| November 2008
Sinai Update – Week of October 26-November 1, 2008
In 1997, while returning with his congregation from a trip to Germany, Rabbi Peter Rubinstein of Manhattan’s Central Synagogue watched an in-flight movie, “Evan Almighty,” a modern day rendition of Noah story. To quote Rabbi Rubinstein, “Noah’s epic is about…. annihilation…about loss and rebirth. It is about beginnings and starting again. It is about the sadness of the flood and joy for the incredible future of humanity.” Rabbi Rubinstein continues, “When Noah and his family and all the animals disembarked onto dry land, God made a promise in the sign of the rainbow: that no matter how hard it may rain, the rain eventually will stop, and the sun will come out again. That is the story of Noah. It is the story of Jews in Germany. And it is our story, each of us as individuals and all of us as a people. The Jews of Germany reclaim Jewish life as Jews have reclaimed life with remarkable resilience… Out of the sadness and loss that brutalized Jewish life has arisen a commitment to life and rebirth, and joy. We cannot forget and scars remain but we turn our eyes to a future filled with celebration and growth and yes, indeed, magnificence.”
As I read Rabbi Rubinstein’s words, I travelled back in my mind to Israel, and to my now two visits to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial museum. I think back to the emotional Mitzrayim (the very narrow place) of the Holocaust and the physical sense of being closed in as I slowly passed through the purposely so designed museum. I particularly remember the snapshot of a beautiful 6-year-old Jewish girl sitting alone on a train seat, hollow-eyed stare, clutching her beloved doll. She knew what was to come. I remember feeling the horror and increasing pinch of unbearable sadness, the creeping sense of terror, and entrapment. I moved slower and slower as if through mud, and then, no longer able to withstand the pain, I was rushed out of the building by a beloved teacher, Paul Liptz, who kept saying, “It will be fine—soon you’ll see Jerusalem, and you’ll be fine,” as he pulled me through the tightly packed and narrowing hallway. I remember the deep breath of release and relief as I left that dark tube of horror and came out the other end of Yad Vashem to a beautiful overview of Yerushalyim. My Yerushalyim, our Yerushalyim. I gasped and sobbed, saying to my teacher, “We can’t let anyone take this [Israel] away from us ever again. It’s ours; they can’t do this to us again.” When I read Rabbi Rubinstein’s sermon, I realized that “no matter how great the challenge, how profound the loss, how stormy the day, we gaze skyward, we lift ourselves up and embrace the blessings of the present and the promise of the future.” The State of Israel is our blessing, our hope, and our promise of the future, much like the story of Noah itself.
- Janet Richmond, member of Temple Sinai. This is another in a series of Divrei Torah and Jewish reflections to be offered periodically by members of Temple Sinai in our weekly Sinai Update e-mail.
Sinai Update – Week of November 2-8, 2008
The Abraham cycle begins this week decisively with a command from God to leave the past behind and go to an unnamed land. “Lech-Lecha” – the first two words in the parashah – is the third weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. God told Abram to leave his native land and his father’s house for a land that God would show him, promising to make of him a great nation, bless him and make his name great.
The legendary founders of monotheism and the Jewish people, Abraham and his wife Sarah, leave their home, their familiar surroundings, and head off into the great wilderness. Abraham and Sarah follow a call from an unknown God, a new spirit of unity and hope that would become the foundation of our existence. The calling of a lifetime begins in this parashah.
Today we live in a world dominated by the drive to achieve, gain, perhaps conquer, but do we take time to seek a connection with ourselves or what is transpiring within our own hearts or souls. The Mei HaShiloach, a masterful Chasidic commentator, understood the call of the words Lech Lecha as, “finding your authentic self to learn who you are meant to be. Shabbat is a time to look within.” Shabbat is meant to be this time and can be the personal journey of Lech Lecha, going inside ourselves to answer the questions of substance “Am I satisfied with my life? Am I living fully and with personal awareness.” May we be inspired by Abraham and Sarah, people of courage and inner wisdom, people who were able to hear the call of a new life, a challenge to the status quo of their day. We have the chance each week on Shabbat to take the journey of Abraham and Sarah, listen for the call of God and then find ways to answer that call. May we go forth – Lech Lecha – on our own journey to find peace, compassion and wisdom.
- Enid Shapiro
Sinai Update – Week of November 9-15, 2008
The initial phrase of this week’s portion, Vayera, can be understood to mean that God made God’s self seen to Abraham. I find this portion remarkable for its many references to encounters between humans and the Divine - fourteen explicit descriptions of such encounters, either direct or through the mediation of angels. There are seven encounters between God and Abraham, including the conversation in which Abraham humbly but persistently challenges God’s plans for Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham’s obedient responses to God’s words in the Akeidah. God speaks only once to Sarah, but at a critical moment of transition. Although the text starts by saying that God appeared to Abraham, it goes on to describe Abraham’s hospitality to three “men,” who tell Abraham that Sarah is to bear his child. It is only when Sarah laughs that God speaks directly to Abraham, restating the promise in the face of Sarah’s laugher. Sarah, frightened, denies that she laughed and God, speaking directly then to her, says, “No, you did laugh.” God speaks through an angel to Hagar, reassuring her that God will make her child a great nation. God speaks once to Abimelech, in a dream. There are four explicit descriptions of interaction between Lot and the angels whom Abraham had earlier hosted.
In Genesis 18:17-19, God’s conversation with unnamed interlocutors (apparently, the heavenly hosts with whom God also consulted about creation, earlier in Genesis) gives us some perspective on God’s choice to engage so frequently with Abraham. In deciding to tell Abraham of God’s plans for Sodom and Gomorrah, God cites the covenant: God will make Abraham’s descendants a great and populous nation by whom all the nations will bless themselves, in return for Abraham’s teaching his descendants to “keep the way of the LORD by doing what is just and right.” The reader has just read of Abraham’s generous hospitality to the three wayfarers, a deed made more remarkable by the fact that Abraham was presumably still recovering from his act of obedience to God through the covenant ritual of circumcision. The text invites a reader searching for the Presence of the Divine to attend to doing what is “just and right” in order to experience God’s Presence.
This is another in a series of Divrei Torah and Jewish reflections to be offered periodically by members of Temple Sinai in our weekly Sinai Update e-mail.
Sinai Update – Week of November 16-22, 2008
This Torah portion is obsessed with the future and the past. After the trauma of the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22) and then the sorrow of his wife Sarah’s death (Genesis 23), Abraham sends his servant Eliezer forward to find a wife for Isaac (Genesis 24). Abraham is acutely aware that the future of the Jewish people is at stake, and he makes it clear to Eliezer that his assignment is important to secure that future. Seen in this light, the note by the medieval commentator, Rashi (11th century), about Laban’s conversation with Eliezer, is of great interest. Eliezer has arrived at his master’s relative’s house, and he is told by Laban, “Come in… for I have cleared the house” (Genesis 24:31), and Rashi’s interpretation is that Laban meant, “I have cleared the house of idols.” In this reading, Laban is signaling his willingness to put his idolatrous and erroneous past behind him, and to move forward to a new future, one which includes the promise of the marriage of his daughter, Rebecca, to Isaac. Rabbi Kerry Olitzky writes in his book, Renewal Each Day (p. 36), that an ability to move ahead in life, despite the disappointments or failures of our past, is a great challenge to us. In order to live a life of holiness, we must identify that which puts us on the wrong path, clear it out, and then usher in the promise of a brighter future. |
