Parasha Terumah

Chim-Chim-Cherubim

Our Torah portion for this week is Terumah.  Moses is asked by G-d to instruct the people to bring gifts and contributions from which a place of worship, called a Mishkan, or Tabernacle, will be built. In this parasha G-d also reveals the design of the mishkan, the ark, its furnishings and its vessels, and the priests' clothing.  Central to the Tabernacle was the ark, in which were kept the tablets of the Ten Commandments.  Atop the ark were to be figures called "cherubim".  These were creatures fashioned with the faces of children and the wings of birds.  Their faces were to look downward, toward the ark, and they were to face one another.  They were to be made of solid gold and sculpted out of one block of gold.  When G-d spoke to Moses, G-d's voice would emerge from between the two Cherubim which sat at each end of the cover of the Ark. Interesting choice for an adornment on the ark, don't you think?

It certainly challenges us to consider the symbolism of such an adornment. Perhaps it can be a reminder of the values that we imbue in our own children, a subject worthy of thought on a night of a baby-naming!  The cherubim's wings that are ascending to heaven might represent the ambitions that we have for our children, and that someday they will have for themselves.  The fact that their faces are turned down toward the Ten Commandments that sit within the ark could mean that no matter how high they may fly in the world, they must never lose sight of what grounds their existence, what makes their ambitions worthy of achievement and that is, the words of Torah.  No matter how high they may fly, may our children never lose our connection to G-d, or to the Jewish people.  Or perhaps, as someone else has suggested, the faces of the children look down toward the ark and toward one another, to teach that we must put the wisdom of the Torah to use in interacting with one another.  When our children face one another with love and with tenderness and with caring for one another, they make us feel golden.  Rabbi Shlomo Kruger of the 19^th century taught that the cherubim were made of gold to remind us that we should never compromise on the quality of education that we give to our children. Even if that should cost us much gold, we should be happy to do spend it, for these are our children. This especially applies to Jewish education.  It is a financial sacrifice to be a member of a synagogue, to give your child a proper Jewish education, to send them to a Jewish summer camp, to send them on a trip to Israel. 

The synagogue is the heir to the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. Like the Tabernacle of old, the synagogue is the place where Jews most often seek out G-d.  G-d speaks to us not from between the cherubim, but through study, through prayer, and through communal gatherings.  Just as the wings of the Cherubim stretch upward we must aspire to raise ourselves to a higher spiritual level.  Just as their faces are turned toward each other we can, through our communal life, help one another reach those higher spiritual levels.  Through our voluntary gifts of money, time, and other resources, we, like our ancestors in Biblical times, bring the realm of the holy into our lives and the lives of our children.  When we support our synagogue, we strengthen the Jewish people even as we strengthen ourselves as Jews.

 

Parasha Mishpatim

Let Holiness Suffuse our Lives

There are times in our lives when the presence of G-d is almost palpable – standing at the Grand Canyon at sunrise, witnessing the arrival of our children, experiencing the tenderness and concern of a community at times of loss.  A bar or bat mitzvah is usually one of these experiences in the life of the parent.  In it we sense something eternal, a connection to our past, a promise for the future.  We even have a special word in English for these moments – "numinous" – moments that are filled with the sense of divinity, of Godliness.  These are the peak experiences of our lives.

Such must have been the experience of the Israelites that we read about last week in the Torah portion.  They are gathered around Mount Sinai and the presence of G-d is manifest with thunder and lightning, the sound of the Shofar and the mountain smoking.  This was an overwhelming spiritual experience. The Torah tells us that the people stood at a distance, afraid lest they would die, while Moses approached the thick cloud, where G-d was.   

Yet we cannot live at the emotional peaks of our lives.  We eventually have to come down to the plains, and sometimes even to the valleys, where we live our lives.  This week's parasha, Mishpatim, brings us back to earth, so to speak.  It deals with the ordinary aspects of life, the mundane, everyday encounters, not with the divine, but with one another.  Mishpatim concerns itself with the laws of slavery, of assault, of respect for parents, of theft, of responsibility to our neighbors and our liability in the event of damage.  It tells us we should not mistreat the orphan or widow; that we should be fair to those who work for us, that we should show respect to our leaders.  Mishpatim teaches us that ritual is also important in our lives. We should celebrate our festivals – Passover, Shavuot, and Succot – we should eat Matzah on Passover and engage in the proper worship of G-d on all of the holidays. In juxtaposing the grandeur of Sinai with these laws of everyday life, the Torah is telling us that our spiritual connection to G-d can be found in both the extraordinary moments of life as well as our unremarkable, day to day  existence.

We may at times in our lives have "other worldly" experiences of G-d, which surpass the ordinary and can even overwhelm us with their beauty and spiritual power.   But we do not and cannot live our lives on that level.  For most times in our lives, G-d does not come out and grab us. Rather, it is up to us to bring Godliness into our lives and into our world. In living ethically, in living according to the way G-d wants us to live, we can suffuse our lives and the world with holiness. Parasha Mishpatim teaches us that we can bring holiness into our everyday existence.  By performing mitzvoth we transfer the lightning and thunder of our peak experience to the farthest corners of our lives.

 

 

 

Parasha Vaera 2012

The Torah tells us that when Moses protested that he could not go before Pharaoh because he could not speak, G-d answers: 

 ".......See, I place you in the role of God to Pharaoh, with your brother Aaron as your prophet.'" (Exodus 7:1)

What an astonishing statement!  What could it mean? A quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests one answer --
"A man is a little thing while he works by and for himself, but when he gives voice to the rules of love and justice, he is godlike."

Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

Congregation Beth Shalom

Naperville, Illinois

Parasha Shmot 2012

Recognizing the Good Done to Us by Others

This week we begin the Book of Exodus in our Torah reading.  The Book of Genesis left us last week at a high point – Jacob's family had settled in Egypt, in the Land of Goshen, under the protection of one of their own, Joseph, second in command to the Pharaoh.  The Pharaoh was clearly appreciative of all that Joseph had done to protect Egypt during the seven years of famine, and welcomed his family to Egypt. But following the death of Joseph, things changed. The text tells us that "there arose a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph." That Pharaoh enslaved the Jewish people and treated them harshly indeed.

How could it be that the succeeding Pharaoh could have been so ungrateful for what Joseph had done for his father?  How could he have not "known" about the service that Joseph had done for the royal family?  I imagine he chose "not to know".  In contrast to this example of gross ingratitude, consider the following story, told by R. Joseph Telushkin in his book You Shall Be Holy – A Book of Jewish Ethics:

Some years ago, Texas senator John Tower was nominated to become Secretary of Defense.  The Senate confirmation process became quite sordid when rumors started to circulate (many of which were later shown to be untrue) depicting Tower as a drunk, a womanizer, and corrupt.  While most of the Democrats instinctively turned against the Republican Tower (who had started his career as a Democrat), Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat, rose to speak in the Senate:  "Twenty-two years ago, my father, Senator Thomas Dodd, was on trial before this same Senate.  He was accused of financial misconduct . . . . [And there was one senator in particular] who stood up and defended my father and who made sure he was treated fairly, and that man was Senator John Tower.  We Dodds don't forget someone who does us a favor.  I owe John Tower.  I owe him the same fairness and the same careful judgment he showed to my father twenty-two years ago."  Later, Dodd broke ranks with his party and voted for Tower's confirmation. 

 

Now THAT'S how one should treat a person who has done good to your family!  In Hebrew we call it "hakarat hatov" – acknowledging the good that someone has done for us. We can show our appreciation not only to the person who has done that good for us, but also to their children and loved ones.  In fact, that can be even a more meaningful way of gratitude. Unfortunately, there has been many times in the history of the Jewish people when a "pharaoh" or leader arises who does not know Joseph.  

In the 11^th century, Muslims ruled Spain.  The Jews prospered under Muslim rule and commerce, literature and poetry flourished.  Jews were active in government service, and no one rose higher than Samuel Ibn Naghrela, the chief minister of the Berber Kingdom of Granada.  He became known as Samuel HaNagid, Samuel the Prince.  He commanded Muslim armies in the field – something not only unheard of, but actually forbidden under Islamic law.  He was an outstanding Talmudic scholar, a patron of the arts, a distinguished Arabic calligrapher, and one of the four great masters of medieval Hebrew poetry.  He patronized not only Jewish poets, but leading Muslim poets as well.  He once, in his writings, immodestly described himself as "the David of my generation."  Immodest, perhaps, but also quite true!

Yet Samuel's service to the government and to his country raised some resentment among some.  In the Islam of his time, Jews were to be tolerated and protected in a society, as long as they were humble.  Despite his service to the Kingdom, he, and his co-religionists, did not fit the mold that the Jew was supposed to conform to in Islamic society.  Following Samuel Ha-Nagid's death in 1056, his son, Joseph, was appointed in his stead.  He built a splendid palace overlooking the capital, which inflamed the masses.  There ensued a popular uprising in which Joseph was assassinated, and the Jewish quarter of Granada was attacked by the mob and burned to the ground.  That is a lesson in how NOT to treat the son of a man who has done you good!

Our sages said, "Whoever denies the favors done for him by his friend will in the end deny the favors done for him by the Almighty." They derived this from the story of Pharaoh. The Torah begins by telling us that Pharaoh "did not know Joseph."  Later Pharaoh asks Moses, "Who is G-d?"  Failing to appreciate what has been done for you by beings of flesh and blood is the first step that leads to eventually cutting oneself off from the Source of All. 

Let us rather emulate Jethro, Moses' father in law. The Torah tells us that when Moses runs away to Midian he comes to a well where the daughters of Jethro were watering their flocks. But a group of shepherds comes and drives them away. Moses saves them and waters their sheep.  When the daughters return home, they tell their father Jethro, "An Egyptian man saved us from the shepherds and he even drew water for us and watered the sheep."  Jethro was astonished that his daughters did not invite the man home. "Where is he? Why did you leave the man? We must invite him to dinner."  According to the midrash, the daughters explained that he was a fugitive from Egypt and had a price on his head.  Nevertheless, Jethro insisted that the summon Moses to their home. He recognized a favor when it was done and he realized the moral responsibility that comes with being the beneficiary of a favor. He understood that one of the most basic ethical traits a person must practice is to be appreciative for what one has received. G-d rewarded Jethro by giving him the best son-in-law a man could possibly hope for – Moses married Jethro's daughter, Zipporah! (Rabbi Yissocher Frand)

History gives us examples of the best of behavior and the worst of behavior. May we remember to show our appreciation and gratitude to those who have done us good.

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

--

Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

Congregation Beth Shalom

Naperville, Illinois

Leaving the Comfort Zone

Leaving the Comfort Zone

 

How do we build the courage to draw upon that light we discovered in December and move forward to a new life – spiritually, socially, financially, or educationally?  How do we gain the courage to leave our comfort zone, even when we know that place may not be the best place for us, and seek a new and better life? 

Think about Moses!  He left his comfort zone not once, but twice in his life! He was brought up in the comfort of the palace of the Pharaoh, the son of Pharaoh's daughter.  One day, says the Bible, when he grew up, he went out from the palace and saw the suffering of the Jewish people.  What made him go out of the palace?  Why did he expose himself to the suffering of others, when he could have lived his life in the splendid isolation of royal comfort?  According to the midrash, though his biological mother, Jocheved, was with him only in the earliest years of his life, she succeeded in imbuing him with a Jewish identity.  He left the palace, because he was curious about other Jews and how they lived.  When he saw their suffering and their toil, he could not bear it. He was moved to action. His life would never be the same again.

The Torah does not tell us how Moses gained the courage to leave his comfort zone the first time, or how he may have weighed the decision to see his fellow Hebrews.  We know more about his feelings the second time he left his comfort zone.  That was when he was a married shepherd with a son in Midian, and was called by G-d at the burning bush to return to Egypt and lead the Jewish people to freedom.  We do know that he was reluctant at first to undertake this monumental task. He had a great deal of anxiety.  "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?  What if the people do not believe me? Send someone else, for I am not a man of words. You have plenty of people You can send. It is not my role to lead the people out of Egypt."  Finally, G-d stopped trying to convince him, and commanded him to go.

Let us compare these two transitions in Moses' life. The first time, when Moses went out to see his brethren, he was acting on a desire that was unfolding within him. It was his own curiosity, his desire for connection with others like himself that led him to leave the confines of the palace and his old life.  His mother had planted the seeds within him early in life, and those seeds were now blossoming and bearing fruit.  The second time, in his meeting with G-d at the burning bush, he was dragged into a new life.  Whether G-d actually commanded him, or he only felt commanded, he could not, no matter how hard he tried, resist his duty.  This meant leaving a comfortable existence for the second time in his life and embarking on a new life with new challenges. 

We all have "Moses moments" in our lives.  There are times when the place that we are in becomes too restrictive for us.  Something within us, perhaps planted long ago, seeks expression.  We are no longer satisfied with the confines of our existence, and we take a risk to move forward to seek something new.  Like Moses, we cannot be sure what we will find, or how it will affect us.  Moses could not have known when he ventured beyond the palace walls, what he would discover, how he would react, or how it would change his life.  Then there are the times when we are, like Moses at the burning bush, dragged out of our comfortable existence against our will.  It may be through the loss of a job, a death of a spouse, an illness, an opportunity we cannot resist, a retirement, even a compelling spiritual experience.  Like Moses we feel we have no choice but to move on to a new life. 

We cannot know, when we take those first tentative steps toward something new, down what path it will lead us.  That is where courage comes in.  Robert Frost said that "Courage is the ability to act with limited knowledge and insufficient evidence. That is all any of us have, and so we must have the courage to go ahead and act on a hunch. It is the best we can do."  With perseverance, and with G-d's help, we can move on to a better, more satisfying life.

 

 

Parasha Toldot: Fathers and Sons

Fathers and Sons

 

In my little town
I never meant nothin'
I was just my fathers son
Saving my money
Dreaming of glory
Twitching like a finger
On the trigger of a gun 

As Paul Simon writes, it can be tough to be the son of a well-known father.  Sometimes sons follow in their famous fathers' footsteps – Michael Douglas and Kirk Douglas, George W. Bush and George HW Bush, Peyton Manning and Archie Manning, are three examples that come to mind.  Other sons seem to rebel against their famous fathers --Ronald Reagan Jr, the son of the Republican president is a noted liberal commentator in America. Jim Morrison, the Doors singer, was the son of Admiral George Stephen Morrison. Admiral Morrison was the head of American naval forces during the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which led to US involvement in the Vietnam war. His son, however, became a global rock star and sex symbol of the counter-culture which opposed that war. They did not speak much.

So our parasha begins, "This is the story of Isaac son of Abraham; Abraham begat Isaac."  Yes, we get it! – Abraham is Isaac's father.  We were informed last week, when Abraham purchased a gravesite for his wife Sarah, that he was known as a mighty prince of G-d.  This opening verse of this parasha all but announces that Isaac grew up in the shadow of his illustrious dad.  Make no mistake about it, before this point it was all Abraham's story.  How Abraham rejoiced at the birth of his son, Isaac. How he almost slaughtered his son. How he sent his servant to find a wife for his son. How he bequeathed to his son "all that was his".  How he protected his son by sending all of his other children away.  Throughout it all, Isaac is a passive participant in the drama that is Abraham's life.

Yet Isaac has a difficult and unprecedented task before him – one not faced by his own father, Abraham.  Isaac is the first person in Jewish history who has to pass down the Jewish tradition that he learned from his mother and father to his own children.    

How successful are Rivkah and Isaac in passing on the tradition of Abraham and Sarah to their children, Jacob and Esau?  Consider this: Esau is 40 years old when he marries for the first time. He marries two Canaanite women. The Torah tells us that this causes despair to his Isaac and Rivka.  Later on, we have the following account in scriptures:

"When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Padan-aram, there to take a wife for himself, blessing him and instructing him: "Do not take a wife from among the daughters of Canaan …. Esau understood that his father Isaac looked with disfavor on the daughters of Canaan ….."

Apparently, communication was very poor in this family. It was not until after his own  marriage to two Canaanite women, when he overheard Isaac blessing Jacob telling him not to take a wife from among the Canaanites, did he understand that he had displeased his parents!  How is poor Esau supposed to know not to marry a Canaanite woman if his parents never teach him that!

Then there is Jacob. On his way to Padan-aram, he has a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder. Upon awakening he makes a vow, "If G-d is with me and watches over me on the path that I am taking … and if I return safely to my father's house, then Adonai will be my G-d!"  "IF!?"  Clearly, Jacob also has not yet accepted the G-d of his father.

What accounts for this difficulty of Isaac and Rivka in passing along the Jewish tradition to their sons?  I think it has to do with Isaac's history. Not only was he the unremarkable son of an accomplished father, but he endured a great trauma in his life. After all, His father tried to kill him in the name of G-d.  Would you blame him, and Rivka, if he was at best ambivalent about passing the religion of his father on to his children? 

In a sense, Isaac represents the untold numbers of Jews throughout history who struggled to pass Judaism on to their children. Sometimes they struggled because of the suffering and persecution they themselves endured because they were Jews. They had mixed feelings about passing the burdens of being a Jew to their children. On a more prosaic note, many parents in our own time may be ambivalent about sending their children for religious education because of their own negative experiences in the Hebrew School of their youths. 

Surely we can identify with the challenge of Isaac and Rivka to pass their Judaism on to their children.   Like Isaac and Rivka, we all do this imperfectly.  Ultimately, with all of their flaws, they succeeded in passing their Judaism on to Jacob. May we, with all our flaws, succeed in this endeavor as well.

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

One Hundred Blessings a Day

One Hundred Blessings A Day

From where do we get the idea that a Jew should recite 100 blessings a day?  This comes from a verse in Parasha Ekev, "What does G-d ask of you? Only to fear G-d your Lord…and to love Him."  Our sages teach, "Do not read Mah (dn),"What", rather insert an Alef and read Me'ah, 'One hundred'. This yields the meaning,  "One hundred does G-d ask of you-this will lead you to fear G-d…and to love Him."

Is it really possible to recite 100 blessings a day in our age of cell phones, 200 cable channels, and other distractions in our lives?  Let's count!  Jews pray three times a day – shacharit, mincha, and ma'ariv. Each "amidah" in each of these prayer-times has nineteen blessings.  So, we start out with 19x3 or 57 blessings.  Add to that the 15 blessings we recite when we wake up in the morning, known as the "Berachot HaShachar".  These were once said immediately upon awakening each morning, but are now recited in the synagogue.  That makes 72 blessings – we are almost ¾ of the way there!  In the morning prayers there are 2 blessings before the Shema and one afterward.  In the evening prayers there are 2 blessings before the Shema and 2 afterward.  Those 7 bring us to 79 total.  We're getting there! We also eat 3 meals a day.  If there is a meal with bread served with it, we recite 2 blessings, the first upon washing our hands, and the second the "motzi".  If we eat a meal with no bread, we recite only one blessing before it.  Let's say we eat one meal a day with bread, and two without bread.  That would add 4 blessings, for a total of 83.  Now there are the blessings after a meal:  Four blessings after a meal with bread, one for a meal without bread.  That is another 6 blessings and we are up to 89.  So close that I can feel it!! Let's add one, "Yishtabach" that all of our bar and bat mitzvah students learn for Shabbat morning, and which also appears on weekday morning services.  We are now up to ninety blessings, without trying at all.

OK. Clearly, I need to eat another meal with bread in it every day.  Take away the 2 blessings I said for my non-bread meal, and add the 6 I say for a meal with bread, and I am up to 94 blessings a day!!  Only six more to go.  One for putting on the Tallit in the morning … five more. Two more for putting on tefillin. That leaves THREE BLESSINGS to reach ONE HUNDRED.   Now, if one can find 97 blessings, one can surely find 3more. 

So that is the teaching from our tradition.  Ninety seven blessings, prescribed for us, without having to think much about it.  Three blessings that we need to discover for ourselves, each and every day.

Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph