AVOIDING ENABLING BEHAVIOR

Cheshvan 24, 5782 / October 29-30, 2021
Parashat Chayei Sarah
Torah: Genesis 23:1 - 25:18
Haftarah: 1 Kings 1:1-31
 
This d'var torah is offered in honor of Lilly Snyder, becoming a bat mitzvah this Shabbat. Mazal tov to Lilly and the Dryden Snyder family.
 
This d'var torah is offered for a refuah shleimah for Chanah Elisheva bat Minnie Leah, Feigel bat Kreina, and D'vorah bat Feigel. 

This d'var torah is offered in memory of the 11 Jewish souls that were taken on Cheshvan 18, 5779/October 27, 2018 at Tree of Life/Or L'Simcha Congregation. Y'hi zikhronam liv'rakhah - Their memories are a blessing.

This d'var torah is offered in memory of my friend and colleague Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal. I never included any pictures in my divrei torah until I began receiving and reading his weekly emails, which always had very spiffy graphics. Now I include at least one picture every week. Thanks, Len. Y'hi zikhro liv'rakhah.

 
Lunch and Learn meets Tuesday at 12:30 PM on Zoom and Facebook Live. We’re continuing to read and discuss the Midrashic collection Ein Ya’akov. We’ll be continuing from page 5, “A prayer of David”. A link to the reading is here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jt-NLamlIiAGpBhU7WNrCVZGBYhHHWCN/view?usp=sharing 
 
Check out our wonderful community, and get lots of info about becoming a Chaver and our various programs, at:
https://bnaihayim.org/ 
 
Rabbi Van Leeuwen has a blog which you should read at: 
https://rebjasonblog.wordpress.com/blog/    
 
Please feel free to pass this on to a friend, and please cite the source.
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AVOIDING ENABLING BEHAVIOR
 
"So the man bowed low and prostrated himself before the Lord. He said, 'Blessed is the Lord, God of my master Abraham, Who has not withheld His kindness and truth from my master. As for me, the Lord has guided me on the way to the house of my master's brethren.'" (Gen. 24:26-27)

Alexandre Cabane-Rebekah Meets Eliezer-1883

 
All of us have had the experience, at some time or another, of giving in to someone we love when it is really not healthy for them or for us. Parents often have to struggle with their children over toys, television shows, movies, music, activities, etc. Even when the demands of our children might lead to some sort of danger, we sometimes give in, in order to avoid tantrums or crying, because we love them, we want them to be happy, and we really do wish we could give them everything their hearts desire. Other times, when our kids engage in questionable behavior, we ignore it, hoping it is "just a phase" they are going through. We don't want to be "brutally honest" with them. We end up with a spoiled brat or a visit to the emergency room, with all of the guilt that accompanies such things.
 
Adults do this with each other as well, often with terrible consequences. We buy liquor for loved ones who are alcoholics, believing them when they say they can "handle it". We hope against hope that "this time they really mean it" when they promise to quit drinking, and we ignore the smell of alcohol on their breath. We turn a blind eye and call it "a delicate condition" that will magically disappear whenever the stress of the month goes away. We refuse to confront the truth – and we fail to speak the truth. In the meantime, our relationships with the alcoholic and with others are ruined. People are emotionally and physically destroyed.
 
The 19th-century German rabbi, Samson Raphael Hirsch, gets that insight from our parashah. He teaches that kindness and truth go together. Kindness without truth is harmful. Truth mediates kindness, keeping it from becoming enabling and destructive. That is why Abraham's servant recites the blessing that he does, for he realizes how truly blessed Abraham is. God has not only been kind to Abraham, God has been truthful. God did not withhold from Abraham the truth about Sodom and Gomorrah, or the truth about the binding of Isaac. Abraham trusted God to be truthful, and Abraham was truthful with God, so he had a holy relationship with God. We too need to be truthful as well as kind with our loved ones and friends. Then we too can have truly holy relationships with each other. Being truthful with the ones we love about their behavior is the way to prevent our intended kindnesses from leading to self-destruction.
 
Shabbat Shalom!
 
Richard A. Flom, Rabbi Emeritus
TBH/CBM
Sherman Oaks, CA
".איזה הוא חכם? הלומד מכל אדם"
Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.
Ben Zoma - Pirkei Avot 4:1
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HOSPITALITY

Parashat Vayera
Cheshvan 17, 5782 / October 22-23, 2021
Torah: Genesis 18:1 - 22:24
Haftarah: 2 Kings 4:1-37 (Ashkenazim; Sefardim read 4:1-23)

This d'var torah is offered for a refuah shleimah for Chanah Elisheva bat Minnie Leah, Feigel bat Kreina, and D'vorah bat Feigel. 

Lunch and Learn meets Tuesday at 12:30 PM on Zoom and Facebook Live. 
 
Check out our wonderful community, and get lots of info about becoming a Chaver and our various programs, at:
https://bnaihayim.org/ 
 
Rabbi Van Leeuwen has a blog which you should read at: 
https://rebjasonblog.wordpress.com/blog/ 

Please feel free to pass this on to a friend, and please cite the source.
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HOSPITALITY
 
“And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and here three men were standing before him; he saw and ran to them from the tent opening, and he bowed toward the ground.” Genesis 18:2

 
According to the Rabbis, Abraham was the paradigm of hospitality. One midrash has him being famous throughout the land for his treatment of guests. There is a Chasidic teaching which asks, why only Abraham, and not also his nephew Lot? After all, our parashah recounts that Lot also greeted and fed, and even protected, the same angels that first appeared to Abraham. The difference is in the details.

 
Abraham “ran” to greet them.  Lot “stood up” to meet them. Abraham offered them “a morsel”, but gave them a veritable feast of butter, milk, bread and meat (we’ll discuss the kashruth another time!) Lot “made a feast and baked matza” (the bread of poverty), implying that he promised a feast but gave them only crackers. These differences between Abraham and Lot are relatively unimportant when compared with this - Abraham saw “three men”; but “two angels” came to Lot .
 
Had he not known they were angels, Lot might have treated God’s messengers in the same way that everybody else in Sodom treated each other - with disrespect, if not downright contempt. Abraham, on the other hand, treated the messengers in a highly respectful if not downright holy way, even when he thought they were “merely” human beings. Now that’s the way to treat guests. There’s hospitality, and THERE’S HOSPITALITY!
 
Have a wonderful Shabbat!
 
Richard A. Flom, Rabbi Emeritus
TBH/CBM
Sherman Oaks, CA
".איזה הוא חכם? הלומד מכל אדם"
Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.
Ben Zoma - Pirkei Avot 4:1
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Cyber Torah list management (no salesman will call!):
To subscribe to Cyber Torah, send an e-mail with the subject heading “Subscribe Cyber Torah” to: ravflom@sbcglobal.net 
Send requests for dedications of Cyber Torah in honor of a simchah, in memory of a loved one or for a refuah shleimah to: ravflom@sbcglobal.net 
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A DEBT-FREE LIFE

Cheshvan 10, 5782 / October 15-16, 2021
Parashat Lekh L'kha
Torah: Genesis 12:1 - 17:27
Haftarah: Isaiah 40:27 - 41:16

This d'var torah is offered in memory of Lynn's cousin, Philip Kronzek, who passed away on Monday. Y'hi zikhro barukh.

This d'var torah is offered for a refuah shleimah for Chanah Elisheva bat Minnie Leah, Feigel bat Kreina, and D'vorah bat Feigel. 

Lunch and Learn meets Tuesday at 12:30 PM on Zoom and Facebook Live. 
 
Check out our wonderful community, and get lots of info about becoming a Chaver and our various programs, at:
https://bnaihayim.org/ 
 
Rabbi Van Leeuwen has a blog which you should read at: 
https://rebjasonblog.wordpress.com/blog/ 

Please feel free to pass this on to a friend, and please cite the source.
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A DEBT-FREE LIFE

'Then the king of Sodom said to Avram, "Give me the persons, and take the possessions for yourself." But Avram said to the king of Sodom, "I swear to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth: I will not take so much as a thread or a sandal strap of what is yours; you shall not say, 'It is I who made Avram rich.'"' Genesis 14:21-3. 

Our father Avram, soon to become Avraham, demonstrates here a characteristic which we will see again in two weeks, when he negotiates the purchase of a burial plot for Sarah. He does not want to be beholden to any person. He accepts no gifts, he pays retail. No human being can say to Avram/Avraham, "You owe me because of what I gave to you, because of the favors I did for you."

There seems to be a deeper meaning here. Rabbi Harold Kushner points out that the Hebrew word used for "persons" is "nefesh", which literally means "soul". Perhaps Avraham was being asked by the king of Sodom to sell his soul for material riches. (Compare Avraham with Lot, who moves to Sodom ostensibly because it has good pasturage) Interestingly, we are told (Exodus 31:17) that at the end of six days of creation, “(God) rested and was refreshed” – the word for refreshed is yinafash – the root of which is nefesh. Perhaps, when we work on Shabbat (except when we are at risk of losing our livelihood altogether), we are in a real way damaging or selling our souls.

On the other hand, no human being nor human desire can exercise control over Avraham, so he never has to compromise his principles. Avraham is debt-free. He is quite different from politicians who compromise their principles and sell their souls to the highest bidding donors, PACs, and special interest groups. The only one to whom Avraham owes his allegiance is God. Avraham recognizes that, whatever spiritual and material wealth he has, it has come from God, not from another human being. Would that we all could be as astute as he.

Shabbat Shalom!

Richard A. Flom, Rabbi Emeritus
TBH/CBM
Sherman Oaks, CA
".איזה הוא חכם? הלומד מכל אדם"
Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.
Ben Zoma - Pirkei Avot 4:1
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Send requests for dedications of Cyber Torah in honor of a simchah, in memory of a loved one or for a refuah shleimah to: ravflom@sbcglobal.net 
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SOMETHING OF VALUE

Parashat Noach
Torah: Genesis 6:9-11:32
Haftarah: Isaiah 54:1-55:5
Cheshvan 3, 5782 / October 8-9, 2021

This d'var torah is offered in memory of my uncle, Merwin Erenbaum, whose yahrzeit falls on Thursday, October 14, corresponding to 8 Cheshvan. Y'hi zikhro liv'rakhah - May his memory be a blessing.

This d'var torah is offered in memory of my zayde, Sam Flom, whose yahrzeit falls on Friday, October 15, corresponding to 9 Cheshvan. Y'hi zikhro liv'rakhah - May his memory be a blessing.

This d'var torah is offered for a refuah shleimah for Chanah Elisheva bat Minnie Leah, Feigel bat Kreina, and D'vorah bat Feigel. 

Lunch and Learn meets Tuesday at 12:30 PM on Zoom and Facebook Live. This week we're beginning our study of the classic Musar text "Mesillat Yesharim" (The Path of the Upright) by Rabbi Chaim Luzzatto. 
 
Check out our wonderful community, and get lots of info about becoming a Chaver and our various programs, at:
https://bnaihayim.org/ 
 
Rabbi Van Leeuwen has a blog which you should read at: 
https://rebjasonblog.wordpress.com/blog/ 

Please feel free to pass this on to a friend, and please cite the source.

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SOMETHING OF VALUE

 

"And they said, 'Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the world."' Genesis 11:4

Because of its title, we know that this week's parashah contains the story of Noah and the Flood. What gets forgotten by many of us is the other story in our parashah, concerning Migdal Bavel, the Tower of Babel. (Note: This is probably a legend referencing the Sumerian/Mesopotamian Great Ziggurat of Ur, in present day Iraq; Babylonia in late Biblical times) More than a mere explanation of the origin of the multitude of human languages and nations, our Rabbis tell us it is a cautionary tale, one with particular significance even, or perhaps especially in modern times.

In the Midrash, Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer, we are told, "The tower had seven ramps from the east and seven from the west. The bricks were hauled up from one side, and the descent was on the other. If a man fell down and died, no attention was paid to him. But if one brick fell down, they would sit and weep, saying, 'Woe is us. When will another be brought up in its place?'"

 

Although the people had the intelligence and the technical skill to erect a great building, and knew the value of things, they were completely lacking in moral values when it came to applying their wealth and knowledge to helping each other. They sought only to make a name for themselves, to assert their superiority over the world and over God. They cared nothing for the individual human being - the individual's worth was measured, if at all, only insofar as a person could contribute to the idolatrous undertaking.

 

We see this attitude all around us. Nations build nuclear weapons while their people starve. And who can forget the neutron bomb, designed to kill people but not destroy infrastructure? We conduct cost-benefit analyses and determine that it is better to continue building dangerously defective cars and pay settlements for the dead and injured than to spend money on building safer vehicles. We treat "human resources" as if they were fungible goods, like so many widgets or ten-a-penny nails, and dismiss thousands of people from their jobs with the stroke of a pen, all to meet analysts’ quarterly earnings expectations.
 
When human life is at stake, we should respond, "When will another be brought up in its place?" Otherwise, we neglect at the peril of our very souls the teaching of Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 - "one who destroys a single human life, it is as if he destroyed an entire world; and one who saves a single human life, it is as if he saved an entire world".

Shabbat Shalom.

Richard A. Flom, Rabbi Emeritus
TBH/CBM
Sherman Oaks, CA
".איזה הוא חכם? הלומד מכל אדם"
Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.
Ben Zoma - Pirkei Avot 4:1
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