D'var Torah

In this week’s Torah portion, we witness the remarkable summing up of a life and the passing down of a family legacy.  As Jacob blesses each of his twelve sons, he addresses the lives and the actions of every one of them, and he does not hide his feelings about those actions.  In fact, many of the blessings turn out sounding less like blessings than passionate descriptions, some flattering and some not.  Of one he says, “You, O Judah, your brothers shall praise.”  Of another, “Dan shall be a serpent by the road, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that his rider is thrown backward.”  For his two most rebellious sons, who slew an entire community of men in response to their sister Dina’s rape, Jacob reserves particular criticism: “Simeon and Levi are a pair; their weapons are tools of lawlessness.  Let not my person be included in their council, let not my being be counted in their assembly.”

These harsh words notwithstanding, all of Jacob’s sons are represented among the tribes of Israel.  Their family bond to Jacob and each other is unquestioned; Jacob and his sons’ readiness to tolerate these differences strengthens the family’s ability to learn and to strive for their own betterment and survival.

In Rabbi Schwartzman’s sermon on Rosh Hashanah, she reminded us that an essential part of the Jewish people’s hope for the future, and our own congregation’s hope, is the ability to honor different views. Respectful and caring disagreement opens us to positive change and helps strengthen our relationships. The stronger the feelings on both sides of an issue, and the more important its outcome for the community’s survival, the more difficult and important these disagreements become.

Watching events in Israel and Gaza over the past 15 months, every one of us struggles with knowing how both Israeli and Palestinian lives are affected. Israeli hostages and their families, and the public, along with them, are in anguish. Thousands of others remain displaced, lives are endangered, and borders are under threat. We also know that Gaza is in unimaginable distress. Palestinians, young and old, are dying in unbearable numbers. The whole population of Gaza is suffering from the chaos of war, and many Palestinians on the West Bank are under threat as well.

In traveling to Israel this spring with a group from TRS, Rabbi Stein and I hope to carry on the legacy of Jacob, understanding that honoring different views requires facing different facts and telling diverse stories. We will reaffirm, by our presence, our kinship with our fellow Jews in Israel and our support and concern for them. We will see what is happening in Israel up close. We will listen to citizens and leaders in Israel, both Jewish and Palestinian. We will also offer support and concern to Palestinians. We will offer ourselves both as Jews and human beings. As I believe always happens when one travels to Israel, we will return with a deeper understanding and appreciation for the complexity of everything that goes on there, as well as a deeper bond with the half of the Jewish people who live there.

If you are interested in learning about this trip and the possibility of joining us, please let us know. And while we cannot all travel to Israel at this time, I hope we can all participate in the continuing conversation about events in Israel with the openness, respect, honesty and hope that we learn from our patriarch, the namesake of our homeland and our people. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jeff Saxe