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cellioWhen 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.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-23 12:53 am (UTC)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...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-23 03:38 am (UTC)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
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.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-23 12:28 pm (UTC)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.