#dvar torah
This week, we will be reading Parashat V’Zot Habracha. The fourth Passuk of this Parasha states,
תּוֹרָה צִוָּה לָנוּ מֹשֶׁה מוֹרָשָׁה קְהִלַּת יַעֲקֹב:
The Torah that Moses commanded us is a legacy for the congregation of Jacob (Deuteronomy 33:4)
The only other time in the Torah that the word Morasha is used, is in reference to Eretz Yisrael.
וְהֵבֵאתִי אֶתְכֶם אֶל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נָשָׂאתִי אֶת יָדִי לָתֵת אֹתָהּ לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב וְנָתַתִּי אֹתָהּ לָכֶם מוֹרָשָׁה אֲנִי יְ־ה
I will bring you to the land, concerning which I raised My hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you as a heritage; I am the Lord.’ (Exodus 6:8)
The word Morasha does not mean the passive acceptance of an inheritance. It is an eternal inheritance that you must work for. You must toil in it, struggle and fight for it, only then it truly becomes yours. I believe we see this today with both Torah and Eretz Yisrael. It’s hard to keep the Torah and to fulfill all the Mitzvot. It’s not easy, it’s not cool, and it means you have a ton of assignments due at the end of the semester while missing three weeks of uni. But we struggle and try, because of our commitment and love for our heritage.
Similarly, these days it might not be so easy to love Israel when Zionists are characterised as baby killing, evil, occupiers. We have to work hard at our Ahavat Ha’aretz and learn as much as we can in order to defend ourselves and our homeland from the media, the Socialist Alternative, the far right, academics and many more.
May this year be the year we merit to live our Morasha, in our Morasha, fulfilling the Torah in our homeland.
It’s chilling to read the last passuk of this week’s Parasha.
“You shall not fear them, for Hashem, your God – He shall wage war for you”
(Deuteronomy 3:22)
Despite the stress, the security tensions, the pain and the tragedy, the fact that so few rockets have hit civilians and populated areas, is simply a miracle. When watching footage of the Iron Dome in action on YouTube it’s easy to see God’s Zeroa Netuyah defending us, waging war for us.
This Shabbat in Shule we witness a microcosm of Jewish history. In Kriat Hatorah we once again discuss the conquering of the east bank of the Jordan. We conclude with Moshe reiterating Hashem’s promise that the Jewish people will inherit the other side of the Jordan and settle it with God leading the war.
In the Haftarah, we read about the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash and the deterioration of Eretz Yisrael.
Yisahayahu prophesies, “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire, your land before you, strangers consume it; it is desolate as if overturned by strangers”(Isaiah 1:7).
Unfortunately, we have seen Yishayahu’s prophecy come to fruition. It was mournfully recorded by Mark Twain in his famous work, The Innocents Abroad.
He wrote, “Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of colour, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent. The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee sleep in the midst of a vast stretch of hill and plain wherein the eye rests upon no pleasant tint, no striking object, no soft picture dreaming in a purple haze or mottled with the shadows of the clouds. Every outline is harsh, every feature is distinct, there is no perspective–distance works no enchantment here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land.”
However, in the past century we’ve seen the flip side. We’ve begun to see Nevuot of Nechama that we’ll start reading next Shabbat. We’ve resettled our land, we’ve never surrendered our inheritance. And in the past few weeks, we’ve clearly seen Hashem waging war for us, for His Holy Land.
May we merit to see the Geulah Shleima and the rebuilding of the Beit Hamikdash Bimheirah B’yameinu, AMEN.
Thinking about how in Hebrew, the Star of David is called Magen David, which means Shield of David, because of the legend that it was the symbol on King David’s shield.
Butwho was the real shield in David’s life? The one who would constantly try to protect him from King Shaul and his army, who put his life and honour on the line defending him multiple times?
Yonatan.
The Magen David isYonatan.
Yonatan gave David his weapons when he fell in love with him, but not his shield. Why would that be? Maybe it’s because Yonatan was his shield.
When David sings a surge lamenting the deaths of Shaul and Yonatan, there’s a line that goes as such:
“Behold in Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain upon you, or bountiful fields; for there the shield of warriors, the shield of Shaul were rejected, no longer anointed with oil.”
It’s interesting that Yonatan isn’t mentioned in this stanza, but Shaul is.
But upon analysis of the context….David was a poet.
He wouldn’t have to mention a person by name in order to mention them.
What if the “shield of warriors” wasn’t a physical shield, but Yonatan?
David and Shaul were both warriors, Yonatan never was. He gave away his weapons to David, he was skilled with the bow but the only time we see him use it is to send a coded signal to David. Yonatan was called weak by his father for his lack of aggression- he was always the defender and never the offender.
Yonatan is the shield.
Perhaps when we wear our Magen David necklaces, or embroider and carve them into our Judaica, we are wearing a symbol of Yonatan- a man who chose love over war.
Last week, I had the honor of giving the D’var Torah at my synagogue’s Saturday morning services. Here is the speech I gave!
Welcome to the Book of Exodus! We begin with Parshat Shemot, and everything that happens in this week’s Torah portion will sound familiar to anyone who has ever been to a Passover seder or seen movies like The Prince of Egypt orThe Ten Commandments. This parsha shows the Children of Israel becoming slaves in Egypt, the birth of Moses, the burning bush, all the way up to Moses’s first attempt to get Pharaoh to “let my people go.”
As I read through Shemot, it occurred to me that this parsha keeps going back and forth. It’s full of twists – reversals of fortune – moments where the characters circumstances suddenly change direction.
The Children of Israel begin this parsha “fruitful and filling the land,” happy members of Egyptian society – and then a new king rises over Egypt, and this Pharaoh fears the Children of Israel, and he makes them his slaves. This is the first reversal – a change from a prosperous time, to a time of suffering.
Then Pharaoh commands that every son born to the Children of Israel shall be cast into the Nile River. But one mother puts her baby in a basket in the Nile. And instead of drowning, this baby is adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter! Another reversal, this time from death to the literal lap of luxury.
Pharaoh’s daughter names the baby Moses. And we would expect at this point for Moses to be raised as an Egyptian prince. That’s how the Dreamworks movie explains it. But then the baby’s sister – she doesn’t get named here yet, but we know it’s Moses’s sister, Miriam – Miriam offers to bring a wet nurse for the baby. And she brings Moses’s birth mother to the palace! Another reversal – Moses is raised by his Hebrew mother!
So Moses grows up, and one day, he sees an Egyptian man beating a Hebrew man. Moses kills the Egyptian, and he realizes that he has to flee from Egypt to avoid being punished. If anyone’s keeping track, we’re now up to four reversals of fortune. Moses was a Prince of Egypt, and now he’s on the run in the desert.
And Moses might have died out there in the desert, except that along the way, he helped the daughters of a Midian chief protect their flocks! And suddenly, Moses is a welcome member of this community in Midian, with a wife and a baby, and a flock of sheep to herd. A fifth reversal of fortune.
And then the Torah says, “God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” And God decides that it’s time to call to Moses, through a burning bush, and tell him to go back to Egypt and free his people from slavery.
And Moses says – “NO WAY.”
I am obviously paraphrasing here. Moses gives a lot of excuses. “Who am I to do this? What if the Children of Israel don’t believe me? I’m a really bad public speaker!”
God has an answer to each of Moses’s excuses. When Moses says, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” God says, “Don’t worry; I will be with you.” When Moses says, “What if the Children of Israel don’t believe me?” God says, “Here are some miracles you can show them, so they will believe you. When Moses says, “I’m a really bad public speaker!” God says, “You can have your brother Aaron help you.”
And only then does Moses finally agree to return to Egypt.
Why does Moses argue so much with God about this? Why doesn’t he want to go back to Egypt and free his people? I don’t think it’s as simple as Moses not thinking he’s the right man for the job. We know that Moses cares deeply about the Children of Israel and is willing to take action to protect them – he already killed someone to protect a Hebrew slave! And it should be clear to Moses that with God and God’s miracles on his side, he would be a formidable force in Egypt. So why does Moses resist God’s call?
I think that we should keep in mind that, by this point, Moses has been through a lot. [count on fingers] Hispeople were made slaves, he narrowly avoided being drowned in the Nile, he unexpectedly found himself with his Hebrew mother again, he had to go on the run in the desert, and he became a family man. Moses’s life has been completely uprooted five times – sometimes in objectively good ways, sometimes in objectively bad ways, but each of these five times in an unpredictable way, with factors outside of his control – and now God wants to make it six times. And Moses is afraid of this change.
I empathize with Moses! Now, my circumstances are nowhere near as extreme as his. But I understand the fear that comes from having to uproot your life too many times due to factors outside of your control.
I graduated from college four years ago, and in that time frame, just four years, I have packed all my belongings into moving boxes six separate times. I have driven three different cars. I have fallen in love and gone through break-ups twice. I have had four different jobs, I was accepted to a fifth job that was canceled because of the pandemic, and my current job, which I really like, at first only promised me work until the beginning of January, and they just recently surprised me by promising me work until the end of January. And I have no idea what’s going to happen after that. These changes are outside of my control.
Uncertainty is my least favorite thing in the whole world. When I find a piece of solid ground, I cling to it. So I feel that if someone came to me right now and said, “Pack your bags; we’ve got a job for you in California!” …I would be hesitant!
Even if they were offering me an amazing opportunity to change the world, to put my skills to work, to tell stories that would make a real difference in people’s lives, I would be scared! I would make excuses! I would be like, “I just signed a lease! I just built a desk and a bed, I just found some really good roommates, and I’m making friends at work, and I’m a member of a wonderful congregation… Why can’t I just stay where I am?”
In case my parents are listening in on Zoom – IF SOMEONE OFFERS ME A REALLY COOL WRITING JOB IN CALIFORNIA, I WILL TAKE THE JOB. I WILL MAKE SMART CAREER CHOICES.
The point is, I would be scared. I’m already scared, a lot of the time. Because change is scary. Not knowing what the outcomes of your actions will be, or what the world is going to throw at you next, is scary. Stability, staying where you are, is much more appealing.
In Parshat Shemot, the Torah shows us a very human response to change. Moses resists. He makes excuses. But God has an answer for every excuse that Moses makes. The Torah encourages us to not resist change, even though it is scary. But the Torah also promises us that we will not face change alone.
Moses finally agrees to return to Egypt because God promises him that he will have allies there to help him. And Moses has allies through every change in his life. He has his mother – both his Hebrew mother who put him in the river, and his adoptive Egyptian mother who drew him out of it. He has his sister, who kept watch over him and spoke up on his behalf, and he has his brother, who will speak for him in Egypt. He has his wife Zipporah who goes with him to Egypt. He has the Children of Israel, waiting for him there. And he has God – God who believes in Moses and who won’t take no for an answer.
And all of us here today, reading this parsha, we have allies, too – our family, our friends, our coworkers, our congregation, and God. So whether the next big scary reversal of fortune in our lives brings us to something good, or something bad, or something unpredictable, we will be able to face it together. Shabbat shalom.
A d’var torah (plural divrei torah, literally “word(s) of Torah”) - is a kind of speech or essay delivered by Jews, for Jews. The speech usually refers to the Torah parsha of the week. I’ve shared a couple of my divrei torah here on this blog, including ones about Tamar in parsha Vayeshev and about Balaam in parsha Balak.
For me, divrei torah are a lot of fun to write. I think of it as a “holy book report.” But I know not everyone thinks of a book report as “fun.” Recently, some people have asked me how I write them, how I know what to say and make it interesting. So today I am sharing my thought process for writing a d’var torah.
Here are my four “steps” to writing a good d’var!
1. Explain the Text
This is the “book report” part. Often, a d’var is delivered right after the Torah is read aloud to the congregation, but this doesn’t mean that everyone knows what this week’s parsha is about. It can be difficult to follow along, both in Hebrew and in English. Even if you can follow along, sometimes it’s just not very clear what’s going on, especially once you get out of the stories in Genesis and Exodus that we love to tell our kids and get into the laws of Leviticus. A parsha needs some explanation, just to make sure everyone is on the same page.
Now, I’m not telling you to talk about EVERYTHING that happens in the parsha. Each parsha contains a LOT. Bereshit, the first chapter of Genesis, is not just those first seven days - it also includes Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, a lot of family trees, and the beginning of the story of Noah! You could write a dozen essays on any one of these pieces of Torah, but remember, this is a ten-minute d’var torah, not a thesis paper. Vayeshev has one hundred and twelve verses in it, but for my d’var, I just talked about those thirty verses that Tamar is in, and I had plenty to say!
Read the parsha, find something that strikes you as particularly interesting, and share those details with your congregation in your d’var torah. But what, you may ask, makes a part of the Torah particularly interesting? That leads me to the second step…
2. Connect to Today
This is really the whole point of a d’var - connecting the ancient texts to today. Why does this matter? Why do we read the Torah today, and what can we learn from it? How can the text give us a new perspective on our lives - or, how can our lives give us new perspective on the text?
Sometimes the answer is obvious, and sometimes not. It’s easy to draw connections between Esau and Jacob’s rivalry and your own sibling squabbles, less so to draw connections to the laws of kashrut if you yourself do not keep kosher. Fortunately, you’re not alone here. You can look up divrei torah written by rabbis throughout the years and quote them (with proper citation!) in your talk. Feel free to share contradicting opinions - “Rabbi X said this, but Rabbi Y said that.” As the saying goes, “two Jews, three opinions.” We love critical thinking and debate!
But here’s the thing - you don’t NEED to tell your congregation what other people think about this parsha. You can say what YOU think about it. What does this parsha remind you of in YOUR life? When I wrote about parsha Balak, I connected Balaam’s treatment of the donkey to behavior I’d seen from theme park guests at work, and drew from that a lesson about not assuming that people who disobey you have malicious intent. When I wrote about parsha Vayeshev, I talked about the mind-blowing impact that Tamar’s story had had on me as a thirteen-year-old, showing me that our culture has much more potential for feminist liberation than I had previously believed.
Which brings me to the next step…
3. Be Vulnerable
When you write a d’var torah, you are a teacher. In this moment, you are the expert on the text, like a professor giving a lecture. But think about the connotations we have for the word “lecture.” A teacher giving you a lecture is a neutral thing, but a lecture can also be a parent scolding you. I don’t see a d’var as the time to scold. If your audience gets defensive, then they will disengage with you and won’t learn from you.
Yes, connect the Torah to the real world, and share what we can learn from it today. But be sure to include yourself in that “we”! If you say, “Here is what YOU should learn from the Torah,” people might get defensive. If you say, “Here is what I’VE learned from the Torah,” people will sympathize with you and learn with you. When I talked about Tamar, I could have used her example to critique the status quo; instead I used it as an opportunity to talk about how I had been wrong in the past and how grateful I was to be a part of this culture. When you are vulnerable, you become memorable and inspirational.
4. Find the Humor
This is something I’ve learned in guest service: if you can get people to laugh, then they’re more likely to listen and do what you say. It’s common speechwriting advice, too, to use humor to connect with your audience. I began my Tamar parsha with a slightly self-deprecating joke about musical theatre, and my bat mitzvah parsha for Bechukotai - which I have not yet worked up the courage to share here - was a completely unintentional stand-up comedy routine. (Honestly, at the time, I had no idea why everyone was laughing. Now I get it, and I cringe.)
Please note that I am NOT telling you to insert humor to non-humorous situations. If you’re talking about the plague of the firstborns in Exodus, that is NOT the time for dead baby jokes. What I’m saying is, when you find humor in the Torah, do not shy away from it. Don’t get so caught up with the idea that this is a holy text you must respect, or that you have the responsibility of teaching your community on your shoulders, that you write something completely dry and disengaged. The d’var that has the congregation zoning out and dozing off is, frankly, not a good d’var. The d’var that feels like an amiable human conversation is one that people will remember.
Explain the text, connect it to today, be vulnerable, and find the humor - and, ta-da! You have a d’var torah! Read it aloud to yourself before anyone else; you’ll find that things sound different when you say them with your voice than when you read it silently. Then go and teach!
Last week, I had the honor of giving the D’var Torah at my synagogue’s Saturday morning services. Here is the speech I gave!
This week’s parsha, Vayeshev, has my favorite story in the whole Torah. And I’m not talking about Joseph. Don’t get me wrong, I do love Joseph. I can basically recite the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about him by heart. But Joseph’s story is not my favorite. My favorite story in the whole Torah is the story of Tamar.
Now there’s a good chance that you’re now wondering, “Who is Tamar?” There isn’t a musical about her! (Though I’m tempted to write one!) I know I didn’t learn about her in Sunday School. I learned about her when I was thirteen. One of my bat mitzvah presents was this book called Lilith’s Ark, by Deborah Bodin Cohen. It’s a book for Jewish teenagers focusing on the women of the Torah. One of the stories here is about Tamar.
In case you’re like thirteen-year-old me and you don’t know Tamar’s story, here’s the gist of it. It’s not a long story – just thirty verses, in Genesis chapter 38. But a lot happens in these thirty verses.
Joseph’s brother Judah gets married and has three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. His eldest son, Er, marries a woman named Tamar. But before Tamar can have any children, Er dies.
You’ll remember from other stories in the Torah the importance of being a firstborn son – that’s the heir to the father, the heir of the family, who inherits the family’s wealth. So it’s a problem that Er (Judah’s heir who is named Er - the pun only works in English) died before having any kids. It messes with the line of inheritance.
So Judah has his second son, Onan, also marry Tamar. The idea is that the first child that Onan and Tamar have together will count as Er’s son, preserving that line of inheritance.
But Onan refuses to go along with this. He refuses to have kids with Tamar. The Torah says he “cast his seed on the ground.” And G-d does not like that. So Onan dies.
So Judah looks at everything that’s happened, and he thinks, “Huh. My first son married Tamar, and he died. My second son married Tamar, and he also died. I’m supposed to have her marry my third son now… but what if he dies, too?”
So Judah tells Tamar, “Hey, my third son Shelah, he’s too young to get married yet. You should go back to your parents’ house and stay there, and I’ll call you when we’re ready.”
When someone says, “I’ll call you,” that’s never a good sign.
Time goes by, and it becomes clear to Tamar that Judah is never going to call her. And Tamar’s in a tricky situation here. She’s still engaged to Judah’s son! She can’t break that off. Judah’s family is supposed to be supporting her, but they’re not!
Then, Judah’s wife dies, and Judah goes into town, and I’m gonna keep this rated PG, but Judah’s looking for a woman to spend some time with. And Tamar puts on a veil to disguise herself, and she goes to meet Judah. And Judah does not recognize Tamar.
And Judah’s like, “I’ll send you your payment later.” And Tamar’s like, “I need some proof that you’re actually going to pay me.” And Judah’s like “What proof do you need?” And Tamar says, “Give me your cord, your seal, and your staff.” Basically, these items count as Judah’s identification. Like a driver’s license.
And again, I’m keeping this story rated PG – but Tamar gets pregnant.
Fast forward three months, and someone goes to Judah and says, “Hey! You know Tamar, who’s engaged to your son Shelah? She’s pregnant! She cheated on your son!”
And Judah says, “Let her be burned!”
So the people of the town bring Tamar out to be burned to death! But Tamar says, “Here is the cord, seal, and staff of the man who fathered this baby!”
And Judah realizes that she’s got HIS cord, seal, and staff. And he says, “Tamar is more in the right than I am, because I did not give her to my son Shelah.”
And six months later, Tamar gives birth to twin boys. The end!
This story is WILD. I could not believe it when I first read it. It blew my mind. I was like, there’s no way that this story is actually in the Torah. This is a story about a woman who breaks some really big rules to get what she wants, and she gets away with it. Not only does she get away with it, she has twin boys. That’s basically a double-thumbs-up from G-d! I couldn’t believe it.
You see, at thirteen, I thought I had Judaism all figured out. I knew how religion can be used to restrict women. I saw how in our prayerbook, there was an original version of the Amidah which only mentioned the patriarchs, while an alternate version of the Amidah included the matriarchs, as if the women were an afterthought. I knew that though I was able to read from the Torah at my bat mitzvah, my mother, at her bat mitzvah, had to stand by while a man read from the Torah. When I was thirteen, I saw Judaism as having a clear progression from past to present. From a time when women, and women’s power and desire and intelligence, did not matter, to a time when women are empowered, when women can be rabbis and Torah readers and synagogue congregation presidents! Looking around our synagogue today, you could not call women an afterthought.
But Tamar is not an afterthought. She REFUSES to be an afterthought. She seizes every power she can in a very limited situation. She asserts herself, and what she wants, over the will of the men around her, making sure that she gets the role that she deserves but her community has denied her. And in the end, Judah admits that she was right and he was wrong!
Now if Judaism in the past restricted women and Judaism of the present has more freedom and empowerment for women, then why does this story exist??? The Torah doesn’t change. How we interpret it changes. How we practice Judaism changes. But the Torah itself does not change. Tamar has been here just as long as Judah, and Joseph, and Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham. Tamar is just as much a part of the foundation of our culture as anyone else in the Torah.
And I realized, when I was thirteen and I learned about Tamar,I realized that a part of the foundation of Judaism is this lesson – that if your community does not give you the support that they should, G-d says that you should stand up for yourself. If you wanna get married, go get married. If you want a kid, go have a kid. And don’t let the people who gave you limits tell you that you’re wrong for breaking past those limits.
This is an empowering message, and it isn’t a new addition to modern Judaism – it is integral to Judaism!
In many ways, a bat mitzvah is a culmination of Jewish education. But it’s also a beginning. It’s the beginning of your life as a Jewish adult, and for me, it was the true beginning of my journey through the Torah. Tamar sent me on a quest to find the women in the Torah who know when it’s time to break the rules to set things right – these women who are not necessarily earth-shattering revolutionaries, but they know what they want, they know how to get what they want, and they refuse to stand by and be forgotten.
And let me tell you, once you start looking for these amazing women in the Torah, you find them everywhere! But this d’var is long enough without me taking that tangent, so let me conclude by saying that Tamar is one of the many reasons that I am proud to be a Jew. I am proud to belong to this religion, I am proud to have these stories at the foundation of my culture, and I am both proud and grateful to be here with you today as a part of this community. Shabbat Shalom!
