Vayetzei: Gratitude As Hallmark of Being a Jew

Shabbat Shalom. Mazel tov to the Katzman family. Noah is doing so well this morning. I know he is making you all proud on this morning of his Bar Mitzvah.

So before we go on with our service, let’s talk about what it is that Noah is doing this morning. It the day of his becoming a Bar Mitzvah, and as the program you all have indicates, this literally means Son of the Commandment, and that Noah has taken on the religious obligations of a Jewish adult.

But what does it mean to be a Jewish adult? Or for that matter, what does it mean to be a Jew?

In the Torah in order to understand what a person is like, you must understand their name. Throughout the Torah we are told the explanations of people’s names. Abraham means father of many nations, Isaac means to laugh, Sarah means princess, etc. What is true for individuals is the same for groups, and we Jews are known by several names – the Children of Israel, Hebrews, the People of the Book, and quite simply Jews.

Each of these names reflects a different element of our heritage. We speak Hebrew, and the word itself means “on the other side,” meaning as a group we have stood outside the mainstream. As the Children of Israel we know we are one large extended family, descended from Jacob, who earned a new name for himself through his god-wrestling. As People of the Book we are a group that has long advocated for literacy and the acquisition of knowledge by all, not merely the few in leadership positions, and our holy texts help define us. But most commonly we are simply referred to as Jews.

How we got our name reflects on who we are supposed to be. The story of our name, sometimes used as a name of shame, but in my opinion always a badge of honor, began in this morning’s Torah portion that Noah read from.

There we read: “The Lord saw that Leah was unloved and he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren. Leah conceived and bore a son, and named him Reuben; for she declared, “It means: ‘The Lord has seen my affliction’; it also means: ‘Now my husband will love me.’” She conceived again and bore a son, and declared, “This is because the Lord heard that I was unloved and has given me this one also: so she named him Simeon. Again she conceived and bore a son and declared, “This time my husband will become attached to me, for I have borne him three sons.” Therefore he was named Levi. She conceived again and bore a son, and declared, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing.

Our Etz Hayim Chumash has an interesting comment on this passage. We read: “The names of Leah’s first three sons reflect her frustrating rivalry with her sister for the love of the husband they share. The reasons given for her choice of names for the first three children say nothing about her hopes for them but focus solely on how the births will affect her marriage. Now, with a fourth son, her mood changes from rivalry to gratitude, so she names him Judah (Y’hudah) from a Hebrew root meaning “to praise.” In the future, the descendants of Jacob will be known as Judeans, or Jews (Y’hudim). Yochanan stated, “From the beginning of time, no one ever thanked God as Leah did” Her heartfelt prayer of thanks reflects her having grown from self-concern and a focus on what she lacked to a genuine sense of appreciation of what was hers.

And I would add not only are we called Jews, but our religion is called Judaism. What does this mean for us? It means that our religion is devoted to finding the gifts in everyday life and to praising the source of those gifts, God. That is why in the Talmud we are told that we should say 100 blessings every day. Each blessing praises God for one of the many gifts he has bestowed either on us personally, on the Jewish people, or the world. And in case you’re wondering, just by coming to services this morning many of you will have said over 40 blessings by the time you leave.

My friends, there are, believe it or not, only SEVENTEEN shopping days before the start of Hanukkah. Hopefully you are in better shape than me because I have literally not bought a single gift for a single member of my family. Oy. I am not panicking though, because I know – and I think my family knows as well – that we already possess the greatest gift – pride and joy in who and what we are and what we believe. In seventeen days when we celebrate Hanukkah and the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks we will celebrate our right to exist as Jews, different than the majority. That is the point of the story. The Maccabees and the community had the chance to live just like everyone else, but they rejected it. They chose to remain Jews, and rather than see it as a burden they saw it as the gift it is.

So it should be for every Bar or Bar Mitzvah. For many generations rabbis have preached that at a Bar or Bat Mitzvah the young person becomes obligated for accepting – ol malkhut shamayim¸ which roughly translates as the “yoke of the kingdom of heaven” or “the yoke of the commandments.” I remember hearing that expression at my Bat Mitzvah and flinching. I knew that a yoke is something that is put on animals that joins together animals that are plowing or is sometimes put on people to help them carry things. But I also knew that the expression was also a metaphor for our relationship with God. My problem was that I understood a yoke to also be what it says in the fifth definition on dictionary.com – “an agency of oppression, subjection, servitude, etc.” That didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t look kindly on being “oppressed” by God or my religion.

Luckily, I learned over time that the angst I felt was for nothing. Why? Because I misunderstood the point the rabbis were trying to make in calling it ol malkhut shamayim. You see, there are many different meanings to the word yoke, and they can change the meaning of the expression entirely. Thus it is that the seventh definition for “yoke” on dictionary.com is “something that couples or binds together; a bond or a tie.”

That means that rather than being oppressed on one’s Bar Mitzvah by suddenly being expected to observe the many mitzvoth that we Jews observe, instead you are being tied together to heaven by accepting your obligations for these mitzvoth. This goes back directly to the definition of mitzvoth that I shared last week, as those things we do that connect us to God. And by the way, the mitzvoth, what I call connections, what are sometimes translated as commandments, are THE greatest gift that God ever gave to humanity. A parent who loves his or her children offers them guidance on how to live a good, decent, moral, and satisfying life. That is what the mitzvoth are. Only a parent that doesn’t truly care provides no real guidelines for their children.  

God did not give us the mitzvoth in order to make us feel guilty when we make a mistake. God gave us the mitzvoth to show how much we are loved, to teach us how much we can aspire to, and how we can, even in the most mundane aspects of our life like how we dress and what we eat, get closer to God.

And so it is Noah, that as you become a Jewish adult, I pray that you always remember what it means to be one whose name means “to praise,” and to live each day of your life grateful for the many blessings in your life, and do as Leah did, praise God, from Whom all your blessings flow. May we all exemplify in our behavior what it means to be a Jew, one who knows how to praise God for all that we are, all that we believe, all that we have, and all we will become. Shabbat Shalom.