This Shabbat is the ninth day of Av, and yet we do no mourning or fasting on it until the following day. There is a powerful message here.
Tisha B’av speaks a certain kind of truth. It speaks the truth of judgment and sadness and suffering and destruction and disconnection and dislocation. And also the truth of human imperfection – we were and are still not worthy to sustain the Presence of God in this world as it once was. We fall short; we are limited; we fail. Life is difficult and overwhelming.
These feelings are encapsulated in the three cries of Eikhah, how, that we find on this Shabbat and Tisha B’av. The Book of Lamentations cries out Eikhah yashvah badad, How has a once robust city now turned desolate and alone? Isaiah 1 (the haftarah on Shabbat) says Eikhah haytah lezonah, How has a faithful city turned into a harlot? And Moshe, in Devarim (this week’s parsha), exclaims: Eikhah esa levadi . . . How can I carry the full burden of this large people all by myself?
The first two are cries of sadness over the sudden change in status of a beloved city; we feel how quickly life can turn from good to bad, how destruction recurs in our history; how ongoing is suffering; how impermanent and unstable are our lives and fortunes. There is change and suffering and we mourn the truth of these in the world. And most especially, we mourn our role -- through our neverending capacity for faithlessness -- in contributing to this suffering. There is sadness and it is partly our fault. The third is a cry of overwhelm. Really, God put me on this earth to accomplish something, but it all seems like too much sometimes. How can I possibly carry this full weight?
These are gnawing existential burdens that we carry, our knowledge of our limitations and our failures and the truth of our impermanence and continued suffering in the world.
When Tisha B’av falls on Shabbat, we have a special opportunity to see these truths, these burdens, through the prism of Shabbat.
What is the message of Shabbat? First, the eternity of our relationship with the Holy One. Beyni ubeyn beney Yisrael ot hi le’olam. Between Me and the children of Israel it, Shabbat, is an eternal sign.
An eternal sign. Temples can come and go. Destruction and suffering and mass killing can come and go. But Shabbat wraps us in the knowledge that through it all God stands with us. Shabbat is the touchstone, the eternal Rock that reminds us we are forever. On one level, there will always be sadness and suffering coming and going. But in some other realm, beyond this world, there is eternity and we are part of that eternity.
Even as we mourn the loss of our temple of space, we hold on to our temple of time, Shabbat, our expansive sense of the whole span of human history, past, present and future, and our little taste of divine time, eternity.
We are comforted by these Shabbos concepts because they remind us that we are not alone, badad, striving in our limited way to fix a broken world. Our work is indeed imperfect and impermanent. But we are embraced by the Eternal One, embraced by the knowledge that come what may, no matter how we fail and mess up this world, we are held by the Rock. Ot his le’olam. An eternal sign.
Thursday, July 19, 2018
Friday, July 6, 2018
Parashat Pinchas: My Grandfather's Inheritance
In devoting my life to Torah, I consider that I am carrying on the legacy of my father and my grandfather. My father loved Rashi so much that he believed that he was given an extra four years of life in order to pursue more of his work on Rashi. My grandfather was shot in a ghetto when he was found studying Talmud. My attachment to Torah is a legacy. I feel myself to be a link in this chain.
And yet I wonder – would my grandfather be happy that I, a woman, am part of the chain? Would he want me to be studying and teaching Talmud? My father was a deeply open person, and in spite of his upbringing, a feminist. But my grandfather, whom I never knew, was part of a world in which women were not taught Torah, were not considered part of this legacy. Would he, does he, smile down on my learning?
Surely in heaven what one sees is the heart.
At least that’s what the daughters of Zlophehad in this week’s parsha thought. Seeing that the land of Israel was being divided based on the male descendants of tribes and having no brothers who would inherit and a father who was already gone, they stepped forward bravely to articulate their desire also to be part of the legacy, to take their share in the nahalah, the inheritance. According to the midrash (Sifre Bamidbar 133), this was their thinking:
The mercies of flesh and blood are not like the mercies of the Omnipresent. The mercies of flesh and blood are over the males more than over the females, but He who spoke and the world came into existence is not thus. Rather, his mercies are over the males and over the females. His mercies are over all, as it is said: “The Lord is good to all, and His mercies over all His works” (Ps.145:9)
Indeed, the daughters of Zlophehad stepped forward and were not directly answered by flesh and blood, by Moshe, but were instead granted an answer from the Holy One Himself, who heard their plea and saw their sincere desire simply to be a part of the legacy, and answered them – ken, yes. Yes, when someone comes forward with a sincere desire to be PART of things, God says yes; down on earth, things might be more complicated, but God says yes to a joining heart.
I imagine that my grandfather, now taking the divine view from heaven, sees my desire to be a part of his inheritance and does smile.
At the Pesach seder, we reject only one son – the one who excludes himself, takes himself out of the game, out of the legacy and looks at us from the outside. But anyone who comes forward and says simply – I want to be part of this inheritance – how can we exclude them? I am thinking now of many others, not just women, but also those on the road to conversion or those who feel excluded for any number of reasons – if they sincerely and bravely come forward to say simply -- I want to be part of this legacy, shouldn’t our mercies be not like those of flesh and blood but rather like God’s – open and embracing and loving and compassionate to ALL?
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And yet I wonder – would my grandfather be happy that I, a woman, am part of the chain? Would he want me to be studying and teaching Talmud? My father was a deeply open person, and in spite of his upbringing, a feminist. But my grandfather, whom I never knew, was part of a world in which women were not taught Torah, were not considered part of this legacy. Would he, does he, smile down on my learning?
Surely in heaven what one sees is the heart.
At least that’s what the daughters of Zlophehad in this week’s parsha thought. Seeing that the land of Israel was being divided based on the male descendants of tribes and having no brothers who would inherit and a father who was already gone, they stepped forward bravely to articulate their desire also to be part of the legacy, to take their share in the nahalah, the inheritance. According to the midrash (Sifre Bamidbar 133), this was their thinking:
The mercies of flesh and blood are not like the mercies of the Omnipresent. The mercies of flesh and blood are over the males more than over the females, but He who spoke and the world came into existence is not thus. Rather, his mercies are over the males and over the females. His mercies are over all, as it is said: “The Lord is good to all, and His mercies over all His works” (Ps.145:9)
Indeed, the daughters of Zlophehad stepped forward and were not directly answered by flesh and blood, by Moshe, but were instead granted an answer from the Holy One Himself, who heard their plea and saw their sincere desire simply to be a part of the legacy, and answered them – ken, yes. Yes, when someone comes forward with a sincere desire to be PART of things, God says yes; down on earth, things might be more complicated, but God says yes to a joining heart.
I imagine that my grandfather, now taking the divine view from heaven, sees my desire to be a part of his inheritance and does smile.
At the Pesach seder, we reject only one son – the one who excludes himself, takes himself out of the game, out of the legacy and looks at us from the outside. But anyone who comes forward and says simply – I want to be part of this inheritance – how can we exclude them? I am thinking now of many others, not just women, but also those on the road to conversion or those who feel excluded for any number of reasons – if they sincerely and bravely come forward to say simply -- I want to be part of this legacy, shouldn’t our mercies be not like those of flesh and blood but rather like God’s – open and embracing and loving and compassionate to ALL?
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