If there is a gun in act one, there had better be someone getting shot in act two. And if there’s unexpected gifts of jewelry in act one, there’s going to be a golden calf in act two. Just wait until Act three! 

In Torah, after nine deadly plagues, Moses receives God’s instruction to have the Israelites “borrow” gold and finery from the Egyptians. Here’s the text (Exodus 11:2): “Tell the people to borrow, each man from his neighbor and each woman from hers, objects of silver and gold.”

The Egyptians are on the ropes.  They endured plagues that denuded the land and faced starvation. Then the Hebrews came a-knocking, asking may I have your jewelry (as they might be borrowing a cup of sugar)? The Hebrew God has destroyed Egypt.  How would we expect them to answer? The text suggests another divine intervention in the next verse.

“The LORD disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people. Moreover, Moses himself was much esteemed in the land of Egypt, among Pharaoh’s courtiers and among the people.” God had the power to both end slavery and convince the masters to provide parting gifts.

With good feelings for Moses in their hearts, the Egyptians gladly lent their finery to his people. There is no mention in the text of any sort of loan document, bailment, or date of return, because, as we know, the jewelry won’t ever be returned. Some commentators opine that the jewelry received was not borrowed but rather paid in recompense for enslavement.

At Sinai, in Act Two, that same jewelry was melted to form a golden calf.  This is the most shameful episode in Torah. The people lost faith and debauchery ensued.

Then came Act Three. The Israelites brought contributions to build the mishkan. Unlike the disgraceful golden calf, the mishkan was a place for God’s presence to be manifest on earth. The Egyptian finery was sufficient to make an idolatrous calf with enough left over to decorate the mishkan. 

This play has many more acts, some canonized and others yet to be written. It begs us to consider what will we do with the treasures of the past? We might learn from the marketing for Patek Phillipe watches. “You never actually own a Patek Philippe, you merely look after it for the next generation.”

Our society is far too attached to possessions. I know this because my millenial children tell me so; a fact I remembered while admiring the new Tiffany’s store in town. Absent a gun pointed at our heads, we hold tight to jewelry, wallets and most especially our iPhones. Torah not only encourages us to share our wealth, but to do so with holy intention.

Do we form unholy attachments to possessions and worship our chattel? What motivates us to part with these borrowed valuables? Is it guilt, like the motivation for making reparations? Is it faithlessness that compels us to create idols? Or is it to welcome the Divine presence?

Our finest possessions are just borrowed for a short while. Ownership is transitory.  Giving is transformative.  The next act of the Jewish people is dependent upon how we share what is borrowed from the past to create a better future. When sharing our wealth, let’s ask, are we paying for golden calves or building modern mishkans?

R’ Evan J. Krame

A family joke about my late Uncle Hymie was that he started every story in the beginning, meaning with Adam and Eve. While our patience may have been tested, there is a wonderful logic in starting a story at its first instance.  I applied that logic to the story of the Exodus from Egypt and found a compelling lesson about fear as a foundation for oppression.

A Pharaoh who does not know Joseph rises to power noting that the Hebrews have multiplied greatly. Pharaoh has the unsubstantiated fear that the Hebrews could align with Egypt’s enemies. Enslavement begins when Pharaoh is motivated by that irrational fear. In turn, the Hebrews feared for their lives, subjugated to the whims of an irrational Pharaoh.

Fear is critical to any system of oppression. Not only does fear motivate the oppressor but also the oppressor uses fear to dehumanize those enslaved. But the system of fear doesn’t end with a time of emancipation. When slavery ended in the United States, the white supremacists painted themselves as victims and used fear of violence as their motivation. The absurdity is that African Americans were generally poorer, often disenfranchised, and less well educated, posing no real risk at all to the white majority.

When modern day Pharaohs accede to power, they invoke the tropes of fear.  Foreigners are a threat.  Immigrants are a danger.  Refugees are sub-humans bringing violence and disease. 

I have a different sort of fear. My fear is that hatred has been unleashed sufficient to undermine our democracy as it metastasizes and leads the nation into a state of tyranny. Congress and the President are now debating the limits of an Executive who operates through constructs of fear and expands his use of presidential power. Commentators wonder, are we ambling toward the death of democracy? 

In an autocratic system, power is secured by offering protection to the power elites while disadvantaged groups are the subjects of scapegoating. Whether the Jews of Europe or the immigrants from Central America, protectionists and supremacists will demonize minority groups by citing fear of their increasing numbers and claiming a predilection to violence.

To counter this trend, we might focus our attention on making positive use of this fear that our Country is turning to despotism. We must recall the beginning of the story of America. This country was created as an answer to tyranny, as an inclusive haven for oppressed people, and as a safe harbor against religious discrimination. Yet, the founding fathers drafted a Constitution which considered African Americans no more than 3/5 a person. Women were (and may still be) denied equal rights. The fight for human rights continues. That ongoing struggle is what calls us to create a more perfect union.

And that struggle continues. Prejudice is persistent. Hatred is stubborn. Today, we must reject fear-induced factionalism. In any system where hate is given legitimacy every one of us is endangered. In any government where protection is offered to supremacists all of us are potential victims.

Efforts to curtail immigration to the United States should remind us of the irrational fears that supported the passage of laws in 1924 keeping foreigners and particularly, Jews, from disembarking on these shores. An irrational fear of Jews gave rise to restrictive land covenants and exclusive institutions that rejected Jewish participation. The anti-Semites forgot the beginning of our collective story when America was to be a haven for religious groups. How about today? Are we to be a welcoming America or a fear-laden fortress?

By going back to the beginning of the story, we learn the full extent of the danger we confront. Fear mongers and power abusers must be countered by those who derive their values from a full knowledge of history and a higher source of inspiration.

R’ Evan J. Krame

Pick two words to describe your life.  Try to do it quickly without much thought.  What words came to mind?

This important exercise comes to us courtesy of the Torah. Joseph introduces his father Jacob to Pharaoh.  Pharaoh asks Jacob how old he is.  And Jacob answered Pharaoh, “The years of my sojourn [on earth] are one hundred and thirty. Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life spans of my fathers during their sojourns.” Genesis 47:9.

If we knew nothing more about Jacob, nothing about his vision of angels or conversations with God, his travels and travails, we would believe that he is despondent.  He believes that his life is shorter and less fulfilling than the lives of his father and grandfather: years few and hard.

So how does your life measure up?  What might you learn about yourself by being asked to condense the meaning of your life in just a few or even just two words? When life presented challenges did you describe yourself more often as victim or survivor? When relationships didn’t work out, do you understand yourself to have been devastated or resilient?

If the words you used to describe yourself are not satisfying, you always have the chance to reimagine the quality of your time on earth. It takes is some self-awareness and motivation for change. These are not always easy mental tasks.

So let me pose a slightly different question to help you start again.  What two words would you want to be used to describe your life? How will your life be described by those who know you well? Hear those words and try to live your life as described. All you really need to do is take a daily journey through the existence that is yours.

Rabbi Evan Krame

The sexually aggressive woman as archetype makes a debut in the Torah this week.  She begs, pleads and cajoles her putative lover. By contrast the virtuous male, refuses and refuses and refuses her advances. The first male to transcend toxic sexuality sets a high standard for generations to come.  Sadly, people will sometimes fail to follow our hero’s example.

In parshat Vayehsev, Joseph was thrown into a pit by his hate-filled brothers, sold to merchant Ishmaelites, and resold into slavery.  Joseph became a servant of Potiphar, a high official in Pharaoh’s court. When Potiphar was away at work, his wife attempted to lure Joseph into a lurid affair. So honorable is Joseph that he resisted the temptress.

He has proved himself tone-deaf to the arrogance of sharing dreams of dominion over his family.  He has proved himself a stoolie who reports on his brothers’ deficiencies.  But Joseph can hoist himself by his breeches and stay chaste.  This is a turning point in Joseph’s character development. Joseph stays honorable despite his travails and enslavement, which could easily have clouded judgment or placed Joseph in danger in this situation of power imbalance.

Joseph’s legacy is his righteousness, here fully on display.  He resists temptation and remains uncorrupted.  In the wake of #metoo movement, Joseph’s example teaches about the spirituality of appropriate sexual intimacy. Whether the aggressor is male or female, sexual coupling is to be reserved for two consenting adults. Joseph’s righteousness keeps him on the proper path.

Notice your reaction to this narrative.  What emotions might shift were this a story of a young woman resisting the advances of an aggressive married man.  The seemingly farcical nature of the temptress pursuing Joseph likely pales in comparison to the outrage we feel upon hearing a tale of powerful men pursuing the compliant female. The difference in attitude is part of the challenge in overcoming disparities in how men and women are perceived. And with society opening to greater gender and sexual identities, we have to learn to view all sexual aggressiveness with the same derision.

The Jewish calendar year 5780 should be the year of Joseph as the male role model demonstrating that forceful sexual approaches are always reprehensible. So let’s hear it for the boy – an inspiration to set higher standards of interpersonal behavior for all people.

R’ Evan.

Season two of Succession on HBO, pitted four scions of a billionaire against one another. Three of the siblings are vying for their father’s anointment as the successor CEO; the siblings alternatively create alliances and undermine each other. One sibling seems not to care at all about succession. One might think such coarse drama is outside the four corners of Torah; that is until you reach parshat Toldot.

Isaac’s favorite to succeed his patriarchal role is Esau. Rebekah’s meddling upends the family dynamic.  Ultimately, the tensions destroy the relationship between Esau and Jacob. At first glace, the tension among children seems wrong, unless we believe that it serves a greater purpose.  Or perhaps there was a way to enable and encourage both Esau and Jacob?

Isaac has a favorite son in Esau.  Rebekah favors Jacob.  Neither son is perfect. Esau is uncultivated.  Jacob is insolent.  While Isaac’s vision dims, Rebekah has insight.  She understands that Jacob is the son to set the direction of the family’s future.  Setting aside tradition and filial loyalties, Rebekah engineers Jacob receiving the blessing due to the first born Esau. Upon discovery of the treachery, Esau “comforts” himself by plotting to kill Jacob after the death of Isaac.

This is a timeless story, reenacted in families for millennia to come. Esau’s leadership track is derailed in favor of Jacob.  But there is a hitch.  To protect his life, Jacob is sent off to Haran.  With Rebekah’s vision and Isaac’s instruction, Jacob will find a mate (or two) among the extended family.  The Jewish future depends upon it.

Rebekah planned for a Jewish future utterly beyond her comprehension.  There was no Torah, no Jewish law, and no rules of Jewish ritual . . . not yet. But she understood that the choice of leader was critical to the enterprise. She believed that the temperament and intellect of Jacob was more suited to the role.

Do we need to make daring choices to shape a Jewish future that we cannot yet envision or comprehend?  The leadership options today are far more expansive.  Thank God at last women have undertaken professional roles in progressive and even open Orthodoxy. Many rabbis are shifting career focus so as to be spiritual leaders in political and social organizations.  New organizations are supporting unstructured and open Jewish spaces empowering lay individuals to engage in a values oriented and deeply personal religious experience.

From among our Jewish choices, we need not play favorites. We must support and defend the ever-growing variety of Judaisms and expressions of Judaism.  In one such dynamic, our tribe has moved from shtetl to cities to suburbs, and then from suburbs back to gentrified neighborhoods.  Pockets of Jewish life are reemerging in previously abandoned neighborhoods of South Philly, Brooklyn, and Shaw in DC.  Jewish community life is being reimagined around dining room tables and in beer halls.

Those of us still in the suburbs may be willing to admit to displeasure with the current Jewish smorgasbord.  That is the testimony of declining membership numbers and non-profit financial struggles.  The challenge is to engage adults in meaningful Jewish experiences; disconnection is NOT OK Boomer.

Little changes in may be highly significant. Can we create our own rituals? Are we willing to see the Godliness in every other person we meet? Can we create the Jewish future we dreamt about?

At the Jewish Studio’s upcoming Shabbat experience, December 6 – 7, we will present innovative spiritual activists from across the Jewish spectrum.  We will not ask them to compete for dominance but rather connection in affective ways.  Their Torah(s) incorporates human rights and the divine feminine, the Jewish imagination and the lure of belonging. Through the shared Shabbat experience, we hope to glimpse the Judaism that will be. Together we can renew Rebekah’s faith in the Jewish future, encouraging the next Judaism to emerge.

Rabbi Evan J. Krame