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In the early chapters of Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Yochanan asks: Eyzeh hu chacham. Who is wise? What follows is a litany of rabbinic responses. There is no singular answer. But the one I am continually drawn to is that of Rabbi Shimon,who says: Haroeh et hanolad. The one who sees that which is being born.
In most translations of Pirkei Avot, this is interpreted poetically as “the one who has foresight.” But I think that misses the insight of Rabbi Shimon. Hanolad is a term for both that first sliver of the new moon and a newborn child. Today we mark the new Hebrew month of Kislev. In Kislev the nights continue to grow longer, as we anticipate the bright lights of Hanukkah. It is a month that celebrates darkness and the world of dreams. The month when the moon is most visible. This year and this week in particular, this teaching, which links the new moon with new life, has extra resonance. On Rosh Hashanah morning, I spoke about the midwives in Exodus as our defiant heroes, quite literally on the frontlines preventing the genocide of the Hebrews in ancient Egypt/Mitzrayim. And I shared a contemporary midrash by Orna Peltz that I want to return to today. “The midwives were asked: Where did you get your fearful awe of God? To which they answered: From the great and deep things that we saw at the birth stool, from the mystery that embraces us morning and evening: human being after human being coming into the world; where does each one come from and what do they each bring with them? The goodness that a [parent] sees in their child, the compassion and the love that awakens, crying babies bursting forth from exhausted bodies, and the soft seal of God’s finger imprinted on their faces.” While I may have the privilege of seeing the new moon, they have the honor of truly seeing hanolad, witnessing new life as it enters this world. Their wisdom is unparalleled, handed down from generation to generation, from midwife to midwife. For those who have not yet heard, this week the Bryn Mawr Birth Center, also known as the Lifecycle Wellness and Birth Center, announced it will be closing after 47 years of service. In nearly five decades, they have witnessed the births of 16,000 babies, trained hundreds of midwives and provided family-centered care to thousands of families. The loss is immense and utterly tragic. For profit healthcare has deemed birthing with dignity not profitable and therefore not insurable. I cannot help but feel this is a win for Pharoah. I am sending abundant love and gratitude to the many Kol Tzedek midwives, doulas and healthcare providers who currently work at the Birth Center. Please know that I feel awe in your presence, for your courage to witness human being after human being coming into the world. I am thinking about the many KT babies who have been born there, as recently as this past week, and sending comfort to the countless families who will no longer receive care at the Birth Center. This is a tremendous loss. To all of us, on this Rosh Hodesh Kislev, I want to remind us of the resilience and courage of the midwives of old and the ones in our midst. In the midrash, the midwives explain: “Our awe is “not in the heavens” (Devarim 30:12). Lo va’shammayim hi. Our awe of God arises precisely from within nature, from within the pain of what we witness on the birth stool. From there we learn to choose what is good, to protect life, to fight against death and to resist evil.” This is our task every week, and especially this week. To turn our attention to what is possible, to what is emerging, what is being born in our lives. So often we think of wisdom coming from past experience, and Rabbi Shimon reminds us that wisdom comes from paying closer attention to what is emerging in our own lives right now. May the new moon of kislev, the month of darkness and dreams, invite us to look more closely and appreciate that which is unfurling in our lives. May our attention cultivate wisdom. And may wisdom give us the courage to “to protect life, to fight against death and to resist evil.” With limited exception, Torah is not very romantic. Those exceptions include the Song of Songs, (which is perhaps more erotic than romantic) and this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, which is better known for including the deaths of both Sarah and Abraham, but also narrates the moment when Jacob and Rachel first meet.
We learn in Genesis chapter 29, that Jacob is at a well, when Rachel catches his eye. It is something like love at first sight. He rolls away the stone covering the mouth of the well and gives water to Rachel and Lavan’s flock of sheep, and then in a moment of relative biblical abandon, Rachel and Jacob kiss. A rare public display of affection. We don’t get many more details than that, but that is pretty racy for Torah. Perhaps not surprisingly what I love about this story is that they were at a well. Wells are meeting places. Water is life. And this year in particular, because the theme for the Days of Awe was Miriam’s well, I am paying extra attention to the role of wells in Torah stories. Wells are signs of resilience, reminders of what nourishes and sustains us. We learn in Pirkei Avot (5:6), “Ten things were created at twilight just before the first Shabbat, and the first three include, “the mouth of the earth, the mouth of the well, the mouth of the donkey…” This week, I am most intrigued by the mouth of the well. Which well is this referring to? In Elul, many of us learned the sages feel clear that the specific well referenced in this teaching is Miriam’s well, which journeyed with her and the Israelites throughout their time in the desert. But I would like to note that while Miriam was amazing, never once does Torah describe her as having a well. It is only after she dies, and the Israelites lose access to water, that they ascribe this primordial well to Miriam. But what if this well wasn’t Miriam’s? Or at least, not only Miriam’s. There are after all many ancestral stories in Torah that involve a well. Take for example last week, we read of the Hagar’s well, as she and Ishmael were thirsting in the desert, “The Holy Blessed One opened her eyes and she saw a well of water (Gen. 21:19). And next week, in parashat Toldot, we will read about how Isaac redigs the wells that his father Abraham had dug, which had since been clogged up by the Philistines (Gen. 26:18). I am increasingly inclined to believe the well in Pirkei Avot was intentionally unspecified. Not because it wasn’t Miriam’s well but because it wasn’t only Miriam’s well. It was also the well of Hagar and Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob. And it is our well too. For those of us who dwell in cities, it takes some effort to imagine that everything we need to sustain us is just under our feet, literally a clean, quenching, current in the earth, waiting for us to dig down and draw it forth. Inviting us to search together for its access point. Reminding us that we are likely to find our people at its mouth. I think Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weiberg captures the sentiment best in a kavanah that appears before the Amidah in the reconstructionist prayerbook Kol Haneshamah, “Dear God, Open the blocked passageways to you, The congealed places. Roll away the heavy stone from the well as your servant Jacob did when he beheld his beloved Rachel. Help us open the doors of trust that have been jammed with hurt and rejection. As you open the blossoms in spring, Even as you open the heavens in storm, Open us – to feel your great, awesome, wonderful presence.” On this shabbat, when we read the story of Jacob and Rachel, may we feel encouraged to roll away the heavy stones in our hearts and be reminded that we too have access to the mouth of the well. This has been a week of highs and lows. The election victories on Tuesday were a big relief, even a cause for revelry. I had begun to fear that Republican gerrymandering had been so successful that it was no longer possible for democrats to even win elections. I am so grateful to everyone who campaigned and worked the polls in PA, NJ, VA, NY, and Cali.
But the wins have been tempered by the cruel effects of the government shutdown. The starvation tactics we have witnessed in Gaza have come home to roost. To imagine prioritizing remodeling the White House while 42 million Americans can’t afford to eat, is truly the worst of human greed. The contours of the week are reflected in this week’s parsha, Vayera, which includes the elation of Sarah Imeinu, when she finds out she will at last bear a child. And the fear of Isaac, who suspects his father is prepared to sacrifice his life, wondering aloud, “I see the wood but where is the ram?” All of it is true at once, in the story and in our lives. When we read this parsha, we often focus on the binding of Isaac. But on Rosh Hashanah morning I invited us to linger in Sarah’s ecstatic laughter - her tzokh. Literally, the text says (Gen. 18:12), וַתִּצְחַ֥ק שָׂרָ֖ה בְּקִרְבָּ֣הּ “And Sarah laughed within herself.” As if to say, Sarah was tickled. The fact that the text includes the word “ בְּקִרְבָּ֣הּ // inside her” suggests it was embodied, even involuntary. I am picturing a kind of giddiness that bubbles up from the inside. Sarah got the giggles. I know this feeling well. In this moment, Sarah invites a kind of levity into her relationship with the Divine. And this inspires Isaac’s name, Yitzhak, derived from Sarah’s tzokh. This Shabbat, on the heels of electoral victories worth celebrating, I want to return to the poem I read on Rosh Hashanah and to the intention so many of us set in that moment, to invite in more levity, more laughter, more joy. In the words of Hafiz, “I sometimes forget that I was created for joy My mind is too busy My heart is too heavy Heavy for me to remember that I have been called to dance the sacred dance for life I was created to smile to love to be lifted up and lift others up O sacred one Untangle my feet from all that ensnares Free my soul That we might Dance and that our dancing might be contagious.” So much ensnares us. Let us not forget we were created for joy. Holy One, untangle our feet, that we might dance, and that our dancing might be contagious. |
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General Questions: (267) 702-6187 or [email protected]
Shabbat Services: 5300 Whitby Ave, Commercial #1, Philadelphia, PA 19143