Parashat Ki Tissa
Exodus 30:11-38

Our Torah portion opens as a continuation of God’s imaginings of the wonderful creation of a Tent of Meeting, sanctified for the purpose of solidifying the bond between Israel and God. This dream is interrupted by the tragic shattering of that bond when Israel constructs a Golden Calf and worships it. The rest of the story concerns Moses’ desperate – and successful! – efforts to repair that break. And next week we will pick up again with the creation of a sanctuary. Continue reading →

Parashat T’tzaveh
Exodus 27:20-30:10

Why did God take us out of Egypt? The Torah offers a number of explanations in various places. Our Torah portion mentions one of them. After detailing the elements that go into making the Sanctuary, and after describing the vestments of the priests who would minister there, God says: “And I shall dwell (v’shakhanti) amongst the Children of Israel and I will become for them an Almighty God. And thy will know that I am the Eternal One, their Almighty God, [and that] I took them out of the land of Egypt in order to set My dwelling among them; I am the Eternal, their Almighty God.” (Ex. 29:45-46)

In last week’s Torah portion we heard the famous saying, “Let them build a sanctuary for Me and I will dwell among them.” (Ex. 25:8) Here we have a repetition of that idea, but with the added explanation that it is not only our own efforts to create a sacred home for God that draws God into our midst. In addition we learn that this was God’s purpose from the very first. God liberated us from slavery “in order to set My dwelling among them.” Rashi on our verse puts this notion in strong terms: “On condition that I will dwell among them.” Many commentators are taken aback by this wording. Could we imagine that our extrication from the suffering of slavery was not a supreme good in and of itself, but was conditioned on our acceptance of God’s Presence? What if we declined to accept God? Would our slavery then be acceptable? That idea is impossible to accept.

Nahmanides suggests a mystical answer. It is not only that we are called upon to accept God into our midst for our own benefit. God’s dwelling among us is a “Heavenly need – tzorekh gavo`ah”. Rational approaches to religion in general and to Judaism in particular make a basic assumption that God does not really need our prayers (and certainly not our animal sacrifices!). If religion has any value in that view, it is in the way it helps us build community and open ourselves to higher aspirations and to the presence of others. But Nahmanides’ radical concept tells us something very different: God needs us. And, in some ways, God’s need for us is more acute and more constant than our need for God.  Indeed, we may or may not accept God as our Companion, and we may not even feel the need to do so. But, says our mystical tradition, God constantly feels the need for our closeness. God is, thus, a Being with “special needs.” The Torah tries to sensitize us so that we may make the necessary accommodations for God’s dwelling among us. We are meant to learn how to make our lives and spaces “God accessible.”

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Greenstein

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Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Thank you to John Lasiter for suggesting the title and selecting an image for this Torah Sparks – Rabbi Greenstein

Parashat Mishpatim
Exodus 21:1-24:18

It is impossible to ignore the issue of the Torah’s acceptance of the institution of slavery. As we have noted in previous years (see Sparks for 2015, 2017, 2021), the juxtaposition of the Torah celebrating our liberation from Egyptian slavery with its opening of this week’s Torah portion with details of how to administer slavery within the newly liberated people is difficult to swallow. How can the Torah contradict Herself so sharply? And yet this question does not occupy the classic commentators of our text. It is only in modern times that the question becomes acutely troubling. A small comfort it is to recognize that the reading of the Torah always changes through the generations, affording us the opportunity to grapple with Her anew.
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Parashat B’shalah/Shabbat Shirah/Tu BiSh’vat
Exodus 13:17-17:16

“And the Almighty blessed the Seventh Day and sanctified it; for it was then that God rested from all God’s labors that the Almighty had created to do.” (Gen. 2:3)

Fast forward to our Torah reading, in which, after lying dormant for millennia, the Sabbath Day finally awakens again. How does this happen?

The Israelites have left Egypt and marched to freedom under God’s mighty protection. Leaving their Egyptian pursuers behind, they enter the open wilderness. To answer their need for sustenance God sends them “bread from heaven” (Ex. 16:4) – called “manna.” And then God explains that this heavenly gift, meant to satisfy every person’s hunger, will fall from the skies everyday – except for Shabbat. The manna will fall each day and will be edible for only that day. It cannot be hoarded for another time. But on Friday a double portion will rain down from heaven, enough for two days, and the food will not spoil, so that the Israelites can enjoy a Sabbath day of rest, their food already prepared. Continue reading →

Parashat Va’era
Exodus 6:2-9:35

Pharaoh’s heart is tested again and again during the chain of plagues that God inflicts upon Egypt. How strong or heavy or light will Pharaoh’s heart be? Again and again the Torah characterizes Pharaoh’s stubborn persistence to hold onto the Israelites as deriving from his hard, heavy, strengthened heart. Such strength seems to indicate not only firm resolve, but also a lack of compassion. The plagues rain down upon Egypt’s waters, dust, fields, and houses, and upon the bodies of the Egyptians themselves. But Pharaoh does not care. He will not submit. (We have often discussed this theme, a classic subject of all readers of this story.)
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Parashat Sh’mot
Exodus 1:1-6:1

With this book we begin speaking about the Jewish people as a nation. Until now we have been speaking about individuals. But now the Children of Israel are called a people “`am” for the first time. So they are called by Pharaoh, by Moses, by taskmasters, by God.

And with this shift we enter, almost imperceptibly, into a change of the nature of the voice of the Biblical Narrator. From the start of the Torah, from The Beginning, we have heard a voice of a storyteller who is not God or any identifiable being. The voice is the voice of an all-knowing narrator who can tell us what God does and thinks and says, and what everyone else says or does or wants. But the narrator is not God, or Laban or Tamar, or any other character in the story. We accept this voice naturally, for it tells us of events and personae – such as Noah or Sarah – long gone.

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Parashat Vay’hi
Genesis 47:28-50:26

As Jacob, the final Patriarch, prepares to die, he begs his son Joseph to take his body out of Egypt and bury it in the ancestral cave originally purchased by Abraham. He chooses to take his place within the mythic space – historical and imaginative – that this cave signifies. (See Sparks 2011) His consciousness of this transformative choice can be detected in the way he recalls the history of the place: “It was there that they buried Abraham and Sarah, his wife; it was there that they buried Isaac and Rebecca, his wife; and it was there that I buried Leah.” (Gen. 49:31)

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Parashat Vayigash
Genesis 44:18-47:27

As we read our Torah portion during this Jewish Sabbatical Year (Sh’mittah), many have noticed the stark difference between the economic plan developed by Joseph to help sustain the Egyptian people during their seven years of famine, and the later 7-year plan commanded by the Torah for the Jewish people in the Promised Land. (See my discussion in Sparks for 2012) Some have written harsh condemnations of Joseph, calling into question the traditional characterization of Joseph as “the Righteous One.” They righteously protest: How righteous could Joseph be if he conceived a plan that reduced the Egyptian people to servitude?
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Parashat Miqetz/Hanukah/Rosh Hodesh
Genesis 41:1-44:17

Our story is about forgetting and remembering. The Chief Butler had forgotten his promise to Joseph for two years, after he had been restored to his position in Pharaoh’s court. But, after Pharaoh cannot find a satisfactory interpretation for the dreams that torment him, the Butler remembers, saying, “It is my sins that I recall today.” (Gen. 41:9) Joseph is raised from his jail cell to hear Pharaoh’s dreams, and Joseph interprets the dreams to be saying that the country will be swept over with seven years of abundance and then seven years of famine. And the famine years will devour the years of plenty, “and all the satisfaction in the land of Egypt will be forgotten, and the famine will destroy the land.” (Gen. 41:30) Continue reading →