A Time of Ingathering
Our students doing Tashlich in Prospect Park
Dear friends,
Tuesday night at 11pm a Talmudic phrase flashed through my brain:
בִּשְׁעַת הַמַּכְנִיסִין — פַּזֵּר. בִּשְׁעַת הַמְפַזְּרִים — כַּנֵּס.
"At the time of gathering, disseminate At the time of dissemination, gather.”
Brachot 63a
There are times of ingathering, and times of spreading out, times to go global and times to go local, times to influence others and times to enrich ourselves our close circles. This time, it struck me, is a time to come inside, study ourselves, be together, think together.
Despite appearances, there is a real opportunity at hand.
I’ll try and express something about that through this week’s incredibly apt Torah portion:
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהֹוָה֙ אֶל־אַבְרָ֔ם לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ מֵאַרְצְךָ֥ וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖ וּמִבֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַרְאֶֽךָּ׃
יהוה said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
The literal message seems to be – move to Canada. But the Torah is not a literal messenger, and Jews have never treated it as just a literal history. When we treat the language of the Torah literally, we remove its life force. Similarly, when we stay on the surface of things happening in the world, seeing them only through the prism in which we’ve been staring at them (through our screens,) we beat the life force out of them.
The rabbis help us infuse life into these words. Rashi offers:
Go Forth (Lekh Lekha) in the Hebrew literally means “go for yourself” — it means go for your enjoyment and your benefit.
Rashi suggests seeing the change commanded upon us in a positive light. We are not running. We are not reacting. We are not refugees. We are responding to the change by shedding old layers from our past and allowing ourselves to be curious about what new layers will appear.
The 17th century Prague rabbi Kli Yakar has a slightly different translation than Rashi for Lekh Lekha. He understands it as “Go to you,” And writes: “Go to you, to your essence.“
Abraham is being commanded to go inwards and find a truer part of who he is. He is being sent to the place where appearances evaporate into what they really are. It is a land where the noise of this world quiets, and the sounds of the world of peace become audible. This land that Abraham is being sent to is not geographical. It’s a place that is accessible anywhere. It’s the holy land of the spirit, which he is being commanded to find.
This is a time of gathering. Of coming into our communities and our selves, of learning and seeing anew, of finding new truths, new ways, new spirit, new braveries.
I know this is not easy, and for many in our community will take a period of mourning. That is important, and can’t be skipped over. It was when I spent time with children on Wednesday that the task ahead became clear. These young people are powerful, sensitive smart beings who we can count on. They've got our backs and our futures. They're shrewd, and so many of them were politically born on Tuesday night. However, they need us to have their backs in this moment. They need to see us modeling living with purpose, strength and curiosity in the face of our anxieties and disappointments, much in the way we saw our parents and grandparents do. That is the challenge of this moment.
Let us use this time of gathering to come together to support one another, learn and grow, so that when the moment comes for the Time of Dissemination – and that time is already on its way - we are ready and eager to jump into the world with all of our love and energy.
Step 1 will be in a few hours at our two Shabbatot this evening in Brooklyn or Upper West Side. You can still join, and I really hope you will.
Shabbat shalom, Shabbat Menuchah, Shabbat Ahavah,
A Shabbat of peace, a shabbat of rest, a shabbat of love.
Rabbi Misha