Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 1 Shevat, 5785

Happy Rosh Chodesh! It is the new moon. Time for new intents, new insights, and new lessons!  This is an amazing resource on the cycle we are entering into from a Kabbalistic perspective.

There is no easy way to say this – the energy of the next two weeks is harsh.  It is designed to strengthen us. This is hard to hear because so many of us already feel like we are struggling and exhausted.  However, there is hope because at the full moon, we celebrate a BEAUTIFUL HOLY DAY – Tu B’Shevat.  It is the “new year” for trees. It’s when the trees begin to awaken from the harsh winter, and begin their journey towards full bloom.

We are almost there. Winter is coming to an end. Spring is just around the corner.

Hope.

That is what this month is about.

Hope where there is no hope. Hope against hope.

And we use that word. What does it actually mean?

There are two definitions –

“a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.”

“a feeling of trust.” (Archaic)

Imagine being in Israel, and going through ALL of these plagues. And things just getting worse. It would be tough to remain hopeful – Pharaoh refused to let the people go from slavery. If we didn’t know the end of the story, we might read today’s portion and put ourselves in that time period and basically say to Moses – “you want us to do what?”

And yet? That is what they did.  They trusted.

This really comes down to reality in each and every moment.

Do we believe the author of our reality is trustworthy?

Sit with that.

All of us likely have different beliefs around “who” the author of our reality is.

And? All of us have an author. It could be random chance. It could be Hashem. It could be a computer program. It could be the government. It could even be us. We are the authors of our own reality.

Whatever our answer is. That is the fundamental question of hope and trust.

Do we have hope. Is the author of our reality trustworthy?

When everything seems to go wrong. We can come back to this question and find our struggle.

And wrestle with it.

This is the energy of our cycle ahead. This is the question.

“Is the author of our reality trustworthy?”

What are your thoughts?

Here are my thoughts from last year:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 8 Shevat 5784
Parsha Bo’: (Exodus 10:1 – 13:16)
Fifth Portion: Exodus 12:21 – 12:28

Good morning – we are drawing closer to the full moon of Shevat – the Holy Day of Tu B’Shevat – the New Year for Trees!  It’s time to plant newness in our lives!

Let’s dig in to today’s portion!  Hashem just gave Moses the commands to prepare for this first Passover.  He brings the leaders together:

21Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Draw forth or buy for yourselves sheep for your families and slaughter the Passover sacrifice.

22And you shall take a bunch of hyssop and immerse [it] in the blood that is in the basin, and you shall extend to the lintel and to the two doorposts the blood that is in the basin, and you shall not go out, any man from the entrance of his house until morning.

23The Lord will pass to smite the Egyptians, and He will see the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, and the Lord will pass over the entrance, and He will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses to smite [you].

24And you shall keep this matter as a statute for you and for your children forever.

25And it shall come to pass when you enter the land that the Lord will give you, as He spoke, that you shall observe this service.

Moses basically tells the leaders – here is what we need to do to be free tonight; AND what is asked of them moving forward to REMEMBER this.  Why? For the children.  This is a legacy.  And if the children push back? Moses tells the leaders how to handle this:

26And it will come to pass if your children say to you, What is this service to you?

27you shall say, It is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for He passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, and He saved our houses. And the people kneeled and prostrated themselves.

It’s interesting – we are currently these children. So many of us wonder “why?” “What is the Passover service?”

The only response Hashem gives is – It’s a sacrifice – BECAUSE – He saved us.  He saved our “houses.”

Now that’s interesting right? The word house evokes a dwelling. A structure. Except, the Israelites did not STAY in their houses, did they? They left.

I’m reflecting on this. How did Hashem save the houses of Israelites in Egypt?

Given this plague was about the first born children?  Houses are families.

I connect this back with the ideas from the past two years that Rabbi Schneerson wrote:

“In all previous cases, the primary purpose of the plagues was to teach the Egyptians about God, “Egypt shall know that I am God” (7:5; see also 8:6, 18; 9:14, 29; 14:4, 18). The Jewish people, however, already believed in God (since “the people believed” – 4:21), and there was no need for them to be taught a lesson of faith.

With the death of the firstborn, however, the goal was clearly one of punishment rather than education. (Once a person is dead he can no longer learn.) With the purpose of the plague redefined, the distinction between Jew and Egyptian was framed somewhat differently, because in terms of culpability for sins, the Jews were not too different from their Egyptian neighbors. Who could say that a Jew was better than an Egyptian?

So now it was crucial for the Jewish people to make a sign on the doorposts, and not leave their houses until the morning, for when the prosecuting angel comes to the streets or to unmarked houses, he will punish anybody for their sins.

Why was this seemingly minor “sign” sufficient to save the Jewish people if they were indeed guilty? Is it rational or fair that one sinful nation should be punished while another is saved?

The answer is no, it is not rational at all. But God’s commitment to the Jewish people is suprarational, it defies and transcends logic. He simply loves us, like a parent loves a child.

But to evoke that love we have to remind Him of it. We need to demonstrate our suprarational commitment to God. The blood of the Paschal Lamb required the ultimate suprarational commitment from the Jewish people–to endanger their lives by slaughtering a lamb, the deity of Egypt, merely to perform a religious ritual.

Love evokes love. The Jewish people’s irrational commitment to God, despite their low standing, aroused a similar sentiment above, and God saved His people whom He loves so dearly.”

It really does come back to this concept of love evoking love.

To love

To be love

To be loved.

That is what was saved. This is the meaning of Passover.  And how did they respond?

28So the children of Israel went and did; as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.