Genesis | Bereishit
Bereishit, בְּרֵאשִׁית, beginning-ing, is the very first word of the written Torah. In the cycle begun 1500 years ago by rabbis in the Mideast, we begin studying and practicing this first section, or parashah, of Torah each year, entering this consciousness of beginning-ing…
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I first turned to Torah as a spiritual wisdom text in the midst of wandering through feelings of emptiness and void. I was, and always am, beginning and continuing the journey of life. How do we find meaning and live with a sense of integrity and gratitude, fully celebrating this precious gift, and at the same time deeply engaging with the overwhelming suffering and darkness that hovers over everything?
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The opening words of the second weekly Torah portion offer comfort after the first week’s disappointing debut and imminent ending of humanity. The Hasidic teachers understood the need for balancing suffering with a way out, echoing the Buddhist Four Noble Truths. There is suffering, yes. And there is a way out.
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The third wave of Covid is flooding the earth. The suffering is tremendous. Some have arks of refuge; many, many more don’t. How does the story of Noah help me understand what is going on and what Ark I am called to build?
READ MOREThis Torah portion begins with יְהוָה, formless and eternally present, speaking to Abram. Abram will lech lecha, go forth to himself, to enter his true power as a human. He will go to himself and go forth from his ancestral heritage. By walking this path, an integration of coming and going, of who he has been and who he will become, he will become Abraham, the father of many peoples.
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Abraham is destined to be “the father of a multitude of nations.” He embraces what Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh and Hasidic masters call “aimlessness.” In Torah, the entry to the path of aimlessness is “lech lecha,” going out from inherited, unexamined, and conferred identity, to go into yourself and then to go out again.
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Abraham has cut himself open and sits at the opening, totally undefended, so that all the future generations will thrive: the generations of Ishmael/Ismail, and the generations of Isaac.
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In rabbinic times, it was said that the reason this cave, Machpelah, was so important to Abraham is because you could see all the way to the Garden of Eden from inside. So Abraham negotiated with the indigenous Hittites for the rights to bury Sarah in the cave of Machpelah. He took care to make an agreement that valued what each party was giving.
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What continues after our death? Is aliveness limited to one bodily manifestation, or does it continue in ever-changing forms? This week’s Torah portion, the Aliveness or Life of Sarah, is the story of the aliveness of Sarah and Hagar continuing after Sarah’s death.
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The twins, Jacob and Isaac, are struggling in Rebecca’s womb and she cries out to God, “Why? Why do I exist if this is life?” God replies to her that this struggle is necessary and will continue. It will not be fair or just or understandable. One nation will rule over the other, this is their karma.
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Jacob fled from his brother Esau whom he had deceived. He left his father’s house and went toward his mother’s family in Haran. What can we learn for our lives from Jacob’s going out and going toward? And what is “the place” and his encounter with “a certain place”?
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From beginning to end, Torah, like other spiritual paths, is clear that conflict will arise within families and between people. This week’s Torah portion recounts and deepens the material and spiritual journeys of Jacob and his twin brother Esau, who compete with each other for their parents’ love and attention.
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This week’s Torah portion thrusts us into two dramatic encounters, one between estranged brothers Jacob and Esau, and one between Shechem and Dina, ill fated lovers or predator and victim.
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In my encounter with Torah, one of my practices, inspired by the poet Rilke, is to live the questions.
One question I live with, as an object of meditation, is, “Why are the spiritual and ethical teachings I seek so buried beneath violence and hatred in the Torah?”
READ MOREWhat do we have to shed to break out of the endless cycle of rivalry, objectification, manipulation, abuse? Can we learn to be fluid with our identifications, even the most precious ones, so that we can encounter without skins that separate us?
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This week’s Torah begins with “and Jacob settled.” On the story level, twin brothers Jacob and Esau have come together to bury their father Isaac. Together they take giant steps, risking their vulnerability for the sake of healing their birth trauma and making amends for their early years of jealousy and competition.
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What do we have to shed to break out of the endless cycle of rivalry, objectification, manipulation, abuse? Can we learn to be fluid with our identifications, even the most precious ones, so that we can encounter without skins that separate us?
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For many years, I’ve been on a journey to encounter Judaism as a spiritual path. What does this mean to me? …So it is when I encounter this week’s Torah portion, Mikeitz, continuing the story of Joseph and his brothers.
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This week’s Torah story, Mikeitz, presents a vision and path of expanded spiritual consciousness and the resulting successful sharing of resources between the Hebrew minority and the Egyptian majority. This is truly medicine for our time.
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How do we reveal ourselves to be each other’s brothers and sisters? How does the revelation occur, that the person I took as my enemy or my persecutor, as foreign, is in fact my brother or sister?
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In this, the last chapter of Beresheit, the book of Genesis, Jacob says goodbye to his sons and is “gathered to his people.” He speaks one by one to his sons, and gives each of them what is usually translated as a blessing.
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