Eliana Fischel Va-eira: Are We Where God Lives? Senior Sermon 1/26/17 Summer, 1992. Cape Cod. I was 3 years old. Once a year, my parents would deflate the car tires and we would drive right on the sand, to the very tip of Cape Cod. The drive would take about an hour; a lifetime to a 3 year old. I got into my car seat, and promptly passed out. Once we arrived, My dad woke me. We re here El. Time to wake up. I opened my eyes. Towering before me was a lighthouse. I looked at my dad and asked, Are we where God lives? Some context: At this time in my life, I was a big fan of a picture book entitled, The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge 1. This small lighthouse stood, proudly, at the edge of the Hudson, helping boats stay safe as they went down the river. The lighthouse was all-knowing and all-compassionate, proud of the work he accomplished each and every day. So, when I saw this Cape Cod lighthouse, I imagined the all-knowing, all-compassionate Little Red Lighthouse. Are we where God lives? My father replied without hesitation, Yes. We are. I knew it was true. God s here. Just for me. Just for my family. I can feel it. Then I went on my way. I chased some seagulls. I buried my feet in the sand. It was just another beautiful summer day. Last week, in parashat Sh mot, Moses has a similar Divine light experience. Instead of a lighthouse, Moses gets a burning bush 2. Moses is not 3 years old, but he is naive to the ways of the world. Certainly naive to the ways of God. And so, he answers God matter-of-factly, Hineini 3. Here I am. Okay, go. I m ready. Fast-forward to this week s parashah, Va-eira. God, once again, appears to Moses. This time no flame, no intermediary, just God. Can you imagine? Ani Adonai, I 1 Swift, H.H. (1942). The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge. Boston, MA: HMH Books for Young Readers. 2 Exodus 3:2 3 Exodus 3:4 1
am Adonai 4. Like Hi, I m Eliana. As if it were a meet-up in some bar, God standing there with a drink in hand, Hi there, Moses, I m Adonai. I have a job for you 5 This time Moses does not say a word. God tasks Moses with speaking to the Israelites. Twice! Only after 9 long verses of silence, does Moses respond, ה ן ב נ י י ש ר א ל ל א ש מ ע ו א לי ו א יך י ש מ ע נ י פר עה ו א נ י ע ר ל ש פ ת י ם The Israelites would not listen to me; how then should Pharaoh hear me, I am of uncircumcised lips! 6 What happened to Moses? This is not the man who declared hineini. This is not the man who said, Okay, I m ready. Nor am I, any longer, the 3 year old chasing seagulls on the beach. My family now laughs at our tale of the soon-to-be-rabbi who once believed God lived in a lighthouse! But, how I wish I could go back to that day when God s presence in a lighthouse was something I knew unabashedly, unashamedly, and, oh, so certainly. Fast forward, to the Fall of 2015. While at Kallah, I learned that a friend from my days in Wyoming, passed away in a rock climbing accident. I sat outside while many of you prayed shacharit. I walked back into the sanctuary to the words of Aleinu: Aleinu L Shabeiach La adon Ha Kol. Master of the World? And you couldn t save my friend? I m supposed to praise You? Little old me? Who am I to this Creator? I couldn t get the rest of the prayer out of my lips. For quite some time, I was, simply, out of prayer. After the experience of that fall, Moses reaction resonates with me. Ani aral S'fatayim. I am of uncircumcised lips. I am unworthy. But why Moses sudden insecurity? Moses s condition, aral s fatayim, is no mere fancy way of saying Moses has a speech impediment. We found that out last week 7! So, what is Torah saying through this week s addition of arel: a word most commonly associated with the foreskin of a penis? Arel, a word both beautiful-- it is about our bodies--and grotesque--the word conjures up images of a foreskin sealing Moses lips, 4 Exodus 6:2 5 Exodus 6:6-8 6 Exodus 6:12 7 Exodus 4:10 2
like something out of a sci-fi movie! No, this is not just any word. There must be something more to arel. And indeed there is! According to Be er Yitzhak 8, a 19th century commentary, there are three distinct definitions for arel. Each one explains how Moses was overcome with the paralyzing insecurity of self-doubt. Just as I am, to be honest, and maybe you are too. How can we turn that insecurity into comfort with ourselves? Into confidence with others, and with God? Comfort and confidence. Doesn't that sound good? So, arel. The first definition applies for certain bodily organs --ears 9, hearts 10, or lips. In which case, arel means clogged, stuffed up, unable to function properly. Moses is clogged. We ve been there. We stand in front of someone we love. We walk up to a mic, in front of a room full of people. We re faced with a teacher, supervisor, even an utter stranger, who criticizes us, calls us to task. We want so much to respond, talk, explain. But we freeze. Insecurity, takes over; emotion clogs us from the chest on up. We cannot get the words out. We re silent. We get clogged, especially at moments of self doubt, when we fail to appreciate who we are. Do we dare speak as rabbis, cantors, leaders? Or are we still just students, barely out of college? Can we speak with Jewish authority? Or are we mere imposters? When God appears to us, do we think, Who me? You must have the wrong party. You meant my teachers, maybe, some famous rabbi or chazan whose work we study, don t you? Or do we rise to the occasion, take our stand and say, Hineini, yes, my God, you must mean me after all. Of course, arel does not only mean clogged. Definition #2. For a penis, arel, means covered. A foreskin covers the organ, making it, according to the rabbis 11, and oddly enough, incomplete and unable to function the way it should. 8 Rosenberg, A.J. (1995). Shemoth. Vol. 1. New York, NY: Judaica Press, p. 83. 9 Jeremiah 6:10 10 Jeremiah 9:25 11 Hoffman, L. (1996). Covenant of Blood. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. 3
Moses returns from last week s failure to rally the Israelites, not only clogged, but covered. He is covering up his own self-perceived failures. He would rather not let God in, for fear that God will see how he has let God down. Instead, he blames others: They won t listen to me. Instead, he excuses himself: Ani aral s'fatayim what do you want from me? We ve been here, too. We blame others for weaknesses of our own. We harness shame, when we can, instead, champion vulnerability. Let me tell you about some vulnerability champions. This summer, as a student chaplain, conversations with patients would almost always start the same way. Hi I m Eliana and a patient would stammer, Oh, I m not religious, that s really not for me, thanks anyway. That s okay! We can just talk After a few minutes, muscles would soften, shoulders would drop. A high powered executive, now dressed in a hospital gown is in the middle of sharing her to-do list with me when she begins to cry. She is nervous about how her daughter is doing at home. My husband can hardly take care of himself these days, she exclaims, How is he going to take care of her? Another patient and his wife who, a few days earlier had, respectfully, thanked me for some Shabbat candles before showing me the door, now look at each other when I ask, How are you? Well, today s a little harder, they say, It s the anniversary of our son s death. It s been 10 years, it never gets easier and here we are, back in a hospital. God knows these truths. God knows that we cover up what we believe to be a weakness because we think the world can t handle it. We believe our loved ones can t handle it. They can. And God, certainly, can. God waits for us, to soften our muscles, to drop our shoulders, and to uncover. Only then, can we let others in. Only then, can we let God in 12. Definition #3. Be er Yitzhak now points to Leviticus, where arel is applied 12 Zohar I: 93A states that circumcision, or uncovering, allows the Shechina to unite with the other sefirot, thus allowing the other sefirot to interact with men. 4
to a special category of fruit. Arel here means separate. This fruit cannot be eaten and enjoyed the way the others can. Moses, too, is separate. Raised by Pharaoh, half Egyptian, half Israelite Moses had suffered the ultimate solitude. He lived in a palace filled with people, parties and revelry abounded, but no real connection. Moses wasn t one of them. And yet, he wasn t of anyone else either. Moses was alone. And so, when God dropped into his life, Moses had to learn the most difficult thing of all: How to be in relationship. Yet again, we ve been there. Who hasn t walked into a party thinking no one here could possibly want to talk to me? Everyone else is chatting, laughing, drinking belonging. Everyone, but ourselves, we think. Who hasn t interpreted a darting eye during a conversation to mean that the other person is uninterested in what we have to say? We think to ourselves, I should have just stayed home and watched some Netflix-- alone. I once confessed to my mother that I felt painfully awkward during social gatherings. I never know what to say! I exclaimed. I ask a question and then forget to listen to the answer because I m thinking about the next thing I need to say. I thought she was going to be disappointed in me for being such a bad listener. But my mother, simply, said, Oh, Eliana, everyone does that. This aloneness, this fear of not belonging is all about aral s fatayim. As The Zohar knows, when it describes Egypt as G lut HaDibbur 13 : a place in which words were in exile. We think we have a voice, but all that comes out is the silence of words that never quite make it home to the person we are addressing. Words should never be exiled. They should land with force. When someone speaks to me, I want their words to find a home in my ear, my mind, my heart. But words find their way home only when we open ourselves fully to the person we are addressing. Only when we value their story as our own. We know how to hold hands; we must also learn how to hold hearts. For it is when two hearts hold each other in mutual accord that we know we are worthy enough to be loved. And, certainly, worthy enough to be loved by God. 13 Matt, D.C. (2007). The Zohar: Pritzker Edition. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, p. 91. 5
While writing this sermon, I went back and re-read The Little Red Lighthouse And the Great Gray Bridge. It turns out, I misremembered the story. The poised and stoic Little Red Lighthouse ends up suffering from a bout of unworthiness. Halfway through the story, workers come to build the Great Gray Bridge--a massive entity, its gigantic light atop huge arches. The lighthouse concludes he is no longer worthy to sit at the edge of the Hudson. A storm comes. The lighthouse remains dark. The Great Gray Bridge calls out to the lighthouse, Where is your light, lighthouse? The boats need you! It turns out, the light atop the bridge is just for airplanes, Boats of the sky, as the bridge says. The lighthouse is still needed for the boats of the river. And so, the lighthouse shines again, ensuring the safety of the boats. The story ends, with the following message: Though [the lighthouse] knows now that it is little, It is still very, very proud I m going to stand by my assertion I made that day on the beach. God lives in the lighthouse. God dwells in that innermost convergence of our purpose and our insecurity. The place between clogged and unclogged, which says, You couldn t possibly mean me. Yet, I know you mean me. The place place between covered and uncovered, which says, If I tell them this they may reject me. Yet, I m going to take that leap of courage and tell them anyway. The place between separate and belonging, I don t know if I can ever relate. Yet, I want our words to find a home in each other s heart. Though we know now that we are little, we can still be, very, very proud. Though we know now that we are little, we can discover where God lives. 6