The Pshat Heard 'Round the World

Ki Tisa - when you lift up the head of the people of Israel. Lifting up the head or face has many associations and meanings, some positive, some not so positive (to wit: the opposing and ironic usages of the term by Yosef to the Egyptian butler and baker), but the positive predominates. Lifting up the head is a way of encouraging by relating. Those were some of the thoughts going through my mind as I was learning with my son, Yinon, last night at his yeshiva tichonit (high school yeshiva) in Otniel - the parents are invited to learn with their sons before every in-Shabbat, about every two or three weeks, and I try to make as many of those sessions as I can because Yinon, the middle child (or "sandvitch", as they say in pure Biblical Hebrew) of our five (bli ayin hara) children, effectively lives at yeshiva, so it's special opportunity to encourage him, deepen the connection, heck, to lift up his head!! They gave us a sheet of prepared sources dealing with road safety,...

Beginning with his birth in Parshat Shmot, Moshe's name is mentioned in every Parasha of the Torah (until Chumash Devarim , since he is the first-person narrator for most of the book). Yet in Parashat T'zaveh, it is nowhere to be found. Where is Moshe? Now, lest we dismiss Moshe's absence as a coincidental by-product of the haphazard manner in which history and custom have divided the Torah into weekly portions, consider this: our parasha opens with a series of Divine directives aimed at Moshe: V'atah t'zaveh; v'atah hakrev, v'atah t'daber: ­ "you must command, you must bring close, you must speak". What could have been more natural than to set the context of the various commands by at least beginning with Vayomer Hashem el Moshe? Furthermore, the very first pasuk of the next Parasha begins: Vayomer Hashem el Moshe! Where, then, in Tetzaveh , is Moshe? Let's find him! Parshat T'zaveh places us right in the middle of the extended se...

I was speaking last night with a student at the yeshiva with a keen interest in exploring the nexus between Torah and environmental consciousness. We were discussing a seminar he will be giving, G-d willing,  in the next few months. He wanted to present Ya'akov Avinu as a model of environmental consciousness, focusing on two episodes of his life as depicted by the Midrash. The first is the famous image of Ya'akov at the Yabok, preparing for the encounter with Esav and, having crossed his family safely over the river, goes back for pachim ketanim , little flasks, seeming worthless given the danger hovering over Ya'acov. Yet, as we are told, the righteous prize their few possessions, since they attest to the fact that they have studiously avoided theft. Variants of that Midrash tell us that the contents of those small vials was olive oil from the branch presented by the dove to Noach and preserved during all the intervening generations. The other midrash is apropos of our...

"When a man marries a woman,,," - So much to say about this statement, which appears in two consecutive passages in this week's portion, in VERY different contexts. So much to say about the source of the mitzvah of marriage, but no time to say it, because it's only an hour until Shabbat and this Shabbat is, bli ayin hara , our oldest son's ufruf!!! This next week he is indeed " ki tetze ", when he joins his kallah in their new home in Elazar after their wedding this next Yom Revi'i (Wednesday), G-d willing! May we all be blessed to built batim ne'emanim b'yisrael , to the thousandth generation!!!

"Two peoples/proud ones in your womb; two nations will part in/ depart from your womb; nation from/than nation shall gain strength, and great(ly) shall serve young". This is the prophecy, ambiguous on several counts, which was shared with Rivka when she went to inquire of Hashem regarding the implications of her intolerable pain induced by the thrashing from within her womb. And, as it is practically impossible to shed the midrashic associations which accompany Yaakov and Esav from their first appearance, identifying the former with the people Israel and the latter with Rome, our great adversary, I won't try to do so. It would make no sense. And sense, or sensation, is precisely what is lacking in the key passage of our parashah. Recall that, upon hearing her husband, Yitzchak's misguided intend to bestow his blessing on Esav, his favorite, Rivka is keen on insuring that Yaakov, her favorite and the one designated for greatness (as she understands the prophecy) r...

Ya'akov is returning home after twenty-odd years in Padam-Aram in Lavan's household. He's brought in tow a large household acquired despite Lavan's deceit by years of honest sweat, toil, and, primarily, Hashem's blessing. He's faced down Lavan who pursued him and challenged him at Gal-ed. Now, as he re-enters Eretz Yisrael, he sends messengers/angels to Esav, his brother, his nemesis. He sends the messengers to the land of Seir , where Esav seems to have taken up residence (as is made explicit at the parashah's end). Why does he do this? Why not let sleeping dogs lie, asks the midrash in almost precisely those words? Yet it seems that Ya'akov cannot - he fled from before his brother's rage so long ago, a rage stirred up by Ya'acov's own actions which effectively supplanted Esav as heir to the Avrahamic legacy, and now it is time to do the tikkun for a relationship so badly damaged, even if those actions were taken under divine guidanc...

"If you come to My house, I'll come to your house" ( Im tavo l'veiti, avo l'veitechah ) Thus goes a well-known and enigmatic epigram of Hillel Hazaken. What does it mean, and to whom does it refer. The standard interpretation puts the words in the mouth of Hashem, and interprets them thus: If you come to the Beit Hamikdash and fulfill your responsibilities, then I will come to your homes and communities and bless you there with plenty. Let's turn it around, however, and apply it to our parashah. Avraham has just undergone Brit Milah and is recovering in his tent, when Hashem comes to him and reveals himself. No sooner is that stated than Avraham lifts his eyes and beholds three men standing there, he addresses s(S)omeone and says, my l(L)ord, if it please you, don't go on, stay here. Rashi brings the midrashic interpretation that Avraham addressed Hashem and asked him to wait while he attended to the visitors, and from here we learn the greatness of ...

Some thoughts which pushed their way to the surface with the help of a shiur by Rav Daniel Kohn yesterday (as usual in such matters, credit is his, responsibility is mine). "You shall rejoice in your festival...and you shall be altogether happy". Thus we are commanded regarding Sukkot. But aside from the usual questions that arise when it seems that the Torah commands an emotion, there's another more pressing questions that is all but asked by the holiday itself - what is there to be happy about? Yes, it is true, we are finally gathering in our hard-earned harvest, for which we toiled and over which we fretted a thousand different worries during the last year agricultural year. But we can hardly help but notice that we have arrived at this auspicious moment because yet another year has passed, and, as we look at the fields around, as the plants wither, as the weather turns a colder shoulder to our hopes, as we begin to gather our lives into the structures which we call...

"Everyone knows...." That's the way Reb Shlomo used to introduce some esoteric Chassidic teaching before giving it his unique twist through which it was revealed that the inner core was indeed to be found within the hearts of every person. I'm using the term in a different, but ultimately, not-so-different manner: Everyone knows that there's a dispute regarding the righteousness of Noach. Rashi made that the case, when he chose to present in his opening comments to Parashat Noach this dispute between Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Nechemia as to whether Noach was righteous only in comparison to the rotten state of people in his generation, or whether he would have flourished also in some other, better generation. What many people DON'T know is that this famous dispute is not an isolated instance, but rather one of some one hundred disputes in Aggadic matters between Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Nechemia strewn across the entire Tanach, and concentrated especially i...

Does one EVER get beyond the first words of this week's parashah when expounding upon Avraham? Lech Lecha , go for yourself, for your own benefit, says Rashi, since "the road" leads to poverty, anonymity, and infertility, I promise you, says Hashem to Avraham (per Rashi), that I'll bless you in all these realms. And following Rashi's lead but taking things in a different direction are a whole line-up of interpreters, Chasidic masters foremost amongst them, who revel in new insights into those first two words. But if our interpretive tradition is stuck on those two words, Avraham, for his part, goes on, spending the better part of our parashah walking – not just TO Eretz Yisrael, but, soon after his arrival, down to Egypt and back, then, upon his return, retracing his initial steps, then to the far north of the land in pursuit of the captors of his nephew, Lot. He walks a strange walk between severed sacrifices in the dream sequence of the covenant between the...

Well, this week's offering is probably about as far from Pshat as one might imagine. I'd like to share with you an aggadah that I find astonishing and beautiful, both suggestive and incomprehensible at once. Perhaps you'll help me with your ideas, but I'll accept nothing short of a mind-blowing interpretation. The run-up: Let's note that, despite Sarah's absence, or perhaps because of it - this parashah is a woman's parashah. It is dominated by female figures who impose their presence even as they remain elusively behind the scenes. The parashah opens with the intolerable limbo of Sarah's presence/absence as Avraham seeks to acquire her final resting place. Afterwards, we are told that, though Avraham has been blessed in everything, he still needs to find a wife for Yitzchak. The tanna'im dispute the midrashic implications of "blessed with everything": One says, it means that Avraham was blessed by NOT having fathered a daughter; ...

"And Tuval Kayin's sister was Na'amah" – what a strange place to end an aliyah – "in the middle of nowhere". Is there some hidden logic in this widespread custom to end the fifth aliyah of Parashat Bereshit with these words? We are given rules regarding how to break a passage to be read into several aliyot. We are bidden to conform to the presentation of the text when possible – the breaks between parashiyot were given to Moshe to reflect between each matter, and that is where we should break when recreating that giving of Torah by our public reading. We should not stop our reading in the middle of a story. Also, we are not to end an aliyah on a "downer", a negative note. The story of Lemech comes as a coda to the story of Kayin. Lemech is the seventh generation from Adam down the Kayinian line. Like his progenitor, he kills a man, and seeks to invoke divine protection from human retribution. In a sense, Lemech is the climax of what was ...

MiIgra Rama l'Bira Amikta! From a high roof to a deep pit! That's how some describe the sudden transition from the incomparable, dizzying spiritual heights of Matan Torah in last week's parasha to the mundane, all-too-earthly laws regulation such unspiritual acts as assault, murder, injury, property damage, enslavement and the like. How could Moshe one moment be reassuring the people regarding the lasting impact of their near-death spiritual high at Mt. Sinai, and the next minute be instructing them of how properly to sell their daughters into slavery? How do WE move from the sublime and material to the ever-so-concrete and material in a single week? The Midrash is also disturbed, it seems, by the shift to the mundane realm. Our Sages were constantly fending off the attacks of early Christianity and other sects who pointed to the preoccupation with concrete details as an indication that Jews had lost their spiritual way. Shemot Rabba chapter 30 devotes lengthy disco...

Amongst the many laws presented in this week's parasha, Mishpatim , is a group of laws regulating the responsibilities of guardians of property. These three paragraphs, Shemot 22:6-14, are understood by the Chachamim as addressing the cases of four distinct types of guardians, the classic arba'ah shomrim . The unpaid guardian, shomer chinam , exempts himself from responsibility should the item he is guarding be damaged, destroyed, lost, stolen, etc., by taking an oath that he was neither negligent in his duties, nor did he himself misappropriate the item. He has no personal benefit from the arrangement, and thus he has the least responsibility. On the other end of the spectrum the borrower, or sho'el , must pay in every case. He has all the benefit – use without payment - and thus he must shoulder all the responsibility. In between fall the renter ( socher ) and the paid guardian ( shomer sachar ). At first glance, this might seem to be a curious grouping – is...