Monday, December 30, 2013

Bo

Exodus 10:1−13:16  

Rabbi Steven Pik-Nathan for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

Humility vs. Humiliation


This week's Torah portion, Bo, includes the final three plagues brought against Pharaoh and Egypt as well as the first Passover seder meal (observed by the Israelites as the horror of the tenth plague coursed through Egypt). The parashah ends with the Israelites starting their journey out of Egypt after having lived there for 430 years.

The story is familiar. And yet, as with all narratives of the Torah, if one pays attention to the text with one's heart and soul one can find a myriad of truths within it. Just as no two people are exactly alike, neither are two truths.

The truth that I became mindful of while reading the parashah was sparked by Exodus 12:31-32. After the horror of the tenth plague has been visited upon Egypt Moses and Aaron are summoned to Pharaoh's house where Pharaoh says to them, "Up, depart from among my people, you and the Israelites with you! Go, worship the Lord as you said! Take also your flocks and your herds, as you said, and be gone! And may you bring a blessing upon me also!"

In the JPS Torah commentary Nahum Sarna comments that "for [Pharaoh] to seek their blessing is thus the ultimate humbling of the despot." In this context I at first read the word "humbling" as "humiliation." For Pharaoh to ask Moses and Aaron for a blessing is the quintessential humiliation of the tyrant who realizes that he has no true power. And yet there is another way to read this verse that does not equate humility with humiliation.

Living, as we do, in a world where people tout and flaunt their accomplishments in order to show the brilliance of human beings, humility is not evidenced (or appreciated) as much as it should be. It is true that we can be brilliant. According to the Torah we are the only beings created in the image of God. We are the only ones into whom God breathed the breath of life. In kabbalistic (mystical) terms we each carry within us a spark of the Divine light - our soul. We are indeed brilliant. So why be humble? Why not simply admit to our brilliance and revel in our mastery of the universe?

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Monday, December 23, 2013

Parashat Va-era

Exodus 6:2–9:35
Rabbi Steven Pik-Nathan for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

What's in a name?


"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet!" So wrote William Shakespeare centuries ago in "Romeo and Juliet." Today's parashah, Vayera, challenges this concept with regard to the Divine. The parashah begins with God saying to Moshe, "I am YHWH; and I appeared to Avraham, Yitzhak and Ya'akov as 'El Shaddai', but my name YHWH I did not make known to them."

It is clear in these opening lines that there is a great deal contained in a name. A name has power. A name means something. A name is more than just a symbol. God did not make God's self known to even the first patriarchs by God's name. Rather, God only made known one of God's many "other" names (a
Divine nom de plume, as it were) El Shaddai. El Shaddai is usually translated as "God Almighty" and YHWH, the four letter name of God (the tetragrammaton) is usually pronounced in Hebrew as 'adonai' (my lord) or 'ha-shem' (the Name). According to tradition the correct pronunciation of this name has been lost. Even when it was known the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) only spoke it on Yom Kippur while he was standing in the Holy of Holies in the sanctuary or the Temple in Jerusalem. This name contained that much power! But what is this name?

Most scholars believe that it is a form of the verb "to be." Others say that it is also the sound of the breath, both human and divine, which is the source of life. Ultimately, we do not know, and I believe that this is as it should be. For YHWH by any other name is still YHWH.

In his book God is a Verb Rabbi David Cooper writes about God as being a process not an object or subject. Drawing on the teachings of Reb Zalman Schacter-Sholomi, Cooper writes about the verb "God-ing" as opposed to the noun "God." Reb Zalman, writes Cooper, "explains that the kind of verb that represents God-ing is different from the ones we have in our ordinary language. Most of our verbs are considered transitive, which require a direct object, or intransitive, which do not. He suggests that God-ing is a mutually interactive verb, one which entails an interdependency between two subjects, each being the object for the other" (God is a Verb, p. 69). The example Cooper provides is communication. One may be speaking and yet if no one is listening is there actually any communication occurring? Yet the question remains, where does this leave us with regard to God - especially as Reconstructionists?

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Monday, December 16, 2013

Sh'mot

Exodus 1:1−6:1

Rabbi Arthur Waskow for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

"Blessed is the One Who is the Breath of Life"


Shabbat shalom! . . . It's the custom of Christian communities throughout the world to honor great teachers on the anniversaries of their births, and it's the custom of Jewish communities through-out the world to honor great teachers on the anniversaries of their deaths. One, according to a solar calendar; the other, according to a solar/lunar calendar. It's precisely because of those authentic, honorable differences that we can come together today, that the dates come together that connect the yahrzeits of Rabbi Marshall Meyer and Rabbenu Avraham Yehoshua Heschel, and Reverend Martin Luther King's birthday.

If our traditions used the same calendars or followed the same customs, we would not be able to link, a generation later, the lives that were linked in life a generation ago. And I think that is a kind of miracle, a teaching straight from God, of what it means this year for us to gather. And then it turns out that the parasha that we're studying, this week of that convergence is Parashat Sh'mot, the beginning of the story of our liberation, the beginning of the story of the birthing of a people, and the birthing of freedom. The miracle is compounded. For we look at Parashat Sh'mot, and what do we find?

One thing we find is the story of the two midwives, Shifra and Puah, who together do the first recorded act of nonviolent civil disobedience in all of human history. What could be a more powerful root for Heschel, for King, for Meyer? Marshall Meyer, whose entire life, for more than a decade, day and night, was a single act of civil disobedience in fascist Argentina, and King and Heschel, who marched side by side against racism in America and against the American War in Vietnam. As Rabbenu Heschel said, "Not just marching. My legs were praying."

What does it mean for us to be able to look back at that story of the midwives? And to look at the story in which Pharoah's daughter joins with Miriam, across national lines, across racial lines, joins together to save Moshe, in another act of nonviolent civil disobedience to help the process of liberation take another step together.

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Monday, December 9, 2013

Va-y'chi

Genesis 47:28–50:26

Rabbi Lewis Eron for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

Life Beyond Death


I often find it difficult to explain Jewish beliefs concerning life-after-death to Jews and non-Jews. The problem is not that we don't believe in an afterlife. Throughout most of Jewish history, the belief in an afterlife has been prevalent among our people. The difficulty many people have is the fact that although our religious heritage presents us with an ancient, well-established, multi- faceted set of insights into the afterlife, these beliefs generally play a secondary or tertiary role in the structure of Jewish faith and the living of Jewish lives. From ancient times, our tradition, while accepting the hope of an afterlife, reminds us to center our attention on this world and find our hope in living and teaching a life built on the ethical and spiritual foundation of our Torah.

Thus, it is not surprising that our Bible teaches so little about what is to come. In the Bible, our oldest literature, the possibility of life-after-death is assumed rather than discussed at any length. Jews in the biblical period had an uncomplicated image of the afterlife. They often pictured the abode of the deceased, which they called "Sheol," as a drab, subterranean pit. In Sheol, the dead maintained a shade-like existence safely removed from the pleasures and pitfalls of earthly life. Accordingly, the Torah prohibits necromancy, the art of raising the spirits of the dead (Leviticus 19:31; Deuteronomy 18:11).

The story of the Wise Woman of Endor (1 Samuel 28:3-25) illustrates the seriousness of this prohibition. The evening before King Saul was to enter into battle with a formidable Philistine army, the king, in desperation, prevails on the Wise Woman to conjure up the spirit of the king's dead advisor, the prophet Samuel. The prophet, angered at being disturbed, accurately pronounces Saul's defeat and doom.

At the end of the biblical period of our history, we get the first glimpses of the elaborate descriptions of heaven and hell that appear in post-biblical Jewish literature and form the basis for similar beliefs in Christianity and Islam. Yet, the Jewish tradition held fast to the biblical focus on life in this world. The psalmist's powerful declaration that the dead do not praise God (Psalm 115:17) continued to ring true.

Rabbinic wisdom reminds us that it is improper and impious for us to serve God in the hope of receiving the reward of entering heaven (Avot 1:3). Living a life of good deeds based on our Torah, teaching its values to coming generations and building a community grounded on its ethical insights are sufficient reward in themselves.

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Monday, December 2, 2013

Vayigash

Genesis 44:18−47:27

Rabbi Lewis Eron for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

Prophets and Sages



The difference between a prophet and a sage is where they discover God working in our lives. The prophet studies the future and points out the opportunities for righteousness and goodness that we may encounter in our life's journey. The sage looks into the past and shows us how we made way for God's healing presence and loving power in the choices we made and the paths we followed. The prophet fortifies us with the gift of hope. The sage strengthens us with the gift of meaning.

We need both prophets and sages. We need to hear both voices. Yet, the task of the sage is harder and greater than that of the prophet. The prophet helps us find purpose and significance in the open-ended future. The sage guides us in the search for value and meaning in our already closed past.

Joseph's great gift was that he was both a prophet and a sage. He was by nature a visionary. Through the window of dreams he could peer into the future. Although he could not see all the details, he could picture what life could be like. He was, however, not born wise. He had to learn how to be a sage. He needed the insight and wisdom he earned through the challenges and trials of his life.

When we encounter Joseph in this week's Torah portion, Va-Yigash, he is no longer the obnoxious young visionary whom his brothers sold into slavery some twenty years earlier. His experiences as a slave, as a prisoner and as the highest official of the Egyptian court taught him to understand the human heart. He learned that it was necessary to let go of the burden of the past to be able to receive the promise of the future.

The dramatic highlight of the story of Joseph is the moment when Joseph steps out of his role as the grand vizier of Egypt and reveals himself to the eleven hungry brothers from Canaan as their long-lost brother Joseph, the very one whom they sold into slavery over two decades earlier (Genesis 45:1-3). His brothers are dumfounded at the news and are unable to respond.

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