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Vayigash: A Long Time Ago…

12/18/2015

 
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This is the sermon I delivered tonight at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island.

I don’t want to make any assumptions here, but I think it’s possible that, for some folks here, attending services was your second choice for tonight. I think that some of you are only here because you could not get tickets to see the new Star Wars movie. I’m here to tell you, that it’s okay with me. I can’t wait to see the movie myself.

The first Star Wars movie (which the science fiction geeks among us will refer to as Episode IV: A New Hope) came out in May of 1977. I was fourteen years old. I remember in detail the circumstances of my seeing it for the first time. 

It was July. I was away at summer camp and it was a rainy day, the second or third rainy day in a row. Rather than let the campers sit in their cabins all day making mayhem, the camp directors put us all on busses and took us to the local movie theater. When we got to the theater, we had two choices. The first choice was A Bridge Too Far, an epic World War II movie starring Dirk Bogarde (remember him?), James Caan, Michael Caine and Sean Connery.

The second choice was Star Wars, a science-fictiony, space movie starring Alec Guinness and a bunch of actors nobody had ever heard of. There was the guy who played the man with the cowboy hat in American Graffiti as the captain of a spaceship. (I think he was in a few movies after Star Wars, too). There was Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds' daughter as a space princess. The leading role was played by a young guy who we thought we might have seen in an episode of the Partridge Family, but we weren't sure.

There was a real divide between the boys who went to see A Bridge Too Far and the ones who went to see Star Wars. The war movie attracted the jocks, the 14-year-old boys who liked tough guys and who wanted to be tough guys. (I will mention at this point that I was at a summer camp that catered mostly to Jewish boys from the suburbs of Westchester and Long Island. We were not exactly stereotypes of Marine material). I was not a jock or a tough kid. I was in the smaller group of boys, the nerdier and less physically threatening sort, who went to see Star Wars. 

This is the part of the story where I tear up and say in a voice on the edge of cracking, “This movie changed my life.” So here I go:

This movie changed my life. I watched the opening scene with a bucket of popcorn in my lap. A space ship flew across a black, star filled sky. A larger spaceship, firing at the smaller ship, came down from the top of the screen. It just kept growing and growing until it filled the entire screen. It was enormous. It was overwhelming. I was hooked, and the movie was only in its first minute.

What followed for the next two hours was pure, unadulterated fuel for the imagination of a nerdy adolescent boy. Spaceships, robots, aliens, chases, explosions and adventure. But that was not all. From the first time I watched Star Wars, I was grabbed by the story. There was a boy who felt a distance from the uncle and aunt who had raised him. He felt that he was born for something bigger and better. There was a wise old mentor to guide him, The mentor offered him a chance for the adventure that he did not even know he had been seeking. There was a frightening power that had destroyed the father he had never known. (No spoilers now, people). There was a beautiful princess who needed to be saved. There was the devastating death of the mentor. There was a final confrontation with the dark power that had cast a shadow over his entire life. There was triumph as the boy fulfilled his destiny and destroyed the evil.

This is not just a story that George Lucas imagined as he daydreamed as a young man. This is a story that is as old as storytelling. This is King Arthur pulling the sword from the stone. This is Moses drawn from the water to grow up to defeat Pharaoh. This is Gilgamesh wailing over the death of his companion Enkidu. 

After the closing credits completed and the theater lights came up, I stood to keep up with the other campers who were already leaving to get back on the bus. I remember that I said, out loud, “That is the greatest movie I have ever seen.” And I meant it. I felt sorry for those poor dolts who had gone to see A Bridge Too Far. 

Years later, when I was in my twenties, I read books by Joseph Campbell, the American writer who popularized mythology and the literary foundations of myths. Campbell had a profound effect on Star Wars creator George Lucas and, as Lucas later revealed, much of the structure of the Star Wars story was based on Campbell’s theories about mythic paradigms of the “the hero’s journey.” Campbell also was an influence on me at the time. His books spurred my interest in the sacred nature of stories and how myths help us to form our own personal stories about who we are, the purpose of our lives, and the meaning of our existence.

So now, thirty-eight years after I spilled popcorn all over myself watching “the greatest movie I [had] ever seen,” I am eagerly anticipating the latest episode of the continuing story of Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie. I also think about how Judaism uses stories all of the time to teach us about our lives.

We sell our tradition short if we think that the stories of Abraham, Rebecca, Moses, Esther, David and Ruth are just there to report historic facts, to entertain our children, or to give us a list of God's dos and don'ts. Our tradition is meant to move us, to fire our imaginations to consider the meaning of our lives, the adventure of confronting our own demons, the triumph of living life well. Stories do that for us better than any philosophical treatise or theological discourse. Our stories teach us who we are and they teach us whom we should aspire to be.

In this week’s Torah portion, for example, we see Joseph as the second-in-command of all of Egypt. In front of him are his brothers who do not recognize him, the same brothers who had sold him into slavery decades earlier. The brothers stand in front of Joseph seeking to buy the grain that will keep them and their families alive through a famine. We see Joseph wondering what he should do. Should he make them suffer for their past mistreatment of him? Should he test them and watch them squirm? Should he reveal himself to them? Should he pity them?

It’s not a story that tells us anything useful about the history of Egypt, it does not make a pleasant bedtime story for our children, and it does not contain a single one of God's commandments or laws. It is a holy story because it is a story about us – a story that mirrors our own experience in trying to make difficult, moral decisions in a life that constantly perplexes us. It is a story that urges us to go on the adventure of life and to become the heroes of our own lives, to confront evil and to find where evil lies within ourselves, and it reminds us that we can triumph in small ways and make our world better in so doing.

On this Shabbat, let me wish you a life of adventure, bravery, triumph, and not too many explosions. I wish you Yashar Koch’cha, a Hebrew phrase that literally means, “May your strength be straight,” but which, on this occasion, I shall translate as, “May the Force be with you.”

Shabbat Shalom.​


Other Posts on This Topic:
Becoming the Hero of Your Own Life​
Dreams and Dreamers

Vayigash: Removing the Mask

12/26/2014

 
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Joseph couldn't take it anymore. The charade had to end.

He had been testing his brothers – and maybe also toying with them and tormenting them – for long enough. Hiding behind the mask of the viceroy of Egypt, he had been able to deceive his brothers. He had hidden items in their bags and then accused them of stealing. He had held them captive on trumped up charges. He had done things that we associate with the traits of corrupt power. And all for what?

If it was all a test to see if the brothers who once sold him into slavery had changed, Joseph must have seen that they passed the test. When Joseph's brother, Judah, stood up to the viceroy of Egypt and refused to allow their brother Benjamin to be imprisoned and enslaved, Joseph must have seen that these were no longer the same men who threw him into the pit. They had been changed by the guilt of what they did to Joseph. They had been changed by hearing their father's anguished cries of grief over losing his favorite son. They had been changed by having to maintain the secrets and lies for twenty years.

Joseph ripped off the mask and cried, "I am Joseph! Does my father still live?" (Genesis 45:3).

But the things Joseph did not say spoke just as loudly. He did not admit, justify or apologize for his cruelty to his brothers. He just said that it was all part of God's plan, as if that wiped away his cruel behavior.

Was it really necessary for Joseph to use his power as viceroy to lock up his brother Simeon and to threaten them all? Wasn't it also a bit of revenge? Wasn't Joseph motivated at least as much by his anger toward his older brothers as he was by an attempt to discern whether they had changed?

I think that when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, he also was revealed to himself. "I am Joseph!" was as much an admission as a revelation. He admitted that he was still, in some ways, the arrogant and spoiled child who once harassed his brothers with Jacob's favoritism and his dreams of dominating them. Joseph ripped off the mask because he could not stand to perpetuate a game in which he toyed with his brothers. The time had come for him to admit his identity -- both the outer mask and his inner, unsavory truth.

The story of Joseph – indeed, the entire story of the book of Genesis – is the story of admitting what we are. The perfect God has made us imperfect, so it is our challenge and our duty to know ourselves, to confront our truth, and thereby transcend it.

What masks do you wear to hide your faults? When will you take them off and admit, after all, that you are human?



Other Posts on This Topic:
Miketz: Deception

Learning about Jewish Prayer from Yoga

In Remembrance of Nelson Mandela

12/6/2013

 
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When I heard yesterday about the death of Nelson Mandela, I was overwhelmed by memories of my days as a college student and activist. This man, whom I never met, had a profound effect on my life. Today, I cannot help but think of him and share some memories.

I've often said that, despite what it says on my diploma, my real major in college was "pissing off the administration." Mostly, that was over the issue of the college's investments in companies that did business in South Africa. That was the "old South Africa," a nation built on the racist system called apartheid. It was a nation that was peacefully overthrown by a movement that was led by Nelson Mandela.

As a college student, I helped organize sit-ins, marches, and educational forums to let people know about our college's role in supporting apartheid. "Free Nelson Mandela" was one of our marching cries. 

As a student representative on the college's General Faculty, I helped draft a resolution calling for divestment from South Africa. With the help and support of many students and faculty members, that resolution passed in 1985. For me, a 21-year old kid at the time, it was the first time I really experienced how, when people work together, they can make a real difference to build a better society.

There are certainly those who will say today that the South Africa that Nelson Mandela helped to build is a far cry from being "a better society." South Africa today is plagued by violence, poverty, disease, government corruption, continuing racism, and an unacceptable chasm separating the "haves" from the "have-nots." But Nelson Mandela deserves to be remembered as one of the great leaders of the 20th century despite his country's many problems.

To me, as an impressionable young man, Mandela was a moral exemplar of the highest order. He was born into a family that enjoyed prosperity and privileges that far exceeded those of most black South Africans, yet he put all of those comforts on the line to wage battle against the injustice of his society. He was accused of treason in a trial that lasted from 1956 to 1961 for his non-violent opposition to apartheid. A year after he was acquitted in that trial, he was arrested again and convicted for conspiring to overthrow the government. He spent the next 27 years in prison for speaking the truth and for trying to end a hateful and racist regime.

Mandela was freed from his life sentence in 1990, mostly in response to an international campaign calling for his release. The student-led campaign on U.S. college campuses was cited frequently in the press as a major factor. Mandela then negotiated an agreement with South African President F.W. de Klerk to end apartheid and to set up free, democratic, multi-racial elections.

Despite the predictions of many in the government and the press, the new South Africa did not become a state that sought to punish the white minority that had oppressed the black majority for decades. Mandela became a champion of reconciliation and national unity. After serving one term as South Africa's first black President, he declined to run for re-election and, instead, became an international leader for peace and against HIV/AIDS. 

I only saw him once in person. That was during a tour through the United States in 1994. I heard him speak on the Boston esplanade along with hundreds of thousands of others. 

Mandela, to me, is one of the few figures I have seen in my lifetime who comes close to the example of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Like Jeremiah who called his nation to bear witness against its own sins, Mandela forced South African society to face its moral failings, to take up the obligation to feed the poor, house the homeless, and to lift the shackles from the oppressed. Like Isaiah, he promised that when his country changed its ways, it would be rewarded with a new day of rebirth and renewal. To the best of his human abilities, he worked tirelessly to fulfill that promise.

And let me draw one more connection between the life of Nelson Mandela and our tradition. In 1964, when Mandela stood trial for attempting to overthrow the South African government, he gave the speech that turned him into an icon for the cause of freedom. In that speech he spoke truths that most white South Africans were not ready to hear about their country. He spoke about how white South Africans feared democracy because it would bring an end to their monopoly on power. He told them, not unkindly, that they had a chance to redeem themselves by living up to they values they said they cherished. 

He said at the Rivonia Trial:

This is the struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and experience. It is a struggle for the right to live. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society, in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunity. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But, if needs be, my Lord, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

It was a speech that was eerily reminiscent of a speech in this week's Torah portion (Vayigash). Standing before the powerful vizier of Epypt, Judah spoke about the suffering of his father and his willingness to give up his own life to restore freedom to his brother, Benjamin. The vizier — who, of course, was really his brother, Joseph, in disguise — was so moved that he broke down in tears, relented from his anger, and freed Benjamin (Genesis 44:18 - 45:8). 

This is how Nelson Mandela won freedom for his people. He spoke the truth. He told white South Africa about its own fears and its own path to redemption. In the end, apartheid itself was unmasked and the reconciliation of brothers that followed included the brother who had once been the oppressor. May it be so wherever people are oppressed.

It is difficult for me to imagine my life as it has been without the inspiration of Nelson Mandela, and I am but one of millions who will say the same. His loss is keenly felt, but the things he did in his life will continue to inspire generations to come.

Zichrono livrachah. May his memory be a blessing.

Vayigash: Finding a Way Out of the Pit

12/29/2011

 
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Joseph Thrown into the Pit. Verduner altarpiece in Klosterneuburg, Austria
If you have ever suffered grief after a loss—and many of us have—you know how debilitating it can be. In this this week's Torah portion (Vayigash), we see Jacob as a father who has lost a child and is devastated. Jacob appears to be so fixated on the imagined death of his favorite son, Joseph, that it affects every decision he makes, even decades after the loss.

Joseph, the reader knows, actually was still alive. His brothers sold him into slavery and, rather than reveal the truth, they allowed their father to believe that he was dead. As a slave, Joseph suffered a series of setbacks and redemptions that eventually led him to greatness. He became the viceroy to Pharaoh in faraway Egypt. 

But Jacob did not know about any of that and it was of no help to his grief. It actually may have made matters worse.

Rabbinic tradition puts great emphasis on the intensity of Jacob's inconsolable grief. There is a teaching that says that it is God's compassion that allows people to gradually release themselves from the memory of people who have died. However, Jacob could not be comforted because Joseph was not really dead and, therefore, he could not be forgotten. Jacob's pain remained as intense as it was in the first moment after he heard of Joseph's death (B. Soferim 43b). 

The grief in this story is not limited to Jacob. When family's shatter and fall apart, loss is experienced by everyone in different ways. Each person responds to grief differently. As viceroy of Egypt, Joseph tested and tormented his brothers, and that may have been a part of his way of acting out the grief of losing his family for so many years.

Joseph kept his identity hidden from his brothers. They did not recognize him when they came before the viceroy of Egypt to request food to keep them from starvation. Joseph added to the deception by falsely accusing the brothers of being spies. He told them that they had to bring their youngest brother—Joseph's only full brother, Benjamin—if they ever wanted to seek food from him again. 

When the brothers returned to their father, and told Jacob that they would not be able to get more food from Egypt without bringing Benjamin, it triggered every fear within Jacob from the loss of Joseph. Jacob, it seemed, would have preferred to starve rather than risk a second loss. Eventually, he relented, but only after one of the brothers, Judah, swore upon his life that the boy would return alive.

When Jacob's sons did bring Benjamin to Egypt and Joseph saw his full brother for the first time in decades, Joseph committed his final deception by falsely accusing Benjamin of stealing. He held Benjamin as a prisoner and told the other brothers they would have to leave him behind in Egypt. 

For the brothers, the moment was a repetition of the sale of Joseph. Would they again abandon their little brother? Had they learned anything from the grief of their father and the guilt of their crime?

This week's Torah portion begins with Judah, who was still unaware of the viceroy's true identity, giving an impassioned speech to Joseph. He pleaded for the release of Benjamin. In the speech, Joseph heard his brother's true repentance for selling him into slavery. Judah told the viceroy of their father's debilitating grief after the loss of his favorite son and how the loss of another favorite son would kill him. Joseph could not contain himself any longer. He cried out, "I am Joseph! Does my father still live?" (Genesis 45:3).

Grief and loss pervade the story. On the one hand, there was the pain of the brothers as they re-experience the trauma and guilt of losing Joseph. For Joseph, there was the agonizing grief of losing his entire family and not being able to reveal himself to them after so many years. Most of all, there was the unquenchable grief of Jacob, the man who could never forget the loss of his favorite child. 

The story forces us to wonder about the nature of grief, sorrow and sadness. Loss is a necessary part of life, so grief, too, must be part of our existence. But Jacob's torment was beyond ordinary grief. 

We know of such grief. We know of people who experience such profound and long-lasting grief that it seems to prevent them from ever knowing joy again. Judaism has something to say about such grief.

In Jewish tradition, grief is not a sin. Yet, there is a recognition that even the most dire sin is not as soul-wrenching as unrestrained grief. Deep and long-lasting sadness is dangerous and a person is urged to avoid it as one would avoid walking near an abyss.

In Chasidic teachings, which emphasize the importance of joy and avoiding sadness, the masters say that a Jew "must always be filled with joy." Yet, there is a recognition that this is not always an easy thing to achieve, especially in the face of grief. 

Today, we generally think about prolonged and deep grief as a sign of depression. It is an illness that affects a person's capacity to feel hope. When we are depressed, our ability to imagine a positive future is compromised and we feel incapable of taking any action to make our situation better.

Yet, as an illnesses, depression can be treated. There are things that we can do to find our way back toward joy when we are depressed. In helping people who are depressed, I generally recommend that they seek counseling from a qualified professional. I also suggest that they do simple things that can help them rediscover hope. 

Laughing, singing, dancing, meditating, praying, walking outside, painting, writing, and planning for the future are all things that I have seen people do to help themselves out of the hopelessness of depression. Most of all, I have found, that when depressed people do things to help others, it helps them to renew their own capacity to find joy in their own lives.

The Joseph story comes to its climax this week with the revelation of Joseph to his brothers and Joseph's reunification with his father. The separation and loss that led to grief came to an end, but the aftereffects of grief remained. 

Joseph's brothers continued to be wary that their brother would seek revenge against them after their father's death. Joseph, too, seemed to have a permanent emotional separation from his brothers. Before his death, Jacob offered blessings to his sons that reflected the bitterness of his years of grief. We are reminded that the acute pain of grief can be comforted, but it never can be fully healed.

I know, as I write this, that many people struggle silently with grief. I know that there are times when depression seems like a bottomless pit from which there is no exit. The story of Joseph can feel like a betrayal to people who know that they, unlike Jacob and Joseph, will never again see the people they miss. 

Yet, the story can be a reminder that we can take action to emerge from sorrow. Joseph and his brothers found a way to heal the pain of their separation. Jacob did renew his life. He embraced his grandsons and saw the light of their father's eyes within them. 

We can seize our lives and become our own champions. We can find ways to take simple steps toward new hope.


Other posts on this topic:
Devarim: How?

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