" The Missing Blessing"
Parashat Va-yekhi
Genesis 47:28 - 50:26
In this week’s parashah, the last of the Book of Genesis, Jacob, our perfectly imperfect patriarch, comes to the end of his long and eventful life—a life shaped, you might say, by the effort to grow into his father Isaac’s blessing—the blessing stolen from his huntsman brother, Esau: to receive the dew of the heavens, the abundance of earth, to be a lord among nations, and a ruler of his kinsmen. Now, lying on his deathbed, eyes “kavdu mizoken,” heavy with age, as his father’s had been at the end of his life, it is Jacob’s turn to bless his large, unruly brood, twelve sons, sired through four mothers—the beloved Rachel, the less loved Leah, and their handmaid surrogates, Bilhah and Zilpah.
Last year during the week of Parashat Va-yekhi, I was co-leading a retreat at Commonweal in the Pacific coastal hamlet of Bolinas, CA. Attending the retreat was a multi-generational group of artists and activists who had come together to deepen their connection to Jewish text and practice. I looked forward to chanting from Torah on Shabbat and had chosen some of these verses in which Jacob instructs and blesses his twelve sons. As is the custom in my Jewish Renewal community, I planned to introduce the verses with a kavannah, an intention, designed to “call” to the Torah whoever felt called by the essence of that aliyah, and then to seal the reading with a spontaneous mi-she’berakh, a blessing inspired by the encounter between the text, the moment, and the energy of the people present.
As I studied my verses throughout the week and meditated on possible kavannot, on the blessing that might come to all of us through Jacob’s sometimes opaque, seemingly prophetic blessings for each of his twelve sons, nothing was coming. Usually, when I’m to leyen Torah, streams of text and commentary, both old and new, flow together and mix with my intuitive sense of who will be in the room and what they might need to hear. Now I felt completely dry.
On Shabbat morning, before we gathered for our service, I walked through the pine trees to a small meditation hut perched on a windswept bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Commonweal was founded more than 40 years ago, with a vision of providing healing retreat space for cancer patients and their families. Many of the folks who have come to meditate in the tiny chapel by the sea have brought both deep grief and the dawning of acceptance––for their own years shortened or for the imminent passing of a loved one. Alone there, in the quiet, resonant space filled with the loving energy of the many who had meditated there before me, I sank into a reverie.
Suddenly it was as if the ruakh ha-kodesh, the ocean winds outside and the rise and fall of breath within, had swept the heaviness from my eyes and freed an inner voice, whispering to me how to enter the Torah text on this particular Shabbat, surrounded by these particular folks, many of whom were young and burning with a passion for justice for people of all races and genders and classes, and for our earth. Quickly I made my way back to our communal meeting room, where the Shabbat service was beginning.
When it came time to chant the verses of Jacob’s final prophetic blessings for his sons, I explained how I had struggled to connect with the Torah’s message for this Shabbat and for our group, and how I had gone to meditate on the bluff. “What came to me,” I told them, “is that the I could not bring through this Torah, because the blessing for Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter, is missing. In our parashah Jacob sees and touches and honors and blesses his two grandsons, Menashe and Efraim, Joseph’s sons, and then offers blessings for each of his own twelve sons, whose offspring will become the tribes of Israel. But nowhere is Dinah—the beautiful, raped, disgraced daughter of Leah—seen or mentioned or blessed.”
As I spoke, I could sense Dinah hovering just outside the room in which Jacob lay dying. Or perhaps she was far away, in exile. Had she come down to Egypt with the rest of the family to escape the famine in Canaan? Or had she been drummed out of the family? Ancient and contemporary midrashim, most notably Anita Diamant’s richly imagined The Red Tent, have attempted to fill in the bare bones of Dinah’s story, but I needed her here, this day, this Shabbat, present with her brothers at their father’s bedside, seen, acknowledged.
So I invited all of us, together, to channel the words of Dinah’s missing blessing. I can’t remember exactly what we said, it was so much of the moment. There were affirmations of Dinah’s being, expressions of comfort and understanding and honor. And there were tears. I heard one of my fellow retreat leaders, a male rabbi, sitting behind me, quietly sobbing. “Dinah, come, we welcome you! No matter what has befallen you in your life, no matter what path you have chosen, you, too, are our lineage holder! You, too deserve your father’s blessing. We honor you, we make space for you in this room, in our family. You are seen, embraced, invited.”
I felt the spirit of Dinah seep into the room. Only then, only after we had ignited the “white fire” of Torah, the invisible words emanating from between the lines of the Torah scroll and rising from our hearts and throats, was I able to chant the verses inscribed on the parchment.
Sometimes what is missing is as important as what is seemingly present. As countless generations of midrashists have taught us, it is often from these proverbial “white spaces,” these wellsprings of dream, imagination, and visionary truth, that the Torah needed for this very moment, the Torah that speaks directly to our hearts, bubbles up.
On this and on every Shabbat, let us bless our daughters and our sons, our nieces and our nephews, our grandchildren, our students—our beloved young people of every gender—not only with our words, but through the integrity with which we live and through our fierce, ongoing commitment to make this world a better, more habitable place for them to grow and come of age in. And let us never fail to witness, name, and cherish each one’s shining essence: “May God help you become exactly who you are. May the Divine bless and keep you safe; may God’s light shine upon you with grace; may you perceive the Holiness in the faces of others and in the world, lifting you up, cherishing you, making you whole.”
Khazak khazak, v’nit’khazek,may we be strong, strong, and strengthen one another.
© Rabbi Diane Elliot 2019
Parashat Va-yekhi
Genesis 47:28 - 50:26
In this week’s parashah, the last of the Book of Genesis, Jacob, our perfectly imperfect patriarch, comes to the end of his long and eventful life—a life shaped, you might say, by the effort to grow into his father Isaac’s blessing—the blessing stolen from his huntsman brother, Esau: to receive the dew of the heavens, the abundance of earth, to be a lord among nations, and a ruler of his kinsmen. Now, lying on his deathbed, eyes “kavdu mizoken,” heavy with age, as his father’s had been at the end of his life, it is Jacob’s turn to bless his large, unruly brood, twelve sons, sired through four mothers—the beloved Rachel, the less loved Leah, and their handmaid surrogates, Bilhah and Zilpah.
Last year during the week of Parashat Va-yekhi, I was co-leading a retreat at Commonweal in the Pacific coastal hamlet of Bolinas, CA. Attending the retreat was a multi-generational group of artists and activists who had come together to deepen their connection to Jewish text and practice. I looked forward to chanting from Torah on Shabbat and had chosen some of these verses in which Jacob instructs and blesses his twelve sons. As is the custom in my Jewish Renewal community, I planned to introduce the verses with a kavannah, an intention, designed to “call” to the Torah whoever felt called by the essence of that aliyah, and then to seal the reading with a spontaneous mi-she’berakh, a blessing inspired by the encounter between the text, the moment, and the energy of the people present.
As I studied my verses throughout the week and meditated on possible kavannot, on the blessing that might come to all of us through Jacob’s sometimes opaque, seemingly prophetic blessings for each of his twelve sons, nothing was coming. Usually, when I’m to leyen Torah, streams of text and commentary, both old and new, flow together and mix with my intuitive sense of who will be in the room and what they might need to hear. Now I felt completely dry.
On Shabbat morning, before we gathered for our service, I walked through the pine trees to a small meditation hut perched on a windswept bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Commonweal was founded more than 40 years ago, with a vision of providing healing retreat space for cancer patients and their families. Many of the folks who have come to meditate in the tiny chapel by the sea have brought both deep grief and the dawning of acceptance––for their own years shortened or for the imminent passing of a loved one. Alone there, in the quiet, resonant space filled with the loving energy of the many who had meditated there before me, I sank into a reverie.
Suddenly it was as if the ruakh ha-kodesh, the ocean winds outside and the rise and fall of breath within, had swept the heaviness from my eyes and freed an inner voice, whispering to me how to enter the Torah text on this particular Shabbat, surrounded by these particular folks, many of whom were young and burning with a passion for justice for people of all races and genders and classes, and for our earth. Quickly I made my way back to our communal meeting room, where the Shabbat service was beginning.
When it came time to chant the verses of Jacob’s final prophetic blessings for his sons, I explained how I had struggled to connect with the Torah’s message for this Shabbat and for our group, and how I had gone to meditate on the bluff. “What came to me,” I told them, “is that the I could not bring through this Torah, because the blessing for Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter, is missing. In our parashah Jacob sees and touches and honors and blesses his two grandsons, Menashe and Efraim, Joseph’s sons, and then offers blessings for each of his own twelve sons, whose offspring will become the tribes of Israel. But nowhere is Dinah—the beautiful, raped, disgraced daughter of Leah—seen or mentioned or blessed.”
As I spoke, I could sense Dinah hovering just outside the room in which Jacob lay dying. Or perhaps she was far away, in exile. Had she come down to Egypt with the rest of the family to escape the famine in Canaan? Or had she been drummed out of the family? Ancient and contemporary midrashim, most notably Anita Diamant’s richly imagined The Red Tent, have attempted to fill in the bare bones of Dinah’s story, but I needed her here, this day, this Shabbat, present with her brothers at their father’s bedside, seen, acknowledged.
So I invited all of us, together, to channel the words of Dinah’s missing blessing. I can’t remember exactly what we said, it was so much of the moment. There were affirmations of Dinah’s being, expressions of comfort and understanding and honor. And there were tears. I heard one of my fellow retreat leaders, a male rabbi, sitting behind me, quietly sobbing. “Dinah, come, we welcome you! No matter what has befallen you in your life, no matter what path you have chosen, you, too, are our lineage holder! You, too deserve your father’s blessing. We honor you, we make space for you in this room, in our family. You are seen, embraced, invited.”
I felt the spirit of Dinah seep into the room. Only then, only after we had ignited the “white fire” of Torah, the invisible words emanating from between the lines of the Torah scroll and rising from our hearts and throats, was I able to chant the verses inscribed on the parchment.
Sometimes what is missing is as important as what is seemingly present. As countless generations of midrashists have taught us, it is often from these proverbial “white spaces,” these wellsprings of dream, imagination, and visionary truth, that the Torah needed for this very moment, the Torah that speaks directly to our hearts, bubbles up.
On this and on every Shabbat, let us bless our daughters and our sons, our nieces and our nephews, our grandchildren, our students—our beloved young people of every gender—not only with our words, but through the integrity with which we live and through our fierce, ongoing commitment to make this world a better, more habitable place for them to grow and come of age in. And let us never fail to witness, name, and cherish each one’s shining essence: “May God help you become exactly who you are. May the Divine bless and keep you safe; may God’s light shine upon you with grace; may you perceive the Holiness in the faces of others and in the world, lifting you up, cherishing you, making you whole.”
Khazak khazak, v’nit’khazek,may we be strong, strong, and strengthen one another.
© Rabbi Diane Elliot 2019
“Embracing Infinity”
Parashat Sh'mini
Leviticus 9:1-11:47
“Va-yehi ba-yom hash’mini…” It is on the eighth day that the dedication of the Mishkan, the desert Tabernacle, spoken into being by God’s desire to dwell amongst the Israelites and built with their heart-offerings, culminates in Aaron’s successful performance, for the first time, of his priestly service. After he performs all the offerings flawlessly, according to Divine direction, Aaron raises his hands to bless the people, and YHVHmaterializes as a density visible to all! Holy fire leaps forth to consume the offerings, a great joyous cry of relief rises from every throat and, as if with a single impulse, the whole people throw themselves upon the ground in awe.
Suddenly, in the midst of this ritual high drama, a shocking rupture occurs—Nadav and Avihu, Aaron’s eldest sons, each place fire and incense upon their fire pans and bring “esh zara, strange fire,” before the altar. In an instant, they are consumed by the same miraculous Divine fire that, just moments before, had engulfed with favor their father’s offerings.
At this excruciating moment, Moses says to his brother, simply, “This is what God meant when saying, ‘Through those near to me will I be sanctified; before all the people will I be glorified.’ ” Aaron’s response? “Va-yidom Aharon, and Aaron was silent.” (Leviticus 10:3)
Rashi, the great 11thcentury Torah commentator, interprets Moses’ words as high praise for the spiritual attainments of Aaron’s sons. Moses is telling Aaron, Rashi posits, that it’s because of Nadav and Avihu’s “nearness” to God, their saintliness, that the final sanctification of the Mishkanhas taken place through their deaths.
I want to hear the tone of Moses’ voice, to see his face. Have his eyes softened in empathy? Are they brimming with tears? Is he speaking gently, attempting to offer his brother some comfort in the face of unspeakable loss? Or is he impassive, majestic, still rapt with the elevated energy of ceremony, teaching his brother yet another lesson about the Torah order that is henceforth to govern Israel’s religious and communal life?
And what of Aaron’s silence? Does it signify, as the Biur(Naphtali Hirz Wessely, German, 18thc.) suggests, patience, resignation, and an inner peace that accepts his sons’ fate and receives with equanimity ol malkhut shamayim, heaven’s yoke? Or is Aaron’s a shocked, frozen, stunned silence? After all, God stayed Abraham’s hand when Isaac was upon the altar! Why now must these sons, these princes of the people, be sacrificed (drawn close), along with the bulls, rams, and goats?
Only once in my life have I experienced the sudden, shocking loss of someone with whom I was emotionally and spiritually bound up. It was not the loss of my child or close relative, but of my teacher, R. David World-Blank z”l, killed in a car crash at the age of 47. At the moment I received the news, it felt like being kicked in the gut and having my heart ripped open at the same time. I wanted to cry out, to writhe, but at the time, I was living in a shared household with people I didn’t know well, with whom I didn’t feel safe. So I kept silent as I tried to stay present and ride the powerful feelings and sensations of wrenching pain alternating with numbness and disbelief.
The psalmist cries out to God, “l’ma’an yizamerkha kavod v’lo yidom, Adonai elohai, l’olam odeka, So that my soul might sing Your glory and not be silent, YHVH, my God, I will forever thank you!” (Psalm 30:13) Here the quality of yidomis not a resigned or accepting silence, but a heavy-hearted silence that chokes off joyful song. Gratitude and praise, the psalmist suggests, can release the voice again, providing the antidote to this silence of despair.
But both the psalmist and Aaron know that this takes time. “Ba-erev yalin bekhi, v’la boker rinah, at night one lies down weeping, but with the dawn—joyful singing!” (Psalm 30:6) In the “dark night of the soul,” pain can be digested, and eventually transmuted into song. Aaron, ever more in touch with the human, fleshly realm than his God-centered brother, instructs Moses in this truth by refusing to eat the sin-offering within the sacred precinct on the same day that his sons have died. “Didn’t they, this very day, bring close their sin offering and their burnt offering before YHVH—and things like this befell me? Am I now to eat the sin-offering? Would YHVHapprove?” (Leviticus 10:19)
Yom ha-sh’mini, the “eighth day,” takes us beyond the pale of Creation, the familiar rhythm of seven, and into the realm of the Infinite, where the mysteries of life and death, of joy and loss, of elation and heartbreak, flow into one another in a single song of simultaneous love and awe. It’s not an easy realm for most of us to inhabit.
When such ruptures, such losses occur in our own lives, may we be gentle with ourselves, honoring the nights of weeping, the days of silence, and taking the time, as Aaron teaches, to allow words of praise and thanksgiving and blessing to find their way through our shattered hearts and gradually back into our mouths, where they teach us, bit by bit, to embrace the Vastness, the infinity, for which we each are a vessel.
© Rabbi Diane Elliot 2015
“I've Got You Under My Skin”
Parashat Tazria-Metzora
Leviticus 12:1-15:33
This week’s parashah presents a number of conditions that, in ancient times, were seen to render a person “tamei,” a word usually translated as “contaminated” or “impure.”
Particularly puzzling is the case of the metzora, a person suffering from the mysterious skin disease of tzara’at (which will later afflict Miriam when she speaks of Moses in a dishonoring way). A person so diagnosed by the priest would be required to go into a kind of mourning, tearing her clothing, shaving her head, and calling out, “Tamei, tamei, contaminated, contaminated!” He or she would be sent to dwell in isolation outside the camp until the affliction resolved itself. A priestly purification ritual would mark the person’s reintegration into the community.
The great modern Torah commentator Nehama Leibowitz poses the question: why, when there are so many physical and spiritual challenges in life, does Torah make a point of teaching us how to combat this particular disease? As the beginning of an answer, Professor Leibowitz cites Midrash emphasizing that, in each suspected case of tzara’at, there is a waiting period of seven days, from initial signs to diagnosis.
The rabbinic commentators interpret this gradual, progressive onset as a sign of Divine grace; through these symptoms, a person is being put on notice by HaShem that he is out of balance. More specifically, the Sages point to the word metzora as a contraction of “motzi ra,” a person who “brings out the bad,” by speaking ill of another. They interpret the swellings, scabs, or shiny patches embossed upon the skin as physical manifestations of spiritual imbalance and ethical failure.
How is tzara’at cured? Torah tells us only that the sufferer is to be quarantined, sent into isolation. But we’re not told what the metzora does out there, beyond the pale of communal life. Does she fast and pray, weep and repent, take homeopathics, soak in Aveeno baths, use ointments and salves, do yoga? Or does she simply sit quietly, watch the changing light, listen to the wind, and wait for a sea change?
I find it significant Torah’s prescription for a disease that disturbs the integrity of skin is separation. Skin itself is both a separator and a connector. Like clothing, vessels, and houses, each of which could also become infected with tzara’at, skin serves as a defining boundary, differentiating inner from outer. In my experience, the everyday stresses of familial relationships, raising children, earning a living, and participating in community life often compromise our boundaries. When I’m flooded with information, when I’ve ingested more food or imagery or emotions than my systems can process, both my physical and my energetic skins express the distress. I become “thin-skinned,” “leaky,” irritable, more likely to lash out at a loved one or to dishonor or simply ignore my fellow beings. I can’t distinguish what’s emotionally mine from what belongs to others. I become tamei, cut off from the sacredness of life.
At such times, the most useful spiritual practice I’ve yet found is to declare myself “contaminated!” and to remove myself to a space mikhutz la’makhaneh, outside the camp, whether for an hour’s hike in Wildcat Canyon or a several-day-long silent retreat. I rest the faculty of speech that can be so abused and give my “skins” the opportunity to regenerate themselves. Sometimes knowing when to exit, when to absent oneself, is the most spiritually powerful action one can take. Perhaps this is the deep torah of the metzora: that when our boundaries become leaky and compromised, it’s the Divine Presence, woven into our very structure (“…v’shokhanti b’tokham,” ..”and I will dwell within them”), that bubbles to the surface, from under our skins, guiding us onto the path of retreat and purification.
© Rabbi Diane Elliot 2008
“For Heaven’s Sake”
Parashat Korakh
Numbers 16:1 -18:32
Our Torah tradition seems to present us with two kinds of enemies—those who are “other” like Amalek and the Philistines, attacking Israel and threatening its survival from without; and those who transform from “us,” to “other” as their words and actions threaten to unravel the very spiritual and moral fabric of the community from within.
In this week’s parashah we witness the painful and disturbing swiftness with which the unity of the Israelite people can shatter, swiftly reconfigured to “us” and “them,” when Korakh, a community leader of impeccable lineage separates himself from the kahal, drawing other leaders of the community into a rebellion against the authority of Moses and Aaron. In the ensuing spiritual showdown, orchestrated by Moses, the earth splits open, swallowing Korakh, the members of his household, and all their possessions, while 250 other leaders of the community who had stood with Korakh are consumed by G~d’s fire as they offer incense. When the people protest, G~d’s fury is unleashed upon them in a plague.
One classic interpretation of this troubling story is expressed in a passage from the Mishnah (Avot 5:17): “Controversy for the sake of heaven (makhloket she’hi l’shem shamayim) will in the end yield fruitful results, while that which is not for the sake of heaven will not. An example of controversy for the sake of heaven: that of Hillel and Shamai. An example of controversy not for the sake of heaven: that of Korakh.”
The sages imply something very profound here: the disastrous result of Korakh’s mutiny stems not from the relative merit of his complaint, but from the way he conducts the dispute. For is there not, after all, truth in Korakh’s claim, that we are all One before G~d, all holy? Had not the mishkan been built so that G~d’s Presence could manifest within each one of the Israelites and in the midst of the community, as well as through its prophetic and priestly leaders?
Contemporary Biblical scholar Avivah Zornberg invokes Levinas’ image of “the voice from another shore” to further unpack Korakh’s failure. In her analysis, Moses, heavily invested in speaking, tries until the last moment to engage Korakh in an interaction that might have a chance of restoring the integrity of the kahal. But after making the initial accusation, Korakh remains silent, unwilling to engage with the “voice from another shore” that irritates and annoys him, unwilling to enliven the space between Moses and himself because, the Midrash suggests, he is afraid of being won over.
A controversy for heaven’s sake, as my colleague Rabbi Shelly Lewis wrote last week, “assumes a bond of trust and affection between the interlocutors. It also assumes a willingness to listen, to learn, and to accept the perspective of another if it proves to be the best. The sides seek the best, the most wise solution.” Refusing to engage, to take even a single step into the gap that separates him from Moses and Aaron, Korakh generates an irreparable crack in the community, one that is mirrored by the crack in the earth that opens under him, swallowing all that he is and has. In his disengagement, his fear to let his challenge be challenged, he controverts the very truth he seeks to assert, invoking heaven in a way that, ultimately, is not for heaven’s sake.
These past ten days, following news of the situation currently unfolding off the shores of Gaza, I’ve read many passionate, conflicting interpretations and felt the painful, unsoothable tension of a seemingly intractable conflict once again escalating, both in the Middle East and within our own communities. I’ve been tempted to ask, as I imagine the community of Israelites in the wilderness, exhausted and traumatized, must also have been asking as they witnessed the confrontation between Korakh and Moses: who has the ear of heaven? who speaks with the voice of heaven? who can be trusted?
But to ask these kinds of questions ultimately pulls me back from a terrifyingly shaky edge on which I need to stand—the place where I have to admit that I don’t know what’s going on. This is the groundless ground of true engagement, the Void between polarities from which, our mystics teach, all Creation was birthed. Korakh’s name, which comes from the Hebrew root meaning “bald” or “absent,” hints at his inability to stay present in the face of this very Void (Ayin) in which opposites dissolve and something new can emerge. And so he falls, leaving a hole in the heart of the world, depriving the community of the richness he might have offered in service of the Holy, if only all parties had been able to stay engaged, present, and vulnerable. I pray that we may somehow learn at last to rest together in the place of Ayin, with humility and love, inviting the Light that can shine only through the broken shards of our certainties, our self-righteousness, our most dearly held convictions.
© Rabbi Diane Elliot 2010