B'nai Mitzvah divrei Torah

Shabbat Shalom!                  
 
Although my portion today, Miketz, is about Joseph tricking his brothers, today is also Hanukkah, and that takes a special mention and highlight in our service by my reading a special haftarah for the Shabbat of Hanukkah.
 
So I would like to discuss Miracles, and, more importantly, what is a Miracle?
 
I know the Wikipedia definition of Miracles.
I quote: A miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws. Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being (G-d or gods), amiracle worker, a saint or a religious leader.
 
This, I believe, barely scratches the surface, and I would like to delve a little deeper.
 
Miracles always seem to appear just when we need them, and always in response to someone doing something for G-D.
 
The commentator Rambam, Maimonides, first believed that Miracles were actually put into nature, during the days of creation, and that miracles are part of nature.
 
He said, “G-d already expressed His will in the course of the six days of creation, and things act in accordance with their nature from then on…”
 
If Rambam is correct, then maybe there are no miracles, and everything is, and was, part of G-D’s plan.
 
But later in life, Rambam had a different view: he believed that miracles were deviations from nature, not planned during the six days, but rather times when God chose to intervene, and went against nature in doing so.
 
Rambam’s son, R. Avraham ben Ha-Rambam stated that there are three different types of people:
1. Prophets and others who have been promised directly by G-D, and not only rely, but believe in “His miraculous intervention.”
2. Deniers and/or unbelievers who trust “only in intermediary causes.”
3. “The religious person who knows that the world runs according to nature but G-D can intervene at any time if He chooses”.
  
I disagree with R. Avraham ben Ha-Rambam. I believe that a person can be in more than one of those categories, can both be someone with a promise, and someone who believes in the truth of the moment.
 
I think that you can never completely be in any one of those categories. You can also be in a completely different category. You can be someone who does not believe in G-D, but still trusts in something other than intermediary causes.
 
And is it fair to call someone an “unbeliever” because they don’t believe in the same miracle process as you? Is there anyone here in only one of these categories? Can’t a person both rely on “G-D’s miraculous intervention” and also think that the world runs according to nature?
 
Deuteronomy chapter 13 verses 2-4 says that "If a prophet arise among you who gives a sign or wonder, and the sign or wonder comes to pass, but he desires to lead you into idolatry, you shalt not hearken to that prophet, for the Lord your G-d tests you, whether you truly love the Lord your G-d.”
 
This tells us not to believe in false prophets. I think a false prophet would be someone who led you away from G-D’s truth, meaning the message they deliver goes against what you personally believe or what you know to be true. You should also not believe in false miracles.
 
The popular camp song Ruach comes from a phrase from my haftarah, (sing it!) “Not by might, not by power, but by spirit alone.”
 
The spirit, or ruach, in question is G-D’s. What I take away from this is that while there are miracles, there are no human miracle workers, and though prophets speak of miracles G-D will bring, these things only happen through Him and not through mortals.
 
As Jews we don’t believe in saints or any one person doing miracles; in fact, the Passover story makes it very clear that our liberation from slavery was not done through an angel or through an intermediary, but only by G-d alone. The haggadah for Passover doesn’t even mention Moses, in case we want to make him into the source of the miracle of freedom.
 
So it doesn’t matter with which of Rambam’s opinions you agree, according to Jewish thought, miracles are still evidence of G-D’s power
But is a miracle just something that shows off G-D’s power? Does a miracle have to be as big as splitting the Red Sea?
 
One modern day opinion on miracles is brought to us by a popular cultural figure, Doctor Who.
 
“The universe is big. It’s vast and complicated and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles.” --The Doctor, Season 5, Episode 12.
 
This is actually a point in which I believe strongly: when we have no idea how to explain something, when science fails us, we call it a miracle.
 
“Even miracles take a little time,” said Cinderella. The famous girl with the shoe and the fairy godmother has a point. If you are demanding of a miracle at that very second, you probably don’t deserve the miracle you want.
 
I think that is important. For God to give you a miracle, for you to notice a miracle, you have to deserve it. You have to work for a miracle.
 
If you don’t help yourself, how can G-D help you? Otherwise, why would you get the miracle? If you live in a big fancy house, and are complaining about work, you want a miracle, do you really deserve it? Even if you have a small house, at least it’s a house. Many people cannot even imagine having a house.
 
There is an old joke about waiting for miracles. There is a couple living together in a house, and a flood warning goes off. A police car drives through the town, warning everyone to clear out. “We will wait,” says the couple. “G-d will save us.”
 
The water level rises, and the couple goes upstairs, to avoid drowning. Their neighbor comes by with a boat, telling them to get in and escape the flood. “We will wait,” says the couple again. “G-d will save us.”
 
The water rises again, and the couple goes up onto their roof. A rescue helicopter comes by. The pilot tells them to get in. “We will wait,” says the couple again. “G-d will save us.”
 
When the water level rises again, the couple drowns. They meet G-d and ask, “Why didn’t you save us?” To which G-d responds, “I sent a warning car, a boat, and a helicopter to save you. What more did you want?”
This shows that you cannot ask for a miracle and expect it to happen in a HUGE way. You have to be ready to see it. Maybe it is there all the time, and you miss it by waiting for the Hollywood version of a big-screen miracle.
 
Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”  However, there is an in between. You can believe that some things are miracles, while others aren’t.
 
This is important because it connects to something I hear a lot. “It would take a miracle” people say. People beg for miracles. What they don’t think about is something I called the opinionated miracle. As in, it appears as a miracle to some people while it’s natural for others.
 
For instance, back to the Hanukkah story, the oil lasts for 8 days. How long does a light bulb last? Typical iridescent light bulbs last 1,000 to 2,000 hours. Compare that to 8 days. Doesn’t seem so miraculous, does it?
 
Well, imagine if we didn’t have lights, just natural light. Imagine if I showed you the light bulb. Now it seems kinda amazing, doesn’t it?
 
If you were in a wheelchair paralyzed, how would walking seem?
 
If you weighed 450 tons, and had metal wings, would you be able to fly? Well, aren’t airplanes miracles then?
 
David Ben Gurion was Israel’s first prime minister. It is believed that the following quote came from him, “In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.”  Meaning the fact Israel exists at all is a miracle, if you look at it the right way.
 
My haftarah includes some things that could be viewed as miraculous. “And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be My people, and I will dwell in the midst of you'; and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me unto you.”
 
This is G-D telling us he will be among us. How will we know if G-D is among us? Miracles. But, He will only be among us when we already believe He is here.
 
Back to Hanukkah, the miracle of the Maccabees winning their war, and the oil lasting. They truly believed in these miracles. And that makes it so much more amazing.
 
So how do we connect this to our daily lives?
 
First, if you help others – you can help G-d make miracles. This year my mother and I chose to “adopt” a family for the holidays, and buy them their holiday presents. They all asked for socks.
 
Can you imagine if what you had to ask for during the holidays was socks from a random stranger? When we give tzedakah, we put positive energy into the world and help create those small miracles that make the world better.
 
Secondly, if you want a miracle, you must believe in them. You must choose to notice the wonder of the world.  And you will see the miracles everywhere.
 
So here is the challenge for every one of us. Live our lives like everything is a miracle, just like Einstein says. We may be surprised how different things seem. Kind of like Chanukah all year long.
 
Shabbat Shalom!

Lying. We all do it. Don’t go and think, “What? Me? Never!”...because then, you would be lying. To yourself. But when people think of the heroes in the Torah they don’t think of them as dirty lying cheaters. I always thought of them as truthful holy people. That was, until I read my Torah portion. Wow, I was really wrong about some things a year ago.
 
So now my D’var torah is about lying in Judaism. Hang on, this might take a while. Don’t worry, though...at the end you will be rewarded with cake.
 
The parsha starts with Ya'akov departing from Beer-sheba to the distant city of Haran to meet his uncle Lavan because he fears Esau’s wrath, and also to find a wife with his own people. On the way, Ya'akov meets Rachel, daughter of Lavan, and falls in love with her.
 
A couple of years later, Ya'akov has been working for Lavan for quite a while as a shepherd. Lavan wants to know what Ya'akov wants as his wages. Ya'akov wants Rachel’s hand in marriage. Lavan agrees to the deal but only if Ya'akov works 7 years for him. Seven years pass, and Lavan sets a wedding for Ya'akov but puts Leah, his eldest daughter, in the dress and veil instead of Rachel.
 
When Ya'akov realizes this, Lavan lies that there is a custom to marry off the oldest before the youngest. He says he will give him Rachel if he works another seven years. Seven more years pass, Ya'akov gets Rachel, and has 12 sons with Leah, Rachel, and their two maidservants Bilah and Zilpah.
 
When I look through my parsha, I find that just about every line has lying, cheating, stealing, or subterfuge in it, and almost every kind of lie or deception. Not that I counted, but there are actually 36 different instances in my parsha. Wait, I admit that’s a lie. I counted. For obvious reasons, I narrowed it down to a few key examples to discuss.
 
The first major lie in the portion is Lavan committing the Leah-Rachel deception. There is no question about it - it’s a blatant lie. As you might expect, in the commentaries there is a fair amount of discussion about it. For example, Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom notes that in a midrash from Bereishit rabbah, the rabbis say that when Ya'akov asks Leah why she answered to Rachel, she said "Is there a barber without students?” i.e. even the best barber needs a student who will cut his hair; Likewise: “I am only your student. Didn't your father call out 'Esav' and you responded?"
 
Leah was basically calling Ya'akov a hypocrite for chastising her about pretending to be Rachel, saying that she was only doing what he did to Issac. In other words, the deception with Lavan was payback for stealing Esau’s birthright.
 
Lavan doesn’t stop there. His relationship with Ya'akov is one of constant subterfuge. For example, Lavan made a deal to compensate Ya'akov for his work that would see Ya'akov get all of the goats of the flock that were speckled or spotted. But Lavan then ordered his sons to take the goats of that description away from the main flock the day before Ya'akov was set to get them.
 
Faced with being swindled out of his goats by Lavan, Ya'akov proceeds to selectively breed the goats behind Lavan’s back so that all of the healthy goats were likely to produce spotted or speckled young, whereas the sickly goats were likely to produce pure white young. The result? A flock of healthy goats for Ya'akov, and not-so healthy ones for Lavan.
 
Ya'akov’s only other explicit deception was his hasty departure while Lavan had gone to shear his sheep. I think we have to consider, though, that Ya'akov lived and worked with Lavan for the better part of two decades and was being cheated the entire time, including out of his promised wife. They would have spoken frequently, and yet neither of them killed the other. The reasonable conclusion is that Ya'akov was lying constantly to avoid telling Lavan what he really thought.
 
How does this make sense when throughout the Torah, it is clear that lying is strongly discouraged?
 
In Exodus 20:13, we read the famous commandment, “You shall not bear false witness,” then a few verses later in 23:7, "Distance yourself from a false matter" not only reminding us not to lie, but to stay away from other people’s lies. Later again in Leviticus 19:11, the commandments are repeated "you shall not steal, you shall not deny falsely, and you shall not lie one to another"
 
Yet in the story right before my parsha, we find one of our patriarchs, Ya’akov, lying to his father Isaac even when one of the other commandments specifically states “Honor your father and mother.” I don’t think that that lying to get the birth-right counts as honoring them, even if it was for the sake of the Jewish people. Then there is the complication of honoring the orders of his mother.
 
Reading all of this in the Torah, maybe deception is not such a no-no after all?
 
I learned that there are some talmudic commentaries that have different perspectives. In Ketubot( k’too-boat) 17a, Adapted from Soncino Translation, the rabbis ask: “How does one praise the bride?”
 
Beit Shammai say: “Praise the bride based on how she is,” while Beit Hillel say: “Beautiful and graceful bride”. Then, Beit shammai said to Beit Hillel: “If she is ugly, how can one call her a beautiful and graceful bride? Doesn’t the Torah say to distance one from false matters?”
 
Beit Hillel replies: “According to you, if one has made a bad purchase in the market, should one praise the purchase or make him feel bad? Surely one should praise it.” The section summarizes these examples by saying, “One should always get along with other people.”
 
According to Beit Shammai, one may not lie and tell a bride that she looks nice, if in reality, she doesn't. According to Beit Hillel, exaggerating is sometimes part of our obligation to get along with other individuals. I think this indicates a complication we find ourselves in not just at a wedding.
 
Also from the Talmud, Yevamot 65b, Rabbi Ila’a further stated in the name of Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon, “One may modify a statement in the interests of peace.”  Rabbi Natan responds, “It is a commandment.”
 
By looking at that example and many others, I notice that all the lies accepted and sometimes even required by Judaism, are generally selfless in nature. Like to avoid hurting someone’s feelings.
 
For example, if I was playing Minecraft with my friend and we were teamed together. If my friend wasn't playing very well and got killed a lot, then asked me whether he was playing well, I know that the right thing to do would be to say that he was playing well to avoid hurting his feelings. I know this is what I would want if the tables, or in this case, computers were turned.
 
Not surprisingly, Judaism generally discourages lies that are selfish in nature. Like to get yourself out of trouble. For example if someone ate a butter tart when that person wasn’t supposed to. And, when confronted did the wrong thing and lied.
 
A glance at the newspaper or the average conversation in a school’s hallway shows that our world is full of lying and these rules are handy to know, so you can know the difference between a good lie and a bad lie, when a lie pops up. Looking back at my parsha with an eye to good lies versus bad, we notice something interesting. Lavan lies selfishly to Ya’akov many times, but when Ya’akov deceives Lavan, it is consistently with the goals of justice or peace. For example, Ya’akov deceives Lavan to get more sheep out of a bargain, but only so that the result is fair. His decisions to lie unselfishly when he’s out on his own are in contrast to his selfish lie to steal the birthright when he was under his parent’s roof.
 
So Ya’akov’s approach to deception changed as he matured. As it turns out, lying plays an important role in the transition from child to adult.
 
With our example, the mom finds a butter tart missing and her son is found with crumbs all over his face. When his mom asks him if he took the tart, and he lies - the child’s most likely reasoning is that he did not understand the social consequences of the lie and he wanted to say the ‘right’ answer ( i.e “the one that makes Ima proud” or maybe the one that wouldn’t get him in so much trouble?). Then, the parents would generally teach the child that lying is wrong.
 
In the June 2014 issue of Psychology Today, Dr. Denise Cummings wrote, “deception occurs when one individual deliberately and successfully convinces another individual to accept as true what the first individual knows to be false.”
 
She continues, “In order to lie successfully, a person:

●must be able to tell the difference between what is true and what is false,
●must know that it is possible for a someone to have a false belief,
●must be able to suppress their knowledge of the true state of affairs while communicating something contrary to fact,
●And must deliberately intend to plant a false belief.

These are the cognitive demands of deception. And they take a long time to develop in childhood.

She explains that fMRI research shows that before children are teenagers, they do not use the prefrontal regions during deception efficiently because these areas of the brain are not yet fully mature.

In other words, Dr. Denise Cummings is saying that you need to be at least a teenager to lie effectively on your own. In that section just before my Torah portion, Ya’akov needed his mother to help him lie to Isaac. That lie doesn’t demonstrate much independent skill. How hard is it to lie to a blind, half deaf, and senile old man? Once he is on his own as an adult, however, Ya’akov is able to sneak away without Lavan’s permission and to perform subterfuge to get more sheep out of their deal.
 
As a Bar Mitzvah, I have enough brain power now to get away with lying on my own. My job will have to be choosing not to. Easier said than done really. Especially when those delicious butter tarts are sitting right there...
 
Having to make decisions even when I might feel like lying, when it might really “benefit” me to lie, and when my immense almost-adult brain could get away with it - still choosing not to - sounds tough. Tougher than sneaking away with some sheep or chanting a few lines of Torah in Hebrew.
 
Dr. Adam Cox studies youth neuropsychology, particularly looking at emotional and cognitive development. In his 2007 article, The Plain Truth about Lying Kids, he says that one important thing to consider is why teens lie. Dr. Cox writes “There is a difference between lying and becoming a liar. While the former is inevitable, the latter is not. All types of deception should be taken seriously, although not necessarily responded to in the same way. Before you respond to an adolescent's suspected lie, ask yourself what motivated the lie. On some level, any unwanted behavior is anxious for understanding, which is not the same as acceptance.”

So even if Ya’akov lies, that doesn’t necessarily make him a liar and it helps to understand why he did it - maybe that is the reason we read the parsha year after year.

Dr. Cox also indicates “Lying is also a strategy some children employ to build a barrier, as a way of keeping their real self self unknown to others. We may understand these motivations, yet still recognize the need to get lying under control.”

As a Bar Mitzvah this topic holds special meaning for me as today I become a Jewish adult. I cannot tell a lie - actually I became a Bar Mitzvah 67 days ago on my 13th birthday on Rosh Hashanah, but you get my meaning.
 
When we put together the story of this parsha with what we’ve learned about Jewish law and psychology, it makes sense. The immature Ya’akov still living with his parents follows his mother’s instructions in the selfish lie of stealing Esau’s birthright. When he strikes out on his own as an independent Jewish adult able to make his own decisions about how to use his capacity for deception, he chooses a different path. While he is not fully honest with Lavan, his deceptions are for the sake of justice -- making an unfair deal more fair -- and for the sake of peace -- not confronting Lavan directly about his dishonesty.

For someone newly Bar Mitzvah like me, this is good example. It shows that even if we are taught bad habits or learn them on our own when we are growing up - and, heck, we are always growing up - we can always decide to take responsibility for our choices to be less than fully truthful and only do that in pursuit of peace and justice.

Oh, and by the way the cake is a lie. There will be butter tarts at the Kiddush though. My Bubi’s unbelievably delicious butter tarts.That’s the truth.
​
Shabbat Shalom everyone.
 

Shabbat Shalom. My Torah portion, Ki Tavo literally means “when you enter,” referring to when the Israelites enter “the land of Israel”. 
 
This parsha takes place at the tail end of the forty years that Moses and the Israelites have spent wandering the desert. Moses knows he is getting old and is about to die and will not be “entering the land of Israel” or “the promised land” with the Israelites. He spells out for the Israelites all the commandments (basically the do’s and the don’ts) that they must follow when they enter Israel and settle there. He also states the rewards (referred to as the blessings) and the punishments (referred to as the curses) for following or breaking these “do’s” and “don’ts.”
 
The dramatic ceremony for receiving these blessings and curses was as follows:
 
Representatives of six tribes Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin stood upon Mount Gerizim to hear the blessings of good that will come from observing God’s commandments. Facing the six representatives on Mount Gerizim, six other representatives from Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Naphtali stood upon Mount Ebal to hear the curses for disobeying the commandments. God promises blessings of plenty, peace and security to the representatives on Mount Gerizim for obeying the commandments. God also promises consequences of destruction, agony, want and exile to the six representatives on Mount Ebal if the commandments are disobeyed.
 
As I read through Ki Tavo I found that the curses seem to outweigh the blessings. I also noticed the harshness of many of these curses. If you think I’m  kidding, there is even a tradition that when the curses are read publicly they are chanted in a whisper because they are so frightening and gut wrenching. Here is an example of one such curse, “though you beget sons and daughters, they shall not remain with you, for they shall go into captivity.” I can not even imagine what my mother and father would do knowing that I would be taken away from them. And of course, we know the terrible feeling when that came true, as the Jewish people were indeed exiled and their children brought into captivity not once but twice, with the destruction of both Temples.
 
What I would like to focus on this morning is: Why were the consequences for breaking the commandments so harsh?
 
Rashi, an 11th century Torah commentator says, “Be as quick to obey a minor mitzvah as a major one; and flee from transgression, for one mitzvah performed leads to another; and one transgression leads to another.” I believe Rashi is suggesting that the consequences of not doing the commandments are so harsh, because if you disobey one commandment you will easily disobey others. I think Rashi must have known about the domino effect. He also, was probably a good judge of character and understood that psychologically if someone can get away with one thing they might be tempted to try and get away with another thing. For example, if someone drives through a red light and sees that they have not gotten caught, they might be tempted to drive through more red lights until they get caught and receive a ticket.  
 
Similar to Rashi’s comment, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the most renowned Jewish philosophers of the 20th century, says “If we perform one good deed, we move the scale toward blessing. One transgression and we move the scale into the realm of curses.”
 
In my opinion, a transgression from one person might also lead to a transgression from another person. One way is that if a person sees that another person is doing a misdeed they might think it is ok to do it too. Another way is that if someone commits a sin against you, it may cause you to seek revenge.   
 
This idea of preventing revenge is what Rambam, a 12th century Torah commentator says when he suggests revenge is less likely to happen if you know that a consequence will befall the person who sinned against you. So Rambam is saying the point of consequences is to have fewer people commit transgressions and seek revenge.  
 
Interestingly, Adrian A. Durlester, a religious school teacher at Beth El Temple in West Hartford, Connecticut, says on his website, that God was so harsh with the Israelites because they were like children. They had been slaves for many years and had no experiences and nothing to relate to, and yet the Israelites were about to establish their first real community. In order to establish an ethical and sustainable community, it needs not only rules but consequences for not obeying those rules. The rules and consequences had to be so spelled out and so powerful according to Durlester, so that even the Israelite’s simple understanding would allow them to comprehend.   
 
Likewise, the late Rabbi David Hartman, founder of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, says “They (the curses) help define the consequences of our actions although there are times when such consequences are beyond our understanding. Most of the time, however, the curses function as warning signs. They signal what we should NOT do.” 
 
My personal opinion is that since God knew that Moses would be dying and be unable to enter the land of Israel with the Israelites, God felt he needed to be extra tough with the Israelites since they no longer would benefit from Moses leadership. The consequences for breaking the rules had to be extreme because of Moses’s absence in guiding the people. God might have been saying “ Hey Israelites, after 40 years it is now time to guide yourselves and I’ll make it extra easy for you to do so since if you break the rules there will be grave consequences.” That sure would get me in line pretty quickly!
 
Not only were rules and the consequences for breaking them so important for the Israelites back then, but they are equally as important for us today. 
 
When I was a kid, I often got into trouble as most little kids do. I used to play fight with my cousins. I remember getting time outs and being told that we were leaving immediately and thinking to myself, why am I getting punished for just playing? Isn’t this harsh and unfair, I want to stay and play with my cousins longer. Now I realize that I needed those harsh punishments to teach me that fighting without a purpose is never right, even if it is just for fun. Just like the Israelites, the consequences were so harsh, so that I too, would always follow the rules under any circumstances. 
 
But was it good enough for the Israelites or for me to just follow the rules? I think God wanted something more. I think God wanted to teach the Israelites how to behave and the right characteristics to possess. God wanted the Israelites to go above and beyond. I want to go above and beyond too since I would like to make a difference in the world in some kind of positive way. It's entirely possible that God also wanted to “train” the Israelites to do the right thing not out of fear of the bad consequences, but out of the positive desire to do what is right in the first place. 
 
If I was to say the most important thing I’d want to leave you with - it’s that we not only need to follow rules, but also to rise above what’s expected. For example, we read in Devarim chapter 27, verse 16, “Cursed be anyone who insults father or mother.” It isn’t good enough to not disrespect your parents, but you must go out of your way to help and do things for them even before they ask in order to be respectful and appreciative. Or as we read in verse 18, “Cursed be the one who misdirects a blind person underway.” Again, it is not enough to just not misdirect a blind man, but we must lead and help a blind man reach his destination.  I think you get the idea.
 
All over the world there are rules and consequences for disobeying these rules. A place without rules is just mayhem and chaos. Nothing is wrong nor right, because no one knows the difference.No community can exist without a framework of rules, to which everybody agrees.
 
And this brings me to the topic of community.- Without a framework of rules, and consequences for breaking them, we can not benefit from a community. Consequences are often used to enforce and keep communities going. And Community is so important to me. Think about it this way, when you are in trouble, your friends, family and community back you up. Without community you would feel lonely and unhappy. One individual doesn’t know everything, but when a community is combined and everybody shares their skills, it is far more beneficial to the community’s goals. 
 
Some of the communities that I belong to are the City Shul, my school (Robbin’s Hebrew Academy) and my community of 3 as I like to call it - me, my mother, and my father - my family. 
 
Both City Shul and Robbin’s Hebrew Academy give me a Jewish education, a comfortable Jewish environment, a holy place to worship and many relationships with friends, teachers and other adults. Up until now I’ve taken a lot from both of these places, but now I hope to give back to both communities in the future through volunteer hours and helping others.
 
My family gives me basically everything, without asking a lot in return. I give back by helping my parents when they ask, doing chores and staying out of trouble. 
 
In conclusion, God wanted to start a community where everyone is altruistic, respectful, generous, honest and spiritual. And today I want to encourage everyone to look at the deeper lessons behind rules and act upon what these rules encourage and inspire us to do within our communities. 
 
Shabbat Shalom!

Shabbat Shalom!

 This week’s parsha, Ki Tisa, is the story of the Golden Calf. It opens with G-d giving Moses the Ten Commandments on top of Mount Sinai. The Israelites get impatient when Moses still hasn’t’t come down from the mountain, so they ask Aaron to build them a golden calf to worship. Aaron agrees, and builds a new god for the Israelites. G-d tells Moses of the bad deeds going on below, and decides to kill all of the Israelites. Moses hears this, begs for mercy on behalf of the Israelites, and G-d grants it. When Moses returns from the mountain and sees the calf with his own eyes, he gets so angry that he smashes the two tablets on the ground, and proceeds to annihilate the calf. He burns it, grinds it into powder, mixes it with water, and makes the Israelites drink that water. Moses was not happy.

 I found two central themes in this parsha: trust and forgiveness, which both intertwine with each other well. I also found that materialism is related to the Golden Calf, so I’d like to touch on that a bit as well. 

The first question that we need to address in this parsha is: “Why did the Israelites build the Golden Calf?”


Rabbi Gunther Plaut in his modern commentary argues that the Israelites had many doubts about Moses’ mysterious connection with an unseen god, especially after Moses vanished. Rabbi Plaut thinks the people felt like they needed a god on earth, not up in the heavens. I have quite a similar interpretation. I think that the people felt the need to build a golden calf because they did not trust a god that they couldn’t see. They just weren’t’t able to imagine that G-d had no form, so their solution was to build something that they could see to worship.

G-d also found a solution to this problem: G-d showed the Israelites special things that only G-d can do. Chapter 32, verse 15 of Shemot states that G-d inscribed the letters of the tablets on both sides of the stone so that you could see the words from both sides. No human would’ve been able to do that.

The Midrash tells us that the middle of the letter samech--just like the middle of an o--was magically floating. This was a way for G-d to show the Israelites that the Ten Commandments were actually made by G-d, and that G-d does indeed exist.
        
The theme of trust goes back to Rabbi Plaut’s interpretation of the episode of the Golden Calf. The Torah states that the Golden Calf was built when the Israelites saw that Moses was late coming down from Mount Sinai. Rabbi Plaut interprets this as them simply not trusting that Moses would return at all. It’s like when a baby cries when his mother leaves the room, believing he will never see her again, and that she will never return. The Israelites were still babies in their trust of G-d.

If we take a step back and look at the present day, we see that trust is very important. I’m going to use a few ordinary examples to prove this point. Say, for example, I'm a ten-year-old boy and my mom has just left to go to the grocery store, leaving me alone in the house. She told me that she’d be back in half an hour, but forty-five minutes have passed and she’s still not back. I start to get a little bit worried, but I trust her, and know that she will return. Imagine if people did not have this basic level of trust. Let’s say I’m going to meet my friend at the coffee shop, but he’s late. If I don’t trust that he’ll show up, why should I waste my time waiting for him? Problems of this nature can also arise on larger and larger scales, such as in the international community. It seems to me that many wars of the past wouldn’t have happened if countries had simply trusted one another.

Forgiveness is also an important theme in my parsha. Ki Tisa shows what happens when forgiveness is granted, but also what happens when it isn’t. Looking at both ends of the spectrum, this parsha really tells us just how important forgiveness is. When G-d told Moses that G-d was going to kill all the Israelites, Moses begged for mercy, and God granted forgiveness. On the other side of the spectrum, when Moses returned from the mountain, he killed 3,000 people for building an idol.

If you think about it, when we forgive others, not only do we make them happy, but we also make ourselves happy. There is scientific evidence that supports this. Everett L. Worthington, Jr., a professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, has studied the benefits of forgiveness. He says that people often like to stigmatize their enemies rather than forgive them, because they feel like forgiveness is a sign of submission. Also, people figure that forgiveness doesn’t make them happier, so they shouldn’t bother doing it, even if the situation really calls for forgiveness. 

Worthington defines forgiveness as not only moving past a negative experience, but also moving towards a more positive one. For example, if a brother and a sister are fighting over a video game and brother snatches it from the sister, the sister would forgive her brother not only by saying, “It’s okay,” but by also resolving to share better next time. Worthington then quotes a study done by Charlotte van Oyen Witvliet, a psychologist at Hope College. She asked test subjects to recall a grudge that they held against a person, and not surprisingly, they began to get stressed and unhappy. When the subjects imagined forgiving this person, they became less stressed. In short, forgiving others makes you happy.

Forgiveness is extremely important in Judaism. Every year on Yom Kippur, we devote an entire day to think about it and how we can ask G-d for forgiveness, and seek and grant forgiveness from and to others. It is important for me personally to do this because it is a chance for me to take the weight of my wrongdoings off of my shoulders. To me, that is the beauty of forgiveness. If you practice it, you can get rid of that extra burden of guilt and focus on other things, with the added benefit of making people feel good!

In my opinion, trust and forgiveness are related. To build a relationship, the first key ingredient is trust. I guarantee that you will not make friends with anyone if one person doesn’t trust the other. If you are trying to rebuild a relationship, one person will need to forgive the other, which will lead to you both trusting each other.

There is one question that still challenges me in this parsha. Why would Moses contradict himself by not forgiving the people just after he begged G-d for forgiveness? How can he ASK for forgiveness but not be willing to GIVE it? After thinking long and hard about it, I found an answer that relates to many other different things in this parsha, and in life. People naturally want to see something with their own eyes before they believe it.

As I mentioned earlier, I believe that a major reason the Israelites built a golden calf was because they needed a physical form of G-d to see. In my opinion, this is what happened with Moses. When G-d told him of the Israelites’ wrongdoings on top of Mount Sinai, Moses didn’t think that that it would be that bad, but when he returned and actually saw the idol with his own eyes, he was very angry. For example, if somebody tells you that having a baby is a lot of work, you don’t realize just how much work it actually is until you experience it yourself. This is different than not trusting the person--because you do trust them--it is just that actually experiencing something is very different from just hearing about it.

The human desire to see a physical form of something as proof is powerful. For whatever reason, people just love things: jewelry, fancy furniture, china; basically anything they can touch. But recent psychological research has shown that people who spend their money on experiences are much happier than those who spend it on things.  Tim Kasser, a psychologist at Knox College, notes that people who have a materialistic desire for items can trigger unhappiness in relationships, poorer moods, and more psychological problems. Although this research is still young, we are starting to discover more and more of the problems associated with materialism.

This is because the anticipation of waiting for an experience triggers a feeling of happiness in our brains, whereas waiting for an item only triggers impatience. Take a moment and think about the anticipation you might’ve felt waiting for a trip, and compare that to the anticipation of waiting for your new iPhone or computer to arrive. Those are two different feelings, and I think that the former feels better.

The commentator Rashi points out that the Israelites desired many gods, not just one, which is why they built the golden calf. Rashi writes: “They had desires for different gods, to cater to each of their diverse needs.” To me, this seems like the Israelites wanted quantity over quality, which we know isn’t always best. They wanted more gods, which is directly related to wanting more things, and it clearly didn’t make them any happier than they were with just one god. This is a very important lesson to take away from the Torah, as it teaches us that it is better to take quality over quantity, and that materials don’t necessarily make us happy.

I personally think that experiences are what Judaism is built around. Take Purim for example. The entire point of the holiday is to have a good time and celebrate the defeat of Haman. There are many other examples of fun holidays like Purim, including but not limited to: Chanukkah, Pesach, and Tu B’Shevat. And if you think about it, G-d is actually an experience, which is why we are commanded to not build idols, because they turn G-d into an item, just like the Golden Calf.  We cannot touch G-d, we cannot build G-d, because G-d is an experience, and not a thing.

Based on my parsha, there are three things that I would like you to remember when you leave the Shul today.

First, trust each other. Even if it is something as simple as letting your friend use something of yours, trust can really help build relationships. If you trust the person next to you, chances are they’ll trust you back, and you might inspire them to trust others as well.

Second, forgive people who’ve made mistakes. It has been scientifically proven that forgiveness hold benefits for the person doing the forgiving, and the person being forgiven. Don’t see forgiveness as a sign of submission or weakness. You can be better than that and give people a second chance to succeed.

Third, it’s the experiences in our lives that count; not the items. The episode of the Golden Calf really teaches us that Judaism--and life--is about the experiences and not the material objects.

If you go out and apply these three things into the world, you can really help to make it a better place.


            Shabbat Shalom.

Shabbat shalom  

My Torah portion parashat Mikeitz begins with Joseph being brought to the Pharaoh from prison by the Egyptians.  Joseph was left in the desert by his brothers, as they were angry with Joseph, who had dreamt that he would be their ruler one day.   

The Pharaoh needed help with interpreting his dreams.  One dream was of 7healthy cows being devoured by 7 weak cows.  A second dream was 7 healthy ears of grain being swallowed by 7 shriveled ears of grain.

None of the pharaoh’s scholars could interpret the dreams.  But his wine steward remembered that the prisoner Joseph had a gift for dream interpretation. Joseph interprets Pharaoh's dream that there will be 7 years of plenty and then 7 years of famine throughout Egypt.  Joseph suggests how to save food to prepare for the famine. 

I feel there are three major themes that my parsha is trying to teach us. 

The first theme is the importance of listening. Joseph was able to interpretthe pharoah’s dreams because he was an excellent listener. 

Scholars, including the 19th century German philosopher Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, discuss the importance of listening and explains that it all depends on listening to the story correctly. If ten people listen to a speech or a story, everyone will hear it differently. The midrash states that God gave us 2 ears and 1 tongue, meaning we should listen twice as much as wespeak.

To interpret someone else’s dream, one must be able to think outside the box, understanding that life is complex and unfolds in many ways.  Similarly,a good listener must be patient and allow all information to be presented before giving an opinion.

It seems to me that many problems in the world would improve if people listened more.  Right now in the Middle East, the Palestinians and Israelisare trying to make peace, but it seems that both sides are doing a lot of talking and not enough listening to each other.  In order to resolve differences, we must first listen to the other side even if we disagree with it.

The Torah portion continues with Joseph, now an important advisor to thepharaoh, being addressed by his brothers who do not recognize him.  The brothers have come asking for food, as Joseph was indeed right about the 7years of plenty and the 7 years of famine.   Joseph wants to know if his brothers can be trusted, so he tests them, asking if there are other brothers left back home. The Brothers say yes, and Joseph demands they bring the youngest brother Benjamin to him before he will relinquish any food. 

A second theme in this parashah, then, is about making a choice between revenge and caring.  Joseph had to decide, as his brothers stand right in front of him,  whether to take revenge on his brothers or move on. One scholar, Don Isaac Abravanel, a 16th century Sephardic commentator, asks why Joseph took revenge, bearing a grudge against his brothers.  Josephwas a powerful leader in Egypt and needed nothing, whereas his brothers were begging for food. 

Another commentator, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, believes Joseph wasnot taking revenge, but instead testing his brothers, after all they had done to him. Rabbi Hirsch thinks Joseph’s actions were to see if his brothers could be trusted.  He thinks Joseph’s actions were out of wisdom, not revenge.  

Similarly, Rabbi Levi YitzHak,  a chasidic commentator teaches that despite the cruel treatment by his brothers, leaving him in a desert, Joseph made it appear that his brothers were simply bowing to a king, sparing them the pain of humiliation. What Rabbi Yitzchak is teaching us, is not how we should act ourselves, but rather how we should interpret other's actions towards us in a positive way even if they are negative.

Revenge and forgiveness are important themes in everday life. On my hockey team last year one of our players got hit in the head by a player on another team. My coach could have said go out and hit back, but instead, he told us not to hit back but to play better.  This makes sense to me.  Instead of creating another negative action, turn it around into something positive and beneficial to others. 

The parsha continues with the brothers asking their father Jacob to allow Benjamin to return to Egypt with them as requested by Joseph.  Jacob initially refuses because he does not want another of his son’s to die.  As the famine worsens he realizes he must send Benyamin or they will all starve.  

When the brothers arrive, they are treated to a big banquet, and then aresent back to Canaan with food. Joseph secretly puts a wine glass inBenyamin’s saddlebag.  The brothers are arrested for stealing, but Joseph says he will keep only Benyamin his true brother, as his slave. The parsha ends on this “cliff-hanger!”

The third theme then, revolves around taking decisive action at the right time, especially when it is between death and survival.

An example of this decisive action occurred when Jacob changed his mind and allowed Benyamin to be taken to Egypt.  In verse 14, chapter 43, Jacob says, I have been bereaved, I will be bereaved again.    In Hebrew it is the same verb twice:  shacholty shacholty. Jacob was bereaved when he lost Joseph and he knows he will be bereaved again to lose his youngest son Benjamin.  However, Jacob knows he must take action to provide food for his family or they will starve.  

Another example of the importance of taking action occurs when Jacob realizes that there was grain for sale in Egypt. Jacob said to his sons, LamaTitra –u, which translates as:  “Why are you staring at each other?”

These are words I often hear my mother or father saying to me, “Don’t just sit there, get up and help!!!” 

The 15th century Italian Rabbi S'forno, interprets lama titra-u as "why are you looking at each other?"  S’forno is picking up on a basic human tendency to ignore or deny problems, hoping that someone else will take care of it for them. 

S'forno's interpretation makes the most sense, writes Rabbi Neal Loevinger,a modern 21st century Rabbi, because of all the emotional dynamics in this situation: there is a famine which didn't happen suddenly but slowly built up over time, thus allowing each person to hope that somebody else was going to address the problem.  

It’s natural to sit and stare at others hoping they will take the lead. Once someone acts, others follow because they have a role model to follow.

In conclusion, the story of Joseph and his brothers we read today teaches usimportant lessons on how to become a better person. 

The first lesson is about listening: to our brothers and sisters, and yes, even our parents. It only takes a moment to really stop and listen, yet listeningcan change how you react to a situation. 

The second lesson is about caring. Forgive those who have acted cruelly towards you. Kindness brings more kindness. 

And third, in times of crisis, take action and resolve a problem. Don’t sit around waiting for someone else to do it first. 

Through these three lessons we can see how it is possible to become a better person and by extension, make a better world around us. 

Shabbat Shalom.
 

My Torah portion today, Korach, is about a rebel who stands up against the leadership of Moses and Aaron, and the consequences of his actions.  Along with 250 leaders of the community, Korach accuses Moses and Aaron of thinking they are holier than everyone else. Korach also wants to be made a high priest, a position that he is entitled to due to his lineage as a Levite.  Moses asks the rebels to bring a sacrifice to the sanctuary the following day in order for God to decide if their claim has any merit to it.  When they bring the sacrifice Korach and all his followers are brutally killed as the earth opens up and swallows some while others are killed by fire or plague. The rest of the community then accuses Moses and Aaron of bringing death upon their people and God responds by killing more Israelites. Moses orders Aaron to make a sacrifice to God in order to stop the killing.

Most commentators I researched put Korach’s rebellion in a bad light. Maimonides, a famous 12th century commentator, points out that Korach purposely picked the time right after scouts came back from Israel with mixed reports, so that many people were already starting to doubt Moses and Aaron’s leadership based on the spies’ reports. This shows that Korach was a calculating individual who waited for the perfect opportunity to take action. 

Rashi, an 11th century French commentator, agrees with Maimonides for the most part. Where he differs is that he credits Korach’s intelligence. Rashi explains that most people who are motivated by jealousy often act recklessly but Korach waited a long time for the perfect opportunity to speak out against Moses and Aaron.

Two contemporary views reinforce this negative perception of Korach.  Rabbi Dan Zemel, a 20th century American commentator said, “Korach is a rebel without a cause” meaning that Korach rebelled without any good reason.  As I don’t entirely agree with this perspective, I will return to it later. 

Nehama Leibowits, a 20th century female commentator explained, “ While Korach advocates the holiness of each person he doesn’t take the next step by calling for a vote or do anything close to democracy. Therefore Korach and the followers deserve their punishment because all their motives were self-serving and meant to splinter and divide the Jewish people”.  In other words, Korach’s actions do not match his words as he claims that he’s interested in everyone’s human rights, but does not follow up by empowering the people.  In reality, he is just hungry for power to further his own interests.

My personal opinion is slightly different.  It is impossible to know what Korach’s true motives were.  As Rabbi Plaut, a leading figure in modern Reform Judaism stated, “Superficially, Korach’s act may appear to be the usual attempt by someone out of power to displace the incumbent rulers.  But the Bible’s very silence about his motives directs our attention away from Korach’s true intention to his stated argument ” regarding the inequality between the leadership and the rest of the Jewish people.  This focus seems like a legitimate concern so that we never truly know if Korach is looking out purely for his own self-interest or that of his people.

I think Korach had good reason to be angry that he didn’t receive the role of high priest that he was next in line for, but what I have difficulty with is the way he went about attempting to achieve his goal.  By going around to various groups of Israelites and offering them slightly different stories of Moses’s poor leadership, he used persuasive language to incite them.  It is also interesting to note that his 250 followers were also Levites who already had more power in the community.   If Korach was really interested in serving the greater good, he could have gone to Moses directly in a respectful manner. 

An example of this can be seen by the 5 daughters of Zelophehad who approached Moses politely requesting their father’s land inheritance even though as women they were not legally entitled to it.  In contrast to Korach’s style, the daughters’ approach resulted in them getting what they asked for.  So while I don’t necessarily have issue with Korach’s message, I find his method problematic. 

This brings me to the crux of my d’var Torah. To begin with let’s define the word ‘rebel’.  According to the Oxford dictionary “a rebel is a person who resists authority, control or convention”.  The Urban Dictionary offers this perspective – “A rebel is a person who stands up for their own personal opinions despite what anyone else says.”  There is no doubt according to these definitions that Korach was a rebel as he resisted authority and stood up for his own personal opinion.  But questioning is encouraged in Judaism, so why did Korach face such a harsh punishment?

In doing my research, I thought a lot about the qualities that make an ethical and successful rebellion and I looked to history for answers.  The most important criteria is to be a voice for the people, meaning your rebellion can’t be self-serving.  It must be for the greater good in order to achieve positive change. You must identify the issue that you disagree with and in doing so educate the people so they understand the problems and know where you are coming from with your rebellion. Evaluate the risk factor and see if the potential gains outweigh the danger. You need to have a clear vision of what you are looking to change and how the world will be better if you accomplish your goal. Finally, if your rebellion is successful you must not let the power go to your head, and still remain focused on your initial vision.

Throughout history people have always been fighting for human rights.  Martin Luther King offers a modern example of an ethical rebellion. For over 200 years Blacks in America suffered under slavery. In the 1960’s Martin Luther King and his army of civil rights activists fought against the racist laws that discriminated against Blacks in the American South. These laws made it hard or impossible for Blacks to get jobs, vote, become educated or even use the same washrooms as white people. Although their white oppressors were ruthless and abusive, Martin Luther King was still able to lead a rebellion based on non-violent protest.  An example of this was when his followers including women and children marched into Birmingham, Alabama knowing that they would be attacked by police with dogs and clubs yet not one member of King’s supporters fought back. 

According to the criteria I outlined earlier Martin Luther King’s rebellion was an ethical one.  He was a voice for the people and worked to achieve positive change in the world.  He clearly identified the issues and educated people to understand his agenda.  King opted for non-violent protest in order to minimize risk factors and to achieve his goal in an ethical way. When the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, Martin Luther King’s ‘dream’ became a reality.

16 year-old Malala Yousafzai provides another example of a leader of an ethical rebellion.  Born and raised in Pakistan, Malala with the help of her father, fought for girls’ rights to get an education.  Even when the Taliban were closing down schools, Malala continued to speak out in support of education for girls.  Though she was shot in the head and almost killed by the Taliban, she continues to be a strong advocate for her cause and a global symbol of peaceful protest.  Her efforts have been recognized as she was the youngest person ever to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Malala’s actions also fit all of my criteria as she is a voice for the people, specifically girls who aren’t allowed to go to school.  Through writing and public speaking, she has brought this issue to a global stage.  What I find most impressive is the risk factor that was involved.  In her autobiography, I Am Malala, she wrote about how she was aware of the risk involved by openly disagreeing with the Taliban, yet she continued with her campaign.  Malala prepared what she would say if she was attacked by a terrorist, “OK, shoot me, but first listen to me.  What you are doing is wrong.  I am not against you personally, I just want every girl to go to school.”  Malala was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, her own life, in order to create positive change in the world.

Writing my diver Torah and exploring different types of rebellions lead me to the recent hot doc’s festival in Toronto to watch a film called “Everyday Rebellions” by the Iranian born director, Arman T. Rishi.  This documentary looked at creative forms of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience around the world.  The message was that rebellion is necessary in order to speak out against injustice, especially for those who cannot, and that peaceful protests are ultimately a more effective way to create change rather than resorting to violence.   

The peaceful protest movement is gaining momentum around the world such as Foemen, a group of female activists who use their bodies to display messages in support of women’s rights.  Another example is the Occupy movement, which speaks out against the great gap between the rich and the poor.  

Two parts of the film stood out to me, one being an analogy that if you want to fight Mike Tyson, beat him in a game of Chess rather than in a boxing ring.  This shows that you can’t match firepower with greater firepower; rather you need to find creative alternatives.  I was also struck by a march in which the protesters dressed up as clowns and instead of fighting the armed police officers, they gave them hugs.  This was an effective strategy as it disarmed the police officer’s power; it was difficult to arrest hugging clowns.

The message I want to leave you with is quite simple.  Rebellion is necessary in order to create positive change in the world and it is crucial to speak out when you see injustices happening, however the manner in which you approach your rebellion is equally as important as the issue at hand.  Had Karachi adopted a more ethical approach, perhaps he could have attained his goal rather than encountering a tragic death.

Shabbat Shalom!
 

Shabbat Shalom.

The parsha I’m reading today is called Kedoshim. In Kedoshim G-d is talking to Moses. G-d gives Moses a list explaining how to be holy.  He commands Moses to share it with the Israelite community.  Here are some of the examples from the list that G-d gave to Moses:

·       To keep the Sabbath, 
·       Not to pray to idols, 
·       To revere your mother and father, 
·       To judge fairly 
·       Not to insult the deaf.
·       Some of these items are ritual acts like keeping the Sabbath, keeping              kosher and not praying to idols.
·       Some of these items I would consider moral like respecting your parents,          not stealing and judging people fairly.
·       There are also some items that I wouldn’t put into either group and                  some that I just don’t agree with like prohibiting same sex relations.

This Torah portion made me ask a few questions:

First, What does it mean to be “holy?”
Second, “Why is it even important to try to be holy?”
And third; isn’t trying to be holy more that just following the items on some list?  Especially a list that is VERY old and whose rules or rituals may not apply to the way that many people choose to live their lives today.

So, what does it mean to be holy? When you Google the word “holy” there are 141 million hits.  Too many to go through. The dictionary defines “holy” as “being dedicated or consecrated to God or a religious purpose; sacred.” Not enough to make the Rabbi happy.  So I had to look further.

On “myjewishlearning.com”, twentieth-century rabbinic scholar Max Kadushin uses the terms hierarchical and non hierarchical to group the list.  Hierarchical applies to the ritual acts. He explains, “Hierarchal holiness can be associated with people, places, days and objects.”  These are the things that make up the rituals in Judaism.

He goes to explain that the non-hierarchical items on the list related to moral acts.  These are acts like respect, not stealing and treating people fairly.

So being holy has something to do with observing a combination of both ritual and moral acts in ones life.  This made me wonder what are the rituals in my life that would qualify as ‘holy’ acts and morally what is most important to living a holy life.  And it led me to the next big question I had: “Why is it even important to try to be holy?”

It made sense to me that living a moral life associated itself to being holy.  Not stealing, treating people respectfully, etc are obviously important.

With regards to the ritual acts Tracey Rich of “jewfaq.org”offers an opinion on Halakhah, the Jewish rules and practices.  Tracey writes “when properly observed, Halakhah increases the spirituality in a person's life, because it turns the most trivial, mundane acts, such as eating and getting dressed, into acts of religious significance.”  

Tracey goes on to say “When you do these things, you are constantly reminded of your relationship with the Divine, and it becomes an integral part of your entire existence.”

I like the idea that you can take the most boring things in your day and make them significant, even amazing.  What if you could enjoy brushing your teeth with great enthusiasm?  What if every meal was a celebration because you used it as a chance to become closer to G-d… to be more holy?  If you could bring that significance to everything that you did you would live a very happy life.  

So Tracey’s idea that the ritual acts of Judaism help to bring people closer to G-d and holiness, and therefore also to happiness, appeal to me. 

An example in my life is celebrating Shabbat with my family.  It’s not just another dinner.  It’s a chance to get closer to family. Holiness might lead to happiness, and happiness can also lead to holiness.

The same logic could apply to the moral acts on G-d’s list.  Always treating people with respect.  Not judging people without knowing all the facts.  Giving to those who have less than you, or Tzedakah.  So both ritual and moral acts in our lives are a way of finding a way to be closer to G-d therefore helping us find holiness and happiness.  That is a good reason to try to be ‘holy.’

Still, what is that definition of holy I was looking for?  Where can holiness be found?

Kedoshim starts with the statement “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your G-d, am holy” and the Torah tells us that we were created in the image of G-d.

A conclusion that someone could take from these two statements is that we have a part of G-d in us, and because G-d is holy we have holiness inside us waiting to come out. But the choice is ours.

I agree with the idea that there is a part of G-d and holiness inside of us.  And that it is up to us to make choices that can let the holiness out.  The ritual and moral choices. The idea of finding G-d inside of us is shared by Rabbi David Wolpe.  In his article Outer Faith & Inner Faith he writes “Because we no longer find G-d evident in the world, because science has stripped away so many of G-d's functions, we no longer look to locate G-d in the outer world but in the inner world. G-d is found not in the sky but in the soul.”

He goes on to say “In one way, this is returning to the roots of faith. The most important declaration the Bible makes is that human beings are created in G-d's image. That affirms not only that there is a G-d but that we are, somehow, G-d's reflection.”

While I’m beginning to explore some of the rituals of Judaism, the moral acts and their connection to holiness and living a happier life are of more personal relevance to me at this stage in my life. I live in a community with a group of diverse and amazing people.  How can I find opportunities to be holy in my community?

In Kedoshim G-d says “speak to all the congregation of Israel.” These laws are for the whole community not for a select few.

Stuart Binder, in his essay “The Nature of Holiness” writes “ No one can attain holiness except by merging himself with the whole of Israel.” Or in other words the communities we live in.

Binder sites Rashi who points out that we can be worthy of this holiness only if we merge our personalities with the larger community.  I believe that as Jews, we live in community. As Jews we embrace community in many ways. We get together at a Shiva as a community to help others mourn. It is a tradition to invite the community to your Sukkah during Sukkot.  We invite strangers to our Pesach seders to extend our community.  We need 10 adult Jews to make a minyan in order to pray. 

To me this means that we must be a part of the community. This means participating actively. The participation needs to be positive. Volunteering, supporting, not judging before trying to understand. Trying to be holy requires that we are positive members of our community. This, for me, is an important part of what I think being Jewish and being holy is about. 

Binder finishes his essay by saying “being holy is not defined by synagogue attendance or by outward signs of piety. Nor is a matter of ritual practice of personal attitude. Holiness can be found in our relationship with other people. It is revealed when we are just and compassionate. It is manifest when we are respectful of others and ethical in our behavior.”

I may change my ritual choices over time… I don’t know.  What I know now is that I do want to live a happy life and be a good and contributing member of my community. This means that I have to make choices that help access the ‘holiness’ inside of me.  To do this it means finding ways, even rituals, to help make every thing in my life more special. It also means that I have to remain open to making different choices and welcoming new rituals.  

The part of becoming holy that I most identify with is being a contributing and positive member of the modern and diverse community I live in. My relationships within the communities in my life are very important to me.  How I behave and contribute in these communities affects the level of happiness in my life. One of the communities I live in is a camp community. The community at camp is a place where I contribute. At camp you are living in a community where you will see each other all the time. We live together, eat together and participate together in all sort of activities. That’s why it is important to treat each other fairly and always treat each other with respect. For example if someone was home sick, I would try to make them feel better by playing a game with them. I always want them to have as much fun as I am. That is how I feel like I’m part of a community. 

Kedoshim has helped me come closer to defining ‘holiness.’  It has helped me understand that there are both ritual and moral practices in Judaism that contribute to living a happy, and holy life.  The ritual and moral practices that are most closely tied to the participation in my community, whether it be celebrating Shabbat with my family or volunteering my time where it is needed, is how I feel connected to my holiness. My community offers me ways that I can be more connected to my spiritual life and gives me new opportunities to let the holiness inside of me out.

Shabbat shalom

Mishpatim is the name of the Torah portion which I will be reading today.  In Hebrew mishpatim means laws.  The focus of this weeks’ parsha, laws, follows the same theme set in last weeks’ parsha in which the Ten Commandments, often seen as the most important laws of the Jewish people, were handed down by G-d at Mount Sinai.  In parshat mishpatim a variety of laws are outlined including punishment for crimes, the dietary rule about mixing milk and meat and the instruction to leave fields to lie fallow every seventh year.  A great deal of explanation in mishpatim is also spent outlining laws related to slavery.  It is this topic of slavery that I'd like to focus on because I was surprised that so much emphasis in the Torah was spent on something so awful, especially when the Jewish people had just experienced it themselves.  In today’s portion we read about such slavery rules as, ‘If a thief is sold into slavery, and you buy him, the duration of slavery should be six years.  In the seventh year, you must release him.’  And, ‘If the master gives the maidservant to his son as a wife, he must treat her as though she were not a servant.’

It may be uncomfortable for us to hear that the Torah condones slavery, especially when the Jewish people were enslaved themselves.  Rabbi Gunther Plaut in ‘The Torah: A Modern Commentary’ explains the references to slavery in the Torah in the following way:

Slavery was known throughout antiquity as far back as the fourth millennium.  The Torah deals with it as a fact of life – one, however, that involved a basic contradiction: while in many ways treated as chattel (a “thing”), a slave was also a human being.  The Torah did not resolve this contradiction and therefore did not portray slavery as something inherently evil.

Rabbi Amy Scheinerman, a contemporary Baltimore based Rabbi, furthers this argument by writing,

It has often been explained that ancient agricultural economies would have collapsed without the staples of indentured servants and slaves. 

She, however, also points out the more compassionate elements of slavery outlined in parshat mishpatim.  The Torah, she explains, limits slavery, promotes the eventual release of indentured servants, and cautions slave owners to treat their slaves with justice and compassion.

Rabbi Schneirman’s commentary echos that of the famous 12th century Rabbi and philosopher Maimonides, known as “the Rambam”, who emphasized the more sympathetic nature of slavery as outlined in the Torah. Maimonides’ commentary focused on the obligations of a slave-owner to their slave.  Rambam writes:

It is permissible to work a non-Jewish servant harshly. Yet, although this is the law, the way of the pious and the wise is to be compassionate and to pursue justice, not to overburden or oppress a servant, and to provide them from every dish and every drink.

So, too, you should not denigrate a servant, neither physically nor verbally. The Torah made him your servant to do work, not to be disgraced.

Rambam is bringing up the two problems of slavery. First, the simple practical one: how do you treat your slave; and the second, the deeper moral one: is your slave your equal? In his case he is asking about a Jew who owns a non-Jewish slave. Is that slave less your equal because he isn’t Jewish? This kind of questioning leads us to view the Other always as Other. 

Again, this too I find kind of troubling and uncomfortable.  In my life, I have been taught to consider all people as equals.  I’m not sure if Rambam’s commentary is a product of his time, his beliefs, or both.

It might be easier and more comfortable to downplay slavery in the Torah because it was common in biblical times, slaves were able to be married and live as families and, according to the Torah, they were to be treated with justice and compassion.   But does this make it acceptable because this version of slavery is better compared to our modern understanding of slavery such as African-American slaves working on southern American plantations? I don’t think it is right or acceptable to downplay any type of slavery.  To me it is the same as believing that if you are born into slavery and don’t know anything else, it is fine because you don’t know what you’re missing or what your life could be like if you were not enslaved.  I came to this realization when I recently heard on the news about 3 women in London, England who had been enslaved for over 30 years, one of whom it was believed was born into slavery.  It was reported that while the women led controlled lives, they did have some freedoms.  Does this not sound very similar to the description of slavery during biblical times?  Yet today we would definitely describe these women’s situation as horrific and unconscionable.  The tragic story of these 3 women did not happen in some remote corner of the world, but in one of the world’s most modern and developed countries.  How many other situations are there like this one that we don’t yet know about.  Even more troubling, these women’s situations are far from unique.  While slavery is illegal in every country in the world, the 2013 Global Slavery index estimates that there are still an estimated 29.8 million slaves worldwide – and from the story of the women in Britain, we know that it is just not happening in developing countries.   While I could not find information specific to Canada, I did learn on the website ‘Free the Slaves,’ that it is estimated that almost 15,000 slaves are trafficked into the United States annually.  I think we can also assume this is happening in Canada too.  They are often smuggled or arrive in North America under false pretences.  

Contemporary slavery can take many forms.  People, both children and adults, are still sold like objects and forced to work for little or no pay.   Sometimes people are sold overtly, other times people become bonded to traffickers whom they come to owe large sums of money. Unsuspecting people, often looking for better opportunities abroad, fall victim to traffickers.  This frequently results in the trafficked people providing their labour as repayment for a loan or other costs associated with their arrangement. They end up working mostly in the sex industry, domestic service, agriculture, and manufacturing.  

I think many people, like me before I began to research this subject, didn’t realize that slavery was such a big problem in the world today.  In the same way that parshat mishpatim encouraged me to learn about slavery in the Torah, it has led me to think more about modern day slavery.  While the Torah instructed slave-owners to treat their slaves with justice and compassion, we don’t really know if they did.  Today slavery is against the law but it still happens.  Remember, mishpatim means laws, and in the case of modern slavery, it seems rules are ‘made to be broken.’  So what can we do – or me as a bar-mitzvah.  The first thing, which I’m doing today, is drawing attention to modern slavery.  A recent article in the Globe and Mail asked?:

How many slaves work for you? Paradoxically – in 2013 – the question is still relevant, and the answer surprising. Depending on where you live, what you buy, what your lifestyle is, you have almost certainly been touched by slavery.

In fact, maybe slaves were involved in picking the produce you eat, manufacturing the clothes you wear or have been part of the cleaning service that cleaned your home or office.  Especially in the manufacture of clothing abroad, there are many documented cases of kids my age, and younger, working up to 18 hours a day for little or no pay, making clothes.  

Some suggestions that I found on the internet about dealing with modern slavery included petitioning governments to enforce anti-slavery laws and giving money to organizations devoted to stopping slavery.  Draw on the compassion towards slaves explained in parshat mishpatim and direct some your tzedakah, both in money and deeds, towards today’s slaves because, as we say at Passover, we too were slaves in the land of Egypt.

Shabbat Shalom

Good morning.

Today’s Torah portion is Parashat Bereshit. Many of us are familiar with Parashat Bereshit, which contains the story of creation, the story of Adam and Eve and the story of Abel and Cain. We will discuss some of the details later, but since many of those stories are familiar, we can take the opportunity and ask a more general question before we begin reading: 

Why are we reading the Torah at all? Do we read the Torah because it’s scientifically and historically correct? 

We can assume that we don’t read it for that purpose, due to a multitude of reasons:

First, consider the story of creation, which I will read in a moment. The common scientific theory is that billions of years ago the world was created when the universe started expanding rapidly. That was the beginning of the Big Bang. The Torah, of course, tells us another story, and if we have to choose which one is correct, I believe that most of us today would trust the astrophysicists, not the traditional commentary. 

But even if we wanted to believe the biblical story, there is actually more than one creation myth to choose from. The first chapter of my Parasha details how the world was created in six days. But in the second chapter, a similar creation story is told but with some significant differences. For example, the second story does not mention six days of creation, and might even be understood as suggesting that it all happened in one day. 

Another example, in the first chapter of Genesis, man and woman are made at the same time, but in the second chapter, God created man first, and only later fashions woman from the rib of man. How can we find the Torah valid historically if there are moments in the Torah that aren’t consistent with other moments? 

A second problem in reading the Torah literally is that some of its stories are similar to the creation myths of other Near East ancient cultures, and it makes sense to think that our ancestors were familiar with those stories. 

For example: our story of creation is similar to the Babylonian creation story. In the Torah, there was only chaos before God created the world. In the Babylonian myth, the world was an abyss before its creation. 

In our story of how humanity was created the Torah says that we were made from the earth: Adam was made from the Adama (which is earth in Hebrew). This is similar to the Greek legends telling how the Titan Prometheus made all of mankind out of clay. 

These examples may support the view that the Torah does not present a single creation story, but a collection of different stories representing different beliefs, and that those different stories were later edited to reflect or shape a common view. In other words, the editors of the Torah collected some common stories, and modified them. So the question is not only what those stories say, but what are they trying to teach us.

So here is my answer to a literal reading of the creation story in particular and the whole Torah in general, and this answer might even comfort our Rabbi! 

Many Jewish leaders—even those in ancient days, not just modern Reform rabbis— do not take the Torah literally. For example, the medieval commentator Rashi said that the world was probably not made in seven days, but in thousands of years. He quoted the psalm from Tehilim, which says: “For a day in Your sight is like a thousand years.” 

Rashi would say to his students: “The Torah does not intend to teach the order of creation. There is P’shat, which means simple; the literal take on the Torah. Then there is the D’rash, which is the hidden meaning, or message of the Torah. Rashi taught the D’rash, which is what truly benefits us in life.

Indeed, Rashi’s view is even consistent with the way that some modern scientists view the Torah. For example, Joel Primack is a renowned astrophysicist, who co-developed the cold dark matter theory, which helps explain the formation and structure of the universe. Primack is also a Jew who reads the Bible regularly. He believes that God and science can co-exist. He does not take the Bible as scientific text, due to all the inconsistencies inside those many pages. But he still as much as a Jew as the rest of us, as much a believer in God. 

For scientists like Primack, the teaching of science and the teaching of the Torah do not conflict, because science is very good in explaining “what” happened, but is not very good in shedding light on “why”, and in telling us what all of that means for us. When we read the Torah not literally—not for its P’shat, but for its D’rash—we can gain some meaningful insights. 

So, if we don’t think that the Torah is a book that necessarily contains an accurate scientific or historic truth why do we read from the Torah at all? We read from it to learn from it. We read it so we can learn lessons for life and how to treat each other and the world. We learn how to go through our daily lives. 

Though we understand WHY we might want to read the Torah, we might still wonder why do we read it every week, and then start all over again every year? I ask this timely question because today is the first Shabbat in which we start the yearly cycle of readings all over again.

In a way, we can think about our congregation as a book club. Every week (or two) we meet, read a piece of literature and then discuss it. We discuss what we learned and how we can use that information to better ourselves. So far so good. 

But when we think about it, it’s a very strange book club. Arguably, we could read and draw lessons from many texts. So why do we read this text in particular, and why start all over again every year? Why don’t we let anyone choose whatever text they want to read?

There may be several answers. First, the Torah gives us a common language, and a common language makes it easier for us to communicate. When we communicate better we become smarter. Common language also unites us and makes our community stronger. Becoming stronger and smarter sounds like a good thing, right?

Is more power and wisdom necessarily a good thing? Today’s Parasha deals with this question. The serpent tells the woman “God knows that on the day that you eat [from the Tree of Knowledge], your eyes will be opened, and you will be like angels, knowing good and evil." And God said, after Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, “man has become like one of us, having the ability of knowing good and evil.” 

God is clearly fearful of the power of knowledge that now humans possess. Knowledge is power, and we learned from the Uncle Ben that with great power comes great responsibility. God might have been fearful that too-powerful humans may not use their power responsibly. We can’t say that he didn’t have a point.

Many of us are also familiar with the story of the Tower of Babel, read in next week’s Parasha. The story of the Tower of Babel repeats a similar theme. The people were united and strong, so they decided to construct a massive Tower that reached to the heavens. God began to fear the humans who were reaching ever so close to his domain, so he decided to split the language of humanity to many separate languages. Thus, humanity could not communicate with each other. They became weak and were unable to finish the construction of the Tower. 

So as we read the Torah our community of Jewish people becomes stronger, and smarter. And while building a strong and smart community is generally a good thing, the Torah also reminds us to the possibility that too much power can lead to power abuse, and unity can become uniformity. 

Therefore, while we want unity, we also appreciate the value of diversity. The Tower of Babel diversified our languages so while on the negative side we find it harder to communicate across cultures and points of view, on the positive side diversity of voices and perspectives makes us much richer.

This brings us back to this week’s Parasha, and to the different creation stories that I mentioned earlier. One of the explanations of why there many examples in the Torah of stories that are inconsistent with each other is that the Torah is a collection of the stories of different groups that early in our history came together. 

Prof. Israel Knohl, a biblical scholar from the Hebrew University, argues that the origin of the Jewish people was three ethnic groups, one Canaanites, another arrived from northwest Syria and the third from Egypt. He shows how the Bible attempts to combine the different beliefs and stories of those different groups into one narrative. If he is correct, then the Jews can take also take credit for inventing multiculruralism…

So reading the Torah is a source of unity, but reading it also reminds us the value of diversity. Reading the same text as Jews all over the world, and through all ages, is a solid unifying factor in a very fractured world.

So here we are today, at the beginning of a new year and of a new cycle of reading the Torah. Together, we begin a new cycle, which is at once as old as our ancestors and as new as my interpretations today. 




SHABAT SHALOM!

Shabbat Shalom! 

My Torah portion, B’ haalot’ cha is very eventful. Some of the more significant parts that happen in my portion are the following: The Israelites complain about the food, which is different than what they had in Egypt. The Israelites won’t stop whining so Moses creates a council of elders to help him. But this doesn’t stop the Israelites from complaining, so G-d gives them so much meat that they get sick and die. But this is not the part I chose to focus on today. Today, I want to focus on a part that involves Miriam, an inspiring Jewish leader.   

The Jewish people are travelling through the desert from Egypt to Israel. They are restless and complaining yet again. Aaron and Miriam, Moses’ siblings, are complaining as well. They complain to G-d about Moses’ wife. Miriam and Aaron say, “He married a Cushite woman!” This complaint causes a whole lot of trouble, and I am going to explain why later on. They also complain because they believe that since they are also prophets, they should be treated as equals to Moses. “Has Adonai only spoken through Moses?’ Has ‘G-d’ not spoken through us as well?” G-d gets mad that they are questioning Moses and he punishes Miriam with a terrible disease. But He doesn’t punish Aaron. Then, Aaron asks Moses to pray for Miriam’s recovery and Moses does. He says “O G-d, pray heal her!” and she recovers. The Jewish people, in support of her, wait for her to recover before they leave on their journey to Israel.

Something that I noticed and learned when I read and analyzed this part is that what happened wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair for Miriam, and it wasn’t fair for Moses. In my d’var Torah, I’m going to question different points of my parsha and try and figure out what they mean and why they happened.  

There are many questions that came up when I read this, but I am only going to focus on 3. The first is why was only Miriam punished? The second is why did G-d get so angry when Miriam and Aaron were just questioning things? And my third question is why did Moses take responsibility for something that wasn’t his responsibility?


So my first question is an obvious one: Why was only Miriam punished but not Aaron? 


“Vati da ber Miriam” were the exact words from the torah that were used to describe when Miriam and Aaron were talking to G-d. The verb “vati da ber” means “ she spoke” in the feminine singular form. So, according to the Hebrew grammar, it looks like Miriam was the one who initiated and carried out the complaint, alone. This is what many of the Rabbinic commentators suggested. 

Maybe G-d punished Miriam so harshly because he thought that it would bring the Israelites, who had been bickering amongst themselves, closer together, which it did. Supporting Miriam through her punishment was a cause they all believed in. They were loyal to Miriam because she had protected Moses when he was a baby in his basket and he was now their leader. It’s not fair that Miriam should have to suffer to bring together the Israelites. Yet that’s usually what ends up happening when you are a leader. Look at the leaders who have made major sacrifices to protect and help something bigger and more important than themselves. John F. Kennedy, Yitzhak Rabin, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, and the list goes on. 

Dr. Masha Turner, a biblical scholar in Israel, writes another reason why Miriam was punished in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary. She thought it could be because Miriam was a woman. This could also explain why, after leaving the tent, Miriam was silenced and is never heard from again in the Torah. Rabbi Ruth Sohn, a Jewish text study teacher, in Los Angeles, also wrote in The Women’s Torah Commentary that maybe this was the choice of male scholars who wrote down the Torah. They could have been jealous that a woman had that kind of power.

So my first question of why Miriam has many answers, everything from sacrifice to sexism.


My second question is why did G-d get so angry when Miriam and Aaron were just questioning things. Aren’t Jewish people encouraged to question things? 

One reason may be that G-d felt he needed to protect Moses from his siblings' criticism. The Torah says, “Now the man Moses was exceedingly humble, more than any person on the face of the earth!" (Bamidbar 12:3) Ibn Ezra, a medieval commentator, explains this by saying that Moses never wanted power or to be superior over any person. Another medieval commentator, Ramban, adds that because Moses was so humble, he wouldn’t defend himself, and that’s why G-d stepped in.

Another reason might be that G-d was not happy that Miriam and Aaron were jealous of Moses’ power. Miriam and Aaron wanted to be prophets just like Moses. One of the reasons they wanted this was so they would have more power. Doesn’t everyone want power? But what is power? Is power happiness? In my haftarah, there is a memorable and inspirational quote that describes what I am talking about. “Not by might and not by power, but by spirit shall we all live in peace.”

My last theory about why G-d was angry is because Miriam and Aaron were complaining about the Cushite woman, Moses’ wife. There are two thoughts about who this Cushite woman was. One was that she was Moses’ second wife, and that she was from Ethiopia. If we agree with this theory, did G-d feel Miriam and Aaron were being racist in the way they talked about her? The problem wasn’t that they were complaining that he married another woman. That didn’t matter, in fact it was allowed in those days. The problem was that they were complaining specifically because she was Ethiopian.

The other theory is that this Cushite woman was Tziporrah, Moses’ wife who is mentioned in other places in the Torah. Even if Miriam was just concerned about her brother’s marriage, she should have talked directly to Moses, and not gossiped to Aaron about it.  It states very clearly in the Torah that it’s wrong to gossip, and maybe that’s why G-d was so angry.

So my second question- why weren’t Aaron and Miriam just allowed to question things- reveals that they were not “just” questioning- they were gossiping, and perhaps being racist, and being jealous. That’s not “just” questioning. 

My third and final question is why did Moses take responsibility for something that wasn’t his fault? It’s not fair that Moses took the responsibility to pray to G-d to heal Miriam. What did he do? He was the one who was good to everyone else and they complained about him. He was humble and he helped others before himself. He put others’ happiness ahead of his own. He sacrificed his own marriage because he valued his relationship with G-d more, knowing that G-d could do more for the people of Israel through Moses. Moses chose to rise above his own sister’s criticism of him to pray for her to heal. How many of us would try to help someone who hurt us? 

The Talmud states that Jews are to be Rachamim b’nei Rachamim, which means compassionate children of compassionate ancestors. Our ancestors were teaching us that this is an important value that they passed on to us, and I think we should be passing it on to each generation. 

Now that we have raised those questions, we can think about what this entire story is supposed to teach us. I think we can learn a very important lesson. Something I have learned is that everything in the torah is there for a reason; there isn’t one letter that doesn’t have a purpose. So what’s the purpose of this portion? Is it as simple as life isn’t fair, and we have to accept that? But wait, torah is never simple. I think there are 2 lessons here. The first is life isn’t fair and that’s the way it was in Miriam’s time, and in my time. The second lesson is what are we going to do to make the world a fairer place. I think it’s about how we can change the things that aren’t fair. Aaron and Miriam just complained, like many of us do. They didn’t take action to change what wasn’t fair. Maybe they enjoyed complaining more than taking action. It’s way easier to complain than to put yourself on the line and take steps to get rid of the unfairness of our world. It’s easier to sit and watch other people fix the world than to actually do it yourself.

We can make changes in our community, as Jewish people, and in our personal lives.


One example of a thing that isn’t fair is cancer. It strikes the rich and the poor, the young and the old. It doesn’t choose between people. For my tzedakah project I sold daffodils for the Canadian Cancer Society. I hope that I made a change because cancer really isn’t fair.

My portion ends with the Jewish people continuing on their journey to Israel. As I set out on my journey for the rest of my life, I hope to continue to try my best to make life fairer for others. One of my goals in my life is to become a lawyer. I want to be a lawyer because I want to help people who don’t have the strength or courage to help themselves. My Bat Mitzvah portion is pushing me, and all of us, to take that challenge seriously and really make a difference.  

Shabbat Shalom.

This morning I read the very first Parashah in the Torah, Bereishit, the story of creation, with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. To summarize the main contents of the portion: it starts with the 7 days of creation. Light and dark were created on the first day, which later became night and day, then sky on the second, and water and earth on the third. The fourth day brought the sun and the moon and the stars, and the fifth living creatures. On the last day of creation G-d created humans, and on the seventh day G-d rested. Adam and Eve were created in G-d’s image and lived in the Garden of Eden.

They were instructed by G-d to eat any of the fruit in the garden, except from the tree of knowledge. However, a cunning serpent convinced Eve to eat the fruit, and she and Adam did. G-d was angered, and Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden. Eve then had two sons, Cain and Abel. One day Abel brought G-d an offering of his finest sheep, and Cain brought some of his harvest. G-d was unhappy with Cain, and he became jealous of his brother and killed him. Cain was punished for killing Abel and was sent to wander the earth.

The part of my portion that stood out to me most was the exchange between God and Adam after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. G-d says to Adam “Where are you?” Shouldn’t G-d have known where Adam was? Why would God ask Adam a question for which he already knew the answer?

 A Women’s Commentary describes G-d’s question as “more than a mere request for location, it is an opportunity to accept responsibility.” G-d is giving Adam a chance to own up to his mistake. But Adam does not, instead he replies “I heard the sound of You in the garden; I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.” G-d gives Adam another chance to take responsibility for his own actions, in asking “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat the fruit of the tree that I forbade you to eat?” and Adam says “The woman whom you gave me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, so I ate.”