Get an MBA

Rabbi Pinchas entered the Beit Midrash, the House of Study, and saw his students talking animatedly.  When they saw their master, they quickly fell silent.  Rabbi Pinchas’ curiosity piqued.  He asked, “What were you talking about?”  

One student shyly murmured, “We were talking about the yetser ha-ra, the evil urge, that chases after us day and night, whispering for us to do bad things.”

“Do not worry,” said the venerable rabbi.  “You are not advanced enough that the yetser ha-ra is chasing you, you are chasing it.”

An MBA, life’s primary objective.

Do I really need one, an MBA?  It stands for Moses, Brothers and Abraham (MBA).  What they had in common was that they were all shepherds guiding their flocks or ones in their care.

The great leaders of our past started out as simple shepherds.  Their task was to protect the most vulnerable.  In fact, midrash reveals that this was why Moses was singled out by G-d to take B’nai Yisrael out of bondage. The rabbis tell that when a young lamb wandered off to graze far from the flock nothing would stop Moses from walking miles to find them and carry them on his back to the safety of the flock.  G-d said, “If this man cares so much for the weakest of these helpless animals he will be the one to lead My people out of slavery.  He will ensure that all My children are safe.”

 

The same is true of our other founders.  Abraham argued with G-d to save even the dregs, the worst of humanity, from the impending doom of Sodom.  Jacob vehemently argued against revenge.  The qualifications for each of the vaunted leaders of our people chose to assist the weak, contend for the lives of each person even if that meant contending with G-d!

 

So we walk through life with its many challenges.  Our hearts are in a state of constant agitation over Israel.  “As it goes with Israel, so it goes with the Jewish people.”  Our destiny is tightly bound with it.  This is a truism even if we disapprove of the present government.

 

We are also rightly concerned with unjustified wars like the Ukraine, ongoing oppression in Burma, the latest mass shooting in America….   But what about the Hate Crime bill in South Carolina that cannot seem to pass in our senate and legislature?  What about the person in our congregation who cannot pay their funeral bill?  A member who lives in less than adequate housing, filled with mold and insects?  The food pantry that is stocked with food that we were happy to get rid of instead of something tasty and nourishing?  The families who sit alone during shiva.  These people are not the ones we have partied or go on vacation with, but they are the members of our flock of which each of us is a shepherd.  That is why we have our community; so that we can support the weak as the wheel of life turns.

 

Wisdom is discerning which voice in our head we choose to hear.  Is it the voice of the yetser ha-ra insisting that we fill our bellies and turn our heads away from the eyesores that we would rather not see?  That is as Rabbi Pinchas warned his students.  Or does wisdom live in us, so we do righteous deeds, like picking up the lost lambs and fighting governmental policies that are wrong --- staving off the insidious voices that want to derail us?

When Moses was ready to retire, he picked Joshua to take over the mantle of leadership.  Moses heard G-d tell him to find a man of integrity and determined spirit to lead the people.  They got a new shepherd.

Get an MBA.  That will safely guide you to a life path that is meaningful and one that will make a difference.

Nourishment

 The key to living is to feed and nourish the body. The key to growth is to feed and nourish the soul.The growth that is required by the soul is not about finding voices that agree with what we already know, our preconceived opinions. Instead, it is about being open to new possibilities, including the fact that we may be wrong.

George Washington wrote, "it is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." Why would the first president of this nation make that claim? Perhaps he meant to suggest that we need to always be vigilant to the possibility that we may be in error. A true guide is one that challenges our beliefs. That guide has the potential to move us out of complacency and into real growth. That is why scholar and philosopher Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said that ‘the Bible is meant to be our critic, not we its critic.’ With an open heart and mind we are supposed to open up the holy Torah daily and find signs that are meant to challenge, uplift and afford us the possibility of understanding ourselves and the world better.

"Do not make up your own interpretation and laws of Judaism or else you open the door to great sin and ultimate destruction into the cosmos." Introduction to the zohar
Open your heart and mind.

Rejoice on the Holiday

It is written in the holy Torah, “You shall rejoice in your festival, you, your son and daughter.  Said the Holy One, blessed be He: ‘You have for members in your household- your son, your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant.  I also have four, the Levite, the stranger, the orphan and the widow.  If you take care of mine together with yours it is a blessing.  If not, the joy will be shattered.’ ~ P’sikta Haditah

You are like God’s child.  That relationship also exists with everyone else.  What that means is that we are all related. As such, the lines that connect is to other people are not random, they are familial.  Every day we interact with our many cousins.

No castle has yet been built that can fully insulate those who live inside its walls from those outside.  All lines connect and interconnect.  We have co-workers. There are employees.  Our spouse has friends.  Our children meet new people continually.  The lines of connection crisscross across our city, states and country.

Since there is no way to fully seal ourselves off from our numerous relatives, the prudent thing to do is accept them as our family and not treat them as unwelcome intruders.

Perhaps God’s ultimate message to us is to have a heart big enough to invite our extended family in.  That makes the Holy One smile.

 

The Path of Pain

 We chose pain.  Can you imagine that?  Choosing pain?  Who would do such a thing?  Yet, that is precisely what happened.  We chose it.

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 in utter comfort.  The Garden was perfect.  There were no needs or wants.  There was work to be done 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 taking the forbidden fruit shame ensconced itself in the consciousness of the two beings.  First naked and unabashed 1 Adam and Havvah felt their vulnerability begin to grow into an unrelenting self-conscious throb.  Once comfortable in their own skin the couple now felt no comfort; only a constant gnawing of self-doubt and recrimination.  Instead of roaming about the Garden, Adam and Havvah now crouched low in the bushes.  Just moments before the universe stretched before them.  In one moment he 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 previously unimagined pains that would assault their physical being and relentlessly pursue their consciousness.  They crouched lower into the foliage, terrified of the growing 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. A commentator, Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov, 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; if our lives were not so riddled with wounds…and it was for a brief flicker of time in our past.  The Garden of Eden.  We return to our first question: why did they do it?  Why did the sole inhabitants of Paradise forfeit perfection?   Why could they not turn their backs from the Tree of Knowledge and forever walk in the Divine Radiance?

The question of pain is paramount in this week’s parasha as Jacob’s family descends into the fist of Egypt that would last for hundreds of years.  At first it is a move that benefits everybody.  Prosperity swiftly turns to anguish and despair as Jacob’s children become slaves to their present-day neighbors.  Why such pain?  Why must generation after generation endure agony?

In connection with the week’s Torah reading, a tale offers the following insight:  

A farmer needed to yoke his cow.  The cow had no desire to have the wooden plank placed around its neck and then tightened on her shoulders.  She balked. Turning her neck this way and that the farmer could not yoke the animal.  So what did the farmer do? 

The farmer went to his shed and led her calf out in front of the mother.  Pathetically bleating, the calf made the mother-cow lurch protectively forward. Because of her child, the cow allowed herself to become yoked.

It was foretold that Jacob would migrate to Egypt long ago. 2  The descent into Egypt and the subsequent affliction was part of a pact that God made with Father Abraham.  There were countless ways to facilitate Abraham’s yet-to-be-born descendent leaving Canaan for Egypt but God decided to bring the calf first to induce its 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.”  Joseph was the lynchpin – the calf -- that forced Jacob to move.  Jacob was compelled to go down to Egypt.

What does this Midrash mean?  Does God want us to suffer?  He ordained the slavery?  It was part of God’s plan that Abraham’s descendents be slaves?  Why?

It would seem that man and God are in collusion: they both believe that suffering is a necessary part of the human condition.

Rashi commented on the remarkable episode when Moses viewed the blazing bush on the mountaintop. 3 “Just as you see this bush burning while remaining intact so you carry My mission and will not be destroyed.” 

God didn't promise that the process would be easy. There would be pain; the kind that invariably accompanies flame. God didn't say there would be no suffering. God only promised that we would not be alone and that we would survive.

In an early Talmudic passage there is the powerful statement, 4  “A voice from heaven courses through the world three times each day that weeps for the pain and loss of God’s people.” 

If God weeps for our loss why then do we suffer?  

The answer lies in the Garden of Eden.  In the great experiment of human contentment (a dismal failure) a lesson was learned: humanity is happiest when learning and growing from its own mistakes.  That is why Adam and Havvah chose the path of pain.  It not only gave them a choice but the experience of hurt and failure allowed them to grow.  

Perhaps that is also why God placed us in Egypt because that too, was part of our collective growth.  Could it be that the act of suffering leads us to new spiritual ground?

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 Land of Israel, and the World to Come. 5 

Elsewhere, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai taught: "Come and see how beloved is Israel to the Holy One, the Well of all blessing. When Israel went into exile, the Shechina went along into exile. They went to exile to Egypt, the Shechina went with them….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).  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). … God Himself returns along with Israel from its exiles.”  6

Once life was perfect and that was the problem.  Now we live a life that is rife with problems and it is perfect.

 

 

1 Genesis 2:25

2 Genesis15:13

3 Exodus 3:12  

4 Berachot 3a

5 Berachot 5a

6 Megilah, 29a

The many lessons of the season

 The many lessons of the season.

 

Pesah celebrates freedom.  Of course, the freedom we celebrate is literal: we express our gratitude for not being slaves. Had we not been liberated from the grip of Pharaoh we would have long ago ceased to exist. The Jewish people would have succumbed to the planned genocide.   

 

Besides relishing our freedom and existence the import of G-d leading the people Israel from slavery was that we developed an empathy for anyone afflicted.  Lesson: Torah directs us to be an “or la-goyim” an emblematic light to show how people are supposed to behave as protectors of one another.

 

Countless times the Torah and our prayers recount the great liberation as an ongoing reminder of this history-changing event.  Along with being empathic we are also directed to not venerate the man Moses as the liberator but G-d.  

Lesson: there is a caring G-d who is involved in our lives and deeply cares for our wellbeing.

 

Pesah is also a reminder of a broken-spirited human being.  In the midrash we read, Rabbi Abba bar Yudan said: “Everything that God disqualified in animals, He endorsed in people. For animals, He disqualified the blind or broken or maimed, but in humanity He endorsed the broken, downtrodden heart.” 

 

How many of those who were enslaved lived with the ongoing physical as well as psychic pain of having been abused?  We live in a community where everyone matters.  All are scarred.  All are wounded, not by the master’s whip but by verbal abuse, as victims of fraud and deceit, manipulated by those who wanted to impose their power over us. Pesach also teaches:   All the broken are cherished by God.  And we are all broken.

 

The table where we sit also seeks to teach us a mighty lesson.  It is not only the acceptance of all types of character that the story of the four sons tells but we are also prompted to ask, who is absent?  Who is so alienated from our family that they cannot sit with us?  Or whom have we cut out of our lives?  Who lives in the margins of our community that we cannot even conceive of inviting them to our table?    Maybe the undrained cup of Elijah is more than a request for deliverance, maybe it is also a recognition that we have missing parts of our relationships.  Lesson: Do not ignore the empty chair.

 

Pesah is not about flying frogs or getting to the meal more swiftly, it is about becoming aware of the signs and symbols that surround us that can make our lives more meaningful, endowed with a greater quality.  Even the great Moses had to be cajoled by G-d to remove himself away from the simple life of a shepherd with few responsibilities to become the champion of the Jewish nation.  “In every generation…” begins the narrative.  But we could easily change that to read, “In every generation people do their utmost to escape the real truth of their life – that they are endowed with unique gifts that once realized can make their entire life purposeful and meaningful.”  Most people want more by doing less.  And yet the simple truth that we all know is that our life takes on meaning only when we act upon our gifts, which means doing, sharing, and giving.  Think of all the accomplishments you would want remembered when you die.  Not the salary or vacation home.  Certainly not an accumulation of wealth.  Are the aspects that we will be remembered for not all basically the same? They incorporate the things we did for others, not for ourselves.  Think of the memories we hold for those who have died: they are invariably about their contributions, not about what they accumulated.  Lesson: Life is about what we give, not what we take.

 

Thought: Saul Levinsky interpreted the meaning of the Star of David.  “While the first triangle points one way, the second triangle insists on pointing in the opposite direction.”  

Perhaps Pesah’s lesson is to conceive of life differently.

Open Doors

 It is said by Jewish theologians and philosophers that there are many entrances to the castle.  What they meant was that people are attracted to different entry points to draw close to the Almighty.  Some come by the route of celebration, others via intimate gatherings, some through prayer and others through life’s passages.  Every person is unique.  Their proclivities cannot be predetermined because we cannot anticipate what will touch a person’s soul.

We need to keep many doors open so that we can invite those who are strangers to become part of our larger family and no longer apart from their Jewish family and heritage.

An open door is an opportunity to who might walk through it.  

What I Know

 The more I learn the less I know.

 

This seems counterintuitive but it is a truth in which I live.  

 

I read thoughtful and persuasive analyses from the right and I shake my head in agreement.  They are right.  Then I listen to arguments from the left and find myself nodding agreement with them.  I exist in that voluble mixture between those polar extremes where mutually exclusive truths abide. 

 

To make matters worse, even such obvious issues like abortion, the “woke” generation, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are fraught with divergent viewpoints, all of which are cogent and convincing when read with an open mind.  I envy people whose opinions are so ironclad that they see no option other than their firmly held belief.  They are convinced that they are the cardholders of truth.  I, on the other hand, am not so sure.

 

All I know is what I know in a moment.  Every person must be heard, every well-considered opinion valued.  And then, “judge each instance, all people, with an positively disposed eye in favor of their merit.” (a paraphrase of Avot 1:6). Everyone is right at some point. What is said to ridiculously wrong now, may turn to be prophetic.  Schopenhauer observed, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”  Three examples we all recognize are Copernicus, Galileo (both were violently oppressed) and John F. Kennedy (with his lofty vision of people on the moon).  It is the same with virtually every visionary who ever lived.

 

So how do we keep from making decisions that pokes holes in ultimate truths (and not ephemeral ones)?  I have often referenced Martin Luther King’s life as an outlier.  He had many more enemies than friends, more people who hated him than admirers.  Now, we uniformly view him as prophetic but that was not the case during his life.   The same is true of Abraham Joshua Heschel, whom we revere today but was largely ignored as irrelevant in his own time.

 

As I listen to the many arguments on every side, I find that I am less sure of what I thought I knew.  In fact, arguing to prove we are right often ends up either in an “echo chamber” or pitting us against those with whom vehemently disagree; neither of which is productive.  A Hasid once declared, “It’s better to lose an argument and win a friendship, than win an argument and lose a friendship.”  The Baal Shem Tov went even further when he observed that which we despise in others is often what we dislike most in ourselves.  A sobering thought.

 

So what do I know?  Only this: 

Ø  Do good for others.  Find opportunities to lift up those who are bent under the weight of oppressive pain.

Ø  Reach out beyond yourself to touch the God of our soul expressing gratitude for all that we have and not what is absent.

All else is an expression of ego or a passing fad.