In a moment, Cantor Kaplan will lead us in the first of the psalms of Kabbalat Shabbat, psalm 95. That psalm begins, appropriately enough, with an invitation to join together in singing songs of acclamation and hymns of adoration, praising God for the wonders of creation which, according to tradition, reached their pinnacle with Shabbat. But about halfway through, the psalm takes a surprising turn, expressing that while the majesty of creation should inspire us to revere and follow the Creator, our ancestors, as recorded in the Torah, repeatedly refused to do so, spurning God’s guidance time and again during their sojourn in the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land. The psalmist imagines God saying of the generation of the Exodus, who God ultimately dooms to die in the desert, “Arba’im shanah akut ba-dor / for forty years they provoked me…Asher nishbati b’api im y’vo-un el menuhati / So in My anger I swore that they would not enter My resting place.”
There is, of course, an internal logic to the psalm. Yet the fact that our tradition places it at the very beginning of the service to welcome in Shabbat is pretty puzzling. Isn't Shabbat supposed to be a time of peace and joy? Why, then, are we forced to remember our ancestors’ failure, and God’s anger? Isn’t Shabbat meant to be the Promised Land to the wilderness of the work-week? If so, then why does our tradition confront us at the cusp of the Sabbath with the memory of God refusing to let our ancestors into the literal Promised Land?
Perhaps coincidentally, the psalm’s allusion to our ancient ancestors’ arduous and ill-fated journey through the wilderness evokes this week's parashah, Matot-Masei. In this last sedra of sefer Bamidbar, the biblical book of Numbers – with the Children of Israel, now a generation removed from the Exodus, are situated at the border of the Promised Land – Moses recounts the 40-year journey through the wilderness, listing all the encampments, and in the process reminding us of all the people’s failures, along the way. This is a pivotal moment in the narrative. The people could have simply marched on, entering Canaan immediately. Yet just as Psalm 95 confronts us with painful memories at precisely the moment when we are meant to step into a time of peace and joy, so Moses deliberately pauses before the triumphant fulfillment of God’s promise to remind the people of the fact that they could have made it there much faster if their parents hadn’t blown it. Again, we are left to wonder: why?
Citing a parable from the midrash, the great medieval French commentator Rashi provides an intriguing explanation: Once there was a young prince who fell ill. His father, the king, brought him to a faraway land for treatment. When the prince was healed, father and son made their way back to their homeland. Along the way home, the king noted various waypoints, reminding the prince of all that had happened during their initial journey: “Here we slept, here we were cold, here you had a headache,” etc. Similarly, says Rashi, at the cusp of redemption, Moses recounts the pains experienced along the way.
I’ve always found the midrash Rashi quotes here to be tender, but puzzling. To my mind, it offers an apt analogy, but no obvious answer to the contradiction inherent in the biblical passage. It doesn’t seem any more obvious why the king feels the need to recount the prince’s painful path to healing as it does why Moses feels the need to remind the Children of Israel of their calamitous course to Canaan.
As we get to know one another, one thing I think you’ll notice about me is that I often turn to unlikely sources for meaning and wisdom. In many ways, pop culture is as much a part of me as Torah, and I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that my head is probably filled with more old-school Simpons quotes than biblical verses or talmudic maxims.
And so it was that as I was reflecting on this puzzling passage, my mind kept drifting to a show I used to watch when I was younger, South Park. There's an episode of this notoriously crass cartoon in which an anxious fourth-grader, appropriately named Tweak, claims that gnomes are sneaking into his room in the middle of the night and stealing his underwear. His friends are skeptical, so they sleep over at his house and stay up all night, assuming they would prove that Tweak is just imagining things. However, to their surprise, they catch the gnomes in the act and follow them to their hideout. When the boys confront the gnomes, they explain their diabolical plan. It’s a three-phase plan, they say. Collecting the underpants is phase 1. Phase 3 is profit. Yet it immediately becomes obvious that they have no idea what is supposed to happen in Phase 2. The joke, of course, is that the gnomes are extremely confident about their brilliant scheme, even as they don’t realize that they actually have no idea how to make a profit by stealing underpants.
Setting aside the dubious ethics of trying to turn stolen underpants, or stolen anything, into profit, it doesn’t take a Harvard MBA to know that there are many ways one could fill in the blanks of the gnomes’ Phase 2 this if they were so inclined. But no matter how, specifically, one were to approach Phase 2, it’s obvious that you have to fill in that blank somehow. You can’t just skip over Phase 2, and go directly from stealing underpants to making money. Stolen underpants don’t magically turn into profit all by themselves. And whatever you determine Phase 2 will look like, it will invariably be a complex, multi-step process, filled with challenges, learning, and growth. Phase 2’s require strategy and intentionality, collaboration and collective action, patience and perseverance, obstacles and setbacks, trial and error, steps forward as well as steps backward. Those complexities and challenges may not be particularly enjoyable. Sometimes they might even be uncomfortable or painful. But that doesn’t make them unimportant. In some respects, navigating and overcoming challenges, enlisting the support and partnership of fellow travelers, refusing to take shortcuts or skip over the steps, or otherwise to pretend that the steps don’t exist or matter, is essential to success precisely because doing so is difficult.
Seen through this lens, it becomes clear why, at the cusp of the Promised Land, Moses takes time to remind the Children of Israel of the difficult path it took to get there; and it becomes apparent why the king recounts his son’s painful path to healing, even after he has recovered. Success in any endeavor – whether it be conquering and flourishing in the Promised Land, or cherishing and maintaining one’s health after overcoming a serious illness, stepping into the serenity of Shabbat after a long and busy workweek, or, as it were, making a profit off of stolen underpants – requires navigating each and every step on the path, no matter how difficult; experiencing and learning from each and every challenge, without taking shortcuts or trying to skip ahead; and partnering with others along the path, benefiting from their talents and skills. Only by recognizing the complexities and difficulties of the journey, confronting each challenge head-on, and drawing strength from those who walk alongside us, can we be equipped and empowered to truly succeed.
The same is true in congregational life. It is all too common for congregations, like South Park’s underpants gnomes, to focus only on Phases 1 and 3. We want, for example, to engage as many people as possible, enabling them to deepen their relationships with Jewish wisdom, practice, and community. We want to play a meaningful role in building a more loving and just world. We want our congregation to thrive, to grow, to last – from generation to generation. Without question, these are all worthy goals.
But too often, congregations like ours expect to get to “Phase 3: Profit” simply by adopting simple, technical solutions, like reducing membership fees, adding guitars to the service, or even hiring a new rabbi. Yet the challenges facing congregations like ours are the result of complex, interlocking factors, and for the most part cannot be solved with simple, technical, fixes. Rather, flourishing as a congregation is a multi-stage journey. It demands creative vision, thoughtful strategy, intentional effort, patience, persistence, and above all collective action, with everyone in the community playing a meaningful role. It entails facing obstacles and setbacks; a willingness to embrace bold new ideas, even if they might fail, and learning through that process of trial and error; experiencing both progress and regress along the way. Endeavors like offering free membership, jazzing up worship, bringing on new clergy are all well and good. But we can’t just say: “Phase 1: Hire a new rabbi,” and skip to “Phase 3: Profit.” We have to do more; we have to have Phase 2’s – vision and strategy, courageous creativity and collective effort, perseverance, patience, and resilience. And we ignore Phase 2 at our own peril.
As we welcome Shabbat, I pray that we can embrace the opportunity to reflect on the difficult journeys we have taken to get here – appreciating the peace and beauty of the day all the more for our efforts, and discerning how to do it all better next time. And as we stand at the cusp of a new chapter in our congregation’s story, I pray similarly that we embrace the journey, both the one behind us and the one ahead of us, with all its ups and downs, knowing that each step brings us closer to our Promised Land.
So may it be God’s will. Amen.
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