From the Rabbi’s Desk

Shalom Aleichem,

Many years ago, while on a sabbatical in Los Angeles, we had been invited for an upcoming Shabbat afternoon to visit a friend – and her pool – which at 100+ degrees sounded like a great idea. Except we were Canadians. It was January, and it never occurred to either of us to pack our swimsuits. So, I shopped all over LA, as I wanted to find something that didn’t plunge down to there or up to there! Such a suit was not to be found, not in LA. Finally, in desperation, en route to our friend, we stopped at a local Target – more for the air conditioning than any hope of finding anything suitable.

Surprise – a simple black maillot was purchased, and now, well cooled by the frigid air conditioning, we drove a few more miles, parked our pickup truck (one of only two we saw our entire time in LA), and walked around the back to the pool. Imagine my second degree of shock and surprise when all the lovely ladies were floating in the water, au naturelle. Turns out I didn’t need that bathing suit after all. Maybe this was God giving me a sign I should not shop on Shabbos!

At any rate, all of this is mere background to the word “Bo.” Whilst we were floating in the pool, Aaron noticed a small pack of dogs racing around a very large back yard compound. He asked our friend (originally from Winnipeg) about the dogs and it turned out that the cute little terrier was a stray they hadbrought back from their last trip to Israel. Aaron called out, “Bo!”(Come)  and the dog screeched to a stop. He looked around, very excitedly, and Aaron called “Bo” again. The dog almost ran into the pool! Such is the power of mamaloshen, the mother-tongue. Even the dog was thrilled to hear Hebrew spoken again.

In our reading this week, God is saying to Moses the word Bo.“Come to Pharaoh, for I have made his heart hard.”And so in Bo we again encounter a God who decides to, “amuse Myself with Egypt” – all with an eye to Moses (and us) repeating what will eventually happen to our children and our children’s children. I don’t know how much Hebrew Moses knew. He grew up in Egypt, then recused himself to the hills of Midian – I am not sure the word Bo was as electrifying for Moses as it was for our little dog in LA. And why should Moses go to Pharaoh if God is so clearly toying with the Egyptian leader – what is in it for Moses? Other than a good story eventually – which as my opening will attest, is always money in the bank.

In Bo, we will read of the final three plagues – culminating in the death of the first-born, which leads Pharaoh, in a heart-broken rage, to banish the people Israel from his land. In the dark of the night, the angel of death “passed over” each household where the lintel was painted with blood, and thus the people left this land of servitude and hardship. Not the most auspicious of leave-takings.

In some ways the people at this point resembled that mongrel dog. They were hungry, worked to death, and probably had very little hope of any redemption. But saved they would be.

Moses was challenged from the beginning of his story. Early on in Shemot after he kills the Egyptian overseer, he is addressed defiantly, in words that archly foretell the up-coming challenge from his cousinKorach: “Who made you a man, a ruler, and a judge over us?” Moses is in that classic middle manager position – caught in a vise grip between the people, embittered and edgy, and an equally, at times, bad-tempered God. At this stage, God can seem to be a vengeful and almost frivolous God, seemingly toying with a people to see how far He can push them.

Moses can’t please the people and he can’t, seemingly, please God. Oiy, such rachmanes, compassion, I have for him.

Bo – a one syllable command – as commands tend to be. Interestingly, the word Bo is modified by a disjunctive trop symbol, a tipcha, indicating a small pause after the word is sung – perhaps this mixed message (Come-but-pause) also connotes a mixed sense of how everyone is to proceed.

Bo, kinder, do me a mitzvah. Come with me, children, says God, and I will give you a story for all time. A story of freedom that the whole world will tell, a story so that all people, for all time will know, “I am HaShem.” Sometimes Bo is just Bo. Sometimes Bo evokes a world of memories. And sometimes Bo opens a door to an unimagined future. Bo. Past, present and future, Ehyeh asher ehyeh, I am Bo. I am Be-coming..

Aleichem shalom.

Shalom Aleichem,

Vayigash takes its name from the “approach” of Judah to Joseph– as he pleads with the Egyptian governor for mercy. To approach someone when there is such a power differential is an approach that demands careful consideration. Too hasty, too obsequious, too brash, too cautious – any of these may cause the person who is the power-that-be to consider negatively that which is being asked. Just where to pitch the “ask” is the stuff of many an ad agencies nightmares – and many an educator’s planning of class materials. What is too much – and what is too little?! When is it “just right?” Perhaps Goldilocks was taking her cue from Judah.

Sometimes even rabbis and religious leaders are assumed to be in the “ask” business. We are selling a product. Bums in the seat = dollars in the kitty – all of which enable programming and purchasing which is deemed necessary to the continuity of the shul. But it is a tough sell sometimes. One cannot be seen as selling a product – Judaism seeps well beyond those lines, and one cannot be assumed to be selling with guilt – guilt was never a great motivator. One needs to consider all circumstances – all the time.  So when Judah asks a favour of the grand ruler in front of him, his language is peppered with phrases beseeching Joseph’s understanding of his familial circumstance.

The twist, of course, is that when Judah makes his ask of Joseph, he is not yet aware that his brother Joseph has recognized him and his brothers. Joseph’s questions and responses are all carefully calibrated – perhaps even calculated – to allow for an opening of Judah’s heart, a reckoning of shame as the brothers might acknowledge their nefarious behaviour from what is now decades ago. But instead Judah uses passive language, “We have an old father and a young child of his old age; his brother is dead.”

At this point Joseph cannot restrain his tears. I mentioned last week that there are seven instances of Joseph weeping in this saga of teshuvah, of return and forgiveness. Here in chapter 45 verse 2 the text reads, “He gave forth his voice in weeping, Egypt heard and Pharaoh’s household heard.” As Joseph reveals his identity to Judah and then to all his brothers, they are overcome. Who was once left for dead, is now not only alive, but holds real power over life and death, over all the world they know, which at this point is degraded by drought and starvation. Joseph’s first question, once his identity is revealed, is to immediately inquire after the life of his father. “Is my father alive?” he begs of his brother. Not our father. My father. In that claim, Joseph states both the totality of his absence from his father and his faith that has kept him alive.

Later in Vayigash, Pharaoh and Ya’kov meet. One can picture them together, two old men, reflecting on their aged bones, and the imminence of the end of their days. Pharaoh asks of Ya’akov, “How many are the days of the years of your life?” and Ya’akov answers with bluntness. “…few and bad have been the days of the years of my life,” and then he continues to further embellish this limitation, as his days do not number those of his forefathers. Their conversation ends with Pharaoh being blessed by Ya’akov. Much as Ya’akov had experienced abundance, much as he holds his capacity to give blessing, he seems unable to know the blessing of his own life. The shadow of death has coloured the story of his life. “Few and bad.” Such sadness in this summation of his life.

This week, as we learn about some of the practices around shiva, the seven days of mourning, we might bear these words “few and bad” in mind. Would that we never have to sum up a life so tersely and so negatively. One of the practices when we sit shiva is to learn Mishnah – the letters of Mishnah recalling the neshamah, the soul, of the deceased. We try to bring a small aspect of this soul back into the room of mourners. Shiva takes us from the rawness of the gravesite back into a home, back into comfort, even as that home is minimized by loss. Shiva allows our hearts to heal, story by story, as we shift from tears perhaps to rueful quiet laughter. As the taut, hard legal text of Mishnah opens, it opens us, and allows us to well-consider the life of the deceased.

When Joseph asked if his father was still alive, we can only imagine his feelings. This person, who as a young man was left for dead in a pit, and then sold, was only alive through his capacity for understanding dreams. Jacob might have thought his days were few and bad, but the days of Joseph were many and good. Perhaps his seven weepings were like the seven days of shiva; day by day, handful by handful, just as grain was gathered for the seven lean years, he was able to finally forgive his brothers, and now was consoled and restored.  His dreams came true. His father was alive. All was just right.
Aleichem shalom.

Shalom Aleichem,

Today we are discussing elements of the Jewish uniform of prayer – wearing prayer shawls, phylacteries and head coveringstallitot, tefillin, and kippot – all signifiers, until very recently, and still for many women, of male cohesion and belonging.

One of the most beautiful blessings of belonging in Judaism comes from the prophet Hosea. Most of his writing is difficult, it chronicles travail after travail as he tries to meet God’s demands of him.  Yet, as we wrap tefillin, we recite his words from chapter 2:21-22. As the strap is wrapped around the middle finger, we say:וארשתיך לי לעולם, וארשתיך לי בצדק ובמשפט ובחסד וברחמים, וארשתיך לי באמונה וידעת את ה’.

Transliteration: V’erastikh li l’olam, v’erastikh li b’tzedeku’v’mishpatu’v’hesedu’v’rachamim. V’erastikh li b’emunav’yadatet Adonai.

Thus says the Lord: I will betroth you to Me forever.
And I will betroth you to Me with righteousness, with justice, with kindness, and with compassion.
I will betroth you to Me with fidelity, and you shall know/love God.

These words of promise and love, fidelity and future are astoundingly beautiful. If Hosea said nothing else, these words would be enough. While some of our more traditionally minded teachers suggest that for women the domain of their homesis the “box” where they more properly connect with God, some of us choose to feel ourselves betrothed to God more directly, even as we may also wash floors and ensure the laundry is done.

But how does this notion of betrothal tie us to Miketz? Miketz continues the saga of Joseph, a saga where the many dreams that he has both dreamt and interpreted, culminate in a succession of weepings, an outpouring of memory, reconciliation and love. Is there a more touching set of emotional sequences in all of Torah? Torah documents Joseph weeping, sometimes quietly, but sometimes he needs to leave the room, sometimes he weeps and wails so that the entire city must hear him. If any of us have had weeping burst from within us, as uncontrollable a feeling as that moment of sexual climax, we know that our bodies are vessels holding depths of emotion at bay, tidal waves of which can cause shuddering wails to literally propel us across a room.

Wrapping leather straps and boxes on our head and arm, as we do when laying tefillin, is an act far more intentional, far less emotionally dramatic, than such weepings, but the words of Hosea bespeak a love that, if gone, might cause us, too, to weep without end. I remember back about ten years to a very bleak time in my life. I was acutely sad, and felt utterly disconnected from my God, from my source of fidelity and stability and joy and hope. I moved through my days like a stick, empty of feeling. My rabbi appeared at my front door; somehow he had heard of my sadness and he brought me words of comfort, and he gave me my words back, words that actually helped me begin to envision ways to get help to recover my sensibility. We all need affirmations of hope. It is a hard world.

Joseph too was that fish out of water. His entire life, political, professional – even his intimate life was with a people other than his own. I cannot imagine the stages of reunion when he first saw and recognized his brothers. We see, in what will be  a further succession of weepings,perhaps a new Creation story, a distinction of his physical body from his liquidity, his body of tears. Maybe our salty oceans were formed from God’s tears as He separated earth from waters, to make room for us, His human companions. Although the word Miketz means “an end”, perhaps Miketz is more a beginning, a re-Creation of hope for Joseph. His weepings are like a watering of his heart that, like hydra-phobic soil, was so hardened from emotional drought that his first tears bounced off the surface of his heart. Only the succession of his weepings – seven in total, could soften him to his brothers.

As we wrap the straps oftefillin 7 times down our arm, we create a tension that binds and holds and affirms love. Our bodies need to feel hope as well as our souls. I wear a wedding ring. Having bound myself to my human partner, how could I not bind myself daily to a God who has lifted me from despair over and over again, to a God who named me into being, to a God who called me from whence I came, to show me that my people and place was indeed all that I had longed for since I was a child.

I heard a phrase on a TV show recently, that moved me deeply. When a child was asked about his future he said, “We have a future we are born into and we have a future we choose.” Winding the straps of tefillin reminds me every day that I am a choosing Jew. Remembering Joseph’s succession of tears reminds me that God is with us, even in our weeping. And I remember that God has chosen me. Forever.

This Shabbat we also celebrate the new moon with Rosh ChodeshTevet and Hannukah – a conjunction of light of moon and of earthly candles, of miracles, memory and hope. So, Chodeshtov, Shabbat shalom, ChagHannukahsameach.

Aleichem shalom

In 2002 at the end of our first International Chevra Kadishaconference in Rockland Maryland, I was given a copy of a tome I had, dare I say, long coveted. One of my fellow organizers gave me Joshua Jacobson’s book: Chanting the Hebrew Bible: The Complete Guide to the Art of Cantillation, all 965 pages. I cracked it open and saw this sub-heading on page 108: Rabbinic Exegesis of Shalshelet. I was smitten!

The shalshelet is one of 4 rare ta’amim – and it occurs four times in Torah, 3 times in Bereshit. One of those times is this week, in Vayeshev, when Potiphar’s wife is attempting to seduce Joseph and he refuses her invitations. Hit the shlashelet.

Shalshelet means chain; this ta’am is a three-part chain both in appearance and sound. Our Sages suggest that its placement over the word “refused” implies that the chain of tradition (shalshelet mesorah) allowed Joseph to envisage his father’s face, which then enabled him to resist the charms of Mrs. Potiphar and to not break that chain of generations. That said, Joseph did marry an Egyptian woman later on and there was nary a ta’am reminding or rebuking him then.  Jacobson is slightly dismissive of such metaphorical readings. As he notes, the shalshelet – as with other ta’amim – holds a much more functional and grammatical aspect.

https://www.shamaileibowitz.org/2014/11/is-shalshelet-sound-of-wavering.html

In traditional Judaism the previously mentioned shalshelet mesorah is a chain of tradition understood to be unbroken – and references the rituals, traditions, and texts that have informed the Judaism of generations past, present and future.

In our sidra this week, Joseph sees himself in the eyes of Potiphar’s wife and he refuses to break this chain. It is one of those “no means no” moments in Torah.  The shalshelet over the word “refused” adds an emphatic and elongated aspect to his refusal. With apologies to Jacobson, did Joseph refuse three times? Does the ba’al or ba’alat kriah chant the shalsheletdifferently at each third of the note, perhaps increasing the volume sequentially within the ta’am? The brilliance of the cantillation system is that it not only allows the reader some degree of interpretation, it demands that act of interpretation from the reader.

Joseph’s refusal evokes our sympathy. He is young, but nevertheless, the delectable advances of his mistress are such that a question hangs in the air – how could he refuse? He must have been aware of his setting – the sumptuousness of which implied power. Joseph was sold by his brothers to Potiphar, who was a captain of the Egyptian guard, ominously, he was named Chancellor of the Butchers. Eventually Potiphar put Joseph in charge of his personal household. Temptations must have been many. But Joseph’s no meant no, however tempted he might have been. Mrs. Potiphar’s claims, though false, were taken for truth, and he was imprisoned.

The years he spent in the dungeon bespeaks a kindness in many ways – one could easily imagine rulers of that age not thinking twice about beheading such young men. But, in Biblical fashion, there is an ironic resolution that will play itself out as Joseph comes into his own power. 

After Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams, and his subsequent appointment as overlord of Egypt, he is said to have married a woman named Asenath, who was the daughter of one Poti-Pherah. Poti-Pherah may have been the same person as Potiphar – and/or of his wife. Joseph thus married the daughter of the woman who had accused him of rape. But if, at any point, if Joseph had not refused, if he had not spent time in prison with the Chancellor of the Cup Bearer and Chancellor of the Bakers, if they had not heard his wondrous interpretations of their dreams, if he did not live to interpret Pharaohs dreams – this shalshelet of events would have been broken. The unbroken chain enables our story to gallop forward. Chad Gadya, chad gadya…

The ta’am shalshelet marking Joseph’s refusal might also indicate a memory of his own dreams – one does not forget such significant dreams. He knew that God would bring the sheaves to bow before him. His time was not yet. Franz 
Rosenzweig*and Joseph thus become linked by a phrase – not yet – that brings them into my modern day shalshelet:  Chevra Kadisha linking “not yet” (perhaps an early version of the marshmallow test), and dreams with our ongoing exegesis of Torah. So too may we all be wondrous and innovative links in this chain of shalshelet mesorah.

Shabbat shalom

*When German Jewish theologian Franz Rosenzweig was asked whether he performed a particular mitzvah, he often replied, “Not yet.” He recognized Judaism as a process, something living and capable of change. He also taught that it was in the doing of a mitzvah that one understood the significance of that mitzvah. What is that space between not ready, not yet, and maybe, now?  It will be different for each of us.