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Torah

Vayera: Guest D’var Torah by Rabbi Paul Yedwab

A few years ago, several local Metro Detroit Jewish organizations began giving out bumper magnets (bumper stickers 2.0?) to promote their organizations. I had collected a number of these and thought it would be funny to affix them all on the back of my wife’s minivan’s bumper for a photo. I Photoshopped a personalized Michigan license plate that read “Rabbi J” and then posted the photo to my Facebook page. A couple week’s later learned that it had been the opening for a sermon delivered by my friend and colleague, Rabbi Paul Yedwab of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan. It’s a wonderful D’var Torah on this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Vayera, and I thought I would post it here for others to enjoy and learn.

Vayera: Labels
By Rabbi Paul Yedwab,
Temple Israel (West Bloomfield, Michigan)

A friend of mine, Rabbi Jason Miller, whom many of you know, recently tagged a photo on his Facebook page showing a car bumper with a Temple Israel bumper sticker magnet (available by the way, on the table just outside the door if you’d like to sport one on your vehicle.) And, in this picture, right next to the Temple Israel sticker, is a Friendship Circle bumper sticker, a Hillel Day School bumper sticker and a Tamarack Camps sticker as well. And the caption under the photo reads: “Time to get a second bumper.”

Detroit Bumper Stickers (Magnets)

I have long been fascinated by this concept of labels. Is the owner of a car really defined by the labels on her bumper? And if she were, how many bumpers would she need to let us know that she is a proudly Jewish, caring mom, tree hugger, vegetarian, Zionist, who is politically moderate, loves animals, nature, Swirlberry frozen yogurt, crossword puzzles, Gucci, Glee and her alma mater. Forget a second bumper; she would need a tractor trailer.

In our Torah portion, God is speaking to Abraham and telling him that he is going to have to take his son up to Mt. Moriah, there to sacrifice him on the altar. But the words God uses to break the bad news are very deliberate. Take your son, God begins, bincha, and then y’echidcha, your only son, asher ahavtah, the son you love, and then and only then, God finally identifies Isaac by name.

Now classically, the Midrash tells us that God stretches out his description of Isaac in order to break the bad news to Abraham slowly…gently. But I am not satisfied with that explanation. After all Abraham was not an idiot; he knew exactly to whom God was referring from the very beginning of that dreadful conversation.

So here is another interpretation. In our tradition God is the one being in all the universe who is ineffable, which means beyond labels. God is not a male or a female, a Democrat or a Republican (although you would never know it from some of the political ads that have cropped up recently). And, according to the Torah, God does not even have a name other than Ehiyeh Asher Ehiyeh, I will be what I will be, or in other words, you can’t put a label on Me. And therefore it follows that, since we human being are made in God’s image, God understands us too as holistic, complex, multi-dimensional creatures. No single label can fully capture the essence of a person. You know, that rabbi with the gray hair at Temple Israel. No, no, not him….the other one…the short one. Oh! Rabbi Yedwab. Labels really never tell the whole story.

So God tries to supply a multi-dimensional description of Isaac, whom after all is so much more than his position in the family, or the feelings his father has for him, or even his name. You know, Abraham: Isaac, the one whose essence is way beyond what any name, label or verbal description can possibly capture, your son, Yitzchak.

I think I was led to read the Torah in this way this week by some interesting new research that has been done recently into the field of language and epistemology. This researcher claims that language does not follow the development of thoughts, as was previously believed, but that in fact, language creates the thoughts—indeed is the thoughts. That, as babies we have islands of understanding and perception in our brains that can only be connected when we learn the words that tie them together. So we may understand the concept blue, for instance, and ball, and door, and left, but it is only words which help us to link the concepts so that they become useful thoughts. “Oh,” says the toddler to himself, “my favorite ball is to the left of the blue door.” And off the happy toddler goes to retrieve it, and probably throw it at the poor dog sleeping peacefully over in the corner minding his own business.

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Torah

Paying Tribute to Architects – Betzalel and the Tabernacle

I was recently interviewed by Shmuel Rosner of the Jewish Journal about this week’s Torah portion Teruma for his “Torah Talk” video series. The video interview, which is below, prompted me to think more about architectural design and the credit due to the architect for constructing the structure.

God says, V’asu Li Mikdash, V’shakhanti B’tokham — “Make for me a sanctuary that I may dwell among you.” The function of such a spiritual home for God is difficult to comprehend, and to envision how such a structure will look is confusing as well. Further, who will be the chief architect for such a holy task?  Who is skillful and pious enough to design a home for God? The master artisan chosen is Betzalel, who beautifully implements God’s instructions concerning the building of the Tabernacle.  He, like Moses, is a faithful servant of God. He is described as one who has been filled by God with ruach hakodesh, the divine spirit of God in practical wisdom, discernment, and knowledge in all kinds of workmanship.

True, the Torah recounts that Betzalel, the master builder of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) in the wilderness, received the blueprints for the project from God, but as I explained, the Torah wouldn’t have paid so much attention to the character of Betzalel were he not an important figure in the building of the Tabernacle.

Several years ago I was at Israel’s Diaspora Museum (Beit Hatefutzot) in Tel Aviv and toured an exhibit displaying synagogues from around the world. Located in a huge room were about twenty architectural models, encased in glass, of the most famous synagogue buildings designed to scale. While I don’t consider myself a student of architecture and design (I leave that up to my wife’s uncle Stephen Sussman), I nevertheless was mesmerized by the different layouts and structural designs, the detail inside the sanctuaries, and the unique shapes of the exterior. They were all different edifices from different places around the world – synagogues from India, China, Russia, Eastern Europe, the Colonial U.S., and from South America.  Each of these synagogues echoes its cultural and regional diversity. They are all so different, and yet, they all share something in common – they are all holy spaces. They were all built for the same purpose, to be a spiritual house of assembly – a beit kenesset.

Too often today, we take the focus off the actual buildings, the physical structures. We say that what is important is what happens inside of the structure. We believe we must put all our effort on the intangibles, on the actions that take place inside of the building, but we should not overlook the buildings themselves. To do so is to miss beautiful architecture and skillful craftsmanship.

Here in the Metro Detroit area we have two unique synagogue buildings that can be seen from the roadway. Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Township, Michigan was designed by the world renowned architect Minoru Yamasaki in 1973. Yamasaki, the Japanese and American architect, was of course best known for his design of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Temple Beth El, Bloomfield Township, Michigan
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Death Family

Mourning For My Infant Nephew

“When Bad Things Happen to Good People” – Those words, the title of a book by my teacher Rabbi Harold Kushner, keep echoing in my head. Tragedy has struck my family. We planned to go to Chicago last week where I would have the honor of being both the uncle and the rabbi at my newborn nephew’s bris. Instead we’re headed to Chicago today – a week later than planned – where I will have the unfortunate responsibility to be both the uncle and the rabbi at my nephew’s funeral. We’re grieving.A little more than a week ago I searched the Web for an appropriate blessing to say on becoming an uncle. Not finding anything, I wrote my own blessing. Last night I searched the Web desperately seeking what one says at the funeral of an 11-day-old baby. The answer is nothing. We’re speechless.

When my nephew was born I wrote about Abraham of the Torah and his role as uncle to Lot. He took his nephew under his wing, cared for him and protected him. Today I unfortunately look to another uncle in the Torah. Moses mourned the death of his two nephews Nadav and Avihu. The Torah relates that the boys’ father — Moses’ brother Aaron — was speechless. So too must Uncle Moses have been in his mourning of this sudden death. We’re in shock.

On the Shabbat when the Torah portion was Parashat Vayechi (And he lived), my nephew died. On the Shabbat in which we learn of the blessings Jacob bestowed upon his sons, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law began to come to terms with the harsh reality that they will never bless their son as Jacob did. On the Shabbat when the Congregation of Israel stands upon finishing the first book of the Torah and, preparing to open the next chapter, proclaims “Chazak chazak v’nitchazek” (Be strong, be strong and let us be strengthened), my family feels weak. From creation there will be no next chapter for my nephew. We’re weakened.

Baruch Dayan Ha-Emet. May the soul of my innocent nephew Rylan Foster Gelb (Yitzchak Chaim) be bound up in the bond of eternal life and may he rest in peace. There is no more to say.

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Blessings Family

Blessing For Becoming An Uncle For First Time

“Uncle Jason” — I really like the sound of that! Yesterday evening as my children and I kindled seven Hanukkah candles on the hanukkiyah, I received the anticipated phone call from my wife who was at a hospital in Chicago with her sister. “It’s a boy,” she said, and with those words I became an uncle. I told my children and watched them jump for joy with the news that they now had a first cousin.The Hebrew word for uncle is dod (דוד), which sounds a lot like the word “dad.” It is also the same word the Torah uses for beloved. A quick etymology search on the website Balashon.com informed me that the Hebrew dod is related to Syriac דדא for uncle or beloved, Mandaic, Nabatean and Palmyrene “dada” meaning father’s brother and the Arabic “dad” for foster-father. Balashon.com explains that the Hebrew dod is the most ancient Hebrew word for love and was probably a primitive caressing syllable taken from the sound “da-da” that babies make.

Savvy Auntie - Uncle T-Shirt Rabbi Jason
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Animals Book Review Rabbis

Rabbi Ron Aigen’s Book of Animal Answers

I never realized I had so many questions about animals until I met my brother-in-law, a veterinary radiologist and a devoted pet lover. It was at the first family dinner that my wife’s sister brought him to that I began to pepper him with questions about animals. I realized that I had an animal expert in my midst and all of a sudden I started to think of the most intricate questions about animals. My kids joined in and began asking him their own animal questions. Listening to his answers and learning from him was a fun experience and something that we have repeated often at family get-togethers.

As a rabbi I can relate to what my brother-in-law must feel when someone learns that he’s an animal expert and suddenly a game of 20 questions ensues. That happens to me when I’m at an event and someone (usually a non-Jew or an unaffiliated member of the Jewish faith) hears that I’m a rabbi. They take that opportunity to ask every question about Judaism that they’ve ever had and I become a living, breathing Wikipedia for them.

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