There’s a classic Yogi Berra-style Jewish joke that goes something like this:

A woman walks into her local butcher shop and sees a sign for chicken at $1.50 a pound. (Note: You can tell just how old this joke is by the prices mentioned here.) She looks at the butcher indignantly and says, “A dollar-fifty? The butcher across the street is selling chicken for only 30 cents a pound!”

The butcher shrugs and says, “Nu? Go buy it from him.”

“I can’t,” the woman replies. “He’s out of stock.”

The butcher smiles and says, “Lady, when I’m out of chicken, I sell it for 10 cents a pound!”

One of the things that makes the joke work is the brutal honesty (perhaps it’s chutzpah) of the butcher. But deeper than that, I think, is that it brings into high relief the insincerity of the marketplace. After all, what does it mean to charge money for a product you don’t actually have? And yet, any of us who has ever bought something that turned out to be a fraud can probably relate. So we laugh at the joke because we can recognize something of ourselves in it.

On an even deeper level, I think the joke is going further and can take us to a place that might be helpfully understood by—wait for it—the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the 20th century Jewish philosopher of language. 

A little refresher in case you haven’t thought about him recently (which is totally fine—most of us have probably had other things on our minds recently): One of the most famous aspects of Wittgenstein’s work is the change in his thinking about language between his early and later periods. In his earlier thought, Wittgenstein posited that language should fundamentally work like a map: for a word or a sentence to mean something, you must be able to point to something that it’s trying to signify. When we can’t do that—for instance, if we’re talking about concepts like God or love—then there’s a gap between the signifier and the signified. At that point, we’re in the world of the mystical, and we should enter it through silence rather than speech.

Later in life, Wittgenstein came to the view that this focus on the concrete versus abstract was misguided, perhaps because these kinds of gaps are ever-present. Language rarely works perfectly like a map. A better way to understand it, he argued, was to think of it as a game, or collection of games. Words don’t have fixed, inherent meanings. Instead, they work based on the social rules of the context in which they’re deployed. For instance, “chicken” in the joke above means a kind of meat the woman wants to prepare. But “chicken” as uttered by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future (“Nobody calls me chicken!”) means something very different. His focus shifted from minding the gap between signifier and signified to swimming in the stream of language. 

Commenting on Moses’s self-assessment in Parashat Vaera that he is of “uncircumcised lips” (Ex. 6:12), Avivah Zornberg, invoking Nachmanides, observes, “There is no escape from the imperative of language, because only [Moses] has seen and heard. The burden of revelation lies directly on him: only he can speak of what he knows. This means a project of translation: he must make God’s words heard by others. This is the essential role of the prophet.” Yet, Zornberg continues, “To speak always means to translate, to transform; even the most faithful translations are betrayals: il traduttore e traditore—’To translate is to betray.'” (The Particulars of Rapture, 94)

“Translation” here does not mean merely expressing one idea in another language. Zornberg is saying something far deeper: translation is the basic act of communication itself, even within a language nominally shared by the speaker and the listener, or the writer and the reader. (For instance, at this very moment, though I’m quite sure you’re understanding the English I’m writing, I’m understandably concerned that you may not be getting what I’m trying to say!)

Zornberg goes on to analyze Moses as potentially wracked by a fear of shame inherent in speaking, “a fear of being despicable in the eyes of Pharaoh” (who was, she reminds us, a family figure to Moses). She sums him up at this stage as experiencing “a continuing resistance to language, to entering the world of others… resisting the embarrassments of language.” For this reason, God assigns Aaron, who has not directly experienced the revelation that Moses has, as a kind of press secretary to aid him in the work of translation and communication.

I don’t know about you, but for me, this challenge of language, the enormity of trying to express fully and honestly the totality of an experience or an idea, resonates deeply. I feel like I experience it all the time. Like the early Wittgenstein, I have found, especially in recent years, wisdom in the idea that it is often better to remain silent, particularly when speaking is likely to generate more heat than light. To speak or write these days, especially in public, always requires a high degree of trust: that one’s listeners or readers will engage in good faith; that our words will be given the benefit of the doubt (provided we are, in fact, communicating in good faith). That trust often requires a great deal of courage. And if Moses had a hard time mustering that courage, then I’m willing to be a little more compassionate with myself if I don’t rise to the bar.

And yet, as our tradition makes equally clear, the liberation of the Exodus is not merely a political one. The midrashic and Hasidic traditions make much of the idea that just as the Jewish people were in exile in Egypt, so was their language. The redemption was not only of Israelite bodies, but of our words, our Torah, our culture. As Zornberg, paraphrasing Kierkegaard, writes elsewhere, “Between silence and speech, silence is the more dangerous: its very safety endangers the self.” She sums up, “Between finitude and infinitude, possibility and necessity, the human being struggles for an authentic freedom.” (15)

Particularly in an age when each of us has access to a megaphone, and when, despite countervailing forces, we still have deep connections to the idea of speaking out in the public square, these are more than academic or aesthetic ruminations. How and when we choose to speak, to listen, to engage with one another through our words—these are still the questions of the Exodus, and they are still the questions into which our spiritual practice is meant to help us live.

Questions for Reflection & Conversation:

When you think about “speaking up” these days, what sensations arise for you? What, if anything, do you find helps you speak when you might rather be silent? What, if anything, helps you be silent when you might have an urge to speak? 

Natalie has wanted to do this for a long time. All of her grandparents were survivors of the Shoah and/or Russian gulags during World War II. And while many folks are interested in tracing their genealogy, Natalie has always been particularly eager to gather as much of the stories of her lost relatives as possible–not just knowing their names, but who they were and how they lived. That’s what she’s helping other people to do too.

For one client, she has spent dozens of hours learning about the family’s history through archival records, and she has uncovered some amazing things: The names of lost aunts and uncles, and post-Shoah testimonies about the town they lived in; a footnote in a memorial volume that mentioned a cousin’s best friend; an oral history in which a survivor recalled that the way they used to evaluate whether a celebration was really great was by how good the sponge cake was.

What Natalie is doing with her clients is helping them push through some of the veil that historical narrative can place over the lived experience of our ancestors: Yes, bubbie’s citizenship was stripped by the Nuremberg Laws; she also made a fabulous sponge cake that used 16 eggs. In the former telling, Bubbie becomes something of a heroic symbol; in the latter, she was a woman who wasn’t so different from us. Both are important to know, remember, and relate to. (And one is much more delicious than the other.)

“And because the midwives revered God, God established households for them.” (Exodus 1:21) Shifra and Puah, who the midrash identifies as Yocheved and Miriam, Moses’s mother and sister, are heroic historical figures. Their resistance to Pharaoh is pivotal to the survival of Israelites–and because their story is retold in this way, they are symbols for all who resist tyranny and oppression.

But the language of “God established households for them” invites questions. What’s going on here? Rashi comments that the “households” refer to literal lineages: Yocheved becomes the ancestor of Moses and Aaron (and Miriam); Miriam, through her marriage to Caleb, becomes the ancestor of King David.

In his Mei Hashiloach, Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izhbitz offers a less historical, more spiritual reading: “It is human nature that when we fear other human beings, we don’t experience yishuv hada’at, a settled mind–for fear is the opposite of a settled mind. However, with the fear or reverence of the Holy One, one experiences menucha, rest and comfort. ‘And God made them houses,’ teaches of this, for ‘houses’ symbolizes an organized, settled mind. It follows that when they had a settled mind, in awe and reverence toward the Holy One, they had no fear from the decree of Pharaoh.”

To me, this is a deeply perceptive reading on the workings of fear and confidence–one I find to be true in my own spiritual practice. When my mind is scattered and unsettled, I find my breath is shorter, my adrenaline is up, and I am much more susceptible to the unhealthy ways fear can operate within me. That’s true whether I’m walking on a busy street or reading the news on my phone. But when I take the time to enter a state of yishuv hada’at, to settle my mind through meditation or other conscious effort, I generally experience a sense of calm, comfort, and confidence–and, ultimately, a sense of yirat Hashem, reverence for the Creator.

To bring us back to Shifra and Puah, or to our closer ancestors whom we might treat at a historical distance, I find it a wonderful invitation to imagine how these very basic forces of fear, reverence, breathing, adrenaline, attention and awareness operated within them. What kind of self-confidence must they have had to do what they did? What kind of fear might have operated within them, and how did they manage it? When I ask these kinds of questions, I find greater insight in the story than when I treat the characters as heroes on a pedestal.

One of the fundamental teachings of Hasidism is that yetziat mitzrayim, the Exodus, was not merely an historical event. The forces of constraint–physical, psychological, political, spiritual–regularly press inward towards constriction. Egypt, mitzrayim, is that constricted place, and thus, simply to stay alive and able to serve the Holy One, we are constantly leaving Egypt. To be truly, deeply at home is to experience spiritual liberation. And so, to borrow the word of our passage in the Torah, our spiritual practice is here to help us experience ourselves as babayit, at home–in our minds, our bodies, the planet, and the cosmos.

For reflection and conversation:

• Do you have an ancestor, biological or spiritual, who is a hero to you? What, if anything, do you know about their spiritual life? What, if anything, do you imagine they might have done or experienced to enable them to take heroic action?
• In your own life, does your spiritual practice help you feel more settled and at home? If so, how? If not, why not–and is there anything you might want to shift as a result?

In the last few months, my wife Natalie has launched a new business called The Story Archivist. (This is not meant as a promotional email, I promise–you get plenty of those from me for IJS courses already!) Natalie is a journalist by training, a published author by experience (five young adult novels), and an educator by career. Her work today brings that all together by helping families preserve and tell their family stories: interviewing elders, doing archival research, and writing it up in a way that will allow future generations to know who they are and where they come from.

Natalie has wanted to do this for a long time. All of her grandparents were survivors of the Shoah and/or Russian gulags during World War II. And while many folks are interested in tracing their genealogy, Natalie has always been particularly eager to gather as much of the stories of her lost relatives as possible–not just knowing their names, but who they were and how they lived. That’s what she’s helping other people to do too. 

For one client, she has spent dozens of hours learning about the family’s history through archival records, and she has uncovered some amazing things: The names of lost aunts and uncles, and post-Shoah testimonies about the town they lived in; a footnote in a memorial volume that mentioned a cousin’s best friend; an oral history in which a survivor recalled that the way they used to evaluate whether a celebration was really great was by how good the sponge cake was.

What Natalie is doing with her clients is helping them push through some of the veil that historical narrative can place over the lived experience of our ancestors: Yes, bubbie’s citizenship was stripped by the Nuremberg Laws; she also made a fabulous sponge cake that used 16 eggs. In the former telling, Bubbie becomes something of a heroic symbol; in the latter, she was a woman who wasn’t so different from us. Both are important to know, remember, and relate to. (And one is much more delicious than the other.)

“And because the midwives revered God, God established households for them.” (Exodus 1:21) Shifra and Puah, who the midrash identifies as Yocheved and Miriam, Moses’s mother and sister, are heroic historical figures. Their resistance to Pharaoh is pivotal to the survival of Israelites–and because their story is retold in this way, they are symbols for all who resist tyranny and oppression. 

But the language of “God established households for them” invites questions. What’s going on here? Rashi comments that the “households” refer to literal lineages: Yocheved becomes the ancestor of Moses and Aaron (and Miriam); Miriam, through her marriage to Caleb, becomes the ancestor of King David. 

In his Mei Hashiloach, Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izhbitz offers a less historical, more spiritual reading: “It is human nature that when we fear other human beings, we don’t experience yishuv hada’at, a settled mind–for fear is the opposite of a settled mind. However, with the fear or reverence of the Holy One, one experiences menucha, rest and comfort. ‘And God made them houses,’ teaches of this, for ‘houses’ symbolizes an organized, settled mind. It follows that when they had a settled mind, in awe and reverence toward the Holy One, they had no fear from the decree of Pharaoh.”

To me, this is a deeply perceptive reading on the workings of fear and confidence–one I find to be true in my own spiritual practice. When my mind is scattered and unsettled, I find my breath is shorter, my adrenaline is up, and I am much more susceptible to the unhealthy ways fear can operate within me. That’s true whether I’m walking on a busy street or reading the news on my phone. But when I take the time to enter a state of yishuv hada’at, to settle my mind through meditation or other conscious effort, I generally experience a sense of calm, comfort, and confidence–and, ultimately, a sense of yirat Hashem, reverence for the Creator. 

To bring us back to Shifra and Puah, or to our closer ancestors whom we might treat at a historical distance, I find it a wonderful invitation to imagine how these very basic forces of fear, reverence, breathing, adrenaline, attention and awareness operated within them. What kind of self-confidence must they have had to do what they did? What kind of fear might have operated within them, and how did they manage it? When I ask these kinds of questions, I find greater insight in the story than when I treat the characters as heroes on a pedestal.

One of the fundamental teachings of Hasidism is that yetziat mitzrayim, the Exodus, was not merely an historical event. The forces of constraint–physical, psychological, political, spiritual–regularly press inward towards constriction. Egypt, mitzrayim, is that constricted place, and thus, simply to stay alive and able to serve the Holy One, we are constantly leaving Egypt. To be truly, deeply at home is to experience spiritual liberation. And so, to borrow the word of our passage in the Torah, our spiritual practice is here to help us experience ourselves as babayit, at home–in our minds, our bodies, the planet, and the cosmos.

For reflection and conversation:

• Do you have an ancestor, biological or spiritual, who is a hero to you? What, if anything, do you know about their spiritual life? What, if anything, do you imagine they might have done or experienced to enable them to take heroic action?

• In your own life, does your spiritual practice help you feel more settled and at home? If so, how? If not, why not–and is there anything you might want to shift as a result?

Earlier this week we held a beautiful celebration of IJS’s first 25 years. Below is a recording of Rabbi Josh Feigelson’s speech from the event.

Many years ago, during my first job out of college, I wound up at a meeting in the Fifth Avenue apartment of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. It’s a long story for another time. But this was roughly 2000, and according to the internet that means they had been married for 42 years.

The meeting was with Joanne (she was the board chair of the Westport Country Playhouse, and I was on a consulting team helping them with a business plan). Fresh-squeezed orange juice was served.

At some point during the meeting, the apartment door opens and in walks Paul Newman, just returning from a run in Central Park. He had a towel around his neck.

But what I most remember is the buzz of electricity that visibly passed through the air as their eyes connected. They gave a cute little wave to each other that felt like a kind of intimate sign language. After four decades, it certainly felt like they were still very much in love.

My wife Natalie and I are coming up on our 25th wedding anniversary this spring. For as long as we’ve known each other, we have had different biorhythms. I have always been an early riser (I’m writing this reflection, as I often do, before 6 am), which means I also like to go to bed early. Natalie is the opposite.

This means that many mornings, after I’ve been up, had my coffee, done my morning routines, and am now ready to get dressed, I come back to our bedroom to find her waking up. At which point I say, with a delight that is both genuine and a little playful, “Look who’s here!” Our own daily Paul and Joanne moment, perhaps.

Naturally, perhaps, the approach of this anniversary leads me to reflect on our marriage and, more broadly, what supports longevity in relationships. Yes, there’s Tevye and Golda (“After 25 years it’s nice to know”), and there is a great deal of literature on the topic. In my own experience, there is some alchemic combination of both familiarity and freshness, routine (we have many) and spontaneity, known and unknown, that seems to have served us.

That, of course, can describe not just marriages, but other kinds of long-term commitments—including the ones we have with Jewish prayers, texts, rituals, mitzvot. As my father’s yahrtzeit approaches this coming week, I remember how supportive the framework of Jewish mourning practices was for me when he died, providing an infrastructure in the chaos of emotional quicksand. And yet at other times in my life that same Jewish infrastructure has felt like a straitjacket.

Rabbi Avrohom Bornsztain (1838-1910), the first Sokachover Rebbe, offers a beautiful reflection on this theme in connection with a verse from our parasha this week. He bases it on a midrashic understanding of the verse, “And he [Jacob] sent him Joseph] from the valley of Hebron” (Gen. 37:14). Rashi, quoting the midrash, reads emek not as valley, but as “depths” (amok means deep). “He sent him out from the deep wisdom of the one who is buried in Hebron (Abraham), to fulfill what had been promised to him… ‘Your descendants will be strangers’ (Gen. 15:13).”

The Sokochover elaborates: “Abraham realized that, unlike him, his descendants would grow up with an awareness of the Divine sanctity in the world. He was concerned that they would eventually lose the sense of freshness in their service of the Holy One, and that little by little they would cool off and leave the holy path. Thus he had the insight that his progeny should experience exile… so that the sense of desire for holiness would renew and grow within them” (quoted in Itturei Torah).

This is potentially a provocative comment, particularly in light of some deep debates happening now about Zionism and diasporism (if this is new to you, a Google search will yield plenty). Because I expect you’ll ask, I’ll summarize my own view as: 1) the Jewish people’s cultural homeland is the land of Israel; and, 2) in the very same breath, there are clearly deep creative possibilities in diasporic life, which is a great deal of Jewish history; and, 3) still in the same long breath, the precariousness of Jewish life in the diaspora is painfully real, and, 4) finally, the possibilities and challenges of Jewish sovereignty are enormous, as the contemporary state of Israel demonstrates on a daily basis. End breath.

But that isn’t really where I’m aiming this reflection. There are plenty of other people and organizations whose work focuses on those kinds of historical-political questions. For our purposes, I’d like to bring us back to the more everyday, personal, embodied ways we experience the Sokochover’s Torah. That moment of, “Look who’s here!” after 25 years; that bolt of spiritual lightning that passed between Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman; the feeling of (with apologies to Kellogg’s) “tasting it again for the first time”—these are personal moments of leaving and coming back, of galut and teshuva. They are moments of hitchadshut, renewal, or “beginner’s mind.” They are daily lived enactments of this Torah.

Hanukkah is about many things, but one of them is certainly this experience. The simple act of lighting a candle in the darkness, and of sharing that light with others—that itself is miraculous. As we begin the holiday next week, my blessing for all of us is that we might attune ourselves to the miracles that abound within our lives, that we be able to taste and savor and appreciate them. Nes gadol haya sham—a great miracle happened then and there, and, as Israeli dreidels say, nes gadol haya po—a great miracle happened, and happens, here too.