Bringing Our Light to Those in the Dark (Miketz and Chanukah 5775)

How often do we walk past street performers without even listening to them, let alone looking to really see them?  

Knowing that about ourselves, of the more than one thousand people who walked past a talented violinist playing brilliantly for 45 minutes inside a transit station how many would you guess stopped to listen? How many would you guess actually put money in his violin case?  

Just about eight years ago virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell did that. He played inside a Washington DC Metro station instead of the typical concert hall.  He played beautifully on a violin that cost more than $3 million.  That morning 1,100 people went by as he played.  

Seven stopped to listen and look.  Of those most were children.  One adult actually recognized him as a renowned artist.  She put $20 in his violin case.  From everyone else who heard him -- 1,100 people -- he collected $12.17. [More about this 2007 story as written by Gene Weingarten]   

Either people did not notice him or did not pause long enough to even look at him.  Which brings us to the intersection of this week’s Torah portion and Chanukah.  

Giving Voice by Listening (Vayishlach 5775)

How shy are you?  I used to think of myself as really shy.  I know from reading Susan Cain's enlightening book, "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Cannot Stop Talking," that I might be more introverted than shy.  

Cain writes, for instance, "extroverts are the people who will add life to your dinner party and laugh generously at your jokes.  [They] think out loud [and] prefer talking to listening." (p.11.)  Introverts, on the other hand, "wish they were at home in their pajamas. . . . [They] listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation" (p.11)  

Cain encourages us to recognize the nuanced differences between shyness and introversion.  Yet one thing that shy people and introverts have in common is quiet. Which often means that those who are shy and introverted are treated as if without voice.  One of the most powerful ways to give them voice is to stop talking and listen -- quiet ourselves to make space for their voice and then authentically listen. 

Many years ago returning to school after Thanksgiving I was in an airport.  It is one of the places that I feel especially shy and introverted.  I often  sit, for example, at a remote, empty gate in order to avoid the commotion at the gate for my flight.  For this flight I picked an especially remote gate because the airport was so crowded and I wanted the quiet.  A woman sat in the chair right next to mine.  Dozens of empty chairs and benches right near by and she sat right next to me.  

Friends For Life (Toledot 5775)

Friendships that are authentic, nurturing, and encouraging are exactly what we need to sustain life’s challenges and setbacks -- to move forward with strength and joy.  Friendship is also a powerful framework for individual learning and growth.  

Friendships not only sustain us as individuals but also authentic friendship -- being in relationship with another whose interests we put on par with our own -- is the essential building block of community.  

The Torah portion this week features a number of negative models of friendship or fractured relationships.  And it’s not just the conflict between the twin brothers Jacob and Esau.  There also is the provisional, utilitarian (and, ultimately, false) friendship between Isaac and the king Avimelech.


When Isaac faces a famine in his homeland he relocates to the kingdom of Avimelech who seems at first to befriend Isaac. Avimelech provides nourishment and shelter for Isaac.  He even protects his new friend Isaac’s wife, Rebecca, from the lust of strangers.

Isaac settles-in and prospers gaining great wealth, a large household, and lots of herds.  Apparently, Avimelech is threatened by Isaac’s prosperity. Avimelech shatters the friendship demanding, “Get away from us, you have gotten way too big for us." (Genesis 26:16) As Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson suggests maybe Avimelech could be friends only with someone dependent on him.  

The Jewish tradition contrasts this negative model of friendship with one that idealizes caring regard and mutual support.  Ecclesiastes wrote, "Two are better than one . . . because if they fall, the one will lift up the other; but woe to one that is alone when falling because there is not another one to help lift him up.” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10.)  

Loners, Unite! (Chayei Sarah 5775)

The first mention of romantic love in the Torah occurs this week in Chayei Sarah.  As the Torah narrative transitions from Sarah and Abraham to Rebecca and Issac, we are told that when Rebecca and Isaac encounter each other for the first time, their first reaction is one of humility and mutual respect.

Then after a rapid courtship that involves only a single deep encounter they marry.  And only after they marry, in an order that seems inverted, are we told Isaac loves Rebecca. (Genesis 24:65-67).  The ancient lesson seems to be that authentic love blossoms from a real encounter, an authentic relationship between partners. Not the other way around. Love at first sight is for fairy tales.  But real love more often is the product of mutual respect, shared encounter, and authentic relationship. 

In that spirit, a story about the power of loners uniting.  Once upon a time there were two strangers living on opposite sides of the same village.  Isaac was a peddler whose wagon traversed the west side of the village; Rebecca was the peddler on the east side.  They knew of each other but never really met.  One day each Rebecca decided to take her wagon to the neighboring village to expand her sales.  She loaded up her wagon with fabrics and pots and tools of all sorts.  That same day Isaac decided to to the same thing.  He loaded up his wagon with fabrics and pots and tools of all sorts.  

Loners, Unite!

There's Something Bigger Than Phil: A Patriarch's Lesson in Pluralism (Vayeira 5775)

Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner
©Robert Trachtenberg

If you grew up listening to recordings of the fictional Two-Thousand Year Old Man (TYOM), as I did, then you already know the story that sets-up the punchline, "There's something bigger than Phil!"  

The TYOM is the invention of comedians Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner.  They imagined what it would be like to interview someone who was over 2,000 years old.  One part of their sketch involves the start of religion.  Reiner playing the interviewer asks Brooks playing the TYOM whether he was alive before people believed in God. "Oh, yeah, a few years before," answered TYOM.  

"Did you believe in anything?  Did you believe in any Superior Being?"  "Yes!  A guy named Phil!" replied TYOM  

"Who was Phil?" "Phillip.  The leader.  The leader of our tribe.  He was very big. Very strong.  A big beard, big chest, big arms.  I mean, he could kill you.  So, we did everything he asked.  He could just walk on you and you could die."

"And you revered him?"  TYOM answered, "We prayed to him.  Would you like to hear one of our prayers to Phillip?" "Yes, we would."

TYOM then recited one of the "ancient" prayers, "Ohhhh, Phillip.  Ohhhh Phillip. Please don't take our eyes out and don't pinch us and don't hurt us.  Ohhh Phillip, don't step on us.  Leave us alone.  Ohhhhhh Phillip.  Aaaaaaamen!" 

"How long was his reign?"  "Oh, not too long.  Because one day Phillip was hit by lightning.  And we looked up, we said . . . 'There's something bigger than Phil!'"

Noah and a Pair of Lions: Its Not What You Think (Noach 5775)

(c) Paul Goldstein as featured in Daily Mail

This summer we took our niece and nephew to the zoo. She was fascinated by a lioness carrying a cub in her mouth. Which brought to mind a folktale about mothers carrying their young.

Once there was a lioness teaching her very young cub how to walk. As the cub builds some muscles, the lion watches over the cub, walks alongside the cub, keeps the cub from falling into gullies or stepping on snakes. "I will teach you how to walk in the world. Stay by me," she said. Wherever they went, the lioness and the cub walked together - side by side.

As the cub grew into the next season it comes time for the pride to cross from one plain to another across a wide river. But the river was too deep and too

From 'Why me?' to 'Why not me?' (Yom Kippur 5775)

This is the season for reflection and transformation. For some of us reflecting on the year that has just ended it is tempting to cry out, "Why me?" The accumulated weight of a year's worth of challenges and disappointments, of sadnesses or tragedies seems too much to bear. "Why me? Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?"  

For some our enduring ability to nurse grievances or "pick-at-the-scab" of hurts blocks our path forward in the coming year.  Our preoccupation with disappointment can be a barrier to transformation at this season.  

This end-of-year dilemma is reflected this year in the end-of-life drama of Moses in the Torah portion we read in the week leading up to Yom Kippur, V'zot Habrachah.  [Note: The portion is read during this week but not on Shabbat because Yom Kippur, which coincides with Shabbat this year, has its own special Torah readings.]