genesis

Parsha Vayetze: The First Step (Gen 28:10 – 32:3)

November 16, 2015 By Jeremiah

When I was still a child it just blew my mind every time I heard the story of Moses descending from Sinai with the Ten Commandments. Back then I pictured the ancient world as a disorganized violent place where incredible muscle bound hulks traipsed about dragging damsels in distress by their hair and killing at will. Nothing could be further from the truth. The same societal ills that plagued our fore fathers plague us today. Growing up in the United States it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that since the Emancipation Proclamation slavery is no more or since the Wolf of Berlin placed the barrel of his luger to his head and pulled the trigger genocide is a cruel joke from the past. Vayetze addresses this naivety .

Almost half way through Genesis this week’s portion reads almost the same as the previous portions just with different names. Jacob is deceived in a similar way in which he deceived his father Isaac, Rachel becomes increasingly jealous at Leah and Bilhah for conceiving Jacob’s children, Laban covets Jacob’s wealth, and Hashem intervenes once again this time with dreams.

What sets Vayetze apart is Jacob’s ladder dream with celestial beings climbing up and down. At first I am a little puzzled that a ladder and not a tree appears in his dream. Trees are so important to Jews of all walks, trees represent life, knowledge, and mysticism, plus like a ladder you can climb up and down. So why a ladder and not a tree? Trees are climbed for fun but ladders are climbed for work. When you climb a ladder you look up or down and then move a rung consciously in your desired direction. Climbing a tree you scurry, reach, jump, swing, and smile your way around and down. Hashem placed a ladder in Jacob’s dream to show him and us that just living life in a way where you just go with the flow while easy is not what is expected from us. Hashem forgets nothing and through his covenants He is being patient and working really hard with humanity to get us back to a Eden-esq or Messianic state of being. The Ten Commandments are being written one by one on the tablets in Sinai they just will not be finished until many years later after Moses climbs the mountain like a ladder a second time.

Today we may have better technology, more comfortable lives, and more transparency in society but at our core our dilemmas are no different than those faced by Jacob. The ancient world is no more or less savage than the one today. Not just in war zones or developing countries but everywhere even in the only super power left in the world. I remember once when I was kid I decided to climb a pine tree. For over an hour I battled with bark in my eye, limbs scrapping open my skin, sap dripping all over me. It was a slow and painful process but I kept reaching and striving for that next rung of branches. When I made it to the top sure I was happy but I knew I would have to start the same painful process to descend. I may have went home with my eyes red and swollen, with blood oozing out of my hands and arms, and my clothes and hair matted with sap but I learned a lesson that is still with me to this day. The easy way is to just stay where your at flowing with the good and bad at the same time. Taking the first step in either direction is hard work in fact so hard that each additional step after the first is just another first step.

I challenge all of you to strive for that first step up, counter complacency and the wicked who are taking steps down. Tikkun Olam can only start inside of you.

What first steps have you worked hard to take? Do you ever stop for a break? Tell us about it comment below.

Parsha Toldot: The Age of Quarrel (Gen 25:19 – 28:9)

November 9, 2015 By Jeremiah

Parsha Toldot like many other Torah Portions has a sense of ambiguity to it. This ambiguity is what makes the Torah’s lessons relevant for people living yesterday, today, tomorrow, for both male and females, people of all ages, and for everyone scattered across this globe we call Earth. When I decided to try my hand at Dvar-ing (is that even a word?) I tried to forget everything that I know about our collective spiritual ancestors. I didn’t want to infuse each week’s reading with some socio-political agenda or pen a modern day discussion citing great Jewish minds past and present like Rambam and Elie Wiesel, who knows maybe the next cycle I will focus my Dvrei through that looking glass. As I sat down to once again read the story of Jacob and Esau’s relationship with each other and their parents all I could think about were the concepts of mind over matter and might makes right.

This portion is about twin brothers who when looked at as one person create a deep, complicated, driven individual. The Quarrel between the two is really the conflict we all deal with on a daily basis within ourselves. Jacob leaves his mother’s womb clinging to his brothers heal. This tells us that in Rebecca’s womb as each body split and grew into Esau and Jacob there was a struggle. Esau being the physically stronger was able fight his way out first, Jacob while physically weaker was mentally determined to never give up by clinging to his brother.

As they grew older Esau was manly, hairy, loud, an outdoors man or the extrovert. Jacob was delicate, smooth skinned, quiet, an indoors man or the introvert. The extrovert in the here and now is always dominant while the introvert is able to visualize a goal and piece by piece work towards it only to dominate later. When Esau ate Jacob’s soup he was dominating because he had the soup and was no longer hungry Jacob on the other hand knew what he ultimately wanted and while giving up his meal was able to take a step towards his ultimate goal by making a trade for Esau’s birthright. Later on he tricks his father Isaac into giving him what would have been Esau’s blessing and Esau Jacob’s blessing enraging Esau. Esau’s rage is not at his mother for conspiring against him with Jacob or at his father for going along with the charade, but at his other half Jacob and by default himself.

How often do each of us allow our thoughts and actions to clash within us. How often do you let insecurities stop you from simply just getting better. Better at physical pursuits and better intellectually. There are many times when I am my worst enemy when I quarrel within myself for not being the strongest, the most outgoing, the wittiest. What is your quarrel? How have you reconciled your extrovert and introvert sides?

Parsha Chayei Sarah: Choices Made (Gen 23:1 – 25:18)

November 2, 2015 By Jeremiah

O.K. I’m going to keep this week’s Dvar short and sweet. Abraham and Sarah’s time comes to an end while the next generation gets its start with the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca. At the beginning of this week’s portion Sarah departs this world for the world to come and a distraught Abraham purchases a plot of land to lay her body to rest. Abraham marries again and fathers additional sons. As Abraham prepares to depart this world he leaves his estate to Isaac, and gives some of his wealth to the sons of his concubines so they can start their own lives independent of Isaac. Tucked between the deaths of his parents Isaac marries Rebecca after Abraham charges his servant to return to his homeland in order to find a suitable wife for his son Isaac.

This may seem like a transitional portion but an underlining concept is present; and that concept is choices. Reflecting over the previous portions in this year’s cycle the choices made form a linking chain. The interesting thing is most of these decisions are made by our matriarchs giving them a feminine flavor over a masculine one. The idea of masculine and feminine means a lot more than the outline on the public restroom door you use they represent everything from language rules to the approach someone takes during real life situations. In the Torah we see where the feminine approach is more cerebral while the masculine is more physical. Think about it Eve chooses to partake of the fruit Adam follows suit. Sarah chooses to build a life and family with Abraham, while he acts out of fear to preserve his own well being; and ultimately it is Rebecca’s choice to leave her home only to, believe it or not, fall in love with Isaac and what does Isaac do he takes her into his tent and weds her.

I could go on and on categorizing events in Torah as masculine or feminine but its more beneficial for each of us to reflect and do that ourselves. Which pieces of our collective history do you view as masculine and which do you view as feminine? Comment below I want to know what you think.

Parsha Vayechi: Bought the single for the A-side but ended up loving the B-side more. (Gen 47:28 – 50:26)

January 2, 2015 By Jeremiah

Vayechi is the final Parsha of Genesis and the Parsha where two very charismatic patriarchs cross the threshold of the world to come. Growing up when this part of the Torah cycled through Joseph was nothing more to me than a kid with a coat who ends up in Egypt nothing more nothing less. When I decided to start Circle Pit the Bimah I wanted to try and approach each portion like it is the first time and not the thirty-third. I have really worked hard to try and forget, for lack of a better term, what I have learned from others in the past. This means no commentator quotes, no socio-political agenda, and no current news or popular culture references. So far this approach has really worked and for the first time in my life I see Joseph for who he was not for what he wore or where he lived.

As in life dualism places an integral role within Judaism, and at no other time is the clash between religious observance and secular life more evident than as it is with Joseph. Joseph is the patriarch who represents a secular life accompanied by belief in fact our holiday of Hanukkah which is observed during Joseph’s Torah portions is a holiday founded around that clashing of the religious and secular worlds. Very fitting, why is all of this important? Vayechi continues this tradition, Israel blesses Joseph’s sons out of order defying the normal process, Joseph returns Israel’s body to the land of his forefathers for a religious burial, and Joseph stays in Egypt and when he dies is interred under Egyptian customs.

Even today it seems most of the time the secular minded of us are attacking the fundamental foundations of the more religious Jew’s life by trying to impose a different set of day to day values than what they are used to. Depending on where you live the orthodox do the same to us, and unfortunately this will never change. Sometimes a marriage will occur between both worlds other times it may seem we are more cruel to each other than our enemies are to us. We will never be without the other. Eden is the only place within creation where there are only two mitzvot the first is just live and the other is do not eat the fruits of this one tree. If we were all Rabbinic Torah masters what need would we have for the Torah and Jewish fellowship the same is true if we are all righteous secular Jews.

The world we live in demands a Torah and that will never change, what we can change is how we approach the other side. The reasoning which might sway me probably will not work on my polar opposite and it is arrogant to think the same is true when the situation is reversed. I will always need a Rabbi because I am not a Rabbi, just as a Rabbi will always need a student so that he can be a Rabbi.

Where do you think a person should draw a line, if any, between religious and secular pursuits? Have you ever felt singled out for attack by the other side of the same family? We want to hear from you. Comment below or send me a message jeremiah@punktorah.org Twitter: @circlepitbimah.

Parsha Vayigash: Brother of Mercy (Gen 44:18 – 47:27)

December 27, 2011 By Jeremiah

Seriously, is there anyone out there who does not like a nice happy ending? The previous portions dealing with Joseph are burdened with some really heavy events, for someone with so many highs and lows in their life it is kind of nice that his story ends relatively quiet and understated. Vayigash is the portion where Joseph breaks into tears revealing himself to his brothers, he is reunited with his beloved and in a way estranged father, and he relocates his entire family to Egypt so they will be closer to him.

Joseph up until this point is the quintessential conservative archetype, he worked hard building himself up in wealth and power while maintaining an uncompromising stance in blind faith and “got over” being a slave and prisoner. The Joseph of Vayigash is the polar opposite of this approach, he provides land for his reconciled family to live on using his status as a statesmen, he also negotiates with the populace securing all the land and resources in Egypt for Pharaoh and his government creating a socialized large government, and it works with great success.

What really stood out to me this week is what transpires at the end of the Parsha, where Joseph barters back the land of Egypt from the locals for Pharaoh. As much as I might try to block out what is about to happen in the coming week’s portions in regards to the Hebrews in Egypt I just can not do it. People are not born racist, they are taught racism and yet in a way you can’t teach racism because when you think about it being racist is an impossible state of being for humans what is not is being an “economist.” Living my entire life in the United States stereotypically Jews and East Asians are viewed as smart and crafty but not industrious, anyone with black or brown skin is often portrayed as lazy and dim witted and of course not industrious. The industrious people of American society are the white Christians all of whom have built and maintain the only world super power. This is all ridiculous non-sense but we can see a parallel with our modern society and ancient Egypt. The Torah never mentions Joseph hiding the fact he was a foreign ex-slave who served hard time in prison, because he was able to provide for everyone he was excepted and loved as was his tribe by proxy. As the generations passed the Egyptians forgot about how Joseph showed mercy and treated all like a brother and his kinsmen became the others of society and thus a liability.

What do you think? Was Joseph driven by mercy? How has your views on other cultures within your own changed over the years? Please share post a comment below or send me a message jeremiah@punktorah.org Twitter: circlepitbimah.

Contact info

Connect with us