In Yaakov’s dream, after he sees angels going up and down that ladder, G”d appears standing over Yaakov and says:

I am Ad”nai, the G”d of Avraham your father, and G”d of Yitzchak…” (28:13 JPS)

It’s interesting to note that G”d says “Avraham, your father” in speaking to Yaakov. Yitzchak, not Avraham, is the father of Yaakov. Now, we can take the easy way out, and use the Bob Newhart subterfuge that “it was all part of a dream.” Yet, can we so easily dismiss what happens in dreams-especially in the important dreams of our Biblical ancestors? We have built entire theological understandings around this dream and Yaakov’s response to it (which was

“Akheyn yeish Ad”nai bamakon hazeh v’anokhi lo yadati – Surely G”d was in this place and I, I did not know.”)

so I do not believe we can so callously dismiss the obvious misstatement of lineage in this pasuk of holy text. So what’s going on here? We could ask the usual “what’s troubling Rashi?” but this doesn’t seem to trouble Rashi enough to even mention it. So instead, we’ll go with what’s troubling Adrian.

Let’s put on a scholarly hat for a moment. Assuming the text of the Torah as we know it has undergone several (perhaps many) redactions, how did so many editors overlook this obvious inconsistency (or why did it not trouble them?) A simple tweak to the text would have eliminated the problem.

Did these many editors simply gloss over it, or read it as the metaphorical “Avraham avinu,” the father of all of Jews?

Perhaps we can play with the vagaries of Hebrew pronouns? The text, in describing the dream, merely says that G”d was standing over him. Only by inference do we assume that the “him” is Yaakov.  However, perhaps not. Farther along in the text, it refers to “the ground upon which you are lying” thus we can clearly, in context, make the reasonable assumption that it is Yaakov that is being addressed by G”d in this dream.

If you’re a regular reader of my musings, you’ll know where I’m likely to go with this. It must have something to do with Yitzchak. Poor, traumatized, suffering from PTSD Yitzchak. Yitzchak, the man who is apparently (though not assuredly) dim enough to be fooled into giving his blessing to his younger son Yaakov, dressed in goat skins to resemble his hirsute brother.

There is a clue that perhaps this does have something to do with Yitzchak after all. Later on in the parsha, near the end, twice we read of G”d being described as “pakhad Yitzchak” the “fear of Isaac.” Though, like the other root meaning fear, yud-resh-alef, this root, pey-khet-dalet, also can mean “awe,” this root is more commonly associated with “dread” than “awe.” Dread, for me, is a step closer to the dark side than simple fear. Dread, I think, requires obvious thought process that leads to a conclusion that there is something to worry about. Fear can simply come from not knowing. Dread, I believe, is by nature anticipatory, and while it may ultimately be illogical or irrational, it stems from a belief or understanding that appears rational at the time. Fear requires no such understanding.

Yitzchak had every good reason to dread both G”d and his father Avraham. G”d called upon Avraham to sacrifice Yitzchak, and Avraham willingly complied.  Sure, in the end, G”d comes riding in on the white stallion to rescue Yitzchak – nevertheless, were I Yitzchak, I’d probably continue to have issues with G”d, perhaps in a Yonah sort of way, as in “why did you put me through this painful charade if you knew in the end the outcome would be merciful?”

Now, if you look ahead to next week’s parsha, you find a spoiler to my entire thesis. Early in the parsha, Yaakov call’s upon G”d:

“O G”d of my father Abraham and my father Isaac….” (Gen. 32:10 JPS)

So perhaps what we hear in Yaakov’s dream is just idiomatic speech after all. It still leaves us wondering, however, why, in the dream, it doesn’t also say “and my father Isaac.” No matter how you slice it, there’s an oddity here. Was G”d misspoken or misquoted?  Did some text get accidentally left out? Is this the text’s subtle way of reminding us that it was all just a dream, by leaving some sign that all was not as it should be? That’s a pretty standard literary device. Is this why, even after this seminal moment, this epiphany for Yaakov, that he still will only admit a conditional acceptance of G”d (see me home safely, and you will be my G”d) ?

This was Yaakov’s dream. Only Yaakov’s subconscious could tell us why, in this dream, he speaks of Avraham as his father, and not Yitzchak. Then again, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Our understanding of G”d is inevitably bound up in the nature of our relationship with G”d. Of Yitzchak’s relationship with G”d we know little, and can only surmise. Only after Yitzchak had re-dug the wells of his father, lived the repetition with King AviMelekh of what had happened between his father Avraham and a Pharaoh, and acquired great wealth, did Yitzchak speak with G”d and build an altar to G”d (Gen 26:23.) In fact, G”d doesn’t really speak to Yitzchak much until then.

We can only guess what Yitzchak might have related to his sons Yaakov and Esav regarding the little joke that Avraham and G”d played on him. Could some of this be reflected in Yaakov’s subconscious, and play out in this dream, in which G”d does not mention his real father? Might this help explain why, even after such a dream and awakening, that Yaakov continued to only have a conditional relationship with G”d? Had Yitzchak taught him to be a little suspicious, perhaps?

Near the end of the parsha, Laban and Yitzchak settle up. In witness to their agreement, Laban calls upon the G”d of Avraham and Nahor.  In an obvious “dis” of Laban’s choice of G”d to witness this agreement between them, Yaakov

“swore by the fear (pakhad) of his father, Isaac.” (Gen 31:53 JPS)

Yaakov’s relationship with G’d may have been deepening somewhat, but not enough for him to let go of what he knew of his Father Yitzchak’s relationship with G”d. Perhaps, in next week’s parsha, when Yaakov wrestles with the “ish” one of the gremlins he is wrestling with is that “pakhad Yitzchak.” Yitzchak has passed his neuroses down to his offspring. (I think they may have been passed down all the way to us.) If nothing else, our weekly encounter with Torah gives us the chance for more self-analysis. Because sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar…

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
© 2009 by Adrian A. Durlester

Seems G"d knew what G"d was talking about. G"d allowed Abraham to argue with G"d to see if Abraham could actually persuade G"d to spare S'dom and Gomorrah for the sake of the righteous who did live there. From fifty to forty-five to forty to thirty to twenty to ten , Abraham successfully argued with G"d to spare S'dom and Gomorrah its fate for the sake of the few innocent, so they should not be swept away along with the guilty.

Yet it soon become clear that there are not even ten innocent ones, according to to the text. It says that "all of the townspeople, then men of S'dom, young and old-all the people to the last man"  gathered at Lot's house and asked that the strangers be brought out so that they could be "intimate" with them.

There's a problem here. I'm willing to accept that misogynist redactors of the text of the Torah has a hand in shaping things. Yet, were they so misogynistic as to have G"d exclude all the females from the count of the innocent?  Are we simply to assume that all the females of S'dom and Gomorrah were as wicked as the men?

On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be any protest from the women. The text does not speak of women who tried to stop their men from acting wickedly to the strangers. So we could perhaps take their silence as acquiescence- in which case, perhaps there really were no innocent in the towns.

What about children? Were they all wicked too? Did their young lives deserved to be cut short for the sins of their parents?

I'm just not comfortable with that. Far be it for me to question G"d, but that's exactly what I'm going to do! During the time of Noakh, and during this time at S'dom and Gomorrah, G"d willingly destroys G"d's own creations, assuming all of them deserve it (except for those G"d hand picks to survive.)

Noakh gets picked because he's decent compared to the rest of the folks in his time. (So what did Mrs. Noahk do to deserve the honor of surviving, other than by being Mrs. Noakh ?)  Lot probably deserves a similar description-he did offer up his daughters to the townspeople in order to spare the strangers. So compared to the evil people of S'dom and Gomorrah, perhaps he wasn't so bad.

Why have anyone survive at all? You're G"d-why not just start over again? You  created this mess - what with your "enjoy the garden ids, and eat anything you want-except from that tree..." Then You wiped it all out, save for Noakh and his family - and you seemed to have gotten the same results. Hmmm, G"d, was that a miscalculation on your part? Did you think an almost fresh start would work?

Tell me G"d - were there really no innocents among the guilty - no women, children, even men? Or perhaps you just consider them collateral damage? G"d gives, and G"d takes away. Blessed be G"d? You gotta be kidding.

This whole story stinks (along with many others we find in Torah.) Yes, human kind hasn't exactly been at its best much of the time. Have You?

You destroyed S'dom and Gomorrah.
We destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

We've had a few not quite global wars.
You wiped out the entire population fo the planet except one family.

We've killed many soldiers in the name of a good cause.
You drowned Pharaoh's soldiers in the sea.

We killed many while occupying the lands you promised to us (and sadly, we keep killing for the same reason.)
You told us to do it.

Hail humanity. Hail G"d.

To quote from the final lyrics of the song "Molasses to Rum to Slaves" from "1776" - 

"Who stinketh the most?"

Shabbat Shalom,

-Adrian

©2009 by Adrian A. Durlester

Just 6 years ago I wrote a musing for this parasha entitled "Lekh Lekha 5764--Ma'aseir Mikol--The Ten Percent Solution."  As my thoughts continue to evolve on what Judaism's future might look like, I thought this topic was worth revisiting.
Six years ago, I set up the topic this way:

Hebrew grammar and syntax being what it is, it's easy to overlook, or misunderstand.

Let's find our place. Avram serves as a mercenary to rescue Lot and aid King Malchizedek and the other Kings allied with him, and they defeat the five kings aligned against them. Malchizedek, the King of Salem offers a blessing to Avram. Oh, by the way, the text tells us, Malchizedek was a priest of G"d Most High, El Elyon. Now, if that's not a head-scratcher...

G"d had just communicated with Avram. Already there are others worshiping this same G"d? I am not troubled by this. I always remind myself that Torah never explicitly says that G"d is making exclusive covenants. It's not entirely unthinkable that G"d has been attempting to communicate and be recognized by others. Or that others have, on their own, discovered that the idols they pray to are false G"ds, and made the leap, if not to monotheism, at least to monolatry. So to learn that Avram and King Malchizedek are fellow travelers need not be a surprise. (Critical scholarship, of course, would require considering several somewhat different viewpoint on this, and on the origins of the Jewish people and their religion. There's an interesting article in this month's) BAR magazine on the subject.   But I digress.

After Malchizedek blesses Avram, he blesses G"d, El Elyon. Then, verse 14:20 ends "vayiten-lo ma'aser mikol." And he gave him a tenth of everything.

It might be easy to just assume, when reading this, that it means that Malchizedek gave Avram a tenth of "everything," of the spoils of the battle just fought. Yet Rashi and other commentators suggest that it was Avram who gave King Malchizedek a tenth of everything he had previously acquired, as Malchizedek was a priest of G"d. (The rabbis are quick to point out, however, that Avram gave only from what he already owned, as Avram did not accept any of the spoils of war offered to him in the subsequent verses.

Anyway, all this just to take me where I wanted to go today. That ten percent that Avram gave to Malchizedek simply because he was a priest of G"d. From these short and simple words (and those elsewhere in Torah) an entire
system of funding the religious establishment is derived.
It's something that we Jews, particularly liberal Jews, seem to have lost sight of. Our Christian co-religionists still, in significant numbers, follow the practice of tithing ten, or some other fixed percent, in support of their churches. Yet our synagogues have become businesses. Fee for service establishments. Congregants argue and plea endlessly about what they should pay to support their congregation. And, far, too often, their arguments are based on "what am I getting for my money?" Is this why we affiliate, is this why we practice Judaism?

Synagogues have certainly attempted and struggled to change how they are viewed by their congregants, and I applaud their efforts. However, I'm not so sure all their efforts have or will effect the changes truly necessary. A large segment of the Jewish community is seeking its Judaism in places other than the synagogue. People are speaking with their feet (and their wallets.)
In an ideal world, no synagogue would struggle for the funds it needs, no form of Jewish education would go lacking for the funds it needs, and no person would struggle for the funds they need. It's not an ideal world. Also, are we all truly convinced that, given all the funds they needed, that our synagogues, schools, etc. would use all the funds wisely? When the funds come too easy, it's also easy to be wasteful, or greedy.
Six years ago I wrote:

I'm not here to defend the synagogue. There is lots wrong with the system as it exists, and perhaps someday, we will move into a post-synagogue era. The growing number of havurot, of unaffiliated groups, etc. are testimony to some desire on the part of Jews to find their Judaism without the trappings of the modern synagogue. The synagogue reshaping movements like Synagogue 3000 are as much an attempt on the part of the synagogue establishment to insure its own future as it is an attempt to respond to the changing needs of congregants. One wonders what would happen if, as a result of its deliberations, a synagogue future revisioning group reports back to its synagogue that their vision of the future doesn't include the synagogue? Are these programs really open to that? But I'm digressing again.

Even the havurot, the unaffiliated and informal groups, etc., need some understructure, and some financial underpinning. Still I hear stores from those associated with such groups that even they are having a tough time getting the support they need, both in people power and money.
If it is the synagogue model that I am going to buy into, and associate myself with, then I have made my choice, and there should be little question of "what do I get for my money?" The Torah and our tradition make clear our obligation to support the religious institutions we rely on, and the "priests" and professionals (and non-professionals) who serve as the spiritual guides for the congregations.)

Yet, can you imagine the outcry if your synagogue simply decided that everyone simply tithes ten percent of everything (and that doesn't just mean income, it means 10% of your total worth--probably even gross, and not net.) Those synagogues that use "fair share" systems already struggle with issues of privacy and confidentiality. We still have to rely on the basic honesty of the congregants to report and contribute their fair share fairly. It wouldn't look good for the synagogue to hire CPAs, audit all the congregants, and bill them accordingly, would it?

Today, I am even less inclined to defend the synagogue as an institution. Though many of my colleagues disagree, I am no longer certain that the synagogue will or needs to remain the central core of Jewish community. There is likely to be a role for the synagogue in the future of Judaism, however it may simply be one alongside a number of different forms in which people participate in Judaism and Jewish community. With many different paths to Jewish community, finding ways to fund them,. help them survive, etc. is going to be quite complicated. What do we do if many of us, I as suppose is likely, might benefit from participation in a multiplicity of organizations and activities as part of our Judaism? How can we be sure we're all contributing fairly to support them?
Again, six years ago I wrote:

The basic idea is the one we don't get, and the one we've lost sight of. It's not the synagogue's responsibility to make sure we contribute our fair share, our ten percent. It is ours. And we should do it willingly, gladly, and without resorting to the same kinds of tactics we use when preparing our tax returns.

Abraham, didn't stop and think "what will I get out of this?" He just gave 10% to Malchizedek, the priest of El Elyon. Would that all of us would do the same. Then, perhaps, the future of Judaism might be more secure. Our institutions would have what they needed to operate, our religious schools wouldn't be struggling to do the next to impossible with minimal resources, and our religious professionals, both ordained and unordained, would have the parnassa they require to serve G”d and their congregations without having to worry how the costs of their kids' college educations will get paid. With ten percent from all, our synagogues could be the source for the funds that all the richly-deserving charities need. (This doesn't reduce our personal obligation to give to charities, but think how much more it might enhance the work of the charities, and maybe bring us closer to the messianic age.)

I'm a dreamer, a PollyAnna. No doubt of that. Nothing really is ever that simple. Or is it. Just ten percent. Think about the difference it could make if we all did it, without questioning. Ken y'hi ratson. May this be G”d'’s will. Ken y'hi ratsoneinu. May this be our will.

Whether it is the synagogue alone, no synagogue, or a variety of programs, activities and resources that we come to depend upon to live our Judaism each and every day, it still shouldn't be up to those organizations to be sure they have the funds they need. The obligation is, as it always was, ours. Whatever form our future Jewish community takes, if it continues to struggle to survive because we all fail to support it as we should, we won't be any better off than we are now, and we will have learned and gained nothing.

Remember, too, and this is something I neglected to write six years ago, that our contributions needs not only or always be monetary. We can give of ourselves, our time, our talents. (I do feel compelled here to caution that we not entirely expect those who help professionally guide us to work for inadequate parnassa. As utopian a vision as I might have, even one in which leadership is really not in the hands of an elite few, but in all of us, the reality remains that there will always be those whose dedication, skills, and learning for the sake of being good facilitators of Judaism are necessary. They deserve the support necessary to make possible what they do, just as everyone deserves that support.) Of course, maybe there will come a day when we are all Torah scholars. Some believe that day is already here, others believe such a day will never come. Me, I'm somewhere in the middle on this point. with each passing day, we have more tools at our disposal to be truly great learners. The debate becomes "what is required to be learned?" There is already more information than any one person can master. Even in the days of the talmudic rabbis, there were probably rabbis who had specialties in certain areas. Can one be said to have truly mastered Torah without mastering Mishna & Gemara? what about Midrash Halakha and Midrash Agaddah? What about Kabbalah? Already in the Jewish community we see decisions being made about what information is essential for members of that community to know. Sadly, our communities bicker and fight about this, and even consider those who do not adhere to their own understandings as being outsiders, even as not being "really" Jewish.

However, if we each have our own understanding of Judaism, and each of us is scholar enough to satisfy what we believe is necessary to be a scholar, we could be in one helluva mess. Trying to figure out where we each give our 10% might be truly difficult. (Do we give it to ourselves to enable us to continue to be scholars, do we give it to others so they can be scholars?) Can we truly become a scholar without a teacher? Our tradition would say not. Thus, the teachers needs to come from somewhere, thus our 10% could go to make sure we have those teachers (or we become those teachers.)
What seemed like such a simple idea-that we all willingly pony up our 10%, seems to be turning into quite the quagmire. I’d better stop before I sink deeper and deeper into the quicksand.

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
©2009 by Adrian A. Durlester. Portions © 2003

Nu, what would you do if you saw your father, drunk, sitting naked around the house? You could tell someone, or you could do something to preserve your father's dignity. Woe unto Ham, for he did not stop to cover his father's drunken nakedness-he ran to get (tell) his brothers instead. For this he is cursed by his father (after he had slept it off.) Ham is also linked to being the ancestor of all the Canaanites, thus setting the stage for the future fratricide the Hebrew people committed by command of their G"d. However, that's a rant for another time.

Shem and Japeth did not even look upon their father's nakedness-they walked backwards to cover their father with a cloth. Of course, this begs the question "How could they be certain their father really was naked? Either they looked, at some point, or they simply took Ham at his word.

In all this, who is most like their father Noah, who was righteous for this time? (Talk about a qualified endorsement.) Shem and Japeth were people of action, like their father, but, unlike their father, they didn't need to be told what to do. Ham, on the other hand, at least noticed his father's nakedness and went to tell his brothers. Perhaps not as direct a helpful action as possible, but an action, nonetheless. Perhaps Ham's judgment was tempered by his own observation of his father's behavior. Noakh told no one-he just went about building the ark as instructed, and saving the animals and his family as instructed. Perhaps Ham simply wanted to converse with his brothers to choose the appropriate course of action. That's not the implication we get from the Torah, but as the connection to the Canaanites makes plain, there's an agenda here.

Yes, Shem and Japeth took an action that benefitted Noakh in many ways: keeping him warm, preserving his dignity, etc. Yet neither of them (or Ham, for that matter) undertook tokhekhah, attempting to correct their father. Respect your elder, yes, but that's no reason to counsel him against the evils of drinking too much wine. In their defense it could be argued that wine was an unknown at that point, Noakh being the first vintner. Did Noakh figure this out on his own? Did someone show Noakh how to make wine? (If so, he wasn;t the first vintner after all.) Was it merely a happy accident that Noakh discovered fermentation?

Yes, there's a clear cut lesson from this story - that one should not merely inform - rather one should take action. Nevertheless, perhaps Ham gets a bum rap after all. To think about it, why all this fuss about Noakh being naked inside his own tent? Who was going to see him? Is this just carryover from the Gan Eden story, and reinforcement of the message that covering up one's nakedness is good whereas being naked is evil (as Adam and Hava discovered when they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?)

The rabbis concocted one whopper of a tale to explain why Ham was so excoriated. According to the midrash, it was Canaan, son of Ham and grandson of Noakh, who discovered Noakh naked in the tent. He told his father the news, whereupon Ham came storming into the tent and castrated his own father so that he would not bear yet a fourth son and thus diminish Ham's 1/3rd share of the inheritance. It seems Ham, seeing his father intoxicated, expected intercourse to result? Perhaps the rabbis are also suggesting that the reason Shem and Japeth did not gaze upon Noakh was not just for nakedness, but for the mutilation performed on him by Ham?

I guess the lesson is "don't be like Ham." Of course, one could just as easily say "don't be like Noakh" or "Don't be like Shem or Yapeth" which leads ultimately to the troubling idea "don't be like G"d." Maybe we should just stick with "don't be like Ham."

Can't eat ham, can't be like Ham. Funny, isn't it? (Yes, we all know it's pronounced "khahm." Just go with it.)

Shabbat Shalom,
Adrian

©2009 by Adrian A. Durlester

It’s not often I get (or choose ) to write about the Torah readings for Shemini Atzeret, so while I have the opportunity, I’ll take it (even though these same passages will come around as part of the regular cycle of readings.)

Part of the Torah reading, from Chapter 15 of D’varim, verse 4 starts:

⁴There shall be no needy among you — since the Lord your God will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion--

Yet, just a few verses later, 15:7, we read:

⁷If, however, there is a needy person among you, one of your kinsmen in any of your settlements in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman. ⁸ Rather, you must open your hand and lend him sufficient for whatever he needs.

A clear and obvious contradiction, and not the only time it occurs in the Torah (and, more specifically, not the only time in reference to the poor.) To be fair, I’ve taken things a bit out of context. By continuing on the the next few verses of text after verse 4, we read, in verse 5:

^5--if only you heed the Lord your God and take care to keep all this Instruction that I enjoin upon you this day. ⁶ For the Lord your God will bless you as He has promised you: you will extend loans to many nations, but require none yourself; you will dominate many nations, but they will not dominate you.

Now, we’ll get to verse 6 in a moment. For now, we can consider that the conditional factors stipulated in verse 5 could explain the reason why we have verse 7ff. Of course, that means that we once again have to assume that G”d (or the authors of the Torah text) are working from the assumption that it’s darned near impossible for human beings, and especially the Israelites, to keep on the straight and narrow path and follow the commandments. That, in itself, is a pretty depressing thought. O f course, we can all wait around for Moshaikh, when we’ll be perfected (or is it the other way around-when we become perfect, Moshiakh will come? If that’s the case, it’s gonna be a long wait, according to the worldview on verses 4:7 here.)

Now, let’s be fair. The context here is the sabbatical system. This is made clear in verses 9ff:

⁹ Beware lest you harbor the base thought, "The seventh year, the year of remission, is approaching," so that you are mean to your needy kinsman and give him nothing. He will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will incur guilt. ¹⁰ Give to him readily and have no regrets when you do so, for in return the Lord your God will bless you in all your efforts and in all your undertakings. ¹¹ For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kinsman in your land.

Boy, if there ever was a case arguing against Hillel and his prosbul (a workaround for the remission of debts in the sabbatical year that allowed loans to be exempted from the remission of debts obligation. Hillel claimed it for for the benefit of both rich and poor. The rich knowing they could safely loan when a sabbatical was near would no longer be disinclined to do so, thus the poor person needing such a  loan would be able to get one. I still think the rich come out the winners on this one.) If anything, Hillel’s prosbul could be partly responsible for the contradictory situation in which we find ourselves and which the Torah mentions. Instead of honoring the intent to erase all debt every 7 years (and imagine a world where this were so) we get a system that allows the rich to grow richer and the poor to keep borrowing. Sound familiar to anything that’s been going on lately. Sorry Hillel, I think you blew this one.

I wonder if some rabbi even came up with a workaround for the next few verse 12:15

¹² If a fellow Hebrew, man or woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall set him free. 13 When you set him free, do not let him go empty-handed: 14 Furnish him out of the flock, threshing floor, and vat, with which the Lord your God has blessed you. 15 Bear in mind that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I enjoin this commandment upon you today.

Maybe the closing enjoinder makes it just a bit too difficult to disregard? There’s no similar verse after verses 4-7 which says

Bear in mind that you were one poor and oppressed by capitalists in the land of Israel, and the L”rd your G”d redeemed you; therefore I enjoin this commandment upon you today.

Hillel might have had a harder time circumventing that assertion!

Now, I promised to get back to verse 6.

⁶ For the Lord your God will bless you as He has promised you: you will extend loans to many nations, but require none yourself; you will dominate many nations, but they will not dominate you.

This one has caused us no end of trouble (just like the Kol Nidre prayer.) Rather prophetic, too. Also easily abused by anti-Semites and worldwide Jewish conspiracy nuts. Unfortunately, while we did wind up making many loans to nations on than our own, we didn’t quite wind up dominating them, did we? G”d’s mistake, or ours? If we had followed all the commandments as a community, might things be different today? Only G”d knows (or maybe G”d doesn’t know?)

Clearly, sacrifices ere not enough  to get G”d to forgive our failures to fully follow the commandments. We read in the special haftarah for Shemini Atzeret from I Kings, chapter 8:

⁶² The king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the Lord. ⁶³ Solomon offered 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep as sacrifices of well-being to the Lord. Thus the king and all the Israelites dedicated the House of the Lord. ⁶⁴ That day the king consecrated the center of the court that was in front of the House of the Lord. For it was there that he presented the burnt offerings, the meal offerings, and the fat parts of the offerings of well-being, because the bronze altar that was before the Lord was too small to hold the burnt offerings, the meal offerings, and the fat parts of the offerings of well-being.

Wow. I thought kings weren’t supposed to be ostentatious and overdo things. Well, maybe that doesn’t include offerings to G”d? (I think it should!) Maybe the sacrifices helped for a while, but once Solomon was gone, things went all to pieces again, and fast.

We just can’t seem to get it right. Thousands of years later and we still can’t get it right. Yet, those same thousands of years later, we’re still here, we survive, mir zenen do. So maybe it’s true:

⁶ For the Lord your God will bless you as He has promised you.

To paraphrase Tevye the milkman, maybe G”d should shower those blessings on someone else for a while?

In closing, allow me to commend to you some of my previous musings speficially for Simchat Torah:

Sh'mini Atzeret/Simkhat Torah 5767 - Joyful and Glad of Heart
Simchat Torah 5766--Have We Met The Ally And Is They Us?
Simchat Torah 5757-5765-Unbroken Circle (With additions for each year)
Simchat Torah 5764-Circling the Torah--A Story of Chelm
Simchat Torah 5762--Not So Fast

Moadim L’Simcha, Hag Sameakh, and Shabbat Shalom,

 

Adrian

© 2009 by Adrian A. Durlester

All translation from the revised JPS Tanakh.