We are an American generation sadly marred by excess, addiction, and reduced public morals. On line at the supermarket we see magazines that headline Lindsay Lohan, Brittany Spears, and Charlie Sheen. Purim is around the corner, and the question arises: What’s the deal with getting drunk on Purim? So here’s the deal:
Parashat Terumah is the first of the weekly Torah portions with a narrative that fails to excite. We have been reading about the world’s creation, the Flood and its diluvial ramifications, the stories of our matriarchs and their husbands, the Great Exodus from Egypt that brought us — with no apparent exit strategy — to the Sea of Reeds, and then Mount Sinai, where God Almighty, amid thunder and lightning, revealed Himself to our nation of millions by declaring the Ten Pronouncements, which later would be engraved in stone as a memorial. One exciting event after another.
Two years have passed since the incarcerated Joseph correctly divined the wine steward’s dream in prison, predicting that Pharaoh would pardon the steward and return him to his station. All Joseph had asked, in return, was that this chief sommelier remember him to Pharaoh upon his release. The wine steward never made any promises to help Joseph, and when he was released, the Torah tells us, the wine steward not only failed to remember Joseph but actively forgot him. It’s only after Pharaoh becomes obsessed with two quirky dreams about thin and fat stalks and cows that the chief sommelier, perhaps seeking personal advantage, chimes in to recommend the incarcerated Hebrew dream-diviner.
Virginia Thomas and Anita Hill are at it. This is quite a story.
Justice Thomas\’s wife, Ginny, calls Prof. Anita Hill at her Brandeis University office and leaves a voice mail that apparently says, according to ABC News:
“Good morning, Anita Hill. It’s Ginny Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought, and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”
“And God said to Avram: ‘Go forth, for your [best interest], from your land and from the place of your birth and from the house of your father to the land I will show you’ ” (Genesis 12:1).
With approximately half of American marriages ending in divorce, the social crisis unfolding within the institution of the American family concerned me deeply as a congregational rabbi during the 1980s and ’90s, my first two decades in the pulpit. I spoke about it. I wrote about it.
After the Golden Calf, Moshe prays to God, begging forgiveness. In the course of his prophetic dialogue with the Creator, Moshe asks to see God’s glory. God responds that no person can see His face and live. However, He will allow Moshe to see His back (Exodus 33:17-23). Rashi, citing the Talmud, understands God’s offer literally. As we sing in the An’im Z’mirot hymn toward the end of Shabbat morning services: “He showed [Moshe] the humble one the [rear] knot of His [head] tefillin.”
Noah, the complete, righteous soul of his generation, gets himself good and drunk after the flood experience has passed. He has planted a vineyard, acted as his own vintner and sommelier, and become so inebriated — perhaps publicly in the open field, perhaps lying asleep in bed — that he is stark naked (Genesis 9:20-21).
This summer’s “cultural news” has been dominated by the deaths of several particularly prominent celebrities.
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