Zerizus

If you really want to appreciate the kind of person Rebecca was, then you need to know two very important things about the Near East. First, a thirsty camel will, on average, drink up to one hundred liters per watering session. Second, according to my research on dromedaries and other fun facts of the ancient world, a “well worthy” clay jar can hold at most 15-20 liters. Which means that for every camel our matriarch Rebecca watered in this week’s Torah reading, she needed to make about half a dozen trips to the well. If there were ten camels accompanying Abraham’s servant, then it took … well, dozens and dozens of trips and a whole lot of water. All of which means, that Rebecca’s actions in chapter 24 of Genesis were not your garden-variety deeds of kindness. Moreover, because Rebecca’s exertions were extended towards a stranger from a strange land, we also know that this story is meant to say an awful lot not only about her outward strength, but about her inner qualities as well.

Throughout our sacred texts, certain qualities are associated with particular people. Some are physical, like Joseph’s beauty or Esau’s ruddiness. Some have to do with character – the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Samson or a lament worthy of Job. Occasionally, in certain narratives, there are figures whose behavior is so extraordinary that they become paradigmatic, enduring examples to all of us to this very day. The quality of Hannah’s prayer, a humble model of piety; the courage of Daniel as he stood in the lion’s den; and the faith of Abraham as he unflinchingly followed God’s command to bind his son Isaac upon the altar.

I believe that right there in the pantheon of biblical heroes there is a place for our matriarch Rebecca. I say this not only because she watered a lot of camels with core strength that would be the envy of any Pilates instructor. I say this not because her nature was such that she graciously welcomed a stranger, putting a sojourner’s needs before her own comfort. I say it because Rebecca had a certain quality that had not previously been introduced into the biblical repertoire. She had a trait that – though it would recur in others – had its purest expression in her, a character trait that ever since, has been the aspirational goal, not only of Jewish women, but of both men and women, Jewish or not, throughout time and space.

When we read how Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac, we often focus on the geography. It is a recurring biblical motif that no matter how far afield the patriarch may travel, the shidduch is always made in the Old Country, the wife always comes from the old homestead. Once Rebecca has distinguished herself from the other maidens at the well, we are relieved to discover that this woman of great strength and beauty also comes from the right lineage. By chance or by providential design, the servant has stumbled onto the one woman who is mishpacha, family. But in rereading the story this year, I realized that it wasn’t land, lineage, strength, beauty or even kindness that was key to Rebecca’s suitability as Isaac’s bride. What Abraham sought for his son, what his servant prayed for and what Rebecca demonstrated both at the well and in the years that followed was what is called in Hebrew zerizut. Zerizut is a word that doesn’t translate easily into English. It is a combination of self-assertion, pluck, and proactivity. Zerizut (or zerizus if you want to sound cool), is the one thing Rebecca had that no other woman had, a new value introduced with her arrival on the scene.

If you read the text closely from the beginning, then you can’t help but notice that the thread that runs through this entire story with Rebecca at its center is this trait of self-assertion, what I am calling zerizut. “What if the woman does not consent to follow me?” the servant asks Abraham. (Gen. 24:5) Abraham makes clear that the entire project is contingent on the woman’s consent and willingness. Then we have the servant’s prayer that the sought-after woman would be filled with initiative, not only responding to a stranger’s request for water, but willing to volunteer without being asked. And then, as Rebecca’s family hedges on the deal, she is brought into the room and – in an act that must have been altogether uncharacteristic for a patriarchal society – she is asked for her input: Will you go with this man? To which she responds with a single, compact yet voluminous Hebrew word: elekh, I will go. (Gen. 24: 57-58) And then she does just that, what no other biblical woman has done, she ups and goes, from one land, one birthplace, one household, to another.

It is worth considering that no biblical character, male or female had yet demonstrated the zerizut that Rebecca did. Adam and Eve were anything but proactive; just the opposite, they were emblematic of the human proclivity to pass the blame. So too their son Cain, a man tragically governed by his passions. Noah, righteous as he was, built his ark only on God’s orders and specifications. Even Abraham, our founding patriarch, did what he did – going to a new land sight unseen, offering his son Isaac on the altar – because God told him to. Rebecca’s act is revolutionary both because it is on her own volition, and also because it runs counter to the very laws of nature as laid out in Genesis, “Hence a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife.” (Gen 2:24) Only Rebecca went in the opposite direction, only she had the requisite zerizut to go against the grain. The servant presciently understood that Isaac’s wife would need an ability to take charge. She would have to be a woman who, like her father-in-law, would be willing to appeal directly to God. A woman who would be willing to make harsh choices between sons. A woman who, in the words of biblical scholar Jack Sasson, would have “the resolve to force on a reluctant husband the will of God’s promise.” (JANES 65:4)

Well beyond her own lifetime, Rebecca’s zerizut has represented an abiding ideal for Jewish women and men in every generation, an insistence on stepping up, on being proactive and assertive. The eighteenth-century Italian Kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzatto devoted an entire section of his Mesilat Yesharim to zerizut, calling it the “Crown Jewel” of character traits. It is zerizut that impelled the righteous convert Ruth to throw her destiny in with the Jewish people. It is zerizut that we see in the figure of Bat-sheva, who years after being the object of King David’s passions, has in this week’s haftarah been transformed into a formidable woman determining the fate of our people. While a gene for zerizut may be dominant in the hard-headed women of our tradition past and present, it is a quality to which we all strive, on both sides of the chromosomal divide. When we have resisted it – as did Jonah, as did Moses at the start of his story, as do many – we are pulled away from our potential. When we, individually or collectively, choose to be the actors in the dramas in our lives – as we did at the base of Mount Sinai by asserting na’aseh v’nishma, “we will do and we then we will listen” – then and only then do we approximate the ideal of our people. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, when asked to identify the moment that he was prompted to return to faith, recalled an encounter he had as a college student with the Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, z”l. In introducing himself, Sacks qualified a comment by referring to “the situation in which I find myself.” Schneerson replied pointedly, “A Jew doesn’t find himself in a situation; he puts himself in a situation.” This is zerizut, this is the quality that Rebecca had, that has fueled the achievements of so many heroic narratives of our people.

The problem is that far too many of us, far too often, say to each other and say to ourselves that our situation, our context, our condition is beyond our control. We are subject to forces beyond our power. Our world is filled with countless instances and individuals of well meaning do-nothingness, lacking Rebecca’s zerizut. We have, we claim, the best of intentions. But with alibis aplenty, we have mastered the art of deflecting blame, kicking the can down the road and avoiding any semblance of “If not now, when?” Whether it is the challenges facing our country, facing Israel, or a simple act of volunteerism, my greatest fear is that well-intended people will fail to act on the issues upon which our present and future collective well-being depends. If our elected officials prove unable to negotiate a path forward, then it doesn’t really matter whether your candidate won or lost this past week, does it? Their posturing and intransigence is a collective failure to show zerizut. If the leadership of Israel is not able to take the bold steps necessary towards securing its long term external and internal security, then the present paucity of zerizut will undoubtedly prove to have long lasting and deleterious consequences for the Jewish State.

More immediately, if you are sitting here in this room and have not given, volunteered or somehow contributed towards the comfort and support of our fellow New Yorkers, and you have the means to do so, then know that your inaction is a choice for which your conscience must answer. General Patton tells the story (whose language I need to tidy up) of being in the midst of a furious firefight in Tunisia. In the midst of it all, Patton saw a man on the top of a pole fixing a wire. Patton called out and asked the man what he was doing up there at a time like that. The man answered, “Fixing a wire.” Patton asked, “Isn’t that a little dangerous right now?” The man replied, “Yes, but the wire has to be fixed.” Patton asked, “Don’t those planes strafing the road bother you?” The man answered, “No, sir, but you sure as heck do.” What bothers me most is not the crossfire, what bothers me is not the uncertainty. What bothers me, what scares me, are those who sit, a permanent crease in their right and wrong, forwarding emails, thinking and planning and meeting like the end of a Beckett play, but in the end not acting – doing nothing at all.

You need look no further than the terrifying events of the past few weeks to be reminded that – despite what we may like to tell ourselves – we are not in control. I have no idea why one house is left standing and another destroyed. I have no idea why bad things happen to good people and I can’t assure you that those things won’t happen again. An awful lot in this world comes down to mazel, luck – sometimes good and sometimes bad. Each one of us, at some time in our life, if we have not done so already, as so many in our region are doing right now, will assuredly ask “why me?” In searching for an answer to that question, which is our right, we dare not be lulled into inertia, sluggishness or inaction. This world has never and will never provide us with the assurance that we will get what we want, but perhaps by demonstrating an earnest zerizut, by insisting on playing a determinative role in shaping the narrative of our lives and that of the world around us, by aspiring to be like Rebecca – that girl from Gumption Junction – perhaps, maybe, someday, somehow – we will get what we need.