Shabbat shalom. As we begin Shabbat Hanukkah, I share with you my message from Vayeshev, last week’s parsha. This is a lightly edited transcript.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m79i0uYj5M
I want to start by saying that every person in this room is an angel. Every person in this room is a shaliach, a messenger, for our creator. The challenge is-- what is the message that we share?
Before continuing I want to briefly mention two people of blessed memory. One is that this week on Hanukkah is the yarhzeit of one of my grandfathers, Arthur Weintraub, who was born in New York City and lived his whole life there other than a detour in the Second World War to Europe where he was a briefly an assistant dental hygienist. I'm trying to get my dad to find the record so I know a little bit more. He told me some of his stories that he never told my father, but I never asked enough questions because I was a teenager and didn't ask enough questions. He stayed after the war and was a translator. I don't know that that was his choice, but the US Army saw a need and said, "Hey, you spoke Yiddish, you can speak German. You're sticking around for another year." Then he came back, went to NYU and lived his life. I remember him as a compassionate, kind individual who in just about every circumstance chose the nicer thing to do.
I'm also thinking this week about Rabbi Gary Klein who passed away this week. He was the rabbi at Temple Ahavat Shalom for decades and then when he retired was the rabbi emeritus. I knew him as a compassionate, kind, person who brought warmth and connection to those around him. At his funeral this week somebody said if you spoke to him for more than 5 minutes you were part of his congregation. I really love that image.
May both of their memories be a blessing.
Now our parsha this week Vayeshev we have this complicated and challenging relationship between Joseph and his brothers. You know the para opens Vayeshev (and he settled)-- the commentators note that anytime we hear the word vayeshev that someone is settled in a place you would expect that would be a positive story. And yet in the Torah it never is! Instead anytime somebody gets settled in the Torah they get complacent, they don't see what they need to do anymore and suddenly at the time when things be Okay, things turn out a bit more complicated.
We see that in the relationship with Jacob and his sons. He shows this incredible favoritism to Yoseph. He's very explicit that Yoseph is the best. There is no son like Yoseph. And you know there are some beautiful commentaries that say he had good reason for this, that Yoseph was the only one of his sons who truly had accepted in that moment yiddishkeit, Judaism, or that he was the only whon had accepted all of the commandments of the Torah. (Side note--Rashi reminds us that there is ein mukdam umachar bTorah--no chronology, no before and after So in many of the traditional rabbitic commentaries the assumption is they knew all of the mitzvot even before they had been given. So, we'll hold on to that.)
But in that telling, Yakov knows Yoseph has received the Torah in a stronger way than his other sons. And therefore, he's showering him with attention, giving him this gift, not as a sign of his favoritism, but as a sign that he is going to be an important person, as a leader, even though he is only 17 in that moment.
So, we have that perspective and I was looking this week and there's a there's a rashi around “that man” -- Yoseph goes to find his brothers out into the fields and this guy, this unnamed individual, this EISH, this person sees him and sees he looks a little bit lost. And he says to him, "What are you looking for?" And he says, "I'm Yosepf." Joseph says, "I'm looking for my brothers. Do you know where they're pasturing?" And the man says, "They're far from here. I heard them say, "Let's go to Dothan." And Joseph follows his brothers and found them there. That is the only time we hear of this man.
Not before or after. He is never named.
And yet the commentators are stuck. You know, without this man, this EISH, if he wasn't there, if Yoseph hadn't found his brothers, then everything after wouldn't have happened. He wouldn't have been sold into slavery. He wouldn't have gone into Egypt. There would have been no Exodus and there would have been perhaps no Torah without Joseph being sold into slavery and going down into Egypt, so that our people could come out again. It's one singular tiny moment, but that unnamed man changed everything.
And when we look at the history of the world, we look at the history of the Jewish people, we look at the histories of our families and we see, you know, there are so many inflection points, so many moments where going this way or that way change absolutely everything.
And often in that moment there is someone, someone who tells us something who's in a conversation with us, that helps us realize which way we need to go. And sometimes those people are remembered to us for the rest of our life. They are vital to our stories and sometimes we don't remember their names.
I think in my own life, when I was in rabbitical school, I had a havruta, a havruta named now, Rabbi Eve Eichenholtz, who's a rabbi in Leominster, Mass. And we were assigned to study together. And because we spent hours and hours and hours together, we became good friends.
And Eve had another good friend. Her name was Rebecca Schwartz.
and Eve made sure that we met. If I had not been assigned to study with Rabbi Eve, would I have married Rebecca? Would I be here in this moment? I cannot tell you.
We all have these moments. And the thing is, it is not just those who are doing it for us, but it's also us who are doing it for other people.
You know, I mentioned my grandfather, I mentioned Rabbi Klein, and I think one of the blessings that I see from both of them is that when given a choice, they said, "How can we do this, whatever the action was, in the kindest and most compassionate way?” It didn't mean they were weak. Both of them, you know, were in challenging moments and had to make hard decisions and sometimes in things I can't even begin to imagine about.
But they said, "How can we do this while caring for those around us?" And I think about that with our Torah. This is a central lesson from beginning to end of our Torah!
You know, one of my teachers, Rabbi Shai Held, recently wrote a book called Judaism is about love. https://www.amazon.com/Judaism-About-Love-Recovering-Jewish/dp/0374192448
While a deep, philosophical, meaningful book, it is a reminder that one of the central tenants of our tradition is love. Love for our neighbor, love for our creator, love for our community. And sometimes we have to also be reminded to love ourselves.
I want to flip now to the haftorah. At the end we have an acknowledgement you know the the perennial question if a tree falls in a forest, and no one hears??...
Can two walk together
Without having met?
Does a lion roar in the forest
When it has no prey?
Does a great beast let out a cry from its den
Without having made a capture?
Does a bird drop on the ground—in a trap—
With no snare there?
Does a trap spring up from the ground
Unless it has caught something?
When a ram’s horn is sounded in a town,
Do the people not take alarm?
Can misfortune come to a town
If GOD has not caused it?
Indeed, my Sovereign GOD does nothing
Without having revealed the purpose
To God’s servants the prophets.
A lion has roared,
Who can but fear?
My Sovereign GOD has spoken,
Who can but prophesy?
Amos 3-sefaria.org
Within all of us, we may not all be prophets, but we are children of prophets. Within all of us is a call. A call to act righteously and justly. a call to love and to show compassion and blessing, especially in times when compassion and kindness are not appreciated.
We live in a challenging moment.
And Jews have ALWAYS lived in challenging moments or at least it's always been challenging for Jews. They say it's hard to be a Jew, but there's also incredible blessing. As I mentioned earlier in our Torah reading, you know, the Netivot Shalom,the Slenomr Rebbe reminds us that it is in those moments when things feel darker, when things feel a little bit rotten that we can create beautiful things. We can be nurtured and grow and bring green into the world, bringing new life.
I think about that as we go into Hanukkah tomorrow night.
Are we creating a world where we are bringing light, where we are bringing compassion, where we are sometimes named and sometimes unnamed the angel for those around us? Because I truly truly believe that every single one of us has been granted a purpose by our creator and I believe that our purpose is to care for those in our families and our communities among our people and beyond.
So I wish you that you should be an angel every day, that you should bring that love and that compassion and that we should feel that this Shabbat and every Shabbat and all the days in between.
Shabbat shalom.
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