Va-Yeitzei: Sometimes, a Mandrake is not a Mandrake...

You know that feeling, when you can cut the tension in the room with a knife? It could be for lots of different reasons - sadness, anger, desire, awkwardness - but somehow you’ve found yourself in a room with two, or more, people (you might be one of them) are experiencing a strong, uncomfortable emotion, usually yielding silence... and now no one knows what to do or say next. The tension creates a stifling energy that is palpable, thick, heavy. We’ve all been there (not infrequently in the context of Thanksgiving...). Part of the challenge of that moment is, almost nothing can ease that tension. If you try and change the subject, the tension will likely just follow your smooth transition, and even a conversation about the weather, the Eagles, or food risks dialing the awkward back up to 11. We see a fascinating example of this in our Torah portion, where the tension in question both comes to a sharp climax... and is actually not resolved at all. 

It begins with some mandrakes. Oh, sure, you’re thinking. Of course! Doesn’t drama seem to always begin with some mandrakes??? (*Awkward Silence*) Yeah, I didn’t really know what they were either. Basically, it’s a plant, with pretty flowers and roots that look like the human form when pulled out of the ground. For our purposes, it’s worth knowing that in the ancient world they were considered very potent herbs, either to stimulate conception and/or as an aphrodisiac. In our story, Jacob’s oldest son, Reuben, while still a boy, finds some mandrakes growing out in the field, and he brings them back to his mother, Leah. Innocent enough, right? But the underlying tension is that Leah has given Jacob six (!!) sons already, but Jacob still loves his OTHER wife, Rachel, who has not been able to conceive. Because of this, Rachel is VERY interested in those mandrakes... but Leah might be reticent to share them with her sister... who is also her rival!

When Rachel asks Leah for some of the mandrakes, the pressure instantly boils over! Leah snaps: “Was it not enough for you to take away my husband, that you would also take my son’s mandrakes?!?” (Gen. 30:15) The story moves on from this moment, obviously, but I wanted to stay in this discomfort for another minute, because I think many of us can TOTALLY relate to both Leah and Rachel in this predicament. One of them is feeling, “ENOUGH already!! You take, and take, and take!” The other might be feeling, “Sheesh. I just asked her for some flowers...” In many of our lives, we bicker, nitpick, squabble, and spar over the silliest of things: “He never puts the cap back on the tube!” “She hums incessantly!” “They always get into the dumbest arguments about the garden!” Sound familiar, right? Especially around the holiday season, this whole blog post might be hitting a nerve... or perhaps several dozen of them!

Ultimately, what I want to suggest to you all is, the squabbling is NOT easier. We tell ourselves over and over again, “It isn’t worth it.” I’m not going to zero in on the *real* issue, so we’ll just go on arguing about the dishes, the remote, or laundry. And I think this kind of tension is actually VERY damaging to the psyche over time. We learn to live with it, so it doesn’t cut as deep every time, but would it really be SO much worse to just talk about “the thing” itself? The elephant in the room? Maybe it seems like THAT conversation would be much, much worse... but is this languishing and bickering really SO much better? It’s the same amount of pain, just inflicted in tiny pricks over decades... and I’m pretty sure that would be considered a form of torture in some cultures! So my challenge to us all is, what would happen if you didn’t make it all about the mandrakes? What if you, and I, and everyone acknowledged when a mandrake isn’t really a mandrake, and we’re yelling at each other over an older grievance that was *never* resolved? And now it’s festering like an old wound. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of wrangling over silly things. It’s just a weed, people. What do you REALLY want to talk about?

CC images in this blogpost, courtesy of:
1. pixabay
2. Wikimedia Commons (via Wellcome Images)
3. pixabay
4. Durova on Wikimedia Commons 

Tol’dot: When You Get to be MY Age...

Context is very important. Sometimes it enhances our understanding, other times it broadens it, and occasionally it can even turn things completely on their head. I especially find context to be fascinating when we may be inclined to accept someone’s narrative, just because that is what they SAY (as loudly as they can possibly say it!). If we add history, community, geography, or any number of relevant facts, the picture may shift dramatically. Our parashah this week contains several well-known Biblical stories, but there are some underlying assumptions that cloud our reading of them. Let’s see what happens when we add context...

Essentially, our Torah portion focuses on Isaac, his wife, Rebecca, and their two sons, Esau and Jacob. The part we’ll be reading this weekend comes from the middle of the story, where Isaac attempts to give Esau, his favored son, a very special “innermost blessing” (Gen. 27:4) before he dies. Rebecca orchestrates a nifty plan to make sure HER favored son, Jacob, gets that blessing instead. It’s a story filled with high drama, twists and turns, and juicy intrigue. And it also holds a sense of urgency, because Isaac declares, “I am old, and I do not know how soon I will die” (v. 2). With the patriarch at death’s door, on his deathbed, with death waiting just around the corner, one son MUST get this blessing... before it’s too late!

So, here’s the funny thing about context. A quick summary of what happens next: Jacob successfully pilfers the blessing; but he has to flee for his life from his enraged sibling; he lives with his uncle for twenty years; has 13 children; then FINALLY returns home after quite the odyssey. And who is there to greet him when he returns? His father, Isaac! A full EIGHT chapters after our dramatic story, Gen. 35:27 tells us: “Jacob came to his father, Isaac, at Mamre.” And only soon after that does Isaac actually pass. Soooo, this little nugget of information kind of changes how we view our original story, where Isaac was an awful lot more spry than he let on... Maybe he was already a senior citizen, sure, but immanently dying might have been a SLIGHT exaggeration.

My point in sharing this insight with you is really to say this: Age truly is just a number. I know people in their 90s - even 100 years old! - who adjusted to life on zoom, and who let NOTHING stop them. And I know considerably younger people who, let’s face it, incessantly talk about how old, feeble, and ancient they are. Of course, life experience has a lot to do with this, as does illness, community, family, and many other factors. But the actual NUMBER of times you’ve circled the sun is just that; a digit. This story is a good reminder to us all to make the most of each day. Sometimes you feel sluggish, laden with trouble, and even depressed, and that TOO is part of life! Nevertheless, we should all strive to counterbalance those moments with joy, wonder, and experiences that challenge us to use our brains in new ways. Your story isn’t actually ever written by anyone else. You write it, every day, and you decide what those who come after will learn from your life. Happy writing!

CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:

1. needpix.com

2. pixabay

3. pixabay

4. ESO/H. Zodet on Wikimedia Commons

Chayei Sarah (repost): My Name is Not Eliezer

Around the synagogue, you'll sometimes hear me say, "Why ruin a perfectly good question... by trying to answer it." I use that a lot in my Bible class, it makes its way into sermons and discussions on Shabbat, and surprisingly, I find myself saying it in other contexts as well. So what does it mean? Well, pretty

much exactly what it sounds like. To me, questions are MUCH more interesting than answers. Questions make you think, make you wonder; they may even open your eyes to new possibilities, new avenues of consideration. Answers end discussions. They produce finality: "Ah, now I get it. Oh well. Let's move on to something else." Questions force you to stay, to grapple, to ponder. And sometimes I really don't want to lose that wonderful wrestling match, that delicious enigma, by trying to offer a simple and conclusive answer. Exhibit A: Our Torah portion this week tells a lengthy story about Abraham's servant, but NEVER gives the guy a name. In fact, it goes out of its way NOT to name him, even though he is clearly the protagonist in our story. Why? Ok, I'll tell you why. Here's the answer:

Nope! Fooled you. No answer here. Come on, people! What did I JUST finish saying?!? Now, mind you, there is no shortage of OTHER Torah commentators who will answer this question for you. They will tell you 

that his name is Eliezer, because we see elsewhere in Genesis that Abraham had a servant by that name. They will tell you that it isn't necessary, because it's assumed. Or maybe it's irrelevant. But I purposely don't want to turn to such easy, simple, straight-forward answers. Let us, for just a few moments, sit with the discomfort of simply not knowing. I feel we MUST stop and acknowledge that the text of the Torah purposely creates awkward sentences, bends over backwards, and goes out of its way to leave this servant unnamed. Why would we ruin that by simply calling him "Eliezer," or shrugging our shoulders and saying "Who cares?" I care. And, if you're still reading this, I suppose you do as well.

I imagine - though I'm not certainly not positing a conclusive answer - that the Torah text is trying to deemphasize his role in this saga. The servant is an instrument, a tool, 

a vehicle for delivering a message from God. Abraham sends him to find a wife for his son, Isaac, and God directs his path. Perhaps if we named him, we would also want to give him credit for his incredibly successful mission? And the text is trying to suggest this was all pre-ordained. Rebecca was destined to marry Isaac, she just needed to be located, be made aware of her fate, and be brought to her intended... and "Someone" made all that happen. P.s. it's God, NOT the human in the story...

But this all could have happened in many, many other ways. Why the need for an anonymous character, and why be so EMPHATIC about his anonymity? Again, I don't want to answer this question. I want us all to consider it, to ruminate on it. Are you and I 'the servant'? Should we be 

viewing ourselves as vehicles of God, working to make the world a better place on behalf of the Almighty? Is it meant to remind us of the Unseen Hand of God that permeates all our lives? Or at the very least, all the stories of the Bible? Perhaps we can read this as telling us to look for God in unexpected places, to see the Divine in the people around us, because anyone and everyone COULD be a Messenger of God. They just don't know it themselves. Maybe. Or maybe you have your own suggestion, and perhaps you can share it with me? Just remember, we aren't looking for The Answer. We aren't searching for solutions. That would ruin this perfectly wonderful question. And I know that would make our friend, the servant, "Eliezer" very unhappy.

Photos in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of Martorell on Wikimedia Commons
2. CC image courtesy of File Upload Bot (99of9) on Wikimedia Commons
3. CC image courtesy of Unipro on Wikimedia Commons
4. CC image courtesy of Dellex on Wikimedia Commons

Va-Yeira: A Message for All the Bad Guys Over There

Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? So often, our human brains insist on trying to divide up the world into these two, simple, neat categories. Who is right and who is wrong? Who is like me and who is Other? It is amazing to me how insistent we are in thinking this way... and how utterly damaging and destructive it is. Even when we don’t intend to do so, we still picture the “bad guys” as terrible, morally bankrupt, soulless, evil people, and we lump them together into a monolith. It just makes things easier, doesn’t it? We don’t have to grapple with the nuance and “messiness” of knowing that they too - whoever “they” are - have families, hopes and dreams, fears, livelihoods, and redeeming qualities. This week, the Torah reminds us of the massive flaws in our dichotomous thinking... and just in time for us to try and figure out how to pick up, and reassemble, the broken pieces of our fractured country.

Our parashah first shows us the horrific tale of Sodom and Gomorrah. Pure evil, right? Irredeemable and utterly corrupt. Abraham tries to speak up for these doomed cities, urging God to search high and low for even a handful of “good apples” to save the batch. But God cannot, and so the two cities are demolished in fire and brimstone. Ok, so maybe I was wrong then? Maybe the text actually DOES want us to identify what sinister looks like, and is indeed urging us to sweep out evil from our midst? Maybe sometimes we SHOULD think in binary terms, because some things are completely awful, and therefore some other phenomena could be totally good. Well, not so fast. 

Right after this story ends, Abraham travels to a place called Gerar, where he assumes - like with the Sodomites and Gomorrah-ganders (?) (Why don’t we have a word for them?) - that “surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife” (Gen. 20:11). But he is mistaken. The king, Avimelech, is insulted that Abraham would assume such horrid and immoral behavior. Even Abraham, who so recently tried to advocate on behalf of the Gomorrah-ites, falls back into this pattern of assuming the worst of The Other. The Torah challenges us: Don’t make these assumptions! You don’t know them, and you don’t know how they’ll behave. Maybe you saw one example of bad behavior, or even a pattern of poor decisions; do you think that encapsulates them? You wouldn’t want them to do that to you, would you?? 

This cautionary tale is so poignantly significant for this moment in our country. You may feel you have good reason to label someone else a godless heathen, an extremist, or a total Gomorrah-er. You can point to evidence, opinions, statements, and chants. Ok, but now what? Should we punish our enemies by raining down sulfurous fire on them, and blotting their name out from upon the earth? Maybe some would say “yes.” But that doesn’t really make us much better than our expectation of them, now does it? So let’s instead take a moment - or maybe we need a few weeks... - and then try to begin bridging the divide. It doesn’t require amnesia, naïveté, or an oversimplification of what’s at stake. It does, however, demand humility, compassion, and an open mind. The picture is essentially ALWAYS more complex and nuanced than we first thought. We just need to look a little closer - within and without - for the bridge-building to begin. 

CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. pxfuel.com
2. pixy.com
3. pxfuel.com
4. Sparkle on Wikimedia Commons