Parasha Toldot is a story of unwise parental love and the tragedy. At the beginning of the story, Isaac and Rebekah spend many lonely years praying for a child, and then comes the twins – Esau and Jacob. Rebecca found that pregnancy was much harder than she had anticipated. She was in a great deal of pain and Rebecca reached out to God, “If, so, why this me”, talking about the pain of pregnancy. God told Rebecca that she was pregnant with twins, and that these children would each lead a future nation. In responding, God did not remove Rebecca’s pain but helped her to see the bigger picture by imparting significance to her suffering. God reminded her that her life – and her current pain – was a part of something larger, and this purpose gave her strength to endure.

Rebekah and Isaac’s long childlessness ought to make them particularly grateful for both of their sons. Yet, this is not the case. From the outset, the parents divide their loyalties and their love. Isaac favors Esau, his rough-and-tumble boy, the skillful hunter and family provider; “he is the man of impulse like Rambo or John Wayne”. Esau thrives on his tremendous power, his physical courage and his own inner drives.

Rebekah prefers her mild-mannered Jacob. Jacob lives with one foot in the future. Less powerful than his burly brother, Jacob compensates by using his mind and by weighing the consequences. He prefers to skip a meal if that means he will acquire the birthright of the covenant. Jacob was a dweller of tents who enjoys intellectual and spiritual pursuits.

The story of Esau and Jacob is the story of these two conflicting approaches to being human. Esau comes home after a day of hunting and he wants to eat.  Meanwhile, Jacob has prepared a pot of lentil stew.  Here, the man of action meets the man of forethought.  Acting on impulse, Esau demands to be fed.

Responding with calculation, Jacob agrees to sell his stew in exchange for Esau’s birthright. Living in the present, Esau sees no benefit in his birthright.  After all, it does not satisfy his hunger, so his parting with his birthright represents no real loss.

The rest of the Parasha is one long tale of the deceit, trickery, and misery that follows from Isaac and Rebekah’s unequal application of love.

Rebekah even connives against her blind husband. Esau is left tearfully begging his father for words of love and kindness that the old man cannot or will not bestow. “Father, have you just one blessing to bestow?” By the end of the story, the family is irrevocably broken. What began with so much promise ends with alienation.

In truth, the whole Book of Genesis is the story of the disastrous consequences of treating love like a zero-sum game, a limited commodity which must be rationed out and fought over. Again and again we read about characters who struggle for limited love – Cain and Abel, Sarah and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Rachel and Leah, Joseph and his brothers. In every case, the result is violence, loss, or grief.

Genesis records the infancy of our People, when we were still young and selfish and did not know that there is always more room in an open heart.

So many issues in this Parasha. There is Avimelekh and Isaac; the King befriends Isaac, and then the King terminates the relationship because Isaac’s business had grown so large, and Avimelekh could only be friends with someone dependent on himself. Later, it becomes clear that Isaac has God’s blessing, and Avimelekh sees the possibility of benefit from a relationship with Isaac. He again approaches the Patriarch to formalize a friendship. Avimeleka is the kind of friend that the Talmudic Rabbis warned of when they said, “There are many persons who eat and drink together, yet they pierce each other with the sword of their tongues.

Imagine how devastated Isaac must have felt receiving Avimelekh’s friendship, and then later – the abrupt termination of their friendship! And, then the King wants the friendship again… WOW!

This secular notion of friendship denigrates people by viewing them as tools to be used, rather than hearts to be esteemed.  Contrast that with a lovely midrash (found in Jellinek’s Bet Ha-Midrash) that speaks of the Jewish view of friendship—one that recognizes human beings as infinitely precious, worthy of our deepest loyalty and love.

Another story…

The outcome of a war parted two friends who had previously lived in the same country….  One of them, visiting his friend by stealth, was captured and sentenced to die as a spy.  But the man implored the king who had decreed his death: “Your majesty, give me a month’s respite so I may place my affairs in order.  At the end of a month, I will return to pay the penalty.”  The king said, “Who will be your surety?” The man answered, “Call in my friend, and he will pay for my life with his, in the event I don’t return.”  To the king’s amazement, the friend accepted the condition.  On the last day when the sword was about to descend, the first friend returned and placed the sword at his own neck.  The second friend begged him, “Let me die in your place.”  The king was touched, and pardoned them both, asking them to include him as a third in their remarkable friendship.

True friendship is not a utilitarian tool—friends are not objects to be used and then abandoned when they no longer serve our needs.  A friend is a treasure to be cherished and guarded, a level of fidelity that takes constant effort: As the Yalkut understands, “it is difficult to acquire a friend.”

To offer the unconditional caring and love that one human being can bestow upon another, to see the chance to know someone else as an opportunity to witness God’s steadfast and reliable love is a great gift, both to the recipient and to the giver. Those who see friendship as a series of functional connections—to be used and then abandoned, can never know the joy, peace, and depth that comes with unconditional love.

True friendship is a form of hesed—love that need not be continually earned; it is a CARING – that is its own justification.  Only in the context of hesed, that true love between people, as well as the love of God towards humanity, can we risk exposing our souls and our hearts to each other’s insight, only then can we risk healing each other’s wounds, and only then can we, in turn, allow ourselves to be healed.

Judaism and the values it cherishes depends on precisely that kind of love and loyalty. In a society where change is so rife that it borders on the chaotic, Judaism provides a shelter in the storm. Loyalty to the practices of our sacred tradition clears a path that others have successfully trod before, and shines a light that has illuminated countless lives through the good times and the bad. Judaism teaches us, in the words of Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, “to change as little as possible, as late as possible” in order to nurture our ancient brit with God and our people’s sacred way.

This week, let us turn from the story of a broken family to the redemptive start of the month of Kislev, which culminates with the festival of Chanukah. Let us turn our attention ahead to the message of its candles: That light can be spread freely without diminishing the original light, that the shine of one candle is enhanced, not dimmed, by the brightness of its neighbor.

It is incumbent upon me to share that my inspirational guidance for today’s D’var Torah, came from the following scholars…

Rabbi Adam Greenwald

Rabbi Ilana Berenbaum Grenblat

Rabbi Bradley Artson

Thank you for your time.

I wish each of you a safe and spiritual Shabbat Shalom.

How long do we or should we grieve and follow the process of bereavement for the loss of a loved one?

While I am not an expert on the topic of grieving nor follower/student of Dr. Joel Roffman or David Kessler (grief experts), I turned to what all of us Kehilah scholars may do to find out about grief (Google) – which mentions that:

While

In 5779, Joel delivered the dvar for Lech Lecha and I delivered the dvar the following week for Vayera. And here we are, in 5780 following the same pattern.

Are we in a rut? Following on the heels of Lech Lecha and Joel talking about “Go. Become.” I have to wonder if that is exactly what is happening… Are we becoming sages on these particular parshiot?

Last year I talked about how, when we are becoming whoever we are, we need to not limit ourselves by using labels. We are far more than…

• where we live
• or the jobs we do.

Who we are should be a full-blown story and how we started writing that story is the essence of Lech Lecha. The journey begins in Lech Lecha. When Abraham leaves his home, that is akin to the birth of the individual.

Vayera is more about finding yourself and what you stand for. After all, this is the parsha in which Abraham says ‘Hineni’ – Here I Am… and it is this statement which shows Abraham’s awareness of himself and his role and his relationships.

The juxtaposition of Lech Lecha and Vayera is necessary. You have to let go of who you were…to find yourself. I started thinking about all the times that we do this – we separate and let go of one version of ourselves to transition to the next version of ourselves.

• At birth, we physically separate from mom and become an infant.
• At Kindergarten, we physically separate from our parents and enter the world of school, learning, playing with others and we become a student (and a friend).
• At 16, we leave the safety of letting others chauffeur us around and take responsibility as a driver. This is a huge separation for lots of kids. Thinking back on our girls growing up, I think that learning to ride a bicycle and rolling off without a parent was the precursor to that individual freedom.
• At 18, we go to college… and for some that means physically leaving home and all that we know from growing up. I think this is when we are most like Abraham and truly, truly start the journey to find out who we are.

If we were lucky, we took the time in our 20s to try on new hats – to try out different versions of ourselves. We couldn’t have done that if we had stayed in our parents’ home. If you didn’t venture out of your parents’ home, you risked becoming stagnant in that child-like role.

I found a couple of quotes from Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks which brought it together for me. Rabbi Sacks wrote:

• The Torah is teaching us something fundamental and counter-intuitive. There has to be separation before there can be connection. We have to have the space to be ourselves if we are to be good children to our parents, and we have to allow our children the space to be themselves if we are to be good parents.
• Abraham had to separate himself from his father before he, and we, could understand how much he owed his father. He had to separate from his son so that Isaac could be Isaac and not simply a clone of Abraham.

There has to be separation before there can be connection. This is why we understand our parents when we become parents ourselves.

I can remember being slightly annoyed when my mother would hug me too tightly before I left home to return to college. And I can remember not understanding what is the big deal and why is she crying whenever I my vacation was ending.

I had to separate from my mom and become a parent myself before I could begin to connect with the emotions that she has been displaying for the last 30 years. It wasn’t until Rachel and Lilly left for college that I understood the uncertainty of not knowing when I would see them next… and I have experienced the lump in my throat.

When I was 20 years old and in college, I wrote a poem for my mother for Mother’s Day. It was called ‘All Her Life For One’. In this poem I expressed things I had never said before and I think it was a turning point in my personal growth as well as an important moment in my relationship with my mom.

All her life for one
The guiding hand
That holds me along the paths
The light that warms me
By which I learn to read
The open book
That invites me to partake

Tease me
Hug me and always be my friend
The love, like cool brooks
Runs over the rough spots,
Both fast and slow; it comes
To rest in a pool
That is continually filled –
The love between you and me.

But what is your reparation?
How do I repay all the love,
And confidences you’ve taught me?
How do I express the gratitude,
When I’m so young and inexperienced
In the face of your world?

Why is it your world, when we are
Both women and can share so much more than a mother-daughter relationship?
Stand by me as I learn about an entire world
And ache to share with you all my experiences.
I’ll never leave you behind when I’m forging ahead, because it is you and
It has always been you who stood by me
when I need an extra push or a pat on the back.
You have helped me realize my potential

I plan to grow to fulfill whatever I can
And make you love me more.
I can only respect your sacrifices
Because you have dedicated and given of yourself.
I refuse to be a selfish and
Helpless child anymore…
It’s your turn
To be appreciated
And pampered
And endearingly loved.

I had to make space for myself to become an independent woman, to realize gratitude, and to be ready to give that same kind of love and care and attention to my own kids.

Maybe it’s obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway. The need to make space for yourself is not a ‘one and done activity’ – we cycle thru Lech Lecha and Vayera multiple times in our lives; we cannot do one without the other.

• At 25 (plus or minus a few years), we enter into a marriage and become a life partner and maybe some of us lose the sense of self at this stage. And for the next several years we are so focused on having a life with another person and starting a family that the “I” takes a backseat to the “we”.
• And then one day, the kids move out… and the ‘we’ is a little smaller and you once again, begin the journey to a new version of yourself. Maybe this time, with a little more wisdom and confidence, you try a very different hat.

In the book ‘How Stella Got her Groove Back’ by Terry McMillan, Stella is a 40-year-old woman who defines herself by the products she uses and the accessories she chooses. Her materialistic life is all that defines her. Stella has lost her ‘groove’ – her fundamental sense of self that gives her life rhythm – and she no longer understands her own motives and needs. In an effort to ‘find herself,” Stella goes on a solo trip – this gives her time to separate from her everyday life and within that space she is able to re-examine her life and her goals, boost her self-confidence; she level-sets and finds some freedom in her new definition of self.

It doesn’t matter how many times you cycle through these stages; you are always in the process of becoming and of realizing who you are. Give yourself the space to be… to become you.

Shabbat Shalom

Sources of Inspiration

https://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/To-Bless-the-Space-Between-Us.html

How Stella Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan

Lech Lecha – what does it mean? it could simply mean, “Go forth,” but look, this is Jewish scripture. It has been parsed for centuries. For rabbis, the more cryptic, the better. And also, the words are followed by such evocative phrases like, “to a land that I will show you,” and, “I will bless you.” You get the sense early on that we’re on to something BIG! So actual translation and meanings are as numerous as the stars in the heaven.

In Etz Chaim, go forth is explained as, “betake yourself,” in true biblical prose. In Stone, it is translated as,  “Go FOR yourself,” – a “favor” from Gd – presumably because, as it says in Stone, “I (Gd) will make a great nation from you. You will have children.”  (Abraham had been fatherless until this time.)

For me personally, I always have looked upon the phrase as a calling to be bold. Get out of your comfort zone. Get moving. Times a’wasting. Look at the biographies of famous or of simply successful people, and you often find a singular moment in which they heard the command, lech lecha. And to make it a bit less cosmic: have you heard the expression, “Fortune favors the bold?”

That expression may, in my way of thinking has its truth and its roots right there. After Gd tells Avram to go from what is familiar, Gd promises to bless him. These successful people have, in one sense of another, heard the command. Go from this place. Leave the familiar. Be bold. And once they hew to that command, their lives are irrevocably changed.

I’m currently reading a detailed and very interesting book about Harry Truman. Truman was a struggling farmer, having moved back to the family farm to help his father manage things. Truman had worked as a timekeeper on the railroads for several years before that. No education beyond high school. At age 29, well past the usual enlistment age, he enlisted in the military so he could help the country in World War I. While in the military, he made some contacts who would eventually be instrumental in Truman’s entering politics. Politics! His family was shocked and indignant. What did he know about politics!?!  Harry Truman’s inner voice told him, “Lech lecha, Harry!”

There’s another phrase that immediately follows lech lecha. In Chapter 12:2, it is written, “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great and you shall be a blessing.” “You shall be a blessing” is also the translation we find in Stone.This implies that Gd would show favoritism to the descendants of Abraham. That’s Gd’s promise. Personally, I don’t like that particular translation very much.

In this old chumash, edited by  Hertz, the translation is, “Be thou a blessing.” It is more of a challenge – a directive.

My view is that our lives take on more meaning when we in fact take this as a command. As a challenge, rather than as a promise. The same is true when we consider Gd’s statement to Abraham later in the parashah – that Abraham’s offspring shall be as numerous as the stars in the heavens.

I feel that our lives are much more enriched when we take this as a challenge. It’s largely up to us to fulfill Gd’s promise, to make Abraham’s descendants – us – as numerous as the stars in the heavens.

Well . . . here we all are. Descendants of Abraham. Not quite as numerous as the stars in the heavens, but time isn’t finished yet.

So when we combine the two simple phrases – Go forth. Be a blessing to others. Now we’re getting to a yet different place.

Lech Lecha means leaving behind that which is comfortable. Being unpredictable in taking a risk. With sufficient discipline and courage, we can rise above the usual economic and psychological forces that keep us in a particular box. It was 40 years ago this very month, in 1979, that my friend Jim Kallal told me, “You know, Joel, that can’t be done.” He was referring to my plan to leave Hartford, CT, where I was doing my cardiology fellowship, move to Dallas, and to go into solo practice at that! In those days before the internet, communication and plan-making were much, much different than they are now. Well, next July, I will celebrate my 40th year in practice – the same practice I started in Richardson, in 1980. Lucky to find an opportunity? Sure, but remember – fortune favors the bold. Put another way, I was fortunate to be young and dumb!

So be bold and be a blessing to others. Aha – the Jewish perfecta!!

Abraham was to become the forefather of an eternal people. The Jews would be willing to stand outside the then-accepted laws of nature. So what for other people was natural – land, home, family – in Judaism are the subjects of our laws and commandments. We must strive for them, and work hard to make them better. They can’t be taken for granted. They are not a given.

In an era of idolatry, we saw the universe  as the product of a single creative force. So it was not meaningless, but coherent. When power was worshipped, we created a society that cared for the powerless, for the orphan, for the widow. When other societies were insular, we are told to remember the stranger, for we were once strangers in the land of Egypt.

It meant in the subhuman conditions imposed on Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, the Jews set up makeshift schoolhouses and classrooms. When war was the test of manhood in the ancient (and not-so-ancient) world, it meant striving for a peaceful society. In the materialism that we know all too well today, it means that we are known best not by what we buy, but by what we give.

All of this comes to us from outside ourselves, as it came to Abraham. We are summoned to make a contribution to the world. Lech lecha for the Jew means hearing and responding to the still, small voice of eternity. Pulling us, pushing us, to continue the journey begun by Abraham. Being a blessing to others and to the world writ large.

Last week, Nancy and I attended the annual meeting of the Dallas Jewish Community Foundation, where close to twenty “unsung heroes” were honored because of how they gave of themselves to make their particular organizations, and thus the world, better. It was so moving and inspiring to hear how people heard a calling, regarded their mission in terms of being a blessing to others, and in turn, seeing the world as something to be improved, and who have done their part to help do so.

Maya Angelo, the wonderful African American poet, who died in 2014, once said that, “Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” Fulfilling the commandment to “lech lecha” takes conviction and a sense of mission. It takes much courage to leave one’s comfort zone and work to improve the lives of others.

But that’s what Jews do!

In this week’s parashah we read the story of Noah. The parashah begins with the following statement: “Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age.”  Rabbi Jonathan Sacks notes that Noah is the only individual in Tanakh described as righteous. No such praise is given to Abraham or Moses or any of the prophets. Yet the man we see at the end of his life is not the person we saw at the beginning. As we read the whole story, you will see it does not end well.

The flood changed Noah.  After a year on the ark, Noah is finally commanded by God to leave. A normal person would have been very anxious to get out of the ark. But Noah is hesitant to leave. Why? Eli Wiesel offers a poignant insight. He calls Noah the first” survivor.” The world had experienced a Holocaust, and Noah was reluctant to walk out of the ark because he knew that the entire world was one giant graveyard and he just couldn’t face it. The Torah tells us that Noah’s reaction to the flood is to plant. Planting after a great destruction is surely a meaningful and satisfying response. It represents hope and belief in the future. But what does Noah plant? He plants a vine and drinks the wine of the vineyard. He becomes drunk and wallows around in his tent.  Not only did Noah become drunk, but he was naked inside his tent which further debased him and led to family drama. Poor Noah. He cannot face the fact that everybody except himself and his immediate family was destroyed by the flood. He is unable to face reality. He needs an escape and resorts to alcohol. He becomes a drunkard.  He literally lost control of his life.

This is an uncomfortable episode in Noah’s life, but it serves as a reminder that even those saved by the grace of God are prone to sin. It is also a powerful warning about how just one careless decision can destroy the reputation of even the most Godly man or woman. The Bible does not specify why Noah became drunk. There are several possibilities but none of them change the fact that Noah was responsible for his own actions. One possibility is that Noah was haunted by his experiences during the flood.   The impact of the flood and the great loss of life began to sink in. Noah may have become depressed. He turned to alcohol to numb the emotional pain. Attempting to avoid negative feelings is one of the major reasons people abuse alcohol today. The key danger of alcohol is that it takes judgment to know when to stop, but good judgment is exactly what alcoholic tends to erode.

Rabbi Lance Sussman suggests that one possibility for Noah’s actions is that he developed the first reported case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. The Torah tells us that Noah was psychologically sound prior to the flood, experienced tremendous trauma during the flood and, subsequently, failed to adjust to post flood life in basically every dimension of his life. Noah, it seemed, had a serious case of PTSD.

Feeling guilt after the experience of a traumatic event is serious and it has been linked to a number of negative consequences such as depression, shame, social anxiety, low self-esteem, and thoughts of suicide. In addition, it has been connected to the development of PTSD. The diagnosis of PTSD can be suspected in an individual who exhibits significant behavioral change after a traumatic event. It is described as a serious mental condition rooted in exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury or sexual violation. The disturbance, regardless of its trigger, causes clinically significant distress in the individual’s social interactions, capacity to do work or other important areas of functioning and will be discussed in more detail later. One could say that in the story of Noah we can see different manifestations of severe psychological stress reaction consistent with PTSD. The midrash describes how burdensome life on the ark was for Noah. As mentioned, the Noah that emerges from the ark is not the same Noah that boarded the ark a year earlier. Gone is the righteous man we saw earlier. He is replaced by a broken man who has a drunken encounter with his son, after which we hear of him no more. After witnessing the destruction of the known world, it is not surprising that Noah turns to alcohol which is a common outlet for patients with PTSD.

Noah’s response to the flood is not dissimilar to the action of some Holocaust survivors. Noah experienced a kind of PTSD called survivor’s guilt. Survivor’s guilt is a type self-guilt that sometimes takes place after a traumatic event. This phenomenon can occur in a variety of life-threatening situations including car accidents, wars, natural disasters but it also can work its way into very personal tragedies, affecting friends and family of those who died by suicide, for example.

Survivors may find themselves wondering why they lived through the event or why they suffered less than others. The concept of survivor’s guilt achieved prominence during the 1960s when a number of psychologists described a similar set of symptoms experienced by survivors of the Holocaust. Some survivors were just not capable of facing the fact that they were singled out to live, while their beloved friends and relatives had been murdered. Survivors guilt can have a serious impact on a person’s life function. Survivors guilt may be viewed as one of the cognitive and mood related symptoms of PTSD, which include having distorted feelings of guilt and negative thoughts about oneself. Although survivor’s guilt was originally used to describe feelings that survivors of the Holocaust experienced, it has also been applied to other people and situations since that time. I saw this in my own practice in individuals who lived through the AIDS epidemic with feelings of guilt related to their own survival while others, including friends or family died. Also following a flood or tornado, people might feel a sense of guilt and wonder why their homes were spared while their next-door neighbor’s home was destroyed. Survivors guilt does not necessarily have to involve life or death situations.  Following a trauma, people may also experience feelings of regret. You ruminate over the events that took place and think about things they could have or should have done that would have altered the outcome. The rehashing of the events could further exacerbate the feelings of guilt, particularly if people feel their own actions or inaction may have worsened the consequences.

To review, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. It was first described in 1980. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human caused disasters, accidents, or military combat. PTSD can happen to anyone.  It is not a sign of weakness.

The statistics on PTSD are alarming. In the United States, approximately 3.5% of the adult population has PTSD at any given moment. Cumulatively, as many as 9% are personally affected over a lifetime. PTSD is the most prevalent diagnosis among American military veterans, although it is estimated that only half of those with PTSD seek treatment. In one survey of 600 recent US combat veterans, it was reported that the rate of alcohol abuse was 39%, PTSD was at14% and drug abuse was at 3%. Among veterans, the correlation between PTSD and drinking problems can run as high as 80%.

There may also be profound religious implications associated with PTSD. For some victims, the circumstances leading to PTSD may lead to the questioning of important previously sustaining beliefs. This can lead to spiritual struggle or even loss of faith.

I want to mention another message of this parashah.  Question: what does Noah say to God when the decree is issued that the world is about the perish? The answer is: nothing. Noah is the paradigm of biblical obedience. He does as he is commanded. In Judaism, God does not command blind obedience. God wants us to be mature, deliberative, to do his will because we understand or because we trust him when we do not understand. He seeks from us something other and greater than obedience, namely responsibility.  Noah saved only himself and his family. At the end of his life, Noah was a drunk, disheveled, embarrassment to his children. This tells us that if you save yourself while doing nothing to save the world, you do not even save yourself. Noah could not live with the guilt of survival. It takes courage to rebuild a shattered world. That was the courage shown by those who built and fought for the state of Israel in the years after the Holocaust. They were different kinds of people, but they shared that intuitive knowledge that Noah lacked: that when it comes to rebuilding the ruins of catastrophe, you do not wait for permission. You take the risk and walk ahead. Faith is more than obedience. It is the courage to create.

If we find ourselves in Noah’s position, feeling alone, angry, or guilty about our life circumstances, it’s helpful to have coping mechanisms in place ahead of time or to seek professional help. It’s challenging to push through a traumatic experience but finding healthy ways to cope with emotions is essential.

So, in the end, Noah survived the flood, but drowned in the burden of his untreated PTSD. Let us learn from his tragic example.

My grandfather (may he rest in peace) was named Simcha Natan in Hebrew. Simcha, meaning joy is the word I most associate with this time of year.  Each day of Sukkot in a traditional synagogue, you will see the hakafot, where the congregants dance around the building with the lulav and etrog in hand; seven times we march around the with the joy associated with the fall Harvest. And it doesn’t end there… The last day of Sukkot is designated as Simchat Torah, the day of celebrating the joy of Torah, where we dance and sing and celebrate the end of the reading of the Torah, only to begin again.

So why now? Why Sukkoth? According to Rabi Irving Greenberg, “Sukkot comes just four days after Yom Kippur, the most ascetic, self-denying, guilt-ridden, awesome holy day of the Jewish year… only those who know the fragility of life can truly appreciate the full preciousness of every moment. The release from Yom Kippur leads to the extraordinary outburst of life that is Sukkot. On this holiday, Jews are commanded to eat, drink, be happy, dance, and relish life to the fullest in celebrating the harvest and personal wealth.

But making joy holy means being selective in the enjoyment of God’s gifts, not worshiping those gifts or those who own them. The first and foremost expression of this insight is to share the bounty and the joy. Gifts from the harvest were given to the poor: “You shall rejoice before the Lord. You, your son and daughter, manservant and maid, the Levite… the stranger, the orphan, the widow in your midst” (Deuteronomy 16:11).”

In a wonderful video https://schechter.edu/popular-holiday-soviet-union/  Rabbi Dr. David Frankel, senior lecturer in Bible at Schechter, describes a fascinating piece of Soviet Jewish history and how Simchat Torah became the holiday selected by the Soviet Jews to express their Jewishness. He gives five reasons why:

1. Simchat Torah is a holiday of joy (it’s right there in the name) and the Jews wanted to express their joy of being Jewish
2. Simchat Torah celebrates Jewish knowledge and learning and they Jews of the Soviet Union wanted to express their right to study Jewish books and learn Torah.
3. Simchat Torah expresses eternity, by ending the Torah and beginning again, it creates a never-ending cycle from the point of entering Eretz Yisroel and starting again in the Garden of Eden.
4. Simchat Torah is not a biblical holiday. It was not created by the authorities or by those who codified the law. It was created for the people, by the people.
5. On Simchat Torah, Every Jew gets called to the Torah, expressing the egalitarian spirit, regardless of level of observance or knowledge. This holiday is about Jewish peoplehood. Thus, the Jews of the Soviet Union took the Torahs into the street in defiance of the Soviet Regime.

There is something unique about the relationship of the Jews and Torah, the way we stand in its presence as if it were a king and dance with it as if it were a bride, listen to it telling our story and study it for the length of our days.

On these days of Sukkoth and Simchat Torah, I love to revel in the dichotomy of how Judaism appreciates both the old and the new. We celebrate the ancient traditions of eating in the Sukkah, dancing with branches and fruits, dancing in a circle with the Torah. On the other hand, we read and study the annual cycles of the Torah portions and how their lessons can be applied to our daily lives.

It is no coincidence that Sukkot has a deep connection with universal humanity. We invite the stranger (Ushpizin) into our Sukkah and share our food with our neighbors and our friends (if you haven’t seen the movie by this name, find it and watch it—it’s a gem).  Acts of Gimilut Chasidim (loving-kindness) are the foundations of the world because they are fundamental expressions of human solidarity and human contact in a largely impersonal world.

There is then the significance of the dance on Simchat Torah, where the hierarchies of our differences are transcended and we all dance in a circle around the Torah, representing the Divine center.

According to Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “what non-Jews (and sometimes Jews) fail to appreciate is how, in Judaism, Torah represents law as love and love as law. Torah is not just ‘revealed legislation’ it represents G-d’s faith in our ancestors that He entrusted them with the creation of a society that would become a home for His presence no matter where we are, and an example to the world.”

On this Shabbat between Sukkoth and Simchat Torah, I hope that we can continue to express the joy that led King David to ‘leap and dance’ when the ark was brought into Jerusalem and that as we experience these days of Sukkot, Hashanah Rabbah and Simchat Torah renew our love of the Torah as we begin again.

Shabbat Shalom

(1993) Rabbi Irving Greenberg, The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays, Touchstone
(2014)  Rabbi Tracy Nathan, Dancing in circles from Sukkot to Simchat Torah, https://www.stljewishlight.com/opinion/dvar_torah/dancing-in-circles-from-sukkot-to-simchat-torah/article_51ba9e78-4f11-11e4-bb84-4718d0937faa.html
(2015) Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Law as Love http://rabbisacks.org/law-as-love-bemidbar-5775/
(2017) Rabbi Dr. David Frankel, The Most Popular Holiday in the Soviet Union? https://schechter.edu/popular-holiday-soviet-union/

Haazinu Hashamayim Va’adaberah: “Incline your ear, O Heaven, and I will speak.”  This begins the song  that Moshe is instructed by G-d to prepare for the children of Israel. Why Haazinu rather than Shema?  The word haazin connotes a greater readiness to perceive and accept that which is being spoken than  does the word shema (to hear). Words can be heard without being followed. Moshe wants the Children  of Israel to understand that his song conveys a warning to them not to forsake G-d. He understood that   it is the nature of people to take good things for granted and complain when times are tough. G-d, he   notes, is perfect and His actions are perfect. All His ways are just even when we endure hardships. When  we turn away from G-d, have we forgotten that He made us and established us? Is this how you repay   G-d queries Moshe?

In verse 32:7, Moshe tells the people to remember the days of yore and to understand the years from  one generation and another. Ask your father so that he may tell you. Ask your elders so that they may  explain it to you. What exactly is Moshe trying to convey? The Midrash Rabbah, a commentary on the   Book of Deuteronomy, explains that whenever G-d brings suffering to you in this world, remember the  good things that He will give you in the next world. Isn’t that asking a lot of people? Are people really  expected to overlook their suffering by looking forward to good things in the World to Come?

The Chofetz Chaim was confronted with this question. He provided the following parable as an answer.  A Jew rented an apartment from the non-Jewish governor of the city. On an appointed date once per  year he would appear before the governor and pay the annual rental fee of 300 rubles. One year,   however, the governor was forced to leave town and appointed the deputy to manage things in his  absence.  The deputy was a well-known Jew hater. When the Jew came to pay rent, the deputy advised  him that the rent had been raised from 300 to 500 rubles. The Jew only had 480 rubles and pleaded for time to raise the additional 20 rubles. The deputy warned him to pay 500 rubles by the end of the day  or face the consequences. Despite his best efforts, the Jew was not able to come up with the additional  20 rubles. He returned at the end of the day and paid 480 rubles to the deputy. The deputy then  ordered that the Jew receive 20 lashes — one for each missing ruble. When the governor returned to  the city, the Jew informed him of what had occurred. The governor was furious. He returned the 180  ruble overpayment to the Jew and provided 2000 rubles compensation for the lashes the Jew had  received. The deputy had recently built a new home having a value of 4000 rubles. He ordered the  deputy to sign over a deed to the Jew making the Jew a one-half owner of his home. When the Jew  returned home, he was noticeably sullen. His wife asked him what was wrong and he explained what  had taken place at his meeting with the governor. The wife was confused. “Why aren’t you bursting with  joy?”, she asked. The Jew responded that he was sad that the deputy had not given him 40 lashes. This is how it is with us, concluded the Chofetz Chaim. When a person endures hardship and suffering in this  life he becomes very distraught. When he arrives in the World to Come and becomes aware of the  enormous reward he has earned for enduring his suffering, he may regret that he did not suffer even  more.

G-d advises Moshe that the time for him to die has come. He tells Moshe to go to the top of Mount  Nebo before he dies so that he can look down on Canaan, the land to be given to the Children of Israel.  Moshe is surely disappointed, but he doesn’t complain. Moshe is never seen again.

Good Shabbos.

This is my paternal lineage

The descendants of Natan ha Kohen.

Yosef ben Natan ha Kohen – Born 1864 Russia begot

Nachum ben Yosef ha Kohen – Born 1890 in Birmingham – begot

Moshe ben Nachum ha Kohen begot

Aharon Shalom ben Moshe ha Kohen – Born 1960 (that’s me)

The maternal side of my family is only traceable to my grandparents Sam and Ida Fishman due to the inability to find any official records in Ancestry.com. Thanks to this technology and a discussion over dinner with friends talking about family trees, I was able to trace my ancestry back several generations with their help. See me after Yom Tov for more information on finding your ancestry.

On October 26, we will read in Parsha Noach a detailed account of the lineage from Noah. I had the advantage of technology to help dig through my lineage to learn about my ancestors. All this information is stored in a mega database somewhere in cyberspace. Imagine how difficult it was to track one’s ancestral chain without the use of the technological tools we have today.

While aspects of our ancestor’s lives are stored forever in the heavens, our descendants will have it much easier as every aspect of our lives are now stored in the cloud. Facebook and other types of social media will allow your great, great grandchildren to know not only your name, but how you lived your life, where you liked to vacation, what restaurants you liked to visit, and they may possibly see a picture of the meal their great, great bubbie ate. The history and the intrigue will be gone. In today’s age of Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat and other forms of social media, we must be even more careful how we lead our lives since our behaviors may be recorded at any time for all eternity. Will there be anything left to the imagination.

Yizkor – remember. Think back, to the events you remember in your life and especially those events with your parents, with your siblings, with your grandparents, with your aunts and uncles and other special people in your life. How far back can you remember?  I remember having meals with my grandparents and prumes being a required desert. I remember going to ball games with my father, accompanying him to his office, helping him with home repair projects and most important, I remember his involvement in the Jewish community. I remember Shabbat dinners at our family table and my parents attending Shabbat morning services every week. I remember holiday celebrations with my cousins. I remember the favorite foods my mother made. I remember sitting on my grandparent’s slippery vinyl couch and doing what any kid would do only to be yelled at for sliding on and off.  And most important I remember the coke or sprite float my grandfather made for us.

Think back and remember those events in your past that helped to shape who you are today. Yizkor.

We remember, and we hold on to these memories associated with some event in our past and feel the impact on our lives. Not so obvious is how each one of these events have or will have an impact on who our children and/or our future children are, who are grandchildren are and/or future grandchildren will be. Our moral fiber is created from our lineage. Besides the major impact parents have on a child’s development, I believe a small piece of every person in our lineage is passed down from generation to generation, to become a part of who we are. I refer to our neshmah, our soul, not to the strict scientific definition of our inherited genetic structure. There are way too many physicians and micro-biologists here for me to even attempt to go down that path.

On Rosh Hashanah day 2 the Torah portion was about the binding of Isaac to the alter by his father Abraham. What memory did Isaac carry with him through his life of this near-death experience, and how did this one event change him forever. How much stronger is the presence of G-d in his and Abraham’s life. How did this one episode also influence Jacob and his twelve sons and the future of Judaism through all future generations. Each one of us are influenced by the behavior of Abraham, and the memory Isaac carried with him. Even today, this event remains a part of each us, passed down from generation to generation.

In his Rosh Hashanah d’var, Joel spoke of the importance of spending time with those that mean the most to you and how these memories become embedded in your brain. Not only should you hold onto these memories to make yourself happier, but these memories will remain with your loved ones and will shape the neshumas of future generations. You can point to those in your life that helped to shape who you are, but your ancestors played a part too. The Jewish religion has survived for thousands of years despite the countless times others have tried to destroy us because we as a people make it our responsibility to create memories that will be passed down to future generations.

Think about the number of potential memories that were lost during the Holocaust at the hands of the Germans. We didn’t just lose six million lives, we lost all the generations that would have followed. We lost neshumas that we will never know. We lost memories that will never be made.

Think about the memories you had growing up. Think about how these memories with your parents, with your grandparents and with others have influenced or will influence the lives of your children, your grandchildren and all the future generations to follow.

We leave today with a clean slate. Promise yourself that you will honor the traditions set by the generations of those that came before you. Do good deeds, treat every person with kindness and dignity. Honor our heritage of being kind to strangers. Help those in need with acts of tzedakah. Look for the good in everything bad. Make memories that the generations that follow will be proud of. Live for today, make a difference in the world and know these memories one day will impact your children, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren and all future generations. Strive to avoid the creation of bad memories that will negatively impact others today and in the future. Even though you may never meet them, know the way you conduct your life today, know the memories you create starting today will be the foundation which builds our collective future.

May you all be sealed in the book of life for a year of health and happiness.

Last month, I saw a patient in the office named Mike. Mike is a fully alert and competent 77-year-old man who has been through lots of heart and circulatory issues. He had a major heart attack in 1990, 29 years ago, when he was 48. It left his heart quite damaged. He had 4-vessel coronary artery bypass surgery at that time. Since then, he has had his aortic valve replaced, then his mitral valve. Then he needed a pacemaker, and he’s had stents to open the arteries in his legs. Good grief! Still, he and I soldier on. Together.

I’ve learned over the years that  asking about their family make patients feel special. Don’t tell Mike, but I keep notes right in his electronic record, so I’ll sound like I remember his family. But to really hit a home run, there is one more step – anyone know what it might be? Ask to see a photo!

So at the end of his appointment last month, I asked Mike about his family. At the time I first met him, his children – I believe he has two sons – were both in college, a couple of years apart. The oldest was about to graduate. Now he has several grandchildren, the first of which has just graduated college. So of course, I asked to see a photo. He took out his phone and scrolled to the picture of his grandchildren. He got to the photo of his oldest, in her college graduation gown, with her family – parents and siblings. And then he started to cry. Sobbed like a baby! Whooaa – what to do? I gave him some tissues, sat right next to him on the exam table, and put my arm around him. I didn’t have to say a word.

I can’t know what was going on in Mike’s head, but I suspect that at that moment, the enormity of what has happened to him and what these years have enabled him to see and to experience hit him really hard. I don’t know whether he had thought about it much before – his emotions lead me to believe that maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he hadn’t taken enough time to take a step back and realize . . .

Rabbi Bradley Artson of the AJU talks about how people typically move from task to task. Obligation to obligation, occasionally forgetting or not appreciating great moments because we turn them into these tasks and obligations. So I want to weave together some things I’ve read and experienced during this past year, and maybe give us all some take-aways.

We often need a reminder to remember to enjoy and savor special moments – or simple moments, for that matter. The moment is passing. We all need a call. Rosh Hashanah is that call.

A tiny bit of psychology is in order here. Affective forecasting and the Arrival Falacy are terms relating to our ability to predict how events will make us feel. There is a tendency to think of only the upside of our goals. So we predict that becoming a manager in our company or earning a certain amount of money will make us feel satisfied and accomplished. Well, we get there, but alas, there is no lasting satisfaction. The terms describe how people are deceived into thinking that if only they can achieve a particular goal, all will be well in their lives. They will achieve lasting happiness and fulfillment. It could be a goal in work, it could involve finances, it could involve making a school sports team or getting a particular grade in school. Parents can push and push and push their kids, but even if the kids achieve all their parents hoped they would, there is no guarantee of happiness – for the kids or for the parents.

Our satisfaction upon achieving goals may well be quite short-lived. We may find that our new position brings with it a whole new set of work-related problems. And our wealth might come at a time when we have health or family issues that overwhelm us. Things aren’t at all what we thought they were going to be! That’s Affective Forecasting and the Arrival Fallacy. We think we will know how we’ll feel if only . . . but at what cost, for how long, and with what concurrent issues?

Achievement doesn’t equal happiness – at least not in the long term. We’re pretty good at knowing what will make us, and maybe our kids, happy in the moment, but we’re not very good at all at knowing how good a particular achievement will make us (or them) feel in the long term.

Instead of saying, “Dayenu!” (now, you see, I’m starting to get into the Jewish stuff), we’re disappointed that there is yet another step on the ladder. That all is not bliss. That for all we have, there always seems to be one more missing item.

Well, today will be the good old days before too long. So we must not wait until then. We must cherish moments now, taking time to enjoy those around us. After all, we’re all on the same bus, ultimately going in the same direction. And seldom can we replicate moments of joy.

So with that as the background, here are my proposals to apply in the coming year:

First. Several weeks ago, Nancy and I went to North Carolina for the wedding of the child of friends. The father of the bride, Andrew, walked his daughter down the aisle. Andrew had a very serious bout with cancer last year, and it was uncertain whether he would survive. And here he was. I don’t know about Andrew, but I got very emotional as I watched him walk past me, arm in arm with his daughter.

So number one is: beginning this New Year, make a resolution to say modeh ani – I give thanks –  when you wake up in the morning.  These are the first two words of a one-sentence statement: Modeh ani l’fonechah melech chai v’kayom, shehechezahtah bi nishmati b’chemlah rabah ehmunatechah. “I thank you, living and eternal sovereign, for Your kindness in restoring my soul. How great is Your faithfulness.” I make this declaration every morning as I am getting out of bed.

But if you don’t want to say the whole statement, I hereby give you permission to simply say, “modeh ani.” I give thanks. We live in a series of miracles. Appreciate them. Put your arm around your loved ones. Things happen. Time is fleeting. Appreciate the moments. That is what Rosh Hashanah, and perhaps the shofar, are about – that we must awaken. Don’t fall asleep. Time is passing all of us by. Judaism teaches that we have the task and the privilege of bringing light to each other and to a world that sorely needs it. As Jews, we have the task of illuminating the world with the light of Torah. Let us all awaken and be grateful for the miracles around us and that are ours to enjoy.

Thinking back to Mike, I believe he realized at that moment the extraordinary gift of time that he had received. Time in which he was blessed to see his children grow, mature and themselves become parents.

 Number two. I recently finished humor writer Dave Barry’s book about aging, and the lessons he’s learned from his dog, who is also in the later years of her life. One of them was that what made the dog the happiest was just to be with the family. Curious about lots of things, sure. But being with those who were important to her gave her more pleasure than anything else. Very simple. This was one of several lessons the author learned from his aging dog. We probably already know it – but it’s time to put the lesson into action.

So number two is: spend as much time and be as close as possible to those who mean the most to you. Maybe we have individually found what numerous studies in psychology have been telling us for years: the most important predictor of happiness is spending time with those we care about and with those who care about us – in other words, relationships.

And my third and final proposal: Make memories, and remember those memories. Appreciate special moments.

—Bernie and Joan White (Simma’s parents) celebrated their 50th anniversary in Jerusalem this past year. They had all their children and grandchildren with them. Bernie had 2 photos framed – one had all the grandchildren and the other, the entire family. What a keepsake! What memories Bernie and Joan created for their entire family!

—Another example. Last year, I spoke of my granddaughter Lucy’s baby naming and the indelible memory I had of that event. I can still picture the rabbi carrying Lucy into the congregation, holding her up for all to see. The newest member of their congregation, as he said.This year, I will always remember our trip to visit Lucy (and her parents) last month. She sat on my lap, looked me in the eye, smiled, and said, “Peerpa.” She then presented to me, upon my request, each ear, finger, her cheeks, her chin, and so on, so I could kiss them. Individually. All ten fingers, ten toes, and one nose! How sweet. Indelible memory.

Nancy and I saw wondrous things on our trip to southern Africa in July. We saw animals that are monogamous – living with the same mate until death do they part. We saw animals that are fiercely protective of their young – elephants, for instance, live in entire clans! It was truly magical. When we returned, as I always do, I made a photo book from our trip. Each time I look at it, I relive and enjoy once again the special memories from those days.

Do you know that there is an actual neural pathway in our brain for each memory we have? A unique map for everything that we remember! Whether it be a family event like visiting Lucy, a trip Nancy and I took, or some other special event, those memories have literally become part of me. The more I look at the photos and the more I relive special family moments, the more embedded the memories become. In that very way, those who have been closest to us through our lives are now, actually, part of our brains. They’re part of us! That’s why that moment of Lucy on my lap gets replayed in my mind virtually every day – so it will become further embedded in my brain and will always stay with me.

In Judaism, to remember – zachor – is a mitzvah. We are commanded to remember events of the Jewish people, like the Exodus. Personally, I take this a step further – I feel that the mitzvah of zachor also applies to joyous events of our lives – weddings, births, bar/bat mitzvahs, etc.

Although our tradition sets aside several times a year for the special remembrance of our deceased relatives called, of course, Yizkor, in Judaism, to have joy is also a mitzvah. The upcoming festival of Succot is called, “The season of our Joy.” The Ashrei prayer talks of our joy. Gratitude and Joy are common tropes throughout our liturgy.

So now, on Rosh Hashanah, these are my 3 proposed resolutions: let us resolve to give thanks for each day – modeh ani. Let us resolve to spend as much time as possible with those who mean the most to us, making joyful memories. And let us resolve to experience and remember and be joyful for the wondrous moments in our lives. Let us remember, and let us be joyful.

To our brothers and sisters in this wonderful Kehillah, Nancy and I wish you all shanna tovah. May we all have a sweet year, filled with joyous events.

It seems like only yesterday. However, seventy-five, eighty years have passed since the Holocaust.  My  heart bleeds when I think about the loss of my ancestors. My soul cries out in pain for them and the millions who were slaughtered.  What was their sin to lead to such a terrible end?  Being Jewish? They were flesh and blood ordinary people leading ordinary lives.  As I engulf myself in prayer this Rosh  Hashanah, I wonder what they may have prayed.  I suspect they also prayed for forgiveness for sins. Did they also pray to be spared from the ravages of the Holocaust?  They did not survive, but I believe that their faith did not waiver.  Some survived and bore children. Their children had children who in turn had children. So, here I stand among you today.

As I pray for a good New Year and for forgiveness for my sins, I think about a film that Terry and I viewed during the year. It was titled “No Place on Earth”. It is the true story of Ukrainian Jews who lived underground for nearly one and one-half years to escape the horrors of the Holocaust. It is the longest recorded underground survival experience in history. One scene shows them praying on Yom Kippur. I wonder what form their prayers took? Was it their fervent prayer merely to survive the next year and not meet a horrific death? This is what many must have prayed on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur not that long ago. I recognize that I (no, we) have an obligation in regard to those who perished or suffered during the Holocaust for no reason other than they were Jewish.  Our duty to them, it seems to me, extends beyond Tefilla, Teshuva and Tzedakah. Don’t take me wrong. This threesome remains the formula for removal of any bad decree on the Day of Judgment that may await us. You may recall that last Rosh Hashanah I spoke about the importance of this threesome and suggested that Tefilla may be the most difficult of the three to achieve. Isn’t human nature to make New Year’s resolutions that turn out to be short-lived? Next year I will control my weight. After a week or so of dieting, it’s back to old habits.  Do we not make similar commitments on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? Grant me a good year and next year I will do better. Forgive my sins and next year I will sin less. Accept my pleas of atonement and I will attend services more frequently and even give charity.

I contend that the application of the three-part formula alone does not relieve us of our independent obligation to the victims of the Holocaust. What we owe them is the survival of Judaism. That belief system which arose at Mount Sinai as the throngs received the Torah while proclaiming “We will do and then we will hear”.  It is the religion of our ancestors. It is the religion that survived Amalek, Haman and Hitler. It is the descendants of those people who, although dispersed and slaughtered during the Babylonian and Roman exiles, steadfastly remained the Children of Israel. It is the scattered remnants of the Inquisition and the Holocaust.

How do we fulfill our solemn duty to the victims of the Holocaust? How do we demonstrate our concern for our brethren in Israel who continue to give their lives to preserve our Jewish heritage and protect our G-d given land of Israel? How do we recognize and appreciate their sacrifice?  When we pray for ourselves, our loved ones and others during these Yomim Noraim (days of awe), we should also reflect on the fallen of our people who perished only because they were Jewish. Some died to perpetuate Judaism. Others made the ultimate sacrifice to sustain our cultural and religious beliefs.  When given the opportunity to pray we should grasp it and not make excuses.  We should regularly attend Kehilla services, and excuse me for asking, on time. We should never hesitate to ask G-d for help and forgiveness. But why limit ourselves to requesting only Divine forgiveness?  Shouldn’t we also seek forgiveness from people who we have wronged?  Also, shouldn’t we give charity and display generosity? After all, acts of charitable benevolence and the performance of mitzvot not only benefit others, but they also benefit ourselves.  Moreover, they serve as a fitting tribute to the memory of those who have preceded us. And please don’t forget to thank G-d occasionally for all the good He does for you.

So, as we join today to pray for a good year and for forgiveness by the Almighty for ourselves, our loved ones, family members and others let us also remember to thank G-d for providing us a safe and peaceful existence. And let us not forget the past and our sacred duty to perpetuate Judaism.

Yes, it seems like only yesterday. . .

May G-d grant all of us a good, healthy and blessed year and a year of peace and safety.