Parashat Lech Lecha -Walking with Sara, Walking with Abraham, Walking with God

Into history’s stage walks Avram with his wife Sarai and the members of their extended family at the beginning of this week’s parasha. God calls to Avram, “Go forth … to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.” This is the beginning of the covenant, or brit, specific between God and our people. Prior to

this, God had made a covenant with all humanity after Noah: no longer to destroy the world again. How would God then respond to an ever misguided humanity, given this constraint of “not being able to start all over again.” The answer is through Avram and his people. They are to establish a model society, in a land dedicated to God’s purpose. This week’s parasha and next tells the story of Avram.

While given this incredible promise and challenge, Avram realises it does not come easily. First there is a famine in the land and he and Sarai must descend into Egypt, where their lives are at risk. Upon return, his shepherds and those of his nephew Lot’s quarrel and he must resolve the problem by dividing the land. Then Lot is kidnapped and Avram must go to war to rescue him. His place in the land tenuous, his age advancing, he queries how he will know that the promise is being fulfilled. In a mysterious vision God confirms that the promise indeed will be fulfilled, the brit of land and people, but first they will suffer hardship and servitude. Avram and Sarai, still being childless, resort to having a child, Ishmael, son of Sarai’s handmaid, Hagar. Finally, God asks Avram to circumcise himself and the males of his household as a sign of the covenant and as a precursor to having a child with Sarah. Avraham and Sarah have new names at the end of the parashah, but still have not had their child and await God’s further intervention. Does God intervene in humanity’s affairs in this way? Some believe so fully.

Others do not. For the latter, how can this story be understood? By handing down this story, one generation to the next, our ancestors handed us an important mission. The earth has gone through its various extinctions of animal life and transformations of consciousness. Our ancestors perceived that ultimate perfection of creation was in our hands; that to “start the game all over again” when it wasn’t going “our way” is actually childish. Whether God is real or a human construct, God’s decision to “stick with the rules” and not start a new game places enormous responsibility on humans. Our ancestors were the first ready to pick up the cudgel. As this parashah indicates, with cudgel comes struggle. It has never been – and it will never be – easy to be a faith people. Yet our first ancestors, Avraham and Sarah, set us on our path: to be covenanted to a higher purpose, which they called the service of God. As God in Judaism is understood as Creator, Revealer and Redeemer, this becomes our task: to preserve our creation, to search for deeper truth and meaning in life, and to bring justice to this world.

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Parashat Noach

This week in our parasha we read the stories of Noah and his ark and the Tower of Babel, both great Sunday School favorites and stories most of us encountered for the first time as children. We know the tales but rarely do we go beyond the animals marching into the ark two by two, Noah, usually with a long, grey beard and a staff standing at the door of his ark, the dove, the raven and the rainbow in the sky. We remember the great tower stretching to the heavens and all the people being confounded, unable to communicate as new languages come into the world and people are scattered to the earth’s four corners. Great, fanciful stories but what deeper teaching do they reveal for us? What links the stories together and what can we learn from them?

On one level, perhaps the stories are about humanity’s domination over nature, our concern with the material world, with consuming and ruling over all others. Maybe the link is the concept of humanity taking and reaping from the land without taking time to consider the effects and to give back. If we view the stories in this way, then they become cautionary tales of the destruction and damage we can do through our self centered domination of the world and people around us. Shabbat is the antidote to this ailment, this malady which is rife in our societies where we seek dominion over all before us, working to tame the world around us. The Shabbat comes to remind us to step back from the consumerism, from the relentless pursuit of bigger, better and more, and instead to dwell in a place of harmony and peace with the universe and with ourselves.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:

Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on Shabbat especially we care for the seed of eternity planted within the soul. The world has our hands but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the soul.

The Sabbath

Shabbat is our gift, our time to step back from the world and tend to matters of the spirit. On Shabbat we are reminded of what is most important; the relationships we share, the connections between people, the beauty of the world and nature, being in harmony with the earth and not in competition with it. We create our own sanctuary of peace, a time for contemplation, rest, rejuvenation. A time to consider what is most important and to connect with ourselves, the earth and the people around us. Shabbat is a precious gift which is presented to us each week and this week especially, we join together as a community to celebrate and affirm what is important. Instead of trying to subdue the world and those around us, we strive to be in harmony and connect with the earth and people.

May we all have a Shabbat of rest, of joy, hope, peace, love and harmony.

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Parashat Bereshit

“By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread” (Genesis 3:19)

A group of twelve year old are studying the Book of Jonah, each one of them taking on the part of one of the characters in the book, from Jonah, the sailors and the king of Nineveh, to God and the big fish which had swallowed Jonah.

The closing verses leave the class perplexed – what kind of story ends with the protagonist angry and disillusioned, the Almighty posing a question that remains unanswered: “And should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” The frustration of the young people is palpable.

So I set them a task. Here are four brief chapters that tell the story of the prophet Jonah. Now imagine the missing chapter. How does the book really conclude? How is this exchange between Jonah and God resolved? The class moves reluctantly into groups; they take time to assign characters to themselves and to talk about the way the story might have continued.

But slowly short scenes of the chapter begin to emerge. God and Jonah are, at least, still talking to each other. In one group, God has given Jonah some seeds to plant. He sprinkles them over the ground; now he is digging the earth, laboring furiously to make them grow, praying for rain, and God, standing on a plastic chair looks on, arms folded, waiting to see whether Her prophet has really understood the lessons of Nineveh.

It is an evocative scene. The group looks at me for approbation. Did they realize, as their scene unfolded, the biblical echoes of Genesis reverberating throughout this short drama? The man and woman sent out of the Garden of Eden to labor by the sweat of their brow in order to provide food for themselves? Noah after the flood planting a vineyard?

It is obvious that Jonah must learn his lesson and purpose, not only through God’s words, but through his work. Like Adam and Noah, Jonah too must experience the labor of planting seeds, nurturing growth in order fully to comprehend the nature of God’s compassion for his people.

The little group of young people had managed to translate those closing words of the Book of Jonah into a lesson, not only for Jonah, but for all humanity. It is in our labor to provide for ourselves and others that we find purpose and meaning and through which we can fulfill our potential. Jonah will only understand God’s compassion and solicitude for the suffering of creation, when, rather than leaving it to others, he has labored to create something himself.

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Chol Ha-Mo’ed Sukot

Sukot completes two cycles in our festival calendar, making it rich in meaning and joy. On one hand, it completes the cycle of the three pilgrimage festivals (the three times a year our ancestors would make pilgrimage from wherever they were in the land to celebrate at the Temple in Jerusalem), begun, with Pesach and then followed by Shavuot and Sukot. On the other, it completes the series of Tishrei festivals, begun with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

The three pilgrimage festivals each have an agricultural, historical and religious element. Pesach commemorates the beginning of the spring harvest, the exodus from Egypt and the concept of freedom and redemption. Shavuot commemorates the end of the spring harvest, the giving of Torah in Sinai, and the concept of revelation. Sukkot commemorates the end of the autumn harvest, the wandering in the wilderness of Sinai for 40 years and the concept of creation.

In its religious component, Sukot marks the perfect culmination to the celebrations of Tishrei. Tishrei corresponds to Libra in the Zodiac, whose symbol is that of the Scales. It is in this month that we think of our lives as being in the balance between life and death, good and bad, blessing and curse. The major traditions of Sukot — building and dwelling in the Sukah and taking the four species (lulav, etrog, willow and myrtle), amplify this sense of life in the balance. The main symbol of the Sukkah allows in a delicate balance of light and shade and is a fragile structure – providing us a sense of shelter, but not permanence. By eating and dwelling in our Sukkah these seven days, we sense the fragility and preciousness of our own lives, reminding ourselves of our humble place in creation. Similarly, the four species are beautiful at the beginning of the seven days, but over the week of Sukkot begin to wilt and die. We are reminded throughout the days of the Sukot of the beauty of creation, and also the impermanence of all things in the physical realm.

Further, the process of introspection and repentance that begins with Rosh Hashanah culminates with Hoshanah Rabbah, the last day of Sukkot. We acknowledge this tradition by reciting Psalm 27 through the month of Elul as a prelude to Rosh Hashanah, concluding with the recitation of the psalm on Hoshanah Rabbah. Similarly, on this last day of Sukkot, we recite our final petitions to have a year of blessing and goodness through a series of salvation prayers (hoshanot in Hebrew). While Sukkot is a great celebration that balances the intense 10 days of introspection from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur, it also continues to remind us of our lives “in the balance.”

There are many beautiful traditions associated with Sukot – from the taking of the four species, dwelling in the Sukkot, inviting in guests, both real and remembered, and making processions each day around the bimah in the synagogue. The celebration of Sukot, both in its placement in the calendar and in its traditions, is the highlight of the celebrations of Judaism. In humility we give thanks for what we have and who we are. No wonder that the tradition simply knows it as “He-Chag”, The Festival.

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Sukkot – Letting the symbols shape our lives

Hot on the heels after Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the great festivals of judgment, repentance and atonement comes the uplifting Festival of the In-gathering, Sukkot with its emphasis on harvest, abundance and the blessings of the earth. It is an extraordinary contrast, moving from the solemnity and introspection of Yom Kipur to this festival, known as z’man simchateynu – the season of our rejoicing.

The very contrast of these two festivals is strange enough. More challenging is the imagery and symbolism that accompany these two festivals. I have been following a discussion among some of my colleagues about the symbolism of the Book of Life in our liturgy on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kipur. “You write and seal, record and recount…You open the book of records, and what is written there proclaims itself, for it bears the signature of every human being”. This prayer, the Unetaneh Tokef, more than suggests that the future course of our lives is determined by God. If we do good, if we perform mitzvot, if we live up to the terms of the covenant between God and Israel, then our destiny, as it were, is assured; but if we fail to live up to the terms of that covenant, then the harm we have done in our lives determines our fate – our deeds bear the record of our lives.

The poet’s fatalism, however, is deflated, not by his belief in the randomness of creation – in contrast to this determinism – but by the idea that only repentance, prayer and good deeds annul the severity of this judgment. This God-given freedom to choose good over evil, to engage in a life of devotion to God’s will and to the well-being of the created world lies at the heart of Jewish thought and belief. As Eliezer Berkovits, the twentieth century philosopher and theologian writes: “God cannot as a rule intervene whenever man’s use of freedom displeases him. It is true, if he did so the perpetration of evil would be rendered impossible, but so would the possibility for good also disappear.” (Reflection on the Holocaust. Ktav Publ. House, 1991. Page 171)

This freedom is the essence of our humanity. Yet even the choice of good cannot assure us of health, prosperity or well-being. The idea that repentance, prayer and good deeds can annul the severity of the decree is a difficult one in a world where no matter how many good deeds and acts of kindness are performed, the harshness of poverty, war, lack of shelter, disease, bereavement or loneliness can gate crash all too quickly to unseat the security of daily lives. One only needs to listen to those daily diaries from Syria – the young man holed up in a basement, isolated from his mother and siblings and not knowing whether the building in which he is sheltering will be bombed – to begin to understand that there is no certainty in life. We cannot know what will happen tomorrow.

So this Book of Life symbolism is hard enough for us to digest. But then comes the symbolism of Sukkot: the fragile shelter of the Sukah with its very precise and detailed laws – how high it can be (not more than 20 cubits); how low (minimum of 10 hand-breadths), how many sides it must have (3), how shaded it should be (more of its roof should be shaded than unshaded); whether it’s old or new, under a tree, one Sukah built on another Sukah (all non-valid) or spread over the frame of a two-post bed (valid) – seems odd enough. And then there are the symbols of the lulav and etrog – the palm, willow, myrtle and citrus (etrog), to be taken, bound together and waved towards all four corners of the universe and up and down.

It is in this duality between symbolism and physicality that lies the real meaning of Sukkot. Yom Kipur focus on the denial of the physical to focus on the spiritual. Right after it, Sukkot thrusts us right back into the world of our own physical existence, reminding us that the work of our hands, what we do in this world, are works of beauty. We are here for a purpose, and that purpose is to embrace and elevate the things of the world, and to do so in a way that validates and includes the many different types of creations and people in the world.

And at the end of Sukkot, we leave the sukah behind and celebrate Simchat Torah–the real letters and words of the texts of our people on Friday Oct 17, 10 am (See service schedule). Those words have a physical reality, but they become symbols as well. And through their symbolism, they guide our real lives. We thus live in a constant dialogue between the world as it is and the world as we imagine it to be. That is the space in which Jewish life happens. We build the sukah, we live in it, we learn in it, and then we take its message with us into a year of learning and study, a year of doing and action.

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