or … “There is no other place like this place any place near this place, so this must be the place!”

Parashat Vayeitzei

Having grown up in the days just before the information revolution, I remember living life according to the calendar of the three television networks. A movie like “The Wizard of Oz” was only available during the time of the year the network holding the rights chose to air it, and the annual prime-time broadcast was a major event in my house.
As I got older, and more familiar with the film (although nowhere nearly as familiar as my own children who have watched it on video hundreds of times!), and after my father finally broke down and bought a color TV, I noticed that the Land of Oz is in living color, in contrast with the sepia toned Kansas scenes.

In this week’s sidra , Jacob (Yaakov) has a technicolor encounter with the divine. Unlike the rather cut and dry prophetic moments of his father and grandfather (although no less powerful!) Yaakov needs to be in a dream state to process the vivid imagery about the ladder reaching into the next world, and the swirling energies simultaneously ascending and descending.

Yaakov had to be lying down for this, because G-d’s promise to increase his offspring like the dust of the earth does not reference the seemingly unreachable stars of the heavens, but to the very ground he is sleeping on. Yaakov is charged with bringing down the lofty spiritual ideas of his father and grandfather to the physical world he is part of, as well as elevating the physical world upward towards the spiritual.

The result is a transcendental moment, a merging of the upper and lower worlds, and the result is the experience of HaMakom -The Place, a point where G-d is experienced in the physical world. This establishment of The Place becomes a node or access point to the divine. It is no surprise the Yaakov calls this Place, the physical house of G-d the “Shaar HaShamayim”, the gate of heaven.

By integrating traditional ritual into our day to day life we constantly have the opportunity to experience HaMakom.
Nowhere is this more evident than in our own homes on Shabbat (and here at 6th St. Community Synagogue, your “Home Away From Home”-ed.) and our Shabbat table becomes our “Shaar Shamayim” (come to our next TGIF dinner on Dec 25 and experience ours!-ed.), and this becomes, for a fleeting moment, the holiest spot on earth. We spend the rest of our weekdays trying to recapture it but it is futile. Only Shabbat can give us that feeling.

Now just click your heels three times and say, “There’s no place like home…..”

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Greg

Parasha Toldot

In this week’s parasha G-D promises Yitzchak, ” I will make your descendants [as numerous] as the stars of the heavens…” (Gen 26:4).

Sound familiar? The same promise was made to Abraham previously, and later G-d will promise Yak “Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth….”( Gen 28:14), implying many,many descendants.

But their partners: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and later Channa (mother of the famous prophet Samuel) were all “akarot”-barren women.
Why?

Perhaps a return to the story of creation can shed some light on the matter..

“This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, on the day when G-d made earth and heaven. All the plants of the field were not yet on the earth, and all the herbal vegetation of the field had not yet sprouted, for G-d had not brought rain upon the earth, and there was [yet] no man to work the soil.” (Gen 2:6-7)

The talmud quotes Rav Asi as saying the grass was just below the surface, and only when man was created to pray for rain did the grass and vegetation emerge . This teaches that G-d desires prayer (Chulin 60b)

Our foreparents were all challenged in the reproductive arena, and our tradition teaches us that it was the relationship with G-d through prayer which brought about the fulfillment of G-d’s promise of a legacy. This is the divine plan, a partnership between heaven and earth.

If G-d wants our prayers, and our prayers are essential for the divine plan, why is prayer so difficult for us? I am constantly amazed at the large percentage of synagogue attendees who are unable to pray, or feel so alienated by the process. Yet, this is a basic necessity for having our spiritual needs met.

With a little preparation and some practice a meaningful prayer experience is within reach for everyone. It is not necessary to pray in Hebrew. It is better in most cases to pray in a language you know well until you can understand the meaning of the prayers. Choose quality over quantity… Learn the structure of the service…find a siddur (prayerbook) that feels “right” for you. Seem like a daunting task? It’s not – anyone can learn to have a meaningful prayer experience.

But-
This week we will make it much easier for you. We are starting an exploratory service, for men and women, which will provide a safe place to move through the basics of Jewish prayer at a comfortable pace, with total comprehension, and plenty of time for asking tough questions.
We will offer this service several times a month. Give it a try- even if you are a synagogue veteran- we can all benefit from a leisurely in depth look into the prayers, and forge our own one to one relationship with our creator.
May all our prayers be answered….

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Greg

Shabbat Vayera

This week’s parasha concludes with one of the most well know stories in the Bible- the binding of Isaac, know as Akaidat Yitzchak. Abraham (Avraham) was instructed to slaughter his son, and blindly follows G-d’s command, and is interrupted at the last minute, the knife in his hand, and is told, This Is Only a Test…

But wait..There’s got to be more to it than that, right?

Why does G-d need to test Avraham? The creator of the world must certainly know the capabilities and limitations of his creations. But did Avraham know?

A careful examination of the text shows us that G-d did not actually tell Avraham to slaughter his son, merely to “וְהַעֲלֵהוּ שָׁם לְעֹלָה”, to “bring him up as an offering”.

Shortly afterwards Avraham tells his attendants, stay here, WE will return to you.

So, on some level, Avraham knew that he would NOT sacrifice his son.

What then, was his test?

Perhaps an answer can be found by exploring an alternative method of reading the text.

It says, On the the third day, Avraham raised his eyes and “יַּרְא אֶת הַמָּקוֹם מֵרָחֹק”,

“he saw THE PLACE (haMakom) from afar.” We know that HaMakom is a name for G-d, and we associate it with a situation that distances us from a clear understanding of our relationship with the divine. When one goes to comfort someone during the period of sitting shiva, one says, ” HaMakom y’nachaim etchem..”, May G-d comfort you among…..At this saddest of times G-d seems distant to a mourner.

Prior to this last test Avraham had an incredibly close prophetic relationship with

G-d, pleading, bargaining face to face, on a first name basis. After the command to

” Bring up your son as an offering”, Avraham is now asked to operate in the world without the “visual” reassurance of G-d’s presence, and rely on faith.

It is no surprise that his next contact (and all subsequent contact) with the divine is through “Malach HaShem”, an angel of G-d. What is a malach, an angel?

Our sages teach us that an angel is the manifestation of divine thought, in the real world. Avraham is being tested to navigate in the real world, without an automatic connection, a world where a human being has to make an effort to see and feel the presence of our creator.

It is our mission as human beings to seek out the presence of G-d. We cannot today “see” any image, or “hear” any distinct voice but we can certainly see and hear the effect of G-d in the world, if we only take the time to look and listen. Our lives can be so much richer for it, and we need not sacrifice anything at all.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Greg