TorahParsha

How do we approach God with our failings?

for Parshat Toldot

 

i

Isaac will bless his older son,

Esau,

whom he loves most.

He will not bless his other son,

Jacob.

*

Rebecca,

the sons’ mother,

dresses Jacob in goat- skins

to make him hairy to the touch

(as Esau is)—

so Isaac,

old,

blind,

will feel Jacob

and think he is Esau

and bless him.

*

So that the goat represents a way

to become someone other than yourself:

to become someone more loved than yourself.

 

ii

Amongst the first things God says

about Temple sacrifices

is this:

If you bring Me an offering of your flocks,

you may bring it

of the sheep or of the goats.

*

Inviting the sacrifice of a goat,

God invites us to disguise ourselves,

perhaps,

as one He loves more.

 

iii

Approaching God,

one of our first questions is:

Who am I to approach Him?

God answers:

Even if you do not deserve

this closeness,

disguise yourself as one who is very righteous

who is very holy

who is very deserving of God.

Pretend you are such a person.

So that no matter who you are,

you may come to Me.

 

 

___

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com

Are you the center of your life?

for Haftorat Chayei Sarah

 

Kings chapter 1

  

i

King David is old.

He is cold and he cannot be warmed.

His servants cover him in clothes, and he cannot be warmed.

His servants bring a young woman to lie in bed with him, and he cannot be warmed.

The warmth of life leaves him.

 

ii

There is strife over who of David’s sons will succeed him.

David tells his wife Batsheva: our son Solomon—and not the son of any of my other wives—will succeed me

as I have sworn to you by Hashem. 

*
Batsheva tells David: May my master the king David live forever.

 

iii

David has servants to serve him.

They bring him clothes, they bring him a woman to warm him.

He is still cold unto death.

*
David affirms his oath to his wife, to God,

of how he will live on through his family.

Then Batsheva says:

May my master the king David live forever.  

*

You can be the center of your life. 

All others will be your servants.

But then you have no true life.

*
When your life lies in others around you—

then life comes.

____

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

____

First shared in 2010

www.TorahParsha.com

What is religious experience?

for Parshat VaYeirah

 

i

God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son

but suddenly reveals a ram

to offer instead.

 

ii

One would think that,

honoring this story,

we would offer God ram upon ram in His Temple.

But we offer rams rarely:

if a man misuses Temple property,

if he sins without realizing,

if he swears falsely

that he does not have another man’s things;

inaugurating priests,

on holidays.

Mostly we offer sheep,

lambs, cows, goats, flour, birds.

 

iii

Had Abraham sacrificed his son

he would have parted completely

from his life.

Perhaps the ram is a symbol

of stepping out of life:

as when you encounter holy property too closely,

or sin without knowing,

or assume another man’s things,

his person;

or on special holy times.

 

iv

If we rarely offer rams in the Temple,

where we meet God,

perhaps it is to tell us how

if we stray from life

on the way to God,

it can be wrong

or it can be special

but either way

in any case

it should be rare.

 

___

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com

God of Laughter

for Parshat Lech-Licha

i

Sarah has been barren all her life. She will be ninety.

Abraham will be one-hundred.

God announces that they will give birth to a son. They laugh.

*

God says: you shall call your son’s name Isaac, Yitzchak.

Yitzchak means: He-Will-Laugh.

ii

A joke does not make sense until its conclusion comes.

The punchline comes, and the punchline reveals that there are ways of viewing the world that you had not considered: and the story makes sense.

You are given sudden clarity. You laugh.

iii

You would have thought it impossible that Abraham and Sarah should have a child.

But there is another way of viewing the world.

There is the world beyond the level at which we understand things.

There is the level of God.

*

Isaac guides Abraham and Sarah to this level of God.

This revelation brings laughter.

Isaac is the punchline to the story of Abraham and Sarah.

iv

The story of Abraham and Sarah is a story which can have a punchline, because it is a story that God tells.

And the people they birth, too, is a story that God tells.

___

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

I cannot remember how much of this idea is my own: it came to me and felt recollected, I think largely from Avivah Zornberg. 

TorahParsha.com.

How do you define a life?

for Parshat Noach

 

i

God makes man from earth

—adamah—

and names man Man:

Adam.

*

Adam sins,

and God curses the earth

from which Adam is taken

for which Adam is named

which culminates in Adam.

*

Adam’s descendants

sin irreparably

and God covers the earth with water

and God wipes the children of Adam away.

 

ii

Lemech names his son Noah,

rest,

saying:

This child will grow up

and give us rest from the trouble

of the cursed the earth.

*

And Noah carries humanity

and the animal kingdom

and his family

through the waters of the ravaging Flood.

And his children

become the nations of the world.

 

iii

Adam is named

as the culmination of the earth.

The center of the story,

of course things cannot last

much beyond hm.

The culmination of the earth that precedes him,

of course he makes the earth less valuable

once he arrives.

*

But Noah is named for his life in others;

his life is defined through others.

He saves others through the Flood.

And, living through others,

he goes on and on.

 

___

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

___

In honor of our new son, Jonah Zachary Mezrich, whose brit and naming was this week.