Today’s inappropriately named parasha features the deaths of our first patriarch Abraham, our first matriarch Sarah – as well as the father of the Arab nations Ishmael, Abraham’s son through Sarah’s concubine Hagar. To belabor the point, the haftara features the dying days of King David.

As human beings, we have an instinctual, even innate, fear of death. We don’t know why we have this fear. Perhaps it’s because we don’t know what awaits us when, in the words of Shakespeare, we shuffle off this mortal coil. Our imagination can conjure up any number of conditions into which we will be thrown upon our death, but the truth of the matter is that no one has ever come back from death with proof of what awaits us on the other side.

The Egyptians are perhaps the most conspicuous in their attempt to stave off the inevitability of death through their embalming techniques and in their attempt to achieve immortality through the pyramids.

Scientists today have offered whole new visions of life after death and promise that we can solve the riddle of life in some way in order to be able to live forever. Cryogenics, biogenics and similar fields of research are actively engaged in the search to conquer death and. if not that, to at least seek to extend our lives indefinitely. Some scientists believe that we can live eternally by uploading our consciousness to a cloud computer.

At the same time, scientists are discovering that our bodies go through stages of deterioration as we grow older – as if, like refrigerators and automobiles, we were designed with built-in obsolescence. We appear to be born with a biological clock that begins ticking from the moment of conception. The organs of our body each have a lifecycle and, depending on our hereditary makeup, our environment and our life choices in diet and nutrition, one or more of them will someday fail and, with them, we will pass away.

Some of you may recall the sci-fi movie Zardoz, which came out in 1974, starring Sean Connery. The story features a perfect society of people who have managed to unlock the secret of eternal life. Living in a bubble, they control the outside world peopled by mere mortals, whom they have enslaved. Spoiler alert! That perfection is not what it is cracked up to be and, in the end, the immortals themselves seek death to escape the emptiness of their lives.

In a drasha several weeks ago for Parashat Breishit, I spoke about the false dichotomy between creation and evolution, and suggested that we should look at the one as complementing the other, where creation is the force that drives life and evolution is the mechanism through which creation is expressed in our world. The evolutionary process requires constant change and renewal in order to progress. In the world of Zardoz, the immortals became stagnant, bored, and in the end sought death to relieve them of the burden of immortality.

In the movie Forrest Gump, Sally Field, who plays his mother, is speaking from her deathbed and, explaining to him that she is about to die, says: “Don’t you be afraid, sweetheart. Death is just a part of life, something we’re all destined to do.” In order to evolve, as a species and as a society, death is necessary as a part of what we call the circle of life.

As a society, we build institutions in order to enhance our ability to survive and to extend our reach. Nations and institutions rise, reach a peak, become moribund and fall – a process that sometimes extends over hundreds of years. In the case of the Jewish people, we have experienced this process numerous times, both within our homeland and in exile.

On the other hand, however, Chaye Sarah and its haftara, while describing the death of historically important personalities, also features their continuation and perhaps immortality through their children and offspring. Isaac is given Rebecca and their first moments together are marked by an act of lovemaking. David, on his deathbed, perhaps addled in his thinking and no longer capable of lovemaking, is nevertheless still able to recognize his own mortality and pass his legacy on to Solomon. The parasha also describes in detail the children and progeny of Abraham and Keturah as well as those of Ishmael.

As human beings, we raise families and, if we’re lucky and able to stave off our own built-in obsolescence, we get to see our children, our children’s children and perhaps even our children’s grandchildren. We are fated to not achieve immortality in this life, but we are perhaps able to capture a glimpse of it through them. Chaye Sarah reminds us that while death inevitably comes to all of us, and what awaits us afterward remains a mystery, we are all active participants in a sometimes messy process of the evolution of our people started by Abraham, who had faith in the process despite not knowing its ultimate outcome.

Shabbat Shalom

Don Jacobson

From the very first words of Parashat Breishit, we encounter the biblical version of the origin of the earth and of the universe. In this story, we learn that everything that exists within the confines of our understanding and senses was created in six days. On this basis, and until less than 500 years ago, the classical Jewish view has been that, until today, a mere 5786 years have passed since the act of creation.

Yet, since the Enlightenment and the development of the scientific method, we have learned, insofar as we know today, that the universe was created approximately 14.5 billion years ago and that the earth began to form approximately 4.5 billion years ago.

This dissonance between the biblical story of creation and the findings of science have created a situation in which the two versions have been continuously at war with one another, in which those fundamentalists who cling to the biblical account deny the science and those who rely on the science denigrate the biblical account and those who believe in it. We are all familiar with this controversy.

However, there are undeniable parallels between them:

• The biblical account describes a situation in which chaos reigns in the beginning, gradually leading to the development of simple lifeforms, at first, and progressively to higher lifeforms and eventually to the rise of humankind.
• The scientific method has shown that earth was originally created, along with the other planets in a long and messy process, in which the material of our solar system slowly accreted, and in which life arose on Earth from single-celled organisms, progressively leading to higher lifeforms and, eventually, to the rise of humankind.

In the biblical account, we read, for example, about the Taninim Hagadolim (התנינים הגדולים), which are translated as the great sea monsters.  Yet, these great animals appear on the fifth day together with swarming and flying animals and not with other advanced creatures on the sixth day. Could these great creatures have been the dinosaurs?

Thus, both accounts describe the development of the earth and life on it as a step-by-step progression, even though the timescales are completely irreconcilable.

Others have already pointed out that the biblical reckoning of one day could also be interpreted otherwise – as many years. In Psalms 90:4 we read:

For in Your sight a thousand years
are like yesterday that has passed,
like a watch of the night.

Does this mean that each day in the biblical account of creation is literally equal to a thousand years? Or could it possibly also mean, in a figurative sense, that many years – perhaps eons – have passed? The fundamentalist view of time, originating from a flawed understanding of the timescales of the universe, would then, in a very real sense, be a denial of the true awesomeness of God’s creation, and thus a form of idolatry in that it denies us the use of the very intelligence bestowed upon us by God.

Indeed, scientific findings not only do not refute the creation story of the Torah – on the contrary, they also affirm the process it describes, even if not in every detail. However, as I stated, from the standpoint of pure science, the biblical account is considered to be bunk. Such a view, it should be stated, is in itself acceptance of the fundamentalist approach.

But science needs to ask a simple question – if the biblical account is taken in its figurative – or perhaps poetic – sense, and reflects, to some extent or other, the findings of science, how did the biblical account, which preceded the scientific account, come about? From where did the idea of the progression of the development of life on earth that we read about today in Breishit come from?

Did this idea perhaps come from an earlier civilization, much in the same way that the biblical account of the flood and some laws of the Torah originate from Mesopotamian, Egyptian or other sources? And even if it did, where did this idea originate from in these earlier civilizations?

Do we carry somewhere in our genes – in our prehistoric memory – this experience of crawling out of the primordial ooze, onto land, and the slow painful development of our intellects and of society?

Or perhaps, is this knowledge, which we set down in writing thousands of years ago long before development of the scientific method, is exactly what it purports to be – divinely-inspired?

Understood in this way, perhaps this conflict between creationism and evolution can be seen as a false dichotomy – and instead, as a process in which one complements the other, where creation is the force that drives the progression of days and evolution is the mechanism through which creation is expressed in our world and in our universe.

Shabbat Shalom

Don Jacobson

As in many other parts of Book of Deuteronomy, Parashat Va’etchanan returns to the wanderings of the Jewish people in the desert and the need to observe the laws and statutes that Moses transmitted to them during their travels. In reading this portion, one gets the impression that Moses is continually repeating the same things, although in different ways, among them the Ten Commandments.

One of the issues featured prominently in this portion is the need to avoid engaging in the rituals of other peoples and with idolatry. Such was Moses’ entreaty regarding the events at Baal Peor, the need to eradicate the places of worship of the people across the Jordan – in Canaan – and in particular, he emphasized the need to remember the experience at Sinai at which God revealed himself by sound and not by an image – and the need to avoid worshiping foreign gods and idolatry.

Judaism can be defined by its active opposition to idolatry in all of its forms. We tend to think of idolatry in terms of its physical manifestations such as statues, amulets and totems, or in terms of belief in superstitions or astrology. As proposed by Prof. Asa Kasher of Hebrew University, anything in the world that has overriding importance in a person’s life, when taken to its extreme, may fall under the definition of an idol for that person. When taken in moderation, the drive for money, fame or  power can have positive personal and social benefits. However, when taken to extremes, without regard for competing and no less important values, such behavior enters the realm of idolatry. The negation of idolatry –  active opposition to all forms of idolatry – is thus, according to Prof. Kasher, a key to understanding Judaism.

Numerous beliefs and practices – both religious and secular – have the potential to become  idolatrous when taken to their extreme, whether in the social, political or personal realms. Examples of idolatrous behavior abound in modern life and in Israeli society, in particular.

In this Torah portion we are also explicitly warned:

Be careful, then, to do as your God has commanded you. Do not turn aside to the right or to the left.

Various interpretations have been given to this commandment by classical commentators:

• Ralbag (Rabbi Levi Ben Gershon, a French commentator from the 13th century) ascribed addition to the commandments to the right and the diminution of them to the left.
• Sforno (Ovadia Sforno, an Italian commentator from the late 15th to mid 16th century) similarly interpreted this commandment to mean that one should not add or detract from the commandments, even with good intent.
• Adin Steinsaltz (a modern commentator who passed away in 2020 in Jerusalem) interpreted this commandment to mean that one must fulfill the commandments with awe and fear just as one would have done upon hearing the voice of God at Sinai.

However, this commandment can also be interpreted with reference to any divided society and especially to contemporary Israeli society.

One of the features of current political discourse in Israel (as well as in other countries) is the widening gulf between those who define themselves (or who are defined by others) as leftist or rightist.  In this paradigm, the Israeli left is defined as in favor of governmental intervention in the economy and society, as raising the flag of human rights, women’s rights and gay rights, as being for a two-state solution for settling the Palestinian question, and as being generally secular in outlook, if not downright anti-religious. Similarly, and inversely, the right is identified as being laissez faire in economic and societal outlook, as placing the rights of Jews above others and as against attacks on traditional family values, as being opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and, in general, as being traditional, if not zealous, in religious belief and observance. 

As you read the description of these typologies of right and left, you will identify them (but not necessarily identify with them). However, few of us fit neatly into one or the other of such typologies. In reality, most people are comprised of a complex mix of character traits and beliefs. Someone who supports transgender rights may also be against the two-state solution. Another person who strictly adheres to religious law may also be a member of a kibbutz. As many studies have shown, the way in which we perceive events and other people is strongly colored by our backgrounds – our nation, our tribe and our family – and that we tend to associate with people and groups – and vote – consistently in a manner that reinforces our biases. That’s all right and to be expected. Few of us change our basic outlook throughout our lives.

However, when we get carried away by our perceptions and get lost in the illusion that these caricatures represent reality and impute them to one or another actual person, we enter the realm of idolatry. Such polarization between left and right is a sure sign that Israeli society has slipped into idolatry. The potential for idolatry is inherent in any ideology or political position when taken to its extreme. These typologies, which are often reinforced by the most demonstrative adherents of these positions, run the risk of creating caricatures of us all, and thus of making us lose our humanity.

On this Tu B’av – the 15th of the month of Av, the celebration of love – we need to remember that each of us is comprised of a mixture of attributes that reflects the image of God within us. We are therefore commanded to acknowledge that the image of God also resides on the other side – with our political rivals – left or right – and that we must remember the great commandment:

“Love your neighbor as yourself”

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Tu B’av