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Shabbat Shalom. We are about to celebrate one of my favorite Jewish holidays of all time: Thanksgiving. Now hear me out. The original pilgrims knew their Bible and after a really tough year, they wanted to celebrate their survival with the fall festival of thanksgiving, namely Sukkot. So really, Thanksgiving has its origins in the Hebrew Bible. But if you don’t believe me, there is another way I can prove it is inherently Jewish, we get together with friends and family and eat way too much.

But as with every year, some more than others, the thought of gathering with certain of our family and friends may fill us up not with excitement, but perhaps the dual emotions of anxiety and dread. We fear that the conversations will turn awkward, uncomfortable, and possibly even contentious. Especially with everything going on in the world today.

The notion of difficult family dynamics is as old as the foundations of our tradition. In this week’s parasha, Toldot, “Isaac pleaded with Adonai on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and Adonai responded to his plea and his wife Rebekah conceived, but the children struggled in her womb, and she said, “if so, why do I exist?” She went to inquire of Adonai, and God answered her, “Two nations are in your womb, two separate peoples shall issue from your body; one people shall be mightier than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.” 

As Etz Hayim goes on to explain, “The sixth parashah of Genesis tells about the birth and early years of Isaac and Rebekah’s twin sons, Jacob and Esau. Often in ancient tales, twins who are not identical are complementary, each twin representing one-half of a complete personality, each having qualities the other lacks and lacking qualities the other possesses. Jacob represents the gentle, cerebral side of a person, reaching goals by persuasion or cleverness. Esau represents the active, physical side. When the Torah describes them as struggling within Rebekah’s womb and continues to portray them as rivals growing up, it may be telling us that these two sides of many people are struggling within each individual for dominance.” 

Which is a wonderful metaphor, but what about the actual struggle between two individuals, which is articulated by Rebekah’s statement about their struggling, where she asked the vague or ambiguous question, “Im kein laah zeh,” “if this is true, why do I exist?” 

According to some commentaries, what Rebekah is asking is, “why then did I yearn and pray to become pregnant”, or “why do I go on living?” But it is Nachmanides who perhaps articulates it the best with the notion that what Rebakah was really asking is, “What good is life if I have to suffer like this?” Or to phrase it a slightly different way: What good is life, if I have to suffer with ambiguity and uncertainty?

Unfortunately, we are living in a world that has little acceptance for ambiguity. Certainty is what sells. Certainty is also what works on social media. And certainty is often what can lead to those uncomfortable conversations and perhaps even confrontations at the Thanksgiving table. 
 

My generation is often referred to as Generation X. Though I prefer to call us the Star Wars generation. I do not know if I saw the original Star Wars on the big screen, but I have very distinct memories of waiting in line to watch The Empire Strikes Back, and then having arguments all summer, spoiler alerts to a nearly 45-year-old movie, about whether or not Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father. And my favorite Chanukah toy as a kid was the Kenner Millenium Falcon. 

So it was with much excitement that I watched the prequels. And though they were not as good as they could have been, one line stuck with me from the third movie, Revenge of the Sith. This took place where there is an encounter between Anakin and Obi-Wan near the end of the movie.  Where Anakin Skywalker famously proclaimed to Obi-Wan, “If you're not with me... then you're my enemy!” To which Obi-Wan responded, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”

I think about that often when having conversations with people who have absolute certainty and will speak it with absolute conviction. 

The problem is, to borrow from a presentation on this topic, “Much of the information we encounter is ambiguous. However, we find certainty much more comfortable than ambiguity, doubt, uncertainty, complexity, confusion, indecision, or vagueness. Our urge for certainty often causes us to overlook the richness, complexity, nuance, and range of possibilities inherent in ambiguity. Learning to become comfortable with ambiguity long enough to explore its possibilities allows us to enhance our creativity, expand our understanding, reveal nuance, expand possibilities, enrich our beliefs, and improve our decision making. It can also help us escape polarization, overcome biases, reject stereotypes, and increase our creativity.” 

As Rabbi Jay Kelman further expounds in his teaching about an earlier set of brothers, Cain and Abel, in parashat Beresheet , “G-d said: What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is screaming to Me from the ground" (Breisheet 4:10).

G-d approached Cain after the murder of Hevel with a question, hoping that Cain would begin the process of repentance for the murder of his brother. Did he? The text is unclear: "And Cain said to G-d: gadol avoni mi'n'so, [Is?]my sin is too great to bear" (Breisheet 4:13). Whether this is a question or statement of fact is unclear; without hearing the tone of voice that Cain used, we are left in the dark.

Not surprisingly, two of our great commentaries were divided on this question. Rashi claims that these words should be read as a question, with Cain asking G-d "is my sin too great to bear?" There is no teshuva here, with Cain seeing little value in human life and little wrong with what he had done. The Ramban disagrees, claiming that this was a statement, an expression of true remorse for a sin that is just too great to bear. Cain accepted the fact that he would need to be severely punished for his actions.

These interpretations would seem to be mutually exclusive, with each commentator having a very different understanding of what happened. Who is right?
While many who study Torah are inclined to bring proofs supporting one view or the other, ultimately—from the perspective of the Torah—it really does not matter. The Torah, here and in so many other places, is purposely ambiguous, encouraging and even demanding of us that we see events from different perspectives, each providing crucial life lessons.

It is not really important for us to know whether in actual fact Cain truly repented. But it is crucial to understand the implications of both approaches. Rashi and Ramban each realized that the verse could be understood in two ways; each one focused on the approach that felt to be more correct, or perhaps more relevant to the reader of Chumash. 

This purposeful ambiguity abounds in the Chumash. There is hardly a verse where all is clear. Was Noach truly righteous or only relatively so? Did Yaakov and Eisav have a true reconciliation or did Eisav feign brotherly love? Was it the brothers or Midianite traders who sold Yosef? Even the refrain we say over and over again on Yom Kippur, "and Hashem passed before him and proclaimed" (Shemot 34:6), has engendered debate; was it Moshe or G-d who proclaimed His name?

Ambiguity begins with the first verse of the Torah. Should it be read as "In the beginning, G-d created the heaven and the earth" as the Ramban does or as Rashi understands it, "In the beginning of G-d's creation"? The Torah clearly wants us to study and attempt to understand the text using many possible interpretations. It takes great understanding and wisdom to figure out which interpretation is most applicable to our lives. And the interpretation that is right for one may not be right for another.”

Obviously, Israel and the Palestinians will be on many of our minds at our Thanksgiving tables this year. But so will many other contentious topics and concerns, which are far too many to be listed here this evening. 

So how can we engage in a healthy and meaningful way if we so choose. First off, be secure in the knowledge that none of us have all of the answers. Despite social media’s ability to make us all experts in all topics, there reality is, none of us are experts, except perhaps in our particular fields of knowledge. Secondly, be open to other opinions and ideas. What is right for one may not be right for the other. And you can learn a lot about a person by what is underlying what they are actually saying. Thirdly, be present, but don’t be looking for a fight or a battle. But most importantly, be ready to disengage especially when it becomes clear that nothing good will come of the conversation. As one of my professors taught me, you cannot win an argument with a fundamentalist.

That being said, arguments do not have to be a zero-sum game. There do not have to be winners and losers. Our arguments at the dinner table are not going to solve the conflicts in the Middle East. They are not going to prevent climate change. Nor are they going to sway a political outcome. But they can ruin friendships and relationships in ways that are lasting. 

Jacob and Esau never saw eye to eye, and they definitely behaved unkindly to each other, especially when they were younger. And their parents certainly did not help by picking and playing favorites. That being said, in a later parasha, they did eventually reconcile, at least for a moment. 

Therefore, if nothing else, we can always remember the inspiration for this American holiday, and that is a gathering of gratitude. Even in these trying and challenging times, may we find ways to be grateful for the friends and family that we are able to break bread with. May we be cognizant that there are a diversity of thoughts and opinions and may we all be open to hearing them. And may we remember to follow in the teachings of our rabbis that all sacred arguments should be for the sake of heaven.

Shabbat Shalom.

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Watch the entirety of Friday’s service here.

Temple Talk is a recap of sermons given from the Bimah for those who missed a Sermon or who wanted to revisit the words spoken at a previous sermon.