Parshat Toledot 5768: Why I Can’t Write This Title.

This week Isaac and Rebecca are childless. After some praying, Rebecca gets pregnant with twins, who won’t sit still in her womb, and so God tells Rebecca about her two sons. After the Birth of Esau and Jacob, the two are as different as can be, each preferred by opposite parents. Once the kids are older, Esau sells his birthright for a bowl of stew. The family then has to move into Philistine territory for a while, though they are eventually kicked out for Isaac trying the “sister” tactic of his father, though he gets caught when he can’t keep his hands off the lovely Rebecca. There is some trouble at the wells, and then Esau marries someone who his parents don’t particularly like. Finally, Isaac asks Esau to get him some venison, and that he should prepare him a meal, and then Esau will get the blessing. Rebecca helps Jacob trick his father into giving the blessing to Jacob instead of to Esau, which enrages Esau to the point he’s swearing to kill Jacob. Rebecca then makes a timely suggestion to Isaac that it is time to find a wife for Jacob among her family, so Jacob sets out toward Padan-Aram.

I started this week having absolutely no clue what I was going to write about here. In many ways, I felt a lot like our hapless couple at the beginning of our portion, totally childless, and a bit frustrated about that. So I did something with the text I do when so stumped, and walked into quite the story. One interesting thing to do with Biblical text is to note inconsistencies or riddles in the text. The Talmudic Rabbis, who believed all the inconsistencies in Tanach were there for a reason, often used these as the springboard for commentary. For example, we have the verse in the week’s portion:

20. And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebecca for his wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Padan-Aram, the sister to Laban the Aramean. 21. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebecca his wife conceived. [Genesis 25:20-21]

But we read a few verses below that:

26. And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.

There is a gap of twenty years between Isaac’s marriage to Rebecca, and the birth of Esau and Jacob. Did it take nearly 20 decades of prayer to get the result, or was something else going on? Was this a 20 year pregnancy? Where does this lead us?

One source of commentary is the Aramaic translation to the Torah, the Targums. The Targums often add information to the biblical text to enlighten the reader about what is going on. When I checked Targum Pseudo Jonathan, I not only had a shock, but more of a mystery on my hands:

And Isaac went to the mountain of worship the place that his father bound him. Isaac changed with his prayer the intention of the Holy One Blessed be He from what he decreed concerning his wife. Because she, along with him, was barren twenty two years. It was changed on his account By the Holy One Blessed be He from what he decreed against him that he also was barren then he was able to beget children then Rebecca his wife became pregnant. [T. PsJ Gen 25:21]

Rebecca’s barrenness isn’t the only issue, but Isaac also is barren. To add to the mystery, the Targum says twenty two years, not twenty. What is going on? The Talmud confirms Isaac’s problem:

R. Isaac stated: Our father Isaac was barren; for it is said, ‘And Isaac entreated the Lord opposite his wife.’[Gen 25:21] It does not say ‘for his wife’ but opposite. This teaches that both were barren. [Yebamot 64a]

In this Text, R. Isaac confirms the Targum by noting a linguistic oddity. When someone prays they usually pray for someone. But Isaac prays ‘opposite’ his wife. There word for opposite also means in front of, or facing. R. Isaac relates that they prayed together because both were affected the same way.

But what is the point of Isaac being sterile? One possibility comes up in the Talmud, where there is a discussion of reproductive rights, in this case the right for a woman to bear a child. The Talmud reads:

Our Rabbis taught: If a man took a wife and lived with her for ten years and she bore no child, he shall divorce her and give her her kethubah, since it is possible that it was he who was unworthy to have children from her.[Yeb 64a]

Essentially it is grounds for divorce if a man does not give his wife a baby within ten years of marriage. However, there is no mitzvah that directly states this or that this could be derived from, so the rabbis try to find a story for justification. One they try is Isaac, and it doesn’t work too well. Yet the rabbis in this discussion do relate Isaac’s problem. Key to the issue of why Isaac doesn’t work as an example is that it was twenty, not ten years that Isaac and Rebecca are infertile – they should have been divorced for decade!

The Targum’s assertion of twenty two years of infertility hint at a possible reason. And there is one more hint in our text:

8. And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebecca his wife. [Gen 26:8]

Given context of that episode, “sporting” is better translated in this text as fondling. Why is Isaac, in all of Tanach, caught red-handed in foreplay?

It is by calculating ages that the mystery begins to clear. First there are the ages of Sarah and Abraham one year before Isaac’s Birth:

1. And when Abram was ninety nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram…(17:1)

17. Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born to him who is a hundred years old? and shall Sarah, who would be ninety years old, bear?(17:17)

Of course a year later this comes true with the birth of Isaac when Sarah was 90. Genesis 23:1 tell us that Sara dies at 127. Therefore Isaac was 37 when she died. As we already discussed, the kids are born when Isaac is 60, giving us the twenty years of marriage between their marriage and the birth of the twins, and twenty three years between the time Of Sarah’s death and the birth of the Jacob and Esau. People do not have kids instantly. Subtracting one year for Rebecca’s pregnancy equals the 22 years the Targum mentions.

The death of Sarah, therefore is an important issue in this calculation, and thus must have more meaning. That meaning is related in the Targum passage. Isaac goes to Mt. Moriah of all places to make his prayer, the place of his biggest trauma. There is also a midrash relating to the immediacy after the Akedah that we read of Sarah’s death from grief over the what her husband was doing with her precious son [Gen R. LVIII:8]. Isaac therefore was 37 when Abraham bound him, and he has been infertile since the Akedah on Mt. Moriah.

Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew however do not differentiate between true infertility and impotence. Even though the incident with Abimelech catching Isaac red-handed happens after Jacob and Esau are born, it indicates something else – Isaac, more than any other biblical male knew how to satisfy his wife without intercourse. He had a lot of practice in nineteen years of sexual dysfunction. Isaac must have been impotent, not sterile.

Isaac’s impotency in my mind was a matter of post traumatic stress syndrome. On one single day, his father ties him up and tries to kill him and his mother dies from worrying about that. It had to have had some effect on Isaac. Impotency appears to be one of those things that happened. If we follow the Targum’s story then, we find a very interesting solution to his problem, and it had nothing to do with the v-word which would get this post banned by every spam filter out there. He went back and prayed at the very spot the trauma occurred. Not only him, but Rebecca too went up there with him, to face him -- to be opposite him, to remind each other that this is something they both have to do. As a couple they are strong, and can overcome this problem, as a couple praying for the child they can’t have, and thus succeed.

I started this Drash like Isaac and Rebecca, barren but with a little work I came around to a very rich and interesting commentary on a text. As I discussed a few weeks ago when talking about Lilith, the bible is a place where everyone looks for archetype to validate their own situation. Isaac provides us with an archetype of a man who dealt with a great trauma, was severely affected by it, but healed. Isaac as a PTS archetype still leaves a lot to be explored, but here at least is a beginning. I started barren this week, but now I am pregnant with ideas for dashes to come.

Hayyei Sarah 5768: Is Dating Good for the Jews?

Last week, I mentioned there were a few things at my current synagogue that didn’t fit my model of a synagogue that reverses the trends of a declining Judaism. This week I’m going to let you in on a secret, one of those things that I think could revitalize an important and missing part of synagogue and Jewish life.

This week’s portion named the Life of Sarah, ironically starts with her death. Abraham does some land deals to find a proper burial place for his late beloved wife, and then tells his trusty servant Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac back in the old country. Eliezer, not having a clue what to do decides the best thing to do is pray and to ask for a sign from God. Almost immediately the sign comes to pass, he meets Rebecca, and eventually brings her back to Isaac where she is so blown away by him she falls off her camel. Isaac and Rebecca get married, move into Sarah's old digs, and Isaac is comforted from the loss of his mother. Abraham remarries, (some rabbinic sources say he marries Hagar), and has a few more kids. Even with the death of Abraham, which both of his sons bury jointly, everybody's one happy family until the twins show up next week.

Last week we talked about lifting the eyes, and this is one way to see the miracles around us. In this weeks portion we read about eye lifting again:

63. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the evening time; and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming. 64. And Rebecca lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she got off the camel. [Gen 24:63-64]

In terms of eye lifting, once again it is the miracles involved seeing that is forefront. Yet this miracle is far more powerful. I think it’s a tradition for me to quote the following Midrash every time I comment on this portion, for obvious reasons:

A [Roman] matron asked R. Yose: ' In how many days did the Holy One, blessed be He, create His world?’ ‘In six days,’ he answered. ‘Then what has He been doing since then?’ ‘He sits and makes matches,’ he answered, ‘assigning this man to that woman, and this woman to that man.’ ‘If that is difficult,’ she gibed, ‘I too can do the same.’ She went and matched [her slaves], giving this man to that woman, this woman to that man and so on. Some time after those who were thus united went and beat one another, this woman saying, ' I do not want this man,’ while this man protested, ‘I do not want that woman.’ Straightway she summoned R. Yose b. Halafta and admitted to him: ‘There is no god like your God: it is true, your Torah is indeed beautiful and praiseworthy, and you spoke the truth!’ Said he to her: ‘If it is easy in your eyes, it is as difficult before the Holy One, blessed be He, as the dividing of the Red Sea.’ [Genesis Rabbah 58:4]

Last week, I talked about my graduation, and the graduation of Abraham, and in some sense Hagar. I had a graduation party this weekend at Shabbat services, and I thank everyone who gave me their well wishes who were there or not. But Sunday it hit me big time: What now!?! The answer of course is changing my single status to married. And as R. Yosi points out this is not an easy prospect. Splitting the Red Sea or finishing a Masters Degree is easy in comparison.

One of those papers I wrote for grad school asked the question – Why am I not married? According to the research paper I did, intermarriage is really a symptom of a bigger problem. It is very difficult for Jewish singles to get together. There were several trends in the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-1(NJPS) which I found interesting, and very likely related. One was fertility rates. By age 40, 36% of Jewish American women have not had their first child, compared to 20% for the U.S. as a whole. That led me to the age of marriage. By age 34, 64% of Jewish women are married compared to 70% of The U.S. Population as a whole. Men are worse off with only 48% of Jewish men by age 34 compared to 59% of the U.S. population married. We do catch up a bit by age 44, with Jewish Men at 74% and Jewish women at 85% married at least once. Yet even here there is a gap compared to the U.S.

What I found in my sample population is the trend for Jewish singles to finish college, then start graduate school in their late twenties or early thirties then finish grad school somewhere around their mid thirties. Up until the mid thirties Jewish singles describe the relationship they are looking for as non committal. In the mid thirties they suddenly reverse their objective and look for a mate to have children with. I concluded the two were related, people do not want to start families under the dual pressures of work and graduate school. When that is completed, the number of child-bearing years is limited, and a new emphasis is placed on having a family. Yet with those limited number of years, there may not be time for a large family, and thus less children born. While in their late thirties and forties, women begin to indicate a desire for life partners instead of a parental partner, and the desire for children stabilizes. Such is not true of men. Instead their rate for wanting children continues to soar, This, I inferred, may be one source of intermarriage, as these men now look outside Judaism and into the local population for potential mothers of their children.

This brings us back to Isaac and Rebecca. Abraham was clear in his instructions to Eliezer that was exactly what he didn’t want to happen with Isaac.

3. And I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live;4. But you shall go to my country, and to my family, and take a wife for my son Isaac. [Gen 24:3-4]

Eliezer faces the problem of American Jewish singles: Where to find this adequate person in a place that is so big, it becomes impossible to navigate. Such is the Jewish American dating scene. It is very different from the medieval Kehilla of our ancestors, where the matchmaker was critical. Parents rather early in adolescence would use a matchmaker to find a partner for their children. There reason for this was rather pragmatic and not what you would expect. Besides the reproductive reasons, a teen with the raging hormones of that age would have a committed intimate partner to sexually express themselves instead of falling into promiscuity. Such young marriages would also be at a time where the child did not have a lot of worldly experience, and thus were more flexible in compatibility with a mate. Modern dating’s search for a committed partner means as much as two decades of experience. This has shaped a personality which has more requirements for compatibility than the pliable medieval teen. That medieval teen also lived in a small intimate community which had a lot of common ground among itself – the limitations of potential partners assured better compatibility. Yet in modernity, our choices of potential people, including dating among other religions, are vast. With less than 2 in 1000 Americans being Jewish adults, and only a minority of those single, this becomes quite the task to find a potential partner. The options are often beyond our ability to choose. The success of Internet sites such as Jdate.com or Mypsace.com are in response to this, which gives singles some community with at least a few common attributes.

The success of one particular Jewish author and journalist shows one other problem, also noted in our text by an interesting absence. Moses and Jacob both charmed their potential mates into marriage. According to Midrash, Joshua was so charismatic he hooked the hottest woman in the region: Rahab. But Isaac never says or does anything to attract a mate. He may have had no social skills. The success of Neil Strauss and his book “The Game” points out another deficiency we may have unintentionally created. Strauss writes early in the book that society does not prepare us to meet the opposite sex. Often we are given false images in the media of what it is to date. These idealized or trivialized methods leave us unprepared for the real thing, and may even intimidate enough to keep people single. Strauss took an extreme course of action, becoming a member of the world of the pickup artist in order to learn those skills, and the book is his chronicle of two years in that community. Strauss’ book set off an avalanche of people, both men and women, clamoring for his secrets, of just getting enough knowledge to get a date. The response to this book and indeed the number of books on similar topics sitting on the local bookstore’s Self-help shelf point to how poor many a good Jewish boy’s and girl’s skill at meeting and connecting with potential mates may be.

Given all the obstacles for singles to date, it is a miracle on the order of splitting the Red sea to get two people together. In my mind, dating has not been good to the Jews, yet it is the mating system of the western world. Yet, Isaac and Rebecca did it, as have generations since. Like Isaac and Rebecca, I still believe such the miracle of finding a mate is possible as I begin to tool up my life to the task of finding my beloved. I know the problems. I’m still not sure of the solutions, though I believe one component of that is communities who help Jewish singles get together in a comfortable environment. Getting to the point where I break the glass under the Huppa with my beloved will be quite the journey, harder than the Masters degree by far. But this too will be a journey which is a Matter of Torah, and not only I but the Jewish world needs to learn.

Parshat Vayera 5768: Graduation and Seeing Things

This week we continue the story of Abraham. Abraham is sitting in the heat of the day in his tent. While being visited by God, he sees some strangers, and runs out to them to show hospitality. After a big meal, they tell him that he and Sarah will have a son within a year, which makes Sarah laugh. When these strangers start back on their way towards Sodom, they tell Abraham that they are to destroy Sodom and the other cities of the plain. Abraham has a debate with God if this is a good idea and even bargains down what it will take to save the city. We then cut to Sodom and the experiences of two angels in the Big City, who decide the only one worth saving is Abraham's nephew Lot and his family. They escape, but not without casualties and misunderstandings. Abraham then moves into the land of the Philistines, and once again uses the "sister" excuse describing his relationship with Sara. After this adventure, Sara conceives and has a son, Isaac, which causes more sibling and maternal rivalry with Hagar and Ishmael. The last major story in this section is, of course, God telling Abraham to go to a mountain and to sacrifice Isaac.

The British potter Bernard Leach once watched the Japanese pottery master Shoji Hamada take a lump of clay, pinch it into a smooth pot and fire it in a raku Kiln within half an hour. When Leach remarked on this feat, Hamada objected: “Thirty minutes? No, it took forty years to make that pot!” Similarly it’s taken thirteen years to write this D’var.

The portion starts on a word which becomes a theme through the piece: Vayera. The root of this word means to see. Seeing things becomes critical in understanding the stories here. In this first occurrence, God appears, he causes himself to be seen. In the second, a verse later we read:

2. And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the ground,[Gen 18:2]

Later, Hagar has a moment when she sees something.

19. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad to drink.[Gen 21:19]

And at the Akedah, Abraham sees something:

13. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in place of his son.[22:13]

Key to these three places when someone sees is what they see with – their eyes. This should be obvious. Yet, something is done with the eyes in these three cases, lifting up and opening. Is there is difference?

Let’s start with Hagar opening her eyes. We know from the text she is not a happy lady.

16. And she went, and sat down opposite him a good way off, as it were a bowshot; for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice, and wept. 17. And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, What ails you, Hagar? fear not; for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. 18. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in your hand; for I will make him a great nation. 19. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad to drink.[Gen 21:16-19]

It is not Hagar’s crying but heard the voice of the lad that God reacts to. Similarly in Psalm 28 we read of King David: Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry to you… Blessed be the Lord, because he has heard the voice of my supplications. What is the difference between Hagar and Ishmael? Hagar is self absorbed, while Ishmael prays. In order for Hagar to see the solution which is right in front of her God has to open her eyes. Sometimes we so self limit ourselves, we are so much on our own issue, we cannot see the things in front of us.

It’s a rare event within Torah to have someone actually have their eyes open. Generally its related to someone we might say is an outsider. Besides Hagar, Baalam for example, also has such an experience within Torah. In these cases to open the eyes is when God directly intercedes. My return to Judaism was such an event, as one on the outside. For a decade, I was involved in Taoism and Zen, not Judaism, even refusing to go to High Holiday services. While on a study abroad program to Rome in early July of 1995 I had a dream. In the dream, A Hasidic rabbi and I were alone in a room freshly plastered, yet without doors. The Rabbi told me to fresco on the walls some passages in Hebrew, though he did not tell me what. Though I did not know how to read Hebrew at the time, I began to write perfectly, and even knew what I was writing: the Shema. As I got through the fresco of the third wall, the room begun to spin, and the letters spun upwards towards Heaven like a tornado.

All I knew at that time was I needed to look into my heritage more. When I returned to the states, I did begin to look into it. That dream opened my eyes, and brought me back to Judaism. Opening of the eyes is for those who do not believe, but need to.

Unlike Hagar, Abraham has his eyes lifted. This expression is a lot more common. People lift their eyes and all of a sudden see things they didn’t before. In this portion, there are two expressions. In this first, we read he lifted up his eyes(18:2). In the last, Abraham lifted up (et)his eyes(22:13). Grammatically, the first is weaker than the second. The first is all pronouns. We could easily assume God lifted up Abraham’s eyes. The second case is a lot stronger, with Abraham as the subject, and the direct object marker et. Why is one weaker and the other stronger?

The dream above was not my only experience in Rome. A year later, I was back and with nothing to do on the Saturday between classes, I went with some people to the former seaport of Rome, Ostia Antica. Unlike Rome itself, where construction for the last two millennia has destroyed much of the ancient city, the ancient streets of 1900 years ago still exist in the ruins of Ostia including many rather intact remains of restaurants and offices and apartment buildings which went out of business in the 2^nd century CE. Walking down these streets, I looked up to see an odd looking capitol in the ruins of a building. It had a menorah, etrog and lulav. I was standing in a synagogue. When I think of it now I still wonder if I stood where many a Rabbis stood after disembarking a ship from Israel en route to an audience with the Emperor, or saying tefilat haderech here on their way home. Three days later, I finally had walked into the central synagogue of Rome and visited the small Holocaust museum. I met a few people who were holocaust survivors, some visiting from elsewhere some now living in Rome. I heard their stories. I heard most of these grand synagogues in Italy cannot even get minyans. I wondered, is this our fate, museums in empty synagogues and ruins?

1. And the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre; and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; 2. And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the ground,[Genesis 18:1-2]

At the beginning of Vayera, Abraham is recovering from his circumcision. God appears to him, and only after that does he see the three strangers. The weakness in the grammar may indicate Abraham was not acting alone here. God gave a little help in this case, one that the Midrash notes. Abraham was sulking that now that he was circumcised he would have no guests. God replies that before he was circumcised he was only fit to receive the uncircumcised, now he is fit to receive angels, and then he lifted up his eyes to see the three wayfarers. [Gen R. XLVIII:9]

My experience at Ostia and Abraham’s seeing the approaching men are experiences still missing complete commitment. Unlike Hagar, where things are impossible, there is faith, yet still some doubt. By that time I was privately exploring Judaism and Buber’s stories of the Hasidic masters. To actively join a community still seemed difficult for me. Yet the answer seemed much clearer after Italy: I needed to be involved. By Purim, I was attending a synagogue. A year after Ostia I signed up for a beginning Biblical Hebrew class at Spertus College. Abraham and I were alike: we were still working the path out. We needed a little help, and God was there to give that little extra push.

My Hebrew classes led me to take the plunge and enter the Spertus College’s Masters in Jewish Studies Program. It’s been a difficult program, not just in terms of the work load but in my personal, spiritual and professional life. The worst was during the doctoral level class on Jewish continuity. The numbers from the AJIS and NJPS are not very encouraging. Demographic trends put us nearer to museums and ruins, than a thriving culture. The scholarly literature claims the ones to blame the most are our own self destructive tendencies. I wrote the papers and got the A’s always wondering as I wrote if there really was any hope out there. One of these papers I wrote was a model for a new vision of a synagogue to combat the problems and reverse the trends. As I finished the final edits, I attended Shavuot services at a different synagogue, one I had been to only once before for a friend’s farewell party. The first time it did not make an impression. As I spent the evening through the night and then sunrise on a nearby beach at this Tikkun L’eil I lifted my eyes: With a few exceptions, this place was that model.

There are a lot of interpretations of the Akedah. Mine is that Abraham knew the outcome, and that Isaac would not be sacrificed, but he had to do the motions until he saw another solution – he was after the good grade here. That is why he says My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering; in Genesis 21:8. Yet he got to the mountain and didn’t see anything. He’s too busy making sure it all follows the correct procedure, to do what his teacher wanted, and at the same time wondering if there any way he doesn’t have to sacrifice his son. Things are not looking too good as he reaches for the knife…

10. And Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to slay his son 11. And the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham; and he said, Here am I. 12. And he said, Lay not your hand upon the lad, nor do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing that you did not withheld your son, your only son from me. 13. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in place of his son.[Genesis 22:10-13]

Abraham looked everywhere but behind himself. Only when the angel speaks for the first time, when all the procedures are done, and there is a bit of relief from this tension does he think to look behind himself and there waiting for him is the solution. We learn from the Perkei Avot that the Ram was put there at the twilight of the sixth day of creation.[5:6] The world which God gave us to steward has everything in it already, all we need to know is how and where to look.

When someone opens our eyes, like Hagar we are passive. When one lifts up the eyes it is a personal act, not completely an act of God. Sometimes we have help, sometime we do not. We need to do things to get to that point of opening the eyes, of revelation, of seeing miracle. Miracles are around all the time. The siddur I used at the first synagogue I returned to said it best to be is a miracle. Everything is miracles. If we know what to look for, we will see them appear.

Only after Abraham sacrifices the ram instead of Isaac, we read that the covenant, in the name of God will be fulfilled. It is only then that the trials of Abraham are over. Abraham and Sarah’s want of a child is only fulfilled after Abraham runs out to the strangers. Ishmael is spared dehydration only when Hagar fills a bottle and brings him a drink. It was taking the opportunity that the eyes found that was the key. In each of the three cases we can be given miracles, but what we do with them determines our outcome for the better. When they took action, then they graduated to the next level.

When we understand that, then we graduate. I graduated with a Jewish identity in July of 2005, I graduated into practicing Judaism in July of 2006. I learned a lot in the last few years. As I now graduate with my Master’s Degree, and look forward to July 2008 when I receive my Diploma officially, I now turn my eyes towards action. My learning can help me lift my eye to the opportunities and possibilities out there, but it is up to me to do something with it.

Shlomo Drash’s slogan from Brachot 62a was originally intended as a bit of ironic humor. It is a matter of Torah and I am required to Learn was the first passage of Talmud I ever learned, a joke talking about students barging into bathrooms to watch a teacher’s toilet habits. Yet as I learned in my last class at Spertus, it means something more*. It means that our actions are far more important than our words. As an educator, in everything I do from now on, my actions are critically important to the lesson. And so, with all seriousness I now can say:

It is a matter of Torah and I am required to Learn

*for the full unpacking of the text see the Unpacking Gemara page on shlomosdrash.com

Parshat Lech Lecha 5768: Out of the Comfort Zone

This week we begin the story of Abraham. While Abram's early life begins at the end of Parshat Noah, it is here that he is told to Lech Lecha, to leave everything behind and go to a new place with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot in tow. When he gets there he finds a famine, and so he ends up in Egypt, tells his wife Sarai to tell everyone that he is her sister, and ends up very rich when the fallout from that happens. From there, he returns to Canaan, gets into water rights battles with his nephew. Lot moves towards Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot is captured and taken hostage in a battle between local principalities, and in order to rescue him, Abram allies himself with Sodom and Gomorrah, and in a guerilla raid, beats the crap out of Lot's captors, saves Lot and the women of Sodom. Abram makes a strange sacrifice of animals and is told of the future of his progeny. Sarai, who has not borne children, then tells Abram to have a child by Hagar her Egyptian maidservant. This child Ishmael causes some contention between Hagar and Sarai. Finally God tells Abram that he will have a physical sign of their covenant through circumcision, and he will have a son from his wife Sarai. Abram's name is changed to Abraham, and Sarai's to Sarah. We end with Abraham, at age 99 and Ishmael at 13 and the rest of the males of his household getting circumcised.

Yet it is the first few words that many have often tried to understand.

1. And the Lord had said to Abram, Get out from your country, and from your family, and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you; 2. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing; 3. And I will bless those who bless you, and curse him who curses you; and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed. [Genesis 12:1-3]

Yet it is Abram’s response to this which I think is the key.

4. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken to him; and Lot went with him; and Abram was seventy five years old when he departed from Haran. 5. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go to the land of Canaan; and to the land of Canaan they came.

Abram, without objection, got up and left. He had no arguments, no quibbling. Unlike Moses, he didn’t try to squirm out of it. He did exactly as God told him to. Moses, when told to get the people out of Egypt responded with fear and excuses. He didn’t go until God was about ready to lose his temper, but instead told Moses that his big brother Aaron would be there to hold his hand at the scary parts.

But not Abram. Just like the Akedah next week, when God says “Lech Lecha” Abram gets up and does it, even though what is going on is very scary or upsetting. As many modern commentators like to note, this is not just about obedience, but about comfort zones. God is asking Abram to completely change his life – And that is not a bad thing.

All too often we do things out of habit. We go to work the exactly same way every day. We listen to the same radio station or go to the same restaurants. In one sense this has the positive effect of giving our lives structure. It also give us a sense of security that what we will get will be exactly what we expect. I always for example go to Disney World as a solo vacation. I’ve had too many bad experiences as a single person at other destinations. Yet Disney has consistently treated me exceedingly well. So I keep going because I know I’ll have a good time there.

Yet as I wrote two years ago for Lech Lecha, Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida also presents a big challenge for me. You see, I’m afraid of thrill rides. I’m not the first in my family, its something that’s been true in my family for generations, so I never learned to ride a rollercoaster when I was young, so I’m afraid of them. Yet, every time I’ve gone to Disney in the last few years, I work on that problem and try another ride I’ve never done before. Almost every time I get on shaking in fear and by the end of the ride I’m laughing. Almost. A few, like Expedition Everest were too intense, though I keep wondering about taking a second ride. Maybe knowing what to expect in that first dark tunnel, it wouldn’t be so bad. Getting on to that ride was one of the scariest and most uncomfortable things I ever done. But every year, step by step I work out my fear.

Fear is an intense emotion, and so is rather tangible to see such working out of the problem. There are more subtle things which are so much habit or part of our self image that it’s not so easy to perceive such things. One personal example is my trying to ask people for things, be it money for the services I perform or even a woman’s phone number. It’s just not comfortable to do such things. If I magnify that a million times to every comfort I have and every assumption I have, I might begin to think of the weight on Abram’s shoulders when God says “Lech Lecha.” Yet, Abram does it.

That said, there a curious phrase in the Genesis 12:5 that intrigued the rabbis, and sheds some light on what Abram did and why he could do it. We read

5. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go to the land of Canaan; and to the land of Canaan they came.

What does the Torah mean by Souls they had gotten in Haran? What kind of souls can one make? Certainly not children as events in the rest of this portion attest to. In Biblical Hebrew, nefesh, Soul, can also mean people. Rabbinic commentators all believe this refers to Abram and Sarai proselytizing and converting some of the residents of Haran to their new way of thinking. Indeed there is one tradition [Avodah Zara 9a] that Abram was 52 years old when he started to proselytize. He left for Canaan when he was 75 [Gen 12:4] so he was preaching his ideas of God, and people were listening for 23 years before he left Haran. The well known Midrash of Genesis Rabbah 38:13 where Abram smashed the idols may not have been a plucky kid, but a middle age man still working in his father’s business with some inspired event marketing. Most people don’t read is the beginning of the story, where he intimidates a customer:

R. Hiyya said: Terah was a manufacturer of idols. He once went away somewhere and left Abraham to sell them in his place. A man came and wished to buy one. ' How old are you? ' Abraham asked him. ' Fifty years,’ was the reply. ' Woe to such a man!’ he exclaimed, ‘you are fifty years old and would worship a day-old object! '. [Genesis Rabbah 38:13]

Who could get away with such a statement? Could a fifty two year old man or a teen? As the rabbis mention in regards to another age issue, could we leave a stain of disrespect on Abraham for being rude to his elders, even if Idolaters? How does that age change the meaning? Abraham was an adult when he smashed the Idols – he knew exactly what he was doing. What this all points to is something about Lech Lecha, about leaving the comfort zone.

The first thrill ride I tried at Disney world was Test Track, the second, Kali River Rapids. Both were lightweights in the world of thrill rides. I worked my way up to the really intense stuff. I prepared my self for each ride by knowing the way I enjoyed the rides I did first, and knowing what to expect. There are times when we have radical change in our lives, yet for many of them we can be prepared. Abraham was prepared for that moment of leaving for Canaan for decades. Although he did leave much behind, it was not a problem to do because the parts that were important to him were coming along; they were as ready for the journey as he was. What he was leaving behind was the parts he was already alienated from.

Jewish thought has a deep emphasis on study and questioning, in part to be ready for such things. Even for Orthodoxy, much of the corpus of the Talmud is not applicable to today’s world. No one directly uses the procedures for sacrifice since we don’t have a Temple, nor does anyone execute false prophets, since we don’t believe there are any prophets anymore. But the study of such things brings us to new questions, and new ways of looking at our world. We, like Abraham proselytizing, become ready for change and moving out of our comfort zones, voluntary or not.

We can move out of our comfort zones, and it can even be fun to do so, to grow into even better human beings that we are now. We just need a little home work first.

So enjoy the homework.

Parshat Noah 5768: What Else was on the Ark?

This week we come to the story of Noah and the flood. God becomes dissatisfied with all flesh on the earth, and thus plans to destroy them. But he does save one family, that of Noah, who was the most righteous of his generation. Noah is commanded to build an ark that will house male and female of every species and a few extra of the clean species. The floods come; everything is wiped out except what is on the Ark. God promises not to do that again, sealing the covenant with a rainbow. Noah, on the other hand, gets drunk and stupid. After the unpleasantness of this incident, a few more generations are born. With only a rainbow as a contract, these later generations don't completely trust God not to wipe them out too. They decide to make a tower at Babel to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. God intervenes, and soon no one can communicate with one another. These peoples are scattered across the world, becoming the various nations of the world. Following the genealogy of Noah's son Shem, we end introduced to some interesting characters: Abram, his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot.

Prior to the flood God tells us the manifest of animals on the ark:

1. And the Lord said to Noah, Come you and all your house into the ark; for you have I seen righteous before me in this generation. 2. Of every clean beast you shall take to you seven pairs, the male and his female; and of beasts that are not clean one pair, the male and his female. 3. Of birds also of the air by seven pairs, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. 4. For in another seven days I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. 5. And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him 6. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. 7. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. 8. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of birds, and of every thing that creeps upon the earth, 9. There went in two and two to Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

Was there anything else on the ark besides animals and Noah’s family? If we go back in the genealogies of last week’s portion, its clear in the flood only the descendants of Seth, Adam and Eve’s third son, survive the flood. Apparently Abel is murdered before he had children. Reading the genealogy of Cain we get some interesting stuff:

17. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch. 18. And to Enoch was born Irad; and Irad fathered Mehujael; and Mehujael fathered Methusael; and Methusael fathered Lamech. 19. And Lamech took for himself two wives; the name of one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. 20. And Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents, and of those who have cattle. 21. And his brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who handle the harp and pipe. 22. And Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain, forger of every sharp instrument in bronze and iron...[Genesis 4:17-22]

All metals technology, musical instruments, and animal agriculture are the products of the sons of Cain, not Seth. Yet all of these people died in the flood, yet those ideas continued. Did the children of Cain perish off the face of the earth? According to one Midrash, the answer is no. If you noted above, I left off the end of Genesis 4:22. The whole verse reads:

22. And Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain, forger of every sharp instrument in bronze and iron… and the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah.

The birth of girls is not often mentioned in genealogies, which usually indicates they are significant in some way. The Targum Pseudo Jonathan tacks on an extra bit about Naamah:

…and the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah, she was the mother of lamentations and songs.

While Jubal was the first musician, Naamah was the first singer. But even with the addition that she was the first to sing, the questions remains: Why does a woman get mentioned in a genealogy which are exclusively men? One rabbi in the Midrash had an answer:

AND THE SISTER OF TUBAL -CAIN WAS NAAMAH. R. Abba b. Kahana said: Naamah was Noah's wife; and why was she called Naamah? Because her deeds were pleasing (ne'imim). [Gen R 23:3]

R. Abba b. Kahana ties our two passages together. While the sons of Cain die, the daughters did not. They survived in Naamah.

One of those things I wanted to do and never had the time to do while in grad school was to leyen Torah. Though I tried and failed due to too little time on several occasions, I’m learning to sing the words of the Torah. It’s an interesting thing singing Torah. You remember the words better when you put a tune to it. Let me give you an example. What is the last word of this phrase: Hine ma tov? If you are like most people you sang the song to get to yachad.

I picked that song in particular because of another interesting thing about song and memory, once accessed it doesn’t go away easily – it’s a sticky memory. For a repetitious round like Hineh Ma Tov once there, you cannot get it out of your head. It’s viral, and like a yawn, if you sing it around others who know the tune then you’ll spread it. The ark did not just contain animals, but contained human memory as well. Much of it stored in a form for easy transport and recall: it was stored in song. Song does not just transmit data, but emotion as well. I’m listening to iTunes right now, and as the player shuffles between Elvis, West African drumming and chant, Home on the Range in Yiddish, Hawaiian ukulele, Cuban sambas, and even the practice passages for my Upcoming Torah reading, you don’t need to know the meaning of the words to get the idea of the songs. The tower of Babel is meaningless when it comes to song. Had they sung to each other, the tower would have been completed.

Genesis 7:11 says it was in the 2^nd month on the 17^th day the flood began. Genesis 8:14-16 tells us Noah, Naamah and the kids left the ark in the 2^nd month of the next year on the 27^th of the month. Was there 375 days of silence on the ark? I think there was 375 days of music, some expressing pain and fear, some expressing thanksgiving, some ballads, some ningunim, even an instrumental or two. While they fed animals that sang while cleaning up after animals they sang. When they were just kicking back, then too they sang. Song was there as a release from the terrible things around them, of a world destroyed, and the joy of walking into a beautiful new world safe and sound.

One of the problems of the electronic revolution is how few experience that idea personally. We live with background music, often not paying attention. Before radio and records, iPods and music videos, people played music. Very few were professional, but singing was what you did when working. Picking up an instrument and jamming was what you did when the work was done and the chores for the day were completed. Families and neighborhoods played and sang. Labor unions and congregations sang. They were not worried about winning on American Idol or scoring a big record contract, but being part of a community. They told each other the stories of their world to each other in song, teaching the next generation its values and dreams in both cautionary ballads and joyous songs.

Songs are precious and many are sacred. In the Temple, in a world without amplifiers, the book of Psalms we not muttered, they were sung. It was not just one singer singing, but multitudes with the volume to reach the heavens. The Song of the Sea was sung by all the people, it was not a solo performance by Moses.

Parshat Noah is often about the animals in many synagogues. It’s a time some congregations will talk about protecting animals from extinction due to our carelessness. Although when the Torah reader will read the song of the sea sometime this winter, we call it the Sabbath of Song, every Shabbat should be. All too often I see congregations that let the cantor perform and passively listen. Naamah her husband Noah and their kids sang their way to Ararat, and kept song and memory alive as much as keeping all those species below decks alive.

Woody Guthrie once defined folk music as the music folks sing. This Shabbat, lets not let the folk song called prayer become an endangered species. SING!

Breshit 5768: Who is Lillith?

This week we begin the story over again. As most know, the story begins with chaos and void, God says “let there be light” and there is light, then God takes seven days to create the rest of the world, ending with male and female created in God’s image. After all this work, God takes a well deserved and blessed Shabbos schluff. This is followed by the story of the first man, another version of why the animals were created to keep the man from being lonely, and finally with the creation of the woman. We then find out that one of these creatures is a little more wilily than the rest, and it isn’t the coyote. The snake convinces this woman, now named Eve, to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and in the resulting mess everyone is booted out of Eden. The snake ends up never wearing boots again, sometimes getting made into boots, and sometimes making its home in someone’s pair of boots. This gets followed by the Story of the first kids in this world, with Cain killing Abel. Eve has another son, Seth, and from him everyone is descended, though they are not very nice people.

I got good news and bad news, which might be good news for some. The good news is I finished my last final of my masters. The bad news I have no energy to write, so I’m digging up an oldie but a goodie. So in honor of the creation story, I ‘m going to give you the history of one particular character involved in Genesis 1 and 2 through folklore mostly: Lilith.

Lilith does not actually show up in Genesis, but her own genesis is here. We read in Genesis 1:27.

“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female He created them.”

But we also read in Genesis 2:21-22

“And the Lord God made Adam fall into a deep sleep, and he slept; and He took one from his ribs, and closed up the flesh. Then he made the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, into a woman, and brought her to the man”.

The Talmudic rabbis were in a conundrum. How does one reconcile the differences between these two, making them separate in Genesis 1, then from one another from Genesis 2?

Genesis 1:23 continues

And Adam said, This time is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

Most people would take the “this time” to mean different than the animals that Adam named in the previous verses. But the Midrash Genesis Rabbah XVIII:4 takes it one step further. It introduces the idea of two women. The first was menstruating, and so upset Adam she had to be taken away. The second was Eve who was “this time”. Yet, from that other time, a legend arouse.

The only real biblical mention of Lilith is as a tawny owl, in Isaiah 34:14 one of the only things living, among other night birds, after an apocalypse destroying the enemies of Israel. She is otherwise not mentioned, though there have been archaeological finds of clay images of a woman with owl wings. In the Talmud, Nidah 24b in its rather clinical discussion of aborted fetuses talks about a fetus with wings as looking like a Lilith.

There were other legends of a whole class of demons named Liliths. The tractate Shabbat 151b warns not to sleep in a house alone or be seized by a Lilith. A Lilith would seduce men into nocturnal emissions and impregnate herself with these.

Her legend comes together with a rather strange book, The Alphabet of Ben Sira. The book is a series of folk tales heavily influenced by Midrash and Talmud. Written probably only two to three hundred years after the Talmud, around the 8^th or 9^th century CE. It was written in Islamic Persia by an unknown author. Given its rather absurd critique of Talmud, it may have been a parody written by bored Rabbis. I have an pet theory the Lillith part of the story of Ben Sira was actually a misogynist’s polemic against the Talmudic rulings of onah, the requirement for sexual satisfaction of one’s wife, which strongly favored women.

In the story, Ben Sira saves the son of Nebuchadnezzar by writing an amulet. Ben Sira explains to the king the story of Lilith. Lilith was Adam’s first wife.

After God created Adam, who was alone, He said, 'It is not good for man to be alone' (Genesis 2:18). He then created a woman for Adam, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight. She said, 'I will not lie below,' and he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.' Lilith responded, 'We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.' But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air. Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: 'Sovereign of the universe!' he said, 'the woman you gave me has run away.' At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent these three angels to bring her back.

God dispatches three angels to bring her back, with a message. If she agrees to come back, then fine and good, but if she does not, a hundred of her children will be killed by the angels every day. Even with this threat she does not return to the garden, and the angels carry out the threat. In vengeance she now kills the children of Adam, the legend goes, for boys until their circumcisions and girls twenty days. But she can be stopped by writing an amulet with the name of the three angels.

Then Kabbalah and the Zohar add to the legend. She roams around particularly on Friday night, killing demons and epileptics created through immodest intercourse. She is still seducing men by the seaside, but she fled when Adam was given a soul in Genesis 2:7, not as Ben Sira claims, after. She cares for not only her own demonic children, but also those created by other seducing she-demons. Lilith, through much of her history, had been the seducer of men, the wife to the prince of demons, the nanny of demons, and the killer of human infants.

Many defenses have been devised against Lilith. One is the ultimate general-purpose demon amulet: the mezuzah. In the Targum to the Song of Songs, written at about the same time frame as Ben Sira, there is line that directly states that mezuzot repel demons. There are also many specific defenses. Lilith cannot stand the color red, so red ribbons or threads worn by infants, or tied to their cribs also repels her. The most powerful, however, is as Ben Sira noted, the amulet with the names of the three angels SNVY, SNSNVY, and SMNGLVF. One famous version found in the magic book Sefer Raziel includes 2 different sets of pictures of the three angels, and the words “Adam and Eve - outside Lilith!”

But in the 20^th century, everything changed with the women’s rights movement. Jewish women, as they looked in the texts for an archetype to describe their new identities, had trouble. Given that most, if not all, of the texts are written by men, it became near impossible to find in the Torah or Talmud an archetype for the feminist Jewish woman. This would be someone who could control her own destiny, not be in subservience to her husband. The only one who fits that bill in all of Jewish folklore is the Lilith of Ben Sira, who not only was an equal creature to Adam, but really wanted to be on top every once and a while. But changing at least a thousand, if not more, years of tradition of Lilith as a demon have not been easy. The issue becomes an emotional one, as I’ve learned first hand. One of the worst arguments I ever got myself into was into what really is the identity of Lilith.

The feminist Lilith is one that embodies certain now-noble qualities: gender equality and independence. But the demon is still to be feared, the loss of an infant, one that I was all too aware of as my now 3 year old, but prematurely born niece and nephew grew in strength. We still see the defenses against Lilith as part of tradition, as mothers and grandmothers tie red ribbons to their newborns, and make sure the mezuzah is kosher in the baby’s room.

For me all the stories of Lilith ring true. She is the demon who seduces men and kills babies. She is the independent archetype. She most importantly is story, and how we describe her is how she becomes. We cannot destroy tradition, and the demon will be with us forever, a battle fought at every child’s birth. But we can begin to temper her, to make her a different character in Myth. I've often described her not in Ben Sira’s view that she was arguing with Adam about who’s on top, but in a more tragic manner. Adam actually raped and abused her, because he did not know any better. Adam had not eaten of the tree of knowledge yet. While we tend to think he learned evil from the fruit, he also learned what is good, and where restraint is necessary. Adam’s and Eve’s first act after eating of the fruit was not an evil one but one of modesty, they covered themselves. So before eating, it was in his capability to do evil without even knowing it. And that is what happened to Lilith. She seemed to know better and made a choice of a tragic life instead of an abusive husband.

Lilith is a side character to the creation stories we read this week, something added millennia later to stories that didn’t quite fit together. I cannot write about Lilith without writing about Adam’s second wife, Eve. While many theologians from many religions want to saddle her with bringing evil in the world, some actually claiming she literally birthed it, I like to think she brought something else. As Adam said “this one is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” and in time man will leave his parents and become “one flesh” with his wife. She never made it as the feminist archetype, since she seems to be the subservient one. She is dependent on Adam. But Adam sees things differently. While Lilith and Adam did not work out, it’s because they were too independent from each other - they could never see the other’s view, nor do anything for the other. They could never share. But Adam and Eve have the potential not just for dependence, but interdependence - to once again be one flesh, two sides of the same being united and sharing into a stronger whole. Independence is great but being part of a bigger whole is more. Not until Eve is Adam happy.

While Lilith might be re-written as the archetype of independence, maybe we need to also begin to re-write the story of Eve. Some feminists and Kabbalists have re-written the story where eve and Lilith are now buddies, and Lilith advises Eve. In some of the misogynist Kabbalah versions, Some think Lilith was the snake, or the serpent was Lillith’s 2^nd husband, and there was more than talk. Other more modern stories make sure Eve does not fall into the same traps as Lilith when it comes to Adam.

But maybe the next step is not just independence, but interdependence. Adam and Eve are not individual archetypes, but a single one, the first true couple who actually could live together for the rest of their lives. We aspire to this at weddings and the seven days afterwards when the blessing is read “ Gladden the joyful companions and lovers as you gladdened your creation in the Garden of Eden in ancient times.” We find joy in that connection, a joy found no where else, and a relationship like nothing else. Lilith may have been a beginning, but like Eve, our futures belong with completing ourselves and each other.

Sukkot 5768: Kohelet, Blues and Laundry

Every year we get to Sukkot, the holiday we are commanded to be happy, and I wonder: why at this time of the year do we read Kohelet, known in English as Ecclesiastes? The other megillot make sense. For Shavuot, Ruth is about the harvest and about taking an oath of loyalty – and living up to it. For Purim, there’s obviously Esther, and for the Ninth of Av we read Lamentations. The Song of Songs for Passover describes the world free, bright and fresh as spring love. Kohelet however starts out on a rather blue note,

2. Vanity of vanities, said Kohelet, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. 3. What gains a man from all his labor at which he labors under the sun? 4. One generation passes away, and another generation comes; but the earth abides for ever. [Kohelet 1:2-4]

For Kohelet, traditionally believed to be King Solomon, Life is, to use a euphemism, B.S. Life is futile and meaningless. To use his expression, it’s chasing after wind. The only thing you can count on is dying, and that death will wipe out everything you did, assuming you did anything at all in the first place, which by the way was totally worthless anyway. Although Kohelet is sung to Megillah cantillation, I have always believed it really belongs in 12-bar Blues on an old acoustic guitar with some serious blues riffs thrown in. Robert Johnson should sing Kohelet, not a cantor. It’s the blues before there was the Blues.

Yet like the blues, there is some comfort about singing about the hopeless, futile situation we find ourselves in. I was trying to write about this while doing the laundry early this morning. I did not make much progress, two little paragraphs was all I got. I understand the frustration Solomon wrote, but I could not put it into words. Tradition has it he wrote the three books of wisdom attributed to him at different times of his life. Song of Songs was written in his youth, and Proverbs in his old age, with Kohelet in his middle years. Often I’ve believed that was inaccurate. Kohelet and Song of Songs are both from his youth: the hopeless romantic and the angst that young people seamlessly switch between. I’m hitting those middle years, and I get what Kohelet is talking about – yep this is a middle age thing – but how to put it into words.

While sitting looking out the window on my apartment’s laundry room, a repairman walked in. He greeted me quite friendly and commented to me while looking out the window that this has got to be the best view of any laundry room he deals with. Since my apartment building was built 56 years ago, our laundry room is on the 21^st floor with windows looking out onto a river of trees leading to a beautiful view of the park and zoo below. I’ll admit, while writing I was very distracted by those same trees, noting their color changes just beginning. Yet, out from behind a washing machine, this woman interrupting our conversation, jumps up and fires out a litany of complaints about this recently remodeled, rather luxury laundry room. I don’t think there was anything she liked.

On my way down the elevator I realized what I needed to write, why Sukkot is associated with Kohelet. The building did quite the job at re-designing the laundry room a few months back, adding many amenities for those who wait for their laundry including a big screen TV and wi-fi. For the professional like me this is wonderful as I can get several things done at the same time such as e-mail and writing the Drash. They doubled the number of washing machines and added several dryers. They changed the hours from 8:00AM-8:00PM daily to 24 hours. At the heart of all of this is environmentally friendly, silent, energy efficient washing machines. It was these front loaders which this lady went off on the most, seemingly hating them with her dying breath, and extolling the virtues of the old, noisy top loading machines.

I realized something after this. Kohelet wrote about it too:

5. As you do not know what is the way of the wind, nor how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child; even so you do not know the works of God who makes all. 6. In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand; for you do not know which shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both alike shall be good. [11:5-6]

There are things in life we can change and there are things we cannot, we cannot even know what will change. Yet there are many things that we cannot change that we hold on to too tight, it hurts for them to change. Most of the very biggest we have no say in, such as the day of death. Death for Kohelet is the big equalizer. It does not matter how rich, happy, wise, poor, miserable, or foolish you are. You come into the world the same, and go out of the world the same. Someone else will get your stuff; you can’t take it with you. It’s a change that we really have no control of. Laundry machines may not be the most appropriate analogy, but we as tenants really didn’t have much control of what kind of laundry machine goes in. Yet those who think of a laundry machine as one of these old noisy things will have hard time dealing with these new energy efficient models and actually get angry about removing such things from their reality. Change happened and there are two ways to deal with it. One is to feel pain, to complain and get angry. The other is to let go, change your world view, find what’s good about it, and move on. Worrying about what kind of laundry machine you’re using really is chasing after wind.

Walking before dawn to get coffee I noted the twenty degree drop in temperature this morning from yesterday. The weather of fall is fast approaching. With fall, trees, birds and animals will go into their winter modes, either going to sleep until the spring or flying away to better climates. In Avodah Zarah 8a we are told Adam became very afraid his first autumn. As the world grew dark and the world around him began its first seasonal sleep he thought God was destroying the world. As the world gets darker and darker with earlier sunsets and later sunrises, in a sense that is true, a reminder of our own mortality, particularly in the shadow of Netaneh Tokef and that decree of who shall live and who shall die.

Yet Kohelet in his blues let us know not to worry too much about that. Everything’s chasing after wind. Doing bad is only going to make your meaningless existence worse, with unpredictable results. Gaining wisdom, following God, and enjoying yourself on the other hand may not help you after death. Yet, you have lived well in this life, even though there is always more you could have done. Kohelet, in his own version of “Down and Out Blues” brings us to a place where we are free to dream of all possibilities since everything ultimately has the same value after death – none at all.

I headed to Erev Sukkot services on an elevated train, in the orange light of late afternoon turning treetops yellow and orange. Passing many neighborhoods, each different from the previous one, I listened to blues tunes and they seemed to fit. Often these are songs of total misery, pain and want, yet even standing on a crowded rush-hour train, you can’t help but feel good and tap your feet. Somehow in its depressing message, Kohelet is uplifting in its message this time of year. While not anywhere as simple or Pollyanna as the more pop music tune of Bobby McFerrin “Don’t worry be happy,” Kohelet’s message is really the same one with a stipulation:

13. The end of the matter, all has been heard. Be in awe of God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. 14. For God shall bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil. [12:13-14]

At the beginning of the year, we are to live a good year, and not be afraid to take chances and expand our possibilities. There really is little to fear, since there is only one ultimate outcome. Yet, we must always remember there is God, and while nothing else might have purpose, our adherence to the mitzvot do. I believe that Kohelet was wrong in one respect however, He wrote “there is nothing new under the sun” [1:9] Yet, As did R. Isaac in the name of R. Johanan [Ta’anit 5b], I believe differently, and there is something beyond death even in this world. We create memories, both good and bad which reflect and ripple out to others. The mitzvot do not just bring us closer to God, but also bring us closer to other humans to reflect in their joy. This is not only in the time we are in this world, but in the time we are not. Sukkot is a time to relate; to understand our relationship to everything outside of us. In the most open of structures we see the world around us in a way our brick walls and small windows never allow. The joy we spread on these days will be new under the sun. The pleasure we give others will be here forever, and even reflect in the world to come. We can take that with us.

May your Sukkot be a joyous one.

Yom Kippur 5768: Passing Netaneh Tokef

Every year during the High Holidays, we hear the prayer Netaneh Tokef. In the middle of this piece of liturgy we read:

On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed
How many pass on, How many shall come to be
Who will live and who will die
Who shall see ripe age and who shall not
Who by fire and who by water
Who by sword and who by beast…

…But repentance prayer and charity temper the stern decree. [Gates of repentance 313]

While hearing the cantor reciting this piece of liturgy, I thought about something I hadn’t before. Six times the verb-root avar (עבר) shows up in Netaneh Tokef. It was the passage above which first caught my eye using this verb in two very different meanings, one of which the Reform Prayer book Gates of Repentance quoted above happens to translate loosely.

Avar in its simplest meaning is to pass or cross. Checking with my dictionary, I found seventeen meanings in three conjugations for this one verbal root. Reading the dictionary further, I found something interesting about this word. Many of these meanings can also mean their opposite. Depending on conjugation and context it can mean to be dead or to be pregnant. It can also mean to sin and to forgive.

Yet, Netaneh Tokef, in its essence comes down to the one phrase, with its key verb an avar root word. But repentance prayer and charity pardon (ma’AViRin) the stern decree. By doing the right things, we prevent the bad things. Last week I talked about Repentance, about changing direction. It’s good to have a pause to do that, however distressing it is, to be lost and directionless for a moment then to turn.

This week I’ve been thinking about the second of those, prayer. For many they read that key phrase in Netaneh Tokef phrase with an implicit addition: But repentance prayer and charity on this day pardon the stern decree. While discussing the state of dating with a friend, I quoted a survey done in 2004 of a popular Jewish singles dating service. Of the sample of 402 singles ages 18-40, 54% go to high holidays services only, 30% attend at least one Shabbat a year and 16% never go at all. The 2000-2001 National Jewish Population survey notes observance has similar, though not necessarily comparable numbers for the entire American Jewish population. 59% fast on Yom Kippur at least part of the day, and 27% attend services at least once a month. In either case, we have almost double who attend services in one ten day stretch than those who attend services even sporadically throughout the year. The prayer of Netaneh Tokef apparently is you pray for yourself on this one day and then go back to your life.

But what is prayer? Is this a good way for the individual to look at prayer? A few Al Heits and skipping breakfast and lunch does the trick? That seems as sensible and effective as a crash diet for ten days a year, then hitting the all-you-can-eat dessert table every day for the other 355.

As I said last week, I make a different assumption here than does this majority and the pshat of Netana Tokef. The High Holidays are not the only day of Judgement all year, with a decree to be given at the close of the Neilah service. Instead, the Days of Awe might be used as a sample of the patterns we have established that need change.

Holiness, whether we believe it or not, is everywhere. God speaks to us all the time. Most never “hear” God. I believe its not that God isn’t saying anything but we are not listening or perceiving what God tells and shows us. It is the still small voice of Netaneh Tokef and of Elijah in I Kings 19:12. How do we learn to hear better? Through prayer, which is a way of getting in tune and learning to listen to Holiness. It’s not a one time thing once a year, but a continual thing. It’s not even a three time a day thing but a hundred every day blessings for the things in the world around us.

How many of us have ever really spent the time to realize and appreciate it is God who made the cloud and moves it, grass that both grows and withers, The flowers both growing and wilting and the light and the shadow the cloud and the sun cast. The wind and the dust that flies through the air is also God driven. All of it is interconnected as well. The wind moves the dust and the cloud, the flowers and grass grow or wilt depending on the size of those clouds. A big one rains precious water for nourishment, yet without the wind to move it, the cloud may also obscure the sun in shadow and make growth difficult for the plants. That shade may yet also keep the sun from burning the grass and flowers.

The Netaneh Tokef talks about flowers, shade, wind and grass. Such are used in metaphors for passing on, for death. Yet maybe they mean something else, something that seeing holiness in the world puts into context. The world is always moving, passing from state to state. The cherry blossom wilts to bring on the cherry, the cherry falls, rots or is eaten by animals to leave the seed somewhere else for a new tree to grow. Flowers give way to seeds, a unique metaphor for the dual meaning of death and pregnancy in our word Avar.

In our secular world we tend to think in terms of business as usual. We are so loudly being static or listening to the loud sounds of fire and water, sword and beast, hunger and thirst, earthquake and plague we do not hear the still small voice. All of those do require attention but that attention is so much more when we make a habit of stopping and listening to the still small voice which can cause angels to tremble in fear. We must think in terms of the holiness of transition, of Avar, of passing from one state to another. It’s the dynamic way the world is constantly changing in response to a voice we cannot usually hear.

Our prayers on Yom Kippur are not the only ones we need to make. But they mark a point where we can begin to add prayer and blessing to our habits and daily and weekly practices. Be it set liturgy or not, in Hebrew, Yiddish or English doesn’t matter as much as the act of praising God and noticing how much we have to praise, how holy the world is and our responsibility to such a world of holiness.

In his last interview, Abraham Joshua Heschel stated “Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.” As we enter into the Day of Atonement, if you cannot concentrate on any of the prayers in the Mahzor, try to think about that remarkable statement.

Rosh hashana 5768: Reflections on the Book of Fully Living

5767 has gone by, and 5768 starts.

I’m not motivated this week to comment on a passage we will be reading from Torah for Rosh Hashanah or for Shabbat Shuvah. This Rosh Hashanah is such a personal milestone for me I have a lot to reflect on besides that.

I have commented many times before about my view of being inscribed in the Book of Life or the Book of Death. Although part of the tradition, I’m not the biggest fan of the concept. Instead, I’ve looked at the Book of Life as the Book of Fully Living. We each have our own book, one that we fill with narrative; it may be exciting, joyous or adventurous. The book may be sad tragic, or even boring and pointless. Put together it becomes, to mix the metaphor, a tapestry. It is a wonderful testament to a life that affected other lives. If we experience and contribute to the beauty of God’s Creation, then we live fully. If we don’t, it is living something less than full, even to the point of a living death.

Have I been fully living? In the contemplative mood of the annual opening of the gates of repentance, I’m wondering what I have really done to make my book a Book of Fully Living. This reflection, if not brooding, is strong in my mind due to a few things which began five years ago.

Just before Shabbat Nachamu five years ago, I received an e-mail that was sent to the congregation I was involved with at the time. The e-mail was one filled with slander against a candidate for a rabbinic position at the synagogue. Although for my own reasons I had a lot of doubts about this candidate, I wrote back to the congregation in defense of the candidate, a piece about the Torah portion of the week and Lashon Hara. Because I enjoyed writing it so much, I wrote another Torah Commentary the week after, then the week after. It’s become a habit really. At the time, my niece had an obsession with Sesame Street’s Elmo, and the Elmo segments “Elmo’s World.” Somehow when singing the tune to Elmo’s world, I changed the words to “Shlomo’s Drash” and this column got a name (and a theme song).

Five years ago, I began to learn Aramaic. This in itself wasn’t remarkable, as I had just finished learning Biblical Hebrew. What was remarkable was this was the first of many classes leading to my Master’s in Jewish Studies. I’m now finishing the last two appendices of the last paper of that degree. I have had pause to look back, and to look forward. Looking back I see all the things I learned and all the perspectives that changed. I’ve struggled with some of those issues right here, and some I’m still formulating about what to do. But with the end of this part of my life, I feel like many graduates: I have a lot of fear. For five years I knew where all my brain power would be directed. Now I’m not so sure.

In that same five years I changed from an employee to a business owner. Given the status of my business, this is certainly the least proud part of my life. I’ve yet to become as successful in my profession as I would have liked, nor am I as respected in my industry as others. There are lots of things I can attribute to that, not least of all my intense attention to graduate school. Trying to fill the shoes of the previous owner, a man of mythic proportions to the clients, didn’t help. A grasshopper getting out of a shadow of a giant is never an easy task. Nor did being the proverbial corner tailor when Wal-Mart came to town, nor being a luxury item in a lot of very tight budgets.

For the first Rosh Hashanah in a long time, I keep asking myself the question "What now? Where do I turn next?” Instead of turning the page in my book of fully living with enthusiasm, I dread it.

The key word of the next two weeks is the word t’shuvah. In English we translate this word as repentance. Its root ShVB(שוב) actually means to turn. Repentance is really turning, reversing our direction. Earlier this year I motioned this in terms of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s notion of God in Search of Man. Humanity, since the Garden of Eden has been hiding and running away from God, who keeps asking “Where are you?” Most often, we run away from holiness. At any time, we as humans can merely turn around, reversing our direction and move towards holiness, declaring what cantors worldwide will sing over the holidays “Hineini! Here I am!” While we spend a lot of time asking God to forgive our sins, those things we did to run away from God, we need to also think about reversing direction and moving towards God and holiness. It is in that sense that the Talmud writes:

If one says: I shall sin and repent, sin and repent, no opportunity will be given to him to repent. [If one says]: I shall sin and the Day of Atonement will procure atonement for me, the Day of Atonement procures for him no atonement. [Yoma 85b]

On the path where God is in search of Man, and we do t’shuvah, turning towards holiness, we need to turn 180°, not 360°. Yet often we turn completely around, look towards holiness and then go back to the path we were already on.

A decade ago, I did change paths. Another use of the word t’shuvah is return. The word Baal in Hebrew means master, lord, or husband. A Baal T’shuvah is therefore a master of returning. Ten years ago, I was hardly even Jewish. I’d probably call myself a Taoist back then, and avoid virtually anything Jewish if I could. Yet, I somehow turned. Here I am today finishing a paper explaining a folio of Talmud after translating the whole thing from the Aramaic. Here I am getting ready to read and chant Torah on Yom Kippur. Here I am nearly every week, writing commentary on the Torah using Talmud, Midrash, and Targums.

Actually, I do remember the last time I felt so lost and directionless. It was a bit over ten years ago, when I graduated with my Master’s in Education from Loyola University. It was in that directionless vacuum that I became a Baal T’shuvah. Graduation seems to do that to people I guess, at least it does it to me. Maybe when we are walking on the road of life, or plotting the pages in our book of fully living, it’s hard to change direction while we are moving. We really do need to completely stop, or leave part of a page blank to start a new chapter. The thing that makes us stop more than any other is getting lost. When we are lost, we need to stop and take stock of the directions in front of us, and the direction we just came from.

The Days of Awe are a graduation of sorts. We made it through another year. Yet it also is a time to be a little lost, a little directionless and look around and get our bearings. It is only then we can pick the right path and turn towards holiness, because we know where it is. Hopefully we’ve learned what paths move away from holiness and which one looks promising. Then we move forward in the right, best direction.

Many books leave blank spaces between chapters. The Ten Days can be that blank space, the pause between chapters, so that the next one can be different than the last one. Books which repeat the last chapter are pretty boring, it’s when the characters change or deal with new things in a new way that we are engaged in the book. So too in our own books of fully living, to fully live means we need to change and do things differently. To remain static and do things as we always have is to be inscribed in the boring book, the book of living death.

This High Holiday season, I therefore wish you:

May your journey be towards holiness

In 5768, May you write a fabulous adventure in the book of fully living.

And of course

L’shana Tovah! Happy New Year!

Nitzavim-Vayelech 5767: The Oven and the Gates

Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30

This week, in a double portion we have the last of Moses’ speech to the people. One very well known passage from this week’s reading is this one:

11. For this commandment which I command you this day, is not hidden from you, nor is it far off. 12. It is not in heaven, that you should say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? 13. Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? 14. But the word is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it. [Deut 30:11-14]

The phrase It is not in heaven, from Deuteronomy 30:12 is the key element in one of the most known, but often misunderstood stories in the Talmud. The first bit of the story occurs in Mishnah Kelim 5:10, which is a ruling about a type of oven and whether it is spiritually clean or not:

If an oven was cut up into rings, and sand was inserted between each pair of rings, R. Eliezer rules: it is clean; but the sages rule: it is unclean. Such an oven is known as the oven of Aknai.

The R. Eliezer of this portion is R. Eliezer b. Hyrcanus. The best summary given of him can be found in the Perkei Avot:

If all the sages of Israel were in one scale of the balance and Eliezer b. Hyrcanus in the other scale, he would outweigh them all. [2:8]

Yet Eliezer, the teacher of such powerhouses such as R. Akiba did not have such kind words for his comrades and students:

R. Eliezer said: Let the honor of you friend be as dear to you as your own; and be not easily provoked to anger; and repent one day before thy death. He also said: Warm yourself before the fire of the wise, but beware of their glowing coals, that you would not be singed, for their bite is the bite of a fox, and their sting is the sting of a scorpion, and their hiss is the hiss of a serpent, and all their words are like coals of fire.[2:10]

Why such bitterness against his colleagues? It has to do with that oven. What happened during this debate is recorded in the Gemara to Baba Metzia:

It has been taught: On that day R. Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument, but they did not accept them. Said he to them: ‘If the halachah agrees with me, let this carob-tree prove it!’ Thereupon the carob-tree was torn a hundred cubits out of its place — others affirm, four hundred cubits. ‘No proof can be brought from a carob-tree,’ they retorted. Again he said to them: ‘If the halachah agrees with me, let the stream of water prove it!’ Whereupon the stream of water flowed backwards — ‘No proof can be brought from a stream of water,’ they rejoined. Again he urged: ‘If the halachah agrees with me, let the walls of the schoolhouse prove it,’ whereupon the walls inclined to fall. But R. Joshua rebuked them, saying: ‘When scholars are engaged in a halachic dispute, what have ye to interfere?’ Hence they did not fall, in honor of R. Joshua, nor did they resume the upright, in honor of R. Eliezer; and they are still standing thus inclined. Again he said to them: ‘If the halachah agrees with me, let it be proved from Heaven!’ Whereupon a Heavenly Voice cried out: ‘Why do ye dispute with R. Eliezer, seeing that in all matters the halachah agrees with him!’ But R. Joshua arose and exclaimed: ‘It is not in heaven.’ What did he mean by this? — Said R. Jeremiah: That the Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai; we pay no attention to a Heavenly Voice, because Thou hast long since written in the Torah at Mount Sinai, After the majority must one incline. R. Nathan met Elijah and asked him: What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do in that hour? — He laughed [with joy], he replied, saying, ‘My sons have defeated Me, My sons have defeated Me.’[Baba Metzia 59b]

Most will look at this story in terms by R. Jeremiah’s comment and R. Nathan’s Elijah conversation. It is not in heaven is the clincher. The majority of scholars decide what are the rules, no matter how iron clad the argument is, or how much divine intervention is staged. R. Nathan’s epilogue paradoxically indicates that even God delightfully agrees with this.

The president of the court at the time was Eliezer’s brother-in-law R. Gamliel II. What happened next, yet often not told as part of the story is very significant, all of which had to be led by R. Gamliel:

It was said: On that day all objects which R. Eliezer had declared clean were brought and burnt in fire. Then they took a vote and excommunicated him.

In one day, over the cleanliness of an oven, a man’s life and career were destroyed. Formers students would not talk to him not respect him – no one would. His wife Imma Shalom, Gamliel’s sister, was put into a difficult position. Though losing a lot of status herself, she tried desperately not to let her husband pray to God about the hurt he felt about this one incident, that divine retribution would harm her brother. One day, she wasn’t able to prevent him,

[On her return] she found him fallen on his face [in prayer]. ‘Arise,’ she cried out to him, ‘thou hast slain my brother.’ In the meanwhile an announcement was made from the house of Rabban Gamaliel that he had died. ‘Whence dost thou know it?’ he questioned her. ‘I have this tradition from my father's house: All gates are locked, excepting the gates of wounded feelings.’

Before his death, Gamliel would suffer in a similar situation. Yet again, wounded feelings would appear, and again two from The Oven of Aknai incident would be in the center of it, though R. Gamliel and R. Joshua butted heads many times. After several insults against R. Joshua over a period of time in such matters, and some outrageous autocratic behavior in the courts, Gamliel was ousted from his position as head of the courts. R. Eleazar b. Azariah was appointed head. At one point Gamliel was even locked out of the building. Some of his rulings were overturned, and several issues were railroaded through. Gamliel, who despite these stories is usually known as quite the gentle soul even to his servants, does apologize to R. Judah and is for the most part restored to his position. [Berachot 28a-b]

This was a generation of superheroes of halacha, of Jewish law as formulated into our own time. They created a system that had the authority by majority to rule on matters of religious observance, and that such power was greater than imminent divine revelation was a great innovation and probably one of the most significant survival traits of Jewish thought since that time. Their names are attached to the major rulings found in the Mishnah. Yet they were fallible humans with feelings. Since R. Eliezer is not mentioned during the ousting of R. Gamliel it may be hard to place the two stories in sequence, or if the bad feelings and grudges from one effected the other. Yet one has to wonder. Here, and elsewhere in the Talmud, we have stories of Rabbis and hurt feelings. Even legends are human in the Talmud. Like any other two fallible people Rabbinic masters hurt other rabbinic masters too.

There are two sayings from these sections of Baba Metzia I try to remember. Ironically one from Eleazar b. Azariah, the Man Who replaced Gamliel after his ousting:

Since the destruction of the Temple, the gates of prayer are locked… Yet though the gates of prayer are locked, the gates of tears are not.

Ima Shalom said in the name of her father (i.e. Shimon b. Gamliel) :

All gates are locked, excepting the gates of wounded feelings.

The oven of Aknai is not just about the legitimacy of rabbinic authority and the formation of Halakah. It is not just about it is not in heaven. Instead, it is about the end of that passage, But the word is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it. How we do Torah and the commandments are just as important as how we express our thoughts and emotions in our words. All must be good when it comes to words. Hurting people with our mouth and heart is just plain bad, even for the sake of Torah.

The gates of repentance will open soon. We are told that those gates are about the repentance of our transgressions against God. They do not help against the continually open gate, the gate of tears, those transgressions against the hearts of our fellow human beings. The gates of bad feelings need closing in a different way. Like R. Gamliel, we close them by asking for forgiveness of those we offended. The greatest sages of all time were fallible enough to hurt those around them, even family. How much more so people like us! Like the Rabbis, in things we think seriously matter, we are even more fallible to hurt others. In our passion for a cause or a belief, we might even be blind to it being offensive. In my experience, I known I’ve been offended like this on occasion. Yet such experiences and the Oven of Aknai remind me I’m not immune either, I’m sure throughout my life and my enthusiasm for many of the things in my life I’ve offended or hurt someone. Although I have learned a lot about a media such as this one, I still make mistakes right here in my words I write every week. Like every year at this time of year, I need to stop, think about that for my writing and my life, ask for forgiveness, and try better next year.

So If I have offended you this year for any reason whether I know it or not, please forgive me. If you offended me, I forgive you too.