Becoming A Shamash© - Vayeshev 2019/5780
This dvar torah was delivered on December 21, 2019 at Congregation Shaarei Kodesh, the Shabbat before Hanukkah. I am posting it today, January 15, 2020, the day that Rabbi Louis Rieser, HaRav Rachmiel Aryeh Leib ben Avraham v' Ellen z’l, transitioned to the world to come after a four year battle with brain cancer. His wife Connie gave me person to deliver this dvar torah and share these deeply personal things because she hopes it helps others. Rabbi Rieser was not just a friend, but a great teacher to me and many others. May his memory be a blessing for us all.
I met a remarkable man this week, a caretaker for a Rabbi who is dying. I came into his home to say the Vidui, and his caretaker Robert, who has been with this Rabbi for years, was standing with me. I talked to the Rabbi, said my final words to him, told him about the parashah this week, because this Rabbi loves Torah, read the vidui (the confessional prayer), and his helper, his aid, got emotional and left the room. I ended by reciting a prayer to him from Rabbi Nachman of Brastlav, and joined Robert in the other room.
When Connie, Rabbi Rieser’s wife, needed help with Louis, as his condition worsened, she reached out to a company and asked for one criterion, send me a spiritual person. So they sent Robert. Robert stood with Louis for years, helping him perform basic tasks, talking with him, and listening to him, bringing him to the store, bringing him to shul here at Shaarei Kodesh. He stood with him to the side, barely being noticed, rarely saying a word.
Robert told me his story - how he was going to be a minister, but it didn’t work out for him in the ministry in the Dominican Republic, and he got an insurance policy, to train to become a caretaker. When he couldn’t find a way to help through the ministry, he applied for a job through a company.
The company matched him with Rabbi Louis, and their relationship began. He told me the following: “I know now that I was paired with Louis for a reason. Connie told me the story of how I was chosen to be Louis’s caretaker later on in our relationship. But now I know why: because I am here to bring Louis on the final journey that he was going to take.
I bring this story to you because it was inspired by a story in this week’s parashah, a story that Robert, a deeply religious and spiritual man overheard and saw himself in it.
Our parashah, Vayeshev, is the final significant transition points of ancestors to descendants (Genesis 37:2)
אֵלֶּה תֹּלְדוֹת יַעֲקֹב יוֹסֵף בֶּן־שְׁבַע־עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה הָיָה רֹעֶה אֶת־אֶחָיו בַּצֹּאן וְהוּא נַעַר אֶת־בְּנֵי בִלְהָה וְאֶת־בְּנֵי זִלְפָּה נְשֵׁי אָבִיו וַיָּבֵא יוֹסֵף אֶת־דִּבָּתָם רָעָה אֶל־אֲבִיהֶם׃
This, then, is the line of Jacob: At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers, as a helper to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought bad reports of them to their father.
Though the language, we can see that Jacob’s story is coming to a close. No longer will he be the main character, but now, it will be Joseph. Joseph, like his father, is a dreamer, but his dreams are different. In Jacob’s dreams, God speaks to him, but it is not so clear in Joseph dreams. Joseph sees vision and symbols, but we see here that God is taking a step back. God doesn’t directly speaks to Joseph in our parashah. When Joseph is at how lowest, in a pit, as the Torah describes
וְהַבּוֹר רֵק אֵין בּוֹ מָיִם ׃
The pit was empty; there was no water in it. No hope, no life.
God does not reassure him that everything is going to be ok, that this is all part of a larger plan set into motion before he was born.
The reality that we read is closer to the reality that we experience than the realities of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When Abraham despairs that he will not have children, God reassures him. When Jacob worries that he will not die on his journey, God speaks to him, but Joseph receives no such assurances.
But God is with him, he just doesn’t realize it.
There is a very peculiar scene in our parashah before the famous story of Joseph being thrown into the pit (Genesis 37:14-17)
וַיֹּאמֶר יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל־יוֹסֵף הֲלוֹא אַחֶיךָ רֹעִים בִּשְׁכֶם לְכָה וְאֶשְׁלָחֲךָ אֲלֵיהֶם וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ הִנֵּנִי׃
Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers are pasturing at Shechem. Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “I am ready.”
וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ לֶךְ־נָא רְאֵה אֶת־שְׁלוֹם אַחֶיךָ וְאֶת־שְׁלוֹם הַצֹּאן וַהֲשִׁבֵנִי דָּבָר וַיִּשְׁלָחֵהוּ מֵעֵמֶק חֶבְרוֹן וַיָּבֹא שְׁכֶמָה׃
And he said to him, “Go and see how your brothers are and how the flocks are faring, and bring me back word.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron. When he reached Shechem,
וַיִּמְצָאֵהוּ אִישׁ וְהִנֵּה תֹעֶה בַּשָּׂדֶה וַיִּשְׁאָלֵהוּ הָאִישׁ לֵאמֹר מַה־תְּבַקֵּשׁ׃
a man came upon him wandering in the fields. The man asked him, “What are you looking for?”
וַיֹּאמֶר אֶת־אַחַי אָנֹכִי מְבַקֵּשׁ הַגִּידָה־נָּא לִי אֵיפֹה הֵם רֹעִים׃
He answered, “I am looking for my brothers. Could you tell me where they are pasturing?”
וַיֹּאמֶר הָאִישׁ נָסְעוּ מִזֶּה כִּי שָׁמַעְתִּי אֹמְרִים נֵלְכָה דֹּתָיְנָה וַיֵּלֶךְ יוֹסֵף אַחַר אֶחָיו וַיִּמְצָאֵם בְּדֹתָן׃
The man said, “They have gone from here, for I heard them say: Let us go to Dothan.” So Joseph followed his brothers and found them at Dothan.
The language is rich with commentary, but before we get to that, we have to look at this scene for what it is - Joseph getting directions from a random guy on the street. For a book that uses as few words as possible, why does it include this story?
Photo by Elijah Hail on Unsplash
The Rabbis look at this scene as vital to Joseph’s narrative. It involves an unnamed, anonymous man, an ish, much like the man who wrestled with Joseph’s father, Jacob when his name was changed to Israel.
An anonymous 'ish' or man, is the reason that Jacob changes his name to Israel. Where would Jacob be without this figure who wrestled with him? Where would we be?
Joseph is roaming around in the field and an anonymous man approaches him. Joseph does not begin the conversation, rather, the man does. Rashi and Ramban, two medieval commentators, claim that this was not a man, rather, an angel, in other words, a divine messenger. Rashi says the man is the archangel Gavriel.
I want you to return with me to the bedside of Rabbi Riesser, and Robert, the man who sat by his side, but whom very few know his name, and story. When I told Louis that he was Gavriel for so many, Robert realized that he was Louis’s angel, and he realized that he was placed in Louis’s path to bring him on his final journey.
Joseph is a young man at this point, just seventeen, but it begins his journey to become the Vice Roy of Egypt, and his people’s savior.
And then, I thought about the holiday of Hanukah, and major mitzvah of the holiday - lighting the Hanukah candles. There are many laws about these candles, and one of the laws created the need for another candle. We are not allowed to use the lights of the Hanukah candles to do anything in our homes, only for the sake of the mitzvah of Hanukah - to look upon the light. And this is why we have the Shamash, the candle that is used to light the other candles, and to help us do the work that we may not think is very holy at all.
The Shamash is also the name of the person who turns on the lights in the synagogues, who is the first person to open up the shul, who cleans up at the end when everyone is gone. Where would we be without the Shamashim in our lives?
Rabbi Ed Feinstein wrote the following:
“Several years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. My doctors told me that I might not have long to live. An emergency operation was followed by months of very unpleasant medicine. This was the most terrifying time in my life. I started to wonder if there was a God who cared for me. And then I met Charles. Charles was a night nurse in the hospital. He and I came from different worlds: I’m a Jew from California; he’s an African American Baptist from Alabama. But each night, Charles came to my hospital room to care for me. When I complained, which I did a lot, he told me jokes. When I was in pain, he made me feel better. When I didn’t want to take my medicine, he yelled at me. When I was scared, he gave me strength and inspiration. Each morning, he came one last time to check on me and leave me with a thought for the day. “You have faith now, Rabbi!” he would say. No amount of money in the world could pay Charles for what he did for me. And as I fought this cancer, I discovered that the world is filled with people like Charles. This may be what the Bible means when it says that people are “created in God’s image” (Genesis 1:27). Through their kindness, we can feel God close by.”
In a time when everyone wants to shine, when everyone has their own social media page, when the preferred pronoun isn’t he/she/they, but I, when everyone wants to shine, we learn from the Shamash that sometimes, the anonymous people help us all shine by giving their light to others, and making us feel closer to God.
The Shamash doesn’t get the same attention as the other candles, but it teaches us that we must strive to live lives of service to others. And you often times won’t have your name known, maybe you’ll just be that guy or girl, but it is because of you that other lights can be kindled.
And perhaps this is the greatest lesson of the man who was really an angel. The Shamash might be the holiest of the candles because it allows us to see the work that must be done in this world. And the people like Robert might be the holiest individuals because they help raise us up when we are down, and give us faith that the journeys we are taking, no matter how difficult, are the journeys that will help us reach God.
And so my blessing for all of you on this Hanukah, is that you take the time to be a Shamash for others, to be an angel in the form of a human, and that you bring light to someone’s darkness, and through your acts of kindness, bring others closer to God.
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