Temple Torat Yisrael

In a progression of verses that is in no way unusual, this week's parasha comes to remind us that at the time of the revelation at Sinai, God, Moshe, and, apparently the people, all assumed that a patriarchal societal structure was the norm:  in Sh'mot 32, the people, panicking at Moshe's prolonged absence, crowd Aaron: And the people saw that Moses lagged. The people.  In the next verse, Aaron responds: take off the golden rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters.  In other words, "the people" are the men.

Professor Tikva Frymer-Kensky, z”l, in the introduction to her book, Reading the Women of the Bible, pointed out that the Torah does not challenge the patriarchy of the society to which it was revealed, just as the Torah does not challenge the institution of slavery.  The Torah does not conceptualize such cultural revolutions as an egalitarian society or the eradication of the institution of slavery.

Biblical thinkers, as Frymer-Kensky refers to biblical authorship, were very aware of social problems, trying to emeliorate the suffering of the downtrodden, curtailing abuses, helping runaway slaves stay free, redeeming those sold into slavery, and calling for a limit to capitalist aggrandizement.

Today, we might turn to the Torah, the foundation document of our faith, and feel disappointed or embarrassed by what seems to be the biblical embrace of patriarchal structure, not to mention a sanguine acceptance of slavery. 

I think we err in the reading of the Torah if we lapse into embarrassment and disappointment at these junctures.  Indeed, I see in the Torah's challenging, incremental, insistent pushing back on societal assumptions the key to the deepest values of our tradition and the key to the eternal vibrancy of Judaism. 

It is easy, too easy, to sit in this sanctuary today and look with disdain on the poor primitive creatures of the past who didn't "get it" that women simply do fulfill the same spectrum of roles in Jewish community as do men.  It is too easy to sit in this sanctuary today and look with disdain on the poor primitive creatures of the past who didn't "get it" that a mitzvah observed by a gay guy is a mitzvah that has been observed by an obligated Jew.

In a drash on the parashah Mishpatim, my friend and colleague, Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses asks a perceptive and challenging question:

"...after all the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt, the very first laws of Mishpatim concern slave ownership. Not the prohibition of owning slaves, as one might want and expect, but the rules detailing the treatment of a slave, slavery an institution that is simply presumed by the text. After all that, after all those years enslaved, after witnessing the plagues, after passing through the red sea to escape slavery, why in the world are the Israelites permitted the ownership of other human beings?"

The key phrase, in Rabbi Cohler-Esses' question is: "an institution that is simply presumed by the text."  In other words, the institution of slavery was a common and integral part of ancient economies and societal structures.  As common as salaries and taxes are today.

These passages in Mishpatim make it clear that the slave held by an Israelite master was never to be treated with the harshness and cruelty that the Israelite slaves experienced at the hands of Egypt's taskmasters.

For certain, there are also passages in the Torah about the treatment of slaves that seem brutal to us and repugnant in the document we embrace as revealed sacred text.  All this is a reflection of the reality of the time and place in which the Torah was revealed.

I recently saw a TV advertisement in which a person in very authentic-looking medieval dress hands another person a gift: something wrapped in the folds of a cloth.  The recipient carefully opens up the folds of the cloth and a very modern-looking television remote control is revealed..  The gift is received with very understandable confusion and incomprehension.

If the Torah reflected our 21st sensibilities towards slavery, toward the basic economics of debt service, toward women and even employer-employee relations, the response at the time and place of revelation would have been even more profound confusion and incomprehension.  There would have been no collective of people to accept the Torah and declare "na'aseh v'nishma" / "we will do, we will obey" because there would not have been a human alive at that time capable of understanding and committing to such a covenant. 

Even a sacred revelation rooted in the cultural assumptions of the day was ultimately responded to with the golden calf.  Can you imagine what the response would have been to a Torah unilaterally and with no warning casting aside patriarchal society, abolishing slavery, prohibiting capital punishment?  Crickets.  Instead of a heartfelt na’aseh v’nishmah (“we will do, we will obey,” our communal response to the revelation of the Torah) you would have only heard the chirping of crickets...

The power of our tradition, right from the very beginning, has been our commitment to connecting our faith, our religious commitments, our observances to the myriad of times and places in which we have lived.  We have demonstrated, time after time after time, that the covenant, laws, mitzvot of our tradition travel with us, reflect and inform the realities of our lives wherever and whenever we live in Jewish community.

This makes looking back confusing at times . . . as if we, in our 21st century culture, mindset and dress were to unwrap a present and find chain mail armor.  These anachronistic moments, though, serve to remind us that our faith, our brit/covenant with God, has always been about the lives we are leading right now.  Whenever and wherever right now might be.

In this season of “nahafoch hu” (Turn things on their heads / referring to the irreverent spirit of Purim) it behooves us to remember that profound change does not happen . . . or does not happen well . . . when we begin by overturning tables and standing things on their heads. 

Indeed, it is our Torah...that sacred document steeped in patriarchal and slaveholding assumptions that models for us the path to the kind of change that made this Shabbat in this place possible.  We need to start where people are, not where we expect them to get to.  Really, there is little that is more irritating than having someone approach from the heights of enlightenment to say:  "you poor misguided thing, follow me and you'll get it right.". How much more effective, as the Torah models, to say: "here's where we are.  Look what's ahead.  We can figure out together how to get there!"

Profound change comes from modeling, suggesting, teaching, persevering, relying only on  the eternal, sacred values that reflect profound truth.  Having faith.  And a little humility.

We, the Masorti community here in Israel, as well as the American Conservative community, need to do a little remembering.

Here are a few things I remember from the not-distant-enough past:

I remember being all but frog-marched out of the daily minyan at my own (pre-rabbinical school) Masorti kehillah in Jerusalem and being told that I was not welcome in the room if I was going to wear my tallit and Tefillin.

I remember members of the Israel Rabbinical Assembly standing up at meetings

and insisting that Israel was not ready for women in the rabbinate.

I remember a high-ranking member of the Machon Shechter administration informing me that women belonged in the rabbinate as much as an orange belongs on a Seder plate.

I remember: here's a little back story to this memory:  when I began my studies in the rabbinical program at Shechter, I was actually registered as a student of JTS while studying in the Israeli program.  JTS had been ordaining women since 1983, but then, in 1991, Schechter was not yet accepting women.  Therefore, I ... and a few other women ... were in the unique position of studying in a program that did not officially accept us.  The other women at that time were studying at Shechter as Masters students.  So...back to remembering:  I remember a fellow student gave a d'var Torah one day at minyan urging the Schechter faculty and administration to change their policy and to accept women.  A high-ranking member of the Schechter administration came up to him immediately and within hearing of several of us said: “atah bogeid,” you are an iconoclast, you are a traitor.

I've had a moment or two like that myself:  I had been davenning in minyanim at shul and at school as the only woman in the room wearing Tefillin for close to a year before I finally walked into a minyan where there was another woman wearing Tefillin. I watched her wrap up and I remember saying to myself:  Wow!  That looks really weird!

All of that is to say that we need to have a little rachmonis (compassion) for those who don't quite get it yet.  We need to acknowledge that the kind of change that addresses the way people engage in society and community is complicated and frightening and confusing.  Obviously that does not mean we don't proceed with change, it does mean we must manage change with wisdom and compassion and allegiance to sacred values.

For all that the Torah assumes a world that marginalizes women and condones slavery, the most sacred principles which will ultimate overthrow those assumptions are embedded in that same revealed text and have served as the basis for the revolutions which overturn those institutions:

Breishit/Genesis: 1:27-28

And God created the Adam in His image.  He created it in the image of God; He created them male and female.  And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it . . .”

Adam is male and female, a type of gendered creature, like so many others.  Both genders of this Adam are created simultaneously and equally.  Both genders of this Adam are blessed equally and charged equally with reproducing and with managing the rest of creation.  This first relating of the creation of humanity considers both genders equally blessed, equally in partnership.

How many times have we heard that we are partners with God in completing and perfecting creation?  How often are we uplifted by the concept of Tikkun Olam?  The idea that God needs our collaboration to bring ultimate completion and peace, to the act of Creation? 

The blueprint for our collaboration are the "first principles" of the Torah: Tikkun Olam is the enterprise of integrating these first principles of Torah into the world. 

God had the chance to foster a homogeneous, uniform humanity . . . all speaking the same language, all building towards the same goal:  the destruction of the Tower of Babel is the signal that God expects diversity, creativity, the exercise of our various intelligences from us.  Humanity begins with one language, one set of words, and ends the passage dispersed and speaking many tongues.  Yes, perhaps, as is expressed in Genesis 11, humanity would have been more formidable were we to speak one language and see one vision...but if that state of affairs reflected God's aspiration for the Adam we would, today, be speaking but one language and aspiring to one goal. 

Hence the blueprint for our collaboration with God must include the embrace of diversity within the Adam / humanity.

It's rather exhausting, isn't it, to contemplate how many millennia it has taken to achieve just a few steps forward in establishing God's first principles.  After all, the catalyst for this awe-inspiring Shabbat is the rejection of the equality of genders within the Adam among certain misguided groups within Israel.  Really, what on earth could a little orthodox girl be wearing to school that could possibly be deemed inappropriate by anyone save a truly misguided soul?

So let us, today in this sanctuary, respond to Professor Frymer-Kensky's concerns and Rabbi Cohler-Essess' probing question with pride and reassurance:  the Torah does not abandon 21st century Jews, the Torah provides us with the wisdom, perspective and inspiration to understand the scope of the challenges and to be compassionate and focussed as we pursue those first principle truths that shine through the cultural anachronisms of the text.

In this season of nahafoch hu, I suggest there are times when up-ending tables is the  order of the day:  most effectively when grassroots support for change wells up against an authoritarian loathing to abandon long-held assumptions.

In place of disappointment and embarrassment, let us be guided by both patience and determination.  The patience to inspire those around us with the challenging and uplifting first principles of the Torah: equality, inclusivity, diversity--and the determination to up-end each table of bigotry, narrow-mindedness and intimidation in their turn.

This final parashah/Torah reading in the book of Genesis includes an evocative scene:  the patriarch is close to death, his twelve sons are gathered around him as he speaks his final words to each and every one of them.  The Torah tells us that the patriarch, Jacob, blessed each son according to his blessing.

Try as I might, I find little that's heartwarming or inspiring in this scene:  Jacob's daughter, Dina, is nowhere to be found and does not receive a parting blessing from her father . . . which might be a blessing in itself.

For what Jacob does say to each son, in the presence of all the others, isn't what I'd call a blessing . . . indeed, many of the sons seem to be condemned by their father more than blessed.*
"Reuben, you're my firstborn, my power, and the beginning of my might, . . . unstable as water, you'll not be preeminent, for you ascended your father's bed . . . (49:3,4).
"Simeon and Levi are brothers: implements of violence are their tools of trade.  Let my soul not come in their council..." (49:5-6)
"Dan will be a snake on a road, a venomous snake on a path, that bites a horse's heels,and its rider falls backward." (49: 17)
"Benjamin is a tearing wolf:  in the morning eating prey, and at evening dividing booty." (49:27)

Of course, other brothers fare slightly better:
"Zebulun will dwell by seashores: and he'll be a shore for boats..." (49:13
"Issachar is a strong ass crouching between the saddle-packs:  and he saw rest, that it was good, and the land, that it was pleasant. and he leaned his shoulder to bear and became a work-company servant." (49:14-15)
"Naphtali: a hind let loose, who gives lovely words." (49:21)

And a few are truly blessed:
"Judah:  You, your brothers will praise you.  Your hand on your enemies' neck, your father's sons will bow to you." (49:8)
"A fruitful bough is Joseph, a fruitful bough over a spring . . . archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and despised him.  and his bow stayed stong, and his forearms were nimble, from the hands of the Might One of Jacob . . .Shadday [another name for God] will bless you . . . blessings of your father, the mighty and most high, blessings of the mountains of old..." (49: 22,23-24, 25-26).

So it's no small surprise when we read:  "And Jacob finished commanding his sons, and he gathered his feet into the bed, and he expired.  And Joseph fell upon his father's face and wept over him and kissed him." (49:33-50:1)

Only Joseph.
Thirteen children, twelve gathered at the death bed, and only one mourned him.

It is certainly the case that some of Jacob's sons were responsible for some very questionable acts.  And I believe that parents are most effective when they are not blind to their progeny's shortcomings.  But a dying father might say to his fanatically revengeful sons (see Genesis 34): "My prayer for you is that you will be broken down with remorse and then rebuild your souls as upright men of honor, maturity and perspective."  A dying father might say to the son who slept with his father's concubine, Bilhah (see Genesis 35:22): "My prayer for you is that you will be broken down with remorse and then rebuild your soul as a man who has control of his urges and has respect for women and for family relationships."

There is a lot that is broken and dysfunctional in this biblical family.  Jacob's parting words to his sons almost seem designed to plant chaos and dissension among them.  

Then two profound things happen.  Two profound things that demonstrate to me how much Torah is truly a light for us in every generation:

Joseph, the one child who truly mourns his father, receives permission from Pharaoh to journey to Canaan to bury his father in the family burial plot in the cave of Mahpelah.  And the Torah relates:  "And Joseph went up to bury his father, and all of Pharoah's servants, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, and all of Joseph's house and his brothers and his father's house.  Only their infants and their flock and their oxen they left in the land of Goshen."  (Gen 50: 7-8)

In other words:  as abusive as their father may have been, Jacob's sons stepped up and did him the honor due to him as the source of their lives.  Jewish tradition teaches us that as adults, when we are no longer physically dependent on an abusive parent, we are not obligated to fawn over them, to keep trying to earn their love.  But the adult children of abusive parents are obligated to make sure that their parents are safe, have respectable food, clothing and shelter and that their are honored in their death as the source of life and for whatever gifts of parenting they may have had.  This is what we learn from Reuben and Simeon and Levi, Judah, Zebulun and Issachar, Dan, Gad and Asher, Naphtali and Benjamin.

The second moment of light comes as the family gathers together after Jacob is buried.  Joseph's brothers speak among themselves:  "And Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, and they said, "If Joseph will despise us he'll pay us back all the bad we dealt to him." (50:15).

But Joseph has grown, not only in stature, but in faith and maturity.  Perhaps being cut off from his family for so long has taught him the importance of family.  He responds:  "Don't be afraid, because am I in God's place?  And you thought bad against me. God thought for good: in order to do as it is today, to keep alive a numerous people.  And now, don't be afraid.  I'll provide for you and your infants. " And he consoled them.  And he spoke on their heart. (Gen 50: 19-21)  

The long journey of this family of Jacob's begins with the pain of the effects of an abusive parent and ends with the healing power of a faithful and loving sibling.
Amen.

*All translations are from Richard Elliott Friedman's excellent English translation of the Torah.

In this week's parashah/Torah Reading, Joseph reveals his identity to his beleaguered brothers and with the Pharaoh's blessing moves his brothers and his father, Jacob, to Egypt.  The Torah relates that Jacob’s sons carried their father in the Pharaoh’s wagons and Joseph went to greet his father in Goshen, flinging himself upon his father’s neck to weep. Jacob was 130 years old when he was reunited with his beloved Joseph in Egypt.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:  "The test of a people is how it behaves toward the old.  It is easy to love children.  Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children.  But affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless, are the true gold mines of a culture."  (The Insecurity of Freedom)

With ceremony and respect, Jacob was carried to Egypt in the Pharaoh's own wagons.  Joseph's brothers are presented to Pharaoh who questions them briefly and assents to their settling in Egypt.  Apparently, Jacob, the patriarch of this family, is presented to Pharaoh after his sons are dismissed.

When we read these passages attentively, we see that Jacob is always treated with great respect by his sons . . . all his sons . . . and even by the sovereign of the country in which he seeks a haven.  

I wonder if we would pass Rabbi Heschel's test today:  would our attitude toward our elders attest to a culture of compassion or of impatience?  
Rabbi Ron Isaacs, in his book Kosher Living: It’s More Than Just the Food asks: Is it kosher to visit a person afflicted with Alzheimer’s who doesn’t even know who you are?

Rabbi Isaacs continues: Yes, it certainly is right to take time to visit a person who has Alzheimer’s disease.  Though cut off from society, he or she is till a member of society, deserving of care and attention.  The Talmud is very explicit in recognizing the dignity of persons with dementia:  “Rabbi Joseph learned:  This teaches us that both the tablets and the fragments of the tablets were deposited in the ark.  Hence, we learn that a scholar who has forgotten his learning through no fault of his own must not be treated with disrespect” (Talmud, Menachot 99a).We who constitute the community of Torat Yisrael need to take an honest look at how we treat our own elderly, incurable and helpless.  This past week, I had the sad duty of conducting the funeral of Rosalind Herman.  Roz and her husband were among the founders of our congregation.  Roz had served as Secretary of our Board for a decade and was President of our Sisterhood for many years as well.  We are quickly losing this elder, wise and experienced generation of Torat Yisrael and because those who remain with us are largely homebound or living in a variety of care facilities, they are out of our sight, and therefore, beyond the scope of our vision and awareness.Our Kesher social worker, Andrea Epstein, is a wonderful, caring presence reaching out to many of our housebound, but we should truly not be relying on Andrea to care for and about our elders.  They are the elders of our community and without them we lose depth, history and wisdom.  I invite you to look for opportunities to embrace our elders and homebound and help organize efforts to weave our elders back into the fabric of our community.

In this week's parashah, we continue to engage in dreams.  Last week, we  marveled along with Joseph's family, at the self-aggrandizing spins Joseph put on his dreams . . . and the seeming cluelessness of that young dreamer regarding the effect of is dreams on those around him.

From a dream about sheaves of wheat and heavenly bodies, Joseph cheerfully and unhesitatingly notifies his family of his expectation of grandeur.  For the most part, Joseph's dreams will, as we know, come true . . . his brothers and his father will come to bow down to him at Pharaoh's court. But, unforeseen by Joseph, his beloved mother who waited so long for his birth, will be spared that particular humiliation:  Rachel will die before her husband, his other progeny and her youngest child are forced to settle in Egypt.

Rabbi Chaim Stern in his rich anthology, Day by Day: Reflections on the Themes of the Torah, remarks:  "Joseph is called [from prison] to interpret Pharoah's dreams.  Pharaoh says to Joseph: I have heard this about you: you have but to hear a dream to interpret it (Genesis/Breishit 41:15).  Pharaoh, struck by Joseph's brilliant understanding, gives him control over Egypt:  he is to be second only to Pharaoh.  The boy who once dreamed of glory, gains it by understanding the dreams of others."

It seems that Joseph did a lot of growing up somewhere between the pit his brothers threw him into and the prison Pharaoh threw him into:  Joseph learned humility.  When credited with a certain genius regarding the interpretation of dreams that confound even Pharaoh's most seasoned seers, Joseph steps out of the limelight and credits his insight to God.  When given the opportunity to interpret the dreams of Pharaoh, the newly matured Joseph sees not himself, but others, at the center of the royal scene.

Ironically, it is when Joseph steps aside, publicly deferring to the inspiration of the God of Israel, that Joseph rises in the Pharaoh's esteem. Faith, leadership, wisdom, respect and perspective all seem to benefit from a capacity to learn from life's lessons and a willingness to live in the shadow of God.

This week's Torah reading contains one of the most disturbing passages in the entire Hebrew Bible:  the rape of Jacob and Leah's daughter, Dina.  The story is a challenging one for us to understand in the first place, and it also highlights the struggles of many women throughout history.  I am grateful to Rabbi Laura Geller for the following commentary on this biblical passage. Rabbi Geller's insights are comprehensive and I feel the best I can do is share them with you with no further comment from me:

  

Comforting Dina: The rape of Dina...and other horrible, contemporary acts of violence.   By Rabbi Laura Geller

[Jacob is journeying back to Canaan, his homeland, to meet his estranged brother, Esau.  He journeys with his wives, concubines and children....]

Somehow, alone, separated from his "two wives" and his "eleven children," Jacob discovers the face of God in his adversary--and Jacob is blessed.

Eleven children cross the river? But Jacob already at this point has twelve children. What about Dina, his daughter? What happened to her? Rashi, quoting a midrash, explains: "He placed her in a chest and locked her in." While many commentaries understand that by locking Dina in a box Jacob intends to protect her from marrying his brother Esau, we know the truth of the story. Hiding Dinah--locking her up--is a powerful image about silencing women. And that silence echoes loudly through the rest of the Torah.

What happens next? Dina gets In an ultimate act of silencing, the commentaries understand Dina's rape as Jacob's punishment for withholding her from Esau. Dina's rape is Jacob's punishment? What about Dina? What has she done? How does she feel? Out text is silent. We only know what her brothers and father think: that she has been defiled (34:5-7), that she must not be treated as a whore (34:31). No one in the Torah or the midrashic accounts asks her what she wants, what she needs, or how she can be comforted.

Her silence is loud enough to reverberate through the generations. We hear it in the reports of other fathers who perceive their daughter's rape as their dishonor, their punishment. 

Fortunately for Dinah, in Genesis the blame and punishment fall entirely on the perpetrator and his people, not on her. Other women are not as lucky. In 1998, in Pakistan, Arbab Khatoon was raped by three men in a village in Jacobabad district. She was murdered seven hours later. According to local residents, she was killed by her relatives for bringing dishonour to the family by going to the police. In 1999, Lal Jamilla Mandokhel, a 16-year-old mentally retarded girl, was reportedly raped several times by a junior clerk of the local government department of agriculture in a hotel in Parachinar, Pakistan. The girl's uncle filed a complaint about the incident with police--who took the accused into protective custody but then handed over the girl to her tribe. The elders decided that she had brought shame to her tribe and that the honor could only be restored by her death; she was killed in front of a tribal gathering.

Similar stories are reported not only in Pakistan but also in Bangladesh, Great Britain, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda-as well as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. No wonder women are silent!

This outrage is only part of a much larger problem of violence against women. For example, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), more than five thousand brides die annually in India because their dowries are considered insufficient. Widney Brown, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, says that "in countries where Islam is practiced, they're called honor killings, but dowry deaths and so-called crimes of passion have a similar dynamic in that the women are killed by male family members and the crimes are perceived as excusable or understandable."

The practice, she said, "goes across cultures and across religions." In the few cases when public outcry around the world and international pressure were used, a woman's life was spared. But stories that capture the headlines do not begin to address the scope and range of the problem.

We hear Dina's silence as well in the challenges to reproductive rights happening right now in the United States. If Dina were raped and pregnant while living in South Dakota in 2007, she might not be able to get an abortion.

What happens to Dina in the aftermath of ordeal? We do not know. We never hear from her, as we may never hear from the women and our generation who are victims of violence and whose voices are not heard. But the legacy of Jacob as the one who wrestles, demands that we confront the shadowy parts of ourselves and our world--and not passively ignore these facts. The feminist educator Nelle Morton urged women to hear each other speech." Dina's story challenges us to go even further and be also the voices for all of our sisters.

Reprinted from The Torah: A Women's Commentary, 

edited by Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Andrea L. Weiss 

(New York: URJ Press and Women of Reform Judaism, 2008). 

In a parasha/Torah reading of extraordinary events, there lies one verse which I find a true source of wonder:  Jacob is fleeing his home land of Canaan on the way to his mother's homeland and safe haven from his (ostensibly) enraged twin, Esau.

There was no Amtrak, not even a stagecoach, to facilitate this journey:  Jacob made his journey on foot and was required to make camp at night in the middle of nowhere on his way.  It is in this vulnerable night that Jacob dreams:  a ladder stretches from earth to heaven and angels are ascending and descending this ladder.    And then we read:

And Jacob awoke ... and said:  Surely, God is present in this place, and as for me, I did not know it!. (28:10,16)

That's the amazing verse to me:  Jacob did not know that God was in that particular place.

Isn't the first lesson in Torat Tots (our pre-school program) that God is everywhere?  For all that we cannot see God . . .  despite the cartoons and the Renaissance paintings, God has no corporality, no arms or eyes or beard . . . God is omnipresent, in every place.  Jacob, who may or may not serve as a paragon of virtue or faith (that's another d'var Torah!), apparently left home without the assumption that the God of his grandfather, Abraham, would be with him wherever he went.  It took a divinely inspired dream to establish that truth for our ancestor.

We, who were raised with that basic premise of "God is everywhere," have our own difficulty with grappling with that reality.    My rabbi and teacher, Rabbi Neil Gillman, Professor of Theology at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, tells a story about one of his early encounters with his own teacher Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

The two of them had attended Shabbat services on a spring Shabbat at The Jewish Theological Seminary and were walking home together through Riverside Park.  Suddenly, Rabbi Heschel stopped, pointed and said to the pre-rabbinic Neil Gillman:  "There is God in that tree!"

Others might have taken that same walk and commented: "Oh how nice, the trees are budding again."  or "Isn't that a pretty shade of light green?"  But Rabbi Heschel had a very well-developed "awe radar system" . . . he had the capacity to sense and appreciate God's presence in the most prosaic as well as in the most elevated moments.

Our ancestor, Jacob, was able to appreciate the significance of that message God sent him in the dream "you are travelling far from home and I am with you wherever you go."  Rabbi Heschel taught Neil Gillman that God is there for us if we would only open our eyes to God's presence.

All our lives can be richer, more fulfilling, less anxious--all we need do is fine-tune our "awe radar" and let God in to our prosaic and our elevated moments.

Parashat Vayigash                                                                                        Torah Reading:  Genesis 44:18-47:27

Do you ever talk to the tv?  You know the protagonist shouldn't go into the cave or whatever, and you're sitting there calling, "no!  don't go there!"

And you're right, of course, because you've seen it before . . . the bad guy is lurking in the shadows or the rock slide seals your hero into  an apparently impossible situation.

And that's how I feel reading Parashat Vayigash, this week's Torah reading.  Joseph is at the height of his powers and reputation.  All of his brothers and his father Jacob are graciously settled onto prime real estate by Pharaoh as a tribute to Joseph's vision and plan saving Egypt from famine.  And as the family of Jacob settles into Goshen, I'm moved to call out "no! don't go there!  Your great grandchildren are going to be doomed to slavery!"

Because, of course, I've read this story before.  Every year.  I read it in Religious School when I was a kid.  I studied it, with all the commentaries, in rabbinical school.  I review it every year when we come to this Shabbat, as well.

How many times can a person go back to the same story?  If the story is in the Torah, there's no limit.

What is it about the Torah that keeps us coming back?  Yes, it is engaging literature.  Our spiritual connection to the text is the divine revelation integrally woven into every word. 

But I think the real draw for us as Jews is the fact that it is our story.  Revisiting the text of the Torah year after year is like sitting around the table with family and hearing your parents and grandparents tell and re-tell the family stories.  I admit that when my Aunt Gladys gets started on those stories, I have a tendency to roll my eyes.  But you know what?  I love those stories and I love the way Gladys tells them.  And every time I listen to them, I hear a little something that I didn't hear before.  And every time I listen to them I feel embraced by the narratives . . . I see myself and where I've come from.  It's a powerful and precious experience.

When we read and re-read the Torah, we are reading the story of our past, the story of our roots, the story of what ties us together as a community and a people.  So, even though we know how the story ends, we never get tired of returning to the story.  There is actually comfort and confirmation in knowing what happens next in the story . . . because this is the story whose narrative continues through the generations right up to us at this time and this place.

Shabbat Hanukah 5771  Parashat Miketz                      Torah Reading:  Genesis 41:1-44:17

Parashat Miketz is often the Torah reading for the Shabbat of Hanukah.  In his rich and insightful book, The Everyday Torah, Rabbi Brad Artson characterizes the the themes of the Torah reading and the themes of Hanukah as "Dedication, Transformation, and Cleansing."  He writes:  "The miracle of the human capacity to refocus, to begin anew, to reconsecrate our deeds to a path of mindful compassion is a cause for wonder and real celebration...."

This week, we celebrate the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its defilement by Hellenistic Seleucid invading forces in 165 b.c.e.  Everything within the precincts of the Temple grounds was cleaned and rededicated to the exclusive service of the God of Israel.  Rabbi Artson encourages us to internalize that dynamic of cleansing and transformation so that we may dedicate our resources, our priorities and our actions to mindful compassion.

I am so engaged by Rabbi Artson's phrase, "mindful compassion."  Among the meanings and associations that come to my mind is the principle that help is really only help when we understand the needs of the person we are helping.  Mindful compassion compels us to enter into the world of the person we are encountering, and to offer them resources that will address their own perceived needs, not the resources that will bring them closer to a goal that we think they should aspire to.

There are also moments when mindful compassion pushes us to forgo intellectual exercises and simply act to relieve acute suffering.

This Hanukah, this season of re-dedication, well over 200 Rhode Islanders are facing the appalling reality of sleeping under bridges.  There are enough shelter beds in Rhode Island to provide a warm, clean, dry place to sleep for just about everyone in need, but the state lacks the funds to open, heat and staff those shelters.

For this reason, the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Board of Rabbis have come together to organize "A Call for Compassion During Hanukah," our communal response to the crying need in our state.

There is a collection box in the lobby at Torat Yisrael, and there will be one at my Open House this Sunday afternoon, as well as Sunday morning at the Cohen School.  You may donate cash or a check to this emergency appeal.  Checks can be made out to: Rhode Island Board of Rabbis with "emergency shelter fund" on the notation line.

You can also donate online directly to the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless at www.rihomeless.org

Mindful compassion also compels us to use our imaginations to understand the realities of someone else's life.  Please be generous.

Parashat Vayetze                      Torah Reading:  Genesis 28:10-32:3

וַיִּירָא וַיֹּאמַר: "מַה נונּוֹרָא הַמָּקווֹם הַזֶּה! אֵין זֶה כִּי אִם בֵּית אֱלֹהִים וְזֶה שַׁעַר הַשָּׁמָיִם".

And Jacob was filled with awe, and said: 'How full of awe is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.'

This week's parashah / Torah portion open opens with the very graphic story of Jacob's ladder.   After decades of alienation from his brother Esau and his homeland, Jacob is on a journey of return with his wives, Leah and Rachel, and his children.  One night, he sleeps in an isolated spot and witnesses/dreams the apparition of a ladder connecting heaven and earth, with angels moving down and up the ladder.  This story has inspired commentators and artists for milennia, to my mind it provides us with enriching imagery for remembering who we are and what we should be keeping in mind every time we gather together:  'How full of awe is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.'

A synagogue is a lot of things:  a place of worship; a community center; an education center; a social center, but the overarching umbrella concept that includes all of these and more is "house of God."

I like the combination of images in this verse:  house of God and gate of heaven.  What can that mean?  Can we sit back and assume that any house of God also serves as a gate of heaven or is it a matter of earning the status of gate of heaven?

And what does "gate of heaven" mean anyway?

A gate is like a threshold.  A gate allows us to pass from one realm into another.  A congregation, a house of God, at its best, is a place where those who enter can find ways to move from the secular to the sacred. 

On Tuesday evening, I asked the members of our Torat Yisrael board "What can we, as the leaders of this house of God do to assure that our congregation also serves as a gate of heaven?"  I believe strongly in the essential role of leaders in shaping and guiding the values and culture of a congregation.  But a congregation is, by definition, a collection on people brought together through a common denominator.  Our common denominator, of course, is engagement in Judaism as a Conservative community. 

In an ultimate and profound sense, the shaping and guiding of the values and culture of our congregation is the responsibility of everyone affiliated with Torat Yisrael, not only the formal leadership. And so I bring this same challenge to the entire Torat Yisrael family.

What we need to do is to agree among us, first of all, that we want Torat Yisrael, our house of God, to be a gate of heaven.  Before we can work on the "how" we need to agree on the "what."

For the last few years, I have asked the officers and board members of our congregation to recite the following prayer on the occasion of their installation.  I feel it is an outstanding blueprint for building and sustaining a house of God that is a gate of heaven:

May the doors of this synagogue be wide enough to receive all who hunger for love, all who are lonely for fellowship. May we welcome all who have cares to unburden, thanks to express, hopes to nurture.

May the doors of this synagogue be narrow enough to shut out pettiness and pride, envy and enmity.

May its threshold be too high to admit complacency, selfishness, and harshness.

May it not be a stumbling block to the young, or a hindrance to those who are older.

May this synagogue be, for all who enter the doorway to a richer more meaningful life.

To which I can only say "amen!"