I
want us to look together
briefly at the collective
memory we call the
Torah
by
going back to the garden of
Eden and to Adam and Eve.
Let us go to the moment just before they sud-
denly went shopping for clothes, to the time
when the serpent enticed them and they bit
the bait.
Many messages are condensed in this
familiar story. It tells us, as you know,
that we were created as relationships and
for relationships – with God in whose image
we are and whose breath infuses us, with
the earth from whence we came, with the
natural world towards which we bear respon-
sibility, and with each other as women and
men created equal, partners in work and play.
These activities were intended as pleasurable.
Because of stolen knowledge and dis-
obedience, the story explains, these very
creative activities became,
in addition,
also
sources of sorrow. Joy now is mingled with
hardship. Today I want us to focus on what
the story conveys about knowledge.
Adam and Eve in Genesis seek the right
thing – wisdom or the knowledge of good
and evil – but they reach for it in the wrong
way. The wisdom we need does not come
from seizing and devouring the fruit that
someone else produced. Such grasping, at
best, teaches us to be ashamed.
Living as they did, in a world where so
much came ready-made, seems to have lulled
the first humans into believing that wisdom
and joy and our highest potential can be pos-
sessed easily and quickly. We too have been
encouraged by American consumerism tomake
the same mistake. The temptation – then and
now – is just to pluck that fruit and painlessly
have all the wisdom one desires; just get one
more “how to” book and overnight solve our
problems; just download the information
from the web and calculate a formula for life.
The serpent says: yes, it's easy; this is how
you get it.
The
Torah
says: no. This is not how
you
get it, this is not how people get the wisdom
and knowledge that teach us how to live truly
as God's image, how to make our life fruitful,
and how to make our lives a blessing. The jour-
ney to the depth, breadth, and height of our
possibilities moves in another direction, which
is why we have the rest of the
Torah.
The jour-
ney that gives genuine knowledge begins by
facing each other and facing God responsibly
and responsively. The story of temptation
which they were given which became the rai-
son d’être of their lives.
For you, as well, this is a moment of re-
newal of commitment to the values, ideals,
beliefs that have fueled your life journey and
which you will now share with those whom
you will be blessed to teach and lead; a mo-
ment to focus upon what truly animates you
as a Jew, what enables you to experience
ke-
dushah
–
holiness – in your lives.
But also to be unafraid to acknowledge
your doubts and fears – which we all share,
even the most accomplished leaders among us
–
that which makes us human. And then to
come to realize that in that honest recognition
of self, the moment of acknowledgement that
we will always find ourselves in the midst of
the journey, at times struggling to make our
way through the desert of our lives, only then
will we begin to model for others.
Finally, the Israelites also had to come to
understand that everything they would do
from that day forward would have real con-
sequences, not only for themselves, but for
the Jewish people as a whole, for all human-
ity; that how they chose to live their lives
would have ultimate meaning.
So, too, now all of you who are about to
be ordained and invested, new rabbis and
cantors; the newest links in the
Shalshelet
ha-Kabbalah,
the chain of Tradition.
This is reminiscent of a text in the basic
course in
Midrash
;
a simple text but one
fraught with lasting meaning. Leviticus 26:42:
“
Then will I remember My covenant with
Jacob; I will remember also My covenant with
Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham.”
This is a unique biblical verse; it is the
only place in the Bible in which the order of
the names of the Patriarchs is reversed – And
so we ask: “Why is Jacob stated first, before
his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham?
The
Midrash
suggests that it focuses us
on Jacob – Israel – the newest link in the
chain of leadership; and as such, the newest
link is as important as those who came before;
they are
shekulim
–
equal, because each en-
sures Jewish survival, fosters
tikkun olam;
each
new generation of leaders – every new cantor
and rabbi – can bring us closer to the mes-
sianic, to a world of wholeness.
But if you were looking at the classic text
of the Bible, you would notice that the name
of Jacob, the newest link in the chain, has a
sign over it, which points to the fact that it
is written
malei
–
full – with an extra
vav.
Rashi notes in his commentary that there are
only five places in the Bible in which the name
of Jacob is written with the extra
vav.
But then
he adds that there are also five places in the
Bible in which the name of Elijah, the precur-
sor of the Messiah, is written
haser
–
defectively, without the
vav
at the end. Then
Rashi gives us a gift for all generations; he
reaches across time and space and speaks to
every aspiring leader, when he says:
Jacob holds the extra
vav
as a pledge, as
an
eiravon,
that one day Elijah will come and
announce the coming of the messiah, the be-
ginning of redemption.
You, this generation of new leaders, each
one of you possesses the extra
vav,
you hold
the key in your hearts, minds, and souls to the
future. You have the potential to help us ful-
fill the messianic vision – to bring us all to
wholeness, to strengthen our communities, to
repair our broken world; to transform the bit-
ter waters of our lives into waters of sweetness
and bring us from
mitzrayim,
Egypt,
met-
zarim
–
the narrow places of our lives, where
we all have occasionally lived, to God’s place,
to the Promised Land. This is your blessing;
this is your challenge!
For complete Ordination/Investiture Address, please
go to:
Los Angeles – May 18, 2009 – Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi,
Professor of Bible, HUC-JIR/Los Angeles
Graduation/Ordination/Investiture
2009
2009
ISSUE 72 | 83
