Vayechi 5773

Jacob's Blessings, Jacob's Challenges:
A Lesson for America in the Wake of Sandy Hook

On a Friday night a Jewish parent has the opportunity to bless their children.  For our daughters, we bless them in the name of our Matriarchs.  However, for our boys, we invoke the names of Ephraim and Menashe, the children of Joseph.  This tradition is based upon a scene in this week's Torah reading of Veyechi when Jacob blesses Ephraim and Menashe.  However, you will be disappointed if you will expect to read a  touching story of a tottering grandfather blessing his grandchildren.  No, Jacob uses this opportunity to bless the younger in place of the older much to the consternation of their father Joseph.  Yet, in this way Jacob offers us a powerful lesson on the power of blessings.  Rather than see them as the positive wishes that one generation offers to the next, Jacob uses his words of blessing to challenge his descendants to better themselves and fulfill visions that go beyond them.  For Jacob a blessing is not beautiful sentiment to be shared at a poignant moment but a life lesson to be taken from that day forward and learned over and over again.

Throughout this parasha we observe Jacob preparing for his own death by challenging his children through his words of blessing.  Consider Jacob's blessing to Shimon and Levi:

5 Simeon and Levi are a pair;
Their weapons are tools of lawlessness.

6 Let not my person be included in their council,
Let not my being be counted in their assembly.
For when angry they slay men,
And when pleased they maim oxen.

7 Cursed be their anger so fierce,
And their wrath so relentless.
I will divide them in Jacob,
Scatter them in Israel. (Genesis 49:5-7)

While Jacob's words must have made his son's wince they are also well founded.  Shimon and Levi are violent in nature.  Whether in response to the rape of Dina or the plight of Joseph they are people who resort to the most base forms of violent behavior.  Rather than gloss over this fact, Jacob addresses it directly.  He forces his sons to look at themselves through his eyes and to predict a remedy.  These two sons can not be together when Jacob's descendants eventually inherit the land of Israel.  They will have to be divided within the body politic of Israel.  In this way Jacob offers his sons a blessing of awareness which can ultimately become a positive life lesson for them: "live with an awareness of your penchant for violence and continue to address it in meaningful ways".  If his children hearken to their father's words Jacob will have truly blessed Shimon and Levi.

I believe that Jacob's blessing to Shimon and Levi have something to offer us as Americans still mourning the terrible massacre in New Town, Connecticut.  We are a nation which has long had a love affair with guns.  Throughout our history as a nation we have chosen to read the 2nd Amendment as a forceful statement of every American to bear arms when it could have been interpreted otherwise.  There are as many guns in the hands of Americans as there are people in this country.  While calls for stricter gun legislation makes perfect sense the sad fact is that bans on assault weapons, stricter registration laws, or even armed guards in every school will likely not prevent other tragedies like Sandy Hook Elementary School.  They have not in the past.  If there is any blessing to be gleaned from the massacre of 20 beautiful children and their heroic teachers and administrators then it will come when Americans look in the mirror.  Like Shimon and Levi, we have a penchant for violence in this country which is only heightened through the media and the entertainment industry.  In the same way that Shimon and Levi needed to acknowledge their violent nature and be separated, we too must do the same and take comprehensive action to lesson the likelihood of such tragedies in the future.  This must include a long hard look at how those with mental illness are being cared for in this country. 

When Jacob came to the end of his life he understood that his children needed more than flowery words.  What they needed was tough and honest love if they were to be the blessing that they could be in the future.  To my mind this is the exact type of blessing we in America deserve today.  It will begin when we choose to speak less of our individual rights and more about our national responsibilities to one another.  This country has the potential to be a remarkable blessing to its inhabitants and the world.  Like Jacob with his sons, let us challenge ourselves to be the blessing we have yet to become.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Michael Siegel

Vayigash 5773

“And Yehudah/Judah approached him/Yosef/Joseph”

Judah!  The brother who helped to save Joseph’s life when he suggested to the rest of the brothers that they sell Joseph to the Ishmaelite merchants rather than kill him.

Judah! The brother who convinced the aged Jacob to allow Benjamin to join the rest of the brothers on their trek back to Egypt where the Egyptian viceroy (the disguised brother Joseph) had expressed an interest in meeting the youngest brother.

Judah!  Who like his father Jacob and brother Joseph had been involved in matters of deception in his family – only he had deceived and then was deceived by his daughter in law Tamar whose come uppance he accepted as justified.  Having neglected to pair off his widowed daughter in law with his surviving son, Shelah, when he discovers that she has tricked him into sleeping with her he admits: “She is more in the right than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah.” [Genesis 38:26]

Professor Nahum Sarna in Understanding Genesis points out the parallels between these stories of deception.  And we note how appropriate it is that it is Judah’s entreaty to Joseph that leads to Joseph revealing his true identity at last.  After the goblet is found in Benjamin’s sack – the goblet which Joseph arranged to have placed there in the first place – Judah asks the viceroy to be merciful for this is the youngest of their father’s children and because his older brother was already dead the death of this brother would be too much for their father to bear.

Ironically, Judah offers himself as a slave in place of Benjamin to the very man whose enslavement he himself had once brought about. His words lead to the brothers’ reconciliation and the family’s reunification.

Why does Judah, of all the brothers, play this all important role in the story of Joseph and his brothers?  First of all Judah and Joseph are the ancestors of the two kingdoms of later history: Judah was the southern kingdom and Joseph’s son Ephraim fathers the northern kingdom.

But more important, Judah emerges as something of a hero in a manner consistent with other lessons in the book of Bereisheet.  As Rabbi Neil Gillman, professor of Jewish thought and philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary wrote: “Judah is the fourth oldest of the brothers. That he emerges as the hero of the story is in part one more example of the Torah’s characteristic tendency to ignore the natural order of birth in tracing the line of covenantal history by passing over the first-born son. Just as Isaac displaces Ishmael, and Jacob displaces Esau, so now Judah displaces Reuben, Simeon and Levi, and so eventually will Ephraim displace Menasha…….But the real message is that it is God who shapes the course of history, not nature.”

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Matt Futterman
Senior Educator



Miketz 5773

Hanukkah / Miketz 5773

As a rule we read the Parsha of Miketz on Shabbat Hanukkah. The story is well known. Joseph wrongly accused and thrown in jail. His prophecies to Pharaoh, his appointment as Viceroy and his wisdom in saving Egypt from a long drought by saving the crops of the good years, speak to a miraculous series of events that eventually rejoin Jacob’s family after a twenty-two year absence of the prodigal son that had disappeared and was assumed dead. It is oft quoted that at the darkest part of the year, we increase the light of Torah by lighting an additional candle each of eight evenings of the holiday. The ascendency of Yoseph from an Egyptian prison to becoming the Viceroy of the Pharoah  is paralleled by the Hashmonaim rising up from disturbing conflict within the Jewish community and terrible persecution from the Greeks, to defeating their overwhelming tormentors and rededicating the Holy Temple of Jerusalem during one of the darkest hours of Jewish history. Yes, we speak about the miraculous vial of oil that should have lasted one day but kept the Menorah burning for eight days. But it is more a triumph of faith and sacrifice for one’s belief that brought on the miracle.

In the spirit of light and joy, I ask you to join me and the fabulous jazz group, TRIO GLOBO, in a concert of Hanukkah and Seder songs in the jazz milieu, MATZAH TO MENORAH! As the kickoff for our new CD of the same name, there is nothing like hearing this music live. Jazz is an improvisational art, and ensuing interpretations are rarely the same. We will present the music of our CD plus a short tribute to my dear friend, Dave Brubeck, who died on December 5, one day before his 92nd birthday. Many musical surprises and a Hanukkah sing-along will climax this fun program for the entire family. Adults $36, Students over 17 $18, kids 17 and younger are FREE!

Come celebrate the Bears win over Green Bay, earlier that day, (or come get out of your funk if they lose): Sunday afternoon, December 16, at 4:00 PM.  Let us all exit Hanukkah on high note!

Shabbat Shalom,
Hazzan Alberto Mizrahi