, צדקה תציל ממות —"righteousness delivers from death” (Prov. 10:2, NKJV), meaning that a kind deed can potentially defeat even the Angel of Death!

In modern thinking and belief, angels can take two forms—spiritual and/or physical. In the spiritual sense, an angel is like a prayer—a message of faith, trust and hope. But angels can also appear to us in the form of other people. We can be angels of mercy; we can guide a person and show them a path to a better, more meaningful life. We can teach, defend the defenseless and bring justice to the oppressed. In these ways we, like the mysterious being that Jacob encounters in this week’s portion, turn from simply ish, mere human beings, into angels. 

Or, perhaps, even greater.

© 2021 by Boaz D. Heilman

Jacob’s Angels: Vayeitzeh.21

 Jacob’s Angels: D’var Torah for Parashat Vayeitzeh

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

November 12, 2021

Jacob was a young lad when he left the safety of his father’s and mother’s home. He hadn’t ventured out much prior to the events that led to this moment. Unlike his brother, Esau, Jacob is described by the Torah as a “dweller of tents” who preferred vegan cooking to hunting in the fields. He has much yet to learn about life.

But still waters run deep, and Jacob, also described by the Torah as “guileless,” is not as simple as he might first appear.

More than his father Isaac or his grandfather Abraham, Jacob knows that sometimes a person has to make a deal in order to survive or get ahead. A bit of give and take, with the hope that in the end the transaction will come out advantageous, or at least even. 

But the price we have to pay for such deals sometimes includes hidden costs—losses we don’t anticipate, a sullied reputation, conflict and strife within one’s family.

In this respect Jacob is more like us, ordinary people, than are either Abraham or Isaac. Abraham takes extra care to make all of his deals above board, public, and untainted with any semblance of cheating. Isaac prefers to ignore conflicts and just “go with the flow” until confronted with the consequences of his indecisiveness.

Somewhere there, for any number of reasons, Jacob has learned to watch out for himself. Perhaps he sees his father’s acquiescence as a sign of weakness. Perhaps it’s part of being a twin (especially Esau’s twin, a man Jacob sees as reckless and maybe even dangerous). Or it could be his keen perception of how the household is run—the cunning of his mother, the blindness of his father. 

Along with Jacob’s inclination to take care of himself first, however, comes an even more risky tendency—lack of faith and trust. There is a certain haughtiness that this engenders in Jacob. He is super confident in the outcome of his endeavors, regardless of the ethics involved.

Jacob has tough lessons to learn. And even in this, he is more like us—everyday folks trying to make it in a world where rules seem to change all the time, where people’s conduct is more frequently marked by indifference and avarice than by compassion and generosity.

If the Torah were only about perfect people, however, it would leave nothing for us to learn, nothing to imagine, no vision of how things could be made better. There would be no hopes and no dreams. The best that any of us could wish for would be to somehow emulate behavior we know is impossible—a surefire path to failure.

Jacob’s first lesson in life then comes early in his journey to self-awareness. No sooner has he left his home than he reaches a “certain place” (Genesis 28:11), where nightfall comes upon him. It is here that he has his famous dream of a ladder reaching up to the heavens, with angels busily ascending and descending. It is Jacob’s first encounter with God—his first lesson in trust and faith.

Jacob doesn’t pass this test as definitively as either Abraham or Isaac. Responding to God’s promise to be with him and protect him along his journey, Jacob responds with a resounding “if.” “IF God will be with me and guard me… and give me bread to eat and garment to wear; and IF I return in peace to my father house, THEN Adonai will be my God” (Gen. 28:20-21). He doesn’t reject God’s promise outright, but neither does he accept it wholeheartedly either.

Up until this time, Jacob’s understanding of God was typical of the way people thought of gods in those early days: as geo-theological powers: every land, every political entity, every state, had its own ruling divine beings whose powers stopped at the border. As Jacob awakens the next morning, however, he realizes a far-reaching, perhaps even revolutionary, truth—that God is not confined to any one place. Jacob had first learned about God in his father’s and mother’s home in Beersheba. It was a limited perspective, one he never thought to question. Now, however, he sees that this “certain place” where he has had his strange dream, is also God’s abode.

Baby steps perhaps, but a good start nonetheless.

But what of those angels that he also saw in his dream? Angels ascending and descending, busily engaged in some mysterious work?

The Torah doesn’t tell us what Jacob thought of when he saw the angels. Again, he doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t inquire what their task was. What he fails to understand is the unfinished nature of God’s work in this world, the ongoing interaction between God and God’s creation.

What Jacob will come to realize is that God’s work is eternal. Creation is not a done deal. It’s a process in which we are no less intertwined than the angels in Jacob’s dream. 

Like those angels, we too ascend to heights previously undreamed of. From these peaks we gain perspective and understanding. Yet what we see at such moments is not perfection, but rather the road that stretches ahead of us. We learn that what we dream can only be achieved when we awaken, when we find ourselves once again not in “God’s abode,” but in the middle of nowhere, on hard and cold ground, with a stone as our pillow. It’s an ongoing process. As often as we rise to our best, so do we also fall—and must climb up again. Perfection isn’t the goal; progress is. This, for me, is the big lesson of this week’s portion, Jacob’s—and our—first lesson about God’s intended role for us in an unfinished world.

© 2021 by Boaz D. Heilman