Yitro: The Wisdom of an Outside Perspective

"Ben Zoma taught: Who is wise? One who learns from all people." (Pirket Avot, 4:1)

Do you know what the most important word is in that quote? In that first teaching from the fourth chapter of a 2,000 year old rabbinic text, called Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of Our Ancestors? The word "all." I say that because learning from ALL people is tough. It's (relatively) easy to learn when you're in an educational space, like a classroom, with a teacher, speaking on a subject that interests you and/or is important, at a time when you're expecting to learn. But learning from *all* people, potentially at *all* times, in *all* spaces in which we may find ourselves?? That's quite a bit more challenging. When we're stressed at the grocery store, or arguing with someone on Facebook, or feeling under the weather at work, or running to catch a train - these are not moments where we want to learn *anything.* And yet, some of life's greatest insights come precisely at such times, in just those situations. So how can we be open to learning; right there and right then?

Our Torah portion offers us an interesting take on this question. The Israelites are in the desert. Egypt is behind them, Pharaoh has been vanquished, but the Promised Land is decades away in the future. Life in the desert, and the business of forming a functioning community, consumes their everyday lives. Moses has shifted his role from Warrior Prophet, going toe-to-toe with Pharaoh, to Community Organizer Prophet, trying to resolve disputes and organize logistics. It is into this new environment that Moses welcomes a visitor. His father-in-law, Jethro, brings Moses' wife, Zipporah, and their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, for a visit. (Side note: Between the lines of the text, we sense that Moses is removed from the life of his family. He is fully-focused on the task of leading the Israelites... but therefore has no time, energy, or emotional space for his wife and sons. It is a heart-breaking aside, about which the Torah text itself has very little to say...) Jethro does not like what he sees.

For a moment, we see the Israelites from an outsider perspective. Jethro observes Moses holding court, with every, single, petty, mundane issue that any Israelite wants to bring up being brought before him. Moses, alone, is resolving *every* issue. Jethro is horrified. "What (the heck) are you doing?!?" (only a slight paraphrase of Ex. 18:14) He advises Moses that this is unsustainable. "You will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you to do alone." (18:18) Now, on the one hand, you might not think this is a good example of learning from "all" people, because it's Moses' father-in-law. But he's a Midianite, an outsider. And an idolatrous priest, no less!! He missed all the action in Egypt, including the plagues and the splitting of the sea, and he has never dealt with anything like what Moses is taking on. So why does Moses listen to him, and immediately reorganize their entire judicial system based on Jethro's advice?

Perhaps because we sometimes need an outside perspective. Moses couldn't handle any more Israelite kvetching! If one of them had suggested the change, he would have dug his heels in. Even while feeling stressed and overwhelmed by this task, and even in the harsh (in more ways than one...) climate of the desert, Moses was able to hear his father-in-law, and adjust his communal structure accordingly. Sometimes I think our first reaction to feedback, "constructive criticism," or even just friendly advice is to get defensive and indignant. "I know best!" When in reality, an unbiased opinion can be truly invaluable. It requires humility, a minimizing of one's ego, and an openness and a vulnerability that is hard for many of us to fathom, let alone embody! And yet, it is a crucial skill to cultivate, because it really is a sign of wisdom. Everyone can be our teacher; from 2 year olds to 102 year olds, from animals to inanimate objects, friends, foes, and everything in between. Expand your all, and I think you'll find there is great wisdom and understanding hiding underneath.


Images in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of
2. CC image courtesy of
3. CC image courtesy of
4. CC image courtesy of

B'Shallach: ... and That is Why We Celebrate the Trees...

It doesn't really have a clear beginning and an end. It's strange, I know, but it's done that way on purpose. Everything is part of a cycle - the year, the Torah,

life-long learning - all things go around and around, and thus our Jewish tradition intentionally likes to leave us with no obvious and definitive beginnings. Like this blog post, for example. Did it feel like you just jumped into the middle of a conversation? Good. :-) The Torah itself sets this tone, when the very first verse of Genesis states: "When God began creating..." as if something else preceded it. At the end of Deuteronomy, the Israelites are standing at the border of the Promised Land, about to enter and begin a new story. Hardly a final resolution for the end of the Torah. This week, we are celebrating a "minor" Jewish holiday that really emphasizes the cyclical nature of, well, EVERYTHING in a very crucial way.

Every year, it strikes me as a bit funny that we celebrate the festival of Tu Bishvat in January, in the dead of winter. This is the New Year for trees, plants, fruits, and basically for nature. We sing about how everything grows so beautifully...

while looking out at a barren, frozen, desolate tundra. Sure, we're singing in solidarity with the land of Israel (where it's still pretty cold too, by the way...), but it still feels odd and misplaced. Like, if we waited two more months, we'd belt out "Ha-Sh'keidiyah Porachat" (about a blooming almond tree...) with a lot more fervor! But then I always come back to the notion of "absence makes the heart grow fonder." We sure do miss the trees and leaves right now, don't we?? With so much of winter still ahead of us, we long for spring and the regrowth of nature, so our singing and yearning takes on another level of intention. To me, this also relates to how Tu Bishvat has become a central holiday for the environmental movement.

We take our planet for granted. I can give you countless proof-texts, but I sincerely hope I don't have to. Just google "trash island" if you want to see one horrific example... The point is, opportunities to express our gratitude to our planet, and recommit ourselves to caring for it, are *vitally* important.

The Torah constantly nudges us to value the earth, yet sometimes uses subtle techniques for doing so. You see, the ground/land/earth partners with God time and again, either to reward or punish us. We don't always think of nature as a character in our Bibilical stories, but it's ever-present. This Shabbat, we are chanting "The Song of the Sea," after the Israelites escaped through the Sea of Reeds on dry land... and the water crashed back down and drowned the pursuing Egyptian army. Moses then led the Israelites in singing this song, which indeed praises God, but also refers to all manner of natural phenomena - water, wind, rocks, and fire - that team up with God on our behalf. Noticing the role of nature in *this* story might also make us pause and discover its pivotal role elsewhere too. Suddenly, we see that just prior to our Torah portion, the Ten Plagues turned natural phenomena into instruments of terror against our enemies. And right *after* the Song of the Sea, the Israelites head into the desert, and there God will turn bitter water into potable drink and the morning dew into life-sustaining manna.

We sometimes miss this message. We talk about God and Moses and Pharaoh and the miracles... but we miss the role of our earth. In the Torah, it looks like fantastical fables and pure science-fiction. But the message is dead-serious. Can we really dispute the claim that if we take care of the earth, it rewards us with

bounty... and when we abuse it, it turns barren and fruitless? The text tells a riveting story, but let's not ignore the vital underlying lesson - the central principle of the holiday of Tu Bishvat: Be good stewards of the planet. Stop abusing it. Time is running out, and we simply cannot afford to ignore the warning signs. Are there costs involved with becoming more environmentally conscious and reducing our carbon footprint? Sure, of course there are. But do you think it's cheaper to maintain the status quo?? Aren't we *actually* paying, one way or the other? We humans sometimes have the absolute audacity - the chutzpah - to think we're outside (or above...) the natural order. Well, guess what? We are part of all these cycles. We are not the be-all-end-all of creation; it existed before us and will continue after us. Everything goes in a circle, without a beginning or an end. But while we're here, we need to do our utmost to take care of that which has been entrusted to us. We haven't got much time. Soon another chapter will begin, and...


Images in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of kmicican on Pixabay
2. CC image courtesy of Andrea Pokrzywinski on Flickr
3. CC image courtesy of amboo who? on Flickr
4. CC image courtesy of Rkantckd on Wikimedia Commons

Bo: Stalemate.

Wow, what an epic showdown! Can you believe it?? The two of them, leaders of the opposition, came before the head honcho for yet another meeting, and they firmly stood their ground. He, in turn, blew up at them, yelled and screamed, refused to

listen to members of his own team, abruptly ended the meeting, and thus the stale mate persisted. I mean, how often do you see that level of drama on a world stage?? I am talking, of course, about the beginning of this week's Torah portion. I suppose some of you *might* have thought I was describing a recent meeting between the president of the United States and the Democratic leaders of Congress, in which they tried to end our current government shutdown. And I couldn't blame you for thinking that. Incredibly, the description I offered above encapsulates perfectly *both* of those meetings... separated in time by a mere 4,000 years.

Our parashah begins after seven plagues have struck Egypt, and Moses and Aaron once again come before Pharaoh to try and convince him to let the Israelites leave; to remove the metaphorical barrier that is blocking them from crossing the Egyptian

border. The meeting starts off pleasantly enough, and Pharaoh begins to relent, especially after his advisers plead with him to change his mind, declaring (ominously...): "Are you not yet aware that Egypt is lost???" (Ex. 10:7) Pharaoh acquiesces to let the *male* Israelites leave, just to go worship Adonai in the desert, but Moses insists that all of Israel must be allowed to depart. They are not interested in negotiating and finding some middle ground between evil and good; all the slaves must be allowed to leave. Pharaoh throws them out of his Oval Off... err, court room, and the plagues persist.

The parallels to this week's political confrontation are truly uncanny. In fact, the part that is perhaps the *most* similar is also the most tragic; the victims. In Exodus, Pharaoh is both the perpetrator and the one being intransigent, while the ones who suffer the most are the people of Egypt. Plague after plague rains down on them,

destroying their crops, homes, health, animals, and ultimately even killing their children. Pharaoh seems unperturbed by the pain his stubbornness is causing his own people. Our modern-day political battle over a border wall also has real-world consequences, much like the Biblical story, and here too, the ones feeling it the most are *not* the elected politicians. Families without paychecks, security gaps at airports, national parks unmanned; these are just some of the ways that people's lives are negatively impacted. Yet the logjam continues. The sad reality is, regular citizens are essentially treated as bargaining chips by their leaders; whether in ancient times or present-day.

While chanting the Torah reading in services on Thursday morning, I was truly stunned by the similarities between the Biblical text in the Scroll and the headlines I see on my phone. One lesson I take from this is the importance of weighing how our own actions affect the lives of those around us:
When parents fight, children are distressed; when bosses yell at their assistants, everyone in the office feels anxious. Our behaviors and our choices are *never* made in a vacuum, so we must remember to consider the impact we have on those around us. It really is true what we read in the Book of Ecclesiastes: "There is nothing new under the sun" (1:9). 4,000 years have gone by and so much of our day-to-day lives have changed... yet poor leadership looks the same, innocent victims suffer the consequences of someone else's politics, and our lives are still intertwined with one another. And there are lessons we all can learn from watching the behaviors of others, and being mindful, intentional, and considerate with our own actions. Also, we can still marvel and be awed when the Torah is eerily current. Just scary...


Images in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of z22 on Wikimedia Commons
2. CC image courtesy of Wikipedia
3. CC image courtesy of Ron Sanderson on PublicDomainPictures.net
4. CC image courtesy of Severino Deoliveira Jr. on Flickr

Va'Eira: What is in a name (or a pronoun, or a pronunciation)? (Guest blog)

Happy New Year to all! Once again, I want to thank Rabbi Gerber for lending me this platform for sharing some words of Torah while he is on vacation.

Many of us have multiple names that we use - in addition to our given names, we may use a nickname or a title.  Some of us may have changed our last names when we got married, or when we were adopted.  Some of us may have changed our first names after an important life event or transition. Many of us have Hebrew or Yiddish names that we only use at sacred moments. Some are given and some are chosen. Each of these names communicates something different about who we are, where we have been, and how we relate to the people around us. 



At the beginning of this week’s Torah Portion, we find God in conversation with Moses at the Burning Bush. As God prepares Moses for the daunting task of leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, God shares something extraordinary with Moses - a powerful Divine Name. God says to Moses: “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name YHVH” (Exodus 6:3).  The letters YHVH indicate the unpronounceable four-letter Name of God - a Name which is considered, in Jewish tradition, to have immense power and holiness.

There is so much to say about this Name, but I want to focus on the fact that this is one of the few Divine Names that is not simply an adaptation of other Ancient Near Eastern deity names (such as El, Elohim, or Shaddai).  It is not a title or descriptor (such as Adonai or Tzur Yisrael). It seems to be God’s own Name for God’s Self.  When God shares this Name with Moses, there is a sense of self-revelation, of intimacy, of - dare I even say it - vulnerability.  Moses, who is about to make himself vulnerable to Pharaoh, is given the gift of learning that the greatest source of power can sometimes be frank, vulnerable authenticity.


In our current time and place, there is a lot of discussion about names. “Orange is the New Black” star Uzoamaka Aduba has spoken publicly about her refusal to adopt a stage name that is easier for people to pronounce. She has recalled how her Nigerian mother used to tell her "If they can learn to say Tchaikovsky and Michelangelo and Dostoyevsky, they can learn to say Uzoamaka”. In insisting on using her Igbo name, Aduba insists on her power...and she also accepts the vulnerability that goes along with using an African name in America. Likewise, those who use pronouns that reflect a gender that is different from the one assigned to them at birth (or pronouns that are new to the English language) are insisting on being named according to their true, vulnerable, powerful selves. They are offering us a gift of trust and intimacy even as they are asserting their right to be authentically known. 

In light of these current conversations and controversies, I find it striking that YHVH - the intimate Name that God shares with Moses - is both unfamiliar and unpronounceable.  It does not roll easily off the tongue, and it requires an expansion of our thinking.  Integrating the most intimate Name of God into our language requires effort, just like learning new pronouns and pronunciations.  But in that effort, there is power to liberate ourselves and others. 

- Rabbi Kelilah Miller

Pictures in this blog post: 
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3. https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7193/6950635556_c0602ac1aa_b.jpg