Preparing the Home (of Your Heart)

Why is this night different from all other nights? 

Rabbi Yisrael Hopstein, the Maggid of Kozhnitz (1737-1814, Poland): Pesach (Passover) is linguistically related to pisuach (skipping) and dilug (leaping). On all other holidays, holiness doesn’t come to us all at once. Rather, we must draw it into ourselves [gradually], through the evening, morning, and afternoon prayers. But on Pesach, holiness comes to us all at once, as implied by the very word Pesach, as we just mentioned, which is why we need preparation. 

Wait, why do we need preparation? You just said the holiness comes all at once on Passover! Maybe we don’t actually need to stress the seder details and the food preparation and the house cleaning…? Or is that just wishful thinking?

The Maggid of Kozhnitz: Let me explain. For even though the radiant, clear light (or habahir) comes to us, nevertheless, each of us must purify ourselves in order to be able to receive this light. 

Um…

The Maggid: …

I don’t think that explains as much as you think it explains. 

The Maggid: So ask a question! That’s what we do on Pesach, correct?

Okay. What is this light, the “or habahir”? 

The Maggid: That’s one way we think about God’s presence. Imagine becoming aware of God’s presence in the same way that you notice light. 

Oh, I get it! So if God’s holiness arrives all at once on Pesach, if we aren’t prepared we are just going to squint and look away. Too much light all at once.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1866, Massachusetts): “Tell all the truth but tell it slant — / …Too bright for our infirm Delight / The Truth's superb surprise…”

What she said, but about encountering God!

The Maggid: Perhaps. But that isn’t the point I’m making here. Rather, compare it to the sun: even though it shines intensely, if the windows are closed, the light cannot enter the house. Do you understand?

So the point isn’t that we won’t be able to see because the light is so bright, but because we will have sealed ourselves off from seeing. So the house in the metaphor is…how we live our lives? And the real preparation of Pesach is a process of opening up so divine light can stream in?

John O’Donohue (1956-2008, Ireland): Each one of us is alone in the world. It takes great courage to meet the full force of your aloneness. Most of the activity in society is subconsciously designed to quell the voice crying in the wilderness within you.

I love that you poets are joining the chat. But what does being alone have to do with Pesach? 

John O’Donohue: Until you learn to inhabit your aloneness, the lonely distraction and noise of society will seduce you into false belonging, with which you will only become empty and weary. When you face your aloneness, something begins to happen. Gradually, the sense of bleakness changes into a sense of true belonging. This is a slow and open-ended transition but it is utterly vital in order to come into rhythm with your own individuality. In a sense this is the endless task of finding your true home within your life.

Ah. If our life is a house, we have to be truly living there in the first place to do any inner remodeling. I have to be at home with myself in order to welcome guests. 

John O’Donohue: As soon as you rest in the house of your own heart, doors and windows begin to open outwards to the world. 

And the divine light streams inon Pesach. But why Pesach? Why not any other holiday?

The Maggid of Kohznitz: On Pesach, since Israel had to leave Egypt [immediately]—for had they remained there even a moment longer, they would have been unable to leave—the redemption had to come in haste… Instead, the radiant, clear light came [in a manner of] skipping and leaping. 

Hm. So the very first Pesach everything happened quickly, and the people were saved at the last minute. And every year, we relive that story - as if we were there ourselves. This year too, it feels almost unbearable to remain in the shadows of cruelty and corruption one minute longer. In fact, a bunker with no windows feels uncomfortably appealing. 

The Maggid: Even so, each of us must prepare ourselves—just as in the parable of the sunlight and the windows, as I mentioned.

Keep resting in the house of my own heart. I guess that’s one way to talk about integrity and living my values. 

Anonymous contributor to the Haggadah (~9th century): Let all who are hungry come and eat.

Let’s keep our doors open to each other, our windows lit with hope, connection, and resolve, our life-home warm and cozy with presence. 

Chag sameach!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

P.S. Questions for Discussion:

1. The Maggid of Kozhnitz assumes we need to or yearn to encounter the light of God’s presence. What might this mean to you? What spiritual aspirations do you hold? 

2. Even when we don’t know what to do exactly, and even when now isn’t the right time to act, we can always prepare. What vision of the world are you preparing to lay the groundwork for? What does preparation look like for you?

3. What habits of mind and heart help you be present to your life, to rest in the home of your heart?

Acts of Resistance: Paving the Path Towards Redemption

This week, we find ourselves inside the month of Nissan, leading up to the Passover holiday. In just over a week, Jews everywhere will sit around seder tables to celebrate Pesach and recount our story of collective liberation. 

The story we tell at the Passover seder is grand in scope... almost larger than life! We'll recall plagues and miracles, signs and wonders, God's hand and outstretched arm. Recently, one of my B'nai Mitzvah students was reading the census that appears later in Bamidbar, and marveled at the sheer scale of the Exodus in human terms. The text indicates that some 603,550 Israelites left Egypt... and that's only counting the men ages 20+; if we extrapolate to account for women, children and Levites too, we can assume that in the Torah's telling, at least 1.5 - 2 million Israelites went out from slavery. That sounds like quite a march!! (Perhaps the scope and scale of the Exodus can inspire us to mass mobilization as well!)

In the lead-up to the holiday, though, I also find myself thinking about the many smaller and quieter acts of resistance that happened over a long stretch of time, paving the way for our ancestors' grand redemptive moment.

One such example, which is sure to be familiar to many of you, appears in the first chapter of Exodus, in the back-story to Moses's birth. The new Pharaoh who has arisen in Egypt is ruthless, greedy, and also paranoid. In an attempt to ensure that his authority won't be challenged, he commands that any new baby boys born to the Israelites must be killed. Here's the text of Exodus 1:15-16: "The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shifrah and the other Puah, saying, 'When you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the birthstool: if it is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.'"

Shifrah and Puah spring into action. As Exodus 1:17 says: "The midwives, fearing God, did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live."

In this single short verse, we learn a great deal about the midwives' heroism. First, they are described as "God-fearers;" they understand themselves as answering to a higher authority than Pharaoh. Second, Shifrah and Puah are courageous in their willingness to defy a direct executive order, presumably at great risk to themselves. And third, they engage in their rebellion by simply continuing to do the jobs that they've been trained to do as midwives, of bringing live babies into the world as safely as possible. Their continued embrace of life, especially in the face of a regime that has embraced violence and death, becomes a remarkably subversive act. 

This short story of the midwives is a beautiful tale of resistance, in and of itself. But, of course, like any biblical text, it can always be built upon through the interpretive tradition of midrash! In Dirshuni, a collection of contemporary midrashim written by Israeli women, Rivkah Lubitch offers a brilliant reading of Exodus 1:17 (the verse bolded above). Drawing on the classical rabbinic premise that the Torah does not contain extraneous words, and therefore each phrase must add new meaning to our understanding, she offers the following interpretation in a question/answer format:

מהו: וַתְּחַיֶּינָה את הילדים
שהחיו אותם בתורה, שאין חיים אלא תורה. ומי הן שלימדו את ילדי ישראל תורה כל אותן השנים שעבדו ישראל בפרך? הרי אלו שפרה ופועה שהיו עוברות מבית לבית, מאשה לאשה, והיו מתכנסין שם ילדי ישראל לרגלי מיטתה של יולדת. תחילה היו מיילדות את האשה, ואחר מחיות את הילדים בתורה

What is the meaning of the phrase "they let the boys/children live?"

They sustained their lives with Torah, for there is no life except through Torah. And who was it that taught the Israelite children Torah during all of those years when Israel served with crushing labor? Behold, it was Shifrah and Puah, who would move from house to house and from woman to woman; they would bring the Israelite children in, to the foot of the birthing bed. First, they would deliver the birthing woman, and afterwards, they would sustain the lives of the children by teaching them Torah.

This midrash is pretty awesome, and I want to thank Beth Huppin for introducing me to it and studying it with me recently. Functionally, what this interpretation does is extend the midwives' actions through a creative re-reading of the verse: now not only do Shifrah and Puah defy Pharaoh by delivering babies and letting them live, but they also gather all of the older children (siblings, neighbors, etc.) into each birthing room in order to teach them Torah. Here, Torah is cast as life-support: its values, stories and laws are, indeed, life-affirming and life-sustaining. At times when Torah couldn't be transmitted out in the open, the midwives become itinerant teachers, turning the intimate spaces of a birthing room -- where men would not have dared to go, in those days -- into classrooms. How brilliant, and how subversive!

The story of the midwives -- both as it is told in Exodus 1, and as Rivkah Lubitch re-imagines it in her contemporary midrashic interpretation -- shows just how many ways there are to resist oppression. Some of us will march in the streets... hopefully in great numbers (as soon as tomorrow)! In addition, between now and some future point that represents a fuller liberation from oppression, there will also need to be many acts of micro-resistance. These will necessarily look different from one another, but in any case, the story of Shifrah and Puah can certainly spark our thinking about the many ways that each of us has the potential to make a difference. Cory Booker staged a great feat on the Senate floor this week, lifting his voice in a way that garnered public attention (hundreds of millions of likes on TikTok); there will also be many other ways that we can raise our voices, in conversation and in writing, articulating our values strategically. Some acts of subversion and civil disobedience will take place in broad daylight, and others behind closed doors, where no one else can witness them but their effects can still be felt. I hope many of us will take cues from the midwives -- some by defying orders directly, and others by "teaching Torah" to the next generation in subtler ways. 

This Shabbat and over the coming week, as we continue to prepare for Passover, let us remember that ours is a history of resistance to tyranny and oppression! All of us have a role to play in paving the path towards redemption.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

A Morsel on Matzah

…You are dry as a twig
split from an oak
in midwinter.
You are bumpy as a mud basin
in a drought.
…You are pale as the full moon
pocked with craters
…Matzah, by Marge Piercy

Thank God for poets who can even elicit flavor from matzah! 

In just a few weeks we will be celebrating Passover, using our own choice words to describe that iconic food of freedom. To orient us in time, the ancient sages directed us to read on this Shabbat, right before the month of Nissan begins, a portion of the Torah called “The Month” Ha-Chodesh (Exodus 12:1-20).  

“God said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month (ha-chodesh) shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you…Sacrifice the paschal lamb on the fourteenth day…You shall observe the [Feast of] Unleavened Bread [on the fifteenth day], for on this very day I brought your ranks out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day throughout the ages as an institution for all time…” (Exodus 12:17).

This passage marks the first time in the Torah where the Jewish people are given mitzvot, sacred obligations, and they include the pesach offering and eating matzah. It seems as if the Israelites celebrated Passover one year later at Mt. Sinai (Numbers 9:5), but then for the next thirty-nine years they did not sacrifice the pesach lamb, nor did they eat matzah - because they were living solely on the miraculous mannah. 

In the book of Joshua, which picks up the story of the Torah with the people entering into the land of Canaan, we read: 

“The Israelites offered the passover sacrifice on the fourteenth day of the month, toward evening. On the day after the passover offering, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the country, unleavened bread (matzah) and parched grain. On the day after when they ate of the produce of the land, the manna ceased. The Israelites got no more manna; that year they ate of the yield of the land of Canaan” (Joshua 5:10-12).

Notice that the Exodus isn’t mentioned at all as a reason for eating matzah. Rather, the association here seems to be with eating from the produce of the land. Many scholars think that matzah-eating originated as a spring agricultural festival, and only over time merged with the historical holiday we know today as Passover. In any case, though, the impression we get of the first Passover in the Land of Israel is that matzah coincides with reaping the bounty of that particular land, and that mannah stops because it is no longer needed. The Israelites are out of the wilderness. They are home. 

But regardless of how the people in Joshua’s time celebrated Passover, ourPassover is modeled after the guidance in the Torah proper - a Torah which rolls back to the beginning right before the people reach their destination. The Torah’s Passover isn’t primarily about arriving home, but about leaving oppression and entering a wilderness of possibility. 

“You shall observe the [Feast of] Matzah, for on this very day I brought your ranks out of the land of Egypt.” 

Marge Piercy concludes her poem on matzah with these lines:

What we see is what we get
honest, plain, dry
shining with nostalgia
as if baked with light
instead of heat.
The bread of flight and haste
In the mouth you
promise, home.

When we eat matzah, we taste the promise of home, of deep connection to our earthy roots, but our focus is on witnessing and experiencing the fullness of alienation that characterized the Israelites in Egypt and the subsequent progression to liberation. 

In this month of Nissan, whether we taste matzah in Seattle or Jerusalem, or anywhere in between, may the shine of nostalgia blend with a vision of a better world, and may matzah’s honest, plain, dry character remind us to be real about suffering, about the work of freedom, and the hard yet worthy path of persistence.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

The Potency of Spring: Calyx and Petal

It's official: spring is here! Yesterday was the vernal equinox -- technically the first day of "astronomical spring" -- which means that as of today, the balance is tipping towards light. But, even without measuring the number of hours and minutes of daylight vs. darkness, all you need to do is step outside to know that it's spring! The weather is incredibly variable (this is, after all, Seattle!), but all of a sudden, blossoms and blooms are everywhere. 

This spring is feeling to me like an echo of the spring I so vividly recall from five years ago, when the world had just suddenly shut down because of Covid. Home from both school and work, my family was challenged to find ways to keep ourselves entertained and not go stir crazy. Right around this time of year in 2020, I remember taking my kids for long neighborhood walks and pausing to notice flowers. We challenged ourselves to find "every color of the rainbow" in nature, and were nearly always successful at that task. Much more importantly, being connected to the cycles of nature -- and observing the process of growth and blooming continue even as we humans were consumed with a virus and the havoc it was wreaking in our society -- lowered my blood pressure every time I got outside. Perhaps it's no wonder, then, that at this new moment of considerable stress and strain, as we witness in horror our own country's slide from democracy towards autocracy, I am once again feeling drawn towards the cycles of nature as a source of solace and meaning.

With buds and blossoms already on the brain, I couldn't help but notice the following passage as I read this week's Torah portion, Parashat Vayakhel, which details how Bezalel, master craftsman of the Tabernacle, made the Menorah:

He made the Menorah (lampstand) of pure gold. He made the lampstand—its base and its shaft—of hammered work; its cups, calyxes, and petals were of one piece with it. Six branches issued from its sides: three branches from one side of the lampstand, and three branches from the other side of the lampstand. There were three cups shaped like almond-blossoms, each with calyx and petals, on one branch; and there were three cups shaped like almond-blossoms, each with calyx and petals, on the next branch; so for all six branches issuing from the lampstand. On the lampstand itself there were four cups shaped like almond-blossoms, each with calyx and petals: a calyx, of one piece with it, under a pair of branches; and a calyx, of one piece with it, under the second pair of branches; and a calyx, of one piece with it, under the last pair of branches; so for all six branches issuing from it. Their calyxes and their stems were of one piece with it, the whole of it a single hammered piece of pure gold. He made its seven lamps, its tongs, and its fire pans of pure gold. He made it and all its furnishings out of a talent of pure gold. (Exodus 37:17-24)

The menorah in the mishkan -- and the later versions created for use in the First and Second Temples -- had seven branches in total (not nine, like the Chanukah versions we use today). Supposedly this menorah was so large that a priest would have to stand on a bench in order to light it. In addition to its size, another striking feature was its nature imagery. As you can see in the passage above, each of the six branches around the center branch contained multiple "blossoms," and the lamp cups were themselves shaped like blossoms. The Hebrew words for each of these blossoms are "kaftor v'ferech" - literally "calyx and petal" or "knob and flower." (In case you're wondering too, I did have to look up the word "calyx" and learned that it's "the usually green or leafy outside part of a flower consisting of sepals.) The Hebrew word translated as "shaped like almond-blossoms," "meshukadim," is a little unclear; it also could mean "almond-shaped" or "embossed." All of this makes it slightly tricky to picture exactly what this original menorah looked like, and artist renditions vary a great deal. Regardless, what is crystal clear is that there is intended symbolism in this strikingly large, solid gold, ritual object!

Dating back to ancient times, our Jewish interpretive tradition has always understood the work of the construction of the mishkan or Tabernacle as an echo of the creation story, which implies that its symbols and rituals have cosmic significance, and contemporary scholars of religion agree. It's not a stretch, then, to try to make meaning from the structure of the menorah. The seven lamps seem to correspond to the creation story's seven days, symbolizing wholeness or completion; this theme is also underscored by the Torah's insistence on a single hammered piece of gold. In addition, it's notable that both the beginning of the creation story ("Yehi or," "Let there be light") and the menorah's own function are fundamentally about bringing light -- perhaps standing in for divine wisdom -- into the world. 

In an article entitled "The Nature of the Cosmos," scholar Rachel Adler writes:

Clearly the Menorah embodies some kind of metaphor. But metaphor has rules, just like tennis or Scrabble. One rule is that there has to be some link between the tenor (the topic under discussion) and the vehicle (the concrete object to which it is being compared). What, then, is tall, has a kaneh (stem), with kanim (branches) extending from it, and p’rachim (flowers) intermixed with bud-like swellings (kaftorim)? The Menorah is a representation of a flowering almond tree!

The almond tree is distinctive not only in that it blossoms early, but also in that it then rapidly buds leaves, develops new branches, and forms its sustaining fruit-all before the flowers’ calyx drops off (Nogah Hareuveni, Nature in Our Biblical Heritage, 1980, p. 130). Its Hebrew name, shaked, means “the early waker,” and it may symbolize God’s watchfulness or the speed with which God responds (see Jeremiah 1:2).

It is also the legitimating emblem of the Aaronite priesthood. At the end of Korah‘s rebellion in Numbers 17, Moses deposits the staffs of all the Israelite chieftains in the Tent of Meeting, “and there the staff of Aaron…had sprouted: it had brought forth sprouts, produced blossoms and borne almonds” (Numbers 17:23).

If Adler's claim is correct, then the ancient Israelites who entered into the mishkan and stood before an impressively large, solid gold menorah were being prompted to think of an almond tree and also to recall that God was ever-present. Today, absent a Tabernacle or Temple, but with the glory of spring trees all around us, we can try to enter into this analogy in reverse order.

This Shabbat, I want to recommend that each of us try to take a nature walk -- and think of it as a spiritual practice! This is the perfect weekend to pause and pay attention to actual flowering trees at the height of spring blossom season here in Seattle. Go slow, and notice the color of the buds, and the way they are arranged along branches of bushes and trees. Try to observe the calyx and the petals of individual blooms. Primed by this week's Torah portion, you might also think about the menorah and the mishkan of ancient times, and recall that throughout human history, people have found ways to remind ourselves of God's presence, watchfulness, and responsiveness. 

Just as being outside did for us in the early days of the Covid pandemic, getting outside to notice buds and blooms this week has the potential to bring some measure of comfort during yet another moment of acute challenge. The trees whisper to us the potent messages of creation and cosmic time: "This moment is but a blip." "Your ancestors have endured worse and you are still here." "The rhythms of nature are still in motion." "Ultimately, everything will be okay." 

On this Shabbat of Parashat Vayakhel, may you find comfort in the potency of spring! 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Divine Embodied Interconnection

The sun rises, and the sun sets—

And glides back to where it rises…

There is no end to writing…

Kohelet 1:5, 12:12

In learning the Torah portion this week in preparation for writing to you, I looked back at the drash I wrote last year and the year before last. Each week Rabbi Rachel and I strive so hard to find the kernel of Torah that meets this precise moment, that has something to offer of nourishment, challenge, or guidance. And yet when I looked at my ideas for the last three years on parshat Ki Tisa, I was startled to discover that I keep being drawn back to the same theme! Apparently, this has become a core teaching for me, something perennially relevant to Kavana, and this year something that also touches on a cultural nerve in a new way.

The roots of this teaching all ground themselves in Exodus 33:18-20:

וַיֹּאמַ֑ר הַרְאֵ֥נִי נָ֖א אֶת־כְּבֹדֶֽךָ׃ 

וַיֹּ֗אמֶר אֲנִ֨י אַעֲבִ֤יר כׇּל־טוּבִי֙ עַל־פָּנֶ֔יךָ וְקָרָ֧אתִֽי בְשֵׁ֛ם יְהֹוָ֖ה לְפָנֶ֑יךָ וְחַנֹּתִי֙ אֶת־אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָחֹ֔ן וְרִחַמְתִּ֖י אֶת־אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֲרַחֵֽם׃ 

וַיֹּ֕אמֶר לֹ֥א תוּכַ֖ל לִרְאֹ֣ת אֶת־פָּנָ֑י כִּ֛י לֹֽא־יִרְאַ֥נִי הָאָדָ֖ם וָחָֽי׃ 

[Moses] said, “Oh, let me behold Your Presence!” 

And [God] said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you (literally: before your face), and I will proclaim before you the name Y-H-V-H, and the grace that I grant and the compassion that I show,” 

And [God] said, “But you cannot see My face, for a human being may not see Me and live.”

Moses yearns to see God in a more tangible way (intriguingly - perhaps a parallel urge to the one that motivated the Israelites to make a Golden Calf). God’s face remains hidden, but God proclaims the Thirteen Middot (Attributes) which we still use today to invoke God’s goodness and compassion on the High Holidays. 

Two years ago, I was drawn to a teaching that connects these Thirteen Middot with another thirteen middot (methods in this case), a rabbinic list of ways to interpret Torah. Through a complex grammatical analogy, Levi Yitzchak claims that just as meaning can be drawn from seeing common terms between two otherwise diverse texts, compassion arises when otherwise diverse people connect to what they have in common. 

“You awaken compassion by drawing close to someone who in many ways is quite distant from you, by seeing in them something that resonates with your own identity, experience, or circumstances. The common element brings us close together - and then the creative possibilities of relationship come into being because we are so different in other ways! For Levi Yitzchak, one of the expressions of God’s presence, what Moses so yearned to see, is the practice of compassion and the creative experiment of community. That’s what we do in our Kavana Cooperative. We care about each other, and as we are drawn together by some shared common terms, we offer our unique gifts which interact to create new possibilities for living a life of meaning and purpose.”

In other words, our work as people sharing a life together is to notice what we share in common (leading to compassion), and let our differences stir our creativity. 

Last year, like a moth to flame, I apparently came back to that same Torah text. Yearning to see God’s hidden face represents a crucial part of our spiritual growth: 

“A child, like the Israelites at Sinai, builds a spiritual life around a kernel of existential not-knowing. Each one of us moves forward with a different mixture of curiosity, fear, embarrassment, and hopeful yearning. We build idols and life smashes them, and sometimes the broken image of what we thought we knew is painful.

When, as adults, we ask who God is, the Torah offers insight into mature spiritual knowing of God. It is dynamic (ever changing like the divine name), reflective (when we glimpse backward like Moses does), and humbling (when we remember our inability to fully picture God and indeed each being).”

At the heart of what felt important to me each year was the idea that we humans are the same and we are different. We have so much in common, and yet we are also irreducibly mysterious to each other. This basic fact of life can lead to compassion, creativity, or humble spiritual growth - or mistrust, a desire to wall off others, and a reversion to our most selfish and destructive impulses. 
This year, I fear that so many in power (and who enable those in power) choose fear and anger over compassion, choose chaos over creativity, choose the law of the jungle over the rule of law. 

The medieval sage Ovadiah Sforno noticed the discrepancy between what Moses asked for and what God offered. God says, “You can see my goodness…but not My face.” But Moses asked to see God’s kavod - usually translated as Presence, or Glory, and also meaning honor, respect, and dignity. 

Sforno says that God’s kavod refers to “how every creature, every phenomenon in this universe derives from You, even though these phenomena do not appear to be even faintly related to one another. This is what Isaiah 6:3 meant with the words“all the earth is filled with God’s kavod.”

We are similar, because we all derive from our Creator. And we are different, because the Creator created diversity! And a universe full of wildly different beings is the definition of what is glorious, honorable, and inherently dignified about God… Should we not aspire to see this deep truth, as Moses asks? 

In a time where the roar of reaction to DEI has grown claws that slash, let us rededicate ourselves to Divine Embodied Interconnection: the practice of recognizing our shared humanity, valuing our diverse ways of being, and doing everything in our power to build communities and societies of dignity, justice, creative partnership, and spiritual wisdom. 

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Power to the People!

Last week's Torah portion focused on the blueprints for the construction of the Mishkan, the Israelites' sacred space. This week, Parashat Tetzaveh takes us inside, focusing our attention particularly on the garments of the high priest. On top of the special linen undergarments, robe and ephod, breastplate and shoulder pieces, pomegranates and bells, the entire outfit was capped with a turban that would sit on Aaron's head, and on that turban -- front and center -- was a head-piece called the tzitz. Here's the Torah's description (from Exodus 28:36-38):

וְעָשִׂיתָ צִּיץ זָהָב טָהוֹר וּפִתַּחְתָּ עָלָיו פִּתּוּחֵי חֹתָם קֹדֶשׁ לַה'. וְשַׂמְתָּ אֹתוֹ עַל פְּתִיל תְּכֵלֶת וְהָיָה עַל הַמִּצְנָפֶת אֶל מוּל פְּנֵי הַמִּצְנֶפֶת יִהְיֶה. וְהָיָה עַל מֵצַח אַהֲרֹן וְנָשָׂא אַהֲרֹן אֶת עֲוֺן הַקֳּדָשִׁים אֲשֶׁר יַקְדִּישׁוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְכׇל מַתְּנֹת קׇדְשֵׁיהֶם וְהָיָה עַל מִצְחוֹ תָּמִיד לְרָצוֹן לָהֶם לִפְנֵי ה׳

You shall make a tzitz of pure gold and engrave on it a seal (hotam) with the inscription: “Holy to the Eternal (kodesh ladonai).”  Hang it on a cord of blue (petil techeilet), so that it may remain on the turban; it shall remain on the front of the turban. It shall be on Aaron’s forehead, and Aaron will carry the sin of the holy things that the Israelites make holy, from any of their holy donations. It shall be on his forehead at all times, to find favor for them before the Eternal. 

The tzitz itself must have been quite something! I invite you to imagine for a moment what it would mean to be the high priest and literally walk around with the words "Holy to the Eternal" emblazoned on a gold plate on your forehead. This head-band carries a huge weight, both literally and figuratively. And, what must it have felt like to have been an Israelite in the presence of the high priest, looking at him and being constantly reminded of his special role, his power, and his status as a holy person with a holy purpose?!

If you like geeking out on Jewish texts and rituals like I do and you read the verses above carefully, particularly noting the words I bolded, you may have already realized that, embedded in this short passage, there are many ways in which the tzitz echoes the ritual objects of both tallit and tefillin. In terms of the connection to tallit -- a four-cornered cloth with specially-knotted fringes on each corner (tzitzit) -- I can spot multiple echoes: 1) the tzitz is held in place by a "petil techeilet," a "cord of blue," and the same distinctive phrase appears in the commandment about the tzitzit (see Numbers 15:38), 2) tzitz and tzitzit may not be linguistically connected (say the scholars of ancient Hebrew), but they certainly share an aural similarity, and 3) in both cases, holiness/kedusha is explicitly named as part of their core purpose (see Numbers 15:40 with regard to tzitzit: "Thus you shall be reminded to observe all My commandments and be holy unto your God."). With regard to tefillin, the link to the tzitz feels obvious both in form and in content: both are articles of adornment to be worn on the forehead, both are attached by straps, and both incorporate writing or text of significance.

There is one very key difference, though, between the tzitz and both tallit and tefillin: who can wear it. The tzitzis explicitly part of the priestly garb, and even among the kohanim, an article of dress that is only for the singular high priest to don. There's even a famous Talmudic story about Hillel and Shammai where both are approached by a would-be convert to Judaism who says: "Convert me so that they will install me as High Priest" (see Shabbat 31a). The whole story rides on the idea that it's obvious to the reader that this is a ridiculous notion, since the priesthood is obviously only open to the descendants of Aaron, and not everyone who might want to do it. (For whatever it's worth, Shammai rejects the candidate and Hillel accepts him, anticipating correctly that as he learns more about Judaism, he will come to see for himself that he is not eligible for the position!) 

One could imagine that the ritual mitzvot of tallit and tefillin might similarly be reserved only for a particular class of individuals, but that is explicitly not the case. The Torah's command about tzitzit begins with the phrase "daber el b'nai yisrael" as God tells Moses to "speak to the Israelites" (as a whole). With regard to tefillin, the Talmud explicitly states (in Arakhin 3b), "Everyone (ha-kol) is required to wear tefillin: Priests, Levites, and Israelites." [I am well aware that for many centuries, the "everyone" of tallit and tefillin was understood to apply only to men. Lots was written in the late decades of the 20th century about these mitzvot by second-wave Jewish feminists, and one of the major shifts that we can see in egalitarian prayer spaces today is the application of these mitzvot across the gender continuum. I am a proud wearer of both tallit and tefillin.]

It's key to note that this was not a chronological historic development -- such that once-upon-a-time, all power or holiness resided with the high priest and then slowly over time that circle widened. On the contrary, both notions-- of specific leadership roles carrying unique holy authority, and also of the more democratic idea that holiness belongs to all of us collectively and can be accessed by every single human being -- have always co-existed within our tradition and are baked into the most ancient of our texts. For example, I am thinking of God's famous speech to the Israelites in Exodus 19:4-6 which contains the line: "you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." This is a radical theology, and a radical notion of the role that every single one of us has the potential to play in the world.

This week, we are approaching the holiday of Purim, which considers what happens when society is turned upside down as a result of leaders who don’t understand what it means to pursue holiness. As I have shared before, I am always moved by the core mitzvot of this holiday, which rest not only with leaders, but with each and every member of the Jewish community. All of us are obligated to read/hear the story of Megillat Esther and to blot out evil, to feast and rejoice, to give gifts of food to one another, and to provide monetary support to the most vulnerable members of our society. This year, the Purim holiday underscores this aspect of our Jewish tradition, that we have always had symbols and texts pointing us to the idea that holiness has the capacity to reside both with our leaders and with all people. This feels like an important safeguard... because in this case, if any individual leader fails to lead society in proper and holy directions - oriented towards "kodesh ladonai" - the rest of us still know what to do and how to carry on the mantle of our holy mission in the world. This coming week, as I put on my own tallit and tefillin, this will be my intention: that especially when the world is topsy-turvy (as in the Purim story and now), I am grateful for our tradition which democratizes the priesthood and grants power to the people.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

A Fierce and Tender Blessing

The sudden return of golden sunshine to Seattle focused my attention this week on the golden statues placed within the Mishkan (and later the Temple). In the Holy of Holies, centered around the empty space where another temple might have placed a god, two gold cherubim face each other, wings outstretched (Exodus 25:18-20).

Here are my questions: 

1. What is a cherub?

2. Why are there two in the holiest space?

3. What do these cherubim have to teach us right now?

All we know about the cherub from our Torah portion is that it has wings. Much later, when the Temple was built by King Solomon, their wings are described as “extended, a wing of the one touched one wall and a wing of the other touched the other wall, while their wings in the center of the chamber touched each other” (1 Kings 6:27). 

Elsewhere, though we have a striking image: When Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden, “east of the garden of Eden were stationed the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24). These winged things are guardians. An early midrashclaims that cherubim are angels of destruction. And the medieval commentator Chizkuni says that their form itself was frightening to behold, let alone the fiery ever-turning sword they wielded. Fierce!

This image of fierce guardian angels ready to destroy trespassers isn’t the only conception we have of cherubim, however. Through a variety of linguistic stretches, the Talmud (Sukkah 5b) clearly states that a cherub “had the face of a small child”. Many centuries later, Renaissance painters gifted us the now-inescapable image of a cherub as a tiny little baby angel. 

However they looked, two statues of them were placed in the Temple. Why two? Perhaps they were understood to flank God’s Presence, acting as honor guards. Having only one would run the risk of looking like the cherub was the object of worship, and having more than two would be redundant. 

The Talmud (Bava Batra 99a) suggests that the angel statues actually moved! When the Jewish people were in alignment with God, the angels stood face to face, and when the people were out of alignment, the angels looked away from each other. Two is the basic unit of relationship, and the cherubim functioned as barometers of the relational health between God and the people. 

The Israeli poet Sivan Har-Shefi has a poem, In the Innermost Rooms, which explores the imagery of the cherubim in the inner sanctum as a metaphor for relationship.

When we build the house (bayit: same word refers to the Temple)Main doors to the four windsWindows to a crimson sunsetTo the rustle of the sunrise

We will leave one room emptyAnd in it we will stand all of our days…Close one to another and goldenMy wings upon you and your wings upon me.

And life will stir in the other roomsIn the kitchen and in the living roomIn the children’s roomsAnd rejoice and make noise and in them we will grow

But our quiet rootsAre from that roomAnd the heat and the light and the Sabbath

Close one to another and goldenFace to faceA blessing.

So what are we to take away from this encounter with the cherubim? 

I imagine these golden angels within me, sometimes fierce and protective, sometimes a charming and tender expression of my inner child. We need both! Without the inner child, the fierce guardian becomes frightening and destructive. Without the fierce guardian, the inner child runs away from responsibility. 

I imagine these golden angels protecting the quiet space where we can hear God’s voice. 

I imagine these golden angels are us - when we remember that empty room where the quiet roots grow. Face to face, doing our best to make our shared lives a blessing.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Prayer-as-Protest, in this Hard Week

As we approach this Shabbat, the world feels crushingly broken to me.

Here in the U.S., each new day this week -- with its accompanying executive orders, confirmations of unfit appointees, slashing of departments and firings of government employees, and direct attacks on minority groups and on diversity itself -- has pulled our society further and further from America's vision of democratic and just ideals. (It's all happening so terrifyingly fast, too!) Separately, for Jews everywhere, yesterday was a particularly gut-wrenching day -- even on top of almost a year and a half of a gut-wrenching baseline -- as two red-headed babes were returned to Israel in coffins by their Hamas murderers.* (*Yes, I know it was even worse than that, as Shiri Bibas's body was not returned and she is still considered missing; Hamas's sadism and cruelty is breathtaking. And yes, I also believe that our care absolutely extends to all, including the thousands upon thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israel's zealous bombings during this last year of war. Still, this is where my own focus is landing today... I just can't stop thinking about Ariel and Kfir.)

This week, our Torah portion, Parashat Mishpatim, contains a huge range of laws: laws that prohibit striking a parent, homicide, and kidnapping; laws about assault and damage to property; laws of business ethics, judicial integrity, and the fair treatment of an enemy; laws mandating care for the disadvantaged, prohibiting oppressing the stranger, instituting the Sabbatical year and holidays, and more. 

Stepping back and looking at this Torah portion in total, one key takeaway from Mishpatim is that laws matter. Having a system of laws, rooted in a moral framework, is necessary in order to build the kind of society we would all want to live in. Laws help us regulate society, protect people's rights, ensure stability and equality, and resolve conflicts. But laws work only when they are applied fairly and equitably, and when they can be enforced. Although the situations here and there are different ("l'havdil," as they say in Hebrew!), this week I've felt like whatever direction I look, it's easy to spot almost cartoonishly-evil supervillains, who operate with cruelty and utterly outside of the framework of law.

What do we do when lawlessness and chaos replace law and order, when the world around us simply doesn't work as we know it should? We protest, of course! Sometimes this means taking to the streets, and sometimes this means resisting through other means. In addition, one of the tools we Jews possess in our spiritual toolbox is prayer-as-protest!

Perhaps the best example of prayer-as-protest is Mourner's Kaddish. Growing up, I remember learning that Mourner's Kaddish was a prayer of praise to God, recited by a mourner as an act of faith: that even at a time of loss, the right thing to do was to praise God. In more recent years, I have learned this prayer anew, from my friend and colleague Rabbi Elie Kaunfer (of Hadar). His reading of Mourner's Kaddish flips this prevailing interpretation on its head; he re-defines the prayer as "a prompt that reminds God of the brokenness of the world." 

Kaunfer grounds his re-reading of Kaddish in two specific lines of the prayer (and if you're interested in reading about this in more detail, I invite you to click here to read his whole article entitled "The Mourner's Kaddish is Misunderstood"). The opening line "Yitgadal ve'yitkadash shemei rabbah," he argues, must be read in light of its biblical reference text (Ezekiel 38:23). He writes: "In a world of death and mourning, it is clear that God is not fully holy, great, or even king. This prayer -- put in the mouth of the mourner -- begs God to speed the day when God is, in fact, great and holy. But it acknowledges that we aren't there yet."

Second, he points to the congregational response of "yehei shmei rabbah...," noting that Kaddish is one of the few prayers in which God isn't actually mentioned or addressed (only "God's name"). Kaunfer argues: "This is a prayer that is acting out the reality we live in: a world in which God's name is diminished. And while we want God's name to be great and blessed, and ask for that in this prayer, we still live in a world where that hasn't happened fully. Exhibit A? The death we are mourning, the death that brought us to this prayer."

Re-read in this way, Mourner's Kaddish becomes a radical prayer: one that laments the state of the world and reminds us of God's absence, a prayer of woe and grief, for both the mourner and for God. As Kaunfer concludes:

"The Kaddish is not a stoic praise of an unfeeling God who for reasons we can't know let our loved ones die without remorse. Rather it is a plea for a better world in which God is more fully holy, and the presence of God more completely experienced. We are not living in that world, and the Kaddish knows it; but it offers us a path to imagine a world beyond our current one. And critically, God is in league with us in begging for that world to come soon."

As I said above, this week, the world feels so very broken, so dis-ordered. A world of lawlessness and evil is a world in which God's name is diminished; all is not as it should be.

I hope many of you can join us tonight for a Kabbalat Shabbat service -- led by Rabbi Jay and with musical accompaniment by Kohenet Traci Marx. I will be there too, and together, we can join in prayer-as-protest,lamenting the injustice of the world and reciting the words of Mourner's Kaddish together for the victims of such cruelty.

Wishing all of us a Shabbat that offers some degree of shalom (peace) and respite from the chaos and cruelty. At hard times, especially, I'm grateful for the company of this community of fellow-travelers. 

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

A Desert of Harshness and Hope

Here we are again. I’m writing as Tu Bishvat approaches, and you are no doubt reading it hot on the heels of the holiday that acknowledges trees and the first blossoming towards spring. But when I say “here we are again,” you know what I mean - and it has nothing to do with the turn of the seasons. 

This time around everything feels heavier, harder, and hazier. To quote the wise and thoughtful Anne Lamott in a recent editorial, “I think we need and are taking a good, long rest. Along with half of America, I have been feeling doomed, exhausted and quiet. A few of us, approximately 75 million people, see the future as a desert of harshness. The new land looks inhospitable.”

A long time ago, in a desert where past, present, and future met on a modest mountain peak called Sinai, a bedraggled and exhausted people received Torah for the first time. They heard the words of God, words that told them exactly how the world should be and what they needed to do to get there. And then, they panicked.

וַיַּרְא הָעָם וַיָּנֻעוּ וַיַּעַמְדוּ מֵרָחֹק 

The people saw, they wavered, and they stood off in the distance. (Exodus 20:15)

In the Talmud (Shabbat 88b), we learn two teachings from Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi that capture the intricate dynamics at play in these few short words. 

And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: From each and every utterance (i.e. one of the Ten Commandments) that emerged from the mouth of the Holy Blessed One, the souls of the Jewish people left [their bodies], as it is stated: “My soul departed when he spoke” (Song of Songs 5:6). And since their souls left [their bodies] from the first utterance, how did they receive the second utterance? God rained the dew upon them that, in the future, will revive the dead, and God revived them, as it is stated: “You, God, poured down a bountiful rain; when Your inheritance was weary You sustained it” (Psalms 68:10). 

And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: With each and every utterance that emerged from the mouth of the Holy One, Blessed be He, the Jewish people retreated in fear twelve miles, and the ministering angels walked them [back toward the mountain], as it is stated: “The hosts of angels will scatter [yidodun]” (Psalms 68:13). Do not read the word as yidodun, meaning scattered; rather, read it asyedadun, they walked them.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi is trying to capture something about the inner life of the people through two different yet equally striking images. 

First, when the people hear God speak, they die and then God has to resurrect them with special dew in order to give them the next law, which upon hearing it the people die again, God drips dew on them again, and so on. 

And second, that the people don’t just “waver, tremble, falter”, but actually move to “stand off in the distance” every time God speaks. Slightly better than dying every time, but still exhausting. Luckily in this second image, angels arrive to meet the people where they are at, and gently - ever so gently - move them back towards the holy mountain and their sacred task. Rashi adds that the angels “assisted them to come close a little at a time, as they were weak. This is like a [parent] who walks their child at the beginning of their walking.” 

Take a moment to just absorb these scenes. Imagine yourself as one character, then another: human, God, angel, Torah, Moses, parent, child, dew…

On any given day, some of us feel like the Israelites. Confronted with the enormity of what we should be doing, or simply overwhelmed by everything going on right now, our vital force feels like it has left for a while. We need to move back from the action. 

Some of us might feel the clarity of how things should be, and what we could be doing. Like God or Torah itself, we burn with moral purpose and urgency. If only enough people would listen and act together! Of course, burning with purpose and urgency might burn out friends and scorch would-be allies, so we need to balance passion with nourishment, adding in some dew-drops of relational nurture so we don’t live lonely at the top of the mountain.

Some of us might not have perfect moral clarity or strategic insight, but we do have love and patience like the angels. Our job is to connect to those who are overwhelmed, find the leaders who inspire us, and gently - ever so gently - move us all a bit closer to the action. 

And of course all of these roles exist within each one of us.

Anne Lamott adds to her previous grim assessment: “The new land looks inhospitable. But if we stay alert, we’ll notice that the stark desert is dotted with growing things. In the pitiless heat and scarcity, we also see shrubs and conviction. Lacking obvious flash and vigor might make it seem as if there is no resistance. But it is everywhere you look.”

Wishing you a Shabbat of angels, dew, rest, and resistance.

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Holding Up Moses's Hands!

This week, as I re-read Parashat Beshalach, the post-exodus twists and turns have particularly aroused my sympathy for the Israelites! As this Torah portion begins, the people of Israel have already endured hundreds of years of enslavement, lived through ten plagues, and survived an especially harrowing final night in Egypt. Now, they experience one new roller coaster after another: they are trapped by the sea, and then jubilant when they cross to the other side; they grumble with hunger, and then find themselves overwhelmed by an abundance of quail and manna; they thirst for water, until Moses is instructed to strike a rock to bring forth water. Each and every moment seems to throw up a new challenge for the people, so it's no wonder they feel tired and weary.

It's in the wake of these many trials and tribulations that our already-exhausted ancestors encounter their first true enemy in the wilderness. As Exodus 17:8 explains: "Amalek* came and fought with Israel at Rephidim." (*In case you aren't already familiar with the concept of Amalek, there's a more detailed account in Deuteronomy 25:17-19, as well as lots of midrashim and commentaries about this group. In a nutshell, the Amalekites are known for being evil and cruel: for ambushing the stragglers as the Israelites leave Egypt -- the elderly, children, and those who are weak and infirm -- and for attacking without cause. In the rabbinic imagination, the concept of Amalek is extended throughout history, to those people in every generation who revel in hatred and cruelty.)

Here's how the battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites is described, in Exodus 17:9-11:

"Moses said to Joshua, 'Pick some men for us, and go out and do battle with Amalek. Tomorrow I will station myself on the top of the hill, with the rod of God in my hand.' Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Then, whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; but whenever he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed."

The Talmud takes up this last verse, expressing skepticism that Moses's hands could, in fact, have been the key to the Israelites' victory over the Amalekites. As Rosh Hashanah 29a says: 

"Did the hands of Moses make war (when he raised them) or break war (when he lowered them)? Rather, the verse comes to teach us that as long as the Jewish people turned their eyes upward and subjected their hearts to God in Heaven, they prevailed, but if not, they fell." 

In the Talmud's reading, Moses's hands become important symbolic indicators, pointing towards the heavens, keeping the Israelites focused on the true purpose of their battle. In addition, Moses's upraised arm feels like an intentional echo of other famous biblical hands and arms: God's "zeroah netuyah" / "outstretched arm" that we read about in our Passover seders (Deuteronomy 26:8), the Israelites' "yad ramah"/ "arm raised high" as they cross through the split sea (Exodus 14:18), and Moses's arm and rod lifted over the sea in order to split it (Exodus 14:21). Together, the Talmud's explanation of the hands-pointing-upwards image, coupled with these inter-textual references, all add dimension and depth to the role Moses's hands play in this dramatic battle scene.

That said, the Torah knows well that Moses is only human. Like the rest of the Israelites -- and like all of us -- his stamina is not infinite. As the text of our parasha goes on to explain in Exodus 17:12-13:

"But Moses's hands grew heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur, one on each side, supported his hands; thus his hands remained steady until the sun set. And Joshua overwhelmed the people of Amalek with the sword."

It is this final image, from the final challenge of Parashat Beshalach, that feels most potent to me this week in particular. Even Moses -- God's chosen servant/leader -- cannot do it all! When his strength falters and his arms grow too heavy for him to hold them up any longer, Aaron and Hur gently move in to offer support. They bring him a rock to serve as his chair, and the two of them stand on each side of Moses, physically holding his hands aloft. 

The Hebrew phrase translated above as "his hands remained steady" reads: "vayehi yadav emunah ad bo ha-shamesh." Commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra (from 11th century Spain) zeroes in the language of emunah, which means "steady" or "faithful," in two ways in his explication of this verse. He writes: 1) Emunah is a noun meaning something lasting and permanent. 2) Emunah comes from the word omen (to nurse, or to bring up) as in Esther 2:7 ("and he [Mordecai] brought up Hadassah"), indicating that Aaron and Hur were like nursemaids who lifted up Moses's hands. Both of Ibn Ezra's explanations resonate for me. I love the idea that a steady-state can be achieved only when we humans bolster one another's strength and lift each other up, and I also relate to the care-giving impulse that motivates us to lean in and support one another.

As our entire community is well aware, we are living through an extraordinary chapter in American history. Over the last few weeks, every single day has been filled with new challenges, twists and turns, and even battles for the people of this country and for its soul. The volume and pace of all of this feels overwhelming. In addition, for most of us, what's transpiring also feels far beyond our control. 

Our parasha's final scene strikes me as precisely the Torah that we need this week! In the battles that are unfolding before our eyes, none of us have the power of a Moses figure to control the outcome, to completely stop what's happening through the positioning of our own hands. However, all of us can play the role of Aaron and Hur in some way, offering the kind of support that props up the hands of others and, in doing so, making a substantive difference.

There are a zillion possible examples of what this might look like, and I leave it to you to give some thought this week to what support role(s) you are best suited to play in this moment. How can you support and steady the hands of others? Where does your care-giving impulse lead you? How can you uphold your core values and maintain alignment?

I am keenly aware that within our own Kavana community, some people have come under attack more directly and feel more vulnerable than others. Here, I'm thinking specifically of those in our community who are trans, non-binary and queer; who are native Spanish speakers; who are federal employees; who work in global health or other fields that are being gutted. If there are ways that the Kavana staff and I can prop any of you up -- or support you in supporting one another -- please know that we are here for you! 

On a personal level, I'll share that as a rabbi, I was particularly taken with the Episcopal Bishop, Mariann Edgar Budde, who drew ire a couple weeks ago after addressing the president directly and calling on him to "have mercy" on immigrants. This week, I took the time to drop a note of appreciation in the mail to her... a small gesture of support for her raised hand.

In Kavana's politically-engaged community of voters, I've been inspired by the many of you who have been meeting with elected officials regularly, making calls to legislative offices to ask that specific actions be taken, and making additional calls to express gratitude when our elected officials stick their necks out in protest or dissent. Lots of you have also been reaching out to family members and friends in other locations, encouraging them to make harder calls to elected officials who don't share the same set of core values. Let's keep that up! 

The free press and the courts are both key to preserving freedom and democracy, and of course both have been under attack. Now is the time to subscribe to quality news publications and pay to get beyond the paywalls for the individual journalists whose research and voices you value. This is also a great time to donateto the organizations that are filing lawsuits you care about. These are examples of how even small acts of financial support can meaningfully bolster the hands of important power levers.

And finally, many of you are already volunteering in substantive ways or registering for trainings in preparation for stepping into new volunteer roles. Finding active ways to make a difference keeps our hands pointed upwards towards our highest collective values -- in support of immigrants and immigrant justice, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ equality, environmental justice, combatting racism, human rights, and more. (And the more we do this work together, too, the more we can strengthen our own community ties and experience enjoyment along the way, while making a difference.)

Keep in mind that no one of us has to do it all -- after all, we are all merely human and we all have limited capacity (just like Moses!). Collectively, though, we have the power to keep each other's hands uplifted! As Amalek approaches, we Jews have the muscle memory to know how to circle around the most vulnerable members of our community, offering shields of protection. We know how to notice when someone else needs a chair or a support for their tired arm... and when we act on these observations, we can keep each other feeling supported and cared for. Together, we can remind ourselves who we are and what we believe in, aligning our values heaven-ward, even in the face of a broader society around us that's having a hard time remembering who we want to be.

Parashat Beshalach leads us through the sea, along our wilderness journey, and even into battle together. Along the way, may we each find tenderness and care, empowerment and strength, joy and song. Let's join forces and hold up Moses's hands, as we march onward together.

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

The Tzaddik Next Door

Do you want to share a sheep with me? 

That is an actual question a great-great-great-etc.-ancestor might have asked a neighbor in Egypt, following the sage advice of Moses himself. 

The Israelites are on the verge of freedom, and the very first Pesach (Passover) is about to happen. As you may recall, one of the gorier elements of the story involves the Israelites smearing blood on the doorposts of their houses so that God’s angel of destruction doesn’t slaughter their firstborn along with those of the Egyptians. That smeared blood comes from a lamb, and one of the less-remembered elements of the story is that each household is supposed to eat the entire lamb that night (Exodus 12:10). If any is left over they have to burn it, but Moses tells the people not to waste their sheep:

“But if the household (bayit) is too small for a lamb, let it share one with a neighbor who dwells nearby (sh’cheno ha-karov), in proportion to the number of persons: you shall contribute for the lamb according to what each household will eat” (Exodus 12:4).

On one level, this is purely pragmatic. Too much sheep for one family? Split it between two families!

On another level, this ritual has a side purpose - to build community. On an eerie night and on the precipice of the unknown, having an excuse to connect through sharing food (and purpose) will help the Israelites be courageous and committed to each other. 

On yet a deeper level, the chassidic master Yisrael Hopstein, the Maggid of Kozhnitz, transforms the text into a spiritual lesson (I learned this from Rabbi Sam Feinsmith’s text study through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. This is his translation):

“The [spiritual] intent of our verse: someone who is not on the level where they can draw holiness upon themselves, ‘Then he and his neighbor (sh’cheno)...shall take”, suggesting that we should attach ourselves (yitchaber) to the righteous. For [the word] neighbor (shachen) points to a righteous person, as it is written: “Better a close neighbor than a distant brother” (Proverbs 27:10). Here “neighbor” refers to the righteous individual because they are close to the blessed Creator and dwell (shochen) with God.”

There are two key ideas in the Maggid’s teaching. 

First, sometimes we find that our bayit, our inner house / temple, is not large enough for a full metaphorical sheep (that is, to draw down holiness, which in turn means something like spiritual mastery). In other words, we are still spiritual seekers, growing and aspiring but not yet quite there yet. 

This brings us to the Maggid’s second key idea. If you don’t have full mastery of your spiritual life, find someone closer to that goal than you. For the Maggid, that is the tzaddik (righteous person), who is like ashachen (neighbor, but also related to the word shechinah - Presence of God). They are fully at home with God and God’s presence dwells with them. 

The tzaddik in chassidic thought and practice is a charismatic spiritual leader through whom the average Jew can connect to the divine, and who is able to see the proper path of spiritual growth for each person they encounter. How comforting in scary times to turn to the wise ones, to join ourselves to them and let them point out the best way to move forward!

And yet, how easy it is for abuse to happen within a hierarchical religious model like this. Or at the very least, some surrendering of self-direction to one person holding the keys to wisdom.

In a community like Kavana, I interpret the Maggid’s teaching more democratically, in keeping with our cooperative spirit. He uses the word “yitchaber” to mean “join to the tzaddik”, but you could read it as “befriend”, to become a chaver. 

We come to community seeking spiritual friendship, where we can learn from those who have wisdom we don’t (yet) have, and offer our insights and gifts to others along the way as well. In this way we are all seekers, and we are all tzaddikim - perhaps of art or ethics, of community organizing or meditation, of pop culture or holding pain tenderly…

May you join yourselves in fruitful friendship to those you can learn from, and share generously from your own strengths and wisdom. 

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

The Antidote to Kotzer Ruach

It's a little hard for me to believe that a presidential inauguration took place only four days ago, as so much has happened since and the news cycle has been so unrelenting that it's felt like a month at least! In talking to many of you this week, I'm hearing a good deal of weariness and exhaustion already. I get it -- and I'm certainly feeling some of that too. This week's Torah portion may be helpful to us -- at least in the sense of offering us a cautionary tale -- and commentators on this week's parasha may have some insightful and relevant suggestions to offer.

Parashat Va'era opens with God speaking to Moses. This is a beautiful and compelling speech, in which God says (and here I paraphrase, but do feel free to check out the full text of Exodus 6:2-8): "I've had a long-standing relationship with your ancestors and established a covenant with them. Now I have heard the moaning of the Israelites in bondage, and I will free you from slavery, redeem you, and bring you into the promised land."

This seems like a wonderful offer: God is paying attention to the suffering of the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, and is prepared to do something about it! Unfortunately, the verse that comes next takes the wind out of both God and Moses's sails. Exodus 6:9 reads: "But when Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to him, because of their crushed spirit from cruel bondage."

The Israelites' "crushed spirit" -- in Hebrew, "kotzer ruach" -- is a tremendous problem! Not only does Moses need to convince Pharaoh to release his Israelite slaves, but he now also has the unenviable task of trying to convince the Israelites themselves to be willing to leave Egypt with him! From later in the Torah, we know that although Moses does eventually succeed in leading the Israelites out, their "challenged spirit" will remain with them, so much so that -- according to midrashic interpretation -- a majority of Israelites ultimately choose to stay in Egypt. Among those who do leave to pursue freedom in the wilderness, the Torah's Book of Numbers chronicles their constant complaints, their lack of gratitude, and even their nostalgia for the period of their enslavement back in Egypt. Kotzer ruach, in other words, not only represents a spirit that is crushed in the short-term, but also a state of being crushed that doesn't dissipate quickly! 

What exactly is kotzer ruach, though? Rashi explains this phrase in his comment on our verse, taking "ruach" in its literal sense, to mean "breath"; he writes: "If one is in anguish his breath comes in short gasps and he cannot draw long breaths." In his understanding, kotzer ruach is quite literally the inability to catch one's breath... which could imply extreme exhaustion and overwhelm, or perhaps a panic attack. Ibn Ezra deepens our understanding of the phrase by focusing on the fact that kotzer ruach renders it impossible for the Israelites to hearken and pay attention to Moses's words... in other words, when we are in this kind of perpetually panicked state, we lose our ability to take in information and react appropriately.

In today's parlance, we might translate the concept of kotzer ruach as a "lack of spiritual well-being" or even "despair." This week, I've read and heard a number of political analysts point out that driving people towards exhaustion and despair is a deliberate strategy of the new administration in DC: that by bombarding the American people with extreme executive orders and extremist appointees, terrifying hand gestures and insulting tweets, all at a frantic and unrelenting pace and volume, our country's new leaders are hoping that we will become overwhelmed and feel ourselves to be constrained, such that we do not resist. 

Fortunately, our tradition has been dealing with kotzer ruach for millenia, and we have much wisdom about how to combat and guard against it. Playing off of a commentary by the chassidic master Sefat Emet, for example, contemporary Torah scholar Rabbi Erin Leib Smokler writes about this same verse:

Exile is not a place. It is a condition of being in which we are closed down, shut off, unable to receive, unable to activate our faculties of imagination. It is the state of being stuck, folded into ourselves, unable to open to the presence of another. To exit exile, then, we must render ourselves vulnerable, capacious, receptive. Redemption and revelation demand radical openness, an inner quieting so that we might hear the sounds of the others who call to us. Such an emptying, the Sefat Emet assures us, will return us to deep breath (neshima) and to our expansive souls (neshama). In humbly listening for the whispers of revelation, we simultaneously attune ourselves to intimations of the Divine.

Hers is a beautiful image: that in the face of constraint and stuck-ness, we must actively pursue radical openness, quiet, and deep breath. These, she associates with vulnerability, capaciousness, and receptivity... all signs of spiritual alive-ness and readiness.

Along similar lines, Rabbi Yael Shai -- in a Torah commentary for the Institute for Jewish Spirituality -- writes:

How do we emerge out of this place of extreme narrowness? One clue comes from Ramban. He argues that kotzer ruach indicates the Israelites’ impatience of spirit, “as a person whose soul is grieved on account of his misery and does not want to live another moment in his suffering even though he knows that he will be relieved later.” If impatience leads to despair, practicing patience and trust is our path out of it. In the Torah, God backs off of the Israelites. God does not demand anything of them at that moment. They can’t hear the declaration of commitment and love that God is promising, so God starts the process of offering signs and signals that slowly peel away the layers of doubt and closed-off-ness on the part of the Israelites. Trust slowly emerges in the place of doubt, melting the despair and hopelessness.

(Both of these beautiful commentaries on kotzer ruach, together with quite a few others, can be found on this Sefaria source-sheet on the topic, compiled by Rabbi Amy Bernstein.)

All of these sound to me, too, like precisely the aims of an intentional spiritual community like ours. This weekend, Kavana will be celebrating its 18th birthday! For the past 18 years -- a whole lifetime ("chai") -- this very special Jewish community has been cultivating space for radical openness and for inner quiet, for Shabbat prayer and meaningful dialogue, for the receptivity of revelation that comes through shared Torah study and the capaciousness of "both/and" thinking, for building patience and trust in a community context.

Over the coming years -- which are sure to continue to move at a frenzied pace -- Kavana will aim to be intentional, as always. At times, we'll be consciously trying to slow things down, in order to provide a space where those of us who are feeling short of breath and crushed in spirit can come to catch our breaths. We will aim to be a sanctuary of calm in the midst of the storm. And there will be other times, without a doubt, when we will need to be ready to stick together and spring into action quickly. In order to preserve the energy we will need for such times, we must cultivate regular spiritual practices to help guard against the kind of cumulative overwhelm that is kotzer ruach.

This Shabbat also happens to be the one on which Jewish people everywhere will announce the coming of the new moon of Shevat (which begins next Thursday). Shevat -- the month that contains the holiday of Tu BiShevat -- hints that renewal is on the way and spring is just around the corner. Already, our days are already getting longer (in fact, last night was the last pre-5pm sunset we here in Seattle will see for many many months -- hurray!). It's helpful to have this reminder of hope as we move into what's sure to be a challenging slog of a next chapter for our country.

And so, on this Shabbat of Parashat Va'era, I call on all of us recommit to the spiritual community we've already been building together over the past 18 years... the one that has the capacity to serve as an antidote to kotzer ruach, to weariness, despair, and crushed spirits. I have no illusions that the coming days, weeks, months and years will be simple to navigate, but I do believe that together, we have the capacity to lift each other up. Together, we can prevail against the constrained spirit that plagued our ancestors. Slow and intentional spiritual practices -- deep breaths, openness and listening, song and quiet, the joy of community and our ability to mourn together -- will give us the fuel we need to remain in our real-world struggles for the long haul. Together, we can buoy one another and take turns accelerating and resting to prevent burn-out and embitterment. Together, there are many ways we can join together to advance that which is good and block that which is hateful, to protect the most vulnerable and mitigate damage to our society. 

Parashat Va'era promises that someday, opportunities will arise for us to move forward out of the constraints of our modern-day mitzrayim, and it cautions against succumbing to the crushed spirit and despair of kotzer ruach. Now is precisely the time for us to invest in strengthening our spirits to ensure that when that day comes, we will be ready to move forward! In this moment, we need spiritual community more than ever.

Shabbat Shalom, 
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum 

Simple Lessons

The book of Shemot (Exodus) begins the story proper of the Jewish people whose roots were traced in Bereshit (Genesis). And immediately, we are thrust into a realm of strange inclinations. The enslaved Israelites seem to resist redemption at every step; the supposed hero, Moses, keeps rejecting the call to leadership; and the obvious antagonist, Pharaoh, is ultimately maneuvered into that role by God’s own will. The first lesson to learn is that there are no simple lessons here! Perhaps the second lesson is that - if we are to see ourselves in these characters - we can recognize our own swirl of capacities and resistances, freedoms and limitations. 

My heart aches this week for all those impacted by the fires in southern California. And as I write, there is hope but not full confidence that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will be in place by Sunday. A new presidential administration will be in place by the start of next week. How do we act? How do we hope? How best to engage with this world of sweetness and sorrow? How do we wisely engage our capacities and resistances? There are no simple lessons here. But let’s turn to a significant moment in Moses’s story for a few suggestions…

Moses is out shepherding when he notices the burning bush. This act of noticing somehow merits God commissioning him to lead the Israelites to freedom. “Moses said: I must turn (asura) to look at this marvelous sight; why doesn’t the bush burn up?” (Exodus 3:3)

Ibn Ezra (12th century) wonders about the verb asura, to turn. It usually appears with the preposition “from” and means to turn aside and distancefrom something, or it appears with the preposition “to” and naturally means toturn towards something. Here it has neither preposition, and so Ibn Ezra gifts us a grammar lesson, suggesting that both are implied. “Moses wanted to turn aside from where he was and to then draw near to the bush.” In other words, what Moses does right is lean in (one midrash says he merely turned his neck to see the bush better). That small gesture of attention and engagement is enough to change the fate of an entire people. 

Kli Yakar (16th century) takes exactly the opposite approach. “The matter of turning is to distance oneself from that place because the eye can better grasp it from a distance. Go and learn from the light of the sun, that as long as you get too close to it you can’t see it, but when the sun is in the east or in the west (sunrise and sunset), everyone looks at it from a great distance. So too the light of this bush. Moses couldn’t look at it or comprehend what it was because of how great the light was.”

For Kli Yakar, then, what Moses does right is get a critical distance so he can understand the bigger picture. This is a necessary attribute of wise leadership.

Midrash Shemot Rabbah adds a third ingredient: “Rabbi Yitzchak said: What is “that he had turned [sar] to see?” The Holy One of Blessing said: This one is sorrowful and upset [sar veza’ef] over seeing Israel’s suffering in Egypt; therefore, he is suitable to be their shepherd.”

What makes Moses the right leader is that he empathizes with his people. 

May each of us lean on one or more of these practices as we move through the weeks ahead: 

• to get a little closer and pay attention to what might be overlooked; 

• to step back and get a bigger perspective; 

• and to allow ourselves to be moved by suffering. 

May all of these practices support the work of liberation and the pursuit of justice and peace.

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Remaining Steadfast in the Winds of Change

I can't sit down to write this week without starting from what's happening in L.A. County. The scale of destruction there is so vast that it's hard to comprehend. Friends and family members there have shared that it feels like being in a war zone or inside a dystopian hell-scape; worst of all, the danger is not over yet. I am praying for the safety of everyone there, for the well-being and success of firefighters and emergency personnel, and for the homes and businesses still standing to be spared. 

The wildfires that have blazed out of control this week are an awful and stark reminder of the raw power of nature, and that as human beings, we are a part of it, but not at all in control of it. Although the images out of Pacific Palisades, Pasadena and more may feel shocking, the truth is that these particular fires aren't unprecedented in their size and scale -- only in that they have torn through urban areas where so many human structures stand in their way. But, watching these fires from afar absolutely pushes us to carefully consider what we value most (what would you grab if you had only a few minutes to leave your home forever?), how we can show up for other human beings in the wake of such large-scale catastrophe and destruction, and how we are to move through life given its precariousness. These are questions of ultimate purpose... always relevant, but felt most palpably in the wake of crisis and destabilization.

This week's Torah portion, Parashat Vayechi, is the final portion of the Book of Genesis. In it, we find the death-bed scenes for both our patriarch Jacob and his son Joseph. While this is a very different context from the Southern California fires, this story, too, sets life and death in relief with one another, raising fundamental questions about how people should aspire to live lives of ethics and meaning. 

Like the wildfires this week, Parashat Vayechi especially forces engagement with the question of what it means to live in a world characterized by instability. In Vayechi, circumstances beyond human control have resulted in the whole family now residing in Egypt. Steadfastness emerges quickly as a key theme and an answer to this question, as we can see from the opening verses:

"Jacob lived seventeen years in the land of Egypt, so that the span of Jacob's life came to one hundred and forty-seven years. And when the time approached for Israel to die, he summoned his son Joseph and said to him, 'Do me this favor, place your hand under my thigh as a pledge of your steadfast loyalty: please do not bury me in Egypt. When I lie down with my fathers, take me up from Egypt and bury me in their burial place.' He replied, 'I will do as you have spoken.' And he said, 'Swear to me.' And he swore to him. Then Israel bowed at the head of the bed." (Gen. 47:28-31)

The Hebrew words I've bolded above and translated as "steadfast loyalty" are "chesed ve'emet." Some of us might recognize this phrase from the list of the "13 Attributes" that we chant on holidays ("Adonai, adonai, El rachum v'chanun..."); human beings can endeavor to embody these Godly qualities through our actions. "Chesed ve'emet," in particular, pairs "chesed" -- meaning kindness, compassion or loyalty -- with "emet" -- truth, faithfulness, constancy. Together, they add up to steadfastness, a positive quality that can be relied upon to remain steady over time.

As I read through the parasha this week with these big questions in mind, I noticed that steadfastness comes up again in the scene where Jacob offers words of blessing to each of his children. Online, I found a beautiful Dvar Torah by Rabbi Devin Maimon Villarreal that draws attention to the commentary of Isaac Lindo Mocatta, "one of the great voices of England's Sephardic community in the 19th century." Mocatta notes that as Jacob speaks to his firstborn, Reuben, he declares him to be "unstable as water" (see Gen. 49:4), but to Joseph, Jacob states: "Archers bitterly assailed him; They shot at him and harried him. Yet his bow stayed taut, and his arms were made firm by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob" (Gen. 49:23-24). Mocatta explains: "Free to choose, let us take example from Joseph and warning from Reuben; let us be courageous and earnest in good... ever firm as strong whereby we may secure the approval of our conscience..."

Rabbi Villarreal draws out Mocatta's lesson and builds on it, writing:

"I’d like to focus on something that might escape our attention: Mocatta’s understanding of Jacob’s archer as a symbol of steadfastness in purpose. Mocatta calls to our mind how an archer behaves, taking into consideration the wind, the landscape, light and distance, all of which are constantly changing. The archer adjusts in response, but their focus on the target does not waiver. This analogy makes a claim about change and steadfastness. Some would argue that the way to maintain steadfastness is to force the world back into some imagined stasis, into a box with definite boundaries that make our choices feel clearer and safer. The archer asks us to recognize that that is not how the world operates. Change surrounds us all the time, but that doesn’t require us to abandon steadfastness of purpose. We can accept that things change and still be committed to our ideals. We can learn to understand these changes and how to pursue our ideals in their midst. In fact, Mocatta tells us, we must do this if we hope to 'secure the approval of our own conscience.'"

Villarreal's Torah speaks deeply to me this particular week, as winds blow all around us... and I'm thinking here of both nature's Santa Ana winds and also more metaphoric political winds and other winds of change in our lives. If we are to be like the archer of Jacob's vision, we must know that the world around us will not be static, and we cannot operate as though it will. Our "target" is to achieve the kind of steadfastness that Jacob sees in his son Joseph: to be a constant and reliable source of goodness and compassion. In order to do this, our aim and focus must remain true, while we constantly tweak our stance in response to the changing conditions around us.

This lesson works on both an individual and a collective level. In the wake of the overwhelmingly huge disaster we are witnessing in California, we will aim to remain true to who we are, faithful to our values, steady and steadfast. If you have family members or friends in the L.A. area who have been impacted by the fires, please reach out to them and keep reaching out; the impact of these fires in Southern California will last far beyond the time that this story fades from news headlines, and we have the capacity to be steadfast and in it for the long-haul with our loved ones. (Meanwhile, please let me or Rabbi Jay know if you need pastoral support as well -- we, too, will be in it for the long-haul.) If you are looking for a place to donate funds to relief efforts, our sister community IKAR has compiled a list and is keeping it up to date -- please give! And lastly, we will join together in a special prayer tomorrow morning at our Shabbat Minyan -- click here if you haven't registered yet but would like to join us.

In the face of an unstable and precarious world, Parashat Vayechi helps to center us on the quality of steadfastness. May this Shabbat bring respite from destruction, and give us a chance to center ourselves so that we can continue showing up consistently for others and putting one foot in front of the other, slowly and steadily, as we pursue our highest aspirations and visions.

In steadfastness,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

When the Sun Sets

In the month before Rosh Hashanah, there is a tradition of doing cheshbon ha-nefesh, an accounting of the soul. The idea is that as a new Jewish year starts, we should be aware of where we have failed and where we have succeeded, so that we can continue to grow wisely in spiritual and interpersonal matters.

In the month before the Gregorian new year, I have a tradition of looking back at the music I’ve listened to in the past year, doing a cheshbon ha-nefesh that is less about goal setting and more about revisiting with love some of the songs that have delighted, comforted, or otherwise moved me. 

I wanted to share with you one song from 2024 that I hope to hold close through the darkness and let its sweetness and possibility infuse the year ahead. This is a song by the Israeli musicians Shavit Noy and Inbar Hatz Roni.

Watch on YouTubeListen on Spotify

Kshe’ha-shemesh Shoka’at / When the Sun Sets

כְּשֶׁהַשֶּׁמֶשׁ שׁוֹקַעַת נוֹלָדִים כּוֹכָבִים

בִּכְדֵי לַעֲזֹר לָהּ לִזְרֹחַ שֵׁנִית,

וּבְתֹם לֵילָם יְנַצְנְצוּ נִצְנוּץ אַחֲרוֹן;

כְּשֶׁנִּתְעוֹרֵר יִשָּׁאֵר זִכָּרוֹן. 

אַתְּ בָּאָה הַבַּיְתָה, הַיָּם בְּשֶׁעָרַךְ,

הַכֹּל מַתְחִיל עַכְשָׁו, כְּלוּם לֹא הִסְתַּבֵּךְ.

אַתְּ בָּאָה הַבַּיְתָה, הַכֹּל כָּאן בִּשְׁבִילֵךְ

.חִכִּיתִי שֶׁתָּבוֹאִי – בּוֹאִי נֵלֵךְ.

עַל הַדֶּרֶךְ לְיָפוֹ רָאִיתָ אֲנָשִׁים

שֶׁכְּבָר הֵרִימוּ יָדַיִם בְּצִדֵּי הַכְּבִישִׁים

.תֵּן לָהֶם מַשֶּׁהוּ, אָמַרְתָּ, לֹא חָשׁוּב כְּבָר מָה

...בְּכָל דָּבָר קָטָן יֵשׁ אַהֲבָה.

When the sun sets stars are born
in order to help her shine a second time,and at the end of their night they'll sparkle a last sparkle;
when we awaken, a memory will remain.

You came home, the sea in your hair,
everything starts now, nothing got messed up.You came home, everything here is for you.I waited for you to come - come, let's go.

On the way to Jaffa you saw people
on the sides of the road that threw their hands up [gave up].Give them something, you said, it doesn't matter what - In every small thing there is love.

Shavit Noy recorded this album live last January, three months after being rescued from his home in Kfar Aza on October 7. The whole album grapples with hope and despair, tragedy and beauty, and ultimately with the healing possibility of compassion. 

Threaded through this song is the motif of second chances. The first stanza could simply be timeless nature poetry, evoking second chances through the stars letting the sun shine again even after it has set. (Obviously, the moon would be a better literal choice than stars, but imagine the night sky as full of shattered sun-sparks, broken, isolated, yet still there and gleaming through the dark.) 

The second stanza shifts to a human focus. What could be a simple love poem evokes as well the haunting dream of hostages returning home, nothing messed up, a new start and relationship restored. 

The third stanza broadens. The first time I read about the people on the side of the road with their hands raised, I imagined beggars, but after a second attempt at translation I realized that the idiom is one of despair, not pleading. This is not a simple stanza about being kind and giving charity, but about an existential need for loving each other back into hope. Bechol davar katan - in every small thing; yesh ahavah - there is love.

When it feels like the sun is setting, each act of kindness and hope can sparkle with new light. May each small act in this new year bring you beauty, possibility, love, and connection.

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

The Silver Goblet: Learning from Our Past Experiences

I'm writing to you in advance of the final Shabbat of 2024. I'm enjoying Chanukah so far and hope you are too. It's a holiday of hope and resilience, bravery, and illumination.

That said, I'll admit that as this secular New Year approaches, I have a "here we go again" feeling as we inch closer to next month's presidential inauguration. Bracing for tough times ahead has me thinking back to late 2016/early 2017, when we were in a similar place. Back then, I remember feeling like Kavana had spent our first decade figuring out how to build an intentional Jewish community, and that we were ready to pivot to being more outward-facing and striving for justice, equality, peace, and fairness in the world around us as so many of our core values came under attack during the first Trump administration. I wonder: what did we learn from the last time around that might inform how we tackle the present? 

Ecclesiastes / Kohelet is partially right when he says, "There is nothing new under the sun!" (Kohelet 1:9). In so many ways, human civilization does seem to move in cycles, with ebbs and flows of ideas, patterns, and ideologies, like the waves of the ocean or swings of a pendulum. It's certainly true that if we look, we can find not only one but many historical antecedents for this moment in time.

Our sacred texts often do the same, with new stories echoing the ones that have come before. But, there is typically some twist or salient difference through which we can feel forward motion. Meaning comes not only through the repetition of events and motifs, but also through the change and growth we can perceive in the differences.

One interesting example of a text that works this way appears in this week's parasha, Miketz, which brings us a continuation of the Joseph narrative. Left in a pit by his jealous brothers, Joseph ended up enslaved in Egypt; through his divine gift of dream interpretation, he worked his way up to the position of Pharaoh’s right-hand man. Then, ten of his brothers come down to Egypt during a famine to procure food, and Joseph toys with them. First, he insists that they are spies and forces them to bring the youngest one, Benjamin*, along to prove that they are not. (*Benjamin is also the only brother with whom Joseph shares two parents; the rest are technically his half-brothers, all sons of Jacob.) And now, after dining with the eleven brothers and giving them a large quantity of the grain they were seeking, Joseph also instructs his house steward:

“Fill the men’s bags with food, as much as they can carry, and put each one’s money in the mouth of his bag. Put my silver goblet in the mouth of the bag of the youngest one, together with his money for the rations.” (Genesis 44:1-2)

It is this part of the story -- Joseph's planting of his silver goblet in Benjamin's bag, and then sending his guards after the brothers -- that I want to zoom in on.

As my colleague Rabbi Elliott Cosgrove points out, this story has an “internal rhyme” with an earlier Torah story about Rachel (Joseph and Benjamin’s mother). In that story from one generation prior, found in Genesis 31, Rachel actually does steal the household idols of her father Laban as she flees with her husband Jacob and the rest of his entourage. They are pursued by Laban, who doesn't find the idols hidden under her skirts; still, Jacob's pronouncement that "Anyone with whom the idols shall be found shall not live in the presence of our brothers" comes true, and in a tragic coda, Rachel dies soon after on the road. Cosgrove compares and contrasts the two stories, writing about both:

"The children of Jacob are on the move, and they are pursued by their former host. There is an accusation of stolen goods, and in response, a declaration that whosoever is found to be in possession of said objects, that person shall be punished. The parallels in literary structure, thematics, and even word choice are striking... Like mother, like son, the key difference of course being that Benjamin got caught and lived, while Rachel did not and died." (See his 2018 sermon "Hidden Goblets.")

Cosgrove goes on to argue that in setting Benjamin up with the silver goblet in his bag, Joseph was consciously drawing on this previous family story as a way of giving his brothers subtle clues to his identity. 

The same story -- of Joseph having his silver goblet and money hidden inside Benjamin's bag -- also refers back to another closer antecedent: a previous moment in Joseph's own personal story when his brothers abandoned him, throwing him into a pit. Many commentators take note, but Torah scholar and translator Everett Fox articulates the pattern particularly crisply when he writes: “Only by recreating something of the original situation — the brothers are again in control of the life and death of a son of Rachel — can Joseph be sure that they have changed” (The Five Books of Moses, 202). Here, the purpose of the repetition is clear: Joseph's framing of Benjamin sets up a test, to determine whether his brothers are truly repentant for the wrong they have done to him. 

If our story from Parashat Miketz is indeed a test, the brothers pass it: faced with a similar situation, they behave differently this time around. This week's Torah portion ends in medias res, on a cliff-hanger, but already it is clear from the end of this week's parasha that they plan to protect Benjamin. The final verses of the Torah portion, Gen. 44:13-17, read:

"He searched, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest; and the goblet turned up in Benjamin’s bag. At this they rent their clothes. Each reloaded his pack animal, and they returned to the city. When Judah and his brothers re-entered the house of Joseph, who was still there, they threw themselves on the ground before him. Joseph said to them, 'What is this deed that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me practices divination?' Judah replied, 'What can we say to my lord? How can we plead, how can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered the crime of your servants. Here we are, then, slaves of my lord, the rest of us as much as he in whose possession the goblet was found.' But he replied, 'Far be it from me to act thus! Only the one in whose possession the goblet was found shall be my slave; the rest of you go back in peace to your father.'"

Once the silver goblet is discovered in Benjamin's bag, the brothers act in unison this time around -- all rending their clothes (a sign of grief or distress), all returning to the city, asserting that they are all standing together with -- and in defense of -- Benjamin. It seems that they have successfully incorporated the lessons of their family's past events into their present.

Today, we can find countless scholarly articles and podcasts about resilience. So many of them make the point that one important key to resilience comes from reflecting on our past experiences, and asking questions such as: When have we experienced similar challenges in the past? In those situations, what has worked well for us / what have we done to make it through? What have we learned from our past experiences that might help us in the future?

These seem like great questions for us to mull over during the week of Chanukah! This holiday recalls a time when our Jewish ancestors lived through a regime that felt oppressive. They did not forget who they were or what they believed in. Even though they were small in number, by banding together, they found the power to stand up to the forces of the Syrian-Greek king Antiochus and the mighty Hellenized worldthat he represented. In their story, there is so much wisdom worth drawing on in our present moment in time. What might we learn from the Maccabees this year? And what lessons can we derive from our own past experiences of fighting for what we believe in, even against great odds?

Tonight, as we move into the Shabbat of Chanukah, the menorah should be lit first followed by the Shabbat candles, and then kiddush recited over a cup of wine. As I write, I'm imagining the image of a glowing menorah in the background, and a silver goblet / kiddush cup in the foreground, both reminding us of sacred stories from our history that emphasized the power of standing together. That certainly seems like a fitting image for the final Shabbat of this calendar year, and a powerful way to set ourselves up for 2025 to be a year of resilience.

Shabbat Shalom, Chag Urim Sameach (wishing us all a joyous Chanukah), and I look forward to seeing you in 2025!

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

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