Awakening: Torah Mussar Mindfulness, Toledot, 6th Sitting

Welcome.

Allow yourself to settle.

We'll begin in one minute.

Delighted to have you.

Those of you just arriving.

We're allowing ourselves to settle to arrive.

Before we begin shortly.

Thank you for your patience.

We are set to begin always at 3 p.

M.

Eastern Standard Time,

10 p.

M.

Here in Israel.

Live streaming from the Galil.

I am Rabbi Hasi Oriel Steinbauer.

I'm delighted to be here with you.

I am the founder and director of the Institute for Holiness,

Kehilat Musar.

We meet weekly on Sundays in order to review and learn from the weekly Hebrew Bible Torah portion from the previous day on Shabbat.

Traditionally we study that parasha all week and then of course listen to it or read it ourselves on Shabbat.

Here we allow that immersion and that study to come fully with us to meet together on Sundays to review what we've learned to gain insight into what is happening and what is our practice.

This is known as awakening Torah Musar mindfulness.

It is where we look at the Torah portion from both the lens of Musar in the Jewish tradition and from insight and mindfulness from the Buddhist tradition and the Dharma and really bring the wisdom of both in order to get the most out of our learning to bring us to more awareness and to wisdom and to be able to practice together which is what we do here today.

As you know we always begin with our kavanah,

Our intention each week.

So I'm going to go ahead and share with you and for those of you on audio listening who aren't joining us live right now on Zoom or on Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter or on YouTube,

What we have before us is a beautiful picture with our intention and it states before doing acts of caring for the self say the following.

This is something I'm doing to strengthen my own soul in order to be a benefit to others in the future.

So we carry that intention with us through our practice together and the next half hour or so that we want to strengthen ourselves so that we can really bring God's good to others and be of service.

So let's delve into our teaching this week.

We are sharing together from the Torah portion called Toledot and it is well known in our tradition that our tradition mostly favors Yaakov,

Jacob,

Yitzhak's son to inherit the legacy and the tradition of the Jewish people that he is favored over Esau and these are Rivka and Yitzhak's twin sons and it is also really well known to what extent our tradition went to vilify Esau associating him with Edom and then Rome and so our sages especially those coming out of the Middle Ages under Roman and Christian rule.

This is a time when Jews were oppressed and they basically saw and chose to see Esau as the ancestor and symbol of their oppression and so they imagined Esau as dishonest,

Violent and even evil.

So we want this our first practice and engaging in this text to be mindful that the place and time and history in which we live and also our own personal social location who we are based on white privilege or people of color,

Our class status,

Our citizenship status,

Where we happen to be born and living in the world,

Our gender,

Our sexual orientation,

That's what we mean by social location.

So the place and time in history and our social location it can affect,

I wouldn't even say can affect,

It does affect.

It does affect the way we understand stories,

People,

Our ancestors,

Receive traditions and so when we say there are 70 faces of the Torah in different ways of understanding the Torah and these received stories and traditions that we need to keep in mind and be mindful that they're influenced by who we are,

Where we live,

When and how in our social location.

So that is our first practice is to bring that to awareness now and to realize one the diversity of all of us present and doing this practice together right now but that's how it's going to affect us and how we read this story.

So I want to actually posit if we play close attention,

If we distance ourselves from our ancestors reaction to Esau to a dome to Rome to Christianity,

If we pay attention to the actual text we actually encounter a son in Esau who is dedicated to and honors his Abba,

His father and he's worthy of emulation in this respect.

So for now we'll focus on a scene where Esau returns from hunting famished and requires and requests to be fed by his brother Yaakov who denies him nutrients,

Something he very much needs until he agrees to sell his birthright to him.

For those of you who don't understand the significance of birthright,

Back in our tradition you know over 2,

000 years ago a birthright was really an inherited institution from the eldest son where he had certain rights and privileges but great responsibility to take care of the father's estate especially after he had passed he would get a double portion and he's essentially almost like a second patriarch in this case.

So while Yitzhak is living,

Yaakov through this interaction will end up being in this position for the birthright.

But let's go back to our story.

So the Torah starts off saying to us basically that Yaakov was cooking a stew and Esau comes in from the open from the field and he's famished.

So let me put this picture into context before I even bring any commentary at all for us.

We have two 15 year old boys here,

Often impulsive,

Often will be acting out from a lesser state.

We need to keep that in mind.

We need to keep their social location in mind.

So according to inherited tradition this meal that Yaakov is preparing right now is on behalf of Yitzhak his father who is in mourning at the loss of his own Abba Avraham.

So this is what this meal is.

So we move to the support immediately of Rabbeinu Bachya who tells us that this dish of lentils as it was a custom to eat a dish in the house of mourners that this really is the consolation meal prepared for Avraham after Avraham's death.

And we get this from the Targum Yonatan,

Baba Batra and the Talmud Babli.

And then Kuni comes and teaches us a beautiful insight.

He says about Esau being worn out.

And he says it's very usual for hunters to be worn out after chasing prey.

And that sometimes they'll lose sight of their prey and the forest get lost.

It takes them time to find their way home and that they actually may remain out in the forest or wherever they're doing their hunting for a day or two.

And when they get home,

Finally,

They're totally worn out,

Hungry and thirsty.

Just basically famished.

And he says that this repetition from min ha-adom ha-adom,

This kind of reddish looking stuff,

Every time we encounter the adjective red,

It always appears to be repeated in the Torah.

And so he provides an example from Vaikra,

From Leviticus.

And he says when someone requests something urgently like this,

They always have the habit of repeating key words.

So picture this 15-year-old boy coming home famished and he's almost stuttering.

Picture yourself.

He says these words twice.

Key words in such a request.

So Esau on that occasion,

He's extremely in need of food and drink.

Furthermore,

The Torah ha-aroch comes to further teach us that this hu-ayef,

Who is coming from the field,

He's so tired that he's overcome by.

He's almost fainting.

He feels that he will die soon.

He's meant that unless he gets something to eat immediately,

His condition will deteriorate and result in his death.

So literally he understands from that perspective in that moment what good is the birthright to Esau in that moment.

Picture any of us at 15 years old utterly famished.

What good?

Are we even thinking of the future and consequences for our behavior?

Are we balanced in responsibility when we are hungry,

Our bucket is full,

We're thirsty,

We are exhausted?

Those are all the recipes.

They tell us today in modern psychology that you have to make sure you have enough to eat,

Enough to drink,

That you have enough rest.

All those things will affect us and how we end up basically acting out our midot if we're going to be balanced or not.

So he's in this state,

Esau,

And one of the allegorical explanations of midrash,

Our heritage traditions and our stories,

Is that he lost his bearings in the field,

Just like we said earlier,

And he's just literally exhausted,

Finding his way home.

He comes and finds his brother,

Jakov,

Tending to the flock,

And he says,

I will die soon,

And that the only thing that restored him,

That held him to hold on,

The power to restore him is his saintly father.

It's his relationship,

His kesher,

To Yitzhak,

His Abba.

And he actually says to his brother,

Spoon,

Feed me,

He's literally telling at that moment that otherwise he would have used the language,

Tenly,

But instead he's saying,

Spoon,

Feed me,

I'm so weak,

I can't even lift my hand to my mouth.

Right?

So hold that for a minute,

Hold that state.

So let me start off by saying that this is not,

It is not only unkind that Jakov,

His brother,

Didn't feed Esau immediately.

It should have made the sale null and void as it was done under duress.

Furthermore,

Jakov's behavior here is just unethical.

So now we have to ask ourselves,

Do we really have any insight into Esau's behavior here other than what we share?

That he's 15,

He's famished,

He feels he's going to die.

On his account,

The lack of responsibility is in,

It's not time to have a discussion about birthright,

About selling or buying it.

So he does not have the skills here to say,

I can't have this conversation right now.

I need to eat and then we can have this conversation.

So both made unskillful decisions here.

Obviously Esau should have refrained in engaging in any transaction while suffering and Jakov should not have acted with such manipulation and deceit.

So now let's take a look at Jakov's state,

Okay?

Which as far as I can tell,

I have not witnessed anywhere in rabbinic tradition.

He too is 15.

He just saw his grandfather die,

Avraham,

Who handed over in an enormous and wealthy state to his son,

Yitzhak.

The state is so large,

You have to recall this from the previous parashah or two,

That he has to,

Avraham has to actually physically distance himself from his orphan nephew Lot because he just has too much wealth and he has to deal with wealth management.

So this is what Yitzhak is inheriting as his birthright,

As the supposed firstborn son.

He's not that,

Obviously Yishmael was that,

But we saw what happened with that.

Yishmael was banished and it was given to Yitzhak.

So Jakov here,

This 15 year old boy,

Could be very well acting from greed.

A desire,

A craving,

A coveting to inherit all that he just witnessed be passed to his father.

So with this insight into him being totally unbalanced in his greed,

Getting his faint brother to sell him access and control to that future wealth,

We can now understand and have a little bit more insight into what's going on here and to see Esau in new eyes.

So we're going to move into more practice of sitting meditation together now after this Torah study.

We have to be aware of the strong inner states that can arise in us during Torah study.

And we're engaging in this encounter with our ancestors each week.

So strong inner states can be a source of turbulence that affects the calmness of the soul.

It is our insight mindfulness practice to recognize and accept these states and to know that they're just states,

That they will pass with time,

That we need not cling to them or avoid them and is through our daily sitting mindfulness meditation practice that we develop the capacity to witness our inner states.

And it is with our Musa practice of the cheshbon hanefesh journal that we've been doing the past two weeks together to develop awareness into the inner states,

How they occupy us,

How they are imbalanced or not,

And how they cause us and other suffering.

And it's with our Musa practice to respond to these inner storms,

Inner states by developing the capacity for inner distancing.

This inner distancing is the ability to bear witness without reacting.

Musa teachers like Reb Eliyahu Lopien teaches that this inner distancing can be developed through prayer,

Tefillah.

Others say it's through our Torah study,

Which we've just engaged in right now together.

So we have begun to develop the capacity for inner distancing.

And now through our sitting meditation together,

I invite you to an upright and relaxed posture.

For those of you who live in chronic pain or may just be having back issues or any discomfort,

You are welcome to stand,

Have a chair near you to secure you.

For those of you who need to lie down,

Please do so.

Make sure you keep your eyes open,

Fixated maybe on one object so that you remain awake and alert and with us.

For those of us who are seated,

Please ground your feet on the ground,

Allow the earth to carry and hold you know that you are between heaven and earth,

Upright,

Dignified,

Created in the image of God.

We then move in to arriving and settling.

Shut your eyes if you feel safe and comfortable to do so.

And we will begin with three deep cleansing breaths.

Allow your breath to settle,

To begin to have the out breath match the length of the in breath.

Allow your hands to rest in your lap,

On your thighs,

Or maybe hold yourself in your heart,

Whatever is comfortable for you.

And no need to control your breath.

Allow it to naturally settle to its space,

What it needs.

And begin to scan your felt sense and embodied awareness of what is going on for you right now in the here and now.

Notice if there's any tension in the body.

Notice that there is a body.

Perhaps there's nervousness,

Butterflies in the stomach or in the chest,

Excitement.

Notice whatever is calling for your attention.

And to honor it,

Allow an inner bow to it.

That you recognize that it's calling for your loving attention and allow a gentle mental note that you will return to this after your practice.

No need to cling to any pleasant inner state or to practice a version of an unpleasant one.

Our practice is to simply recognize what is arising for us and to allow.

For those of you having unpleasant inner states,

Emotions,

Perhaps it's thoughts in the past,

Planning in the future,

Or discomfort in the body,

Gently and kindly ask yourself,

Can I be with this?

Can I be their witness right now?

What is it that I need right in this moment?

We are developing the capacity to not only bear witness,

But to develop that distancing.

That distancing is not unemotional or detached or in the sense of not caring.

But it is an even utmost caring.

The ability to be present with somebody's pain and suffering,

Even our own.

And we develop that capacity each week here together.

When we encounter our ancestors in the text,

And we do not run from what we witness,

Nor do we attempt to vilify them,

We attempt with that inner distance to see them and their full light and their full capacity.

This allows us to be fully present to life,

Which is really the only way to be.

We get more from our life,

We get more from Torah,

From our relationship with the Divine,

When we have the capacity to be and to be here and now.

In the next five minutes,

We will move to silence together in our sitting.

And I want to encourage you during this practice to develop the capacity in your investigation to bring the nurturing,

To bring compassion,

Not only for your own inner state's reactions to this learning and text,

Or whatever may be going on for you,

But compassion for your ancestors,

Particularly Esau,

Who for hundreds and hundreds of years has not received that.

I will ring the bells when we are to come out of our silent meditation and join again in our sacred circle.

Thanks again for.

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