For the past few years, 5th grade has been my sweet spot teaching religious school.  To be honest, I think 10 is the perfect age.  They're just beginning to think of themselves as individuals, and just beginning to access abstract thought.  Because they’re still kids, they haven’t learned the teenage trick of looking bored and disconnected at all times.  They’ll squeal with delight when you share a cool story, and they are so full of energy and joy.

I love teaching 5th grade.  But this year, my class has put me to the test.  Renowned child-psychiatrist, Foster Cline, used to say that any kid worth their salt will test your boundaries.  Let’s just say my class this year is worth a lot of salt.

Teaching them feels like playing verbal whack-a-mole

December 17, 2022

The Jew. Rich. Powerful. Behind the scenes exerting undue influence.

Getting richer and richer while the non-Jews in society get poorer and poorer.

Where does that horrific trope—from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the Mapping Project—begin? What is the origin story for the hateful things that Jew-haters say about us?

The origin story is in the Torah.

And the tropes are true in the story the Torah tells.

How does Joseph. second only to Pharaoh, who ends up enslaving the Egyptians, and giving the fat of the land to his own family, seed hatred against our people, and what do we do about it?

This week a Peter K. Newman of Dayton, Ohio wrote a letter to the editors of the Wall Street Journal in which he tells the following joke:

A departing CEO met with his successor, presented him with three numbered envelopes and advised him to open these if he ran into trouble.

After sales and profits dropped during the next quarter, the new CEO opened the first envelope. It contained the message: “Blame your predecessor.”

The company continued to struggle during the next two quarters, so the new CEO opened the second envelope. It contained the message: “Distract

your critics by reorganizing.”

Finally, because the company’s year-end results were still disappointing, the new CEO rushed to his office and opened the third envelope. It contained the message: “Prepare three envelopes.”

This joke is about the danger of repeating unfortunate patterns that we inherit; and the flip side of the joke is that it invites us to think about how we might transcendthe unfortunate patterns that we inherit. Because the new CEO could not transcend the troubled trends of the old CEO he shared the same fate as the old CEO. When we realize that we have inherited a pattern that is not healthy, how do we transcend it?

The pathos of our mother Leah. One of the saddest stories in the Torah concerns Leah and the mandrakes.

Last week’s Talmud class ended on a strong, life-affirming note for Leah. Her first three sons (Reuben, Simon and Levi) she named for the idea that now I have given my husband 1, 2, or 3 sons, now maybe he will love me. Jacob’s love still did not come. When she gives birth to her fourth son, she names him Judah: This time I will praise God. I can still praise God, I can still affirm life, in the face of a reality that just is, that just is not ideal and is not solvable. A strong, gritty, life-affirming message from which the Jewish people get their name.

There is only one problem. The story does not end there. And the coda to the story, the mandrake story, is heartbreaking.

In Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel, Lucy By the Sea, the central protagonist, Lucy Barton, goes through life with an essential question: what is it like to be you?

Two people make me think about that question.  The first is Joseph Bankman, who is the Ralph M. Parsons Professor of Law and Business at Stanford Law School.  His academic expertise is tax law.  He is the author of widely used casebooks with exciting names like Federal Income Taxation.  But he is not just a tax nerd.  He is a deeply caring and empathetic professor.  He got an additional degree in clinical psychology so that he could be more helpful in counseling anxious law students.   He also hosted a podcast called WellnessCast for Stanford Law School to discuss “wellness and mental health within the legal profession.”  A tax scholar with heart.

The other person I have been thinking about is Barbara Fried.  She is the William W. and Gertrude H. Saunders Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.  Her academic expertise is distributive justice, namely, how are the goods and services in our society distributed, and are they distributed fairly?  She is a three-time winner of an award that recognizes excellence in teaching at Stanford Law.  Barbara Fried is married to Joseph Bankman.

Quinta Brunson, the creative genius behind the critical and popular hit show Abbott Elementary, was interviewed by Doreen St. Felix on a recent episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour.  St. Felix asked her the most interesting question: Did you ever experience an impactful no? You wanted something, you did not get it, the no caused major disappointment at the time, but in the end the no prompted something positive that would not otherwise have happened.

Brunson responded that she once went to a television producer with an idea for a network

television show she believed in. The plot of the proposed show was that she and a male friend, both in their 20s, who had a good platonic relationship, slept together once, as a result of which she got pregnant. The show would be about how these two friends co-parent their child—a fact pattern that she said happens all the time. The television producer said no, which stung at the time. But in retrospect, that no helped give birth to Abbott Elementary.

In class we consider this concept of impactful no through two different lenses.

I have been thinking a lot this week about Trevor Lawrence.  Trevor Lawrence stands 6-foot-6.  He is a professional quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars. As a freshman in college, he led his team, Clemson, to a national championship.  When he declared for the NFL draft, he was labeled a can’t miss talent, a generational football prodigy with the size, the arm strength, and the intelligence to be one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game.  It has not quite worked out that way so far in his first year and a half.  That’s a separate conversation.  But he was one of the most heralded and anticipated college quarterbacks ever and was the first player chosen in the draft. 

What is the connection between Trevor Lawrence and Thanksgiving weekend and parshat Toldot?

Trevor has an older brother named Chase. Chase is also tall. He stands 6-foot-2. But unlike his famous brother Trevor, Chase has zero interest in sports—playing or watching He has not played team sports since middle school. He watches Trevor’s games as a loving brother, but if his brother is not in the game, Chase has no interest in watching sports. Chase is a professional artist. He and his wife Brooke are oil painters and sculptors. They get a lot of commissions, and make a good living, doing art.

Here are two siblings—same mother, same father, same home. And yet they are so different. The athlete who has no artistic ability. The artist who has no athletic ability.

How do we understand sibling diversity?

What happened to Rebecca?

In last week’s portion (Chayeii Sarah), she is kind to camels. She offers water to thirsty Eliezer, parched from his travels, and then offers water to his camels. Eliezer immediately concludes that Rebecca is so kind she is the right partner for Isaac.

But in this week’s portion (Toldot), Rebecca is the opposite of kind. She lies to her blind and dying husband Isaac. She pits her two sons against one another. She corrupts Jacob, enlisting him in her lying scheme. She and Jacob steal the blessing that is properly due to Esau. She explodes her family.

How do we understand the trajectory of Rebecca from kindness to deceit? There are 70 faces of Torah, and tomorrow we are going to consider very different reads to this question.

Can one muster understanding and empathy for Rebecca on the grounds that Isaac was a challenging husband; that he was limited; that he was wounded; perhaps he was neurodiverse; perhaps he was traumatized in lasting ways by the akeida, in ways that made him hard to live with. Perhaps years with this difficult husband made the light go out in Rebecca’s soul.

Or do we say, no. We are responsible for our own choices. There is no way to contextualize, reframe, justify the choices Rebecca made in destroying her family. Rebecca’s descent is not about Isaac. It is about Rebecca. Which leaves us with a very different set of lessons.

One thing is certain: Rebecca’s descent is precipitous. The harder issue is: What are we to learn from it?

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