Song of the Two Miryams

Parashat B’shalach, Exodus 13:17-17:16

Rabbi Barry Rubin, Emmanuel Messianic Jewish Congregation, Clarksville, MD

In this week’s Torah portion, we read what happened after the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage.

Of course, we know that right after Pharaoh allowed the Israelites to leave Egypt, he regretted his decision and went after them, pushing their backs up against the Yam Suf or Sea of Reeds. You might say they were between the devil and the deep blue sea. Yet, through a major miracle, orchestrated by Almighty God, through his prophet Moses, the Israelites were able to get across the sea on dry land and Pharaoh’s armies were drowned.

Well, it’s no wonder that the Israelites were overjoyed by this, so much so that Moses and all the people sang a song (Ex. 15:1-19): “I will sing unto Adonai, for he is highly exalted; the horse and rider he threw into the sea.” It was a great song of deliverance and celebration.

You’d think that that song, sung by Moses and all the people, might have sufficed. But then something surprising happened: Miryam, sister of Moses and Aaron, added to the celebration with her own song: “Sing to Adonai for he is highly exalted. The horse and rider he threw into the sea!” (Ex. 15:20-21).

But, this is odd. The words are the same, so, why would Miryam need her own private women’s celebration? Was she trying to one-up her younger brother Moses? Was she doing some sort of women’s lib thing? Did she think that she and her women dancers could just do a better job than all the men of Israel?

The Sages of the Talmud suggest an answer in Shemot Rabbah. They wondered why Miryam is introduced as “Miryam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron.” Why does Miryam being a prophetess help explain why she would add a conclusion to Moses’ Song of the Sea? And why mention that she was the sister of Aaron? She was also the sister of Moses, so why only mention Aaron here?

The Sages say that we need to understand two things: First, that Miryam was a prophetess; and second, that she had a prophecy when she was just the sister of Aaron, before Moses was born. If we understand that prophecy, we understand her song. And here is the story our sages tell to explain all this:

When Pharaoh decreed that all Jewish boys should be thrown into the Nile, immediately after birth, the man and woman who would become the parents of Moses separated from each other so they wouldn’t have any more children. Why bother procreating since the children are just going to be killed anyway? But Miryam, their daughter, had a prophecy: my mother is going to give birth to the rescuer of the Jewish people. She shared that prophecy with her parents; her parents then reunited. Moses was born.

And, we know from Exodus 2, the child’s mother hid him for three full months, and then she took a little basket, covered it with pitch, placed the child in it, and set the basket in the reeds next to the shore of the river to hide her baby boy so he wouldn’t be killed.

Now, what would we think were the chances of success of this plan? A defenseless child out there by the Nile where all the Egyptians were, as well as crocodiles and snakes, all over the place. Pharaoh has decreed that all Jewish baby boys should be thrown in the Nile. So, what were the chances that this child lives?

Given that, would we be willing to watch what happens next? It could become gruesome. Most of us couldn’t watch, but someone did watch. Miryam watched from afar. The sages say she wanted to know what would happen to her prophecy. Miryam must have had faith to believe God would rescue her baby brother.

Well, then the daughter of Pharaoh comes. Is that good or bad? She could well be the worst possible person, the daughter of the man who decreed genocide upon the Jews. But, unlike her father, the daughter had something about her that caused her to do what was right. She hesitated. Miryam, reading the uncertainty in Pharoah’s daughter’s eyes says, can I call a Jewish woman to nurse this child for you? And the daughter of Pharaoh says, yes. And Miryam, who “stood at a distance to see what would happen with him” (Exodus 2:4), actually becomes the agent of salvation.

Now, fast-forward to the Jews at the Sea of Reeds: a huge body of water and filled with reeds. Horses belonging to Pharaoh, chariots, cavalry, all converging upon the people. It’s like it’s all happening again as it did back in Exodus 2.

There, Moses was threatened by one Egyptian, Pharaoh’s daughter, by a river. And now it’s not just a river, it’s a whole sea, and now it’s not just one Jew that’s threatened, it’s an entire Jewish people that’s threatened. And not just threatened by one particular Egyptian, but by the whole army of Egypt.

“How are you going to get out of this?” Moses asks the people, “You are going to do exactly what Miryam did when I was a baby. Stand and watch what the Lord will do.” Moses would urge the people to do what Miryam did: stand and watch what the Lord would do. Have faith like Miryam did. And when they do, and when the sea splits, and everyone sings a great chorus of praise, Miryam has her own reason for doing her own song and dance. It was the fulfillment of the prophecy she once received: My mother is going to give birth to the child who will save the Jewish people.

This pattern is repeated in Israel’s history several hundred years later. The Jewish people were threatened again by a despot like Pharaoh, this time, King Herod. God revealed to another Miryam that she would have a son that would rescue his people. And, like her namesake, Moses’ sister, Yeshua’s mother knew that God would protect her people from Herod and his order that, as in the days of Pharoah, all the Jewish baby boys be killed. So Miryam sang: “My soul magnifies Adonai, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior . . . he has performed mighty deeds with his arm . . . brought down rulers from their thrones . . . mindful of the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his seed forever” (Luke 1:46-55). It’s a repeat of the promise expressed by Miryam of old.

So, in B’shalach, we see that Moses and Aaron’s sister, Miryam, had a prophecy that her brother would rescue the children of Israel. Her faith that God would protect her baby brother was a picture of the faith all Israel would need to have at the Sea of Reeds. And, this same pattern is seen again when Yeshua’s mother, also named Miryam, had the faith to believe that God would once again rescue his covenant people, Israel, and she, like her namesake before, wrote a song about it. And it boils down to this: God keeps his promises to his people. Believe it!

Exodus and Intergenerational Connectivity

Parashat Bo, Exodus 10:1–13:16

Rabbi Russ Resnik

In the protracted struggle between God and Pharaoh, it’s clear that the Lord is taking this thing personally: “Let my son go that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son” (Ex. 4:23). These aren’t the words of some distant Supreme Being; they’re the words of our Father, who might be in heaven, but who can tangle with the bad guys on earth.

Moses and Aaron convey this same personal demand to Pharaoh six times: “Let my people go, so that they may worship me.” Finally, when they get to number seven, Pharaoh blinks: “Go, worship the Lord your God!  . . . But which ones are to go?”

The Lord says, “Let my people go,” and Pharaoh says, “Okay! Okay! Go already! . . .  But what exactly do you mean by ‘my people’?”

We thought Pharaoh was finally broken, but he’s just negotiating. Moses, however, is in no mood to negotiate: “We will go with our young and our old; we will go with our sons and daughters, and with our flocks and herds . . .” (10:8–9). Just as the Lord’s motivation in Exodus isn’t abstract, but personal and familial, so God’s people in Exodus isn’t abstract, but a complex, young-old, male-female, critters-included, extended family—and so it is today.

I came of age when the phrase “Generation Gap” was cutting-edge, but today it’s become the Generation Grand Canyon. It’s not just the gap between tie and tattoo—our whole culture has become age-segregated. Parents go off to work somewhere, baby goes into childcare, teens and young adults have their own scenes, older folk cruise for a few years in the RV before checking into a retirement home or senior center, and everyone’s eyes are focused on the screen right in front of their noses.

The religious world has followed suit. We’ve age-defined our churches and synagogues, programs, and websites. There’s a place for such specialization, of course, but if it starts to usurp the extended family of community, the complex, young-old, male-female “people” that the Lord claimed as his own, it starts looking too much like the dysfunctional dominant culture. But, since the story of redemption is told in the language of family, it can help redeem us from today’s loss of family. Let’s consider some of its lessons.

1. God’s people is intergenerational. As we focus on leadership transition in the Messianic Jewish community, we also need to focus on intergenerational connectivity. Since we see congregation as an alternative to the dominant culture, we need to see it as a place where generational isolation and alienation are overcome, not increased. I’m writing this right after our UMJC Winter Leadership Conference, which demonstrated this connectivity, with younger leaders well represented, including on our Executive team, and older leaders contributing on all levels. Our God is One—whole, universal, non-fragmented—and our community is to reflect that wholeness. This is the community he calls “my people.”

1. Intergenerational connectivity thrives on dialogue. Instead of the isolation that’s so typical today, Exodus pictures the generations actually talking to each other. When we observe Passover year after year, the children will ask, “What do you mean by this observance?” (Ex. 12:26). And the parents get to explain: “I eat unleavened bread for seven days because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt” (Ex. 13:8). Today the generations need to break out of our isolation to interact, talk, and learn from each other. Do our congregational and family practices foster cross-fertilization or alienation?

1. Interconnected generations remain distinct. We’ve all read about the differences between Baby-Boomers and Millennials, and all those in between. Real community doesn’t obliterate the differences. I’m not trading in my cool designer tie for a tattoo. We’re not trying to get the generations to conform to each other, but to interact, as a source of strength and encouragement to each other. Furthermore, we’re not talking about two generations, but several, which I’ll call the established and the emerging generations. The emerging generations need the hard-earned wisdom of the established generations, and established generations need the “why” of the emerging generations.

1. Established generations need to not only possess the faith, but to compellingly practice the faith. They need to be able to explain it, or even better to demonstrate it, to those who are newer, who in turn need to stick around and engage with the older. This requires that our practice has substance, stands out, and is compelling. We in the Messianic Jewish world might ask: Have we created a religious practice worth sticking around for, one that stands out—in the right way—from the surrounding culture?

Our parasha opens with the Lord telling Moses:

Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you [all] may know that I am the Lord.” (Ex. 10:1-2)

It’s as if God designed this whole Exodus story with the family-community in mind, so that it has intergenerational traction. There’s only one story as compelling—the life, death, and resurrection of Messiah. We retell this story not only in words but in practice, following the example of the resurrected Messiah not just in our religious life, but openly, visibly, in all that we do.

When Hashem declares that “my people” means young and old, sons and daughters, he sets the stage for the work of Messiah Yeshua, who redeems young and old, male, and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free. Like any good parent (or really, as the source of all good parenting), the God of Exodus longs for wholeness of his family. Messiah comes to accomplish that wholeness. Let’s cooperate by building our Messianic Jewish community as an answer to the fragmented, generationally-gapped, isolated culture that surrounds us.

What's in a Name?

Parashat Va’era, Exodus 6:2-9:35

Jared Eaton, Congregation Simchat Yisrael, West Haven, CT

In this week’s parasha, Va’era, Moses returns to God, discouraged after a disastrous start to his campaign to deliver the Jewish people from slavery.

Moses actually has the temerity to rebuke God for failing to impress Pharaoh. He tells God that not only has he brought evil on his people, but he has completely failed to deliver on his promises at all!

In response, God says to Moses:

“I am Adonai. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, as El Shaddai. Yet by my Name, Adonai, did I not make myself known to them.” (Exodus 6:2–3)

This response is puzzling for a couple of reasons. First, it seems to be a non-sequitur. This response doesn’t seem in any way to address Moses’ concerns, so why does God bring it up at all? Second, this statement seems to be patently false.

The patriarchs certainly knew God as El Shaddai, “God Almighty.” God introduces himself to Abraham with that name before commanding him in the covenant of circumcision. Isaac blesses Jacob before his long journey in the name of El Shaddai.

But then God says that the patriarchs didn’t know him by the name Adonai. How could that possibly be true?

The Tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of God, YHWH, traditionally substituted by “Adonai” or “HaShem,” appears over 160 times in the book of Genesis alone. On multiple occasions, all three patriarchs use the name Adonai when speaking to or about God. And God even introduces himself to both Abraham and Jacob as Adonai. How then, can he tell Moses that they didn’t know him by that name?

Rashi has an explanation that may shed some light on the matter. He paraphrases God’s words to Moses:

“I was not recognized by them with my attribute of keeping faith, by dint of which my name is called YHWH, which means that I am faithful to verify my words, for I made promises to them, but I did not fulfill them while they were alive.”

What Rashi is referring to is the context in which God uses his different names. A midrash from Exodus Rabbah tells us that each of the names of God describes a different aspect of his nature. Elohim describes his attribute of Justice. Tzva’ot is his characteristic of warring against the wicked. El Shaddai describes his forgiving nature, and finally, Adonai is his faithfulness.

In this dark moment in Moses’ life, when he doubts the ability of God to fulfill his promises and deliver his people, God teaches him something very profound and encouraging.

God tells him that while Abraham, Isaac and Jacob may have known the name Adonai, they never got to see the fullness of everything that name signifies. God introduces himself as Adonai to Abraham and Jacob, and then immediately makes a promise to each one.

To Abraham he says:

 “I am Adonai who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans, in order to give you this land to inherit it.” (Genesis 15:7)

And to Jacob:

“I am Adonai, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your seed.” (Genesis 28:13)

God tells them that his name is Adonai, and that he is a keeper of promises. But the patriarchs never got to see the promises God made fulfilled in their lifetimes. They never understood the true meaning of the name Adonai. But Moses will.

God is going to show Moses things that Abraham never saw. Moses is going to see the fulfillment of the name Adonai in ways that Isaac never imagined. God made promises to Jacob, He is going to keep them with Moses.

Moses was blessed to know the name of Adonai and the fulfillment of his promises. How much more so are we who know the name of Yeshua and the promises that he fulfilled?

To paraphrase Hebrews 11: Moses was commended for his faith, but even he did not receive the fullness of what was promised, because God had provided something even better for us in Messiah Yeshua.

Yeshua bears many names in the scriptures: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. He is the Lamb of God and the Light of the World. He is the First and Last, the Beginning and the End, the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.

Each name describes something different and wonderful about our Messiah. May all of Israel be as blessed as Moses was, and come to understand the true meaning of the name Yeshua!

Never Forget: A Story of Liberation

Parashat Sh’mot, Exodus 1:1–6:1

David Friedman, UMJC rabbi, Jerusalem

This week’s parasha is the beginning of the story of Israel’s redemption. When we finished the book of Bereisheet (Genesis), Jacob and his descendants were in Egypt. They were cared for by the royal family, and prospered in a time of economic woes. The book of Sh’mot (Exodus) describes a new situation, and our parasha opens with this description of a long period of darkness for the people of Israel:

A new king arose in Egypt, one who did not know about Yosef.

So he said to his people, ‘Look, the people of Israel are numerous and more influential than we are! Let’s devise a wise policy towards them, or they will become even more numerous and influential; so that when a war breaks out, they will join those who hate us, will fight against us, and leave the land.

So they appointed tax officials for them (for Israel), to oppress them with backbreaking work; thus they built the store cities of Pitom and Ramses for Pharaoh. . . . And there was distress because of (what was happening with) Israel.

Then Egypt enslaved Israel harshly. (Ex. 1:8–11, 12b–13)

We are unsure as to which Pharaonic dynasty this may have been. Some scholars guess that they were the Hyksos dynasty, with their origins not in Egypt, but further east. Others maintain that it was indeed a native Egyptian dynasty that began a new policy toward the “foreign” monotheistic descendants of Jacob. Regardless, this is a very common type of time period in the overall history of the Jewish people. It is looked at almost as a pattern for our ensuing history, and for our future. The main message is something like this: “Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with us. . .” Even though the Jewish people have had to go headlong into long periods of persecution, untold suffering and anxiety, as in Egypt, the same God who freed our ancestors from there will continue to follow that pattern. The suffering is real, and exists. But the deliverance is very real, too.

One of my early memories of life is listening to Jewish Holocaust survivors tell their stories to my parents in my boyhood home. For eight years from the end of World War II, my parents helped pursue Nazi war criminals in Germany, so after they returned to the USA they opened their home to survivors of the Shoah. With much shouting, crying and pain, these victims of the Nazi reign of terror unburdened themselves on my parents’ shoulders. Their pain was real, their agony so deep that it frightened me to hear it as a child. Yet, there they were, alive, with their new families, able to live their lives as free people, and as Jews. It was like a short version of the beginning of the book of Exodus. First there was untold suffering and slavery, then a powerful freedom. My father, of blessed memory, told me that about half of these victims became strong believers in God because of their sufferings; the other half abandoned belief in God because of their sufferings. In the Shoah, the Nazis tried to commit genocide against us. Pharaoh attempted the same in his murder of Israel’s baby boys:

So when Hebrew women give birth, look at the two birthing rocks, and if it is a son, kill him; if it is a daughter, let her live. (1:16)

Pharaoh re-issued that order a little bit later:

And so Pharaoh commanded all of his people, saying: “Every boy that is born, throw him into the Nile, but every girl will live.” (1:22)

The slavery in Egypt was the beginning of a God-ordained liberation that has given hope to the Jewish people for millennia. Still today we honor God for this act that happened some 3,400 years ago; we collectively remember it in an intimate family setting once a year at Passover.

As we read through Exodus, let us keep in mind the great importance of the liberation from Egypt, as an eternal pattern, as an expression of God’s heart toward his people, and as a challenge to all of us to be brave in serving God, as Moses was. I try to remind myself and my family of God’s liberating power with an annual visit to Auschwitz. There, we remember the liberation that God provided from the more recent attempt at genocide against us.

This past week, while in Berlin, we witnessed the flag of Israel being projected onto the Brandenburg Gate, coloring it, as an act of honoring Israeli terror victims from this past week’s attack in Jerusalem. It was the first time ever that Israel’s flag was “put onto” the Brandenburg Gate.

Our portion, Sh’mot, can serve as a reminder, as visiting Auschwitz and Berlin does for me. Parashat Sh’mot yearly reminds us that God is our Liberator from all forms of slavery and all forms of anti-Semitism. Our ancestors’ slavery, and the anti-Semitism that many of us will suffer during our own lives, are meant to be barriers to us from fulfilling our national destiny to which God has called us (cf. Ex. 19:5-6, Deut. 4:5-9, Zech. 8:23 and Isaiah 19:20-25). Calling upon him is never out of date; the entire book of Exodus will further affirm this message to all of us:

Then the tribes of Israel groaned because of their slave labor, and they cried out. So their cries for help, due to their slave labors, came up before God. And God heard and acted upon their groaning; then He remembered His covenant with Avraham, Isaac and Yakov.

So God saw the people of Israel, and God knew (all about their situation). (Ex. 2:23-25)

All biblical passages translated by Rabbi David Friedman.

Jacob's Blessing

Parashat Vay’chi, Genesis 47:28-50:26

David Wein, Tikvat Israel, Richmond, VA

He blessed them that day and said, “In your name will Israel pronounce this blessing: ‘May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.’” So he put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh. Genesis 48:20

Every week at shul we bless the sons in our community with this blessing, as Jacob instructed us to do. (We also bless the daughters, of course, that they would be like Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah.) It’s always an encouragement to look from the bima and see fathers and mothers blessing their children. But why do we do this, aside from following the instruction that Jacob gives us? And why Ephraim and Manasseh?

To answer this, let’s look back at the life of Jacob, for these parashiyot are his story as much as they are Joseph’s. Specifically, let’s look at the narrative of the blessings of Jacob.

The first blessing that Jacob receives is stolen, usurped, from Esau. Notice the parallels between this blessing and the one in this week’s parasha. In both cases, the father is dying, nearly blind, and blessing his descendants. In the first, Jacob impersonates his elder brother, reversing the expectation that the elder brother would receive the blessing. As befits his name, Jacob supplants his brother to obtain the blessing.

By contrast, in the narrative of this week’s parasha, Jacob, now the father and grandfather of the story, crosses his hands in the blessing. Again, the younger brother, Ephraim, will be set above the older brother, Manashe. But this time there is no supplanting going on, none of the trickery and fraternal rivalry that we’ve seen in Jacob’s narrative (or in the greater narrative of the patriarchs in Genesis). We remember Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers. Even the “sister wives” conflicts can be seen this way: Sarah and Hagar, Rachel and Leah.

But Ephraim and Manasseh are different. There is no record of their rivalry in the text. This seems to be a break from the cycle of brother against brother, pointing toward humility, harmony, and preferring the other to themselves. So when we bless our children with this blessing, we are proclaiming a break in the cycle of contention between brothers. We are declaring a vision of shalom among natural and spiritual brothers and sisters, the fullness of which comes through the prince of shalom, Yeshua the Messiah.

The next blessing of Jacob is the blessing that he wrestles from the Angel. Trickery has given way to godly gumption, holy chutzpah. This is the part of Jacob’s character that we admire. Jacob values the blessing of God, and is willing to wrestle for it. And he is henceforth known as Israel. And the Israelites (b’nei Yisrael) are identified by his name from this point on—we are those who wrestle it out with Hashem. We are the children of holy chutzpah.

As he lays dying, Jacob confers this value of blessing onto his grandchildren. He is setting forth an edict from generation to generation, from parents to their children, to speak and value God’s blessing throughout all generations. And this we do every Shabbat until the present day.

The third blessing of Jacob is the one that he gives to Pharaoh, just before this week’s parasha:

Then Joseph brought his father Jacob in and presented him before Pharaoh. After Jacob blessed Pharaoh, Pharaoh asked him, “How old are you?” And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.” Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from his presence. (Genesis 47:7-10)

Maybe it seems like a minor detail, but it is mentioned twice in the above verses that Jacob blessed Pharaoh, drawing it to our attention. The principle in Scripture is that the greater person, the one in authority, bestows blessing (Hebrews 7:7). Jacob is blessed by Isaac, his father, and the angel of the Lord. Jacob, in turn, blesses his grandchildren and Pharaoh. But how could this man, who has had “few and difficult” years on earth, somehow be greater than Pharaoh?

Stepping back to see the larger narrative, we know that Israel is called to be a blessing to the nations. This was the charge given to Abraham, and continues until today. And here we see the namesake of Israel, Jacob, blessing the king of the mightiest nation of the known ancient world. Hashem’s kingdom gives authority differently than earthly kingdoms. What kind of authority would a man have if he has no earthly kingship? A man who suffers, whose days are few and difficult, who brings blessing to all the nations of the earth with the true authority of heavenly kingship. Perhaps you know of someone else who fits this narrative besides Jacob.

Moreover, at this point Jacob is walking in his identity as the one who blesses instead of just the one who receives blessing. That is why he is able to bless his grandchildren from the right place. He has learned the value of blessing, his character shaped by suffering, and he is ready to pass this on to Joseph and to Joseph’s sons.

So why do we bless our children that God may make them as Ephraim and Menashe? Because in this blessing we see all the values of Jacob’s life come together: the values of blessing, humility, identity, and hope. Hebrews 11:21 looks back on this episode with this comment:

By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.

David Wein

Jacob’s faith was now a prophetic prayer, trusting in the promises of God. Joseph, rather than being only one of the twelve tribes, is now counted as two. From the tribe of Ephraim came Joshua. From the tribe of Manasseh arose Gideon. When we pray this over our children, as Jacob instructed, we are conferring not only blessing but also prophetic hope. We are looking forward to Yeshua’s total and complete kingship over our children, and all the children of Jacob, to bring the hope of Jacob’s blessing to fruition.

Beneath the Disguise

Parashat Miketz, Genesis 41:1-44: 17

by Jared Eaton, Simchat Yisrael, West Haven, CT

In this week’s parasha, following a long and eventful separation from his family, Joseph is finally reunited with his brothers after a famine forces them to travel to Egypt in search of provisions. However, in a case of dramatic irony, Joseph’s brothers are completely unaware of how momentous this meeting is, since they fail to recognize Joseph, now an Egyptian viceroy, as their own long lost sibling.

I have the same complaint about this story as I do with every Superman comic ever written; Why don’t Clark Kent’s friends realize that he’s Superman? He’s not even wearing a mask! I think I’d recognize one of my co-workers, even if he took off his glasses and slicked back his hair, and I’m certain that I would recognize my own brother, even if it had been a few years and he was wearing one of those funny Egyptian hats. And yet when Joseph meets his brothers, not one of them recognizes him.

It does seem unlikely, but the brother’s obliviousness is not that strange if you look at it within the context of the greater story of Genesis. Torah has a way of drawing attention to important ideas through the use of recursive themes. Throughout the Torah, and especially in Genesis, we see the same stories being played out again and again.

On three separate occasions, a patriarch will leave home during a famine and disguise his wife as his sister to avoid being killed in a strange land.  On three separate occasions, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses will all find their future brides at a well, watering their animals. And here in Mikeitz, we see the fourth occasion that someone uses a disguise to achieve their ends.

The first was Jacob tricking his father by wearing his brother Esau’s clothing. The second was Laban tricking Jacob into marrying Leah by disguising her as Rachel. The third was Tamar, disguising herself as a prostitute to sleep with Judah. And now, Joseph disguises himself to his brothers in order to test them.

In each case, the disguise seems exceedingly flimsy. Isaac may have been blind, but he still should have been able to tell his sons apart. Jacob didn’t even disguise his voice. And Jacob spent seven years longing after Rachel, yet spent an entire intimate night with Leah before realizing he’d been tricked. These are not brilliant disguises here! How is it that these people were blind to the true identities of those closest to them?

The answer may lie in the book of Isaiah. When God gives the prophet his commission he tells Isaiah:

Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed. Isaiah 6:10

Verse 44:18 tells us something similar: “They have not known nor understood: for He has shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.”

In these verses, we see that God sometimes works by closing the eyes of his people to the truth, in order for something greater to be fulfilled.

In this context, perhaps it’s not so strange that so many people were fooled by such transparent disguises. Had Isaac recognized Jacob, our patriarch might never have gone on his journey of transformation. Had Jacob seen through Laban’s obvious deceit, he would never have married the woman who bore seven of his children. And if Joseph’s brothers realized who he was, true reconciliation would never had happened.

By closing their eyes, God allowed these people to see a greater truth when he opened them again. Isaac finally saw Jacob as a son who deserved to be blessed. Jacob finally saw Leah as a wife deserving of a husband. Judah finally saw Tamar as a woman deserving a child, and the sons of Israel finally saw Joseph as their true brother.

In each case, the end result of the deception was the restoration of relationship and the coming together of God’s plans for his people. Isaac, Jacob Judah and Joseph’s brothers all needed to be blind to the disguises so that when the veil was lifted they could see what God’s plan truly was.

This is an encouraging thought for Messianic Jews. In a world where the greater part of the Jewish people have failed to recognize Yeshua as the promised Messiah and the son of God, I can find hope in the knowledge that God sometimes blinds his people to the truth, but he never does it permanently.

The sons of Jacob didn’t recognize Joseph for who he was at first. But when the truth was revealed, Israel was saved and the family made whole again. And we can take comfort, knowing that the eyes of Israel have been blinded only for a short time.

The time will come when God removes the veil from his people’s eyes and all of Israel will finally see who Yeshua truly is. And just as Joseph restored his family, so too will Yeshua restore our nation, put our family back together and make our world whole again.

Human Becomings

Parashat Bereisheet: Genesis 1:1-6:8

Rabbi Isaac Roussel, Congregation Zera Avraham, Ann Arbor, MI

In our parasha this week Hashem brings all of the animals before Adam and has him give them names (Gen. 2:19-20). We are taught to identify and categorize things. We say “This is a tree,” “That is a table,” “This is a dog.” Children do this as they learn to understand the world around them. When my daughter, Hannah, was little she saw a goat and said “Dog.” At her age everything with four legs was a dog.

This can lead us to think of these categories as unchanging. We place them in a box, well-labeled and properly stowed away. The fact is that everything and everyone is in process, ever-changing. A tree seems eternal, but if we look at it over time it grows from a seed and eventually dies. Even mountains, if watched over millennia, look more like waves, growing from tectonic collisions and shrinking from erosion.

This is supported by science. At the quantum level we are far from solid; in fact, our bodies are mostly emptiness. We are made up of particles that are in constant flux and exist in probabilities rather than fixed positions.

It is the same in Scripture. Mayim Chayim, living water, is water that flows, moves, and changes. A living body of water gives life to animals and plants. A mikveh, representing the waters of Eden, must be made from living water.

Adam is created as nishmat chayim, a living spirit (Gen. 2:7). He is not a static being, but full of potential. It is up to him to make choices that fulfill and shape that potential. He, obviously, did not always make the right choices.

This is also the genius of the Oral Torah. It allows for change and growth in the application of Written Torah as the centuries go by.

As children of Adam, so it is with us. We are not static, but a mix of potentialities. We are not really human beings, but “human becomings.” Our being is more like a snapshot or a movie still. It captures us in the moment. My son looks very different now than he did ten years ago (he is taller than me), but he is still my son. Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert said “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” The choices that we make form us into who we are. They build up our attitudes, values, world views, habits, and reactions.

This is one of the reasons why our Jewish tradition is orthopraxic rather than orthodoxic. What we do forms us into who we are. Consequently, our Sages encourage us to observe the mitzvot even if we do not feel like it, because through repetition our hearts will catch up. The mitzvot shape us in holiness.

God could have sent the Messiah as a fully formed adult. But for him to be fully human he had to grow and mature and make right choices. As the author of Hebrews tells us, it was through his obedience that he became our great Kohen Gadol and perfect sacrifice (Heb. 5:8–10).

We are in a new year. During the High Holy Days we primarily looked backwards in self-examination and repentance. Now we look to the upcoming year, a year of potential. What kind of persons will we be by the next Yom Kippur? What choices will we make that will further form us? What habits might we change, eliminate, or develop?

We are “human becomings” not “human beings.” We are not static, but dynamic, ever flowing, ever changing. May we not put ourselves in a box, without hope of change. May we also not place others in carefully labeled boxes, but allow them room to be the dynamic beings that they truly are.  May we enter this new year with kavannah; intention to grow in godliness. And thus we will ever grow in the image of our Father and his Messiah!

Human Becomings

Parashat Bereisheet: Genesis 1:1-6:8

Rabbi Isaac Roussel, Congregation Zera Avraham, Ann Arbor, MI

In our parasha this week Hashem brings all of the animals before Adam and has him give them names (Gen. 2:19-20). We are taught to identify and categorize things. We say “This is a tree,” “That is a table,” “This is a dog.” Children do this as they learn to understand the world around them. When my daughter, Hannah, was little she saw a goat and said “Dog.” At her age everything with four legs was a dog.

This can lead us to think of these categories as unchanging. We place them in a box, well-labeled and properly stowed away. The fact is that everything and everyone is in process, ever-changing. A tree seems eternal, but if we look at it over time it grows from a seed and eventually dies. Even mountains, if watched over millennia, look more like waves, growing from tectonic collisions and shrinking from erosion.

This is supported by science. At the quantum level we are far from solid; in fact, our bodies are mostly emptiness. We are made up of particles that are in constant flux and exist in probabilities rather than fixed positions.

It is the same in Scripture. Mayim Chayim, living water, is water that flows, moves, and changes. A living body of water gives life to animals and plants. A mikveh, representing the waters of Eden, must be made from living water.

Adam is created as nishmat chayim, a living spirit (Gen. 2:7). He is not a static being, but full of potential. It is up to him to make choices that fulfill and shape that potential. He, obviously, did not always make the right choices.

This is also the genius of the Oral Torah. It allows for change and growth in the application of Written Torah as the centuries go by.

As children of Adam, so it is with us. We are not static, but a mix of potentialities. We are not really human beings, but “human becomings.” Our being is more like a snapshot or a movie still. It captures us in the moment. My son looks very different now than he did ten years ago (he is taller than me), but he is still my son. Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert said “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” The choices that we make form us into who we are. They build up our attitudes, values, world views, habits, and reactions.

This is one of the reasons why our Jewish tradition is orthopraxic rather than orthodoxic. What we do forms us into who we are. Consequently, our Sages encourage us to observe the mitzvot even if we do not feel like it, because through repetition our hearts will catch up. The mitzvot shape us in holiness.

God could have sent the Messiah as a fully formed adult. But for him to be fully human he had to grow and mature and make right choices. As the author of Hebrews tells us, it was through his obedience that he became our great Kohen Gadol and perfect sacrifice (Heb. 5:8–10).

We are in a new year. During the High Holy Days we primarily looked backwards in self-examination and repentance. Now we look to the upcoming year, a year of potential. What kind of persons will we be by the next Yom Kippur? What choices will we make that will further form us? What habits might we change, eliminate, or develop?

We are “human becomings” not “human beings.” We are not static, but dynamic, ever flowing, ever changing. May we not put ourselves in a box, without hope of change. May we also not place others in carefully labeled boxes, but allow them room to be the dynamic beings that they truly are.  May we enter this new year with kavannah; intention to grow in godliness. And thus we will ever grow in the image of our Father and his Messiah!

The Ultimate Etrog

by Jared Eaton, Simchat Yisrael, West Haven, CT

Chag Sameach! After the often grueling experience of Yom Kippur, it’s a wonderful change of pace to gather with our families and communities to celebrate the festival of Sukkot. We harvest tree branches, pick gourds, string up lights, and build our sukkahs, our temporary homes for this happy week.

But building sukkahs is not the only way in which we celebrate Sukkot. We also observe a few other lesser known rituals. Among these traditions is the waving of the lulav and the etrog, collectively known as the Four Species.

The etrog is a citrus fruit, similar to a lemon, which grows in the Land of Israel, and the lulav is a kind of a wand made up of palm, myrtle, and willow branches.

Talmudic tradition teaches that these four species, with their different characteristics, represent the diverse nature of all of Israel. The sages equate a good taste with Torah learning and a pleasing scent with good deeds. They argue that in order to be a complete and fulfilled Jew, one must possess both of these qualities in abundance.

The Rabbis’ distinction between Torah learning and good deeds calls to mind the distinction made by New Covenant luminaries such as the Apostle Paul and Yaakov between faith in Messiah Yeshua and the living out of that faith through good works. Some may argue that Paul emphasized faith over works—“For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law” (Romans 3:28)—while Yaakov upheld the opposite opinion—“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (James 2:14). But both men would certainly agree that mature believers must have faith and works to truly live up to the example set by our Messiah Yeshua.

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend who, in a very astute allegory, compared Messiah Yeshua to “The Ultimate Etrog.” The etrog, with its pleasing scent and good taste, represents one with both Torah learning and good deeds, or in my New Covenant interpretation, Faith and Works. And indeed, who better embodied the qualities of the etrog than Yeshua, who taught and walked in perfect faith in his Father and lived a life exemplified by kindness and compassion and service to those who needed his help the most?  Yeshua truly is our Ultimate Etrog.

But if Yeshua is the Ultimate Etrog, who might be the ultimate representatives of the other three species? Consider the palm. It has a good taste (the date) but no scent, representing a person who has faith but no works to back it up.

How many Yeshua-believers fall into his category? How many of us claim to be followers of Yeshua and study the Scriptures, but don’t act out our faith in our everyday lives? How many of us have Jesus fish bumper stickers but still cut people off in traffic and curse other motorists? How many of us wear our tzitzit and our kippot out in public, but walk by without making eye contact with the hungry homeless person looking for a kind word and a little compassion?

Yaakov would not think highly of such a “palm-leaf believer.” When I think about who might be the “Ultimate Palm Leaf” Isaac comes to my mind. Loath as I am to pick on a beloved patriarch, Isaac is no one’s favorite Bible hero for a reason.

The Scriptures portray a man of great faith and spiritual merit, but have little to say about Isaac’s actions. In every story in which Isaac plays a major part, things are happening to him, not because of him. He wordlessly acquiesces to his binding. His father’s servant finds a wife for him while he stays home. He is manipulated by his sons and his wife in his old age. Rather than take an active part in his own story, Isaac remains a passive character, letting life happen around him.

Yeshua, on the other hand, was decisive and proactive. He sought out opportunities to live out his convictions and the way he lived his life was a testimony to his faith. If we are to follow him, we need to be active players in our own stories.

In contrast with the palm leaf, the myrtle branch has a good smell but no taste, representing a person with good works but no faith.

It’s entirely possible to do good, without being good. I think of the quote from the controversial central character of “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Jordan Belfort: “See money doesn’t just buy you a better life, better food, better cars . . . it also makes you a better person. You can give generously to the church or the political party of your choice.”

I can only imagine what the apostle Paul would have to say about Belfort’s idea of what makes a person “better”. What kind of a person are you if you donate $100,000 to cancer research but do it with money you made from cheating your clients? Are you really a better person if you fund an orphanage but come home and treat you own family with contempt?

These myrtle-branch believers may have a sweet smell, but anyone who gets close enough would find out that their taste is bitter.

For my example of the “Ultimate Myrtle Branch” I thought of the prophet Jonah. Jonah may be the most successful prophet in all of the Bible. Other prophets were met with scorn and persecution and saw their words fall on deaf ears, but Jonah’s message to the Ninevites was met with a city-wide call to repentance and the rescue of an entire nation. If we were to judge a man solely on the good he has done in his life, Jonah would be counted amongst the greatest in the kingdom.

And yet we read the book of Jonah as a cautionary tale. In spite all of his amazing gifts and talents, Jonah has a terrible attitude throughout his story. He scorns the task God has charged him with, he takes no responsibility for his calamity inside the fish and he repeatedly complains and wishes for death after he finally grudgingly does his job.

While his works are great, his faith in God’s plan is vanishingly small. Contrast his attitude with Messiah Yeshua’s. As much as Jonah might have disliked God’s plan, no one had a more bitter cup placed before him than Yeshua. Messiah knew that his road led to the cross, yet he went willingly and without complaint, even in the face of temptation to take an easier road. Yeshua had faith in his Father’s plan, and if we are to follow him we need to have similar trust to back up our good works.

Last and certainly least among the four species we have the willow branch. A plant with no taste and no smell, representing a person who lacks both faith and good works.

Sadly, the world seems to be full of willow branches. America has seen a dramatic decline in religious belief in recent decades, while the number of people claiming no religious affiliation or belief has risen inexorably. Indifference seems to be the default setting for humanity, as individualism is valued over community and the pursuit of material gain is valued over compassion for our brothers and sisters.

When I think of the “Ultimate Willow Branch” it’s easy to go for a traditional biblical villain. Pharaoh or Haman or Herod are all easy targets.

But I don’t think that most people who fall into the willow-branch category are inherently evil. Most willow branches just don’t know how to be any better than they are. They’ve never been given the opportunity to be anything but a plain old tasteless, odorless willow branch.

That’s why my choice for the ultimate willow branch is the tiny character of Zacchaeus. Not a great and mighty villain. Just a little, petty knave.

For those who need reminding, Zacchaeus’s story can be found in Luke 19. Zacchaeus was a tax collector who was very much disliked in his community. He was considered a sinner and a cheat and a collaborator with Rome. Truly a man with neither faith nor good works to his name.

And yet when Yeshua walks past Zacchaeus, he doesn’t see a willow branch. He sees a man who has the potential to become an etrog. Yeshua had every reason to ignore Zacchaeus, to treat him as a lost cause. But just as we don’t toss away the willow branches on Sukkot, but instead bind them together with the other four species that they all may bless each other, Yeshua saw the good that was inside of Zacchaeus and called him to become more than he was.

By the end of the story, Zacchaeus has pledged himself to make restitution for his past misdeeds and to continue to do the good works for which he has been made. Yeshua proclaims that salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ house because his faith has allowed Messiah to save that which had been lost.

This Sukkot, we are all challenged to enter our sukkahs and reflect on which of the four species we might be. But we can take comfort in the knowledge that no matter where we are in our faith walk, whether strong in works, faith, or neither of the above, Yeshua is always calling to us and giving us the opportunity to be more than we are today. With Messiah’s help, anyone can change their species.

Chag Sameach!

Note: this commentary originally appeared in October, 2016.

Jonah and the Wrong Sukkah

by Rabbi Russ Resnik

Yom Kippur can be a long day, so it’s a welcome change of pace when we turn to the Book of Jonah in the afternoon. It’s a lively story with lots of fascinating connections to Yom Kippur.

God tells Jonah to go up to Nineveh and declare its impending doom; instead Jonah goes down to Jaffa and boards a ship headed in the opposite direction. God deals with him, but also shows him great mercy, and Jonah finally does what he’s told; he warns the Ninevites, and they repent en masse. The Yom Kippur themes are all in play – repentance, God’s sovereignty over the nations as well as Israel, and his boundless mercy over all. Toward the end of the story there’s also a subtle connection with Sukkot: “Jonah left the city of Nineveh and found a place east of the city, where he made himself a sukkah and sat down under it, in its shade, to see what would happen to the city” (4:5).

There’s a sukkah in this story, but it’s the wrong kind of sukkah, which I’ll call the Sukkah of Doom. Jonah is a prophet, someone who’s supposed to represent God, but his response to Nineveh, even after it repents, is to camp out and wait for God’s wrath, which he fears won’t come. Now we learn why Jonah didn’t want to warn the Ninevites in the first place. He knows how merciful God can be, because he needed a major dose of mercy himself, so he’s convinced that God is going to let the wicked city off the hook . . . and he just can’t stand it.

The problem is that we might imagine our own sukkah to be like Jonah’s – like an escape hatch from a world that’s hopelessly lost and awaiting judgment.

But the real sukkah isn’t an escape hatch. The Torah calls Sukkot Hag ha-Asif, the Festival of Ingathering or Harvest (Ex. 34:22). Surrounded by the abundant harvest of the Promised Land, we’re to remember what God has done to bring us here: “I made the people of Israel live in sukkot when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am Adonai your God” (Lev. 23:43 CJB).

And so the sukkah is a simple hut – outwardly humble, even shabby – but our custom is to decorate it within, to make it glorious, so we can really dwell, and not just hang out, in it. It reminds me of Messiah Yeshua, who comes among us in humility, unimpressive on the outside, but bearing within the glory of God. Likewise the sukkah of the harvest festival is glorified within to reflect the kingdom of God that is coming. It looks forward to what God will do, as well as back at what he had done. Therefore, in the age to come, “Everyone remaining from all the nations that came to attack Jerusalem will go up every year to worship the king, Adonai-Tzva’ot, and to keep the festival of Sukkot” (Zech. 14:16).

So, the right sukkah isn’t the Sukkah of Doom, an escape hatch from a world under judgment, but the Sukkah of Hope, an advance base of the Kingdom to come. The right sukkah shows that God isn’t going to abandon this world, but redeem it. It pictures God’s mission in the world, which isn’t to get us out of here, and safely tucked away in heaven, but to reunite heaven and earth, and us along with them, in the renewed creation.

Now, I started with the title “The Wrong Sukkah,” but we should focus instead on the right sukkah, the Sukkah of Hope. So, here’s a new title: “Are you building the right sukkah?”

The Lord poses the same question from a different angle to Jonah, who we left a minute ago sitting in his sukkah. Hashem provides a quick-growing vine to cover the sukkah and shade Jonah from the blazing sun, and then he provides a worm to kill the vine, and a scorching east wind to blast down on Jonah’s head. The prophet, who was probably just beginning to calm down after seeing the evil Ninevites repent, gets upset all over again and says for the second time, “I’d be better off dead!” (4:3, 8). The Lord responds with a question that ends the whole book: “You’re concerned over this vine, which cost you no effort; you didn’t make it grow; it came up in a night and perished in a night. So shouldn’t I be concerned about the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than 120,000 people who don’t know their right hand from their left – not to mention all the animals?” (4:11).

It’s a great ending, because it really leaves the ending up to Jonah, and up to us as well. Are we going to sit in the escape hatch, the Sukkah of Doom, or in the Sukkah of Hope?

Jonah’s problem is what Christian writer Eugene Peterson calls “a failure of imagination.” He is ready to see Nineveh destroyed because all he sees is a wicked city deserving judgment. In contrast, God desires mercy, because he sees “more than 120,000 people who don’t know their right hand from their left.” Apparently, just as Jonah got some comfort from the vine, Hashem derives comfort from humankind, even from wicked humans who are so lost they don’t even know their right hand from their left. Just as the vine is a comfort to Jonah, so is humanity a comfort to the Lord.

Failure of imagination: Jonah sees the Ninevites only as they are, an irritant to the righteous. But God sees their souls and cares about them. The moral: We need to join with God in seeking the souls of men.

I believe we Messianic Jews suffer at times from a failure of imagination. We distance ourselves from our own people, like Jonah on the edge of town. We forget about Yeshua our shepherd, who will re-gather us in the face of impending judgment. Instead, we either ignore our Jewish people (at least in practical ways) or imagine our people as totally other than us. Or we might take the opposite tack and idealize the Jewish people, forgetting that “we all like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6), and need to be regathered.

The good news here is that I am not proposing a new program. People aren’t going to be restored through programs and methodology, but through the influence of friends and loved ones—through us.

The bad news, though, is that the longer we follow Yeshua, the less influence we seem to have on those outside his sheepfold. We reach unspoken agreements with family not to rock the religious boat, and we slowly lose touch with non-Messianic friends. Like Jonah, we build a sukkah, we try to get comfortable, we wait to see what is going to happen to this wicked world. . . and we long more for our own comfort than for the souls of men.

But there is still good news—the sign of Jonah. Yeshua said, “As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mt. 12:40). Jonah announced the message God gave him, and the rest of the story unfolded. The simple message itself has power. Our message is the sign of Jonah: Yeshua the Messiah died and rose again. Our problem is that we often forget about those who need this message the most, or we adapt the message for their ears so much that we lose the simple truth of life and deliverance in Messiah.

Jonah in his sukkah reminds me of the older brother in the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), the brother who is uptight because his sinning, unruly little brother has come home and gotten totally forgiven. Yeshua tells this story because some of his religious opponents criticize him for hanging out with sinners. So he tells them that he’s like a shepherd who has 100 sheep and discovers that one has gone astray. He goes after the one lost sheep and rejoices when it’s found. He’s like a woman who has ten silver coins and loses one. She drops everything else and searches for that coin until she finds it. And then the punch line: “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10).

The religious folk who argue with Yeshua probably figure that if you’re righteous, you’re going to get away from sinners as fast as Jonah got out of Nineveh. That idea is still popular today, but Yeshua teaches that salvation isn’t just about escaping the judgment that is hanging over this world. Don’t get me wrong, there is a reality of God’s wrath and Messiah Yeshua is the way of escape – but salvation is far bigger than that. The Sukkah of Hope isn’t an escape hatch; it’s an advance camp of the age to come, which has already broken into this age. In it we abandon any judgmental, get-me-outa-here approach to the world, and get ready to serve and prepare the way for the kingdom to come.

These stories make another point. God values people and counts each one as precious, even people who think he doesn’t exist, like the atheist who lives down the street, or people who might think God exists, but live like they wish he didn’t, like the latest high-profile adulterer to show up on the evening news, or the thief who broke in and stole your TV to pawn it for drug money. We’re to share not only God’s compassion for such folks, but also his desire to gather them in as something precious, to harvest the bounty that belongs to him.

So, as we conclude Yom Kippur and enter Sukkot, let’s be sure we build the right sukkah, the Sukkah of Hope. From there we can imagine the age to come, and get ready to go out and serve it in this age.