Open in Front

We had coffee this morning with the executive director of our new shul, at a place a block from our apartment and a block from the shul. The rabbi stopped by. We talked about plans for ourselves, plans for the shul, and plans for the community.

Two weeks ago the executive director was the person we sent our IDs to before we showed up the first time. Now it’s coffee. That’s a fast two weeks.

The shul is in the middle of a merger. The names of four congregations are already on its walls, and another one is set to fold in sometime after the holidays. Nobody merges two congregations because they have too many Jews. A merger is a contraction, and there’s no point pretending otherwise.

And still, most of what we talked about this morning was growth.

On Simchat Torah my husband and I each “danced” with a Torah. I’ll leave the quotation marks where they are. This Shabbat the reading starts over from the top with Bereshit, and the very first word of the Torah begins with the letter bet.

The rabbis wanted to know why. Twenty-two letters, and the Torah opens on the second one? Bereshit Rabbah collects a handful of answers. The first is Rabbi Yona’s, in the name of Rabbi Levi. Look at the letter: ב. It’s closed on three sides — above, behind, below — and open on one, the side facing forward into the text. So, the midrash says, you don’t get to ask what’s above or what’s below, or what came before. You start from the day the world was made, and you go on from there.

The same passage has more. Bet has the number two, so there are two worlds, this one and the next. And bet is the first letter of beracha, blessing. Aleph, the first letter of the alphabet, would have opened arirah, a curse, and then the heretics would have asked how a world could possibly stand if it was made in the language of a curse. So God says: I’ll make it in the language of blessing. Halevai ya’amod. And let’s hope it stands.

I have a bet of my own now. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that my husband, his brother, and I were going into houses together and still fighting over the name. In the second chapter Adam names every animal, one after another, and whatever he called each one, that was its name. It took the three of us a lot longer. The fight’s over. It’s Achim Batim — brothers, houses.

Our mark is a bet, because the letter’s name means house. It’s built out of three bricks, one for each of us. A lintel on top, a post at the back, a sill at the bottom. Open in front.

The first two houses we buy are the ones we’ll live in, next year. The idea is to fix them properly and stay. They’re houses that need work, so halevai ya’amod is about the right prayer.

Seven times in the first chapter of Bereshit, God looks at something and calls it good. Light. Dry land. Plants, the sun and moon, fish and birds, animals, and finally all of it together, very good. Then, in the second chapter, the first thing that isn’t:

וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהִ֔ים לֹא־ט֛וֹב הֱי֥וֹת הָֽאָדָ֖ם לְבַדּ֑וֹ אֶֽעֱשֶׂה־לּ֥וֹ עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ׃

The ETERNAL God said, “It is not good for the Human to be alone; I will make a fitting counterpart for him.”

— Bereshit 2:18

Nothing in the world has gone wrong yet. No snake. No fruit. No flood. And the first thing God calls not good is a person on his own.

The Hebrew for that counterpart is ezer kenegdo. A help, standing opposite you, facing you. Rashi, borrowing from the Talmud, reads both halves. If he merits it, a help. If he doesn’t, kenegdo — someone standing against him, ready to fight. Anyone who has gone into business with family knows that verse has fine print.

A congregation that folds into another one is choosing not to be alone, and it pays for that. Its name goes up on somebody else’s wall, next to theirs. It’s a contraction. It’s also a room with more people in it than either one had on its own.

Above, behind, below — closed. The only open side of the bet faces the next letter.

Sunday is Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, which is why this Shabbat’s haftarah is the one where Jonathan warns David, “Tomorrow will be the new moon; and you will be missed when your seat remains vacant.” That’s the not-good-to-be-alone verse from the other side. An empty seat, and somebody noticing.

Tradition calls the new month Mar Cheshvan, bitter Cheshvan, because it’s the one month with no festivals in it. Nothing to cook for, no sukkah to build.

Good. We’ve got plans.

Shabbat shalom.

— Uriel ben Avraham