From Mourning to Awakening

The Journey from Tisha B’Av to Elul

by Rabbi Emily Cobert, friend of Sof Congregational President Sandra Z. Armstrong

August 2025

Each year, the Jewish calendar invites us into a rhythm of mindfulness, marked by moments of deep reflection and joyous renewal. One of the most profound transitions in this rhythm comes as we move from the sorrow of Tisha B’Av into the hope and introspection of Elul. Tisha B’Av, the ninth of Av (this year August 3), commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples, and with them, the shattering of Jewish sovereignty, spiritual centrality, and communal unity. But Tisha B’Av is more than a historical remembrance — it is an emotional reckoning. We mourn not only what was lost long ago, but also what continues to be broken in our world: violence, hatred, indifference, and disconnection from one another and from God. And yet, we are not in despair. Precisely after the deepest mourning comes a spiritual ascent. Just one week after Tisha B’Av, we read Parashat Va’etchanan, which includes the Shema—our central declaration of faith and love for God. It is as if, through the ashes of destruction, we begin to rebuild by listening again to that still, small voice that calls us to love, to remember, to return. This begins the seven weeks of consolation, leading us toward Rosh Hashanah. And nestled in the middle of those weeks is Elul, the month of divine closeness. The mystics teach that during the month of Elul, “the king is present in the field.”—God is not distant or hidden behind the walls of a palace, but present and accessible, waiting for us to turn and reconnect. So how do we transition from the sorrow of Tisha B’Av to the spiritual preparation of Elul? We carry the memory of loss with us, not as a burden, but as motivation.

We remember what happens when we let our divisions deepen, when we stop listening to one another, when we forget the values that sustain community and holiness. And then we act. We do the inner work of teshuvah, returning to our best selves, to one another, and to God. This journey is not instant. Like all healing, it takes time. But the tradition gives us the tools: daily shofar blasts, Psalm 27, acts of kindness, honest self-examination, and the quiet promise that transformation is always possible. As we enter Elul, may we open our hearts wide enough to hold both the pain of our past and the promise of our future. May our mourning give way to meaning, and our reflection lead us toward renewal. The gates are open—let us begin the journey.

Water in the Wilderness

Chukat Drash by Stan Satz

August 2025

Moses found himself between a rock and a hard place: Throughout the 40 years in the wilderness, Moses all too often has had to contend with the alienation of many of the stiff-necked Israelites whose desperate discontent led them to betray Hashem. In each of these treacherous setbacks, Moses has become exhausted and frustrated trying to stop God from annihilating his ungrateful chosen ones who so often lamented that it would be a no-brainer to return to Egypt where nourishment and relative safety were guaranteed. Moses did what he had to do in guiding and preserving his flock according to God’s blueprint. But not in our Torah reading for this Shabbat! After Miriam dies, all the watering holes become dry. The Israelites, lamenting the lack of water, once again complain to Moses about their being uprooted from Egypt, “Why have you brought the Lord’s congregation into this wilderness for us and our beasts to die there? Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place, a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates? There is not even water to drink!” (Chapter 20, verses 4-5). To placate the Israelites, God tells Moses and Aaron to gather them and speak to a rock so that it will be filled with water (“Order the rock to yield its water” Chapter 20, verse 8). Moses, however, is so fed up with his brethren that he sarcastically addresses them, not the rock.

“Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” (Chapter 20, verse 10). Then Moses twice strikes the rock that immediately begins to brim over with water. Because he unilaterally chose to handle the situation, Moses is at the mercy of God who, without leaving any wiggle room, tells Moses that because of his insubordination, he will not be allowed to enter the Promised Land: “Because you did not trust me enough to affirm my sanctity in the sight of the Israelite people, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them” (Chapter 20, Verse 12).

What a blow that must have been for Moses to abide by God’s ironclad decision. And what is Moses’s response? An eloquent rebuttal or lock-step acceptance of God’s word and will? The Torah is silent: Moses says nothing at all. Although he must have wanted to defend his actions, evidently Moses suspects that arguing with God in this instance would be futile. Sigmund Freud, in his last book Moses and Monotheism, offers a unique take on why Moses never entered the Promised Land. This is Freud’s outrageously iconoclastic thesis: Moses was not a Hebrew; he was biologically an Egyptian inducted into the monotheistic priesthood of King Akhenaton, the first ancient ruler to adopt the concept of one God (the sun god, Aton). When the King died and polytheism resurfaced, Moses escaped from Egypt, along with a rag-tag multitude of Hebrew slaves and his elite corps of bodyguards who later became the Levites. Under his leadership, he brought the newly liberated slaves into the wilderness where he could propagandize for an extremely strict monotheism. He also inaugurated male circumcision, an exclusively Egyptian ritual.

The newly named Israelites were so dismayed by the Mosaic code of rules and regulations that they murdered Moses and surreptitiously buried him before he could join them in the Promised Land. Then the Israelites adopted the ostensibly less demanding Midian God Yahweh. After a few centuries, the Israelites, realizing that this new deity was untrustworthy and bloodthirsty, forsook Yahweh, rehabilitated Moses, and even revered him as a martyred messiah (paraphrased from the first chapter of Bernstein’s Freud and the Legacy of Moses). Despite my delight in discovering that both Freud and I have the exact same Hebrew first name, Schlomo, Freud’s speculation about the post-patriarchal genesis of Judaism is bonkers. I have faith in the authenticity of the Torah. If being deprived of entering the Promised Land is the result of Moses’s attempt to circumvent God, then so be it. But Moses has difficulty accepting his role in this debacle. In Deuteronomy (1:37 and 4:21), he blames only the disloyal renegade Israelites (“an evil generation”) for God’s banishing him from the land of milk and honey: “Because of you, the Lord was incensed with me too, and he said : You (Moses) shall not enter it either….And the Lord was angry with me on your account, and he swore not to let me cross the Jordan.” Yet Hashem loves Moses so much that despite Moses’s transgression, God permits him to see the Promised Land from the nearby mountain vista.

What a relief that must have been for Moses. While God can be intransigent, he can also modify his wrath. Very often, a setback, no matter how painful at first, can have a positive outcome. As a graduate student at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, I was engaged to a strict Orthodox young lady whom I met during spring break in Boston, our hometown. She made a covenant with me: she would marry me if I became as devoutly religious as she was. Even though I was an ultra-liberal Jew, I accepted the challenge. At first, I was compliant. I spent hours reading Hebrew prayers in my off-campus room; I refrained from riding in a car on Shabbat; and I periodically attended her Orthodox shul in Lynn, Massachusetts. I persevered until one Shabbat evening. A couple of platonic friends of mine, who just happened to be female (a faux pas by itself as it turned out), offered to drive me to Hillel services at the Kent State campus. Exhausted from reciting blessings, I agreed to accompany them. When my fiancée learned of my forbidden outing, she was irate. By the time I returned to Boston, she broke off the engagement. She admitted that she never fully believed that I could master any of the 613 commandments. Now she had evidence of my perfidy and vowed never to see me again.

At first, I was devastated, but I soon rebounded. Two good things happened after my fiancée banished me. The first is material; the second is life-enhancing. Before leaving me, she gave me back my grandmother’s emerald-cut engagement ring. Such integrity! The second upbeat event was the musicality and spirituality of the cantor at her shul. I had never heard such poignant singing at my Reform temple in Brookline, Massachusetts. The Lynn cantor was a marvel; his intense and riveting melodies reminded me of Chaim Adler, the supremely eloquent Orthodox cantor at the Great Jerusalem synagogue. Sof has given me the opportunity to hear the soulful chanting from many congregants. Although the Hebrew text to be sung is sometimes hard for me to follow, even undecipherable, it is inspirational. I sing along with newly found devotion. Here at Sof, I have found my own promised land. Amen.

Hosanna to Manna (Behaalotecha: Num. 8:1-12:16)

Parashot Tazaria-Metsora

Drash on May 3, 2025
Donald Armstrong

Beginnings

Shir Ha Shirim Drash by Fran Margulies

May 2025

Why do we read a frankly erotic love song on a major Jewish religious holiday? Well, first, our holiday is about beginnings: 1) Our beginnings after being slaves to becoming a self-aware group of people. 2) Springtime: Nature’s beginnings (at least for our northern hemisphere…): new buds on trees, new ducklings, baby chicks… (Have you noticed the Kolea birds’ handsome new black and white mating plumage?) But also about new ideas, new meanings we can see in Torah itself. Our text is no longer about warriors and kings but about lover and beloved. Remember our first lovers, the first couple, Adam and Eve. In Genesis, Eve is punished for her disobedience: “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” But now in Shir Ha Shirim (ch7 v 11) she says, “I am my beloved, and his desire is toward me!” “My beloved is mine and I am his: He grazes among the lilies…” And he responds equally: “How sweet your love, my bride, my own far sweeter than wine.” Rabbi Akiba famously celebrated this text, this Megillah, as the most important in all Tanach because –and I will close with this– because of a single word repetition that he noticed. In the prophet Jeremiah (31:19) there was the word “Teshuka” meaning “desire.” (“Sha ash u im”…my Tanach translates it as: ”My inward parts are moved for him…!!” God is speaking these very words. He had exiled his people – by sending them into Egypt and now he misses them – just as she, the speaker in our Shir Ha Shirim, misses her lover who, in the story, has disappeared just as she was undressing by her bed and getting ready for him.  “Where has he gone? Where has my love gone?” God too had welcomed Moses and had committed to these Judeans who do keep complaining, resisting, and holding back even through their fresh new springtime. Shabbat Shalom!

Pluto, Jewish Law & Commitment

Parsha Tzav Drash by Daniel Koster

May 2025

It’s Yom Kippur. At the climax of the service the Rabbi falls on his face and cries, “Forgive me Lord, I am nothing!” Seeing this the Cantor follows his example, falling down and crying, “Forgive me Lord, I am nothing!” Then in the back of the sanctuary, the janitor, overcome with emotion, falls on the floor and cries, “Forgive me Lord, I too am nothing.” Hearing this, the Rabbi turns to the Cantor and murmurs, “Look who thinks he’s a nothing.” Now a Rabbi is really a something, and so is the Cantor. The Bimah is a high place to stand and it’s a long climb to get there. If you spend enough time up there, you might forget what it feels like to be a nothing. You can fall on your face and show the congregation you are humble, but God knows whether you really mean it. You might recite the long confession and say that “we have sinned,” but deep down believe it’s actually “all you people down there” who sinned. Anyone who really knows what it’s like to be a nothing would not wear the label lightly.

You know who really understands what it’s like to be a nothing? Pluto. Pluto used to be a planet. The smallest, most remote planet, sure, but a planet. He was on all the posters and models, and even if you couldn’t remember what order Saturn and Jupiter and Neptune were, you never forgot that Pluto was the last planet before the infinite blackness of interstellar space. That’s really something. Then in 2006 the definition of a planet was revised, and Pluto no longer made the cut. He became a Dwarf Planet. Nobody knows what a dwarf planet is, but it’s clearly not a planet. And while we are all happy to share our orbit with Pluto, everyone knows he’s a nothing. That’s how science goes. The laws change when new evidence emerges, and different things get shuffled into different categories. At any moment you too could become a sacrifice on the altar of human knowledge. Unlike the laws of science, God’s law is set in stone. You can interpret and debate, but we have the originals right here, and no human wisdom can supersede them. If your status changes under God’s law, it’s not the law that changed: it’s you. In this week’s parsha we learn about the sacrifices to be performed in the Tabernacle. There are gift offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. If you fell on the wrong side of God’s law, you didn’t try to argue with the law, and you didn’t bow down and apologize. You gave up one of your very valuable animals to be slaughtered, cut apart, and burned into smoke. Even today a bull costs 3-5 thousand dollars, and I have no idea what it costs to build a barn, ship a bull there, and feed it until it’s time for the sacrifice.

God expected his chosen people to value the law so much that they would bear all this expense just to see it go up in smoke. We no longer perform animal sacrifices, but there is no reason to think our commitment should be any less. We sacrifice our Saturday morning to pray, but I’m starting to think some of these folk actually enjoy coming here. We sing songs and have a nosh, and on Yom Kippur we fast and bow down, and Baruch Hashem, may we be forgiven. When our ancestors fell on the wrong side of the law, they brought their bull to endure a nightmare of blood and bone, smoke and fire, iron and flesh. Maybe this is why some of us are afraid to pray for the restoration of the Temple. We don’t want to get our hands that dirty, or to bear that level of expense.

Pluto has no bulls to sacrifice. No amount of deadlifts and protein powder will restore his planetary status. He’s stuck out there in the cold, watching all the real planets enjoy their community together. The same fate awaits anyone who does not sacrifice what they have. All our possessions, our pleasures, and our precious time come from God. Are we so arrogant that we think we can hoard them for ourselves? If we let that impulse win, we will end up floating in space, all alone, clutching our possessions. Those of us willing to give up what we have, to spill the blood that is demanded, and to put our gifts to work for God, do get to be part of this great project. We can be the musicians in God’s symphony, the builders of the temple, the sustainers of God’s world. Such a person can stand before the community and say I am one of you, and not just because I was lucky enough to be born in, but because I studied the covenant, and I learned the sacrifices I would have to make, and I said, where do I sign. We witness a Bar Mitzvah, or a Conversion and we say, what a beautiful thing, to see such a commitment to God’s covenant. Yet I tell you that any Jew who still draws breath still owes a debt of gratitude to God. Even a hard life is a life, and God chose us to live it. Through thousands of years of blood and smoke, God has sustained us, and we are still here. And if anything unites us in these turbulent times, if anything keeps us from spinning off into space, it is this: We believe that God will always hold up his end of the deal.

Prayer and Sacrifice

Vayikra Drash by Carolyn (Carrie) Dibrell

Photos by Hinda Diamond

May 2025

Carrie Bat Mitzvah

Mazal Tov to Carrie on her April 8 Bat Mitzvah! Read her Vayikra drash below:

I feel closest to God when I ride my bike. And I ride my bike a lot. Since I was in the 7th grade, it has been what I do. I like it because I am in my own world, and I can zone out. Here in Hawaiʻi, I ride in my neighborhood, circling the loop, going everywhere, going nowhere. It was on one of these rides when I decided I wanted to be Jewish. For years I had been a fallen away Catholic looking for a religion that fit. My closest friends were Jewish, some are here with me today on Zoom. But it was my mother who first taught me about Judaism and about God.

We were driving and running weekday errands and my mother was trying to park the car. Row after row, up and down we looked for a spot. Of course, I had no idea why we couldn’t just park anywhere and so I asked “Why are we here? What are we doing? Why do we do this?”Just the other day I asked my mom if she was surprised by my questions. She said she thought it was a smart question for a 4-year-old to ask. I also asked her if she remembered how she answered. She told me that we are here because God loves us. That was when I first thought about God.

In 2 weeks, I will turn 56 and I am still thinking about God and wondering about his love for us. One thing I know for sure is that God exists. And that brings me to our Torah portion this morning. When I first read the Parsha, I was a bit bored. Genesis is full of drama and Exodus is action packed but Leviticus is about rules and laws, and it is a tough book to get excited about.

Every Saturday, Ray cues up Torah study for a Shabbos Morning by Rabbi Ed Feinstein of Valley Beth Shalom. We found Ed during Covid, and I’m sure that I am his number one fan. I have watched every episode and some more than once. The reason I like it is because of one question he asks: Why is this here?

I used that question for today’s parsha. Is this truly about how we should handle animal sacrifices? I mean, how is this relevant given that we don’t perform them anymore? Torah scholars such as Maimonides and Abravanel say that animal sacrifice was practiced in other religions at that time. In the case of the Israelites, it stopped with the destruction of the second temple in 70 BC. and was replaced by prayer. At first, I didn’t appreciate how prayer constituted a sacrifice. Then I realized I didn’t know what a sacrifice really was. What makes up a sacrifice? I thought the first element was that it had to be something of value. You can’t call it a sacrifice if the something is worthless. Second, it needs to be something we give voluntarily. You can’t call it a sacrifice if you don’t want to give it, otherwise all burglaries are sacrifices. And thirdly, it must be meaningful.

Originally, I thought meaning might be the same as value, but then I thought about cats. Some cats bring mice to their owners when they want to show they love them. To the cat, the mouse is a thing of value, but to us, what is valuable is what the mouse represents, which is love. Indeed, prayer satisfies these 3 elements. When we pray, we are not doing other things, we are praying. We are giving up other things of value to pray, namely our time. Our time is value driven because we can’t make more of it. Two, prayer is voluntary. We do it willfully and in fact, we are all doing it here today and we all came here of our own accord. And third, prayer is meaningful. When we pray, we demonstrate our faith in God. And not coincidentally, faith in God is exactly what he wants!

Maimonides and Abravanel both talk about animal sacrifices as something we needed to do. We needed a way to connect with God, and sacrificing a valuable, unblemished animal was a ritual that met with the religious needs of the time, but both argue that God doesn’t want animal sacrifices; those are for us. Essentially, we are the cat giving God a mouse. So, does God want love? I turned to the Torah. It’s all right there: Starting with the Shema: Listen Israel! I am your one and only GOD. This is the basis of Judaism and the most important prayer. It is said 4 times a day. It is written on tiny scrolls and kept inside the mezuzahs we hang on our doorposts. It is the first commandment. It is written in the box that we wear between our eyes called Tefillin. We are to remember God whenever we touch the tzitzits that we wear on our garments and on our prayer shawls. We are to teach our children and our children’s children and all throughout time. Every year at Passover, we are to remember that God rescued us and brought us out of Egypt. And then crucially, he wants us to keep holy Shabbat. That too is a commandment. For 24 hours we are to remove our daily distractions and remember.

The name of this Parsha is ‘Vayikra’, and that is Hebrew for “He Called.” He doesn’t speak to Moses, he calls Moses. What is he calling for? He wants a connection with us. He wants us to remember him and think of him and believe in him. It is so obvious to me now. We were just like the cat offering up the unblemished goat. And just like we don’t need the cat to give us a mouse, God doesn’t need an unblemished goat. God is just like us. And like we want the cat’s love; God wants our love. He tells us “I am your God. I am your only God. Don’t worship any other God but me. Put this message above your doorposts, put this message between your eyes in a small box, attach strings to your garments and remember me when you touch them. Deliver this message to your children and your children’s children. Talk about how I delivered you out of Egypt at Passover and finally, set aside one day, as I did when I created this world for rest and prayer and think about me from sunset to sunset. Don’t forget about me. That is all I want from you.” Shabbat Shalom.

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Defeating Sea Dragons

Trumah Drash by Jonathon Lyon

April 2025

Good morning, and Shabbat Shalom. Over the years going through the Torah-reading cycle, I’ve always wondered: why all this attention to the building of a mobile dwelling place for God in such excruciating detail?  It makes for tedious reading, for one thing. The commentators in the various Chumashim, mostly citing Rashi and other medieval commentators, tend to focus on the symbolic and spiritual meaning of the individual components – the furniture including the Shulchan or table of the challot, the walls, rings, and poles, the altar, the Menorah, the vessels, the clothing for the priests, and of course the Ark of the Covenant with its golden Cheruvim, cover, and staves. There’s the ornate use of pomegranates, almond blossoms, and Cheruvim designs in the light blue, turquoise, scarlet, and purple woven materials (with lots of loops) – which must have been stunningly beautiful, – planks of acacia wood, and curtains of twisted linens. And the fact that all the materials and supplies were donated by the people.

Some of the rabbinical commentaries include explanations like Rashi arguing that these instructions for the Mishkan were actually given after the Golden Calf incident, despite chronology, because the Mishkan is intimately connected with the Sanhedrin and the Mishpatim, which was read last week. Ramban said “the redemption from Egypt was not complete with the physical departure from the land of Israel’s enslavement, nor was it complete even with the giving of the 10 C’s, even though the revelation at Sinai was the goal of the Exodus,” but that the giving of the Mishkan was the culmination of the entire Sinai experience of God’s presence and interaction with Israel (Stone Chumash, p. 444, notes).

Ibn Ezra on the other hand said that God commanded Moses to make the Mishkan “a permanent place among the people for the glory that had rested on the mountain and so Moses would not be required to ascend the mountain” every time God wanted to speak with him. And Rabbi Hirsch said, “That sanctuary represents Israel’s obligation to sanctify itself in its personal life…  [and] When the nation carries out that primary responsibility, God responds by dwelling among them” (Stone, p. 445).

Well far be it from me to dismiss these heavyweights and their interpretations, but I do believe they only tell part of the story.

A little bit of personal background: 

When I lived in Boston and was between jobs during the Great Recession, I did some RA work for a Harvard Biblical Studies Ph.D. student who was doing her research on the Imago Dei passage in Genesis ch. 1:26 “And Elohim said let us make mankind (Adam) in our image; after our likeness.” Her dissertation advisor wanted her to collect more Near Eastern parallels and especially to type up the references, so she gave me lists of books and journal articles to look up at the Harvard Div School library. I have to say it was fascinating stuff – narratives, myths, and incantations from the Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, Canaanites, and so on – it opened my eyes to things I just had no idea about, and helped me gain a better historical and theological understanding of some of the obscurities we find in the Bible. Complementing that cool stuff, I have a book called God at Sinai by Jeffery Niehaus, a Christian scholar, which also looks at Near Eastern parallels and brings them into focus to help explain our Torah readings. And being a historical context kind of guy, I am approaching our Parshah from this perspective, as we embark on a bit of a journey through the design of the Mishkan.

Teaser:  according to the ancient narratives, most kings of the near East before and during Biblical times would build or renovate a temple or palace for their chief god after a great victory in battle. The evidence is from Babylonian, Assyrian, Sumerian and Ugaritic poetry and mythic accounts that this was an established practice long before the Israelites fled before Pharaoh’s army. 

Backdrop: 

“In the beginning, … the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the waters…” the tohu vavohu and the waters, at least in theological circles, are often characterized as chaos.  In creating the world, God brought order to the chaos of a world in formation. After six days of creating, God rested and celebrated God’s work with the Shabbat of rest.

Fast forward to Shemot/Exodus. In freeing Israel from Egypt, God was performing a kind of second creation by defeating the chaos or lawlessness of life under Pharaoh and bringing the new nation to Mt. Sinai.  In last week’s Parshah, after giving the Mishpatim, God celebrated a Shabbat covenant meal on the mountain with the Sanhedrin and the high priests (Aaron, Nadab and Abihu), and then the cloud of God covered the mountain for six days, after which God called Moses on the seventh day. This symbolized “the new creation of liberated Israel…in covenant with God” (Niehaus, p. 199). 

But to achieve this new creation and covenant relationship, God fought great battles for Israel against Egypt and her gods and the Pharaoh, all of whom represented the forces of chaos, lawlessness, arrogance, tyranny, and death. In Biblical poetry, this composite evil Egypt is sometimes referred to as Rahab, the ancient mythological Nile dragon, and Leviathan, also a sea monster that symbolizes chaos.  

For example, In Ps. 89:  You rule over the surging sea;/when its waves mount up, you still them/You crushed Rahab like one of the slain; with your strong arm you scattered your enemies/The heavens are yours, and yours also the earth; you founded the world and all that is in it. (Ps 89 10-12 or 9-11)  Note the side-by-side mention of crushing Rahab, scattering enemies, and  “you founded the world…”

We just sang Ps.29, including: Kol Adonai (haShem) al hamayim, El hakavod hir’im, Adonai (haShem) al mayim rabim (the mighty waters). Ps. 29:3. 

In Isaiah 51:  Was it not you who cut Rahab to pieces, who pierced that monster through?/Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made a road in the depths of the sea so that the redeemed might cross over? (Is 51:9-10) – See the Allusion to Israel escaping Pharaoh’s army?

Psalm 74 – You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters./You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. (Ps 74:13-14)

These poetic Biblical allusions combine 1) the creation with 2) God’s mastery of the waters and monsters of chaos with 3) the redemption from Egypt by God’s strong hand and outstretched arm. 

I have always wondered what and who were Rahab and Leviathan. Turns out, Rahab is the Hebrew poetical analogue of Tiamat the Babylonian sea dragon goddess, and Yam, the Canaanite sea god whom Babylonian Marduk and Canaanite Baal, the sky or storm gods, respectively, defeated to create order from chaos in their creation epics.  Leviathan was the slippery, twisted serpent, ally of Yam, slain by Baal. Ancient Middle East creation epics and mythology narratives, such as the Babylonian Enuma Elish,3 serve as a backdrop for Israel’s metaphors for the Exodus from Egypt. HaShem defeats the Egypt/Pharaoh/Nile dragon of chaos, AKA Rahab or Leviathan, by doing battle with their gods and ultimately dividing the Sea of Reeds (Red Sea), to allow safe passage to Israel, and then destroys Pharaoh’s army using the Sea.

This is the great victory by the One God over the pagan pantheon of Egypt that sets the stage for the design and building of the Mishkan.

My apologies to those of you who are ancient civilization or Biblical studies scholars and know about this stuff, but it was a great surprise to me to learn that Long before Israel met with God at Mt. Sinai, Baal had a temple/palace built for him after his victory over Yam the sea god. It was the expected thing to do for Assyrian, Hittite, and Babylonian god/kings to build palaces/temples for their chief god after a great victory in battle. For example, Enanatum I of Lagash built a great temple for Inana after putting “all foreign lands in his control…” Which brings to mind King David, whose great wish once he unified Israel and established control over all the land of promise was…? (Hint: Something King Solomon completed …) 

Moreover, these temple/palaces were not all “brick and mortar” fixed in place. Again in early Ugaritic poetry, El, the supreme god of the Canaanite pantheon, like other Canaanite gods, lived in a tent.  A segment of early Canaanite/Sumerian poetry:

They set face

Toward El at the source of the Two Rivers

In the midst of the pools of the Double-Deep

They entered the tent(s) of El and went into

The tent-shrine of the King, Father of years

And

The gods returned to their tents

The race of El to their habitations

Noting that our  Israelite Mishkan is also a tent, the purpose of building a palace or temple for a god after a great victory was so that the god in question could provide a design replicating the god’s heavenly habitation in all its brilliance and beauty.  The god would present his or her design to the victorious king who, with the aid of a specially gifted master craftsman god, would build a glorious home for the idol of the god on Earth. Hence, Marduk founds Babylon and the E-sagilla Temple, and the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Hasis builds a palace for Baal on Mt. Zaphon. In that way, the god would be sure to show his or her presence among the people for prosperity and protection, and the people would devote themselves in worship and bring gifts. (Do I see types for Bezalel and Oholiab?!! They’ll appear in Vayakhel, after the Golden Calf incident, to build this Mishkan.)

To be sure, there was much more of a transactional or quid pro quo expectation with the pagan worshippers and their gods than we’re supposed to have. And leaving aside the incantations and the whole process for “activating” or “inspiring” the idol statue to come alive, the idol or statue of the god in the Temple represented the god’s presence with the people. In return for sacrifices and obedience to the laws given through the king, the king and people expected their god’s protection and help. 

If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because the Israelites under haShem’s guidance were obviously following an existing practice.  [Aside] I always say that every religion comes out of an historical and cultural context, and that ours did not appear magically from a vacuum, though the rabbis rarely refer to this. [Aside over]

So after God’s great victory over Pharaoh and Egypt, and God’s consecration of the chosen nation of Israel, newly redeemed from slavery in Egypt to be God’s obedient servants and devoted worshipers, it was time to build a home for God to dwell with God’s people (Mishkan) and a place to meet with them (Ohel Moed); a home that could be disassembled and reassembled and would travel with the people.  

[Referring to the Parshah specifically] First we must note – and this most likely distinguishes the building of this Mishkan from the temples of other nations – and also the rabbis point this out – that the portion, the Terumah, which was given by whomever contributed resources, whether it be gold, silver, jewels, spices, skins, or wood, was given voluntarily.  The Mishkan was a dwelling place for God that was in its essence built in faith by the community.  In contributing generously, the whole community was blessed, as were each of the individuals who contributed.

Second, God explicitly states (v. 8) that the Mishkan is to be a Mikdash, a holy dwelling place or sanctuary, “so that I may dwell among them,” and that God will show them how to do everything and what to build, what designs.  But the details were actually in keeping with the practices of the day – golden bells and dangling pomegranites, for example, were also found in the excavations of Baal’s temple, as were scenes of Cheruvim – winged bulls with human faces. And God intended to speak with Moses from between the wings of said Cheruvim, which were sculpted to the cover of the holy ark in pure gold.

Third, the beauty of the Mishkan must have been overwhelming. As a replica of the heavenly mobile temple of the one true God, with all of its symbolic features, the Menorah, the table for the Challoth, the partition of turquoise, purple, and scarlet wool between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, the Aron haKodesh covered in gold, the altar of acacia wood and copper, the copper pots and vessels, these all represented an image of God’s dwelling but adapted for Israel’s benefit as an incarnational symbol to bring physical essence or evidence of God, whom the Israelites could not see and for whom there was no idol statue.

The ultimate message of all this is that the God of Israel wanted to ensure that Israel understood that a powerful and yet loving God was in their midst who would communicate with them, who would bless them in return for their faith and ethical behavior, (known in Torah terms as obedience), who would provide for them and would guide them as a new nation.

To re-cap, haShem saves Israel by doing battle with Pharaoh/Egypt, characterized elsewhere as Rahab the dragon of chaos. haShem achieves victory over this foe and redeems God’s people. God then brings the people to Mt. Sinai, gives the Torah, a  treaty-constitution, and makes a covenant with the Nation of Israel, God’s new Creation. They celebrate a covenant meal, and then God gives to Moses the designs to construct the Mishkan to assure the people that haShem does truly intend to dwell among them and from which haShem will lead this Covenant People across the desert towards the Promised Land.

Conclusion:  In modern times, with no Temple or Mishkan, we may do what we will with this knowledge. But there is no mistaking that the Torah adjures us to honor God, celebrate the Shabbat and the prescribed holidays, practice the ethical values/virtues of justice, mercy, forgiveness, and above all love as the highest priorities, while at the same time affirming the message that God is with us to help us, to forgive us, and to save us from the Pharaohs out there and from ourselves.

Shabbat Shalom and As-Salaam ‘Alykum Ramadan

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Taking Back Our Souls

Ki Tisa Drash By Daniel Lev

April 2025

What is Religion? There are several definitions but the one I like the best I learned in 1981 in an Eastern Religions class I took at San Fernando Valley college. The professor repeated the definition of the great Christian Theologian Paul Tillich who said that:

Religion, in the largest and most basic sense of the word is the state of Ultimate Concern. It refers to the thing or issue that a person considers most important, it’s the object of one’s deepest and most unconditional care, and the source of meaning and purpose in life.

For us Jews our ultimate concern is doing everything we can to be in the Presence of HaShem, the Holy One who, paradoxically, is invisible and appears everywhere. We try to connect through our ethical and social justice practices, prayer, meditation, song, community engagement, Torah study and taking compassionate action on behalf of all living beings and the planet. These and other activities bring us into the Divine Presence. Some of us call Him G-d but “Him” and G-d” are very limiting terms used to refer to the Divine Presence. Our language is also quite limited, but I will attempt to use it to share with you one lesson that I believe this week’s Torah portion is trying to teach us. There’s a lot of stuff in this parsha! In a moment I’m going to focus on the “Golden Calf affair,” but first I’ll put it into the parsha’s context. In this sedra, and in earlier parts of the Book of Exodus, HaShem, G-d, instructs Moshe in the construction and importance of the Mishkan, the portable Temple where we can encounter the Spirit of HaShem. We also read about the instructions for making the sacrificial furniture and the altar which helped Jews connect with HaShem back then, through the offering of animal and other sacrifices. HaShem also gives Moshe and the Jewish people a gift: Two tablets with the Ten Commandments: connections written down by the finger of G-d. So here, HaShem is talking with Moshe on top of Mt Sinai, and what’s going on down below at the foot of the mountain? Trouble is going on! Right here in Judah city! Exodus 32:1 says: “And when the People saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain…” OK, what did they do then? Did they form support groups to share their feelings about Moe’s absence? Did they talk with one another about the miraculous stories of HaShem and their people? Did they try to build their community? Did they celebrate G-d for liberating them from centuries of slavery and oppression? No! what did they do? It says

וַיִּקָּהֵ֨ל הָעָ֜ם עַֽל־אַהֲרֹ֗ן וַיֹּאמְר֤וּ אֵלָיו֙ ק֣וּם ׀ עֲשֵׂה־לָ֣נוּ אֱלֹהִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֤ר יֵֽלְכוּ֙ לְפָנֵ֔ינוּ

“And the people gathered together against Aaron and said to him “Get up and make for us gods that shall go before us.” Then, after Aaron unquestioningly made a golden calf and presented it to the people, they said: “These are the gods, Oh Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” Then, after Aaron declares a festival day in honor of HaShem, which is a little confusing since Hashem does not look very “Calf-ish,” the people get up early the next day and they “…offered up burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; they sat down to eat and drink, and then rose to tzacheik.” This was not an ordinary party, the word tzacheik can mean, “to laugh and to screw around!” The rabbis understood this to mean a very inappropriate kind of orgy dedicated to the Golden Calf. Let’s consider three questions: (1) What did the people do wrong? (2) Why did they do wrong? and (3) How did Moshe fix it? Leaving the orgy aside, what they did was to turn something limited and external into an object of ultimate concern. It became a new religion based on a solid gold statue. And they saw this calf-god as their liberator from Egypt. This is classic idol worship. Perhaps on a psycho-spiritual level, we could say that we all have a neshama, a deep soul within us connected to the Great Soul of the Divine Presence. As I mentioned before, the way Jews over the last two-thousand years have connected to HaShem is through various spiritual practices that help us to become aware that we are always within the circle of G-d. However, because we all live in this world, in Olam Hazeh, it leads us to get caught up in its dualities, materialities and ego trips. This causes us to forget who we are deep inside. This is what happened to the Jews at the foot of Sinai who chose to project their soul energy onto a lifeless object and view it as alive and powerful. How did they get to this point”? The beginning of this portion, says:

כִּי־זֶ֣ה ׀ מֹשֶׁ֣ה הָאִ֗ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֤ר הֶֽעֱלָ֙נוּ֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם לֹ֥א יָדַ֖עְנוּ מֶה־הָ֥יָה לֽוֹ

“…for that fellow Moses — the man who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.” It was a traumatic event that caused our people to forget all the miracles and events that HaShem wrought and instead turn to a golden calf. The trauma stems from the fact that we were utterly dependent on Moses and then he left to join HaShem at the top of Sinai and he did not give us a return date. This trauma caused us to feel quite insecure and in need of something to calm us and we went back to our old idol worshiping habits that we learned in Egypt. Even today we can be thrown into hopelessness and suspiciousness by other traumatic events like economic downturns and plagues. These may tempt us to chase after a modern Golden Calf to make a quick fix for our insecurities. One of those modern forms may be our tendency to idolize people and things, either positively or negatively to reduce our insecurities. This is also called “objectifying.” Just like the Golden Calf worshipers, we at times will objectify people, ideas or objects. Positively, we might worship a strong leader and project our soul energy onto them or onto an addictive habit like alcohol or cannabis abuse. Negatively, we might objectify other people and fail to see their humanity and who they are on a soul level. There is a difference between seeing people with the eyes of our neshama, our soul, or through the eyes of idolatry. When we perceive people from our souls, we can witness who they are in the deepest way and, at the same time, we can see even farther into ourselves and who we are. As my teacher Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach often said, “We should look into the inside of the inside of the inside.” But what happens when I go through life only seeing the world from the outside, through idolatrous eyes? When I’m objectifying people and things. For example, I might aim my idol-eyes at Cynthia, an evangelical Christian, who I brand as a self-centered, religious fanatic and lunatic…and then later I discover that she anonymously leaves a bag of groceries on the doorstep of a poor family every week. I’m sure some of us here have been objectified by people who see us through idolatrous eyes. What these folks fail to do is see people as HaShem does, seeing the G-d soul in each of us despite our differences. By seeing someone through the eyes of our soul, we can discover the best version of ourselves, as it says in Leviticus 19:18:

וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ

“You should love your neighbor as yourself.” One Chassidic Rebbe read this as saying, “You should love your neighbor because he is yourself!” So let me conclude by asking, “What did Moshe do to bring us back to our soul connection to the Divine Presence?” Skipping some other very dramatic parts of the story we come to this scene about Moses:

וַיִּקַּ֞ח אֶת־הָעֵ֨גֶל אֲשֶׁ֤ר עָשׂוּ֙ וַיִּשְׂרֹ֣ף בָּאֵ֔שׁ וַיִּטְחַ֖ן עַ֣ד אֲשֶׁר־דָּ֑ק וַיִּ֙זֶר֙ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י הַמַּ֔יִם וַיַּ֖שְׁקְ אֶת־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

“He took the calf that they had made and burned it; he ground it to powder and strewed it upon the water and made the Israelites drink it.” This might sound a little weird – his solution was to get the people to drink gold dust water!? What was Moshe doing? He was first telling them that by worshiping the Calf they were projecting their soul energy onto a statue; they were shining their eyes upon a lump of gold and pretending that they could relate with it like a “being of ultimate concern.” Moshe gave the message, you need to take back your soul that you projected onto this false god of gold, take back your ability to connect to the True Soul of the world – so as you drink in this water you must also imbibe the Presence of HaShem in your moment to moment lives. And later Moshe tells the children of Israel that he will soon bring them a mitzvah system; practices they can use to remind themselves how to connect to the Divine Presence, to align themselves with life-giving values and love and respect the creation and all those who live in it. And to know that no matter how many times they turn to idols, they can always come back to HaShem and their neshamas again and again. So I’d like to bless you and please bless me back that we become aware of when we are engaged in idolatry through objectifying people and things, and that we remember to take back our souls, to open up our Neshama eyes and drink in the fullness of others and to feel the connections of all life in this world, having compassion on ourselves and on all beings.

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The Oven of Akhnai

Mishpatim Drash By Fran Margulies

April 2025

Mishpatim, today’s parshah reading, differs from our usual Saturday morning readings. They have been mostly narratives, stories about our heroic and complex ancestors, Abraham, Moses, Miriam. But today we read mostly laws: If you do this, then that will happen, YOU in capital letters, even you and me here at Sof today, implying that all ordinary Jews past and present, not just anointed priests, are being addressed, just as all Jews past and present are said to have stood, listening below Mt Sinai and said we will do!

Parshah Mishpatim is mostly laws, but since i have a fondness for stories, let me tell one suggested to me by this parshah. It is the Ovens of Akhnai, familiar to many of you but feeling appropriate to me today. It is from a Midrash probably dated in the 2nd Century after the Hebrews were exiled from their homeland of Judea. Their authorities were no longer the former kings or Tabernacle priests or members of an established legal body called the Sanhedrin. Now authorities were those who were literate, who could read the sacred texts, who were the scholars, in practice the rabbis. The question in front of this group of rabbis was whether a certain kind of oven was or was not still kosher. The story notes that God was present, was paying direct attention, listening in to the rabbis. The oven had been kosher and well used, but now it needed to serve more people. It was enlarged by dividing it up into sections, thereby extending its cooking area by piling ordinary sand between each section. Workable now, but was it still kosher? Most of the rabbis there said, “Sure! Why not? It is still OK, usable, kosher!”

But one of them, Rabbi Eliezer, did not agree; “No! it is no longer kosher!” He then appeals directly to nature, saying, “If what I say is true, then let that tree over there confirm it. So that tree then pulled its roots out of the ground and walked itself a hundred cubits forward!” But the other rabbis were stubborn and resisted. They said, “A tree does not give us proof with legal standing, whether it is still or walking or dancing!” So, Eliezer tried again. He said, “If my words are right, the water in that stream will reverse its direction and flow backwards.” And, what do you know, the stream did turn and flow backwards. But the rabbis were still not impressed. So, Eliezer spoke a third time. “If I am right, the walls of this study hall will confirm it!” And then indeed the walls did move, tilting inward! But the stubborn rabbis rebuked the walls, speaking directly to them: “What do you walls know about Mishpatim, about the laws of Torah!” At that the walls stopped moving in. But they didn’t straighten up either! And God, who had been watching, laughed and laughed and proudly said, “My children have triumphed over me! My children have triumphed!”

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Moses as Middle Manager

Drash On Parsha Shemot by Sid Goldstein

March 2025

Shabbat Shalom. 

What is middle management?

Dr. Alexander Keene, a professor from the Wharton School of Business defines it in his book The Middle Manager as, “The most thankless task of any business endeavor. The middle manager is often caught between a powerful executive who knows how things should be -and-a reluctant work force that doesn’t always want to follow policy. The middle manager has the unenviable job of trying to placate the powerful executive while attempting to achieve a significant level of productivity among the work force.” 

Dr. Keene also suggest that middle management is an ancient endeavor. “It seems to have been around forever”, he says in The Middle Manager. “Yet, it seems difficult to pinpoint exactly when the concept was introduced. “But we as Jews have no difficulty understanding exactly where and when middle management begins. It begins with parsha Shemot.

“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” said Moses to Hashem

When Moses asks, “Who am I?” it is not just that he feels himself unworthy. He also feels uninvolved. He may have been an Israelite by birth, but he’s had very  little to do with the people Hashem wants him to save. 

He had not grown up as an Israelite. He had grown up a prince of Egypt. He had been adopted as a baby by Pharaoh’s daughter. He dressed like an Egyptian, looked like an Egyptian and spoke like an Egyptian. He was also a Midianite. After fleeing from Egypt, he had made his home in Midian. He married a Midianite woman Zipporah, and was, we are told, “content to live there, quietly as a shepherd.”

 We tend to forget that Moses spent many years in Midian. He left Egypt as a young man and was already eighty years old when Hashem first spoke to him. He had not lived among the Israelites.  He had good reason to doubt that they would even recognize him as one of them. How could he possibly become their leader? 

More important, why should he even think of becoming their leader? Their fate was not his. He was no part of it. He was only barely implicated in it. Remember,  the one time he had actually tried to intervene in Jewish affairs – he killed an Egyptian taskmaster who had killed an Israelite slave.  The next day Moses  tried to stop two Israelites from fighting one another – that intervention was not welcomed. 

“Who made you ruler and judge over us?” they said to him. These are the first recorded words of an Israelite speaking to Moses. He had not yet dreamt of being a leader and already his leadership was being questioned. It is not surprising- therefore- when Hashem selected  him to lead the Israelites to freedom, he resisted.

Moses could see from the outset that this was going to be a miserable job. 

Hashem said: “Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have seen that which has been done to you in Egypt.  And I have said, I will bring you out of the affliction of Egypt,  unto the land of the Canaanites, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:16- 17) 

Moses, already seeing where this is going , has a retort. 

“But they will not believe me nor heed my voice, for they will say, ‘God did not appear to you.’

Hashem, of course, has an answer. Throw your staff on the ground he says. Moses does and it turns into a snake. “This will let them know that I sent you.” 

But Moses is not yet finished trying to avoid taking this bad job. 

Moses said to God, “I beg You, God, I am not a man of words—for I stammer and am not swift of tongue.”

Hashem was getting impatient now. This was not the dialogue he was looking for. Powerful executives want their middle managers to get with the program. “Who has made man’s mouth or who makes one mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, God? And now, go!– I will be with your mouth and I will  teach you what you to say.”

“Oh Lord,” said Moses. “Please send this message through someone else.”

Then the anger of Hashem was kindled against Moses. Moses was about to be told how things were going to go.  “Aaron, your brother, will gladly speak for you. Behold! He is coming to meet you. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what you shall do. And you shall take into your hand this staff- with which you are to perform the signs.” 

Reluctantly, Moses leaves his comfortable life in Midian and goes off to meet his brother Aaron. Moses related to Aaron all the words of God,  as well as all the signs about which He had been instructed. Moses and Aaron went to Egypt, and they gathered all the elders of the Israelites. Aaron related all the words that God had told Moses, and performed the miraculous signs in front of the people. The people believed, and when they heard that God had observed their misery, they bowed down and prostrated themselves in thanks. 

Initially they thanked Moses. The fact that Hashem had heard their pleas was good news. For now, the workforce was pleased with the Executive’s recognition of their plight. That pleasure was to be very short-lived. 

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what God, the God of Israel, has said: ‘Send forth My people, so that they may celebrate a festival for Me in the wilderness.’ “The king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why are you distracting the people from their work? Get back to your own chores!”

On that day, Pharaoh gave orders to the people’s Egyptian taskmasters.  You will no longer provide the people with straw for making bricks;  let them go and gather their own straw. However, you must impose upon them the same quota of bricks as they met previously. Do not reduce it. For they are lazy; that is why they are crying out and saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God!’

The Egyptian taskmasters pressured the people and said, “You must meet your daily quota of work just as before, when straw was provided.” 

Dathan and Aviram encountered Moses and Aaron standing before them as they were leaving Pharaoh’s presence. Dathan and Aviram said to them, “May God reveal Himself to you and judge you, for you have made us loathsome in the eyes of Pharaoh and Egypt- providing them with a sword with which to kill us!” (Exodus 5 :21-22)

Take note of this portion- Exodus 5:21-22- the first time the people complain to Moses that something that he did, following Hashem’s instructions, did not worked out well for them. Thus it’s all Moses’ fault. This will be come the recurring theme for the remainder of the Torah. 

As a Middle manager, Moses must absorb the strenuous complaints of the work force. He is always committing one of the five following offenses: letting them down, putting them in danger, going back on his promises, acting power hungry, or simply being a lousy middle manager. 

This stiff necked people, whom Hashem offers Moses  three times to eliminate altogether, is not a group that is often willing to go along with the program. They are rarely happy- are when they are, it isn’t for long. Even when they receive Manna from heaven, they grow bored with it and dream of luxurious life they had back in Egypt. They often forget that they were slaves who had cried out for redemption. 

To be honest, they don’t like the way they’ve been redeemed. 

Moses, frustrated by the rebuke of the people he’s been sent to save, begins the round robin that will be the hallmark of his administration. Moses returned to God and said, “God, why have You mistreated this people? Why have You sent me?  Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has made things worse for this people, and You have not delivered them!”

Enigmatic as ever, Hashem simply says “ You will see what I will do to Pharaoh:  because of My strong hand–he will forcibly drive them out of his land.”

The Executive does not to show  the middle manager the big picture. The first  point here is not the actual liberation if the Hebrews. The first point is that Hashem has to establish that he is the most powerful God of all.  Remember, this is a period of rampant polytheism. There are many, many Gods. Thus, when Hashem issues the command, Thou Shalt have No other Gods before me- It is a very valid representation of the  period in which Moses and the Israelites dwell. 

This drama has to be stretched out- much to the chagrin of both the people who want instant liberation and the middle manager who has to  deal with their complaints. 

The Executive’s purpose- Hashem’s propose- is to show the greatest nation on Earth-Egypt- that his power is absolute. 

That will take time.

In his book “The Gift of the Jews” author Thomas Cahill says of Moses: “ Moses was a great leader. Despite his initial hesitation, he rose to the challenge of guiding a rebellious and often ungrateful people through many hardships. He was compassionate and resilient, placed in a difficult position and yet became dedicated to fulfilling his mission.” 

Thus Moses became an excellent middle manager.

 As such, he suffered a fate common to many of those who fill the position. He was let go just as the project was about to be completed. Worse yet, he had to train his own successor. As you can see, from the  very outset, middle management was and remains a thankless and unenviable task. 

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Redeemed for Love

Parshah Bo Drash by Zach Margulies (Grandson of Fran Margulies)

March 2025

As I was reading over the last three parshiyot, I was struck by how frequently the text pointed me back to Avraham. When God first speaks to Moshe back in Parshat Shemot, he call to him, “Moshe, Moshe, vayomer, hineini,” just as God calls to Abraham at the Akedah: “Avraham, Avraham, vayomer, hineini.” God then introduces himself as “the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob” (Ex 3:6). This takes place at har ha’elohim, horevah – Horev, the mountain of God, while the Akedah takes place at Moriah, which we later learn is the Mount Zion, the ultimate “mountain of God.” God tells Moshe that he will bring the people back to the land of Canaan, fulfilling his promise to Avraham. God tells Moshe to come back and meet his brother at the mountain of God. Moshe goes home, but that night, God seeks to kill him, and his wife takes a knife and circumcises her sons, averting the danger to her husband. Circumcision, of course, was God’s commandment to Avraham. The command to go to a mountain, connected with mortal threat and cutting his sons with a knife, all strong echoes of the Akedah. Furthermore, God tells Moshe that when it’s all over, “you shall tell Pharaoh, ‘thus said the Lord: Israel is my son, my firstborn – b’ni, b’chori. I told you to send my son that he may serve me, but you refused to send him, so I am killing your son, your firstborn bincha, bechorecha. Again, strong echoes of God’s demand of Abraham to sacrifice your son, your only son “bincha yechidecha.”

So, what does that have to do with Parshat Bo? Well, today we read the conclusion of that story. Pharaoh does indeed refuse to let Israel go and serve God, and God fulfills his promise to kill all Egyptian firstborns, both human and cattle. Bookending the dramatic story of the death of the firstborns and Israel’s midnight escape, however, is a curious intrusion of laws. We are told how to offer the Passover sacrifice, and how no one shall offer it without being circumcised. In the very next verse, Israel is told that all Israelite firstborns – human and cattle – belong to and must be redeemed. The parsha ends by very clearly explaining that the redemption of the firstborns is a direct result of God’s slaying of the Egyptian firstborn.

This layering in of law fascinates me, and I wrapped my head in knots trying to sort it out (I even drew up a whole different dvar torah on in, but it became unwieldly, and I scrapped it). Let me instead suggest that there is a connection between these laws and all the Akedah references mentioned. God’s constant refrain to Pharaoh in the intervening chapters is, “send my people that they may serve me.” The people of Israel are not being released from slavery into the freedom of complete autonomy, but into the service of God, reflected in the giving of laws. The narrative serves up a negative example in Pharaoh, who alone imagines himself his own master. He serves no one but himself, but demands the service of all others, even to the point of enslaving God’s people. As we know, there is only one Being who can serve no other, and it is not Pharaoh. So why the constant reference back to the Akedah? One answer is that Avraham is the positive foil to Pharaoh’s hubris. While Pharaoh imagined himself free, refused God’s demands, and suffered the consequence of his son’s death, Avraham submitted to God, complied with his demands, and was rewarded with life for Isaac.

In leaving Egypt, Israel has the choice between acting like Pharaoh and acting like Avraham. The first laws given to Israel—in the very moment of their being freed—all serve to highlight this distinction. The Passover sacrifice, the moment of God’s saving the people from Egypt, recalls Avraham’s sacrifice of the ram instead of Isaac – the moment of God’s saving Isaac from death. This is juxtaposed with the law that the firstborn of every womb belongs to God, an must be redeemed – again, recalling God’s demand of Avraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, Sarah’s first born. The bridge between the laws is circumcision – only the circumcised may offer the sacrifice, and circumcision is the sign of the covenant between God and Avraham. Again, the laws God gives serve to nudge the people toward taking Avraham as their model. But blind subservience isn’t the only dimension of Avraham’s relationship with God, nor is it the only dimension of our relationship with God.

Shortly after the Akedah, Avraham negotiates with God on behalf of the sinners of Sodom. God heeds Avraham’s request, because a brit is not one-sided. It requires love and respect in both directions. Moshe, too, later negotiates with God on behalf of the sinners of Israel, and God heeds his request, as well. The author of Deuteronomy, our first and best interpreter of Torah, makes this connection brilliantly in his slight rewording of the Exodus. In Exodus, the verb padah “redeem” only appears with the meaning of “ritual substitution.” You must substitute a sacrifice for your firstborn. The verb for saving people from Egypt is just hotzi, “take out.” Deuteronomy, however, six times describes the Exodus with the verb padah; God not only took the people out of Egypt, he redeemed them from the house of bondage. Deuteronomy draws the connection latent in the narrative of Exodus between the laws of redemption and the extraction of the people from Egypt. Israel’s observance of law of redemption of the firstborn on the one side is paralleled by God’s redemption firstborn, Israel. Deuteronomy’s rephrasing makes explicit the element of mutual love that underlies God’s relationship with Avraham and the people of Israel. As Exodus hints an Deuteronomy clarifies, God brings the people out of Egypt for service, but also for love—which after all, in Jewish tradition, are the same thing.

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Freedom for New Ways of Being

Vaʻera Drash by Joyce Oleshansky

March 2025

Vaʻera is a parsha we all know well. The narrative is told in children’s stories, spirituals (songs), and every year at Pesach. It is so familiar that our response to it is automatic. In the telling, do we even hear what the story is conveying? Or do we fill in the tale and wait for the end? Do we connect with the words we read at seder? Or do we daydream and wait for the soup to be served?

There is a midrash that the burning bush was there in the landscape for some time. None of the people passing by noticed it – they were going about their day on autopilot. Moses saw the burning bush, he stopped and considered it. What was happening? Was it a risk or danger? Why does it seem that even though the fire is burning the bush is not consumed?

Something clearly was out of the ordinary. According to the midrash, this is one of the reasons Moses was chosen. He noticed and considered what others did not. What is happening here in this Parsha Vaʻera? God demonstrates that being Divine does not mean being above acting pridefully. When God asserts that the Hebrews will be freed God’s motivations are threefold. First God wants to make sure that God’s power reigns supreme over the Egyptian gods. Second God wants to ensure that the Pharaoh and the Egyptian people are so afraid and diminished as a result of his powerful and deadly display that they not only allow the Hebrews to leave but willingly give them all their silver and gold and drive them out forcefully. And thirdly, God works his wonders to free the Hebrew slaves and orchestrate the beginning of their journey to freedom.

And thirdly, God works his wonders to free the Hebrew slaves and orchestrate the beginning of their journey to freedom. God had finally heard the people’s cry and promises a complete liberation. He instructs Moses to say the following:

Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am יהוה. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, יהוה, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession, I יהוה.

Etz Chaim commentary says that each verb used in chapter 6 verses 6-8 refers to a unique aspect of the liberation: “God will free them (refers to the physical), deliver them (refers to the psychological), redeem them (meaning think of themselves as free people), take them (into special relationship with God = the goal of liberation), and bring them (to the Promised Land).” The people, however, cannot hear God in the words of Moses because they have been enslaved for too long. This generation was born into slavery and expected to die in slavery. “Their spirits (were) crushed by cruel bondage.” God then tells Moses to go to the Pharaoh. This is the point I have pondered most. It seems to me, both God and Pharaoh enter into the negotiation with their dukes up. Each demonstrating their ability to oppress an enemy. I cannot get past this.

If God is all powerful, could he not have simply waved his magic wand and freed the Israelites? Perhaps awakened in the Pharaoh an appreciation for the value and respect his predecessor had for the Israelites? Brought a more humane Pharaoh into power? God went into Egypt with guns blazing to assert his supremacy over all other gods. God proceeded to deliver 10 plagues. The strategy was to instill fear in increasing measure, and ultimately vanquish Pharaoh and his forces. In our time we also see this strategy. It feels as if many parts of the world have adopted the stance of attack first. I am not saying that powerful offensive measures are never needed, and I am not suggesting that self-defense never requires force. But I am struggling with a question: with all of the strategies available to each of us as individuals, how can we enter into our day employing a different set of approaches? None of this is new, yet I believe we continue to struggle.

My challenge is that it is in the nature of humans to employ strategies that arise from our self-perceptions. To put it too simply, we criticize others mercilessly when we criticize ourselves relentlessly. If we enter into situations with other nations, states, communities and other individuals expecting opposition and aggression, those same battles are surely occurring within ourselves. This pattern is corrosive and over time we are diminished – less and less able to apprehend the world in a productive, generative and creative manner. One very small example of this is the following. Take a moment and remember a conflict or argument that you have had with someone over and over and over. It starts the same way and ends the same way each time (someone in your family will probably come to mind).

You realize at the first few words of the exchange, where the conversation is going. You know it well enough that you can deliver the other person’s lines. Free will is not at play here. You fret, you endure. And in effect you are enslaved by your automatic behaviors and unconsidered perspectives. At some point, you also notice that even though the conversation will play through to the end, your heart is not in it. You no longer have any enthusiasm for your position, and yet you are compelled to dance the dance until the musical number comes to an end.

This realization is the Ein Sof. The point of Divine potential, the reactivation of your agency. You can change the music, turn off the music, exit the dance floor. This is the time when you can see the burning bush and ask what is really happening here? What do I perceive? Va’era sets us up to see the uselessness of blindly pursuing a course of action without reflection. Va’era suggests the Pharaoh leads the Egyptians to ruin because he refuses to listen to his advisors when they point out that God’s power has already destroyed them and Pharaoh is foolish to think he can prevail and bring about a different ending.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote on the topic of free will in the Parshah Va’era saying:

That is what the Torah means when it says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Enslaving others, Pharaoh himself became enslaved. He became a prisoner of the values he himself had espoused. Freedom in the deepest sense, the freedom to do the right and the good, is not a given. We acquire it, or lose it, gradually. In the end tyrants bring about their own destruction, whereas those with willpower, courage, and the willingness to go against the consensus acquire a monumental freedom. That is what Judaism is: an invitation to freedom by resisting the idols and siren calls of the age.

My hope for us all is that over the course of 2025/5785 we remain open to the Ein Sof. Open to that glimmer of Divine potential that is the harbinger of a new perspective, a new way of being. May we explore new strategies, play new music, dance a new dance and welcome the possibility of seeing anew that which has been a part of our environment all along.

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Terror and Relief

Vayigash Drash by Marc Flitter

February 2025

Despite Abraham Joshua Heschel’s portrayal of Judaism as being a religion of deeds in contrast to Christianity characterized as a religion of faith, we do have the enumeration of 13 principles of faith formulated by Maimonides. The eighth of these fundamental principles states “I believe with perfect faith that the entire Torah now in our hands is the same one that was given to Moses our teacher, peace be upon him.” 

It follows from this principle that it seems reasonable to proceed with caution should a particular word or phrase invite a level of critical analysis prompted by what might best be termed a sense of anomaly, a deviation from a pattern or precedent. When no word is considered as wasted in the Torah a seemingly minor variation resists any inclination to attribute that variation to simple literary license. 

The opposite extreme invites similar caution. Although fascinating to contemplate, it is improbable that an anomalous word or phrase holds the secret to an event Martin Buber might have termed as an example of the “experiential amazement” resulting in prehistoric saga. 

How do we deal with our version of the astonishing, an encounter in Torah that strikes us, to paraphrase T.S.Elliott, as having read a verse again we have come to know it for the first time? 

There are two such anomalies that occur in the narrative of Joseph that merit attention. 

The first is placed in partial context in Parsha Vayigash, chapter 46, verse 2. 

“God spoke to Israel in night visions and he said Jacob, Jacob, and he said hin-ne-ni, here am I.” 

Hin-ne-ni is also the word spoken by Moses in the episode of the burning bush, responding to God’s “Moses, Moses.“ In fact with one exception, each time hin-ne-ni is uttered in the Pentateuch, whether it is by Abraham or Jacob or Moses it is understood as expressing an unquestioby willingness to accede to God’s will.

The pattern is established by Abraham at the Akeida, by Jacob when he is instructed to at long last depart with his family from his brother-in-law, Laban, and again as Jacob is commanded to descend to Egypt with his entire family. 

However there is a notable exception to this pattern that appears in parsha Vayigash, chapter 37, verse 13, where hin-ne ni is Joseph’s reply to Jacob who has told his favored son, with perhaps a hint of uncertainty, “are not your brothers pasturing in Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” 

And noteworthy, Joseph’s hin-ne-ni, his “here am I,” is answered before hearing the “I will do” specifics of Jacob’s command. “Look into the welfare of your brothers and the flock and report back word to me.” was the command. 

It soon becomes apparent that Joseph has not acceded to a simple reconnoitering. His willingness to serve will take over two decades to complete. But when his assigned task has concluded, Joseph will have not only insured the welfare of his brothers but their families as well. And his report back to his father, transmitted by his brothers, is equally astonishing. 

“God has made me master of all Egypt. Come down to me, do not delay. You will reside in the land of Goshen and you will be near to me, you, your sons, your grandchildren, your flocks, your cattle, and all that is yours.” 

However what was not included in Joseph’s report and what leads to the discovery of an additional anomaly, are the travails Joseph suffered in fulfilling his father’s directives. 

Omitted are the details of his being cast into a pit by his brothers, then extracted by them only to be sold into slavery, and subsequently unjustly imprisoned by his Egyptian master. 

There is a palpable oppressiveness we suffer with Joseph as he is subjected to these indignities. And just as his fate appears to be turning, as emissaries of Pharoah are dispatched to rush him from the prison where his extraordinary ability to interpret dreams has been provided by God to be the agent of his release, the Hebrew word employed in that saving verse, Parsha Mikeitz, chapter 41 verse 14, is not the word for prison used to describe the place where Joseph “enjoyed the full confidence of the warden of the prison and where he had full custody of all the inmates of the prison and everything that was done there, and whatever Joseph did in that prison Hashem made successful,” as related in Parsha Vayishev , chapter 39 verse 21. Instead, as the text reveals, Pharoah’s emissaries rush him back from the “pit” designated by the same Hebrew word employed for the pit into which his brothers had thrown him, the pit from which he had been extracted only to be sold into slavery. 

To review the morphology of both words, ha-bor for pit, and a has-so har for prison confirms that they do not share a common root. And so this reversion to the original Hebrew word for pit not only diminishes what should be an unqualified relief at his deliverance, but returns readers for however briefly to the despair of his initial terror. It seems similar to what Thomas De Quincey described as the extraordinary effect that the knocking at the gate in the drunken porter scene in Macbeth had upon him. Whether the horror of a King’s murder or the despair occasioned by fraternal abandonment, it seems each can be reimposed upon us with a simple act, or a single word change. 

In the end what seems to matter is that however relentless the Torah may appear and despite whatever details might strike us as anomalous, we can find respite in the words of the psalmist, “The Torah of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.”

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Emunah
Joseph and the Power of Faith

Miketz Drash by Rabbi Daniel Lev

February 2025

Did you know that holy, righteous people in the Torah make mistakes sometimes? In this week’s portion it was Joseph’s turn to make a booboo. It begins at the end of the last parsha. If you recall last week, Yoseph was living in an Egyptian prison due to his being framed for sexual assault by his master’s wife. Some commentators believed that he’d been in jail for at least ten years by then. One day, Pharaoh’s imprisoned wine butler asked Yosef to interpret his dream. As we know HaShem engaged in dream interpretation through Yosef. After he told the man that he’d be returned to his post as chief wine butler, Yosef said in Genesis 40:14-15: “Remember me when all is well with you again and do me the kindness of mentioning me to Pharaoh so as to free me from this place. For I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews and here I have done nothing that they should put me in a dungeon.” Yet, at the end of last week’s parsha the Torah tells us that the butler did not remember Yoseph, he forgot him! Why? Why does the Torah give us this story about his telling the butler he’d be released followed by the butler not returning the favor by immediately telling Pharaoh? According to our rabbinic tradition Joseph was a Tzadik, a holy/righteous person who lived within the flow of the Divine. He’s often referred to as Yoseph Ha Zadik – Joseph the Righteous One. A Tzadik lives in the flow of where life takes her or him without complaint and from a place of calm mindfulness. So veered away from that role when he looked to a person and not to G-d to release him. Another thing he did which is unbecoming of a Tzadik was to complain to the butler about his incarceration. His behavior showed just how far he was from being a Tzadik since he was not living by one of the signature qualities of a deeply spiritual person: He didn’t engage in Emunah.

Emunah means faith. It’s a deep knowing – one that is not based on what you empirically perceive on the outside. You can think of it as an “inside knowing” that you feel all the way down to your toenails. For example, even when she is mad at me, I know all the way down to my toenails that Margie loves me.

Emunah is also knowing that things will eventually work out for the best, as the legendary Talmudic rabbi Nachum ben Gamzu taught: “Gam zu latova” – “Whatever happens is for the good.” It’s also good to know that there is a spiritual kind of knowing that Emunah represents. It’s faith in knowing that HaShem, G-d, exists everywhere. We see this in the Tanach, the Jewish Bible, where it says in Psalm 139: 7-8: “Ana elech mey-ru-checha,” “Where can I go away from Your Spirit; Where can I escape from your Presence? If I raise myself up to heaven, You are there; If I lower myself to the bottom of existence, You are there!” Whether you believe it or not, G-d is everywhere. In the classic text of Jewish mysticism, the Tikunney Zohar, it says: “Leit atar panui mineha”– There is no place empty of the Divine.” It also says in the Raya Mehemna section of the Zohar that HaShem: “Me-malei kol almin u-sovev kol almin,” – G-d fills and surrounds all worlds.” When I have Emunah, faith, that the Divine Presence is everywhere I can count on HaShem to guide me through whatever obstacles are sent my way and this helps me to grow as a person. However, in last week’s parsha we see that Yoseph did not have this faith and apparently had not yet grown into the Tzadik he was to become. He didn’t know that G-d was in jail with him and even wilder, he didn’t know that HaShem was the dungeon! So, he asked a butler to free him. The consequence of Yoseph’s lack of Emunah, and one that eventually led to his entering onto the path of Emunah is shown at the beginning of this week’s parsha in chapter 42, verse one:

וַיְהִ֕י מִקֵּ֖ץ שְׁנָתַ֣יִם יָמִ֑ים וּפַרְעֹ֣ה חֹלֵ֔ם׃

Which means, “And it came to pass at the end of two years, Pharaoh dreamed….” From this we understand that Yosef’s lack of faith caused him to serve two more years in prison before the butler mentioned him to Pharaoh. But why was he in jail in the first place? If you remember earlier in his life, he was a prescient adolescent who was full of himself. He may have depended more on faith in himself at the expense of others and used the prophetic gifts HaShem gave him for his own self-veneration and to be one-up on his family. Why was Yoseph in prison now? – Because he needed to be there to learn humility, faith and to care for others (which he began to do). He needed to be there in order to become a Tzadik, a wholly righteous person. But after ten years he wasn’t quite there yet. Again, our parsha says:

וַיְהִ֕י מִקֵּ֖ץ שְׁנָתַ֣יִם יָמִ֑יםַ

“And it came to pass at the end of two years.” Yoseph still had not cultivated the faithful awareness that was expressed in Psalm 139 and in the Zohar, he was not yet fully aware that the Shechina, the Divine Presence, was everywhere. That HaShem was ready to guide him out of the dungeon and into a life of profound spiritual consciousness and actions. To get there, Yoseph had to stay in jail and work on himself another two years. By the time he experienced the miracle of being released from jail he knew, deep down, that G-d was everywhere. And this faith carried him into the roles of Tzadik and ruler over the Egyptian Empire. I’ll close with a teaching about miracles from the Chassidic master, the Alexander Rebbe, who said that HaShem does not do miracles in the air.

Miracles need someone to receive them and for that to happen, just like with Joseph, we have to build vessels within ourselves to receive the miracle. Emunah, faith, is one of those vessels. Related to this is a teaching by my teacher, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, quoting Psalm 136:4, which says: “Le-osei niflaot gedolot levado,” “(HaShem)…alone works great wonders.” He said that the word, Niflaot – Wonder – means that the way things go in life are at times unpredictable, unbelievable and surprising – whether it comes in the form of an election or ball game outcome, a financial downturn or a pandemic.

Although we hope that HaShem will immediately get us out of trouble or troubling times it doesn’t always turn out that way. This is because, for some of us, the trouble itself is the way to our personal liberation and growth. So Yoseph would not have become a complete Tzadik or the co-ruler of Egypt if he had not gone through the experience of prison. And it’s Chanukah now, the festival of lights, a time of miracles. It teaches us that although we sometimes enter some very dark places, we can, with the illumination of just one candle, dispel enough darkness to see our way beyond it. What is that one candle flame – it’s a little bit of Emunah, of that deep knowing faith that HaShem is everywhere, and is with us right now. Please let me bless you, and please bless me back, that as we encounter difficult times, we’ll be able to develop deeply empowering qualities such as Emunah that will become vessel, and through its light we’ll receive – and perceive – the miracles that will come. Shabbat Shalom.

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Journey to Bat Mitzvah

On Saturday January 11th, Sof hosted the Bat Mitzvah of Alice Flitter. It was a joyous event, well attended and well celebrated. The pictures of the event appear below and Alice’s drash is printed here as well.

Vayehi Drash by Alice Flitter

February 2025

Last summer, I asked Robert Littman what I would need to do to become a bat mitzvah, something I had never done as I moved from Hillel services to Reform congregations to congregation Sof Ma’arav, the place where my husband Marc and I regularly attend services, and more importantly, where we have felt most embraced and cherished as members. Robert told me that I would chant, in Hebrew, a Torah reading, and the maftir (a repeat of the final verses of the last reading), the Haftarah with the blessings before and after, and that I would also give a D’var Torah, literally, “a word of Torah,” a talk that interprets some part of the Torah portion or Haftarah that I just chanted.

As my birthday is in the middle of January, I chose the date of January 11 and Robert confirmed my Torah and Haftarah portions. But somehow, at the time, I didn’t realize how much singing would be involved. I was blessed to discover that my Torah portion would be Vayehi, the final verses in Beresheit, the book of Genesis. It is the culmination of the most complex family story in Torah.

And what a story it is, what I broadly refer to as the Joseph story although others, as they say in Hollywood, have prominent roles. However, as any of you know who have had a conversation with my husband Marc, and who loves to quote from movies, one of our favorites, A Midwinter’s Tale, has the great line, “Families. Sometimes they don’t work.” In the parshyiot preceding Vayehi Jacob has, in addition to his daughter Dina, twelve sons, with Joseph the most beloved by his father. This does not go well with the older brothers, especially as Joseph recounts his dreams where he and his brothers are working the fields and the sheaves of his brothers bow down before him. Then in another Joseph dream, the sun, moon and eleven stars prostrated themselves before Joseph. Jacob was willing to overlook the thought of him and his wife, Bilhah, as representing the obeisant sun and moon, but the brothers weren’t.

To begin with, the brothers initially conspired to kill Joseph and lie to their father with a fabrication that a “savage beast devoured him.” But after Reuben intervened they decided to merely let him starve in a pit in the wilderness, although Reuben thinks he’ll rescue Joseph later. But then Judah suggests that instead of letting Joseph die, they’ll make some money by selling him. Ultimately, according to Rashi, Joseph is sold several times and winds up in the house of Potiphar. Now Joseph was barely out of adolescence at this time so clearly his older brothers were not showing much maturity, or concern for their father’s brokenheartedness or even tolerance of their brother that their older ages could have suggested.

In Vayehi, the Hebrew phrase meaning “And he lived” refers to the life of Jacob that is now coming to an end. Jacob and his other eleven sons have been residing with Joseph in Egypt for 17 years. Note, no mention of Dina. Jacob is now on his deathbed. He summons Joseph and tells him that God has appeared to him, Jacob, now referred to as Israel, and blessed Israel saying,“ I will make you fertile and numerous, making of you a community of peoples; and I will assign this land to your offspring to come for an everlasting possession.” Israel/Jacob then has a blessing to bestow on Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh, although there is significant mixing up of these two but ultimately they are blessed in the names of Abraham and Isaac, that “they may be teeming multitudes upon the earth.” Notably, the Etz Hayim commentary points out that Manasseh and Ephraim are the first two brothers who seem to co-exist peacefully.

Jacob then calls his other sons for his deathbed farewell words, more references to their future than actual blessings. Jacob, once again referred to here as Israel, has stinging appraisal of some of his sons’ shortcomings while others are praised for their strengths. What struck me at this reading was that Jacob never mentions if he had ever known that the brothers had tried to dispose of Joseph, how they treated their own brother so callously. Perhaps the misdeeds that Jacob enumerates, specifically of Reuben, and Simeon and Levi, were an example for all of the brothers to aspire to better conduct. Jacob then gives final instructions on his burial, which the brothers fulfill with elaborate ceremony and mourning.

After Jacob’s death the brothers return from burying their father and fear that Joseph, despite all he has given his family, will finally take revenge on them for their mistreatment of him years ago. Having so quickly forgotten their father’s encouraging pronouncements the brothers lie to Joseph and say that their father sent this message to Joseph, “Before his death your father left this instruction: So shall you say to Joseph, ‘Forgive, I urge you, the offense and guilt of your brothers who treated you so harshly.” The brothers go on to say, ‘Therefore, please forgive the offense of the servants of the God of your father.’ And, the Torah states, Joseph was in tears as they spoke to him.” Was he heartbroken at the thought that the brothers had not really learned much from all they had experienced, did Joseph feel like a failure despite the high status he had achieved? After all, everything Joseph had done was to bring the family together. But Joseph once again shows the tzaddik that he is and comforts the brothers with the idea that everything that happened was for good and to bring about the survival of many people. The Joseph story concludes rapidly, with Joseph living to see his children’s children, “yu-le-du al bir-ke Yo-sef,” “born upon Joseph’s knees.” Note that the root for bracha, blessing, has the same root as bir-ke, “knees.” The connection of these two words is seen in our bent knee as a gesture of humility before God.

At the beginning of this drash I told you how I approached becoming a bat mitzvah. The WHY, NOW of it came from a visit to Jerusalem this past June, with my husband Marc, our daughter Samantha and son-in-law Andrew, I am blessed to have all of them here today, and my wanting to reaffirm my Judaism in the current climate of anti-Jewish sentiment that has surfaced globally. Here I am, surrounded by love expressed in so many ways: Marc, who is endlessly supportive and loving; Samantha and Andrew who came in from Arizona and are two of the most amazing people anyone could meet; the generous readers today: Dan, Marlene, Morris, Gayle, Dina and Gregg; Sandy and Don with their enthusiastic affirmation of Sof Ma’arav even though they refer to it as being “the party shul,” the continuous learning and sharing of what Dina so beautifully described as our eternal inheritance, seen in the generosity of Lorna’s patient, weekly Hebrew classes, to Gregg’s Talmud classes and the innumerable efforts to have our congregation elevate every detail of observance. I feel like it’s an Academy award acceptance speech, but for everyone else whom I haven’t mentioned, know that all of your efforts enrich our lives every week.

I also learned that no matter how well you sing, there is a joy to chanting Torah, Haftarah, and the blessings, and you can see it in the faces of the readers who came up to the bima today. Being a Jew is a journey, and becoming a bat mitzvah, literally a daughter of the responsibilities of commandments, is much different than it would have been when I was 12 or 13. I am a changed person by finally completing another step in that journey. I realized that even though I was doing a lot of this on my own, I couldn’t have gotten to this point without help. Dina patiently made pitch-perfect, helpful recordings of all of my Torah and Haftarah readings. I am thankful for Rabbi Robert Saunders who amazingly showed up this summer in Telluride, Colorado and shared his vast knowledge in weekly, hour-long Zoom classes. Trissa Walter’s lessons gave me singing confidence and led me into the world of voice training.

And I am so grateful for my beloved parents, George and Gloria Witterschein, and my beloved mother-in-law, Miriam Rosenthal Flitter, zikhronam livrakh, may their memories be for a blessing. They were vessels of love and great examples of kindness and integrity and humility and even though I’m way beyond my early adolescence, I hope to keep living up to that example.

“Here I am, surrounded by so much love.” That was how I spontaneously began my drash on January 11 when I became a bat mitzvah at Sof Ma’arav. My d’var Torah theme initially was going to be about the love found in the stories of Joseph and his people, a continuation I see every week when we are fortunate to attend services at Sof. I want to thank everyone who attended and participated in services that day for enveloping me and my family in such warmth.

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In the Image of Jacob

Parashat Vayishlach Drash by Rabbi Ken Aronowitz

January 2025

I was working with a Bar Mitzvah student years ago and was surprised to see that his Devar Torah consisted entirely of a series of questions. After thinking about Abraham questioning G-d and Korach questioning the authority of Moses and Aaron, I read through the Devar Torah and told the young man “This is so Jewish, don’t change a word!” In keeping with this tradition, I would like to pose the following question to all of you… Are you the same person you were 5, 10, 20 years ago? Are you the same person in terms of the way you look at the world and interact with it? If you think you are the same person today that you were then please raise your hand. If you think you are not the same person today that you were then please raise your hand.

To all of you who raised your hand for yes congratulations on the continuity and constancy in your life. But to all of you who raised your hand for no I believe that you are not only created B’tzelem Elokim, in the image of G-d, but also B’tzelem Yaakov, in the image of Jacob.I say that after looking at the words Jacob speaks to HaShem in last week’s parashat Vayeitzei as compared with the words he speaks to HaShem in this week’s portion Vayishlach; which show a significant change in Jacob. In last week’s portion Jacob leaves his home and family in Beer Sheva because that is what you do when your brother who you tricked out of his birthright blessing is threatening to kill you. Alone on this journey at night in a place he didn’t know, Jacob has a dream of angels ascending and descending on ladder or stairway which reached from the earth to the sky and G-d appearing beside him speaking words of comfort, Hinei anochi Eemach Ushmarticha, here I am with you and watching over you. Wherever you go I will bring you back to this land. I won’t leave your side until I have done all that I have promised you.

Jacob awakens and exclaims Achein Yeish AdoShem Bamakom Hazeh v’anochi lo yadati, G-d is in this place, and I didn’t know it. But if you were thinking that this is a transformative moment for Jacob…it’s not. Jacob’s words tell us that he is still Yaakov, the heal, the follower, the manipulator. In response to G-d’s promises Jacob plays let’s make a deal; If You G-d remain with me on my journey giving me bread to eat clothes to wear and return me safely to my father’s house, if you do all for this for me, then You HaShem will be my G-d.

Moving to this week’s parashah, Vayishlach, Jacob leaves the house of his uncle Lavan blessed with cattle, servants, two wives and twelve children. But his journey home is complicated by dark thoughts about encountering his brother Esau and the mess he left behind at home.Vayishlach, Jacob sends messengers to help smooth things over only to be informed that Esau was on his way to meet him with four hundred men.

Feeling anxious and uncertain on how things will go Jacob divides his family and possessions into two groups before once again turning to G-d but this time with more mature words of prayer. Gone is the bravado and the bargaining from his previous prayer. Instead, Jacob shows humility saying Katonti Mikel HaChasidim, I am unworthy of the kindness you have consistently shown me G-d, I have nothing to give you except to do what you ask of me. In this moment Jacob realizes that seeing his brother Esau is something that he needs to do in fulfilling G-d’s plans for him and keep the story of the Jewish people moving forward. Because Jacob understands that this was something he couldn’t do by himself, he needed help that only G-d could provide.

As a hospital chaplain I am constantly asked to pray for patients and when I ask a patient or family member what they are seeking through prayer, it’s usually G-d please bring about a healing, in some cases a miraculous healing. This represents how many people think of G-d and use prayer; G-d I need you to do this thing for me which reminds me of Jacob’s first prayer .

Why not? As School of Studies director I led many a model Passover Seder praising G-d who parted the waters of the Reed Sea saving our ancestors from Pharaoh’s army. And the children hearing this each year grow up thinking of G-d doing all the work when it comes to things we pray such as healing, peace, or doing well on a final exam. People think of G-d like my  mother who made my bed through my high school years. Maybe that is why at SJS we made a big deal about Passover and didn’t spend much time talking about the Shoah where G-d wasn’t there parting the waters for us.

Jacob’s prayer in this week’s parashah teaches us that praying is not a spectator sport but instead it’s about asking G-d to bless us with what we need for us to do the thing that needs doing. In fact, Jacob’s words of prayer this week speak to my personal prayer practice. When I pray as Chaplain, Rabbi, Cantor, husband or father for myself or someone else I ask G-d for two things. Koach (strength) and Chochma (wisdom) to do what is needed for the task set before us. 

G-d answered Jacob’s prayer in granting him the Koach and Chochma needed to win his wrestling match with an Ish appears, a man whom most commentators believe was an angel.The angel blesses Jacob with a new name, Yisra-Eil, one who wrestles or contends with G-d. And it is the Koach and Chochma that G-d grants Jacob makes the difference in making it possible for him to show up for his reunion with Esau.

So next time you need to do lead a community in prayer for Shabbat, deliver an important presentation, work through a time of illness or are faced with any other challenge or task, you can ask G-d to grant you the Koach and Chochma to do what needs to be done. It is what I pray G-d grants the members of the IDF in confronting those who seeks Israel’s destruction.

And what Jacob discovered, what I’ve found and believe you will find is that Amen, Eil Melech Neeman,  G-d is a faithful sovereign when it comes to granting us the strength and wisdom needed for whatever needs to be done. Shabbat Shalom.

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Shadow of Abraham

Toldot Drash by Josh Michaels

January 2025

V’ehleh Toldot Yitzhak. “These are the generations of Yitzhak.” So begins this week’s Parsha. Finally, Yitzhak is the protagonist – if only for this portion, still– poor, traumatized Isaac, finally, he stands as his own man, out of his father’s shadow. Not so fast! What does the parsha say next? V’eleh Toldot Yitzhak BEN AVRAHAM. Son of Abraham. And just to drive the point home, still in the first verse, the Torah adds – Avraham holid et Yitzhak. Avraham was the father of Yitzhak. Yitzhak was the son of Abraham, and Abraham was the father of Yitzhak. A, then B, B, then A. Don’t we know this already? Our sages say the Torah is never redundant, so there must be a good reason it’s beating us over the head with this information. But anyone who’s been following the narrative up to this point should hopefully know the relationship between Abraham and Isaac. And Isaac knows a thing or two about being in his father’s shadow; at least this time he wasn’t tied up. Rashi asks the question: why do we need to reiterate that Abraham fathered Yitzhak, right after we read that Yitzhak was the son of Abraham? The answer, according to some Rabbis, is quintessentially Jewish: gossip. They speculate – well, if everyone knew Abe and Sarah couldn’t get pregnant, and then Abraham pretends to be her brother and lets her have a little tryst with King Avimelech, and all of a sudden, here comes baby Yitzhak – you know, the neighbors will talk!

And look at this — later in the parsha, here comes King Avimelech again! Surely Isaac won’t make the same mistake Abraham did? I mean, how crazy would it be if a father and son both tried to pass their wives off as sisters with the same…. Interesting parallel, right? There are parallels galore in the stories of our patriarchs. A couple of weeks ago, Rabbeinu Dina gave a beautiful drash highlighting key points in which our Avot and Imahot “lifted their eyes” – and all the good things that flowed therefrom. My parallels here are much less sophisticated and nuanced – they kind of smack you in the face with how glaringly obvious they are. And whereas lifting one’s eyes requires self-actualization, transcendence, raising oneself above one’s present circumstances, the other parallels and similarities are thrust upon our characters. And so too for us. Whether nature or nurture, we find ourselves programmed to act like our parents did. Esau was able to trade his birthright away for a bowl of soup; we come to shul to talk about ours. The Avimelech and my sister/wife saga, along with the other patriarchal parallels in Genesis, show us that history is cyclical, as well as linear. We add another year to the calendar, but we go back and read the same stories again, and again. Many things in Yiddishkeit pass l’dor v’dor – including generational trauma. And Isaac’s trauma is severe. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks points out that after the Akeda, Isaac and his father never speak again.

And if it’s not bad enough that his dad was instructed to kill him – by God, who also promised through Isaac that his descendants would number the stars in the sky! – his son is instructed to dupe him – by Rebecca, his wife who he loves, who he prayed with when she couldn’t conceive (infertility being another parallel)! I can imagine Isaac almost like a bronze age Rodney Dangerfield – Ani lo get lo respect. Among the three patriarchs, Isaac is the most understated and underrated– aloof, restrained, relatively silent.  His father and son both weave way more compelling narratives throughout Genesis, packed with adventures, thrills, chills, and spills. Abram becomes Abraham, the father of monotheism, Yaakov becomes Yisrael, the nation who wrestles with God. Converts are b’nei Abraham, we are all b’nei Yaakov. But to paraphrase the Barbie movie, Isaac….is just Isaac.

Classic Middle Patriarch syndrome. Kabbalastically, Isaac is represented by the attribute of Gevurah, which is sometimes translated as “severity.” That sounds worse in English, and it kind of fits this vibe of Isaac. But it can also be translated as “strength.”  “Resilience.”  “Determination.”  Similarly, we could feel bad for Isaac, the overlooked, third fiddle.  But he doesn’t need a name change because God picked his name before he was even born – Despite everything that was foreseen, God also knew that Isaac would laugh. Similarly, Isaac is the only patriarch not to venture to Egypt, but only because God tells him he doesn’t need to. The holiness of the land and its covenant is enough for him.  He is also the only patriarch not to take a second wife, because of how much he loves Rebecca.  In response to her infertility, he prays with her; Sarah and Rachel, by contrast, are told “this is more of a ‘you’ problem.”  Avimelech needed a plague to realize he shouldn’t be touching Sarah; the King only needs to see how affectionate Isaac and Rebecca are with each other to know this younger wife is off-limits.  Side note – Jacob never ran into Avimelech, but he had a whole different problem with sister-wives. Like many children in dysfunctional families, Isaac becomes the glue forced to hold everyone together.  He is the bridge between generations.  Although not as effusive with hospitality as his Father, or as brimming with divine energy as his son Jacob, he is steady.  He is reliable.  And despite being the “severe” patriarch, Isaac shows tremendous love, but in subtle ways. The ancient Rabbis were bewildered by Isaac’s love and favoritism of Esau.  They couldn’t understand – just because he has a taste for meat?  That’s it?  Rabbi Sacks goes deeper.  He argues that Isaac’s unconditional love for Esau comes directly from Isaac’s two great traumas – the Akeda, when his father tried to kill him, and the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael, when his father sent away his older brother.  Rabbi Sacks notes that Isaac is not blind to Esau’s faults – for example, he is clearly aggrieved by Esau’s liaisons with Hittite women – but he is determined – he uses his GEVURAH – to love Esau anyway.

But where Isaac really shines – by not shining at all – is digging his wells.  Another obvious parallel, from Genesis 26:16 – And Yitzchak again dug the wells of water which they had dug in the days of his father, Avraham, and the Philistines had stopped them up after Avraham’s death; and he gave them names like the names that his father had given them. Isaac did not need to rename these wells for his ego, he did not need to explicitly differentiate his own deeds from his father’s.  The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains “it is precisely this lack of notoriety which defines the essence of Isaac. Abraham’s love of G‑d and humanity took him on a journey from the self outward—a journey etched in the roads of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Canaan. Isaac never left the boundaries of his homeland. For his was an inward journey, a journey into the depths of self, to the essence within.  Isaac was a digger of wells, boring through the strata of emotion and experience in search of the quintessential waters of the soul. Boring deeper than feeling, deeper than desire, deeper than achievement, to the selflessness at the core of self.  This is in fact, our mission:  to remove the dust and the dirt and go deep until we reach the sweet waters hidden below.” I don’t think the Rebbe’s use of the verb “boring” was a coincidence.  Just as still waters run deep, just beneath Isaac’s great strength lives great sweetness. In other words, where Winston Churchill once said, “if you’re going through hell, keep going.” Isaac Avinu might have said, “if you’re going through hell — keep digging that well.” Shabbat Shalom!

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Gratitude and Contradiction

Vayetze Drash by Marlene Booth

January 2025

Getting mixed up with Jacob and Lavan is a tricky business. Jacob who deceived his father is himself deceived when Lavan substitutes his older daughter Leah for her sister Rachel on their wedding night. Rachel whom Jacob loves and who becomes his second wife has difficulty conceiving a child while her sister Leah gives birth to six sons and one daughter. Jacob strikes a deal with Lavan for a share of his livestock, but then Lavan secretly withholds some of the livestock he has promised. Rachel steals one of Lavan’s idols and sits on it while on top of a camel, feigning ignorance of its whereabouts by claiming that her “lady days” prevent her from rising off the seat of the camel. Jacob and Lavan eventually make peace, and Jacob affirms his faith in God.

Though this parsha, Vayetze, “and he left,” focuses on Jacob, who leaves home to flee his brother Esau and to find a wife, I want to consider not Jacob but Leah, the woman he marries first, Leah, the overlooked, underappreciated, and in fact, unloved and perhaps hated (if you look at the verb in Hebrew), woman in this narrative who becomes an important matriarch. She’s dismissed at the very beginning of the parsha as someone with “weak eyes,” but she turns out to be a strong and vulnerable woman, true to a second, alternate meaning of the Hebrew term aynay rachot, “soft eyes,” which suggests perhaps someone of understanding and compassion. From the start, neither the narrative nor Jacob gives Leah the benefit of the doubt.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Jacob leaves his parents’ home at sunset, the onset of darkness and what it obscures being a theme in this parsha, dreams of a ladder that goes to heaven, and feels the presence of God.  As he wakes and continues his journey, Jacob comes to the home of his uncle Lavan in Haran, to his mother’s family, and he approaches shepherds he sees there at a well waiting to water their sheep. They point out to him his cousin Rachel coming with her father’s flock. When he sees Rachel, it is love at first sight, “Jacob kissed Rachel and broke into tears.” He is welcomed into Rachel’s home by her father Lavan, who after a month, demands that Jacob work for him and asks what his wages will be. The parsha gives us context for Jacob’s answer, “Rachel was shapely and beautiful. Jacob loved Rachel; so he answered, I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter (beetcha hakatanah) Rachel. This phrasing is revealing since by using the word ketanah, “younger,” Jacob shows some hint of understanding that he’s violating social norms by asking to marry the younger daughter before the elder daughter is married, almost as if in some way he anticipates that there might be trouble with his unorthodox request.

Jacob serves seven years for Rachel, and, “they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for Rachel.” After working seven years, Jacob is in a hurry to consummate his marriage to Rachel, “Give me my wife, for my time is fulfilled, that I may cohabit with her.” But first there needs to be a wedding, and when evening comes, when it is dark outside so that seeing distinctly is difficult, we learn that Lavan “took his daughter Leah and brought her to him (Jacob); and he co-habited with her.” Biblical commentator Avivah Zornberg notes, “what happens during the night is irreparable…In some real sense, Leah becomes Rachel during the night.” According to Rashi, Rachel was in on the deception of substituting her older sister for her. Rashi writes “Rachel had given (Leah) the secret code words that Jacob, fearing deception, had given to Rachel.” Rashi does not explain why Jacob might fear deception.  Is it because he too deceived someone, his father, and his deception, substituting himself for his older brother, took place during the night? Perhaps. But it was too late, “when morning came, there was Leah!”

Deception is not a great way to begin a marriage. Jacob works a second term of seven years and then, “(he) cohabited with Rachel also; indeed, he loved Rachel more than Leah.” Zornberg tells us that the also quality is always there in his relationship with Rachel, but Jacob does not love Leah. But God intervenes, “The Lord saw that Leah was unloved and he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.”  And the competition is on between the two sisters – Leah, fertile but unloved, Rachel, loved but infertile.

Leah gives birth to three sons and gives each one a name that speaks to her feelings.  Son number one is Reuven which means, “the Lord has seen my affliction” and also “now my husband will love me.” Son number two is named Shimʻon, from the same Hebrew root as the word for Shema, and it means “This is because the Lord heard that I was unloved and has given me this one also.” The third son, Levi, means “attached to,” meaning “this time my husband will become attached to me, for I have borne him three sons.” But Leah’s tone and attitude change dramatically when her fourth son is born. Judah, Yehuda, “to praise,” will become the name for Jews, Yehudim. Leah says, “this time I will praise the Lord.” Rabbi Yochanan in the Talmud tells us that no one since the creation of the world had offered gratitude to God until Leah, who finds it in her heart to offer thanks for the gifts and blessings she has received. Rabbi Shai Held, a Torah scholar and Avi’s and my former teacher, writes of Leah, “She accepts the disappointments of the world even as she embraces the holiness in it. Leah has spent years aching for the love of her husband, repeatedly convincing herself that perhaps it is just around the corner.”

“Leah (She) is disappointed…as she has every right to be.  But she is also grateful.  Despite the intensity of her pain, she too has her blessings.” Leah teaches us to show gratitude and reminds us through her actions that we can hold two contradictory feelings at once – wishing for more but also feeling grateful for what we have. By contrast, the parsha tells us that Rachel, the wife who is shapely and beautiful and holds her husband’s love, becomes envious of her sister, and says to Jacob, “Give me children or I shall die!” In the rivalry between the two sisters, apparently Jacob’s love alone does not compensate for being barren. Unlike her sister Leah who knows she is not loved by her husband but who still feels gratitude for what she does have, Rachel loses all patience. Later in the parsha, after Leah has given birth to two more sons, and a daughter, Dina, we learn, “Now God remembered Rachel; God heeded her and opened her womb,” and “she conceived and bore a son and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” She names her son Joseph which means, “May the Lord add another son for me.” She will, we know eventually get her wish with the birth of Benjamin, but she will die in childbirth which some commentators suggest ironically and tragically links to her earlier plea to Jacob to give her a child or she will die.

So, we have Rachel, loved, flawed, stealing her father’s idols and lying about having done so and Leah, unloved but showing gratitude to God. Why then, may we ask, in the Bible is Rachel, the sister who is loved by Jacob but does not show gratitude for her blessings, listed first, before Leah? When we recite the Amidah, we list our forefathers like this, “Alohay Avraham, alohay Yitzchak, vaʻalohay Yaacov,” and we list our foremothers this way: “Alohay Sara, alohay Rivkah, alohay Rachel, vaʻalohay Leah.” Why do we mention Leah after her younger sister? Etz Chayim notes this practice at the bottom of page 180 but doesn’t tell us why. Even when we bless our daughters on Shabbat, we also include Leah last, “May you be like Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, and Leah.” Leah as a model of Jewish womanhood is someone who does not turn her back on pain – she acknowledges it quite openly in the names she chooses for her first three sons, but she also finds a way to move forward by showing gratitude for all she has. In that way, she paves a path toward living with contradiction, pain and gratitude at the same time, perhaps something we learn ourselves as we navigate being Jewish in the world. Shabbat shalom.