Rabbi Kline’s Weekly Torah Commentary

Twenty-two years is a long time. In December 1993, I was 7/10 of the way through Rabbinical school. I lived in Cincinnati and spent my life running from school to Temple Sholom (where I ran all the adult education), to Glen Manor Home for the Jewish Aged (I was Chaplain for the nursing home), to home to be with my family … and then back through the cycle again what seemed like seven days each week. I was preparing for graduation (end of 4th year) and beginning research for my Rabbinical Thesis and end of 5th-year ordination. A lot has happened since then … and a lot has not changed at all. 22 years is a long time, and reminiscing on all that was often leads to interesting internal dynamics which often leads to changes in how we relate to ourselves and to each other.

I was a work-a-holic. I still am. At the same time, certainly my home life has changed dramatically. I love my family, and, I guess still struggle trying to demonstrate the depths of that love with my addiction to service. This concept is perhaps one of the greatest frustrations that my late first wife shares most deeply with the woman to whom I am blessed to be married today. 22 years is a long time. I think I have grown in many ways … and shrunk in others, and yet, as I look back, I find myself chasing many of the same demons that plagued me 22 years ago … 40 years ago. I also see how much more I appreciate the blessings that stand before me every day. Some of the blessings I now appreciate, I appreciate only because of the challenges I faced, chasing the demons. There are horrible choices I made when I was young; that helped me keep others from making them now.

22 years passed between the time that Joseph left home to check on his brothers and the field and the next time he saw his father. In the interim, the braggart and esoteric dreamer experienced being sold into slavery, redeemed to serve a prince, thrown in prison, restored to freedom, … and then landed as the second in command in Egypt … second only to Pharaoh. Imagine seeing your father for the first time in 22 years, wondering why he never searched for you, to only then find out that he was told you were dead. Imagine being Jacob who experienced the devastation of losing a child only to learn that the rest of your children lied to you about the death! A lot happened in 22 years. He is, though, the same Joseph, just much older and wielding a lot more power. Still, though, Joseph’s demons (his ego and dreams) helped him save Egypt, helped him overcome his brothers, and helped reunite him with his father. He now has his own family. He understands compassion in ways that he could never have.

We are products of our years. How often do we meet people (sometimes in the mirror) who spend time regretting choices or experiences undertaken? How much energy do we spend saying, “If only I had …?” Each of our personalities established themselves years ago, and none of us is perfect. That said, I learned that a profound difference existed between knowledge and experience. We spend time learning things, and this education happens along two lines. We can learn a lot of information by studying books and reading documents. If we lack experience in living, the information in these books remain nothing more than facts and figures that fill our heads. On the other hand, I have experienced time with so many people who never had formal education, who cannot read or write, and yet, have the most uncanny understanding of life. I asked one such friend how she knew so much. She simply said, “When you live as many years as I have, there is nothing you have not seen.” Joseph’s maturation and my own growth are more rooted in our life experiences than in anything we learned in a book. Ultimately, even the difficulties … traumas provided us opportunities to garner blessings for our futures. Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan taught the past has a vote but not a veto as we move forward. Certainly, this is true for interpretation of Torah. Isn’t it true, though, that each of our lives is Torah? I am who I am because of all whom I have been. Cherish each moment … even the difficult ones, for the difference between blessing and curse, is not what happens to us, only what we do with it. Shabbat Shalom.

Joseph’s dreams and his ability to read dreams take center stage in this week’s Torah portion, as we watch these talents ascend him to power. He was able to help an entire nation imagine both the wonders of luxurious excess and also the depths of famine … and prepare them for both. Joseph’s ability to see past the immediate time and circumstance allowed him to prepare Egypt to live responsibly through the years of plenty and survive the years of drought. Egypt emerged from the 14 years whole and still prepared to grow the empire. No one else understood Pharaoh’s dreams. No one else could comprehend the signs and symbols of feast and famine.

“Imagine there is no end to the grains we will grow for seven years. How could we store them and preserve them, so as to not waste our future?” “Imagine that from the wealthiest to the poorest, we all had to ration our grains so that all Egypt survives.” “Imagine that our prayers over these next fourteen years galvanize in concern for each other’s well-being. We know that if one of us is out of grain, we are all starving.” What did Egypt do? Pharaoh took the grain in years of plenty, and then made people sell themselves into slavery just to get back a portion of their own grain. The rest of the Biblical Egypt story is horrific.

35 years ago, a music icon died after being shot by a disgruntled fan. John Lennon’s death was the tragic on so many levels, not least of which was the loss to the music world and the world’s peace movement. Lennon’s hallmark song is “Imagine.” People love it as it calls on us to dream of a day when we will live in peace. Some people loathe the song, as the lyrics seem to call for an end to all of the institutions (religion, government, etc.) that help us find meaning in life. In truth, many in both camps have missed the crux of his intentions. He did not advocate ending religion; he advocated ending the ways in which we use religion to separate us. He advocated (much as did John Locke) that government should serve to coalesce the people not segregate them from each other (nor from the rest of the world). His plea was also not passive. “You may say I’m a dreamer.” “I hope someday you will join us.” He is not affirming being a dreamer; he asks not to be dismissed as just a dreamer. He asks that people join (not a passive act) in the cause of making peace real. He never shied from acknowledging the racial diversity in his own home or the religious diversity in his musical world. He even wrote a Christmas song. Lennon spoke no differently than did the Biblical prophets, throw down the weapons you have used to exile yourself from your neighbors, and remember that it is not by might or power, but by spirit that we can live in peace.

Joseph was an odd bird. He never fit in with his family but found his calling on the world’s center stage. John Lennon was an introvert who stayed personally insular even when living in the spotlight and sharing his innermost dreams through his music. Joseph did not have any friends and received credit for much of the disruption that plagued his family (to the point that his brothers wanted to kill him). Even at the height of his fame, he lived alone with his wife and sons sequestered from the world. John Lennon’ story is not very different. His childhood was rocky, and his relationships were strained. We now know that the Beatles held together for as long as they did because John somewhat marginalized himself to his new wife and drug habit. Joseph emerged from his plight as he rediscovers his brothers and his father. Lennon was just beginning to re-emerge from seclusion as his meditative anti-war/anti-violence messages took hold in the public eye. Then he was shot. His lasting effect on music is undeniably legendary. His lasting effect on “Peace” … well, his message and his death have done nothing for gun control. As to Joseph, well, the Book of Exodus begins, “Then arose a Pharaoh, who knew not Joseph.”

History has witnessed lots of dreamers come and go. Joseph was right, we needed to stand together to prepare for and survive the famine. Lennon was right, we need to join together and be active in turning from weapons and war. Somehow, though, we historically dismiss both of them as simple dreamers who obviously did not understand the real world.
What if we paid attention to what both taught us, and gave them the credit they deserved? How different would Egypt have been if they really did protect each other? How different would our world be if we realized that faith matters more than creating a hierarchy of God’s favorite religions? How different would we live, if we did turn in our weapons for plows and our bombs for grains? Oddly, many religiously argue that Joseph was the fourth Patriarch, and yet, they ignore his call for unity as they walk outside of church and into the real world. Many have deified the Beatles, forgetting their commitment to peace. Their revolution was against war.

I pray that we find ways to give new ears to the messages we have heard and yet ignored for millennia … and for decades. I pray that we remember that everything that changes the world begins with someone’s dream, and that we find ways to honor and dignify dreams rather than relegate them to the world of pure fantasy. “EEM TIRTZU AEN ZOH AGGADAH – if you really want it, it is not just a dream.” Theodore Herzl spoke those words in envisioning a Jewish homeland. If we really want peace, want it enough to join together in its cause; none ever has to again be afraid. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I am not the only one. I hope someday you will join us … and the world will be one.” “On that day, God will be one and God’s name will be one.” Shabbat Shalom.

And he wailed. Jacob sees his sons returning from their work in the field. There is a somberness about them. They are carrying something. “Wait, Joseph is not with them! Where is my favorite son? Where is my Joseph? What happened to him? What have you done?” Jacob’s sons present their father with the bloody tunic; the very tunic he had so lovingly gifted to Joseph … his favorite son. And, Jacob wailed. Even the brothers who created the conspiracy to get rid of their brother and hide it from their father were awestruck by their father’s grief. For some of the family entourage, these are the mournful tears of a man needing to be held and consoled. For some, these tears are the just desserts for a man who chose favorites from amongst his children. For Joseph’s brothers, these had to be tears of incredible sadness … their sadness. If it were any of them, would their father of cried so? Did he truly love Joseph so much more … so exclusively? Had they no place in their father’s heart? Dad never inquired as to their safety. They hated their brother and believed that getting rid of him would return them to their father’s favor. Instead, Jacob, refused consolation and pledged to go to his grave in mourning for his favorite son.

And he wailed. An inner city father watches as police cars pull up to the front of his Georgia home. They are carrying something. “Wait, Joseph is not with them! Where is my favorite son? Where is my Joseph? What happened to him? What have you done?” Joseph Terry Brown was gunned down. There have been an ungodly number of “Josephs” shot in this country this year. For Joseph Brown, it was only one of two major incidents that day. Every victim of the 355 mass shootings in this country … this year … left family mourning their loss. Everyone had a loved one at home who heard the news and wailed.

The people gathered around Jacob to try and console him. Gatherings around the country form after each shooting, trying to console each other. Jacob could not be consoled, and the presumed violence done to his son will continue to plague him until the day that he learns that Joseph is still alive. Joseph Brown’s family will never experience that relief. Why was the Biblical Joseph to be killed? He was a dreamer. Yes, his dreams aggrandized himself, but in truth, each of his dreams came true. He dreamt that his brothers would bow before him. We will read that in fact they do. His ability to dream and interpret dreams may have saved an entire civilization, but to his jealous brothers, his dreams warranted death. Joseph Brown dreamt of living in a loving relationship with a woman and her children from a previous marriage. His dream cost him his life, as a jealous ex-husband shot the whole family in their home. We will spend several weeks each year telling the story of the Biblical Joseph. Joseph Brown’s story got swept away in the wake of an even larger tragedy that day in San Bernardino, California.

355 mass shootings in America this year, so far. That equals more than one a day. The victims’ only crimes were wanting to live freely in America. Were we to read about this in other nations, we would be screaming that they were godless people. We would put traveling sanctions for anyone planning on going there. We would be screaming about human rights violations. No, what are we doing? Well, those who are losing loved ones to the violence are screaming in pain. They are wailing. The rest of us are walking in prayer vigils, talking about how horrible the violence is, and then going back to our lives.

We are taught that prayer is only valuable if it moves the one praying to act. To say words of prayer and then move on to the next item on an agenda is not prayer, in fact, it may be blasphemy. IF we pray for and dream of a world at peace, then we need to prepare ourselves to make it so. One cannot make peace with more weapons. One cannot make peace with fear in his heart. IF we want to make peace then we have to realize that if we know that more Torah yields more peace, then more arms must yield more violence. How can we dream of and pray for a messianic day, at the very same time we load our guns prepare for battle? You cannot “WIN” the messianic age, we must earn the peace that it promises. Joseph’s dreams saved Egypt. It certainly was uncomfortable for the Egyptians, but in giving up their grain surpluses, they were fed for years when nothing grew. Joseph Brown’s dreams ended on December 2, 2015.

What is our role and obligation in this mess? Are we destined to simply sit and pray … or mourn when it gets too close to home? What is unique about the Biblical Joseph is that he made things happen. He faced the unimaginable and in each setting rose to the top by being proactive in the cause of fulfilling his dreams. I dream of days when the violence will be over. I dream of the day when we will turn our weapons into instruments of creation; when we win the battle of working for peace as opposed to the one we live now, defending ourselves from the next act of violence. Laws need to change. Hearts need to change. We need to learn to love loving and not live fearing. As we read Torah each week, we feel the successes and failures of our ancestors as they play out in the stories. We know, from thousands of years of tradition, that when faced with the choice between living and dying, loving and fearing, growing or shrinking, we must always choose life. Turn the time we spend fearing and grieving into time spent speaking and writing; changing the conversation that fosters the madness into the conversation that heals our spirits. Write city hall, call the Statehouse, visit Congress and make sure you are heard in a meaningful way. Shabbat Shalom.

I am struggling with the news we have to hear each day. How could some of the nightmares of which we read and see be happening in the 21st century? Have we not learned from the Shoah … from the too many genocides in history? Obviously, any lessons learned for most of the world are matters of ancient history. I often recount a Midrash (Ethical Story) found in a few different places in our tradition about the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem: the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza (code words for two unnamed people).

This story is about a Jerusalemite who made a feast. He instructed his staff to be sure to invite his friend Kamtza. By mistake, the staff invited the similarly named Bar Kamtza, the host’s enemy. The host embarrassed Bar Kamtza by kicking him out of the party, even while the guest pleaded a number of times, not to be embarrassed. He even offered to pay for the whole event to avoid the humiliation. The host insisted on embarrassing the man, and even the Rabbis watching did nothing to stop the humiliation. The guest then orchestrated a plot to get back at the people. He arranged for a blemished animal to be offered as a tribute to the king, and then convinced the king that the Jews did this to snub him: they were revolting. This “snub” led the king to destroy the Temple. So, tradition teaches that the Temple was destroyed over Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. “Rav Yochanan said: The indifference of even the sages to the disparagement of the guest’s dignity destroyed our Temple.”

This is a great lesson to teach people of the devastating consequences of standing by, watching, while others experience brutality. We brought on our own destruction. As long as that story stays deep in history, it works, Arguing that we deserved the Shoah, or that the victims of ISIS, Boko Haram, The KKK, or any terror group somehow deserved to be slaughtered because of their “bad behavior” would be horrific. Of course these groups preach exactly that: they are cleansing the world of those who are out of synch with their personal concept of godliness. We know today, that society has a tendency to blame victims first. People claiming to be representatives of God blamed the United States for September 11, for deserving Katrina and Sandy, and schools shot up (for not having even more dangerous weapons around our children). It is nothing short of nightmarish that we spend so much energy pointing fingers at our victims.

So I come before God shaking my fist. “Ribono Shel Olam, (sardonically) Master of the world! How? Why? Where is the call for justice and for love? Where is your power for good? How can I have faith in the Source of Good with the nightmares surrounding me?”

This week, Jacob wrestles with God. Jacob is about to face off with his brother who he has not seen since cheating him of the blessing. Jacob put God to the test; wrestled with God. The Torah says that Jacob won. Jacob was afraid; fearing for his life. His wrestling match with God gave him the strength and the support that he needed to face his brother … to look death in the face and turn that potentially tragic meeting into a blessing.

In Jacob’s wrestling match, I see my own way through my struggle. We face those wanting to scare us into submission and hiding both with violent use of weapons and with the vile use of the tongue. We have domestic and foreign terrorists seeking to take our lives. We have domestic and foreign terrorists wanting to enslave us in fear to their ideology of hate and power mongering. I see very little difference between the rabid cleric calling on misguided ideologues to “cleanse the world of inferior races, religions, or genders” and the power hungry American pundit or politician indoctrinating naive and scared people to turn our backs on God and our Constitutional demand to protect the inalienable rights and dignity of all people. Inalienable means that they inure to the benefit of everyone and cannot be taken away.

Would Jesus, Moses, or Mohammed (peace be upon them all) sanction turning people in peril aside? Would they be okay with the cry to let the innocent be slaughtered? No, as Micah teaches us, “God has told us what is good and what God requires of us: do righteously, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.”

We only win this wrestling match when we learn what Jacob learned– When we gather hand in hand and demonstrate our commitment to each other’s life, liberty, and pursuit of blessing. We best deal with the sources of fear when we stand tall, even injured (as was Jacob’s hip). We lose if we give into the fear proffered from either brand of terrorist, and run hiding from each other. We win … God wins when we remember that in a world where no one remembers to be human, we must set the example, living and teaching the blessings due all humanity. Shabbat Shalom.

“What’s love got to do with it?” This is the famous question Tina Turner asked in her hit song from the 80’s. I never liked the song, and it had nothing to do with Tina or the song itself. I am of the generation stuck on Jackie DeShannon’s “What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love.” We will ignore the awkward “Love Story” interlude of “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

This week’s Torah portion contains the first really wonderful love story in our tradition. In trauma, fleeing from his angry brother and having met God in a dream, Jacob meets the love of his life. He is at a well when Rachel comes to water her flocks. He singlehandedly moves the heavy cover from the well to help the fair maiden. Of course, officially “Twitterpated (Bambi and Thumper)”, he does not realize that she is his cousin … and frankly it would not have mattered. This meeting that kindled Jacob’s eternal burning love for Rachel impacts every story in the rest of Torah.

Perhaps I am a curmudgeon, but I believe it’s all about love. Yes, there are different forms of love. The Greeks were great at distinguishing between love of self, filial love, romantic love, erotic love, and agape love. There are most definitely different ways to express love, but each roots in the idea that we experience deep emotional attachments to certain people. We love our spouses differently than our siblings or neighbors (I hope). There should be a deep connection that we feel with each other that makes us ultimately concerned for each other’s welfare. I care about the people in my community. I have to care deeply for them. If I fail to care, then I put the sanctity of my community at risk. More than that, though, when we engage with people whole new worlds of growth opportunities open for us. Random conversations breed the longest and dearest of friendships.

Ok, the Torah speaks in exaggerated metaphors. Imagine how different the world would be if we could meet people and be able to commit to each other (at any of the love levels) with lifetime intentionality. Even where people are in our lives for only moments, they leave something with us. God said to Jacob, “Your journeys will be blessed.” This means that even as he is walking through people’s lives, blessings exchange between them. Love is supposed to help us see that we need to help each other because it fulfills our needs. Our souls should be bent on creating and nurturing the engagements that make the whole world in which we walk brighter. Love takes work and intentionality; it takes a willingness to hear people’s pain and their celebration and make their challenges and celebrations part of our world view.

Our liturgy includes a piece to which we refer as Ahavat Olam (Love for the World). Our liturgy does not differentiate which types of love we should apply to any given setting; that is for us to do. We are taught, though, that we do not have an alternative to reaching out to each person with love. From where does the violence come that fills our news? Ultimately, it comes from the anguished souls of people who have not experienced being loved in any of its definitions, who have to seek legitimacy through force for they do not receive or perceive receiving it in any organic way.

I know that this prayer for love exists in every religious tradition. I think we need to pray harder. I know that this prayer has to move us to answer our own prayer and find more intentionally loving ways to engage each other. This coming week is Thanksgiving. For what are you thankful? How many hands had to be part of making possible whatever or whomever you express thanks? Our homes and our families are all products of a great many hands and spirits. Each with whom we are in contact is our student and our teacher, at the very same time … and often through pure serendipity and only for isolated moments … sacred isolated moments. So the old adage is true, “Pray as if all depends on God, but act as if God depends on you.” Shabbat Shalom.

We grieve the death of Sarah this week. She lived to be 127 years old. Her biography is a mixed bag. She is the matriarch of matriarchs in the western faith traditions. She is the privileged wife of the wealthiest man in the storyline. Sarah is the jealous lover who got “one-upped” by her maid who gave her husband a child when she could not. She is the shocked mother of a child almost killed by his father. She is the wife given freely to consort sexually with the kings of other countries; as a buffer to save her husband’s life.

We meet her death as this new week’s portion begins. Before I could even digest the text, several different conversations screamed off of the page at me. We know that after the “Binding of Isaac” story, she moved to Kiryat Arba. Abraham is living in Be-er Sheva. Why she moved is anyone’s guess, but we know that she died in her new community, and Abraham came there to bury her. We do not know what Sarah told the local population, as to why she left her husband.

On the one hand, I was impressed that without consternation or condemnation, the community welcomed our patriarch and offered to take care of him in his time of grief. Even if Sarah had shared her reasons for leaving Abraham, the people welcomed the stranger. This act is the hospitality of which our tradition speaks. Maybe not knowing Abraham, they adhered to the imperative to not pick sides without a fair look at all the evidence. Justice is served by not judging people based on only accusations.

I thought again, though, and found myself less generous towards the people. Perhaps they knew who Abraham was. They acknowledged his wealth and power. Maybe they at least suspected something was wrong with Sarah moving there. Why would they be so gracious to this man who had tried to kill his son on a mountain? Perhaps they feared his wrath; he did have a large entourage that could have attacked. Perhaps they supported his abuse? In a male dominated society, men protect men and diminish women. They could look past Sarah’s complaints, dismissing her dignity … simply because she was a woman. Yes, we struggle mightily with gender-based injustice. The highest incidence of spousal abuse is in fundamentalist religious communities.

Perhaps Sarah made no complaint. Abused spouses/victims of violence often never speak out. They are too afraid to speak. They fear condemnation, even while being the victim. They fear condemnation for the violence occasioned upon them. We too often see the victims of rape thrown from fundamentalist communities in shame, as though it was the girls fault for having been violated. We already know of two times in which Abraham gave Sarah to foreign kings (for sex) to save his own life.

On the other hand, maybe Sarah said nothing. Maybe she moved quietly into her new community and only spoke honorably of her now estranged husband. Perhaps the people of Kiryat Arba welcomed Abraham simply because they only knew of his heroism and “relationship” with God. Was she silent because even while needing to hold Abraham accountable for his actions, she understood that it was God compelling him to risk their son Isaac? In this sense, her compassion is exemplary for the way in which we are supposed to care for each other. Irrespective of how her new neighbors might have responded, Sarah may just have wanted “shalom bayit;” peace in what was left of her home.

Torah yields so many different conversations. One fact scenario opens the door for us to see so many possible teachings that still speak relevantly in the 21st century. Torah invites us to engage in meaningful ways, knowing that each person who reads the text can walk away with radically differing understandings, lessons, and morally transformational teachings. It is as if Torah offers our souls what our Reform Movement might call “Audacious Hospitality:” an invitation to nourish our souls from the source of spiritual sustenance. Each of the scenarios above is a correct extrapolation of the text. Some may be more palatable than others, but that would depend on the surrounding world of the reader at the time of engagement. Torah is not just for children; it speaks loudly across generational boundaries. Our study prompts more questions than answers, blessing each student (young or old) with growing insight and, even more importantly, the first steps of the next spiritual journey. Our tradition is not about finding answers. Judaism requires people to study in order to continue our growth. It is time to engage and see the world through new eyes. Pick up a book. Whether it is scripture or scriptural commentary; whether or not it has anything to do with formal religion; open a book, gather a friend, and join in growing the world as you know it. Shabbat Shalom.

As we read through scripture, we always have to be aware that translations are tricky. I have written at length about the need to remember that Hebrew is not an exact language. Without vowels and sentence structure, we can read the text in multiple ways. When we read the English, the translator chose the “only possible reading” for us. Most of the time, the value of this reality is that it keeps the text from being stagnant; it holds lots of possible readings and meanings. There are occasions, however, that we do not know how to translate words. We can translate most through context and word relationships the Hebrew has to other ancient languages. In the first Genesis Creation story, when we get to day five, God “creates” “T’ninim.” We have no idea what the word means. If one looks at English translations, one would find “dinosaurs,” “Leviathan,” “crocodiles,” “sea monsters,” “whales,” and a host of other “creature type” attempts to translate the word. Some translators are honest and simply translate the word similarly to the way I did above.

We find another such word in this week’s Torah portion. After the destruction of Sodom and just before the “test” of which we read on Rosh Hashanah, Abraham and the Philistine King Abimelech make a pact between them. Abraham then seals the deal by planting an “Aeshel.” We, again, have no idea what it is. Translations give us “tamarisk,” “strip of land,” “special tree,” or simply the translation of the Hebrew word. The Hebrew word consists of three letters: Aleph, Shin, and Lamed. As I was trying to figure out what this word meant, I read a commentary that had a little Rabbinic fun with it (of course this says a lot about what “fun” means in our context). He broke the word apart and posited that Abraham planted a place where one could eat (achilah beginning with aleph), drink (sh’tiyah beginning with the shin), and accompaniment (levayah beginning with the lamed). He planted a Hotel. The commentary focused on the last piece: accompaniment. The argument was that Abraham was such a devotee of peace and love that each morning, after he served his guests, he would accompany them part way on their journey. He wanted to ensure their safety, that they had food and drink, and were headed in the proper direction.

I could not look past the notion of “planted.” We build buildings. We build objects. We plant life. We plant with the expectation of growth. The city of Sodom was just destroyed. Abraham does not build shelter; he sits amongst the planted trees of nature and plants … whatever he plants. The idea that he planted a hotel that brought people together in meaningful relationships has to be juxtaposed to the buildings of Sodom and the callousness of Sodomites that were simply swept away. Where we feel rooted with each other, everything that follows flourishes. Think about it. Have you ever walked into a restaurant and felt alienated because the people there simply walked through the walls of the building? How about the times that a server takes an active interest in you/your party? Remember the show “CHEERS?” It was not just a bar, it was the “beit knesset (meeting house)” for people whose lives revolved around each other. This is what we mean when we talk about planting roots in a community. Life has meaning because of the people with whom we share our time. We do not, or should not, simply exist standing next to each other. Being rooted next to each other, we feed from the same natural resources. We cross pollinate, adding sustaining nutrition to each other’s spirit. If we poison someone’s well (figuratively or physically) we drink from those waters. If the atmosphere is untenable for some, it erodes the support for all of our roots.

We have an obligation to appreciate each other’s rootedness. We have an opportunity to share in each other’s blessings. We have only a limited span of years in which to fill our lives with meaning and value. It is time to plant our roots with each other, committing to caring for the spiritual, physical, and ecological environment that will concurrently sustain us all. Shabbat Shalom.

I met a homeless man the other day. I was delivering our synagogue food collection to a food pantry/homeless shelter. We spoke briefly after the truck was unloaded. I asked him his story. He used to be in management for a business that went bankrupt. He lost his house and eventually, his family. He had another offer, but could not cope with the way his career had derailed. “I hit bottom.” I asked him how he found his way to the shelter to seek help. “Someone told Abraham that journeys were leaps of faith.” Ok, I know this story. Abraham had it all. Abraham had money and family. Abraham had servants. Still, God called Abraham and he left his comfortable land and went on a journey. I was not sure of his connection with the story. Abraham was a wealthy man who voluntarily left it all when he heard God’s call. He had a lot to lose if it did not turn out well. Abraham took a leap of faith. But this man? He had already lost everything. What was his risk? “Deciding that life had to have meaning was my leap of faith.”

In that instant, I saw Abraham standing right in front of me. We make lots of presumptions about Biblical characters. Beyond the debate of whether or not they actually existed, we take the snippets that we get about their life stories, and build lengthy biographies. What if Abraham had all the material goods any one could think to want, but lacked any depth in his soul? The Torah is relatively silent about the first 75 years of his life. We are told that he is born, and that his father takes him traveling. The sages felt the need to fill in the years with stories of spiritual heroism. He sustains himself in a cave until he is three years old to avoid being killed by the evil King Nimrod. He smashes his father’s idols awakening his father to the hypocrisy of idolatry. He walks through a fiery furnace unscathed. Sages created all of these stories to justify how, or better, why, he merited God’s call. Why did he have to be a hero in order to hear God?

Standing with this man at the shelter, I found affirmation in a teaching I hold dear, “God speaks to all people; some of us listen.” Torah did not include any stories of Abraham’s youth intentionally. Abraham lived a mundane existence. He amassed wealth, but had nothing of spiritual value to show for his years. I imagine that he struggled to find meaning in life, and when he truly learned that all of his possessions provided him with little or no enlightenment, he searched for something more. He did not leave his fortunes behind. His wealth was not the problem. His simply lacked any reason to be excited about appreciating the miracle of being. Standing with this man at the shelter, I came to grips with something new, “We can all be heroes.” It takes faith to not only admit that you are stuck, but then to take the first steps on the journey to find faith. We cannot prove that any next moment is going to happen, and yet, we forge through life fully faithful that there is some reason for doing so. It takes a lot of faith to admit that even when you have everything money can buy, without faith, none of it matters. Abraham’s leap of faith was no different than that of the man with whom I conversed.

Perhaps this is why people pursue power; they have not yet learned that having more stuff, money, or power does not translate into experiencing greater value in life. This is not to say that resources to do the things we want to do has no value, but every day we read about people who, despite having more than we can imagine having still crave more. Wars exist because there are people who never feel that they “have” enough.

We have to learn to see living as an opportunity for blessing. God tells Abraham, go on this journey. You will be blessed by others on the way. This man at the shelter has experienced each of these blessings on his path to recovery. In pursuing their own faith journeys they brought blessings to others with whom they shared their stories. Most of us are not as financially well endowed as Abraham, nor caught in the depths of rebuilding a ruined life as is my new friend. Somewhere in between, each of us are wrestling with our own faith journeys. We know, though, blessings exist and simply wait for our acknowledgment. However Abraham heard the call, it took a voice to wake him to this epiphany. For my friend, it was a priest who held him in hope. We have such amazing power for inspiration. Who will hold us? Who will we be blessed to hold? Shabbat Shalom.

Noakh ish tzaddik, Tamim b’dorotov. Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his generation. Noah built an ark because God warned that the flood was coming. Noah put his family on the ark and, in an orderly fashion, brought two of each animal (7 sets of each kosher animal) onto the ark, saving them from the promised flood waters. The rain came and came … and came. For 40 days and nights the rain fell. The waters overflowed the banks and filled the valleys. By the time the rain ceased to fall, the earth was covered in water, passed the highest of mountain peaks. Presumably the fish of the sea survived, but all other life on earth perished. Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his generation.

Noah never asked about anyone else. Noah did not even ask to save his grandfather Methuselah. Noah never asked about the innocent animals. Noah took care of Noah. Noah was a righteous man … perfect in a generation that merited the flood for their behaviors that served only to destroy humanity. At least until he got drunk after emerging from the ark, Noah never offered a word of remorse or regret.

Maybe he got drunk, not knowing what to do with his grief over a world destroyed. Certainly, the innocent animals died for no reason other than that they were not the first two of their species in line. Perhaps, he got drunk unable to cope with having to live amidst all of the rotting bloated corpses of everything that drowned, and now lay on the open ground since the water had receded. Perhaps he just got drunk because even as a drunk, he was still the best his generation had to offer. Either way, Noah inherits a world where death is larger than life and where growth of anything alive happens only in the shadow of the rot and decay of human and animal flesh.

We have spent thousands of years manipulating the stories presented in Torah to teach relevant moral lessons. Each generation has read some different nuance into the text, using it to solve some sociological problem it faced. This elasticity is built into scripture. The ability to manipulate the text serves the purpose of having a text … it begins conversation.
History is a completely different animal. Yes, history is always seen through the eyes of the historian. When, however, we start revising history to twist the truth so that it comports with a politically or sociologically manipulative agenda, we damage the foundations of society. When we become so politically motivated that we have to win a debate, even at the cost of truth, we destroy a piece of the world. When, like Noah, we show concern only for our own immediate and tangible network, at the expense of all other life, the world may not be worth inheriting.

Over the ages, we have seen politicians and military leaders trying to rewrite history. The American Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. The Confederate Flag has never been a hate symbol. September 11 happened because the Supreme Court was liberal. Now we read that Jews have no history on the Temple Mount. We read about a young boy “executed” by Israelis after he stabbed a Jewish child just for being Jewish. We then see a picture of him in an Israeli hospital … very much alive, being medically treated by the very people he vowed to destroy. What is maddening is that people believe the nonsense.

Buying into revisionist history destroys the world because it causes us to behave in ways that history should teach us are only destructive. Scripture is malleable, history is real. Yes, there will always be nuanced readings of history, but we cannot try and pretend that things that happened did not or that people who existed did not. I do not know whether there was a Moses or not. I absolutely know that there is a nation rooted in the foundations of Judaism that lived and thrived in Jerusalem with a religious life focused on the temple that stood atop that area where the two great mosques of Islam now stand. I know, absolutely that in the 1967 War, when Israel reclaimed the area of Old Jerusalem that includes the retaining wall and Temple Mount, the Rabbis refused to let the Military destroy the mosques because it was now shared holy ground. 

Our Temple and their Mosques shared the same holy ground. Of what purpose could rewriting this history serve, except to alienate people from each other, a clear violation of everything that Jews and Muslims hold sacred. My colleagues have declared this to be “Solidarity Shabbat.” As Jews are being randomly attacked with knives, we have to hold sacred the lives forever altered by hate: the lives of the victims and their families and the lives of the perpetrators who gave in to the message of hate. Solidarity cannot be a matter of holding tight to one victim over another. My prayer for solidarity is for the Godliness … “Allah-ness” that should help us appreciate each other and the blessings that we can share with each other will see us past the distractions that make us lose focus on each other’s holiness.

However one chooses to read the Noah story, he failed at being humane. One cannot know what would have happened if he only said, “God, please … no, there has to be a better way.” We cannot fail. This week, show solidarity with each person with whom we share the same creator. It is time for the voice of unity to sing loudly that this is not my world or your world. Every time we try to change that truth, it becomes a world that welcomes neither of us. We are each made in the very same image of God; a child of the same miraculous phenomenon of birth. I have no hope for the future if I have no ability to love you today. Shabbat Shalom.