Avoiding Ownerless Relationships Parashat Vaera 5776 ~ January 9, 2016 Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, Beth Am Synagogue

Free Will in Action: Avoiding Ownerless Relationships Parashat Vaera 5776 ~ January 9, 2016 Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, Beth Am Synagogue Raise your hand if you’ve seen the Cohn Brothers film A Serious Man. Do you remember the scene when Larry Gopnik, the Jobian protagonist of the movie goes to see the Rabbi? Larry is having a very hard time, and his life seems to be spinning out of control. His kids are a mess. A university student is trying to bribe Larry, a Math professor, into giving him a better grade. His wife wants a divorce. He can’t get in to see the Senior Rabbi and the mysterious Emeritus Rabbi Marshak is too busy “thinking” and reciting Jefferson Airplane lyrics. So Larry goes to the Junior Rabbi who has a tiny office littered with papers, a shofar, a mint green JNF pushke and a small window overlooking the synagogue parking lot. The Rabbi fumbles about trying to make sense of Larry’s situation and finally casts his eyes toward the window: “I mean, the parking lot here. Not much to see. It is a different angle on the same parking lot we saw from the Hebrew school window. But if you imagine yourself a visitor, somebody who isn't familiar with these... autos and such... somebody still with a capacity for wonder... Someone with a fresh... perspective. That's what it is, Larry…. Because with the right perspective you can see Hashem, you know, reaching into the world. He is in the world, not just in shul…. That’s when Larry tells the young Rabbi his wife is leaving him for Sy Ableman. Undeterred, the Rabbi exclaims: “Things aren't so bad. Look at the parking lot, Larry…Just look at that parking lot.” I love this scene, in part because as I approach my 40th birthday this April, I can now look back on my own time as a young Junior rabbi whose first office was, this is true, a converted bathroom. With no window. I couldn’t even see the parking lot! So, the story is a cautionary tale – both as an example of what not to do during a pastoral encounter with a congregant but also because both the rabbi and Larry reveal their consternation and confusion with perhaps the biggest theological question of all. Why do bad things happen, particularly to good people. The classic story addressing that ultimate question of theodicy is Job, the book on which A Serious Man is loosely based. Remember what happens to Job? After thirty-seven chapters of unwarranted suffering and, I would say, some pretty justified kvetching on Job’s part, God finally responds: “Va’ya’an HaShem et Iyov min ha’se’arah… God answers Job out of the whirlwind: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?... Do you know who fixed its dimensions or who measured it with a line…. Who closed the sea behind doors when it gushed forth out of the womb? Have you ever commanded the day to break, assigned the dawn its place…” (Job 38) And later: “Can you draw out Leviathan by a fishhook? Can you press down his tongue by a rope?” (Ibid 40:25). It’s a sentiment echoed in today’s haftarah: “Mighty monster…I will put hooks in your jaws, and make the fish of your channels cling to your scales” (Ez. 29:3,4). In other words, who are you? I made the world. I rule all of creation, including the monsters of the deep. Who are you to question God’s judgment? 1 I first studied the book of Job in depth at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, an institution with which we at Beth Am have an ongoing connection through Noam Zion who has been here many times to teach and visit his uncle Leonard Sachs. It’s also an institution at which I will have the privilege of studying periodically over the next four years as I join the new cohort of fellows in their Rabbinic Leadership Institute. Rabbi Donniel Hartman, who inherited the mantle of leadership from his late and legendary father has an interesting observation about Job. We often read the book empathizing with the main character. We think, Job is suffering for nothing, for a bet with Satan! The deaths of wife, his children, his illness, his loss of fortune, everything, are simply a cruel joke played by a capricious God who simply wishes to establish his dominance. But we forget one small detail, argues Hartman. Job doesn’t know about the bet. Job doesn’t know anything. When the Kadosh Baruch Hu speaks out of the whirlwind, Job is forced to confront the great mysteries of life – reward and suffering. We, the readers, are the ones who know the whole story. We know Job is a good man, that he doesn’t deserve to suffer. And yet, this book is included, quite provocatively, in the Book of Books, and we know that if we accept the story at face value, it can only mean that God is frankly unworthy of praise, of worship, of existence. No, the fictional, cartoonish God of the story forces us to confront the real God in a real universe where the answers to so many questions are elusive and fleeting. Job is a biting satire that brilliantly, subversively challenges our assumptions. We think we have influence, even control over so much that we actually don’t. And the sooner we accept this, implies the book of Job, the sooner we can begin to focus on things we can control. This theme of control or lack thereof, of freewill and its limitations, is at the heart of our parasha as well. This week we recount seven of the ten plagues. And we’re told again and again “v’yechezak lev Paro” (Ex. 7:22). Pharaoh hardens his heart and refuses to be moved, refuses to let loose the bonds of captivity. But then something happens: for the first five plagues Pharaoh seems the recalcitrant party. But for the final plagues it is God who does the hardening. And we’re forced to ask ourselves, how could Pharaoh be responsible if he doesn’t control his actions? Numerous commentators grapple with this conundrum. Rambam says the second five plagues are a punishment for the first. Others, like Sforno, suggest God doesn’t harden but strengthens Pharaoh’s heart – gives him the capacity for stubbornness he is surely in danger of losing – for what leader would allow his people to suffer for so long? A twentieth century interpreter, Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin (the Oznayim LaTorah), suggests God designs the universe in such a way that while we may not freely choose to create evil from scratch, we can certainly exacerbate problems. Hence, Rashi notices “v’ta’al hatzfardeah” (Ex. 8:2) is in the singular. The “frog” that “came up,” he explains, is one giant frog that becomes many when the Egyptians, whack it or try to magic it away. Thinking Mickey Mouse in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” It’s as if they “threw oil on a fire,” says The Oznayim LaTorah. A final explanation is that Pharaoh’s behavior becomes so ritualized, so habitual that he cannot stop himself. Think of the addict. She begins with free will, but after a while she is enslaved to her addiction. But each of these explanations begs another question. Assuming we do have free will, and most authorities (plus common sense) suggest we do, how do we determine our focus of energy, our efforts and concerns? Think back to that movie scene. All of us have had Jobian trials and tribulations. All of us suffer. Is there greater and lesser suffering in the world? Of course! Only a fool could say otherwise. But who among us doesn’t know the pain of loss, of loneliness, of 2 betrayal, of fear, of failure? And the problem with conversations about theodicy, heady debates about “the Problem of Evil,” is frankly they also distract us from other more important questions. Like, what are the places in our lives we feel like we have no control but we actually do? Take a moment. Think about your relationships. Not the ones in crisis. The ones on autopilot. The ones we take for granted. Now choose one. One relationship you have allowed to lie fallow, as it were. Because relationships are very much like fields. If they’re cultivated, seeded, watered, nurtured they thrive and grow. But if not, if they’re not maintained, they begin to dry up. It’s a slow process, almost unnoticeable, possibly until it’s too late. There’s a Hebrew expression shetach hefker which literally means “ownerless land.” But it can also mean “land in conflict.” What’s the implication? Neglected land becomes no-man’s land becomes contentious land. And relationships are the same. A good relationship, with a friend, a partner, a cousin, a business associate, can too easily become yachas hefker, ownerless. So this Shabbat, let’s resolve to reconnect – not with a distant relative with whom we rarely speak, not with a long lost Facebook friend, but with a true friend, someone in our lives to whom we are not giving our full selves. Let’s take ownership of that relationship once again. Let’s listen more and harder and better. Let’s ask probing questions, even if we think we already know the answers. And let’s be vulnerable, sharing things about ourselves, taking the kind of risks that bear the reward of intimacy and connection.

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