Parshas Mishpatim – Ahava, Yirah, and the Giving of the Luchos

 It is both tempting and daunting to use this Dvar Torah to capture some significant message in this momentously difficult time for the Jewish people. We are a nation in shock, filled with sorrow and rage and, in truth, overwhelmed at the incomprehensible brutality we have witnessed. And the pasuk that most stood out in this week’s parsha was the warning against an ox that has gored before. An ox that gores the first time is returned to its pasture. An ox that has gored before cannot be trusted. Perhaps we need learn from this basic truth… violent nature does not just disappear, does not just shift. Know with whom we are dealing.

 

This week’s parsha is Parshas Mishpatim. It is interesting to note that tradition divides Jewish law into three categories: Chukim, the laws the reason for which are unclear to us like kashrus and shatnes; Edos, the laws commemorating significant moments such as the holidays; and Mishpatim, which are generally understood to be the laws of civilization – laws that any rational society would naturally adhere to… (like don’t kill and don’t kidnap, but there I go again, so I shall begin again.)

 

This week’s parsha is Parashas Mishpatim, and it is interesting to note that one could read its final chapter, Perek 24, in the same manner in which one reads the second chapter of Bereishis. It feels like a repetition, but is, instead, a different perspective. The first description of the creation of the world uses only the name Elokim, which indicates the mida of Din/Justice. The second iteration includes the name Hashem, expressing that the divine attribute of Rachamim/Compassion was added into the creation.

 

Shemos 24 returns to the account of the receiving of the Torah on Har Sinai but with a much more restrained tone. It tells the details of the preparation of Moshe and Aaron and the elders. However, since the Torah never wastes words, one wonders why Perek 24:1-18 is here. Why wasn’t all of this included in Parshas Yisro?  

 

There is an important and common discussion in Jewish texts about Ahavas Hashem (Love of Gd) and Yiras Hashem (Reverence for Gd – often translated as fear). Serving Hashem out of love is the ultimate goal, and it sounds easy. After all, we humans naturally love. We love our parents, our children, our siblings, our friends, our spouses… Of course, we also love hockey (if you’re my son), chocolate, coffee, cake, dogs, etc. Okay it’s a common comment on our overuse of the word love, but that overuse is an excellent description of just why we are taught that to get to true Ahavas Hashem, we must first truly achieve Yiras Hashem. If one really thinks about how tradition discusses love – which is, in many ways, the ultimate giving to someone else without losing oneself – one realizes that it isn’t such a simple emotion, especially when it comes to Hashem.

 

This is not to say that we do not feel Ahavas Hashem, chas v’shalom, but it is a difficult emotion to sustain.

 

Yirah, on the other hand, lends itself to a constant acknowledgement that our actions have consequences. The most common translation of Yiras Hashem is fear of Gd. Fear, however, is connected to the negative, to maintaining mitzvos so that one is not negatively affected. Yirah, as reverence implies. is a deep respect and recognition that Hashem is there as the ultimate Melech whose rule is beyond our comprehension. One can follow rules and respect authority with or without love as an acknowledgement of greater wisdom. Through this wisdom, we hope, of course, to get to Ahavas.

 

There is another interesting aspect of the human concept of love, and that is our natural propensity to wish to demonstrate it in broad, bold gestures (or, for the more introverted, in significantly meaningful moments).

 

And this brings us back to the topic at hand, the giving of the first luchos part one and part two. Har Sinai was an ideal. Bnei Yisrael had true clarity about Hashem, the world, themselves, the importance of Torah…. Everything at Har Sinai was big. It was bold. And perhaps this overwhelming expression of love was why, ultimately, the people sought out another moment of incredible connection with the cheit haegel because they couldn’t maintain that level of Ahavas Hashem but had not yet comprehended the role of Yiras Hashem to get there.

 

The second iteration of the days leading up to the giving of the Torah are about the straight-forward actions of the days of preparation. The text itself is much more restrained, which make it interesting to note that when we celebrate receiving the Torah on Shavuos, we elaborate of the pasukim of Yisro – the mountain blooming, the thunder and lightening, the greatness of the event – and in that context we often reference the term “Naaseh v’Nishma, We will do and we will listen.” This statement, however, is not written in parshas Yisro, but rather here at the end of Parshas Mishpatim. In Parshas Yisro, the people declare “All that Hashem has spoken we will do” (19:8) – absolute devotion, unconditional giving.

 

In Shemos 24, after the parsha lists many practical halachos that, it is understood, were given over to the people before Moshe ascended the mountain, we find the words Naaseh v’Nishma (24:7).  Naaseh vNishma is a statement of Yiras Hashem, of doing and listening and processing Hashem’s will. It isn’t jumping into an unsustainable.

 

Rashi notes that the world was meant to be created with Din alone, but Hashem realized that it was unsustainable, so He added Rachamim to the creation. Similarly, the ideal connection to Hashem is pure Ahava. That, however, may not be attainable for most people, and so we have a different path – a path of reverence in which we experience love and fear and a host of emotions in our understanding the full and complete nature of Hashem.

 

It often seems as if the world is full of contradictions. Din or Rachamim? Ahava or Yirah? The praising of obvious evil… The Torah makes it clear that the world, and our role in the world, will always be complex, and that He will always provide us with a path forward.

 

Parshas Yisro: Seeing Humanity

This week’s parsha, Parshas Yisro, contains what could be consider the foundation stone – well, stones, really - of Jewish law. The Aseres Hadibros, also known as the Ten Commandments, are delivered to the Jewish people at Har Sinai. On the surface, the Aseres Hadibros seem like easy-to-follow basic rules of society, and they are, except that each of the Ten Commandments is a path to a multitude of other halachos that shape the Jewish nation.

It is fair to say that most people would agree that laws are good, that they are important, and that they are applied on every level of society. In our homes we have rules, and we expect those rules to be followed. Interestingly, however, the entire history of the Jewish people - of humanity, in fact – seems to be a never ending serious of people not listening to the rules.

So lets think about the importance of breaking rules. One of the most essential distinctions of human life is bechira, free will. Bechira is the human ability to actively choose our  path in the world, and this means breaking rules. We need bechira because if we didn’t have the capacity to break rules, then the rules would be meaningless.

What is particularly interesting is that in this week’s parsha one could see a far more subtle fact: Hashem almost expects people to make the wrong choices. Hashem knows how great the yetzer harah, the inclination to do the wrong thing, is, and this is subtly alluded to just before the delivery of the Aseres Hadibros.

 In Shemos 19:21-22, Hashem tells Moshe to descend to the people and warn them not to come forward to try to see Him. He even specifies that the priests, who at this stage were the bachorim (firstborn), must guard themselves as well.

 This is where the text takes an interesting little blip. Moshe responds to Hashem by saying “The people cannot ascend Mount Sinai, for You have warned us, saying, ‘Make a boundary around the mountain and sanctify it.’” Hashem warns against the people surging forward in a desire to see what is occurring, and Moshe basically responds with the naivety of a proud parent who believes their child would never do anything wrong.  Even with all of his experience as to the willfulness of Bnei Yisrael, which he had a taste of in Mitzrayim (though far more was yet to come!) and his direct witnessing of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, Moshe firmly believes that the boundary he set up around the mountain is enough.

 Hashem, however, is wise to the ways of mankind. Afterall, the very first humans, the very first creations to whom He gave bechira, almost immediately made the wrong choice. And, in thinking about it, there are some fascinating parallels here.

 The tree from which Adam and Chava were told not to eat was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. Rabbi Immanuel Bernstein on the ou.org website notes a fascinating commentary by the Meshech Chachma:

[The Mechech Chachma] explains that the snake was not trying to convince Chava that she would not die if she ate from the tree, contrary to what Hashem had said. Rather, he was arguing that if she and Adam truly valued closeness to Hashem, then they should be prepared to do anything that would bring that closeness about, even if it meant that they would die! Since eating from the tree would make them more Godlike in the sense of knowing good and evil, they should be prepared to do it even if it required them give up their lives…

 Har Sinai could be seen as a parallel to the Eitz HaDaas. Bnei Yisrael were about to receive a new level of wisdom and understanding of the world. How great and ultimately fulfilling it would be to get even closer during this process.

 Hashem understood, as proven by Chava, that a general warning  - and even a simple barrier – was not enough. So Hashem told Moshe: “Go, descend. Then you must ascend, Aaron with you; but let not the priests or the people break through to come up to Hashem, lest [God] break out against them” (19:24).

 Hashem told Moshe to go down right then and announce the prohibition of ascending another time. By doing so, Moshe was re-enforcing that barrier and the previously stated prohibition. The fact that Moshe came down the mountain JUST to remind them of the danger they were in lest they breech that barrier was another layer of protection because it emphasized how serious Hashem was.

 At Har Sinai, Bnei Yisrael accepted upon ourselves a very great responsibility. We showed our love for Hashem by jumping forth to accept the yoke of Torah. Hashem has great expectations for us, but Hashem is also not naïve as all humans are. He recognizes our vulnerabilities and our fallibilities, and that is why Hashem is truly the ultimate Melech Hamalchim.

Parshas Beshalach - The Constant Response

Dedicated to a Refuah Shelaima for Moshe Aaron ben Nacha Itta.

There are so many topics in this week’s parsha that one could make relevant toward the state of the Jewish people today. One could explore that idea of purposeful confusion, of how Hashem led Bnei Yisrael in a roundabout path in order to lead the Mitzrim after them, just as Hashem leads our people on a circuitous route through history. One could talk about feeling cornered by an enemy (enemies) and needing a clear path forward. And, one could write about the need for two arms in battle - the physical fighting force and the spiriYtual fighting force. 

I’m not going to write on any of those topics herein. 

The Torah only uses two pasukim to discuss Miriam’s song: “Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took her timbrel in hand, and all the women followed her with timbrels and dancing. Miriam led them in responsive song, beginning, ‘Sing to God for He is most exalted; horse and rider He cast into the sea’” (Shemos 15:20-21).

One could wonder about the fact that it doesn’t state that Miriam and the women sang, but rather that Miriam led them in responsive song, and that song repeated teh words of Moshe’s song. Stated that way is sounds like a negative, like a trope that can be parsed as women being simple followers rather than powerful in their own right. This, of course, we know is not true. 

Thinking a little deeper, there is another interesting distinction between the two songs. Moshe’s song begins: Az Yashir - and there are many discussions about the grammar here, about the use of the future tense form of the noun (not to mention singular, but we will not go into that here). The song was sung and the song will be sung upon the ultimate salvation. Here now, and then - 1, 2.

Miriam’s song, however, is immediately thereafter. It says and she answered, but perhaps the answering was a way of stating that it isn’t now and then, it’s constant. Miriam took here timbrel and the women all followed with their instruments. Sing a song unaccompanied and it is beautiful; sing a song with a full accompaniment and it resonates new depths. 

Miriam and the women responded to the song taught by Moshe and that response, perhaps, demonstrates that the song was not just for now and then, but that it must resonate through our lives. They took it up with timbrels and dancing, with their whole being - physical and spiritual.

This Dvar Torah is being written in Yerushalayim, where I am visiting my daughter in seminary, and so I have our young women particularly in mind. These young women have come from all over the world to learn how to make Torah sing in their own voices. It is a different experience than the young men who come here to study in Yeshiva, who sit and learn and delve int ot he gemara. The education they are receiving at Seminary is meant to take them from the defined lanes of high school into a world where they will become the foundations of the Yiddishkeit of their future homes. They are not learning theoretical concepts or delving into the complex arguments under the law, but rather, they are formatting a constant response as the teachers push them to build themselves as individuals. In these Seminary programs there is plenty of music and dancing and expressions of joy because these women are learning how to live Torah.

This Dvar Torah has no specific takeaway conclusion, as I so often like to include, but rather it is a salute to our young women and their teachers…and to all women who remember that it is the women who bring the constant response and who make the Torah sing in their lives and in their homes.

Parshas Bo: The AUdacious Ego

 Parshas Bo: The Audacious Ego

Dedicated to a Refuah Shelaima for Moshe Aharon ben Necha Itta and Tanchum Shlomo ben Rayza Bryna

This week’s parsha describes the terrible events of the last three plagues and the ultimate downfall of the great Egyptian monarchy (although it would, we know, rise again). This week’s parasha explains great and mighty events such as the blackening of the sky by a sea of locust who landed on the fields and devoured everything in their path. This week’s parsha is full of darkness and death.

This week’s parsha contains the unmistakable calamity of absolute narcissism.

                                                                                                                                                

There is a fascinating verse buried amidst all the chaos of the final plague: “Take also your flocks and your herds, as you said, and begone! And may you bring a blessing upon me also!” (12:32).  After the Death of the Firstborn, Pharoah is finally ready to send the Israelites – all of the Israelites – to go to the Wilderness to worship Hashem. After generations of slavery, after trying to kill their babies, after all the extra inflicted hardship, how does he possibly have the audacity to ask for a blessing! As if setting them free is no big deal.

 

It’s audacious. It’s outrageous. It’s… well, when we really stop and think about it, perhaps it isn’t so surprising. The easy response is to say, “Well, we all know people like that.” People who are do oblivious to clues. We all know people we want to label as narcissists, who put themselves before everything and take no responsibility for the messes they may make. Pharoah is just perfect profile of the personality – although one could argue that his royal life made it so he could be no other way. Pharoah’s ridiculous ego is present throughout the story of Yetzias Mitzrayim. He reacts to Moshe and Aaron by stating that he doesn’t know who Hashem is. He deliberately toys with them about whether he will send them to the wilderness. More significantly, even as his land and people are plunged into chaos and despair, Pharoah doesn’t care.

 

Indeed, one can see how the Egyptian people felt by their immediate reaction to Pharoah’s release of the Israelites…… “The Egyptians urged the people on, impatient to have them leave the country, for they said, ‘We shall all be dead’”  (12:33).

 

The fact that the Torah includes this detail of Pharoah asking for a bracha allows us to examine the significance of what he did. Obviously, it is included for us to really understand who Pharoah was and just how flawed he was. It serves as a warning about autocrats who rule a country based on a sense of their own personal power. Warnings about such a grandiose concept, however, is really a warning about who each of us has the potential to become. We can say it’s human nature to focus on ourselves, but Jewish tradition constantly reminds us that we need to be above base human nature.

Parshas Va’eira – The World Cannot Choose

If you know the story of the Exodus then you know that Hashem hardened Paroah’s heart. It’s one of the most repeated tropes in the many discussions of the narrative. Most often, however, it comes up far into the plagues. It is the source of great discussion and debate: What of Paroah’s bechira - especially as his actions impacted all of Mitzrayim? If Paroah didn’t relent, then no one was going to help the Israelites. This, of course, leads to the deeper question of: How can Paroah be punished if Hashem was the one causing his heart to be hardened?  The hardening, tradition teaches us, was already there. Hashem did not change the man.

 

This week’s parsha, Parshas Va’eira, introduces the beginning of the plagues, and it introduces the hardening of the heart of Paroah. It came from the very beginning and is mentioned three times before the first plague, the plague of blood. The first mention is verse 7:3, where Hashem informs Moshe: “And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that I may multiply My signs and marvels in the land of Egypt.”  Having heard this, Moshe and Aaron went to Paroah and had their show down with Paroah’s magicians, but their expectations must have been very low. When the snakes of the magicians were eaten by Aaron’s snake, the Torah relays: “Yet Paraoh’s heart stiffened and he did not heed them, as Hashem had said.  And Hashem said to Moshe, ‘Paraoh is heavy of heart (stubborn); he refuses to let the people go.’” (7:13-14).

 

In English, these verses look both very similar and very different. All three of them contain the word lev – heart. However, 7:3 uses the verb kashe, verse 13 uses chazak, and verse 14 uses the word kaved. Hashem promises Moshe that he will make Paroah’s heart hard. However, what we see happening is that after being confronted with Aaron’s obviously mightier staff-snake, Paroah made his own heart strong. There was nothing supernatural about it. And thus Hashem’s statement in verse 14, that Paroah’s heart is stubborn. Hashem used the term Kavaid Lev. The word Kavaid means heavy, but it is also associated with the word kavod, which means “honor.” 

 

Hashem did not need to strengthen Paroah’s heart, Paraoh’s own ego refused to allow him to recognize Hashem’s greatness, that there was a possibility that he was not the ultimate authority.

 

This is a deep truth of the world, that we all know. Power breeds power. Paroah, who reigned over the most powerful nation in the ancient world, could not humble himself to acknowledge that something beyond him was happening. Hashem did not have to worry about fulfilling His promise to strengthen Paroah’s heart because his heart was already burdened with too much kavod.

 

We, or at least I can speak for myself, keep hoping that the world will open its eyes and see the truth. But even if they do, are they capable to admitting they were wrong? A stand once taken is hard to come down from, and so we fight almost alone. Is this Hashem’s will actively blinding the nations or were their hearts already hardened?

The truth, alas, is that this question pushes at our brains but is, in fact, irrelevant. If their hearts were already hardened than it was so because of Hashem, Who stated that we would be a hated nation. Thus, either way, the events of this era – as of so many eras in the past – is the will of Hashem. What is left to us to ponder – and many of us have and do – is what Hashem requires of us in light of the path the world has taken. That, I would say, is the true bechira.

Vayechi: Death, Blessings, and Life Choices

 

Vayechi – Death, Blessings, and Life Choices

If one were to boil this week’s parsha down to its most basic elements, Parshas Vayechi would be said to be about death and blessings, blessings that all focus on “this will be you when I am gone.” Death and blessings sound like a strange combination of themes as we tend to think of death as the ultimate negative, and even more so when we remember that the name of the parsha translates to “And he lived.”

 

He lived. Yaakov lived. For 17 years Yaakov lived in a land not his own, and, in many ways, he flourished. It was not, one would assume, his ideal life. He was not where he wanted to be as he understood the kedusha of Eretz Yisrael, but it was where Hashem told him that He wanted him to be. It is a sharp contrast to the commentaries surrounding the beginning sentiment of “Vayeishev,” “and he dwelled,” where Yaakov is criticized in the Midrash for settling into complacency.

 

Because Yaakov lived his life in the best way he could for being in a less then ideal state (an ability he had proven already during his sojourn with Lavan), his last years had a tremendous impact. The Torah describes the funeral procession set for him by Paroah and the fact that there was a period of national mourning throughout Egypt. Some of this was a reflection of the nation’s feelings for Yosef, but a reaction so grand only occurs from respect, nay – reverence, for the deceased himself.

 

Yaakov’s choosing to LIVE those 17 years, rather than just accept his altered state, gave him the kochos, the spiritual strength, to end his life in a way that carried his life forward. He focused his ability to see the world on a spiritual plane to provide guidance and shine light on the deeper journey ahead for each of his sons and, thus, strengthening them. Yes, even the blessings that were tochacha were the means of shoring them up against the challenges that were to come. Yaakov on his deathbed focused not on his own end but on the future that was to come.

 

Today is Aseres B’Teves. It is the shortest fast day on the calendar, but it is also noted as the most significant of the minor fasts of mourning the destruction of Jerusalem. Today represents the beginning of the end of what had been an idyllic time when the first Beis Hamikdash was the heart of our nation. We fast to mourn our loss and to spur on teshuva so that we can return, so that Hashem will redeem us. But as this year it overlaps with Vayechi, perhaps we must recognize a different lesson in our mourning.

 

Like Yaakov Avinu, we are not living in our ideal world, we are separated from the greater spirituality, but that is not a reason to live any less. That is not a reason to become complacent, but rather it is a reason to bring that ideal world as close to where we dwell as possible. And this does not apply only to one’s physical location. Yaakov did not live an easy life. From sibling rivalry to in-law troubles, from Rachel’s dying to Yoseph’s disappearance, from trouble with Shechem to famine in Canaan… But he did not let that stop him from living. Often times life takes a hard turn, but it is our job to persevere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unmasked

 Another Thursday night/Friday morning at the end of another crazy week – should be crazy for another month, so I will apologize in advance (and over and over, cause, you know).

As we’ve entered the new secular year, there have been many reflections on the year that has passed, which was nothing if not heart-wrenching and difficult. Around the globe people took to covering their faces so they could march in public and display a side of themselves that roils with violence and hatred. The world is full of people who present one face in public, but it isn’t who they truly are. Frighteningly, this very duplicity has been forcing many Jews to also choose to hide themselves, to take off their yarmulkes or tuck away their Magen David. In the world today, it sometimes seems like it might be safer to blend in, to appear like everyone else, than to display one’s Judaism.

When we read Parshas Vayigash, many of us are astonished that the sons of Yaakov do not recognize their brother Yosef. He was their brother, after all. But we know that he was dressed like an Egyptian – and not just any Egyptian, but a powerful official – and was known by a different name. “Joe” even spoke the language of the land flawlessly; we can assume he had no accent. So it isn’t altogether surprising that they didn’t realize it was him after 17 years, in a palace where he had been sold as a slave, and after he had accomplished the art of blending to perfection. Perhaps we are so surprised because many people have recognized a phenomenon of inherent recognition amongst our people. Anecdotally, and from my own experiences, there are many stories of the strange way in which Jews are drawn to each other – intentionally or not. We see it in the act known as bagelling, when a Jew who has shed all seeming outward signs of his/her identity makes it a point that their Judaism is recognized, that they don’t get overlooked as part of the tribe.

As Yosef interacted with his brothers, it became harder and harder for him to maintain the façade until he pulled them aside, emptied his chamber, and declared his identity. Yosef’s declaration of his identity echoes through history. Through trials and tribulations, exiles and assimilations, there has remained that spark of the pintele yid, as they call it, that yearns to burn bright. (An appropriate thought to remember just after Chanukah when the primary mitzvah entails being seen for who we are – those who serve and praise Hashem). The soul of the Jew wants to connect to his/her brethren, wants to be seen as who they truly are and not their outward garb.

Just because Yosef’s family came to Mitzrayim, does not mean that Yosef was able to dress or act publicly like himself. He was, after all, the Viceroy. Nevertheless, connected to his community, he was whole, and he admonished his family not to blend in, not to move in amongst the Mitzri nation. And the family of Yaakov was lauded by Paroah. They were granted land and privileges. They were shown respect and acceptance of their separation.

Those who beleaguer us now wish to make us weak by undermining our belief in ourselves. The louder they rally, the more Jews might question the path they follow or the way they express themselves because, as the protestors try to declare, it’s about justice (it isn’t), and no one wants to feel that they are opposed to justice.

But we must take our cue from Yosef. We must declare ourselves to our fellow Jews and come together, because our unity, our connection, and our sense of true self has always been our most powerful weapon.