And now, you are going home to face him for the first time in all those years. How do you feel?

How do you feel when the messenger you sent ahead to greet your brother comes back to tell you that he is now heading in your direction with four hundred men? Scared?

You divide your family—consisting of two wives, two concubines, and twelve children—into two camps. You hope that one of those camps might escape while the other is plundered by Esau and his men. You look to God and you say:

These words contain some unusual images of being large and being small. First, Jacob says that he had been made small by God's many kindnesses to him. He then remembers the way he crossed the Jordan River as a refugee, twenty years earlier, with no possessions to his name but a walking stick. Finally, he appears to boast about how he now is so large with possessions that that they fill two camps.

It's not hard to see that Jacob's statements about being small and being large have double meanings. Was Jacob really made small by God's love? Not on a literal level. In fact, the very opposite is true. God's love for Jacob made him a huge success, a man who possessed great flocks and wealth. There are at least two possible ways, though, that Jacob may have felt small as he crossed the Jordan for the second time. 

Jacob felt humbled by God's generosity in showing "love and faith" to him. This is the feeling we have when we realize just how lucky we are. We feel small with humility when we recognize the miracles that rule over our existence and just how insignificant all of our accomplishments are when compared to the incredible good fortune of just being alive. Jacob had good reason to feel that kind of smallness.

On the other hand, Jacob also felt small because of his fear of Esau. This is the smallness of recognizing, in terror, just how fragile we are and how easily our mortal lives can be snatched from us. With the approach of Esau and his four hundred men, Jacob had every reason to feel that small, too.

Isn't it interesting how these two types of "small"—born from humility and from fear—exist together in this dramatic moment? Maybe they are really the same thing. Maybe the humble feeling of smallness is also a recognition of our mortality. Maybe our fear of death is also a recognition of how valuable life is.

Notice that Jacob makes a bit of a joke on himself in this passage. He boasts about how much property he has amassed in the last twenty years—so much that it fills two camps. But Jacob knows that his possessions have been divided in two merely as a hedge against losing them all. The boast can be read as a sarcastic comment by Jacob as he ponders the foul turn of events that threaten his life and all his accomplished. "Look at me," he seems to say as he divides his family in half," I have so much stuff that it fills two camps. How lucky can you get?" 

In this moment, Jacob realizes that all of his might and greatness are really nothing. They are just a mask he wears to cover his fear. Did you ever feel that way?

Here is the question this story is burning to ask: When were you small?

In that moment when you felt most praised for your accomplishments, did you have the humble sensation of knowing that you were really small? In a time when good fortune shone most brightly on your face, were you able to say to yourself, in all humility, "I have been made small"? On a day of dreadful fear, when you could only pray for the strength to make it to tomorrow, did you allow yourself to remember the love and faith others have shown you, and in that memory, feel truly small?

We are small. Human life is short, and the accomplishments on which we stake our egos are forgotten sooner than we dare imagine. Yet, even a brief and small life is an incredible gift that we have been given without deserving. There is a terror in recognizing how lucky we really are.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Re'eh: The Message and the Messenger
The Blind and the Light

Jewish tradition does not preach against material wealth. Unlike other traditions, Judaism has no teaching that praises the choice to live in poverty. (Maybe it is because poverty was the norm for the vast majority of Jews through the middle ages. What is there to like about it?) Yet, Judaism also is very wary of those who flaunt their wealth or allow their wealth to convince them that it makes them superior to others. Judaism wants people to benefit from the pleasures of worldly possessions, but to set appropriate limits to guard against inciting envy or luring oneself into arrogance.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, the 19th and 20th century rabbinic scholar known as the Chofetz Chaim, taught that Torah demands that a Jew take the "Middle Way" with regard to wealth—a path that allows one to enjoy it without becoming consumed by it. In his work, S'fat Tamim (chapter 5), he writes:

Given the uncertainty of our times, a person, especially one who is wealthy, should remember to seek the middle way regarding personal spending habits. Even if God has given you great wealth, you should not adorn yourself with ostentatious finery. To do so would damage your soul by enticing you into arrogance and energizing your dark desires. Also, it would incite jealousy in those who are less fortunate. 

Today's North American Jewish community is the wealthiest and most prosperous Jewish community in all of our people's history. We are, in fact, among the most affluent ethnic groups in the most affluent civilization the world has ever known. While not every Jew is rich (and we should remind others and ourselves of this regularly), we have, as a people, succeeded through the application of our ambition, ingenuity, intelligence and hard work. There is cause for us to congratulate ourselves. 

Yet, there is also a danger that goes with our wealth. We are in danger of falling into the trap described in the book of Deuteronomy, which warns: 

When you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses to live in, and your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased, and everything you owned has prospered, beware against your heart growing haughty and against forgetting Adonai your God…You may say to yourselves, "My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me." Remember that it was Adonai your God who gives you the power to get wealth… (Deuteronomy 8:12-18)

If we become convinced that we deserve the wealth we enjoy, and if we begin to regard ourselves to be superior to those who do not enjoy the comforts we have, we will have committed the sin of idolatry, in which we make ourselves the objects of our veneration. To avoid that self-destructive tendency, our tradition teaches us to follow a different way, a middle way.

The middle way means that we should take pleasure in the pleasures that life offers, but not to allow them to blind us to the needs of others. The middle way teaches us to find comfort in life, but not to indulge in our comfort to the point that we believe it to be our right and due. The middle way teaches us to give our children the things that will give them the security they need to grow into healthy adults and the tools they need to be successful themselves, but not to poison their souls with the belief that they are entitled to every luxury. 

As we enter into our society's season of ostentation, take some time to think about the way you treat yourself, the way that you show gratitude, and the way you acknowledge the true source of your life's gifts. Find the middle way that guides yourself and your family to real happiness and fulfillment.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Naso: Two Ways of Seeking God's Face
Toledot: Wealth and Happiness

Gratitude, of course, is not just a once-a-year experience in Judaism. The traditional T'filah, recited three times a day in traditional practice, contains a beautiful blessing of thanksgiving:

We give thanks to You, Adonai, for You are our God and God of our ancestors forever and ever. You are the rock of our lives, the shield of our deliverance — You are from generation to generation!  We give thanks to You and speak Your praise, for our lives which are safeguarded in Your hands, for Your miracles which we experience every day, for Your wonders and for Your goodness that exist in every moment — evening, morning and afternoon. You are goodness, for Your compassion is endless and You treat us compassionately. Your love is boundless. From eternity, You have been our hope. For all of this You are blessed and Your Name is held high. May You rule over us always and to eternity. All life will thank You and sing praises to Your Name in faith — the God who is our redeemer and our strength. Blessed are You, Adonai, whose Name is good and to whom thanks are due.

The blessing makes it clear to whom our thanks are addressed. This is the gratitude that comes from recognizing that there is a Source of all our blessings—one that is outside of ourselves and outside the realm of human power. Today is a good day to remember that.

In this week's Torah portion, Vayetze, Jacob began his journey by trying to make a deal with God. He says, "If God remains with me, if God protects me on this journey that I am making, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safe to my father’s house—Adonai shall be my God" (Genesis 28:20-21). It is the prayer of a young man who has not yet learned what gratitude really means. Jacob said to God, in effect, "If You make sure that everything goes well for me, then You will be deserving of my loyalty."

It took Jacob twenty years to learn that there are no such promises in life. There is no assurance that all will be well. It was only after twenty years of antagonism with his uncle Laban, in which Laban swindled Jacob and lied to him, that Jacob finally reached a different conclusion. One night, in the middle of the wilderness, after Jacob and Laban finally got all of their grievances against each other out in the open, Jacob made an offering to God and invited his lying, cheating uncle to join him in the meal (Genesis 31:54).

What was that offering? It was a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Jacob was not grateful for an untroubled life—he had never known one and such a life was not going to be part of his future, either. He was grateful that despite life's turmoil and trouble, he was able to find a way through by keeping true to his values, beliefs and integrity. God had given him a path to find a bit of peace in a difficult life, and Jacob was grateful.

This Thanksgiving, we can try to remember that kind of gratitude. We cannot be grateful for a world at peace and absolute security for our sisters and brothers who have made their lives in Israel. Such a world does not exist. However, we can be grateful for the chance to create some peace in a world full of sorrow. We can be grateful for a God who does not promise us perfect protection or even clothes for our backs, but a God who does show us how to live with boundless love, undying hope, goodness and  the promise of something better.

Tonight, I am grateful for a ceasefire and hopeful that it will last. I believe in the possibility that we can sit down together with our enemies and discover a path to peace.

Happy Thanksgiving.

I can't blame people for assuming that I knew what they meant. Jews use the word "traditional" all the time as a way to differentiate all that newfangled, modern stuff from the way that Judaism was meant to be. "Traditional" is an icon in Judaism. In an age of rapid change, we often yearn for the Judaism we experienced in days gone by.

The problem, of course, is that we have not all experienced the same bygone days. It turns out that many people in our congregation use the word "traditional" to mean services that are mostly in English, accompanied by art music written from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. A traditional service, by this definition, is also one that is centered around a sermon that reflects on recent events in the world, especially as they effect Israel and the Jewish people. 

Ironically, that is similar to the style of worship I grew up with as a young child at Temple Emanu-El in New York City. It is a style that some people call "Classical Reform" (although, I find that term misleading). Yet, it is not the style that I think about when I think of "traditional" Judaism.

What does the word "traditional" mean to you when it comes to Jewish worship?

For me, and for many others, the word conjures a very different image. I think about the worship services I imagine that my great-gradfather attended: conducted entirely in Hebrew and Aramaic, chanted according to eastern European nusach, with only a brief teaching on the weekly Torah portion, if any sermon at all. 

That is the style of worship that, I think, many Jews think of as "traditional," even if it does not represent the kind of Judaism they would like to practice in their daily life. It is the Judaism people associate with Tevye the milkman as he sings "Tradition!" in Fiddler on the Roof. It is the Judaism that many Jews find romantically appealing in Chabad, even if they have no intention of being traditionally observant themselves. Isn't that odd?

Is my idea of "traditional" correct, and the "traditional" imagined by others wrong? Not at all. We all come from different traditions. Jews whose families originated in Morocco, Italy or Yemen would not be likely to find either the services of Chabad or Reform to fit their ideas about their tradition. And, if I were to wander into their shuls, or the shuls of their youth, I might feel just as disoriented as they would feel in mine.

Even within Reform Judaism there are many different ways to be traditional. As a child in New York City, I was used to services led by a rabbi and cantor dressed in robes, with ornate music performed on an organ, and filled with a sense of majesty magnified by the prose of the liturgy and the grandeur of the architecture. My wife, who grew up in a Reform congregation of the same era, but in central New England, had a very different experience. She attended services filled with contemporary music, mystical sermons and homey potluck dinners. Tradition is where you are from—spiritually, chronologically, geographically and temperamentally.

Is it proper for a congregation to try to meet the needs of people with different traditions, tastes and worship preferences? Of course it is. Our congregation will be offering services once a month that are designed to appeal to people who prefer less Hebrew, more reflection on contemporary issues and events, and a sense of relaxation and peace at the end of a busy week. (I have no idea what to call such a service. Any ideas?) We will continue to offer services at other times that are energetically joyful, contemporary and spiritual. 

The only danger I see in doing this is that we might turn our one congregation into several separate congregations. If we end up with groups of people who attend services of one style, but who never show up to service of any other style, we will know that the experiment has failed. The point at which "my tradition" becomes the only thing that interests me is the point at which I have stopped caring about the community as a whole, and at which I have stopped growing as a Jew. 

My hope is that we will expose more people to different ways of encountering God, finding meaning, and connecting with other Jews. By offering services of different traditions, we can become a congregation that discovers more deeply how to bring joy into Judaism.

Addendum: We have decided that the service featuring melodies familiar to long-time members and a sermon on current issues and events will be called our monthly "Reflective Service." I'm looking forward to the first Reflective Service on Friday, January 18, 2013. If you are in the area, please join us! (11/16/12)


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Dragonflies, Sacred Cats and Brisket
Tomato Sauce, Choice, and Jewish Joy

This is an insight on this week's Torah portion that I learned from one of my bar mitzvah students. (It is always wonderful when a teacher learns from the student; good work, Jake.) In the opening chapter of Toldot, we read how the twin boys, Esau and Jacob, fought with each other while they were still in their mother's womb (Genesis 25:22), and how Jacob, the second-born, was pulling at his brother's ankle during birth, trying to get ahead of him (verse 26). 

One day, Esau came home from hunting, exhausted and famished. He saw that his brother was cooking lentils and he asked for some. Jacob, always looking for an opportunity to take advantage of his brother, said, "First sell me your birthright" (verse 31). Esau, rather than protest, gave in and sold his birthright. Why?

Isn't it possible that, after putting up with Jacob's challenges and struggles for power for so many years, Esau just decided that he would be happier without the birthright of the firstborn? Esau may have wanted to say to Jacob, "If you want the birthright so much that you're willing to treat me so unkindly, take it. If keeping the birthright means that I have to put up with this behavior for the rest of my life, I would rather not have it."

This story was not the end of the struggles between Esau and Jacob. Later in this week's Torah portion, Jacob also tricked their father out of the blessing due to Esau. Esau was so enraged by this insult that Jacob had to run away from home in fear for his life (Genesis 27:41-45). The two brothers did not see each other again for more than twenty years. When they did, Jacob was terrified that Esau still would want to kill him. He was genuinely surprised to find that Esau bore no grudge and seemed happy with what he had in life (Genesis 33:4-11). 

What happened? It seems that Esau discovered he could be happy without the birthright and his father's blessing. Maybe he was even happier without them than he would have been with them. Maybe, Esau learned, as the saying goes, "The problem with the rat race is that, even if you win, you're still a rat!"

In my experience, this can happen when people realize that they don't need (or can't have) something that they previously had struggled to attain or keep. Whether it is wealth, power, or status, letting go of the struggle often brings more happiness than the object of desire ever could have brought. Maybe you'll recognize yourself in these examples from my experience:

• A businessman was caught in a shady deal that cost him his business and most of his wealth. After the crisis, he found new meaning in life by pursuing his first love as an artist and discovered that it brought him greater joy than the money and prestige of his old job.

• A couple anguished over their failure to conceive a child and went to great expense to have one they "could call their own." After they gave up fighting infertility, they adopted a child and discovered such great happiness that they wished they had chosen to adopt from the beginning.

• A mother who had high ambitions for her son's career as an athlete was able to reconnect with her child in a more meaningful and healthy way after he failed to make it to the top of his sport. Both mother and child discovered that they were much happier without the constant pressure to compete.

I am in no way suggesting that there is something inherently wrong with striving for business success, conceiving and birthing a child, or pursuing athletic ambition. In the right context, those are things that can bring great happiness in life. (Your mileage may vary). For many of us, though, the blinders we can put onto our souls when we pursue goals unrelentingly can hide true happiness from us. 

That might describe what happened to Jacob. He was so driven by his ambition that he failed to see how he hurt his brother, his parents, his father-in-law, his wives, and, ultimately, himself. It took a wrestling match with an angel (we'll get there in a few weeks) for him to let go of the drive to compete and to accept his life as it was. For better or for worse, Esau may have gotten there before he did.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Counting from Freedom to Covenant: Eternity
Sukkot: To Everything There is a Season
Letting Go

The Torah has commandments against giving false testimony and there are commandments not to harm people through deception, but there is no commandment not to lie. In fact, lying sometimes is a very important thing to do.  In this week's Torah portion, God tells a lie.

When the three divine messengers came to the tent of Abraham and Sarah at the beginning of this week's portion (Vayera), one of them announced, "I will return to you next year, and your wife Sarah shall have a son!" (Genesis 18:10). When Sarah heard this, she thought to herself, "Now that I am withered, am I to have enjoyment, and with my husband so old?” (verse 12). Sarah, it seems, had a chuckle over the idea that Abraham, 99 years old, would be able to perform sexually and father a son for her. God, of course, heard Sarah's thoughts. God responded to them immediately.

However, the words of God's response did not accurately reflect what Sarah had thought. The next verses tell us that God said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, 'Shall I in truth bear a child, old as I am?' Is anything too wondrous for Adonai? I will return to you at the time next year, and Sarah shall have a son" (verses 13-14). What happened? God told Abraham that Sarah was laughing about how old she was, rather than telling him that she actually was thinking about how old he was. 

You might call it a moment of "Viagra sensitivity." God decided that it would be better to bend the truth a bit to spare Abraham of the knowledge that Sarah was laughing about his lack of sexual prowess. Some things are better left unspoken. A little white lie, in this case, did no harm to either Abraham or Sarah, and it served to avoid resentment or hurt feelings between the two.

The classical rabbis noticed this moment of divine prevarication. From this incident, they came to a conclusion about the relative value of speaking the truth. A midrash teaches, "Bar Kappara said: Great is peace for even Torah twisted the truth in order to preserve peace between Abraham and Sarah" (Genesis Rabbah 48:18). Peace is a greater value even than truth.

Not all lies are excusable. Some lies are meant to keep wrongdoing hidden. Some lies are intended to prevent someone from avoiding a harm or taking advantage of a benefit. Some lies are merely for the convenience or comfort of the liar. These kinds of lies clearly are forbidden in Jewish law. They are regarded as "placing a stumbling block before the blind" (Leviticus 19:14), or they are ways of stealing a person's ability to make a reasoned choice (called g'neivat da'at in Jewish law; B. Chullin 94a). 

But there are other kinds of lies, too. A lie that offers comfort to another person, or that prevents a hurt without causing harm, is not a sin. A lie that spares a person from hearing a brutal truth, one that does him or her no good, may actually be a blessing.

When my grandmother's sister was elderly, near death, and in dementia's grip, she would ask about my grandmother. If someone told her the truth—that my grandmother had died—she would burst into inconsolable weeping. Every time she asked the question and heard the truthful answer, it was as if she was hearing the horrible news for the first time. It was terrible to witness, especially when it occurred multiple times in a single day. 

The family decided that we would spare her the truth. When she asked, "How is Betty?" we would just say, "Betty is doing fine. She's all right"—a lie— and my great aunt could sleep more peacefully. Could there be a commandment against a lie like that? No way.

Truth is great, and we have an instinctive desire to seek truth and to push away lies. But "truth at any cost" may come, sometimes, at too great a cost. Knowing the difference—between the times when the truth must out, and the times when truth should take a back seat to peace—is wisdom far greater than any truth.


Other Topics on This Post:
The King's Advisor
Ha'azinu: Who Can Force the Hand of God?