Parashat Korach (Numbers 16:1 – 18:32)

Reflections on the Torah Portion – Rabbi Andy Vogel

What was so wrong with Korach’s accusations against Moses, when he said, “All the community is holy, all of them… Why then do you raise yourselves above Adonai’s congregation?” (Numbers 16:3)?  Moses challenges Korach to a test, and the end of the story has Korach, and his followers, Datan, Aviram, On and 250 others, are swallowed up by the earth as a punishment.  But what part of their challenge was illegitimate?

Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer (19th century Germany) taught about Korach, Datan and Aviram that “each of them was in this battle only for himself.”  He noticed that the portion’s first verb “took” appears in the singular, although it should have appeared in the plural referring to Korach, Datan and Aviram, and Rabbi Kalischer saw this verb as evidence that the motive for the rebels’ claims against Moses was also in the singular.  In his interpretation, the rebels fabricated their leadership challenge against Moses so that they could each gain personally.  Rabbi Kalischer’s close reading teaches us a spiritual message about conflict, leadership and the self.  Real leadership involves setting one’s personal agenda aside, conquering one’s ego, and working to benefit the entire community.

            - Rabbi Andy Vogel

D’var Torah – Annual Meeting of Temple Sinai

Rabbi Andy Vogel
June 6, 2007
Parashat Sh’lach-Lecha

I want to use the moment of the Annual meeting for a bit of reflection on the purpose of our synagogue, and how our spiritual tradition can guide us. 

I think it is no accident that the most pervasive metaphor found in the Torah regarding the life experiences of the Jewish people is that of “journey,” and not just any journey but a journey of transformation; the experience traveling that changes the traveler by virtue of his or her traveling.  The first message spoken to our ancestor Abraham, the first Jew, by God is that Abraham should leave his homeland for a place “which I will show you,” and the first words in that directive are “lech l’cha,” roughly translated “go ye,” or more colloquially, “get going, get lost, get outta here.”  Our formative experience as Jews is our exit from Egypt, leaving behind Pharaoh, entering the world of the desert, in which we traveled for forty years.  And the very word for the ancient Hebrews, Ivrim, comes from the word la’avor, to cross over, to pass through, to transform or be transformed.

In some sense, I think we could regard the Torah in the category, the genre of “travel lit,” in which the protagonists are fundamentally changed by their experiences, in the tradition of “The Adventures of Huck Finn,” or the long strange trip in “Alice in Wonderland,” maybe a bit like the recent film “Little Miss Sunshine,” or perhaps the Torah is just a holy rendition of the beatnik Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.”   In fact, one of my teachers, Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, has written that the very books of the Torah represent the arc of one human life, the developmental stages of our lives.  Genesis, he writes in his book The Journey Home, is our early childhood; Exodus is representative of our adolescence and then adulthood and marriage/partnership (as at Sinai), finally with Deuteronomy as our old age and time of reflection. 

Taken in this light, we are all, each of us, on a personal journey, toward some destination “which God will show us”; each of us on a passage that is spiritual, emotional, intellectual in nature, and which transforms us – as Ivri’im.  And one of the roles of the Jewish religion is to allow us to understand of that journey, to help us see the path that we are on, to mark it and map it, in all its high places and low valleys, as we travel along.  One of the readings most requested by families when I perform a funeral is the one that begins, “Birth is a beginning, and death a destination, And life is a journey…”  As a rabbi, I think one of the most meaningful ways we can connect with our Torah is when we can see it as a metaphor for our lives.  Each of us has a Promised Land, Each of us has a personal Exodus from the Egypt we must leave behind.   Each of us has a Golden Calf; and, each of us has that substance called Manna, which sustains us and nourishes us in the desert.  We are each on a journey, and, I would argue, each of us has a personal relationship with the Eternal, the Source of the Universe, God, Adonai, Hashem, or whatever you want to call it.

And yet, Jews also always travel in groups, in community.  That is how all of this is relevant to tonight’s Annual Meeting of the Congregation, of Temple Sinai.  “We are all travelers on the same road.”  During our journey, as the Torah describes it, there is a census, and each person in the community is counted and registered.  So, too, it is with us:  In our congregation, we value each member of the community who travels with us.  Moreover, as we travel together the leaders of the community are acknowledged for their leadership by name, and tonight we, too, acknowledge and name our leaders for their service and dedication to our community, their devotion to leading us on our path over the past year, those who have been guiding us in our acts of Torah, Avodah, and G’milut Chasadim – learning, heart-felt connection to God, and acts of love and kindness. 

Most of all, of course, we can thank our president, Moses, Jeremy Wolfe, for his remarkable four years of service as president.  But if you look around the room, you see the people, the anshei shem, as the Torah calls them, “people of good-standing,” who have led our community on our journey. 

And this week’s Torah portion, Shlach L’cha, tells how Moses sent spies into the Promised Land to glimpse the future of the Jewish people.  They look, tour the land, and deliver a report back to Moses and the people.  Initially, they say:  “The land is good – it flows with milk and honey, and here is its fruit” – and they show a preview of the huge clusters of grapes they people will partake of when they get to the land.  At this point, the people can begin to start to think about imagining what life will be like in the future.  

As a community, I think it is also our job to imagine:  If the spies were to bring back a report of what our synagogue community could be like, what would it be for us?  What is our destination as a community?  Where are we headed on our journey?   What are the holy ways of living in our future?  What will it look like, feel like, when we get there?  We have just begun to glimpse into the future and glimpse the vision of what our community could be like in the Promised Land.  Having the vision of it – and holding on to that vision, not turning away from it, as we learn from this week’s Torah portion – is perhaps the greatest challenge.  And maybe, as with Moses, we’ll spend our whole lives marching toward it, yearning for it, striving towards it, but never quite reaching it, because…. because reaching your dream, actually reaching it, might mean that you’ve stopped dreaming. 

I know that in the months ahead, in the year ahead, we will be considering these questions, as we move forward on our journey together.  And so, on a personal note:  It has been my privilege to serve as your rabbi on this journey that we are on as a community, during this last year – on the fiscal calendar – and … I regard it as a tremendous honor to serve you.  The role of rabbi is a remarkable one, and there is not one single day that passes where I do not thank God for the privilege of sharing in our community’s journey together. 

Sinai Update – Week of June 3 – June 9, 2007

Parashat B’ha’alotecha (Numbers 8:1-12:16)

Reflections on the Torah Portion – Rabbi Andy Vogel

Too often, we are overwhelmed by formidable obstacles that obscure our vision.  When the spies of this week’s Torah portion, who are sent on a reconnaissance mission to in the land of Canaan, see the giants there, the enormity of the task of entering the Land of Israel grips them, and they lose sight of the potential of the Promised Land.   They even admit, “We were as grasshoppers in our own minds, and so we were in their minds, too!” (Numbers 13:33).  Their inability to appreciate their own capacity defeats them, taking away their courage and nearly robbing them of their power, too.  For this they must wander forty years in the desert.

I can identify with their feelings.  There are so many giant tasks we face that overwhelm us:  meeting the very serious and real challenges of global warming, debilitating poverty, a disastrous war in Iraq, our broken health care systems, not to mention an on-going genocide by which the world seems unaffected.  And yet, the experience of the spies in this week’s Torah portion reminds us to defy being overwhelmed, and continue ahead with our work.  The Jewish people’s responsibility always remains to repair our broken world, to have clear vision for a better world, and to have hope.

            - Rabbi Andy Vogel

Sinai Update – Week of May 27 – June 2, 2007

Parashat B’ha’alotecha (Numbers 8:1-12:16)

Reflections on the Torah Portion – Rabbi Andy Vogel

Well before self-help books appeared in bookstores, Jewish tradition identified humility as an important personal characteristic.  Humility is highlighted in this week’s Torah portion as a Jewish value; God calls Moses “very humble; more than any person on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3), even though he spoke to God “face to face,” as Deuteronomy reports, and “beheld the face of Adonai” (Num. 12:8).  In this week’s portion, Moses is described as humble because his desire for shalom bayit, family harmony, was greater than any impulse to retaliate in anger against those who levied accusations against him (see Numbers 12).  And, in a Midrash on last week’s Torah portion, Aaron, Moses’ brother, is also identified as humble, along with his sister Miriam.

Of what value is humility?  The medieval teacher Bahya ibn Pakuda (11th century Spain) taught that when we remember our humble origins, we come closer to purifying our souls and coming closer to God.  Cultivating a sense of appreciation for our gifts, honoring others, and remembering how fleeting our time is on earth are all worthwhile spiritual challenges embodied in the personal characteristic of humility.  It leads us toward a path of holy living.

            - Rabbi Andy Vogel