Mindful Torah...and more

This week's parashah /portion is Lekh L'kha (Bereshit/Genesis 12:1-17:27). In this parashah , God speaks to Abram, saying to him " Lekh L'kha ... go forth (also translated/interpreted as 'go for yourself' or 'go [in] to yourself') from your land, the place of your birth, from your father's house to the land that I will show you." Thus begins the journey of Abram and Sarai, later Abraham and Sarah, to the land of promise, which is unknown to them and which God will show them. As they begin their journey Abram performs a sacrifice at dusk, as commanded by God, as he lay out the pieces of the animals to be sacrificed we read, "And behold, a great, dark horror fell upon Abram when the sun was going down. God said, 'Know for sure that your offspring will be strangers in a land that is not theirs and they will serve them and be afflicted for 400 years. But I will judge that nation that they will serve. Afterward they [Abram and Sarai's ...

Noah haya ish tadik v’tamim b’dorotav . Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his age. This simple verse with which our parasha opens has been the basis for much discussion by the rabbis and others through the generations. In 12th century France, perhaps Rashi encapsulated the argument best. To paraphrase him “on the one hand the fact that Noah could be a righteous man in an age when everyone else was so debased and immoral makes him more worthy; on the other hand, he was only considered righteous in comparison to the unrighteous ones of his age. Had he lived in the time of Abraham, when righteousness abounded, he would not have been considered righteous at all.” So… will the real Noah please stand up. Was he a righteous man bravely facing the injustice of his age, or was he simply an OK guy who seemed good because everyone else was so bad? The consensus of our rabbis of old seemed to be that Noah was what they call in Yiddish, a tzaddik im pelz . Literally this means a right...

This week we begin again the annual Torah reading cycle with Parshat Beresheet (Genesis/Beresheet 1:1-). In the parashah we read the creation story, within which God says “Let us make adam/human in our image…” For centuries the plural nature of this verse has been explored. In a midrash/rabbinic legend, the rabbis imagined a conversation between God and the angels. The angels of love, truth, justice and peace argue about whether or not the human should be created. Truth claims that the human should not be created because he will lie. Peace proclaims the human should not be created because she will make war. How does God react? God throws the angel of Truth to the ground and in that moment when the angels are caught unawares God created the human. Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev questioned why God left Peace alone, since the angel had also argued against human’s creation. His answer is that it is each human being’s search for and r of his/her individual truth as THE Truth that...

This Sunday or Saturday (depending on which tradition you observe) we celebrate Simchat Torah (Rejoicing with the Torah). On this festival Jews around the world finish reading the end of the book of Devarim/Deuteronomy and then begin reading the start of Bereshit/Genesis. In honor of the end of the Torah reading cycle I would like to share with you a midrash on the death of Moses that I wrote. This is a follow-up to another midrash focusing on Gershom, the oft-forgotten eldest son of Moses. In this midrash Gershom discovers that God and Moses had an agreement that neither of Moses's sons would succeed him as leader, as Moses did not want either of them to be as alienated from his family and his people as he was in his life. I hope you enjoy this sequel. If you'd like to read the first midrash please let me know and I can post it or send it to you. Chag Same'akh - Happy Holiday, Steven A Kiss Divine Moses stood at the top of Mt. Nebo and surveyed all that was before him....

Though this evening is Shabbat, it also marks the beginning of the festival of Sukkot. As one of the three pilgrimage festivals (along with Pesakh /Passover and Shavuot) it is one of the three times per year when our ancestors would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This pilgrimage was to give thanks to God for the fall harvest and to pray that the coming months would bring adequate rain for next year’s crops. The day after Sukkot ends, on the festival of Shemini Atzeret (which some view as the last day of Sukkot) the Jewish people around the world begin to insert the prayer for rain in our daily liturgy. On Sukkot, it is also customary to read from the biblical book of Kohelet /Ecclesiastes during Sukkot. This biblical book begins with the well known “Futility, futility, all is futility…” The author (traditionally believed to be King Solomon, though it was written long after he died) paints a somewhat pessimistic and even cynical portrait of a life where nothing can be certain and ...