Parashat Vayakhel

Image from weheartit

This sermon was published previously on the website of Leo Baeck Collge

Parashat Vayakhel
Power to the People

‘Don’t you know, they’re talking ‘bout a revolution, it sounds like a whisper.’
Folk singer Tracy Chapman’s warm voice trills with restrained anticipation during the first bars of this famous song. I heard it as an idealistic teenager and was instantly inspired. It was Tracy Chapman’s music that encouraged me to learn how to play the guitar.
 
The days of revolutionary spirit seemed long gone. But revolutions can appear suddenly and unannounced, like a thief in the night. At first, they sound like whispers, but then their clarion call grows triumphant.
These last few weeks we witnessed history in the making. With baited breath we watched the footage as Tunisia burst into flame, shortly followed by Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya. The initial euphoria over protesters marching on Tahrir Square ousting Egypt’s Mubarak was dampened by grisly reports of Gaddafi’s onslaught in Benghazi, Libya.
 
I feel trepidation mixing politics and Torah. ‘Shivim panim l’Torah’, our tradition teaches us, ‘seventy faces to the Torah’. The Torah is a multifaceted and eternally lustrous diamond. Blocking out its natural iridescence in favour of one set of opinions is dishonest at best and dangerous at worst.

Yet silence in the face of tragedy or travesty is immoral. And keeping quiet reduces the wisdom our tradition can offer during momentous times. The challenge is to give Torah a voice. A voice that makes our tradition contemporary and concerned for the world but that is also pluralist and self-aware. A voice that speaks with authority derived from justice.

In this week’s parasha, Moses embodies that very voice.  Va-Yakhel Moshe et kol adat b’nei Yisrael,  ‘And Moses assembled all the congregation of the children of Israel’ (Exod. 35:1). At first glance, this opening line seems unremarkable. There are numerous times in the Torah when Moses relays God’s commandments, assembles the people, and addresses them. Yet, when examined more closely and in context, this verse grants us insights into a world aflame.

These last few parashiyot have rocked the fundamentals of our understanding of covenantal community and its leaders. In Tetzaveh, Moses was not mentioned altogether; it was his brother Aaron who stepped into the limelight as the High Priest. In Ki Tissa, Aaron makes a crucial error in judgement when he allows the children of Israel to build their golden calf. At the same time, Moses is profoundly challenged as he loses his temper with the idolatrous Israelites and smashes the tablets of the Law, not long after he was pleading with God on behalf of these Israelites.

It is not only the leaders who are torn and tested. Our sequence of events, like many dynamic social changes, starts off idealistic. In parashat Terumah, God commands the Israelites to donate generously to the Sanctuary (Exod. 25:1). But in Tetzaveh, God commands Moses brusquely with the rare use of ve-ata tetzaveh, ‘and you shall command the children of Israel’ (Exod. 27:20). Like in Terumah, the Israelites are put to work building the tabernacle. The narrative shifts towards the ostentatious description of the priestly vestments, only to shift back to the narrative of involuntary taxation in Ki Tissa when the half-shekel is collected. The message seems clear: perhaps the people are used to serve Moses and Aaron and their theocratic ideals. Is it small wonder that they build the golden calf?

In parashat Ki Tissa, we experience the fallout of the political hegemony established by the sibling-leaders. Va-yikkahel ha-am al Aharon – ‘And the people assembled against Aaron’ (Exod. 32:1). The same verb, koph-heh-lamed, ‘to assemble’, is used in this week’s parasha. The difference, however, is small but significant. When the people assembled to force Aaron to build them their idol, they gathered against Aaron, as illustrated by the Hebrew preposition, al. Their unity was not ‘for the sake of Heaven’, or for a lofty cause. It was driven by fearful and idolatrous impulses. It was the take-over by a mob. The Torah does not fail to recount the terrible consequences: the breaking of the tablets of the Law, and worse yet, the slaughter of three thousand people by overzealous Levites: a political act one could construe as ‘counter revolutionary’. Never would the relationship between the Divine and the people be the same again.

Yet there seems to be a tikkun, a repair, in parashat Va-Yakhel. Moses takes charge: he finally finds his own voice as a political leader and as a mediator. His experiences and shortcomings have tempered him. It is he who assembles the people—peacefully and without ulterior motive. And rather than demanding riches and labour, he gives the people Israel a precious gift: Shabbat, with its promise of dignified rest, free from slavery (Exod. 35:2). The Sanctuary is invested with a deeper meaning, as a place to define sacred time, space and community.

Rashi states that Moses assembled the community on the tenth of Tishrei: Yom Kippur. Rather than the community gathering against its leadership, Moses takes pains to include the entire congregation. Now the people have been forged into a covenant community bound by shared values rather than merely their ethnos. The result is touching: the people give willingly and are empowered with a lev chochmah, a wise heart (Exod. 35:10). Their labour and destiny is no longer a source of alienation but of meaning. Here we glimpse Redemption, where even God learns to relent and where all can find dignity and fulfilment as complete human beings.

‘Poor people gonna rise up, and get their share’, Tracy Chapman continued, urgency mounting in her voice. Yet she concludes hopefully with ‘and finally the tables are starting to turn’.

With our eyes on the events in the Middle East, it is my prayer that the upheavals of the disempowered turn to a vision of peace where each citizen and political leader alike is granted a ‘lev chochmah’, a wise heart. May we all continue to assemble, wherever we find ourselves, to become truly an edah, a global congregation united under the banner of democracy, freedom, peace and equal rights for all.

Reset-knop

Deze column verscheen eerder in februari 2011 op Nieuw W!J.

"Je bent goed van vertrouwen!" Is dat een compliment of een verkapte vorm van kritiek? Vertrouwen associëren we in principe met positieve emoties. We durven een sprong in het diepe te nemen. Vertrouwen smeedt relaties, brengt gemoedsrust en schept een solide basis voor een optimistisch wereldbeeld.

Toch krijgt het woordje ‘vertrouwen’ voor mij steeds vaker een bittere bijsmaak. Wie kun je tegenwoordig nog vertrouwen? Ooit liep ik als student culturele antropologie stage in de Achterhoek (jawel, heel exotisch!). Aangenaam verrast was ik dat men daar de achterdeur van het huis nog steeds niet op slot doet. Tegelijkertijd vond ik dit als doorgewinterde randstedeling ook een beetje naïef. Op microniveau is zulk cynisme een vorm van zelfbescherming. 'Vertrouw op God maar zet je fiets op slot.'

Op macroniveau kan een gebrek aan vertrouwen schadelijker zijn. Een ander oudhollands spreekwoord is: ‘Wie goed doet, goed ontmoet’. Maar voor deze basis hebben we wel vertrouwen nodig. We vertrouwen elkaar niet meer. Helaas is dit op politiek niveau vaak terecht. Als burger wordt ons vertrouwen dikwijls beschaamd. Transparantie eisen van de ondoordringbare instituties van de macht is een van de grote gaven van de moderne democratie. Maar wat betekent het om als politicus of economisch leider niet meer vertrouwd te worden? Het gevaar dreigt dat leiders zich gaan richten naar het lage verwachtingspatroon van de burger. Zonder vertrouwen is er geen accountability. Wanneer wij onze leiders wantrouwen, durven onze leiders ons niet meer in vertrouwen te nemen. Want eerlijkheid is dan een nagel aan de doodskist van je politieke carrière.

Hoe verfrissend zou het zijn als we elkaar weer vertrouwden en niet elk persoonlijk falen tot een politiek schandaal zou worden uitgemeten? En dat we elkaar tegelijkertijd kunnen afrekenen op onze daden? Ironische genoeg kunnen we lering trekken uit twee globale incidenten die voortkwamen uit een ultiem politiek wantrouwen: Wikileaks en de Arabische revoluties. Julian Assange van Wikileaks wordt alom verguisd of geprezen. Was de man onverantwoordelijk door zoveel gevoelige informatie openbaar te maken of is hij een held die corruptie en machtsmisbruik aan de kaak stelt? Is hij een vrouwonvriendelijke verkrachter die zich verschuilt achter een ideëel masker of is hij een willoos slachtoffer van een politiek complot? Hetzelfde geldt voor de omwentelingen in het Midden-Oosten. Luidt de Egyptische revolutie een nieuwe dageraad van pan-Arabische democratie in of tuimelt de wereld in de steeds sterker wordende greep van de politieke islam? Worden wij geïnspireerd door de dappere activisten die traangas en kogels trotseren of kijken wij afgestompt naar beelden van ontredderde demonstranten die een gevaarlijk politiek vacuüm creëren?

Ik ga geen antwoorden geven op deze vragen. Wikileaks en de Revolutie van 2011 geven ons namelijk een unieke kans. De reset-knop wordt ingedrukt, de lei wordt schoongeveegd. Wat als wij met nieuwe ogen kijken naar de recente ontwikkelingen en we elkaar vertrouwen schenken? Als dat vertrouwen toch geschaad wordt, dan hebben we het recht om elkaar daar op aan te spreken. Het mooie daarvan weer is dat er toch een dialoog ontstaat. Relaties smeden dus, want dat is de sleutel naar verandering!

Parashat Ki Tisa

Image by Google



Sermon Parashat Ki Tisa, Herefordshire Liberal Community

Trust

We humans are fickle. We dedicate ourselves to the highest principles, only to be seduced by our basest instincts. There is a danger that we focus too much on fragmented self-interest. And so we trust in the idolatry of the immediate.

But what would you have done?

We witnessed miracles and Revelation. We saw the angel of death in Egypt and the Torah of life at Sinai. We were redeemed and covenanted. In our religious enthusiasm, we donated gold to the Sanctuary in the desert. We trusted.

Yet we didn’t trust enough and paid the price.

Moses disappeared. He ascended the mountain to encounter the Divine and we were left wondering how long he would be gone. Moses had always kept his promises. The Eternal provided for us in the desert, sated us with manna, quenched our thirst with Miriam’s well. But still we didn’t trust.

Moses was a day late, or so we thought. Only a day and we panicked.

This desert adventure is scary. We felt lonely at the camp, lost in the unfamiliar, divorced from the only life we knew. Despite the prayers and sacrifices, we felt unsettled. It was hard to remember why we fled from Egypt in the first place. Suddenly, we felt very small.

We approached the next-in-line; Aaron. We needed something tangible that we could touch, taste and feel. At least in Egypt, things were real. The pyramids and the Nile, temples housing the finely crafted statues of the gods. We served motherly Isis, friend to the oppressed, the imposing, falcon-god Horus and elegant, feline Bastet. We had our fleshpots there, bread and cucumbers. We had work. Oppressive and alienating work, but a job is a job. We may not have had our dignity but we had a place.

And now we were in the desert, that placeless place, the empty space where the only thing you will encounter is the shimmering mirage of yourself. Praying to a faceless God. We didn’t trust this situation at all.

‘Aseh lanu elohim asher yelchu lefaneinu!’ we commanded Aaron (Ex. 32:1). ‘Make us gods who will go before us’. Aaron heard the anger in our voice. What could he do? He stalled by requesting all our gold jewelry, from us and our wives and children. Perhaps he thought that this confiscation of the last of our securities would change our mind. It didn’t. Then he stalled by building us a singular idol, the egel, the golden calf. Perhaps he wanted to limit our idolatry to one god rather than many. We bowed down to it and lapsed into the comfortable and familiar. The golden calf gleamed majestically in the desert sun as we proclaimed, ‘this is your god, oh Israel, who brought us out of Egypt!’

Then Aaron tried to stall us one final time. ‘Tomorrow shall be a festival to God!’ But we didn’t trust in tomorrow. Tomorrow is invisible, just like that abstract Israelite God with a Name of whispered breath. Whose presence was no more than a hovering cloud at the edge of our vision.

We celebrated. Well, it was quite licentious, to be honest. If we didn’t trust in God, how could we trust in our own morals? If tomorrow cannot be trusted, then we only have today and we need not think about the consequences. We danced till the stars became a blur; we drank and indulged in the pleasures of the flesh. ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife’, that last of the Ten Commandments, was far from our mind.

But God saw. Moses came down the mountain and heard our debauchery. In fury, he smashed the tablets of the law, into a thousand pieces of shattered covenant. Moses ground our idol into powder and made us drink it. It tasted bitter, of disappointment and betrayal.

And then Moses made us choose. What people are you, he told us. One moment you bring offerings for the Sanctuary, and the next moment you tear the rings out of your daughters’ ears for your idols!1 Do you not know that idols have mouths but cannot speak, have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear? Those who make them shall become like them! Oh Israel, trust in the Eternal, Who is our help and shield!2

Where now is our God?3, we thought. We have the right to doubt and the obligation to question. It is hard to trust in the unseen. But the alternative is far worse. What happens if we do not trust? If we take a fragment as the whole? Idolatry is not only about making the idol but about investing it with more meaning than it deserves. Until it grows so large that it eclipses what is truly important and sacred.

‘Whoever is for the Eternal, come here!’ (Ex. 32:27). Moses tried to rally us but we didn’t hear his call.

Still our idols tug at us. Things we think are so important. Have we really changed?

The glint of money, the gleam of power… it is easy to pay obeisance to these. We fuel this furnace but the only thing we do is burn ourselves down. Ultimately all this falls away. What remains are the unseen but eternal ideals of justice, of compassion, of human dignity. Written on our hearts, offering us a focus on the whole, of how this precious and tender life fits in the palm of the One Who loves us with an eternal love.

How long will we teeter between two opinions?4 Or will we be able to trust? In ourselves, in each other, in the goodness of man and God alike? And call out to the unseen certainty: ‘Adonai Hu haElohim!’5 The Eternal alone is God.

Let us trust so that we may become more like God and less like our idols.

1 Reference based on Bavli Shekalim 1:1 ‘said Rabbi Aba Bar Acha, ‘There is no understanding the character of this people! They are solicited for the Golden Calf and they give; they are solicited for the Sanctuary and they give’’

2 Based on Psalm 115:4-5

3 Another reference to Psalm 115:2

4 Reference to the Haftarah from 1 Kings 18:21

5 Ibid, 1 Kings 18:39

'Suske en Wiske en de Lernende Leraren'

images from talmudcomics.net

Soncino Press, Adin Steinzalts en Schottenstein (Artscroll Press) hebben allen iets gemeen: ze hebben een grote bedrage geleverd in het toegankelijk maken van de Talmoed voor een breder publiek. Soncino vertaalde de tekst in statig engels, Adin Steinzalts vertaalde de Talmoed in modern iwriet en opende daarmee de deuren van de tekst voor miljoenen israeli's en de Schottenstein editie is een prachtige uitgave waarin de engelse en de hebreeuws/aramese teksten van de Vilna editie geintegreerd zijn. Alle drie de uitgaven zijn aan te raden voor de beginnende Talmoed student.

Voor wie echter in plaatjes denkt, is er ook de Talmoed in stripvorm. Ja, u leest het goed: in stripvorm. Zoiets als 'Suske en Wiske en Lernende Leraren' maar dan anders. Een vriendin van mij, Yonah Medbh Lavery-Yisraeli is een voltijd Kollel-studente aan de Conservative Yeshiva te Jeruzalem en kunstenares. Op haar website, Talmudcomics.net kan men haar werk vinden.

Yonah's strips zijn geen strips in de klassieke zin des woords, eerder een soort 'graphic novels'. Ook losstaande illustraties kunnen op haar site gevonden worden. Haar stijl is een prikkelende, anachronistische combinatie van 'modern-met-Chazal-chique'. Yonah's Talmoedische rabbijnen dragen soms jeans en een keppeltje of andere hedendaagse mode met elementen van de historische dracht van de Oudheid er in verwerkt. Yonah speelt bewust met deze anachronistische associaties om de lezer te laten nadenken over de verhouding tussen de moderniteit en de wereld van de Talmoed.

Veel van onze vertrouwde rabbijnen passeren de revu. Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yochanan, Avtalyon en Shemaya, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai onder zijn Johannesbroodboom, Raba en Abaye maar ook Beruria, de wijze en bedachtzame vrouw van Rabbi Meir die haar kinderen verloor door ziekte.

R'Shimon bar Yochai onder zijn Johannesbroodboom

Behalve portretten van Chazal (de rabbijnen uit de Talmoed) kan men ook stukken van traktaten vinden, waaronder het 'beginnerstraktaat' Berachot en delen van Ta'anit.
Yonah maakt ook illustraties en schilderijen van gebeden, rituele voorwerpen en joodse feestdagen. Tevens heeft zij haar eigen blog. Met blogposts geeft de artieste tekst en uitleg over haar werk en worden toekomstige projecten uitgewerkt.

Yonah's werk is dubbel origineel. Ten eerste is het origineel om delen van de Talmoed in stripvorm af te beelden. Ten tweede is haar methodiek origineel. Yonah is enerzijds trouw aan de traditie en leeft joods-religieus. Anderzijds is ze een moderne, niet-Orthodoxe vrouw die er niet voor schroomt om het spanningsveld tussen traditie en moderne vraagstukken op te zoeken. De vrouwen in haar Talmoed strips zien er modern uit, met onbedekt haar. Ze spreken en denken. Haar rabbijnen zijn jeugdig en dynamisch. Ze speelt ook met gender en seksualiteit. Hierdoor ontstaat er een soort 'Droste-effect'. De Talmoed zelf schroomde niet om moeilijke discussies aan te gaan en Yonah eert de moed van Chazal door het zelfde te doen.

Kortom, lezen dus. En mocht u de tekst van de Talmoed er zelf bij willen pakken, dan kan dat ook. Doordat de rechten op de Soncino Talmoed verjaart zijn kunt u op deze website bijna de gehele Sjas (sjisja sedarim; de 'zes orders' van de Misjna, een benaming voor de gehele Talmoed) downloaden. Als PDF, met de engelse tekst. (Voor de hebreeuwse/aramese tekst van de Talmoed online, klik hier en hier).

Ik denk dat Chazal het alleen maar fantastisch had gevonden: een vrouwelijke illustrator die de verhalen nieuw leven inblazen en het Internet die de tekst voor iedereen toegankelijk maakt. Ze hadden er vast een levendige makhloukes (discussie, meningsverschil) over gehad. Lernt u mee?

Parashat Terumah

image by google

Sermon Alyth Gardens Synagogue
Parashat Terumah, 5th of February 2011

Eternal Flame

It is easy to focus on the externals.

At first glance, Parashat Terumah reads like a posh handbook for exclusive interior decorators. The text indulges in elaborate descriptions of the beautiful and ostentatious Mishkan. We are treated to a veritable treatise on physical beauty and material wealth: precious metals, costly fabrics and even exotic materials. Finely woven curtains dyed in royal blue, purple and crimson, vessels of pure gold and panels of acacia wood. This all culminates in the description of the seven-armed Menorah. To be made from a single clump of gold, beaten and shaped into elegant floral forms, the Menorah represents a masterpiece of Biblical craftsmanship.

The true masterpiece, however, is made by internal craftsmanship. The craftsmanship of the soul, honed both by acts of goodness in ourselves and an awareness of goodness in the world. ‘V’asu li mikdash v’shachanti betocham’ - ‘And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them’(Ex. 25:8) the Parasha tells us.

For the Torah, the external and internal are entwined. The Divine is both transcendent and immanent, a mystery to our world and yet so profoundly bound to it. The veils of the Mishkan both reveal and obscure. But all is fundamentally One.
If we only focus on the external, half the universe slips away from us. After all, the pasuk does not say ‘V’asu li mikdash v’shachanti sham’ – ‘And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell there’.
No, it is the word ‘betocham’, ‘amongst them’, that unifies the apparent contradictions of what lies in front of and within us.
In the Midrashic imagination of the Rabbis, the Mishkan is the metaphor and microcosm of our universe. Each step of its creation corresponds to the six days of Creation described in Bereshit (Midrash Rabbah). This is a compelling reading of our ‘axis mundi’, the navel of the world. In another rabbinic imagining, the Mishkan and her component parts represent the human body and soul (Midrash haGadol). And so, the construction of the Tabernacle is in many ways the construction of our inner selves. Rather than journeying to the centre of the earth, we plunge the depths of our own being.

Excavating the rich layers within ourselves requires a methodology, of course, and in Judaism, Mussar provides such a methodology. Mussar is the traditional Jewish discipline that hones our moral and spiritual characteristics. The 11th century Mussar master, rabbi Bachya Ibn Pekudah composed his primary work, ‘Chovot haLevavot’, ‘Duties of the Heart’ as a handbook for real ‘interior decorating’!
In his writing, Bachya refers to a beautiful verse from Mishlei (Proverbs) that solders itself onto the deeper truths of our Parasha.

‘Ner Hashem nishmat adam chofesh kol chadrei baten’ – ‘the lamp of the Eternal is the soul of man, searching all its inner chambers’ (Proverbs 20:27). This verse helps us on our inner journey. It is the ‘duty of our heart’ to probe our inner Mishkan and to light our inner Menorah. If Deuteronomy (20:19) likens a person to a ‘tree in the field’, then why cannot one be likened to the splendid, seven-branched candelabra that stood rooted in the Holy of Holies?

It seems fitting that if our bodies are garbed in the beauty of the external world, our souls are lit by Divine light. Our souls, hewn from a single block of solid gold, delicately and painstakingly hammered into branches and receptacles, hold and nourish this Divine light. Rashi comments on the Torah’s requirement that the Menorah should be hewn from a single block of pure gold, ‘zahav tahor’. He explains that the gold may not be fragmented. The Menorah should remain whole.

We too, should remain whole.

Just as it is tempting to focus on externals, it is also tempting to focus on divisions. When we fail to regard ourselves as both whole and pure, we experience cognitive dissonance and cracks appear in our sense of self-respect. Being a ‘lamp of the Eternal’ does not mean that we have to grind ourselves down, or break ourselves up at the molecular level. The inner work of Mussar, of polishing our lamp should not leave us feeling torn or diminished but rather lovingly refined, the essence of our souls left intact.
This great task of shaping our lamp and lighting its wicks should empower us to see ourselves for whom and what we really are, even if it means probing our darkest and innermost reaches and asking ourselves difficult questions. Yet it is important to remember the line from the morning blessings, ‘Elohai neshama shenatata bi, tehorah hi’ – ‘My God, the soul that You have placed in me, she is pure’. We recite this in our liturgy through which we courageously affirm the value of ourselves.

It may be easy to focus on the external but it is rewarding to take up the Torah’s challenge. Lovingly give yourself this gift, this ‘terumah’, of what is precious to you. Light your inner fire and take up the lamp of your soul. Ask yourself what you would like to refine and polish and what dark corners you would like to search. Practice kindness and openness of heart, cherish your curiosity and idealism, embrace growth and change. But above all, love yourself. This process will be arduous and sometimes painful but remember you are not alone. In this great journey of life, God can be a lamp to your soul and a lantern for your feet. Perhaps then you can see your light in God’s Light (psalm 36:9). Cherish the beauty of the internal and external, of heaven and earth, all unified in the nexus of our inner Temple.

‘V’shachanti betochecha’, the Eternal will whisper, ‘and I shall dwell with you’.
May it be so.