In or out of the box: begrenzingen en vrijheid

D’rasja LJG Amsterdam: Begrenzing, bemoediging en vrijheid 

Ik heb erg veel respect gekregen voor mijn man. Niet alleen heeft hij mij de afgelopen vijf jaar door dik en dun gesteund toen ik op de rabbijnenopleiding zat, maar hij heeft nu ook een begin gemaakt aan ‘de babykamer’. ‘De babykamer’ is een klus waar wij al enige tijd tegenop zagen. Naar de Prenatal – het glazuur springt van je tanden, zo zoet met al die hartjes en roze – om inkopen te doen, keurig met de lijst van kraamzorg in de hand (heb nooit geweten wat ‘hydrofiele luiers’ zijn. Het zijn dus geen luiers – zo leer je ook weer eens wat). En nu is mijn heldhaftige echtgenoot begonnen met het in elkaar zetten van de box voor ons kleine mannetje. 

In de opvoedkundige wereld zijn er natuurlijk hele discussies over de zin of onzin van een box. Is het goed voor een baby om zo begrensd of beperkt te worden? Of biedt dat juist veiligheid en structuur aan een onoverzichtelijke en chaotische wereld waardoor een klein kindje met meer vertrouwen de wereld leert aftasten? In de joodse traditie – ook de liberaal-joodse traditie – kennen wij volwassenen deze discussie ook. Geven de mitzvot ons structuur en veiligheid in een existentieel chaotische wereld? Of beperken ze ons in onze zelf-expressie en vrijheid? 

De parasja van deze week overdenkt dit thema ook. Er is een zekere ambivalentie, een soort onduidelijkheid, in de pedagogische leer van parasjat Dewariem. Want dat het om een kind-ouder relatie gaat, moge duidelijk zijn. Nu ik zelf bezig ben met het lezen van opvoedkundige boeken (‘Oei Ik Groei!’ en ‘Jongens, hoe voed je ze op?’ van gezinstherapeut Steve Biddulph, een echte aanrader!) en als compleet onervaren bijna-moeder is het leerzaam om te kijken welke modellen van ouderschap de Tora ons aanbiedt. Houdt de Eeuwige onze hand vast of geeft Hij ons de vrijheid om te kiezen? Hoe is het om het als joodse volk angstig te zijn voor de nieuwe uitdagingen die ons wachten zoals de ‘anakiem’, de reuzen van het beloofde land? En hoe kunnen wij die angsten overwinnen? 

De ouder-kind relatie, in dit geval tussen de Eeuwige en de mens, is de meest intieme uitdrukking van de verbondsgedachte. Weinig relaties grijpen zo in op onze ontwikkeling als mens. Steve Biddulph is in zijn boek dan ook duidelijk: moeders maar vooral ook vaders moeten nauw betrokken zijn bij de opvoeding van hun kinderen en er vooral ook van genieten. Maar ook belangrijk: kinderen spiegelen zich aan de relatie die de ouders onderling hebben. Een liefdevol en respectvol huwelijk is misschien dan ook het grootste geschenk wat je aan kinderen kunt geven. (Mocht ik vreselijk naief zijn in deze kwesties dan hoor ik het graag bij de kiddoesj van de ervaringsdeskundigen onder jullie!) 

Dit is dan tegelijk ook meteen de kracht van Tora: zij houdt ons een spiegel voor en de Tora houdt zelfs de Eeuwige een spiegel voor. Is de Tora een opvoedkundig boek? Absoluut – maar vaak door weer te geven hoe het niet moet in plaats van hoe het wel moet. We kunnen denken aan de Akeida – het moment dat Awraham Jitschak wilde offeren. Niet helemaal pedagogisch verantwoord. De vele familieconflicten van onze aartsvaders, de strubbelingen die Mosje met het joodse volk ervoer in de midbar, de woestijn. En zelfs hoe God tekortschiet: Hij doodt de eerstgeborenen van de Egyptenaren, Hij straft en doodt opstandige leden van het joodse volk met enige regelmaat vooral in het boek Bamidbar. Oftewel: een gezinstherapeut zou er wel raad mee weten! 

De parasja opent dan ook met Mosje’s ongezouten kritiek: ‘ele hadewarim asher diber Moshe al kol Yisrael’ – ‘dit zijn de woorden die Mosje sprak tot het hele joodse volk’. Volgens verschillende Midrasjim, Yalkut Shimoni en Sifre, refereren ‘ele dewarim’ – deze woorden – naar de strenge woorden die Mosje richtte aan het volk. Toch ook hier een pedagogische noot: het was Balaam die aan loze vleierij deed maar juist Mosje die met strenge liefde sprak, zoals het een ouder (of leider) betaamt. En zoals het een goede ouder betaamd, laat Mosje de Tora in 70 talen verklaren (‘ho’iel Mosje be’er et haTora’) zodat de leerstellingen voor ieder te begrijpen zouden zijn. Tegelijkertijd erkent Mosje, als een inmiddels ervaren leider, wat zijn beperkingen zijn: ‘lo oechal levadi tse’et etchem’ – ‘ik kan jullie niet alleen dragen’. Hier op volgt dan ook een tedere uiting van de Eeuwige met een knikje naar Awraham: de Eeuwige heeft jullie doen vermenigvuldigen, zoals de sterren in de hemel en moge Hij ‘yevarech etchem ka’asher diber etchem’ – jullie zegenen zoals Hij beloofd heeft. 

Een goede ouder blijft zich ontwikkelen, overwint zijn woede en houdt zich aan zijn of haar belofte. En het joodse volk weet zich te spiegelen: iets later houdt Dewariem ons ethische wetten voor – om geschillen eerlijk te berechten, om de rijken niet voor te trekken, om rechters aan te stellen. Een rechtvaardige samenleving, een goede relatie, een waarachtig verbond is van dit spiegelen afhankelijk. 

Gaat het wel eens mis? Natuurlijk. De Eeuwige laat het joodse volk stikken. Het volk laat het op zijn beurt ook weer afweten. De straf is dan ook dat die generatie het beloofde land niet halen zal. Maar deze dynamiek is menselijk en geeft ons ook moed – we kunnen relaties repareren. Begin volgende week is het Tisja b’Aw en herdenken wij het dieptepunt in de relatie tussen God en Israel, waar de vervreemding in het boek Klaagliederen (Eicha) compleet lijkt. Tegelijkertijd krabbelen we dan via zeven troostende haftarot en de bemoedigende woorden van Dewariem weer overeind zodat we met de Hoge Feestdagen in een authentieke relatie kunnen staan: met de Eeuwige en met elkaar. 

Onze reis is nog lang niet afgelopen. En zo kent Dewariem vele tedere momenten waar we inspiratie uit kunnen putten. De ‘Misjne Tora’, de ‘tweede Tora’, zoals het boek ook in de rabbijnse traditie genoemd wordt, omdat het een samenvatting is van de hoogste idealen van onze traditie: ethisch monotheisme, de liefdevolle verbondsgedachte, de vrije wil van de mens en de bemoedigende zegeningen van Mosje. 

Zo’n box is toch wel handig waarin we onze kleine zo nu en dan een liefdevol en gestructureerd plekje kunnen aanbieden, zoals de Tora dat met ons doet. Als dat geen wijze lessen zijn voor mijn man en ik als aanstaande ouders! Met zo’n pedagogiek kunnen we bergen verzetten en ‘anakiem’, reuzen, overwinnen. 

Sjabbat sjalom.

Wijdingspreek

(Dit is de Nederlandse vertaling van de 'Ordination Address' die ik ten gelegenheid van mijn rabbinale wijding op 7 juli 2013 heb gegeven).

Wijdingspreek 7 juli 2013 

Rabbijn Esther Hugenholtz 

Hoe pas je een reis van twintig jaren dromen, tien jaren voorbereiding en vijf jaar studeren aan een rabbinale opleiding in een preek van 600 woorden? Op een talmoedische manier, natuurlijk, door het vertellen van een verhaal – of door het voorlezen van een stukje uit een hele oude brief. 

“Utrecht, 26 Juny 1823 Lieve! 

Beste Schat! Ik hebbe op den biddag met veel hulpe mogen prediken over Hozea 11:9 ik ben God en geen mensch: Daar Coll. Smith, Profr. Heringa en Merens over mij predikten, had ik in vergelijking een klein gehoor, gel. ik ook in de collecte de minste aller broederen was… mogt het mij maar ootmoedig voor God en menschen maken!” 

Dit was een brief van mijn betovergrootvader Petrus Hugenholtz aan zijn geliefde vrouw, Christina. Hij is een van mijn directe voorouders in de mannelijke lijn, geboren in 1766, en een schakel in een lange traditie van protestantse dominees van de familie Hugenholtz. Deze 250-jarige familietraditie begon in 1718 toen de eerste Hugenholtz gewijd werd – een traditie die ik met trots weer oppak en voortzet. 

Door te preken over de goddelijkheid in plaats van de menselijkheid van God in het bijbelboek Hosea, legde mijn betovergrootvader het fundament voor mijn eigen reis in zowel het jodendom als het rabbinaat. Het is verleidelijk om te denken dat ze bijna joods waren – ik maak alleen maar de klus af! 

Wij zijn allemaal op reis: mijn geliefde klasgenoten, mijn eerwaarde docenten, mijn dierbare familie en vrienden. Reizen vormen een belangrijk thema in onze joodse traditie die begon met Awraham, onze aartsvader, die opgedragen werd om zijn thuisland te verlaten in navolging van een vreemde roeping. Maar reizen kunnen niet plaatsvinden zonder richtingsgevoel en een zorgvuldig gekalibreerd kompas dat naar onze diepste waarden wijst. Ook kunnen wij onze reizen niet volbrengen zonder wind in onze zeilen of het anker dat ons verankerd in de menselijke relaties die ons kracht geven. 

Mijn richtingsgevoel is geworteld in geschiedenis: die van mijn familie, van mijn eigen verhaal en die van mijn joodse gemeenschap. Of zoals Bob Marley zong, ‘we know where we’re going, we know where we’re from.’ Dit diepe weten – op cognitief en existentieel niveau – is wat ons focus biedt. Tegelijkertijd waren het mijn dierbaren die de wind in mijn zeilen bliezen zodat ik verder kon gaan. Wij reizen nooit alleen. 

De Talmoed in traktaat Ketoebot 63a vertelt het verhaal van hoe de geleerde en vrome Rabbi Akiva op zijn hoge positie terechtkwam. Dit werd bewerkstelligd door zijn vrouw Rachel die hem 24 jaar lang naar de Beit Midrasj (het leerhuis) stuurde. Het was haar bescheidenheid, liefde en visie die hem de kracht gaf om door te gaan. Toen Rabbi Akiva terugkeerde met 24.000 leerlingen in zijn kielzog knielde hij voor zijn vrouw die zoveel had opgeofferd en kuste haar voeten en sprak, ‘sheli v’shelachem, shelah hu’ – ‘wat van mij is en wat van jullie is [zijn leerlingen] is van haar.’ 

Mijn dierbare man heeft ook vele offers gebracht zodat ik deze reis kon afmaken. We hebben in totaal vier jaar zonder elkaar moeten leven. Hij geloofde in mij terwijl ik deze reis ondernam met onze gedeelde kompas. Net zoals mijn betovergrootvader Petrus Hugenholtz heb ik mijn man vele brieven geschreven tijdens mijn rabbijnenopleiding. En net zoals hem zeg ik, ‘lieve, beste schat, wat van van mij is, is van jou.’ 

Hoe kan ik zo’n reis en al mijn gevoelens van dankbaarheid in zo’n kleine ruimte passen? ‘Kosi revayah’ – mijn beker stroomt over (Ps. 23:5). Moge ik ootmoedig [nederig] blijven tegenover God en de mens terwijl ik de weg van mijn voorouders volg en mijn gemeenschap dien, vertrouwende op dezelfde woorden van Hosea dat ‘de Heilige God met ons is en dat wij in Zijn weg zullen lopen.’ (Hosea 11:9-10). In de woorden van rabbijn Leo Baeck: ‘onze God wacht op ons.’ 

Moge dat Zijn wil zijn - Ken yehi ratzon.

Playing with Fire

Sermon Sinai Synagogue, Parashat Beha’a lot’cha 

Playing with Fire 

When I was reading my Facebook newsfeed three days ago, someone shared the lovely and heartwarming story from the Bradford Jewish community. The local Muslim community generously stepped up to raise funds for the synagogue’s leaky roof in a fantastic gesture of interfaith friendship. I immediately shared the story. I have a lot of Muslim friends on Facebook and I wanted to spread the goodwill. When I refreshed my newsfeed afterwards, still aglow with having my faith in humanity restored, I read about the gruesome Woolwich murder… 

I wondered for a long time whether this should be addressed in a sermon and if so, how. The media has covered the story in gruesome detail and pundits and ordinary people alike have descended to give their opinions. How do we see this – as a murder or as a terrorist attack? Were the two men ‘lone wolves’ or part of a wave of organised radicalisation? How does this gruesome act cast a shadow over the peaceful Muslim communities living alongside us? What will the larger political implications be as the Government seeks to formulate a response and possible policy in the wake of this? These are questions far too large and too sensitive to address here. 

What is important to look at is one larger question: the danger of religion. This is not about Islam or Judaism or Buddhism or Christianity. This is not about singling out a particular community in a blaming game. No, it’s about a process of introspection that each person of faith (or no faith) is obliged to engage in. Because if we play with fire, we can get burned. In this week’s parashah, we see both faces of organised religion: the good and the bad. Parashat Beha’a lot’cha starts off beautifully: ‘beha’a lot’cha et hanerot’ – ‘when you raise the lights of the Menorah’…, a symbol of the fire of religion bringing enlightenment and goodness, illuminating our souls. 

Then the parashah meanders through the restructuring of the religious cult as the Levites are elevated to their position of leadership. As Israelite desert society is restructured, each tribe is split up in a camp and assigned a banner and instructed to march upon the blast of silver trumpets. Religion then, is becoming less about the inner light that burns within all of us, and more about logistics and hierarchy. 

The parashah becomes more narrow, militaristic and authoritarian, even Yitro, the loyal convert, Moses’ father-in-law and the great democratic community organiser, leaves in protest. Things go from bad to worse in this as Moses’ leadership starts to spin out of control. The people complain and cry out for meat. God strikes them down and even Miriam speaks out against her brother. Religion has turned awry. Bitter. Cruel. Even God Himself has turned dark and unrelenting. 

Can there be any redemption and healing in this? 

The turning point in our text that forewarns us is a verse that we sing every time we start the Torah service and we usually think nothing of it. But what if we were to pause and reflect on what these words actually mean? 

“Vayehi binso’a ha’aron vayomer Moshe: kuma Adonai vayafutzu oyvecha vayanusu misanecha mifanecha.” 

“And it was that when the Ark would travel, Moses would say, ‘arise, Eternal, may your enemies be scattered and those who hate You flee from You.” 

And we sing this in our synagogues – across the denominational spectrum – every Shabbat. ‘May your enemies be scattered and those who hate You flee from You.’ Rashi’s commentary makes it even worse where he talks about ‘Israel’s enemies’. In the face of such hateful paranoia, where is the introspection? It’s a turning point because in the verse preceding this, God’s presence among the Israelites is still described in gentle terms: God is the ‘anan ha-kavod’, the cloud of glory, hovering over them. And yet, after this warlike charge, God becomes a raging fire consuming the Israelites. It’s important to focus on the moral ambivalence of this one verse. Beautifully embroidered tribal banners and burnished silver trumpets notwithstanding, this is the language of war. This is the language of an angry God, Who inspires an angry religion. This is the fire we play with when we engage in the business of organized religion. 

The Woolwhich murders were burning with this anger. Of course, it is not merely religion’s fault. The situation is too complex to pin on organised religion alone: there are individual psycho-pathological and even global geo-political factors involved. But given the violence that hateful exegesis can give rise to, it behooves us as people of faith to reflect on what such verses mean. 

One of the Woolwich murderers cited our Torah is his proof text – ironic given his conversion from Christianity to Islam – as he said that this is about ‘eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’. He said he wanted to ‘start a war in London tonight’. Such religious hatred can only be countered by a religious openness of heart, by a healthy theology and a sound interpretation of our texts and values. The Rabbis of the Talmud already decreed that ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ was about de-escalating violence in favour of monetary compensation, rather than perpetuating more communal violence. Let us then not descend into the miserable end of this parashah – the carnage of death – but reach back to its beginning where we raise the light. 

We may not be able to solve the world’s problems nor stop the aggression of the deranged. But creating a religious culture that is positive, empowered and peace-loving based on an authentic, honest and compassionate reading of our sacred texts is something that all of us can do. In our homes, in our places of worship, in our communities. Let’s make sure there are more stories like the solidarity and kindness of the Muslim community in Bradford and less like the murder in Woolwich. Time to put out the fire and let the light shine.

Parashat Vayishlach

Parashat Vayishlach Sinai Synagogue

Esther Hugenholtz 

Each of Us Has a Name 

"Each of us has a name, given by God and given by our parents... Each of us has a name given by our enemies and given by our love." 

These words by the famous Israeli poetess Zelda appear to be custom-made for this week's parashah, parashat Vayishlach. This touches on the deepest core of who we are and what we think we are. And those two things are not always the same. 

This week, Jacob, the perennial trickster, can no longer run away from his own destiny. He has to face the proverbial music and dance, or rather, wrestle. 

He has left Laban's house as a rich man, in possession of two wives, two concubines, eleven sons, one daughter, servants and herds of cattle, sheep and donkeys. His, shall we say, "entrepreneurial endeavours" have not been fruitless. But Jacob's creativity is not enough. It won't save him this time. Jacob's creativity has allowed him to sail the currents of his life's flow and prosper in the process. He has a knack for turning the odds in his favour as he tricks his elder twin out of his birthright, acquires two wives in the face of Laban's scheming (they really did deserve each other!) and turns Laban's fortunes against him as he amasses livestock and wealth. 

Jacob has done well for himself. The currents of life could have swept him under but rather he managed to stay afloat. But what he did not do was rise above them. Rise above the intrige and manipulation, above his own impulses and needs. The Jacob we know so far has not been able to self-reflect and truly grow as a human being. Each of us has a name, the name given by our parents. Ya'acov's name is related to him grasping Esav's ankle when he was born. This is the man we know: always grasping, trying to tackle the other and hold on to what he deems his right. The Midrash relates Ya'acov to Akvah, deceit (ayin-kuf-bet is the shared root). Did Rivkah and Yitzchak in a manner condemn Jacob with his name just as they did Esav, naming him Edom, the red one, fallen to his shortsighted passions, signing away his fate for a bowl of lentil stew? 

The names that parents give are truly important. Naming a child is a blessing, a calling and perhaps a prophecy. Name your children, then, with tender care and thoughtful insight! But of course things are not that simple. Judaism doesn't adhere a determinist worldview where either nature or nurture condemns us to the mistakes of our ancestors. If that were the case, well, then there is scant hope for us! The narratives of Genesis tell us of the weight of parentage and upbringing, warts and all. But also offers us a redemptive vision to use the gifts of our parents while discarding toxic or at least difficult baggage. But this requires us to step outside of ourselves, and take the God's eye perspective, so to say. 

Each of us has a name, given by our parents and given by God. It is in Jacob's greatest hour of need, during his most vulnerable moment, that he grows. That he forces himself to grow. He finds himself on the banks of the river Jabbok, a tributary of the great Jordan river and the scene almost seems a repeat from his travelling experience in parashat Vayetzeh. Here too, he lodges and anxiously faces the confrontation with his estranged brother Esav. Jacob is distressed and afraid, and as Rashi comments, on account of the prospect of violence between him and Esav, whether as a victim or as a perpetrator. He prays, for the first time acknowledging his humility. Placing his family out of harm's way, he crosses the river. He is alone, in the dark, and encounters a stranger on the banks of the Jabbok with whom he wrestles. "Vayivater Ya'acov levado vaye'avek ish imo ad alot hashachar." "And Jacob was left alone and wrestled with him a man until the break of dawn." It seems poignant. Does the break of dawn symbolise enlightenment or insight gained through his struggle? The unknown man demands he let him go and Jacob demands in return to be blessed by him. The angel asks his name. Who are you? The underlying question is. And what do you think you are? Who do you hope to become? 

When somebody asks our name it is a chance for us to redefine or reaffirm who we are. This is where the moment of transcendence happens. The anger renames Jacob Yisrael, 'he who wrestles with God.' As an angel, a shaliach, an emissary of the Eternal, Zelda's poem rings truer still. It is God Himself Who renames Jacob, Who recognises his existential struggle rather than a self-interested contest of wills, and blesses him through it. 

Just as Jacob has swam the currents of the Jabbok and prevailed, he has finally touched a life of true meaning, of service and of hard-fought dignity. He has conquered his fears not through trickery but through honesty. And he has wrestled with God not because of an ulterior motive but to truly seek God's Name and challenge Him in the proud tradition of Abraham his grandfather. He no longer goes with the flow and is no longer shaped by circumstance and impulse but has become a riper person, a more noble person, a person ready to reconcile with Esav after twenty years and who honours the memories of his wives. Who himself breaks the toxic family patterns in the end, through reprimanding his conflictive sons and celebrating the peace and joy of his grandsons through Joseph, Manesseh and Ephraim. 

Each of us has a name, given to us by our parents. There is much beauty in that as well as challenge. But if Jacob's saga tells us anything is that being a Yisrael, a God-Wrestler, a Jew who stands firmly and lovingly in the tradition of his or her people, is about seeking the transcendence, both in God and in ourselves. 

We are meant to wrestle, to challenge and to grow. It may be painful and scary but it is our duty and the rewards are the gifts of a life of meaning and ethics bestowed on generations to come.

La alegría y la vulnerabilidad

Kehillat Beth Shalom, Barcelona 

La alegría y la vulnerabilidad 

¿Alguna vez has estado en un viaje por carretera o quería ir a uno? Deje la oficina, haz las maletas y marcharse hacia el atardecer, sin saber a dónde vas? Mi marido y yo hicimos algo como este para nuestras vacaciones el año pasado. Alquilamos un coche, hicimos nuestras maletas y nos cerró la puerta detrás de nosotros. Recuerdo que me sentí emoción - un zumbido real! - Cuando nos fuimos. ¿Dónde vamos a ir? He viajado mucho - así como yo he viajado a venir aquí - pero los mejores viajes son los viajes inesperados. Los recorridos que conducen a explorar y encontrar a su inseguridad. ¿En qué hotel vamos a dormir este noche? ¿Todavía hay un restaurante abierto a las 9 pm? (Ahora sé que en España esto no es un problema, pero en Holanda? Oy va voy!) ¿Y si nos perdemos en el camino? Pero es precisamente esta mezcla de felicidad y vulnerabilidad que hace que el viaje hermoso. No sé de dónde será el próximo y es todo una gran aventura. 

Para vosotros y para mí, este momento también es un tipo de viaje. No se conocen todavía y espero poder conocer a todos vosotros. Espero poder viajar junto con Beth Shalom durante este año. Todo es una experiencia nueva para mí, trabajar con una comunidad en Catalunya, escribir sermones (con un poco de ayuda de Google Translate!) y trabajar en español! Yo, también, puede perderse en el camino a veces. Yo podría tomar un giro equivocado. No bastante puede saber dónde voy. Pero también estoy muy ansioso por aprender y espero que tenga paciencia. Es un gran privilegio de compartir este "viaje por carretera" con vosotros. 

Nosotros, los Judios, somos buenos para viajar. A lo largo de nuestra historia, hemos viajado. Algunos de nosotros hemos descubierto o redescubierto el judaísmo como adultos. Otros de nosotros hemos crecido con él y han estado en este viaje desde hace mucho tiempo. Hemos estado viajando desde los días de Abraham y Moisés. Bueno, se perdió en el desierto durante cuarenta años, ¿no? Nosotros, los Judios no les gusta atajos ni soluciones simples. Los israelitas podrían haber llegado a la tierra prometida de Egipto sólo en unas pocas semanas. Pero eso no habría hecho el viaje valga la pena. Porque para nosotros, el viaje es el destino. Mientras que la ética y la idea de "yitzi'at Mitzrayim ', que sale de Egipto, está presente en todas nuestras chagim (incluso Rosh Hashaná y Iom Kipur!), Sucot es realmente la quintaesencia de' vacaciones 'de fiesta. Construimos nuestras chozas temporales, nuestra Sucot, y llueva o haga sol, nos sentamos en ellas. A veces cómodo (como aquí en Barcelona, supongo) ya veces no tan cómodo (en Holanda que estar bajo la lluvia). Nos hacemos vulnerables a propósito. Es 'camping religioso'! 

Es el momento en que nos liberamos de nuestro bienestar físico y dejar que la aventura, donde se llega a ver las estrellas a través de nuestros techos improvisados, donde contemplamos la eternidad a través del marco de la temporal. Y este es exactamente el punto. Hemos vuelto más feliz cuando somos vulnerables. Sukkot es "zman simjateinu ', la época de nuestro gozo. Y es también el momento en que leemos Koheleth, Eclestiastés, un libro sombrío existencial y en el momento que se trata de la duda y la fe, la alegría y la tristeza. Pero, sobre todo acerca de ser vulnerable y permitirse ser vulnerable. Incluso Koheleth, el rey sabio, reconoce los límites de su comprensión y la futilidad de todo. 

"Yo puse mi mente para estudiar y para investigar con sabiduría todo lo que sucede bajo el sol, un negocio infeliz, eso, que Dios dio a los hombres que ocupan. He observado todos los acontecimientos bajo el sol, y me pareció que todo es inútil y seguimiento de viento. "(Koheleth 1:13-14) 

A pesar de este panorama desolador, Koheleth todavía es capaz de disfrutar de la vida y tener una "actitud de gratitud" y tiene un buen consejo para nosotros sobre cómo vivir con alegría: "Anda, come tu pan con gozo, y bebe tu vino con alegría, por su acción fue hace mucho tiempo aprobado por Dios. Deje que su ropa siempre estar recién lavado, y su cabeza nunca carecen de pomada. Disfrute de la felicidad con una mujer que amas, todos los días fugaces de su vida ... "(Koheleth 9:7-9) 

Lo que une a la alegría y la vulnerabilidad en una nueva síntesis es la confianza sincera, el antídoto para el miedo existencial. Sucot nos manda a confiar. No es una confianza ingenua de que todo va a estar bien, pero una confianza madura que de alguna manera va a tener tanto la perspectiva y la fuerza para afrontar lo que venga.Entonces confiamos en Dios, en nosotros mismos, en nuestra comunidad e incluso en nuestra Sucot, que puede ser derribados por el viento o ahogado en la lluvia. Incluso cuando hace frío y estamos físicamente incómodo, debemos confiar en la razón y la experiencia de la vulnerabilidad. Y cuando podemos dejar que nuestra ansiedad y miedos - y también nuestras dependencias ir - que es cuando nos encontramos con la verdadera felicidad. Aun cuando sabemos que nuestros días son fugaces y fueron sólo son polvo. Porque nos damos cuenta de lo afortunados que somos de tener lo que tenemos y tenemos la obligación de regocijarse en ella. 

Tanto Koheleth y un viaje nos obliga a centrarnos en lo que es verdaderamente importante. No es el hotel lujoso, pero el placer de comer con sus seres queridos. No es la calidad del vino, pero las bendiciones que pronuncia sobre ella. No es la suavidad de la cama, pero el que se llega a compartir. No es el destino, el plan u objetivo, sino simplemente confiar en el horizonte. Tu puedes conducir, viajar, caminar y el resultado final será en algún lugar. Tu te sentirás el viento y la lluvia y el sol demasiado y te sentirás vivo y estar agradecidos por ello. Confiar, alegría fiel no es un subidón de adrenalina o una moda, sino que es algo duradero, el combustible que lo mantiene en el camino. Con los ojos en el horizonte. 

Estoy deseando comenzar esta aventura con vosotros y viajar contigos. ¿Quién sabe qué cosas bellas que todavía va a descubrir. 

Shabat shalom jag Sameaj!

Words are Wind?

Southport Reform Community 

Kol Nidré Sermon 

Words are Wind? 

“I’ll begin from the moment I got you, the moment I saw you lying on the table among my other birthday presents... on Friday, June 12, I was awake at six o ‘clock, which isn’t surprising, since it was my birthday. But I’m, not allowed to get up at that hour, so I had to control my curiosity, until quarter to seven... A little after seven I went to Daddy and Mama and then to the living room to open my presents, and you were the first thing I saw, maybe one of my nicest presents...’ 

When she started scribbling her thoughts in her checkered blue-and-red diary, on that fateful 12th of June, 1942, did she know her words were eternal? That they would change the world – both hers and ours? 

Words bind our fate and shape worlds, as my fellow Dutchwoman and co-religionist Anne Frank would intuit. Words, words, words. Yom Kippur is heavy with them. Prayers that are given wings through our sacred intentions. Words that indict us and defend us. Words that praise and words that ring with the empty chime of our mortality. Ancient words from the Torah, Prophets and Sages and contemporary words from our Progressive rabbis. Words that speak of vows, of repentance, of prayer and charity. Words that condemn our abuse of words: of slander, of lying, of judgment. Words that ring true and words that ring hollow. Words that move us and words that leave us cold. 

Between now and Ne’ilah, many words will be spoken, too many perhaps. Even, or especially on Yom Kippur, there is a danger that words become wind. The machzor brims with them. It is a document that shows our struggle with God and ourselves, that maps our gratitude and exposes our weakness. It disseminates the mayor themes of our tradition, provides us with the roadmap into life’s most profound questions. It is a distillation of our Jewish tradition’s wisdom and theology, a rallying cry to justice and a whisper to bring the heart to contrition. The machzor is a beautiful document to be sure, but in many ways it is not ours. We might struggle with finding God on those pages that are so God-heavy, we might not recognise ourselves in the ‘Al Chets’, we might not be moved by the imagery of ‘Ki Anu Amecha’ and do we really need to ponder the want of our actions in ‘Avinu Malkeinu’? Even the Kol Nidré, the convergence point of many a Jewish community, may be rendered meaningless in our experience. What vows have we broken? What obligations have we forsaken? For what must we atone? 

As important as breaking down our ego is during these Days of Awe, it is equally important to build up our values, our intentions, our promises. From this Kol Nidré to the next. 

If Kol Nidré is about annulling and excusing the vows we’ve made between God and ourselves, from this past year to this present moment, then can we perhaps do the reverse? Can we bequeath a heritage of words that is lasting, positive and compelling in our lives? We know that Anne Frank did even in the darkest and direst of circumstances. Her diary encouraged her to see pinpoints of light in the midnight of the century. I can only stand in awe of what her spirit accomplished but it does prove the power of words. 

Words matter, for better and worse. Then how can we make our words count? In a way, Anne Frank’s diary is a complex and beautiful example of an ‘ethical will’. The ethical will is one of those wonderful concepts that the Torah bequeathed on humankind (together with monotheism and the weekend!) and that made its way in both the Jewish and Christian tradition. There are two important ethical wills mentioned in Torah: Jacob’s blessing of his children in Genesis chapter 49 and Moses’ song in Deuteronomy chapter 32 (yes, you can go home and read these and be inspired). 

Speaking words of wisdom and blessing to one’s progeny does seem very Biblical indeed. Not many of us may be granted that dignity, calm and lucidity when at death’s door. Hence, during the Middle Ages, rabbis developed the ethical will as a written document that could be written when the individual was still of sound body and mind. An ethical will grants us an opportunity to impart our values both to ourselves and to the next generation. It is a valiant storming of the gates of Eternity, to make sure that we are indeed inscribed in the Book of Life. I would invite you, then, to complement the fleeting words of the Kol Nidré and words of urgent morality from the machzor with writing your own ethical will – you can glean inspiration and tips from the website ethicalwill.com. 

For those of you who do not write on Shabbat and Yom Tov; this is a project that can be done right up till Hoshanah Rabbah, when the Gates of Repentance really close for the year. For those Progressive Jews who do choose to write on holy days, I invite you to consider taking up pen and paper when you come home tonight after services. You might even use the machzor as a source of inspiration. Consider the question you would like to ask yourself. If the machzor represents a meeting between God and the individual, then maybe you can see yourself from the God’s eye perspective. See yourself with both chesed and din, loving-kindness and judgment. What things did you get right this year and what things did you get wrong? Who is this person you are trying to become? Who are the people you want to honour, love and cherish in your lives? What are the timeless values you want to impart on family and friends? And how do you wish to be remembered? Write these words with tenderness – they can truly be a gift. 

It seems indeed that the ethical will can be an excellent metaphor and tool for the transformative experience of Yom Kippur. We can seal ourselves in the Book of Life; not out of presumption and arrogance but out of contrition and quiet dignity. 

This moral profundity is reflected in the first written ethical will known to us, from Eleazar, the son of the famous 11th century Ashkenazi rabbi Isaac of Worms. In this document, Eleazar writes advice fitting for this time of year: 

 “Think not of evil, for evil thinking leads to evil doing.... Purify your body, the dwelling-place of your soul.... Give of all your food a portion to God. Let God’s portion be the best, and give it to the poor.” 

Another scholar, Asher, the son of Yechiel, writes in the 14th century, leaving us with another appropriate set of values: “Do not obey the Law for reward, nor avoid sin from fear of punishment, but serve God from love.” 

I would like to close with the wisdom of our beloved Anne Frank - even the young can share transformative and prophetic insights. Allow me to read some snippets of the ‘ethical will’ she left the world, through the words of her diary. Consider these words alongside with the themes of the machzor:

“The final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.” Pair this with “Hachayim v’hamavet natati lefanecha, hab’racha v’hak’lalah, uv’acharta bachayim - I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse... choose life!” (Deut. 30:19) 

Or, “No one has ever become poor by giving”, which can be read in conjunction with, “al chet shechatanu lefanecha b’neshech uv’marbit – for the sin we have committed before You by financial greed.’ (Liturgy) 

Or, “I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart” with “Elohai, neshamah shenatata bi, tehorah hi – my God, the soul You have given me is pure.” (Liturgy) 

And finally, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world” with “Limdu heitiv, darshu mishpat – learn to do good, seek justice” (Isaiah 1:17). 

The key word here is limdu, the imperative to learn. We are our own books, the stories of our own lives. It is never too late to write them, to be inscribed for goodness and eternity, in the reflections we share and the love we transmit, from one day to the next, from Rosh haShanah when we are written to Yom Kippur when we are sealed. The gates and the pages of our ethical wills are open. 

Give yourself and your loved ones this gift. G’mar chatimah tovah!

Heroes and Villains

Yom Kippur Sermon 

Southport Reform Synagogue 

The Heroes and Villains Among Us: Abraham and Jonah 

One of the great unexpected delights of rabbinical school was discovering that so many of my fellow students are science fiction and fantasy nerds. Star Trek, Star Wars (but never both at once!), Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings – all these modern-day sagas were loved, cherished and dissected by us students. I guess it makes sense: these narratives are so archetypical and we rabbis love a good story and a good book. 

One fantasy, however, that many of us have been particularly engrossed with is the ‘Game of Thrones’ book series by George R.R. Martin, also a successful television series by the American network HBO. In most fantasy and sci-fi, there is not so much space for moral ambiguity or psychological depth. Not so in ‘Game of Thrones’ – set in a brutal Medieval world, even the most noble of characters know their darker sphere and even the greatest of villains have some redeeming qualities. Its realism makes the saga truly compelling. It is the same realism that Tanakh displays. 

Heroes and villains may not be so different; and that applies too to our inner heroes and villains. 

A meaningful example of such a hero-villain continuum is found in two of our High Holy Day protagonists: Abraham and Jonah. Abraham is often cast as the heroic man of faith who argues with God for the redemption of Sodom and Gomorrah. Jonah, however, is seen as the reluctant and petty prophet who has no desire to bring his redemptive message to the people of Nineveh. There are many parallels between the two stories and I think they are deliberate. We can see the Jonah story as a ‘Midrash’ on the Abraham story. The Jonah narrative is, if you will, a sequel that subverts many of the messages of the Abraham narrative in order to bring to light more meaning. 

This idea is not entirely my own. The technique of reading different Biblical texts as midrashic commentaries of each other, as sequels that subvert or affirm each other, was developed by the Biblical scholar Judy Klitsner in her book ‘Subversive Sequels in the Bible - How Biblical Stories Mine and Undermine Each Other’. The idea behind reading Biblical texts this way is called intertextuality – that a story can be multilayered, nuanced and possess different possible readings. It is both bold creativity and deep respect, trusting that the Biblical stories can teach us something both new and profound. 

Let us start with Abraham. 

The first narrative is that of Abraham, spanning the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, chapter 18, versus 16 to 33. Abraham bids farewell to the three mysterious men who announce that he and his wife will still bear progeny. Abraham sees them off in the direction of Sodom. Meanwhile, God says to Himself: ‘shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?’ (Gen. 18:17) God decides to confide in the patriarch, saying about Sodom and Gomorrah, ‘za’akat S’dom v’Amorah ki rabah v’chatatam ki kav’dah me’od’, ‘the outcry of [against] Sodom and Gomorrah is very great and their sin is very heavy’ (Gen. 18:20). God decides that the cities should be destroyed. Abraham’s response is startling: rather than acquiescing to God’s plan, Abraham challenges his God, saying, ‘ha’af tis’peh tzadik im rasha? ’, ‘will you even sweep away the righteous with the wicked’? (Gen. 18:23, translation mine) only to continue with, ‘hashofet kol ha’aretz lo ya’aseh mishpat?’, ‘shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?’ (Gen. 18:25). He then famously proceeds to bargain with God over the lives of the few righteous in Sodom. However, God does not relent and overturns the cities. 

Abraham’s heroic act of moral bravery stands in contrast with Abraham’s other moral weaknesses such as the Binding of Isaac, where he fails to challenge God in order to spare his beloved son’s life. 

Jonah, in the Book of Jonah, makes the inverse journey. Abraham represents the hero archetype, and Jonah is our villain. We feel empathy with Abraham; he champions the cause of the oppressed and makes peace. Jonah, on the other hand, is less easy to empathise with. Jonah flees from before the Eternal when charged with his prophetic mission to ‘call on Nineveh’ (Jonah 1:2). Not only does Jonah flee far, far away in the opposite direction, to Tarshish (Spain), but he also relishes in God’s ‘condemnation’ of Nineveh. Jonah is a weak character. He goes down to sleep on the ship to Tarshish in the middle of a storm (Jonah 1:5), shows little concern for the plight of the (non-Israelite) sailors on the ship (Jonah 1:6), is displeased at Nineveh’s repentance (Jonah 4:1) and wallows in self-pity as his beloved kikayon, (bottle gourd plant ) perishes. 

Finally, the book ends with a happy end for Nineveh but rather unhappily for our anti-hero. Jonah does not get what he wants. He is left to brood on his own moral failings. How are these two incredible stories linked? Jonah is the ‘subversive sequel’ to the Abraham saga. The Jonah narrative ‘flips’ a number of key elements in the Abraham story to teach us something about both God and humankind. Both Abraham and Jonah start off seemingly solitary and enjoy an intimate relationship with God. Both are travellers. But while Abraham travels towards God (Gen. 12:1), Jonah flees from God (Jonah 1:2). If anything, Abraham travels across land - arduous and slow - while Jonah travels by sea - efficient and fast. Perhaps the message is that it is difficult to march towards goodness but easy to sail away from it. 

Jonah is almost a polar opposite of Abraham. Whereas Abraham is praised by non-Abrahamites, such as Melchizedek (Gen. 14:19), Jonah eschews relationships with non-Israelites, as he goes down to hide in the ‘belly’ of the ship. The character differences become most apparent in the moment of confrontation with God. Abraham lays the groundwork for the later prophetic traditon: that of the prophet interceding on behalf of the accused by ‘standing in the breach’, even for those outside of the Israelite covenant. Jonah, however, fails miserably in this regard. Even Elie Wiesel doubts whether he deserves to be called a ‘prophet’ since he does not seek to ‘save men but to punish them’! 

Not only can we examine our prophet but also the people they enter into prophetic relationship with. While innocent ‘Gentiles’ (for lack of a better term) fail to avert the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, it is on account of innocent ‘Gentiles’ that both Jonah and Nineveh are spared. Gentiles play another unique role in the book of Jonah: as the ‘innocent’ sailors who try to deal with their misfortune ethically and honestly. They are reluctant to throw Jonah overboard and embrace ‘ethical monotheism’ (Jonah 2:13 and 14). The sailors show the kind of ‘Abrahamic’ moral courage that Jonah is lacking! The other Gentiles featured in the story are the inhabitants of Nineveh themselves who repent quickly and successfully. Nineveh succeeds where Sodom fails. Finally, God, too, undergoes significant subversion. In the Jonah account, He is far more compassionate. Wrath is amended with mercy and the God of Jonah is a far more forgiving and universalist God than the God in the Abraham narrative. It is as though God Himself has undergone radical change. ‘V’ani lo achus al Nineveh, ha ir hagedolah?’, He says (Jonah 4:11), ‘should I not care for Nineveh, the great city?’. 

Whereas Abraham unsuccessfully appealed to God’s justice, Jonah unsuccessfully tried to block God’s mercy. If we see the Jonah story as a sequel of the Abraham story, then perhaps God wanted Jonah to do what Abraham did: resist His judgement. Not only does God care about repentance; He cares for humanity as a whole. It is God’s Self Who provides the ultimate prophetic message of universal Divine Love when the prophet fails. 

We must, in a way embrace both the villain and hero within us; to grow in self-awareness and self-improvement.

If both God and His prophets can grow and cultivate compassion, then so can we. It is with good cause, then, that we travel through Yom Kippur with Abraham and Jonah by our sides. They are both conflicted characters, who do both good and ill. They are real; of flesh-and-blood and three-dimensional. No wonder us sci-fi and fantasy geeks find our Tanakh so compelling. The best stories don’t only keep us riveted but they help us change and become better versions of ourselves and help us to see the best both in our fellow man and in God. 

What better plot is there for the High Holy Days? 

G’mar chatimah tovah!

The Numbers Game

Southport Reform Synagogue

Esther Hugenholtz 

The Numbers Game 

This is a sermon that shouldn’t be delivered again. This won’t be original nor will it be my best. It won’t be clever, complex or sophisticated. It won’t include intelligent commentary on the Torah or bring insightful citations from the Talmud. But it will be real. 

I wrote a sermon on a similar theme last year. the economy. Almost five years ago, in 2008, I started my rabbinical studies in the United States. My husband and I had plans to emigrate to America from the Netherlands. I moved to Los Angeles and hoped that he’d catch up soon and find a job in his field. 

‘Man plans and God laughs’, the Yiddish saying goes. The economy collapsed, my husband lost his job back home and couldn’t find one in the USA. We were forced to maintain a long-distance marriage for the two years that we struggled to keep me in school despite dwindling funds and stalling opportunities. Eventually, we had to face the music and pull out of rabbinical school and return to Europe. 

I left a country that had been reduced to shambles, going from bad to worse: middle class Jewish ‘doctor-lawyer’ families found themselves unemployed and cutting into their pensions in order to pay their kids’ school fees, Jewish charities found themselves struggling and synagogues merged, closed down and couldn’t employ new rabbis, leaving many colleagues in dire straits. And this was within a privileged section of solidly middle class American society. 

Far more chilling were reports of sprawling tent cities populated by the working poor, grating stories of foreclosed homes, of the sick and elderly not getting the healthcare and help they needed and unemployment rates numbering in the millions, reaching double digit percentages. I dare not think of the consequences of this crisis for the millions and millions who are truly vulnerable, to whom the crisis makes the difference between malnutrition and actual starvation, between indentured servitude and outright slavery, between ethnic tension and full-blown war. With the euro teetering and countries like Greece brought to the brink of both bankruptcy and fascism. 

Man plans, it seems, but I don’t think God is laughing. 

My husband and I got very lucky. We returned to Europe and I transferred to Leo Baeck College in London where I was warmly received. We were forced to remain long-distance for two more years, as I studied in London and he managed to rebuild his career. Things aren’t easy or secure but we are OK. We have a lot to be thankful for. 

And yet, when I look beyond my immediate concerns, I’m angry. Furious. 

A few months ago, I read a shocking statistic. A twenty-one with twelve zeros. 21 trillion US dollars. Or 13 trillion pounds sterling. This is the amount that the super-rich have hidden in secret bank accounts, according to a report by Tax Justice Network . 

I saw the number spread across my computer screen as this article made a brief cameo appearance in the news. And then it disappeared almost without a trace. Where was the moral outcry, the righteous indignation? 

Let me read you some snippets of the report. Rarely did I find a financial report such riveting reading: 

“At least $21 trillion of unreported private financial wealth was owned by wealthy individuals via tax havens at the end of 2010. This sum is equivalent to the size of the United States and Japanese economies combined. There may be as much as $32 trillion of hidden financial assets held offshore by high net worth individuals according to our report... We consider these numbers to be conservative. This is only financial wealth and excludes a welter of real estate, yachts and other non financial assets owned via offshore structures.” 

As if this isn’t enough, I quote: 

“This hidden offshore sector is large enough to make a significant difference to all of our conventional measures of inequality... For most countries, global financial inequality is not only much greater than we suspected, but it has been growing much faster. It turns out that this offshore sector—which specializes in tax dodging is basically designed and operated... by the world’s largest private banks, law firms and accounting firms headquartered in First World capitals like London, New York and Geneva. Our detailed analysis of these banks shows that the leaders are the very same ones that have figured so prominently in government bailouts...” 

I know I’m on thin ice here. Sermonising on the moral corruption of a tiny, ultra-rich minority? It seems to be dangerously close to declaring a partisan position or stirring up class war, although I must emphasise that the Tax Justice Network is an initiative support by civil society groups which emerged from the British Houses of Parliament - hardly revolutionary. However, not speaking out for fear of giving an overly-political sermon holds even greater moral peril. If ethical monotheism cannot have a fire-and-brimstone moment to condemn grave social injustice, then what can? As Progressive Jews who echo the ethics of our Prophetic tradition, we can wonder what Hosea, Amos and Isaiah would have said. 

We can only imagine what those financial resources could do. Feed, clothe, educate and protect the entire world’s population multiple times over. Be invested in fundamental research in curing debilitating diseases and solving environmental crises. There is a messianic ring to this absurd number, to quote Jeremiah, ‘a future and a hope’. 

Apart from the obvious moral indictment, there is a deeper layer, most relevant for this solemn season. The fundamental inequality in our world doesn't only provide us with a moral crisis but also a spiritual and theological challenge. Every day, executive decision made by very powerful and influential human beings hangs the lives of other human beings in the balance. The owners of the 21 trillion inscribe the rest of us in the Book of Life and Death. This is blasphemy and idolatry, a violation of both the meaning of God and the image of Man. 

Let’s take a look at one of the most central prayers of our High Holy Day liturgy, the Unetaneh Tokef: 

“For all who pass away and all who are born, for all who live and all who die, for those who complete their normal span and those who do not – who perish by fire or water, by the violence of man or the beast, by hunger or thirst, by disaster, plague or execution, for those who rest and those who wander, for the secure and the tormented, for those who become poor and those who become rich, for the failures and the famous.”  

The Unetaneh Tokef is God’s numbers game, His economic report. It is a powerful yet grim text that cuts to the core of life’s most harrowing existential question: who lives and who dies and by what criteria is this determined? It is a question that is both universal and unanswerable. It is a question that, even in the best of circumstances, none of us can avoid. 

The Unetaneh Tokef could be dismissed morally reprehensible. A moral atheist may conclude that this is not the God he or she wants to believe in. Can we and must we believe in a God Who micromanages our existence? A God Who toys with the lives of people? We can reinterpret the metaphor because the alternative is far more disturbing. It is saying that it is OK for human beings themselves to have this divine power. Instead of God casting the dice, we do. God, then, is not the dictator Who controls our every move and condemning or redeeming us as He chooses. 

The Unetanek Tokef, rather, by giving God sovereignty over our lives, even in ways that modern sensibilities deem both unrealistic and disturbing, makes God the placeholder of humanity’s dignity and the guarantor of the inalienable worth of each human being. It is a rallying cry for social justice and a reminder that both the Reality of God and the Idea of God reign supreme: not the power, greed or money of Man. If we take God seriously, then we should take human beings seriously. This is, to paraphrase Abraham Joshua Heschel, the duty of the religious person. 

The most important number in the numbers game then, is not the 21 trillion, or the mere 100,000 people holding 9.8 trillion of that wealth (0.001 % of the world population, yes, I did the math). The most important number is one. One. For the One God Who gives us the moral impetus to condemn cruelty and injustice in His Name and in Whose image each one of us is created, making not high the wealthy or low the poor. One. Because every person matters. One, because no human life can ever be expressed in economic terms. This is the economy that matters. 

It is not up to us to inscribe or deny each other in the Book of Life. It is up to us to create a world where each of us may be written in the Book of Life and none of us will be denied. I pray, bemeirah beyameinu, speedily and in our days, that I do not need to give this sermon again next year. 

Shana tovah.

De verplichting van bevrijding

'Pink Shabbat', Gay Outreach Dienst 3 augustus 2012 – Beit ha’Chidush 

Rabbijn i.o. Esther Hugenholtz 

Parasjat V'etchanan - De verplichting van bevrijding

Kort nadat ik in 2008 in Los Angeles aan de rabbijnenopleiding begon brak de strijd rond ‘Prop Eight’ (Proposition Eight) los: het betrof een referendum voor het verbieden van het huwelijk voor mensen van gelijk geslacht. Op mijn opleiding was de stemming eensgezind: iedereen was tegen Prop Eight. We hingen campagneposters op in de ramen van onze appartementen en keken vol vertrouwen naar de datum van het referendum. In het progressieve Californië zou de meerderheid van de bevolking tegen het homo-onvriendelijke voorstel stemmen, toch? 

Toch uitte één studiegenoot, een goede vriend van mij, bezwaren. Hoewel hij absoluut het recht erkende van homo’s om relaties met elkaar aan te gaan, vond hij als rechtgeaarde en tikkeltje conservatieve ‘Midwesterner’ toch dat het huwelijk iets was tussen man en vrouw. Ik besloot meteen mijn tegenargument vanuit een onverwachte invalshoek te formuleren… 

Ik moet namelijk iets bekennen. Ik ben heel erg gelukkig, heel erg burgerlijk, heel erg heteronormatief getrouwd. Sterker nog, ik ben deze maand vijf jaar geleden in deze sjoel getrouwd. Ik vind het huwelijkse bestaan heerlijk en betrap mijzelf regelmatig op gelukzalig truttig gedrag (denk aan Ikea bezoekjes met manlief). En ik schaam mij er niet voor – in mijn persoonlijke beleving is het huwelijk een prachtig instituut van verbond en heiliging, van liefde, trouw en respect. Hoewel ik de redenen om sceptisch of zelfs afwijzend tegenover het instituut huwelijk te staan begrijp en respecteer blijf ik er een groot pleitbezorger van. 

‘Geloof jij in het heiligheid van het huwelijk?’ vroeg ik hem. Mijn vriend beaamde dat enthousiast. Ik vervolgde: ‘Juist omdat ik in het huwelijk geloof, geloof ik in het homohuwelijk. Die diepe voldoening van de hechte en heilige huwelijkse band, de rechten en privileges van het huwelijk zijn dingen waar mijn homoseksuele broeders en zusters net zo veel recht op hebben als jij en ik. Iedereen die gelooft in ‘family values’ zou hiervoor op de barricade moeten staan!’ 

Het gaf hem te denken. 

Het idee dat ieder mens heiliging kan vinden en dat bevrijding niet alleen rechten maar ook plichten met zich meebrengt is heel joods. Sterker nog; het huwelijk wordt vaak gebruikt als metafoor in Tora om de emancipatie en de verbondsgedachte tussen God en het Joodse volk tastbaar te maken. Tijdens het geven van de Tien Uitspraken, aldus de Midrasj, was God de Bruidegom en Israël de Bruid (ja, ook de Tora kan gender-queer zijn!) en de Tora zelf de ketoeba, de huwelijksakte. Ook in de relatie tussen de Eeuwige en de mens staan liefde, trouw en heiliging centraal. 

De parasja van deze week – V’etchanan – sluit goed bij dit thema aan. De lange en bitterzoete reis van Mosjé komt ten einde en hij weet dat hij het Beloofde Land niet in mag omdat hij het vertrouwen van de Eeuwige geschonden had. Het is zijn taak om de B’nei Jisraël aan de grenzen van het Beloofde Land te brengen opdat zij als volk verder gaan. Het is zijn taak om Israël verder te ‘emanciperen’ – hun bevrijding uit de Egyptische slavernij is pas compleet wanneer zij zich kunnen vestigen in het land, als symbool van hun waardigheid en vrijheid. De B’nei Jisraël moeten volwassen worden, verplichtingen aangaan, zich losmaken van oude trauma’s en met zelfbewustzijn het verbond met de Eeuwige bekrachtigen. Het is tijd voor hun ‘coming-out’. 

Een ‘coming-out’ is veel meer alleen dan toegeven of accepteren dat je homo- of biseksueel bent. Er zijn veel ‘comings-out’ voor vele moeilijke situaties en identiteiten, vooral wanneer er sprake is van een machtsverschil of gebrek aan sociale acceptatie. Het zijn vaak de minderheden, de kwetsbaren, de mensen die als ‘afwijkend’ worden gezien door de norm die de strijd van een coming-out moeten leveren. We kunnen er allemaal mee geconfronteerd worden. ‘Coming out’ is dan ook ‘coming into yourself’ – of zoals wij joden dat zouden zeggen, ‘lech lecha’, de Abrahamitische opdracht om ‘naar jezelf te reizen’. Ware bevrijding gaat verder dan het behalen van gelijkberechting. Het gaat om liefde en respect voor jezelf. 

De Tora zegt ‘v’ahavta larecha kamocha’ – heb je naast lief zoals jezelf en de sleutel van deze opdracht ligt in het leren houden van jezelf, in het evenbeeld van de Eeuwige, opdat je waarachter kan leren houden van de ander. 

Ook op collectief niveau geldt dit: de Israëlieten moeten leren om met liefde en respect samen te leven omdat ze het waard zijn. ‘Ki mi goy gadol asher lo Elohim kerovim elav k’Adonai Eloheinu bechol karanu elav’ (Deut. 4:7) vraagt de Tora aan ons, ‘want welk groot volk heeft een zo’n nabije God zoals de Eeuwige wanneer wij God dan aanroepen?’ Vervolgens krijgt dit kleine, vertrapte slavenvolkje het antwoord: ‘Want jullie zijn een heilig volk voor de Eeuwige. Jullie zijn door de Eeuwige uitgekozen om Zijn gekoesterde volk te zijn, gekozen uit alle volkeren op de aarde. Het is niet omdat jullie groter waren dan de andere volken dat Hij jullie lief had en uitkoos – jullie waren het kleinste van allemaal! Maar omdat de Eeuwige jullie liefhad en zich wilde houden aan wat Hij jullie voorouders had beloofd, heeft de Eeuwige jullie met sterke hand bevrijd uit de slavernij, uit de macht van de farao...‘ (Deut 7:6-8) Van reddeloze slaaf naar gekoesterde verbondspartner met de Eeuwige, da’s nog eens een ‘coming-out’! 

De Joodse traditie is een symfonie met vele stemmen – sommigen dissonant en reactionair – maar het is onze hoop en taak als progressieve joden dat de stem van inclusiviteit en rechtvaardigheid de boventoon voert. De parasja leert ons dat liefde belangrijk is – de liefde tussen de Eeuwige en Mosjé, de liefde van de Eeuwige voor de hele mensheid en de liefde die wij koesteren voor elkaar. Klinkt het hopeloos romantisch en zelfs een beetje klef? So be it, ook daar schaam ik mij niet voor. 

Liefde overwint niet alles maar wel heel veel. Helaas volgde op het referendum een bittere nederlaag voor de Californische homogemeenschap en was de strijd nog voorlopig niet gestreden. Zoals Spreuken der Vaderen zeggen, ‘het is niet aan jou om de taak te volbrengen maar je bent ook niet ervan vrijgesteld’ (Avot 2:21). Wij kennen het recht van verbondenheid en de verplichting van bevrijding. Graag vecht ik mee. 

En die vriend van mij… hoe is het daar mee afgelopen? Hij werd gelukkig overtuigd door het argument van de heiliging en respect waar homoseksuele relaties recht op hebben en heeft tegen Prop 8 en vóór het homohuwelijk gestemd. Het Beloofde Land ligt aan de horizon maar we trekken op naar ons doel, stap voor stap. 

Sjabbat sjalom!

Covenant, Community, Caring

Shavuot Sermon Sinai Synagogue 

Covenant, Community and Caring 

Communities are interesting places. Communities can be nurturing or toxic, they can include and exclude, uplift and break down. In this sense, communities are just the sum of the parts of humanity that cement them together. Of course as a community, we hope and want to see the very best of ourselves. Yet there is a darker side to community as well. Who is in and who is out? Who participates and who is jettisoned? Who leads and who follows? This is part of the central question of what kind of a community we want to be. 

Shavuot, like any good Jewish holiday, is about many things. (We never make things simple in Judaism!) There is an agricultural component as we celebrate the harvest and offering of the firstlings. It is also, of course, about Revelation at Sinai and the giving of the Torah. Shavuot is a spiritual wedding, if you will, where Israel as the Bride enters into a sanctified and loving state with God as the groom. 

One of the central Shavuot themes is community and inclusivity. 

The Book of Ruth is a prime example of this. Time and time again, individuals in the Book of Ruth decided to be inclusive. They could have been exclusive but chose ‘chesed’, loving kindness, instead. Ruth, as a new widow from Moav could have chosen to stay with her own people. Yet ‘chesed’ compelled her to follow her mother-in-law, Naomi. Naomi kisses Ruth tenderly and tries to honourably turn her back with kind words, ‘go, return to your mothers’ house, may the Eternal deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and me ‘ (Ruth 1:8) Yet Ruth matches Naomi’s ‘chesed’ with her own as she persists and utters the famous words: 'ki asher telchi, elech, uv’asher talini, alin, amech ami, v’elohaich, elohai’ – ‘for where you shall go, I will go; and where you shall lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God’. Naomi relents and does the right thing: she includes the poor Moabite woman, a member of the very community the Torah prohibits the Israelites from marrying, and brings her to her new home. 

Of course the story doesn’t end here. 

Ruth then gleans the fields to support herself and her mother-in-law – another act of chesed – and eventually Boaz, the kinsman who comes to love her on the threshing-floor – another act of chesed. And the greatest act of chesed is yet to come, for out of this downtrodden foreigner, the quintessential convert to Judaism, the Davidic lineage will flow, and with that, the Messianic redemption of the entire world. It is indeed true that ‘God works in mysterious ways’. Through the downtrodden He redeems, as the ‘Shomer gerim’ (Ps. 146:8), the Guardian of strangers. 

And yet this message is so easily forgotten. 

When communities do not feed the poor, do not welcome the stranger, do not act with chesed. By oppressing the downtrodden, they scorn the Divine Will, as happened only a few days ago in Tel Aviv. Thirty six times we are commanded to not oppress and even love the stranger, ‘for we were strangers in Egypt’ and ‘you know the nefesh, the life-feelings, of the stranger’. 

Yet on the 24th of May, thousands of Tel Aviv citizens converged in a demonstration against African asylum seekers, mostly from Eritrea and Darfur, where oppression, hunger and war run rampant. A right-wing politician described the African foreigners as a ‘cancer’ that needs to be ‘excised’ and sent back. The demonstration darkened into race riots when some of the demonstrators turned their anger onto the Israeli police and a car with African passengers.

I read the news on Thursday evening in Ha’Aretz and was left speechless. Only a few days before Shavuot, this festival of covenant, community and caring, a Jewish mob in Tel Aviv violates the very premises at the heart of Jewish ethics. Each one of those African immigrants could be a Ruth, crossing over from Moav, because there was ‘bread in the Land’. 

The parallels are scathingly obvious. This is when communities become vicious and turn to exclusion. The walls get pulled up to form an echo-chamber of exclusivist, if not racist, rhetoric. Us versus them. Human versus something somehow deemed diminished in humanity. The Torah counsels us against this. This is why the Name of God is invoked after so many of the ethical commandments: ‘And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger that dwells with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Eternal your God.’ (Lev. 19:33-34). God’s most sacred Name is to remind us of the divine spark in each of us, because as soon as we forget that each human being is created in the image of God, it is all too easy to forget our common humanity. 

Community is supposed to be the structure to help us remember this great commandment. 

Luckily, we also have plenty of examples in our communities on how you get it right. From the grandiose political to the parochially personal, I too, am a Ruth. Holland may not be exactly a Moav and Yorkshire may not be Beit Lechem (although the verdant hills might suggest otherwise!) but I crossed over into your community this past year and felt incredibly welcome. There was real ‘chesed’ practiced here. The community of Sinai Synagogue welcomed me into your shul, homes and hearts. I sat at your Shabbos tables, slept in your houses. I was picked up and brought back to the train station, fed endless cups of tea and offered friendship, hospitality and kindness. 

As this year comes to a close, I can look back on a wonderful year with you all, where I felt welcome, this stranger from Holland and London. You’ve offered me Northern warmth and I am grateful. Thank you. Thank you all for having me with you as your student rabbi this year. Communities can be interesting places and I hope to learn more about how to help you build that caring, covenant community, the kehillah k’doshah. I am certain we can do it, in the little and not-so-little ways, and then we can nurture the regulars and the newcomers alike. Who knows what blessings will flow from this. 

Chag Shavuot Sameach!

Sermon Leo Baeck College / Sinai Synagogue Leeds

Parashat Mishpatim

The Shadow Side of Torah

If last week’s parashah (Yitro) was the wedding ceremony, this week’s reading should be the honeymoon. Last week’s parashah was so easy to fall in love with. There was the wisdom of Yitro, the romance of Revelation and the drama of the Ten Utterances to woo the reader. We collectively experienced the marriage between God and the people of Israel as we became His bride and as He presented us with His ketubah. So, a romantic honeymoon seems to be in the making!

There is much to love in Parashat Mishpatim. God and Israel are starting to build their relationship and working out the details of living a covenanted life together. Up to this point, there is much to be happy about. Mishpatim is the parashah that gives us such moral classics as ‘do not oppress the stranger for you were strangers in Egypt’ (Ex. 22:20) and ‘you shall neither side with the mighty to do wrong—you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favour of the mighty...’ (Ex. 23:2) and ‘You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan. If you mistreat them, I will heed their outcry as soon as they cry out to Me’... (Ex. 22:21).

In true honeymoon-style, this is ethical monotheism at its finest.

But even new relationships can start to show cracks. With increased emotional intimacy comes increased awareness. Neither God nor Israel are perfect in this marriage. Both partners, so to say, bring their own baggage. Between the brightness of Mishpatim’s most uplifting words, the taboo, the difficult, and the hateful lurk in the shadows.

Amidst lofty sentiments of protecting the stranger, the widow and the poor, there is a voice of condemnation. Amidst verses extolling the beauty of the relationship between God and man, there is a voice fraught with fear and superstition. Amidst humanising the Other, there is a call to genocide. And amidst the rational, there is simply the bizarre.

A triad of Mishpatim’s most obtuse verses can be found in Ex 22:17-19. ‘You shall not allow a sorceress to live... whoever lies with an animal shall surely die... whoever sacrifices to a god other than the Eternal shall be proscribed.’

Here they sit, wedged between the realities of tort law and the prophetic voice of social justice. Three bizarre verses that deal with transgressions punishable by death. They feel taboo. They embarrass us. They cannot easily be explained away. Even our classical commentaries remain quiet. Rashi apologetically argues that these sins apply to men as well as women. Our discomfort is palpable and justified.

The verse ‘you shall not allow a sorceress to live’ was a cause of marginalisation and persecution among pre-modern women in Christian Europe. Scholars think that about 40,000 to 60,000 women were put to death through witch trials and lynching between 1480 and 1750.

The verse condemning bestiality makes us turn away our gaze in embarrassment. What on earth were the Biblical authors thinking by addressing such sexual deviance? It seems very Freudian. And of course, the verse extolling us not to make offerings to other gods lest we risk excision is as old as religious persecution itself. This is religious totalitarianism at its fullest. How many wars have there been fought in the Name of the One True God? I cannot even begin to list the death toll in the name of religion. These verses make us cringe and avert our eyes. Is this our Holy Torah which we dress so lovingly, read so painstakingly and study so ardently?

The play of light and darkness in parashat Mishpatim prompts bigger questions about the shadow side of Torah. It prompts questions about the eternality of the text, of modern sensibilities versus ancient principles. At what point does a text become so reprehensible that the only thing left to do is to... close the book and walk away?

In my own studies, I’ve asked myself this question. During my study of Talmud and Midrash, I have read texts that violently scream out at me. Texts that objectify women, that condemn the Other, that speak scathingly of non-Jews and that reinforce unhealthy social hierarchies. Women are treated as chattels, their bodies as battlefields. In these texts, Jews at the periphery of rabbinic society are sometimes treated with contempt: mamzerim (children from forbidden unions), foundlings, slaves, converts. I have been tempted to get up and walk out in disgust and anger.

But we cannot walk or edit out. We cannot rip the pages from our Tanakh. We must face these difficult texts head-on with the courage to stare into the heart of darkness; and then embark on a mission even more difficult - to mine these texts for meaning, if there is any to be found.

What do disturbing verses about witchcraft, bestiality and idolatry teach us about our world today? Can we square these with our values as Progressive Jews? They touch upon the taboo in human culture, they make us feel a little dirty and a little unhinged and in an ironic way they endanger our sense of moral purity, as the famous anthropologist Mary Douglas would argue. Does witchcraft allude to the fatalistic superstitions and fears that drive us to this day? Does idolatry reference how we bow down before gods of subprime mortgages and national debt? And does the ban on bestiality suggest something about how we abuse and objectify both our animals and our own bodies in an age of factory farming and sexual confusion? Or are these texts lost to us forever in their weirdness?

I am not sure. I am asking the question, not offering the answer. And that is exactly the point of a living tradition. Perhaps the wedding metaphor offers us insight. Torah is a passionate love affair but also a difficult relationship. Religion is a messy business and, just like marriage, requires work. We may fight with our spouses and wrestle with our darkest feelings. But in the shadows and through the cracks, there is a great and holy light. God never promised us a bed of roses. Is that not the theme of many a love song? But He did promise us a covenant that keeps us and challenges us and lifts us up to great moral heights. Even in the lows. Even in the shadows.

Do not be afraid to fall in love with our Torah. And do not be afraid to tell this great love of your life where she fails. That way we can help her light shine, upon the darkness of the world and the darkness of her own innermost places.

Parashat Vayeshev

Sermon Glasgow Reform Synagogue

Passion and Restraint

Like every good story, B’reishit is assembling the stage for a final drama: the settling of the B’nei Yisrael in Egypt. When the book of Shemot opens, we all know what happens next. ‘A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph’ (Gen. 1:8) and soon the Israelites are enslaved and embittered by hard labour.

The Joseph Story is a bridge, where adventures of individuals become the fate of nations. Joseph forms the fulcrum between B’reishit and Shemot.

But there is more to Joseph than that. He, like his father Jacob, is a passionate and proud man. But unlike his ancestors, Joseph knows restraint.

Restraint, especially when pertaining to matters of intimacy, is a recurring theme in this part of the Torah. The examples of this are many. Jacob is forced to work another seven years for his beloved Rachel. Reuben fails to restrain himself when he sleeps with Bilhah, his father’s concubine (Gen. 35:22). Chamor, the son of Shechem fails to practice sexual morality when he rapes Jacob’s daughter Dinah. Judah falls for the wiles of a prostitute who is actually his widowed daughter-in-law claiming her rightful heritage: a child in the name of her deceased husband (Gen. 38).

I am not even listing the many plural marriages of our patriarchs. The Torah’s men are driven on by an internal fire which is their rise and downfall. Is this a concession to human nature then, that the movers and shakers in the world are often unruly in matters of the heart? Certainly, when we look at politicians, pop stars and celebrities, this seems very much the case.

Yet Joseph manages to practice restraint.

Joseph’s restraint in a way seems unexpected. Joseph is a proud young boy, handsome and arrogant. A dreamer, he conjures up visions of grandeur, soliciting the contempt and hatred of his hot-headed brothers. Joseph seems doomed to make all the mistakes of his impulsive and manipulative father Jacob. Will he rashly execute his vision of grandeur? Or will he bind himself with the silver cords of conscience?

We know what happens next. His brothers throw him in a pit, almost killing him, and selling him into slavery. The terse narrative of the Torah says nothing about how Joseph reacted. Did he fight them off? Did he try to run away? Did he wail with fear and misery, pounding his fists against the muddy walls of the pit? Maybe already then, Joseph was turning from a dreamer into a visionary and willed himself to silence.

Joseph finds himself in Egypt, at Pharaoh’s court. He is bought by a courtier named Potiphar who ‘took a liking to Joseph’ (Gen. 39:4). The young entrepreneur becomes successful. And as often happens with good-looking and successful men, he draws the eye of the mistress of the house.

I imagine a tantalising scene. Joseph is young and aware of his appeal. He is a golden boy, seventeen years old, full of fire and passion. Potiphar’s wife must have been an aristocratic beauty, dressed in crisp and sheer white linen, her proud head, slender neck and long limbs adorned with gold and lapis lazuli, her eyes encircled with dark kohl. How enticing it would be for a young man, heady with power and privilege and passion, to succumb to her forward advances. ‘Lie with me’, she demands, her voice laced with honey and edged with venom.

He refuses.

We can only imagine the moral fortitude this must have taken. Of course, falling for Potiphar’s wife would have been extremely dangerous. Yet history is littered with examples of death-defying risks taken in the name of love or lust. It is not the risk of punishment or death that stops Joseph. ‘V’eich e’eseh hara’ah hagedolah hazot v’chatati l’Elohim?’ – ‘And how shall I do this great evil and sin before God?’ (Gen. 39:9). Even when Potiphar’s wife pursues him and corners him, he does not relent. She grabs his garment (it seems ironic and telling that Joseph’s clothes figure so prominently in the narrative) but he flees. Scorned, she turns the tables on him and accuses him of rape. When Potiphar’s listens to his wife’s account, he is furious and throws Joseph in jail. Even there, Joseph wills himself silent. Why does he not advocate on his own behalf? Instead, he sits in his dirty and cramped cell and ponders his future.

The young Joseph grows into a discipline and intelligent planner. He keeps his head cool. The foundational stone of the structure of Joseph’s life is his ability to dream and envision. His dreams are not merely passionate or indulgent fantasies but strategic and focused projections of what could be. He is a visionary.

It is Joseph’s visions that allow him to break the chain of familial discord. It is not that he has no emotions; rather he controls them, even when his alienated brothers come down to Egypt to seek his help. Joseph is deliberate; in how he faces the challenge of feeding Egypt during the famine and in how he heals the rifts in his own household. We might not like Joseph, this cocky and precocious child, but we can admire him for the level-headedness with which he shapes his destiny.

Finally, he is rewarded. He too begets two sons, Menasheh and Ephraim. And the Joseph story, like any classic, ends happily with a long life lived out in peace, prosperity and love. Joseph’s largest success and greatest legacy lies not in his wealth but in the heritage his restraint and vision bequeathed upon us. It is not for naught that we bless our sons on Shabbat that they may become like Menasheh and Ephraim. After all, they were the first sibling pair who lived in harmony with each other.

It is Joseph’s moral passion coupled with intelligent vision, bound by the cords of restraint that redeems him. Toxic patterns of anger and abuse, of impulse and danger can be broken. Although the Joseph story eventually leads into the physical slavery of our people, its message is ultimately hopeful. No matter how roped in we may be, we need not be slaves of our passions but can be free to serve God with a pure conscience and clear vision instead.

Parashat Vayishlach

Sermon Sinai Synagogue

Parashat Vayishlach

Esther Hugenholtz

Overcoming Our Fears

Like many of the Torah’s characters, Jacob invites feelings of ambivalence on part of the reader. On the one hand, we feel a certain warmth and reference towards him – he is one of our patriarchs, after all.

On the other hand, Jacob elicits a less charitable response as well. He is a perennial trickster, a conman, a thief of birthrights and a breaker of women’s hearts. Does he do justly, we are left to wonder. He dupes his ‘all brawn-but-very-little brain’ brother Esau out of his birthright. Then his uncle Laban tricks Jacob in return. Swapping Leah for his beloved Rachel at his wedding, demanding an extra seven years’ hard labour. Jacob does gets his own back. He in turn swindles Laban. Meanwhile, his wives vie for his attention and clamour for his love. Just as Jacob and Laban have a stand-off through the amount of livestock they can produce, Leah and Rachel, with the help of mandrakes and handmaids engage in a fierce breeding competition of their own.

In short, the Jacob narrative is blighted by avarice and jealousy, pettiness and deception, passive aggression and greed. None of the protagonists involved manage to hold onto higher moral ground. All are less-than-perfect human beings, driven on in search for recognition and validation. The Torah almost seems to warn us: the family unit is not always the safest place to be. Families can be battlefields, cruel and treacherous lands.

Of course, we can explore the dysfunctional dynamics further. We only need to skip back one generation back to the troubling relationships between Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael, Sarah and Hagar. There is plenty in the narratives of B’reishit to be ambivalent about.

And yet, despite (or perhaps because of) the pain, conflicts and struggles, there is an emotional depth to be found as well. It is easy to dwell on the theme of conflict. After all, conflict reigns supreme and is externalised further when Jacob wrestles the anonymous angel on the bank of the River Jabbok. But what about if we see this parashah in light of overcoming fear?

The pivotal moment, after all, is when Jacob stops running away from what he fears most: the confrontation with his alienated brother. When Jacob is presented with the reality of being reunited with his twin, he is afraid. The Torah states:

“Vayira Ya’acov me’od va’yetzer lo’ – ‘And Jacob became very afraid and was distressed...’ (Gen. 32:8).

A bit further on, the text elaborates his fears as he prays:

“Hatzileini na meyad achi meyad Esav ki yare ani oto” – ‘Now deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau for I am afraid of him...’ (Gen. 32:12)

It is not hard to imagine what Jacob fears. He fears vengeange and reprisal, he fears inviting violence at the hand of his strong, warrior sibling in retribution of the hurt he caused Esau all those years ago.

What is remarkable is not that Jacob is afraid. On the contrary; it is very unremarkable – and therein lies the key. It is entirely understandable because we would be equally afraid in his position. What is remarkable, however, is how Jacob’s fear transforms him. He could respond in two ways, flight or fight. He could easily retreat into his own emotions, flee the scene, run away, give up on the project of reconciliation. Or he could overcompensate his fears through the age-old strategy of the attack being the best defence. He could choose to attack his brother and his tribe. He could try and hurt him yet again.

But Jacob uses his fear to transform himself.

The Midrash in both Genesis Rabbah and Tanchuma comment on Jacob’s fear and break it down into two components. He was afraid that he would get killed. This clearly is a knee-jerk response of Jacob’s reptilian brain, a logical but amoral conclusion geared towards self-preservation. But interestingly, Jacob’s fear becomes a launching pad for a broader concern. He is equally distressed that he may be killed himself.

Out of Jacob’s darkest night of the soul emerges his first noble sentiment.

This is a man who has always taken, so to say, good care of himself. He is not a violent man; a dweller of tents. But that does not make him wholly good. He has made sure to turn every opportunity to his advantage, through sleight of hand and powers of persuasion. Has Jacob ever looked out for anyone else?

In his fear, then, lies his first selfless act. And so when he prays to the Eternal, he prays on behalf of his brother. ‘Achi’, he says, ‘my brother’. It is superfluous, really. The text could merely have said ‘meyad Esav’, [deliver me from] Esau’. It is his fear that prompts Jacob to reach out and restore a broken relationship, to think of the other, rather than himself. In true Buberian fashion, this is when Esau stops being an ‘It’ but becomes truly ‘Thou’, the wholly humanised Other. For the first time, perhaps, Jacob saw Esau for who he was. Not a brawny fool to deceive nor a wild warrior to run from, but his long lost twin.

It is then that he is given the strength to wrestle the angel – identified by some Midrashim as Esau’s guardian angel – and to seek the angel’s blessing.

Jacob is transformed. And through this, he becomes Israel. And Israel is redeemed.

Is it any wonder that this transformation takes place at a riverbank, a silver ribbon cutting yet binding one liminal moment to another? It is often at borders and boundaries, at the edges of the sea and world that we become changed and better.

Israel’s secret was not his trickery. But rather that he stopped tricking. Not only others, but more importantly, himself. He looked himself hard in the eye and found compassion for others. May we pray that our fears – as dark and debilitating as they can seem – can lead to goodness and healing. Among the brokenness of the relationships of our lives, we can all face our fears, wrestle them to the ground and meet goodness and love all the days of our lives.

Shabbat shalom!