Sermon Archives

Truth Telling

Many years ago when we only had one child and he was only six months old a wise mentor said to me, “it’s such a special age when they are too young for you to be angry at them.”

I had no idea what she meant. Like any parent of an infant I had experienced being exhausted and overwhelmed and frustrated amidst the joy and nachas of parenthood, but not only had I never been angry at our baby I couldn’t understand how that was an emotion that could ever intrude into a loving parent-child relationship. (Of course I remembered being angry at my parents; but that is totally different).

But, of course, it’s possible to be angry at people we love and it’s possible to admire someone and also notice their flaws, and a truthful accounting of the past does not preclude a strong relationship going forward.

Parashat Vayehi is filled with truth telling and it is filled with moments of real holiness. And those moments are one and the same; the truth-telling, the realness of the relationships, is what makes these moments so holy..

The heart of the parasha are the predictions for the future that Yaakov provides for his sons, often referred to as blessings that he bestows on them. As blessings, many of them come up short. As a loving act of truth telling, they provided guidance to Yaakov’s children and to their children and to us up until this very day. As a parent, Yaakov sees his children, with all their flaws and their strengths, and he isn’t afraid to name them. We love our children and we embrace all of their attributes, and Yaakov makes this clear as he goes son by son and calls each situation as he sees it. 

On Thursday night our brief Zoom “Topics for Discussion” Zoom class focused on an earlier exchange in the parasha,when Yaakov blesses and adopts Efraim and Menashe and imposes an oath on Yosef that he will see to it that Yaakov is buried in Eretz Yisrael and alongside the patriarchs and matriarch in Hevron. 

In the middle of this dialogue there is a seemingly unrelated interjection:

וַאֲנִ֣י ׀ בְּבֹאִ֣י מִפַּדָּ֗ן מֵ֩תָה֩ עָלַ֨י רָחֵ֜ל בְּאֶ֤רֶץ כְּנַ֙עַן֙ בַּדֶּ֔רֶךְ בְּע֥וֹד כִּבְרַת־אֶ֖רֶץ לָבֹ֣א אֶפְרָ֑תָה וָאֶקְבְּרֶ֤הָ שָּׁם֙ בְּדֶ֣רֶךְ אֶפְרָ֔ת הִ֖וא בֵּ֥ית לָֽחֶם׃

As for me,  when I was returning from Paddan, Rachel died, to my sorrow, while I was journeying in the land of Canaan, when still some distance short of Ephrath; and I buried her there on the road to Ephrath”—now Bethlehem.

According to Rashi, Yaakov is apologizing for asking Yosef to bury him in his family burial plot despite not having brought Yosef’s mother  Rachel to a proper burial place:

וְאַעַ"פִּ שֶׁאֲנִי מַטְרִיחַ עָלֶיךָ לְהוֹלִיכֵנִי לְהִקָּבֵר בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן, וְלֹא כָךְ עָשִׂיתִי לְאִמְּךָ, שֶׁהֲרֵי מֵתָה סָמוּךְ לְבֵית לֶחֶם:

Even though I am imposing this task on you to bring me to burial in Canaan I did not do this for your mother…

Ibn Ezra has Yaakov explaining himself:

שמתה פתאום, ולא יכולתי להוליכה לקברה במערה כאשר קברתי לאה

Because Rachel died unexpectedly there was no opportunity to arrange for an appropriate burial. Yaakov is trying to stave off Yosef’s anger and resentment by explaining the circumstances of Rachel’s burial.

Participants in our Zoom class added a lot of depth to our discussion. Sarah Gershman fleshed out Rashi’s interpretation and gave it added emotional force by suggesting that Yaakov’s apology was an expression of regret and also a warning to Yosef not to make the same mistake. According to her read, Yaakov is saying to Yosef, “I buried my beloved wife in a quick and convenient location and I have regretted it ever since. Don’t make that mistake. Invest the time and effort in giving me the burial that I want. It will be better for you that way.”

Ann Levenson, who joined the Zoom call from Chicago, suggested, in the spirit of Ibn Ezra, that Yaakov was helping Yosef to see that the unexpected and tragic nature of Rachel’s death was linked to the hasty and unideal burial that she received. It is as if Yaakov is saying, “I never had the benefit of this sort of conversation with Rachel because she died so young, our opportunity to discuss plans for my burial is a gift.”

This is a very holy conversation. All of the conversations in Parashat Vayehi are holy conversations. They are about truth. They are about the awareness of death. They are about apologies and regret and forgiveness and reconciliation. They are real. 

As a rabbi, I am often in the position to have holy conversations with people - conversations about life and death, about the flaws of a spouse or a child, about big hard changes in life. Yaakov’s modeling of these kinds of conversations reminds us that they can’t stay in the realm of private discussions with a rabbi. 

A shul also needs to be a place where holy conversations can take place and where we can be real. We moderns invest so much energy into portraying ourselves to others as happy and successful and charming that we can lose the spaces for sincerity. If a shul is a kehila kedosha, a holy congregation, it needs to be the sort of space where we can talk to one another with honesty and where we can be honest with ourselves. We think that reciting blessings in shul is about the good and happy blessings, and those are important, but we need truth-telling blessings too. 

There is a psychoanalyst who published a paper on why ostensibly observant Orthodox Jews talk so much during times of tefilah when talking is forbidden by Halakhah. The author suggests that talking is a way to avoid confronting the big existential questions that are evoked by every page of the siddur or chumash. I’ve thought the same dynamic might explain why people doze off or schmooze or even leave the sanctuary during the Haftarah. Somehow I always need to use the restroom right when the Haftarah starts. But I wonder if we were to pay attention to the words of the prophets, whose truth can cut through iron, how could we live with the cognitive dissonance of their demand for ethical excellence and the compromises many of us have made over the years that might not be able to withstand scrutiny.

I’ve shared with some of you the story that I heard from Rabbi Hershel Cohen z’l, whose entire rabbinic career was as the associate rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue. He was approached by an agitated mourner during shiva who was upset that another man from the shul had paid a condolence visit and was davening at the shivah home. “Last week, when my parent was still alive and I was desperately praying for their recovery, this guy was chatting all through the Misheberakh for Holim and now I don’t want him in my home.” I’ve remembered this story for over twenty five years because it so vividly  illustrates how a good person, who wants to be a caring friend, can inadvertently cause great pain to someone at a moment when they are most vulnerable. 

If a shul is a sacred community, a kehila kedosha, then there are people who are here not because this is the Jewish equivalent of a country club, but because they are hurting and want the comfort of standing alongside their community in the presence of God. We can never know what the person standing next to us in shul is experiencing or why they are fearful or sad or anxious - and sometimes, we need to ask.

Sometimes we do have some idea of what someone is experiencing, and even then it’s not uncommon for people to chat with a neighbor just steps away from someone reciting Mourner's Kaddish. I do not believe this behavior is motivated by malice or because we are callous or uncaring. I do think it is a defense mechanism. Better to share a joke with my friend than listen to the Mourner's Kaddish and think about the next time I might be called upon to recite it, or when someone might be called upon to recite it on my behalf. 

But as Yaakof reminded Yosef, the opportunity to talk about hard or awkward subjects, like the death of loved ones or regrets from decades ago, is actually a blessing. Parashat Vayehi is filled with holy moments and we can apply its lessons to fill our lives with holy moments as well. 

Tefilah can be an opportunity for hard conversations with God, and the shul community should be a place where we are open to truthful conversations with others whether at kiddush or before or after davening or over a Shabbat meal or a walk in the forest. 

The relationships are more real and the tefilah more authentic if we daven together remembering that we come to shul with our pain and brokenness alongside our joy and satisfaction. A kehilah kedosha hosts true tefilah betzibur which is - not just people in a room davening simultaneously,  but tefilah that unites all of the experiences and emotions of a multitude of people into a common voice.