Personal redemption

             Each year that we go through the Haggadah we are asked to take it personally. We need to see it as if this year we are leaving Egypt. Furthermore, if it hadn’t been for the Divine hand, we’d still be exiled in Egypt. How are we supposed to take this line? Is this an exaggeration or is there some truth to it?  

To understand this line we need to understand what it means to be in exile and what it means to be redeemed.  Exile has three characteristics according to the midrash[1]: a loss of place, a loss of unified purpose, and a loss of control.  A loss of place is obvious as that is the simple definition of exile. What is less obvious is the full ramification of it.  In general, a place is where we set roots and create stability.  When we don’t have our own place it is hard to be consistent.  A loss of unified purpose happens because in exile everyone is scattered and starts doing ‘their own thing’. Finally, there is a loss of control given that the leadership is not our own.  If we look at these ideas of exile we will find that on a personal level they are poignant.

How many times in our life do we not live consistently? Have we truly found our place where we fit and can set roots? Do all of our actions reflect a unified purpose or do we live multiple lives at once with nary a thread that connects them? Do we have a social life, a school life, a family life where our personality comes out in different ways and for different reasons or do we live with a global meaning in mind? Finally, are we in control or our friends or our phones or our desires or our societal expectations running the show?  

Redemption is the answer to these questions and it is an answer that we seek on seder night. Let’s find our place, our purpose, and our feeling of control for those are the ingredients of true freedom. 

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[1] Bereishes Rabbah 44:18 as understood by Rabbi Moshe Shapiro

Channukah lights- a recipe for great children

                It is not easy to raise children these days. Pressures and distractions abound and parents, armed with time-saving[1]

technologies, have no time at all.  So what is the solution to these problems?

                The Talmud suggests that one who lights Shabbat Candles and Channukah candles will have Talmudic sages as children (a dream for any Jewish parent, at least before lawyers and doctors became a  viable option). [2] If only it was that simple! And many Jewish women across history have done these two acts and not had saintly children.  It seems that it is not the act but imparting to children the deep idea about the symbolism of these two lights that matters- what is it?

                To begin with, there are two crucial differences between how we use Shabbat candles and a menorah. For one, the ideal location of a menorah is outside for the entire world to see as our goal is to spread news of the miracle. On Shabbat, the candles are placed at home for the people of the house. Secondly, the light of the Shabbat candles must be used practically to keep peace at home as bumping into each other in a darkened room is not a recipe for harmony. On the other hand, the light of the menorah is prohibited to be used for any practical usage, just to look at.  Why the difference?

                Often, light is used as a metaphor for wisdom.  Just like light illuminates our reality, so too wisdom. Using that metaphor we can see that there are two types of wisdom in life. There is a practical wisdom to the world that helps us navigate through it. Yet, there is also a wisdom that we can’t use, that is slightly beyond us and we can only marvel at.  It is a wisdom that tells you that there is more to know and figure out and there always will be because we are finite human beings.  It is this wisdom that we celebrate on Channukah.  The Greeks thought the human potential was limitless and could conquer all aspects of wisdom. Granted, that is partially true as there is much wisdom humanity can grasp. But real wisdom also says that there is a different type of wisdom that is slightly beyond us and all we can do is stare with humility. That is what creates great children.  They are children that know there is much to know and much they will never know.

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[1] Based on idea heard from Rabbi Lopiansky

[2] Shabbos 23b

A Real Thanksgiving

In an interesting twist of fate, Thanksgiving coincides with the parsha that describes the first true thank you.  The Torah describes the naming of Leah’s fourth son in the following way, ‘And she became pregnant again, and she gave birth to a son, and she said this time I will thank G-d, she called his name Yehuda and then she stood up from giving Birth’.   This begs the question, why thank only now, by son four- she wasn’t thankful for the first three?

The Talmud makes the question even stronger as it says in Berachos 7b,’ And Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, from the day the Holy One blessed be He created the world, no one thanked the Holy One Blessed be He until Leah came and thanked Him as it is stated, this time I will give thanks to G-d’ and thus she called his name Yehuda.  This is an exceedingly perplexing statement that creates a major question. We know that Adam thanked G-d as he is credited with composing the psalm we say on Shabbos, the weekly Jewish Thanksgiving that says, ‘it is great to give Thanks to G-d’. Why wasn’t his thank you good enough? What does this tell us about how the Torah views true gratitude?

To get to the foundation of gratitude we need to look at what the word thank you really means.  In Hebrew, the word is synonymous with l’hodot, ‘to admit’. With that in mind, we can begin to answer these difficult questions.   Adam? His ‘admission’ was coming to fix a mistake- his eating from the tree against G-d’s wishes. In a sense, that type of admission has a lot of personal benefits as it gets one out of the doghouse. A much higher level is to admit one received goodness from G-d.   Why? The nature of the admission is that one admits that they now have a debt to pay for the kindness. For this reason, a thankful admission is much harder- it doesn’t take a person out of the doghouse; rather, it ‘imprisons’ the person to pay back the debt. Any other thank you is just lip service.

As for our first question, why wait till Yehuda? One answer is that this is the moment that Leah realized that her portion in the upcoming 12 tribes would be more than the other three mother’s (each should have had three children).  She admitted she got more than she deserved.  That is the other aspect of real gratitude- not having the expectation of receiving. For these reasons, Leah expressed the first true thank you- it came with an expression of personal debt and it came with a feeling that she was getting above and beyond.

Hopefully, everyone had a real Thanksgiving- full of deep admissions that they received things above and beyond what they deserved, and with those gifts, they owe G-d a life well lived.  After all, that is the essence of being a Yehudi, a Jew- an admitter.  

The role of happiness

                An interesting thought question that tends to elicit a diversity of replies is whether happiness is a means or an end? Is it our goal to be happy, or is happiness a valuable tool that we need in order to accomplish the goals we set out to accomplish? No one can deny that there is an inherent connection between energy and happiness. When happy, we walk with a pep in our step and we view the alarm clock as a concerned friend who ensures we make it on time to the first thing on our schedule.  When down, life is a drag and we view our alarm clock is an obnoxious noisemaker cheerfully disturbing our peaceful sleep and forcing us to face a day we’d rather not.   

 However, this week’s Torah portion presents a third option- happiness as a barometer to genuine meaning.

          Happiness appears twice this week, once after the mitzvah to bring first fruit to the temple and declare our appreciation for it and once after a litany of scathing consequences for not fulfilling our potential as a nation. It says that one of the main issues was that we ‘didn’t serve G-d with joy’. [1] Two questions- why is it that happiness is an integral part of first fruit, and more generally, why is being happy an integral part of Jewish living more broadly?

                The answer is that happiness is a sign that one is connected to a meaningful source.  When connected to higher meaning, trivialities of life bounce off easily as they are couched in a greater context and made small.  On the other hand, for a person who is struggling without a big picture,  a small pain can be a further sign of his misfortune; it can provide further evidence that life is conspiring against him.  This is why happiness is an integral ingredient within Judaism- it is a sign that the Judaism is also meaningful.  If a person just goes through the motions of his Judaism without deriving meaning from it, then most certainly, that will be expressed via lackluster joy.  This point was elucidated clearly by Victor Frankel in Man’s search for Meaning, ‘For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.’ Mitzvot and first fruit are meant to be vehicles with which we surrender to a cause greater than our self and happiness is the sign that tells us whether we have internally done that.  

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[1] 28:47

Still a spark

A common critique of Judaism is that the Rabbis added a significant amount of additional rules to what was an already overloaded system.  Kosher is one thing, but you have to take away my chicken parmesan on top of that?! I hear that. It can seem frustrating.  The short answer to that question is that nothing ‘new’ was added; rather, protections were made in order to ensure that the mitzvoth would be observed. Human beings tend to cut corners just about whenever they can.  And just like basic structures in nature are all protected- our eyes have eye lids, our fingers have nails, and our head has hair, so too the Rabbis were charged to defend the fragile mitzvah ecosystem[1].  Glad that has been ironed out.  But, if we really want to pick on the Rabbis that is not the question we need to ask.  The real question is from our parsha.

                The parsha says, when two ruffians come to court after a fight and the court convicts one of the men with lashes, then, ‘he is smitten before him (the judge) according to a number as his evil requires.  Forty lashes you will smite him, and do not add’.  Great, 41 lashes is out of the question.  But the Rabbis says something astounding.  The Torah doesn’t even mean to hit him 40 times; rather, 39[2]!  What gave the Rabbis the license to say something that seems to contradict a straightforward reading of the verse?  Now that is chutzpah!

                To begin, where does the concept of 40 come from? It is a popular Torah number: 40 days it rained during the flood, 40 days that it takes Moshe to get the Torah, and now this.  But what is the common thread? Kabbalah aside[3], it also says that it takes 40 days from conception until what we have is a recognizable human, and if we do throw in some Kabbalah, the human soul plops into the tiny human on day 40.  In other words, 40 means an entire process has been completed.  Now, when we have a ruffian, he has sullied what was once a pristine creation via his actions and so the Torah lashes him accordingly.  But wait, there is a lingering problem.  Day 40 is really soul day and we know souls don’t do wrong.  It is only because of his down and out partner, the body, that things go haywire.  So why punish the soul?

                That is what the Rabbis understood when they reduced the number of lashes.  And, of course, the text itself hints that 40 may not exactly mean 40[4].  While the soul was hijacked into negativity, and so on the surface, a.k.a the written text, it deserved a lash for not standing up to the body, it didn’t actively take part, and therefore that soul day is not given a lash, which leaves us with 39 lashes. Once again, the Rabbis were just doing their job without any chutzpah- analyzing and learning the Torah in the deepest way possible.  And it is a reassuring idea for Ellul. There is a spark within us that can never be fully buried or brought down, a remnant of soul day. Like a pilot light, it sits waiting to be kindled and the job in Ellul is to do just that.

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[1] Be’er Hagola be’er rishon ‘further the number of mitzvos actually corresponds to parts of the body so it is fitting comparison. 

[3] There are four spiritual worlds with ten emanations in each

[4] Grammar technicalities are beyond the scope of this blog. But if curious, please reach out.  

An unbiased observation

In a strange twist of fate, the greatest compliment to the Jews came from our greatest enemy: Bilaam. The midrash admits as much when it says: ‘...The blessing of Bilaam was greater than the blessing that Yaakov blessed the tribes and from the blessings that Moses blesses the tribes. When Jacob blessed the tribes he admonished Reuven, Shimon, Levi while the blessings of Bilaam don’t contain any negativity. And Moses only blessed after extensive rebuke.  But the blessing of Bilaam didn’t contain any rebuke.’ Why does it take an enemy to sing our praises?

             In the court of law, a witness who is related to any parties can't testify. Why? Because it is understood if someone is related to the case he can't be an objective observer. It stands to reason that the less related one is to the parties, the more objective he can be. Therefore, when it comes to seeing our self, we are our own worst witness.  When we look at who we are, we have an inkling of what we could be and are not at the moment.  It is hard to celebrate what ‘feels’ like a failure. We see our latent potential that is not being actualized and that diminishes our vision for what we could be and who we are.  In contrast, someone who is at a distance can see what the person is accomplishing and can appreciate that greatness.

    

             It is for this reason that it is Bilaam’s words that make it into our liturgy.  As an enemy, he stood at a distance from us and he had a great interest, albeit negative ones, for knowing exactly who we are. He originally intended to curse our essence and G-d ensured that it would be our essence that is blessed.  So what is our essence? When we enter a synagogue, the siddur quotes Bilaam, ‘how great are the tents of Yaakov’.  What is it about our tents that define our strengths?  There are two qualities that a tent captures, internality and study.  A tent can be the only hidden place within a large, exposed field.  It is a retreat where one can go inside.  That is strength one- it is our inner world that comes first.  Second, a tent is also a reference for a place of study as it says about Yaakov he was a person 'who sat in tents'. Our sages learn this to mean a house of study.  Our other strength is that each Jewish person is required to study every single day- no exceptions. That is the fuel that keeps us fresh and growing.  Our greatest enemy saw our real strengths and it would be wise to take note. 

A small paint job

Boston has a hot real estate market.  Apartments are on the market for a day or two and they are lapped up at exorbitant prices.  With the high demand, the motivation for landlords to spruce up the place is low.  So one is left with centenarian apartments in bad need of a makeover.  With summer upon us, it was time to fix up the entrance- paint the door and whiten the walls.  Sounds simple, right? Paintbrush, paint, and wall. What could go wrong?

                Had I not observed how some handy friends had helped paint my basement some time ago, I would have forgotten multiple items as even a simple paint job has a decent list: a special tool to open the can of paint (one could use a screw driver but the special tool really helps), plastic lining, sand paper, rags, paint tray, multiple brushes for different areas, tape to protect edges, and clothing ready to get some paint on them.  Each one of those items a while back would have been a new trip to the local Home Depot.  I made sure to have them prior and it made the job go smoothly.

                Yet even with all the right tools, the execution has its own quirks.  How much paint to glob onto the brush to get a thick coat on the wall without spraying extra paint everywhere else?   What types of strokes to use and what brush when? Should I tape every edge or rely on a steady hand for some of it (spoiler: always tape!)? 

                These two aspects of life: understanding the job at hand and executing it were exemplified by Aaron who passes away in this week's Torah portion.  It says he is buried on ‘har hor’, which literally reads the mountain on a mountain.  One commentary says that it literally looked like a mountain with an extra apple like protrusion that resembled a second mountain. But the mystics give a different answer. They say there are two ‘mountains’ each of us must climb in our life. It is the mountain of understanding how the world works, and the mountain of executing that vision.  Aaron exemplified this on both levels.

                He was the high priest that executed (pun intended) the sacrifices. It was his job to bring spirituality all the way down into the world and he understood how to then bring the lower world back up to G-d. For that, he needed a deep understanding of how the spiritual worlds work. On the deepest level, these correspond to the two ה’s of G-d name, the upper ה and lower ה. Not surprisingly, the word mountain in Hebrew, הר, really means- the full of expression of ה as the letter ר in Hebrew is the letter that means to bring something out (it trills in the mouth). In other words, Aaron was buried on the ה’s that he brought into the world. 

                Shabbat Shalom!