Emotions
Friday night, December 8, 2023
Congregation Bnai Brith, Santa Barbara CA
Jews around the world are beginning to read this week one of the Torah’s best known and loved stories, the saga of Joseph and his brothers. The story opens in a storm of emotion. From the first moment we meet him, Joseph is the object of both excessive love and intense hate.
His father Jacob loved Joseph more than all the rest of his sons. Maybe because he was born to him when Jacob was old, and Joseph helped his elderly father continue to live with self-respect as he faced the indignities of old age. Perhaps because Joseph paid close attention when Jacob spoke to the family about God, the great invisible Presence in his life, and the covenant of his grandfather Abraham. Or maybe simply because Joseph was the firstborn son of Rachel, the only wife Jacob had ever loved.
Whatever the reasons, Jacob loved Joseph and he gave him a coat of many colors as a sign of his love. Then Joseph’s brothers hated Joseph. The Torah uses the same word three times. Vayisn’u oto. They hated him. They saw the coat of many colors and they hated him. Joseph dreamt a dream and told it to his brothers. Then, before we even hear the dream the Torah says: v’yosifu od sno oto. They hated him even more. V’yosifu. Even more. The word yosifu is connected to Joseph’s name Yosef: His name means “even more.” Then he tells his dream: “Guys! Listen to this dream I dreamt! We were binding sheaves in a field and behold, my sheaf stood up! And behold, your sheaves gathered round, and bowed down to my sheaf!”
Three thousand years later, reading this story, we can only shake our heads and ask: “Oy, Joseph, why was it so important to you to tell your brothers that dream?” And the Torah then says a third time: v’yosifu od sno oto, all chalomotav v’al dvarav. They hated him even more, for his dreams and for his words.
This haunting word linked to Joseph’s name, yosifu, even more, speaks to us of the way that emotions intensify and spread. Love, hate, fear, hope, anger, joy… all of these primary emotions…they do not hold still. They grow, they spread. The way light and color spread across the sky at dawn. Or the way thunderclouds gather, and darken the sky.
Yosifu… even more. V’yosifu… even more. The brothers’ hatred grows, more and more intense. Until at last it bursts forth in a torrent of violence, a stunning scene of fratricide. The brothers see Joseph approaching from a distance, and they say to each other: “Here comes that dreamer; let us kill him and throw him into a pit. Then we will see what becomes of his dreams.” When he comes to them, they strip off his coat of many colors, throw him into a pit, and they dip his coat in the blood of a goat. And then, having vented all of their pent-up hatred of their brother, they sit down to eat.
With just a few words, and a scene of wild, animal-like violence, the Torah conveys a timeless and universal truth about the way hatred grows, like anger, like fear, like love, like hope. Our emotions grow and spread. V’yosifu. V’yosifu. Even more. Even more. We know this. This story is for us, right now. We are living in a time of rapidly spreading anger and fear and hatred. In Israel, in Gaza, on our university campuses, on our television screens, on the internet. V’yosifu, v'yosifu. Even more. Even more.
For every caring person, October 7 poses impossible dilemmas. Do we gaze into the abyss of that day, bearing witness to the depraved evil of Hamas and to the suffering of our women, our children, our elderly? How do we bear witness without becoming consumed with anger, with fear and hatred? This week I found that the Israeli newspaper HaAretz has posted the photos and names of nearly all of the 1,200 who were killed on October 7, and of each of the soldiers who has died in battle. Scrolling through the faces of all of those beautiful young people, I was overcome with my own expanding grief. Yosifu. V’yosifu.
And what shall we say about the devastation of Gaza? Thousands and thousands dead, so many lives destroyed, so many children killed, wounded and traumatized. This war was started by Hamas, and in war, civilians die. But we know that this war to eradicate the evil of Hamas is sowing seeds of hatred for our people for generations to come. Yosifu v’yosifu. Even more. Even more. Should we watch and mourn, or do we turn away?
Tonight is Hanukkah, our festival of light and of miracles. We need light right now, and we could use a miracle. Maybe Hanukkah can help.
Last Sunday morning, in preparation for Hanukkah, we held an assembly with the children of our Netivot Jewish Learning Program. The Cantor was leading about 125 kids through a song session, featuring old classics like Maoz Tzur and the Hanukkah candle blessings, and “O Hanukkah, O Hanukkah, Come light the Menorah” and as one might expect, some of the kids were singing along, and others were talking with their friends, and the teachers were shushing the loudest ones, and it felt like business as usual. Until we came to the last song. “I Have a Little Dreidl.” Suddenly every kid was singing, at the top of their lungs, and the room had come alive. I sat there singing along and wondering “what is going on? Why do they love this song so much?”
I have been spinning dreidls since I was a little boy and somehow it never gets old. For me, it is not about the letters on the sides, and not about putting in and taking all or taking half. It is the spinning dreidl itself, which we put it into motion and it becomes alive and spinning, until it wobbles and then finally drops. The Hasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, in Ukraine 200 years ago, taught that the entire universe is a spinning dreidl and our spinning dreidl teaches us that what looks and feels so fixed, and dead and lifeless, can actually become alive and beautiful and completely unpredictable… until it drops and waits to be put into motion again.
Earlier this week, I received a newsletter from the Jewish feminist Letty Cottin Pogrebin, in most of which she rages against the silence in the international feminist community about the brutal sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women by Hamas on October 7th. At the very end she concludes with a section entitled A Glimmer of Hope for the Future. There she writes “When you feel overwhelmed by despair, take a look” and she links to a recorded webinar hosted by the organization Eretz L’Kulam, A Land for All, entitled “An Israeli-Palestinian Conversation on Pain, Hope, and a New Political Vision.”
Marian and I sat together and watched the whole thing. For one hour, we watched and heard three smart, powerful, eloquent Israelis and Palestinians arguing for a radical, new approach to living together, side by side in peace and cooperation. I had heard in recent years about the idea of a confederation between a Jewish and a Palestinian state. But I had never paid enough attention to consider it. Now, in the midst of this disaster, it seems that everyone agrees that we need new thinking. Somebody needs to pick up the dreidl, and to set it spinning.
The passionate, visionary leaders of Eretz L’Kulam, A Land for All, are meeting with each other, Jews and Palestinians. There are fourteen on their Board of Directors, seven Jews and seven Palestinians. They are meeting every week now. Even with the war raging in Gaza. Even as the people of Israel are still deeply traumatized. They are courageously setting the dreidl in motion. I find their vision surprising, and inspiring, and unpredictable and beautiful. Just like a spinning dreidl. I want to learn more about Eretz L’kulam, A Land for All.
Finally, we come to the central symbol of Hanukkah, the Hanukkah menorah. Tonight we lit the second candle of Hanukkah. Tomorrow there will be three candles, and so on until after a full week of lighting, our menorah is completely ablaze with light.
For me, the menorah ritual holds a single profound symbolic meaning. Just as fear and anger and hatred can spread…so too can light, and hope and love. Our emotions do not hold still, they grow and spread. In a world of rapidly spreading darkness and hatred, light also can spread and intensify. Hope grows and deepens. Courage spreads. Love deepens.
Each night, we add one candle. Maalin bik’dusha. We increase in holiness. As we move forward as a community, let us light new lamps. Of kindness, of peace and understanding. Hope grows. Courage is contagious. Together, we can set the night ablaze with light. Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach.