Monday, November 24, 2014

Va'yetze


Genesis 28:10−32:3

Rabbi Steven Pik-Nathan for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

Connecting with the Divine


This week's parashat is Va'yetze includes the well-known story of Jacob's dream. After fleeing from his brother Esau, Jacob finds a place to rest and while sleeping he has a dream. In this dream he sees a ladder reaching from earth to heaven. On this ladder angels are ascending and descending; God is "standing" on the ladder. God promises Jacob that he will indeed become a great nation and that his descendants will be blessed. Upon awakening Jacob proclaims that had he realized the awesomeness of the place he would not have gone to sleep for "God was in this place and I did not know it." He then names the place Bet El, the house of God.

I would imagine that if any of us were to have a similar experience we too would proclaim the awesomeness of the place. We might also have wished we had not gone to sleep. Rabbis and Sages throughout the centuries have commented on this story and on Jacob's reaction to his dream. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner wrote a book a number of years ago entitled "God Was in This Place and I, I Did Not Know" (Jewish Lights Publishing). This book focuses on the many interpretations of this single verse. The repetition of the word "I" that Kushner uses in the title is intentional. In the Hebrew if Jacob had simply said 'lo yadati' it would mean, "I didn't know. "The additional use of the word 'anochi' (I) before 'lo yadati' can therefore seem superfluous and be translated as "I, I did not know." However, tradition teaches that no word in the Torah is superfluous and so the Sages try to deduce the meaning of the additional "I."

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Monday, November 17, 2014

Toldot

Genesis 25:19−28:9

Rabbi Steven Pik-Nathan for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

Connecting with the Divine


This week's parashat is Va'yetze includes the well-known story of Jacob's dream. After fleeing from his brother Esau, Jacob finds a place to rest and while sleeping he has a dream. In this dream he sees a ladder reaching from earth to heaven. On this ladder angels are ascending and descending; God is "standing" on the ladder. God promises Jacob that he will indeed become a great nation and that his descendants will be blessed. Upon awakening Jacob proclaims that had he realized the awesomeness of the place he would not have gone to sleep for "God was in this place and I did not know it." He then names the place Bet El, the house of God.

I would imagine that if any of us were to have a similar experience we too would proclaim the awesomeness of the place. We might also have wished we had not gone to sleep. Rabbis and Sages throughout the centuries have commented on this story and on Jacob's reaction to his dream. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner wrote a book a number of years ago entitled "God Was in This Place and I, I Did Not Know" (Jewish Lights Publishing). This book focuses on the many interpretations of this single verse. The repetition of the word "I" that Kushner uses in the title is intentional. In the Hebrew if Jacob had simply said 'lo yadati' it would mean, "I didn't know. "The additional use of the word 'anochi' (I) before 'lo yadati' can therefore seem superfluous and be translated as "I, I did not know." However, tradition teaches that no word in the Torah is superfluous and so the Sages try to deduce the meaning of the additional "I."

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Monday, November 10, 2014

Chayei Sarah

Genesis 23:1−25:18

Rabbi Steven Pik-Nathan for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

The Life of Sarah


This past March I had the wonderful opportunity to co-lead an interfaith Jewish / Roman Catholic tour of Israel sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Southern New Jersey and the Catholic Diocese of Camden. It was a special time in the land of Israel. The Pope was just about to make his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The hope for a true and lasting peace - a hope now dimmed by the present conflict - seemed real. There was a sense of optimism that filled the air.

As our small group of Jews and Christians traveled through Israel, we were immediately confronted by the vast number of sites in that small country that are invested with holiness by one or more of the three faith traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. While some sites, like the graves of saints, martyrs and sages, only attract the spiritual attention of one of the three traditions, there are many sites that claim the affection of all three religions. As Americans on a very special journey of spiritual discovery, it was easy for us to admire and respect our fellow pilgrims' religious concerns. But, we also became aware of the bitter feelings many of these sites can evoke as people in our group recalled the centuries of strife between the various faith traditions - the struggles between the Christian churches, the conflicts between Christianity and Islam and the oppression and exclusion of the Jews by both of those more powerful religious communities.

Although the sacred nature of many of these holy places in Israel derives from Jewish roots, over the centuries our daughter religions were able to assert their claims to the sites over the claims of the numerically and politically weaker Jewish community. Despite this, the Land of Israel and its holy sites continued to play an important role in the religious and spiritual life of our people. Our ancestors never gave up their claim to these sacred locations.

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Monday, November 3, 2014

Vayeira

Genesis 18:1–22:24

Rabbi Steven Pik-Nathan for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

The destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah


This week's parashah is Va'yera. Within its verses we find some of the most familiar, and troubling, stories in the Torah. For Va'yera contains within it the stories of the Akeidah (the binding of Isaac on Mt. Moriah), the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael by Abraham and Sarah, and the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is on this last narrative that I would like to focus my d'var torah for this week.

In our contemporary lexicon the phrase "Sodom and Gomorrah" has become synonymous with extreme depravity and immorality, with a particularly sexual connotation. Within the narrative in Bereshit it would seem that sexual immorality is only part of the evil of Sodom. Contrary to popular usage it is also clear from the reading of the narrative that it is not homosexuality that is the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah (though Jerry Fallwell and others might disagree). The people of Sodom did demand that Lot (Abraham and Sarah's nephew) hand over the strangers in their house (actually messengers of God sent to tell Lot of the impending doom) so that "we may know them," which is clearly a sexual reference in terms of biblical Hebrew. However, what makes them sinful according to our Sages is not sexual desire or lust, but rather their desire to abuse and humiliate other human beings because they are strangers in their midst. The two messengers could just has easily have been women and the people's response would have been the same. The Sages teach us that only the wealthy were welcome as guest in Sodom. The poor were to be expelled or killed.

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Lech L'cha

Genesis 12:1−17:27

Rabbi Lewis Eron for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

Abraham the Warrior


Abraham the warrior! Could there be a more unlikely picture? Hardly. Yet, embedded in this week's Torah portion is a strange and ancient story of our the founder of our faith as a mighty warrior -- a noble desert sheik -- leading his men out to battle to rescue his nephew Lot and free Canaan from foreign overlords. A Jew in armor! This is not the image we have a Jewish hero, particularly when this Jew is the founding figure of our faith.

Our tradition is not a militaristic one. We have no tradition of knighthood. We hold ways of peace to be more precious than feats of valor. Our sages exhort us to be disciple of Aaron, the one who pursued peace, and not followers of Joshua, the conqueror of the Promised Land. Yet, in the middle of Parashat Lech Lecha, the Torah portion that introduces us to Abraham and his story, we meet Abraham the warrior. As unusual and surprising as this encounter maybe, it is very important because it presents through Abraham's deeds and words the groundwork for our people's understanding of the role of warfare and the warrior.

The strange account of Abraham the Warrior reflects the political and military instability prevalent in Canaan during the time of our patriarchs. After many years of domination by a coalition of Mesopotamian monarchs, the kings of the Canaanite city-states rise in revolt. The Mesopotamian invaders overwhelm the Canaanite alliance in battle just south of the Dead Sea and capture the Canaanite leaders including Abraham's nephew Lot, who joined the Canaanite King of Sodom in the fight.
By Julie Levine for Raising Kvell

During the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, or MarCheshvan, [Bitter Cheshvan] there are no Jewish holidays. Jvillage Network, therefore, will be printing articles relating to Jewish Arts.

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