This week’s parsha, or weekly Torah portion, is called Mishpatim, meaning “rules” or “ordinances.” The majority of the parsha consists of 53 commandments that G-d informs the Israelites they must follow if they are to truly be G-d’s people. Of these commandments, 23 are mitzvot, instructing the Israelites on how they should behave, and 30 of them prohibit certain actions. They cover an extraordinarily wide range of topics, from those that make logical sense to the modern ear, such as prohibitions against assault and the injunction to return lost property to its owner, to topics that many Jews today are unsure how to interpret, such as the Jewish dietary laws and the regulations about how certain holidays and festivals should be observed. Near the end of the parsha, after G-d lays out these 53 mitzvot, G-d commands Moses to leave the Israelites in the care of his brother Aaron and their friend Hur, and make his way up to the top of Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. Moses makes the trek, waits for G-d, and then on his seventh day of waiting, G-d calls to him from inside a cloud. Moses joins G-d inside the cloud and then stays atop Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights.

In Mishpatim, G-d sets forth punishments for committing various offenses. For example, in Exodus 21:12, G-d explains that, “He who fatally strikes a man shall be put to death.” But similar to the American legal system, a person’s intention matters. G-d continues, in Exodus 21: 13, “If he did not do it by design…I will assign you a place to which he can flee.” As I read these lines, I thought to myself, “at least G-d took a person’s motivation or lack thereof into account,” but ultimately the person still had to face consequences for his or her actions.

A few years ago, I went through a very difficult break-up. Though we loved each other, it was clear that it was time for our relationship to end. During the break-up, each of us behaved in hurtful ways, though that had not been either of our intentions. In the aftermath, friends and family told me, “Ali, you’re human. Forgive yourself. During stressful times, people sometimes act in ways that they’re later less than proud of.” Though I appreciated their reminder to not be too hard on myself, I also really wanted to hear something else, the same message that I think G-d was trying to send to the Israelites: a person must still be held accountable for his or her behavior, regardless of his or her intentions. Taking responsibility doesn’t mean I shouldn’t forgive myself, but it does mean that I must recognize the agency that I have, even when I’m under stress, and learn from my mistakes. By acknowledging responsibility, I’ll then be able to re-align myself to the high standards I set for my behavior.

Owning up, especially when we didn’t mean to hurt or harm someone else or ourselves, isn’t easy. We can always, and often do, make excuses, and frequently others make excuses for us. But sometimes, in order to truly let go or forgive oneself, it’s essential to stand tall and say, “Yes, that was me, but I’ll be more aware of the potential consequences of my actions next time.” My kavannah or intention for this week is for us to consider how “owning up” to certain behaviors or actions, especially those that we did not expect would lead to harm or hurt, may free us to move on with our lives.

This week’s parsha, or weekly Torah portion, Va’era, is the second parsha in Exodus, the book detailing the Israelites’ exodus from slavery under Pharaoh to freedom. “Va’era” means “I appeared” or “I let Myself be seen.”  God says “Va’era” to Moses, as in, “I let Myself be seen by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” and by this, God means something along the lines of: “I revealed Myself to them so they know I am the real deal.” God explains that the distress of the Israelites who are living in bondage under Pharaoh led God to remember the covenant God had made with the patriarchs to give their descendants the land of Canaan.  According to God, it is now also time for the Israelites to fully understand the limitlessness of God’s power.

God tells Moses, the recently-appointed leader of the Israelites (who has a speech impediment), that he and his brother Aaron, who has been speaking to the Israelites on Moses’s and therefore God’s behalf, should get ready for a hard fight with Pharaoh regarding the Israelites’ freedom.  God also decides to “harden Pharaoh’s heart” so that God will get to have several opportunities to show off divine strength and power.  God decides that if Pharaoh doesn’t relent, the best plan of action will be plagues that afflict the Egyptians and not the Israelites.  Of course, Pharaoh puts up a fight, and the plagues of the Passover story begin.  Then Pharaoh tells Moses that the Israelites can at the very least go on a brief journey to sacrifice to God, but quickly changes his mind.  More plagues to come next week.

So much happens in this parsha, and I felt overwhelmed as I read it.  But ultimately I found myself coming back to the age-old question of why not just select Aaron instead of Moses?  Why this game of telephone?  What could be the benefit of a leader with a speech impediment?

Thinking about this reminded me of completely losing my voice.  This would not have been such a problem except that I am a high school teacher, and 99% of my job, or so I thought, involves talking.  At school, all I could was whisper. I whispered my instructions to a student who would repeat them to the class.  “Please take out your homework,” translated to “Yo!  Homework out now or Ms. Cohen won’t be happy.”  I did my best to say as few words as possible, and this meant that I had to keep instructions clear and to the point.  Minor infractions had to be ignored or handled using the infamous teacher look. I had to pick my words, and battles, carefully, because someone else was going to repeat them and I didn’t want to be misinterpreted, and because I had a limited capacity for speech and needed to conserve energy.  Amazingly, my classes ran smoothly.

According to one commentator, Moses’ “slow tongue” was his strength. Because speaking was a challenge, he would mindfully select his words, and what Aaron was told to repeat to the Israelites would be the true essence of what God wanted conveyed.

What would it mean if we could only say one-fourth or one-fifth of the words we say daily? What would we decide was superfluous?  Would we become better listeners?  How often have I thought to myself, I wish I had not said that, right after speaking quickly and mindlessly?  In an era of fast-talking and multi-tasking, how would our interactions change if we said less and, in doing so, said more?

Though I was thrilled to get my voice back, I realized that losing it had been a kind of blessing.  If you had no choice but to cut out a chunk of your daily words, phrases, or communication, what would you select to let go of and why?  These could be words you say to yourself or to others.  On the other hand, which speech would you come to view as essential? My kavanah, or intention, for this week is to ask ourselves how mindful awareness of our speech can help us improve the quality of our lives and the lives of others.

This week’s parsha, Shemot (“Names”), might be a familiar one, as it’s the beginning not only of the book of Exodus but of the story we tell every year at Passover. A lot happens in this parsha; the Israelites are enslaved in Egypt by a fearful Pharaoh who orders all newborn Hebrew boys thrown into the Nile. One mother, defying these orders, instead sets her son adrift in a papyrus box on the river; he’s discovered and later raised by the Pharaoh’s own daughter. This boy, once grown, sees an Egyptian slavemaster kill an Israelite and, in anger, kills the slavemaster. He then flees to the land of Midian, where he marries, has a son, and becomes a shepherd. One day, while tending his flock, he comes upon a bush that burns without burning up, through which G-d speaks to him and instructs him to return to Egypt and bring the Israelites, G-d’s people, out of Egypt.

This man is Moses, who is one of the most revered figures in Jewish history. Since most of this parsha is about him, I assumed that’s who I’d base my kavanah (or intention) on. But the more I thought about it, the more I noticed how fascinated I was by a completely different person: the Pharaoh.

The Torah says, “[The Pharaoh] announced to his people, ‘The Israelites are becoming too numerous and strong for us. We must deal wisely with them. Otherwise, they may increase so much, that if there is war, they will join our enemies and fight against us, driving us from the land.’ ”

What leapt out at me when I read this passage was the line: We must deal wisely with them, because it strikes me that, if you want to instill loyalty in a group of people, turning them into slaves is perhaps not the wisest way to achieve that goal.

But the Pharaoh was afraid. Afraid there were too many Israelites, afraid they’d turn against him. He was so afraid he couldn’t see any future aside from the one he feared. And this fear led him to treat the Israelites harshly, to oppress and control them. But they continued to flourish nonetheless – and eventually the misery he inflicted caused them to call out for relief from G-d, who heeded their cries and sent Moses to free them. So the Pharaoh lost his control over them all the same.

And so I wondered, what if the Pharaoh had been less afraid? What if that absence of fear had allowed him to treat these people with kindness and compassion instead? Could it have been possible that, instead of giving them the power to overthrow him, as the Pharaoh feared, he would have instilled in them a sense of gratitude and, in turn, loyalty – thereby giving him what he’d been seeking in the first place?

For me, it’s much easier to envision negative outcomes to situations than positive ones, because fear and self-doubt can create such loud and convincing voices within me sometimes. But I know that meditation can help me quiet those voices, so that I can picture positive outcomes instead. And sometimes that makes all the difference in terms of the decisions I make and the ways I interact with others: I’m more open, kinder, and friendlier, and I believe that I can actually make my life more the way I want it to be.

So my kavanah is that we use our meditation practice to help drive out our own fears and self-doubt, so that we have more space for kindness and compassion, both for others and for ourselves.

The last few paragrahs of this week’s parsha, “Ki Tavo” (in English: “when you enter”) are rather off-putting. Following a discussion of four rituals that the Israelites must obey upon entry into Promised Land, Moses reviews a litany of horrible, horrible curses that the Israelites face if they fail to comply. Numbering in the dozens, the curses include drought, infertility, infidelity, and madness. Further, in the final paragraph, Moses reminds the Israelites that the God issuing these threats is the same God who brought them and their ancestors out of Egypt, slavery, and guided them through the desert. Could it really be that Moses is using the heavy hands of fear and guilt to coerce the Israelites into obeying God?

Maybe at first blush…  but remember that Deuteronomy consists mainly of Moses’ instructions to the Israelites on the laws that will bind the nation once they reach the Promised Land. With this understanding, we can read the final paragraphs not as threats, but as warnings: if the Israelites do not act as a nation, a community – do not accept that their lives are inextricably interconnected – then they will cease to be a nation.  The horrifying curses are the disasters that befall a people who abandon each other. At its core, Ki Tavo is about the Israelites learning to become and to maintain a Jewish community.

Joining and maintaining community is difficult, and one must always work to find the community that suits them. I remember as a college senior, I really started to question the meaning, rituals, and values of Conservative Judaism, which was the only Judaism that I had known for my entire life. During Yom Kippur that year, I hopped from service to service, seeking a place where I could feel that the meaningfulness of the practice matched the meaningfulness of the holiday. Just last year, when I went home for Yom Kippur, the service that I had literally grown up with felt empty to me. It felt like I had grown out of my old spiritual community, and I needed something that was a better fit.  Now, as part of the Jewish Meditation Center (JMC) community, I am able to explore parts of Judaism and of myself that is just not possible at other venues. And once I found a community that suited me – once I realized that the JMC’s prosperity would impact my own prosperity – I began to take on obligations to ensure its continued success… like leading sits and writing this very blog.

This point extends beyond spiritual community. We are all members of myriad groups and organizations, both formal and informal, in our professional, personal, and social lives. We have all, consciously or unconsciously, been enriched by our membership in these communities, and we have all served to enrich others. Ki Tavo reminds us that our communities do not exist independently of us, the participants. The communities require our dedication and our commitment. Ki Tavo helps us remember why we need communities in the first place – because they offer us strength and identity.

For this week’s kavanah (intention), let us all be reminded of the alchemic interconnectedness that occurs when we participate in our communities. Let us feel what it means to derive strength and meaning from one another. Let us equally feel the powerful joy that flows from giving ourselves to that community, and let us prepare for the New Year by remembering that it is our New Year, and that it will be meaningful as long as we give it meaning.

The parsha deals with the offerings and sacrifices that G-d has deemed necessary for Aaron and his sons to become holy and prove their worth as priests to the Israelites.

Moses receives and delivers the message of G-d, an intermediary.  When Moses was born and cast into the Nile, he was retrieved by Pharaoh’s daughter and presented to Pharaoh.  He was given a test to see if he was of royal blood; two trays were placed before him, one with hot coals and another with gleaming jewels.  The test was to observe which objects Moses reached for; he began to move his hand to the jewels  – a sign of royal blood -and an angel thwarted his reach by pushing his hand to the hot coals.  Upon touching the hot coals, he burnt his hand and immediately placed his hot hand in his mouth thus causing his palate to be burnt and therefore disfiguring him and causing him difficulty in speaking clearly.

Aaron, Moses’s brother, became an eloquent speaker and assisted Moses in communicating verbally.  This situation, the division of thought and speech, begs the question of how thought and speech are so fundamentally interrelated.  Aaron Copeland, the great C20 composer, wrote an opera in three acts, Moses und Aaron, interestingly enough, the opera has only two acts and it has been a source of speculation whether Copeland intended the last act to be silent or he never completed the full opera.

Today, I read an obituary in The New York Times for Moacyr Scliar, the Brazilian writer who wrote of his identity as a Jew living in the Diaspora and found this quote appropriate: “I owe to my Jewish origins, the permanent feeling of wonderment that is inherent to the immigrant and the cruel, bitter and sad humor that through the centuries has served to protect the Jews against despair, it is the level of language, however, that these impulses are able to produce their effects.  It is in language that I have faith, as a vehicle for aesthetic expression and also – and above all else – as an insturment for changing the world in which we live.”

Prayer and meditation are similar practices in that they both offer us a connection to the divine, but they differ significantly.  I see prayer as using language to express our innermost thoughts and feelings to a higher power.  Sometimes, we plumb the depths within ourselves and allow whatever comes to the surface to flow out in our prayer; we often pray to words that were written by someone else but express what we want to say.  To me, prayer is reaching out to the universe with questions, gratitude and praise and often, pleas for help.

Meditation has a silent quality that honors the art of receptivity.  When I meditate, I cease movement and allow the activity of my mind and hearts to go on without control. Eventually, in meditation, we fall into a deep stillness that underlies all the noise and fray of our daily existence and it becomes possible for us to hear the universe as it speaks for itself, responds to our questions or allows us to sit with us silently.

Both prayer and meditation are indispensable tools for navigating our relationship with the universe and ourselves; they are natural complements to one another.  One makes way for the other just as the crest of a wave gives way to its hollow.  When we do only one, we may find that we are out of balance and we might benefit from exploring the missing form of communication.

There are times when we need to reach out and express ourselves, fully exorcising our inner thoughts and times when we are empty, ready to rest in quiet receiving.  When we allow ourselves to do both, we begin to have a true conversation with the universe.

Parsha Re’eh – ראה – Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17

This week’s parsha, Re’eh, begins with the line “See (re’eh), I place before you today a blessing and a curse.” Basically, Moses is offering the Israelites two options: follow the rules and be blessed; abandon God and be cursed. Moses instructs the people on the laws of the Temple, Kashrut, tithing, the Sabbatical year, and the three pilgrim festivals of Sukkot, Pesach, and Shavuot.

I love the idea of holding blessings and curses together. There’s a not so subtle directive that in order to discern between the two and choose a direction, we have to truly see what is placed before us. Through meditation we allow ourselves to create space in our lives to check in with our mind and heart. Sitting with and holding our deepest truths, fears, desires, we often find that it’s complicated. Blessings and curses, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant- the longer we sit with something, the more our judgments and preconceptions shift and blend. We all know of someone who got exactly what they wished for and they still weren’t happy. Many times, we sit with physical pain and find that it’s a gateway to insight.

For most of my childhood, I took painting classes. One of the most important lessons was that if you were going to paint an apple (for example), you have to erase the idea of an apple from your brain and simply paint what you see. Painting an apple based on an established or even subconscious image of what an apple is supposed to look like will hold back your creative process and your resulting work won’t be very good. The art teachers who impacted me the most taught me to draw the space between objects, paint things upside down, and train my brain to see things as they are and not how I remember them or want them to be. When reading this week’s parsha, which starts with the instruction to “see,” these lessons came immediately to mind.

Meditation practice is a way to retrain our minds to see our thoughts, our lives, our histories, as they really are. Following Moshe’s instruction to see before us a blessing and a curse, we see that it’s rarely either/or and often both at the same time. We can mindfully use our Jewish practices, that Moses expounds upon in Re’eh, to know that our seeing and our understanding allows us to find our own path to blessings. As we sit in meditation, we may also find that the path itself is blessed.

A quick kavanah, intention, to guide practice: As you sit, follow your breath. Whenever you find that your mind has wandered, gently return to the present moment. Check in with your breath, your posture, and see what has drawn your attention from your intended focus. Allow yourself to see what you identify as a blessing and a curse and whether these designations shift as you watch them. Remind yourself that this is your task: to see before you blessings and curses and to learn to see them clearly.