How Do You Jew

Yeah, I know I’m posting it a week late, but I delivered it on time (Shabbat, 24 May 2008, 19 Iyar 5768) at Tifereth Israel. Among other things, B’Chukotay is notable for the inclusion of the tochecha, the section of punishments I refer to below, which, according to tradition, is to be read quickly and quietly, in contrast to the rest of the Torah reading this or any other week.
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In this week’s parasha, BeChukotay, we reach the end of the Book of Leviticus. It is here that Moses passes along to the people of Israel God’s admonishments to observe the mitzvot and prosper, along with God’s warnings that if the people fail to observe the commandments, punishment will ensue.

The rewards include a bountiful land & plentiful crops, general prosperity, peace with Israel’s neighbors, and, in the case of those not interested in making peace, enemies withdrawing in defeat from the mighty Israelites.

Similarly, the punishment for failure to observe the mitzvot is delineated in graphic detail: drought & famine throughout the land, hunger to the point of parents having to eat their own children, war and consequent defeat, and finally exile - the ultimate punishment for a people whose very existence and relationship with God is tied to a specific parcel of physical space.

Speaking as we are in the early 21st century, in the diaspora, looking from afar as Israel marks its 60th anniversary while under relentless missile attack and constant attempts at “smaller, more minor” attacks, it may seem like things aren’t going so well (I’ll remind you that a suicide truck bomber failed to kill anyone but himself with four tons of explosives at the Erez crossing from Gaza Thursday, and another suicide bomber was shot and killed as he tried to detonate his explosives at a checkpoint outside Shchem in the West Bank on Monday). Sure, not all Jews follow all the mitzvot, but is that really what the text – what God – wants us to achieve?

It’s significant to me that the language used in this section of the parasha, the blessings and curses, is, in contrast to the language used later when talking about the endowments and sacrifices, communal language. That is, it always talks about “the people” doing or not doing this or that, and being rewarded or punished, en masse.

Reading this, I was immediately reminded of the Talmudic saying, kol Israel arevim zeh la-zeh – all Jews are responsible one for another.

Little did I know that, in coining this phrase, the Talmudic rabbis were commenting on this very parasha! Specifically, on chapter 26, verse 37 (page 751),

–>This is where I read the Hebrew. I gotta figure out how to display Hebrew properly in my posts… images, perhaps?<--

“With no one pursuing, they shall stumble over one another as before the sword…”

No lesser a commentator than Rashi first explains the verse literally, envisioning people bumping into and falling over each other in their frightened retreat. But he then cites the Talmud's midrashic comment, found in Tractate Sanhedrin:

“”…they shall stumble over one another…” meaning one will stumble over the sins of another for all Israel is responsible one for the other.”

Thus, the “stumbling” the Torah warns about is not physical, but spiritual; that the sinning of one - an individual’s failure to follow the mitzvot - will cause others to stumble, eventually bringing the promised retribution from God.

The Hebrew root word that is here translated as “stumble” is CaSHaL, which also means “to fail.” The double meaning is itself significant, for when one stumbles over the sins, or failures, of another, that means the stumbler failed as well.

This spiritual stumbling itself could be interpreted in a couple of ways:

First, one could stumble over the sins of another in the sense that one observes another sinning and is tempted to, um, “join in the fun.”

Alternately, the stumbling could refer to the result - the punishment being meted out on all the people as a result of the sins of some.

This means, friends, that we can’t just look the other way when we see sinning, or the failure in others to observe the commandments. Not only would this be an active shirking of our stated responsibility for one another, but if I “look the other way,” I cannot easily continue walking along the straight path I was headed down in the first place - and I would thus be that much closer to stumbling myself.

Either way, the lesson that we are all responsible for one another should not be lost. There may be individuals in the community who, for a variety of reasons, are incapable of observing some mitzvot without assistance. Some may need a little more… “encouragement” than others. We all need to do our part to live lives that warrant reward, and persuade others to do the same.

Peace on earth, plenty of food, adequate social support for those who can’t support themselves, etc. - all this is possible, and it will come, as the text suggests, as an act of or a gift from God. But not in the way many people expect such gifts.

Gifts from God are rarely obvious miracles of Biblical proportions. We are all created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God, and we all have within us the capacity to carry out God’s work. We must engage in this work if we are to enjoy God’s blessings.

Shabbat shalom.

…except that, well, you know, she isn’t my offspring in the literal sense of that word. Regardless, she IS amazing, and I happily take credit for her attitude and disposition, seeing as how I’ve been co-responsible for her since the moment she was born. She had a rough night last night, up a few times to eat, crying, not her usual self. She woke up for good at 5 AM, hung out with us in bed for a while, then participated in our morning routine getting ready for Shabbat at Ohr Shalom, where both I and my lovely wife were scheduled to read Torah, so we were obligated to go. She didn’t go down for a nap before we left the house, rested in the car for a short time on the way down there, remained awake the whole length of the service, and maintained her standard good mood throughout.

She catnapped on our way out to Coronado to hang out with Doda Shlomit and Dod Dave and Ben Dod Jonah, woke up promptly after we parked the car, and was up the entire afternoon and evening until about 6 PM, again, with a smile on her face the whole time. She ate like a champ the whole day, and that, in combination with how long she’s been awake, plus the fact that we’ll be keeping the house a little warmer tonight than it has been lately, makes us hopeful that she’ll sleep through the night, as was her habit since the age of 3 months.

All I want to do now is sit and veg in front of the TV. It’s rare that I get like that, but tonight is one of those evenings. If we can’t find anything good on live TV (we only have basic channels) we’ll certainly find something online.

Oh, yeah… This morning at shul I delivered an oral version of the drash I wrote up the other day, and it was well-received. Good times.

Which means that since it got dark a few hours ago, I’ve felt like it’s Shabbat and I shouldn’t blog until after… but it’s not Shabbat, it’s Erev Thanksgiving, and there’s nothing to prevent me from writing, using the computer, etc.

Jenn spent much of the day cooking and baking for Thanksgiving, which we’ll be celebrating at the Meltzers’ with a bunch of extended family and friends. I successfully lobbied one of my favorite community organizations (in this case, Ohr Shalom Synagogue) to send out an email to the membership about the Give One Get One program I wrote about yesterday. Phyllis & Joel commented on Jenn’s post about the Bone Marrow Donor Appreciation event. Hadarya had a great day and a good evening, including when we went down to minyan.

This week’s parasha is Vayishlach, which includes the story of Yaakov’s struggle (commonly translated as “wrestling”) with… well, with someone - the Hebrew is ha-ish = the man, but this is usually understood as an angel of God. Tonight, though, we looked at four possibilities of who the struggle could have been with:

1. God
2. An Angel/messenger of God
3. Yaakov himself
4. Esav (Esau, Yaakov’s twin)

The discussion that ensued about each of these was the richest exploration of this story I’ve ever engaged in. My contributions included the following:

• Assuming the struggle was with God, I thought of the conversation God has with Moses later in the Torah (verse 20) when Moses asks to see God’s face and God tells Moses that “no man can see my face and live.” That said, Yaakov may have gotten so close to God by engaging in this “struggle” that he came away with a physical wound (the hobbled leg, the limp).
• If it was an Angel (and somewhat spanning the possibility of a struggle within himself): Yaakov remembered, of course, the dream he’d had some 20 years before of the ladder with angels climbing up and down. This time, rather than remaining passive and simply watching, he tried to engage his visitor. He was more mature, more ready this time, but it was still a serious spiritual and physical challenge, and he came away changed (spiritually with the name change, physically with the limp).
• If the sparring partner was Esav, the thing that struck me most was the parallel of lower limbs in their history: at the beginning of their lives, Yaakov grasped at Esav’s heel, then engaged in some rather unsavory behavior to usurp his brother’s birthright. Here, decades later, HIS leg is injured, mirroring his brother’s “wound,” and the very next day, Yaakov and Esav meet and reconcile.

There was some very nice input (not mine; I think it was Rabbi Scott’s) on this last option, raising the possibility that Yaakov and Esav had to have a physical confrontation, a cathartic wrestling match, to get out their aggression and relieve their longstanding animosity, and that only after this fight could they embrace and kiss and weep.

All in all, a nice lead-in to the holiday. Tomorrow first thing in the morning we head downtown for the 5K Walk for the Hungry, then relax and eventually head to dinner to give thanks ourselves. Happy holiday!

1. I’m on Rabbi David Wolpe’s weekly d’var Torah email list. He can say more with fewer words than almost anyone I’ve ever met. Anyway, a few days ago I received a special message from him:

Below is a mitzvah of worldwide significance. This program, which involves all faiths and nations, is an attempt to bring computers, curricula, and education to the very poorest parts of the world. By purchasing one remarkably inexpensive – yet remarkably effective – computer – you will enable a poor child to receive a computer as well. If you decide simply to donate both, or more, that would be an even greater mitzvah. This is limited; we have only two weeks to act. Let us join people from all over the world seeking to help those who crave knowledge, information, connection. These computers work without electricity and are specially designed to enable the poorest children to benefit. The Talmud teaches that Jews are rachamim b’nei rachamim – merciful people and the children of merciful people. Please show your mercy to children all over the world.

The program he’s referring to is the Give One Get One promotion of One Laptop Per Child, which I’ve been aware of since its inception several years ago by Nicholas Negroponte. I’m hopeful that Jenn and I can find the extra cash somewhere to get involved directly, but I wanted to put it out there for you to see as well, so you could decide if it was worthwhile.

2. In the news over the last couple of days is the recent discovery by Japanese and American scientists that they could essentially transform human skin cells into stem cells. This, too, could change the world, in entirely different ways than OLPC, but I love the thought that some kid with a laptop from OLPC could one day contribute to the effort to treat or cure a major disease using stem cells because he was given a window to the rest of the world by this program.

Sad in a cosmic, global way, not a “boo-hoo” way:

Evangelical/fundamentalist Christians who co-opt Hebrew, specifically Hebrew sacred texts and liturgy, without understanding or respecting their meanings.

I was prompted to post this by an example I ran into today, which itself reminded me of another from a couple of years ago.

Today I manned an information table on behalf of Career Services for incoming freshmen at SDSU as part of the orientation program that runs throughout the summer. At one point, two young ladies approached the table and my colleague and I asked them if they were interested in finding work on campus, thinking about their careers, etc. - the standard questions we ask to engage the uninitiated and create an opening to tell them about our services. The two immediately informed us that they weren’t, in fact, incoming students, but that they were from Minnesota and South Dakota, respectively. When I asked (politely) what they were doing on campus, they asked if we’d ever heard of Campus Crusade for Christ. My colleague Adam and I admitted that we had, and they told us they were here representing their respective campuses as part of a training program or some such.

This made the fact that one of them (the Minnesotan) was wearing a necklace with a silver pendant reading “אשת חיל” (Eshet Chayil - Woman of Valor) much more interesting to me. I’d noticed it before they’d identified themselves, and I commented that I liked it. When the wearer said she’d been told that it meant “Excellent woman” I noted the standard translation, and she balked, saying she didn’t want to be a woman of valor at all - that it implied things like courage (and a couple of other qualities she spit out) which she, apparently, either didn’t possess at all or didn’t aspire to. It turned out the other girl had an identical pendant (as did, presumably, all the other girls in their study group), and that they’d “studied” Proverbs 31 (Google search results, revealing thousands of pages of Christian reflections on this beautiful poem and nary a Jewish take; I guess all the Jewish web references to it refer to it by its title, as these searches for Eshet Chayil and Woman of Valor show) along with some other important women in the Bible, including Hannah and Rahab.

This exchange reminded me of one that occurred at the end of the 27 hours of parenting classes Jenn and I had to take when we signed up to adopt through the county a couple of years ago. During the last class session, we schmoozed a bit with the other “students” - all prospective adoptive parents. I don’t remember how, but I got to talking to a woman who was wearing a ring with “אני לדודי ודודי לי” (Ani l’dodi ve-dodi li - I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine). She rubbed me the wrong way to begin with by basically quizzing me on the phrase, not satisfied when I told her I knew what it meant in Hebrew; she had me recite the verse, then she showed off her knowledge by parroting the next couple of lines. When I asked about how she came to be wearing the ring, since she wasn’t Jewish, she said she’d gotten it through her church, and that she wore it around the house when she was doing chores and cleaning and stuff.

Wonderful. So our sacred texts are reduced to accompanying non-Jews on their chores and missions. Of course, we elevate the texts when we truly study them, reflect on them, and live by them, but should we be more possessive of them? Seriously, I’m asking.

p.s.: My favorite part of the exchange with the Campus Crusade girls was that the colleague I was at our table with is a practicing Muslim. He and I had a good chuckle at the irony of the whole situation after they left.

I delivered this drash this past Shabbat, Saturday, July 22, at Ohr Shalom. I’m proud to say that the Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, shares my sentiments, as evidenced by his speech to the Knesset [Hebrew, English] on July 17 (which I had not read until today [hat tip, AbeJ]).
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There are some terribly difficult passages in our sacred texts that force us to struggle fiercely to find meaningful lessons for our lives.

In parashat Matot, the nascent Israelite people – still strongly identified by their tribal affiliation – are commanded to exact retribution on behalf of God upon the Midianite people. Leading the Israelite warriors was Pinchas, son of Elazar the Priest. So, a Middle-Eastern nation led by a religious cleric goes out to make war on another nation for real or perceived wrongs, claiming to act on behalf of God.

Sound familiar at all?

It gets better: after the Israelites kill all the military-age males of Midian in battle, they take the women and children captive (along with all the livestock and cattle). When they return with this booty, Moses berates the army and orders them to KILL all the prisoners except for the virgins (who themselves would become servants, slaves or wives to the Israelites).

Despite some commentators’ dancing around this issue, there is no gray area here: regardless of the justification for the war on the Midianites, what the Israelites did afterwards was heinous and inexcusable to our modern sensibilities. Living as we do in a world beset by Islamic fundamentalist terror and all manner of violence rationalized by religious extremism of all stripes, we must unequivocally reject and uproot such behavior from our midst.

At the same time, we must – just as passionately and fervently – stand up to attacks on our being and do everything in our power to ensure that our rejection of senseless attacks on civilians isn’t taken advantage of by our enemies. As we have witnessed over the last week and a half, the IDF WILL take the fight to those who threaten and harm us, regardless of where they hide. And we will not quit until the job is done.

As my friend and teacher Rabbi Daniel Gordis said this week in his dispatch from Israel, “We know why they attacked [this time and in previous wars].  And we know why they’re still attacking.  And we’re determined to hold on for the same reason that they’re so determined never to stop.  There’s one reason, and one reason only:
The Jewish People has nowhere else to go.”

Ecclesiastes famously opined, “(There is) a time for war and a time for peace.” Make no mistake, my friends: we ARE at war, and we will give no quarter. Yet we will continue to seek peace and pursue it with those who wish to share it with us.

For generations we have taken the lessons of our texts and sages and applied them to our daily lives, trying to make our existence more holy and bring healing to a troubled world. But we have learned other lessons from our history, as well: we will never again allow ourselves to be enslaved; we will not again be forced out of our homeland, exiled and made to wander in the wilderness. We will stand up and fight, and those of us who cannot fight should make our voices heard in support of those who can and do.

As this day of rest continues, please join me in praying for the health and safety of the soldiers of the IDF who are defending Eretz Israel, and the successful completion of their mission. And please join me tomorrow at the rally in support of Israel at the JCC.

Shabbat shalom.

I delivered the following mini-drash on July 8 at Ohr Shalom. I am indebted to my mom for pointing me to the Talmudic passage I reference.
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Six hundred thirteen. Sound familiar? It should – that’s the number of mitzvot most rabbis tell us are in the Torah. And we should all believe our rabbi, right?

Yes, but as we also know, Jews never just agree about something. Even if the result is agreement, the road to get to consensus is long, arduous, and filled with, er, shall we say, friendly intellectual debate?

Thus we find that there are alternatives to the much-talked-about 613. One well-known example is Hillel’s response to the man who wanted to learn the entire Torah while standing on one leg: “‘What is hateful to you, don’t do to others,’” Hillel said, “The rest is commentary, now go and study!”

This is essentially all the mitzvot distilled into one. But this isn’t the only time our wise sages played the numbers. In one of those friendly debates in the Talmud (Makkot 23b), Rabbi Simla’i points out that, at the end of today’s haftarah (Chapter 6, verse 8 ), the prophet Micah said, “God has told you, O man, what is good, and what God requires of you: Only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

So there you have it! The Jewish trinity! The final word on how many mitzvot there are, right?… well, not exactly, since the same rabbi makes arguments for several other counts as well… But my point is that there ARE always mitzvot – the Torah isn’t just a book of history or tall tales, blessings and curses, begats and animal sacrifices. It’s a powerful guide for our everyday lives and our relationships with each other and with God. Want to know more? Go and study!

Shabbat shalom!

I delivered this D’var Torah this morning at Ohr Shalom:

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I really love it when circumstances come together to create a harmonious, pleasant situation. Some refer to this as synchronicity; in my worldview, this is evidence of the existence of God. I don’t see God as an old man with a flowing beard sitting in a throne up above, conducting human affairs. For me, God is, among other things, those little clues and hints that things are going the way they should, that I should keep heading down the path I’m on.

So it was with great delight that I informed Rabbi Meltzer that I would deliver the drash this morning on Parashat Be’Ha’alotcha. Besides the practical concern that I couldn’t commit to being in shul next Shabbat and could therefore not speak about Shlach, I had found in this week’s parasha much to relate to and speak about. At the beginning of chapter 10, God instructs Moshe as to the crafting of two silver trumpets, to be used to “summon the community and set the divisions in motion.” As a former trumpet player, this appealed to me greatly. But I’m not talking about that.

At the end of chapter 10, we find the familiar verses we recite when the Torah is removed from and returned to the Ark, “ויהי בנסע הארון…” etc. But I’m not talking about that either. The parasha goes on for a couple more chapters which I also won’t be speaking about, today anyway.

Much of the portion, which begins with chapter 8 of the Book of Numbers, deals with technical and ritual details of the Tabernacle, the portable Ark that the Israelites traveled through the desert with so many generations ago. Beginning with verse 5, we find instructions for the preparation of the Levites – the workforce that will handle the Ark and the sacred objects associated with it.

As a Levy, I was naturally struck by the coincidence of the opportunity to drash on this subject, but the Torah didn’t let me off so easily. Verse nine reads, “You shall bring the Levites forward before the Tent of Meeting…”, then verse 10 repeats the construction, “and bring the Levites forward before the Lord…” In Hebrew, the verses are

והקרבת את הלוים לפני אהל מועד… והקרבת את הלוים לפני יהוה…

The Hebrew word used here for “bring forward” – והקרבת – is from the same root as the word קרבן – sacrifice. The parallels continue in verses 11 and 13 when Moses is instructed to have Aaron “designate the Levites before the Lord as an elevation offering from the Israelites, that they may perform the service of the Lord.” Again, the verbs in the Hebrew,

והניף אהרן את הלוים תנופה לפני יהוה… והנפת אתם תנופה ליהוה

are the same used to describe actions taken during ritual animal sacrifices.

Regardless of your opinion of the Torah’s authorship, I hope you’ll agree that it’s well written enough that such parallels aren’t, in fact, just flukes.I certainly hope, as the Etz Hayim commentary notes about verse 11, “that this ritual was executed only in symbolic form.” What, then, does this wordplay tell us?

Well, at the time of the Exodus, and then later in the Temple periods, the Levites served God on behalf of the Israelite people. It can be said then, and the Torah explicitly does say, that they were “closer to God.” In order to achieve and maintain this exalted position, the Levites had to make some sacrifices of their own – including full body shaves and only wearing ritually pure clothing. They were thus “set apart” from the Israelites, God says in verse 14, and belonged to God.

Today, we have no Holy Temple, and we do not engage in ritual sacrifice; that is to say, we have no official priestly class to do the “dirty work” for us. We all have the opportunity to get closer to God, but, just like the Levites, we have to make some sacrifices. So we give up some of our Friday evenings or Saturday mornings to come to shul; we keep separate sets of dishes and think about what we eat; at times, we display some obvious outward symbols of our faith. They may not be as drastic as a full body shave, but we do all these things in our efforts to elevate ourselves, to make our lives, and the world, a bit better, more Godly. I hope you see these sacrifices as I imagine the ancient Levites saw theirs, not as burdens, but as gifts from a loving God and a wise tradition.

בראש השנה, בראש השנה…

On Rosh Hashana (the Jewish new year) 5766/2005 I had the honor of delivering a d’var Torah at Ohr Shalom Synagogue here in San Diego. I first met Rabbi Scott Meltzer in 1998, and our relationship has evolved and progressed quite a bit in the near decade since. I am proud to consider him a friend as well as a teacher, and I’m grateful for the repeated opportunities I’ve had to address his congregation.

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Shana Tovah! First, I want to thank Rabbi Meltzer for this opportunity to speak about our Torah reading today. Several years ago, Rabbi Meltzer taught me that a good Dvar Torah should be brief, it should be personal, and, of course, it should teach some Torah. I hope I fulfill these conditions today with my 18-page thesis.

The story we read each Rosh Hashana, about the expulsion of Hagar & Ishmael from Avraham’s house, is a difficult one. I thought long and hard about how to spin the story positively. I considered the “new beginnings” and new home Hagar & Ishmael were forced to find and the connection to the new year, but I believe that would have been disingenuous and evasive. The bottom line is, this is a distressing, intensely disturbing story, and I wanted to tackle it head-on. (Incidentally, if you find it hard to believe that the Torah treats us to challenging tales at seemingly inopportune times, you should come to shul more often (wink & nudge to Rabbi).)

Seriously, though… If we take this time of year – well, seriously – it shouldn’t come as such a shock that each year on Rosh Hashana we’re forced to read a story that compels thorough introspection and self-reflection. Let’s recap: Avraham and Sarah failed to conceive children; Sarah gave Avraham permission to sleep with her handmaiden Hagar; the resultant offspring was Ishmael. In the portion we will read today, it is years later. Husband and wife are well into their golden years, and God tell Sarah that she will, in fact, have a child of her own. She laughs this silliness off, but then carries and gives birth to Isaac. She then experiences what is arguably one of the most severe bouts of post-partum depression in human history, and orders Avraham to expel Hagar and Ishmael. The father of the Jewish people initially protests, but then none other than God the Almighty tells him to listen to Sarah and accede to her wishes, whatever she says. Of course, as we know from reading ahead (or recalling from last year), Avraham tends to be the “follow God’s orders first, ask questions later (or not at all)” kind of guy, so the forced evacuation of Hagar & Ishmael is carried out. They are sent out into the desert with some bread and a skin of water.

Here’s the thing: Hagar, as previously mentioned, is a “handmaiden” – essentially a slave. So this expulsion is explained by some commentators, based on the laws of slavery at that time, as her being granted her freedom. What could be better than freeing slaves?! They live happily ever after, end of story, right? We now return to Avraham, Sarah, and Isaac, already in progress.

That doesn’t sit well with me. Hagar was an integral, even intimate member of Avraham and Sarah’s household for a very long time. Her relationship with the ancestor of our people was clearly more than slave and master, so the whole “you’re free now!” argument holds about as much water as the skin Avraham gave her and their son when he sent them out to the middle of the desert.

There are many possible moral lessons hidden in this tale. Many commentators view Ishmael unfavorably. With or without this prejudice, he is considered the father of the Arabs, with whom the Israelites of course have a long and, er, shall we say complicated history (I’ll refrain from getting into political or historical details here; maybe I’ll tackle those next year, if I get invited back).

Rather, I want to stay with Hagar & Ishmael on their journey. One particular turn of phrase, highlighted in the Etz Chayim chumash commentary on page 115, struck me this year.

After wandering in the desert for some time, their provisions run out, and Hagar leaves her son under a tree and goes to sit at some distance so as not to see him suffer and die. In chapter 21, verse 8, God speaks to her, saying,

קומי שאי את הנער והחזיקי את ידך בו - Get up, lift up the boy, and (as the translation has it) hold him by the hand.

But my familiarity with modern Hebrew (and, conveniently, the Etz Chayim commentary, as well) tells us that the literal meaning of “hachaziki et yadech bo” is “make your hand strong in his” – that is, draw strength from him! In contemporary Hebrew, we still use this phrase, although almost exclusively in parent-child relationships. In Hebrew-speaking households, “tachzik li et ha-yad” – hold my hand, or make my hand strong in yours – is the phrase invoked by parents and children for protection when crossing the street or walking in a crowded, potentially threatening place.

Hand-holding is relegated mostly to parents and children, and additionally to couples in love who aren’t afraid of “public displays of affection.” When we hold each others’ hands, literally or figuratively, we are capable of acts of courage or strength we wouldn’t be able to accomplish on our own. Thus the sense of protection and safety we feel crossing the street. But this strengthening extends beyond the personal realm, to the communal and the global levels. Our Jewish community organizations serve as financial, social, and spiritual hand-holds for needy individuals in our midst. And, at times, our entire community together can extend its hands in aid to other communities in need, as we just did in gathering aid for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and in response to previous disasters.

It is powerful indeed for me, as an Israeli-American Jew living in the 21st century, following centuries of conflict and bloodshed, to take such a potent lesson for strength and cooperation from the mother and son whose descendants we are trying to make peace with today. I pray that this year and always, we will be empowered by the example of Hagar & Ishmael, and remember that it is with our hands held that we strengthen each other and are able to accomplish the greatest acts of chesed and tzedek – lovingkindness and justice.

May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life. Shana tovah u’metukah – a sweet, healthy, and happy new year.

This d’var Torah was delivered September 17, 2005, on Parashat Ki Tetze:

The opening of this week’s parasha concerns the treatment of female prisoners of war. While this topic is ripe for all sorts of discussion, this is not what I chose to concentrate on today. I want instead to first point to the curious turn of phrase that opens the parasha: Ki tetze lemilchama – when you go to war. When, not if. What does this statement say about God’s (or the writer’s, if you prefer) opinion and expectations of humanity in general, and the Israelites in particular? The passage jumped out at me especially because I’m hyperaware of the efforts at diplomacy undertaken by my namesake, Yiftach the Gileadite, before he went to war with the Ammonites, as recounted in Judges, chapter 11.

This seemingly lowered expectation of the behavior of people, however, is misleading. It relates, too, to the other main point I want to make this morning: that we must take great care in reading our sacred texts, so that we don’t isolate certain ideas, take them literally and make them inviolable, while conveniently ignoring others simply because they are inconsistent with our beliefs.

To illustrate this point, I’ll refer to the rules regarding the ben sorer – the wayward and defiant son, as explained in verses 18-21 of chapter 21. First, the Torah itself, as in many other places, does not specifically elaborate on what it means exactly to be “wayward and defiant.” That is left to the rabbis of the Talmud and beyond – to us, as well – to determine. Well, what DOES it mean? How disobedient and unruly does a child have to be to warrant this diagnosis, which, if confirmed, carries no less than the DEATH PENALTY?!

And at what age do the parents decide they’ve had enough? It’s implied, on the one hand, that the parents have tried to discipline the child for some length of time; but on the other hand, the boy is still young enough that they’re able to “take hold of him and bring him to the elders of the town”. Wouldn’t the child resist if he were able? Especially considering how wayward and defiant he is to begin with?!

Through the generations, our sages interpreted the conditions for the ben sorer in such a way as to make them virtually impossible to meet. And we’ve obviously gotten away from following many of the mitzvot as they are written. So why is it that some people, who are fond of bringing up biblical commandments and prohibitions to back up their moral and legal beliefs, choose to ignore other biblical concepts that may not agree with their worldview?

Perhaps you’re aware that there’s been a lot of discussion in recent months and years about homosexuality, and the rights of gay people to marry or otherwise enjoy the same rights and privileges afforded to heterosexual couples who wish to affirm their relationships according to civil or religious laws and make them legally binding as well. People opposed to this concept often bring up Leviticus 18:22, which states that a man lying with another man as with a woman is an abomination (to’eva), as justification for their position.

The same people, however, don’t often (if ever) mention other interesting biblical regulations, like the ben sorer, or the rule about both parties in a case of rape in an urban setting being subject to the death penalty, or any of myriad other rules from the Torah that have been discarded as archaic or interpreted out of enforcement by generations of scholars. I should say that such people IN THIS COUNTRY don’t usually mention these other rules; there are a few places still where, for example, an unmarried woman’s sexual relationship with a man makes her liable to fall victim to what is euphemistically called an “honor killing,” as in “she dishonored her family,” and is then murdered by her brothers.

An open letter, originally addressed to Laura Schlesinger (radio’s Dr. Laura), made its way around the Internet almost a decade ago and has enjoyed several revivals. This letter pointed out some of these discrepancies and contradictions, the rules we DON’T follow due to their being inconsistent with our society. These include the laws of sacrifice, slavery, some rules of farming, animal husbandry, clothing, and more. Conveniently, of course, as I mentioned, many literalists ignore these regulations and only refer to the ones that agree with their world view. I urge us all not to fall into that trap, but to remember instead our rich tradition of discourse, disagreement, interpretation and insight. It is those values, not narrow-minded fundamentalism, which will continue to sustain us and help us thrive.

Shabbat shalom.