A couple of weeks ago, I went with my children to Jewish Community Night at the Towson University Basketball game. The kids were excited to go - we’d never been to a college (or professional) basketball game before and they were looking forward to the evening. The day came sooner than we all expected, and when it was time to leave for the arena, the kids were upset that I hadn’t bought them “drip” to wear to the game. They wanted clothes: t-shirts, sweatshirts, at least a hat, to show that they were rooting for Towson. They insisted that they couldn’t properly cheer on the Tigers without it and that they would be “the only ones” there without it. Thus it happened that our first stop at the arena was to the spiritwear cart and they got their “drip.” 

Our second stop was at the bathroom so that they could change into their new clothes. The change in their demeanor was immediate and palpable. Looking around the arena, they saw hundreds of people also sporting their “drip” and no longer felt like they stuck out, like inexperienced newbies. They felt like they were part of something bigger, like they belonged. 

I’ve always loved the “drip” aspect of Parashat Tetzaveh, the unique garments described in exacting detail in Chapter 28 of Shemot. Calling it “drip” doesn’t really do it justice, of course (even though I’m a fan of using slang to discuss serious topics). The special clothing described in the parashah is the clothing of the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest. Exodus 28:2 in introducing this section, instructs: וְעָשִׂיתָ בִגְדֵי־קֹדֶשׁ לְאַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ לְכָבוֹד וּלְתִפְאָרֶת׃ / Make sacral vestments for your brother Aaron, for dignity and adornment.

In opening up this verse for interpretation, a number of commentators explain that dignity and adornment of the Kohen Gadol’s clothes reflect both outward and inward. The elaborate clothing demonstrates the elevated status of Aharon, the Kohen Gadol and the holiness of the rituals he will perform while wearing it. Putting on his garb, he feels different, as he steps into a role that transcends his individuality. And seeing him dressed this way, the people (and perhaps also God) recognize his elevated status and the gravitas of what he is called to do. 

Parashat Tetzaveh is often read on the Shabbat before Purim, and therein lies another aspect of the transformative power of clothing. The Midrash, in Esther Rabbah (2:1), makes a connection between the “adornments” that Achashverosh would display during his 6 month long celebration and the “adornment” of the vestments of the Kohen Gadol, surmising that the king would bring out the holy garments to show off what he had stolen from the Jews after the plunder of the Temple. 

Obviously, this use of the Kohen Gadol’s clothing came from a place of malice and disregard for the High Priest’s dignity. As the midrash concludes: “Rabbi Berekhya said in the name of Rabbi Ḥelbo: The raven flaunts both what is its own and what is not its own.” Thinking that the clothing brought glory to him, Achashverosh would trot it out for his guests. In actuality, it demonstrated his cruelty and indifference. 

Fortunately, we have another, more widely known, connection between the garments of the Kohen Gadol and Purim - our custom of wearing costumes. We do this, in part, to give voice to the various ways in which identities are hidden and played with throughout the course of the book of Esther. (Side note: when visiting Orthodox neighborhoods in Israel during Purim, one can see dozens of young Kohen Gadols walking around in costume.) It’s hard to deny that wearing costumes makes us feel different from our usual selves. Perhaps we’re letting out an aspect of our personality that we usually keep to ourselves. Or taking on pieces of a character who couldn’t be more different from us. Wearing costumes on Purim gives us permission to feel different and to be different, if only for one day. 

This year, Purim is coming amid a trying time for our people and a chaotic time for our country. I know that I’m not alone in finding it challenging to whip up the expected ruaḥ for the holiday. The custom of wearing costumes can be instructive here. This year, when we put on our costumes, let us fully give in to the spirit of the day, taking a break from the seriousness of everything we’re facing, and emerging with renewed strength to continue finding our way through this time.

Shabbat shalom.



​

In my 7th grade Bible class, we’re currently studying the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), reading it primarily as a text concerned with creating a society based on principles of justice. These past few weeks, we’ve been looking at the 10 Commandments, comparing the Devarim version to the “original,” those that appear in Shemot (which we read last week in shul). 
 
One of the ways to parse the 10 Commandments is to divide them according to the categories of mitzvah that they reflect. Some of the commandments are representative of Mitzvot Bein Adam LaMakom, mitzvot that pertain to our relationship with God, i.e. ritual and religious mitzvot. And some of the commandments are Mitzvot Bein Adam L’Ḥaveiro, mitzvot that speak to our obligations to our fellow people. As we look at the commandments through this lens, I ask my students to consider which category of mitzvah they think is more important. 
 
This year, my students were split on the issue. What’s more, those who said ritual mitzvot were more important argued that our relationship with God sets us up to be spiritually centered, which will ultimately impact our interactions with others in addition to our religious outlook. Those who said that interpersonal mitzvot were more essential believed that placing priority on our obligations to others honors the godly spark in each person and reinforces our relationship with God. Their difficulty making a straightforward choice demonstrated how deeply entwined my students believe our connections to God and to each other to be. 
 
Their viewpoint is a meaningful frame to put around this week’s parashah as well. Parashat Mishpatim, coming on the heels of the 10 Commandments, constitutes much of the section of Torah known as Sefer HaBrit, the Book of the Covenant. In our reading this week we are inundated with scenarios and rulings that govern our interactions with other people, whether they are our neighbors, family members, or servants, and whether we relate to them as equals or exercise power over them. 
 
I find it noteworthy that the bulk of Sefer HaBrit deals with our human obligations rather than our religious ones. The core content of our covenant with God focuses on how we treat each other. We enter into holy relationship with God by cultivating an awareness of the holiness of other people. 
 
It hardly needs to be said that we are living through a tremendously tense moment in our country’s history. So many of us are worried for the future - for our own lives as well as for the destiny of our nation. It also goes without saying that we do not all respond to our concerns in the same way. We do not all identify the same problems and do not all seek out the same solutions. And our American political culture has sadly become comfortable with the notion that those who disagree with us are less worthy of our sympathy, of our respect. 
 
Looking to Torah can help us take the first step back on a better path. Parashat Mishpatim reminds us that our ultimate role in the world is to care for each other, to respect each other, to lift each other up when we are downtrodden, to be honest and upright in our relationships, to cherish the Godly humanity in each of us. 
 
Shabbat Shalom.

Today is Tu Bishvat (ט״ו בשבט), the 15th of Shevat, which we celebrate as the New Year of the trees. As I write this, there is snow on the ground and the temperature is below freezing. Tu Bishvat in the northeast US is kind of an incongruous experience. But the Mishnah, which first teaches us about Tu Bishvat, was composed in the land of Israel, where signs of the renewal of springtime are beginning to appear at this time every year.
One common Tu Bishvat activity, especially in Israel, is planting trees. I’ve participated in this a number of times and each time, I’m aware of the fragility of the tiny seedling in my hands, almost disbelieving that it will one day become a large and sturdy tree. It takes years, sometimes decades or longer, for a tree's roots to completely take hold of the soil, for it to grow to full size, to produce edible fruit. 

One of my favorite stories from the Talmud (Ta’anit 23a) - which is often shared in connection with Tu Bishvat - relates to this very idea. Ḥoni HaM’agel was walking along the road and saw someone planting a carob tree. Curious about what he was seeing, Ḥoni asked the man how long it would take for the tree to bear fruit. The man explained that it would take 70 years. Shocked, Ḥoni exclaimed, “Do you expect to be alive to eat from this tree?” The man answered, “I found a world full of carob trees. Just as my ancestors planted for me, I too am planting for my descendants.”

(Side note: the rest of the story is a lot of fun and takes a typically Talmudic dark turn at the end, which is why it’s one of my favorites. Give it a look if you have a chance.)

The message of this story is straightforward - we need to plant seeds, both literally and figuratively, for those who come after us. We must not only take from the bounty of the world, we also need to lay the groundwork for that bounty to continue beyond us. 

There are myriad ways this idea is operative in our lives, in the decisions we make about where to live, how to raise and educate our children, our usage of natural and manmade resources. These types of decisions, of course, impact our lives now, but they also plant seeds for those who will come after us. For example, my decision to join our community’s Neighborhood Sun group means that my home’s energy is provided in part by the sun. I experience that in real time. But it also means that I’m reducing my dependence on fossil fuels, which will contribute to a cleaner, cooler, and safer world in the future. In letting my children know that our house is part of a solar power network, they absorb the values behind my choice, which they will ideally continue to embrace as adults and share with their own families and friends. These are the seeds that will hopefully bear future fruit.

…Which brings me to Parashat Hashavua. This week we read Parashat Yitro, in which we witness God’s self-revelation to the Israelites, in the form of the Ten Commandments. The second commandment is a difficult one. The beginning of the commandment, the prohibition on worshiping other gods, and on making or serving idols is not so challenging. But then God says, “For I the LORD your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me, but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.” (Exodus 20:5-6). 

Vicarious punishment, the idea that people will be punished for the sins of earlier generations, feels cruel and unfair - not the actions of a God of compassion and forgiveness. In a number of other places in the Tanakh, this idea is roundly rejected. In later texts, it becomes a tenet of Jewish theology that children are not punished for the sins of their parents.  If vicarious punishment is unjust, what alternative meaning can we find in this passage?

Umberto Cassuto (1883-1951), an Italian - and later Israeli - rabbi and Bible scholar, offers a powerful suggestion. As a commentator, he tends to read the text literarily, and is careful not to interpret the words of the Bible out of their context and meaning. Seeing that the most straightforward meaning of the text is that punishment for one’s sins will devolve upon the heads of their descendants, he offers this interpretation: Since a person will naturally feel of anguish at seeing their children or grandchildren suffer, and perhaps even more than they would feel about their own tribulations, the text is offering a warning in order to distance us from sin. If it is possible that during your life you would see children and grandchildren bearing the negative consequences of your poor choices, you will think twice about making those poor choices. 

Cassuto’s take on the second commandment also rests on the idea that the seeds we plant inevitably bear fruit in the future. If we’re careful about the seeds we plant now, we will see and create a solid future, in which those who come after us flourish and in which the world we leave for them is a fruitful one.

Shabbat shalom.

​

​In a number of ways, these few weeks when we tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt are the time when we feel most connected to the story of the Israelites. The story of Pesaḥ is, more than many other parts of the Torah, our story. It is perhaps the most salient piece of Jewish collective memory and identity - we recall it daily in our tefillot, multiple times. We devote an entire holiday to reenacting it and putting ourselves in the shoes of the Israelites in this moment. The continuing relevance of this part of who we are doesn’t exist only in how we place ourselves into the story and see ourselves as having left Egypt. It also lies in how we see the story in our own lives today, how we look at the world now through its lens.
 
Parashat Bo begins right on the heels of last week’s reading, the end of which tells us that Pharaoh had hardened his own heart. While this week’s reading returns to the phrasing of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart, it seems clear that there has been a shift, that Pharaoh is a partner in the process.
 
And Pharaoh’s self-imposed stubbornness has devastating consequences, in the form of the final three plagues, the most severe of them all: locusts, darkness, and the killing of the firstborn. The Torah tells us of the horror of each of these plagues. The locusts darken the land and decimate it, eating all of the remaining crops, leaving it bereft of food. Darkness descends upon the Egyptians, terrifying the people and keeping them from being able to see one another. The killing of the first born touches every household in Egypt and has the survivors fearing for their lives. 
 
The plagues, described literally in the parashah, also hold symbolic meaning. Locusts: the devastation of the natural world, compromising one’s ability to provide for self and family. Darkness: the metaphor here is obvious - the loss of community, of the ability to see and find common ground with one another. The killing of the firstborn: the loss of one’s future, the destruction of legacy. 
 
Each of these plagues, read metaphorically, feels ominously present in our world today. Our natural environment is in grave danger. We have stopped really seeing each other, and approach those who differ from us with suspicion and defensiveness. The risk to both the material and social fabric of our communities threatens our very future. 
 
The message here is clear:  we cannot harden our hearts in this chaotic and contentious time. Instead of letting these plagues take hold, we need to see them as motivation to do things differently. This starts with paying attention - to what’s happening in our world and to each other. We can take our heads out of the sand and take steps to alleviate the risks to our environment. We can push away the darkness expanding between us and approach each other with curiosity and empathy, remembering that we are part of one community, one nation, one world. We can reclaim our future. 
 
The opposite of a hardened heart is an open one. Let us open our hearts and really hear how and where the world is crying out to us. Let us listen to and love each other. Let us work toward a future of greater justice, greater unity, greater understanding. 
Shabbat shalom.

I’ve been vacillating about how much I want to pay attention to the news these days. With the inauguration following on the heels of the emotionally charged release of three hostages, my capacity for taking in the overwhelming coverage of every single moment surrounding the installation of the new president has been limited. And yet, I know that I cannot and must not look away. Over these past few days, I’ve been taking it in snippets - 10 minutes on the New York Times website here, a glance at a television report there. So it came to be that I caught a clip of Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde’s sermon during the national prayer service on Tuesday. 

I’ve heard Bishop Mariann speak before - she delivered the sermon at my friend Father Aaron Dunn’s ordination service this past summer - and I’ve written and spoken with us about what I learned from her words. I have found her to be erudite and accessible, with an approach that is both rooted in tradition and speaks from a place of love and compassion. I was not, therefore, surprised by the depth of the words I heard in that small excerpt. 


What did blow me away, though, was the way she earnestly and deliberately spoke truth to power. Later on, I went and found the video of her whole sermon (you can watch it here if you haven’t seen it yet - and I recommend that you do). Hearing her words in their entirety only reinforced my sense of awe and gratitude. 


We look to our religious leaders to be a voice of moral clarity, to help guide us through challenging times. Bishop Mariann did exactly this, speaking passionately about the importance of fostering unity. She explained that unity is not uniformity or conformity, that the truest form of unity exists across diversity. For such unity to take root, it must be based on three principles: recognizing human dignity; commitment to honesty; and humility. 


While the words of her sermon are broadly applicable and relevant to any moment of leadership transition, they also had a clear subtext, a message to the incoming leaders about the task that lies ahead for them as they work to govern a deeply divided country. Bishop Mariann also spoke directly to the president, beseeching him to show mercy to the people in our country, specifically the LGBTQ+ community and immigrants and asylum seekers, who are feeling frightened about the promised policy changes of the new administration. 

Her words were heartfelt and straightforward, and they have had an impact. Her bravery in speaking so boldly to the newly elected leaders, in speaking truth to power, revealed her own power. Hers is the power to influence hearts and minds, to teach people to lead and live with compassion. 

Having listened to her sermon, I can’t help but wonder how she prepared herself, emotionally and spiritually, for that moment. While I’m not sure that our parashah this week, Parashat VaEra, can answer that question, it does give us a window into Moshe’s emergence as a leader who also found the fortitude to speak boldly to one in power.

From the moment we “meet” Moshe as an adult in the book of Exodus, he is uncomfortable with his role as a leader of the people. He worries that he won’t be heeded, that he’s not the right one for the job, that his speech difficulties will prevent him from succeeding. God’s plan for Moshe, however, is unwavering, and God continues to encourage him to lead, offering him both divine and human support, as well as new skills in working wonders. 

But Moshe still struggles with his confidence. Throughout most of the parashah, he continues to express doubt about his effectiveness. Moreover, we don’t hear his voice at all in the initial contacts with Pharaoh and the onsets of the first two plagues. We read of God’s script for him, the instructions for what he should say to Pharaoh, and then the text simply reports that Moshe and Aharon did as God commanded. This happens several times - until the horror of the second plague drives Pharaoh to come to Moshe and beg for it to stop. 

In this moment, we see a different Moshe. He responds to Pharaoh’s plea: “You may have this triumph over me: for what time shall I plead on behalf of you and your courtiers and your people, that the frogs be cut off from you and your houses, to remain only in the Nile?” (Exodus 8:5) These are the first words to Pharaoh that we hear in Moshe’s voice. He starts calmly, in an almost conciliatory tone.

After he and Pharaoh agree that the plague would come to an end the next day, Moshe concludes their interaction, his words leaving no question as to his (or God’s) power: “As you say—that you may know that there is none like Adonai our God.” (Exodus 8:6) This is not the Moshe of previous chapters. He is confident and bold in approaching Pharaoh, clearly and courageously making his point. 

After Moshe prays for the plague to end, it does end, and the text gives us something remarkable. Earlier, when God had given Moshe instructions for what to say and do, the Torah simply tells us, as I mentioned before, that Moshe and Aharon did as God commanded. Here, after Moshe steps fully into his role representing God’s opposition to Pharaoh, we read: “And Adonai did as Moses asked.” (Exodus 8:9) The power of his words not only cowed Pharaoh, but also spurred God into action. 

May Bishop Mariann’s words be accepted and enacted in the same way.

Shabbat shalom. 

​

Yesterday, I had the honor of attending a Baltimore Board of Rabbis meeting where our special guests were Senator Ben and Myrna Cardin. We hosted them, as Senator Cardin begins his retirement, to take the opportunity to offer our gratitude for his decades of public service and to both appreciate and learn from the ways his calling to serve is motivated by his deeply held Jewish values.

In his remarks to us, Senator Cardin reflected on the experiences that had been most powerful, most meaningful in his long career. Over and over again, he spoke about the importance of engaging deeply in conversation with people who have different perspectives than we do. He attributed much of his success as a lawmaker to his willingness to reach across the aisle - something he did with great frequency and skill. And he offered us a charge, reminding us that our divided and highly-charged political climate permeates all corners of American life, and that the only way to combat the mistrust that has taken hold is to be willing to talk and listen to one another.

In essence, he told us that we need to have the hard conversations.

Senator Cardin spoke about how he sees his role that he’s now out of the Senate - he’s on a crusade, he said, to get young people to learn history. Studying history gives people a window into the lives of others. It provides students with a sense that their own experience of the world is not the only experience. It enables us to see outside ourselves and to approach others with curiosity and openness. 

When you know that your way is not the only way, you can hear what others have to say without being defensive. You can build relationships and coalitions. These relationships between people and communities of diverse backgrounds, said Senator Cardin, are the path toward creating an alternate narrative of what it means to be American right now. 

His message could not have been more timely or more needed, given where we are as a nation and what we see just ahead on the horizon. 

It also resonates deeply with our work as a community to practice engaging in conversations across our differences. We spoke extensively about this over the High Holidays this past fall, made it a key feature of our community meeting in November, and have begun to engage in addressing the issues that have historically driven a wedge between us. Even though we’re really just getting started with this work, I was heartened to hear from Senator Cardin that he sees having difficult conversations as essential to the ongoing health, not only of our individual communities, but also of our nation. 

Having these kinds of conversations is hard work and will likely make us all at least a little bit uncomfortable in the process of drawing us more closely together. Hearing Senator Cardin’s reflections at this mile-marker in his tremendous career served as a reminder to me that having difficult conversations has long been an important part of strengthening communities. Being able to engage with each other deeply and honestly through our differences is not at all a new idea. It 
is, however, one to which we should devote renewed effort and attention. Over the coming months, I’m looking forward to continuing our learning together and finding more and more opportunities to open our minds and our hearts to each other.

Shabbat shalom.

​

This week, I don’t have to look very far or very deeply into Parashat Vayeshev to see a connection that I feel called to share. Suffice it to say that the feud between Joseph and his brothers had catastrophic consequences. In the Torah, the tragedy of Jacob’s sons eventually saves the family decades down the road, but that is because the Torah is full of miracles - we don’t often experience such felicitous results in our own lives. 
In our lives, to repair such a broken situation, we would need to do the work ourselves. And there is some serious work to do. 

This past Thursday evening, Baltimore Hebrew Congregation hosted Alon-Lee Green and Rula Daood, co-directors of Standing Together. Standing Together is an Israeli non-profit organization seeking to bring together Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel to mobilize for peace, equality, and social justice. Members of Standing together take action in many ways, from leading public protests calling for a ceasefire and hostage deal to creating opportunities for young people from neighboring Jewish and Palestinian towns to get to know each other through the things they have in common. They do this, as they say on their website, because they believe in a future of “peace and independence for Israelis and Palestinians, full equality for everyone in this land, and true social, economic, and environmental justice.” 

Their work since the attacks of October 7 and the ensuing war has changed in some significant ways. Their staff and volunteers are all committed to working toward finding a different way of approaching the problem of achieving safety and peace for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people. And as you might imagine, some aspects of their work in this area are seen as controversial in some parts of the Jewish community. 

Shortly before last week’s event, the Jewish co-director of Standing Together, Alon-Lee Green, in a video posted on X, referred to the ongoing killing of people in Gaza as ethnic cleansing. 

Not surprisingly, this got a lot of attention. 

Green is not alone in referring to Israel’s actions in Gaza as war crimes. The widely publicized ruling by the International Criminal Court in November issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity. More recently, Moshe Ya’alon, who served as Netanyahu’s defense minister during the 2014 Gaza war, also labeled the IDF’s current conduct in Gaza as ethnic cleansing.

In response to Green’s posted remarks, some local organizations withdrew their co-sponsorship of the event. Other local organizations privately contacted Baltimore Hebrew, asking them to cancel the event altogether. I take no issue with these actions, regardless of my personal opinion. 
It is worth noting that this event was one of the few local events focused on Israel since October 7 that has presented a progressive standpoint on the current war, that explicitly made room both for expressions of pain for the ongoing plight of the hostages and horror at the massive loss of life in Gaza, that has acknowledged the need for a safe and secure Israel and the unthinkable road ahead to create a way forward for the Palestinians. 

However, once it became clear that Baltimore Hebrew planned to continue with the event, the situation changed. And this I take serious issue with.

As Baltimore Hebrew shared publicly, here’s what happened: 

“Some in the Baltimore Jewish community who disagree with Standing Together’s tactics lobbied an effort to shut down the program by bombarding us with vitriol. To date, 20 BHC staff members, most of whom had no direct involvement with the program, have received more than 5,000 emails, voicemails, and social media comments filled with insults and attacks. The venom on display in no way matched the hopeful messages of the speakers.
This hostility was not an effort to protect Jews or Israel. It was a campaign to shut down discussion and discourse.”


Having read some of the social media posts insulting and attacking Baltimore Hebrew, I must comment that I was honestly shocked by how quickly fellow Jews jumped to launch ad hominem attacks against Baltimore Hebrew’s clergy, staff, and congregants. Their hatred was immediate and public, taking a moment of deep disagreement and turning it into a power play.


As a community, we’ve been working on how to have difficult conversations, and we will continue to do so. Last Thursday’s event - which many of our members attended - was an opportunity to engage in just that. As the Baltimore Hebrew posting continued:


“Hosting Omdim B’Yachad/Standing Together is just another example of how we at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation wrestle with ideas while supporting Israel, along with her neighbors. People of good faith who sincerely want peace are NOT the enemy. Being able to listen, learn, and discuss is how we stand in the strength of our identity and values.”

The lesson from Parashat Vayeshev is clear: the existence of enmity and mistrust between members of the same family, when left to fester, is devastating. While I was deeply saddened to see how some people responded to their disagreement with Standing Together, I want to echo Baltimore Hebrew’s response and lend my support in this direction. Making space for ideas that may challenge us; hearing stories that are different from our own, that may be new to us; replacing binary thinking with listening and openhearted dialogue - these are the way forward. I stand with Baltimore Hebrew on this journey and I’d love for you to stand with me.

​

A couple of times over the past week, I’ve been talking with friends about how we taught our kids to say “thank you.” I shared that when my children were babies and toddlers, I would model it for them. Whenever I handed them something, I would say “Here you go!” When they took it (before they could talk), I would say “Thank you!” Pretty soon, especially once they became talkers, it was an automatic response. Before I go on too much longer letting you think I’m patting myself on the back for my excellent parenting, please know that the habit of saying thank you really only stuck with one of the two kids. And neither of them is polite in all areas of life, or on some days in any of them. 

This mildly amusing story, however, illustrates something we know to be true: gratitude can be complicated. In a week when as Americans we celebrate Thanksgiving, when all of our reasons for being thankful are front and center, it can feel somewhat sacrilegious to acknowledge this, but here we are. I know this is certainly true for me this year, with things both personal and communal weighing heavily on me - the gratitude is there, but it doesn’t come as easily as I might like.

Each year as we read the Torah over again, we take it in as our current selves. The lens through which we see the text is the lens of whatever we’re experiencing in our individual worlds. And so, I see shades of this kind of complicated gratitude in Parashat Toldot as well. 
​
In the opening scene of the parashah, we are reminded of the circumstances of Isaac’s marriage to Rebekah. As we read in last week’s parashah, it was his marriage that brought him comfort after the death of his mother. The joy and gratitude of a new relationship existed side by side with grief and a sense of loss. 

As the text continues here, Rebekah and Isaac struggled to conceive; they knew the pain of infertility. Isaac prayed on behalf of his wife and she conceived. This surely was a moment overflowing with gratitude. Their prayers had been answered and they would become parents. Yet Rebekah’s pregnancy was not an easy one; she was in pain and cried out to God, “If so, why do I exist?” (Genesis 25:22)

A midrash from Bereishit Rabbah creates a fuller picture of Rebekah’s pain in this moment. “Rabbi Yitzḥak said: It teaches that our matriarch Rebecca was circulating around the entrances of women’s houses and saying to them: ‘In your days, did you experience this suffering? If this is the suffering that comes with children; had I only not conceived.’” (Bereishit Rabbah 63:6) Here we see the gratitude mixed with, perhaps even replaced by, fear, pain, and regret.

What do we do, then, when our gratitude is difficult to access, laced with less comfortable emotions, or overshadowed by difficulty? It’s not easy, and I’m not always that good at it, but I believe what we do is we let ourselves feel all of our feelings. When we look at this up close, we see that there can be hints of joy in times of sadness or the opposite. Contradictory emotions can coexist - our hearts can hold more than one thing at a time. When we zoom out a little, we find that over the course of a period of time, even over the course of one particular experience, we feel a wide range of emotions. Nothing is all one way or another. And when we look back on those experiences, all of those emotions can be part of how we tell the story of those parts of our lives. 

Our ability to experience life in this deeply feeling way is something for which I am truly grateful.

I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and Shabbat Shalom.

​In my 8th grade Bible class, we study the Avraham narratives in depth. From the first moment of Avraham’s connection with the Divine, we notice God’s promises of land, offspring, and a great name. As we continue studying the story of our first patriarch, we evaluate how each of those promises is coming to fruition. For example, first there’s a famine in the land and he’s forced to go to Egypt; then he’s able to go back and settle more permanently, with God promising an expansive portion of territory. 

There are ups and downs, dramatic moments when it seems like one or another of the promises is in grave danger of never being fulfilled, and moments when they finally seem to be firmly established. By the time we reach the end of Parashat Vayera, last week’s Torah reading, which contains the bulk of the Avraham narratives, we take it for granted that all of the promises have been fulfilled and are staying that way. He is living in Be’er Sheva, in the land of Canaan. He has raised two sons, one of whom is chosen by God to be his heir. And he is well-known throughout the land. 
But at the beginning of Parashat Ḥayyei Sarah, which we read this week, it seems that it’s not necessarily so cut and dried. Sarah just having died, Avraham purchases the field of Makhpelah, burying his wife in the cave there. So of the vast swath of land that God promised him, he now firmly possesses: one field. His chosen son, Yitzḥak, who is to be the next in his line, the father of the multitudes that he is supposed to give rise to, is nowhere to be found. A close look at the text reveals that after the incident of the Akedah, Avraham and his son never speak again. Yitzḥak is absent from Avraham’s life, but Avraham is mostly concerned that he remains unmarried with no children. We don’t hear much to challenge Avraham’s great name, but he must have been concerned about its staying power, given all of the challenges he faced.

God’s promises don’t seem all that secure anymore. It therefore stands out when, at the beginning of Chapter 24, we read: “Abraham was now old, advanced in years, and the LORD had blessed Avraham in all things.” (Genesis 24:1)  Avraham has just buried Sarah - while we often encourage ourselves and others to find points of gratitude in hard times, it seems incongruous to note this in the wake of Sarah’s death. This moment, when Avraham is grieving his wife and feeling uncertainty about his legacy, seems an odd one to speak of all that he has; his awareness is focused much more on what he is lacking. 
 
The text says that God blessed him “in all things.” The phrase “in all things,” בכל in Hebrew, is unhelpfully vague, and sparks many midrashic interpretations. One that I came across felt particularly meaningful to me this week. Bereishit Rabbah 59:7 teaches: “Rabbi Levi said several interpretations: “In all things” means that he granted him control over his evil inclination…“In all things” means that his food storehouse lacked nothing. Rabbi Levi said in the name of Rabbi Ḥama: “In all things” means that God did not test him again.”
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Rather than understanding Avraham’s blessings as beyond measure, as a number of other midrashim do, this understanding of “in all things” takes a more realistic approach. At a time of his life when he was feeling loss, he was still able to recognize that he was in possession of himself, he had his physical needs met, and he had security in knowing that God would no longer subject him to the tests that had been a constant in his earlier years. It may not have literally been all things, but it was everything. 

Shabbat shalom.