Vayetzeh -- 5776

Jacob, on the run and exhausted, readies himself for sleep. “He took from the stones of the place and he put [them] around his head, and lay down in that place” (Genesis 28:11). Then he passes out. As he sleeps, he dreams famously of the ladder rising to heaven. When he wakes, transformed by the mystical experience, he “takes the stone that he had placed around his head and set it as a pillar” (Genesis 28:18).

How did several stones become one?

I like to imagine that Jacob, rather than remaining supine on the ground, actually ascended the ladder. He saw the world from God’s perspective. From on high, what once appeared distant becomes close. Boundaries dissolve. What appears divided is shown to be whole.

The same is true for people. We allow ourselves to be blinded by differences in race, gender, age, nationality, religion, culture, sexual orientation, gender identity, and politics. But these are illusion. We believe that there’s an ‘us’ and a ‘them,’ when, in fact, we are all One.

Toldot -- 5776

Goats heading to water in East Africa's Afar Triangle.

Isaac has grown up. Once an abused child, he has married and become a dad.  He’s received the promise God made to his own father, that his heirs will be as numerous as the stars of the heavens and that they will inhabit the land (Genesis 26:4).  What’s more, Isaac has become wealthy, the master of a large household and plentiful flocks.

But Isaac cannot stop moving.  When the Philistines, the local tribe, “stopped up all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with earth” (26:15) he moves to the Wadi [“wash”] of Gerar.  He clears out the wells his father had dug, and restores their names.  “But when Isaac’s servants, digging in the wadi, found a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying ‘the water is ours’” (26:18-20).

Isaac moves again, seemingly to avoid conflict, and digs another successful well.  “Now at last YHVH has granted us ample space to increase in the land” (26:22).

Since he’s finally found space with sufficient water and without belligerent local, we expect him to stay put.  But in the verse that follows, we learn that “from there he went up to Beer-sheba” (26:23).  How curious.

Perhaps this is a case of “the grass is [literally] greener” – Isaac finds somewhere even better to settle.  Perhaps he’s an ambitious man, who always yearns for more out of life.  Perhaps he’s an unsettled man, who cannot be content where he is.  Perhaps moving is the only way he knows to live.

I think this is one of life’s great challenges:  knowing when to stay put and knowing when to get going.  Both have their blessings.  Success requires the self-awareness of understanding why we do what we do.  Are we moving towards something or running away from something?  Can we name that thing, or is it a general sense that resides in our bellies?  Are we moving just to move, or staying out of inertia?  Have we imagined – and planned for – the alternatives?

What would you do if you knew you would not fail?

Chayyei Sarah -- 5776

Abraham decides it’s time for his son to marry.   Abraham, “well advanced in years,” sends his servant to his native land, his birthplace, to “get a wife for [his] son Isaac” (Genesis 24:4).  He can’t abide his son marrying a local, nor may his son return to live in their ancestral home.

What a complex suite of ideas.  Abraham exists somewhere between the past and the present.  Only the “Old Country” will do – but as a touchstone, a source for imported information, not as the context for life.

We can understand this as a metaphor for Jewish life in our times.

The native land represents tradition -- the way things used to be, the meanings we used to ascribe.  It’s the power of standing under the chuppah, the bar mitzvah because-my-father-had-one, the taste of pastrami on rye, the blessings of Shabbat.  Whether we grew up with it or embrace it later in life, tradition is our upbringing and our vocabulary, the common culture and universe of meanings we share as a people.  The Old Country – whether it be Russia, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Yemen, Turkey or elsewhere – represents the accumulated wisdom of centuries of lived Jewish experience.  It matters to us, yet it exists in a foreign language that doesn’t fully suit our contemporary existence.   

“That’s the way we’ve always done it” rings hollow.  Our lives have changed too much for that – and generally for the better.  Like Abraham, we can’t live there anymore.  For Judaism to be worth our time, effort and expense, it must be relevant.

But neither can we give it up.  Just as Abraham doesn’t want his son to marry a Canaanite, neither can we fold into mainstream society and ignore the wisdom of Judaism.  Abraham wants his son to access the wisdom, the beauty, and the truth of Tradition.  He knows that Isaac’s life will be richer thereby; these enhance our lives, too.  At our peril do we turn our back on our unique experience.

Tradition for tradition’s sake alone is tepid at best.  When it flavors our lives, it brings depth, color, and meaning.

What Jewish traditions have meaning to you?  How might the meaning you ascribe be different from that of generations past?