Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 7 Tamuz, 5783

Happy Monday!  First – I had an amazing weekend, capped off with my two youngest kids and I seeing THREE different rainbows on our drive home from the Fairy Festival in Harpursville, NY.  ONE of the rainbows – we seemingly drove RIGHT INTO it.  It was an amazing experience – one I have never had in my 51 years of life.  Driving into the rainbow we encountered a deluge of rain.  The message for us in the midst of Tamuz (and heading into AV) is that even rainbows can produce rain.  And although rain can dampen a fun time – it is nurturing and healing and cleansing.  And I see a lot of this in today’s “double portion.”

The two key themes for me today are Moses’ “failure” with the rock.

A year ago, I wrote this:

My takeaway is this; we cannot replace God with people. We may come across people who are very tapped into the spiritual and the sacred. But it is God who is in charge; who is pure. Not the people. If Moses fails, we will all likely fail at doing everything God asks of us. And there SHOULD BE some comfort knowing that even Moses failed to always follow God. And yet we don’t often remember his one sin, and it overshadowing everything else God used him for.

“Failure” (and I do use air quotes here) isn’t really “failure.”  It serves a vital function on our spiritual journey to liberation and freedom.  It serves a few functions:

• It reminds US that we are not Hashem on this earth.  Although He is in us (our Neshama), we are bound by the rules of this earthly experience.  We will make mistakes.  We will choose to be selfish when generosity is called for.  We will choose our ego, when love is the answer.  We are human. That is our design
• It reminds us that OTHERS are not Hashem on this earth.  We cannot replace Hashem within us by attaching our hearts to somebody.  They are human too, and will fail.  If Moses can make a “mistake” (and again, there is debate on Moses’ actions here) anyone can.  We don’t worship Moses. We don’t worship our rabbi. We don’t worship our pastors (or leaders or coaches or anyone).  We don’t worship our parents. We don’t worship our significant other. We don’t worship our children.

This year, as I read this, I am reflecting on the idea of what we DO Worship.  If we worship Hashem – we can worship Hashem WITHIN us.  We can worship Hashem WITHIN Moses. We can worship Hashem WITHIN our rabbi. Our pastor. That is an important shift for us to really reflect on.

To make this more personal – we CAN worship Hashem WITHIN our parents.  The Torah tells us to “honor our parents.”  How do we do this? By focusing on Hashem within them.  Honoring THAT.  Our parents may be living (or lived) lives that don’t reveal Hashem’s glory.  But Hashem IS there. The same with our significant other.  We HONOR our significant other – we don’t worship them.  The same with our children.

Ok.  And. Then. I connect this other thought with this idea we’ve been discussing.  HOW?  How do we navigate the DIFFERENCE between worshiping someone and HONORING them?

I think the answer is found in the second of our double portion.

Boundaries.

We Honor Ourselves and Worship Hashem within us by establishing boundaries for ourselves.

We Honor our Parents and Worship Hashem within them by respecting THEIR boundaries AND holding to our own.

We Honor our significant other (or friends, or people we care about) and Worship Hashem within them by respecting their boundaries and holding to our own as well.

I think THIS is the key of today’s portion.  What are your thoughts?

Here is my commentary from a year ago:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 6 Tamuz, 5782

Good morning! I hope you had a great three day (or four day) weekend!

Today we continue to see what happens after Miriam dies. The congregation had no water, so once again they complained to Moses and Aaron.

Moses and Aaron go to the tent of meeting, and God appears. Let’s dig in today as to what he has to say:

God tells Moses to take the staff and Aaron, and assemble the congregation. He tells Moses to speak to the rock that as in Miriam’s well that produced water, and it will produce water.

So. It’s interesting here that God doesn’t seem angry. I’m curious as to why?

My reflection was the grumbling was over a need, and not a want. The people needed water. God was going to encourage them. Maybe?

Or maybe God was teaching this lesson to Moses? Or maybe God was using Moses here to teach us?

So. Moses and Aaron gather the people. They were standing in front of the rock. There are two ideas about what comes next. One, is the people mocked Moses and Aaron because they couldn’t figure out which rock, and the other is Moses knew what he was about to do.

Because he said “Listen. You rebels! How could we draw water for you from this rock?”

Lots is written about this:

Maimonides writes:

“Moses committed two sins. First, he lost his temper, saying, Listen, you rebels!” Second, he caused the people to think mistakenly that God was angry with them for requesting water

Rabbi Hananel b. hushi’el writes:

Moses and Aaron’s sin was saying, “Could we draw water for you from this rock,” when they should have said, “God will get water out of the rock.” Perhaps the people would now think Moses and Aaron had extracted water from the rock through their own powers.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook writes:

All religious anger, all intolerance for the spiritual shortcomings of others, is rooted in the angry outburst of Moses. When he should have sought reconciliation, he shouted, “Listen, you rebels!” There may be such a thing as righteous indignation, but in practice our highest goals will only be achieved through mutual respect.

Let’s go back to the story:

Some commentary has Moses and Aaron speaking to the rock and it didn’t produce any water since it was the wrong rock. Moses remembered back to Rephadim and hitting the rock, so he hit the rock. It happened to be the right rock but only a little water came out, since God told him to speak to the rock and then he hit it. So Moses hit the rock a second time and a lot of water came out and the congregation drank.

Other views on this passage just jump to Moses hitting the rock with his staff twice.

Either way, we know they did NOT do as God commanded. Whether it was anger, or Moses intentionally disobeyed because he was sacrificing himself for the people (since the people continued to rebel against God and Moses believed his sacrifice would benefit everyone) God had to respond.

God himself said “since you did not believe in Me to sanctify Me in the presence of the children of Israel, you will NOT bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.

However, Moses and Aaron not entering the land was the way God was sanctified in front of the people. Since they knew Moses was only human like them!

Some interesting thoughts here. My takeaway is this; we cannot replace God with people. We may come across people who are very tapped into the spiritual and the sacred. But it is God who is in charge; who is pure. Not the people. If Moses fails, we will all likely fail at doing everything God asks of us. And there SHOULD BE some comfort knowing that even Moses failed to always follow God. And yet we don’t often remember his one sin, and it overshadowing everything else God used him for.

Do we focus on our one mistake? Or do we look at the full picture of our growth and development?

Those are my thoughts today. What about you?

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 7 Tamuz, 5782

Good morning! I hope your Tamuz is keeping your focus sharp! It’s been a week of working to “see through the darkness.” May we be reminded of Hashem’s faithfulness in that process!

Let’s dig into the Torah!

Yesterday, we encountered Moses’ “failure” in the desert with the rock and providing water. Today, we have a short passage of Israel trying to pass through the land of Edom on their way to the promised land.

Remember that Edom is the land that Esau’s descendants grew up in. Israel are the people of Jacob. When we last connected the two brothers- Jacob had told Esau they would meet again. What Esau may not have realized is that it would be their descendants.

Messengers from Israel told Edom about their experiences in Egypt. They spoke about Hashem’s faithfulness. They gave Edom the full context and then made their request.

All Israel wanted was to pass through peacefully – they’d not pass through fields or vineyards, they will not drink water from the wells, but would purchase the water from Edom, they would stick to the king’s highway, and they’d muzzle their animals so they do not eat from their fields.

That’s a pretty benign request. Just let us go through.

I do find it interesting that to get from slavery to freedom, the path led Israel (the sons of Jacob) to need to confront his brother’s descendants. Going “home” involves confronting our past. That’s what I’m reflecting on today.

Edom mustered up their Gandalf voice; “you shall not pass!” And “if you try it, you will meet our sword!”

Israel tried to reassure and reason with Edom; “but we will keep to the Highway! If we or our cattle drink your water, we will pay whatever it costs! Nothing will harm you!

Edom said “nope. You shall not pass!” And let Israel with many men and “the strong hand of Esau.”

Wow. And what did Israel do? Did they fight? Did they trust Hashem?

No. And yes. No they did not fight. Yes they trusted Hashem. Since Edom refused to allow Israel to cross the border, Israel went away from Edom.

We can discuss “why?” Edom refused (some say it was a military decision because Edom was worried about Israel attacking them in the future). But I think the more important discussion is for us around boundaries.

In our relationships, people have boundaries. They don’t always make sense. As we journey from slavery to freedom, there are paths in front of us that SEEM to be the right direction towards freedom; maybe friendships, romantic relationships, time and relationship with our kids, etc.

However, we can’t control (we shouldn’t even try to control) another human being. If they have a boundary, we can try and push past it, or we can respect it. Some of the best friendships and relationships center around respecting one another’s boundaries. And that leads to true friendship and freedom.

Some of this is motive, right? Israel just wanted to pass through – assuming their motives are good, you’d be likely to let them do it. Seems like a win!

But if you believe Israel is your enemy, even simple requests that could work for your benefit seem evil and wrong.

How often do we assign motive to others, assume they are “against us” and then make decisions based on that.

Now. Stop. I know what you may be thinking. “But Tyler! People assume horrible motives about me! All. The. Time!”

And yes. That may be true. But that’s not something you can do a ton about. But the journey from slavery to freedom isn’t about worrying about someone else’s motives. We aren’t children of Esau in this story. We need to be Israel. To respect boundaries even when they don’t make sense and are placed because the assumptions about our own motives are called into question. Respecting others’ boundaries is on our path to true freedom and the promised land!

What are your thoughts?