Vayeshev / Chanukah: Between Athens and Jerusalem

This week we looked at three stores from Parshat Vayeshev which reflect one core difference between Athens and Jerusalem, and provide provide a contemporary message for Chanukah.

In each one of these stories, clothes are used to deceive. Yaacov mistakenly thinks Joseph's bloodied coat means he is dead. Yehudah mistakenly considers Tamar a prostitute. Potiphar's wife uses Yosef's garment as false proof to convince her husband that Yosef has been disloyal.

Unlike Greek culture which focuses on sight (statues, painting, architecture, sculpture, sport etc), Jonathan Sacks argues that Judaism focuses on sound. In fact, this idea - that we experience more fully using our ears rather than eyes - is also reflected in Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, in which he explains how putting up screens for orchestra auditions immediately led to a change of hiring practices. As Gladwell explains, "Clearly what was happening before was that, in ways no one quite realized, the act of seeing a given musician play was impairing the listener's ability to actually hear what a musician was playing."

We concluded with a beautiful story in which God teaches Eliyahu that He is not be found in the extremes (fire, earthquake, wind) but rather in a Kol Demama Daka, a short, still voice (the sound of silence). The exchange provides another example of how we find God through listening rather than seeing.

Click here for the source sheet and the audio recording (Tel Aviv Shiur) (Jerusalem Shiur)


Chanukah Sameach

Vayishlach: Yaacov's Journey to Yisrael

About to face his brother for the first time since he 'stole' the blessings twenty years earlier, Yaacov finds himself alone and wrestling with a stranger. Even while he ultimately receives a blessing and a new name (Yisrael), he doesn’t leave the encounter unscathed. This week we focused on this struggle, and looked at its contemporary relevance for us, the children of Yisrael

Two major stories in Yaacov's life – gaining the birthright from Esav and obtaining the blessings from his father - involve him having to 'become' Esav (by making red soup, or by dressing up in Esav's clothes ). This feeling - of being unable to distinguish between what Eric Fromm calls 'having' and 'being' - accompanies Yaacov all of his life until the fateful night at the river Jabok where he battles with his self conscious and replays the fateful question 'what is your name'.

This time, rather than responding 'I am Esav', Yaacov responds with his correct name, and 'in a symbolic rectification and reversal of his previous denial of self identification, Jacob has replayed the moment that encapsulated his relinquishing of his moral autonomy' (Shmuel Klitsner, Wrestling Jacob)

He is now able to receive a new name - one of wrestling with God and with man. Similarly, we, as descendents of Yisrael, have a duty to be prepared to wrestle with both man and God (or His texts) if the situation demands it.

Click here for the source sheet, here for the audio recording (right click to download)

Vayetze: Of Dreams, Ladders and Vows

Parshat Vayetze begins with a dream of a ladder and Yaacov's first revelatory experience with God and continues with our forefather's oath/request for seemingly mundane issues - bread to eat and clothes to wear.

Traditional commentators describe the angels ascending the ladder as different nations, each one signifying a different exile of the Jewish people. One more contemporary explanation is brought by Elie Wiesel who writes that "in his dream, Yaacov saw a ladder whose top reached into heaven. It still exists. There are those who have seen it, somewhere in Poland, at the side of an out-of-the-way railroad station. And an entire people were climbing, climbing towards the clouds on fire. Such was the nature of the dread, our ancestor Yaacov must have felt” .

Yaacov's mundane oath meanwhile is turned by the Midrash into something more meaningful. Requests for bread, clothes and other physical things are turned into requests to be protected from lashon harah, gilui arayot, murder and idolatry.

However, ironically, it is those very things (lashon hara etc) that end up happening to Yaacov's family.

We ended with a comment from Yeshayahu Leibowitz who argues that those negative things that happen to Yaacov are due to him obtaining the blessings in a crooked way. Even though it was his destiny to receive them, Leibowitz writes, the way in which he acquired them has significant consequences.

How might this idea - that even if we deserve something it still matters how we achieve it - be relevant to us on a personal or national level?

Click here for the source sheet and the audio recording.

Toldot: Of Blessings and Blindness

The key part of Toldot revolves around Yitzchak's blindness which makes him unable to distinguish between his two sons and which ultimately facilitates his blessing of both Yaacov and Esav (and Yaacov again).

The Rabbis provide several reasons for this blindness, the most noteworthy being that it forms part of the traumatic aftermath of the Akeida (by the way, blindness due to trauma isn’t solely a Rabbinic thought. In her book, the Beginnings of Desire, Aviva Zornberg relates that female survivors of the Khmer Rouge massacres in Cambodia later went blind in old age).

The discussion ended over a long passage from Israeli educator Shai Zarchi who compares Yitzchak's blindness with that of his father's, Avraham, who is forced to blind / numb himself to the love of his son in order to carry out God's command at the Akeida.

Zarchi argues that Avraham and Yitzchak represent two different generations and ends with the question of whether we today can find our own synthesis between these different (yet necessary) blindness's.

Click here for an old post I wrote on Zarchi and the Akeida.

Click here for the audio recording and the source sheet (scribd and powerpoint)

Chayei Sarah: After these things (Kierkegaard and the Akeida)

The Akeida may have ended without Yitzchak being physically sacrificed, but the story is followed by 'after these things' Avraham's brother having many children, Sarah dying, Yitzchak dissapearing from the narrative. Neither Avraham and his son, nor Avraham and God speak to eachother 'after these things'

This week - Chayeh Sarah - we tried to tease out how the relationships between the main protagonists in the story - Avraham, Isaac, God, Sarah - changes following the Akeida.

In this context, we read four 'modern midrashim' by Danish 19th century theologian Soren Kierkegaard who describes Avraham as appraoaching the Akeida with fear and trembling, torn between the Divine command to sacrifice his son, and the moral command to refrain. He also touches on how the event effects the faith of Avraham and Isaac in God as well as their interpersonal relationship.

His four stories reveal a side to the Akeida hinted at by the text itself and some traditional commentaries, yet also touches on layers beyond them.

Other thinkers on the text included Bereshit Rabbah, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Aviva Zornberg, Elie Wiesel and Israeli poet Tet Carmi.

Click here for the source sheet and the audio recording.

Chayei Sarah: Rabin, Ben Gurion and the Question of Sovereignty

"And an ongoing dispute arose between the shepherds of Abram and the shepherds of Lot. And the Canaanite and the Perizzite then dwelt in the land. (Bereshit 13:7)

"An ongoing dispute arose" - Lot's shepherds sent their flocks to graze in the fields of others. When Abram's shepherds rebuked them for this thievery, Lot's shepherds responded, "The Land has been given to Abram, whose sole heir is Lot; thus, we are only taking what is rightfully ours." Yet the Torah comments: "While the Canaanites and Perizites were still resident in the Land".
(Rashi / Bereshit Raba 41:6)

Like many other North London Jews, the night of Rabin’s murder found me at a fireworks party. My first response was to assume the shooter was Arab and that Rabin was only injured (two assumptions that temporarily reduced the cognitive dissonance of the event). It was only hours later that I realized the horrifying truth. That an elected Prime Minister – someone present at every major juncture of the state’s history – had been murdered by a Jew believing he spoke in God's name, someone who, like me, wore a knitted kippah.

Last week, to mark his anniversary, my colleagues at Reut discussed Rabin's legacy and style of leadership. We held the discussion in the context of Harvard Kennedy School Professor Ron Heifetz’s theory of leadership, on which Reut’s own thinking is based.

Rabin was an impressive leader in many ways, and was arguably ahead of his time in realizing Israel had to separate from the Palestinians for its own national interest. However, the fact he was assassinated is actually testament to a major failure – his inability to bring the country with him.

In fact, Rabin failed to properly manage what Heifetz terms the ‘Holding Environment’, an environment that balances the stress levels, or 'temperature,' of those required to adapt their values and priorities in light of a new policy.

According to Heifetz, if stress levels are too low, no one is forced to adapt. If stress levels are too high meanwhile, things spiral out of control.

Unfortunately, Rabin failed to employ several measure that may have theoretically ‘lowered the temperature’ amongst those in Israel finding it hardest to come to terms with his plans to divide the land.

He could have slowed down the peace process, or promised to bring any agreement to a popular referendum.

Additionally, rather than calling them ‘propellers,’ Rabin could have shown greater sensitivity to the beliefs of those who viewed the West Bank as part of their religious heritage.

Ultimately, the failure of all sides to keep the level of stress at a level Heifetz calls 'tolerable' had tragic consequences.

- - - - -

The same weekend that thousands gathered in Rabin square to mark the 15th anniversary of his assassination, thousands of others flocked to Hebron to mark the ‘anniversary’ of Avraham buying the Cave of Machpelah (and to indirectly support continued Jewish presence in the city).

Visiting Hebron has become popular with many in the Anglo Olim community. But this year, some friends of mine attended an alternative Shabbaton in Sde Boker, Ben Gurion’s final resting place.

While my Shabbat was spent in neither place, I did take time to think about what Hebron and Sde Boker represent, and how they signify contrasting responses to one key question integral to our future, an issue too little discussed by those on both the right and the left - do we distinguish between territory we feel belongs to us, and territory we want to exert sovereignty over?

Those in Hebron and their supporters say no. Because the Jewish people have a religious and historical connection to the city, the State of Israel needs to apply sovereignty there. This position is similar to Lot, who contended that because his (uncle’s) family had been promised the land, he could allow his sheep to graze wherever they wanted.

In other words, connection equals sovereignty.

Ironically, despite being on the other side of the political map, Rabin also made no distinction. For him, absence of sovereignty meant absence of connection, and anyone who disagreed could could 'continue to turn like a propeller.'

David Ben Gurion and Avraham Avinu took a different position.

Ben Gurion's acceptance of the 1947 UN Partition Plan didn’t contradict his belief that all the land ‘belonged’ to the Jewish people. He just didn’t believe that ownership needed to be translated into political sovereignty.

Avraham was the same. He too understood the importance of distinguishing between theoretical ‘ownership’ (which he and his progeny had acquired due to God’s promise) and current control or ‘sovereignty’ (which needn’t necessarily be implemented).

Neither believed that there had to be a connection between what is ours and what we control.

- - - - -

Fifteen years on from the fireworks of that fateful night, the schisms in our society haven’t healed and we are still failing to maintain a tolerable range of stress in discussing the country's future.

Yet perhaps one component in the healing process is to draw a line that both right and left too often fail to portray.

Perhaps, following in the footsteps of our Jewish and Zionist founding forefathers, we should emphasize that not everything we feel belongs to us has to be 'grazed' on.

And that not every territory we may ultimately decide to withdraw from means disengaging from our emotional, historical or religious attachment to it.

Jerusalem Shiur: Avraham and the Birah Doleket

What happens the moment immediately before God speaks to Avraham for the first time, and tells him to leave his land. What is it that Avraham sees or does that convinces God to enter into dialogue with him? Does it provide us with any clues as to how we can encounter the divine in our own lives?

The Midrash in Bereshit Rabbah brings an analogy of a man who sees a Birah (castle or palace) Doleket, and curiously wonders who the person responsible for it is. Following this question, the owner of the building makes himself known to the man.

The key to understanding the meaning of the story revolves around the word Doleket. Does it mean illuminated or in flames (or something else entirely)? And how do the different options related to different theological or philosophical ways of encountering transcendence?

The discussion included ideas from Rambam, Jonathan Sacks (Judaism does not begin with an answer, but a question, not harmony but dissonance), Dean Hamer (the God gene), Richard Rubenstein (God is dead) and Abraham Joshua Heschel (God in search of man)

Click here for the source sheet, here for the audio recording.