The Song of Freedom: B'Shallach

The Song of Freedom

D’var Torah for Parashat B’Shallach

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

This week’s Torah portion, B’shallach (Exodus 13:17—17:16) holds up one of the most spectacular images for us all to behold.  It is the parting of the Red Sea.

Every year we retell this wondrous story, and between the illustrations in the Haggadah that we use, and the movie versions we’ve watched, the imagery comes alive in our imagination.  The sight of the walls of water rearing backwards and upwards, the mighty current roaring its anger at being stopped mid-wave, combine with the crying and screaming of the Israelites, a sound that clashes with the clatter of the chariots, the yells of the charioteers and the snorting and whinnying of Pharaoh’s horses charging up from behind to create a moment unparalleled in history.

But did it really happen?

Biblical scholars, archeologists, historians and others have tried to chart the way of the Israelites as they left Egypt.  Perhaps their path took them through swamplands, or perhaps it was a narrow passage that only Moses (who, you remember, herded his father-in-law’s sheep through the desert and thus knew every pathway through it) recognized?

Not only scholars ask.  Just a couple of Friday evenings ago, when I was sitting down to a Shabbat meal with my family in Israel, one of the 9 year old twins asked her father:  “Abba, did the stories of the Torah really happen?”  Without a moment’s hesitation, the child’s father answered, “Of course.” 

Yet this wasn’t the first time a child asked this question.  In fact, it has become ritualized in our Passover Seder, in the section we call The Four Questions, usually recited or chanted by the youngest person seated at the table.

It turns out that questioning the veracity of miracles is not only permitted—it is encouraged.  Not so that another, negative, answer can be given, however.  No!  Rather, we ask so that the answer will always remain fresh, new, full of life’s force and energy.

It really doesn’t matter whether the Red Sea parted exactly as described in our Torah portion.  What matters is that something happened.  Something enormous and magnificent, something that turned around not only the course of the sea, but of all history.

The emergence of the Israelite People unto the world’s stage was not a mere trifle.  It went contrary to all ordinary laws and rules of nature.

The earliest extant evidence of the existence of the Israelites comes in the form of two documents.  One is the Mesha Stele—an inscribed stone set up by a Moabite king in the 9^th century BCE—describing how Israel was destroyed forever.  The other document—this time from Egypt—refers to the annihilation of a people called Israel by an attacking Pharaoh in the year 1205 BCE.

By all historical evidence, logic and reason, Israel and its people should have disappeared thousands of years ago.  Victorious empires made it their practice to slaughter whole populations, to move peoples around from one part of the empire to another so as to erase their natural roots and memories.  In the year 135 CE, the Roman emperor Hadrian destroyed the last vestige of the Judean revolt, killed hundreds of thousands of Jews and exiled at least as many to other parts of the Roman Empire.  To cap it all off, he renamed Israel “Palestine.”

That is the normal course of history, sadly repeated over and over again.

Yet, despite all claims to the contrary, Israel is still here—its land, people and God still vibrant and well, still a force to contend with after all these years.

Is that not a miracle?

That a people who emerged like the legendary phoenix from the ashes of the Holocaust could recreate themselves and become who we have become—is that not a true miracle?

The survivors of the concentration camps had nothing to their name.  Their homes and all their possessions had been taken away.  They were torn away from their past and future generations.  The tatters they were wearing on the day they were liberated constituted their only possession on this earth.  Yet, they arose and came home, home to their own land, to the only land they could call their own, to the only spot on earth where they could live as an independent people.  They came from all corners of Europe and, later, from all other parts of the world.  In our own age we have witnessed an exodus unparalleled in the annals of human existence. 

No sea could stop the people’s progress; no mountain stood in our way.  History parted to let us through.

A similar miracle happened in this week’s portion.  Some three and a half thousand years ago, too, a people emerged from a great holocaust.  Slavery, oppression and genocide (the drowning of all new-born baby boys) were left behind as the Israelites departed en masse, overnight. 

With God in our souls, showing us the way to freedom, with an eternal promise of safe haven to look forward to—and with a song of triumph on our lips—the Red Sea didn’t stand a chance.  Its growl turned into a whimper, and then even that was gone. 

Only once we reached the other shore, forever free, did the sea roar again, as it closed in one last time on our oppressors.

Did it really happen?

Yes.  Time and time again. 

It’s a story that never grows old.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman

The Power of Words--Bo

The Power of Words

D’var Torah for Parashat Bo

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

In this week’s Torah portion, “Bo” (Exodus 10:1—13:16), Moses is instructed by God to bring about the final blows on Pharaoh—those last, devastating strikes that ultimately shattered Pharaoh’s hardened heart. The first seven plagues—blood, frogs, lice, wild beasts, pestilence, boils and hail—failed to cause the change of heart God was seeking. But these last three—locust, darkness and death of the first-born—brought such misery upon all the Egyptians, that the former slave owners were only too glad to see the Israelites off, even showering them with gold and other riches as they took off for liberation—and the desert beyond Egypt’s borders.

The might that Moses shows at this point in the story is indeed awesome. That he was bound for greatness was evident from the get-go: He was, after all, brought up in the household of Pharaoh, rich and pampered. But his first independent act was one of violence—killing the Egyptian guard who was beating the Israelite slave. Trying to bring law to the downtrodden slaves only resulted in ridicule for Moses, causing him to flee from Egypt and to run for his life, pursued not only by Pharaoh but also by his own people.

Moses’s transformation took a long time. The Burning Bush symbolizes that point in his life in which he realizes that he can no longer escape his fate. Afraid to assume the mantle of leadership thrust upon him, he is encouraged by God who promises to be at Moses’s side—along with Aaron, his brother—as they deliver the message to Pharaoh.

It took arguing, cajoling, pleading and much hand wringing. In his halting, hesitant speech, Moses begins speaking.  More eloquently then, Aaron reinforces the meaning behind Moses’s words. As proof of the truth of the message, the plagues begin to arrive, one after another. At this point in the story, with the last three plagues yet to be unleashed, power seems to flow from Moses effortlessly. There is no need for words or further iteration. Moses merely lifts his staff to the heavens, extends it over the land, and the devastation of Egypt begins.

Even as Moses resorts less and less to speech, the power of the word becomes more apparent. Yes, God is performing these wonders and miracles; it is all part of the process of liberation and redemption of the Israelites that God had promised Abraham. But God has a price for this gift.

We pay God back with some of God’s own gift. God freed us with words and deeds. We pay God back with our own words and deeds.

It doesn’t take the Torah long. In the second verse of the portion (Ex. 10:2) we read: “That you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord.” Telling our children, teaching them about God’s presence in our lives, is God’s first demand.

Later on in the portion, Moses gives further instruction. He prepares the people for their night of liberation, telling them that it is to be a night of vigil, no one stirring from their house. Detailed instruction for the slaughter and preparation of the paschal lamb is given. The people are told to eat this meal standing up, in their traveling clothes, by family, by household, by clan and tribe. Some of the lamb’s blood is to be splattered on the doorsills as a sign for Death to bypass the Israelites’ homes.

And somewhat later again, we are told to turn this unique night into an annual ritual, a yearly reminder of the hardship of slavery and how its bitterness was turned to milk and honey when we were freed.  An annual recitation of the story of our liberation.

How ironic that a man who was, by his own description, hard-of-speech delivered the smashing blows to Pharaoh’s tyrannical heart of stone. But, of course, it wasn’t only Moses. Moses was a stutterer, after all. It was the words, the words themselves that, as they were freed from Moses’s lumbering mouth, took flight and brought about the liberation of the slaves. Freedom is ever God’s gift; it is the haggadah, our utterance of God’s liberating words, that makes this gift come true.

It was some 3000 years ago that the Hebrew slaves were freed. Yet throughout this time Moses’s words never lost their power, and their message resounds to this day. It’s no miracle. It is precisely because we continue to speak them, because we continue to retell the story of how freedom came into the world, that the words maintain their power to this very day.

It was the same liberating force that was unleashed by Martin Luther King 3000 years after Moses. Of course there were others who were active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. There was W.E.B. du Bois; and Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks, and the millions who marched in Selma, Montgomery and Washington. But it was Martin Luther King’s words—his speeches, his sermons on the mount—that turned the tide.

Wrongs aren’t righted by the sword. Only justice can right wrongs, and justice is borne on the wings of words and is carried out in our everyday deeds.

There were other wrongs that the 20^th century saw righted through words and deeds. The return of the exiled Jews to their homeland is one such miracle of liberation.

And once again it was the vision expressed by Moses that bore the exiled people home by foot, train, boat or plane.

How sad that such events always were and always will be met by acts of violence. The plagues of indifference, hatred and prejudice engulf the land as a result of some people hardening their hearts and refusing to change. At the same time that Rev. King spoke of freedom, churches were being burned, children were being murdered along with their parents, and many more were beaten and killed simply for daring to believe in the equality of all humankind. The State of Israel is still facing its detractors and delegitimizers, enemies sworn to destroy it and kill its people to the very last child.

But freedom is unstoppable. As long as its message is told, from generation to generation, it is certain to spread across one boundary after another, until that promised day when all people will live in freedom, freed from every shackle, freed even from fear itself.

Does it take a Moses or a Martin Luther King to achieve this exalted goal? No! Each of us has this power, this gift. Awareness of it dictates that it be used. Eloquently or hesitating, in prose or poetry, freedom has to be declared. In great literature or in advice columns, it has to be told and taught, spoken or sung, from one mountain to the next, from one generation to the next.

As some of you may know, this week the great Pauline Phillips, aka “Dear Abby,” died. Ms. Phillips, or Abigail van Buren as she was known by her readers, once received to the following letter:

“Dear Abby: Two men who claim to be father and adopted son just bought an old mansion across the street and fixed it up. We notice a very suspicious mixture of company coming and going at all hours—blacks, whites, Orientals, women who look like men and men who look like women. … This has always been considered one of the finest sections of San Francisco, and these weirdos are giving it a bad name. How can we improve the neighborhood? --Nob Hill Residents.”

The sage advice Ms. Phillips gave: “You could move.”

Such is the freeing power of words, a treasure and gift that never fails.

May we be among those who speak of freedom and make it real for all who share this dream, for all who dwell upon this earth.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman

What’s In A Name

What’s In A Name

D’var Torah for Parashat Sh’mot

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

In Honor of the Board of Directors of Congregation B’nai Torah, Sudbury, MA

As this week’s parasha, Sh’mot (“Names”) opens, the text reiterates the names of the Israelites who came down to Egypt with Jacob (a list first given at the end of Genesis).  The Rabbis wonder about this seeming redundancy—and of course they offer several possible explanations.

It would be easy to see this repetition simply as a common thread that connects Genesis, the first book of the Torah, and Exodus, the second.  But for the Rabbis, nothing is ever as simple as it appears.  There are always additional meanings alluded to, hinted at, or cleverly hidden for the select few.

The Midrash—that great body of learning that emerged from the Land of Israel between the 1^st-10^th centuries—offers its opinion that the repetition of names teaches us that the Israelites came to deserve their redemption from Egyptian slavery primarily because they kept their Hebrew names.

So what’s in a name?

Names, of course, hold memories for us.  We are often given names that remind us of beloved relatives.  Names also safeguard our values.  One of the most popular names given to boys born in Israel after the 1973 Yom Kippur War was Shalom—peace. 

Names keep our national identity intact.  There are Jewish names just as there are Gaelic names, French names or Arabic names.

That the Children of Israel kept their Hebrew names during the 400 years that come between Genesis and Exodus proves that they actively maintained their national identity that whole time.

As I write these words, sitting in my brother’s house in Givatayim, near Tel Aviv, I see Hebrew all around me.  The newspaper screams its headlines in Hebrew.  Street signs are in Hebrew.  Obviously, names are Hebrew too. 

It’s easy to maintain your Jewish identity in Israel.  It’s part of the culture.  School children learn Jewish history along with world history.  They study Torah, the Prophets and Hebrew grammar.  Though many Israelis celebrate New Year’s Eve, they do so only as an excuse to party.  Rosh Ha-Shana is the real New Year in Israel, just as Hanukkah is the winter holiday they celebrate here, replete with family gatherings, traditional music and special foods.

It’s easy to remember you are Jewish here because of the many Holocaust survivors and their children, grandchildren and now even great-grandchildren. 

World anti-Semitism is always on the news media’s radar, and criticism (or approval) of Israel is often viewed here through the lens of the Jew’s role in world history. 

The vitriolic hatred spewed by Iran isn’t directed only at the State of Israel.  Jews throughout the world are targeted right along with Israelis.  The lines of demarcation blur after a while, reinforcing the impression that Israel is under attack for no other than reason than its Jewish identity.

More than all else, though, Shabbat in Israel is an experience you don’t get anywhere else.  It’s hard to describe.   Even if you aren’t religious, you simply feel it to your bones.  The insanely crowded roads, the edgy impatience that borders on rudeness—these become transformed into a peaceful calm that surrounds you, soothes you, imbues you with a sense of transcendent spirituality.  You thank God for Shabbat when you’re Jewish in Israel.

Not so in the Diaspora, however.  There you have to make an effort to be Jewish.  For many, especially in the US today, the Diaspora offers an opportunity to escape your Jewishness.  Being Jewish is optional. 

Not everyone has a Hebrew or Jewish name.  It marks you.  Like a hooked nose, it may make you a target, or at the least embarrass you.

It’s easy, in the Diaspora, for a Jew to disappear.

Knowing that, we often wonder and ask ourselves, why is Jewish survival such in imperative that we invest so much of ourselves—our minds, our money, our very being—into being Jewish?

It’s a question people have asked throughout history.  Could it be that the reason is beyond our comprehension?  Could it really be that there’s a force out there, so humongous and penetrating that it moves us, despite the difficulties, despite the dangers, towards a goal few of us understand?  Skeptics and scientists speak of embedded DNA codes that stem from our animalistic and biological need to survive.  But that hardly answers the question of Jewish survival. 

Whatever it is, there must be some reason that compels us to be Jewish, to carry on the customs and traditions of our people.  Why else would we risk and sacrifice so much?  Why else would we gather at temples, volunteer to sustain communities and houses of study?  Why else would we—would YOU—step up to make sure a congregation such as ours continues to thrive?

Perhaps it’s because we’ve chosen to remember our Jewish heritage, to nurture it and see that it flourishes into the future.  Congregation B’nai Torah—the children of the Torah—we are B’nai Yisrael, the children of Israel, the descendants of Jacob who, so long ago, went to Egypt, carrying a dream with them.  Through our sacred work here, we make the dream come true day after day—and often enough, late into the night.

So what’s in a name?  Everything, it seems.  Everything we’ve ever been, everything we ever hope to be.  Our names tell the story of our ancestors, wandering from one land to another, from one eon into another.

We are B’nai Torah.  Like the Torah, our story is still unfolding, and we are its authors.

Our name dictates our deeds.

©2013 by Boaz D. Heilman

Stepping Up To Destiny--Vayigash

Stepping Up To Destiny

D’var Torah for Parashat Vayigash

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Stepping up to one’s destiny is the theme of this week’s Torah portion, Vayigash (Gen. 44:18-47:27).  It is in this portion that the story of Joseph and his brothers reaches its climax and conclusion.  It’s also here that the foundation for the rest of Israel’s story—its destiny of slavery and redemption—is laid.

The story of Vayigash picks up at the point where Joseph orders the arrest of Benjamin on the trumped-up charge of stealing Joseph’s Cup of Divination.  This is the ultimate test of the brothers’ honesty.  If they abandon Benjamin, they will be repeating history all over again.  Coming up with a way of saving him, however, might signal a new beginning, a chance for healing and redemption.

It is Judah’s place to speak up; he was the one, after all, who came up with the idea of selling Joseph to slavery in the first place.  Through the years, however, he has matured.  He has come to understand the results of his treachery.  He has seen the fall of the family, the sorrow that flowed unabated from Jacob, the guilt that spread like a poison among them all.  The death of two of his own sons taught him to understand a father’s grief.  His guilty conscience could bear no more.  Vayigash Yehuda, and so Judah stepped up.  Mustering all his courage, overcoming misery and despair, Judah approaches Joseph and lays his heart open before him:  “For how will I go up to my father if the boy is not with me? Let me not see the misery that will befall my father!" (Gen. 44:34). 

It is at this point that Joseph breaks down and tearfully reveals his true identity to his brothers.

It is a heartbreaking moment.  As the carefully built dam of forgetfulness gives way and collapses, a flood of repressed memories and emotions rushes and overcomes Joseph.  Joseph forgives his brothers and commands them to bring their father Jacob and his whole household down to Egypt, promising to settle them in the fertile region called Goshen, where he will sustain and take care of them all.

Without a moment’s hesitation, as he receives the news that Joseph is alive and well, Jacob leaves his homeland for the second and last time.  He knows he will never return—at least not during his lifetime.  Yet the chance to see Joseph one last time more than compensates for any sadness he might be feeling. 

Encouraged by God, Jacob sets Judah at the head of the procession, l’horot l’fanav, “to show the way before him to Goshen” (Gen. 46:28).  Jacob’s gesture shows his full confidence and regained trust in Judah.  But the literal meaning of l’horot, showing direction, is amplified by an early (3^rd century) Rabbinic midrash, which teaches that Jacob’s intention was for Judah “to establish a house of study for him, from which teaching [l’horot Torah] would emanate.”

Judah’s future role in Israel’s history is thus set in its twin purposes: to lead and to teach.  This is indeed the Judah whose –ism Jews have been following for over 3000 years.  Starting from deep depravity, Judah has found his way and come to find new purpose and meaning in life.  For Judah, stepping up to his historic role was an individual act of contrition, a deeply personal act of acceptance of responsibility.  For his brothers and for the nation that would follow him, this act would forever serve as an example and a teaching.  When called upon, we step up; when needed, we respond.

As for Joseph, however, the story leads to a different ending.  Having fulfilled his mission of reuniting and saving the family, Joseph returns to his first calling—the quest for fame and glory.  As the famine continues unabated, Joseph exacts any and all payment for the food he rations out.  When the money runs out, he takes work animals as compensation, then land and homes.  Finally, when all the wealth that could possibly be collected is gone, he takes the people themselves as slaves.  All Egypt becomes, quite literally, Pharaoh’s possession.

Ironically, Joseph, too, fulfills the task he was called upon to accomplish.  But whereas Judah’s “stepping up” will ultimately lead to redemption and freedom, Joseph’s acts lead to enslavement, followed by social upheaval, revolution, and finally to disaster.

Greatness is the consequence of the choices we make—to be there for one another, or selfishly to seek and accumulate wealth, power and glory, to fill our own coffers at the expense of everyone else.  History is the ultimate judge.

But for the time being, the Israelites in Goshen grow numerous and successful; they multiply and are fruitful. 

And so the scene is set for the next act is Israel’s long journey through history.

©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman

Praying for Second Chances--Mikeitz

Praying for Second Chances

D’var Torah for Parashat Mikeitz

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Dedicated to the memories of the children and adults murdered in Newtown, CT

It’s even hard to begin.  How does one reconcile Torah with the awful events that have taken place this day?  For if there’s one thing—and one thing only—that is eternal and never changing, it is the Torah.  But life can change.  It can change in a minute.

For some 30 families in Newtown, CT, Chanukah and Christmas will never be happy again.

The cheer of this season, the lights and colors—they are dimmed for all of us today because of the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, because of the many innocent lives that were snuffed out like so many candles.

In the terrible sadness that this tragedy brings to us all, perhaps Torah can serve by shedding some light.  It almost seems right, at this point in our telling of the story of Joseph, to understand how brother can turn against brother, how jealousy can turn to hate, how years of repressed anger can turn to murderous rage. 

But, also from the story Joseph and his brothers, we can learn that it’s possible to overcome this smoldering yearning for revenge, to transcend the hate, to stop the wreck before it happens and, perhaps, begin again. 

As the news of the school shooting in Connecticut unfolds, there’s already talk about the person who may have committed such a heinous act.  What sort of deranged mind could even conceive of such a horror?

One commentator proposed a PTSD explanation.

 

Posttraumatic Stress Syndrome.  This all-inclusive term covers much.  It is a syndrome—a process that begins somewhere, with some experience that transforms its bearer.  It’s a chain reaction of physical and psychological consequences, like some sort of Rube Goldberg machine that sets in motion a whole series of events.

Traumas—the emotional as well as physical injuries that sometimes trigger such  reactions—never fail to change us in some way or another.  The man that Joseph’s brothers encountered in Egypt was not the Joseph they had sold as a boy to a caravan of slave traders some 20 years earlier.  He was transformed in character and essence.  That he was no longer a boy was only the tip of the iceberg.  From slave, he had become second only to Pharaoh; from forgotten captive in a dank dungeon, he turned to the second most powerful man in the world.

Inwardly, too, Joseph had changed.  Gone was his naiveté.  Deeper and darker passions conflicted within him.  Along with power came pride and arrogance.  After all, he knew, didn’t he, that one day the world would come to recognize him for his greatness!  But simultaneously, seething within him was also anger at the supposed brothers who had trapped him, mistreated him, tore him from his pleasant childhood and cast him at the feet and mercy of slave traders.  He was angry with his father, who seemingly had set him up for this betrayal to begin with.  He was angry with a God who had promised him greatness but never mentioned suffering.

As this week’s parasha (Mikeitz, Genesis 41:1—44:17) begins, Joseph reaches the zenith of his glory and power.  And it is exactly at this moment, too, that his brothers appear at the doorway to his opulent palace, asking to purchase sustenance.  It’s a dangerous intersection in anyone’s life, when we find ourselves able to do almost anything we had ever wanted to do.

What was Joseph’s first reaction at that moment?

How does a whole lifetime of putting up elaborate façades crumble at the onrush of one’s past?  Can anything withstand the repressed memories, the pain, the rage and the hate that all converge at that exact moment?

Joseph could have had them all killed in an instant without a word of protest.  He could have thrown them into a pit as they did him, or sold them as slaves and sent them in galleys to the farthest ends of the world.

What changed his mind at that fateful instant?  What stayed his hand?

Some say that Joseph’s next acts were devious.  He was playing with his victims.  He teased them with his supposed magical ability to tell things about them that only they could know about—such as about fathers and sons, and brothers, and trust, and lying, and selling one’s brother to slavery.

Others would say that Joseph was really wrestling with his memories.  As the terrible events of that day, frozen in darkness for so long, now awakened inside him, he could have exacted revenge at any moment.  But, instead, even as he accused his brothers of being spies, he was also searching their hearts for a higher truth.  While waging battle with feelings and emotions, Joseph gave his brothers a chance to tell the truth, to come clean, to make things right again.

Our choices determine the course of our lives.  Giving the other person the benefit of the doubt rather than expressing certainty of their guilt can change things and turn them around.  Joseph’s delay of judgment, his decision to give his brothers a second chance, triggers yet another positive reaction.  Back at home again, the brothers tell their father, Jacob, that they cannot return to Egypt without their youngest brother, Benjamin.  To Jacob’s objections, Judah offers to protect Benjamin; he pledges himself to ensure that no harm would come to the child.

You see, in the end it comes down to the children.  Whether we protect them, shelter them and shield them from harm, or cause them pain and hurt instead—that is the true test of our worth.

Who has changed the most in this story?  Was it Joseph or Judah, the brother who had suggested selling Joseph to the slave traders in the first place and who now offers to do things differently and infinitely better?

Does it matter?

 

What really matters is that we learn that we have a higher obligation than merely taking care of ourselves.  Joseph inherently understands the lesson no matter how deep the pain, we must control our anger.  No matter how profound the trauma, we must learn to see beyond ourselves, beyond our own needs, and turn instead to the greater good.

It is this understanding that stops Joseph from harming his brothers.  He remembers his father, his dead mother, Rachel, and his younger brother, Benjamin.  At that moment he knows for a fact that he has yet one more thing to do in life, and that is to protect them from further hurt.  His sense of love and obligation win over his selfish and short-sighted urge for personal gratification.

In Judah’s case, it was his realization of how much grief his past deeds had caused, and the   understanding he suddenly had that it was in his power to salvage some of the past.  At the critical moment, Judah realizes that it is yet in his power to turn events for the better, that he was given the gift of a second chance, and that that which he had broken, he now had a chance to fix.

But stories are only that.  They have a beginning, middle and an end.  Good stories contain lessons, not only adventures, and as far as that goes, the story of Joseph and his Brothers is a wonderful story.

But life is another matter altogether.  There are few neat endings.  From events such as today’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School we do not recover.  There is no ending to the grief.  All we can do is offer compassion and consolation to the families of the killed and wounded—and, really, to us all.  Because the senseless deaths of children hurts us all.  It shatters our sense of shelter and security.  It undermines our reason for existence as a species. 

Tonight we can only pray for second chances, for the hope that, somehow, we’ll be able to begin again despite the pain, that there will somehow be a less tragic ending to this story too.

©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman

Joseph’s Fall--Vayeishev

Joseph’s Fall

D’var Torah for Parashat Vayeishev

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

The many twists and ironies of Vayeishev, this week’s Torah portion (Gen. 37:1—40:23), will lead up to the happy ending of Genesis.  This is the beginning of the story of Joseph and his brothers, a story of betrayal and treachery, of devastating grief for Jacob—who has already seen so much.  But it’s also a story of redemption and happy reunions, of cruel tests and cruel people who have to learn all about compassion and responsibility.

We are familiar with the general storyline.  Jacob favors Joseph above all his other sons; after all, Joseph is the first born of Rachel, whom Jacob loved and pined for, the same Rachel who died in giving birth to Benjamin, Jacob’s twelfth and last son.  Loved and cherished above all his brothers,  Joseph grows up knowing he can do no wrong.  He tells on his brothers and in return is rewarded by Jacob with a splendid tunic.

Like Jacob, Joseph is a dreamer, which is an additional connection between father and son.  But Joseph’s dreams are not of angels climbing up to heaven; they’re about him, enthroned above all his brothers.

One day, as Jacob sends Joseph to inquire after his brothers—as shepherds they wandered from place to place—they see him from a distance and decide to kill him.  Reuben, the first born of the twelve brothers, shows a measure of compassion and suggests casting Joseph into a pit instead of killing him outright.  He hopes to save the boy later but, at least for now, walks away.

Meanwhile, a caravan of traders approaches, and Judah (the same Judah whose –ism, whose teaching, we follow today) has the brilliant idea of selling Joseph to the traders.  After all, Judah reasons, what would killing the boy achieve?  If they sell him to the traders, however, they would be rid of him and even get some money back for their trouble.  They could always come up with some bloody story to tell Jacob.  If he believes them, good and well; if he doesn’t—oh well, he’s an old man anyway; he won’t be around forever either.

Joseph, as we know, is sold as slave to Poitphar, a high ranking officer in Pharaoh’s court.  Joseph is successful (did we mention he was very handsome?) and Potiphar pretty much gives him the run of the house. 

One day, Potiphar’s lusty wife tries to seduce Joseph.  Joseph, of course, rebuffs her.  Some rabbinic commentators say that every time Joseph felt the urge to give in to her entreaties, an image of his reproving father Jacob came to him, strengthening his resolve.  At last Joseph manages to escape—albeit without his tunic, however, which remains as evidence of what supposedly he tried to do to his master’s wife. 

In a fit of wrath, Potiphar throws Joseph into the dungeon.  But even here Joseph is successful.  He gains the trust of the jail keeper and achieves some fame as an interpreter of dreams. 

The portion ends after Joseph correctly predicts—from dreams they tell him—the hanging of one of Pharaoh’s imprisoned officers and the pardoning of another. 

Joseph asks the redeemed officer to remember him, but the man, in the flush of freedom and luxury, forgets all about Joseph, and our hero remains languishing in the prison.  

As the story will develop, so will its characters—and here lie the depth of this tale and the many lessons and morals it has to teach.  Suffice it to say that an unlikely hero will emerge to save the day.  But the time for that has not yet come.

©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman

29 November: A Day To Remember

29 November:  A Day To Remember

Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

In their dark and cold cells at the Nazi-run prison in the city of Pesc, Hungary, the three inmates—two men and a woman—probably didn’t sleep all night.  Scheduled to be hanged the next morning, they must have spent their final hours reflecting on what they had succeeded in doing—saving hundreds of Jewish lives—and what they failed:  to save themselves.  In those last moments, they probably thought of their families and of the many friends who would now have to complete their journey to safety on their own, without the crucial help only these three could provide.

But there was nothing else they could do.  And so, counting the hours and minutes, they waited for the executioner.  It was the night of November 28, 1944.

Three years later, the United Nations took an historic vote.  On the table was a plan to partition the land that the world called “Palestine,” a land Jews never stopped calling “Eretz Yisrael”—the Land of Israel.  Years earlier, at the end of World War One, the British were awarded a mandate over that part of what used to be the Turkish Ottoman Empire.  The British announced their intent to create a homeland for the Jews within the borders of that land.  Chopping one piece of it after another, they finally came up with a patchwork map organized around Moslem and Jewish centers of population. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to approve the partition of the Land of Israel according to this map.  The United States cast the deciding vote for partition.  Israel accepted.  The Arabs, however, refused to recognize the vote and declared their intention to destroy any Jewish state that would arise on what they considered Moslem property. 

The day after Israel declared its independence, armies from seven Arab countries attacked the fledgling state.  They were repulsed, but that did not stop them.  They tried again and again, in 1956, 1967 and 1973.  Defeated in full out war, they did not give up and turned to other violent means:  Terrorism, suicide bombings, two intifadas and a handful of limited, “regional” wars. 

Then came the thousands of Katyusha and Kassam rockets fired from Lebanon and Gaza, followed more recently by the longer-range Fajr 5 missiles that reached the outskirts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Still the Arabs failed.  And so they turned to legal battles. 

Last week, on November 29, ironically the same date as the 1947 vote on the first Partition of the Land of Israel, the United Nations took another vote, this time voting to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority to that of observer state.  Yet one more step toward the legitimization of the Arabs’ murderous claims on Jews and the Jewish homeland in Israel. 

The diplomatic victory that this vote represents was celebrated throughout the Arab world—and, sadly, in many western capitals as well.  Its clear meaning is that the Arabs are now one step closer to their sworn goal of destroying Israel.  Though not quite a full-fledged state, “Palestine” can now join the World Court and sue Israel on any number of “war crimes.”  Forget the indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israeli civilian population centers; forget the suicide bombings of homes, restaurants and synagogues.  Forget even the Iranian-funded and planned attacks on embassies, schools and Jewish community centers in California, Buenos Aires and elsewhere.  It’s Israel’s “crimes” that the world, led by Arabs, the world’s worst violators of human rights, will see fit to judge.

Israel’s reaction to the UN vote—announcing the building of more housing units in disputed areas—is probably the most peaceful protest against this injustice that Israel could make.  It could, of course, follow the example set by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt—assaulting and raping protesters in Tahrir Square.  It could engage in the kind of war Syria’s dictator Assad is waging against his own people. Israel could indiscriminately bomb the civilians population centers where Hamas and Hezbollah hide the weapons they aim and shoot against Israeli towns and schools.  But Israel won’t.  For Israel lives and fights by a different standard of morals and values.  Israel respects the lives of innocent men, women and children—especially those who have been exploited, abused and kept in ignorance and abject poverty for decades now by their own Arab leaders. 

Israel believes in justice and compassion, often willing to pay a high price in following its ideals.

But Israel is not suicidal. 

Israel knows better than to show weakness.  The long history of Jewish life in the Diaspora has taught us that perceived weakness is an excuse for further and ever-more violent attacks.  If the Palestinians want a piece of the Land of Israel, they need to make peace with Israel and recognize the legitimacy of Jewish presence in its own historical homeland, something they have adamantly refused to do so far.  Israel has repeatedly given up land, most recently withdrawing from the entire Gaza Strip without any reciprocal commitment to peace.  What Israel got in return was thousands of rockets fired at her.  Israel will not repeat this mistake.  Land for peace is its current philosophy.  Sophisticated attempts at grabbing pieces of Israel in the halls of the UN and the world court will only be met by more settlements and the building of more housing units.  It’s a clear message.

Languishing in prison, the three Jewish heroes imprisoned by the Nazis for trying to save Jewish lives awaited their execution.  Instead, miraculously, on November 29, 1944, on the very day set for their execution, the Russians liberated Pesc and freed the prisoners.  Danusha Firstenberg (now Deena Gilboa), Oleg Gutman (Gatmon) of blessed memory and Emil Brigg of blessed memory, three heroes, members of a Zionist youth group of which my mother was also a member, made their way to Israel and helped found, establish and secure the State of Israel.  Starting new lives and families, they set the date of their liberation (coincidentally also Danusha’s birthday) as a day of annual celebration, a get-together of all those youth group members who survived.  They, their children, grandchildren and now great-grandchildren, have been gathering on that day year after year now to tell and retell the stories of heroism, to celebrate their survival and to repeat the oath they took: that Jews will never again allow themselves to be led to the slaughter without armed resistance.

November 29—a day to remember; a day to repeat this oath of Jewish survival despite all obstacles.

©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman