Moving

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Saturday, October 17, 2009

My husband and I have lived in three states and in seven different homes- and that doesn’t count the moves we each made before we were married. I don’t think we are atypical of the American Jewish community. My guess is that most of the members of our congregation who are over 30 were not born in California, and I know that many of you have moved several times throughout your lives.

My aunt is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which means that her family can trace it’s roots back to the United States pre-1776, but in that she is a distinct minority within the Jewish community. Relatively few of us are from families that were in the United States before 1890 and one in seven Jews in Silicon Valley was born abroad, typically from the FSU, but also from Iran, Israel, South Africa, or South America.

Where does all that travelling come from, all that moving around? Jewish tradition associates it with the first big move in history, the move out of the Garden of Eden that we read about in this week’s Torah portion.

The expulsion from Eden is often regretted. It is associated with loss, though Jewish tradition debates whether Adam and Eve would have been immortal even if they had never left the garden. We long to return but cannot- the cherubim stand with flaming swords blocking the way entrance to Paradise.

Through history we have experienced many expulsions, from the Babylonian Exile through expulsions from England and Spain, all the way to Tevye’s removal from Anatevke and the hundreds of thousands who fled, or wished to flee from Europe during the Nazi regime. The image of the wandering Jew has its roots in a real history.

But leaving the Garden of Eden was not just negative, nor were the many migrations in Jewish history. Jewish tradition recognized that life within the Garden of Eden was static, there was no growth, no history. Leaving the garden was our destiny and the only way we could become fully human.

Similarly, had the Jewish people remained on its ancestral land, had we not wandered to Babylonia and from there throughout the world, Judaism would not have developed into what it came to be.

Judaism was revived after the fall of Jerusalem, by those who had travelled to Babylonia and returned. It was rescued during the period of Roman persecution, by those who lived outside of Eretz Yisrael. Along with the hardships of travelling, came the enrichment. We learned from the Persians among whom we lived and from the Muslims. From Bagdad to Egypt to Spain to Turkey, from Rome to France to Germany to Poland, along the way Judaism was changed by the cultures with which we came in contact.

While there are those who wish we had never left Eden, many Jewish writers take the opposite approach. Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, wrote a “how the story might have ended,” if Eve had not eaten the apple.

“So the woman saw that the tree was good to eat and a delight to the eye, and the serpent said to her,” Eat of it, for when you eat of it, you will be as wise as God.” But the woman said,” No, God has commanded us not to eat of it, and I will not disobey God.”

And God called to the man and the woman and said to them,” Because you have hearkened to My word and not disobeyed My command, I shall reward you greatly.” To the man He said,” You will never have to work again. Spend all your days in idle contentment with good growing all around you.” To the woman, He said:” You will bear children without pain and you will raise them without pain. They will need nothing from you. Children will not cry when their parents die and parents will not cry when their children die.”

To both of them He said: “For the rest of your lives, you will have full bellies and contented smiles. You will never cry and you will never laugh. You will never long for something you don’t have and you will never receive something you always wanted.”

And the man and the woman grew old together in the garden, eating daily from the Tree of Life and having many children. And the grass grew high around the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, until it disappeared from view, for there was no one to tend it.”

Growing up can be painful, moving on is full of challenges, but those struggles are necessary to fulfill our potential. There is security that comes from many generations living in the same place, but there is growth that comes from encountering new people and new places. One part of our tradition sees exile as a punishment for sin, but another understands it as a gift from God, a sign of God’s love, scattering us among the nations that we might be saved from any one enemy and survive to fulfill our greater purpose.