In all of our biblical stories there is a great diversity, both of meaning and interpretation.
In our reading of Torah and other aspects of our tradition we often apply an interpretative method taken from the word ‘PaRDeS’ meaning Orchard in Hebrew. The Hebrew letters ‘pay’, ‘reish’, ‘dalet’ and ‘Samech’, spell out this word. Associated with them are four levels of interpretive approach: P’shat, simple or face value meaning; Remez, an allusion to; Drash, an interpretation from the meaning; Sod, a secret or hidden meaning.
The application of this methodology can be to all text, to all life stories and experience - there are layered meanings, a range of different possibilities of how to understand a story and what we should learn from it. Alternatively put, elsewhere in our midrashic, rabbinic tradition, ‘Shiv’im Panim Le’Torah’, there are seventy faces to our Judaic traditions, many vantage points and understandings.
That is hard to do when there are hostages still in Gaza and when mutilated bodies are still being identified - it is hard to get a sense of nuance or broad horizons of possibility. The fog in my head and amongst many in our Jewish community makes this time simply debilitating and confusing. I hear many describing waging an internal struggle between extremist positions on opposing sides from minute to minute.
In spite of this, we do need to map a way forward, if nothing else for our soul and sanity.
Abraham welcomes guests this week, he sits in his tent in the desert, post surgery, and welcomes three guests. This is where our parsha opens. A model for how our homes should be open and welcoming. In the midrash, the rabbinic commentary, Reish Lakish, tells us that these are the three angels, Mikhael, Refael and Gavriel. May our people this week be blessed with the protection that these angels have traditionally offered.
On the streets of many cities around the world there are calls out for violence against Jews and Jewish community; these are scary times. Whilst also in our hearts there are prayers for peace and for the lives of Palestinian community too, we must not forfeit our own sense of self and rights to protection and community integrity for the rights of others. We too deserve to live in peace and tranquillity both here and in Israel.
But the Midrash Rabbah also offers, in the name of Rabbi Levi, that what Abraham saw outside his tent was a Saracen, a Nabatean, and an Arab, in the imagination of the midrash, three people who looked different from Abraham. Interwoven into the fabric of our tradition is a pride and care for our community alongside a clear instruction to take care of the stranger who arrives at your tent.
In these times, under the fog of war, Israel’s extremist right continues to make inroads against the Palestinian community in the rural West Bank, intimidating farmers away from the final days of the olive harvest and killing. It is exactly at this time, even while we are at war, that as a community we must decide the path we will tread going forward. If we permit extremism to run rampant in our own political community, we become more like the terrorists we are trying to defeat. We must oppose our own extremists, even as we fight the most heinous, barbaric extremists in Gaza.
Our work this week, is one tiny step at a time to try to widen our gaze once again, even while at war, to see the world as complex. We can be a people, proud, upstanding, resilient, immovable and at the same time dig deep into our values and our care for those most in need.
Shabbat shalom x
