In this week’s Torah portion and the next week’s as well we learn many details of the construction of Tabernacle and all of the accoutrement. Where there is a clear plan for what  will be built and made, that is not where they start off this large scale project. Rather, they start off with themselves. As we read:

‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they take for Me an offering; of every man whose heart makes him willing you shall take My offering.( Exodus 25:2)

While their gifts are going to fit into a very clear and focused plan, their gifts were from the heart. At the center of our national narrative is a collaborative non-profit project that celebrates the diverse offerings of every individual while working toward a common goal. It is based on unity without forcing uniformity.

And about this project God says:

And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. (Exodus 25:8)

The text does not say “make this building so that I can dwell in it“- the Tabernacle, but rather in “them”. If it were just a random gifts from their hearts that did not fit into a master-plan, it would not amount to anything. It is clear that the purpose of this project is not the material or the construction, but rather the act of their coming together itself.

As a non-profit we at the Foundation for Jewish Camp are not running after making money. We are not even limited to getting more Jewish children to overnight camps  with Jewish missions. We see camp as a tool for  creating community. Camp is a place that people are moved to share from their hearts. We aspire to model that in our organization itself. While everyone has a role and we have a clear strategic plan, we try to tap into everyone’s individual passions.  In speaking with the students from Hornstein I realized that more organizations need to tap into the wellspring of this divine tension. It is here where our personal passions meet a common plan that organizations will achieve greatness.

In his Sh”ut Memaamikeem, Responsa of the Holocaust, Rabbi Efrayim Oshry deals with a very interesting question (III: 6). How can a Jew who is subjugated to forced labor in the ghetto say the morning blessing thanking God for not making him/her a slave? Rabbi Oshry responded that despite the fact that the person was actually enslaved physically, according to the Avudraham, the original idea behind the blessing was that we should thank God for not making us spiritual slaves to idolatry. The Torah’s ideal is to be free. Freedom in the Torah is not independence, rather it is recognition of ultimate dependence. Relying on anything other than God would be idolatrous. Rabbi Oshry encouraged the person to continue to say the blessing as testimony of real freedom. In saying the blessing, the slave became liberated.

In our lives it is hard to imagine that we are physically enslaved. But, with so many things making a claim on our time, it is hard to imagine that we are truly the masters of our own time. While we abhor slavery, it seems that we have actually put a price on our own persons.  What are we working for? Are we  selling ourselves short? So stay up late, make more time in your life,  and talk about these questions with people you respect. Who knows? You might even find these conversations redeeming.

I think an answer to this question is found in Yitro’s critique of Moses which itself serves as the introduction to the giving of the Torah. Moses is sitting all day adjudicating God’s law for the people. Yitro says:

The thing that you do is not good. You will surely become worn out and you are well as this people who are with you for this matter is too hard for you. You will not be able to do it alone.” (Exodus 18:17-18)

At the core Yitro is telling Moses to reveal God’s Torah to all the people directly. Torah needs no agency.

The centrality of earthen alters over hewn stone seems to reflect a populist notion of devotion. Everyone should have access to this response, not just those who have the money or the physical strength to make a stone structure. Everyone should have access to saying thank you to God just as everyone should have access to Torah itself. Neither Torah nor a response to it is in Heaven; they are both in reach. In a world with Google, Wikipedia, and Facebook every aspect of knowledge is within reach. The more I learn about Jewish history the more I want to say thank you. Why not find new ways to learn about our heritage? My challenge stands, just as Yitro, that we all find some good people to join in learning Torah. While Torah is not in heaven it is much easier to reach in the context of a community. And the best part is with the help of the internet, we are no longer limited to finding community in the context of the stone buildings of our institutions. Our community might be right there in our backyard.

I think this is interesting when we juxtapose it with the story of the generation of the Tower of Babel. They wanted to make a great name for themselves and they all spoke one language. For some reason similar behaviors were met with very different outcomes. For this generation after Noah, they were met with destruction of their life work, confounding of their common language, and dispersal throughout the world. For the Israelites it also spoke to the end of their labor of building, but Egypt still has those landmarks. We still have our names, language, and we still have one homeland.

We move from Exodus from Egypt in this week’s Torah portion to next week’s Torah portion when we will be standing as Sinai as “one nation with one heart”. In this week’s Torah portion as we are leaving Pharaoh is in hot pursuit. We read, ” Egypt was journeying after them” (Exodus 14:10) On this Rashi comments that this verb ‘was journeying’ is in singular because they were with “one heart as one man”.   The comparison is robust. Common purpose and unity seems redeemable and not uniformity. We are never really building buildings, we are always trying to build communities. We build community with the words we use. It is in these communities that names have meaning. Community is where many of us will find enduring meaning and maybe even our own redemption.

- I am sorry that a draft of this got posted by accident.

I love it when she does that. It makes my heart hurt. You know Mami, when you heart hurts because you love someone so much.

When Adina told me this story my heart just melted. As a parent I aspire to have empathetic children.

I was thinking about it this week in the context of the story of Exodus. There we read how Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. As much as I marvel at my own children learning empathy at such a young age, I am stupefied to think of a grown adult not having empathy.

There are so many issues in this world that need to be fixed. I often feel if everyone only cared a little more we could solve some of these problems. But I also realize with the sheer volume of challenges, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. To get anything done at some level we need to have focus and harden our own hearts or else we would get engulfed in the huge number of issues. As parent I hope to cultivate this empathy in my children. For myself, I think I could use a little more toughening, but not too much. Out of the mouths of babes, Yishama reminded me a precious Torah. We all need to let go and be vulnerable. Life without that hurt in the heart would be slavery.

We do not just hire staff and tell them to do a job; we bring them up to the site to train them and run through what we are looking to see in May. And we are not just doing that, we take time away to have them model sessions with their peers and get feedback from each other. In the words of Jonah Canner, one of our returning Cornerstone faculty members:

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is, as an experiential educator, to have opportunities to play the role of participant in workshops and activities that are similar in nature to the ones that I am often the facilitator of. It lets me see other facilitator’s styles, remember what it is like to be facilitated, and step outside of my own creative process, to learn from and provide feedback to my peers. Perhaps most importantly it reminds to not over think things, to not be too complicated. It reminds me that in experiential education; most of the heavy lifting is done by the participants. As a facilitator my job is to frame the experience in context and reflection. My job is to create a safe place where the participants can trust me, trust each other, and trust themselves. My job is to bring them in and then get out of the way. (from Jonah’s blog)

At the core we are doing something unique at Cornerstone. Every year we are exploring what it means to be enriched by Jewish pluralism. Cornerstone is not about the small reading of pluralism, meaning orchestrating everyone playing together nicely in the sandbox. Cornerstone aspires to motivate Jewish cultural change at camp by inspiring and empowering fellows and liaisons to develop and implement experiential programming for campers and staff that speaks to the diversity of Jewish life while embracing a variety of learning styles and modes of expression. This starts with the faculty loving being part of a community that celebrates diversity and is enriched by excellence. I left our winter retreat inspired by all of the ways to be and express what it might mean to be Jewish. I am confident that when the Cornerstone Fellows arrive in May they will follow our lead and want to bring their best forward.

-As posted on the Foundation for Jewish Camp Blog

So there I stood, in one of the cool and moist underground caves which typify the Dixie Caverns outside of Roanoke, Virginia; trying to make sure that the forty Camp Ramah teenagers I was in charge of did not cause too much trouble, when suddenly my Rosh Edah, Rabbi Avi Katz Orlow says to the group, ‘Ok, everyone stand shoulder-to-shoulder up against the wall of the cave.’  Slowly, the kids began to move, and ultimately they stood in a tight line in relative silence.  ‘Face the wall,’ Avi shouted, and when they did he shined his heavy-duty flashlight toward their backs, casting their shadows against the wall.  ‘Read,’ Avi said, as he handed me a small book.  So I read.

The book he handed me was Plato’s The Republic, and the particular section was the famous Allegory of the Cave.  In it Plato imagines a group of human beings who are made to sit in a dark cave, chained so that they may only look straight ahead of them, staring at the wall.  Behind them is a fire, and men are walking, speaking and carrying objects in front of this fire – casting their shadows upon the opposite wall.  In this situation, Plato explains, a person who was forced to watch these shadows on the wall, and therefore knew of no other reality, would surely come to the conclusion that these dark images were actual beings, with real voices, carrying real objects, and that this world of mere passing shadow was indeed the very epitome of reality.

But then, Plato (through the character of Aristotle) asks us to imagine that one such person was freed from their chains and forced to look around at his true situation; would he not be overwhelmed by such a revelation: the existence of the fire, the reality of the players and the actuality of the objects they were carrying?  Furthermore, if that person were then taken up a rugged ascent and brought out of the cave into the sunlight, would not their understanding of the world be irreparably shattered?  Surely the light of the sun would pain them and, until their eyes adjusted, they would certainly be unable to even look at another human being and see their bodily image as it truly is. Thus, Plato proves, perception truly is reality.

I’m not sure that group of forty teenagers would remember a single detail of this story – but I remember it well.  Not only because it was the first time I had read the work of Plato, and not only because it typifies the unique approach to education that Camp Ramah offers its children, but ultimately I remember this incident because of its unfortunate truth.  That we human beings are sadly chained to our limited perceptions; we stare ahead at the wall, never daring to turn and see the world as it truly is.  We take both darkness and shadow as givens in this world of ours, and over time, we have allowed our eyes to adjust to this unnatural lack of light.

Which brings me to this morning’s Parasha, Parashat Bo, which continues the narrative of the Exodus of B’nei Yisrael out of the slavery and degradation of Mitzrayim. In Parashat Bo, God delivers the final three plagues upon the hardened-heart of Pharaoh, the Egyptian people, and their gods; the plagues of Locusts, Darkness, and the Killing of the First-Born.  While the final plague Makkat B’chorot, the Killing of the First-Born, is no doubt the most devastating, the penultimate plague, hoshekh, or darkness, must have been the most terrifying.

The Torah tells us that the Lord said to Moses

וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ אֶל-מֹשֶׁה נְטֵה יָֽדְךָ עַל-הַשָּׁמַיִם, וִיהִי חֹשֶׁךְ עַל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם, וְיָמֵשׁ חֹֽשֶׁךְ:

“Hold out your arm toward the sky that there may be darkness upon the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be touched.” (Exodus 10:21)

This final phrase of this verse “v’yameish hoshekh”, “a darkness that can be touched,” has puzzled commentators for centuries.

The 16^th century commentator Rabbi Ovadiah ben Ya’akov S’forno remarks that this darkness was not like the darkness we experience at night.  That ‘natural’ darkness of night, S’forno explains, is simply air that is ready at any moment to take on the light; whereas the ninth plague of hoshekh is an ‘unnatural darkness’ – and even if you shined light upon it, all would remain in shadow. S’forno’s explanation is indeed terrifying.  Imagine a darkness so thick that it actually repelled light; reminiscent of modern physics’ understanding of a black hole, not simply darkness, but actually the very antithesis of light itself.

A much more modern rabbi, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, offers a more scientific explanation.  He understands the Torah’s words “v’yameish hoshekh”, as  suggesting that the plague was actually “a khamsin, a sandstorm of a kind not unfamiliar in Egypt, which can last for several days, producing sand- and dust-filled air that obliterates the light of the sun.”  This kind of hoshekh, Rabbi Sacks explains, is the kind that could indeed be touched.

But ultimately, I prefer the explanation of the Hasidic master Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Alter, better known as the Gerrer Rebbe.  Basing his comment on the verse which reads:

לֹֽא-רָאוּ אִישׁ אֶת-אָחִיו, וְלֹא-קָמוּ אִישׁ מִתַּחְתָּיו שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים, וּֽלְכָל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הָיָה אוֹר בְּמֽוֹשְׁבֹתָֽם

“People could not see one another, and for three days no one could get up from where he was, but the Children of Israel had light in their dwellings.” (Exodus 10:23)

The Gerrer Rebbe, explains that the inability to see one another was in fact both the cause as well the consequence of this plague.  He says that the greatest darkness of all is when a person cannot see the other, when they can not feel the pain of their fellow; and this leads to the terrible result that “no one could get up from where he was,” meaning no one arose to the alleviate the pain of their friend.

This, explains the Gerrer Rebbe, was the true sin of the Egyptians, their inability to see the suffering of the other.  They failed to see the sorrows of their neighbors as the suffered through the first eight plagues; and worse still, they failed to see the humanity of the Israelites who cried out to them bitterly from the hardship of their enslavement.  Thus hoshekh, the darkness, became both the cause and the consequence of these failures.

The truth is that in our modern world, sometimes it feels as though we are sitting in the overwhelming darkness of Plato’s cave.  We stare ahead thinking that the animus, the pessimism and the mistrust that abounds is indeed the very epitome of our reality.  We gaze at these ‘mere shadows’ of our world and we perceive them as though they were truth.

Worse still is that we are in danger of falling into the apathetic trap of the Egyptians.  We teeter on the edge of constant complacency, not only do we not see the struggles of our neighbors, but even when we do see them, even when we recognize their pain, we too often shrug our shoulders and proclaim, ‘what can I do?’

What we can do is remember the end of that verse:

וּֽלְכָל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הָיָה אוֹר בְּמֽוֹשְׁבֹתָֽם

“But the Children of Israel had light in their dwellings.”

Why did the Israelites in Egypt experience light, amidst the terrifying darkness?  Perhaps it is because they recognized that the hoshekh was only a trick of their limited perception; it was only a passing shadow on the wall of a cave. They were able to fight the darkness, withstand the temptation towards apathy, and despite their being chained, turn towards one another to see the light of God reflected in the face of their neighbor.  And thus, they were redeemed.

I believe strongly that we must deny the false reality of this world of shadows.  We must arise to the aid of our fellow human beings.  When there are people without homes, without food, without clothing, we must be there.  When there is terror, devastation and darkness, we must try to bring light into our world; this is the very nature of our commandedness.

Yes, the truth is that the light of God, and therefore our true reality, lies outside the cave of our cynicism.  It lies in our ability to look at and truly experience the divine spark which exists in the other; this is the truest example of how to shine light upon the hoshekh of our world. It is the task of the Jew, and of every human being, to seek out this light, to allow our eyes to adjust to the true, Godly reality of our world, and to let this light shine through – even in the most unnatural of darkness.

As time went on and I spent more time in yeshivah, I was overcome by the what I found there. How many times did we skip through an aggadic section in the Gemara in pursuit of the Halachic section? The same people who lodged the above mentioned critique perpetrated the same division in their own lives.  Just like the Reformers, the Roshei Yeshiva (and most of Chazal) had trouble realizing that within learning these aggadot we are creating meaningful context for the law. Without these laws we lose boundaries; without the stories we lose direction.

At the start of Genesis Rashi asks why the story of the Bible starts with the creation of the world. Why not start with the first Law given to the Jewish people? So too, one might ask the question by the start of Exodus. Why not start the book of Exodus off with Parshat Bo, when we read “Hachodesh hazeh lachem rosh chadashim  – this month is to you the head (first) of the months.”(Exodus 12:1) It is clear that  in the case of the entire book of Genesis and the start of Exodus, we need a context for the law. Or in the terms set out by Robert Cover, we cannot have the nomos removed from the narrative.

Laws helps us enforce certain behavior,  but laws are not inherently meaningful. It seems obvious when we say it,  we need stories to make sense of our lives. Stories are not childish or for entertainment. Rituals are themselves an enactment of stories over time. In this way stories are the pillars of our society. That being true, it is troubling to realize how difficult it is for us all regardless of religious affiliation to realize this truism. If we forget our law or our lore we will not endure in making our collective contribution to the world.

The first image is of a lovely American suburb. Inside you see a sweet boy wearing a football jersey (and not the soccer kind). He is drawing in the foreground and his father is passed out in the background (clearly tired from making their suburban life a reality). The son calls “Daddy”. With no response he goes to where he is sleeping to call “Daddy” again. When that does not work he whispers “Abba”. Immediately the man is roused from his slumber. Words come on the screen saying that your children will always be Israelis, but their kids will not. You should help your children who left move back to Israel. The simple meaning is clear, Israelis have fallen asleep in Galut.  I fear that even the creators of this well done and horribly misguided video missed the deeper meaning of their work.

In the Talmud we learn:

Rabbi Yohanan said: This righteous man [Honi] was throughout the whole of his life troubled about the meaning of the verse, “A Song of Ascents, When the Lord brought back those that returned to Zion, we were like unto them that dream”( Psalms 126:1) Is it possible for a man to dream continuously for seventy years? One day he was journeying on the road and he saw a man planting a carob tree; he asked him, How long does it take [for this tree] to bear fruit? The man replied: Seventy years. He then further asked him: Are you certain that you will live another seventy years? The man replied: I found [ready grown] carob trees in the world; as my forefathers planted these for me so I also plant these for my children. (Taanit 23a)

We all know how the Jewish Rip Van Winkle story ends. Honi goes to the mountains where the mountain forms around him and he sleeps for 70 years. When he wakes up he goes down to the valley to see the next generation benefiting from the fruit of the labor of the previous generations work in planting the carob trees.  But how did this resolve for Honi the meaning of “we were like unto them that dream”- the line that we say in Birkat HaMazon- Grace after meals. As we see in Jeremiah (25: 11 and 29:10) the original Diaspora was only to last 70 years. That explains the number of years, but, how could all of those years pass as if in a dream? What does it mean to be asleep in Galut?

We have lulled ourselves into certain comforts and we have forgotten our mission. Being Israeli has to be more than speaking Hebrew. It is clear to me that we are still inGalut even in Israel. We have found ways to lull ourselves to sleep there as well. But, it is not as simple as saying that Israelis need to return to Judaism. Judaism itself need to return to Jews.  As we have seen in recent events in Israel the religious right has lost it moorings. We need to learn to wake each other up and rise to the occasion of seeking our higher mission. How will we as Jews make and enduring contribution to the world?

If we are willing to learn from Honi, we need to be willing to sit with the question our whole lives. There is no quick fixes to these issues. We must sow the seeds today and be patient to see the fruit of this labor in future generations. To mix metaphors, we need to set the alarm now to wake us up in the future to ensure that we do not stay asleep in our Galut, where ever that might be. This dream is becoming a nightmare.

In parshat VaYechi, this week’s Torah portion, we see Yaakov giving blessings to his children. It is hard to see this outside of the context of the other blessings in the Bible. Most notably the blessing Yaakov himself got (stole) from his father Yitzhak. But this is different. In most of the cases it is the charge of parent to a child in their youth as to their destiny and life path. As compared to a blessing to someone in their adolescence who is looking for guidance and direction in this week’s portion we see grown men getting blessings. It seems to be an eternal truth, we all yearn and seek parental affirmation regardless of our age, station, or accomplishment.

Just as Genesis comes to a close and we see the family come together for their blessings, I had the pleasure of spending the New Year together with my family. It is an amazing time to see the cousins play. It seems timeless to share the pleasures of good food and fun activities with family. It is also a time to reflect on how we have progressed as parents, partners, and also children. I have been so concerned with how am becoming a better parent ( as evident by this blog itself) that I am rarely consciously reflecting on how I am as a child. I spend so much energy thinking about the blessings I want to give my children, I do not spend enough time reflecting on the blessings I have already been given by my parents, let alone the ones I still hope to get.

As I am now hyper-conscious of being a parent it has become apparent that the gift of a blessing is not in the receiving, but in the giving.  It is a great gift to see the hidden potential in someone else and label it. That is what it means to bless something. Blessing is a mini- revelation. Giving a blessing in many ways is the prize of ascending to Sinai. We are all Israel in that we are struggling with who we are becoming, what a blessing to have it revealed, let alone to reveal it?