A good fortune in an empty Well-Shemini 2009

This is a Passover Story of Redemption and forgiveness but for it to be complete, I need your help. You have to hear me confess what happened in this story.

Not only am I the Rabbinic intern at Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, I am also, a daughter with a mother. And like daughters with mothers will sometimes do, I tease and make fun of mine.

For Passover, I went to Boston to spend some time with my family. It was a lovely trip and it was wonderful to see everyone including my grandmother who sends her regards, especially to you, Rabbi Lippe. During one of the non-seder dinner nights, my parents,grandmother and I ordered in Chinese food. Not to worry-no rice or noodles could be found anywhere. We did, however, forget to tell the Asian Sun Chinese Restaurant in Cambridge not to send the fortune cookies. So, in true Reform Jewish style, we debate the permissibility of having the cookies on the table and in the end decided to not eat them, but merely open them for our fortunes.

When the meal was over and fortune-reading time came, my mother sprang up from the table and said, oh good,I'll get the fortune book. "The fortune book? What ridiculous thing is this, Mom?" She returned with a small, red, 5x7 album with pages and pages of little plastic slots for fortune cookie fortunes. She explained, my parents had gotten it when they had this really good fortune and they wanted to keep it.

"Where is that one I asked?" (Being the simple child) and my mother said, "well...we lost that one." My reply,
"And what was so great about that fortune that you needed to keep it?" (being the wicked child)
"Oh," my mother replied, "it said 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot."
Ironic. Funny. Cute.

I asked about all the other fortunes and where they had come from. I assumed they too all had stories of their own.
"I don't remember" she said "...I did not write it down..."
And being the child who did not even know what to say...I held my tongue.

"Well, let's all read these new ones and put them in the book."
I rolled my eyes at my mother, thinking the whole fortune-reading enterprise was foolish, anyway. They are just these silly phrases someone pulled off the internet and wrote on to little slips of paper. It's not like Torah or anything...or so I thought...

We all took turns reading our fortunes out loud. When it was my father's turn, he reads the following, "Learn Chinese: Ginger LiAhng"

More eye rolling.
He continued.
"The sky seems small if it is looked at from the bottom of the well...I don't get it" my father said.
I thought a moment and said, "well, I have an idea." "Begin your discourse" was my father's reply.

Now a brief time out from this story to tell another which my father and I had encountered earlier that day. Not only am I the Rabbinic intern at Brooklyn Heights and a daughter with a mother, I am also a rabbinic student with homework. And like rabbinic students with homework sometimes do, I worked on mine while on vacation. I had some sermons to read and so I read them with my dad.

One sermon included the following story from Pirkei Avot- Rabban Yochanan was dining with his studentson a festive day (perhaps it was passover) when he turned to one of his longest learning pupils, Rabbi Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus and said, "begin your discourse" but Rabbi Eliezer begged off saying, I cannot begin for I am like a well which cannot givemore water than has been poured in to it. So too I cannot offer words of Torah which you have not yet given me."My dad and I thought this was a bit of a jab by the student to the teacher especially at Passover...not unlike adaughter teasing her mother at the dinner table...but we read on. Rabbi Yochanan, the teacher said, "you are not a dry well, but a spring which gushes freely of water from within itself. Believe me, you are like such a spring. Now, begin your discourse." After more discussion, Rabbi Eliezer the student is convinced, opens his mouth and brilliant, new words of Torah poured out. (Pirkei D'rabbi Eliezer 1, Avot DeRabbi Natan 6, Gen. R. 42:1, Tanhumma B, Lech lcha)

Back to the fortune cookie.
"I don't get it. " My father said.
I thought a moment and said, "well, I have an idea." "Begin your discourse" was my father's reply.

"It's like the student in the story. He thinks he is a dry well and from where he stands, the sky is small, and far away, just like all the possibilities of what he might be able to do. But when his well is fed by a gushing stream, he floats up toward the top, and the sky appears bigger and bigger as all that is possible comes in to view."

My father thought for a minute and said, "Very Cool! I like that...let's put it in the book."

I smiled, sheepishly and said, "actually, can I have the fortune? I want to write a sermon about it..."

My mother, being the wise child, smiled, kissed me, and handed me the fortune.

At this season of renewal and spring time and passover,my we all be nourished and enriched by the springs which keep our wells full, floating us ever closer to the bright blue sky we finally saw today, keeping all the hope and possibilities in view of the bright futures which lay ahead.

Shabbat Shalom