"To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.  I am not a teacher, only a fellow student."  (Soren Kierkegaard)

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A FEW POST SHABBAT WORDS FROM RABBI AARON

Life-changing Conversation
Back-story
Sarah the matriarch has just passed away. After burying her in the cave he purchased from Ephron the Hittite, Abraham turns to another matter which weighs on his mind. How will Isaac find a wife? How does anyone find the person they marry? Any answers to that question are surely bound up within the context of culture. Beyond those considerations, there are painful issues surrounding Isaac, whose life was forever altered by his being bound to the altar by his father. This boy watched in terror as his father raised the blade to sacrifice him to God. The boy who came down from the mountaintop was not the same as the one who walked hand in hand with his father, wondering aloud about where the sacrificial lamb was to be found.

Abraham sends his servant Eliezer on a most challenging quest to find a wife who would be suitable for Isaac. Despite the daunting nature of his task, Eliezer displays a deep understanding of who Isaac needs to be with. He devises a strategy for finding the right woman, he prays to God, and... we meet Rebecca at the well. As the parasha draws to a close, Rebecca is about to meet the stranger she will marry. Let's visit that scene and attempt to wrestle with its meanings.

“Now Isaac had come from Be'er Lahai Roi, for he was living in the Negev. He went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. Rebecca also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel and asked the servant, ‘Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?’ ‘He is my master,’ the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself...”

When Rebecca met Isaac, what was that encounter like? In order to answer that question, permit me to take us on a bit of a talmudic detour. Commenting on the weekly parasha within his newly published Covenant and Conversation, Jonathan Sacks revisits a famous Talmudic discussion which explores the nature of prayer. Here's a sketch of that debate...

Rabbi Joshua, son Levi: Prayer replaces sacrifice
This school of thought argued that Jewish prayer has replaced ancient sacrifice. Scholars in this camp emphasized the public, ceremonial, choreographed details of our liturgy. What kind of kaddish is chanted, when do we sit or stand, what special texts do we insert for the season, what prayers need a the presence of a minyan, which haftarah (selection from the prophetic literature) is to be chanted on a particular shabbat, etc. All of this can be summed up in the word keva, structure.

Rabbi Yose, son of Rabbi Hanina: Our Patriarchs authored Jewish prayer
In contrast to the fixed liturgy argument, Rabbi Yose and his followers argued that prayer goes all the way back to our founding Father [1]. Creatively cherry-picking from Genesis, this school suggests that Abraham gave us the shacharit (morning) service [2], Isaac established the mincha (afternoon) service [3], and Jacob created the ma'ariv (evening) service [4]. Beyond the clever textual attributions, these scholars captured the creative spontaneity that must be nurtured if our prayers are to be alive. All of this can be summed up in the word kavannah, intention and focus.

Isaac and Rebecca meet
Now that we've taken in the talmudic structure versus spontaneity (keva versus kavannah) debate, let's go to the scene we cited earlier. What was Isaac doing in the field as Rebecca and Eliezer approached? He was meditating. That's a good English translation, but every translator has to struggle with the best approximate paraphrase of the original.The Hebrew phrase in question is intriguing. Vayetze yitzchak lasu'ach basadeh - the root found within lasu'ach is still part of modern Hebrew today. Sicha means discussion or conversation. Was Isaac talking to someone? The writer mentions no one else in the field that afternoon. Could Isaac have been talking to himself? That could certainly make sense. We have moments when we talk to ourselves (or to God?), especially when we're feeling hard-pressed. Maybe Isaac was anticipating the arrival of Eliezer and the mysterious bride-to-be. Could Isaac have been striking up a conversation with Rebecca? This is all way before J-Date. And remember, Isaac didn't go out to find a partner on his own. Consider the post-almost-sacrifice trauma that haunts this forty year old man. And who was Rebecca? Whenever I revisit the text, I'm convinced that she's a very complicated personality, someone who demolishes the biblical stereotype of a shy, submissive spouse. [I hope you check out the provocative poem called Rebecca's Way by Alicia Ostriker, posted on my webpage among the art-text parasha offerings.]

The Power of Conversation
Back to Rabbi Yose (cited above), who - says: Ein sicha elah t'fillah - here are a couple of reasonable working translations:
(1) All meditation is prayer.
(2) All conversation is prayer.

While I really like both, and I'm slowly learning that contemplation and meditation are deeply sacred, I'm going for #2 in this drash: All conversation is prayer. What is real conversation, not the throwaway banter we exchange on the run, not the "how are you doing?" "just, fine" thirty-seconds of our daily patter - what happens during the rare conversation that changes everything?

The great historian and social philosopher, named Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888-1973) coined this Latin phrase: Respondum est Mutabor - here's my best paraphrase-type take on that phrase: I respond within dialogue, knowing that I will be changed. Huessy was teaching us that dialogue - far beyond the ping-pong of words - can create a space that will change the participants. This teaching has far-reaching implications. In terms of Jewish prayer, it suggests that praying with an open heart can take us far beyond any fixed text. It means that we can (and really should) open ourselves to listen deeply as we pray - no wonder that Sh'ma Yisrael are such important words! I think Huessy (and Sacks) also point the way toward a deeper teaching:heartfelt human conversation is prayer. When we open up to others in deep conversation we pave the way for potential changes beyond our imagination. We give birth to possibility. The words we hear, the thoughts we share - these moments are sacred gifts. Vayetze yitzchak lasu'ach basadeh - Isaac went out, he crawled out of his grief-soaked shell in order to bravely risk the possibilities of meeting the mysterious stranger. Isaac and Rebecca were forever changed by the afternoon conversation in the field on that fateful day.

Notes
1 The Mothers don't make it into the opening section of the Amidah until the 20th Century, and their presence within the service is a decidedly non-Orthodox one.
2 "Abraham arose early in the morning..." These words open Abraham's journey with Isaac to Mount Moriah. The "early in the morning" phrase provides the hook for his leading us in shacharit.
3 "Isaac went out to meditate in the field before evening..." The time reference allows Rabbi Yose to send Isaac to the lecturn to lead us in mincha.
4 "He (Jacob) encountered the place and he slept there, as the sun had set..." These words unfold into Jacob's amazing dream of the ladder reaching the heavens. The reference to sunset was the pretext for Rabbi Yose's crediting Jacob with authoring ma'ariv.

-Rabbi Aaron