All The Small Things – Parshat Yitro 5772

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Teaching in the Middle School, I find myself trying, as I’m sure the parents do, to find the happy medium between micromanaging the students and their study habits (like requiring benders and study guides and giving extra time for projects) and letting the students manage their own time and studying schedule.  If I micromanage, the students get the work done, but they also lose the responsibility for their own learning, homework and growth.  If I let the students figure it out completely on their own, then I risk facing less than stellar quiz grades and assignments that are never turned in.  It’s the same situation in the office place.  By micromanaging we can become bogged down by the nitty gritty, but at least we’ll stay on top of the details.  On the other hand, if we let the reigns go a little or delegate responsibility, we might find ourselves in a heap of trouble if something gets left behind.  So we’re faced with a challenge: how do we find our happy medium?
Moshe, the leader of the Israelites out from Egypt to the Promised Land, is also trying to learn this lesson.  Parshat Yitro, our Torah portion for the week, introduces us to Moshe the workhorse, a workaholic who needs to be reacquainted with his family because he never sees them.  While in thisparshah Moshe receives the Ten Commandments, he also learns an important life lesson about management of a community.  Since God called on Moshe, he has been the sole leader of the people, dealing with the problems, disputes and needs of the Israelites on his own. The text describes Moshe as the judge of the people, with the people standing in line from morning until evening until Moshe can help them solve their disputes.  When Yitro, Moshe’s father-in-law, asks Moshe what’s going on, Moshe simply tells him that he’s doing the job God asked him to do.  Waiting in line all day long has become a way of life for the people because only Moshe can do the job of judge.
I imagine we all have moments where we think, “If you want something done right . . .”  You feel that no one else knows the intricacies of the job like you do.  When you’re working on something close to your heart, you have a sense of ownership and protection over your work that does not allow you to think anyone else can do the job.  But each time we take on a new task, that investment of time has to come from somewhere, whether it’s another five minutes we could be spending with family or much needed time to rest.  When we’re in the thick of our work, we often lose sight of the big picture and need help regaining perspective. 
Yitro witnesses Moshe approaching burnout, and he is concerned.  In Chapter 18, verse 18, Yitro tells Moshe that he cannot do this alone; he will surely be ripped to shreds if he continues this way.  Yitro then devises a plan for Moshe.  Chapter 18, verses 19-26 contain the basic breakdown of a legal system.  Most important in these words is Yitro’s advice to Moshe, basically saying “Moshe, set judges for the people, they will handle all the small things, the day to day little problems, you, the leader, you handle the big stuff.” 
Moses learned that it’s impossible to be all things to all people. Leadership isn’t about always being the first to arrive and the last to go home. Rather, it’s about recognizing and capitalizing on the strengths in a community of people. That’s when the real work gets done.
ללמוד  To Learn: ללמד  To Teach: Parshat Yitro contains within it the 10 Commandments, and the description of the fire, lightning and thunder that was part of the event.  Chapter 19 of the book of Shemot reminds us that it is necessary to use our senses in order to be fully present in experiences.   Read through chapter 19 together as a family and put yourself in the shoes of the Israelites at the mountain.  As a family discuss how you feel?  What you expect?  What does this tell you about the importance of these mitzvot. 
לשמור  To Keep:  לעשות  To Do: As a family, take a look at the 10 Commandments and discuss how each commandment can be kept and honored in your lives.  Looking at the basic ideas presented in each commandment, come up with your own tablets and rules to live by that will help lead you to truly understand and embrace these 10 mitzvot. 
And God said all of these things saying:
I am God, your God that brought you out from the land of Egypt from the house of slavery.  You should not have other Gods before me.
You should not make for yourself idols or images that are in the sky above or the earth below or in the water below the land.  You will not bow down to them or worship them because I, God your God is a jealous God and remember the sins of the fathers on the children for 3rd and 4th generations of those who hate me.  And I will do good to the 1000th generation of those who love me and guard my mitzvot.
you will not lift up the name of God, your God in a lie because God will not forgive those who use God’s name as a lie.
Remember the Shabbat day for it is holy.  6 days you will work and do all of your work.  On the seventh day it is Shabbat for God your God, you will not do all work; you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your animal or the stranger that is in your gates.  Because in 6 days God made the sky and the land, the sea and all that is in them and he rested on the 7th day therefore God blessed day 7 and made it holy.
Honor your father and your mother so that your days will be lengthened on the land that God gave to you.
You will not murder.
You will not commit adultery.
You will not steal.
You will not give false testimony about your neighbor.
You will not covet the house of your friend, you will not covet the wife of your friend or his male servant or female servant, or his donkey or anything that belongs to your friend.

Searching for More When You Need Less – Parshat BeShalach 5772

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There’s no doubt about it – transitions can be scary.  A new job means new coworkers and an unfamiliar commute.  Transitioning from single life to married life brings questions like how to share a bathroom, who will do the dishes, when will I have private time.  The transition from lower school to middle school finds our students with all sorts of new anxieties about daily life, workload, and friendships, even when they’re already comfortable with the building and the teachers. 
In Sefer Shemot, the Book of Exodus, the Israelites are in constant transition: from slavery to freedom, from civilization to the desert, from known to the unknown.  In Parshat Beshalach, the Torah portion this week, we find the Israelites on their journey out of Egypt and ready to move on to the next phase in their live.  They have put an enormous amount of faith in God, a force they have yet to truly encounter as a community. 
The fear of the unknown is powerful within the Israelites, and as the journey continues, their fragility and tentativeness come to a head.  As the Israelites are camped out, Pharaoh’s army starts to approach.  Because the people are afraid that they will be captured again, they complain to Moses in chapter 14 verses 11-12 that they would have been better off staying in Egypt.  Even though we sing at Pesach every year, Dayeinu, freedom would have been enough; the Israelites have no sense of security yet. 
When Moses responds with faith, believing that God will protect them, the Israelites seem satiated for the time being.  They acknowledge they have been saved, but are still fragile.  But security isn’t the only human need.  As they journey on, they are thirsty and can only remember the sweet waters in Egypt, the plentiful liquid nourishment.  They complain again and finally receive water, but as I’m sure you can guess, quenching their thirst isn’t the end of the story.  The people feel the pangs of hunger, and they cry out that they require food and to know where their next meal will come from. 
As the people learn to embrace freedom, they also learn that part of freedom is the responsibility to speak up if your needs aren’t being met.  Abraham Maslow, a 20th century psychologist, suggests that individuals can only become self actualized if they have all their other levels of basic needs met.  This begins with physiological needs.  A basic sense that there will be food, water, shelter, and sleep.  The second level that must be fulfilled is that of safety – safety of body, resources, family, health, and property.  The hierarchy goes on to discuss belonging, esteem, and then finally self actualization.  These first two levels of the hierarchy must be met in order to move forward.  It makes sense that the Israelites complained at first.  Their basic needs and safety were not being met, and they didn’t know if they would survive.
But the grass is always greener.  Once these needs were met, the Israelites did not stop complaining and got stuck in the mindset of wanting more.  Water and mana were no longer enough.  They wanted meat, and they wanted more water, better water.  We can certainly relate.  Your laptop is barely a few months old, but that new model is so tempting.  And what’s wrong with buying just one more outfit while it’s in style? 
It comes as no surprise to any parent that has lived through a large transition like a move or a small one like switching to Daylight Saving Time that transitions show us the need for routine, schedule and security.  When the Israelites first left Egypt, they wanted to go back out of fear of the unknown, and it took renewing that sense of self and sense of place for them to put their trust in Moses and in God. 
The Israelites went through several phases of transition, and the story of the Exodus presents us with a choice for how we deal with our own transitions.  We can work to find ourselves by trusting in ourselves and in God, or we can continually find something that we feel is lacking, something that holds us back, or something that could always be better.  The question is how will you spend your journey? 
ללמוד  To Learn: ללמד  To Teach: One of the first things we learn about the Israelites’ journey is that God is going to take them on the long road out of Egypt rather than the most direct way. Why does God make this decision?
לשמור  To Keep:  לעשות  To Do:  Chapter 16, verse 23 teaches us that the Israelites needed to put food aside on Friday to eat during Shabbat.  The idea of setting aside food for Shabbat, or tzedakahbefore Shabbat reminds us that we have a responsibility to take care of ourselves and others at all times.  As a family, try to remember each Shabbat to set aside some time, money or necessities to be donated to help others. 

Beneath the Pale Moon Light – Parshat Bo 5772

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There is a classic scene in the movie An American Tale where the small mouse, Fievel, is lost from his family.  He’s all alone at night, staring up into the bright moonlight and singing “Somewhere out there, beneath the pale moon light, someone’s thinking of me, and loving me tonight.”  The moon not only lights the little mouse’s way was he tries to find his family, but it offers a comfortable connection even when someone is far away. 
As Jews, we also have a special connection to the moon.  Our months and years are tied to the lunar cycle.  This week we read parshat Bo, during which the Israelites finally make their way out of the oppression in Egypt and can almost taste freedom for the first time.  In a way, this anticipation is like those months leading up to the birth of a child.  Parents ponder their hopes and dreams for their new baby.  They’re already making wishes, listing wants and setting goals.  Similarly, you can imagine God at this moment when His people, the Children of Israel, are nearing their birth into a new era, with new needs, desires and freedom.  As the “parent,” God’s dreams include a calendar comprised of guidelines and instructions for daily living that were sure to enable the Israelites to live their lives through structure. 
Chapter 12 begins to construct the Israelite calendar, which begins with Pesach and continues to build to throughout the Torah narrative.  The text reads, “This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months, it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.”  Knowing from the narrative of creation that our days begin with the evening, our months also follow the pattern of the moon.  This is fitting as the moon waxes and wanes through the months just as the Israelites surely will change as they experience freedom.  The S’fat Emet, a 19th century Torah commentary by Yehudah Aryeh Leib of Ger, suggests that the reason that our months are counted by the moon is because it waxes and wanes; it disappears and grows bright again.  The Jewish people as a whole, throughout history, go through cycles of suffering and prosperity. 
The light of the moon is helpful; when it is full we can sometimes see even without a flashlight.  But, when the moon is a tiny sliver at the beginning or end of a month, it can be very difficult to see anything at all at night.  Each of us as individuals may also find ourselves in this cycle of dark and light, but it’s the cycle that reminds us that even in darkness there are brighter days ahead.    
ללמוד  To Learn: ללמד  To Teach: Our parshah this week speaks of the commandment to tell the story of our people to the next generation.  The Torah teaches us that our collective memory is what sustains us as a people as one generation teaches the text.  There’s no time like now to learn and share your family’s story.  Check out www.ancestry.com for a start, or register and attend Dallas LearningFest 2012 and learn how to do the research through Meyer Denn’s Class. www.learningfest.org  
לשמור  To Keep:  לעשות  To Do: So often we see the pages of the calendar turn so quickly that we feel like time is racing by.  Living according to a lunar calendar allows us the awareness to check the sky every night and be keenly aware of the passing time.  Take a moment once each week with your family to track the moon’s changes.  Use this time to reflect on your week and make goals for the coming week. 

I Would if I Could – Parshat Va’era 5772

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This past October, the worldwide Jewish community let out a sigh of relief.  One of our own was reunited with his family, and regardless of our individual political leanings, many Jews around the world felt collectively complete again.  The release and return of Gilad Shalit was a combination of moments of celebration, moments of outrage at the deal, and thoughtful discussions on what it means to return to your home after so much time away.  Imagine what it must be like to go from terror to love, from solitude to a fury of media attention. 
This conversation doesn’t end with Shalit’s return; it’s a part of the dialogue on the release of captives all over the world.  While Gilad Shalit’s story might be the most recent event of captivity and release in our minds, this has been going on as far back as our Torah narrative.  After all, we are reminded time and again that we are to observe mitzvot “because of what God did for us when we went forth from bondage in Egypt.”  We were once held in captivity as well, and our collective memory requires us to pause and take note of this fact.  
Parshat Vaera, our Torah portion for this week, tells of Moshe and his uneasy rise to leader of the Israelite nation, including the bringing of the first seven of the ten plagues upon Egypt.  God begins by reminding Moshe of the covenant that He had made with Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov, reminding Moshe that freedom, release from the Egyptian shackles, was forthcoming.  In this reminder we learn of the five stages of redemption as set out by God.  Chapter 6, verses 6-8 state: “Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the Lord.  I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage.  I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements.  And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God.  And you shall know that I, the Lord, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians.  I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov and I will give it to you for possession, I the Lord.”  Within these verses, God speaks of the stages of redemption, which correspond to our 4 cups of wine (plus one) at our Pesach Seder.  But what can we learn from this event having never been slaves ourselves? 
1. The first stage according to our text is to be freed from physical enslavement.  In the Torah, we’re talking about enslavement from Egypt, but in the modern world this could be any enslavement.  Whether it is our ties to our profession or overstretched obligations of any kind, we first need to recognize what is enslaving us and how we can set ourselves free. 
2. The second stage is deliverance from the psychological mindset of being a slave.  That is to say that even though we might be physically freed from what held us back, we still have emotional work to do.  It is not easy to just move forward; rather, we must work to think of ourselves in a new light.  Instead of identifying as persecuted, wronged or enslaved, we must change our mindset.
3. That leads to our third stage: redemption.  It’s not enough to remove the physical shackles and the psychological baggage we’ve carried, harboring preconceived notions about who we are. We still have to take the difficult step forward as our own human beings.  Imagine a car that has been garaged for years without running. The first step in driving it again is opening the garage, and the second step is fixing up the car so it’s in good shape, but the vehicle doesn’t really get new life until that first trip down the driveway.
4. Stage four requires us to engage with God spirituality.  According to this text, we are free, redeemed individuals when we experience our world not only through our emotions and physical senses, but rather when we take time to find our own soul, our connection to God, something greater than us.  In doing this we find ourselves in harmony with our inner thoughts and desires, and able to explore them further. 
5. The fifth stage is finding a place to call our own.  We live in a society where this stage is the most crucial.  Having a place of your own, to come home to each night and to feel sheltered and protected, helps keep our lives whole and grounded. 
Even though we may talk about the metaphor of captivity and slavery in our own lives, we know that as far back as the Torah and as recently as October, the reality is that on a physical level, these stages are still being experienced around the world.  But we also know that our people stand together, seeing the gift of each individual life, and through that truth we can work toward freedom.
ללמוד  To Learn: ללמד  To Teach: לשמור  To Keep:  לעשות  To Do:  As the Torah begins to focus on the Israelites and their new freedom, it also places emphasis on making sure to mark time with reason and responsibility.  So often we make excuses for not taking the time to do the things that keep us physically, emotionally and spiritually healthy.  The 5 stages detailed above can be seen as a key to living a balanced life.   Pick one activity that you’ve been meaning to do as a family and walk yourself through the stages of freedom to make it a reality. 

What’s in a Name? – Parshat Shemot 5772

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One of the most challenging moments of a new parent’s life can be coming up with the name for their new child.  Will the child be a boy or a girl?  Who should the child be named after, and should the same name be used or just the first letters?  There are parents who choose names based on the attributes they see in the child and those who’ve picked out the names of their children long before they’re ready to start a family.  As Jews we sometimes have an even bigger decision to make, giving our children both an English and Hebrew name.  And, as we grow, sometimes our names change.
The Torah tells us the importance of names as Avram becomes Avraham and Sarai becomes Sarah when the letter “hey” is added to their names in an expression of Godliness.  So too, our names represent our relationship to the divine, to the outside world, to our family and to our community. 
Our names are important; they become our identity.  While we gain other titles like Mom, Dad, Doctor, or Rabbi, our first and last names tie us to who we are in life and where we’ve come from.  For instance, I kept my maiden name, Posen, because my sister and I are the last of our family line, so I wanted to honor my family.  What’s really special to me is that my maternal grandmother was able to trace her family back to Spain in 1492, when their name was changed to Auslander, meaning outsider. 
This week, we read parshat Shemot, the first portion in the second book of the Torah. It’s named Shemot (names) because the text begins: “These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Ya’acov, each with his household: Reuven, Shimon, Levi and Yehudah, Issachar, Zevulun and Binyamin, Dan and Naftali, Gad and Asher.  All the descendants of Ya’acov were seventy persons; and Yosef was already in Egypt.”  Many commentators question why the text begins by telling us not only that the sons of Jacob went to Egypt, but that it lists each name individually.  Why is this necessary?
Leviticus Rabbah, a Midrashic commentary, teaches “Rav Huna said in the name of Bar Kapara:  Israel was redeemed from Egypt on account of four things- that they did not change their names, nor their language; that they did not say slanderous things; and that not one of them committed sexual immorality.”  That they did not change their names means they went down as Reuven and Shimon and they came out as Reuven and Shimon.  They did not call Reuven “Rupa,” or Yehudah “Lulyani,” nor Benyamin “Alexander.”  This teaches us that while the children of Israel may have gone into a new society, and it would have been much easier on them to have names that fit in, they remained true to their own culture and identity. 
When the text teaches that Joseph was already in Egypt, it is reminding us that Joseph was still himself while in Egypt.  The dreamer who interpreted dreams to get himself stuck in Egypt remained the dreamer and interpreter that saved a people.  Joseph and his brothers remained true to their inner identities, no matter their circumstances.  For us, “Egypt” can be anywhere, but whatever “Egypt” you end up in, you’re the same person inside.
While our environment changes and we find ourselves mixed in with new groups of people where we might stand out among different customs, the Torah reminds us that we have an identity in and beyond our names.  We carry within each of us the truth about who we are, and that truth is what allows us to remain our own person even as circumstances change.  It can be easy to change to fit every situation, but you lose a piece of yourself when that happens.  The message behind our “Be the Change Club” isn’t about changing ourselves. It’s about staying true to ourselves in order to see real change in the world. 
ללמוד  To Learn: ללמד  To Teach:  The midwives, Shifrah and Puah take a stance against Pharoah.  While he may have been the leader and law maker of the time, they saw the error in his rulings and acted in accord with their own conscience.  As we look at the world around us, we can take our cues from Shifra and Puah and stand up to injustice in the world, what greater lesson is there for us to teach our children than to maintain our on dignity with every action.
לשמור  To Keep:  לעשות  To Do:  Jewish living is living in connection to God.  Chapter 4, verse 25 of our parshah reminds us of the importance of this connection with the covenant of circumcision.  While this covenant is made at 8 days old and remains forever, it is always good to renew our covenant.  This week, think about what connection you and your family wish to have with Judaism and God.  How will you maintain this relationship?