Shabbat Shemot January 18, 2020

 January 17 – Sh’mot – Exodus 1:1-Exodus 6:1

Summary:  This Shabbat we begin a new book of the Torah. In our portion a new Pharoah arises in Egypt who didn’t know of Joseph.  The new Pharoah fears the Israelite people and so he sets taskmasters over them to build cities.   He orders Jewish babies killed.  In an act of civil disobedience two midwives refuse.  Moses is born and set in a basket and placed into the river.  He is discovered and raised in a royal home. As he grows older, he strikes a taskmaster and kills him and so he goes into hiding in the desert.  He then sees a bush that burns but is not consumed.  At that moment he meets God and learns God’s essence – not God’s name.  God askes Moses to free the Israelites from slavery.  

Lesson: At the burning bush Moses meets God and asks for God’s name.  Moses said to God, "When I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" Moses is looking for name that describes the God who wants to free the people. God’s answer is not at all clear:  "Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh" (Exodus 3:14). 

Just as Moses had doubts about knowing God – so too do we often have the same doubts.

God answers with a very unusual name:  Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh. What does God’s answer teach us about God?  God’s evasive answer opens up to each of us the potential to know God in our own way. My colleague, Rabbi Peter Knobel teaches us:  "I am whatever you want Me to be. I am whatever you need Me to be. You cannot know My Essence but we will have a relationship, and you will tell stories about your encounters with Me. None of them will be totally accurate because I am not a concept. I am a living complex reality that can be experienced, but not defined or limited by language. That is Who I Am and Who I Will Be."

Often we search for God and feel as if there is no answer.  Maybe it is not God who is missing, but rather we who are absent.  It could be that we are not yet ready to take up the challenge that God and Judaism place before us – to repair a broken world.  It is up to us to create a divine-human partnership making tikkun olam, "repairing the world," possible. God is not absent.  God is simply waiting for us to show up, to invite God’s presence into the world.  

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Goor

Shabbat 10 January – Genesis 47, 28 – Genesis 50, 26

Summary:  The book of Genesis comes to an end.  Jacob and Joseph both die.  Joseph pledges to bury Jacob back in Canaan.  Jacob blesses Efraim and Manessah.  Each of the 12 sons gets a blessing.  Jacob’s bones are carried back to the Machpelah in Hebron.  Our narrative ends with the promise that the family will eventually return to Canaan. 

Lesson:  According to Jewish tradition, on the eve of Shabbat and holidays, before reciting kiddush, parents bless their children.  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 this week’s portion, when Jacob blesses his grandsons, the sons of Joseph.

It’s interesting to note that our tradition doesn’t offer an equivalent blessing for daughters. 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 a blessing to their daughters: "May God inspire you to live like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah."

As a child, our family celebrated Shabbat together each week. We lit candles, said Kiddush over the wine and ate sweet challah.  However, my favorite memory was when my mother and father would place their hands on our heads, and in the spirit of our Torah portion this week, bless us with these traditional words.

You don't have to be a rabbi or a cantor to offer a blessing. We have the opportunity to create this warm and last memory each and every Shabbat when we place our hands on the heads of our children and grandchildren (or in their absence, nieces, nephews, or on other loved ones)  With this blessing, we ask God to inspire them to perform acts of tikkun olam, and to experience the joy that flows from Shabbat and the wisdom that streams from study of Torah.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Goor and Cantor Kent

Shabbat Vayigash

Joseph’s brothers had gone down to Egypt to buy grain. Joseph recognizes them. They do not recognize him. Joseph accuses the brothers of being spies, holds brother Simon as hostage, and sends them back to father Jacob - replacing the money they had paid for the food back in the brothers’ respective sacks. When provisions in Canaan again run low, father Jacob sends the brothers back to Egypt, this time with brother Benjamin in tow, along with gifts for Joseph, further advising the brothers to return the money they had discovered in their grain sacks saying, “Perhaps it was a mistake.” Arriving back in Egypt, the brothers were brought to Joseph’s home by an eish, a man. Greatly afraid, the brothers feared they would be accused of robbery for the money discovered in their sacks. They attempt to explain to the man what had transpired and return the found money to him, but the man responds, “Your God and the God of your father must have put treasure in your bags for you.” To digress. A man goes into the bank to cash a check. The teller asks the man to endorse the back of the check but he refuses. “I will not and you can’t make me.” The assistant manager comes over and explains that if the man would just sign the back of the check they will cash it. Again the man refuses. The manger comes over to help, then the assistant Vice President of the bank, and then the Vice President until finally the man with the check and all the staff people who had tried to help arrive in the office of the CEO. The CEO asks everyone else to leave, invites the man to have a seat, looks him straight in the eye and says, “Sign the check or I’m going to punch you in the face.” The man signs the check. Back at the first window, the original teller asks, “What happened in the CEO’s office. We all asked you to sign the check and you refused.” “Oh,” said the man, “He explained it to me.” Jacob: Perhaps it was a mistake? The eish: No. Somehow, some way God was at work in all of this. So what seems at first a diversion, a minor element in the story line turns out to be the Torah’s subtle way of “explaining it” – a realization Joseph comes to and expresses more fully in this week’s parashah when he says to his brothers “So you see it was not you who sent me here but it was God, and it was to save life.” Notice though that in the first instance the “explanation” is given by an eish, a man, an anonymous, seemingly non-essential character in the narrative, just as Jacob wrestled with an eish in an earlier parashah and Joseph – when he cannot locate his brothers – is given directions to find them by an eish. Sometimes, the most unexpected characters take on a major instructional role in our lives as they ‘explain it’ to us, when they provide us with an abiding insight or an alternative way of looking at something. Such ‘explanations’ - like the metaphoric punch in the face – can sometimes come as a shock but they can also shape or re-shape our being in a powerful way; and when they do so they usually send us off with a better, more effective or more profound way of thinking and doing. Back in Milan, our Italian friend Cinzia would begin her texts to David with the salutation Tesoro. The word means ‘treasure’ indicating perhaps the very valued place his friendship had for her. Insight and explanation are also things to be valued as treasures – however and from whomever they come to us. And who is to say that the people who provide them, those who play the roll of eish for us, are not angels sent from on high to help us to make better sense of the living of our days? Shabbat Shalom Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Miketz December 27, 2019

This week’s Torah portion takes its name from the opening Hebrew word of the parashah. Miketz - at the end. The reading coincides with the ending of our secular year and if my reckoning is correct to the completion of a calendar decade as well.

The text begins, miketz shenatayim yamim, “at the end of two year’s time” Pharaoh dreamed a series of dreams in which fat cows swallowed up skinny cows and parched ears of corn gobbled up healthy ones. The dreams were a foreshadowing of bad times to come for the land of Egypt and a veiled injunction for someone to take proactive measures to offset the dire challenges ahead. The repetition of the dream was a sure indication of catastrophe to come.

In the case of our world and our time, we confront the nightmarish possibility of a world in the escalating throes of a climate crisis. We dare not fail to note that recent scientific studies show the rate of arctic melting is accelerating. The probability of a resulting dramatic rise in the sea levels combined with continuing heat and drought will put unsustainable pressures on our world. The likelihood of such a disaster is ever more likely.

And Pharaoh woke up. V’yikatz paro - same root word as the title of the portion. Same word used to describe the Patriarch Jacob when he awoke to the realization that God was in this place and he did not know it.

“Woke” in contemporary English is a political term that refers to an awareness of issues of importance. It is derived from the African American vernacular. In Hebrew, verbs derived from the root kts (mikketz and yikatz) can mean ‘to awaken’ and ‘to end.’ Scientific reports of global warming are to our times what Pharaoh’s dreams were to his. If we do not awaken to the dangers and take steps to ameliorate the worsening situation we may truly be confronting the end of life on this planet as we know it.

In the light of Joseph’s interpretation of the king’s two dreams, Pharaoh’s says “Where is there in all the land one as wise and discerning as this one.” Where in our world are those with the wisdom and discernment to lead us in this time of looming crisis?

I hesitate to end the secular on such a depressing note, but my hope for this new year is that the human race will be around for many, many more new years to come.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Vayeshev December 20, 2019

In this week’s portion, we meet the young Joseph. His story is actually the longest continuous narrative in the Torah but at the outset we know only that he is a shepherd, that he is the favored offspring of Jacob’s old age, that his brother’s hate him and that previously he had brought debatam ra’ah of them to his father. In various translations you find that phrase rendered as bad report, evil report, malicious report and (even) false report.

A midrash quoted by the commentator Rashi relates: “Whatever Joseph saw wrong in his brothers, the sons of Leah, he reported to his father: that they used to eat flesh cut off from a living animal, that they treated the sons of the handmaids with contempt, calling them slaves, and that they were suspected of living in an immoral manner.” The midrash leaves it open as to the veracity of these reports. They could have been malicious fabrications, and in fact the passage goes on to say that for each of these reports Joseph suffered in kind. “Because Joseph slandered them saying they called their brothers slaves he himself was sold into slavery. And because Joseph charged them with immorality later his master’s wife charged him with immorality.”

The intent of this teaching is ambiguous. If Joseph’s reports were accurate why did he suffer such negative consequences for relaying them? On the other hand, if the reports were false and the consequences were merited, is the midrash telling us and are we to believe that what goes around comes around, that a kind of karmic payback operates in this world?

Human beings need to have some trust in the people with whom they share life. That goes for family, neighbors, co-workers and community; and if and when trust is lost the odds are small that a similar confidence and dependability can ever be fully restored. No wonder Jospeh’s brothers hated him.

The text says v’lo youchlu dabro l’shalom – usally translated ‘they could not speak peaceably to him.’ Shalom does mean peace, but the word also has a sense of completion and wholeness. So what may have been lost with Joseph’s un-truthful reports was any sense that his brother’s could ever fully trust him again.

It is very difficult if not near impossible to be with or work with people you do not trust, and distrust can easily escalate into a more pernicious and destructive emotions. If you want to be trusted be trustworthy.

It used to be said that people were entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. That notion seems not only passé today, but when facts are so easily labeled fake, when falsehoods are disseminated with such abandon, when conspiracy theories purport that nothing is at it seems to be, it becomes ever harder to know whom, when and what to trust. The very concept of truth is under attack.

The prophet Isaiah cautioned: Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. I would add to that list truth for falsehood and falsehood for truth. Because if there is karmic payback in the universe…..

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Vayishlach December 13, 2019

In this week’s portion, Jacob wrestles with a mysterious other – be it an angel, a man, a demon, or perhaps even Divinity itself. The text calls Jacob’s opponent simply an eish, a man.

At the conclusion of the match however, as the sun is rising and neither can best the other, the eish blesses Jacob, changes his name to Israel and declares: “For you have striven with God and human beings and you have prevailed.” The eish could be self - identifying itself as God. At any rate Jacob seems to think that’s the case because he names the place of encounter, Peni’el meaning ‘face of God’ and explains: “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.”

Torah study and Jewish spirituality have both been described and explained with this Biblical passage in mind. The name Israel – the one who wrestles with God – confirms that ours is a tradition made uneasy with final answers. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel accurately observed that in Judaism “the mystery of the next question hovers over every answer.” For Jews, it’s just as much about the seeking and the struggle as it is about the finding and the faith. Yes, we are a people that wrestles.

But let me make a few observations here about the Torah’s choice of metaphor. I think it is stunningly apt.

First, remember that wrestling is a weight-class sport. That is to say, a wrestler is always matched with an opponent of roughly the same size and heft. Pound for pound, kilo for kilo the two wrestlers are pretty much evenly matched. So the God you engage in a theological wrestling match is not so much the Infinite, All powerful, Cosmic-scaled Creator of the Universe, but rather a much more eish sized other who happily invites you to step into the ring.

Remember also that your opponent here is not out to kill or crush you. In wrestling, there are rules. You are not allowed to intentionally hurt your opponent. Though there may be some pain involved in the struggle.

Please also know that the greater, the more profound the question you bring with you into the ring the longer the match will take. Some matches in fact can and do last a lifetime. The New York Times recently ran an article with the headline: “They were lovers in Auschvitz. Reunited 72 years later, he had one question. Was she the reason he was alive today?”

In God-wrestling, it is acceptable, however, to call a time-out every once in a while.

And lastly, sometimes even the most accomplished wrestlers can only manage a draw. That is to say the point is not necessarily to win. It’s quite all right just to reach an accommodation. Like Jacob, you can in fact receive a blessing if you just hang in there long enough.

Interestingly, in the verse above, the single word tuchal is translated as ‘you have prevailed’ - which has the sense of to win, to triumph and alternately to persuade, gain control or to influence; but the Hebrew verb is more commonly rendered simply as ‘can’ or ‘able to.’ So for now I choose to read the verse this way: “For you have striven with God and human beings and you can.” I hear the eish saying, “In Judaism, God-wrestling is possible, permissible, acceptable and you are authorized and equipped to do so.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Vayetzei, December 6, 2019

I think Vayaitzei is my very favorite Torah portion. The image of a ladder reaching from heaven to earth. Angels ascending and descending. Jacob waking from his sleep and speaking perhaps the most truthful line in a book filled with memorable verses. “God is in this place,” Jacob says, “and I did not know it.” The precursor, I suppose, to today’s more succinct OMG.

There is something to the verse, though, not captured in translation. In the Hebrew language, the subject is usually understood to be included in the verb. So when Genesis 28:16 reads v’anochi (and I) lo yadati (I did not know it) there is a superfluous ‘I’ in the verse. Literally the translation should read, “God is in this place and I, I did not know it.” The Hebrew implies a sense of jarring recognition of the previously overlooked.

Imagine a person being granted entry to Buckingham Palace, ushered into a personal audience with the Queen, and in the presence of Her Majesty grabbing an uncomfortable couch and going to sleep.

Of the countless commentaries offered by our tradition then, consider reading the verse this way:

God is in this place and I did not know it because if I had known it I would never have been so rude as to go to sleep in the first place. In other words, an awareness of context ought to influence proper behavior.

In Hebrew, the word for proper behavior is derech eretz. Literally it means the way of the land. The term signifies the appropriate, respectful, ethically sanctioned way a person should conduct him or herself in their interactions with others. It’s the way people should behave as they walk the path of life. There is an entire tractate in the Talmud devoted to derech ertez.

Derech eretz is Hebrew. It’s better known Yiddish equivalent is menschlichkeit. To be a mensch is to be an honest, ethical individual laboring always to do the right thing in an unassuming and honorable way. When my nephew was 2 years old he learned to sit up in a chair all by himself, and his grandfather was heard to remark, “Look at Adam. He sits up just like a little mensch.” To be a mensch is to be upright.

We share the world with countless others. Our interactions with anonymous self-centered people are literally beyond counting, and the context of living in a sometimes bruising, often stressfull, continuously challenging world can strain the resolve of even the most ardent devotee of derech eretz. Or to point it another way, menschlichkeit isn’t always easy.

The tale is told of a holy man sitting on the banks of a river trying to save a scorpion that was drowning, but ever time he went to rescue the scorpion it tried to sting him. His disciples asked the holy man, “Why do you continue to do this?” He answered, “It is in my nature to save. It is in the nature of the scorpion to sting. And why should I change my nature just because he will not change his.”

In Psalm139 we read: Whither shall I go from Thy spirit, whither shall I flee from Thy Presence? If I ascend into the heavens Thou art there. If I make my bed in the world Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell on the farthermost shores of the sea, even there would Thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me.

Which means that God is in this place, every place, all places. And if and when we know it, we are more likely to strive always to conduct ourselves accordingly. So the principle holds. When it comes to derech eretz, an awareness of an all-pervasive, in this case Divine context is certainly of decided benefit.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Toldot November 29, 2019

The matriarch Rebecca, like Sarah before her, was childless. When finally she did conceive the pregnancy was exceedingly difficult - to the point that Rebecca called out lamah zeh anochi.

An older translation rendered the verse, “Why am I thus?” I take this rendering to mean, “What did I do to deserve this?” Not an unusual question in times of suffering or distress. The question itself rests on the assumption that suffering is the consequence of having done something wrong.

The Midrash understands the verse differently. Rebecca’s question was “If this is what it takes to bring children into the world, why was I so anxious to desire it?” In other words, “What could I possibly have been thinking? Why on earth did I want this?” Not an unusual question if you discover that the thing you longed for did not deliver anywhere near the happiness or satisfaction expected.

A more modern and I think better translation has it, “If this is so, why do I exist.” In fact later in the parashah Rebecca expresses a similar thought when she says to Isaac, lamah li chayim, Why am I alive? Not an unusual question when, early or late, you reach that point along the way when you begins to wonder “What is the meaning or purpose of my life?”

In Hebrew there is an expression l’kach nasartah, for this were you created.

Before he entered politics US President Harry Truman was a partner in a clothing business with his friend Eddie Jacobson. In 1948 when the United Nations was debating the creation of the State of Israel, Eddie Jacobson went to see President Truman to encourage his support for the partition vote. Eddie Jacobson ( some say it was Chaim Weizmann) told Harry Truman l’kach nasarta – for this sacred purpose were you placed in your mother’s womb. You have the opportunity here to justify, to give meaning to your entire existence in your support of the historic re-founding of a Jewish state.

Such moments need not be so grandly historic in their import. But for each of us there are moments when - if we are prepared to step outside of our usual skeptical mindset – we may well entertain the notion that we are being used for and by a Higher Purpose. When the significance of what we have been called to do or say somehow vaults far above the ordinary, when it transcends the normal, the natural. Such moments bring clear-headed and far-sighted meaning to our days.

British historian Paul Johnson wrote a comprehensive History of the Jews. He chronicled 4000 years of strife and striving and his conclusion: The Jews have stood forefront in their belief that history has a purpose and humanity a destiny. If that is true of the collective then it certainly holds for the individual as well.

In 1998, gay college student Matthew Shepard was robbed, tortured, tied to a fence post and left to die. A fellow student, Aaron Kreifles out for a mountain bike ride found the badly beaten boy the next morning and got him to a hospital where Matthew died six days later. Of that day Kreifels wrote: I hit a rock and I fell. I never fall. It was then that I saw Matthew.” The image of badly beaten boy haunted him for months. “ I kept asking, “Why? Why did I fall? Why did I have to find him, especially if he was going to die anyway.” Eventually, he concluded, “I think God didn’t want Matthew to die alone. But why did it have to be me?

L’kach nasartah. For this you were created.

L’kach nasartah – keep the phrase handy when you realize that you have done way more than just make a difference or done a good deed. You may have in fact just advanced God’s purposes and plan for creation.

Can there be a holier or more exalted realization than that?

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Chayei Sarah November 22, 2019

In this week’s Torah portion Sarah dies, Abraham dies and then Ishmael dies. Sarah lived to be 127, Abraham to 175 and Ishmael to 137. Of Abraham, the Torah says va yamot b’savah tovah. He died in a good old age. And then the text repeats the thought zakain v’savayah, variously translated ‘full of age’ or ‘old and contented.’ Traditionally, the repetition was understood to be first an enumeration of the quantity of Abraham’s days and then an evaluation of their quality.

Many years and chapters later Joseph brings his father Jacob down to Egypt. When Jacob is presented to the king, the first thing Pharaoh asks him is, How old are you?” Jacob responds, “130, but few and miserable have been the days of the years of my life.”

So what constitutes a good old age? As I approach another divisible by ten birthday and because I have had the privilege of sharing life with some remarkable role models over the years, I am bold to make a few guesses. What makes a good old age? It’s good health, of course, with a minimum of the aches and pains that reasonably accompany increasing longevity. Continuing economic security for sure. It’s also a great blessing if you have a companion and friends of long standing to accompany you – the people who know you for who you are and who knew you for who you were. It’s good to have others with whom you can reminisce. Attentive but not too attentive family is a decided advantage, and it’s good to find new challenges and diversions at every stage of life.

But consider, both Abraham and Jacob had roughly similar lives. Both had met the challenges and disappointments of spousal infertility, were beset with multiple issues affecting their offspring and they both endured episodes of physical dislocation and hardship. They both knew the pain of personal loss. Both men had amassed considerable wealth in flocks and herds, achieved high status in the estimation of their neighbors, were well taken care of in their advancing years and stood in close with a God who walked with them and blessed them throughout their lives. So how is it that Abraham found contentment in his years and Jacob voiced such discontent with his?

I suppose we should note first that the positive evaluation of Abraham’s life is made by someone else, the narrator of the story in this case and not Abraham himself. Jacob, on the other hand, gives a personal view of all that transpired in his days. So what might look ‘good’ from the outside may not necessarily square with that person’s self-assessment of things at all.

But on rereading the chapters that detail the life of Abraham, I was struck this time by the many instances and the many ways that the text conveys the thought “And Abraham moved on.” Not only in the geographic sense of from point A to point B, but more in the sense of having incorporated the lessons, blessings and opportunities from one stage of his life into his being, he moved on to the next. Maybe perspective comes from the realization that every stage of life has or had its joys and disappointments, that you cannot live exclusively in the past and that the hopeful anticipation of what comes next leads to a feeling of contentment in the end. A favorite line from an old song comes to mind: Every new beginning comes from some other new beginning’s end.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Vayeira November 16, 2019

“Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.” Up front, the Torah gives us Noah’s qualifications and makes it clear why God wanted him and his family to go into the ark. Not so with Abraham. Initially, we learn neither why Abraham is singled out nor the purpose behind his necessary relocation to Canaan. We are told only of the promises or consequences that will come to Abraham if he is faithful to God’s call – he will become the famous father of a great nation, and a blessing to boot – but we don’t know why God wants him or anyone else for that matter to go or why Abraham specifically was selected for the mission.

The answers to these questions may be found seven chapters later, in this week’s Torah portion, in the context of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

God plans the destruction of the two wicked cities, but says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? For I have selected him, so that he may instruct his children and those after him to keep the way of the Eternal, doing what is right and just, so that the Eternal may fulfill all that has been promised him.” It follows from this that perhaps it was Abraham’s aptitude for or skill as a teacher that caught the attention of his God. God, it seems, has a fondness for teachers. Notice also that it is “justice and right” that constitute the curriculum to be taught and the “doing and keeping” that will be the skill set to be learned. And, of course, the harder the subject the more skilled the teacher must be.

I would be willing to bet that everyone has had three, maybe with luck five truly great teachers in his or her lifetime. The teachers whose names you can remember to this very day, the ones who helped you to see and think in entirely new ways, the ones who mentored you into the skills and talents that you needed to succeed in life. Sometimes it wasn’t even what they taught as much as how they taught it. How somehow they embodied the very subject they were attempting to convey. Sometimes the best teachers we studied under were not even those who had been to University to get credentialed. Parents, friends, family and colleagues are often the ones who instruct us most skillfully in the values and essentials of living.

In a graduate course on helping clergy to increase their effectiveness in practice, my class was brilliantly instructed on how sustained advocacy of your position without inquiry into the thinking or reasoning of the other person will often lead to a far from optimal outcome. In one case study presentation after the other, the professor would point out again and again “Advocacy. No Inquiry” on the part of the student. When the professor presented a problematic case from her own practice, I was bold to offer that in failing to inquire into the other person’s reasoning she had done the very thing that she had so often inveighed against. Far from being offended by the presumption, the professor was delighted. “Ah,” she said. “The student has become the teacher. How marvelous is that.”

If Abraham was chosen for his ability to teach, then in this week’s portion he takes on the most challenging student of all when he dares to teach the “way of the Eternal” to Divinity Itself. If God chose Abraham to instruct in “what is right and just” then the lesson is turned back on the One who chose him to do so as Abraham argues for the potentially innocent people of Sodom and Gomorrah. “Far be it from You to destroy the innocent with the guilty,” says Abraham; and adds, “Shall not the Judge of all the world deal justly.” Here, when the student becomes the teacher I hear God saying, “How marvelous is that.”

Abraham embodies the teaching he was chosen to impart – a lesson that continues to instruct his descendents throughout the generations: the way of the Eternal is found in the acts of justice and the practice of what is right.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Parashat Lech Lecha, November 8

God speaks to Abraham on multiple occasions in this week’s Torah portion. In all but one, the text uses the formulation vayomer adonai – and God said. The exception appears in the opening of chapter 15 when devar adaonai el Avram – the word of the Lord came to Abram. The singularity of expression is important for two reasons.

First, the message. “Fear not.”

Fear can be a politic emotion. A healthy dose of apprehension is a benefit from time to time. Fear fosters a sense of prudence. The rabbis counseled: Never court the angel of death. There are legitimate reasons to avoid unnecessary risk. Life can be dangerous enough. No need to voluntarily sign up to swim with the sharks.

Fear taken to an unnecessary level, however, can prevent a person from fulfilling his or her God-given potential. All life is risk taking to one extent or another.

A friend spoke to me of the fear she had crossing the street in Washington DC. Traffic coming at you in all directions. She said she would hold to the traffic islands at all costs, afraid to step out into the flow, waiting until the very last minute to step off the curb. Until one day she imagined herself run down right there on the traffic island with the newspaper headline the next day: Pedestrian hit. Police say, she should have j-walked.

Abraham leaves his native land, his father’s house and sets off to an unknown destination, all on the summons of a heretofore unknown and ultimately unknowable God. Now that’s risk taking. But the truth is that this is a journey we are all tasked to undertake by the same Deity the day we come into our life. Living is both leave taking and risk taking with the destination ultimately unknowable in advance. How and where we will end up is a mystery that will remain unsolved until the very last days of our being. So the message holds: Fear Not. Your life is meant to be lived fully.

And secondly, I think the formulation – and the word of the Lord came to Abram – is probably the Torah’s indication that this was something that the patriarch figured out for himself. It came to him, not at first but – just as it came to my friend in DC – in time that ultimately there is no absolute safety in life and that - very often - risk is the only option worth the effort or the price.

Fear not, otherwise you never get to the Promised Land, or even across the street for that matter.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Parashat Noach - 2 November

And the Lord said to Noah, “Build for yourself an ark. Build it with compartments and cover it inside and out with pitch. The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits, its width 50 cubits and its height 30 cubits.” (Genesis 6:14-15)

And it came to pass after these things that the Lord called again to Noah saying, “Where is the ark I commanded thee to build?” And Noah said, “Forgive me, Lord, but my contractor hath let me down. The pitch you commanded me to pitch inside and out was delivered to the wrong address, and the guy at the lumberyard doesn’t know from cubits. Honestly I’m doing the best I can, considering.”

And the Lord grew angry and said, “Make it so. Moreover gather up the animals two by two and bring them into the ark with you, for I am about to destroy the earth because it is filled with “hamas.” (Genesis 6:11)

But behold it was not so. “Reboynah shel oylam, Lord of the Universe,” said Noah, “Now the wagon drivers have gone on strike. Birds of the field come only in sets of 12. Male gorillas cannot be had for love nor money. And you think it’s easy to get a plumber on a weekend? Lord, Lord, what am I to do?”

The Lord did not answer Noah, but God repented of His plan to destroy humanity. People seemed to be doing a good job of it all by themselves.

You will not find this story in the Midrash, but it is a very old story nonetheless. A tale of frustration, annoyance, and exasperation. Of all the little things that go wrong, that niggle away at you, that get under the skin, that aggravate, pester and provoke the kind of momentary outrage that is not at all in keeping with your character. It’s a story that chronicles the stress inducing nuisances that inevitably come with living a socially inter-connected, inter-dependent human existence.

David tells the story of standing behind a lady at a fancy food emporium in our town. The woman was yelling at the clerk behind the counter using demeaning, highly inappropriate language. And when David confronted her, the woman excused herself by saying, “Well I have 20 people coming for lunch and my help didn’t show up.”

In this week’s Torah portion, God despairs of human kind because people have filled the world with hamas - the word is usually translated as lawlessness. I’m not sure we know exactly what hamas really means; but - if God thought it sufficient cause to bring human existence to an end - for sure it wasn’t anything good. Interestingly, in the next week’s Torah portion, when Abraham’s wife, the matriarch Sarah is disrespected by her maidservant Hagar, Sarah uses the same word to describes the situation to Abraham. “Hamasi, my hamas is your doing.”(Genesis 16.5) In the grand scheme of things I don’t think the two situations are exactly equal in gravity or consequence. But there you have it. How often we feel that the annoyances and frustrations we experience are somehow “the end of the world.”

When we over-react to the little things and blow them out of all sense of proportion, it is all too easy to look past the dignity of others, and so doing momentarily lose our own dignity as well. Frustration is well, frustrating; but a person can be annoyed and still resist being inhumane. If and when enough people lose it enough times, that will be the end of civilized life on this earth as we know it.

My friend Ellen had a very difficult tenant renting her apartment. The guy would exaggerate the gravity of his complaints. There were many complaints, and he relayed them all in an overly dramatic way. Finally, when he referred to a small discoloration in the bathroom tile grout as ‘a disaster’, Ellen said, “I have taken it as my mission in life to help this young man distinguish the difference between tragedy and annoyance.”

Friends, we all need to get a grip from time to time. To take a breath, to relax. Because - as our trip planner said to us just before we left for India, “Things will go wrong.” So when you feel you are on the edge, when the other car cuts you off in traffic or once again you are waiting for that delivery that was promised you weeks ago, when you feel you are just about to lose it: Take a breath. Count to ten. We don’t live in Syria; and - after all - most of it is just about tile grout anyway.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Berashit October 25, 2019

There is a man in Vermont who makes jigsaw puzzles. They are intricate, beautiful things made with a sense of irony, artistry and good humor. My favorite is one that can be put together in four different ways, but three of those assemblies cannot be completed. The very last piece will not fit, and the space left in the middle of the puzzle forms the shape of a devil. To get the full picture – it only works when all the pieces fit together. 

The fall Jewish holidays work the same way. They come fast and furious with the new moon of Tishrei, but each in its own way provides a necessary puzzle piece that needs to be joined with all the rest. In other words, when it comes to Judaism ‘some assembly required.’  

First there is Elul, the month preceding Rosh Ha-shanah, a time for preparation and stock taking. On the Day of Judgment our deeds are weighed in the balance. Shabbat Shuvah counsels us to return to the path of righteousness and blessing. On Yom Kippur we seek atonement and forgiveness. For these four observances we turn inward. Our spiritual work is personal. There is a somber and sobering quality to these holidays. 

Then comes Sukkot, the festival of our rejoicing. Now, we turn our gaze outward and see ourselves in the context of a Universe and a God so vast as to defy our imagination and understanding. You site yourself in the immensity of creation. That’s why the roof of the sukkah must be open to the sky. Now, it’s not all about me. But just when you might begin to think of yourself as insignificant,  Simchat Torah comes to teach that the Infinite God of Creation is also in a loving and intimate relationship with you and your community. The symbol and proof of that relationship is Torah. 

And so we dance. Because now the puzzle pieces all fit together. It’s about me but not all about me. It’s sobering and exhilarating, both. You need all the elements - atonement , introspection, rejoicing, relationship and context - to get a true picture of Judaism and what it’s all about.

The Torah says that the person who fails to observe Yom Kippur, that person has ‘cut themselves off from the people.” Maybe that’s why so many people show up only at the end of the Day of Atonement. But what I do know is that if you pass up the chance to observe and celebrate  the festivals , ALL OF THEM, you get an incomplete, skewed picture of what your faith wants you to know about yourself and your community.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Chol Ha’moed Sukkot October 18, 2019

Over the years, I have had a love-hate relationship with Sukkot. When I worked in Boston, it was my favorite Jewish holiday. In New England, Sukkot is a full on fall holiday – the air is cool, the apples are crisp and the sunlight is dappled and delicious. You can spend hours “dwelling in your booth” and it’s not goofing off. You are fulfilling a religious obligation. In Houston where I also worked for a number of years, I dreaded Sukkot. In Texas, the summer lingers on well past October. When the holiday rolls around, the temperatures are still stifling, the humidity is off the charts and the mosquitoes are ravenous. In Houston, spending ten minutes in the sukkah is a punishment.

Regardless of your GPS coordinates, the Torah still identifies the festival as he-chag, THE holiday, the festival par excellence; and the prayer book refers to it as zeman simchatynu, the season of our rejoicing. So if Rosh Hashanah is about judgment and Yom Kippur is about atonement then Sukkot is surely all about joy. After the heavy work of self-evaluation and re-assessment that launches us into a new year, it’s a relief to focus on elation and delight.

In ancient Israel, Sukkot was the last of the harvest festivals. The produce had been gathered in and for an agricultural people there was relief from work and worry. In Leviticus, the Torah commands “Take the branches of a palm tree, the leaves of the myrtle and willow trees, and the fruit of a goodly tree (the lulav and etrog) and rejoice before the Lord seven days.” Why these four species specifically and why they should prompt an outpouring of joy is beyond me. Maybe the four species - as they are called - are just an annual prompt to consider the questions: ‘What is joy?’ and ‘What are the things that bring true pleasure to life and the living of our days?’

Happiness and joy are not identical. Both are worthy and positive emotions. Happiness derives from persons and things external to the self. Happiness is most often triggered by other people, places, thoughts and things. As such, it tends to be momentary and springs from short term contentment. Happiness is fleeting. It is situational. Joy on the other hand is independent of current circumstance. It grows out the inner-self itself. Joy comes when you make peace with who you are, why you are and how you are.

Interestingly, the Hebrew language has ten words for what we refer to with the one English word joy. I take this to be an indication that Judaism expects that we will have joy in such abundance that we will need all ten words to describe the variations, subtleties and nuanced differences in the emotion. To be sure, joy is a hard concept to get your head around. And come to think of it, how can you command someone to be joyous. Wouldn’t that make it a counterfeit emotion?

In the oft-repeated second section of the Shema, the v’ahavtah, we are told, “You shall love the Lord your God.” When asked how anyone could be commanded to love someone or something, Martin Buber explained that the only reasonable and totally predictable outcome of a true understanding of God would be the experience of loving adoration. Not so other human beings. The injunction ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ is better translated as “Act lovingly towards your neighbor” even if your neighbor is a jerk.

So how can the Torah command rejoicing? Joy is like love. In the sukkah - surrounded by the bounty of the harvest, newly forgiven and reconciled to your Maker, surrounded by family and invited guests, resting up from the exertion and stress of your work – the reasonable and totally predictable outcome should be the experience of joy. But it’s more than just these blessings. Peering up through the open roofing of your booth into the vast and infinite reaches of the heaven, can you not help but be overjoyed that the Master and Maker of Heaven and Earth has regard for you? And not only regard but loving and dedicated regard at that. What a relief to know that I am not totally dependent on what others say or write on my Facebook page for my sense of self. Rather, as we read in the Book of Nehemiah: “The delight of the Lord is your strength.”

Who, why and what am I? Sukkot provides an answer. But little lower than the angels, endowed and endorsed with inalienable dignity and worth. And if you can hold on to that, knowing that the very Source of the Universe delights in your being you, you are better able to emerge from the refuge of the sukkah joyously or at least strengthened to meet the challenges of life.

Chag Saeach. Happy or better yet Realize a Joyous Sukkot.

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Shuvah October 4, 2019

On the upcoming Day of Atonement we will confess our sins. We will recite a veritable litany of transgressions. Ahshmanu, bagadnu, debarnu-dofee. We have sinned. We have transgressed. We have gone astray. The prayer book calls it a catalogue of woe.

Though some may disagree, I find great meaning and, yes, even wisdom in this disheartening enumeration of deeds done and undone. For what is this catalogue of our failings if not the negative image, the picture in reverse, of how we are expected to lead our lives? Yes, we confess indifference, dishonesty, irresponsibility. Which is only to say that we are commanded to be honest, responsible and compassionately concerned with the needs of others.

But why paint the picture in such dark tones? Why not highlight the positive and our capacity for elevated achievement? Would it not be better to appeal to our higher instincts? The answer to that question is no.

Our sages wrote of yetser, a uniquely primal human energy, and they spoke of two urges, two drives within us. One, the yetser tov is our good inclination and the other the evil inclination, the yetser hara. And the rabbis added that the evil inclination is 13 years older than the good. In other words, the evil inclination is present virtually from birth. The good inclination appears much later.

The problem is that the impulse to give in to the yetser hara is strong. The good news is that we are capable and often do overcome that impulse. The best news is that even after giving in to the yetser hara, we are capable of growth and change, and when we do our tradition calls that tshuvah, repentance, return. This Sabbath is known as Shabbat Shuvah, the Sabbath of Return.

Atonement and return, however, are premised on our ability to recognize right and wrong and to see where and how we have gone astray. That is why the Day of Atonement provides us with a catalogue of wrongdoings and highlights all we have failed to be.

Our sages teach that the greatest weapon against the evil impulse is Torah. Understand Torah here as a moral compass that details an order of life that must not be violated. There are deeds that must not be done. The listing of those deeds makes up the particulars of our Yom Kippur confessional.

Some years ago there was a boxing match in New York City. Former heavyweight champion George Foreman was in attendance, and that night all hell broke loose in the arena. The fighters, their managers, even spectators in the stands started fighting with one another. It took 150 policemen to bring the situation under control, That night George Forman played an important part in helping to restore order. He stood in the ring, a tall powerful imposing presence, and when someone would start to do something destructive, Forman would just look at them and calmly say, “You don’t want to do that. You don’t want to do that.”

A world with Torah has a guiding light, a message played over and over that says with respect to certain things, “You don’t want to do that.” And if you do that you are supposed to feel guilt and remorse and even shame. That is why our confessional is framed in the negative. Certain things are unacceptable, and if you have done these things you are in need repentance, forgiveness and return. A world with Torah is a world in which when we have violated the moral law we know it.

The great tragedy of our times is that so many have denied the distinction between good and evil. When all virtue is relative so is all vice. But Yom Kippur comes to tell us that there are things we must not do. The principles are simple. Applying them can be hard.

At this season, we are called to apply the principles to our lives because the principles are right, and never to abandon the principles just because the struggle is hard.

Why? Because you and I have the capacity to do great good and great harm. Each of us continues to be a battleground between the yetser tov and the yetser harah. To abandon our principles, our moral compass is to surrender to the evil inclination, and I’m here to tell you, “You don’t want to do that.”

Shabbat Shalom

g’mar chatimah tovah.

May you be sealed for blessing the Book of Life.

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Nitzavim September 27, 2019

Shehecheyanu V’keyamanu V’higianu La-zeman Ha-zeh. Blessed are You, Sovereign God who has given us life, who has sustained us and who has enabled us to reach this day.

This is the berachah, the benediction for new beginnings. It is the blessing Judaism prescribes for the ‘firsts’ in our lives. For the eating of first fruits. For the wearing of a new garment. It is the perfect benediction for Rosh Hashanah.

At the turning of the new year, it is life that preoccupies us. Again and again at this season, we pray: Zocreinu L’chayim – Remember us unto life, O Sovereign who delights in life and inscribe us in the Book of Life, O God of Life.

The philosopher Ortega y Gasset once wrote: “In birth, we are like sleep walkers thrust upon the stage. Then life becomes a problem that must continually be resolved.” Truly, none of us asks to be born. Life is something that originates outside of the self. But for the Jew, life is not a problem. It is gift. It is windfall. It’s winning the lottery. It is a blessing to be savored, celebrated and appreciated to the fullest. Though to be sure this is an orientation towards being not always easy to sustain.

Life can certainly present us with any number of difficulties and challenges. Woody Allen once wrote that his great regret in life was that he was not born someone else, and I suspect that is a malady that afflicts all of us at one time or another. Where is the person completely content with the shape of his or her age, body, bank balance, IQ? We look at what other people have, their achievements and good fortune and we too begin to wish that we had been born someone else.

The Rabbis ask, “Who is the wealthy one?” Their answer, “The person who is content with his or her portion in life.”

By that standard the wealthiest man I ever met was a man named Bud Fisher. Though his life had seen its share of trouble, Bud was happy. Happy to have been born a little boy. Happy to have his given name, which was really Julius. Happy to grow up in his family of origin, in his town, to have gone to his school. He was happy to have worked in the food business. Happy to have married and have raised his children. Happy to have pursued his vocation and avocations. Towards the end of his life, Bud suffered a series of increasingly more debilitating heart attacks, but - to his doctors’ amazement - Bud just kept on living. He explained it this way. “In the Torah, in the beginning, God saw all that was made and ‘it was good.’ Well, that’s the way God and I look at my life, and we both intend I should keep living it just as long as I possibly can.”

In the beginning, God saw all that was made v’hinay tov m’ohd - and behold it was very good. I think that is the way God feels when any and all of us come into being. If we could just hold onto God’s estimation of our life then we might be more able to pick up with hands of appreciation the gifts and blessings that are ours to enjoy.

Yes, life can be challenging which is why at this season we lift the glass and wish our loved ones and friends a good and sweet year. And we do so with the words, L’chaim. L’chaim. To life.

Shabbat Shalom and I wish you a shanah tovah u’metukah

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Ki Tavo September 20, 2019

From this week’s Torah portion: You have affirmed this day that the Lord is your God…and God has affirmed this day that you are His treasured people. (Deuteronomy 26:17-18)

The word ‘affirmed’ in the verses above is but one of many myriad translations of the Hebrew. Everything from ‘declared’, ‘recognized’, ‘chosen’, ‘betrothed’. The Hebrew is, however, a form of the verb ‘to say’ or ‘to speak.’ The same word that is used again and again in the account of creation: “And God said ‘Let there be… and there was.”

In Judaism, we are reminded again and again that words have power. They have the capacity to define, to name, to clarify, to ambiguate, to call into being and to do great damage. As we approach the High Holy Days, we are asked to reflect on how well we have used the awesome power and potential of our words.

Numerous are the rabbinic aphorisms that warn us about words. “Words are like an arrow shot from the bow. Once loosed into the world they cannot be recalled.” “So powerful is the tongue that it is kept behind two gates, the teeth and the lips. Best to keep both gates locked.”

The full Yom Kippur confessional lists fifty-four categories of transgression. Sins of speech figure prominently on that list. Swearing falsely. Gossip. Slander. Misrepresentation. The list is a long one.

In the past year, I cannot think of one occasion in which I did bodily harm to another human being, but I can recall occasions when my injudicious words wounded another person and others when my failure to speak a word of counsel or comfort brought an additional unintended measure of pain. I assume that I am not alone in this regard.

For the sin of words spoken and unspoken, we are counseled to seek and ask forgiveness. In a heated moment, we have all said things we regret. Yet it is through the very same agency of speech that we can also frame an apology and attempt a reconciliation with the other. With the words we speak we can encourage, support, hearten and cheer. But sadly, there are so very many nowadays who still long for that hoped for word of praise, affirmation, acceptance or love – words never received but rightly expected from those to whom they were bound by the closest of family ties. Silence is not always golden.

Under the wedding canopy, bride and groom pledge themselves to one another and create a new household as they speak the words that bind their lives together. The Biblical verses cited above also highlight the power of speech to fashion and bind into being.  The affirmation - the ‘speaking’ of words one to the other – creates a relationship, a commitment, a covenant between God and Israel. The same holds true for any community. The way we speak to or withhold words from one another - on the sidewalk, in the grocery store, over the phone or through the internet – will determine in large part what kind of world we will live in and help to create.

May that world be one of blessing where the words of our mouth and the mediations of our heart bind us together in relationships of mutual caring, concern and respect.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Ki Teitzei September 13, 2019

In this week’s Torah reading, the laws and statutes come fast and furious – more mitzvot actually than in any other single portion in the Five Books. Some of the commandments are ethically exalted. Some are curious, and others seem - on the face of it – down right barbaric. What are we to make of passages that mandate ill-behaved children and flagrant adulterers should be stoned to death? Prescriptions designed says the Torah to sweep out evil from the land.

By Jewish tradition, the full Five Books were divinely given to Moses on Sinai – partly in written form (the Ten Commandments) and the rest conveyed orally and later transcribed by Moses - even the final section of Deuteronomy which describes what happens after Moses dies. The authority of the text rests on its Divine source and the confidence that we have the exactly as it was conveyed from on high. Broadly speaking this would be an ‘orthodox’ view of Torah.

By the time of the Rabbis - many centuries after Sinai - a whole system of commentary had grown up around the sacred core text. The sages couldn’t rewrite the Torah but they could interpret it. So when they were troubled by (what I am calling but they would never have called) a seemingly barbaric text, they would make it almost impossible to actually carry out the injunction by requiring any number of disqualifying preconditions. Or they insisted that the text couldn’t possibly mean what it seemed to be saying. Their challenge was to liberate the text from the constraints of the time and place in which it was given while still retaining their allegiance to its God given sanctity and continuing authority.

Liberal Judaism faces a different set of challenges in reading and understanding Torah. We can forthrightly embrace the notion that Torah is a historical document produced at a particular moment that speaks in the language of its but not necessarily our time. We can embrace the interpretations of the less distant past that struggled to make sense of texts inherited from their own more distant past. We can read around the less than enlightened parts or explain them away as a reflection of a more primitive time. But then how do we continue to give the text sanctity and authority if we are cherry picking our way through its verses?

I suppose you could say that we embrace a wholly or should I say holy different method of interpretation. We do not begin with an assumption of sanctity for the whole text but we seek out sanctity from within the fullness of the text. For Liberal Jews, our Torah is not so much a work handed down by God as it is a chronicle of our reaching up to God. As such, we attribute sanctity and authority to those passages that to us seem to have reached to the ethical and moral level that we call the enduringly, exaltedly Divine. That is certainly an ‘un-orthodox’ approach but it is no less devotional, respectful or pious.

Maybe I could put it this way. Would I run into a burning building to rescue a Torah scroll? I’d like to think I would.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat Shoftim September 6, 2019

This Shabbat we find ourselves midway through the Book of Deuteronomy. Parashat Shoftim begins with the command to appoint judges and magistrates in the newly settled land and continues with one of the great passages of Torah: Justice, Justice shall you pursue.

Tzedek, tzedek tirdof  -The actual doubling of the word ‘justice’ indicates just how much importance the Torah assigns to the concept while the choice of the verb highlights how difficult it will be to actually embody and execute the concept in practice.

Justice is fluid, slippery and elusive. It is a goal to pursue, not a final state to achieve.

Justice is also complicated because the opposite of justice is not necessarily injustice – the valuative opposite in many cases is the quality of mercy. For judges to judge fairly they must balance the demands of both.

 The Rabbis explain the two primary names of God – Adonai and Elohim – indicate that in some cases God reigns from the Throne of Mercy and at other times from the Throne of Judgment. As we approach Rosh Hashanah and the world awaits the annual exercise of God’s judgment, we implore the Creator to acknowledge both attributes in the rendering of the divine verdict.

There is also a Midrash that tells us that our world was not the first. In God’s first creation the world was constituted solely on the basis of Justice. Everyone got exactly what he or she deserved. Life was unremittingly fair. But that world quickly fell apart, and creation could not be sustained. So God tried again with an exclusive exercise of mercy. Now, no one was held accountable. People were simply understood and forgiven their misdeeds. And that world too could not be sustained. So God combined the qualities of justice and mercy and that world – our world – has been sustained for lo these 5780 years.

As we approach the New Year and undertake our annual cheshbon hanefesh - the traditional assessment of our days and deeds – we are asked to judge how well we have managed the gift of life entrusted to us. To do that fairly, we, too, must juggle truth, responsibility, accountability, understanding, mercy and forgiveness because – to be fair - in the cruel light of harsh justice none can stand. For any human life to be sustained, justice and mercy must embrace.

At this season, we sit alongside the Holy One in judgment of the life we lead. Then, after rendering a fair and honest verdict, God encourages us to soldier on. To do better. To right the heart’s old wrongs. To make of this world a blessing.

 Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman

Shabbat B’midbar June 7, 2019

The third book of the Torah - known in Hebrew as B’midbar, ‘in the wilderness’ or ‘in the desert’ - has the English title Numbers, so named because it begins with a census of the Israelite nation. This week’s parashah is four chapters of mainly numbers. Pretty dry stuff to say the least.

I was never very good at math. Algebra confused me. Geometry made no sense, and I avoided calculus at all costs. I have sometimes joked that I went into the rabbinate because after “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One” I was done with the math.

But counting - as opposed to math – has always been something I felt deserved serious and sustained attention. And so does our tradition.

Psalm 90 recited at graveside implores God: So teach us to number our days that we may get us a heart of wisdom. In other words, let the stark reminder that our days are not unlimited – numbered – prompt us to make the limited time that we do have really count for something.

We often speak of time as if it were a commodity. We make time. We waste time. We talk of buying or killing time. But Judaism counsels us again and again to sanctify time - by counting it always as precious and seeing in it an opportunity to elevate our lives to something higher, better and good. The whole concept of living in the moment is just another attempt to make every moment count.

And there is more to this counting thing. The story is told of an Eastern European shtetl so small there were only ten Jewish men in residence. These were dedicated individuals, and without fail they gathered together every Shabbat to make the minyan – the required quorum for Sabbath worship. One day a new Jewish family moved to town. There was great joy and excitement. But as soon as they had eleven men, the synagogue could never manage a minyan again.

If we think, when we know that we are indispensible, we make a point of showing up, of being there, of pitching in. And the truth is that when it comes to a congregation, a community, a world we are each and every one of us indispensible.

The tradition counsels us to say, “For my sake, the world was brought into being.” Thus my actions determine if there was value to the very act of creation itself. Make believe if you must, but each and every thing I do is somehow indispensible and essential. There is a unique contribution that only I can make and without my singular contribution, collectively, creation cannot be sustained.

Now back to the Israelite census. Think of it this way. We usually only count things that are precious or important. If you are lucky enough to have sterling silverware, you count the forks and the spoons after every use to make sure you haven’t misplaced any of the pieces. They are too valuable to lose. Rashi on this week’s parashah: Out of awareness of the love of them, God counts each (and every) one of them every hour.

The census data of the Book of Numbers implies something essential and supremely important. In the sight of God and the world, we count - each and every one of us, each in our own way and in our own doings. That means that in the grand scheme of things each one of us is precious, valuable and indispensible to the betterment of humanity. I know it. God knows it. And now, just in case you didn’t know it or needed a reminder, so do you.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Whiman