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HEBREW TABERNACLE CONGREGATION June 11, 2011 D’var Torah
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Ethan
Brown, born on June 11, 1998, is a 7th grader at the Special Music
School and a member of the Kitah Zayin class at the Hebrew Tabernacle. He has studied the
cello since he was 5 years old. Aside from playing solo, Ethan is a member of
a chamber groups called Trio Con Brio and plays with one of the country’s
only teenage contemporary classical group, Face the Music. He performs
regularly at his school and at Merkin Concert Hall,
and has also performed at a variety of other venues around New York City
including several churches, Jewish centers, Le Poisson Rouge, Cornelia Street
Cafe and the Upper West Side Apple Store! For his Bar Mitzvah Project, Ethan is playing the
cello for elderly and housebound people. He most recently played for an
appreciative audience at The Esplanade. He enjoys singing in his school chorus
and working the lighting equipment for his school’s talent shows where this
year he will debut as co-host. Ethan
attends Kinhaven Music Camp in Vermont and looks
forward to our yearly summer vacations with his extended family in the
Adirondacks. He is lucky to live near virtually all of his relatives and
loves to spend time with them. Ethan also cherishes his school and
neighborhood friends (the latter with whom he was virtually raised and
lovingly refers to as his “friend families”.) If you find Ethan in the
schoolyard, he is probably riding his ripstick (an
in-line skateboard) or riding his bike. He loves downhill skiing and ice
skating, too. Finally, he is passionate about making movies. Ethan can often
be found walking around the apartment, camera rolling, or editing digitally
on the computer. He has a robust sense of humor and an infectious laugh. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In my Torah portion, Parshat Beha’alotecha,
our ancestors continue to wander in the desert nearly one year after their
departure from Egypt. One would think
that at this point, though tired, they would be relieved to be out of bondage
and would be celebrating their new found freedom. Instead, we learn that the various tribes
are bitterly complaining about the bland food they are eating in the desert. They must eat a gross mush, called “manna”,
which is received on the dewdrops that form in the morning on plants. They are wishing for nicer food like meat,
vegetables, and spices like they had back in Pharaoh’s land when they were
slaves. Ironically, they begin
remembering their days as slaves fondly because of the varieties of foods
they had. Not knowing how to manage
their constant complaints, Moses turned to God for help. God sends Moses seventy elders to help and
gives the Jews so much meat and vegetables that most of them get sick and
even die. This section of the Torah made
me consider two difficult questions.
The first question is How do we
as Jews maintain faith even when things are not going well for us? The second question is How do we cope with major change in our lives? Beha’alotecha provides an excellent lesson for us to learn about managing major
change. Real change is not easy, but
everyone faces momentous change in their lives at some point, and this story
shows us that we have to be brave and power through it. Our ancestors needed to brave through the
desert eating bad food, with all their belongings on their backs in the hope
of finding the Promised Land where future generations could be free and have
enjoyable lives. They had to wander
many years in the desert with the clear knowledge that perhaps they may never
reach the Promised Land themselves.
They were courageous to take on the responsibility of seeking a new
homeland and a new way of life in the Land of Canaan, yet their faith began
to waiver when they felt the hardships that come with any big change. Faith is belief, assurance, or hope, and
Moses gave the Jews faith in finding Israel.
The Jews had to have faith in Moses to help lead them to Israel and
they ultimately had to have faith in God to lead Moses. In turn, Moses had to have faith in God
that he would be able to lead the people to the Promised Land, even when they
began to revolt. In studying this portion of the
Torah, I began thinking about how, even when times look bad and our lives
have taken a change for the worse, we have to have faith that we can overcome
adversity. Although faith often involves struggle and sacrifice, what keeps
us going is the belief that both we and those who come after us will
eventually be better off over the long haul.
My Torah portion teaches us about the values of faith and personal
sacrifice. I can relate to the whole issue
of change on a personal level. As a
student of the cello, I’ve often been given a lot of hard, challenging pieces
to learn and play in my repertoire. I
usually get mad at myself while practicing when I make mistakes or play parts
of a piece that don’t sound good at that moment. In a recent piece composed by Tchaikovsky,
there was a section which requires the musician to move their hand up and
down the neck of the cello playing many notes very quickly. I could never figure out why I couldn’t make
it through the passage. Like the Jews
in the desert, I remembered back to earlier times and wished I was playing a
simpler piece that would give me some immediate satisfaction. It made me want to SCREAM! And I did.
Did the screaming help? No, but
then I remembered that I am not in this alone. I remembered that I do need my cello teacher’s instruction and advice as well as my
parent’s support and encouragement. Maybe the answer to my question about
faith lies in the fact that sometimes faith alone is not enough, we need the
support of our teachers, the wisdom of good leaders, and the comfort of our
family and friends. We do not always
have to face challenges by ourselves.
The Jews turned to their leader in their anguish and Moses, in turn,
looked to God, who wisely offered Moses a team of elders to help. There was one other lesson that
struck me as I reflected upon this section of the Torah. My dad reminded me that the Jews continued
to wander in the desert for forty years, and the older among them who had
originally escaped from Egypt never themselves enjoyed the reward of getting
to the Land of Canaan. That notion
really struck me since only after one year of travelling,
the Jews were beginning to lose faith.
It is really a great sacrifice to take on hardships in the hopes of
providing something better for future generations. Sacrifice is about giving up something for
someone else. The Jews even sacrificed
most of their lives wandering in the desert, so that the future generations
could live in their own land and live better lives than they did. Sometimes in life, we have to give up
things that we want so that our family, friends, or children can live
better. So, another answer to the question of faith is the comfort of knowing
that even if we cannot see the rewards immediately and we may feel loss in
the short run, our faith can be energized by the fact that future generations
will benefit from our efforts. The virtue of sacrifice and
living with less but planning for future generations are
also reflected in ancient Jewish stories. For instance, Rabbi Honi HaM’agel, a Talmudic
scholar who lived in the first century B.C.E., saw a man planting a carob
tree. He asked the man how long the
Carob tree would take to grow, and the man told him that the tree would
probably take around seventy years to grow.
Honi asked the man if he thought that he
would live long enough for the tree to bear fruit. The man said that he ate the fruit from the
trees that his father and grandfather planted for him and that he was doing
the same for his children and grandchildren.
This is a lot like what the Jews did in their journey to the Promised
Land. In our more recently history,
the Jewish European immigrants in the late nineteenth century, decided to work
extra hard so that the next generation could have better lives and go to
college and live a more comfortable life than they did. This was true of my great great grandparents as well as my great grandparents, all
of whom struggled to make the lives of their children and children’s children
better. My Bar Mitzvah project was to
play music on my cello for elderly homebound people. I know that many of them
experienced living with less but putting much of what they earned away to
send their children to college. This
would mean not getting very expensive items that they wanted but did not
need. Every dollar that could be saved
went to the next generation, who would thrive in a nicer world then they had
lived in. I believe that this Torah
portion I have discussed also relates to our lives as Americans as well. For example, Barack Obama’s campaign theme
was about hope, and his slogan was “Yes we can”. From the economic recession to the health
care to balancing the budget, Obama knows that the long term solutions to
these problems are going to require present sacrifice. It’s a hard thing to do, but think about
how you can make the next generation prosper.
Conserve energy, consume less, and avoid waste. We can build a better world if we try! I would like to take this time
to acknowledge and thank a number of people who have given me opportunities,
who have been there for me when things are tough, or who are just good
examples throughout my life. First, I would like to thank
Connie Heymen and Shelly Koy
for being great Hebrew School principals.
I really have learned a lot about Judaism in Hebrew School thanks to
you both. I would like to thank Helen
Blumenthal for keeping me in check with all my Saturday Morning Service
attendance and Shul Hop counts and for helping me and my parents get ready for this day. A special thanks goes to Rabbi Gale and Cantor Rubel for encouraging me, helping me get ready for this
day and leading today’s service. Their positive spirit helped me feel
confident and well prepared for this day.
I would also like to thank my
Bar Mitzvah tudor Sandy Horowitz for not only
getting me ready to sing and chant the Torah, but also for helping me to
appreciate Jewish customs and making me feel welcome in the Jewish
community. She has been my downstairs
neighbor since I was one year old and it has been really nice to get to know
her better. Next, I would like to give an
extra special thanks to my cello teacher, Yari
Bond, for teaching me cello for the last 8 years. She has truly become my mentor and my
friend. I would like to thank all my
friends at school and all my neighborhood, Hebrew school and camp friends for
being the funniest, most adorable people ever! I love you guys! I would also like to thank my
whole entire family for being the greatest people ever, especially my
grandparents and aunts and uncles whom I love very much! Next, I would like to thank my
brother for being such a good person and cheering me on, and I would
definitely not be the same person without you! Lastly, I would like to thank
my parents for supporting me all these years and helping me get up to this
point in my life. I definitely
wouldn’t be here without you.
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