This is a book for those who are or who some day may be ill, which is another way of saying for everyone. It contains wisdom culled out of ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary Jewish literature that is intended for the patient, the caregiver and the physician.
\”It\’s no sin to be a lefty and she\’s always right,\” instructs Rabbi Elie Stern of Westwood Kehilla in West Los Angeles.
I honestly thought my daughter, Bruria, would never learn how to read. My nieces learned how when they were 3, and so I assumed that if I got in early, say around 2, Bruria would be in full swing by 3.
Even if the reader is a person who does not regularly attend Shabbat worship services when the Torah is read, the text of Nitzavim will be somewhat familiar, inasmuch as it is offered not only as a reading during the Sabbath we are about to observe, but it is also presented as the Torah text in the midst of the morning of Yom Kippur. So, even the least observant among us, when wending their way to a synagogue to observe the High Holidays, ought to find this material from Deuteronomy to be not at all strange.
All of us have heard, or experienced a variation of the following story, told of a father and his daughter. She, a busy professional; he, a retired widower. In one of their virtually nonexistent exchanges, he asks: \”With your booked schedule, will you be able to attend my funeral?\” Her response: \”Of course, how could you say such a thing?\” His retort: \”I need you in my life now, before I die.\”
The great Israeli author, Shai Agnon, related a fable about a little boy and his old father, who together tended a goat. Each day the goat wandered off and returned at evening, its udders filled with the sweetest of milk. The boy wished to know where the goat went, and on what grass it grazed to give such extraordinarily sweet milk. So he tied a string to the goat\’s tail and followed.
In a parsha that features spectacular displays of sound and light, the most dramatic moment is actually the quietest one. In fact, it sometimes feels like the opening chapter\’s tumult and noise only serves to draw us even deeper into the second chapter\’s thunderclap of silence.
Our parasha includes a description of possibly the first shidduch (arranged marriage) in history. With the death of his beloved Sarah, Abraham turns his attention to the future and sends his servant back to \”the old country\” Haran to find a wife for Isaac. The mission with which he charges the servant is clear:
In today\’s world, it is so easy to get caught up in the development and achievement of the many goals we set for ourselves. From the time we are very young, we are trained to begin thinking about what we want to be when we grow up and how we will get there. And as we grow up, those objectives multiply as we consider the many goals we set out to achieve: getting ahead in our careers, earning money, getting married, having children — the list goes on. And, as we continue through life, we set new goals and set out to do all the things necessary to achieve those goals. Once we achieve one goal, we are already planning the next, ready to run out to complete it and move on to another one.
Jewish history begins with God\’s call to Abram: \”Go forth from your native land and from your father\’s house to the land that I will show you.\” This call resonates through the millennia in two important ways. It connects our earliest beginnings and very identity as a people to the Promised Land, Israel. And it roots being Jewish in renunciation, deviation from the natural flow of events and radical independence.
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