Long Is The Road We Must Travel On Down (John Perry Barlow & Brent Mydland: "I Will Take You Home")

While we watch the Senate vote to acquit and Mitt Romney’s courageous vote to convict, Kirk Douglas, otherwise known as Spartacus to my son passed away at 103. As we watched the news, the first sentences about Kirk Douglas could have been the first sentences about my Grandfather. “Born in 1916 in upstate New York to Russian Jewish Immigrants…”  Both men changed their name, Kirk Douglas changed his name from  Issur Danielovitch, and my grandfather changed the family’s last name from Lifshitz to Lipson.  Yes, my grandfather would have been 103 years old. My grandfather’s parents arrived five years before Kirk’s parents did, but who's counting.  However as I listened to the news about Kirk Douglas’s passing, he was once quoted as saying that the luckiest thing that ever happened to him was the courage his parents had to leave Russia and come to North America. My grandfather (z’l) used to tell me the same thing. While they might not have been the best parents in the world, he always thankful for their courage to leave the miserable life they knew for the unknown possibility of a new life, a life that could be worse or could be better.

                This Shabbat we read from Parsha Beshallach This Shabbat is known as Shabbat Shira (Shabbat of Songs) because of the "songs" or poetry in both the Parsha, Beshallach, and in the Haftarah. In Parsha Beshallach, B'nai Yisroel finally leaves Egypt. Pharaoh sends them out and they hurriedly leave. Three days later, B'nai Yisroel arrives at the Yam Suf, the Reed Sea, which is along the Mediterranean coast. With Pharaoh's army behind them, and the Sea in front, B'nai Yisroel is trapped. Then the sea opens up, B'nai Yisroel crosses through and arrives safely on the other side. The Egyptian army drowns in the sea as the waters come crashing down. Out of joy and relief, B'nai Yisroel composes Shirat HaYam, the Song of the Sea. No sooner are they finished celebrating, then they begin complaining about the lack of water and food. God provides water and Manna. However, B'nai Yisroel is still not safe. Now they are attacked by the indigenous tribe, the Amalekites. B'nai Yisroel must put aside its hunger and thirst and fight for their lives. They do, and they are victorious. The Parsha ends with God commanding Moshe to blot out the very existence of the Amalekites.

                Underlying the miracles and wonders of B’nai Yisroel’s departure from Egypt: the cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night, the splitting of the Yam Suf, and the Manna; is the portrayal of B’nai Yisroel and the damage wrought by centuries of slavery. They cry out when stuck between the Egyptian army and the Yam Suf. They cry out after their song of joy for water and food. They are hesitant to move forward and they actually think that life was better in Egypt than whatever they are about to immediately experience and face in the decades to come. Amid the spiritual, psychological, and emotional damage of centuries of slavery; there are the vestiges of something very different.  B’nai Yisroel displays moments of greatness, profound faith, and trust in God. ChaZaL, the Talmudic Sages, consider the very act of leaving and following Moshe to be an act of profound faith and courage: “R’Eliezer said: When Moshe said to them ‘Arise and Go Forth’, they did not say: ‘How can we go forth into the wilderness when we have no sustenance for the way? But they had faith and followed after Moshe.”  Yes, they complained, groused, expressed skepticism and yearned for Egypt, but when push came to shove, they left, they entered into the water, pitched their tents and they packed it all up.

                Perhaps we, the descendants need to be reminded that it is not a straight line from slavery to freedom. It is not a straight line from leaving Europe to arriving in New York or Toronto and suddenly life was simple and terrific. The courage they are ancestors displayed occurred when doubt crept in when they complained but they didn’t stop moving forward. The same holds us as we embark on the paths of our lives. Our lives are not a straight line. The transition from one phase of life to another is full of fits and starts. However perhaps the less we learn, the less we teach our children is to have the courage to face the future, to face the unknown and keep moving towards it with a supreme faith that we have the tools to deal with the future.

Peace,

Rav Yitz

Get Tired Of Travelling You Want To Settle Down (Robert Hunter, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir,& Phil Lesh - "Truckin'"

          Our eldest daughter has been incredibly busy working for Hilary Clinton in the state of Iowa. Since last Pesach she has lived in Des Moines, Iowa.  Knowing that she has a few days to recuperate, her younger siblings are full of questions. Where does she go next? And after that? What happens when the primaries are over? Does she ever return one place and live in it like we do? Does she move to New York, Washington D.C. How long does she keep living in places for short periods of time? What does she do when there campaigning is finished and the election is held? As I listened to the questions and tried to answer them clearly and succinctly I became aware of what was underlying all these questions. From our younger children’s perspective, their oldest sister’s pace of life seemed incredibly busy leading up to a primary or election, then there would be a moment of down time and then she would have to ramp it back up for the next primary. Underlying all their questions was their picture of a normal life. From their perspective adults go to work and return home from work. There may be errands to run, late night meetings but essentially there was a sense of routine and mundane activity. Not every day can be16 hour days, being followed by a reporter, explaining the candidate’s “ground game” or being interviewed by the national news on the night of a primary, or giving a speech for a candidate. Our younger children wanted to know when their big sister will begin to lead a “normal life” with “normal work hours”.

Last week we read about the revelation at Sinai, with the thunder, the lightening, and a big booming voice. Last week we read the Aseret Dibrot, the Ten Commandments. Last week we were inspired by the words “I am the lord your god, you should have no other gods before me” “you shall keep the Sabbath holy”, respect your parents, and so on and so on. Of course these commandments are the bedrock of Judeo- Christian morality and society. However when the thunder and lightning are finished, and the big booming voice stops booming, B’nai Yisroel has Ten Commandments. However they still had a problem. They told Moshe to return to the mountain but they never acknowledged their acceptance of the Ten Commandments.  We can almost imagine Bnai Yisroel so awestruck that they couldn’t muster an answer.  After all, seeing a mountain on fire, the thunder, the lightning and a big booming voice, does not exactly lend itself to people nodding their head in understanding and approval.  The moment was so awesome, so inspiring, that it utterly paralyzed Bnai Yisroel.  Even the commandments themselves were so awe inspiring that Bnai Yisroel has no way to deal with the day to day issues of everyday life.

            However, B’nai Yisroel, like the rest of us, could not and cannot live life in a state of revelation, spiritual awe and euphoria unable to function in the everyday world. As human beings, our ability to stay that awe-inspired, can only last a brief moment before we understand that we live here on earth and not in the spiritual realm. Now B’nai Yisroel must learn how to behave like a nation of priests here, in this world, on an everyday basis. This week’s Parshah, Mishpatim, begins: V’Eilah Hamishpatim, And these are the judgments or laws that you [Moshe], shall put before them. God then lists a plethora of rules and regulations by which everyday life must be lived.  The list enumerates how to solve problems that occur between community members: the treatment strangers and slaves and how to be a mentsche.  Except for attorneys, this list of laws and statutes might seem incredibly uninspiring, dry, and non-spiritual.

 Even in the dry, seemingly uninspired promulgation of these everyday laws, we learn a very valuable lesson. Parsha Mishpatim, with its plethora of laws, judgements, and statutes provide us with the tools for everyday life. This generation of former slaves need to learn how to take mundane activities and add meaning and holiness to it. Torah gives us the tools. We learn that revelation doesn’t happen too often. Grand, powerful, awe inspiring events don’t happen every day. If such moments did occur every day then those moments would cease being so grand, so powerful and so awe-inspiring. Or we would become so overwhelmed that when those moments ended we wouldn’t be able to return to a normal mundane life. We are capable of experiencing revelation everyday; it just won’t be the “Ten Commandments” type of revelation. B’nai Yisroel’s response of Na’Aseh V’Nishmah We will do and we will learn to Moshe’s presentation of these laws suggests that we are capable of inspiring ourselves, and able to experience revelation even in the mundane aspects of life. We do this learning and struggling to combine the sacred and the profane and the holy and the mundane. For now, our eldest daughter loves what she does and is able to handle the pace of life on a political campaign. As she makes her way from state to state, as the campaign draws to a close, hopefully she figures out how to return to a more balanced life and able to bring the revelation she experiences on the road to a more settled life. But for now, as a young politically passionate woman, she still has a candidate to get elected at least once if not twice; then maybe she will be ready for the more mundane aspects of life.

Peace,

Rav Yitz

You Got An Empty Cup; Only Love Can Fill (Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia- "Comes A Time")

A few weeks ago, our eldest daughter moved to Iowa. Our younger children, who are still learning to locate all fifty states on a map (living in Toronto for the past 5 years, they are able to locate all the Canadian provinces on a map); know that it is somewhere in the middle of the United States, in the flat part of the country.  Iowa is a place with lots of corn, lots of pigs and I think it provided the setting for the musical “The Music Man”.  For many Americans, Iowa is generally FOS - “Fly Over State” three out of four years. However, in the fourth year Iowa becomes a political center for Presidential candidates. For our daughter, working for the former First Lady and former Secretary of State is the specific reason for her move to Iowa. As Parents, we worry about our children, not just one in Iowa. We worry about their choices, we worry the lessons we thought we were teaching become misinterpreted.  We worry about the type of adults they may or may not become. As Jewish parents we worry about their Jewish lives, their Jewish choices, and relationships. As parents we foolishly and naively think we have more control when they are younger and living in our house and living by our rules. Of course, in reality we have very little control, we just fool ourselves. However with a child in Iowa, well, we don’t even have the convenience of lying to ourselves. Rather we talk our eldest daughter. (Sometimes, I think we talk just to make me feel better and less worried). However I remind her to always remember who she is. No she doesn’t need to remember that she is a Rabbi’s daughter. That doesn’t matter to me. No, I don’t need to remind her that she is Jewish. She knows that. No, I remind her, like I remind all my kids before they go out, to keep in mind who she is, how she was raised and the type of values that we instilled in her. Like all of our kids, we remind them to avoid going along with the crowd. We remind them to be a mentsche even when people around are being a little less than mentschlekite, less than ethical and a little less than kind and decent.

This Shabbat we read from Parsha Emor. In the four chapters that comprise Emor, the first deals with the Kohanim and their very different way of striving for holiness as compared to the rest of the nation. For example, because of the Kohen’s function within society, he must remain in a perpetual state of purity. He is restricted in terms of who he can marry. He is restricted in terms of for whom he mourns. He cannot go to a cemetery. He cannot make sacrificial offerings if he has physical abnormalities. The second chapter reminds B’nai Yisroel that all animal offerings must be blemish free. These offerings must come directly from the individual making them and not from “the hand of a stranger” (Lev.22:25). Both chapters deal with the holiness of certain people, the Kohen and his family, and certain animals, those designated for sacrificial offering. The third chapter of the Parsha deals with the designation of holiness in regards to seasons and the calendar.including: Shabbat, Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The fourth chapter offers a narrative in which the son of an Israelite woman and Egyptian man, and another Israelite man get into a fight. The son pronounced the forbidden name of God and was charged with blasphemy. The Torah tells us the punishment for blasphemy is death. This is the same punishment for an individual who commits murder. 

As the Torah upon Holiness and perhaps even Perfection, we learn that striving for Holiness and striving for Perfection requires creating a distinct separation from the mundane, the ordinary, and the less than perfect. The Torah reminds the Kohen, “Lo Yikrechu Korcha B’Rosham U’Fa’at Z’Kanam Lo Y’Galeichu UVivsaram Lo Yisr’tu Saratet- They shall not make a bald spot on their heads, and they shall not shave an edge of their beard; and in their flesh they shall not cut a gash (Lev21:5). Rashi explains that certain tribes that lived in Biblical Canaan, as well as Ancient Egyptians would engage in these types of behaviors while mourning the death of a loved one. Literally the Torah reminds the Priestly class to be sure and NOT behave like other people, don’t mourn like other people, don’t worship like other people, don’t behave like these ancient tribes of idolaters. The Chatam Sofer, one of the great 19^th century Central European Rabbis, explained that the verse has a homilietical meaning as well. The Torah reminds us not to create a bald spot upon our head, we don’t create an emptiness on our head. The Chatam Sofer understand the emptiness as ignorance, a lack of learning. The head should be filled with Torah, with mitzvoth, with doing good things in the world, and making sound, intelligent choices. Sometimes that requires the person to be just a bit separate, distinct and apart from those who create an emptiness in their own respective heads.  

Certainly Judaism is difficult. Climbing the ladder of holiness requires effort and desire. Climbing this ladder will affect and even change our lives. It affects what we eat, it affects how we relate to our mates, it affects our treatment of others, it affects how we look at time and space, it affects our relationship to God, and how we relate to ourselves. If Judaism, the sanctification of the self, and the sanctification of God were easy, then neither could we appreciate it, nor commit to it. We strive to fill our heads knowledge, with Torah. We avoid creating “empty spaces”, bald spot, in our heads, knowing that what our heads are filled with or not, will be expressed in our behavior, our attitudes our relationship with our loved ones and with God. So our daughter lives in Iowa. The more we speak with her, the more re-assured we are that she hasn’t created an emptiness in her head, but rather has kept it filled and continues to fill it with wisdom, knowledge and mentschelekite.

        

Peace

Rav Yitz