As I Write
Dear friends,
As I write, for the seventh Friday in a row, families of hostages and their many supporters are gathered in front of the Tel Aviv Museum for Kabbalat Shabbat. This is the first week in which there are smiles on some of their faces.
One verse in this week’s parashah jumps out of the pages of Genesis: ושבתי בשלום אל בית אבי, “I shall return safely to my father’s home.” For the past 72 hours I can’t stop hearing the voice of an Israeli father of two young children who were kidnapped. He was asked what he is looking forward to. “Smelling them,” he answered, “holding them and smelling the scent of their hair.”
As I wrote those last words an update popped up on my screen: “The hostages are in the hands of the Red Cross.” Twelve Thai hostages have already been released. Thirty-nine young Palestinians have been transferred to the place from which they will be released back to their families. Many children are about to come home.
This year’s holiday offered a tremendous, heavy gratitude. Thank God the fighting has paused. Thank God the kids and their mothers are coming home. But the return of hostages is not likely to produce scenes of jubilation. That same father continued to speak aloud his fears of finding a dead look in his children’s eyes. There will be a lot of work for the released hostages and their families, and for us all. Most of the hostages will remain in what’s left of Gaza. And we will remain with the unbelievable destruction that we all caused. A staggering 17,000 people lost their lives in this war so far. What do we do with our heavy gratitude?
The most expounded upon word in the parashah is a small one: אם, “if.”
“If God remains with me," Jacob says, "if God protects me on this journey that I am making, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safe to my father’s house—YHVH shall be my God.”
Jacob has just woken up from an incredible dream. God appeared to him standing over a ladder to the heavens and spoke words of a solemn promise to protect him wherever he goes, and to bring him back safely to his homeland. When he awakes, Jacob realizes the incredible thing that just happened to him. "This place is frightening: It's where God resides, and where we can enter heaven.”
The place of possibility, Jacob tells us, is a terrifying place.
It is here, in this gateway to the heavens, in which I believe we are currently standing, that he utters his conditional oath, beginning with that little word אם, “if.”
How could Jacob use that word when God just promised him that He will be with him, ask the rabbis? If...THEN YHVH will be my God?! How could he have such little faith at such a moment of confirmation? Answer the rabbis: “lest the sin cause the abrogation of the promises.” It was not God who Jacob had little faith in, says Nachmanides, but himself. The obstacles ahead of him seem too great. Keeping up hope and faith and positivity in a world that sends the opposite signs is too hard. Time changes the way we ourselves see things. So how could I commit today to working toward peace in ten years? How could I commit myself to the justice, mercy and love that our God embodies, when I don’t know what will happen to me? God may be with me as God promises, but will I have the strength to be with God?
God’s promise to us is to always be with us. One of the best moments of my week was when I sang words from Isaiah with the students and parents of our Hebrew school. “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war anymore.” I described to them the geopolitical situation Isaiah lived in, with ongoing wars between Judea and Israel, between Assyria and every other nation, between the two great superpowers, Egypt and Assyria. One student raised his hand and said: “It’s the same as this war. I attack you and you attack me back and I attack you back and you attack me back.” Another said: “It’s like our whole world, with wars in Ukraine and Russia, and the Middle East and other places.” This understanding that kids have, and that Isaiah had, about the futility of war and the obvious possibility of putting down arms is always with us. This is the divine promise.
Jacob concludes his vow like this:
וְהָאֶ֣בֶן הַזֹּ֗את אֲשֶׁר־שַׂ֙מְתִּי֙ מַצֵּבָ֔ה יִהְיֶ֖ה בֵּ֣ית אֱלֹהִ֑ים וְכֹל֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר תִּתֶּן־לִ֔י עַשֵּׂ֖ר אֲעַשְּׂרֶ֥נּוּ לָֽךְ
"And this stone, which I have set up as an altar, shall be God’s abode; and of all that You give me, I will give you ten times over.”
Jacob promises to translate his gratitude into giving. Normally translated as “I will give you 10%” or “I will give you a tithe,” the Hebrew can easily be understood as giving "ten times over." Today, as I write and receive updates about people coming to safety, I invite you to commit yourself to Jacob’s promise: To do our best to remember the presence of God as expressed in our children’s innate understanding of the stupidity of war and the simplicity of peace, even as reality challenges our attempts to do so. And to begin the process of giving ten times over what we have received now. If we start now, we may yet fulfill our promise, and live to see God fulfill Hers.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha