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Each week I crawl inside the quiet of my own heart and dig deep to connect the dots and draw out some words of wisdom (ideally!). But today is not an ordinary Friday, it is also Purim!
Purim is a holiday devoted to blurring boundaries, subverting power and inverting reality. It is a brave, cathartic and risky spiritual practice to loosen our moral grip and allow the absurd to be our primary teacher. The enduring irony of the Book of Esther comes to a spiritual head in Chapter 9. Last night, as Avra chanted Rabbi Tamara Cohen’s brilliant and necessary rewrite of the 9th chapter, I was transfixed by its capacity to imagine a world at once whole and ridiculous. I found myself thinking, “Yes! This is the world I want to live in.” A world where enemies become anemones and all trees are made for climbing. In her vision I also felt grief. How far we are from that world. And how far her vision is from the canonical 9th chapter of Esther (which we also read in lament). In her Yom Kippur sermon last year, Rabbi Alana Alpert of Detroit’s Congregation T’chiyah spoke about a phrase near the end of the Book of Esther in Chapter 9, “V’nahafoch hu” — “And the opposite happened. We confuse ourselves to the point of being unable to tell the difference between good Mordechai and evil Haman, because there is no actual difference between them, not essentially. When the tables are turned, we have the same capacity for cruelty as anyone.” In a recent OpEd in The Forward entitled, “Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza demands a new reading of the Purim story’s final chapter.” Michael Lukas comments, “This is the moment in the story when the Jews’ fortunes reverse, when everything is turned upside down, the origin of the holiday’s tradition of getting so drunk you can’t tell the hero from the villain… Once we recognize our own capacity for evil — and by us, I mean not only Jews, but anyone — once we see our own power and the suffering it can cause, the violence at the end of the Book of Esther becomes something much more meaningful than fantasy or farce. The holiday is an invitation to put on the clothes of another, to forget for a moment who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy.” In truth, the entire Purim story and our communal observance of the holiday, hinge on these two potent words in Chapter 9: “וְנַהֲפ֣וֹךְ ה֔וּא // V'nahafoch Hu!” In his commentary, Ibn Ezra notes, grammatically speaking, the verb N’afoch is in the passive voice. As if to say, “On the contrary, everything inverted itself all by itself.” Well to that I say, On the contrary! While God may not be an active voice in the book of Esther, its characters certainly are. They repeatedly assert their own agency to chart a new destiny. May we too have the courage to reclaim our voice, act with courage and feel called to answer Mordechai’s charge to Queen Esther: “וּמִ֣י יוֹדֵ֔עַ אִם־לְעֵ֣ת כָּזֹ֔את הִגַּ֖עַתְּ לַמַּלְכֽוּת׃” “Who knows – maybe you were made for exactly this moment!?” In a stunning poem that evokes the crossing of the Sea of Reeds, the teacher, poet, and theologian Joy Ladin writes: “The soil between your toes is damp. You lost your shoes some ways back. This is holy ground, the waters said . . . You were trying To learn to walk When you needed to learn to swim. You part The grass that whispers Through the waters that sing in your ears. You can’t make out the question So you answer Yes.” On this absurd day, when everything is possible, may we have the necessary courage to answer Yes! "Why did the Jewish person bring a ladder to the synagogue?
Because they heard the service was going to be uplifting! " This really is my hope each week. To bring some joy and levity to this community. Especially these days, when the news is grim and stress is high. Over the years I have noticed that my favorite teachers are the ones who make me laugh, while imparting their wisdom. From them I have learned to bring humor to shabbat services. Shosh says I am most funny on the bima. I am accepting that as a challenge. I need to bring more silliness to the rest of my life. We learn in the Talmud that when the month of Adar arrives, (as is the case today!), joy increases. The coming of Adar heralds the holiday of Purim. It broadcasts that Spring is coming. The days are getting longer, the sap is beginning to run, the earth is preparing to bloom. It is a strange and wonderful thing to feel religious pressure to express joy. Every year I find the spirit of Adar and the practice of Purim unexpectedly cathartic. This year, as the moon of Shevat began to wane and I realized Adar was on the horizon, I felt called to investigate my relationship to joy. I realized that right now, more than joy, I am trying to levitate, to experience more levity. I am seeing becoming more lighthearted as a spiritual pursuit, probably always but especially now. Which is to say, the giggles are very welcome. Many people want to know the secret to longevity. I am not a scientist or a doctor, but I have been spending a lot of time with Shosh’s grandmother, Harriet who is 102. Some decades ago she read that laughing can make you live longer. So she bought a book of jokes. At night, Harriet and her husband of 60 years, Al, would lie in bed, hold hands and read each other silly jokes. I am so endeared to this practice. From Harriet I have learned to lead with gratitude and encourage laughter. It's helpful to remember that laughing is good for us. I notice it loosens me up. Softens my shoulders. Makes me more forgiving, more flexible, more receptive. This Rosh Hodesh Adar, I am leaning into Grandma Harriet’s wisdom. I am in the market for some new jokes so I can take myself less seriously and fill my days with more levity. If you see me, feel free to tell me a joke. I am collecting them! What can you do to levitate? This joy, the world won’t give it to us. But we can give it to each other! For most of us, the image of God as King is uncomfortable. On Rosh Hashanah, we sweeten and swallow it with apples and honey. We mumble it in Hebrew blessings (eloheinu melech haolam), but when confronted with the English translations, we cringe and rewrite the metaphor.
But this week, God as King is strangely comforting to me. The entire rabbinic tradition of talking about kingship makes sense to me in a new way. As if to say, something compassionate, just, indivisible, and even ineffable is ultimately in charge, not you mortals who cannot control your desires for power and money. I noticed this spiritual shift as I was reciting Ashrei, an acrostic psalm we are instructed to say three times daily. Most weeks I am drawn to the word selah at the end of the first line, to the spacious pause it invites. But this week it is the letter mem that calls to me. It reads, מַלְכוּתְךָ מַלְכוּת כָּל עֹלָמִים, וּמֶמְשַׁלְתְּךָ בְּכָל דּוֹר וָדֹר Malkhutekha malkhut kol olamim, umemshaltekha b’khol dor vador Your kingdom shall last for ever and ever, and Your rule shall extend into each and every generation. I took refuge in the repeated emphasis on a divine monarchy in the heavenly realm. I have always been drawn to the midrashim that distinguish between a King of flesh and blood and Melech Malchei HaMelachim - the King of Kings, aka God, because they are a reminder that our ancestors conjured the image of God as King in contrast to the terrible monarchs of their time. And they took the time to reimagine a sovereign source of power that was in service to its subjects, not the other way around. I have been singing this line from Ashrei with fervor, reminding myself that for thousands of years Jews have lived under foreign rule that has not represented their best interest or their values. And we developed our own moral codes and spiritual hierarchies to counter the unjust hierarchies we lived under. On Thursday night, Rabbi Gila taught me and the KT teens a wild story from the Babylonian Talmud about Alexander, the Great (Tamid 32b). “After his death, Alexander arrived at paradise: He called out: Open the gate for me! A divine being from within the Garden of Eden called back: Only the righteous shall enter. He said to them: I too am worthy, as I am a king; I am very important. If you won’t let me in, at least give me something from inside. They gave him one eyeball. He brought it and he weighed all the gold and silver that he had against the eyeball, and yet the riches did not balance against the eyeball’s greater weight. He said to the Sages: What is this? Why does this eyeball outweigh everything? They said: It is the eyeball of a mortal person of flesh and blood, which is not satisfied ever. The Sages instructed to take a small amount of dirt and cover the eye. He did so, and it was immediately balanced by its proper counterweight. The eye is never satisfied while it sees what it wants.” Then and now, the richest men on earth, who dare to call themselves kings, are insatiable and unworthy of our allegiance. May we have the courage and clarity to honor our ancestors, to defy the will of tyrants and to live righteous lives worthy of the Garden of Eden. As we sing in Avinu Malkeinu, ain lanu melekh ela atah - there is no King but You! Such a desperate plea. May it be so. It is strange how often I find myself asking “What is Torah?”
As a rabbi, one might think the answer would be straightforward. Yet, as both a student and a teacher, I keep returning to this question. Not just what can Torah teach us, but what is Torah itself? It comes up in nearly every grade at Torah school, as they iteratively expand their understanding of what Torah includes. From the sacred scroll to the ever-expanding midrashic traditions, to their own ideas and insights. It comes up in conversation with my B’nei Mitzvah students as we prepare for their Dvar Torah. It comes up on Simchat Torah. And certainly it comes up this week, as we read parshat Yitro, which includes an account of the giving of Torah on Mt. Sinai. At its root, Torah comes from the root ירי meaning to point, aim, shoot or direct. The same root creates the word yoreh, the first drenching rainfall at the beginning of the farming season, which one midrash describes as “rain that pervades and satisfies the earth and gives her drink down to the deep.” Rain is afterall water directed at the earth. It is also an archery term, used when one points an arrow at its target. From these two usages alone, we learn that Torah is meant to sustain us at our core and direct us on our path. I thought of all of this on Monday night, as I had the honor of hearing Ta-Nehisi Coates read from his new book “The Message.” (Spoiler: I am planning a virtual Omer book group for this book in May, in case you want to reserve a copy at the library now!) Coates spoke to a crowded auditorium at Swarthmore College. During the Q&A students repeatedly asked him for advice, which he was very reluctant to offer, with one exception. He implored these young adults to stop using social media in general and X specifically. Quoting, “It is extremely important that you not engage in distraction. Do not spend time trying to disprove people who do not believe you to be human. You’ll never win.” He went on to describe social media as addictive, defeatist, and designed to drag you into irresolvable fights with people with whom your disagreements are minor. He concluded, “Get it off your phones!” This was a stark moment. I think the crowd was looking for organizing advice, not screen time suggestions. I know our relationships to screens and digital communities are complex. And even as I tend to agree with Coates’ advice, I am aware that social media is a place of so much connection and resource sharing. So even more than his directive, I am drawn to the sentiment behind it. We find ourselves in uncertain times. Heed Coates’s sacred advice, “It is extremely important that you not engage in distraction.” Whatever that may be for you. There is a tension between stay informed and becoming distressed, even panicked. This is by design. Coates reminded me we need to be disciplined in our intake of the news. The world needs your attention whole, unfragmented, clear, critical, alert, aware. In my own life, Torah serves as the opposite of a distraction. It is an anchor, pulling me down through the present to something ancient and enduring. It is directional. It is meant to guide and quench. Time studying Torah is time well spent. Each week Torah is here to connect you down to the deep. I will end with prophetic words that come directly from this week’s parsha. In Exodus 19, the Holy One tells Moses to tell the Isrealites, it’s me God, remember “How I carried you on eagles’ wings!?” וָאֶשָּׂ֤א אֶתְכֶם֙ עַל־כַּנְפֵ֣י נְשָׁרִ֔ים I am a green football fan (pun intended). The city pride has been palpable and contagious. What a joy to be carried on these Eagles’ wings! Go Birds ! And to imagine this feeling as the origin story of a collective faith that bound us together and first connected us to something Ineffable. One of the most precious parts of every week is joining the KT Torah School during their prayer time with Rabbi Michelle.These kids have learned to pray, from their hearts, for what they care about most. Apparently, last week, when asked who they wanted to pray for, my younger child responded, “For every country who will be part of World War III.”
When Rabbi Michelle told me this, my heart sank. Granted my kids have been playing a lot of Risk (a board game about imperialism). And we have been listening to a lot of Les Miserables and Hamilton, which leads to lots of talk about the French Revolution and the American revolution, respectively. So that is part of where this is coming from. Amidst all this talk of war, when they ask about WWIII I always assure them that hopefully there will never be another world war again. But they have also been asking me questions like “What if Trump allies with Putin and North Korea?” which is their way of expressing concerns we all share. Their questions are reasonable and I don’t have a rational answer. But I also don’t need one because Torah teaches me that miracles happen. That nothing is unchangeable, including the course of history. If at the end of this week, you, like me, are feeling we are collectively in need of a miracle (or several), you are not alone. (Take a lion’s breath with me. Roar if you can.) This week’s Torah portion is replete with miracles. The story picks up after Pharoah has agreed to let the Israelites go. Rabbi Elliot Kukla writes, “As they fled slavery with their taskmasters in hot pursuit, they came up against the Sea of Reeds —a churning, impassable ocean. But suddenly, their horizon literally expanded: “Moses held his arm out over the sea and the Eternal One drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night, and turned the sea into dry ground (Exodus 14:21).” This was arguably the pivotal moment in Jewish history. We tell and retell the story of the parting of the sea in every weekday, Shabbat, and holy day prayer service, morning and evening. It is recounted in prayer more frequently than the details of the creation of humanity or the giving of the Torah.” We learn in Pirkei Avot (5:4) that there were 10 miracles at the sea. Here are the miracles I noticed. Certainly it was a miracle that the sea parted. That it revealed dry ground in the midst of the sea (this is mentioned three times!). That children and elders could reach into the sea walls and grab pomegranates to satisfy their hungry cries. That Miriam had the spiritual resolve to lead the Israelites in song and dance. That the sea returned which prevented the Egyptians from continuing their chase on the other side. Moses turned the bitter water they found into sweet water. Then the oasis in Elim provided shade and water to rest and restore. And truly it was a miracle that the people were brave and scared at the same time, and found the faith to cross the sea. Rabbi Kukla continues, “Why do we need to hear this story so often? Because it is in this moment that we realized that nothing is immutable.” This shabbat, may the merit of our ancestors open us wide like the sea, fill us with courage, song, faith and determination. And the knowing that the miracles we need are close at hand. In a week that has felt like quicksand, I am grateful for the reminder that dry ground appeared in the midst of the sea. May it be so! This week previews the undoing of creation.
In the beginning, the Torah asserts, the world was tohu va’vohu - vacuous and chaotic, teeming with possibility and lacking order. The creation story that begins with the famous words “let there be light,” includes six days of creation and culminates in a dynamic pause known as Shabbat, is well known to many of us. What many of us (self included until this week!) may not realize is that the story of the 10 plagues, which concludes in this week’s parsha Bo, is not just a story of escalating tactics, it is a paradigm for the unraveling of creation itself. One of God’s very first acts is to separate the waters above from the waters below. And in the very first plague water becomes blood. Just as the God creates animals to fill the land and the sea, the second, third and fourth plagues send forth an overabundance of those very animals that teem in the water (frogs), on land (lice), and in the sky (locusts), to plague the people. And unspeakably, whereas God creates humans on the 6th day, God takes the first born Egyptians. The parallels are eerie. The plagues were temporary, deliberate and Divinely ordained. The fact that they threaten to return to the world to pre-creation chaos tells us something of what was at stake in Moses’ mission to free the Israelite slaves. But the full impact of this destructive paradigm hit me when I got to the ninth plague, the plague of darkness, whose description brought my studies to a halt: וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יְהֹוָ֜ה אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֗ה נְטֵ֤ה יָֽדְךָ֙ עַל־הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וִ֥יהִי חֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־אֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם וְיָמֵ֖שׁ חֹֽשֶׁךְ׃ The Holy One said to Moshe: Stretch out your hand toward the heavens, and let there be darkness over the land of Egypt, so that they will feel darkness! (Exodus 10:21) The declaration “And let there be darkness” is an exact undoing of the very first seminal words of creation, “Let there be light!” How could anyone, let alone the Holy One, instruct Moses to say “Let there be darkness”? And not just darkness, but a palpable darkness. A darkness that they can feel and touch (וְיָמֵ֖שׁ חֹֽשֶׁךְ׃). A darkness that Ibn Ezra explains was so thick that it made time stand still for the Egyptians, quoting, “The Egyptians had no way of knowing that three days passed except through the Israelites, who had light.” This week has felt like a series of plagues cast upon us, each executive order revealing the newest threat to our well being. We are experiencing a deliberate and expedient unraveling of our already imperfect government, which has created an air of fear and uncertainty. I imagine some of us feel more personally vulnerable than others. But I imagine many, if not most of us, are experiencing this time as scary and destabilizing. And I think that is one of this administration’s goals. But one of our goals is to allow our spirits and our nervous systems to recover from the stress of the week. To reclaim time and allow it to stand still on our terms. Forever and ever, I choose the world of “Yehi Or - Let there be light.” Before the sun sets on this week, I invite you to return your attention to the world of creation. To trees and pets and neighbors, and all the wonderful things that bring order and joy to your life. To invite in the blessings of the new moon of Shevat whose tiny crescent light is waxing in the shabbos sky. To invite in the light of shabbat candles and the deeply needed rest of the 7th day. There have been two refrains playing on repeat in my head all week long.
The first refrain comes from the wisdom of Whitney Houston: “… I decided long ago Never to walk in anyone's shadows If I fail, if I succeed At least I'll live as I believe No matter what they take from me They can't take away my dignity” And second, the words to the equanimity meditation that I shared on Rosh Hashanah. May I be at ease with the changing conditions of life May I allow joy and sorrow to arise and pass away May I open to how it is right now May I be peaceful I am working hard to cleave to these words in a week that has threatened to throw me off daily. … Four days post inauguration and the prospect of four years is dreadful. Even as I have tried to minimize the news reel, to overwhelm executive orders with the din of snowball fights and hot chocolate, the fear has seeped in, and its impact on my soul is wholly unwelcome. On Wednesday, my cousins in Italy texted that they are afraid. Fascism is rising there and everywhere. They worry it feels like 1937. I know some of this is historical trauma (they survived WWII in hiding), but I don’t know how much. I fluctuate between allowing my concern to overwhelm my consciousness and returning to the present tense, to warm soup and kid snuggles. At my installation some 9 years ago, I offered myself to you as a heart of many rooms. And that offer still holds true. We are going to need all of those rooms. There will be room for grief and rage, and also room to get married and dance and sing and name babies and celebrate birthdays and sheer delight. I've been thinking a lot about how to approach these next four years, including how to approach my Friday emails. What I know about myself is that, in my heart of hearts, I am a rabbi, not a politician, public thinker or political scientist. What I do best as a rabbi is teach Torah. I know I don't want to share four years of Torah about Trump. He doesn't deserve that much of our attention. The prospect of four years of Friday emails responding to executive orders, and worse, is unbearable. I don’t think it will serve us, because it's what we're already interfacing with during the rest of the week. So I want to share what you can expect instead in this weekly exchange. Certainly some weeks, like this one, I will try to respond to some of what has transpired, so we can all remember together that we are not alone in this reality. I am witnessing and experiencing this too, alongside you, and some weeks I hope to share ancient wisdom that I hope will soothe you, as it has soothed me. I also expect that the Torah shared here in other weeks, I hope many weeks, will be timeless. This will take effort. I will intentionally be turning our attention elsewhere, to something enduring, something older, something good, something that draws us towards compassion, wonder, joy and connection. This week, a week when the Torah tells us about Pharoah’s callous heart, I can feel my own heart contracting. As this poem Heart by Dorianne Laux permits, I found myself with a quiet heart. A heavy heart. A hurting heart. Yesterday, when it came time to say the blessing for the study of Torah at Parsha and Poetry I found myself unable to get the words out. But as the class spoke the final words, “la’asok b’divrei Torah,” I squeaked out an “amen.” Amen is a word of witness, an affirmation, drawn from the same root as emunah, meaning faith. I am not so naive to tell you to have faith that God/dess will protect us from these powerful evils. But I do think this is a moment to cultivate a steadiness of mind, a spiritual buffer zone for the heart, which is a kind of inner faith in a concept of the Divine who brings you inner strength, boosts your dignity and gives you courage. My morning tender amen reminded me of a teaching in the Jerusalem Talmud (Megilah 1:9). הָעוֹנֶה אָמֵן … אֲרוּכָּה. יַאֲרִיךְ יָמִים בְּטוֹבָה. One who lengthens their amen, lengthens their days for the better. There will be days when we can’t muster the words to say a blessing or share good news. And those are good days to remember to say a long amen, knowing that too is enough to enhance our days for the better; remembering “The heart shifts shape of its own accord—” This too shall pass. May this space, this community, be a place where you cultivate the discipline to bless the good in your life. To witness others and feel seen. To reset each week with a long, slow, heartfelt amen. Let me begin by praying, with all my heart, that the ceasefire actually begins on Sunday.
I pray that both Israeli and Palestinian hostages/prisoners can return home and that we can see this ceasefire through. Blessed are you, God, who frees captives. Please God let there be peace. This has been a disorienting week. Despite more than a year of organizing for a ceasefire and to stop the new Arena in Chinatown, the nearly simultaneous announcements came as surprises. I definitely feel gratitude, joy and relief. There is reason to celebrate. But if I am honest, I also feel wary. My heart doesn't trust it. If tectonic changes can happen overnight for the better, they can also happen for the worse. Strangely, these relatively good announcements have led me to further brace myself for Trump’s inauguration on Monday (and its disgraceful coincidence with MLK Day). As I studied this week’s parsha, Shemot, I found great comfort in beginning the book of Exodus in this political moment. For as long as there have been people organizing themselves into societies, there have been oppressive tyrants. And in response people have cultivated their spiritual lives to build inner strength and collective power to free themselves. Yet I am nervous that under Trump I/we will feel mistakenly powerless. This worry led me to zoom in on a particular moment in this week’s parsha that I want to highlight for all of you. In Exodus 1, the very first chapter, Pharaoh sends a decree to the Hebrew midwives, (sidenote: Were they Hebrews or just midwives to the Hebrews? It’s unclear and significant because they may have been acting on behalf of their people or in solidarity with the Hebrews.) ordering them to kill all of the male babies. Without skipping a beat or even a verse, they defy Pharoah’s instructions. וַתִּירֶ֤אןָ הַֽמְיַלְּדֹת֙ אֶת־הָ֣אֱלֹהִ֔ים וְלֹ֣א עָשׂ֔וּ כַּאֲשֶׁ֛ר דִּבֶּ֥ר אֲלֵיהֶ֖ן מֶ֣לֶךְ מִצְרָ֑יִם וַתְּחַיֶּ֖יןָ אֶת־הַיְלָדִֽים׃ But the midwives held God in awe, and they did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them; they let the children live (Exodus 1:17). I am struck by the fact that the text goes on a grammatical whim to describe the yirah, the awesome fear, that enabled these women to defy Pharoah. Their fear of undermining their own spiritual beliefs was so much stronger than their fear of Pharaoh. From the midwives I learned that it's possible to spiritually redirect my fear of a ruler of flesh and blood and to remember that the deeper risk lies in undermining my own spiritual and political convictions, denying my own power. And not only that, but when Pharoah realizes as much, he questions them directly, and they make up an amazing excuse and brazenly lie to his face: וַתֹּאמַ֤רְןָ הַֽמְיַלְּדֹת֙ אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֔ה כִּ֣י לֹ֧א כַנָּשִׁ֛ים הַמִּצְרִיֹּ֖ת הָֽעִבְרִיֹּ֑ת כִּֽי־חָי֣וֹת הֵ֔נָּה בְּטֶ֨רֶם תָּב֧וֹא אֲלֵהֶ֛ן הַמְיַלֶּ֖דֶת וְיָלָֽדוּ׃ The midwives said to Pharaoh: Indeed, not like the Egyptian-women are the Hebrew-women, indeed, they are lively: before the midwife comes to them, they have given birth! (Exodus 1:19) The next four years are daunting and there is reason to be afraid. But what the midwives remind me is that we are not powerless. From the birthing stone to the border wall, we will each be called to defend human dignity and maybe even life itself. Let us remember that the midwives and Torah are on our side. And let us muster the spiritual resolve to do what is within our power. Daniel Berrigan, the Jesuit priest turned anti-war organizer, once wrote: “One cannot level one’s moral lance at every evil in the universe. There are just too many of them. But you can do something; and the difference between doing something and doing nothing is everything.” I have deep faith in our ability to do something, individually and collectively. For this week, dayenu, that is enough. I instinctively find endings a bit sad, especially the end of something delicious. The end of a good book, a great movie, the last bite of pie, the last moments of a trip, the final days of summer, the last shofar blast of Neilah. It's all so beautiful and full and what I have been reading, praying, living towards. But then it’s over and I am left to savor it, crave it, miss it. I can’t get those moments, those laughs, those bites back. I am left to wonder, was I present enough? Was I aware and alive enough? Jewishly we know of this nostalgic ending in the custom of singing songs of deep longing in the darkening room at the end of Shabbat. The third meal can be surprisingly somber. The end of something good is almost tragic. Which is ironic because it's actually not yet over, it's still there. The ooze of blueberry still on the fork awaiting another lick. The quiet search for three stars in the sky, This week we read the parashat Vayechi, the final Torah portion in the book of Genesis. It begins by telling us that Jacob, aka Yisrael, would live for 147 years and these are his final days. Which he spends drawing close to each of his 12 sons and blessing them. The end of our origin story is also the end of our ancestral namesake’s life. The parsha savors the end of his life, and I find myself feeling sad, like its my loss, its my end. Which is why I find such great comfort in the ritual that succeeds the reading of the end of a book of the Torah. The reader recites the words, “Hazak hazak v’nithazek” and then the entire congregation sings them back, “Hazak hazak v’nithazek.” The meaning of these words is manifold, often meaning strength and courage. I can’t help but hear it in the words of India Arie’s song Strength, Courage and Wisdom. The thrice repetition of the word hazak is notable. Twice it appears almost as a command, and the third time in the self-reflexive form, as if to say, “Strength, strength, may you find the strength that is within you!” In my experience, the end is sad even when the next thing is beautiful, something to look forward to. The changing colors of fall, a sip of warm tea, the sequel, the book of Exodus. All the more so when the end is followed by something harder, less pleasant. The inauguration is looming and dreadful. Next week we will read in the Torah about the troubles that occur when a new King arises in ancient Egypt. In this time of endings and beginning again – biblically, politically, ecologically, personally – may we feel the deep blessing that Torah offers us this week, to gather strength to meet the next chapter with courage, curiosity, and compassion. I have many times read the poem Aristotle by Billy Collins, but mostly I dwell in The Beginning, and maybe once I lingered in The Middle. But today let us indulge in The End. He writes, “And this is the end, the car running out of road, the river losing its name in an ocean, the long nose of the photographed horse touching the white electronic line. … This is the final bit thinning away to nothing. This is the end, according to Aristotle, what we have all been waiting for, what everything comes down to, the destination we cannot help imagining, a streak of light in the sky, a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves.” May you feel yourself part of the great river losing its name in the ocean of time. May you remember the words of June Jordan, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” May you feel inspired to keep imagining your destiny. I gathered this past week with the clergy from the other communities in Synagogues Rising to support one another, share ideas, study Torah and prepare for the year ahead. One of my colleagues taught us a very beautiful nigun that comes to us by way of the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidut. As we sat in a circle and sang this complicated tune, what emerged was a deep well of grief. And the longer we sang, the more sad I felt. Until the sadness started melting into the melody, like thawing ice into a river. It didn’t disappear but it did dissolve into something much greater.
Grief is also very present in this week’s parsha Vayeshev. This week we begin the story of Joseph which consumes the rest of Genesis. As a reminder Jacob favors Joseph which makes his brothers jealous. He dreams that he will one day rule over them. Incensed they throw him into a pit and leave him to die. He is saved by a caravan of Ishmaelites and brought to Egypt. When Reuben returns to the pit, he sees he is missing and he rends his clothing in mourning. Literally, “ וַיִּקְרַ֖ע אֶת־בְּגָדָֽיו - And he tore his clothing” (Genesis 27:29). Rueben did the practice of kriya, which we still do to this day. Then he gathers his brothers to tell Jacob that his beloved son has died, and Jacob enters into mourning. וַיִּקְרַ֤ע יַעֲקֹב֙ שִׂמְלֹתָ֔יו וַיָּ֥שֶׂם שַׂ֖ק בְּמׇתְנָ֑יו וַיִּתְאַבֵּ֥ל עַל־בְּנ֖וֹ יָמִ֥ים רַבִּֽים׃ “Jacob rent his clothes, put sackcloth on his loins, and observed mourning for his son many days” (Genesis 37:34) I learned a teaching about this moment in Torah transmitted by Rabbi Avi Strausberg. The Netivot Shalom, a 20th century Hasidic teacher, explains that the story of Joseph and his family’s grief always precedes the festival of Hanukkah because grief is fertile ground for redemption. He taught, “the energy of redemption becomes possible for a person — or a people — when two conditions are present. First they have to truly feel their broken-heartedness at the situation in which they find themselves. And second, they have to refuse to accept that the status quo in which they are is the only way reality can be organized. Then, and only then, can the energetic light of redemption enable seeds that were already there to grow into new redemptive possibilities. So it’s not that good follows the bad automatically, or that hitting some kind of low or bottom automatically creates the conditions in which something better emerges. Rather, it depends on our capacity to fully feel how brokenhearted we actually are and to steadfastly refuse to accept that things must be this way. Both of which can be enormously hard to do. And both of which are made easier when not doing so alone." This resonates deeply as a way to orient ourselves this Hanukkah season. We need to be willing to grieve fully and refuse to accept the way things are. The combination of our grief and our refusal creates the conditions in which change can happen. This wisdom was echoed in an email I received this morning. For the past 10 months I have been donating to a soup kitchen in North Gaza started by a desperate father, Hani Almadhoun. This morning, he wrote this: “Every day, we see destruction and cruelty, but alongside it, there are moments of hope—moments made possible by people like you who refuse to give up. The Gaza Soup Kitchen began as a response to heartbreak, born from an inability to stand idly by. Since its launch earlier this year, we’ve been humbled by the scale of impact we’ve achieved together.” This solstice Shabbat, and on the days of Hanukkah and Christmas ahead, may we light the candles with hearts full of grief and defiance. And may it seed or hadash, a new and needed light. |
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Shabbat Services: 5300 Whitby Ave, Commercial #1, Philadelphia, PA 19143