Category: Torah

In Parashat “Bo”(Go) Moses and Aaron continue to plead with Pharaoh to let the Israelites go free. Because Pharoah refuses, God is is co-erced into raining down the last plagues onto the Egyptians: the plague of locusts, darkness, and finally, the death of their firstborn. At midnight on the night of the last plague, Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and proclaims that each year on the evening of the 14th day of the first month a festival lasting seven days – called Pesach – will be celebrated in order to recall the Israelites liberation from Egypt. (In this year Erev Pessach falls on 03 April.) (more…)

In parashat Va’era („And I appeared“) we learn more about the relationship between God and the Jewish people and about the promise to give the Land of Israel to the people. God tells Moses that the time has come to free the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. As Moses feels that he is not the right person to represent the Jewish people, God appoints Moses bother Aaron to accompany him as the spokesperson. The two brothers appear before Pharaoh to request the freedom of the Israelites, but Pharaoh refuses to liberate them. As a consequence, “the” 10 plagues are set up upon Egypt.Our Torah portion presents us with a difficult question in this and next weeks portion: The Torah mentions twenty times the “hardening” of Pharaoh’s heart as an reaction on Moses and Aarons request to free the Israelites. The first ten have to do with the first five plagues, and in each we are told that “Pharaoh hardened his heart,” while the next ten times – in reference to the next five plagues – the text tells us that “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” (more…)

A few weeks ago, the film Exodus – Kings and Gods was launched and, in anticipation of the upcoming Torah readings about the liberation of the Israelites from slavery, I decided to watch the movie. I wanted to see how the authors of the film interpreted the biblical narrative. I was disappointed in the film in so many ways. I never expected to see a movie that was close to the bible’s narrative, and/or to Jewish interpretation, but in my opinion the film’s only goal was to devalue the Bible. The filmmakers presented a crude idea of a shizophrenic Moses who caused Israel to become insane followers of a cruel, child-murdering God.This film is not the first attempt at finding scientific explanations for the 10 plagues, and to devalue Moses’ prophecy as a kind of mental delusion. Usually, I don’t mind these attempts, as long as they respect and don’t vilify those who have a different understanding of the Torah. Unfortuantely this film has no intention of doing so. (more…)

Year 3 Genesis 49:27-50:26 (Plaut p 313; Hertz p 187)Haftarah I Kings 2:1-12 (Plaut p 323; Hertyz p 191)Jacob’s final blessing to his children and grandchildren precedes demand that he be buried in the ancestral grave in Hebron at the Machpelah. There it is his desire to be laid to rest alongside his wife Leah, his parents Isaac and Rebecca and his grandparents Abraham and Sarah. Jacob has become a resident of Egypt, and the preparation for burial occurs according to local custom as does the initial period of mourning. It is only after that, with Pharaoh’s permission, that a great journey is undertaken to bring Jacob to his final resting place in Canaan. Then a week of mourning takes place.Through the generations, Jews living in exile and dispersion have been challenged to meld and adapt custom and practice to local standards and necessities. The exceptional mourning for Jacob, the outflow from Goshen and Egypt of so vast a party for the religious observance sets a model for the loyalty and connection of the ancient Israelites to their adopted land of Egypt. How ironic that in the next chapters of the narrative that predominates in Jewish memory, it is precisely Pharaoh’s refusal to permit such a national religious observance that leads from plague to plague.The death of Joseph described in the closing verses of Genesis at a young 120 years of age brings the age of the Patriarchs and the formation of the Israelite nation to a full stop. The origin of the tribes is clear. While none of this national saga has external confirmation, these ideas have long served as the baseline of Jewish self-definition. Bound to one another by descent and experience, ancient Israelite religion is intimately bound up with the national identity. The consistent presence and acceptance of gerim—strangers—as a protected part of the whole, is important to the development of the religion of conscience, human concern and prophetic imperatives. Founded in a call for justice (Let my people go!), and realized through the power of divine presence, in modernity the response to the quest for the diving in our lives ascends and resonates.Perhaps this is quintessentially so for Joseph, the stranger-in-a-strange-land whose life becomes the model for leadership, initiative and success. It is this confluence, the multiplicity of streams the flow into Jewish identity that mark Judaism and Jewish identity through the millennia.Rabbi Robert Jacobs

Year 3 Genesis 46:28-47:27 (Plaut p 293; Hertz p 174) Haftarah Ezekiel 37:15-28 (Plaut p 302; Hertz p 178)The great re-union of Joseph and his aged father Jacob/Israel lead to a welcome for all of Bet Yisraeil—the House of Jacob/Israel—as part of the empire of Pharaoh. The first meeting of patriarch and King leads to blessing. Nonetheless, Joseph will lead the way through the years of drought that follows to an economic conquest of all Egypt and Canaan, too. Holding a virtual monopoly on the stores of grain, the centralization of power for Pharaoh occurs in course. Money, land, and rights all pass to the King and lands are pacified.Over generations, there have been many conquests of peoples in different areas of the world. Often these have been perpetrated through military force. More subtle have been the economic conquests based in human necessity and nefarious plotting. Modern schemes like those of Stalin and the USSR whose goal was a central power and elimination of private land ownership fell to incapacity and blinding corruption.The narrative of Torah serves to set the stage for the later developments that haunt the Book of Exodus: the new Pharaoh, who no longer is indebted to Joseph, is transformed to the oppressor whom God will ultimately defeat. The descendants of Jacob, who have come under Joseph’s power and authority, will suffer greatly in the process. For medieval Ashkenazic Jewry who found their way from the Rhine in the west to Poland in the east at the invitation of early Polish kings, and who served as those king’s trusted advisors and administrators, later history is filled with similar destinies and abuses.Reviewing these repeated historical patterns and the repeated negative outcomes for Jews and for the world, the classic text of Torah stands as clear calls for justice, avoidance of corruption and moral decisiveness.Rabbi Robert Jacobs

Stories have great power. We tell stories about ourselves and about our communities because they give our lives meaning, and they help us navigate between the past and the future. We use stories to help us make sense of the world and our place in it. Not far behind the seemingly innocent plots of many of the stories we tell about our community’s religious history lie profound existential truths addressing our most pressing religious concerns.What grade–school child or Jewish nationalist doesn’t love to hear or tell tales about physical acts of heroism performed by our Maccabee brothers and sisters? Competing with this story of military might is the pious narrative of the oil lasting for eight days and the rededication of our holy Temple, a deeply religious moment in our people’s history.The story of the oil lasting for eight days does relate a miracle. The question is how do we interpret the story, and where do we attach meaning. The power of the miracle that God performed was not that God provides us with oil that we would not have had otherwise. Rather, God kept a small quantity of oil miraculously aflame for eight days in order to communicate to the Jewish people that God was present in their community. The miracle of the oil was that God gave the Jewish community, the very people that had suffered so greatly in their war against the Greeks, a clear sign that God had not abandoned this holy nation.This Hanukkah story explicitly addresses our intense urgency to feel God’s presence in our lives. We all have our personal miracles and for someone else they might not have a big influence, though these memories and miracles are very special to us. Spirit of Chanukah shows us optimism and I wanted to have this opportunity to share my miracle story with you. (more…)

Genesis 39:1-40:23 (Plaut p 252; Hertz p 147. )Haftarah Amos 2:6-3:8. (Plaut p 263; Hertz p 152)The parashah tells the stories of how Jacob’s other sons sold Joseph into captivity in Egypt, of how Judah wronged his daughter-in-law Tamar and discovered his transgression, and how Joseph served Potiphar and was imprisoned when falsely accused of assaulting Potiphar’s wife.In our parashah God, Judah and Tamar all see things from their own perspective, and they see things differently. Having left his family ‘Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah; and he took her’ (Gen 38:2). Judah’s relationship with Shuah began with him seeing her. Together they had three sons: Er, Onan and Shelah. Er was married to Tamar, but as the story continues: ‘Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of Adonai; and Adonai slew him’. Tamar then married Onan, so that Er’s name would be maintained, but Onan spilt his seed as he did not want to continue his brother’s name. And once again we read that Onan ‘was wicked in thesight of Adonai, and Adonai also slew him’.Judah did not want to risk his final son, and so he sent Tamar away, saying that when Shelah was grown up she could marry him. As time went by, Tamar realised that this was unlikely to happen, and so she dressed provocatively to seduce Judah, ‘for she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given to him for his wife. When Judah saw her, he thought her to be a harlot’. Rather than pay her, Tamar (with her identity hidden) took a tribute from Judah, which she would keep until he sent payment. He sent his friend Hirah to pay her; and he went and asked the men ‘where is the harlot, who was at Einayim by the way side? And they said, There was no harlot in this place’. While there is more to the story of Judah and Tamar, one of the striking details is that it happens at a place called einayim, the Hebrew word for eyes; as if to further emphasise for us the importance of sight.The story is a reminder to open our eyes to make sure we are fully aware of the world around us. But it is also a reminder that we all see things differently and it is sometimes important to try and see something through the eyes of another. Tamar and Judah saw things differently and the misunderstanding, confusion and deception all sprang from this. The challenge for us is to truly open our einayim, our eyes. —Rabbi Adrian M Schell[Source: Burkeman: Two Minutes of Torah]

Genesis 21:1-22:24 (Plaut p.132; Hertz p.71)Haftarah Second Kings 4:1-37 (Plaut p.149; Hertz p.76)Parashat Vayera includes the well-known report of Abraham’s plea to God to save the lives of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. While the effort that Abraham is prepared to invest in order to save these two wicked cities may be considered admirable, one cannot help but notice the sharp contrast between his actions here and the way he behaves later in our parashah. As our parashah draws to a close, we read how Hagar and Ishmael are expelled without mercy; Abraham protests but obeys Sarah’s words as God instructs him. However, in the next chapter, Abraham takes his son Yitzchak to sacrifice him on Mount Moriah, responding to God’s call without protest. Where is the fighter for human rights who earlier exclaimed, “Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?” Why is Abraham prepared to set aside ethical considerations, and just obey orders? (more…)

Genesis 11:1-32 (Plaut p.69; Hertz p.38)Haftarah Noach Isaiah 54:1-55:5 (Plaut p.85; Hertz p.41)Shabbat Rosh Chodesh Isaiah 66:1-13, 23 (Plaut p. 1492; Hertz p.944)Parashat Noach tells the story of God’s decision to destroy the earth with a flood because of the corruption and wickedness found in the world. Only Noach – the only righteous man on earth – his family, and a pair of every kind of creature on earth were to survive. Noach was told to build a large boat, the Ark, sufficient in size to accommodate the family and all the creatures. After the flood, those aboard the Ark started a new life on earth all over again, and God promised to Noach that never again a flood would be sent to destroy the entire earth. A new covenant was formed between God and all human beings. To this day the rainbow is the sign for this eternal covenant. The Parashah continues with the report of the building of the Tower of Babel. The people decide to build a city, and to create a tower that would reach from earth to heaven. This, too, angered God, who destroyed the tower and scattered the people across the entire planet, each group talking a different language. (more…)