Parashat Beshallach: Shabbat Shira
This shabbat in Parashat Beshallach we read "The Song of the Sea," Exodus 15, the triumphant exhalation of released slaves relievedly witnessing their captors drown on their chariots as the hand of God once more protects the Children of Abraham and Sarah. This famous section of the portion, often celebrated in congregations with special music programs, we recite liturgically daily and as the mainstay of the Torah reading on the seventh day of Pesah. 
Here the Song comprises part of the chronological history of The People of Israel as they turn their backs on slavery and turn toward Sinai and the Promised Land, escaping the enemy. It's literally a turning point in the narrative, as slaves begin to confront their destiny as God's people and the meaning of their story in world history. The God of Israel has defeated the human Pharaoh who thought himself God, a demonstration project for all the world to see. We read this parashah in the context of the unfolding events determining the destiny of the Jewish people.
But we will read Shirat Hayam, the Song of the Sea, again as the Torah reading for the seventh day of Pesah (the final day for Reform and Israeli Jews, who celebrate the biblical counting of seven days for Passover). The Torah calls the first and seventh days Mikrah Kodesh, a holy occasion, not simply part of the chronological narrative of Jewish history, but an event that occurs seven days after the new moon of spring, the day on the calendar in which Israel completed the exodus and turned toward the Land of Israel, the day when the sun and moon stand in the same position as when the event first occurred over 3 millennia ago, as the blessing says, "... who did wonders for our ancestors in those days, at this time." No longer an account of chronological history, the seventh day of Passover represents cyclical sacred time, occurring annually, in which Israel proclaims itself free from the physical and spiritual oppression of Pharaoh and chooses instead servitude to God. 
The Hebrew word for servitude avdut, a form of avodah, which is also the sacrificial system and the word for prayer. We substitute voluntary servitude to God for involuntary servitude to Pharaoh. 
Thus, The Song of the Sea takes on a different meaning when we read it the last day of Pesah. Rabbi Morris Adler wrote, "Religion at its best is an exaltation, an elevation, an inspiration, a transforming of the prose of life into poetry and song. The tradition is saying to us, 'Make of your religion a song to God.'" (The Voice Still Speaks, p. 149) 
We live in a Jewish world that primarily judges religiosity on the basis of adherence to legal formulae. But the Talmud rightly says, "Rahmana liba m'baye," "The Merciful desires the heart." When people are moved to song we witness touching God, the divine at work through the human to the world. 
Service to God is indeed work. It's difficult making God's will your will, God's desires your desires, God's vision your vision. But when that occurs, you'll stand and look back and sing, heart elevated, outside of time, and know that you have touched the eternal.

Parashat Bo: and Pesah:

Parashat Bo: Exodus 13:8, "And you shall explain to your child on that day, saying, 'because of this which the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.'"

"Which the Lord did for me." In every generation a person is obligated to view himself as if he came out of Egypt, as it is said, "because of this which the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt. (Babylonia Talmud, Tractate Pesahim 116b)

Torah Temima: "because it [The Torah] should have said, ' because of what [the Lord] did for our ancestors,'which makes this is a commandment for generations." And in the Jerusalem Talmud, Pesahim 9:4, it is clarified that the language, "which the Lord did for ME [rather than our ancestors, which is what the Torah actually recounts]," is because of the question of the wicked son, "What is this service to YOU?" For you, and not for him. Answer him according to his own language, "for me, and not for him, for had he been there he would not have been redeemed."

What makes a person worthy of redemption? Clearly, the question revolves on attitude. Does that person include him/herself among the people? It's intangible, but very real.
Then how does that person include himself? "Explain to" in Hebrew is higadta, the source of the word Haggadah. By going through the process of the haggadah, not just reciting the words, but going through the haggadah's process. What is that process? Through ancient words and modern discussion, asking how that ancient exodus applies in our lives today. Through reciting the story of our physical redemption (We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt) and our spiritual redemption (A wandering Aramean was my father [our ancestors worshipped idols]) we examine the manners in which we, too, are enslaved. But then the difficult part of the process begins. How do we obtain redemption? In discovering our own slavery, we must then determine how we can free ourselves with God's help.

Who is the wicked child? The person who says "I am a slave to nothing; I am not in need of redemption." The Torah and the haggadah recognize that enslavement is the human condition, and spiritual as well as physical freedom a constant goal. The denier of enslavement is the one who is truly trapped, the wicked child, for that person will never be free.

Parashat Vaera: 

Here we begin the 10 plagues in Egypt. How silly were the Egyptians; how non-sensical Pharaoh's reaction? Why, seeing the approaching death with ever worsening plagues, did Pharaoh not avoid inevitable disaster by giving in and doing from the outset what he would have to do at the end: let the people go? 

I had the good fortune last week of reading The Collapse of Western Civilization: a View From The Future, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. It's a fictitious account (complete with maps!) of the history of Western civilization's collapse from global warming from the perspective of 300 years from now. Oreskes and Conway write: "... virtually all agree that the people of Western civilization knew what was happening to them but were unable to stop it." (p. 11) The monograph documents the process of global warming since the start of the industrial revolution, and how beginning in the 1980s-90s we knew exactly what was occurring to the planet but refused to take the steps to accomplish what was needed to prevent disaster.

Last week four children of the Paris slums, two of them orphaned in childhood, all four recruited and co-opted by radical Islam, murdered 16 innocent people in the name of their God and their vision of the world. We know that impoverished, neglected, forgotten, unemployed youth are subject to radical political movements. But the news has focused on Islamist attacks on France instead of the results of human neglect; and that a European nation, France, suffered horrifying deaths even as Boko Haram, another Islamist murderous sect, murdered thousands in Nigeria.

How silly was Pharaoh not to heed the plagues? And how ridiculous will we look to future generations, for laughing at Pharaoh while walking in his shoes? The means of averting disaster lie within our grasp, but they are expensive. What would it cost in dollars and change of lifestyle to halt global warming? What social workers, job creation, tax structure, education system and integration of minorities would it take to close the slums of the major cities of our nation and around the world? God indeed requires payment for our sins. Taxes wouldn't just go up; they'd go way up. But we might prevent future disaster.

Pharaoh didn't believe because believing would have been inconvenient and an admission that he was not omnipotent like God. What's our excuse?

Shabbat shalom.

Parashat Vaera
Years ago I got one of those telephone calls I dreaded. "Rabbi, my name is so and so, and I am a student at the Nazarene Seminary (their international seminary is in Kansas City). Rabbi, I am looking for the appearance of afterlife in the Torah. Rabbi, there's no afterlife in the Torah, is there?"
I was so relieved that I did not have to tell this student the truth, that he had arrived at the truth on his own. I hate the feeling of undermining a person's theology, but also feel the necessity of stating the truth.
Afterlife as we think of it, olam habah, "the world to come" of rabbinic theology, originated in the Greek world in the second century b.c.e.  It's an historical anachronism to claim its appearance in Torah. All Jewish movements for the last 2,000 years have affirmed an afterlife, but not necessarily its foundation in the Torah.
The Rabbis (Hazal) take great pains not only to assert the belief in afterlife, but to claim that anyone who does not believe that afterlife appears in the Torah will not inherit it. The classic proofs are found in the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 90b (Soncino Talmud, Nezikin, Vol. III, p. 603ff).
One of the citations appears in this week's Torah portion, Vaera, from Exodus 6:4. Stating that God appeared to the patriarchs, the Torah continues, "I also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan..." As the Soncino commentary and Torah Temima both explain, the only way God could give Abraham the land of Israel would be if he were to be resurrected!  Thus, afterlife appears in the Torah: QED.
But why must Hazal go to such lengths to prove the Torah origin of afterlife, even threatening non-believers with exclusion? Why is this doctrine so important?
Resolving the problem of human mortality is the classic foundational problem for religion to resolve. (Have you seen Woody Allen's movies, including the most recent, Magic in the Moonlight?) Western religions resolve the problem with the doctrine of afterlife: viz: we don't really die!  We actually transform to a different state: a bodyless state where we are all soul and no body, in another realm.
Since I am such a staunch believer in afterlife, you should not think I am mocking the belief. I am not. Like the classic rabbis, I believe in afterlife and think reincarnation is likely.
But we live in a world in which spiritual matters are not subject to definitive proof. We rely mostly on our personal experience in deciding this most essential question: does life continue after death?

The only part of this question that I find confusing is that we do not discuss it more in polite conversation. It seems to be the subject of quiet and private conversations, like cancer and sex once were: not something to be discussed in polite company. But, as the Rabbis and all religious authorities understand, the reason and meaning of our existence are the raison d'etre of religion, and basic human concern. More, not less, light should be shown on the subject. More public and personal discussion should be held, so that we understand our own position, and come to grips with the universal and age old human question: what is the meaning of my life?

France, Islam, Pharaoh and the Jews
Exodus 1:8: "And there arose a king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph." What does this mean? On the face of it, it's plain. "A new king; decades later; didn't ever meet Joseph." But that interpretation does not adequately probe the language of the Torah. The Torah doesn't say that the new king never met Joseph, which would have been the Hebrew word "hikeer;" it says he didn't know about Joseph, "yadah." What? There's a new pharaoh and he's never heard of the national hero who saved Egypt from 7 years of famine? Was there no national, oral or written history, even within the court of Egypt? Not likely if you read the Bible and know that there were various histories of the kings of Israel. Certainly the same would have existed in the more powerful Egypt! There certainly must have been a court history! So what, then, does this mean? The new king, it appears, refused to recognize Joseph. Why? The very next verse gives us the reason, "He said to his people, 'Behold, the people of the Children of Israel are much too numerous for us.'" How could he say, "The descendants of the hero, Joseph, who saved our nation and our people, have become too numerous for us?" He could not speak the truth. It's ungrateful. It's malicious. So the text instructs us that a king arose who refused to recognize who Joseph was and what he had done for Egypt because he needed to persecute Joseph's descendants for political, social and economic ends. The new pharaoh "spun" history his own way. 
A tragedy occurred this week in France. In a country that has allowed the rise of religious hatred against Jews, from which Jews have left in large numbers in recent years, we witness hatred lashing out against the perceived political and religious enemies of Islam. Some see this savagery as the behavior of criminal, unbalanced young men going on a murderous rampage in their country of origin. They point to mass murders in the United States and say this may be no different. Unbalanced people do insane, criminal things. Others believe this is simply the most recent murderous campaign of Muslim extremists, no different from Hamas or the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL). 
But as in this week's Torah portion, I wonder at the history that preceded this anguish. Why has France allowed Jews to emigrate without attacking the cause of the emigration outright? Why has France not continuously denounced the hatred leveled at it's loyal Jewish population, and decried more vigorously the right wing hatred of Jews? Pharaoh had a political and economic goal, so he could not credit Joseph with his contribution to Egypt. Perhaps the Torah should have said, "After generations, there arose a king over Egypt who refused to admit to Joseph's role in Egyptian history." And what now with France? Will France admit to the role that such religious hatred played in 20th century history, and the calamitous result of allowing the hatred to fester without adequate confrontation and rooting out the evil in their midst? Or will the people take this in stride, after a period of national mourning, and resume their previous ways? We, in the United States, have absorbed such tragedies with guns and done little to counter them other than further arm ourselves and increase governmental domestic surveillance. 
What course will France chart? Will they forget the effects of religious/ethnic hatred, so ruinous just 70 years ago, and despite these warnings, proceed as they have in the recent past? Or will this be a wake-up call that the country that allows malignant hatred in its bowels will suffer the consequences eventually?

Climate Change and Congress
What does it mean when the discussion of reality is declared off limits? What does it mean when ideology trumps scientific knowledge? When the question is one of survival, like in climate change, it means not only that the best information is not available, but that the political structure will refuse to formulate policies to deal with disaster. Twenty-five years ago the discoveries of science were declared invalid, and the scientists in collusion for mutual and personal benefit. Now, if that information, freely researched, becomes inadmissible to formulate policy in Congress, it means that destruction is inevitable. At what point does the advance of truth not only become declared inadmissible, but its formulation illegal on grounds that it frightens a nation? See The Collapse of Western Civilization, by Oreskes and Conway, Columbia University Press, 2014. When truth is off limits, societies turn to strong leaders (dictatorship) and finally collapse under the weight of reality.

Parashat Vayehi: Jacob was Gathered to His People

Friday night, January 2, 2015

Rabbi Mark H. Levin

When I am in Israel, I frequently like to imagine scenes from other time periods that occurred right where I happen to be standing. In southern Jerusalem, for instance, Haas Promenade, an often toured walkway and large public area 2 ½ miles due south of the Old City of Jerusalem, brings to my mind's eye several graphic pictures. When I am facing north, I am looking at the Old City of Jerusalem from the south. The city's never been conquered from the south, a fact that prevented General David ben Gurion from attempting to recapture the Old City from the Jordanians and abandon the Jewish Quarter until it was reconquered in the Six Day War 19 years later in 1967. But perhaps 3,000 years earlier King David snuck into the Jebusite City of Yerushalem through the water cistern, by the Gihon Spring, directly in front of me. If I turn to my right, eastward, perhaps a half mile on the top of a hill stands the place the Six Day War started in 1967, as Israeli troops took over the U.N. outpost on the old Green Line separating Israel from Jordan. Turn 90 degrees to the south and you can find on the ground the marker placed there by the Israelis pointing out the aquaduct the Romans built to bring water 26 miles through the mountains, needing to find a path that was downhill all the way, bringing water to wash the blood of hundreds of daily sacrifices off the Temple Mount and into the Kidron Valley below. Turn another 90 degrees and face west, and you're likely looking at the path Abraham walked with Isaac and his servant Eliezer to take Isaac to Mt. Moriah on God's command to perhaps sacrifice his son Isaac on that mountain, 4,000 years ago. Standing there it's not hard to visualize each of these Jewish scenes, how our ancestors, centuries and millennia apart, walked this same geography that I have walked so many times, bringing about the history of our people.

And these thoughts rise to mind as we once again read the last parashah in Genesis. The only parashah in the Torah that begins without a break in the text, right in the middle of a Torah column, as if to anounce, "There's no break in the story here." We come to the conclusion of our patriarch Jacob's saga. He finds himself old and ill, and feels compelled to call his sons together for a summation of their lives and a final blessing to each.

There are various ways to view Torah. Some want to see it as a historical document. If that's the case, then this parashah concludes the story of the patriarchs, matriarchs and their families. I can't tell you these stories actually occurred as portrayed here with real people in real time. We just don't know.

But there is a new direction in the way the story of the Jewish people is being told.  In Genesis, concluding with this parashah, the story of the Jewish people is the tale of individuals and the intertwining of their lives. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, Joseph, Asenat, Laban, Esau, Potiphar, Pharaoh – these are the protagonists and antagonists of Genesis history. But starting next week, our story becomes the history of a people. It's not Moses' story, or Aaron's, or Miriams, or Yocheved's. It's the interaction between the people and their God. Torah introduces a new perspective: how the people relate to God.

But here we are, at the conclusion of Genesis. Maybe history; maybe not.

Another way to view Torah is a series of commandments. Jews live by those commandments, and so Torah can be viewed from the perspective of how we are taught to live.

But there are no commandments in this parashah, and only 3 in all of Genesis. So the legal perspective may not help us at all; and the historical perspective presents a nice story, but maybe it never even happened.

And then there's another way to view Torah, from its spiritual perspective. In this way we take the stories and ask: what is Torah teaching us about our spiritual lives?  And maybe we have something here, something interesting and useful for everyday living.

You see, every human being who ever lived faces what Jacob confronts in this parashah. He's both old and sick, and acknowledging his mortality, Jacob decides to call his family together. Now think about it: Jacob has likely been sick at various times in his life. We know nothing about what happened to him in the 20 years Joseph was in Egypt. But I'm guessing it wasn't all a bed of roses. But for some reason, Jacob thinks about this illness, and his age, and decides, "Now's the time. I need to call the family together."

But for what?  It's not like he just saw his internist and got a bad report. He's not had an mri, a ct scan, bad blood work, nothing diagnostic. Why's he getting the entire family together? It's not for something medical; Jacob wants to pass along a spiritual message.

Jacob brings his family together to bless them, to explain to them the meaning of their lives, to challenge them to live into the future. Now think about what's really occurring here. Every person craves some signficance in their lives. We want our lives to matter. We can't all be rock stars, or TV personalities, or presidents and congressman. But we crave knowing that we were here for some purpose. We know we will pass from this earth. What will we leave behind? The most obvious legacy is any children we have brought into the world. They not only carry our genes, but our morality and our peculiar behavior. Two weeks ago I opened my wallet to pay a restaurant bill. Right there in my wallet is my driver's license. I  was looking at my driver's license, taking a credit card from my wallet, when I became aware of what I was thinking in the back of my head. I was thinking, below the thoughts of paying the bill and taking out the credit card, "Why am I carrying a picture of my dad?"  I was staring at my own driver's license and thinking it was a picture of my father! I never in my life was told I look like my dad, always that comment was about my mother. But here we are, carrying on our parents physical genetics as well as their behaviors and their values into the future.

At the end of chapter 49 the patriarch Jacob dies. The Torah says that he expired, rather than that he died. The translation says "breathing his last." It should have said that he died, vayamawt rather than vayigva. It's clear that Jacob has died. The Torah goes on to say that he was embalmed and eulogies were recited for him. He certainly is no longer in this life. But the Talmud uses this opportunity to claim that Jacob didn't actually die. Then it says, "As long as a man has living sons he has not died." As long as someone remains who righteously bears our teachings, we have not died. Whether it's a student, someone upon whose life we have made an indelible impression, or our actual physical offstring: as long as our teachings are alive we have not died. The body is consigned to the grave, but the purpose of a person's life lives on.

What was Jacob doing in calling his children together? He was assuring his immortality, immortalizing his values in his imperfect children who each would carry a piece of him into the future.  Here the Torah spiritually teaches the purpose of these stories. Our hearts yearn for immortality.  But we are not physically immortal. As Woody Allen so cogently proclaimed, "“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.”

Standing in Jerusalem and remembering, our ancestors live again in our minds. But even better, when we live according to the values of our teachers, particularly our parents, the Torah and they come to life.  As Psalm 118: 17 promises, "I shall not die, but live, and proclaim the works of the Lord."