“Your mother wears army boots!’ This is the way I started the conversation at Congregation Kneseth Israel this past Shabbat. I wasn’t even sure I could say it outloud. And while, this was the curse that was most frequently shouted, hurled on my playground growing up, I am not sure it is any more. Why is it a curse? Because army boots aren’t feminine, as one of my members pointed out. On the other hand, now we have women who actively serve in the military and maybe it is now a blessing!
This week’s portion, was about blessings and curses. Ultimately the litany concludes with this powerful thought, “See I have set before you today a blessing and a curse. Choose life, that you may live.”
In two weeks, again we will read a series of blessings and curses. The tradition is to read the curses quickly and in a whisper, as if merely saying them out loud will cause them to happen to each one of us. Do we really think that is how curses work?
In four weeks, we will again stand here and sing Avinu Malkenu, the haunting litany that is central to the High Holidays. There is lots to say about Avinu Malkenu, but most of that will wait too. For now, know that it is an ancient prayer that asks for G-d’s blessings in the case of drought. Rabbi Akiva said it and his prayer was answered. Now we don’t seem to have a drought here in Elgin—but there are plenty of places around the globe that do. Do we assume that if a place is undergoing a drought it is because people weren’t praying hard enough? Hardly.
Avinu Malkenu is not said on Shabbat, because we don’t ask G-d for things on Shabbat. Even G-d gets to rest.
Choose life that you may live. How do we choose life? Who would choose curses over blessings? One of the things I am enjoying most about the congregation is that now people are willing to talk about these things and to think deeply. Even more so, they seem to be looking forward to what others are saying and are really listening, deeply listening. This enriches all of our understanding. It energizes me and it is like watching holy sparks fly.
What is the blessing of choosing life? Remaining positive. Acting in this life to assure a place in the world to come. Choosing a life that matters so that our actions mirror what our mouths are saying. Making the world a better place. As someone said, it is sort of like the Nike commercial. You do it. You just do it. We have a choice or more accurately as was pointed out, a series of choices. Little ones lead to bigger ones—in either direction. Sometimes in fact we have too many choices—and it is not just about Chinese food or Mexican food, or which color shirt to wear. If we make enough of the right choices, then we are in fact choosing life and a life that matters.
But sometimes, people choose death. Those people maybe struggling with mental illness or severe, debilitating pain. Or sometimes it is like Pharaoh whose heart G-d hardened. Each choice he made brought him closer to the last plague the death of the first done. Who would choose death over life? So maybe this is about choosing a life that matters. We talked a little about that last week. That G-d requires of us to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our G-d. Or in last week’s formulation, to fear (or revere G-d) to walk with G-d and to love G-d. That is the life we are choosing. By choosing that, then we receive G-d’s blessings.
This week’s portion gives us a blueprint for leading that meaningful life. It talks about the smita year, the seventh year when all the debts are cancelled and the land lays fallow. As Eitz Hayyim tells us, “Much of this chapter is concerned with ensuring that there not emerge in Israel a permanent underclass—persons unable to lift themselves out of poverty. Such a condition would be unfair to human beings, fashioned in the image of G-d and dangerous to society as a breading ground for lawlessness and irresponsibility.”
The first step is cancelling debts in the seventh year. Wow. This is what Rabbi Arthur Green might call Radical Judaism. The Kleins have had an interesting summer, shopping for housing. While we had read about the housing crisis in America and even know friends who lost homes in the economic downturn, it did not make much sense until we started looking at property. I think it has been like looking at the underbelly of the beast. And while the Kleins may benefit, I wonder about a child named Daniel whose home we may soon occupy. His stick picture self-portrait is colored in black crayon on the dry wall in the basemet, his height in 2002 and then again in 2010 is duly recorded by a proud parent. A black crayon dropped at the entrance to the garage. What happened to Daniel? Where is he now? Do we, as a society, have an obligation to Daniel? This portion would suggest yes!
The portion promises that if we forgive debts, there will be no needy among you. This strikes me as some precursor to Maslow’s pyramid. If you have housing, clothes, food, love, security, if you are not poor; then you can work on higher level issues. If there are no needy among you, then G-d will bless you. HOWEVER, and here is what made me incredibly sad. If there are needy people among you, and the text tells us there will always be, “For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you to open your hand to the poor and the needy kinsmen of your land.” Ours is not to finish the task, neither are we free to ignore it, according to Pirke Avot. The issues existed in Biblical times. They are still very real today.
Thank G-d we have the haftarah as a balance. Isaiah teaches, Ho, all who are thirty, come for water, even if you have no money. Come buy food and eat. Buy food without money. Wine and milk without cost. Why do you spend money what is not bread, Your earnings for what does not satisfy….
So the question becomes what satisfies? What is a life that matters? Do we need all the things that our materialistic culture buys? Or should we be spending some of it on other things?
Dr. Ron Wolfson wrote an interesting book, the Seven Questions You’re Asked in Heaven. Now we Jews don’t have nearly as well formed an idea of what heaven might be like so the title of this book intrigued me. We talk about Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden, as a type of Paradise (both Hebrew phrases). We talk about olam ha’ba, the world to come. But we don’t dwell on what that world will be like. We talk about the reward being in this world, not the next world. And yet, we have a strong tradition of stories about the next world.
As I child, I loved the stories of Zlateh the Goat, an IB Singer collection illustrated by Maurice Sendek. The first story was called, A Fool’s Paradise.” There is the famous story of Zusiya Lying on his death bed, Reb Zusya was very upset and crying, tears streaming down his face.
His students asked with great concern, “Reb Zusya, why are you upset? Why are you crying? Are you afraid when you die you will be asked why you were not more like Moses?”
Reb Zusya replied, “I am not afraid that the Holy One will ask me ‘Zusya, why were you not more like Moses?’ Rather, I fear that the Holy One will say, ‘Zusya, why were you not more like Zusya?’”
We don’t have to be Zusya. We don’t have to be Moses. We just have to be ourselves, working for the good of all, as this portion suggests, for the widow, the orphan, the stranger. If we celebrate the holidays then we will see G-d, we will receive G-d’s blessing and know unlimited joy. We don’t have to finish the tasks, but we are not free to ignore them. In the next few weeks we will look more at this question of what is a life that matters.