A big lie

The Olympic Torch in Sochi was recently extinguished and it is on the way to the next location.  The massive Torch relay is a link to the famous Greek myth of Prometheus.  He was the traitorous titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to human beings thereby giving them a tremendous boast in power.  The gods were not pleased and gave him a viscous punishment.  An eagle would swoop down and eat his liver every day for eternity.  What garnered this extreme wrath from the gods? 

                From the Greek (read: modern) perspective, human achievement is a zero-sum game.  When humans achieve God goes down.  With each new discovery in the genome, with each new robotic device, and with each new form of energy, humans feel more and more intrinsically independent.  But when humans are in strife, suddenly, God is back in the picture.  This is not the Jewish approach and the proof is from the great lie we propagate each Friday night, at least.[1]  

                The root of the lie is contained in the blessing we make over bread. Any time we eat bread, the blessing we make is that God ‘causes bread to come out from the land’.[2]   However, any local bakery is a proof against this; only wheat comes out from the ground. In a stroke of ingenuity, man takes the seeds and smashes them into flour. And then, he adds flour, water, and some yeast- who thought of that one?  After it rises for a while, but not too long lest it ferment, we put it in the oven and get our main staple.  The bread is far from wheat by now and we can ask the bakery workers, who woke up at 4:30 in the morning latest, if it took any effort.  If I worked at a bakery, I would find the blessing downright insulting- I created the bread! 

                At the root of the blessing is the key difference between the Jewish vision and the modern one.  Human creativity is itself viewed as a gift from G-d.  He left the world incomplete on purpose and he gave us the creativity and intelligence to fix it our self.  But that ability is also from God!   Human greatness does not diminish God, but further enhances Him.  The more we accomplish the more we have to realize where all of our talents and intelligence come from.   That changes everything. It is no longer a zero-sum game, we rise and fall together.

               

               

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[1] A Rabbi was with a group of students over Shabbos deep in contentious discussion when his daughter came over and called him a giant liar.  Not a very good PR move. But she explained, every Shabbos he said that bread came out of the ground and that surely is not true. 

[2] המוצאי לחם מן הארץ

Why Jews love to eat

                It is getting harder and harder to find any distinction between man and animal- we are like them and they are like us.  This week we had compassionate elephants make headline news as one elephant seemed to stroke his distraught friend with its trunk. On the other side, we have the most recent TED talk tout that we are more similar to Bonobos than an African Elephant is to an Asian Elephant- not bad for working on our humility. So where does this leave us? 

                The solution lies in the time tested tradition of Jewish food. Outside of Yom Kippur, our holidays are defined as much by the food we eat than as the spiritual ideas they represent: latkes, matzah, apples and honey, cheesecake, hamentashen…the list goes on.  The reason is because it is the food we eat, or at least the way me make it, that defines us as being human.  We are the only animal that cooks its food- how about that for special! Even science is looking closely at the phenomenon.  A current theory is (see TED talk by Suzana Herculano Houzel) that what separated man from animal is cooked food. Through the invention of cooking, man could now extract much more energy out of food and use that to make a bigger and better brain which sucks up 25% of our standing energy through its thick neural cortex.  Cooking food represents the ultimate in human achievement. Through our intellect, we control fire and use it to maximize our potential- starting with food.

                People ask why we can’t drive a car or turn on lights on Shabbat.  Both of them have to do with fire.  On Shabbat, we remind our self that we are renters in this world, we don’t fully own; and therefore, our building rights are restricted.  We give the world back to G-d and put our creative energy and creative tool, fire, to rest as well.  That is why fire or lack thereof is singled out as the paradigm of keeping Shabbos.  And as soon as Shabbos ends, we light a fire again at Havdalah. Tradition has it that Adam discovered fire after Shabbos and Havdalah is its commemoration.  With that, we go on to fulfill the second aspect of our rental agreement.  For the other six days of the week we are required to fix the world with all of our creativity and strength.  And there is no better tool than fire to help us achieve it.  

How Children Save The World

There is a mass extinction happening in parts of the world. What was once a common site has now become a rarity, even a peculiarity.  Stroll the streets of Japan or Germany and you may not see one.  Try Monaco and you will likely come up empty.  At times cute,  at times perilous, and at times garrulous-it is the child. 

                They are the unsung heroes of the Purim story (tomorrow would be Purim if there was only one Adar); they are the ones who turned the tide towards the side of victory (and it is for this reason they have the most fun on Purim to this very day).  The midrash relates the harrowing encounter the Jewish children had with Haman.[1]  After Haman prepared the gallows that he intended to use on Mordecai, he went to see his mortal enemy.  And he encountered a startling sight. Mordecai sat with 22,000 (not coincidentally, there are 22 Hebrew letters) children in fervent Torah study.  Haman, in a fit of anger, took all the children captive and declared that before he murdered Mordecai that he would murder the children. The mothers of the children came and pleaded with their kids to at least eat before they died, but the children refused. They cried in their hunger and prayed for salvation.  Those cries pierced the decree against the Jews and the wheels of Divine providence turned.  That night, of all nights, G-d caused Achashverosh to twist and turn in his sleep and to remember the immense favor that Mordecai did and which he never recompensed. The next day it was Haman who hung on the gallows. 

                Strange, no?  Imagine, Iran finally unveils the bomb we all know they are building and it is on the launch pad being fueled, and rather than meet with the generals to discuss strategy, Netanyahu finds a local preschool and gives a lesson about Abraham.  What is the magic of children and why did they save us on Purim, and even more so, why are they the symbol that is found in the Holiest place- as Cherubim on the Holy Ark? 

                A child is the quintessential physical and self-absorbed being. They wake up when they want with no thought to the parents. They scream if hungry or tired. And if a toy or candy is within sight it is quite likely they will fight for it. Yet, despite all of that, each day they grow.  It is possible to give them Torah and slowly lift them out of this dreary state. That is the symbol we want at the center of our life- the elevation of a child.  If the Torah can even elevate a smarmy child, imagine what it can do for all of us who we hope are a bit beyond that. The Zohar says that it is in this merit, the proper education of children, that the world continues.  This is a species we can’t afford to go extinct. 

               

               

               

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[1] Midrash Rabba Ester ט ד