September 29, 2012

 Parashat Ha'azinu, Deuteronomy 32:1–52

The Times Are A-Changing

In his final poetic speech to the Israelites, Moshe encourages them to understand the potential for change in every generation.

Rabbi Neal J. Loevinger

Overview

Parashat Ha'azinu is Moses' last speech to the Israelites--it is a powerful poem recalling the sacred history since the Exodus from Egypt, and warning the Israelites in the strongest terms not to stray from the path that God has commanded. At the end of the parasha, God tells Moses that he will be able to see the Land of Israel, but will not be able to enter it.

In Focus

"Remember the days of old, understand the years of the generations. . ." (Deuteronomy 32:7).

Pshat

At the beginning of his long, poetic, theological discourse, Moses asks the current generation to consider the past, when the previous generations had done things that brought about God's anger. Presumably Moses is referring to the people's complaining in the desert, the building of the Golden Calf, and other acts of apparent rebellion. As we make our choices in life, it's important to consider and be open to learning the lessons of history.

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September 22, 2012

Parashat Vayelekh, Deuteronomy 31:1–30

The Song of Humanity

Song can remind us of our authentic selves and our genuine power.

By Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels

Provided by American Jewish World Service, pursuing global justice through grassroots change.

We often read Parashat Vayelekh on Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Fittingly, this parashah deals with sin and repentance, with becoming lost on our way and returning to our true selves.

In the parashah, God foretells Israel's future sins and their consequences, how they will turn to other gods and then be overtaken by suffering, leading God to say, "anokhi haster astir panai--I will surely hide my face (Deut. 31:16-18)." The hidden face of God, the classic theological expression of the presence of suffering and evil in the world, here seems to be a response by God to the sins of Israel, a punishment for their misdeeds.

The Hasidic master, Rebbe Ephraim of Sudylkow, understands this passage differently. Carefully re-reading the Hebrew, Rebbe Ephraim separates the phrase into two sections and reinterprets the implications of God's actions. When anokhi haster--the I-ness of God--is hidden through our entering the slumber of self-deception and idolatry, then astir panai--[God's] face will be hidden.

When we forget our values and our humanity, we obscure God's holiness from the world; then God's face, God's true presence, is hidden from us. When we pervert what is just and right through the pursuit of that which is not the true center, we cause God's presence to disappear, not as punishment, but as consequence.

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September 15, 2012

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Parashat Nitzavim, Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20

On This Day God Calls To You

Parashat Nitzavim teaches us the importance of viewing ourselves as partners in a dialogue with God.

Some look to religion to transmit a sense of the majesty of the past. Traditions, because they come to us from a purer time, embody fragile vessels carrying remnants of a lost insight.

Such a view of Judaism correctly perceives the treasures of our ancestors' seeking and recording their relationship with God. But it errs in transforming the record of that search into a type of fossil, a brittle relic that can only be passed from hand to hand, without any direct contribution from the viewer.

Such an idolization of the past removes God from the theater of our own lives, and threatens to trivialize the worth of our own continuing journeys, to ignore the harvest of our own insight and response. The Torah itself rejects this excessive veneration of the past.

In clear terms, Moses tells the Jewish People, "You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God . . . to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is concluding with you this day . . . that He may establish you this day as His people and be your God."

Three times, Moses stresses the phrase, "this day," emphasizing the contemporaneity of God's outreach to the Jewish People. Rashi notices this repetition, and comments that the chorus of "this day" indicates that, "just as this day enlightens, so will God enlighten [the Jewish People] in the future."

God's relationship to humanity is a permanent expression of love, an ongoing fact no less than gravity or sunrise. It undergirds the laws of nature, unifies human enterprise and the rhythms of nature. To center one's faith in the past is to imprison God within a book or a set of books. Such a faith makes idolatrous even the most sacred of inheritances. To center one's faith in the living Source of life, the God of creation and of Revelation, however, is to liberate one's spirit to the continuous abundance of God's 'chesed' (love, grace).

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Posted by judy@jvillagenetwork.com at 9/11/2012 1:00 PM

September 8, 2012

Love Is Not The Opposite Of Hate; Law Is

Law is essential to Judaism, establishing an external set of moral guidelines.

Human beings never seem able to express all their hatred for each other. Men and women war against each other; blacks and whites, gay and straight, liberals and conservatives, city-folk and suburbanites--there is no end to stereotypes, hostility and mistrust. In response to this propensity to hate, Nobel laureate Elie Weisel organized an international conference on hate in Oslo, Norway. The glittering list of invited participants included four presidents, and 70 writers, scientists and academics.

The two questions which shaped their deliberations were, "Why do people hate?" and "Why do people band together to express hatred?" Although the speeches were beautiful and the resolutions were firm, the entire event was fairly predictable, except for their primary conclusion, which seems so at odds with common sense. Ask anyone what the opposite of hate is, and they will tell you it's love. But the consensus of these most accomplished, powerful and thoughtful people was that, "Only the belief in and execution of the law can defeat hatred."

In other words, the opposite of hate is law. The Prime Minister of Norway even bolstered that claim by quoting from the statesman/philosopher Edmund Burke (18th century England) that, "When bad men combine, the good must associate, else they will fall one by one." While this insight might be news to the largely-Christian west, it merely confirms the age-old conviction of Judaism that law is the indispensable expression of love and decency. A people abandons law at the peril of their own character, justice and survival.

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 Posted by judy@jvillagenetwork.com at 9/4/2012 1:24 PM