Parshat Lech Lecha Taking the Journey

From last Shabbat to this one, I found myself celebrating Jewish life on two continents.  I traveled to Sao Paulo Brazil to meet with the leaders of the Conservative Jewish youth movements around the world under the umbrella of Noam Olami.  It was an incredible experience, and one of the highlights for me was the Shabbat spent at Communidade Shalom in Sao Paulo.  

Seeing the joy of Jewish life in Brazil and at the synagogue, made me appreciate my own Jewish life in new and exciting ways.  I was able to recapture the feeling that we are a global Jewish movement and that youth are at the center of exciting change in Jewish communities all over the world.  It is funny how that happens, that sometimes it takes a journey to access parts of yourself that were there all along but maybe beneath the surface.

That dynamic is front and center in this week's portion Lech Lecha.  Abraham is called upon by God and told to take a journey.  Abraham doesn't know where, just to the place that God will show him.  How many of us would take a journey with so little information?  Abraham as a man of faith, takes the leap and hits the road.  On this journey Abraham will struggle and strive and ultimately emerge as the patriarch of the Jewish people.  And it all started because he was willing to be on a journey.

That is my wish for all of us, that we can be aware of the opportunities to take journeys and then be brave enough to take them.  It isn't always easy or comfortable, but when we take chances and open ourselves up to new things, we can reach new parts of ourselves.  Shabbat Shalom

Parshat Noah

The rabbinic commentators didn't all agree that Noah was great.  Some make the argument that he wasn't that big a deal, just born at the right place at the right time.  This insult is rooted in the text.

When we open this week's portion, Noah, we read in Genesis 6:9  "And Noah was a righteous man blameless in his generation."

The rabbis jump all over the words "in his generation."  They are split. Some say this is to diminish his greatness, the Torah says in his generation to suggest he was only considered good, as compared to a generation so bad that God had to destroy humanity with the flood.  This is pretty harsh treatment, they suggest that if he lived in the time of Abraham we wouldn't even know his name.

Others rabbis come to Noah's defense and say that this qualifier "in his generation," make him seem even greater.  They emphasize how difficult it is to be great when everyone around you is so bad.  It would have been easier, they teach, to have simply gone along with the crowd.

I have played both sides in this argument during my studies, but I have to say, today more than ever, I would argue that Noah is more remarkable for being righteous in his generation.  You see Noah is amazing because he was willing to stand apart and be good even when it was an impossible position to take.

This weekend, I will be visiting the Jewish community of Sao Paulo, Brazil representing USY for a conference of  Noam Olami, the Global Conservative Youth Movement leaders .  I am thinking of Noah as I prepare to meet the participants.  These young people represent thousands, who in different cultures and different lands are willing to stand apart from everyday young people to commit to what they believe in.  In each of the countries represented these teens take risks standing up and being counted as Jewish, supportive of Israel, a Jewish sense of Social Justice and proud to be Masorti or Conservative.  It's not always easy or popular to take these stands and I applaud all of the teens around the world who make this commitment everyday.  I think you are great in this generation and your commitments will have an impact for generations to come.

Parshat Bereshit

This week we go back to the beginning.  There is a year’s worth of comments to make on this week’s Torah portion, but I will restrain myself and pick one small point.  One of the better known stories in the parsha is that of Cain and Abel . The world’s first brothers, whose story meets tragedy when Cain kills Abel.  The terse telling of this story has invited rabbis for generations to create midrashim or imaginative interpretations as to what happened.  A big part of the problem is how the story is told.

We find in Genesis 4:8 “Cain said to his brother Abel…and when they were in the field, Cain set upon his brother Abel and killed him.”

There is a big gap in this text.  What did Cain say to Abel?  It must have been something pretty significant if the very next thing that happens is that Cain kills Abel.  But what?  There are many traditional imaginings of this conversation.  Perhaps they argued over how the world was to be divided between them?  Perhaps they argued over a woman?  Maybe they fought over in whose domain the Temple would one day be built?   All of these interpretations presuppose that the conversation led to a physical conflict where in the end Cain killed Abel.   I have often wondered about what that conversation must have been about, and yet today, I don’t think that the content of the conversation is as telling as the fact that they had one. 

In addition to not telling us what the content of the conversation was, the Bible also chooses not to describe the way in which Cain kills his brother Abel.  I think that these two missing details, when read together open us up to another area of interpretation.  I can’t help but think that the proximity of the mention of this mystery conversation to the killing is meant to tell us about their connection.  That is to say that perhaps we should be reading into this text a message about the power of our words. 

More and more today as a Jewish professional who works with teens I am concerned with the dangers presented by bullying.  We know today better than ever the power words have to cause pain and distress to the targets of bullying. 

Is it possible that Cain, in his jealousy of Abel, took to tormenting him verbally?  What if Cain each day in the field was torturing Abel with his words?  I wonder if this might be one of the ways that Cain killed Abel.  We read in the Talmud in tractate Bava Metziah that “Shaming one’s fellow in public is like spilling his blood.” (58b) Further on the same page it is suggested that there is no redemption for those who among other things, shame their fellow in public or give someone a disparaging nickname.

When we read the story of Cain and Abel this week, I challenge us not only to think about the ways jealousy can lead us to act out physically, but to think also about the ways we attack others verbally as well.  In the end all we know is that Cain said something to Abel and he killed him.  We don’t know what he said, and we don’t know how he killed him, but I think we can make enough of a connection between words and physical harm to teach us to pause and think about the effect our words can have on others before we speak.

Shabbat Shalom

Welcome to Jewish Moments w/ Rabbi Dave

Welcome to the first entry in this new blog.  The idea here is simple.  I would like to use this space to share insights on the weekly Torah Portion for Jewish teens, and the people who love them.  I hope to keep these comments relatively brief so that they can be enjoyed quickly on a smartphone or anywhere else. I would consider these Torah snacks, and encourage everyone to seek out the main course in your local congregation.  I also welcome your comments and feedback, I look forward to learning Torah together.