Archive for the '1.07 VaYetzei' Category

A Note on Israel for Our Children

Published November 21, 2012 1.07 VaYetzei Leave a Comment
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I am blessed with a full life. I spend all of my time parenting, partnering,working, and learning. Recently I have found that with every spare moment I am trying to follow the news of what is going on in Israel. And if I get a brief moment to reflect I just cry thinking about what is going on in Israel. It is the 21st Century, why must we still fight to exist?

Earlier tonight Adina and I took our children out to join us at a community wide event in support of Israel. We could have left the children with Maria, our Au Pair, and just gone by ourselves. We realized that despite it being past their bedtime it was important for our children to join us. We want them to value Israel in their lives as we do in our lives. It was great to see the room packed with people in support of Israel. But I realize that at the ages of eight, six and three this might be a bit too much to ask for at this time. I remind myself that this is the very reason that I started writing this entire blog in the first place over threes ago. I hope that years from now you ( Yadid , Yishama, and Emunah) look back and read this blog and are able to connect all of the dots of our parenting choices over the years. I can admit that I often daydream about the your future lives. What do I see emerging in each of you, our children, and might that be a clue of what is to come. I am curious which if and of you will choose to live in Israel. There is a big part of me that would love to follow you.

As we read in Vayetzeh, this week’s Torah portion, Yaakov dreamed a dream about a ladder. There we read:

And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! ( Genesis 28:12)

As Yaakov was leaving Israel to go into Diaspora he had this vision. We need to be idealistic and have our head above the limiting details of life, but we always need to have our feet firmly rooted in the ground. As important as any of the ideas we might talk with you about are the actions that we model. While I hope to share with you my ideas and ideals, I realize that you will have your own. So I hope when you read this years from now you have seen our commitment to Israel in our words as well as our actions. On the way to the event tonight Yadid said, ” I was born in New York, I live in White Plains, but Israel is home.” Obviously that is a well rehearsed line in our home, but it is also important that it is not just something we say. It is important that we make sure that our ideals are founded on our actions. For a second there was a hint that Yadid was starting to get the point. Who knows? Maybe he will be reading this blog post from Israel?

Our thoughts, prayers, and actions are for the people of Israel in the land of Israel. May we see a lasting peace as soon as possible for all of our children.

The Long Kiss

Published December 2, 2011 1.07 VaYetzei Leave a Comment
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In this week’s Torah portion, Vayetzeh, we read about Jacob’s enduring love and commitment to marry Rachel.  there we read, “And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept.” ( Genesis 29:11) Jacob is motivated by this love to work for seven years for Lavan. Finally, Jacob has earned her hand in marriage and Lavan pulls the switch.  Instead, Jacob marries Rachel’s older sister Leah. His love for Rachel persists and he has to work another seven years in order to marry the love of his life Rachel. Fourteen years in the making…that was some commitment. It is hard for me to understand Lavan’s work proposal, let alone why Jacob took it. I doubt that many of us could endure for that long.

When I used to work at Hillel the number fourteen is a very important. My goal was and in many ways is still to partner with students to help them make enduring commitments that are personally meaningful, universally relevant and distinctively Jewish.  How can we ensure that these commitments will endure? This is complicated by the fact that the institutions of Jewish life are largely not relevant to students until they find their life partner and start to settle down. Realizing that we are living in a post “Sex in the City “ culture – it dawned on me that most of the students will not get married for on average 10 years from when they graduate. That is scary. We have four years with our students to help them think about how to go it alone for the following ten years. This is what I called for a “ fourteen year plan.” I am confident that the synagogues will help us endure after that point, but first we need to succeed in our fourteen year plan.

I have my theories as to why we have organized our communities in past in ways that do not speak of our current success, but for now I just want to make something that works for the future. We desperately need to pour resources into programs that deal with these fourteen years. Hillel’s need to be working with this in mind. Seeing that some of our best and brightest in this age cohort are working at camp, they too need to give some serious thought to how they will contribute to the fourteen year plan. It is not enough for  camp and Hillel to say we do “young alumni development” and only mean the euphemism of raising money. Long before we will get any monetary support from these young people we need to help them see their way through this fourteen year period of their lives.

While we should hope that the descendents of Jacob have his enduring commitment, we should not bank on it for fourteen years. These peak experiences at camp, on campus, in Israel, or on Birthright are very important, but not enough.  I have no doubt that many will have left by then with only the memory of a kiss. We have to plan for a longer kiss.

Revealing Food and Clothes

Published November 12, 2010 1.07 VaYetzei Leave a Comment
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On the heels of last week’s Torah portion in which Jacob steals the birthright and the blessing from his brother Esav, this week’s Torah portion begins with Jacob running away from Esav. Just before Jacob leaves the land of Canaan he makes a vow to God, saying:

If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and clothing to wear,  so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God (Genesis 28:20-21)

His vow seems to be theologically charged with the possibility that God’s existence is contingent on God providing for Jacob. Some of the words in the vow seem to be superfluous. Of course food is to be eaten and clothing is to be worn, why does Jacob ask for “bread to eat, and clothing to wear”? It was Jacob himself who used food to get the birthright from Esav and food and clothing to deceive his father and get the blessing. How can Jacob ever look at food and clothing the same way again?

Even though it seems that the deception changed Jacob as a person, it never made him suspect that people would try to deceive him the same way in the future. Sure enough in this week’s Torah portion Jacob gets hoodwinked into marrying a cloaked Leah instead of his beloved Rachel. He then gets deceived by his sons who bring their father Joseph’s clothes with blood on them to support their claim that their brother Joseph was killed. Finally, Jacob will send his sons down to Egypt to get food and there they will all get deceived by Joseph. Ironically, despite Jacob’s claim that food and clothing should be used for their normal use, his life is marked by their use for deception.

If we look at the vow that Jacob makes, in this light, we see that the words are not superfluous and he really wanted God to let him forget the sins of his youth. Surely Jacob’s teshuvah, return, is a lifetime in the making. As we read in Hallel, “The rock that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22). We can try to run from our past, but one way or another it will catch up with us. Just as in Jacob’s vow, the true revelation of God is contingent upon the true revelation of self.

Cosmic Hubris

Published November 22, 2009 1.07 VaYetzei Leave a Comment

In last week’s Torah portion, Jacob steals the blessing and the birthright from his brother Esau. In the beginning of this week’s portion, Jacob is running to his uncle’s house to evade his brother’s wrath. As he is leaving, he stops for the night. We read, “And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” (Genesis 28:12) What is the significance of this vision?

A couple of weeks ago Avraham was sitting in his tent when he was visited by three angels. According to the Talmud Bava Metzia 86b, each angel was sent with a unique mission. In the words of Rashi, it is not possible that one angel is sent to perform two missions. Every individual thing in the universe seems to be sustained by a unique angel. As we read in the Midrash, “Rabbi Simon said: You will not find a single blade of grass that does not have its angel in the heavens that strikes it and says to it “Grow!”” (Midrash Rabbah Bereshit 10:6) The Rabbis were fascinated with the single-minded nature of an angel because it serves as a foil for the creative and willful nature of human beings. An angel might just be nothing more than a human perception of God’s will, whereas human beings by nature are a product of their own will. How is the image of Jacob’s ladder affected by this understanding of the nature of angels and human beings?

From his birth, Jacob’s nature is as a homebody. We read, “Jacob was a pure man, dwelling in tents.” (Genesis 25: 28) For him to undertake his journey  away from home Jacob will have to transform himself totally. For him to inherit the blessing of Avraham he has to leave the comfort of that tent and recreate himself. This dream represents his willful transformation. He will need new angels to sustain him in the rest of his journey. This transformation culminates when he returns to confront his brother. In that moment, it is not just a vision of the changing of the angels in his life, but physically wrestling an angel. Would that boy in the tent have been able to confront that angel? In the words of George Bernard Shaw, “Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.” Human beings are not angels, but our chutzpah, cosmic hubris,  to transform our very nature is what makes us divine.

The Sin of Cynicism

Published November 19, 2009 1.07 VaYetzei Leave a Comment

It is a challenge to be committed to an ancient tradition and to live in the modern world. So, while I believe one can easily defend the inner meaning of a life commitment to Judaism in light of secular values, it is a greater challenge to do so without becoming defensive. I enjoy the academy and the questions that it provides. Open-minded inquiry seems to for allow free discourse between rivaling truth claims. One would hope that this would engender a certain modicum of curiosity; but I find our conversations often slip into cynicism.

While one can feel like they are in a tremendous groove in the free market of ideas, cynicism is a rut. And once in it, it wears on you until it is a chasm.  The tone has been set, so that even a well intending comment is perceived as ridicule. A humorous comment meant to lighten the mood just digs us in a little deeper.

At the end of this week’s Torah portion, Vayeitzei, Lavan, the villainous father-in-law of Jacob, blesses his children and grandchildren. We read, “And Lavan awoke early in the morning, he kissed his sons and his daughters and blessed them, then Lavan went and returned to his place” (Genesis 32:1). Even a sinner like Lavan might have a moment of meaning. He returns to his perch of contempt, but the Torah takes a moment to express his compassion. He was not beyond love or appreciation for the family that Jacob was making.

I realize that I need to work on maintaining open inquiry without being cynical of others’ views. I learn from this week’s portion that it starts with being open and present with my emotion. Showing that I care is not a sign of weakness. Surely, there is no sin in sincerity.

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