Shabbat Weekly Dvar Torah

Here are my feelings on the matter. First, gratitude and joy that we haven’t had a direct and devastating hit so far! Second, sadness and some survivor guilt because some other community(ies) got hit. Third, the realization that hurricanes and other natural disasters are only disasters if human beings live in their path… Think about it. Hurricanes have probably been battering our fair peninsula for thousands of years. But until human beings lived here, no one assigned a “good/bad” label to them.

This week I came across something called the World Happiness Report, which ranks the overall sense of population happiness in 143 countries… Here are their top five countries as ranked by happiness for 2024: 1) Finland 2) Denmark 3) Iceland 4) Sweden and (drumroll please…) 5) Israel! The rest of the top ten are rounded out by 6) Netherlands 7) Norway 8) Luxembourg 9) Australia and 10) Switzerland. Aside from the overwhelming domination of Northern European countries, I was more than a little surprised to see that Israel ranked so highly. Here is what they had to say about Israel…

Years ago, I was invited to speak on a panel about the role of women in religion alongside three other women religious leaders: a protestant pastor, a Muslim scholar and a very involved practitioner of the Bahai faith. I happily agreed to be on the panel, and then I received in my inbox the details of the event including its title: “Women in Religion: Have We Come Far Enough?” And I said aloud to my computer: “No!” To my mind, if we were asking the question, we already had the answer. What could truly be “far enough?”

This week, we entered into the Hebrew month of Elul. In most years, Elul is month of promise and renewal, carrying the energy of hope. This year, our hearts and souls are cracked and grieving. We need to leave space for the sorrow, and know that, as heavy as it feels, and as often as our eyes fill throughout the day, we are not alone in carrying this pain. The world feels so incredibly broken. In so many places. I don't believe we can skip over the grief, force ourselves to put on a good face and paper over the deep sadness. It's there, and there is good reason for its presence, and we need to invite it into the circle, so to speak.

“I ain’t no false prophet - I just know what I know. I go where only the lonely can go,” sings Bob Dylan in his song “False Prophet.” A false prophet makes claims to have secret knowledge that others cannot access. The false prophet uses this information to persuade followers to a particular agenda. Dylan warns against making him into this kind of person: “What are you lookin’ at - there’s nothing to see. Just a cool breeze encircling me.” A false prophet can only exert the authority others give him.

It is a paradox, really. People of real worth tend to have worth, because of their belief in their unworthiness. That's one of Moses's messages to the Israelites in this week's Torah portion, Eikev. Much of the book of Deuteronomy is Moses speaking to the people, giving them a pep talk if you will, attempting to relay the most important messages of the Israelite story so that they can take the wisdom learned with them as they enter the Promised Land.

This week we observed Tisha b’Av, commemorating all the destructions, forced conversions, expulsions, and massacres in our history, culminating in the Shoah. This year, we had yet another disaster to add to this pageant of pain and loss: Hamas’ attack on October 7th. Just as in other times we composed elegies of lament, or kinot, recited every Tisha b’Av, so some have stepped forward with new lamentations.

This Shabbat we begin the last of the Five Books, the Book of Deuteronomy or Devarim ("words" in Hebrew). The Book is primarily a review (Deutero – Greek for “repetition”) of the previous 4 books, with Moses exhorting the Israelites to remember what was set down over the previous 40 years. Clearly, this is a new generation that was not present at Mt. Sinai and is now being commanded to recall the moment as if they had been there themselves. This is the beginning of the unique Jewish concept of passing on the heritage of collective revelation – as if we had all been there. Moses, at the age of 120 years, reviews what the “children of Israel” have been through. He rebukes the people, admonishes them for some of their derelictions, and charges them to keep the Torah in the future.