As an avid knitter, I’m very familiar with the concept of instructions.  When I create a sweater, a scarf or a blanket, I know that attention to detail is required if I want the object to come out to the intended specifications.  I need to read the pattern all the way through and I need to follow what has been written step-by-step.  If I do this, I will be rewarded with a piece of handmade art.

In this week’s Torah portion, Terumah, we are given explicit instructions on how to build an Ark, a table, a lamp, a tabernacle, beams, a partition, an alter, and an enclosure.  Each set of blue prints, if followed, will give us an object of great craftsmanship.  God specifically says in Line 25:40 - Carefully observe the pattern.  Furthermore, if we assemble the objects together, we get an even greater creation.  God didn’t say to just make a tabernacle, he said “You must make the tabernacle and all its furnishings following the plan that I am showing you.”

In his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying, Oscar Wilde said that "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.”  In the piece, Wilde expounded that “the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realize that energy."  He went on to say that what is found in life and nature is not what is really there, but is that which artists have taught people to find there, through art.  In fact, the notion that life imitates art actually derives from classical notions that can be traced as far back as the writings of Aristophanes of Byzantium.  And, it is through the artistic objects that God so painstakingly describes in Terumah, that the Israelites are to realize the creative force that fills our universe.

The mission of the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework is to pass needlework traditions to other generations of women and men through the sharing of knowledge and techniques needed to create handcrafted items intended for both Jewish ritual and cultural use.  The symbol of this group is the Pomegranate fruit which is made up of hundreds of tiny seeds which Jewish tradition says number 613.  The art of this beautiful fruit is that each seed is needed to form the pomegranate and by eating the whole fruit, we display our desire to fulfill God’s 613 mitzvot.  In essence, we imitate the art of this marvelous edible creation.

In 2007, while I was going through a devastating divorce, I found a knitting pattern for a chuppah.  It was a complicated task involving holding two strands of yarn together and following an intricate lace pattern.  It was done in four pieces which were then assembled together and, finally, surrounded by a crocheted border.  I felt compelled to knit this incredible tapestry, yet I had no idea why.  I stitched away for months, keeping great focus on the instructions until my masterpiece was complete.  And, then, as if on queue, I met my future husband on J-date.  We married under my chuppah in the sanctuary of my synagogue.  Life truly did imitate art.

As Ruth Brin says in her poem “How to Build a Tabernacle,” may we pray to begin each task, each hour, according to the will of God, so that, like our ancestors, we may build and become what is good.

Shabbat Shalom.

My friend Andy affectionately calls me a witch.  Not only am I an astrologer, I also have a keen intuitive sense which allows me to know and understand things before everyone around me.  And, then, there is the weird knack I have around time.  Whether we are leaving home for a destination or heading back I can predict the exact moment of arrival.  For instance, once we were in the middle of Wisconsin, more than three hours from home, and my kids asked the proverbial question “when will we get there?”  And, I answered, “5:30.”  And, we rolled into the driveway just as the digital clock turned to 5-3-0. 

Throughout much of history, these traits of mine would surely have gotten me stoned or burned at the stake.  And, this negative reaction to those with a sixth sense, in part, stems straight from our Torah, specifically this week’s Parsha, Mishpatim.  In line 22:17, God tells the Israelites, “You shall not allow a sorceress to live.”  This verse was, for all intents and purposes, the cause of the marginalization and persecution among pre-modern women in Christian Europe and later Colonial America. Scholars think that about 40,000 to 60,000 women were put to death through witch trials and lynchings between 1480 and 1750.

What strikes me about this line amidst all the laws outlined in Mishpatim is the prohibition of magic and the use of feminine sorceress and not the masculine sorcerer.

It is undeniable that God performs a plethora of grandiose magic in the Torah.  We’ve got burning bushes that aren’t consumed, rivers waters turning into blood, seas parting, manna falling from the sky, a being moving around within a cloud, and on and on.  So, when God tell us that we need to kill anyone who is a sorceress, he isn’t prohibiting magic, per se (at least not in this portion), he is outlawing magic performed by women.

In an explanation of this verse, Rashi, knowing there was no difference between sorcery by a woman and by a man, explained the use of the feminine as follows: "Scripture speaks of what is usually the case; for it is mostly women who practice witchcraft."  And, if you were really worried about the threat of a Jewish witch, the rabbi’s of the Talmud provided this curse:  "May boiling excrement in a sieve be forced into your mouth, (you) witches! May your head go bald and carry off your crumbs; your spices be scattered, and the wind carry off the new saffron in your hands, witches!" Were the women of Biblical times and beyond practicing witchcraft to be evil and destructive?  Or were women practicing witchcraft to restore order, to heal?  I believe that it was truly the power found in feminine intuition and the instinctive ability to create natural remedies that was threatening to the masculine world.  After all the title of the Torah portion Mishpatim means “laws” and these strict rules, surely written by men, were counter to those who thrive on visceral declarations.

Today, at least in the progressive western world, a fear of witches has turned to a fascination.  The TV show Charmed thrives in syndication, Deborah Harkness’s book “The Discovery of Witches” was recently on the New York Times best seller list for over a year, and witches like Hermoine Granger have managed to capture the hearts of children and adults, worldwide.  Even Jewish witches exist.  A number of years ago, at the Aleph Jewish Renewal Kallah, I took a class taught by a congregational rabbi who proudly declared in her bio that she was also a Wiccan.   These developments point to a shift towards the greater acceptance of the feminine intuition, moving us toward a greater energy balance in our world.

And, as fate would have it, my daughter called from college the other day to declare that she, too, seems to have the time bending talent of her mother.  On the drive back to their college campus after winter break, she declared to her brother that they would arrive at about 3:00 pm, and, as predicted, they pulled up to her dorm just as the digital clock on the dashboard went from 2:59 to 3 o’clock.

The women in my family have always been characterized as being a bit bossy.  I remember when I was a young teen having lunch with my six great aunts and being berated with directives:  change your hairstyle, wear more make-up, don’t be so shy.  The very nature of being told what to do made me want to run in the opposite direction.

In this week’s Torah portion, we are introduced to what has become known throughout our planet as the Ten Commandments.  These ten mandates declared by God to Moses on the top of Mt. Sinai are the building blocks of behavior in Judaism and beyond.

And, yet, despite the almost universal knowledge of God’s injunction, these commandments are frequently ignored, if not wholeheartedly snubbed.

For instance, in 2011 there were 14,612 murders in the United States and over 9 million thefts.

One of the most reliable statistics on adultery comes from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago which concluded that one quarter of the married men in the United States and a sixth of the married women reported having at least one extramarital affair.

And Credit Card Debt, which can easily be related to coveting and/or worshiping graven images was reported by the Huffington Post to be $43.5 billion in 2012.

While God is commanding, the people are rebelling.

A mitzvah, in Hebrew is said to be a divinely revealed commandment.  What is interesting to note is origin of the word commandment.  Comandement, meaning an order from an authority, comes from Middle English and Old French and dates back to only the 13 century.    This explains why, ironically, the term Ten Commandments is not actually found in the Torah.  Judaism refers to the Aseret ha-Debrot, the ten sayings or utterances, spoken by God at Mount Sinai.  While the Torah is clear that it is God who sets these ideals in place, they are spoken in the context of principles, not laws.  The Geneva Bible published in the 16th century was the first to use the phrase Ten Commandments…which was then, ultimately, adopted by the King James Bible.

In the book Minyan by Rabbi Rami Shapiro, we are told that there is a real difference between a commandment and a vow, especially as Buddhists understand the latter term.  A commandment is an order levied upon one by a superior.  A vow is a personal statement of intent.  The former implies an enforceable hierarchy of power; the latter relies solely on your own integrity.  One who breaks a commandment is liable for punishment.  One who fails to keep a vow is liable to self-incrimination.  One can and should return to a vow over and over again to bolster one’s intention to proceed with the avowed action.  It is not a matter of   breaking a rule and being punished, but of recognizing one’s limits and recommitting to a goal.

Rabbi Kerry Olitzsky suggests that mitzvot are key to human self-improvement.  And, thus they are divine instructions rather than commands.  And Rabbi Arthur Waskow speaks of mitzvah as an act that connects an individual with the larger world and with God. 

The Root of the Hebrew word halahka, meaning law, is halakh which translates as to walk or to go, or the way to go.  So, as we listen to the reading of the Ten Commandments this Shabbat, let us remind ourselves that Jewish law at its core is about guidance.  We spend our lives at untold crossroads, making choices about which direction to take.    While our families, society, and even translations of our Torah may command certain behaviors, it is up to us to choose, with kavannah or intention, the path of growth and the way of righteousness.

 

Last week’s Torah portion VaEra and this week’s chapter Bo contain the stuff of legend and cinema.  Though they, in their entirety, represent the Jewish people’s escape from slavery, the God that is portrayed is angry and vindictive.  The evil that is inflicted upon the Egyptian people is difficult to stomach.  However, if we zoom out and take the entire story as a metaphor, we have a dissertation on persistence in the face of adversity.

Moses and Aaron have a goal:  Free their people from slavery.  God says he will give them the skills to meet their goal.  “I will make you like a God,” he tells them.  But, almost in the same breath he tells them that they will meet with great resistance.  “I will make Pharaoh obstinate,” he says.  And, then, Moses and Aaron must confront Pharaoh no less than 10 times before they are successful.

In 1941, Whinston Churchill made a very famous speech at his boyhood school where he said,     "never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in  - except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

Sometimes the enemy is outside of us:  the boss who fires us, the job we can’t seem to obtain, the piece of writing no one wants to publish, the relationship that remains elusive.  And, sometimes the enemy is within us:  lack of confidence, fatigue, laziness and fear.
 
Proverbs tells us that a righteous person falls seven times and rises up again.   According to Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, “Usually we think of the person who continues to fail as a being a failure.  We may even exhibit pity, thinking that person is somehow “jinxed.”  But that person, instead deserves our praise.  It is easy to stumble and get back up.  It is more difficult to do so time after time.  We may not accomplish all that we want to do the first time, or the second, or the third, the challenge is to keep going." 

Even though our own popular culture somehow makes success look easy, what we see portrayed in the media is not reality.  Stephen King’s first book, the thriller Carrie, received 30 rejections, finally causing King to give up and throw it in the trash. His wife fished it out and encouraged him to resubmit it, and the rest is history, with King now having hundreds of books published and the distinction of being one of the best-selling authors of all time. Steven Spielberg was actually rejected from the University of Southern California School Film School three times. He eventually attended school at another location, only to drop out to become a director before finishing. Thirty-five years after starting his degree, Spielberg returned to school in 2002 to finally complete his work and earn his BA. And, sports legend Michael Jordan was actually cut from his high school basketball team.                             

It says in the Talmud that Perseverance prevails, even against Heaven.  Yet, faith, according to Rabbi Bernard S. Raskas, gives us the substance of our values and ideals and sustains us with the belief that they will be realized.

Yes, we get smashed up, blown up, beaten up and burned up, says Rabbi Rami Shapiro, and we get up and get going again. 

In Parshat Bo, line 12:31, Pharaoh,  the obstacle to the goal, itself, says get moving, get out, go, go.  We must continually persist in the face of adversity if what we want to achieve is our truest desire.  For if what we long for is truly a thing of our heart and soul, then our stamina and tenacity will bring ultimate achievement.  The outcome may not look exactly as we had envisioned, but success will prevail.

And, as it says in the last line of Bo – All this because God brought us out of Egypt with a show of strength.

Shabbat Shalom.

I've been reading a book called The Golem and the Jinni.  In the novel, the golem, Chava, can hear other people's thoughts.  Sometimes the noise of all the chatter is so loud that she has to retreat to her small, quiet apartment to escape the dissonance.

The noise in our own lives can be equally as overwhelming.  Consider this statistic I recently read about in the NTEN (Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network) November newsletter.  There are 48 hours of new video on YouTube, 684,000 pieces of content shared on Facebook, and 100,000 tweets - every minute of every day.  Combine that with our own personal status updates, texts, notifications, emails, and tweets and we realize that our lives have turned into nothing short of a dull roar.

There is a concept in the social media business called content curation.  It is the process of cutting through a huge amount of content and pulling together the most relevant, useful information for your audience.  But, what if we became the content curators of our own lives in order to cut through the cacophony of unneeded communication coming our way every day?

In her article, The Non-Geek NonProfit Guide To Keeping Current On Technology, Cindy Leonard gives us some practical suggestions.  Do you know you spend too much time on certain websites?  If so, limit your access with tools like Leech Block, Clutter Cloak, OmmWriter, Freedom App, Stay Focused.  Only subscribe to content after thorough evaluation and then use one of these applications to organize:  Paperli, Hootsuite, Trapit, Flipboard.  And, finally, unsubscribe, unfriend, and unfollow ruthlessly. 

In Parshat Noah, Chapter 11, we witness our earliest ancestors as they build a tower to the heavens.  These ziggurat's were considered sacred in Mesopotamian society, but they were thought to be a symbol of arrogance to the God of our Torah.  As a punishment for building the tower, God "confound's their speech" and "scatters them over the face of the earth."  Hence this tower to a false God, known as the Tower of Babel, caused God to create a chatter of unintelligible languages.

In our society, we have created a God of technology and, as a consequence, we have flooded our world with such a vast quantity of information and applications that deciphering it all is impossible.  So, instead of buying into the constant buzz, may we resolve for 2014 to retreat from it so that we may learn to savor the sound of silence.

Shabbat Shalom.

When we think of a reunion, we tend to conjure up the image of a positive experience.  But, in reality, reunions are inherently, well, unpredictable.

When I was in Florida last year, my father and his wife came to pick me up at my sister’s house to take me out to lunch.  My mother, suffering from a recent personal crisis, decided to take this opportunity to stop by for a visit.  What was interesting was that my parents hadn’t spoken or seen each other in 35 years.  My mother, having had the chance to prepare for the encounter, dressed for the occasion and arrived positive and bubbly.  My father, on the other hand, being introverted and shy, was taken off guard.  The whole episode lasted less than 10 minutes, but left each of us contemplating the meaning of the event.

The word reunion can mean a gathering or an assembly.  It can also mean the restoration of harmony or reconciliation.  According to thesaurus.com, both meanings are related to the word junction – which is a place that two or more things come together.  And, junction, comes from the word juncture which means an event that occurs at a point in time when a critical decision must be made.  Therefore, every reunion requires us to consider who will we be when we participate in the reuniting?

When I was at my 10th high school reunion, I remember my friend Pam saying she would never attend another high school gathering.  Even a decade after high school, she still felt like the teenager once again snubbed by the popular crowd.  And, true to her word, she didn’t attend the 20th or 30th reunions.

In the recent novel The Chaperone, the main character who grew up in an orphanage goes in search of her birth mother.  She locates her in Boston and the woman agrees to see her.  The daughter takes the acceptance of the invitation as a sign that the reunion will result in a long term relationship.  But, her mother has a different goal for their get together.  She wants to assuage her guilt.  And, once she finds out that her daughter has married well, has children of her own, and is well off, she asks her never to contact her again.

In this week’s parsha, we witness the reunion of Jacob and Esau, brothers who haven’t seen each other in decades.  The evening prior to their meeting, Jacob wrestles with what very well may be his conscience and his name is changed is Israel…symbolically telling us that he is no longer the same person that he was when he and Esau last met.  And now, at this critical juncture he is ready and willing to make peace with his sibling.  Esau, too, has changed.  He has a large family and he is successful.  He no longer has a need to cling to a birthright. 

Once we look beneath the surface, we realize that reunions aren’t as much about the gathering as they are about the self we choose to bring to the gathering.  Reunions are about whether we want to enable tikkun – repair and shalom – peace or whether we want to perpetuate separation.

After my parent’s unexpected reunion, I asked my mother what possessed her to show up at my sister’s house when she knew my father would be there.  She said that she wanted family gatherings that included the grandchildren to be possible in the future and she wanted them to be devoid of awkwardness.  She believed that this impromptu reunion would be the perfect ice breaker.  When my father inquired as to my mother’s motivations, he, too, agreed that this seemed like an acceptable goal. 

In the end, Jacob and Esau were able to bury their father, Isaac, together, bringing a sense of wholeness to their family and to themselves as siblings and as twins.  They, like my parents, estranged for so long, seem to have agreed on a positive outcome to their meeting.  What this tells us is that when all parties of the reunion are in sync, like-minded at the critical juncture, reconciliation can, indeed, be the outcome of the gathering.

A man I used to work with once told me I was the most brutally honest person that he had ever met.  I was aware that I was forthright in my communication, but I had never considered my words as hurtful or unkind.  The more that I got to know this person I realized that he tended to be passive-aggressive in the way he interacted with other staff members.  He would win battles by being covert and manipulative behind the scenes, while remaining stoic in public.  My style was to be genuine and say what I meant no matter the situation and this made him uncomfortable. 

The term "passive-aggressive" was introduced in a 1945 U.S. War Department technical bulletin, describing soldiers who weren't openly insubordinate but shirked duty through procrastination and willful incompetence.  It went on to become a descriptor of a personality trait in the general population and later made it into the DSM as a psychiatric disorder.  Passive aggression is characterized by an obstructionist or hostile manner that indicates aggression, yet the aggression is expressed in non-assertive, subtle or indirect way.

In this week’s Torah portion, Toldot, we are introduced to the passive aggressive relationship of Isaac and Rebecca.  The story is very clear that their fraternal twin sons are quite different and both parents seem aware of the positive and challenging qualities of their children.  But, there is no evidence that any discussion ever took place regarding this topic.   Instead, both Isaac and Rebecca determine a course of action that they think will result in the most positive outcome.  While the story says that Isaac favored Esau and Rebecca favored Jacob, in the end, it is pretty clear that they both felt that Isaac had what was needed to inherit his father’s blessing.  Yet, neither talks about this with the other.  They revert to passive aggressive actions in order to manipulate the desired outcome.  Rebecca instructs Jacob to masquerade as Esau in order to deceive his father, and Isaac, though he knows it is Jacob standing before him, goes along with the charade.  Rebecca is set-up as the deceitful wife, but is she really completely to blame?  Is it probable that Isaac wanted the same outcome, all along, but just wasn’t direct with regard to his desires?  In the end, what did this type of communication get Isaac and Rebecca?  Though Jacob did become Isaac’s inheritor…he had to leave town in order to save his own life.  And, Esau became so acutely angry that he was alienated from his brother for many, many years.  In the end, all relationships in this family unit were negatively affected because straight forward communication was avoided at all cost.

So, how can we ensure that we cultivate authentic relationships, without passive aggression, with our family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances?

First, we can cultivate Kavannah or awareness by looking carefully at the relationships where we have difficulties. Is there an underlying power struggle happening? What role might we be taking to gain power and control in the situation?  Would it be possible to take responsibility for your part in the dynamic?

Second, consider Emet your place of truth. Be honest with yourself and contemplate why you have decided to act in a certain manner.  When you hone in on your truth, you are much less likely to be deceptive in your interactions.

Third, communicate through Ha-d’var or words.  Talk about your feelings clearly and directly. Communication is the key to unraveling passive-aggressive dynamics which are built upon lack of clear expression. Expressing previously unarticulated emotions dissolves much of the negative tension of dishonest relationships.

In his book The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz instructs that the First Agreement is to be impeccable with our word.  He says that your word is your power to create and your ability to create is a gift from God.  Impeccable is from the Latin and means “without sin.”  Ruiz says that if we adopt the first agreement and become impeccable with our word, any emotional poison will eventually be cleaned from our mind and from our communication in our relationships.  And, by committing to being impeccable with our word, we are, essentially, eliminating the possibility of interacting in a passive aggressive manner.

Just imagine if Isaac and Rebecca had embarked on an honest conversation regarding their children.  What if they agreed to cultivate their children’s strengths and to act as a team in attempting to bring out the best in their sons?  And, what if they communicated this, together, to their offspring?  Certainly they would have had a much better chance of avoiding dysfunction, deceit and animosity in their family unit.

And so, I ask all of you to consider using this upcoming Shabbat to practice Kavannah, Emet, and Ha-d’var.  By following these guidelines we each can work towards becoming impeccable with our word as we interact with community, family, and friends, ensuring healthy and honest interactions.

Shabbat Shalom

 I’ve always been fascinated by cemeteries.  When I was in my teens, my mother took me to her native Cleveland and we went to visit the graves of my great and great-great grandparents. Seeing a memorial to their lives that was actually here in America was a great privilege. There is a small cemetery in the middle of Boston on the freedom trail that I’ve visited a number of times.  It holds some of the oldest graves in the U.S. and is a history lesson unto itself.  Even more fascinating is the above ground Jewish cemetery in Curacao where the tombs are adorned with skull and bones…a symbol later to be adopted by pirates.  What draws me to these locations is not death, but the life that can be imagined with the etchings on each gravestone.

This week’s Torah portion is called Chayyah Sarah – the life of Sarah.  This is, on the surface, ironic as the chapter begins with Sarah’s death.  And, we are told, that Abraham goes to great lengths to purchase a plot of land so that he can bury Sarah.  It seems that there is not a question that Sarah will be buried on the side of the road or even on the most picturesque terrain near where she perished.  No, Abraham must purchase land for Sarah’s body that, hopefully, will be a remembered spot for generations.  It seems to me that the title of this parshat is strategic as it is telling us that we must honor the life of Sarah by remembering her, and to remember her, she must be buried in a spot where a marker exists to commemorate her life, a place that will belong to her people in perpetuity. 

My sister and her husband have instructed in their wills that their bodies be donated to science when they die.  My step-father, a fisherman, has requested that his ashes be sprinkled over the gulfstream.  But, I have a plot where I will be buried with my grandparents, my mother, and my husband.  It isn’t a matter of where my deceased body is placed – it could be given to science or cremated – that isn’t the issue for me.  What feels important and what I believe our ancestors are saying is that it is essential to have a sacred place where our life can be considered and celebrated…after we physically cease to exist.

Over the years, I’ve done quite a bit of genealogy research on all the branches of my family.  But, the line that has really captured my interest is the one of my maternal grandmother.  Though she never elaborated, she always repeated the story that we were from Alsace Lorraine and that we were related to Alfred Dreyfus.  So, a few years ago, I decided to see if I could find proof of this relationship.  Through ancestry.com, I traced my great-great grandfather back to Wurrtemburg, Germany…a part of Germany near the Black Forest and also across the border from Alsace in France.  Though my great-great grandfather’s last name was Anthony, I knew that he had changed it from Meyer when he came to America in the 1870’s.  Then, in my local library, I came across a biography of Dreyfus, complete with a family tree.  It turns out that the family matriarch, Dreyfus’s great-great grandmother, was Brandel Meyer, from the German side of the Black Forest.  After continued research, I’ve come to realize that they only way that I will be able to bridge the gap between Julius Meyer, my great-great grandfather, and Brandel Meyer, Dreyfus’s great-grandmother is to actually go to the French German border and visit Jewish cemeteries that are still in existence.  Those plots of land, dedicated to our ancestors, and lined with headstones demarcating their lives, will be what enables me to connect the broken link in my family tree.

In Aryeh Kaplan’s Torah translation of Chayyah Sarah, it says that with Abraham’s transaction, Ephron’s field in Makhpelah adjoining Mamre became his uncontested property.  This included the field, its cave, and every tree within its circumference.  It was Abraham’s purchase with all the children of Heth who came to the city gate as eyewitnesses.  Abraham then buried his wife Sarah in the cave of Makhpelah Field, which adjoins Mamre (also known as Hebron), in the land of Canaan.

In the book “Your Name is your Blessing,” it says a name captures a person’s character and personality.  It describes everyone’s mission on earth.  It contains a prophecy as well as a powerful, potential blessing.  It is the only possession we have that remains with us even after death.  And, by following the burial tradition of Abraham, we, too, can ensure that our name, our story, and our memory is an unforgotten blessing.

In Parsha Va-yera, God calls to Abraham twice and both times Abraham responds “Hineini – Here I am.”  When God speaks, Abraham is aware that very important instructions are coming and Hineini indicates that he is ready and waiting to hear the call.

So...

What makes a Moreh Derekh, a teacher of  the way?

Is it the letters Ph.D. after one’s name?  Is it the title of Rabbi?

Or, can we all be teachers in any subject we choose?

We just need to have enough kavannah

To say Hineini

When the wisdom of God comes our way.

We must Sh’ma closely.

Then, each of us can Teshuvah

To teaching from realms in which we’ve only dreamed.

Let’s just say that if the Abram of Lech Lecha had an honest profile on J-date, I would have swiftly passed him by.  He convinced his wife to pretend she was his sister in order to save himself, never mind the harm it might cause her.  He separated himself from the son of his dead brother in order to keep peace and prosperity among his flock.  And, he looked the other way when his wife abused her maid servant despite the fact that she was carrying his child.  It is clear that, just like all of us, Abram had personal issues.

 So, what is it about Abraham that has made his story endure for over 5000 years?  How was he able to claim the title of “Father of the Jewish People?”  The first line of Lech Lecha says “the Lord said to Abram, go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”  What we don’t know is whether Abram was the first person that God instructed or one in a long line that received this critical communication.  What we do know is that Abram heard and that Abram obeyed.

In his book “Callings,” Greg Levoy tells us that hearing a call and actually heeding the call are two distinctly different things.  To begin with, for us to actually notice the still small voice that is guiding us, we need space within our lives to notice it.  Amid emails, texts, Facebook, and literally hundreds of cable channels, deciphering the messages that are truly important can be like finding a needle in a haystack.  According to Levoy, the practices that help us pay attention, are things like a daily journal, meditation, therapy, artwork, movement work, martial arts, dream interpretation, music, long walks, intimate conversation, retreats, fasting, rituals.  Creativity writer, Julia Cameron, adds to this list the artist’s date…a commitment to a solitary artistic experience once every week.

These practices also remind us not to spend so much time awaiting big booming voices from on high that we stumble over the whispers that are right at our feet.  “If you listen down below,” instructs the Torah, “you will deserve to hear from above.”

But, what happens when you do the work that is necessary to hear the call, but are frightened to take the next step?  You register the caller ID, but refuse to actually pick up the phone?  You listen to the message, but never return the call?  As Levoy says, “you are terrified to swap security for your heart’s deepest desire.”

The key to answering the call is coming to terms with the understanding that accepting one path means giving up another. “Go forth,” God says to Abram, take leave, separate.   It is the ending that comes with the beginning that must be grieved.  And, it is the fear of relinquishing…whether it be a job, a relationship, a place, or simply an ideal…that typically prevents us from turning instructions into reality.

"To be blessed" literally means 'to be favored by God'.   And, in the first few lines of Lech Lecha God uses the word bless no less than 5 times.  Heed my call and you will be blessed.  Follow my instructions and I will protect you.  Don’t be afraid of what you are leaving behind, for what lies ahead will be worth the sacrifice.  In essence, hearing the call requires some sort of contemplative practice and accepting what the call is asking you to do requires a leap of faith. To quote an old Cyndi Lauper song, “If you're lost, you can look and you will find me.  Time after time.   If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting.  Time after time.”

According to the Etz Chayim Torah Commentary, a change of name in the Bible is of major significance.  It symbolizes the transformation of character and destiny.  As we witness Abram, the one who listened and responded, become Abraham, we realize that growth is possible at any age and that following a call is not an overnight affair, but an ongoing process.

So, back on J-date while I still may be a bit leery about Abram of Ur, Abraham of Canaan, now he may, indeed, deserve a second look.