Vayeitzei

Genesis 28:10−32:3

Children And Deferred Dreams

Reflected in the names of her children, Leah grows to recognize her own worth, independent of Jacob's feelings for her.

By Rabbi Bradley Artson, provided by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, for MyJewishLearning.com
We all dream about our lives, our families and our destiny

Born into a world we did not create, motivated by hope, energy and drive, we spend our childhood and adolescence absorbing wonderful stories of adventure, heroes and fantasies.

And we dream. We dream of achieving the highest ideals of our fantasy life...of being president, landing on the moon or becoming a star. We imagine ourselves as wealthy, or famous or wise. Venerating a galaxy of admired adults, we imagine ourselves as one of them, as one of the best of them.
In the fantasies of children, life has no end; possibilities, no limit. And we are not alone in spinning those dreams. Children may aggrandize themselves, but they do so with the active consent and encouragement of their parents, grandparents, teachers and a supporting cast of thousands.

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Toldot

Genesis 25:19−28:9

John Wayne Meets Jacob

Jacob inspires us to overcome our Esau-like desires for instant gratification and physical power.

By Rabbi Bradley Artson for MyJewishLearning.com

Esau is surely one of the most tragic figures of the Bible.

 He is a simple man, whose robust nature leads him to exult in his own health, strength and energy. Esau loves to hunt. He revels in the outdoors and in bursting limits. Esau is a man of impulse. Like Rambo or John Wayne, Esau thrives on his tremendous power, his physical courage and his own inner drives.

Modern America admires that. We distrust the intellectual. Someone who thinks too much, or who is too sensitive to the feelings of others (or to his own feelings) is held in disdain. We prefer a man who can impose his own will through a show of determination and strength, someone who doesn't plan in advance, someone who can relish the moment and trust his own passions.

America accepts the romantic notion that the truest and best expression of who we are lies in the unbridled release of our feelings. Therefore, our feelings are not--and should not be--subject to control.

The Torah asserts, to the contrary, that every aspect of being human--heart, mind and soul--needs constant training, direction and restraint.

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Chayei Sarah

Genesis 23:1−25:18

Prayer: Service Of The Heart

Abraham's servant teaches us the power of spontaneous prayer, a concept that challenges our contemporary focus on consistency and conformity.

By Rabbi Bradley Artson on MyJewishLearning.com

One of the universals of human culture is the need to commune with something larger, something that extends beyond ourselves.

We all feel the desire to speak, to create, to perform. One aspect of the human urge to communicate is worship--the simple act of noticing the awe of existence, the staggering marvel of the world and its order. Awe moves us to a silent expression of gratitude and wonder. Awe moves us to worship.

What is Worship?
For many Jews, worship means the formal ritual of reading from a printed Siddur (prayer book), listening to the chanted words of the Torah and the Haftarah (weekly reading from Prophets or Writings), and absorbing the insights of the rabbi's sermon. Worship is public, planned, and cyclical. What we did last week we will do again next week.

Today's Torah portion illumines another aspect of Jewish worship, one sadly neglected by too many Jews today. While most of us are familiar with reading the stirring words of prayer composed by other, earlier Jews, few of us are comfortable approaching God with the simple outpouring of our own hearts. The whole notion of just speaking with God sounds strikingly un-Jewish.

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Vayeira

Genesis 18:1–22:24

Rabbi Bradley Artson, American Jewish Unversity, for MyJewishLearning.com

Honesty As A Form Of Idolatry

 

Honesty is a value only insofar as it leads to growth, compassion and peace.  

Idolatry is the practice of treating something of relative importance as though it were of ultimate significance.  In our idolatrous age, we often act as though money, careers, sex appeal, or prestige are of ultimate importance, when in fact, they are only worthwhile to the degree that they can contribute to our becoming better, more compassionate and more responsible people.

Parashat Vayera highlights another source of idolatry.  It is altogether common to treat honesty as the highest value possible.  We justify an unkind remark with the observation that it is true; we make a virtue of telling it like it is, regardless of the effects of our self-centered "integrity."

Caring Form of Honesty

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Lech L'cha

Genesis 12:1−17:27

Abram and God's Mutual Faith

As Abram and God demonstrate, Judaism understands faith as deep trust despite doubt, confusion, and suffering.

By Rabbi Bradley Artson on MyJewishLearning.com

At a ripe old age, Abram receives a message from God, telling him that he will yet produce an heir, and that the child will inherit not only Abram's property, but also his father's covenant with God.

Surely God's promise would strain the credulity of even the most devoted follower. Sarah had been barren throughout her life. Now, her body no longer surged with the monthly cycle of women--childbearing wasn't even a possibility. And she herself testified that her husband was far too old to father children. Yet, despite biological reality, God tells Abram that he will have a child, and that his descendants will outnumber the stars in the sky!

In response to God's astounding promise, the Torah states simply that "because he put his trust in the Lord, he reckoned it to his credit." In that one ambiguous sentence, the Torah contrasts the rich complexity of biblical faith and the flimsy superficiality of the contemporary notion of faith.
American Definition

For most religious Americans, "faith" means belief in certain claims about the metaphysics of reality. Faith is perceived as a mental acceptance, a lack of doubt. Accordingly, true faith requires a willingness to refrain from too much thought, to ignore the difficult questions which life inevitably raises. And, as a result, when those questions do arise--as indeed they must--this faulty "faith" is often destroyed in its wake.

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Rosh Chodesh 2, Noah

Genesis 6:9−11:32

God Of Jews, God Of Humanity

The seven Noahide commandments mediate God's love for all of humanity and God's unique relationship with the Jewish people.

By Rabbi Bradley Artson. Provided by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, which ordains Conservative rabbis at the University of Judaism.The following article is reprinted with permission from the American Jewish University on MyJewishLearning.com.

Is Judaism a particularistic religion, concerned only with the well-being and sanctity of the Jewish People, or is it also one of the universalistic faiths, expressing a concern for all humanity in every region of the globe? To the enemies of our people, Judaism is portrayed as a narrow, legalistic and particularistic religion.  By focusing on the Chosen People--defined as the Jews--and their needs to the exclusion of everyone else's, Judaism seems to show an indifference to the rest of the world.

By its own admission, Judaism doesn't actively try to seek out converts--those who are attracted to our ways are welcome, but there is no burning drive to "Get the word out."

The God of the Bible is one who liberates the Jews from slavery, who gives them a path of life, who provides them with a Promised Land.  Doesn't that focus make everyone else peripheral, indeed negligible?

On the other hand, the God of the Bible is also the Creator of the Universe, the planet Earth, and all that it contains.  The Bible explicitly speaks of God's covenants with other people too--the Assyrians and the Egyptians to name just two.

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B'reishit

Genesis 1:1−6:8

The Two Creation Stories

An attempt to reconcile two opposing views of nature.

By Rabbi Ismar Schorsch; Reprinted from MyJewishLearning.com with permission from the website of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

The opening chapter of a book is often the last to be written.

At the outset, the author may still lack a clear vision of the whole. Writing is the final stage of thinking, and many a change in order, emphasis, and interpretation is the product of wrestling with an unruly body of material. Only after all is in place does it become apparent what kind of introduction the work calls for.

I often think that is how the Torah came to open with its austere and majestic portrait of the creation of the cosmos. An act of hindsight appended a second account of creation. One, in the form of chapter two--which begins more narrowly with the history of the earth and its first human inhabitants--would surely have been sufficient, especially since it argues graphically that evil springs from human weakness. All else is really quite secondary.

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