Meeting the Moment!

With this week's powerful climax of the drama of Joseph and the brothers we begin the close of the book of Breishit. We will shortly leave the story of persons and families to engage the story of the People of Israel and the revelation of the laws by which the People is to live.

What legacy am I left with? What challenge do these engaging dramas of our fathers and mothers and the many other characters who inhabit the pages leave us? The stories are all different, the characters diverse. Some are good, some are bad. Their actions evoke a wide range of emotions from sadness to joy and from disdain to embrace. Is there a red thread we can find as we look to make a hadran for Breishit in the coming weeks? Is there a underlying message that transcends the individual stories and is present in all?


I invite you to answer that question for your self? For me the red thread, the compelling message present throughout the book..at least for this year...is that wherever we are, whatever we face in life .. no matter how seemingly small or personal, it may well be our Waterloo... To do the right thing may justify our whole existence. To do the wrong thing may compromise our right to have been born. Moreover to do the right thing may bring a gift only we can bring to the messianic edifice. To do the wrong thing may hold back mashiach's arrival.

Yehuda had no idea that he was before Joseph and the whole future of the Jewish people depended on his rising up to the occasion to put his life on the line to save Benjamin. Nor did he know that in saving Tamar his daughter-in-law from the fire he saved the lineage of the Messiah. These were for him individual moments of testing....personal and private. Yet if he had failed either, the consequences would be beyond historic. The same is true for all the character tests our Avot and Imahot experienced and even for those who play lesser roles in the Book. What if Eliezer had not brought back Rivka saying he could not find a suitable wife? What if Joseph had simply given in to the awesome temptation of Potiphar's wife? On the other side, what might have been if Esav had over-come his hunger and not sold the birthright to Yaakov? Would Yaakov still have gone in at his mothers request to take the blessings? Could Noah have had any idea that his private righteousness would save the existence of humanity?

Each of us has moments that are consequential beyond the personal testing of either doing a mitzvah or committing an avaira. These are moments of calling, moments for which we were created. According to many teachings each person has a unique avoda or role to play in the completion of the story of humanity and the bringing about of the ultimate redemption. Its a role that is reserved exclusively for us. Each one of us has moments when we are Yehuda or Yosef or Noah..Completing those moments successfully means we have fulfilled our destiny, failing means we have compromised the progression of the world to the yemot hamashiach.

Breishit teaches me that I cannot know when those ultimate moments will be before me...Yehuda, Joseph, Noah, Eliezer, Esav and all the many many others did not know. Yet they needed to live their personal challenges as if the whole world depended on them. The Rambam taught... every person needs to see the him/herself and the world as exactly balanced between the good and the evil and the deed before him/her to do is so consequential that it will tip the scale and hence tip his/her fate and the fate of the world either for life or for destruction.

Brieshit challenges me to mindfulness, to living the moment fully, to embrace the gift of the single mitzvah or act of kindness as if its consequence will either sustain or destroy both me and the world...And who knows...it just might!

Its Tough to be a Hero..A Channukah Thought

Its Channukah, a holiday celebrating the triumph of the Jewish spirit over the repression of enemies. We might have been alive today without Channukah...but we would not have been Jews. The heroic commitment of men and women to maintain their yahadut in the face of persecution and at the risk of death is inspiring.

Who are these heroes...some we know by name; Yehuda of the sons of Mattityahu, his four brothers who we refer to as Hasmoneans. Yet whats amazing is that even as Channukah lives on as a Jewish holiday two thousand years after the events, and will according to our sages live on as a Jewish holiday into the messianic days and beyond, the heroes of Channukah have no personal presence in our world...and have been absent for near as long as the holiday they inspired exists.

The Talmud teaches us that "anyone who says s/he is from the family of the Hasmoneans must be a slave (non Jewish)." It tells us that the last of the distinguished lineage that inspired the revolt against the Syrio-Greeks committed suicide...and that occurred not much more than a hundred years after the Channukah victory. Moreover according to Megillat Antiyochut Yehuda died in the wars against Antiochus, as did his brother Eliezer. They never even got to celebrate the rededication of the Beit Hamikdash.

Channukah may be celebrated as a holiday for children, what with the gelt, presents, latkes etc.
But surely the story is not one of a happily ever after. Its a story of sacrifice and of tragedy...of national triumph yes but at the expense of individuals whose personal lives and legacies were lost forever. Just consider the power of the reality that no one can say today I am a descendant of the Hasmoneans...no one!

What Channukah says to me is that if I want to know the blessings of life in this world I need to attach myself to my people. As an individual, even if I have lived a life of goodness and sacrifice, I can have no expectations of health, life and continuity. I and all that I have created, including my heirs, can disappear in a flash. There is no family no matter how large or how wealthy that
can insure its survival. I may need to know my 'I' inorder to realize my tachlis. But it is in belonging and in knowing my self as part of the klal that I have a future and a hope.

Living with the Klal is the gift of living in Eretz Yisrael. Unlike the galut where one is forever conscious of his/her uniqueness and otherness...here in Eretz Yisrael one feels the sense of belonging. Here we live the destiny of the klal every day and it overshadows any personal story.
Here, while true it is Yehuda and the Hasmoneans sufferred personal tragedies, Channukah is the Yom Tov of hope, triumph and yes joy!
Chag Urim Samayach!

Learning Life's Lessons

My father, zichrono l'vracha, would often share a story, this time of the year, of the boy whose father told him the story of Joseph, as the parsha of Vayeshev arrived. An emotional child, he was moved to tears. Infact the boy cried not only the first year but even the second year when his father reviewed the drama. The third year, as his father told the story to him again, the boy remained unmoved. His father, noticing the change, asked "why no tears this year?"

The boy said " I felt sorry for Joseph two years ago....and even last year it was sad to think of how terrible it was to be betrayed by your brothers...But if he didnt learn not to trust them by the third year then he has no one to blame but himself".



The story of Joseph and the brothers remains new and fresh to us each year. First we hear it as children and identify with the rejected Joseph. As we get older we may hear the story and identify with siblings in conflict who despite all they have in common can't seem to get along.
As we age we may identify with Yaakov and the anguish of a parent who has lost a child either by dint of a tragic death of through emotional/spiritual separation. The story speaks to us wherever we are in our lives and has something to say...that is...if we..like the child in my father's story continue to experience it as current...

Today as I write this blog we mark Yud Tet Kislev (the 19th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev) a special day for many hassidim but in particular for Chabad Hassidim who celebrate the Alter Rebbe's liberation from Russian jail. In the Rebbe's most famous work, Tanya, he provided an epistemology, a philosophy of how we come to know things, in accord with our tradition. The Rebbe pointed out the original step in coming to know is chachma. The word chachma comes from contracting two Hebrew words koach mah, loosely translated as 'what is its potency'. The way the Rebbe understood it, coming to know is a process. It starts with a flash intuition, the koach mah or chachma in which all the insight is contained as an undifferentiated whole...and only after being received moves from there to bina...a more processed and analyzed understanding of what one comes to know.

The critical context necessary to experience the first stage of the koach mah is the soil of humility. It is humility that makes it possible to receive the flash insight. Inorder to be even be able to come to chochma one first needs to get one's self out of the way. It is no coincidence that Moshe was both the anav who said of himself v'anachnu ma, what are we, and the great Rebbe of Klal Yisrael.

How is it that Yehuda was able to be a different brother to Benjamin than he was to Joseph?
What was the process of his teshuva?. The change in Yehuda begins with "and Judah went down from his brothers..." as the parsha this week tells us. The term vayered, can simply mean 'to travel'. But our sages understood it to mean that Yehuda indeed 'went down'... that he was demoted in their eyes from his leadership position as a consequence of his advice to them to sell Joseph....The story of Tamar further humbled Judah as he is compelled to acknowledge both his wrongful judgement of her and his own shame.

It was Judah's stature that prevented him from seeing Joseph for who he was. And in contast, it was in the humbling of Judah that it became possible for him to perceive the chochma necessary to recognize the truth. Humility makes all change possible. Arrogance keeps us both blind and stuck.

With all the goings on in the financial world, with one scam after another being revealed and billions of dollar being lost...its clear the underlying cause is not greed but arrogance....It is the arrogance of fund managers and CEOs which prevents them from facing their failures. It is arrogance that causes those in positions of authority to cover-up their errors rather than admit them. And the price of that arrogance is the piling up of losses upon losses and engaging in ever more menacing intrigues to hide mistakes.

Sometimes we all need a little humbling...Its the yerida l'tzorech aliya, the downfall that actually is necessary for our rehabilitation and ultimate ascent. I live in Jerusalem on Klein St..klein means small....Many of us would do well to spend some time on that street....I know it is the right home for me.

The Similiar and the Different

Since I moved to Eretz Yisrael I have been mostly davening in a nusach sefarad siddur. Its not a matter of intentionally changing my personal nusach ha'tefila but rather the reality of davening morning and evening in a beit knesset that davens nusach sefarad in my neighborhood. The gift of the siddur I daven in is that it has a beautiful little prayer addendum to the ending portion of the shmoneh esrai, an addendum I decided to add to my silent prayer.

The prayer begins asking Hashem that I not have jealous feelings towards any person and that no person be jealous of me...I found it fascinating that protection from feelings of jealousy should be so important as to warrant a special addition to our prayers. And if I need Divine help to be safeguarded from the feeling what does it say about how prevalent the feeling is in both me and in others.

As I thought about jealousy I thought about the stories of sibling rivalries we have been encountering all through Breishit. From the earliest stories of Cain and Hevel to the stories of Joseph and his brothers a recurring theme has been brother (or sister) engaged in some form of conflict. I then wondered how is it that Yaakov and Esav seem to reconcile, as we read this week, while Joseph and his brothers, of which we read about next week, engage in a struggle that, one could argue, never gets fully resolved. After all Judah and Ephraim ( decendent of Joseph)
become adversaries in the form of a divided people and a split kingdom. And even if you don't want to take the struggle that far down the road of our history, it is certainly clear that the reconciliation of Joseph and his brothers takes quite a bit more work than the reconciliation of Yaakov and Esav. Why?

I think the answer may be that there was one ingredient true in the story of Joseph and his brothers that we do not find in the story of Yaakov and Esav, or for that matter in any other rivalry save one (and interestingly that one is in the rivalry of the mothers of Joseph and his brothers). The ingredient is jealousy. Esav hated Yaakov. He hated him with an enmity so strong it moved him to want to commit fratricide. But nowhere does it say Esav was jealous of Yaakov. And a rivalry, no matter how bitter, not rooted in jealousy can be reconciled relatively easily and with no enduring consequences. However if jealousy is at the core of the conflict, no matter how good the people are in themselves, the conflict will be difficult to resolve and the consequences may endure.

It is no accident that we find jealousy being an operative dynamic with Joseph and his brothers and not with Yaakov and Esav. Jealousy more likely occurs when people are more similar to each other and where they have more in common. When people see themselves as different from each other, they may experience fear and hatred, they may resent and loathe, but they will not likely feel jealousy. Jealousy breeds where people actually have much in common and a potential affinity. It grows where people may experience feelings of love and closeness in concert with the feelings of jealousy. It is a feeling one typically experiences with those nearest and dearest, husbands and wives, parents and children ( I know the Gemara says a parent does not feel jealous of his/her child, and yet reality demands we not take that talmudic teaching literally). Not surprisingly it is a feeling we need pray to Hashem to protect us from because it's a feeling so painful for us to confront in ourselves and one so difficult to weed out.

Jealousy is the most pernicious of feelings between people and potentially the most destructive.
Yet it is a feeling that inheres in some forms even amongst the greatest of us and in relations to the ones we most love. How wise that little prayer I now say three times daily asking Hashem's protection from jealousy. How wise I would be if I have the courage to face the feeling where it exists in me and if I cannot dissolve the feeling, at least do all that I can to insure that the feeling not undermine the relationships I have with the ones I love....

My Father Yaakov

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Haran...

Have you ever heard the expression "life happens while we are making plans for something else"? My sense is that our father Yaakov would have understood that expression perfectly.

At the outset of the Parsha of Vayetzay we are told of Yaakov's journey. He is on the way from Beer Sheva to Haran to fulfill the charge of his parents to go and get for himself a wife. It was getting dark and he needed to rest. The Torah tells us he stopped over at hamakom, the place, for the night. Several times the Torah refers to the setting where Yaakov rested as hamakom, the place, as if it has no name. But why? At the end of the section we are told that Yaakov named hamakom, the place, Bet El. But is had a name prior. It was called Luz. So why is hamakom not referred to by its name, Luz, at the portions outset?

I suspect the place was not named at the beginning because to Yaakov its name was irrelevant. Yaakov was on a mission. He was focused on his goal. He merely was in Luz because he was tired and it was too dark to travel. The setting might as well have been anywhere he lay his head. It was only a way-station to places far more important for the journeys successful completion.

How surprised was Yaakov to have an amazing dream at this non-descript place, a dream of ascending and descending angels, a dream in which he receives the promise of the Divine. No wonder when Yaakov wakes in the middle of the night he does not build an altar and deal with the content of his dream, marvelous as it was. For that he waits until morning. No, he awakes and is shaken. He wonders how could he have missed an awareness of the holiness of this site. How could he have thought he was in hamakom when in fact he was at the Bet Elokim.

Indeed Yaakov was so busy focused on the destination that he almost missed the gift and opportunity of the journey itself with all its moments to experience Hashem.

A great baal musar once wrote that every person's daled amot, four cubits, is their kodesh hakadashim, holy of holies. And if a person accesses the moment and the place who knows whats possible for him/her in the arena of kedusha. What's vital is to never see where we are as simply a means to an end. The place where we are, no matter how far from our destination, may be the bet elokim for us if we will be but open to the moment. Life does happen while we are busy making plans...What a shame it would be if we were too preoccupied to notice!

My Uncle Esav

Issues of Entitlement

The Baal Shem Tov taught that whatever we see is meant for us to learn from. Rav Volbe in his sefer Alay Shor explicated that thought in the context of the teachings of chazal. He pointed out that the Talmud asked why is the portion dealing with laws of the nazirite juxtaposed to the laws of the sota, the woman suspected of adultery and the rites of discernment of her guilt or innocence? It answers that any person who will see the sota in her disgrace should immediately take on the vow of the nazir and take steps to withdraw from the pursuit of pleasure by refraining from drinking wine.

Rav Volbe noted that the message the sages were teaching is that its of no purpose to see another's debasement and simply say "oh what a bad person s/he must be". On the contrary if one sees another's debasement it means that one was meant to...that there was something in the other's shame that s/he was meant to take for him/herself, otherwise s/he would not be in the predicament to witness it. The Sages were teaching us through the example of the sota and the nazir that each of us needs to know that what we witness is about us even as it is about the other...and if, for example, a man sees a woman compromised by her pursuit of pleasure the message for him is that he best well curb his own appetite.

It is in that spirit that I want to explore the character of Esav. Sure we can say Esav was a rasha. But of what use is it to us to simply vilify Esav. If the story of the sota and the nazir are meant to teach us to use the stories of those we witness to consider our own chesronot ( shortcomings) then we should ask ourselves as well about the characters we encounter in the Torah year in and year out. How am I like Esav? What need his 'disgrace' teach me about who I am and where I need to improve.

With that in mind I thought about the Esav in me. What is Esav's signature shortcoming? Yes our sages say he was guilty of the most severe crimes. But none of that are we given explicitly to witness in the Torah text each year. What the Torah does show us is that Esav had a inappropriate and unjustified sense of entitlement. He sold his birthright to Yaakov, his own choice. And yet he complains bitterly that Yaakov took the blessings that go with the birthright from him unfairly.

Moreover he sold the birthright because, as the Torah tells us, he was so hungry he felt he would die unless he ate. As he said " behold I will die so what need have I for the birthright".
Yet even though Esav felt the birthright was not important enough for him to give his own life to maintain he was willing to take Yaakov's life in order to get it back as we see at the story's end where Esav is plotting to kill Yaakov to get the blessing back.How can we understand that Esav felt the birthright was not something for which he must make the ultimate sacrifice and yet it is something someone else should pay for with his life to have it returned to him.

Lastly when Esav sees that his father disdains the Canaanite women, sending Yaakov away to find himself a wife, Esav does not divorce his Canaanite wives, he simply adds another wife to his collection by marrying from the daughters of Yishamael.

Esav's whole life bespeaks a sense of false entitlement. He feels he is entitled to the birthright even though he sold it. He feels he is entitled to the blessings that accompany the birthright and therefore he does not have to pay for it in the same way someone else should pay to restore it to him. He feels he is entitled to choose his wives and even if his parents are displeased that's no reason to do more than make a gift to them by choosing another wife, not make the sacrifice of surrendering the wives he feels entitled to.

In witnessing this story I think about my own sense of entitlement and how it often times blinds me to the truth of relationship. How often do I see something happen to someone else that causes them shame or hurt and I say "that's too bad" and do nothing. Yet if the same shame or hurt were heaped on me I would yell out with outrage. How often do I expect others to do things for me that I would not necessarily do for them and become disappointed when they don't do it?
How often do I speak to other in harsh terms that I would hate spoken in a similar way to me ?
These and many other circumstances reflect an imbalance between the way I view myself and and the way I perceive others...all because of a false sense of entitlement that makes me feel I deserve more.

Yes my Uncle Esav needs to be my teacher. And I need to learn from him lessons for my life.
One of those lessons that reading/witnessing this portion of Toldot teaches me is to curb my sense of entitlement or at least accept that others are entitled just as much as I am. And I need to hear that lesson often because sometimes giving up my sense of entitlement is much easier said than done.

My Father Yitzchak - Stories within Stories

I have always wondered about Yitzchak. His story seems so pale in contrast to the colorful sagas of his father Avraham and his son Yaakov... Yes, of course there is the Akeida - but that is told more in terms of what was done to him than in terms of a story of his own authorship. In the story of his mating and marriage, and even in the story of the blessings to his son(s), he is hardly the lead character. And so much of what happens - happens to and for him, and not by him.

And yet my sense is that if we scratch the surface a bit deeper we may find some compelling personal stories here, especially if we understand Yitzchak in the context of his humanity as a person with profound feelings.

Lets explore a passage that struck me as I read the Parsha of Chayai Sarah. When Eliezer is bringing Rivka back with him from Haran to be the bride of Yitzchak, the Torah tells us something that we seemingly have no need to know. The verse reads “and Yitzchak was coming from Beer L’chai Ro’eey and he dwelt in the land of the Negev.” Now the next verse tells us that Yitzchak was out in the field, which our sages interpret to mean he was involved in afternoon prayer, when Rivka encounters him. But why do we need the previous verse about where he lived and where he was coming from.

Well, let’s remember. Where do we find mention of Beer L’chai Ro’eey, and what was Yitzchak doing there? You may recall that Beer L’chai Ro’eey was the place where Haggar saw the angel when she fled, pregnant, from Sarah. In fact, she named the place Beer L’chai Ro’ee. Yitzchak had some business there. What might it have been?

We need to think back to the story of Yitzchak and his early life. It’s clear that he had a brother, Yishmael, who at one time was an important player in his life - so much so that Sarah demands that he and his mother be expelled from the home. What must it have been like for Yitzchak to lose his only sibling and, as the text appears to us, he likely was given no explanation and no chance to say goodbye.

I once knew a man in his late sixties who came to the United States from India.
He was a schoolboy when India and Pakistan were made into two countries, separating the Muslims from the Hindus. He told me that one day a great siren went off and many of his Muslim friends were pulled out of school in the middle of the day (as the families had to cross the new borders) and he never got to say goodbye. They just disappeared, vanished, gone from his life, never to return.
He told me that ever since then, and that was some fifty years earlier, whenever he saw a group of Sikhs talking, no matter where he was, he would walk over to them and say “Maybe you know my friend so and so who I have not seen in so long. Can you tell me about him” - all the while knowing that there are a billion Muslims in the world and the real chance of these people knowing his friends was non-existent.

When we do not get a chance to say goodbye to important people in our lives who are taken away from us, we often, one way or another, spend our whole lives looking for them. Yitzchak was looking for Yishmael at the site his mother named and in the Negev where he lived. He needed to make closure on that relationship as an adult even if he could not as a child.

Have you ever wondered why Yitzchak had such an affinity for Esav the son who was more the outdoorsman and the one who was the hunter? Could it be that Esav reminded Yitzchak of his brother Yishmael, the one he lost contact with and missed growing up, the one he may likely never got to say goodbye to?

It is amazing how, when people don’t get to say goodbye and make closure on a relationship, it remains unfinished and can affect the rest of their lives. Sometimes we like to protect ourselves from the pain of goodbye. And sometimes we think we do our children a favor by protecting them from the goodbyes to dying grandparents or even parents when, tragically, they die young. But closure is important, even when it hurts.

And saying goodbye is a precious gift. Yitzchak taught me that. He taught me to face the ends when they come and to help my children do similarly. In saying goodbye I become free to move on. In avoiding it, the price I may pay is to remain stuck and searching.

I have always wondered about Yitzchak. His story seems so pale in contrast to the colorful sagas of his father Avraham and his son Yaakov... Yes, of course there is the Akeida - but that is told more in terms of what was done to him than in terms of a story of his own authorship. In the story of his mating and marriage, and even in the story of the blessings to his son(s), he is hardly the lead character. And so much of what happens - happens to and for him, and not by him.

And yet my sense is that if we scratch the surface a bit deeper we may find some compelling personal stories here, especially if we understand Yitzchak in the context of his humanity as a person with profound feelings.

Lets explore a passage that struck me as I read the Parsha of Chayai Sarah. When Eliezer is bringing Rivka back with him from Haran to be the bride of Yitzchak, the Torah tells us something that we seemingly have no need to know. The verse reads “and Yitzchak was coming from Beer L’chai Ro’eey and he dwelt in the land of the Negev.” Now the next verse tells us that Yitzchak was out in the field, which our sages interpret to mean he was involved in afternoon prayer, when Rivka encounters him. But why do we need the previous verse about where he lived and where he was coming from.

Well, let’s remember. Where do we find mention of Beer L’chai Ro’eey, and what was Yitzchak doing there? You may recall that Beer L’chai Ro’eey was the place where Haggar saw the angel when she fled, pregnant, from Sarah. In fact, she named the place Beer L’chai Ro’ee. Yitzchak had some business there. What might it have been?

We need to think back to the story of Yitzchak and his early life. It’s clear that he had a brother, Yishmael, who at one time was an important player in his life - so much so that Sarah demands that he and his mother be expelled from the home. What must it have been like for Yitzchak to lose his only sibling and, as the text appears to us, he likely was given no explanation and no chance to say goodbye.

I once knew a man in his late sixties who came to the United States from India.
He was a schoolboy when India and Pakistan were made into two countries, separating the Muslims from the Hindus. He told me that one day a great siren went off and many of his Muslim friends were pulled out of school in the middle of the day (as the families had to cross the new borders) and he never got to say goodbye. They just disappeared, vanished, gone from his life, never to return.
He told me that ever since then, and that was some fifty years earlier, whenever he saw a group of Sikhs talking, no matter where he was, he would walk over to them and say “Maybe you know my friend so and so who I have not seen in so long. Can you tell me about him” - all the while knowing that there are a billion Muslims in the world and the real chance of these people knowing his friends was non-existent.

When we do not get a chance to say goodbye to important people in our lives who are taken away from us, we often, one way or another, spend our whole lives looking for them. Yitzchak was looking for Yishmael at the site his mother named and in the Negev where he lived. He needed to make closure on that relationship as an adult even if he could not as a child.

Have you ever wondered why Yitzchak had such an affinity for Esav the son who was more the outdoorsman and the one who was the hunter? Could it be that Esav reminded Yitzchak of his brother Yishmael, the one he lost contact with and missed growing up, the one he may likely never got to say goodbye to?

It is amazing how, when people don’t get to say goodbye and make closure on a relationship, it remains unfinished and can affect the rest of their lives. Sometimes we like to protect ourselves from the pain of goodbye. And sometimes we think we do our children a favor by protecting them from the goodbyes to dying grandparents or even parents when, tragically, they die young. But closure is important, even when it hurts.

And saying goodbye is a precious gift. Yitzchak taught me that. He taught me to face the ends when they come and to help my children do similarly. In saying goodbye I become free to move on. In avoiding it, the price I may pay is to remain stuck and searching.

The Torah and the Self - A Blog on Understanding the Self through Torah

The purpose of this blog is to explore the Torah text both in its stories and laws so as to better understand who we are and how we need to grow...

Our sages taught that the Torah can be interpreted in seventy ways - each equally true and relevant. This blog will explore Torah passages without straying too much from the p’shat, or simple text translation, so as to see what the Torah has to say to us to better cope with our complex existence. We will begin our first blog with where we are in our weekly parsha and continue to move through the readings each week. The questions we need to ask ourselves are “Where am I in this reading? How am I like the character I am reading about? How are his issues similar to mine? What can I learn about myself from his experience?”

For many years I visited the sick and suffering in hospital and homes. So often they felt a hidden sense of shame about their circumstances that exacerbated their suffering. They felt their illness story was something to get over so they could get on with real life. Being sick was for them the junk of life and as long as they were sick they were not really living. They often found it comforting when we might discover an analogy to their situation found in the life of a biblical character. It meant for them that their suffering was worthy and not just the ‘junk’ of life. After all, if the Torah told a similar story and it is the holiest thing in the world it must be significant. Through that process, their suffering gained meaning and became more bearable. We have long been taught that the stories of B’reishit are given to us in part because ‘maasay avot siman l’banim’ – that “what happened to our fathers is a sign for us.” Some may interpret that ‘sign’ as referring to a predictor of historical events of the future. In our exploration we are understanding the term ‘siman’ or ‘sign’ as referring to our personal lives and our personal struggles that can be enlightened when we realize our Fathers and Mothers went through similar challenges.

To do this work we will need to humanize our great Torah heroes. We will need to see how much we are like them. In doing that we are not minimizing how much greater our ancestors were than we are. We acknowledge that at the outset. And yet, if we do not bring them down to our own level how can we learn from them. If we do not see them as like us, only more so, then they are too distant to be the teachers whose lives set an example for us.

The Torah and the Self will hopefully teach us to use the Torah to provide a mirror of ourselves so that we will honor the ‘junk’ of our own lives and work through it on our journey to “shlaimut” - completion.