Fall!! (and leaves and leaving)

One of the (many) treats of being at the Oraita retreat this week in New Hampshire is that the leaves moved from just-starting-to-change to approaching-their-height during the week. On the drive home to Pennsylvania, the first stretch down through New Hampshire and Massachusetts was really spectacular. . . . I love fall!!!

This week the Torah reading is Parsaht Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1 - 17:27), which tells the story of Avraham leaving his homeland and his father's house to begin his great journey to fulfill God's will (and found a nation). This week of study for me was also an attempt to find a way towards fulfilling God's will. And I had to journey from my home and its comforts to take on this task.

May it be the will of the Holy Blessed One that we shall always be ready to hear the Blessed One's call and be willing to leave our homes when that call demands a journey of us.

Shabbat Shalom.

Learning journeys

You might have thought that once the people Israel had received the Torah at Mt. Sinai that they would have been ready to enter the land promised to them. But after Sinai, their wanderings would continue for nearly another four decades. The Book of BeMidbar/במדבר (or Numbers), which we began reading last Shabbat, recounts the story of those wanderings. These wanderings were full of triumphs, but also at least as many false steps and disasters. More than once, the people Israel lost their faith. More than once, God became angry with them and despaired of them.

But, in the end -- as we all know -- the people found God's favor and were allowed to enter Canaan and to begin the process of building themselves up from a band of wandering former slaves into a proud nation with a great City, Jerusalem, at its heart. They would become a nation that would inspire the entire world with their faith. They would become a light unto the nations.

This past week, I had the privilege of watching some dear friends -- especially now Rabbi Carrie Benveniste and now Rabbi Valerie Joseph -- end their long and sometimes trying journeys towards joining me as a rabbi. It was a profound joy to be at their ordination in Los Angeles and see these compassionate, strong, intelligent and determined women begin the next great steps in the journeys to serve the people Israel. We will all be enriched by their great works.

And, I too will be beginning my own new journey in my own work of rabbinic service. This coming week I will begin the path towards becoming not just a chaplain, but an educator of chaplains (and other clergy as well) -- I will, for the first time, co-supervise a summer unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). Four seminary students will be coming to our hospital and spending an intense 11 weeks with us, walking the halls of our nursing units, visiting patients in their distress and then coming back to the seminar room to discuss the powerful spiritual experiences they will have with those patients. From those discussions, will come their learning. And that learning is what will help them to better be there for their patients and their congregants in the future.

The path for these new students will not always be easy. Like the people Israel, at times they will be wandering. They may doubt their faith. They may despair and want to quit. They will struggle.

But it is from these struggles -- as it was for the people Israel -- that will come their strength and the gifts they will have to give to their people and to the world.

May it be the will of the Blessed Holy One that their -- and my -- learning will be great this summer. May their patients be comforted. And may Rabbis Carrie and Valerie -- and the rest of the new Ziegler school ordinees -- be a gift to the people Israel in everything that they do.

Shabbat Shalom.

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This past Shabbat, by the way, I celebrated with Rabbis Carrie and Valerie at a synagogue that has great meaning to all of us -- Congregation Mishkon Tephilo in Venice, CA, led by Rabbi Dan Shevitz. Rabbi Dan pointed out that there is something in the parsha that is particularly appropriate around the ordination of new clergy. Verse 3:31 lists the things that the family of Kohat (of the tribe of Levi) will be in charge of in the Tabernable (Mishkon in Hebrew):

And their charge shall be the ark, and the table, and the lampstand, and the altars, and the utensils of the sanctuary with which they minister, and the screen, and all its service.

The Hebrew for what is translated here as "utensils of the sanctuary" is כלי הקודש/kli hakodesh, literally the Holy Vessels.

This term kli hakodesh is the closest thing the Hebrew Bible has given us to the English word "clergy". As Rabbi Dan pointed out, a vessel is something that is hollow -- that is, it is something that must be filled. It is the Holy acts of our congregants that makes a rabbi a kli kodesh. We only provide the space and structure to help bring that holiness to light.
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One element of the Jewish calendar is the weekly Torah reading, or parsha. This past Shabbat's reading was BeMidbar, Numbers 1:1-4:20. The parsha is concerned with the counting of the people Israel in their tribes as they prepare for their march through the wilderness on the way to the promised land of Canaan.

Where I've been

Yom Bet, The Seventh of Nissan

I just can't believe how long it's been since I've posted on this blog (Jan. 29th!!!!!!!!). This blog meant so much to me in the weeks and months when I first started it that it became hard for me to even imagine living without it. It just gave me so much outlet to express my work and my passion. I felt like I was finding my voice and a new and powerful way to make Torah live in my life. I felt like I had found a place to share how I was developing and growing as a rabbi, as a chaplain and as a person amid these precious and intense months of being a Clinical Pastoral Education resident, a pursuit that provides opportunities for spiritual and personal growth -- for confronting the ultimate questions that arise daily from being constantly so intimately in contact with the life and death that continually confront anyone willing to walk the halls of a modern hospital with their heart and their soul open -- that few other pursuits do.

But, as much as I realize what I've been missing by having put this blog aside, I also know that I used the energy I had devoted to it towards something else quite important -- to the task of working with our cancer patients here at our hospital as part of our palliative care team. That work has been so amazing and has given me so much to reflect on and (eventually) write about. Working with cancer patients means being around a lot of death, and that has certainly been draining. But, being witness to the dignity of people -- and their families -- amid their struggles with this terrible disease restores ones faith in God and in the human spirit in a way nothing else can. When a man who had expressed so much anger at God to me when he could still speak easily, chose -- through his pain and exhaustion -- to say "God, bless you; God, bless you" for his final words to me, my spirit soars in an unbelievable way. When I see a man wracked by pain refuse any pain medication because he wants to live for his sons, I am humbled. I am awed. I am awed by the stories I have seen every day since I began this work.

And, while I am truly sad to have put aside the Torah encounter I had started in this blog, I realize that now is a particularly exciting time to begin it again. In just about a week we enter that most universal of Jewish Holidays -- Passover, the great celebration of the freeing of slaves who endured unimaginable oppression and made a new beginning -- and journey! -- as a newly free people. What time could be better for restarting a journey!

And it was just this past Shabbat that we had another new beginning -- the beginning of our reading of the book of VaYikrah (of Leviticus) as part of the cycle of weekly Torah readings.

The very first word of this book is VaYikrah, which means, and He called.

And He called to Moshe, and spoke HaShem to him from the Tent of Meeting . . . (Lev. 1:1)

God calls to us in many ways, just as God called to Moses on that important day. In the chapters that follow in the Book of VaYikrah, a compelling and passionate story is told about the Israelites effort to hear that call, to find the proper way to serve God. Anyone who thinks this book is just a cold collection of laws about sacrifices has failed to peer deep into its words. In there, one will find an amazing obsession with Holiness, and a determination to become as Holy as possible. The path to that, as I hope to show you in the coming weeks of the readings from this book, is not just about figuring out how best to serve God. It is also about knowing how best to serve one's fellow human. There is no true service of God that does not involve both serving God directly and serving God's creatures and God's creation. This is one of the central messages of Judaism, the faith that refuses to look only to Heavens -- as other monotheistic religious expressions do sometimes -- and insists on always looking at the Earth as well.

Please come with me!!

The meaning of death, the meaning of comfort (Parshat Haiyei Sarah)

יום שישי כ''ו בחשון תשס''ז
This week’s parsha brings us to the first time in the Torah that we find a report of mourning – as well as the first report of somebody being comforted in their mourning.

The parsha opens with the death of Sarah – Avraham’s beloved wife and the mother of Yitzhak (Isaac). The Torah says Avraham came to mourn for Sarah and to cry for her (Gen 23:2). The word for mourning here is לספוד/lispod, which comes from the same root as the Hebrew word for eulogy (הספד/hesped).

That is, Avraham came to eulogize his wife and to cry for her. From this. we learn that these are the proper ways in mourning. We should speak of the dead person and lament their loss. And we should cry for them.

Of course, every one has their own individual way of mourning; certainly, no one should feel required to cry. But, the problem is that, in today's society, so many people seem to think that comforting a mourner means helping them to stop crying. I see this so often in my work in the hospital; well-meaning people trying to help a crying mourner to stop crying. The Torah tells us this is a mistake. It is entirely proper to cry and to speak of the dead person. As a chaplain who works with families in the wake of death, I understand my job as very much helping the family member -- if, and only if, they are ready -- to speak of their loved one. In chaplain-speak this is called "eliciting story." It provides true healing for people.

The following lines in the Torah also have a great lesson for us regarding how to deal with death. The Hezkoni sets the stage for it in his comment on the verse I already cited. Why did Avraham cry for Sarah, asks the Hezkoni? He answers:

לפי שלא היה לו מקון מוכן לקבורה

Since he did not have a place prepared to bury her.

Burial of the dead is extremely important in the Jewish tradition. It is no accident that the account of the very first purchase of Land in the Torah -- a detailed account in the lines that follow -- involves obtaining a place to bury a beloved family member. A full 17 verses -- the remainder of the chapter -- are devoted to a loving recording of this Holy act, the acquiring of a burial place for Sarah.

In this day and age, an increasing number of people -- especially those who are not associated with any house of worship -- are skipping burial in favor of cremation, and are even skipping the establishment of any permanent place of burial for their loved ones. Ashes are just being scattered to the wind.

This is not the Jewish way. This is not the way to show love and honor to a loved one.

There are many wonderful ways of memorializing a loved one, including the purchase of a proper burial site and the giving of tzedukah in the deceased's name.

Yitzhak chooses another beautiful -- and more subtle way -- of honoring his mother. The Torah reports that upon marrying his wife Rivka (Rebecca), Yitzkah was comforted; this is the first time in the Torah that a mourner receives comfort:

ויינחם יצחק אחרי אמו

And Yitzhak was comforted after his mother. (Gen. 24:67).

The Hezkoni asks, what does "after his mother" mean? And he answers:

אחרי שהיתה דומה לאמו במעשים

After that she was similar to his mother in deeds.

So, often I have seen people in a situation similar to the one Yitzhak found himself in -- to find the joy of one's marriage, or of the birth of one's first child, happening around the same time of the loss of one's parent. My own beloved father passed away only shortly before my sister gave birth to her first child.

There is no replacing a parent. Certainly, one should not marry someone exactly like one's mother. But it is a beautiful thing to be able to find someone who matches a beloved parent in the kind of good deeds that he or she performs. This upholding, and continuing, of the deeds of a loved one is a true memorial -- a living memorial -- to them.

May the memories of your loved ones who have passed be a blessing to you. And may you see their good deeds performed all around you.

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One element of the Jewish calendar is the weekly Torah reading, or parsha. This coming Shabbat's reading is Haiyei Sarah, Gen 23:1-25:18. The parsha brings us towards the end of the first two generations of the Jewish people and sets the stage for the beginning of the story of Yaakov -- the man who would give the people Israel their name -- in next week's parsha. Our parsha begins with the death of Sarah, the first of the first generation to die, and ends with the death of Ishmael, the first of the second generation to die. It also includes the first purchase of land in the Torah (Avraham's buying a burial site for his wife Sarah), as well as the story of the quest of Avraham's servant to find a wife for his master's son Yitzhak.

Walking with God III (Parshat VaYeirah)

This week’s parsha begins with the most central of all texts in the Torah for pastoral care – the appearance of God to Avraham at the Oaks of Mamre.

And HaShem appeared to him by the Oaks of Mamre. And he was sitting in the tent door during the heat of the day. (Gen. 18:1)

The Talmud asks, why does it say the heat of the day? It answers, that “the heat of the day” informs us that this was the third day after Avraham’s circumcision and that God came to visit with the suffering Avraham and ask after his health. (Bava Metzia 86b)

Elsewhere (Sotah 14a), the Talmud adds that this text teaches us that we should visit the sick, just as God visited Avraham in his illness at the Oaks of Mamre. We need to follow God's example, the Talmud says.

The verse also teaches us something important about how we should carry out this command to visit the sick. As the Hezkoni points out, this is the only place in the Torah where the word וירא/VaYeirah (and [God] appeared) occurs where God doesn’t say anything afterwards (like with Moses at the Burning Bush). There is a great lesson for us here – just as God comforted the ill without saying anything, so too we can comfort the ill in silence, with our mere presence.

That is not to say that we should not talk with an ill person when we visit them. But, too often we feel crippled – sometimes so much so that we are afraid to visit the sick person at all – by feeling an obligation to speak. We think if only we had the right words we can help or heal a person. The silence of God in this verse frees us from feeling this crippling obligation. It lets us know that our mere presence is more than enough.

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The Midrash (which Rashi cites) further connects our verse to the need to not only visit the sick, but to care for all the needy and unfortunate.

What does it mean that Avraham was “sitting”, asks the Midrash? It answers, God told Avraham to sit, while God remained standing, as a sign to Avraham that one day God would stand in judgment over the world while Avraham's descendents had the privilege of sitting.

The Midrash finds this image of God standing in judgment in Psalm 82, which begins, "God stands in God's congregation; among the judges, God judges."

The Psalm continues:

Save the poor and the needy; from the hands of the wicked, rescue them. (Psalm 82:2)

But the Psalmist is not addressing these words to us. They are part of a plea to God to act as judge, to – as the final line of the Psalm says – rise (kuma/קומה) and judge the Earth. Bring justice. Let not the evil prosper.

In my work in the hospital, in the prayers I offer to the ill and to their families, a central piece of my plea is indeed kuma – a plea for God to rise. To rise and be with us as in the days of old. To bring comfort and peace and justice. Be with us as you were for Avraham. As you were for Yitzhak and Yaakov. Be with us as you were for King David. Do not forget us.

What can give such a prayer such power for me is that it is not just for me. It is not just for the patient. . . . In those incredible moments when true intention rises in my heart and tears come to my eyes, the cry for God to rise is indeed for me. And it is indeed for the patient. And it is also very much for the world as a whole. For all people. In that moment, a link happens. We are not alone. We are all linked together. And to what is eternal.

This is what the pastoral care we are commanded to do in this first verse of our parsha is all about. When we visit the sick – when we follow the commandment of bikur holim/ביקור חולים – we are not merely serving the ill person in the room. We are affecting the whole world. We are pleading with God for justice and for peace, for the dream we are promised of a world of wholeness and peace. And we are doing much more than just pleading for it. We are making it true. We are walking in the ways of God.

May your week be one of peace. And one of justice.

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One element of the Jewish calendar is the weekly Torah reading, or parsha. This coming Shabbat's reading is Va-Yeirah, Gen. 18:1-22:24. The parsha begins with God’s promise of a son – Yitzhak – to the aging Sarah and Avraham, and ends with the birth of Rebecca, the woman who would become their son’s wife and whose progeny would continue the line of the Jewish people. The parsha also contains two of the most dramatic and challenging accounts of God’s judgment – the story of Soddom and Gomorrah and of the story of the Akeidah, or binding of Yitzhak. And it is here in this parsha that the story of the Jewish and the story of the Arabic people diverge when Yishmael is expelled from Avraham’s house at Sarah’s demand.

Walking with God (II)

Last week, we contrasted between Noah’s walking with God and how Avraham walks before God in this week’s parsha. But there is another important difference besides physical position. With Noah, the Torah is just describing something about Noah and what he does. But for Avraham, the walking comes in the form of a command:

And HaShem appeared to Avraham and said: "I am El Shaddai -- Walk before me and be perfect!!" (Gen. 17:1)

This is just one of many times in this week’s parsha where God issues a command. In fact, the reading begins with one: the command of lech lecha – go! – to Avraham. “Go from your native land. . . to the land I will show you.” <>
The command to “walk before me” is, significantly, followed immediately by a promise, a promise to make an agreement – a covenant or ברית/brit in Hebrew – with Avraham.

A brit, like any agreement, requires two parties. Each party agrees to do something for the other party in exchange for what the other party promises.

God’s promise here is to make Avraham a father of many nations and that God will be with his descendents throughout the generations. Avraham’s side of the deal is that he – and his descendents – will practice circumcision, ברית מילה/brit milah in Hebrew.

Circumcision is a most physical of acts. You might have expected God to demand that Avraham promise something of his mind – that he believe in God, for example. But Judaism commands not only that we show our faith through our beliefs, but also through acts of our bodies. Sometimes those acts are sacrifices. They remind us that our bodies – as much as we may treasure them – are only on loan to us. God has simply entrusted them to us.

So many of us in this materialist, self-gratification-obsessed day and age have lost any sense of being commanded by God and have forgotten that we are merely stewards over our bodies. So many people have forgotten that a relationship with God is a two-way covenant – they think that it is God who should serve us, and forget the need to also serve God.

In my work in the hospital, every day I see the difference between those who have forgotten, and those who remember we are mere stewards over our bodies and that we are commanded by God. Those who forget despair easily in the face of illness. But those who remember are the ones who have the strength to do what I call “Choose Life.”

Choosing life sounds like a no-brainer – isn’t it the easiest thing in the world? Why wouldn’t a person choose to live? But, the Torah teaches us that choosing life is not easy.

The words “Choose Life” themselves are uttered by Moses in the wilderness to the Children of Israel (Deut. 30:19). He begs them to choose life. He pleads. He cajoles.

Certainly, Moses would not have had to plea so desperately if choosing life was so easy. Giving up – choosing death, in effect – is much easier. It was much easier for the Children of Israel to choose the death of the beautiful, but empty and idolatrous, promises of the Golden Calf. So, too, it’s much easier for the drug addict to choose death than it is to endure pains involved in choosing life – the physical pain of detoxification, the emotional pain of facing how much you have hurt the people you loved and how many opportunities you have squandered for the sake of some powder, and the pains of the setbacks and relapses, and the starting all over again that they entail. So, too, for the person who has been in a terrible car accident, it is much easier to lay in bed and feel sorry for one’s self than it is to endure the pain and struggles and disappointments of months of physical therapy.

Walking the sometimes challenging road of choosing life is so much easier when we have God in our lives, when we have God walking with us.

When we know that our bodies truly belong to God and that God commands us, a weight is lifted from upon us. God takes the weight. God takes a piece of the burden of helping us choose life. When God is in our lives, we know that it is not truly our choice. God has already chosen for us. God has commanded us to choose life. Our job is just to discern as best we can how to do that, and to go on with the work. God will walk with us all the way.

I hope that you will find a way to bring – and keep – God into your life and that you will, as Avraham did, walk before God as a servant walks before the King who the servant is in service to. And I hope that the place in which you walk will help you to truly choose life when the day comes when you are challenged or tested.

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One element of the Jewish calendar is the weekly Torah reading, or parsha. This coming Shabbat's reading is Lech Lecha, Gen. 12:1-17:27. Here the Torah turns its attention away from the creation of mankind as a whole and toward the specific story of the Jewish people. The parsha begins with an order and a promise – God’s command to Avraham to go to the Land of Canaan and God’s promise to make Avraham a great nation there. The parsha ends with a dramatic act of commitment that Avraham makes to God and that has marked the Jewish people throughout the generations – the act of ברית מילה/brit milah, or circumcision. The parsha also includes the stories of Avraham and Sarah’s journey to Egypt, the story of Abraham rescuing his nephew Lot during the 'War of the Four Kings' and the story of Hagar and her son Yishmael. The so-called 'Covenant between the Pieces' can also be found here.

Walking with God

What does it mean to walk with God? This week’s parsha begins with the words:

אלה תולדות נח, נח איש צדיק תמים היה בדורתיו, את האלוהים התהלך נח

These are the generations of Noah:
Noah was a righteous and pure man in his generation.
With God walked Noah.

“With God walked Noah.” The traditional commentators here compare Noah with Avraham who tells his servant that he walks before God (Gen. 24:40).

But, when Moshe commands the Children of Israel, he neither asks them to walk with or before God. Rather, they should walk after God (Devarim 13:5). The Ramban comments that this after is not a reference to a physical position. Rather, it is a command to follow (after) the counsel of God and to seek insight into the future only from God and God’s true prophets.

The Rabbis of the Talmud also thought this after has nothing to do with a physical position, but is rather about following the ways of God. They say it's about following God's attributes (מדות/midot). That is, to imitate the ways of God, to follow after God's ways (Sotah 14a):

Just as God clothed Adam and Eve, so too shall you clothe the naked. Just as God visited the sick Avraham at the Oaks of Mamre (Gen. 18:1), so too shall you visit the sick

These last words are one of the great foundational texts in Judaism for the command of Bikur Holim, the command to visit the sick. This is a command not just for Rabbis, but for lay people as well. For all of us.

There are two more weeks before our Torah reading cycle will bring us to that scene of the suffering Avraham at the Oaks of Mamre. Is there someone you can help in those next two weeks? The commentators say that the only thing God did for Avraham then was visit with him, just to be with him for a while. God didn’t even say anything.

Thus, in our efforts to walk after God, we don’t have to bring any great words with us when we visit the sick. You just need to bring yourself. That is all you need to perform this great mitzvah, and this is all you need to console and uplift the suffering. There is no better time than now.

May your coming week be a sweet one.

One element of the Jewish calendar is the weekly Torah reading, or parsha. This coming Shabbat's reading is Noah, Gen. 6:9-11:32. It features the story of the Flood, as well as the Tower of Bavel. It is the last reading before the Torah turns its attention away from the story of the creation of the world and of mankind as a whole, and, instead, turns to the more specific story of the creation and development of the Jewish people. Next week's parsha -- Lech Lecha -- begins the story of Avraham, that great first Jew whose story begins with God's emphatic call to leave his native land for the Land of Canaan.