Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 6 Elul, 5783

First a quick summary of today’s portion because it covers a LOT:

• Some of our enemies aren’t really our enemies – they are family (Don’t despise the Edomites and Egyptians)
• Keep our camps clean of “nocturnal emissions and defecation” – do it outside the camp.
• Don’t turn a slave over to his master if he comes to you for refuge. Do not oppress those who were enslaved
• Jews should not be “promiscuous” and exchange money for sex. Gentiles? Cool.
• Don’t charge interest on loans to your brother – everything we have has a purpose – sparks for elevation.
• Be careful what vows you make.  If you make one, fulfill it.  And. Don’t be afraid of making vows.

Those are a LOT of key points.  And I want to dig in because I think it relates to something I’ve been reflecting on lately.

Inadequate restlessness vs Adequate Abundance

And my first question for all of us is this:

If you spend a minute in the quiet of ourselves? Which of these feels more real? Do we feel restless? or Do we feel peace and overflow?

And – when we reflect, are we reflecting on moments we are alone? Or in relationship?

I’ll go first.  For me? When I reflect on me alone? I do mostly feel Adequate Abundance.  I am satisfied with who I am.  When I look at what is written below?  I feel pretty good about being alone and the answers to these questions.   Until…..

I think about who I am in relationship to everything else. Money. Food. My kids. Friends. Potential Romantic Committed relationships. Then? Inadequate restlessness kicks in to high gear.

I feel worthy and valuable by myself.  Not that I “deserve” to be alone – but being alone, considering just me and the universe around me? I feel safe and comfortable. Adequate. Abundance.

But bring in food? And the spark within it? I start to feel restless.  Most of you following me know I am down 105 pounds since December of 2021.  And I have about 8-9 pounds to go.  And this morning I had an “aha” moment.  Subconsciously I like being 8-9 pounds away from my final goal.  Because once I reach my goal? What’s next?  Part of me knows I will feel restless there. Like I won’t have more “work” to do when I hit 175.  I can just be. I am inadequate at 175.  At 184? I feel good. I know there is work I still need to do, and I know the work I have done.  I feel good.

So let’s bring back today’s Torah themes:

Some of our enemies aren’t really our enemies – they are family (Don’t despise the Edomites and Egyptians)

There are things in my past that enslaved me.  They are my “Egypts” – things I am working to avoid.  I need to lean in and embrace those Egypts.  Food isn’t something to be afraid of.  Food is not my enemy.  It serves a purpose.

Question for us: What Egypts are we holding onto as Enemies that could be impacting our feelings of adequacy and restlessness?  

Keep our camps clean of “nocturnal emissions and defecation” – do it outside the camp.

When I think about this, I think about waste. How do we absorb waste within us, vs removing it from our lives? How do we define “waste.”  I hear often “I don’t want to waste my time.”  Can we REALLY waste time?  Instead, what if we are looking at waste in terms of purpose.  I used that time (or spent those moments) not living out my purpose. That is a normal part of life.  It should not create a feeling of inadequacy within us.  We just need to do it outside our camp.   If we have abundance?  There will be waste as our souls “digest” the sparks that need lifting, right?  We don’t need to feel inadequate about that.

Questions for us: What “waste” (emotional, spiritual, physical?) are we holding onto that creates feelings of adequacy?  What do we need to put outside our camp?

Don’t turn a slave over to his master if he comes to you for refuge. Do not oppress those who were enslaved

What are we doing with our relationships? What are we prioritizing? Are we giving? Or are we avoiding? Can people have “refuge” within us? Or do we make them “work.”

This hits home for me.  Am I a safe space for people to have refuge?  Or do I feel restless because I am feeling like I am inadequate as a space of refuge for someone? Do I subconsciously push people away because I feel inadequate? Or do I find space for them to take refuge?

Questions for us: Do people feel like they can take refuge with us? Would we take refuge with ourselves? How much energy and abundance do we have for others to seek refuge from?  Who in our lives do we see as places of refuge? Have we communicated that to them? 

Jews should not be “promiscuous” and exchange money for sex. Gentiles? Cool.

What values are we sacrificing to engage in physical intimacy with someone else? What is the cost of this? Do we leave feeling inadequate and restless? Or do we feel safe with abundance?  Or do we feel inadequate even allowing ourselves physical intimacy?   Like there is nothing we even possess we COULD sacrifice in order to feel adequate and abundant when it comes to physical intimacy?

Questions for us: How satisfied are we in our physical intimacy with others?  I am not just talking sex.  For a long time I felt unworthy of EVEN A HUG.  I felt like I couldn’t even ask for an embrace.  I felt inadequate and restless instead of just asking and giving hugs.  What are we exchanging to be ok with physical intimacy with another? What if that other is food? What am I sacrificing in order to feel pleasure in my relationship with food? 

Don’t charge interest on loans to your brother – everything we have has a purpose – sparks for elevation.

I have come to understand Hashem provides for me.  Always. What I have struggled with is believing the universe provides for me to provide for OTHERS.  I don’t feel adequate providing for those around me.  I do it out of selfish gain.

Questions for us:  How can we be more generous in our relationships with others? In our relationship with food? Money? From a place of abundance and adequacy, even if we don’t feel adequate?

Be careful what vows you make.  If you make one, fulfill it.  And. Don’t be afraid of making vows.

Questions for us: How careful are we with our words?  In relationship with others, do we speak from a place of abundance or inadequacy? Are we restless so we speak to others because we are just bored and want to create drama?

So there you have it.

Inadequate restlessness vs Adequate Abundance.  Both are great band names. Which Band are you currently playing in? Which band do you WANT and DESIRE to be in?

I’d love your thoughts!

My commentary from a year ago:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 11 Elul, 5782

We are getting closer to the full moon when the light of our introspection of the month comes to full fruition. How are your intentions?

Moses is continuing here….

He starts with Edomites; we should not despise the Edomites (the way yesterday he told us to handle the Ammonites and Moabites). Edom is our brother. And despite how we were treated, they are family. And. He ALSO tells us to not despise the Egyptian. We were residents in the land of Egypt. Moses says, in the third generation they can convert and marry a Jewish woman and enter the congregation of Hashem.

This is really interesting to me. Even though the Egyptians enslaved us, we are called to love them because they did provide us a home prior to the enslavement. We WERE residents, and for that there is honor. Family is honored. This is a big deal I think; especially in our spiritual journey toward liberation. Even though we may be freed physically from our Egypts, so long as they have a hold on us emotionally and spiritually, we cannot be truly free!

Moses moves us into keeping our camps sanctified – especially when we go out against the enemy.

He starts with “nocturnal emissions.” He uses this as an example of ritual impurity. Now. Keep in mind, ritual impurity is NOT punishable by death. It’s merely a stage, a cycle, a process. And the rectification of it is pretty simple:

Go out of the camp. Don’t go to the Levite Camp. Immerse in the mikveh (ritual pool). When the sun sets, he may come into the camp.

That’s a 12 hour process. Sun up to sun down. That’s it. Keeping in mind ALL those passages that had to do with ritual impurities. This is the prescription.

Moses then gets into defecation. People were to defecate outside the camp. Dig a hole. Cover it up with dirt.

The idea, Moses tells us, is to keep our camps holy. My takeaway here is that our camp is our mind, body and soul. We are to remain sanctified and set apart. This is all not just about a literal sense; it’s a spiritual internal sense as well.

And what comes next? Moses hits us HARD on slavery. – we should NOT hand over a slave to his master if he seeks refuge with you from his master. He should be allowed to reside among us wherever he chooses. In one of our cities. Where it is good for him. We should not oppress him.

From a literal sense, it seems as if Moses is telling us there is nothing greater as a mitzvah as to provide refuge for a slave who does NOT want to be enslaved (keeping in mind the Torah talks about those who choose to remain in servitude to their masters).

From a spiritual sense, my takeaway is that if someone comes to us for refuge from their personal Egypt, we should help them and not turn them over to their master. As an example; if someone comes to me who wants to deal with their addiction, and seeks refuge with me, the loving thing to do is to remove that addictive piece from my house or environment while they are with me. If they choose to leave, that’s on them. If they want my help and refuge, that’s on me. That is our responsibility. We cannot keep a slave from returning to their master. But we should not turn them over to their master. That is a big difference. And something I’m really reflecting on.

Ok. Moses moves us from slavery to promiscuity.

And he makes an interesting distinction. Let’s approach this without judgment but instead curiosity.

He says this:

• No Jewish man may be promiscuous.
• No Jewish woman may be promiscuous.

What can we take away from this?

For me? It’s the idea that promiscuity isn’t necessarily “bad” or “evil.” It is something that God expected the Jewish people to avoid.

My question now becomes; what does the Torah mean with this word “Promiscuity?” The idea is more related to exchanging sex for money more than anything else. Because the immediate next line is about payments received for sex. The Jewish people were not permitted to bring a payment for sex to God as an offering. Keeping in mind in those days, payment was usually in the form of animals.

So. My takeaway here? Possibly? Non-Jews; sex for money not the evil our society has made it out to be. For those of us who are Jewish; it’s not for us to have sex for money.

Now; what is the spiritual takeaway in all of this?

What are the things I’m selling my values and soul for in exchange for financial and material gain? What am I choosing (in my freedom) to tie a cord with that sacrifices my liberation? That is the question for us to reflect on!

Ok. Now Moses moves us to loans and interest. Wow. We are running the gamut today. loving our brother and former oppressor, nocturnal emission and keeping our camps clean, rules for defecation, refuge for slaves, prostitution. Now loans and interest!

Moses tells us when providing loans to Jews, we may not charge interest. For non-Jews we can (and should) charge interest.

Moses tells us why. If we don’t charge our brother interest, God will bless the work we do.

Here is what Kabbalah says about this:

Have you ever wondered why your shirt ended up as your shirt and not somebody else’s?

The Kabbalah teaches that all your property-the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the objects you own, even the money you possess–contains holy sparks which you elevate by using your property for a good or holy purpose.

But it goes further than that: the sparks in your property are personalized. They were meant for you to elevate. They come from the same spiritual “flavor” as your soul.

So when the Torah says that you may not charge interest, it is simply giving you a guide to identify which sparks belong to whom. Don’t ask your friend for interest; the sparks in his money belong to him and not to you. (End quote)

The idea that our material possessions contain “sparks” or a soul is fascinating. And those sparks are designed for a holy purpose – to be elevated. Consider that – and when you take stock of what you have; how are you elevating your possessions?

Moses then finishes this portion with commenting on our lips and words. If we make a vow, we fulfill it. Period. We should not delay.

It is also sinful to refrain from making vows.

But we should be careful what our lips say- because it makes our internal an external reality.

Wow. This was a lot today! What are your thoughts?