by Rabbi David Lapin, 2009 http://iawaken.org

Much has been said and written this year about the once-in-twenty-eight-year phenomenon of Birkat Hachama this Wednesday. There are many dimensions to it: halachik, philosophic, kabbalistic and astronomical. Birkat Hachama is recited on the day that the sun, at sunset, is positioned against the same constellations on a Tuesday evening as it was on the Tuesday evening on which it was created 5770 years ago. This is one of the few occasions in our calendar governed by solar rather than lunar cycles (the other being the day we start to recite “vetein tal umattar” in chutz la’aretz).

Our Calendar is unique among the nations and cultures of the world. It is the only calendar that synchronizes both the solar and the lunar cycles in one integrated calendar system. The movement of the moon governs our months and our year. The cycle of the sun governs our Sabbath as it does our leap year and the positioning of our chaggim in their appropriate seasons.

Synchronizing lunar and solar cycles in an integrated calendar is about more than timing and seasons. The Sun and the Moon, the two primary celestial luminaries, each represent different modes of being. The Sun is ever constant and never changing. It looks the same each day. Even an astronomical amateur knows with a fair measure of precision where to expect the sun to rise each morning and where it will set. Its cycle moves a little each day to the north or the south, but this is not perceptible to the average person on a daily basis.

The moon on the other hand is ever changing and never constant. Every night it looks noticeably different. The average person doesn’t really know where it will rise and set each night.

The moon governs our months, known in Hebrew as Chodesh, which means new. The sun governs our year, Shannah in Hebrew, which means recycleor repetition. We need both disciplines: We need to build “grooves”, seder, for ourselves by constant repetition. These grooves create habits that guarantee at least some measure of consistent behavior and even achievement. Our davening is a daily “groove”. So are our Yamim Tovim and Shabbat. However if all we do is function in grooves, those grooves become ruts, and we become stale and stagnant. In addition to our seder, our grooves, we also need newness, vitality, experimentation, and exploration. We need chidush. The moon represents this chidush, this newness and innovation. The sun with its constancy, predictability and stability represents our seder. We need both. The moon wanes and grows; the sun is unvarying.

In Torah learning and thought a similar principle applies: Chidush (innovation) is core to Torah learning. “Bechol Yom yiheyu be’einecha kechadashim” (Each day the words of the Torah should be as if they are new). Yet all Torah innovation needs to be constructed within unchanging frameworks of mesorah (authentic methodology). The term mishnah comes from the same root as shanah.

In finance and economics we have similar principles. We need the ever-changing, volatile, unpredictable equity markets as much as we need more stable markets for more predictable instruments like government bonds. When innovation is not tempered with stability, we experience the kinds of seismic shake-up that our financial markets have been experiencing now. If we punish innovation and swing the pendulum to cling to safety and security, we deny ourselves the exhilaration of adventure and discovery. If we encourage unrestrained risk, we will destroy what our parents have built. If we stop investing in anything that is not secure we will leave nothing for our children. We need to develop the fine art of innovating without being reckless, of treading cautiously without shutting off the joys of human brilliance.

The Jew lives this exciting paradox of stability and volatility. Like Jacob’s ladder our feet are meant to be planted firmly on earth, while with our minds and our souls we explore, innovate and visit the highest reaches of spiritual achievement. We create behavioral grooves to guarantee our safety and we innovate to expand our experience.

On Wednesday, as we bless G-d for His creation and sustaining of the sun, we will marvel at the universe’s predictability. At the same time of the year we will emphasize the mitzvah of Hachodesh hazeh lachem (this New Moon is for you) and celebrate our capacities for individual and national renewal.

Birkat Hachama

Erev Pesach 5769

by Rabbi David Lapin, http://iawaken.org

Much has been said and written this year about the once-in-twenty-eight-year phenomenon of Birkat Hachama this Wednesday. There are many dimensions to it: halachik, philosophic, kabbalistic and astronomical. Birkat Hachama is recited on the day that the sun, at sunset, is positioned against the same constellations on a Tuesday evening as it was on the Tuesday evening on which it was created 5770 years ago. This is one of the few occasions in our calendar governed by solar rather than lunar cycles (the other being the day we start to recite “vetein tal umattar” in chutz la’aretz).

Our Calendar is unique among the nations and cultures of the world. It is the only calendar that synchronizes both the solar and the lunar cycles in one integrated calendar system. The movement of the moon governs our months and our year. The cycle of the sun governs our Sabbath as it does our leap year and the positioning of our chaggim in their appropriate seasons.

Synchronizing lunar and solar cycles in an integrated calendar is about more than timing and seasons. The Sun and the Moon, the two primary celestial luminaries, each represent different modes of being. The Sun is ever constant and never changing. It looks the same each day. Even an astronomical amateur knows with a fair measure of precision where to expect the sun to rise each morning and where it will set. Its cycle moves a little each day to the north or the south, but this is not perceptible to the average person on a daily basis.

The moon on the other hand is ever changing and never constant. Every night it looks noticeably different. The average person doesn’t really know where it will rise and set each night.

The moon governs our months, known in Hebrew as Chodesh, which means new. The sun governs our year, Shannah in Hebrew, which means recycleor repetition. We need both disciplines: We need to build “grooves”, seder, for ourselves by constant repetition. These grooves create habits that guarantee at least some measure of consistent behavior and even achievement. Our davening is a daily “groove”. So are our Yamim Tovim and Shabbat. However if all we do is function in grooves, those grooves become ruts, and we become stale and stagnant. In addition to our seder, our grooves, we also need newness, vitality, experimentation, and exploration. We need chidush. The moon represents this chidush, this newness and innovation. The sun with its constancy, predictability and stability represents our seder. We need both. The moon wanes and grows; the sun is unvarying.

In Torah learning and thought a similar principle applies: Chidush (innovation) is core to Torah learning. “Bechol Yom yiheyu be’einecha kechadashim” (Each day the words of the Torah should be as if they are new). Yet all Torah innovation needs to be constructed within unchanging frameworks of mesorah (authentic methodology). The term mishnah comes from the same root as shanah.

In finance and economics we have similar principles. We need the ever-changing, volatile, unpredictable equity markets as much as we need more stable markets for more predictable instruments like government bonds. When innovation is not tempered with stability, we experience the kinds of seismic shake-up that our financial markets have been experiencing now. If we punish innovation and swing the pendulum to cling to safety and security, we deny ourselves the exhilaration of adventure and discovery. If we encourage unrestrained risk, we will destroy what our parents have built. If we stop investing in anything that is not secure we will leave nothing for our children. We need to develop the fine art of innovating without being reckless, of treading cautiously without shutting off the joys of human brilliance.

The Jew lives this exciting paradox of stability and volatility. Like Jacob’s ladder our feet are meant to be planted firmly on earth, while with our minds and our souls we explore, innovate and visit the highest reaches of spiritual achievement. We create behavioral grooves to guarantee our safety and we innovate to expand our experience.

On Wednesday, as we bless G-d for His creation and sustaining of the sun, we will marvel at the universe’s predictability. At the same time of the year we will emphasize the mitzvah of Hachodesh hazeh lachem (this New Moon is for you) and celebrate our capacities for individual and national renewal.

Copyright Rabbi David Lapin, iawaken.org

Should Women Read the Megilah?

Gaps between the roles and competencies of modern men and women have narrowed. There are not that many areas in which, as a generalization, one gender consistently outperforms the other. Still, there is a yin/yang kind of polarity between masculinity and femininity that we lose at our peril. Masculine and feminine polarity creates energy like the electricity created by the polarity of positive and negative. There can be comfort without polarity, but not energy. Masculine-feminine polarity generates the balance of universal energy, it underpins kedushah (sanctity), and it nourishes successful relationships.

This masculine-feminine polarity helps to explain aspects of women’s roles in public Avodah such as Tefilah Betzibbur, Keriat Hatorah and Mikrah Megilah (Public prayer, Torah reading and Megilah reading). These roles are often socially contentious and Halachikly complex.

The case of Mikrah Megilah is particularly interesting. Women are chayavot (obligated) to hear the Megilah but, according to the Shulchan Aruch (O.Ch: 689:2), are not able to read the Megilah on behalf of men. Why, at least in communities where this would not be considered inappropriate (Kavod Hatzibbur) or within the confines of a private home, should a man not fulfill his mitzvah if he heard the Megillah read by a woman?

Reading To or Reading For?

There is something quite unique about the mitzvah of Megillah-reading that is different from Torah-reading. In the case of Torah reading one is required to hear the Torah being read from a kosher scroll. In the case of Megillah, the mitzvah is to read the Megilah, not merely to hear it read. The Ba’al Korei (reader) in the case of Megilah, is not reading it to the community, he is reading it as their shaliach, on behalf of the community. He represents and stands in place of each person in the community. When he reads, it is as if each individual is reading from the scroll.

Women however have a different relationship to the Megilah. Their responsibility is to hear the Megilah, not to read it (Mordechai[1] and Ramah[2] in Shulchan Aruch). Women have no obligation to read the Megilah for themselves or to appoint a shaliach (an agent) to read it for them. It is for this reason, suggests the Ba’al Halachot Gedolot[3] that a woman cannot read the Megilah on behalf of a man: because one may not act as an agent for another if one is not obligated to do that mitzvah in the same way as the other is. The Mishna Berura[4] also gives that as the reason.

Even though women, because they were as much part of the Purim miracle as men, are obligated to hear the Megilah reading, their halachik relationship to the Megilah is different from that of a man.

Masculine and Feminine Energy

Understanding men and women’s different Megilah obligations, requires an appreciation of some Kabalistic differences between feminine energy and masculine energy. Masculine energy is outgoing and action oriented. Feminine energy is deep, personal, inward and more passive. Masculine energy is about quantitative outcome; feminine energy is about qualitative process.

The Shem Mishmuel[5] (5678) explains that these two energies appear in the Purim miracle. There was the passive salvation of the Jewish people, and there was also an active physical battle that had to be fought and won. The battle resulted in Venahafoch hu (the scales were reversed): not only were the Jews saved from their enemies (that alone would have been miraculous) but they also ruled over their enemies and dominated them, a double miracle. Women experienced the first facet of the miracle, the salvation. In fact they not only experienced it, they in the person of Esther actually facilitated it. This is why Aff hein hayu be’otto haneis (women too, were part of the same miracle) and have to participate in hearing the mitzvah of Megilah. However, dominating the enemy after a bloody battle was a particularly masculine facet of the miracle in which women were not directly involved.

The Shem Mishmuel sees a reflection of these two facets of the miracle in the two facets of the Megilah Reading. Reading the Megilah out aloud to the community is the facet of the Mitzvah driven by the masculine energy of public action. Hearing the Megilah inwardly, allowing its sounds and meaning to penetrate to the depths of the Jewish soul, is the facet of the Mitzvah driven by feminine energy. It is the delicate harmony of masculine and feminine energies, the reading of and the listening to the Megilah, that makes the occasion perfect. Women as guardians of the feminine energy in the world, perform the listening facet, while men perform the reading facet. This existential balance would wobble if a woman, who has no obligation to read the Megilah, did so on behalf of a man who is obligated to read it out aloud.

The way the mitzvah of reading and hearing the Megilah is constructed, maintains the polarity of masculine and feminine energies and enhances their harmony. The men read out aloud. The women listen inwardly. This harmony underpins kedushah and nourishes relationships.

Men (or masculine energy) dominate; women (or feminine energy) facilitate. Men need to win; women want to succeed. That is the difference. Women in a dating situation, playing a game or sport against men are often anecdotally advised to “let him win.” When he wins, she succeeds. When the men of Shushan overcame the Amalakite bands of Hamman’s brutes, they celebrated victory and they still do: by reading the Megilah out aloud in public. And while they do this, the women listen quietly and deeply with the inner knowledge that the victory being declared by their men is the success that they as women orchestrated. This male-female polarity playing out in the Megilah-reading, ignites the spark that is Purim.

Notes:

[1] R. Mordechai ben Hillel 13th Century, Germany

[2] R. Moshe Isserlis, 16th Century, Crackow

[3] Around the year 800 C.E.

[4] The Chofetz Chayim, R.Yisrael Meir Kagan,19th-20th Century, Raddin, Poland.

[5] Sochatshover Rebbe, 19th- 20th Century.

Parshat Lech Lecha 5769

© Rabbi David Lapin, 2008 (http://iawaken.org)

Yesterday does not predict tomorrow

Timeless values rather than transient, political events are the subjects of these essays. But this week’s events in the United States are not transient and they are far more than political. They call for comment.

The US elections are the third event in eight years that permanently changed the course of global history. But there is something even more startling about those events than the changes they ushered in. In all three cases we saw the failure of yesterday to predict tomorrow.

The three events were 1) September 11th; 2) the current financial crisis; and 3) the Obama landslide victory.[1] In each case the instruments traditionally relied upon to predict future trends proved incapable of doing so. In each case the world, including its experts, was taken by surprise and shocked out of complacency.

The United States had a sophisticated intelligence system that was caught unaware in 2001. The world of finance was driven by complex models designed by brilliant minds using cutting edge technology, but it could not foresee the collapse of US credit markets. Even Alan Greenspan told Congress last month that he was in a state of “shocked disbelief.” Barack Obama’s victory was not a surprise (although not very long ago many considered it impossible and even in September McCain’s lead was considered within the margins of polling error), but its landslide dimensions were. None of the polls predicted anything like it.

Yesterday is over

The reason that none of these events were predicted is because the future is no longer a continuation of the past. No longer can one use yesterday’s tools, data and trends to predict tomorrow. Yesterday is over. One needs a deep understanding of today to predict tomorrow. As it Pirkei Avot (Ethics of our Fathers) says: “A wise man is one who is roeh et hanolad – who can visualize that which has just been conceived.” Many of the factors that drove the course of history for decades and maybe centuries drive it no more. New factors have been born that drive it now. Mr. Obama seems to see those factors and uses them.

Change is not new to the world, but this change is. Unlike most change that is linear, this changes is not. It is discontinuous. This means it is not a natural extension of past events. It is initiated by an unpredictable wave of new phenomena. The direction of linear change can be predicted, discontinuous change cannot. Large volumes of data can inform us about the past and provide near-certainty about a linear future but can predict nothing about a discontinuous future.

All security is fragile

All three of these events bring a common message: the fragility of security. On 9/11, human imagination and religious passion shattered the world’s most powerful fortresses of might and money. It was the triumph of misguided religious fervor over the complacency of material security.

The collapse of the world’s financial markets wiping out the savings of millions of people, showed us how fragile our monetary system is. The Chafeitz Chaim[2]saw the great depression as a lesson to the world that neither a society nor an economy can function without faith. People invest because they have faith in the future and in one another. When they lose that faith they disinvest and markets collapse.

Barack Obama did not launch his campaign from the traditional powerbases of conventional politics. He understood that the majority of Americans do not feel secure in what has been and are seeking new territory. He touched the souls of America’s youth by offering them hope. He recognized that the new generation is not apathetic, spoiled and entitled, but disillusioned with leaders, teachers and offerings that cannot nourish their souls.

Religion, faith and hope

Conventional predictors did not factor in the roles of religious fervor in warfare, the need for faith in business and the need for hope in government. Those predictors missed the degree to which people will make sacrifices for leaders that nourish the soul and talk to it, and to the degree which business that is not underpinned by faith is not sustainable. These predictors are unable to deal with factors such as hope and faith that cannot be measured.

More than half of the people in the world are of a young generation with changed norms, paradigms of thought and even values. When treated with condescension, this generation withdraws into its fantasy worlds of technological distraction and general apathy. But when touched, this generation’s energy is beyond anything previously seen. The polls could not measure the power of ordinary people with extraordinary spirit whose hearts were ignited by a man who offered them a cause and gave them faith.

This new generation has lost faith in business, government and even religious institutions but they have faith in themselves, in each other and in the future. Technology allows them to connect with each other without needing yesterday’s social, political and religious institutions and structures. Leaders and educators need to learn new ways to access the energy and deep yearnings of young people as President-elect Barack Obama did or they will lose them as Sen. McCain did.[3]

Let go of yesterday and welcome tomorrow

Yesterday is over and to embrace the future we need to let go of some of the past. This is key to moving ahead in the rapidly changing landscape in which we are living. In the opening of our parsha, our father Avraham, embedds into Jewish DNA the ability to leave the past behind and move into an uncertain future.

Go, Avraham is told, from everything that is familiar to you, to territory that you cannot know or imagine, territory that I, G-d, shall show to you. Do this not only for the impact you will have in the world, but also for your own good and your own benefit (Rashi 12:2). Avraham’s departure from his homeland is not an act of reckless adventurism. Avraham walks into unchartered waters because although he does not know to where he is going, G-d does. He is going to a very specific place; a place chosen for him by G-d, who will lead him there. The knowledge of G-d’s part in our uncertain futures is what provides us the security with which to stride forward.

In unpredictable times, faith in the future can be a hyped up illusion created by desperation. Real faith in a real future needs to be founded on emunah and bitachon (belief and trust). Belief and trust are the vehicles that help us move into an uncertain future that we cannot see.

Is the President-elect selling hype or hope? “Yes we can”, is hype. “Yes, with the help of G-d, we can” is hope.

Notes:

[1] I am in no way linking Obama’s election to the previous two events in respect of their destructiveness and damage, only the scale of their impact and the degree to which experts did not anticipate them.

[2] Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (1838-1933)

[3] These ideas will be expanded in my upcoming leadership book, “Lead by Greatness.”

Parshat Bereishit 5769

©Rabbi David Lapin, 2008 (http://www.iawaken.org)

The Wisdom of Trust

The creation of Adam and Chava on the sixth day, inaugurated a short period of intellectual and spiritual grandeur for man, a grandeur that lasted for no more than six hours.[1] Then it was shattered – not by Chava or Adam eating from the forbidden fruit of the Eitz Hada’at, but because their union was compromised by the poison of mistrust.

Adam and Chava were super-intelligent. They were “arumim” (Chakimim, wise, according to the Targum Yonattan). Their wisdom however was not vested in their individual beings but in the unit of their togetherness: “Vehayu Lebasar Echad” (and they will exist as a single being). “And they were, the two of them together, man and wife, wise.” (Bereishit 2:24-25)

It is Adam who first compromises the integrity of their partnership. After Hashem instructs them not to eat of the Eitz Hada’at, Adam of his own accord uses the principle of siyag (a legal “fence” designed to make transgression less likely), and tells Chava that not only is eating the fruit forbidden but touching it is forbidden too. The snake (nachash) slyly proves to Chava that no harm results from touching the fruit, leading her to question the authenticity of the entire instruction that her husband purportedly received from Hashem. “Perhaps,” she thinks to herself, “the entire instruction my Rebbi (this is the last time she refers to her husband as rebbi,) gave me, is a lie.” (Avot DeRabbi Nattan 1)

Had Adam trusted Chava at the outset; had he taken her into his confidence, told her precisely what the Divine prohibition was and then taught her the principles of siyag, Chava would never have been seduced by the nachash. Had Chava trusted in her husband, she would not have succumbed to the snake’s seduction. Insufficient trust shattered the purity of their union, diminished their wisdom, and opened the door to the snake.

Adam interpreted his role of husband as one of master rather than partner; his role of rebbe as controller rather than teacher. With the best of intention, he underestimates Chava, and deprives her of the right to understand Hashem’s word precisely as it was given. Instead of reinforcing his role as husband and rebbe, he loses both his new wife’s trust and the title “rebbe” that she had conferred upon him.

Separateness, Shame and Sin

When trust is intact and each party looks out only for the other, there is true oneness. Loss of trust introduces suspicion: “Perhaps the entire instruction my rebbi gave me is a lie.” With suspicion Adam and Chava lose the oneness of their union; “otherness” is introduced into their relationship as for the first time each feels the need to look out for themselves too. No longer are Adam and Chava Bassar Echad, a single being. Now, albeit in relationship, they are two independent beings.

With separateness comes the possibility of shame. One only feels shame when one has experienced separateness. Adam and Eve’s nakedness (the other translation of “arum”, Onkelos’s translation) was not a factor when they both comprised one being, when they were bassar echad. Now, in their alienated state of separateness where trust has fractured that oneness of being, they each experience nakedness before the other and before Hashem.

Mistrust and its resulting separateness have done more than create shame. They have also created the platform for the snake, the nachash, (according to Seforno – 3:1, an allegorical reference to the yetzer harah,) to launch its relentless attacks against Adam and Chava and all their future generations. Mistrust, suspicion, and the resulting need for self protection open the door to ego: man’s enemy of his own uprightness.

Husband and Rebbe: Leader and Teacher

A husband does not dominate a subordinate; he leads a team. Leading doesn’t mean controlling, it means influencing. Men are comfortable trusting their wives’ integrity with regard to the kashrut of their kitchens. They can be equally comfortable trusting their wives’ intellectual integrity and commitment to act in unison with their shared values and beliefs. That is what a team is; that is how a team works. By serving Adam an Eitz Haada’at dish, Chava shows him what destructive power woman has over man if she really wishes to undermine him. Trust is the foundation of respect, it is the cement of partnership.

In a similar way a rebbe doesn’t control; he shares and teaches. Teaching doesn’t mean dictating and issuing edicts. Teaching means explaining, imbuing others with understanding, and empowering them to make their own, well informed choices. By no longer calling him Rebbe, Chava shows Adam that when a rebbe bullies and controls, he loses his status as rebbe.

Smartness in Synergy

The word “arum” used to describe the intelligence of the Adam-Chava unit, is a word that implies strategic “smartness.” This is the smartness that two people have to confront any challenge when they think and act as a team. This is the smartness that Adam and Chava lost when they lost their togetherness. Even today, when two parents act as a single unit of common values each more concerned for the other than for themselves, they find within themselves a divine intelligence greater than any knowledge they could have learned from any self-help book with which to raise their children. When the children sense a split, however, the parents lose that intelligence, and are outwitted time and time again by little people a fraction of their age and experience!

Adam and Chava were the first case of synergy: as a unit they contained a greater intelligence and human greatness than the sum of their individual strengths. But they could not sustain their greatness[2] as a couple showing each other unconditional trust and respect. They lost their togetherness and they lost the special intelligence with which they were blessed as a single unit. It is the challenge of every couple to claw their way back to the original Divine intention of marriage: Vedavak be’ishto, vehayu lebassar echad. veyiheyu sheneihem arumim – chakimmim – Ha’adam ve’ishto. And he shall become a companion (TY: veyitchabbar) to his wife and they will both exist as one being. And (once again) as a couple they will have wisdom, man and his wife.

Notes:

[1] Bereishit Rabbah 18:6

[2] Targum Yonattan

[via Rabbi David Lapin, http://iawaken.org]

On Rosh Hashanah we take a break from Selichot. Rosh Hashanah is not about begging for forgiveness. Begging for forgiveness focuses on the past whereas Rosh Hashanah focuses on the future. Rosh does not mean beginning; it means much more than that. Rosh Hashanah means the Head of the Year. The head is the seat of thought, of intellect, of purpose and of vision. Rosh Hashanah is the Head, the quality of whose thinking will determine the direction and quality of the entire year.

You create your whole year on Rosh Hashanah. You apply your mind (Rosh) to envisioning the future you really crave. In this process do not limit yourself. Think big. Do not limit yourself by your past, by your disappointments and by one of the tens of thousands of negative, critical messages your mind communicates to you every day of your life. Your future knows no limits except the limits you impose on it by the fear and timidness to envision boldly. Envision your future in detail, including color, feeling, smell and sound. Picture every detail of the future you want. Your family, spiritual heights, learning, finances, home, and every thing that goes with them. Feel what it would be like to live inside the painting you have created of your envisioned future. Whenever your mind is pulled back into the past, into negativity and thoughts of failure, gently bring it back to your beautiful picture of the future you are creating.

Only you can create the blueprint of your future, Hashem makes it happen but He doesn’t create it without your help. Too often we leave Hashem to create our futures and then we over-exert ourselves to try to make things happen. Try it the other way around: you create your own future, and leave Hashem to help you make it happen! Bederech She’Adam Rotzeh Leileich, molichim otto (“Hashem leads a person in the way he or she truly wants to go”). You have to want to go places for Hashem to lead you there. Determining the places you want to go this year, is your Avodah on Rosh Hashanah.

What a gift Rosh Hashanah is to us! We can take a step back, and irrespective of what the past has been, we can, like the artist of our lives, paint a new, exhilarating, inspirational picture of the future we crave. That picture becomes the beacon of our lives in the coming year. We will make our choices against the backdrop of that picture. We will resolve our lives dilemmas by referring to that picture. We will measure our progress by how much closer we travel toward the fulfillment of that picture. And also, we will be mindful of Hashem’s daily miracles as we watch Him hold our hand and lead us to where we really want to go. This is the key: “really want to go.” Our vision has to be something we passionately want and for which we are willing to make sacrifice.

The time for repairing the past so that it doesn’t hold you back, the time for Teshuvah, is in the days following the creation of your vision on Rosh Hashanah. That time is the Asserret Yemei Teshuvah culminating in Yom Kippur. What a gift Yom Kippur is! Instead of limiting our future with the inadequacies of our pasts, Yom Kippur allows us to realign our past with our newly crafted future. What a miracle! This is why Rosh Hashanah must precede Yom Kippur.

Having painted our picture of the future we may feel a degree of inadequacy as we compare our new vision of the future with the person we are today and the life we have led until today. We may be overcome with despair as we consider the gap between who we are and who we crave to be. Asseret Yemei Teshuva and Yom Kippur are the gift that allows us to repattern the past in ways that make it support our new futures instead of undermine them.

Have an uplifting Rosh Hashanah. Give you and your family the gift of a new and inspired vision that will guide you to the beautiful future that you have created. And, may Hashem give you the berachah and the miracle you will need to make that future, and more, a living reality this year. May you be blessed with vigorous health, blessed prosperity, and miraculous success both in your material and your spiritual undertakings.

With deep appreciation, admiration and warm affection.

David Lapin

Parshat Ki Teitzei 5768

© Rabbi David Lapin, 2008 (http://www.iawaken.org)

“The Power of Pride”

I was the second speaker of the day. I walked up to the podium with a knot in my stomach. I was following immediately after Ian Thomas, an inspiring wildlife guide turned public speaker. His topic is “The Power of the Pride,” showing how lions use pride as a tool of leadership. Ian enthralls his audience, and after he finished they were in no mood to listen to me.

The loud din eventually settled. In a quiet voice I asked the audience whether Ian had shown them how lions make each other proud and how they can make even baboons feel proud. They shook their heads quizzically. “You see,” I said, “The reason Ian didn’t show you that is because lions cannot make others feel proud. Only humans can. Making others feel good about themselves is a G-dly trait, it comes from the Divine within each of us. This is why we should not learn leadership from animals; we should learn leadership from G-d.” You could hear a pin drop.

Feeling and transmitting emotion

The same applies to many emotions. We are capable not only of feeling a wide range of emotions but also of transmitting those emotions to others. This is the role of art. Art does not convey information. Art conveys feelings. Looking at a landscape of a scene you could never have been at, still allows you to feel something of what the artist felt as he or she looked at that scene. A great work of fiction can give you the feel of a place in the world or a time in history at which you could not have been present. Music and drama do the same thing.

We transmit not only positive emotions. We can transmit negative emotions too. We can radiate negativity, sadness, and cynicism just as we can radiate happiness, optimism and joy. We can demotivate people and we can uplift them. We all know the effect of being around people who are draining with their negativity compared to being around people who radiate positive energy.

Ve’ahavta lerei’acha kamocha (“And you will love your friend like yourself”) requires not only that we do and want good things for others. It also requires that just as we like to feel good, we should transmit good and positive energy to those around us helping them to feel good too. Just as we like to feel confident about ourselves and have some fun, so we should inspire others to feel that way about themselves and enjoy their lives too.

The Joy of Love

Our responsibility to make others feel good applies in greatest measure to those closest to us, to those we love: our children, our husbands and most of all, our wives. The Rambam (Nashim 15:19) forbids a man from habitual depression and anger in his relationship! (Interestingly he does not apply the same stringency to women in this regard!) Part of a man’s role is to bring joy to his wife on every level. Vesimach et ishto (“and he shall make his wife joyful”) is a directive in our Parsha (Devarim 24:5). The Gimattria (numeric value) of the word vesimach, says the Ba’al Haturim, is 354; the number of days in the lunar year – less one. This indicates that a husband is required to bring his wife joy each and every day of the year (except on Yom Kippur when his focus is elsewhere).

However, according to the Targum Yonattan, the meaning of this verse is somewhat different. Much to the dismay of Rashi, the Targum Yonattan translates the verse with a minute but vitally important difference. He says that the word et in this verse does not indicate that the next word is the object of the sentence as et usually does, but that et in this case means “with” which it occasionally does. The husband is required to rejoice with his wife rather than to make her feel joy. She is his partner rather than the object of his joy-spreading!

Rashi objects on the grounds that the Hiphil form of the verb vesimach makes it a transitive verb requiring an object. If the verse were to mean what Targum Yonattan suggests, the word should have been vesamamch (and he will rejoice) rather than vesimach (and he will generate joy). It must therefore mean, says Rashi, that he will make his wife happy.

The Targum has a different way to deal with the Hiphil, causative, form of vesimach. He agrees, I believe, that vesimach means “and he will cause joy”, he will radiate happiness. But not just to his wife. Rather, the Targum says, he will radiate joy to the world, to everyone WITH his wife. Leveraging off his own marital bliss he will be a beacon of joy radiating happiness out into the universe from which everyone will benefit. Positive energy is not limited by distance or boundary. A happy husband’s positive energy inspires the whole world in some small way. This is the power of the individual; the power of human emotion and energy. Vesimach, and he will make others joyful, et ishto asher lakach, together with the wife he married.

The home and the intimate relationship between man and woman in that home, are the conditions for happiness. The couple’s happiness adds to the world’s happiness, their joy is the world’s, their playfulness and fun adds to the level of playfulness in the entire universe. This is perhaps why the community is an integral part of a wedding celebration; it is a public occasion requiring a minyan. The community has an investment in every marriage for the happiness of every couple cascades into the lives of all of humanity.

Be joyous in yourself and in your relationship. Deal with negative stuff promptly and get it out of the way so that you can quickly get back to your happiness. Happiness is something you owe to yourself and to each other. Your joy uplifts us all. Indulge in it generously.

Parshat Shoftim 5768

© Rabbi David Lapin, 2008 (http://iawaken.org)

Last evening I wrote a list of my incomplete tasks and projects. I wrote down everything I could think of that was awaiting decision, action, completion or abandonment. Stunned by the length of the list I understood why I was feeling so drained, overwhelmed, somewhat unfocused and generally miserable!

Unresolved issues and incomplete projects clutter the mind and block our energy. I am sure you have felt the liberation of un-cluttering a space, whether a desk, a computer filing system, a room in the house or a closet. There is an ease, a lightness and a clarity that comes with a clean-out. The clarity and lightness, and the high energy and focus that follow a mental clean-up is far greater even than the feeling after a physical clean-up.

Unfinished projects can be things as trivial as unreturned voicemails or as serious as unfinished masechtot (Talmudic Tractates), incomplete construction or business projects, and relationships that are unresolved.

Some incompletion is due to not having made a decision. Some of it is due to not having acted on a decision that has been made, and some is not having completed tasks that have been started. We’ll look at each of those categories:

No Decision

In an indecisive state we can fool ourselves into believing that two or more doors are open and we are not yet decided which to walk through. We are deluded into feeling we have the freedom of multiple options. The truth is we are paralyzed. We have no freedom at all. None of the options are open doors until we actually choose one of them. Not making a choice is disempowering and paralyzing.

It is helpful to perceive indecisiveness not as a decision pending, but as a decision made. Indecisiveness is a decision not to act at all! Recognizing that indecisiveness is in itself a decision, and accepting that it is a decision not to act, enables us to close the issue or it forces us into a different decision: a decision to act. Either way we break the paralysis and move on.

Imagine a person agonizing over whether or not to go on Aliyah. He believes that until he makes his decision his options are open and thast holds him back from deciding. However, if he accepts that his ambivalence is a decision for the status quo, he might confront the fact that for now he has made his decision: he is not going on Aliyah. This will either propel him into making a different choice, or still the turbulence of his agonizing dilemma.

Decision, but no Action

How many times have you heard people say, “From tomorrow I plan to…” and then announce a decision to make a significant change in life or habit; like starting a diet, or a learning program or undertake some chore they have been delaying? We so often say “From tomorrow” because we are not fully resolved and the future never really arrives. There is always a tomorrow unless we are confronted with an externally imposed deadline of serious consequence. So when you hear, or say, “From tomorrow..” don’t take yourself or the other person seriously. You know that is simply another way of saying “I would like to….but I probably won’t”.

“Al tomar keshe’eppaneh eshaneh”, do not say, “when I turn the corner I will change, because you may never turn the corner.” A decision not acted upon is not a decision at all. Decisions that are followed by immediate action gain the energy of momentum and have a chance of completion. When we complete the Sefer Torah on Simchat Torah, we do not undertake to start again the following Shabbat. We begin to read Bereishit immediately. We begin to build our Sucot on Motzei Yom Kippur, not the next day. When you have made a decision, seek an action that you can immediately begin and start the process of execution. Even a small action will give life to your decision, and energy to its fulfillment.

Action but no Completion

There is a special quality to completion. After completing even a short masechet of Gemarrah, we make a celebratory siyyum. We do not make a siyyum after learning three times the amount of a longer masechet that we have not yet completed. Siyyum means completion: we celebrate completion. When one person begins a mitzvah and another ends it, the one who ends it gets rewarded for the mitzvah even if he or she did much less than the person who started. A mitzvah is not a mitzvah until it is complete. An action is not an action until complete. Accomplishment is not a word that can be applied to something incomplete.

Focusing on the end point is vital. Setting aside the time needed to get to the endpoint helps. Taking on new tasks and projects before old ones are either deliberately abandoned or completed, (or at least have a plan for completion,) will only add to your frustration and anxiety. Use the joyous celebration of finishing the old to propel taking on the new.

Winning Needs Focus

The length of a person’s life is generally predetermined and we can do little to lengthen or shorten it other than acts of self-destruction or negligence. There are times though, when we put ourselves into situations that can shorten our allotted time on earth. One such case is going into war, even a Milchemet Mitzvah (a war that is a Mitzvah), without being able to focus fully on the battles at hand. (See Ibn Ezra Devarim 20:5 and 7). Our Parsha gives three examples of uncompleted projects in the arenas of home, business and relationships: 1)One who has built a house and not yet occupied it; 2) one who has planted a vineyard and not yet eaten from it; and 3) one who has betrothed a woman and not yet married her.

In each of these cases the individual’s mind cannot be vacant for the focus, passion and energy of warfare. Their heads are occupied with incomplete projects that clutter their minds and drain their energy. They are urged to go back home and attend to their unfinished business before rejoining their brethren in battle. We too should address our unfinished projects and get them behind us as we clear our focus for the exciting challenges that lie ahead of us each day of our lives.

Looking at my sadly long list of incomplete tasks and projects I categorized them into those that needed decision, those that needed action and those that needed completion. I promised myself I would begin on them the next day….and then I caught myself….. I began to work on just one of them last night.

Parshat Matot 5768

© Rabbi David Lapin, 2008 – http://iawaken.org

Contaminating Flavors

Gourmet chefs know how flavors retained in the walls of their cooking utensils can contaminate dishes. Cultures such as the Japanese, with highly developed taste senses, will often keep their utensils for specific foods and wash them up separately. We too are sensitive to flavor, but as the Nation of Hashem, we are more concerned about the pollutant flavors of Issur and Tumah (two different forms of negative spiritual energy that can attach to food and utensils) than we are about culinary contamination. Hashem teaches Benei Yisrael in this week’s Parsha, how to cleanse the utensils of Midyan of those spiritual contaminants to make them fit for Jewish usage. These laws are the foundation of our laws of the kashrut of keilim (utensils):

Laws of Kashrut of Keilim

If a keili (utensil) contains non-kosher food, not only may we not eat that food, but we may also not use that utensil for hot kosher food if the non-kosher food it previously contained was hot. The reason is because flavor is absorbed in the sides of the keili, and ta’am ke’ikkar – flavor has the spiritual and halachik properties of the food itself.

There is a way to repair that keili and make it fit for kosher use. The parsha teaches us a second principle, keboll’oh kach polltoh – a keili will discharge the flavors it has absorbed if the same level of heat is applied to it as was used when it absorbed the non kosher food’s flavors initially. So a pot in which non-kosher was cooked (in liquid) will discharge those flavors if it is immersed in boiling water. This is called hag’allah.

A pan in which non-kosher food was grilled (without water) must be subjected to the intense heat of a direct flame to cleanse it of its contaminant. This is known as libun.

A utensil that has not been used for non-kosher food but comes from a non-Jewish source, only needs to be immersed in the cold waters of a mikvah. This is called tevilat keilim.

Human Keilim

We can learn a lot more from the parsha and its laws of hechsher keilim (repairing utensils from non-kosher contaminant), than how to repair utensils that have become non-kosher.

Human beings are also utensils. We contain life’s experience, we absorb them, we discharge them. Experiences come and pass. Yet, each experience of our lives leaves behind a flavor that we carry within us deep in the fiber of our cellular memories. Long after our conscious minds have forgotten experiences and events, the flavors of those moments can emerge to either enhance or contaminate later experiences.

Think of a very young child who was abused by an overbearing teacher. Long after that child is a grown adult who has rationalized the futility of stereotypical generalization, he or she may still experience flavors of fear and resentment when they encounter overbearing authorities that remind them of that teacher.

Like dishes and saucepans, we absorb, retain and accumulate the flavors of what we have contained long after the contents have been washed away by the passage of time. Negative flavors we hold within us can spoil and contaminate otherwise positive experiences later on.

However, we too can kasher ourselves. We can cleanse ourselves of the contaminants absorbed in the walls of our beings over long periods of time. Where there was intense experience during the absorption of the negative energy, intensity will be needed in the cleansing. Like hag’allah and libun the process of purification matches the process of contamination: keboll’oh kach polltoh.

Sometimes Hashem sends us the pain we need to purify ourselves with, and when He does we embrace that suffering as a gift from Hashem, an opportunity to grow, to do things differently and to detoxify. However, when He does not, we are not required, or even permitted to invite suffering. The Torah does not encourage self-flagellation, fasting and other forms of self-inflicted punishment common in other religions.

There are other ways we can experience the intensity of moral hag’allah and libun. We can purify ourselves with the intense discomfort of serious Torah study,[1] acts of Tzedaka (charity) or other actions of mesirut nefesh (sacrifices for higher cause). Redirecting our energies, investing effort for higher purpose even at personal cost and studying Torah, referred to as fire and as water, cleanse the deepest recesses of cellular memory and remove the toxins of negative energy that accumulate there. We can detox even when the toxins have reached fatally high levels: Hatzedakkah tatzil mimavet (Tzedakkah saves from death).

The Three Weeks

We are in a painful period of recalling events buried deeply in our national cellular memory: the events around the Churban (destruction of the Temple and devastation of Israel and its People). This is not a time to try escape the pain and to seek distraction. The halachot of this period are designed to keep us present in the pain and mindful of its cause. That way we can use the pain of this time to cleanse and detoxify our selves from contaminating memories, flavors of negative experiences. In this way we can come to the month of Elul, a period of Divine intimacy, somewhat cleansed, pure and ready to engage with our G-d.

[1] See Vilna Gaon referred to in R. Chaim Valoshner’s Ma’aseh Rav.

Parshat Pinchas 5768

© Rabbi David Lapin, 2008

The Imperfection of Knowledge

Wisdom is mysterious and human knowledge is not absolute. There is a dimension of wisdom that eludes even the wisest of men. “Fifty pathways to wisdom were created in the Universe” says the Gemarra,[1] “and all were given to Moshe except one.” Human knowledge will always lack at least one dimension of understanding, and therein lies its mystery.

Wisdom is like an onion. Each time that new insights peels away another layer of ignorance or confusion, we find yet another layer of questions and mysteries. At its core, this “onion” of knowledge carries a secret, a secret known to no one but G-d Himself: the fiftieth gateway to wisdom.

This applies even when man must make halachik decisions or decide in a matter of justice between two litigants in a court of law. “Ki Hamishpat Leilokim hu”, says Moshe,[2] “for the decisions of Justice are ultimately in G-d’s domain.”

If this is so, how are we meant to make halachik decisions? Even if a judge, Poseik or Rav is inherently competent and qualified, how is he to decide on matters of justice if his knowledge is always incomplete, never absolute?

Intellectual Fearlessness

Moshe gives guidance on that matter in the same verse: “Lo Taguru mipnei Ish,” he says, “show no cowardice before any human.” This implies two character requirements in addition to academic competence and practical qualification. The first is a fearless intellectual independence; the second is an implied fear of G-d (do not fear any human, fear only Hashem). In addition to knowledge and wisdom, courage and Yir’at Shamayim are the requirements of a Poseik.

But if no Rav or Poseik can have perfect knowledge, and every person is missing at least one element of understanding and knowledge since even Moshe only grasped 49 of the 50 pathways to wisdom, how can he ever make a valid halachik determination? Moshe himself provides the guidelines: “Anything too difficult for you, bring to me and I shall hear it.” In this statement of advice Moshe erred;[3] an error that caused him severe and eternal embarrassment later on. This is the story:

Tzlofchad’s Daughters

Oddly, the Torah appears to originally have “omitted” a straightforward but necessary Halachah. We are told the detailed laws of inheritance barring what happens to a deceased man who leaves no sons but does leave daughters. The daughters of Tzlofchad are such a case in our Parsha. They reason that although nowhere does the Torah specify their rights to inheritance, this certainly ought to be the law. They put their argument before the lower courts of the nation[4] who, although they agree with the women, refer the case to a higher court out of respect for a Law that as yet had no precedent or code and would need to be innovated. The higher court in turn referred it up for the same reason, until it was referred to Moshe himself. Astonishingly, Moshe’s mind blanked and although the case should have been “cut-and-dried” he needed to refer it to Hashem. Hashem affirms the logic of the Tzlofchad girls, and records Moshe’s intellectual “lapse” for posterity.[5]

What was so wrong in Moshe advising the judges to bring difficult matters to him? Interestingly, Moshe did not say “if you encounter difficulty, bring it to me.” He assumed they would encounter difficulty and instructed them to bring those inevitable difficulties to him. Moshe assumed that other judges who did not have the privilege of studying the Torah from Hashem Himself, would surely not have the same level of knowledge needed to make halachik decisions. And herein lay his error: No one has absolute halachik knowledge, not even he. Absolute knowledge cannot therefore be a precondition for competent halachik decision-making. It is this latitude that gives a Rav the right to pasken (make halachik decisions) provided he has an authentic semichah (Rabbinic ordination) authorizing him to pasken and holds a recognized position[6] as a Poseik. This is so even if there are other rabbis whose knowledge exceeds his. Perfect knowledge is not a requirement. Competence is; Yirat shamayim (G-d fearing) is; and intellectual courage is.

Often as individuals we need to make decisions regarding our own lives, and we feel humbled and overwhelmed by the enormity of the decisions and their implications. In these situations it helps to be mindful that we cannot have perfect knowledge. We will err as even Moshe sometimes did. We will not be accountable for what we did not and could not have known. All we can do is be our best. Make decisions with as much information as we can and with a great deal of Yiras Shamayim and personal courage. We can also follow Moshe’s advice and avoid all intellectual cowardice and fear of public opinion, as we do what we know is right and follow it to the best of our abilities.

The Prominent “Nun”

This is the reason why the Nun (14th letter of the Hebrew alphabet) at the end of the word “mishpattan,” is enlarged.[7] Nun is numerically 50. It reminds us that no one but G-d could truly know all fifty dimensions of the law that applied to the daughters of Tzlofchad, nor any other law for that matter. Still, had Moshe not claimed superior knowledge, he would have made the decision. In effect the daughters of Tzlofchad themselves were able (though not technically qualified) to make the decision; the lower courts certainly could have made the decision. Perfect knowledge is not a requirement for halachik decision-making; nobility of character is.

Notes:

[1] Rosh Hashanah 21a

[2] Devarim 1:17

[3] Of course were it not that Chazal themselves (Rashi Bamidbar 27:5)make this comment we never could, as no human being can grasp Moshe’s greatness, nevermind identify his errors.

[4] Tanchuma 9

[5] Sanhedrin 8a

[6] Whether formal or informal.

[7] Rabbeinu Bechiye Bamidbar 27:5