Monica

We're into the book of Bamidbar now, which means plenty of stories about kvetching. This week's topic: the food. The Israelites are in the desert on their way to the promised land (they haven't yet been condemned to spend 40 years on this; it's just down the road), and God is sustaining them with manna that they merely have to pick up off of the ground and eat. One rabbinic tradition is that it tasted like whatever the eater wanted it to taste like. But the people complain, saying that the food they had back in Egypt was much better.

Seriously? You have got to be kidding me. They were slaves, ill-treated by their masters. I'm guessing that a day on which they got food at all was already a pretty good day, culinarily speaking. The regular deliveries of manna had to be better than that.

The people were upset -- probably not actually about the food, which might have just been a handy target. Being upset isn't a problem on its own; it's natural. But in expressing their upset they distorted history to make their point. We do this all the time, it seems; when we tell the tales the significant events in our lives were wonderful or terrible but rarely anything in between. Ask people of a certain generation and they will tell you that back in their day they walked to school 20 miles, in the snow, uphill -- both ways. Or sometimes it works in the other direction: the guy who had this job before you was wonderfully competent, unfailingly friendly, always on time -- nothing like you. Of course it's not true, but we do it anyway, just like the Israelites remembering an Egypt they never experienced.

Why do we do this? Ben Franklin famously said that there are only two certainties in life, death and taxes. With all due respect to Mr. Franklin I think there's a third: change. Change is scary; it might be better or it might be worse, and is the chance at "better" worth the risk of "worse"? So we tell ourselves stories to convince ourselves to avoid the risk. Egypt was terrible but predictable; this new, powerful God who drowns armies, forms a pillar of fire, and makes food appear on the ground represents a big and frightening change. But the problem is that change is inevitable; we might be able to resist any particular change, but we won't resist all of them.

By definition, change means we're going to have different experiences. There are times when we need to resist it and times when we need to be open to it. We are best-equipped to do either if we are honest with ourselves about what came before, rather than painting an exaggerated picture.

[I then tied this into some upcoming changes in our congregation that had been discussed in the annual meeting the previous night.]

The book of Vayikra (Leviticus) is mostly concerned with the operation of the priestly and levitical system. One of the main functions of that system is to offer korbanot ("sacrifices", though that's not really a good translation). It can be pretty hard for me to connect with most of this book.

I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) that the first korban that Israel is commanded in is the Pesach lamb. (Tha patriarchs, and others, offered sacrifices before that, but I think this was the first commanded one.) The korban and its public after-effects, the blood on the doorposts, were necessary to get us out of Egypt. They were essentially private offerings (one per family). After this the priestly system took over, with the priests acting as agents for Israel.

Today we don't offer korbanot; we offer prayer instead. Since prayer replaced korbanot, can we take any lessons from the text about korbanot and apply them to prayer?

The big thing I notice is that the korban was a joint activity: the individual brought the animal (or grain or fruit) and the priest provided the ritual. Both are needed: without the individuals the priests have nothing to do, and without the priests the individuals can't do much. It's like this with prayer too: we have leaders who act as facilitators, but we are each individually responsible for doing our parts. The person on the bimah can lead us in the right words, but we have to bring our intentionality. Either one by itself isn't enough. Our tradition does support individual prayer, just as Israel was individually commanded in the Pesach korban, but in neither case can we act only individually. It's not enough to stay home and be spiritual; we also have to come together and support each other.

[Approximation of the mini-d'var for tonight's minyan, mentally assembled on the drive home from work.]

On Shabbat mornings, in addition to the service, we have torah study. Rather than trying to cover the weekly portion (badly) in too little time, this group started with the first letter of the first book (B'reishit) 20 years ago (and a few months), and every week we pick up where we left off. Sometimes we spend weeks (occasionally months) on a passage before continuing. The beauty of this format is that we can stop and explore things when we want to.

Yesterday we finished, and had a big party (called a siyyum). We also started right back in at the end, because you're never really done. :-) I can tell that my rabbi is really pleased by the progress the group has made, and we got congratulatory letters from assorted important people, including Rabbi Eric Yoffie (head of the URJ). (Yeah, yeah, someone must have solicited those letters else how would the like of Rabbi Yoffie even know, but still... nice.)

Our newest rabbi coordinated the festivities, and he asked five congregants (one per book) to speak. I was the first one he asked, so when he said "pick your favorite book" I actually could, though the decision wasn't immediately obvious. (One favorite?) His instruction was: five minutes, talk about something in the book that speaks to me, involve specific text, and leave them with a question to discuss at the individual tables. Here's what I said:

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I had to be at work early today, so no morning minyan, so no daf bit. Instead, have a short d'var torah I gave tonight. (I got a call a few hours in advance, so I basically worked this out during the drive home.)

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This is (approximately) the d'var torah I gave on yesterday's portion:

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I was asked to lead the evening minyan on Thursday, where it's traditional to give a brief d'var torah. I knew that most of the attendees would be members of the executive committee, which I didn't consciously take into account, but it clearly shaped my thinking somewhat. Here's approximately what I said:

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The sixth aliya of yesterday's portion is particularly poignant and the trope helps amplify it, so before reading I gave an overview to help people listen for it. I said approximately:

In this week's parsha Yitzchak, now old and blind, blesses his sons before his death. In the fifth aliyah Yaakov tricks his father into thinking he's Esav; Yitzchak is initially doubtful but then accepts the deception. (Rashi says one of the reasons he doubted is that "Esav" was too polite.) The aliyah I'm about to read begins with Yitzchak's blessing of Yaakov. After this Yaakov will leave and, in the very same verse, Esav will come in for his blessing. When Yitzchak hears Esav he trembles, saying "then who was that?", and when they realize what has happened Esav begs his father -- "barcheini gam ani, avi", "bless me too, father". You can hear the desperation in the trope. Yitzchak responds that Yaakov took his blessing, and not only that, but listen to what I gave him. Esav begs his father again, asking "have you only one blesing?", and repeats his plea, "barcheini gam ani avi".

D'var torah:

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I read torah (and thus gave a short d'var) the Shabbat before last, but I didn't get a chance to post this before leaving town. So, here it is a little late and a little less polished than when I gave it.

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The person who was supposed to read torah this week got sick, so earlier this week the chair of the worship committee asked me if I could do at least some of it. I said sure. The fifth aliya begins with some difficult vocabulary (well, I thought it was difficult); after I concluded that I wouldn't be able to learn the whole thing in a few oherwise-busy days anyway, I chose a part out of the middle that looked easier.

Also for the sake of time, I decided to read rather than chant. But I was having trouble getting it to flow right and getting all the phrase boundaries in the right place. Friday night, on a whim, I looked at the trope. An hour later (!) I had it, and I chanted it this morning. Wish I'd thought of that a couple days ago; I might have learned more of the aliya. Oh well.

The d'var torah was kind of ad-hoc (those cycles had gone to preparing the torah portion). No written-out copy and no notes; I just spoke. (Yes, I did practice.) I knew it would be shorter, so I figured that would be ok. I thought my delivery was decent but could have been a lot better.

Here is roughly what I said (some phrasing improved in the writing): ( Read more... )