1953-2007
THE CYBERSHUL

Now You can Both Go to Shul, And Have a Shul Come to You!

This CyberShul has been dedicated by:

This Week’s Torah Reading

Noah

NOah was a righteous man. Because the earth was filled with lawlessness, God decides to destroy all flesh. God instructs NOah to produce an ark in order to save himself, his immediate family, and two of each animal on earth, male and female. Another tradition, recorded in the Torah, is that NOah took seven pairs of all the clean animals and only one male and female of every unclean animal. At any rate—the ark was packed! NOah was 600 years old when the 40 days of rain began. The waters covered the highest mountains. When the waters receded, the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. NOah sent out a raven, then a dove, but neither found a dry place to rest. He waited seven days and sent out the dove again who returned with an olive leaf. Seven days later, the dove flew off never to return. NOah and the animals left the ark. NOah made a sacrifice to God. God instructs NOah and his sons to be fruitful and multiply, and permits, for the first time, the eating of meat from which the blood had been drained. God declares murder to be a capital offense, swears to never destroy the earth by flood again, and sets a rainbow in the sky as the sign for this covenant of peace. NOah was the first to plant a vineyard and make wine. He got drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. Ham disparaged his father for his folly, but the other two sons, Shem and Yafet, covered him respectfully. Upon sobering up and realizing what happened, NOah cursed Canaan (who is identified as Ham’s son), and blessed the other two. NOah lived to be 950 years old. The people on earth decided to build a great tower in order to make a name for themselves and not be scattered throughout the earth. God felt that this was improper and decided to confuse their language so one could not communicate with the others. That area was called Bavel.

A SHABBAT THOUGHT

It is amazing how much people can get done if they do not worry about who gets credit.

~~ Sandra Swinney ~~

WEB OF THE WEEK

http://www.letssaythanks.com/ThankYou.html

Let’s say thank you to our troops in Iraq. It’s simple, it’s quick, and it’s really important.

AURAL TORAH

Obvious Jewish Holiday, The Most.wav
Be Sure to click on the attachment to hear the Aural Torah!

Honor A Loved One

Remember A Loved One
DEDICATE A CYBERSHUL IN THEIR NAME!!
ARE THERE ANY BARGAINS IN THIS WORLD?
Yes--The CyberShul—Dedicate it for a Paltry

$125

Send your name, location, and a $125 check made payable to:

Midway Jewish Center
330 South Oyster Bay Road
Syosset, NY 11791

Send CyberShul to All Your Friends!

THE ANNUAL REVIEW OF MIDWAY’S HIGH HOLIDAY SERMONS

This week, we feature the Rosh Hashanah sermon of Rabbi Burton Visotzky. Rabbi Visotzky, our rabbi in the parallel service, is the Nathan and Janet Appleman Associate Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City--

Blended Families

Shanah Tovah, a happy New Year to each and every one of you! I am delighted to see so many new faces this year, especially those of you who have joined the congregation as a result of the merger of the Midway Jewish Center with the Bethpage Jewish Community Center. To you I say not only LeShannah Tovah, but also: Brukhim HaBaim, welcome!

Our Torah reading (yesterday and ) today, is, of course, famous for the tensions it raises as it tells a complex tale of our father Abraham’s attempt to fulfill God’s promise that he will be "a great nation" with offspring as plentiful as the stars in heaven. I sympathize with Abraham. It is not easy raising children, especially when they are charged in advance with the burden of becoming "a great nation." Now you know why it is that our Jewish children grow up with such high expectations thrust upon them – it isn’t just the by-product of our Jewish parenting – it is a command from God!!

Poor Abraham – he gets this command from God at the very outset of his relationship with the Almighty. Throughout his marriage with Sarah, Abraham carries the expectation of "great offspring." And we, avid readers of Genesis, carry the secret knowledge that Abraham’s Bashert, his divine intended, is barren, unable to bear a child. Indeed, it is the very first thing we learn about Sarah, one verse after we are informed that she is Abraham’s wife.

These issues of offspring and becoming a great nation drive a great deal of the biblical story – they are among the motivating forces in Abraham’s life. How disappointing for them, then, that Abraham and Sarah try for so many years to have a child and fail. Their inability to have kids is not only a source of discontent in the marriage; they seem helpless to fulfill God’s promise. I can only imagine how it infects their relationship.

In fact, I don’t really have to imagine it, because the Torah TELLS us that Sarah is despondent at her inability to have children. She is sufficiently distraught to suggest to Abraham in Genesis chapter 16 (five chapters before we begin our Rosh HaShannah Torah reading), "Look, the Lord has kept me from bearing. Consort with my hand-maid; perhaps I shall have a son through her." Sympathize for a moment at Sarah’s despair. It would be easy to minimize by pretending that here is a childless woman who simply has suggested to her husband that they might want to adopt. But adoption is NOT what happens. No, instead they undertake a very direct form of surrogacy. They didn’t have modern medical techniques. Sarah has suggested to her husband that he do this the old fashioned way. It is one thing to have a full time house-keeper. It is another thing to suggest to your husband that he share his bed with her!!! And, as the Bible in its low key way tells us, "Abram heeded Sarai’s request."

Abraham might have said to Sarah, "Darling, you are all the family I’ll ever need. I love you whether or not we have children. If God wants me to be father to a great nation, God will intervene here." That would have been a wonderful Torah lesson. It is surprising then, that what we get is Abraham saying, "Sleep with your cleaning girl, that cute young thing? …….Alrighty then!!"

When Hagar, the maid, gets pregnant, Sarah takes Hagar’s joy as a sign of disrespect. And so, our matriarch Sarah drives her from their tent into the wilderness! Only intervention by God can convince Hagar to return to Sarah, by promising HAGAR, "I will greatly increase your offspring, and they shall be too many to count." So it seems that Abraham WILL have a great nation, but through Hagar and her son with Abraham, who is named Ishmael!! As far as Abraham is concerned, this is all fine. It takes the pressure off of him as far as offspring and God’s promise, if not as far as Sarah is concerned.

But GOD looks after mother Sarah. She was already 77 when Hagar’s son Ishmael was born. One might think that Sarah would settle for the surrogate son. Yet God has other plans and tells Sarah that despite her advanced age, she WILL have a child. Sarah reacts to this unbelievable news by laughing.

All of which leads us to the First Day of Rosh HaShannah’s Torah reading, which begins with the words, "And God remembered Sarah as promised, God did for Sarah as God had said." Wow!! Sarah is now 90 and Abraham is 100 when they have baby Isaac. Isaac’s Hebrew name, Yitzchak, means laughter – perhaps a reflection of Sarah’s laughter when first hearing that she would be -- if I may invoke one of this summer’s hit movies – "Knocked Up." Or maybe her laughter is simply a sign of her utter delight at having a baby. She says, "God has brought me laughter; everyone who hears will laugh with me." Of course, just like in this summer’s movie, the transition to parenthood is not easily accomplished.

When Sarah sees her surrogate son Yishmael playing with her baby – the word for playing, Mitzahek – shares the same Hebrew root as Yitzchak, Isaac – when the older boy plays with the younger, Sarah once more attempts to drive Hagar and her son from the house. What Sarah might have seen as a good sign, the boys are playing, she took as a threat. This time, Sarah tells Abraham to drive them out. And, God, nebbach, tells Abraham to listen to Sarah and send them away (whatever God’s reasons may be). So they are sent from the tent to die in the wilderness – where they would have perished but for God’s intervention. When God reveals a well to nourish them in the wilderness, God tells Hagar of her son, "I will make him a great nation."

Our sages, of blessed memory, focus on the verse in the First Day’s Torah reading regarding this incident with Hagar and Ishmael, "The matter greatly distressed Abraham, for it concerned his son." In Midrash Pirke Rabbi Eliezer, the rabbis enumerate the banishment of Ishmael as the 9th of the 10 trials by which God tried Abraham’s faith. It is right up there with the Second Day’s Torah reading, which is counted as the Last Trial, the binding and near-sacrifice of Isaac. For the rabbis, the potential of losing either son, Ishmael or Isaac, is a cosmic trial.

On each day, Abraham tries to sacrifice a son: one by banishment and starvation, one by binding him and raising a knife to his throat. OY for Abraham’s family. Oy for us, for we ARE Abraham’s family. Thanks be to God, for both near-sacrifices end well. Each child really does grow up to be "a great nation."

Traditionally, we read these awe inspiring narratives on two levels. It is not coincidence that Isaac and Ishmael are the fathers of great nations. Indeed, the very stories we read are legends that recount the traumas of our national origins. Who can doubt the essential correctness of depicting the tribes of Isaac – the children of Israel – and their intertwined connectedness with the children of Ishmael, our half-brothers – a tortured history that embroils us with one another to this very day. Ishmael is the father of those who later would become the Arab tribes, and he is thought by them to be the ancestor of Islam. In the Quran’s telling of the tale, Hagar and Ishmael give rise to Islam. Indeed the Muslim version of very story WE read on the Second Day of Rosh HaShannah is recited from the Quran as the submission of Abraham and his son – presumed to be Ishmael – to Allah’s will. (By the way, today is not only Rosh HaShannah, but co-incidentally the first Day of Ramadan on the Muslim calendar – RamadanKareem waMubarak!)

According to the Torah and the Quran, the national trauma of being bound, helpless, at God’s altar with the knife at our throat, is a trauma shared by each religious tradition – however any of us may otherwise read the facts of history. Whatever those facts may yield, the story remains potent for Jew and Muslim alike – we were offered as a sign of our Father’s faith.

But I do not wish to dwell on the national level today. Rather, I want return to examine these awe-inspiring tales on the second level of interpretation, the personal, family level. If I could characterize the story of our Rosh HaShannah Torah readings, I might say it is a story of a "Blended Family."

A blended family occurs when members of more than one birth-unit live together. So, if a parent divorces and re-marries, the resulting arrangement of step-kids and step-parent is a blended family. Our fairy-tales abound with stories of step-mothers and step-children. If there are offspring through the second marriage, then half-siblings – like Isaac and Ishmael – who share ONE common parent – these half-siblings must learn to get along – with their various parents and with one another. As we learn from the Torah reading, even when the kids may learn to play with one another, it doesn’t always mean that the PARENTS will learn to "play well with others."

We have half-siblings, we have step-siblings, we have adopted siblings, we have same-sex parent families, we have all sorts of surrogate siblings (these are usually born with medical assistance, and NOT the way that Abraham accomplished it). In short, in our brave new world, virtually every family combination one can think of exists. Our blended families must learn to live with one another – and this is no easy task.

Biological parents find themselves caught between the rivalry of a spouse with a step-child. No one in that position wants to have to pick sides. Parents of adoptive children or of surrogate children find themselves in culture clashes, as they learn to cope with offspring from another heritage. On the Upper West Side I see Jewish parents with Asian or Latino offspring. Some simply raise their children as Jews. Others honor the culture which gave life to their precious child, learning to speak Spanish or Chinese, giving the kids hybrid names like Sarah-Xing or Isaac-Mañuel.

BLENDED families seem to have so much to negotiate – it is a wonder that any can aspire to become "a great nation." And yet, all of us share God’s desire for Abraham – we all want greatness for our children –we wish that our kids may have "all the opportunities we had," or even that "they might do better than we did."

The way that we can begin to be successful is to accept the grace of God that our patriarch Abraham did. While I believe that he sacrificed BOTH of his potential families in his zeal for God, the midrashist in me imagines that it might have been otherwise. He need not have tried to sacrifice each of his sons. Imagine if father Abraham succeeded in BLENDING his two families and served God that way. Imagine that Sarah had delighted and laughed with Ishmael as he played with baby Isaac. Imagine Sarah and Hagar taking turns as they cared for the kids, so that each could get a good night’s sleep now and then. Imagine Abraham’s pride as BOTH sons grew to be fine young men and had offspring without number, like the sand on the shores of the sea and the stars in the sky. Imagine him with his countless grandchildren. My teacher Rabbi Israel Francus once quipped, "If God had told Abraham to sacrifice his grandchild --- well, we’d have an entirely different religion!"

What our two day Torah reading might teach us is how to imagine a BLENDED family of monotheists modeling for the whole world how under One God we can learn to get along – hinei mah tov umah naim, shevet ahim gam yahad – how lovely would be if siblings could dwell together in peace.

Blended families are, of course, NOT nations. Nations do not generally blend, but rather try to learn peaceful co-existence. I suppose, now that I’ve said it, certain BLENDED families would be quite happy if they could achieve peaceful co-existence.

I cannot think about the issue on either a family, personal level; or a national, political level, without wondering about a third kind of BLENDING – and that is the blending of synagogue communities. I can only imagine that it is actually very challenging to actually accomplish what you here at Midway are seeking to achieve with those of you who are joining from Bethpage. I hear that things are going very well; and I expect that they will continue to. It seems to me as an outsider looking in, that one of the things that makes this blending – or as some call it, "merger" – is successful is the careful respect that you are affording one another’s customs. You are taking care to validate one another’s separate histories, and separate ways of relating to God within your community. How you run a minyan is now reflected in the extra service added here at Midway, so that every member of the synagogue can feel that their custom has been respected.

This is no small thing, because I know from my own experiences it is too easy for a majority congregation and rabbi to feel threatened by, or indifferent to, such differences. It is easier to say, "…but that is not the way we do things here." The essential lesson we can learn from Abraham’s two families is that it takes a great faith and confidence to say," we may do it differently than you – but you, too, have a place here in our tent. There’s more than one right way to do things."

What we might learn from Father Abraham is that he taught Sarah and Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael about his own deep relationship with God, so that they might recognize that we can each serve God differently. We don’t all do things the same way. We don’t all come from the same mother, or from the same national or ethnic ancestry, or from the same original synagogue community. What we should share is laughter, play, a communal sense of serving God, and so, a sense of God’s Grace and Presence here, as we learn to live together and serve one another, along with serving God, under one roof.

This sense of common purpose and sharing of God’s bountiful blessings is what I pray for in the year ahead:

for our families, be they blended or not;

for our Jewish community, merged under one roof;

for Jews and Muslims, who share common borders;

and for our own great nation – itself a blended family of nations and religions and communities and families.

God shed his grace on thee.
LeShannah Tovah.

To get added to the subscription list, or to be removed, or to change your email address,
click here - cybershul_subscriptions