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 We chose pain.

If there is a single moral to the tale of Creation it is that Adam HaRishon (primordial man) elected to take the path of pain instead of spending his days on utter comfort.  The Garden was perfect.  There were no needs or wants.  They did not have to work and the possibility of failure did not exist.  There could be no failure.  Likewise there was nothing to succeed at.  All Adam HaRishon had to do was breathe.  
In the taking the forbidden fruit shame launched itself in the consciousness of the two beings.  First naked and unashamed (2:25) Adam and Havvah felt their vulnerability grow into an unrelenting self-conscious throb.  Now, instead of roaming about the Garden Adam and Havvah now crouched in the bushes.  Just moments before the universe stretched before them.  Now, the world had closed in on them.  The skies felt like they were crushing down upon them.  
Self-loathing and fear gripped Adam and Havvah.  Dark suspicions colored the previously pristine Garden.  They accused one another, contemptuously.  He said, “The woman that You gave me—she gave the fruit…” The woman said, “The serpent…”  Perfection was blemished.  Shunned from Eden, Adam and Havvah now had to deal with unimagined pains that would assault their physical being and relentlessly pursue their consciousness.  They crouched lower into the foliage, terrified of the inner darkness.  
Why did they choose the path of pain?
On Hanukka we celebrate in many ways.  Among the more opaque observances is the tradition of spinning the dreidle. B'nei Yissachar said that the difference between Hanukka and Purim is best demonstrated by the dreidle and the gragger.  The dreidle is spun by taking hold of the top and twisting one’s wrist.  The gragger is sounded by taking hold of the bottom and yanking it around.  One is gripped from below; the other above.  That reminds us of the difference between the two holidays.  While Purim celebrates Esther’s ability to find her self and God and save the Jews (below); Hanukka recalls God’s intervention in coming to the aid of the Hasmonean warriors (above) with the miracle of the oil.  
Redemption has different origins in the two holidays.   There are times when we depend upon God and other times when we must depend upon ourselves.  Yet, the connection between Purim and Hanukka is that redemption only comes about through struggle, pain.  Both tales are pock-marked with rivalry, desperation and fear.
It would be nice if life was different…and it was for a brief flicker of time in our past.  We return to our first question: why did they do it?  Why did the sole inhabitants of Eden forfeit perfection?   Why could they not turn their backs from the Tree of Knowledge and forever walk in the Divine Radiance?
The searing question of pain is compounded in this week’s parasha as Jacob’s family descends into the grasp of Egypt.  At first it is a most that benefits everybody.  Prosperity swiftly turns to anguish as Jacob’s children becomes slaves to their present-day neighbors.  Why such pain?  Why must generation after generation endure agony?
In connection with the Torah reading, the Midrash offers:  A farmer needed to yoke his cow.  The cow had no desire to have the wooden plank placed and tightened around her shoulders so she balked. Turning her neck this way and that the farmer could not put the yoke on the animal.  So what did he do? 
The farmer went to the shed and led her calf out in front of the mother.  Pathetically bleating the calf caused the cow to lurch protectively forward. Because of her child the cow allowed herself to become yolked.
It was foreseen that Jacob would have to migrate to Egypt (15:13) long ago.  It was part of the pact that God made with Father Abraham.  There were countless ways to facilitate Abraham’s descendent leaving Canaan for Egypt but God decided to bring the calf first to induce the mother.  The Holy One declared: "He is My firstborn.  Shall I then bring him down to Egypt in disgrace?    I will draw his son before him, and so he will follow despite himself.”  Jacob was forced to go down to Egypt.
So God wants us to suffer?  He ordained the slavery?

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said: The Holy One, Blessed is He, gave three good gifts to the Jewish people, and all are acquired through suffering: Torah, the Landof Israel, and the World to Come. (Brachot 5a)

Chassidic teaching explains that two counter-objectives had to be achieved. On the one hand, Jacob had to be compelled to relocate to Egypt -- a voluntary migration would not have been an exile! Galut, by definition, is a place where one does not want to be -- a place that is contrary to one's intrinsic self and will. On the other hand, the fact that Jacob arrived in Egypt in honor, glory and in a position of power as the father of that country's ruler, rather than as a prisoner in chains, meant that he and his descendents would never truly be subject to their host country. Thus the key to Israel's eventual liberation from Egypt was already "programmed" into the circumstances under which their galut 

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai [the author of the "Zohar"] taught: "Come and see how beloved is Israel to the Holy One, the Source of all blessing. Wherever Israel went into exile, the Shechina went along into exile. They went to exile to Egypt, the Shechina went with them as it is written, Did I not appear to your ancestor's family when they were in Egypt [enslaved] to the house of Pharaoh (Samuel 1:2-27. They went to Babylon in exile and the Shechina went with them, as it is written, because of you I was sent to Babylon (Isaiah 43:14). And when they will eventually be redeemed, the Shechina will be redeemed along with them, as it is written, Then the Lord your God will bring back your captivity and have mercy upon you (Deut. 30:3). The verb used in the verse is not veheshiv, the proper grammatical way to express bringing back someone else in Hebrew, but veshov which expresses the idea of returning oneself; to teach you that God Himself returns along with Israel from its exiles. (Talmud, Megilah, 29a)

 

Purim: the Real Story

Winter has neared its end. We have stayed indoors a good while longer than we would have wished. Days have been short, too short.  While nights plunged us into an abyss, which even the sun cannot seem to dispel, we celebrate this time of Purim, the arrival of hope. Yes, many of the trees are still bare but before long we will find ourselves out of doors celebrating with the emergence of animal and plant life.  An occasional cold wind may still blow but it’s harsh force has been taken away.

Purim tells the story of the release from the grip of a tyrant. Haman wanted to exterminate the Jews. He was bent, even to his own personal detriment, on the destruction of that, "certain people." It’s a frightening and realistic story, one that we have heard far too often.

 

The story of Esther also reveals a light, flippant side. We drink. More than we should. Synagogue decorum disappears. We smile, laugh and make fun of the whole story and ourselves by dressing up in costume, holding beauty pageants, parades shouting and banging our feet, hands and gragers whatever we hear the wicked name mentioned.

But the laughter is not all full-hearted, unrelieved joy. It is more through the laughter; one that comes not from the heart but from a dark foreboding. For such a bloody story, full of intrigue and ending in death, a wholesome purging laughter is not possible.

 

God seemingly has no role as we read the scroll of Esther. The Holy One’s name does not appear a single time. Instead, we find Queen Vashti being ordered to disrobe before the king and his cronies. She was to appear before him attired only in her crown. Naturally, Vashti she refuses and is deposed. A contest then ensues for the next royal consort.

 

From among all the eligible women in the kingdom, Esther is chosen. For months she prepares herself, preening, perfuming, bathing for the day when she will bed the king Achashverosh. All the while we are perplexed: the king is not Jewish.  Doesn't anyone object? Where are the voices of dissent? There are none.  Is she the sacrifice the Jewish people are willing to surrender for the sake of peace?

 

We read how Esther gathers her courage to confront King with her identity and the plot to kill her and the Jewish people. Is it a dangerous moment for her because she has been a Marrano, a hidden Jew, until now. No one, including Haman, suspects that Esther is Jewish. In fact, he lusts after Esther and tries to seduce her.  Overcoming her fears, Esther confronts the king and saves her people.  Then the bloodletting commences.  Beginning with Haman, he is impaled. His sons are likewise put to death along with all the enemies wanting to wipe out the Jewish people.   Seventy-five thousand in all!

 No wonder God is absent from the bloody and bawdy tale of Esther. Purim is a holiday of excess; too much laughter, too much drinking, too many tall tales, too much blood and too many innuendos. The absence of God is dangerous. So the rabbis decreed the 14^th of Adar as a day of listening to the Megilla being read once in the evening again in the morning, giving gifts to our friends into the needy (mishloach manot) and fasting before the holiday commences.

 

More: In preparing for Purim we read on the preceding Shabbat a special section called Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat of Memory.  In the last aliya we recall the story of the evil Amalek, whose sole desire was to destroy the Jews in the time of Moses, as Haman would later imitate in his day. We recall the evil that has menaced us in the past. The story is not simply about Amalek and Haman; it’s about every despot who has taken it upon himself to read the earth of us.

Such ideas are not lightly dismissed. They make us introspective. As the Torah itself states, “The Lord will be at war with Amalek throughout all time.”  How well we have learned this in the past century!

The Light

La’yehudim hayta ora v’simha, “The Jews had light and joy” during the celebration of Purim.

So does this mean that our ancestors lit fires in their homes, kindling every wick available?  Not likely.  

Light has many associations.  A few of them have to do with physical light.  A great many of them have to do with sacred or metaphysical light.  Torah, for example, gives off light.  Torah Orah, they call it, the illumination of the sacred.

When immersed in Torah the Sanctuary becomes bathed in light.  Have you ever witnessed the faces of those in the Sea of Light?  It is not unusual to see someone aflame on the holy Shabbat.

As we pore over ancient texts on Shabbat or during the week sometimes feel the dizzying effect of absorbing the many layers of the meaning of the glory of the Torah when at one with the holy Text.  This is the wonder of the day of Purim. Like the initial observance when the Jews of Shushan long-ago first breathed freedom from the heinous machinations of Haman, their souls were drenched with light.

Long ago, when the Jews were under the Ottoman rule in Palestine the inhabitants of the northern city of Safed were warned to keep their homes dark at night.  Each evening a blanket of bluish hue gathered through the ancient street and byways of Safed.

The windows of Rabbi Joseph Caro, however, glowed. It as was if the venerable and wise rabbi became more defiant as the light grew in intensity with successive night.  The Pasha’s guards brought to him news of the disobedient Jew.

Ordering his carriage to be brought, the Pasha rode to the site to oversee the punishment of the transgressor himself.  It was true, the rabbi’s windows were glowing with light.  Forcing open the door, the Pasha’s guards opened the door to let the Pasha enter. 

There sat Rabbi Caro bent over a fraying text.  There was no lamp in the room.  No logs were in the fireplace.  No candles. Yet the room was bathed in light.

The Pasha was wide-eyed as he saw thousands of tiny fireflies lining he walls of the rabbi’s study.  The sage told the pasha that during the day the little insects flew about but at night they settled on the walls and made the house luminescent.

“Why do these fireflies stay all day in this room rather than frolic in the bright sunlight?” the Pasha asked.

The rabbi paused, looked at the Pasha and answered, “The Torah not only illumines the one who studies it.  It enlightens every living creature that comes near.”

 

And this is your heritage.

 

Got to Feel It

You can mask your feelings through words. You can obfuscate the truth through clenched teeth. It is possible to blur of the distinction between that which lies at the center of our self and that which our mind dictates to our mouth. In other words, we lie.

Not necessarily malevolent lives. Not the kind of which thrust themselves like poison darts toward the hearts of the people we hate.  Most lives are more pedestrian; they are more like self-deception.

Purim for example is not fully understood.  Purim is not one of those holidays that bears up to close analysis. We can find a myriad of reasons for the lack of historicity of the event, the non-clarity of major players in the almost goofy nature of the tale. Purim must be felt.

A group of students approached a great poet to discover the secret of his art. Visiting him at his home, they asked to see the place where inspiration came to him. The poet pointed to a small splash of green fence stop in buying unsightly wall in his backyard. The students blinked unbelievingly at the sight. They asked, “This is where those great poems came from, while you were sitting facing your ugly lawn?”

“You are looking in the wrong direction,” the teacher responded. “Do not look around you-look up. Then you will see what I see.  Look,” he said pointing to the sky, “see how high it is!”

I think most of life is like the artist’s depiction - it is to be felt. 

The founder of the Conservative movement, Solomon Schechter, said more than 100 years ago, "Pleasures are the manifestations of God's love."  Absorb the joy. Feel the wonder of another season of hope and life.

When the Rebbe Laughed

Rebbe Elimelech had an infectious personality.  They say, to look at the master’s face was to understand everything.  Nothing was hidden when one looked in the old man’s visage. Even more, what Elimelech was feeling spread like fire. It caught and swelled wherever Elimelech traveled. When he was depressed, his Hasidim would be unable to raise themselves up out of a chair. It was a mighty effort just to move. Their shoulders slumped and food tasted like clay. On the other hand when Rebbe Elimelech laughed…

When the Rebbe laughed the universe danced. The heavens opened and the sun was more brilliant than anyone could ever remember. When the master laughed, all was well. The Hasidim could not restrain the feet from moving rhythmically. Table thundered under hands, which slapped and banged as they sang songs that had no words but surely made the Ultimate Master smile.

Our sages tell us that when the month of Adar arrives our joy becomes exponential (Taanit 29a). Adar contains Purim, the festival of deliverance. Unlike the rest of our spiritually laden holy days, Purim is all let-the-hair-down, willful utter joy. Adar is also the month of the fish.  The zodiacal sign for the Hebrew month is Pisces. Just as fish reproduce in great quantities, we find our communal joy significantly increasing as well.

Rebbe Elimelech came across a Psalm, which reads, “For singing to our God is good.” The sage pondered those words. What exactly did it mean? Does God want, or need, our singing? Does the song please the Holy One, blessed be He? Surely the Master of the Universe does not need our words, much less our song.  Then, in a moment of clarity, the Rebbe understood and explained to his disciples that, “If when we sing, we can hear the Voice singing within us, it is the most and greatest good.”

God is present in our laughter.  He sings with us when we rejoice. He laughs when we discover truth and find new meaning in our ancient practices and words. “He that sits in the Heavens laughs,” (Psalms 2:4) when we were recover a part of our spiritual self on the road of life.

Perhaps we take ourselves too seriously. Maybe more than a grain of salt as called for in order to be truly human, perhaps we need a bulk-sized container of Morton's. Perhaps the greatest cause for pain is the fact that we forget how to laugh.  Often our antics are hilarious. Life taken too seriously loses its taam, its flavor.

For example. There was the time when this newly ordained Rabbi was officiating at his first funeral. Not having a clear idea of what I was to do, I raced out and bought an appropriate funeral suit (real dark), rehearsed the words of the text to dozen times or so, shined my shoes, called colleagues in a panic to find out how to craft a good eulogy.  The entire procedure had my heart beating wildly.

When the hour finally arrived I quickly got dressed, put on my most solemn face and departed. With a very few mistakes I got through the service with minimal problems.

Until. At the cemetery the ground was moist from a recent rainfall. In the middle of the famous Memorial Prayer, the ground of my left foot begin to cave in and my entire left let went straight down to the hole on top of the coffin.  With as much dignity as I could muster I pulled my mud-caked “funeral suit” out of the hole and resumed, pretending nothing unusual or unexpected had happened.  Every now and again I looked up out of my book to make eye contact and saw I staring at my brown, stained leg. A few smirks too.

I am sure that God appreciated my bravery but also had a hefty laugh Himself. The Master of the Universe must have a good sense of humor. After all, look how entertaining we are!  Personally speaking, I have provided countless hours of entertainment for HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

As Ecclesiastes put it, “If you are granted many years, rejoice in them all.”

New Thoughts on Purim: Light vs. Dark

The Sitra Ahra, or Dark Side as it is referred to popularly, is present at all times.  It particularly loves opportunities of mazel.  Mazel?  Yes, you see whenever the Sitra Ahra gets wind of someone’s good fortune it whispers in their ear all kinds of noxious thoughts….like “They’ll take it away from you”….or  “Why are they being nice to me?  What they want?”….or “God likes me -- but not them.”  Not happy with our lot, afraid that others might steal it away, we listen to the quiet voice of the Sitra Ahra.

Now this is one of the main hidden elements of the Purim tale.  Think of the primary villain of the megillah.  Haman’s name itself conjures up many associations.  For example, Haman connotes “the manna” (man in Hebrew is manna).  Haman appeared to Shushanites as the one who would feed the people.  And precisely what did Haman feed them?  Insecurity and doubt.  Haman stealthily fed enough poison so that the subjects would believe their existence was threatened by a “certain people” almost invisible, yet lurking in the dark shadows.  What Haman purported to deliver through the veil of darkness was a sustenance that would uncloak the messenger of destruction.

If Haman is the symbol of the Sitra Ahra then who are the heroes of the story? Esther and Mordecai?  Of these two figures Mordecai is the easier.  He is the voice of God.  Mordecai speaks the language of truth.  His words are uncomfortable.  They are unsettling.  Mordecai tells all who will hear him what they must do to unmask the lie.  The words cause such discomfort that no one wants to heed him.  Wasn’t this the reality of the pre-Holocaust Germany?  The lie was more comfortable, more acceptable than the truth which demanded self-reflection and personal responsibility. 

In fact, found inside Mordecai’s name is the Hebrew root, m’red, meaning rebellion.  An interesting inversion of reality: Haman is the provider and Mordecai is the inciter, the trouble-maker.  The lie has become truth and truth has become the lie.

Then comes Esther.  The root of Esther’s name is ‘secret’.  That is, Esther is hidden from sight. True, she hides her faith from the king but that is not the core of the narrative.  What reaches out from the megillah is the fact that Esther is hidden from Esther.  Remember, Esther is not even her real name: it is Hadassah.  Esther has forgotten who she is/was.  The turning point of the story is when Mordecai forces Esther to look sharply into the mirror of her soul and she perceives her Self there.  She has become so convinced of the force of the Sitra Ahra that she has accepted the lie as reality.

Images of light and dark pervade the extraordinary and simplistic tale of Purim.  Yet, the tale is as vital as the primal force of life.  Listen for the voice but do not heed it.

The Gift of Giving, Purim

Once there was a lonely woman.  She went to class by herself.  She did homework alone.  No one wanted anything to do with her.  There was a good reason for it; she was not a nice person.

Feeling isolated, she went to a rabbi seeking advice.  A far as she was concerned she was fine.  Life was treating unfairly (people tend not be able to see personal flaws).  While sitting with the rabbi her personality shone through and he saw the young woman for what she was, selfish and self-centered.

“What should I do?” she wept as she told of her isolation.

The rabbi listened compassionately, waited and then said, “Here is what I want you to do.  Go to the school cafeteria as you usually do at lunch but I want you to look for people to help with their trays, paying for what they cannot, getting them salt, a seat, whatever.”

The young woman went away relieved that she had a specific task to do.  It enabled her to focus on something and slowly, as she performed these helpful duties, she began to see herself differently, and, as a result, others began to view her differently too.

Many programs like Dr. Phil or lots of self-help books emphasize what is wrong with our lives and how to fiddle with it.  They tell us to enroll in step programs or take certain classes which will change our behavior.

The Jewish approach tells us that what we do influences the way we think and behave. That is why we place such a heavy emphasis on mitzvot and tend to minimize creeds or statements of faith.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “God is more immediately found in the Bible as well as in acts of kindness and worship than in the mountains and forests. It is more meaningful for us to believe in the immanence of God in deeds than in the immanence of God in nature.”

Heschel teaches us that our actions, mitzvot, as a response to the call of God.  That, in addition to the fact that when we act we change our character, are strong reasons to follow the mitzvot our faith places before us.

Soon it will be Purim.  There are several mitzvot for this holiday.  We give tzedaka, send mishloah manot- gifts of food to friends and family, listen to the Megillah and join in Synagogue festivities.  On Shabbat we bless our children, bless our spouse, light candles, and make Kiddush.  Pesah follows with its own actions/mitzvot.  Each time we act with God, travel the path of our ancestors we alter some powerful part of our self.

A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought- -Abraham Joshua Heschel