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.