Vayeitzei -- Unconditional Love

On Saturday, November 26, 2011, my brother Brad and I scattered the remains of my parents at Niagara Falls, as they requested.

More than anyone else, my mother taught me about unconditional love.

More than anyone else, my father taught me about conditional love.

Conditional love is what Jacob shows for God in Genesis 28:20. In effect, “God, if you really come through for me, then I’ll believe in you.”

Conditional love is what I gave my wife. “First, you do for me. Prove you love me, and then I will do for you.”

Conditional love is what someone like Jacob gives when he has been burned so many times that he hedges his bets. He lives in a world where no one is trustworthy.

Unconditional love is probably the hardest thing for a human to give, and it’s the most precious thing we can give each other.

Conditional love is what my dad gave me when he made clear his disapproval of many decisions I made.

Unconditional love is what my mom gave when she listened to me talk endlessly about myself.

More than anything, unconditional love is what my mom bequeathed me. She tried to give unconditional love to herself, and succeeded in fits and starts, but her journey was an inspiration to me.

I miss them both terribly.

God's twist

God says in the beggining of this Torah portion,

 "Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other,
the older shall serve the younger.”

When you read this don't you expect the younger to be a strong-willed, brave, kind leader, type of person? And do you not expect the older to be a meek, idolizing, I'll-do-whatever-my-brother-says kind of person? God stuck a twist in this!

The younger was in fact, a cheat, well...really just a cheat and a jerk. He takes what is rightfully his brothers' knowingly. Is it possible that he wanted his fathers blessing. He loved his father, and wanted him to give him such a blessing? Or was he just a greedy? I think the second.

The older, is not meek, he's respectful. He goes out and hunts game for his father as he asked, and I believed he would've without knowing he would get a blessing.

However, am I making the victim sound better then he actually was because he was the victim? I don't think so. When he sees his parents didn't find the Hittie women acceptable, he goes out and gets woman his parents would approve of, and, may I bring up, without being asked.

And the mom? Rebbeckah for some reason wanted Jacob blessed. Why? Was she showing favoritism? I think she was, but I believe it was influenced by God. She thought Jacob was the better son of the two, because God said that Esau would be his servant, but just because someone is lower in rank does that make them worse then the other? No, and may I just say that Jacob may have been a bit of a mama's boy as well as a cheat. :-)

Toldot--Intermarriage, Inlaws, and the fate of the Jewish people...

Genesis 26:35  And they were a vexation of the spirit to Isaac and to Rebecca.


That verse is in reference to Esau and his Hittite wife, Judith. There is no explanation.  It leaves me wondering what Esau and Judith did to vex Isaac and Rebecca. I can't find a place in this parsha that makes Esau look all that bad. He's a man's man. He's hairy. Maybe it's my natural inclination to overtly masculine men who have some hair on their chests, but I just don't see the problem. Selling his birthright for a bowl of soup is generally understood as stupid or callous, but when I read it I hear my husband telling his mother to leave everything to his sisters if she doesn't spend it while she's still here. Why? Because he'll be okay without it. He wants her to either not worry or to worry about his sisters, but worrying about him is unacceptable. We know that Esau became rich and powerful in his own right, so maybe he just wasn't concerned with having things handed to him. Maybe he knew he could do it on his own and thought his much softer brother would need the extra help. Who knows? Ultimately the only thing even close to an explanation about this vexation is the mere fact that Rebecca and Isaac didn't much care for the Hittite woman. 


I know a lot of people and, as a result, I know a lot of in-law stories. It seems to me that most people struggle with that relationship largely because a new person entering a family brings a new (and often unwelcome) perspective. Fairly often the in-laws just don't like the person from the get-go. Other times, everyone gets along really well until the differences in child rearing or keeping a house come into play. After years of hearing in-law stories, I have begun doing a thing I hate. When I hear someone talking about how well they get on with their in-laws in my head I'm saying, "Just wait." Furthermore, when I read that Esau and his bride are a vexation to Isaac and Rebecca's spirit, instead of thinking "Poor Isaac and Rebecca", I think "Poor Esau and Judith."


The trouble is that Esau chose to marry a Hittite woman. Judith is other. She brings to the table a different perspective, a different style of clothing, and, more than likely, a different religion.  This, I believe, is all it takes to be a vexation to the in-laws. However, just as in modern life, Isaac seems much less vexed by his daughter-in-law than Rebecca. He is still prepared to give Esau his blessing. How different would the face of Judaism be if he had done so? If Esau became Israel intermarriage might be more accepted, and that is a good thing. Perhaps a woman who is married to a non-Jew would have access to Orthodox mikvahs. Perhaps a man who is married to a non-Jew would have children who are considered Jewish even by the most traditional among us. On the other hand, in a few short weeks we will be celebrating a holiday that is significant in it's story of Jews refusing to assimilate. If intermarriage were acceptable right from the start, would we have the Festival of Lights? Would we even exist if as a seedling nation we compromised? 


To everything there is a season, and the very beginning is a time to stand firm. Given that, it is good that Esau didn't get his father's blessing. On the face of it, I understand why Rebecca and Jacob did what they did. That said, I have a bit of an empathy problem, and during the verses with Esau in the room with his father I see no good in Rebecca and Jacob.  As I said earlier, I have a natural preference for overtly masculine men. Esau is large, hairy, a hunter. My inclination is to think fondly of him; especially when compared to his brother who is smaller, weaker, and being pushed around by his mother. So when Esau realizes what happened and begins to cry, I want to cry. When he plots to kill his brother, I don't blame him. When Jacob runs and hides, I question his ability to father a nation.


In the past 5-or-so months since my shul has hired our new rabbis I have heard it said over and over again that Judaism is not a religion of The Torah. Rather, we are a religion of The Torah as seen through midrash, mishnah, the eyes of the Talmudic sages, the various commentaries written over thousands of years. In short, each of our stories are more detailed than the parsha allows. It might be because I don't read any commentary or my fellow blogger's posts before I write, but I have a hard time with this parsha. I don't want to muddy the waters with other people's ideas, but that leaves me in the precarious position of feeling a strong resentment for one of my patriarchs and one of my matriarchs based entirely on the written Torah. 


Quite frankly, I just don't know what to do with that.

TOL'DOT--Seeing Clearly

In the past, whenever I read parsha Toldot, I believed it was Rebekah’s preference for Jacob that motivated her deceit of Isaac so he would give his innermost blessing to their younger son. But upon closer study, perhaps something else was motivating Rebekah. I believe she understood with more clarity than even Isaac himself how G-d’s covenant with Abraham was supposed to be passed on and she wanted to save Isaac from making a terrible mistake.

Think back to how Rebekah was chosen to marry Isaac. Abraham was so insistent that Isaac not marry a daughter of the local Canaanites that he sent his servant to the faraway land of his birth to find a suitable wife from among his relatives. This command from Abraham was so important, that once Rebekah was chosen to be Isaac’s wife, she could not delay even a day to return to Abraham and his tribe to wed Isaac. It was pretty clear that Abraham’s insistence on marrying within the tribe was the only way he could guarantee that the divine promise of posterity would be fulfilled.

Fast forward two generations, and now Rebekah’s twin boys have grown into men. Her oldest, Esau, “has no regard for the sacred institution of the first born” (Etz Hayim - Torah and Commentary) since he had given away his birthright over a steaming bowl of stew. In addition, he has married two Hittite women who become a “source of bitterness” to Isaac and Rebekah. How could Esau have such disregard for his grandfather’s primary requirement to carry on his covenant: Marry within the tribe!

The marriage of Esau to these Hittite women is so offensive to Rebekah, she claims, “I am disgusted with my life because of these Hittite women” (Gen 27:46). Rebekah is obviously deeply upset with Esau’s union with the local women. Now imagine if Esau received Isaac’s blessing...the blessing passed on from Abraham. Esau has already set the precedent that inter-marriage is not only ok, but that it is also desirable. In this early, fragile stage in Judaism, Esau is already “watering down” the faith… and we’re only two generations away from Abraham entering his covenant with G-d! Rebekah could see the slippery slope we were headed down. So she looks to Jacob, a “mild man who stays in camp” (Gen. 25:27) with his tribe, to be the one to carry on the covenant.

Rebekah hears that Isaac’s blessing of Esau is imminent. Desperate times call for desperate measures! So Rebekah proceeds to deceive her blind husband with three of his last four senses that he has remaining: Touch, Taste and Smell. Rebekah covers Jacob’s bare arms with the skins of the kids that were slaughtered to make them feel hairy like Esau’s arms. She cooks the meal Isaac has requested to his exact specifications as Esau would have done. And finally, she dresses Jacob in Esau’s best clothing so they smell of the pastures where Esau would roam rather than the reek of a flock tended by Jacob.Rebekah and Jacob are successful in their deception and Jacob receives the coveted blessing.

I believe Rebekah saved Isaac from making a terrible mistake in blessing Esau. Rebekah knew Esau was unfit to carry on the covenant. He couldn’t even follow his grandfather’s precedent for what made an acceptable marriage (at that time) to preserve their fragile new religion in it's earliest stages.

So why couldn’t Isaac see how unfit Esau was to receive the blessing? I would like to share a wonderful midrash that is referenced in “Etz Hayim - Torah and Commentary”. The midrash “recalls Isaac lying on his back on the altar at the time of the Akedah (Abraham’s binding of Isaac for sacrifice), glimpsing the light of heaven when the angel appears to spare his life, and suggests that Isaac was never able to see events on earth clearly after that (Gen. R. 65:10). Having been afforded a glimpse of heaven, Isaac was naively blind to lying and deceit on earth. He could no more recognize the transparent lies of Jacob than he could recognize the unworthiness of Esau”.

Toledot -- The Forgotten

When I was growing up, there were a couple of kids I knew who were clearly struggling. One was not very bright, and the other acted very strange most of the time. The last I heard about them, 40 years later, they are still struggling.

I was drawn to Esau while reading this week, and I thought of those boys. What is our obligation to the strugglers? Do we have any? One reading of this parshah, not one I would particularly like to subscribe to, could be that they are there so we know what NOT to do.

As the parshah starts, God tells Rebekah that “the older shall serve the younger” in her womb (Genesis 25:23). Before he is even born, Esau is decreed a “loser” in life. If we are honest, I think we have all met a younger person and had the feeling they were not going to have an easy life. We hope we are wrong.

After he is born, Esau is first introduced as a “skillful hunter” (Genesis 25:27), but he only goes down in the narrator’s estimation from that point forward. The first thing we see Esau do is sell his birthright for some stew. This is immensely short-sighted. Truly, unbelievably dumb. I can only think of a bad situation comedy set-up, where we are pounded over the head with the message: “This guy is not worthy.”

In Genesis 26:34, we learn that Esau made lousy choices in marriage. He married Hittite women, and “they were a source of bitterness to Isaac and Rebekah.” I’m sure the Hittite women returned the bitterness! Our “loser” child has made another bad choice.

The next time we catch up with Esau, he is getting screwed over by his little brother, in cahoots with mom. Esau has done as Papa Isaac asked, making a meal for dad so he can receive dad’s blessing. But Jacob beat him to the punch. Esau bursts into tears and asks for a blessing. Dad gives him a strange blessing about “living by the sword” and “breaking the yoke from your neck.” Gee, thanks Dad!

Finally, as the parshah ends, Esau figures out that his mom and dad don’t like Hittite women. He was very slow on the uptake on this one. It is a touching moment as the parshah ends, and Esau is taking on new wives from the tribe of Israel. He has done nothing but fail in his attempts to be the favored son, yet he still tries.

So what do we do with this story? As I suggested above, I think the text/narrator is using Esau is a cautionary tale of what NOT to do. In this view, he is presented as a symbol of failing to live a right life.

But the problem is that many, many people do not live a right life. Sometimes due to environment, but more importantly for the point I’m raising, sometimes due to genes. They are born dumb, or selfish, or prone to evil, and they never outgrow it. When I was younger and more idealistic, I used to think that we could rid the world of these people with enough love and education. These days, I am not so sure. As long as there are humans on earth, I fear there will always be Esaus. What is our obligation to them? As children? As adults? Do we keep trying to help them, or do we just try to minimize the harm they cause to themselves and to others?

HAYYEI SARAH--Preserving the Faith

In the parsha of Hayyei Sarah, Abraham experiences the death of his beloved Sarah. Perhaps sensing his own mortality, Abraham focuses on finding a suitable spouse for his son, Isaac. When Abraham charges his servant with finding a wife for Isaac, he insists upon two things:

1.) That the prospective bride not be a daughter of the Canaanites but rather from the land of Abraham’s birth.
2.) That Isaac is NOT brought back to Abraham’s native land. Abraham actually repeats this order twice (Gen 24:6 and Gen 24:8).

When I look at these two criteria for finding an acceptable mate to help fulfill the “divine promise” from G-d to our ancestors (and to modern day Jews), I can reflect on my own personal experiences and appreciate the wisdom in these guidelines.


When I married my husband, he was a non-practicing Methodist. Before our wedding, we agreed that our household would not only be Jewish, but we would practice a conservative form of Judaism by keeping kosher and observing Shabbat. We decided not to blend our religions. There would be no Christmas tree or Hanukkah bush in December. And most importantly, we would raise our children in the Jewish faith. I was blessed to have such an accommodating spouse who not only supported my religion, but actively participated in daily, weekly and yearly traditions and customs. After many years of living as a Jew, my husband found his own way to the Torah and decided to convert as a conservative Jew.
.

So why do I relate with Abraham’s first criteria for what he believes makes an acceptable spouse among all the people of the land? I married a non-Jew and it turned out well for me, right? I can relate because the “learning curve” for a shaygetz (non-jewish man - the female version would be a shiksa) is VERY great. Judaism is not just a religion that you practice once a week in temple. It is a way of life. Jewish customs, traditions and commandments are infused into your everyday life...even into your most basic daily routines like eating (especially when you are kosher).
How much easier would married life have been if one person wasn’t constantly being “schooled” or instructed in the "why" and "how" of the way to do things? How much more enriching would it have been to bring shared experiences and traditions from our past into our new family together? How much less stressful would the month of December be when visiting in-laws!?!

Abraham’s second criteria for ensuring the continuation of his convenant seems to emphasize the importance of remaining with your tribe to share in its customs, traditions and morals. Living apart from “the fold” seems to leave one open to the influences of non-Jewish neighbors. I can attest to this firsthand. Last year our family relocated from a diverse community in Southern California, where four temples and three Chabad centers are found within a 20 mile radius, to Canton, IL where the nearest synagogue is 45 minutes away. My children are literally the only Jews in their school. We cannot participate in many temple functions because the distance is too great to overcome on a workday. We have no local friends who we can invite over to enjoy a Shabbat meal. Our family in Canton is Methodist and do not observe or celebrate our Jewish holidays. I struggle daily to maintain my Jewish identity.

Therefore, making a concerted effort to be involved in our temple and Jewish community is a top priority. Being with a community of Jews allows my family to share a spiritual connection that nurtures the soul. Our Jewish community provides our children with an enriching Jewish education and prepares them for their role as Jewish adults in the future (Thanks, Chuck!).
My Jewish community allows me to interact with people who share the same interests and values. My synagogue is truly a lifeline, saving me (and my children) from isolation and assimilation.

Through my own personal struggles to preserve my faith, I can understand Abraham’s criteria for determining a suitable way to carry on the traditions of Judaism. It seems that the Torah also emphasizes these criteria... because Abraham’s specific instructions to his servant are the last words we ever hear our patriarch speak.

Chayei Sarah--Accusing the Torah of Feminism

The joys of writing a blog with 4 other people is that when you have a small 2-week-long nervous breakdown (of sorts), the life of the blog goes on without you. Of course, that doesn't help much when it is time to post about a Torah portion and you've missed the last two. I am, at this moment, entirely out of context. I left off at Noah and now I'm suddenly seeing Isaac get married. Sunrise, Sunset...

What strikes me most about this portion is the feminist quality. Feminism is not one of the things the Torah is generally accused of, but it certainly appears now and again. Having missed the last 2 portions, I can't say for sure that this is it's first appearance, but--given that we are so close to the beginning--maybe it is.

On the surface this is a simple story; a man sends his servant to find a wife for his son, God supplies the woman, the family approves without asking the woman her thoughts, the woman is forced to leave her home and her family in order to marry a stranger in another land, etc, etc. The only time you see Rebekkah's feelings being considered is when she is asked if she wants to go with the stranger now or later. It is not apparently a question of IF, it's a question of WHEN. That's the surface... let's look closer.

The first appearance of a belief that women are in fact people comes pretty early in the story. Genesis 24:5. At this point Abraham has asked his servant to go to the land of his birth to find a wife for his son. The servant's immediate response is to question what he should do if the woman doesn't choose to come with him. It is not only understood that she would have a choice, but it is his immediate concern. This indicates to me that women in the land of Abraham's birth had a say in their destiny and were known to exercise it.

Later you see a subtle indication when Rebekkah is asked, "Whose daughter are you? Is there room at your father's house?" She responds that she is "the daughter of Bethual, son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor." There is no need to mention her grandmother here. In fact, she has really gone quite out of her way to do so. Why not Bethual, son of Nahor? Instead Nahor appears to be an afterthought; the grandmother is the one who matters. She goes on to answer his question about room in her "father's house," but doesn't call it her father's house as the servant had. Instead, she answers in the same way that I find myself answering questions that are asked with good intentions but with implications I don't particularly care for.

"What are you doing for Christmas this year?" 

Implication: Everyone celebrates Christmas. I mean, it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but the entire world is preparing for it. 

Answer I want to give: "Not everyone celebrates Christmas. I, for example, am Jewish and don't participate in the festivities surrounding the birth of your messiah."

Answer I do give: "I am going to a friend's cabin for vacation since the kids are out of school."

Rebekkah does the same thing here. 

"Is there room in your father's house?" 

Implication: All property is owned and all decisions are made by men.

Answer she might want to give: "My father's house? Around here the woman calls the shots. It's my mother's house." Then she cusses and throws a gang sign.

Answer she gives: "We have plenty of room at home."

An accurate answer that politely dodges a desire to correct him in his implication that her world is the same as his.

Further reading tells you that upon returning home she ran to her mother's household to tell them what had happened. This resulted in her brother, Laban, coming out to greet their guest. In other words, the person who comes out as the representative of the house is not "the son of Bethual", rather he is the son of the currently nameless mother. He resides not in his father's house, but in his mother's.

The servant tells his story to Laban and a present but silent Bethual. Interestingly, in the retelling he changes Rebekkah's response about her lineage to the more masculine "daughter of Bethual, son of Nahor, whom Milcah bore to him."  Once the servant gets the okay on the marriage, he begins giving gifts. To whom do the gifts belong? The girl's father is part of the conversation, but the gifts go to the brother and the mother. Why? I would venture to guess that this is a matriarchal society. Apparently the son is doing the work, but he is not the boss. Who is? Not the father, obviously. It's the mother. Laban is a representative who works for the woman of the house. The father doesn't seem to play much of a part in the goings on. It is very possible that he was only at the table as a parent, as opposed to being someone who had the power to approve or disapprove.

Later, Rebekkah's family tries to keep her there for a while before she leaves. Obviously they didn't know the day before that she would be moving to another city (if not country) the next day, but I see something more here. If this was a society that freely moved their women around at the whims of men, they would be prepared from the day a woman was old enough to marry to "give her away." Instead, they appear to be emotionally unprepared for her to go. Could that be because this is a society in which a man joins his wife's family instead of the other way around?  Either way the question of will she stay or will she go is answered by Rebekkah. She is not being pushed around in this story. This is her life. Her choice. Ultimately, she is the one that had the final say.

When she arrives and is married her new husband takes her into a tent to consummate their marriage. (Or maybe the consummation is the marriage?? I am unclear.) Whose tent do they go to? His? His father's? Nope. It's his mother's. Why, do you think? This is the moment when the two become one. The setting is important and probably filled with meaning. He took her to his mother's tent perhaps because his mother having passed before he met his wife removed the possibility of having her bless his marriage. This, it would seem, is how he hoped to get his mother's blessing, which must have been very important to him.

*****

Side bar: The last part of chapter 24 has a very cinematic feel to me. Isaac is walking in a field with the sun setting behind him. He looks up and sees camels approaching. Rebekkah sees him. Eye contact. She jumps down from her camel in apparent awe of his handsomeness. She asks who he is. He is Isaac. Realization appears in her eyes. He smiles at her. She smiles at him. The music swells. The ladies in the audience swoon. Roll credits.

Chayyei Sarah -- Roots and Getting Settled

I was a typical suburban 16-year-old sardonic Jewish kid in 1977, when the television series “Roots” debuted. It remains one of my most indelible memories from growing up. It awakened feelings in me that I was barely starting to understand. This week’s parshah brings back powerful memories of that series and the lessons it taught me about love, family and perseverance.

In “Roots,” we meet Kunta Kinte, a teenage African boy who is torn from his family, taken to America and sold into slavery. He tries to run away multiple times. He is whipped, beaten and finally his owners cut off part of one foot so he cannot run again.

He is Abraham. At least Abraham had a choice when he embarked on a new path. Kunta’s “Lech L’cha” was involuntary.

Kunta’s Sarah is Belle, a house cook he meets later in life and marries. They have a child, Kizzy, who is sold out from under them when she breaks the master’s rules. Kizzy is about 16 when this happens, and she never sees her parents again.

This entire parshah is so full of real human emotion, and it ends with Isaac settled with his new wife, Rebeccah. Abraham and Sarah are dead. It is bittersweet: we know life must go on and none live forever, yet we mourn the loss of our first patriarch and matriarch. They were first, so they are special. With the tears of their loss, we also have happiness and hope in the fact that Isaac has found love and comfort in Rebeccah.

The end of this parshah is emotionally equivalent to the scene in “Roots” when Kizzy, who has been away for many years, finds her way back to the home of her parents. She finds their graves in the plantation graveyard. We cry with her for all the pain and struggle she had had to endure. She has also found love, though, and soon she will have her own child to love and raise (Chicken George).

Isaac is “settled near “Beer-lehai-roi” as the parshah ends. I love the word “settled” here, because at least in English, it connotes a level of peace and comfort. After all that Isaac has been through (see the Akedah), it is good to know that he is “settled.”

We suffer, we struggle. But the journey of Isaac and Kizzy seems to tell us that those who follow God and their own hearts will find peace.