This week’s Torah portion is the final one we read before the High Holy Days and the opening line seems completely fitting, “You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God — your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water-drawer —to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, … I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here this day.” Moses is reminding the Israelites of their moment of direct contact with God at Sinai. What better way to frame Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which are the most intimate of all the Jewish holy days. According to our tradition, they are the times when each of us, as individuals, renews our connection to the Holy and the Sacred. As we enter the synagogue next week, this parsha reminds that each of us has our moment of standing at Sinai, our moment of sacred connection when we renew our bonds with the Spirit that animates the Universe. And the other purpose of the High Holy Days, teshuvah, or the return to the right path, is perfectly described just a few verses later, “See, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity.” (Deuteronomy 29:15). Each of us has the opportunity to make a choice and to renew our connection of the best in us and to work to bring out the best in others and the world around us. Shannah Tovah u’metukah – May you have a good and sweet New Year.

This week’s Torah portion is a reminder that Judaism is a constantly evolving tradition. In this week’s portion we read, “No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord; none of their descendants, even in the tenth generation, shall ever be admitted into the congregation of the Lord, because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey after you left Egypt, and because they hired Balaam son of Beor, from Pethor of Aram-naharaim, to curse you.” (Deuteronomy 23:4-5) The prohibition seems clear enough: Ammonites and Moabites are prohibited from joining the Jewish people. But later in the Book of Ruth this commandment is violated when Ruth, a Moabite woman, marries Boaz. There is no explanation why this marriage is allowed, but their union leads to Israel’s greatest king, David. Even later, in the Talmud, in Berachot 28A, there is a case of Yehuda, the Ammonite convert who asks to marry an Israelite. Rabbi Gamliel refuses permission because of our verse from Torah. But Rabbi Yehoshua disagrees, arguing that the Assyrians destroyed Ammon and Moav and exiled their people, so there is no longer such thing as an Ammonite. His argument carries the day and the marriage is allowed. It seems that, at least in this case, history trumps Torah. From these examples we see that Judaism lives with an essential dynamic tension: to remain true to its core values and traditions, but changing to adapt to modern times. If we are too conservative, our tradition becomes static and irrelevant. If we are too willing to change, Judaism becomes so watered down it loses its unique meaning. The challenge is to live within this tension.

The primary focus of this week’s Torah portion is on ritual behavior: appropriate locations for sacrifice, a warning against worshipping false gods, the basics of kashrut — what foods can and cannot be eaten. In the midst of these ritual commandments there is this warning, “If, however, there is a needy person among you, one of your kinsmen in any of your settlements in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman. Rather, you must open your hand and lend him sufficient for whatever he needs. Beware lest you harbor the base thought, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is approaching,’ so that you are mean to your needy kinsman and give him nothing.” (Deuteronomy 15:7-9)

As we approach the High Holy Days, with all their ritual pomp and liturgical splendor, it is important to remember that our relationship with our fellow human beings in need is just as important as our relationship to the Divine. We show our greatest commitment to God and to Judaism not just through prayer and study, but when we take action to improve the lives of others.

Judaism is a religion of relationships: between human beings and each other and between human beings and God. This week marks the second week of the seven Haftarot of Consolation: seven special selections from Isaiah that are read each Shabbat between Tisha b’Av and Rosh Hashanah. If Tisha b’Av is the day of destruction and furthest alienation and Rosh Hashanah is the day of closest connection, then one of the purposes of these haftarot is to remind us that the opportunity for connection with our deepest, truest selves, with others, and with the sacred and the holy is always present.

This week’s Torah portion reinforces that theme; after repeating God’s promise to place the Israelites in the Land of Israel with all its bounty Moses gives this warning, “When you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses to live in, and your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased, and everything you own has prospered, beware lest your heart grow haughty… and you say to yourselves, ‘My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.’ Remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to get wealth, in fulfillment of the covenant that He made on oath with your fathers, as is still the case.” (Deuteronomy 8:12-18) We live in a society that values individuals and their achievements above all. Judaism has a very different message—that everything we have and everything we accomplish we do with the help of others, whether divine or human. It makes no difference, from our particular inborn talents to the support and aid provided by a strong and stable society and country. That is why Judaism values relationships so highly, for it is in relationship that we truly find ourselves and in isolation that we are truly lost.

This week’s Torah portion is about fanaticism and the dangers of fundamental truth. Last week, the Israelites are cohabiting with Midianite women and Zimri and Kosbi, an Israelite leader and a Midianite woman blaspheme in front of the entire congregation. God has called down a plague on the Israelites. Moses and the elders are paralyzed but Pinhas, the priest, grandson of Aaron, runs them through with a spear, killing both of them. God is pleased and the plague ceases. Now, in this week’s portion God rewards “a covenant of peace” on Pinhas and the priesthood. But our rabbis were not so pleased with Pinhas’ behavior. How do we know this? They set up the annual cycle of the Torah reading and they split Pinhas’ act – the killing of Zimri and Kosbi – from the reward. It is as if they wanted to break up the narrative to force us to think about the limits of a claim of absolute truth and the permission to kill that it can convey. Passionate zealotry maybe necessary at times, for defense, but without restraint it can lead to mass killing, as we have seen all too often in this and the past centuries. Is there an antidote? The portion ends with a description of the holidays and how they are to be observed. Perhaps if we focus more on our own spiritual lives and less on the failings of others we will learn to be more kind and humble and less judgmental and zealous.

We are all familiar with this week’s Torah portion. We sing part of it at the beginning of every service, “Mah tovu, ohalecah Ya’akov… How goodly are your tents O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel.” (Numbers 24:5) King Balak hires the itinerant prophet Bila’am to curse the Israelites, but instead, when he sees their encampment, how they live in the world, he is moved to bless them. But a few verses earlier there is a more ambiguous stanza, “As I see them from the mountain tops, gave on them from the heights, there is a people that dwells apart, not reckoned among the nations.” (Numbers 23:9) This verse seems to describe a unique characteristic of the Jewish people: always scattered among the nations of the earth, Jews have chosen to retain a distinct identity and kinship. Whether based on a sense of being a chosen people, or having a unique covenanted relationship with God, or particular religious mission, or ethnicity, or culture, Jews to this day cling fiercely to a sense of uniqueness. Even when Jews want to assimilate and disappear, we have not always been given that opportunity by the rest of the world. Israel is judged by a higher standard than other nations. Whether that is fair or not, one reason is that we claim to a special nation and as the nation-state of the Jewish people, others take our claim seriously.  The question is not whether we are chosen or whether Jews are unique, for all peoples are unique. The question is rather whether we choose to live lives that meet the challenge of our claim.

This week Miriam dies. In the Torah it says, “The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin on the first new moon, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there. The community was without water, and they joined against Moses and Aaron.” What does the lack of water have to do with Miriam’s death? Rashi, the great medieval French Torah commentator, noticing this juxtaposition of Miriam’s death and the people crying out for water, brings a midrash that says, “because of the merit of Miriam, a well followed the Israelites for their 40 years in the desert.” This magical well provided the Israelites all the water they needed until her death and then it disappeared. With the well gone, the Israelites panicked. They didn’t know where their next drink would come from. Miriam, like a good leader, served and sustained her people. But great leaders do something more, that Miriam did not. They help their people develop self-reliance, so that the leader is no longer necessary. The best leaders cultivate not dependence, but independence.

This week’s Torah portion is about leadership. Korach, a Levite, challenges Moses’ leadership and says to him, “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s congregation?” (Numbers 16:2) We are so used to questioning authority that the question seems perfectly reasonable. But if you’ve been following the story, you know who appointed Moses leader: God. Korach knows this too; he has seen Moses in action. Further, Moses is the most humble of all people. He never wanted to lead the Israelites; he was compelled to by God. All of his service is for the benefit of the community. But why does Korach want to lead? Our rabbis say, for his own sake, because he desired power. This is a good test for our leaders today. Why do they want power, to be of service to others or to gratify their own needs? It is also a good test of our own motivations in our families, our congregation, and in our communities. Let all us all strive to be more like Moses, humble and dedicated to the needs of others, and less like Korach, driven by our own needs and desires.

This week’s Torah portion begins with the incident of the spies. God commands Moses to select one member of each tribe to go into the Land of Cana’an to scout it out. They return from their mission and report that the land is beautiful but inhabited by giants in great walled cities. “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves…” (Numbers 13:32). Lacking faith, the people refuse to obey God’s command to conquer the land. They are afraid they will fail. After God tells them they will wander for 40 years until the generation of slaves dies off, in desperation they decide to attack and, of course, they are defeated. The portion ends with the command to put tzitzit (fringes) on the “corners” of their garments. “Thus you shall be reminded to observe all My commandments and to be holy to your God.” (Numbers 14:40) Lacking faith, either in God or themselves, the people are given a tool to help them grow in faith and spirit—to become holy. Faith and fear are two sides of the same coin. In faith we can do the impossible. In fear we wander the aimlessly in the wilderness.

Chapter 11 of this week’s portion begins with the Israelites complaining, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!” (Numbers 11:4 – 5) The Israelites’ need for food is met daily. All they have to do is go out and gather the manna. But it is not sufficient to satisfy their needs. Perhaps it was the repetitiveness of the same food, day in and day out. Yet they seem to long for Egyptian slavery, with a nostalgic memory of the great food they used to eat. How selective their memory was; they have already forgotten the brutal suffering they endured. In Pirkei Avot it asks, “Who is rich?” and the rabbis answer, “The one who is satisfied with what they have.”  We live in a society that always pushes us to desire more. The lesson of this week’s portion is that satisfaction comes from valuing what you already have.