Parshat Vayeshev, Genesis 37:1 – Genesis 40:23

The story of Joseph, Jacob’s son comes into full view with this week’s parasha. Joseph is the oldest child of Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel, who died in last week’s portion during the birth of Joseph’s brother, Benjamin. We meet Joseph this week as a 17 year old that has attitude. And what teenager doesn’t?

The story of Joseph, Jacob’s son comes into full view with this week’s parasha. Joseph is the oldest child of Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel, who died in last week’s portion during the birth of Joseph’s brother, Benjamin. We meet Joseph this week as a 17 year old that has attitude. And what teenager doesn’t?

His father Jacob dotes on Joseph. Joseph is clearly the favorite of Jacob’s sons. The text tells us, “Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age.” This favored status is demonstrated in full view by the gift that father Jacob has given to Joseph—a special tunic. This robe or coat of many colors is given to the son who like a peacock, struts his stuff in front his brothers. Joseph knows how to lord it over his brothers. It is a hint of things to come, for indeed Joseph will be an Egyptian lord over his brothers.

In addition, Joseph is a tattletale. He brings bad reports, as the text says, about his older half-brothers. Whether they were true stories or not, the fact that Joseph is the one that squeals on his brothers can only further rub salt in an already open familial wound. Jacob loved his wife Rachel more than his other wives and deeply mourned her death. Jacob’s favoritism toward Joseph as his first born with his beloved Rachel is not lost on Joseph himself, nor his brothers and Joseph seems to take advantage of that fact with his brothers. Clearly the family dynamic between brothers and between father and sons is difficult at best.

This web of intrigue between father and sons and brothers gets more complicated as Joseph has dreams of domination of his brothers. His dreams and explanations of his dreams to his brothers fan the flame of hatred and jealousy between the brothers. Joseph could have kept the dream to himself, but instead shares it and its interpretation with his brothers, “He said to them, “Hear this dream which I have dreamed.” He tells them of his dream of sheaves in the field and his sheaf stands above the others, and the brother’s sheaves bows to his sheaf. This only angers the brothers even more. While Joseph is the eldest of the union of Rachel and Jacob, he is not the eldest son at all. His pecking order in the group of brothers is at the bottom. He is the second to last of all the children -brothers and sisters to be born. Only Benjamin is younger and presumably a very young child. Thus from the other brothers point of view—that the youngest should rule over the eldest is an affront.

But Joseph dreams yet another dream, a celestial dream again sharing it with his brothers and now also with father. The sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to Joseph. His dream does indeed foretell the future of the story but now in addition to his brothers’ anger at him, his father joins the chorus. “Are we to come, I and your mother and your brothers and bow low to you to the ground?” demands his father.

While the question lingers in the air to us the readers, and seems absurd to the father and his sons, the Torah again hints at the answer, which will be yes! Indeed Jacob and his sons will bow low to Joseph. God will see to it that Joseph will rise from the prisons of Egypt to become second only to Pharaoh.

The brothers conspire against Joseph, selling him off into slavery and telling their father that Joseph met his demise by a wild beast. Thus the journey of the people Israel down to Egypt begins with dreams of glory on the one hand, a family discord at the root of it all.

Vayetze, Genesis 28:10 – 32:3 by Rabbi Denise L. Eger

Our torah portion begins as Jacob flees from his home, his brother Esau and his father following his maneuvering for the blessing of his father Isaac. He makes his way toward Haran the home of his relatives. But on the way Jacob has an encounter that shakes him to his very core. He has a moment of divine revelation.

While stopped to sleep for the night, Jacob dreams of his famous ladder that reaches heavenward. On it are angels going up and down. Then he dreams that God is standing next to him and speaks directly to him. God tells Jacob, “I am Adonai, God of your father Abraham and Isaac.”

First Adonai reveals the divine essence to Jacob by establishing the relationship with his grandfather and father. This connection to Jacob’s family tree helps to put covenantal terms of the Jewish relationship with Adonai front and center for Jacob.

God continues, “…The ground on which you are lying I will give to you and to your offspring. Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants.”

Now Adonai confirms Jacob’s place in the covenantal relationship. The covenantal promise made to his grandfather and then to his father, Isaac and now to him is affirmed at this moment. Jacob now knows that even though blessed by his father, he has the ultimate blessing by God. This engagement with the Divine is further proof of Jacob’s status as the heir apparent to the Jewish patriarchal line.

God continues the encounter with a promise of Divine protection. “ Remember I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.” Jacob, who needs protection from his brother Esau’s wrath, has a new measure of comfort in the promise Divine safeguard. Even as he is on his way to Haran, away from the Promised Land, it must bring Jacob comfort to know that he will return safely at some time as promised by God.

Jacob awakes with a start. But he is changed by his encounter. The vivid quality of his divine encounter deeply affects him and he is in changed. He acknowledges the sanctity of the place that he is in both the physical place, the surrounding, and the holiness of the encounter itself. Jacob takes time to ritually sanctify the very ground upon which he slept by building a pillar and pouring oil on to it. Interestingly this site called Beth-El in the portion would later be one of the worship sites of the tribes prior to the Jerusalem temple. Thus this sacred ground always is mythically identified as a portal to heaven. Just as Jacob describes, “ How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven.” Beth-El means House of God.

There are moments in each of our lives when we too are shaken to the core by a vivid dream. Its meanings resonate within us. Sometimes the visuals stay in our minds. The feelings echo in our being. And we are shaped in our waking lives by those vivid dreams. Clearly this is how Jacob was shaped by this dream.

His encounter with God through his dream opens up the possibility that each of us also taps into the Divine mind in our own dreams. We have to be open to that possibility. And we have to be open to acknowledging those divine encounters as prayerfully and spiritually as Jacob did. “God was in this place and I didn’t know it,” he says. How often can we feel God’s nearness, feel the divine moment touch us and yet, we have a hard time acknowledging it? That is our challenge. Not only finding those moments of Godly interchange but acknowledging them and celebrating them when they happen and then as Jacob does, realigning how we live to incorporate that encounter with divinity into our being. Jacob, the heel, the trickster, who deceived his father and his brother, now in the rest of our portion, works hard and works honestly to achieve. Comforted perhaps by knowing that God is with him.

Perhaps we too should take that same comfort in the covenantal promise and then act accordingly.

Toledot; Genesis 25:19-28:9 by Rabbi Denise L. Eger

This week’s parasha is about the life of Isaac, the second of our Patriarchs. This week God speaks directly to Isaac, affirming the covenant and affirming Isaac’s special relationship with God. The first time God speaks directly to Isaac is in Genesis 26:2. God tells Isaac to stay in the land of Gerar during the course of a famine and promises to fulfill the blessing of the covenant through him. And then later on in this same chapter 26: 24 God says to Isaac—“I am the God of your father Abraham, Fear not for I am with you and I will bless you and increase your offspring for the sake of My servant Abraham.”

Why does God try to reassure Isaac with the words—Fear not? Isaac’s experience of his father’s God has not been for the most part a positive one. This is the God who commanded his father to sacrifice him on the altar. From Isaac’s perspective one can imagine that at times Isaac felt that his father loved God more than his own sons. From Isaac’s perspective, indeed he has something to fear -a God who would demand the sacrifice of a child. But even though in the end, God stopped the sacrifice of Isaac and came to his rescue, providing the ram, it must have been a traumatic moment for Isaac, bound to the altar by his father, with the knife poised over him. It had to have an effect on Isaac and his relationship to both his father and to God. Thus when God speaks to him, it must have had some chilling effect on Isaac.

Although God speaks twice directly to Abraham in chapter 26, one can imagine that the first direct communication is hard to believe. Even with the promise of fulfilling the covenant of his father, and the promise of wealth and offspring, there must have been some doubts on Isaac’s part—or at least a healthy skepticism and yet he does follow God’s command to dwell in Gerar. Thus the second communication, God uses words that will try to assuage Isaac’s trepidation.

In addition the passages that come immediately before God direct conversation with Isaac involve Isaac in difficult interactions with the herdsman of Gerar. Isaac has water disputes over the ownership of wells. The first well was once dug by his father and then was re-opened by Isaac. The second well the men of Gerar also claimed even though it was a new well of living water. The third well dug was dispute free.

The great Ramban (Nachmanides, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman 1195-1270) comments on this section by stating that God tells Isaac not to fear that the Philistines or the men of Gerar will gather against him. Although he has had these disputes with them over water, a precious commodity in a desert land, God comforts Isaac with the words of protection and blessing.

Isaac is touched by God’s promise of protection and the promise of blessing. Now he knows himself, with his own experience of the Divine that God’s shelter is extended to him. There have been signs all along, after all he is the child promised by God to Abraham and Sarah. He is the miracle child born in their old age. God at the altar—providing a ram to sacrifice, instead of him, protected Isaac. He is successful during his sojourn in Gerar and adds to his wealth. But this second direct communication between God and Isaac affirms the unique covenantal bond that extends to Isaac. It must have been very reassuring to Isaac and one can imagine that perhaps Isaac finally feels that he must have come into his own relationship with the Divine.

Like each of us, while we can emulate and practice the religion and customs and traditions of our parents and they often bring us comfort, but until we develop our own unique spiritual bond with our God and religious life, we cannot fully experience the deep ways in which the Divine can touch our souls. Our challenge is to come to know God, to journey towards God on our own, certainly guided and helped by our ancestors but ultimately to have our own unique bond for ourselves.

Chaye Sarah, Genesis 23:1-25:18

Our Torah portion begins with the death of matriarch Sarah. She dies at the age of 127 in the city of Hebron. Immediately her husband Abraham mourns her passing but he also quickly attends to her burial. Abraham makes arrangements to bury Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, which he purchases from Ephron the Hittite. The portion outlines in great detail the negotiation for the burial site and the terms of the agreement. Abraham pays 400 shekels of silver for the land of Ephron the Hittite.

The fact that Abraham paid such a dear price for this parcel of land makes clear that although this is part of the promised land, Abraham wants no argument from those that already reside there. He purchases this plot of land so that Sarah will rest in peace and the Hittites will have no further claim upon the land. He will hold title to it free and clear.

Abraham has to deal with this business transaction at time of grief. One can only imagine that he is not really up for the task and perhaps this is even why he agrees to pay such an exorbitant price for this parcel of land. Perhaps Abraham simply wants to make the arrangements as quickly as possible, so Sarah can be buried properly.

We should all learn from Abraham’s dilemma. Most of us want to ignore the question of where and how we shall be buried. It is unpleasant to think about and to deal with and yet, if we leave it to our loved ones to deal with after we are dead, we place a terrible burden upon them. Perhaps like Abraham, they will be taken advantage of and pay more than necessary. Perhaps your final wishes will not be followed. Waiting until a loved one dies to make burial arrangements inevitably makes the process more painful and difficult than it needs to be.

That is why this week’s Torah portion is a good reminder that each of us needs to consider several questions in this regard. Where will you be buried when you die? Who will take care of the decisions? Have you made any arrangements or made your wishes known? Perhaps with the reading of this week’s Torah portion this is a good time to review your legal paperwork. Do you have a will or trust that specifies what kinds of burial arrangements you would like?

While these are difficult issues to face death comes to us all in the end. It is better to be prepared and not make our loved ones face unnecessary trials and pain when we are gone.

If you would like a preplanning checklist to help you organize your final arrangements, email me at rabbi@Kol-ami.org. I will be happy to send you one.

D’var Torah by Robin Podolsky, October 24, 2004

I’ve been puzzling for days now over what I would say to you tonight. As those of you who are acquainted with me are probably aware, when I find myself at a loss for words, that’s a signal that I’ve been touched by something extraordinary.

As many of you know, I was granted the singular honor of joining with Neil Yerman to scribe the first letter, the bet in the breshit, of Kol Ami’s new sefer torah. Our Rabbi has asked me to talk about what that meant to me.

Well, I know what it meant to me as a Jew. This text, this ancient record of the human encounter with God is what makes us Jews. This text bears the message that every moment is pregnant with meaning, because we were created on purpose by a God Who requires us and Who requires much of us; this text tells us, in its final book, that Torah is not in heaven, but on earth for us to interpret, to argue passionately, to serve as the basis for radically disparate legal rulings that, we will be told, all work in the service of God. Jews come in a variety of shades and sizes, speak many languages and hold radically different views of personhood, Halacha, marriage, sexuality, God, capital punishment, and the American presidential election, but, through our engagement with the moral demands and deep pleasures of this text, we are connected to one another.

Okay—so that’s the kind of talk I feel comfortable with—text talk, which, in Judaism, is God talk. But I was asked how the scribing felt.

I remember Neil’s solicitude and kindness. I remember how soft the parchment was, the slight tug as it accepted the kiss of ink. But the rest…For all my effort beforehand to focus my attention on what would surely be one of the most important events in my life, what I remember is a curious absence of anything I can tell you about. This was one of those moments that commands one’s absolute, immediate availability. I had a sense of what it is to be a clei kodesh, a holy vessel, the moment poured through me and there are no words.

Immediately afterwards, as I sat down, there were tears of joy. Not long after that, of course, there were thoughts and there was study:

We Jews don’t just read the Bible—we study it for interpreted significance, coded meanings, hints that spark on our subconscious—our sacred text has multiple meanings. Beginning, of course, with that first bet in breshit bara Elohim. There are many traditions to tell us why the Torah begins with bet. One teaches that, since only one letter comes before bet, the aleph with the numerical value of one, representing the One and Only God, we are taught, thus, that, prior to creation, only God existed.

Rashi, however, reminds us that b…reshit would be more accurately created as “in the beginning of God’s creation of the heaven and the earth”—this particular creation—we don’t, after all know when the darkness, void and chaos began or how, or what they’re made of…Rashi leaves us with a cosmological mystery, but reminds us that God is the author of creation and that’s what counts.

The Baal Shem Tov, in his earthly wisdom, opines that that the Torah begins with the second letter to tell each of us that “you don't know the first thing about it.”

In Breshit Rabbah, we learn that Bet is the letter for berakhah—blessing. And the letter Bet faces to the front with its arms open to the future. Also that the word Bet means ‘house.’ and there is no household without the loving relationships that require at least two-the value of bet.

Kol Ami, our bet tfillah, our house of prayer is a loving house. In scribing a torah scroll, our house has given life to multitudes. Can we even imagine the generations of Jews who will read from our sefer Torah; who will carry her in loving procession; or become benai mitzvah through her—in one hundred years, will she even be housed on planet earth? Who knows—but as long as Jews contend furiously about what we must do to pursue justice, engaging the varied voices and values within this text--which announces itself as a model of multi-vocality by beginning with two alternative stories in its recounting of creation--Judaism will be nourished from a vital, flowering tree.