Tisha Be’av 5768: “Fire Scars”

Tish Be'av 5768: "Fire Scars"

© Rabbi Menachem Creditor

I stood today in a burnt Holy of Holies, staring at the scorched walls reaching toward the sky. I was moved to tears at the ancient loss, standing in island of black. It was a sacred experience beyond time and it will remain with me.

The holy "fire scar" I witnessed was not in Jerusalem, but rather deep within the Cathedral Grove of Muir Forest. This native sanctuary has weathered wildfires which occasionally kill mature trees and open holes in the canopy toward which younger successors grow. Nearly every big redwood at Muir has a fire scar, a place where long ago flames burned through the bark and cambium layer. But, ever resilient in the face of such phenomena, redwoods slowly cover the scar with new wood; eventually there will be no external sign the burn ever occurred. How familiar this feels to the Jewish soul.

Tisha Be'av, this coming Sunday, is the day upon which we remember (and some mourn) the lost Jerusalem Temples. Tradition has suggested as well that that the following tragedies occurred on Tisha Be'av: the negative report of the spies in the desert, Betar, the last holdout of the Jewish people in the Bar Kochba Revolt fell, the edict for the Spanish expulsion of Jews was issued, and World War I began. Historicity is perhaps less important than meaning here. Tisha Be'av is a day of loss. It is, simply said, a very sad day for the Jewish people.

And yet there is laughter and life and sweetness. As I stood within a tree whose center was burned away I felt both sad and inspired as I contemplated possible connections between two devastated and reborn sacred places. In a place of desolation a determined forest thrives.

I've emphasized, when teaching about Tisha Be'av, not the restrictions similar to those of Yom Kippur (intimacy, washing, eating, drinking, cosmetics), but two prohibitions unique to this day: greeting people and learning Torah. Both Torah and community, two sources of comfort and strength, are circumscribed on this day. So strange, so very not-Jewish! And yet there is a time for this as well, a place for loss and sadness.

The restrictions common to both Yom Kippur and Tisha Be'av set the contexts for their radically different intents. Yom Kippur is about being reborn, about re-establishing connection with God and community. But Tisha Be'av is very different - it is about losing our center.

I don't pray for restoration of the Temple. The Jerusalem Temples were crucial to the development of Modern Judaism, but their place is in our cultural memory - not current practice. I do mourn, however, for the loss of a common center. I don't truly believe that all Jews looked to one place in the same way - I think our modern differences have their roots in the past. But a deep part of me wishes we could have that today - a common center.

When we read on Tisha Be'av the words "my eyes run with water" (Lam. 1:16), we allow ourselves to penetrate deep within to acknowledge and reflect on our own "fire scars." Jerusalem is both a physical place and an aspect of the soul. There is life and there is loss, connection and aloneness. Healing begins, perhaps, when we face our scars.

I walked in a cathedral today, stopping to daven mincha within a tree, and prayed that our scarred centers be safe places from which growth is possible. We pray this Sunday, and every day, for the peace of Jerusalem - both the one we see and the one we contain.

Pinchas 5768: "The Blessings of Brokenness"

Pinchas 5768: "The Blessings of Brokenness" 

(c) Rabbi Menachem Creditor

The great Israeli poet Chaim Nachman Bialik once said that reading a translation is like kissing through a veil.  The beginning of Parashat Pinchas illustrates this quite clearly.  And not only does the biblical Hebrew lose its power refracted into the vernacular, but even if the Hebrew of a handheld Chumash is consulted, there is much missing which can only be experienced by direct contact with the Torah scroll itself.

First the language.  We read (translate) the following:

"The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Phinchas, son of Elazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his jealousy for Me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in My Jealousy. Say, therefore, 'I grant him My 'Covenant of Shalom'. It shall be for him and his descendants after him a pact of priesthood for all time, because he was jealous for his God, thus making expiation for the Israelites.' Numbers 25:10-13)"

The beginning of Parashat Pinchas recounts in only the vaguest of terms that which Pinchas actually did.  He killed an Israelite who was publicly licentious with a Moabite woman.  Pinchas struck them both through with a spear.  This act, incredibly violent, is narrated in the conclusion of the previous Torah portion, separated from ours, perhaps in order to demonstrate an ancient discomfort connecting God's blessing to Pinchas' violence.  

The word for God's "jealousy" is also curious, offered sometimes as "passion" or "zealousness."  But the ugliness of jealousy captures the text's rawness better than those other terms, and still falls short.  God is jealous, and Pinchas' act is connected to that angry, self-doubting emotion.  Whenever Israel cheats on God, straying from theological monogamy, God gets jealous.  

Indeed, it might be possible to read the text as suggesting that through Pinchas' ugly act, God learns.  God's Jealousy is manifest on a human scale through Pinchas' violence.  Perhaps the Covenant of Peace is one which God only recognizes as necessary when the raw divine emotion actualizes through Pinchas and wreaks havoc in the human sphere.  It is as if God says to God's Self, "Gevalt.  Look what jealousy, connected with Me, does on earth."  Pinchas teaches God through demonstrating the wrong example, an imperfect response to personal pain.  He certainly needs God's Covenant of Peace - as does God in moments of Divine Anger.  It is just too easy to think small and foment pain in the world.  If I feel threatened, my natural inclination is to lash out.  Our vision of God, connected in its Essence to our self-understandings, makes this very clear.  If God learns by observing violence in God's name, how can we not?  Limited religious vision in our day and age results in violence.  Wouldn't we accept the Covenant of Shalom if offered? 

Now to the Biblical text itself.  The traditional calligraphy of the Torah intentionally includes two oddities in the opening verses.  The 'yud' in Pinchas' name is incredibly small, and the 'vav' of the word 'Shalom' is broken in half.

The small 'yud' is connected to tradition of biblical names which refer to God's own Name.  Avram becomes 'Avraham', where the letter 'heh' is part of God's Mysterious Name, and Ya'akov becomes 'Yisrael', including the name 'El' from 'Elohim', another Name for God.  Here, Pinchas' name includes a holy 'yud', but that visual connection to God's Name is reduced.  Perhaps Pinchas' essential holy connection is reduced through the smallness of his act.  Violence is effective and flashy, but not sustainable, not healthy - and not holy.  Pinchas cares deeply about God but fails to be a partner in conversation, forgetting to mediate the intensity of Divine emotionality with the individuality of being an other to God's Self.  

Rashi suggests that Pinchas wasn't officially a priest until this episode, and so we might imagine that Pinchas was jealous of the honorific, the respect, the public acknowledgment of being a servant for God in the world.  And perhaps his violent act suggested to God the need for more structure, more rules.  Being a priest included certain garb, certain rituals, certain decorum - all rationales for curbing the powerful emotional instability Pinchas (and others) demonstrate.

The broken 'vav' in the word 'Shalom' means that God's blessing to Pinchas is a Covenant of Broken Peace.  When we believe we contribute to the world and that we are whole as we do so, we forget that the world which calls our attention so loudly needs the care of a similarly broken soul.  As Parker Palmer suggests in A Hidden Wholeness (2004):

"Wholeness does not mean perfection; it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.  Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness... need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life. (p.5)"

May we all be blessed by God's Shalom, the awareness that righteous indignation has its place but is deeply misplaced when manifested as an attack.

May we remember that our vulnerable selves are holy and that the wholeness we seek is sought too by the Holy One.

            Amen.

Rabbi Menachem Creditor
-- www.netivotshalom.org
-- www.shefanetwork.org
-- menachemcreditor.org

A Note from Rabbi Creditor: "Continuous Creation" in honor of David Stein and Aliza Segal

A Note from Rabbi Creditor:

"Continuous Creation"
in honor of David Stein and Aliza Segal

  15 Tammuz 5768
July 18, 2008

While tradition teaches that "kol hatchalot kashot/all beginnings are hard" there are times when beginnings are moments of palpable love.

One year ago, when we arrived in Berkeley with almost 3 children and many dreams, we took a step forward into the unknown.  Netivot Shalom, a place of deep Torah and caring, was a new and mysterious community.  I remember that very first day in my office, that very first Shabbat, those first friendships.  Two of those first friends, two beloved members of our community, are making new beginnings in the coming weeks.  I'm humbled to return the care with which they welcomed my family as they prepare for their next steps by sharing these words.

The Torah's first story recounts the difficulties involved in creation.  Mystery and challenges in the narrative speak to and about people who are at the junction of faith and history, of science and future promise. The Hebrew text is so pregnant with meaning that it can fill whole libraries dedicated to Midrashic thought and interpretation.  But there is one clear direction of creation, in which God takes the waters that were a primordial void, divides and stops them up in the Heavens above ("shamayim", the Hebrew word for the Heavens, is actually two words "sham mayim: there is water") and the sea below.

One would think that this divine effort would last.  But it doesn't.  The very next Torah portion, the story of Noach, includes an undoing of creation.  God "takes out the stoppers" for the waters above and releases the fountains below, erasing the creative event.  Only through an ongoing creation, sustained in every subsequent story, can history flow and gain strength.  Creation undone is rupture, and only a temporary accomplishment - even for God.

It is in light of this thought that I turn to the grand work of David Stein and Aliza Segal.  It is because of their generous spirits and profound commitments to our community that we are where we are.  This shul community is growing in strength, numbers, and intimacy.  We understand more about systems and communication.  We have a better understanding of the responsibilities each role in our shul demands.  They have empowered our community to continue the process of creation they tended so well.

Aliza greeted my family the very day we arrived for the interview Shabbat.  With her she brought abundant food and overflowing grace.  She helped us know the soul of Netivot Shalom by sharing her own with us.  And then, when we were blessed to move here, she and her family moved just 4 doors down from our home.  We had a little "kibbutz" of a block with children visiting all the time, parents sharing Shabbat and the park.  But when I began my work as rabbi of Netivot Shalom, it was Aliza's mind and skill that inspired me the most.  She brought real care and mindfulness to our office, to our shul.  And with the blessing of Tova Nechama in their lives, she and Yehoshua's decision to take their next step as a family is, while natural, a loss to us all - to me.  I'm proud to be Aliza's friend.  We'll miss the Segals very much, and are proud to always be their home.

David Stein.  All I can do is start by saying his name and smiling.  My first moment with David was informative - we spoke for just a few moments in which he made clear to me his passion and skills, and his commitment to continue as executive director for one year of the next rabbi's tenure, a promise of continuity and stability.  No gift could have meant more to me personally, professionally, and to our community as a thriving, dynamic entity.  And I have loved David since meeting him.  He is my friend and my teacher.  When he and Bill moved to Berkeley, in order to be close to our shul, I was inspired.  When we sat to plan the transition to a new executive director, I was overwhelmed.  David has worked harder than we could have asked.  He has cared more than we will ever know.  And we are blessed that he and Bill are - and will always be - members of the Netivot Shalom community.  Because of David's gifts, we are ready to continue creating.

Every transition is an opportunity to realize the blessings we already share, and to envision the blessings to come.  Aliza and David were honored by our shul community last Shabbat in a Friday night celebration.  Today, "Sabbah Daveed" was the guest of honor at the Preschool "pretend Shabbat."

May Aliza and her family feel our love and our gratitude every step of their ways.

May David and Bill enjoy their new "civilian" roles in our community.

May they and we always feel this kind of love and gratitude, experiencing the ongoing creation of healthy, holy community.

Shabbat Shalom.

--
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Congregation Netivot Shalom
1316 University Ave, Berkeley, CA
www.netivotshalom.org
510.549.9447

links for Living a Mythic Life: Mythic Conduct

Lieberman's Sabbath has deep spiritual meaning (CNN)

Kashrut and Nonduality (ZEEK: Jay Michaelson)

Why Beat the Willow? When tradition is silent, symbolic explanations arise. (Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson)

A Reflection on Jewish Law for the Modern Jew

A Reflection on Jewish Law for the Modern Jew
Rabbi Menachem Creditor

For those who have not heard of the decision by Church of England this past Monday (July 7) to endorse women as bishops, the relevant New York Times article should be read as a potential tool for re-understanding the tension felt by any living spiritual community:  how to remain both religiously authentic and honestly responsive to the world in which we live. 

There are those in every faith tradition who would depict responsive traditionalists as "manipulators of [Religious Law] to justify their abandonment of whatever elements of Jewish religious law frustrate some of their congregants' wishes or clash with contemporary societal mores."  These were the words of Rabbi Avi Shafran, in the sequel to his now-infamous "The Conservative Lie (Moment, Feb. 2001)," in which he claimed that "while proclaiming fealty to halachah [Jewish Law], the movement's leaders have brazenly trampled the very concept."  Compare them, in tone, to the following words in reaction to the Church of England's decision this week:

"It's getting worse; it's going downhill very badly," the Rev. David Houlding, a leader of the traditionalists, said after the York vote, according to a report by the newspaper The Guardian. "It's quite clear that there is a pincer movement, and we're being squeezed out." But he added, "There will be no walkout — yet."

How do those who advocate for a responsive tradition respond to both the claim of inauthenticity and the threat of walkout by self-described 'traditionalists'?

Charles Taylor argued in his classic The Ethics of Authenticity (1992) that "we are only individuals in so far as we are social... [and that] being authentic, being faithful to ourselves, is being faithful to something which was produced in collaboration with a lot of other people."  Taylor points out that the concept of "authenticity, of self-fulfillment... seems to render ineffective the whole tradition of common values and social commitment."  Whereas Taylor carefully pointed out the perils connected to modernity's inclination towards self-realization, he was not as quick as others to dismiss it, calling for a "freeze on cultural pessimism."

Some words from the masterful new book by Rabbi Elliot Dorff, For the Love of God and People: A Philosophy of Jewish Law (2007) are useful here.  In rejecting the theory of Legal Positivism, embraced by some including Rabbi Joel Roth, and positively pessimistic in my understanding of Taylor's term, Dorff writes:

"[Legal Positivism is] the doctrine that the law is totally encompassed by what the legislators say it is in the the law they posit.  They may have had all kinds of reasons to enact a particular law - moral, social, economic, political, or simply the pressure of time - but none of that matters in interpreting and applying the law; what counts is what the law says (49). ...Roth gives less weight to [external] factors than to the stated law itself, evidenced by the very term he uses: by describing such factors [as moral, social, economic, etc...] as extralegal, he clearly asserts that for him their are, literally, outside the law (50).  ...This immediately identifies the law with the received, written tradition.  Other theorists of the Law [including Dorff] would disagree with him completely, pointing to the oral nature of most of the tradition from its very origins and the immense role that custom, morality, economics, politics, and even style have played in the history of Jewish law, especially as Jews spread all over the world.  As a result, despite Roth's conscientious effort to demonstrate the role of such extralegal elements in the law in the past, his theory seems to limit the scope and the methods of the law far too much to be historically accurate, and many would find his definition of Jewish law too narrow to form a wide basis for making Jewish legal decisions in our own time (52). ...Finally, with Roth's understanding of the nature of the law, there can be no serious moral or social critique of the law.  Instead either the law is accepted forever as the criterion of what it means to be moral or it loses any claim to morality. ...  This was clearly in evidence, for example, in [Roth's] method for justifying the ordination of women [in the Conservative Movement], by which he based his argument solely on what he could find in precedents without mentioning morality as even one of several motivating factors for the change (57). ...[The] continuing interaction between received Jewish law with both internal and external factors is the reason that Joel Roth's claim that law must be 'the dog wagging the tail of theology' cannot be right.  It is rather that Jewish law, theology, morality, and political, social, technological, scientific, and economic developments in the Jewish community and in the larger communities within which Jews live are all intertwined, and each affects each other in critical ways in an ongoing basis (68)."

There are important balances to this philosophy of responsive traditionalism, including deliberately maintaining the integrity of the system while celebrating every advance.  But the claim that introducing change into religious tradition is corrosive presumes a limited legal approach similar to Roth's and is damaging to both the relevance and the authenticity of a modern traditional Judaism.  After Roth resigned from the Conservative Committee on Jewish Law and Standards due to the acceptance of a legal response permitting most sexual activity between men, sexual activity between women, commitment ceremonies and ordination for LGBT Jews, he wrote in the JTA op-ed Committee on Gay Ruling Stepped out of Halachic Framework (Dec. 10, 2006):

"Despite the popular view of what we were arguing about, I believe that the subject of gays was not what we were really divided over. It happened to be the specific subject that revealed the real fault lines in the committee, and in the Conservative movement in general. ...I believe we were divided over the following irreconcilable issues: How entitled are we to overturn longstanding and uncontested precedents of Jewish law? ...What divided us was the question of our right to adopt a legal stance... Even if the prohibition against sexual behavior other than male intercourse is rabbinic in authority and not biblical, what justifies our abrogating that prohibition? ...How halachically defensible does an argument have to be before it can be considered within the halachic ballpark?"

Roth was right about the questions being asked.  But embodied in his response is the presumption of modern powerlessness in the face of imperfect inherited tradition.  Older Jewish codes which are challenged by new questions were themselves, so many times, challenges to earlier articulations of tradition, none of which were infinite in their future vision or authority. 

The authenticity of each generation's religious voice and the parameters by which they are commanded must include the wisdom gained by their own experience and an expansive and textured love for the God who has yearned along with every generation of spiritual seekers.

Rabbi Menachem Creditor
-- www.netivotshalom.org
-- www.shefanetwork.org
-- menachemcreditor.org

Husbands, Brothers and Sons

Husbands, Brothers and Sons
Rabbi Menachem Creditor

On May 18, 2003, Smadar Haran Kaiser wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled "The World Should Know What He Did to My Family."  The 'he' was Samir Kuntar, a terrorist who attacked an Israeli family in 1979, murdering a 28 year-old man, his two daughters ages four and two, and an Israeli policeman.  Smadar, the only survivor of the murder of her husband and daughters, wrote 24 years later:

"One hears the terrorists and their excusers say that they are driven to kill out of desperation. But there is always a choice. Even when you have suffered, you can choose whether to kill and ruin another's life, or whether to go on and rebuild."

It is Smadar's words that ring loudest today.  Today, June 29, 2008, Israel agreed to a deal in which Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, the two Israel Defense Forces reservists kidnapped by Hezbollah two years ago in an act that sparked the Second Lebanon War, are to be released in a prisoner exchange deal with Hezbollah approved by the cabinet on Sunday. In exchange for the captive soldiers, Israel will release jailed terrorist Samir Kuntar, and others.

But the exchange is even more bitter than 'simply' releasing an evil person, a murderer.  Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser are likely dead.  We are freeing a murderer in exchange for the bodies of our sons.

We have been including them in our prayers every Shabbat, in our hearts even more often.  When we celebrate our young, we note the small age gap between our teens and our lost sons, our stolen brothers. 

Our prayers have not been in vain.  Today, Karnit Goldwasser, Ehud's wife, took Prime Minister Olmert's hand, and with red-rimmed eyes said: "I've been fighting for two years, and I feel that in the end, even if I won, what has it all been for? So I can shout 'Hooray, I'm a widow'?"  Olmert listened, and the tears coursed down his cheeks.  Our heartfelt prayers have been collecting in a very special place, waiting to allow two widows and a country, our family, to weep, knowing they are not alone.  And they are not.  We are not alone.

Today is a complicated day.  We will soon shift from the mishebeirach we've been reciting for Goldwasser and Regev to reciting Kaddish for them.  We will be able to bury our dead.  There might be news as to the fate of Ron Arad as part of this exchange.  And Gilad Shallit is still being held captive by Hamas.   Our hearts, newly broken again, will beat even faster when we say his name.  Our misheberachs will deepen with urgency. 

(Here is a link to the original language of the Prayer for the safe return of Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev - Hebrew // English. Here are links to A Prayer for the State of Israel and A Prayer for Tzahal: Israel's Defense Forces)

The news articles today (see below for a sampling of both Israeli and World pieces) are largely supportive of the difficult position Israel is in, and correctly portray terrorists as terrorists and soldiers as soldiers.  But that might not be the depiction for long in the world media, nor is it likely to be understood this way by Hezbollah and Hamas, who are preparing a hero's welcome for Samir Kuntar, a man who chose to kill.  If we are not attuned to our own story, checking haaretz.com and ynetnews.com regularly, we are likely to be confused in light of the ever-changing eye on Israel in the media.

Is this a good decision?  Who can tell.  Is negotiation better than war?  Absolutely.  Will the future find us making more mishebeirach's?  Please God, no. 

Two summers ago I was leading a shul Israel pilgrimage.  We were on the Kotel Tunnels Tour, a simply breathtaking exploration into the foundations of the holiest place we've known as a people.  Our tour guide turned to us as we walked right past the closest place on the tour to the Holy of Holies, where a lone woman was weeping, silently reciting Psalms.  Our guide informed us that a soldier, a brother of a friend had just been kidnapped.  She was speaking of Gilad Shalit.  We were in a sacred place, exploring what it was to be Jewish, remembering walls we'd never seen, comforting a sister we had never met.  Every breath became that much more intense.  Every moment of life became that much more precious.

May every people choose life over death. 

May every people experience peace and joy. 

May we - our brothers and sisters around the world, particularly in Israel - experience less sadness and more joy in the days and months to come.

Amen.

video:

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/997232.html

selected articles:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3561528,00.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3561682,00.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3561706,00.html
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/997265.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/06/29/international/i040408D59.DTL
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/world/middleeast/30mideast.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7480044.stm

Rabbi Menachem Creditor
-- www.netivotshalom.org
-- www.shefanetwork.org
-- menachemcreditor.org

BeHa’alotecha 5768: “The Wisdom of Chovav”

BeHa'alotecha 5768: "The Wisdom of Chovav"
© Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Guiding well is complicated.  Sometimes the best guides share their wisdom, and sometimes they provide space for trial and error on the path towards understanding.  Which pedagogy do we seekers desire?  And what kind of impact does a teacher's choice have on our abilities to successfully traverse personal journeys?

As Moses and the Israelites are preparing to emerge from the base of Mount Sinai, we read of Moses approaching his father-in-law Chovav:

"[Moses approached Chovav] saying 'We are journeying unto the place of which Adonai said: 'I will give it you.' Come with us, and we will be good to you, for Adonai has spoken well concerning Israel.'  Chovav responded 'I will not go.  I will return to my own land, to my birthplace.'  Moses said: 'Please don't leave us! You know how we are to encamp in the wilderness.  Be our eyes! (Num. 10:29-31)'

Many questions arise from this text.  Is Chovav the same person as Yitro in Exodus?  According to many interpreters, Yitro had joined the Israelite people – why then does Moses intimate that "we" will be good to "you" – aren't "we" and "you" one and the same?  Why does Moses need his father-in-law so much?  And perhaps most importantly, why doesn't Chovav, who has witnessed first-hand the miraculous relationship between God and the Israelites, jump at the chance to be an integral part of the body of Israel – their eyes?

The Chovav/Yitro name difference is likely connected to various strands of sacred story within the Torah.  This is mirrored in the very next chapter where Moses is said to have married a Cushite, though we know his wife Tzippora is a Middianite according to the text in Exodus.  Confusion surrounding her identity and her father's identity are reminders to each of us that we are at least complicated enough to be known in two ways, by various names, during different life-moments.

Regarding Chovav's being treated as "other", there is an ancient question whether he joined the Children of Israel before the Sinai Revelation or afterwards (TB Zevachim 116a). Moses' language is puzzling, but perhaps points to Chovav's outsider perspective.  He has, perhaps, joined this new family, this emerging people – but he was once a Midianite priest.  Hovav's vision is that of a newcomer, a wisdom teacher from the outside world.  Moses seems to need those kinds of eyes, ones which have not been forever changed by a fiery bush, eyes which didn't witness the terrifying power of God's power in Egypt, eyes which haven't seen at the brutality of family being tortured.  No, Chovav isn't only Moses' father-in-law who has some world experience.  Moses begs Chovav to stay because his eyes have some distance from the story.  Moses sees in Chovav strength and clarity difficult to retain, especially while being Moses.

Chovav/Yitro's clear thinking is first demonstrated in his (unsolicited) advice upon first observing his son-in-law at work:

"Moses sat as magistrate among the people, while the people stood about Moses from morning until evening.  But when Moses' father-in-law saw how much he had to do for the people, he said, "What is this thing that you are doing to the people? Why do you act alone, while all the people stand about you from morning until evening?"  Moses replied to his father-in-law, "It is because the people come to me to inquire of God.  When they have a dispute, it comes before me, and I decide between one person and another, and I make known the laws and teachings of God."  Moses' father-in-law said to him, "The thing you are doing is not right; you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone.   Now listen to me. I will give you counsel, and God be with you! You represent the people before God: you bring the disputes before God, and enjoin upon them the laws and the teachings, and make known to them the way they are to go and the practices they are to follow.  You shall also seek out from among all the people capable men who fear God, trustworthy men who spurn ill-gotten gain. Set these over them as chiefs of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, and  let them judge the people at all times. Have them bring every major dispute to you, but let them decide every minor dispute themselves. Make it easier for yourself by letting them share the burden with you. If you do this — and God so commands you — you will be able to bear up; and all these people too will go home unwearied."   Moses heeded his father-in-law and did just as he had said. (Ex. 18:13-24)"

Yitro/Chovav is, perhaps, speaking from the experience of his work as a religious guide, priest of Midian, watching a younger colleague struggle under the burden of leadership, wishing to solve problems while forgetting to share the burden wherever possible.  As Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky put it in their classic "Leadership on the Line" Yitro's wisdom provides Moses an opportunity to "get on the balcony." The dance floor is a poor place from which to observe the dance floor.  The balcony's distance provides a healthier perspective - a new set of eyes.  No wonder Moses seeks his father-in-law's counsel once again as the Sinai environment, suddenly familiar, is about to be replaced by the entrance to an unknown Promised Land.  This is an ongoing exodus, consistently leaving behind that which is familiar, demanding adaptive skills from a leadership with established procedures with 40 years of experience.

But what is most striking in our particular narrative is the fact that Chovav doesn't instantaneously agree to remain upon Moses' heartfelt request.  In fact, the Biblical text makes no indication as to Chovav's ultimate choice.  Whereas the Book of Judges seems to indicate (Jud. 4:11) that Chovav's descendents inherited portions of Ancient Israel, hinting at an affirmative answer to Moses' request, our local text leaves the question unresolved. 

Why, after learning of God's gifts to Israel, experiencing the wonder of Divine Fire and Cloud, after sharing in the reunion of his daughter and grandchildren with Moses, after gaining widespread respect as Moses' organizational and spiritual mentor, does Chovav not agree to serve as the Israelites' eyes?

An answer might be suggested just a bit ahead in the narrative, where God is chastising Aaron and Miriam for questioning Moses' unique relationship with God:

"Adonai came down in a pillar of cloud, stopped at the entrance of the Tent, and called out, 'Aaron and Miriam!' The two of them came forward and God said, 'Hear these My words: When a prophet of the Lord arises among you, I make Myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream.  Not so with My servant Moses; he is trusted throughout My household.  With him I speak mouth to mouth, plainly and not in riddles, and he beholds the likeness of Adonai. How then did you not shrink from speaking against My servant Moses!' (Num. 12:4-8)"

Moses might think he needs someone else's eyes to see, but God attests to Moses' singularly clear vision.  Rabbinic commentary emphasizes this concept by suggesting that "while all the other prophets saw through a clouded lens, but Moshe saw through a clear lens." (TB Yevamot 49b)  When Chovav first observes his son-in-law, he offers unsolicited advice.  Here, he is asked for his wisdom and declines.   Forty years of leadership has intervened in the relationship between Moses and Chovav.  Moses knows he still has much to learn, and Chovav never suggests that he couldn't serve as Moses' eyes.  And this is the greatness of Chovav – not offering advice. 

Moses had implemented his father-in-law's recommended system of delegation and would, in the very next chapter, say to God in light of yet another heavy encounter with life:

"Why have You dealt ill with Your servant, and why have I not enjoyed Your favor, that You have laid the burden of all this people upon me?  Did I conceive this entire people, did I bear them, that You should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries an infant,' to the land that You have promised on oath to their fathers?  Where am I to get meat to give to this entire people, when they whine before me and say, 'Give us meat to eat!'  I cannot carry this entire people by myself, for it is too much for me.  If You would deal thus with me, kill me rather, I beg You, and let me see no more of my wretchedness!" (Num. 11:11-15)"   

Intense.  And that is the point, is it not?  The distance implied in Moses' reliance upon his father-in-law's observations would, in some sense, be a denial of the unique conduit-role he was called to be.  It is no easy task to serve as a conduit.  No wonder Chovav is so dear to Moses.  But while having partners with which to unburden is crucial, those partners are there as "presences", similar to the role tradition teaches us to assume in a Shiva home.  Partners do not serve as eyes or mouths, filling the space in an effort to answer a palpable need – partners serve as ears and shoulders, granting the space for healing, processing, and self-expression.  To be intimately involved in the struggles of life is hard.  And correct.  And worth sharing with awareness and sensitivity.

Rabbi Chanin taught two thousand years ago that a "judge only has that which [she] sees with [her] own eyes. (TB Sanhedrin 6b)" When we are the ones struggling, we need to find our own path.  We must have confidence that we can own our mistakes.  And when we are in the position to offer advice, we must remember that we can't always make it better by doing something – we simply show up and care.  To try to traverse someone else's journey for them is to forget what it was to be on our own.  Holding back wisdom can also be a rare and precious gift.

The Haftarah for BeHa'alotecha offers a fitting testimony to this idea when speaking of the prophet Zecharia's vision of a Menorah.  In it, we read:

"And the angel that spoke with me returned, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep. And the angel said unto me: 'What did you see?' And I said: 'I saw a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and its seven lamps; there are seven pipes to the lamps which are upon the top; and two olive-trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side.' And I answered and spoke to the angel that spoke with me, saying: 'What does this mean, my lord?' Then the angel that spoke with me answered and said unto me: 'Do you not know what these mean?' And I said: 'No, my lord.' (Zech. 4:1-5)

The prophet awakens with clear vision as to what he saw, but does not understand what it means.  What is the illumination of the Menorah for, he asks the Angel.  And the angel hesitates before answering.  This holy hesitation is the beginning of wisdom, as we read just five verses later of the branches of the Menorah, that "these seven are the eyes of Adonai that run to and fro through the whole earth. (Zech. 4:10)"

The radiance of the world is God's eyes, encouraging every one of us to seek our path by its light.

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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