The Transcendent Hum - Reflections on Parashat Toldot 5776

(Genesis 25:19-28:9)

This week's parasha opens with a famous riddle.

"And these are the generations of Isaac the son of Abraham; Abraham fathered Isaac."

Skreech, skid to stop. Back up a little. What?

When the verse opens with, "And these are the generation of Isaac" we expect to hear all about the descendants of Isaac, not his forbears. It's like saying, "let me show you some pictures of my kids" and then pulling out faded pictures of your grandpappy. What gives?

Rashi comes to our rescue, as usual. He fills in the blanks and explains the correct way to read the verse:

"And these are the generations of Isaac, son of Abraham [whom we'll get to in a minute in great detail, but for all you naysayers out there who doubt that Abraham and Sarah had a miracle baby in their dotage, I'm here to tell ya that] Abraham fathered Isaac."

But let's torque down on the unique structure of this verse, because it's not at all random:

"And these are the generations of Isaac the son of Abraham; Abraham fathered Isaac."

Isaac son of Abraham Abraham fathered Isaac.

Isaac Abraham Abraham Isaac Isaac Abraham Abraham Isaac Isaac Abraham Abraham Isaac 

The architecture of the verse creates a sine wave:

And a sine wave that repeats continuously creates the infinity symbol:

This makes perfect sense: as my distinguished mentor, daily study partner and dear friend Rabbi Mordechai Eskovitz points out, the birth of Isaac reinvigorated Abraham, giving him a new sense of purpose, clarity, and direction in his life. Finally, at the ripe old age of 100, he could begin to see the glimmer of hope in the fulfillment of Gcd's promises to him. Taken in this way, it is fair to say that Isaac fathered Abraham just as much as Abraham fathered Isaac. 

Isaac Abraham Abraham Isaac.

A sine wave is a signal; a hum, a sound that reverberates through the cosmos. The Torah is transmitting a message through the Abraham/Isaac sine wave, one that transcends time, one that goes on forever. What is the nature of this message?

To decode it, we must understand Abraham and Isaac: who they were, what they stood for, what values they embodied.

Abraham was the paragon of Gemilut Hasadim, of kindness to others. We are taught that his tent had openings north, south, east and west, ever open to welcome friends, guests, strangers, sojourners. He delighted in making people feel welcome, wanted, and important. He embodied the character trait of the highest service to his fellowman. Through his living example of a kindly, dignified, devoted life, his guests came to discard their narcissistic paganisms and adopt Abraham's compassionate, ethical monotheism.

Isaac embodied the character trait of Avodah, of service to the A-lmighty. Having willingly exposed his own neck to be offered on the altar (Genesis 22), he was forever sanctified, a living symbol of the need to subordinate our capricious human will to the benevolent, enduring will of Gcd.

All the mitzvot of the Torah can be categorized as being either mitzvot between people, and those between Man and his Maker.

Examples of the former: caring for the poor; refraining from gossip; always giving the next guy the benefit of the doubt; never embarrassing anyone; hospitality; greeting everyone with a smile; visiting the sick. These are mitzvot of Gemilut Hasadim, the mitzvot symbolized by Abraham.

Examples of the latter: keeping kosher; keeping the Shabbat and festivals; wearing tefillin and tzitzit; prayer. These are mitzvot of Avodah, the mitzvot symbolized by Isaac.

The message of the sine wave is: Gemilut Hasadim combined with Avodah is the infinity secret of Jewish survival.

Isaac Abraham Abraham Isaac - Avodah Gemilut Hasadim Gemilut Hasadim Avodah.

The verse states:

On three things does the world stand: on Torah study, on Avodah, and on Gemilut Hasadim. [Avot 1:2]

These are the "ABC"s of Judaism: Torah study, Avodah and Gemilut Hasadim. They cannot be teased apart; they are an integrated whole. 

As long as the Jewish People are committed to the "ABC"s: studying the Torah; acting compassionately towards our fellow humans; and deepening our dveykut Hashem, our "Gcd consciousness"; then passionate, transformative Judaism will survive forever. The transcendental sine wave will successfully transmit from Abraham to Isaac to the next Abraham to the next Isaac.

Sad to say, 9 out of 10 of American Jews no longer have much use for the fundamentals of the Jewish faith. We have discarded the "ABC"s in favor of the "EFG"s: Environmentalism, Feminism and Gay Rights.

Behold the pillars of the New Judaism, the gods we have fashioned in our own image.

Parents and grandparents burst with pride as their little Einsteins boldly tell us in their Bar and Bat Mitzvah speeches how they doubt the existence of Gcd, and how the Torah is pretty much irrelevant to their lives. What a tour de force of intellectual integrity and post-rational skepticism!

We can give ourselves a grand pat on the back: these [very expensive] Bar Mitzvah mills have produced, not another committed Jew, but a dedicated trash recycler and future Prius owner. 

Gcd is out, Gaia is in. Toyota will be so pleased.

Dissociated as we are from the ABCs, is it any wonder that Judaism in America is rapidly disappearing? How did we so lose our way? 

And while we're pushing our brains together to make one good one, wonder you this: what might suggest itself to you as a solution to our collective hari kiri? 

Hum.

Shabbat Shalom.

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FYI: To read an earlier insight on this parasha, click HERE.

Eliezer's Excellent Adventure - Reflections on Parashat Chayei Sarah 5776

(Genesis 23:1 - 25:18)

A big chunk of this week's Torah portion describes Eliezer's quest to find the perfect bride for Isaac, his master Abraham's son. 

Eliezer reluctantly accepts Abraham's commission to travel to far-away Chaldea, the region of Abraham's kinsmen, to select the lucky girl. It's a high stakes adventure; a tricky business, with grave consequences for the Abrahamitic mission if he should fail.

But Abraham trusted him, having already appointed him major domo of his household and manager of all his worldy affairs. In turn, Eliezer repaid that trust with a fierce loyalty to Abraham, a sort of ancient Gurka. He is so loyal that when he prays, he prays not to his own god, but to the Gcd of his master Abraham.

There are two things that stand out about Eliezer's quest.

First, the Torah spends an extravagant number of verses on Eliezer's excellent adventure. The first block of verses (24:1-24:33) describe the events as they unfold. The second block of verses (24:34-24:60) describe Eliezer's (almost verbatim) retelling of these events to Rebeccah's family. Sixty verses in all. 

And yet, upon returning home, it takes but one verse to bring Isaac up to speed. "And the servant recounted to Isaac everything that had transpired." (24:66) So why is Eliezer so loquacious before Rebeccah's family, yet is the essence of brevity with Isaac? (If anything, we might expect the opposite to be true, i.e., that he would reserve the detailed report for his boss.)

Second, although Eliezer is identified earlier (15:2), he is described throughout this narrative not by his proper name, but as "the servant" or "the man." Why not just call the guy by his real name?

Eliezer is initially very reluctant to undertake this mission. There are so many variables: Chaldea is a big place; where to start looking? How do you even begin to find a wife for some other person? What if he can't find a suitable girl for Isaac? What if he finds someone, but she refuses to return to Canaan with him? And define suitable please? And how is he to gauge the girl's character, her inner beauty? And what if, after bringing the girl back to Canaan, she and Isaac are incompatible? 

I hear stories from people who are seriously looking these days, and trust me, it's hard enough to find your own soul mate, let alone someone else's.

From Eliezer's perspective, the entire undertaking is a lose-lose proposition: if he succeeds, his private aspirations to wed his own daughter to Isaac are dashed; and if he strikes out, he fails his master and jeopardizes Abraham's entire life's work.

In overcoming these objections, Abraham basically says, "I trust you to do the right thing." Moreover, he tells Eliezer that he will not be going it alone; indeed, he will have extraordinary help for this extraordinary mission: 

The Lcrd, Gcd of the Heavens; He who took me out of my father's house and my ancestral homeland; He who has spoken to me; He who swore to give this land to my offspring; He will send his angel before you and you will indeed find a wife for my son there. (24:7)

So despite his severe reservations, the reluctant servant heads out reluctantly.

And then the events unfold. Luckily, he finds himself approaching the city of Nahor, Abraham's brother. Luckily, Nachor's grand-daughter is the first one out of the gate to draw water. Luckily, she is beautiful, gracious and kind-hearted. Luckily she passes the little test he devises to test her character.

The verse states that Eliezer is dumbstruck when he begins to realize that the very first young maiden he encounters could be the potential wife for Isaac. 

It would be a little like you or me picking up a bat and going up against a Major League pitcher like Nolan Ryan or Sandy Koufax, and with the very first swing, hitting the ball out of the park. The odds are laughably, ridiculously small.

By verbalizing the story in front of Rebeccah's family, Eliezer has the opportunity to sort it all out, put the events in their proper context, and make sense of it in his own mind. 

He comes to realize that what happened back there was no coincidence or kismet or blind luck. Events unfolded exactly as they were supposed to...just as Master Abraham had promised him they would. Abraham's words echoed in Eliezer's head: "...The Lcrd will send his angel before you and you will indeed find there a wife for my son."

In other words, as much as Eliezer was retelling the story to convince Rebeccah's family to allow her to accompany him home, he was talking just as much to himself; developing the emerging awareness that there was a Divine plan at work here, and that he had a key role to play in it.

What role? Roles, actually: both as "the servant" and as "the man."


A servant is one who faithfully does his master's bidding with unswerving loyalty. In the execution of the master's wishes, the servant subordinates his own will to that of his master. The servant is utterly dependent upon the master, and could not survive without his beneficence. 

By contrast, Man is a moral agent, independent, and able to apply judgement and common sense in the application of his free will.

In relation to Abraham, Eliezer is referred to as the servant. In the house of Bethuel, far away from his master's direct guidance, he must exercise his best judgement. That is why Abraham trusted him to do the right thing in the first place; that is why in Chaldea he is referred to as the Man.

We are all Eliezer. We are all both servants of Gcd and moral agents, struggling to find the perfect balance between subservience to Gcd and initiative in the crafting of our own lives. Like Eliezer, we are all on a quest, a long, hazardous journey, the consequences of which are enormous and the outcome of which is unknown. 

But if we serve our Master well, fulfilling our obligations to Him and our to our fellow man; if we faithfully apply our talents and our intellect to the study of Torah and the performance of mitzvot, Gcd will no doubt send an angel before us as well, that we may find success on the unique trail that each one of us must blaze on our own. 

Shabbat Shalom.

Loshon Koydesh - Reflections on Parashat Lech Lecha 5776

(Genesis 12:1 - 17:27)

This week, I am re-posting one of my blogs from 2002 entitled "Loshon Koydesh", Yiddish for 'The Holy Tongue', i.e., Hebrew. 

Two reasons: in this week's parasha, the Patriarch Abraham is first described as "ha'Ivri", the Hebrew. In the context of the verse, it also denotes otherness. 

4,000 years down the pike, we are still Hebrews, our language is still Hebrew, and we are still the archetypal outsiders.

Second, we find ourselves (once again) in the midst of an Arab murder spree, a paroxysm of injury and blood and death, engineered to cause dismay and despair; one tactic in the broader, coordinated international strategy to dislodge the People of Israel from the Land of Israel.

I wrote Loshon Koydesh when we first made aliyah, smack in the middle of the second Arab uprising; it was but one in a series weekly missives I sent back to the US and around the world, sharing our colorful experiences as an American family replanting our lives in the Land of Israel. 

The ultimate, enduring response to this wave of terror is Yishuv Eretz Yisrael, the continued return of the Jewish People to our ancestral homeland. The authentic Jewish response to every attack is to build another Jewish home, build another Jewish neighborhood, build another Jewish business. 

Therefore, I dedicate this blog to those who were murdered at the hands of Arab terrorists in recent weeks, and to those recovering from their wounds. May Gcd give strength to the healing victims and to the bereaved families.

Shabbat Shalom.

********************************************************************

I could not believe my ears. Straining from behind my closed office door, I listened to what seemed to be the voices of my three older daughters speaking among themselves in Hebrew. In life’s grand scheme, this is perhaps a small milestone, but their halting, pidgin Hebrew was the most beautiful sound I had heard since our arrival. In only four months, the girls were making themselves understood in Hebrew. As the wave of pride crested within me, I was taken back to thoughts of...my Bubbe.

Bubbe? Yes, my Bubbe. Let me tell you why.

Born to Russian immigrants in Brooklyn in 1911, she grew up in a house where Yiddish was the spoken language, and the high priest of their faith was Leon Trotsky. One might say they were more Yiddish than Jewish; the Yiddish theatre, the Yiddish press, Yiddish literature and Yiddish music were the stars in their constellation.

Bubbe was a luminary in her own right - Beatrice (Bessie to her friends) was ebullient, bright and beautiful. Despite her elegant, mellifluous Yiddish, her future father-in-law was convinced she was a shikseh (a gentile girl) - she didn’t have the demure ta’am (style) of a Yiddishe maidel (Jewish girl). For her part, she was more than a little afraid to marry such a religious boy, but they married anyway; she eventually grew to be profoundly religious in her own right. In the end, my great-grandfather described her as the most precious of all his daughters-in-law.

She had a sanguine determination that she brought to everything she did, whether it was her 40-year-long nursing career or her work for the synagogue Sisterhood. She once nursed a gravely ill infant boy through the night when the doctors had given up all hope and had gone home, expecting the child to be dead by morning. But thanks to her round-the-clock care, the baby cheated death, and went on to eventually recover. Thirteen years later, out of the blue, Bubbe & Zayde received an invitation to his Bar Mitzvah.

One day, in her mid-sixties, this indomitable woman decided to begin learning Hebrew.

She signed up for the weekly “ulpan” offered by the synagogue, girded with notebooks, pencils, books and notes. She must have attended that beginner’s ulpan class 6 years running, but she never quite managed to matriculate to the next book. This never dismayed her, and with her signature resolve, she kept plodding along towards her goal. For example, she insisted that we sing the Birkat HaMazon (Grace after Meals) aloud on Shabbat, and at a slow enough pace that she could sound out every syllable - a 45 minute ordeal. This went on for the rest of her life. But Bubbe was a force of nature, and there was no denying her this accommodation.

She never quite acquired the language, but she ardently believed in it. She saw the majesty of speaking the language in which Gcd created the heavens and earth, in which the prophets spoke, and which, with only slight modifications, has been the living language of the Jewish people for 4,000 years. She intuitively understood the organic connection between the Land of Israel and the Language of Israel, how Hebrew was the glue that binds the Jew to the Land.

How is your spoken Hebrew? Over a hundred years ago, Ze’ev Jabotinsky (one of my heroes!) led a spirited campaign to make Hebrew the language of instruction in all Zionist schools in Europe. I will probably meet with the same howls of derision from the Jewish Establishment that he did when I suggest that the same should be true in every Jewish day school, yeshivah, and Talmud Torah in America today. Hebrew should be the language of instruction in every course of study - math, science, literature, and of course limudei kodesh (religious studies).

The sad truth is that many Jews today can sound out Hebrew letters, but have no earthly clue what the words mean. Fluency in Hebrew is the portal into the collective consciousness of the Jewish people, the intuitive stream of experience that connects us to all Jewish generations before and after. Perush Hamilim (The meaning of the Hebrew words) brings focus and direction to the passion of our prayer. Unfortunately, for most Jews, Hebrew is acknowledged as our common language more in the breach than in the speech.

When Bubbe died of a heart attack at the age of 76, we lost the moral beacon of our family. Rabbi Levovitz wept openly for this endearing, insouciant woman who for 45 years dared speak up to him when she was convinced he was wrong. So dear was she to him that he permitted no other hesped (eulogy) but his own.

Despite the passage of the years, our family has never completely recovered from her loss. My daughters never met my Bubbe, were never smothered in one of her legendary hugs. But they know her through the stories and teachings that keep her memory alive. And if, as the gemara in Berachot says, the dead observe the events in our world, then Bubbe is surely kvelling that her great-granddaughters are ascending the path that she paved for them with the bulky bricks of her Aleph-Bet.

Put It There - Reflections on Parashat Chayei Sarah 5775

(Genesis 23:1 - 25:18

We live in a pornographic society, where innocence is lampooned and everything is sexualized, from toothpaste to four-year-old girls. So it should come as no surprise that certain rakish biblical pseudo-exegetes have suggested that Father Abraham was gay, based on a purposeful misreading of a verse in this week's parasha.

"And Abraham was getting on in years, and Gcd had blessed him in every way. And so Abraham said to his senior servant, the one to whom he entrusted all his affairs: Place your hand under my thigh, and swear by the One True Gcd of heaven and earth, that you will not take a wife for my son (i.e., Isaac) from the Canaanite girls among whom we dwell." (Gen. 24:1-3)

Abraham asks his servant, Eliezer, to touch the scar of his circumcision, the physical symbol of his covenant with Gcd, in taking this very important oath. The purpose of this act is to impress upon Eliezer the seriousness of the promise he is making.

This act of oath-taking would not have been surprising in antiquity. The English word "testify" comes from the same Latin root as "testicle"; it was customary in ancient Rome to have the oath-taker hold the testes of his master. This was an act of servility and submission; by touching the place of his virility, the servant was acknowledging that the master had the power to enforce the oath. 

The Ibn Ezra, who lived in the 12th century, records that this was the legal form of taking an oath in India in his time. And in Mr. Sammler's Planet, Saul Bellow describes a related incident in which a mugger exposes himself to Sammler, an expression of brute power and cowering submission.

There is no sexual component to this act, any more than getting a hernia exam or a prostate exam or a gynecological exam. Yet these same geniuses also argue that Abraham was a sexual predator, exploiting his wife Sarah's sexuality for his own gain. This is nothing less than the malicious and deliberate character assassination of one of Judaism's most cherished role models.

Perhaps most disturbing of all is that the thinkers of these deep thoughts are a certain group of nominally orthodox rabbis, whose open agenda is to lay the foundation for the mainstreaming of homosexuality in Orthodox Judaism. 

In a certain sense, this is understandable: the gay lifestyle is very trendy these days, and weak people always go with the flow. It seems that there is hardly an American family that isn't touched by it. There is also a lot of social and legal pressure to not only destigmatize homosexuality, but to affirm that it is morally equivalent, if not superior to, heterosexuality (after all, heteros have children, who contribute to overpopulation, overflowing landfills and global warming. Ewww.)

And there is clearly a lot of money up for grabs in capitulating to the mob - let's not deny it.

The problem (for them) is that the Torah prohibits the homosexual act in the strongest possible terms, and with the harshest possible penalties. (It is critical to note that the Torah does not recognize homosexuality or gayness as a lifestyle or a genetic predisposition. It recognizes only the act. And like every other act, the moral agent must make a choice - to act or not to act; to fulfill the mitzvah or to violate it. The choice rests squarely upon the conscience of the individual.)

Their solution is to undermine the authority of the Torah prohibition. Not completely at first, but just to weaken it a little. Camels are not allowed inside the tent, but it wouldn't hurt to allow the poor camel to stick his itty bitty nose under one corner of the tent? 

Before long, you will most assuredly be sleeping with a camel. 

Now, in and of itself, this is nothing new; gentiles and free-thinking Jews have been deconstructing the Torah with gay abandon (pardon the pun) for 200 years or so, since Herr Professor Wellhausen expounded his rippingly brilliant Theory. What is troublesome is that nominally orthodox rabbis are now adopting these positions (again, no pun intended).

The sine qua non of Orthodoxy is the belief in the Divine Authorship of the Five Books of Moses. This belief defines the gaping philosophical chasm between the Orthodox and the Movements of Jewish Dissent - the Conservative and the Reform (and their various lesser splinters and offshoots). For an orthodox rabbi to espouse such views is like a lawyer who rejects the basic principle of the rule of law, or a doctor who doesn't believe in cell theory. They may still have their sheepskins, the doctor may even wear a white lab coat and stethoscope, but can you  - would you -  dare entrust your health to that guy?

Here are some of the unvarnished facts about homosexuality:

• Homosexuals more likely to suffer from depression: "A new study in the United Kingdom has revealed that homosexuals are about 50% more likely to suffer from depression and engage in substance abuse than the rest of the population, reports Health24.com . . . the risk of suicide jumped over 200% if an individual had engaged in a homosexual lifestyle . . . the lifespan of a homosexual is on average 24 years shorter than that of a heterosexual . . . While the Health 24 article suggested that homosexuals may be pushed to substance abuse and suicide because of anti-homosexual cultural and family pressures, empirical tests have shown that there is no difference in homosexual health risk depending on the level of tolerance in a particular environment. Homosexuals in the United States and Denmark - the latter of which is acknowledged to be highly tolerant of homosexuality - both die on average in their early 50's, or in their 40's if AIDS is the cause of death. The average age for all residents in either country ranges from the mid-to-upper-70s."(onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=255614)
• Breast Cancer higher among Lesbians: "Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed among women and is the leading cause of cancer death among women in the United States, following cancers of the skin and lung. Recent research has identified risk factors for breast cancer that may differentially affect lesbian and bisexual women, including nulliparity and higher rates of alcohol consumption and overweight, that may place this population at greater risk than heterosexual women of developing breast cancer." (Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, glma.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=feature.showFeature&FeatureID=319&E:\ColdFusion9\verity\Data\dummy.txt)
• "In their study of the sexual profiles of 2,583 older homosexuals published in Journal of Sex Research, Paul Van de Ven et al. found that "the modal range for number of sexual partners ever [of homosexuals] was 101–500." In addition, 10.2 percent to 15.7 percent had between 501 and 1000 partners. A further 10.2 percent to 15.7 percent reported having had more than 1000 lifetime sexual partners. Paul Van de Ven et al., "A Comparative Demographic and Sexual Profile of Older Homosexually Active Men," Journal of Sex Research 34 (1997): 354."
• 2% of U.S. population is gay yet it accounts for 61% of HIV infection:  "Men who have sex with men remain the group most heavily affected by new HIV infections. While CDC estimates that MSM represent only 2 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for the majority (61 percent; 29,300) of all new HIV infections in 2009. Young MSM (ages 13 to 29) were most severely affected, representing more than one quarter of all new HIV infections nationally (27 percent; 12,900 in 2009)."  (Center for Disease Control, cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/HIVIncidencePressRelease.html)
• "Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) represent approximately 2% of the US population, yet are the population most severely affected by HIV and are the only risk group in which new HIV infections have been increasing steadily since the early 1990s . . . ” (Center for Disease Control,  http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/index.htm)
• Gay men lifespan shorter than non gay men: "The life expectancy for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for men in general. Robert S. Hogg et al., "Modeling the Impact of HIV Disease on Mortality in Gay and Bisexual Men," International Journal of Epidemiology 26 (1997): 657." (Exodus Global Alliance, exodusglobalalliance.org/ishomosexualityhealthyp60.php)
• "In 2007, MSM [Men Sex with Men] were 44 to 86 times as likely to be diagnosed with HIV compared with other men, and 40 to 77 times as likely as women." (Center for Disease Control, http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/index.htm)
• Domestic Violence higher among homosexuals: "'the incidence of domestic violence among gay men is nearly double that in the heterosexual population.'(Gwat Yong Lie and Sabrina Gentlewarrier, "Intimate Violence in Lesbian Relationships: Discussion of Survey Findings and Practice Implications," Journal of Social Service Research 15 (1991): 41–59." (exodusglobalalliance.org/ishomosexualityhealthyp60.php)
• Sex of women with women at greater health risk than women with men: "For women, a history of sex with women may be a marker for increased risk of adverse sexual, reproductive, and general health outcomes compared with women who reported sex exclusively with men." (American Journal of Public Health,  ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/6/1126

These stats, heartbreaking as they are,  speak only to the immediate health of the individual, and do not even begin to touch on the long-term social and ethical precedents that widespread homosexuality establishes.

Here's the thing: the Author of Life gives us this Owner's Manual, called the Torah, in which He describes the proper care and maintenance of this crazy and complicated thing called LIFE.

Do you think maybe the Torah anticipated these negative consequences when it enacted the prohibition? "If you will diligently hearken to the voice of Hashem, you Gcd, to do what is right in His eyes, to listen and observe all fo His laws; all of the diseases that I placed upon Egypt I will not put upon you, for I am the Gcd that heals you." (Ex: 15:27)

Does no one see that by conducting one's interpersonal affairs within the guidelines of halachah (Jewish Law), one can have a deeply fulfilling and rewarding intimate life with a ZERO PERCENT chance of contracting STDs, and the concomitant reduced risk of the associated uro/gynecological cancers? 

All of that misplaced compassion defining homosexuals as a discriminated class should be more properly directed at encouraging people to make better, less destructive, choices about their sex lives.

One last point: Judaism has never been a populist movement. It has been our historical role to stand against the prevailing social morays, not to give religious sanction to them. Judaism was the original counter-culture.

Abraham was a pain in the tush to Nimrod and the Sumerian pagans; we Jews were a headache to the Greeks, and to the Romans after them. Today, radical feminism and militant gay advocacy are enjoying their 15 minutes of fame; tomorrow it will be something new and more provocative. To be sure, in every generation there have been Jewish hellenizers, appeasers, reformers, modernizers. But in every generation they fall away, largely forgotten by Jewish history. 

A feel-good Judaism defined by what is popular or trendy or lucrative is not Judaism, it's mob rule. History has taught us again and again that only the Torah and its adherents endure. "Etz chaim hee lamachazikim bah," the Torah is a Tree of Life to those who choose to cling to it.

Today as always, guided by Torah, Jews stand alone as the conscience of the world. The Jewish universalist vision of an ethical, compassionate monotheism has much to contribute to the ongoing social dialogue and to the ethical refinement of humankind. And if, by teaching an authentic, unadulterated Torah message, rabbis must speak in opposition to the newest cultural verities, must even risk sitting in jail, then so be it; there is ample historical precedent for that as well. 

"Trust in Gcd; take heart and have courage; and above all, trust in Gcd."

Shabbat Shalom.

Avraham Rocks! - Reflections on Parashat Lech Lecha 5775

(To view other posts on this parasha, click HERE.)

In this week's Torah portion (Lech Lecha, Genesis Ch. 12 - 18), we are introduced to Avraham and his wife Sarah. But who is this guy Avraham? What lottery did he win to get to chit-chat with Gcd and merit all the Divine blessings we read about in these chapters?

The Torah itself seems to simply assume he's exceptional. The narrative begins with almost no preface, picking up the thread of his life when he's 75 years old. In fact, way back in Genesis Chapter 2:4, the Midrash states that, based on an unusual Hebrew construction there, that Gcd created the world in order that there should have existed an Avraham; in other words, the entire universe was created for Avraham's sake. That's pretty fat talk. So again: What is so extraordinary about this guy?

The standard answer that is given, and the reason he is credited with being the progenitor of the Jewish People, is that he was the first person to utilize his intellectual faculties to noodle through to the idea of the First Cause. 

...and that's great as far as it goes. But could that be the extent of it? 

Lots of people find Gcd. The newspaper is full of people who, after a dissolute life of booze and drugs and burning through enough toxic relationships, finally wise up and "find Gcd." (I am especially entertained by the ones who discover their spirituality just after they're being led away in handcuffs for some perfidious deed or other.)

Avraham rocks, and the key to understanding his greatness and remarkable contribution to humanity lies in a nuanced reading of the Torah text, as well as some assistance from a Mishnah in Pirkei Avot (The Wisdom of the Ancients). "There were ten generations between Noah and Abraham; each one angered Gcd more than the previous one, until along came Abraham and got the reward for them all." (5:3)

The Mishnah is telling us that the key to understanding Abraham is rethinking the generation of Noah, the Great Flood, and the generations that followed.

The world that greeted Noah when the Ark settled on Mount Ararat was very different world than the one he left. Not just physically, but spiritually, psychically. This was because humanity had diffracted into the three distinct faculties that make us human.

Noah had three sons, Shem, Cham and Yafet, whose descendants were to repopulate the world after the flood. They are broadly understood to represent the Asiatic, African and Caucasian branches of the human family, respectively. But these three branches of humanity also represent the three primary human faculties that dwell within each of us.

Shem means 'name' in Hebrew; the Shem branch of the family valued intangibles: the honor of a good name, ideas, ethics, intellect. They emphasized the intellectual/spiritual side of our nature at the expense of physical and emotional human needs.

Cham means 'hot,' and in that branch of the family emotions and passions dominated.

Yafet means 'beauty,' and this branch of the family focused on the physical: aesthetics, corporeality, pleasure.

For ten generations humanity fought a pitched battle against itself, head versus heart versus soul.  One or the other always prevailed, stifled the others, ran to extremes; and so humanity consistently made choices which aggravated Gcd.

It was Abraham who learned to rein in and and harmonize his faculties. Not only that, he harnessed them in the noble pursuit of fixing the world. He utilized them in the service of Gcd and of others, rather than in the venal pursuit of petty self-gratification. He was intellectual/spiritual without being withdrawn; emotional but lacking pathos; physical yet without narcissism. He was the world's first Renaissance Man, a Man for All Seasons.

We see many proofs to this idea throughout the parasha. We see physical bravery, courage and strength in his successful guerilla war against the mighty Four Kings. He demonstrates intellectual prowess in successful diplomacy with the local Amorites. 

He is a spiritual/ethical role model in refusing to profit from the captured riches of Sodom, and the Covenant between the Parts. 

And passion? Witness his unshakable bond to Sarah, despite decades of barrenness. He would have been within his rights to have taken another wife or divorced her, but his dedication to Sarah never wavered. It's clear from the verses that he deeply respected her and her opinions and it is just as clear that they loved each other intensely, understanding that their destinies were intertwined. 

And lastly, the verse states, "...you have walked before Me and have been perfect." (17:1) The Hebrew word 'tamim/perfect' denotes wholesomeness, completeness, balance, simplicity.

It took ten generations of human development to create an Abraham, who succeeded where the earlier ones failed. He and he alone was able to put the human Humpty Dumpty back together again. And so the Midrash states that Gcd said (so to speak), "that's the kind of guy I created the world for!"

What was the key to Abraham's success? His path began by his using his intellectual faculties to noodle through to the idea of the First Cause. 

As the first Patriarch and Matriarch of the Jewish People, Abraham and Sarah blazed a trail for us. But each one of us has the potential to be an Abraham or a Sarah in our own day, to heed the Voice of Gcd; to employ our unique gifts and talents in the service of Gcd and the service of others, and so doing, leave the world a little better place than the way we found it.

Shabbat Shalom.