Friday Shabbat Shalom

If you were making a movie version of the Torah, you wouldn’t have a Parshas Vayakhel. You would have last week’s Golden Calf episode; you might have Moshe “on the mountain” getting instructions for the Mishkan. You certainly would include the splitting of the sea in your movie. You might even have a scene where we hear Hashem say, “build Me a mishkan and I will dwell among them,” from Parshas Trumah and some jump-cut edits to building the various mishkan components. But you certainly would not have Moshe telling all the details of the build to the Jewish people and then the actual item by item description of the build like in Parshas Vayakhel. Instead, you would have a montage.

It can’t happen here,” thought the Jews of Susa on the eve of their planned extermination, “not here; this is the country of Cyrus the Great!” They were right to be shocked. Persia’s emperor Cyrus had allowed – and helped – the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple after the Babylonian Exile... The incredulity of Persian Jews when Haman the Wicked so easily convinced King Assuerus to massacre the Jews is understandable. If the fact itself was shocking, the ease with which Assuerus’ acquiesce to betray his ancient allies was outstanding. He had no animosity towards Jews. He was just a frivolous monarch, interested in hunts and parties, akin to a modern politician who spends his tenure golfing.

This week is Parashat Tetzaveh, which details the dress of the Kohanim / the priests and the aspects of the altar, on which the priests performed sacrifices. This past week, I also taught an evening adult bat mitzvah class at Beth Torah Benny Rok Campus about Shabbat. What to teach that wouldn’t be... routine, obvious, maybe boring, G!D forbid? So I started by putting onto the classroom table my own challah board, knife, challah cover and some salt. And I figured I would begin the whole lesson with a question that they might not know the answer to in order to capture their attention after a long day: Why the salt? Why do we traditionally dip our bread into a bit of salt or sprinkle salt on the bread on Friday night? Total quiet— I now had their attention, success!

In Parashat Terumah, the Children of Israel embark on a remarkable endeavor. They undertake the creation of a space miniature in size, yet infinite in purpose: the mishkan (tabernacle), a portable temple designed to represent the Divine Presence accompanying them in their journey. This mishkan was a cubic structure within which the Israelites transported the tablets of the Covenant upon their shoulders throughout their desert wanderings toward the Promised Land. Its significance was profound, serving as the material vessel inviting the divine presence to dwell among them…

After several years of teaching, I became a pulpit rabbi. Since I had really only seen my father in the pulpit, I decided to ask some notable rabbis how they ran their synagogues. I had a series of lunches and learned of the differences in the way a variety of rabbis thought about the institutions they lead. One was broadly inspirational and philosophical. He spoke of the synagogue as a sacred community that thirsted for the principles of Torah...

Yitro, Moses’s father-in-law, (for whom the parsha is named this week) sees Moses judging all of Israel’s matters by himself, thus forcing people to wait from morning until evening. He tells Moses that he will only succeed in causing the nation and himself to become weary. What was so onerous about judging all those cases? Is it not possible that Moses simply had such a brilliant legal mind that he could handle this formidable task? Sforno argues that Moses was biting off way more than any human being could chew…

One of the most striking interpretations of this week's Torah portion Beshalach comes from a Midrash describing the splitting of the Red Sea. In the midst of this miraculous event, the Midrash presents a conversation between two anonymous men called Reuben and Shimon, as they cross the seabed. “In Egypt, we were immersed in mortar, and here we are still surrounded by mortar,” they remarked. “In Egypt, we had the mortar that accompanied the bricks, and here at the Red Sea, we have the mud caused by the splitting waters.” Amidst the miracle, all they could see was mud and dirt; to them, mud was mud, this time, in a new place. Their view was clouded, preventing them from grasping the significance of the moment.

In normal times, I approach Parashat Bo in the usual way. I dive deep into fine points of the story and the language of the text. I carefully examine Pharaoh’s response to each plague (was he adamant in his refusal, or ambivalent?). This is, after all, how we Jews study text, assuming that every detail of the text, even the smallest turn of phrase, contains profound meaning for us. But these are not normal times. I feel called to zoom out from the fine points of the text and ask: What is the overall message of this portion for me this year? What do the broad strokes of this story teach about a time of massive social upheaval?