TorahParsha

What are years?

 

for Parshat Terumah

 

i

God tells Noah

to build a great ship

out of gofer wood

three hundred cubits long

fifty cubits wide

thirty cubits high

to carry the creatures through the storm.

*

God tells Moses

to build a Holy Ark

from shittim wood

one and a half cubits long

one and a half cubits wide

one and a half cubits high

to carry God’s Testimony

across the Desert

to the Land.

*

Pharoah asks Jacob

How many are the days of the years of your life?

Jacob

who has had a difficult life

who is old

answers Pharoah:

I have lived one hundred thirty years,

few and bad were the days of the years of my life. 

 

ii

A number is a measure

of material for carrying things:

cubits of wood for voyagers

cubits of wood for holy cargo

years of life for bearing good

or bad.

 

iii

A number is a question:

With only so much material

so much wood

so many cubits

so many years

—nothing more—

what can we carry

and how much

how will we carry good

and not bad

what is in our power

to justify the measure we have?

 

 

 ____

Title taken from the title of a poem by Marianne Moore

 ____

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

TorahParsha.com

 

Please pray for Neshama Emuna bat Batya

 

 

Why the Torah is a story

for Parshat VaYigash

i

Telling

brings the listener

and the person told about

into one story—

across divides

across lands

across hearts.

*

Here is one example:

 

ii

Joseph rules Egypt.

He disguises himself from his brothers—

who have hated him,

who have tossed him from home,

from his father.

They come to him now

down from Canaan

to seek bread during famine.

*

But Joseph demands

that they leave their youngest brother,

Benjamin,

in Egypt.

Then the brother Judah

describes the whole story

of the brothers coming to him

from far away

and going back to Canaan

and seeing their father

and returning to Egypt

only for Joseph to demand

that Benjamin stay.

And Judah tells Joseph:

our father’s heart will break

there in Canaan

if Benjamin stays

here in Egypt.

*

Then Joseph says: I am Joseph.

And Joseph reconciles with his brothers

and Joseph reunites with his father.

 

iii

Another example

of uniting through story

is the Torah itself.

Because  sometimes God seems far from us.

But hearing the Torah,

studying Torah,

we are reunited with God

into one story,

into one telling

into one book

from across a great distance.

 

____

With special thanks to my wife Kathi, as always.

_____

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

Please pray for for Ayelet Yakira bat Chaya Hinda Matel Nechama, and for Neshama Emunah bat Batya

 

www.TorahParsha.com

 

Burden of Sin (VaYiGash)

i

When the Cupbearer leaves prison, he does not speak of Joseph to the outside world.

 

Though Joseph has helped him.

 

Though Joseph has asked the Cupbearer to tell Joseph’s story.

 

Joseph languishes in prison.

 

*

Later the Cupbearer says: I recall my sin today.  

 

He tells Joseph’s story at last.

 

Joseph goes free.

 

ii

Judah says to his father: If I do not bring Benjamin back to you, then I shall have sinned.

 

So when Joseph (disguised) threatens to enslave Benjamin, Judah says: enslave me instead.

 

And Joseph is  overwhelmed.

 

And Joseph reveals himself to be Joseph.

 

And the questions of enslavement are tossed away.

 

*

Then Joseph says to his brothers: You cast me into slavery years ago; but this was God’s plan—so I would grow to be powerful during famine, to save your lives.

 

iii

The Cupbearer acknowledges his sin, and Joseph goes free.

 

Judah veers from sin, and takes the whole question of slavery away.

 

Taking up your burden—bearing responsibility in the world—you give freedom to the people all around you.

 

*

Then Joseph says: even enslavement can become a holy burden, a kind of gift: as God wants us to care for each other wholly.

____________

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

This argument draws upon other ones I have encountered, such as this work of Rav Yaakov Meidan (scroll down).

www.TorahParsha.com

Trade

i
Pharaoh invites Jacob and his family to live in Egypt, where there is food, to live out a famine that has struck across the land.

*
And Pharaoh tells Jacob and his family: do not bring your possessions from Canaan over to Egypt. There is no need. Because all the good of Egypt is yours.

*
But when Jacob and his family do come, they do not follow Pharaoh's advice. They take their cattle and their possessions they had acquired in the Land of Canaan along with them.

How, after all, could they not take their possessions?

How could they cast the things of their homeland away?

*
So Jacob encounters in Egypt a culture in which possessions can be traded up, and the good things can readily replace the old things; and where you can leave your old life easily behind: because everything is a commodity, is so much chattel, is an exchangeable good.

Jacob rejects this worldview.

ii
Later the people of Egypt, themselves caught in the famine, must sell themselves as slaves to Pharaoh in exchange for food.

The Egyptians become commodities themselves: they are enslaved.

(And Jacob and his family are spared from this.)

iii
If you live in this world of things—in our world of money—you must ask yourself if you will take the worldview of Egypt, or of the worldview of Jacob.

You become your own worldview, either way.

~~~~~~~~

Israel is Born in Egypt

i
Jacob and his sons come down to Egypt. They are fleeing from famine. This flight begins the time of the Jewish people in that land.

And the verse says, And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen…and they took possession of it.

*
Note how the verse says they. They took possession of it.

Before, Israel was not a they. Israel was a man. Israel was the name that God gave to Jacob, the patriarch, God's angel telling him: Your name will no more be called Jacob, but Israel.

Now, in Egypt, Israel has become a they.

Israel has become a people.

ii
This happens in Egypt.

This happens, too, in Goshen: a land tucked within the land of Egypt.

iii
We are separate from the nations of the world (we were born in Goshen).

We are bound to the nations of the world (we were born in Egypt).

We are both of these things, from our birth.

~~~~~