Parshat Shemot: Shakespeare’s ‘Greatness’

William Shakespeare knew exactly how to crystallize human traits and experiences into timeless sound bites.

In Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 5, Malvolio reads Maria's letter (believing it to have been written by Olivia's hand):

"If this letter falls into your hands, think carefully about what it says. By my birth I rank above you, but don’t be afraid of my greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them...."

This quote has been occupying my mind recently. Not because I think of myself as being great (in any of the dimensions described!) I am simply trying to understand how it can apply to the person we are going to meet for the first time in today's Parsha, namely Moses or as we know him - Moshe Rabeinu - Moshe our teacher.

The so-called ‘Prince of Egypt’ appears to have ticked all three boxes!

Exodus 2:

A certain man of the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw how beautiful he was, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she got a wicker basket for him and caulked it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child into it and placed it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.

Rashi adds that when Moshe was born, the entire house was filled with light.

The Torah is informing us that Moshe's birth was notable and that he needed to be protected, hence her hiding him until she had no option but to place him in his 'Moses Basket' in order to save his life from Pharaoh's genocidal decree.

We know that over time, Moshe duly achieved greatness, but as for having it thrust upon him, the Torah does not hesitate from describing his reluctance in taking on the leadership of the people. The long dialogue described in Chapter Three is a case in point.

Gd says:

Exodus 3:

(10) Come, therefore, I will send you to Pharaoh, and you shall free My people, the Israelites, from Egypt.”

Moshe responds:

“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and free the Israelites from Egypt?”

Gd replies:

“I will be with you; that shall be your sign that it was I who sent you. And when you have freed the people from Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.”

To which Moshe says:

“When I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”

Moshe is trying every which way to find a reason not to take on the leadership of Bnei Yisrael. Further along in the conversation, even after Gd has turned Moshe's stick into a snake and reversed it back into its original form followed by a miracle with his hand becoming leprous before reverting to its regular skin colour, Moshe is still arguing!

Gd tells him that He will turn the waters of the Nile into blood…and what is Moshe's response?

“Please, O L-rd, 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.”

Understandably at this point, Gd's patience is wearing thin!

And the L-rd said to him, “Who gives man speech? Who makes him dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the L-rd?

Now go, and I will be with you as you speak and will instruct you what to say.”

But he said, “Please, O L-rd, make someone else Your agent.”

The L-rd 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.

Yes, my friends. Some have greatness thrust upon them!

It is not difficult to empathise with Moshe's dilemma. A man whom we are informed was the 'humblest of all men' has been forced to act against his better judgement. We know that Gd knew the measure of this man and that, yes, Moshe did end up becoming the inspirational leader that we shall discover over the rest of this Jewish year. But what can we, mere mortals who struggle to tick any of Mr Shakespeare's statements learn about greatness?

And to be precise, what is 'greatness' and who can judge it (granted that we don't have the close relationship that existed between Moshe and Gd)?

In trying to understand the nature of greatness, I don't think people would argue that Rabbi Sacks ztl was a very special human being. He inspired millions of people throughout the world as did the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Amongst our Gentile brethren, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King dedicated their lives to improving those of others (and King was assassinated for his efforts). Winston Churchill was possibly this country's greatest leader due to his courageous and isolated stand against Hitler. Can we decide into which of the categories each respective individual would fit? How many of the above would have followed Moshe's lead in struggling with the third classification? Who could wish to have 'greatness thrust upon them?'

Sometimes, there is no choice because decisions have to be taken and leaders need to be found. Some seek to fill the vacancy and as a result, 'achieve greatness' and some, very few indeed are born great. I think Rabbi Sacks and the Rebbe might have been blessed with this but how can we know?

'Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe' by Robert Matzen is a book that I recently heard through my phone's Audible app. It compared James Stewart the actor with a civilian who entered the air force as a Private at the start of the War and ended it as a Colonel. He retired from the air force in 1968 as a Major General.

It is hard to square the tall, gawky and hesitating pre-war actor with the decidedly non-celebrity decorated flyer at its conclusion but during his four-year service, he lost many comrades and nearly didn't make it through alive. Witness how he aged on celluloid between the late1930s and the films he returned to, starting with 'It's A Wonderful Life' in 1946. In his case, he achieved greatness, with or without it being thrust upon him.

Perhaps the significance of one's impact on others can only be truly measured after a person has departed this world. If that is indeed the case, then the fact that we never stop reading about Moshe Rabeinu's life and how he was the human conduit that led our ancestors out of Egypt to the banks of the Jordan River is testament to his achievements.

Being born great might be hard to quantify in others. Achieving greatness is no doubt easier but if all else fails, then perhaps our only path is through having it thrust upon us. If the result is that we impact the lives of others to the kind of degree demonstrated by the aforementioned people, then we can surely attest to the veracity of William Shakespeare's timeless quote.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parshat Vayechi: It’s All About Us!

I recently thumbed through my old primary school report book. Do you remember those?

Junior 4 (the final report), when I was 11 years old and seven months.

Arithmetic: Beginning to develop some thought but needs much guidance.

Geography: A slow worker. Tends to answer without sufficient elaboration.

Writing: Letters not well formed.

Craft: Average. Is satisfied with rather mediocre results. (Which is my favourite comment so far).

Reading: Loves to read and reading aloud, is very expressive.

My love of reading was not news to either myself or my parents, for in Infants 2 (when I was seven) my teacher wrote:

"In reading, Claude has certainly shown very good progress and now enjoys reading his books".

I may have been an 'F' student when it came to woodwork and needlecraft. Maths was never a strong point but from early on I discovered books and as a result the pleasure that emanates from reading them - and I haven't stopped lapping them up!

I have been reading a great deal recently as a result of not being able to listen to music since my mother's passing in April. My sister-in-law, Louise, recommended Amazon's Audible service which allows you to listen to audiobooks for a modest monthly fee. I haven't looked back since and, as a result, have had the opportunity to hear a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction, ranging from wonderful 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' and 'Remains of the Day' to the extremely moving ‘Telephone at the Edge of the world’, which is simply unforgettable.

However, if I had to identify a single genre that I have returned to repeatedly since my childhood, it would definitely consist of biographies.

I used to think that writing an autobiography was the height of conceit. After all, is a person so important that they feel they need to share their inner secrets with the rest of the world? I suppose that you might level this charge at a young person who has yet to live their life through to a decent age, but could one really accuse a genius like Charlie Chaplin or the 'Last Fighting Tommy', Harry Patch, of being self-absorbed? Both men had a story to tell and in doing so, they shared a part of history that enables us to connect to the past. Indeed, in my own family a great-aunt wrote a book about her childhood which sheds a fascinating light on my maternal grandfather's very early years in Sydney.

In fact, my own mother wrote her memoirs for my children which they will be able to share with my grandchildren, Please Gd. You may be wondering where all of this fits in with this week's Parsha or within the Torah itself, so let me explain.

Vayechi begins with the following verse:

Genesis 47:

(28) Jacob lived seventeen years in the land of Egypt, so that the span of Jacob’s life came to one hundred and forty-seven years.

We have reached the end of the road for the Patriarchs.

Yaakov is about to die and he wants to leave a legacy for the next generations who have taken on the name of Bnei Yisrael - the children of Israel. It is the only Parsha in the Torah that continues on from the last one without the introduction of a new paragraph - it is literally 'stom- closed’. Our Rabbis explain that this is because, with the death of Jacob and the settlement of his family in Egypt, a long, closed period of suffering was not far away (as we shall soon discover in Sefer Shemot (Exodus)).

I would like, however, to focus on a different interpretation of the first verse, as per Chizkuni, a 13th century French Rabbi and Commentator. He writes:

"...(that) It was only during Yaakov's last seventeen years in Egypt that his mind was at rest and not beset by serious worries of one kind or another. In fact, this whole verse has been inserted in the Torah as a compliment to Joseph who was the cause of Yaakov’s last seventeen years being happy years. During those 17 years he repaid his father who had sustained him for the first seventeen years of his life, by providing for him during the last 17 years of his life. He had been seventeen years old when he had been sold."

We are told that Yaakov 'lived' in Egypt.

According to Chizkuni, there is 'living' and 'living'. We can choose to live our lives and accept each day as it greets us or we can 'live' our lives in the knowledge that this is indeed the best time in our life. Yaakov really appreciated what was happening to him. He was reunited with his beloved son and for those final seventeen years, life was really 'as good as it gets'.

A well written and absorbing biography is much more than a chronological record of a person's life. It allows us to understand what makes them 'tick'. To share in their joys and also empathise when life is not so rosy.

I still recall many of the biographies and autobiographies that I have read and, for the most, the way their subjects faced the challenges in their lives, were inspiring and revelatory. My abiding interest in history and how it impacts on human beings drives my fascination with their life stories and this is also where the Torah shines its Divine light, sometimes at its brightest.

Our Rabbis tell us that there are seventy aspects to the Torah (Shivim Panim laTorah) which can be interpreted in many different ways. On the one hand, it is a guide on how to live an ethical life, as witnessed by the deeds of our Patriarchs, Matriarchs and their descendants such as Moshe, Aharon, Miriam and Joshua. On the other, a great deal of space is given to detailing our complex laws and providing a template for creating a just and moral society. And on the other hand, it presents a narrative of our history, starting with the creation of the world and ending with the death of Moshe.

Sefer Bereishit acts as a biography of Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah and those people associated with them and this feeds into the other four books. We read about their strengths and weaknesses, personal successes and failures. We learn of their joy and sorrow and of the lessons they learned, sometimes in a very painful manner.

Following on, I would even venture to say that the Torah as a whole, amongst its other glorious achievements, manages to be a biography of the Jewish people. For if you want to understand what makes us, well, ‘us’ - dip inside our Holy Book and see for yourself.

Amongst my very favourite books, The Torah (and its two companions, Neviim and Ketuvim) are at the very top of my Biographical list.

Happy reading!

Shabbat Shalom

Parshat Vayigash: Yehudah

Last Monday, on the last day of Chanukah, my friend Lenny passed away before he’d reached his fifth decade.

Whilst I refer to him as a friend, I didn't really know him that well but one thing I can say unequivocally is that I loved him and what's more, I know that Lenny loved me.

Lenny loved everyone.

Yehudah Leib ben Shlomo zl was a very special individual. His second name of 'Leib' is Yiddish for 'Lion'. He was literally named the 'Lion of Judah'. Taking this one step further, the word 'Lev' in Hebrew means 'heart' and I couldn't think of a more appropriate moniker to describe him.

However, on Shabbat, we are not allowed to give hespedim, eulogies and so in his blessed memory, I would like to respectfully dedicate the following:

Genesis 44:

בראשית מ״ד:י״

(יח) וַיִּגַּ֨שׁ אֵלָ֜יו יְהוּדָ֗ה...

(18) Then Yehudah approached him...

These words appear at the very beginning of the Parsha and they are informing us that something extraordinary is going to take place. What makes the speech that he is about to give all the more remarkable lies in the journey that Yaakov's fourth son has taken to reach this point in his life.

Before we can understand its impact, let me quote some earlier verses regarding Yehudah's behaviour and personality.

Firstly, regarding the sale of Joseph (from Parshat Miketz):

(26) Then Yehudah said to his brothers, “What do we gain by killing our brother and covering up his blood? (27) Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let our hand not be upon him. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh.” His brothers agreed.

Yehudah saved Joseph's life and that is commendable, but the Ramban adds the comment that in selling him to the Ishmaelites, “Who would take him off to a distant country, their deed could not be discovered,” his motives weren’t as pure as they seemed at first.

Genesis 38:

(1) About that time Yehudah left his brothers and camped near a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah.

Rashi explains that when the brothers returned to their father and saw the grief they had caused, they repented for their sins and blamed Yehudah for having suggested the idea of the sale. As a result, they removed his leadership position from within the brotherhood.

A few years later, Yehudah is tricked by the righteous Tamar and upon realising her ruse, the Torah informs us:

(24) About three months later, Yehudah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the harlot; in fact, she is with child by harlotry.” “Bring her out,” said Judah, “and let her be burned.”

When she produces his signet ring, cloak and staff, he learned that:

(26) Yehudah recognized them, and said, “She is more in the right than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he was not intimate with her again.

Keeping in mind these verses, let us look at some of Yehudah's speech to Joseph.

Genesis 44:

(19) My lord asked his servants, “Have you a father or another brother?” (20) We told my lord, “We have an old father, and there is a child of his old age, the youngest; his full brother is dead, so that he alone is left of his mother, and his father dotes on him.”

Note the language that Yehudah uses to describe the relationship between his father and brother.

Let us continue....

(21) Then you said to your servants, “Bring him down to me, that I may set eyes on him.” (22) We said to my lord, “The boy cannot leave his father; if he were to leave him, his father would die.” (23) But you said to your servants, “Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, do not let me see your faces.”

Further on, he concludes with the plea:

(33) “Therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go back with his brothers. (34) For how can I go back to my father unless the boy is with me? Let me not be witness to the woe that would overtake my father!”

We are witnessing a complete volte-face on the part of Yehudah. The same man profited from Joseph's sale, having recently eaten bread with the others whilst their 17-year-old brother languished in a pit. This individual lost his revered place in the pecking order and faced humiliation at the hands of Tamar. He is now offering himself in lieu of their youngest brother.

One can understand the next verse clearly:

Genesis 45:

(1) Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw from me!” so there was no one else about when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.

Yehudah, the predecessor of King David and the Davidic Line, the man whose descendant would be the Messiah, demonstrated why he deserved this honour. It is not easy to admit your mistakes and to learn the hard lessons that life throws at you, sometimes ceaselessly. It takes someone of a unique character to effect such a change in his personality. This week's hero, Yehudah Leib, Judah the Lionheart was such a man.

His namesake, my friend Lenny, Yehudah Leib would have done anything to help and protect other people in the same way that Yehudah stepped forward to shield young Benjamin and by extension, his elderly father back in Canaan.

May we all be blessed with the memories of both men, and may we be witness to the coming of the Messiah, may he arrive bimhera beyameinu - speedily in our days.

This is for you, Lenny - with all my love.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parshat Miketz (Shabbat Chanukah): The Dreidel

Isn't Chanukah wonderful?

We light our Chanukiyot to remind us of the miracle of the oil that lasted for eight days.

We eat latkes and donuts to remind us of the miracle of the oil that lasted for eight days (and wonder if the real miracle of Chanukah is the fact that after 2000 years of lining our arteries with cholesterol, we are still around as a living, breathing nation)!

We give presents to kids because of that other festival and that's partly why some people give Chanukah gelt, to differentiate it from its gentile neighbour.

And we spin a dreidel because?...now that's a very good question!

Why do we spin the dreidel?

Tradition tells us that the Jews used dreidels when they were suffering under the harsh rule of the Selucids in Ancient Syria led by the evil Antiochus IV known as Epiphanes (which means 'the illustrious one', a complete misnomer).  As they were forbidden from studying Torah Shel Baal Peh (the Oral Law) they used to keep these spinning tops handy in case one the guards raided their learning sessions.  If this happened, they quickly started spinning their dreidels.  This custom has been refined to the present day when your boss walks into the room and you hide the eBay page you've been watching over the last two hours with a complicated spreadsheet) - although you can't do that in teaching!

However, there is a school of thought that claims dreidels were in fact developed from spinning tops called Teetotums that were found in the Greek and Roman Empires and brought to England by the Romans.  They eventually found their way into Germany where the Jews adopted them as a Chanukah toy.

The Latin letters:

·        A for aufer (take from the pot);

·        D for depone (put into the pot),

·        N for nihil (nothing) and

·        T for totum (take all)

were Judaized with the letters Nun, Gimmel, Hay and Shin from the verse (Nes Gadol Haya Sham – A great miracle happened there) into Yiddish for:

·        Nun (Nisht or  you get nothing or put into the pot;

·        Gimmel - Gantz: the winner takes it all;

·        Hay, you only get halp/half

·        and Shin, stel ein - you need to put into the pot.

This was then developed into the more modern Israeli version where the Shin which represents Sham meaning ‘there’ was replaced 'Pay' to represent 'Po' meaning ‘here’ as the miracle took place in situ, ie ‘A great miracle happened here.’

However, I would like to add another dimension to the story by considering the dreidel as a very Jewish toy.  In fact, it is quite relevant to Chanukah and possibly to our history as a whole.

Look at the shape of the dreidel.  It is small and is operated by spinning on a point.  Round and round it goes appearing as though it is steady but as we know, it eventually loses its balance and lands on one side.  Is that not our story?  Look at how we have been spun throughout history, cast from country to country, made to lose our stability and yet still we continue spinning in the hope that if we fall, we will pick ourselves up and restart our journey.

Sometimes, we have become giddy from all the turning and shaking.  We feel as though we have lost our bearings but nevertheless, each generation starts again, faces an uncertain environment and moves on merrily, sticking to our ground, like a dreidel that spins and spins on the same point.  It might skip to another part of the table, but it still spins.

The Seleucids had no desire to physically wipe us out.  Instead, they tried to remove our spiritual centre, to Hellenize our culture and form us in their own beautiful Greek moulds.  They spun us around and around, trying to force us to assimilate into their culture by sullying our beloved Temple and removing the deep spirituality that kept us grounded.  They were our dreidel-meisters.

The Maccabees came along and stopped the 'dreidel', helped us to stabilize ourselves and remind us that for a while, we didn't need to spin any more.  We were in our own home, under our own leaders, reclaiming our Jewish heritage and consigning the spinning top from the receptacle that we had been imprisoned inside, to a child's toy.  Instead of being spun, we were now in charge of our own destiny.

The miracle of Chanukah, which means 'dedication' was our opportunity to transform ourselves from being the victims to dedicating ourselves to shining our light to the other nations.  That is why today, Chanukah is one of the most beloved festivals not only amongst Jews but throughout the world.

It is far more than the Jewish equivalent of Christmas.  In many ways, it is one of THE key festivals, certainly with regard to how our neighbours view our culture.

The latkes and donuts are tasty.  The gifts are delightful and the dreidel is still fun to play.  After we've stored them away for the year, it is the menorah, the symbol of our Temple and our worship of Gd and our oldest Jewish symbol which shines brightly - not only for these eight days but for the other 357 days of the year for it represents the very best of what is means to be Jewish.

Happy Chanukah, Rosh Chodesh and Shabbat Shalom!

Parshat Veyeishev: Nature's Lights

Shabbat Shalom dear friends. I feels wonderful to be back after my recent Covid infection and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you most sincerely on behalf of Stephnie, Benjamin and myself for your thoughtful messages and support during this challenging time for our family. I can't express how touched we were.

This has not been an easy week for the rest of the world either.

On Sunday, a Hamas terrorist in Jerusalem dressed up as a Charedi man, shot dead a young man, Eli Kay, zl who also happened to be the grandson of Rabbi Shlomo and Lynndy Levin of South Hampstead Shul and the nephew of Rabbis Eli and Baruch Levin, the latter being the Rabbi of Brondesbury Park.  By all accounts, Eli was a very special individual whose love of the land of Israel knew no bounds.  He had been a lone soldier who recently emigrated from South Africa and was on his way to the Kotel, where he was a guide.  He was carrying his tefillin when he was gunned down in cold blood.

On that very same day, a car deliberately rammed into numerous people who were participating in a Christmas Parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Six people have been killed and many children, injured.

Two days later, in Bulgaria, a bus crashed and caught fire killing at least forty-six people of which twelve were children. The passengers had been returning from a trip to Istanbul. Then on Wednesday, twenty-seven people drowned in The Channel. The week before Chanukah this year has indeed been truly horrific.

How does one internalise the bloodshed in the context with the joyous festival of lights that we are about to celebrate? Events take place that are beyond our comprehension and we, the bystanders, are left numb by their occurrence. There are very troubling questions and no answers.

As we light the first candle tomorrow night, the initial date of Chanukah this year won't have missed my attention, for the 25th Kislev happens to be exactly eight months to the day since my dearest mother left us. As I watch the flame engulf the wick, my mind will try to make sense of the events of the last week and of those that took place within our family over the last eight months. For me, trying to come to terms with loss has taken the form of considering the best way to honour my mother's memory.

A few weeks ago, a very special event took place, and I would like to share what happened with you.

As you may be aware, my parents were refugees from the Holocaust. The organisation that I used to work for, and that they and I belong to, is the AJR - the Association of Jewish Refugees.

This year is the AJR’s 80th anniversary and to mark the auspicious occasion, they decided to run a wonderful campaign. This consists of their planting eighty oak trees throughout the British Isles which are dedicated to both living and deceased members. I decided to take up their offer to plant both a tree in my mother's memory and a time capsule which contained, amongst other items, a memoir that she wrote shortly before she passed away. The time capsule was buried next to the tree in Canon's Park which lies between Edgware and Stanmore.

Sadly, the ceremony took place whilst I was in isolation and so my eldest daughter, Hadassah represented the family.  My mother's tree was planted along with two others.

The lovely staff at the AJR kindly contacted me over What's App so that I was able to view the ceremony and was extraordinarily proud to see my daughter, a third-generation refugee, read a short speech that I had written, and then help with the planting.

My mother loved nature and in venerating her name through the planting of a tree that will Gd willing grow and survive for many decades, this was my modest way of bringing some light to our darkness.

And that is really what Chanukah is all about. In these darkest of times, when we are so mired in tragedy after tragedy, the candles that we will light tomorrow and then for the next seven days might help to remind us that despite everything that is taking place, one small flame can light up a very dark room.

It cannot bring back Eli or the people who died in Wisonsin, the victims of the bus crash or the refugees who lost their lives in the Channel any more than it can return my mother to the bosom of her family, but it can remind us that life does go on.  Life has to continue.

In the pitch black darkness of these late November and early December nights, these lights can make a difference to our lives, even if this only serves to remind us of how Chanukah, the festival of lights came about miraculously after so many tragedies in our long and troubled Jewish history.

If planting a new tree or lighting a wick helps in any way to heal the pain of loss, then we have truly honoured the person and people who have left us. May their memories be a blessing to their families and loved ones and may Chanukah enable us to commence the long road into a brighter future.

Wishing you and your loved ones a happy, healthy and peaceful Chanukah.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parshat Toldot: Our Children’s Children

"We are doing this not for ourselves but for our children and our children’s children, and those who will follow in their footsteps."

Queen Elizabeth II - Speech to the COP26 Conference, 1st November 2021. 

This week's Parsha has a very special place in my heart as it is my Bar Mitzvah sedra.  My Hebrew birthday was two days ago on 29th Mar-Cheshvan, which also happens that be the same date in October in the Gregorian calendar on which my parents were married…as I explained last week.

In addition to its special personal status, I have always considered Toldot to be one of the seminal parshiot in the Torah as it describes in vivid detail the 'succession plan' of our Patriarchs following the death of Avraham at the end of last week's reading.

In considering this, the name of the Parsha, ‘Toldot’ as a word is difficult to translate and although I have researched a number of different versions, the one that I was taught and that I have always understood is the term: ‘Generations’.  The Sforno expounds on the word and states that this is describing Yitzchak's biography and he comments in tandem with Rashi who explains that the word refers not only to Avraham and Yitzchak but also to the birth of the twins in this Parsha, namely, as per my understanding, the next generation.

On the face of it, one might be inclined to think that the focus of the Parsha rests on the birth and troubled relationship between the twins Jacob and Esau (Yaakov and Esau).  However, if you look a little deeper, it becomes apparent that in fact, it is their father Isaac (Yitzchak) upon whom Toldot's spotlight squarely falls.

Yitzchak is the quiet and contemplative Patriarch caught between the charismatic chalutz (pioneer) that was his father Avraham and the future progenitor of the twelve tribes, Yaakov whose life is troubled by challenge after challenge, as we shall soon be relating.  Yitzchak, of whom the Torah tells us precious little, is the man of the moment and one gets the feeling that he would rather not have been thus cast.

We know that Yitzchak was a very loved child, but from the outset, he was mocked by his half-brother, Ishmael, and then almost slaughtered by his father.  In this week's Parsha, we read how he had to re-dig his father's wells of water that had been stopped by the Philistines, and to cap it all off, he then picked the wrong son to dote on!  This resulted in the ruse that his younger child had to employ, as his elderly father was afflicted by blindness.  Yitzchak almost forfeited his duty to continue the sterling work undertaken by his father, through giving the blessing to the wrong child!  Thank Gd for the good sense that his wife Rebecca (Rivka) had in averting the disaster that would have resulted had Eisav received the blessing reserved for the firstborn instead of his more erstwhile brother, Yaakov.

The common denominator in all the above is not only the inexorable link between the three Patriarchs through biology but also the responsibility that lies on Yitzchak's shoulders to pass the baton on from his father's generation to his sons'. As we read this week, it is a heavy and ultimately necessary burden to undertake, especially if one’s character traits are analogous to the person I have described above.

From the outset, Yitzchak realized that he had a duty to transfer the Mesorah, the Tradition that had been gifted to him by his father - the man who brought monotheism into the known world.  The person who, although he preceded the giving of the Torah by hundreds of years, promoted a value system that was as alien to his environment as idol-worship is to ours.

Having been raised by no less a couple than Avraham and Sarah, Yitzchak was acutely aware of how crucial his role was and, by extension, the powers he possessed to pass that tradition on to the next generation.

A great deal of thought, opinion and rhetoric has been spent over the last few weeks describing our generation's role in preserving this planet for ‘our children, our children's children and those who will follow in their footsteps'.  I am conscious that I have a responsibility to continue the mesorah that was handed down to me by my parents and grandparents.  This ostensibly means that as a parent and teacher, I have a mission to share my deep and abiding love of the Torah with those who will one day become tomorrow's Jewish parents, leaders and perhaps teachers.  It has not escaped my attention that our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson is three years older than me and Israel's PM, Naftali Bennett is four years younger.  We three are examples of those in our generation who chose to dedicate our lives to making a difference for others, although I have no political ambitions whatsoever!

In the week that many of the world's leaders chose to descend on Glasgow to discuss ways in which their respective countries could protect the planet for the next generations, our Torah provides a striking parallel when describing the blessings that Yitzchak gave to Yaakov:

Genesis 27: (26) Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come close, if you please and kiss me, my son”; (27) so he drew close and he kissed him.  And he smelled the fragrance of his clothes and he blessed him, saying, “Ah, the fragrance of my son is like the fragrance of the fields that Hashem has blessed.  (28) “And May Gd give you of the dew of heavens and the fatness of the earth and abundant grain and wine.

בראשית כ״ז: (כו) וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֵלָ֖יו יִצְחָ֣ק אָבִ֑יו גְּשָׁה־נָּ֥א וּשְׁקָה־לִּ֖י בְּנִֽי׃ (כז) וַיִּגַּשׁ֙ וַיִּשַּׁק־ל֔וֹ וַיָּ֛רַח אֶת־רֵ֥יחַ בְּגָדָ֖יו וַֽיְבָרְכֵ֑הוּ וַיֹּ֗אמֶר רְאֵה֙ רֵ֣יחַ בְּנִ֔י כְּרֵ֣יחַ שָׂדֶ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר בֵּרְכ֖וֹ ה'׃ (כח) וְיִֽתֶּן־לְךָ֙ הָאֱלֹקִ֔ים מִטַּל֙ הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וּמִשְׁמַנֵּ֖י הָאָ֑רֶץ וְרֹ֥ב דָּגָ֖ן וְתִירֹֽשׁ׃

Yitzchak's blessing to Yaakov revolved around the gifts that Gd would provide to his son through the natural order inherent in the operation of a healthy climate.  How can crops grow in a drought or the other extreme, flooding?  How can the earth give of its 'fatness' if the delicate balance upon which the earth can operate is so damaged?

We, this generation, can only transmit our tradition if we respect the environment in which we live.  From the outset, Gd created the heaven and the earth and Adam's only job was to take care of his surroundings.  He forfeited his gift in eating of the fruit and it was not too long before Gd responded to man's evil behaviour by sending The Flood.

The difference between those days and ours is that, if we continue abusing the planet in the way we have, it will not be Gd who will punish our descendants – it will be us, by our negligence.

Just like our patriarch, we must make the right choice when it comes to the actions we take for our children and future descendants.  That he did so through having been tricked by Yaakov should not deter us from 'doing the right thing'.

As Hillel writes in Pirkei Avot 1.14

'If not now then when?'

Our generation owe it to the next to respond to the question imminently.

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov.

Parshat Chayei Sarah: Love Story

 

If I were to ask you to provide a definition of the Torah, how would you describe it?

You could say that, on a superficial level, it was a history book.  Perhaps you might think of it as a guide to Jewish law and ritual.  A third idea might point to it being a manual of morality (or the lack of it, as described so vividly in last week’s Parsha when focussing on the men of Sodom).  But could you ever consider it to have elements of being a love story?

I’m not necessarily referring to the relationship between our nation and Gd, although there is a deep bond that runs throughout the five books, even if it is sometimes difficult to comprehend why some events took place and whether these could be considered as pertaining to the kind of loving interaction that we can readily understand.

But, looking at this week’s Parsha, I can come to no other conclusion other than its key ingredients can be summarised in one single word:

Love.

Chayei Sarah, literally ‘the life of Sarah’ is a Parsha that is unique in the Torah.

Its structure is bookended by the deaths and burials of our first Matriarch and Patriarch, Sarah and Avraham/Abraham respectively.  Its middle section is a tender and moving description of a dedicated servant’s journey to find a wife for his master’s son.  These elements blend to detail the loving relationships between human beings.

When Rivka/Rebecca is introduced to Yitzchak/Isaac, we are told that she became his wife and that not only did he love her, but she also comforted him after the sudden death of his mother.  This is indeed true love.

Our Parsha takes us on a journey through life, and the love that accompanies it, from youth to old age.  Mills and Boon eat your heart out!

When I think of couples whose love grew throughout their married life, my memories turn to my own parents.

They should have celebrated their 60^th wedding anniversary on 29^th October, had my mother not passed away earlier this year.  Like Yitzchak and Rivka, theirs was an initial relationship that was separated by long distances.  In their case, my father is Yitzchak and my mother was Rosette (although her mother’s middle name was Rivka as is that of my youngest daughter, Shira).

Antwerp to New York may be further in distance than Be’er Lachai Roi to Aram Naharayim but in both cases two individuals came together and created a new life together.

It wasn’t easy.  My mother’s father was in ill-health and my father’s mother had also been very unwell.  The war had taken its toll on both in different ways and their children, who became refugees in childhood, bore the scars of the war that had ended only 15 years before their initial meeting in 1960.

They were married at the Machzike Adath shul in the Ooestenstraat in Antwerp by Rabbi Kreiswirth, the renowned Chief Rabbi of the community, and they promptly set about arranging to travel to New York to settle in Manhatten near my paternal grandparents.  My mother, raised in the close-knit community of Antwerp didn’t feel at home in the gigantic sprawl that is New York City and after two years, convinced my father to leave and settle in Golders Green in order to be near to my uncle and other members of our family.

So, in 1963, my prenatal roots were established in the United Kingdom.

Life was not easy for my parents at first, but their friendship and growing love kept them together through some very trying times.  Their journey from Antwerp, through New York to London, as the archetypal wandering Jews brought its challenges but at the same time, many rewards, not least a wonderful circle of close friends.  And in their golden years, before Covid struck, they lived a highly fulfilling life in their second home on Limes Avenue, otherwise known as the ‘Sobell Centre’.

My mother’s life was bookended by the outset of war when she was three and Covid when she was in her early 80s.  She refused to let it defeat her and would have done anything to be able to reach their special anniversary, but it was not to be.  My father, in his own special way, continued the journey they had started together and now resides in the home adjacent to the centre.  It is as though he is now ending their journey, albeit on his own.

Life leads us in strange and unpredictable ways, and we don’t know how long it will take for us to reach our destination.  The story of Avraham and Sarah, Yitzchak and Rivka in this week’s Parsha lets us know that, even with the passing of a loved person like Sarah, life has to go on.

Rashi tells us that during Sarah’s lifetime, a light burned in their tent from one Shabbat to the next; the dough she made was blessed and a cloud hung over the tent.  All three disappeared when she died and all three reappeared when Rivka entered the same tent.  Love can ignite even the most extinguished traces of human relationships.

You may similarly notice that in the Hebrew in Verse 2 of Chapter 23, the ‘kaf’ in the word ‘velivkotah’ – and Avraham wept for Sarah is small.  This is the same in the Torah.  Avraham wept privately for his life’s partner, who had been there by his side through so much, but he knew that there had to be a limit to his mourning.  In sending his servant, Eliezer, to seek a wife for their son, he was indicating that life had to carry on, despite everything.  It is a message that has not been lost on me in the last six months.  For I too, am continuing, as is my father.

Although we may not be able to celebrate my parent’s Diamond Anniversary, this doesn’t mean that we can’t remember and value their partnership together.  Through thick and thin theirs, like our Patriarchs and Matriarchs, was indeed a love story and my very being is its witness.

So, after all, The Torah is a book of love and it is in this spirit that although they may no longer be physically together, the anniversary of their marriage is something to cherish and remember.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parshat Lech Lecha: Who is G-d?

 Faith is not certainty.  Faith is the courage to live with uncertainty.  (Rabbi Sacks ztl)

A few weeks ago, it was a lovely balmy afternoon and we were having a family lunch in our Sukkah.  I was explaining to Olivia, who has just turned four and Alexander, who will be two next month, that the reason we sit in the Sukkah is to remind us of the booths that Gd told us to inhabit when our ancestors were wandering around the desert.

She turned to me and asked: "Daud, who is Gd?"

I looked worriedly at Grandma Stephnie, hoping to elicit a suitable response, but she stared back, also not quite knowing what to say.  We both paused, took a breath and we both tried to give an explanation about what Gd is and what he does, but to be honest, nobody was any wiser at the end of our respective explanations.  She hadn't asked the 'what' question - that would have been easier - she'd asked the 'who' one!

What struck us about the question, which not only demonstrates how uber-smart she is (and we already know that), was about how difficult it was to answer.  After all, who is Gd?

Olivia, bless her, is not the first person to ponder as to the identity of the Almighty.  Her question goes way back to another child of a similar age who lived along the banks of the Tigris three millennia ago.

Fragments of a Midrash, Kitei Bereshit Rabbah, that was found in the Cairo Geniza tells us that when Avram Avinu was born, a star rose in the east and swallowed four stars in the four corners of heaven.  The evil King Nimrod was told by his wizards that Terach was the father to a son from whom a people would emerge, that would inherit this world and the world to come.  Nimrod wanted Terach to hand over the boy to him so that he could be killed.  Terach responded by hiding Avram in a cave for three years.

"When Avram was three years old, he left the cave and observing the world, wondered in his heart: ‘who had created heaven and earth and me’?  All that day, he prayed to the sun.  In the evening, the sun set in the west and the moon rose in the east.  Upon seeing the moon and the stars around it, he said, “This one must have created heaven and earth and me - these stars must be the moon's princes and courtiers.”  So, all night long he stood in prayer to the moon.  In the morning, the moon sank in the west and the sun rose in the east.  Then he said, “There is no might in either of these.  There must be a higher Lord over them - to Him I will pray, and before Him I will prostrate myself.”

(Quoted from "The Book of Legends: Sefer Ha-Agaddah: Legends from the Talmud and Midrash edited by Hayim Nachman Bialik and Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky - 1992 edition, Shocken Books Inc.)

I have heard this story quoted to me in different iterations since I was a child and although it presents an answer to the question of 'Who is master of the Universe?', does it really try to explain ‘who’ Gd is…and can a child of three really figure that out, even someone as brilliant as Avram undoubtably was?

The Rambam/Maimonides is similarly sceptical and presents a different viewpoint in the Mishneh Torah's Laws of Idolatry:

Mishneh Torah, Foreign Worship and Customs of the Nations 1:3

As soon as this giant was weaned, he commenced to busy his mind, in his infancy he commenced to think by day and by night, and would encounter this enigma: How is it possible that this planet should continuously be in motion and have no leader—and who, indeed, causes it to revolve, it being impossible that it should revolve [by] itself?  Moreover, he neither had a teacher nor one to impart thought to him, for he was sunk in Ur of the Chaldeans among the foolish worshippers of stars, and his father, and his mother, like all the people, worshipped stars, and he, although following them in their worship, busies his heart and reflects until he attains the path of truth, and, by his correct thinking, he understood when he finally saw the line of righteousness.

He knew that there is One God; He leads the planet; He created everything; and in all that is there is no god save He.  He knew that the whole world was in error, and that the thing which caused them to err was, that their worshipping the stars and the images brought about the loss of the truth from their consciousness.  And, when Abraham was forty years old, he recognized his Creator.

After he came to this comprehension and knowledge, he started to confute the sons of Ur of the Chaldeans, and to organize disputations with them, cautioning them, saying: “This is not the true path that you are following”, and he destroyed the images, and commenced preaching to the people warning them that it is not right to worship any save the God of the universe, and unto Him alone it is right to bow down, to offer sacrifices, and compound offerings, so that the creatures of the future shall recognize Him.

The Rambam's sensible approach to this quandary seems valid.  He recognises that Avram started his journey at the tender age of three and spent the next four decades formulating his ideas and following different paths of belief, including idol worship, until he reached the age when the answer to his quest made sense.  In trying to understand who Gd was, he himself had to appreciate who he was.  It was in facing life's challenges that he was able to recognise his own place in society and in doing so, where he could fit within Gd's universe.

A few weeks ago, we read how Gd consulted with the angels to create Adam and proceeded to do so 'in His own image'.

Genesis 1:27 And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

בראשית א׳:כ״ז וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹקִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹקִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃

 

I don't think Olivia would understand the answer to her question right now and perhaps, she may need many years to work it out herself but perhaps, if we learn to know who ‘we’ are, we will have a better understanding of who ‘Gd’ is.  We have Godliness in ourselves if we choose to follow His example.  The kindness he bestowed on us by creating the world, populating it with beautiful vistas, extraordinary wild-life and ultimately His role in our own formation is simply remarkable.

We have, should we wish to exercise it, the power to change others' lives and this points to our role in emulating Gd.  By being the best people we can aspire to be, we become closer to Him and understand Him as best as we can.  That is not to say that we can hope to comprehend why He does the things He does because that is clearly beyond our limited intellect.  But even if we listen to our conscience and do the best that we can, we can perhaps receive a glimpse of Who Gd is.

And this brings us closer to understanding Rabbi Sacks' insight.

Faith - our belief in a Higher Being is not a proof of the certainty that this being exists.  It is, however, our acceptance that, even though we can only attempt to understand who He is, what He does and why He does it, we still need the courage to hold onto that belief, through the vicissitudes of life.  Both in the highest personal peaks that we conquer and into the deepest troughs that we sometimes find ourselves.  If we want to understand who Gd is, a good place to start is by having the desire to try to find out by looking deep within ourselves and asking who we are.  Little Olivia asked a superb question.  I hope that I have gone some way to trying to answer it.  Perhaps she will discover the answer herself one day and explain it to her three-year-old granddaughter when the question comes up again in the future.

As our late and much-lamented leader wrote:

Faith is not certainty.  Faith is the courage to live with uncertainty

Bonne Courage Olivia!

Shabbat Shalom.