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The Jewish Girl Who Saved Her Children

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intermarriageSome of my friends began dating non-Jews. I stopped socializing with them in silent protest, after a more outspoken effort had failed. I self-righteously concluded that we had nothing in common, since they were prepared to give their Jewish identity the backseat. I was sitting firmly in the driver’s seat with mine, so much so that I became the leader of a Zionist youth movement, and started to mix with an idealistic new crowd.

In Ethics of Our Fathers, Rabbi Hillel warns us that we should be careful not to judge another person until we have stood in their place. And I was going places…

I don’t remember making conversation, but apparently I must have mumbled something, since the next morning the host of the party told me that Mr. Attractive had inquired after me. As I was catching my breath, she casually mentioned, “Oh, I told him you don’t date non-Jews, and he’s fine with that. He just wants to meet you. He really liked you.”

This was a delicate situation, to say the least. Here I was, being pursued by a bona fide heartthrob with absolutely no strings attached. He was an advertising executive. Flutter. He had a motorbike. Swoon. And, if that wasn’t enough for my ego, he was a commercial pilot.

Help!

-Jennifer Cooper
“My Non-Jewish Boyfriend”
Aish.com

You’ll never realize how many blog posts I don’t write just because I don’t have time. I’ll read something or hear a snippet of conversation, and my mind pursues it and I begin to internally construct a short essay on the topic between 1500 and 3000 words. I never mean to write as much as I do, which includes this story about the girl who would never intermarry. It just happens.

In Christianity, this is yet another thing about Judaism that simply doesn’t register with us. What’s the big deal exactly? OK, among many Christians, there’s the idea that it’s not a good thing to be “unequally yoked” and I suppose the equivalent quandary would involve a young Christian woman dating a handsome, talented, and very romantic atheist guy. Look out. Danger up ahead.

But there’s something more operating here. There’s a lot more operating here.

I’ve written many times before about intermarriage and part of this blog’s mission is to address the challenges and dynamics of Christians and Jews being married. You can see the angst and the ecstasy expressed in missives such as Opting Out of Yiddishkeit and Cherishing Her Yiddisher Neshamah. If my wife had been observant when we met or even if she had been raised in a secular Jewish home, we might never have gotten married since I am a goy (we were both atheists when we met and her parents were also intermarried).

I’ve been spending some blog time lately struggling to define why it’s important for believing Jews to continue to live as halalaic Jews. If Jesus saves, what difference does it make if a Jewish person lives a Jewish life or not?

Plenty, as Cooper’s story reminds me.

The next day I found myself in the car with my father. We parked in the driveway. There we sat for a good few minutes, lost in our separate worlds. I, in my bubble of optimistic self-gratification, and my father – mourning the potential loss of future generations. Finally, I broke the heavy silence.

“Dad, why is it so important that Jews marry Jews?”

“Because it’s important that we preserve our unique heritage.” he replied, surprised by this basic question coming from me.

I wasn’t buying it.

“Yes, but what’s so special about our heritage, I mean, why is it SO important that there be Jews in the world?” I challenged.

“Because we are supposed to be a light among the nations,” he stressed, wondering where this was going. I pressed on, going for the jugular.

“So, Dad, if our heritage is so special, and we have to be a light among the nations, and my entire future depends on it, why do I eat McDonalds, and why on earth don’t we keep Shabbat?!”

More silence. This time, it was my father that spoke. “I don’t know. I guess I never thought that far,” he admitted, somewhat ashamed.

For the first time ever, I had stumped my brilliant lawyer father. But he still had one last trick up his sleeve.

broken-marriageI’ve heard it said you can’t choose who you fall in love with, but Jennifer had a problem. Without intending to, she had fallen in love with a non-Jew and all of her determination to never “marry out” was fast evaporating. Her parents were culturally but not religiously Jewish, but you can’t dismiss the importance of Jewish identity based on lack of religious observance. Something deeper was in operation here and it was enough to turn Jennifer and her father into emotional pretzels, turned and twisted and trying to straighten out again.

My heart was heavy with respect for my parents and the desire to please them. I felt the weight of my Jewish identity on my fragile shoulders. What exactly was I trying to preserve and protect? After all, I was not religious. Why had it been so fundamentally clear to me that I would marry a Jew? And what had happened to that clarity?

I had been taking my Jewishness for granted. Jewish day school, Jewish friends, a traditional Jewish home. There had been no challenge, no threat, no temptation. No chance to think or look outside the box. But now my exclusive Jewish education and traditional upbringing was on trial. Was it enough to save me?

I took the witness stand. For the first time in my life, I consciously thought about, and decided, who I was, what I wanted to be, and what was truly important. I was first and foremost a Jew. My heritage mattered. I wanted it to continue to be a part of my life. And it was vitally important that my future husband feel the same.

The Verdict: A strong Jewish identity saves Jews.

It wasn’t so difficult after that. A short, tense phone call ended what would have been the mistake of a lifetime. I never saw or spoke to him again, although I cried for days. I don’t really know why, but I think it had something to do with my soul.

There’s something more to being Jewish than just a string of DNA or whether or not you eat McRibs at McDonalds. It’s not just the cultural aspects of Judaism because films like My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) have shown us that cultural differences can be bridged (Nia Vardalos wrote and starred in the film and in real life, she is a Greek woman married to a non-Greek man…Ian Gomez, who plays “Mike” in the film).

No, there’s more than just genetics, religion, and culture going on with Jennifer and with Jewish people in general, but you have to go back to Abraham, Issac, and Jacob to find it. You have to go back to Moses and Sinai to find it. You have to look into a pillar of cloud by day and a column of flame by night and deep inside you’ll see the God who molded, formed, fashioned, and defined the Jewish people to be a unique and special people before Him for all time.

And every intermarriage, particularly where the intermarried Jew does not maintain their identity and pass that identity along to the next generation removes not just one more Jew from eternity, but that Jew and all of his or her descendents. Yes, if Jennifer had married her handsome, charming goyishe suitor, her children would have been halachically Jewish, but how would they have been raised and how strongly would they cherish their own Jewish identity?

Memories and regrets are part of what it is to being human, and if I had it all to do over again, I would still have married my wife and had our children, but I would have fought tooth and nail to instill a strong Jewish identity in all of them.

But that ship has sailed and here I am standing at the dock watching it slip over the horizon and into the distance and darkness beyond.

We want our children to care about the meaning of being Jewish. We need to nurture their Jewish identity to the point that it becomes innate. Our homes are where we nurture, and where our children learn to care. Our homes are where we show our children what it is important to care about.

A lot of people feel that they need to make a great sacrifice to live out their Jewishness. It is an even greater sacrifice not to. We can’t be complacent for lack of funding, knowledge, the right address or social circle. The good news is, caring is not a sacrifice. It’s fun, and it’s far-reaching.

How do we put a little Yiddishkeit into our homes? If you ask anyone that grew up with it, they will tell you the same thing: it’s the simple rituals that have the greatest impact. Lighting Shabbat candles, decorating a sukkah or eating matzah on Passover, putting up mezuzahs on every doorway, laying some Jewish books proudly out on the coffee table, saying Shema Yisrael with our children, hanging out an Israeli flag on Israel’s Independence Day. These are the definitive moments that can carve a caring Jew out of the stoniest backdrop of threatened assimilation.

Our Torah and Jewish calendar are filled with a veritable treasure trove of tradition and meaningful ritual, enabling us to live uniquely enhanced lives filled with memorable moments of celebration and wisdom, all with that inimitable Jewish flavor.

These are the moments that kept me in the fold. They can impact you and your children, too.

jewish-t-shirtI can’t change the past, but I can tell you that I will not be responsible for separating even one more Jewish person from his or her God-given identity. I can’t change the past but I can learn from it, and more than that, I can teach from it. I can pass my knowledge on to whoever cares to read these words and explain that this is why it is not only important but absolutely vital that Jews who are Messianic must establish and maintain a strong Jewish identity, must observe the mitzvot, must walk in the footsteps of their Fathers and actively live out the wisdom of their sages.

I can’t tell you the right and wrong of every single mitzvot and the amazingly intricate details of each little item of halachah within each of the Judaisms in our world today, but I can tell you that without them, without all of the behaviors and the activities that define a person as a Jew, not only are the Jewish people in danger of disappearing from the face of the earth (although I believe God would never allow this), but that Jews who come to Jesus will vanish into the mass of Gentile Christians in the church, never to be seen or heard from again. Only God will know that Jews ever stood among the disciples of the Jewish Messiah in these latter days of history.

But it all starts with one Jewish person who realizes that his or her identity as a Jew is more important than almost anything because that identity comes directly from God. And we in the church must also learn to cherish Jewish uniqueness, to support it, to uphold it, to esteem it, for our Master said that “salvation comes from the Jews.” (John 4:22)

The story Jennifer Cooper relates occurred almost twenty years ago, but the heartbreaking actions of one young Jewish girl saved not only her, but her children, and future generations of children who would not otherwise be Jewish or value who God made them all to be. The Good Shepherd will come and seek out all of his sheep…those of the Gentile pen, but also those who know his voice from the sheep of Israel. God forbid that when he returns, he discovers that none of them survived.

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Silent Faith at the Sea

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exodus-reed-seaWhen the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his courtiers had a change of heart about the people and said, “What is this we have done, releasing Israel from our service?” He ordered his chariot and took his men with him; he took six hundred of his picked chariots, and the rest of the chariots of Egypt, with officers in all of them. The Lord stiffened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he gave chase to the Israelites. As the Israelites were departing defiantly, boldly, the Egyptians gave chase to them, and all the chariot horses of Pharaoh, his horsemen, and his warriors overtook them encamped by the sea, near Pi-hahiroth, before Baal-zephon.

As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites caught sight of the Egyptians advancing upon them. Greatly frightened, the Israelites cried out to the Lord. And they said to Moses, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’?” But Moses said to the people, “Have no fear! Stand by, and witness the deliverance which the Lord will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again. The Lord will battle for you; you hold your peace!”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward.

Then Moses caused Israel to set out from the Sea of Reeds. They went on into the wilderness of Shur; they traveled three days in the wilderness and found no water. They came to Marah, but they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; that is why it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses…

–Exodus 14:5-15; 15:22-24 (JPS Tanakh)

The miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea is the culmination of the Exodus. One week after the calamitous plague of the First Born, once again Pharaoh is chasing after the Jews to enslave them. As he advances, the Jews are trapped between the sea and the advancing Egyptian army.

Groups of Jews suggest a variety of responses to the impending disaster. God tells Moses to cease praying and travel toward the sea. In a heroic act of faith, Nachshon, prince of the tribe of Judah, throws himself into the sea, and it splits. (Talmud – Sotah 37a)

-Rabbi Dave Rudman
“Chumash Themes #11: Splitting of the Sea”
Commentary on Torah Portion Beshalach
Aish.com

One of the arguments I sometimes hear (though fortunately, not lately) about how Christians are ultimately superior to the ancient Israelites, has to do with faith. Basically, I’ve heard that Christians have an abundance of faith in God through Jesus Christ and the Israelites had none. The “proof” of the latter has to do with the continual grumbling of the Israelites (as I’ve tried to illustrate above) and how it seems to be a characteristic of them for the next forty years. That first generation out of Egypt never seems to get it right. It appears amazing after all, since they witnessed miracles of God that would stagger the senses. They saw the plagues against Egypt. They saw the parting of the Reed Sea. The entire population of Israel directly encountered God at Sinai and received the Torah “as one man.”

How could they not know that God is was with them?

The response to that question is much bigger than I’m able to answer, particularly in a blogging format, but through metaphor, midrash, and a little Chasidic mysticism, I want to use a tiny bit of the Exodus narrative to tell a story about us…about you and me…about people of faith.

When the Jewish people left Egypt, they were the spiritual equivalent of children. Their active participation in the Ten Plagues and the Exodus was negligible. The plagues were accomplished in a completely miraculous way through the agency of Moses and Aaron. The Exodus itself was predicated on the covenant that God promised Abraham to redeem his descendants from slavery. (Genesis 15:13-14)

Therefore, the Jewish people needed to mature and interact with God on their own.

-Rabbi Rudman

And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”

–Mark 4:13-20 (ESV)

sower-seedThe full “Parable of the Sower” can be found in Mark 4:1-20 and I find it an interesting parallel to what Rabbi Rudman said about the Children of Israel being “spiritual children” at the point when they’re leaving Egypt. They were a people but not yet a nation. Their bodies had been freed from slavery but not their minds and hearts. They moved forward with joy but were terrified at every setback.

Here’s another way of looking at the choices we make as cited in a more “mystic” source:

A king had lost a costly pearl. He sent his three sons to look for it. The first son was of the opinion that his father did not need him anymore, and he did not return to him. The second son did not think about the pearl at all, he only wanted to be back home with his father. The third son understood that he had been sent out for this purpose: to become completely independent. So he searched for the pearl and found it and brought it to his father.

It is very much like that with humanity. One person is deeply involved in this world. For him it would have been better if he had never been born. Another strives his whole life to get back home to his Source, to his Father; but he is thereby thinking only about himself. Still other men seek after and find the precious pearl. They return the holy sparks of God which have been scattered in the world back to their original Source again. Such men are the true redeemers of mankind.

–Paul Philip Levertoff
“Repentance and Redemption”
Religious Ideas of the Chasidim
Chapter 1, Sections 12 and 13
as quoted from Messiah Journal, Issue 112 (Fall 2013/5773), pp 79-80

Now how does all that compare to us?

young-levertoffYou may have been a Christian for so long that you’ve forgotten what it was like to be a brand new believer. You may have initially come to faith as a child within the context of a Christian family, so you may never have encountered God without the support of a church and loved ones, just you and Him alone and unfiltered. Taking the Master’s parable as a model, and given all that I’ve just said, you may have never faced nurturing a new and fragile faith that just about anything could blow away if you let it…like when the Adversary comes to take the word back out of your heart, or when you don’t allow the word to take root, or when you let the problems and worries of the world around you distract you and choke your faith to death. The challenge of letting faith and the word grow in good soil is to protect it long enough to become strong.

I suppose that’s one of the advantages I have in coming to faith later in life, although it comes with many disadvantages as well. Faith is something I’ve had to fight for within myself and it remains a struggle, sometimes between me and God.

Therefore, the Jewish people needed to mature and interact with God on their own. This was the purpose of the second phase of the Exodus, the splitting of the sea. In order to bring the Jews to this degree of independence, God directs them on a specific journey…

-Rabbi Rudman

I frequently refer to a life of faith as a journey taken along a path and I think the metaphor serves quite well. I sometimes feel that the first generation out of Egypt were never meant to enter the Holy Land of Israel, and that the trial of slavery in Egypt was just too much for them to overcome on the journey, even though God was with them.

But what was Egypt to them and why would it have left such an indelible brand on its slaves, at least as certain “mystic” viewpoints in Judaism see it today?

Mitzrayim (Egypt) expresses constriction, limitation. The spiritual Egyptian exile is the animal soul’s restricting and concealing the G-dly soul so severely that the G-dly soul is compressed to the degree that it is diminished and obscured. “Exodus from Egypt” is the removal of the constriction and bounds; i.e. the intellect in the brain illuminates the heart, bringing about fine character traits translated into actual practice.

“Today’s Day”
Sunday, Sh’vat 4, 5703
Compiled by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Translated by Yitschak Meir Kagan
Chabad.org

They had been slaves all their lives, their parents, their grandparents, and all of their people had been slaves in Egypt for almost as long as their collective memory could recall. I sometimes feel as if they existed to prepare their children to inherit the promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

But I’ll never know, I suppose. That’s just my imagination. I’ll never know if the journey was for the sake of the children who left Egypt and the children who were the first generation of Israelites born in freedom after several hundred years of enthrallment. The journey had a purpose, but it may not have been the one that we think of when we read of the forty years of wandering.

But what about us? It would be an immense tragedy to try to apply the forty years of wandering and the ultimate death of that first generation as a metaphor of us as individual believers. It would mean that the lives of some Christians who don’t quite make it in their faith are only illustrations for the witnesses to their lives. That sounds unfair to them and maybe I’m being unfair to the first generation to leave Israel as well. I don’t know.

But I do know that the journey has a purpose, even when it doesn’t appear that such a purpose exists. Each miracle, each tragedy, each meal of manna, each harsh encounter with Moab or the Amalakites…all of that shaped and molded the journey and shaped and molded the Israelite faith in the presence and purpose of God who was among them.

It is just the same with our journey as well. In reading and re-reading the Torah cycle each year, we are witnesses to the Israelite journey and as witnesses, we can try to learn the lessons their path is teaching us about our own trip through life. As we see their struggle, it is one of human beings contending with God. Can God save them from the latest calamity or must the Israelites take matters into their own hands and return to Egypt? Can Moses and Aaron be trusted to lead the people, or should Korach and his associates take over?

As far as we’re concerned, when difficulties happen to us, who should we trust and what should we do?

Sometimes you see that things have been taken out of your hands and are following a supernatural order. At this point, just do your best at what you have to do—and stay out of G‑d’s way.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Getting Out of the Way”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

WateringThis doesn’t mean we have no responsibility to act on our own behalf or on the behalf of others as circumstances require, but on the other hand, it doesn’t mean we have license to always drive ourselves into each problem as if God doesn’t exist, either. There is a time to act and a time to let God act and have faith that, even though things seem hard or even impossible, He will prevail.

Moses said to the people, “Do not fear. Stand still, and see the salvation of G-d that He will show you today: for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall never see them again. G-d will fight for you, and you shall be silent.”

–Exodus 14:13-14

Talmud Yerushalmi – Ta’anit 2:5 explains:

  • One group felt they could not win this battle. So rather than be captured alive, they wanted to commit suicide by casting themselves into the sea. To this, the response was “stand still.”
  • Another group of Jews desired to return to Egypt and surrender. To them, the response was, “the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall never see them again.”
  • A third group desired to go to battle. But Moses told them, “God will fight for you.”
  • For those who wanted to pray, Moses said, “Be silent.”

I told you midrash would be involved.

Listen to God and do what you are required, as best as you can comprehend, to address your life as it exists each day because it is faith in God that gives us courage to act. This helps us to mature and interact with God on our own. But remember that it is also faith and courage to “stand still” and to “be silent” and let God take care of you as well.

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Why Are We Needed?

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i-need-youThe sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Y. Schneerson, recounted the following story some 64 years ago:

Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Chabad rebbe, had a disciple who was also a great philanthropist. Two causes that were particularly dear to him were supporting the Jewish community in the Land of Israel and ransoming captives.

This wealthy chassid had already married off his children and begun pledging dowries for his less-affluent relatives, when the wheel of fortune turned, and his finances suffered.

He was forced to borrow money, and at the end he was left penniless. Overwhelmed and pursued by creditors, he did what any chassid would do: he traveled to his rebbe and unburdened his heavy heart.

After listening intently to his complaints, Rabbi Schneur Zalman addressed him: “You speak about what you need, but say nothing of what you are needed for!”

In this week’s Torah portion, the first one of the book of Exodus, we read about the beginning of the harsh Egyptian exile. But with the disease comes the cure: in the same portion we read about the birth of Moses, the man who was to lead the Jewish people out of their bondage.

One of the first things we hear about Moses is that how he helps another person. Emerging from a sheltered existence as a member of Pharaoh’s household, he sees an Israelite slave being cruelly beaten by an Egyptian, and rescues him.

There are times in our lives when it may be challenging to think about anyone other than ourselves, but the message of Rabbi Schneur Zalman to the anonymous chassid rings true: You speak about what you need, but say nothing of what you are needed for!

Often, the best response to adversity is to break out of our comfort zones and extend a helping hand to another person with love and gratitude for all the good that we have.

-Rabbi Shaul Wertheimer
“What Are You Needed For?”
Commentary on Torah Portion Shemot
Chabad.org

I’ve recently lamented about the relative significance of our lives to God and His purposes, but I suppose the above-commentary, part of which I’ve read before, provides us with something of an answer. Still, it’s difficult when we have needs, to set those aside and to consider instead what we are needed for. When it is our heart that hurts and our eyes that grow dim, how can we view ourselves as the pilgrim instead of the exile? Yet we see that in God causing Moses to rise up among his Jewish brothers, that He created Moses to become both.

Some time after that, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed their labors. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. He turned this way and that and, seeing no one about, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, he found two Hebrews fighting; so he said to the offender, “Why do you strike your fellow?” He retorted, “Who made you chief and ruler over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses was frightened, and thought: Then the matter is known! When Pharaoh learned of the matter, he sought to kill Moses; but Moses fled from Pharaoh. He arrived in the land of Midian, and sat down beside a well.

–Exodus 2:11-15 (JPS Tanakh)

I can only imagine that after having grown up in Pharoah’s court, becoming a shepherd in Midian was something of a let down for Moses, at least at first. But in my imagination, I think of Moses finally marrying, raising sons, and eventually coming to terms and to a peace with the simple life, tending to his flock in the shadow of the mountain of God.

But then, God had other plans for Moses.

“You speak about what you need, but say nothing of what you are needed for!”

-Rabbi Schneur Zalman

But Moses said to the Lord, “Please, O Lord, I have never been a man of words, either in times past or now that You have spoken to Your servant; I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” And the Lord said to him, “Who gives man speech? Who makes him dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with you as you speak and will instruct you what to say.” But he said, “Please, O Lord, make someone else Your agent.” The Lord became angry with Moses, and He said, “There is your brother Aaron the Levite. He, I know, speaks readily. Even now he is setting out to meet you, and he will be happy to see you. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth — I will be with you and with him as you speak, and tell both of you what to do — and he shall speak for you to the people. Thus he shall serve as your spokesman, with you playing the role of God to him, And take with you this rod, with which you shall perform the signs.”

–Exodus 4:10-17 (JPS Tanakh)

Most of us have never been a prince in Egypt or even a wealthy philanthropist and chassid, but I’m sure many of you reading this have been poor (or are poor) and in need and have been focused more on your own desperation than the plight of the world around you. It’s only natural that when we are confronted with our own pain, we direct all our attention to it and ask for help. It is only natural that, when presented with a task or a mission that seems well beyond our capacities, we should try to turn it down or ask that it be assigned to someone else.

But sometimes God asks the most unlikely people to do the most unusual things.

For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.

–Acts 9:19-22 (ESV)

micah6-8And what does God ask us to do?

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

–Micah 6:8 (ESV)

For kindness is Yours, O God, when You compensate each person according to his actions.

–Psalms 62:13

In our productivity-oriented society, we tend to place value on the product rather than on the process. Success is praised and failure is condemned, and we have little interest in the circumstances under which others function.

This attitude might be justified in the marketplace, since commerce lives by the bottom line. Still, our preoccupation with commerce should not influence us to think that people’s successes and failures should be the yardsticks for how we value them.

God does not judge according to outcome. God knows that people have control only over what they do, not over the results. Virtue or sin are determined not by what materializes, but by what we do and why.

Since the Torah calls on us to “walk in His ways,” to emulate God as best we can, we would do well to have a value system so that we judge people by their actions, not their results. This system should be applied to ourselves as well. We must try to do our utmost according to the best ethical and moral guidance we can obtain. When we do so, our behavior is commendable, regardless of the results of our actions.”

Today I shall…

try to be considerate of others and of myself as well, and realize that none of us is in control of the outcome of our actions, only of their nature.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Tevet 19”
Aish.com

You and I speak of our needs to God and He desires this. But He also desires that ask Him what we are needed for. The answer is the reason we are all alive today.

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Where Do We Find God?

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Torah at SinaiWhere is the Torah?

-Shabbos 89a

It seems incredulous that Satan was unaware that Moshe had received the Torah and had taken it down to earth. Tosafos answers that at that moment, Hashem caused the Satan to become confused and confounded in order to avoid the risk of having Satan interfere with the giving of the Torah.

Maharsha notes that the Gemara had earlier reported that when Moshe came to the heavens, all the celestial angels presented Moshe with various gifts, and among those who gave Moshe a tribute was Satan himself. (This interpretation is based upon the fact that Satan and the Angel of Death are one and the same. It was the Angel of Death that divulged the secret of the incense to Moshe, and that it had the power to interrupt a raging plague.) Satan, we see, clearly was aware of the events surrounding Moshe’s mission and that his coming to the heavens was specifically in order to receive the Torah and to bring it back for the Jewish people. Why, then, asks Maharsha, was Satan surprised when Moshe took the Torah back to earth?

Daf Yomi Digest
Gemara Gem
“To where did the Torah go?”
Commentary on Shabbos 89a

This is midrash and as such, it’s not a good idea to try to take it literally, but perhaps there is something we can learn here. If we indeed have an Adversary who seeks to divert us from a life of holiness and an awareness of God and if this Adversary has the ability to succeed in his task, then how is a life of holiness possible at all?

Maharsha responds that…

Satan realized that the Torah was going to be given to Moshe. However, due to its extreme holiness and spiritual nature, Satan was certain that this was valid only as long as Moshe remained in the heavens. It did not seem possible that the Torah had any purpose in being taken to earth, to be shared with men who are made up of physical elements. When Moshe took the Torah to the Jews, Satan was shocked, and he asked, “What happened to the Torah? How could it be fitting for man to have?”

The truth is, though, that the purpose of Torah is indeed for man to have.

There are certain voices in Judaism who believe the Torah is far more than a document; a scroll with words that communicate information. They see the Torah as having a life of its own, it is wisdom and it is also part of God and thus it is the embodiment of God. Interestingly enough, Christianity’s perception of “the Word” is not far from this.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Everything was made to exist through him, and nothing that was made to exist was made to exist except by him.

–John 1:1-3 (DHE Gospels)

But of course, there’s more.

The word was made flesh and dwelled in our midst. We have beheld his glory, like the glory of a father’s only son, great in kindness and truth.

–John 1:14 (DHE Gospels)

The Bible exists between two “bookends,” between two instances wherein we see God dwelling among His people. In Genesis, we see that He walked in the Garden with man and in Revelation, we see God once more among those who love Him. And in between, the Torah was brought to earth by an emissary of God and given to men, both as the Torah from Sinai and the Word made flesh in Israel.

While midrash may ponder how the Adversary could allow the Torah to be brought down from Heaven to become accessible to man, the Bible tells us that he challenged such an action in the days of the second temple.

Then the spirit carried Yeshua into the wilderness so that the satan could test him.

–Matthew 4:1 (DHE Gospels .. see Matthew 4:1-11 for more)

everlastingBut testing isn’t the same thing as stopping or preventing or defeating. As the midrash says…

The goal of the Torah is that it be studied and applied by man, in order for him to incorporate it into his unique blend of being made up of both physical and spiritual aspects.

And as told to us by John…

And from his fullness we all have received kindness upon kindness. For the Torah was given by Mosheh and the kindness and truth came through Yeshua the Mashiach. No one has ever seen God; the only son who is in the Father’s lap has made him known.

–John 1:16-18 (DHE Gospels)

God has always desired to dwell among His special creation; among humanity. He has done so before, however briefly, and He will do so again in eternity. He has sent His messengers and His emissaries to us to give us gifts of Himself, the Torah of Moses and the Mashiach, the Christ. The means to know God and to be with God are within our grasp. As the sages say, the Torah is not in Heaven. As the Apostles of the Messiah say, the Spirit of God is with us in our hearts.

Blessings to you and all who are yours, and blessed be God who so loved the whole world that he gave us His only son.

Amen.

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49 Days: Changing into a Stranger

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“When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

“Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord: ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.’”

–Acts 7:23-34 (ESV)

As I write this, it’s early Sunday afternoon and not too long ago, I got home after church services and Sunday school. The Pastor’s sermon was on Acts 7:20-43 and focused on Moses. This is part of Stephen’s defense presented to the Sanhedrin in response to (false) allegations that he spoke against Moses, the Torah, and the Temple. But Pastor Randy didn’t really present it like a legal defense. He was teaching the congregation the story of Moses and he taught it using interesting tools.

OK, for the most part, he told it using Acts and we also read from Hebrews 11:23-27 as well as Joshua 1:5-9. But he also twice referred to the Talmud. Pastor didn’t cite the specific references, but he did point out something about how Jews see Moses and the Exodus, not just how Christians see Moses. I was favorably impressed. How many Baptist Pastors refer to Talmud and the Jewish perspective regarding anything we learn in church?

I was also impressed that he took the time to explain those paintings and statues of Moses that have him wearing horns on his head as the result of a translation error, and he described Moses returning from his encounters with God on Sinai as glowing so brightly that no one could bear to look at the light. He did refer to the giving of the Torah as “delivering the scriptures” but he also called those scriptures “living words.” In referring us to Joshua 1:5-9 he re-enforced (I don’t know how many people picked up on the implications) this high view of Moses and the Torah:

No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

–Joshua 1:5-9 (ESV)

Verse 8 says, This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

A Baptist Pastor is saying that it’s a good thing for God to tell Joshua that he is to meditate on the Torah day and night, to be careful to obey what is written in it, and that doing so will bring success.

Wow.

Both the Pastor’s message and the Sunday school class based on that message focused on how Moses was denied by God entry into Israel because of his disobedience and for that to serve as a warning to us to be careful to obey God’s will for our lives.

If you recall, last Sunday I was more than a little “chatty” in Sunday school class and this past Sunday, I was much more restrained. I did directly answer one of the teacher’s questions, but other than that, I only spoke when engaged in light conversation, fulfilling my desire to listen and learn.

So far, the message I’m getting is one of humility, submissiveness to God, and love for other human beings. This message was consistently presented, even when the Sunday school teacher brought up the recent elections and even when he asked what our proper response should be if two gay people came into the church.

Like I said…wow.

People continue to be friendly. Complete strangers come up to me, introduce themselves (they apparently know who I am somehow) and tell me they’re praying for me. I was asked for my last name in Sunday school this time around (I think for attendance purposes), so now, in theory, I’ve become more “findable” if anyone decides to “Google” me. That means they can potentially find this series of “meditations,” which speaks a lot more about what goes through my head than I’ve exposed in the church community.

I know this is only my second week, but I was very aware of how “disconnected” I felt in church. Like I said, everyone is friendly and all, but I don’t actually know anyone, and they don’t know me. I’m not (yet) a part of the community. They aren’t really “friends” (let alone family) yet. I suppose that comes with time, and I haven’t had to enter into a completely new environment like this in a good, long while. After Sunday school class was over, all I had to do was leave. For me, there was no conversation, no activity, no relationship that was available that would have kept me at church five, ten, or twenty minutes longer.

I’m not sure what to do except keep going every Sunday (or most Sundays) and see what develops. For the first time, someone mentioned the kids rehearsing for the Christmas program, and I realized that a few of the Sundays coming up, I won’t be attending. I guess that’s one of the limits I’m putting on “community.”

Part of what we discussed in Sunday school (well, Charlie, the teacher, did most of the talking) was how Moses’ different experiences, particularly as a shepherd, changed him and prepared him for what he needed to do to lead the Children of Israel. Charlie asked if any of us had any experiences that were as drastic as going from a “prince” in a King’s palace to being a shepherd (I have, but I kept them to myself). He asked how the experiences God put in our lives changed us and prepared us for fulfilling our role in doing God’s will.

In remembering the lesson and looking at myself, I realize that in order to fit in and become a part of this community, I’ll have to change. I’m not sure how or into what or who, but something will need to progress within me that will be for my own good, even if I can’t see what it is right now.

May we have life in which God fulfills our hearts’ desires for good.

-Siddur

The followers of Rabbi Uri of Strelisk were all poor. When another Chassidic master visited him, he asked Rabbi Uri why he did not pray that his congregants become more prosperous.

Rabbi Uri called in a follower whose shabby clothing attested to his poverty. He said to him, “Now is a special moment of grace, and you will be granted anything your heart desires. Ask for whatever you wish.”

Without a moment’s hesitancy, the man said, “I wish to be able to say Baruch She’amar (the opening prayer of the morning service) with the same fervor as the Rabbi does.”

Rabbi Uri turned to his friend. “You see now for yourself!” he said. “They do not want riches. Why should I intercede to get them something they do not want?”

We ask God for many things, but most importantly, we should pray that He enlighten us what it is that we should pray for, lest we waste our prayers by asking for things that are not to our ultimate advantage and fail to ask for what is really essential.

Today I shall…

try to think about what it is that I really need and that is in my best interest, instead of focusing on things that may seem desirable but are really inconsequential.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Cheshvan 25”
Aish.com

This is where the “trusting God” part comes in (again). I have to trust that being here, in this church and with these people (who by and large, remain strangers to me) is the right thing to do and is what God wants me to do. I have to trust that whatever way I am to change, that I do so in God’s will and that I will change into more of who I’m supposed to be and not into a stranger to myself.

Moses was a “stranger in a strange land,” and God helped him to become more of who he needed to be, ultimately resulting in Moshe, the most humble man on all the earth, and the greatest prophet in Judaism. I am also a “stranger in a strange land.” Who am I going to be?

Torah Portion

Vayeilech and Yom Kippur: Seeking the Hidden God

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I shall hide my face from them…

–Deuteronomy 31:17

Rabbi Avraham ‘the Angel’ was the only son of Rabbi DovBer, the Maggid of Mezeritch. When Rabbi Avraham was a young child, he once came weeping to his father: He had been playing hide and seek with a friend, sobbed the child, but the friend had lost interest and had run off to some new amusement, leaving little Avraham all alone in his hiding place, waiting in vain to be searched out.

Rabbi DovBer lifted his eyes to heaven and cried: “You, too, have hidden Your face from us only because You want us to seek You. But Your children have tired of the game and have run off…”

-Rabbi Yanki Tauber
“The Cop-Out”
from the “Once Upon a Chasid” series
Commentary on Torah Portion Vayeilech
Chabad.org

This may seem a little obscure compared to my usual Torah Portion “meditation,” but bear with me. As we are deeply immersed in the days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the struggle between man and God is especially acute. While it is normal for observant Jews to seek particular closeness with Hashem at this time, I can only imagine that there’s some frustration going on, too.

I used to hate Yom Kippur. Every year, as we blew the shofar and rushed home to eat, I would secretly breathe a huge sigh of relief. It was finally over – all the misery, the moroseness, the fear – until next year. And as Passover would pass, I would start counting down to the dreaded day which was hovering just beyond the horizon.

I hated Yom Kippur because it made me feel like a fraud. I would bang away at my chest all day, enumerating all my sins, promising I was repentant. But in my heart I knew that I would return to my mean self the moment the fast was over. I didn’t believe I could ever change, that I was really worthy of life and that I would ever be able to redeem myself. So I would go through the day anxious for it to be over, hating myself for being such a big, fat fraud.

-Elaina Cline
“Why I Hated Yom Kippur”
Aish.com

I know exactly how she feels. This isn’t something most people admit to, but there’s this horrible fear that when I repent of something, it will come back to haunt me in the not-so-near or even the near future. When repentance is linked to a specific date on the calendar and for a month or more, you’ve been building up to an august, awesome, humbling, and overwhelming encounter with God, there’s this little voice in the back of your head (OK, in the back of my head) that says, “The balloon is going to pop as soon as the Yom Kippur fast is over, and you’re going to go back to business as usual.”

Yuk. What a horrible thought. What a depressing feeling.

Although this wasn’t the same matter that Moses was facing at the end of his life as recorded in this week’s Torah reading, I can see how he’d be just as depressed and even frustrated with God.

When Moses had put down in writing the words of this Teaching to the very end, Moses charged the Levites who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, saying: Take this book of Teaching and place it beside the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, and let it remain there as a witness against you. Well I know how defiant and stiffnecked you are: even now, while I am still alive in your midst, you have been defiant toward the Lord; how much more, then, when I am dead! Gather to me all the elders of your tribes and your officials, that I may speak all these words to them and that I may call heaven and earth to witness against them. For I know that, when I am dead, you will act wickedly and turn away from the path that I enjoined upon you, and that in time to come misfortune will befall you for having done evil in the sight of the Lord and vexed Him by your deeds. –Deuteronomy 31:24-29 (JPS Tanakh)

It wasn’t a matter of if the Children of Israel would sin and rebel against God, only when. After forty years of struggling with two generations of Israelites, of struggling with God, of struggling with his own humanity, Moses’ life ends on a down note.

Kind of like how we might end Yom Kippur on a down note. The balloon pops. The piousness wears off. We dig into the first yummy meal after the long fast, and do whatever we were doing before the High Holidays for this year entered our spiritual awareness.

Christians out there might say that they’re immune to this sort of spiritual let down because they can repent anytime they (we) want to, but frankly, so can any Jewish person. Imagine though, how you might experience yourself one way as you are preparing to “cleanse your soul” before Easter, and then what you might think, feel, and do the Monday after it’s all over. I think that’s the closest we non-Jewish Christians can come to the sort of Yom Kippur letdown Cline was talking about.

Rabbi Tauber talked about this same sort of frustration in his commentary. God withdraws from us so that we might look for Him, but when we look and look and do not find, like the child in the story, we abandon out “playmate” and seek other games. I’ve been tempted to do that on more than one occasion, particularly at the frustration of seeking but not finding my way to the New Covenant connection between Christians and God.

Cline continues her analysis of Yom Kippur and her self-analysis:

And I have seen my smallness, too. I have seen my propensity to be critical, cold and judgmental. I have seen my ability to be harsh and cruel. And I have seen the pain I have inflicted on others and myself in these states – the sadness, the depression, the hostility. I have seen my lethargy, my disconnection and my self-pity.

But this year, my darkness is juxtaposed with my light. I realize that change is actually possible. I am not doomed to isolation, meanness and small mindedness.

This Yom Kippur, I can feel the pain of not being in a state of connection and own the consequences of my choices. I can say to God, “This is not me,” and mean it. I feel repentant, not from fear – but from a genuine desire for connection, love and transcendence. Getting in touch with my higher self that yearns to be good has enabled me to sense the sadness of my past choices.

What is frustration and a sense of separation from God juxtaposed with? Not necessarily satisfaction and closeness, but the realization is that a life of faith is not as hopeless as it sometimes seems. Neither is a human life, which is fraught with mistakes, carelessness, thoughtlessness, stumbling, and disappointment. Where is the path of devotion I’m supposed to be walking on?

Remember us for life, O King Who desires life, and inscribe us in the book of life, for Your sake, O living God.

-Amidah, Ten Days of Penitence

What is the meaning of “for Your sake?” How can the extension of life to a person be for the sake of God?

We might read the verse a bit differently. “Inscribe us into the book of a life that is lived for Your sake.” In other words, we pray not only for life, but for a quality of life that is meaningful and purposeful, one that will be lived for the greater glory of God.

Some people find life boring, and it is little wonder that such people seek escape from its boredom. Some turn to intoxicating chemicals, and others to a quest for thrills and entertaining pastimes which, while not destructive, have no purpose except an escape.

But why should there be a need to escape? Why should life ever be boring? A person whose goal is to amass great wealth never tires of adding more to his already sizable fortune. If we have the kind of goal in life that allows us to add to it continually, we will never be bored.

Of course, we wish to be inscribed in the book of life, but it should be a life that we wish to be in rather than one that we seek to escape from.

Today I shall…

try to enrich my life by living it according to the Divine will, bringing greater glory to His Name – and therefore greater meaning to my life.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each DAy, Tishrei 4”
Aish.com

Getting sick and tired and frustrated with God and toddling off to play with other toys is the same as trying to escape from our own lives. Our lives are lived, whether we choose to be aware of it or not, for the sake of God. He created us. He fashioned us in the “hidden places” of our mothers’ wombs. He molded us to fit the purpose of our lives. We will truly never discover who we are and what we’re doing here until we live our lives for the sake of our Creator.

Standing before GodYom Kippur isn’t just about repenting of sin and being inscribed in the Book of Life for another year. It’s about living a life that is realized in the existence of God. The day when we permanently stop seeking God’s hidden face, we stop seeking ourselves and we completely lose our way. Our true purpose becomes an unattainable goal, and frustration and futility become our constant companions.

When Moses died, the bitterness of knowing that the Children of Israel would reject the God of Sinai was balanced by the very Presence of God in his life and after his life. If the Jewish people failed, they also succeeded and even today, are with us in the world, continuing to point us to the path of devotion, particularly though Israel’s “first-born son,” Jesus Christ.

In frustration and even despair, we still can choose to fly with broken wings. Even bearing the weight of the chains of a thousand sins, by continuing to seek God and His purpose for our lives, we can soar with eagles.

Giving glory to the Name of God gives us the power to overcome and to stay the course. He is the path and He is our companion. Walk with Him. Take flight with Him. Even laugh with God on Yom Kippur.

One of my favorite stories is of the house painter who deeply regretted stealing from his clients by diluting the paint, but charging full price. He poured out his heart on Yom Kippur hoping for Divine direction. A booming voice comes from Heaven and decrees, “Repaint, repaint … and thin no more!” Yom Kippur begins Tuesday evening, September 25th.

–Rabbi Kalman Packouz

Good Shabbos.