November 2017
In Memoriam of Donnera Walker
We are saddened to inform you of the passing of Donnera Walker, mother of Beth Blumenfeld. Our condolences go out to the entire family, We urge you to send notes to Beth and her family at 361 Fairlane Drive, Spartanburg, SC 29307.
Genuine Forgiveness Despite a Grave Wrong
TOL’DOT, GENESIS 25:19−28:9
D’VAR TORAH BY: RABBI STEPHEN S. PEARCE, PH.D.
Many hands hold up a sign saying Forgive
“When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter [yodei-a tzayid], a man of the outdoors, and Jacob was a homespun [tam] man, keeping to the tents” (Genesis 25:27). The Hebrew word tam, translated here as “homespun,” can also mean “gentle,” “mild-mannered,” or “blameless.”1 Whereas the Bible portrays Esau as “a skillful hunter,” further reading of the text reveals that Jacob, the “homespun man,” was the wilier of the two. Nevertheless, many prophetic, Rabbinic, and modern commentators view Esau pejoratively and Jacob, the man with serious character flaws, is portrayed affectionately.
Despite unfavorable depictions of Esau, the biblical author views him not as evil, but rather as an impetuous, brash, live-for-the-moment individual who willingly sold his birthright without regard for the consequences. This skilled hunter, described as a “wild beast” by the Rabbis, offered a plaintive plea to his father after giving up his birthright for a bowl of gruel and upon learning that Jacob deceived Isaac in order to steal Isaac’s blessing: “Did you not reserve a blessing for me” (Genesis 27:36)? His palpable pain elicits sympathy from any objective reader of this week’s Torah portion, Tol’dot.
The haftarah that accompanies Tol’dot offers a derisive portrayal of Esau: “… I have loved Jacob and hated Esau … People shall call them [Esau’s descendants] the Evil Territory, the people whom God has cursed forever (Malachi 1:2,4). Centuries later, the Rabbis further disparaged Esau by associating him with Rome, the unmistakable enemy of the Jewish people of that era. In one fictional Rabbinical conversation, Jacob acknowledged that Esau’s progeny would inflict suffering upon Jacob’s offspring. However, the Messiah would spring from Jacob’s lineage and evict Esau’s progeny from the rightful place of Jacob’s descendants.
A comparable parable of the Talmudic Sage, Rabbi Levi, describes a preeminent Jacob as a blacksmith who once saw bundles of thorns, the metaphor for Esau, being brought into the city. Understanding this to be a sign of pending ruination, a wise man, seeing the smith’s concern, said to him, “Are you afraid of these thorns? One spark from your forge, and the thorns will be afire.” Rabbi Levi extended this metaphor to mean that when Jacob was afraid of Esau and his entourage, God would reassure Jacob: “Are you afraid of them? One spark from you, and you will consume all of them.” To strengthen this case, Rabbi Levi cited a verse from the prophet Obadiah (1:18): “The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, with Esau’s house like straw to be kindled and consumed” (B’reishit Rabbah 84:5). Thus, this parable was designed to counter the people’s suffering under cruel oppressors by associating the oppressors with the skilled hunter who would ultimately be defeated.
Medieval commentator Rashi interpreted the biblical term skilled hunter to mean a smooth talker who deceives others, especially his father Isaac (Rashi on Genesis 25:27). He suggested that the real reason that Isaac gave his blessing to Esau was because Esau duped Isaac and not because as the firstborn he was entitled to it, thereby justifying Jacob’s theft of Esau’s birthright and blessing. To strengthen the case for Jacob’s innocence and Esau’s guilt, Jacob is treated with respect in Rabbinic sources, whereas Esau is accused of the sins of sexual immorality with a betrothed woman, murder, idolatry, and denying the existence of God (Targum Yonatan to Genesis 25:29; B’reishit Rabbah 63.12-13).
The legacy of enduring hatred toward Esau carries over into the modern period where he symbolizes anyone who is crude, uncultured, and anti-Semitic. A folk song, penned by 20th century poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik2, unflatteringly compares Esau and Jacob:
Esau rises and runs for a drink
Like a barrel of booze his mouth does stink […]
Jacob rises and runs to pray
And gives his Maker praise upon praise […]
Nevertheless, there is an important lesson to be learned from Esau’s conduct. The end of the biblical account provides a reader with access to Esau’s soul. Years after the purchase of the birthright and the theft of the blessing by Jacob, the brothers meet. Jacob’s trepidation reveals that he believed Esau might seek vengeance for the wrong he suffered at Jacob’s hand. Instead, Esau hugged Jacob, who then commented to Esau: “… to see your face is like seeing the face of God” (Genesis 33:10). Esau’s humanity shines through because he bore no malice or hatred for the loss of the two valuable gifts — the birthright and the blessing that he was deprived of so many years previous. When he met the brother who had cheated and deceived him, Esau demonstrated genuine forgiveness.
Despite the poor treatment Esau has received throughout Jewish history, his life can also serve as a positive source of inspiration that motivates others to follow suit by taking the bold step of making peace with parents, siblings, and friends, whether or not they deserve it. So important is such forgiveness that it is later concretized in the Levitical Holiness Code that specifies the mitzvah that all would do well to remember: “You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart …You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against members of your people. Love your fellow as yourself: I am the Eternal” (Leviticus 19:17-18).
“Jacob was a homespun man …,” W. Gunther Plaut, gen ed., The Torah: A Modern Commentary, rev. ed., (NY: URJ Press, 2005), p. 174; see also, “Jacob was a mild man…,” JPS Tanakh (Philadelphia: JPS, 1999), p. 49
Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Kol Kithebe H. N. Bialik (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1938) 69
Rabbi Stephen S. Pearce, Ph.D. is senior rabbi emeritus of Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco, and a faculty member of the Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of San Francisco and the Beyond The Walls: Spiritual Writing Program at Kenyon College. He is the author of Flash of Insight: Metaphor and Narrative in Therapy and other articles, poems, and books.
What Holocaust Survivors Can Teach Us About Overcoming Trauma
A Conversation with Clinical Psychologist Yael Danieli
BY ARON HIRT-MANHEIMER , 11/09/2017
Photograph of entrance to Birkenau concentration camp taken from the level of the train tracks leading into the camp
Dr. Yael Danieli, a clinical psychologist, victimologist, traumatologist, author, and lecturer is director of the Group Project for Holocaust Survivors and their Children, which she co-founded in 1975. She served as a founding director of the United Nations of The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and as distinguished professor of international psychology at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. I sat down with her to learn more about her pioneering work in understanding and treating victims of genocide and their children.
ReformJudaism.org: What led you to specialize in preventing the long-term and multi-generational effects of trauma?
Dr. Danieli: During the 1960s, while working on my doctoral dissertation on the psychology of hope, I realized that Holocaust survivors and their children suffered from what I would later term the “conspiracy of silence”—most people they tried to speak to about their experiences, including psychotherapists and other professionals, would not listen to or believe them.
Survivors’ war accounts were too horrifying for most people to hear. Compounding their psychic pain, survivors also encountered the pervasively held myth that they had participated in their own destiny by “going like sheep to the slaughter” and the suspicion that they had performed immoral acts to survive.
The conspiracy of silence intensified their sense of isolation, loneliness, and mistrust of society. In bitterness and despair, many decided there was no one they could talk to about their trauma except, perhaps, other survivors.
Survivor families tended to exhibit at least four adaptational identity styles: victim families, fighter families, numb families, and families of “those who made it.”
In numb families, little or nothing was said about their Holocaust experiences. The children of such families were often too frightened to imagine what could have led to such constriction and lifelessness in their parents. The parents protected each other, and the children protected the parents.
Victim families were characterized by pervasive depression, worry, and mistrust. Joy, self-fulfillment, and existential questions were viewed as frivolous luxuries. Fear of the outside world – of the inevitable next Holocaust – led to clinging within the family. Children were taught to distrust people, especially authority figures, outside the family circle.
Fighter families displayed an intense drive to build and achieve. Parents forbade any behavior that might signify victimization, weakness, or self-pity. Pride was fiercely held as a virtue, relaxation and pleasure were deemed superfluous, and defiance toward outside authorities was sometimes encouraged to the point of peril.
Families “who made it” sought higher education, social and political status, fame, and/or wealth. Some in this group devoted their resources to public acknowledgement and commemoration of the Holocaust, to prevent its recurrence, to ensure that Holocaust victims were treated with dignity, and to aid victimized populations in general.
So many years after the fact, can Holocaust survivors and their children be helped?
Yes. Over time, a fuller understanding of victimization experiences can lead to their gaining the ability to develop a realistic perspective of what happened. That includes no longer viewing themselves and humanity solely based on what happened to them personally during the war.
Recovery also involves a continuous and consistent unraveling and transcending of an individual’s or a family’s adaptation style. Many survivors and their offspring found participating in groups helpful because they could share with others concerns and feelings that would be very difficult to confront alone. Children of survivors have also benefitted from researching the factual events of their parents’ experiences, especially if their parents didn’t speak about the Holocaust or passed on only selective, fragmented accounts.
Is this pathway to recovery unique to Holocaust survivor families?
No. It has been found to be beneficial for victims of other genocides, for children of perpetrators, and for war veterans. Of crucial importance is the empathetic reception of their communities and societies in the aftermath of trauma and tragedy. Societies need to commit to providing measures of acknowledgement, apology, and reparative justice so the trauma becomes a shared rather than a stigmatizing history. The mourning, too, needs to be shared by all, rather than by the survivors alone.
How can we better understand and relate to survivors of trauma and their families?
Listen to them, despite your fear of the terrible things you might hear. To forsake this opportunity is not only to perpetuate the conspiracy of silence and thereby re-victimize the survivors, but to deprive yourself of historic memory that connects you with your own and your people’s history, and allows you to learn from it.
Take the time. You will be forever enriched and grateful for it.
Aron Hirt-Manheimer is the Union for Reform Judaism’s editor-at-large.
Photo credit: Rose Eichenbaum
Food Donation Barrel
We have an empty food barrel that needs filling. Please bring 1 nonperishable item when you visit the temple for donation. There are many in our community who need our help.
Annual Congregation Meeting Sunday, November 19th at 6:00 pm
The Annual Congregation Meeting will be held on Sunday, November 19th. Join us for a soup & salad dinner at 6:00 pm with the mee ng to follow at 7:00 pm.
Brown Bag Lunch!
Join the Rabbi November 15 at 12:00 pm.
Dessert will be served.
Motel of the Mysteries: How We Misinterpret the Things We See & Hear
Shabbat Minyan Postponed
Tisch Saturday, November 11 has been postponed. We will still have the discussion group, so please join us