An Open Box: The moving non-movement!

My Dear Friends

On Erev Rosh HaShanah I began a trilogy of sermons that I called "The path less travelled." On that night I spoke of the origins of our people, our tribal path. On Rosh HaShanah day I continued with the tests and lessons of movement. As a people we have moved through time and space carrying our faith in our hearts and our heads and our hands. Movements were built as boxes to protect us and our sacred cargo. Movements were and are trail markers along the path less travelled. And movements were mechanisms for change.

But movements have drawbacks. No matter what the grand ideal, no matter how well the box of movements carried the changes we needed, no matter how well the box protected tradition, no matter how open the box was to change and modernity, eventually the lid on the box closed and change solidified and we forgot what we wanted to keep out and what we wanted to keep in. The usefulness of a box is in the opening and closing, the emptiness and the fullness.

The box which each movement created for us to carry along our path less travelled, became sacred in and of itself. The movements began to take themselves too seriously. Ego is the rust on the hinges of our box. "Our way is the only right way to Jew our lives," squeaks the movement as the lid on the box becomes harder and harder to open. "If you don't do it our way you are somehow missing the mark, not handling it correctly, less spiritual or less modern or just less." And the lid of the movement refuses to move.

The Orthodox tell the story of a husband and wife in a car. The husband is driving and the wife, leaning against her side of the car complains: "We used to sit together in the car your arm around me, me leaning into you, it was romantic. But we seem to have drifted apart." The husband replies: "What do you want from me. I am driving the car, I can't move. You are the one who has moved away!" This is how the Orthodox box sees Conservative and Reform and all liberal movements in Judaism. The Conservative box see the Orthodox as needlessly neglecting modernity, while Reform has forgotten and forsaken its roots.



I have shared with some of you that I come from a long line of Rabbis. My father, (זצ"ל) was very proud when I was ordained. I was visiting him that summer in Narraganset Pier in Rhode Island. On Shabbos we sought out the only synagogue in that small town. When we entered, my father proudly announced that he and I were Rabbis. The people there thought that it was fortuitous because their Rabbi was on vacation. They asked us to lead the service. As we walked to the Bimah I noticed a מחיצה separating the men's and women's section. The reader's table faced the ark not the congregation. We had entered an Orthodox synagogue and they were asking us to lead. My father had never led an Orthodox service and so it was left to me to lead most of the service. But at one point he whispered to me: "Let's just turn around and do this right!" Right for him was the Reform way.

Movements, each and every one of them have become like a box with a rusty hinge. Boxes are important tools on the path less travelled and we each need to have our boxes, they carry significant ideas and keep safe important ideals. The box gives shape and form and direction to our thoughts. But we should be wary of climbing into the box and we should never do all our thinking inside the box. The problem is that movements tend to box us in and box others out. And that is because we don't open our box enough, we don't examine enough or play enough with what's in the box. Carrying our movement box can make us comfortable but it also can make us, has made us complacent.

There is a tale told of a bejeweled box that was a treasure of an elderly couple. They kept it in a glass case for all to see. They would take it out and show it to special friends, on special occasions, but they never opened the box. When they passed on they left it to their children, who kept it on the mantel and told all their friends how it had been so special to their parents. When they passed on and left it to their children, the box got stuffed in a drawer somewhere. And when they passed on, the box somehow was lost. The box is the movements and the hidden treasure within is our Judaism, our Jewing life to the fullest.

I love boxes, they proclaim neatness and orderliness, a place for everything and everything in its place. My favorite box is a replica of a tinderbox, carried by the mountain men about 150 years ago. I enjoy the firm pop as the hinged lid opens wide or closes down. My box is small in all its brassy glory. My box is the protector of small fragile objects. It has carried all that is miscellaneous, all that has nowhere else to go, all that is important, irreplaceable yet unplaceable.

So tonight I wish to offer a solution to the rusted box of movements, the box that is neglected and which contains the sacred and hidden light that we might call Moshiah consciousness. Tonight I wish to share with you a new box, clean, bright and brassy. It is a thoroughly modern box, a box that will carry us comfortably into modernity and yet the box is hinged with tradition carrying our sacred treasures along the path less travelled.

This box that I offer contains a non-movement, that is always moving. This box is a paradigm shift for movements and for individuals. I even have a catchy name for our new non-movement, a catchy name for our new box. I call this moving non-movement 'Reframing'.

When we reframe we see things anew. We see them in a light that we have not utilized before. Reframing how we move on our path less travelled will enlighten our path with the Ohr Zarua, the original hidden light of creation and creativity.

But as with all things of worth, it takes some work. And for our box to be useful to us we must use it, constantly adjusting, adding and subtracting from our box, rearranging and handling the contents.

Our reframing box requires each of us to fill and empty and refill it with questions to be asked, and actions to be quested. What studies will you put in our reframers' box. What traditions would you keep alive in our box as we wind our way down the path less travelled

Who is interested by history. Did you know that the Menorah is Judaism's oldest symbol and that it stems from a sage plant found in Israel. The name of that plant is Moriah, which means G's guidance and is related to the word for our Sacred Guide, Torah. How about the fact that two thousand years ago when we were forced from our land, the Romans, to add insult to injury, named our holy homeland after our worst enemies.

The people who invaded our coastlands of Ashkalon and Ashdod and Gaza were people who we would not even call by name, we simply called them the invaders. Today we mis-transliterate it as Philistine.
In Hebrew the word for invader is Paleshet. The plural is Palashtim. The Romans renamed Israel using that very word, the word celebrating their invasion of our sacred homeland. In Latin the term is Palastina what people now call Palestine.

History enlightens our path, the path less travelled.

Who would be willing to keep our sacred tongue alive, who would be willing to learn a little more about Hebrew putting it in our sacred reframer's box. Just the Alef Bet, or a few more words of worth. For Hebrew holds the secrets of history and poetry and philosophy and mystery.

What is the fourth letter of the Hebrew Alef Bet. It was Dag, which meant fish and the original pictograph was that of a fish. But we changed it when those same invaders conquered that spit of land on the southern part of Israel on the Mediterranean. They worshiped a god of fishing and its name was Dagon. We changed a letter of our Alef Bet from Dag, fish, to ד, door because it was too close to idolatry.

The א, the first letter of our Alef Bet is silent and yet contains within it the secret of the sacred name of G, the name we are prohibited from pronouncing.

What traditions would you carry in your box for a year to guarantee their survival and increase your spiritual awareness. Every tradition in Judaism has a history that will hold your heart and a mystery that will bring heaven to earth. Would you take 10 minutes a day, 6 days a week for a year and lay תפילין? It would change your life and add a little light on the our sacred path, the path less travelled. Within the leather box that is תפילין is the six word mystical phrase of oneness that we repeat throughout the day. We call it the שמע and the translation that we read is every week is weak. Sometime we will sit together and you will create your own translation that far surpasses what we read in our prayer books.

What of שבת, is that something to carry in our Reframers' box. What people call the 10 commandments are written twice in Torah and each refers to Shabbat a little differently. In one case Shabbat we are told, should be Shamored, guarded. In the other case we are reminded to זכור, remember Shabbat.
What is the difference. We guard Shabbat by living it, by doing it, by being it. How we do that in our Reframers' box will be different for each of us. But one element is the same. We will not allow the weekday, workday, mundane day into our sacred bubble of time. For some, no electricity or driving. For others, we travel for sacred activities not for shopping. But for all, Shamoring Shabbos is family time, prayer time study time, a time of holy rest. That is how we שמור. But if we cannot שמור, guard by living it fully, we can זכור, keep Shabbos in our hearts and heads and hands.

When our son, Ronin was in high school he took part in school plays. Needless to say, he was the best actor there. But it required him to perform on Friday nights. His answer to this challenge was to take a couple of candle stubs some Hallah and grape juice with him. At the appropriate time he would slip away and make the blessings. Since some of the other actors were Jewish they began to go with him. Eventually even the non-Jews came to see what was happening. On one such occasion Ronin was in the Sound of Music. What he told me painted a picture in my mind that still warms my heart. Members of the cast, in costume took part in the short celebration of Shabbat. In costume!!! I picture a group of costumed nuns, and Nazis standing around helping usher in Shabbat with blessing. If we cannot שמור we can choose to זכור and that will raise the sacred sparks.

Every תורה is hand written, copied from the one before. It has been so for over 2000 years. Hidden within Torah are shards of that original light that can brighten our world and our world view. One Shabbos our grandson Gage, looked up from the dining room table and asked me to tell him a story about that week's Torah POTION. Torah is a sacred Potion that we should keep in our reframer's box. Would you be willing to study a little Torah every week. Would you consider to look at a small part of the Torah potion under a new light? Would you carry that sacred light in your tinder box of reframing.

I am not asking that we do everything, that we study everything. I am asking that each one of us opens our box and decides what Jewing to put into our personal Reframer's box. We can try things out to see what fits and what comforts and compels us. But we must try or the box becomes just another bit of clutter in our lives.

The Reframer's box must have oiled hinges from constant use, opening and closing, putting in and pulling out. The contents must be shiny with wear. In this way our path less travelled remains a path worth travelling.

My friends our moving non-movement box of light, our reframer's box calls out to us with the shofar's blast and the whispered warning. “Open and examine and play with what is in this box but never climb into this box.” The box is for carrying our sacred tools, tinder and char, flint and steel, creating holy sparks. It is not for show and it is not a place to hide from modernity nor from Mashiah consciousness. We should think outside the box, live and love outside the box. But we should never abandon our reframer's box. A box is not a home it is our sandbox, our tool box, our toy box, our X box. We need to live with it and play with it, examining the contents adding new sacred tools and putting others aside. And we do this to enlighten our path with holy consciousness, our path, the path less travelled.


I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Tests and Lessons on the Path Less Travelled

My Dear Friends:
Last night I spoke to you of the warrior's path, the path less travelled. Today I speak to you of what has informed and formed our path less travelled. They are the tests and lessons.

I was once asked to give a graduation speech for an Episcopal parochial school. Faced with this daunting task I faced the kids and suggested to them that they were very fortunate to be in a school environment. This was received with barely disguised scorn. Undaunted I continued by saying that in school we study our lessons and then we take our tests. Yet when we enter the real world that cushion is removed. I pointed out to them that in real life, the tests come first and if we are lucky or wise, the lessons come after. For life is a series of tests and lessons.

And who better than we to exemplify this maxim. We who call ourselves the Chosen people, we who say so often in our services "אשר בחר בנו" "Who has chosen us!" But beware of translations, for the same word that means chosen means tested. We were chosen to be tested.

It has always been so for our people and our path. It has been the tests that have lit the lamp of learning and the lessons that have fanned the flames of growth among our tribe. And tribe we are, no not tribe but an amphictyony a tribe of tribes. Our tribal light was lit by Avraham and Sarah and it has enlightened our path ever since. When crushed in the darkness of the Egyptian night Moshe found a bush burning in the wilderness and led us into the light. When we returned to our spirit homeland of Yisrael, we took the sage plant there, the מוריה or teaching plant and it became the blueprint for the Menorah that was continually lit in the Temple.
And when that light was extinguished by the conquering hordes of Babylonia, a group of wise scribes carried a tiny light into the wilderness of exile. There by the rivers of Babylon, they kept the light lit with prayer and study and Torah sharing and the synagogue experience was born. We returned and rebuilt and relit the Temple Menorah but the Ner Tamid that tiny eternal light that we carried into exile burned bright in Synagogai, small communal meeting places of the people, with services mirroring the Temple service but without the pomp and circumstance of animal sacrifice. People met and prayed and chanted and read Torah and fanned the flames of faith. In so doing they added movement to Judaism.

Temple life was the province of the priests, spiritual descendants of Tzadok the high priest in the times of King David. They became known as the Sadducees. The Scribes of which I spoke, the learned ones who cared for the Ner Tamid of Synagogue communal life became the חכמים the ones who pursue wisdom. The Sadducees dismissed them as Pharisees or the ones who separate themselves. With the tests of Roman oppression new lessons, new movements kept our light alive. The Essenes moved from Jerusalem disgusted with Temple practices that they considered corrupt and with the Roman occupation which was oppressive. They left the aesthetic world for the ascetic wilderness of the Dead Sea area. And they kept the light kindled late into the night as they copied parts of our sacred guide and mystical works that they hid in jars in caves. We have the remnant of their light in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Others felt that the only way to oil our lamps was with blood. Their movement was called the קנאים or Zealots, some taking their name from the word for knives in Latin, they were the Sicarii and their lamp can be found in the ruins of Masada where they found their final stand. Some believe that their ranks were complimented by members of another movement that of the Jesus followers for they certainly began as a movement within Judaism.

But the path of Jews and Christians diverged, as our poem says in a yellow wood, the yellow wood of exile from the land of Israel. These were the ancient movements of light, the eternal light that has lit up our lives for thousands of years.
But it is the movement of the חכמים the sages, who we call the Rabbis, who made Judaism portable and potable in the arid soil of Europe. The Rabbis can be called a movement for they moved us forward and kept the Ner Tamid lit along the path less travelled. Rabbinic Judaism became the movement of the Jewish people. But as happens with movements others grew up within and around this movement. During the enlightened times in Europe and even in the dark night of the dark ages movements of philosophy built fires bright in the minds of our people. Philosophers from Albo to Zunz fueled the fire of Jewish learning and Jewish spirit exploration, accepting the tests and learning the lessons.

And in the darker times came the need for us to confront deeper demands, the souls scream in the night and Jewish mysticism surfaced and resurfaced like a firebrand brandished against the dark. The enigma is that Philosophy was for the learned and yet open to all. Mysticism was for the masses but open only to a few. Philosophical texts and tests were learned lessons for any who could spend the time. Mysticism was a flame that enlightened or burned in the soul, restricted to those grounded males over the age of 40, married with children. And the tests of anti-Semitism, overt or genteel brought forth the lessons taught in the bosom of synagogues and Yeshivas of the philosophical and mystical movements of the day.
And then, when the wonder of the reformation and the renaissance began to enlighten the dark days of Europe, fresh movements within Judaism continued to light our way on this new turn of the path less travelled. The movements reflected tests taken and lessons learned. The first of these modern movements was חסידות. חסידות, which could be translated as "followers of the compassionate path" began in a sacred bonfire of joy. Singing, dancing, chanting and teaching, all in joy, was their path. The first Hasidic Rebbe was Yisrael Ben Eliezer better known as the Baal Shem Tov. Torah commentary burned bright, unfettered in their free-hand style that celebrated the mystical meanings to each portion, each sentence, each word, each letter of Torah. Noah's ark becomes a metaphor for the Jewish people, the window being the place for the G-field to flow in to those Jewing within the ark. And while the tales of the Hasidim imbued our hearts with a warm glow, there arose a movement of opposition. They were called the מתנגדים "those who oppose" for they opposed the radical hippie free thinking of the Hasidim. Such has always been the case.

As science and philosophy found their footing during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, the ghetto walls came tumbling down and Jewish life was bombarded with the winds of outside influence. It could have been that the sacred light of Judaism would have been extinguished but yet again movements fueled our internal flames against the brisk breeze of modernity. The first of these movements included a hardy group of Reformers who translated Torah and Tfilah, our sacred guide and our sacred service into the vernacular, something that had not happened in almost two thousand years when our Torah was translated into the vernacular Aramaic as was the Kaddish prayer the way we read it to this very day. The Reformers, who called their movement, aptly enough, the Reform movement, spoke to universal ideals of morality and ethics. They pointed to our prophets and our Torah as a divinely inspired guide to ethical life. Rituals were for the furtherance of ethics or could be dismissed as we would discard green wood when building our fire bright. Their most famous early leader was Isaac Meyer Wise who, when he came to this country introduced "Minhag America," meaning the practice of Jews in America. We were to be Americans who are Jews, American Jews. Services held in English, gone the relics of Talit and Kipah and Tfilin as anachronisms of an ancient time. And again when this movement came to the fore there was a reaction among our people. A group of people argued that Judaism cannot be molded to suit the person rather the person had to be molded to the doxology, the belief of our Judaism. They felt that there was only one 'ortho' that is 'correct' 'doxa' 'belief'. Thus was introduced the Orthodox movement and the leader was Samson Rafael Hirsch. He decried the release of ritual that was part of the Reform path. Two movements diverged in a yellow wood, polar opposites both begun in Germany both which added light to the Jewish path. Each with vastly different views of how to light that path less travelled.
And not long after that yet another modern movement comes into being. These people wanted to conserve Judaism, they thought that the Reformers were throwing the baby out with the bathwater and that the Orthodox were not entering boldly and brightly into the dawn of the 19th century. In the United States they are most famous for bolting from the Trefe Banquet in Cincinnati in 1883, in which Kashrut was either woefully ignored or wantonly flouted. When the Reformers signed on to the Pittsburgh platform negating the tribal aspects of Judaism and relegating ritual to a small lamp in a tiny corner of our path, the Conservative movement in America blazed forth with leaders such as Abraham Joshua Heschel. They struggled with the light, discussing and interpreting but rarely discarding Halacha, Jewish Law.
But all movements, as we have seen, spawn other movements and there grew up in this country a movement that wanted to reconstruct the reason for the ritual. Their movement teaches that Halacha, Jewish Law has a vote but not a veto.
They call themselves the Reconstructionist movement and their founder was Mordecai Menahem Kaplan. He viewed our light as the light of civilization rather than the torch of a tribal movement. When asked to explain reconstuctionist Judaism, in a moment of humor, I answered that it is like Conservative Judaism but when the Rabbi finishes his sermon, the congregation has 20 minutes for rebuttal. Reconstructionist Judaism shines a light on the democratic nature of our Jewish tradition.
To be sure other movements have enlightened our path or burned a smoky flame blurring our way. We have Karaites and Sabbatians, Frankists and Humanists. The Havurah movement has helped bank the flame of our Jewish light in small communities and small gatherings. And yet there is another movement that needs to be acknowledged and that is the torch brought to bear on our path by a Rabbi ordained by Yosef Yitzhak Schneerson the Lubavitcher Rebbe who brought Hasidut to the United States. The founder's name is Zalman Schachter known simply as Reb Zalman. His ideal was and is to renew the light of Jewing in our souls and his movement is called Renewal. Renewal seeks to bring the blend of Hasidut openness and mystical teachings into the modern realm complimented by the wisdom of all faiths, practices and paths. Jewish Renewal endeavors to reinvigorate modern Judaism with mystical, Hasidic, musical and meditative practices.
Our movements, all of them, reflect the lessons learned from the tests of pogroms and ghettos, renaissance moments, genteel anti-Semitism, the iniquities of inquisitions and the Age of Enlightenment that brightened the landscape of Europe. Each movement has brought tinder and kindling, wick and wax to light the path less travelled. Each movement, forged in the furnace of tests and lessons offers the light of those lessons for us and we are the better for them.

Let no one decry any of these movements, rather we should learn and grow from each of them, for they contribute to the light of our path, the path less travelled.

The path less travelled

My Dear Friends
It has been a custom in my family for over 60 years on the High Holydays to give a trilogy of sermons wrapped around a single theme. I am happy and honored to continue this tradition for these High and Holy Days in our new and renewed congregation, the Bleeker Street Synagogue. The theme this year to come is the Path Less travelled. It is taken from a Poem by Robert Frost that was one of my father's (זצ"ל) favorites and is called "The Road Not Taken, "

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

This poem speaks of our people, speaks to our people, our tribe. For we have certainly taken the path less travelled. It started with a warrior path unlike any other. The Path became one of tests and lessons. And it has led us to a place, a time of challenge that I call Modernity and Mashiah. And that dear friends forms the titles of my 3 sermons: The Warrior Path, Tests and Lessons, and Modernity and Moshiah.

Tonight I speak of ancestors wandering the Warrior Path. Tomorrow I will speak of the tests and lessons that have confronted, confounded and coaxed our people into the 21st century. And on Yom Kippur we will face the future, the balancing of ancient and modern, the confluence of tradition, mysticism and modernity, which I call Modernity and Mashiah.

Tonight we start with a journey, a journey that begins in southern Iraq, in the city of Ur over 4000 years ago. A family follows the long and winding road alongside of the Tigris Euphrates up into Syria to a place called Haran.

And then a member of that family has a vision.
Most modern folk don't believe in visions, we have a healthy skepticism of them. But that is because we have a rather closed definition of what a vision is. Let me share a story to help illustrate. Many years ago I had the only Jewish congregation in a small town that claimed over 120 churches. Many of the Fundamentalist Christians would come to me seeking advice. They assumed that as a Rabbi, I was one step closer to their spiritual heritage and might have some arcane knowledge to share. One night, I was working late in my office when a fellow came to me. He told me that he had had a vision in which G told him to move to Oklahoma. He wanted my agreement and blessing and my understanding for his undertaking. I am a rational person and responded with a rational question: "How do you know that it was a vision from G and not the pepperoni pizza that you had for dinner." Well the man was not dissuaded and moved to Oklahoma.
That would be the end of the story except that I had a chance to mention it to my Rebbe. I was proud of my somewhat glib answer and shared it in a moment of jocularity with my Rebbe. He looked at me very seriously but with a twinkle in his eye and said: "What makes you think that G does not speak through pepperoni pizzas?"

My friends, visions and messages from G come in all shapes and sizes . We need not worry about the veracity of a vision but rather its intention and its interpretation. Avram (for that was his name) had a vision and moved south to a land that would become for all times the spiritual homeland of his tribe. Not surprisingly, Avram made war on his neighbors, bought land from his neighbors, and fought side by side with his neighbors. We should not be disconcerted when we read in Torah that our people acted much like their neighbors, that is to be expected in every age, in every culture, in every region of the world. What should stand out, are the differences. The magic of Torah, our guide to who we were , who we are and who we will become is not how we were similar to our neighbors but how we were different from them, how we took the path less travelled. Torah, in this way, offers a unique window into the soul-path of the Jew, and when we find something that stands out, stands apart, stands up from the text we must grab it and examine it and take it to heart. Avram, makes mistakes, missteps, has misadventures like all of us.
But Avram did something that seems to be unique to that time and that place and unique to our people. He stood up to G for justice. We all know the story of Sdom V'Amora. But our translators have softened the tale for us. Torah anthropomorphizes the story into G standing around with Avram informing him of the impending doom about to befall the evil twin cities. What is Avram's response? "חלילה לך" "G that would be a curse on you!" This is a first and I do not know of any other people who admonish their G quite like that. Quite a conundrum unless you know the secret rules to the game of Torah understanding, the first of which is that G knows what G is doing. G teaches us through the challenges that we face. G sometimes just wants us to stand up for justice no matter what. Again the lesson happens in the אקדה the story of the binding of Isaac. It was a custom of the people who inhabited Israel at that time to sacrifice their first born son. As children, this custom seemed to have held a deep fascination for my younger brother. But Rashi tells us that Avram misunderstood G's intentions when G told him to take his son up on a mountain for a sacrifice. Avram should have realized that the invitation was to teach his son the ways of service, not offer him up as a grisly ala carte. Avram learns and grows.

His wife Sarai gives part of her name to him and he becomes Avraham "The Father of His People" and a tribe is born. They have a son named Yitzhak who we might call the peacemaker. Again a uniqueness jumps from the black fire on white fire that is Torah. Yitzhak digs a well and finds water, no small task in the Negev, the desert of Yisrael. But jealous neighbors, like neighborhood bullies decide that they own it. This occurs 5 more times and each time Yitzhak's men are eager to fight. In each case Yitzhak demonstrates courage, perseverance, pacifism and faith in G. The 7th well puts an end to the bullying when the neighbors with their slow learning curve, realize that a person who can dig 7 wells and hit water each time is a person to have on their side. That 7th well still stands to this day and a city has been built up around it with a university and hospital that serves all people in the Negev, Jews and Christians, Muslims and Beduoin. The city is named is named after that well, באר שבע.
Yitzhak's wife, Rivkah has a power to see beyond the physical reality of this realm. She sees deeper than her husband. When she first sees him, the aura that he wears but of which he is unaware strikes her so hard it knocks her off her camel. And this sight will do her well when her husband's sight fails him.
Yitzhak's second son is a quite mamma's boy. Quiet, clean, a good cook, stays around the house. He seems studious. His brother by comparison is a man's man, a hunter, sometimes a bully. He is brusque, brash and brave. But he is not much of a thinker of any depth and Rivkah sees no good aura around him. Rivkah too has a vision, a message from G and makes sure that Yaakov, the follower son, is to be the leader. And it is a good choice for we are all named for him. His chosen name, the name he wins in battle, in bravery with wisdom is Yisrael. And we are the children of Israel. Yisrael is the tribe builder, 13 sons twelve ancient and one modern tribe descend from this man, his two wives and his two assistant wives. And here the Amazing story of our ancestors ends and the story of our tribe begins.

For Yosef , the son of Yaakov leads us into Egypt, where we prosper as a warrior tribe. We were probably a mercenary army for the Egyptians when we became עצום ורב, powerful and with the beginnings of wisdom. But our power caused jealousy and fear and we were enslaved and belittled. The disparaging term that they used to degrade us was probably a variant of Hapiru which means 'those who cross over.' Hapiru transliterates as Hebrews. We were the Hebrews, the ones who crossed over, the foreigners not to be trusted.

After centuries of oppression and harsh treatment we escaped to the purity of the wilderness. We toughened our hides under the hot sun of Sinai and we opened our souls becoming a loose federation of twelve tribes on the spirit path. That path less travelled led back to our homeland and it led up to a higher level of soul consciousness, not as individuals but in tribal sensibilities. We lighted the Menorah of the mind and felt the radiance of the sun in our soul. But we never forgot that we were עברים, the ones who cross over, the stranger. Like others before us, we fought wars across the Sinai, sacrificed animals, and set up a code of law for the tribe. And yet again there are differences that light up our text and our time. Our sacrifices were not to appease angry and hungry gods, they were sacred Bar B Ques, the soulful gatherings of the tribes. They were representations and symbolic actions for our benefit. In Psalms (50: 10-13) the song is sung of sacrifices as an expression of faith not fear, of a loving connection not a luring conjecture.

Our prophets teach us the truth of animal sacrifice. "What need do I have of all your sacrifices?" says G in Isaiah . G follows that statement with the admonishment to defend the poor, the homeless, the needy for Justice is what is required of us (Isaiah 1:11-13). Torah, our sacred guide cries out: "Justice Justice, you shall pursue!" (Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9) Throughout TaNaCh, our Bible, G states clearly that our path, the path less travelled is to become אור לגוים a light to the nations. We set for ourselves unique laws and light the lamp of equality always set to the refrain: "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt!" We were to treat the stranger as equals with the home born. For we knew what it meant to be a stranger in a strange land.

Wandering gave us a sense of wonder, Sinai toughened the skin and sensitized the soul. We became warriors again and our pilot light kindled the flame of faith and fairness. Yes, we fought Amalekites, Hittites, Jebusites, Canaanites, Amorites, Moabites and every other 'ites' that stood between us and G's promise of the land of Israel. That is to be expected of a people in that place and that time. What is less expected is to hear the words that enlighten our text and our lives. "I am the HaShem your G who brought you out of Egypt out of the house of bondage" invariably preceding the challenge to take special care of the widow and orphan, the needy and the stranger in our midst.

Imbuing and imbedding such ideals is not an overnight activity. 40 years, which just means a very long time, passes before the lessons are hammered out on the anvil of the Sinai desert floor.

And then we came over Jordan. The עברים, the Hebrews, the ones who cross over crossed over Jordan from East to West and came home. We built from the 12 tribes of Jacob, the nation of Israel. In that nation building we created the 8th wonder of the physical world, the Temple of Solomon and the first wonder of the ancient world an ethical code of equality. It is a code that is the basis for the religions of Christianity and Islam and can be found in the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution. It was and is a song of salvation and it ends with the refrain; "Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt!" The key word here is remember, for the word Ivrim, that condescending term for outsider, also carries with it the consciousness of our past. The word 'Ivri' comes from 'Over' which means 'coming out of the past.' We, the Ivrim are the ones who crossed over Jordan remembering our past. Re-membering, as my belovedest , my partner and friend has been trying to teach me, is bringing something in so deeply that it is part and parcel of who we are. It comes naturally because it is so deeply held in our soul memory.

And so our life in our Sacred Homeland followed a course similar to the other nations. We conquered and were conquered. Just like the other nations who rose and fell with the tide of fate. But our path less travelled stands out from the text, stands apart from the rest. We do not fade into the night of exile and assimilation. When Nebuchadnetzer and then Titus destroy our 2 Temples, one in 586 BCE and the other in 70 CE, we carry that sacred sanctuary in our hearts. We adopt and adapt and survive and thrive even in the dark night of expulsion . Temple sacrifice no longer possible morphs into synagogue service. שחרית, מנחה, מעריב punctuate our days and enlightens our nights. But what never changes is our unique faith in our One G, source of love, source of life source of mystery. Our warrior path survives exile and return, war and wandering. For though we are tossed on the winds of fate we carry the G field in our souls and we carry our corpus of conduct and spirit wisdom in our hands and in our hearts. We physically survive and spiritually thrive not because of our numbers, but because of our indomitable faith in G and the transcendent teachings of our Torah.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and we --
we took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.