Stars and Colored Fire

The following Dvar Torah was delivered at the Shabbat morning minyan at Temple Shaaray Tefila.

Every time that January 1^st rolls around, I find myself filled with a sense of possibility. I’ll start making resolutions about how this will be my best year yet. I’ll start reading more books for fun. I’ll adopt some new personal slogan that will remind me to get out of my own head and live in the present moment. And the next few weeks will be great! I’ll feel that I can do anything—that with the right attitude and sense of determination, anything is possible.

And then, a few weeks later, the good habits begin to slip. I’ll get down on myself. I’ll feel that my expectations were too high. And I’ll resign myself to continuing my old habits, as that sense of possibility that I felt on January 1^st drifts further and further into the past.

In this week’s Torah portion, we find Moses and the Israelites striving to maintain their sense of possibility. Their recent experience at Mount Sinai has left them feeling like they can do anything. They’ve seen the thunder and the lightening. They’ve accepted the Ten Commandments. They’ve said na’aseh v’nishma—we will do this thing, no matter how hard it is. Never before, and perhaps never again in their entire lives, have the Israelites felt so hopeful, so certain that they can do God’s work on earth.

And now, the thunder and the lightening are gone. And now, the vast dryness of the desert is set before them. And now, the Israelites must find a way to hold onto that Sinai feeling. And so, the Israelites set about the task of constructing a mishkan, a Tabernacle—a portable sanctuary in which God will accompany them as they wander through the desert—so that even as they drift further and further away from that profound day at the foot of Mount Sinai, they’ll continue to feel as if they can do anything.

It is with these high hopes that Moses receives God’s instructions for building the mishkan. The plan is incredibly complicated—with exceedingly rare building materials, a minutely detailed construction process, and the likelihood for error inherent in constantly constructing and deconstructing a portable sanctuary. But one phrase that appears four times in this parashah raises the task from just plain difficult to downright impossible. Four times, God instructs Moses to build the Tabernacle “k’asher ani mareh otkhah—exactly as I am showing it to you.”

From this phrase—ani mareh ot’khah—our sages determine that God didn’t simply whisper the instructions in Moses’s ear, or draw for him a detailed blueprint, but rather that God showed Moses a prototype—perfectly designed and perfectly constructed. And having seen God’s prototype, the loftiness of Moses’s goal comes into full relief. The mishkan that he is shown is breathtaking. How could mere human beings ever build so perfect a structure?

To make matters worse, a midrash teaches that in this divine prototype, the clasps that held the mishkan together were made not of gold, but rather of the stars of heaven. The materials weren’t made of dyed yarn and linen, or tanned animal skins and colorful stones, but rather of red fire, green fire, black fire, and white fire. And what’s more, our sages teach that Moses saw God’s perfectly constructed Tabernacle not as if in a dream or a vision, but rather that Moses saw the real thing—as it occurred, with his own eyes, made of stars and colored fire.

And suddenly, Moses feels deflated. He fears that he’ll never measure up. He and his Tabernacle will never be as great as he had hoped they would be.

What are we to do when our sense of possibility turns on us—when our high expectations for ourselves leave us feeling as if our dreams are impossible? We strive and strive and strive to make something great of our lives, to live up to our highest potential, only to find that the more we grasp, the more it slips through our fingers. What are we to do when we are made only of flesh and blood, and our dreams for ourselves are made of stars and colored fire?

Moses didn’t have stars and colored fire. He only had acacia wood.

How did Moses regain his confidence? How did he and the Israelites decide that acacia wood would be good enough for building the Tabernacle? One explanation comes from the medieval Spanish Torah commentator Ibn Ezra. He explains that when the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai, Moses told them that they’d be staying there for several months. And so, the Israelites realized that they had better build temporary shelters for themselves, to protect them from the sun. Ibn Ezra explains that there was a forest of acacia trees at the foot of Mount Sinai, which the Israelites chopped down and used to build huts. And these huts became the Israelites’ houses during their stay at Mount Sinai.

And after the giving of the Ten Commandments, suddenly Moses was asking for donations of acacia wood in order to build a Tabernacle. Now of course, the Israelites didn’t know what a Tabernacle was, and so they weren’t all that inclined to part with the wood that had become their homes, that had sheltered them, that they’d grown so attached to.

But then they remembered that Sinai feeling, that sense of possibility and wonder, that feeling that they could achieve greatness. And they realized that they already had what they needed. And one by one, as their hearts moved them, the Israelites learned to embrace their greatest asset. They took the acacia wood-houses that they themselves had built—that they’d grown to love, that had sustained them and enabled them to reach that very moment—and they found for them new uses. And they built a Tabernacle. And even as they departed from Mount Sinai, God’s presence continued to dwell among them.

The mishkan wasn’t made of stars or colored fire. It was made of what they had. It was made of who they were.

And this is why God commands us to build the mishkan—to return us to sense of possibility, to tell us that who we are and what we have are enough to enable us to achieve our dreams. Then, we’ll embrace our greatest assets. Then, we’ll know—that when it feels like all we’ve got is acacia wood, somewhere deep inside of us are stars and colored fire.

Acting from the Heart

This D'var Torah originally appeared in an edition of the Shaaray Tefila e-News.

This week, in Parashat Trumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19), God gives Moses instructions for building the Tabernacle—God’s portable sanctuary during the Israelites’ journey through the desert. Having recently experienced the wonder of Mount Sinai, having felt firsthand the nearness of God, the Israelites now set about the difficult task of holding onto that Sinai feeling.

And in order to do so, the Israelites donate whatever materials they can towards the construction of the Tabernacle. The instructions are clear: donations should be accepted from those Israelites “whose hearts so moved them.”

When our hearts move us to action, the outcome may be more profound than we anticipated. When our hearts move us to action, we may find ourselves spontaneously telling a loved one how much we care, lending a hand to a stranger in the Subway, or picking up a piece of garbage in the street. It is in these moments that we re-discover the divine spark within ourselves—that through whatever deserts we journey, God continues to dwell among us.

On the Seam

The following was delivered as a Shabbat address at Congregation Ohel Avraham in Haifa, and was originally posted on Gateways and Tents.

I want to thank you all for welcoming us here tonight. This past week, we’ve been honored and humbled to be guests in your community, in your school, and in you homes. Thank you.

Our group has seen many interesting things on this trip. We’ve all learned a lot about Israel, about Haifa, about the connection between North American and Israeli Jews, and most importantly, about ourselves. Today, I asked many of the students to tell me: What was a highlight of the trip for you? Each student had a different answer, but there was one thing that almost every student said he or she liked best: the time we spent together on the bus. With all the places we visited, and all the things that we learned, and all the important conversations that we had, the most impactful experience was just to spend time together.

It isn’t easy being a host, and it isn’t easy to be a guest either. These aren’t everyday roles that we’re accustomed to playing. I know that it pushed many of the students to the edge of their comfort zone—and for this, I’m proud of them. I hope it was a growth experience.

During our trip to Jerusalem, we visited The Museum on the Seam—an art museum that focuses on contemporary social issues. (Their current exhibition is on loneliness.) (The museum gets its name because of its location on the pre-1967 border between Israel and Jordan.) I asked myself: What does it mean to be “on the seam?” What is a seam, anyway? A seam is a place where two different things meet. It’s a place of diversity, and also a place of unity. A seam is also a border, an edge—a place that defines the limits of ourselves, the dividing line between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the comfortable and the uncomfortable.

And I think that this is an appropriate metaphor for our trip. We’ve been “on the seam.” The past week had pushed each and every one of us—students and staff alike—to the edges of our comfort zones. It’s brought us right up to the border of the familiar, and asked us to take those first few intimating steps into the unknown. And what’s more, this trip has brought two diverse “materials” in contact with one another, and stitched them together. It’s created a seam, a bond, a point of unity—a realization that despite our differences, our two distinct communities are a part of one Jewish people.

Shabbat shalom.

Journey to Jerusalem

The following was originally posted on Gateways and Tents.

Our last two days were spent in the magnificent city of Jerusalem.

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On day one, we experienced the “Two Jerusalems”—Yerushalayim shel malah (the spiritual Jerusalem of above) and Yerushalayim shel matah (the earthly Jerusalem of below) [an idea from the Babylonian Talmud]—holding in our hands the need to always be navigating back and forth between the ideal and the real.

Our morning was spent with a representative from the legal department of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC). She talked to us about the IRAC’s many initiatives working to advance pluralism in Israeli society. She described to us the now-famous work of Women of the Wall, promoting the rights of women to pray at the Western Wall—out-loud, in religious garb, and with ample space. She also described to us IRAC’s efforts to bring vocational training and economic stability to Israel’s rapidly growing ultra-Orthodox Jewish population, as well as IRAC’s work to bring greater civil rights for women in those communities. Our students were highly engaged and agitated after learning about these social justice issues, and many had interesting reflections to share after the meeting. Many of the Americans expressed disappointment at knowing that these kinds of problems exist in a Jewish state, while many of the Israelis expressed discomfort that the Americans shouldn’t walk away with only a negative picture of Israel. In the end, both groups reflected upon IRAC chairwoman Anat Hoffman’s teaching: only by learning about Israel, with all her glories and all her warts, can you ever learn to truly love her.

Our afternoon was spent wandering the Old City, including a tour of the Sharsheret HaDorot Museum, in which we walked through and experienced highlights of Jewish history. We then spent an hour at the Kotel (the Western Wall), in which our students had the chance to offer personal prayers, place notes in the Wall, and take-in this landmark of Jewish heritage and spirituality. Some students shared that their experience of the Kotel was one of Yerushalayim shel malah—an elevated feeling, a connection to God and to history. Other students felt there Yerushalayim shel malah—just a wall, a crowded, albeit an ancient wall. But whatever their experience, our students realized that a person’s relationship with the Kotel is always changing. It is the hope of the staff that the students will be able to return to the Kotel many times throughout their lives, and that each visit will hold new and different meanings.

The American students were very moved to receive the personalized notes from their parents at the Wall. Many said that opening their letters, and feeling the chain of generations that had enabled them to reach this place, was their most powerful moment at the Kotel.

After dinner at our hotel, we met up with other students on an exchange between Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Manhattan and Kehilat Kol Haneshama in Jerusalem. Together, our teens and their teens watched a screening of the documentary The Name My Mother Gave Me. The film documents the trip to Ethiopia of a group of Ethiopian-Israeli and Russian-Israeli teens. Together, they uncover the Ethiopian-Israelis’ family roots, as both groups discover more about their identities in Israel’s ethnic mixed-salad society.

Day one was filled with enriching conversations about what it means to be Jewish, to have a national homeland, and to ever be navigating between the spiritual ideal of Yerushalayim shel malah and the daily realities of Yerushayalim shel matah.

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On day two, we experienced Jerusalem as a city where “truth springs up from the earth, and justice looks down from the sky” (from Psalm 85).

The first part of our morning was spent at the Knesset, Israel’s legislature, where we learned about the inner workings of Israel’s government. We viewed a facsimile of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, and learned how the Declaration represents a blending of the Jewish past, the Jewish present, and the Jewish future. We then viewed the gorgeous tapestries by Marc Chagall that hang in the Knesset’s reception hall. Chagall created these three tapestries also to represent the Jewish past (our biblical roots), the Jewish present (our 2,000 years living in every corner of the globe), and our Jewish future (a day of radical peace among all peoples). We were then welcomed into a Knesset committee room, where we learned how bills become laws, and viewed a short film about the history of the Knesset. Finally, we entered a viewing room overlooking the Plenary Hall, where the Knesset assembles to vote. Here, we learned about Israel’s coalition government, with its opportunities and its challenges.

We then walked to the neighboring Supreme Court Building. The building is designed to be an architectural representation of justice—transparent, accessible, and firmly rooted. We learned about Israel’s three-tiered system of appeals courts and about current cases that are stirring a lot of media attention.

In the afternoon, we took in the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of Shuk Mahaneh Yehudah (Jerusalem’s outdoor market). In a couple of crowded alleyways, we were able to find everything from nuts and spices, to fruits and vegetables, to tapestries and linens, to Iraqi Kubbeh Soup and gourmet European coffee. We then walked downtown to Ben Yehudah street, where we experienced Jerusalem’s favorite shopping, dining, and people watching.

We ended our stay in Jerusalem with a visit to the Museum on the Seam. The Museum on the Seam is located immediately adjacent to the Green Line (the pre-1967 border between Israel and Jordan). Living up to its location, the museum uses art to explore issues that bring the viewer right up to the edge of his or her comfort zone. The museum’s current installation explores issues of solitude and belonging. Our docent did and excellent job of making this theme relatable to our students by asking: “Does a person with 2,000 Facebook friends necessarily have any friends at all?” After spending an hour touring the exhibits, our students had a stimulating discussion on how they navigate the line between being an individual and belonging to a group.

Day two juxtaposed the inner workings of the Israeli political system with the outward expression of public life in the streets and in the market. Through these experiences, our students discovered themselves “on the seam” between where “truth springs up from the earth, and justice looks down from the sky”—the Jerusalem the exposes us all to the beautiful, challenging drama of being human.

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We’ve now returned to Haifa—tired and enriched. We’re all looking forward to continuing our learning, growth, exploration, and cultural exchange together!!

Moses Learns to Help

This D'var Torah originally appeared in an edition of the Shaaray Tefila e-News.

This week’s Torah portion, Shemot (Exodus 1:1-6:1), opens the book of Exodus. In it, we read of three trials in Moses’ young-adult life—three formative experiences that shape him as a leader and a liberator. Moses, having grown up sheltered in Pharaoh’s palace, witnesses for the first time three cases of injustice. In the first, he sees and Egyptian beating an Israelite slave. Moses’s heart is stirred, but he doesn’t know how to help. Checking to see if anyone is watching, Moses hits the Egyptian and buries him in the sand. In the second trial, Moses sees two Israelites fighting with each other, and again he is stirred by this violence in the world. But again, he doesn’t know how to help—he yells at the Israelites, which only causes them to resent him. Finally, in the third trial, Moses sees a group of shepherds that has come to bother the daughters of the Priest of Midian. Finally, Moses has developed a capacity for bringing justice to an often unjust world: Moses “stood up, and helped them, and watered their flock.”

We learn from Moses that it takes practice to develop a capacity to effectively respond to injustice. Sometimes we may feel like there’s nothing we can do. Sometimes we may feel like we want just want to shout about it. These are good instincts—they demonstrate that your heart is still beating in your chest. With practice, each of us can hone our capacity to do justice, so that when the time comes, we can be like Moses: we can stand up and help.