Oh, my! What a book.

The Secret History of Las Vegas: A Novel by Chris Abani

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Oh, my!  What a book.  With principal characters which include a South African psychiatrist, an assassin, a law enforcement officer who urinates in public and builds beautiful model ships, a prostitute, and conjoined twins one would reasonably wonder how Chris Abani could possibly tie it all together.  And yet, he does just that with grace and depth.



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Torah Thoughts on Chukkat

If Moses could come back and review his life for us, he might say that this week’s Torah portion, Chukkat (Num. 19:1 – 22:1) recounts the hardest times he ever had.  The opening verse of chapter 20 brings news of the death of his sister Miriam and verses 25 through 28 of that same chapter tell about the death of his brother Aaron, high priest of the Israelite people.

It is heart-rending to lose a brother or sister, but Moses has lost more than that.  He has lost the members of his team in the leadership of the Israelites. Miriam has been looking out for Moses from his babyhood, following his progress down the river in the basket of bulrushes to be sure that he lands safely in the arms of Pharaoh’s daughter, and she is with him as he brings the people out of Egypt through the sea of Reeds.  Aaron took care of the spiritual needs of the people as Moses tended to their strategic and political needs.  Now Moses must look to the next generation for his partners.  In the final verses of the chapter, God commands Moses to take Aaron and Aaron’s eldest son Eleazar up Mount Hor, strip Aaron of his priestly vestments and place them on Eleazar.  Aaron dies on the mountain and Moses and Eleazar descend together.  How must it have felt to Moses to see his nephew in the holy garments that he had always seen Aaron wearing?  And how must it have felt to Eleazar to wear them, knowing that the responsibility was now on him?

Seriously, You Have To Love Elizabeth Gilbert

 “This is for all the late-bloomers in the world. Writing is not like dancing or modeling; it’s not something where if you missed it by age 19 – you’re finished. It’s never too late. Your writing will only get better as you get older and wiser. If you write something beautiful and important, and the right person somehow discovers it, they will clear room for you on the bookshelves of the world – at any age. At least try.” ~Elizabeth Gilbert

BTW:  Elizabeth Gilbert writes novels, biographies, essays, memoirs and short stories.  Her 2006 memoir "Eat, Pray, Love" spent weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list and was made into a film.

Torah Thoughts on Korach

This week’s portion, Korach (Num. 16:1 – 18:32) presents the most serious challenge to Moses’ and Aaron’s leadership of the Israelites.  Korach, their first cousin, challenges Aaron’s exclusive right to the priesthood.  At the same time, Dathan and Abiram question Moses’ leadership ability.  The two incidents lead to a rebellion.  Moses orders Korach’s would-be priests to bring their firepans and offer incense along with Aaron before God in the sanctuary.  God punishes Korach and his followers by “opening the mouth of the earth” which swallows them, and all their possessions.  “And a fire went forth from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty representatives offering the incense” (Num.16:35).

After this incident, God commands Moses to order Eleazar, the son of Aaron, to collect the firepans out of the ashes because, having been used to make a sacred offering, they are now sacred.  Eleazar molds the firepans into copper plating for the altar, at God’s command.  Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, as quoted in the Etz Hayim Torah commentary, taught that the holiness of the firepans symbolizes the necessary role played by skeptics and agnostics in keeping religion honest and healthy.  

Judaism has, and should always, encourage sincere questioning and challenging of the status quo. And the fact that these firepans of the rebels become a part of the sanctuary illustrates our desire to imbue every human act, positive or negative, with God’s stamp of holiness.

I walk

About two years ago, I was diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor.  Five weeks later, I underwent a Whipple procedure to remove it.  I was in ICU for four days.  On the first day that I was transferred to a telemetry unit, my surgeon told me that he wanted me to start walking around the unit three times a day.  So I walked.  With my heart monitor in one hand and my spouse holding my IV pole, I walked.  With complications which required another surgery, I was in the hospital for just under one month.  Except for the day of the second surgery, I got up and walked around the unit three times a day, every day.  

When I got home, I had serious digestive difficulties.  My cousin, an EMT, told me that walking was very good for digestive problems.  So I walked.  First I walked, shakily, forty feet to the mailbox and back to the house, with a friend watching anxiously from the doorway.  When I accomplished that, I walked to the end of the street and back.  Then I did that three times a day.  By the time my recovery was complete enough for me to go back to work I was walking two miles a day.

 When I was a patient, I found the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network helpful and supportive.  Now that I am a volunteer, I am able to take part in Purple Stride, the annual walk-a-thon which provides patient support, legislative advocacy and research dollars to conquer pancreatic cancer.  I have been lucky to survive and thrive.  So I’ll walk.

Torah Thoughts on Shelach Lecha

In this week’s Torah portion, Shelach Lecha (Num. 13:1 – 15:41), God tells Moses to send scouts to the land of Canaan to find out what the land and its inhabitants hold in store.  Moses sends twelve men, one from each tribe.  When they return, they say that the land is productive and fertile but the residents are strong and well-defended.  As they speak, ten of the scouts transmit their panic and despair to the people of Israel, who, once again, regret leaving slavery in Egypt for this existence.  

An essay in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary cites an explanation in the Kli Yakar, a 17^th century Polish commentary, which makes note of the two Hebrew words which begin the portion: “Shelach lecha”, literally “send for yourself”.  The Kli Yakar derives that the Israelite men in the wilderness hated the land of Israel, from the verse, “Let us go back to Egypt”, (Num. 14:4) but that the women loved it, based on the words of the daughters of Zelophehad, “Give us a holding in the land [of Israel]” (Num. 27:4).  If God had chosen the scouts, reasons the Kli Yakar, they would have been women.  But since God said to Moses, “send for yourself”, leaving Moses to make the choice, he chose to send men.

This coming Sunday, Mary and I will attend the ordination at Yeshivat Maharat, an Orthodox seminary which trains women in Jewish law and leadership.  Essentially, they are trained to be rabbis, lacking only the title.  From the ancient words of Torah to the Kli Yakar’s four hundred year old interpretation, to the living Torah that will come from the work of the ordinees of Yeshivat Maharat, may we continue to find value in the contributions of both men and women to the Jewish past, present and future.

Torah Thoughts on Beha’a lot’cha

This week’s Torah portion, Beha’a lot’cha (Num. 8:1 – 12:16) speaks about Pesach sheini, “The second Passover”.  In chapter 9, Moses instructs the Israelites to commemorate the events of the exodus from Egypt, which had occurred exactly one year earlier, on the fourteenth day of Nisan.  However, there were some men who were impure because they had come into contact with a corpse, and they could not offer the Pesach sacrifice.  They came to Moses, who consulted God, and God responded that anyone who was unable to offer a sacrifice on the fourteenth of Nisan might offer it one month later, on the fourteenth of Iyar.  

In the Etz Hayim commentary, Rabbi Harold Kushner reflects on this interaction, “To the sincere individual, life often does offer second chances for spiritual fulfillment that may have been missed when the opportunity first presented itself”.    How many times have we looked back on an opportunity not seized, on something prized that we were not able to grasp?  Rabbi Kushner uses this verse to provide both a comfort and a challenge.  The comfort is that the chance may likely come again.  The challenge is to look out for it.