I’m as chagrined as anyone about the ugliness we are witnessing on the extremes of both American political parties. But there have always been isolationists and bigots in Congress.
Does a respectable mainstream, at least presently, dominate in each party?
My take is here.
Some people’s default attitude in life is “I really deserve more than I have”; others are prone to feeling that “I really don’t deserve what I have.”
Most people fall somewhere on the spectrum between those two extremes, and most people also may experience one of the attitudes at some points; the other, at others.
Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, the Kotzker Rebbe, pointed out that, even though Jews are descended from 12 tribes, the sons of Yaakov, we are called Yehudim, after only one of those progenitors, Yehudah.
That, he contended, is because Jews are meant to embody the sentiment that yielded Yehudah his name – his mother Leah’s declaration at his birth that she was the beneficiary of what she “didn’t deserve.”
Since Yaakov had children from four women and Leah knew that her husband was destined to father 12 sons, she expected to bear only three. Yehudah was her fourth. And she acknowledged (“odeh,” the root of “Yehudah”) the fact that she had “received more than my share” (Beraishis 29:35; see Rashi).
Traditionally, the first words to leave a Jew’s mouth each morning upon awakening are “Modeh Ani” (or, for a woman, “Modah Ani”) — “I acknowledge.” The acknowledgment is for having woken up, for life itself. A Jew is meant to take nothing for granted, nothing. To take everything he has as a divine gift.
© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran
While the world watches to see whether the tunnel-ridden wasteland along the Mediterranean called Gaza can be restored to a livable place, what can’t be ignored is the most important part of the reconstruction effort: the rebooting of the Gazan mind.
To read more about that, click here.
Yaakov’s middah – defining characteristic – is emes, truth, and so Rashi parses Yaakov’s misleading words to Yitzchak to make them true on some level. For instance, allowing his father to believe it is Esav to whom he is speaking, Yaakov says “I am Esav your firstborn.” Rashi interjects a presumed pause in the sentence, rendering it “I am [the one bringing you food]; Esav is your firstborn” (Beraishis, 27:19).
Yet one misleading phrase still stands out: “Come eat of my hunted [food]” (ibid), says Yaakov, offering his father the goat meat he could mistake for game. But it was neither Yaakov’s food – his mother Rivka had prepared it – nor had it been “hunted.” How was Yaakov not lying?
What occurs is that “hunting” is a word we’ve seen earlier, in the Torah’s description of Nimrod: “a powerful hunter” (ibid 10:9). And there, Rashi explains that what Nimrod “hunted” and captured were people’s minds. He used words and subterfuge to mislead, convince and amass followers.
Perhaps here, too, Yaakov was subtly, slyly, subtly “confessing” to his father that he was engaged in a psychological subterfuge, presenting himself as someone he wasn’t, offering his “hunting” to Yitzchak, his ability to navigate a tricky and untrustworthy world. Thereby demonstrating that he, Yaakov, too, was capable of dealing with that challenging world no less than his brother, something that, as the Malbim and others explain, Yitzchak had assumed was not true.
And so Yaakov was saying, in effect, “Accept my current subterfuge as proof that I can do what you have assumed only Esav is able to do.”
© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran
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It’s human nature, when faced with something tragic, or even just disturbing, to say to oneself, “If only…”
“If only I had done this… or we had done that… or not done this… or not done that, we could have avoided this outcome.”
But human nature can be misleading. A thought I once heard suggests that the repetition of the phrase, “the years of Sarah’s life,” in the first pasuk of the parsha, even though the pasuk had opened with “And the lifetime of Sarah was 127 years,” teaches us to resist our proclivity to imagine that things could have been different had we only acted differently.
We might think that had Sarah not been told (as per a famous Midrash) about her son having been bound on an altar, she wouldn’t have died at the moment she did, having been spared the shock.
But Sarah’s death was divinely ordained for that moment. “The years of Sarah’s life” were the years granted her. The proximate cause of her death wasn’t its ultimate cause. Its ultimate cause was Hashem’s will.
Post-facto calculi in such things are wrongheaded.
We are certainly required to do what is normative practice to preserve our health – but only that. Someone, for instance, who suffered from Covid when it was raging might kick himself for having worn only a simple mask, not an expensive, surgical-quality one. Or for having spaced himself only 6 feet from others, instead of 10. But if one fulfilled the normative obligaton and still became sick, he is wrong to agonize over not having done more. He needs to recognize the ultimate determinant: Hashem’s will. And then do what normative practice demands, to, with Hashem’s help, recover.
But pondering “if onlys” is pointless.
© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran
Remarkably, in response to Avimelech’s protest over being punished for taking Sarah, Hashem confirms the king’s insistence that he had acted innocently, believing that Avraham and Sarah were, as they had claimed, brother and sister.
“I, too, knew,” Hashem tells Avimelech in a dream, “that it was in the innocence of your heart that you did this” (Beraishis, 20:6).
So, if Avimelech was innocent in taking Sarah, why didn’t Hashem merely prevent the king from approaching her? Why were he and his family and entourage physically punished?
Perhaps the answer lies in what Avraham told Avimelech, when the king demanded an explanation for having misled him:
“Because,” Avraham explained, “I said ‘There is no fear of G-d in this place’” (ibid, 11).
A leader, that tells us, has the ability, and responsibility, to influence the mores of his society. And if a society evidences lack of “fear of G-d,” its leadership is implicated in the evil.
A piece I wrote about President Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Kuwait is at Religion News Service and can be read here.
When, as they approach Egypt, Avram asks Sarai to pretend she is his sister, he explains “so that it will be good for me and I will remain alive because of you.” (Beraishis, 12:13)
Rashi’s comment on the words “it will be good for me” – “so that they [the Egyptians] will give me gifts” – puzzled me, as they surely have many, for years. Avram, who later in the parshah (14:23) spurned even a shoelace from the king of Sdom, is concerned with gifts?
An intriguing possible understanding of Rashi’s words occurred to me. Shlomo HaMelech, in Mishlei (15:27) teaches us that “the one who hates gifts will live.”
It may be that the greatest expression of that attitude isn’t only “in theory,” in hating the idea of gifts, but in actual practice – namely, that it’s the attitude toward an actual proffered gift that helps ensure life.
And so, perhaps Avram wanted gifts to be offered to him, so that he could “hate” the fact that he was offered them… with the result being that, as he continues, “I will remain alive…” – echoing Shlomo HaMelech’s words.
Postscript: Interestingly, the concept of shunning gifts as bolstering life is reflected in a snippet from a 1960s folk song:
“Some people never get, some never give;
Some people never die and some never live.”
There is, Chazal teach us, “chachmah bagoyim,” wisdom among other nations.