Parashat B'shalach - Free to What?

 רפואה מן התור
Healing from the Torah

Parashat B'shalach
Exodus 13;17-17:16

By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

     Israel is free at last to leave Egypt.  Pharaoh could no longer stomach the power of God’s wonders from the plagues and grants Moses his wish to take the people into the wildness to sacrifice to their God.  Yet, Pharaoh could not help himself and goes after the people by the sea, so in response God tells Moses, “Then I will stiffen Pharaoh’s heart and he will pursue them, that I may gain glory through Pharaoh and all his host; and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD. And they did so” (Exodus 14:4).  This is read in the light of what Maimonides called, הַרשׁוּת בְּיַדוֹ (harshut b’yado), or free-will.  For the initial five plagues Pharaoh makes up is mind and hardens his heart whereas for the final five plagues God does it for him.  What happened to Pharaoh’s harshut b’yado if God is now in charge?
     Maimonides teaches in Mishnah Torah that harshut b’yado can be taken away.  Yet this does not just happen, according to Rabbi Netanel Wiederblank from Yeshiva University, “automatically” but only when a “person lives and acts thoughtfully and actively” in doing the wrong thing.  What is the wrong thing?  In the case of Pharaoh it was his evil treatment of the Hebrews, treatment that was “thoughtfully and actively” carried out against them that resulted in their harm.  In fact R’Weiderblank says that Pharaoh’s misuse of his actions took “away his own free-will, and thus as a punishment God took away the rest.”  Wiederblank also spoke of this in terms of middah keneged middah, or a trait in opposition to a trait.  So without the middah of anavah, or humility, the opposite will result in ga’avah, or arrogance.  All this to say for Wiederblank that a choice “between right and wrong [is] not merely the ability to choose between x or y” since free-will is based on doing the right thing and just not just an arbitrary decision that justifies undo harm.  This was the case with Pharaoh who choose the x of evil in order to get the y of personal gain as opposed to the right behavior of how to treat others in contrast to their mistreatment.  A lack of one lead to the other, or middah keneged middah.
     In other words, from the perspective of Torah הַרשׁוּת בְּיַדוֹ (harshut b’yado), or free-well, is not an excuse for bad behavior which is just simply wrong.  I have to go back to the summer with all the protests we were experiencing and how the x verses the y mentality existed for some.  Some who protested participated in illegal activity, destroying property and stealing from looted stores.  I recall reading a Tweet from an activist that basically said the destruction of property is justified because it does not compare to the mistreatment of black people at hands of the police, hence the justification to destroy and rob was based on a x verses y thought process.  The right and wrong way to think can be found in the words of Martin Luther King who said,  “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” meaning that while change will take time it will happen and needs to happen the right way.  In this case right behavior reflects true free-will even though the desired results include a painful process.  This is not a commentary on what we have experienced nor I am comparing the acts of a few to the evil of Pharaoh, let alone an observation on the acts of a destructive few as opposed to the rightful protests for the social equality of the many.  It is about using free-will improperly with the intent to justify wrong, just like we also saw at the Capitol on January 6.
     Rabbi Yitz Greenberg writes of the two sides for free-will when in Exodus 13:17-18 we read that upon leaving Egypt God “did not led them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near [but] when they see war, and they return to Egypt … [instead they went] by the way of the wilderness by the Red Sea.”  R’Greenberg says that if they went the first way God removes from them “all free-well” whereas via the second route “the Torah accepts the realities of human nature and human limitations.”  In this case Greenberg refers to the teaching of Maimonides who says that out of respect for human beings God chooses the second option that allowed for the people to forge their own path along the way that likewise called for their choices as well.  In fact when we look to our celebration of Passover, the narratives we read at our Seders while recalling the story of slavery to include the plagues and the hardships ultimately are redemptive, looking toward the hope of the future both for tomorrow and beyond. The Rabbis used their free-will to create a celebration that leaned in one direction as opposed to the other.
     So הַרשׁוּת בְּיַדוֹ (harshut b’yado), free-will, must be seen as electing to do the right thing and not simply an activity of choice.  In our morning prayers we say, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe who made us to be free,” or בֶּן חוֹרִין, ben chorin.  Every time I read this prayer I am reminded that embedded in the words בֶּן חוֹרִין is the root of בּ ח ר (b-ch-r) that becomes the word בָּחַר which means to choose. Freedom is a gift that we choose to use not only for our sense of personal freedom and choice but for the betterment and concern for all around us.  Free-will is never an excuse to harm others who disagree with us or for gain at the expense of someone’s loss. That might sound like a utopian society but really in underscores the value of Torah. Torah is about the other, we are our brothers keeper, which is why after crossing the sea Israel sang a song in unison to memorialize what had happened.  Singing not only unifies but wakes up the personal music within the soul, it reminded the people that their own personal journey was connected to each other, family, friend and even foe.
     Israel is free now and are going to be asked to use their freedom the right way and not for an excuse to do whatever they please.  In fact today is Tu BiShevat, a Jewish Holiday occurring on the 15th day of the Hebrew Month of Shevat, which this year corresponds with January 27 and 28.  In contemporary Jewish life it is a day where in unity a nation celebrates what is really a day of ecological awareness when tress are planted in celebration.  In the same way this day unifies the people the power of harshut b’yado is supposed to do the same thing.  Use your own filter as I am using mine, to “thoughtfully and actively” seek the answer to the following question, “I am free for what?”  Freedom is a precious gift and we need to do right by it.

Shabbat Shalom         

Parashat Bo - Imagine That

רפואה מן התור
Healing from the Torah

Parashat Va'eira
Exodus 10:1-13:16

By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

     In the very beginning of Torah Rashi interacts with Rabbi Isaac, who said: “The Torah which is the Law book of Israel should have commenced with the verse (Exodus 12:2), ‘“This month shall be unto you the first of the months,”’ Rashi teaching that the reason why is because this is the “first commandment given to Israel.”  So here in Parashat Bo we find what Rabbi Yitz Greenberg says is the first Law “given to the entire Jewish people as a unit” right till today, a commandment the Jewish world will fulfill this year with our initial Seders on March 27, 2021.  We read here in this parsha not only about the conclusion of the plagues but also the deliverance of those Jews who experienced the cruelty and slavery of Egypt. This past Shabbat my Rabbi and teacher, Rabbi Ed Feinstein of Valley Beth Shalom here in Los Angeles, was reflecting on Exodus 6:6 that says, אֲנִי יְהוָה, וְהוֹצֵאתִי אֶתְכֶם מִתַּחַת סִבְלֹת מִצְרַיִם, “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians,” raising the question; how can we enter into something that the vast majority of us have never experienced?
     In setting the scene, last week we began to read about the back and forth battle between Pharaoh’s perceived deified powers and the God of the universe, the final plague this week is called the מַכַּת בְּכוֹרוֹת (makat b’chorot), “death of the firstborn,” just before Israel leave’s their servitude to Pharaoh in Egypt.  But it is also during this final plague that we find Passover ritual elements in the matzot and the maror (bitter herb) being spoken of.  We read in Talmud from Pesachim 116b that the maror is part of our Passover ritual because of what happened in Egypt when “they made their lives bitter.”  In talking about identifying with this type of bitterness as Jews, who for the most part are far removed from the horrors of our ancestors, Rabbi Feinstein talks about identification in the form of being as in “a play,” you know like on Broadway.  A play for Rabbi Feinstein allows a person to identify with a character that they are not in real life.  He went on to say that when we taste the maror (bitter herb) during Passover, we are getting a little taste of bitterness, so unless you are a holocaust survivor or have had a horrible experience, a person cannot imagine what that type of bitterness is like and is asked to create their own.  When we sit down for our Seders we are commanded to think of ourselves as coming out of the slavery of Egypt, so being in character as in a play, but a real life play, is a great way to do so.
     What a beautiful picture of interaction Rabbi Feinstein asks us to consider in order to get a little taste of something we can’t truly imagine.  But what Rabbi Feinstein calls a “play” I want to extend to the idea of “imagination.”  The word for imagination in Hebrew is דִּמְיוֹן (dim’yot) that comes from the root word דָמָה (dah’mah), which can mean both “likeness” and “imagine.”  At first, these seem like two different words, but they are really similar.  Ezekiel 31 refers to Pharaoh in the “likeness” to the great tress of Eden, Pharaoh as part of the creation as opposed to being above it,  Pharaoh simply being “compared with you (meaning the tress).”  Yet in Isaiah 14:14 the Babylonian King, who also exhalated his existence says, I will be like the Most High,” seeing himself as God.  The Pharaoh is דָמִיתָ (dahmee’ta) “compared with you,” his likeness is in juxtaposition with the rest of rest of creation whereas the king of Babylon is אֶדַּמֶּה (ehd’dameh) “I will be like,” imagining himself to me like God.
Not to go off on a rabbit trail, so to speak, but this helps us to see how imagination can be understood 
     Back to the maror let’s ask the questions; what is bitterness, what is it like, or can it be imagined?  Norman Fischer says that imagination “creates its own self-validating truth strong enough to effect inner and outer transformation.”  Fischer makes that statement in the context of a story that he shared and while he believes it he also cannot completely validate its content, connecting with it ultimately “because it expresses something that is essential about who we are as human beings.”   So when we smell and taste the maror what truth do we comprehend, what can it tell the vast majority of us who have never experienced such human cruelty as did the slaves in Egypt, what is its humanity we embrace?  Consider the following between Rashi and the Or HaChaim. Rashi recalling the words of the Talmud verse we quoted above, which said “And they made their lives bitter,” teaches that this clearly reminds us of the bitterness of Egypt, while the Or HaChaim saw the maror as an culinary enhancer to make the lamb-meat more enjoyable.  How do we account for this?  Rabbi Manis Friedman makes a distinction between “fact” and “truth,” each beholding what is and what it can be.  The fact is the maror is bitter, its likeness reminds us of the bitterness of slavery we did not know, yet the truth is “self-validating … to effect inner and outer transformation” can create its own positive message where the opposite of the bitterness of maror is the sweetness of some kind of deliverance.  Rashi and the Or HaChaim each approached something they had never experienced through their own human encounters that brought meaning to them just as we must also do the same.
     This takes imagination, seeking that “self-validating truth” that we connect to on a human level even if we cannot validate the story either.  In this case once again Norman Fischer writes that “all imaginative productions rise up from the unconscious to expand the soul.”  Likewise, Fischer makes another worthy statement when he says, “imagination is not about escaping reality … but deepens and enriches reality,” something that then allows us to add “texture, depth, dimension, feeling and possibility.”  That is what we bring to the maror, which is how we identify with our ancestors even though our bitterness was not like theirs and our story is our own.
     I will assume that yesterday most of us watched the inauguration of now President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, with many people imaging what our country will look like now even though we cannot be sure as it has not yet been written.  But to me the best part of the morning was that young lady, Amanda Gorman, who I think wowed the world and moved the country when she read a poem with poise and passion that looked toward a better tomorrow.  The very last stanza said, “When day comes we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid, The new dawn blooms as we free It, For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it, If only we’re brave enough to be it.”  We are left to our imagination to understand and interpret those words.  Per our parsha, the maror has a meaning, the bitterness of slavery has a meaning, that is a fact, but our imagination makes it human and makes in true, and we must imagine that.

Shabbat Shalom!  

Parashat Va'eira - What do you see?

 רפואה מן התור
Healing from the Torah

Parashat Va'eira

Exodus 2:2-9:35
By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky  

     This parsha begins with the ongoing dialog between God and Moses after הַסְּנֶה בֹּעֵר בָּאֵשׁ (has’s’neh bo’ayr ba’aish), the burning bush, where he is told in Exodus 6:2, “I appeared (va’eira) to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name יהוה,” or Adonai/LORD.  Is that really the case?  In Genesis 12:1 it says, “The LORD (יהוה) said to Abram;” in Genesis 26:2 we read, “The LORD (יהוה) appeared (va’eira) to him (Isaac, see 26:1); and in Genesis 28:13 in the midst of his dream Jacob connects with God who is to have said, “I am the LORD (יהוה), the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.”  These three occurrences (among many) tell the reader that יהוה, Adonai/LORD, existed before Moses had his encounter at the bush, The LORD (יהוה) had already appeared, spoke and announced; so what is different now?  Rabbi Ozer Glickman, of blessed memory, who was a teacher of Talmud and Halakha (Jewish law), asks the question, “was the name of יהוה (Adonai) really unknown to the Avot,” or our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?|
     The great Medieval Rabbi, Rashi, writes that of course The LORD (יהוה) was known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, making sure to point out that the Torah does not say לֹא הוֹדַעְתִי (lo ho’dati), “I did not tell [them],” but לֹא נוֹדַעְתִי (lo no’dati), “I have not yet become known [to them].”  Looking to more than one Midrash, Rabbi Glickman goes on to say that the reason why that was the case was because the Avot did not ask what Moses did.  Back in Shemot when he encountered God in the bush remember Moses asks, מַה־שְּׁמ֔וֹ מָ֥ה אֹמַ֖ר אֲלֵהֶֽם (mah sh’mo, omar a’lay’hem), “what should I tell them is your name?”  God responds in the most opaque of ways by saying, אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה (Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh), “I will be which I will be.”  In that same Midrashic tradition God tells Moses to inform the people that Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh will be with them both in bondage and kingship, a strange but comforting concept for them I assume.  Glickman is suggesting that the reason why the Avot did not know God like Moses was because there was no need, and the promises made to the Avot would be fulfilled under the leadership of Moses (i.e. becoming a people).
     But this is not about whether the Avot knew or did not know God like Moses, but why did Moses have to know God, as Moses?  If I grew up like Moses, a Jew being raised in the ways of Egypt while learning about a multitude of dieties, I’d surely ask this unknown God who was residing in a burning bush, מַה־שְּׁמ֔וֹ (mah sh’mo), what’s your name!  I do not think that the Avot had the same experience with multiple gods like Moses so there was need for clarification per se.  yet in this case Moses and Pharaoh both had their own existential encounter with God that demanded a response.  Last week we saw how Moses responded to the bush and this week we see how Pharaoh respond to the נִפְלָאוֹת (niflahot), the wonders, the beginning of the plagues (Exodus 7:10ff).  Moses in his response said, הִנֵּנִי (hin’nayni) “here am I” and took his sandless off (Exodus 3:5), whereas וַיֶּחֱזַק לֵב פַּרְעֹה (vay’yehcha’zak layv Pharoh), “Pharaoh hardened his heart” and made the people continue in their oppression (Exodus 7:13).
     Norman Fischer, a Jewish Zen Buddhist Priest, helps us to understand indirectly what happened with Moses and Pharaoh in a unique way.  Fischer writes of our current world, “And we don’t assume that our picture of the world is the way the world has to look,” which is what happened to Moses.  Moses saw the suffering of two Hebrews and responded in passion (Exodus 2:11), realizing at the bush that Israel’s would of slavery did not have to be, wanting to be a part of the solution.  Fischer calls this “spaciousness,” looking beyond the obvious for the better even if getting there may include suffering along the way.  Although Fischer does not use this word, the opposite of “spaciousness” is narrowness.  The Kabbalist’s teach from Zohar that this narrowness represents Egypt.  Moses came from Egypt, Mitzrayim, a place of murder and fear, destruction and lack, power and greed.  In the Zohar we learn that the word Mitzrayim (מִצְרַ֖יִם) for the mystics was/is divided into two; mi (מִ) meaning “from” and  tzar (צַר) meaning  “narrow” or “tight.”  In this case Moses emerged from a מִצַר (mitzar), a “narrow-straight,” a place of narrowness and confinement, recognizing that as he stood at the bush its’s fire revealed the darkness of where he came from.  Then there is Pharaoh, a man who thought of himself to be a god, a ruler over people who responded to him out of appeasement and fear, a man who felt threatened by the God of Moses and the possibility of losing his imprisoned work-force and money makers.  Pharaoh reacted to the wonders with hardness and callousness, the Midrash teaching that he became burdened in anger (Exodus Rabbah 9:8).  Pharaoh traveled the narrow path, only seeing himself and not others, immune to their their pain or rightful equality.  Moses operated in the spaciousness of love and Pharaoh operated in the narrowness of hate.
     Moses had a different role than the Avot that apparently meant he needed a different understanding and experience with God.  Moses contended with things that the Avot did not have do, and what he saw elevated him to a sense purpose then and there.  Yet as we consider the paths of spaciousness and narrowness let’s just reflect on what the last few years has taught, albeit in this pandemic or our political outlook, how the narrowness of people has impacted the brokenness of society, in many ways revealing our own Mitzrayim that demands a healing of our shattered diversity.  But Moses stands as a symbol of freedom, choosing spaciousness, turning his back on the narrow-straits of Egypt, seeking redemption for the suffering of others, even as he struggled with his own fear of failure.
     There is the famous line made into many melodies by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov that says,כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד והעיקר לא לפחד כלל (Kol ha-olam kulo gesher tzar m'od v'ha-ikkar lo lefached klal), "The whole entire world is a very narrow bridge and the main thing is to have no fear at all," words that can poignantly speak to us today.  Fear is one of those things that is always there, albeit the fear of what we see around us currently or just the fear of growing old, either with self or in support of others, on that bridge walking through the narrowness of fear while choosing a path of spaciousness.  Narrowness of fear does not have to win, and while it might take time - just like with the narrowness of Pharaoh - it will be defeated.  God, our higher values, and our desires will appear before us, inviting us like Moses here in Va’eira to choose the better way, looking beyond what he saw to a world how he wanted it to look.  We have to do the same.

Shabbat Shalom  

Parashat Shemot - Home is where the Heart is

רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah

Parashat Vayechi

Exodus 1:1-6:1
By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky  

     I grew up in a Jewish home that was cultural but not religious.  I went to a Jewish preschool for a year and when I was younger celebrated Passover yearly with relatives that just abruptly stopped, although we always lit our Hanukkah candles.  I also remember from time to time going to a wedding or Bar Mitzvah ceremony (including my own), but even those I processed through the lens of Jewish cultural at best.  I was involved at our local JCC (Jewish Community Center) where I played sports but never went to any religious based classes, never learned about Jewish history, nor did I ever go to any type of Jewish summer camp.  However, I was raised during a time when Israel united all Jews worldwide, standing as a reminder to me that I was part of a larger community.  In fact the way I was raised, in my mind, what I believed was really mutually exclusive to who I was.  For many years I spent time in other religious communities, which also for me had absolutely nothing to do with being Jewish, it was about where I was at personally.  Anyway, details aside, my journey always traveled through my eyes of being a Jew, and as long as my identity and belief did not conflict, I was good with it.  Then the day came when I understood much more and listened to my inner self, my neshoma, which had been awaken, realizing that I could no longer separate the two; I was a Jew and it had everything to do with what I believed.  When I returned to Judaism in earnest this part of the story of Moses spoke to me in a special way, perhaps it does for some of you also.
     Moses was born during a time when the current Pharaoh decreed that all baby boys were to be killed at birth to stop the growth and the perceived power of the Hebrews.  We learn in the Book of Jubilees 47:3 that Moses was born seven months into this edict and to save his life his mother entrusted her newborn son to be raised in the house of Pharaoh as an Egyptian.  40 years later Moses’ Jewishness is awakened when he saw an Egyptian overseer (who he probably knew) mistreating a fellow Hebrew to which he responds by killing the aggressor for the sake of his mishpocha (family).  This happened at a time according to Exodus 2:11 “when Moses was grown,” although he was grown up in Exodus 2:10 as well.  Given that Moses growing up is mentioned twice Rashi teaches that the first time refers to the growth of his physique and the second time to the growth of his greatness when Moses assumed his role in the Royal court of Egypt.  The Ramban, who came after Rashi, taught that the first time also had to do with physical growth whereas the second time was about a growth in knowledge.  But here I think the words of Kabbalist Rabbi Philip Berg are worth consideration.  Rabbi Berg, like Rashi and Ramban, looked to Exodus 2:10 to speak of physical growth as well, yet in 2:11 this growth was just not about his political greatness or gained knowledge, but Moses grew when he “felt the pain of his people,” an inner growth of being.   In other words at this moment his Jewishness was awakened and Moses identified as a Jew recognizing his true community.
     Rabbi Mark Gottlieb, who at one time was the Principal at the Yeshiva University High School for Boys in New York, we can safely assume understood something about identity formation. Writing about Moses he talks about the complexity of his identity; born as a slave, raised by another people with a different set of beliefs and culture, bred in privilege with the best education available, his inner passion being provoked at the mistreatment of his Hebrew brothers.  Moses had to come with terms with the fact that at the core of his being he was either a “favored son of Egypt or the son of Hebrew slaves.”  I think it’s also fair to say, per Gottlieb, that “both identities were present under the surface in some blended, inchoate form, but to date neither had emerged with a distinctiveness of clarity.”  It would seem then that when “he went forth to his brethren, and saw the anguish of their souls, and the greatness of their toil,” as we read in the Aramaic Midrashic Targum, his inner being was made to finally resolve that inner tension.  According to the Sefat Emet, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter says of Moses that he was now participating in the pain of the community when he “saw into their suffering” (Exodus 2:11), making him prepared to “lead the people into redemption.”  But I do not think that Moses woke up one day and said, “hey I am a Jew,” but more than likely was told along the way by his adopted mom, Pharaoh’sdaughter, Bat-yah (daughter of God), her faithfulness earned the words of God according to a Midrash that teaches, “Moses was not your son, yet you called him your son; you are not My daughter, but I call you My daughter” (Lev. Rabbah 1:3; also Exodus 2:6).  Moses was not unaware of his roots but now life asked him to identify in a new direction with the community of his birth.
     The two Hebrew slaves, in this case, who Moses defended that day become the representatives of Israel’s suffering in slavery that was epitomized in the, הַסְּנֶה בֹּעֵר בָּאֵשׁ, the burning bush (Exodus 3)  In the Sefat Emet the idea of “exile” (galut) and “revelation” (hitgalut) are connected because of their shared root.  The experience of the bush revealed to Moses that in the same way he was in “exile” from his own community Israel who was suffering in slavery was exiled from their own freedom. But Exodus wants the reader to know that this was not just a physical freedom but one that existed on a spiritual realm understood in the mystery of the bush itself.  Rabbi Abraham Isaac Cook teaches that when we strive to understand what is beyond the rational in precise terms it will be blurred by human limitations.  In other words I am not sure we can truly explain away the mystery of the bush, but we are asked to wrestle with it.  In short, Moses clearly had a personal revelation about his purpose and identity as he stood before the bush that day, which changed the whole of Jewish history, not to mention his own.
     Moses did not grow up in a Jewish home, he did not go to yeshiva or attend camp, able to recite the Birkat Hamazon (blessing of gratitude said) after a meal, familiar with the ways and customs of his own people, but yet he was one of the greatest Jews who ever lived.  Sure I can trace my own journey to that moment in time when like Moses my Jewish self-woke up and I was compelled to live and learn a certain way, but this also contains a spiritual message that is much bigger than whether one is a Jew or not.  The fact is that all people will stand before a proverbial bush where each will see a flame that is not burning, standing on the outside looking in, inviting us to explore our inner worlds and highest values in every stage of life, ultimately reminding us that home is where the heart is.  Welcome to the book of Exodus.                             

Shabbat Shalom