Like Father Like Son (Not Exactly) (Naso 5775)

Sometimes when we look in the mirror we see ourselves looking just like our parents or we catch ourselves acting just like one of them. But at other times not. 

How can both be true?  There is a clue in this week's Torah portion, Naso. The Torah describes in repetitive detail the nature of each tribe's offering for the dedication of the wilderness altar. 

The Torah is repetitive and seemingly redundant in that each tribe's offering included the same things - measure for measure - as the other tribes.  There seems to be a lesson in Torah abandoning its typically efficient language to repeat the list of offering materials twelve times instead of just once. 

One lesson may be that even one's actions that look identical to another person's actions, could be different if one person's motivation animating those actions are different from another person's.  In other words, conduct animated by one motivation is different than the same conduct if animated by another motivation. 

Another lesson may be that things that look the same are often different.  The Jewish tradition recognizes the power of individual motivations to transform actions.  For example, Proverbs 22:6 teaches, "Teach a student according to his

Measuring and Treasuring Time (Emor 5775)

We can do just about anything with time. Consider all the actions or verbs we associate with time: add, bend, count, delay, extend, find, get, have, invest . . . just about anything. 

Alicja Kwade's 'Void of the Moment in Motion'

This is a season for counting days -- counting up all the projects and learning we've accomplished approaching the end of a school year, counting down to the final days of high school for our seniors. It also is a season of counting in Jewish terms -- we traditionally count each day between Passover and Shavuot. We learn that custom from this week's Torah portion, Emor. The portion also reminds us about counting days in the week for Shabbat and counting other moments in time for festivals. 

It is a way of saying that every moment in time should be valued and treasured; no moment should be taken for granted.

To illustrate our relationship with time, I shared a corny story with my students this week.  A woman was on the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall in Jerusalem and wanted to check the time.  But her cell phone battery had died so she asked a stranger for the time.  The stranger replied, "I don't know the time; I don't have a watch or phone." "Then how do you keep track of time," she asked.   "Oh, during the day," he told her, "I ask people on the street for the time."