Podcast #71: Parashat Nasso

Two friends, Shalom and Shlomo, are having a conversation on Zoom. They discuss Parashat Nassau, the longest parasha in the Torah, and its connection to life's burdens. They talk about their personal journeys and the importance of accepting and carrying burdens well. They also mention the power of technology and the significance of being Jewish outside of Israel. They discuss the choices we make and the burdens we create for ourselves. They mention songs that capture the idea of carrying burdens and helping others with theirs. They also touch on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the importance of taking responsibility rather than playing the victim. Shalom Elisha. Shalom Shlomo. It's good to see you. I know you're in America right now. I'm in Israel. Thanks to Zoom we can continue our podcast. Thanks to Zoom we can continue our podcast. So for you it's now, what, 5 o'clock in the morning? Yes, exactly. And I'm in Westboro, which is close to Boston, visiting Shalom's sister and family. And we're discussing Parashat Nassau just after Shavuot, the Zman Matan Torah. We have received the Torah and Parashat Nassau is two-thirds of the way through the Torah. Amazing. We've gone two-thirds of the way already. And Nassau is the longest parasha in the whole Torah. It's 2,284 words with a lot of interesting things in it. And we're discussing the drashah that you wrote in Vayeka. And the title of your drashah is, May We Bear Our Life's Burdens Well. It's a bit of a play on words, right? Because massah is mem samach aleh, which is a burden, a burden that we all bear. And massah mem samach ayin is a journey. So it's life's journey and life's burden. And they sound the same, and they are the same, because our journey definitely is in a sense, in a sense of burden. Yeah, isn't that interesting? It's really interesting. And I have to tell you, I'm just like in awe, but in your background, even though you're in Massachusetts, I'm seeing the Golden Gate Bridge in your, the picture in your background. And I just want to tell you that where you're sitting in the picture, as if you were actually there, is where I lived for about five years. Just pretty much like walking distance from the picture that we're seeing right now in a small town called Sausalito, which is right on the other side, on this side where you're sitting of the Golden Gate Bridge. So it's really fun to see you sitting with the Golden Gate Bridge behind you, even though I know you're not there. Just amazing the power of technology, because I feel like I'm talking to you as you're sitting there on the mountains overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. And I'm thinking to myself, because of the theme, my journey took me to America as an Israeli, and brought me back home as a Jew. I was converted, so to speak, to traditional Judaism in the Bay Area, in America, and decided, just using the theme of our conversation today, it was there, the picture in the background was there, that I took upon myself the burden of Jewish law, mitzvot. So really fitting, this background. By the way, sometimes technology takes over our lives, Elisha. I didn't choose this background. I soon decided that it's suitable for me to have the Golden Gate Bridge as my background, without me having any say in the matter. And I'm technically challenged, so I have no idea how to change it. So it's fine. It's fine. But in regard to your journey, Elisha, I experienced something the same. We've been on sabbatical many times in the U.S. The religion, the Jewish religion, is far more powerful and important when you're outside of Israel. When you're in Israel, you live the Jewish life, right? And it's somehow less crucial. But when you're abroad, it's part of your identity, and you need the religion, the tefillah, the v'knesset, the congregation, you need that in order to affirm your identity. It's interesting that this occurred to you in California rather than in Israel. It's not a coincidence. Absolutely. It's not a coincidence. It's not a coincidence, which is kind of, even though it's not exactly our theme, it's not our theme at all, but it's connected. I think that's why we have journeys, like Massah with Sam Bechayim. We have journeys because it's when we travel away from home, we learn things when we go into exile, so to speak. I don't want to, God forbid, say that America is exile. It's a diaspora. But nevertheless, when we go out into exile, suddenly we discover new realms about ourselves, about what matters, about life. And I'm grateful for the gift that America gave me, that American Jews gave me, this beautiful gift of Masorti Judaism. Well, we're grateful to America for giving you the gift because we've got a great spiritual leader. So, Elisha, you make an interesting connection in your drashah, and the connection is between Parashat Nassau and Breishit and Cain and Abel. And in the story of Cain and Abel, just before Cain kills his brother, he is told by God, if you bear your burden, this is what the commentators say, as you note in your drashah, if you bear your burden well, then you will thrive. You will be okay. And it's a matter of where you put the comma. It's really cool. There are no commas in the Torah. We get to put the commas. And it's really crucial, as you note, where you put the comma. So, Elisha, you creatively remove the comma and translate or interpret Halot Y'tetiv Set in the following way, if you bear your burden well, dot, dot, dot. So, you take the comma out and you put in the dot, dot, dot. And the dot, dot, dot is, well, if you bear your burden well, no, maybe good things will happen. In my experience, Elisha, there are two burdens. There's a burden that life dumps on you. It can be ill health, financial problems, many things, and we all have those burdens. My experience has been, Elisha, we human beings, we create our burdens that need not happen. We create them by being human. It's part of life. And I think one part of bearing the burden of life well is accepting the burdens that are dumped on us, and we all have them, and not creating our own problems. If we could only do that, war is an example. War is a human creation, and it's lose, lose. And it's just a disastrous failure done by human beings who just don't get it. Right, right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a tough one. So, there are two kinds of burdens. There are burdens that life places on us, our genetic makeup as we were born, our parents are bringing on a deep spiritual sense. There are many who claim that we chose that too. But let's stay on a simple spiritual level, where let's say these burdens were not of our choosing. And then there are burdens that were created through our choices. I still believe though that every choice we make, at any given moment, we've discussed this before, at any given moment, we always do the best that we can. We choose bad, make bad choices sometimes, and create really bad burdens. But at the time when we made that choice, I don't think we wanted to harm ourselves or others. I think it's really the best that we knew how to do. And then that turns into a burden, and we need to be able to either choose again, make a new choice, and there's always a price to pay for choices. Always. It's never priceless. And then if you choose otherwise, then there's going to be a new burden. Every choice creates a burden. So, and all we're asked to do here is to carry our burden well, to be able to carry our burden. I'm also writing this list of Rasha on this theme, so I'll try and make it different. Yes, I know you're fond of music and songs, Elisha, and use them very effectively. I wonder if you remember the Beatles song from 1969. Amazing song, it's called Boy, You Gotta Carry That Weight. Good for you. Okay, so you're with it. Carry that weight, carry that weight a long time. Boy, you gotta carry that weight, carry that weight a long time. That's the whole work, the whole lyric. And it has to do in 1969 with the Beatles' struggles, with people who are trying to take advantage of them, and a heavy burden, a heavy burden on them. But it captures it. It captures that we need to carry that weight. And there's another song, I bet you know it as well, which is You Ain't Heavy, You're My Brother, which is about not only our own burden, but we carry the burden of others very often, or help them with that burden. In the Army, we both went through the experience of carrying a stretcher with some heavy weight on it for quite a distance, to teach us about bearing the weight of our wounded fellows and not leaving them behind. Yeah. So, Elisha. It's so interjectionous, and it's beautiful what you brought in the song, because it really is what he's saying in the song, it ain't heavy, he's my brother. So, if something is heavy or not, it depends what kind of, what meaning we give to it. Exactly. And I'm astonished at parents, for example, who have a child with CF, with cystic fibrosis, for example, or with autism, and they bear the burden so beautifully, Elisha, and so well, and take such amazing care. In your Rasha, you use a wonderful metaphor of card game. So, when we're born, we're dealt a deck of cards, and some people have a full deck, and some people don't even have a two, and we have to deal with our cards, with the deck of cards that we're given. And in poker, Elisha, life is a poker game. There are skilled poker players who are dealt a weak hand, and they bluff it through and win the hand, because they bear their burden really well, and make the most of their cards. If only we could all learn to deal with the cards that we're given, rather than complain. I must say some of our enemies in the region are very good at complaining about the terrible deck they've been given, rather than simply take it and make the best of it. And if they would only do that, their people would be so much better off, and we in Israel, we would help, and we can help, but we're not given the opportunity. Yeah, I'm glad you brought this up. I think that's the That's the core, I think that's the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Nothing to do with who kicked out who, and whose land it is. It's all about victim mentality, versus carrying one's weight mentality. And indeed, it's really amazing how, how I think not only in the Middle East, and not only in Hamas and the Palestinians, have refused, refused to carry their burden. But first of all, they dumped their burden on the whole entire world. The world is pouring, it has been pouring so much money into West Bank and Gaza, and Gaza even more than the West Bank, so much money has been poured into it. And when someone is not willing to carry the burden, and create a beautiful life for oneself, but prefers to be poor me, and be a victim, and accused all the time, when life could be so beautiful, really so incredibly beautiful, when a culture prefers death and victimhood over thriving, then you get what you get right now. And I'm looking at the very progressive, at the extreme progressive left in America and in Europe, and they are just buying into it, and it's so pathetic. It's really pathetic how brainwashed people could be about victimhood, instead of just turning around and saying, you know, look at the Jews, look at how they were dealt really difficult cards. Right after the Holocaust, the worst deck of cards that people could possibly have, they got their act together and created a most amazing, amazing state. You were never in such a state as the Jewish people, and there was always so much more money poured in your direction, and you did nothing with that. You preferred keeping your people in refugee camps. You preferred lying to yourself and to the world. So yes, yes, yes, yes. And I have a little, another little story, a fresh, fresh story. I think as people might know, you were also, you and Sharon were very involved in that. The Masorti movement in Israel has a beautiful program, Bar Mitzvah, for kids with special needs, like very, very special needs. Kids who were dealt a very challenging deck of cards, and parents who were dealt a very challenging deck of cards. So right before joining our Zoom call, we had the rehearsal for the Bar Mitzvah that's going to take place next week. This time it's only one kid, usually it's between three, four, sometimes five kids in one ceremony. Now it's only one kid, this huge, huge, beautiful, beautiful kid. And it's really interesting because he was joined by his adoptive father, now it's not even adoptive, it's omnah, how do you say omnah in English? Oh yes, a foster father. A foster father, exactly. This kid and his sister, they were pretty much, their biological parents could not take care of them, so they were not given up for adoption, but they were given out to a foster family. And these two people, these two lovely people, took them in as foster parents, and I thought to myself, how amazing, you know, just the father was here, the foster mother was not here, just the foster father was here. He said, he personally told us that the birth father may come to the ceremony next week, maybe not, and if he will come, then the foster father will be totally on the side, his name is not going to even be mentioned, you know, the birth father is going to be given all the attention and all the kvod, all the honors in the Aliyah Ratoa, but if he doesn't show up, and that's okay, the foster father and the foster mother, they're going to be there as the kid's parents. So I thought to myself, financially speaking, this is not a good deal. If anyone thinks that people do it for the money, no way. I've learned a bit about it, and people don't get a lot of money for being foster parents, they get some assistance and some help, and they really carry the burden, and they choose it. They choose this burden, they can unload this burden any day, they can unbecome foster parents at any moment, and they don't, and they don't. And not only are they foster parents, but they're foster parents to a kid with severe, severe special needs. And when I realized that he's the foster father, and how he was so graciously willing to say, you know, if the biological father's here, I'm stepping aside. If he's not, I'll be there to carry the burden. So some amazing, these people inspire me tremendously, and I watch these people, and I think to myself, you know, what have I done in my life? You know, what have I done in my life compared to what these guys do? I think that is amazing, Alicia. It's one thing to have a burden of a child who was born handicapped, with disabilities, but to choose a burden of a child when it isn't your child, simply to help carry somebody else's burden, that's an amazing part of life. That is Jewish, but we accept the burden, helping to carry the burden of our fellow man, because it's simply the right thing to do. And speaking about burden, Alicia, your incredible dressage mentions the burden of Queen Elizabeth, and I find that remarkable, that connection, just to explain. So I grew up in Canada. Canada was a dominion, a colony of Britain for a long time, and we accepted the queen as our former leader, and I remember when this young woman, 25 years old, 1952, King George, died suddenly of a heart attack, her father, and she became queen at the age of 25. I can't imagine accepting that burden at such an early age. She made a wonderful speech in South Africa and said, I am devoting my life to serving the people. She's given this really hard burden, and she accepted and just slid into it so beautifully, and for her whole life, she lived well into her 90s, she accepted this burden. But the connection you make is with a film called The Queen, and it's a wonderful film, and it's about a week in the life of the queen when Princess Diana was killed with her boyfriend in a terrible car accident in the tunnel between England and France. The car was smashed, the driver probably was inebriated, and Queen Elizabeth didn't react, didn't respond immediately. Diana was divorced from Prince Charles, her son, and there was some friction between her and the royal family, and Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, pressed the queen, say something, show the people. The people were very fond of Princess Diana, very, very upset with the queen that there was no sign of real mourning, and eventually, after a week, Tony Blair prevailed, and the queen did make a very touching and moving speech. But the film is amazing about this burden of leadership of the queen, who is a symbol of everything that's important in Britain, and how she has to respond to a crisis with dignity, with thoughtfulness, taking into account all kinds of pressures, and it's a burden she didn't choose, and she bore it well for her entire life, until the very end. Yes, yes, and it's an amazing, amazing film, it really is, because it starts off, the sentiment that one has when watching this movie, at first, is like, is anger towards the queen, is resentment, like, come on, say something, you're so cold, you're so, so you didn't love Diana, but hey, the people need you, so yalla, do something, and Tony Blair, he's the up-and-coming prime minister, he's young, and by the end of the movie, you have a whole new sentiment, all of a sudden there's this admiration for the queen, and how she carries herself through that week, how she carries the burden, how she carries herself with so much dignity and so much respect, and since the queen, you know, it's not a personal thing, the queen is a symbol, so the people, it's not as if, it doesn't really matter if the queen, is she nice, is she not nice, is she a pleasant person or not, it doesn't matter, she is a symbol, and as such, the way she carries herself is really knowing that she is a symbol, and she needs to inspire the entire people, and her inspiration, I think I learned from her, you know, not that I always do it, but I learned from her the value of don't rush, don't rush to respond, don't rush to to talk, wait, yes, everybody's waiting for your words, yes, you know, everybody's grieving right now, and yes, there's a young and upcoming and very popular prime minister who's getting all the attention, but take your time, take your time, and then when the time is ripe, and the time is right, that's when you can come out and say what you want to say, and with a lot of dignity, and I think the watchers, the people who are watching the movie, the spectators, the watchers, however it's called in English, are really inspired by the way she carries herself through this whole entire thing, for her entire life, and for her entire life, yes, yes, Alisha, I think we may end here, we have the Hebrew to do, and need to download the file, so perhaps we will end, I will download the file, save it, and I will recontact you on a separate Zoom, and we'll do our Hebrew podcast, so Alisha, thanks, and we'll speak very shortly. And I'll also thank you for getting up so early in the morning, at four thirty in the morning, and thank you for all the great minds who created Zoom and technology, and helping us carry the burden of life. I join you in that, thank you, thank you, Zoom. Okay, Alisha, I'll see you in 10 minutes. Terrific, lead to the laws, and bye everyone. Bye, goodbye everyone.