Submitted by Editor on
Rabbi Phyllis Berman and her smikha sisters, 12/27/2004
SMICHA WEAVE AND PHYLLIS DVAR TORAH
(BEGINNING WEAVE)
Breishit : In the beginning of the process of creating four women rabbis and a rabbinic pastor there were five women living in three continents ranging in age from 41 to 61.
One, a Sabra whose Orthodox Zionist parents, arriving in Israel from Hungary and Poland, met in a kibbutz and settled in Jerusalem, comes from a family with a documented rabbinic lineage of 32 generations through her Saba, and a similar one through her Savta;
One is a Berliner from a family that has remained in Germany for six centuries, whose early Jewish education focused on what appeared to be the death of eastern European Jewry, a situation which she has helped to change;
One, now living in Canton, Ohio, with parents who came to the States in 1938-39 from Hungarian Orthodox circles and from Austrian Liberal circles, counts 22 generations of rabbis behind her on her fathers side;
One, now living in Philadelphia in a neighborhood proudly called Tel Avir, is a third-generation American, from traditional Conservative grandparents whose families originally emigrated from Poland and Russia;
One, now living in St. Louis, who descended from grandparents who emigrated from Russia, attended Orthodox day school as a child and wasnt called to really feel the touch of a Torah until she was 40.
All of us have families deeply diminished by the Shoah.
Each of us will be the first woman rabbi in our families; several of us come from long lines of rabbis; several of us as far as we know — will be the first rabbis in our families.
Wherever we came from, we came together because of the energy of the Jewish Renewal movement that has embraced Jewish womens leadership and given us a venue in which to express our love of study and our desire to serve the new Jewish communities.
We are delighted to be alive at such a time that it has been possible for many of us to study together across the oceans via teleconference as chevra and, through Email, to plan this ceremony and weave our voices together as we explore this weeks Torah parsha.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(PHYLLIS dvar Torah)
Many years ago, when my children Josh and Morissa were quite young, there was a weekly program on Masterpiece Theatre that serialized Galsworthy's The Forsythe Sage over a 26-week period. I tuned in for the 13th episode and was immediately hooked and watched from that point until the end. At the conclusion of the series, as a fundraiser, NYCs channel 13 ran all 26 episodes back-to-back over a 24-hour period. I decided to watch the first 12 episodes that I had missed, but, by the time they broadcast #13, I couldn't tear myself away from the story and still don't know whether my children ever ate or slept that day.
Several years ago, at a two-week silent meditation retreat with David and Shoshana Cooper at Elat Chayyim, remembering the experience of the intensity of living in The Forsythe Saga in one sitting, I realized that there's something we miss in the continuity of the Torah when we read it one parsha at a time, week by week through the year, so I sat down one day and read straight through from Sh'mot with the birth of Moshe through D'varim to his death. When I reached the end of V'zot HaBracha — vl'o kam navi od bYisrael k'Moshe (and there never again arose among the people Yisra-el a prophet like Moshe) — for the first time, I felt the loss and cried.
In preparation for this smicha ceremony today, the five of us began a several-month-long process of communicating across three continents via Email and, on the first day — hesed shebhesed (according to the sfira chart that Candy created for all of us) of the 49-day count that leads to our receiving smicha, we talked by phone and agreed to create a ceremony of interconnection that represented our values as women.
We decided to look at that week's parsha, Vayehi, to see what would arise for each of us and to share our ideas and inspirations with one another. We were excited that the parsha represented the end of Torah's first book with Yaakov's blessings, what Elisa called his clear-eyed and all-too-rare truth-telling about the nature of each of his 12 sons — and I recalled that there was a midrash that, for each of his sons by his four wives, Leah, Bilha, Zilpa, and Rachel, there was a twin daughter, with unwritten names and unwritten blessings.
Ruth immediately identified the Biblical verse from which this midrash was drawn and sent us several of the midrashim from Midrash Raba Breishit and Rashi.
Then Dale wrote, making a bridge between the previous weeks parsha, Vayigash, and Vayehi, and her comments triggered in my memory the power of having read the last four books of Humash in one sitting.
Arthur and I were away at El Bosque, a beautiful, natural, holistic, spiritual retreat center in the mountains an hour north of Madrid Arthur was busy on his computer, and I had little Spanish — so the week felt a lot like a silent meditation retreat .
I decided to read all of the book of Breishit in one continuous flow and to allow it to do its magic within me.
When I reached parshat Vayeshev, which often coincides with my birthday, I found the prooftext for the Midrash that for eleven of Yaakovs sons there was also a twin daughter in 37:35: "Vayakumu kol banav v'kol b'notav lnahamo vayma-eyn lhitnaheym"; when Jacob received the torn and bloodied coat, the heart-wrenching evidence of the apparent death of his favorite son Yosef, all his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be consoled.
Then in parshat Vayigash, 46:6 and 7, I read, "Vayikhu et mikneyhem vet rhusham asher rahshu beretz kna-an, vayavo-u mitzrayma Yaakov vhol zaro eto: banav uvney banav eto, bnotav uvnot banav" (And they took all their animals and goods acquired in the land of Canaan, and came to Mitzrayim, Yaakov, with all his seed with him: his sons and his son's sons, his daughters, and his son's daughters,) — but not his daughters' daughters — and the Biblical evidence of the presence of daughters (and granddaughters) was underlined.
However, when I got to 46:15 — "Eyleh bney Leah asher yalda lYa-akov b'Fadan Aram, vet Dina bito, kol nefesh banav uvnotav shloshim v'shalosh (These are the sons of Leah which she bore to Yaakov in Padan Aram, and Dina, his daughter, every soul of his sons and his daughters came to 33 people) I was stymied.
I had created a chart as I read, listing each of Yaakov's wives and their offspring and the children of these offspring. When I carefully counted all of Yaakov's sons through Leah and added Dina on my list, I came to only 32, not 33. I went back to the Humash to check again, thinking I might have missed someone or counted wrong, but indeed both my list and my count were correct.
In fact, in verses 26 and 27, it confirms that the number of Yaakov's children and grandchildren who came down to Mitzrayim not counting Yaakov himself, and the wives of Yaakov's sons, and Yosef who was already there and Yosef's two sons was 66, which adds up only if we count Leahs offspring as I did, as 32, and not the 33 written in verse 15. Yet, I was intrigued: what accounted for the difference between the 32 whom I counted and the 33 claimed by the Torah? Who was the missing offspring who came through Leah's line?
In Spain, without m'forshim, without any commentaries, I was left only with the Humash and with my imagination Could it be the child (Yaakov's daughter's child) with whom Dina was impregnated after being seduced or raped by Shhem? According to midrash, Dina had become pregnant as a result of her encounter with Shhem; she had birthed a daughter, Osnat, who, according to different sources had been taken by an angel and delivered into the home of Potifera, priest of On, and had married Yosef in Egypt. (The eleven twin sisters of Yosefs eleven brothers had each married a brother of a different mother; Yosef had unwittingly married his niece, daughter of his sister Dina.)
I began to think about all who are uncounted, all that is unaccounted for, the subjects we don't talk about both in Torah and in contemporary Jewish life:
Rape
Abuse
Addiction
Incest
Suicide
Mental illne
Physical illne
Loneline
Heartbreak
Shame
Disappointment with our partners, our lovers, our children, our friends and, most painful of all, disappointment with ourselves.
When we don't talk about these things, we are twice damned — once by the event or circumstance and once by the silence that isolates us.
When we share ourselves in the world of bria, of intellect and imagination and creativity, we may excite or interest or bore or disagree with or compete with one another; we may recognize one another's brilliance and feel ourselves inferior or competitive, but rarely do we feel connected with one another as a result.
However, when we share ourselves in the worlds of assiya and yetzira, in the worlds of our physical and emotional pain, when we share our imperfections, our broken human-ness, that very brokenness opens more space for our hearts to touch one another, and it is here that we experience the connection, the Oneness, with each other, with all life, with G!D.
_____________________________________________________________
(END WEAVE:)
It is up to us to uncover the names of Dina's eleven sisters.
Perhaps, like women among our teachers, they were named:
BAHIRA, BERTHA, COLETTE, MARCIA, MATANANDA, RACHEL, REGINA, SARA, SHEFA, SHOHAMA, SHOSHANA
And it is up to us to offer them blessings that are clear-eyed, honest descriptions and also prophecies of the qualities in each of them that bring us all closer to Ymot HaMashiach (Messianic Times). Midot (qualities) of:
knowing of the ancient Mother; the poetry of prayer; knowing no doubt; rigorous standards; the power of praise; feminine Hassidism; the challenge of leading the way; majesty and clarity; overflowing creativity; generous leadership; Oneness through silence; —
and for Dina and them all the blessing of adventurous courage.
Now, as we complete Breishit and begin Shmot, it is our turn to say: Veyleh shmot bnot Yisrael (and these are the names of the daughters of Israel) Elisheva, Dvora, Tzipora, Rut, Shafir Yehudit and pray that our names may be for a blessing as we take our rightful places, with deep love and respect and gratitude for those who have lived and died before us, who have inspired and taught and supported us, in the rabbinic and pastoral lineage of our people.
SMICHA WEAVE AND PHYLLIS DVAR TORAH
(BEGINNING WEAVE)
Breishit in the beginning of the process of creating four women rabbis and a rabbinic pastor there were five women living in three continents ranging in age from 41 to 61.
One, a Sabra whose Orthodox Zionist parents, arriving in Israel from Hungary and Poland, met in a kibbutz and settled in Jerusalem, comes from a family with a documented rabbinic lineage of 32 generations through her Saba, and a similar one through her Savta;
one is a Berliner from a family that has remained in Germany for six centuries, whose early Jewish education focused on what appeared to be the death of eastern European Jewry, a situation which she has helped to change;
one, now living in Canton, Ohio, with parents who came to the States in 38-39 from Hungarian Orthodox circles and from Austrian Liberal circles, counts 22 generations of rabbis behind her on her fathers side;
one, now living in Philadelphia in a neighborhood proudly called Tel Avir, is a third-generation American, from traditional Conservative grandparents whose families originally emigrated from Poland and Russia;
one, now living in St. Louis, who descended from grandparents who emigrated from Russia, attended Orthodox day school as a child and wasnt called to really feel the touch of a Torah until she was 40.
All of us have families deeply diminished by the Shoah.
Each of us will be the first woman rabbi in our families; several of us come from long lines of rabbis; several of us as far as we know — will be the first rabbis in our families.
Wherever we came from, we came together because of the energy of the Jewish Renewal movement that has embraced Jewish womens leadership and given us a venue in which to express our love of study and our desire to serve the new Jewish communities.
We are delighted to be alive at such a time that it has been possible for many of us to study together across the oceans via teleconference as chevra and, through Email, to plan this ceremony and weave our voices together as we explore this weeks Torah parsha.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(PHYLLIS dvar Torah)
Many years ago, when my children Josh and Morissa were quite young, there was a weekly program on Masterpiece Theatre that serialized Galsworthys The Forsythe Sage over a 26-week period. I tuned in for the 13th episode and was immediately hooked and watched from that point until the end. At the conclusion of the series, as a fundraiser, NYCs channel 13 ran all 26 episodes back-to-back over a 24-hour period. I decided to watch the first 12 episodes that I had missed, but, by the time they broadcast #13, I couldnt tear myself away from the story and dont know if my children ever ate or slept that day.
Several years ago, at a two-week silent meditation retreat with David and Shoshana Cooper at Elat Chayyim, remembering the experience of the intensity of living in The Forsythe Saga in one sitting, I realized that theres something we miss in the continuity of the Torah when we read it one parsha at a time, week by week through the year, so I sat down one day and read straight through from Shmot with the birth of Moshe through Dvarim to his death. When I reached the end of Vzot HaBracha vlo kam navi od bYisrael kMoshe (and there never again arose among the people Yisra-el a prophet like Moshe) for the first time, I felt the loss and cried.
In preparation for this smicha ceremony today, the five of us began a several-month-long process of communicating across three continents via Email and, on the first day — hesed shebhesed (according to the sfira chart that Candy created for all of us) of the 49-day count that leads to our receiving smicha, we talked by phone and agreed to create a ceremony of interconnection that represented our values as women.
We decided to look at that weeks parsha, Vayehi, to see what would arise for each of us and to share our ideas and inspirations with one another. We were excited that the parsha represented the end of Torahs first book with Yaakovs blessings what Elisa called his clear-eyed and all-too-rare truth-telling about the nature of each of his 12 sons — and I recalled that there was a midrash that, for each of his sons by his four wives, Leah, Bilha, Zilpa, and Rachel, there was a twin daughter, with unwritten names and unwritten blessings.
Ruth immediately identified the Biblical verse from which this midrash was drawn and sent us several of the midrashim from Midrash Raba Breishit and Rashi.
Then Dale wrote, making a bridge between the previous weeks parsha, Vayigash, and Vayehi, and her comments triggered in my memory the power of having read the last four books of Humash in one sitting.
Arthur and I were away at El Bosque, a beautiful, natural, holistic, spiritual retreat center in the mountains an hour north of Madrid Arthur, busy on his computer, and I, without much Spanish, making the week feel a lot like a silent meditation retreat — so I decided to read all of the book of Breishit in one continuous flow and to allow it to do its magic within me.
When I reached parshat Vayeshev, which often coincides with my birthday, I found the prooftext for the Midrash that for eleven of Yaakovs sons there was also a twin daughter in 37:35 Vayakumu kol banav vkol bnotav lnahamo vayma-eyn lhitnaheym when Jacob received the torn and bloodied coat, the heart-wrenching evidence of the apparent death of his favorite son Yosef, all his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be consoled.
Then in parshat Vayigash, 46:6 and 7, I read, Vayikhu et mikneyhem vet rhusham asher rahshu beretz kna-an, vayavo-u mitzrayma Yaakov vhol zaro eto: banav uvney banav eto, bnotav uvnot banav (and they took all their animals and goods acquired in the land of Canaan, and came to Mitzrayim, Yaakov, with all his seed with him: his sons and his sons sons, his daughters, and his sons daughters,) — but not his daughters daughters — and the Biblical evidence of the presence of daughters (and granddaughters) was underlined.
However, when I got to 46:15 Eyleh bney Leah asher yalda lYa-akov bFadan Aram, vet Dina bito, kol nefesh banav uvnotav shloshim vshalosh (These are the sons of Leah which she bore to Yaakov in Padan Aram, and Dina, his daughter, every soul of his sons and his daughters came to 33 people) I was stymied.
I had created a chart as I read, listing each of Yaakovs wives and their offspring and the children of these offspring. When I carefully counted all of Yaakovs sons through Leah and added Dina on my list, I came to only 32, not 33. I went back to the Humash to check again, thinking I might have missed someone or counted wrong, but indeed both my list and my count were correct.
In fact, in verses 26 and 27, it confirms that the number of Yaakovs children and grandchildren who came down to Mitzrayim not counting Yaakov himself, and the wives of Yaakovs sons, and Yosef who was already there and Yosefs two sons was 66, which adds up only if we count Leahs offspring as I did, as 32, and not the 33 written in verse 15. Yet, I was intrigued: what accounted for the difference between the 32 whom I counted and the 33 claimed by the Torah? who was the missing offspring who came through Leahs line?
In Spain, without mforshim, without any commentaries, I was left only with the Humash and with my imagination Could it be the child (Yaakovs daughters child) with whom Dina was impregnated after being seduced or raped by Shhem? According to midrash, Dina had become pregnant as a result of her encounter with Shhem; she had birthed a daughter, Osnat, who, according to different sources had been taken by an angel and delivered into the home of Potifera, priest of On, and had married Yosef in Egypt. (The eleven twin sisters of Yosefs eleven brothers had each married a brother of a different mother; Yosef had unwittingly married his niece, daughter of his sister Dina.)
I began to think about all who are uncounted, all that is unaccounted for, the subjects we dont talk about both in Torah and in contemporary Jewish life:
Rape
Abuse
Addiction
Incest
Suicide
Mental illne
Physical illne
Loneline
Heartbreak
Shame
Disappointment with our partners, our lovers, our children, our friends and, most painful of all, disappointment with ourselves.
When we dont talk about these things, we are twice damned once by the event or circumstance and once by the silence that isolates us.
When we share ourselves in the world of bria, of intellect and imagination and creativity, we may excite or interest or bore or disagree with or compete with one another; we may recognize one anothers brilliance and feel ourselves inferior or competitive, but rarely do we feel connected with one another as a result.
However, when we share ourselves in the worlds of assiya and yetzira, in the worlds of our physical and emotional pain, when we share our imperfections, our broken human-ness, that very brokenness opens more space for our hearts to touch one another, and it is here that we experience the connection, the Oneness, with each other, with all life, with G!D.
_____________________________________________________________
(END WEAVE:)
It is up to us to uncover the names of Dina's eleven sisters.
Perhaps, like women among our teachers, they were named:
BAHIRA, BERTHA, COLETTE, MARCIA, MATANANDA, RACHEL, REGINA, SARA, SHEFA, SHOHAMA, SHOSHANA
and to offer them blessings that are clear-eyed, honest descriptions and also prophecies of the qualities in each of them that bring us all closer to Y'mot HaMashiach (Messianic Times):
Midot (qualities) of:
knowing of the ancient Mother;
the poetry of prayer;
knowing no doubt;
rigorous standards;
the power of praise;
feminine Hassidism;
the challenge of leading the way;
majesty and clarity;
overflowing creativity;
generous leadership;
Oneness through silence; —
and for Dina and them all the blessing of adventurous courage.
Now, as we complete Breishit and begin Shmot, it is our turn to say: Veyleh shmot bnot Yisrael (and these are the names of the daughters of Israel) Elisheva, Dvora, Tzipora, Rut, Shafir Yehudit and pray that our names may be for a blessing as we take our rightful places, with deep love and respect and gratitude for those who have lived and died before us, who have inspired and taught and supported us, in the rabbinic and pastoral lineage of our people.
