Parashat Toldot, Genesis 25:19-28:9

In loving memory of Joel Michael Swirsky, by his loving family.

Despite all he has been through, Isaac is a hopeful, spiritual individual.

Film buffs will tell you that 1939 was a fabulous year for movies. Among the classics produced in that year were Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. Another memorable film from that same year was one of my mother's favorites, The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton. One of the most powerful scenes in the film contains a line I do not believe is in the book, but which my mother always quoted. When Quasimodo is tied to a wheel and lashed, to the delight of the mob, he suffers silently until Esmeralda takes pity on him and gives him a drink. After he is released from this torture, Quasimodo utters the powerful line: "She gave me water." This small gesture from Esmeralda has a powerful and lasting impact: She recognizes the hunchback's humanity.

North American tourists traipsing through Europe at times feel as though they too are subject to ridicule and abuse, and water often plays a role in this. How many of us have experienced the culture shock that occurs when asking for a glass of water in a restaurant on the continent? If you insist on a glass of actual tap water, the serving staff has a fit and might even refuse to serve you such a dangerous concoction. If you acquiesce to ordering a bottle of water, you are overwhelmed with the selection of waters: Artesian spring, well or glacier? Natural or carbonated? What mixture of minerals?

This is nothing compared to the challenges Isaac faces this week in his quest for water:

Isaac dug anew the wells which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham's death; and he gave them the same names that his father had given them. But when Isaac's servants, digging in the wadi, found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, "The water is ours." He named that well Esek, because they contended with him. And when they dug another well, they disputed over that one also; so he named it Sitnah. He moved from there and dug yet another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he called it Rehoboth, saying, "Now at last the Lord has granted us ample space to increase in the land."

Genesis 26:18-22

In the little we find out about Isaac in the Torah, we are given detailed information about his pursuit of water. This is certainly understandable given the geography and climate in which he lives. But we have encountered water related issues elsewhere in the Torah and know that it has a symbolic significance as well.
As discussed previously in greater detail, water is a sign of spirituality. We encounter this with Hagar's loss of hope, shedding tears as she sees her son's life ebbing away because of thirst. We will come across it again at the joy of crossing the Sea of Reeds and at the panic that ensues after Miriam dies and the people are left without water.

Beyond general spirituality, Rabbinic Judaism in a number of midrashim compares water to Torah:

As waters reach from one end of the world to the other, so Torah reaches from one end of the world to the other. As waters give life to the world, so Torah gives life to the world. As waters are given without cost to the world, so is Torah given without cost to the world. As waters are given from heaven, so is Torah given from heaven. As waters are given to the accompaniment of powerful thunderings, so was Torah given to the accompaniment of powerful thunderings. As waters restore a man’s spirit, so Torah restores a man’s spirit. As waters cleanse a man from uncleanness, so Torah cleanses an unclean person from his uncleanness. As waters come down in myriads of drops and become a multitude of brooks, so are words of Torah… As waters leave a high place and flow to a low place, so Torah leaves him whose opinion of himself is high and cleaves to him whose spirit is lowly.

Hayim Nahman Bialik and Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky (eds.) 

The Book of Legends, 404-5:22, translation William Braude

That Isaac spends so much time and effort digging for water, a symbol of spirituality, reveals much about his character. Despite all he has been through, he is a hopeful, spiritual individual. He opens wells that have been filled and he digs for new sources of water. The Talmud (Berachot 26b) informs us of his spirituality through the tradition that Isaac is responsible for the Mincha (afternoon) service. Through his focus on wells of water we can add another aspect to his spiritual endeavors. As Yalkut Shimoni (Shir 537) teaches: the Torah is a well of living waters.

Isaac is unique among the patriarchs. He is the only patriarch who remains in the land promised by God to Abraham. He is also the only patriarch not to have his name changed. Name changes take place in the Torah after a close encounter with the Divine. Surely, Isaac bound on the altar had an unimaginably intimate encounter with God, yet his name remains the same! Perhaps there is something spiritually different about Isaac, foretelling a different way of relating to God.

Isaac is sensitive to the holiness of normality. It is with Isaac that we first come across the word "love" in relation to another person: …he took Rebekah as his wife. Isaac loved her… (Genesis 24:67) He pleads with God on her behalf. (Genesis 25:21)  It is Isaac who flirts and frolics with his wife. (Genesis 26:8) He is the one who enjoys a good meal and asks his son to make him his favourite dish. Despite, or perhaps because of his traumatic experience, he appreciates that daily routine is extraordinarily special. He can appreciate the transformative affect of giving someone a sip of water.

Isaac teaches us one more lesson about spirituality, a way of communicating with God that was bestowed upon him when he was named. Elie Wiesel muses about this patriarch's mundane but amusing name:

Why is the most tragic of our ancestors named Isaac, a name which evokes and signifies laughter? Here is why. As the first survivor, he had to teach us, the future survivors of Jewish history, that it is possible to suffer and despair an entire lifetime and still not give up the art of laughter.
Isaac, of course, never freed himself from the traumatizing scenes that violated his youth; the holocaust had marked him and continued to haunt him forever. Yet he remained capable of laughter. And in spite of everything, he did laugh.

Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits & Legends, p. 97

From Isaac we learn that laughter is also prayer.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Michal Shekel

Parashat Chayei Sarah, Genesis 23:1-25:18

Any mundane action harbors the seeds of a spiritual encounter.

Dozens of books have been written about negotiating, whether it be for the purchase of a car or real estate, for a better grade or a raise. While the Torah is not a how-to book of negotiating, in the beginning of parashat Chayei Sarah we find an example of skilled negotiation. Abraham's purchase of a burial place for his wife Sarah is told in great detail:

Then Abraham rose from beside his dead, and spoke to the Hittites, saying, "I am a resident alien among you; sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead for burial." And the Hittites replied to Abraham, saying to him, "Hear us, my lord: you are the elect of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places; none of us will withhold his burial place from you for burying your dead." Thereupon Abraham bowed low to the people of the land, the Hittites, and he said to them, "If it is your wish that I remove my dead for burial, you must agree to intercede for me with Ephron son of Zohar. Let him sell me the cave of Machpelah that he owns, which is at the edge of his land. Let him sell it to me, at the full price, for a burial site in your midst."

Genesis 23:3-9

What is important is the manner in which Abraham acquires this burial plot. He enters into negotiations with the Hittites who ruled the area.  Abraham begins by describing his position: "I am a resident alien (ger ve-toshav) among you; sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead for burial." (Genesis 23:4) Rashi explains the use of ger ve-toshav as meaning that Abraham is negotiating as a stranger who has no claim to the land. However, if he is not given the land, he will take as a resident would , since this land is promised to Abraham and his descendents as part of God's covenant with him.

As the negotiations proceed, our commentators continue to provide play-by-play analysis.
According to Ha’amek Davar, Ephron's generous offer of gifting the cave and the land to Abraham (Genesis 23:10-11) was a show for the people, and Abraham understood this as he continued his part of the negotiations offering to buy the land rather than the cave. Ramban suggests that Abraham was offered both the cave and the field because it would not be acceptable for a person to own one and not the other. Other commentators view Abraham's language as a display of humility combined with a high level of etiquette.

What Abraham displays in this interplay with Ephron the Hittite goes beyond negotiating rituals and the display of etiquette. Abraham is entering into dialogue. As Martin Buber teaches us, each encounter is an opportunity to get to know another being. "All real life is meeting." (Martin Buber, I and Thou, p. 11)

Buber believes that dialogue alone is of value irrespective of anything that is achieved:

Genuine conversation, and therefore every actual fulfillment of relation between men, means acceptance of otherness. When two men inform one another of their basically different views about an object, each aiming to convince the other of the rightness of his own way of looking at the matter, everything depends so far as human life is concerned on whether each thinks of the other as the one he is, whether each, that is, with all his desire to influence the other, nevertheless unreservedly accepts and confirms him in his being this man and in his being made in this particular way.

Martin Buber, "Distance and Relation", The Knowledge of Man, p. 69

Of course, this is not always the case. If one of the partners is attempting to manipulate the other, as commentators suggest that Ephron is doing, the result is not dialogue but propaganda:

Opposed to this effort is the lust to make use of men by which the manipulator of 'propaganda' and 'suggestion' is possessed, in his relation to men remaining as in a relation to things, to things, moreover, with which he will never enter into relation… 

Martin Buber, "Distance and Relation", The Knowledge of Man, p. 69

Within our tradition, the Akedah, which comes at the end of last week's parasha, is viewed as the last and most difficult of the ten tests of Abraham. In certain regards, the purchase of the Cave of Machpelah is a more difficult test. In fact, the Book of Jubilees claims it is the tenth test.

Why should this be so? For one thing, there is a tradition that says that Abraham failed the test of the Akedah. He misheard or misunderstood what was intended of him. However, if you look at the purchase of the Cave of Machpelah, Abraham did everything right. The details of the negotiations show this. He listened, he responded, he succeeded and was blessed.

The Akedah was an encounter with God, which, though often viewed as successful, failed on a number of levels. Somewhere along the way, the beloved son Isaac becomes the intended sacrifice, no longer a person but an object. It is therefore not surprising that after the Akedah God does not speak to Abraham again. Even less surprising is the fact that no more words are exchanged between Abraham and Isaac and certainly not between Abraham and Sarah, Hagar or Ishmael.

The next time we hear from Abraham is when he hopes to buy some property, the burial ground that is the Cave of Machpelah. The purchase of this cave provides him with a permanence that he otherwise lacks in life. More significantly, the negotiations provide Abraham the opportunity to experience a relationship.

Only after completing this transaction, experiencing this encounter, does Abraham's life take a dramatic shift. What happens next: Healing and relationship. He sends his servant Eliezer to find a wife for his beloved but estranged son, Isaac.

What can we take away from Abraham's experience? In all our encounters, be they personal, professional, or incidental, we must never forget that we are dealing with another human being. When we engage that other individual, the exchange becomes a dialogue. Without this engagement, we are guilty of manipulation; but when we are aware of the other, even mundane interactions become spiritual encounters. Think of it: Any mundane action harbors the seeds of a spiritual encounter. This holds true whether you are a patriarch purchasing a burial site, or a harried commuter buying a cup of coffee.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Michal Shekel

Parashat Vayera, Genesis 18:1-22:24

This Parasha has been generously sponsored by Joi Guttman in loving memory of Stephen Istvan Guttman, Yahrzeit Cheshvan 15.

The simple mundane items in life become priceless treasures when we no longer have them.

What an incredible parasha we read this week! Vayera contains more action than most film trailers. There is the announcement and birth of Isaac, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Ishmael is sent away and almost dies, and Isaac is bound and almost sacrificed. One event is more dramatic than the next.

Yet the portion begins so simply and innocently. God appears to Abraham as he was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot. (Genesis 18:1) Why this detail of ke-khom hayom, in the heat of the day? Years ago, my colleague, Rabbi Loraine Heller, presented a beautiful drasha on appreciating this seemingly insignificant bit of information. It is such a small detail, yet it becomes hauntingly significant knowing everything else that will occur.

Certain events at this time of year always make me appreciate small details. On November 11th we observed Remembrance Day. You may not have heard of John Babcock, but he is the last surviving Canadian veteran of World War I. Mr. Babcock joined up at the age of 15. He celebrated his 108th birthday this past July. He was fortunate enough never to make it to the front lines. Many others did and wrote of their experiences.

Alfred Anderson who died close to three years ago at the age of 105 was present on the Western Front during the famous "Christmas Truce" of 1914.

 "I remember the silence, the eerie sound of silence…All I'd heard for two months in the trenches was the hissing, cracking and whining of bullets in flight, machine-gun fire and distant German voices,"

Last Survivor of 'Christmas Truce' Tells of his Sorrow, Lorna Martin, 

The Observer, December 19, 2004 Guardian.co.uk

This silence was the World War I equivalent of ke-khom hayom, the heat of the day. It was something so mundane that in normal circumstances you would not be aware of it.

I am reminded as well of a book called Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain, which I read as an adolescent. This memoir described the childhood and early adulthood of this leading English pacifist. What made a lasting impression on me was the transformation from Victorian to Edwardian England as seen through the individual's realization of the reality of war and the post-war environment.

At first, taken in by her England's heroic view of war and battle, Vera encouraged her younger brother Edward to enlist. Her fiancé did so as well. In an instant, these two young men, along with so many other youths of their generation went from ke-khom hayom, an awareness of the soothing heat of the day, to the terror faced by Isaac at the akedah (binding). Nothing was ever the same again.

Only three weeks into the war Vera Brittain could sense the change between ke-khom hayom and what followed:

It was one of those shimmering autumn days when every leaf and flower seems to scintillate with light and I found it "very hard to believe that not far away men were being slain ruthlessly.... The destruction of men, as though beasts, whether they be English, French, German or anything else, seems a crime to the whole march of civilisation."

Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth, p. 97

The importance of ke-khom hayom, the simple mundane items in life that become priceless treasures when we no longer have them, was best expressed by those who were there:

… in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly...
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow…

These words were placed in mouths of those who lie In Flanders Field by the poet John McCrae.

Others had their own memories:

Often a skylark sang sweetly when I went to tether the cows on their scanty pasture amongst the shell holes. Apparently the birds were unaffected by the firing. At times a kestrel hawk could be seen hovering over the desolate wastes that had once been fields. Then there was a thrush that called from the shattered branch of a roadside tree. Men might die, cities, towns, and villages might fall in ruin, but still the birds sang on!

T.S. Williams, Memories and Diaries: The Carnoy Cows, www.firstworldwar.com

This week marks ninety years since the end of the war to end all wars. While the poppies may still be blowing in Flanders Field, in Canada and across the world the flowers of that generation are withering. The few remaining veterans are older than Abraham was in parashat Vayera. We would hardly acknowledge them if we were to see them on the street. We certainly would not look twice at these gentlemen were they sitting at the entrance to a nursing home in the heat of the day.

How sad, for they have much to teach us about ke-khom ha-yom, appreciation for the mundane, that we fortunate recipients of their youthful sacrifice cannot comprehend. In addition to their appreciation for the mundane, many of these veterans had an encounter with the sacred as well. Some of these experiences were positive and others were traumatic. There is an old cliché that there are no atheists in a foxhole. Perhaps there were none in the World War I trenches either, though we know full well that the trauma of battle destroyed the faith of many on their return.

This brings us to an interesting verse in Vayera, one that is easy to ignore because it appears to be as minor a detail as ke-khom hayom:  Abraham and Sarah are sojourning in Gerar where Avimelech, the king, takes Sarah, assuming that she is Abraham's sister. He finds out the truth in a dream.
But God came to Avimelech in a dream by night and said to him, "You are to die because of the woman that you have taken, for she is a married woman." (Genesis 20:3)

Commenting on the Avimelech's dream, Rabbi David Kimchi explains that God reaches us in two ways, one being through dreams (halomot), the other being through tribulations or chastisements (yissurim). As my colleague Rabbi Dow Marmur once put it, "God strokes or God strikes."  While I disagree with the perspective that God is actively "putting us through our paces,"  I do see both positive and negative situations as way we can reach God.

We all understand the "stroking;" indeed, chances are that we all desire the "stroking."  This is the derech noam, the pleasant way to God. We are also aware that life is not like that. Sometimes innocence fades overnight, as Vera Brittain discovered, and young men lie buried in Flanders Field.

Sometimes all is going well and accident, illness, or tragedy strikes, leaving the individual in intense pain and alone. Yet, this too is an opening for a divine encounter, as Abraham discovered sitting in front of his tent in the heat of the day, three days after undergoing circumcision.

Oftentimes things will get worse before they get better. Sarah will be threatened by Avimelech. Ishmael will nearly die. Isaac will be bound for sacrifice during the akedah. These events will bring pain and trauma far worse than Abraham can imagine in the heat of that day.

Harder still to comprehend is God’s presence at such times. Abraham’s suffering will raise his awareness, sensitivity, and desire to reach out to God. Too many Jews mistakenly think that the positive evaluation of suffering is solely a Christian concept. Certainly none of us desire to experience God through suffering. But in difficult times, and we all encounter such occasions, Vayera teaches us that God is there. The psalmist affirms this as well in writing
In distress I called out to Adonai
Adonai answered me by setting me free. (Psalms 118:5)
This is not a physical freedom but a spiritual encounter. As the psalmist concludes:
Adonai is at my side, I am not afraid. (Psalms 118:6)

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Michal Shekel

Parashat Lech Lecha, Genesis 12:1-17:27

Lech lecha is a gamble.

Whenever I think of Abraham I think of vessels, as in containers, not ships. A midrash (Genesis Rabbah 38:13) everyone learns in religious school recounts how the young Abram smashed the clay idols in his father's shop. When asked to account for the smashed idols, he laid blame on one of the idols. His father countered that a clay idol could not do such a thing. Whereupon the youngster asked his father why one would then pray to a piece of clay. Another midrash seeks to explain why Abraham is asked to bind his son (in next week's parasha: Vayera). According to this story, Abraham himself is a clay vessel, the pottery lovingly created by the Divine potter. A potter does not test a flawed vessel, since he knows it would break. Only a vessel capable of standing stress is tested. Yet another midrash, in explaining the command to Abram to leave his home, compares the patriarch to a bottle of the finest perfume:

Said Rabbi Berekiah: What did Abraham resemble? A phial of myrrh closed with a tight- fitting lid and lying in a corner, so that its fragrance was not disseminated; as soon as it was taken up, however, its fragrance was disseminated. Similarly, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Abraham: ‘Travel from place to place, and thy name will become great in the world’

Genesis Rabbah 39:2, Soncino translation

I've been thinking quite a bit about pottery recently. Well, not only pottery, but also dishes and glasses, and all other things fragile. Some of these we break on purpose, such as breaking a dish for tenaim, the Jewish engagement ceremony, or breaking a glass at the end of a wedding. Some vessels, tradition teaches, break because they cannot contain what is put into them. This is the basis of the mystical concept of shevirat ha-kelim, the breaking of the vessels, which is found in Lurianic Kabbalah:

Before the world was created, God occupied every inch of the universe. In order to make room for a world, God needed to contract, a process Luria called tzimtzum. After this contraction, God directed divine light into vessels, but the vessels couldn’t contain the light, and they broke, letting evil and imperfection into the world. The purpose of human history is tikkun, fixing the broken vessels. This is achieved by fulfilling the commandments of the Torah.

Overview: Kabbalah and Hassidism, myjewishlearning.com

 

Perhaps the symbolism of such fragile items is on my mind because this coming Sunday is the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass" that marked a major escalation in Nazi persecution of German Jews. The lucky ones managed to leave. We know what happened to the rest.

According to the calendar I checked, Kristallnacht began on a Wednesday night, precariously perched between Lech lecha and Vayera. It will forever cast a shadow on the meaning of leaving your birthplace and offering your child.

In the Torah, lech lecha (go forth) is a gamble. Yes, it is a command from God, but where has this God been? After the story of Noah and the Tower of Babel there is Divine silence for ten generations, which continues into Abram’s lifetime; he is seventy-five years old when he is told lech lecha.

Lech lecha is a gamble because of what Abram gives up. Last year we touched upon the civilization of Abram's origin. Lech lecha me-artzecha, the text reads Go forth from your native land (Genesis 12:1) emphasizing what Abram is leaving behind.

Did the words lech lecha me-artzecha (go forth from your native land) echo in the ears of those fortunate enough to escape after Kristallnacht? Did they feel that God was guiding them as he guided Abram? Or was there only the same Divine silence that reverberated for ten generations from Noah and the Tower of Babel until God spoke to Abram?

Lech lecha in the Torah encompasses promise and fear beyond the imagination. Abram's journey is one of difficulty. Abram is promised a blessing that seems beyond his reach. He gains material wealth but faces mortal danger in his encounter with Pharaoh (Genesis 12:10-20). His kinsman Lot is kidnapped and he must fight to free him (Genesis 14:10-17). God promises Abram land and offspring but also tells him that his descendants will be enslaved for hundreds of years, the latter revealed to him in a covenantal ceremony where there appeared a smoking oven, and a flaming torch. (Genesis 15:17)

Lech lecha is the beginning of the Jewish people. It is a promise. It is potential. It is also peril. How lucky we are! While we have little difficulty in understanding promise and potential, many of us cannot comprehend the notion of a perilous journey. Abram, our ancestor, understood threats and experienced danger. So did our relatives seven decades ago.

Among them were some individuals who experienced their own lech lecha, a going forth with great potential and the gravest danger. The young Hannah Senesh moved from the European inferno to the Promised Land. Then she went back again hoping to help others make the same journey:

A voice called.
I went.
I went for it called.
I went lest I fall.
At the crossroads,
I blocked both ears with white frost
and cried for what I had lost.

Hannah Senesh, translation Ziva Shapiro

Parashat Lech lecha was the reading heard in German synagogues the Shabbat before these buildings were destroyed on Kristallnacht. Seventy years later we are grateful for those who escaped. But we also cry for whom and what we've lost.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Michal Shekel