TorahParsha

Thought for Haftorat Chayei Sara

For this week, I decided to write about the Haftorah, and not about the Torah portion.

 

Are you the center of your life?

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

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.

*

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 which son will succeed him

—of how he will live on through his family.

Then Batsheva says:

May my master the king David live forever.  

             

 

 

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

 

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Please continue to pray for Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah, for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther

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The Book of Jonah

i
God tells Jonah to warn the people of Ninveh to repent from sin.

Jonah flees from God in a ship, heading out to the waters.

Later, Jonah tells God why he has fled: he fears that the people of Ninveh will repent, and God will spare them.

*
The people of Ninveh do repent, together, as one city. God does spare them.

God says: He shows them mercy because they are a people who do not know their right from their left.

ii
Jonah is a man of Truth and so he seeks Justice. And so he seeks punishment for Ninveh.

But God says: the people of Ninveh are only human. They need mercy.

*
Jonah cannot bear this. He flees the community of people—heading out on a ship—to flee God, to flee mercy.

*
But in community people can come to God. The people of Ninveh repent together. So the community holds Truth in it.

Though mercy defies Truth, community possesses Truth.

Jonah does not know this. But God knows this.

*
It is because God knows this that the community, together, can attain forgiveness: can receive mercy.

Based, in part, on a theory of God's mercy of Rav Ezra Bick