The Ger: Zionism, Immigrant Justice, and Chrismukkah

This week’s parashah is called Vayeishev, after the first word of the portion. “And he [Jacob] settled…” (Genesis 37:1)

The root word is yashav, most literally “to sit”, and from there the secondary meanings of dwelling or settling down. It has the flavor of stability, an intent to ground oneself in place. In the context of our parashah, Jacob’s settling sets the context for the beginning of the Joseph story. 

But Ramban (13th century Spain) reads the whole verse closely and looks backward to the previous verse which concluded last week’s reading, about Esau choosing to dwell away from Jacob, in the land of Edom:

Now Jacob was settled in the land where his father had sojourned (root: ger), the land of Canaan (Genesis 37:1).

The meaning of the verse is that since Scripture had said that the chiefs of Esau dwelt in the land of their possessions (Genesis 36:43) — that is to say, the land which they took to themselves as a possession forever — it now says that Jacob, however, dwelt as his father had, as a stranger (ger) in a land which was not their own but which belonged to the Canaanites. The purport is to relate that they elected to dwell in the Chosen Land, and that God’s words to Abraham, That your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs (Genesis 15:13), were fulfilled in them but not in Esau, for Jacob alone shall be called their progeny.

There are two startling interpretations Ramban offers here. 

First, when he quotes God’s words to Abraham, he is calling back to the original covenant. God promises a lot to Abraham’s descendents, but warns him that before fully inhabiting the Promised Land they will be strangers in a strange land, and fall into servitude for centuries. Most readings assume that the strange land is Egypt, where the Israelites will indeed be enslaved. But Ramban instead claims that the strange land is the Promised Land itself. Canaan is the location where Abraham’s descendents will live as the ger.

What is a ger? Rabbi Shai Held summarizes it this way: The “ger, commonly rendered as ‘stranger,’ ‘sojourner,’ ‘alien,’ or ‘foreigner,’ refers to a resident of the land who has no family or clan to look after him, and who is therefore vulnerable to social and economic exploitation” (Judaism is about Love). 

Or as Abraham ibn Ezra put it a thousand years earlier: 

In Hebrew a person who has a family is likened to a branch attached to its source. Therefore such an individual is called an ezrach, for the meaning of ezrach is a branch, as in a sprouting tree with many branches (ke-ezrach ra’anan) (Psalms 37:35). On the other hand, a stranger is termed ger in Hebrew from the word gargir (berry), for he is like a berry plucked from a branch. There are some unintelligent people who find this explanation farfetched. However, if they knew the meaning of each letter and its form then they would recognize the truth.

The second startling interpretation from Ramban, then, is saying that the way Jacob and his family inherit the covenant, in contrast to Esau, is by living without an outsized sense of possessiveness regarding the land. Even at a later time, when the Israelites are told to dispossess the Canaanites and possess the land fully themselves (Numbers 33:53), their own relationship to the land is qualified by their relationship to God. “The Land is Mine; you are but strangers (gerim) and residents with Me” (Leviticus 25:23). 

As Shai Held says, “Being a stranger is not just a historical memory from the past; it is an existential reality that is always also true in the present.”

~~~

There are at least three ways to apply these ideas to our moment in time. 

1. Settlers in modern Israel

It is hard for me to read Ramban’s comment and not immediately think about contemporary settlers in the West Bank and those who are pushing to resettle Gaza. This ideology of absolute claim to any land once promised by God feels like land-worship and not God-worship (remember, “the Land is Mine; you are but strangers with Me”). This excess of possessiveness belongs to the archetype of Esau, not of Jacob/Israel. 

What I find most interesting, though, is that Ramban himself is sometimes described as the “first Zionist”. After being forced into a disputation about the truth of Judaism versus Christianity in Spain, his safety was increasingly in question. Aware of the peril of being Jewish in hostile Christian Spain, he started to articulate a return to the land of Israel as a mitzvah. Eventually he himself left for Jerusalem at an old age, where he finished his Torah commentaries and helped build a synagogue that - although moved, rebuilt, destroyed, and rebuilt again - still exists today. 

Ramban embodies the complexity of diasporic vulnerability with a yearning for a real homeland. And embedded in his thought is a safeguard against the rabid idolatry of extreme nationalism. 

2. Immigrants in modern America

To speak of the ger is to be sensitive to the experience of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in our country. It is a given Jewishly that we cultivate empathy for anyone in a vulnerable situation. We may debate about the best policies but we do not demonize, dehumanize, or deny responsibility towards others. 

In a spiritual sense, we are all gerim. To be human is to be on the move (even if your family has been rooted in a place for generations). To be human is to yearn for solid ground in a world of impermanence. Kavana partner - and my thought partner in mussar and ethics -  Bruce Kochis pointed out to me that when we follow the value of “welcoming the stranger” (a trait exemplified by Abraham), we risk dividing the world into “us and them”, even with positive intent. Imagine working for immigrant justice with the humility of our own existential condition as a ger, and attunement to directing care and resources to those who are most materially vulnerable right now to that shared human experience. 

(If you are so moved to direct some end-of-year donations to refugee resettlement, Jewish Family Services of Seattle is a great choice!)

3. Jews in America

Finally, if there is anywhere that Jews have felt settled in Diaspora, it is the United States of America. And yet, the last year has more of us remembering our existential condition of being gerim. Do we belong here? Are we safe here? Where can we fully express ourselves? Feeling like a ger sometimes isn’t a failure of belonging, but a spiritual opportunity to remember deeper truths about Judaism, humanity, the world and its Creator. 

Hanukkah is nearly here - a holiday which originated in the land of Israel as a defiant attempt at cultural “purity” from Hellenistic Greek influence, and which today ironically derives a lot of its presence (and presents) from its proximity to Christmas. 

This year in particular, as Christmas and Hanukkah coincide (Chrismukkah), we will go through the intricate American Jewish dance of rejecting, embracing, and intertwining our heritage with larger cultural and religious rituals. It is a season where as an American Jew I feel the most fascinating, uncomfortable, and occasionally charming feelings of belonging and estrangement, of familiarity and wonder. 

May the winter season enlighten your own sense of belonging, and your own sense of sojourning. 

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

A Particular Concern (or, Concentric Circles of Care)

Last week, inspiration (in the form of a philosophical quandary) landed right in my inbox! Rabbi Jay sent an event reminder out to Kavana's Mussar group, which has been slowly working through Rabbi Shai Held's new and acclaimed book Judaism is About Love this fall. In the reminder email, Rabbi Jay wrote:

Here's your juicy quote from elsewhere in the chapter: "Morality, it is commonly held, is meant to be free of bias or prejudice; under most circumstances, 'playing favorites' is considered immoral... [Others] reject this kind of thinking out of hand, allowing that 'it is (not merely psychologically understandable but) morally correct to favor one's own,' those with whom we have personal ties of some kind." (p. 139)

These lines resonated with me, because I have already been mulling over this philosophical question for some time, without exactly being able to give voice to it. The topic had sprung to my mind just the previous week, in fact, when it was declared that Omer Neutra -- an American-Israeli previously thought to have been taken as a hostage on October 7th -- had died on that day. The six-degrees-of-separation concept simply does not apply when it comes to Jewish geography; I did not know Omer Neutra personally, but we were separated by only a single degree of separation in multiple directions (and for some within the Kavana community, there are no degrees of separation whatsoever!). I listened to the funeral service that was held for him on Long Island, feeling like I had lost a member of my own extended family... which in a way, I had.

Our Torah portion this week, Vayishlach, puts a spotlight on familial relationships and the ways that they stir us to emotion and action. Right in the middle of the parasha, we find the story that's often titled "the rape of Dinah." In it, Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, "goes out" and is promptly snatched and seemingly forced into a sexual relationship with Shechem, son of the local chieftain, Hamor. Shechem is smitten with Dinah and sends his father to try to negotiate a marriage. Hamor approaches Jacob and his sons, Dinah's father and brothers, who express their willingness to make this union happen, but insist that Hamor and all of the men of his tribe must first become circumcised. Surprisingly, Hamor agrees to the condition, and a mass circumcision of all the men of Hamor's town takes place. (If this story is new to you, I highly recommend reading it in its entirety in Genesis chapter 34. As an aside, I also feel the need to note that this story takes place in a society that is problematically patriarchal. There's lots of great feminist commentary on Dinah's story too; I recommend this article from the Jewish Women's Archive as a good starting point with a great bibliography for further exploration.)

Picking up inside the story, the text of Gen 34:25-26 then recounts: 

"On the third day, when they were in pain, Shimon and Levi, two of Jacob’s sons, brothers of Dinah, took each his sword, came upon the city unmolested, and slew all the males. They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword, took Dinah out of Shechem’s house, and went away."

The Torah text as it unfolds from here and many rabbinic commentaries on this story are highly critical of Shimon and Levi's behavior, raising serious questions about the ethics of their violent and vengeful actions. (That is not my topic for this email, but I do think it's important to note that these critiques of their overzealousness come from within our tradition and are taken quite seriously. If you're interested to hear more about this, please join us tomorrow at Kavana's Shabbat Morning Minyan, where I know Chuck Cowan will be addressing this in his Dvar Torah.) 

Returning to the theme I began addressing above, though, this week I am especially struck by the familial relationships, the circle of concern, and the "favoring one's own" that we see emerge so clearly in Shimon and Levi's actions. Family ties and lines of connection are absolutely stressed throughout the entire Dinah narrative. (This is true of all the characters; it's never "Hamor and Shechem," but rather "Hamor and his son Shechem.") With regard to the verse I've cited above, Rashi notices a "problem" in the text: Shimon and Levi are called "Dinah's brothers," and yet they are only two of twelve brothers. Rashi's commentary on this verse cites an ancient midrash which addresses this issue:

“Dina's brothers” – was she only the sister of the two of them? Was she not the sister of all the tribes? It is, rather, because they endangered their lives on her behalf, that she is called by their name. (Genesis Rabbah 80:10)

Despite all the many critiques of Shimon and Levi's behavior that we find elsewhere, Rashi's note feels like a positive comment, reading the fact that Shimon and Levi jump to action and are willing to put themselves on the line on their sister's behalf as an act of loyalty and love that merits them being described through their relationship with one another.

In Chapter 6 of Judaism is About Love (the same chapter Kavana's Mussar group was reading together last week), Rabbi Shai Held explores the pulls in Jewish ethical thought between partiality and universal concern. He argues that ultimately, Jews are obligated to love both the "near" and the "distant" -- that is, to care for one's own people and for humanity as a whole. He is unequivocal in arguing that a "family first" approach must not be allowed to devolve into "family only" (see page 134). And yet, he asserts that "family first" is an ethical Jewish stance, writing (for example):

"If love is essential to the good life -- and it hardly needs arguing that it is -- and part of what it means to love someone is to be partial toward them, then some degree of special concern for those we love seems permissible and even required" (142).

This line of reasoning very much resonates for me, as I try to unpack my own emotional response to the events unfolding in the world around me. I am interested in and care about so many of the events unfolding worldwide and the fate of the individuals involved, but it's also a fact that some events strike me more deeply and personally than others. So, for example, when I read reports last week of an arson attack on a synagogue in Melbourne, Australia, the incident felt far closer than the miles of physical distance might suggest they should. And, I continue to feel my own heartstrings tied up in the fate of the hostages and their loved ones.

Next month, two Israeli/American clinical social workers who are part of the Kavana community, Michal Inspektor and Michal Goldring Keidar, will be offering a workshop for members of our community interested in exploring some of these themes and interconnections. They write: "The traumatic conditions faced by approximately 100 hostages held captive in Gaza extend beyond the individuals and their families, affecting our entire community. While many may not have a direct connection to them, the mental health consequences ripple outward, impacting our collective well-being." I am very much looking forward to this opportunity to further probe the familial ties that bind us to Jews elsewhere, and how we can transform our distress into meaningful action and advocacy. (If these topics sound meaningful to you as well, please save the date for Sunday evening, 1/26, and stay tuned for further details about this workshop in next week's newsletter.)

Meanwhile, may this Shabbat draw us into closer connection... with Torah, with one another, with the Jewish people, and with all of humanity. In the words of Rabbi Shai Held once again, may our love grow in "expanding concentric circles," "in and from the particular," such that we can "love our own, and everyone else too." 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Luz, of Lore and Lure

“The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; 
the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; 
the deeper our love, the more pain its loss will bring: 
these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings.”
― Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life

When I think of all biblical characters, the one I most associate with paradox is Jacob: “A situation, person, or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities” (Oxford English Dictionary). A “simple” man who is always scheming; the “good” brother who manipulates, lies, and tricks his way into blessing. He is the patriarch with two names that evoke struggle: Yaakov, “one who holds the heel” trying to emerge first from the womb; and Yisrael, “one who wrestles with God”. 

In the opening of our parashah, Vayeitzei, Jacob flees from his brother’s wrath. He finds a spot to sleep in some unnamed place. There he has a dream with a ladder to heaven and angels, and God speaks to him, promising him the covenant that God had made with Abraham and Isaac before him. He wakes up startled and in awe. “And he called the name of the place: Bet-El/House of God— however, Luz was the name of the city in former times” (Bereshit / Genesis 28:19).

This unnamed place all of a sudden gets two names, just like Jacob eventually will. 

Rabbeinu Bachya (1255–1340, Spain) asks a basic question here: “Why did the Torah bother to tell us that at a still earlier point in history the town had been known as Luz? What benefit do we derive from such information?” 

An ancient Jewish myth (Bereishit Rabbah 69:8) tells us that the name luzmeans an almond (or perhaps hazelnut) tree. And the sages spin a wild story about this city:

This is Luz, in which they dye sky blue wool. This is Luz that Sennacherib attacked but did not transfer its population; [that] Nebuchadnezzar [attacked], but he did not destroy it. 
This is Luz, over which the angel of death never had dominion. What would the elderly among them do? When they would become very old [and tired of life], they would take them outside the walls and they would die. 
Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: Why is it called Luz? Anyone who would enter it would proliferate mitzvot and good deeds like an almond tree [luz]. 
The Rabbis say: Just as a luz has no opening, so, too, no man could ascertain the location of the city entrance. 
Rabbi Elazar said in the name of Rabbi Pinḥas bar Ḥama: Luz was located at the entrance of a cave. There was a hollow almond tree and they would enter the cave through the almond tree and through the cave to the city.

Now this is a city I would like to visit! The only problem is that the rabbis have told us how amazing Luz is, and yet Jacob sleeps nearby having no idea that it exists. In the apparent wilderness, with some stones and an old almond tree nearby, Jacob rests and has a vision of God. Then he builds an altar and goes on his way. The midrash introduces another paradox - an incredible city that is hidden from those would most benefit from it. 

So why does the Torah mention Luz?

Rabbeinu Bachya gives us another legend. He suggests that “perhaps the Torah wanted to hint by using the name Luz that this spot had been the starting point of the earth rejuvenating itself. It was the site at which earth first started to develop into the globe as we know it. The word luz in the midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 18:1) means the place in the spine [imagined to be a nut-shaped bone] from which the tissue is able to regenerate itself at the time of the resurrection.”

We’ve stumbled into even stranger territory here! According to Jewish imagination, in the messianic age humans who have died will be reconstituted into living bodies, and the process starts with an indestructible mythical luzbone near the top of the spine. 

I think of Jacob’s dream here as a hinge-point, a moment of transformation that divides his life into a before and an after. He will have more hinge-points. So do we. And at the hinge-point, there are at least two possibilities for how we react. The first, represented by the magical city of Luz, is the desire to escape the paradoxes of life, a yearning for the ultimate sanctuary where death itself (what Yehuda Amichai calls “Change’s prophet”) has no dominion. Change is hard, even positive transformational change. We all want to live in Luz sometimes, cocooned within stability.

But Jacob doesn’t enter the city. In my imagination, he spies it through the hollow almond tree and recognizes it as a utopian distraction from his purpose in life. Instead, he harnesses the generative energy of the luz bone. Instead of entering into a context where nothing has to change, he taps into that kernel of continuity within him. That indestructible, ever-renewing something within that allows us to grow with courage, to embrace change gently, and to keep moving forward on our journeys into the unknown.

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Abundance!

This week's Torah portion, Parashat Toledot, prominently features the foundational stories of Jacob and Esau. From their wrestling in the womb to the intense sibling rivalry and parental favoritism that feature prominently, it's no wonder that their tale culminates in estrangement! The family dynamics between parents Isaac and Rebecca and children Esau and Jacob are certainly not models of family relationships that we want to emulate (in fact, some of our Kavana Moadon Yeladim students recently put Rebecca "on trial" to evaluate whether or not she was a good parent!).

At the peak of this Torah portion's narrative, we find the most famous scene, where Isaac blesses each of his two sons in succession. First, Jacob goes to his father disguised as his older brother Esau -- with hair on his arms and a goat dish that his mother has helped him prepare -- and receives what should have been the blessing for the first-born child. Then, Esau approaches his father with a dish he has prepared from the game of his hunt. Isaac realizes that he has been tricked, but manages to come up with a second blessing.

The two blessings that Jacob and Esau receive are substantively different. Jacob is promised that other nations will bow to him and his brother will serve him (see Gen. 27:29), whereas Esau's blessing says that he will live by the sword and serve his brother (Gen. 27:40). 

Given how opposite these messages are, it is striking that the blessings also overlap so significantly. The commonality between the two blessings is the language of abundance. To Jacob (in disguise), Isaac says: “May God give you of the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth, abundance of new grain and wine" (Gen. 27:28), and to Esau, Isaac says: “See, your abode shall enjoy the fat of the earth and the dew of heaven above" (Gen. 27:39). 

At the time of receiving these blessings, Jacob must have felt triumphant (if also somewhat guilty), and Esau must have felt like he had just lost everything. And yet, Isaac communicates to both of them that they will have plenty; they will receive what they need from above and below.

These feel like especially powerful lines to highlight this week, in light of Thanksgiving. The roots of this American holiday are actually somewhat complex, but the tradition that has come down to us has everything to do with acknowledging and giving thanks for the bounty and abundance that is ours.

Although some Thanksgivings happened earlier, our American tradition of celebrating a national Thanksgiving Day each year on the final Thursday of November began with a proclamation made by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War. Lincoln's proclamation reads, in part:

"The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, the order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict...Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Highest God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy..."

The underlines above are mine: I am struck by the way the "blessings of fruitful fields and beautiful skies" mirrors the "fat of the earth and the dew of heaven above" in Isaac's blessings. In addition, in Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation, much as in the blessing to Esau, there is an acknowledgement that circumstances are not ideal, and yet, still, there is an abundance of good that must be acknowledged: "gracious gifts of the Highest God," given in "mercy."

This Thanksgiving, it may not feel to us like all is well in the world: not in America, and not as Jews nor as humans. And yet, our lives are filled with abundant blessings, each and every day. Most of us have what we need and so much more! Let us acknowledge our abundant blessings with gratitude. And may our gratitude, in turn, motivate us towards deeds of kindness and acts of generosity, as we seek to pass on the blessings and the bounty which we have received.

Wishing you a happy Thanksgiving and a Shabbat Shalom (in advance),

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Wise Aging

Inside you, boy,
There’s an old man sleepin’,
Dreamin’ waitin’ for his chance.
Shel Silverstein, “The Folks Inside”

Avraham demanded aging… The Holy One of Blessing said to him: “As you live, you have demanded a good thing, and it will begin with you.”Rabbi Yehuda bar Simon, Bereishit Rabbah 65:9

Now Avraham was old, advanced in days (ba bayamim),and God had blessed Avraham in everything.Bereishit/Genesis 24:1

Avraham occupies a unique position in Jewish history, as the very first Jew (along with his wife Sarah). According to the midrash, he is also the very first person to become old! What the midrash goes on to explain, however, is that people had been getting old since, well, the beginning of time, but people’s appearances didn’t change. Visitors would confuse father and son, daughter and mother, because they weren’t visibly generationally distinct. (This would pose all sorts of interesting problems for “young adult” or “senior” groups today!) 

What Avraham demands from God is that he not only be old, but that he alsolook old. “Gray hair is a crown of glory” (Proverbs 16:31). So Avraham is the first person to go gray, and therefore to gain the dignity and distinction of being an elder. 

What sets this midrash in motion is the doubled phrasing in the Torah: Avraham was (1) old; and (2) advanced in days. We don’t need both phrases to get the idea, and so the midrash clarifies that he was old both in duration of time and in appearance, and that he desired this. 

The 18th century Chassidic master Rebbe Nachman goes in a different direction (Likutei Moharan, Part II 59:1:3). The phrase “advanced in days” in Hebrew reads ba bayamim, literally “coming in the days”. Another close English idiom is “getting up in years”, but Nachman takes the phrase literally as capturing the active energy of Avraham as he moves day by day through his life. 

“Avraham reached his level through the days for he recognized his Maker at the age of three (Talmud Bavli, Nedarim 32a) and progressed constantly, from level to level.”

In other words, Avraham’s age is a reflection of his spiritual development. He has used his days well, pursuing opportunities to clarify his understanding of the world, God, and self so that he can act righteously. 

The poet Mary Oliver captures a version of this energy in her poem “Halleluiah”:

Everyone should be born into this world happyand loving everything.
But in truth it rarely works that way.
For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward it.
Halleluiah, anyway I’m not where I started!

Avraham is the epitome of a spiritual savant whose every day brings him closer to God. Mary Oliver reminds us that even when we clamor towards a happy, loving, holy life we cannot skip steps and we must grow in these qualities, day by day, even if not quite at the pace of Avraham our ancestor.

But Nachman uses Avraham’s excellent example not as an aspiration, but rather as a caution:

“Such a person suffers loss as a result of acting quickly. For when he is very quick and quickly runs from mitzvah to mitzvah, he thereby loses the element of holiness, that which is between mitzvah and mitzvah. On account of this quickness he bypasses and skips over this element. This is because the mitzvah itself is coming toward him, since it is being pulled and dragged in his direction by the first mitzvah, which drags the second one. Thus, when he also runs quickly toward the mitzvah, he might skip over and bypass the aforementioned element—i.e., that which is between the mitzvot. He is therefore one who acts quickly and suffers loss. But if he waits a bit, he can in the meantime attain also the element between the mitzvot, as mentioned above.”

Nachman’s kabbalistic ideas are dense and I confess I don’t fully understand what he is getting at in his theory of mitzvot, but I was struck by his insistence that a certain speedy spiritual striving can actually end up missing something really important - the space between the mitzvot. According to Nachman, in between each good and important deed we do, there’s an additional element of holiness that we only encounter if we move a little slower. There’s a cadence to how we strive to good in the world. With each outbreath of activity, we also need an inbreath of pause. Perhaps, even in a life saturated with sacred action, we need the lull in which we can return to intention, consider alternatives, make conscious choices, and only then do the next right thing. Even Avraham may have aged prematurely through constantly seeking the next mitzvah without pause!

There will be many opportunities to pursue mitzvot - through Jewish practice, community activities, and in building a kind and just society. When you find yourself in a between-space, remember that is holy too. Wishing you a warm and well-lit Shabbat.

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Minyan of Resistance

Sometimes the Torah is so "on point" that it's almost scary. This week, in Parashat Vayera, we encounter the story of the city of Sodom. I invite you to read the whole text if you like (Genesis 18:16-19:29), with all of its sordid twists and turns, or here's a quick synopsis of the most relevant bits:

God tells Abraham, "The outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah are so great, and their sin so grave!," and then sends two angels/messengers to investigate further. As these angels proceed on towards Sodom, Abraham understands that the city's future is at stake, and argues with God that Sodom should not be destroyed if enough innocent people can be found in it to make it worth saving. Abraham starts his bargaining at 50, then moves to 45, 40 and so on...until God agrees to save Sodom if as few as 10 righteous people can be found.

But then, the angelic guests arrive in Sodom and take refuge for the night in the house of Lot, Abraham's nephew. A mob amasses outside Lot's door, demanding that he send the guests out into the streets so that the mob can have their way with them. When Lot refuses and tries to protect his guests, the throng threatens to deal even more harshly with him, and they press harder against his door. With the support of a minor miracle (a blinding light that confounds the mob), Lot and his guests are able to survive until dawn, at which point the angels help to spring Lot and his family free from the city.

Even taken at face value, the Torah's tale of Sodom portrays a radically inhospitable and violent society. As if the biblical story itself isn't bad enough, though, the rabbinic tradition piles it on, building on the portrayal of Sodom as the least hospitable, least generous, most rotten, and most corrupt society imaginable!

Pirke DeRabbi Eliezer is one midrashic collection where this kind of extrapolation happens; it retells and expands upon the biblical narrative, from the beginning of Genesis through the middle of the Book of Numbers. Most scholars date this work to sometime around the 8th Century, in the Geonic period. Nearly an entire chapter of the collection depicts a group of rabbis sitting around and telling one another tales about the horrors of life in Sodom. Again, you're welcome to explore this text directly -- see Pirke DeRabbi Eliezer 25 -- but here are some key examples from it:

• Rabbi Ze'era describes Sodom as an area unusually rich with natural resources: gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, sapphire. However, he says, the people of the city hoard that wealth. The punchline of his story is: "But they did not trust in the shadow of their Creator, rather (they trusted) in the multitude of their wealth, for wealth thrusts aside its owners from the fear of Heaven, as it is said, 'They that trust in their wealth' (Ps. 49:6)." 
  

• Rabbi Natan recounts that the people of Sodom dishonored the Creator by not distributing food to the wayfarer and the stranger, as Jewish law prescribes. To top it off, "they (even) fenced in all the trees on top above their fruit so that they should not be seized; (not) even by the bird of heaven." 
  

• Rabbi Joshua, son of Ḳorchah, says: "They appointed over themselves judges who were lying judges, and they oppressed every wayfarer and stranger who entered Sodom by their perverse judgment, and they sent them forth naked, as it is said, 'They have oppressed the stranger without judgment' (Ezek. 22:29)."
  

• Rabbi Yehudah tells what I think is perhaps the most incriminating story of all: that the city even outlawed assisting the needy or feeding the poor. Peletith, Lot's daughter, was compassionate and would secretly sneak bread into her empty water pitcher to carry it out to a poor man in the street. When the men of Sodom realized that she was feeding the man, in violation of the law, they brought her forth to be burnt with fire. As she was being tortured to death, her cries reached the heavens, prompting God's investigation and the angels' visit.

These rabbinic midrashim come in quick succession, one after another, and each adds a new dimension to our understanding of Sodom's wickedness and cruelty. While these are far from the only midrashim about the depravity of Sodom, even just in these few texts, we see the hoarding of wealth, the stinginess and ungenerous spirit of the city's residents, their willingness to follow unethical rules even in defiance of God's commandments, the corruption of lying judges, and brutal heartlessness towards the stranger and traveler. Sodom has so descended into darkness that it sentences to death the only human who acts with compassion and decency. Together, these stories paint a scathing picture of a society characterized by a degree of inhumanity and cruelty that knows no bounds!

I'm guessing it's abundantly clear why these rabbinic stories about Sodom are resonating for me at this particular time. In a different moment, I might have read these texts as cartoonishly awful depictions but merely a fictitious fever-dream; however, this week, they feel horrifyingly real: both prescient and possible in our day.

The truth is that none of us knows what will happen next, or exactly what we have in store for us here in the United States in the months and years to come. If Trump's campaign speeches are to be taken seriously, though, and if the first wave of political appointments we've seen over the past week are an indicator of where things are headed, it is not at all silly for us to be shocked, dismayed, disgusted, angry and/or fearful. The last thing we want is for the rabbinic vision of Sodom to come to life in modern-day America!

Returning to the end of this story in Parashat Vayera, Sodom ends up destroyed because -- despite all of Abraham's best efforts to save it -- in the end, not even a minyan of righteous people could be found within its limits.  God rains down sulfurous fire on both Sodom and the neighboring city of Gomorrah, completely annihilating both cities and all of their inhabitants (see Gen. 19:23-25). Sodom is so "toxic" that even in its ruined state, Lot's wife can't turn back to gaze upon it without turning into a pillar of salt herself.

Here in our society, it feels like things are moving fast, on many fronts at once, and towards some of the same types of corruption, inhumanity, and cruelty we see in these tales of Sodom. Here, however, we don't yet know how this story will end; here we have a choice. The story of Sodom is, of course, a cautionary tale, but it is not only this; it is also a story of positive promise: that even in the most awful of times and places, all it takes is a minyan, a group of 10 righteous people, willing to stand together in defiance of societal norms in order to change the story.

This week, as we read Parashat Vayera, let's take the story of Sodom to heart, and steel ourselves for some difficult days ahead. If our society becomes inhospitable to the stranger and the poor, let us resolve that we will maintain a posture of generosity and compassion. If our justice system becomes corrupt, and rife with bribery or lies, let us resolve that we will raise our voices for truth and fairness. If laws are made that are grounded in heartlessness and evil, we may even need to act in defiance of unjust laws to do what we know in our hearts to be right. 

Had there been but ten righteous people in Sodom, Abraham and God both agree, the city would have been worth saving. In the face of whatever is to come here, let us pledge that we will stand together in that minyan. Together, we have the power to defy a society careening out of control, and to write a different ending to our story. 

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

To Dwell Together

“Hinei mah tov u’mah na’im, shevet achim gam yachad. How good and how pleasant it is when siblings shevet yachad, dwell together” (Psalm 133).

You probably know this line, or if you don’t you’ll no doubt hear it at a Jewish gathering soon. We often sing it as a way of beginning prayer services, life cycle ceremonies, and communal gatherings of all sorts. How wonderful it is to be together!

Except when “being together” feels fraught with division, disappointment, dread, and demonization. A national election foregrounds differences between candidates and parties and their vision of the future, and between those of us who vote one way or another. At the same time, our collective process of voting reminds us that we are bound together, responsible for each other, and vulnerable to each other’s choices. 

In the Torah this week, Avram (later named Avraham) journeys forth, formally beginning the Jewish story. With him comes his nephew Lot, whose father had died young. The two seem to share a special bond, because Lot could have stayed back with the rest of his extended family yet chooses to accompany Avram on his new path to Canaan. 

Once there, though, troubles arise. Both Avram and Lot have sheep and shepherds, and as their flocks grow it seems that space gets scarce. “And the land could not support them to settle together (shevet yachdav), for their property was so great that they were not able to settle together (shevet yachdav)” (Bereshit 13:6). 

Twice the verse emphasizes that they couldn’t shevet yachdav - their togetherness was getting tougher to navigate. The commentator Ha’amek Davar (19th century) teaches:

This is doubled language. It comes to teach us that it is not that the pasturage was insufficient for their flocks, like it says later in Bereshit 36:7: “For [Jacob and Esau’s] possessions were too many for them to dwell together (shevet yachdav), and the land where they sojourned could not support them because of their livestock.” Rather, it is because their natures were distant and Lot couldn’t be joined to Avraham except at a distance. But together they were not able to settle. 

Only once Lot leaves do they mend the relationship enough for Avram to keep looking out for his nephew from a distance, rescuing Lot from a war and later from God’s wrath at his new home of Sodom. But they never again liveyachdav.

Ibn Ezra (12th century) notes: “Yachdav is not synonymous with yachad(together). Yachdav means acting like one person.” 

Or as Rabbi Rachel suggested to me, yachdav is a form of mission alignment. It’s not two or more people sharing space, but rather sharing a worldview, ideology, purpose, sensibility. The word shows up later in Avraham’s life in the story of the Binding of Yitzchak. Avraham and Yitzchak walk yachdav(repeated twice) up the mountain where father will plan to sacrifice son. We do not know if Yitzchak knows what is about to happen or not. The sages imagine he does and is a willing participant. Total mission alignment. Or maybe he just trusted his father blindly, a tragic togetherness. But after the near sacrifice, Avraham walks down with his servants yachdav, with no mention of Yitzchak. Avraham remains dedicated to following God’s instructions, no matter how perplexing, but in upholding that relationship to the divine, he seems to have severed his relationship with his son. Ideological purity risks sacrificing loved ones, at least on the relational level. 

In our political climate, the viewpoint of the “other side” seems not just different, and often not just wrong, but existentially catastrophic. We are not able to shevet yachdav; we cannot dwell together with such distant natures from each other. Already over the past year, family and friend connections have been strained and severed over perspectives on Israel/Palestine. We are again at a moment in the United States where we can choose, as Ezra Klein comments, to react to those who voted differently than us with contempt or with curiosity. 

In other words, we can choose yachdav or yachad. 

Yachdav - the sort of ideological comfort zone that keeps us close to those like us and far away from those who are not like us. 

Or yachad - an awareness that we are together for better and for worse, that we are as citizen-siblings bound to one another no matter how similar or alike we are. 

I don’t have answers. But I’ll leave you with these questions:

• Where is your yachdav - what groups hold ideas, values, and commitments that align with your own? Finding the pastoral refuge of like-minded people doing work that matters is essential!

• How do you relate to people who think and vote differently than you? If you don’t cut all ties, what adds some pleasantness to dwelling yachadwith our fellow Americans? 

Wishing you a Shabbat of restfulness and respite as we gear up with renewed vigor for building a world of kindness, justice, and belonging.

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

A Pre-Election Note: Taking Our Cue from Shem & Japheth

Rainbow or not, it can't have been easy for Noah to move on after the flood. He found himself in a stressful and unstable moment. All of humanity beyond his own family had been wiped out; he must have been overwhelmed by the daunting prospect of needing to rebuild a destroyed world from scratch. After the waters recede and Noah's family emerges from the ark, the text of Parashat Noach relays the sad story of what happens next quite succinctly: 

"Noah, the tiller of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk, and he uncovered himself within his tent" (Genesis 9:20-21). 

The midrash notices the quick action of these verses. "Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba remarked: 'On the same day he planted, on the same day he drank, on the same day he was humiliated' (Bereishit Rabbah 36:4). Faced with a new and overwhelming reality, Noah's reaction is instinctive and impulsive: he attempts to "self-medicate" with alcohol, and gets himself so drunk that he passes out naked inside his tent.

Now, Noah's sons enter the picture: 

"Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a cloth, placed it against both their backs and, walking backward, they covered their father’s nakedness; their faces were turned the other way, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness" (Gen. 9:22-23). 

Noah's three sons react in very different ways to his inability to function in this traumatic moment. Ham takes advantage of his father's vulnerability, making the situation worse by amplifying his shame. (Based on the harsh curse Ham receives from Noah a few verses later, many commentators assume that what Ham actually did was far more reprehensible than merely looking on his father's nakedness.) The other two brothers have an opposite impulse. Just as instinctively as Noah sought to escape reality through wine, Shem and Japheth turn their faces away from Noah as they cover him, in a sensitive and compassionate attempt to preserve their father's dignity. The two of them consequently receive blessings from Noah, and the genealogy at the end of the parasha makes it clear that we (descendants of Abraham) trace our lineage through Shem.

This week, we too find ourselves in a stressful moment. Ours is obviously quite different than the post-flood moment in which Noah, Ham, Shem and Japheth found themselves, but as we head into the final days of the 2024 election season and enter what is likely to be a difficult post-election period, this time may feel scary and overwhelming in its own right. (As a Jew, I can't help but feel particularly triggered by the Trumpist political rally this past week, held in Madison Square Garden, filled with crude racist screed, and patterned off a literal Nazi rally at the same location in 1939.)

The four-verse tale about Noah and his sons navigating an unstable time showcases for us three very different possibilities for how we might react in a hard moment such as this:

1. Noah is avoidant and seeks to escape from reality.

2. Ham builds on a bad situation, actively amplifying harm and making things worse.

3. Shem and Japheth aim to improve the situation. Their response is calm, is collaborative (they work together), feels kind, values modesty, and demonstrates a sensitivity to avoiding humiliation.

Without a doubt, the Torah is holding up a moral model for us here in Shem and Japheth's behavior... so clear a lesson that it almost feels like we're being hit over the head with the message. When faced with challenge or human instability, as we so often are, it is up to each of us to choose the path of minimal harm and maximal good. We must return to the most basic and core of our human values, employing them as we seek to do the next right thing.

In this moment, here are some thoughts about what it might look like for us to try to put this Shem and Japheth energy into action right now:

1. Let's cast our ballots for the candidates and policies we believe are most aligned with the principles of kindness, human dignity, modesty and care. I assume that many of us have already done so in this vote-by-mail state, but in case you or any members of your household haven't voted yet, please consider this a rabbinic public service announcement to VOTE and to encourage others to do the same!
   

2. If you possibly can, please TAKE ACTION this weekend: make a final financial contribution or volunteer by helping to "cure" ballots, knocking on doors or otherwise participating in get-out-the-vote efforts. Whatever you do and whoever you speak with, let's try to ground every action and conversation in the values of Shem and Japheth, extending the same sort of kindness, compassion, and humility they employed. 
   

3. A belief in democracy is an extension of our religious conviction that every human being is created, equally, in the Divine image. Here at Kavana, we have been taking cues from A More Perfect Union: The Jewish Partnership for Democracy, an org that works to mobilize the American Jewish community to protect and strengthen American democracy. Their main message for the days before, during and after the 2024 election is this: Various actors may try to distract and divide us, but our election process here in the United States is strong, accurate, and it works -- even if we don't get results on election day. You can help by sharing this message in the days ahead, if and when it feels necessary.

Human history is, of course, filled with ups and downs, twists and turns. There is no way for us to avoid moments of stress, uncertainty, and instability -- this was true in Noah's day, and it is equally true in ours. All we can do is stay grounded in our most basic values, encourage and support one another, and do what we can to "spread a blanket" like Shem and Japheth did... the kind that prevents humiliation and extends calm, compassion, and kindness far and wide.

May the coming week be one in which democracy and peace will prevail! Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Dancing with Torah

The last Jewish holiday of the season arrives Thursday night, with the wonderful name “The Joy of Torah”, Simchat Torah. It is a celebration of the strands of ancient teaching that twine through each Jewish community like spiritual DNA, expressed in so many different ways yet reminding us of our shared heritage. 

Although Torah appears to contain history, and although the interpretation of Torah and reception of Torah can be viewed through the lens of history, Torah is not history. It is a wellspring of collective ancestral memory, and an instrument through which we might hear ruach elohim, God’s wind-voice whispering instruction for how to live a holy life. 

Through mitzvot (sacred Jewish practices), through teshuva (repair and return), through am yisrael (building just and loving connections with each other), Torah promises that we can transcend the limitations of past experience so that history doesn’t become destiny. The deep joy of Torah comes from imbuing us with moral agency - with what Shai Held calls a stance of “possibilism” that although change is hard, we are in fact capable of it.

But this holiday of celebration of Torah became entangled with historic tragedy last year on October 7, when Hamas launched a brutal attack on Israelis during Simchat Torah. The joy of Torah is now caught up in great pain, anger, fear, and desire for vengeance. How are we to make sense of the liberatory joy of Torah colliding with the experience of trauma, and the ongoing fear that we are stuck in the cycle of violence - history becoming destiny? Should we refrain from joy? Should we double down on the possibilities of Torah precisely because despair is so easy? 

At our Kavana observance of Simchat Torah this year, we plan to dance with the Torah scroll, holding it close and feeling held by our tradition. 

The Chassidic master Rebbe Nachman once taught: 

Sometimes, when people are happy and dance, they grab someone standing outside [the circle] who is depressed and gloomy. Against his will they bring him into the circle of dancers; against his will, they force him to be happy along with them. 

It is the same with happiness. When a person is happy, gloom and suffering stand aside.Yet greater still is to gather courage to actually pursue gloom, and to introduce it into the joy, such that the gloom itself turns into joy. 

A person should transform gloom and all suffering into joy. It is like a person who comes to a celebration. The abundant joy and happiness then transforms all his worries, depression and gloom into joy. We find that he has grabbed the gloom and introduced it, against its will, into the joy.

I do not care for Nachman’s nonconsensual dance metaphor - I think too often when we are in the midst of grief or depression, the feeling of being forced into a “happy space” just strengthens the emotional state instead and adds to it a burden of loneliness as well. 

But I do appreciate the insight that real joy is complex. It isn’t a shallow happiness where suffering is ignored or from which sadness is exiled. Real joy involves intentionally moving towards suffering, and reintegrating it into our larger emotional lives. In the heart-dance of the human condition, it all belongs. The experience of transformation isn’t simply that of “mourning into dancing” (Psalm 30), where mourning disappears, but the type of vital fullness we experience when the mourning enters into the dancing alongside joy. 

During our hakafot (dancing with the Torah), we will invite all who attend - people, emotions, gratitude and despair - into the sacred circle. And maybe, just maybe, some seed of new possibility might be planted, for trust and connection, for safety and for peace. 

Chag sameach,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Heading into a Rainy Sukkot

Tonight at sunset, we enter into the week-long festival of Sukkot. This holiday always brings together many themes: harvest and hospitality, sensory pleasures and vulnerability, exile and in-gathering, impermanence and joy. The central mitzvot of Sukkot include: 

• building and "dwelling in" a sukkah -- a temporary hut reminiscent of our ancestors' period of wandering in the wilderness. 

• gathering together the four species of plants commanded by the Torah -- a palm branch (lulav), two willow branches (arava), three myrtle branches (hadas), and one large yellow citrus fruit (etrog) -- which are then bundled and waved together in all directions on each day of the festival except for Shabbat.

• inviting guests in, including real friends and family who might share meals with us in the sukkah, and also ushpizin -- spiritual ancestors or other symbolic guests whose presence would enrich our celebration.

• reciting Hallel -- extra Psalms that serve as prayers of thanksgiving.

• rejoicing/experiencing simcha, a deep feeling of contentment stemming from gratitude, purpose, and connection.

I built my sukkah this past Sunday morning, the day after Yom Kippur, with the help of family members. It was a beautiful sunny day and the sukkah looked great: frame, decorations, walls, schach on top. By Monday, however, the weather started to turn, and some huge gusts of wind blew the bamboo mats off of the roof! Now it's looking like the weather forecast for Seattle over the coming week will be iffy at best, with rain almost daily and plenty more wind to come.

The laws of Sukkot suggest that in general, we should try to maximize the time we spend in the sukkah during the week of the holiday. And yet, Sukkot falls at a time of year when, in many parts of the world, rain is likely. According to the Mishnah (Sukkah 2:9), it is permissible to leave the sukkah when it's raining hard enough that the water falling through the schach roof could ruin the food you are trying to eat. Later Jewish legal experts expand on this concept: for example, Rabbi Moshe Isserles ("the Rema") comments in the Shulhan Arukh, Orach Hayim 639:2 that it's also not necessary to remain in the sukkah if it's uncomfortably cold outside. The big idea behind these rules is that Sukkot is supposed to feel joyous, and too much physical discomfort might prevent us from being able to experience the requisite joy of the holiday. It's actually pretty remarkable that Jewish law permits each individual to determine for themselves, subjectively, when the weather is extreme enough that it should exempt us from mitzvah of dwelling in the sukkah. 

In many ways, it feels right to me that we are headed into a potentially rainy and windy week of Sukkot here in Seattle, where we will have the opportunity to hold discomfort and joy side-by-side. I can imagine that over the coming week, there will be moments when it will be wet enough out that eating inside will feel necessary, and other moments when my family will try to squeeze an outdoor sukkah meal into a sun-break, wiping off chairs so we don't have to sit in puddles. I'm guessing that this toggling may make for a more muted Sukkot celebration overall, which feels like an honest reflection of my mood heading into the holiday. To me, the Jewish togetherness that Sukkot promises cannot feel complete with some 100 hostages, several of whom have direct ties to members of our Kavana community, still being held in tunnels underneath Gaza. (I do love the idea of inviting all of the hostages into the sukkah symbolically as ushpizin.) In addition, the thought of celebrating in soggy conditions this year already has me considering who is more vulnerable and has even less shelter than a sukkah in the Pacific Northwest might provide. This year, for me, this holiday certainly points us towards empathy for the nearly two million(!) Gazans who have been displaced by war, the tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel who have been living away from home for the past year, and the many civilians in Lebanon who have fled bombardment in recent weeks. As I think about those who do not have shelter this year, Jewish or not, I can't help but wonder whether there is more we could be doing to feed and shelter the displaced, to help bring hostages home and bring this war to an end, and to help bring everyone in the region to greater safety.

In the book This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, Rabbi Alan Lew reflects: "[The sukkah] exposes the idea of a house as an illusion. The idea of a house is that it gives us security, shelter, haven from the storm. But no house can really offer us this. No building of wood and stone can ever afford us protection from the disorder that is always lurking all around us. No shell we put between us and the world can ever really keep us secure from it. And we know this. We never really believed in this illusion..."

And yet, despite this truth -- that as human beings, our homes cannot truly protect us, there are no guarantees in life, and security is an illusion -- we are still meant to experience joy on this holiday! The joy of Sukkot comes in small increments and in tangible units. Simcha is found in picking up an etrog and breathing in its sweet fragrance, in waving the branches of the lulav in all the directions, in singing songs in community, in sharing a cup of tea with a friend, in getting outside (whatever the weather!). This Sukkot, I need every ounce of that joy I can find, and I'm inclined to try to make the most of the holiday this year, even if this means I'll be bundling up in a sweater and a jacket, or eating a bowl of soup in the sukkah with some raindrops mixed in.

I wish our entire community a chag sameach (a joy-filled holiday), whatever the weather. My fervent prayer this Sukkot is for a "sukkat shalom" -- that is, that all the hostages and all who are displaced by war can find their way home, to places that are secure and peaceful.

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Final Shabbat of the Year: Reflect, Synthesize & Prepare

With Selichot this Saturday night and Rosh Hashanah less than a week away, we are now entering the home-stretch of 5784. Our task, as we move through these final days of the year, is to reflect on the year that's drawing to a close and prepare to welcome in a new one. We engage in this work of taking stock on many levels at once: as individuals, as a Jewish community, as members of a broader society and world. On the Jewish communal level, at least, I can't remember any other year in my lifetime that has felt as fraught, heavy and complex as this one has been. Truly, it feels like we have our work cut out for us this year as we try to wade through it all and center ourselves in preparation for change, growth and newness.

This week's Torah reading, fortunately, provides us with many prompts and lessons to aid in this work. This Shabbat, we read a double parasha: Nitzavim-Vayeilech. In both of these Torah portions, which appear towards the end of the final book of the Torah (Deuteronomy), Moses is giving a farewell speech to the Israelites, trying to impart wisdom before he dies and before they cross the Jordan River to inhabit the land God has promised to them. Moses urges the Israelites to uphold the covenant in Nitzavim, and then in Vayeilech, concludes his speech, blessing his successor Joshua and instructing the Israelites to gather every seven years to publicly read from the Torah. These two short Torah portions are jam packed with language, imagery and themes, many of which have the capacity to be helpful to us in this season of review. Here are some examples that jumped out at me this week:

1) The very names of these two Torah portions stand in tension to one another. Nitzavim means "standing" -- it comes from the opening verse of that parasha, which begins "Atem nitzavim hayom kulchem," "You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God...." (Deut. 29:9). Vayeilech, on the other hand, means "going" -- as in "Vayeilech moshe vayidaber et had'varim ha'eileh el kol yisrael," "Moses went and spoke these things to all Israel" (Deut. 31:1). The contrast between standing statically and firmly, on the one hand, and going (that is, moving and changing position), on the other, is an animating tension that leads to productive questions for this season. We might ask ourselves: What has stayed the same for us this year? In what ways are we feeling solid and prepared to continue standing right where we are? What has shifted? In what ways are we experiencing movement, and how are we ourselves changing?

2) Both Nitzavim and Vayeilech are grounded in a keen awareness of life and death, generational change, meaning and legacy. In Nitzavim, Moses says: "I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here this day" (Deut. 29:13-14). Just a few verses later, the text says that "later generations will ask -- the children who succeed you" how the world came to be in the state it is in. The text seems to know that the our actions matter not only for our own generation but also for future generations -- precisely the kind of heightened awareness we strive to achieve at this time of year as we reflect on our lives. In addition, in Vayeilech, God says to Moses explicitly, "The time is drawing near for you to die. Call Joshua and present yourselves in the Tent of Meeting, that I may instruct him" (Deut. 31:14). Similarly, this time of year, we are drawn into awareness of our own mortality. With increased cognizance of our own impermanence, a perspective that includes the generations to come, and the ability to view our lives within the context of a broader sweep of history and continuity, we are encouraged to make the most of our lives and imbue them with goodness and purpose. 

3) These Torah portions contain beautiful words of encouragement, serving as a spiritual pep talk. Transitions are inherently difficult; this is true for Moses as he faces his own impending death, for the Israelites, as they prepare to enter into the land, and also for us today, as we stand on the brink of a new year of life. Nitzavim states that Torah is not beyond reach -- "It is not in the heavens... nor is it beyond the sea... No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it" (Deut. 30:12-14) -- promising the Israelites that they already have access to everything they will need to be successful in their new place. Vayeilech offers the kind of advice a coach might before a big game: "Be strong and resolute" (Deut 31:6) and "Fear not and be not dismayed!" (Deut. 31:8). In doing so, the text of the Torah acknowledges how overwhelming life can be and how daunting change can feel, how easy it is to slip into doubt, fear, and despair. Through its language, these Torah portions lay down a permanent record of reassurance and support, so that we might return to these words every year and feel it possible to hang in there, even as we move through hard transitional moments.

4) Finally, Vayeilech ends with mention of a special gathering called Hakhel that was supposed to take place every seven years: "Gather the people -- men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities -- that they may hear and so learn to revere the Lord your God and to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching" (Deut. 31:12). The world must have felt particularly frightening for the Israelites as they contemplated moving forward without Moses as their leader; here, Moses emphasizes the importance of gathering, and being in it together. Only together will they be able to achieve everything they must: come to terms with mortality, face uncertainty, make the giant leap (both physically and mentally) from one place to another. So too should it be for us! It is our tradition to come together -- to gather in community -- for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, so that we can do the important spiritual work of the season in good company, with all the support we need in place.

As we head into this final Shabbat before the New Year, I hope we can each take some time to reflect, to synthesize and to prepare. It feels like there is more work to do than ever, if we are to ground ourselves against the backdrop of a world that is so in flux. And yet, the Torah portions of Nitzavim and Vayeilech come at just the right time to offer us the support and scaffolding we need to do this work: to stand firm and to move, to gain perspective on our lives, to feel encouraged through transition, and to join together in community.

I look forward to seeing many of you next week as we celebrate Rosh Hashanah together. May our work of the season pave the way for the renewal and change that we and the world so desperately need!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Embracing Blessing

Calamity. Panic. Frustration. Scorching heat. These are but a few of the words drawn from the curses in this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, that feel sharply present in our time as well. 

Ki Tavo sets up parallel lists of blessings and curses as consequences for how well the Israelites fulfill God’s covenant. The blessings are lovely, but the curses seem to harness the full creative imagination of the Author with their terrifying and explicit depictions of all the things that can go wrong for the Israelites. In a similar passage earlier in the Torah (Vayikra 26) there is another list of blessings and curses, where it is even more obvious simply by counting them that there are way more curses (30 verses) than blessings (13 verses). Curses - whether in the Torah or in the news - draw our attention. 

We live in a time where it often seems easier to identify the curses in our world than to be open to the blessings. We might ask if it is even appropriate to appreciate or seek blessing right now, when so many are suffering, when so many live in the shadow of violence, poverty, disease, and climate catastrophe. Everytime I feel lucky or successful, I quickly asterisk that thought with awareness of my privilege and what it implies for those who lack it. Everytime I feel sad, I get the urge to shush myself because others have it worse. Everytime I notice something I’m good at, a part of me tries to redirect my attention to my weak areas, my flaws and failings. 

In some ways, these are appropriate strategies for moving through the High Holiday season of repentance and judgment. These are yamim nora’im, Days of Awe - or days where being afraid and focusing on the negative has become a time-worn tradition. 

Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz (1875-1936), the Mashgiach (spiritual guide) of the Mir Yeshiva, once wrote: “Woe to a person who is unaware of their shortcomings, because they will not know what to work on.” Woe to anyone who walks through the world blissfully ignorant! 

He isn’t finished though: “But even greater woe to a person who is unaware of their virtues, because they don’t even know what they have to work with.”

In other words, the ultimate curse is to overlook the blessings within us and all around us. In fact, our greatest tool for personal and collective improvement comes from noticing blessings, not doomscrolling through curses.

Abraham Ibn Ezra (1092-1167) comments on that lopsided list of curses and blessings: “The empty-headed have asserted that there are more curses than blessings, but that’s not true…” (Vayikra 26:14).

Of course, it isn’t easy to get into a state of mind where Ibn Ezra’s statement feels true. That’s where having a blessing practice comes in. In Judaism there are many blessings we can say, when we eat, use the bathroom, see a rainbow, wake up and go to sleep. (Here are some interesting ones.) The Talmud (Menachot 43b) insists that we are obligated to recite 100 blessings each day. Instead of focusing on what feels cursed, even instead of meditating on the blessings we hope to receive, we simply offer blessing wherever we can. Marcia Falk said in an interview about her wonderful The Book of Blessings, “The sacred is within us and within all of creation, and it is our task to bring it forward through our actions. Blessings don’t just acknowledge a sacred moment; they bring it about.”

For Falk, when we offer a blessing, we do more than notice what is good and beautiful and sacred, we help make it so.

Another remarkable source of contemporary blessings comes from John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us. In it, he writes:

“There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself, though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life. Without this subtle quickening our days would be empty and wearisome, and no horizon would ever awaken our longing. Our passion for life is quietly sustained from somewhere in us that is wedded to the energy and excitement of life. This shy inner light is what enables us to recognize and receive our very presence here as blessing.”

Wherever you are, may you feel present and blessed, and in the words of one of the blessings in our Torah portion (Devarim 28:6):

בָּר֥וּךְ אַתָּ֖ה בְּבֹאֶ֑ךָ וּבָר֥וּךְ אַתָּ֖ה בְּצֵאתֶֽךָ׃

Baruch atah b’vo’echa u’varuch atah b’tzeitecha. May you be blessed and a blessing in your comings and may you be blessed and a blessing in your goings.

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Expanding the Tent (With Intention)

The Kavana staff is busy preparing for the High Holidays, and this week, we took a field-trip together to the venue where this year's Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services will be. As many of you know, over the last several years, we've had to switch venues more than once to accommodate the large number of individuals who want to join us for our meaningful holiday services and programs (last year that total number was 880 people -- amazing!). Still, over the past few days, I've fielded multiple questions about venues we've used in the past: "Are you still doing services in that sweet church on Queen Anne?" (Answer: "Gosh, I love that space, but no, it's been a long time since our whole community could fit in a single sanctuary!") "Are you going to be back at that beautiful indoor/outdoor venue again this year?" (Answer: "It really was beautiful there, but no, we officially outgrew it when our attendance numbers surpassed 500 a couple years back.") In the greater scheme of things, the question of how to make space for everyone who wants to be in a community is a wonderful problem to have, but can pose a real-world challenge nonetheless.

The question of how to make space for everyone goes back to ancient times. It turns out that holiday gatherings could pose a challenge in Temple times too. When Jews ascended to Jerusalem for pilgrimage festivals, the Talmud records that they would stand crowded, their bodies packed tightly together in the Temple courtyard. And yet, according to Tractate Yoma 21a, when the time came for prostrating -- that is, for bowing all the way down to the ground at certain points in the ritual -- somehow there was ample room for everyone! The Talmud records: עוֹמְדִים צְפוּפִים, וּמִשְׁתַּחֲוִים רְווֹחִים, "they stood crowded but prostrated spaced," on a list of the ten miracles(!) that supposedly took place in the Beit Hamikdash (Temple). 

In this week's haftarah (a selection from Nevi'im/Prophets that is chanted after the Torah reading on Shabbat), we find a couple of lines that tie directly to this theme of ensuring there is sufficient space for everyone. This haftarah is a special one: the fifth in a series of seven known as the "haftarot of consolation," which are selections (all, incidentally, drawn from the second half of Isaiah) read on the seven Shabbatot between Tisha B'Av and Rosh Hashanah. In any case, Isaiah 54:2-3 reads:

הַרְחִ֣יבִי  מְק֣וֹם אׇהֳלֵ֗ךְ וִֽירִיע֧וֹת מִשְׁכְּנוֹתַ֛יִךְ יַטּ֖וּ אַל־תַּחְשֹׂ֑כִי הַאֲרִ֙יכִי֙ מֵיתָרַ֔יִךְ וִיתֵדֹתַ֖יִךְ חַזֵּֽקִי׃ כִּֽי־יָמִ֥ין וּשְׂמֹ֖אול תִּפְרֹ֑צִי

Expand the place of your tent, extend the size of your dwelling, do not withhold!
Lengthen the ropes, and drive the pegs firm.
For you shall spread out to the right and the left...

Here, Isaiah makes promises and assurances to the people: that someday the nation of Israel will return from exilic loss and be even more numerous than before. The central image -- in very concrete terms -- is that a tent must be physically enlarged (through ropes, pegs, etc.) in order to accommodate this expanded community. [As a side note, those of you who are interested in intertextual Hebrew references might recognize the phrase "yamin u'smol tifrotzi," "spreading out to the right and left," that is lifted from here into the Friday night hymn of L'cha Dodi, and also the language of "al tachsochi," "do not withhold," which echoes the wording of God's final assessment at the end of the Akeidah that Abraham will be blessed because he has "not withheld" his son.]

In our parlance today, though, when we talk about a "big-tent" approach, we are typically using the words metaphorically. This phrase refers to a group -- which could be an organization, a spiritual community, a political party, etc -- that is expansive enough to accommodate a diverse spectrum of views or practices. 

At Kavana, we've always thought of ourselves as a big-tent community in a couple of ways. First, from day one, Kavana has always used the language of "non-denominational" and "pluralistic" to express that we are a Jewish community composed (purposefully) of individuals coming from a variety of backgrounds and bringing a wide array of beliefs and practices. Religious pluralism has always been a positive feature, not a bug, of Kavana; we have revelled in the breadth of ideas, differing levels of observance, and divergent interests of our community members.

To share a second example, when Kavana launched in 2006, the demographic composition of this community was mostly younger adults, both with and without young children. Eighteen years later, those original 20- and 30-somethings are now 40- and 50-somethings. In addition, our community has attracted both a new generation of younger adults and also a robust cohort of adults in their 60s and 70s, making Kavana an increasingly multigenerational community. Here, too, "widening the tent" in an intentional way has not only grown our community in numbers, but also enriched the tapestry of community for everyone.

This year, to be sure, Kavana's big-tent approach has posed some challenges that are as real as the problem of finding floor-space. It turns out that at this moment in time, it is not at all simple for a Jewish community to welcome and embrace individuals with a wide range of beliefs, ideologies, and political views -- particularly with regard to topics as complex and emotionally charged as Israel and antisemitism. And yet, this is precisely the work that we've been doing here at Kavana, very intentionally, over the past year. "Expand the place of your tent, extend the size of your dwelling" could almost be read as a command that speaks directly to us today, instructing us to set the bounds of our community as wide and open as we possibly can, despite the fact that tension will inevitably result from the diversity of viewpoints inside the tent. 

A midrash from Bereishit Rabbah 5:7 ties together the two texts I've cited above:

This was so in Jerusalem, too, as we learned: They stood crowded, but prostrated themselves spaciously. Rabbi Shmuel ben Rabbi Ḥana said in the name of Rabbi Aḥa: There were four cubits for each person to occupy, and a [further] cubit on each side so that none of them would hear the prayer of the other.

This will be so in the future, too, as it is stated: “At that time, they will call Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord, and all the nations will be gathered into it” (Jeremiah 3:17). Rabbi Yoḥanan ascended to inquire after the wellbeing of Rabbi Ḥanina and found him sitting and expounding this verse: “At that time, they will call Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord, [and all the nations will be gathered into it].” He said to him: ‘Can Jerusalem contain the Throne of the Lord?’ He said to him: ‘The Holy One blessed is He will say to it: Expand and extend and receive your populations.’ That is what is written: “Expand the place of your tent” (Isaiah 54:3). Why? “For you will spread out right and left…” (Isaiah 54:3).

In between the two texts I've already discussed -- the idea of the miraculous expansion of the Temple floor, and Isaiah's urging of the widest possible tent (which here functions as both prooftext and punchline) -- this midrash does something remarkable. It says that this, the idea of miraculous expansiveness, "will be so in the future, too." Projecting far forward, to a messianic vision of what a redeemed world could look like, the midrash claims that Jerusalem will someday be a place where all nations can gather, a city so expansive that even God's own throne can rest there. What a beautiful vision to hold at this painful moment characterized by divisiveness and scarcity!

On this Shabbat -- the fifth one after Tisha B'Av -- we, the Jewish people, are still seeking comfort in the wake of the Temple's destruction, which resulted (in the rabbinic understanding) from sinat chinam, our senseless ability to hate one another and not make space for each other. The antidote to that -- the pathway we must travel as we head towards the beginning of a new year, in which we aspire to live in better alignment with God's sovereignty -- is the command to "Expand the place of your tent, extend the size of your dwelling, do not withhold!"

As we head towards the New Year, I invite you to join with me in engaging in this holy work of expanding our tent. Let us each strive to show up in community -- at Kavana and beyond -- with the intention of keeping our tent walls as open as we possibly imagine. Let us work carefully and intentionally to build relationships across difference. (Without a doubt, humility, curiosity, and grace will continue to be necessary tools in this work!) Let us encourage and support others who also seek to build "big-tent" coalitions that are forces for good in the world. Let's make space for everyone who wants to be part of this very special enterprise, particularly at this peak time of year when holidays bring out the crowds. Together, let us build the widest, most extraordinarily beautiful tent(s) imaginable, with room for every one of us inside, and for the Divine as well.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

The King and the Third Thing

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —(Emily Dickinson)

Any time I’m struggling to grasp a concept or learn a new skill, I turn to this poem for some comfort that I’m actually doing it right after all by not getting it quickly. Some more “explanation kind,” please! 

In the blessing after public Torah reading, we thank God for giving us a torat emet, a “Torah / teaching of truth.” For this Torah of truth, “Success in Circuit” is literal on two levels - we read through the whole Torah every year, and each week the Torah is processed in a circuit (hakafah) around the room, allowing our souls to be dazzled gradually into the joy of encountering ancient words of divine wisdom. 

This week’s part of the yearly Torah circuit, parshat Shoftim, offers a striking image: A king seated on the royal throne, leaning over a Torah scroll. 

“When he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Torah written for him on a scroll by the levitical priests. Let it remain with him and let him read in it all his life, so that he may learn to revere his God, to observe faithfully every word of this Torah as well as these laws.” (Deuteronomy 17:18-19)

In context, this wonderful requirement that a king or queen must have a Torah scroll copied and at hand, to be studied for the rest of their reign, is akin to the role a constitution plays - to hold people in power accountable to a broader set of rights and responsibilities than a person in power is usually inclined to honor.  But thinking of Emily Dickinson’s poem, I am drawn to how the king is required to write or have written for him a copy of the Torah, and then to have it next to him, and then to read it all his life. Surely it would have been easier to have a constitutional lawyer (or a priest in this case) on retainer to advise on the fine points of how the law will inform policy on a case by case basis! It seems to me that a deeper goal of this requirement is about cultivating a slow and steady relationship with Torah itself. “All the truth” doesn’t emerge in one reading, but over the course of a lifetime. 

I wonder if the king read the Torah by himself, or with scholars, or perhaps even with regular people who have come to the palace on business. The Torah itself doesn’t require the king to study with others, but common Jewish practice has encouraged chavruta, studying in pairs, and larger groups of learners seeking “superb surprise” from the text together. 

The writer Parker Palmer often leads group discussions using a poem, story, or other evocative text. He refers to that text as a “third thing” (in his book A Hidden Wholeness): 

We often seek truth through confrontation. But our headstrong ways of charging at truth scare the shy soul away. If soul truth is to be spoken and heard, it must be approached 'on the slant.' I do not mean we should be coy, speaking evasively about subjects that make us uncomfortable, which weakens us and our relationships. But soul truth is so powerful that we must allow ourselves to approach it, and it to approach us, indirectly. We must invite, not command, the soul to speak. We must allow, not force, ourselves to listen.

We achieve intentionality in a circle of trust by focusing on an important topic. We achieve indirection by exploring that topic metaphorically, via a poem, a story, a piece of music, or a work of art that embodies it. I call these embodiments 'third things' because they represent neither the voice of the facilitator nor the voice of a participant. They have voices of their own, voices that tell the truth about a topic but, in the manner of metaphors, tell it on the slant. Mediated by a third thing, truth can emerge from, and return to, our awareness at whatever pace and depth we are able to handle — sometimes inwardly in silence, sometimes aloud in community — giving the shy soul the protective cover it needs.

Rightly used, a third thing functions a bit like the old Rorschach inkblot test, evoking from us whatever the soul wants us to attend to. Mediated by a good metaphor, the soul is more likely than usual to have something to say.

The Torah is Judaism’s ultimate “third thing.” God partners with Torah to create the world, and we in turn study Torah in part to encounter our Creator. Communities form around particular interpretations of the Torah. Generations speak to one another through the pages of commentary. 

Most importantly, the “Torah of truth” is meant to awaken not the ego, and not only the intellect, but the soul. When we place a text between us, the deepest insights and yearnings of your own soul are welcome. 

I imagine this is what the king was meant to learn from Torah, too - that to be a wise leader is only rarely to understand something quickly and act right away, but rather to create the slow, patient conditions for every person’s soul to contribute their shy and necessary truths. 

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Back-to-School & Elul Message from Rabbi Rachel

Here in Seattle, we're in the throes of back-to-school season! My calendar is dotted with first days, orientation meetings, and curriculum nights. At home, my three kids have been sharpening pencils, ordering books, and collecting notebooks and highlighters, as they prepare in very tangible ways for the new school year. Two of them are entering new schools this year as they begin middle and high school, which feels a bit like entering into a whole new life-stage/landscape with each of them.

This week's parasha, Re'eh, knows a thing or two about standing at the precipice of a big step forward. This Torah portion is part of Moses's farewell speech to the Israelites, as they prepare to cross the Jordan River and build a new society on the other side. Moses is full of advice as to how the Israelites should live once they arrive in the land: he cautions the people to choose blessing over curse, to "take care to do / not to do" a huge number of positive and negative commandments, to observe festivals and holy times, and more.

Along the way, Moses says to the Israelites: "Banim atem ladonai eloheichem," "You are children of Adonai your God" (14:1). This makes explicit a central motif of Deuteronomy: that the relationship between God and "b'nai yisrael" is similar to a parent-child relationship. 

Of course, the central paradox of parenting is that parents must both hold tight and let go at once, as the ultimate aim is to raise children to become their own independent beings. One creative dvar torah — written by Chanan Rosin, of the Jerusalem band Majuda, and produced by BimBam — recasts some of the words of Re'eh as a song of guidance sung by a father to his infant twins. The paradox of parenting is evident in the lyrics: on the one hand, the father tells the children “soon you're on your own two feet,” and on the other hand, sings to them: “and you'll have from me, from me a helping hand.” 

This is the push-pull of parenting I am thinking about as a new school year begins for my own children as well. I will aspire to optimize for both support -- which will require me to lean in -- and for independence -- which might require me to step back. Parenting is a delicate dance... seeking a balance that has to be struck differently for each child, and also needs to be recalibrated constantly as they grow and change.

All of this applies even more so for parents who are launching kids to college this fall. With the challenges of this particular year in mind, Rabbi Naomi Levy (a colleague of mine from California) published a new piece of liturgy this week, entitled: “A Jewish Parent's Blessing for Sending a Child Off to College in These Challenging Times.” I found it beautiful and am pasting it below (*but consciously replacing the word “college” in the first line with "school," because I think these words of blessing can apply even more broadly than she intended):

May you go off to school* in peace,May it be a time of growth, learning and wisdom,A time of new friendships, adventure and fun.And through it all, may God bless you and protect you.Amid this time of hatred and division on campusMay you always be proud to be a Jew, connected to your People and your faith.Know that you are strong, thoughtful and courageous,Trust in yourself,And remember you are never alone.Turn to friends who will support you,Mentors who will teach and guide youAnd remember I am always here for you.May God bless the path you take,May all your efforts lead to success,May your studies never cease.May any challenges you face strengthen your character and your determination.May God bless your body with health and your soul with joy,May God watch over you night and day and shield you from all harm.May all your prayers be answered,Amen.

I offer this prayer for my own children, for all the children and students of this community, and really for all of us. 

This week, we stand together at a particular moment in time, gazing across the river into the territory not only of a new academic year but also a new Jewish year. (This Shabbat, Jewish communities everywhere will bless the new month of Elul, which begins in the middle of next week and will escort us to Rosh Hashanah). All of us wonder what the coming year will bring. As we make this turn towards the New Year, we embrace our role as children of the Divine Parent. From that vantage point, I pray that we will find that we have all the encouragement and support we need to grow and to explore; the freedom and independence we need to change and make change in ways that are good and healthy. 

Wishing each of us a Shabbat Shalom, Chodesh Tov, and a wonderful back-to-school season,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Stranger Things

There are two atlases: the one
The public space where acts are done,
In theory common to us all, 
Where we are needed and feel small…

The other is the inner space
Of private ownership, the place
That each of us is forced to own,
Like his own life from which it’s grown,
The landscape of his will and need
Where he is sovereign indeed…

Each lives in one, all in the other
Here all are kings, there each a brother…
(from “New Year Letter” by W.H. Auden)

One of the rewards of Torah study is gleaning insight for distinct yet related realms. Torah is both an explicit attempt to mandate a just and holy society, concerned with “the public space…in theory common to us all”, and a resource for inner reflection and growth, helping us wisely traverse “the landscape of [our] will and need.” Judaism is both civilizational and spiritual, political and personal. 

This week’s parashah, Ekev, gives us many opportunities to weave together those two realms. I was particularly drawn this year to these three verses (Devarim 10:17-19):

“For Adonai your God is God supreme (elohei ha-elohim) and Lord supreme (adonei ha’adonim), the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, providing food and clothing.

“You must love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

God is characterized as supremely powerful to underline that true strength means caring for the vulnerable. Human authorities might mistake power for an excuse to abuse and exclude, but there is a higher authority we can model ourselves after. 

“The great, the mighty, and the awesome God (he-el ha-gadol ha-gibor v’ha-nora) is a phrase that makes its way directly into our prayers, in the opening section of the Amidah called “Avot (Ancestors”). In that prayer, we are invoking the ancestral connection to the Source of Everything and stepping into that loving Presence. It is a profoundly spiritual moment tying us to heritage and hope.

But remembering the context of this phrase wrenches us out of our inner yearnings and into action - to pray to this God means to recommit ourselves to acting in the public sphere the way God would, with concern for the most vulnerable. Prayer and justice intwine. 

To use Auden’s language, in prayer we yearn to encounter the King of kings, which inspires us to pattern our inner world after God’s attributes and be kings (ethical agents) of our own lives, and see each fellow human as a sibling to act with loving responsibility towards. 

But there’s something strange about the argument these verses make. The first two verses describe God but in a way that provides a template to describeour ideal actions. This is the argument for imitatio dei, a Latin phrase meaning “imitation of God.” 

The opening of the third verse seems to make this explicit: “You [too] should love the stranger.” The first problem is that the stranger is singled out, without mention of refusing bribes or taking care of orphans and widows. The second problem is the verse continues, “…for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” We have a whole new argument, not based on God’s model but on our own experience of suffering and subsequent capacity for empathy.

I think these verses are yet again weaving together the public realm of action (following God’s model) and the inner realm of emotion and desire (where memory and empathy also reside). 

The 19th century commentator Haamek Davar adds: “For you were strangers in the land of Egypt. And in any case you are today abundantly in order. So too, this stranger in dire straits - who knows what strength is hidden within them..?”

For the Haamek Davar (literally: deepening of the matter), we weren’t just supposed to empathize through remembering our own difficult experiences. We are supposed to remember not just falling down, but getting back up. To see in those who are vulnerable not just what they lack but the tremendous possibilities ready to shine forth. 

Our own inner meditation is meant to spur us not just into action, but into really seeing each other as the fully dignified beings we are, sovereign whether on home soil or a stranger, siblings in the great human family. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

The Secret Garden of Torah

As a child, I had many favorite books, but one held a particular awe and wonder that no other book has ever held for me, except Torah. That book was The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I remember very little of the backstory, and don’t even remember if I read the actual book or one of those abridged young readers versions. But I do have a crystal clear memory of the feeling I got from reading about the secret garden where Mary, the protagonist, finds herself transformed from sad grouch to a nurtured nurturer. That feeling is an awe-filled anticipation of unlocking (in her case, literally and metaphorically) new possibilities previously walled off, and the immense gratitude of tending to the landscape within that peaceful walled garden. 

When I study Torah (broadly meaning any Jewish text), a little child within me feels exactly what he felt when he read of Mary and her secret garden. There are secret worlds within the words, endless interpretations to tend to or prune. And through cultivating the torah garden, it in turn begins to transform me. 

There’s a phrase in Shir HaShirim, the biblical book of love poetry, where one of the lovers is called a gan na’ool - a locked garden. This phrase popped into my mind as I read a resonant line in Rabbi Adina Allen’s new book The Place of All Possibility (side note: I’m in conversation with her about the book this Sunday, please join if you’d like!). 

“In Jewish tradition, each Hebrew word is like a text in and of itself, containing multiple meanings.” 

Each word is a gan na’ool, a secret locked garden awaiting discovery. 

I think for many of us these ancient texts feel walled off, and there are barriers to encountering them. Hebrew script looks like pig scratch before we are able to identify the letters. Even those of us who can decode and sound out words don’t often know the meaning of what we are reading. Even when we know the basic meaning, there may be literary, historical, and religious context that we don’t (yet) have.

From one perspective, all of these locked gates of meaning can be off-putting. Shouldn’t our tradition be easily accessible to all who seek its wisdom? 

But on the other hand, there’s the incredible feeling of finding a key and entering the walled garden through one of its interpretative gates. 

In this week’s Torah portion, Vaetchanan, we first read the six words of the shema. In the case of the shema, I’ve found the English translation to be as much of a wall as the Hebrew! Rabbi Adina Allen writes of her own experience: “Every time I’d hear these words translated into English, I’d grimace: ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.’ …Though I tried to rally myself behind the cause, none of these meanings felt particularly alive to me… It wasn’t until decades later, as my own facility with Hebrew developed, and as I encountered other interpretations that opened up new meanings of this prayer, that I began to sense the profound power and ever-unfolding possibilities encoded in these ancient words.”

“What had been translated for generations as ‘our Lord’ melted away into the mystery and beauty of a power that cannot be named or pinned down. And ‘one’ became a force that flowed through all, alerting us to the interconnection and interpenetration of all life.”

We are just a few days past Tisha B’av, the calendrical collector of Jewish tragedy and brokenness. If we map the Jewish seasons onto Mary’s journey in The Secret Garden, we could say that Mary arrives at the home where she will discover the garden in a Tisha B’av state of mind, sad, angry, feeling a bit broken. The next seven weeks that lead us to Rosh Hashanah are traditionally a time of comfort and then transformation. They are a “Secret Garden” season, if we choose to enter. 

In that spirit, I want to share one more interpretation of the shema, from the Chida (Chayyim Yosef David Azulay, 18th century). He notes that in the scribal tradition the ayin (the last letter in the word, shema) is written extra large; and the dalet (the last letter of echad) is extra large. The widespread interpretation is that they spell eid, witness, reaffirming the key idea that reciting the shema is an act of bearing witness to God’s oneness. However, the Chida adds on another possibility. Perhaps the ayin stands for anavah - humility, and the dalet stands for dibbur - speech. 

“And this is the hint: ‘Return, O Israel, to (ad, which is also spelled, ayin, dalet) the Lord, your God” (Hosea 14:2). So he should be careful about these two fundamentals - humility and speech; and then it will be complete repentance.”

Each word a text, each text a locked garden! And through a particularly strange set of interpretive keys, we can find in the simple word “to, ad” a hint that being humble (taking up the right amount of space) and paying attention to how we use our voice in the world are the spiritual practices of the season. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Catastrophes of our Past

In the Kavana office, our staff has recently been in peak summer planning mode: visioning and goal-setting, assembling the calendar of events for our new programming year, pulling together High Holidays plans, and more. Along the way, we’ve been discussing what this past year has meant and considering the current mood of our Jewish community. While it seems that the last couple of weeks have felt somewhat brighter and more hopeful for many in our community when it comes to the American political landscape (phew!), when considering our identity as part of a global Jewish people and thinking about the future of the State of Israel, a sense of pessimism and foreboding remain at the forefront of our community’s collective consciousness. It’s no wonder. Over the past year, we have witnessed the terror and horrors of October 7th and the shockwaves it sent through Israeli society, Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas with its staggering death toll for Gazan Palestinians, the ripple effects of settler violence and land annexation in the West Bank, the displacement and casualties of Israelis who have been under attack by Hezbollah near the northern border, and now a potential escalation into a broader regional conflict with Iran. It is frightening to feel like the half of the world’s Jewish population that lives in Israel is perched at the precipice of a deep abyss, facing down both internal and external existential threats simultaneously.

The dark cloud that hangs over this collective Jewish moment matches the mood of the season where we find ourselves on the Jewish calendar. At sunset time on Wednesday evening, I happened to look up at the sky at just the right moment to witness a sliver of a silver crescent moon hanging in the brightly-colored, vaguely smoky skies on the western horizon. This scene – at once beautiful and ominous – was a poignant reminder that we are now solidly in the Hebrew month of Av, with its accompanying themes of destruction, grief and lament all waxing along with the moon as we near Tisha B’av (the 9th of Av).

I have written before about how the mourning rituals over the destruction(s) of the Temple, which our tradition moves us through each year, catapult us into the season of introspection that follows. In a few weeks, Av will resolve into Elul, shifting us towards the High Holiday season of turning and returning, repentance and repair. For now, though, from our vantage point at the beginning of Av, it is our duty to consider what lessons we might draw from the calamities of our collective past that might help us deal with our complicated present and sidestep future calamities.

The centrality of the destruction of the Temple in our collective Jewish consciousness simply cannot be overstated. The Biblical period culminates in the establishment of a monarchy that unites the northern and southern kingdoms of Judah and Israel, with King Solomon building a Temple. Then this (first) Temple is destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and the ancient Jewish community is sent into exile “by the rivers of Babylon.” The community returns from exile under Cyrus of Persia and rebuilds, constructing a second Temple that is even bigger and better than the first. After several hundred more years, this too is destroyed, this time by the Romans in the context of a brutally destructive and deadly siege of Jerusalem. (If you’re curious to explore further, check out “The Temple and its Destruction: A Look into the Psyche of Ancient Judaism” by Rabbi Irving Greenberg.) To this day – some two millennia later – Jews around the world continue to break a glass at every wedding, leave a corner of our homes unfinished, and observe customs of mourning each summer in the lead-up to Tisha B’av as a testament to the enormity of the manifold losses that these destructions represent: of the Temple itself, of so many Jewish lives, of our direct connection with God, and of our collective autonomy.

Eicha (the Book of Lamentations) that we will chant on Monday night was written in the wake of the destruction of the First Temple. On the one hand, the whole book asks the question of “how” (as in: how could this possibly have happened?), as though nothing could possibly explain the enormity of this catastrophe; on the other hand, the text also seems clear that we must have done something to bring this suffering and destruction upon ourselves. A similar lens applies to the destruction of the Second Temple in Roman times. So many of our core Jewish texts emerge from then, and again, the rabbis of that period struggle with the idea that the level of suffering and destruction they observe cannot possibly have been deserved, while also holding that we ourselves are somehow to blame. (It’s rather shocking how little responsibility is placed by our tradition upon the Babylonians or the Romans.)

Over the last few weeks, I’ve watched a new-ish Israeli film by director Gidi Dar gain traction. Legend of Destruction tells the story of the end of the Second Temple period, tracing the outbreak of the First Jewish-Roman War and probing how zealotry and sectarianism led to the eventual downfall of Jerusalem, along with the deaths of a million Jews and the destruction of the Temple. (Click here to view a Forward article about this film and here to view a trailer; if there’s interest, perhaps we can pull together a Kavana film screening and discussion sometime this year.)

Meanwhile, I want to invite you to join me in unpacking one key rabbinic text that is associated with the lead-up to Tisha B’Av. Of the many stories our tradition tells about the reasons the Temple was destroyed, the single most famous one is the Talmudic story of Kamtsa and Bar Kamtsa. You’re welcome to read the story directly from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Gittin 55b-56a but – because it’s a bit terse and requires some unpacking – I am also going to share a solid summary here (courtesy of Wikipedia’s entry on “Kamtsa and Bar Kamtsa”):

The story, as it appears in Tractate Gittin, tells of a wealthy man who lived in the 1st century CE. For an upcoming party, he sent his servant to deliver an invitation to his friend, a man named Kamsa. However, the servant mistakes the recipient as Bar Kamsa, an enemy of the wealthy man. Upon seeing the hated Bar Kamsa at his party, the host orders him to leave. Bar Kamsa, attempting to save face, thrice offers to make peace with the host, first offering to pay for the food he eats, then for half of the expenses of the party, and then for the entire party, each time rebuffed by the angry host. Finally, the host forcibly removes Bar Kamsa, in the presence of the communal leaders present who lacked the courage to protest his shameful actions (from the context, it seems like the host was an affluent and politically powerful individual).

Humiliated, Bar Kamsa vows revenge against the rabbis present who did not defend him allowing him to be publicly humiliated. He visits the Roman Caesar who controls the region and tells him that the Jews are inciting to revolt against the Roman Empire. The Caesar, unsure of whether to believe Bar Kamsa, sends an animal to be sacrificed as a peace offering in the Temple in Jerusalem along with Bar Kamsa. On the way, Bar Kamsa purposefully slightly wounds the animal in a way that would disqualify it as a Jewish sacrifice but not as a Roman offering.

Upon seeing the disfigured animal, the rabbis of the Sanhedrin present at the Temple have to make a decision as to how to respond to the delicate situation presented. Some advocate dispensing with the law and offering the animal anyway to avoid war. This plan is vetoed by Rabbi Zecharia ben Avkolos who fears that people will begin to bring blemished animals to the Temple to be sacrificed. They then suggest putting Bar Kamsa to death to prove that he is at fault, but Rabbi Zecharia ben Avkolos again refuses, because this is not the mandated penalty for intentionally bringing a disqualified offering to the Temple.

Rabbi Yochanan says because of the actions of Rabbi Zecharia ben Avkolos, the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were exiled from the land.

The Caesar, incensed, sent an army to lay siege to Jerusalem, eventually leading to its downfall in the year 70 CE. Josephus (Wars II, 17:2) also ascribes the beginning of the war to the refusal to accept the offering of the Emperor. The Talmudic record is meant to illustrate how internal tensions among the Jewish people exacerbated the external threat from the Roman conquerors.

There are several lessons from this story that strike me as incredibly relevant to our present moment.

First, with the mix-up between Kamtsa and Bar Kamtsa that begins the story, we see that an inadvertent slight leads to humiliation, and that humiliation fuels retaliation which then spirals out of control. In fact, this exact phrase – “humiliation fuels retaliation” – came up in this Tuesday evening’s conversation with Elisheva Goldberg of the New Israel Fund, as she was speaking about the fact that this week, Israelis are braced and waiting for an anticipated attack from Iran. The Israeli assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh last week -- not at his home in Qatar but rather while he was in Tehran to attend a funeral -- was an embarrassing blow to Iran. The risk of “poking the bear” is the escalation of violence, which is exactly what we see play out in the Kamtsa and Bar Kamtsa story. Of course, the Kamtsa and Bar Kamtsa tale could have ended very differently had the host at the very outset permitted the accidental invitee to save face by remaining at the party, or had the rabbis who were privy to the interaction stood up for him. This story contains an important lesson about human behavior – one we know to be true to this day: that unchecked humiliation can easily take a dangerous turn. 

A second big takeaway is that this story offers a surprisingly strong condemnation of extremism and zealotry. In the second part of the story, Rabbi Zecharia ben Avkolos is punctilious about upholding the law. His opinion is – by any account – technically right: according to Jewish law, an animal with even the smallest blemish was not permitted to be offered as a sacrifice in the Temple. Given Jewish law’s focus on details and correct observance, it’s not hard to imagine that the Talmud could have argued that when it comes to observing mitzvot, we should never compromise our standards. And so, it’s a bit shocking that this very radical text seems to argue againststringency, suggesting instead that Rabbi Zecharia should have just let this one slide for the sake of peace, and claiming that in insisting on perfection, he gave up on the possibility of a conciliatory act and brought the calamity of the siege and destruction upon his own people! Today, we are witnessing the most extreme right-wing Jewish nationalist government of Israel’s history. There is an unholy alliance between the self-serving Netanyahu, who it seems will do anything to maintain his own power, and extremists like Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who support policies of broad-scale violence and annexation, publicly oppose the creation of a Palestinian state under any circumstances, and refuse to compromise on their Jewish supremacist vision of “greater Israel.” This week, we have also witnessed Hamas – already an extremist group – move even further towards radicalization, as the killing of Haniyeh fueled the appointing of Yahya Sinwar as the formal head of the Hamas, consolidating both military and political might in the hands of a man who not only is the mastermind behind the October 7th attacks, but also had previously earned himself the nickname “Butcher of Khan Younis” for his brutal killing of Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel. By lifting up the Kamtsa/ Bar Kamtsa story as an explanation for why the Temple was destroyed, our Jewish tradition decries radical extremism, and implicitly calls for real-world pragmatism and a softening of edges, in order to avoid danger and disaster. 

The final point I want to make about this story is that, in its arc, the personal becomes political – that is, a story about the relationships between individuals sets off a chain reaction that results directly in the collective downfall of the central Jewish institution of its day. If we can unwind the story, we can see the power of a single small, individual act. When we consider the bleakness that so many of us seem to be feeling as we think about the future of Israel in this moment – we might wonder whether there is anything at all that we can do to help a situation so huge? This story’s chain reaction demonstrates that it’s possible that everything could hinge on something as tiny as an invitation to a dinner party. Of course, the challenge is that we cannot possibly know which action we might take that could set off a chain reaction, for good or for bad. All we can do is the next right thing. The Kamtsa/Bar Kamtsa story encourages us to push ourselves towards greater tolerance of discomfort than we might ordinarily embrace in the service of building community across difference.

This weekend, as we move towards our Jewish calendar’s peak moment of destruction and devastation, we are induced to think about how, in our present, we might avoid a repeat of the giant catastrophes of our past. Are we brave enough to learn from the cautionary tales we have told ourselves for the past two-thousand years? If we are willing to act on the lessons of the Kamtsa/Bar Kamtsa story, we would be pushed to consider one another’s feelings and to take pains to avoid humiliation; we would take seriously the need to temper extremist impulses, both within and without; and we would feel empowered to start small, with actions of generosity and human connection. With each tiny act we do, we have the power to build interpersonal bridges and effect repair. We can't possibly know what the ripple effects might be… all we can do is make the best choices we can. It is possible that the entire Jewish future rests upon the decisions we make today.

As we move through this season of pain, uncertainty and grief, I wish each member of our Kavana community a Shabbat Shalom. May we help move our community and our world towards a better tomorrow, one small step at a time. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Vengeance, Death, and the Good Life

A good anger acted upon

is beautiful as lightning

and swift with power…

(Marge Piercy, “A Just Anger”)

God spoke to Moses, saying: “Avenge the Israelite people on the Midianites; then you shall be gathered to your kin.” (Bamidbar 31:1-2)

Why? 

Why pursue vengeance against the Midianites? 

Why tell Moses in the same [divine] breath, that after he avenges the Israelites, then he will die? 

This verse presents a riddle, an unlikely juxtaposition. Out of that syntactic choice to combine a task of vengeance and a foreshadowing of death, the Jewish sages draw a remarkable amount of meaning.

Not long before in the story, the Moabites had hired a prophet, Bilaam, to curse the Israelites. After he fails, another tribe, the Midianites, apparently try a more subtle subversion. They entice the Israelites into immorality and idolatry. In the face of brazen acts, “Moses and the whole Israelite community were weeping at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting” (Bamidbar 25:6). The priest Pinchas is the one who steps up to the moment and strikes the offending couple down with a spear. Pinchas is “swift with power”, while Moses freezes. Perhaps God wants Moses to follow through on a task that he had failed to act on before.

Question for contemplation: What life tasks have you “frozen” on and not yet completed? Hopefully not vengeance! But I love the lesson here that although nothing is guaranteed, sometimes God (or Life Itself) gives us opportunities to complete matters of importance before we die.

Now any clever thinker will realize that if you accept the logic of the verse, Moses could have lived quite a long time, if only he didn’t fulfill the task. 

A midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 22:2) picks up this idea: 

Had Moses sought to live several years, he could have lived, as the Holy Blessed One said to him: “Take vengeance…then you will be gathered.” The verse made his death contingent upon Midian. This is, rather, to inform you of Moses’ praiseworthiness. He said: Will the vengeance of Israel be delayed so that I will live? Immediately, “Moses spoke to the people, saying: Select from among you men for the army” (Bamidbar 31:3).

Moses understood that delaying the completion of a war for his own benefit would be a complete failure of leadership. The truest test of leadership is the ability to put the good of the community (or nation) above your own interests. 

Question for contemplation: When have your personal interests been in tension with what is good for your unit - a significant relationship, family, friend group, organization, community, etc.? How do you navigate the tension, resolve it if possible or manage it so it is at least tolerable? 

In watching President Biden wrestle with this dilemma, it seems to me that ultimately his ambition included the desire to be perceived as a statesman, as someone good for party and country. That attempt to align personal ambition with public needs created an avenue for making a difficult and honorable choice, if not with the enthusiasm and immediacy that Moses apparently summons. Internalizing the good of the larger group as part of one’s identity could be one strategy for alignment of interest and greater good. 

Now if you’ve read this far, you might be feeling unsettled by how much this discussion rests on a divine commandment to take vengeance on enemies. Even Marge Piercy’s depiction of “a good anger” cannot soften the harsh edges of violence right now. One option for holding this Torah portion with love rather than distaste or embodying its violence comes from the Chassidic tradition.

In the Chassidic tradition of text interpretation, the entire Torah becomes a landscape of metaphor representing the inner terrain. Every character is a facet of our inner life. The lessons we learn incline us towards self-understanding and spiritual development. The 19th century Mei HaShiloach in particular follows this model of Torah as a guide book to spiritual dynamics. Here is his lesson for us:

“Midian teaches of illusion (midian transposes to dimion, illusion or imagination). Moses was called the wisdom of all of Israel, as explained elsewhere. Here the Holy Blessed One is saying to Moses that when the power of illusion (Midian) is removed from the heart of Israel, then the children of Israel will not need to use their wisdom in order to know God’s will. Then, even without thinking, their intentions will be according to God’s will.”

The Mei HaShiloach suggests that illusion (distortion, disinformation, bullshit, biases and blindspots?) prevents us from directly acting on God’s will. What does he mean by God’s will? If I can translate it into a progressive sensibility, God’s will is the thriving, just, holy collective of human beings, treating each other with dignity and tending to the world with care and responsibility.Anytime we fall short of that, it is because midian is enticing us away. Moses, though, the inner wisdom of conscience, the moral intuition, helps us (probably again and again) to grow past our follies and glimpse good action that leads towards love and justice. When midian is finally destroyed, we won’t need Moses any more. Truth, justice, peace, love will be obvious and attainable.

That day is far away, I fear. 

But the surprisingly comforting realization I’m having right now while writing is that according to the Mei HaShiloach, Moses still lives. The spiritual reality of Moses, alive in us anytime we act in ways that align with God’s will, continues to tend to and guide our inner collective of impulses, desires, emotions, and values. Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses our Teacher, keep on teaching us!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Acting for the Sake of the Future

What a week it's been! It's almost dizzying to think about all that's transpired on the American political front since many of us gathered in a park to welcome Shabbat last Friday night. For me, it's been powerful and inspiring to think about how quickly things can shift sometimes -- a reminder that each of us has the potential to create change, and life plays out in unpredictable and unscripted ways.

This week's Torah portion, Pinchas, feels like a treasure trove, as it's ripe with topics that could be relevant to explore in a week like this. It begins, of course, with the story of Pinchas himself, Aaron's grandson who acts with zeal, killing an Israelite man and a Midianite woman, and is rewarded. Pinchas's story is a perfect jumping off point for an exploration of extremism or political violence. Later in the parasha, the story of the five daughters of Zelophehad is an inspiring tale about justice and how to amend laws that don't adequately serve a rapidly-changing society; it features teamwork and the power of sisterhood. A Dvar Torah about any of these themes would almost write itself... and if you are intrigued, I wholeheartedly encourage you to read the parasha in its entirety for yourself and let me know what catches your eye.

That said, what caught my eye the most this week were several lines of this Torah portion that I've never lingered on before. Between the interesting narrative sections about Pinchas and the daughters of Zelophehad, Numbers 26 contains a long genealogical list. This isn't particularly unusual in and of itself; in fact, the Torah is filled with these... censuses taken for different purposes at different points in the Israelites' narrative. Here, the purpose of this particular census is crystal clear:

"When the plague was over, Adonai said to Moses and to Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, “Take a census of the whole Israelite company [of fighters] from the age of twenty years up, by their ancestral houses, all Israelite males able to bear arms.” (Numbers 26:1-2).

What we would expect next would be a list of the Israelite males ages 20 and older, those deemed eligible to be part of the fighting force of their day. And for the most part, that is, in fact, what follows: how many Reubenites and what are the sub-clans of that tribe, how many Shimonites, and so on. But, in that otherwise straightforward list of men's names, three lines feature women: 

1. "Now Zelophehad son of Hepher had no sons, only daughters. The names of Zelophehad’s daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah" (Num. 26:33).

2. "The name of Asher’s daughter was Serah" (Num. 26:46).

3. "The name of Amram's wife was Yocheved daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt; she bore to Amram Aaron and Moses and their sister Miriam" (Num. 26:59)

I can't say for sure what all of these women are doing here on this list. I imagine, though, that Zelophehad's daughters are mentioned in this genealogical list to contextualize who they are, just before their proto-feminist story appears in Chapter 27, and it seems likely to me that Serah and Yocheved are riding on their coattails in some manner (hurray for powerful and noteworthy women!).

I will save a full exploration of Serah bat Asher for another time. (She's been a midrashic hero of mine for many years! As Tamar Kadari explains in the JWA Encyclopedia entry on Serah: "Her history is intertwined with the story of the migration to Egypt and enslavement, and with redemption and the return to Erez Israel. She lived to an extremely old age and accordingly was blessed with much earthly wisdom and knowledge, which she used to help the people of Israel as needed...")

For this week, I want to focus in on Yocheved, the mother of Miriam, Aaron and Moses, mentioned in Numbers 26:59. Here in our parasha, she is listed as the "daughter of Levi." Levi, as you may recall, was one of the twelve sons of Jacob, who came down to Egypt for food at a time of family, when his brother Joseph had risen to be the second in command to Pharaoh, way back in the book of Bereishit/Genesis. If Yocheved really is daughter of Levi born soon after his arrival in Egypt, this would mean she lived for hundreds of years(!) -- throughout the Israelites' entire period of enslavement in Egypt and into the wilderness to earn her mention here in the book of Bamidbar. (Indeed, I discovered this week just how many midrashim exist about Yocheved... particularly about her conception and birth and the conception and birth of Moses -- you can click here to read more if you're interested.) The midrashic imagination -- hinging on this verse from our Torah portion -- turns Yocheved into quite the superhero!

Of course, Yocheved doesn't need midrashim; she's already pretty awesome, even in a pshat-level (straightforward) reading of the verses where she first appears in the Torah: Exodus 2:1-3, in the birth story of Moses. That text reads as follows:

"A certain member of the house of Levi went and took [into his household as his wife] a woman of Levi. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw how beautiful he was, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she got a wicker basket for him and caulked it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child into it and placed it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile." 

Although Yocheved isn't even named in the Exodus text, we can see that this woman is remarkable! She is God-like in her action: just as, in the creation story, God repeatedly "saw that it was good," here, she sees the beauty in her son and it motivates her to hide him for as long as she can. When that plan no longer works, she is forced to give the baby up, but she takes great care to do so in a way that will keep him safe and enable him to have a future. She finds just the right kind of basket and caulks it to make it watertight. She carefully places it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile, where she knows that someone else could find it. The text doesn't say this explicitly, but perhaps she knew that this was exactly the spot where Pharaoh's daughter came to bathe each day. In any case, it is clear that her deep love for her child motivates her to make a personal sacrifice, but she does so in such a way that he might be saved and even have the potential to thrive in ways that he couldn't in her own care. 

Here in our Numbers/Pinchas text, this hero does have a name: Yocheved, which means "God's glory" (the yod-vav are part of God's proper four-letter name, and the kaf-bet-dalet root of kavod means glory, honor or respect). While Yocheved's decisiveness early in Exodus was bold and full of foresight, she cannot possibly have known the degree to which her actions would matter so far into the future. We, the reader of Numbers, however, know that not only did she manage to save her baby in Egypt, but he (Moses) would grow to be the leader who would take the Israelites out of Egypt and would ultimately shepherd them through a 40-year journey in the wilderness, forging them into a people. Yocheved's act ensured the future, not just for her own family but for her entire people.

When I saw Yocheved's name in this week's Torah portion and began to think about her legacy, I couldn't help but hear echoes of her story in the news headlines about President Biden's decision to step aside and "pass the torch" in hopes of preserving American democracy. Here, we see yet another leader willing to make a personal sacrifice for the sake of the future. 

Right now we are still standing, admittedly, quite close to the beginning of this particular political story, and we will have to see how it continues to unfold. But for this week, at least, I have found it beautiful, inspiring, and validating to consider Yocheved's action of sacrifice in Moses's birth story. Motivated by a combination of desperation and selflessness, her willingness to give up her child ultimately paves the way for a positive chain reaction that leads in the direction of national redemption. 

Where will our American story go next? Of course, we can't answer that question just yet... but perhaps, Yocheved's mention in this week's Torah portion will inspire each of us to consider the ways that we have agency. Like Yocheved, each of us has the power to embrace life and possibility, enabling goodness to triumph over fear, anger and paranoia.

Indeed, life is filled with twists and turns that we cannot possibly predict. When it comes to those decisions that do lie in our hands, though, let us act boldly, for the sake of the future!

Wishing each of you a Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum