“Each portion shall be assigned by lot…” (Numbers 26:56) This line of Torah intrigued me this week with So. Much. Happening.
The line from Torah refers to how land would be apportioned when the Israelites arrived and conquered Canaan. By lot. A sorting hat of sorts – in fact, there are midrashim that the lots (thought of as stones) would speak what they alloted, based on the literal meaning of the verse al pi (by mouth). Perhaps this allotment was by chance, and also perhaps there was some agency.
But when I think about last Friday for a moment, and the ways I felt about the world, the state of the US election, Israel and Palestine, and the fear I associated with what the coming four years would do to us, it feels almost as though a lot was cast and everything had changed.
Meanwhile, this week began a period called the three weeks – from the 17th of Tammuz to the 9th of Av. A period of remembrance and mourning for the troubles of the Israelites of the Temple period. The Temple was seized and ultimately destroyed, and the Talmud names a cause for this destruction: sinat chinam. Baseless hatred, or hatred given out easily/freely. This attitude that the Israelites took to each other – I picture as a lack of care, superficial labeling, writing each other off, unwillingness to get to know one another more deeply – became the reasoning for the destruction of their society.
This week, I can't quite say I feel either luck nor divine intervention as a “lot” might imply, but I can certainly feel a shifting happening. The biggest question is now that new possibilities may have opened, how might we maintain them with our thoughts and actions until they are achieved? How might these three weeks be a memorial to the “baseless hatred” by doing the opposite?
Whatever possibility this season might open for you, may we be willing to get hopeful enough to act and keep these portals into new, more hopeful possible futures open.
Finally, I will say that the Jews I grew up with hated being misled. Hated getting swept up only to then be disappointed, made to feel someone had fooled them. I want to honor this worry and also work against it. To lean into hope, to let myself get swept up. And in doing so, to help create a more hopeful future closer and closer to the one I long for. You too?
Here’s to an intentional three weeks ahead,
R’ David
The line from Torah refers to how land would be apportioned when the Israelites arrived and conquered Canaan. By lot. A sorting hat of sorts – in fact, there are midrashim that the lots (thought of as stones) would speak what they alloted, based on the literal meaning of the verse al pi (by mouth). Perhaps this allotment was by chance, and also perhaps there was some agency.
But when I think about last Friday for a moment, and the ways I felt about the world, the state of the US election, Israel and Palestine, and the fear I associated with what the coming four years would do to us, it feels almost as though a lot was cast and everything had changed.
Meanwhile, this week began a period called the three weeks – from the 17th of Tammuz to the 9th of Av. A period of remembrance and mourning for the troubles of the Israelites of the Temple period. The Temple was seized and ultimately destroyed, and the Talmud names a cause for this destruction: sinat chinam. Baseless hatred, or hatred given out easily/freely. This attitude that the Israelites took to each other – I picture as a lack of care, superficial labeling, writing each other off, unwillingness to get to know one another more deeply – became the reasoning for the destruction of their society.
This week, I can't quite say I feel either luck nor divine intervention as a “lot” might imply, but I can certainly feel a shifting happening. The biggest question is now that new possibilities may have opened, how might we maintain them with our thoughts and actions until they are achieved? How might these three weeks be a memorial to the “baseless hatred” by doing the opposite?
Whatever possibility this season might open for you, may we be willing to get hopeful enough to act and keep these portals into new, more hopeful possible futures open.
Finally, I will say that the Jews I grew up with hated being misled. Hated getting swept up only to then be disappointed, made to feel someone had fooled them. I want to honor this worry and also work against it. To lean into hope, to let myself get swept up. And in doing so, to help create a more hopeful future closer and closer to the one I long for. You too?
Here’s to an intentional three weeks ahead,
R’ David
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