Dear TBZ Community,
In my junior year in highschool, I traveled with my classmates to the
Atacama Desert
in the North of Chile, a 41,000 square mile area of stony terrain, salt lakes (
salares
), and sand. We would drive on our bus for hours and still be in the desert. One day in the middle of one such long drive, the bus broke down. We were in the middle of nowhere. A new bus would take several hours to arrive and our teachers let us wander about while we waited. As I walked farther from the bus, people became so small, and when I couldn't see the bus anymore, I realized the great desert’s vastness and the feeling of being unable to see what is beyond.
This week we begin the fourth book of the Torah,
Bamidbar
. In it we will read the journey of the people of Israel in the wilderness. Next week we will celebrate Shavuot and the receiving of Torah.
The midrash in
Bamidbar Rabbah,
connects these two accounts and asks the question, Why was Torah given in the wilderness?:
Bamidbar Rabbah 1:7
וַיְדַבֵּר ה' אֶל משֶׁה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי, אֶלָּא כָּל מִי שֶׁאֵינוֹ עוֹשֶׂה עַצְמוֹ כַּמִּדְבָּר, הֶפְקֵר, אֵינוֹ יָכוֹל לִקְנוֹת אֶת הַחָכְמָה וְהַתּוֹרָה
Adonai spoke to Moshe in the wilderness of Sinai...(Numbers 1:1): Why [was Torah given] in the wilderness of Sinai? Anyone who does not make oneself as open [hefker/ownerless] as the wilderness, is not able to acquire wisdom and Torah.
What does it mean to make ourselves
hefker
, ownerless?
Perhaps one way to understand it is that if you are too attached to (i.e. owned by) any one idea, any one ideology, any one place, any one group, you will not be able to receive Torah fully. You have to be willing to let go of what you thought you knew in order to learn. Making yourself
hefker
, ownerless, is the capacity to be in a state of open-heartedness to that which we can’t control. To be ownerless, is to hold uncertainty and be open to what comes to us with surprise, and no judgment.
Here we are in Massachusetts, and although flowers are blooming, trees are green and beautiful and our landscape doesn't look anything like a wilderness, for many the experience of quarantine is one of wilderness. It feels like a long, exhausting journey, where there is no clear view of an end.
The people of Israel could not know the end of their story -- their wanderings to come. They must have been filled with questions and fears. For us, in the middle of our own wanderings and unknowable journey, we too are filled with questions. Simple and profound ones: When will my kids go back to school? How long until I can hug my grandchildren? Will my business survive? Is my paycheck secure? When can we return to our sanctuary? How will our government and our country hold together? What will the summer bring? Will my Grandparents be able to attend my Bat Mitzvah this fall? How are the High Holidays going to look? When will we sing together again?
I invite us to ask ourselves: How do we make ourselves
hefker
when the journey feels so vast, so uncertain and so scary?
This week’s
parsha
focuses on the census and the counting of the people. Names and numbers fill the first chapters. In the midst of this chapter, verse five has four words that caught my attention this week:
Numbers 1:5
וְאֵ֙לֶּה֙ שְׁמ֣וֹת הָֽאֲנָשִׁ֔ים
אֲשֶׁ֥ר יַֽעַמְד֖וּ אִתְּכֶ֑ם
לִרְאוּבֵ֕ן אֱלִיצ֖וּר בֶּן־שְׁדֵיאֽוּר׃
These are the names of the men
who shall stand with you
, from Reuben, Elizur son of Shedeur.
אֲשֶׁ֥ר יַֽעַמְד֖וּ אִתְּכֶ֑ם
Shall stand with you.
Shall stand with you
-- In the midst of the wilderness, in the midst of uncertainty and fear, we stand with others. We don't stand alone.
Answers to our unfolding questions come and go, what we think we know this week, changes next week, and we learn to accommodate and work with what is. Perhaps making ourselves
hefker
means to allow ourselves to be in this uncertainty with an open heart for what it can bring to us. And to become
hefker
we can also remember, to be open to each other. We are not on this journey, this wandering, alone. We stand with each other. We stand with you, we stand together.
I find myself during these times reflecting and asking much of what leadership means and how we walk through this wilderness together. How do we walk in a time where the vastness, the intensity is so big, that we can not see the bus that will take us back home?
My most important memory of that broken bus experience in the middle of the Atacama desert is of the people I walked with. I can name them, even though I haven't seen them in more than 25 years. I did not wander alone.
May this Shabbat bring blessings to all of you and your loved ones.
May we find strength, courage, patience and open our heart with generosity.
May all those who are ill find healing.
May we have a joyful Shabbat!
