Sh'mot

Exodus 1:1−6:1

D'var Torah By: Rabbi Peter S. Knobel; Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

Who Is This God? “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh”

The Book of Exodus (Sh'mot) tells two key narratives of Jewish sacred history: the Exodus from Egypt and the gift of Torah. When they are joined to the Creation narrative of Genesis, the three stories constitute the basic theology of Judaism, which is enshrined in the blessings before and after the Sh'ma prayer.

The opening parashah of the book, also called, Sh'mot (Names), presents us with many conundrums. Why has it taken God more than four hundred years to respond to the pain of His enslaved people? Why doesn't God simply go down to Egypt and rescue them without the help of Moses? Why does God harden Pharaoh's heart, preventing him from being morally responsible for keeping the people enslaved? Who is this God who when asked to identify Himself or Herself says, "Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh" (Exodus 3:14)?

It has always struck me as strange that God does not act alone: God works through human beings. In pondering this phenomenon I came to realize that God does not intervene in any direct way in human affairs. God's role is as a source of inspiration and encouragement to us humans to create a world of justice, compassion, freedom, and peace. Only if we are so moved by the harsh realities of human suffering and are committed to relieving that suffering can we hear the call. God says "I have marked well the plight of My people in Egypt and have heeded their outcry because of their taskmasters. . . . I will send you . . . to free My people . . . " (Exodus 3:7, 10). When a person responds, "Here I am (Hineini)," as Moses does, God has the means to act in history (Exodus 3:4).

The choice of Moses is interesting. Moses himself had been rescued from death as an infant. He was raised in Pharaoh's palace as the son of Pharaoh's daughter and knew well the halls of absolute power and despotism, but resisted their attractions, identifying instead with his people of origin, the Israelite slaves. (Entire books have been written on the character of Moses alone!)

When Moses sees an Egyptian taskmaster abusing a Hebrew slave, his response to oppression is to rise up in anger and kill (deliberately or by accident) the taskmaster. Then, when the deed becomes known, Moses flees to Midian to save his own life. His first act in Midian is to defend Zipporah and her sisters from the shepherds who try to prevent them from watering their father's flock. Moses's sense of justice is not limited to filial connections but extends to the stranger as well.1

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Va-y'chi

Genesis 47:28–50:26

D'var Torah By: Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff; Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org
According to Jewish tradition, on the eve of Shabbat and holidays, before reciting kiddush, parents bless their children.

You can find these blessings in Mishkan T'filah, the siddur (prayer book) of the Reform Movement. There you will see that sons are blessed with these words: "May God inspire you to live like Ephraim and Manasseh."1 Rashi teaches that the blessing for boys is based on Genesis 48:20 in this week's parashah, when Jacob blesses his grandsons, the sons of Joseph.

There is no equivalent blessing for daughters in the Five Books of Torah. But there is a blessing in the Book of Ruth (4:11) that comes close: "May God make the woman who is coming into your house [Ruth] like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built up the House of Israel." And so in many Jewish homes today, one or both parents offer this blessing found in Mishkan T'filah2 to their daughters: "May God inspire you to live like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah."

I remember the first time that I witnessed this ceremony. When we were graduate students in Israel, my wife Terry and I were invited to Shabbat dinner at the home of dear friends in Tel Aviv. I was spellbound as the father placed his hands on the heads of his children and spoke those blessings. At that moment, I felt a profound connection to my Jewish past and future, and to my family. I promised myself in that dining room in Tel Aviv that if we were fortunate enough to have our own children, I would offer those blessings to our offspring.

Beyond my own family, the most powerful moment that I have experienced with these blessings was in 1983 when Terry and I sat in the Moscow apartment of Itzik Kogan, one of the leaders of the refusenik movement in the Former Soviet Union. We had flown to there to bring support to refuseniks: the women, men, and children who were demanding the right to emigrate to Israel in order to lead full Jewish lives. Itzik placed his hands upon the heads of his children and offered roughly the same blessing as Jacob had pronounced. As he did so, this father was saying, in effect: "We will make whatever sacrifices we must in order to live freely as Jews. We are determined that our children will live proudly in the Jewish State."

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Vayigash

Genesis 44:18−47:27

D'var Torah By: Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff; Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

Does God Have a Plan for You?

After receiving bad news or experiencing a tragic event, people will sometimes respond with the words, "It's God's will." There's even a Yiddish phrase that captures the idea, "It's bashert," meaning it was meant to be.

What is your reaction to such a response? Are you comfortable with it? Or does it fall on unreceptive ears? Is it in keeping with your philosophy of life or does it rub you the wrong way?

In this week's parashah, Vayigash, Joseph reassures his brothers that they should not feel guilty about the way they treated him. They had good reason to be frightened and harbor guilt. After all, they had tossed Joseph into a pit and sold him to passing merchants who led the lad into servitude in Egypt.

But Joseph tells his brothers not to fear, because ". . . it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. There have already been two years of famine in the land, and (there remain) five more years without plowing or harvesting. So God sent me ahead of you to assure your survival in the land, and to keep you alive for a great deliverance" (Genesis 45:5-7).

If Joseph had spoken Yiddish, he might have said that it was bashert. Of course he couldn't use those words because Yiddish developed more than two millennia later than the time Joseph lived.

Bashert suggests a fatalism that doesn't quite fit in with the lives we live today. Most of us believe in free will. We believe that we actually have choices and are responsible for the choices that we make. Most of our actions seem to be under our control. If a student works hard and writes a fine paper, she expects to be rewarded with a good grade. If that paper were bashert--destined to be written in just those words--no matter what she did, any grade or reward would be meaningless. Maimonides taught that free will is a fundamental belief in Judaism.1 (A Maimonides Reader, Isadore Twersky, ed., Behrman House, New York, 1972, pp. 77-78).

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Mikeitz

Genesis 41:1−44:17

D'var Torah By: Rabbi Bruce Kadden; Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

The Power of Names and Naming

Elie Wiesel has written, "In Jewish history, a name has its own history and its own memory. It connects beings with their origins. To retrace its path is then to embark on an adventure in which the destiny of a single word becomes one with that of a community; it is to undertake a passionate and enriching quest for all those who may live in your name."1

From the story of the Creation through the rest of Genesis, the giving of names has been a significant part of the biblical narrative. After creating the wild animals and birds, God "brought the man to see what he would call each one; and whatever the man called it, that became the creature's name" (Genesis 2:19).

In this week's portion, Mikeitz, Joseph moves from being falsely imprisoned to becoming second in command in Egypt due to his ability to interpret dreams. As Joseph settles into his new life, he is given a new name by Pharaoh: Zaphenath-paneah, which is "Egyptian for 'God speaks; He lives' or 'Creator of life.' "2 This name signifies not only that Joseph is now fully part of Egyptian society, but also that his special gift that has allowed him to succeed is the ability to speak for God.

Pharaoh also gives Joseph "Asenath daughter of Potiphera priest of On as a wife" (Genesis 41:45) and they soon become parents of two boys. "Joseph named the first-born son Manasseh [Hebrew, Menasheh], 'For God has made me forget all the troubles I endured in my father's house.' And he named the second one Ephraim, 'For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction' " (Genesis 41:51-52). These explanations may or may not accurately reflect the actual linguistic derivation of the names, but they do reflect the biblical author's understanding of the meaning of the name in relationship to the narrative.

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Vayeishev

Genesis 37:1−40:23

God’s Presence Can Be a Wondrous Thing

By Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff, Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

When I was a young rabbinic student at Hebrew Union College, I served a small Reform congregation in Fairmont, West Virginia. After Shabbat dinner at the home of a dedicated member (they were all dedicated in Fairmont!), I walked to synagogue with my host. On the way, I naively observed, "Since you go to shul every Shabbat, you must have a strong faith in God." His response surprised me: "Truthfully, I have little faith. I don't go to temple to be with God; I go to be with other Jews."

If I were to share that story with an evangelical Christian, she might not get it. Most evangelicals go to church to be with God (and with their friends, as well). The difference has to do, in part, with Jews being a minority. Especially in small communities, we feel a strong need to be with other Jews. But fundamentally, being Jewish often is not about God. It is frequently about Israel, values, social justice, ethnic bonds, customs, rituals, and preserving those traditions from generation to generation.

I meet many liberal Jews--Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, or agnostic--who tell me that they envy the strong faith of Evangelicals, Orthodox Jews, and others. They wonder why we don't have more God-talk. They wish they could feel the Presence of God more intensely in their lives. They long for just a fraction of the faith that some of their neighbors have.

In Parashat Vayeishev, we read that when Joseph was in Egypt, "the Eternal was with Joseph." Moreover, his master, Potiphar, Captain of Pharaoh's Guard, "saw that the Eternal was with him" (Genesis 39:2-3).

What does it mean "to be with God"? How did Joseph get to be with God? Did he pray three times a day or feel confident that God would protect him? What would it take for you and me to "be with God"? Let's consider how our tradition might respond to these questions.

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Vayishlach

Genesis 32:4−36:43

Chasing Your Demons: Finding Your Friend

By Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff, Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

Many years ago, I conducted a funeral for a man who died at the age of ninety-four. What I remember most about that funeral was not the fact that he had achieved national recognition as a biologist, but rather that he had four daughters and none of them spoke to each other. I still see them in my mind's eye at the synagogue service, and later at the cemetery, purposely sitting apart and avoiding even the slightest contact with one another.

I thought about them as I read this week's parashah, Vayishlach. After Jacob tricked Esau out of his birthright blessing, Jacob fled his home, spent twenty years in the service of his abusive uncle, Laban, and then stealthily, with his wives and children in tow, hurried back to Canaan where he knew he might encounter disaster at the hands of his brother.

In Genesis 32, he stops running. After fording the Jabbok River, he remains alone and wrestles with someone until dawn brakes. One of the great questions of biblical literature is: "With whom did Jacob wrestle?" It seems clear that he wrestled with God because he said, "I have seen God face-to-face" (Genesis 32:31). And yet, the text tells us that "a man wrestled with him" (32:25). That man might have been his vision of Esau or perhaps he was struggling with himself. Haven't we all struggled with our fears and vulnerabilities at some time in the dead of night? Jacob anticipated Esau's arrival with a small army. That's enough for a nightmare.

While we cannot know for certain what occurred that night, Professor Norman J. Cohen from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion suggests that Jacob "was conscious of all the different forces in his life with which he struggled: God, Esau, the side of himself that haunted him like a shadow. He was surely confronting both the human and divine in his life... That night, all the parts of Jacob and all the parts of his life came together, and he would never be the same" (Voices from Genesis, Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights, 1998, p. 125).

We do know that in the struggle he was wounded and left with a limp. Aren't we all wounded at some time or another, and left with the scars of life's conflicts?

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Vayeitzei

Genesis 28:10−32:3

By Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff, Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

Finding the Spiritual Within Us

What is the most common word used in discussions about religion today? You might think it is "God," "prayer," or "faith." We hear those words a lot.

But most common of all is "spirituality": it is frequently used, rarely defined, and difficult to define. There is no Classical Hebrew equivalent: in Modern Hebrew it's called ruchaniyut. The concept of spirituality comes more from Christian philosophy, which historically divides world into the material and the spiritual. In Judaism we see only one world: material and spiritual at the same time. And in Judaism, the material is always potentially spiritual. The most ordinary, mundane thing has the potential to be spiritual: dirt, sweat, food, snow, or rain.

Why is the search for spirituality so important today?

You can probably answer that question as well as I can. We've passed through a decade or two – some would say centuries – of materialism: industrial revolution, scientific breakthroughs, technology formerly unimagined. We've seen prosperity in this country and other Western lands. We have accomplished a great deal materially and indulged ourselves generously. And we've paid little attention to the non-material, the spiritual. Sometimes we've grown so distant from the spiritual that we've forgotten it existed – or how to connect with it.

The Kobriner Rebbe used this simple teaching: he turned to his Chasidim and asked: "Do you know where God is?" He took a piece of bread, showed it to them, and observed: "God is in this piece of bread. Without God's expression of power in all nature, this bread would have no existence."1

Some people think that God is hiding from us. But as we learn in the Book of Jonah (chapter 1) it is we who hide from God.

How do we hide from God? We hide by not letting ourselves think in spiritual ways; by avoiding places, moments, and situations where we might be more open to God; by convincing ourselves that we are not spiritual.

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