Lech L'cha -- 5775

Once, not far from the Dead Sea, the kings of Shinar, Ellasar, Elam, and Goiim took to the field against the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim.  Thousands of years later, their bodies have disintegrated, everything they ever touched has passed from the earth, their very countries have ceased to exist -- and yet their names remain known to us, inscribed and preserved for all time.  Their names and a single one of their deeds.

Lives are lived in detail.  “Who’s doing pick up tomorrow?”  “What’s for dinner?”  “That report needs to be on my desk by Thursday.”  During the High Holy Days we examine an entire year, and when planning for retirement we consider decades.  Most of the time, however, we make choices reacting to the present moment.  We are rarely afforded a longer-range view. 

What will our lives mean three thousand years from now – or three hundred?  What will be left of our existences?  What will the stresses of getting out the door, the inter-personal animosity we live with mean then?

Genesis 14, in the parsha Lech L’cha, doesn’t only tell about the kings who rebelled and pursued.  It also shares that Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought bread and wine to Abram, blessing him with the words “blessed be Abram by God Most High, Maker of heaven and earth, and blessed is God Most High, who has given your foes into your hands”  (14:19-20).  That’s how Melchizedek is remembered:  as a mensch.

What if, I wonder, some single scrap of our own lives happened to be recorded in a history book?  What if one of the decisions I make today, rushing to be on time, crossing items off my to-do list, interacting with others, were to be the way I’ll be remembered forever?  What if one data point about me came to stand for the whole?

When faced with a dilemma or choice, press ‘pause.’  Imagine that particular moment recorded for posterity, and that your name will be linked forever to the outcome.  Three thousand years from now, you’ll be remembered as the person who ________. 

Now what’s the right thing to do?

Noach -- 5775

 Noah, we are told, was “a righteous man; in his generation he was above reproach” (Genesis 6:9).

How are we to understand this – that Noah was absolutely good, or only that he was relatively good?  Given what we know about the other people of his time, the distinction is substantial.   “In the land of the blind,” the Spanish saying goes, “the one-eyed man is king.”

Noah existed within his time and place, but it seems that he was not truly of it – that is, he lived according to different values than those of his neighbors.  In this way, Noah reminds me of the Jewish experience in the diaspora.  We take part in the national culture and obey its laws, but at the same time we are slightly removed.  We are forever translating from the generic experience to our own. 

I feel this dissonance most profoundly during the “winter holidays,” when I’m constantly reminded that this isn’t my place.  I sure felt it this summer, when the international conversation turned against Israel, while I knew the Jewish state had the right to defend itself and was doing so as morally as possible.

People deal with this cultural dissonance in different ways.  We may remove ourselves from mass culture (as the ultra-Orthodox do), or we may assimilate into it completely.  In between are a range of options, generally referred to as “acculturation.”

What about you?  What balance do you strike between your civic identity and your Jewishness?  Can you share an example of a time you made a choice?