Abraham – Jewish Relationships Initiative

What is the right way to mourn?

In Judaism, it is pretty straightforward. We have a series of rituals and traditions that serve to guide us. But the answer is more nuanced depending in considerable measure on who you are and the relationship to the deceased.

Judaism compels us to “do the right thing.” It is one of our tradition’s great insights. Doing what we are supposed to do is affirming the bereaved’s humanity and sense of ethics. Even if the relationship was fraught, Judaism provides the ability to rise above circumstances instead of becoming a victim to circumstances.

In this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, we read that when Sarah died, Abraham wept (Genesis 23:2). But as is the case with Torah, there is more here than the words of the verse. The Torah has one of the letters of the Hebrew word for wept, livkotah, the kaf, printed physically smaller than the other letters. Our sages saw this as purposeful and concluded that this indicated that Abraham cried only a little. Why would Abraham not weep fully?

Perhaps he was overcome by guilt, bearing responsibility for her death. Midrashim tell of Sarah dying of a broken heart when she learns Abraham took their precious son Isaac and sacrificed to God on Mount Moriah. And to further compound things, Abraham knows in his heart that he would do the same thing again to prove his loyalty to God.

There are many reasons why we are unable to be fully present when we experience loss.

For example, Abraham negotiated for the burial cave and immediately focused on sending his servant to find a wife for Isaac. Most of us have experience with people focusing on funeral planning as a means of diversion from confronting the pain of loss. And many people experience complicated grief or ambivalence over the death of someone ostensibly close.

Our tradition offers us a roadmap of sorts when for the process of death and grief. My teacher Rabbi Dr. Michael Chernick wrote that we have obligations and responsibilities as the surviving loved one. Whether we loved them or even liked them, whether they were good to us or not, for our own sake, we need to do certain things on behalf of those who die. So we learned that despite Abraham’s weeping, or lack thereof, he purchased the cave at Machpelah and buried Sarah there.

As a rabbi, I am often asked how do I bury my loved one correctly? The fact that someone would ask means that, on some level, they already are. Together we can explore ways to help them.

But that is different from dictating what to do or how to feel. We have a framework. The task is to understand how our tradition can provide the honor of the deceased and comfort for the bereaved.

Recently, two adult children asked me to officiate the unveiling for their father. Then they changed their minds, cavalierly saying that as only a couple of prayers need to be spoken, they could do it without the expense of a rabbi in attendance. Besides, he (their father) never would have won father of the year.

As I listened, I knew that they would honor their father, but I also knew they were about to miss out on that crucial second piece of our tradition’s wisdom, finding their comfort. We spent some time talking as I was wearing my chaplain’s kippah. But I didn’t press. I hoped they might process the unveiling and the loss in a constructive way and bring them comfort and healing.

How do you process complicated grief? Abraham demonstrates that the question has been around for a long time. So may we find comfort in our memories of those deceased as we embrace the idea that they may be for us a blessing.

Vayera – What did Abraham hear when God spoke?

I, like so many others, have struggled with Abraham’s responses to God in the stories of Vayera. Why was our Patriarch eager to confront God and bargain to save Sodom and Gomorrah and then be so passively accepting of God’s command to kill Isaac? Abraham responds to what he heard, a message filtered by his own biases and his perception of God, the other in this relationship.

In the Akedah, God instructs Abraham in painful detail, “Take your son, your only son, the one that you love, Isaac, go to Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering.” God is carefully staking out Abraham’s test of faithfulness. There is no room for a conversation. The Akedah is so intense; it is almost impossible for Abraham to catch his breath, let alone say something in response. Although there is no conversation, the ensuing language makes it clear that the next three days, Abraham is thoroughly deliberate traveling to Mt. Moriah. Abraham cannot deliberate with God, but it is clear he is consumed in his mind by what is to come.

Sodom and Gomorrah were decidedly different. God deliberates about telling Abraham His plan, which included assessing the situation on the ground, framing an invitation to a conversation. Abraham joins in, and God encourages it by continuing to engage Despite the trepidation of arguing with the God of Justice about acting justly, Abraham bargains to lower the number of righteous needed to spare the city until he reaches what he perceives as the best he can do, 10- a minyan. The negotiating ends with the best deal Abraham believes he can achieve.

How we hear and understand something sets the table for how we respond to it. Why Abraham feels he has license to argue in one case and not in the other remains one of the mysteries of our text. But it is all too familiar territory for all of us. Each of us responds to what we think we have heard, rendering very different responses, even to the same person, based on the facts and our emotional and situation, among other factors.

What do we hear when another speaks? Have they spoken undeniable truth, or is it an invitation to engage to achieve a better understanding of each other? Knowing when to speak and when to be silent is among the more difficult decisions we make. Grappling with this issue is as hard for us as it was for Abraham. Our tradition encourages us to confront it.

The practice of Mussar works hard at getting us to understand the virtues, or middot, that drive both the person with whom we are in relationship and us. We learn that the successful relationship requires that we appreciate the middot are working on both of us so that it can be complicated. We often do not get it right, but we stand a better chance of engaging in meaningful dialogue when we try. Abraham’s inconsistent reactions to God is a lesson with a timeless message, certainly one that is pertinent to today. Torah is a profound understanding of the human condition. The issues Abraham and all the characters of our tradition confront are genuinely human issues, as relevant today as they were when first written down. Let’s try harder to listen better to understand each other.

Shabbat Shalom

A Parent’s Blessing- Lech Lecha

Lech Lecha

“Go Forth from your native land and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you…” Lech Lecha

These are the words of this weeks Torah portion, “Lech Lecha” “go Forth.”

Lech Lecha- These are the Words of God, spoken to Abram. Abram has grown from child to adult In fact an old adult. For those of us who struggle, if you read just a bit further down the page, something very scary appears. As it is written and I quote, “Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran.” So for those of you wondering about your 20-something moving out of the house, be very careful. It could be worse.

But kidding aside, the story we learn about Abraham and his conversation with God are also a story is about Terach, Abraham’s father. Every parent is familiar with these words as well. For it is indeed the conversation we parents eventually have with our children. It is the understanding that the time has come for our child to venture out on his or her own.

The rabbis struggled with this text asking how could Abraham leave his father and family behind, never to see them again? One Midrash posits that maybe Terach was evil and thus Abraham leaving Terach behind might be justified. Another Midrash explains that it was God directly intervening, calling on Abraham to leave and thus exempting Abraham from the filial duties that the eldest son would normally have been required to perform.

But maybe, this issue is better explained if the words are those of Terach, the father who recognized his son’s need to strike out on his own. Might God’s words be spoken through Terach?

We constantly take lessons learned from the words of God and our relationship with the Almighty and find amazing parallels in our relationships with others, particularly parent/child relationships. Who is responsible to whom, and for what? How does each person change as a result of the encounters and experiences with the other?

In some respects the Torah can be viewed as Process Theology overlaid on humankind. We look at this story and we can imagine these words coming from a father as he realizes it is time for his son to venture forth into the world to find a new path taking him from his father’s home to someplace far away.

Now for those of us who live in Philly, it is hard to imagine that people actually leave, but suffice it to say even if your child only moves from the Main Line to Center City that too is leaving the house of your birth.

Such a parting comes after a long and arduous journey starting at, if not before, conception. There are stages in the process. First there is the shock, that moment when you realize you are to become a parent, and you are on the verge of leaving behind forever the life that you have known. Then there is ecstasy, that overwhelming joy that you will be having a child. Then you are overwhelmed by another emotion, fear, “How am I going to pull this off?” This is followed by somber reflection. Then we begin in earnest, we start painting the babies room, stop drinking, start eating right, read baby books. We dream of what might be for this new life- sometimes a projection of the wishes and dreams unfulfilled in our lives that road not taken by us; what we might have been. We pray that their lives will be filled with joy that we will be good parents. We hope they will become something wonderful, and most of all we pray for their good health.

And then, there they are and the real deal begins. They are small, helpless and overwhelming. Late at night, bleary eyed after too much sleep deprivation, you find yourself looking to the heavens thinking, “Why didn’t You include an instruction manual?”

Parenting is hard. We spend our parental lives preparing, teaching, nurturing, strengthening and protecting. However, the protecting needs to withdraw we need to practice a kind of tzimtzum– so that the other things we have taught can find space to flourish and they can discover on his or her own.

We watch as our creation spreads his or her wings and learns to fly. If we tether them– flight will falter and fail. They need to learn sometimes the hard way and we need to be able to give them that.

I remember teaching my son Derek to ride his bike, the two-wheeler bicycle without the training wheels. Holding the bike upright, walking then quickly breaking to a run, holding on to the seat until that moment when I had to let go. Somehow we know the first time would not end well. But we do it none-the-less. Derek caught on to the idea of riding, it was the stopping part that he found confounding. Pedaling forward he understood. Backpedaling to brake was not a concept he embraced initially, so hedges, lawns, cars and even the street became ways to stop. It took a couple of skinned knees on him and frayed nerves in me before biking started working for him.

And then it continues. School, friends, relationships, achievements and love, disappointments and hurts, our children continue to develop. We spend so many years of our lives devoted to the nurturing, the teaching, investing in them, exposing them and protecting them. And once we have given them all that we reasonably can, we are to let them go, to let them be the people they are becoming.

“Go out with the tools that I have given you

with the life that I have nurtured,

go out and make a place for yourself in the world

that is yet to reveal itself to you.

Make your place in it, make it yours,

full of all the good things that might be.”

The words of God and Terach to Abraham are the blessings every parent hopes to bestow upon every child.

What does the world have in store? What lies ahead through that open door to the future that leads out of the relative safety and security of our home into the world of the unknown, a world filled with potential yet fraught with danger?

Filled with ambivalence we prepare to say “Lech Lecha” but hope maybe they might stay a bit longer. Possibly the struggle with adolescence is part of the process that helps our children cleave from us after so long cleaving to us. And our prayer, the V’ahavta takes on new meaning, may I suggest, something like this:

“I hope I have taught you well.

I hope the lessons and values I shared you have embraced,

and you will carry them and me in your heart

down whatever path you choose for your life.

May these principles guide you

in the choices you make and the actions you take

from the moment you wake in the morning

until it is time to rest at night.

Wear them proudly in your deeds and in your thoughts

so that everyone you meet will know

they have entered the presence of someone who tries to live life

virtuously and with integrity.”

So I say Lech Lecha- go forth my child. Take what we have given you and make a life for yourself. You need to go and I cannot go with you. Know that our lives have been forever changed by you; sometimes it was hard, but oh so deeply rewarding. But now it is time. But just one thing, every once in a while, especially when the time comes for you to have a child of your own, remember to call home; I miss you already.

Shabbat Shalom