Don’t Look Back! Learning from Lot’s Wife

 “Lot’s wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt” (Vayera 19:26). What is the connection between the crime and the punishment? Why does she turn into a pillar of salt for turning around to look back? The answer lies in one of the most important attributes of salt. Salt is a preservative. It can make things last longer. It is this quality of salt that made it such a valuable commodity throughout history. Foods that spoil quickly, such as meat and vegetables, could be kept edible for a much longer time through salting. The early Chinese used coins of salt, and some Mediterranean people used cakes of salt as currency. It is widely believed that Roman soldiers were paid in salt (the word salary is related to the Latin word for salt). And this is the basis of the expression “worth your grain in salt”. Salt was used by Ancient Egyptians in the process of preserving dead bodies and making mummies. Salt is a necessary component of every Korban offered in the temple. It is described in the Torah as a covenant. It is a symbol of immutable love and preserved commitment between Hashem and the Jewish People. Salt as a preservative is an effective way of maintaining the status quo and keeping things the same. Sometimes preservation is necessary. But sometimes we need to look beyond preservation and allow for the need to change. This was Mrs. Lot’s mistake. By looking back she demonstrated her unwillingness, perhaps an inability, to change. She could not leave behind her life in Sodom, and as a result she had to be left behind. Too much salt can constrict the veins and arteries in your body. (That is the medical basis for correlating high salt intake with high blood pressure as constricted veins require more pressure to circulate the blood.) Similarly, if we are committed to preserving what we do and how we think, then we run the risk of getting constricted in our ability to think creatively and make necessary improvements. Chefs believe that salt used in the correct proportion brings the very best out of the other flavors present in a dish. The same is true of our past experiences: they should be used as a guide to help us thrive in the present. Sometimes all you need in a dish is a little salt- and no other seasoning (like a good piece of meat or corn on the cob). There are also situations in which we can directly and completely apply past experiences to present circumstances. However, more often a dish requires many layers of flavoring, salt being one of them. If you use too much salt, you ruin the dish. Similarly, we often cannot count on doing things “the way that they have always been done.” Creative thinking is necessary to evaluate the situation and utilize in the present the lessons and mistakes that were learned from the past. We are a people that like salt- not just as a seasoning but as a symbol. We are committed to preserving our traditions and remembering our rich history. In this way we resemble Mrs. Lot. However, our true role is our patriarch Avraham. Twice in this week’s parsha we read “Vayisa et einav” that Avraham lifted up his eyes. Avraham does not spend his time looking backwards. He is not stuck in the past like Lot’s wife. Rather, Avraham takes all of his past experiences and utilizes them as he looks forward. Avraham is our model of what it takes to not just survive, but to thrive in an ever-changing environment.  Let us learn from the tragic tale of Lot’s wife to use salt, and our past experiences, effectively. The present must be informed and enhanced by past experience, but we must never be paralyzed while looking back. If we keep our eyes forward- and Upward - then we can be assured of the blessing of a brighter future.

We Should All Be Students of Life

 Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski recounts that once the Chasidic master Reb Meir Premishlan met the great sage Rav Shlomo Kluger. Reb Meir Took leave of Rav Kluger by sharing the following Dvar Torah based on a pasuk in Parshat Lech Lecha: After Avraham helps the four kings defeat the five kings, we are introduced to Malkitzedek, a priest (14:18):  וּמַלְכִּי־צֶ֨דֶק֙ מֶ֣לֶךְ שָׁלֵ֔ם הוֹצִ֖יא לֶ֣חֶם וָיָ֑יִן וְה֥וּא כֹהֵ֖ן לְאֵ֣-ל עֶלְיֽוֹן" “ “And Malkizedek the king of Salem brought out bread and wine, and he was a priest to the Most High God.” The Talmud teaches (Nedarim 32) that Malkitzedek was Shem, the son of Noach. He founded the yeshiva of Shem & Ever, where Yaakov studied for 14 years. Malkitzedek / Shem was a great scholar. Avraham was known for his exemplary chesed, especially excelling in the area of hospitality. When these giants met, as great as each one was in their area of expertise, they tried to learn something from the other one. Malkitzedek was looking to learn from Avraham’s kindness and Avraham wanted to learn from Malkitzedek’s piety. This is how Reb Meir explained the above referenced verse. “Malkitzedek brought out bread and wine” means that he learned hospitality from Avraham. “And he was a priest to the Most High God” alludes to the fact that Avraham sought to learn Torah and piety from Malkitzedek. The point Reb Meir Premishlan was making is that even the smartest and pious person can learn from others. In fact, it is very possible that they became learned and pious because they looked for opportunities and ways to learn from everyone and every situation. As Ben Zoma teaches (Pirkei Avot 4:1) “Who is wise? One who learns from every person.” While we normally assume that students learn from teachers, Rav Nachman Bar Yitzchak encourages us to think more broadly about the opportunities that even teachers have for continuing education. Quoting the pasuk  עֵץ חַיִּים הִיא לַמַּחֲזִיקִים בָּהּ he notes that the Torah is compared to a tree because just as a small piece of wood can ignite a large piece, so too, minor Torah scholars can sharpen great Torah scholars and enable them to advance in their studies. This idea led the Talmud (Taanit 7a) to quote the famous words of Rabbi Chanina: “I have learned much from my teachers and even more from my friends, but from my students I have learned more than from all of them.” וּמִתַּלְמִידַי יוֹתֵר מִכּוּלָּן. There are opportunities to learn from not just people. In Pirkei Avot (5:20) Rabbi Yehuda Ben Teima taught “Be strong like a leopard, and swift like an eagle, agile like a gazelle, and brave like a lion.” And in Eiruvin 100b Rabbi Yochanan makes the case for natural morality by noting that we can learn modesty from the cat, industry from the ant, and fidelity from the dove. To be a student of life means not just learning from teachers or those who are universally considered to be wise. The true student finds something to learn from every person, every situation, and every natural phenomenon. And when there seems to be nothing positive to learn from a person, then there’s always the option of learning what not to do. Tanach, the Talmud and Jewish history are full of stories and anecdotes that are meant to serve as cautionary tales. The Torah itself makes this point explicit when at the end of the Korach debacle it states (Bamidbar 17:5) “Do not be like Korach and his group.” There are lessons to be learned all the time and all around us. We just need to keep our eyes open and be committed to always gleaning as many life lessons as we can. 

Judging Others Favorably: The Deeper Lesson Learned from Rashi

 Why are we so quick to judge others, often assuming the worst before we know the facts? The answer may lie, at least in part, in our evolutionary history. For our ancestors, encountering a stranger could be a matter of survival. Was this person a friend or a foe? Could they be trusted, or did they pose a threat? Making that determination quickly could mean the difference between life and death. Over generations, our brains developed the ability to form impressions almost instantaneously, using cues such as appearance, behavior, and facial expressions. These mental shortcuts remain useful, but they also lead us to draw conclusions before we have enough information to judge accurately. Psychologists have also observed that we tend to give greater weight to negative possibilities than positive ones. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense: mistakenly trusting someone who posed a genuine threat could have devastating consequences, while mistakenly suspecting someone who meant no harm might simply cost us an opportunity. When the stakes were high, it was safer to err on the side of caution. Yet the instincts that once protected us can now lead us to misjudge others, attributing negative motives to ambiguous behavior and allowing first impressions to shape our perceptions. Our initial judgment may be instinctive, but it need not be our final one. Sometimes, the greater challenge is not recognizing danger, but giving another person the benefit of the doubt. Jewish tradition challenges us to overcome this instinct. As Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachya teaches in the first chapter of Pirkei Avot: וֶהֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת, “Judge everyone favorably.” Rabbi J. Simcha Cohen suggests that this lesson is embedded in a famous comment of Rashi’s at the beginning of Parshat Noach. The Torah describes Noach as נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה בְּדֹרֹתָיו, “Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his generations.” On the final word, בְּדֹרֹתָיו, “in his generations,” Rashi cites a debate among the Sages over how to assess Noach’s righteousness:

יֵשׁ מֵרַבּוֹתֵינוּ דּוֹרְשִׁים אוֹתוֹ לְשֶׁבַח, כָּל שֶׁכֵּן אִלּוּ הָיָה בְדוֹר צַדִּיקִים הָיָה צַדִּיק יוֹתֵר; וְיֵשׁ שֶׁדּוֹרְשִׁים אוֹתוֹ לִגְנַאי, לְפִי דוֹרוֹ הָיָה צַדִּיק וְאִלּוּ הָיָה בְדוֹרוֹ שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם לֹא הָיָה נֶחְשָׁב לִכְלוּם.

“Some of our Sages interpret this favorably: How much more righteous would Noach have been had he lived in a generation of righteous people! Others interpret it disparagingly: He was righteous only in comparison with his generation, but had he lived in Abraham’s generation, he would not have been considered of any importance.”

Rabbi Cohen identifies two lessons in Rashi’s wording. First, the favorable interpretation appears before the critical one. This reflects the teaching of Pirkei Avot: our instinct should be to judge favorably, even when suspicion comes more naturally. Second, Rashi introduces the favorable interpretation with the words yesh me-rabboteinu, “some of our Sages,” while introducing the critical interpretation simply as yesh, “others.” Rabbi Cohen suggests that this distinction reflects a hallmark of Torah wisdom: the ability to restrain our instinct to suspect and allow a favorable interpretation to prevail. We live in an era that gives us plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Yet the Torah reminds us, both explicitly and through the subtle language of its commentators, that we must consciously cultivate the Jewish instinct to judge others favorably, even when our natural instinct is to do otherwise.

Starting Anew — From Bet

The Torah begins with the letter bet. Many have asked: Why not begin the Torah with an alef, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet? One popular answer is that starting with bet is an expression of humility. There are certain things about God that are beyond our human comprehension. Just as the letter bet is closed on three sides and open only toward the left, the direction in which Hebrew is written, so too we approach the Creation story with an awareness that we cannot comprehend what came “before the bet,” before Bereishit. A second explanation is that the Torah begins with bet as a reminder that we should always build our Torah knowledge upon some precedent, and never begin from absolute alef. Our understanding of Torah should be built upon what we learn from our teachers, earlier commentators, and traditional sources. While it is appropriate to seek out new and personal relevance in the Torah, these efforts cannot begin from scratch. Our new understandings must start from bet, remaining loyal to the traditional understandings of Torah that have been incorporated into our Mesorah. Lastly, the Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 1:10) suggests that the Torah begins with bet because the word bracha, blessing, begins with a bet. The Ibn Ezra asks: We find many negative words that begin with a bet. What exactly is the Midrash trying to tell us? The Maharal explains that bet symbolizes blessing, not simply because it begins the word bracha, but because of the nature of the letter itself. Bet is the second letter in the alef-bet. Its gematria is two. Whereas alef represents the singular, bet represents multiplicity. When you add to a single entity, you create the possibility of blessing. Throughout Parshat Bereishit, we see how blessing can be found in multiplicity. Hashem says, “Lo tov heyot ha-adam levado — It is not good for man to be alone.” This is the first lo tov in the Torah. Light is good. The heavens are good. The earth is good. The animals are good. What is not good? Being alone. So God says, “E’eseh lo ezer k’negdo — I will make for him a helper opposite him.” It is a seemingly contradictory phrase. Which is it? Ezer — someone who helps me? Or k’negdo — someone who stands opposite me? Rashi quotes the Gemara: Zacha — ezer; lo zacha — k’negdo. If a person merits it, his spouse is a help. If not, she is against him. The Izbitzer Rebbe offers a powerful way to understand these words: Maybe the opposition is the help. Think about learning Torah. Imagine a Beit Midrash where everyone always agreed. “I think the Gemara means this.” “Absolutely.” “I Couldn't agree more.” You wouldn't get very far. Torah is learned with someone opposite you, literally and figuratively. The person arguing with you isn't necessarily interfering with your learning. He may be helping you learn. According to the Izbitzer, k’negdo becomes the ezer. Sometimes the person who helps us most is the one who pushes back against our assumptions: the spouse who sees things differently, the friend who tells us what we don't want to hear, the child who forces us to discover patience we didn't know we had. Not all opposition is good. Cruelty and destructive conflict are not growth opportunities to be romanticized. But a life without resistance doesn't make us stronger. It leaves us untested. This is true of a community as well. We need the people who say, “Let's do it!” and the people who ask, “How exactly are we paying for it?” We need dreamers and skeptics, those who dream big and those who bring us back to reality. We need to stop assuming that every person who sees things differently is getting in the way. Sometimes they're showing us the way. That is the deeper meaning of the bet. The blessing is not simply that there are two of us. It is that there can be another perspective, another personality, another way of seeing the world. We don't have to agree with everyone. But we should be willing to listen, to learn, and to recognize that sometimes the person standing k’negdo may actually be the ezer we need. The Torah could have begun with alef, with one. Instead, it begins with bet, with multiplicity. The blessing of bet is found in the richness of different perspectives, in the strength that comes from people who see things differently, and in the growth that takes place when we encounter ideas and people who challenge us. Bet reminds us that a multitude of opinions and perspectives  is not simply something we tolerate. It is something that can make us stronger. 

Miracle in the Clouds

 On Wednesday Flydubai Flight 1073 was flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv when an ordinary flight suddenly became a miraculous salvation brought about by humble, human heroes. About two and a half hours into the flight, the co-pilot allegedly attacked and stabbed the captain, Smit Machchhar, sending the plane into a terrifying descent. The Boeing 737 plunged thousands of feet in a matter of minutes while the passengers had no idea what was happening. Despite being seriously wounded, Captain Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers to rush forward and help. Among them was Yaniv Hayun, an Israeli plumber. Hayun had never flown a plane, but he knew that something had to be done. He helped subdue the attacker and then helped pull the plane out of its dive. Hayun later explained that he had watched the television program “Air Crash Investigation,” which dramatizes real-life aviation disasters. From watching the program, he remembered what to do when a plane goes into a dangerous descent.  Other Israeli passengers also stepped forward. Asaf Rajuan helped restrain the attacker, while Dr. Shota Musaev, a dentist, treated the wounded captain. And then came another remarkable / miraculous piece of good fortune: two off-duty pilots were among the passengers. They were able to take over the controls and help bring the plane safely to the ground. The flight ultimately made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, and all 174 passengers and crew survived. It is difficult not to look at this story and see a miracle that occurred in the clouds. The Torah tells us about another miracle in the clouds: the Jewish people were protected in the wilderness by the Ananei HaKavod, the Clouds of Glory. But why do we specifically commemorate this miracle? Bnai Ysirael also received the miraculous mann every day and drank from Miriam’s well. Why is a Yom Tov only built around remembering the Clouds of Glory? The mann and the water were miracles provided to the nation but experienced by individuals. Every Jew benefited from them, but each person gathered the portion of mann he needed and drank the water he needed. The miracle sustained the individual Jew, one person at a time. The Clouds of Glory were fundamentally different. They were a miracle that could only be experienced collectively. There was not one cloud protecting Reuven and another protecting Shimon. There was one Divine cloud over the entire camp. It protected everyone equally. When it moved, everyone moved. That is why the Clouds of Glory are the appropriate miracle to commemorate through Sukkot. The sukkah recreates not simply the protection that Hashem gave each Jew, but the experience of living together beneath one shelter, sharing one journey and moving toward one destination. The unique, shared journey and destiny of the Jewish People is a theme tied to today, Shemini Atzeret. Throughout Sukkot, seventy bulls were offered, corresponding to the seventy nations of the world. Sukkot reminds us that we are part of a larger human family and that we live in a world shared with many nations. But then comes Shemini Atzeret when we offer just one bull. After seven days in which the offerings represent the seventy nations, we remain behind alone with Hashem as one people. We may live in different communities and different circumstances, but ultimately we are all in the same boat (or plane), beneath the same Clouds of Glory. Our security, our destiny and our future are bound together. The more deeply we recognize that reality, the more deeply we can celebrate the unity and uniqueness that sits at the heart of Shemini Atzeret.

Sukkot: Imagine That

 Imagination plays a critical role in the meaning and observance of Sukkot. It begins with the first time Sukkot appears in the Torah, when Yaakov builds sukkot for his animals. Ohr Hachayim suggests that Yaakov invented the idea of shelter for animals. The first sukkot in the Torah celebrate the ingenuity of our forefather Jacob. Imagination continues to play a prominent role as the Rabbis make sense of the mitzvah of sukkah. The Talmud records that Rabbi Elazar says that Sukkot commemorates the Jews dwelling under the protection of the Ananei Hakavod, the Clouds of Glory. When we eat in the sukkah, we are supposed to think about that experience. The problem is that we have never dwelled in the Clouds of Glory. According to Rabbi Elazar, we will have to use our imaginations to commemorate the Ananei Hakavod. Just as imagination is necessary when dealing with the more esoteric elements of sukkah, so too is it necessary when dealing with the nuts and bolts of sukkah construction. A sukkah does not need to be completely enclosed. It doesn’t even need to have three full walls. Two connected walls and a third piece of a wall suffice. The laws of Gud Asik, Dofen Akuma and Lavud require us to see something that is not literally there: a wall continuing upward, a roof becoming part of a wall, or empty space being treated as though schach is present. If you utilize all of these rules at one time, you may need a great deal of imagination to view that sukkah as functional protection. And yet, the halacha is that such a seemingly incomplete structure would be perfectly kosher for Sukkot use. We just need to use our imaginations. Imagination helps a person see what is possible, not only what everyone else assumes to be true. Imagination allows a person to see things as they could be. One of the recommendations suggested to help adults boost their imaginations is to change daily habits. This is exactly what we are doing this week as we dwell in the sukkah: Tzei midirat keva v’shev b’dirat arai. We leave our regular existence and hold up in a dirat arai, a change of pace whereby our imagination is given more reign.  Even the concept that our sukkahs should serve as our permanent homes for the week is framed in terminology that alludes to the need for imagination: Teishvu k’eyn taduru. We dwell in the sukkah as if we lived there. We don’t really give up our homes. The mail will still come to our permanent address, and we’re moving right back in at the end of the week. But on this holiday where imagination is the task at hand, we are instructed to imagine that our real home is the sukkah. By using our imagination while in the sukkah, we can develop skills that will serve us well for the rest of our lives. Just as the farmer would celebrate all of the bounty that Hashem had blessed him with, so too let appreciate that all of our achievements are really from Hashem. Sukkot is a time not only to strengthen the abstract notion of Emunah, that G-d is in charge, but the very personal and practical notion of Bitachon, that G-d plays a pivotal role in my own life, and that Hashem must be recognized and thanked in connection with all of my success. There is a dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai whether a Sukkah Yeshana, a sukkah built prior to 30 days before Sukkot, is permissible to use on the holiday. Rav Soloveitchik explained that even according to Beit Hillel, an old sukkah requires that an element of ingenuity be introduced into the sukkah within 30 days of the holiday. Even if the sukkah had been built a year ago specifically for the mitzvah of sukkah, something fresh needs to be added. Our relationship with the sukkah and its message must change and develop each year. We too need to consider ways to keep our sukkah experience, and our religious lives, fresh, new and relevant. The answer is as simple as it is challenging and emerges as an important theme of Sukkot: Use your imagination.

Ode to a Familiar Tune

 There are certain Jewish melodies that feel as if they have been around forever. One of them is the melody we often sing for “Etz Chaim Hi” as we return the Torah to the Aron Kodesh. Most of us probably assume that it is an old melody, passed down through generations. It isn’t. The melody was composed by Tanchum Portnoy, who passed away recently on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, at the age of 75. Portnoy composed “Etz Chaim Hi” in the early 1970s, when he was just 22 years old, and it was recorded on his 1975 album Tanchumim. Within a generation, it had become so familiar that people assumed it was a traditional melody. The music publisher Velvel Pasternak once found it identified simply as “traditional” and corrected the attribution. The story of Tanchum Portnoy is particularly meaningful because of the legacy he inherited from his father, Rabbi Eliezer Portnoy. Rabbi Eliezer came to the Mir Yeshiva as a young orphan with virtually nothing. He spoke about wanting to make a name and a lineage for himself. This was accomplished in a most unexpected manner: when he helped save the students of the Mir Yeshiva (he personally dealt with the famous Japanese diplomat Sugihara) during the Holocaust, enabling hundreds of young men to escape. Those students went on to create their own names; build families, communities and Torah institutions. Tanchum, in his own way, left a far reaching legacy. His melody became part of Jewish life beyond those who knew him personally. A tune he wrote as a young man became something that thousands of Jews would sing, decade after decade. It is particularly appropriate to talk about a familiar tune on Shabbat Shuvah, because that is what teshuvah is meant to be: a return to something familiar. The Gemara in Niddah teaches that before a child is born, an angel teaches the fetus the entire Torah. Then, just before birth, the child forgets everything it learned. Why teach us the Torah only to make us forget it? Rav Soloveitchik explained that this occurs so that when we encounter Torah during our lives, it should never feel completely foreign. On some level, we have already encountered it. Torah is familiar to us. Learning is, in a sense, always recalling and never really starting from scratch. This familiarity is true not only of Torah learning, but Torah living as well. Shabbat, davening, chesed, connection to Hashem and responsibility for other Jews are not foreign concepts that we need to introduce into our lives. They should feel natural, even familiar, because they are part of who we are. It may be possible for someone to forget and become distant. We may drift away from certain aspects of tradition or ritual, such that some elements of Jewish life may feel less familiar. But the Torah assures us that somewhere beneath that distance is something familiar. That is what makes teshuvah possible. Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha venashuvah, chadesh yameinu k’kedem. “Return us to You, Hashem, and we will return. Renew our days as of old.” Teshuvah is a return. We are not being asked to become someone entirely new. We are being asked to return to something that is familiar, something already part of our identity. That is the meaning of k’kedem, “as of old.” We may have forgotten, we may have drifted, but the Torah, the mitzvot and our relationship with Hashem are not foreign to us. They are familiar in a deep and essential way. A melody written only fifty years ago can become so familiar that we assume it has been around for generations. Perhaps familiarity is not really a measure of how old something is, but of how deeply it resonates with who we are. Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha venashuvah. Bring us back to You, Hashem, and we will return. Because deep down, we never really left.