Make Your Decisions Carefully (Parshat Toldot)

When  I was asked to write a Dvar Torah for Parshat Toldot, two memories came to mind:

 The first, was from when I was in forth grade, at Solomon Schechter of Bergen County, in New Milford, New Jersey. For certain Parshiot, we were assigned to do a project, Parshat Toldot was mine. I made my mother’s Tomato Lentil soup (with a lot of help) for my class. 

The second memory is about what would happen every time my mother made tomato lentil soup: 

My mother's tomato lentil soup is quite famous (at least among family friends), and due to my mother’s fairly intensive work schedule it was only ever made for Shabbat. In fact, on Friday afternoons, instead of eating (insert your normal snack food name here) for snack after school, my brother and I would occasionally bargain with her for the ability to have her tomato lentil soup before Shabbat dinner. We would say something like, “Sure, we’ll clean our rooms!”, “Of course we will set the table!”. After enjoying our snack, we would run off, promises forgotten. That is until about 20 minutes before Shabbat, when we would be called on to make good on our promises. “What do you mean, I said I would clean my room?!”, When did I promise to set the table?!”. We (usually) made good on these promises, our reluctance apparent to anyone observing. 

In the case of my family, we never made a promise as big as, “I will give you my birthright for your freshly made soup” (as if we have such extravagant birthrights to bargain with!). On a fantastically apropos side note, my brother’s name is Yaakov, and he is younger then me. 

I believe that the Torah is a guide to establishing personal moral code. Much of the narrative that appears does not always portray our central figures as upstanding human beings. I would propose that stories such as this one with Yaakov and Esav illustrates the type of moral stories found in Biblical narrative, things you should not be doing. From this story, I learned that there are some things you don’t bargain with and you should not make promises you cannot follow though with. It is also important to carefully weigh decisions, especially financial ones! When people make rash decisions that seem great in the short term, they may ultimately be problematic at a later time.

Fitting with Pardes tradition, I will end this Dvar Torah with a blessing: I want to bless us, me too why not, to have the clarity to make decisions carefully and to not make promises we cannot keep, no matter how small.

By the way, the recipe comes from The Cranks Vegetarian Cook Book, Cranks is a restaurant in the UK, in fact the first vegetarian restaurant in the UK, founded in the 1960’s. http://www.cranks.co.uk/

Setting My Goals For The Year

During orientation for the program I am in at Pardes (part of the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators), we were challenged to set goals for ourselves for the year. I was a bit apprehensive about doing this at first, and put it off until now for the following reasons. The first month at Pardes was a rush of orientation, meeting new people, and holidays, with only a little bit of time left to get used to the rhythm of learning at Pardes. I wanted to see what I was in for in my classes, before I set goals for myself. This second month has been entirely focused on getting used to the rhythm of learning at Pardes, which was a bit overwhelming at times.

On Friday afternoon, I set my goals while walking from the Nahalat Shiv'a area back to my Apartment (about 40 minutes). I want to tell you my goals, especially everyone learning at Pardes, because I see an opportunity for all of us to support each other in reaching our goals for the year.

 There are a couple of categories that I needed to establish before I could articulate my goals. They broke down into the categories of academic, professional and personal.

There is definitely overlap. For example, Hebrew and leading services are both professional and personal.     

My Academic Goals:

I will finish what is assigned for Chavruta (work you do with a partner) each day. 

I will memorize the list of verbs that appear in the Tanach x amount of times, and finally master those of the concepts in Biblical grammar that I am still foggy about.

I will get beyond my stumbling blocks when it comes to reading Hebrew out loud. I knew coming into Pardes that reading out loud in Hebrew is an area in which I need improvement. Besides working with a tutor for half an hour a week, I am going to spend about an hour in the Beit Midrash (the big room where we do our learning) after school working on this, three times a week. So if you see me reading out loud to myself, now you'll know why.

    

My Professional Goal(s):

I will continue to hone my skills as an educator. This will be achieved through working with a mentor and participating in peer teaching. For this I have to thank the PCJE team for working with us to make it happen, peer teaching was not originally part of the program.  

I will finally make a decision about what grade(s) I want to work with.

  

My Personal goals:

I will speak Hebrew for a minimum of one hour a week (hopefully more!).

The relatively immediate goal is that I will lead pesukey De'Zimra (preliminary morning blessings) at community davening and in the egalitarian service at Pardes. This ties in to my “reading Hebrew out loud” goal. I started with reading these blessings out loud, there are some seriously tongue twisting words involved. 

Next is that I will learn to lead Shacharit (literally the morning service)

Parallel to these is that, I will read torah by the end of the year. This I am learning to do in a class.

All are things that want to take on for myself, and are necessary for a Jewish educator.

The following are goals of well being. These are also what are going to make it possible to achieve my academic and professional goals:

I will walk for at least one hour a day, if anyone wants to join me, they are more than welcome. More than anything I am struggling with sitting in the Beit Midrash and class all day long. Exercise is not only good for you physically, it also releases endorphins which relieves stress.    

I will go to The Open Studio (Avigayle Adler's studio) at least once a month, again, if anyone wants to join me, they are more than welcome. I miss being artistic, and this also is a stress reliever. 

 Even though this is not a Devar Torah, I want to give everyone a blessing, me to, why not, that we are  all able to achieve the goals that we set for ourselves and if the opportunity presents itself to help others achieve their goals as well.

The melody I could not recall

 For the past couple of years, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I have been attending this Minyan  (service, today, this word is often used for groups who pray together but are not affiliated with a movement of Judaism) called Koleinu, at my parents synagogue. One year, before Rosh Hashanah, they has a workshop to teach new tunes that would be incorporated into the service. Everything that was taught was really beautiful. However, there was one melody that really stuck with me. This year, as Rosh Hashanah approached, I tried to remember that melody, and I just could not. I was very troubled by this because I usually have a very good memory for music.

Yesterday, I attended Sod Siach, a Minyan, that reminds me of the one from home. All of the sudden, a melody that the person leading us used, triggered the memory of the forgotten melody. As soon as I was outside again, walking home, I began singing the melody so I would not forget it. Then I sang it as I gathered what I was bringing to lunch, and on the way to lunch, I sang it while sitting in the park, and later, while taking a walk on "the rakevet" (a park that connects many neighborhoods in Jerusalem, which runs along the old train tracks). Finally, after Shabbat, I sat down and recorded myself singing it so I would not forget. My hope is that I can soon share this melody with my community at Pardes. Shavuah Tov everyone!