The Journey towards Surrender

Have you ever watched video footage of scenes of surrender? On the History Channel sometimes you get to see images of famous occasions of capitulation. What always struck me as odd about what I saw was that the ceremony seemed full of pomp and reverence. The room for the event seemed a banquet hall. All the characters were dressed in their finest. It was hard to tell by image alone who was the defeated and who the victor. The context did not match the content.

In the case of the reading of this Shabbat, that of Bo, and the capitulation of Pharaoh to Moshe after the plague of the death of the first born, the scene was unambiguous. The Pharaoh waits on no ceremony. He arises in the middle of the night and calls for Moshe. There are no niceties, no exchanges of toasts and tributes. No pride remains for the Egyptians. They beg Israel to leave and to do so immediately. Not only does Pharaoh acknowledge defeat, he begs for a blessing from his former enemy.

Pharaoh's total surrender after months of obstinacy calls to mind the victorious Union general of the Civil War, Ulyssis S. Grant,whose initial U.S. were said to stand for Unconditional Surrender Grant. Indeed Pharaoh's surrender was total and without condition. For months, all through the plagues the Egyptian King was willing to give in but only on condition. He agreed to let the people go if...if this and if that. Conditional surrender was not acceptable to Moshe. Until and unless Pharaoh would say "I give up" with no qualifiers the plagues would continue.
It took ten, and many lost lives to reach that point. Sadly for the Egyoptian by the time Pharaoh was ready for unconditional surrender he had little left to give up.

Reading about Pharaoh as an archetype of ancient evil is interesting. To see him and his behavior as a mirror to our own , albeit exaggerated, makes him compelling.
How am I like the Pharaoh? Where can I identify with him? How are my life challenges
evidenced in his?

Most of us know we have character flaws and behaviors that compromise our lives.
When we look with honesty at where we have been and where we are going we can see patterns of conduct that have been oh so deleterious. Perhaps we struggle with our anger, or our need to control, or our judgementalism, or our envy of others. Perhaps we struggle to assert ourselves, or to be honest and open. Perhaps we are too self absorbed. We all have issues. That's why we are here in this world, to work on them.
Our issues are not just blots on our person. They have caused us harm.
Each of us knows the personal "plagues" visited on us for our refusal to learn the lessons and change. You and I know that the quality of the relationships we have with those we love has been all too often bruised if not buried by our conduct.
Yet we are resistant to change. We say we are sorry only to quickly revert to form.
We agree in our hearts to change, but we make conditions. Perhaps we demand change in the other as well or we agree to change in certain circumstances. We refuse total surrender. We insist that we be in control.

The lesson of the Pharaoh is that until and unless we come to admit unconditionally our character 'sins' we will remain afflicted. Until we are willing to unconditionally surrender our pride and control we will find at best only short term relief. Until we commit to change without condtions the diseases that malign us will not subside.

All life can be seen as a journey towards surrender. In our youth we are so full of ourselves. We want to conquer our reality. As we mature we sustain loss after loss.
We fall short of our aspirations. We fall short of our expectations. We fall short of who we felt we were meant to become. We fail. In the end not only can we not conquer the world we cannot even conquer our bodies, as it too fails us!

Life is a journey towards surrender. Is that bad? Not at all. Would that we would surrender early and experience life as G-d's gift rather than something to own and control. Would that we would surrender before the "final plague", before their is re no choice and the damage irreparable. Would that we learn our lessons young, that we be willing to let go of our need to be the masters of our story and instead live with our story and let it teach us who we need to be and become without reservations and needless pride.

Surrender is not a bad thing. We need to stop avoiding it. On the contrary, resistance to surrender is the bad thing. The lesson of the Pharaoh is that surrender in time is salvific.
Our task is to not follow in his footstep and be too arrogant to captitulate to the 'plagues' G-d sends into each of our lives to show us the way!

Shabbat Shalom

Compromise? Yes and No

The parsha of the week, Va'aira, contains in the main the first seven plagues G-d brought on the Egyptians as a prelude to the Exodus. But it is the introductory section of the reading I found compelling this year. You may recall, at the close of last week's reading Moshe had complained to G-d that since his mission to redeem the Israelites began it had only gotten harder for them. The Pharaoh had made harsher decrees. G-d responds to Moshe at the outset of our parsha and renews the charge to
Moshe to go demand of the Pharaoh that he let the people go.

Then, almost as a non sequitor the Torah begins an account of the lineage of Moshe and Aharon. It tells us the pedigree of the whole tribe of Levy and even of Reuvain and Shimon, Levy's older brothers, all, according to traditon, just so we know who Moshe and Aharon are. Then the Torah tells us something puzzling.

The verses read:

"This is Moshe and Aharon to whom G-d spoke telling them to take out the Children of Israel from Egypt. It is they who spoke to the Pharaoh to let the Children of Israel leave Egypt.They are Moshe and Aharon."

The redundancy in the verse is obvious. Why three times are Moshe and Aharon referenced, twice by name and once by pronoun? What is the Torah attempting to convey?

Rashi in his commentary on the verses brings the Gemara. It explains, the Torah redundancy is meant to emphasize that throughout the process, from their initial call to the exodus, Moshe and Aharon remained unchanged. They were consistant and uncompromised.

Is being uncompromising a virtue? From the reading it would seem so. Yet perhaps we need to think again. In the Book of Proverbs we find, "Who is wise? One who understands the meaninfg of things." The Hebrew word used for "meaning" is 'pesher'.
Interestingly enough 'pesher' in Hebrew is the root for the word 'peshara', which means compromise. In the judicial process, the 'bet din' (Jewish court), is charged wherever possible to make a judgement based on 'peshara', rather than the letter of the law.

How do the words 'pesher', translated as 'meaning' and 'peshara', translated as compromise, relate? I think the answer is that in compromise we forego the victory we may have in the individual battle for the larger agenda of winning the war.
In compromising we see not the isolated instance but its meaning and place within the context of our life and goals. To compromise we must know the meaning of something, what its consequence will be. Once aware of the 'pesher', compromise, or 'peshara' becomes important and at times necessary! How tragic are the stories of those who are uncompromising in matters that in truth are small, yet large in the eyes of the one stating them...and large in the cost the uncompromising incur due to their insistance.
Even, granted they are right, they cause strife in families and communities that
make their make their victory hollow. Their victories are nothing but tragedies.

So if what I write is true, how is it that Moshe and Aharon are praised for being consistant and uncompromising?

The answer is clear and oh so significant. There are two kinds of compromises, the compromise of an idea, and the compromise of self. Yes, absolutely we need to be ready to give up on the battles over ideas, even when we are right, if it serves the larger meaning of our lives. Rav Arush in his books on making a successful marriage instructs husbands to never crticize their wives, never! It is not that the husband is not right. It is not that the criticism is not valid. Husbands should not criticize because the 'truth' they tell their wives will prove to unhinge the peace of the home and family. More good than any particular correction will achieve is the harm potentially done by hurtful critique to a healthy and loving relationship. Understanding something in its context demands compromise.

But compromise of self is another matter entirely. We must never give ourselves away.
We must be forever true to who we are and at all costs. As Janice Joplin said "Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got!"
We are given the pedigree of Moshe and Aharon to confirm who they are. They are no pretenders on a stage. They knew themselves.
Moshe and Aharon went before the Pharaoh. They had to confront the great powers of the world. Yet they remained who they were as persons. They did not change themselvs to curry favor. And even with G-d, Moshe never waivers in his insistance that he is not right for his mission. Even before G-d Moshes insists on being true to how he sees himself.

The problem most of us have is that we struggle to distinguish between the two types of compromise. All too often we fight over an idea we believe in as if it is our selves that we are defending and to surrender would mean giving our selves away.
We may win the battle but at a tragic cost. And in most cases the victory of our idea turns out to be meaningless in short order.
And at times we give our very selves away inorder to prevail and succeed. We give ourselves a pass saying that we are only acting and that inside we remain true to form. We defend our compromise. Yetis that true? How many a wife has lost her self in her marriage by compromising her integrity of person inorder to save the home. To give who we are away is never okay!

Compromise is both good and bad. It depends on the issue at stake.
Forever we need to be humble and flexable enough to compromise on an idea.
Forever we need to be strong and courageous enough to never compromise who we are no matter the cost.

And forever we need the sagacity and wisdom to discern between the two!

Shabbat Shalom

Too Wounded to Heal?

Many years ago a pyscho-therapist, Maxine Glaz, wrote an article in which she suggested that some people may be so badly damaged by early life abuse that even with therapeutic intervention healing is not really possible for them. The most they can hope for is to learn to cope.

That idea occured to me as I read the Parsha of this week,Shmot, and gained a new insight into the episode of The Burning Bush. The Sages all look for explanations as to why G-d first appeared to Moshe in the vision of a burning bush. The Torah tells us:
"And Moshe was shepherding the sheep of Yitro his father-in-law the priest of
Midian and he guided the sheep into the desert, and they came to the Mountain of
G-d, at Horev. And an angel of G-d appeared to him in the heart of a flame
in the midst of a bramble bush. And Moshe noticed that the bramble bush was
entirely aflame yet the bush was not being consumed. And Moshe said, "I will
turn to see this wonder, why it is that the bramble bush is not being consumed
by the fire.""

The bramble bush, or 'sneh' in Hebrew, with a flame rising from it has become a symbol for the spiritual in art and culture ever since. Yet what does it really symbolize? Why did G-d take this form to initiate the dialogue that led to the redemption from Egypt? Moreover the Torah tells us that Moshe went to see why the bush was not consumed by the flames. Next the Torah tells us, as Moshe approached, G-d told Moshe to take off his shoes because the soil he was on was holy. He then went on to tell Moshe that He has seen the suffering of the Israelites, that He heard their cries. It's time for the redemption. But Moshe never seems to get his original wonder explained. Why did the sneh not burn?

I know their are many wonderful interpretations to this passage. I would like to share what I see, as the Torah speaks to me in this time in my life. Indeed that is the whole purpose of this blog "The Torah and the Self".

We know Moshe left Egypt a fugitive. The Pharoah had placed a death sentence on him for slaying the Egyptian. Yet worse than having been branded a criminal, Moshe suffered heartache from what he saw of his People. You recall, Moshe saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and saved him by killing that Egyptian. The next day, the Torah tells us, Moshe saw two Hebrews fighting. He intervened telling the one "Wicked man, why are you beating your friend". The Hebrew's response was "Oh so maybe you want to kill me too just like you killed the Egyptian!"

Moshe then and there realized two things. First, that his act of killing the Egyptian was no longer a secret. And, according to our Sages, second, and worse, he came to understand why his brethren were suffering. That they would fight with one another, be so insolent in response to criticism, and perhaps even turn in one of there own people to their oppressors, showed character flaws that made their servitude understandable. When Moshe left Egypt he had all but given up on his People and their future. They were too wounded to heal!

What then did the "Burning Bush" mean? What did is symbolize to Moshe?
The bush was a thorny and misshapen bramble bush. not a flowering growth in alignment. It was knotted and distended. In the world of plants and trees it repersents the compromised and ugly. Yet from this bush a flame was rising. That it might be on fire was no surprise, brush fires are common, and lowly bushes burn first. What surprised Moshe was that it did not perish in the flames. On the contrary, the bush contained the flames. Yet how? How can the lowly bramble, gnarled and malformed, full of thorns, contain the pure and powerful flame a thing of pure spirit and potency?

What Moshe saw he knew was no accident. He was meant to see it. He was meant to see that Israel too, like the thorn bush, so compromised and stunted, can yet contain a flame. They are not too wounded to heal. And why? How?

Hashem answered Moshe's question. As Moshe approached, He said to Moshe, "take your shoes off for the ground you are on is holy ground". It was as if Hashem was telling Moshe "the Bush was not consumed by the powerful flames, despite it's brokeness because it grew in holy soil! Yes it's form is misbegotten. Yes by all accounts the flames should devour it. But because it was nurtured in the holy, despite its form, it can contain the flames and endure."

And then Hashem went on to tell Moshe, "the people's character flaws, that which you experienced that made them too wounded to heal in your eyes, are the result of their affliction. The persecution they suffer turned them into a 'sneh'. Of essence they were born of the holy, their spiritual genes are excellent. Healing, redemption, for them is possible. Like the 'sneh' you see here full of flame and indeed alive, on this very spot the nation of Israel, with its limitations, will come and be aglow with the spiritual flame of G-d, at the time I will give them the Torah."

Too wounded to heal? Not if you contain the spiritual genes of our People and its ancestry. I thought about this as I look around me at the world in which I live.
Jerusalem is the holy city. When Mashiach comes it is here he will come first.
Yet I look at the city and wonder. Is it too late? Did we miss our time? Are we too wounded to heal? Yes Jerusalem is a large city today. the largest in Israel. But it is also the poorest. It seems every third person is begging for money. The elderly and compromised are everywhere. The streets are full of the maimed and broken.
Walking downtown on Ben Yehuda is not like walking 5th Ave. There is no parade of the beautiful people in high fashion and with lilting gaight. No, here downtown one feels the neediness of the society . People here don't dream of basking in the spirit of the Divine. They dream of a relief from pain, food to eat, and the money for their rent. I wonder for whom will Mashiach come? And what will he bring that will be of interest more than a relief from the harshness of life. Is the city too wounded to know the true healing of the spirit perefering instead a hot stove and a good meal?

Is Israel, our country, too wounded to heal? I know the tourist sees the wonder of this great land and its people. But the one who lives here all too often is struck by the smallness of people, not our greatness. Pettiness is the norm. It's oh so rare to hear "thank you" or "I'm sorry". Everyone feels s/he is right and all the time. People shove and push. No one gives way to another. Courtesy seems near extinct. I don't feel good saying this. It hurts. But truth is truth. I have lived other places. And here we are all Jews. Yet aggressiveness is everywhere. Manners and generosity of spirit are near absent. There is no 'win win' model here . Here if I win you lose and if you win I of necessity must lose. And the worst shame is to be thought a 'freyer',, someome who gets taken advantage of. And the politics are a politics of meaness. The ideal gets lost in the personal, even when matters are of national importance. True, in other countries it is much the same. But we are Jews!
All of us Jews! Jews don't behave this way.

Are we too wounded to heal?

When Moshe asked that question G-d answered him in the vision of the "Burning Bush".
When I ask that question I get my answer in the story of Moshe and the message of that very same bush. No! emphatically no! We are not too wounded to heal. Yes we are compromised and malformed, our character needs healing. But the healing is within us.
We contain wondrous genetic material. Who we have become, like for our ancestors, is a product of the hardships we endure. We suffer in Israel through living life forever afraid of what tomorrow will bring. Our anxiety in the face of terror and non-stop threat is crippling. We struggle to find a peaceful night's rest.Who has not lost a loved one or known a loved one lost to friend or family due to war and terror. And our fiscal crisis remains ongoing. We absorbed 10 times our original population in sixty years, most of the immigrants coming from poor countries and with no means of support.In that context our stunted development is understandable. Our ugliness and mediocrity is not who we are. It's who we have become. We can indeed contain the flame of the holy. We can aspire to greatness as individuals and as a people. We can know healing. Mashiach was meant for us!

My 18 year old daughter, who made aliya with me four years ago will in moments of exasperation say, "Dad, what's the point. It's so awful the way people treat each other." I tell her, "That's why you are here. The culture of civility won't change overnight. But it will change. And your influence will help bring that change about."

We are not so different from the generation of our ancestors in Egypt. There is a lot of the 'sneh' in us. Yet like the 'sneh' we are made of good stuff. And like the 'sneh' we can contain and express the pure flame, the holy and good.
Too wounded to heal? I think not! Mashiach where are you?

Shabbat Shalom

"Slow Down You Must Too Fast"

There is as an old Zen teaching, "Life is so short. We must move slowly."

Of course to say something is a Zen teaching is to say it is paradoxical. And of this teaching it is no less true. I would think if life is short we must move more quickly, mindful of all the things we need to accomplish in a short period of time. Yet the opposite is true.
Our Torah this week in the parsha of Vayechi, the final parsha in the Book of Breishit, the first book of the Torah, frames for us the problem with "going too fast".

Yaakov before his death addressed each of his children. He set before them their strengths and weaknesses. To Reuvain the eldest Yaakov said:

"Reuvain you are my first born, my might and the beginning of my strength. You have excellence of dignity and power. Yet you are unstable as water. You shall not have the excellence because you went up to your father's bed and thereby defiled my marital relations."

Reuvain was entitled to special portions in as much as he was the first born. Moreover Reuvain had with in him the personal gifts and excellences that made him worthy of greatness above his siblings. The problem with Reuvain was that like "water", he was unstable. He moved too fast. He saw a situation that needed to be addressed and he rushed in to resolve it. His intentions show his unique sensitivity and capacity to lead. Yet his performance, hurried and impulsive, made his eforts futile.

Look at the stories of Reuvain. He is the one son of Leah who feels her hurt. He brought his mother a gift of the mandrakes to comfort her over the rejection she felt from her husband. Yet rather than serve to make Leah less focused on Yaakov's love the mandrakes became his mother's bargaining chip to gain another night with Yaakov. Later Reuvain is the one who saved Yosef from death by telling the brothers to throw him in the pit rather than kill him. Reuvain's intentions were excellent. He hoped to return to the pit and rescue Yosef. But there was no opportunity. Yosef was taken from the pit and sold. Again good intentions left unrealized.

And when the brothers returned from their first sojourn to Egypt to buy food and Shimon was held captive until Binyamin is brought, Reuvain tried to prevail on Yaakov to send Binyamin with him. His efforts were well motivated but poorly timed and poorly stated. Only later when Yehuda spoke did he successfully convince Yaakov to send their youngest brother. Reuvain took the lead, but again here his leadershp was compromised by his anxiety to get it done.

And finally their is the incident Yaakov made reference to in his critique of Reuvain, the story of his intervention into Yaakov's sleeping arrangements with his respective wives. Here too, Reuvain, in tradition, was well intentioned. He felt his mother's insult when Yaakov chose the tent of Bilha, Rachel's former maid, over his mother's following Rachel's death. There was no faulting Reuvain's sensitivity. He was unique in this regard from the rest of his siblings. It was his impulsive response that was at issue.

Reuvain's problem was he "moved too fast". He had not the discipline to wait for the right time and setting so as to get the results that mattered. Many of us know that truth in our own lives. We feel deeply and often correctly the hurt of another or their need. We want to make a difference. We respond immediately and impulsively.
And yet despite our passion we fail to make a difference. Our feelings, though noble, and necessary to our motivation, got in the way of our ability to wait for the right time and setting to actually be effective in engendering change.

It's important to distinguish between "z'reezut", freely translated as "alacrity" and speed. Yes, in our tradition "z'reezut" is a virtue. To be "zariz" in the service of G-d and in doing mitzvot is important. But to be zariz is not about the speed with which one does something but rather with the level of intensity and fullness of self we invest in being where we are. We are called to serve G-d and do mitzvot being fully present and mindful. There is no room for laziness. But that does not mean we need to move quickly. On the contrary when we move too quickly we are often less able to be fully present in the moment. We miss being where we are because we are focused on where we have to get to.

I found myself understanding the lesson of Reuvain this week and identifying with him. For several days I had lower back pain. Besides the hurt, it made walking difficult. I am by inclination a fast walker. I struggle to be patient and go slow.
The more I tried to push myself to get to my destination this week, the more I hurt.
Only in going slow would the pain subside.

My life experience of this week and the Torah message I see in the parsha teach me to stop running. With reference to my tendency towards haste my daughter would sometimes say "I only know Daddy from the back!"
In pushing to reach the ends I often miss the vistas I am meant to see on the way. Still more, in moving too fast I may make impossible accomplishments that would be possible only with time and patience.

The lesson here for me and perhaps for you is best captured in the verse from an old Simon and Garfunkel song, "slow down you move too fast..."

Shabbat Shalom

The Rest of the Story: A Channuka Blog

Many years ago there was a wonderful radio personality named Paul Harvey. For decades he had a syndicated 5 minute commentary in which he shared a news item, often one odd and unusual, but at first blush straightforward. Then, after a brief commercial break, he would go on to tell what he called "the rest of the story".
The "rest of the story" turned out not to be so much an elaboration on the headline, but rather to supply additional data that tended to turn the earlier headline on its head. The genius of "The rest of the story" was that it put what you thought you knew into a whole new light and made you realize you hardly knew it at all.

We are in the midst of the celebration of Channuka. It is a wonderful holiday filled with good times and hope. In lighting the chanukiya or menorah each night we recall the miracle of the Temple menora, where oil enough for but one day burned for eight, until new pure oil was available for kindling. In the prayers we recall a different miracle. We celebrate the victory of the Hasmoneans over the Syrio-greeks who sought to hellinize us by force. The victory was miraculous in that the few defeated the many, the weak subdued the strong, the pure overcame the wicked. While the miracle of the oil provides us with the mitzva of the holiday the victory of Judah Maccabee and his followers is the one that captures the imagination. And surely without the military triumph, unlikely as it was, we would not have been able to enter the Bait Hamikdash, rid it of the idols, and purify it. Without the miraculous victories in battle no menora would have been lit!

Yes, our miraculous triumph over our oppressors is central to the celebration of this festival of light. Now its time to share what Paul Harvey called "the rest of the story". Victory! what victory? Judah and his brothers engineered with the help of G-d a great triumph at the time of Channuka in 165 bce. But how long did it last? Shortly after the liberation of the Temple war again ensued. Judah was unsuccessful in ridding Jerusalem of the heathen influence. He himself was killed some 3 years after the Channuka victory in a losing battle. It took another 20 years for the Maccabbees to actually defeat the Syrio-greek army once and for all. By then all but one of the five brothers was dead or killed.

While the Channuka events were a great moment in time, they were hardly a culmination. A battle was won, not a war! Why all the partying? Why the widespread joy? Why the holiday? This is not a story of a happily ever after. This is no final chapter!

Here lies the great truth of Channuka, a truth often missed by those who don't bother to study the story in its fullness. Channuka teaches us that to live in this world is to live in the moment. There are no final victories. There are no lasting triumphs.Life is full of ups and downs. The success of today may have no bearing on tomorrow. We cannot hold on to the moment in a world that is constantly in flux.
If we wait to celebrate until we achieve the final triumph we will need to wait for Mashiach. All we have in life is gift moments, times that we can neither fix nor grasp. Yes, the immediate impact of Channuka was short-lived but that does not make it less worthy to celebrate.

Soon it will be superbowl season. Every football team and fan dreams of winning the title for themselves. It seems at first glance an ultimate win, a reason for enduring joy. But is it? Six months later training camp begins anew. And soon after begins a new season on the playing field. Last year's champion has no edge nor status. What seemed a lasting victory hardly endured six months. Yet the celebrations of the moment are wild and euphoric. That todays events will be irrelevant tomorrow does not make them less of an occasion today for the winners and their fans.

My father had many ups and downs in his life yet when asked how he was he would say "every day is a victory". Just having one more day, today, and being alive and able to make a difference, to love and be loved, is a reason to celebrate. True, tomorrow everything could change and often it does, but that does not make today's reality any less worthy of joy.

This lesson of Channuka is evident even in the miracle of the menora. The Maccabbees found only one flask of pure oil. It was enough to light the menora for one day.
They knew it would take eight until they could get new pure oil. They did not know a miracle would happen and the oil would continue to burn. In that situation it would have been undertsandable to say "Lets wait to light the menora until we have enough oil so it will not go out. After all it will be disappointing to light one day and then have the light extinguished while we await a new supply of oil".
The Jews of the day did not say that. Instead they said "Lets light now! We have the opportunity. Tomorrow will take care of itself!"

The message of Channuka is that in this world there are no final victories. We need to seize the gift moments and enter them fully, unafraid of what tomorrow will bring.
Indeed every day is a victory!

And as Paul Harvey would say "that my friends is the rest of the story".

Channuka Samayach
Shabbat Shalom

Playing Favorites

I will confess to something I do not think I ever really admitted, even to myself.
When I was a boy I was a good child. I always tried to please my parents, in particular, my father. My younger brother was much more rebellious than I and much more inclined to follow his own heart, rather than the rules. I always thought that my father loved my rebellious brother more than me. I was the "good son" yet he got the love. It did not seem quite fair.

My father is gone from this world. I loved him dearly. Though we talked about many things through the years I never got to talk about these feelings and his attitude with him. This week in the parsha of Vayeshev, through some insight into our father Yaakov I have come to understand my father better, and perhaps to understand better the father I am as well.

At the outset of the reading, one that begins the epic story of Yosef and the brothers, we are told "...and Yisrael loved Yosef from all his children because he was the child of his elder years, and he gave him a coat of many colors."
The Torah goes on to tell us that Yaakov's actions brought on the brother's hate towards Yosef, so much so that they could not even speak together without quarrel.

We all know the drama that unfolds. The brothers nearly murder Yosef. Instead they sell him to Egypt. After some initial success, Yosef finds himself languishing in prison, only to be released to interpret the dream of the Pharoah.
The sages of the Talmud warn us never to favor one child over another. They make reference to Yaakov and point out that because he favored Yosef over his brothers, a seemingly small offence, a whole nation wound up being exiled and enslaved in Egypt.

The question arises, how is it that Yaakov could so blatantly favor one of his children over another. We are talking of our patriarch.In tradition Yaakov is the examplar of righteousness. How could he make such a foolish mistake as to show favoritism? Even bad parents today know not to play favorites. Moreover Yaakov saw the chaos in his family of origen when each parent prefered a different child.
And more specifically what does it mean that Yaakov loved Yosef from his children because "he was the child of his old age" ? What role did the time of Yosef's birth play in his special status. I would have thought Yaakov preferred Yosef because he was the child of his beloved and dead wife Rachel or maybe because of Yosef's unique character.

If I may be so bold, I think Yaakov did not favor Yosef. Yaakov would not have made such a basic mistake in parenting. Moreover if he did favor Yosef it would not have been for the timing of when he was born in Yaakov's life.
No, the Torah means to tell us something different. Yaakov did not love Yosef more than his brothers, nor did he favor him. What Yaakov did is love Yosef differently than his brothers and in truth he loved him better.

We who are parents know that we grow into the role. We do not become a 'father' or 'mother' with our first child. Oh yes, of course we do! But I mean we do not really become the role of parent in the best sense until we have had years raising children. Over time we become wise to the holy work of child-rearing and of loving.
With our first children we play the role of parent but it is not yet us. Typically we don't trust ourselves and we don't trust our children. We tend to be more strict, more going by the rule. Like someone first learning to cook, we need recipes to follow. We don't yet trust our instincts or our children's intrinsic goodness.
We hold on tight afraid a miscue will cause harm to the children we are responsible to raise.

As we mature in our role we feel more confident in ourselves and in the resillience of our children. We are more relaxed with our charge and more trusting of both them and the process. To older chidren who look at the way we parent their younger siblings it may appear that we are favoring them. We are often not as demanding,we are more able to give without fear that we are 'spoiling' the child. We may seem to love the younger in the group with a less conditional love. And that may foster some resentment. To be truthful, as I look back, my father did not really show my brother more love than he showed me. He just didn't make the love he gave him conditional on his being good!.

My sense is that the brothers of Yosef experienced that dynamic as well. They saw their father was more liberal with Yosef. While they tended the sheep he tended his hair! Yosef was a dreamer not a worker. He got the same love his brothers got but without having to earn it. The Talmud taught us that 'the çoat of many colors'was actually of very little real value. Yaakov gave it as a gift to Yosef without him having to have earned it. It was the gift for free, something they had not experienced with their father that engendered their resentment. Sometimes children harbor similar resentment, if unspoken, when their parents are generous with their grandchildren in a way they never were with them.

Its not that the grandparents love the grandchildren more. Its rather that the parents, now grandparents, have matured and grown in their role. They are no longer afraid to let go in acts of generosity with their progeny.

We now can understand why the Torah's explanation for Yaakov's greater love was because Yosef was a son of his old age. Yaakov's love was not more for Yosef than the brothers, but it was a greater love. It was greater in quality because indeed Yaakov was older and wiser. He knew how to love his children in a way he did not when Yosef's brothers were of similar age.The jealousy of the brothers is understandable. But Yaakov is not at fault. Every good parent becomes more able to love as they mature.
Its not about favorites. It is about becoming a better parent.

I understand my father now in a different way. He did not love me less than my brother.
He loved me differently because he had become a different father through experience and maturity. Perhaps my insight will help you too as you think on the years of your youth and your relationship with your parents. Perhaps it will help you as parent to ease the spoken or unspoken jealousies of your children over the love you gave to their younger siblings or to your grandchildren.

Sometimes all it takes to lighten our load is a new perspective.

Shabbat Shalom

Between Talent and Wisdom

Talent is the property of the young. Wisdom belongs to the mature.
Look at our world. The faces of the olympians are the faces of youth. Athletes after thirty decline. By forty they are over the hill. While the Rolling Stones may continue to perform fifty years later, no one would confuse them with their earlier incarnation. And why? Because when we are young we tend to live on the edges of our selves. We focus on our strengths and cultivate them. Our agenda is to tend the flames that burn within and to turn them into a raging fire. Youth celebrates idealism, single-mindedness. It is driven by a yearning for excellence. Is it any surprise it is so attractive?

As we age we surrender that focus on stoking the inner flame. We let go of our agenda to grow our strengths and talents. On the contrary we begin to concentrate on the neglected areas of our selves, the parts that have been in eclipse, the areas of our selves we know we will never excell in. Maturity is about reversing fields. Rather than living on our edges we instead live out of the center of our selves.
Our goal is no longer excellence but balance. Our work is one of integration. We make all of ourselve available to us. In wholeness we gain a new gift, one not available to us when we lived out of our strengths. While pursuit of wholeness is far less compelling and exciting than living on the edges and growing our strengths, the resultant blessing makes it worth the sacrifice. In maturation and integration we gain the gift of wisdom. Wisdom is always found in the center and in the balanced. Posessing wisdom does not win us gold medals. Wise people have few groupies. Yet wisdom wins us something more precious. In wisdom we gain respect, of both other and self.

Much of what I wrote above I learned through my journey. I found corroboration for these truths in the story told in this week's parsha of Vayishlach. Early in the reading we read of the dramatic rendezvous between Yaakov and Esav, twins who could not have been more polar. Yaakov had great fear that Esav would kill him over the stolen birthright. Esav made known years earlier that he planned to kill Yaakov after his parents died. Yaakov prepared himself for every eventuality including war. In the end the meeting between the brothers proved healing and peaceful. More than cordial, Esav and Yaakov embraced and kissed. It was as if there was some metamorphosis here in their relationship. How did this reconciliation come about?
Why the change in Esav's heart.

The Torah gives us one clue. Before Yaakov met Esav, indeed the very night before, Yaakov had no sleep. And why, because he spent the night wrestling with an 'ish', a "person" until the dawn. In the words of the Torah

"And Yaakov was left alone. And an "ish" wrestled with him
until the dawn. And he saw that he could not overwhelm him
and he said "let me go for the dawn has come". And yaakov said.
"I will not send you until you bless me"...."

The story of Yaakov wrestling with the "ish" is one of the most compelling stories in the Torah. Who was the "ish"? Was he angel or human?, real or imagined? And what is the wrestling about? And why the blessing? And how does the night time struggle effect the outcome of Yaakov's rendevous with Esav?"

There are many interpretations to this story. No doubt the Torah left it ambiguous so we could find what we need to in the drama, for ourselves.
In keeping with the focus of the blog, "The Torah and the Self", I want to explore the story for what it has to say to us in the context of our life and journey.
Let make this personal.

We need first to understand Yaakov and his issues with Esav, and indeed with himself.
We know Yaakov and Esav were polar opposites. Though twins, they looked different. Yaakov was smooth, Esav hairy. As they grew, Esav became the outdoorsman and hunter. Yaakov was reclusive and studious. Esav was close to his father. Yaakov his mother. At first glance no two people could seem more disparate.

Yet is that really so? Were Yaakov and Esav totally other? I think not. Yaakov's name derived from the fact that when born he was holding the heel of his brother Esav. When Yaakov gets his father's blessings he is wearing the clothes of Esav and coming disguised in his identity. And the name Yaakov means heel. Whose heal? Esav's, because Yaakov was clutching it at birth. Esav's heel is Yaakov's name-identity!

No I think Esav and Yaakov had much more in common than we recognize. What separated Yaakov from Esav is that each developed a different talent. The strength of the one was the weakness of the other. In our youth we focus on developing our talents. We live out of the edges of ourselves. Yaakov had an Esav inside. But his focus was to cultivate his excellence. Yaakov denied the earthiness of Esav within inorder to become a genius in the world of the spiritual. Indeed when Yaakov has to meet up with Esav all those years later Yaakov is afraid not only of the distance between them but of the closeness. Yaakov had denied his earthy side through so much of his life. Even when he became wealthy and prosperous in the home of Lavan it is clear that he derived no pleasure from his new found bounty. Yaakov worked day and night,
even as we read in the reading of last week. He suffered in the cold of winter and in the heat of summer tending the sheep himself.

Yaakov's excellence was in realizing himself and his G-d through abstinence. He was the one who the Torah called a "yoshaiv ohalim", "a tent dweller", rather than someone who lived in comfort. Esav represented a different idea. His way to excellence(though never attained) was through the earth, through indulgence. Yaakov had that in himself too. If he did not he could not have claimed the blessings intended for Esav.
Yet Yaakov was afraid of the Esav in him, the part of himself that was like his brother. Yaakov prayed to G-d prior to his encounter with Esav "Save me please from my brother from Esav". Its not only Esav he fears, but his "brother".

And this is the meaning of Yaakov's encounter with the "ish". With whom was Yaakov wrestling. They way I see it Yaakov was engaged with his other self, the Esav within. Before Yaakov could come to terms with his brother in the flesh he had to come to terms with the 'brother' within himself. He had to confront what Carl Jung called his 'shadow'. Wrestling and hugging look very much the same to the outsider.
They reflect intimacy, one is an intimacy designed to subdue the other an intimacy to embrace. Yaakov's 'wrestling' was an intimate encounter with the ideas he had repressed. It is intimate. It feels threatening. It compels one to face aspects of self previously denied. In being intimate with the Esav within throught the long night Yaakov comes to see that he need not flee the earthiness within.
He can embrace it and utilize it too in realizing the good and the G-dly.

The result of Yaakov's intimacy with his shadow is that he is now whole and complete. He now can live accessing all of himself not only the part of himself that is purely of the spirit. He no longer has to be afraid of Esav and what he represents. He can embrace Esav and indeed he does since he need not fear the power of the earthy as threatening.

But there is also a negative consequence, at least as compared to Yaakov prior to now becoming whole and integrated. Before Yaakov, in his one dimensional lifestyle, could sprint. He had acknowledged no complexity to hold him back. After his encounter with the Esav within, his shadow, Yaakov now limps. He needs time to process the self he has become, one whole in containing both the spirit and the earth. This is the meaning of the wound Yaakov sustains in his upper thigh as a result of the struggle.

When Yaakov and Esav finally meet they can now achieve a real reconciliation. Yaakov is able to accept Esav and his talents even as he now accepts himself in his fullness.

And the Torah gives voice to my understanding of this powerful time of becoming in Yaakov's life when it tells us that after leaving Esav "And Yaakov came to Sukkot and there he built a house..." Yaakov, whom the Torah called "dweller of tents" now for the first time builds a house. Yaakov no longer needs to separate from the world of the material. He can embrace it as part of who he is in hisi service to G-d and man. And soon after the Torah tells us "And Yaakov came 'shalem', whole, to the city of Shechem..." For the first time, now that he has faced his shadow Yaakov is whole, complete,integrated, wise!

Integration, becoming whole, is the work of a lifetime. It happens bit by bit. Early in our life we are so busy trying to develop our gifts and the parts of our self we like that we virtually deny anything other as threatening. Yet as we mature we discover that our life is not about getting rid of our less interesting or flattering side, but rather about bringing it into the light so it may live side by side with the part of ourselves we have celebrated and endorsed.

What parts of me do I need to wrestle/embrace to become whole? What parts of you do you need to bring out of the shadow and into the light?
In the end, talent is not enough. Our life's journey is about attaining wisdom. Wisdom is always found in the center; not on the edges.
We are wise when we become balanced, and whole, and fully ourselves!

Shabbat Shalom