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Apparently at home, Armstrong not only vociferously denied his invovement with drugs – we now know how much of a blantant lie that it was – but to add insult he also mowed people under, ruined lives, destroyed careers and tarnished reputations so he could keep his facade.  Doping in sports is hardly the epitome of sinful activity and there are arguments to allow it in professional sports.  Destroying lives, though, are Armstrong’s real sins and no number of Ophrah appearances will fix the damage he has done.  To add to astonishment, he admits that he is admitting to using drugs so that he can get back into competition.  I am shaking my head in disbelief.  Oy vey!  Let me get this right: He lies and destroys lives, he manipulates people, he drugs and then he admits that he is admitting it so he can engage in sport once again where he has shown that he destroys anyone who questions him.  His admission is not repentance.  He sees admission only as a step toward payday.

As Jews, we know the value of repentance.  But repentance is not about admitting lies.  It’s about admitting faults and then doing our utmost to fix them first and foremost by going to the people whom we have hurt.  There is no public display of repentance.  The real work happens in the lives that have been damaged.  That is why Armstrong is continuing to lie – only this time he is lying to himself since he telling himself that if he comes out and sounds repentant, he deserves our adoration and adulation once again.

Pharoah had the same problem.  In this week’s parasha, Phaorah has finally allowed the Israelites to leave Egypt after continual evasion, deception and self-delusion about his infinite power, a convenient lie he told himself over and over again.  Moses saw right through Pharoah and with strength and honor and integrity led the Jews to freedom.  Moses did not want the praise, he did not want the glory and he never really wanted to be in charge in the first place.  But he got all three.

Our Sages say that it was his humility that earned him the honor of leading the people and being chosen by God.  We see this humility over and over again and, in this week’s parasha, we see it when the text tells us:

וַיִּקַּח מֹשֶׁה אֶת־עַצְמוֹת יוֹסֵף עִמּוֹ כִּיֱ הַשְׁבֵֶּעַ הִשְׁבִּיעַ אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵלֶ לֵאמֹר פָּקֶֹד יִפְקֹד אֱלֹהִיםֶ אֶתְכֶם וְהַעֲלִיתֶם אֶת־עַצְמֹתַי מִזֶּה אִתְּכֶֽם:

And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, who had exacted an oath from the children of Israel, saying, “God will be sure to take notice of you: then you shall carry up my bones from here with you.”

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein teaches that Joseph really had no reason suspect that the Children of Israel would not properly take care of his bones when they ultimately left Egypt.  The Talmud asks the same question.  But Rabbi Feinstein adds that Joseph, in his great humility, never thought of himself as the savior of the Jewish people and that the Jews would never owe him anything.  He saw himself as a servant of God, not a savior of his people.  Saving Israel was simply his task.  So when Joseph said that he needed someone to take his bones, it is really an expression of his humility since he believed no one owed him anything.  Moses literally takes Joseph’s bones with him and is literally and symbolically picking up Joseph’s humility and carries it with him.  It is a good lesson for all of us.

Often people think of themselves deserving of great adulation – and they may be deserving of it, indeed.  But there is never a case when voluntary adulation lasts forever.  The reality is that we can be heroes one day but forgotten the next.  That is the way the human animal works.  But the truly great are the ones who serve in unexpected ways – they pick up bones, they walk with the righteous, they stand up to power.  The truly sincere do not do it for a name but rather because it is the right thing to do.

Lance Armstrong believes he is doing the right thing because he uttered a few words admitting he is a liar.  But then he follows up and gives away the real reason: he wants the opportunity to compete again.  As my mother of blessed memory was fond of saying, ‘Shoyn vata!’ – ‘Here we go again.’  I used to believe Armstrong when he denied his drug use.  I used to believe he was sincere.  Now I don’t listen to a thing he has to say.  He never really learned what repentance is all about and I think his humility is non-existent.  There is still time for him to repair what is broken but I don’t think it will ever happen.

Let his experience be a lesson for all of us.  None of us should be above picking up bones.

There is an interesting twist to this and it takes a bit of deeper reading. The teacher teaches us that if God wanted to ‘take the Jews out’ of Egypt because of the endemic evil in the land, then it seems to imply that the Jews somehow resisted the evil themselves. They were in, we are taught, an idolatrous nation, surrounded by the evil of all the Egyptians and the temptation that comes from all these evil influences. He then asks the question, what was it that the Jews posessed (in this Rabbinic imagination and midrash) that set them apart from the rest of Egypt and gave them the strength to avoid falling into the same evil that God so despised and from which God needed to take them out?

It was, we are taught, the state of קדושה – kedusha – ‘holiness.’ Mesech Chochma teaches us that this first cup of wine – ‘I took you out’ – is the cup of sanctification – kiddush (same word!) and it refers to the fact that God is the ‘One who sanctifies Israel and the Festivals.’ This means that God sanctified Israel only when Israel recognizes the Festivals. The Talmud reflects this when it says, ‘God considers the Festivals to be Festivals only if Israel declares them Festivals.’ How insightful this is.

When the Jews declare their Festivals to be holy, they are holy and subsequently recognized as Festivals by God. To be able to know that the Festival is holy and that the Festival is near takes a determined heart and a knowledge about when it will fall. The reality is that if the Jews don’t care when the Festival lands, the Festival, as it were, would never come. There is real insight here. Only when Jews care about being Jewish and make the effort to do so is the Judaism alive. There are many who consider themselves Jewish only by dint of being born to a Jewish parent. There are those who are ‘cultural Jews’ who often are self-identified as ‘gastronomic Jews.’ Each of these kinds of Jews are part of the Jewish people. There is certainly nothing ‘evil’ about being such a Jew. But the meat of Jewish thought and the depth of the Jewish soul is often missing.

Our tradition is filled with amazing things, profound knowledge and an astonishingly modern outlook and insight into so many things. No one is ever forbidden from reading anything and, in fact, each Jew is highly encouraged to delve deeply into every sea of knowlege. Are you taking the plunge?

After Joseph interpreted the previous Pharaoh’s dream of the seven lean years and the seven fat years, it was clear that he saved the Egyptian people from starvation.  As a reward, the Jews under that first Pharaoh were not beholden to Pharaoh except as loyal subjects.  We can imagine them walking freely around Egypt secure in the knowlege that they were protected and taken care of just as they had taken care of their Egyptian hosts.  Yet, when the new Pharaoh arose, he did not pay heed to what they had done.  In fact, he had a bad case of ‘what have you done for me lately?’

It is not surprising that Pharoah had this trait.  In fact, most people have it and the farther you are from a positive event, the more likely you are to forget the people who made it happen.  It is a question of what our sages call הכרת הטוב – the recognition of the good that someone has done.  When people lose that, it is easy to turn the hero into a victim.

Jews see this all the time.  In Europe today, Jews have formed the backbone of so much of European civilization and yet, unabashedly in places like England, Ireland, Germany, Ukraine and other countries, the Jews who are all good and productive citizens are turned into some kind of monsters by the government being accused of everything from blood libel to controlling the banks, the newspapers and generally making a mess of everything in the country.  The idiocy of taking such a position is manifest but it seems built into the psyche of people who have to look outside themselves for someone to blame for all their troubles.  So, they blame the Jews.  Pharoah did it with ease and enslaved the Jews for 410 years.  The Europeans are doing it today and one generation after the Holocaust, they are driving Jews out of their countries with their open hatred.  It makes no sense but since when did such an illness make any sense?

But the story of Moses and the Exodus is not one of slavery.  Slavery and bigotry arising from fear is just the beginning of the story.  It is not the end.  The end is Jewish self-determination and loss of fear.  It is a story of finding the best in ourselves and forging our ways through the deserts where each day is another day to express הכרת הטוב – our gratefulness to our Sages and our Torah and God for the gifts that Jews have created throughout the ages.  The rest of the world may ask what we have done for them lately and, when they get a different response than the one they want, they blatantly hate.  Such is the world in too many hearts.  But the Jewish heart strives to be better than that and so we will continue to shine light where it is dark, empower the slave to be free, change the world which is so badly broken.  In time, we are taught, the world will one day thank the Jews for all they have done.  Such a day would indeed be the beginning of the Messianic Era!

וַיְשַׁלַּ֜ח אֶת־אֶחָ֝יו וַיֵּלֵ֞כוּ וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֲלֵהֶ֭ם אַֽל־תִּרְגְּז֝וּ בַּדָּֽרֶךְ:

²⁴ So he sent his brothers away, and they departed; and he said to them, “See that you do not become troubled along the way.” (Gen 45:24)

It is a strange statement.  Usually when we bid someone goodbye, hoping to see them soon, we would say, ‘have a nice journey,’ ‘come back safe,’ or something like that.  But why say ‘don’t be troubled along the way’?  Seems like an odd piece of advice.

Rashi says, in a very well-known commentary:

אל תרגזו בדרך. אל תתעסקו בדבר הלכה, ^ט שלא תרגז עליכם הדרך. דבר אחר אל תפסיעו פסיעה ^י גסה,  והכנסו בחמה לעיר. לפי פשוטו של מקרא יש לומר, לפי שהיו נכלמים, היה דואג שמא יריבו בדרך על דבר מכירתו, להתוכח זה עם זה ולומר, על ידך נמכר, אתה ספרת לשון הרע עליו, וגרמת לנו לשנאתו:

“Do not become troubled on the way: (I offer three explanations) 1) Do not become involved in matters of Jewish law so deeply that the trip should not become a source of agtitation for you.  2) Alternatively, do not take long steps and enter the city while it is still daytime.  3) But the way I would really understand the verse is according to its simple meaning which, (based on the root of the wordתרגזו  - which is often translated as ‘angry’ or ‘troubled’) is that it can be said that they were ashamed for he (Joseph) was worried lest ehy quarrel on the way over the matter of his sale by disputing with each other and saying, ‘He was sold because of you’ or ‘You were the one who spoke poorly of him.’”

It  is a clever insight and one of the reasons we find it so compelling is that Rashi understand human nature.  When as individuals or groups we do something wrong and have not been caught we usually repress it and justify what we have done by saying that so-and-so deserved what they got or ‘I didn’t do anything wrong since I was only a bystander.  It was the other guy that stole the money.’  The human mind is masterful at reducing congnitive dissonance – the conflict between what is and what we wish it was. It all works pretty well.  The human mind has the survival quality to remove any distasteful details it finds inconvenient to live with.  (The film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ about global warming is about both global warming but is also an insight into human psychology.  The real ‘inconvenience’ is that the truth gets in the way so it is imperative to repress it so that another priority may be given a better chance at success.)  As far as we know, only humans do this or even can do this.

Ahh, but then, more often than not, the truth comes back.  Sigmund Freud made a living out of this with his early discoveries of repressed memories that often involved a trauma simply too difficult to remember and the repression itself was forgotten.  We may be finished with the past, but the past is not always finished with us.  Sooner or later, externally or internally, the truth often finds its way back home.  Joseph’s brothers learned this when they had to go back to a dying Jacob and tell him that the son he lost and whom they said was ‘devoured by wild beasts’ was the VP of Egypt and he wants to take them all there.  You can bet they were worried that, before Jacob died, he would know the truth about what his sons did to Joseph.  No wonder they were shaking in their sandals!  And, no wonder Joseph warned them to be neither troubled, worried, or quarrelsome on the way, all valid uses of the word תרגזו

This very common ‘truth emergence’ often leads to what appear to be acts of deep contrition.  When Joseph’s brother were revealing the truth to Jacob, did they really feel contrite about what they had done to both Jacob and Joseph or were they really just sorry that they got caught?  It seems to be the case that whenever the convict apologizes to the hurt party, he is apologizing to get a lighter sentence or he is really saying that he is sorry he got caught.  Apologies after capture have limited value.

This is the quandry Joseph’s brothers found themselves in.  And it is a quandry that we find ourselves in, too, from time to time.  If we have done wrong, do we correct it even if it puts us in jeopardy of some type or do we wait until we are caught, close our eyes and hope for the best?  The truly moral ethical dilemmas can be argued both ways.  But luckily we don’t have such difficult choices to make that often.  Rather our sins are small and often insignificant in the grand scheme of things.  But are they not still sins?  Is theft not theft?  Is lashon harah – speaking badly of someone – still not lashon harah even if it’s true?  Is larceny not larceny even if it done on a tiny scale?  Our tradition says a sin is a sin and that the door for repentance is always open before you get caught.  After we get caught the remorse-believablity index drops.  Perhaps that is why the great tzaddikim and Sages stayed as far as they could from even the slightest sin for to know the sin and hide it was simply a corrosion of the soul.  It is a lesson worth learning and relearning every day.

There are some rather evil answers out there.  God allowed this because prayer has been taken out of the classroom.  God allowed this because there are gays in the military.  God allowed this because…..just fill in the blank.  But these are not answers.  They are excuses to keep close to the heart a powerful God who controls everything.  I don’t believe most of us would embrace that theology.

The fact that we are not getting answers to the question seems to me to indicate that we are asking the wrong question.  ‘Why did God allow this happen?’ is not question we should be asking but, rather, ‘Why did God choose to withdraw from the world?’  It is question that we can begin to answer.

The mystics say that when God created the world, there was no room for anything else since His light took up all space.  And so to create literal space for the universe to work, God engaged in an act of tzimtzum – contraction – and withdrew from the world so that the world could function.

There was a consequence to this, though.  For the world to function, miracles would be rare.  The world would, rather, function on laws that are universal.  These are the laws of nature.  As I see it, God can not stop bullets, change the course of hurricanes, stop planes from flying into buildings, or any of an infinite number of events that destroy lives.  God is limited.

So what purpose is there for God?  Job asked the same question.  We sometimes speak of the ‘patience of Job’ but this is very misleading.  In the 42 chapters of the Book of Job fully 35 of them have Job waving his fist to his friends and to Heaven.  He wants an answer.  But once again, God is incapable of giving Job a straight answer.  He appears in a whirlwind and begins a rumination that begins by saying, Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? Speak if you have understanding.  ⁵ Do you know who fixed its dimensions Or who measured it with a line?

⁶ Onto what were its bases sunk? Who set its cornerstone

⁷ When the morning stars sang together And all the divine beings shouted for joy? (Job 38:4-7)

God tells Job that he just doesn’t ‘get it.’  He wasn’t around when the world was created so how can he understand how God works?  Job accepts God presence but we don’t know whether he accepted God’s explanation.  After all, there was no explanation as to the reasons for his suffering.

And therein lies the lesson.

There is no ‘Why’ when tragedy strikes.  God is not responsible for the evil machinations and deeds of others.  In fact, God has no control over the laws of nature that allow bullets to kill children and people to get sick.  But that is not the end of the question.  After Job hears God and sees God coming through in thw whirlwind, he says something interesting.  He says, “ I had heard You with my ears, But now I see You with my eye.”  It is easy to ‘hear God’ since everyone talks about God as if they know something about Him.  But Job saw God.  He did not just hear the words of his friends but rather perceived the reality of God in the midst of tragedy and on the cusp of healing.

How did Job see God?  I think there are a number of ways.  First he waved his fist to heavens in a show of chutzpah klapei shamayim – standing up to the pain of the world and demanding an answer from God.  Second, Job did not embrace the easy answers of his friends that he was somehow responsible.  Little children are not responsible for their deaths and no one was being punished by God for anything they did.  And still, in his pain, Job wanted an answer.

He did not get the answer he was looking for.  Perhaps God is limited in giving the answers people really need.  But Job knew that God was somehow still in the equation of his life.  God was the provider of comfort and the inspirer of blessing.  And when Job demanded of God to present His case, Job and God became partners.

Elie Wiesel said that God is the most pathetic character in the Bible.  Everything God expects from us falls apart.  But God is also pathetic in that He evokes pathos from each of us.  He withdrew Himself from the world so that we could exist and we look toward God with sad eyes asking for deliverance and an end to sorrow that seems never to come.

But Job teaches us that it does come.  It comes in Job’s last friend who does not try to blame Job for his pain but rather tries to lead Job to understand that God is beyond understanding.  That last friend understood Job’s frustration and helped him to see the God he had been missing and the God that was missing.

He teaches that it is not a God who can fix the world.   That is out of God’s power.  But it is our friends, the angels who give us strength, that allow us to see God even in our deepest pain.  God will never respond to the ‘Why’ that we always ask at these terrible moments.  But God can respond to the ‘Where’ and the ‘How.’

Where is God?  In the outpouring of love and emotion by an entire nation that gives voice to real pain without cheapening it by saying that ‘God works in mysterious ways’ or some other kind of defense of the indefensible.

‘How’ is the most important question, though.  For in the ‘how’ lies the possibility for healing.  I believe that God has given us the power to affect the ‘How.’  It is the power of our hands and hearts and minds which reaches out to those who suffer with our silent acceptance of their pain and also with our questions and search for solutions about guns, our violent culture, our cheapening of life.

When God withdrew from the world to allow the world to exist, the most powerful word He gave us was ‘How?’  How do we change this world so filled with evil?  And how will each of us, you and I, bring holiness back into the world?  It is the only question we can answer and, in tragedies like this, it is the only question we ought to be asking.

וְעַתָּה֙ יֵרֶ֣א פַרְעֹ֔ה אִ֖ישׁ נָב֣וֹן וְחָכָ֑ם וִישִׁיתֵ֖הוּ עַל־אֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃

³⁴ יַעֲשֶׂ֣ה פַרְעֹ֔ה וְיַפְקֵ֥ד פְּקִדִ֖ים עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וְחִמֵּשׁ֙ אֶת־אֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם בְּשֶׁ֖בַע שְׁנֵ֥י הַשָּׂבָֽע

וְיִקְבְּצ֗וּ אֶת־כָּל־אֹ֙כֶל֙ הַשָּׁנִ֣ים הַטֹּבֹ֔ת הַבָּאֹ֖ת הָאֵ֑לֶּה וְיִצְבְּרוּ־בָ֞ר תַּ֧חַת יַד־פַּרְעֹ֛ה אֹ֥כֶל בֶּעָרִ֖ים וְשָׁמָֽרו

וְהָיָ֙ה הָאֹ֤כֶל לְפִקָּדוֹן֙ לָאָ֔רֶץ לְשֶׁ֙בַע֙ שְׁנֵ֣י הָרָעָ֔ב אֲשֶׁ֥ר תִּהְיֶ֖יןָ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם וְלֹֽא־תִכָּרֵ֥ת הָאָ֖רֶץ בָּרָעָֽב׃“

“Now therefore let Pharaoh select a discerning and wise man, and set him over the land of Egypt.

³⁴ Let Pharaoh proceed to appoint overseers over the land and take one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt during the seven plentiful years.

³⁵ And let them gather all the food of these good years that are coming and store up grain under the authority of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it.

³⁶ That food shall be a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine that are to occur in the land of Egypt, so that the land may not perish through the famine.”

It is a little strange that, after interpreting dreams, Joseph should suggest setting up a wise and discerning man to oversee such a program of saving the harvest for the skinny years.  After all, isn’t that obvious?

RAbbi Ysrael Yaakove Lubchansky, a pre-WW 2 Chassid taught that Joseph had to suggest that since to ignore need in the midst of plenty is human nature.  When people are prospering they tend not put things away for a ‘rainy day.’  It is easy to become immersed in the fantasy that all the good things we have been blessed with will last forever.  But we know that it never happens.  As that famous song “Dust in the Wind” goes: ‘all your money won’t another minute buy.”  It takes a wise and discerning person to plan for the future.

But if everything we have will turn to dust, what can we possibly save for the future.  In traditional Jewish terms, the ultimate future is the Olam HaBah – the world to come sometimes thought of as the existence after death or the real world sometime in the Messianic Age.  The things of value that we store for the ultimate rainy day – the World to Come – are those things that have lasting and eternal value.  In other words, mitzvot.

What else will last but our connection with God and the acts of goodness and kindness we do with each other?  What we build will all disappear but the effects of our love and good deeds, mitzvot and doing the work of God is something that we Jews believe will have enduring – eternal – value.  To see that truth takes a wise and discerning mind and a wise and discerning heart.

(Gen 41:33-36 ESV)

In this week’s Torah portion, Joseph is certainly at his most immature.  He does not realize what is in store for him nor how he will see God working behind the scenes in his life.  All he has now are dreams and he will gladly share his ‘wisdom’ with whomever he wants, especially to his brothers.  His brothers, of course, do not take kindly to his dreams and, after hearing his first dream they ask him,

וַיֹּאמְרוּ לוֶֹ אֶחָיו הֲמָלֹךְ תִּמְלֹךְֶ עָלֵינוּ אִם־מָשׁוֹל תִּמְשֹׁל בָּנוּ וַיּוֹסִפוּ עוֹדֶ שְׂנֹא אֹתוֹ עַל־חֲלֹמֹתָיו וְעַל־דְּבָרָֽיו

His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.”

The Hebrew is interesting since it uses two verbs to indicate some kind of rulership.  The first verb is

מלך from which the word ‘king’ derives.  The second is the verb משל from which the word ‘domination’ derives.  Our Sages teach us that, though the verse and the two different verbs may look the same and it merely looks like the brothers are saying the same thing to Joseph in two different ways, the truth is that the use of the two verbs indicate something else.

The first of the two verbs, malach מלך, indicates a rulership over a people with their consent. The verb mashal משל, on the other hand, indicates a type of domination over a people through oppression and fear.  So, when the brothers said, “Will you really malach over us and will you really mashal over us?” they were telling Joseph that he would neither rule over them nor dominate them in any way, ever.  This was the beginning of their hatred toward him.  But it was not just simple jealousy.  They saw their brother as undeserving and arrogant.  He may have been Jacob’s favorite son but, in their eyes, his name ‘Yosef’ – one who adds – only added to their misery when he was around.  The plot to remove him from the family thickens.

The brothers were on to something and it is reflected in their uses of the words ‘mashal’ and ‘malach’.  No good ruler rules without consent and ruling through fear can not last forever.  That is why all dictatorships eventually fall.  When they are replaced by other dictatorships, they eventually fall, as well.  The human spirit can not be repressed indefinitely.

But there is another element, as well.  The brothers knew that Joseph sought glory and when someone seeks glory, it is vanity, not honor.  Vanity comes from self-seeking and self-serving.  It comes from greed and avarice.  But honor comes from those who offer respect and title to someone who deserves it but never sought it out.  When someone reigns over another, they may have mashal but they do not have malach.  Malach is given by the people, not demanded by the sovereign.

Every day we know people who want to either mashal or malach over us.  Sometimes they ‘pull rank’ or threaten.  Sometimes they invite dialogue and conversation and cooperation.  It may happen at work, it may happen in a marriage, it may happen anywhere two or more people gather.  But the dynamic is the same.  Joseph’s brothers’ words can teach us to look carefully at how we ‘rule’ over people.  Do we get respect and honor or merely demand it?  Your future literally depends on the answer.

The text says, “vayifgah ba-makom” – he encountered the place.  This is strange verb.   You would expect the text to say, “he arrived,” not “he encountered the place.”  Naturally, no verb goes unnoticed by the Rabbis and they created a midrash about this which is found in the Talmud.  Here is the origninal from the Talmud (b. Chullin 92b):

ויצא יעקב מבאר שבע וילך חרנה, וכתיב ויפגע במקום, כי מטא לחרן אמר: אפשר עברתי על מקום שהתפללו אבותי, ואני לא התפללתי? כד יהיב דעתיה למיהדר – קפצה ליה ארעא, מיד – ויפגע במקום, כד צלי בעי למיהדר

It says that Jacob was traveling to his destination in Charan when he said to himself that, since he was so close Mt. Moriah, the place where Abraham took up Isaac for the Akeidah, he could not miss the opportunity to pray there.  He began to retrace his steps and, just as he did, the mountain uprooted and came to him!  It was not like other examples of ketzifot haderech – the shortening of the journey.  In those cases (i.e., when Eliezer was looking for a wife for Isaac), he was given superhuman speed.  In this case, the mountain literally came to Jacob.  Why?

Jacob, our Sages tell us, had spent the last 14 years studying Torah (don’t get too hung up on this concept since the Torah had not been given at Sinai – it is Rabbinic imagination following the idea that there is ‘no before or after in the Torah.’)  When he left for Haran, he was separating himself from all of his roots and was in a strange land setting down roots of his own.  There was no ‘Jewish presence’ in Haran and this caused great fear for Jacob.  To allay his fears, God brought the mountain to him as if to say, “Even in this impure place, I, God, can still be reached.  You can bring holiness to your life here, yes, even here.”

This is a wonderful lesson.  We have just experienced a terrible toll of life and property in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, but in a sense, may of us have found holiness, as well.  We saw the deeds of holiness in the hands of those who reached out to help and to support and offer comfort during some very, literally and figuratively, dark times.  But one does not need to have moments of extreme stress to be holy.  One can be holy at all times.

Each moment can be a holy moment.  While it is true that you can do a minimum of mitzvot because of the impurity of the time or place, why strive for the lowest common denominator.  Do more.  Be more holy.  Or, in the phrase of the rabbis, “In a place where there are no humans, strive to be human,” which we can understand to say, “No matter where you find yourself, holiness is a hairsbreadth away.”

The Torah portion for this weeks begins with a famous story, albetit, rather unusual.  Abraham has just been circumcised at 90 years old (!) and is sitting by the opening of his tent when he sees three strangers either pass by or appear in front of him (the text is sort of ambiguous about this).  In any event, when Abraham finally does greet them he says:

וַיֹּאמַ֞ר אֲדֹנְָי אִם־נֶָא מָצָ֣אתִי חֵןֶ בְּעֵינֶ֭יךָ אַל־נָ֜א תַעֲבֹ֝ר מֵעַ֜ל עַבְדֶּֽךָ:

יֻקַּֽח־נָ֤א מְעַט־מַ֭יִם וְרַחֲצ֝וּ רַגְלֵיכֶ֞ם וְהִֽשָּׁעֲנ֝וּ תַּ֜חַת הָעֵֽץ:

וְאֶקְחֶָה פַת־לֶ֩חֶם וְסַעֲד֣וּ לִבְּכֶםֶ אַחַ֤ר תַּעֲבֹ֭רוּ כִּֽי־עַל־כֵּ֜ן עֲבַרְתֶּ֝ם עַֽל־עַבְדְּכֶ֞ם

“My lords, if it please you, do not go on past your servant. Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and recline under the tree. And let me fetch a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves; then go on — seeing that you have come your servant’s way…”

Many commentators have been confused about the word

אֲדֹנְָי – Adonai – used by Abraham.  After all, the word means “Lord” but it is not the usual Tetragrammaton – a fancy way of referring to the four letter name of God usually rendered יהוה – Adonai.   

According to the Ohr HaHayyim (Chaim ben Moses ibn Attar also known as the Ohr ha-Chaim after his popular commentary on the Pentateuch, was a Talmudist and kabbalist; born at Meknes, Morocco, in 1696; died in Jerusalem, Israel July 7, 1743. He was one of the most prominent rabbis in Morocco) the three ‘men’ that appeared before Abraham were in the guise of a thief, a sailor and an Arab (which was the code word for any pagan and also a Roman).  He teaches us that the reason these ‘men’ appeared was to teach a lesson about Abraham – a lesson for us to emulate.

The three men represent the three kinds of people – faith-wise.  The sailor is the pious man since they are always aware of the great power of God in the universe.  The thief is the one who lacks any kind of trust or faith in God since, if he had any awareness of God’s Presence, he would certainly not be a thief.  And, finally, the Arab – the Roman, the pagan – who does not believe in God at all.

 When Abraham goes to meet them to feed them and was their feet he did so so as to draw them into teaching about God and faith in God.  The sailor did not need the lesson and to him is directed the phrase, “And let me fetch a morsel of bread.” Bread refers to the hidden secrets of the Torah. The righteous sailor already had faith and now he knew the secrets of the revealed texts.  To the Arab, the pagan, Abraham says, “Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and recline under the tree.”  The idea is that the ground is filthy and that by washing his feet, he was washing the filth away.  Finally, to the thief who denied God, Abraham directed the verse, “recline under the tree,” which was Abraham’s way of teaching that the only sustenance one truly acquires comes not from theft but from God.

This is a brilliant commentary by esteemed teachers.  They parse a verse into three distinct parts referring to three different people and teach an ethical lesson from it.  It is a wonderful example of the Rabbinic imagination.  But it is more than that for when our Sages take time to write something, they are trying to teach something.

In this verse, our teachers want us to see that Abraham met each person where he was at and taught them Torah according to their own place.  There was no judgement that so-and-so did not learn Torah and was somehow lacking in goodness or potential.  In fact, Abraham treated each one like a king and turned from his own needs (remember, he was just circumcised the other day!) to serve and to teach.

This is a wonderful lesson for anyone who finds themselves teaching anything.  There are always a wide variety of students and experiences.  None of us are born knowing anything except the basic instincts.  We still have to be taught and even geniuses in one area still need instruction in other areas.  The greatest ‘Rennaisance man’ still needs a teacher to teach him a language he doesn’t know that a four-year native does!  How we approach that task makes us either an cantankerous and irascible and useless professor or an Abraham whose ability to teach Torah in so many ways to so many different kinds of people enlightens and inspires.  And what is true in teaching is true in every other part and phase of our lives.