TORAH SPARKS
Simchat Torah & Bereshit
October 13-14, 2017 | 23-24 Tishrei 5778
Simchat
Torah | Deuteronomy 33:1-34:12, Genesis 1:1-2:3
(Etz
Hayim p. 1202-1212, 3-12; Hertz p. 909-917, 2-6)
Maftir
| Numbers 29:35-30:1 (Etz Hayim p. 936; Hertz p. 698)
Haftarah
| Joshua 1:1-18 (Etz Hayim p. 1266-1268; Hertz p. 984-986)
Shabbat
Mevarechim Hahodesh | Parashat Bereshit | Genesis 1:1-6:8
(Etz
Hayim p. 3-34; Hertz p. 2-20)
Triennial
| Genesis 2:4-4:26 (Etz Hayim p. 12-29; Hertz p. 6-16)
Haftarah
| Isaiah 42:5-43:10 (Etz Hayim p. 35-40; Hertz p. 21-25)
Dvar Torah
Rabbi Joel Levy, Rosh Yeshiva,
Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem
The image of a serpent biting its
own tail is prevalent in many different mythologies. It appeared as early as
1600 BCE in Egypt, and then later amongst the Greeks who called it the Ouroboros, meaning “devouring its tail”.
The psychologist Jung saw the Ouroboros as an innate, universal, idea:
In the image of the Ouroboros lies the
thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory
process…The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and
assimilation of the opposite…it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself
and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He
symbolises the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore
constitutes the secret of the prima materia which […] unquestionably stems
from man’s unconscious. – C.G.Jung, Collected Works, Vol. 14 para. 51
Does this imagery help us to
understand what is happening at that fateful moment when we turn, yet again,
from the end of the Torah back to its very beginning? That instant, when we
return to the start of Bereshit, is the moment when Judaism “slays itself
and brings itself to life.”
In cultures not based around a
primary canonical text there is a free choice of stories and they can be read
in any order. However a closed canonical culture
Dvar
Haftarah
Rabbi Mordechai
Silverstein, Conservative Yeshiva Faculty
Prophets were often
very unpopular characters, saying things people did not want to hear, often in
particularly painful ways. In Isaiah’s opening prophecy, before the Babylonian
Exile, he is instructed to tell the people, sarcastically: “Hear, indeed, but
do not understand; see, indeed, but do not grasp.” (6:9) These bitter and
biting words would not draw Israel closer to God, nor were they intended to, as
God wanted Isaiah to “Dull that people’s mind, stop its ears and seal its eyes
– lest seeing with its eyes and hearing with its ears, it also grasps with its
mind and repents and saves itself.” (6:10) God’s anger at Israel’s disloyalty
had reached the point that punishment was necessary and inevitable.
But in our
Haftarah, some hundred or so years later, we find that the now exiled people
STILL hear without understanding and see without grasping. This time, however,
what they miss are the signs of their impending redemption! The prophet takes
them to task, saying “Listen you who are deaf; you blind ones, look up and see!
Who is so blind as My servant, so deaf as the messenger that I send? Who is so
blind as the chosen one, so blind as the servant of the Lord? Seeing many
things, he gives no heed, with ears open, he hears nothing.” (42:18-20)
A modern Israeli
biblical scholar, Amos Hacham, takes an interesting approach to this verse,
reading it as a dialogue, a bitter exchange between the prophet and his
audience. The prophet calls them blind and deaf and they retort in kind,
calling him blind and deaf! He tells them they are missing the truth – that the
same God that caused their exile also desires, and will enable, their return.
But they say that HE is missing the truth – that they are a ruined people
living under the boot of a great power.
At this point, the
prophet sums up the tragic situation: “The Lord desires His [servant’s]
vindication, that he (the servant – Israel) may magnify and glorify [God’s]
Torah.” But because Israel “… is a people plundered and despoiled: All of
them are trapped in holes, Imprisoned in dungeons.” (See A. Hacham, Isaiah,
Daat L’mikra, pp. 451-3)
Too often, we are
certain that we hear and understand, see and grasp. Being called “deaf and
blind” could and should shock us into re-examining “our truth” but more often
we become defensive and double down. This can not only make bad outcomes
inevitable, but can also delay or defer good outcomes.
Isaiah reminds us
that when we are being our own worst enemies, even sarcastic and insulting
messengers can be the conduit for the divine message.
Vered
Hollander-Goldfarb, Conservative Yeshiva Faculty
Parashat
Vezot Habracha, read only on Simchat Torah and never on a regular Shabbat,
brings the Torah and Moshe’s life to a close.
1) The blessings/personal mentions that Moshe
gives to each tribe (chapter 33) might have been his last words to the people.
Why do you think that Moshe does not give one blessing to the entire nation
together?
2) Moshe goes up on the mountain alone (34:1). Who might we
have expected to go up with him at this point? Why do you think that no one is
going with him?
Chazak Chazak VeNitchazek!
On Shabbat, we return again to Parashat Bereshit.
3) The first creation story (Bereshit 1:1-2:3) ends with the
Seventh Day (2:1-3). What Does God do on that day? How do you think the Seventh
Day/Shabbat is related to all the days that preceded it?
4) In the second creation story (2:4-25) Adam (the Human) is
placed in the Garden of Eden. What is the purpose of placing him there (v.15)?
What do you think is included in that definition? What does it teach us about
the Torah’s view regarding an ideal existence for Humans?
5) By the end of this Parasha we meet Noah, born 10
generations after Adam (5:28-29). Why is he named Noah? (Try to look at the
Hebrew. You may notice that in Midrash Shem – interpreting a name – the
sound of the name is more important than the grammatical meaning of it.) What
is the situation of humanity at this point (see also 6:1-8)?
(Dvar Torah
continued from front page…)
needs to focus its adherents on
the core text in order to sustain its identity. Built into the very concept of
a closed canonical culture is the notion that at a certain point the story will
stop. When we reach the end of the Torah we put the story of Joshua to one
side, along with the entire historiography of the conquest of Canaan; turning
our backs on the future we will head back towards pre-history. The biblical
canon is brought to life, or better, “given a constantly renewable lease on
life” (Yerushalmi, “Zachor”), by our predetermined relationship with
re-reading.
The return to Bereshit is a
source of eternal youth, but it is also filled with an anxiety that Jung
alludes to. As the snake twists its head back into pre-history to consume its
tail, the particularist tale of Exodus and Sinai is forced to confront the shadow
of its universalist beginnings.
So imagine for a second what it
would be like if, instead of heading back to the start of Bereshit, we allowed
ourselves to read on into the book of Joshua. We would surely have to confront
the crisis sparked off by Moses’ death and described by the Amora Rav in
Masechet T’murah 16a:
Rav Judah reported in the name of Rav: When
Moses departed [this world] for the Garden of Eden he said to Joshua: ‘Ask me
concerning all the doubts you have’. He replied to him: ‘My Master, have I ever
left you for one hour and gone elsewhere? Did you not write concerning me in
the Torah: “But his servant Joshua the son of Nun departed not out of the
tabernacle?” (Ex. 33, 11) Immediately the strength [of Moses] weakened and
[Joshua] forgot three hundred laws and there arose [in his mind] seven hundred
doubts [concerning laws]. Then all the Israelites rose up to kill him. The Holy
One, blessed be He, then said to him [Joshua]: ‘It is not possible to tell you.
Go and occupy their attention in war…
Rav understands that the death of
Moses generates a huge sense of loss of continuity amongst the Israelites,
which is then sublimated in violence towards the other inhabitants of the land.
The book of Joshua deals with the Israelites’ anxiety after Moses’ death.
Additionally, were we to continue
reading onwards instead of turning back to Bereshit, we would soon lose our
sense of the coherence of the canon. Where does our story end? Why stop at the
end of the Tanach – what about the rest of the Jewish story? Closed canonical
cultures seem to be doing well in the contemporary world partly because they
provide a sense of safety and closure. Central to the creation of such cultures
lies the moment of “swallowing our tail”.
Whether we read on after the
death of Moses, or whether we choose yet again to return our shoulders to our
Sisyphean stone and go back to the start of Bereshit, we will be beset by
tension and anxiety. Either way we will need to steel ourselves to the challenge:
“Chazak, Chazak V’Nitchazek” – “Be strong, be strong, and let us strengthen one
another!”