There is a cute greeting in Hebrew. You might say mazal tov! osher va’osher! Congratulations. May you have happiness and wealth.
The word osher, depending on how it is spelled, can mean two different things. With an aleph, osher means “happiness.” With an ayin, osher means “wealth,” as in material wealth.
It is a fascinating homophone.
You’ve probably heard the English expression, “Money can’t buy happiness.” The world is not quite so simplistic. Because money can certainly pay for a whole bunch of things that make life not only possible, but easier, and more enjoyable. Without enough money to satisfy our needs, a life of happiness and fulfillment becomes quite a challenge.
Nevertheless, the unrelenting pursuit of osher with an ayin, money, can indeed keep us from a life of osher with an aleph, happiness.
Isaac Arama was a fifteenth century Spanish Rabbi who published weekly sermons in a book called Aqaydat Yitzchaq. He goes so far as to say that “material possessions are a handicap to one’s efforts to determine true values.” Money gets in the way of a meaningful life.
But Arama is a realist. He acknowledges the importance of material possessions. Human beings have physical needs, and it is through labor that we acquire those things that we need to survive and to thrive. He cites the mishnah in Pirkei Avot: im ein kemach ein torah, im ein torah, ein kemach. “If there is no flour, there can be no Torah.” Material wealth is necessary to enable a person to study Torah. A person who is constantly struggling to put food on the table, to pay for health care, rent, and electricity, doesn’t have much time, or even peace of mind, to luxuriate on the development of his soul. Having enough material possessions makes it possible for us to acquire spiritual values. On the other hand, where there is no Torah, there is no flour. Without Torah, without the proper use of our material possessions, true living is not possible. Spiritual fulfillment cannot be achieved.
Maybe that is why we wish each other both osher va’osher. True happiness, true fulfillment, with the material blessings that make it possible.
But most human societies today do not offer a healthy balance of material and spiritual opportunities. Today, we face so much pressure to be always available for our jobs, to measure our success in life by how much stuff we have, and to never give ourselves a real break. We are constantly in pursuit of osher with an ayin, wealth. But do we do what we ought to truly cultivate osher with an aleph?
But this is not a dilemma only for the fast-paced twenty first century. Go back three thousand years and find that human beings were also struggling to find that balance.
Parashat Behar, the first of this morning’s double portion, begins with the laws of the Shemittah, the sabbatical year. Every seven years, the Israelite farmers are prohibited from working the land. Whatever it produces on its own will sustain them. Indeed, as long as the Israelites follow the rules, God promises to bless the land with so much abundance in the sixth year that there will be plenty of food throughout the seventh.
Interestingly, the beginning of God’s instructions are only partially directed towards the Israelites. “When you (Israelites) enter the land that I assign to you,”
וְשָׁבְתָה הָאָרֶץ שַׁבָּת לַה’
“the land shall observe a sabbath of the Lord.” (Lev. 25:2)
Notice, the instruction is not given to the Israelites to let the land rest. The subject of the verb “observe a sabbath” is “the land.” We learn that the land also gets to rest. The land is personified.
What does it mean for the land to rest? There are a few details. First, there is to no agricultural work performed on the land or on trees. Second, anything the land produces on its own, all produce, is ownerless. Anybody can come and pick it. Jewish law forbids a farmer from putting up fences or gates around his fields, or stockpiling produce during the seventh year. Anyone is supposed to be able to come on to his property and pick whatever they want. Later on, in the book of Deuteronomy, a third rule is mentioned which refers to the cancellation of debts in the seventh year.
What is the reason for the shemitah. Why does the land get to rest?
One might say that it makes good economic sense to require a sabbatical year. After all, letting land lie fallow and rotating crops is good for farming. It enables the earth to regain nutrients, and ultimately to be more productive. There is certainly a connection between good agricultural practices and the laws of shemitah. But farmers should not need to be commanded to rotate their crops. They do it because it is good practice to do so. In fact, simply letting your fields lie fallow once every seven years would not be particularly effective. According to one scholar, ancient Israelites probably let their land lie fallow biennially, even though the Torah does not mention this. There must be something else to the Torah’s idea of shemitah.
Many scholars notice the similarities between the commandment to let the land rest every seven years, and for people to rest every seven days. Throughout the Torah, the only two things that are described as shabbat ladonai – a sabbath unto God – are the seventh day, and the seventh year. None of the holidays, not even Yom Kippur, is described as such. There is a close link between Shabbat and Shemitah.
The symbolic meaning of Shabbat is as a reminder of the Creation of the universe. Just as God rested on the seventh day after six days of creation, we rest on the seventh day.
To be clear, this is not meant to teach us the scientific origin of the world. It is meant to teach us about our relationship to the world. That the world belongs to God, and that we are ultimately dependent on God. Shabbat instills a sense of humility in human beings. By regularly spending a day not dominating our world, we are reminded that there is something greater than us. The shemitah, with its many similarities to Shabbat, embodies this lesson as well.
With regard to Shabbat, we are told that every living thing among us is entitled to rest: our son and our daughter, our male and female slaves, our animals, and the strangers living among us. During the shemitah year as well, the Torah lists everyone who is entitled to freely eat from anything the land produces: you, your male and female slaves, the hired and bound laborers who live with you, your cattle, and the beasts of the field. Ownership of land is basically put on hold for that year.
Focusing on this ceasing of economic activity, one commentator sees the shemitah as promoting union and peace. All strife comes from the attitude of “what’s mine is mine.” The shemitah year says, effectively, nothing really belongs to any of us. Every human being is equal.
Isaac Arama, who I mentioned earlier, points to an additional lesson. He says that “the suspension of work in every seventh year causes us to realize that our mission on earth is not to be slaves to the soil but a much higher and nobler one. Work should only serve the purpose of providing food and other needs, while our task is to attain the supreme end; the purpose of giving this land to this people was not to be brought into the land in order to be enslaved by it, and addicted to tilling it and gather in the crops and enrich themselves… Their purpose is to accomplish themselves and seek perfection, according to the will of their Creator, while satisfying the needs of their sustenance.”
In other words, properly observing the shemitah will enable us to reach a healthy balance between our pursuit of osher with an ayin and osher with an aleph, between wealth and happiness.
But the laws of shemitah have very little practical significance to us today. First of all, they do not apply to land outside of Israel. Second, Jewish communities throughout the millenia were always trying to find ways to circumvent the restrictions of shemitah. If it is to pay taxes to the Romans, it is ok to cultivate some crops. If you sell the land to a non-Jew, that person can work the land and sell the produce back to you. And many other creative ways to not have to stop economic activity for a year. The human drive to get more stuff is just too powerful.
That does not mean, however, that we should ignore what the laws of shemitah would ask of us.
Isaac Arama would have us ask ourselves, “Is my mission on earth to be a slave acquiring more material wealth, or is my mission a higher and nobler one? Am I working to provide just enough for myself and loved ones to survive and thrive, or have I gone beyond that” “How am I living a fulfilled life?” “Will the direction in which my life is going lead to true happiness?”
Shabbat and Shemitah tell us that, to get at what truly matters, we have to take a break from material pursuits. Let’s ask ourselves: Am I taking breaks? Am I turning off my cell phone? Am I finding time to study Torah? Am I giving extended amounts of uninterrupted attention to the people I love?
In short, am I pursuing a life that places equal value on both osher and osher?
*1*Hopkins 1985: 201
*2*Kli Yakar, Deut. 31:12
Author Archives: Rabbi Josh Berkenwald
Preach-In on Global Warming – Yitro 5772
This morning, we read about the paradigmatic human encounter with God.
The Israelites have come out of Egypt, crossed through the Sea of Reeds, and arrived, finally, at the base of Mount Sinai. This is the moment they have been waiting for. The moment when God will come down on to the mountain and be revealed before the collected nation. The people spend three days getting themselves physically, and spiritually ready. God declares to Moses “All the earth is mine, but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Ex. 19:5-6)
For the Jewish people, this is the moment when God, to whom the entire earth belongs, is encountered in the most complete sense possible. And that encounter leaves us with the challenge and opportunity to be holy.
The encounter with God is, by definition, a mystical experience, and words cannot fully convey mystical experiences. The Torah describes thunder, a dense cloud, and lightning. The mountain is covered in smoke. The earth trembles. The sound of the shofar pierces the air.
The metaphor is of a volcano, a thunderstorm, and an earthquake all rolled up into one. But we are not to understand this as a weather or geological phenomenon. The encounter with God simply overwhelms the senses. All of that holiness is too much to handle. And so the people turn to Moses, their leader, and ask him to go talk to God, and that they will do whatever he says. This is the role of the prophet. To hear and interpret the message within the God encounter.
We read of another Prophet’s mystical experience in the Haftarah. The Prophet Isaiah is in the Temple courts when he receives an ecstatic vision of the heavenly court. He does not indicate that he has seen God directly, but rather the hem of God’s royal robes filling the throne room. Later on, he will describe smoke. It is likely that they are one and the same. The incense from the earthly Temple, God’s robes, smoke, are all ways of describing the glory of God. In Hebrew, kavod.
Indeed, Isaiah describes a vision of angels, who are calling out to one another kadosh kadosh kadosh, adonai tz’va-ot, “Holy, holy, holy. The Lord of Hosts…” And then they say m’lo khol ha-aretz k’vodo. While this phrase has traditionally been translated as “the whole world is filled with with God’s glory,” the real meaning is slightly different. m’lo chol ha-aretz k’vodo: “the fullness of the earth is God’s glory.”
We cannot see God directly, but what we can see is God’s kavod, God’s glory. It is the kavod that the Israelites encounter at Mt. Sinai, described as smoke, fire, lightning, and the sound of the shofar. It is the kavod that the Prophet Isaiah encounters in the Temple, described as the hem of God’s royal robes, and as smoke.
So where do we go to encounter God’s Presence? How do we meet the challenge of being a holy people? Isaiah tells us. God’s kavod, the Divine glory, is to be found in the fullness of the world.
Our ability to encounter that kavod must begin with a sense of wonder. Of recognizing the miracles that abound all around us. The miracle in a sunrise, in rainfall at a time when it is needed, in migrating birds passing through our lives twice a year. To see these miracles, to approach the world with wonder, requires of us a humility that we, as a human species, lack.
God announced, before coming down on to Mount Sinai, ki li kol-ha-aretz, “for all the earth is mine.” That may be true. But our twenty-first century lifestyle, with all of our technology and progress, inhibits us from being able to acknowledge it.
This is not just a spiritual problem. It is also an environmental problem.
We have paved over our world,. We spend most of our days in hermetically-sealed, climate-controlled buildings. Most of our food is produced by people we will never meet in fields we will never walk on.
This Shabbat, I am joining hundreds of other clergy from all faiths in a “Preach-in for global warming.” Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and other faiths, are speaking about the religious imperative to change the way that we interact with the planet.
We have all heard the reports. Our use of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, has created a layer of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere that traps heat in. At the rate we are going, average global temperatures are expected to rise significantly over the next century. We have seen a lot of weird weather patters over the past decade. That will continue and get worse, with disastrous effects for the earth’s inhabitants. Coastal areas are at great risk from the expected rise of sea levels. There will be effects on health and disease, as well as availability and access to drinking water.
These changes will of course effect all of us, but the ones who will suffer the worst consequences are invariably the poor. Not to mention the plant and animal species that will become extinct due to our mismanagement of the planet.
If we expand the conversation beyond just global warming, we find that there are so many other ways in which human exploitation of the earth’s bounty causes harm. We don’t manage our water resources properly. Our industry produces pollution. Human expansion causes deforestation and the destruction of ecosystems.
So there are some very real, self-serving reasons for humanity to change the way we relate to the earth.
If we know all of this, that mismanagement of our resources harms our world, it should seem like an obvious thing to change our behavior. So why is change so difficult?
This is where the religions of the world have an important role to play. In our Jewish tradition, we read in the Torah that Adam and Eve are placed in the Garden of Eden and instructed, with regard to the plants, and the animals, that our rule is v’kivshu-ha. “You shall dominate it.” Humanity has taken that to heart. We dominate the world and its resources – for ourselves. We have an anthropocentric relationship to the universe. Even though we intellectually know that we are just a speck, our behavior suggests otherwise – that we are the most important beings in the universe. We need to fundamentally change how we understand our role in the world. Not as dominators, but as caretakers.
But haven’t we done a lot, you might ask? There are solar panels on the roof of this building. Some of us have bought fuel efficient cars. We have swapped out our light bulbs. Those are important things to do.
But none of those things, even if we all did them, will make the difference that is needed. What is needed is a transformation of how we live. And the well-intentioned changes that most of us have made have enabled us to go on living the same way we have always been living.
How many of us have switched over to carpooling, or stopped driving altogether to instead use public transportation? At the moment, we have received about 25% of the average rainfall that we should be getting. Has anybody here started taking shorter showers, or ripped out their lawn so as to use less water?
We are generally willing, and even eager, to make small changes in our lives, but the big things that will be needed will come at a cost. If we really took this seriously, we would reduce our meat consumption, put on a sweater instead of turning on the heat, take fewer trips by car, and especially by plane. We would change where we live and shift to higher density living. We would have a whole let less stuff. And we would change the laws regulating how our energy is generated and consumed. Life would look very different.
In this morning’s parshah, we read the Ten Commandments. Number five lists the mitzvah of honoring our parents. Our tradition teaches that, because we are brought into the world by our mother, our father, and God, we therefore owe them honor and reverence.
I once had a teacher, Rabbi Ira Stone, who surprised us when he said that it is the other way around. We never asked to be born. Every one of us was brought into the world through no action or decision on our part whatsoever. What does that mean? It means that it is our parents who owe us. Or, speaking now as a parent, it is I who owes my kids. I am accountable to them because I helped bring them into the world.
God-willing, my kids will one day have kids of their own, and then they will know what it feels like to be responsible for them too.
I fear that, as parents, we are not living up to our obligations to our kids and grandkids when it comes to the world that we are turning over to them. But that can change. We can change that.
Addressing our environmental challenges in a serious way would enable us to earn our kids’ respect, and would lead us to be more spiritually aware. We would approach the world with a sense of wonder. By enabling ourselves to truly experience the fullness of the world, we might even merit God’s Presence. May we have the strength to do so.
Income Inequality – Behar 5771
As you know, economists have officially declared the recession over. That may be true on paper, but there are still millions who have lost their jobs, and their homes, and are struggling to get by. Despite the immensity of the recession, it has not impacted everyone the same. Some have come through just fine, and even prospered. One of the recent critiques we have heard is that the national unemployment rate is still well over 8 percent while some of the largest American corporations are making record profits and sitting on billions of dollars. There are vast differences between the economic experiences of Americans. I don’t think there is much disagreement that there is something broken in the socio-economics of this country. There is a lot of disagreement about what is broken and how to fix it.
As a Diaspora people, Jews have lived in many different societies. But wherever we have lived, we have taken our Torah, and our teachings with us, and we have applied their lessons to the situations we face. This morning’s Torah portion has a lot to say to us about the relationship between the rich and the poor in society.
Most of Parshat Behar, is a presentation of the laws of land ownership in ancient Israel. It describes an economic system that is vastly different from what we have today. It is agriculturally based. There is no money. And land is apportioned to tribes, clans, and families. As in some other societies in the Ancient World, land could not really be sold. Great value was placed on keeping ancestral land within the family. The Torah adds an innovative, and powerful moral concept with far-reaching implications. God instructs the people, “But the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me.” (Lev. 25:23)
The Israelites get this reminder every seven years, when they observe shemitah, and let the land lie fallow. Every fifty years, they observe the yovel, the Jubilee. In that year, all land reverts back to its original owner. Any Israelite who had to indenture himself into servitude regains his freedom, and his land. All debts are cancelled.
This economic model, if fully implemented, would have some pretty significant effects. Families would not fall into multi-generational poverty, since there would effectively be an economic reset every fifty years.
Also, it would be impossible for anyone to accumulate huge amounts of property, since any land or debt that a successful business person acquired would revert on the Jubilee year. There is not even such a thing as selling land, just leasing it for a period of time up until the fiftieth year.
The result would be a flattening of economic disparities. You can imagine that the gap between the richest and the poorest in society would never get that huge if everything reset itself every half century.
What I especially appreciate about the system that the Torah dscribes is that it is not a pie in the sky utopia. It does not say that everyone will be equal. This is not “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” This system understands that some people are going to be wealthier, better educated, shrewder, and luckier, than others.
Remember, the underlying moral value is that the land ultimately is owned by God, and not us. While prosperity is important, there are values that are more important to pursue than the accumulation of wealth.
In his commentary on the Book of Leviticus, Jacob Milgrom describes these laws as trying to stop the loss of land by debtors to the rich, as well as reduce “the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor.” The Biblical Prophets condemned the mistreatment of the poor in their particular prophetic style. They harangued a society for ignoring the light of the poor, the stranger, the widow, and the orphan. Here in the Book of Leviticus, Israel’s priests are trying to fix the immorality of economic inequality, not through moral pronouncements, but through law.
Nevertheless, the historical evidence suggests that the Jubilee year as presented in the Torah was never actually practiced. What are we to make of its appearance here? It is a presentation of values. An ancient reader would see in this theoretical economic system a critique of what was probably a less just society in which those with less money, and less power, did not have many opportunities. A society in which bankruptcy risked dooming a family to poverty for generations.
We seem to have some of the same issues today.
As you no doubt are aware, the last several decades have seen a significant rise in income inequality around the world.
Of all developed countries, the income gap between the rich and the poor is greatest in the United States. In 2008, the top earning 20 percent of Americans, who earn at least $100,000 per year, received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the country The bottom 20 percent received just 3.4 percent of all income. The relative gap is the widest that it has been since the U.S. Census Bureau started collecting data in 1968.
We are not going to get into what causes income disparities, or how to reduce them. But I do want to talk about the effects.
There has been a lot of study over the last few decades about the impact that large gaps between the rich and the poor has on society.
Robert Putnam, the professor of political science at Harvard University, conducted a study on the relationship between social capital, or the connections between members of a society, and economic inequality. He found that throughout the twentieth century, social connectedness and civic engagement moved “in tandem” with economic equality. The flatter the gap between the rich and the poor, the more society was interconnected. The high point in social capital, according to Putnam, occurred during the 1950’s and 1960’s, which was also the most economically egalitarian period in the twentieth century. “Conversely,” he writes, “the last third of the twentieth century was a time of growing inequality and eroding social capital… The timing of the two trends is striking: somewhere around 1965-70 America reversed course and started becoming both less just economically and less well connected socially and politically.”
In other words, when the rich-poor gap is smaller, society functions better. There are more interactions between people. Communities are tighter-knit. Individuals are more engaged politically, meaning that they are more involved in shaping the course of society.
There are many other social factors that have been also statistically correlated to income inequality. To the extant that the income gap is reduced, societies in the developed world experience lower homicide rates, fewer mental health problems and less teen-age pregnancy. But the gap is expanding.
It was not always like this. In 1831, in his book Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville talked about how wonderful the economic equality was that he witnessed. He writes:
Among the new objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me with greater force than the equality of conditions. I easily perceived the enormous influence that this primary fact exercises on the workings of society. It gives a particular direction to the public mind, a particular turn to the laws, new maxims to those who govern, and particular habits to the governed… It creates opinions, gives rise to sentiments, inspires customs, and modifies everything it does not produce… I kept finding that fact before me again and again as a central point to which all of my observations were leading.
De Tocqueville was describing an engaged, inspired population. I don’t think de Tocqueville would be able to make those comment today.
Today, with the widest gap between the wealthy and the poor this country has seen since the 1920’s, it seems that there is a tremendous despair among individuals about our ability to affect society. With corporations now defined as people, and large PACs with unknown sources of funding able to influence politics with huge amounts of money, that despair seems justified.
The point I want to make this morning is that our Jewish tradition has always understood large gaps between the rich and the poor to be highly problematic. Such disparities are harmful to a cohesive society, and are antithetical to the Jewish notion of justice. To be clear, our tradition encourages us to be involved in the material world around us. We pray for God to bless us with prosperity. Wealth and prosperity are things to pursue. But not as ends in and of themselves. Only as means to do the more important work of serving God by creating a just world.
It is said that you can always cherry pick a text that will support your position. I don’t think that can be said about this issue. I have never heard or read any Jewish thinker, speaking from within the tradition, defend the idea that the rich should be free to acquire as much as they can without regard to the consequences on the rest of society. As Jews, we have a moral and a legal obligation to create opportunities for the people at the bottom to succeed. We can argue about strategy – raise taxes, lower taxes, expand social services, cut medicaid – but from a Jewish perspective, something has to be done about income inequality.
The Sin of “Reply to All” – Kedoshim 5771
I want to share with you the most dangerous word in the world today. A word that can bring down governments. A word that can destroy reputations. A word that can kill. The word is―
Forward
You know what I am talking about. An email conversation with sensitive information gets forwarded on to someone new, with the entire history of previous conversations included at the bottom. Perhaps you have received one of those emails.
Maybe you have even forwarded along a conversation, accidentally I am sure, that spread embarrassing or harmful details about another person.
I have, and the feeling is terrible. Because once we hit send, there is no taking it back. Forever. It is in the cloud, possibly to resurface at any time.
The ability to share information is a double edged sword. As we speak, it is being used to enable people to rise up to demand freedom from authoritarian rulers. The release of the Wikileaks documents are another example. Both made possible by “Forward.”
But the sharing of information has an impact on a personal level as well. Sometimes with deadly results.
We saw this recently with the tragic death of Rutgers freshman student Tyler Clementi, who took his life after being the victim of cyberbullying.
While the technology that enabled all of these events is cutting edge, the danger that the digital cloud poses is ancient.
It is a danger that is the most neglected mitzvah in all of Judaism. We read about it in this morning’s parshah.
לֹא־תֵלֵךְ רָכִיל בְּעַמֶּיךָ
Do not deal basely with your countrymen… (Lev. 19:16)
Although this is a difficult verse to understand, our tradition has interpreted “do not deal basely with your countrymen” to be a reference to gossip. Although I can’t give you statistics to back this up, I would argue that the prohibition against lashon hara, literally “an evil tongue,” is the most frequently broken commandment in all of Judaism, even before the days of the internet.
While the Torah’s reference to gossip is somewhat unclear, our tradition has filled in the gaps extensively.
One ancient teaching states that a gossiper can stand in Rome and cause a death in Syria.*1* The tragedy of Tyler Clementi is a case in point.
Gossip is also compared to an arrow. In fact, I’d like to share several arrow metaphors.
Why is gossip like an arrow, as opposed to other weapons? Because other weapons can only slay those who are near them, whereas an arrow can kill from a distance.*2*
Another arrow metaphor: If a man takes a sword in hand to slay his fellow, who then pleads with him and begs for mercy, the would-be slayer can change his mind and return the sword to its sheath. But once the would-be slayer has shot an arrow, it cannot be brought back even if he wants to.*3*
Metaphor number three. The thirteenth century Rabbi Jonah Gerondi said: “One who draws the bow often sends his arrow into a person without the latter’s knowing who hit him.”*4*
These three metaphors reveal three problems with gossip.
1. It can harm from great distances.
2. It cannot be retracted.
3. It is often anonymous, making it impossible for the victim to confront its source.
So much has been written about gossip over the millenia, I cannot begin to cover the subject this morning. I would like to discuss a new aspect of lashon hara that the Sages of our tradition could never have imagined. A development that has taken this occasionally deadly scourge and exponentially multiplied its frequency and its potential to harm.
I am talking about lashon hara in the digital age.
The metaphor that the Torah uses for gossip, לֹא־תֵלֵךְ רָכִיל בְּעַמֶּיךָ, literally means, “do not act as a merchant for your own kinsmen.” It imagines that the marketplace is where gossip is passed along, the merchant being the one who is most privy to secret dealings and gossip. And so, the traditional understanding of where gossip happens places it in the center of town, or in people’s kitchens, or perhaps even in shul, at the kiddush lunch after services, God forbid.
When the Talmud warns that gossip uttered in Rome can kill in Syria, it imagines transmission by caravan, over a period of months or years.
Now, the transmission of gossip can be measured in fractions of seconds.
Our lives are increasingly played out not in one another’s physical presence, but digitally. First email, now Facebook and Twitter. For many, social interaction takes place somewhere in the cloud.
The three arrow metaphors about gossip that I mentioned earlier are so true of the internet as well.
We are connected over great distances. Once an email is sent, or a tweet posted, or a status updated, it cannot be taken back. And finally, the internet makes it so easy to spread information anonymously.
But there is another aspect of the digital lashon hara that makes it even harder for us to resist. When we are having a face to face conversation with a real person, we hear voice inflections and see facial and body expressions that make it a full communication. The presence of the other person forces us to watch what we say, at least a little bit. We serve as checks on one another’s behavior. How is what I say or do going to be received by the person right in front of me?
But when we are sitting in front of a screen, or texting below the table in class or at a meeting – not that anyone here does that – our physical interaction is with a two dimensional piece of glass. The human connection is gone.
That is why people will write things in emails that they would never say in person. One can be much less inhibited online. There are, of course, positive aspects to this. The internet opens up possibilities of expression for people who might not otherwise have a voice. But basic rules of decent behavior are so much easier to ignore when there is no physical person in front of us. Nevertheless, we must not ignore them.
We are currently in the period of the omer. The seven weeks of counting that begins on the second day of Passover and lasts until the day before Shavuot. Today is the eleventh day. I have taken it upon myself this year to try to reduce the amout of lashon hara that I engage in. I have not managed to eradicate all gossip from my life. Cold turkey is always tough. But I think I have been controlling my tongue a bit better. I am at least more aware of the numerous moments of gossip that I encounter every day, both as speaker, listener, and reader.
May I suggest that we all spend the remaining thirty eight days of the Omer focusing on just this one aspect of digital lashon hara.
Here is a way that I think may help. One of the Sages of the Talmud, Rabbi Yossi taught: “I never made a statement for which I would have to turn around and check whether the person about whom I was speaking was present.”*5*
Let’s bring Rabbi Yossi into the age of Facebook and Twitter. Before sending an email, Tweet, or status update that mentions someone who is not among the recipients, ask the following question: How would I feel if that person read this message in my presence? Forget about wondering how the other person would feel. How would I feel?
If you think you might feel at all uncomfortable if the other person read it, that is a pretty good indication that the message is within the realm of lashon hara.
By the way, this is also a good rule to follow if the person about whom you are writing is among the recipients. If you would not want the other person to read the message with you in the same room, it might be better to keep it to yourself, or pick up the phone instead.
At the end of the Amidah, a prayer which is traditionally recited at least three times a day, there is a meditation that originates in the Talmud. It begins
אֱלֹהַי, נְצוֹר לְשׁוֹנִי מֵרָע. וּשְׂפָתַי מִדַּבֵּר מִרְמָה.
“My Lord, prevent my tongue from evil. And my lips from speaking deceit.”
It is a prayer that acknowledges that we all struggle with gossip, and that we need God’s help to stop it.
I think it may be time to modify the prayer. “Prevent my tongue from evil” doesn’t quite capture what is needed in the era of digital lashon hara. Perhaps we ought to say the following instead:
אֱלֹהַי, נְצוֹר אֶצְבְּעוֹתַי מֵרָע, וְאַגוֹדְלַי מְהַקְלִיד מִרְמָה.
“My Lord, prevent my fingers from evil, and my thumbs from typing deceit.”
*1*PT Peah 1:1
*2*ibid.
*3*Midrash Tehillim 120:4
*4*Gates of Repentance, part 3, paragraph 207
*5*BT Arachin 15b
I’m Building a Cathedral – Vayakhel 5771
There once was a traveler who journeyed all over the globe in search of wisdom and enlightenment. In the midst of one French village, he came upon a great deal of noise, dust, and commotion. He could see that a great building project was underway.
He approached the nearest laborer and asked, “Excuse me, I’m not from this village. May I ask what you are doing?” The laborer replied curtly, “Can’t you see? I’m a stonemason. I’m making bricks.”
The traveler approached a second laborer and asked the same question. He replied, “Can’t you see? I’m a woodcarver. I’m carving benches.”
He next went to a third laborer and repeated his question. “I’m a glassmaker. I am putting together panes of glass to make a window.”
The traveler then approached an old lady in tattered clothing who was sweeping up shards of stone, woodchips, and broken glass. He asked her, somewhat hesitantly, “What are you doing?” With a broad smile and a gleam in her eye, the woman stopped her sweeping, gazed up, and proudly said: “Can’t you see? I’m building a cathedral for God.”
This story teaches that even though our individual actions may seem to be inconsequential, as simple perhaps as sweeping up the floor, our involvement in a bigger story, and a bigger purpose, has the potential to make those actions meaningful. The old lady’s ability to see that bigger story is what makes it possible for her to take pride in her involvement in building a cathedral.
There is a similar lesson to be found in the building of the mishkan, the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle, once it is inaugurated, serves several functions. It is where Moses goes to communicate with God. It is where God causes the Divine Presence to dwell in the sight of the Israelites. And it is also the place where Aaron the High Priest and his sons performed the sacrificial rituals on behalf of the nation.
We might be tempted to look back at the sacrificial system and see signs of elitism. That a priestly class, passed down from father to son, alone was permitted to perform the holy functions. And was entitled to receive certain benefits as well.
But there are ways in which every Israelite is involved in the Tabernacle and the priestly service. First of all, the materials for building everything are donated by the people. But not in the way that we might expect for a public works project like this one. There is no bond issued, or temporary sales tax increase. As we read this morning in Parshat Vayakhel, Moses puts the call out for “everyone whose heart so moves him” (Ex. 35:5) to bring gold, silver, precious metals, acacia wood, skins, spices, and all of the other materials that make up the mishkan.
Making it voluntary allows every member of the nation to put his or her heart into the Tabernacle. I can just imagine an Israelite walking by the finished product and thinking proudly “I donated the wool that is in those curtains.” Or, “it was my acacia wood that helped make the poles that hold up the tent.”
To build the mishkan, Moses brings in everyone with special skills, men and women. The parshah describes them as people who are chakham lev asher natan adonai chokhmah b’libo – wise of heart, whom God has endowed with skill.
These workers knew, as they were weaving cloth, hammering out gold, and sanding tent poles, that without their efforts, the mishkan could not be built, the Priests could not be ordained. Without them, the Tabernacle would not serve its purpose. I wonder, if a traveller had asked them what they were doing, how they would have answered. Perhaps someone would have said, “I am weaving this thread into cloth,” or “I am placing this precious stone in its setting.” But then again, he might have said “I am building a house for God to dwell among us.”
And although the Torah does not mention it, I bet there was an old lady out there in the wilderness whose job was to clean up the bits of cloth, and dust, and spilled paint. I bet she was enormously honored and proud to be involved in such a holy project.
The Tabernacle for our ancestors in the wilderness, just like the Cathedral for the French villagers, was God’s place on earth. It was where the people looked for hope and inspiration. To build such a place, it was necessary for the people that it served to feel involved in it. To feel that it represented them, that they had a stake in its building, and thus a stake in the mission that it was built to serve.
Let’s come back to the idea of what the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, represented. It was God’s place on earth, where the heavens and earth came together. It was the locus point where God’s immanent and transcendent nature came together. But there is another notion as well that states that the entire world is God’s place. A few weeks ago, I asked our religious school students about the meaning of the mem line in the Ashrei:
מַלְכוּתְךָ מַלְכוּת כָּל עוֹלָמִים, וּמֶמְשַׁלְתְּךָ בְּכָל דֹר וָדֹר:
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your reign is for all generations.
“Where is God’s kingdom?” I asked. To which a fourth grader replied, “It’s all around us.”
To recognize this idea, that the entire world is God’s kingdom and is filled with the Divine Presence, is one of the major goals of Jewish prayer. It is a theme that can be found throughout the siddur, not just in the Ashrei. It is the reason why we recite blessings before eating food. It’s why we wear kippot. As Jews, we are constantly reminded that there is a vision of what the world ought to be like. It is a vision that we share with each other, with generations of Jews who have come before us, and with God. The Torah is our guide to making that vision a reality.
And so, each day when we set out on our tasks, we too are laborers building a cathedral to house the Divine Presence. Our goal is to make sure that the cathedral is one that is worthy of God. So what are the tasks that must be done to build a suitable dwelling-place?
We call them mitzvot. And they encompass every aspect of our lives. They tell us that we have a duty to build a just society, and how to do so. They tell us to conduct our business honestly, to support others who are experiencing difficulties, to live our lives in communities, to respect the members of our families, to make time sacred through by observing Shabbat and holidays. These are the tasks that we perform, as Jews, that contribute to preparing a world in which the shechinah can reside.
Each contribution to the building of the Tabernacle was valued. So too is each task that we perform, each mitzvah.
But doesn’t that seem a bit idealistic?
Life is busy. We rush, and rarely seem to have the time to pause and reflect. We live in a self-oriented world, where success and achievement is measured by an individual’s accomplishment, rather than a group’s. We tend not to take pride in other people’s achievements. We tend to not feel that our individual actions matter to the world. Modern society does not especially value minuscule contributions. The person who sweeps up the mess is replaceable.
A midrash teaches that the artisans who built the mishkan themselves learned their skills from no human teacher. The knowledge of their craft was planted in their hearts directly from God. If that was the case, then even the smallest little contribution would have been abundantly significant.
Is there anything in our lives that is so inspiring as building the mishkan? Do we feel that God is instilling in us a ruach chochmah, a spirit of wisdom, to engage in a holy task? What if we were so excited by an idea that we could see our involvement in its pursuit, even if it seemed insignificant, as profoundly meaningful?
When we go to work, do we think to ourselves, “I am making the world better”? When we schlep our kids to school, do we pause to consider, “I am helping make this child into a moral, responsible human being”? When we smile genuinely to another person, do we think “I could be lifting this person’s entire day”? This person, in whom God’s image resides.
Can we relate to our work as being an integral part of building a world that is worthy of God? Whether as a parent, or an engineer, or a teacher, or a repairperson, or especially the person who sweeps up the pieces that the rest of us leave behind. If we could maintain a consciousness that we are part of that Eternal building project, perhaps it might change not only how we view our work, but the kind of work that we do.
Joseph’s Land Reform – Vayigash 5771
Wherever you see yourself on the political spectrum, I think you will probably agree with me that we are facing serious economic problems that need to be addressed. Problems of long term debt, of expenditures that are far exceeding revenues. Our elected leaders are going to have to do something pretty dramatic to deal with these problems.
And it has been so frustrating watching both parties in Congress quibble over politics. First the Republicans promise to block anything that President Obama sends their way, even if it is an idea that originated in the Republican Party, and then when he finally gets them to agree to a compromise, the Democrats refuse to accept it.
California is even worse. We have seen the budgetary problems pushed off from one year to the next, with the State Legislature refusing to ever actually address the real issues.
Perhaps there is some wisdom to be gleaned from an ancient source. We read this morning of one of the most remarkable, peaceful, successful, and well thought out national economic transformations in history. And it all happens in just fourteen years.
7 years of plenty, 7 years of famine
Joseph was appointed as Prime Minister because of the plan that he outlined to Pharaoh after he interpreted his dreams
Let all the food of these good years that are coming be gathered, and let the grain be collected under Pharaoh’s authority as food to be stored in the cities. Let that food be a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which will come upon the land of Egypt, so that the land may not perish in the famine. (41:35-36)
When the famine hits after seven years, Joseph, and the Egyptian government, are ready for it. People start flocking in from all over the Egyptian empire, and even from surrounding lands. Enough food was saved to feed everyone, even the foreigners.
The Torah describes how it played out. First, the people bring their money to pay for the food. When the money runs out, they pay for food with their livestock. When the livestock all belong to Pharaoh, the people beg Joseph to feed them in exchange for their land and their selves. They ask to become serfs to Pharaoh. As part of this plan, the population of Egypt is resettled, town by town. Joseph then gives the people seed to plant their crops, and requests that they turn over twenty percent of their yield to Pharaoh. Only the Egyptian priests are allowed to keep their land, along with receiving their food allotment from the government. The end of the account informs us of the Egyptian people’s gratefulness to Joseph for his successful guidance of them through the famine. In a postscript, we are told that it is still the law “today” that one fifth of the produce belongs to Pharaoh, except that which is owned by the priests.
How do we read this story today? One twentieth century Israeli writer called it “State Communism.” “Control, centralization of food supply, and equal distribution accompanied by the nationalization of private property, first of money, then cattle, and finally, land. Henceforth all the lessees of Pharaoh’s lands pay him “the state” ground rent, and live on the residue.” (Nehama Leibovitch, New Studies in Bereshit, p. 525)
I think there is a modern tendency to read this story too negatively. To blame Joseph for strengthening the power of the central government, and for ultimately turning the Egyptian people against the Israelites. This sets the stage for the eventual enslavement of the Israelites by a populist, and possibly fascist Pharaoh who the Torah reports “did not know Joseph.”
Of course, interpretations like this reflect more about twentieth century political discourse than they do about the ancient world. If we want to understand Jewish values, then we have to look at how this episode has been understood by our tradition. We will find that the tradition views Joseph’s actions quite favorably. It suggests something about the values that society and its leaders ought to bring to public crises such as the famine in ancient Egypt, and perhaps even the economic situation that we are facing today in California and in the United States.
There are some interesting details of Joseph’s plan that the midrash and commentators do not overlook, and nor should we. The Torah notes that he had the grain collected and deposited “in the cities.” The midrash explains that Joseph decentralized the food distribution system by locating the storehouses in local cities and towns. That way, people did not have to travel all the way to the capital for food.
Another midrash describes how he collected all sorts of different kinds of foods, from various grains, to raisins and figs. And each type was stored in a way that was most appropriate to avoid spoilage.
Joseph oversees the rationing system to make sure that everyone in society is able to get through the lean times. Most of us in this room have not had to live through periods of food rationing. The great twentieth Israeli Bible commentator, Nechama Leibowitz, who knew scarcity, writes, “For those who have experienced one and even two world wars, Joseph’s rationing operations are no novelty, but for previous generations they were, and we may presume that they constituted something entirely revolutionary in his own time.” (New Studies in Bereshit, p. 520)
Without the rationing, I think it is safe to assume that the wealthy would have gotten through ok, and the poor would have starved. It seems to be the way of the world.
And without careful administration, profiteering would have been rampant. Indeed, a midrash explains how Joseph prevented price gouging by restricting people to enough food for their own needs, but not extra that they would be able to sell on the black market. Further, nobody was allowed to enter the country without first registering his name and that of his father and grandfather. In other words, he established a passport control system.
But if everything was organized so well that nobody was left to starve, why does the Torah describe the Egyptians as crying “out to Pharaoh for bread”? (41:55) The 18th century commentary Or-Ha-hayyim answers that the cries were more for psychological reasons than for physical ones. And Joseph responds to their cries appropriately:
Since a person who has bread in his or her basket cannot be compared to one who has not. [Joseph] therefore meant to satisfy the psychological feeling of want by opening the granaries for them to see the plenty garnered there and rest secure .
Now one might be inclined to assume that Joseph reserved special treatment for his own family. After all, the Torah describes how he gave them the best land for raising livestock. Not so, says the commentator Sforno. The Torah states that “Joseph sustained his father, and his brothers, and all his father’s household with bread, down to the little ones.” But Sforno quotes the Talmud to explain Joseph’s honesty. “When the public experiences calamity, let no person say, I shall betake myself to eat and drink and couldn’t care less.” (BT Ta’anit 11a)
Furthermore, the text describes how Joseph collects all of the money, and brought it faithfully to the house of Pharaoh. He does not skim anything off the top to build up his own private hoard, explains medieval Spanish commentator Ramban. Joseph is an honest civil servant.
When the Egyptian people beg to sell themselves into slavery, Ramban explains, Joseph actually refuses. He purchases the land from them, but not their bodies. Normally, Ramban claims, the King would keep eighty percent and the serf only twenty percent. But he treats the Egyptian people like landowners, and the Pharaoh like the serf, reversing the relative percentages.
Ramban’s numbers are a bit exaggerated, but we do have some data from the ancient world. A tax rate of twenty percent would not at all have been considered excessive. During the reign of Hammurabi, the state received between half and two thirds of the net produce, after deduction of expenses. Interest rates in Babylon for loans of produce were thirty three percent.(Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, p. 322) It seems that Joseph’s economic policies, in light of the times, were quite reasonable.
And I think we have to take the Torah at its word when it says that the Egyptian people were grateful to Joseph.
But is this the Torah’s final word? Is it presenting for us an ideal model of the economic makeup of a society, or of how to get through a national crisis? Is this a model that we ought to be looking at for moral guidance today?
There are some internal hints that suggest that the answer is no. That the Israelite approach is different than the Egyptian one. The first hint is in the role of the priests. The Egyptian priests come off as a privileged elite. They get to keep their land, and they continue to receive their regular allotment from Pharaoh. Compare this to the tribe of the Levites, about whom it is written, “they shall have no territorial share among the Israelites.” (Num. 18:23-24) In exchange for their service on behalf of the nation, they receive tithe payments, but they do not get to own land. So what is their inheritance? According to Deuteronomy, “the Lord is their inheritance.” (Deut. 10:9) The Torah seems to be concerned with not allowing them to take advantage of their status to become overly powerful.
Another way in which the Torah signals that this is not the ideal is in subtly emphasizing the role of the Egyptian people in the economic transformation. It is the people who offer themselves to be serfs to Pharaoh. Rather than take responsibility for their own redemption, they willingly turn over responsibility to the state. As Nahum Sarna explains: “The peasants initiate the idea of their own enslavement and even express gratitude when it is implemented.” (Ibid., p. 323)
In contrast, what does the Torah say about land ownership and serfdom in the land of Israel? In Leviticus, God states: “The land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me.” (Lev. 25:23)
And regarding serfdom, it states: “for they are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt; they may not give themselves over into servitude.” (Lev. 25:42)
The ancient Israelite economic model is based on private ownership, with limits. And it works pretty strongly to prevent citizens from becoming enslaved to one another.
Where does this leave us? Do we find anything in Joseph’s shrewd leadership that might help us in our current predicament?
Well, everything I have been reading seems to suggest that the only way to really solve our economic woes is through pretty radical changes to some very expensive programs, as well as a significant reworking of our taxation system. I don’t think anything that is currently before Congress or the State Legislature comes close. When you compare it to about what Joseph managed to accomplish over a fourteen year period of time, it seems pretty remarkable.
The important thing to remember is that Joseph, at least the version of him that is presented by the Jewish interpretive tradition, is being guided by certain core values: That nobody will be left to starve. That regulation should prevent profiteers from taking advantage of the system. And that special interests are not given special treatment.
It is also important for us to remember that the Torah’s ideal is ultimately not what is to be found in Egypt, but rather that which is to be found in the Promised Land. It is the establishment of a society in which the fundamental equality of all human life is valued, regardless of one’s socioeconomic status, and in which freedom is a core right.
I pray that sooner, rather than later, we will be able to responsibly, and effectively, address the current problems in our society with the same kind of courage, commitment to morals, and compassion for all human beings that our ancestor Joseph once did in Egypt.
We Are Not the Center of Creation – Rosh Hashanah 5771
Rabbi Aryeh Levin, known as the “Tzaddik of Jerusalem”, lived from 1885 to 1969. He told the story of how he once was walking in the fields with his teacher, Rav Avraham Yitzhak Kook. In the course of their Torah discussion, Rabbi Levin casually picked a flower. At this, Rav Kook remarked, “All my days I have been careful never to pluck a blade of grass or a flower needlessly, when it had the ability to grow or blossom. You know the teaching of our sages that not a single blade of grass grows here on Earth that does not have an angel above it, commanding it to grow. Every sprout and leaf says something meaningful, every stone whispers some hidden message in the silence. Every creation sings its song.”
“These words of our great master,” Rabbi Levin concluded, “spoken from a pure and holy heart, engraved themselves deeply in my heart. From that day on, I began to feel a strong sense of compassion for all things.”
Every creation. Everything that we encounter in this world, has a song that it sings. And that makes today, Rosh Hashanah, a day that is not only for us, the Jewish people, or even for humanity, but for all of Creation.
During the musaf service, after hearing the sound of the shofar, we will recite Hayom harat olam – “Today is the world’s birthday.”
Birthdays are usually times for celebration. For marking the achievements of the previous year and expressing our hopes for the year to come. We can imagine the blades of grass with their angels, and the stones whispering hidden messages in the silence, celebrating.
But do we have the right to celebrate the world’s birthday? Does humanity deserve an invitation to the party?
We seem to be living out of balance with nature. Rav Kook’s poetic description of treasuring the potential for life wherever he found it is very far from what we experience today. The imbalance in humanity’s relationship to the earth violates the sanctity of life and threatens our very existence. For the sake of the world, and for our own sakes, humanity must develop a new understanding of its relationship to Creation.
For recorded history, humans have seen themselves as the ultimate purpose and goal of existence. While Rosh Hashanah is the most universalistic of Jewish holidays, it still shifts back and forth between the question of whether we are celebrating the creation of the world or the creation of human beings.
A midrash teaches that the seven days of Creation began on the twenty fifth of Elul. That makes the first of Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah, day six of creation, the day on which God made humanity. We celebrate the world’s birthday on humanity’s birthday.
The universe used to be a much smaller place. At first, the world was thought to be flat. Later, the Greeks introduced the concept of a spherical earth at the center, encircled by the sun, moon, planets, and stars.
In the 16th century, Copernicus introduced the concept of heliocentrism, that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe. It would take several centuries more to learn that this was not true either, and that our sun was just one of countless stars on the outer arm of one of countless galaxies.
Despite our growing awareness that humanity is infinitesimally small, and far from the center of anything, we continue to interact with our surroundings as if we are the be all and end all. Science has not changed that at all.
Intellectually, we know that the earth, not to mention the solar system, galaxy, and universe, exists completely independent of us. And yet, we live our lives as if they are meaningful. As if there is a purpose to our being. And as if there is a goal to which we are striving. All of us do this. We live as if our lives matter. To love and to strive in an otherwise uncaring and unsympathetic universe is a fundamentally religious act. An act of faith.
Do we have faith that humanity will survive? Perhaps it’s a question for science fiction writers, or disaster movies, or apocalyptic doomsayers. But maybe it is a question we should be asking.
An ancient midrash describes God as the Creator and Destroyer of worlds. There were in fact many worlds that existed before our earth. But God was unsatisfied with them, and so God destroyed them. Like an artist throwing away a rough draft. When it came to our world, God saw it, and declared this one, finally, to be good.
And then, at the end of the week, on the seventh day, God had one thing left to do. The Torah states: “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, for on that day He desisted from all His work that God created to make.” (Gen. 2:3)
That final phrase, “that God created to make ” – asher bara elohim la-asot, has puzzled commentators. It should have said that God desisted from all His work that he had made. So why does it say “that God created to make.”? The Chasidic Rabbi Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl, a senior pupil of The Magid of Mezeritch, writes: “That God created to make” means that the work of creation, of mending, of completion of the world continues, and is left in the hands of Israel (Maor Einayim, Ha’azinu).”
Putting it together, ours is not the first world to exist. There have been others. God approved this time around, calling it tov, good, but the work of creating is not yet done. The jury is still out on this one. There is a distinct possibility that we humans could wipe ourselves out of existence. And God, and the universe, will go right on without us.
The well known prayer, Adon Olam, presents this possibility quite clearly: v’acharei kichlot hakol, levado yimlokh nora – And after everything ceases to exist, God will continue to rule in awesomeness.
As partners in creation, or rather, as the ones to whom the continuing work of creation has been handed over, it is up to humanity to create, mend, and complete the world. How are we doing with that?
From an ecological perspective, not so great. Species are disappearing at between 100 to 1000 times the average extinction rates in the evolutionary time scale of planet Earth due to habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, and climate change.
When humans come along and clearcut a forest for the lumber, or blow up a mountain top to get at the coal underneath, or overfish a fish population into near or actual extinction, do we, in our suburban homes, bear some responsibility? When a large multinational company introduces genetically modified organisms that breed with and then take over native species, have we committed some wrong?
We are very insulated from these kinds of questions out here in Northern California with our progressive environmental laws and liberal attitudes. It is very easy to blame others. We fault nations that don’t have the same laws we have. We criticize companies that do everything they can to maximize shareholder profits, and avoid having to pay the actual environmental and other costs.
But the truth is, we ourselves benefit from their avoiding responsibility. We enjoy a pretty nice lifestyle. Our gas is inexpensive. Coal fueled electricity is cheap. We can buy organic grapes from Chile for $1.49 a pound on sale. We can fill our homes with consumer junk that we don’t need from the other side of the world. And when the garbage accumulates, we get rid of it and it gets dumped in the landfill, or shipped off to some impoverished nation. But as long as we don’t have to look at it, we treat it as “out of sight, out of mind.”
There is a cost to this lifestyle. It is a cost that humanity may end up having to pay on a global scale. From a purely self-serving perspective, humanity needs to change the ways that we interact with our planet.
In his chilling book, Collapse, Jared Diamond explores a number of unconnected civilizations separated by time and place that experienced sudden and total collapses. He notes that in all of them, the civilization reached its peak population and resource use shortly before its precipitous demise. His final chapter points out that humanity is now a single civilization – the result of the globalization of transportation, communication, and economies. If our global civilization follows the pattern of earlier societies, then we will have nowhere else to go when the collapse occurs.
But it is not only out of self-interest that humanity needs to change its relationship to the natural world. One of the messages of Rosh Hashanah is that we are but a part of Creation. Adonai is the God of all that is. If we are celebrating the birthday of the entire world, what would be an appropriate birthday gift?
The new year is the season for teshuvah. It will culminate next week with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Atonement is the final step, when God wipes away the stains that have adhered to our souls. Our tradition teaches that for sins between us and our fellow human beings, full atonement does not come unless we first appease the one whom we have wronged. Although it is not easy, we know how to do this with each other.
But how do we appease the earth? What is the language of teshuvah that the earth and its creatures understand? How do we ask them for forgiveness?
Take the BP oil spill. It is not a question of how much money the shrimpers are going to get, the destruction of the economy, tourism, and so on. BP should repay all of those things, and probably will. But that will not bring kapparah, atonement, for the ocean and seashores, and the creatures that make them their home.
The same question is asked for all of the results of the last two hundred years of progress and development. How do we ask the earth for forgiveness?
Our global civilization has begun the conversation, but it is far from over. As populations continue to grow, putting even greater strains on the world, this will be the dominant conversation of the twenty first century.
Religion, which continues to play a central role in how people around the world perceive themselves in their environment, will have a critical voice in this conversation. Our Jewish tradition has much to contribute.
The first lesson that Judaism offers is that which was expressed in the story of Rav Kook. We have to be open to experiencing the nes b’tokh hateva, the miracle that is inherent in Nature. Heschel writes of radical amazement. If we truly understood that God could be found not only within the creatures and objects of Creation, but also within the very processes of nature, would we continue to overstep our bounds? Would we not come to discover that we are not separate from Creation, but are rather intimately connected with it? We are just not yet awake to this fact.
The second lesson is about the importance of rest. The Torah’s description of the origins of the world, which is the dominant Creation story for a good portion of humanity, culiminates in day seven. The Sabbath Day.
The chiddush, the great innovation in the Torah, is that humans can rest. Other religions believed that the gods made humans to serve them, but the Torah says that we rest with God as partners in Creation. But Sabbath rest is not just for humans, but for animals also, and even for the land itself. Every seven years, the land of Israel is supposed to observe a sabbath from cultivation. At the end of the book of Numbers, the Torah describes what will happen if Israel fails to observe the sabbatical years. It will result in environmental devastation and exile. The land will then take back its lost sabbaths – on its own terms.
Shabbat is about more than just not going to work on Saturday. It is a reorientation of our expectations for how we live on earth. The idea of Shabbat is that we humans are not at the center of existence.
In our world today, there is no rest. We don’t give ourselves a break, and we don’t give the earth and its creatures a break.
Rosh Hashanah, like Shabbat, teaches that there are other, more important, more sustainable measures of a nation’s success than Gross Domestic Product.
We are taking some steps in the right direction. Governments, and some companies, are involved in discussions of how to create more sustainable economies. As humanity shifts its orientation, it is important for us to take steps in our own lives. There are many things we have already done. But there is always more.
Driving a fuel efficient vehicle, a hybrid, or soon, an electric car.
Switching our homes, businesses, and hopefully one day soon, our synagogue, over to solar energy.
And simple things, like bringing our own bags with us to the grocery store when we go shopping. Making an effort to buy locally produced food, which in California is not such a difficult or unpleasant thing to do.
Making our personal decisions from the perspective of sustainability, and respect for Creation.
These are all valid, important steps. But they are largely symbolic. The real problem will only be solved when humanity makes a collective decision to do so.
Hayom, today, this Rosh Hashanah, as we celebrate the birthday of the entire world and its creatures, let us pay particularly close attention to the sound of the shofar. Let its cry remind us of Creation, and call us to teshuvah, not just towards one another, but towards all creatures and the earth itself.
During musaf, we sound the shofar, and then three times, we say Hayom harat olam. Often translated “today is the birthday of the world,” it in fact means something quite different. Harat does not mean birth, but pregnant. Olam, in the Bible does not mean earth, but eternity. Hayom harat olam “Today is eternally pregnant.” Today holds endless possibilities, but also great uncertainty.
And then, we say hayom ya’amid bamishpat kol y’tzurei-olamim. “Today all Creation is called to stand in judgment.”
May this day of judgment teach us that without our responsible stewardship, the creatures of all the worlds, y’tzurei olamim, even the earth itself, cannot stand and endure.
And then we recite at the end of our service: Chayim kulchem hayom, “Today we are alive on this planet.” Today our choices will gestate the future, for ourselves, for our children, and for the children of every species upon the earth.
Hayom t’amtzeinu. “Today may we find courage.” Hayom t’varcheinu. “Today may we be blessed.” Hayom ticht’veinu l’chayim tovim. “Today may we be inscribed to live.”
May we find hope, may we find courage, may we find blessing, in this moment filled with birth and death, pregnant with eternity.
“Hayom im b’kolo tishma-u.” Today, if we will listen to the Voice.
L’Shanah Tovah Tikateivu v’Teichateimu. May we, the earth, and all who live on it be written and sealed for a good year.
Pharaoh’s Dreams and Bold Leadership – Miketz 5770 (8th Night of Chanukah)
One recurring feature of the story of Joseph is his continual crediting of God with directing the many unlikely events that take place. God sends Joseph to Egypt. God interprets the dreams. God places Joseph in the role of Prime Minister. God is directing the show.
If God is secretly pulling the strings anyways, the midrash asks, why not bring Joseph out of prison right away to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, instead of having the magicians and wise men of Egypt have a first crack at it?
Well, it turns out that God has a flair for the dramatic. If Joseph had shown up right away and simply solved Pharaoh’s dream, then all the magicians and wise men of Egypt would have said: ‘Oh, we knew that, we could have told you if you had only asked us.’ Instead, they have to go first, and their incorrect explanations send Pharaoh into an even deeper funk than he is already in. So when Joseph shows up, he is seen as that much more of a hero.Pharaoh was having a tough time. He was dreaming of fat cows being eaten by skinny cows, and engorged ears of grain being consumed by shriveled stalks. He couldn’t sleep. He knew that his visions were unusual, and he sensed that they meant something big. But he did not know what. As the king of Egypt, the largest and most powerful empire in the world, Pharaoh was the most important and powerful man alive. The fate of millions depended on him. He could not afford to take such visions lightly.
The next steps that Pharaoh takes embody the qualities of a great leader demonstrates facing a crisis. Pharaoh demonstrates vision, wisdom, humility, and decisiveness in what comes next.
Our Torah portion describes what he does upon the arrival of dawn:
Next morning, his spirit was agitated, and Pharaoh sent for all the magicians of Egypt, and all its wise men; and Pharaoh told them his dreams, but none could interpret them for Pharaoh. (Gen. 41:8)
Does this mean that they did not offer interpretations?
Of course not! These guys are professionals. Dreams are their bread and butter. If Pharaoh has a bad dream and asks them to interpret it, that’s their shot at the big time. You bet they gave explanations.
Although the Torah does not go into the details, the midrash (B’reishit Rabbah 89:6) does. Rabbi Yehoshua of Sichnin in the name of Rabbi Levi says that they gave their interpretations, but they did not penetrate into Pharaoh’s ears. What were those interpretations?
In dream #1, the seven fat cows are the seven healthy daughters that Pharaoh is going to have. The seven skinny cows are the seven daughters whom he will bury. In dream #2, the seven full ears of grain are the seven nations that Pharaoh will conquer, and the parched ears are the seven districts that will be taken away from him.
So why doesn’t Pharaoh accept their explanations? They seem reasonable. Is Joseph’s interpretation, of seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, so qualitatively different?
Well, yes. When Joseph is brought up out of the dungeon, cleaned up, and presented to Pharaoh, the first thing he says is that he himself has no special abilities. “Not I!” says Joseph. “God will see to Pharaoh’s welfare.” (Gen. 41:16)
Impressed, Pharaoh tells Joseph his dreams, and Joseph immediately recognizes something about them that none of the magicians or wise men of Egypt has seen. But something that Pharaoh himself has seen. “Pharaoh’s dreams are one and the same: God has told Pharaoh what He is about to do.” (Gen. 41:25)
You see, there are subtle clues in the text that Pharaoh has already recognized that he has only dreamt a single dream. After the first half about the cows, the Torah says simply: וַיִּיקַץ פַּרְעֹה – “Then Pharaoh awoke.”
Then, after the second half about the ears of grain, it says: וַיִּיקַץ פַּרְעֹה וְהִנֵּה חֲלוֹם – “Then Pharaoh awoke: it was a dream.” Only after both parts have been dreamt does the Torah call it a dream. In other words, the two parts together make up a single dream. And Pharaoh knows this.
So when the magicians and wise men of Egypt start talking about him having and losing daughters, or conquering and losing countries, their words do not penetrate into his ears.
But there is something else that clues Pharaoh in as well.
For that, we turn to a medieval Rabbi, poet, and Bible commentator from Orleans, France named Joseph ben Isaac B’khor Shor. B’khor Shor’s commentary is focused exclusively on the p’shat, the plain meaning of the text. He comments on the inability of the magicians and wise men to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. “They thought that the two dreams were for Pharaoh’s benefit, about him personally; but he thought that all they told him was nonsense.” In other words, they were sycophants, kissing up to Pharaoh. The dreams are about you. You are going to have and lose daughters, and you will conquer and lose cities. But the problem is that Pharaoh does not actually appear in his own dreams.
Contrast this with the other dreams in the Book of Genesis, where the dreamer is always at the center of the dream. Jacob dreams of himself at the foot of a ladder going up to heaven, having a conversation with God. Joseph dreams of his sheaf standing up for the other sheaves to bow down to. Or he, as the sun, being bowed to by the moon and the stars.
Because Pharaoh is not at the center of his dream, he knows that it has much wider significance than his own person. And so he quickly dismisses his brown-nosing advisors.
And what really impresses Pharaoh, and seals the deal for Joseph’s rise from the dungeons of Egypt to become Prime Minister of the empire, is what Joseph says at the end of his interpretation:
As for Pharaoh having had the same dream twice, it means that the matter has been determined by God, and that God will soon carry it out. (Gen. 41:32)
Pharaoh, as the leader of Egypt and the most powerful man in the world, knows that his dream means something big. He does not know what exactly, but it is definitely significant. When Joseph confirms what Pharaoh senses, that his dream is a message from God, one that will be acted upon soon, he immediately takes action.
He asks this young Hebrew slave who stands before him for advice, and Joseph rises to the challenge, outlining a long range economic plan to use the budget surplus that is forecasted for the next seven years to create a rainy day fund that can be drawn upon during the economic recession that will follow. Not bad advice. Maybe someone in Sacramento should take notice.
Everyone in the room, not just Pharaoh, is impressed, and leaps into action by appointing Joseph to run the program.
Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz, of the Jewish Theological Seminary, who writes a weekly d’var Torah on Bekhor Shor’s commentary, identifies “five distinct steps in this brilliant narrative.”
First, is Pharaoh’s dream, which “represents a call to action.”
Second, is his “assembling of interpreters,” including hearing the voice of a forgotten foreigner who is languishing in prison.
Third, Pharaoh’s “discernment,” his ability to distinguish between the good and bad advice of his advisors.
Fourth, “his recognition of God’s presence.”
And fifth, the adoption of a “concrete plan” that addresses the situation directly and effectively.
Rabbi Berkowitz goes on to suggest the implications of this narrative to our world.
Each of us would do well to learn from the model of Pharaoh. When we are gifted with a vision and a dream, it is a call to action. The challenge is being able to seize the moment, assemble the proper group of interpreters, and implement an effective plan. Pharaoh and Joseph become partners in saving civilization—thereby affirming God’s Presence.
We are at a time of many crises facing our world. As we speak, global leaders have left Copenhagen with a relatively weak deal to manage climate change. We still face great unemployment and an uncertain economic future. We still don’t have a health care reform bill. And Iran continues to defy the rest of the world on its nuclear program.
At such times, the definitive leadership of Pharaoh in this morning’s parshah is be a model to us, and especially to our leaders.
To have vision, to listen to a wide range of voices and opinions, but to be able to discern the wise, visionary voices from those that are self-serving. To have an awareness of God’s presence, which I would suggest means being humble in one’s role as leader. And finally, to have the willingness, and the commitment to make a decision, and carry it out despite the hurdles that will definitely present themselves.
On this eighth day of Chanukkah, when we remember the decisive leadership, through both clear vision and bold action, of the Maccabees, may we and our leaders also find the strength to affirm God’s presence in the world by responding to the call to action to address the pressing needs of our day.
Rebyehoshua 