Parshat Beshalch 5767: Yammin’ in the name of Yah

Exodus 13:17 -17:16

The Shabbat where this portion is read is known Shabbat Shira, the Shabbat of The Song. Pharaoh, in the wake of the last plague, lets the people go, and they travel via the Yam Suf. Stopping at the shore, they find out that Pharaoh has had a change of mind, and has his chariots in close pursuit. But a miracle occurs and the sea splits, allowing the people to walk on dry land through the sea. When they reach the other shore the sea closes up on the approaching Egyptians, swallowing them up in the sea. Moses and the people rejoice by singing a song. So important was this song, parts are recited in the liturgy every day after the Shema, Mi chamocha

Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? (Ex 15:11)

After the Song, we are told

20. And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines, dancing.[Ex. 15:20]

Miriam, of course isn’t the only one who gets a whole bunch of people drumming and dancing. Besides being warrior and king, King David was, of course a really good musician. Much of the book of psalms is supposedly written by David. Another piece, which ends the psalms section of the Morning Prayer, is a favorite of mine about music: Psalm 150. In a moment of total idleness once, I thought about Psalm 150. One day I wondered what would be the modern equivalent of those instruments. Using some clues found in the Hebrew root and some imagination, I updated the list with equivalent instruments. For example neivel is also the word for pot, so it was a stringed instrument with a sounding pot on the end. Today that covers a whole class of instruments, but the most common would be the guitar. This is what I came up with after substituting a whole bunch of instruments:

Praise the Lord!
Praise him in his Holy spaces
Praise him in the firmament of his strength
Praise him in his strength
Praise him as his abundant greatness
Praise him with a blast from the trumpet
Praise him with guitar and piano
Praise him with drum and dance
Praise him with Bass guitar and flute
Praise him with loud cymbals
Praise him with steel drum
Every soul-life Praise the lord Praise the Lord!

I had a bit of amusement when I realized I had described every Jazz, Rock, and Reggae band. All would have felt at hone in that collection of instruments. All would have played up a storm. And that incredible sacred noise, whatever they played would have been saying Halleuyah.

I remembered about my translation of Psalm 150 recently when I happened to be opening my mailbox at home. There inside was the Old Town School of Folk Music Winter semester catalog, and it brought back some very old memories.

For those not familiar with OTSFM, It has been a Chicago institution since the late 1950’s. Today it has two campuses: the old Building on W. Armitage, and the newer one on N. Lincoln Avenue. But there was a time when they couldn’t pay enough teachers to give a full class to differening skill levels. So, the story is told, Frank Hamilton, the schools’ founder put all the skill levels in the same room and everyone played together. Called “second half” It is still an integral part of the school to this day, and one of those things that I’ve missed lately. There is nothing like a hundred guitars, bass, banjos, mandolins and harmonicas playing music all at the same time. Even before my return to Judaism, I think the greatest religious experiences were at Second Half. Even when I knew only two guitar chords, it was an incredible experience.

I think that was what both David and Miriam understood all that time ago. Divine praise and divine connection come from jamming together. Every instrument counts, every skill level counts. We should all aspire to play better, but we can play at any level. Thus I can say was one of the holiest experiences at a retreat I went to recently where three of us, two guitars and my ukulele sat in a common room of the OSRUI Lodge and just played music. Two hours just flew away in the blink of an eye as we went through the chords on stuff from Van Morrison to the George Harrison. It was very cool.

I loved it. I think of how many time in our lives we just sit back and listen to the soloist, the expert, the talented passively part of the experience. Yet often, in keeping with a professional image, in exuding the authority such a person they seem so aloof so separate from us. I feel this separation most strongly in worship around the High Holidays when everything gets that impersonal feel. It does not matter if it was jazz or traditional music, or a choir, I ironically feel the least devekut during the High Holidays, because there seem to be performers and audience, not a room full of collaborators. I feel the opposite, much greater holiness most Shabbat mornings too, where everything is so close and personal, where everything is so collaborative, right down to the sometimes heated discussions of the D’var Torah. Its infectious and it keep with me even when I am home alone. I almost feel like we need a sticker for those Shabbat Siddirim “Non-professionals involved – please try at home” There’s just something wonderfully Hamishe about collaboration.

I’ve noted before the Talmudic Rabbis seem to agree with me about this:

If three have eaten at one table, and have spoken thereat words of Torah, [it is] as if they had eaten at the table of the All-present, blessed be He, as it is said, “this is the table before the Lord”. …when there are ten sitting together and occupying themselves with Torah, the Shechinah abides among them, as it is said: “God stands in the congregation of God.”[Avot 3]

The more people the more perspectives, each one a unique view of God. As we all come together, we can piece then together like pieces of a puzzle and find a bigger picture inside of the Divine. Even in a room full of people who can’t sing, when singing together they sound good. That is the miracle of collaboration.

Reading the Song of the Sea this week, I realize I’m not a big fan of the lyrics. But I do play several different tunes for the melody on many different instruments. I learned that sometimes the melody the Ningun, particularly in collaboration can be a powerful thing. A music teacher of mine, Jack Gabriel, once told me a story about the Baal Shem Tov, who believed that a song is like a key to the gates of heaven, but some times you need an axe – and that is a ningun. Add to that several stories similar to this one in Hasidic lore: Once a man went to the Seer of Lublin and was told him to go home right away, the Seer rejected seeing him. Dejected, on his way home, he ran into a bunch of Hasids singing and shouting “L’Hayim! L’Hayim!” at the top of their lungs on their way to see the Seer. The Hasids swept the man into their group, and despite his sadness joined in singing and shouting “L’Hayim!” Before he knew it he was back in front of the Seer’s house. But this time the Seer was waiting at the door, smiling. He told the man, “I saw the Angel of Death standing behind you, and knew you had only hours to live. I sent you home so you could say good bye to your family before you died. But these Hasids in their singing chased the Angel of Death away…” Many times we are told in Hasidic legend that the power of Hasidim collaborating is far greater than even the Tzaddik.

There is a phenomenon among many religions, including Judaism of “privatizing” religion, on making religion solely in the home and a private matter. For many, they want to do what they want, not what the community wants, and thus keep away from community. I will admit there are many times when community feels wrong and makes us feel inadequate. Although I tried when I was younger to play violin and flute, I never succeeded because when I played in a group I felt intimidated. In these elementary school settings, it always felt like it was competition to be the best – and given some physical disabilities in my hand, I was always the worst. Yet from the first day I went to Old Town, things were so very different. This was always Jamming, and I learned Harmonica, then guitar, and even a little bit of drumming there. The lesson of Jamming is one we can translate into our spiritual lives. Because if we have differences, the differences collaboratively make the whole stronger. There are those who believe only their opinion counts, that everyone should be like them. But that is like playing a metronome. I’ve known metronome people and even metronome congregations. We have a Minyan for a reason: it make it possible to have the power of collaboration, but only if we embrace that everyone is different, that everyone has a unique divine spark in them and it is conformity which is the klippot, the “crud” that keeps the divine spark from rising to heaven.

I though of an interesting play on the words for the red sea, Yam Suf. Yam the word for sea could be transliterated as Jam. Suf is spelled the same as Sof, the Hebrew word for end. We at the banks are given a choice. We can Jam, or we can end, and only through the sea, through Jam, can we get to the place of no-end, Ayn Sof namely Sinai. So like Miriam, the women and the entire congregation on the free side of the sea, let us Jam together! All souls praise YaH, HalleluYah!

Bo 5767: Can and Can't

Exodus 10:1-13:16

This week we have the last three plagues, locusts, darkness, and finally the death of the first born. Before the last plague hits, however, there is a lot of preparation done beforehand. God gives a set of directions to first chain up then kill a lamb as an assembly, eating it all in the night of the plague, and spreading its blood on the doorposts of the houses of the Israelite so to indicate whose house to pass over. Further instructions mentioned not eating leavened foods for seven days and eating Matzah instead. This was the first Passover.

2. This month shall be to you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. 3. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house; 4. And if the household is too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the souls; according to every man's eating shall you make your count for the lamb.5. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year; you shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats; 6. And you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. 7. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, in which they shall eat it. 8. And they shall eat the meat in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9. Eat it not raw, nor boil with water, but roast it with fire; its head with its legs, and with its inner parts. 10. And you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire. 11. And thus shall you eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste; it is the Lord's Passover.[Ex. 12:2-11]

That, in a few verses, is the entire mitzvot of Passover. I read this in the Hebrew from a rabbinic bible while on retreat this weekend. The rest of the participants were involved in some silly game (bubble gum sculpture I think) and I needed a bit of time to reflect. So entering the OSRUI Library I started picking out books to study from, and read the passage above. I thought about one particular thing in it that bothered me. Why all the emphasis on eating?

I had thought about this before, and came to a conclusion back then that this was the ultimate slap in the face to the Egyptians. We read in Exodus 8:

21. And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go, sacrifice to your God in the land. 22. And Moses said, It is not proper to do so; for we shall sacrifice to the Lord our God what is abomination for the Egyptians. Shall we sacrifice what is abomination for the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us? [Exodus 8:21-2]

And of course one of the most common sacrifices was lamb. Based on this and a passage in Genesis concerning Joseph's table manners, Midrash relates that lamb was a god to the Egyptians, and killing and eating the god was the abomination. So by eating a lamb wrap with horseradish while packed and dressed for travel, we have the mitzvot of eating fast food in front of the Egyptians. Not only did they desecrate the gods of the Egyptians by this act, but they denigrating it by saying "super size me"

And while that states what it means to the Egyptians, what did this mean to the Israelites? Here is another dilemma. In the Passover Hagaddah, we are told there is symbolism behind the matzah and maror. The matzah commemorates that the Israelites did not have time to let their bread rise before leaving Egypt. Yet in 12:6, they were told exactly when to have this meal, and have four days to hold onto the lamb. Since it only takes a few hours for bread to rise, there is plenty of time to let the bread rise, yet God commands that they eat matzah, not once but several times. Exodus 12:15-17 describes not only this time but every year for seven days, starting on the 14^th on the first month there will a time where no Jew will eat leavened bread nor keep it in the house. It is not until verse 12:34, which happens hours after that first Seder do we read:

34. And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders. 35. And the people of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed from the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and garments; 36. And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent them such things as they required. And they carried away the wealth of the Egyptians.

It was of course from Exodus 12:34 and similar verses that the rabbis wrote into the Haggadah the idea that matzah was a symbol for the bread not rising in the haste to leave. But this was not what they ate the night before, nor does the removal of hameitz make any sense either from that symbolism. It is also in this portion we have part of the answer also immortalized in the Haggadah:

26. And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say to you, What do you mean by this service? 27. That you shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians, and saved our houses. And the people bowed their heads and worshipped. [Ex 12:26-7]

8. And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did to me when I came forth out of Egypt. [Ex 13:8]

As we tell in the four questions and four sons, we do this to remember the Exodus. But I think there is more than remembering going on. Imagine the scene. Not only are the Israelites walking out of Egypt after insulting the Egyptian gods by barbequing them as Mac Lamb tacos, but they are asking for and taking the wealth of Egypt along with them. Not the most plausible scenario. Could you imagine walking up to the guy who was beating the living daylights out of you only hours before and asking if you could borrow all his wife's jewelry, while dressed like you are about to take a very long trip picking out bits of his god stuck in your teeth?

Three words come to mind: "I can't do that!" Such words come to mind often in far too many circumstances even today. This week I ran across three people who had a different reaction. One, who clarified the rest, was Jake Shimabukuro. Jake happens to be one of my musical heroes, a ukulele player. For most ukulele is an instrument to play traditional Hawaiian tunes, a few tunes from the 20's and of course Tiptoe Through the Tulips. To say that you could play hard rock, reggae, jazz or blues on a Uke, virtually everyone would say "you can't do that" But Jake, with lightning fingers does, and does so well, he is often nicknamed "The Jimmy Hendrix of Uke.

While writing a paper yesterday, I was listening to Jake, and getting no where on this final exam. I had ideas but they never seemed to fit together, until I thought of Jake. And then I realized the one thing about this character I was writing about and what made him so different that he has ended up known as he is today. He was orphaned young, and a failure in school. Often truant, he slept during the day or wandered about the woods. Legend at least tells us he studied at night. As a teen he trained as a shohet, a kosher butcher, but later left the profession to be a wanderer and eventually opened an inn which his wife ran while he spent his days wandering around, fasting in cold caves and dipping himself in ice cold water. While this might seem like odd behavior what he was doing was thinking and meditating. For anyone else this would be the recipe for a "loser".From his actions no one could ever amount to anything would be the conventional wisdom. You can't get anywhere acting like that.

Yet the one important thing that Israel Ben Eliezer, known to the world as the Baal Shem Tov was too truant to learn in school was the word can't. Because of that he is credited as the founder of the Hasidic movement, which only decades after his death spread throughout Eastern Europe like wildfire. The detractors of the movement claim that he was not following the Torah, by introducing movement into prayer. It was not enough to pray by seeing the words or speaking them, but moving with them, making prayer active in all our major forms of perception. In this innovation, all of our senses are engaged in prayer and it becomes a more intense focused experience. In some ways he was even more scrupulous than his detractors, particularly in the area of Kashrut. There is plenty of evidence from stories of him, and even a responsum that his tolerances for mistakes in kosher meat was very tight. There a letter in his name on behalf of the Kehilla of Miedzybóz; asking for a ruling from Rabbi Meir of Konstantynow, the son of Jacob Emden, against the butchers and the assistant rabbi of the town who were too permissive in their kashrut. As a self-taught shohet, he never accepted the status quo answer that you can't get a knife any sharper, or that one can't remove certain lesions. Ironically, the polemics against early Hasidism, while stating that they never followed Torah also noted they were too careful about sharpening the knives used for butchering. The Hasidim would tell you that was in order not to render the animal treif or cause undue pain to the animal; both mitzvot mandated by Torah. Reading these polemics, written by such erudite scholars as the Vilna Gaon, it is clear that the issue was not halakah, but the status quo of traditions of 18^th century Poland and Lithuania. The Baal Shem and his disciples changed the way we connected to God not by changing the mitzvot, but by the traditions of getting there €“ because they did not believe "you can't do that" Many people, when they saw the possibilities opened, followed them.

The last of three people I thought of this week was me. What I was doing in the OSRUI library? I was reading Hebrew without a dictionary. Ask me a decade ago if I could read that passage and my answer would be "I can't do that" Yet here I was reading this, and even checking a few words in the Aramaic Targum glosses. Reading and wondering about the meaning Tzli--aish oomatzot al m’rorim yoh-ac’luhu I did not have to go to a translation. In that act of reading, I also have the answer for that first Passover, why matzah, and why clear out that hameitz.

We spend too much of our lives saying we can't because were told that is true. We can't leave Egypt, because of the taskmasters and the powerful Egyptian army. But there are some acts that we can do that say "we can. Doing something while expecting the results, however impossible that outcome may seem, is one of those acts of saying we can. Eating foods that you only need the next day is one such example, so is eating the god of your slaver. By eating matzah and lamb, the Israelites were setting the expectation of leaving. And in setting that expectation, they also did something else; they became committed to that outcome. They looked for it to happen. Those who partook of that first Passover Seder became committed to the outcome of leaving, so committed, that even asking their taskmaster to borrow all their valuables didn't seem absurd any more. When the text says God found favor God does not find favor for doing nothing. God finds favor in those who commit to doing an act for God. We then find favor or, to use another common phrase, our eyes are opened to possibilities we did not see before.

Thus every year on the fourteenth of Nissan till the twenty first, we do not just remember the Exodus from Egypt, but commit ourselves and those of the next generation to God as our ancestors did back then.We move from the place of the "I can't" that the majority around us tells is the truth to the "I can" that Divine Wisdom makes true, as did the Baal Shem Tov. As I sit finishing this, listening to Jake's rendition of While My Guitar Gently Weeps on uke, I remember this. When I break my first piece of matzah for Pesach, until the last one seven days later, I will remember that I can do things others believe impossible, and in doing so the I can't in my life increase through Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu.

and, of course, you can too.

Va-era 5767: Healing Magic

Exodus 6:2-9:35

After Moses’ first disaster talking to Pharaoh and the Israelites, God talks to Moses again and tells him to talk to the Israelites again, they are so stressed out, they promptly ignore him. Then God tells a despondent Moses to talk to Pharaoh once again, and Moses objects -- again. God tells Moses that he will use signs and wonders to make sure everyone knows God’s power. First there is the wonder of the staff being turned into a snake, then the staff eating the other snakes. Then begins the plagues, where we have the first seven of the ten: blood, frogs, lice, swarms, cattle disease, boils and hail.

Before the plagues however, we have a bit of a magic competition:

8. And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 9. When Pharaoh shall speak to you, saying, Show a miracle; then you shall say to Aaron, Take your rod, and throw it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent. 10. And Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, and they did as the Lord had commanded; and Aaron threw down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent. 11. Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers; now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. 12. For they threw down every man his rod, and they became serpents; but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. [Ex 7:8-12]

While most know magic is prohibited by Torah, the question become why this competition and what is it proving. The pattern continues in the early plagues where the sorcerers of Pharaoh did something similar to each plague. To make sense of this text, there is a very interesting episode in the desert as well.

5. And the people spoke against God, and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, nor is there any water; and our soul loathes this light bread.’ 6. And the Lord sent venomous serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many people of Israel died. 7. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against you; pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us’. And Moses prayed for the people. 8. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a venomous serpent, and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live.’ 9. And Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked at the serpent of bronze, he lived. [Numbers 21:5-9]

Let us add to this one more interesting pattern with the first three plagues, all of which started, like the snake turning into a staff, with the staff. And while the Egyptians were able to seemingly duplicate frogs and blood, they didn’t do something very significant: they couldn’t stop the plague. In the Midrash, the Rabbis make the wonder of the snake even more incredible based on a literal reading of the text by noting the snake turned back into a staff first then swallowed the staffs of the Egyptians. The wonder is not the creation of the snake, which even Egyptian schoolchildren could do according to Midrash, but the removal of the other snakes. The true wonder is not the plague, but the removal of it.

In the Midrash to the story of the bronze snake the rabbis noticed the word pole, neis in Hebrew, had another meaning:

And the Lord said unto Moses: make thee a fiery serpent... And it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he sees it, shall live (xxi, 8). Not merely one bitten by the serpent but, He said, every one that is bitten. Even one bitten by an asp, a scorpion, a wild beast, or a dog. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and set it up by a miracle (ib. 9). He cast it into the air and it stayed there. [Numbers R. XIX: 23]

Neis may be commonly remembered as the letter nun on the dreidel in the acronym Neis gadol haya sham (a great miracle happened there). Neis means both miracle and pole. For the commentator of Midrash Rabbah the snake floating in mid air was a wonder, but the Mishnah thinks otherwise:

[It is written], make thee a fiery serpent and set it up on a pole, and it shall come to pass that everyone that is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. Now did the serpent kill or did the serpent keep alive? No; [what it indicates is that] when Israel turned their thoughts above and subjected their hearts to their father in heaven, they were healed, but otherwise they pined away. [Rosh Hashanah 29a]

The real wonder is that people healed. It was not the snake that healed but that people turned to God, and then healed by God. It was not that the Nile turned to blood or frogs overran the land. The magicians could all do this. They could not get rid of the blood or the frogs, yet Moses turning his thoughts above did. The magicians could not even cure their own boils, and after we are told they take a sick day instead of confronting Moses, they never show up in the text again. The early plagues were just the setup for real wonder that only God heals and relieves from oppression.

Healing is of course not purely divine, we can help along the process in many ways, from the knowledge and technology we have for healing. There are incredible surgical procedures, and therapeutic techniques and I am the first to believe when we need them to use them . Indeed the Rabbis of the later Gemara were rather liberal in their interpretation between magic and healing stating in Shabbat 67a “Abaye and Raba both maintain: Whatever is used as a remedy is not [forbidden] on account of the ways of the Amorite [i.e. magic practices].” Even otherwise forbbiden magic could be used – if it healed.

In the early to mid 18^th century we have another example of how respected a Jew using magic can be. From about the 16^th through the 18^th centuries a class of Jewish folk healers emerged primarily in southern Poland, but throughout eastern Europe. While some were certainly charlatans, many were serious practioners of magic and shamanic divine intercession to help heal people, basing their methods primarily on Lurianic Kabbala. As a class they are known as Baalei Shem, or Masters of the Name due to their manipulation of divine names in healing amulets. Yet most of these healers are lost to history except one who was exceptional in his abilities based in the southern Poland town of Miedzybóz. Israel ben Eliezer who most know of as the Baal Shem Tov, was the founder of the Hasidic movement and so good a healer we have a series of rather remarkable documents attesting to his status. Polish tax records of the town of Miedzybóz record that Israel Baal Shem had the title “dockor” written down on these records by the Catholic Polish authority. The Jewish ruling council of the town, the Kahal, had given him tax exempt status as part of the religious establishment not as rabbi, but as healer. Not only had the Jews believed in his mystical healing abilities, the gentiles did too. But if one were to ask The Baal Shem Tov about his healing methods, he probably would have told you all he did was pray and be pious, the rest was done up above and by the person healing.

As the Baal Shem Tov would have told you, ultimately the thing we call healing happens and is not directly controllable. It needs God, it needs us to turn to above to begin the process, Hasidism might advocate the use of the tzaddik as an intermediary, yet we as individuals must want to heal and turn to God in order to heal. As such, healing is not prohibited magic at all but recognition of the agent who really does. A common Hasidic custom of changing or mounting more mezuzahs on the doors of the house when someone is sick and needs healing is not some idolatry around the mezuzahs, but like the copper serpent, an avenue to thinking about God.

In Egypt the Israelites needed a big psychological healing. They were so traumatized by their experience as slaves they simply ignored Moses’ attempts to rally them. That healing came in these first plagues. The message was the relief from their oppression would come from God. At that point, I do not believe they were afraid of the Egyptian Chariots, but Egyptian sorcerers conjuring plagues of snakes, blood and frogs if they resisted the Egyptians and followed Moses. Yet, it was God and only God who removed these things from the scene. The magicians of Egypt needed to be proven powerless; that everything they could throw at the people could be easily healed or repealed by God. Anybody can oppress, but those who believe in God are the ones who leave Egypt. They are not afraid of earthly magicians; they have turned their thoughts upward. In the early plagues, this was the lesson that needed to sink into the Israelites before the thought of leaving was possible.

One of the shortest prayers in Torah*, Ayl na rafa na la, Please God, Please heal her [Numbers 12:13] is Moses’ prayer for healing of Miriam’s tzarat. This short, easy to pronounce prayer is in some way the most effective, and points like the staffs and snakes to above. There are many kinds of healing of course; there is the healing of the body, of the mind, and of the spirit. There is healing for individuals and healing for groups and whole societies. But part of that process, whoever is healing is inherent in Moses’ simple formula to heal his sister, to humbly acknowledge God, and to ask for healing.

And so for all who need healing Ayl na rafa na la.

* To learn to read this prayer in Hebrew, check out lesson one in the Shlomo's Drash Hebrew Page

Drash Shemot 5767:callings

Exodus 1:1-6:1

This week we start the book of Exodus and are introduced to the setup for the rest of the Torah. A Pharaoh who does not know Joseph arises and appealing to national security, has the Israelites enslaved. Things get worse. Pharaoh has the midwives try to kill all the newborn boys but they do not heed him. In response Pharaoh then decides to kill all male newborns by drowning, though one baby escapes this by being sent down the river, ending up living in the palace, until he murders an Egyptian task master. The slave who this guy saves rewards him by ratting him out. To escape Pharaoh’s anger, this man flees to Midian where he finds a bride, becomes a shepherd and has a rather interesting conversation with a burning bush. This man is of course Moses. And this week is really his story.

After his fleeing from Egypt, Moses begins a new life with a wife, a son, extended family and a flock of sheep. Yet things change for him, and such an idyllic life is about to get very complicated:

4. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. 5. And he said, Do not come any closer; take off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground. 6. And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. 7. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; 8. And I have come down to save them from the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9. And therefore, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me; and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10. Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

11. And Moses said to God, Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the people of Israel out of Egypt? [Ex. 3:4-11]

Ironically this week I start a translation class where we are translating the book of Exodus and the book of Jeremiah. And I found it very interesting the beginning of the book of Jeremiah.

4. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 5. (K) Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations. 6. Then said I, Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child. 7. But the Lord said to me, Say not, I am a child; for you shall go to all to whom I shall send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. 8. Be not afraid of their faces; for I am with you to save you, said the Lord.

The parallels between Moses and Jeremiah, and particularly their responses interest me. Rabbinic commentary also parallel the two

Our Sages say: What is the meaning of ’But He is at one with Himself, and who can turn Him?’[Job 23:13] When He pronounces a decree on man, none can revoke it…. How long Jeremiah refused to prophesy, yet he was compelled to against his will; as it says: Say not: I am a child; for to whomsoever I shall send you, you will go [Jer. 1:7]. How reluctant was Moses to go on the divine mission, as it says: Send I pray You, by the hand of him whom You will send (Ex. IV, 13); yet in the end he was compelled to go, as it says: and Moses returned to Jethro his father in-law.

Divine will, according to these quotes does tell us what to do. We are set up to do certain things as was Moses and Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s path was set with a divine connection even before his birth. And yet Moses and Jeremiah both object to God’s will, complaining they are not good enough or credible enough to do that task. And in both cases God tells them differently, that the shortcomings of youth or poor speech is not enough to stop them on their mission, on their calling.

The word calling is an appropriate one as it is written God called to him out of the midst of the bush [Ex 3:4] Literally a calling is when God calls out to us and tells us where our life path is to take us, how we can help the world in our unique way. For Moses it was leading the people out of Egypt, For Jeremiah, It was warning Jews to change for the better, even if it was ultimately a hopeless cause. We as moderns do not hear voices out of burning bushes, and yet do we too have callings? How do we find them? And what do we do when we do?

Funny thing is, I haven’t a clue. Yet things have been strange lately and made me think about all this. Over and over again, the things in my world as a corporate health inspector break down or disappear. So I’ve been wondering lately if this is some kind of sign of where I’m going to go next in my life, toward my calling, whatever it is.

While I believe we have free will, I also paradoxically believe in callings, in the one path we each are destined to contribute to the word. We each have an attribute of our identity which isn’t our own will, but from some other more inherent source. One might call it genetics, nature, temperament, neuro-physiological connections – it doesn’t matter, it is still something we don’t control, yet defines how we live our life. It leads us towards some specific outcome that is particular to us. I believe such things come ultimately from the creator of the Dice of the Universe. Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu throws loaded dice every once in a while, just to stir things up. And in doing so God knows us even before we are formed in the belly, just like Jeremiah. God knows what our path is, yet we are free to choose to strive towards or away to that outcome. Thinking of this, I can’t help but think of the famed story of the Hasidic Rebbe Zuzya of Hanipol, who on his deathbed fretted not about being asked in the world to come why he was not more like Moses or Abraham, but fretted about being asked why he was not more like Zuzya.

I believe we all have a calling, and although it may not look like a burning thorn bush, we also have a moment where things clarify, when God calls us, just like Moses. If that moment is true, we also have in that same moment a realization of our inadequacy to the tasks necessary to get to that outcome. Yet, once we get to that moment we do it anyway, and our life is set on that path. More often than not it is not as significant as Moses’ calling – but it is our own. I think of the guy who was supposed to be a refrigerator repairman, yet he knew he wanted a lot more. I am here today because my dad knew his calling was more than charging evaporators with Freon in some Brooklyn Deli. After getting a PhD in Microbiology and creating an internationally recognized healthcare business, he continues to deliver on his calling, saving unknown lives in the process. When I think of what a calling does, that is my inspirational model, one I find myself still woefully inadequate in following.

But how does one get on that path of calling? We read this week:

2. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. 3. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.

We really don’t know how long that bush is burning, or how long the angel waited for him; this great sight may have been there quite a while, maybe the beginning of creation. This is why it is interesting Moses say he will turn aside. The root word for turn aside in Hebrew, sur usually has a meaning of deviating or rebelling. For example you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. (Deut. 5:29) or Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and you turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them (Deut. 11:14) Transgressions often have to do with this word. Alternatively, the more common word for turn is shuv which has another connotation: turn back, or return to the path, hence t’ShUVah repentance. Why is the word more associated with transgression and not repentance used here?

The Midrash above quotes Job 23, ’But He is at one with Himself, and who can turn Him?’ where He refers to God. Here also the word for turn is shuv. We can also read the Hebrew as Now he who is with the One. To find that calling moment requires congruence with God, a knowing that God is there, and being able to see great wonders in the world. It is in that moment you can see burning bushes in everything around you, great miracles in the smallest thing. I am reminded of Jacob, when he said in a desolate desert with a stone for a pillow God was in this place and I, I did not know [Gen 28:16] When you get there and have that vision of your calling, then there is no turning back from it because you see where your calling fits in everything you do and thus everything you do is your calling. Jacob moved on from a homeless refugee headed towards Padan Aram to the leader of seventy children and grandchildren when he went down to Egypt. It is not the ordinary path of the majority but a unique one blazed and traversed by only you. That is why we read sur: We transgress against the common and conventional in society to be one with God by being our unique self, the one God fashioned even before we were formed in the womb.

Yet to be one with the creator requires us to acknowledge the One the way only we as Jews can – by following the mitzvot, by acknowledging the One in prayer like the Shema. Being Jewish is a big step in being unconventional as our ancestors found out time and time again. On the heels of the December season where both our identity shine in the light of hanukiot and pales in signs of assimilation like the Hanukkah Bush or the annual Christmas letter (which I refer to as the treif letter) it is good to see where we stand. Do we stand following a beat of the slaver drummers that are in Egypt, or do we play that beat of a different tof that is Miriam at the Red Sea? How we decide is by finding our calling, by being who we are, and seeing those burning bushes.

Drash Vayechi 5767: Family

Genesis 47:28-50:26

Seventeen years after Jacob moved to Egypt, he becomes ill and close to death. He first blesses Ephraim and Manasseh as his own sons, though oddly changing the birth order around. Later, he blesses, if not prophesizes about all of his sons not by their merit. Jacob dies, is carried back to Canaan, and then the brothers fret Joseph will finally exact revenge. But Joseph tells them once again it was God who did all this and there is nothing to worry about. Fifty four years later, Joseph makes his brother promise that when they or their descendants leave Egypt they will take his bones with them. Joseph lives to see three generations and then at 110, dies ending the book of Genesis.

At the center piece of this week’s portion is the “blessing” Jacob gives his sons. Yet as is clear very early, this is far from a happy blessing, and often comes near to a curse, Take the blessings for Reuben, Levi, and Simeon:

3. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power; 4. Unstable as water, you shall not excel; because you went up to your father’s bed; then defiled you it; he went up to my couch. 5. Simeon and Levi are brothers; instruments of cruelty are their swords. 6. O my soul, do not come into their council; to their assembly, let my honor not be united; for in their anger they slew a man, and in their wanton will they lamed an ox. 7. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel; I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.

Other brothers get different blessings with Judah and Joseph getting some of the best. Yet what is interesting is the comment made by Jacob about Joseph:

22. Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall; 23. The archers fiercely attacked him, and shot at him, and hated him; 24. But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; from there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel;

This comment brings in an interesting debate: how much did Jacob know of the incident with his brothers? How much did he figure out, and how much was he told. Midrash says it was not his brothers, but other in the camp of Jacob who attacked him, yet the plainer meaning sits there: the “archers” are his brothers. The same Midrash makes another interesting comment about what kind of “arrow”:

[Also, to those] who cast at him words cruel as an arrow (hez): Sharp arrows of the mighty (Ps. CXX, 4). Why does he compare them to an arrow rather than to any other weapon? All other weapons smite from close quarters, whereas this smites from the distance. Even so is slander, for it is spoken in Rome and kills in Syria.

Before the brothers were using physical violence, there was the verbal violence of slander, which can hurt even from far away, and following up on the rest of Psalm 120:4, can indeed burn internally for a long time. Yet Joseph, even after his father dies, does not show anger at his brothers.

The blessing of Jacob takes on a form more like prophecy than of blessing, yet in that prophecy, there is an odd thing that did not occur in previous blessings of sons. It describes the person first then gives a consequence of that personality trait. For Joseph and Judah “the lion’s cub,” it is good news, for some other not so good. Significantly, there is that difference in each, that even from the same father you get twelve (eleven if you count Simeon and Levi together) different prophecies about twelve very different children.

I have been thinking a lot about children. Over the last week of December, I spent a lot of time with children whether I wanted to or not. As a family my parents my sister and her family all went to an all-inclusive resort in Mexico. Yet it was a very family oriented resort, to accommodate all the little ones in our family. It was all families, with lots of little ones running around and screaming whining and yelling of “MOM WATCH THIS!” And I’m not talking my family – I’m talking everyone, everywhere. And while that’s what kids do when they are in their single digit years, it’s not the environment for a single man days from turning 41. All this while trying to get through some rather heavy books on the history of Jewish Poland, every lead on his research invariably and very literally killed off in the Shoah for a final he HAS to get done very soon.

It was, to say the least not the best vacation. But it was a thoughtful introspective one, and one I’m glad I was on. Jacob, I’m sure tried to raise his sons right, yet as we know, he preferred Rachel’s sons to the others. Even though Judah and Reuben had the same parents they turned out very differently. I wonder what it was like to have that many sons running around when they were young, I have a feeling it was a lot like that resort. With four mothers, it’s likely many were pregnant at the same time, and many were of the same age. All those kids at that resort, no matter where they came from, will grow up and be who they are, though hopefully guided by their parents in some good sane directions to turn their lives. Yet as Jacob blesses his adult sons, we realize that people are different and will follow their own path. While looking out over the bay, watching pelicans and palm trees, being by the pool or having dinner with my family, I thought about that a lot.

Post-holocaust a question which had an obvious answer before was challenged. Does the Torah keep the Jews or do the Jews keep the Torah? Put another way; is it Jewish bodies or Jewish souls that make up the Jewish people? Is populating the world with children born to Jewish parents the best way to keep the Jewish people alive, or is making sure all the mitzvoth are performed by those that are here? Or as I tend to struggle with the question: If you had a choice between Torah Study and procreation, which would you pick? Watching the beautiful sunsets, punctuated by crying kids who are bored looking at the sun boiling away into the ocean, or the sounds of electronic games overwhelming the sound of the waves breaking, before each of these beautiful chances for blessing Hashem, no matter what the faith of those children, I wondered that most of all.

While we are now at the end of the book of Genesis, it is interesting looking back at the first question Rashi asks about the book of Genesis. Rashi asks why there is a book of Genesis, and indeed the first eleven chapters of Exodus. It is not till Exodus 12 do we have a mitzvah that is exclusively for Jews. Why all the words between In the beginning to This month shall be the beginning of months? The answer is to tell the story of our family, of the family who received those mitzvot contained from Exodus 12 until the next time these twelve tribes are blessed, this time by a dying Moses in Deuteronomy 33. We see a story, as I’ve noted before, of family that just can’t quite get it together, from Adam and Eve’s blame game to story after story of family rivalry. Genesis abruptly ends when brothers can actually live together in peace, and shoot no more arrows in each other’s direction.

My sister and I chose different paths, polar opposites of that question. Neither of us is completely right, neither is completely wrong. It just is our own different path. As an uncle my nieces and nephews are sometimes a joy to be around, sometimes they are not. I sometime lament that the kids are a tangible item, so many people will comment on how cute talented and smart they are, to the pride of their parents. Yet my studies have produced so little that is tangible. Enough words to fit on one CD-ROM, with megabytes to spare, and less than 40 hits a month on a website. My efforts get so little attention I will never know how even that pebble in the pond will ripple into the greater Jewish world. As provocatively as I could write Shlomo’s Drash or a paper for my Masters in Jewish Studies, neither screams as loud as a six year old, neither brings the people running to listen words of Torah the same as running to the latest dance recital.

Jacob, in what he said to each of his sons, was creating twelve stories about the past. Twelve different tellers of the story, and we still listen and retell that story. My sister after reading Rashi’s Daughters thought of it only as a historical novel, and did not want me to ruin the other books by telling her about Rabbenu Tam, the grandson of Rashi and one of several of that generation of Rashi’s descendants who would continue the traditions of commentary started by their grandfather, opposite him on every folio of Talmud. Yet every week, though not related to Rashi, I tell that story of commentary, whether anyone listens or not, just in case anyone ever does need to. I know that is my path, however it may lead. My sister and I are two people to tell stories into the next generations of our immediate family and of the Jewish people, and like the twelve sons of Israel, each in our own way.

May you find your own.

Vayigash 5767: We versus They

Genesis 45:28-46:27

This week Judah pleads for the freedom of Benjamin, and is so moving Joseph reveals that he is their brother in a fearful and tearful reunion. Eventually Jacob and the whole Mishpocha comes down to Egypt. They all live happily off the fat of the land of Egypt at the request of Pharaoh.

Sort of….its just not happily ever after.

Twice in Jacob’s life he had a rather tearful family reunion. The first one was back in Genesis 33:4 when he met with brother Esau. And there is once again a tearful reunion:

29. And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and presented himself to him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. 30. And Israel said to Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen your face, because you are still alive. [Genesis 46:29-30]

Joseph, on the other hand has other plans, one which some might say backfires.

34. That you shall say, Your servants’ trade has been keeping cattle from our youth until now, both we, and also our fathers; that you may live in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.

Recently I got a new perspective on this passage from a social psychology book I’m reading. In a study of sports fans, Robert Cialdini found an interesting phenomenon in linguistics of pronouns. When a team won, its fans would describe the win as “we won” yet when the team lost, fans would describe the loss as “they lost” (Cialdini 1993, 200) As Cialdini explains, in order to bolster our own self esteem, we try to associate and identify with the success of someone else. Yet it there is an associated psychological phenomenon in cases where people are like us we tend like them and them trust more and ultimately comply with thier wishes. This is where the danger lies as we read in Exodus the Pharaoh who did not know Joseph:

9. And he said to his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; 10. Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it may come to pass, that, when there would be any war, they should join our enemies, and fight against us; and so get them out of the land. [Exodus 1:9-10]

And there is also another prime minister in the book of Esther who uses a similar argument:

8. And Haman said to king Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom; and their laws are different from those of every other people; and they do not keep the king’s laws; therefore it is not for the king’s profit to tolerate them. 9. If it please the king, let it be decreed that they may be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of those who have the charge of the business, to bring it into the king’s treasuries.[Esther 3:8-9]

Those two pronouns, us and them were used to enslave the Israelites by Pharaoh and request genocide by Haman. While this psych research is for a paper about the early Hasidic movement and the secret to their success, I also needed a lot about the history of Poland, and through the materials I have read too many times the words “much of this material was lost during WWII” The Shoah too was the ultimate version of this rhetoric of mind control “us versus them.” To see how easy it is for such things to happen, Muzafar Sherif in 1961 demonstrated this by merely separating two groups of boys at summer camp into isolated teams and letting them compete on a variety of exercises. By mid-summer, picnics always turned to riots.

I bring this all up because of Goshen, and Joseph’s plan to take Goshen for his family. In segregating the Israelites from the Egyptians, Joseph was setting up we versus they. To be fair, he may have had more immediate considerations. The Israelites were already problematic as shepherds. Midrash tells us that many herd animals, notably sheep, were also Egyptian gods, and anyone who was controlling the sheep was essentially controlling the gods. That is the abomination mentioned in the text. Joseph was hiding their unpleasant job from most of Egypt, at the same hiding everything else about his family. But a higly populous segregated people who did such abominations was just the leverage Pharaoh needed to set up the slavery system. It’s us versus them.

Segregation was part of the problem, yet, just removing the segregation is not enough.Indeed one problem in school districts even after desegregation is the increase of bigotry and racism. Even within the school, just being in the same building, us versus them continues to be a problem as demographics clump together to form tribal groups within schools.

Yet this portion at its beginning shows us another way, one found at its beginning. Such tribal differences were very much the case throughout the book of Genesis and such us verses them was almost fatal in the case of Joseph’s early years as the sons of Jacob defined their allegiance by their allegiance to their mothers. Ruben’s sleeping with Bilhah is described as part of this battle, as is Joseph’s tale bearing, supposedly about the Simon and Levi’s destruction of Shechem. Yet this battle between the sons of Leah and the sons of the other mothers come to an abrupt halt in front of Joseph’s eyes, when Judah pleads for Benjamin, the son of rival mother Rachel to be allowed to return to Jacob.

What changes the situation is the same thing that Sharif found in his 1961 study. After creating a nightmare the researchers did not think they could control, and dealing with in-camp riots breaking out when integration was tried at picnics, they found that a crisis which needed cooperation was the thing to bring people back together. Thorugh a series of cooperative activities, By the end of camp, kids from both “sides” were actually friends. The they had become we.

In one sense Joseph was the ideal success story of such diversity. In another sense is what happened to Joseph himself. He assimilated into the culture in that cooperation, and for many that is the fear of cooperating. If we help them then we are no longer we. Much of Jewish continuity for the past two millennia of Diaspora is based on such a premise. Joseph might have wanted to protect that as well and so isolated his family from the rest of the population so they did not assimilate into Egyptian society as he did as viceroy of Egypt.

Yet it is the pharaoh of Joseph’s time who might have an alternate response.

6. The land of Egypt is before you; let your father and brothers live in the best of the land; in the land of Goshen let them live; and if you know any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle.

Pharaoh knows the secret that everybody is good at something different. Diversity should be maintained in cooperation because there are some who do a better job than others at some things. Egyptians refused to be shepherds, but Jacob’s son were the experts for the job. If we do things right, we do not lose, indeed, we all gain.

Yet, as I’ve described here such integration is not easy, but I believe it is one of the biggest challenges the Jewish people face in the years to come, with questions which faced Joseph as his family journeyed to their new home in Egypt.

May we find the right answers.

Drash Mikketz 5767: Changing Identity

Genesis 41:1-44:17

This week Joseph gets his “get out of jail free” card, whenPharaoh has two nightmares that no one understands. When interpreting them to mean there will be seven years of plenty and seven years of famine, Joseph goes on to suggest collecting the surplus in the seven good years as rations for the famine to come. Pharaoh thinks this plan so good he makes Joseph the second n command of Egypt. He also gives him a wife Asnat, and the couple has two children Manasseh and Ephraim. The years of plenty come and Joseph collects grain for the royal storehouses. When the years of famine begin it appears that Joseph has done such a good job, that not only the people of Egypt come to Joseph for grain but also the people of foreign lands come for grain, and Egypt actually makes a hefty profit on the whole disaster. Among the foreigners are Joseph’s brothers. Joseph decides to jerk their chain by imprisoning one brother, Simeon, and finally threatening to imprison Benjamin after framing him for stealing Joseph’s goblet.

For the last few weeks we’ve talked about victimhood. We’ve seen a woman with more guts and action than the men in her life as one way of handling victim hood. Yet there is Joseph that exemplifies another way. We read in this week’s portion:

6. And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was who sold to all the people of the land; and Joseph’s brothers came, and bowed down before him with their faces to the earth. 7. And Joseph saw his brothers, and he knew them, but made himself strange to them, and spoke roughly to them; and he said to them, From where do you come? They said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. 8. And Joseph knew his brothers, but they knew not him.

This was not Joseph, but Zafnat-Pa’aneiach, royal Viceroy of Egypt standing before the sons of Israel. Zafnat-Pa’aneiach needs an interpreter to talk to these Hebrew beggars, he does not talk them himself. When eating, he eats at a separate table from his guests, so as not to mix with these people, whose eating customs were abominations to the Egyptians. This leader is very different than a young tattletale in fancy clothes.

Joseph knew his brothers because they had not changed much, but in the decades in Egypt, Joseph did change. The Midrash notes Joseph had grown a beard, which he did not have back in the days before his capture and sale. Torah tells us that Pharaoh changed Joseph’s name to Zafnat-Pa’aneiach. Joseph had a new identity, and really was a new man.

As we have been talking about for a few weeks, this might be the other way of recovering from trauma, While Dina was silent, and Tamar went and did what was necessary to achieve her desired outcome, thorugh the workings of Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu, Joseph changed his identity.

As I approach my 41^st birthday, at the end of 2006, I was thinking back to the last time I wrote Shlomo's Drash Mikketz, before my 40^th birthday. A year has gone by, and I’m in a bit of a reflective mood. Over the past few years there was change, and this year, there was a lot of it virtually all of it positive. I am a very different person than I was at 13, or at 22, when much of the trauma in my life happened, or at 30 when I began my return to Judaism. How much I have changed struck me in very much the same way it struck Joseph. At several parties this year, in places that people had not seen me in years, many did not recognize me. It was not that I was forgotten, but that I had changed so much both outwardly and internally. Sometimes, even I don’t recognize the Me of today, since I’m so used to the Me of years ago. The shy person and chronic wallflower I mentioned in last year’s Drash Mikketz was able to schmooze so much at a wedding this past year several people though I was family, and not just a friend of the bride and groom.

Yet I wonder about this change. The change in becoming a different person means one is no longer the victim, but someone else who did not feel that trauma. One cannot ever escape the trauma, even by changing identity because it will follow as I talked about two weeks ago. Yet, in changing identity it seems a lot less powerful than it did by claiming identity solely as victim. However there a question that has to be asked, both of me and of Joseph. Is changing the identity really a good thing?

I wonder that from a variety of perspectives. A problem with changing your identity is you are no longer the person everyone thinks you are. To save time and thinking we as humans have the ability to make assumptions, and one assumption we make is that people don’t change, and what a person does and wants in the past is what that person will do and want in the future – we are in a word predictable, our identity stays static. From there, however, it is only a short step to people expecting, if not demanding, us to stay the same and do the same things over and over again. Midrash tells us that Joseph’s brothers were going to look for Joseph while getting the food. They expected that Joseph was still too much of a wimp to be anything more than or a slave, or they assumed he had already died as a slave. To even conceive that they were bowing before their brother, arguably the most powerful man in Egypt, was unthinkable for them.

Joseph’s actions towards his brothers might be seen differently in this light. If he had revealed that he was Joseph to his brothers immediately, then that would have given the brothers a very different attitude to Joseph. Very likely this powerful man would have been pushed around in the same way as the old days. Joseph was not just testing them but establishing his new identity before he revealed his own. And even when he does, there is stunned silence from his brothers who can’t register it in their brains, so much so he has to repeat himself:

3. And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph; does my father still live? And his brothers could not answer him; for they were troubled by his presence. 4. And Joseph said to his brothers, Come near me, I beg you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. [Gen 45:3]

Joseph had the advantage of distance and isolation in his case. Most of us are trying to change in environments where that is not true. Relatives and friends, who might mean well, ignore the accomplishments of the new identity, and often demand and depend on us being our old self. This pulls us back into that old self, the victim we are trying to escape from, and makes getting to the powerful place that Joseph represents more difficult, back into the place that is the victim. We want to be this new and improved identity, yet everyone keeps pulling us back, creating deep tension.

There is another question with changing identity as well: Is it genuine? Is the favorite son in the coat of many colors the genuine Joseph or is Zafnat-Pa’aneiach? As I made my own changes this year, I thought about that a lot, Am I now living a lie?

During the summer, I took an on-line self-improvement course. Many on the forums to this course wondered “Is what I am doing deception or is it genuine?” In our discussion I thought a lot, and gave a parable:

What can this be compared to? To a diamond encrusted in manure. We may only see the manure, but under the manure is a sparkling diamond. What we are doing here is not being the manure but uncovering the diamond so we can be our true selves -- the diamond that always been there.

I would also agree that some people hide behind a new personality, and do construct a living lie, but if we work towards a better, stronger identity, then this new identity is uncovering the best we are. Like the Hasidic Rebbe Zuzya, when we get to the world to come we need to be concerned not about whether we will be asked why we were not like Moses or Abraham, but why we were not like the diamond, were we like our own selves. Finding our own strong Neshama is part of the quest, to remove the shells around the shimmering core that is truly us.

I’m not sure if this is the most coherent Drash I’ve written, but I think it may be one of the most personal in a while. It’s been very hard month thinking about this idea of Identity. Like Joseph, I’ve had some bumps in the road. In the darkness that is the winter solstice while staring at six Hanukkah candles in the very long dark moonless night around us, we have nothing to look at but ourselves. I have been feeling the stress of this change in identity, and the subsequent tension in the transition from whoever I was to the man I want to be and will eventually become. I’ve tried to use Joseph’s story to sort my own views of change. I’m not sure I totally succeeded.

Nonetheless, Hag sameach.

Parshat Vayeshev 5767: The Tribe of Tamar

Genesis 37:1 - 40:23

This week we start the story of Joseph. Joseph, a spoiled brat and tattletale at seventeen, gets the ire of his brothers, who sell him down the Nile into slavery after one too many dreams of superiority over them. But in Egypt, Joseph goes from being a mere slave to running the household of Potiphar the chief executioner. Unfortunately, a case of sexual harassment gets Joseph in trouble. The chief executioner’s wife wants to sleep with Joseph, who refuses. In a turnabout move, Potiphar’s wife frames him for rape, and Joseph is jailed. But even here he ends up running the prison.

Yet in the center of this weeks portion is another story, parallel to the first. Back at home, Judah's son marries a woman named Tamar. Unfortunately, his son Er dies shortly after the marriage for annoying God in some unnamed way. Judah’s 2nd son Onan is obligated to give her children. Onan spills his seed and because of this, god is angered and he dies. Judah promises his last and final son to Tamar when he grows up, but he reneges. So Tamar dresses up as a prostitute, intercepts Judah, who thinking her a prostitute, sleeps with her, and gets her pregnant. When she is found out to be pregnant, Judah, not realizing he is the father, wants her killed for harlotry. But she produces the "collateral" Judah left with her to sleep with her, his seal and staff, and realizes his mistake, stating “she is more righteous than me” [Gen. 38:26].

After last week’s piece I think the question I asked with Dinah is answered by Joseph and Tamar. Bit h are victims in some sense, though one could argue Joseph did make his own situation worse. Both are. Joseph in this portion does indeed find, even as slave in this protion, prosperity. Yet the shorter story of Tamar and Judah provides us with some answers as well.

Tamar’s situation came about thorough her husbands angering God, and dying for the offense. The rabbis maintain that the reason was the same for Er and Onan. Just like Onan spilled his seed, so too did Er, but for different motives. The rabbinic argument occurs in the Tractate of Talmud which deals with Tamar’s issue, that of levirate marriage. We read of levirate marriage

5. If brothers live together, and one of them dies, and has no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry outside to a stranger; her husband’s brother shall go in to her, and take her to him for a wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. 6. And it shall be, that the firstborn which she bears shall succeed to the name of his brother who is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel. [Deuteronomy 25:5]

While there is a procedure to refuse a levirate marriage, in the first recorded case in Torah, that is not used, and instead we read:

8. And Judah said to Onan, Go in to your brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to your brother. 9. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in to his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. 10. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord; therefore he slew him also. [Genesis 38]

The tractate on levirate marriage, Yebamot, in discussing in whether a virgin can get pregnant on her fir experience with sex, uses Tamar as an example of one who does, from her Father in law Judah. Yet, it is argued she had two husbands:

But were there not Er and Onan? — Er and Onan indulged in unnatural intercourse…. [The reason for] Onan's [action] may well be understood, because he knew that the seed would not be his; but why did Er act in such a manner? — In order that she might not conceive and thus lose some of her beauty. [Yebamot 34b]

Er, we are told in midrash uses the euphemistic “plowing the roof” [Genesis R. XXXV: 4] to stand for some kind of non-vaginal intercourse. Unlike Dinah, Tamar wanted sex, but she wanted sex for procreation, as is the mitzvah given to all humanity of “be fruitful and multiply”. Neither her first or second husband gave her that, and thus by making her perform non-natural acts, Tamar can be thought of as being a victim of men as much as Dinah.

The difference here is that her victimhood did not stop her from getting what she wanted. She deceives Judah into giving her the children she wants. Note that the text notes that they never have sex again (38:26). This was about getting pregnant, not about sex. Once she got what she wanted that was enough for both of them. Tamar has twin sons, Perez and Zerah. The book of Ruth picks up the story:

18. Now these are the generations of Perez; Perez fathered Hezron, 19. And Hezron fathered Ram, and Ram fathered Amminadab, 20. And Amminadab fathered Nahshon, and Nahshon fathered Salmon, 21. And Salmon fathered Boaz, and Boaz fathered Obed, 22. And Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David. [Ruth 4:18-22]

Ten generations later, including Ruth’s levirate marriage to Boaz, King David was born. The text insinuates that Judah’s last son was not going to be given to Tamar, since he did not want her to kill him too. It was up to Tamar to get what she was legally entitled to, and through her prostitute act was King David eventually born.

While I was busy looking for the answer to the halakah of the victim, I never thought to look at the aggadah, the story. The story of Tamar teaches us one answer to the question: while one should do things as legally as possible, don’t give up, and always find a way. Tamar could have gone back to her father as a widow and done many things, from feeling sorry for herself till she died to getting herself another husband far away from Judah and the rest. But she wanted to have the next generation of Judah, and eventually she did. Every step along the way, those around her tried to stop her from this goal. That God removed the stumbling-blocks of Er and Onan from the picture says volumes about How God felt about Tamar’s quest. But so does the stories of her descendants.

David, instead of crying like everyone else got up and killed the undefeatable opponent Goliath, starting his public career. It is not only King David which is directly related to Tamar however. According to Midrash [Numbers Rabbah XIII:4], The leader of the tribe of Judah during the Exodus, Nahshon, a descendant of Perez, also acted in the impossible situation, just like his great-great-great grandmother. We are told he was the first into the Sea, and it really didn’t split until he was almost over his head. He did not cry like the rest, “For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.” (Exodus 14:12) He just went into the drink, and a miracle happened. It was a descendant of the Perez’s twin brother Zerah, Caleb, who as one of the twelve spies who scouted the Land of Israel said very clearly “Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it” (Numbers 13:30) when almost everyone else was crying “Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt”(Numbers 14:2) For that faith, he was only one of two men who started their lives as slaves and crossed the Jordan into Israel. When there was plague that even Aaron and Moses couldn’t stop, it is Pinchas, whose grand-mother was Nahshon’s sister (Exodus 6:23) springing into action when everyone else is weeping (Numbers 25:7). Over and over again, when there are tears but a need for action it is a descendant of Tamar who rises to the call.

In loss there is always sadness. There are many time there is disappointment in our lives, even from those times when we become a victim of someone else. Yet, I believe these stories point to a thread found in Torah, one often associated with the family of Tamar. With a deep belief in Torah and Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu, one does not sit and cry, but marches on towards the goals everyone else said is impossible. There might be scary parts, like when Tamar could have been burnt alive for harlotry, but in the end she was the mother not just of twins, but the ancestor of the Messiah. A woman, in a man’s world, ended up on top, indeed her actions were more courageous than those of the father of her children, who was too busy selling his own brother into slavery to care. In many ways what set apart the tribe of Judah from the other tribes is more an attribute of Tamar, than that of Judah.

Like Tamar, Nahshon, Caleb, and David we too can do the impossible, what others do not want us to do, or what they believe should not be ours to do. So the first lesson of Dinah’s question is not to continually cry, but to move forward towards your goal your dream, no matter what, because you might just get it.

And speaking of dreams, next week we will discuss part two of the answer, the dreamer and convicted rapist who becomes the second most powerful man in Egypt.

Vayishlach 5767: The Halakah of the Survivor

Genesis 33:4-36:43

This week Jacob gets ready for this inevitable meeting with Esau, and then has an interesting divine wrestling experience. When Jacob finally meets his brother, he finds out that he and Esau actually can be civil to each other. Dinah is raped and then her rapist asks for her hand in marriage. To avenge the rape, Dinah's brothers Simeon and Levi slaughter all the males of the rapist's town as they recover from circumcision. Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin, and Ruben sleeps with his step mother, Bilhah. Isaac. dies, and is buried by both his sons.

This week, once again it's personal, very personal. Every two years since Shlomo' s Drash started, I explore a particular passage of Torah as my own prayer for healing. This is the year I do again. May it be the will of Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu that these words heal those who are silent about this in reading these words, and may I heal in writing them.

We read in this week's portion:

1. And Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. 2. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her. [Genesis 34:1-2]

I think there is no part of Torah more problematic than Chapter 34 of Genesis. I take those lines very personally since they happened to me. I am a survivor both of rape and of partner abuse. Since I started writing this column five years ago, I have tried to understand this portion most of all, and have a very hard time accepting the answers that the ancient sages gave. I looked here for healing and guidance to heal, I found misogyny instead. In the Midrash, we read:

AND DINAH THE DAUGHTER OF LEAH WENT OUT. R. Berekiah said in R. Levi's name: This may be compared to one who was holding a pound of meat in his hand, and as soon as he exposed it a bird swooped down and snatched it away. Similarly, AND DINAH THE DAUGHTER OF LEAH WENT OUT, and forthwith, AND SHECHEM THE SON OF HAMOR SAW HER. R. Samuel b. Nahman said: Her arm became exposed.[Genesis R. LXXX:5]

In short she was asking for it for leaving her home in the first place, for not being obedient to the men in her life. The rabbis go further, using the standard defense clams of rapists for millennia, stating that Dinah actually acted like a whore. What's worse this was a "like mother like daughter" situation; Leah acted like a harlot, and thus so was Dinah. [Genesis R. LXXX: I]

The actions of Dinah's brothers are also not very helpful,essentially committing genocide then pillaging the defeated city to avenge the rape of their sister, to the claim "should we let our sister be treated like a whore?" (Genesis 31 :34) If I was writing a Targum I'd add to the end of that, "and not get to be her pimps?"

Even after Sinai, the issue of rape is problematic: the Mitzvot related to it are found in Deuteronomy and Exodus:

28. If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and lays hold of her, and lies with her, and they are found; 29. Then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he has humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. [Deut. 22]

15. And if a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies with her, he shall pay the bride's dowry, and make her his wife. 16. If her father refuses absolutely to give her to him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins. [Ex. 22]

There is fine for rape of an unmarried virgin, and a penalty of marriage with no possibility of divorce. As one female friend of mine put it "who's more punished by that?" Yes, what kind of life is living with your rapist for the rest of your life? The Talmud, however, does deal with situation, and gives the victim the ability to refuse to marry him or to divorce him later. Indeed Tractate Ketubot spends a whole chapter discussing the legal ramifications of seduction, rape and incest. And while the Talmud adds the concept of compensatory damages for pain and distress, in this section that is all it does: it give the penalties, in monetary and legal terms, for such behavior.

Beyond this, there is nothing -- and that is my problem. In the entire Tanach, Dinah is an active character for Genesis 34:1, and no other verse. Torah and virtually all rabbinic texts treat Dinah, and by extension all victims of rape, as an object after this. Often these texts, as I've said, blame the victim for the problem in the first place. While in the case of a betrothed maiden is clear this is rape, when a married woman is raped it is not clear if it is considered rape or considered adultery and her fault. Monetary compensation might help in some ways particularly in child support for an unwanted child; no amount of money can remove the wound to the soul. It is this that I most want to heal. While we have ritual for just about everything else, it is completely absent in our tradition to have a ritual for healing for the victim of sexual assault.

I was reminded of the difficulty of healing this soul-wound last week. Two weeks ago, I was set to write about how much I have healed in the five years since I first wrote about my time with that ex girlfriend. I had come out of my shell, had been able to talk to many people, including women I found attractive, and even try to date halfway decently. As I am so afraid of touch, I was unable to dance without paralyzing fear for years. I've spent most of the last two decades avoiding dance like the plague, indeed I'd rather have the plague than get on a dance floor. Yet this year I danced at a wedding, and had a wonderful time being so free from the demons dwelling in that soul wound.

Then came last week, and I was triggered, and nineteen years of healing disappeared in an instant. It was someone who had an abusive attitude to everyone, very much like my ex-girlfriend's attitude's to me. Not knowing what I was doing I was incredibly defensive and angry; I almost blew up on rage. I spent last Shabbat contemplating what happened, and realized that I had not healed, indeed I have backslid immensely. I fell for the exact abuse I fell for nineteen years ago hook, line and sinker, I was running on an automatic, unable to control actions I should know better than to do.

A total unforeseen event coming from a totally invisible mistake has triggered me once again. For most crises I turn to Torah for guidance and for the last week the hollow echo of monetary compensation and "she asked for it" is all I hear. The Torah is empty, and I am totally alone, with the world too busy enabling and placating the abuser to care about my pain. I feel all I can do is curl up and cry.

We have no halakah or ritual for the victim to heal the scars and wounds that won't heal. No matter how hard we try, there is always something that will open them again, and once again we are descended into a Hell we did not ask for or deserve. There is a rabbinic tradition that such was true of Dinah: she married Job, and she never healed, willing to curse God for the bad things in life (Job 2:9). While the book of Job goes into the question of why bad things happen to good people, there is not even in Job an answer of how to overcome the trauma, except to suffer. King Solomon says it best That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. [Ecc1. 1:15] Therefore, since there is no healing, only suffering, many of us who cannot heal turn to destructive behaviors. For some that is addictive behaviors, for others it is shutting down and isolating themselves from everything, as I had for nearly three decades, and as I might once again following this incident. For others it is transmitting the disease to others, becoming the abusers and thus perpetuating the cycle, often violently. In seeing the anger I released last week, it is this last that I fear and guard against the most.

The chill running through me today has nothing to do with the weather. It is pain that still exists after decades of pain. It is a pain I thought that had healed, but I'm coming to the realization it never will, I will struggle with these events for the rest of my life, and have these soul wounds. In our portion Jacob struggled with the angel once, and was left with one wound, I will struggle with the demon till the day of my death, and be wounded every day. While many ask concerning many tragic events from Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, or The Shoah "Why did God let this happen?" for me, and probably many with post-traumatic stress syndrome from such diasters, from war or from rape and abuse, the question remains "God, How do I heal from this?"

The answering silence is deafening.

I wrote this, as I have for two times before to express what many who cannot speak want to say. I do this as my answer to healing, to tell the story, to know it is there and not let it bottle up inside. My anger was there because there was no other way to express my remembered pain in the situation. It overwhelmed me, and I was not able to handle the situation as I should have rationally. Telling the story releases the anger, the pain, and hopefully for all who tell their stories lessens or removes the destructive behaviors to our selves and to those around us. However such stories are not without risk. There are many who will denigrate people who are brave enough to tell such stories, and I did take that risk here. Far better would to find an answer within our tradition, a ritual and prayer to help lessen the pain and promote the healing of the soul without such risk, and only the healing and comfort of one’s community

That answer is mostly silent, but after writing the first draft of this, I found a quote which did talk of healing from such things, from Reb Nachman of Breslov.

If you believe that you can damage,
Then believe you can fix.
If you believe that you can harm,
Then believe that you can heal. [LM 11:112]

For those of us who understand the pain, our healing is to heal others. From such advice may God bless us and let the healing begin.

Vayetze 5767: Beauty and the Sheep

Parshat Vayetze 5767 Genesis 28:10-32:3

This week we begin Jacob’s journey to Padan Aram and his adventures there. After a divine encounter with a ladder, he meets his beautiful cousin Rachel, and instantly falls for her. In exchange for Rachel's hand in marriage, Jacob promises seven years of work for her father Laban. But he is deceived; he ends up marrying her older sister Leah instead. He does marry Rachel, but in exchange for another seven years of work. And then he's tricked into more work. With a real good grasp of genetics, Jacob grows rich in spite of Laban’s treachery and eventually sneaks away from him. His now rather large family of two concubines, two wives, soon-to-be thirteen children and lots of livestock goes with him. But as he starts home he realizes something: he will have to eventually confront Esau once again.

In one of the stranger stories in the Tanach, we have a record of ancient breeding practices. When Joseph is born, Jacob decides its time to go home. But Laban protests, knowing that his own wealth is because of Jacob. Jacob agrees to stay on for a while longer, but asks for his wages in a unique manner. The text reads:

32. I will pass through all your flock today, removing from there all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and of such shall be my hire.33. So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come, when you come to look into my wages with you; every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep, that shall be counted stolen with me. [Genesis 30:32-33]

Laban then gets all the purely white sheep, and all the solidly colored goats. Jacob gets all the others. Laban, in short gets the “perfect animals” Jacob gets the less than perfect, the flawed animals - or so it must seem to Laban. Yet as we learn Jacobs’s manipulations: Jacob using some strange white striped rods, induces conception in the animals at the drinking trough, and they produce speckled striped and spotted ones.

41. And it came to pass, whenever the stronger cattle conceived, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods.42. But when the cattle were weak, he did not put them in; so the weaker were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s.[Genesis 30:41-42]

He separates this lot and continues to have the animals conceive. When the animals are solid, he continues to breed only the weak animals of the solid animals since these are Laban's, creating a small weak flock. The hearty among his speckled flock, however, he continues to breed, making them even heartier. Eventually he has a large number of sheep and goats and the wealth to have other conveniences such as servants and camels.

Jacob thought of value not by appearance but by strength, and bred the imperfect looking animals for strength and vitality, while Laban’s perfect looking animals were bred for weakness. Rods which are easily visible by sheep and goats will entice them to scratch their heads on it as I found out once while using a monopod to photograph in a petting zoo. Anywhere I set up my subjects would duck under the camera to scratch their heads on the post holding up my camera. Rods might just keep the female sheep and goats docile enough that the males would come along and copulate with them. What let Jacob to pull the Darwinian wool, so to speak, over Laban’s eyes was Laban’s belief that a good sheep was a perfect skin. Their vitality, and thus their ability to reproduce, was not an issue for him -only their looks.

Of course, the Irony of this plan is who is doing such a plot. We read earlier in this portion:

16. And Laban had two daughters; the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17. Leah had weak eyes; but Rachel was beautiful and well favored. 18. And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve you seven years for Rachel your younger daughter.

This is the same man who went gaga for the pretty yet rather barren woman Rachel instead of the incredibly fertile Leah. Jacob was guilty of the same thing he’s pulling on Laban, but apparently he’s learned his lesson. But then again how guilty are we of the same thing as Laban? According to any source I know of, more people choose who to talk to people with pictures posted on online dating than only their description. If you don’t have a picture, you might not have a chance of getting any responses, a bad picture gets less responses than a good picture.

We are told that Leah had weak eyes, whatever that means. In the Targum pseudo-Jonathan they were Ziran eyes from pleading with God that she would not have to marry Isaac’s first born, Esau. As far as the priesthood is concerned, such eyes would disqualify one from making sacrifices. Indeed the things that are listed along with this are rather interesting:

ZIRAN. It has been taught: One whose eyes are bleared and granulated; weeping, dripping and running. A Tanna taught: Zewir, lufyon, and tamir are blemishes. Zewir is one whose eyes are unsteady [mezawar]. Lufyon is one having thick and connected eyebrows, and tamir is one whose eyebrows are gone. [Behorot 44a]

Rashi comments that Ziran means they pivot back and forth, they were shifty eyes. Rashi implies that she never made eye contact for long. The rabbis on using a whole series of defects around the eyes are emphasizing something here: our appearance matters, especially the eyes.

And thus we get the paradox of this week’s portion. On one hand Jacob learns that it is not outward appearances that indicate strength and quality, which he first learns with the proclivity of his wives. In the same chapter describing such proclivity, He then demonstrates the same thing by conning Laban out of all of his sheep, basing everything on appearance. Yet at the same time, appearance is all too often used, even by the Torah, and Talmud for determining who is capable of giving sacrifices and blessings. We can see this paradox in the statement of Etcs of rivals it Hillel and Shammai in the Perkei Avot:

He [Hillel also] used to say: if I am not for myself, who is for me, but if I am for my own self [only], what am I, and if not now, when? Shammai used to say: make your [study of the] Torah [a matter of] established [regularity]; speak little, but do much; and receive all men with a pleasant countenance. [Avot 1]

The more lienent Hillel advocates inner work, and Shammai the outside appearances. Both are right, but how?

In a world with thousands of interactions every day, we do not have the time to get to know someone well before we make a judgment. Indeed it would be waste of time, and in some ways painful, to know someone well and then judge them. Instead we make up our mind whether we want to pursue such an exchange within 30 seconds of meeting someone and decide how legitimate they are. And with the first few seconds, based in their dress grooming and posture, we decide whether we will pursue that conversation or not.

It of course has quirks and problems. The biggest is to believe that the appearance is the only thing, like Laban, who could not see that quality extended beneath the skin. All too often we look at the “Beautiful people” because of their dress or appearance. Magazines are full of the stuff, but never really getting under the skin to the quality of the person underneath -- even “in depth interviews” are superficial and scripted. Rachel may have been such a person, her stealing of the household gods seem to point that although she is good looking she does not accept the God of her husband. And if number of children is any measure, she want strong either, having only two and dying in childbirth on the second, unlike Leah who has seven children.

The other problem is the issue that was true of Leah and her weak eyes. In the case of any of the eye conditions mentioned above, as eyes are a window to the soul, they would portray a negative image as the window is distorted or closed, and that makes people uncomfortable. To look into Leah’s eyes’ or for her to look into Jacob’s was difficult, and thus they never connected. But many things such as a unibrow can be shaved, a habit of not looking someone in the eye can be corrected through practice, and we can connect even when we thought we might not be able to

Even though we should never be superficial, our appearance dictates our interactions with others. Dress, grooming, our posture, eyes and mouth all tell volumes about us instantly. For a person in a leadership position, such as a priest, there is a need to build confidence fast, and this is the reason for the restrictive rules about priests and the people with defects.

I believe there are many people with or without physical defects who sabotage themselves in their quest for connection by looking like they want to look and not like they want to connect- including me for quite a while. Like the sheep, they insist the inside does count, but they are unaware that like Leah and Rachel, it’s that first impression which makes people trust you enough to connect. Yet I also believe the things that had the most impact, eye contact, grooming dress, and smiles are all controllable by us. No matter what other defects we have, fat, thin, ugly or gorgeous, it is those things we can change, and often easily which makes us attractive or unattractive. And there is always one inexpensive and powerful one which we can all add to make ourselves attractive. Remember you are never dressed without an honest smile. It was Shammai who said to greet everyone with a pleasant countenance, literally with a beautiful shining face. I think he meant a smile.

Sage advice from a sage.