Vayeitze

[cellio]

I chanted torah Saturday morning and it went pretty well -- despite my forgetting to do my "lucky" read-through right before leaving for services. I can't believe I forgot to chant it once at home on Shabbat morning; that's the first time I've failed to do that final sanity check. So I was a little nervous, but it went ok. Made a couple mistakes, but that's what the checker is for and Bruce is a very good checker. (There is an art to delivering a correction without throwing the reader.)

When I got there someone had already rolled the scroll, but it wasn't in the right place. He got the aliya starting point from Hertz. I made a similar mistake a month or so ago, and assumed that I had somehow misread the chumash. Once I was willing to attribute to human error; twice makes me suspicious. So far Eitz Chayim, Trope Trainer, and the K'tav tikkun all seem to agree on where the aliyot begin, and the couple of times we've consulted Hertz we've gone wrong. I conclude that Hertz is using a different system, though I don't know what. I'll warn the other readers to steer clear until we find out what's going on.

We're reading the third aliya this year. This is the part of Vayeitze where Lavan tricks Yaakov into marrying Leah instead of Rachel, and then gets an extra seven years of work out of him for Rachel as well. Lavan cheated Yaakov -- that's the way we usually talk about this. But really, Lavan damaged more people than just Yaakov. For one, he damaged Rachel, who ended up being relegated to a secondary position while competing with her sister for the rest of her life. But the greatest damage, I think, is the wrong Lavan did to Leah.

Think about the message he sent her: you cannot succeed on your own; the only way you'll get married is to be deceptive. What a horrible thing for a parent to say to a child -- that the child is some sort of loser. And Leah obviously agreed with the assessment, because she went along with the deception.

But Lavan wasn't doing her any favors. She, too, ended up in a lifetime of competition with her sister. After each child she had she said "maybe now Yaakov will love me"; this clearly was not a happy marriage for her. So by violating the marriage contract, Lavan condemned Leah to an unhappy life.

Lavan had an obligation to help his daughter, and presumably he thought he was doing that. But as we see, his method of helping wasn't correct.

We all have the obligation to help those around us who are less fortunate -- in our families, in our local communities, and in the world at large. This is what tikkun olam is all about. But as we learn from Lavan, methods matter at least as much as intentions.

It's sometimes tempting to compensate for a deficiency rather than addressing it directly. Instead of dealing with the issues that made Leah unattractive as a wife, Lavan duped someone into marrying her. Sometimes we find it easier to give a financial hand-out than to train someone for a job with which to earn a living. When we have a slow learner, sometimes we lower the standards to let the student pass through anyway. We can all think of other examples, I'm sure.

The desire to help, while of course commendable, isn't enough. We also need to find ways of helping that lift people up with dignity instead of destroying their self-esteem and keeping them down.

Comments

[goljerp]

When I got there someone had already rolled the scroll, but it wasn't in the right place. He got the aliya starting point from Hertz.[...] So far Eitz Chayim, Trope Trainer, and the K'tav tikkun all seem to agree on where the aliyot begin, and the couple of times we've consulted Hertz we've gone wrong. I conclude that Hertz is using a different system, though I don't know what.

I've never rolled the Torah by myself; the times when I've been with people who haven't been able to eyeball the scroll and know where they are, they've tended to do things like take a Tikkun and say, "OK, we're starting 15 columns after the beginning of Vayikra" and then roll from there. Having said that, I was under the impression that the "normal" (i.e. non-triennial) aliyot breaks[1] are pretty standardized, at least among Ashkenazim and Sephardim (Hertz cites both; I think Eitz Chayim gives just Ashkenazic aliyot). Even the A/S differences are uncommon, I think.

That's a very good drash... I'm D'var Torah coordinator for my Minyan now... wanna give a talk when we meet in February or March? :-)

[1] The Triennial cycle is actually older than the cycle which I called "normal" above, but fell out of use for a while. Although, actually, it's complicated. I could get into the details, but I think it's sufficient to say that at the present time, the Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Reform movements all have congregations which read a third of the parsha every week, and a different third every year. However, I know that the Reconstructionist and the Conservative "official" divisions are different; I suspect the Reform movement's "official" division may be different from both of those.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

The original triennial cycle was different than it is today in reform, conservative, and reconstructionist synagogues. It used to take 3 years (give or take...seriously) to read the torah. But it was read straight through. Not the first third of each parsha one year, second third the second year and so on.

[goljerp]

Yes, exactly. It doesn't seem as complicated the way you put it :-)

I don't think I'd like it if there was Simchat Torah only once every three years...

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

My understanding (based on my rabbi's shiur on ST) is that Simchas Torah was still celebrated every year.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Simchas Torah was a late, diaspora holiday. It came into being long after the triennial cycle (in Eretz Yisrael) fell out of use.

[cellio]

I've never rolled the Torah by myself; the times when I've been with people who haven't been able to eyeball the scroll and know where they are, they've tended to do things like take a Tikkun and say, "OK, we're starting 15 columns after the beginning of Vayikra" and then roll from there.

I navigate by whitespace (so portions that begin in the middle of a long paragraph, like this one, are annoying). So in this case I found the "closed" paragraph beginning "vayeitze" and then muddled through the long paragraph; if the portion is close to a paragraph break this works easier, and of course this is a real challenge in the book of Vayikra because most paragraphs begin 'vaydaber [God] et Moshe leimor" and you have ro read farther.

One day perhaps I will be literate and all of this will be easier. :-) (Bruce is closer than I am. Much closer.)

Having said that, I was under the impression that the "normal" (i.e. non-triennial) aliyot breaks[1] are pretty standardized, at least among Ashkenazim and Sephardim

I had thought so. I don't own a Hertz to check, and I didn't look to see what had happened this time.

That's a very good drash...

Thanks.

I'm D'var Torah coordinator for my Minyan now... wanna give a talk when we meet in February or March? :-)

I don't know; how does your minyan feel about speaker-phones on Shabbat? :-) (And, err, actually, I write better than I speak...)

I suspect the Reform movement's "official" division may be different from both of those.

So far as I know the Reform movement follows the same parsha and aliya divisions as everyone else. The difference is that we sometimes abridge, not reading the entire parsha. Our congregation used to do a selected reading; two years ago we decided to be more systematic and read one set aliya from the portion each year. So we did first that year, then second last year, and now we're doing third. We have a seven-year cycle. I don't know any other congregations that do this, though that doesn't mean they aren't out there. It would be better to read the entire portion, but given that we're not going to, I prefer this to either of the other two options (choosing, which means you always skip the less-desirable parts, or not being on the same parsha as everyone else).

[goljerp]

I don't know; how does your minyan feel about speaker-phones on Shabbat?

We love speaker phones, whether it's Shabbat or otherwise. Giving a d'var torah via speaker phone, however, won't fly.

So far as I know the Reform movement follows the same parsha and aliya divisions as everyone else.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. What I meant was this: if you're doing a triennial cycle, Reform as well as Reconstructionist and Conservative would be reading from the same parsha. And the divisions of the parsha into seven aliyot is pretty standard, too (less the occasional Ashkenasic/Sephardic difference of opinion). But how do you divide 7 "traditional" aliyot into 21 "triennial" aliyot? Especially since there are rules (which Reconstructionist and Reform may feel less strongly about following) about the minimum number of verses allowable in an aliya, and about how an aliya can end (not on a down note). That's where I was thinking the Reform movement's "official" division may differ from the other movements. As far as your septenial reading, I think that I'd have to agree... but doesn't it mean that on some years the Torah reading is really rather short? I mean, some of the "normal" aliyot are pretty short; I don't see how you can divide that into sevenths. Or maybe you do fewer than 7 aliyot, but I can just imagine how well that goes over at bar/batmizvahs...

[cellio]

We love speaker phones, whether it's Shabbat or otherwise. Giving a d'var torah via speaker phone, however, won't fly.

Yeah, that's what I figured. Well, one of these days I'll get to NYC and visit you! For that matter, one of these days I have to get to NYC to visit mamadeb and jonbaker too. And to Silver Spring to visit a bunch of people, and... (Silver Spring, at least, is drivable; NYC is too far for me alone. But even so, it's not like I've been to Silver Spring lately either. I am, apparently, a lazy slug. :-) )

But how do you divide 7 "traditional" aliyot into 21 "triennial" aliyot?

Oh, ok -- I see what you were saying now. Yes, that would be a problem.

That's where I was thinking the Reform movement's "official" division may differ from the other movements.

Reform doesn't have an "official" division so far as I know. Some congregations read the whole parsha on an annual cycle; some probably do trienial (though I don't know any off hand). We now do septenial. Some just choose an exerpt. There is no standard.

As for dividing up the single-aliya portion, at the regular (non-bar-mitzvah) morning service we have one aliya, not seven. For shorter portions at bar-mitzvah services, I guess they must extend the reading; I haven't seen it come up (I rarely go to that service) and I never thought to ask. I do know that our rabbi is adamant about the three-verse minimum.

[goljerp]

Reform doesn't have an "official" division so far as I know.
I don't know how official the division actually is in any movement, thus the quotes. I know there's a listing of a triennial cycle in the latest Reconstructionist siddur; I don't know how widely it's actually used. As far as the Conservative movement goes, someone at JTS once produced a large list of the triennial readings, and I've seen photocopies of this list in different hands over the years. I don't know how universally that's followed, either.

Making a triennial schedule gets hairy if one considers what to do with all the 'double parshas' dropped in the schedule. This year we don't have any, but that's the exception rather than the rule.