Parasha Ekev: It's What's Inside that Counts

In 2008, researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan published a study to try to understand why putting an animal on the label of a bottle of wine – a kangaroo or a duck for example -- more than doubled the wine’s sales in the United States!  This strategy goes against the conventional wisdom that holds that, in order to be successful, a design should be highly relevant to the product that it seeks to represent. The researchers concluded that consumers were buying these wines because they identified with the animal on the label, that they associated these animals with themselves.

It is not only wine labels that sell wine. It turns out that you CAN sell a book by its cover. In fact, attractive packaging and labeling of any product is important to its ultimate commercial success. Now imagine going to a wine store and choosing a bottle of wine with the cutest frog on the label. When you check out, the clerk asks you, “Would you like wine in that bottle?” It turns out that you have bought the bottle, without the wine. The bottle you picked up only has water in it. Or you go to a book store and the cover of a book catches your eye. You go to purchase the book and the clerk asks you, “Would you like the words to this book?” You open the book, and stare at the blank pages. You have purchased the book, but nothing is inside.

Farfetched, you say? Yet, this is exactly what happens when we go to purchase one of the most familiar religious articles in all of Jewish life, a religious object that is so common we hardly even notice it.

In this week’s Torah reading we find the second paragraph of the Shema. In it, we are commanded to affix the mezuzah to the doorposts of our homes.  If we want to buy a mezuzah, we can either to a Judaica store, or to Amazon.com.  Amazon has many objects that are described as a mezuzah. There is the “married mezuzah” depicting a bride and a groom. There is a “winding scroll mezuzah” in the form of a Torah. There is a “seashell mezuzah” and a “granite crystal mezuzah” and even a mezuzah with pomegranates winding up its face --all graceful, beautifully designed and rather pricey. But although they are advertised as “mezuzahs” they are not mezuzahs. They are mezuzah cases. The case could be made of any material, in any design. It could be inexpensive or costly. But it is not a “mezuzah” unless it has a kosher scroll inside. If it does not have a kosher scroll inside, or if the kosher scroll has a defect in it, it is not considered an authentic mezuzah.

Many people don’t know this. Amazon certainly doesn’t tell you, and most Judaica stores will not tell you either. The mezuzah you buy at a store or on-line most often comes with a printed scroll, on paper. Unless you realize that the scroll has to be hand written on parchment by a scribe, you will put up your mezuzah with the paper scroll. You have the equivalent of a book cover with no words inside.

What matters about a mezuzah, just as in a bottle of wine or a book, is not what the cover looks like, it is what is inside. This is especially true of human beings.   You have probably never heard of Ed Feinhandler.  Mr. Feinhandler has appeared on a number of national television and radio talk shows, and was a contestant on television’s “Wheel of Fortune” a few year back. Ed can possibly lay claim to being America’s ugliest man. He has won 15 “Ugly Man” contests in a row, competing with men from across the country in this unusual annual contest. Yet he displays a heart of gold, so to speak.  Over the years Mr. Feinhandler has donated over $50,000 in his winnings to various charities. He has coached middle school and high school boys’ and girls’ basketball and tennis. He uses his mini-van with a license plate that reads “Mr. Ugly” to pick up underprivileged children during the summer to give them free tennis lessons.

Ed writes on his Facebook page that he is recovering from surgery. He writes, “As I was recovering slowly, I helped a lady with her loaded shopping cart at Walmart. She looked pretty tired and I took the bags to her at the back of her truck to make it easier on her. She thanked me three times. I held the door for twenty people at the movie theater and eight thanked me. One actually got even by holding the door for me when I left. I gave a homeless fellow five dollars to get some food at Wendy's”………He goes on in detail about the many things he has bought recently -- acne medicine, eyebrow cream, hair dye, two bottles of pink lemonade, art supplies, dental floss, pajamas, towels, and so forth – “all for the under-privileged children of northern Nevada.”

We all probably know people like Ed ourselves -- People whose beauty resides, not in their outer appearance, but in their hearts. Clearly beauty has little to do with what you see on the outside; and all to do with what is inside. You can purchase the fanciest mezuzah cover for thousands of dollars, but if the twenty five dollar parchment inside is defective, what is it, really? And you can have all the wealth in the world, but without values to guide your life, what are you, really? Ultimately, it is what is inside that really counts. 

Shabbat Shalom

The Menorah

 I and other Chicagoland Rabbis walked carefully, single file, down the narrow, dark and musty passage of the cavern that was part of the Jewish Catacombs of Rome. These catacombs are the ancient burial place of the Jewish community that lived in Rome before, during and well after, the time of Jesus. Above and to the sides of many of the burial places there are depictions of the menorah --but not he menorah that we are used to seeing. To our shock and astonishment, these seven branched candelabras stood on what seemed to be a tripod! 

The Menorah is one of the oldest Jewish symbols. In the Book of Exodus, G-d shows Moses the design of the Menorah, which is then executed by the artisan Bezalel. It is made out of one block of pure gold. In this week’s Torah portion, Aaron is commanded to light the Menorah in the Tabernacle every evening. Perhaps the most famous depiction of the Menorah, the one that shapes our idea of what the Menorah in the Temple looked like, is found in bass relief on the Arch of Titus in Rome. After the Roman general Titus destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, Rome erected a triumphal arch at the entrance of the Roman Forum to commemorate the event. The south panel of the arch depicts the sacred objects looted from the Temple and brought to Rome. The most prominent among them is the Menorah. The menorah depicted on the Arch of Titus was quite unlike the ones we saw in the catacombs with a tripedal base.The Menorah on the Arch of Titus was a stepped polygonal base.  

We don’t know the reason for the difference. Did King Herod re-design the menorah when he expanded the Temple, replacing the tripedal base with a stepped polygonal one?  Or, because of the sacred nature of the Menorah, was it always depicted in art a little differently than it was in reality? The Bible never describes the base of the Menorah. So, this remains a mystery. 

The founders of the modern State of Israel decided to use the Menorah as the central symbol on the national emblem. But, which depiction of a Menorah should they use? What model should they follow? They could follow the model of the menorah on the Arch of Titus. But that was a symbol of foreign conquest. Or, they could use the model that was widespread in antiquity, the tripedal model found on coins, at burial sites and on the mosaic floors ancient synagogues. It may surprise you what they chose, and why. 

The Menorah that appears on the official Emblem of the State of Israel, flanked by two olive branches, is the Menorah as depicted on the Arch of Titus. In using this image, the founders took a symbol that represented defeat, destruction and humiliation and turned it into a symbol representing triumph and rebirth. The Menorah that had been carried away to Rome would now, symbolically, at least, be returned to the Land of Israel as a symbol of the new state. While the Roman Empire had its day and would be no more, the Jewish people had endured and would rise again in a modern Jewish State.  

Moreover, that depiction of the Menorah on the Emblem of the State of Israel is flanked by two olive branches, one on the right and one on the left. These olive branches represent the hope for peace. The image as a whole also brings to mind the vision of Zachariah in this week’s Haftorah. In his vision, Zachariah sees a menorah between two olive trees. An angel asks him if he knows what that means, but Zachariah confesses that he does not understand the vision. It means, explains the angel, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, says G-d.” 

Perhaps Zachariah’s vision represents the only chance for peace between Israel and her neighbors. Neither Israelis nor the Palestinians will achieve peace through the naked use of might or power. In order to achieve peace, both sides will need to have something of the “spirit of G-d” in them. They will need to compromise and to recognize one another as human beings entitled to live freely and securely on their own piece of earth. Both sides will need to give up some of their most cherished dreams, chief among them, to put it baldly, the fantasy that the other side will simply disappear.  

Judging from the events of the past month, we still seem to be far from a time of peace. Yet, I believe there is hope. The Jerusalem Talmud records an opinion that the word for heavens --“shamayim”, in Hebrew, is a composite formed out of two Hebrew words, Aish, meaning “fire” and “mayim”, meaning water. That is, G-d brought these two competing elements, fire and water, together in order to create the heavens. According to this midrash, the water immediately tried to extinguish the fire, and the fire in turn tried to evaporate the water! Each wanted to obliterate the existence of the other. G-d was able to bring peace between them, because they were both needed to make “shamayim” -- the Heavens.  This is the meaning of the phrase --”Osheh Shalom Bimromav: “May the One Who makes peace  above make peace for Israel and all humankind.”  

Like the fire and water in the heavens, Israelis and Palestinians need one another. May the spirit of G-d enter both so they can create a little bit of Heaven in the Middle East.  

Shabbat Shalom 

  

Parasha Devarim Do You Believe in Miracles?

In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses assembles the Israelites and recounts the past forty years of their experience together.  As we know that experience includes the miracles of the plagues in Egypt and the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea.   “Yet the Eternal has not given you a mind to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear until this day”, says Moses to the gathered Israelites.

What does he mean by this? Moses means that while the miracles were happening the Israelites did not   realize that they were in fact, miracles. Darkness descended upon the Egyptians, but not in the places where the Israelites lived. The Egyptian first born were killed, but the angel of death passed over the homes of the Jewish people. The Sea split, and the Israelites walked through on dry land and the Egyptians were drowned.    Moses says that those experiencing these miracles did not understand that these were miraculous events. Only forty years later, the “until this day” of the above passage, did the Jewish people understand that these were, indeed, miracles. This teaches us that it takes time and distance from the event itself – in this case, forty years – to see the miraculous for what it is.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner tells the story of Reuven and Shimon, two ordinary Israelites, who never once looked up as they crossed the Red Sea. They only noticed that under their feet the ground was a little muddy – like a beach at low tide.

“Yucch,” said Reuven, “there’s mud all over this place.”

“Bleech,” said Shimon, “I have muck all over my feet.”

“This is terrible,” said Reuven, “When we were slaves in Egypt, we had to make our bricks out of mud, just like this.”

“And so it went, Reuven and Shimon whining and complaining all the way to freedom. For them there was no miracle. Only mud.”

The Israeli poet Yehudah Amichai, who died in 2000, writes about this phenomenon in a poem:

From a distance everything looks like a miracle

but up close even a miracle doesn’t look like that.

Even someone who crossed the Red Sea when it split

saw only the sweating back

of the man in front of him

and the swaying of his big thighs,

or at best, in a hasty glance to one side,

fish in a riot of colors inside the wall of water,

as in a marine observatory behind panels of glass.

I think the poet is expressing in these beautiful words that, seen from the proper perspective, all of life can be recognized as a miracle. But when we are too close to it, when we are experiencing it, we often miss it. Like Reuven and Shimon in our story, we are keeping our eyes down, focused on the task, and, never looking up, or around, we miss it! The poem continues:

The real miracles happen at the next table

of a restaurant in Albuquerque:

two women sat there, one with a diagonal

zipper, altogether lovely,

and the other said, “I kept it together

and didn’t cry.”

The narrator of our poem, however, sees the miracles in everyday life. We wonder about the snatch of conversation he reports he hears from the next table in the restaurant. “I kept it together and didn’t cry”. Was this woman talking about confronting her superior around a work issue? Was she leaving her husband? Was the miracle that she “kept it together” where she expected she might fall apart? Or, is the miracle the narrator perceives the fact that we can share our struggles with sympathetic friends, we can receive comfort and consolation from others following a difficult encounter or situation? We don’t think of that as “a miracle”, but perhaps it is. The poem concludes:

And after in the red corridors

of the foreign hotel I saw

boys and girls who held in their arms

 tiny children born of them,

and they held

sweet little dolls.

The poet then moves to the red corridor of the hotel in which he is staying. He sees “boys and girls” holding small children born to them, who themselves hold baby-dolls in their arms. To the older narrator, I think, the young adults he sees with their children are merely, “boys and girls” – children themselves. The baby-dolls held by the children represent the future generation that one day these children will themselves give birth to and nurture. This is the miracle of birth and death in general, and perhaps the miracle of the continuity of the Jewish people in particular.

Think of something that happened to you in your lives, something that, because you were part of it, you saw “only the mud beneath your feet.” Think of an experience that, if you were to take a step back and look at things from a distance, you might say to yourself: “I lived through a miracle. I passed through the sea, on dry land. Only I didn’t see it at the time.”   Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Balak - The Power of Praise

I was browsing through the stacks in our synagogue library this week when I came across a book published ten years ago by one Lita Epstein. I had never heard of the author but I was intrigued by the title of the book:   If You Can’t Say Anything Nice, Say it in Yiddish: The Book of Yiddish Insults and Curses.  As some of you know, Yiddish is a very colorful language. I’ll  share a few  a few choice curses from this book. Just to be clear the definition of curse is an invocation for harm or injury to come upon one. I won’t be using any “swear words”, in English or in Yiddish.

Ale tsores vos id hob oyf mayn hart-en zoln oygeyen tsu dayn kop)  All the troubles that weigh on my heart should fall on your head!

  Migulgel zol er vern in a heng-lay-ter – bay tog zol er hengen, un bay nacht zol er brene . He should be transformed into a chandelier to hang by day and to burn by night!

S’zol dir vaks-en a gesh-ver oyf-en pupik . May a boil grow on your belly button!

Ale tsey-en zoln dir a-roys-falen, nor eyner zol dir blayben – oyf tson-vey-tik.  May all your teeth fall out except one to give you a toothache!

All this by way of introducing our Parasha for this week. The Israelites are on the march to the Land of Canaan. After 40 years in the desert, they are about to enter the land. They have conquered Sichon, king of the Ammorites, and Og, the King of Bashan. They are encamped outside of Moab. The King of Moab, King Balak, is determined to do battle with the Israelites. He has seen the fate of the other Kings that have dared to fight against Israel. King Balak decides to get something that SIchon, king of the Ammorites and Og King of Bashan did not have. Balak feels he needs an edge, a secret weapon, with which to go into battle. So, he tries to acquire for himself cutting edge technology, at least for 1250 BCE.

He sends emissaries to Bilaam, a pagan prophet.  According to the Torah, Whoever Bilaam blesses, is blessed. And whoever Bilaam curses, is cursed. As is the case in much of the Torah, the text is condensed, and a lot is left unexplained. For example, I would have liked to know how Balak went about finding a person in this line of work! Did he google him? Does Bilaam have more “Likes” on his Facebook page? Is he highly rated on Yelp? Did Balak find him through Emily’s List?  Sometimes I forget how we ever found anybody before we had computers, but somehow Balak found Bilaam and hired him on.

At this point, it seems that the story can go one of two ways. Remember that Bilaam deals in both blessings and curses – whoever he blesses is blessed, whoever he curses, is cursed. Will King Balak hire Bilaam to bless? Or, will King Balak hire Bilaam to curse? If he hires Bilaam to bless, perhaps he will ask BIlaam to bless him. If he hires Bilaam to curse, he will surely ask him to curse the Israelites.

Just like Bilaam, each one of us has the power to raise people up or bring people down with our words. It does not have to be, as in our Yiddish examples, with a curse uttered intentionally. In many ways, our self-perception and therefore our self-esteem is molded by the words and actions of significant others in our lives – by our parents, siblings, grandparents,  friends, neighbors, teachers  ,  clergy,  coaches, and so forth.  For example, when I was in the fifth grade, our music curriculum consisted of singing. There were no school bands, no elementary school orchestras. The music teacher led us in learning the American songbook. That year, I was chosen by our music teacher to be part of a small group of classmates who would lead the singing for the annual school holiday celebration. My teacher told me I had a talent for singing. That experience not only raised my self-esteem but made me notice my own voice -- as others seemed to like it. Her comment was a gift that stayed with me for the rest of my life. It gave me the confidence to try out for the high school musical. It gave me the confidence to lead the congregation in my synagogue. But that same music teacher divided her regular classes into two groups – “singers” and “non-singers”. The non-singers were told they simply had to listen when the class sang – they were to remain silent!!! ! Just as it was a blessing for me to be told I  had a good voice , I imagine it  must have hurt my peers  who  were  labeled as “non-singers” by our fifth-grade music teacher. Who knows what the long-term effect was of being told at age 10 that you should not sing?

We all know the word for “Blessed” in Hebrew – Barukh. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the word “Barukh” can also be translated as “praised”. When we praise another person, we truly bless them as well.  Praise is a blessing that we can bestow upon one another every day. A few months ago Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote about a remarkable woman he had known, the late Lena Rustin. She founded a speech clinic in London that treated children who stuttered.  The average patient was 5 years old. But Lena Rustin did not just address the technical aspects of achieving fluent speech. She focused on the entire individual and their families. She believed that for a child to stop stuttering, relationships within the family had to change. She gave each family member an assignment. Every day each family member had to find at least one thing that another family member did and praise them for it. This was especially important for the parents to do with each other. Lena Rustin hoped that this simple gesture, repeated daily, would help build family members self esteem and give them the confidence to change and to grow. Seeing this, the child who stuttered would find the courage to change as well. Follow up interviews revealed that not only had the stutterer been helped, but the marital relationship of the parents had improved. Many couples reported that it had saved their marriage!

Praise is a blessing.  A kind word can boost an individual, improve a marriage, and uplift a family. It is a simple gift we can give one another every day. Let us make an effort each day to find something for which to praise our spouse, praise our children,  praise our friends, praise our employees.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Chukat -- Building Up or Tearing Down?

This week’s parasha is beloved by rabbis around the world because is so much in it to sermonize about! The parasha opens with the ritual of the red heifer. It is a mysterious Biblical sacrifice that has the power to purify a person who comes into contact with the dead.  Nobody understands how this mitzvah works. How can the ashes of a red cow, mixed with water, hyssop and red dye, have the power to purify? There is a great story about this in the Talmud. An idolater once challenged R. Johanan b. Zakkai, "These rites that you perform look like witchcraft,” he said.  “You bring a heifer, burn it, pound it, and take its ashes.  If one of you is defiled by a dead body, you sprinkle upon him two or three drops and you say to him, 'Thou art clean!' I never heard of a more ridiculous thing in my life. "

R. Johanan asked him, “What do you do in your religion when a person is seized by madness?” “Well,” replied the idolater, “We need to get rid of the demon that has possessed him. So, we bring roots and make them smoke under him. Then we sprinkle water upon the person and the demon flees.' Said R. Johanan to him, "Did you hear what you just said! This is precisely what we are doing. The Water of Purification is sprinkled upon the person and the unclean spirit flees.' The idolater was satisfied with the answer and departed. When he had gone, R. Johanan's disciples said to their master, 'Master! That was a good story to tell him, but what explanation will you give to us?' Said he to them, “There is no rational explanation. It is simply G-d’s law.”

Such a law in Hebrew is called a “Chok” or a mitzvah that defies understanding. We just do it because it is a divine law. It is written that even King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, could not discern how this ritual could possibly be effective. In this week’s parasha, in addition to the death of Miriam and the death of Aaron, we have G-d’s decree that Moses will not live to enter the Land of Canaan. Commentators have puzzled for literally millennia to figure out what great sin Moses committed to warrant such punishment. If a “chok” is a law without a reason, this seems like a punishment without rhyme.  Some commentators point out that Moses was commanded by G-d to speak to the rock to bring forth water and satisfy the people’s thirst. Instead, he struck the rock with his rod. Others say that he took credit for bringing forth water from the rock, instead of giving G-d credit. The 17^th century Italian rabbi Shmuel David Luzatto writes that listing all the commentaries on this yield thirteen sins that Moses may have committed. He himself declined to investigate the matter further lest he find even more sins committed by Moses and further besmirch his reputation.

My own thoughts on this matter are that Moses most likely suffered from what we would call today “burnout”. He has become angry and frustrated by a people that he has been carrying on his back for forty years. He is not longer able to encourage them, to inspire them, to support them. “Listen, you rebels,” he says to the people of Israel, “You want me to get water out of a rock?” G-d needs a leader who will reinforce the good in people, who will emphasize their strengths rather than remind them of their faults as they face the enormous challenge of conquering the Land of Canaan.

Consider this poem, titled "The Wrecking Crew". It asks us to look at ourselves honestly and answer the question -- do we build others up, or do we tear others down? 

“I stood on the streets of a busy town,

Watching men tearing the building down;

With a ‘ho heave ho,’ and a lusty yell,

They swung a beam—and a sidewall fell.

I asked the foreman of the crew,

‘Are those men as skilled

As those you’d hire if you wanted to build?’

‘Ah no,’ he said, ‘no indeed,

‘Just common labor is all I would need.’

‘I can tear down in a day or two

‘As would take skilled men a year to do.’

And then I thought as I went on my way,

Just which of the two roles am I trying to play.

Have I walked life’s road with care?

Measuring each deed with rule and square?

Or am I one of those who roam the town,

Intent with the labor of tearing down?”

Which are we?  Do we encourage and support others, or do we bring a critical and negative attitude to our relationships?  Are our remarks fashioned to help others to grow, or do our conversations with them belie our envy of their success and their ambitions? Do we bring an optimistic disposition to our interactions with others, or is our mindset cynical and disparaging? I am afraid Moses had tipped to the negative pole of these opposite traits, and that is why he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land.

Shabbat Shalom

SOZ  2025

FVJC 2025

Parasha Shalakh Lekha: The Rewards and Challenges of Listening to Others

Billy Planer is the director of Etgar, which means “challenge” in Hebrew. I learned about him, online, through his participation in the ELI talks, a Jewish version of the TED talks. Etgar is a summer camp that takes Jewish teens to different locations in the United States. These teen agers meet people who are quite unlike them, people from different socio-economic backgrounds, different religions, different races,  as well as different ethnicities and political views. Billy Planer developed this idea after thinking about all the trouble we have in our world – the war, the terrorism, the discrimination in all its pernicious forms. What if, he thought, instead of acting out of fear, mistrust, and ignorance, people put their energies into trying to understand one another? Would we be able to make the world a better place? The object of these trips is to expose adolescents to different points of view, to teach them to dialogue with those with whom they might disagree, and to challenge their preconceived notions of what is true. It also gives these campers the opportunity to challenge others, and to help find things in common with those who at first seem to be so much unlike them.

Acting out of fear, mistrust and ignorance is nothing new. In our Torah portion for this week, Moses confronts a rebellion led by Korach, Datan and Aviram. Taking advantage of the collapse of morale following the failure of the Israelites to enter the the Land of Canaan, they attempt to depose Moses and Aaron as leaders. Moses tries to talk to them, to understand their concerns – which, on the surface seem legitimate -- and perhaps help them to understand his side. In other words, Moses wants to dialogue, and to speak words of peace. But, the Torah tells us, they refuse to talk.

As we also know, the Talmud is full of disputes between the sages. This evening I want to tell you about two of the Talmud’s most famous friends and adversaries -- Rabbi Yochanan and his student, Reish Lakish. Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish come from totally different backgrounds. Rabbi Yochanan began his studies as a child under the greatest rabbi of his time, Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Nasi. He grew up immersed in Torah learning. Reish Lakish, on the other hand lived the life of an outlaw. He was reputed to have had great physical strength as well as a wild, even violent nature. A chance meeting with Rabbi Yochanan led Reish Lakish to abandon his life as a bandit to study Torah. The two men, teacher and student, became fast friends. Reish Lakish even marries Rabbi Yochanan’s sister.  He matures into a formidable scholar in his own right, and his reputation as a great man grows. One day Rabbi Yochanan encounters Resh Lakish in the study house lecturing students on a matter of halacha. Rabbi Yochanan disagrees with Resh Lakish's conclusions. The argument over the point of Jewish law between the two becomes heated and insults begin to fly.  Both men become physically ill. Reish Lakish’s wife is called to the House of Study. Seeing her husband so sick, she pleads with her brother, Rabbi Yochanan, to pray on his behalf. But Rabbi Yochanan, still angry with Reish Lakish refuses. Reish Lakish died.

When Rabbi Yochanan realizes what has happened he became inconsolable. His colleagues wonder what they could do for him. “Send Rabbi ben Pedat, a brilliant scholar, to sit with him,” suggests one of them. So, Rabbi ben Pedat goes to study with Rabbi Yochanan. Whenever Rabbi Yochanan would say something, Rabbi ben Pedat would bring a text to support his teaching. But this makes Rabbi Yochanan miss Reish Lakish all the more. “When I would say something to Reish Lakish,” he would say “he would bring me 24 objections to which I would give 24 solutions. All you do is bring me texts that support me. Don’t you think I know I am right?”

The Talmud is silent about the underlying feelings that might have led to the disagreement that fateful day.  Ruth Calderon, an Israeli scholar, suggests that Rabbi Yochanan may have felt a growing resentment for his student’s reputation as a teacher, and his popularity among the students of the beit midrash. Perhaps his student Resh Lakish had a charisma that his teacher Rabbi Yochanan envied. At the same time, she posits, Reish Lakish may have begun to realize how much of his personality, that part of himself that enjoyed the freedom and mischief of being an outlaw in his younger years, had to be submerged in order to be accepted in these scholarly circles. The feelings of both men, long submerged, erupt suddenly and unexpectedly, with tragic results.

Engaging with those who have opinions different from our own can be a rewarding experience.  As we can see in this story, Rabbi Yochanan values Reish Lakish precisely because the two hold very different points of views. Those respective differences could very well have stemmed from their coming from totally different backgrounds.  When the sages try to find Rabbi Yochanan another study partner, Rabbi Yochanan rejects him. He doesn’t want someone to agree with him. He wants someone to challenge him.

Exposure to different points of view, reaching out to those who are different from us, can be a highly rewarding experience.  It can help us grow as people, sharpen our intellect, expand our horizons, bring us closer to the truth, and foster understanding and peace. But whether it is a marriage, a friendship, a business partnership or teens reaching across the socio-economic or religious divide, exposure to different points of view is not without its perils, its risks and its pain. It can be a challenge in more ways than one. It is, nevertheless, imperative – for the future of our community, for the future of our nation, and for the future of the world -- that we try. Hate cannot drive out hate, said Martin Luther King ….. only love and understanding can do that.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Shelakh Lekha -- Is a Tree Like a Person?

My father hated to go to the movies. My mother, who loved the movies, would go with friends when she wanted to see a film.  I can remember only once in my childhood when we went to the theater to watch a movie as a family.. That movie was called “The Longest Day”. When it came out in 1962 my father, who had served overseas in the army, wanted to see it. So we piled into the car and went to the West Side Theater in Scranton, Pennsylvania to see that movie. Afterwards we went to the ice cream parlor for sundaes. It is one of my favorite and  precious childhood memories,

Many of you know this movie. ‘The Longest Day” captures the day in 1944 when the US Army and Allied forces send a huge force to invade Normandy.  With heroic efforts and great loss of life, the troops made it on to Omaha beach and entered deep into French territory. This week marks the seventy fourth anniversary of that invasion of Europe by the allies, known as D- Day.  

Our Parasha for this week opens with preparations for another invasion -- the invasion of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites. Moses sends spies --  one from each tribe -- to reconnoiter Canaan. Moses asks them to return with specific information. Are the cities fortified or out in the open? Are the people armed and prepared to defend themselves? These are questions that any responsible military leader would need to answer before preparing for successful invasion. Then Moses asks a peculiar question. Moses  asks the spies to report back if there are any trees in the land. Can you imagine Eisenhower asking if there were any trees in Europe? Why would Moses need this information?  G-d already told him that the Land was flowing with milk and honey, that it was a fertile land with rivers and forests.

Rashi answers that Moses, in asking about trees, was really asking if there were any righteous people living among the Canaanites who, through their connection to G-d, might help defend the Canaanites against an invasion by the Israelites. Righteous people providing leadership to the Canaanites would make conquest of the land all the harder. There would need to be additional preparations to meet that contingency. Later on, in the Book of Deuteronomy, trees will again be compared to people. When the Jewish people are laying siege to a city, the Israelites are commanded not to cut down any fruit trees. “For is a tree like a person, that it can run away?” asks the Torah. It is a rhetorical question. The answer of course is, “No” -- a tree has no way of defending itself against the ax. Therefore we ought not to destroy it. It would run away if it could!

But would a tree know that it was in danger? It turns out that trees are a lot more like people than we would think. Both trees and people have crowns. Both have limbs that move and trunks from which the limbs come. Trees breathe, like people. Trees thrive when they live in communities, which we call forests. Recent research into the life of trees has shown that trees communicate with one another through their root systems and through fungal systems that connect the roots of one tree to the roots of another. Older trees are able to communicate their experience to younger trees, which help the younger trees to prepare for adverse conditions. In other words, trees have their own Torah that they pass down through the generations. Professor Susan Simard, who has studied the communication system that trees use, has dubbed this the “wood wide web”.

The Talmud compares a person whose wisdom exceeds their good deeds to a tree whose branches are numerous, but whose roots are few. The wind comes and uproots it, and turns it upside down.

This serves as a metaphor that alerts us that there are people who are very intelligent, very gifted and highly skilled in their fields. These individuals might display the outward trappings of success as defined in our culture. They show they have lots of “branches” and “leaves” -- they have big homes and flashy cars, they wear expensive clothing and take lavish vacations.  We might envy these people, but we should not, for we cannot see what lies below the surface. If we use our gifts, our intelligence, our skills only for selfish reasons -- to accumulate more “things” -- we may look pretty good on the outside -- but according to the Talmud, our roots may still be shallow. We are neither planted firmly in a community nor connected to others. In times of trouble, we might feel extremely vulnerable. Without an ethical tradition to  guide us, without a community to support us, without a heritage to look to, our lives can easily be turned upside down by the inevitable storms that come along in life.

The Talmud also teaches that a person whose good deeds exceed their wisdom is like a tree with few branches but with a healthy root system. Even if all the winds in the world were to blow against it, they would not move it from its place. Here the Talmud is describing a person who uses their intelligence in the service of others. They may, or may not, have many “branches”, or outward signs of wealth and success, but unseen, underneath, they are rooted in their tradition and to their community. In times of pain, loneliness, and sadness this person draws on their faith, on their community, on their sense of belonging and this will in turn help them in times of trouble.

Seventy four years ago this week American soldiers sacrificed their lives on Omaha Beach so that we could build a world into which we could grow deep roots. Our job is to continue to build the kind of families, the kind of congregation, the kind of nation from which we can draw nourishment and sustenance to live healthy, productive lives -- lives that can weather the vicissitudes of life that are sure to come our way.

Shabbat Shalom