Ariel Sharon, former prime minister of Israel, former minister of defense, died. For me it is personal. When you live in Israel, everything is personal, everything is intense. My response is not rare. It is not an exception.

Some history. Ariel Sharon was the minister of defense when my first fiance served in the Israeli army. He knew Sharon personally as a hands on manager and through him I met Sharon. He was known as Arik, short for Lion of G-d because of his courage and his military prowess in the Six Day War and then the Yom Kippur War.

Because of his military accomplishments and his skill as a general, he became the defense minister. That’s who he was when I met him in 1981. That’s when he became the most controversial. In 1982, there was a massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. Sharon was accused of war crimes. In the inquiry that followed, he was found indirectly responsible for not stopping it and not preventing it. The last phone call I received from my friend serving in the Israeli army was to assure me that he was not involved in Sabra and Shatila. It was during break-fast after Yom Kippur.

In 1982, I wrote a paper for a Brandeis student organization about why the war in Lebanon could be justified as self-defense.  Then the unthinkable happened. In early 1983, my fiancé was killed in Lebanon by a terrorist bomb he was trying to disarm, rather than allowing his men to do it. He was following the Israeli strategy of Kadima, “Follow me”. It was the same leadership style Sharon exhibited in the Six Day War. My fiancé died a hero, saving other people’s lives. Six thousand miles away, finishing up my college degree, that was little comfort. The life we were planning was ruptured.

For years I held Arik Sharon personally responsible for his death. I could not forgive him. I followed the news of Sharon intently. He was found indirectly responsible for Sabra and Shatila and resigned as defense minister. He was called the Butcher of Beirut. He sued Time Magazine for libel–the charges were dismissed. The victims of Sabra and Shatilla tried to charge him as a war criminal in Belgium, the case was dismissed. And still i grieved. And still I was not able to forgive.

Sharon became known as the Bulldozer, because he ordered the demolition of Palestinian houses on the West Bank. He promoted the growth of Jewish settlements in what I might call disputed areas of the West Bank. There are those who would argue that his lasting legacy is that he always had the security of Israel first. He was a defender of Israel. But from my vantage sometimes his strategy was ill-advised and he made more enemies, thus risking the security of Israel. That is a subject of much debate, out of scope of this post. I joined Rabbis for Human Rights to support their work stopping the demotion of houses and planting new olive trees. I joined Parents Circle/Family Forum which works on issues of reconciliation between families that have lost loved ones on both sides.

He visited the Al-Asqa Mosque. I wanted to scream, “What were you thinking?” He said it was not a provocation. However, it became the flashpoint for the Intifada. More enemies of Israel made. More people killed on both sides.

Then, Sharon had a change of heart, an about face. After years of supporting the settlements, in 2005 now as Prime Minister, he ordered the removal of Jewish settlers on 25 settlements. He broke with the right-wing Likkud party and formed his own party, Kadima so that he could carry out his plans to disengage in Gaza. Again, we could have much debate about whether leaving Gaza helped create peace, which I think was Sharon’s intention, or provided a platform for more terrorism, which is also true.

We have just spent the last few weeks reading about Pharaoh and his heart. I explained my discomfort with the idea of G-d hardening Pharaoh’s heart. Aren’t the gates of forgiveness always open? Isn’t that exactly what we say during Ne’ilah on Yom Kippur. How could this man who I probably hated have this big a change of heart? Is it real? Could it be trusted? After all these years, could I forgive?

The answer to that, on a very personal level, is yes. Sharon was not personally responsible for my fiancé’s death. He was not a war criminal as others suggested. He was not the Butcher of Beirut as some have called him. He was Arik. Simply Arik, the Lion of G-d, a man of courage.  It takes tremendous courage to change your heart. That is precisely what Sharon did. And in the process he taught me about forgiveness. For me, that is his lasting legacy.

Today my baby turns 24. She is not a baby anymore. She is a capable, competent, confident adult. She is enjoying her emerging life in Los Angeles and I am enjoying watching her. She is full of enthusiasm and optimism. She can conquer the world. She has dreams and aspirations. She has plans for an apartment, for pursuing her acting career, for a new business of her own. She is training hard for the Disney Princess Half Marathon and ran 10 miles today on the elliptical. Far too cold here in Chicago to run outside today!

Yet she still has that child-like wonder and amazement. She can see the beauty hidden in the world. Today we ventured out to see the movie Frozen. It is visually stunning with great music. Listening to her sing, “Do you want to build a snowman,” my own heart melts. An act of true love will melt a frozen heart. But that act doesn’t have to come from a knight in shining armor. In this case, it could be a sister or a smelly iceman, but I don’t want to ruin the plot. It was the perfect way to celebrate her birthday on the coldest day in Chicagoland history. We then had a princess high tea complete with radish sandwiches and hot chocolate (her choice!) and an elegant dinner of duck a l’orange and chocolate soufflés that she cooked. Then a heated game of boggle. Which she won. Of course. I used to be able to beat her but not for several years. And that is the way it should be.

So even with bitterly cold, dangerous conditions, we managed to make her birthday special, joyous, magical. And that is the point. Some people think that celebrating birthdays is a not a Jewish thing. It seems some Jews think to call attention to someone on their birthday might attract the evil eye. Seriously? Yes, seriously. Some even would rather not because the only person in the Torah who celebrates a birthday is Pharaoh. They would rather celebrate the anniversary of starting school, their Bar Mitzvah, their marriage. Or the yahrzeit of a loved one. However, even Chabad http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/481087/jewish/How-Do-Jews-Celebrate-Birthdays.htm  has ways that birthdays can be celebrated in Judaism. And yes, Jews like cake and ice cream (or soufflés and gelato) too!

Giving tzedakah. Davening and giving thanks for your life. Finding a new fruit to experience and saying Shechiaianu. Learning the Psalm of your year. The number of the Psalm plus one (so for my daughter that would be Psalm 25. Use it as a mini-retreat and contemplate your past year and where you want to go. Study Torah. Teach some Torah. Do a good deed. Take on a new mitzvah. Have an aliyah in the synagogue either on the SHabbat before or after or on the day itself if it is a Torah reading day. Celebrate your birthday on the Hebrew calendar. Mine falls on Tu B’shevat. So I do something with trees or ecology or the environment.

My list includes remember and honor your parents. They created you. They created you in love. My mother, after my father died, used to go to one of my favorite restaurants on my birthday, and toast me with one of her friends. I never knew until after she died that she had this tradition.

Chabad says it this way: “Your birthday commemorates the day on which G-d said to you: ‘You, as an individual, are unique and irreplaceable. No person alive, no person who has ever lived, and no person who shall ever live, can fulfill the specific role in My creation I have entrusted to you…'”

Psalm 139 says “You know my sitting down and rising up. You understand my thoughts from afar. You measure my going about and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. There is not a word on my tongue that You O Lord knows it all….You have made my reins; You have knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks unto You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works and that my soul knows that right well.” That is the spirit in which I celebrate birthdays. You do not have to be Moses, or David, or even the Biblical Sarah. You need to be you because you are you.

That is exactly why birthdays are important. Because you are you. So Sarah, my baby, my love, my partner in crime. We celebrate you. Because you are you. We love the person you are becoming. We are proud of you. We love you. We love you for no other reason than because you are you. We look forward to many, many (and maybe warmer!) birthdays.

So have your cake and your ice cream too. Have your champagne. Give tzedakah. Make the world a better place. Wonder and marvel at the world.  L’chaim.

One of the best parts of my job is empowering lay leaders to take their religion, their spirituality, their responsibility seriously. Congregation Kneseth Israel does precisely that and is committed to the process. This past Shabbat was Men’s Club Shabbat. There were 16 men who took an active role in leading the service. Some of them pushed themselves to learn new material or pushed beyond their comfort zones. One lead Ashrei for the first time. One lead the Torah service for the first time. And in mastering the material and wrestling with the language they learned something new, deepening their spirituality. One demonstrated a deep, resonate voice in his Torah blessings that I hadn’t noticed before. He jokes that is the only song in his songbook. One chanted the haftarah, his Bar Mitzvah portion, out of the Federation of Jewish Mens’ Clubs traveling Haftarah scroll, a thing of real art and beauty. And one delighted me with his D’var Torah on Parshat Bo. He delighted me because he taught me some things I hadn’t considered before. And his teaching strikes me as being right on target because it forces me to ask some questions at the end. He is our guest blogger today. Here are his words, unedited:

“SHABBAT SHALOM
Preparing for Men’s Club Shabbat is a real treat for me because I always learn so much and I am going to try today to convey some of that knowledge to you.  For today’s Parsha I learned that our God is very literate and a delightful writer of systematic prose.  I also learned from the story of the plagues how patient he or she can be, but how terrible can be the result of God’s exasperation with mortals.  I also had to face the terrible moral dilemma of the retribution directed against the first born of the Egyptians in the final plague.    Lastly, the phrase “Let my people go” has for me taken on quite a different meaning and import. There is a lot here to contemplate.

                                                     COME VS. GO

One of the first things I learned is that nuanced speech can be lost in translation and the story of the plagues is among the best examples of that.   Today’s parsha is called “Bo’ which in Hebrew really means “come”.  The word “Go” in Hebrew is “lech” and both Bo and lech are used in the recitations about the plagues.   Yet whenever God tells Moses to meet with Pharaoh, no matter the correct Hebrew word, the English translation in your Chumash is always “go”.    But, based on the English translation, I wondered why if God always tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and if Moses always tells or asks Pharaoh to “let my people go”, how come this Parsha is called “Come” rather than “Go”? 

 The answer can be found only in the Hebrew words and not in the English translations you have before you.   When you discern the differences, a whole new and astonishing systematic prose is presented that makes sense.

 Once you recognize the original Hebrew words, the symmetry of the passages not only becomes clear, but then they display a beautiful literary brilliance not possible to discern in the English translations.   Unfortunately, as we read the parsha today, you will be able to look in the first line of the eighth plague for God’s direction to Moses with the correct Hebrew word Bo.  But if you a moment to look at Chapter 7, verse 15 relating to the first plague, the blood plague, you will find lech is the right word for go.  

            The three systems of the nine plagues

Once I understood the difference between “come” and “go”, I could see a startling and unique system of very literate prose.  It becomes a kind of acrostic, which you recall is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message.   Our familiar Ashrei is just such an acrostic.   

Bear with me as I try to explain how Bo and Lech are used when God tells Moses to go or come as the case may be.   I have handed out a list of the plagues just so you can follow me.  

First one divides the nine plagues into three subsets of three plagues each, leaving the 10th aside for the moment:

1. Blood                                                                         Go =Lech= 7:15

2. Frogs.                                                                         Come=Bo=10:1

3.  Lice

**********

4. Wild beasts

5. Pestilence

6. Boils

************

7. Hail

8.  Locusts

9.  Darkness 

**************

10.  Death of the Newborn

 Using this analytic device, we are able to discern certain patterns of characteristics of the plague system as a whole.  The first pattern is that Lech    “go to Pharaoh” as the English translations shows, appears only in the first plague of each of the three subsets.  That is regarding plagues 1, 4, and 7.  

 Then we can see that Bo  “come to Pharaoh”  appears in the second plague of each of the three subsets, covering plagues 2, 5 and 8.  See the symmetry?  It’s “Go” in 1, 4 and 7 and it’s “Come” in 2, 5 and 8.   We then can recognize that whenever “come” Bo is used it really means God says to Moses “come with me” and the action always is in Pharaoh’s palace with God at hand.  Whenever “go” Lech is used, the action takes place outside of the palace with Moses on his own.  

These two little Hebrew words translated properly really put the meat on the bones of the stories.

That leaves the third plague in each subset to be accounted for and what we then see is that there is no “come” Bo  or “go” lech, because in the third plague in each subset, there is no warning to Pharaoh to afford him the opportunity to avoid the punishment and Pharaoh is not involved.  The last plague is each subset is simply punishment for ignoring the first two plagues in each subset, and the third does not happen in any particular location.  Remember 1, 4 and 7 are Lech and 2, 5, and 8 are Bo.   3, 6 and 9 are without confrontation or warning and so no Bo or lech.

There are a number of other non-random literary patterns regarding which of the plagues are public nuisances and which are private to the affected persons or when Moses show respect for Pharaoh and when Pharaoh is considered by Moses as an ordinary person.   Okay, that is enough of this discussion of a unique and very interesting systematic description of the nine plagues by a gifted writer, no matter whom you think is that writer.

                                           God’s patience

Concerning God’s patience, a matter we discussed to some extent last week in connection with an earlier parsha, it was not at all clear to me when God hardened pharaoh’s heart or why, until I recognized that is was Pharaoh who hardened his own heart and was obstinate through the first five plagues.  Only when Pharaoh did not change his mind when he was free to do so, did God harden his heart so that the remaining five plagues would get the job done.   God wanted pharaoh at that point not only to let the people go, he wanted what ultimately happened and that is that pharaoh begged all of the people to leave with their flocks, also permitting great treasures to accompany them.  Yes, God said early on that he would harden the heart of pharaoh, but he did permit free will until Pharaoh proved he could not change his mind during the first five plagues.

                                     One crime for another

Next in connection with today’s Parsha, how do we rationalize the killing of the innocent new-born Egyptians as retaliation for the past wrongs of Pharaoh and his Court?  There really are awesome moral, theological and intellectual dilemmas presented within today’s parsha.  Obviously, there are no sins committed by those Egyptian babies to justify the punishment of death, and even Pharaoh should be given some slack particularly when it was our God who hardened his heart during the final four plagues preceding the murder of the newborn.  Moreover, neither God nor Moses warned Pharaoh or the Egyptians about this final calamity.    

This gruesome infanticide is a heavy price for the liberation of our people, but I can only leave you with the question of what heinous crime justifies another.   In the biblical history, we have seen God’s actual or threatened vengeance in the stories of the plagues, the Golden Calf, and Noah’s flood.   Now, in our lifetimes, given the worldwide atrocities of recent years and the bombing of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, it is a question we and our leaders should pose daily.

LET MY PEOPLE GO

Finally, let’s talk about letting my people go   I am going to take the liberty of reading a Chabad sermonette that captures the theme better than I could say it:

Not surprising it’s called Let My People Go      By Rabbi Yossy Goldman

“The words ring out again and again in the biblical account of the Exodus story, as Moses repeatedly demands of the unrelenting Pharaoh that he grant the Jewish people their freedom.

Actually, the precise words that Moses conveys to the stubborn monarch in the name of God are, “Shalach ami v’yaavduni,”

“Let My people go so that they may serve Me.”

“It is interesting to see how some expressions and phrases become memorable and popular, while others just don’t seem to catch on. “Let My People Go” became the theme song for the story of Egypt and the Exodus way beyond the Jewish community.  It has been used as a catchphrase for a variety of political causes. Unfortunately, the last Hebrew word of the phrase somehow got lost in the shuffle: v’yaavduni  —“that they may serve Me”—never quite made it to the top of the charts.  The drama of the Exodus captures our imagination, while the fact that that the purpose of leaving Egypt was to go to Sinai, receive God’s Torah and fulfill Jewish destiny is less emphasized.  The call to freedom excites the human spirit; the challenge of service and commitment, by contrast, doesn’t seem to elicit as much enthusiasm.”

Goldman then recalls days back in the early ’70s, when Jews the world over were demonstrating for their oppressed brethren in the then Soviet Union, demanding of the Russian government that they allow Jews the freedom to leave the country. Their rallying cry was, “Let My People Go!”   Sadly, they left out the v’yaavduni.    The demonstrators were so concerned about political liberties that they forgot a primary purpose of being free: to enjoy religious freedom and live fulfilled Jewish lives.

Indeed, for so many Russian Jews, obtaining their exit visas and acquiring freedom of movement did little to help them reclaim their spiritual heritage and identity. Seventy years of organized atheism behind the Iron Curtain left their toll. Goldman is delighted that they can live in Israel (or Brighton Beach), but the fact remains that far too many remain outside of the Jewish community and its spiritual orbit.

In South Africa, where Goldman now lives, this situation became blatant.  Blacks have now enjoyed decades of democracy. There have been four free and fair elections where all citizens have had the opportunity to cast their ballots.  It was a long, hard struggle, but political freedom has been achieved. And yet, while confidence levels in South Africa’s future are high, millions of people living there are still suffering from the very same hardships they endured under apartheid—ignorance, poverty and poor health.  The masses remain impoverished and HIV/AIDS is still public enemy number one.

Goldman then observes that political freedom minus spiritual purpose equals disillusionment.  Leaving Egypt without the vision of Sinai would be getting all dressed up with nowhere to go. It is not enough to let our people go. We have to take them somewhere. “That they may serve Me” means that we need to use political freedom to experience the freedom and fulfillment of faith, and a life of spiritual purpose dedicated to God’s service.

I end on that thought.”

So here are my thoughts. THANK YOU for explaining the “Come and Go” scenario because while I knew the words I had not cracked the puzzle and it helps. This is precisely the kind of puzzle that we as Jews, as children of Israel, G-dwrestlers are supposed to struggle with. You leave the moral questions–why does G-d harden Pharaoh’s heart, why does G-d kill innocent Egyptian children hanging in the balance, unanswered. Those we will need to wrestle with further and I invite people to wrestle with them here.  However, thank you for bringing the last piece of the teaching from Goldman. It is not merely “Let My people go.” It is “Let My people go to serve Me.” If we forget the last part of the verse then we remain enslaved to some false gods or we run the risk of idolatry. Freedom comes with responsibilities. A responsibility you have taken quite seriously with this wonderful D’var Torah.

This week we celebrated Rosh Hodesh Shevat, the new month of Shevat which means that Tu B’Shevat, the 15 of Shevat, the new year of the trees is a mere 15 days away, even less now. Perhaps Rosh Hodesh Shevat took a back seat to our secular new year celebrations. Perhaps it got lost in coping with this long Chicagoland winter and several more inches of snow and now bitter cold. Usually I love winter. I like taking walks in fresh powder. I like coming in and sipping hot chocolate. I like ice skating and sledding and skiing. I like grilling steak or smoking a turkey in the snow. I like making snow ice cream. I like cooking soup or roasts or sauerbraten, pumpkin bread or gingerbread and filling the house with yummy smells. I grew up in New York and Evanston and Grand Rapids. I spent years in Boston. I am used to winter. I have coping skills.

This year I admit it, I am struggling with it. My coping skills are starting to fail. Really, drive in the snow to visit someone in the hospital? Really, shovel the driveway again? Really, do I have to train for my half marathon today? Can’t I just go back to bed and wake up when the storm is over? Really, should we cancel services for bitter cold or not? Really. When will spring come?

But then Rosh Hodesh Shevat comes. And I am reminded. The trees will bloom in Israel. The almond trees are blooming. There is a special blessing for seeing fragrant trees blooming. Blessed are You, Lord our G-d Ruler of the universe, who has withheld nothing from the world, and has created lovely creatures and beautiful trees for the children of Adam to enjoy. Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha-olam shelo ḥiseir ba-olamo k’lum uvara vo briyot tovot v’ilanot tovim l’hanot bahem b’nei Adam.

How many of you made a New Year’s Resolution? I don’t any more. I write goals. They are similar but I see them as mile markers. Some years I write something I am looking forward to each month.

This year one of my goals is to run//walk the Disney Princess Half Marathon in February. I am raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Too many relatives and friends have been touched by this horrible disease. If you want to contribute go to http://pages.teamintraining.org/vtnt/dipihalf14/mfrischklein#home . In addition to this great cause, the training is making me physically stronger and mentally tougher. I am hopeful it will help me lose weight and get back in shape. I am hopeful that it will help me heal: from the attack in Israel long ago, from the car accident six years ago and from being a Type 2 Diabetic. While I train on the elliptical I sing to myself. On my play list are these phrases: Ozi v’zimrat Yah, v’hi yeshua. Frequently translated: “The Lord is my strength and my might; He is my deliverance.” But there is a pun there with zimrat–it also means I sing of G-d my deliverer.
Eleh chamda libi, chusa na v’al natitaleh. “These my heart desires. Have mercy on me and do not forsake me.”
And my favorite is “V’taher libenu l’ovdecha b’emet, Purify our hearts to serve You in truth.

With each day my heart gets cleansed. No more plaque hardening the arteries. G-d is somehow helping with the process. This knowledge makes the miles fly by. G-d loves me and wants me to be healthy and will be my strength.

But this past week we read a troubling verse. In Exodus 7:3, it says G-d hardens Pharaoh’s heart. What? I thought the gates of repentance are always open! That’s what we read on Yom Kippur. How can G-d harden Pharaoh’s heart? How can G-d punish all the Egyptians for the sins of one person, one ruler? Where is G-d’s compassion here?

In Exodus 7:14 and 7:22 we read that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, although the text does not say by whom. Then, in Exodus 8:15, 8:32, and 9:34 it is revealed that Pharaoh hardened his own heart by “sinning yet again” and refusing to release the Israelites. Only as the plagues grew worse and Pharaoh became more stubborn does the text begin to say God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. What is going on here? The classical commentaries don’t help me much. Although I was delighted to find this d’var Torah by my thesis advisor, Rabbi Bernard Zlotowitz: http://www.ajrsem.org/teachings/journal/5765journal/zlotowitz5765/. He asks many of the same questions I do. Is this some kind of predestination–smacking more of Dutch Calvinism and my growing up in Grand Rapids? What happened to free will? Doesn’t Pharaoh have a choice? This is some kind of three strikes, five plagues and you’re out rule? Does it help that Pharaoh was warned and he chose to put his people at risk? Can we say that Pharaoh was just plain stubborn? What are the implications for us?

Cassuto teaches that this is just a Hebrew idiom. There is no difference between “Pharaoh hardened his heart” and “G-d hardened Pharaoh’s heart” since all actions are ultimately attributed to G-d. I’m not buying it. As no English teacher/professor with a red pen would. “Use the active voice.”  Sforno seems to suggest that the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was the only way to ensure free will.

In the face of such impressive miracles and signs, had not Pharaoh’s heart been hardened, the latter would have let the Israelites go, but his action would not have then been motivated by sincere repentance and submission to the Divine will, but merely because he could not bear the suffering of the plagues…. But God hardened his heart, fortified his resistance to enable him to endure the plagues and refrain from letting the Israelites go… so that they might thereby acknowledge My greatness and goodness and turn to Me in true repentance. (Sforno on Exodus)

It is Nechama Leibowitz who makes the most sense to me. She shows that there is a pattern in the verses. In the first five plagues Pharaoh hardens his own heart. Only after the sixth plague, boils, does the Torah state “vayechazek et lev Paroh” (“And He hardened Pharaoh’s heart”). So this is what we learn:
At first, Pharaoh sets his own course. However, with every plague, it becomes more difficult for him to change his pattern. His reactions become habitual, until gradually it is impossible for him to change. She bases this teaching on the Talmudic passage: “Said Reish Lakish: What is the meaning of the verse (Proverbs 3:34) ‘If to scorners He will scorn, but to the meek He will show favor’? If a person tries to defile himself, he is given an opening; if he tries to purify himself, he is helped (from Above)” (BT Shabbat 104a).

We learn in Weight Watchers that we need to make our goals routines. Pack a snack. Plan your space. Get up and move. They need to become habits. Good habits. As we celebrate New Year’s Day, with or without the making of resolutions or goals, may we choose good habits, may our hearts be purified not hardened, and may we be helped by the Eternal.

Thoughts and actions eventually form our habits, personalities, and world views. May we each make an effort to direct our thoughts and actions to the way we would wish them to be, permanently.

I just signed a letter, a thank you note and struggled over how. I have many names: Margaret, Joy, Frisch,  Klein, Miriam Simcha Bat David v’Neily, Mom, Mommy, Rabbi, Fawn, Princess. Our Torah portion this past week is like that. Last week we began reading the book of Exodus, in Hebrew Sh’mot, because it begins, “And these are the names.” But in Chapter One, there are no names. Slaves lack an identity. They are interchangeable cogs.

This past week we received a genealogy. We can begin to put these people into time and space. They become real. Chapter 6 begins with the story of Reuven and Shimon, tells us about Levi so that Amram who we meet in Chapter One can take a wife, Yocheved and together they can give birth to Aaron and Moses. Jerome Chanes, a professor at the Academy for Jewish Religion, teaches us “In the chapter six genealogy, verses 16-25 give us a full description of the Levite family, a full explanation.  At this point Moses, who was introduced to his “father” at the seneh (the bush)-“I am the God of your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”-knows fully who his family is, and who he is. The text is telling Moshe, in effect, “You are a covenantal child.”  Moses has an identity, and his job now is to tell Benai Yisrael who they are, to give them an identity.”

As always when I read the Academy D’var Torah, this got me thinking. Names are important. But why? Knowing someone’s name as we learn from the Odyssey creates a certain power. More importantly I think it creates a certain intimacy. You know me well enough to call me by name. Any of my names. Those who know me really well call me by my middle name–which is the name I call myself. It seems more familiar, more intimate.

This week’s portion expands upon the names of G-d as well. Yes, G-d tells Moses at the burning bush, “I am the G-d of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Yes, G-d is Eheyeh Asher Eheyeh, however one translates that. I will be who I will be. I am that I am.  But here, at the very beginning of Chapter Six we learn more. G-d appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, but did not make Himself fully known. Now we know that the name of G-d is YHVH.

There are many names for the One G-d. Each name teaches us something more about G-d. Each one allows us more intimacy with G-d and a deeper relationship. Sometimes G-d is just El, G-d. Elah, the Aramaic form is related to the Arabic word Allah, the Muslim name for G-d. Sometimes G-d is El Shaddai. Sometimes G-d is Elyon, G-d on High. Hagar the first to name G-d, El Roi, The G-d of Seeing. Sometimes G-d is YHVH, which we pronounce as Adonai and translate as Lord or Master. Sometimes G-d is Rachum, the Compassionate One, coming from the root for womb. Others call G-d, Rofeh Cholim, Healer of the Sick, or Matir Asurim, Freer of Captives. Others call G-d Yotzer Or, Fashioner of Light, or Borei et HaKol, Creator of Everything or Oseh shalom, Maker of Peace. Sometimes G-d is Tzur, Rock or Rachaman, Merciful One. Sometimes G-d is all of those and more!

Other names include Shechinah, the Divine Presence, frequently seen as the feminine side of G-d. Or Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father, Our King. And while I believe G-d is neither masculine or feminine, Hebrew is a gendered language and it is hard to express the totality of G-d. Some call G-d HaMakom (the Place or the Omnipresent One). Some call G-d, the Eternal One, striving for gender-neutral language which is easier done in English than Hebrew.

So now we know the names: Amram, Yocheved, Moses, Aaron, Miriam, Shifrah, Puah, Reuven, Shimon, Levi, Nachson ben Aminidav. Even Pharaoh’s daughter is named in the mid rash: Batya. We are rooted in that history. And we know the names of G-d. On any given day I can find a name for G-d that fits the image I need. Knowing all these names makes my relationship with G-d deeper and richer. I think that is what is happening with Moses when G-d reveals more of G-d’s nature to him. It allows Moses, who is slow of speech, to call on all the parts of G-d Moses needs. In the process it allows all of us to do that as well. In the process we receive an identity and we are no longer slaves. We leave the narrow spaces.

Jeremiah was a bullfrog, was a good friend of mine…singing Joy the world.” What does this song have to do with today’s Torah portion? Why is Jeremiah compared to a bullfrog? What is a prophet?

“Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came out of the womb I sanctified you and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:4

This sets up this week’s haftarah portion—if you are Sephardic and which we will read this week. It ties into this week’s Torah portion because they are both about call. What do we mean that Jeremiah and Moses were called? Who is called today?

While there is a lot written about Moses and Jeremiah, I want to compare this verse to another one from Psalms. Psalm 139: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me…For You have formed my reins; You have knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Psalm 139:1, 13

This is “Relational Judaism” as we have been studying at its best. This is that I-Thou relationship that Buber and then Wolfson have been discussing. While we talk about prophets and rabbis and priests and ministers being called or having a calling, this verse means that each of us is known by God, even before we are born, and set apart and make holy, consecrated, sanctified for something. What is that something?

The use of the word womb is common to both, as is the idea that the Lord has known someone before birth.  Is this a common metaphor in the Tanakh or is it unique to these two sources? Is there a connection between G-d’s mercy and compassion frequently linked to word rechem, meaning womb, and knowing someone before birth?  Is this knowledge a source of comfort or of fear? Because it is talking about womb, a uniquely feminine image, are there any feminist interpretations of this imagery?

Jack Lundbom explains that there is “an inclusio” of major importance we find by comparing verses 1:6: with verse 20:18 when Jeremiah laments, (and Jeremiah always laments!) “Why from the womb did I come forth to see trouble and sorrow and have my days end in shame?”  He believes that it is natural when contemplating one’s death to reflect on one’s birth as well. it can be read, “Why did I come forth from the womb? Answer: Because Yahweh called me before I came forth from the womb.”[1] (page 28-29). Despite the despair of this classic lament, it answers with “affirmation and hope.” Jeremiah was born because G-d called him forth to be born.

It would seem that the new Jewish Publication Society translation of verse 4 makes yet another point by arranging the spacing as it does, emphasizing the three verbs associated with Jeremiah’s call:

“Before I created you in the womb, I selected you
Before you were born, I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations.”[2]

There is the sense that G-d needed or required Jeremiah, that G-d knew him and that he was set aside and made holy.

Only Jeremiah is told that he will be a prophet to the nations. While many of the commentators point out that it is predestined that G-d will call Jeremiah, it is critical to note that Jeremiah, like Moses objects and says that he is too young and cannot speak. This makes both of them what we call “reluctant prophets” like Jonah who did not want to go to Nivevah and tried to run away, as far as he could, all the way to Tarshish. Not until God reassures Jeremiah that G-d will be present can Jeremiah accept what he must do. Only then could Jeremiah accept his appointment, his task to be a prophet to the nations.

Holladay points out that the verb y-tz-r is usually taken to mean formed or fashioned. However, it could be a ‘near miss’ with the verb tz-v-r, to summon as in Psalm 77:3. “It is striking that in Isa 49:1, 5 we have ‘from the womb he has called me and ‘shapes me from the womb,’ two phrases within Isa 49:1-6 which may reflect the expected verb and the actual verb in the present phrase.”[3] He believes that “I summoned you” makes more sense, “given the diction of Psalm 139:13..All five verbs then point to Jrm’s being called. In Jrm’s case his birth and his vocation are coterminous: there was never a time he was not summoned.”[4] Based on this work, it would seem that Holladay is correct that these calls of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Moses and Gideon follow a formula of commission, objection, reassurance and sign of G-d’s presence.

Ellen Davis Lewin She argues that Jeremiah has a dual role, both that of prophet—G-d’s messenger and of mediator.  But she pushes the point further. “His life is intolerable because he is G-d’s prophet to a faithless people and cannot himself forsake that commission. Jeremiah’s desperate question, ‘Why did I come out of the womb?’ points directly to the answer given before it was ever posed: ‘To be a prophet to the nations.’ (1.5).” It is Jeremiah’s use of his own personal struggles to inform his prophecy and to enhance his authority. “He submits the record of his own struggle as both a contrast to the easy lies spoken by the prophets of hope and an aid to the community’s interpretation. Jeremiah offers the prophetic process itself as the validation of his message…Like the people he addresses, Jeremiah has faced G-d as Enemy. Only that personal confrontation substantiates his claim that G-d is Deliverer, for Israel as for himself, and provides the basis on which the argument for authority must finally rest.”[5]

Yehoshua Gitay argues in his article in Prophecy and Prophets published by Scholars Press that there is a difference between the private vision of Jeremiah and his call with the fact that this experience has been published.  Publishing it makes it public and accessible to all. “The call of the prophet is apparently a dramatic moment in his life, and one could expect a vivid description of Jeremiah’s call in the book ascribed to him. However, the narrative uses a stereotyped stylistic structure (Habel); and one should question whether this formulaic approach concealed any expression of personal feeling that might reflect the prophet’s intimate religious experience. The act of publishing contradicts the intimate tone of a private affair; it indicates that the narrator seeks to turn the personal affair of Jeremiah’s call into a public event.”[6]

“The reference to beten, (belly) connotes not the physicality of formation. The belly is the place of emotions, thus conveying the intimate relationship between G-d and the chosen one..”[7] Not only was Jeremiah called before he was born, but G-d promises in verse 9 that he need not fear, for like Moses and Gideon, G-d’s presence will go with him. These are words that are meant to comfort Jeremiah.; the phrase ‘I will be with you’ appears in Exod. 3:12 in the call to Moses and in Judg 6:16 in the call to Gideon.”[8] Lawrence Boadt links the calls of Moses and Jeremiah together by pointing out that with both there is a divine meeting, a call, an objection, a reassurance and a sign.”[9]

But what about for the rest of us? Do we have to be selected and chosen, set apart and made holy by G-d before we receive that reassurance? I don’t think so. Psalm 139 has been much beloved throughout the centuries as a promise of G-d’s omnipresence and omniscience.

Psalm 139 begins with the idea that G-d searches us and knows us as individuals. Although the object “me” is not included in the Hebrew it is understood in most translations. The verb form kh-k-r has the dual sense of “to search” and “to examine.” The same verb khokair is repeated in Jeremiah 17:10, when it says, “I, the Lord search the heart” Both the Soncino edition of Psalms and Rabbi Freehof have linked these verses together. As we have said earlier, this kind of knowing denotes an intimate form of relationship. Freehof sees this as “One of the most intimate and spiritual of the psalms. The psalmist is so conscious of G-d’s nearness, that he feels that G-d knows his every thought. But G-d though intimate and near, is also omnipresent, filling the universe. There is no place where we can escape G-d’s presence. It is no wonder that G-d knows our every thought since He is our Creator…It is not strange that G-d knows man so well. He has created him and formed him even in the womb.”[10]

This explanation takes it out of the specific call of a specific person Jeremiah and makes idea that G-d knows each of us before our birth accessible to us all.  The psalm continues with the emphasis on the word You, that is repeated in the Hebrew, implying that only G-d can know us that well, that intimately—in our hearts, thoughts, feelings, our whole being.

The Soncino edition of Psalms quotes Maimonides as saying, ‘This is the noblest utterance in the Psalter of pure contemplative theism, animated and not crushed by the thought of G-d’s omniscience and omnipresence.’…The writer’s realization of G-d is most intimate and personal, the effect of religious experience rather than of rational meditation.” [11]  It cites Ibn  Ezra as declaring this psalm ‘the most glorious on the theme of the ways of G-d and is unequalled in the five Books of the Psalter..[12]

Weiser in his commentary on Psalms teaches that more important is the idea that this is not an impersonal account “in abstract theological definitions” but rather his personal experience of the reality of G-d. This view he shared with his readers and imparts “fresh, lively tones which even today still directly touch the heart of the reader.”[13] God did not stop speaking with the deaths of Ezra and Nehemiah. It is still possible to discern God’s presence and God’s call today! That fills us with hope.

The analogy between Psalm 139 and Jeremiah’s call “It also implies that G-d will take care of Jeremiah, that his special love for him runs deep, deeper than even that of the parents who conceived and gave birth to their son. This piety echoes the trust expressed by the psalmist in Ps 22:10-11 that G-d had watched over him and cared for him since his conception in the womb. In Hebrew, knowing carries the sense of experiencing intimate friendship and strong loyalty. Consecration comes from the same Hebrew word that expresses holiness. It will not just be a dedication, it will be a religious commitment of a special kind.”[14]

It is also important to understand the root of the word for womb. Like the G-d who is accessible even when hidden in the dark and can create even in darkness, the womb is a dark place but full of compassion and warmth. The mystery of creation of the world by G-d is likewise echoed by the personal creation of a person by G-d in his or her mother’s womb. G-d is not limited to any physical space nor is G-d limited in G-d’s ability to create.

So what is a call? How do we see this as modern Jews? How does it differ from what Christians use in terms of a minister being called or feeling called?

When I was applying to rabbinical school, I was told to avoid the phrase. Too Christian. People would look on you with skepticism, even fear. Maybe you are crazy. God is talking to you. If someone told me they saw a bush burning unconsumed, I might think they were crazy too. But I think something is going on—something deep. Something profound.

Perhaps Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian Theologian, has it right: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

So how do we find out where that intersection is—a place where we are happy, joyful and we can do something to make the world a better place? There is one book that I routinely buy two at a time, because I loan someone a copy and it won’t come back. That book begins to help each of us answer that question, sort of a Jewish What Color is Your Parachute. Jeffrey Salkin who wrote Putting G-d on the Guest List about Bnei Mitzvah, wrote, Being G-d’s Partner and finding the spiritual connection to our work.

He begins by telling the story of his move from Pennsylvania to Long Island. He was impressed with the head of the moving crew, a big, burly, enthusiastic guy, as Salkin said, “a dead ringer for Willie Nelson,” but someone who saw the connection between is work and what God wants him to be doing. He was enthusiastic precisely because as he said, “Moving is hard for most people. It’s a very vulnerable time for them. People are nervous about going to a new community and about having strangers pack their most precious possessions. So, I think God wants me to treat my customers with love and to make them feel that I care about their things and their life. God wants me to help make their changes go smoothly. If I can be happy about it, maybe they can be, too.” Salkin suggests in his book, and I agree, that each person has a unique call, a unique role to play that will make the world a better place while being happy. For me, I have found that in the rabbinate.

Many people spend this quiet period, call it what you will, Winter Break, Christmas Vacation, the week between Christmas and New Year’s reflecting and setting goals for the new (secular) year. Some think about work and their connection to it. If that is the case for you, feel free to borrow the book. It will sit up here on the bimah. It will guide you through thinking about the connection between spirituality and work and help you find more meaning—either in what you are doing now—or in what you might like to be doing.

We see then, in the case of both Psalms and Jeremiah, we learn that G-d can know a person before birth and therefore is in intimate and personal relationship with him. I think perhaps what is most significant then is that while the call of Jeremiah represents a personal experience made public by its publishing, the fact that the psalmist is able to describe a similar sense means that it is possible for any of us, not only those called to be prophets. We, then, have a decision to make about whether to accept our call or our relationship to the Divine as did Jeremiah or whether we will turn a deaf ear and walk away. If we accept our call, and make the world a better place, then we will find joy. Joy to the World. May all our celebrations be merry and bright and may the new year dawn with a renewed ability to hear that still small voice of God so that we can find our place in the world and find our call.

I wrestled with what to say this weekend. As a congregation we were participating in Human Rights Shabbat together with 180 congregations around the globe. However, last week I had spoken about the topic because of the death of Nelson Mandela. As I discovered, there was still much to say…

“C.O.F.F.E.E. Coffee is not for me. It’s a drink that people wake up with, that it makes them nervous is no myth. Slaves to a coffee cup. They can’t give coffee up.”

.When I was a little girl and we lived in Evanston, we would go to the Old Town School of Folk Music periodically. There I was introduced to a wonderful singer/songwriter with a deep resonate voice, similar to Odetta who sang this song. I even have it on an LP. Remember LPs?

I never thought I would become a slave to a coffee cup. How did that happen? What does it mean to be a slave? People answered, being subservient to someone else, not having control, not having any choice, not being paid, not having any power, being oppressed.

Coffee is one of those things that we are enslaved to. And in the process of needing our daily cup of joe, we in turn enslave others. That’s what today’s Torah portion is about. It is a bridge between Genesis and Exodus, between Joseph enslaving Egyptians so that Egypt had enough food during a famine and then Pharaoh 400 years later enslaving Israelites. What happened here?

Pharaoh had slaves to build the pyramids. Southern plantation owners had slaves to pick cotton. Even John Adams, a northern states president had slaves. But that was long ago and far away. It doesn’t happen any more right? Think again.

Yes, there are modern day slaves, just like our portion is talking about. Does anyone know how many? (Guesses of 20 million, 26 million). About 27 million of them according to slaveryfootprint.org. When I took their survey, they estimate 49 work for me. They make my car, my running shoes, my body wash, my clothing, my gadgets. They make yours too. They even help make my chocolate and my coffee.

Children chained to looms in Bangladesh so we can have cheap t-shirts. CNN’s lead headline this week online that girls in one neighborhood of Cambodia are being sold into the sex trade. Most likely for people in the United States. Tomato workers in Florida who provide the tomatoes to many of our grocery stores and to Wendy’s who are not being treated fairly.

And then there is my beloved coffee—I work hard to find fair trade, organic, kosher coffee. These days you will find me drinking Green Mountain Columbian Fair Trade. Sometimes I drink Delicious Peace, a collective of Jews, Christians and Muslims in Uganda who grow fair traded, organic, kosher certified coffee. But what I buy is a drop in the bucket. When companies like Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds switch over to mostly Fair Trade as opposed to about 3% their buying power makes a difference in the life of farmers.

Why does all of this matter? What does this have to do with us as Jews, as Americans?  As one member pointed out, “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” (Deuteronomy 16:20). Every year at Passover we say that “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.” And because of that experience we are told that we have an obligation to treat the stranger, the widow and the orphan correctly. 36 times, double life, we are told to protect the stranger, the orphan and widow. That’s more than any commandment on kashrut, on Shabbat, on how to davven.

We are told that we have to work to free the captive wherever they are. We pray for their release in the G’vurot prayer and we work for it as we saw with Gilad Shalit and many others. The rabbis declared the redemption of captives to be a mitzvah of the highest order. Knowing that there are millions of people today who are enslaved, we cannot remain silent.

We have an obligation to treat workers correctly. We must pay them a living wage and pay them on time. We are commanded to not withhold the wages of a laborer overnight. We are taught that we are each created in the image of the Divine, b’tzelem elohim. This means that no person should ever be a slave to another.

We need to avoid buying goods that are produced unethically. The rabbis forbid buying goods that were known to be stolen, holding the buyers as responsible as the thieves. Today, we have an obligation to avoid buying those products that have documented human rights abuses in their supply chains and supporting independent monitoring of worker conditions.  This includes re-examining how we source kosher meat, where our Chanukah gelt comes from and what coffee, yes back to the coffee, we are drinking.

Jews were at the vanguard of organized labor. We started the labor movement. Names like Samuel Gompers, Emma Goldman, Sidney Hillman. They are ours. Bread and Roses, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, actions that helped establish the 40 hour work week, 8 hour work day, child labor laws, safer working conditions. We are proud of the contributions we made. And we may take some of them for granted these days.

One of the founders to this congregation, Rabbi Emil Hirsch, whose photo was prominently displayed on the Elgin Jewish History exhibit, was famous for calling his own congregants to task for their treatment of workers. He helped negotiate the labor contract for Hart Schaffner and Marx after Hannah Shapiro, led a walkout in response to a wage cut. 40,000 others joined this strike. With Hirsch’s help—or nagging, Schaffner eventually settled, including a 10% wage increase, a 54 hour work week and an independent arbitration committee to resolve ongoing labor disputes.

I never thought that I would be married to a Teamster but for 11 years we answered the question that the UPS ad asked, “What can Brown do for you,” very differently than the ads suggested. Brown provided health insurance, like we will most likely never see again, with free premiums and a 0 deductible, it gave us an education credit, it gave us stability, it gave us a pension. And when Simon was being bullied early on because he was deemed too slow and later because he was Jewish, the union went to bat for him and protected his job.

We can’t solve the poverty question or the slavery question here today. We can talk about the Universal Declaration for Human Rights, the anniversary of its ratification we celebrate this weekend. You have a copy of the 30 articles with you. I have taken each one and linked them with Jewish values and halachot. When we talk about modern day slavery, worker’s wrights and poverty, we are talking about human rights. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states: “Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.” Now there has been much written in recent years about trade unions and how they have been the downfall of the auto industry or how they mismanaged pensions. There have been attempts, starting with Reagan and air traffic controllers to break unions. Our neighbors to the north, in Wisconsin, thought they could do it at the state level. Perhaps some of you believe that in a free market economy unions have outlived their usefulness.

Has any one read the book, Nickeled and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich? My daughter read it as part of Sociology 101 in college and then made me read it. It was eye opening. The author, a journalist, went under cover to work in a restaurant in Florida, a Hotel maid in Maine and a Wal-Mart worker in Minnesota. She spent a year doing this. Could she make it financially without dipping into any of her own personal financial reserves. The answer was sometimes yes, sometimes no. Mostly no. When she was living in a hotel, it was because she didn’t have first and last month rent and a security deposit. She also didn’t have a can opener or a microwave or a refrigerator. She would go to the food pantry, get cans and then not be able to open them or heat them. It was easier and sometimes cheaper to swing through McDonalds.

These are current, very current events. Last week the news reported that McDonald’s workers walked off the job in an attempt gain higher wages. Last month a McDonald’s representative told a low wage earner to apply for food stamps. The families of fast food employees nation wide receive $1B in food stamps per year according to a study by the University of California Berkeley and the University of Illinois. This year McDonald’s tried to train its staff by teaching budgeting. It was a good idea but it received a lot of negative press when it showed needing to have a second job, charging only $20 a month for gas and having nothing in the budget for childcare or groceries, although it did allow for $800 in discretionary spending. http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/mcdonalds/budgetJournal/budgetJournal.php

While writing this sermon, I made it a point to call one of our members who owns 11 McDonald’s franchises. I began by thanking him since McDonald’s does use fair trade coffee and has worked with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to make sure that the tomatoes McDonald’s uses are grown and harvested in the most ethical conditions. This partnership was ratified in 2007 and amounted to McDonald’s needing to pay a penny a pound more, something Wendy’s still has not agreed to.

Our member reports that in Chicagoland McDonald’s did not see many workers walk off the job last week. His interpretation—unions face declining membership and underfunded pensions and need new members so they trumped up the story. He assures me that McDonald’s puts its people first and that is an especially big focus this year. His franchise pays worker’s health benefits not through the corporate self-funded plan and he believes that for those who want to advance, there are plenty of opportunities for training, education, jobs beyond the line workers. He contrasts it with WalMart, which he says are next to impossible to deal with. At WalMart the majority of employees make less than $25,000 and many of them are forced to rely on food stamps. One WalMart in the Cleveland area was setting up its own internal food bank to support its own workers. HR personnel are equipped to give out food bank numbers to WalMart employees. Will organizing solve all these problems? No. Will raising the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour work? Maybe. But not if that cost needs to be passed on to the consumer and the consumer stops buying $1.00 hamburgers.

Recently a CEO of another fast food chain took the Food Stamp challenge. Ron Shaich, the founder of Panara Bread attempted to live on the $4.50 a day. He found it was nearly impossible. http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/25/opinion/shaich-food-stamp-challenge/ He believes that this is all of our problem and that we must solve it. “Eighty percent of households that have problems putting food on the table include the most vulnerable — children, the elderly and the disabled…. Throughout my SNAP Challenge, I kept returning to the same questions: What kind of society do we want to live in? Do we want to live in a country that turns a cold shoulder to the problem of hunger, or one in which we work together to face it head on? We, in corporate America, must be part of the solution.”

If you think that this is only for poor families, people we don’t know here at the synagogue and never see, think again. In our own congregation, we have families that are not making it financially. Families that take from our community pantry because that is the only way they can stretch their food budge. Families that make impossible choices between heat, prescription drugs, rent or food.

The sponsor of Human Rights Shabbat, Truah, is an organization of 1800 rabbis. Its mission statement reads: T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights is an organization of rabbis from all streams of Judaism that acts on the Jewish imperative to respect and protect the human rights of all people. Grounded in Torah and our Jewish historical experience and guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we advocate for human rights in Israel and North America. T’ruah continues the historic work of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, which was founded in 2002 and renamed T’ruah in January 2013. – See more at: http://www.truah.org/who-we-are/mission-statement.html#sthash.HNEPSXAW.dpuf

Truah has worked effectively on issues of slavery and trafficking, on worker’s rights, on human rights issues in Israel both with Palestinians and Bedouins. I am proud to cast my voice with theirs.

So my question to you as a congregation—are we willing to pay a little more for our coffee, for our chocolate, for our tomatoes, for our olives. The sisterhood gift shop is already doing a good job. We sell fair traded kippot, like the one I am wearing today made by craftspeople in Guatemala and fair traded Shabbat candles from Africa. I exhort us to do more. To speak out. But not just to speak out. To take the next step. To be active. To be intentional. To take the slavery footprint survey. To commit to buying products for the synagogue and for ourselves that are fair traded. To make sure our own synagogue employees are treated equitably. To make sure that any of our employees are treated with dignity and respect, with a living wage that we pay as promised. To consider petitioning our elected officials to protect worker rights and to fight against trafficking.

Then when we read the text as we are about to do, of how Joseph was buried in Egypt and how the Israelites brought Joseph’s bones back out of Egypt, we will not be the oppressors, we will remember our legacy of being slaves, and of being set free. Chazak, chazak v’nitchazek.

Last week we continued to read the story of Joseph as the news was breaking that Nelson Mandela had died. I realized as I was putting my d’var Torah together that we needed to address what Mandela, King and Joseph teach us. All three were dreamers. All three were interpreters and implementers of dreams. All three were in prison. All three preached reconciliation, either by their words, or by their actions.

Joseph dreamed that everyone around him bowed down to him. Then he interpreted dreams while he was in prison, thereby qualifying him to be called upon to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams and as Lord Rabbi Sacks pointed out last week–implement the vision.

King was a dreamer. We all remember his “I have a dream”. When I hear the quote from Amos in our Siddur Sim Shalom, I hear it in the deep, resonate voice of King, “Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” (Amos 5:24) King was working on implementing his dream when he was gunned down far too young. Others have taken up his clarion call for justice. Both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were written on the conference room table of the Religious Action Center, the legislative arm of the Reform Movement in Washington DC.  We need to remain vigilant to assure that the hard fought equality becomes a reality and not just vision. We have that obligation as Jews.

Mandela was a dreamer too. He said, “I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.” and “A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.” He spent much of his time in prison writing and working to implement his vision of a world where his nation would not be divided by color and apartheid.

All three of these men went to prison. King famously wrote “A Letter from the Birmingham Jail” exhorting his fellow clergymen to continue the fight, that the time was right, explaining the four steps to non-violent protest. Mandela quipped that “In my country we go to prison first and then become President.” (to which some Illinois residents respond, in our state we become governor and then go to prison).

But for each of these men who spent time in jail, they learned something. They learned the power of forgiveness and reconciliation. Mandella has been saluted all week as a man of deep forgiveness. For saying things like, “You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.” and “Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.” “We forgive but not forgotten.” “If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.”

And he said as he was leaving prison after 27 years, “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” Would I have the strength to do that? I would hope so but I don’t know. None of us knows for sure. We can only hope–and model what Joseph, King and Mandela taught.

How does someone leave that sense of bitterness and hatred behind? How does one forgive without forgetting? What about the prison experiences of Joseph, King and Mandela allowed them to offer reconciliation to their enemies? to their brothers?

We looked at their actual words. I divided the group into three groups, one to study Joseph, one King and one Mandela. We read their actual words. We talked about what they teach us about dreams, leadership, reconciliation. The conversation was deep. The King group, reading excerpts of a Letter from the Birmingham Jail, did not want to come back together. We could probably still be talking about it!

In this week’s Torah portion, Joseph offers his brothers reconciliation. The very brothers that threw him in a pit, allowed him to be taken to Egypt as a slave and told their father that he was dead. So on Shabbat morning, we looked closely at the text. Some Christians developed something called “Liberation Theology,” the idea from Exodus that G-d wants us to be free–a dream shared by Joseph, King and Mandela, a hope that kept the African American slaves alive before the Emancipation.

It has been said that the book of Genesis is the story of our family–our patriarchs and matriarchs, the formative stories. And the story of Exodus is how we became a people. But the story of Exodus really begins in this week’s parsha. In Chapter 45 we are told that Joseph stood (nitzavim), like at the end of Deuteronomy when we all “Atem nitzavim kulchem” stood before…he cried out as did the Israelites under Egyptian yoke and he had everyone exit from his presence, hotzi’u, just as the Israelites exited from Egypt 400 years later. His sobs were so loud, when he revealed himself that the Egyptians who had exited could hear him. He embraced Benjamin, his youngest brother and wept.

One congregant pointed out the night before that we have become Judahites, not Josephites, because it is Judah who rescues Benjamin and would have been willing to take the fall for him. It is Judah who calls for reconciliation, not Joseph. I would argue however, that it is Joseph who powerfully acts out that reconciliation by weeping openly and supporting his brothers and father. Looking closely at the haftarah, we are given another image, of Judah and Joseph together, reconciled. Not only reconciled but as the text says “I am going to take the stick of Joseph–which is in the hand of Ephraim..and I will place the stick of Judah upon it and make them into one stick, they shall be joined in My hand.”

As I read these words in shul, I had goosebumps. I could not read these words of Ezekiel 19, without thinking about how Mandela used the World Cup Rugby victory in South Africa to heal a nation, how he brought the blacks and whites together and created one nation. I was reminded of watching the movie Invictus with my nephews just before they went to South Africa for the World Cup Soccer games. Part of the movie focuses on Mandela’s experience in prison and how the poem “Invictus”, by William Ernest Henley, inspired him and kept him whole:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever base god may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

The last stanza gets me every time. May we all learn to be the masters of our fate and the captains of our soul. May we become like Joseph, King and Mandela, able to dream, interpret dreams and rise to be great leaders. Mandela understood that he was not perfect. He was human: “I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”

Freedom does carry with it responsibilities. We learn that in the story of Exodus. We are reminded of that every time we sing Michamocha, every time we act out the plagues at a Passover seder by diminishing our joy of freedom by remembering the pain of the Egyptians with each drop of wine spilled.

One of Mandela’s mistakes may have been his oft quoted line, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” For him, this was the responsibility of that until all of us are free, none of us are free. However, from this statement, some people began calling Israel an apartheid state without having all the facts. Israel is not an apartheid state. Nonetheless,  I worry about human rights violations. Deuteronomy is clear on how to fight a war and fruit trees may not be cut down. Olive trees are fruit trees. A house may not be torn down–and that would include being bulldozed an all too frequent occurrence on the West Bank. Citizens may not be expelled as was suggested for the Druze. (That situation may have been defeated this week with the pressure of 800 rabbis, including me).

Nonetheless, Mandela’s statement was wrong and frequently taken out of context. And yet, two wrongs do not make a right. While Israel sent its president, its prime minister, Benjamin Nitanyahu should have attended. That would have given the world a powerful example of reconciliation. He, who bears the name Benjamin who reconciled with his brother Joseph, in this week’s parsha, missed a critical opportunity to work for peace and stabilize the region.

The funeral is now over. In the meantime, may we continue to learn the lessons of reconciliation that being in jail can teach. May we learn not to be bitter in our own lives. May we continue to work for an age where all people can dwell under their vines and fig trees and none will make them afraid. May justice roll down like water and righteousness as a mighty stream. And may Mandela’s life continue to be a blessing.

Yesterday lunch I was at my monthly meeting of the 16th Circuit Court Family Violence Faith Watch Committee. We were discussing our annual conference about domestic violence and faith. We decided that the focus of the day would be how faith communities discuss forgiveness when it comes to domestic violence. It is a tricky topic and one that I wrote part of my rabbinic thesis about.

Over time, survivors go through a process of forgiving themselves, their abusers, their communities that didn’t shield them and G-d.

Sometimes we in the faith communities don’t help. Some of us tell victims to forgive before they themselves are ready. Sometimes, we add the words, “You should.” “You must” or add pressure by saying G-d forgives those who trespass so we should forgive those who trespass, or turn the other cheek, or in the 16th century words of Rabbi Luria, added to many Jewish prayerbooks as part of the bedtime ritual, “I hereby forgive anyone who has angered or provoked me or sinned against me, physically or financially or by failing to give me due respect, or in any other matter relating to me, involuntarily or willingly, inadvertently or deliberately, whether in word or deed: let no one incur punishment because of me.”

That last one becomes one of those difficult texts. Really? Forgive someone who hurt me physically? Financially? Can I do that? Can anyone do that? Or is it just something we aspire to?

My job at the conference will be to do an interactive text study of some of those texts, across religious traditions. It is a job I am well suited for, as I jokingly remind people that I got an A in a course entitled, “Justice, Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Jewish and Christian Thought.”

It was in this class where I read extensively the words of Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela,  held in prison for 27 years for his activism against apartheid, against racism. Nelson Mandela who became the first president of a unified South Africa. Nelson Mandela who reached out to his enemies and invited them to his inauguration. Nelson Mandela who insisted on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Nelson Mandela who is known for sitting in that jail and forgiving his captors.

In Simon Wiesenthal’s seminal book, The Sunflower, On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, which we read for that class, Robert McAfee Brown acknowledges that “perhaps there are situations where sacrificial love, with forgiveness at the heart of it, can make a difference, and can even empower” (pp. 122-123). He cites Nelson Mandela and Tomas Borge as examples of men who have forgiven wrongs that many might see as unforgivable.

Mandela himself said in his book, Long Road to Freedom, “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” He is talking about forgiveness. In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech he said, “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. We forgive but not forgotten…Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.”

As part of the debate on the special report of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee he said, “We recall our terrible past so that we can deal with it, to forgive where forgiveness is necessary, without forgetting; to ensure that never again will such inhumanity tear us apart; and to move ourselves to eradicate a legacy that lurks dangerously as a threat to our democracy.”

Forgiveness is a difficult thing. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Forgiveness is not a one time thing. It is a process. Rabbi Harold Kushner teaches, “Since my husband walked out on us, every month is a struggle to pay our bills. I have to tell my kids we have no money to go to the movies, while he’s living it up with his new wife in another state. How can you tell me to forgive him?”   I answered her, “I’m not asking you to forgive him because what he did was acceptable. It wasn’t; it was mean and selfish. I’m asking you to forgive because he doesn’t deserve the power to live in your head and turn you into a bitter, angry woman. By holding on to that resentment, you are not hurting him, but you are hurting yourself.” Can a victim of domestic violence get to this place? Does he or she need to? Maybe for the reasons that Kushner cites. I would never tell a victim of domestic violence that they have to forgive their abuser. Until people feels safe, they cannot forgive.

Forgiveness is difficult. Forgiveness is complicated. Forgiveness happens slowly over time. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Forgiveness does not mean not pursuing justice. It is a softening, a flowering, a measure of healing–and only one measure. It is about putting the pieces of our lives back together and there is no one way to do that and no time line.

Nelson Mandela led by example. He led from the front and from the back when he needed to, as he himself said. Our job as leaders is to follow his lead.  I applaud Mandela for the courage that he displayed. I admire his leadership. May his memory continue as a blessing. May we all learn from his example.