Chayei Sarah: If You Would Just Listen....

Listen up, people! If you've been following my blog for a while, you might have heard me discuss my pet-peeve of imprecise translations. I know it's challenging

to translate anything with perfect accuracy - I hear that - but sometimes there are subtle intentions in the Biblical text, secret messages conveyed in the use of specific terms or linguistic choices, that are easily lost in translation. It's hard enough to listen for these patterns in the Hebrew; they become essentially inaudible when transferred into a different language. I imagine some of you, reading this, have already picked up on a little repetition of my own, just in this first paragraph. Have you caught it? Can you hear it? It's meant to hearken back to my subject from our parashah, and how that topic can easily be muted or ignored, if the translation isn't drawing your attention to it. Lend me your ear, and I'll tell you what I mean.

Our reading includes a peculiar little vignette, where Abraham negotiates the sale of a burial plot for his wife, Sarah, after her death. It's a brief opportunity for us

today to glimpse what ancient haggling and business dealings might have looked like, and it includes one particularly odd little feature: The verb "to hear" or "to listen" is used repeatedly (in various forms) within a span of 11 verses. Unfortunately, many translations render at least two of them as "agree" and "accept," which don't sound like synonyms of "hearing" at all! So you'd be forgiven for missing this figure of speech in the English, yet it's worth spending another minute on in the Hebrew.  Abraham approaches a local tribe, the Hittites, and asks to purchase a burial plot. Thus begins a little verbal "dance," of sorts, almost like a rap battle, between Abraham and the Hittites. And it all centers on the word "to hear," which repeats six times from 23:6 to 23:16.

The Hittites declare, "Hear us (Sh'ma-einu), my lord..." Abraham responds, "... if you agree (Sh'ma-uni), please intercede with Ephron [a Hittite] to purchase a burial plot..." Ephron, who is sitting right there, joins the rap battle and declares, "No, my lord, hear me (Sh'ma-eini), I [want to] give you this field..." Abraham sings back, "If only you would hear me out (Sh'ma-eini)..." to which Ephron responds, "My lord, do hear me (Sh'ma-eini)..." and finally names his price. The ballad concludes with Abraham "accepting" (va-Yishma) Ephron's terms. I know it's kind of subtle, but once you pick up on the rhythm, the meter of it, it's quite unmistakable. So what is the point of it all??

The reality is, we are not all that great at listening. I venture to say that everyone THINKS s/he is a good listener, but we can't all be! And, in fact, many of us

are quite poor at it, at least occasionally. Yet it is SUCH an important skill; to help someone else feel seen, known, accepted, and valued. More than just hearing the words and the concerns someone might be articulating, attentive listening can help you pick up on undertones, hidden feelings, and struggles that are hard to articulate. We're often so busy crafting our own narrative(s) or planning a clever response, that we don't truly HEAR the other person, or give them our full and undivided attention. So take a moment to notice the fascinating, ancient cultural exchange between Abraham and his Hittite neighbors, and hearken to the message it is trying to convey to us all. Don't just assume you're a good listener; notice yourself in relation to someone else, and especially work on giving them your complete focus. Ya hear me? Good.


CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. Max Pixel
2. Eli Duke on Flickr
3. Adam Buhler on Flickr (Thomas Hart Benton's "The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley")
4. geralt on needpix.com

L'Chaim (newsletter) article - November, 2019: Benefits of the Buddy System

From time to time, congregants tell me they SHOULD attend services more, they SHOULD come to Bible class or the monthly Lunch n’ Learn, and they SHOULD spend more time in the synagogue building. As you (hopefully) can imagine, I’m not a big fan of “should’s.” Yet I also understand where that guilty feeling may be coming from, and I want to discuss one barrier in particular that may keep people away from Ohev. And I’d like to offer a potential remedy...

Some people are daunted by the prospect of walking in alone. Maybe you aren’t so familiar with the Hebrew, the tunes, the regular attendees… or all of the above. Well, what if you weren’t entirely on your own? And where I USED TO think a solution might be partnering you with someone more familiar and comfortable in the service, I now wonder if people might prefer to enter with someone equally nervous and out of their element?? What if you connected with another congregant – a contemporary or not – who also wanted to gain more familiarity with services, and the two (or more) of you could stumble along and learn new skills TOGETHER????

Recently, two Hebrew School families genuinely inspired me in this regard. Each family was preparing for its first Bar Mitzvah ceremony, and the parents decided to lean into their mutual feelings of anxiety, and began to partner on nearly every aspect of the Big Day preparations. Neither was the expert; neither was the mentor! Just two families – and two individuals in particular – sharing all aspects of the stresses and successes, the frustration and fun. When the Bar Mitzvah weekend for each family arrived, the other family came to Thursday morning minyan, Friday evening services, and Saturday’s main service to support one another. It was marvelous to witness, start to finish!

But there’s no reason this needs to be limited to families preparing for a Bat or Bar Mitzvah! What if you just wanted to attend a Friday night service? Or the Congregational Dinner? Or an Ohev Players performance? It’s a little intimidating to walk into ANYTHING alone, feeling like an outsider. And while a mentor-mentee relationship is sometimes beneficial, I think a buddy-system, when you’re slogging along as equals, can be equally powerful and empowering… if not more so!

I invite you to give it some thought. If you’re considering exploring some aspect of Jewish and/or synagogue life, but aren’t sure how or where to get started, maybe you can partner up with someone and figure it out with your new “buddy.” This isn’t meant to become another “should” on your to-do list, but an invitation to feel more at home at Ohev. You may start out as buddies with one goal in mind, but you could potentially wind up with a new life-long friend!

Sincerely,

Rabbi Gerber

Va-Yeira: What are You Trying to Tell Me??

Communication is the key to basically any and every relationship. The better the communication - the more honest, direct, kind, and vulnerable - the stronger

the relationship. So then why is it so unbelievably hard for us to speak our minds and just express what it is we want??? Sometimes we don't truly know what it is we want, or we're not being completely honest with ourselves, but even when we DO know, it can still be excruciatingly difficult to come out with it. Why?? Boy, do I wish I had the simple answer to that one! Wouldn't that be great?? But I guess it is just a little bit comforting to see God having trouble in the very same way. At least it's not just us! And in our Torah portion this week, I find it especially hard to decipher what it is God is trying to convey.

It's actually a problem throughout the Torah reading. I want to highlight one, often-ignored example, but in truth it happens over and over again: The parashah begins

with God sending three "messengers" (poorly disguised angels...) to visit Abraham, though not revealing from the outset who they really are, or why they are there. And the latter half of the reading focuses on the infamous Binding of Isaac story. Again, I would argue that God's intent is veiled, because various aspects of the text seem to pivot back and forth between indicating that Abraham shouldn't have argued with God, should have, was expected to, was invited to, was being challenged not to, and was being bated into! But between the two stories mentioned above, there is a third one that also hides its meaning and message. What is God trying to tell us??

Perhaps you're familiar with the gist of this scene, where Abraham petitions God to save the people of Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction. What I wanted to focus on, though, is the very first part of that ordeal, where God inexplicably asks God's Self a rhetorical question, and we, the readers, get to hear it. Right off the bat, it's worth

pointing out that this is NOT a common occurrence! I therefore find it even MORE fascinating, that even when we get to hear God's inner monologue, we STILL don't really know God's intention!! The text tells us: "Now Adonai said, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him? For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his progeny to keep the way of Adonai by doing what is just and right, in order that Adonai may bring about for Abraham what has been promised him.'” (Gen. 18:17-19) I have many questions: First of all, why does God refer to "Adonai" in the third person? That's odd. Second, God appears to be positing that because Abraham has been chosen (for something), he should get to know ALL of God's plans. That's curious, no? Third, I don't get where God is going with this.

The reasoning for why God reveals this specific plan to Abraham, is because he is so righteous. But I'm already confused, since God is disclosing a plan of destruction and annihilation! And then when Abraham begins to petition God NOT to punish them, God doesn't appear surprised or taken aback at all.

Ok, so maybe God WANTED Abraham to push back. That's certainly possible... but it makes it all the more troubling when God later demands that Abraham sacrifice Isaac, and no protest is raised or (seemingly) expected. Now, I don't want to be enigmatic about MY feelings (that would be ironic, in a post about good communication...), so I'll tell you that I feel there's a lot of entrapment going on here. Sometimes Abraham - and by extension, all of us humans - are supposed to question, and sometimes we are not. How are we supposed to know when total faith is expected, versus moral outrage warranted? Again, I don't have an easy answer. That would be great. I don't. I DO believe, however, that all of these texts are inviting us into dialogue. We cannot throw our hands up in exasperation; that would be the opposite of working on communication. We need to lean in. Sure, God's wishes and desires are confusing... but so are the feelings of basically every human EVER! I don't know what God wants, but I know God wants to talk. And so do I. So let's chat.


CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. Szilas on Wikimedia Commons
2. Felix the Cat on Flickr
3. VIRIN on Airforce Medical Service Website
4. DeeDee51 on Pixabay

Noach: The Greatest (of THIS Generation...)

Every week, when I sit down to write my blog, I spend a few minutes perusing the archive, to see what I wrote in previous years on this same Torah portion. This is my
eleventh (!!) year of writing, so these days it actually takes me a while to scan through earlier installments. Considering how much I've written about each parashah, I was surprised to discover something I haven't addressed before in our Torah reading, about Noah and the Flood. I've mainly covered the flood itself, its aftermath, and the final story of the Torah portion, about the Tower of Babel. But this year, I wanted to take a few minutes and talk about the man himself - the Ark-builder, the patriarch, the wine-enthusiast, the animal-lover, and perhaps the last worthy person on earth, pre-Flood - Noah. Noah was truly a righteous guy, blameless even. And we know this because... the Torah kinda-sorta praises him for it? At least, I think it does...

The very first verse of our parashah states, "This is the line of Noah.—Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God." (Gen. 6:9)

See??? A perfect statement! Noah was righteous and he walked with The Lord. Pretty unmitigated praise, right? Soooo, why does the text then need to add "blameless in his generation"? A website where I frequently read the Torah portion AND find good rabbinic commentary is www.sefaria.org. One neat feature of their site is that you can click on a verse in the reading, and up pops a handful of commentaries on THAT verse, from various rabbis throughout the ages. If you're lucky, you may stumble upon a verse with 20, 30, or even 40 different commentaries. I clicked on Genesis 6:9, and the page displayed 99 (!) different opinions on this one verse. So yeah, a lot of people had strong opinions on this one...

Rashi, one of the most famous commentators of all time, can explain better than I what the issue is: "Some of our Rabbis explain it to his credit: he was righteous even in his generation; it follows that had he lived in a generation of righteous people he would have been even more righteous owing to the force of good example.

Others, however, explain it to his discredit: in comparison with his own generation he was accounted righteous, but had he lived in the generation of Abraham he would have been accounted as of no importance" (cf. Sanhedrin 108a). And I find this a really intriguing philosophical question: Is it MORE commendable to be a model citizen when NO ONE ELSE is, because you're sticking to your morals and your good behavior in a place where you are all alone? Or is it more impressive to live among really phenomenal people, and have your righteousness be SO incredible, that you even stand out among other, incredibly qualified candidates??

In other words, is this like being a professional basketball player, and showing off by "schooling" a group of 12-year olds? Or is it more like being the gold medal winner at the Olympics, where you pitted your skill against the best of the best, and you STILL won?

Was Noah the one-eyed man in the land of the blind, and thus not REALLY so impressive (just by comparison), or should we be especially impressed that he remained righteous, even in a wholly corrupted world? We humans are easily swayed into following the norms and expectations of society, and going-along-to-get-along. Blend in, don't stand out. In some ways, I think maybe it doesn't matter which of the two encapsulated Noah's behavior. He STILL made an effort. And it is especially important to remember that we do not get to pick the times in which we live. Comparing our lives and our world to a different era is kind of an exercise in futility. The real question is, RIGHT NOW, at this moment, in this reality, in our current climate, can you make your voice heard and be a difference-maker? We are so, so, SO tempted to say "no." It's easier; it's less risky. "Someone else" will step up, if I don't. But what if the answer could be "yes"? Noah was only unique because he CHOSE to set himself apart. Your generation is going on at this very moment, good or bad. Are you able to stand out? Only you know the answer to that question.


CC images in this post, courtesy of:
1. Rabbi Gerber's iPhone (screen shot)
2. Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices on Wikipedia
3. offnfopt on Wikimedia Commons (Presidential Citizens Medal)
4. Eileen on Wikimedia Commons