We Are Not Yet Free

This evening at sunset, we will move into the Shabbat before Passover, known on the Jewish calendar by the special name "Shabbat HaGadol" ("the Great Shabbat"). The 16th century Jewish law code Shulchan Arukh (in Orach Chayim 430) records a custom that on the afternoon of this special Shabbat, people would gather in the synagogue to recite sections of the haggadah. Presumably, the goal was for the whole community to familiarize themselves with its contents in preparation for their own home-based seder rituals.

Taking up this old tradition, I want to use this opportunity, as we head into Shabbat HaGadol, to invite us to reflect on the central meaning of the Pesach festival, now just days away. The heart of the Passover seder resides in the maggid, the 5th of the 14 sections of the haggadah's ritual, where we tell the Passover story. And as you may know, maggid opens with the famous "Ha Lachma Anya" passage, an Aramaic text which translated means:

"This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come and eat. Let all who are needed come and celebrate the Passover with us. Now we are here; next year may we be in the land of Israel. Now we are slaves; next year may we be free."

In preparation for the seder, I want to draw our attention to the last part of this declaration. Next Wednesday and Thursday evenings, as we sit down to our Passover banquets, we will open our telling of the story with these words to remind ourselves that "we are here," implying that this is not where we want to be.* [*In my reading of this text, "land of Israel" doesn't necessarily have to mean the physical land of Israel... if it did, it wouldn't make much sense that this text is still recited even at contemporary Israeli seders; rather, this refers to a redeemed, post-exilic world which we have yet to achieve/reach.] Despite the fact that we clearly have enough material sustenance that we are able to invite others to join us in our meal, we still assert that "we are slaves," meaning that we are not yet free. In other words, we enter into the core act of story-telling by highlighting that -- even as we recall a history of having moved from injustice to freedom -- we still fundamentally see ourselves a residing in a world that is, as yet, imperfect and unredeemed.

This powerful beginning to our sacred story-telling begs the question: in what ways are we "here" rather than there, enslaved rather than free? With this orientation, it is clear that it's not enough simply to read the words of the haggadah and recount what happened to our ancestors. We must consider the world we live in and pay serious attention to enslavement, oppression, and injustice as they play out around us. 

This is why, in my opinion, the best seders aren't the ones where every word of the haggadah is read, taking turns around the table, but rather, seders that also feature genuine and dynamic conversation and debate about the imperfections of our world. The goal is to draw on our people's story of past liberation to inspire us to make a difference here and now, bringing us all a step closer to redemption! 

Of course, the trick is that there's no one "right topic" to be talking about at the seder. The themes of the Exodus resonate when applied to our individual human psychology, to our relationships and family dynamics, to nature and the environment, to a wide range of societal issues. We explicitly ask "Why is this night different from all other nights?," but could equally use "Ha lachma anya" to ask ourselves "Why is this year different from all other years?" (or, to paraphrase, what are the particular arenas in which the seder ritual could serve as a helpful lens this year?).

At my seders this year, I imagine we'll touch on the tyranny of gun violence and the oppressive targeting of queer folks (especially trans youth) in our American society. I hope we'll talk about the events that have unfolded in recent weeks in the Israel, as hundreds of thousands of people in the streets have rallied to try to steer their country away from dictatorship and towards greater democracy. We may put something gold or silver on our seder plate again and pull out the great resource that Kavana created last year to anchor racial justice and reparations conversations in the seder. We may follow the lead of Kavana partners Vicky & Jeff, Suzi & Eric (see the invitation at the bottom of this email about an event happening this evening) who are connecting the stories of Afghani women fleeing their home country to preserve their lives and rights to our people's story, and we might talk other immigrant narratives as well, particularly as our government continues to debate asylum and immigration policy.

What will YOU be talking about at your seder this year?!? As you recite the words of "Ha lachma anya" -- "Now we are here; next year may we be in the land of Israel. Now we are slaves; next year may we be free" -- what examples of oppression, enslavement, and injustice do you feel called to address?

I send wishes to our whole community for a Shabbat Shalom and, of course, a joyous and meaningful Passover. May it inspire us to move ourselves, our community, our society, and our whole world towards liberation and justice, freedom and redemption.

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

AI and Jewish Story

“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

To mould me man? Did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me?”

-John Milton, Paradise Lost

“You need to understand,” Craig warned me before he started his demo, “this is going to change everything about how we do everything. I think that it represents mankind’s greatest invention to date. It is qualitatively different — and it will be transformational.”

-Thomas Friedman, “Our New Promethean Moment”, The New York Times

At this point, I am getting tired of being in the midst of historical transformational moments. It wouldn’t be so bad to imagine that five years from now will look much the way things look today. Let alone twenty or thirty years. But, here we are! I’m not even confident I can predict what next year will bring.

In the last few days I have seen article after article and several of my go-to podcasts ramping up attention on artificial intelligence (AI).  A new iteration of ChatGPT just released and companies like Google and Microsoft are integrating artificial intelligence into their products and platforms. It feels surreal to me, something I could not fathom and definitely dismissed as unrealistic in my lifetime. Of course, it is entirely possible that AI will not blossom into the fullest version of what people imagine. But AI represents a wild spectrum of risk and return, ranging from a useful tool to an existential threat to our species. I believe we need more moral and strategic models to ground our relationship to artificial intelligence. 

If you (like me two weeks ago) have only the foggiest idea of what AI is and what the stakes are, you can just google and find tons of articles. Here are a few resources that I’ve encountered recently that go deeper into the weirdness of AI. 

• Ezra Klein, “This Changes Everything”

• Thomas Friedman, “Our New Promethean Moment”

Friedman, in particular, tries to help us understand this moment through two literary references - the chaotic tornado that brings Dorothy to a vibrant and confusing new land of Oz; and the Greek myth of Prometheus, who granted humanity the radically transformative technology of fire. While the lesson Dorothy learns is that at the end of the day, there’s no place like home, there’s no turning back from the gift of Prometheus. Home is forever in the past. 

The quote I started with from John Milton resonates with two other literary references we can use. First, Mary Shelley uses is as an epigram to begin her work, Frankenstein. A creature we bring to life and consciousness leaves us shaking with horror… 

But Milton’s words are placed in Adam’s mouth, of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And that feels to me like a good place to start in generating Jewish resources to ground us. For Milton, Adam bewails his banishment from the Garden, reminding God that he didn’t make himself. Why should he suffer for the design flaws of the divine creator? 

I prefer to read the story of Eve and then Adam eating from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as an archetype for technological paradigm shift. Like with AI, the fruit gives them exponentially greater access to knowledge. And what does God do? God reminds them of their humanity, or rather “curses” them into experiencing their mortality and their humanity. Labor, pain, and death are not so much curses as the foundations of our shared humanity, and in a moment of leaping forward, this story teaches us to come back in touch with our animal selves, and integrate the new capacity slowly. 

The Tower of Babel also gives us insight into the present moment. In that story, all humans come together with a joint project of building the world's tallest tower. They aim for the heavens, and once again God “curses” the people by making them speak different languages. No longer able to collaborate, the project falls apart. 

Today, there is an AI arms race among companies and governments. It appears to be the opposite of the Babel project, but I think there is in fact a shared language driving the speed of building this new technology. This is the language of competition, fear, greed, and “me first”. Many of the commentators on the Babel story suggest that in their desire to build swiftly, the people would lament when a brick fell but ignore humans falling to their death. They lost sight of the dignity and worth of human beings. 

If we were able to speak more fluently the language of ethics and responsibility, we wouldn’t be able to collaborate so well in the competitive drive to succeed first regardless of who gets damaged along the way. 

A third Jewish resource for conceptualizing our relationship to AI is none other than the book of Leviticus! This book generates a vision of Israelite community oriented around three big ideas: (1) God’s holiness is the source of good and also powerfully dangerous; (2) human nature means we will mess up; (3) so we implement safeguards and create pathways to repair the mess. 

I am in no way trying to equate God with AI, just to be clear. But what I find most compelling about Leviticus is its obsession with holiness and its fear that people will approach it in the wrong way. One of the only two stories in the book has Nadav and Avihu offer “strange fire”, and they in turn are consumed by God’s fire. While some say they made a mistake, others suggest that they so yearned to experience God’s presence that they willingly offered themselves into oblivion. In a 2022 survey, AI experts gave a 1 out 10 chance that AI would cause “human extinction or similarly permanent and severe disempowerment of the human species”. And these are the people actively developing AI! 

Leviticus offers us a model that brings human nature into balance with a mysterious, dangerous, yet ultimately beneficial Presence. The stories of Adam and Eve and the Tower of Babel, and the big picture teachings of Leviticus, all bring a clear-eyed assessment of human nature’s failings, and yet they remind us that when we balance our drive to succeed and discover and invent with our also-human capacities for compassion, kindness, justice, and ethics, we have a hope of enduring thriving, even amidst great changes. 

All of these thoughts are very much just the beginning of my thoughts on AI and its relationship with Judaism. I’d love to hear more from you about what questions, concerns, and ideas you have! 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

From Crowd to Community

In this week's parasha, Vayakhel-Pekudei, Moses assembles the Israelites and they spring into action on a giant community project: the construction and assembly of the Mishkan (also known as the Tabernacle, the portable sanctuary they used during their 40 years in the wilderness). As Exodus 35:21 reads, "And everyone who excelled in ability and everyone whose spirit was moved came, bringing to God an offering for the work of the Tent of Meeting and for all its service and for the sacral vestments." The next many verses detail the kinds of gifts and unique contributions that the Israelites bring: brooches and other gold jewelry; colorfully dyed yarns, fabric and skins; silver and copper. Skilled women begin spinning and trained artisans begin to cut stones, carve wood, and assemble tapestries. Piece by piece, a sacred structure emerges from the efforts of ALL the people, regardless of gender or status or even ability-level. 

In his book The Home We Build Together, the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks argues that this shared project is what turns the crowd of Israelites into a community. He writes: "A nation -- at least, the kind of the nation the Israelites were called on to become -- is created through the act of creation itself. Not all the miracles of Exodus combined, not the plagues, the division of the sea, manna from heaven or water from a rock, not even the revelation at Sinai itself, turned the Israelites into a nation. In commanding Moshe to get the people to make the Tabernacle, God was in effect saying: To turn a group of individuals into a covenantal nation, they must build something together."

I love this piece of Torah from Rabbi Sacks, because here at Kavana, this idea of creating -- of "building something together," of tackling shared projects together -- is one of the go-to plays in our playbook. Week in and week out, we bring together individuals from our community with a shared purpose or project. Not only do we accomplish a lot in terms of outputs, but we also manage to forge community in powerful, connective ways! 

Over the past week alone, we've had so many examples -- here are but a few:

1) Feeding Hungry Neighbors: Kavana volunteers Alex, Aviva, Danny, Diane, Isaac, Julie, Karling, Robin and Ronnie teamed up last weekend to provide a meal to the residents of the Low Income Housing Institute's Othello Village. Each person prepared a single pot of soup, a loaf of bread, or a dozen cookies at home... but together, this added up to a full meal prepared and delivered with love! As an added bonus, this project has been a partnership between Kavana and Minyan Ohr Chadash (a Modern Orthodox community in Seward Park), which means in addition to connecting our chefs with one another and with our low-income neighbors, it's also been a beautiful way to build ties across the Seattle Jewish community. (Huge thanks to everyone who has participated so far! The next opportunity to participate will be on April 23 -- menu details coming soon.)

2) Taking a Stand about Israel: Braving cold weather and an early wake-up the morning after springing our clocks ahead, many Kavana folks turned out in Bellevue last Sunday to protest Israel's new ultra-right coalition and to call for democracy there. This, too, was an opportunity for us to connect with a broader Jewish community (and a sense of peoplehood), as the UnXeptable rallies are grassroots endeavors being organized by Israeli expats living around the world. Everyone is welcome to join us this Sunday again, at 10am on the north side of Bellevue Downtown Park!

3) Teen In-Service: Last weekend, the young adults in Kavana's High School Program had the opportunity to dig into some important Jewish texts and grapple with our tradition's take on responsibilities to community and on tzedakah priorities. Their boisterous beit midrash-style conversations were accompanied by action; here are the students, holding some of the 60 wound-care kits (complete with bandaids, gauze, sterile gloves, antibiotic ointment, etc.) that they assembled for Aurora Commons. Of course, along the way, these wonderful teens are creating strong bonds of friendship with one another!

4) Kavana's Caring Committee: Across multiple house parties, Kavana cooks and bakers teamed up to prepare soups, stews, lasagnas, and baked goods with fresh ingredients. We purposefully chose meals that would freeze beautifully so that we can keep a great stash of food on hand and have meals ready to go whenever a need arises in our community. Our volunteers also had a blast together and forged new ties as they worked side-by-side in the kitchen! Best of all, now we have delicious food ready for you... so please don't hesitate to be in touch (email Avital) if you or someone you know would appreciate a home-cooked meal and the warm community hug it represents (because of an illness, surgery, loss, new baby, or for any other reason at all!)

I can't help but notice that all of these examples I just shared from the past week were about putting our values into action through community service or advocacy. Of course, at Kavana, we also bring people together for many other purposes as well... for example, ritual groups for prayer, the singing circle, learning and discussion groups, social gatherings, and infrastructural committees. Today, our staff is even at an off-site together, tackling the shared project of reflecting on this year's programming and beginning to imagine what we could do together in the coming year, while at the same time continuing to gel into a great professional team.

At Kavana, we manage to produce lots of things together: from meals and wound kits to music and teachings. Ultimately, though, the single most important outcome of our shared endeavors aren't any of these, but rather, the community itself: a covenantal community, bound together by our shared values, our collective sense of purpose, and our strong relationships with one another. This is the essence of the parasha's title of "Vayakhel," which comes from the Hebrew root k-h-l meaning community.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

The Grammar of Community

Ninja turtles, butterflies and fairies, soccer stars and cowboys, witches and wacky onesie wearers… There were a lot of characters at our Purim megillah reading this year! Our community gathered at the exuberant intersection of brewery vats and ancient melodies (many thanks to the wonderful folks at Rooftop Brewery, and to everyone who chanted the story of Esther). One character, though, was apparently absent. God does not appear explicitly in the biblical book of Esther, a striking omission that leaves many readers searching for clues to the hidden divine.

The name Esther is taken as a pointer to hester panim, “the hiding of [God’s] face”, a warning given in Devarim 31:17. But also in our Torah portion this week, God refuses to be fully revealed. In a moment of sudden yearning, Moses cries out, “Let me behold your presence!” And God says, “You cannot see my face…” (Shemot 33:18,20)

But God does make a concession for Moses. God will pass by, and Moses can glimpse God’s “back”. 

God passed before Moses and proclaimed: “Adonai, Adonai, a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness…” (Exodus 34:6)

The list of attributes that God proclaims in passing by are known as the Thirteen Middot, the qualities that define God’s goodness. There are endless beautiful and spiritual commentaries on these traits, and yet the one that I have been sitting with this week anchors itself in nothing other than the tedious rules of grammar. To be specific, in a particular Jewish methodology for reading Torah, another list known as the Thirteen Middot of Rabbi Yishmael. Here is the chassidic rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev’s insight (Kedushat Levi, Ki Tissa 14-16, translated by Rabbi Josh Feigelson):

“My master and teacher Rabbi Dov Baer taught that the thirteen interpretive principles (middot) through which the Torah is interpreted are identical with the thirteen attributes (middot) of Divine compassion… The [Divine] attribute of rachum, compassion, is identified with the principle of gezera shava [deciding a case based on an identical word in another case]. In general, when one who is wealthy is compassionate toward one who is poor, the wealthy person must identify with the poor one, connecting with their pain and marginalization. In doing so, the wealthy person and the poor person find their common humanity. We can imagine this is how the Divine relates to us, as the book of Psalms states, ‘I will be with you in moments of trouble’ (Psalms 91:15). This is how the middah of compassion is the same as the middah of gezera shava.”

Okay, if you have read this far, I hope you stick with me on unpacking the grammar of compassion here. I often think of rabbinic spirituality as a literary or linguistic spirituality, seeing letters and words as building blocks of reality and imagining life as a Book. Here, a common interpretive technique becomes an analogy for how we cultivate compassion among humans. 

Gezera shava literally means “an identical term or category”. When reading a verse of Tanakh, if the same word or phrase appears elsewhere in Tanakh, even if the context is completely different and the use appears to be unconnected, gezera shava allows the verses to collapse together, juxtaposed and creating new possibilities for meaning. 

For example, the medieval commentator Rashi notes that when Joseph encounters an anonymous ish (“man”) in the field when trying to find his brothers, another verse that uses the word ish actually refers to the angel Gabriel. Therefore, Joseph must have encountered not a man, but an angel! If Rashi had chosen to connect ish to a different verse, we might learn that Joseph encountered not a random man, nor an angel, but a mensch of good character, or a left-handed man, or - you get the idea. The common element brings two verses together, and the unexpected differences generate interpretive chemistry. 

Our teaching is interested in transferring the grammatical tool to human interaction. What might it mean to acknowledge that humans are simultaneously different from each other in radical ways, yet share “common terms”? 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 that sense, God was indeed present at our megillah reading, not in the text of Esther, but in the spiritual grammar of community.

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Stories of Violence, Stories of Hope

If you've been following news out of Israel**, you already know that a new, far right-wing coalition -- Israel's thirty-seventh government -- came to power in late December. (**If you haven't been following, I totally get it... it's been overwhelming news and very emotionally heavy; that said, as someone who cares about Jewish life, I invite you to tune in now and continue reading.) 

Over the past couple of months, it has become clear that the priorities of Netanyahu's new coalition include further centralizing Orthodox control over state Jewish services, expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and moving towards annexation of Palestinian land (without granting citizenship, of course). This government has been shockingly brazen in its aims to assert a far-right, nationalist vision of Jewish supremacy on the country. Driven by the real threat that Israeli's judiciary will lose its independence and ability to keep executive and legislative power in check, and also by internal civil rights concerns (for example, LGBTQ+ rights!), hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews have taken to the streets to protest and are beginning to organize large-scale strikes.

Last week, my daughter Yona was lucky enough to be in Tel Aviv and she attended the protests (now happening weekly, every Saturday night), where she reported Israeli flags were everywhere and the whole crowd was chanting "de-mo-krat-ya, de-mo-krat-ya." And yet, there is -- as many journalists and analysts have pointed out, and to quote NIF head Daniel Sokatch -- an "elephant at the pro-democracy protests," which is that Israel's democratic vision has never extended to the millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the words of a statement signed by nearly two dozen Israeli NGOs today, "there can be no democracy while there is an occupation and inequality."

Given all this, it is not surprising -- as the Israeli government lurches hard to the right -- that violence has been escalating quickly in the West Bank. In recent days alone, there have been three brutal murders of Israeli Jews at the hands of Palestinian gunmen. The worldwide Jewish community is reeling and mourning; each of these losses of a human life is a loss of an entire world. I want to be clear that I condemn these acts of violence and terror against our Jewish siblings in Israel unequivocally.

Equally disturbing to me, though, is the Jewish violence that has followed these attacks, and I believe we need to be talking about this too. Several days ago, a mob of some 400 settlers launched a retaliatory attack (some news sources called it a "pogrom") against the Palestinian town of Huwara, ransacking and torching homes and cars, beating residents and terrorizing families, leaving one dead and hundreds injured. In a video that circulated online, the most troubling moment to me was watching this vigilante mob stop to daven ma'ariv (that is, to come together as a minyan for communal evening prayers). This is not my Judaism.

And yet, it is. On this -- of all weeks of the Jewish calendar year -- it wouldn't feel honest to me not to acknowledge that our tradition has a dark underbelly. The Purim story we tell in Megillat Esther -- of Vashti and Ahasverosh, Mordecai, Esther and Haman -- resolves towards a happy ending with "light and joy, gladness and honor," "merrymaking and feasting, and... sending gifts to one another." But along the way, much of the ninth chapter of the Megillah preserves a heavy legacy of violence and revenge. After Haman's genocidal plot is foiled, the Jews of Persia are given permission to fight back against their enemies. As the text says, "So the Jews struck at their enemies with the sword, slaying and destroying; they wreaked their will upon their enemies" (Esther 9:5). First, according to the Megillah, they killed 500 people in Shushan (in addition to Haman's ten sons), then another 300, and then "they disposed of their enemies, killing seventy-five thousand of their foes... That was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar; and they rested on the fourteenth day and made it a day of feasting and merrymaking" (Esther 9:16-17).

Honestly, it's hard to know what to do with this part of the story. It reads like a revenge fantasy of a victimized people: slaughtering 75,000, and then sitting down to feast and celebrate. This must be farcical exaggeration, right?! And yet, throughout Jewish history, Purim has indeed been associated with Jewish violence and with vengeance. 

This summer on our Kavana-Mishkan Israel trip, we visited the grave of Baruch Goldstein, the American-Israeli physician and Jewish extremist who walked into a mosque in the Palestinian city of Hebron on Purim Day in 1994 and opened fire on worshippers, killing 29 and wounding 125 more before being beaten to death by survivors of the shooting. Seeing his tombstone made me nauseous (it calls him "holy" and says that "he gave his life for the the sake of the people of Israel, its Torah, and its land"). However, his grave has become a make-shift outdoor synagogue space and a pilgrimage site for Jews who share his ideology (and Israel's current Minister of National Security in this new ultra-right coalition, Itamar Ben-Gvir, famously had a photograph of Goldstein hanging in his office until recently).

As my colleague Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann (of Mishkan Chicago) pointed out, Jewish victimhood is real, but chapter nine of the megillah only makes sense as a fantasy while Jews are powerless. There is extreme danger in someone in power perpetuating a victim narrative and then using it to justify violence. British-American poet WH Auden expressed this well in 1939 in the following short poem:

I and the public know

what all schoolchildren learn,

those to whom evil is done

do evil in return.

Again, it is hard to pay attention to the news from Israel these days. And yet, we must, because we are living through a pivotal moment in Jewish history. Particularly as we approach this Purim -- where it is so clear that the stories we tell about our victimhood, survival, and joy are also wrapped up in violent impulses and revenge fantasies -- we must confront the violent impulses that come from within our own tradition.

Thankfully, many Jews are working to actively counter the violence. Our Israeli tour-guide from the summer, Karmit Arbel Rumbak, visited Huwara yesterday, as part of a solidarity meeting with Tag Meir (an Israeli organization that seeks to counter right-wing settler violence by battling racism and supporting democratic values). Karmit reports that she was initially afraid to make this trip, but that she felt called to be there, hoping to be part of a "wave" working in opposition to the hate and fear that the town's residents experienced last week. True to form, she managed to connect on a personal level with women, men and children of the town yesterday. She writes, "They were excited that we came to support them, and their hearts softened, and they said that they wanted us all to live in peace and security next to one another. I can't fix everything, but if I managed, at least, to counter the hatred and to enter into someone's heart a bit... then it's good that I made the trip."

As for us, we certainly can't fix everything either. But, if you care about Israel, the Jewish people, or both, now is the time to lean in, to learn more, and to speak up. I hope that we can celebrate Purim together next week and read the Megillah -- both the beautiful and the challenging parts of the story -- in the context of a loving community. And, I also hope that you will join me in finding ways to stay informed about what's happening in Israel so that we can continue to be part of this important Jewish story. One great opportunity (see below) is that Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the New Israel Fund, will be speaking here in Seattle in a few weeks. I strongly encourage you to click here to order a copy of his book Can We Talk about Israel through my favorite local bookstore (I've read it and it's excellent!), and then register to join me there (either in person or via livestream).

With wishes for a Shabbat Shalom, and hopes that peace, compassion and justice will prevail over evil and violence as we head into Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat before Purim,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Halakhah of Reproductive Justice

What are we learning when we learn Torah? When we are reading about the mitzvot - the various rules, laws, commandments, guidelines, and instructions that establish the practice of Judaism - it is tempting to think we are encountering God’s wishes for how we are to live. If the Torah says “do X”, then that seems pretty straightforward! We are learning what to do. 

However, Jews don’t learn how “to do” from Torah. At least not directly. Our “doing” is contained within the ongoing project of halakhah, often translated as “Jewish law” but literally related to the word for “walking or going.” If life is a journey, halakhah helps us see and stay on worthy paths. Or to use another metaphor, halakhah is the ongoing, vital interpretative stream flowing from the source waters of Torah all the way to our Jewish practices today. Along the way, that stream of interpretation flows over the ground of our collective lived experiences. Both the waters of Torah and the silt-memories of our past experiences inform halakhah. They are both ways of knowing, and offer values and lessons and practices for discerning wisdom for the present moment. 

[Content warning: violence, abortion]

The Torah portion this week contains the biblical source for Jewish conversation around abortion, and in recent years the National Council of Jewish Women has established the Shabbat of Parashat Mishpatim as Repro Shabbat, to focus our attention on matters of reproductive freedom and reproductive justice. We are just a few weeks past marking what would have been 50 years of Roe v. Wade, and almost a year into mourning the overturning of that decision and an aggressive and scary wave of abortion restrictions in many states, including the potential for abortion pills to be banned nationwide by a Texas district court judge. I know many of us are both worried and furious. 

What does our halakhah teach us?

When we turn to Torah, we have this one lone ruling related to abortion: “When [two or more] parties fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman’s husband may exact, the payment to be based on reckoning. But if other damage ensues, the penalty shall be life for life…” (Exodus 21:22-23).

From this case study, we learn that there is a categorical difference between life in actuality - the woman’s life - and the potential life of a fetus. The rest of Jewish law derived from this verse takes up the idea that while life is sacred, there are times when a pregnant person’s physical and mental well-being must be prioritized over the potential life of a fetus, and allows (or even mandates) abortion on these grounds. 

As Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg says, “There is not a single person to be compelled to continue a pregnancy against their will who does not experience mental pain, emotional suffering or violations of dignity in some way. If we want to say you have to have a good justification for an abortion, every person who is forced to carry a pregnancy against their will has a good justification for an abortion, according to our own texts.” In an article from last summer, Rabbi Ruttenberg points out how abortion restrictions are also violations of religious freedom. 

In 1965, a Jewish nineteen-year-old student at the University of Chicago named Heather Booth received a call from a friend, asking if Booth could help the friend’s sister get an abortion. “Upon learning that her friend’s sister was on the verge of being suicidal, Booth decided that even though what she was doing was considered illegal in the United States, she was doing the right thing. As she put it later, she knew her actions would save the woman’s life. Soon, more people began reaching out to Booth for help, prompting her to form an underground abortion network.” The network, the Jane Collective, operated until Roe v. Wade became law of the land. (Full story here.)

This too is part of our Jewish silt-memory. When lives are in danger, we organize, we educate ourselves, we foster acts of love. Some of us may even break laws so that we don’t become morally broken. 

I was startled to learn that Heather Booth had wanted to be a rabbi. But she was told that only men could become rabbis. Returning to the Torah portion, it seems awfully clear to me that although this text generates nuanced and care-oriented halakhah around abortion, it also reflects back an ugly diminishment of the world. Two men are fighting, and a woman gets hurt. Her husband is the one who gets paid compensation. The center of the Torah’s universe appears to be male. But the ground of Jewish experience holds male, female, transgender, non-binary, and every possible expression of human identity. 

If you want to support reproductive justice and abortion rights, you can donate to organizations, learn more about Washington state abortion law, show up for demonstrations, and lobby for policies. And we can also learn from and lift up women’s and trans and gender non-binary voices. We need our progressive version of halakhah, a fully inclusive source of wisdom that reflects back each of our lived truths and points us towards a world of dignity, choice, care, and love.

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Standing Again at Sinai: Re-Drawing Communal Bounds

Ever since I was in high school, this week's Torah portion - Yitro - has always made me think about the bounds of Jewish community. The passage that first brought this important topic into the foreground for me appears in Judith Plaskow's seminal 1990 work of Jewish feminism, Standing Again at Sinai. It reads:

"Entry into the covenant at Sinai is the root experience of Judaism, the central event that established the Jewish people. Given the importance of this event, there can be no verse in the Torah more disturbing to the feminist than Moses' warning to his people in Exodus 19:15, "Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman." For here, at the very moment that the Jewish people stands at Sinai ready to receive the covenant--not now the covenant with individual patriarchs but with the people as a whole--at the very moment when Israel stands trembling waiting for God's presence to descend upon the mountain, Moses addresses the community only as men."

How had I not noticed before that women weren't included among "the people" as the Israelites prepared for the pivotal covenantal moment of the receiving of the commandments at Sinai? Jumping off from this problematic Sinai moment, Plaskow makes a passionate case that feminism must transform Judaism and change the bounds of the Jewish community of our age. I marveled at this whole collection of ideas: that every community exists by virtue of its boundaries, that communal boundaries shift over time, and that we can play an active and intentional role in shaping and re-drawing the boundaries of our communities.

Judaism has survived for centuries and millennia precisely because the boundaries of the Jewish people have always been elastic. There is room within our tradition to radically rethink things as the world around us changes, and that flexibility has given Judaism the ability to withstand major changes and to remain relevant.

Feminism was the central challenge to American Jewish communities of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Synagogues and seminaries debated women's participation in ritual leadership; different answers to these questions separated denominations. Today, in liberal Jewish communities like ours, egalitarianism is a given. Additionally, our understanding of gender has become more expansive over time, such that now we are increasingly able to think beyond binaries (at Kavana, young people may now celebrate not only a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah, but also a b'nai mitzvah or b. mitzvah!). Within the broader Jewish community, we have learned that even where there are significant differences (for example, between Kavana, in which people of any gender can participate equally in prayer/ritual leadership, and Orthodox congregations, where men and women still pray on opposite sides of a mechitza/divider during prayer), we can still undertake joint projects and sit around the broader communal table together.

At Kavana, this theme of setting maximally expansive communal boundaries comes up all the time. Internally, we ask: how can we be sure that our community feels like a home for younger adults and for older adults alike (not to mention for children and for middle aged adults)? How do we create safe space to welcome individuals with a wide range of perspectives on Israel (a topic which is used to litmus test who's in and who's out in many other Jewish organizations these days)? How do we help Jews who may feel marginalized in some other spaces -- for example, Jews of Color, queer folx, interfaith households, and more -- feel seen and accepted and also have the opportunity to connect with others who share their identities within Kavana? Plaskow's commentary on the Sinai moment reminds me that we must pay attention to communal boundaries -- both the ones that are delineated explicitly and those that are there implicitly -- and do our best to re-draw them whenever we notice a problem with the status quo. Because our society is constantly changing, our community bounds, too, must be revisited and revised with regularity.

It turns out that Plaskow's observation about Exodus 19:15 -- that women were seemingly left out of the revelatory experience at Sinai -- bothered others long before it bothered her. The Midrash of Shemot Rabbah 5:9 seems to have anticipated Plaskow's critique many centuries before she lived. Citing a phrase that comes just a few verses later in the Torah, the midrash teaches:

"Come and see how the voice [of God at Har Sinai] would go out among all of Israel - each and every one according to their strength: the elders according to their strength; the young men according to their strength; the infants according to their strength; the sucklings according to their strength; the women according to their strength; and even Moshe according to his strength, as it is stated (Exodus 19:19), 'Moshe would speak and God would answer him with a voice' - with a voice that he could withstand."

The rabbinic authors of this midrash specifically name multiple groups of people who they imagine must have stood at Sinai, explaining that when the commandments were given, each of them were able to perceive God's voice in the way that they needed to, "according to their strength." They read women back into the story and in so doing, make an important statement about how they understand the boundaries of their own community.

Today, we continue the work together: the conscious expansion of the boundaries of Jewish community, modeled for us by both an ancient text (Exodus Rabbah) and by a contemporary feminist theologian (Judith Plaskow). When Kavana's new website launched just a few weeks ago, you may have noticed that there is some new and revised language on the "Who We Are" page. The text there now reads: "We welcome folks in all life stages and from all backgrounds, and shape our community around every person who chooses to join us in this experiment of Jewish community building. We are families with children of all ages, families of birth and families of choice. Some of us are parents, some aren't; some were raised very religious, some with no Judaism at all... We welcome you to bring your whole self, in all your complexity, to our community."

Indeed, we will keep naming and re-naming who we are and who is here, as we seek to build the most expansive Jewish community we can. This is our way of saying that the experience of standing at Sinai is one that we all can share.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Exodus and Addiction

“You can’t think your way into right action, but you can act your way into right thinking.” 

“Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point.”

Bill Wilson, Alcoholics Anonymous. 

This Shabbat morning, Kavana will host a Serenity Shabbat gathering as part of our regular monthly Mussar series. Several Seattle synagogues have hosted this rotating moment to turn our attention to addiction and recovery within Jewish community (with much gratitude to Kavana partner Marla Kaufman, executive director of JAAN, the Jewish Addiction Awareness Network, for initiating the Serenity Shabbat series). Addiction is an issue that affects Jews, but not always one that is easy to talk about. There are a growing number of Jewish organizations and resources addressing addiction, but still work to be done in seeing and supporting people in recovery and those impacted by loved ones struggling with addiction. Please know you can reach out to your rabbis for support as well.

The Torah portion this week, Beshallach, offers deep wisdom when we read it through the lens of addiction and recovery. (For further reflections on the exodus story and addiction, here is one great article. Other excellent Jewish sources on recovery can be found here.)

The Israelites are fleeing from enslavement in Egypt. But with the Egyptians in hot pursuit, and a sea blocking their escape, the people’s voices rise in despair. Moses gives a rousing speech about trust in God: “Have no fear! Stand by, and witness the deliverance which God will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again. God will battle for you, so you just keep quiet” (Exodus 14:13-14). 

Moses promises that if the people can surrender their anxiety over to God, they will be held safe and serene. What a reassuring idea! God, though, snaps at Moses: “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward [into the sea]” (Exodus 14:15). God tells the people to trust in an active rather than passive way. They are to do something, and through that doing discover their own liberation. 

So Moses tells the people to move forward, and prepares his staff to part the waters. Here the Torah moves in big picture grandiosity - the sea splits, the people move through, they burst into dance and song. But of course the details of how a thing happens are always a little more complicated. I once had an economics teacher who drilled home that you can’t go to the grocery store and buy “food”. There’s no aisle with stuff on it simply labeled “food” - you have to buy avocados and bananas. Similarly, when the Torah says the Israelites moved, it glides over the fact that “people” is actually a broad category for many different individuals. And how did the individuals move? Who went first? How did they organize? These are the messy and amazing details behind every mass movement that in retrospect appears unified. 

A famous rabbinic midrash explores these details at length (Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael 14:22, also in Talmud Sotah 37a). One rabbi suggests that some of the tribes were arguing about who got to go first, an argument of the eager. But the more famous teaching comes from Rabbi Yehudah, who taught that the tribes were hesitant to go first (for clear reasons - they were being asked to walk directly into the sea!) While all the people were debating, one brave leader took the first step. 

“Because they stood and deliberated, Nachshon the son of Aminadav leaped into the sea. Of him Scripture writes (Psalms 69:2-3) "Save me, O God, for the waters have reached my soul. I am sinking in the slimy depths and I find no foothold. I have come into the watery depths, and the flood sweeps me away." (Psalms 69:16) "Let the floodwaters not sweep me away, and let the deep not swallow me, and let the mouth of the pit not close over me."

When we hear versions of this story today, usually we hear it this way: Nachshon was the only one brave enough (or trusting enough) to walk into the water, and because of him, the waters split. It is a story about how possibilities open up when we jump into difficult experiences. However, the midrash has a slightly different take:

“At that time Moses waxed long in prayer — whereupon God said to him: My loved ones are drowning in the sea, and the sea is raging, and the foe is pursuing, and you stand and wax long in prayer? To which Moses replied: Sovereign of the universe, what can I do? And God said to him (Exodus 14:16) ‘And you, raise your staff, etc.’”

In other words, it isn’t Nachshon’s action that splits the sea, it is God’s empathy for Nachshon’s suffering and imminent danger. Nachshon’s trust is met with God’s care. It is important that Nachshon is imagined to lament his suffering. Trust is not ignorant of reality. Wise meditation teacher Tara Brach teaches that “Suffering is our call to attention, our call to investigate the truth of our beliefs.” We spend so much of our lives denying or ignoring or avoiding the painful parts of the human condition. When we spend time acknowledging what is hard, where there is pain and sorrow, we have the opportunity to awaken the God aspect within us, av harachaman, the Source of Compassion. And awakening the Source of Compassion is the first step towards true freedom. 

Another teaching from Tara Brach helps us understand the inner dynamics of our own exodus stories: 

“Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns...We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.”

Marla Kaufman said to me a few months ago that when it comes to addiction “there is no us or them.” It is part of human nature to crave pleasure and avoid pain, and we all have behavioral patterns that exist on the spectrum of addiction. But when those patterns result in harm and we feel out of control, we enter into an inner egypt (lower-case to emphasize a symbolic state, not the historical place or modern state). The only way out is through the turbulent waters of confronting reality, practicing trust and courage and compassion. Openings to inner freedom just may appear. 

At our Mussar gathering on Shabbat, we will explore this story more, bringing in song and ritual to open our hearts and enlighten our minds. Although Nachshon provides a role model, the story also clearly emphasizes that it takes a community for each individual to stride towards liberation. All are welcome, whether or not you have a personal connection to addiction. 

Wishing you all a Shabbat of trust, compassion, courage, and serenity.

Rabbi Jay LeVine

A Night of Vigil

This week, in Parashat Bo, we read about the final plagues and how -- after 430 years in the land of Egypt -- the Israelites finally arrive at the night when they are to depart from Egypt. About that specific night, the Torah says (in Exodus 12:42):

לֵ֣יל שִׁמֻּרִ֥ים הוּא֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה לְהוֹצִיאָ֖ם מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם הֽוּא־הַלַּ֤יְלָה הַזֶּה֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה שִׁמֻּרִ֛ים לְכל־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לְדֹרֹתָֽם׃

Leil shimurim hu ladonai l'hotziam mei'eretz mitzrayim, hu halaila hazeh ladonai shimurim l'chol b'nei yisrael l'dorotam.

That was for Adonai a night of vigil to bring them out of the land of Egypt; that same night is Adonai's, one of vigil for all the children of Israel throughout the ages.

This is a puzzling verse; like nighttime itself, its meaning feels somewhat obscured. The phrase "leil shimurim" -- "a night of vigil" -- is unique to this pivotal moment in Torah, mysterious and powerful. The word shimurim, in fact, appears twice in the verse, as it seems that the Israelites (b'nai yisrael) are called on to emulate God throughout time in standing watch, or being awake, or guarding, on this night. (Incidentally you also might recognize another famous phrase -- "ha-laila hazeh" ("on this night") -- from the Four Questions we recite at the Passover Seder)!

Rabbinic interpretations of this verse mostly center around the meaning of "leil shimurim," the "night of vigil.” Midrashim link this particularly wondrous nighttime event to other examples of Divine intervention or revelation that come at night (e.g. "And God came unto Balaam at night..."). Night, it seems, is a particularly ripe time for communication between humans and God. In addition, commentators argue about whether this particular night of the Exodus represented finality and the ultimate example of divine protection and redemption or -- in contrast -- a first example that sets all of Jewish history up to be about the anticipation of future redemption. 

Meanwhile, this text has been hanging out in the back of my brain all week, and I keep hearing echoes of it in the many activities and discussions swirling in our community. This has prompted more questions than answers for me, and I'm happy to be able to share some of my own swirl, inviting you to take up any of the questions below that might feel ripe or helpful to you this week. For example:

• You might have noticed that Wednesday was the first time since early November that sunset happened after 5pm here in Seattle. Local news stories drew attention to this transition, prompting me to consider again how much of our time we in the Pacific Northwest spend in darkness during these winter months. I wondered to myself: what kinds of openings to the Divine presence might we experience in this season of long nights?
  
  

• Last Shabbat, a number of us gathered to study liturgy before the Shabbat Minyan. We read a nugget that's embedded inside the Nishmat prayer each Shabbat -- "Va'Adonai lo yanum v'lo yishan..." -- a poetic passage about how "God never slumbers nor sleeps" but rather "wakes the sleeping." Jumping off from both that liturgy and our parasha verse, I ask: What kind of protection are we craving? In what ways are we ready/needing to be roused into a greater state of wakefulness? 
  

• At Prep & Practice on Sunday, our learning with families/kids focused on Rosh Chodesh and the big idea that the Hebrew calendar is connected to the natural world through the moon cycle. This week's new moon, in particular, marked the beginning of Shevat, the month in which we'll celebrate birthday of the trees and consider the fruit they promise to bring in their new season of growth. I wonder: How might we look up at the night sky to get our bearings? What hints of future redemption - or at least growth and potential - can we perceive right now, in our own lives, our community and our society?
  

• Today/Friday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Separately, important conversations have been swirling in the Seattle Jewish community this week around antisemitism (how to define it, how to combat it, and more). And, this has been yet another week characterized by gun violence, hate crimes, and police brutality in our country. At times of greater distress and challenge we humans tend to yearn for Divine protection... and that was no less true as the Exodus unfolded than it is today. How might the “leil shimurim” concept serve as a helpful lens, inspiring us to perceive God’s vigil and calling us to stand guard ourselves in the face of oppression and hatred (whether directed towards ourselves or others)?

• Finally, the holiday of Passover is now just under ten weeks away, which means it’s not too early to start thinking about how we will mark this special night of "leil shimurim" through our Passover seders this year.

One place to consider all of these questions, in good company, would be at tonight’s Kabbalat Shabbat service with Kohenet Traci Marx. It feels thrilling to say that this Friday night service will be back in person for the first time in nearly three years... and it promises to be beautiful, musical, and reflective as always. Please do join us!

Chodesh tov and Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum 

Can You Imagine?!

Right at the beginning of the Exodus narrative, we see the story of the rest of the Torah foreshadowed. The Israelites are suffering in Egypt, and God charges Moses to lead them out to freedom and into covenant. 

God tells Moses: “Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am Adonai. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, Adonai, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession, I Adonai.” (Exodus 6:6-8)

This is the plan then. God will free the Israelites - this is the Exodus itself. God will take them as God’s people - the commentators teach this refers to Mt. Sinai, where the Ten Commandments were given and the covenant with the whole people really begins. And then God will bring them all back home to the land of promise. 

But the next verse subverts God’s plan, and paints a picture of what will ultimately happen. “When Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage” (Exodus 6:9). 

The 16th century commentator Sforno writes that they couldn’t hear Moses because they couldn’t “consider deeply all of this, so that they would trust that God could rescue them and give God credit. In this they were different from Abraham [who believed in God’s impossible-sounding promises]. Therefore God’s promise of giving them the land [of Canaan] was not fulfilled for them, but rather it was given to their children.”

The people who cried out for liberation end up limiting their own ability to be free. Their imaginations have been stunted, and therefore their capacity for renewal and transformation withers. This lack of imagination results in fear, complaint, anger, cowardice, and ultimately failure. 

I’m struck by the connection Sforno makes between imagination and trust. The Hebrew word he uses for “consider deeply” is hitbonen. It is hard to translate in a simple way. Hitbonen means to make something known within yourself, to contemplate and absorb and internalize and discern and feel its ramifications for your life. Hitbonenut is one of the classic words used for Jewish meditation. Because meditation often involves visualizations, I am translating hitbonen in this context as a form of imagination, being able to see an image of a new reality. Sforno assumes that if people could really imagine their liberation and a meaningful and just life (i.e. the covenant with God), they would trust in its possibility and act with courage and love to make it happen.

In a recent interview on the philosophical legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., Ezra Klein asked Harvard professor Brandon Terry about the role of faith and trust in King’s thought. Here’s what Terry suggested:

“What you have to be committed to, in the last instance, is that evil is not the totality of who we are as persons, that people have the capacity, emotionally and rationally, to reflect on their life plans, their practices, their commitments, and change them, maybe not all of them, maybe not all at once, but that those things can be changed, and that politics is really a field where contingency is the key word, that although there are structural constraints and everything can’t be done at every moment, that the unprecedented, the new, the unexpected, happens in this realm.

“And the only way that we can confirm that nothing new will happen, that oppression will last forever, that the future bears no hope, is if we don’t act. That’s the only way we can confirm that it’s true for all time, is by failing to act in pursuit of justice.”

To me, that is the potency of hitbonenut! If we can reflect on the past and who we are in the present, if we can imagine a better future, if we trust that something new really can emerge, and then we act in some way or another, then perhaps we can be among the generations that inherit a promised land where justice and compassion are commonplace, and where joy and creativity thrive.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Remembering Heschel, and Continuing the Fight Against Pharaoh

This Wednesday (the 18th of Tevet) marked the 50th yahrtzeit of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Heschel was truly one of the greats! Born in 1907 into a Polish Hasidic dynasty, he was plucked out of Warsaw and brought to safety in London in 1939, just weeks before the German invasion of Poland. Heschel arrived in the U.S. the next year, serving first on the faculty of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati (the Reform seminary, which had helped arrange his visas) and then of the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) in New York. There, for the remaining decades of his life, he taught Jewish ethics and mysticism, wrote books, and became a celebrated theologian and philosopher.

A few years ago, the elementary school students in Kavana's Moadon Yeladim (afterschool "Kids' Club") program studied Heschel's life and legacy. We learned about his teaching that "our goal should be to live life in radical amazement" -- that is, that spiritual life and especially a sense of awe and wonder are what make life worth living (God in Search of Man). We read excerpts from The Sabbath, where he argues that Judaism finds holiness primarily in time, and "the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals." And, of course, we examined a photo of Rabbi Heschel marching together with Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, and unpacked his now-famous statement that "I felt my feet were praying."

This Shabbat -- the same week as Heschel's yahrtzeit -- is also the week of Parashat Shemot. The opening chapters of the Book of Exodus begin with Jacob's descendants living in Egypt, and with a new Pharaoh arising who "knew not Joseph." Pharaoh oppresses the Israelites from a place of fear; Moses is born and saved and raised in the palace, then called by God to lead his people out of Egypt. The ensuing show-down between Pharaoh and Moses becomes the central Jewish narrative of all time.

This week, I read for the first time the speech that Heschel gave in January 1963 at the National Conference on Religion and Race in Chicago. (Incidentally, this conference -- a watershed moment in Civil Rights history -- is where he first met Martin Luther King Jr.) His speech is remarkable, and, if you have time and interest, I highly recommend reading the text in its entirety here, or watching this video to hear some of the words in Heschel's own (heavily accented) voice. Heschel opens like this:

"At the first conference on religion and race, the main participants were Pharaoh and Moses. [Audience laughs and applauds.] Moses' words were: 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me.' While Pharaoh retorted: 'Who is the Lord, that I should heed this voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover I will not let Israel go.'

The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. [Audience laughs again.] Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The exodus began, but is far from having been completed. In fact, it was easier for the children of Israel to cross the Red Sea than for a Negro to cross certain university campuses..."

In this speech, Heschel goes on to tackle the racism of his day head-on; he doesn't shy away from talking about humiliation and hatred, murder and bloodshed. He also refuses to let his generation off the hook easily, arguing: "That equality is a good thing, a fine goal, may be generally accepted. What is lacking is a sense of the monstrosity of inequality. Seen from the perspective of prophetic faith, the predicament of justice is the predicament of God." This may be Heschel's most important legacy: viewing the political and social questions of his day as fundamentally moral and religious ones too. 

Even fifty years after Heschel's death, these questions remain potent for us. After all, it is still true, even in 2023(!), that "the outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end" and "Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate." The battle lines of American racism have shifted today: we've clearly moved past marching to desegregate universities, lunch counters, and buses, but we still face a whole array of challenges: police violence against Black and Brown people, racial disparities in health outcomes, economic stratification and generational wealth gaps, mass incarceration, and more.

Rabbi Heschel's daughter, Susannah Heschel (a professor at Dartmouth), now seeks to carry her father's legacy forward. In a piece from a few years ago entitled "The Challenge of the Selma Photograph," she writes:

"As the daughter of Rabbi Heschel, I have long felt that the photograph of the Selma march should not signal celebration but challenge: are we as Jews addressing racism, asks the photograph. Are we actively forging alliances with the African American community? When will African American and Asian American Jews feel fully at home in Jewish institutions? Can we put aside our pride in the efforts of Jewish civil rights workers of the 1960s and recognize how much work is left for us to do? Let us take responsibility for the entire Selma photograph: for the warm smiles on the faces of the front row of marchers wearing leis and full of optimism for the future, but also remembering the horrific violence, physical and verbal, that surrounded the marchers. The photograph can bring inspiration only when we understand it as a challenge."

With Heschel's yahrtzeit, Parashat Shemot, and MLK Day all swirling around us this weekend, we would do well to take up the mantle of her challenge. After all, Rabbi Heschel's words from 1963 are no less true today, that "the exodus began, but is far from having been completed." Let us honor the memory of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel on this yahrtzeit by continuing the fight against Pharaoh that was the apogee of his life's work.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Concerning Communication

As the book of Genesis winds to a close, so does the life of Jacob. On his deathbed, he assembles his twelve sons for some final words. It is a moment of poignance - and prophecy?

“And Jacob called his sons and said, ‘Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come’” (Genesis 49:1).

As his children gather round, Jacob seeks to impart wisdom. He has lived many years, and learned many lessons (and failed to learn some, as well). And yet, what he tells us he is about to do isn’t any ordinary transmission of life lessons, but nothing less than prophecy. “Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come (acharit hayamim).” As if, as he approaches the crack in the world between life and death, Jacob can see more clearly than the rest of us. 

However, he proceeds to offer some strange, dense poetic verses to each son. Rashi explains: He wished to reveal to them the end of Israel’s exile but the Shechinah departed from him and he began to speak of other things (based on Genesis Rabbah 98:2). 

Jacob saw the future, but words failed him right as he tried to communicate. I have certainly felt the frustration of seeing something in my mind’s eye and simply being unable to capture it well in words. The most important things, like love, care, appreciation, hurt, and sadness, have so many words devoted to them over centuries and centuries, and yet so often still feel inexpressible in their deepest sense. They are simply too vast to live fully inside little letters. 

Another commentator, the Ba’al HaTurim, offers a seemingly silly commentary on what happened to Jacob’s intention to communicate what he saw of acharit hayamim, the final days to come (another rendering of the Hebrew phrase):

Jacob asked, "Perhaps there is sin (cheit) among you?" They said, "No, if you examine our names, you will not find the letters chet or tet in them. Then he said unto them, "Arise, there is also no kuf or tzaddi letters (ketz - end) in them [either]. 

In other words, even if Jacob could have found the words to describe the future, they didn’t have within themselves the capacity to hear or process them. Perhaps you too have had a moment where you had exactly the right words, but the wrong listeners. To feel like if someone could only grasp what you were saying, they might have crucial information to live better into the future. 

Even as Genesis concludes with as close to a happy resolution as the Torah gives us, cracks in communication remain. All of Jacob’s sons are together, in stark contrast to every previous generation. But once Jacob dies, Joseph’s brothers worry that Joseph still bears a grudge against them (Genesis 50:15). Joseph tries to reassure them, speaking upon their heart (Genesis 50:21). We never hear from the brothers again, so we can only speculate that they were in fact reassured. 

How often have we “apologized”, “explained”, “reassured”, etc. without checking to make sure our words have actually been received that way? George Bernard Shaw once said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” 

So we have three models of communication breakdown - (1) when the speaker can’t put into words what they are thinking, (2) when listeners can’t or won’t receive what they are hearing, and (3) when it appears as if communication has happened but in fact it actually hasn’t gone as intended. 

In this new year of 2023, I have no prophecies, only a hopeful blessing: May each being find ease in expressing what they need to. May each being listen attentively and wisely to messages coming their way. May all of us lovingly keep seeking mutual understanding with everyone we are in relationship with. A world with kinder, clearer communication would be a step closer to the future I imagine Jacob hoped for us. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Coming Full Circle: from Joseph's Wagons to Kavana's Year-in-Review

This week, in Parashat Vayigash, the Joseph story comes full circle! The parasha opens with Judah pleading with Joseph (now a high official in Pharaoh's court) not to keep the youngest brother Benjamin as a prisoner. The brothers collectively seem to have passed Joseph's test -- their willingness to protect Benjamin marks a dramatic change from their earlier abuse and abandonment of Joseph -- and he reveals his true identity to them. 

Next, Joseph seeks to reunite with his father Jacob, who still resides in the land of Israel. As the conversation unfolds, one surprising detail in the text of Genesis 45 is that "wagons" (Hebrew: "agalot") are mentioned over and over again:

• v. 19: And you are bidden [to add], ‘Do as follows: take from the land of Egypt wagons for your children and your wives, and bring your father here.

• v. 21: The sons of Israel did so; Joseph gave them wagons as Pharaoh had commanded.

• v. 27: But when they recounted all that Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to transport him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived.

The presence and prominence of agalot/wagons of course captured the attention of generations of Torah interpreters! Citing a classic midrash (Genesis Rabbah 94:3), Rashi, for example, explained: 

"As evidence that it was Joseph who was sending this message he had informed them of the religious subject he had been studying with his father at the time when he left him, viz., the section of the Heifer (עגלה) that had its neck broken (Deuteronomy 21:6). It is to this that Scripture refers in the words “And he saw (i.e comprehended the meaning of) the עגלות (here to be taken in sense of Heifer) which Joseph had sent — and it does not state “which Pharaoh had sent” (as one would expect if עגלות meant wagons)." 

In other words, Rashi and the midrash are using word play to connect the word "eglah" to "agalot"... a clever interpretation, given that the concept of "eglah arufah" fundamentally is about who bears responsibility for wrongdoing, a conceptual question that certainly could be applied to Joseph's own personal story. 

Another explanation I've been thinking about this week is that the Hebrew word "agalot" can also mean "circles" or "cycles." In sending wagons from Egypt to his father Jacob, it is possible that Joseph was alluding to the ways in which his own life had come full circle. In this sense, the agalot could signify acceptance and forgiveness, making these wagons not only a tangible mode of transportation (sort of like sending a car to pick him up!) but also a beautiful symbolic invitation to Jacob to join with all of his children in Egypt for a family reunion.

Circles and cycles are so important throughout Jewish tradition. When I hear the word "agalot," I also can't help but think of the phrase "ma'aglei tzedek" from Psalm 23... often translated "right paths" but literally meaning "circles of justice." (Incidentally, this concept of "circles of justice" is the reason the Israeli Supreme Court building in Jerusalem incorporates so many curves and circles into its architecture!) And finally, one other important cycle is established in this parasha: the cycle of exile and return, which is both demonstrated on a personal/family level and set up on a collective/national level in this week's Torah portion.

Musing on the theme of agalot, circles, and cycles feels particularly appropriate during this, the last week of calendar year 2022. This is the week when we're all awash in year-in-review summaries; it can feel satisfying to see stories circle back on themselves as they come to a close.

As 2022 draws to a close, it's lovely to be able to reflect on how far we at Kavana have come over the past 12 months (our small circle) and also over the past almost 17 years (our larger circle). When we look back on 2022, we will always remember this as the year in which Kavana emerged from our pandemic triage mode into a new phase of growth, expansiveness, and new community offerings! This year, our educational programs returned to in-person formats (to the delight of students of all ages!); Kavana hosted glorious Purim and High Holiday "festival-style" events; we've continued to support our partners through life-cycle moments both wonderful and challenging; we sent our first-ever travel group to Israel and the West Bank; we hired three incredibly talented new full-time staff members (welcome, Rabbi Jay, Rachel O, and Avital!); and we participated in a Project Accelerate cohort to strengthen our organizational capacity... including a successful fundraising campaign that will unlock matching funds and will lay the groundwork for continued growth and evolution in the year(s) to come!

My Kavana co-founder, Suzi LeVine, recently shared with me a document we created before Kavana was formally launched -- a "Kavana Cooperative Executive Summary" dated January 2006 -- in which we had attempted to commit our initial vision to paper. Back then, we wrote: "We hope to create a pluralistic and non-denominational community group in Seattle making Judaism joyous through spiritual, educational, communal, and next-generational programming." While Kavana's language and demographics have certainly shifted a bit during the many years since 2006, our core aspiration remains pretty much intact. It feels incredibly gratifying to circle back to this early articulation of our vision in order to be able to see just how far we have come! 

Thank you for being part of the story, and for traveling these circles with the Kavana community. As we read this week about the wagons that Joseph sent to his father Jacob, we too can consider how meaningful it is to be tied to one another in ever-cycling ways. As one year comes full circle and we move together into the next, here's to a wonderful 2023 for all of us!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

New Light on Darkness

This is the week of Winter Solstice, the day with the least amount of daylight. As the recent flurries of snow demonstrate, we are fully in winter now. We are in a season where darkness is more common than not. As John Donne described it dramatically, “Tis the year’s midnight.” Even as we light the Chanukah candles, we also by contrast highlight (!) the surrounding darkness. 

It’s easy to resent or dread the dark, an attitude captured well by a saying from the sages, “Woe to the house whose windows open into the dark” (Exodus Rabbah 14). 

In our Torah portion, Miketz, our current protagonist Joseph begins the chapter still in the dark windowless dungeon of Egyptian prison. But his fortune soon flips. Pharaoh has mysterious dreams, and his chief cupbearer who had once had his dream interpreted by Joseph in prison recommends that Pharaoh seek out Joseph’s talents. So Joseph is “rushed from the pit”, soon to become Pharoah’s trusted adviser (Genesis 41:14). The commentator Sforno adds that every miraculous event is like this - it happens very swiftly. 

I sometimes find myself wanting to be rushed from the pit of winter, a swift and miraculous return to spring or summer. (Of course people do take important reprieves through the modern miracle of plane travel to sunnier regions!) The cycle of the seasons, however, is a very different kind of miracle, one whose blessings can only be discovered with patience and presence. 

Rabbi Adina Allen writes, “According to the account of creation found in the Torah, darkness is the place from which all life comes. In the opening verses of Genesis we read: “When God began creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was chaos and void and darkness on the face of the depths.” Darkness pre-exists all. It is from the chaos and void, the darkness and depths, that humans and hummingbirds, rainwater and red-tailed hawks, pine trees and the Pyrenees, eventually arise. The darkness, depths and waters of the world recall the darkness, depths and water of the womb from which each of us came. Without darkness, there would be no light, no life. Darkness allows for creativity and generativity. Rather than a lack of something, darkness is that which contains and gestates the seed of everything and the spark of the light.”

Darkness sustains restorative rest and contains creative potential. If you are in search of new ways into winter darkness, here are a few ideas for perspective and practice:

1. Read Katherine May’s fascinating and kind book, Wintering.

2. Spend some time with the prayers for light and darkness, Yotzer Or (recited in the morning) and Maariv Aravim (recited in the evening). What images or phrases catch your attention? 

3. Follow Adina Allen’s suggestion of pausing before lighting the Hanukkah candles and bringing awareness to the darkness first.

Ultimately, while Joseph emerges from his place of darkness, he does so through his skill with dreams, a creative experience associated with sleeping and darkness. May this season nourish our rest, and nurture our dreams. 

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Dreams and Vulnerability – A Message from Avital

This week’s parsha, Vayeshev, begins the epic telling of the life of Joseph. He is born into a complicated family, with his father Jacob’s legacy of favoritism, jealousy, and general toxicity. During the course of the parasha, we learn about Joseph’s famous multi-colored coat, his ever-problematic and harmful siblings, and finally, his forced exile to Egypt, where this chapter ends with his imprisonment at the hands of Pharaoh. 

Joseph’s relationship with his brothers is hostile at best -- he is clearly the favorite of the children, and he dreams of allegories where he is ruling over his family, much to the annoyance of his brothers. His brothers, overwhelmed by hatred, plot to kill Joseph, and eventually sell him to passing Midianites in the desert. This is the beginning of Joseph’s journey that culminates in his role as leader of Egypt, and the start of the Jewish people’s era in Egypt (sorry, spoiler alert!). 

In re-reading the parasha this year, I found myself curious about the power that dreams hold in this story. Without Joseph telling his brothers of his dreams over and over again, they might not have loathed him so. Without Joseph’s interpretations of the dreams of his fellow prisoners later in the story in Egypt, the chain of events that would eventually allow Joseph to be freed and rise to power in Egypt would not have happened. Dreams are found at key moments in this story, and are a driving force in many of the characters' actions. 

One might argue that at its core, dreaming is one of the most human things that we do. It’s a mighty interesting phenomenon, where our brain activity during sleep causes us to experience almost-life-like movies within our own minds, with our lives serving as the main backdrop. Even if folks don’t remember their dreams the morning after, it’s largely believed that we all do indeed experience dreams. Everyone dreams – so why are Joseph’s dreams so special? Why do his dreams in particular hold so much power?

The power of Joseph’s dreams lies in his saying them out loud. He elevates a common experience by sharing it with others. Many, if not all of us, know how vulnerable our dreams might be. They hold our deepest memories, our deepest feelings, and they have the capacity to unveil truths that we might not even know we hold. In the act of sharing his dreams, Joseph pulls back the curtain on this human experience and shares his own truths. We know that these truths, in fact, were not socially palatable, as they revealed an unappealing opinion that he holds - that he believes he is rightfully meant to lead his brothers.

Human commonality is at the core of relationships. We make friends, find community, and relate to people based on how similar we deem ourselves to be. And, we discover our commonalities through the act of storytelling. Without the impulse to tell stories about ourselves, we would not and could not make genuine connections and form deep relationships. I believe that Joseph’s retelling of his dreams was a radical form of relationship-building. Not only did he instigate relationship-building by sharing his dreams with his brothers, but in doing so he also revealed a controversial belief. He exposed a deeply vulnerable and controversial stance in two different dreams, not once, but twice!  He opened the door to an awkward conversation with his brothers, arguably as a way to find further commonalities and shared human experiences, and was swiftly shut down. 

In understanding this, I realized that the brothers’ harm of Joseph started long before they sold him into slavery. It began the moment they chose not to engage with him, and at the moment they became unwilling to participate in building a relationship with their challenging brother. As a passionate practitioner of relational-based engagement, I believe in the power of relationships, especially in the face of strife and disagreement. I believe in the power of curiosity, in being faced with uncomfortable facts or opinions and probing deeper rather than facing the other way. 

Joseph’s continuous attempts to be relatable and relational were not successful. Indeed, many of us read this story and can only see how blatantly degrading Joseph is towards his brothers. But If we see his act of sharing his dreams as an attempt to build deeper relationships with his brothers, it may very well sadden us to think about him as someone simply trying to find and deepen community within his family, and not being given a chance to do so.  

I hope that Joseph can be an example for each of us. To use vulnerability as a tool to build relationships. To share our dreams more willingly with one another. To recognize the human experience that connects each of us, and to empathize with each other even when it feels like it’s impossible. And, I hope that when we do feel called to share our truths, we do so intentionally and thoughtfully. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Avital Krifcher, Director of Community Engagement

Why Name

One of the most striking images in the entire Hebrew bible appears in this week’s Torah portion. Jacob is finally returning home, but he will have to face his estranged brother Esau. On the eve before the encounter, Jacob crosses a river, and in the middle of the night wrestles with an anonymous person. We never learn who exactly this person is, but as a result of this wrestling, the figure blesses Jacob with a new name, Yisrael, “one who wrestles with God”. Most of the classical commentators assume this figure was an angel. But Jacob, like us, was curious to know who he had been wrestling with. “Jacob asked [the angel], ‘Please tell me your name.’ But [the angel] said, ‘Why do you ask about my name?’ And [the angel] took leave of him there (Genesis 32:20).

What is the significance of Jacob wanting to know this person or angel’s name? Here are a number of the medieval scholars, offering us clues to why names and naming matter:

1. Rashi, Identity, Essence: We (angels) have no fixed names; our names change, all depending upon the service we are commanded to carry out as the errand with which we are charged (based on Genesis Rabbah 78:4).

Rashi’s opinion suggests that angels are not nameable, or rather that their name is their function, which swiftly changes. Angels are not entities the way we think about a human, or a dog, or a tree. They are energies summoned for a purpose. One Talmudic teaching (Chagigah 14a) suggests that angels are created anew every morning from a fiery river, sing a song to God, and then dissolve back into the flow. Their separateness, the specificity necessary to name them as one distinct from another, is mostly an illusion. 

2. Ramban, Calling on (like a parent): There is no advantage to you in knowing my name for no one possesses the power and the capability other than God alone. If you will call upon me I will not answer you, nor will I save you from your trouble…

Ramban sees the angel refusing to share their name because they don’t want Jacob to mistakenly think he can call on the angel for help later. Knowing a name is necessary for us to summon or seek help from something. 

3. Sforno, Problem solving: [Jacob said: I want to know a name] which would describe your essence, your function, and how you would go about performing the same. This would enable me to understand why you attacked me in the first place. I would then be able to do penitence for my sin, something I cannot do as long as I do not know what precisely my sin consists of.

Sforno helps us remember that naming the problem correctly is often the first step in solving it. 

4. Bechor Shor, Reputation: Because the winner wants to publicize his name in order that his power be remembered, but the loser does not want to publicize his shame. 

Although the wrestling match ended in a tie, perhaps the angel was embarrassed to admit they couldn’t defeat a human! In any case, we want our name attached to achievements rather than failures. 

5. Or HaChaim, Usefulness: Whereas it made sense that the angel asked Jacob's name seeing he intended to change it to Israel, or at least, to inform him of that impending change. Jacob's asking the angel for his name did not have such a purpose, however. The angel therefore wanted to know the reason for Jacob's enquiry.

The Or HaChaim points out that often we don’t need to figure out something’s name unless we have a need for it. I haven’t the foggiest clue what most surgeon’s tools are called, because I am not in a position to need to ask for them. 

Naming is deep in our human nature. In the Torah’s tale of how everything began, God gives humans uniquely the task of naming all of the creatures (Genesis 2:9-10). Presumably, this meant naming each species, lion and tiger and bear and so on. 

But Kathryn Hymes, writing for the Atlantic, discusses how humans are hard-wired to name things personally, not just referring to them by category. For instance, some of us at least give personal names to our cars, boats, phones, stuffed animals, mugs, potted plants, etc. Naming is a form of connection building. Hymes notes that with this act of naming even inanimate objects, we remember them better, bond with them more, and are less likely to replace them the moment they have the slightest flaw. Naming shifts our stance towards others. 

Perhaps there was a good reason the angel refused to be pinned down by a name. But when we look around at the world, we may not be able to afford letting plants and animals remain anonymous to us. We need to be building deeper relationships with not just birds, but House Finches and Stellar’s Jays (and maybe even with Finn the Finch or, Sally the bluebird, if we are lucky enough to see one regularly). If we collectively name the trees and plants around us, either personally, scientifically, or by indigenous names, we will help ourselves invest even more in preserving and conserving our habitat. 

Local author Lyanda Lynn Haupt, in her book Rooted, writes: “Try these things: Keep field guides everywhere. And topographical maps. Read them like novels, like holy texts, like poems. Learn the names of new-to-you wild beings or landmarks in your home region, then create your own living names for these same things. Respect Indigenous names. Listen for the earth to whisper a new name for yourself, and tell it to everyone or to no one. When you are at a loss, put your ear to the forest floor, or the bark of a tree, or tilt it toward the clouds. See what wordless language points you along your path.” 

Let’s name ourselves into belonging, and name ourselves into love, and name ourselves into hard-won commitment to hope. 

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Vayetze: Rapid Growth for Jacob, and for Kavana!

It's striking just how much happens in this week's Torah portion! The opening/title word of the parasha, "Vayetze," means "went out" (as in: "Jacob went out from Beersheva and headed towards Haran" - Gen. 28:10). And indeed, this Torah portion tells the story of the patriarch Jacob, having just emerged from the intense sibling rivalry with his twin brother Esau, now going forth to find his own place in the world. In Parashat Vayetze, Jacob moves through a rapid growth phase in his life: he establishes a connection with the Divine, seeks loving relationships, secures his own territory, and brings the next generation into being (12 children are born and named in this parasha alone!).

It was fun for me to re-read this parasha this week and reflect on how Kavana, too, is moving through a rapid growth phase right now. Over the course of the many years since 2006, we have built this community up intentionally and carefully... assembling wonderful people, articulating our shared values and strategic priorities, and creating programs to meet our community's needs. For the past several years, the limitations imposed by the Covid pandemic kept the lid on this pot and slowed Kavana's natural growth. But now, this year, we're feeling a new palpable energy and seeing an uptick in numbers to match. Some 750 people joined Kavana for the High Holidays this year (including 150 who were attending for the first time!), we've witnessed a >10% jump in the number of Kavana partner households in the last few months, and there's high demonstrated interest in programs, life cycle events, and community connections across multiple demographics.

Kavana has never chased growth for its own sake, but when new people show up eager to engage actively and meaningfully in Jewish life, we want to be able to say yes. And, as we continue to grow, we are also committed to deepening relationships within our community and supporting our partners more fully than ever before! As such, when we were approached and invited to apply for Project Accelerate last year -- a program that supports capacity-building in Jewish non-profit organizations that are poised for growth -- we knew the timing was right. Being accepted into their cohort was a big honor, and it offered external validation for what we already knew to be true: that Kavana is a unique organization and a leader in Jewish communal spaces!

As you hopefully saw in yesterday's special email announcement, we are launching the "What's Your Why" community campaign to raise funds that will help us unlock a matching challenge grant from Project Accelerate (click here to learn more about the campaign). These funds will help Kavana strengthen our organizational capacity (think: create all the systems and structures we need in place behind the scenes -- staffing, tech infrastructure, training, etc.), which will, in turn, result in new avenues for connection and meaningful Jewish engagement, for Kavana partners both old and new.

For Jacob, it's important that even as he "goes out" to begin a new chapter of rapid growth, he hears an echo of the blessing God had bestowed upon his grandfather Abraham: "through you, all families of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen. 28:14). For Kavana, too, this chapter of rapid growth we've embarked upon is exciting and new, but also represents continuity with where we've come from and who we've always been at our core. 

On this week of Parashat Vayetze, it's exciting to think about Kavana experiencing its own "going out" moment, and about all the possibilities that this new chapter of growth will bring for our community! Thank you for being part of this unfolding story... a source of blessing, indeed.

Shabbat Shalom,Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Grief and Gratitude

What we see when we look at a picture depends so much on its framing. Often the snapshot of this week’s Torah portion, Toldot, is framed as a story of sibling rivalry. The twins Jacob and Esau struggle with each other in the womb, each one becomes the favorite of one parent but not the other, Jacob cheats Esau, Esau plots murder in revenge, and eventually Jacob flees. The picture we see here is grim, frustrating, and painful. 

In a week that holds remembered tragedy (Nov. 20 was National Transgender Day of Remembrance) and present tragedy from yet another shooting, this time targeting LGBTQ+ community in Colorado Springs, this Torah portion tires me. I don’t want to read about more manipulation and violence. My heart yearns for images of a better world. 

And yet, there is another frame to the Torah story. Rabbi Elie Kaunfer notes that the word “bless” appears 32 times in Toldot, more than in any other parashah. What if this is a story about blessing, rather than a story about conflict? What if - in the face of hate and violence - we can keep naming the full range of gender and sexuality as blessing, holding each other with care and admiration?

This week Americans observe Thanksgiving, a holiday whose title frames it in one way as a much needed moment of rest, connection, and gratitude; and whose history reveals an uglier story of conflict, manipulation, violence, and oppression. Much like our Torah portion, our experience of this week will be filtered through our interpretive frame. 

If we can hold the tension of multiple frames, we might be able to both deepen our gratitude for what is good and nourishing, and sharpen our criticism of what is broken and needs repair. 

Rabbi Marcia Prager, in her book The Path of Blessing, offers some beautiful insights into the function of a blessing, or brakha. 

Jewish tradition teaches that the simple action of a brakha has a cosmic effect, for a brakha causes shefa, the “abundant flow” of God’s love and goodness, to pour into the world. Lake a hand on the faucet, each brakha turns on the tap…

A brakha completes our energy-exchange with God. We are partners in a sacred cycle of giving and receiving in which we are not only “on the take.” When we offer our blessings, we raise up sparks of holiness, releasing the God-light housed in our world back to its source…

Imagine if at every moment we each embraced the world as the gift it is: An apple is a gift, the color pink is a gift; the blue sky is a gift; the scent of honeysuckle is a gift. Hidden in every experience is a gift, obligating us to heart-filled appreciation, to songs of gratitude.

We are called not merely to notice casually now and then that something is special and nice but to sustain and deepen a profound and sustained gratitude. Indeed, the more we acknowledge our gratefulness, the more we temper our tendency to be users, despoilers, arrogant occupiers…

With our brakha we participate in the flow of divinity in the world.

Rabbi Prager teaches that from a place of gratitude, we are less likely to cause harm. One additional blessing feels needed here, from Rabbi Denise L. Eger, in Mishkan Ga’avah: Where Pride Dwells:

Bless those who need healing from their wounds - a healing of spirit, and a healing of body. And teach us, Source of the universe, to be messengers in this world of justice, truth, love, love, love, love, and love. 

May you move through this week with love and blessing, and may gratitude be a trusty guide.

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Negotiating Hebron: Then and Now

As this letter lands in your inbox, the Israeli military is scaling up their presence in Hebron in preparation for this weekend. Hebron is a city in the West Bank, located just about 30 kilometers south of Jerusalem. It is home to over 200,000 Palestinians, and -- since 1968 -- a small enclave of right-wing Jewish settlers as well. On a typical day, Hebron's 850 Jewish residents are guarded by some 650 to 1000 Israeli soldiers (about a 1:1 ratio of IDF soldiers: residents). This weekend, however, is the Shabbat of the year when Jews around the world will read Parashat Chayei Sarah, the Torah portion in which Abraham purchases the Cave of Machpelah as a burial place for his wife Sarah. Over the coming days, some 40 to 50,000 Jewish pilgrims are expected to converge on Hebron to pray at the Cave of Machpelah (also known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs), and also to march through the streets of Hebron -- with Israeli military escorts -- to loudly assert Jewish control over this holy site.

Modern day Hebron certainly isn't the only locale of the Occupation, but it is arguably among the harshest, most extreme examples. An entire section of the city has been declared a "sterilized" zone -- that is the terminology the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) uses to indicate that it's been cleared of Palestinian residents and businesses. The Jewish residents of Hebron are citizens of Israel, who vote, pay taxes, and benefit from the services and rights due to them as Israelis. In contrast, Palestinian residents live under military occupation, which means they can be searched, arrested, and held by IDF forces at any time and for any (or no) reason. This summer, the most painful and challenging day of our Kavana-Mishkan Israel trip for me was the day when we toured Hebron with Breaking the Silence and met with Palestinian activist Issa Amro there, who described the harrassment he experienced regularly at the hands of both his Jewish neighbors and Israeli soldiers. (Amro is mentioned in a Guardian article from this week, "Hebron's Jewish settlers take heart from far-right polls surge in Israel").

This week's Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, details the story of how Abraham negotiates to secure a burial plot for Sarah. Ephron the Hittite, the previous owner of the land in question, seems quite willing to grant Abraham use of the land for free so that he can bury his wife. However, Abraham insists not only on buying the property, but on paying top dollar (400 shekels of silver) for it. (Click here to read the full text of Genesis 23.) Various commentators from across Jewish history have underscored this point to emphasize the permanence of Abraham's transaction. For example, Nachmanides, who lived about 800 years ago in Spain, points out the careful steps that Abraham took to establish ownership of the land, both in paying an exorbitantly high price and in ensuring that the transaction happens in front of witnesses, all of which helps to establish the transaction as legal and binding. Despite the millenia that have passed and the number of times the land has changed ownership since Abraham's days, the tens of thousands of Jews who will spend this Shabbat in Hebron still look to Abraham's real estate deal to legitimate their claim to the land.

This past Monday evening, Benzi Sanders -- a former IDF soldier who now works for Breaking the Silence and who served as our tour-guide in Hebron this summer -- spoke to a group of Kavana and New Israel Fund (NIF) supporters here in Seattle. Since 2004, Breaking the Silence has been trying to expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories, through the testimony of veteran soldiers who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada. Breaking the Silence writes: "We endeavor to stimulate public debate about the price paid for a reality in which young soldiers face a civilian population on a daily basis, and are engaged in the control of that population's everyday life."

At the event, we watched Rona Segal's film "Mission: Hebron," which features testimony from six IDF veterans. Although it is very painful and challenging to confront these truths head-on, Kavana showed this film, invited Breaking the Silence in to speak, and incorporated a trip to Hebron into our community's Israel trip this summer because we believe that it is incumbent on us to create spaces within the Jewish community where -- from a place of deep and abiding love for the Jewish people, and precisely because we care about the future of the State of Israel -- we can talk about evils of the occupation. (If you missed Monday evening's event, I highly recommend carving out 22 minutes to watch the film linked above, and a few more minutes to learn about our partner organizations Breaking the Silence and the New Israel Fund.)

Towards the end of Monday night's program, Benzi reflected that -- in the wake of the recent Israeli election -- he sees a new opening. With the ascendancy of the far right in Israel, sentiments that once could be dismissed as representing only fringe and rogue elements of Israeli society (e.g. the idea that Jews are the "baalei ha-bayit," the rightful "landlords" of greater Israel/Palestine) now move into the light of day, which opens them up to public scrutiny and debate.

I perceive a new opening here in the U.S. too. Votes from some of the closest races of our 2022 Midterm Elections are still being tallied, but a clear picture is emerging: that overall, American voters are beginning to push back against Trumpist fascism, conspiracy theories, and white supremacy. This leaves a gap between the political directions that Israel and the U.S. are moving in, and it's precisely into this gap that we may now have the opportunity to begin to carve out space and change the culture and discourse. Here in the U.S., we can push on our elected officials to advocate for American support for a democratic state of Israel AND an end to occupation and a full stop to settlement expansion in the West Bank.  

As we move towards Shabbat, I pray for a calm and quiet weekend in Hebron. I pray that the descendants of Abraham's younger son Isaac (i.e. our fellow Jews) will remember that the Cave of Machpelah is also a holy site for the descendants of Abraham's older son Ishmael (Muslims). I pray that Torah will be used as a force for good in the world and not a justification for oppression and evil. I pray that from our corner of the world, we can help put an end to the occupation, and support the strengthening of a State of Israel that represents our highest values and ideals. Ken yehi ratzon, so may it be.

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Nourished on the Knife's Edge

I write this as we are on the knife’s edge of an election... and, with ballots still being counted in some close races and at least one important runoff to come, we will likely remain here for some time. As I sit here keeping company with just about every emotion I can name, I’m drawn to knife imagery and metaphor. In my inner living room, they gather: fear packs a knife, anger unsheaths it, hope dances with a glint of silver light, patience whittles a toy or totem, joy carves out a bite to eat, and love and sadness together etch their initials deep into the heartwood. 

I write this as we are on the knife’s edge of an election... and, with ballots still being counted in some close races and at least one important runoff to come, we will likely remain here for some time. As I sit here keeping company with just about every emotion I can name, I’m drawn to knife imagery and metaphor. In my inner living room, they gather: fear packs a knife, anger unsheaths it, hope dances with a glint of silver light, patience whittles a toy or totem, joy carves out a bite to eat, and love and sadness together etch their initials deep into the heartwood. 

Of course for each of us, there is the daily life.

Let us live it, gesture by gesture.

When we cut the ripe melon, should we not give it thanks?

And should we not thank the knife also?

We do not live in a simple world. (Mary Oliver, from At the River 

Clarion)

We do not live in a simple world. 

There is a seductive fantasy in our Torah portion, Vayera. The people of two towns, Sodom and Gomorah, appear to be entirely evil (with the lone exception being Abraham’s nephew Lot, a decidedly mediocre person). Abraham argues with God on behalf of theoretical innocents in their midst - should 50, or 40, or 30, or 20, or 10 innocent people be destroyed if God goes through with a plan to wipe the cities off the map? But once Lot and his family are rescued, no one remains to merit any mercy. 

The seductive fantasy for us today is that as political sorting continues to play out, we can imagine the “other side” as completely unredeemable, like Sodom and Gomorah. It is rather convenient that all the wicked people are “there” and not “here”. That mentality weaponizes us as we imagine cutting out the “infection”. What a world we would be in if those whose beliefs threaten our existence simply vanished! 

But Emily Dickinson picks up the knife metaphor and she too reminds us the world is not simple.

Surgeons must be very careful

When they take the knife!

Underneath their fine incisions

Stirs the Culprit — Life! 

In the hands of a surgeon, a knife is meant to be a tool for preserving life. But the neatness of a surgical mentality that identifies what harm to cut out maps poorly onto society. Sodom and Gomorah don’t exist - not because they were destroyed, but because humans are humans wherever they live, a messy mixture of care and cruelty. The same Culprit - Life! that gives rise to wonder and beauty and goodness also brings us pain and pettiness. How we come to terms with that condition marks our spiritual path. How we live it out with others is what we call politics. 

Later in the Torah portion, our ancestor Abraham picks up a knife, following God’s awful command to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham’s son. Before he can use the knife, though, an angel stops him and points out a ram to offer instead. A commentary collection called Daat Zkenim from the 12th/13th century reads the knife in a surprising way. 

Genesis 22:10 

וַיִּשְׁלַ֤ח אַבְרָהָם֙ אֶת־יָד֔וֹ וַיִּקַּ֖ח אֶת־הַֽמַּאֲכֶ֑לֶת לִשְׁחֹ֖ט אֶת־בְּנֽוֹ׃

And Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son.

Daat Zkenim

The word for knife (ma’achelet)  is used metaphorically (based on the meaning of achal“eating,” as the root of the word). It is the instrument that since that time has been feeding Israel throughout history as we all still benefit from Avraham’s having passed this test.

The knife in Abraham’s hand represents at least two things - first, certainty of action, but second, knowing when to pause. Abraham wields faithful certainty with an alarming ease, and yet remains open to new information. What does it mean for this knife to nourish us? 

This is my two-fold hope for us in this moment: (1) that we channel Abraham’s conviction for the values we hold dear, through voting, deeper learning, advocacy, however makes sense for you to follow through on what matters; and (2) that we remain sensitive enough to what we don’t know that we can change course wisely as needed. 

Because the world is not simple.