Tikkun

Rabbi's Notes - November 2001

by Rabbi Margaret Holub

Some of you were there when it happened; others have heard the story by now: on Simchat Torah our Torah scroll tore in half. It was a stunning, shocking, frightening moment. We had been joyously, somewhat light-heartedly rolling the scroll from its very end to its beginning, watching and pointing as different passages scrolled by in reverse. Because our beloved sefer Torah has suffered, it is no longer absolutely flat. And so rolling it in such a way that the edges don't lap over the wooden staves presents a challenge every time. It takes some tension at both ends to keep the parchment straight. And, in receiving that bit of necessary tension that night, the scroll split apart at a weak point along a seam. It made a loud crack and both halves curled up on themselves as we all stood around the table in shock.

Our feeling of shock and awe was compounded when we looked at where the split had occurred. Ominously, auspiciously, the scroll severed precisely after the first and then second mention of Ishmael in Torah, the elder son of Abraham who is considered to be the progenitor of the Arab people: Genesis 16:15: "Hagar bore Abram a son and Abram called the name of his son that Hagar bore him Ishmael." We have already learned, earlier in chapter 16, that Sarai, Abram's wife, felt jealous and humiliated when -- at her own behest -- Abram impregnated Hagar, Sarai's handmaiden. Sarai calls her own plan an outrage (another internal shock -- the Hebrew word for "outrage" is "hamas.") She speculates that Hagar scorns her for being infertile; she torments Hagar; Hagar flees to the desert. An angel meets Hagar in flight and adjures her to return and submit to Sarai. The angel then speaks in God's voice, promising Hagar: "I will greatly increase your offspring and they will not be counted for abundance." And then: "You will give birth to a son and call his name Ishmael, for God has heard your prayer. And he will be a wild ass of a man: his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him; and over his brothers he shall dwell." Hagar makes a mysterious reply to the angel and then (presumably after returning to her home with Sarai and Abram) gives birth to Ishmael. And here our scroll snaps apart.

Is there any wonder, really? The tension imbedded in the story is unbearable. The loud crack! that we heard on Simchat Torah sounded like a shriek, even as we rolled backwards over that section without even intending to notice it in particular, as we were getting ready to begin the cycle again, to tell the story the same way for another year. NO! it cried -- the scroll itself cried. This must be repaired! After the scroll tore, we looked at that wounded place with fresh eyes, with wonder, with fear. We noticed a long, loose thread still connecting the two halves. And we all took hope from that.

I've been jangled ever since Simchat Torah, ever since the moment our sefer Torah broke. It was fright piled on top of fright, one more wound on top of a month of terror. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur had been like water in the desert for me personally, islands of consolation in the sea of sadness and anxiety flooding us all since September 11. I had found such comfort in our community being together, and also, more than ever, in the holy words and symbols of the New Year. The sound of the shofar at Rosh Hashana, the Unetane Tokef ("on Rosh Hashana it is written; on Yom Kippur it is sealed...") the Torah readings, the drashes, your heavenly voices singing hour after hour so beautifully, the fasting, the whole journey of the High Priest on Yom Kippur, the mystery and bliss of that encounter -- all of that had left me feeling intact, strong, even joyful, even as the world was lining up sides to enter into war. Then came Simchat Torah and that shriek of parchment snapping apart. And I feel unglued again.

Which I have to assume is all to the good. It's really not enough to feel okay these days, to be able to cope. Sometimes, of course, even that is hard to achieve. But Simchat Torah says to me that it is not enough to be personally content when there are unbearable tensions in the basic parchment of our reality. That sound of tearing calls for tikkun, for repair.

In the very moment after our sefer Torah tore apart, we who were in its presence decided to do an act of collective teshuvah. Not that it was a sin to have given a strong pull while rolling; our scroll had already been restored from many other tears and breaks in the past. It is a living thing; it breaks and heals. We were doing with the scroll what she exists for -- reading her, looking at her, moving and manipulating her length with joy and respect. But it was obviously a moment of calling to us. We decided to get together to study the passage which split in half and to reflect on its message for us today. Luna found a source which says that, when you see a sefer Torah torn, you should tear an article of clothing. She is making special scarves for us to tear when we gather to study. By the time you read this, that meeting will already have happened. Already many of us who were at the Simchat Torah service have been studying and reflecting, trying to find the call to us personally in what we experienced together. It has already become a beautiful example of taking a difficult experience and turning it towards the good. And I expect more good to emerge over time from our torn Torah.

You probably know about the idea of "tikkun olam," "repair of the world." The notion comes originally from Lurianic kabbalah, from the story which says that when God decided to create a world, God had to contract in order to make space for a creation. In contracting, in pouring the Divine Essence into vessels of clay, the vessels shattered, and God-filled shards of pottery now fill the universe. Tikkun, repair, is the process of liberating the sparks from their clay imprisonment and allowing them to reunite as the Oneness. It was the giants of the early Reform movement who took this idea of "repairing the world" and told us how to do it: through acts of social justice. In fact, said the early Reformers, we are partners with God in repairing the world. It is through acts of justice that we manifest the Divine within us, that we manifest God on earth, that we bring about the Messianic age.

I've long been troubled by this majestic idea of tikkun olam through social justice. It just seems so inflated somehow to see myself as a partner with God. I find it grandiose, nerve wracking and extremely confusing. Much of my own life has been about reckoning with how limited my sphere of power really is. Most of what happens in the world does not wait for my input to go forward. I can alleviate very little hunger, stop very little violence. Hours, months, years of work go into tiny little projects with real but hardly world-changing impact. And even that suggests that we can at least see how the world ought to be repaired. In fact right now we are being slapped in the face with the horrific impact of religious people who are absolutely sure of which way God wants the world to go. I don't know about you, but this past month I have found myself less sure than ever about which path to advocate, what to hope for, what to support. So if God actually decided to pick right now to make me Her partner in this mess, I wouldn't even really know which answer to give, which repair to institute. And so I've found myself saying, in many different ways over the past years, it's enough to be part of a sweet little community, enough to be a decent family member, a good neighbor. Just be nice, or at least be happy.

But that shrieking Torah causes me to rethink this. I don't really think we are God's partners in repairing the world. I think we are the whole show -- with all our confusion, all our limitations, all our misguided passions, all the diversions, all the disinformation. If anything, maybe God provides the cry, the call. But if we don't respond, no one will, I'm afraid.

Our sefer Torah will be repaired. It tore in a good place, if there's a good place. By the time you read this, it will probably already be en route to a sofer, who will bind our dear little scroll back together once again. But that passage will still be crying, even with its new band-aids. Everyone in that story cries out: Sarai, infertile and jealous; Hagar, pregnant with the problematic child; Abram, ultimately a father to two warring peoples, tossed this way and that by Sarai's confused desires; the child Ishmael, "his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him," even God, Who has both good and bad news to deliver. And of course the world is deafened today by the shouting and crying of their descendants, at each other, at us.

It seems these days like the whole world is screaming at us. And so it is easy to give up and fold inward. I think that's where I've been for a long time. The way that our torn Torah speaks to me is to say, "You have to listen, even if you don't want to. And you have to respond." The challenge of repair remains before us, however impossibly larger than we are. I no longer have the limitless zeal (or energy!) of my youth. I would be happy if the crying just went away on its own. I realize that I am writing in the language of signs and symbols here, retreating into metaphors. That's because I don't know what to say in plain English, or plain action. I hear the sounds, and I am willing to listen. And I hope that you who hear the same sounds will join me in reflecting and responding. That's all I know how to say right now. Let us keep listening, keep talking, and, as we figure out what we each have to offer in the direction of repair, let's support each other in stepping forward.

Copyright 2001 Rabbi Margaret Holub

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