Nitzavim -- Heaven = Imagination?
2024-09-26 -- Tel Aviv
This entry is this substack's original intent: Raf's Dvar/Riff Torah -- Recently redirected for the "Is Raf OK?" series (at the well advised impetus of sister Tanya).
Select Parsha Highlights
The retelling continues. Blessings, curses, ingathering of exiles, the retirement of Moses, the elevation of Joshua.
And much more.
Growing up in America, there is, for most Jews, a moment in childhood when we learn we are Jewish. For me it was when I was five or six. It was, of course, Xmastime, and I asked about it. I was told that it would be something else... Because we were something else.
Growing up we had great Hanukah rituals, and this event, on Crest Drive in the Pico Robertson neighborhood of LA was my introduction to both “there is another calendar” and “there is another consciousness.”
In his HBO show "Just for Us," Alex Edelman talks about his childhood introduction to Jewishness. From (my) memory, Alex’s story goes like this:
I was five and at a birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheeze. When I reached for a piece of pepperoni pizza, my grandfather kicked my hand away and said "You can't have that, we're Jewish." "What does it mean to be Jewish?" "It means... that you will never be happy. Even when things are going kind of OK, you will not be happy with it because you will see how it can be better."
Alex says: But I don't want to be Jewish!
His grandfather replies: That's the most Jewish thing you could possibly say.
On my road to Yiddishkeit (more observance), I corresponded with my great uncle, Rabbi Oscar Fasman. In one of his letters he welcomed and challenged me in engaging with our "5,000 year history."
I've been thinking a lot about this pasuk from the parsha:
ג: וְשָׁ֨ב יְהֹוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ אֶת־שְׁבֽוּתְךָ֖ וְרִֽחֲמֶ֑ךָ וְשָׁ֗ב וְקִבֶּצְךָ֙ מִכָּל־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֧ר הֱפִֽיצְךָ֛ יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ שָֽׁמָּה
3: then, the Lord, your God, will bring back your exiles, and He will have mercy upon you. He will once again gather you from all the nations, where the Lord, your God, had dispersed you.
Of late I have heard a few interviews with Ethiopian Jews. I remember the campaigns in synagogue about them when I was in my 20’s. Ethiopian Jews were vague concepts from an article or two. A banner at shul. Though that is, perhaps, odd, as an Ethiopian lived with my family in Santa Rosa for some months. As I recall, he had not been an Ethiopian Jew, rather an Ethiopian who walked to Israel (1,200+ miles) in the 1970's and ended up on the kibbutz of my "uncle" Victor in Israel’s north. My recollection is that he converted to Judaism, lived some years on the kibbutz, and when he came to the U.S. for a stint he stayed some months with my family.
I never connected him, Jerome, with the ingathering of the Ethiopian Jews.
What I think about when I think about the Ethiopian Jews is the responsibility of taking them out of a messy country to... a different mess. A more developed place, with far more opportunities.
This twenty minute Israeli show interviews Ethiopian Jews about their journey from Ethiopia and their life in Israel:
(The above is region locked to Israel, but has better subtitles in English. The one below is not region locked. Turn on CC then turn on Hebrew-Auto Generated, then turn on Auto Translate -- it's pretty good—not %100 but pretty good)
The pasuk above about “ingathering” speaks loudly. It makes me ask: Is this it? If ingathering happens (as it has), then are we "in" the Torah story? My friend S.Z. has commented (in years past) that today's Jerusalem is bigger/better/more successful than any Jewish king of yore could have dreamed.
That's success, right?
Success should make us happy?
Are we happy?
And if we aren’t, is it because it isn't appropriate to be happy or is it because we are Jewish and we, per Edelman's grandfather, are incapable of being happy? Because we know we could do—”it” could be—So. Much. Better?
Or even modestly improved.
Tweaked, if you will.
Is Yiddishkeit a kind of perfectionism?
יא: כִּ֚י הַמִּצְוָ֣ה הַזֹּ֔את אֲשֶׁ֛ר אָֽנֹכִ֥י מְצַוְּךָ֖ הַיּ֑וֹם לֹֽא־נִפְלֵ֥את הִוא֙ מִמְּךָ֔ וְלֹֽא־רְחֹקָ֖ה הִֽוא
11: For this commandment which I command you this day, is not concealed from you, nor is it far away.
Does this mean ... we can be happy? Or is it otherwise: Does this mean that what can be achieved is it. “The achieved” is the best possible thing because it is what we did? It is “לא נפלאת“ — not concealed and it is “לא רחוקה“ — not far because it is here, physically: Before our eyes. Product of our hands.
Should we be wary of our imagination? (That envisions an improvement on reality.)
יב: לֹ֥א בַשָּׁמַ֖יִם הִ֑וא לֵאמֹ֗ר מִ֣י יַֽעֲלֶה־לָּ֤נוּ הַשָּׁמַ֨יְמָה֙ וְיִקָּחֶ֣הָ לָּ֔נוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵ֥נוּ אֹתָ֖הּ וְנַֽעֲשֶֽׂנָּה
12: It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?"
Is heaven our imagination?
Is the question: Hands versus heads? What we have actually created/achieved (with our hands) is the definition of reality and the pasuk indicates: Heads! (Oh you imaginers you!) Accept this! (E.g. Be happy.)
The verses, and the comments of Rashi point these psukim inward, at the contents of the Torah. I pull them out because the Torah is a Torah of action. Intent matters, but mitzvot--which are in the material world--matter more.
After the list of curses last week, I can't help but think that these psukim point at the principle captured in Avot 4:
אֵיזֶהוּ גִבּוֹר, הַכּוֹבֵשׁ אֶת יִצְרוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (משלי טז) טוֹב אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם מִגִּבּוֹר וּמשֵׁל בְּרוּחוֹ מִלֹּכֵד עִיר. אֵיזֶהוּ עָשִׁיר, הַשָּׂמֵחַ בְּחֶלְקוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (תהלים קכח)
Who is rich? He who rejoices in his lot [e.g. is content with what he has], as it is said: “You shall enjoy the fruit of your labors, you shall be happy and you shall prosper” (Psalms 128:2)