From the Rabbi’s Desk

Vayeira or the Many Shades of Shylock

October 21, 2018 by • Tags: •

Last week I noted that there is a Midrashic tradition that Torah existed before Torah (as we know it).  In Midrash Bereshit Rabbah we see an elucidation of this idea. Referencing Mashal, or the Book of Proverbs, our Sages discuss how Wisdom existed before Creation. “The Lord made me as the beginning of His way, the first of His works of old” [Prov. 8:22]. Our Rabbis loved back-dating – “the older, the better”, and this pre-history certainly grounds that maxim.

If we hold Wisdom as an entity apart, however metaphorically, then Wisdom-as Torah existed prior to Creation. Wisdom is viewed almost as an architectural plan, which God then used as a blueprint.  Our Sages understood Wisdom-as-Torah as a foreshadowing, a device that preceded Torah-as-historical document which by nature, entails looking back, giving the reader a history.

Within Wisdom, there was a glimpse, perhaps the briefest of appearances, of what was to come. We see this apparitional collapsing of physical entity into belief much later in the precise architectural plans for the Temple found in the Books of Kings. These plans were written from memory into word, which then functioned as a fulcrum of both memory and hope, as necessity required. In this way, Torahfunctions within tenses almost as God’s description of Self: I was, I am, and I will be.אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, Torah, becomes that liminal opening, a poteach.

All this is a bit like opening a compressed file on our computers – which this week opens to Vayeira. And Vayeira opens, with just such a liminal appearance, at the very threshold of Abraham’s tent. A question arises of just what, or whom, Avraham saw. The “text” describes a visit by God and/or three men/angels. Abraham was initially head-bent-down whilst recovering in his tent, yet he immediately lifts his eyes and arises. “They” are present in front of Abraham, and yet distant enough that he must run towards them. So too do we experience both the imminence and transcendence of a personal, yet distant God.

We know when we feel the Presence of God –if only for the merest of moments, (with credit to Anaxagoras).  Anaxagoras lived in Greece prior to Socrates, and he was also a philosopher. He noted that, “Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.” Unseen? Who appeared to Abraham? What did he glimpse?

Further into Vayeira, on the way to Sodom, we encounter Abraham in a verbal duel with God: Who shall live and who shall die?I can’t help but cite Ann Coulter here, who stated that she…”gets a little belligerent when not enough protesters show up at my appearances.” I would like to suggest that perhaps God feels a bit like Coulter. God needs many more of us to show up, challenging and arguing, as did Abraham. Maybe God is saying to us here, “Welcome Me, yes, but argue with Me, challenge Me,be My ezer knegdo, be strength-against-Me.”

I recently watched a documentary about “The Merchant of Venice.” The focus of the presentation was Shylock and the question was Shakespeare’s intention; was it to make Shylock an object of derision? Or was Shakespeare’s intention to plead for the humanity of this man, a Jew? Was this play trying to make what was unseen, seen? His characters are like Matryoshka dolls, nestling within themselves, providing glimpses of tragedy within what was ostensibly a comedy.

“Am I not man like any other, do I not bleed”? Shylock demands. And Avraham asks of God – “are these people of Sodom not Yours?… Will you even obliterate righteous with wicked?” Shylock and Abraham become one with their questions. The courts convene. One court consists of Avraham trudging beside his God. He and God have both chosen each other – in love. But Abraham is dogged – he is not letting God off on any hook. And God too is resolute. There is no happy ending. Not for Sodom.

Shakespeare’s play also ends unhappily, with Portia demanding that Shylock not only be denied his pound of flesh, but that he be punished. Shylock, for his very asking that his bond against a Venetian be redeemed, must now convert to Christianity – a fate so false to Shylocks soul that it is painful to look up. We feel a blade slice through our soul, and we sit like Avraham, our heads bent down.Aach. What will we see when we look up?

Appearances. We think we know what we see. And yet even God wonders what to reveal, what to conceal. God asks, “Should I conceal from Abraham what I do?” Glimpsing what seems concealed, glimpsing that moment where we become Thou, in Buber’s language –this is our journey. God and Shakespeare, Abraham and even Ann Coulter – we all want what is unseen to become seen. Perhaps, with chochmah, with Wisdom guiding us, that holy blueprint can live within us, and guide us towards such a glimpse. An appearance. Vayeira. Shabbat shalom.

Lech Lecha

October 14, 2018 by • Tags: •

With the opening of Lech Lecha, I realize again how difficult it is to go beyond these two not-so-simple words. Go. Go where? What constitutes a journey, especially in our minds? How do we hear the voice of God: Commanding as in the domain of the Leviathan, or insistent as a mosquito? And how do we understand Lech lecha in the context of understanding the mitzvah of circumcision, brit milah?

I am without that marker of covenant that so concerns God. I am a woman, so covenant holds differently for me; it is not engraved so much on, but in, my body. Covenant is not a marker on my body; I am, in the language of prayer, circumcised on my heart, and thus my soul. Perhaps, for women, our menses can be regarded as a covenant of blood, allowing us to bring children into this world. Yet, that act of begetting, as Bible often references generational continuity, is more an act of physiology than covenant. And, of course, many women do not bear children.

Creation, copulation, castration, and now circumcision and covenant – these “c” words all carry a heavy weight, a kaved, of relationship. These words demand: They demand other becomes as-one, they demand an action that is transformative, changing what was to what is, and now, a cutting that mysteriously becomes covenant. God has demanded this “ot,” as a sign of love, not just of body, but of soul.

Let’s consider that moment of first circumcision we read about in this parashah: Abraham takes a knife, or perhaps a very sharp stone, and then must bring that sharpened edge to his foreskin. It is an almost unimaginable act. I have seen the hands of grown men cup their own genitals, as they wept whilst attending a bris. This act summons another moment, a memory of Avraham holding a knife – the Akedah. Is brit milah, the removing of the orlah, perhaps a foreshadowing of that equally unimaginable act – a father sacrificing his own son – summoned by that same demanding voice of God?

Our Sages had their own questions. Bereshit Rabbah 49.1 suggests that God helped Abraham with this deed, stretching Abraham’s foreskin so that Abraham could make the cut. In another reading from Tanhuma Ye’lammedenu, Lekh lekha 17, a scorpion bit Abraham on his foreskin, thereby conveniently circumcising him. One can feel the squirming, if not to say severe discomfort of these male readers – who ask themselves just how did Avraham manage to accomplish this act?

And so once again, I will return to Don Isaac Abarvanel, who cites Rambam, (not by name, but by idea), when he says that “the nature of the quarry ought to be evident in what was hewn from it,” in reference to Isaac as a descendant of Avraham. Circumcision might be the ultimate identifier, the ultimate mark of Jewish continuity. Abarvanel knew that in his day, many Jews were choosing conversion to Christianity; conversion enabled them to live, circumcision was a signifier of danger. Questions of authenticity hung over them, like that knife in Avraham’s hand, hovering over his beloved son Yitzhak. Were their vows truly authentic? What was hewn from the quarry was now in mortal danger.This question cannot help but bring up the “disappeared” in Argentina, the search for brit milah by vicious Nazi’s. And we must ask – did the mark of Cain become brit milah?

Today, the ritual of brit milah is found to be in question by the very community that has held this “ot” or sign of covenant for millennia. Circumcision has oddly also become a question of authenticity. The word “intactness” is used by those opposed to brit milah, implying a greater authenticity of body, at the very least for those who have not been circumcised. But who has an intact body – are we not all marred (or perhaps mirrored) by the vicissitudes of life?

Evolving new traditions is an oxymoron for many. Yet, we must listen to the many modern-day would-be conversosin our midst. Ferdinand and Isabella are not on the throne, but the lure of Gentility remains. How will we respond?  Judaism is a culture of reminders; the function of our mitzvot is to draw our attention to that larger vision that Abarvanel and our Sages sought. One-ness of body and soul with God. How will we pack this vision of authentic covenant with us on our journeys? Lech Lecha. Go.

And, don’t forget to pack the mohel jokes.

Shabbat shalom.

Noach

October 8, 2018 by • Tags: •

Shabbat shalom

Noach is described not just as a tzadik, a righteous man, he is a tzadikta’meem; he is perfect. Or in Rashi’s words, Noach was simple-hearted in his complete acceptance of God’s ways: “Walk with Him simple-heartedly (bet’mimus) and look for­ward to what He has in store.”

In the word ta’meem we learn that Noach was sincere, an innocent, honest and complete man. Noach had that perfect pitch of true righteousness. Tam is flavour, taste, but Noach’s ta’am was not just flavour, it was his simple acceptance of God, his honest and sincere correctness of execution of Torah that gave him his status of tzadik tameem. But wait – Noach didn’t yet have Torah, did he? Hold that thought.

We also hear in the root la’tom, (which means endings and completions), a foretaste of what is soon to come.

In Bereshit we met Elohim, yet here, we read that Noach walked with HaElohim, not just Elohim, but HaElohim. The use of the direct object reinforces that God is The One, The God (plural). Five verses in to our reading, we see in verse 14 yet another fascinating construction. Noach is told to a’sayl’chatayvat – he is told to build an Ark. Simple.

Our Sage Abarbanel, a commentator who lived in Portugal during the 1400’s, notes in this command, a reproof for Noach. He describes Noach disapprovingly, as someone who chose to remain aloof from the behaviours all around him. For Abarbanel, the Ark symbolized how Noach closed himself from trying to help those around him. Instead, he shuttered himself in his ark and sailed away.

Given the desperate times for Jews in Spain and Portugal during the 13th-15th centuries, it is interesting to note this disapproval in Abarbanel. Apparently, he usually took issues of the times – social, political and certainly religious into consideration; he believed that mere detached Biblical commentary was not enough. He believed that the actual lived lives of Jews must always be considered – even when writing about Torah. It is fascinating to me to note how he brought such issues into his exegesis. One marvels again at how modern pre-modernity seems to be.

Bearing Abarbanel in mind, what happens if we read this command of God to Noach differently? What happens if we read these words as a construction similar to lechlecha, the words of which can be read either as “Go” or “go into yourself.”

We can then read this “simple” command regarding mere boat-building as a timeless and more complicated command. Make of our selves an Ark. We are commanded to become a tayvat, an ark that will float on the waters of Torah, an Ark that will keep each of us safe from the tohuv’vohu (void, wildness) of elemental Nature, an Ark that will represent our individual and collective covenant with God, an Ark that reminds us we are not vildechayim, wild animals, but a people who choose order –a people who choose to walk with God.

And imagine that Judaism –a construction that is yet to come into this narrative, and yet one that hovers over Noach like the proverbial rainbow – is that Ark.

I recently read again about our genetic origins. It is the kind of idea where I feel as if I need a vice grip on my brain to hold it, and yet I find it allows me to better understand Torah in a way with which I had previously struggled. It allows me, tentatively, at least, to hold that beginnings are within beginnings are within beginnings.

All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month-old fetus in the womb of her mother, whose eggs were formed in the womb of her mother, so each of us spent five months in our grandmother’s womb, and she in turn was formed in the womb of her grandmother.

How did Noach know Torah before Torah? Torah was given, before it was given.  How does Torah precede Torah? Perhaps as the eggs of that first mother, so too does Torah lodge in our wombs for generations – hidden, interior, emerging in successions of generations later.

Our bodies are our arks. Our bodies hold our stories past, present and future. New studies in the field of epigenetics are also opening up Torah. Epigenetics literally means “above” genetics. It refers to external effects which can then modify our DNA; modifications that can turn certain genes “on” or “off.” These modifications don’t change our DNA, but they do affect how our cells “read” genes. Studies in epigenetics are also demonstrating that extreme trauma our parents and our parent’s parents may have experienced is held in their cellular structure; trauma that can be passed on to subsequent generations.

For a people who have suffered centuries of trauma, but also of joy, these studies hold incredible import. Pain and joylie within our bodily Arks.

So with Noach, with Abarbanel, let’s build an Ark of our-selves. Let’s not sail away, but sail within, together, an Armada of Torah sailing towards HaElohim.

Shabbat shalom.

 

 

October 1, 2018 by • Tags: •

God creates the world in six days. On the first day He makes darkness and light. On the second day He forms the heavens, dividing the “upper waters” from the “lower waters.”
On the third day He sets the boundaries of land and sea, and calls forth trees and greenery from the earth.
On the fourth day He fixes the position of the sun, moon and stars as timekeepers and illuminators of the earth.
Fish, birds and reptiles are created on the fifth day; land animals,
On the sixth day God creates the human being.

God ceases work on the seventh day, and sanctifies it as a day of rest.

God forms the human body from the dust of the earth, and blows into his nostrils a “living soul.” Originally Man is a single person, but deciding that “it is not good that man be alone,” God takes a “side” from the man, forms it into a woman, and they are united with each other.

Adam and Eve are placed in the Garden of Eden, and commanded not to eat from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” The serpent persuades Eve to violate the command, and she shares the forbidden fruit with Adam. Because of their sin, it is decreed that man will experience death, returning to the soil from which he was formed, and that all gain will come only through struggle and hardship. Man is banished from the Garden.

Eve gives birth to two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain quarrels with Abel and murders him, and becomes a rootless wanderer. A third son, Seth, is born to Adam; Seth’s eighth-generation descendant, Noah, is the only righteous man in a corrupt world.

 

Bereshit: So many conundrums!

Rashi, the master of p’shat – a simple straight-forward meaning on text – challenges that they typical reading of Bereshit as a Creation chronology is incorrect; Rashi says this usage of “reishit” demands an explanation.  “This verse is nothing if not mysterious. Expound – explain me.” He points out the waters already existed, for example.

He teaches us: “In the beginning”, describes not the clarities of origin and cause, but the potentialities of purpose.”

Our Sages agree and apply the Rabbinic principle that there is no chronology on Torah.

How do we understand the Creation of the first humans – who were made in the image of Elohim (plural)? Is God Echad, One – how do we read the name Elohim? God’s name changes within the first two chapters to Adonai Elohim – how do we understand these namings.

Connect the creation of the world with standing at Sinai.
Anokhi meets anokhi.

The “I’ness”Anokhi of God, of Creation hears the anokhi “I’ness”of the humans standing at Sinai, who say, “na’asehv’nishma“– “we will do, we will make the world.” So from this perspective, Israel (also) creates the world, simply by finding their place and standing at Sinai. The giving of the Torah is commonly referred to as ma’amad har Sinai – the standing at Sinai. How does our own anokhi within, stand and meet the One who is Anokhi?

Omed – What does it mean to stand? To under-stand?

Talmud makes an extraordinary observation about the paradoxes of “standing”: No ‘man’ stands on it (can rightly under-stand)the words of Torah, unless he has stumbled over them.

And then we have the angels – who argued with God at both of these moments – Bereshit when God wanted to create humans and then later at Sinai when God wanted to give the Israelites the Torah.

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/do-first-understand-later/

«‹ 29 30 31 32