Parashat Lech Lecha - Some Wins Don't Matter

רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah

Parashat Lech Lecha 

Genesis 12:1-17:27
By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky 

     In a 1978 move called, “The Same Time Next Year,” George (Alan Alda) and Doris (Ellen Burstyn) met by chance in California where they both visit yearly for different reasons.  Over the next 26 years they have a yearly affair in the same location although in the movie they are shown meeting every 5 years from the 50s through the 70s.  One particular scene, sometime in early 1965, Lyndon Johnson (D) had just defeated Barry Goldwater (R) for the presidency.  During that scene George showed up dressed like a wall street businessman, whereas Ellen arrived in a VW van with flowers on it, dressed like a hippie.  As they talked George said, “I voted for Goldwater,” and Doris was livid!  In response George said, “Goldwater promised he would stop the war,” and when she responds in astonishment George bursts out, “because Michael (his son in the movie) was killed in Vietnam.”  Doris is speechless, she puts her arms around George and they cry together.  Okay it’s Hollywood, but in the end Doris heard George who had his reasons why he voted that way he did, putting their relationship above their heated disagreement.
     While my intent is to talk about quarreling, I guess the movie is incredibly relevant to our own political situation.  Even with some of my own family political conversations are off the table as we tiptoe around the 800 pound Elephant in the room in order to avoid arguing or perhaps worse.  Yeah I struggle with that, and don’t always handle it the best way, but for me it’s not about the differences more so than we cannot negotiate differing viewpoints.  I know it’s not that simple, yet it makes me think of the statement regarding the disagreement between Hillel and Shamai in the Talmud from Eruvin 13b where it says, שֶׁאֵלּוּ וָאֵלּוּ דִּבְרֵי אֱלֹהִים חַיִּים (sheaylu va’aylu divrai Elohim chayim) “these and those or the words of the living God.”  There are two ways to read that; everything is truth or there is truth everything.  The School of Hillel won the day because they considered the truth of both sides of the argument and just not their own, Rabbi Isaiah HaLevi Horovitz (c.1555-1630) teaching in Shenei Luchot HaBerit says that reflects the middah (soul-trait) of anavah, or humility.  I think we see this very thing at work in this week’s Torah parsha, Lech Lecha.  In particular I want to look at the interchange between Abram and Lot, his nephew.
     In Genesis 13 we read about a problem over land management in order to support all that the two relatives possessed.  Tradition teaches that Lot’s farmhands allowed their cattle to graze on Abram’s share of the land, and while I do not think they were wicked as Rashi calls them, they certainly had another idea of truth regarding that land.  At that time, the land belonged to the Canaanites and the Perizzites, and Abram had not yet “come into procession of it” (See Rashi on Gen. 13:7 and Gen. R 41:5).  Abram went to Lot in anavah and said, “Let there please be no strife between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers.”  Nachum Sarna in the JPS commentary writes that Abram shows great “nobility of character” with regards to what was happening, Robert Alter calling Abram the “reasonable peacemaker … a man conscious of family bonds in alien surroundings.”  Rabbi Raphael Samson Hirsch points out that when Abram said, בֵּינִי וּבֵינֶךָ (bayni u’vay’necha), “between me and you,” it was about a “mutual” separation as opposed to an argumentative posture of personal rights.  Why?  Again looking to Rabbi Isaiah HaLevi Horovitz he writes, “One must make great efforts to avoid personal strife. If a quarrel is in the offing, one must immediately strive to remove the cause of such quarrel.”  R’Horovitz went on to teach, regarding the word to quarrel (רִיב, reiv), that the Torah “used the female form of the word רִיב (see Gen. 13:7), מְרִיבָה (m’reivah, see Gen. 13:8), in order to allude to the peculiarity of quarrels which keep increasing.”  He viewed רִיב as something masculine, “unable to give birth.”
     Interestingly, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik takes the view that Abram sought to stop the escalation of the argument because Lot did not desire “righteousness and justice” and preferred idolatry over faith in God, Abram therefore wanted to stop this rift and part company.  But that is not what Robert Alter suggested about Abram who valued “family bonds in alien surroundings.”  I just do not share R’ Soloveitchik’s view of the text, but I do share the view of Alter as well as Sarna.  If anything, Abram’s main aim was not only to decrease the quarreling (opposite of מְרִיבָה, m’reivah) with his uncle, but also to work it out mutually.  Sure Abram could have stood upon his family seniority, moral high ground or attempted to convince Lot that the land he wanted was not safe, but it was not about needing to be right, yet as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks teaches in the end Abram watched as Lot chose a “good land with evil inhabitants.”  We know this from Genesis 13:10 that refers to Sodom and Gomorrah as a place of beauty “before the Lord destroyed” those lands, Nachum Sarna adding, “Lot’s presumptuous cupidity (selfishness) turns out to be ruinous for him in the long run.”  Abram stopped this potential disagreement from getting out of hand by effectively giving his nephew what he wanted.  Lot wanted to have his way, and even though his uncle would have preferred to resolve the issue, Abram understood that Lot needed to go discover his own answers.
     Later in chapter 19 of Genesis (next week’s parsha) things go bad for Lot and his family, and guess who comes to his rescue?  Could have Abram said, ‘Hey Lot, you self-righteous ungrateful nephew, you had to be right and not work it out, you made your bed now lay in it, so good luck!’  Well yeah, he could have said that, but he didn’t, and either should we when someone is proven wrong; let alone if that is either you or I.  Who then is the person that cannot be engaged in a healthy argument?  What stops others from listening to those who they disagree with?  Sefer Orchot Tzadikim, the Ways of  the Righteous, says it is those who are guided by pride, anger or arrogance, further teaching “one who is arrogant piles up heaps of transgression and still considers themselves righteous,” thus we cannot reason with a person who thinks they are always right and others are always wrong.  Jewish tradition recognizes arguments for a greater purpose, they are called a machlochet, dealing with issues of life; just not for the sake of heaven but also for ourselves.  If you and I disagree to the point where our quarreling turns hateful and destructive, where is the value?  Abram understood that when he spoke with Lot.  When it breaks up families and friends and we don’t say, hey wait something has to change, we lose.  Doris and George rose above their differences even though they fiercely disagreed: I want to believe that just does not happen in the movies.

Shabbat Shalom

Parashat Noach - So the Journey Begins

 Over רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah

Parashat Noach 

Genesis 6:9 - 11:32

By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

     Actually, the journey began when Adam and Eve left the garden after the debacle of their denials regarding the fruit of the tree.  In the Pseudepigraphal book, The Life of Adam and Eve, upon leaving Eden each respond differently; one accepted their fate and still elected to trust God while the other saw no reason to carry on since God had abandoned them in a strange land outside the garden.  In the narrative of Adam and Eve in the written Torah itself we are not told about how they related to their moments, how they felt or thought, we never heard about their fears or resilience to overcome.  As we turn our attention to Noah here in Parashat Noach, we learn that Noah was born outside of Eden, he does not know what it means to have an ideal life with no wrong of fear, being born into the world some 10 generations after Adam that is “corrupt.” But Noah is aware, and although he too stumbles and falls, he recognizes the need to reconcile the lower and upper worlds seen in the brokenness around him.
     According to Rabbi Raphael Samson Hirsch the reason why the parsha begins by saying, “These are the generations of Noah,” is to signify that the first thing we learn is that Noah was most concerned about his own “character.”  As such, we further read that “Noah was in his generation a righteous man and whole-hearted.”  The Midrash teaches that he was a righteous man because he warned his generation to repent (Gen. R. 30:7).  Rashi teaches that in connection with Proverbs 10:7 Noah is called righteous because he would be remembered for a blessing by those who follow after him.  The Sforno said it was because of Noah’s deeds and for Nahum Sarna (JPS Commentary) Noah was acceptable to God just as an unblemished sacrifice (also see Lev. 22:19).  Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (lets not forget to keep him in our prayers as he battels cancer) suggests that no one else, meaning Abraham, Isaac or Jacob, would have had the courage to build an ark like Noah, the work of a righteous man.  Still, the question should be asked; does this mean that Noah was really better than everyone else? 
     The Torah tells us that, “Noah walked with God,” Rabbi Hirsch describing that to mean that Noah was “allowing himself to be led by God’s hand.”  Maybe you or I might use different language, but basically Noah choose to walk through life being led by his understanding of God, so perhaps that is why in Torah he is called righteous?  Nahum Sarna says of Noah, like Enoch before him (see Gen. 5:22), that walking with God was just not to say, “he lived,” but “how he lived.”  But how Noah walked with God was also about what he brought into the world around him. We learned back in Genesis 5:29 that Moses would be a voice to the people, bringing them comfort (יְנַחֲמֵנוּ, y’nachamaynu) in contrast to God’s own regret (וַיִּנָּחֶם; vay'yanachem).  “Comfort” and “regret” come from the same root word, נ.ח.ם. (nun-chet-mem), which can mean either console/comfort or regret/repent.  The Midrash gives two reasons for regret and two reasons for comfort, yet both reflect God’s sadness that the world had become barren of good people and why comfort was needed.  Rabbi’s Judah and Aibu taught God regretted that humankind was created with earthly elements that had to do with their evil inclination whereas Rabbi’s Nehimiah and Levi said God was comforted that humankind came from below as to not incite the celestial host.  God regretted what humankind had become and Noah would be the first of many good folks who would come to repair what was broken.  A reminder, it said in Genesis 5:29 that this comfort was needed because of “our work and in the toil of our hands, which comes from the ground which the LORD had cursed” (See Gen.3:17).  Rashi teaches that Noah brought comfort to those who were working the land by inventing the plow, making land cultivation much easier (see Rashi on Genesis 5:29).  But Rabbi David Fohrman suggests in his weekly Torah lesson that “technology” has the potential to get in the way of the human spirit, meaning the good of the plow also had the power to be a barrier as well.
     Rabbi Fohrman reflects on Ramban’s teaching of Genesis 1:26 where it says, נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ, “let us make humankind in our image according to our likeness.”  The Ramban teaches that אָדָם נַעֲשֶׂה (na’aseh adam), “let us make humankind” spoke to both heaven and earth, who were the “us” involved in the fashioning of people.  Here, the earth will bring forth the body form its elements and God will breath the spirit of the Devine into humankind, making them a living soul within a body.  This is no different than what the RaDaK (Rabbi David Kimchi) taught in Parashat Bereishit, teaching that the Torah makes the distinction between the creation of the soul without gender  in the image of God and also the body itself, making Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:7 two different but related parts of creation.  With that understanding the plow of comfort is a tool to make life better, reconnecting human labor with its objective,  just like Torah presents the heavens and earth as co-partners who no longer work in tandem, a byproduct of the curse itself.  Recalling the act of creation, humankind existed within the framework of the universal order.  Noah seeks to reignite the flame of the organic oneness of heaven and earth while coming to terms with a broken world around him.  What might that look like today?
     When I sit with people who are preparing themselves to leave this world it becomes more urgent as physical life goes full circle that they need to know that their family will be okay, or making amends with an estranged child or grandchild, also reflecting on accomplishments and shortcomings or regrets and delights, making sense of their mortality.  But even the unreligious person will also seek to reconcile themselves with God, driven by the fear of the unknown or simply of their sense of wholeness of body, mind and spirit.  But it is not just at the end end of life that seeking such reconnection has value, which is why Noah was called righteous in his day.  Maybe Noah was not the only person, but for the narrative of Torah he was the only man of his generation who sought to repair what was broken, which he did by creating the plow to make the work easier.
     In Parashat Noach the plow can therefore be likened to useful objects or thoughts that can either help or hinder our own sense of body, mind and spirit, solidifying or interfering with that organic connection.  The very thing that Noah created helped to cultivate the land that produced the grapes that became the wine that also made Noah drunk, stuff happens along the way.  Seeking to reconnect the human elements of body, mind and spirit will always fight against the two edges of the same plow.  Being righteous means the pursuit of the better way, not being perfect.

Shabbat Shalom 

Parashat Bereishit - The Cradle of Tikkun

Over רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah

Parashat Bereisheit 

Genesis 1:1-6:8

By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky 

     As we return to the beginning of our Torah readings with Genesis, I’d like to talk about the power of family, something that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks calls “the crucible of life.”  The definition of family has to be more than just nuclear (a couple and their dependent children, regarded as a basic social unit), meaning a family can be a single parent, biological or by marriage, but also a religious community or any other type of meaningful group for that matter.  The family is supposed to breathe life into its members, offering a foundation and formation to help shape, guide, love and give support, a sense of unconditional belonging and acceptance that speaks to their purpose and human connection and life-successes, carried throughout life and passed down from generation to generation.  But family can also be a means of conflict, unresolved dynamics because people are imperfect, with rivalries, inequalities, unresolved tensions, unspoken disappointments or jealousy, in some cases they can be a breading ground for misguided ideals such as injustice, racism, bigotry or discrimination of some type.  The family experience can be exceptional and grounding but it can also be unfortunate and rocky.
      Regarding Family, then, I think we can say that the role of the family structure (however you define it) has everything to do with the good we experience in our society but I also think it has to do with the bad as well.  A healthy family structure (with all its imperfections) on a micro level is a “crucible of life” that greatly impacts society on a macro level, which is why the family is the basis of tikkun, or repair.  Truthfully, family dynamics as we know are never that simple, yet I think there is a reason why Torah begins with the story of Adam and Eve and their family. While we will not look at the entire parsha, Bereishit is broken into three sections that are joined together by the people of Adam and Eve.  In this case, who Adam and Eve are and what they are is the question.  Who they are; Adam and Eve are the first family, the first people of God who become the seed of what would become Israel, how they “do” life is dictated by the powers they have been given.  What they are; they are part of a greater cosmic force that enters and serves the physical world to repair and maintain it, interconnected for the benefit of the whole.  Let’s break that down.
     The very first verse of Torah reads, בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  Humankind (male and female) fashioned in equality, בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים, (B’tzem Elohim) in the image of God, are part of that creation.  Later, Adam and Eve would represent the first physical man and woman of the Torah who were tasked with the chore to work and guard the garden (Gen. 2:15) as well as to name all the animals (Gen. 2:15).  But Adam and Eve did not operate independently, they were a part of the universal order although they were unique within it.  In other words, Adam and Eve had a job to maintain the garden, just as the sun had a purpose to give light and warmth, the dry land provided space where humankind and animals would live while the grass and the trees gave nourishment to those same people and animals alike, the entire creation was interconnected just like an ecosystem.  In Torah, however, both humans and animals are referred to נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nefesh chayyah), living beings (see Gen. 2:7 and 2:19).  So upon the fashioning of humankind it says in Genesis 1:27 הָאָדָם, לְנֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה, “humankind became a living being,” whereas in Onkelos, the Aramaic translation of Torah, it says לְרוּחַ מְמַלְלָא בְּאָדָם, “humankind has the spirit of speech.”  Onkelos defines a “living being” as a person of “speech,” differentiating Adam and Eve from the other living creatures.

   Continuing, regarding the use of speech, in Genesis 2:19 Adam later joined by Eve teamed up to care for the garden and name the animals, team work and naming were about the power of their words, maintaining and speaking life into the world around them.  But in Genesis 3 Adam and Eve become aware of their shame after eating the fruit of the tree, only to be asked by God, “where are you” now that your eyes have been opened unlike before?  In that interconnectedness Adam and Eve lived unashamed, peaceful and secure, using the power of their words to help create and maintain their relationship and surroundings, whereas after eating the fruit they are fearful, have lost trust in each other and now actively redefine truth, using their words this time to cause harm and deflect personal responsibility.  I just cannot read this story and accept that one mistake had such great implications (what does that say for us, yikes).  In the Midrash Aggadah it says, “God … has opened the way for him perhaps to return,” but how?  When God said, “Adam, where are you,” it was not only about self-awareness but an opportunity.  Although not in the same order the root consonants are identical for the words שׁוּב (shuv), return, and בּוֹשׁ (bowsh), shame.  A linguistics expert would probably say the words are related, meaning the power of shame will cause t’shuvah, or repentance/return.  The text said Adam felt shame but when confronted he did not do t’shuvah (tradition says t’shuvah is hardwired into our spiritual DNA), but instead used that same power of speech to bear false witness (see Gen. 3:12-13 Exod. 20:12).  That interconnectedness to his family impacted his wife Eve who did the same and was handed down to their son Cain who shirked responsibility for killing his brother (Gen. 4:9).  In fact, Genesis 5 and 6 is a genealogy linking Adam’s family to Noah’s, perhaps meant to remind us that the good and bad of Adam and Eve are just handed down.  Adam and Eve were to bring tikkun to the garden, but they choose a path that impacted everything that would follow, not because of what they did, but because of what they would not do.
     Because of Adam and Eve’s interconnection to the world around them the power of their words are that much more meaningful, just like ours.  It says in Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue….”  As such,  Jewish tradition teaches that lashon hara (gossip, slander), sinat chinam (baseless hatred) and sinat habriot (hated of others) are a product of the tongue, but so is al t’shakeir (do not lie).  Words are powerful and too often destructive.  Adam and Eve made choices that had them removed from the garden, destroying the goodness of family and relationships, things that have plagued humanity ever since.  I don’t think it’s unfair to say, just look around, that our society is broken, laced with words of hate and violence, insult and disrespect.  You see a family’s respect, love and forgiveness, acceptance and tolerance, honor and integrity that begins in the “home” equips us to go into a world that we are universally interconnected to, with hopefully those same values, even though we are different.  But if in isolation and in disrespect of others, accepting and tolerating the destructive powers of speech and action, can we fix what we see?  This is why the family must be the cradle of tikkun.

Shabbat Shalom 

רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah

A Short Reflection of Sukkot
Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

     On Yom Kippur afternoon we read from the book of Jonah for good reason.  The highlight of Jonah is the time he spends in the belly of the great fish and what that means. We learned in a Midrash that “Gehenna has three entrances: one in the desert, one in the sea, and one in Jerusalem.”  The desert is a forsaken place that speaks to need and Jerusalem is the place where Torah is read and sacrifices were offered, awakening human imperfection and brokenness that calls for tikkun, but what of the sea?  Regarding Jonah’s time in the sea within the fish Ibn Ezra wrote, מקום עמוק, הפך שמים שהוא מרום,  “the deep place is contrary to the heavens above.”  מקום עמוק (makom amok) is not just a “deep place” but a dark pit, a place with no light, where only total blackness is seen.  Contrary to מקום עמוק is the highest of the heights (שהוא מרום), the שמים, the heavens, a place beyond human imagination.  In other words, Jonah had no place to go but up, and it took being in the darkness of that fish’s belly to get him to see so.  In fact, look at Jonah’s prayer, he did not ask for help or repentance but he gave thanksgiving to God within the darkness anticipating something else, saying, “When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came into you, into your holy temple.”  It is through the seas metaphorically that we enter the darkness of Gehenna only to rise above again.

     There was another dark time in Israel, it was their slavery in Egypt.  However, before any mention of this festival of Sukkot we really should look back at Exodus 12:37 that says, וַיִּסְעוּ בְנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵרַעְמְסֵס, סֻכֹּתָה, “and the children of Israel (after leaving Egypt) journeyed from Rameses to Sukkot,” where they would lay their heads that first night.  According to Torah, the place of Sukkot was where Jacob built “booths” for his family and animals to sleep (see Gen. 33:17), and now the people of Israel who left the harshness of slavery in Egypt have arrived at the same place.  Sukkot is not just a celebration, but a place, a place where the people would dwell.  Yet regarding the celebration of Sukkot the 16^th century mystic, Yeshayahu ben Avraham Horowitz, wrote that Jews were to “Sit for seven days, the secret of the mysteries in the treasures of the Supreme Wisdom, hidden in the glitter of the beginning of thought.”  There was a deeper meaning to Sukkot that Horowitz called a secret, but what?

     Jonah in the fish had no shame; only good things can be in front of him, anticipating his freedom in the end.  The Hebrews who came out of Egypt came out of darkness, resting the first night in Sukkot, a place of safety and hope for the future, a place where for the first time they had no shame and were now free.  On Yom Kippur we pounded our chest and said the Ashamnu and Al Chet, words that were like a mirror to our humanity, reminding us that we are flawed, filled with human limitations and imperfections, broken and in need of repair, reminding us of our own darkness.  Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught that the community shame of the human condition was sent away with the Azazel, the goat sent into the wilderness. The Azazel removed the embarrassment of shame so the people could embrace t’shuvah, repentance, allowing all Israel to stand as one in equality, no one was not quality, so together all were made innocent.

     Yom Kippur can be like that deep place where we looked at our brokenness, that place of מקום עמוק (makom amok), followed by the celebration of Sukkot, a higher place of שהוא מרום (shehu marom) called זמן שמחתינו, the time of our rejoicing. We decorate our Sukkah’s and have candy and fruit, a place of celebration with our invited quests, no longer alone in our self-introspection that lasted from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur.  Sukkot is a symbol of life, it is a holiday where we are told to be happy, a time of freedom and rest.  We are happy because we do not have to owned by anger or unforgiveness, fear or greed, hate or revenge, instead we are defined by love and goodness, care, and compassion, joy, and gladness. We read in Leviticus 23:34, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the feast of tabernacles (chag sukkot, חַג הַסֻּכּוֹת) for seven days unto the LORD,” and we get seven days, plus one, to enjoy that higher place.  This is the mystery of what is hidden, but really, it is right there to grasp.

Chag Semeach Sukkot!