Posts Tagged 'torah portion'

To Love or to be Loved

Published January 11, 2013 2.02 VaEra Leave a Comment
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In VaEra, this weeks Torah portion, we read,” And God spoke to Moses and said to him” I am HaShem. I appeared to Abraham Isaac, and Jacob, as El Shaddai, I did not make Myself known to them by My name HaShem”( Exodus 6:2- 3) Did the Patriarchs have a limited relationship with God compared to Moses? Rashi (Premiere Medieval Commentator) explains this in terms of  God’s having not fulfilled the mission of giving the people to the land of Canaan. In so doing El Shaddai would be realized as being truth- HaShem. But Moses neither sees the Truth of God bringing them in to the land or ever seeing/ knowing the unknowable Hashem. So I wanted to offer another reading of this apparent inequality of relationships.

It might be likened to lovers who are in love at first sight compared to the rest of us who need to work out our relationships. By and large the Patriarchs seem to be in covenantal relationship with God,  where as Moses and in turn the Israelites are in a dynamic relationship with God. But what is the quality of being in relationship with HaShem?

A number of years ago I worked as a chaplain in a hospital in New York City. There I met a lovely elderly French Jewish woman. During our conversations she asked me a profound question, “Is it better to be loved or to love?” While being loved is comfortable, it is not as rewarding or as risky as the proposition of being in love. We might feel that God is very distant from our lives, but maybe that theology itself is us expecting to be loved.  Where might me find the presence of God in our lives? Might it be better (even if riskier) for us to articulate where we want to see God in our lives.  Clearly few of us has a romantic relationship with God as might the Patriarchs, but the first step is recognizing what it is we are looking for. El Shaddai might not have a different type of relationship, it was the one the heard our cries. What are we crying for today? I am fearful, that we have all grown too apathetic to cry for anything any more.

Just A Game

Published September 21, 2012 5.08 Nitzavim / VaYelech Leave a Comment
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I wanted to share with you (again) one of my favorite stories said in the name of Maggid of Mezritch.  Once a Rebbe was walking and he saw a young boy crying sitting behind a wall. The Rebbe asked the boy why he was crying. The boy responded that he was playing hide and seek with his friends. The Rebbe said, ” But, that seems like a fun game. Why are you crying?” The boy explained that he was crying because he thought that his friends forgot about him. And hearing  this the Rebbe started crying. They boy asked the Rebbe why he was crying.  The Rebbe responded, “ Now I know how God feels”.

This week, in Vayehlech, this  week’s Torah portion,we read:

17 Then My anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall come upon them; so that they will say in that day: Are not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us? 18 And I will surely hide My face in that day for all the evil which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods. ( Deuteronomy 31:17-18)

This is the Bible’s play at theodicy. God is not responsible for bad things happening, he is hiding his face in history as a response to our bad deeds. It is our fault for God being absent. But I think it is more constructive to understand this idea in the context of the Maggid’s storyof a God who is playing hide and seek? Like the Rebbe I am sad to realize how many have given up on the game. God must be lonely. More than sadness thinking about this today makes be feel terrified. I am terrified  by those who forgot it was a game. There is a troubling rise of militant fundamentalism ( in all religions) who are so committed to their ideology that they cannot enjoy the playful nature of living in a world with doubt and wonder. And even worse, they have grown callous to seeing the pain of others. It is disheartening to see that we are living in a world that is painfully divided. Personally I am not invested in your finding God or proving to you that God cannot be found.  I am invested in realizing that the game is worth playing. If for no other reason than in the process of playing we might learn how to play together nicely.

 

John 6:13

Published August 17, 2012 Uncategorized 2 Comments
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It is hard to watch a sporting event let a lone walk down the street without seeing signs reading “John 3:6“.  So what does it say? The New Testament reads:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.— John 3:16

It  has been called the most famous Bible verse and the Gospel in a nutshell. Seeing that I am an observant Jew, that is a nut I just cannot crack. While a historical Jesus may or may not have existed, I am not sure how good of a religious leader he was and he was surely no Son of God. Despite being so famous, it was never covered in any of Biblical studies classes in Rabbinical school. I am stuck thinking about Re’eh, this week’s Torah portion. There we read:

2 If there arise in your midst a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams–and he give you a sign or a wonder, 3 and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spoke to you–saying: ‘Let us go after other gods, which you have not known, and let us serve them’; 4 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God puts you to proof, to know whether you do love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 5 After the Lord your God shall you walk, and you shall fear God, and God’s commandments shall you keep, and to God’s voice you shall hearken, and God you shall serve, and to God shall you cleave. 6 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he has spoken perversion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to draw you aside out of the way which the Lord your God commanded you to walk in. So shall you put away the evil from your midst.  (Deuteronomy 13:2-6)

Clearly for us Jews, there is no idea of agency. We do not need any intermediary between us and God. We are not called by John 3:16, but rather the Torah 613. And I know this will not make me popular but this Jesus guy would probably have fallen into this false prophet category.

I believe on free speech and on one level I can acknowledge that it is lovely that people want to share their faith with me. But on another level I have to admit that I am a little put off by all of the John 3:16 signage. How would those people feel if I showed up at sporting events with signs reading  ”Deut 13:6″?  I am not about to do that, but if one of you reading this makes a shirt, please send me one.

Goodbye to Childhood

Published August 10, 2012 5.03 Ekev Leave a Comment
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In Eikev ,this week’s Torah portion, Moses reflects on the years the Israelites spent in the Desert. There we read:

You should know in your heart that just as a father will chastise his son, so the Lord your God , will chastise you.(Deuteronomy 8:5)

This parental vision of God’s relationship with the Israelites brings up a number of questions for us as people living in the modern world. While the unbridled love of a parent for his/her child might seem appealing, what happens when that relationship goes sour? Do we want to be in a relationship with a God that will abuse us?  For those of us who have made that model work, that is wonderful. I can admit that I am a bit jealous. But, for the rest of us, what are we left with if we find this model to be too simplistic, childish, or abusive?

While there are many answers, as someone who used to be a Hillel Rabbi I want to share my reflections on the class of 2016 who are being dropped off at college in a couple of weeks. You are going away to college. This means that you will have to rethink and to renegotiate your relationships with your parents. Given the current state of the economy, this is not limited to the entering class, but it also includes the ones who just graduated and now have to return home. I hope that all parties involved are open to discuss what is involved in these changes. While it is difficult for parents to let their children grow up, we should have confidence that in the end they do not want their children to remain as dependent as they were as children. That is not to say that the children will ever really be independent of their parents’ love and support, but hopefully with our maturing we evolve past needing to be chastised. We can aspire for other ways of communicating. I hope to think that over the past 4000 years God might be open to renegotiating the terms of the relationship. There are pleasures and pains of growing up. Regarding our parents, this shift is predicated by our taking responsibility for ourselves and acting like adults. Regarding God, this means developing our own relationship with our heritage, people, and spirituality beyond what our parents and teachers have offered us.

Ultimate Freedom

Published February 16, 2012 2.06 Mishpatim Leave a Comment
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In parshat Mishpatim, this week’s Torah portion, we read a whole litany of rules dealing with slavery. For a group of people who had just been liberated from bondage it is hard to imagine that there would be any sanction for this behavior. How could we ever put a price on another human being? And if we are looking to make Torah relevant today the idea of slavery seems even more absurd. In our age, a time in which we are hell-bent on the idea of personal autonomy and individuality, the idea of owning another person seems totally absurd.

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.

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