Mah Nishtanah -- A Story for Passover

A story, for Passover:

***

Saul—age eleven—had grown tired of having to recite the Four Questions. As the youngest among all his siblings and cousins, he knew that no matter how old he was, he would never outgrow this youngest-child responsibility. As a kid, Saul had thought it a special privilege to read the Four Questions; in a large and noisy family like his, it felt good, if only for a few minutes, to be in the spotlight. But now, after many years of family seders, he was beginning to wonder why he should have to continue to ask these questions to which he already knew the answers.

It was hard for Saul, as the youngest, to always be last in line for any major accomplishment. While his older cousins were busy preparing for SATs and college searches, Saul was bringing up the rear with Fifth Grade Graduation. What were for him milestones seemed to be for the rest of his family old news. He was always following in someone else’s footsteps. No matter how much he grew, there was always someone taller; no matter how much he learned, there was always someone smarter.

If there was one person in the family who truly understood Saul, that person was Grandpa Harry. When he was with his Grandpa Harry, Saul felt smart. His grandpa used to quiz him on all sorts of topics—the countries of the world and their capitals, US presidents, Major League Baseball teams—and for every question that Saul could correctly answer, his grandfather would reward him with a prize. It was Grandpa Harry who had taught Saul to sing the Four Questions in the first place. Saul was a natural. He learned the whole thing, without using transliteration, in less than 20 minutes. Grandpa Harry was proud. If only the rest of the family could see Saul the way that Grandpa Harry saw him, then maybe they wouldn’t think of him as just a kid.

And so it was at Grandpa Harry’s seder table one Passover night that Saul decided that this would be the year in which he would make his big debut, in which he would prove that he wasn’t just a kid, in which he would prove, once and for all, that yes, he knew the Four Questions, but more importantly, he had answers.

Saul realized his opportunity to prove himself when Grandpa Harry went to hide the afikomen. That hidden piece of matzah was like the answer to some sort of secret question, and only the quick-witted would be clever enough to uncover its mystery. He watched with eyes as big as silver dollars as Grandpa Harry carefully wrapped the coveted prize in a dinner napkin, tucked it into his breast pocket, and disappeared to some other room in the house.

Throughout the rest of the seder, Saul could focus on nothing else but devising a plan to find the afikomen before his older cousins did. He made a mental list of all the places Grandpa might have hidden it, and systematically determined the rooms that deserved the most attention. It was a puzzle, and Saul was going to solve it.

The seder seemed to drag on endlessly. But finally, after nearly two grueling hours during which Saul did indeed feel as if he had been a slave in Egypt, finally it was time to search for the afikomen.

Saul and his siblings and cousins each raced off to different rooms of the house, looking under every chair and behind every piece of furniture. It was only a matter of minutes before Saul returned, with a broken piece of matzah in hand, shouting: “I found it! I found it!” He raced over to where his grandpa was sitting and proudly held up for him the coveted prize. “I found it, grandpa! I found it first!”

“Alright, alright, slow down, boychik.”

Saul had never been more proud of himself. In his head, his siblings and cousins were already clapping him on the back, saying, “Way to go, Sauly! How’d you find it so fast?” His mom and dad were already ruffling his hair, smiles aglow across their faces. In his head, he was being paraded around the house, held high on his family members’ shoulders. He could almost hear his grandpa uttering the words: “My boy, I think you may be the best afikomen-finder that this family has ever seen.”

But these weren’t the words that were coming out of grandpa’s mouth. There was no one ruffling his hair or parading him around the house. Rather, grandpa was puzzling over the broken piece of matzah that Saul had just brought to him, trying to make it fit with the piece from which it had been broken. But like a three-pronged plug in a two-hole socket, the pieces didn’t fit.

“Saul, what have you done?” his grandfather asked.

The parade in Saul’s head came to a halt. He’d been found out. Grandpa looked at him disapprovingly. Saul’s face turned red. He felt like he wanted to throw up. He could almost taste the charoset, that strange mix of sweetness and mortar, in the back of his throat.

Just then, his cousin came running into the room, shouting, “I found it! I found it!” Saul’s eyes—green as sprigs of parsley—filled, like bowls of salt water. As he ran out of the house and down the street, his grandfather’s words—What have you done?—were still ringing in his ears, as he tried desperately to get as far away from the house as possible, where no one could ask him any more questions.

***

Second seder was held the next night at his parents’ house. Saul stayed up in his room until the last possible minute. He didn’t want to have to talk to anybody. When he finally came downstairs, he felt as if everybody was walking on eggshells. He sat sullenly on the couch, as a slow trickle of aunts and uncles approached to ask him a series of idiotic questions that, while trying to avoid the sensitive topic of last night’s debacle, only made him more and more aware of it.

He was relieved that Grandpa Harry didn’t try to come and talk to him. He didn’t think he could bear it. Grandpa Harry gave him only a nod hello when he walked in the door—a nod that seemed to say: “I’m disappointed.” Or maybe: “We all make mistakes.” Saul wasn’t sure.

At last, they sat down to begin the seder. Saul cringed as Grandpa Harry removed the middle matzah from its cover, lifted it high and the air, snapped it in two, and proclaimed: “This is the afikomen.” Though every head stared intently at its own plate, Saul felt as if all eyes were on him.

Slowly, as the seder progressed, the tension began to subside. Saul sang the Four Questions as flawlessly as ever, and the whole table breathed a deep sigh of relief. Hopefully, Saul thought to himself, this night would be different from last night.

Things began to fall back into their usual order. They went around the table, taking turns reading passages from the Haggadah. Eventually, Saul forgot about the previous night’s debacle—forgot, that is, until they got to the passage about the Four Children. As they read about each child, Saul wondered which one he was: the Wise one, or the Rebellious one? Wise, because he knew more than the rest of his family gave him credit for. Or Rebellious, because he had tried to prove it with a lie.

Just then, it was his grandfather’s turn to read: “As for the child who does not know how to ask a question: you shall tell him the Passover story from the beginning—so that even in his silence, he will absorb what he can.”

And Saul, who had so easily memorized the Four Questions; who had learned them in twenty minutes, without transliteration; who, year after year, had recited them flawlessly—Saul now sat there in silence. He had learned how to read the Questions many years before; but he had never learned how to ask them.

As the seder continued on around him, Saul felt himself in a blur. These rituals that only the night before had seemed like old news, suddenly felt completely strange and new. He was dipping his pinky in a glass of wine. He was singing songs in a foreign language about places he’d never been. At long last, Saul broke his confused silence. “Grandpa,” he asked, “why does the Haggadah tell us to drink the second cup of wine while reclining to the left?”

His Grandpa gave him a smile. “An excellent question, Sauly.”

Saul wasn’t even sure he heard the answer, or that one was even given. His head was filling up with new questions. Saul—who had never learned to ask a question—sat there in silence, absorbing what he could.

The Little Aleph

A children's story -- for children of all ages and sizes -- for Parshat Vayikra.

Building...

The following sermon will be delivered this evening at Temple Shaaray Tefila in Manhattan.

Is there any part of the Torah that’s more boring than this one? For five weeks in a row, we’ve been slaving away at the same repetitive topic: how the Israelites built the Tabernacle—their portable sanctuary. At first it was exciting. But by the time we make it to this week’s Torah portion, we’ll have already heard about it FIVE TIMES. The tedious, technical detail—verse after verse of architectural blueprints and lists of materials, precise measurements and lengthy construction protocols—it’s unrelenting! The Israelites must have been as bored of building it as we are of reading about it.

Can you imagine the Israelites’ frustration? “Avadim hayinu,” they shout, “We were slaves in Egypt for more than 400 years.” And immediately upon being granted their freedom, they’re stuck with yet another construction project. What kind of freedom is that, if you have to work all day? They feel as if they are still avadim—as if they are still slaves, burdened with a task that they never signed up for in the first place.

The work—the avodah—is seemingly endless. That’s the trick about building a portable sanctuary: the work is never actually done. As soon as they finish building it, it will be only a matter of time before they have to carefully take it down, pack it up, load it onto wagons, haul it to the next campsite, unpack it, and carefully rebuild it there. All that avodah sounds like a lot of busy work, to me.

And so, faced with the prospect of endless avodah, the Israelites feel as if they are still avadim, as if they are still slaves. They’re sunburned. They’re tired. They break their backs week-in and week-out. The task is great, and the workers are sluggish. The day is long and the Boss is pressing.

Finally, the avodah is drawing to a close. After five weeks of waking up early, of sweating through their lunch breaks, of coming too late, too many nights, the Tabernacle is nearly complete. Complete, that is, until they have to break the whole thing down and move it. But at least for now, the Israelites have responded to every email in their inbox.

And now, here comes Moses to inspect their work. He takes a careful look:

The incense altar? Perfect. It smells as sweet as havdallah spice box.

The High Priest’s robe? Perfect. It glimmers and gleams, jingles and jangles like a Torah scroll being taken from the ark.

The Menorah Lamp? Perfect. Its glow softens the night, like the last blue sliver of flame, flickering from a pair of Shabbas candlesticks.

Moses is impressed. He’s proud of the Israelites. Who knew that these former avadim could do such holy work? He blesses them for a job well done.

But then, a strange thing happens—or rather, it is strange that something does not happen. Moses blesses the Israelites, but he doesn’t acknowledge their avodah. They slaved away for all this time, and Moses doesn’t even mention it. Here Moses is so proud of what they’ve accomplished that he’s moved to bless them, and yet, in his blessing, he doesn’t even mention all the hard work put in. What kind of blessing is that?

It’s the kind of blessing that helps us find new meaning in what was previously overlooked. Because the essence of Moses’s blessing lies precisely in the fact that he doesn’t mention their avodah. He knows that it took five weeks. He knows that they broke their backs. He knows that they got home late. But this hard work wasn’t avodah, because they weren’t avadim. They were free people. Free to build for themselves a sanctuary, so that they might have a relationship with the divine. Free to wake up in the morning and find that their lives had purpose. Free to show their children and their children’s children and even us sitting here today the value of hard work towards a common goal in the company of like-minded people. And in this good work, the Israelites were transformed from a generation of former slaves—from avadim­—to a generation of change-agents—to m’lachim. And for this reason, Moses blesses their work not as avodah, but for what it truly is: m’lachah. Good work. Meaningful work. The work that changes the world.

And for the first time, the Israelites saw the beauty in the work that they’d done. For the first time, the Israelites realized that they hadn’t just made an incense altar, or a priest’s robe, or a menorah lamp. Sure these were the tasks—this was the avodah. But what was the real work? What was the m’lachah? The m’lachah was building a sanctuary. The m’lachah was to be close to God.

We may no longer have a Tabernacle, but we still have our m’lachah. The pages upon pages of paperwork that help a young family start a college fund. The hundreds of phone calls and emails that make the day of community volunteering possible. The hours spent in the laboratory, so that new cures can be found for diseases. The early mornings, the long train rides, the short lunch breaks, so that somewhere, someone can live a better life. This is our m’lachah. This is our good work.

Suddenly, the Israelites felt that all their sweat was worth it. Their work wasn’t to finish the Tabernacle, but actually to build it. And then to deconstruct it, and move it, and build it again. And again. And again.

And this is part of what it means to be a Jew—to discover our real work, and to keep at it day after day. And this is why, for five weeks in a row we read about the building of the Tabernacle. Because we can finish our avodah—but our real work, our m’lachah, is never fully done. And so we return to the same book year after year. And we light our Shabbas candles week after week. And we exercise our tzedakah muscle every day. And we imagine that we ourselves came out of Egypt generation after generation. The task is great, and the workers are sluggish. The day is long and the Boss is pressing. But the reward is exceedingly great. The Tabernacle is always being constructed. And you and I and all of us are responsible for doing the work.

Community and Commitment

Communities are about commitments.

Communities have expectations. (There is something decidedly Jewish about expectations. Commandedness is a central element of what it means to be Jewish; we’re concerned with much more than what is “nice to do,” but rather a sense of what we’re obligated to do, what we’re responsible for.) When members hold themselves accountable to a community’s expectations, they themselves are deciding whether or not they belong to the community.  In this way, we’re not dealing with enforcement, but people’s own investment.

On defining those expectations: I learned from Noa Kushner that it is important to have a strong leader who helps define expectations. A strong leader enables clear values and expectations to be articulated (and hopefully, practiced). Clear expectations lead to strong communities. Otherwise, if you try to be everything to everybody, values die a “death by committee.”

What if, rather than reading a dues structure agreement, new community members had to read and sign a brit? Or maybe a brit for their smaller community (eg: the Masa families community, the Teen Exchange community) that articulated the values of the larger community within the context of the smaller group? (More on this below. See “One practical idea:”)

What if, instead of “membership” in a synagogue, we tried using the word “belonging” to a synagogue? Membership implies a service—like a gym or a the SkyMiles club. The word belonging implies a sense of commitment. As in, “I feel like I really belong here.”

The challenge of it all is in actually enacting (practicing) your commitments. Values are easy to define, and also easy to be deeply believed in. The challenge—for me as a human being, as well as for specific Jewish communities and for liberal religious movements in general—is enact these beliefs. I’m sure that every individual Jew and Jewish institution deeply holds the value of Jewish speech ethics (lashon ha-ra, motzi shem ra, rechilut). The challenge is in enacting those values. The same can be said about ritual practice: find me a Jew who doesn’t think that rest (shavat vayinafash) is important. The challenge is in making space for rest. (Ultimately, this challenge boils down to a question of autonomy. The 21^st century Jewish community can enforce neither Jewish speech ethics nor Shabbat observance, so long as individual Jews have autonomy.)

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One practical idea:

What if a community had a Brit Kehillah—with very well-defined, specific values. (Like Camp Coleman’s kavod, chesed, kehilla, and shalom—but maybe even more focused, like v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha and betzelem elohim.) These values would need to penetrate every aspect of synagogue (or community) life. They would inform the text study at the first 10 minutes of every Executive Committee meetings—using deep, compelling, thought-provoking Jewish texts that deepen everyone’s understanding the values. The values would be a critical aspect of meeting any new person who wanted to belong to the community. They would be referenced in sermons. They would be known by every student in the religious school. So if, for example, little Adam or Hava had to be taken to the religious school director’s office, s/he would be able to articulate that his/her behavior didn’t demonstrate v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha or betzelem elohim.

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.