Friday Shabbat Shalom

This week’s Torah portion Toldot (meaning “generations”) is full of drama and betrayal, of parenting do’s and don’ts, of sibling rivalry, and questions of birthright. Essentially it contains a parenting manual of sorts-- we are given examples of what to do and what not to do in parenting.

In Memorium: this Dvar Torah on Parashat Chayei Sarah was written by international religious leader, philosopher, award-winning author and respected moral voice, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l, the former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth (United Kingdom) who passed away last Shabbat, November 7 / 20 Cheshvan. May his memory be a blessing forever!

This week’s Dvar Torah commentary on Parashat Vayeira is written by Rabbi Shefa Gold, a well-known spiritual teacher and developer of Jewish music. She wrote the poem below about Beresheit/ Genesis Chapter 22 in which Abraham is tested by G!D with the command to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on a mountaintop G!D will show him.

G-d said to Abram “Go, you, from your land, your birthplace, and your father’s household to the land that I will show you…” We need to understand the matter here which is presented to us in “Yesod Ha’Avodah (Part 4; a, b) in the name of Rabbi Isaac Luria: “No individual is similar to another from the time he/she is created onward, and no single person can repair (in the world) what is meant for another to repair.

Noah and family must have witnessed inconceivable carnage. Everyone they knew died and they drifted aimlessly for over a year, presumably amidst floating corpses and other horrors. The world was a wasteland that they had to rebuild with the nightmarish memories of survivors. It's no wonder that Noah planted a vineyard and drowned his sorrows (Gen. 9:20-21).

There are words that change the world, none more so than two sentences that appear in the first chapter of the Torah:  Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

If I were to ask you if you thought Orthodox Jewish belief supports only a literal interpretation of the creation story in the Torah, you might be inclined to say yes. After all, don't Orthodox Jews believe that the Torah is an accurate historical account dictated by G-d to Moshe Rabbeinu/Moses our Teacher on Har Sinai/Mt. Sinai?

Sukkot is tonight, and I'm not really feeling the approaching Zman Simchateinu (the season of our joy) all that much. Between the coronavirus keeping us all more isolated and unable to host many people on the holiday to the presidential debate and this horrifying election cycle (just in time for Halloween- who needs artificial scariness?!?), I'm having a difficult time 'getting my joy on.'