This past Shabbat, during Torah reading at the small lay-led service I attend, the reader paused. He looked at a letter. It didn’t look quite right; it potentially wasn’t written correctly to the point where it might be confused with another letter. More of us crowded around to look closely. Someone went to fetch a child who could recognize Hebrew letters but not translate Hebrew words, to test whether the letter was clear or not. This would determine whether we could continue with the Torah reading.
I remembered back to the only other time I’ve ever seen this happen, twenty years ago.
Two dozen of us or so sat in loose rows in a large living room near Cleveland Park. It was Shabbat morning and this was the “Zoo Minyan,” a chavurah (lay-led, grassroots prayer group) with a feminist take on traditional liturgy, so named because it was near the Washington D.C. zoo. On a small table, Barbara chanted from the Torah. As usual in a traditional service, five people crowded around her: the two service participants acting as gabbaim who checked the reading and supported the Torah reader, the previous person who had been honored with an aliyah (making the blessings before and after the Torah reading), and the current person who had come up for an aliyah. Late spring light filtered through the window. It was my last Zoo Minyan before leaving D.C. for Jerusalem to begin a year of Hebrew ulpan—intensive, all-day Hebrew language courses—in preparation for applying to rabbinical school. I knew that if I wanted to step into Jewish leadership, Hebrew language was the stepping stone.
Barbara was chanting the Torah verses, then got to a verse and stopped. “Hm,” she said. She looked at the parchment from a different angle.
“Hm,” she said. She gestured for a gabbai to look. They conferred.
“Is there anyone here who can read Hebrew letters but who does not know Hebrew enough to translate?” she asked.
My face grew hot. After so many years of shame about not knowing Hebrew, feeling I had so much to say but not being able to translate or understand our sacred texts myself, relying on teachers or a study partner to explain to me what the Hebrew words meant, always having to ask, ask, ask—after all this, I tentatively raised my hand.
“Me.”
“Come up here?” she asked. She pointed to a letter. “Can you tell me: Does that look like a yud or a vav letter to you?” I looked. I studied the letter. I didn’t know exactly what was happening, but I didn’t want to get it wrong. After a moment, I said, “A vav.” She breathed a sigh of relief.
She then explained to the group that she had stumbled upon a poorly written vav that could not be distinguished from a yud. In such cases, when a letter isn’t written clearly enough to the point where it could be mistaken for another letter, you ask a Jew who can recognize Hebrew letters but cannot understand them enough to predict what letter is supposed to be there. If they say it looks like the letter it’s actually supposed to be, then it’s good enough and you can finish the Torah reading, although you must get the letter repaired afterward. If they say it looks like the other, incorrect letter, you must stop the Torah reading right there, because the Torah itself is unfit for use until it is repaired.
In that moment, in all my self-perceived deficiencies as a Jew, I was exactly who was needed. I, and no one else in that room, could help. It was a profound confirmation for me of the path I was taking, and also permission to be exactly where I was on that path: Knowing some things, not knowing a lot more things. About to head to Israel on a one-way ticket chasing knowledge, that experience gave me reinforcement and encouragement that I was on the right path. I saw something sacred in my experience that morning. I saw a message.
The beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Va’yera, also features messengers. The way the story is often told in the Jewish tradition, Abraham was such a good host that even though he was still healing from his adult circumcision, he saw three angels approaching and he got up and helped to prepare a feast for them.
If you read chapter 18 of Genesis closely, though, it’s not clear who these three men actually are. Yes, an on-the-mend Abraham runs out to welcome three men, and he and Sarah feed them. Then one of the men tells Abraham that he and Sarah will conceive, Sarah laughs in disbelief, and God Godself says basically, “It’s not funny; nothing is too wondrous for Me.”
God’s appearance and the men’s appearance happens at the same time. God’s message and the men’s message to Abraham and Sarah happen at the same time. They seem to be the same! Yet they are distinguished. It’s not clear if Abraham thinks these are angels. Only later does the text call them “malachim,” messengers or angels of God. In the moment that Abraham welcomes them, they are just three travelers on the road.
Yet, Abraham and Sarah take what they have to say seriously. They can sense that the message these strangers are delivering is sacred, even before God Godself speaks.
Sometimes, our life reveals messengers who have something important to tell us. It could be someone we know or someone who’s just come into our lives for that moment. We wonder: Is this significant or just coincidence? Should I pay attention or is it irrational to think this is important?
Last week, as someone was fetching a child to look at the questionable letter, I whispered to another participant that I had been the person checking the letter in the past. She said, “Oh, when you were a kid?” I said no. “Oh, you were the adult looking for a child to check the letter?” I said no. She only knew me as a rabbi, as a knowledgeable participant in Jewish community. I explained: “No, I was the adult who didn’t know Hebrew that was asked to check the letter.”
But I had heard the message: I was exactly who I needed to be in that moment. And it had given me the strength to take my next steps.