Imitation of Life

My whole life I always hated it  when people copied me. Those who love me know it well and hopefully don’t love me less because of it. But I always deemed it as a form of identity theft. I know some will say imitation is the highest form of praise. But for me, imitation is the highest form of irritation.  And I’ve often racked my brain as to why it bothers me so much. Was I afraid that if you wore the same hat and ring that I would mistake you for me? At what point do I risk losing my unique identity altogether? And then I think about it another way and question whether those things which are copyable are really me at all. Some advise and say if you’re being copied then you must be doing something right. But I’ve concluded that if I am copyable then I’m doing something very wrong. For each one of us is a unique soul and if I’d be truly pressing my soul to extricate what is uniquely me it would be as inimitable as a thumb print.  Not for the first time my grievance would become my teacher. Yesterday, it turns out, was also my teacher.

Yes, just yesterday, as I was out and about doing errands, a cashier complimented me on my shoes. The vanity in me was of course happy to hear it. After all, they are my favorite shoes. But were they Aliza?  What do they really have to do with me? The day I throw them away will there be less of me in the world? Of course such a compliment is nothing to write about. But I am because what came just before stood in beautiful contrast. 

As I had pulled into the parking lot, a woman just getting back into her car was looking suspiciously at something. The terror in me quickly rose. Oh no, what's behind me? A gunman? A cop? A mugger? I asked her what she was looking at and she pointed out that a blind man seemed to have lost his way.  I turned and saw he was headed right into a somewhat busy street. In my way-too-high shoes, I dashed over to him and asked him if he needed help. I thought I'd just be crossing the street and then I’d go back to shopping. No, he needed help getting to Citibank. For many weeks I'd been avoiding the Florida sunshine and the hateful freckles it leaves me as souvenirs. But here, mid-day, with the merciless sun beating on my head, I found myself walking half a mile; the blonde was leading the blind with me asking him for landmarks to know whether we were going in the right direction. It turned out he was Jewish and had been blind from birth. I just wish I would trust in G-d even more to lead me to the right place as the blind man trusted me. I can't help but think he was there to show stumbling, bumbling me the way to faith. Upon replay, I thank him now for two things. One, he gave me the chance to do a mitzvah and second, his blindness made me see clearly that the Aliza that is copyable is not Aliza at all. He couldn't see anything about me except who I really was. The hour I spent in front of the mirror getting ready was meaningless to him. I thought that yesterday my shoes really earned any compliment they ever got because they worked in the service of G-d. And that's life. It's all about who wears the shoes and how you walk in them. 

In this week’s parasha, Vayechi, the last in the book of Genesis, we read about the imminent death of Jacob who with foresight at the impending moment blessed his sons, the future tribes of Israel. His parting words were by no means a blanket blessing to wish his sons a one-size-fits-all good luck and farewell. Each son received a unique blessing which was intrinsic to his soul and his idiosyncratic and divine destiny. Each tribe would ultimately be represented by a precious stone embedded in the breastplate of the high priest when serving in the Holy Temple. Could the sapphire representing Issachar imitate the pearl which represented Zebulun? Could the emerald representing Judah imitate the turquoise representing Naphtali? Each gem has its own beauty and brilliance to reflect in the world.  Ultimately, scholars descended from Issachar, seafarers from Zebulun, leaders from Judah, judges from Dan, priests from Levi, etc.  Why even bother having 12 tribes if each was destined to be like the other.  Obviously, they were not. “All these are the twelve tribes of Israel...each man, according to his blessing, he blessed them.” (Genesis 49:28)

When we become the best and highest version of ourselves, no one can steal our thunder because we own the sky.  Don’t tell Cecil B DeMille, but the Sages teach that when the Jews left Egypt the Re[e]d Sea didn’t split into two, it actually split into twelve paths, providing a distinct path for each of the twelve tribes. Each one of us should to take an honest, deep look at ourselves and find the gem within that is distinctly us. It’s not only about living a purpose-driven life; it is about living, in heightened form, our own unique purpose. I walked away from the mirror and what I thought was me was no longer reflected. Here I am now at my laptop, writing only what I can write. It is my purpose, it is my soul, it is my thumbprint, it is Aliza. Who are you?

I Feel Like G-d--and You?

Sometimes I feel like G-d. Yes G-d. How powerful am I! No, don’t book me a room in a sanatorium just quite yet. I didn’t say I have a Napoleonic complex or think I’m Joan of Arc, just G-d. The last thing I did last night was command Amazon that I want a certain book today and with guaranteed delivery, I will get it today. This morning I commanded Alexa to play me songs by John Denver, and she took me home on a country road, although I did have to raise my voice because she didn’t obey at first. I also checked the security app on my Smartphone where I could check in on all the surveillance cameras watching my mother’s home. A car passed by in the front; an unidentified animal made prints in a fresh veil of white snow in the backyard and my mother’s health aid went down the stairs. Later I’ll be using Google map and it will take me exactly where I want to go. I’m just giddy with power. Who needs G-d, are we not G-ds?

Yes, I see my mother’s caregiver go down the stairs and I remember. Tomorrow, January 4th will be four years. I will never forget that day that made me know forevermore that we are not G-d but less than dust. All our feigned posturing and pretending, our grandstanding and grand entrances, our pride and prejudices, in a single second the One and only G-d can bring us down to our knees. “Oh dear G-d, why? Why?” But Alexa cannot answer. And Waze cannot give me direction now.

I flew to Montreal for one day with a pair of jeans and black suit to attend a family funeral. My mother looked so beautiful the evening I arrived. With her sparkling, mischievous brown eyes and blonde hair, she looked like a jewel. As always the house was aglow with her warmth, and the wafts of something delicious cooking in the kitchen greeted me at the bottom of the stairs by the garage door with my overnight bag. My mother stood on the top stair regal as always. This dynamic, vivacious, energetic, huge-hearted woman and a pillar of strength for my entire family standing there in her black jean jacket with rhinestones that sparkled when they caught the chandelier’s light.

The next day we went to the family funeral together, but my mother had a headache so we had to leave the shivah house. The headache started to get worse, and  the Tylenol didn’t help. Then she saw the bugs crawling all over her bedroom. But there were no bugs. And then her lip dropped a bit to one side. And then I called 911. In the ambulance my mother was losing consciousness quickly. I told her I loved her. She said, “Thank you.” I said that’s not good enough. She said, “I love you.” And then I heard from her no more. My mother had a major hemorrhagic stroke. The blood vessels in her brain exploded. The doctors told me she died that night. But they resuscitated her and rushed her into brain surgery. And the mother I knew, the life I had, the friends I thought were friends, the family I thought were family, all that altered in a seismic shift that night. The woman who awoke was half-paralyzed, ever dependent, couldn’t talk…I still thanked G-d for I had begged Him to send her back to me any which way, just please send her back. And He did, along with angels to carry us through. Nonetheless, it’s been four years of heartache and uncertainty with major strides forward and backwards. A life topsy-turvy. My best friend, that fiery, bedazzling woman, my yiddisheh mameh who stood sparkling at the top of the stairs, I’ve had to say goodbye to that version of her and it’s been the most painful heart-wrenching goodbye I have ever known. 

No, we are not G-ds. So funny how we try so hard to be in control of our lives and circumstances and get stressed, sick and mad when the ploys of the helm don’t respond to our directives. In just a moment’s time He above reminds us that there is a hidden hand that’s in charge of the traffic flow, and the course our life will take. And the question is, “How do we handle the darkness?” Do we have a right to be angry, accusatory and resentful of either G-d or the person to our left when we find ourselves in awful, nightmarish circumstances? I know that the new version of my mother has made a new version of me, forged through fire. And though Alexa has no answers the Book of Proverbs does: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely upon your understanding.” (3:5)   As Rabbi Shalom Arush writes, “At the point where the brain no longer understands how Hashem is doing everything for the very best, emuna [faith] begins. In other words, emuna kicks in when the brain kicks out.”

The Talmud teaches that there is no suffering without sin, either in this lifetime or a previous incarnation. So, I just pray the impurities and sins which have brought me to my knees have been purged from my soul. I know that if my uncle wouldn’t have died that day succumbing to his illness, my mother wouldn’t have lived. I would have never been at her home or in her country to save her life. All calculated by G-d’s invisible hand. Yes, as we amuse ourselves with apps and comic omnipotence, G-d is the one in control and we rarely know His purpose. Corrie ten Boom writes in her Holocaust memoir, “Every experience G-d gives us...is the perfect preparation for the future only He can see.…” Einstein says, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Either we believe or we don’t. It’s either all meant to be or none of it is. We can carry on kicking and screaming or with grace and faith.  If we can blindly trust a bus driver that he will take us to where we are supposed to go, how can we not trust G-d Almighty that He will take us just where we need to be? (Rabbi Arush)

In this week’s Bible reading we read about Joseph’s reuniting with his brothers. The brothers’ decision to sell Joseph into slavery was not without its repercussions. Their father was in mourning for 22 years; Joseph himself suffered from pit to dungeon, following false accusations against him. And though the Torah which avoids redundancy leaves out any description of the suffering that Joseph endured, it is understood. In all the darkness and pain, there was certainly enough blame, hatred, fear, accusations to swell in the pit of an acidic stomach that churns for revenge and justice. He had 22 years to fashion plots to repay his brothers’ misdeeds and also the power to effectuate them.  Instead of doing so, he cries before them and tells them not to feel bad about what they did to him as it was all part of G-d’s plan. It was the power of that type of faith that illuminated Joseph’s life through pitch-black years.  The Midrash tells us that Joseph was a “jumping man,” he would sing and dance all day long as an inmate (via Rabbi Arush). Instead of trying to wrap his mind around his circumstances, he wrapped his faith around them: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," says the Lord. (Isaiah 55:8)

I know all too well that I don’t have an exclusive on life’s hardships. And, in an inexplainable crescendo, I hear more stories of tragedy and suffering of late than ever before. A darkness is hovering. As a G-d fearing person I know when we suffer it is time to search our own souls, not everyone else’s. That applies to us as individuals and as a nation. Yes, tomorrow, I’m forced to remember what I can never forget: The endless hours, days and nights and months I sat in the ICU with my mother until she emerged from her coma. This was far from the halls of power where I interviewed the world’s most famous people. Month after month  listening to the nerve wracking bleeps of machines, watching people die, seeing families destroyed, processing the tears, choking them back and with a simple, “How are you?” they break like an irreparable dam. Oh, and the haunting howling of grief that ricochets into the night long after they have been released from the bellows of the heart. They resonate still. I realized there, more than any place else in the world, that we have to believe that G-d has His plan and we were never hired to be the architect. We have to learn from Joseph the Tzaddik that no matter how thick the darkness, it is part of G-d’s purpose. Like King David we must remain certain, “Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” (23:4). Friends, I know it is so very hard to have faith when we are crying and when we are flailing and failing and mad at the world, but I also know that it is even harder to live without it. Remember it is ALL from G-d or none of it is. It’s time to decide!

Dedicated to my uncle Yechiel who died so that my mother might live. May his neshama have an aliyah! Love, your niece Aliza.

Chanukah: A Message of Darkness

The flickering flames were dancing in the clear Lucite menorah cups. The flames were not in sync tonight, each striving for its own direction. I always wished I could read the flames like the kabbalists could and know what they are trying to say. But their lights remain ever a mystery, and they dance and dance until they are no more. And what remains is the wax coating of melted candles which take much effort to remove. Hot water and Windex, more hot water and Windex and several days of wiping before all traces of the holiday are gone altogether. What happens to the light that envelops our homes with warmth and inspiration and sets our hearts aglow with something otherworldly? I always feel lonely at the end of Chanukah; I miss the candles that keep me company. I look at them. They look at me. For a few days after it feels like something is missing from my life. Life feels darker. And then I realize that the torch has been passed to us; we ourselves are the lights that must live on once the festive candelabras are placed back up on the high shelf. We are the flames that must burn radiantly with our faith in G-d.

From one dark winter day to the next we mope along as the lights extinguish and take with them their warmth and certainty only to be replaced by chilly intimidating shadows. The only remaining place we can find to warm our spirits is over the roaring fire called faith, without which the darkness becomes a gravitational abyss from which we cannot extricate ourselves.

Interestingly, it is at this time of year when the nights are longest and darkness seems to prevail that we read about the story of Joseph, who found himself in the darkness of a snake-filled pit into which his brother’s had cast him and then later in the darkness of Pharaoh’s dungeon. What truly did he have to live for? One day he was living a comfortable life as the beloved favorite son of Jacob; the next day his brothers sold him into slavery.

Joseph had grown up on the inspiration of his own dreams, which saw him ruling over his brothers. But from the purview of the pit he saw no “happily- ever-after” ending for himself. They had stripped him of his coat of many colors, also taking from him his pride, his innocence, and the years he could have been living peacefully by his father’s side. In some measure they killed everything about him, except faith and the light of G-d that burned inside him. Luckily, faith knows not shackles nor taskmasters nor pits or self pity—it sees only the light. The Bible teaches us something very interesting about Joseph’s attitude throughout his great suffering. The dungeon to which he is condemned is called Beit Hasohar, the “house of light.” Even in the depths of a dark dungeon, Joseph maintained his faith in God, he remained optimistic and hopeful and he created his own “light.” It was a house of light because he himself shone. 

We must learn to do the same as we go through our own trials and tribulations. With laser-like intensity keep faith shining until it cuts right through the “dungeon” wall. It is a sin to succumb to despair and it is idol worship to believe that life is only worth living when we are riding high. In the story of Chanukah we learn how the golden Temple menorah had been stolen and there was only enough pure olive oil to last one day. The Maccabees didn’t sit around lamenting the darkness of their circumstance. They made a cheaper metal menorah. And the one day’s worth of oil miraculously lasted eight days. If only we would stoke our souls and refine our faith like pure olive oil, the miraculous light of Chanukah would be with us 365 days a year. For the soul of man is a lamp of G‑d.

All the above is beautiful and inspiring but also useless if we only have faith in Hashem but give Him  no reason to have faith in us. Joseph did not survive Egypt simply because he had faith; that would just make him a positive thinker. He survived and triumphed because G-d had reason to have faith in him. Despite all the perverse influences around him, he behaved like a Jew is commanded to behave and maintained his unique identity. The most beautiful woman in the world made daily advances toward him and he did not succumb because his father’s face and all the moral teachings of his faith guided his conscience and his deeds. 

If a Jew really had faith in G-d he wouldn’t work on the Sabbath because he’d have faith G-d would provide. If he had faith he wouldn’t be scared to give charity because he’d be sure of G-d’s charity toward him.  If he had faith he would do everything so differently because a person of faith “lets go and lets G-d.” In all our worldly affairs we believe one hand washes the other, yet when it comes to G-d we are ready to collect with both hands and serve with neither. Yes, the soul of man is a lamp of G‑d but it also has a purpose in life and that is to illuminate the world with divine light. How does one do that? By living with faith and living faithfully. By showing up for active duty.By attaching oneself to the source of light, the Torah. The Torah is a flame, described as black fire written on white fire. “When the lamp [man] and flame [Torah] unite, they produce a light which fills the house--the world.” (Rabbi Elie Munk) Perfoming Torah commandments creates light for the entire world. Our faith mandates us to “shine” for all to see, just as the menorah’s lights must not be kept private, but rather placed in visible locations. We are not destined to be dim bulbs but rather a light among the nations. Jews, we are bearers of the light. That is not our calling card, that is our calling. “And the nations shall walk at your light, and the kings at the brightness of your rising. (Isaiah 60:3).

We should not be awed nor seasonally mesmerized by the lights of the Menorah. They should be humbled by the brightness of our souls. But they are not, because as Jews we are extinguishing our own lights and cutting off our own souls: intermarriage, Torah abandonment, assimilation, apathy, flickering, flickering, dying out.  Oh, woe Jewish souls. We dismiss the illuminating and preserving light of G-d’s Torah and choose artificial and ephemeral lighting instead and that’s why we are lost in darkness in a world upside down with darkening clouds gathering over our people, again. We dismiss the light of G-d and now we see the beacons of anti-Semitism flaring up and our menorahs are dying out.  No I cannot read the candles flames as I wish I could, but I can read the writing on the wall. Ashes, ashes we all fall down. But “Rejoice not against me, my enemy; although I have fallen, I will rise; although I will sit in darkness, the Lord is a light to me.” (Michah 7:8)

When I'm up a Tree-Where Are You?

Just this week, I purchased some new mezuzahs to help someone change their luck for the better. I couldn’t help but think of all the high security systems people employ to protect their lives and belongings. Then I looked at the little bag swinging between my forefinger and thumb and was awed how these parchments inscribed with Judaism’s most well-known prayer, the Shema, have protected  the Jewish people for centuries.  

The mezuzahs are not mere nostalgic props to assert our identity and comfort us; they are Biblically commanded: “You shall love the L-rd your G‑d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart… And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.”  

And there upon the back of the rolled-up parchment are the three letters (shin, dalet, yud)  that spell G-d’s name, Shaddai. This name is also an acronym for shomer dlatot Yisrael, "Guardian of the doors of Israel.” For who else would protect the Children of Israel? And the answer is, we protect each other.

The prayer contained speaks about loving G-d and following His commandments.  By doing so properly and genuinely, we learn to love each other, respect each other, and treat each other as if we each reflect a spark of G-d. Because we do. We are commanded to place His words upon our hearts. Not in our brains and not in our pockets.

The Rabbis teach that the instrument with which the mezuzah, Torah and tefillin are written should teach us how to behave: A person should always be soft like a reed and not be stiff like a cedar, as one who is proud like a cedar is likely to sin. And therefore, due to its gentle qualities, the reed [today the feather] merited that a quill is taken from it to write a Torah scroll, phylacteries, and mezuzot. (Taanit, 20b) Our hearts must be soft and flexible not hard and stubborn.  For when a mezuzah marks a doorway it is not merely to whisper, “A Jew lives here.” It’s meant to shout that those who BEHAVE like Jews live here. If home is where the heart is — then where’s your heart?

The problem today is that we’ve become hard-hearted like Pharaohs. Our greed, our selfishness our jealousy, our apathy have hardened our hearts so much that they’ve become tough and inflexible like cedar wood.

The great Biblical commentator, Rashi, points out that “the cedar tree’s height represents haughtiness and arrogance”; it stands so high above the rest that it cannot beat heart in heart with its fellow Jew, sister, friend or neighbor..

“So said the Lord: Perform justice and charity, and rescue the robbed from the hand of the robber, and to a stranger, an orphan, and a widow do no wrong.…”(Jeremiah 22:3)

We cannot be aloof and conveniently mind our own business when others are flailing either financially, spiritually, emotionally or in other ways. And the prophet Jeremiah warns the King of Judah about his heartlessness and abandonment of the Torah while he built homes of cedar: “And I will prepare for you destroyers, each one with his weapons, and they will cut your choice cedars and cast them upon the fire.” (Ibid 22:7)

 Be certain that every time we Jews forget that we are one family, anti-Semitism will remind us. We are one people, with one destiny, responsible for each other. Often we can’t stand each other or have so little tolerance because we are from another sect, or economic background. We are racist among ourselves. The ironic thing about Gentile -Jew hatred is that it doesn’t discriminate: It hates us all equally. What a shame that we have to come together as ashes in Auschwitz or on the killing fields of violent anti-Semitic slaughters.

We see in this week’s Torah reading that after Joseph’s brothers’ jealousy toward him could no longer be curbed, they threw him into a pit. If that’s not bad enough, they then sat down to eat while their brother suffered. It’s a callousness that is certainly prevalent in our days as well.   When our lives are going well, we are able to shut out the sufferings of others. It’s not my problem!  Here is a simple example: How often on Facebook do we see people asking to be included in our prayers because they are sick or going through difficult times? How often do we really write down their names, friends or strangers, and actually insert their pleas into our daily prayers?  Having our own problems is no excuse for closing our hearts to the problems of others. Going through difficult  economic  times is no excuse for stopping to give  charity.

The funny thing about giving charity at first is when you drop a coin into an empty can, it makes a lot of noise. But as you fill up the can, your heart softens; it gets used to giving and not being so selfish. Soon enough, the inserted coins make no sound at all. Giving charity properly has infinite positive repercussions in the universe but the giving is silent. The givers don’t brag or advertise; We don’t lament over each “dime.” The coins soon don’t make any clang at all. But the heart becomes a new heart, not one of cedar. It becomes a Jewish heart.  

The other side of the leaf is being happy for your neighbor when he is doing well. Don’t be like Joseph’s brothers who couldn’t even speak peacefully with him because of their hate and jealousy. Learn from his brothers that digging a pit for someone you are jealous of doesn’t make you any better.  It makes you despicably worse. To sabotage others behind their backs because you are jealous or can’t compete with them is a very big sin which will not satisfy your objective.   Joseph’s brothers exerted their delusory power and threw him into the pit to aggrandize themselves at his expense, but G-d had other plans. In the end, they all had to bow before him and serve him.  The very person they wanted to destroy was the one they needed most for their survival.   

And I can’t end this by slandering cedar trees. They are otherwise spoken of favorably in Judaism as long as they remember their roots and where they came from, the same earth as the humble lowly hyssop.   If you want to be a cedar, then grow on your own merit, grow in good deeds and with achievements and not by cutting down the competition. You strike only at yourself. Joseph grew to be like a cedar but despite his meteoric rise to power and everything he went through, he still had a heart for his brothers. He remembered who he was and from where he came. He had love and compassion and forgiveness. His heart was soft.

Joseph and his brothers make up the 12 tribes of Israel. They are all represented by precious stones upon the priestly breastplate which is worn over the kohen’s heart. We are one people, one nation, one heart. Each of us is a precious stone in our own right, thus precluding the need for jealousy or feelings of superiority or inferiority. 

The Hebrew word for love and the Hebrew word for ONE both have the same numerical value. So, friends, let’s do the simple math. Open our hearts to each other, in good times and in bad, and undoubtedly in all this random chaos of fractured friendships and families, things will finally and beautifully add up to ONE!

Do You Really Have A Leg To Stand On?

I sit alone at the end of the long wood dining room table. The amber glow of the dimmed chandelier and the smell of fresh coffee wafting from the steaming ceramic cup by my side are welcoming settings for my early morning routine of Torah study. Outside is still dark. Before me lies a leather-bound book, very large and heavy, of ancient Jewish and mystical teachings. I search for the red satin string that marks the page where yesterday’s lesson ended and where today’s must begin. I open the holy book and always feel awed and comforted by merely looking at the beautiful letters of the aleph beit that spill open before me.  The concepts are complex and not always easily absorbed. I look away to ponder the teaching and search my brain for familiar understanding, for a point of reference. I stare and stare into the cozy glow and low and behold, a devil is looking back at me. Yes it is a devil, I’m sure of it. There are not one now, but four.  I jump up from my seat to investigate. I’m in shock. Why have I never noticed this before. Here in the dining room of my childhood home, my mother’s home, stands a beautiful ornate expensive mantelpiece clock which has four devil heads that serve as its feet. I was quite certain, even for art’s sake, that this was not permitted in a Jewish house. The devils were multiplying. For I then noticed that two matching candelabras were also supported by these horned heads. I now had 12 devils to deal with.  And so I do what I do best, I bother a very busy respected rabbi with the likes of questions that only Aliza can have.  “Dear Rabbi, I have an odd question, but I guess in Judaism there are no odd questions. Here goes…… Is that idol worship? Should I and can I remove just the legs and throw them away or have I created an issue where there is none?”  

Friends, for 30 years, those items decorated our home, neither I nor my mother, the acquirer, ever noticed that an idol was in our midst.  I think of the years we celebrated holidays in that room, the years my father prayed there and donned his tefillin, all the years I studied Torah in that room and then I think of the devil holding up “time,” i.e., that clock, and I’m not pleased. The rabbi replied. My “odd” question indeed had an answer. The faces had to be smoothed down to destroy the semblance of a graven image or alternately they could be removed altogether. As the Second Commandment states: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, nor any manner of likeness of anything that is in heaven above, that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”  G-d’s law is pretty clear, “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

Judaism teaches, however, that idols are not just statues and graven images. Idols are anything that we worship that comes between man and G-d.  Materialism, beauty, fitness, money, the government, politics, the army, physicians, etc. can all be considered idols if we empower them with the belief that they are what sustain us and not the Will of G-d.  Idol worship does not preclude belief in G-d but assumes that some things exist in their own right apart and separate from God’s holiness. Judaism teaches there is nothing but Him, ein od milvado. If we relegate Him as merely G-d of the synagogue, no wonder many are no longer afraid of Him nor serve Him in the other buildings of our lives. i.e., the courthouse, the bank, the hospital, our living rooms, our offices.  In addition, how often do we really examine our  environs and take a good look at what is “decorating” our lives and whether we are surrounded by idols both physically and perceptually?  What is coming between you and G-d? Greed? Laziness? Ego? Jealousy? Hedonism? Apathy? I can’t help but think how even the American dollar, the idol of idols that many revere as a god, is smarter than we are, for even the mighty buck itself declares “In G-d we trust.” 

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, we learn that in exacting revenge upon the people of Shechem for the rape of their sister, two sons of Jacob kill every man in the city, rescue their sister and then plunder the city of its riches, including items of idolatry. Jacob demands of his sons, “Discard the alien gods that are in your midst… And they gave Jacob all the deities of the nations that were in their possession and the earrings that were in their ears, and Jacob buried them.…”  Rabbi Norman Lamm describes this as a cathartic and important episode worthy of replicating in our own lives. Imagine we too stand before a huge pit and are asked to throw in our idols. Would you even recognize them? Look at your life and examine what is not Jewish in it, what you have picked up from foreign cultures and ideologies and what is disruptive as regards  your service to G-d and thus a priori to your better self.  Your artwork, your vanity, your technology, your wardrobe, your food, your sexual behavior, your conversations, your compulsion control, your gym, your habits and more, where do they all stand in relationship to the G-d that mandated, “You shall have no other gods before Me”?  Would you be like Jacob’s sons and be able to cast off the “idols” that feign favor and friendship but slaughter like a foe. Do you worship foreign gods to fit into a society only to discover through anti-Semitism that you were not meant to fit in. "Be holy to Me…. I will thus make you separated for Me, to be mine from amongst the nations." (Lev. 20:26)

Truly a case of eyes wide shut as 30 years later I notice what was before me all this time. I couldn’t help but think of Abraham, the father of monotheism who smashed all the idols in his father’s shop. It was my turn now.  Friends, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury idols, not to praise them: What are the devils that are serving as legs in your life and where are they leading you? All that surrounds us has an impact on our souls. When we muffle G-d, the source of life, with the idols of our times, how can anything in our life have clarity or blessing? Our task is to identify the idols in our life and destroy them. Don’t give them a leg to stand on! 

The Gathering Storm

My ears have increasingly become audience to heart-wrenching dramas over the past few years. More distressing is that these tragedies are not fiction. Almost everyone I know is more troubled now than ever before, (even countries) and trapped in intractable situations that appear a little too paralyzing to be entirely manmade. Like never before we are unable to extricate ourselves from the mess we find ourselves in.
I cannot help but fall into the mindset that perhaps we really are in pre-Messianic times about which it is written that humanity will be beset by prodigious problems. (Some of the pre-Messianic conditions the Talmud lists are that sin-fearing people will be detested; truth will be missing; unbridled irresponsibility on the part of authorities; family-breakup with mutual recriminations; it will be hard to know who to trust; the young will insult the old; money problems, sickness, there will be no pity or compassion, etc.) And so, when all the escape routes we’ve always counted on become inaccessible, we are driven to become philosophers. We finally want the truth. We find ourselves asking as we face the nagging darkness that has become our lives, “What’s it all really about? “Why am I here?” and “What’s the purpose of life?” These popular questions are spiritually-driven questions, yet the askers never seem satisfied with the spiritual answer: Serving G-d and elevating the world through Torah is our purpose.

“Nah, has to be more than that,” is a reply I’ve often heard by those attempting to shirk off any religious duty that would interrupt their daily schedules. As palliatives to empty hearts and flagging souls, these searchers fill their lives with materialistic things, sexual escapades, Botox, yoga, body sculpting, shopping, golfing and all kinds of external decorations and distractions, to no avail. Happiness evades them and another day dies. The shallow pursuit of more and plenty will never satisfactorily answer the questions above but will even further exasperate us as our hands are filled with “gold” but are our hearts empty of peace. It is true for people; it is true for nations.
I find the question, “What does G-d want from us?” an odd question. When we read Atkin’s book on low-carb dieting, we knew what he wanted: When we read self-help books, we also know what the authors recommend for better lives. Not sure why then, when reading G-d’s book we all become illiterates and can’t seem to understand our native tongue. We have the Torah for over 3000 years and we still don’t understand what G-d wants from us? Hhhhmmm? That doesn’t sound honest. He has given us His Book filled with directives. It’s there in black and white. Yet we are more inclined to believe the print in the National Enquirer than G-d’s own word. G-d and all his rules are such an inconvenience; there must be a quicker fix to happiness than that burdensome book. And so mankind builds its golden calves....How’s that been working out? When it comes down to TRUTH, you can’t go shopping for answers that you like. The Torah and its directives are the only truth. If you don’t subscribe to it, it’s your prerogative. But then don’t seek for truth in the world of lies. Don’t search for bread crumbs in a matzah factory.
It is the law of nature that every empty space calls to be filled--crevices get filled with dirt or water, blank walls cry out for artwork, a bucket, a chair, a heart and a bowl all desire to be filled. But the choice has always been ours with what we fill emptiness. The rabbis teach us to fill our voids and pain with prayers. We learn from the story of Noah wherein G-d destroyed the whole world, a corrupt and disgustingly depraved world, conditions with which we ourselves have become all too familiar, that Noah was saved by an ark. But it wasn’t simply a boat. Our rabbis teach that the Hebrew word for Ark, teivah also mean “word.” Rabbi Nachman of Breslov teaches that “the construction of the ark itself alludes directly to prayer.” When we pray to G-d with all our hearts and all our souls and all our might, we can change nature itself. The rains first fell in a natural fashion as G-d gave mankind the chance to repent and pray. The people of the time, like us, ignored the warnings and chose other hopes to hang onto. They didn’t board the ark of prayer, being too confident the storms would pass. They were destroyed. In fact Rabbi Nachman further points out that the dimensions of the ark written in the Torah, 300 X 50 X 30 cubits, parallels the Hebrew word for speech/tongue “lashon” of which its root letters are also valued at 300, 50 and 30. Praying and reopening a relationship with G-d is the ark of our survival.
In this week’s Torah reading of Vayeitzei, we read about Jacob’s now famous dream of a ladder set in the earth and its top reaching heavenward. G-d’s angels were ascending and descending. Here too the rabbinic sages teach that the angels represent the ascent of man’s prayers toward the celestial sphere. The ascending angels bring up the supplications of man to the celestial throne and then descend back down laden with heavenly blessings. The Rambam teaches that the ladder had four rungs which correspond to the four stages through which man must pass through to reach G-d (Rabbi Elie Munk, “The Call of the Torah”). G-d is just waiting to hear from us, just as parents anxiously wait and are so happy to hear from their own children. But just as we hate when someone talks to us while texting and playing with their phones, G-d too wants our undivided attention. Pray like you actually care about the relationship and not with burden-inspired impatience to get it over with. Open a book of Psalms (Tehillim) or a siddur (prayer book) and pray! Savour the words, invest heart and honesty into them. You want to know what G-d wants from you? Stop asking everyone who can't answer you. Ask Him! Start talking, start praying and start building your ark to survive the gathering storm.

Not for Sale

My cleanliness phobia has arrested any potential I’d have to purchase second-hand things. However, that doesn’t diminish my affinity for antiques and my propensity to quickly peek at such items being sold on Facebook Marketplace. The resulting feeling is always the same: A waft of sadness overtakes me.  Items once cherished,  inanimate witnesses to lives now gone, are being sold off by next of kin who couldn’t care less. How meaningless it all is, the summation of a life that can be auctioned off on Facebook or eBay. I can’t help but think of the long lines that form for Black Friday and the enthusiasm and lust for the latest “things,” and, contrastingly, I think about the musty smell of estate sales where both the items and their one-time owners have become obsolete.  I’m compelled to examine the life that lies between. What’s it all really about in the end? What’s it all really about all along? 

In this week’s Torah portion called Toldot, we read about the birth of twin brothers, Esav and Jacob, who were so opposite in their view of life that they began fighting while still in their mother Rivkah’s womb. Their respective affinities were clear: When she passed places of idol worship, Esav would struggle to come out and when she passed a place of Torah study, Jacob would struggle to come out. Esav lived only for this material world and all it has to offer and Jacob lived for God, for family and the world to come. Esav was so carnally invested in the physicality of this world that for food he sold his firstborn birthright to his younger twin brother in order to satisfy a life-sapping hunger born from his exhaustive and exhausting sins. That birthright involved the priesthood and obedient behavior, and thus it meant nothing to him. It was just a potential burden to him. Even without FB Marketplace he successfully disposed of the divine values and divine mission for which both his grandfather and father had lived and risked their lives. And for those self-excusing Jews who tend to believe that the Almighty loves all his children regardless of their behavior, let G-d’s stance on these two brother be unequivocal: God says, “...I loved Jacob. And I hated Esau.” (Milachi 1:2-3). 

Often people who eschew the commandments, like Esav, tend to believe that doing what G-d wants is tiring. And yet, the first words we ever hear about Esav in the Torah are that he’s “exhausted” (Genesis 25:30). The rabbis teach that he was exhausted because he was so busy living for the pleasures of the moment that his energy was depleted in the service of himself. And make  no mistake about it, Esav was not 100 years old and burned out from his “party animal” lifestyle when both he and the Torah tell us that he was “exhausted.” Nor was he 60 or 40 or 20. He was 15. By then he had already been sleeping with betrothed women, was hunting, killing, manipulating, etc. He was already a stalwart example of what NOT to do.

How often in our own lives have we said and hear people say, “I’m tired and burned out,” and “I’m not what I use to be.” Observing some people’s lives can be like watching the battery bars on a cell phone. Slowly, slowly we watch the life force draining away.  And they are always far from the charger just when it’s needed most. But in truth, we only decline and drain away when we attach ourselves to false gods, when we spurn morality and vacate religion from our lives and unplug ourselves from the ONE true "charger": G-d. The love of money, the fancy cars, the toxic quest for perpetual beauty, the food fixes, the fame, the gadgets, the unbridled promiscuity, the mind dulling entertainments are all false “insulin spikes” that temporarily thrill us and ultimately drain us of our life energy. Yet, I have never heard a Torah scholar or truly religious person complain that he is upset that he is not what he used to be. For now, he is even better than he was. He never longs for the days when he had less good deeds or knew less Torah. With G-dly vitality, his eye is on tomorrow, not yesterday. And that is why Esau was so tired, even in his youth. While continually pursuing his passions he was unplugged from his spiritual outlet. He was the antithesis of G-d, hence he created darkness from light.

All of our forefathers were very wealthy. Where are their riches now? In the dust with all things that don’t matter. Their last will and testaments did not bequeath us ornate trinkets or mahogany chairs that need slight refurbishing. Their legacy is eternal; it is the Torah and its life affirming light that illuminates our lives in the darkest moments, that energizes us with G-d’s own life force when haSatan tries to deplete us and depress us. When G-d is our “charger” we don’t burn out and fade away; we become like the Chanukah miracle where the light lasts longer than nature expects. We become like the burning bush that is aflame and yet not consumed. We become the radiant light unto the nations that no Nazi’s black boot can stomp out.

Yes, I think about Black Friday aptly named for a dark mindset that sucks us into believing that we need “stuff” and more stuff. Gadgets rendered into gods until they become obsolete, until they end up on an online marketplace, until a stranger with a pickup truck hauls away a life once treasured. Then I think about Friday, my Friday, our Friday. Tonight is erev Shabbat. It starts with light, it’s filled with light and it ends with the light of the havdalah prayer and candle. I plug into the source of all light. I am energized. And through Jacob unto his children, and my father unto me an eternal legacy of light lives on. No, I will not sell my Jewish “birthright” for the fickle and ephemeral fancies and deceptions of this world. The chairs you can have--but some things are just not for sale!