D'var Torah Parsha Lekh L'kha 5783

I confess this is one of my more favorite Parshayiot. Lekh L’kha literally means “take yourself.” One midrash suggests it’s true meaning is to go find your true self. So, when HaShem commands Abram to “Lekh L’kha, it seems to be for a journey not only to Canaan, but a journey for him to realize his place in this world, as our first Patriarch and the founding of the people who would become Israel.

They travel to Canaan, as far south as Shechem, south of the Jezreel Valley. Abram builds an alter and offers a sacrifice to HaShem. Then to the hills east of Bethel and to the Negeb. Due to a drought, they head for Egypt.

Now as they approach Egypt, Abram tells Sarai to say she is his sister, for she is so beautiful if Pharoah knows he is his wife, he will surely kill Abram to take her as his own. She does so, and Pharoah takes her to him. Abram benefits from the arrangement; however, Pharoah is cursed with plagues, and he finds out what has happened. Furious with Abram, he throws them all out of the country.

Now first, as a moral issue alone, why would he submit his wife to be so mistreated my Pharoah? It seems to demonstrate the status of women in that time. There is one theory posited by E.A. Speiser in his commentary on Genesis. It says in Biblical Archaeology Review dated September 1975 that the culture in the part of Iraq where Abram and Sarai lived for a time in Haran, was part of the same cultural milieu as Nuzi, where cuneiform tablets demonstrated an instance where a man adopted his wife as a sister. He felt that in this Hurrian culture which rather than patriarchal or matriarchal was rather fraternal, it might have endowed this wife with a special status in a world where blood feud was a thing. Some of his conclusions have come under fire over time, but it does provide one possible reason other than self-protection why he would have done such a thing. Pharoah does take her for a time, and a midrash suggests that an angel was sent who hit Pharoah with a stick whenever he tried to cohabit with her. My hunch is this is more an effort to protect the sanctity of the Matriarch. But on the other hand, I love that our Patriarchs and Matriarchs are real people, not contrived individuals demonstrating a perfection that in no way resembles actual human beings.

Abram, Sarai, and Lot return to the Negeb. The land will not support the herds of both Abram and Lot, so Abram remains in Canaan and Lot settles in the Jordan valley. HaShem tells Abram this will be his land for all generations to come. Abram settles near the terebinths of Mamre in Hebron. Am I the only person who did not know what a terebinth is? I looked it up and learned it’s a rather bushy tree known to have symbolic spiritual meaning to some in the region.

Things did not go well for Lot. War broke out in Sodom and Gomorrah, and he is taken prisoner along with local kings and they take the wealth of the region. Abram gathers his men, and they attack, freeing Lot and the Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. Melchizedek offers praise to Abram. Abram in turn offers to the king of Sodom ten percent of the wealth. The king on the other hand says he wants to keep the men (literally souls) and Abram can keep the wealth. Abram is having no part of that deal. He pays the 10% and returns to Canaan where Abram again is promised this land will be his in perpetuity.

Now Abram is an old as is Sarai, and he laments that he is childless, so who will inherit the land, likely his steward. HaShem ensures him his offspring will inherit the land. After sacrifices, he goes into a deep sleep where HaShem tells him his people will be taken as slaves for 400 years, but they will come back to this land, and he will die a peaceful death.

His wife Sarai offers her handmaiden Hagar, and he bears Ishmael. Abram is 86. Sarai becomes jealous, mistreating Hagar and she runs away. However, an angel tells her to return and endure the mistreatment, and her child will form a great nation. At the age of 99, HaShem promises Abram will have a child with Sarai, and He will establish a covenant with them and his child to be named Itzaak (Isaac) will help found a great nation. He asks Abram to circumcise himself and all males in his camp. Ishmael will be blest, but Isaac will carry the covenant for His people. Finally, Abram is to become Abraham, and Sarai will be Sarah. Adding the “hei” or (h) to their names represented carrying a piece of the name of G_d with them.

I think many of us at one time or another have been called to step out on that at times lonely journey to become one’s self. Rabbi Sacks of blessed memory says only a person willing stand alone, singular, and unique, can worship the G_d who stands alone, singular, and unique.

Now name change is a big deal in Torah, marking major transitions. It certainly has been so in my life as well. Born transgender, to find true happiness, real satisfaction, to become true to self and listen to that inner voice, I had to walk away from that space of conformity. The journey to be myself meant I had to go forward, in many cases leaving family and former friends, a journey that meant having faith that it will be well on the other side. Like Abram and Sarai, it brought with it a change of name as well, from my old name to Jessica.

But that was not the only journey. Above I mentioned the piece from Biblical Archaeology Review. I remembered the article from then. In the seventies, particularly the later seventies, I felt a calling to be Jewish, a modern-day Ruth ready to follow Naomi. In those days where I lived, being gay created a real roadblock to that journey. But time passed, and my desire never went away. So, it came the day when being gay or even trans was not a roadblock. Another journey, leaving my former UU community and studying hard, practicing our ritual until I became the Jew I had always been. Another significant journey and another change of names, my Jewish name Yiskah Rachel. I had come home to my true self.

I feel certain many of us have felt that inner voice leading us to the journey to which we were intended. Others are on that journey now. We can learn from Abraham and Sarah to step outside the constraints by society, which is by its nature temporary, to find that home where we can stand alone, singular, and unique, outside the constraints of history. It has served our people well for some thousands of years. Baruch HaShem.

Jessica Wicks 10-31-2022

Dvar Torah Parsha Noach 5783

Noach is an interesting parsha for so many reasons. Before, we learned in some rabbinic commentaries that prior to this world, HaShem had created and destroyed other worlds. So, he creates what he feels is a perfect world, and here goes Chava (Eve) and Adam disobeying his one command. HaShem then kicking them out of the lush gardens in which they resided. Cain allows his emotions to take control and he kills Abel. HaShem has failed to reckon with the dual nature of humans, to commit both good and evil.

Now, ten generations later, we find Noach (Noah), an innocent among the worst of humanity. Rabbi Yochanan says he was the best of all humanity. Resh Lakish said he was but the best of his generation. He was no Moshe for instance, Noach only working to save himself and his family, not the rest of humanity.

Anyhow, HaShem has Noach build an ark to hold him, his wife, his three sons, and their wives, and all the animals of the land two by two. Flood waters will come higher than the highest peaks and destroy all mankind.

Now Noach was 600 years old when the rains came. At 75, I reflect on my own arthritis and can’t even fathom how bad it would be at 600! The waters rise for 150 days. Then HaShem remembers Noach and the winds begin to blow, a sound portending the lowering of the water. Compare this to Babylonian flood myths where their gods lose control of the weather. In comparison, HaShem simply says let it be, and it is done. In another memory of Babylonian myths, Noach sends out a raven, then a dove. It returns, then goes out again and has an olive leaf in its beak. It is time for the people and animals to depart the ark.

Upon departing the ark, Noach chooses the select of the animals and offers a sacrifice to HaShem. HaShem promises to never destroy all the people and animals again. He places the rainbow in the sky as a sign of his covenant.

Noach prepares a vineyard and sampling his produce, he drinks too much of his wine. Now that does not seem surprising to me. I mean, he is all alone except his family. He’s witnessed the death of all other humanity. I practice sobriety, but under such circumstances, I’d be tempted to drink too. He passes out naked in his tent. Ham sees him, but rather than simply cover him, he tells his brothers. They enter backwards to protect his modesty and cover him. Noach is furious when he finds out and curses Ham. Ironic that this righteous man at the end responds so soon with a curse. Torah shows us that Noach cursed him, but HaShem never does. The Rabbis suggest that more was done than simply viewing his nakedness, but Torah does not tell us what. It is left to our imaginations.

More genealogies, and the focus turns to Mesopotamia. Assur builds the great city of Nineveh. The people, enamored by what they can build with mudbrick, proceed to build a tower (ziggurat) that reaches towards the sky. They forget who is behind it all. HaShem is angered and scatters the people throughout the world and confounds their languages. It becomes known as the tower of Babel. What follows is a lineage stretching to Shem and then Abram who marries Sarai.

Rabbi Sacks of blessed memory suggests this resembles from the beginning of Bereishit to the end of Noach, a four-part story leading to humanity as we know it today. There’s Adam and Eve who eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, then Cain and Abel, followed by Noach and finally the Tower of Babel and the lineage that leads to Abram and Sarai who will be the progenitures of our people. It’s about humanity maturing over this time.

In this story, we find ourselves wrestling with humanity’s capacity to do both good and evil. Are we good? Yes. Are we evil? Also, yes. A midrash tells us the angels of chesed (loving kindness) and tzedakah (charitable thought and action) argued yes for creating humanity, while the angels of shalom (peace) and emet (truth) said no because he tells lies and fights wars. HaShem create us anyway. We have a natural inclination towards empathy or sympathy per Rabbi Sacks, but even stronger instinct for fear which can lead to violence. Which is why we move from tov (nature) to brit (covenant), a moral law for us to adhere to. If we depend on our nature alone, well, chaos ensues.

Many years ago, I had to deal with my abuse of alcohol. I entered a 12-step program to deal with my addiction. Part of the process is to do a rigorous moral inventory, identifying and writing down every time I ever hurt another, identify the reason (sex, society, security), to share what I had done with another, and to do teshuvah, that is make amends. As I reviewed that list of a lifetime’s wrongdoing, it became clear that in every single incident, the underlying cause was fear. Others in my program had similar findings. Our emotions stemming from fear can bypass our better inclinations.

A recurrent thought worth mentioning I believe. It is not only us that has been on a learning curve. It seems like HaShem is also learning as we go. His creation was not perfect, but HaShem is adapting as we move through our creation story. Despite our tendency to do wrong, HaShem chooses to leave us here, ultimately with a message to go and heal the world. We wrestle with Torah, confront, adapt these millennia later. Yes, we have yetzer hara (evil inclination) and yetzer ha-tov (good inclination), but we have through some thousands of years developed a moral code to help confront the yetzer hara through ethics, laws, and basic morality. Plus 613 mitzvot, IF we so choose. Sometimes we get it wrong. For that we have teshuvah, making things right to the best of our ability. None of us are perfect, but we can all strive towards making a better world.

One last thought. Rabbi Aviva Richman observes that Noach begins and ends with loss and tragedy. First with the death of all humanity save Noach and his family. At the end with Abram and Sarai not able to conceive a child. We all face struggles and disappointments in a lifetime. But, using her words, “From the lessons of our divine and earthly parents, we learn the bravery to risk creation and relationship, the vulnerability of confronting loss, and the strength to try again.”

Shabbat Shalom.

D'var Torah Parsha Bo 5782

In adding prior my earlier Parshat, I realized I'd misfiled this one, so I'm adding it now.

Next Shabbat is Pesach. On Pesach, we read from Parsha Bo in Exodus and Pinchas in Numbers. It’s an integral part of our story as Jews, the journey out of Mitzrayim to become who we are today. We tell of the Passover, of packing and leaving even before the bread has leavened, and we teach the story to our children, making it our own.

Our story is an expansive one. Tova Lebovic-Douglas in her article on Bo points out that in Exodus 12:38 “And there was a mixed multitude who went up with them.” What is a mixed multitude? Rashi says it’s a mixture of converts of different nationalities. Some suggest it includes Egyptians who chose to follow them. As our people move into the desert, we see the formulation of laws governing the people, and we are called to embrace the ger, a word which can mean either convert or stranger, for we were once strangers in Mitzrayim. Some were converts, but others simply fellow travelers on this journey of liberation.

Back to the Parsha, Moshe teaches in 12:26-7, “And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’ you shall say ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, because he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, but saved our houses.’” Two other times the instruction is repeated for the people Israel. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory points out how counterintuitive for Moshe to speak not of today or tomorrow, but of the distant future. His words speak to us today as then. We are called to teach the story to our children, encourage them to ask questions. In that way it’s not a matter of rote learning, but rather active dialogue between parents and children. It was a revolutionary act in so many ways. Other societies built their huge buildings, but we built schools. We educate and tell our stories, remembering where we came from. We survived when other civilizations fell into ruin. We teach our children the importance of justice, righteousness, kindness and compassion. We gather here as a caring committee today, acting upon those very values.

Indeed, we found with Moshe, visionary leadership upon which the formation of the text and texture of Judaism is found. It states succinctly in Proverbs 29:18, “Without a vision, the people perish.”

We tell the story and make it our own. We tell our stories and remember the history of our people. I confess as a writer, historian, and storyteller; I love this aspect of being Jewish. As we tell our stories this Pesach, I can’t help but reflect on the last few years. A worldwide pandemic that has affected so many of us and yet in many cases, brought out the very best of us, through cards and meals, front line workers risking so much to bring the services that keep us going as a civilization. Of gathering to sit shiva, to mourn those who have passed and to comfort those who lost a loved one. Of the people of Ukraine in this cruel war against them. I imagine what it must have been like for Moshe, to lead the people, twelve tribes, from the young to the very old. What of the very old, unable to walk much like me? And the children who could not keep up or not yet able to walk? Did they carry them over their shoulders or on makeshift carts in much the way I saw the refugees similarly being carried out of war-torn Ukraine?

When I tell the story, it did happen, and it was this call to compassion that prevailed, then and over the centuries. It is what brings us here today. We care for each other, and we tell the story, essential for a moral life. It is what forms who we are today, our identity. Referring to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once more, “Identity which is always particular, is based on a story, the narrative that links me to the past, guides me in the present, and places on me responsibility for the future.” In fact, there is no more powerful memory than the one in Exodus. So today, centuries after the fact, we gather to tell our story this weekend.

Am Israel chai. Pesach sameach!

Dvar Torah Parsha Bereishit 5783

So, this week our parsha is Bereishit, and traditionally the first meaningful word in our first book of Torah is also Bereishit, or Genesis. This book was also called Seifer Ha-Yasher or the Book of the Upright by Jews in the Middle Ages per commentary in Etz Chaim. It is the origin myth of the Jewish people, well actually two origin stories back-to-back. Bereishit is about morality, not cosmology or science.

We start with a void, nothingness, and HaShem simply says “Let there be light,” and there is light. HaShem then says it is good. Our origins derive from Mesopotamia, and it is worth comparing our origin story with the oldest written in the region. The Enuma Elish according to N.S. Gill, Learn Religions, was found on seven tablets written by the Assyrians and Babylonians in the second millennium BCE. In their story, there is a huge battle of cosmic proportions between Marduk, the storm god, and Tiamat, the sea goddess seeking vengeance for the death of her husband. Marduk ultimately prevails, using Tiamant’s body to form the sky and the earth. He forms the great Mesopotamian rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates from the tears in her eyes and creates mankind from the blood of Tiamant’s son and spouse Kingu, so they may serve the gods.

Compare that to our origin myth in Bereishit. Our HaShem simply says, “let it be so.” And it is so. No big deal, no struggle, HaShem simply does it. We do not see the name of HaShem here, rather the word Elohim. It’s a common word for deity in Hebrew, but early on was also used for Pagan deities. The Rabbis would suggest it included the angels who were below HaShem.

Etz Chaim commentary suggests that HaShem creates with words, clearly implying the power of words to create and destroy. As Jews we take this lesson to heart, calling ourselves the people of the book, or the power of words. HaShem creates light, symbolized in our Jewish lives by the Ner Tamid and the menorah. HaShem continues with creation, forming the stars, moon, earth, all the living things and man and woman by the sixth day in the first creation story ending with Bereishit 2:3. HaShem’s work is not completed but they call for the seventh day, Shabbat to be set aside as sacred and holy when no work is to be done.

The Vilna Gaon suggests we should set aside unfinished business on Friday afternoon to prepare for Shabbat. One thought occurred to me. At the end of Torah in D’varim, Moshe who has led the people to the promised land, dies on the Mountain, ending Torah with the unfinished business of crossing over to Eretz Israel. It seems to be a reminder that we all will leave unfinished business, but we are all called to do our part towards completion, specifically to repair the world, a core tenant of our faith.

There’s another interesting comparison between beginning and end of Torah. In Bereishit, after Chava (Eve) and Adam have been cast out of the Garden, HaShem creates leather clothing for them to wear. At the end of D’varim, Moshe dies and HaShem buries him. The beginning and the ending of Torah are marked by acts of kindness.

Back to our story. We indeed have two creation stories. In Bereishit 1:27, HaShem creates man and woman. But in Bereishit2:7 HaShem creates Adam (his name) from Adamah (earth or clay) and breathes the breath of life into his nostrils. But he finds he needs a partner (helper) and so he puts Adam into a deep sleep and creates Chava from his rib. She is companion, helper, wife, and mother. He has created Eden, an idyllic garden. Through it runs a river which branches off to form the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates. There is but one rule for living this peaceful existence, to not eat from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Historical note, the Sumerians had an island in their creation story, and the Epic of Gilgamesh also speaks of a garden.

Chava meets the serpent who proceeds to talk her into partaking of the fruit of the forbidden tree. In the culture of the day, serpents were considered occult figures. But in our story, it’s simply a creation of HaShem. Eve eats from the fruit, and she shares it with Adam. It was Eve who says she is seeking knowledge. They become aware of their nakedness and try to hide from HaShem. An interesting side note here from the Torah: A Women’s Commentary. It is always Chava who communicates with and names HaShem, not Adam. They are cast out of the garden, the serpent is punished by becoming the lowliest of the low, Chava by painful childbirth, and all humankind with finite lives ending in death.

Still, HaShem was not completely angry with them. After all he clothes them as they enter our world. Some equate this with the transition from childhood to adulthood, and all that comes with that. They go on and have two sons, Cain, and Abel. One farms while the other herds sheep. They are commanded to bring gifts for HaShem. Cain brings produce, while Abel gifts his best animal. HaShem pays heed to Abel, but not Cain. Cain is angry and goes and kills his brother. For that Cain is cursed to wander. He settles in Nod, meets his wife and they have a son named Enoch. They found a city by the same name. What follows are genealogies leading to Noach.

Reflecting on our creation story, I find myself in agreement with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory, when he speaks to how we humans are apart from other creatures because of our gift of the spoken word. From that gift, our own creations are born. The idea, the vision, the concept, the action making it reality. Imperfect, yes, but we have moved from the pastoral economies living in tents and mudbrick houses to an age of cities, flight, computers and so much more because people had an idea, and saw it become reality. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” May we bring life, creating good and repairing our world in our journey on this planet before our time has come. Each day brings possibility for blessing. May it be so! Shabbat Shalom!

D'var Torah Parsha V'zot Ha-B'rachah: Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah

Here we are at the grand finale of the High Holy Days. For seven days we sit in temporary structures called sukkot doing ritual with etrog and lulav, a remembrance of our people in the desert living in temporary structures for 40 years. On Shabbat during Sukkot, we read Exodus 33:12-34:26 plus a series of readings from Numbers including Numbers 29:17-29:34. In Exodus we remember the giving of the tablets and the giving of covenant by HaShem. Numbers outlines the sacrifices to be made at the temple for each of the seven days of Sukkot. On Shemini Atzeret, the eighth day of assembly in Temple times, we read Deuteronomy 14:22-16:17 describing tithes of produce to be offered on that eight day of the festival. Also, Numbers 29:35-30:1 speaking to these sacrifices. These passages have been read over the past year, so I won’t do much detail for them here.

This brings us to Simchat Torah, where the final parsha, Parsha V’zot Ha-B’rakha is read, as well as from some of Bereishit, Genesis to signify the beginning of a new Torah cycle. First the final parsha is read, then another scroll retrieved to read from Bereishit. There is great celebration and dancing with the Torah.

So now about V’zot Ha-B’rakha. It contains the blessings of Moshe to all the tribes of Israel. One midrash says it well. According to midrash P’tirat Moshe: “All my life I have scolded this people. At the end of my life, let me leave them with a blessing.” Etz Chaim commentary goes on to liken it to Yaakov’s (Jacob’s) blessing his sons at the end of Bereishit, so Moshe does at the end of D’varim. (Deuteronomy.) He blesses each for their attributes as well as the land they will occupy. Of course, Moshe has also prophesied that the people after entering this new land would stray.

After the blessings, Moshe goes to the top of Mount Nevo, where HaShem shows him the promised land, a land where he would not enter. There he views the land, seeing territories that would live in peace and war per Rashi. There is a eulogy for Moshe as he dies and he is buried in an unnamed place upon Mount Nevo.

Now what a place to end the five books of Torah. Not with Joshua entering the land. It’s akin to finishing a book without the ending. Indeed, on Simchat Torah we then read passages from Bereishit where we start all over again. Now as I read this ending, I feel such sadness for Moshe, who after confronting Pharoah, leading the people across the Reed Sea, climbed upon Mount Ararat to receive the Torah from HaShem, led the people for 40 years in the desert, but could not enter this promised land. Rabbi Shimon Felix alludes to climbing up on Mount Ararat as if heaven descended to meet Moshe and now once again Moshe climbs a high place to die and pass on. In the desert Torah was given, and the ideal of Torah was lived, but as the people prepare to enter the land, so ends Torah and so also the people prepare to enter the reality of the history we all live out. A place where we study and learn but filled with the imperfections of daily life. Just as according to Rabbi Felix, the tablets were smashed in the desert because of idol worship, the ideal of living Torah overlooked by HaShem, in leaving the desert the people become independent actors.

So back to the ending, the ending that is more like the middle. In the next book after the five books of Moses, Joshua enters the land. Why not end our story in Torah after that? Instead, we begin back at the beginning. Per Rabbi Sacks of blessed memory, it ends a bit like an unfinished symphony. He suggests and I agree, as I often do it seems, that it is because the story of the Jews is unfinished. Our history is a part of us. Each year we relive the story through our Torah reading, Haftorah selections, and our holidays. It is part and parcel of who we are. Just as Moshe left the story incomplete, none of us will complete the story either. But we can do our part. Per Rabbi Sacks, “Biblical narrative has no sense of an ending because it constantly seeks to tell us that we have not yet completed the task.” Like Moshe, Rabbi Sacks says we stand upon Mount Nebo, unable to finish what must be done. However, that does not absolve us of our responsibility to continue the story, doing our part.

So, as we dance with Torah, prepare to relive again our journey, each of us can do our part in the coming year. With chesed (loving kindness), tzedakah (charitable giving), and tikkun olam (healing the world), we can all do our part to move our story forward. Sacks reminds us of the wonderful poem by Robert Frost, “I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.”

Chag Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah Sameach! May we bring blessings to this new year!

D'var Torah Parsha Ha'azinu 5783

Parsha Ha’azinu, D’varim (Deuteronomy) Chapter 32 is also called the Song of Moses. It’s the next to last parsha in the Torah. Songs are found only sporadically in Torah, the best known probably being the song at the crossing of the Reed Sea by Miriam, Moshe, and the Israelites. In this parsha, it provides emphasis for the address Moshe has just given to the people as they prepare to enter the land promised to them by HaShem.

Before getting into the description itself, some fascinating facts arose in my research. First, according to the commentary in the Robert Alter translation, this parsha is older than the rest of D’varim, perhaps as far back as the 11th century BCE. The poetry style is more akin to the pre-Biblical poetry of Ugaritic civilization, so called for its origins in Ugarit, a port city in ancient Canaan on the Syrian coast today. A characteristic of this style of early Hebrew prayer are lines offered in couplets, where the second line emphasizes the first.

Ugarit and other coastal trading centers were impacted by Greek trading vessels. The first verse hints at this.

“Give ear oh heavens that I may speak
And let the earth hear my mouth’s utterances.”
Wording very akin to the beginnings of Homeric epics.

The lines are not unlike the beginning of Isaiah (per Alter), calling upon heaven and earth to be witness. He goes on with prayer that his words (Torah) will be like the rain falling upon the earth.

“Let my teaching drop like rain,
My saying flow like dew,
Like showers on the green
And like cloudbursts upon the grass.”
It continues to declare the glory of HaShem, reminds of the history of the journey. It predicts that the people (stiff-necked that we are) will be tempted to follow other deities, and HaShem’s anger will be raised, and Their people will be driven from the land and suffer greatly. But when they learn the evil of their ways, in the end HaShem will be there and their enemies will be vanquished. As the song nears its end, an interesting verse can be found.

“I put to death and give life.
I wound and I heal,
Nor is there any power that can deliver out of My hand.” D’varim 32:39 Per Rabbi Yitz Greenberg of HADAR, this is the only allusion to life after death in the five books of Torah. We don’t spend a lot of time on what happens after we die, focusing on this life and what we do in the here and now, but a core belief of our faith is resurrection with the coming of Mashiach. The focus on what we do today, can be found in Mishnah Avot 4:22: “Better one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world than all the life in the world to come.”

So, in thinking on this parsha, the original poem and the book of Deuteronomy that preceded it, two things came to mind. First the power of song, and the second, the power of repetition. These two and their influence upon memory. The other day I was talking with one of our rabbis at my shul. Because of age and disability, she checks up on me ever so often. Our conversation turned to this parsha, and I reflected on how the poetic structure of early Biblical poetry reminded me of the adage that any teacher worth their salt knows, to repeat an important fact at least three times for it to stick. She laughed and said to be sure and notice the repetition that takes place in our Yom Kippur service. Now considering Moshe’s prose address leading up to his poem, we have clearly surpassed the repetition rule to remember something.

However, first on my list was the power of song. Allow me to share something about me. I live with Minor Cognitive Impairment. It’s that step between ordinary old age memory loss and dementia (Major Cognitive Impairment.) I do all sorts of mind exercises to combat this, writing dvar’s like this being one. But the parts of the brain that processes song is different from the one that handles other memory actions. So it is that today, I went into the kitchen to add ice to my thermos three times before I completed the task. I laugh so I don’t cry. Each time I would get distracted and forget what I first went in there for. But song? Only occasionally on Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat services, or Saturday morning for that matter, do I need to open my Siddur. The Hebrew Psalms and various chants are all committed to memory. Goodness, I remember song lyrics from Broadway tunes and pop tunes that I learned 50-60 years ago. Repetition and song are key to our collective memory, to our collective existence.

At the center of our Jewish journey is the call to zachor, to remember. A poem written as long ago as the eleventh century BCE, reinforced with the prose of Deuteronomy, will be once again read, and remembered in our annual Torah cycle. One more Torah portion follows this one, to be read along with the beginning of Bereishit (Genesis) on Simchat Torah, and the cycle begins again for 5783. Shabbat Shalom! We remember!

Jessica Wicks, 10-3-2022.

D'var Torah Parsha Vayeilich 5783

Our Parsha Vayeilech is one chapter, D’varim (Deuteronomy) 31. Moshe has laid out all the warnings curses and blessings and instructed the people on all but one of the mitzvot (commandments.) Non-Jews speak of the ten commandments or decalogue, but Jews have 613 commandments. The 613th appears in this parsha.

Now we find the epilogue to D’varim and for that matter, the five books of the Torah. In prose we are prepared for the final poem by Moshe to come later.

Moshe stands with the people on the bank of the river Jordan. He has reached the age of 120 and tells the people he will not cross with them into the Holy Land. How hard this must have been for him! He tells them that Joshua will lead them, led by HaShem. He reminds them to be steadfast and strong, for HaShem is with them. He has written the commandments down to be carried by the priests carrying the Ark and tells the people they will take possession of the land. He warns against following foreign deities and reminds them when (not if) they do, they will pay the consequences of their actions, and will see the err of their ways.

Moshe has written down his song and teaches it to the people. He reminds them to write down this song in each generation and teach it to their children. This was the 613th commandment. Enter oral Torah. It expanded this to a call for every Jew in each generation to help in writing an entire Torah scroll. (Talmud Nedarim 38 A). Furthermore, over time we began reading all five books of Torah over 12 months for some, 36 months for others. Per Rabbi Sacks of blessed memory, this way the Torah does not grow old, but new in each generation.

Our scrolls are written on parchment, using a quill as it had been for hundreds of years. Why, might one ask? I’m a student of archaeology. There’s an interesting fact I learned along the way. Today studies continue of the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls. We have amazing writings of another time such as the Lindisfarne Gospels or the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. There are the clay tablets used in the ancient Ur libraries, and in Mesopotamia under the Sumerians and Babylonians. These survive today only because they were written on walls, on clay, or parchment. Had they been written on paper; they would not have survived.

We Jews are known as the People of the Book. It goes back to a reality I hold dear, that we have a story to tell, and we continue to tell those original stories, making them our own in each generation, and for that matter, at each telling. Rabbi Sacks elucidates one point that resonates within my soul. In this chapter, the song which we have interpreted to mean the entire Torah, Moshe uses the word “shira” meaning song no less than five times. The Netziv (Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda, Berlin 1816-1893) suggests shira means both song and poetry, and while much of Torah is prose, it can be read like poetry for two reasons: a. It is allusive rather than specific. It leaves unsaid more than is said, and b. Like poetry, it hints and deeper levels of meaning. Descriptive prose carries it’s meaning on the surface, while poetry does not.

Music is the window to the soul. We see times in Torah repeatedly where prose gives way to poetry. When Torah is read, there are cantillations each reader uses as they chant. We sing the psalms during services and our story stays alive with each succeeding generation. At the Pesach seder, I stand at Sinai with my people, it is my story as it has been over time. Through the year, we take that long journey, and it is our own. Our story, once read every seven years, now happens annually. As the written Torah expanded over time through oral Torah, so has the telling of our story, the singing of our song.

By the reading of this parsha, Rosh Hashana has past and a new year, 5783 has begun. We are amid High Holy Days once again. L’shana Tova and may you’re coming fast be easy and your year sweet.

D'var Torah Parsha Nitzavim 5782

Parsha Nitzavim begins in Dvarim 29:9 with Moshe reminding the people of their time in Egypt and their journey through the desert. Their clothes did not rot (that’s a new fact), and they fed on manna and water provided by HaShem. He speaks of their covenant, an oath with HaShem to not turn to other gods or forget their promise to follow only him, lest they be cast out of the land and lose all they’ve gained. In the commentary of the Robert Alter translation of Torah, he suggests that while some believe this piece was written after the destruction of the first temple, stronger evidence suggests it was written after Israel lost the northern kingdoms to the Sumerians, in an era when being cast out was a real possibility.

Now I need to share a story I read in a commentary by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory. It’s a story I also heard personally back in the sixties. It was a time of protests, drugs, and seeking gurus. An American Jewish woman in her sixties travelled to Northern India to seek out a noted guru. She arrives and there are throngs of worshippers swaying and chanting. She insists she must see the guru and she pushes her way through the throngs until she is face to face with the master. What she said became legend. “Marvin, listen to your mother. Enough already. Come home!”

It brings home a reality that people are always looking for another way, some “other” out there. Judaism has mysticism, meditation anything one could ask, but the temptation is to look somewhere else.

So back to the parsha. Hidden or in public, HaShem sees the betrayal. HaShem through Moshe lays out however both the blessing and the curse. It is in Chapter 30 where the emphasis shifts. Having learned the err of our ways, we begin to see the word “Shuv” i.e., to turn back. That is the theme of the rest of Chapter 30. Shuv, the heart of the word teshuvah. It means a return to the land, a return to the covenant, a return of the blessings of HaShem. Indeed, as we continue to read, with the return comes the odd phrase of the circumcision of the heart. Alter suggests that it means our hearts are opened even more with the help of HaShem.

Here we are in the month of Elul rapidly approaching Rosh Hashanah. What a perfect parsha for this season as we each strive to become our better selves, each of us doing our journeys to heal ourselves and the world around us. As we come to the end of our parsha, we find this final passage to which I wish to focus. “Life and death I set before you, the blessing, and the curse, and you shall choose life that you and your seed may live.

Unlike virtually every other religion out there, we focus on life in the here and now, not what happens after we die. Rabbi Sacks in one d’var reminds us how the Egyptians built huge pyramids with pharaohs focusing on their death. Other beliefs focus on the idea that if one has faith, then all will be well after death. Of course, we believe in Olam HaBa, the world to come. However, Torah is all about what we do now in this one precious life. Not what we believe, but what we do. Rabbi Sacks offers, no one told Job that it would be better after he died and goes to heaven. No, we concern ourselves with this life. Perhaps, because our religion focuses on so on life, we are, again according to Rabbi Sacks, the most child centered of all the great religions.

So, in this life we celebrate birthdays and special life passages. Recently at shul, I celebrated my 75th birthday. We have aufruf’s and baby namings Our grieving and our Yahrzeits focus on the memory of their life. At Shivas we sit quietly allowing the grieving party to open conversations and speak of the life of their loved ones. Every service towards the end we say kaddish and share memories of those who past so that their memory remains alive. We send cards to those who are ill, to make their life a bit better. Plus, in working communally, our deeds are amplified, our circumcised hearts bring hope exponentially. In our actions, we make the choice between life and death, between good and evil. Doing nothing in the face of evil is of course, itself an evil. We don’t have to save the world, just do our part in making it a better place for all of us. We are imperfect and make wrong choices along the way. But we have this season of Elul to repair our own wrong decisions, and to choose life.

Choose life. L’chaim! Shanah Tovah!

D'var Torah Parsha Ki Tavo 5782

D’var Ki Tavo Devarim (Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8) In Parsha Ki Tavo, Hashem continues through Moshe to instruct the people upon entering the land promised them after their long journey through the desert. They are told to bring their first fruits to Jerusalem where they will make a declaration retelling the story of their people from the days of the wandering Aramean, their journey to Egypt and leaving and wandering for 40 years to arrive in this land of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. It goes on and reminds the people of the laws, the blessings, and the curses, some repetition from earlier declarations.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory, who in my opinion was one of the great scholars of Torah for our times, focused in his analysis of Ki Tavo, on this act of presenting first fruits, our obligation to tell the story of our people in a process called vidui bikkurim. Through this obligation, we become a nation of storytellers.

Rabbi Sacks goes on to make a valid distinction in this point. We are not telling history or “his story” but our own memory, our truth as a people, my story. Indeed, in our telling of the story, we tell it as if we ourselves are the ones leaving Egypt, an integral part of our Pesach observance. It’s our collective memory, the glue that holds us together wherever in the diaspora or in Eretz Israel we might reside. In fact, in Biblical Hebrew, there is no word for history. The word used is zachor meaning memory. Indeed, in this parsha Moshe reminds the people no less than fourteen times not to forget and to pass the memory on to the children.

Now I’m one who converted to Judaism. Converts happened all the way back to those days in Egypt and was personified in the story of Ruth. For us, conversion is a lengthy process and acceptance at the end is marked by an appearance before a rabbinical court (beit din) and entering a ritual bath (mikvah). This conversion is not just religious, but to an ethnicity. The story of our people becomes my story. In every way I am Jewish, with no distinctions because I’m a convert. My story, my memory joins the stories of every other Jew out there.

I love this about my faith journey! My parents were story tellers, and their parents before then as well. I grew up sitting around dinner tables listening to and joining in with stories of my own. My love of writing is no accident. There I can weave stories, either memoir or fiction (to protect the innocent and the guilty.) Our stories as Jews are woven into the cultural memory of our people.

To clarify, recent studies suggest not all our people are a part of the Exodus. But over time a group who were had their memory woven into the cultural memory of us all, and it became a shared memory. So, at the seder table, I tell that story and it’s my own, a legacy of shared memory. For example, not everyone who was living in America in 1776 shared the views of our founding fathers. About 1/3 were royalists, 1/3 patriot, and the other third, no feelings either way. But in our shared memory, we tell the stories of those who chose the patriot journey. ::Chuckling:: Side bar here. I have ancestors who were part of the Continental Army. Is the DAR ready for a trans member?

So yes, we are all as Jews, story tellers, guardians of the memory. We are a nation of storytellers. I’m going to wrap this up with another quote from Rabbi Sacks: “By making the Israelites a nation of storytellers, Moses helped turn them into a people bound by collective responsibility – to one another, to the past and future, and to God. By framing a narrative that successive generations would make their own and teach to their children, Moses turned Jews into a nation of leaders.”

Mutual responsibility requires shared leadership. It is the bond that has held us together through the diaspora, pogroms, the Shoah, and will amidst the growing antisemitism of our own time. May we never ever forget.

D'var Torah Parsha Ki Tetzei 5782

This week’s Torah portion is a challenging one. While non-Jews have ten commandments (mitzvot), we have six hundred and thirteen, seven-four in this parsha alone. Some are sensible. For example, if your neighbor’s donkey falls to the ground, you help him up. Don’t despise an Edomite because he is your brother. Nor an Egyptian because you were once a stranger in his land. Build a parapet on your house so no one falls off. Leave produce in the fields so the poor may eat. The list goes on.

Then there are more problematic mitzvot. Like if a man marries one, he presumes to be a virgin and finds she’s not, two possibilities exist. If he has lied and it is proven, he is flogged, required to give the woman’s father 100 shekels, and she remains his wife and he loses the right to divorce her. Now I wonder, why on Hashem’s green earth would she want to stay with this jerk. But worse, if she indeed is proven not to be a virgin, she is stoned to death. Really? He gets a flogging, but she gets the death penalty? Such laws of course were common in the Middle East and at least there was a process by which she could prove her innocence. Fortunately, time and Rabbis over the centuries have brought us to a day when these laws are reinterpreted and today no women are being stoned.

There are several other mitzvot I could address, but I wanted to focus on one, well two. As a transwoman, I understandably cringed reading “A woman must not put on man’s apparel, nor shall a man wear women’s clothing, for whoever does those things is abhorrent to Adonai your G_d. Then a bit later, this. “No one whose testes are crushed or whose member is cut off shall be admitted into the congregation of Adonai.” Oy am I ever in trouble! Lol my member was not cut off, simply split and reshaped. But the testicles?

Fortunately, here time has marched on. Here’s a blurb regarding Rashi (11th century Rabbi) in Sefaria as follows:

Excerpt from "To Wear Is Human: Parshat Ki Teitze" by Rabbi Elliot Kukla and Reuben Zellman, 2006

"The prohibition (Deut. 22:5) that we learn from this verse is very specific: we must not misrepresent our true gender in order to cause harm. Otherwise, wearing clothing of another gender is not prohibited. The Talmud puts it most succinctly: v’ein kan toevah – “there is no abomination here.”

Rabbi Amy Scheinerman in her blog Taste of Torah dated 9-15-16, she discusses the variety of gender options in Talmud including androgynos (intersex), tum tum (genitalia indeterminate), eylonit (a masculine woman) and saris (a feminine man). While most of these had to do with anatomical features, a product of the time in which they lived, they understood way back then that there were more genders than the binary of early Biblical works. Later rabbinical rulings affirmed that a gender identity could change based on circumstance.

So today, while gender identity can confront some within orthodoxy, the rabbinical interpretations of gender have affirmed our existence as trans people. The Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Movements have all formally endorsed full equality for all who might be lesbian, gay, transgender, non-binary etc.

I’ve said before, I take Torah seriously, but a single verse does not lock everything into stone. We revisit these parsha readings each year and have since the destruction of the second Temple. Our Talmud, Midrashim, and Rabbis ever since have expanded our understanding of Torah, realizing new possibilities. As a Jew, I feel fully included in my community. What a blessing.

So much has changed since these rules were spoken by Moshe for Israel to abide by. We no longer keep slaves. Women nor men are stoned anymore. Buried within the patriarchy of their day, much good in the law code can be found. Customs and our understanding of the world around us has evolved. With it has come an evolution in our understanding of that world. We can’t ignore the words of the past, but we can remember through the ages those amazing steps forward that bring us to this day. A day when I can say without reservation, thank you Hashem for making me a woman.

Dvar Torah Parsha Shoftim 5782

Parsha Shoftim of D’varim (Deuteronomy) is filled with so much, sometimes contradictory messaging from HaShem through Moshe. It begins with how judges are to be chosen. Great care must be given to choose those who will judge without bias, without favoritism. Here we read the passage made famous by Ruth Bader Ginsburg who posted it in her office at the US Supreme court:

“Tzedek Tzedek tirdof.” Justice, justice shall you pursue.”

Justice free of favoritism, bribery, influence. Not justice alone, but fairness. Today I guess a prime example of unfairness can be found in our own judiciary. In what world does asking a ten-year-old girl to carry a baby resulting from a rape to term justice?

In our parsha we learn to not to make a memorial stone for HaShem or offer a blemished animal. When someone is accused of a transgression, conviction requires two witnesses. If one can’t decide then, take it to the priests.

We find rules regarding choosing a king. He shouldn’t be allowed to be too wealthy, have too many wives or horses, nor should he be a foreigner. He should have a written duplicate, probably of all D’varim (or maybe all Torah) to study and remember. The priests should have no portion or inheritance of the land, depending on the other tribes for their sustenance. They should avoid soothsayers, interpreters of omens, sorcerers. Prophets will be named by HaShem, but if their proclamations are not true, they are to be ignored. Note: Think of how the prophets like Isaiah always couch their remarks upon the condition “if the people do this” etc, rather than proscribing exactly what will happen. Might this be a safeguard to avoid being ignored otherwise?

There will be three refuge cities for those who kill unintentionally to avoid revenge killing by the family of the person who died. The courts will determine liability. Don’t move your neighbor’s boundary marker. When going into battle, those sent home not to fight are those with a new home, a new wife or new vineyard, or those afraid or fainthearted.

When you approach a city to fight, first offer peace and surrender. If not, battle with them and Israel will prevail. Then kill all males, but the women, children, animals, and booty will be the spoils. However, if it’s part of the land promised, no one will be spared. With the cities you attack, don’t destroy the food trees so the people can eat after battle is done.

Finally, if a person has been slain, the city closest to the body must send out elders to sacrifice a calf, blessings by the priests are made, then prayers for atonement. Why ask for forgiveness? Underlying is the notion that in those days, a traveler was shown hospitality including provisions for the journey and perhaps someone to travel with them to ensure safety to the limits of their community. It infers a certain communal responsibility and in the case of the murdered victim, a failure of that responsibility.

Within this parsha I wanted to focus on two themes. First is the beginning. Justice, justice shall you pursue. Justice, Tzedek shares the Hebrew root with Tzedakah, charity and compassion. In the work we do, we carry acts of loving kindness to help heal the world, each in our own way, to bring justice and equity in this world. Caring and compassion are an integral part of true justice. I found an interesting commentary by Rabbi Chaim Singer-Frankes. He mentions the sixties activist Abbie Hoffman who was asked if he believed in the Beatles lyric, “Love is all you need.” Hoffman replied, “It’s nice but what you really need is justice.” Another contemporary of Hoffman sang, “He who made kittens put snakes in the grass.” In other words, the world can be a cruel place.

Perhaps this is why the Torah doubles down repeating the word Tzedek, Tzedek. Together, justice and compassion, we can go about the business of creating that better world for us all. Justice and compassion both as an individual and collectively. I’m reminded of the dream to which our own caring committee aspires, a day where our entire congregation is actively part of our caring community.

There was something else I wanted to talk about. What seems to us a contradiction, Parsha Shoftim goes on to command the Israelites to offer peace, the people are to be enslaved, and if not accepted, they are to kill all the males. Furthermore, if it is in the land promised to them, they must kill all men, women, and children, a retrospective command already offered in D’varim 7:2. What sort of justice is that? As horrible as this is, we err if we do not confront these passages head on. The Robert Alter translation and commentary on Shoftim says indeed the Rabbis did confront and reinterpreted this passage, seeking to show it was never really carried out and the archaeological record seems to confirm this. He suggests that the writers of D’varim, more concerned with the contribution of the role of the priesthood in this new land, offered a militant fantasy, albeit a dangerous one. Furthermore, in the world at this time, such wholesale slaughter of those defeated was the norm. We Jews have been wrestling with HaShem over the centuries to reinterpret and if I might be so bold, to nullify these sorts of passages by looking to other passages, both in written and oral Torah. We are not a people who rely on one isolated verse, but rather look to the entirety of the written Torah as well as the subsequent oral Torah which continues to be a work in process up to our own time. Indeed Judges 3:1 seems to abrogate this earlier commandment, leaving existing groups to test future generations of the people Israel in their faithfulness.

Shoftim has such contradictory messaging, messaging we must continue to revisit and interpret, year after year. What I take from this parsha is our collective responsibility to choose good leaders, grounded in the ideals of justice and compassion, and our individual and collective responsibility for each other. I also see a communal responsibility to wrestle with injustice, whether from those who would do wrong, or from the words of HaShem, spoken from the lips of Moshe.

Dvar Torah Parsha Eikev 5782

Parsha Eikev begins with the promise Adonai offers Israel if they keep the covenant, reminding that if the people adhere to that covenant, Adonai will according to D’varim 7:13 “favor (literally love) you and bless you.” Abraham Joshua Heschel adds, whether it is love from Adonai for the people, or the people for Adonai, only a blessing that flows from love deserves to be called a blessing.

Then our parsha proceeds to recite the punishments for failure to keep that covenant and a reminder of all the transgressions over the past forty years, a reminder of each and every misdeed along the way. It goes on to offer victory going forward, warning against self-pride for what Adonai has given them.

You know, as I read this, I couldn’t help but smile a bit. My Mom of blessed memory had an amazing memory of every misstep us kids ever committed. It wasn’t uncommon during an angry lecture for her to drag out that laundry list of past misdeeds. In a sense, I think the relationship between Adonai and Their people seemed much like a parent who is raising a group of children preparing them for adulthood. In the Kaddish Symphony written by Leonard Bernstein, our narrator in a dream screams he is going to say Kaddish for Adonai. He then points out the shortcomings, the failure of the original covenant, and they enter a new covenant ultimately agreeing to “suffer and recreate each other.” Not unlike the new relationship the adult child may have with their aging parents, roles transformed by the new reality.

Another perspective from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory suggests that Eikev is all about remembering where we came from, our history both good and bad, lest we fall into the same practices again. Kind of like those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. I wondered how this Parsha might apply for us today?

Buried in this litany are the promises. We are chosen not for how wonderful we are, but the ideal we can strive to become. We do good deeds not to bring credit to ourselves but to strive towards being a better people. D’varim 10:18 says “Adonai, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends (literally loves) the stranger, providing him with food and clothing. You too were strangers in the land of Mitzrayim.”

I would like to speak personally right now. I was raised to be independent and self -sufficient, part of that Texas thing I suppose. Most of my life I was. But then over the last few years, a combination of spinal issues and old age have left me using a wheelchair for my legs and living an impossible reality in an upstairs apartment making my journeys downstairs difficult at best. My wife is on oxygen and has mobility issues as well. Good people in our community, some right here in this meeting, have been so loving and gracious, helping in a host of ways, from helping with trash, help preparing for a move to somewhere more accessible, transportation, the list goes on. Overall this experience has opened my own eyes, filling my heart with gratitude, realizing that even in my so-called independent days that I still needed that thing called community. How many years ago, I had my beloved Skip and then my dear friend Dee in a horrible twist of fate died in my arms within two weeks of each other and I remember those loving souls who slipped in and out of my life, holding me up when I was lost in grief. This is what Caring Community is all about and I am so grateful to be a part of it. How in my small way I can “pay it forward.”

Rabbi Sacks writing about Eikev points out a phrase that begins the parsha. The phrase, “et ha-brit ha-chesed” (D’varim 7:12). The relationship between Adonai and Israel is defined by brit, covenant. But in addition is the call for chesed. Covenant and Love” This phrase seems to appear at key moments throughout Tanach.

Chesed according to Pirkei Avot 5:7 is denoting excess. Extraordinary kindness… towards those who have no claim on us, to those to whom it is due, in greater measure than is due to them, an imitation of Adonai’s loving kindness. Sacks suggests Chesed is “the highest achievement of a moral life.” He goes on to say “In chesed we create moments of moral beauty, that brings joy and hope where there is darkness and despair.”

I am reminded of a poem I once wrote about grief that somehow seems appropriate to all of this.

On Loss and Community (by Jessica Wicks 9-19-07)

Loneliness descends like a dark shroud
Upon the heart which continues to beat
Even as everything else seems to come
Crashing at our feet.

Inside the emptiness grows, interrupted
Only by the periodic numbing pain
Beyond description and people point where
We must go and we go, step by aching step.

Alone nothing seems to work and
Nothing seems to help and
Nothing is all we seek in this
Oppressed depressed suppressed
Spirit where light cannot shine
And darkness prevails.
Our illusion of living is gone.
Our dreams failed.

Still even as we flounder,
Gentle webs surround us
Holding us lovingly, softly. Gently without our even knowing.

It is in that cocoon where community and friends
Whose threads around us have sewn,
Those who love and care never having left
Even if we could not feel them there
Allowed us to slowly once again grow strong.

Weeks and months pass then
We rejoin that community, where
Our threads of gentle strength will
Support another, weaving webs and offering prayer. Following the depths of our despair
Alone the journey is too difficult,
Our blessing is the journey that we share.

D'var Torah Parsha Balak 5782

Parsha Balak is a storyteller’s dream. In our story we find humor, a talking donkey, lessons in humility, tragedy, it’s all there. We have Balak, king of Moab. He sees the Israelite multitude gathered at his border. He has heard what happened to the Amorites and he’s afraid it’s going to happen to him too. So, speaking with the elders, he announces he’s going to send for Balaam, hoping he might be able to put a curse on the Israelites and bring him victory.

Who is Balaam? He’s a well-known figure in 8th century BCE Middle East. He lives in Aram, in what is now the northern part of Syria. A pagan Aramaean, he appears to be a Seer for hire. Indeed, independent of the Hebrew Bible, per Nathan Steinmeyer as well as the Torah: A Women’s Commentary, in a village just east of the Jordan River, a wall was found recounting the night visions by Balaam, son of Beor.

So Balak sends emissaries to speak with Balaam. After sacrifices and sleeping on it, Balaam says no to the emissaries. Balak is persistent though, and he sends more representatives of higher status asking for him to come back. They offer Balaam considerable wealth if he’ll come back with them. After sleeping on it, he agrees return with the emissaries.

He mounts his donkey to return with the emissaries. Now the word used to describe the donkey is aton, which means the donkey is a jenny, or female donkey. The Torah, Women’s Commentary questions whether as the insightful one on the journey, it reflects Lady Wisdom from Proverbs? Or perhaps in the patriarchy, was she a symbol merely of the lowest of low animals who still could see what our Balaam could not?

Balaam is riding his jenny, servants on each side, and the ass sees the angel with sword drawn and immediately veers into the field. Balaam beats the jenny and turns back to the road. A bit further, on a lane with fences on each side, and the angel is seen and the donkey veers into a wall. A second beating. Finally, a passage with nowhere to go, and the Jenny lies down under Balaam. A final beating ensues. This time HaShem opens the donkey’s mouth, and the donkey (or HaShem speaking through the donkey) asks, why is he beating her so? Balaam angrily responds back. The donkey says, have I ever done this before? Balaam must answer no, and then his eyes were opened and he sees the angel.

He offers to go back, but the angel says to go ahead, but he must use the words that HaShem gives him. Balaam follows the foreign gods of Aramea, but it is Hashem speaking to him and through him, and the donkey of course. Balak takes Balaam to three high spaces, and in each one, Balaam blesses Israel over Balak and Moab. He responds not in prose but poetically in the last two, and Balak is furious and sends Balaam home without payment. In parting, Balaam tells him Israel will dominate Moab, Edom, and Seir.

It is believed by many modern commentaries that this story about the donkey came from a different tradition and was woven into our narrative later. Balaam’s fame was known far and wide for his visions, and yet in our narrative, it is not the renown soothsayer who sees the angel, rather the lowly donkey. He goes on and HaShem puts the words in his mouth, and ultimately prophesies the defeat of Moab.

So ultimately, Balaam’s the hero, right? Well not really. Several chapters later in Numbers 31:16, he has encouraged the Midianite women to sleep with the Israelite men and lead them to worship their deities. Indeed, five kings of Midian and Balaam were slain for their actions.

As I read and questioned this parsha, I needed to understand just what is going on with Balaam. In a paper put out by Biblical Archaeology Society, there is a discussion regarding the attributes of a prophet. One receives divine inspiration in two ways, either unsolicited or solicited omens. In our case the omens were unsolicited and came from HaShem. But Balaam is a step above because it is clear he is a diviner. A diviner derived omens from the organs of animals that were sacrificed.

Balaam showed amazing skills and his abilities were known throughout the region. A genuine prophet whom the sages compared to Moshe himself. But he had a flawed character that led to his downfall and mention in the Mishnah as having been denied a place in the world to come.

What led to this outcome? I confessed a genuine brain fog when trying to explain what went wrong here. Finally, my own favorite source, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory offered suggestion that sounded right. Who was Balaam? Yes, he was a seer and diviner, a prophet of the highest order. But he was from Aram, in Northern Syria. He was for hire to the highest bidder, not a prophet in a moral sense, only for his own enrichment. He was loyal to no one, a loner, a gun for hire. Compare that to Moshe, who served his people, intervened for them to HaShem time after time. Indeed, in the Talmud they ask, what is the meaning of Balaam. It goes on to say it means “a man without a people.” Belo Am.

What does that mean for us today? In our own time we see those with incredible gifts, yet they fall short ethically, lacking integrity, honesty, humility, and loyalty. Using those gifts to serve self rather than a higher cause.

Earlier I spoke of omens. In today’s language, we might speak of an “inner voice”, discernment, perhaps intuition. These feelings may be informed by our history, our body of learning, but sometimes it derives from something we can’t quite place. Now as someone who was out as gay in the South long before I transitioned, danger was a real possibility, even in my gayborhood. One lesson I learned was to trust that inner voice or ignore it at my peril. I might be walking hand in hand with my beloved partner, and the feeling would rise, and I would let go of his hand. Half a block further, and I would see why. I worked in an inner-city welfare office. It was a high crime area in Houston, and in the proximity of just our block, four murders occurred. In my own office our security guard was held at knifepoint one day and a group of us approached from behind and took it away from the assailant. A representative of Houston PD came to talk with us on how to deal with such situations. He began by speaking of that inner voice, the same one I had come to know so well.

That inner nudge is there for reasons other than safety. Should I do this, or did I bring harm for doing that? If we listen to that voice, serving not only ourselves, but our community as loyal partners, we do not end up as Balaam, or Belo Am. You know, it was that inner voice that led me to Judaism, and in that journey, I became a person with a people. Loyalty, not a blind following, but rather an ongoing engagement, learning together underpinned by a system of ethics that continues to be refined over centuries. Not “belo am” but Am Yisrael chai. I feel such gratitude for that that quiet nudge, and for all of you. My prayer is that I, we continue to hear that whisper within, not from a talking ass, but from that inner voice that continues to point the way. Shabbat Shalom!

Parsha Chukat: 5782, A D'var Torah

Chukat D’var Chukat, our portion this week, has a lot going on. I would like to focus on just a few elements. We have the story of the red heifer, burned, who’s ashes, cedar wood, hyssop, and red yarn all go towards the living waters, used on the third and seventh day, sprinkled upon those who encountered a dead person in order to become ritually pure.

We see in our Parsha the death of Miriam. I thought of how hard this must have been for Moshe and for the people. She was with Moshe, from watching him in that basket and securing a spot with Pharoah’s daughter. She led the people out of Mitzrayim and had been by Moshe’s side all the while.

When the people become fearful for lack of water, Moshe goes to HaShem and is told to speak to the stone, and it would produce water. Instead, Moshe angrily addresses the people and strikes the stone. The water flows, but Moshe is told to prepare for Aaron’s death and that he would not cross into the promised land.

Later Rashi declares striking the rock diminished the miracle, ensuring they would die before entering the Holy Land. Rambam faults his taking credit rather than giving glory to HaShem. Ibn Ezra offers he should have had the confidence to perform the miracle without asking HaShem. Maimonides thinks it is taking credit that is the reason. I find myself in agreement with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory. The anger came from losing someone so close to him. Emotions run amok in the early stages of grief. Perhaps in reality, it was time for new leadership and after all Moshe was approaching 120 years of age.

Aaron climbs Mt Hor, removes his priestly garments and places them on Eleazar. Aaron dies, and he is mourned for 30 days. One of two places in Torah where we see the origins of shloshim.

The people become restive again complaining of the lack of bread and water. HaShem replies with an onslaught of poisonous snakes, many bitten and many deaths. The people repent, and HaShem has Moshe make a Seraph (snake) figure similar to the winged cobra from Egypt and mount it on a standard. Any who looked at it were cured. Why a snake? A reminder of Adam and Eve where the serpent caused them to transgress using clever words? Why did it heal? According to Mishnah it directed eyes upward as when Moshe raised his arms in the battle against Amalek. Other theories as well. What we do know from archaeology is other people in the area used snake imagery for healing. It was common in this part of the world until Hezekiah banned it much later.

This parsha is all about transitions. Of death and dying, sickness and health. In the case of the Red Heifer, the transition from tamei (impure) to tahor (pure) But also a case study in an early example of dealing with the loss of another. Yes, it was about ritual purity, but also about moving away from death towards life.

It seems to me that a life journey is filled with such transitions. In 75 years, I’ve seen my share. In my life, I’ve seen death and dying up close. As early as age 6, my grandpa on my mom’s side died. He lived in rural Arkansas, his body laid out on the kitchen table, not embalmed and with coins to keep his eyes shut. That night we grandkids slept on pallets in the joined living room, until they picked him up and buried him in our family cemetery following a short service. As my other grandpa was dying from brain cancer, each of us went in to see him, one at a time, for him to pass on his final words. Then at age 10, we each sat our time with the body after he passed until he was buried. I think we learned early that every lifetime involves encounters with death, and of the value of those final hours for both the dying and those who are close.

Others of course. Numerous aunts and uncles. I arranged my dad’s funeral at the ripe age of 20. Many during the worst of the HIV years, and I was with my mom as she passed. I learned some lessons in all of this. First, in those final hours, life is never as intense as when one is dying. I learned how to grieve, to feel what must be felt.

I guess the most intense for me was in August of 1997. My beloved husband Skip became ill with viral encephalitis. I sat with him as he lay in coma, then on that final day when he could not speak, but his eyes were open, and he followed me as I moved about the room. I held him that day shared my love for him, gave him permission to go and then he passed away. In the way of so many lgbtq folks, after sitting with him for ten additional minutes thanks to the kind nurse there, I walked out, and the family came in. I went to the local coffeeshop in our gayborhood, the part time drag queen waiter came and asked me about Skip. He held me as I sobbed and then put a coin in the juke box and played Donna Summers “I Will Survive.” Barely two weeks later, I’m prepared to walk street patrol in our Houston gayborhood. My friend and I walk into the Q Patrol offices, when she collapsed to the floor, I hold her as another applies CPR. She dies in my arms. Two precious lives, back-to-back, crossing over as I held them.

I was a wreck. In my grief, people slipped in and out of my life, often with me barely noticing. It was community who held me up until I was strong enough to do it on my own. I’ understand so well the value of our own caring community, people who sit shiva, provide meals in those most vulnerable of times. We hold the memory of those lost through shloshim, and with Yahrzeits. In my case back then, my employer, the state of Texas, did not permit time off. I had transitioned, but we could not marry. My boss after a week, told me it was time to get over it. But my queer community was there for me, and with time I reached the point where I could move on.

Here I focused on death and dying, but many other transitions in life await us. Like now in our own Shir Tikvahcommunity. But in community we find our strength, and a way to find ourselvesforward. Together in caring community we sit shiva and remember Yahrzeits, do marriages and send cards and visit the sick. We hold each other aloft during the hard times.

Life goes on and over time gets better. After losing Skip and a time of mourning, I met Robin. We’ve been together 23 years now. Retirement opened new avenues in my own life journey. Moving here and finding Shir Tikvah was such a gift! Honestly, when I was younger, I didn’t believe I would live to this age. But every day I thank HaShem for every single moment of this precious life.

I can imagine in my heart, Miriam, Aaron, and eventually Moshe, how they must have looked back upon full lives before surrendering to that passage we all will face someday.

I’ve spoken a lot about death and dying in much the same way this Parsha has. But I believe we are in confronting such passages, we are more able to appreciate every moment we have in this precious life and the role of community in that journey. From grief to life, ever changing and ever growing. Moshe, soon to be sitting upon the mountaintop reflecting on HaShem and his role in helping it happen. Here’s something I wrote that seems pertinent:

On Loss and Community:

Loneliness descends like a dark shroud;
Upon the heart which continues to beat
Even as everything else seems to come
Crashing at our feet.

Inside the emptiness grows, interrupted
Only by the periodic numbing pain
Beyond description and people point where
We must go and we go, step by aching step.
Alone nothing seems to work and
Nothing seems to help and
Nothing is all we seek in this
Oppressed depressed suppressed
Spirit where light cannot shine
And darkness prevails.
Our illusion of living is gone
Our dreams failed.

Even as we flounder,
Gentle webs surround us
Holding us lovingly, ever softly
Gently without our knowing,
It is in that cocoon where community and friends
Whose threads around us have sewn
Those who love and care never having left
Even if we could not feel them there... Allowed us to slowly once again grow strong.

Weeks and months pass then
We rejoin that community where
Our threads of gentle strength will
Support another, weaving webs and offering prayer.
Such are the resurrections of our lives
Following the depths of our despair
Alone the journey is too difficult,
Our blessing is the journey we share.

Shabbat Shalom!