Archived Torah Commentary

5780

Erev Rosh Hashanah 9/18/20

“Hineni”
Joshua Jacobs, TBA Rabbinic Intern

I walk into a patient’s room. He’s a Jewish man in his mid-sixties, in a lot of pain due to pancreatitis. I introduce myself as a Jewish chaplain intern, enrolled in the hospital’s summer training program, which impressively managed to stay active during the pandemic. He looks at me, puzzled, and says, “Well, rabbi, what would you like to do? I suppose we could say the Shema if you like.” This makes me laugh because I can’t tell if he legitimately wants to say the Shema or if he hopes that reciting it will make me go away. I tell him I’m here to support him and that we don’t have to pray, we can just talk. He says he’s in too much pain to talk, but that he’d really like to recite the Shema. So we do. He closes his eyes and I close mine. “She-ma yis-ra-el…,” and we sing together until “e-chad.” I open my eyes, but his are still closed. I realize what’s about to happen, just as he continues, “V’ahavtah…” All of a sudden, this man who is in too much pain to talk voluntarily opts for the long version.

I think moments like that are what’s meant by spiritual care. Unlike doctors, our goal isn’t to “fix” problems. Our job is “Hineni.” Hineni means “I am here.” It’s the title of the Hazzan’s prayer that begins the Musaf service on both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s how Abraham responds to God’s call and to his son before the Akeida, the binding of Isaac.

Hineni is a declaration of preparedness. It means showing up. It signals a desire to actively listen, without judgment or preconceived notions, to the one who calls. In a hospital setting, Hineni is perhaps the greatest spiritual gift chaplains offer patients, who often feel - especially now – like they are alone and lack control over what happens to their lives and to their bodies. But it’s also the greatest spiritual gift we offer ourselves. In empathizing with others – in seeing them, hearing them, and recognizing their human dignity without claiming to “know what they’re going through” - we become the fullest, most present version of ourselves. We experience the Divine through relationship and through Hineni.

As we enter Erev Rosh Hashanah and the new year of 5781, our world – our country – is physically and spiritually unwell. On top of climate change, we are confronted with the dual pandemics of COVID and systemic racism. One is novel, the other is not. Both have contributed to a profound sense of lack of control over what happens to lives and to bodies. We are each entitled to our different opinions as to how to “fix” these issues. But what I’m interested in now is how we chaplain one another through this time. How do we see each other the way we deserve to be seen? Hear each other the way we deserve to be heard? How do we quiet the voice that prevents us from listening to each other’s unique suffering and experience?

In 1967, the American novelist, playwright, and essayist, James Baldwin, speaking from his own perspective as an African-American man living in Harlem, writes about the dynamic he observes between white-passing Jews and black people in his neighborhood. He does not account for the experience of Jews of color, and like anyone else, can only represent his own opinions. But he makes the stirring claim that when Jews invoke their own history of unfathomable suffering in the attempt to communicate an understanding of black suffering in America, that - and I paraphrase - it does not increase a black person’s understanding; it increases a black person’s rage. When I read this, it immediately reminded me of what they taught me this summer. A chaplain seeks to understand another person’s suffering, but knows that this can never actually be achieved. Similarly, I think that Baldwin is saying that shared experience of suffering can certainly compel groups of people to join hands and march together, but it cannot convince us that we know what the other is going through.

This year, I wanted to avoid the temptation to talk about Hineini as an abstract call for presence, though we can all certainly benefit from that reminder. Instead, I want to invite us to be spiritually present for each other, to chaplain a country towards recovery, and to respond to the suffering of others not with the presumption to know but with the holy desire to show up, to be present, and to listen. After all, that’s what “Shema” means. Our

central creed is a commitment to active listening – “Hear, O Israel.” Our path to oneness - “Adoshem Elokeinu, Adoshem Echad” – is through the recognition of our common humanity and separate experience simultaneously. We can close our eyes and think our work is done. Or we can realize that “Ve’ahavtah,” the triumph of love over hate, is the long and painful version. But we’re not going anywhere. We’re here. Hineini.

Nitzavim-Vayelekh 9/5/20

Is the Torah Written in Stone?
Rachel Cohn, TBA Rabbinic Intern

We all have our own rituals that make a new house feel like a home. When I move into a new place (after putting up mezuzot), I love to set up a spot in the kitchen where I can make smoothies. My husband likes to stake his claim for a gardening spot. For others, it might be putting up a familiar painting, hanging up photographs of loved ones, or taking out your favorite coffee mug for the first cup brewed in your new abode. Whatever our particular rituals might be, we all look for the signs that this new space reflects who we are and who we hope to become while living there.

In Ki Tavo, the Israelites get some intriguing decorating advice for when they enter their new home of the promised land. They are told that when they come into the land, they are to set up large stones. God explains, “coat them with plaster and inscribe upon them the words of this Torah” (Deuteronomy 27:2-3) Nothing says “welcome home” like a giant list of your community’s laws, norms, and values!

What exactly was written on these giant communal structures? Rabbis throughout history have pictured it differently. Rashi (writing in the 11th Century) suggests it is the entire Torah written in 70 languages. Ramban (12th Century) indicates it is the text of Genesis through Deuteronomy as we know it today, including even the decorative letters with crowns. Ibn Ezra (11th Century), quoting Rav Saadyah Gaon (10th Century), explains it is a list of the 613 commandments, as recorded in the book “Halachot Gedolot” of their time. It seems that in the collective rabbinic imagination, these stones became somewhat of a “blank slate” for understanding Torah in each age.

Perhaps these seemingly magical stones have room enough for each of these images of Torah and more. Almost like the “room of requirement” in Harry Potter, it seems these stones have the ability to take on the form of what people need from Torah at a given time. As the Medieval halakhic authority Rabbi Jacob ben Asher posits: “Either the stones were exceedingly large, or there was a miracle that enabled the scribes to accomplish this.” It is indeed part of the miraculous nature of Torah that it can speak to each of us. What makes the Torah’s words indelible is not the fact that they were literally transcribed in stone, but rather that they have the ability to reach out to us across time and space.

In this Elul season of introspection, we have the opportunity to carve out a new spiritual home for ourselves in the year ahead. We can take stock of our values and find the teachings that guide us. What are the pieces of Torah you are prepared to stand by? What are the words or values you believe firmly enough to write them in stone and protect them for generations to come? Let us add to the chain of wondrous revelation by living our lives in such a way that we ourselves stand as enduring reminders of Torah in our time.

Ki Teitze 8/29/20

The Trail of Goodness
By Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Last week a dear colleague got an email from a congregant at a shul my friend left over twenty years ago. The two had barely been in touch in the interim. The congregant was retiring, and assessing his life and his life’s work. He decided one thing he could, and thus should, do is reach out to those who had had a positive impact on his life in order to express gratitude, and let people know what a powerful influence they had been. This congregant had converted to Judaism under my friend’s supervision. He had kashered a home, and launched a life in which he was committed to raising Jewish children. Mostly, according to this colleague, the congregant learned mentshlikhkeit and a new level of supreme kindness from my friend. Now, decades later, he was calling to say thanks.

My friend said this was one of the most touching and important communications of his rabbinate. To think that seeds he planted years ago had grown inside this other person in such a way was almost too rich, too overwhelming to bear, in a positive sense. As we spoke about it, it got us both thinking about legacy, and the trail of goodness we hope our lives will have left. And, concomitantly, it made us think about the other side of the coin: the damage it is so easy for people to do (ourselves included, we are sure) when we set the poor example and lead people astray, whether intentionally or not.

A fascinating, and clearly against-the-grain, commentary on the laws of “the rebellious child” by the Kotzker Rebbe (R. Menahem Mendel of Kotzk, 18^th-19^th c., Poland) amplifies the power of setting examples, and (im-)proper instruction. The challenging verses that seem to require executing a deviant child (a requirement, I should add, which is so heavily qualified in rabbinic law that it essentially ceases to exist) begin with describing such a child as בן סורר ומורה. Ben sorer umoreh. Roughly translated as “wayward and rebellious.” Rashi cryptically comments that this child is judged “על שם סופו” (al shem sofo), or “based on his end.” This seems to mean a rabbinic version of “Minority Report”, where the law hands down the sentence based on what we presume this criminal will become and will do, by the end of his life. The Kotzker rebbe cannot accept that Rashi would embrace such a draconian execution of judgment, noting other places where Rashi clearly says that a person is judged in the present tense only, for current sins, not future ones. Rather, the Kotzker reads Rashi’s use of סופו/sofo to mean not “the end” of his life, but “the end” of the full phrase of “ben sorer umoreh.” For this awful circumstance to be contemplated even in theory, the Kotzker reasons, the child must not only be wayward/rebellious (sorer) but also a moreh. Meaning what? Moreh comes from the verb להורות/l’horot. To instruct, or to teach. (As such, it is also the root of the word Torah itself, which at its core means “instruction.” Rebelliousness and waywardness goes from sinful to tragic, from problematic to unforgivable, when it infects others. When a transgressor brings along others along the path of evil, seducing followers to violate essential norms, then we are not just seeing the breakdown of a life, but rather of a society.

Still, I would argue that the Kotzker embraces the rabbis’ qualification, limitation and essential elimination of this category and punishment. I don’t think he was suggesting that even a charismatic youth who enticed his peers to join his rebelliousness would warrant execution. Rather, he was asking us to check ourselves so that our own vices have limits, and do not spill out onto others. We must be humbly aware of where we stray, and also ferociously guarded so that what we are sharing with others, how we are influencing others, is nearly exclusively for the good. As a result of our care, modeling and focus, perhaps, years down the line, someone might reach out and say thanks.

Shabbat Shalom

R. Adam Kligfeld

Shoftim 8/21/20

Moving Towards Wholeness
By Rebecca Minkus-Lieberman, via Orot: Center for New Jewish Learning

There are those times when the crash of the tide of the Jewish calendar and the steady rhythm of the weekly parshiot coalesce in a breathtaking crescendo. So it is this week.

We only just inhaled deeply and welcomed the month of Elul. That Hebrew month that can stir both anticipation and utter dread, knowing that the intensity of the High Holidays are really much closer than we had imagined, that the spiritual ferocity and elevation of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are only a few weeks on. And as we open our eyes and feel the presence of Elul sitting alongside us, Parshat Shoftim tiptoes in the backdoor with a quiet reminder, soulful guidance - garbed as battle instructions – to steady our sight on this winding and, at times, foreboding path:

Deut. 20:5 – 8 - “And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying: 'What man is there that has built a new house, and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it. And what man is there that has planted a vineyard, and has not eaten its fruit? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat his fruit. And what man is there that has betrothed a wife, and has not been with her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man be with her.' And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say: 'What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest his brothers’ hearts melt as his heart.'”

When the People of Israel are readying their ranks for battle, the officers are instructed to pause and to offer these exemptions to the soldiers. In these four circumstances, individuals are allowed to bow out of their military service.But why are these individuals exempted? What is it about these particular situations that are exceptional, that require attention before serving the communal call of military service? In all of these cases, the individual is caught in a transitional place:

• One who has bought a home, but has not yet had the chance to live in it

• One who toiled and planted a field, but has not had the chance to taste its fruits

• One who has begun a committed relationship but has not fully realized its potential

• One who is a member of the People of Israel but has not yet summoned the inner strength and courage to stand fully and confidently with the community

Here, the Torah is tenderly and insightfully recognizing the need for individual actualization. There is an understanding, in each of these cases, that human beings need wholeness - shlemut. Wholeness in our sense of place. Wholeness in our work. Wholeness in our relationships. Wholeness in our inner lives. Before we embark on giving back to our communities – in fact, in order to give back to our communities – our individual selves, our individual paths must be on the road to actualization. The Torah knows that to rip a person midstream from a necessary journey towards realization will do harm –to the individual and the community.

Arthur Green, in his book “Seek My Face” speaks about the yearning for wholeness and the ways in which the shofar guides us there:

“This dream of restored wholeness is sounded out dramatically by the shofar blasts, the central symbolic expression of the teshuvah season. The shofar represents prayer beyond words, an intensity of longing that can be articulated only in a wordless shout. But the order of the sounds, according to one old interpretation, contains the message in quite explicit terms. Each series of shofar blasts begins with tekiyah, a whole sound. It is followed by shevarim, a tripartite broken sound who very name means ‘breakings.’ ‘I started off whole,’ the shofar speech says, ‘And I became broken.’ Then follows teruah, a staccato series of blast fragments, saying: ‘I was entirely smashed to pieces.’ But each series has to end with a new tekiyah, promising wholeness once more.”

Standing here, in the first week of the month of Elul, we begin our process of cheshbon ha’nefesh – inquiry of our souls. And as I read these psukim from Shoftim, I kept hearing the words of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac” in my head. The poem, written after her recent bout with cancer, celebrates – as do so many of her poems – the breath-stopping beauty of the world, and our obligation to stop and notice and listen and fully actualize our selves in the midst of all of that wonder. She writes in the third stanza:

I know, you never intended to be in this world.

But you're in it all the same.

so why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.

There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Mary Oliver and Parshat Shoftim urge us to stop and notice what needs our attention in this month of Elul.

Do our homes hold the holiness that we strive for?

Does our work allow us the opportunity to be challenged and fulfilled, to feel actualized?

Are our relationships being realized in their deepest capacity?

Are we giving enough time and energy and attention to our inner lives, in the midst of the whirlwinds forever swirling outside of ourselves?

May we use these gentle reminders in Parshat Shoftim to look with honesty at the many facets of our lives and to spend the coming weeks searching for ways to move towards wholeness and holy actualization.

Shabbat Shalom

Eikev 8/8/20

Soul Food of the Promised Land

By TBA Rabbinic Intern, Rachel Cohn

Throughout their time in the desert, the Israelites have been picky eaters. Recall that after leaving Egypt, just one chapter after singing the Song of the Sea, they kvetched to Moses: “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt...when we ate our fill of bread! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to starve this whole congregation to death!” (Exodus 16:3). Despite the squabbling, God sends manna and quail to fill their needs. Later on, another faction complains, “Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish that we used to eat in Egypt for free, the cucumbers, the watermelons, the green-leeks, the onions, and the garlic! But now, our throats are dry; there is nothing at all except for the manna in front of our eyes!” (Numbers 11: 4-6). When it comes to food on their forty-year trek to the promised land, it seems there is a “grass is always greener on the other side” mentality (or in this case, the meat is always tastier on the other side...of the Sea of Reeds).

In parshat Eikev, we hear of the amazing food awaiting the Israelites when they cross the Jordan into Canaan:

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains of water issuing from plain and hill; A land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey; A land where you may eat food without scarcity, where you will lack nothing…(Deuteronomy 8: 7-9)

What would it take for the next generation of these historically finicky eaters to actually feel satisfied in the food paradise that awaits? The Israelites got all of their needs met with the manna that fell from the heavens, yet they still craved more. What would need to change in the promised land?

It seems that hunger is not only an empty stomach, but also a kind of spiritual yearning. In the episode above from Numbers, the phrase used to describe their complaint was “nafshenu yevesha,” literally, “our souls are dry.” Our physical needs can become entwined with those of the spirit. Perhaps what Moses is describing in Eikev is a state of spiritual ease, or a feeling of abundance rather than lack.

After all, God instructs us to give gratitude for the delicacies of the Holy Land with a verse that has become incorporated in our Birkat Hamazon today:

When you eat, and you are satisfied,
You are to bless the Lord your God
For the good land that God has given you.
(Deuteronomy 8:10)

This act of offering a blessing itself can reorient us towards the goodness of now, as well as the richness that lies ahead.

Sometimes our cravings are indeed hunger of the body. Food pantries and food banks are seeing unprecedented demand right now, with many locations also being forced to close. Any extra resources we can offer to such causes are surely their own kind of blessing.

At other times, when our bodies are nourished, our cravings can give us a window into our soul’s desires. Perhaps we feel we have been wandering in our own wilderness for too long. Perhaps we, too, are eager to find rest in a place where all our needs are provided for. At these times, finding something to bless with gratitude - a bite of food, a gorgeous rainbow, a hint of sweet spices, or otherwise - can help keep us looking forward to the promised land.

Devarim 7/25/20

The Long Short Road: Devarim and Tisha B'Av 5780

By Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, via Orot: The Center for New Jewish Learning

“Said Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananiah: Once a child got the better of me. I was traveling, and I met with a child at a crossroads. I asked him, ‘Which way to the city?,’ and he answered, ‘This way is short and long, and this way is long and short.’ I took the short and long way. I soon reached the city but found my approach obstructed by gardens and orchards. So I retraced my steps and said to the child, ‘My son, did you not tell me that this is the short way?’ Answered the child, ‘Did I not tell you that it is also long?’” (Babylonian Talmud Eruvin 53b)

I often notice myself looking for shortcuts on the spiritual path, especially when my life circumstances are difficult. Fortunately, I have trained in being able to bear witness to the ways in which my wily mind tries to find circuitous ways around the unpleasant rather than relax into it with honesty, loving curiosity, courage, and compassion. Some of my mind’s favorite tactics: Denial. Repression. Blame. Willful ignorance. Protest. Distraction. Entertainment seeking. Sound familiar? The problem is that though my mind convinces itself that these shortcuts will get me to more favorable circumstances in no time, such tactics end up lengthening the path toward healing, and greatly enhance my suffering along the way. When I run from my fears, the road to wholeness becomes obstructed by a thicket of confusion, misperception, blame, ill will, grasping, and ignorance. As it were, I am opting for the short long way.

According to RaSHI, this is exactly the choice the Israelites made in the desert. Sefer Devarim opens with a description of the whereabouts of Moshe’s farewell address to the Israelites: “It was eleven days’ distance from Horev (Sinai) to Kadesh Barne’a by way of Mount Seir” (Devarim 1:3). Why does the text share this seemingly extraneous information? RaSHI’s response: “Moshe said to the [Israelites]: ‘See what you have wrought. For there is no path as short from Horev to Kadesh Barne’a [which is adjacent to Canaan] as the way of Mount Seir, which is an eleven day journey. Yet you traversed it in three days...because the Divine Presence was so restless to hurry your arrival into the Land of Israel. But since you ruined things [in your reaction to the sin of the Spies], God turned you back to traverse around Mount Seir for forty years’” (RaSHI ad loc.). Faced with the fear induced by the unfavorable report of the Spies, the Israelites sought to depose Moshe and go back to Egypt, and upon failing, to force their way into the Land of Israel. For RaSHI, the people thought they were taking the short road, when in fact they were condemning themselves to forty years of walking in circles. Having the faith to acknowledge and work with their fear in the context of their covenantal bond with God would have constituted a choice to walk the long short road.

The long short road may be unpleasant at times. Specifically because it takes more faith, creativity, and imagination than our imagined shortcuts; it demands full presence, courage, honesty, and loving persistence. But in the end it gets us to our destination more quickly, allowing us to relax into the unpleasant, and arrive on the other side with greater wholeness, wisdom, and compassion.

Choosing the long short road offers us a lens for approaching the season of mourning leading up to Tish’a B’av, the date commemorating the destruction of both Temples and the massacre and dispersion of our people. In trying to understand why Tish’a B’av is ignored by a large portion of the American Jewish community, in her book In The Narrow Places: Daily Inspiration for the Three Weeks, Erica Brown writes:

“Why has this day and its surrounding rituals not been appreciated by the wider Jewish community? Perhaps the answer lies in a particular type of amnesia, a willed disregard for tragic history or the past. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik observed that American Jews do not always have sufficient sensitivity to Torah values to achieve spiritual depth. Human happiness does not depend on comfort. The American Jew follows a philosophy which equates religion with making Jewish life more comfortable and convenient. It enables the Jew to have more pleasure in life…Comfort is the main obstruction blocking the Jewish community from contact with Tisha B’Av. Suffering humanizes us. Ignoring suffering dehumanizes us. I don’t want to ruin my good mood by looking at that homeless person, so I turn away – and with that turning, I let go of my social responsibility to him. Attunement to suffering makes us more compassionate (Brown, pp. 2-7).

In short, when it comes to facing the suffering of our people and our responsibility to them, during this season many of us choose to traverse the short long road, which is no surprise considering that we choose the same approach when relating to our own suffering.

May we train in awakening from the illusion of a shortcut around the unpleasant. As we choose the long short road, may we develop the courage to stop running from our suffering and the suffering of our people. And as we develop greater skill and compassion at working with the difficult truths of our lives, may we open to greater healing, compassion, ease, and responsibility. May it be so speedily in our days. And let us say amen.

Shabbat Shalom

Matot-Masei 7/18/20

The Zigzag Line to Our Promised Land

Taste of Torah for Mattot-Massei by Joshua Jacobs, TBA Rabbinic Intern

This week, we get a retrospective. As we look back on our collective journey in the desert - the parasha literally mapping out in detail each stop along the way out of Egypt – you can’t help but look back at your own life, at each stop along the way that has helped shape you and contribute to where and who you are today.

Reading it, I started thinking about Mrs. Creasy, ז׳׳ל, my high school American lit teacher, who will always be a profound influence on my life. She taught me about metaphor. Our final paper for her class was to concoct and defend our own personal metaphor for life because she believed that in order to fully grasp something, you have to be able to understand it metaphorically, symbolically, poetically. And she wanted us to understand life.

She was notoriously difficult – pushing and challenging us to excel because she believed in our potential to grow. I think my favorite thing about her was that, whenever we failed to live up to that potential, Mrs. Creasy would throw her hands up, look us right in the face and say, “Well, you are useless.” She didn’t mean that metaphorically.

Something she taught us flooded back to me from the deep recesses of my memory when I read this week’s parasha. It’s Emerson, the 19th century iconic transcendentalist, who wrote: “The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks.”

I want to understand this week’s parasha as best I can. Here’s why I think this metaphor helps.

Right before recounting each stop on our travels, the Torah says, “Moses recorded the departures for their journeys as directed by the Lord. And these were the journeys for their departures…”/ “ויכתב משה את מוצאיהם למסעיהם על פי ה׳ ואלה מסעיהם למוצאיהם” (Numbers 33:2). The 17th century commentator from Prague, the Kli Yakar, notices that in the first part of the verse, it says “departures for their journeys - מוצאיהם למסעיהם,” but that phrase is reversed in the second half of the verse to “journeys for their departures - מסעיהם למוצאיהם.” The Kli Yakar understands this to mean that there was a back-and-forth nature to the Israelites’ wanderings. Forth – when they heeded God’s laws and acted morally. Back – when they regressed, rejected God’s laws, and acted immorally.

This week’s parasha seems to suggest that progress is not a straight line. It’s a zigzag. A ship moves forward by shifting its sails to catch the wind, which blows in different directions. Similarly, it seems that whenever we take three steps forward we are doomed to take two steps backwards, whether we are journeying to our literal or metaphorical promised lands. Today, trust in law enforcement is eroding as more black lives are extinguished by murderous acts of racial

violence. COVID has brought everything to a screeching halt, as one week shows a flattening curve and the next, a spike. If recounting where we’ve been helps us understand who we are, then: Who are we? Which actions define us, our triumphs or our setbacks?

Emerson’s quote continues. He writes, “See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions.” In other words, we’re defined by all of it. If we only look to our triumphs, then we make a graven image of ourselves and bow down to it, worshiping our own perfection. If we only look to our shortcomings, then we do what Mrs. Creasy never did – we lose faith in our ability to grow.

Isn’t it interesting that parshiyot always seem to come at the exact right time, when we need them? Believe it or not, the High Holidays are approaching. Which means, it’s time for a retrospective. On a personal and on a national level, we need to do teshuva. We need to examine where we’ve been, where we are, and where we want to be – our promised land. A country free of the dual pandemics of COVID and hate.

Now that we’ve had plenty of practice standing six feet away from each other, we are tasked with standing six feet away from ourselves in order to better see, with distance, the zigzag line of our actions that make us who we are. Before reciting the Amidah, a prayer in which we envision approaching God’s Divine Presence, we take three steps back and three steps forward. The human journey is not a straight line. But that doesn’t mean we can’t attain holiness and greet the Divine. Mattot-Massei reminds us that, in the words of MLK, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Shabbat Shalom.

Pinhas 7/11/20

Who Tells Our Story?
By Rabbi Rebecca Schatz

Are you a good storyteller or do you leave that task to someone else? Are you someone who needs to start a story again to make sure you have told all the details? Do you tell stories to share history or to impact the future?

Watching Hamilton this past week, I was struck by the artfulness of the storytelling. I have seen the show on stage, but the medium of TV offered different opportunities of perspective: I could turn on subtitles; I was limited to looking at what the camera focused on; I was brought closer into the faces of the characters at the expense of taking in the larger scene of settings and choreography around them. Also, I was made aware of actors who played multiple roles. When you are seated in row J of the balcony, that is not easy to notice. But the artistic pairings seemed inspired choices and evidence of the deeply layered mastery of this work by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The Schuyler sisters are presented as surprisingly strong willed, determined, learned and thoughtful and Eliza plays a significant role in the formation of her husband’s character as well as protecting the legacy of him and their family. And though the musical, Hamilton, is not told as if through Eliza’s eyes, we of the 21st Century know that much of the surviving history comes from her work, interviews, notes, and letters.

In this week’s parasha, Pinhas, we are introduced to the five daughters of Tzelofehad - I like to imagine them as the Schuyler Sisters of the Torah. Brave and closely bound as family, they take charge of their destiny. They approach Moses before the whole community after their father dies and say, “Let not our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son! Give us a holding among our father’s kinsmen!” Moses turns to God and God consents, changing the law to include daughters’ rights of inheritance. The daughters were not only witnesses to great history. They were influencers who passed on the legacy--the story--of appropriately arguing for change. Rashi later commented that according to the Midrash Tanchuma, the daughters saw what Moses could not see. They had a finer perception of what was just, in the law of inheritance, than Moses had.

We are living an ordeal that will reshape our future. These days will be mentioned in the same breath as the Spanish Flu and the Bubonic Plague; and perhaps alongside histories of the fights for Civil rights of the 1960s, as matters of poverty, bigotry, and health care become poisonously tangled. We are the beneficiaries of the heroes and storytellers of earlier times. Now is our turn. Will we bravely pursue justice for ourselves and others as did Tzelopfehad’s daughters? Will we sing the refrain from Hamilton “who lives, who dies, who tells our story?” First we need to figure out what story we want to tell and then, who tells it. What character, with what values and strengths? “History has its eyes on you!”

Korah 6/27/20

By Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

“First, ask if it any of it rings true. No matter how it was expressed.” That is the first counsel I give to staff, mentees, friends, etc…whenever we are discussing the topic of constructive critique, and feedback (whether bidden or unbidden). It is my way of paying forward essential counsel I received from one of my teachers and mentors, Rabbi Terry Bookman. It is a normative human instinct to defend when attacked. To deflect when accused. We like to look in mirrors for vanity, but not to see the warts so much. So when someone shines a clear light on some unsavory part of who we are, or what we do, it is usually an uncomfortable experience, no matter how open we believe we are to growth and learning.

Some feedback comes gently, only after being requested, couched in humane language, without overloading the emotional system, and avoiding ad hominem attacks. And some feedback…well let’s just say it comes differently than that! I believe that when we are confronted the latter category, one of the most important human and leadership tasks is to resist the urge to recoil, but rather to counter-intuitively take it all in, independent of how it was shared, and ask the hard question. “Is any of it accurate?” For if so, and if the person has pointed about something accurate (and thus deserving of attention) even in a painful way, then we, the recipient, walk away from the encounter a winner. For we have learned something. And we can grow. And the unsavory critique can still have an ennobling impact on our character.

Many commentators read this very stance into Moshe’s initial response to the Torah’s paradigmatic example of critique both potentially accurate and undoubtedly scathing and unforgiving. I refer to Korach’s rebellion against Moshe and his leadership, which is how this week’s eponymous parsha begins. Korach accuses Moshe (just recently identified as ענו מאוד/anav m’od, or “very humble”) of lording over others, raising himself to a higher level than those he leads. “Aren’t we all holy, Moshe?”

Rabbi Schneiur Zalman of Lyady, the first rabbi of the Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty, argues that Moshe could have defensibly uttered an immediate, and righteous, retort to Korach. After all, Moshe was blind-sided by this critique. And the Torah text belies the critique. No one would have faulted Moshe had his instant response been to deflect the attack, and put Korach in his place. We would all identify with that instinct, no? Instead “the Alter Rebbe,” as he was known, points out Moshe’s surprising and, well, humble (and thus illustrative) response. The Torah says: וישמע משה ויפל על פניו. Vayishma Moshe vayipol al panav. Moshe heard (listened). And fell on his face. Both parts of that short verse are important, argues the Alter Rebbe. First, Moshe took in the words, rather than put up an impregnable shield. No matter what he thought of Korach, and his approach to logging concerns, Moshe did not plug his ears. He listened. And then he prostrated himself. He fell to the ground. Why? For a moment of personal pause. To check in with himself, and the Holy One, to see if there was merit to Korach’s words. Perhaps Korach is an unsavory representative of the Almighty? A test of Moshe’s own character, sent to assay Moshe’s willingness to reflect on his leadership? Could the critique be true, on any level?

It was only after Moshe searched himself, with piercing honesty and the sense that he may, indeed, have earned the opprobrium, that he authored his response.

What is slightly ironic about the Alter Rebbe’s read is that, after the introspection, Moshe comes out (at least to his own assessment) sparkling clean. He has nothing to apologize for. His conscience is clear. The claims are spurious and the insurrection is against both Moshe and God. The most humble man in the Torah can find no flaw in himself! And so, the Alter Rebbe says, Moshe is justified, after rising from his prostration, in calling down God to help handle this unjust revolution. (Interestingly, this read of Moshe might unconsciously be a projection on the part of the Alter Rebbe Hasidic rebbes are both thought to properly introspective and simultaneously nearly beyond flaw.).

But still, the main point should be a clarion call to us: the first response to critique, whether gentle nor withering, whether wholly unfair or painfully on-target, should be to pause. Take it in. Let the words reverberate inside. For from such moments, we always learn. And thus our response need not be pique. But rather gratitude.

Shabbat Shalom

Shelakh-Lekha 6/20/20

This week is about God and me
By Rav Natan Freller

Imagine you have been secluded to one place for longer than you expected to. All you want is to move on. Easy, right?

Now imagine that the place where you were wandering is outside the house and all you want is to go inside and feel at home.

Still in the first year of the Israelite journey in the wilderness, Moshe led them to the borders of the promise land. It doesn’t take forty years to get there, that was a divine decision that comes at the end of this parasha, and most of these years, the Jews camped at the same place.

This week’s parasha is called Shelach lecha – send for yourself. What a unique way for God to charge Moshe with a new task. It could be that God does not care about scouting the land, so if Moshe wants to do it, he has been given the permission. Or God actually cares, but disagrees with the idea, and let Moshe take full responsibility for it. It could be God showing love for the people: go, go for yourself, check it out, and enjoy it! Looking forward to hearing back from you!

Later on, when looking back to this moment almost 40 years later, Moshe tells this same story a little bit differently (Devarim 1:19-23):

We set out from Horeb and traveled the great and terrible wilderness that you saw, along the road to the hill country of the Amorites, as Adonai our God had commanded us. When we reached Kadesh-barnea, I said to you, “You have come to the hill country of the Amorites which Adonai our God is giving to us.

See, Adonai your God has placed the land at your disposal. Go up, take possession, as Adonai, the God of your fathers, promised you. Fear not and be not dismayed.”

Then all of you came to me and said, “Let us send men ahead to reconnoiter the land for us and bring back word on the route we shall follow and the cities we shall come to.”

It looked good in my eyes, and so I selected twelve of your men, one from each tribe.

The rabbis of the Talmud asked the same question, but their answers focused on a different reality, trying to protect God from any wrongdoing in letting the spies go even though God knew what they would say.

The truth is that the spies never said anything bad about the land. All twelve spies agreed about how good the land is and even brought fruits with them to prove. They also agreed in their description of the challenges ahead, describing a local population of giants. The disagreement was between Yehoshua and Calev and the other ten spies, who did not trust their capacity to conquer the land – even though they had God on their side.

So what was their sin that caused the people to wander for forty years before entering the land again?

The Talmud (Sotah 34b) expresses what I think is the key here in a very interesting way, analyzing the names of the spies:

“The spies were named after their actions, even though we don’t know the reason why for all of them. Sethur the son of Michael is called Sethur, as he hid [satar] the actions of the Holy One.

In other words, he ignored the miracles that God performed for the Jewish people in Egypt and in the wilderness and did not see God’s role in this next challenge ahead of them.

In opposition to this idea, Hoshea becomes Yehoshua because of this episode (Bamidbar 13:16):

אֵ֚לֶּה שְׁמ֣וֹת הָֽאֲנָשִׁ֔ים אֲשֶׁר־שָׁלַ֥ח מֹשֶׁ֖ה לָת֣וּר אֶת־הָאָ֑רֶץ וַיִּקְרָ֥א מֹשֶׁ֛ה לְהוֹשֵׁ֥עַ בִּן־נ֖וּן יְהוֹשֻֽׁעַ׃

Those were the names of the men whom Moshe sent to scout the land; but Moshe changed the name of Hoshea son of Nun to Yehoshua.

The Talmud explain that his new name mean that God will save him from the counsel of the other spies.

This entire story is not about the land, but about how each one of us deals with the challenges we have ahead and the role we allow God to play in our lives, particularly in moments like this.

I do not think of God as a personal God with magical powers, while at the same time, in a time where science and knowledge are being threaten by a harmful belief system that endangers our lives and our society, I want to believe in a God that is by my side right now.

Today, God cannot be an expression of hate, lies, or any kind of violence, prejudice, and discrimination. We were all created in God’s image and this is the most important principle in our Torah.

A life of mere facts and logic is challenging right now as well. I have been searching for God in my life with a different approach over the past few months. Acknowledging that knowing God completely can me overwhelming and surreal, I have been focusing on the godliness, the divine that exists in our actions. The way I conduct myself and how I behave towards others is my attempt to emanate the divine into the world.

This is no easy task. Maybe one of the greatest challenges of our lives, but I would still choose to face it having God by my side.

This is also my last opportunity to share a message with this wonderful community who became my home for the past years in Los Angeles. As I move on to my next challenge, I want to thank each one of you who welcomed me in your home and

helped me understand that I belong here as well. I will be forever grateful to this community for being such an important chapter of my life. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Corner of Olympic and La Cienega soon, whether on livestream or on my next trip to California.

May we all find the capacity to be inspired and the ability to bring godliness to our lives.

Shabbat Shalom

Beha-Alotekha 6/13/20

Recognizing the Many Colors of the Jewish Community: An Adaptation

This week, I offer an adaption of “Recognizing the Many Colors of the Jewish Community,” by Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue in New York, written last year. As our city, state, country, and world begin to engage in a heightened way with institutional racism in its many forms, stemming from the necessary, overdue outcry against police brutality, one of many steps towards building an anti-racist community requires diversifying the chorus of voices we amplify.

Rabbi Schatz and I are in the process of cultivating a series of programs that will bring teachings, perspectives, and programs from Jews of Color to TBA; if you have any ideas or suggestions of speakers, teachers, or interesting opportunities, please let us know. In that spirit, I share this article with you. I pray that we will, as individuals and as a community, remain motivated to expand our understanding and actions towards greater inclusion, empathy, care, and justice.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Matt Shapiro

Our portion begins with a dramatic story of sibling tension as Aaron and Miriam speak out against their brother Moses’s wife. “He married a Cushite woman!” they exclaimed. Then Miriam is struck with leprosy as a punishment.

There are some startling and troubling things about this passage. To begin—both Aaron AND Miriam speak out against Moses, but only Miriam, his sister, is harshly punished for it. Aaron gets off leprosy-free. Also, it says that Moses married a Cushite woman, but actually, if you have been following our Torah, you would remember that Moses married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, a Midianite priest. Does Moses have 2 wives? Or does he divorce Zipporah and marry this Cushite woman? Or is “Cushite” just a curious way to describe Zipporah? But those topics are for another sermon.

I want to talk about the simple fact that Moses is married to a Cushite woman. Cush is a region south of Ethiopia, also known as Nubia or present day Sudan. I want you to take a moment and picture the prophet Moses and his long white beard, with staff in arm...and the other arm holding his dark skinned African wife. Does that image surprise you?

I was recently at the UJA Federation for the initial report of a groundbreaking census on how many Jews of Color there are in the US and how many there will be in coming years. Despite the Jewish community’s obsession with population studies, we have never before intentionally counted Jews of Color. This has been due, in large part, to the working assumption that American Jews are white.

But the newest analysis tells us otherwise. The study was commissioned by the Jews of Color Field Building initiative and carried out by respected demographers Dr.’s Ari Kelman of Stanford

and Aaron Tapper of University of San Francisco, Their detailed analysis shows by conservative estimates that Jews of Color represent at least 12-15% of American Jews, and growing.

That is a stunning statistic.

It’s 1 in 7 Jews. It means that of the approx 7.4 million Jews of America, about a million are Jews of Color. That is larger than the Orthodox population in America. I’m guessing that many of you right now might feel pretty skeptical about those numbers. Ilana Kaufman, who presented the results of this study, shared that she is often confronted by disbelief: “A man came up to me and said, ‘I don’t believe the numbers. I went to Jewish day schools, to Jewish camps, to volunteer in Federation, and I never saw Jews of color anywhere.’”

Perhaps there is a reason for that.

I thought back to our Torah portion and the fact that Aaron and Miriam are speaking out against this Cushite woman. Without explanation. Why? “Perhaps they were just upset that Moses didn’t marry an Israelite?” you say. But they did not speak out against his marriage to Zipporah, the Midianite. The Torah doesn’t tell us the words that Miriam and Aaron said against this woman of color in their midst, but I can tell you some of the words that I myself and other Jews of Color

have heard spoken of us in the Jewish community:

“She’s nice, but she’s not really one of us.”

“Funny, you don’t look Jewish.”

At pick-up for Hebrew school in our lobby: “Excuse me, are you the nanny?”

Sometimes the words are not that explicitly offensive. They are the seemingly innocuous questions we’re asked in synagogue like:

“So, what brings you here?”

“Now where are you from?”

“Where did you learn all that Hebrew?”

Questions like these remind us we’re seen as outsiders. It is exhausting to always have to explain ourselves.

These are questions that most white Jews are never asked if you walk into shul. Because the assumption is that you are Jewish. Now that you know that 1 in 7 in our community are Jews of Color, when you walk into any minyan, or 10 Jews, you should be making the assumption

that there is at least one Jew of color in that group. And if you don’t see any, you should be asking yourself the question— why are they not here?

If we don’t answer this question, there will be serious ramifications for our community. The study shows that the next generation of the Jewish community is rapidly changing. 65% of the people living in multiracial Jewish households are under the age of 45. Jewish demographics are trending along the same lines as the US. The implications for this is that in a few decades, the Jewish community, just like the American population, will be a majority people of color. This is already the case in Israel today, where 47% of Israeli Jews are Ashkenazi, and the majority are Jews of color from Arab, African or Asian lands.

I imagine that this might make some Jews feel a little uncomfortable. Are we losing or diluting our traditional culture? But I want to remind our community that this IS our traditional culture, from Diaspora times to all the way back when Moses married a Cushite woman. We were never some single race or ethnicity. “Looking Jewish” is not what makes us a Jewish people. Instead of seeing this as a threat, we should see our mixed multitude, this mosaic of the tribes of Israel, as an opportunity and a blessing.

Miriam and Aaron had trouble with this. They were alarmed by this Cushite woman

and spoke out against her, but God came down strong and admonished them for it.

Moses was the forgiving one. He prayed for his sister to be healed from her leprosy.

He understood that our community needed more forgiveness and openness, more empathy and acceptance in order to get us to the promised land. This is why Moses is considered our greatest prophet, and still has so much to teach us today.

Naso 6/6/20

Building A Country Where God Can Dwell
By TBA Rabbinic Intern, Joshua Jacobs

This week we get the dedication of the Mishkan (God’s portable Tabernacle in the desert), which triumphantly celebrates the completion of a project - a holy creation. As Americans on June 6, 2020, however, we mourn destruction - writhing in the pain of lost life and property. Creation in this week’s parasha strikes a discordant note with that of destruction all around us today. But I think what remains after reading Naso is the realization that there is no better time to read about attracting God’s Presence in an arid wasteland than right now. Wandering in the wilderness, striving for the Promised Land of America as it should be, we are given hope that like the Israelites before us, we can build something holy that attracts God’s Presence to dwell among us.

So how did our ancestors do it? Well, let’s jump to the end. Upon the dedication of the Mishkan’s altar, one prince (נשיא) from each of the twelve tribes offers up the exact same thing: “…one silver bowl weighing 130 shekels and one silver basin of 70 shekels by the sanctuary weight, both filled with choice flour with oil mixed in (…)” and the specifics continue for a total of five verses (Num. 13-17).

Any editor in the world would have detailed this long offering once, and simply stated that each tribal leader presented the same thing. But the Torah repeats these verses twelve times, specifying each prince’s offering even though they were all identical. Why? What is to be learned from this seemingly unnecessary repetition in a Text where every word matters? I think that, maybe, it’s to underscore the crucial role of equality in the building of God’s home. That’s not to say that the Israelites achieved perfect social harmony. The law of Sota (when a man suspects his wife of adultery), which also appears in this parasha, seems to attest to a stark inequality between the sexes in ancient Israelite society. But for one defining moment in the history of our people – the dedication of the Mishkan – our tribal princes overcome the need to dominate one another for the sake of equality.

This might be the perfectly nice message of a parasha entitled “נשיא” – Nasi. But the parasha is called “נשא” – Naso. The sameness of our contributions and of our identities is not the story being told this week. “Naso” can be translated to mean census, as in “The Lord spoke to Moses: Take a census/naso of the Gershonites also, by their ancestral house and by their clans” (Num. 4:21-22). Our parasha begins with the counting of a subsection of the Levites, the Gershonites, who are given a unique role and service in the administration of the Mishkan. Here, differences are not overlooked but rather embraced as separate tribes are celebrated for the unique roles they serve and for the unique contributions only they can bring to the Mishkan. It’s the appreciation of our differences combined with the commitment to equality that allows us to build a home for God to dwell.

But something deeper is happening here, too. Elsewhere in the Torah, נשא means “acceptance” or “elevation.” Read this way into our verse, God is instructing Moses not just to count, but to elevate the Levites. Why? Perhaps it’s because the Levites were not given a hereditary portion in Israel. They are not assigned an ancestral portion in the land. Acknowledging this inequality, God commands Moses to elevate the Gershonites.

The story of the princes – נשיא – is one of equality. Of an elite class of leaders who miraculously set aside their differences to acknowledge their innate equality before God. It’s our story as Jews and as Americans, whose founders declared that all men are created equal. The story of Naso/נשא, however, is one of equity. It acknowledges that there are those among us who did not receive an equal ancestral portion. So God tells Moses to elevate those who have been left out.

As Jews in Los Angeles, we are currently feeling profound pain over the brutal snubbing out of innocent black lives. We are also feeling profound pain over damage to our livelihoods as some of our own stores have been attacked and looted. Many of us may feel conflicted, wanting to wholeheartedly support a minority group fighting for equal treatment before the law (or at least the right not to be murdered by those sworn to protect and serve them) but also struggling to understand why some of these protests have resorted to looting and riots. Without condoning violence, I think it’s important not to conflate the value we ascribe to human life with the value we ascribe to property (no matter how tied up that property may be with our very livelihoods), especially concerning a people whose bodies have historically been considered property. Naso may contain the national remedy we seek, as differences are embraced and each group is empowered to offer the unique contribution only it can make. Maybe ours is, like Moses, to elevate – נשא - the voices of those who have been left out. Because when the cries of the oppressed are ignored for far too long, to quote Martin Luther King Jr., “A riot is the language of the unheard.”

I wish strength to all of us hurting this week as we strive to build a country where God can dwell.

Bamidbar 5/23/20

Dedicated to the memory of Missy Stein
By Rabbi Matt Shapiro

Starting the Book of Numbers this week seems fitting. Our news feeds, our minds, our lives are inundated with rates, totals, percentages. They begin to blur together, each new figure interpreted in different ways resulting in a variety of conclusions and prognoses that then are revised, if not reversed, weekly, daily, hourly. Truly dizzying. We aren’t just reading the book of numbers- we’re living it.

It’s a census, a counting of the Israelites that lends this book its Anglicized name- also quite fitting, as we move through our own national, decennial (“once-a-decade”...word of the day!) census of standing up to be counted, for political representation and county/city/nation-wide recognition of who and where we are as people. Each of us, in our tribe, saying hineni, here I am, I’m worthy of recognition and I should be acknowledged.

Let’s not forget we’re also currently in our own annual season of counting as a people, moving through the Omer, towards Sinai, a peak experience for us as Jews, a spiritual pinnacle that has never been matched in our history that we still make every effort to replicate annually. We affirm the value of every day, ensuring that each is distinct, a charge that feels particularly apropo and challenging right now.

In an effort to prevent my own days from blending into the next, I set aside some time on Tuesday morning to learn (digitally, of course) from Rabbi Jonathan Slater, who shared a beautiful teaching of the Beit Aharon, Reb Aaron of Karlin. He writes: “in truth, all is One, yet when this One enters the world, it expands into/through all the letters of the Torah, each of which creates any number of other combinations.” In an idea that appears often in Chassidic teachings, everything is made up of the Hebrew letters, which combine and re-combine to form creation as the building blocks of the world. We are also taught that each one of us, as it were, is a letter of the Torah, that we ourselves are the building blocks of humanity, each of us, of course, containing the building blocks of life within. This idea of counting, then, holds additional weight, in seeing what every single letter can in turn create.

I’m reminded of a parable I learned some years ago: as she was walking, a woman saw a man between two piles of sand, one much larger than the other. Upon closer examination, she saw he was using chopsticks, incrementally moving one pile to the next. Confused, she asked, “how on earth are you going to move that whole pile?” He looked up and responded with conviction: “one grain of sand at a time.” I read this parable as speaking to both the value of recognizing individuality and the meta-process of how to do so. Each grain of sand is a distinct unit, treated with care. It can be a time-consuming and exhausting process to engage in that granular work, yet it will, in time, create clear and substantive change.

I learned this parable while working at Beit T’shuvah- it is an apt metaphor for recovery from addiction, which is indeed possible through ongoing effort and careful attention to each moment and choice, yet also an extended process that can seem to be endless, a message that feels fitting mid-pandemic. The parable also links to God’s promise to Abraham, that his descendants shall be as numerous as the sand on the shore. We have multiplied hundreds and hundreds of times over, and we also come from a shared ancestor, connecting each of us even in our multiplicity.

Yesterday, Missy Stein, one of my mother’s closest friends, passed away- she had been sick with cancer for many years, and was only 54 years old. Yet, as my mom emphasized, she ”packed a life’s worth of experience into a life that was too short.” However much time we have, we still have a choice in how we’re living, right now. Each day is finite...and also infinite- how many moments are in each day? Each one of us is so finite, a momentary wave on the ocean of life...and also infinite- we contain so many thoughts, experiences, relationships, all fully and uniquely our own, within that one grain of sand, that one letter of the Torah.

As we begin this book of Ba-Midbar (translating to “in the desert”), as we wander through uncharted wilderness as our ancestors did, a census connecting us through the centuries, I hope we don’t just ask “what are we counting?”- I hope we also ask: “why are we counting?” The Beit Aharon offers an answer in his teaching: “you and no other person like you has ever been in the world. Therefore we must each fully bring about each of our own unique qualities.” The Torah isn’t complete without each of its letters, the world isn’t complete without you, and even the desert isn’t complete without each and every single grain of sand. We take on these acts of counting because each of us counts.

Sometimes, those individual grains all blur together- after all, the desert is vast. That’s why we read about the census this week; when it feels overwhelming, we are reminded of how important it is to keep counting. Though it may hold deep uncertainty, it is only in the desert that we receive the Torah, filled to bursting with each of its letters, and then we walk through that desert, one step at a time. Though we’re just beginning that journey, no matter what the numbers say, we keep walking and, in honor of Missy, I’m committed to making each day count.

Shabbat shalom.

Behar-Behukotai 5/16/20

Mitzvah: Impact Or Import?
by Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Parables abound regarding the impact of one person’s singular good deed, and the ruin that comes when we assume others will step forward, thus acquitting ourselves of responsibility. There is the starfish story, in which one beachgoer wonders to another beachgoer why she is going through the trouble of returning a beached starfish to the waters. “After all, there must be a million such forlorn starfishes on the beaches of the world. How can your act matter?” Of course, the pithy response is “It matters to this one.”

This story is a cousin of the tale of the king who called for a kingdom-wide celebration, in which each citizen would contribute a portion of their own finest wine into one central vat of ambrosia (as an aside…yuck! That does not seem to be a delectable mixture!). Each citizen thought to himself, “with so many contributing, no one will know if I pour water, rather than wine. I’ll get off cheap!” And, of course, on the day the vat is opened it is filled not with sangria, but rather plain old water.

One reason we do individual acts of goodness and piety is because each one matters. And the absence of each one sullies the world around us.

I think Judaism supports that notion as a necessary, but not sufficient, explanation for why we approach each individual spiritual and human act with attention and care. We are going for impact, but not only impact. We are, at our core, driven by values…even when the impact may seem negligible.

A comment by Rabbi Moshe Alshikh (known simply as “The Alshikh,” who was a disciple of Rabbi Yosef Karo, the author of the Shulhan Arukh, the code of Jewish law) on Parshat Behar zooms in on the individual’s obligation to take very personally God’s commands, particularly when speaking about the obligation to help others. He notes that for much of the beginning of the parsha, God’s commands, mediated through Moshe, are directed towards the Israelite people, using plural grammar/nouns/verbs. But that shifts with the words, in Vayikra/Leviticus 25:25, when the Torah says כי ימוך אחיך. Ki yamukh ahikha. If your fellow is in distress…Those words begin a series of exhortations to help one’s friend, neighbor, peer when s/he is brought low for a variety of reasons. But here, the verbs and nouns are singular. As if, according to the Alshikh, the Torah is screaming “Hey you! Yes, you! This law is meant for you, personally and individually to follow.” He notes that it is culturally and anthropologically common for people to assume that the hard word of doing the right and the good will be done by someone else. After all, how much impact can one person have? “Let someone more wealthy give tzedakah. Let someone geographically closer do the errand.” Rather, this text is meant to move the mitzvah from impact to import. Yes, a wealthier person may be able to give more, and thus impact more, with his/her tzedakah than you can. But, the Alshikh asks, don’t you want to live as a generous, empathic person? And even if you don’t, the Torah is commanding that you do.

I think of this as I consider my food choices, and as I exhort you to think of yours. Kashrut was meant to have us eat Jewishly, such that we would be eating both distinctly as well as ethically. Nowadays, there is, sadly and tragically, a gaping chasm between those dual goals of keeping Kosher. We hunt after labels and rabbinic symbols, neglecting the innumerable ways that harm to animals, not to mention to workers, are done in the name of supposedly lofty ideals of Kashrut. We check off the box, our piety intact. If there is massive work required to reform the food industry, well that is a societal problem, not an individual one. How much can I really impact?

Once again, the Torah’s voice pushes us to consider each individual act as a chance to bring God close, or push God away, irrespective of the visible, practical, dynamic impact that act will have on the world around us. It is true that the world of kashrut will only be positively rehabilitated when there is a groundswell of attention to it by Kosher-observant Jews. Your individual choice to aim not only for kosher meat, but ethically-raised and ethically-slaughtered meat, impacts very little. Perhaps even less than the impact of returning one starfish to the ocean. Likely not a single chicken or cow will be spared some rather brutal conditions because of your individual conscientiousness. But it is both the case that the chances for grand change rely on innumerable individuals eating with conscience, and that every time you consume food it is, or at least it can be, a spiritual moment. A Torah moment. An ethical moment.

We really begin to be children of the Holy One when we hear the Torah, whether when using plural commands or singular commands, speaking individually to our souls.

Emor 5/9/20

Exiles

By Joshua Jacobs, TBA Intern

Following parashat Emor, which focuses primarily on laws concerning the priestly class (kohanim) in the Tabernacle, we read a haftarah from the prophet Ezekiel, who, centuries later, would actually begin his career as a priest in the Jerusalem Temple. Both readings center around a common theme - instruction for the kohanim regarding how to live and work in a manner that will safeguard the ritual purity and holiness of b’nei yisrael. And yet, if we look beyond the obvious thread connecting the two readings, and turn to the life of Ezekiel himself, it seems to me that this haftarah is coming at the exact right moment, offering us the words of the exact right prophet for these times.

Ezekiel, like all of us celebrating Shabbat at home today, was exiled from the Temple. As the first prophet whose entire prophetic career took place in exile, Ezekiel spoke to a people sent away, a people unable to worship together in their holy sanctuary. Today, no less saliently than he did 2,500 years ago, Ezekiel speaks to us. His message? Even in our dispersion, we can strive for and attain holiness. As we read in Emor, “קדש יהיה לך כי קדוש אני ה׳ מקדשכם” - “...you shall be holy for I the Lord, Who sanctifies you, am holy” (Lev. 21:8) – The word קדוש is perhaps more accurately translated to mean “set apart.” It seems then, that how we cling to our tradition and to each other despite the challenge of being physically set apart from our temple and from one another may in fact be what makes us holy.

It’s worth taking a step back to briefly recall the priest-turned-prophet’s “greatest hits.” The book of Ezekiel opens with a vision of God’s glory (כבוד) departing from the Temple in Jerusalem. This may be Ezekiel’s way of making sense of the Temple’s destruction. How could

the Babylonian army destroy God’s house? According to the prophet, human ritual and ethical immorality drove God’s holy presence away from the Beit HaMikdash, making it like any other building, vulnerable to attack. Like all of our favorite theaters, restaurants, stores, and camps that have become empty and desolate without the human conversation, warmth, and laughter that once filled their halls, the Temple without God’s glory is nothing more than the shell - a skeleton of dry bones.

Another way to look at God’s glory departing from the Temple is not as Divine abandonment but as Divine accompaniment. We are not banished from the only place where God may be found. Rather, “ואהי להם למקדש מעט בארצות אשר באו שם” - “I have become for them a diminished sanctity in the lands where they are going” (Ezek. 11.16). In other words, while Ezekiel does maintain that God’s presence is felt most strongly in the centralized Temple, the exiles are still imbued with the ability to access a small portion of God’s holiness wherever they go. While it may be harder for us to feel close to God without the benefit of our shared prayer space, that doesn’t mean that God can’t be found right here at home.

It is in the midst of our collective despair that Ezekiel offers hope for the resurrection of the dry bones our institutions have become. He prophesies, “כה אמר א׳ ה׳ לעצמות האלה הנה אני מביא בכם רוח וחייתם” - “Thus said the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you and you will live” (Ezek. 37.5). While this constituted God’s promise to restore the scattered exiles to Zion, it is hard not to read into these words the hope that we, too, will return to our synagogue and other cherished communities with renewed vigor and spirit when the time is right.

Which brings us back to this week’s haftarah. Ezekiel’s final vision is that of the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem and God’s glorious return to it. This entails the restoration of the kohanim to their priestly duties, among them, “ואת עמי יורו בין קדש לחל ובין טמא לטהור יודעם”

- “And they [the priests] will teach my people the difference between holy and profane, and cause them to know [the difference between] impure and pure” (Ezek. 44:23). Surely if human ritual and ethical immorality drove God’s holy presence away from the Beit HaMikdash, it can only be holy behavior that will attract God’s presence to return. What’s interesting is, the language used here - “between holy and profane” is exactly the language we’ll recite tonight during Havdalah, which concludes Shabbat and literally means “separation.” Separation, Ezekiel seems to suggest, can be a fundamental aspect of what it means to be holy. It is our experience in separation that will remind us to hold on a little tighter to one another when we return, accompanied by God’s glory, as conversation, warmth, and laughter fill the halls once more.

Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 5/2/20

Love and holiness – Being present and extraordinary

By Natan Freller, TBA Rabbinic Intern

This week we read two portions of the Torah combined – Acharei Mot and Kedoshim.

The book of Vayikra (Leviticus) is entirely dedicated to the laws that governed the sacrificial and offering rites that existed at the time of the Mishkan and, later, in the Temples in Jerusalem. It is not surprising that all the details of Yom Kippur's service appear in this book, but specifically in this week's Parshah, Acharei Mot.

What is striking is the fact that parasha Kedoshim appears in this book. It draws attention because it is nothing like the style of Vayikra. It is not a text composed solely of sacrificial instructions, nor is it aimed only at the priests and Levites, but at all the people - unlike the rest of the entire book.

One of the possible interpretations for the sequence Acharei Mot-Kedoshím is that after the Yom Kippr atonement rite, the Torah invites us to continue in this state of holiness. The idea is that, after the collective atonement, a divine challenge is offered to us: “Be holy, for I am Holy” (Vayikra 19: 2).

But what is Holiness? The Hebrew word Kadosh has deeper meanings than the English translation holy. To be holy means to be separated from something else.

Judaism is not a way of life to be lived alone. Judaism is a way to bring divine holiness into the world, keeping each other accountable for our moral challenges and responsibilities.

All our decisions and behaviors reflect holiness. The way we relate to each other at home, at work, at school, online and offline, reflect holiness. We are constantly challenge by making the right decision that will bring us into the realm of holiness, distinctiveness, and uniqueness. In our tradition, the opposite of holiness is the mundane, the ordinary. Therefore, we are being called, especially this week, to be extraordinary.

The charge given to us is to be holy for God is holy. I like using the expression “Be Godly”. An aspiration to express the highest potential we have for being created in God’s image. Is it too much to aspire to be a reflection of God’s divine attributes? I would love to answer this question with a simple and direct ‘no’, but unfortunately, this is not true. This is among the greatest challenges of our lives.

So, what can the Torah offer to us, when achieving such level of holiness sounds like a challenge that is beyond our abilities and is just not possible to bear?

Remember that in parashat Kedoshim, the Torah enumerates many mitzvot that are bein adam lechavero - between a person and his fellow - which command man not to harm others: "Do not steal; do not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another," "Do not swear falsely," “Do not defraud your fellow. Do not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning.” "Do not hate your brother in your heart" and at the end of all this we shall say “Love your fellow as yourself” (Vayikra 19:18). This phrase comes at the end of the sequence of ‘negative’ commandments, things we shouldn’t do, in a positive way, giving us the summary and guidance for how to achieve them all. Love and compassion are the keys to find holiness in community.

One of my favorite stories teaches that a person was lost in the forest. After walking alone for a long time, another person was seen far away. The two met and one said: I have been lost in here for a long time. Please help me to find a way out. The other responded: Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer for your question. But I do know of some paths where I walked through and could not find the light. We can walk together now and find new ways to exit the forest.

May we find what is holy in our lives, so you can share it with others, and keep inspiring and caring for our community.

May we keep spreading love, kindness, and compassion to each other as we walk together this unknown path.

Ta'azria-Metzora 4/24/20

The Holy Wonderment of Being Tamei
By Rabbi Rebecca Schatz

For the past 6 weeks, we have lived in a world of plague. Keeping healthy now means wearing gloves so we don’t touch our face, and wearing masks to protect others around us. We stroll around the block and quickly move into the street if someone is approaching on the same sidewalk. In a grocery store, we keep our distance and sometimes wait minutes for a person to move their cart so we can get to the eggs. For the past 6 weeks, we see ourselves as טמא, the opposite of טהור. In English we translate tamei as impure but maybe that’s an inaccurate description and connotation for our current state of being.

In this week’s parasha, we see many examples of people moving in and out of states of טהור and טמא. Torah assigns the priests a wide variety diagnostic criteria and corresponding treatments, including quarantines of varying lengths of time, as well as how to qualify a person for reentry into the community. This double parasha oozes with ooze, blemishes, hair loss, stains on walls, and infected clothing! It makes many people queasy and yet, I think this year can be a source of hope and a newfound outlook on our COVID-19 situation.

In Torah, a person coming into contact with someone experiencing the particular symptoms of tzara’at was suddenly tamei. But Rabbi Eddie Feinstein, of VBS, teaches that tamei and tahor can be two different states of purity. People who are tamei do not need to sacrifice at the Temple while people who are tahor can and do sacrifice. People who are tamei, Rabbi Feinstein says, are already in a state of holy wonderment. Whether interacting with a dead body, or giving birth, or taking care of others who are sick – the tamei already have a heightened sense of God’s closeness and astonishment of God’s creation and involvement, and do not need sacrificial rituals to feel God’s presence. Whereas, those who are in a state of tahor, are in need of the positive reinforcement of the concretizing rituals that remind them of the fragility and complication of life.

In a way, tamei is a state of seeking connection, and tahor is a harder category of trying to understand intricacies of life’s holiness. We are each of us is tamei during this pandemic and that is beautiful – in fact, lifesaving! Against a backdrop of dying and mourning, we must manifest endurance, nobility and beauty. We are seeking and discovering new ways of connection; praying with our communities in surprising and previously unthinkable new ways. We’re finding kavanna and pockets of holiness that were invisible to us in more mundane times. I feel blessed to be in situation where I am stretching to connect, stretching to be spiritually inspired, stretching to find holiness. Categorizing ourselves as tamei keep us focused on our own thoughts, our own goals and our own space. Sometimes, it is distance that makes us treasure and long for that which in our regular lives seems obvious.

I miss seeing you all in person. I miss hugging those I love. I miss being able to get on a plane and visit places I have yet to know. I miss teaching and being interrupted by students. I miss walking down the street and not being a little afraid of everyone’s nearness. However, I appreciate being tamei, in a state of holy wonderment, to create and to pray and to think and to connect more deeply than when the world is open to me without boundaries. I hope this week you are able to recognize how your life is tamei and hold on to the ways that we are

blessed to learn more about ourselves and our connection to God through this holy wonderment.

Shemini 4/18/20

Back to the Breathing, Back to the Counting
By Ziegler Student, Emily Holtzman

Parashat Shemini directly follows the moment when Moses anoints Aaron and his sons, allowing them to finally enter the Tabernacle. On the 8th day, from where the parsha gets its name, Moses instructs them to prepare a sacrifice in order for the כבוד kavod (glory) of God to appear to them. This ritual involves a 7-day waiting period where Aaron and his sons will camp outside the entrance. These 7-days of antipatication are an essential part of the inauguration of the Tabernacle. This is the moment for Aaron to redeem himself after the unfortunate incident with the Egel HaZahav (Golden Calf). He and his sons make their final preparations as they begin their personal (and professional) relationship with God. I recently returned from studying in Israel and am about to enter a different phase of my studies. Until this point, I’ve spent my time in the beit midrash (my nose deep in Hebrew and Aramaic dictionaries), now begins the time to glance up from the books. Transitions are always tough; both spiritual and physical preparations are needed in order to move through them. After spending the last 7 months in Israel, I need to now remember what it is like to be an American. This transition certainly will not come overnight and it will allow me the time to reflect on the person I was before I left for Israel, during the time I was there, and now. I am trying to navigate my life here in LA, while my program will continue until May despite the 10 hour time difference. Physically I’m here now, but spiritually I’m still trying to find my footing. Last week we also began counting the omer, the tradition to count the 49-days between the second night of Pesah and Shavuot. We move from Mitzrayim to Har Sinai, from our lowest lows to our highest highs. When we left Mitzrayim, we were slaves. Unfortunately our slave mentality CANNOT automatically shift at the drop of a hat. There is an internal process that must accompany us on our path towards freedom. Each day spent in the desert, on the way to Sinai and the Promised Land, is a moment of growth and development. Each day we count, we are brought closer to the revelation at Sinai and to our own relationship with God. The journey invites us to discover what kind of image we want to project into the world as Jews and as human beings. If we do not take the time and the preparation for the next 49 days, we will miss this opportunity. And this year especially is calling us to do just that. Davening, and now counting the omer, have become bookmarks in my days. They provide me with a few quiet and still moments amidst the seemingly endless hours on Zoom, grazing through the contents of my kitchen, and looking for something interesting to watch on television. This period could not have come at a more appropriate time in human history. It is a gift that our calendar always designates at this time of year. In this moment we are called to receive this gift in whatever way possible. Whether you just began counting the omer or have been counting the days of quarantine, the growth process has already begun. We are all just taking this one day and one hour at a time. We can try to make plans for the end of the school year, the summer, and beyond, but it is only possible to a certain extent. We need to focus on the counting each night, being in each day’s quiet and stillness. In meditation practice, they emphasize coming back to the breath, even when you lose your flow. Our minds can easily wander far from this present reality, distracting us for as long as we desire. In this moment, we need to stay on this day and in this hour. No matter where our mind takes us, no matter how many uncontrollable situations we try to control, we need to keep bringing ourselves back to the breathing, back to the counting. Preparation does not only take time, but patience, diligence, and resilience. That is what we are called to do both during this time in the Jewish calendar and for the safety and health of all lives around the world. Shabbat Shalom.

Neshama Minyan D'rash: Fire from Before God 4/17/20

“Fire from Before God”

In Lieu of a Neshama Drash by TBA Rabbinic Intern Josh Jacobs

Except for the rare occasion where I like to lord it over everybody, being “chosen” is a difficult aspect of our Jewish narrative. To be chosen implies an elect quality inherent in us and absent from others, which would certainly lead to a stilted worldview. That said…there’s no getting around it. Our story is absolutely one of a chosen, special, covenanted relationship with God. And while it’s fun, in my darker moments, to see this as a mark of superiority over everyone else, that’s never been what it means to be chosen.

In Shemini, we read how Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, offer “strange fire” (אש זרה) to God, Who responds by consuming the two in a “fire from before God” (‘אש מלפני ה). Rashi understands this to be Divine punishment against Nadab and Abihu for entering the holy tabernacle while drunk and offering an unprescribed offering. His rationale is that God’s immediate next instruction to Aaron is, “Drink no wine or strong intoxicant, you or your sons when you enter the Tent of Meeting” (Lev. 10:9).

When Moses consoles his brother, he says, “This is what the Lord meant when God said, ‘Through those close to Me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be honored’” (Lev. 10:3). We then read, “And Aaron was silent.” There are many ways to interpret Moses’ words of comfort, and perhaps even more ways to interpret Aaron’s silent reply. It might be a natural response to the shock of a grieving father, but it might also be a lack of protest over what is simultaneously tragic and just. According to the thirteenth century French commentator, Chizkuni, “The point that Moses is making to his brother (...) is that the higher one’s rank, the more strictly God applies the rules laid down for their conduct.” Nadab and Abihu were singled out to be Kohanim, holy priests to administer God’s ritual commandments. While their death may seem to be a punishment disproportionate to their crime, it might also be an indispensable lesson on leadership and chosenness. As I understand it, it’s this:

To be chosen has nothing to do with any elect quality. To believe so is to enter into the Tabernacle drunk on a false sense of self. Channeling the voice of God, the prophet Amos therefore offers this sobering reminder: “True, I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt, but also the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir” (Amos 9:7). As Jews, we pray to “...the Lord, the God of spirits of all flesh” (Num. 27:16), who has a special relationship with us, but also a special relationship with all peoples.

And yet, our story is unique and different from that of all other nations. We’ve just concluded Pesach, where we remember that God took us out of Egypt, choosing us to

observe God’s Torah and to be held to the higher standard of behavior enumerated within it. Our chosenness, therefore, has everything to do with the desire to draw close to God through Torah. To be judged and to judge ourselves harsher whenever we fall short because we aspire to be a kingdom of priests (ממלכת כהנים). To offer not strange fire, but a pillar of fire that may serve to guide the world through this wilderness we’ve created, and in which we are wandering. This is the chosenness we get to aspire to. And ironically, that isn’t actually a choice, at all.

Tzav 4/4/20

Presence in Absence
By Joshua Jacobs, TBA Rabbinic Intern

My dad bought me my first siddur. I was just a kid, but I remember spending a long time with him at the Judaica store, browsing through the different options and finally settling on one that spoke most to me. It felt like a coming of age in a way, like I was old enough now to embark on my own relationship with liturgy and tradition. “Take good care of it,” he said, which only contributed to the sense of awe and responsibility I felt in that moment. “I will, Dad,” I told him as the siddur immediately slipped out of my hands and face-planted onto the floor. I rushed to pick it up and kiss it, understanding that this made me unfit for any further spiritual exploration, ever. My dad only laughed and said, “Actually, that was a good thing.” “How was that a good thing?” I asked. “Because now you’ll pick it back up and hold on even stronger.”

So I did. I also held on to my dad’s lesson that sometimes it takes distance from something to realize its true value. The other night, my good friend Jonah Winer facilitated a Zoom session on this week’s parsha, Tzav. He pointed to the Hasidic commentary of Rabbi Mordechai Yosef, the early 19th century Ishbitzer Rebbe, who illuminates profound meaning in what might otherwise strike us as no longer relevant details concerning animal sacrifice rituals. Specifically, there’s the burnt offering (עולה) and the sin offering (חטאת). The burnt offering, the Rebbe writes, is offered up by the “truly righteous person.” It is the only offering that is burnt up completely - symbolic, he argues, of the righteous person’s complete devotion to God. The sin offering, by contrast, is offered by someone who has erred and wants to repent. Someone who let the commandments slip from their hands, but wants to come back stronger. Perhaps for this reason, the Ishbitzer Rebbe claims that the repentant sinner actually draws closer to God than does the “truly righteous person.” He writes:

“The burnt offering has its blood sprinkled on the lower half of the altar (…) [but t]he sin offering's (…) blood is sprinkled on the upper half of the altar; This is because the cry of a repentant person calling out to G-d to save them rises to the highest heights, a place a completely righteous person cannot reach. As it says in the holy Zohar 'Repenting people are closer to The King - more than any others, they are drawn upwards by the will of their hearts and their great strength to be close to The King.’”

Just like that, even when the Torah seems to be talking about bulls and rams, it’s actually talking about what it means to be human. Imbuing us with the radical notion that it is actually our sins, brokenness, and imperfections which provide us with the opportunity to achieve closeness to God. That is, as Jonah notes, the basis of the word for sacrifice, “הקריב” - meaning, “to draw close.”

It’s painful to read a parsha about drawing close in a time of drawing back from one another. With Pesach coming up in just a few days, themes of plague, darkness, and “ליל שמרים” - “…a night of watching…” (Exodus 12:42) and waiting as we guard against leaving our homes - ring true now more than ever. While God took us out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, we are tasked with reaching out to one another only in spirit, as we refrain from the warm embraces that once sustained us. And yet, paradoxically, there’s an empowering holiness in distance. The existential philosopher Simone de Beauvoir explains that only in being an absence can one be a presence. In Kabbalistic terms, it was God’s withdrawing God’s Self (צימצום, or “constriction”) that actually made the creation of the world possible. While we may all feel overwhelmed right now with a sense of powerlessness and isolation, Pesach reminds us that plagues are temporary, and liberation lies just around the corner. And while we’ve been forced to drop the aspects of communal life we hold most dear, sometimes it takes distance from something to realize its true value.

I miss you all. Shabbat Shalom, and Chag Kasher and Sameach.

Vayikra 3/28/20

God is calling
By TBA Rabbinic Intern, Natan Freller

וַיִּקְרָא אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֵלָיו מֵאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לֵאמֹר

(God) called to Moshe and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying:

Thus, we start the third book of the Torah, Vayikra. Now that the Tent of Meeting is up, God calls Moshe to start telling all the rules about sacrifices and offerings that the people can and should bring.

So many questions. Why now stop telling our people’s narrative to focus on ritual offerings? Why so many rules about that? Why God needs to call Moshe, aren’t Moshe and God always talking to each other? Is this approach different than other ways God speaks to people? I could go on with more questions, but let’s take these first.

The Rambam writes that we as Jews, ideally, would not need to bring animal sacrifices and grain offerings in order to connect to God. But the generation of the desert was used to it, since they were coming from Egypt where this was a common practice. Since God knows the human heart and understands how hard it is for us humans to change behavior, a process of transition was needed. God decided to keep the ‘form’ of the ritual in requiring animal sacrifices while changing the ‘destination’, or ‘content’ if you will. We have just experienced the challenging episode of the Golden Calf. The most important think in this first step is to change their understanding of God and develop some kind of relationship to the ‘new’ God who saved them from Egypt. In a smart and thoughtful way, God allowed animal sacrifices to continue as we focus our learning in knowing God.

It's hard to change. We offered sacrifices knowing what to do and learned the new spiritual destination - God. For centuries this was a common practice among our ancestors, up to the destruction of the Second Temple. Only by the times of the Rabbis that prayer became the standard mode of spiritual practice among Jews. Still, in the Talmud we see the Rabbis trying to tie the requirement for praying three times a day to the sacrifices in the Temple, showing that this is still part of the process of transition from one mode of spiritual expression to another. For many, even though it took a long time to move from one mode to the other, was hard to get used to the new system and find meaning in it just as we are used to.

We are used to see changes at a much faster pace than our ancestors, and still we were caught by the challenge to adapt our work and social schedule to this new reality. The same happened to our spiritual practices. For many, and I definitely include myself in this group, being in physically in community and singing together is a significant part of the spiritual life.

Just like the Clouds of Glory and the Pillar of Fire were physical elements of the Divine Presence for the generation of the desert, seeing each other’s faces every week and davening together is one way I see the Divine Presence in our midst.

The central question I asked myself this week is how to keep social distancing but not spiritual distancing?

The first word of our parasha is וַיִּקְרָא (vayikra). Before speaking to Moshe, God calls him, and then begins to share. I want to believe that we are reading parasha Vayikra this week not by chance, but with purpose. We are being called. For the divine presence to manifest physically, we need to reach in and reach out. Reach in to find our own spiritual self that can exist without the physicality we are used to. Reach out finding ways to see each other’s faces with the technology at hand and connecting at a deeper level.

Rashi explains that whenever God approaches Moshe there is always a call to shows affection, love. Just like we recall the words of the Prophet Isaiah in the Kedusha:

וְקָרָא זֶה אֶל־זֶה וְאָמַר קָדוֹשׁ ׀ קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ

And one would call to the other, “Holy, holy, holy!

When the divine love is not present, the call is different. When God approaches the sorcerer Bilam (Bamidbar 23:4), the word used is ויקר (vayikar), from the root קרה which denotes “by chance”.

God is calling each one of us to be close, to feel love. This is a personal call, not an accident. Even though we are distant, God is not. Once we know our God, even if we are distant from our communal spiritual practice, we are being called to adapt, now knowing the receiver of our prayers, but maybe changing the ways we connect with the Divine Presence.

May we all find old and new pathways to stretch our spirituality as we are being called to be present this week. God is calling with love.

Shabbat Shalom.

Ki Tissa 3/14/20

Creation in the face of uncertainty
By Rachel Cohn, Ziegler student

One of my most humbling experiences to date was taking an introductory improv class in San Francisco. My friend Rebecca, a professional actress, led a group of us amateurs in weekly exercises. We laughed and stumbled through games like clapping whenever someone dropped a ball, or inventing ways to get someone to stand up from a chair. While I had my fair share of memorably awkward moments and great belly laughs, what I took away most from the class was the idea that everyone was asked to be a creator. There were no spectators in the room. With few tools - and often much apprehension - we each had to put something on the table. In the face of uncertainty, we had to create.

Parshat Ki Tisa features two episodes of bold creation, with wildly different outcomes. First, Betzalel is appointed as the head artisan of the Mishkan, the Israelites’ portable sanctuary for God. In choosing Betzalel, God declares, “I have endowed him with a divine spirit of skill, ability, and knowledge in every kind of craft” (Exodus 31:3). He and Oholiab and other artists are set in charge of fulfilling God’s elaborate instructions for the Tent of Meeting, Ark, and other components of the Mishkan.

Later, in an entirely different scene, the Israelites construct an idol of a golden calf. When Moses takes longer than expected to come down from Mt. Sinai, the crowd gets worried. They beg Aaron, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses...we do not know what has become of him” (Exodus 32:1). Much like preparing to construct the Mishkan, they assemble rich resources to contribute to the project, but this time, far from creating a sanctuary for God, they create an image that deeply damages their relationship with the divine.

Both the creation of the Mishkan and the golden calf involve elaborate construction, communal contributions, and an artistic vision. Both were created in times of new beginnings and uncharted territory. For the Israelites, they faced the unknown of life outside of slavery. Betzalel, too, must have faced trepidation as he was tasked with constructing a dwelling for God in their midst. So what sets Betzalel on such a different path?

The rabbis of the Talmud, in Berakhot 55a suggest, “Betzalel knew how to join the letters with which heaven and earth were created.” I imagine Betzalel adding color and artistic flair to our world through the very building blocks of God’s creation - plants, metals, fabrics, and pigments. He mimics God in his creative process and is able to bring more goodness and beauty into being. His name, Betzalel, means “in the shadow of God.” His very existence recognizes his connection to the divine. While the Israelites waiting for Moses tried to grasp for godliness when they could not find it, Betzalel’s example provides a model for embodying holiness through our artistic endeavors.

I admit that I have found myself stuck between the mentalities of Betzalel and the nervous Israelites in recent weeks. As the news about the coronavirus unfolds rapidly, with much remaining uncertainty, I can relate to the Israelites at the foot of the mountain. I, too, have asked, “what is taking so long?” and wanted a quick, tangible fix to a complex problem. Instead, this parshah asks us to continue using our creative powers to bring more godliness into the world. I have seen teens post music videos that they made while in quarantine. I have seen parents post a week’s worth of unexpected homeschool lesson plans. We must keep creating from a place of faith and wisdom. May we continue finding the strength to follow in Betzalel’s footsteps, as we find our own ways to craft connections between human and holy in the face of the unknown.

Tetzaveh 3/7/20

Evidence of Things Not Seen
By Joshua Jacobs, TBA Rabbinic Intern

In my favorite episode of The West Wing, C.J. Cregg, the White House Press Secretary, obsesses over a myth that at the exact moment of the spring equinox, you can stand an egg on its end, and it will remain upright. The rest of the White House staff, fierce intellects who concern themselves with statistical analysis and empirical facts, can only sit back in amusement at C.J.’s quirky conviction. The episode is called “Evidence of Things Not Seen” because in the end, only C.J. is possessed of a unique faith in that which defies convention and reason. As the audience, we actually find ourselves suspending disbelief and rooting for something that we, too, know to be absurd. The episode ends with C.J.’s attempt to stand the egg up at the exact moment of the equinox. We don’t see the result; we only see her eyes go wide as she calls out to her colleagues, “Guys!”

A few weeks ago, we read God’s charge, “…you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). A nation that would not serve kings of flesh and blood, but rather the Divine. Too glorious to be comprehended or appreciated, this unprecedented model of statecraft is deemed absurd (like standing an egg upright) by the rational minds of the Israelite elders. Taking a look around at the wealth and security of other nations, the elders gather and, informed by that which is conventional, compel the prophet Samuel to “שימה לנו מלך לשפטנו ככל הגוים” “…set up for us a king to judge us like all the nations” (I Samuel 8:5). The people place their faith exclusively in what they can see, and Samuel knows that this is a terrible mistake. Interestingly, this request seems to resemble the people’s sin in the desert when, unable to see God or Moses (who has disappeared up the mountain for far too long), the people compel Aaron to make them a golden calf – a visual representation for a people unable to muster faith in evidence of things not seen. And so, “They exchanged their Glory for the likeness of a grass-eating ox” (Psalms 106:20). And became just like everybody else.

In this week’s Haftarah, Samuel’s resistance to appoint a monarch (though he begrudgingly does so) proves correct. Saul, Israel’s first king, stumbles by failing to carry out God’s order to utterly destroy Amalek. He spares the best of its sheep and its king, Agag, either out of sympathy or perhaps out of fear. To kill a fellow king, after all, sends a dangerous message that kings can be murdered. Saul may therefore have resorted to a “professional courtesy,” allowing fear of what human beings might do to overpower his commitment to faithfully observe God’s command. Saul even admits, “I feared the people, and I hearkened to their voice” (I Samuel 15:24). According to Midrash, that one night Saul permitted Agag to live allowed him to become the progenitor of Haman, who on one hand tried to kill us, and on the other, gave us cookies.

The common thread seems to be that humans are bestowed with the unique ability to imagine beyond what is, to what can be. To transcend the common and achieve the extraordinary. Why, then, do we so readily trade it away for comfort in what we can see, touch, and understand? Why do we cling to old conventions that may or may not work but certainly make us just like everybody else? Samuel warns that human kings will only impose bitter taxes and forced labor on their subjects. King Solomon, for all his strengths, does both. This proves to be such an excessive burden that the united kingdom of Israel and Judea ultimately splits during the rule of Solomon’s son. Flesh and blood kings go on to turn the people away from God, as King Jeroboam of Israel erects two golden calves at Bethel and Dan. God offers us the opportunity to be unlike any other nation in the world, and we literally exchange our Glory for the likeness of a grass-eating ox.

While the window to be exclusively governed by God has long since passed, certainly we can still aspire to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. On a national level, this has much to do with whom we freely elect to lead us, with upcoming elections in both Israel and the United States. Regardless of political leaning, our tradition teaches us that our loyalty is not to individual human rulers who, like Saul, can be cast aside and replaced in an instant. Our loyalty can and must be to God and to the values that make us who we are, which transcend any physical representation, and which make us unique. On a personal level, this has everything to do with how we treat one another, and how we cultivate faith in evidence of things not seen. How we maintain the belief that, despite all odds, we can stand upright.

T'rumah 2/29/20

Being in Relationship
By Natan Freller, TBA Rabbinic Intern

A dear friend of mine had her Bat Mitzvah on parasha Terumah. Her mom told her at that time: “You should study some Pirkei Avot to give a drash on your Bat Mitzvah because there is nothing interesting in your parasha!”

Well, she has a point. This is for sure not necessarily an easy text for a teenager, filled with stories and meaningful teachings, but mostly a very accurate description of the construction of the Tabernacle. Something like an IKEA manual - if they had words! Actually, this parasha is just like building a new piece of furniture: it might look very complicated and exhausting in the beginning but once you start putting things together, you can find a lot of pleasure in the activity!

In the midst of this detailed explanation of each part, it says: “Put in the ark the pact which I give you” (Shemot 25:16). And a few verses later: “Place the cover on top of the ark, after putting inside the ark the pact that I give you”. (25:21). Here are my questions: what pact (עדות) is the Torah talking about and what can we learn from that?

The most traditional answer given by many commentators, based on what comes later in the text, is that it refers to the tablets with the ten commandments. A symbolic item that represents the pact, the covenant between God and the Jewish People. Our relationship with the divine is crafted around our commitment to abide by ritual and social laws as a People.

Earlier in this parasha, the famous verse brings a different perspective on God's presence in our midst: “Make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them” (25:8). This perspective requires something from us in order to merit the divine presence, while in the former one God is the one to take initiative and gives us the Torah, establishing our covenant.

I find it challenging to develop a relationship to God based on an exchange of favors so then God can be present. I understand the core of the sanctuary not to be the divine presence exclusively but our covenant as People with God, the Ark of the Covenant. While God doesn’t need us in order to exist, our tradition sees our relationship with God at the center and not God alone.

I understand religion in general and Judaism more specifically as a methodology for creating a relationship between human and divine. The way the Torah does it is by describing a relational God. God of Israel, or Adonai, your God. By living a life of Torah, I can engage with God for being aware of God’s presence in the world.

God, when described as Elohim in the creation stories, is not necessarily a metaphysical entity that created the world, but the human way of describing the creation process in God language. When the Jewish People develops a relational covenant with God, God then becomes relational and not only an isolated force in nature. This relationship is the representation of the awareness developed by communal and individual practices that constitute the Jewish People. Therefore, I establish a universalist relationship to God as creator and a particular connection as the God of Israel.

What appears to be a contradiction between verses is consolidated in the Haftarah we read this week as one. The connection between these texts is obvious, as we read in the Torah the details of the construction of the Mishkan, we read a Haftarah about Solomon building the First Temple. The last lines of the Haftarah are: “With regard to this House you are building—if you follow My laws and observe My rules and faithfully keep My commandments, I will fulfill for you the promise that I gave to your father David: I will abide among the children of Israel, and I will never forsake My people Israel.”

In keeping this relationship between us and God strong by learning and practicing the ethical and ritual commandment, not only the divine presence will be among us, but the Jewish People will not be forsaken. This is not an exchange of favors or promises, but an ongoing relationship where our challenge is to develop the awareness of the divine that exists in our lives and thus, reveal it to the work.

The key to make this a practical teaching that enriches our lives is, of course, in the Pirkei Avot: “Yose ben Yochanan from Jerusalem used to say: Let your house be wide open”. Our sanctuaries would have no purpose if the doors are closed to those who want to come in. It is our responsibility to make our houses accessible and welcoming to those who need it, to be in constant relationship.

As we read parasha Terumah for the first time since rededicating our own Sanctuary, I recall the beautiful words shared on that day. The framework and the structure in which we build our relationship with the divine are important. Having a sanctuary that meets our communal needs is a blessing to all of us. And still, nothing is more important than the holy relationships developed in this holy space. Certainly, the divine presence will be found in these holy encounters.

May the doors of holiness stay open to our journeys as we come into this space of relationship and connection with each other.

Shabbat Shalom

Mishpatim 2/22/20

Loving One's Master (Teacher)
By Rabbi Rebecca Schatz, TBA Assistant Rabbi

At my installation, more than anything, I was glad to bring to this community my teachers, those I look up to and hold in high esteem. For knowing a teacher’s teacher or a student’s student is sometimes even more powerful than the person who is your direct source or recipient of knowledge. Rabbi Aaron Alexander referred to me as his teacher, and it was almost hard to hear because he is MY mentor, MY teacher, MY Rav! How can I even approach peerage with him? When studying choral conducting, I was excited to call my mentoring teacher, Kelly Shepard, and tell him all about school. I wanted him to know what I was doing and how I connected it back to the ways he taught us, how I now better understood the musical decisions he made because of my own learning. However, when it was time to conduct in front of him, I was the most nervous I’d ever been. How could I presume to perform satisfactory in front of my Master?

Parashat Mishpatim starts with an interesting scenario that can be overlooked as we get to goring oxes, taking care of the stranger, not oppressing the other in our midst, and na’aseh v’nishma. But here is the first of many rules that we are to follow as God’s students: If you have a Hebrew slave, in the 7th year he may go free. If he came single he leaves single, and if he is married his wife is released with him. If the master gave the slave a wife who bore him children, the wife and children belong to the master and the slave goes free without them. But, if the slave announces:

אָהַבְתִּי אֶת־אֲדֹנִי אֶת־אִשְׁתִּי וְאֶת־בָּנָי לֹא אֵצֵא חָפְשִׁי, “, I love my master, my wife and my child I will not go free,” the master shall take him… “before God, to a doorpost, and pierce his ear, marking him as one who chooses to remain in his role as servant.

Our commentators do not read this as sentimental or beautiful; but I see it as tender and truly powerful. Like many other mishpatim in this parasha, as much as we focus on the less powerful, we focus more on the master who is thought to be fair and maybe even loved enough to earn a slave/servant’s devotion. We strive to be that kind of mentor, partner, teacher, friend, etc. Rabbeinu Bahya (13th c. Spain) comments that the love must be mutual between slave and master for the piercing and the commitment it signaled to be initiated. Bahya continues with: כי טוב לו עמך “ when it is good for him with you” from Devarim 15, that this mutuality of relationship, respect and need is the only way to continue service. Kiddushin 22 goes as far as to say if the master is sick and the slave is in good health, the law is not applicable and if the slave is sick and the master is well, the law is also not applicable because this covenant requires a great degree of mutuality and without exploitation.

Is it possible that the slave is sharing love because if he does not stay he leaves without his wife and child? Sure! However, I want to read this as commentators like Rashi have, that the love had to be shared over the six years, not just at this turning point in status. It is the master who we need to learn from. How can we be teachers, employers, parents, CEO’s, lawyers, doctors, clerks, in such a way that those who come to learn from us or work for us feel love and reciprocal need.

Often those we look up to most as mentors or role models are those we are most intimidated in front of. I hate singing and conducting in front of Kelly Shepard because he taught me how! I am often more shy and self-conscious teaching or rabbi-ing in front of Rabbi Aaron Alexander or any of my other rabbinic mentors because they show me mastery that I only wish to one day do as well. May we be the kind of master we wish to serve. May we practice and teach relationship building. May we draw close to one another, as both servant and served, a kehillah kedusha.

Thank you each for allowing me to grow in this community as Rav and Talmida, rabbi and teacher. You have now seen glimpses of where, who and what I come from and I hope to bring those sparks of Divine love, partnership and learning into this holy space.

Yitro 2/15/20

Torah in a World on Fire
By Joshua Jacobs, TBA Rabbinic Intern

It turns out that even if you’re Moses, when the in-laws come to visit, it doesn’t matter - everything you’re doing is wrong. Jethro watches Moses arbitrate between God and the people all day long, interceding in their problems by expounding the law for them. The reality is, however, that Moses is pushing himself to the limit and still cannot possibly meet everyone’s individual needs. Jethro raises his concern that “You will certainly wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone” (Exodus 18:18). As an alternative, Jethro ostensibly suggests a system that resembles a kind of precursor to democracy: “You shall seek out from among all the nation capable people who fear God, trustworthy people who spurn ill-gotten gain. Set these over them as chiefs of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens…” (Exodus 18:21). And so we find Moses demonstrating his love for God and people by giving himself over wholeheartedly to their service, and we also see Jethro shrewdly recognizing that if Moses does not delegate some of the work, the people can’t possibly have the infrastructure to thrive without him once he’s gone.

My friend and fellow Ziegler student, Ben Sigal, compares Moses’ being overworked and depleted, and Jethro’s concern to leave things better off than he found them, to the environmental themes evoked by the recent holiday of Tu B’shevat, the birthday of the trees. Like Moses, our planet is overworked and depleted of resources. We are in need of Jethro’s ingenuity - of challenging the way things are in favor of new systems of sustainability and efficiency. This task is “too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone,” but thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens committed to Moses’ stewardship and Jethro’s creativity offers a compelling response to grim predictions of climate crisis.

Grim predictions, according to the Midrash (Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael) are actually what brings Jethro over to the Israelite camp in the first place. We read, “And Jethro the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard all that God did for Moses and for Israel, God’s people, how God took Israel out of Egypt” (Exodus 18:1). The Midrash asks: What is it, exactly, that Jethro heard? What caused him to make the journey? One possibility the rabbis offer is the giving of the Torah. Although the giving of the Torah does not happen until after Jethro’s visit, the rabbis hold that chronology can be played with (בתורה מאחרוו מוקדם אין) allowing them to place Jethro among the other priests of the nations who fearfully tremble in their palaces upon hearing the voice of God, which “cleaves with flames of fire,” (Psalm 29) speaking to the Israelites from Sinai. According to the Midrash, Jethro and these other princes go find Balaam, the prophet who fails to curse the Israelites in parashat Balak, to inquire about the event. Hearing God’s voice from a distance and seeing how “…the entire Mount Sinai smoked because the Lord had descended upon it in fire” (Exodus 19:18), the princes ask Balaam if God is now destroying the world by fire, as God had previously done through the waters of the flood. Balaam replies that God “…will bring neither a flood of fire nor a flood of water, but the Holy Blessed One is giving Torah to God’s people and loved ones.” The princes’ minds are set at ease and they take solace in the fact that God has promised never again to destroy the earth.

What stands out for me this week, between Tu B’shevat and parashat Yitro, is that while God has promised never to destroy the earth, human beings have made no such reciprocal promise. Our world is currently on fire, and unlike Sinai or the bush, it’s being consumed. But if Torah was originally given in the midst of fire – the kind of fire that made Yitro and his fellow princes fear the end of the world – maybe Torah was given precisely for that purpose: to respond to the needs of a world on fire. To turn trembling into relief – fear of destruction into the comfort in knowing that God has given the Jewish people a tree of life, and with it, a charge to be stewards of this world and caretakers of all of God’s creatures in it. In this way, we are summoned to attempt the moral leadership of Moses and the ingenuity of Yitro, who sees depletion and devises a new system that allows for sustainability and new growth.

Torah, then, which is often compared to water, can and should be the vehicle through which we attempt to quench the fires of this world.

Vaera 1/25/20

First, Always Look Inside Yourself
By Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

I am grateful to my friend and teacher Peter Pitzele, the astoundingly talented and sensitive man who created Bibliodrama, extending the basic principle of Psychodrama to the biblical text. Some of you have participated in Bibliodramas with me. Essentially, a group creates midrash/interpretation in real time. By entering a Biblical character, and speaking in his/her name after a simple prompt by “the director,” participants awaken Avraham’s voice moments before binding Isaac, or Miriam’s voice as she hovers in the reeds overseeing baby Moshe’s floating crib, etc.

There are few rules to “directing” a Bibliodrama, but each of them is critical. one of them has become an integral part of my consciousness and communication, way beyond the Bibliodrama setting. It is called “echoing.” It is a very scripted version of what some informally refer to as empathic listening, where the listener in any exchange is focusing as deeply as possible on what the other is saying, rather than already scripting the retort/response in one’s head. In “echoing,” the director essentially says back to the room the words that the previous speaker/participant said, maintaining the first-person voice. While “echoing,” the director both addresses the room, but also focuses on the person being echoed. To check in, by reading body language and cues, to make sure that the director properly heard what the speaker was saying. The director takes full responsibility for echoing accurately. And if anything was missed, the director tries again until the person being echoed affirms the echo. This is best experienced in person, but you get the picture.

What I appreciate most about this method, both within a Bibliodrama and in other, less scripted exchanges, is the responsibility it places on the communicator. The method is counter-cultural, as in our society we so blithely and frequently hold “the other” accountable in our exchanges. If something was missed in the conversation, it was her fault, not mine. If I was misunderstood, it was because he wasn’t listening well, not because I spoke unclearly. Echoing transfers the burden to you. Listen well. Communicate clearly. If something is missed, take it upon yourself to lean in and do it better.

The method is modern and current, but the wisdom is age-old. Consider a commentary by the S’fat Emet (Rabbi Yehuda Leib Altar, 1847-1905), one of the rebbes of the Gerer Hasidic dynasty. He is interpreting the phrase in Shemot/Exodus 6:12, which is part of Moshe’s exchange with God about how the interaction with Pharaoh and the Israelites will go once Moshe returns to Egypt. Moshe, humble and self-effacing, wonders if he will be effective. The Israelites will not listen to me! Nor will Pharaoh. Why?

If we paused the story here, we can imagine a leader or speaker throwing in blame and calumny to explain or even anticipate a failure of communication. “The Israelites will not listen to me because, God, as you know, they are stiff-necked.” And/or “Pharaoh has a heart of stone, so why should I expect such a hard-hearted man will soften it for me?” Instead of such accusations, Moshe turns internal. ואני ערל שפתים. Va’ani arel s’fatayim. Roughly translated as, “I am slow of speech.” (Literally, it means my lips are uncircumcised, clumsy, suffering from an excess of skin). The S’fat Emet praises Moshe here for passively and gently praising the Israelites. By turning the focus on himself, and restraining himself from criticizing them, Moshe resists the urge to name them as stubborn (as God is so wont to do.). “It is I, Moshe, who is lacking. Not them. If their hearts are not moved by what I say, then perhaps I didn’t say it well. If there is to be a failure of communication, it will be because I failed to communicate well.”

How wonderful our world, our community and our relationships would be if our first instinct echoed Moshe’s, as interpreted by the S’fat Emet. Of course, it would be safer and easier to take that stance in an exchange of words and ideas if we had faith that “the other” were doing so as well. But it must begin somewhere. The listening and the echoing has to be born, over and over again. Taking responsibility for what is said, and what is heard, is a relentless burden, and a holy one. Giving credit to the other, and reclaiming the obligation for oneself, makes relationship possible. Listen. Echo. Check in. If something was missed, try again. Resist the urge to blame “them.” Put the sacred burden on yourself.

Shabbat Shalom

Shemot 1/18/20

Hutzpah is holy
By Natan Freller, TBA Rabbinic Intern

If there is one unique behavioral trait to describe Jews across time and space, I would say, without a doubt, it is hutzpah.

For those not yet familiarized with the concept, originally a Hebrew word that made into Yiddish and English languages, Leo Rosten in his book “The Joys of Yiddish” defines hutzpah as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts', presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to".

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time a Jewish mother had another baby, but this time it was different. After having two beautiful and smart kids, she heard that the law had changed. If she gives birth to a baby boy, he must be killed, for the supreme ruler was afraid of a Jewish revolt. If hutzpah was not a thing in Jewish behavior from its inception, it could be the end of the story. But this strong woman could not give up to such a harsh decree. Her baby boy was born, and she had the hutzpah to keep him for as long as she could, for three months. She made a basket for the baby and asked her daughter to put him on the river. Maybe someone will find the basket and take care of him. None other than the Pharaoh’s daughter was the one who found him. If hutzpah was not a thing in Jewish behavior from its inception, it could be the end of the story. But since his sister followed the basket along the river, she came up to the Pharaoh’s daughter and had the hutzpah to say: “Hey, I know a Hebrew women who can nurse him for you, do you want me to bring him there?” Not only the mother was able to nurse her own baby, she was compensated by the Pharaoh’s daughter for doing so!

Yes, this is how the book of Shemot begins. Moshe’s birth is not about him, but about his mother’s and sister’s hutzpah. Maybe for being nursed and raised by his own mother, Moshe inherited such trait from her. Upon seeing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, he turner both ways to see if no one was around and had the hutzpah strike down the Egyptian and bury him in the sand.

After that event, Moshe had to run away from Egypt and goes to Midian, where he gets married and has kids. While working as a shepherd, he meets God for the first time. What a great role model of hutzpah! God appears to Moshe with such a hutzpah that even Moshe questions the craziness of the divine request. God asks Moshe to be the one who will deliver the divine message that freedom is divine, and no human ruler can enslave and oppress like the Pharaoh did to the Hebrews.

Moshe is humble and afraid to take on the responsibility for this new divine calling. He questions himself. God’s hutzpah gives him strength, confidence. Hutzpah isn’t always easy; it takes some time and practice to get there. Thanks God, literally, Moshe could feel embraced and encourage move forward and fight for his people.

Hutzpah can sometimes be interpreted as a negative characteristic as well. Either as being too rude, disrespectful or for lack of faith and hope in God. At the end of the day, many of our praised ancestors did things against the law, putting themselves and the entire people at risk for their hutzpah. Rebbe Nachman teaches that hutzpah is exactly the opposite of that. According to the hasidic master, azut d’kedudshah, holy audacity, is the key to find hope and comfort while questioning God’s role as well as our responsibility. Many would say that a true tzaddik, a righteous person, cannot have any doubts. Rebbe Nachman rejected that widespread idea, teaching doubt as a spiritual virtue, as the impetus towards a blind faith. If one could rationalize God to its fulness, there would be no difference between that person’s mind and God’s will. Having doubt is essential for God’s existence.

The core message of this week’s Torah portion is exactly that: Hutzpah is holy. Each one of us is walking a different path, creating our own journeys. The amount of challenges that will present themselves on our way is countless. The blessing of walking together as a community, while walking individual tracks, following the weekly Torah portion cycle of is to see the Torah as a mirror. To find ourselves in their footsteps, learning from our people’s ancient wisdom and creating our own pathway to live a meaningful life. None of us will be Yocheved, Miriam, or Moshe. Still, we can walk beside them as we encounter our ancestors showing us a different way to see things through our own reflection.

Our world is on fire. When we see injustice, oppression, and hate we dare to have the hutzpah and stand up against it. We show love, we fight for the stranger, the widow and the orphan. We recall the divine calling towards justice and peace.

We live at a time when many feel lonely. We must dare to show up and have the hutzpah to tell someone that they are not alone, that we stand together and that we are there for them.

May we find the strength, courage and comfort in our tradition, looking at our ancestors’ challenges to find our own ways of transforming their legacy into action. Just as Yocheved, Miriam, and Moshe had hutzpah, so too we should have hutzpah. Just as God had hutzpah, so too we should have hutzpah.

May we all have the divine hutzpah we need this week.

Shabbat Shalom

Vayehi 1/11/19

Living and Dying with Enduring Hope
By Joshua Jacobs, TBA Rabbinic Intern

This week, we can’t even get past the first word of the parsha without needing to talk about it. Vayechi means “And he lived.” After reuniting with the favorite son whom he thought he’d lost tragically, and after having mourned Joseph’s supposed death for decades, Jacob lives an additional seventeen years in Egypt alongside him. What’s interesting is, Joseph was seventeen when he was sold into Egypt. It doesn’t seem a coincidence that Jacob happens to live (vayechi) seventeen years, only after which, “the time approached for Israel to die” (Bereshit 47:29). It’s almost as if God blesses Jacob with the exact amount of time necessary to achieve what might be called, in precise technical terms, a “do over.” This time, at the end of seventeen years, it would not be Joseph who is ripped away, but Jacob, who dies at a ripe old age in the company of his son. As God promises him in last week’s reading, “…and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes” (Bereshit 46:4). Having dedicated much attention to Joseph’s dreams, the Torah concludes this saga with the realization of Jacob’s.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to tell you that there’s a moment in The Odyssey that always makes me cry. Upon his triumphant return home after a similarly long period of separation, Odysseus receives a very emotional greeting. We expect it to come from Penelope, who has spent the years weaving and unweaving her web, faithfully warding off suitors until her husband’s return. But since Odysseus has disguised himself as a beggar in order to mount a bloody surprise attack - his way of warding off suitors - his family doesn’t recognize him. No one except for his dog, Argos, who recognizes him immediately. Argos lies on the floor, once a pup but now a tired old dog. Unable to get up, he musters his remaining strength to wag his tail. Odysseus sheds a tear, knowing that he cannot greet his dog without blowing his cover. He passes by Argos, who, having stayed alive just to see his master home safe again, can finally die in peace.

And so, Jacob summoned up his strength (ויתחזק) and “sat up in bed” (Bereshit 48:4), putting physical expression to his words from before, “Now I can die, having seen for myself that you are still alive” (Bereshit 46:30). Joseph, who initially goes unrecognized by his brothers due to his “disguise” not as a beggar but as second in command to Pharaoh, is immediately recognized by his father as they fall on each others necks and weep. Now Israel, sensing the end, calls his sons around his bed to bless them. What might go unnoticed is how, buried within his blessing to Joseph is an assessment of his own good fortune: “The blessings of your father surpass the blessings of my ancestors, to the utmost bounds of the eternal hills” (Bereshit 49:26). Tonally, this seems in sharp contrast to what he had previously described to Pharaoh: “The years of my sojourn are one hundred and thirty. Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life spans of my fathers during their sojourns” (Bereshit 47:9). It appears that since then, Jacob’s pain has been lifted significantly, his heaviness abated, to the point where Radak, commenting on the word “ויגוע” - “and he expired” - writes, “[it is] an expression used with the righteous, describing a painless death.” Having his son home safe again, Jacob can finally die in peace.

We know what Israel lived for in his old age. Our angel-wrestling forefather also wrestles with the angel of death and prevails long enough to see the mending of his broken home. Whether family means blood relatives, friends, our shul community, or otherwise, Vayechi teaches us that family is what we live for. And the hope that what is broken can be repaired is what sustains us. Without that hope, we are left with a slave mentality, which mistakenly perceives that our present reality is our permanent one. After Jacob’s death, Joseph’s brothers immediately revert back to their old deceptive ways, forging a message from their father that implores Joseph to forgive them. This seems to demonstrate that very slave mentality, stuck in what was and unable to concieve of what has become. So Joseph’s brothers “flung themselves before him, and said, ‘We are for you as slaves’” (Bereshit 50:18). This is a sobering foreshadow, as we read next week in Shemot, “And a new king arose over Egypt who knew not Joseph” (Shemot 1:8), signaling the beginning of our bondage in Egypt.

And yet, Jospeh knows that God will bring them back to the Promised Land. The Book of Bereshit ends with Joseph’s adjuring the children of Israel carry his bones with them out of Egypt to be buried in Eretz Yisrael with his ancestors. The parsha begins, therefore, with Jacob’s portrayal of what it means to live with enduring hope. It concludes with Joseph’s demonstration of what it means to die with it.

Vayigash 1/4/20

Moving from I-It to I-You, in the Torah and Today
By Rabbi Matt Shapiro, Director of Youth Learning & Engagement

“All real life is meeting.” This statement is the crux of Martin Buber’s I and Thou, his most well-known work. Buber explains that “real life” involves an encounter with an “I-You” way of being. In distinction from an I-It way of being, I-You calls upon us to see the Godliness and unity in each and every aspect of the world around us, particularly other people. When I have a “I-You” moment, I’m seeing beyond the data points of who you are on the surface, and getting to something more resonant with the ultimate truth of who you are. Buber is often oversimplified as follows: there are two ways of interacting with the world, a transactional way and a truly relational way, and we should value and work towards the latter, rather than being stuck in the former. His claim, however, is more complex than that- it’s not merely a category of interaction, but a way of living life, of engaging with the world. I can’t have an I-You encounter unless I’m living my life is that way; unless I’ve had an internal shift, I won’t fully be in that “I-You” place, no matter how close I feel to the people around me or the world at large.

This might seem a bit abstract, even obtuse. Fortunately, the parsha this week offers us two examples through which we can see this concept illustrated, illuminating how the experience can emerge in two directions: one by finding a way to be “I-You” in the world and the ensuing transformation within a relationship, the other by having a “meeting” in a relationship that shifts a way of being as an individual. The first is present right at the beginning of the parsha, picking up in the middle of the scene where Benjamin stands accused of having stolen from Egypt’s second-in-command (the brothers not yet knowing that it’s Joseph). The parsha begins with “Judah approached him…” (44:18) The verse can be read as having a superfluous pronoun, (“Judah approached” would have been sufficient), and that “him” is in turn read as Judah approaching not his brother, but himself. R. Simcha Bunim articulates that “Judah came close to his own essence,” which in turn heightens the efficacy of his words; by finding the wherewithal to go deep within, his words move Joseph enough that he finally reveals himself to his brothers, and reunion and reconciliation ensue. Judah’s self-reflection is the starting point for all of these changes. From the Buberian perspective, because Judah is able to shift his way of being in that moment to a more reflective state and conducting himself accordingly, a transformative shift in a relationship follows.

The inverse seems to happen a chapter and a half later. Jacob gets word that his beloved son is alive in Egypt and comes down to see him. When, at last, they meet after years apart, Jacob’s first words to him are, “now that I’ve seen you alive, I can die.” (46:30) At first glimpse, these seem to be odd words to offer to a long-lost relative, let alone the apple of Jacob’s eye whom he has long thought deceased. Radak puts a finer point on these words, framing them as “now that I see you living, I could die with no regrets.” Even though Jacob’s words are explicitly talking about death, they can also be seen as an affirmation of this particular moment of real life. This one point in time is so full, so resonant, that anything beyond this is, essentially, a bonus. Jacob, it can be argued, needs nothing more than this, and he’s now at peace, at least for a split second. In contrast with Judah, who found the “I-You” way of being within himself and brought it out, Jacob is able to shift his way of being from one of goals- getting to this point- to one of being, in acceptance of and present with what currently is, an I-You state

The duality of these two moments is both contradictory and illuminating, There’s not necessarily a rhyme or reason to if and when “I-You” emerges; no matter how hard we might try to cultivate it or bring it out, it’s ephemeral and impermanent. Yet ultimately, in these examples and in Buber’s thought, this state is driven by relationship rather than solitude, a desire to connect rather than the pull of isolation.

When the world feel fraught and scary, a common impulse for many, including myself, is to retreat and step back, trying to stay out of harm’s way by withdrawing. This external response to the world in turn impacts how we relate to other people- if my default attitude towards the world is one of fear and suspicion, there’s little doubt that this will impact how I interact with people around me, whether with those I’m close to or in encounters with new faces. Buber, however, affirms that “people appear by entering into relation to other people.” When we’re present, fully connected with another, we become the clearest articulation of ourselves. The interactions between the dyads of Judah/Joseph and Jacob/Joseph layer additional, moving perspective- in becoming our fullest selves, we create change in the people around us. The response, then, to fear or anxiety is to enter into deep relationships and bring the fullness of who we are out into the world. The parsha, through the lens of Buber, calls us to seek out, within ourselves and through others, the holiness and Oneness that is always available to us, in each and every moment, if we’re paying attention and open to what’s both within us and right in front of our faces.

Shabbat shalom.

Miketz 12/28/19

Dedicating Sacred Spaces to Create Godly Behavior
By Natan Freller, TBA Rabbinic Intern

Shout for joy, Fair Zion! For lo, I come; and I will dwell in your midst—declares God. (Zechariah 2:14) This is the opening line for the Haftarah of Hanukkah.

After about 50 years in Babylonian exile, the Persians conquered the Babylonians; Cyrus the Great, the new Persian ruler, allowed all peoples held captive by the Babylonians to return to their ancestral home.

We know of that part of the story from the book of Ezra, who is writing about events that happened a generation or two before him. Before Ezra, who led the rebuild of Jerusalem with Nehemiah, the prophet Zechariah had set the foundation for this enterprise. Even though they had the freedom to rebuild the Temple since Cyrus’ edict, only during the rulership of Darius, most prominent Persian ruler after Cyrus, the construction actually begun. Prophet Zechariah is speaking at that time, when the Second Temple constructions are starting.

Among other reasons, we read this Haftarah during Chanukah for we are celebrating the dedication of a sacred space. “Shout for joy, Fair Zion!” When the prophet Jeremiah preached for people to settled in Babylon, he also urged the people to support that land and keep moving on with their lives outside the land of Israel, for God’s presence was still among them. God’s presence is greater than one confined physical building. No physicality can contain God. Still, as humans, we create those places out of need. We feel the urge to dedicate time and space in our lives to focus, to meditate, and to experience the divine presence. Even knowing that the physicality of our sacred spaces is just a representation of God’s presence and holiness, we attach ourselves to it. We need the right kind of light, music, comfort and discomfort to engage in a meaningful experience with the divine through prayer and study. The power and the goal of ritual is to change our behavior, to align ourselves to God’s attributes.

The rededication of the Temple by the Maccabees was a symbolic reconnection to the divine presence, even though God had never left. As humans we need to find ways to express our deepest religious commitments in the public space, surrounded by our community, marking time and space as holy.

Another relationship between this Haftarah with Hanukkah is the imagery of the Menorah that appeared to the prophet in his dream (Zechariah 4:1-6). This vision of the Menorah is accompanied by two olive trees, one on each side of it. The interpretation of these olive branches given to Zechariah by the angel is that they represent “two anointed dignitaries who attend the Lord of all the earth.” (Zechariah 4:14), referring to Yehoshua, the High Priest of that time, and Zerubavel, the appointed governor for the land of Judah by the Persian king. Just like in the story of Hanukkah, one might think that the military fight to establish our presence in the Temple is the core message of these stories, and therefore, we should behave similarly. But after this prophecy, our Haftarah ends with the famous sentence to Zerubavel, the secular leader of that generation:

“Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit—said the Lord of Hosts.” (Zechariah 4:7)

The spirit of God doesn’t mean necessarily that God will magically act on our behalf for we behaved well, but in looking up to God’s spirit for guidance, we can personify God’s attributes, behaving godly, according to the divine values we hold precious in our hearts.

The rabbinic retelling of the story of Hanukkah in the Talmud, changes the focus from the military achievement to the oil miracle. In focusing on the miracle of the lights it shifts the perspective from the battle to the miracle, from human conquest to divine devotion.

“When the Greeks entered the Sanctuary, they defiled all the oils that were in the Sanctuary. And when the Hasmonean monarchy overcame them and emerged victorious over them, they searched and found only one cruse of oil that was placed with the seal of the High Priest. And there was sufficient oil there to light the Menorah for only one day. A miracle occurred and they lit the Menorah from it eight days.” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 21b)

It is up to us to find God in our midst, to take a step back from our human arrogance and make space for God’s attributes to come forth. When we as humans enact God’s attributes of love, kindness, justice and peace among ourselves, we are making space for God by acting godly, fulfilling the real meaning of being made in God’s image and likeliness.

In our Torah reading this week, when Yosef interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams, he said: “Not I! God will see to Pharaoh’s welfare.” (Bereshit 41:16). Instead of claiming the answers for himself, Yosef humbly recalls God’s power as the source of all his knowledge.

A core Jewish belief is that God is eternal. God’s presence is not absent from the world, but we have not achieved our potential to reach it in its fullness. Just like Yosef, Zechariah and the Talmudic Sages, it takes a perspective shift to bring God into the conversation, to amplify our capacity of amazement, to identify our godly behavior.

Shout for joy, Fair Zion! For lo, I come; and I will dwell in your midst—declares God. (Zechariah 2:14)

May we celebrate this Shabbat the beauty of God’s sacred home, represented in the physicality of our sanctuaries, as we meditate on the beauty of our sacred home, our bodies, our mundane behavior and our godly actions.

Vayeshev 12/21/19

Thorns, Thistles, and Pits
By Joshua Jacobs, TBA Rabbinic Intern

The Talmud tells the story of a blind man walking around in the middle of the night by the light of a torch. Rabbi Yosi is intrigued by this. “My son,” Rabbi Yosi asks. “Of what benefit is this torch to you?” The blind man answers, “As long as the torch is in my hands, people will see me and save me from pits and from thorns and from thistles.” What strikes me every time I read this text (Megillah 24b) is the role reversal – the blind man is the one who helps Rabbi Yosi to see. Not just by clearing up his curiosity. This exchange actually goes on to provide Rabbi Yosi with the tools he needs to resolve a larger halakhic debate. In this way, it is the blind man who has saved Rabbi Yosi from an intellectual pitfall, helping him steer clear of thorns and thistles to instead arrive at the proper halakha, unscathed.

While the Talmud demonstrates how sometimes the visually impaired can actually be the ones who see most clearly, this week’s parsha, Vayeishev, demonstrates how even the most perceptive among us can’t escape our own blind spots. God blesses Joseph with prophetic dreams and the ability to accurately interpret them. And yet, when we first meet him, he is a young boy who lacks the foresight to predict how sharing such dreams with his brothers will provoke their jealousy and even hatred. A jealously first ignited by their father’s gift of a colorful coat, and later exacerbated by six Tony nominations.

Was Jacob unable to see the dangerous implications of his favoritism toward Joseph? Sure enough, while the blind man successfully avoids pits, Joseph, the prophet, is cast into one. His brothers conspire to kill him, ultimately deciding to sell him into slavery, instead. They then slaughter a goat, dip Joseph’s coat in the blood, and present it to their father. Jacob “…recognized it, and said, ‘My son’s tunic! A savage beast devoured him! Joseph was torn by a beast!’”(Bereshit 37:33).

This exchange seems eerily familiar. Just a few chapters earlier, when Jacob was a boy, he also deceives his father by way of a slaughtered goat. Seeking Isaac’s blessing, which was intended for Esau, Jacob covers himself with goatskins to take on the physicality of his brother the hunter. He succeeds, as we read, “When Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see (…) Jacob said to his father, ‘I am Esau your firstborn’”(Bereshit 27:1, 21:19). What if, like in the Talmudic story above, the emphasis is not on one person’s literal blindness, but on another’s metaphorical one. Though Jacob receives a blessing, he fails to see how the use of deception may one day come back to curse him. Indeed, his sons proceed to borrow a move from his own playbook.

One of my rabbis once connected this moment in Vayeishev to the Unetaneh Tokef prayer, which we recite during the High Holidays. Acknowledging inescapable death, we ask, “who by fire, and who by water?” “Who by sword (חרב), and who by wild beast (חיה)?”

When Jacob is shown the bloodstained coat, he concludes that Joseph was torn by a wild beast (חיה). Though a horrific tragedy, fatal confrontation with wild animals was actually common at this time, especially for a nomadic people. They came to be viewed as an inevitable aspect of life. Joseph’s sale into slavery, however, was no inevitability. It was a deliberate act of human violence (חרב). In this moment, Jacob confuses one for the other. Like Jacob and Esau, חרב cloaks itself in the garments of חיה. How often do we make the same mistake, failing to differentiate the two?

I wholeheartedly believe that the synagogue is where we go to have our eyes opened. What are our blind spots? In times when human violence is so ubiquitous that it appears to be an inevitable aspect of life, we look to the wisdom of our tradition and to each other for insight and clarity to lift the darkness and help us better understand the world and our place in it. How do we learn from our stories, carrying Torah in our hands like a torch in the night to guide us on our way, clear of thorns and thistles and pits?

Vayishlah 12/14/19

Staying Above the Weeds
By Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

How often have I found that the tone of my voice or content of my speech is in some way mirroring the very tone or content I am trying to convince another to avoid? How frequently does it happen that I wage a battle with my children’s relationship to the ubiquitous, invaluable and somewhat insidious screens, only immediately to return to one myself, for a quick endorphin rush or illusory escape, right after I finish speaking with them? How common it is to be touched by, infected by, the very thing we are fighting against?

Judaism has a powerful (but oft-forgotten, outside of the very traditional Jewish community) relationship with touch, proximity, infection and toxicity. The whole infrastructure of טומאה and טהרה (tum’ah and tahara), often inelegantly (and perhaps inaccurately) translated as “impurity” and “purity” (“life-ebbing” and “life-flowing” is probably a better rendering of what the original Biblical Hebrew had in mind) is related to being in contact with or near something that can transmit a spiritual infection. Tum’ah may be inevitable in life (when in contact with an unclean animal, or even a human corpse, in the scope of doing the mitzvah of providing a dignified burial), and yet we aim to pendulum-swing towards tahara as much as possible. Getting too close gets “it” on our clothes, within our homes, even on our bodies. Think of it is as Biblical cooties. The laws of kashrut, too, hinge on contact, proximity, cross-over and intrusion/infection of unwanted substances and tastes. Pesah/Passover just amplifies that more, as hametz/leaven takes on truly nefarious character during those 8 days. Stay away!

If we pull back from all of these wars against unwanted substances, vapors, humors, fluids, objects…perhaps we see the tradition reckoning with something inevitable. As much as you try to pull away from something, it frustratingly and sometimes inevitably follows you. There is no such thing as comprehensive disinfection. Engaging in the battle with “the stuff” puts you, inevitably, in contact with “the stuff.” The cycle is Sisyphean. And the applications go beyond material toxicity, to spiritual and relational.

In this regard, I am moved by a reading on a rather obscure verse in Vayishlah that emerges from the Musar tradition. In short, Musar was (and is) a proud attempt to pull moral valence and meaning out of every aspect of Jewish life and ritual, every verse of the Torah. If we are not living with moral and interpersonal alertness, then we are not living Jewishly, at least according to Musar. We are dealing with the verse (Breishit 35:2) immediately after the sordid ritual with Jacob’s daughter Dina, and Shekhem, son of Hamor. In brief, Jacob’s sons wield ferocious vengeance on Shekhem’s people and town, punishment for his/their mistreatment of Dinah, and/or just the audacity to think that they, idolaters, could truly intermingle and intermarry with this monotheistic tribe. In the narrative (which, yes, is a troubling one, and I am not entering into all of the troubling aspects in this mini-drash), it is clear that Jacob and sons are trying to prevent infection/intrusion/invasion of whatever ideas, practices and behaviors are normative among the Shekhemites. There needs to be a clean (and, yes, vicious) break between “us” and “them.” The battle is quick and merciless, and it seems that the spiritual invasion has been repelled. And then, in our verse, Jacob tells his household, “Remove the foreign gods that are in your mist, and purify yourselves, and change your clothing.” To what is he referring?

Consider this short and pithy takeaway from the world of Musar: “It is possible to wage war with Shekhem, and nevertheless to cling to it/him/them a little bit, as a result of the very war itself.” I hear this text explaining that however Jacob and sons fought to distance themselves from Shekhem the person, and Shekhem the culture, there was some unavoidable static cling. The contact bred a connection. Getting “in there” to try to eliminate the bonds at the same time made new bonds. And so, even after the war is ostensibly over, Jacob still needs to tell his tribe: step away from Shekhem!

A wise friend once told me, regarding all sorts of political and inter-personal engagements, that when you go down to fight the weeds, guess what? You are in the weeds. It is much better to stay above them. For engaging with them will also infect you with them.

How do we teach children about healthy relationship with screens without, ourselves, falling victim to their mesmerizing pull? How do we properly call out others for problematic behavior while simultaneously watching that we don’t ourselves slip into that ugly stew of character? We must notice the weeds in our midst, and yet stay above them, noticing even more the good material, the good tissue, and mostly fighting off infection by building up immunity. With what is good, and with what is right. All the time.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Vayetze 12/7/19

By Rabbi Rebecca Schatz

February 2015, my grandparents came to visit me in Israel. We went around the country with a guide who was most famous for his archeological finds in what is now known as the City of David. He was the first to find a bell that is considered to be from the tunic that the High Priest wore. Based on his accolades, my grandparents had him take us around with a specific focus of archeology and ancient ruins. One day he took us down an unknown path, in fact there were signs to not go where we were headed. I was nervous for breaking the rules and that the ground could be unstable for my grandparents. We reached a cave, where again I was hesitant, but this time because there could be snakes or scorpions or spiders! As we walked in I saw a standing rock, another circular rock with a hole in it and a cot shaped indentation in the ground. Our guide asked me to read a few verses of Torah while standing in this spot and I read the following: “Early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. ויקרא את שם המקום ההוא בית אל – Jacob called the name of this place Beit El – the house of God.” I looked around me and was in awe. Was this really the place where Jacob had his famous dream of angels ascending and descending a sulam, a hapax legomenon which we have come to translate as ladder? It was hard in that moment for me to answer “no.” Everything was as it seemed from the Torah and in fact I exclaimed מה נורא המקום הזה – how awesome is this Place.

We know that מקום, place, is one of the names for the Divine, and yet we believe God is everywhere. How can God be Place and everywhere?

Makom is essential to experience. Where you are when you fall in love. Where you are when you experience wonder. Where you are when you smell something that takes you back to childhood memory. Creating a מקום is imperative to connecting to our spiritual selves. Jacob names the space of wonder Beit El, the house of God. If you had seen the cave I was in, you would know that was definitely not my definition of a house of God. And yet, shouldn’t every place of discovery be a Divine Place a moment with God.

This weekend, the clergy of Temple Beth Am are in Boston at the combined USCJ (United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism) and Rabbinical Assembly conference. We were asked to come and present Shabbat Sovev, a service that Temple Beth Am has embraced, grown and fashioned for many years. Shabbat Sovev was created as an answer to makom, to place and space, and similarly our beautiful new sanctuary followed. Sitting in the basement of a Reform Shul in Jerusalem, in concentric circles, singing new tunes with an innovative minyan called Nava Tehila, I knew I wanted to bring this kavannah, this intentional spirituality into Temple Beth Am. And first we needed to create the space. The literal look of the room, of the chairs, of the different people who would help make prayer rise in our own Beit El. Writing this, I do not know what our makom will look like in Boston. I do not know who will be singing with us to create a spiritual uplift for Shabbat. And I know with the partnership of Rabbis Kligfeld and Cantor Chorny that we were asked to bring this opportunity to the movement because there is Divine space created in the service.

Jacob had a dream and found himself naming a place holy and awesome. Temple Beth Am took a chance in innovating Kabbalat Shabbat and found a makom, a spiritual space. I hope we are able to enhance Shabbat in creating our space of Sovev in Boston, and that we will have many people exclaiming “how awesome is this space and I did not even know we could do it!”

Toldot 11/30/19

Between the Boxes
Prepared by Rabbi Hillary Chorny, Cantor

With the release of Disney+, my preschooler and I did a deep dive into ‘90s television. It was a nostalgia trip. I had forgotten a lot, including the two-dimensionality of the characters, pun unintended (but consequently terrific), which upon rewatching made me uneasy. I had forgotten how often writers relied on minimal character development, especially of the girls and women in these shows, to move their stories. There are whole studies in the character archetypes of women in television and movies, and I’ll speak for myself and say, my brain seeks to sort these female characters into these categories [credit to writing blogger Jennifer Ellis]: The Amazon/Crusader (think, Wonder Woman); `The Librarian/Spinster (think, Hermione Granger); The Nurturer/Martyr; The Queen Bee (Jean Grey from “X-Men”); The Girl Next Door (every Meg Ryan character in a Rom Com); The Seductress; The Quirky Misfit (Phoebe from “Friends”); and The Survivor (think, Scarlett O’Hara).

Plots are driven forward and made interesting by these girls and women wrestling with their identities and stepping briefly outside their boxes, but when they are lost and floating and cannot be pinned down, we strain to tell their stories. We are out of practice at writing the stories of women who live beyond and between these boxes. And most people live between the boxes.

The character of Rivka here in our parsha text is a righteous woman. The Nurturer. How do we know? The text itself and then rivers of commentary tell us that she was chosen, perhaps divinely ordained, to partner with Yitzhak as a kind of oedipally-questionable replacement for his deceased mother, Sarah. When Rivka is in the throes of a difficult twin pregnancy, she cries out in existential angst (Gen. 25:22),

לָ֥מָּה זֶּ֖ה אָנֹ֑כִי

Roughly translated, “Why me?” The Kedushat Levi (18th c. Poland) offers a commentary by R’ Isaac Luria, the 16th century founder of Kabbalah: Rivka has been taught that righteous women are not supposed to suffer during pregnancy. So you might read this moment as Rivka asking why she is suffering. After all, she is Righteous with a capital “R”; what is the purpose of a good woman like her enduring such terrible pain?

A tougher read, though, one that pulls at my gut, is the one that has Rivka wondering if this pain must mean that she is not a Righteous Woman. And therefore she is not who she thinks she is, is not who she has always been told she is. Her identity is gone, her box is gone, her story no longer makes sense, and she is lost and seeking and searching. Perhaps that is why her outcry is followed by the following phrase:

וַתֵּ֖לֶךְ לִדְרֹ֥שׁ אֶת־יְהוָֽה

And so she went directly to seek an oracle from Adonai in a moment when she finds herself standing outside the box.

Look at us, still sorting characters into boxes thousands of years later, and all we need to do is glance back at this textual moment as an example of a way to tell our stories by breaking through tropes and rules. Righteous people suffer. Nurturers fail to nurture. Amazonians go weak. Misfits find their matches. It’s hard work to write a story with character who live between the boxes, but it’s far more interesting.

Hayei Sarah 11/23/19

I Will Go
By Josh Jacobs, TBA Rabbinic Intern

When I applied to Ziegler, I didn’t apply anywhere else. Because when I visited, I met the rabbis I’d be learning from and the students I’d be learning with, and I knew I had found where I needed to be. When I applied to Beth Am to be a rabbinic intern, I didn’t apply anywhere else. Because I had met the congregants and rabbis, and I knew that if I ever had the privilege of serving this community, I’d be in the best possible hands.

This week in Chayei Sarah, Abraham’s servant, Eliezer, meets Rebecca. And when he does, he doesn’t apply anywhere else. He knows he’s completed his mission, having found a wife for his master’s son, Isaac. He immediately recognizes that, should she agree to go with him, Abraham’s legacy would be secure and in the best possible hands. Why? What is it about Rebecca? And don’t tell me it’s because she offered to water his camels. That’s true, but we both know I have to fill an entire page here.

We live in a world desperate for moral leadership. This week’s parsha, which gives us the death of one matriarch and the rise of another, offers insight into what makes someone fit to lead. Someone like Abraham, who, after Sarah’s death, becomes particularly concerned with legacy – with the order of his household after he, too, is gone. So the first thing he does is purchase the Cave of Machpelah in order to bury his wife. What’s interesting is that the word used to describe the cave’s new ownership is ויקם – “he established it.” ויקם is from קום – “to rise.” Rashi comments that Abraham caused the place to rise. He elevated it through his contact with it. A legacy can reflect one’s attempt only to establish one’s self in the world, or, as in Abraham’s case, one’s sincere desire to elevate people and leave the world a little better off than it was before.

Abraham’s next concern is a wife for Isaac. The 12th century French commentator, Radak, writes that Abraham was advanced in years, having reached “the years when a man thinks about his departure from this earth and [so he] is concerned to make sure that Isaac is married while he is still alive.” He adjures Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac from among his own people, which brings Eliezer to Rebecca.

It’s at this point that we’re presented with very different approaches to leadership and legacy. Rebecca’s brother, Laban, sees the golden rings and bracelets, which Eliezer has brought for Rebecca, and senses an opportunity to get in with a wealthy family. He supports the marriage and tells Eliezer to take his sister and “לך.” “Go.” This resembles the famous words of just a couple chapters prior, when God tells Abraham, “לך לך.” Not merely “Go,” but “Go for yourself.” There, God is guiding Abraham to where he needs to be in order to become a great nation. Not only for Abraham’s good but because “האדמה משפחת כל בך נברכוו” - “…all the families of the land will bless themselves by you” (Bereshit 12:3). God empowers Abraham with a clear and salient summation of purpose: “ברכה היה” - “…be a blessing” (Bereshit 12:2). Elevate people. Leave the world better off than it was before.

Laban’s “לך,” however, is missing the second part: “לך.” He is not telling Rebecca to go for herself, or for the good of others, but is likely motivated by securing his own good. He seizes upon the opportunity for self-advancement. This is the major challenge of our world today. Those who take ויקם to mean “establish,” without concern for the “elevation” aspect.

And then there’s Rebecca. Her father and brother, Bethuel and Laban, turn to her and ask, “Will you go with this man?” Rebecca responds, “אלך” – “I will go” (Bereshit 24:58). Rebecca’s “לך” is unique from both God’s words to Abraham and Laban’s words to Eliezer. Because she isn’t receiving a direct promise from God that all will go well for her. And having just watered a stranger’s camels (NOW you can say it), I think it’s safe to say she isn’t looking to exploit him. אלך means doing what is right for its own sake. It’s why Rebecca is the exact right person to protect Abraham’s legacy and help pioneer this new religion.

Because unlike with Laban, for Rebecca, it’s not about gold bracelets. Targum Yonatan, the Aramaic translation of Prophets, dissects the verse: “Now it came about, when the camels had finished drinking, [that] the man took a golden nose ring, weighing half [a shekel], and two bracelets for her hands, weighing ten gold [shekels]” (Bereshit 24:22). It explains that the half shekel nose ring alludes to the half shekel tax, which served as a census for the children of Israel in the desert – a way to count every head. The two bracelets weighing ten gold shekels are symbolic of the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments. Read this way, Rebecca literally takes the future of the Jewish people into her hands.

“Chayei Sarah” means the lives of Sarah. Why is it plural? Maybe that’s because we all get this one life, and then after we’re gone, we also get to leave behind a legacy. Today we read the lives of Sarah. Tomorrow we write our own.

Vayera 11/16/19

Seeing the Divine Presence

By Natan Freller, TBA Rabbinic Intern

In last week’s parasha, Lech Lecha, we were able to experience Avraham’s divine call. Avraham heard a unique voice that gave him the guidance needed to pursue his on path with his family and his community. It is hard for me to imagine that God had not revealed Godself to anyone else other than Avraham until then, for God is always present in the world. Rather than God being the first one to reach out at this moment, I think this was the first time that someone reached out to hear the divine call. Avraham was a pioneer. Avraham was countercultural.

This week’s parasha begins with God appearing to Avraham right after his circumcision, the physical symbol of their covenant. What is the difference of last week’s revelation, when Avraham heard the divine call to this week’s revelation, when God appears to Avraham?

In the first verse, we only read that God appeared to Avraham, but there is no description of what it looks like. In the next verse, Avraham raises his eyes and sees three men standing near him. Avraham sees them and runs to greet them, welcoming them into his tent, offering water, rest and food.

Our sages read here a common feature of biblical poetry, after a generic statement, a more detailed description is followed. According to this perspective, the appearance of these three men is somehow the divine presence. Many will explain it saying that these three were angels of God. I want to offer another, maybe more literal, reading of this passage.

Three men were walking on their journey. They saw Avraham sitting outside his tent. They stopped by to check in. This is how God looks like. The divine presence is there when people show up for each other.

Avraham was in pain, recovering from his circumcision, and when he saw people showing up, he saw the divine presence acting there. He didn’t think twice we did the same. Avraham offered water, rest and food to these three men immediately, enhancing the divine in that moment.

When reading the book of Bereshit we are challenged to find the essence of these complex characters in the story and relate to them, aiming to learn moral lessons, being inspired by godly decisions they made.

After hearing the divine call, becoming part of the covenant with God, Avraham was ready to behave differently. Avraham was open to change and to be changed.

“Just as God visits the sick, so too, we should visit the sick.” This is how the Talmud interprets this event, reminding us that Avraham just had his circumcision. We need to learn from where we see God’s presence, when our ancestors made godly decisions and internalize these divine attributes. This is a key aspect of developing our Jewish identity, following the footsteps of those who came before us in order to create our own trail. Know who you are, know what you stand for, because God speaks to everyone and it is our responsibility to develop our capacity of listening.

Just like Avraham did after his call, we need to stand up and run to action, transforming identity, values, attributes, into action and behavior. Judaism is not centered around what Jews think, but it is all about what Jews do. Jewish religious practice is known as halacha – the Jewish way – for we are always walking our journeys, we are active, we change and we grow.

We learn from the three men that we have to go out of our comfort zone in order to be available for others, specially those who don’t feel seen or heard, who might be in need of our support.

We learn from Avraham to give without asking for reciprocity, doing what is right for it is the right thing to do. We learn from Avraham to welcome the people we don’t know and make them feel safe and have their needs taken care of.

We live in community. Some of us might have been here for longer they can count. Some of us might be here today for the first time. It is time for us to be more like Avraham and not wait, but run towards those approaching and see the divine in them.

I want to share with you today the blessing of Avraham in his open tent. May we all merit to be blessed with the potential of seeing the divine presence in each and every one. We are all made in God’s image.

Lekh-Lekha 11/9/19

Eulogies for my friends Dr. Baruch Link & Nate Milmeister

By Danielle Berrin

In memory and honor of our friends Dr. Baruch Link and Nathan Milmeister, Danielle Berrin has written some words to share with us all about their journeys through life, how they impacted an entire community and yet every individual felt unique and special.

Dr. Baruch Link:

Baruch was sweet and gentle and kind, a brilliant mind, the consummate conversationalist, a loving and devoted friend and family man. But he was more than adjectives. More than a description. Baruch was more like a novel.

We all know the cliche “you are what you eat,” but with Baruch it’d be more apt to say, “he was what he read.” His personality, character, relationships, illness and struggles, his gifts and passions; his entire experience was as worthy a narrative as any of the many books of literature he so loved. And just as in the great works of literature that have described and defined and lent meaning to human life since the Bible, his was the kind of character so rich and refined it took but a moment of being in his presence to feel on some visceral level who he was.

I met him through Teri, a soft-spoken but mighty angel of a woman, who wasted not a day before approaching me with her warmth and sensitivity and kindness in the Beth Am daily minyan back in 2013. I met Baruch only a little later, probably at a Shabbat dinner, and as soon as I did, he took me in as one of his own. Both Teri and Baruch made me feel like family - a surrogate daughter of sorts, especially when Tal and Shmuel were not in LA.

And then there was Baruch on the phone. I remember the first time he called, it was to wish me happy birthday, and I had missed the call and saw it was from Teri’s cell phone. So, you can imagine my surprise and delight when I received a voicemail from Baruch - ‘sha-lom’ calling to bless me and make me feel loved.

Over time Baruch and I bonded over many subjects -- as writers, as people who love words, and literature. We’d always discuss politics - the politics of LA Jewry, American Jewry and of course, his beloved Israel. I remember early on, he loaned me a book he was so excited to share with me. I remember I took it home, set it on my night table, building myself up for this magical world Baruch wanted me to enter. Only to discover that the book was written entirely in Hebrew. I just didn’t have the heart to tell him I wasn’t fluent. So, I kept the book long enough to pretend I’d actually read it, and later, when I returned it and he asked me how I liked it, I of course said, “It was wonderful, powerful, exquisitely crafted!” And his response about the characters and the images and the lessons and the prose was so detailed and descriptive, I felt as if I actually HAD read the book.

That was Baruch’s gift. The ability to inspire and impart meaning through language and literature, prose and poetry.

I don’t need to tell you that according to our tradition, the world was created with words. But I wonder how often we pause to consider the impact of what that means. He spent his life living in concert with God in the ultimate act of creation and was able to express his own divine essence by creating worlds with words.

We are, after all, the people of the book. When we weren’t strong, when we were stateless and powerless, our people wrote texts. It has sustained us long after the authors have passed and the events of history have sought to smite us. Baruch entered history to restore us to the language of the soul and the spirit.

Nate Milmeister:

I met Nate at the TBA daily minyan, but my friendship with him deepened because I couldn’t resist popping in next door to visit him, or run outside when I saw him walking around the neighborhood with his caretaker and his cane. He called me regularly, we went out to Italian dinners where I’d order wine and he’d always order dessert. He knew everything about everyone — he loved kibbitzing, gossip, telling stories.

Twice, I took him to the emergency room — which horrified me, but he was always so blasé about it, “I’m in my 90s, I’ll survive anything.”

When I think about what his essence was, I think about his innocence and his youthfulness. Maybe because he didn’t experience all the things we expect of adults at that point in their lives - he never married, he never had kids. Maybe that joie de vivre was one of his gifts. A blessing. His Torah to teach. You know the quote, “It takes a long time to become young?” He had this purity of heart. A simplicity about him. He wasn’t much for conflicts, or politics, he was the rare human being who no ‘bad blood.’

Now that he’s gone, I’ll miss his totally distinctive vernacular - his Nate language - in which he’d say things like: “I’ll be there in two shakes of a lambs tail.” Or “I’m not schmearin ya.”

For someone who never married, Nate had the innocence of a bride, in a way. Or I should say, a bridegroom.

I think of him when I recall the words of Mary Oliver, who wrote:

“When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.”

Nate was no tourist. He lived simply but he lived well. He gave generously. He loved deeply. He had no wife but he was married to amazement, to gratitude, to friends and family, to his beloved community. He was married to life.

In death he will be greatly missed and lovingly remembered. But frankly, God is lucky to have him. God is in for some real entertainment.

Zichronam livracha, may their memory forever be a blessing and may they live on in the hearts and minds

of those who knew and loved them both.

Noah 11/2/19

Walking with God, and walking with peers
By Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

There is a principle in the field of Adaptive Leadership called “immunity to change.” I have participated in precise, highly-curated protocols in which people are walked through a series of questions that expose our normal, human stubbornness with respect to internal change. We think it may be easy. New Year’s Resolutions are common (and commonly violated, rather quickly). High Holiday davveners dutifully recite the confessional and beat their chests, and yet somehow are not surprised when the same transgressions are at play, and problematic, one year later. We humans are rather immune to change (and concomitantly aware of how much change we would like others to go through!).

Change is hard. Trying to be different, and better, is elusive. We hope and pray it is not illusory. And we have been struggling with this concept for millennia. Furthermore, we have been projecting this dynamic onto our biblical ancestors, those sacred characters in whom we see so much of ourselves, for generations.

This week I am particularly moved, and prodded, by a commentary on Noah by the Kedushat Levi, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev (18th-19th Hasidic sage, Ukraine). The Berditchever piles on to some of the withering critique that previous rabbis aimed at Noah, seeing him as not being in the same league of righteousness as, say, Avraham. Why? Rashi says that God commanded Noah to build the ark, rather than just have it appear by miracle, so that Noah could use that time, and the reactions of his doomed neighbors to the oddity of building such a vessel, to try to bring others from his generation from evil to goodness. Yet, he didn’t convince one person. The Kabbalisitic sage the Arizal (16th C, Tzfat, Israel) went so far as to say that Noah was so tragically flawed (even as the most righteous one of his generation) and so resistant to change and growth, that his soul left the earth with unfinished business, and was reincarnated as Moshe, a man who had no qualms about pushing God to act more righteously, and a man who constantly rebuked the Israelites for their own shortcomings. According to the Berditchiever, being good to one’s peers is as important as, and is an integral part of, being good to God. And part of being good to one’s peers “involves more than being helpful and charitable. It includes admonishing one’s neighbor when one observes him violating God’s commandments.” Moshe succeeded in this. Avraham is understood to have brought proselytes closer to God. Noah is read uncharitably in this regard. Even the description, which seems praiseworthy, of Noah’s walking with God (את האלים התהלך נח / et ha’elohim hithalekh Noah) is understood in this commentary as being limiting. He walked with God, perhaps. But not with his peers. He could not change them. He didn’t even try. He let their evil persist. In his words, “He was in step with God. But out of step with his peers.”

This Hasidic interpretation rings loudly true these days, and also folds in on itself. On the one hand, there are too many in our midst who are self-satisfied with their devotion to the Holy One, but fail repeatedly in treating peers with dignity and respect. And there are others amongst us who make themselves vulnerable and take risks in order to bring others closer to goodness, to do the just and the right. Their active engagement with their fellow humans, citizens, Jews, neighbors, shul-goers is in the spirit of what commentators admire in Moshe and Avraham for doing, and castigate Noah for failing to do. I learn from their example as I reckon with my own obligation to be “prophet” (moving people from their stubborn, moored ways) while remaining committed and devoted to the task of “pastor” (meeting and comforting people where and as they truly are). So this teaching pushes and goads me. At the same time, I observe far too many examples where what is criticized in Noah’s temperament for his failure to do is, itself, overdone. And the pushing of others towards the just is done with insufficient care. It can, even when motivated by the good, slide into unbridled castigation of the other, such that folks might indeed be trying to be in step with their peers, and bring their peers more into step…and yet at times doing so in a way that may be seen as no longer walking with God.

Change is hard. People have evolutionary, societal and biologically-driven urges to remain as they are. We notice the changes that others “must” do quicker and more sharply than we see our own lacunae. We must, as the Berditchiver urges, engage with our fellow to bring God’s world closer to goodness. And we must aim to do it in a manner, that itself, exemplifies the divine attributes to which we all aspire.

Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

B'reisheet 10/26/19

By Natan Freller, TBA Rabbinic Intern

We are all made in God’s image.

If there is something I truly believe with no doubt, is that we are all made in God’s image. All of us. No exception.

Reading year after year the same texts might be alienating for some, and maybe, an eye-opening experience for others. I have been in both places, moving back and forth. This year I’m making a deliberate effort to make this ritual an eye-opening experience week after week. It’s hard, I know. But living a meaningful Jewish life requires intentional spiritual work, a new cycle is here to refresh our souls and give us a new boost of energy to get there!

וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹקים נַֽעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ

And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Beresheet 1:26)

This verse has been among the most commented verse in the entire Torah. Since the time when the second Temple was still around, our people have been concerned with this statement. The Talmud (Megillah 9a) mentions that in the translation of the Septuagint (Greek translation, 3rd century BCE), the wise translators wrote: " אעשה אדם בצלם ובדמות " “I shall make humankind in image and

in likeness”.

Why did they change the text? Isn’t it supposed to be an accurate translation? What is the problem with the original form?

Jews have been concerned with what other peoples would think about our truths and would avoid giving them material for creating arguments against their monotheistic tradition. In this text, the use of a possible plural form (Let us make) and the plural suffix attached to צלם (image) and דמות (likeness),

could indicate a plurality of Gods creating humankind together.

Among the most traditional views on that verse, and probably the one you learned in Hebrew School, is supported by Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Rashbam, and many other commentators. God was talking to the angels. Humankind was created in the image and likeness of God and the angels. What a creative way of solving the textual problem that, in order to avoid giving other peoples an argument against a Jewish theology, our Sages created out of it a new Jewish theology, once this is clearly not the contextual meaning of the verse, where the angels aren’t mentioned at all. Note that God only took counsel from the angels, according to this view. Rashi teaches that by taking counsel from them, it teaches us a lesson about God’s humility. But the creation itself, happens in the next verse without any help from any other creature.

On a personal note, I have a hard time with this truth. Even understanding the ethical and moral teachings that we can learn from it, it always sounded too supernatural for me (even more than the rest of the story!).

This year, as we begin to read the same Torah once more, I challenged myself to go beyond and learn this passage with different eyes and tools, trying to find my truth within my people’s true revelation. The Torah might be the same, but we are definitely not the same anymore.

The good thing about learning Torah and looking for different interpretations, is that you are probably not alone. Many others in our history probably already struggled with the same issue and wrote their thoughts down to be carried out until our generation.

The first companion I found in this week’s journey was the Ramban, Spanish Rabbi from the 13th century. Ramban, although very mystical, reads our verse very differently. He goes back to state that the world was created from nothing (ex nihilo) on the first day. Since then, everything was created out of the foundational elements of the world. Following this idea, Ramban understands that God was talking to the Earth! Our souls come from God and our bodies come from the foundational elements of the Earth, or atoms, if you will. Later I discovered that the Radak (Rabbi David Kimhi) and his father, Rabbi Yosef Kimhi, have also supported similar readings.

Many Sages attempted to explain the meaning of צלם (image) and דמות (likeness). Maybe one has

to do with a physical form, and connects with the idea that the first human being was named Adam, drawing from the physical earth, called adama, in hebrew; and the other is linked to God’s attributes, with no physicality at all, but with a potential for creation and dominion over other beings. Even though each word might have had a specific meaning to the author, Radak offers many verses from different parts of the Tanach, that later on they are used kind of interchangeably.

We are all made in God’s image. Maybe not a physical resemblance, since God has no physicality, but we are definitely God-like. The eternal and supreme divine power gives us constantly the power of creativity and the freedom of choice to make godly decisions through a continuous creation that began in Beresheet and is an intrinsic part of our lives now.

Shabbat Beresheet is the time to roll back the Torah and restart our annual reading cycle. This is also a time to allow ourselves to open our hearts and our minds to the infinite wisdom that Torah contains. Torah is a mirror. As we look into the Torah, the Torah looks back at us to share abundant wisdom. This interaction is only possible if we roll it, open it, dive in it, and make ourselves vulnerable enough to see our reflection in the words of our tradition.

We are all made in God’s image. In looking into the Torah, we see God as we see ourselves. We find what is divine in our lives and we can let God in to be with us in this new cycle.

If there is something I truly believe with no doubt, is that we are all made in God’s image. All of us. No exception.

Vayelekh 10/5/19

The Transfer of Power
By Rabbi Mordechai Silverstein, Conservative Yeshiva Faculty

The whole of Sefer Devarim is the final communication of a departing leader to his people. And although Moshe is the "humblest of men" we see him struggling to make peace with it all - his successes and failures, his anxiety about the future, his inability to see things through to the end, and perhaps even his own mortality. We don't get to see everything he went through, but elsewhere in Devarim we get glimpses of various early stages of grief such as anger (Devarim 1:34-38) and bargaining (3:23-25). Although each time God tells Moshe, "You shall not go across the Jordan," he also says "Yehoshua is the one who shall cross before you" (31:5), through most of Devarim Moshe seems to focus solely on the first part. He assumes an even more prominent position, delivering long lectures to teach, scold, and encourage his flock.

But in our parashah this week, Parshat Vayelekh, Moshe seems to have arrived at the fifth stage of grief - acceptance - as he finally turns his attention to Yehoshua. With God's prompting Moshe passes the torch and offers some mild words of encouragement: "Then Moshe called Yehoshua and said to him in the sight of all of Israel: 'Be strong and resolute, for it is you who shall go with the people into the land that the Lord swore to their fathers to give them, and it is you who will apportion it to them...'" (31:7)

But is this really enough for Yehoshua to be successful? Although Yeshohua had been close to Moshe for many years, it was as his attendant and assistant, not his disciple or understudy! They both must have felt the enormous gap there was - not only in their experience and wisdom but in their standing with the people. Imagine a personal assistant being appointed the new CEO! Sensing this, Sifre Devarim, a midrash from the period of the Mishnah, adds new details to the story:

The Holy One, blessed be He, replied to Moshe, saying, "Give Yehoshua a spokesman, and let him question, respond, and give instructions while you are still living, so that when you depart from this world, Israel might not say to him, ''During your master's lifetime you did not speak out, and now you do!?'" Some say that Moshe lifted Yehoshua up from the ground, and placed him between his knees (stood him on a stool), so that Moshe and Israel had to raise their heads in order to hear Yehoshua's words. What did Yehoshua say? "Blessed be the Lord who has given the Torah to Israel at the hands of our master Moshe"- those were Yehoshua's words. (Siman 305, Finkelstein ed. p. 324)

Knowing their capacity for disobedience, it is not enough for Moshe just to say that Yehoshua will succeed him. So God has Moshe set Yehoshua up for success in two ways: first, by showing that Yehoshua is his own person with his own thoughts and capabilities, and second, by showing that he ascends to leadership with Moshe's blessing and not as some kind of usurper. How often do we see leaders, unable or unwilling to cede power, do the opposite - belittling any potential successor or casting suspicion upon them?

Why is it so hard for leaders to transfer power gracefully? Surely Moshe knew he would not live forever and that for his life's work to outlive him, someone else would need to assume the mantle of responsibility. Perhaps the same "ego" that makes it hard for leaders to step aside is what made them step up in the first place. Leaders often are, and may need to be motivated by the idea that nobody else can or will do what must be done.

But even if a leader is essential at the beginning, the best leaders make themselves less and less necessary. In Egypt, Moshe was indeed alone. When he struck and killed the Egyptian taskmaster (Shemot 2:12), he "looked this way and that" before realizing he was the only one who could or would act. What keeps Moshe's death from being a tragedy is knowing that he is, finally, not alone. He has prepared Yehoshua and his people to honor his teaching and carry it forward.

5778

Beha-Alotekha 6/2/18

Reckoning With God
By: Salvador Litvak

A year ago, my son Avi and I began a weekly Torah study of his bar mitzvah parsha. It has been a wonderful journey, one I recommend to all parents. Is 52 hours a lot of time to spend on verses that can be read aloud in ten minutes? No, because the Torah is fractal. Go deep in any one spot, and find whole new worlds of meaning.

The first lines we encountered give the parsha its name: “When you light the lamps, the seven lamps shall cast their light toward the face of the menorah.” According to the Talmud (Men. 98b), this means the wicks of the oil lamps were arranged so that the outer six were oriented toward the center lamp, which sat not on a “branch” but rather on the menorah itself.

The center light represents the Holy One, the outer lights represent the people. One might think that the wicks should be arranged outward, thus spreading the light as much as possible and creating more honor for the Lord. The Talmud answers that we actually create the most light for others, when we orient ourselves toward God.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe took another approach, and based his entire, world-changing movement on it. Beha’alotecha literally means “when you cause to ascend.” The Talmud specifies, “kindle the lamp until the flame rises by itself” (Shab. 21a). The Rebbe created an army of emissaries around the idea that every Jewish soul is a candle waiting to be lit. When we share Torah, we kindle those flames until they burn with their own precious light.

Avi and I enjoyed these approaches, but we were struck by the fact that it says, “the seven lamps shall cast their light toward the face of the menorah.” If the “face” means the center, then what is the center light doing? How does it face the center?

Avi suggested the center light faces itself. If the center light represents God, this means God faces Godself. When we speak of facing ourselves, we usually mean a personal reckoning of our deeds. God doesn’t have to account to anyone, yet God created an opportunity to do exactly that by creating humans with conscience and free will.

Like characters in a dream, our thoughts are God’s thoughts, and our deeds are God’s deeds. Each of us is entrusted to represent our Maker in a series of life choices that will illuminate a unique aspect of God’s character. When God makes that personal reckoning of Godself, and reaches our little corner of the universe, it is our actions that determine whether God’s own mission has been successful.

May we merit to make the Holy One smile at that moment!

Shemini 4/14/18

Prepared by TBA Rabbinic Intern, Rachel Marder

Reflections on Yom Hashoah
The Claims Conference published a startling survey this week that many Americans lack basic knowledge about the Holocaust. Thirty-one percent of respondents and 41% of millenials believe that 2 million or fewer Jews were killed and 52% do not know that Hitler was democratically elected. I worry about the long-term implications of ignorance, and that the rallying cry of “Never Forget” will be lost in this generation. I fear not only that we are forgetting the lessons of the Holocaust, as nationalism and anti-semitism are on the rise around the world, but also that we will forget the survivors and victims themselves.

Each year we hold a Yom HaShoah ceremony at American Jewish University, which includes a display of black and white photographs of Holocaust victims. I have to remind myself that the people in the photos were real, flesh and blood individuals who lived in color. They spoke many languages and participated in Jewish and cultural life. They had hopes and dreams, professions, talents, and personalities. They are not only victims. They did not live in black and white, and they were not always frozen in time.

As we recommit this year to never forgetting the 6 million, let us also commit to never forgetting the real people behind this figure. Who were the men, women, and children behind the millions? What made them smile? Whom did they love? What gave them hope? Let us listen to the survivors’ testimony in person and in museums, read their books, and teach our young people to relate to them.

The animated film Coco , whose backdrop is the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead, offers us a message about memory that speaks to us deeply as Jews. In the film, when people die they simply move to the Land of the Dead, a parallel world to the Land of the Living. Each year on the Day of the Dead when families display photos of their deceased loved ones, celebrate their lives, and tell stories about them, the spirits visit from the Land of the Dead. As long as their photo is displayed they can visit. And when one of the deceased in the Land of the Dead starts to physically disappear, one of the characters explains that “he’s been forgotten. When there’s no one left in the living world who remembers you, you disappear from this world. We call it the Final Death.” The dead are not truly dead as long as they are remembered.

We are in the midst of counting the Omer, the first 32 days of which are considered a period of mourning. According to the Talmud, 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s students died tragically of a plague during the period between Pesach and Shavuot (they stopped dying on day 33). The text says: “The world was desolate of Torah until Rabbi Akiva came to our Rabbis in the South and taught his Torah to them… Although Rabbi Akiva’s earlier students did not survive, his later disciples were able to transmit the Torah to future generations” (Yevamot 62b). Rabbi Akiva’s lost students lived on through later disciples who continued teaching their Torah. They were remembered and their Torah was preserved until today.

When it comes to victims of the Holocaust, there are many who no longer, or never had someone to remember them, or say Kaddish for them. Let us commit to learning the stories, honoring the memories, and learning the Torah of every person we are able to. When we say, “May their memory be for a blessing,” let us allow the victims’ memories to enrich our lives and really be a blessing, a source for goodness in the world. Let us remember and teach about them not only as figures in distant black and white photographs, but as real people like each of us. And while we teach, let the cry of “Never Forget” guide us as we navigate life’s storms.

Tzav 3/24/18

Our Daily Offerings By: Rabbinic Intern, Rachel Marder

In her stunning memoir If All the Seas Were Ink, Ilana Kurshan writes about her seven-year journey studying one page of Talmud a day. Kurshan weaves together all that is going on in her life with the daily Talmudic discussion and insight. During those seven years, she gets divorced, remarries, and gives birth to her four children. Through heartache, joy, and tremendous change, her study of Talmud remains consistent. Kurshan demonstrates what it means to “make your Torah fixed,” as Shammai advises us to do in Pirke Avot 1:15. Through ups and downs, struggles, and triumphs, the text serves as an anchor that helps her find meaning in every moment.

Now caring for young children, Kurshan, once an avid shul-goer, laments that she can’t find time or space to pray. While emptying the dishwasher of yesterday’s dishes one early morning, she is listening to her daf yomi (daily Talmud page) podcast, which happens to be discussing t’rumat hadeshen, the first ritual activity performed in the Temple in Jerusalem every morning, which involved the priests clearing away the ashes of the previous day’s sacrifices from the altar. The mitzvah of t’rumat hadeshen is derived from parashat Tzav, in which the priests receive instruction on how to perform daily sacrifices in the mishkan, the Israelites’ portable worship space in the desert. The verse reads:

“And [the priest] shall take up the ashes to which the fire has reduced the burnt offering on the altar and place them beside the altar. He shall then take off his vestments and put on other vestments, and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place” (Leviticus 6:3-4).

Kurshan is struck by the similarity between this ancient ritual and the one she is performing for her family. She writes: “I thought about how t’rumat hadeshen is not unlike emptying the dishwasher, a ritual that links the day that has passed to the day that is dawning. While trying not to let the glasses clink against one another, I peered out our kitchen window to watch the sun begin to paint the sky above our view of the Old City where the Temple once stood. I froze the breast milk I had pumped the previous day and cleaned out the bottles, and then I set up Matan’s place setting with his map-of-the-world placemat and his monkey sippy cup. These are activities I perform every morning; they are love’s austere and lonely offices, and they are, in a sense, my version of the Korban Tamid, the daily sacrifice offered every morning in the Temple.”

In a post-Temple society, the Rabbis ordained regular prayer, Shabbat, Torah study, and giving of tzedakah as our touchstone spiritual practices in place of Temple ritual. These regular mitzvot represent ways to keep “a perpetual fire… burning on the altar” (6:6). But Kurshan teaches us another spiritual practice: showing love to the people around us by performing acts of service every day. When the priests clear away the ashes to make way for new sacrifices, they are telling the Israelites that their offerings are welcomed, God is receiving and appreciating their gifts, and their presence and participation here matter. The priests are also communicating their love for God in this seemingly mundane task. God does not need the ashes cleared away. Cleaning God’s plate for a new day, clearing away the day’s residue to begin again and receive new offerings, shows God honor and respect.

Chores like doing laundry or washing dishes, and listening, expressing gratitude, and sharing what we love about someone each day, are our daily offerings. The hard work of caretaking and sustaining relationships invites holy connection into our lives. The regularity and our loving intention behind acts of service elevate them. What do you do each day that might feel ordinary but contains a spark of holiness? How do you nourish and support those around you? How do you give, listen, and care regularly? How do others care for you? I invite you to see the ways you give and receive love as moments of profound spiritual connection.

Vayikra 3/17/18

Prepared by Pressman Academy student, Ezra Rosenthal

In Vayikra, the Torah goes into explicit detail about sacrifice, but what I found most interesting was learning about who was obligated to bring offerings and why. I was especially interested in the rules that guide community leaders. “If it is the appointed priest who has incurred guilt so that blame falls upon the people, he shall offer for the sin of which he is guilty a bull of a herd without blemish as a purification offering to the Lord” (Vayikra, Chapter 4 verse 3). This passage seems to say that our leader must bring bigger sacrifices than regular citizens and that if a leader sins, he or she will bring sin upon the whole community through his or her actions.

This made me think about the responsibility of leadership. Everyone, even our leaders make mistakes and I am glad that Judaism sees mistakes as part of life and allows people to be forgiven and do better next time. When a community selects a leader or when a person steps up into a position of leadership, he or she has agreed to be honorable and responsible. If that promise is broken, the leader has let the people down. The part of the pasuk that says that blame for the leader’s actions will fall upon the people stuck out to me. I realized that it might mean that people follow what their leaders do, so if the leader is sinning, the people will begin to follow his or her example. I think the leader is obligated to bring a big, public sacrifice as a sign to the people that the leader’s actions were wrong and should not be replicated.

I am glad that Judaism offers a path to forgiveness, but I am also glad to live in modern times when I don’t need to offer a sacrifice in order to show that I am taking responsibility for my actions. Killing an animal to atone for a sin doesn’t make sense to me—it is like you are committing a new sin to make up for what you have already done wrong. Learning what some Rabbis teach about sacrifice, I don’t think I am alone in feeling this way. Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz writes in an article in The Jewish Week that he is glad sacrifices are no longer required. He says that we “must be a light unto the nations, not a source of darkness by returning to a practice once deemed honorable but now perceived by the global masses as barbaric.” Abraham Joshua Heschel said prayer is a higher form of sacrifice because prayer is meant to help us give up our selfish feelings and replace them with love for others. Even right after the Temple was destroyed, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai taught that we can earn God’s forgiveness and approval by doing acts of hesed for our fellow human beings, rather than by giving gifts and sacrifices to God.

The Torah goes into explicit detail about all of the rules governing sacrifice, but I wonder what this world would be like if we had rules as specific as those about sacrifice to guide the way we treat one another?

Vayakhel-Pekude 3/10/18

By: Myra Meskin, Rabbinical Student at Ziegler

In 1983, the Conservative movement began ordaining women rabbis. Throughout the next 25 years, the issue of homosexuality was hotly debated within the movement, but it wasn’t until late 2006 that the CJLS voted to begin accepting gay and lesbian rabbinical and cantorial students. In 2012 the movement formally approved same-sex marriage ceremonies, and now in 2018 a range of contested issues, including politics, Israel and intermarriage, all demand attention from the religious body politic. I don’t claim to know the way forward on these issues, but I know that our proven path of rigorous commitment to tradition, with an attitude of spiritual seeking and innovation is one venerated by this week’s parsha.

After renewing the covenant with God, symbolized by the second set of stone tablets, the Israelites finally begin the task of building the Tabernacle – a process described at length in this week’s double parsha Vayakel-Pikudei. Moses instructs the Israelites to contribute gifts for the building of the Tabernacle, and the people respond with extreme generosity. Very quickly however, this giving spirit turns from generosity to excess: “their efforts had been more than enough for all the tasks to be done,” (Exodus 36:7).

An interesting take on what this overabundance is really about comes from the Kedushat Levi, the principal work of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, the primary disciple of the Maggid of Mezrich and one of the original Hasidic masters of the 18th century. He points out that Bezalel, the chief architect of the Tabernacle, was endowed with a special “ רוח אלוקים ” – a Divine spirit (Exodus 35:31), and the overabundance that

Bezalel has is not actually in physical gifts, but in Divine spirit:

This is what is meant by the word והותר , “there was an overabundance,” i.e. there

was enough holy spirit that had been provided to enable Bezalel and his assistants to build the Tabernacle, but instead of exhausting it at the time, Bezalel, in his modesty, was content to leave a surfeit of it to be used by Torah scholars, who in a way are also Torah “architects,” to delight their audiences with their insights in their respective generations.1

The Kedushat Levi makes two remarkable claims here: first, that the Divine spirit which inspired the famous artistry of Bezalel, is the same Divine spirit which we are granted for the creative interpretation of Torah; and second, that this gift of creative interpretation stems from the modesty of Bezalel.

Rabbi Steven Greenberg, though not a Conservative Jew, describes beautifully the attitude of progressive revelation that inspires our movement to take Bezalel’s legacy seriously. Rabbi Greenberg explains that the ambiguity of the Torah text, which allows for the generations of reinterpretations which Bezalel envisions, proves its holiness: “An eternal work needs to be a beacon for all moments of human history. It needs to press toward deeper values while not prematurely attempting to force paradise on us. It says what it can, and then it points, sometimes overtly and sometimes obliquely, toward Eden.”2

Bezalel knew that to reveal all of the beauty of God’s Torah in one generation would result in waste and loss – a Torah too thunderous for one generation to grasp. Rather, we need to ask what greater justice and inclusion can be accomplished in our time, and then we must embody that same modesty, to leave more of the beauty of Torah to be revealed in its time. Though we may not yet know the right course for this generation, we know that ours is a path traveled by many righteous generations before us, and we use their legacy to propel us to take the next cautious step forward.

Shabbat shalom.

1Translation from www.sefaria.org

2 Rabbi Steven Greenberg, “Wrestling with God and Men, Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition,” p. 210.

Ki Tissa 3/3/18

Ki Tisa – 2018/5778

Natan Freller

Reading this week’s parasha, Ki Tisa, reminded me about one of my favorite psukim (verses) from the entire Torah: “Observe them (the mitzvot) faithfully, for that will be proof of your wisdom (חָכְמַתְכֶם – chochmatchem) and discernment (וּבִ֣ינַתְכֶם – uvinatchem) to other peoples, who upon hearing of all these laws will say: Surely, that great nation is a wise (חָכָם – chacham) and discerning (וְנָבוֹן – venavon) people.” (Devarim 4:6). I understand this pasuk as the Mission of the Jewish people since wisdom and discernment are characteristics that others can only identify when paying attention to one’s behavior. Those are not characteristics that cannot be identified just by our physicality, one needs to pay attention to how they are expressed in one’s behavior.

This week’s parasha tells us about the moment when Betzalel, the architect of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) was appointed for the task: “See, I have singled out by name Betzalel son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Yehuda. I have filled him with the Spirit of God — with wisdom (חכמה - chochma), understanding (תבונה - tevuna) and knowledge (דעת - daat) concerning every kind of craft.” (Shemot 31:2-3). Betzalel is described as someone who owns those characteristics mentioned previously, that I consider our Mission as the Jewish People. A People capable of combining theory and practicality, values and rituals.

Rashi (1040-1105), the most famous Torah commentator, shares his understanding of these characteristics in a very powerful way that became meaningful to me. He explains Wisdom (חכמה – chochma) as: “Is what a person hears from others and learns (makes his own)”. A wise person is the one capable to learn and internalize into one’s own behavior what one can learn from others. As Ben Zoma said in Pirkei Avot 4:1 (known as Ethics of the Fathers): "Who is the wise (חכם) one? The one who learns from everyone." This idea is very humbling to me. We live in an era where dialog and the capacity to listen to each other are so important, and our tradition reminds us of our Mission. Learning from each other is what can make us wise when making it part of our own being, turning knowledge into actions.

Another characteristic that describes Betzalel is understanding (תבונה - tevuna). Rashi’s explanation for the second one resonates with me even more: תבונה – understanding - is to understand a matter by one’s own heart, deducing it from the things one has already learned. Modern thought would describe Rashi’s explanations as ‘learning how to learn’. Our world is changing faster than ever, and one of the most important skills to develop is the ability to understand something new based on one’s previous knowledge. I would add that more important than that is our Mission, transforming what we have learned into action. Changing behavior is a very complicated issue that takes a lot of work; still, our tradition challenges us to face it as a daily routine. When there is a new moral development in our society, a new understanding of right and wrong, it is our duty to pursue the actions that will change our reality.

May this Shabbat inspire us to be like Betzalel. May we find our ways of growing in wisdom and understanding. May we learn from others and from our own experiences and may we succeed in our Mission of transforming our values into our own behavior.

Shabbat Shalom.

Teruma 2/17/18

By: Rachel Marder, Temple Beth Am Rabbinic Intern

Dwelling with God

After finishing the work of creating the world, like any artist, the Holy One stood back and admired this perfect project. “God saw all that God had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). And then life happened. Something spilled on the art project. Humanity displays unimaginable cruelty and disregard for human dignity, and God notices that unlike God’s good and perfect plans “every plan devised in a person’s mind was nothing but evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5). God’s hopes and dreams are dashed, and God decides to destroy the world. Scholars have drawn many literary and thematic parallels between the creation of the world and the creation of the mishkan, the transportable dwelling place for God in the desert. God instructs the Israelites: “Make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). The verb השע , do/make, is repeated in the creation narrative, and stated about 200 times in the building of the mishkan. First God made humanity a world in which to dwell, and now the Israelites are tasked with building a place for God to dwell. Just as God blessed the seventh day after ceasing from the work of creation, at the end of the building of the mishkan, Moses blessed the people (Exodus 40:43), according to midrash saying, “May it be the will of God that the Shechina rest upon the work of your hands.”

But just as the perfection of the world does not last for long, the perfection of the mishkan, which was built according to all of God’s ideal specifications, also bumps up against reality. The mishkan is likened to a miniature, perfect world, and is meant to be a place for God to dwell with the Israelites, but can God really “dwell” in one place? Can we live intimately and physically with God? Is it not as Isaiah notes, “The heaven is My throne And the earth is My footstool: Where could you build a house for Me, what place could serve as My abode?” (Isaiah 66:1)

This time rather than God’s expectations being unmet, we are the ones who are left disappointed by the mishkan’s limitations. Rabbi Shai Held writes in his Torah commentary, The Heart of Torah, that the mishkan is “an oasis of Eden in non-Edenic world.” The contrast between the mishkan, God’s carefully laid plans for dwelling among the Israelites, and what we often experience in the world, is striking. “Instead of a world in which God’s presence is made manifest and almost tangible, we live in a world in which God all too often seems utterly absent,” writes Rabbi Held.

Rather than rejecting the mishkan or giving up on repairing the world out of frustration and disillusionment searching for God, Rabbi Held calls on us to let the mishkan “remind us that the world is intended to be a very large tabernacle - that is, a place in which God’s word is obeyed, God’s presence felt, and God’s dreams for the world fulfilled.” That is our task.

Mishpatim 2/10/18

We Are God’s Echo. And God Is Ours. - By Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Hallmark has made a fortune on the classic, emotional and pathos-heavy “Footsteps” poem. It appears on numerous cards in stores around the country. When a person, after death, sees his life represented as pairs of footprints in the sand, he notices that when times were rough the two pairs became one. If the second pair had been God’s accompanying footprints, well then “where were you, God, when I needed you most?” God’s answer is that during those moments there was only one pair of footprints. “For in those moments, I was carrying you.”

Sappy and sweet. And also, possibly, borrowed from (or at least deeply reminiscent of) a Hasidic commentary on Parshat Mishpatim! Many of us are familiar with the iconic phrase נעשה ונשמע, or na’aseh v’nishmah. These words, which can be translated as “we will do, and we will understand,” are often used to praise our ancestors’ willingness to leap. Into Torah. Into a relationship with God. Into observance. Into rules and structures…all before understanding their meaning. First they said “yes” to God’s Torah. And they hoped, and had faith, that later on they would come to appreciate and embrace the full meaning of the lives to which they committed.

On a simple pshat level, those words thus have great force as motivators in own relationship with leaps of faith and commitments. And yet it is this Hasidic commentary, authored by Rabbi Avraham Mordechai of Ger (who was 4th rebbe of the Ger Dynasty, and who after emigrating from Poland to Palestine in 1940 died in Jerusalem during Jordan’s siege of the Old City on Shavuot in 1948) that speaks to me most poignantly this week. He invites us to read the second verb, nishma, not as “understand,” but as the simpler “hear.” And weaving together several midrashic sources he presents the two-word mantra as an elaborate description of the tethers that connect heaven and heart, that bind Jew to God. Na’aseh. We will do. We will study. We will pray. We will live Torah. V’nishma. And we will hear. What will we hear? We will hear the voice of God, echoing our own activities. When we study Torah, God studies concomitantly in God’s realm. When we visit the sick, God does as well. When we sing, there is a heavenly voice that is emitted at the same time.

We can understand his teaching both metaphysically, with a burst of magical thinking. And also representing a certain theology that can speak to the meaning of our deeds. From the former perspective, we lean in to the notion that there is a God, who is present and real in ways we cannot fully comprehend. And who mirrors our deeds, and is a direct echo of our spiritual life. That notion can be a comfort, in a Footsteps-poem kind of way. When we cry, there are divine tears shed along with us. And when we laugh in exultation, we are not alone.

Beyond the metaphysics, there is an assertion here that the realest way that God exists in the world, and is invoked, is through our deeds. Meaning, it is not necessarily positing a true divine echo, apart from us. But rather that the only way that God’s voice and realness is manifest is in our actions.

Na’aseh. Let us do. Acts of hesed. And acts of living out Torah. And deeds of meaning. V’nishma. For that may be the purest way for us, and others, to hear the voice of God.

Shabbat Shalom

Miketz 12/16/17

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Rachel Marder

Acquainted with the Light

“I have been one acquainted with the night,” writes Robert Frost. “I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat/And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet/When far away an interrupted cry/Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky/Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.”

Frost captures here the loneliness that can envelop a person in the throes of depression. The darkness is all-consuming, isolating, exhausting, and terrifying. We are particularly vulnerable to seasonal depression during these winter months, when night falls fast. The darkness outside can trigger a darkness inside of us, and intensify the cruel and lying voice in our head that puts us down and tells us we are not enough.

Adam harishon, the first person, knew this feeling well. The Talmud teaches that when he for the first time observed the days getting shorter he cried out. “Oy! Perhaps because I sinned, the world around me is becoming dark and returning to its state of chaos and disorder? This is the death that was sentenced upon me from Heaven!” Adam fell into despair, blaming himself for the darkness the fell around him, wondering what he had done to cause the chaos. Adam punished himself by fasting for eight days. He questioned whether he could survive this life. Would light ever return?

But as time passed, he noticed the days getting longer. Little by little, the light was returning. He declared, “This is the way of the world,” minhago shel olam, and he observed a festival for eight days to celebrate (Avodah Zarah 8a). This origin story of Hanukkah is unlike the others; there is no national glory or supernatural miracle of oil lasting longer than expected. But it is a story of the miracles within us. Adam learns that he can overcome darkness. He learns to live in a dark and scary place, knowing he is not to blame for it and that the darkness will pass. Neither winter nor his own sadness will last forever. “This is the way of the world,” the Sages teach. Every life includes periods of both darkness and light. Adam is the first person to be acquainted with the night, and he survives. Perhaps you, like me, know someone who suffered from mental illness and sadly succumbed to the overwhelming darkness in their life. Perhaps you’ve wondered, as I have, if there was more you could have done.

It’s true that we cannot always save the lives of the ones we love, no matter how hard we try. But the message of Hanukkah is one of hope and empowerment: sooner or later, the light always comes back. By lighting one additional candle each night of Hanukkah, we demonstrate that a little bit of light can dispel the darkness around us. One smile, one phone call, one visit go a long way to alleviating one another’s isolation. Know the power of your presence to bring light into someone else’s life. We sing on this holiday: “Banu choshech l’garesh -- We have come to expel darkness; in our hands is light and fire. Everyone's a small light, and all of us together are a strong light.”

As we light our candles this Hanukkah, let us strengthen our own resilience – our power to survive the dark times -- and remember our miraculous ability to diminish the darkness around us. For there is a spark of God in each of us, and together we make a strong and beautifully radiant light.

For information on accessing mental health resources including counseling services, contact Jewish Family Services of Los Angeles at (877) 275–4537.

Vayishlah 12/2/17

In Memory of Rabbi Neil Gillman זצ״ל

Rabbi Neil Gillman died this week in NY. He was a pillar of the Conservative Movement and a teacher to generations of rabbis, like me, who had the privilege of learning with him at the Jewish Theological Seminary. With his permission, I’m sharing excerpts from a eulogy written by Rabbi Daniel Nevins that capture a small portion of the legacy Rabbi Gillman leaves behind:

Dr. Gillman was a giant presence at JTS for well over a half century, beginning with his arrival from Montreal in the mid-1950s. His ordination was from JTS and his doctorate from Columbia. Rabbi Gillman served as dean of the JTS Rabbinical School during a period of transition when women’s ordination was being debated. He was an early advocate for egalitarianism, and continued to teach and model a more inclusive vision of Jewish thought and practice throughout his life. He was also a historian of JTS and Conservative Judaism, publishing a popular volume, and working with a committee to articulate the beliefs of our centrist movement in the volume Emet V’Emunah.

...Sitting in his office surrounded by towers of books, chomping on his pipe, he initiated [rabbinical students] into the ancient conversation of Jewish belief. In his book Sacred Fragments he introduced many of us to the thought of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, specifically the concept of “second naivete,” which described the possibility and even need for a post-enlightenment return to mythic structures in religious faith. In other words, one might absorb the truths of historical development—of the earth, of human life, of culture and even of Torah—and yet also live fully within the mythic structures of revelation, redemption and even resurrection. That last theme became increasingly important to him and was the basis of another outstanding book, The Death of Death. In it, he showed how rabbinic Judaism basically invented the concept of resurrection as a form of theodicy to justify God following the intolerable catastrophes of the destruction of the second temple, and then the Hadrianic persecutions.

Dr. Gillman was as non-fundamentalist as they come, and yet he still felt bound by Jewish traditions. I remember a story he told in class one year about cleaning his refrigerator for Pesah. Apparently there was a crouton that had fallen into a crack and was inaccessible. He knew that he could simply “annul” that hametz in the morning, but he couldn’t sleep. So in the middle of the night he took a screwdriver and attacked the fridge until he had purged the hametz!

One more thing that is important to share. Dr. Gillman maintained deep friendships with many people—colleagues and students—across lines of ideology… Many of us at JTS especially enjoyed observing the continuing friendship between Rabbi Gillman and Rabbi Joel Roth. They were as different from each other in intellectual interests and ideological convictions as you can imagine. Gillman favored Heschel’s “aggadah” over halakhah, whereas as Roth was a student of the great halakhists such as Saul Lieberman z”l. Gillman preferred the indeterminacy of mythic structures, whereas Roth taught about the systemic structures of halakhah. On gay rights, the two parted company, with Gillman as a fervent advocate, and Roth as a reluctant but nevertheless firm opponent of changes that he felt could not be justified within the law. And yet—their friendship remained, deep and true. They could be seen sitting together for lunch, sharing a half century and more of friendship and shared values.

This is how I wish to remember my teacher, Rabbi Dr. Neil Gillman—a person of sharp intellect, broad interests, and deep friendships. A model of critical and constructive faith, a sage and teacher and friend. May his memory be a blessing.

Vayetze 11/25/17

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Rachel Marder

My sister is coming to the end of a very difficult year. When she and my brother-in-law found out they were pregnant with their second child, we were thrilled. Roughly 20 weeks into her pregnancy though, their older child, my two-year-old niece, began experiencing random, terrible stomach pains. Soon after, she was admitted to the hospital and stayed in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit for two weeks. I rushed to be with family. My fiance Hilly and I spent the next few weeks doing whatever needed to be done; laundry, grocery shopping and cooking, minor errands. I learned the value of simply leaping into action, rather than offering, waiting to be told what to do, or asking how I could help. It was the scariest time in our lives. Seeing one of the people you love most in the world suffer is excruciating. I had many moments during those weeks when I felt helpless and terrified. At the end of those two weeks, my niece was diagnosed with a rare form of Lymphoma, for which she would need a year of treatment. I am grateful to God and doctors from the depths of my soul that the treatment has so far been effective.

After watching my own family suffer through illness, I have become acutely aware of the ways in which members of our Beth Am community care for each other, in particular when someone is mourning. Beth Am members show up for those in need; praying with mourners, and also by cleaning, cooking, and shopping for people who are suffering in our midst. I am always in awe of our ability to be present and give of ourselves in these times. This Thanksgiving I am grateful for the human instinct to be and do for each other. I believe this behavior is a reflection of the Divine spark in each of us. When God comforts Jacob when he is fleeing for his life this week, the Holy One says, וְהִנֵּה אָנֹכִי עִמָּךְ (Genesis 28:15)’’ and here I am with you. God promises to protect Jacob and make him a great nation, and most of all, to be by his side. Our desire to “show up” for others is a reflection of God’s enduring ability to be present for us.

Boris Fishman wrote in The New York Times recently about friends of his who received devastating news about one of their children. He happened to be visiting them at the time, and while at first he felt uncomfortable being in their home during their hour of need, something inside him told him to make lunch. It felt like a sacred duty to make his friend Susan a salad just then. “Where just minutes before I’d felt only awkwardness, now I felt something approaching elation. If I were a believer, I would have said God was there. When the salad was ready, Susan embraced me. And what was an opportunity for an unforeseen boundary turned into a moment of greater intimacy than before” (“God Is in the Salad Dressing,” 11/17/2017).

As my niece nears the end of her intensive treatment, I can only think: Modah ani. Grateful am I for her smile and strength. Being an aunt has been the greatest joy of my life. Grateful am I for God’s presence, our presence for each other, and our instinct to do when we don’t know what to do. Thank God for the cooking and other matters of daily life that their family and friends have lifted from my sister and brother-in-law’s shoulders, as they have been carrying so much. Grateful am I to God for giving us these sacred opportunities for intimacy. Grateful am I that God is in the salad dressing.

Vayera 11/4/17

Prepared by Rabbi Ari Lucas, Associate Rabbi, Temple Beth Am

וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלָיו, אַיֵּה שָׂרָה אִשְׁתֶּךָ
And they said to him - Where is Sarah, your wife?
-Genesis 18:9

Take a close look at the beginning of this week’s portion in a Torah scroll and you’ll notice something peculiar. There are 3 nequdot - dots over the letters aleph, yod, and vav. The word “eilav” means “to him.” The letter lamed is the only letter in the word that doesn’t get a dot. What are these markings doing? How did they get there? And what are we to make of them conspicuously placed in our Torah scrolls today?

In his doctoral dissertation, “The Meaning and Purpose of the Extraordinary Points of the Pentateuch,” published in 1906, Romain Butin offers several possible theories to explain the dots in this verse. The most plausible, in his opinion is that the text should have read vayomer lo - and he said to him (i.e. the angel to Abraham), instead of vayom’ru eilav (and they said to him). He points to the fact that in the following verse (v 10), only one of the ministering angels addresses Abraham. It is likely the same angel speaking in verse 9. Why would all three angels ask in unison “Where is Sarah, your wife?” His theory posits that the instructions to scribes was to mark the letters vav, yod, and aleph as questionable - only the scribes got the wrong vav. The “vav” should have referred to the last letter in “vayom’ru,” (see Fig 1) and was mistakenly placed on the last letter in “eilav.” (See Fig 2)

The rabbinic tradition derives a lesson from these dots (even if it is not likely the original reason for their existence). Rashi and Radak notice that the three dotted letters spell the word “ayo” meaning “where is he,” subtly indicating that just as the angels asked Abraham “Ayeh - where is Sarah, your wife” they similarly asked Sarah, “Ayo - where is Abraham, your husband.” From this, they conclude, it is customary to ask one’s host about his or her husband or wife. This clever teaching gives us a greater insight into the manner in which we can be good hosts and guests. After all, Abraham and Sarah’s welcoming attitude towards the angels is ground zero for Jewish teachings about hospitality.

But perhaps there is a deeper meaning to these dots and the question they’re “pointing” us to. The word “ayeh” recurs throughout the Genesis stories. First, God asks Adam in the garden, “ayekah - where are you?” Then, God asks Cain, “ayeh hevel ahikha - where is Abel, your brother?” And here, we see angels asking the first Jewish family, “Where is your husband? Where is your wife?” In each of these cases, we see God asking the characters of the Bible to take responsibility - for themselves and for the other people in their lives. “Ayeh” becomes a question that goes deeper than merely information about location. It’s an existential question - where are you in relationship to yourself, God, and others.

Genesis is a guidebook about taking responsibility for others. God is teaching humanity and the Jewish family how to care for one another and it begins by asking the question ayeh - where are you - where are your brothers and sisters, husbands, and wives. If we can answer that question honestly, then we’re on the right path to loving each other and loving God more fully.

Lekh-Lekha 10/28/17

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Rachel Marder

You Never Told Us

“You never told us.” I read the accusatory words on my computer screen and my heart started to race. They felt like a punch in the gut. The authors of these words were alumni of NFTY, the Reform movement’s high school youth group, and they felt betrayed by me and others who educated them.

Soon after college I took a job as the regional advisor with NFTY, the North American Federation of Temple Youth, in San Francisco. I had grown up in NFTY and have many positive memories of spirited song sessions, tikkun olam work, and empowering learning experiences. After high school I spent a semester on a gap program in Israel and felt deeply attached to our homeland as a result. When I became a NFTY advisor I looked forward to giving back to an organization that had profoundly shaped me, and to inspiring young Jews. I wanted our programs to help teens love Israel and feel a strong connection to Jewish peoplehood. I told them that “Lech L’cha,” God’s charge to Avraham to go forth to the land God will show him, is directed to each of us as well. To be a Jew is to answer God’s call and feel a pull toward our homeland.

But I soon became frustrated with our educational programming about Israel. Programs were engaging, but they never felt like they accomplished enough. We set up a mock Knesset or planned “Israel Day,” complete with falafel and army training. We analyzed Hadag Nachash’s “Sticker Song,” a rap cataloguing Israeli bumper stickers. I had no idea then how to talk about the elephant in the room: Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. At 22 I lacked the knowledge and tools to engage them in a nuanced conversation.

Alumni of NFTY, USY, BBYO, Solomon Schechter day schools, and other groups are writing articles for the provocative anti-Occupation organization, If Not Now, as part of their #younevertoldus campaign. Davida Ginsberg, an alumna of USY on Wheels and USY Israel Pilgrimage, writes about her experience in gadna, basic training in the IDF, while on USY pilgrimage. She writes that while she was told there was a “conflict,” she heard nothing about an occupation. “You never told me what the soldiers were actually being trained to do with their guns, whose homes they were being trained to raid. You never told me why we - young, American Jews - should become militarized as a part of our summer camp experience… You never told me that the occupation doesn't actually keep any of us safe.”

One of my former NFTYites writes about how growing up she received skills and knowledge from her Jewish community about standing up and fighting for justice, “but when it came to justice in Israel/Palestine, our Reform community gave us only silence. The adults around us... steered us toward a ‘cultural’ connection to the state of Israel that we now realize was anything but apolitical. We were asked to imagine Israel as our homeland and to share affinity with a people and place we knew little about.” Many of them discovered the Palestinian narrative when they arrived at college, and became activists on their campuses.

According to midrash, Avraham spent his younger years exploring and pondering the existence of a Creator. Avraham is likened to a man who was traveling from place to place and came across a castle on fire. The man wondered whether the castle had a master to care for it. Then, the master of the castle popped his head out, looked at him, and said, “I am master of the castle.” In the same way, Avraham was constantly wondering, “Can you say that this world is without a Master?” God looked out at him and through the charge of “Lech L’cha, conveyed, “I am Master of the World” (Berishit Rabbah). Lech L’cha is God reaching out to humanity to say, “Hineni,” here I am, the master and caretaker of this world. You might have thought that the flames suggest that there is no one. But that is not so. You might not be able to see the master of the castle, but Someone is there.

God’s mission to Avraham is to trust in a God and a place he does not yet know. This is what I as a youth advisor hoped my teens would do: trust and believe in a country and people they do not know. I hoped naively that educational programming would foster enough connection to last them until they would actually go forth and spend time in Israel, where of course they would fall in love with their homeland and feel a part of this people. This worked for some kids, including me, but for many it did not.

This generation of Jews sees an Israel that is on fire. This Israel does not respect their brand of Judaism and does not welcome them as an equal member of the tribe. And more urgently, they see an Israel that does not love the stranger or treat non-Jews with the same dignity as Jewish residents. They wonder what happened to their Jewish values in the Jewish state. They are asking whether this castle is without caretakers. Where are their rabbis, teachers, and advisors? They are declaring that extinguishing this fire must be our priority. They inconveniently disrupt AIPAC policy conferences and Jewish community events to tell leaders this cannot wait. Use whatever economic and political pressure you have to push for an end to occupation and extinguish the flames of injustice.

I want us to teach our kids about Israel. I want them to know that a people that was homeless for nearly 2,000 years came home and built a miracle. I want us to be brave enough though to have honest conversations. We can talk about the refugees and the Occupation, and the deep challenges that Israel and Palestinians face in creating a shared society. I want alumni of our youth programs to know that we who struggle with the morality of the Occupation are also afraid of the alternative. I want them to know that Israel is not monolithic and there are many Jewish Israelis working for peace hand in hand with Palestinians. I need to ask their forgiveness for encouraging them to love and trust a place without more information. There are caretakers to Israel; it’s all of us. We need to work together to advocate for a more just society. I hope and pray that our alumni always find a home among Am Yisrael, and most of all that their message does not fall on deaf ears.

5776

Hol Hamoed Sukkot

Prepared by Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

One of the great lines in a movie filled with them (Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles) is when one of the residents of the town of Rock Ridge realizes what is missing from the ersatz town they have built overnight to trick a band of marauders coming to destroy the real town in which they live. They have constructed believable facsimiles of every storefront, street sign and sidewalk; the visible walls and infrastructure of the town have been recreated—a brilliant ruse! But then Sherriff Bart asks them to recognize what is not there. “People!” one of the townspeople shouts out. “There’s no people!”

The entire movie is parody. The scene is farcical. But the notion of a town without people is indeed a melancholy one. What use are inanimate walls, walkways and furniture without animate beings to fill them and animate them?

From the silly to the sublime, that scene evokes for me a wonderful teaching about the holiday of Sukkot, and the morphology of the word sukkah itself. In Hebrew, the word is spelled ס-ו-כ-ה. Many have pointed out that the letters that comprise the word are a hint at the laws governing the kashrut of a sukkah. The first letter, the samekh, which in print form is more boxy than the scripted round form, has four “walls” indicating that the fullest version of a sukkah has 4 walls. The third letter, the kaf, also more boxy in print than in script, has three “walls,” showing you that a sukkah with three walls can be kosher. And the fourth letter, the hey, can be seen as having two and a half walls. And, indeed, the Talmud assures us that a sukkah with two full walls and a partial wall is kosher. This explanation is elegant, but it ends up conveniently ignoring the second letter, the vov, which is just a short vertical line.

However, when you look within the Torah scroll itself, nearly every time the word sukkah appears, it is written in its haser (lacking) form, and so the vov is missing. Sukkah is spelled, in the Torah, ס-כ-ה, with just the letters that make the 2.5/3/4-walls argument. Why?

I love a reading which suggests that the Torah intentionally leaves the sukkah incomplete to invite our filling it. What is missing from the Torah’s sukkah/ס-כ-ה? The same thing missing from fake Rock Ridge: people! The Torah gives us the blueprints for a physical structure which is technically kosher. Emanating from our own sense of hospitality and kindness ought to be the urge to fill that inanimate 2.5/3/4-walled structure with the animation of people, guests, friends, friends-to-be, needy folk, new faces. The simple, vertical vov / “ו” missing from the Torah is a person, who will stand erect and straight when s/he has been given the dignity to be your guest, to dwell in your temporary home and thus bring it to life.

The holiday of Sukkot is nearly over. You may not have room for any more invitations to your own hut. But its lesson transcends its days. Our obligation to fill our shul’s walls, and our private homes’ walls, with guests continues throughout the year. So we should rightly revel in and be appreciative of our abodes, both temporary and permanent. Especially given the recent article in the Jewish Journal and the propositions on the upcoming election ballot regarding LA’s homeless crisis, we who spend our days in the security knowing we have a place to spend our nights ought to count our blessings. The structure itself and the walls themselves are extraordinary. But they are insufficient. Without our inviting others to join us, both a sukkah and a house remain inanimate. Bless your walls. And then fill them.

Mo’adim l’simha. Wishing you a joyful and utterly animated remainder of Sukkot.

Ha'azinu 10/15/16

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Rebecca Schatz

“Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents”
– Ludwig Van Beethoven

Have you ever watched a movie without sound? When you watch silently, the scene is different and the filmmaker’s intentions are less clear. A musical soundtrack can direct your emotions and heighten or lower them, and can inform the interstitial voids of non-verbal or non-active communication from the actors.

And in a recent study at Johns Hopkins School of Education, Chris Boyd Brewer teaches, “Music can be used to help us remember learning experiences and information. […] The soundtrack increases interest and activates the information mentally, physically or emotionally. Music can also create a highly focused learning state in which vocabulary and reading material is absorbed at a great rate. When information is put to rhythm and rhyme these musical elements will provide a hook for recall.”

In the end of parashat Ha’azinu, we hear that Moses had been singing. “And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song into the ears of the people…” Why a song? Why does Moses leave the people to travel into this Promised Land through instructions written as lyrics to a song? Just like a child learning their ABC’s, we teach best, and the most important fundamental information, through song, through music. Songs are important in Torah. And while Shirat HaYam reminds us of the past and celebrates our birth as a people, the song of Ha’azinu is meant to instruct us as we move forward into the future. Imagine for a moment that Moshe actually sang these words. Imagine him singing. Was his a strange, unique, un-song-ish voice like Nobel laureate Bob Dylan? Or was he Pavarotti, confident and masterful in control of every studied nuance?

My teacher, Rabbi Feinstein, explains that the most difficult prayers to understand, theologically, during Yom Kippur, typically have the most upbeat and catchy tunes. And now here we are, Shabbat between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, carrying with us resonating melodies from the Yamim Nora’im.

Ha’azinu says, “Moshe spoke all of these words of the song.” So, did he speak or did he sing? Musicologists recognize that a composer will often leave unexpressed the most obvious harmonies to accompany a melody, hoping to engage the listener who will naturally add those harmonies in their own hearing. The engagement of music is used as a pedagogical tool to encourage hearing, remembering and learning. And perhaps Moshe used this technique to engage us, allowing us to create melodies and harmonies to accompany the instructions of our entrance into the Land.

“Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents”. Allow Moshe’s words to seed your musical soil, elevating your spirit on this First Shabbat as you enter the Promised Year.

Nitzavim 10/1/16

Prepared by Rabbi Ari Lucas

“The secret things belong unto the LORD our God; and the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
- Deuteronomy 29:28

There are those mysterious dots again. In Parashat Nitzavim, there are eleven dots that appear above the letters in the words “lanu u’lvaneinu - unto us and to our children” (as well as, for some mysterious reason, the ayin in ad - forever). In many instances, the dots over letters allow scribes to indicate words that they believe are dubious without having to erase them from the scroll. The dots then became part of the text itself. These words are preserved, but with the dots functioning as an asterisk to the reader suggesting they are suspect.

The verse in question here in Parshat Nitzavim is about accountability. Moses claims that only God can adjudicate “ha-nistarot - secret things,” But “ha-niglot - revealed matters,” belong to us and our children to hold each other accountable. People are responsible to set up systems of justice to deal with that which is revealed - public actions that threaten the safety and well-being of the community. But God alone can examine that which is hidden in our hearts and it is not humanity’s responsibility to judge that which is in the hearts of others. As we prepare for Rosh Hashanah, the themes of experiencing a full accounting of our deeds - both secret and revealed - are resonant.

The dots appear over the words “unto us and our children.” If we were to remove the dotted words, the verse takes on an entirely different meaning. Instead of:

“The secret things belong unto the LORD our God; and the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever...

The text would read:

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God; as well as the things that are revealed forever…”

In the emended version, people are not responsible for holding one another accountable. An ancient midrash cited by Rashi suggests that the words “unto us and to our children” were meant to be added into the text only after the people entered the land of Israel. The instructions were given in two stages and were inteneded to be read differently at different points in Israelite history.

What results is a layered text. Initially, all matters are to be adjudicated by God, but once the people enter the land of Israel, their own responsibility in adjudicating revealed matters takes hold. According to this interpretation, both versions of the text are preserved in the way it appears in our Torah scrolls - one need only understand that the dotted words were intended to be read only after the conquering of the land.

Great texts are able to speak to different people across the generations. The wilderness generation was not yet ready to take responsibility for a system of justice and accountability. But entering into the land of Israel came with new obligations for this nascent people. The words of Torah are meant to speak to us today as they did to the ancient Israelites in the time of the Bible. Even though our reality is very different from theirs, there is a thread of continuity that links our experience to Torah. Perhaps the dots in this week’s parshah serve as a subtle reminder that the spirit of Torah evolves and changes with each successive generation that embraces it.

Ki Tavo 9/24/16

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Rebecca Schatz

During this season of Elul, we focus our thoughts on two major questions: “who have I hurt and how will I repent?” and “who has hurt me and will they ask for forgiveness?” This past week, I had fifteen young Jewish professionals in my home for a night of learning, sponsored by National Ramah. One of the texts taught was from Masechet Yoma 85b. The text says, “one who plans to sin, and then repents for the sinning, is hindered from doing teshuvah (repentance).” One question we discussed, based on the rabbis understanding of sin and habit, was – “How do we do teshuvah to ourselves?”

The essence of the word teshuvah is the root “shin, vav, bet” spelling shuv, and translated as “return.” If teshuvah is something that so many of us are worried about seeing as transactional and relational, what is the return to? Are we returning to a better relationship, a more complete conscience, and a life without toxicity in our midst? Or, are we supposed to shuv, return to ourselves, and figure out how to apologize for the anguish and hardships we have created for our own souls, hearts, minds and often bodies?

In Ki Tavo, Moshe alerts the people of the wonderful elements awarded to our lives if we obey God and conversely the horrendous plagues that will befall us if we forget or defy God. In Chapter 26 verse 16, we have not yet heard the ways in which we must cleave to God and the consequences and blessings of doing so. The verse states: “You have selected the Lord this day, to be your God, and to walk in God’s ways, and to observe Gods laws and commandments and rules, and to hear his voice.” “His voice” is written in Hebrew as בקולו ולשמע, grammatically making the voice unclear as to who it belongs to. I would argue that by selecting God to be my God, and observing God’s laws, we must still hear our own voice to be in relationship with God and our best self.

We walk around this world with our eyes in our phone, our ears plugged into iTunes and our mouths directly attached to our keyboards and tweets to the world. However, in a time of repentance, we must find our true voice, our calm heart, our unique mind and our open soul. Yes, we are entering a time of intense prayer, lengthy moments of contemplation and days of holiday halacha and stipulations, but where are you? What have you done to קולו שומע, to hear your voice and not only focus on the voices that should be apologizing or that you have to listen to when confronting them with your “I’m sorrys” this year.

When we went around the room and discussed how people would create ritual around teshuvah for themselves, one young man mentioned looking in the mirror and giving yourself a real talk. If we only cleave to God for the laws and customs, we are not in relationship with our religion or spirituality. We must hear our voice, know our limitations, our strengths, our challenges and our questions so that we can cleave to a God that is in relationship with us doing teshuvah. We return to find that voice, to recreate all kinds of relationship and to remind ourselves that we are at the core of all that we believe, feel, and do. Take responsibility. Look in the mirror and tell yourself where you missed the mark, where you really shone this year and where you will challenge yourself to be better! Shana Tova and Shabbat Shalom.

Re'eh

Prepared by Rachel Marder, Rabbinic Intern, Temple Beth Am

Eradicating Idolatry In Our Lives

This past year while living in Israel, I took a trip with my classmates to the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fish, a peaceful, Catholic holy site on the shores of the Galilee. Last year the church was the target of a price tag arson attack by young Jewish extremists who graffitied on a wall of the church the words “the false gods will be destroyed,” a line from the Aleinu prayer. Since visiting this church, I have had a much harder time reciting the Aleinu. Every time I recite it I picture this humble church, and remember the hundreds of other price tag attacks against mosques, churches and Palestinian property. This small group of Jews insists on equating non-Jews today with idolators of the Bible, and justifying their baseless hatred and violence using Biblical verses.

The Israelites are commanded in parashat Re’eh to “utterly destroy all the sites at which the nations you are to dispossess worshiped their gods, whether on lofty mountains and on hills or under any and luxuriant tree. Tear down their altars, smash their pillars, put their sacred posts to the fire, and cut down the images of their gods, obliterating their name from that site” (Deut. 12:2-3). This commandment to “utterly destroy” is emphatic. In the Hebrew, the root of the verb “abed” -- destroy -- is stated twice — “abed t’abdun.” Quoting Tractate Avodah Zara (Idol Worship) from the Talmud, Rashi explains that the double verb means that “one who eradicates idolatry must thoroughly uproot it,” meaning, every trace of it (Avodah Zara 45b).

We must be meticulous in our eradication of idolatry, those things in our lives which hold us back from true and full relationship with God and each other. We know from TaNaKh that Israelites are not immune to idolatry, so this mitzvah from Re’eh would not only apply to other people, but also to us. What are our idols? To what do we assign great power and control over our lives? We must thoroughly examine the idols in our lives, leaving no mountain, hill or tree unturned.

While it is challenging for me to recite the Aleinu, knowing that there are Jews who use it to enact violence, I continue to do so as a reminder to be meticulous in examining my own idolatry, areas of my life that I obsess over, and work to remember what really matters in life.

The perpetrators of price tag attacks would do well to examine their idolatrous behavior. They are blind to their worship of land above all else and extreme nationalism. In addition, medieval Sages ruled that the other religions we encounter today are not to be considered idol worship or equated with the pagan idolatry referred to in the Torah.

May we destroy the false gods present in our lives during this month of Elul, the month of soul searching and reflection, and may we have the courage to confront idolatry perpetrated in the name of Judaism.

Vethanan 8/20/16

8/19/16
Prepared by Rachel Marder,
Rabbinic Intern at Temple Beth Am

During the Torah service after the gabbai calls up the first aliyah, the congregation utters a very profound statement found in this week’s parasha: “You who cleave to the Lord your God are alive every one of you today” (Deut. 4:4). In this verse Moses is recalling when God wiped out those Israelites in the desert who turned to a Moabite god, Ba’al Peor, but spared those who remained loyal and cleaved to the one true God. What does it really mean to cleave to the Lord?

The Degel Machaneh Ephraim (1748-1800), a grandson of the Ba’al Shem Tov, helps us understand the implications of this phrase. He rearranges the letters of the word “you” in the verse (aleph, tav, mem) as aleph, mem, tav, which spells emet, meaning truth. He explains that cleaving to the Lord means holding fast to truth. Attaching yourself to truth ties you to the “living God,” a God who is dynamic and always relevant.

This teaching of the Degel Machaneh Ephraim offers us a surprising insight. Rather than distancing us from faith and spirituality, pursuing scientific truth actually draws us closer to the Holy One. Through observing and learning about the natural world we sense God’s personal handiwork and are filled with awe of its magnitude and intricacy. Rambam (Sephardi, 1135-1204) believed that we fulfill the mitzvah of the V’ahavta -- to love God “with all of your heart, with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5), also in this week’s parasha, through studying His works of creation.

It’s not only the search for scientific truths that can bring us closer to God, but also standing up for moral truths, like the dignity of all life. We know from Tanakh that God is concerned with the vulnerable in society -- the widow, the orphan and the stranger -- those whose dignity is often overlooked. By standing with them we are standing beside God. By continuing to seek the truth in every possible way, we make real the promise of our verse: “You who cleave to the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day.”

In The God Who Hates Lies, Rabbi David Hartmanz”l writes about the religious importance of acknowledging what we know to be morally and intellectually true, even when it seems to conflict with other religious principles. Rabbi Hartman encourages us be thinking, critical truth-seekers in the synagogue. “As a traditional Jew [I am] unwilling to surrender my critical faculties when entering the religious conversation,” he writes. In other words, being a serious Jew is not about turning off one’s brain, passively listening to the Torah reading or responding by rote. It’s about being awake, responding actively to what we hear and demanding honesty of ourselves. This is how we engage with our tradition and remain “alive” -- in a living, dynamic relationship with God. It’s about asking ourselves, “what are the words I am saying and hearing? Do I believe them? What do they mean to me?” When we think critically, and focus on the search for truth, not only are we “alive every one of you this day,” but God is alive and present with us as well. God’s truth as revealed in Torah remains ever relevant, and the revelation at Sinai continues, even now. Our parasha teaches, “And these words, which I command you today, shall be upon your heart” (Deut. 6:6). A midrash in the Sifrei teaches that “today” means Torah “should not appear to you as an antiquated edict which no one cares about, but as a new one, which everyone hastens to read.” That is, we should see the Torah as a living document -- one whose teachings speak to us today and always.

Next time we respond to the gabbai, may the familiar verse we say remind us to respond to our tradition in a way that is vibrant and alive. May we listen closely to the words of Torah and seek out their truth, so that we may continually draw nearer to God.

Matot-Masei 8/5/16

8/5/16

Prepared by Rabbi Adam Kligfeld, Temple Beth Am

Are there immutable norms within Judaism? Was Torah meant to be preserved in amber, and calcified? Do any/all of Judaism’s ritual and ethical imperatives stand as what the philosopher Immanuel Kant would call “categorical,” and thus are so pure and unchanging that they are not contingent upon empirical, case-by-case factors?

To boil down what could be a semester’s worth of material into a workable answer, I would say that some Jewish moral and ethical norms are nearly immutable and nearly categorical. But my understanding of Torah and revelation is that ritual and behavioral norms—while crucial for creating coherent religious life and community—were intended to be both sacred but also subject to natural evolution. I don’t think this concept is a modern or only post-Enlightenment innovation. I think it is embedded within Torah itself, and canonized by Torah’s earliest interpreters.

Examples abound, but one profound (and, given the source, potentially surprising) example bubbles up in a fascinating comment on the end of Parshat Masei—the second of the two parashot we read today—which also concludes Bemidbar/Numbers, the fourth of the five books of Torah. The comment comes from the Mei HaShiloah, the often inscrutable and often wonderful commentary on the Torah by the 19^thC. Polish sage Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izhbitz, affectionately referred to as the Izhbitzer. He notes that the 5^th book of the Torah—Devarim/Deuternomy—is nicknamed Mishneh Torah, or Torah “redux” because much of its material and history is a retelling of narrative and law that already took place. Given that, one could argue that the end of Bemidbar/Numbers is the true or at least intial end of Torah. Aside from details about the last days/hours of Moshe’s life, the Torah’s story and corpus of law is indeed mostly complete by the end of Masei. And given that, he finds it odd that this “first” end of the Torah ends as it does: not with a major legal enactment or reinforcement of fundamental principles, but rather with an obscure law that seems germane only to that particular moment in history. In brief, Moshe responds to the complaint of members of the tribe of Joseph who were concerned that a previous enactment would unduly rob their tribe of land in Israel. Previously, Moshe and God had sided with the 5 daughters of Tzlofhad who petitioned for the right to inherit their father’s land since he had died in the desert with no male heirs. Now their fellow tribesman were concerned that if those daughters married non-Josephites, their inherited property would eventually be transferred to their husbands’ estates, and thus would transfer from one tribe to another, altering the actual map of Israel. Their concern is reasonable, and Moshe communicates to them God’s ruling, which is that these five daughters must marry within the tribe. And just like that, Parashat Masei ends. As does the book of Bemidbar/Numbers. As does, in a way, the Torah itself. Anti-climax, no?

According to the Izhbitser—no neo-liberal Reformer himself—this is not anti-climax. This is revelatory itself. Humanity should understand that God’s will is both beyond time and also ineluctably tied to time and circumstance. In his words, God’s will and God’s law are לפי העת והזמן המתחלף והמשתנה, or “according to the time and era, evolving and changing.” And so it was eminently appropriate that the Torah “ended” on a piece of apparent minutia, an enactment relevant to a very particular circumstance. For as time would go on, human/Jewish involvement with Torah would be focused on discerning the text’s moral and ritual relevance to this moment, these particulars, this era’s needs and realities. In fact it is via that very process that the Torah becomes unending. Its text ends abruptly and specifically as a way of showing that it and its meaning are, themselves, not nearly as fixed as they may seem to be. Its meaning tomorrow could never be anticipated today, for, as of today, we have not yet experienced tomorrow and thus could not yet know how Torah should be applied to it.

Taken to extreme, this read of Torah and text could lead to flexibility so limber such that the system could fall apart. But ignoring this read, on the other hand, ensures a system so brittle that it could lose its vitality. So let us deepen our inquiry into our most sacred text. And continue to put minds, hearts and souls together to discern its most important directives and messages, for today. Until we do it again tomorrow.

Hukkat 7/16/16

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern, Rebecca Schatz

This Shabbat marks the 2^nd yartzheit of my uncle, Lee Goodglick’s, death. A man of humor, brilliance, abundant love, benevolence, thoughtfulness and care for all those living or fighting for the right to life. Lee was a molecular biologist, spending hours upon hours in labs or writing grants to find a cure for cancer. As kids, we would go to visit him at his lab at UCLA and he would have toys, candy and friends for us to play with, so we just thought he had fun all day. However, when we grew up and heard of his “real work” we realized that he was one of the most serious hard-working people we knew and his whole job was to find a way to keep people in the present and future alive when attacked with a rapidly spreading disease.

This week’s parasha, Hukkat, discusses various kinds of death; the laws concerning someone who has died; Miriam’s death; Moshe’s inability to reach the land based on the “death” of his restrained demeanor; and Aaron’s death.Lee saw the life in death; it was his job and his way of finding the good in everyone, which he was a master at doing.

When Miriam dies, there is no more water left in the well for the people:

אהרון ועל משה על ויקהלו לעדה מים היה ולא

“The congregation had no water; so they assembled against Moses and Aaron”

Rashi explains that the water was of Miriam’s merit, so when she died, the well dried up. However, her death elicited newness in the leadership of Moshe. Miriam was the calm behind Moshe, the confidence in his leadership, and most of all the loving sister who believed in his abilities from day one on the river. So now, without Miriam, the nation must cleave to Moshe and Aaron and in return they must learn to be the leaders they were taught to be with Miriam by their side.

This past week was the North American Jewish Choral Festival (NAJCF) and I was honored to be a fellow at the conference. I was asked to participate as a musician and Jewish leader and was surrounded by professionals of prestige and great talent. The honoree for the week, Zalmen Mlotek, has made his living in creating life from death. He has brought Yiddish back into the world of music, theatre and general living. Wednesday night he opened his acceptance remarks by sitting at the piano and playing a few pieces for us, the first of which was Ofn Pripachek. As I sang through tears of remembering my Great Grandmother singing that with us at Shabbatot for 22 years of my life, I realized that in that moment, we were weaving the past into a bright, new future

Moshe struck the rock and revealed a fissure in his character, torn and dissolute after the loss of Sister Miriam.With the death of Aaron we wept for 30 days!Emotion is the proof of life, of feeling change and anticipating the future. The people of Israel cry, according to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, because they realize, with the death of Miriam and Aaron, “we each have a Jordan we will not cross, a promised land we will not enter, [for] ‘it is not for you to complete the task,’ even the greatest are mortal.”

My work, and the work of Moshe and Zalmen Mlotek and my Uncle Lee, is to recognize the presentness of our past and future.To continue to be engaged with experiences other than our own, reinvigorating timeless lessons and seeking Life amongst decay, progress and death.

Miriam left the people without water and they produced tears to cry for Aaron’s death. Our Jewish people have stopped using Yiddish and this week 400 Jews came together to sing hundreds of songs in the “dying” language. Lee Goodglick died without finishing his cure to cancer, and yet a team he formed at UCLA is closer than ever. In a world of abundant death because of hatred, ignorance, and neglect of life, let us pray and hope for a Shabbat of peace and reimagining what it means to live. I pray that through the memory of my dear uncle we are each able to see the light in others’ eyes, the goodness in others’ hearts and the pain that wants our comfort; find the life hidden in shadows of death. Yehi Zichron Barukh, may my uncle Lee’s - hillel ben ze’ev v’sarah - name be a blessing as it was in his life and, as we continue to make it, in his death.

Naso 6/18/16

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern, Rebecca Schatz

“God spoke to Moses saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: ‘This is how you shall bless the children of Israel saying to them: May God bless you and guard you. May the God cause God’s countenance to enlighten and inspire you, being gracious to you. May God look upon you with focus and grant you peace.’” We recognize this as the “priestly blessing”, traditionally spoken to the community at prayer by the Cohanim, the priests.

God does not express this blessing to me directly and personally. Instead, the words are future-tense and passed along through several different vessels: God to Moses, Moses to Aaron, Aaron and his sons to the children of Israel, and beyond. Though I clearly understand I have many personal obligations, unique to me as part of my relationship with God, we learn that the concept of being a blessed person is only understood within the context of my relationship with others, with my family and community. Perhaps God is concerned with the well-being of one aspect of my body, but likely as a component part of my whole being.

The past week has offered news of terrible sorts, and there is no lack of screaming voices, perhaps speaking too soon and too loud, expressing angry judgment like shotgun splatter without aim, netting the victims; first-responders; perpetrators and their families and faith communities; pro-gun folks; anti-gun folks.

Rashi, in Midrash Tanchuma, comments on the phrase, “This is how you shall bless the children of Israel saying to them…” “Saying” is written out in its full form (with all the letters and not substituted vowels) to indicate that we should not say the words of the priestly blessing in haste, but with focus, concentration and wholeheartedness. We are too often guilty of uncontrolled responses to things about which we feel strongly. We Facebook and Tweet our opinions with too little caution and reserve. We join the mob. But Rashi is asking us to have a slower and fuller understanding of our children and God’s children.

The Seer of Lublin remarks: “The priestly blessing is said in the singular because the essential blessing that the Israelites need is unity […]” This is what we need this week! Being a part of community this week will, for some, include attending to grieving families; supporting those in shock and disbelief; considering how to minimize these kinds of risks without kicking God’s children out of the house.

May God, through Moses, Aaron, our Teachers, us and our brethren, continue to be the Source of healing, comfort and wholeness for all people who suffer from trauma, loss and disconnectedness.

Bamidbar 6/11/16

Every Dot Counts

Dear Rabbi,
Judaism seems awfully silly - so much attention to details. Does it really matter which direction I shake my lulav or the exact time that Shabbat starts and ends? Shouldn’t it be sufficient that I’m taking some time to honor the holidays and live an ethical and mindful life? I think Jewish obsession over the minutiae of Jewish law and practice is a big turn off for a lot of people and ultimately misses the point.
Sincerely,
Moshe

Two Weeks Later

Dear Rabbi,
What hutzpah! I took the time to write you a question and haven’t heard back from you for two weeks. I would think that you would have the courtesy to respond.
Angrily,
Moshe

Dear Moshe,
I’m so sorry about this. As soon as I got your e-mail, I wrote you a lengthy response about why I believe the details do matter in Jewish life, but it must not have arrived in your inbox. As I checked back, it appears I left out the dot between “gmail” and “com” in your e-mail address. I didn’t think it would matter - after all it’s only a small dot. Surely the computer wouldn’t pay it much mind. But I guess even the smallest of dots does matter when we try to communicate with each other. So it is in our relationship with God. Attention to details, shows God that we care. We want to make sure the message is received.
With my apologies and best wishes,
Rabbi

Every letter and every dot matters in the Torah - the calligraphy and the crowns on top of the letters all have significance. In Parashat B’midbar we encounter a series of extraordinary dots above the letters of the word ואהרון “and Aaron” (pictured above). These points (and the ten others like them in the text of the Torah) are somewhat of a mystery - we don’t know how they got there or what their function is, but rabbis and scholars have attempted to explain the significance of these dots in the text.

In this case, it appears that there was a debate as to whether or not Aaron was part of the process of counting the Levites in the census in Numbers Ch. 3. Aaron is notably absent from the instructions to count the Levites in verses 5, 11, 14, 16, 40, and 42. The task of counting the Levites was Moses’ alone and not Aaron’s. Somehow, in verse 39, Aaron is included:

“All that were numbered of the Levites, whom Moses and Aaron numbered at the commandment of the LORD” - Numbers 3:39

This begs the question - was Aaron part of the counting or not? The leading theory is that Aaron’s name was mistakenly entered into the text in v. 39 because so often Moses and Aaron’s names appear together. The scribe, by rote, penned in “Moses and Aaron” when the text should have read just, “Moses.” This is supported by the fact that the verb “counted” is conjugated in the singular and not the plural. The dubious presence of “and Aaron” led later scribes to put dots over the word so that it would be known that there was suspicion about its authenticity in the text.

Those dots, so conspicuously present in the Torah text, remind us of the importance of the attention to detail. In this day and age of poorly edited blog posts and hasty text messages that read “iluv u, huney,” we can learn that love can be demonstrated when we attend to details. When we examine every comma and the proper spelling of a document, when we take the time to answer e-mails with care and attention, it can make all the difference. The Torah’s “text message” hidden between the dots above Aaron’s name is that every dot and every letter counts.

Behar 5/28/16

Prepared by Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

I once was discussing some verses in Parshat Behar with some middle-school students who became dismayed, initially, by the Torah. We were looking at verses that discuss real-estate economics in the land of Israel. And we role-played, as a way of making sense of difficult verses. Let's say Rachel is in financial trouble, and so she needs to sell some of her land to David. David is happy with the transaction, considering the land he bought to be well worth the 1000 shekels he paid. But along comes Talia, who is Rachel’s kin. She shows up with some money in order to "redeem" (buy back) the land that David had bought. According to the Torah, David has no choice but to sell it back to Joanie at a fair price, and so the land returns to the original family

Now let's say that Rachel has no wealthy relatives. But Rachel is industrious. She takes the 1000 shekels she got from the sale of the land, and invests it wisely. Her flock of sheep grow, and she becomes wealthy herself. She then has the right to go back to David and demand that David sell her back the land. But David won't even get the full 1000 shekels back that he paid. Rachel will deduct from that 1000 shekels the fair rental value for the intervening years. David thought he was buying Rachel’s land. It turns out, he was renting it.

And finally, what if Rachel has no wealthy cousin, and also fails to make her own fortune. David keeps the land she bought, right? Yes...until the yovel, the Jubilee, which comes around every 50th year. During that year, the land reverts to the original owner. Rachel gets her land back. David has no choice in the matter. It is part of being a Jew in the land of Israel.

As you might imagine, “David” was pretty upset about this. He even remarked that he'd be unlikely to buy more land in the future, considering how hard it would be for him to hold on it. The other students agreed...even “Rachel”!

And then I asked them this question: "If you could live in a place where no one was very wealthy, but no one was very poor....or in a place where the wealthy lived in mansions and the poor were homeless, which would you choose?" 6th-graders though they are in our capitalist America, they all selected the former. They would surrender the chance at fortune in order to guarantee they (or others) would never be impoverished and hungry.

That balance is one of the core ideas in the verses we studied. Millennia before Marx and the Kibbutz movement, the Torah sought to create a society in which there was both incentive to excel (you have a 50-year window within to make your real-estate fortune) as well as a safeguard against radical financial stratification. Such a society would be both the creation of Torah, and also a proper incubator for Torah as well. Undergirding these verses is also the idea that a family's connection with their portion of the land was determined by God, and so no human sale could irrevocably sever those ties.

Our times are different now, both in Israel and in the Diaspora. Market forces create the economy. Your connection to your land is a financial and emotional one, not one driven by Divine promises. There is no ultimate barrier to your achieving great wealth, and no fail-safe protection against impoverishment.

Though the yovel/Jubilee regulations seem foreign at first glance, we ought to be moved by the Torah's insistence that by its authority neither great riches nor great poverty are inherited; each generation has its opportunity to make a life on the land that God has given us all.

Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Emor 5/21/16

Prepared by Rabbi Adir Yolkut, Rabbinic Intern

At UC Berkeley, there exists a group on campus called the GGSC, The Greater Good Science Center, which according to its mission statement, studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being. In specific, they have a researcher, Robert Emmons, who focuses primarily on gratitude and lists the following physiological benefits that come from cultivating a positive practice of gratitude: stronger immune systems, lower blood pressure, higher levels of positive emotions, more alert, less lonely and isolated, more forgiving, and the list goes on and on. Not that any of us even needed this list, as I imagine from an earlier age, those who raised us did so with the mantra to always say “thank you.”

I began thinking about one of these early life lessons while reading through Parshat Emor this week and came across this line from 22:29-30. In the midst of all the descriptions of the various offerings to be brought, we learn “when you sacrifice a thanksgiving offering to the Lord, sacrifice it so that it may be acceptable in your favor. It shall be eaten on the same day; you shall not leave any of it until the morning; I am the Lord.” The verse in and of itself is fairly clear. Here’s the type of offering and here’s how you offer it. What I found noteworthy is the combination of Rashi’s and the Midrash’s commentary to the verse.

According to Rashi, the personal language of the pasuk demands that the offering be acceptable to your will and not because someone else told you to do it. Secondly, it must be eaten on that day because if one was to wait, they would not have the same intentionality with which it was offered, and it would render it invalid. To fully understand the power of this, we must read it in tandem with Leviticus Rabbah 9:7, where it states, “When you sacrifice a thanksgiving offering to the LORD . . . (Lev. 22:29). R. Pinhas, R. Levi, and R. Yohanan taught in the name of R. Menahem of Gallia: In the future to come, all sacrificial offerings will be abolished, but the thanksgiving offering will never be abolished; all [general] forms of thanksgiving will be abolished, but the thanksgiving declarations of the thanksgiving offering will never be abolished.” Separate of whatever theological issues one may have with the rebuilding of the 3^rd Temple, the idea that the only remnant of the sacrificial system will be the Thanksgiving offering illustrates that the Rabbis also had a keen understanding of the relationship between humans and gratitude (although for them it was between people and God). At a basic level, we need gratitude just as much as God needs gratitude. Taken as a bundle, we now understand that our gratitude must come from ourselves and it must be offered with full intentionality in that moment.

As I stood on the stage at my ordination this week, I thought a lot about my own gratitude toward this community at TBA for helping me grow into the Rabbi that I was ordained as. I have immense amounts of it that barely covers everything. I offer thanks to Bait, the Library Minyan, Neshama Minyan, and Shir Hadash for allowing me to offer the words of my heart and in return for giving me invaluable feedback. I thank the seudah shlisheet crowd where the back and forth of Torah scholars is, I know, music to God’s ears. There are many more individuals with whom I hope to offer specific words of gratitude as Rashi demands. In this period of time though, as we count down the days to the receiving of the Torah again, I hope that we all can continue to cultivate the practice of gratitude, not just for its physiological benefits but because we learned that in the perfect world to come, all we will have to offer is thanks.

Kedoshim 5/14/16

Prepared by Rebecca Schatz, Rabbinic Intern

Walking into Providence Tarzana Medical Center, I was nervous, uncomfortable and uneasy about completing my rabbinical school required hours for chaplaincy. However, I walked up to a floor I’d not yet visited, knocked on another door, and was opened to the world of a wonderful woman. She talked about her life. She is not Jewish, but married a Jew, and was very excited to share her love for religion and God with me, as a future Rabbi. I visited this woman regularly on subsequent days, feeling like I was visiting someone special, and experiencing divinity in our sharing. This woman, not Jewish, not looking or feeling her best, not young, is without a doubt, both holy and beautiful.

In parashat Kedoshim, God says, “And you shall be holy to Me, for I, God, am holy, and I have distinguished you from the peoples to be Mine [in particular, proscribed ways].” This verse comes at the end of the parasha, and a long list of requirements, laws and regulations to make sure that we are distinguished as a people. However, I believe that we are most holy in the eyes of God when we interact with God’s other human beings as if we are all holy. The word for distinguish is the same root as the word for havdallah, the separation between our sacred Shabbat and the regular world. Now, the havdallah ceremony is meant to bring the beauty of Shabbat into our regular week. And so we drag the holiness of our Jewish relationship with God into the world beyond our own community’s borders.

This week, last year, I found myself at a ma’avar ceremony, one of the holiest moments of my life. A ma’avar ceremony is the connection between the solemn end of Yom HaZikaron into the celebratory beginning of Yom Ha’Atzmaut. As I stood in the neighborhood of Yemin Moshe, on a plaza overlooking the old city, I could not help but think that that liminal space between sadness and happiness is what keeps our people and our nation together. Why holy? Tears turned into smiles; and as the psalmist sang, “You transformed my mourning into dancing, my sackcloth into robes of joy”; sad songs turned to hora dancing, Ma’ariv into Hallel. Holy moments, holy people, holy spaces and holy time. Let us look outward and everywhere to see holiness in the world that God made.

Pesah 4/28/16

Prepared by Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

At least when you compare it to other true yontef holidays (meaning, holidays that operate similarly to Shabbat viz. prohibitions, full-on holiday meals and Shabbat-length services), we are in the midst of a strange holiday. Not Pesah itself. But rather Shvi’i shel Pesah, or the 7^th day of Pesah (which in the diaspora is the 7^th and 8^th days). What is strange about it? These last days of Pesah are the only times on our Jewish calendar where a holiday which began with a yontef ends with a yontef after intermediary days. You might retort, “but what about Sukkot, which begins with two days of yontef and ends with two days?” That example is similar, but with a meaningful difference. Sukkot is a 7-day holiday, followed immediately by another holiday, called Shmini Atzeret, which in the diaspora is turned into two days, the second of which is Simhat Torah. So it “feels” similar to Pesah, in that you have two days of yontef, five days of Hol HaMoed (the intermediate, not-yontef days which are still Sukkot, but are more like work days than like Shabbat), and then two days of yontef. But those last two days of yontef are a different holiday altogether which just are juxtaposed to the end of Sukkot. But Pesah is unique. We (in the diaspora) begin with two days of yontef, followed by 4 days of Hol Hamoed (it is still Pesah. No bread allowed. But the days are not like Shabbat), and then two more days of yontef. Pesah both begins and end with religious peaks, with days of long services, extended meals and Shabbat-like prohibitions.

Why? We know what the first two days commemorate: Exodus itself. But what are the last days about, such that they demand such a high level of ritual attention and observance? This ending of Pesah, prescribed directly by verses in the Torah, is an enigma.

Theories and midrashim abound regarding its original meaning an intent. The most common explanation is that the end of Pesah commemorates the drama that unfolded by the Sea of Reeds. The theory is that it took about seven days for the fleeing Israelites to reach the banks of the sea after leaving Egypt. The miracle of the split sea, and the Israelites being finally delivered from their oppressors and enemies, took place on the 7^th day of the Exodus. Inshul we read the Song of the Sea as our Torah reading for the 7^th day. Whereas Exodus night liberated from slavery, it was not until a week later that God liberated us from Pharaoh’s clutch. That would be worthy of a celebration, of a yontef.

This week I was struck by an explanation of the end of Pesah that I had not known before. It comes from the Netziv, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, a 19^th century Lithuanian scholar whose beloved commentary, Ha’amek Davar, is the text that Rabbis Lucas and Chorny and I study in our weekly hevruta. He tries to explain the end of Pesah through the prism of the Song of Songs, a Biblical scroll which we read at/towards the end of Pesah. The text is erotic and intimate, detailing the furious romantic chase between a man and a woman, and understood allegorically to represent our chasing God, and God’s chasing us. Why read this particular text now? According to the Netziv it is because the ancient Israelites, who had come to Jerusalem for the Pesah pilgrimage holiday, are about to take their leave and return home. The travel would be long and arduous. They wouldn’t be back until Sukkot, at the earliest. No email. No Temple Facebook pages. No obvious way to maintain the centripetal force that would connect the Jewish people to Jewish space. The end of Pesah is the Torah’s way of saying to our ancestors, and us, “before you leave, how about one more party? One more Shabbat-like gathering. Leave with the sweetness of sanctity in your mouths and imprinted upon your souls.” Interestingly, this explanation mirrors one of the classic explanations for Shmini Atzeret, which as we said comes right after Pesah. Before the long journey home followed by a long winter, God says to the pilgrims, “tarry one day longer.”

There is some relief when a momentous occasion, laden with expectations and labor, has passed. And there can be melancholy as well. What will be the peak moments in the next weeks or months now that this holiday (or birthday, or party, or graduation…) has passed? The Netziv has us understand that the purpose of the very holiday we are in is to extend the moment, to have us leave Pesah not with the whimper of just the last day of Hol Hamoed, but with the roar of yontef, of heightened religious awareness, of the ecstatic verses of Shir Hashirim (re-)awakening religious desire.

Let us harness these days, these waning hours. Soon, the hametz will replace its unleavened cousin. Soon we’ll return to the sacred, but also humdrum, rhythm of one week leading to the next. Shavuout, our next yontef, is six weeks away. And the one after that nearly six months away. However you spend the holiday, cherish the remaining hours as Torah’s gift to a people whom God always wants more of, and who, I hope, are continuously aiming for greater holiness.

Gut yontef, Hag Sameah, and Shabbat Shalom.

Metzorah 4/16/16

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern, Adir Yolkut

I am the youngest of four siblings, so naturally every year at our seder, I am fascinated by the story of the four children of the Haggadah and the various ways in which those attributes manifest in each of us differently. But I always come back to the wicked child. Every year, this child jumps out at me. Maybe, in some ways, I feel aligned with his skepticism and reticence to feel part of something larger. I think we all have those moments of being ostracized or feeling alienated, so in some way, I get that question he asks, לכם הזאת העבודה מה? What is this service for you? Why do you do what you do? In some ways, I think it’s an important question to ask as religious leader. Are people doing things for the right reason? Is it moral? Is it ethical? Yet, we know from the continuation that this is a fluffy interpretation of the wicked child’s questioning, given the continuation of the haggadah.

We are told that in response to his questioning,

we should שיניו את הקהה, blunt his teeth.

As traditionally understood, we are supposed to give him a good rebuke an tell him that had he been part of the people in Egypt, he would not have been freed because of his selfish and myopic beliefs. In some ways, I understand the haggadah’s frustration at his words and subsequent angry response. He’s placed himself outside of our community. He maligns our rituals. He denigrates God. But is this the proper response? Do we think this is a way to bring him back into the fold?

Rabbi Yissasch Dov Rokeach, the 3rd Rabbi of the Belz dynasty felt similarly to those questions and offered the following teaching that I believe resonates deeply:

It's a little wicked in and of itself to punish the wicked son by blunting his teeth. After all, he c a m e to the seder when he didn't have to come at all. Now the word Rasha ‘’רשע’’ is made up of the outside letters "ra" ’’רע’– evil with the shin ’’ש’’ inside. What does this mean? The 3 lines of the shin (or if you want to go matriarchs, use the bottom line as the 4th) symbolize matriarchs and patriarchs. If the shin is on the inside of the rasha that tells you that inside every person is a point that is connected to their past and their foremothers and forefathers. This child’s soul is connected to goodness/godliness. So when it says "hakheh et shinav," read it as knocking his shin loose, the best part of his inner nature. Bring it out from the "ra". Give this child courage. Tell the child you know he has potential because you know that this child really is holy.

What a beautiful response by the Belzer Rebbe. He understands that responding to the wicked child with force and anger will only result in more feelings of being an outsider in a holiday that can be argued as the most insider of our holidays. We are all drawn together on Pesah, no matter our regularly scheduled Jewish programming. No matter whether our usual ritual observance could be described as glatt kosher or kosher style, our Pesah narrative is something shared by all of us. Whether we self-define as the wicked child or have that title cast upon us, maybe we can learn something from the Belzer Rebbe this year. Instead of castigation, let’s try to find the connective “shin” in each of us, that part that ties us back to our roots and bring it forward out of the darkness of the toxicity of our lives and into the light.

Shemini 4/2/16

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Rebecca Schatz

Mother Teresa once said, “We need to find God, and God cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence…We need silence to be able to touch souls.” Although a beautiful idea of connecting to God through nature and that which has been created for us, I question how in a world of noise God can only be found in silence! You hear many people describe their belief in God through a child being born, hearing a beautiful symphony, seeing magnificent beauty in art or architecture, etc. These are sometimes set in silence, but as often are accompanied by the sound of laughter, crying, birds chirping, instruments harmonizing, voices joining in song, making our hearts soar and filling us with belief.

At the end of the inauguration of the Mishkan, Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, are struck by the fire that they are bringing to god as an offering. They are killed by that which they wanted to sacrifice, all because “they offered a strange fire before God which He had not commanded from them” (Vayikra 10:2). The phrase “before the Lord” is mentioned three times in these verses: […] “they brought before the Lord foreign fire, which He had not commanded them. And fire went forth from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord” (Vayikra 10: 1-2). What is the significance of this phrase? Is God embarrassed? Is God full of guilt and only willing to take responsibility for something God sees through from beginning to end? Can we know God’s purpose for these deaths?

Moshe tells Aaron, after the death of his sons, that God told him: “I will be sanctified through those near to Me, and before all the people I will be glorified.” And Aaron was silent! Can we understand Aaron’s silence? Aaron, the father of these children is silent! Not screaming, crying, yelling – no emotion seen or felt at all – just silence. The Rashbam says that Aaron was angry at God and could not understand how to serve or perform his priestly duties after God performed such an evil act. His silence is a “protest to God,” my teacher Rabbi Artson says. However, Aaron continues to serve, and the Rashbam believes it is because of Moshe’s words from God that “I [God] will be sanctified in those that come near to me.”

According to Mother Teresa, this might have been a moment of God-knowing for Aaron. Perhaps dumbstruck, speechless in anger, stilled as if dead himself. I believe that in the silence, Aaron is questioning his relationship to God, his leadership to a people in devotion to God and his anger at losing those he loves most deeply. Not only do Aaron’s sons come before God in devotion and offering, but also they do so without being asked - a seemingly positive and exciting surprise for God. However, perhaps it is the closeness that they feel that burns them with their own giving. Perhaps Aaron has created a world for his sons of such devotion, comfort and ease in relationship to God that now, their giving of an unasked sacrifice is what destroys them. And because they have done nothing wrong, God is ashamed that this is the punishment that must be given and makes sure it is all done before God, showing the detachment of relationship.

So Aaron’s silence is disbelief, protest and acknowledgement. Aaron understands that the life he offered his sons is one that, in the end, allowed their comfort to be their demise. Aaron is silent because, as we all know, words do not bring those we love back to life once they are gone. Finally, Aaron is silent because we always want those who tell us they love us, support us and care for us, to come through and act in the way of their words, and here God failed to put God’s words into action. Silence is a place for contemplation, the beauty between notes of a symphony, the distance needed to hear the environment around us and create a more perfect beautiful world. May we all listen this Shabbat to the silences coming from within our community and may those silences bring us closer to healing, support and happiness in the relationships we have to those around us, and with God.

Tzav 3/26/16

Prepared by Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

As we read through the almost too-detailed details of the prescribed sacrifices in Parshat Tzav, and the parashot that surround it, our modern sensibilities may very well recoil at the idea of approaching God through such bloody ritual. And we may justifiably wonder, "Now why are we still reading these passages today, millennia after the 2nd Temple was destroyed, in a community that does not harbor any romantic hope of returning to animal sacrifice even if a 3rd Temple is rebuilt?!" Excellent question. I ask it myself several times a year.

At least at this moment, the following insight informs my connection to Tzav and the entire book of Vayikra/Leviticus: The system of sacrifices stands as one step in an incremental process of change and evolution for the Jewish nation, from slaves to Pharaoh to free people engaged in a relationship with God. The Rambam (Maimonides) emphasizes this in his work Moreh Nevukhim (The Guide for the Perplexed) 3:12, "It is impossible for people to go from one extreme to another all at once." The Israelites, enslaved in Egypt and surrounded by cultic idolatry where even human sacrifice was the norm, could not and would have accepted the siddur as the main mode of relating to this new God. It would have been too extreme a jump for them to make. So the sacrifices were a temporary accommodation, from which God expected and hoped we would evolve.

Rambam's insight is true regarding many aspects of life. As Rabbi Uzi Weingarten wrote, "We are creatures of habit; shifting our habits--as anybody who has attempted this knows all too well--is a complex process." Through this prism, suddenly Parshat Tzav teaches the wonderful lesson that God accepts, patiently, incremental progress. Just as the Israelites in the desert were an unfinished product, so are we. What contemporary conventions are only temporary, and will necessarily dissolve as we evolve? How do we distinguish between the rituals of Judaism and its essence? Perhaps these questions spur us to explore more deeply ta'amei hamitzvot, the reasons behind why we perform certain commandments. And perhaps this line of thinking imbues within us an important humility regarding our own observance.

Vayikra...An antiquated book? Only if you are resistant to plumbing its relevant truths.

So ask the question about why we read it. But if you are going to ask it, really ask it. Meaning, ask the question to yourself not rhetorically, but expecting an answer. The process of asking the question will evoke some surprising answers, even from yourself. If we approach the Torah, even arcane aspects of it, with the assumption that it is timelessly relevant, that the challenge is not upon the Torah to change but upon us to generate creative associations with it, the dance between Torah and Jew never ends, no matter the historical era, and no matter the passage.

Shabbat Shalom

Vayikra 3/18/16

Prepared by Rabbi Ari Lucas

The book of Leviticus opens with the word Vayiqra. It means, “And then He called.” God reached out to Moses to give instructions as to the proper performance of various sacrificial rites. According to tradition, the aleph in Vayiqra is an aleph ze’eira - a little aleph (pictured above).

One commentator, the Ba’al Ha-turim (Jacob ben Asher, 13th-14th century France and Spain), suggests that the small aleph has a backstory. It was the result of a compromise resolving a disagreement between Moses and God. According to the midrash, God was dictating the text of the Torah to Moses who, in turn, faithfully scribed God’s words. When he arrived at the words in question, “And then God called to Moses,” Moses hesitated.

"Who am I that God should call me?” asked Moses.

Moses emended God’s words to read vayiqer - ויקר. Leaving off the aleph changes the meaning from “And then God called to Moses” to “And then God happened upon Moses” as if by coincidence (miqreh). According to this midrash, Moses, in his abundant humility, wanted posterity to assume that it was a chance occurrence that God called to me and not some special designation.

But God insisted that Moses write the aleph. For God, it was important that generations know that God called to Moses. Moses, in his abundant humility, asked permission to write this alef smaller than all the other alefs in the Torah. Thus, the aleph we see in the text is a compromise between the two positions.

In order to make space for God in our lives, we need to diminish the “aleph” that is our own ego. The “I” that gets in the way of serving “You.” So often our own obsession with the self impedes on our ability to serve others. We live in a culture of selfies and the celebration of individualism. We celebrate and reward certified egomaniacs in our celebrity culture and in our politics. Moses’s story reminds us that the key to his leadership was his humility. That’s what made him qualified to be called.

And yet, we cannot be too humble that we deny our responsibility in being called. God didn’t allow Moses to deny his critical role in being God’s partner in this world. God cannot go it alone. The almighty, the Holy Blessed One, needs something from us. This is what Heschel calls the "mysterious paradox of faith - God is pursuing man." Heschel writes, "It is as if God were unwilling to be alone, and He has chosen man to serve Him." We are essential partners in God's plan. God needs our service.

The small aleph calls to us, as it called to Moses, self contract when accepting the mantle of leadership. It represents the balance between humility and ego that is necessary to effective servant leadership. It’s not about you and yet, God needs you. It’s a paradox that lies at the heart of a life of service. May we be blessed with the humility and the sense of calling that will allow us to live our lives in this sacred relationship.

This is part of a series Rabbi Lucas is writing about the big and small letters in the Torah.

Vayakhel 3/5/16

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Rebecca Schatz

Reflect Outward to Step Inward

For the past few weeks, we have read about the Israelites building the Mikdash, then building the Golden Calf, and this week we are building the Mishkan. All of these building projects have two important aspects in common. One, they are built by gifts of precious items presented on behalf of creating and second they are built in community. Individuals bring of themselves and together create something for God. Now, in the Cirst case, the Mikdash, the Israelites are building a sacred space for God to dwell, the Golden Calf, however, is built in spite of God and as rebellion. Therefore, in this week’s parasha, Va’yakhel, Moses tells the congregation of the children of Israel that God has commanded them to “Take from among you an offering unto God, whoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it.” (Exodus 35:5)

“.׳ה תמורת תא האיבי ,ובל בידנ לכ ,׳הל ,המורת םכתאמ וחק” The children of Israel are not only willing but bring their most important skills forward to help create this Mishkan as a devotion, and reverence for God.

Although completely communal, there is one aspect of the Mishkan that is built individually to reClect relationship: the mirrors that the women bring as their contributions. As is said in Shmot 38:8 “And he made the washstand of copper and its base of copper from the mirrors of the women who had set up the legions, who congregated at the entrance of the tent of meeting.” Now, not only is this a large hidden story in a complicated sentence, but an important aspect of the Mishkan that is glossed over as yet another ornament. Rashi explains: “The women used the mirrors to adorn themselves [for their husbands]. Moses rejected the mirrors because they were made for temptation. God said to Moses, ‘accept them (the mirrors), for these are more precious to Me than anything because through them the women set up many legions (through the children they had) in Egypt.’” The women believed in the continuation of relationship, not only with God through the Mishkan, but with their loved ones.

A few weeks ago, a group of friends organized an intervention for a friend who was suffering from a bad relationship. While going around to share our thoughts, one person mentioned that your best friends are here to be your mirror, to show you what you are dealing with outside of yourself and to reClect back what you deserve and should see in yourself. The mirrors that the women bring to the Mishkan reClect out, not in. Anyone who walks by the Mishkan sees themselves, those around them, the good, the bad and the reality of the world before stepping in to a place to seek a holy relationship with God.

These 3 different building projects exemplify different aspects of our relationship with God. The Mikdash is new love, exciting and all bliss, the Golden Calf is resentment, fear and cold-‐feet, and the Mishkan is acceptance of working towards a relationship of commitment, love, devotion and reClection of one’s self through God. Create projects in life that require us to bring ourselves forward, commit to our actions and take responsibility for our uniqueness. Let us all acknowledge our mirrors in life and utilize the reClections of our reality to become closer to our desired relationship with God.

Ki Tissa 2/27/16

Prepared by Rabbi Ari Lucas

Your Light is in My Hands and My Light is In Yours

There hasn’t been a big letter in the first 33 chapters of Exodus and then, in this week’s Parshah, Ki Tissa, there are two. The first (pictured above) is the first letter, nun, in the phrase notzer hesed (34:7). The second (pictured below) is the last letter, reish, in the word aher (34:14). Later in the parshah, God warns the Israelites not to bow down to another god (eil aher). I’ve written about this big reish elsewhere, arguing that there is, literally, a thin line between authentic worship of God and idolatry.

Ki Tissa is a parshah about covenant. We see the devastating consequences when one party to the covenant is unfaithful. The sin of the golden calf was a major test in the nascent relationship between God and Israel. While not a proud moment for Israel, it offered an opportunity for forgiveness and repair. It tested the limits of understanding and forgiveness from both sides early on. Reflecting on thousands of years of “marriage” to God, we have endured through moments of pain and disappointment from both parties.

Notzer hesed appears in a list of thirteen attributes associated with God that Moses learned after carving the second set of tablets. God is “merciful and compassionate, forgiving sin,” and the like. Notzer hesed la’alafim means “extending kindness to the thousandth (generation).” Many of us are familiar with this passage since we sing it repeatedly as part of the S’lihot service in the High Holy Day liturgy.

So, why the big nun?

Of the many different explanations, my favorite is offered by the Sefer Nefutzot Yehudah - a collection of sermons by 16th c. Italian rabbi, Judah Moscato. Moscato links the two large letters in the parshah. The big nun from notzer combined with the big reish in aher spells ner - light. Just like the teaching that suggests that the big ayin and dalet in the Sh’ma be read together to spell eid - witness, Rabbi Moscato, wants to link the two big letters in Ki Tissa to teach a lesson about entrusting one’s light to another in covenantal relationship.

He references the following teaching from the Midrash:

The Holy Blessed One said to man, “Your light (ner) is in my hand, my light (ner) is in your hand.” - Leviticus Rabbah 31:4

What could this beautiful formula of mutuality mean? What does it mean that God’s light is in our hands? Perhaps, this statement suggests that God relies on us to be beacons shining the light of God’s divine attributes into the world. When we are kind, loving, and forgiving - God feels that God’s light is shining. And our light is in God’s hands. The light of our lives, fragile and beautiful, is entrusted to God for protection.

to be in a covenantal relationship means entrusting your light to another. Think of the different relationships in your life - a spouse, mother/father, friends, community members. None of them can be sustained by one party alone. Even though there are moments of pain when another lets us down, enduring covenantal relationships offer an opportunity for our lights to shine more brightly - when we share them with another.

Tetzaveh 2/20/16

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Adir Yolkut

My mother’s favorite compliment to give me lately has been how proud she is of me for my ability to have a sense of delayed gratification. As I inch closer to my rabbinic ordination, the praise becomes even more and more effusive. I am happy to receive the compliment but at some point, a couple years ago, in one of those moments of stagnation in a journey, I was not so interested in being complimented on succeeding at delayed gratification, whatever that meant. I imagine others have a similar feeling in journeys of their own life: journeys to other advanced degrees, journeys to start a family, journeys at overcoming physical obstacles. Sometimes, you just want the “pot of gold” at the end.

This type of culmination comes toward the end of our parshah this week when we read in chapter 30:1, “you shall make an altar for burning incense; make it of acacia wood.” It is a seemingly simple commandment whose placement has constantly perplexed commentators. If parashat tetzaveh is all about the garb of the High Priest and their ordination, and parshat terumah from a couple weeks ago dealt with instruments of sacrifice, why is this commandment to build the incense altar not placed in parshat terumah? One of the great Hasidic masters, the Mei Hashiloah, Rav Moshe Yosef Leiner from Ishbitza in 19^th century Poland picks up on a teaching from the Talmud in Zevahim 88b that says that each article of clothing that the priest wears atones for a different sin: the tunic atones for murder, the pants for sexual impropriety, the turban for improper spirit, etc. The Mei Hashiloah then describes how the priest has to use each of those associations to bring about the proper amount of fear and awe into his service in order to truly serve. Only once he has done that can he finally offer the incense offering, which is a wholly happy and joy filled offering. In this teaching the Mei Hashiloah is teaching us something of delayed gratification. The placement of the incense offering is intentionally here to instill in us the value of carrying the wholeness of your journey, both the weight of its lows and the elation of its highs. Nothing is superfluous in the priest’s wardrobe.

However, it’s not enough to just wear those “clothes” and be reminded of all that has come before and the power within you. The Lubavitcher Rebbe also teaches about this perplexing placement and he offers that we don’t use the same word for sacrificing incense that we do for sacrificing animals. A korban, sacrifice, coming from the word “close” in Hebrew brings near the one performing the sacrifice and the object but ultimately, even when something is close, there is still a distance there. But, an incense offering, ketoret, is related to the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew word, kesher, tie. He describes that the closeness that happened between us and God through the sacrifices got us close but never fully fused us with togetherness until the incense was offered, fully binding us.

The fusion of those two teachings is one that I think can help guide those of us on arduous and lengthy journeys. There ultimately comes that point where you have had enough and you just want to fast forward a couple of days, months, or sometimes years. Yet, just like the incense offering could only be fully enjoyed with the experience of everything that came before it, all of our journeys rest on that fulcrum. Appreciating the whole gamut of emotions that came before allows us to wholeheartedly appreciate the prize of delayed gratification. Thanks for the tip, mom!

Mishpatim 2/6/16

Prepared by Cantorial Intern Michelle Stone

The Talmudic sage, Rava, teaches that when we die and arrive at the heavenly court, the first question each of us will be asked is “Did you handle your business dealings faithfully?” This statement appears on the same page of the Talmud as the famous al regel achat story, where a man asks Hillel to teach him all of Torah on one foot and Hillel famously answers, “What is hateful to you, don’t do to others. That is all of Torah; the rest is commentary; go learn it.” This is the Golden Rule we are taught as children. And if you were dishonest in business dealings, you were not treating others in the way that you wanted to be treated. You were not honoring the Golden Rule. The two are one and the same.

This week in our Torah reading, we leave the long narratives that we have been enjoying since we started the rereading of the Torah in the fall. We have enjoyed the stories of creation, of Abraham and Sarah, of Jacob and Joseph, of Moses in the bulrushes and the Exodus from Egypt. The stories have been fun, but now it’s time to talk tachlis. It’s time to lay down the rules of the road – the mitzvot bein adam l’chavero, the laws pertaining to how we deal with one another. This week’s parasha, Parshat Mishpatim, is where we start receiving the laws and ethics that govern interpersonal conduct. Mishpatim are a certain subset of rules in the Torah; they are the laws that that are considered rational and easily understood. Mishpatim include the admonitions to not steal or murder. This week’s parasha is aptly called Mishpatim, because it primarily consists of a list of laws, most of which fall into the mishpatim category. It includes the laws relating to slavery, damages, and lending of money, what we might consider political and business law. The famous ayin tachat ayin saying, “an eye for an eye”, comes from this parasha.

But this parasha does not only include political and business laws. It also includes laws governing the treatment of a stranger, widow and orphan, and other moral and ethical behaviors, such as returning a lost animal to its owner, distancing oneself from dishonesty, and helping a neighbor with a heavy load. The moral and ethical laws are interwoven with political and business law, almost as if they are doing a dance. It is with the sum total of these laws, the political and the business and the moral and the ethical, that we become a holy people to God; we become an anshei kodesh (Ex. 22:30).

The Torah promotes the melding of our religious and secular lives. The rules are interwoven to explain that they are on the same playing field. Morality and business exist in the same realm. It is just as important to deal fairly and justly in the corporate world as it is to treat strangers with kindness and provide support to those in need. Telling the truth in your business dealings is just as Jewish as giving tzedakah and feeding the homeless. Being an ethical boss is as fundamental to being as Jew as fasting on Yom Kippur.

We are required to deal ethically with those we engage in business. It is a requirement, not a strongly worded suggestion. The law places a very high moral standard on us and demands honesty in business dealings. Our religious and business lives do not have to be mutually exclusive. When we bring Jewish ethics into the work environment, we have the opportunity to elevate the mundane, nitty gritty of our day-to-day lives and make it holy work, to make it God’s work.

Shabbat Shalom.

Yitro 1/30/16

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Rebecca Schatz

Have you ever seen the TV show The Voice? If you haven’t, let me share a brief description. It’s a TV show where contestants come before a panel of judges who all have their backs turned to the performers. The contestants then sing and if the judges enjoy their voices and think they are talented, the judges turn their chairs to hopefully persuade the singer to be on their team.

When have you had an experience where you have seen someone on a billboard, walking the street, or in a show and then when you heard their voice you were surprised at what you heard? It could also work the opposite way with hearing a voice on the radio or in a concert hall, and when you see them you are surprised at their appearance. Yes, we have all had this experience and it is one that is surprising each time. We have expectations of how people sound based on how they look, and according to research at Northwestern University, if someone’s voice doesn’t seem to match their body (because of how our brain processes this information) our visual experience is affected; what we hear can indeed change our opinion of what we see. Our vision can bias our experience of other senses, such as hearing.

In this weeks parasha, Yitro, the people of Israel receive the 10 commandments and there is the famous Hollywood scene with the thunder, lightning, loud noises and revelation on a large mountain. The moment right after this large scene, the nation “saw the voices.” As it says in Exodus 20:14, “And all the people saw the voices and the torches, the sound of the shofar, and the smoking mountain, and the people saw and trembled; so they stood from afar.”

Rashi says, “and all the people saw” means that there was not one blind person amongst those hearing the Torah. He also comments on “the voices” referring to many voices, voices coming from every direction and from the heavens and the earth. This is a sort of “surround sound” moment. The people hear the word of God from all directions and they could see what was audible, impossible in any other place or experience (Mechilta d’Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai).

The Sefat Emet, Rabbi Yehudah Leib of Ger who lived in the mid 1800’s. Says that the reason for this language is to explain an event that we cannot fathom in our understanding of this moment of revelation or any other incredible moment like this.

This beautiful teaching shows to us that revelatory experiences are possible even today, and that we are each connected to our commandments, our story and God by the kolot the many voices that speak to each one of us in our own individual way. The people of Israel did not need to believe in what they heard because they saw the voice of their story, their legacy and ultimately their relationship with God.

Shabbat Shalom!

Beshalah - Shabbat Shira 1/23/16

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Adir Yolkut

One of the earliest lessons most of us learn, either at home or at school is to never tell someone to shut up. It’s rude. It’s abrupt. It immediately tells a person that what they have to say is worthless. When you hear it, it hurts deeply. The old adage does not ring true. Stick and stones do hurt and no, actually, words also really hurt. But what happens when the person telling you to shut up is Moses? What happens when he tells you this with a raging sea in front of you and an advancing, murderous army nearing you from the other side?

That’s exactly what happens in this week’s parashah of Beshalah. As they are trapped between an army and a wet place, the Israelites cry out in their usual desert complaint of “why did you take us out of Egypt for this?!” Moses’ response is as follows, “Have no fear. Stand by, and witness the deliverance which God will work for you today, for the Egyptians whom you will never see again. The Lord will battle for you; you hold your peace!” At first glance, it seems clear to the modern reader that the people are being given the “shut up” treatment. It is on this note that the Midrash in Mekhilta D’Rabbi Yishhmael Beshallah 2 comments:

“Rabbi says: The Lord will battle for you and you hold your peace. Shall God perform miracles and mighty deeds for you while you stand silently by? The Israelites then said to Moses: Moses, our teacher, what is there for us to do? And he said to them: You should be exalting, glorifying and praising, uttering songs of praise, adoration and glorification to Him in whose hands are the fortunes of wars

This may be the response many of us would assume had we held Moses’ position. Are you serious?! After all of the miracles of your freedom from Egypt, this is the type of faith that you show in God?! You complain about life being preferable in Egypt. Perhaps the Midrash, picking up on the harshness of the initial response adds in the suggestion to sing and offer praises to God. Yes, it is a version of “silence!” but it is a redemptive “shut up.” Nonetheless, I could not help but still feel uncomfortable by the response. Even if it was an attempt to steer them to say something more productive, their fear was warranted. Even with the utmost faith, an advancing army and a stormy body of water would be enough to tear asunder the faith of any holy person. It is this discomfort that I think pushes Rabbi Shmuel Borenstein, the 2^nd Sochazew Rebbe to say the following:

“You hold your peace has to do with trusting in the Lord... trust is above faith, for trusting subsumes having faith, but having faith does not subsume trusting... So, by the very act of remaining silent and trusting in the Lord’s deliverance, deliverance will come. That being so, You shall hold your peace is not a negative, rather a positive command

It was not a command to shut up. It was a command to look inward and forget about finding the faith. Seek the trust. Even if in this moment, you people do not have the faith that God is present, you must trust that God will find a way to act. Sometimes, our own announcer voice gets in our heads so much that it distracts us from the varied and deep truths that we hold. One of those is our trust in God. Even in moments of great desperation, when faith feels so far off, Moses, channeled through Rav Shmuel is telling us to quiet down and find that true belief in God.

Bo 1/16/16

Prepared by Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

We study the Torah, and I teach Torah to my students, with an aim towards asking a good question. For all meaningful interpretations of the Torah (whether from Rashi, the Talmud or modern commentators) begin with perceptive questions on the text. We pore over the words as a love letter, extracting meaning from every letter, every trope (musical) marking, the resolution to every seeming redundancy or contradiction.

There is nothing more satisfying as a teacher of Torah when a student starts doing sacred surgery on the text, right in front of your eyes. I was once teaching the Exodus narrative to a group of middle school students. One of them asked a zinger on a verse that appears in Parshat Bo. Moshe is explaining to Pharaoh the details of the 10th plague, the killing of the 1st born. In 11:5, we learn that it is God's intention to smite all the first-born in Egypt including כל בכור בהמה, khol b'khor b'heymah, all the first-born of the cattle. But, one student aptly noted, that this verse does not jive with 9:6 which says that the fifth plague (dever—דבר—pestilence) was meant to have wiped out all of the Egyptian cattle! If all Egyptian cattle were killed in plague # 5, how could any of them be left to be affected by plague 10? A wonderful question indeed!

One of the answers that the group of students came up with was that though the 5th plague was intended to destroy all Egyptian cattle, God held back. While having to resort to violence to pursue the lofty goal of Israelite freedom, God chose to hold back, to exhibit restraint, to make sure not to wield all of the power in God's hands. Liberation was costly. It always is. But the goal of liberation does not itself liberate the liberators (even God) from all deliberation and discretion. This read thus juxtaposes an honorable restraint in plague 5 against the utter destruction of plague 10. After all, if God is to send the angel of death to Egypt on a search for first-born sons, could not God also direct the destroyer only to the Egyptian homes? Why the need for the blood on the lintel to distinguish the Israelite homes? The traditional answer is that destruction and mayhem, once unleashed, is hard to reel in and nearly impossible to control. Even for God. Which makes the notion of God’s holding back the reins on the cattle-destroying plague all the more noteworthy, and evocative.

What we know from political history, as well as Biblical narrative, is that one who rules with brutality cannot possibly hope to engender true fealty among subjects. By holding back, God exhibits to the Israelites that the Holy One is a ruler unlike Pharaoh; God is a ruler who understands that at times the greatest use of one's power is in restraining it. When compassion infiltrates our most zealous of moments, our most violent of urges, we know we are emulating the God of mercy.

We have an opportunity to learn from this insight every day. This Shabbat, identify at least one moment where you can temper your urge to yell, lash out, exert power and subdue...by holding back, staying within yourself and allowing a more compassionate self to dominate.

Vayigash 12/18/15

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern, Rebecca Schatz

A few weeks ago, I was on my way to San Francisco, and in the airport I ran into my brother, Sammy. He just started Stanford Law School and although I knew he was traveling that day, I had no idea that he would be in the SFO airport at the same time, two gates away from where I would be deplaning. I am the eldest of four children and the only girl, and very often I wished, as a young child, to have a sister, but now I know that having three brothers is a gift and a blessing. There have been multiple moments in my life where I have left home, for college, my year in Israel, to live on my own, etc. and the hardest part was departing from my siblings.

In this week’s parashah we encounter the reuniting of the brothers with Joseph, whom they threw in a pit and sold into slavery. Joseph, after having a successful life in Egypt still weeps when he sees his brother, knowing that something has been missing from his life of success, power and prestige. Our text reads:

וינשק לכל–אחיו ויבך עלהם ואחרי כן דברו אחיו אתו

“And he kissed every brother and he cried on them and after this his brothers spoke with him”

What is it about this moment that Joseph felt enough emotion and forgiveness to let go and show his brothers how much he loves and missed them? According to the Shem MiShmuel, Rabbi Shmuel Bornsztain, when Joseph saw Judah offer to go to jail instead of Benjamin, he knew his brothers had repented and that they had changed from the brothers who sold him to Egypt years before. Because he could see the teshuva that they had done, his heart opened to forgive them as a whole, and embrace them each as siblings.

Siblings, if they are lucky, grow up as a unit and stay each other’s best friends until the end. Joseph was not as lucky, however, his growth came in realizing the loss of camaraderie because of sibling rivalry and the tremendous despair felt in the emptiness of a possible relationship. My brothers make fun of me for crying whenever they do something, which is true, but only from pride not jealousy. One famous Schatz story is when my youngest sibling was playing Don Quixote in “Man of La Mancha” and Milken did the production in the round, so the audience was very close, and at times, part of the production. During the scene where he dies (sorry for the spoiler) I happened to be sitting next to Jonah on the Uinal night of the performance. His head was positioned almost in my lap and though I had seen the show now 5 times, I cried like a baby watching his performance in the death scene. At the end of the show, he came up and said, “Rebecca, do not ever sit near me when I am trying to act, you were blubbering like a baby and it was hard to keep character.”

Joseph felt an overwhelming sense of joy, pride, and connection to his siblings in the moment that he embraced them and cried on them. Rashi tells us that he continuously cried, and only once he was done did his brothers Uind the words to speak. In this time of family gathering, recognize that which makes you proud, calm and secure when in the presence of those you love. My brother Jacob called the other day just to say he loved me and it was that call that made my whole day brighter. Our siblings carry our heart, protect it from that which we cannot protect ourselves, and share with us in the pain of life lived. Let us all Uind the moment this Shabbat to embrace those we love, maybe shed a tear or two and then continue those conversations of what it means to be family.

Shabbat Shalom!

Vayhi 12/25/15

Prepared by Temple Beth Am Rabbinic Intern, Adir Yolkut

My only real memory of a family death, thankfully, was when my grandfather, Morris Belsky, died when I was 8 years old. I do not remember much about his death beyond one important detail. Even though his wife remained alive and thankfully continues with good health today, I remember there being a lot of tension as to who was going to fill that void among my mother and her siblings. It was not explicitly stated but I think there was a tension that percolated in those times at the absence of this figure because no one really knew how to act. Should I strongly step in? Should I be an empathetic presence for my loved ones? There are a lot of unknowns and anxiety when it comes to the death of a family figure. In that moment, the loved ones left behind were without that presence that had helped them guide them and they were unsure of how.

A similar response is felt especially strongly in our Parsha this week, Vayehi.

Jacob, one of the seminal figures of the book of Genesis is nearing his end. Once he properly adjures Joseph to make sure he is buried in Israel, Jacob dies. However, after passing away and having his son Joseph and his brothers bury him out of Egypt and in the land of Israel, his children, perhaps traumatized by the death of their father fall back into emotional tumult.

In chapter 50:15-19, we see the brothers fearful of retribution for their deception now that Jacob is not around to protect them from Joseph’s wrath. Unwarranted or not, it is not a surprising action. Perhaps they recognized a change in Joseph’s behavior, as Rashi suggests in that Joseph no longer attempt to bring them close. Or, perhaps, they simply were at a loss and were reeling in the wake of their father being gone from their lives. In either case, they make a great plea, filled with begging and prostration and ask for forgiveness. In this moment of tension, instinct might lead us to think that Joseph, finally free of fealty to his father, could exact the vengeance he has always wanted. Yet, as always, Joseph surprises us. He tells the brothers, “Don’t be afraid. Shall I serve in the place of God?” Joseph strikes a deep note of humility and in the simple act gives us an important message for how to act in moments of great unrest and loss.

But to get there, we must understand a little Midrashic back-story. On the return from burying their father, the Midrash tells us that the brothers spotted Joseph peeping into the very pit into which he had been cast. The brothers had interpreted this as his own plans for retribution. In actuality, Joseph had looked to offer thanks to God and to remind himself of his blessing. In this moment of loss, the brothers follow in their narrative of selfishness only worried about themselves and Joseph invokes his humility and devotion to God. It is the same humility that fuels him to respond in wonderment to his brothers. I have never played God before. Why would I do so now?!

Or, as famed social psychologist Dr. Erich Fromm put it, “to be objective, to use one's reason, is possible only if one has achieved an attitude of humility, if one has emerged from the dreams of omniscience and omnipotence which one has as a child.”

Joseph has transformed from his youthful and self serving fantasies to a man of reason, humility and fearing God. This is what we must emulate when we feel lost and are in uncharted waters. Forced confidence and certainty do not get us to the same holy places that humility and reason can. Shabbat Shalom.

Vayeshev 12/5/15

Prepared by Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Many of you know that I teach a weekly class on Rashi’s commentary on the Torah. I started this class over 15 years ago in my first congregation, beginning with Breishit/Genesis 1:1. When I moved to TBA, I picked up where had left off, and we are now studying Parashat Vayeshev, which begins the Yosef narrative. It also happens to be this week’s parsha, giving our class the annual, meaningful joy of reading in shul on Shabbat the parsha we have been studying in depth every week.

This week in particular, a comment by Rashi that the class first encountered some months ago, on the opening verse of Vayeshev, hit me in a poignant way. Sometimes current events awaken or deepen insights that one first learned in a more neutral zone. The comment focuses on the word “Vayeshev/וישב” itself. It means “And he dwelled,” referring to the fact that Yaakov put down roots in the land of his ancestors. The root י-ש-ב, y-sh-v can mean “to sit” or “to dwell” and so the plain meaning of the verse is that Yaakov and his large and growing family established permanent residence in the same area in which Isaac and Abraham had lived. But every Torah commentator is alert to even mildly extraneous words. And so Rashi observes that there is no need for the Torah to tell us this information. We know already from the end of the previous parsha, Vayishlah, that Yaakov lived there. And since we aren’t told that he moved somewhere else, we don’t need that datum retold. Therefore he explains the verse via an alternate meaning to the same root. י-ש-ב, or y-sh-v can also mean to settle or to be settled. To be at peace. To have yishuv da’at is to have tranquility. Rashi said that after the recent turmoil with the fleeing from Lavan, the reunion with Esav and the death of Rachel, Yaakov now yearned for yishuv. The opening word of the parsha, then, is aspirational. He craved to be at rest, at peace, serene and free from travail.

Alas, neither Yaakov, nor any of us, can ever hope that that wish be comprehensively fulfilled. Rashi’s read is that the Torah is, at best, sadly relating Yaakov’s impossible wish; at worst, it is mocking it. He wished for yishuv, for tranquility? And what he gets, immediately, is the Yosef narrative, replete with envy, attempted murder, despair and grief, some of which brought on by Yaakov’s own poor parenting choices and some brought on by the vagaries of the universe. The point Rashi seems to be making, and which is reinforced to us all too often, is that disequilibrium is the norm. Serenity is aspirational. And the moment you think you deserve, or are about to enjoy, utter tranquility…it will likely be punctured by things both predictable and unpredictable.

Our headlines and Facebook memes relate this doleful truth constantly. How many times have we awakened following a particularly turbulent time in our personal lives, or in the violent life of this nation, or the terrorized life of modern civilization, hoping that this is the day when things will quiet down, only to have screaming headlines of mass shootings, civilian massacres or personal malaise interrupt the reverie? The message is not that we ought to live in pessimism, always assuming that horror is around the corner. Rather, the lesson is to cherish the moments of yishuv that we either create or come to us unearned, do everything within our prayerful and political power to brace ourselves for or diminish the likelihood of the hard moments to come, and then find the strength and determination to push on with life when that very tranquility proves elusive.

May it be a week of equilibrium. And should the yishuv not come this week, may we work harder such that it may come soon after.

Shabbat Shalom

Vayetze 11/21/15

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern, Adir Yolkut

I was in a learning session last week and a question was posed to the crowd to share what their response had been to encounters with God? In a room full of parents, doctors, teachers, etc, one would think that the answers would have been free flowing. “I was in total awe.” I felt an intense lightness about me.” “I don’t even have words,” could have been any of the expected responses. Except, what happened was...utter and total silence. How could it be that in a room full of religious people, no one described what an encounter with God was like?! I believe many Jews struggle to even have moments of religiously heightened ecstasy, one of those moments where you totally let go and get enveloped in being incubated by God’s presence. So, here we are, in a room and building made to worship God and very few of us can even think of encounters with God!?

Fret not though because I think that a solution to this exact problem is found in the beginning of this week’s parashah, when our forefather Jacob has a certain dream in which angels ascend and descend a ladder and a promise is given to him. Then we are told the following (28:16), “Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely God is present in this place and I did not know.” The traditional commentaries on this suggest Jacob was upset that he did not realize God was in this place so he should’ve slept elsewhere or prepared accordingly.

However, to fully grasp the following teaching, we need to understand a peculiarity in the Hebrew of this verse. The text tells us that certainly God was in this place and then it says, v’anokhi lo yadati, literally translated as “And I, I did not know.” You see, the verbiage of “lo yadati” includes the first person, so saying “Anokhi-I” beforehand seems superfluous. Knowing that, I share with you the following teaching from the Tiferet Shlomo, Rabbi Shlomo Hakohen Rabinowitz, the first Rebbe of the Radomsky Hassidic dynasty in 19^th century Poland:

This “I, I did not know,” means I did not know myself at all. I was not aware of myself at all, but only of the unity of the Holy One, Blessed Be He.

A classic Hasidic reading yes, but it is one that perfectly captures the, seemingly, repetitious nature of the text. Picking up on that extra “I” word, the Radomsky Rebbe realizes the text must be telling us something deeper about Jacob’s personal transformation in this moment. In order to recognize God, Jacob had to nullify his own self. Remember, this is Jacob’s first journey after having been sent off from his father immediately after his continued embroilment with his brother, Esav. He had been so wrapped up in his own conflicts with his brother and father that it took this moment for him to encounter God. He had to suppress himself in order to meet the Divine.

It is that idea that I think we can mine from this text. Too often, we let our own selves get in the way of meeting God. They can be feelings of embarrassment for lack of liturgical knowledge. It may be a feeling of not understanding the “choreography” of a service. It can even be feeling uncomfortable donning religious garb but what Jacob’s moment teaches us is that we have to do a little self-reflection and self-nullification. Those aspects of ourselves are real and we can honor them. But, ultimately, those moments stifle us and put up roadblocks on the path to encountering God because they take up the space that God needs to be in process with us. I hope that as the moments to partner with God continue to manifest in our lives, we can find more ways to make even more room for God.

Hayei Sarah 11/7/15

Prepared by Rabbi Ari Lucas

And Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her. - Genesis 23:2

What is the appropriate way to grieve for a loved one? How much crying is enough? How much is too much? These are all questions that I’ve heard mourners ask and they also appear to be questions at play in the conversation about the kaf ze’eirah - the little letter kaf we encounter in Parshat Hayei Sarah.

When Abraham learned of the death of his wife Sarah, the Torah tells us that he “proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her (v’livkotah).” By tradition, the letter kaf in the middle of the word “and to weep over her” (pictured above) is written smaller than the other letters. As with all scriptural anomalies, this one catches the attention of the commentators. Many argue that the small kaf is a signal that Abraham cried less than one would normally cry when losing a beloved spouse and they offer different explanations as to why this is the case. Rabbeinu Efraim claims that Abraham found comfort in his new wife, Keturah. Rabbi Jacob ben Asher suggests that since Sarah lived a long life (127 years), and thus, Abraham’s sadness at her death was diminished.

Rabbi Pinchas Wolf views the same small letter and arrives at the opposite conclusion. He suggests that the small kaf is a sign that Abraham actually cried excessively. He arrives at this conclusion using numerology (gematriya). The first three letters of the word v’livkotah add up to 38. Coincidentally, Abraham lived 38 years after Sara’s death. The small kaf, breaks up the word, and indicates that that Abraham continued to cry for Sarah for the 38 remaining years of his life. His grief for Sarah was so great, that even though he remarried and built a new family, his remaining years were sad and mournful.

Often people feel pressure to grieve in a particular way. Family or community members expect that we should cry more or less or at particular times and not at others. But those who have grieved know that grief doesn’t always follow predictable patterns. Outward expressions are not always reflective of the internal experience of loss or pain. People may see grievers going about their business in the usual manner - parenting, at work, in the synagogue - and everything looks normal and okay. But on the inside, they’re feeling deep sadness. Perhaps Abraham’s tears didn’t show on his cheek. Perhaps his new family never knew how much he missed Sarah. Maybe they never asked.

Perhaps the small kaf is a message to all of those who grieve (and those who seek to offer comfort) about the nature of grief in relationship. So many of us tuck the pain in, we hide it away - like the small kaf hidden in the middle of a word. May we give space to one another to grieve in the ways that come naturally to us. Talking and crying are important parts of the healing process. Let’s give ourselves and others the permission and space to talk and cry when we need to. Let’s offer support and compassionate listening to our loved ones. Then, perhaps, we’ll be able to transform the experience of loss, into one of comfort, love, and support.

This is part of a series Rabbi Lucas is writing on the big and small letters in the text of the Torah.

Vayera 10/31/15

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Rebecca Schatz

You walk into class the first day of school and the teacher calls out your full name, whether it is what you go by or not, and you say “here” or “present” or “yes.” In this week’s Parasha, Avraham is in the classroom and God calls out, expecting an answer from the pupil. “And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him from heaven, and said: ‘Abraham, Abraham.’ And he said: ‘Here I am.’” (Bereshit 22:10-11)

So too, during the High Holidays, God calls each one of us by name throughout the days and we choose whether to proclaim, “Here I am!”

What does it take to admit, “Here I am?” For Abraham it was the searing trauma of testing himself against Isaac. For Jacob it involved the trickery of switching birthrights and deceitfully accepting blessing, when he calls out, “Father!” and Isaac responds, “Here I am." God called to Moshe from the non-flammable burning bush and Moshe replied, “Here I am,” ...ready to listen to Your call and serve as a leader. Each moment of hineini awakens us to be present, to rise and focus, to get into the game and play to win!

When we call out “Hineini,” we're not playing Marco Polo or hide-and-seek. We're answering like Adam answered in the Garden of Eden, when God, Who would have had no trouble finding Adam, called out, “Ayeka? (Where are you?)”. God was asking if Adam was present and aware of where he was, knowing his purpose, goals and role while in the Garden.

Rashi describes this as, "…the response of the righteous. It is the language of humility and readiness."

Today, we make too few opportunities to declare, “Hineini”. We're not listening for God's question. Take a moment, search the week past for the moments when you could have affirmed, “Hineini!” Maybe you were engrossed in a baseball game and your 2-year-old asked you to stop and read him a bedtime book. Or perhaps you interrupted your own day's frustrations to attend to your friend's troubles. Or, Israel in the news. God is beseeching, "For crying out loud, where are you?!"

Hineini!

Noah 10/16/15

Prepared by Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Whenever I fly, I am struck with wonder as the plane takes off. Can this hunk of aluminum actually slice through the air, all the way to NY? Are we in heaven? Is this how a bird feels?

And yet within minutes I, like my fellow passengers, start reading a magazine or playing on my iPhone. The wonder turns, frankly, to boredom. How odd that wonder can be normalized, so quickly. How fleeting wonder is! We cannot hold onto it for too long. Is that a good thing or a bad?

On one hand, it is a good thing. For survival, we need a sense of normalcy. We cannot walk through our days in a dazed stupor. Perpetual wonder is too uncertain to be sustainable. And yet, when the sense of mundane is too strong, we are in spiritual death. When we fail, for too long, to wonder at the blessings of our children, or the wonder of the Shabbat rest, we no longer soar.

How do we achieve the balance? There is a halakha associated with seeing a rainbow, which makes its only appearance in the Torah in this week's parsha, as God's promise to Noach never again to flood the world. The rainbow of Parshat Noach captures the wondrous nature of God's protection and presence. To see a rainbow Jewishly is to be assured that God loves us, and watches over the world. When we see a rainbow, we recite a blessing. And yet, the halakha warns us "not to stare too long at the rainbow." Why?

Well, if you don't look at the rainbow, you will never be gifted with its wonder. And if you stare too long, its wonder will melt away. We need breaks in between being dazzled. If we stared at a beautiful painting for too long, we'd see its cracks and crevices...we'd break it into its component parts and it would lose its grandeur as a totality. We should tear our gaze away from the painting while it still enchants. The same is true with a rainbow, and with God.

In the words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, "I asked for wonder." I am alive, God, to experience wonder. And I turn to you, and to your creations, for it. And I train myself to turn away quickly enough, before the wonder fades.

May this Shabbat be one of many "rainbows." Let us look at them, and bless them. And let us not stare too long, so that the next time we look, they still amaze us.

Shabbat shalom

Beresheet 10/9/15

Prepared by: Rabbi Ari Lucas

Such is the story of heaven and earth when they were created
-Genesis 2:4

Last year I wrote about some of the big letters in the Torah. This year, I will focus on the small letters. They are called otiyot ze’erot. By tradition, they are written smaller than other letters in the Torah. We encounter the first such letter the the very first parashah - B’reishit.

As you can see in the photo above, the letter hey in the word hi-bar’am (they were created) is scribed in a small font. Many different commentators have weighed in on the small hey. Some say that this is a hint to Abraham whose name is an anagram with the word hi-bar’am. The hey hints at the hey that was added to Abram’s name when he established a covenantal relationship with God. According to an ancient midrash, the world was created and sustained for Abraham. Although he who would not be born until generations later, his merit extended back to the beginning of the creation and forward until our generation.

Other commentators see the hey as a symbol of God’s name. R. Shimshon Rafael Hirsch suggests that the small hey reminds us that God’s presence is often hidden in creation and our task is to uncover it wherever it may be found.

I would humbly add that perhaps the small hey is a nod to the Kabbalistic notion of tzimtzum - divine self-contraction. According to Lurianic Kabbalah, God’s presence is infinite and would, as it were, take up all the space in existence. Creation according to this telling was enabled by a benevolent act of God contracting God's Self to make space for the universe. Perhaps the small hey is a visual representation of that story. God, whose name is represented by the letter hey, took up a little less space, in order to make room for creation.

This story has great insight for us as people created in the image of God. Often we think that in order to create something, we need to insert ourselves and our own presence into a situation. But the Lurianic story offers an alternate paradigm. Sometimes, in order for new life to sprout up or new creativity to emerge, we need to humbly make room for others. When we make space for others’ emotions, perspective, and presence, what unfolds is the creation of a new relationship or a new insight that would not otherwise have been possible if our ego dominated the space. God modeled that behavior for us and the result was the magnificence of creation. May we have the courage to make room for other equally beautiful creations if we could learn to make our hey a little smaller and more hospitable.

This is part of a series Rabbi Lucas is writing on the big and small letters in the text of the Torah.

5779

Nitzavim 9/28/19

Standing Together
By Josh Jacobs, TBA Rabbinic Intern

Nitzavim begins with nothing short of a miracle – we all stood together to enter into a covenant with God. What’s interesting is, I’m not even talking about the covenant with God part. Because it’s easy to recognize something like the splitting of the Red Sea as a clear, absolute miracle. But when it comes to people, splitting along social, political, or economic lines is commonplace. Coming together is the miracle. This week, in one brief and glorious verse, “You are all standing this day before the Lord…”(Deut. 29:9). Men, women, and children, young, old, rich, and poor assembled and nitzavim (“standing”) as a single Jewish community. How is this not considered the greatest miracle recorded in the whole Book, right up there with the Ten Plagues?!

What it seems we’re plagued with today is fragmentation and alienation. The same technology that connects us gives us the perfect excuse not to look each other in the eyes. When not on our phones, we gravitate toward the like-minded and as a result, we’ve forgotten how to talk to those with whom we disagree. And yet, this week’s parsha proves that we all stood together once. Can we ever do it again?

Maybe the first step away from alienation is the realization that we’re never alone. Even when we’re sure we are. You may already know this one, so stop me if you’ve heard it. Every time this man walked along the beach, he’d notice two sets of footprints in the sand. Everything was going so well in his life, he knew that the second pair of footprints were God’s. But then, things took a bad turn. He found trouble and pain. And whenever he’d walk along the beach, he’d only see one pair of footprints in the sand. When he died and appeared before God in Heaven, the man was angry. “Why did you abandon me!” he cried. “How come when I suffered, there was only one set of footprints in the sand?” God replied, “Those were the times I carried you.”

It turns out, Rashi kind of tells his own version of this story hundreds of years before I ever heard it. In Nitzavim, God warns that when the children of Israel betray the covenant, God will banish them from the land and scatter them among the nations. Certainly, exile is an extreme example of alienation, and evokes a feeling of Divine abandonment. The same verse promises, however, that when we turn back to God with a full heart, “Then, the Lord, your God, will bring back your exiles, and He will have mercy upon you”(Deut. 30:3). Rashi notes that the Hebrew word used for “will bring back” is שב. What’s odd about that is, really, it should be the hifil (causative) form of the word - והשיב (lit. “cause to bring back”). Because שב means that God will return. If God is returning, that means God must have accompanied us in our exile, not forsaking us in our darkest moments, but rather guiding us through them. In other words, “those are the times I carried you.”

“Nitzavim,” reminds us that even when we think we’re lost and alone, God is standing with us. Today, how do we strive to follow the Divine example and carry each other, standing together once more as a Jewish community writ-large? I don’t know. But I do know that it isn’t some naïve fantasy beyond our ability to achieve. Rather, like Torah, “It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?’ Rather, [this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it.”(Deut. 30:12-14). It is not in the Heavens - היא בשמים לא. It’s right here, beneath our feet.

The stakes, it seems, have never been higher. Benjamin Franklin, speaking to the urgency of his own revolutionary moment, writes, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” Fragmentation and alienation is not the inevitable backdrop to the human experience. It’s a choice. So God says, “This day, I call upon the heaven and the earth as witnesses [that I have warned] you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life”(Deut. 30:19).

But can we choose life in our lifetimes? Will any of us live to see the day when the Jewish community stands together again like we did when entering the covenant? Lest we think this is a miracle consigned to the distant past or distant future, I’d like to call our attention to how many times God says “hayom” in this parsha. To cite just a few, “You are all standing this day”(Deut. 29:9) / “this day…”(Deut. 29.11) / “this day”(Deut. 29.12) / “this day”(Deut. 29:14).

Nitzavim is plural. It includes all of us, who are never alone. And it’s in the present tense. This day.

Ki Tavo 9/21/19

Living Our Stories
By Rabbi Matt Shapiro

Even though it’s been a while since the first time I lived in Israel for the year, certain memories are still quite vivid. One such experience was around this time of year, when I decided for the first (and, trust me, only) time to experience the ritual of kaporot. This ritual entails taking a chicken and waving around/in the vicinity of a person’s head to gather, as it were, that person’s misdeeds from the previous years. That chicken is that promptly shechted (killed according to the laws of kashrut), offered up as atonement- essentially, it’s the last true vestige of the sacrificial system we had during the time the Temple was standing. It was a ritual I partook of once and have no intention of seeking out again. Looking back, it’s not just the ritual I find distasteful and troubling. I’m also disturbed by the narrative that the experience communicates, that my errors can be waved away through the execution of another living being- I’m uncomfortable with both the actions and the story underneath.

To that point, Rabbi Neil Gillman emphasized the role of myth within his understanding of Judaism. Gillman defined myth as “a structure through which a community organizes and makes sense of its experience,” and elevated the stakes of that construct by discussing how myth conveys our tradition’s answers to ultimate questions. Though I find the ritual of kaporot unnerving and not personally resonant, our tradition is brimming with others I find compelling, in action and in subtext, two of which are found in this week’s parsha.

As the Israelites are being given instructions for what they should do when they finally enter in to the land of Israel, they are told to set up large stones, coat them with plaster and inscribe upon them all the words of the Torah. (Deut. 27:2-3) Those stones are then to be an altar for worship, a place to mark the moment of transition from being outside of the land to, at long last, dwelling within its borders.

Part of what I find striking is visualizing this moment, picturing in my mind massive bright white stones with the Torah written upon them, people all around gathered in unity and worship. Part of it is also about the story being communicated by this ritual. Abarvanel comments that this action distinguishes us from other nations- we’re not focusing our energy on raising monuments to commemorate military victories or conquests, but rather creating markers upon which we write out our core teachings, our ethics and our values.

I don’t think this framing necessarily needs to be comparative. I think we can state more simply that it’s a valuable exercise to, in liminal moments or times of change, engage in a ritual through which we make contact with what’s essential to who we are. Rollo May, a contemporary author and psychologist, has written about the interplay of ritual and myth. May states that “rituals are physical expressions of myths. The myth is the narration, and the ritual expresses the myth in bodily action. Rituals and myths supply fixed points in a world of bewildering change.” This narrative told by this ritual is that the Torah is central to who we are; that narrative is in turn given life through the action the people are told to take.

There’s another example of May’s paradigm earlier in the parsha. Just a chapter earlier, we’re given one of the most succinct examples of the Jewish myth that exists, the formulation that many of us know as “arami oved avi,” “my father was a wandering Aramean,” which we recite at the seder on Passover each year. This formulation of our core narrative hasn’t been transplanted into a ritual context by the rabbis; in the parsha, it’s cited as the specific formula to recite upon the bringing of the first fruits to the Temple. This retelling provides the very reasoning for why that action is taken: since God brought us out of Egypt and into this land, I therefore now bring an offering to express my gratitude. In his work, May comments that the myth can lead to the ritual, or the ritual to the myth, but that the story and the action are always connected, as they certainly are here.

Our tradition offers opportunities to embody the story of who we want to be in the world, with ample illustrations of how to do so which can then be adapted for our own contemporary context. Though we might not make a formal pilgrimage to a Temple with sacrifices, we will soon be convening en masse into our places of worship for a time of reflection and gratitude. Though we won’t be inscribing anything on white-washed stones at TBA any time soon (it’d ruin the new sanctuary!), we do take action, literal (our beautiful parsha panels!) and figurative (the way we conduct ourselves), to inscribe our stories upon our structures as we transition into a new space and a new year. As Rabbi Gillman taught, the story we tell about who we are provides meaning and, as May would add, we tell that tale via what we do. My hope for us all is that we can find ways to craft actions that give meaning and vitality to the stories of our lives, and that as we breathe life into our core stories, as individuals and as a community, we bring that same energy to writing the next chapter upon the fresh page we’re about to turn to in the Book of Life.

Ki Tetze 9/14/19

Words to Keep and Act in Holy Relationship
In Memory of those who perished and in honor of those who acted through holiness on September 11th

Prepared By Rabbi Rebecca Schatz

Recently, I officiated a wedding where the couple wanted to share vows. This came up early in our process of planning and counseling and until the moment under the chuppah I was not sure how I felt about the secular custom of sharing personalized words of commitment and love. This act of affirmation does not go against any piece of law or standard for a Jewish wedding and so I allowed it to happen, but hesitantly. We had to carefully place it in the ceremony as to not break up pieces of the Jewish moments and yet sanctify it as holy and important to the couple. Ultimately, the couple crafted beautiful and passionate words shared before the breaking of the glass and a rousing Mazal Tov!

This week, in parashat Ki Teitzei we are exposed to more mitzvot than in any other parasha. Some that are clear and positive and others that are disturbing and complex. “When you make a vow to Adonai your God, do not put off fulfilling it, for Adonai your God will require it of you, and you will have incurred guilt; whereas you incur no guilt if you refrain from vowing. You must fulfill what has crossed your lips and perform what you have voluntarily vowed to Adonai your God, having made the promise with your own mouth.”

מוֹצָא שְׂפָתֶיךָ תִּשְׁמֹר וְעָשִׂיתָ כַּאֲשֶׁר נָדַרְתָּ לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נְדָבָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבַּרְתָּ בְּפִיךָ

Motza sefatekha tishmor v’asita - that which exits your lips you must keep and you must do. Keep - shamor and do - oseh.

These vows are not just important because they are made to God; rather they carry weight and importance because you chose to utter them in the first place. They were released from your heart, your mind and your soul and shared with the world. God creates the world with words and we too create promises and relationships - both for good and for bad - with our words.

I would imagine that we can each think back to a moment in our lives, this year, this week or maybe even today where we said something or shared words that we wish we had kept to ourselves. Though those words might not be vows or promises, they create a world. They craft a situation or an illustration of a moment or a person in a way that is now in the abyss of our universe rather than in your own mind and heart. What could we have kept to ourselves? What did not need to be said? What should we have shared to change a situation?

We are all engaged in the work of heshbon hanefesh, a recounting of our soul, as we approach and then work our way through, the yamim noraim, the High Holidays. What do we need to shamor—keep and oseh— do to change the language of our relationships? The verse explicitly instructs us to be aware of that which exits from our lips, but I would include in that our behavior, our glances, our tone and our body language. It is all about presenting that which we would be proud to be held accountable and credited for.

Rabbeinu Bahya (13th c. Spain) comments that “self-imposed vows rate higher than the commandments which we are obligated to keep without having volunteered to do so. The vows are holier than the ordinary commandments, this is why the Torah has to warn especially against not honoring them.”

And so, alongside the bride and groom, I’ve learned something important to me: Perhaps the holiest moments for all of us in attendance were the words of their careful choosing. The moments of kedusha, of intimate holiness, were found in the emerging blessings humbly spoken by the couple here growing their partnership.

I pray that during these holy days, using our own whispered or sung expressions, our spontaneous t’fillot and songs of joy that the vows created, the words chosen, the promises made, rate higher because they were crafted to exit the mouths of those choosing to keep and act in holy relationship.

Shoftim 9/7/19

Pursuing Justice Justly
Prepared By Natan Freller, TBA Rabbinic Intern

“You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that Adonai your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice. You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just. Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that Adonai your God is giving you.” (Devarim 16:18-20)

It is hard to read this week’s parasha and not relate it to current events here, in Israel, and around the world. I thought about some meta-questions about this text, not exactly about the content of it, but about its conception, helping us to move away from a literal reading: What was their political and social context? What was the role of religion in their society?

We claim that the Torah is eternal, and its wisdom is still relevant for our days. In order to hold that claim, it is important to understand the challenges of these meta-questions and be aware of the problems we face when reading the Torah in the light of current events. A literal reading, without putting it into perspective and reality, can lead to religious fanaticism. A full relativist reading, can lead into nihilism, the rejection of all religious and moral principles, for being outdated or just nor relevant anymore.

It is a counter cultural move to still look for wisdom in our tradition and ancient books and not fight for a religious supremacist truth. This is the rabbinic enterprise throughout the ages: through study and devotion, find meaningful ways of connecting our ancient wisdom to our lives. From the Talmud, dealing with the massive exile and displacement of an entire people, mourning the destruction of the house and longing for the time to come back, the sages have been charged with this mission. In modern times, reform, conservative, Zionism, Hasidism, they are all ways of keeping this covenantal mission alive.

Thankfully, we do not live in a society governed by one religion, but on the contrary – freedom of religion is a key element of western civilization since the enlightenment. Every individual has the right to believe and practice - or not believe and practice at all – their religion according to their will. As modern Jews, we support this model that saved us from persecution and has granted us freedom and rights.

So what is the Torah trying to tell us about our commitment to justice and how we can achieve it in practical terms? I want to share with you two different answers that our tradition has offered, as ways to fulfill the commandment of “justice, justice you shall pursue” outside the original context of the Torah, focused on the settlement of Bnei Israel in the land of Canaan millennia ago. In search for meaning of the repetition of the word Justice, the Talmud offers some wisdom:

“Rav Ashi says: One (mention of Justice) is stated with regard to judgment, in which the court must pursue justice extensively, and one (mention of Justice) is stated with regard to compromise.” (Sanhedrin 32b)

The Talmud goes on with practical examples of compromise that were applicable to their audience:

“Where there are two boats traveling on the river and they encounter each other, if both of them attempt to pass, both of them sink, as the river is not wide enough for both to pass. If they pass one after the other, both of them pass. And similarly, where there are two camels who were ascending the ascent of Beit Horon, where there is a narrow steep path, and they encounter each other, if both of them attempt to ascend, both of them fall. If they ascend one after the other, both of them ascend.

How does one decide which of them should go first? If there is one boat that is laden and one boat that is not laden, the needs of the one that is not laden should be overridden due to the needs of the one that is laden. If there is one boat that is close to its destination and one boat that is not close to its destination, the needs of the one that is close should be overridden due to the needs of the one that is not close. If both of them were close to their destinations, or both of them were far from their destinations, impose a compromise between them to decide which goes first, and the owners of the first boat compensate the owner of the boat that waits, for any loss incurred.” (Sanhedrin 32b)

Compromise is the key to fight fanaticism. A society that strives for compromise is on the way to find mutual understanding and empathy for each other. Justice isn’t a game to win or lose, justice is an ideal that will help us create a better society for all.

The Hasidic master, Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa said: “Justice, justice you shall pursue...With justice, you shall pursue justice. Even the pursuit of justice must employ only just means, and not falsehood.”

In making torah meaningful for his days, the Hasidic master made Torah wisdom also eternal. It is our task to find the timeless wisdom in it and not use it only for the sake of our own truths or personal goals. It's not only about Justice, but more than that, how we achieve Justice.

May we all find ways of Justice during Elul, as we prepare to judge ourselves as we encounter the Divine Justice.

Re'eh 8/31/19

Today, and Every Day
Prepared by Rabbi Hillary Chorny, Cantor

If you’re reading this bulletin, then you’re sitting in a room beneath blue skies, where the pattern of clouds serves as a sundial that links our tefillot with the passage of time. Go ahead and breathe it in. Notice something that you haven’t noticed before, like the texture of the upholstery at your back. Let your eyes dance over the ark doors and count the bricks.

There will always be something new to notice in this room, whether you’re here every week or twice a year. It would be impossible to stop learning its features, to run out of things to appreciate. And that’s not only because our architect, Steven Rajninger, poured loving details into each crevice. It’s also because you will change, every day. Molecularly, as your cells regenerate and you consciously strive to become someone new, different, better, fuller. And spiritually, as you experience a macro revelation every day that manifests itself in seeing with what feel like fresh eyes each time you step in the door. Your personal Torah, the way you take the world into yourself, is changing today and every day.

“Today” and “every day” are both captured by the word hayom. We have the word twice at the start of Parshat Re’eh.

רְאֵ֗ה אָנֹכִ֛י נֹתֵ֥ן לִפְנֵיכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם בְּרָכָ֖ה וּקְלָלָֽה׃ אֶֽת־הַבְּרָכָ֑ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר תִּשְׁמְע֗וּ אֶל־מִצְוֺת֙ יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֧ר אָנֹכִ֛י מְצַוֶּ֥ה אֶתְכֶ֖ם הַיּֽוֹם׃

See, this day I set before you blessing and curse. -- Blessing, if you obey the commandments of Adonai your God that I enjoin upon you this day.

R’ Levi Yitzhakh of Berditchev, in Kedushat Levi, writes about the superfluous hayom in these verses.

At first glance there seems to be no need for the ‎word: ‎היום‎, “this day,” as we know that God renews blessings ‎every day, just as God renews the act of creation of the universe by ‎providing bright light to the Divine universe as this is part of God's ‎goodness. People who serve Adonai are aware that they receive new ‎insights daily and learn things they had not known on the ‎previous day. We may, therefore, understand the word: ‎היום‎, as ‎‎“every day,” as our sages said: ‎בכל יום יהיו בעיניך כחדשים‎, “Every day, you shall regard the commandments as if they are brand new, as though you are just today being commanded regarding them!"

Even when it seems that the world around you has gone unchanged, you have changed. You’ve been shaped by new clarity and insights borne of maturity, experience, and the influence of all the people who touch your world, every day.

And while we’re celebrating the end of this sanctuary’s metamorphosis, we’re also celebrating the beginning of each of our individual relationships with this room. The shape of this space has been etched into existence, and its details are endless little gifts waiting for you to discover them, unwrap them, take them in. New in your eyes today, and every day.

Ekev 8/24/19

Remember the Journey
Prepared By Josh Jacobs, TBA Rabbinic Intern

In Ekev, one of the first few chapters of Devarim, we continue to read Moses’ discourses to b’nai yisrael. He recounts their journey, which has led them right to the border of the Promised Land. But why recount their journey, at all? Certainly as readers, we already know it. At this point, after forty years of trials and tribulations, after finally reaching the Promised Land, don’t you just want a victory speech? “And Moses lifted his arms towards the Heavens and proclaimed before the children of Israel: ‘Yo Adrian, I did it!’”

But we don’t get a victory speech. We don’t find any congratulations, really. Knowing that we are a “stiff-necked people” (so hey, congratulations on that) Moses skips right to the warning, prophetically predicting what will happen once we settle in Canaan if we’re not careful. He says:

“Beware that you do not forget the Lord, your God, by not keeping His commandments, His ordinances, and His statutes, which I command you this day, lest you eat and be sated, and build good houses and dwell therein, and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold increase, and all that you have increases, and your heart grows haughty, and you forget the Lord, your God, Who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Deut. 8:11-14).

I love this verse because it isn’t saying not to enjoy your victories. Kohelet says there is “…a time to mourn and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4), and Miriam’s leading the people in dance at the Red Sea is one of our more glorious moments (and quite the end zone victory dance). I do think, however, that Ekev warns us not to get so caught up in celebration that we lose sight of the hard work that demands our immediate attention. Because if we do, our victories may be short-lived. I’m positive that this is how we lost the Bar Kokhba rebellion. Everything was going great until somebody yelled, “Yo Hadrian, I did it!” which was the end of everything.

But what’s so bad about patting yourself on the back for a job well done? Moses continues:

“…and you will say to yourself, ‘My strength and the might of my hand has accumulated this wealth for me. But you must remember the Lord your God, for it is He that gives you strength to make wealth, in order to establish His covenant which He swore to your forefathers, as it is this day’” (Deut. 8:17-18).

Isn’t it interesting that this actually takes us full circle? We were freed from Pharaoh, who mistakenly believed he was God. Like Shelley’s poem Ozymandias, Pharaoh’s glory falls to ruin, as he goes from “King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair” to “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone” standing in the desert. Hashem executes judgment over Egypt and its leader whose power, position, and wealth warps his perception of himself. So that instead of serving God, he serves himself, whom he incorrectly perceives to be God. How tragic, then, if we, too, upon entering the land, forget our story, attributing our success to ourselves and not rightfully to Hashem.

So Moses instructs them not to forget who they were - strangers in the land of Egypt. Because if this new generation forgets the bitter taste of slavery and only knows milk and honey, they might mistake their newfound security for invulnerability. Warping their perception of themselves, like Pharaoh. Whose hardened heart is only a few degrees beyond stiff neck. It’s no surprise then, that God tells us to “…circumcise the foreskin of your heart, therefore, and be no more stiff-necked.” (Deut. 10:16). In other words, if you allow yourself to forget your own vulnerability, your own humanity, how can you recognize these things in others?

This drash is not a call to humility because this congregation is simultaneously some of the most impressive and humble people I know (not that I’m bragging about how humble everyone is, which would kind of defeat the purpose). Instead, I think Ekev teaches that the worst thing that could ever happen to us, is if we forget our journey. Because to forget who we are and where we came from can only negatively impact our behavior wherever we’re going.

So Ekev gives us this model:

“For the Lord, your God is God of gods and the Lord of the lords, the great mighty and awesome God, Who will show no favor, nor will He take a bribe. He executes the judgment of the orphan and widow, and He loves the stranger, to give him bread and clothing. You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deut. 9:17-19).

I want to conclude with Rashi, who, referencing Megilah 31a, explains how in this verse, first we have a description of God’s power, and immediately alongside that power, we find a description of God’s humility. Power and humility must always go hand-in-hand, or there will be no victory speech, no victory dance. This week, we prepare to march forward, hand-in-hand, toward the next chapter of our Jewish journey.

Vaethanan 8/17/19

In Memory of Rabbi Professor Reuven Hammer
Prepared by Cantor Michelle Stone, Ritual Innovator

The Jewish world and the Conservative/Masorti community, in particular, lost a beloved teacher, mentor, and rabbi this week. Rabbi Reuven Hammer was not only a teacher and rabbi, but also an institution builder, a communal leader, and a prolific author. I’d like to share some words of Rabbi Hammer’s that inspired me many years ago when I started learning about Jewish liturgy. This week’s parasha, Va’etchanan, includes the text of the Shema and Ve’ahavta. Before he passed, I planned to write a D’var Tefillah about the Shema in this week’s bulletin. I can think of no better way to honor Rabbi Hammer’s memory than to share his words directly. The following is excerpted from the closing of the chapter on the Shema in Hammer’s book, Entering Jewish Prayer: A Guide to Personal Devotion and the Worship Service:

The Significance of the Shema Today

The daily recitation of the Shema provides us with an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the basic doctrines upon which the faith of Israel was built when first proclaimed by Moses and which remain the foundation of Jewish faith today. Throughout the centuries sages and philosophers have expounded these concepts and reinterpreted them in light of new currents of thought and conditions of life: the existence of one God whose unity signifies a universe of order and not chaos; a God of moral and ethical concern giving existence meaning and hope; a God who acts of redemption are an assurance for a better future. The Shema is an assertion of faith and certainty against currents of nihilism, meaninglessness, chaos, and amorality. One who recites the Shema resembles the children of Jacob who respond to the question: Is there doubt in your heart regarding the existence of Him who spoke and the world came into being? “We have no doubts in our hearts.” [Midrash from the Sifre]

This testimony is especially important today, when belief and identification with the Jewish tradition and the Jewish people cannot be taken for granted. Living in a modern, postemancipation world, in secular, democratic societies, we welcome period opportunities to remind ourselves of our belief and to reaffirm our identity.

The formulation, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” remains the definitive declaration of Jewish belief. It is as close as we can come to providing a description of a divine reality, which is by definition indescribable. We emphasize the name of God – the very unutterability of which expresses the inability of the human mind to fathom the divine. We do not even pretend to be able to describe the Lord whose name represents existence and being. We say of Him the least and the most we can say – that of all that exists, of all we know and do not know, of all we experience, we make Him alone our God. Whatever else humans may worship – other deities, human beings, nations, flags, ideologies, weather, or power – we worship only Him. His oneness means that the world in which we live is a harmony; it is a universe and not a battlefield of warring forces. Beyond it and beneath it there is a unity of will and purpose.

Understanding the Shema as a pledge of loyalty to that One, there is need to recite it and thereby to reject the false ideologies and lesser loyalties that compete for our minds and souls…[T]here is great freedom in knowing that ultimate loyalty belongs only to the Ultimate Reality, who alone can command our love and obedience.

One need not believe literally in physical reward and punishment to accept the doctrine of the second paragraph of the Shema. Its importance is not in the specific way in which it was formulated and concretized, but in the very assertion that there is meaning in our actions, that there is responsibility for what we do. The human echo of the existence of that Ultimate Reality is that there also exists ultimate responsibility. If man is not the master of the world but is accountable to a greater power, our actions take on grave importance and must be carefully measured.

The Shema is a declaration of the continuity of the Jewish people in which we affirm to our ancestors that we remain loyal. We reenact the theophany at Sinai, repeating the words of Israel, “We will heed and obey,” taking upon ourselves the yoke of God’s kingship and the responsibility to seek out His ways in the world and live by them. We also affirm the unity of the world and of mankind, for all that exists is the work of one God. We reject the power of false gods and the validity of false ideologies, and open our hearts to that which is true and eternally enduring.

Devarim 8/10/19

Hazon and Eicha – Prophetic Vision and Spiritual Concerns
By Natan Freller, TBA Rabbinic Intern

This Shabbat is called Shabbat Hazon, for this week’s Haftarah begins with Isaiah’s Hazon (lit. Vision, a prophecy for what is coming). This haftarah is from the first chapter of the Prophet Isaiah, always read on the Shabbat preceding Tisha B’Av, which always coincides with Parashat Devarim.

One of the key connections between this Haftarah and Tisha B’Av is the word ‘Eicha’ (Alas! an expression of grief, pity, or concern). This is the opening expression for the Book of Lamentations, attributed to the Prophet Jeremiah, that we read on Tisha B’Av. Rabbi Jordán Raber wrote and explained the complexity of ‘Eicha’:

“‘Eicha’ is an expression of bewilderment, of perplexity (…) ‘Eicha’ is an hopeless cry before pain and suffering, whether one's own suffering or someone else’s pain. ‘Eicha’, it is an exclamation of perplexity that is repeated in these readings, surrounding Tisha B’Av with a halo of regret and sadness.”

This week’s Haftarah is the beginning of the Book of Isaiah, the first contact we have with the Prophet and his message. Unlike Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who start their books with their initiation into prophecy, Isaiah does not have a similar introduction, he simply begins by condemning the people of Judah and Jerusalem for their poor behavior. Even Rashi agrees that Isaiah’s story starts on chapter 6 and this is probably a latter prophecy that was brought to the beginning of the book.

Isaiah reminds the people about the special relationship between God and Israel. That is why God is angry, because God loves God’s children and expects more from them, like parents and their kids.

The prophet teaches the people that ritual sacrifices have no meaning for God if the people is not behaving well and keeping God’s commandments. This is the essence of the kavanah (intention, awareness, direction) we bring to our prayers and songs, the rituals will only have meaning for God and for us if they are connected to our reality and coherent to our actions. To put it in rabbinic terms, Mitzvot tzrichot kavanah – One needs kavanah in order to properly fulfil God’s commandments. Our actions aren’t holy for themselves, but for the relationships that are formed in performing them. Relationships with form with other people, with nature, with time, and with God.

This is the core message of the prophets when they criticize the people for their meaningless sacrifices, since it’s more important to take care of each other than to offer praise to God while oppressing the orphan and the widow, the paradigmatic representatives of the of the most vulnerable in that society.

Here is a short guide to help you during the Haftarah reading, focusing on Isaiah’s main message:

- God is angry for the sins of God’s people, God rebukes Israelite behavior (1-10)

In verse 1 you will find the word Hazon, the prophetic vision of Isaiah.

In verses 2, 4 and 7 you can find good examples of God angry and rebuking Israel.

- Rituals have no meaning anymore if the people are not being moral in their own lives. (11-15)

Verse 15 is very powerful and can raise a lot of questions about our practices and rituals.

- God requests repentance from the people (16-19)

Maybe the core message of this Haftarah is in these verses. How is it related to Tisha B’Av?

- Consequences for obeying or disobeying God’s commandment and rebuke on Israel, Jerusalem and the temple leadership (21-23)

Verse 21 begins with ‘Eicha’ is the meaning of ‘Eicha’ the same in both places? Verse 23 shows how concern Isaiah was with the most vulnerable groups of his society.

- God will destroy God’s enemies and reestablish justice in Zion (24-27)

Usually our Haftarot end with a positive message, just like the Megillat Eicha. Why is it important to end these readings in a hopeful way?

This is the message that our Rabbis chose for the Shabbat right before Tisha B’Av. Just as Megillat Eicha, the lamentations of the prophet Jeremiah upon the destruction of the First Temple, we see Isaiah desolated for all the bad that is happening before him. At the same time, both texts bring a calling for repentance, once God is our partner and will always be with us working for a better future.

So what is our challenge for this Shabbat? What are the struggles that our calendar wants us to deal with during these days? Rabbi Jordán Raber helps us to find a way to sit with ‘Eicha’, to wrestle with this complex concept of discomfort:

“‘Eicha’, here we are, here I am, with my sorrows, with my pains and with my sufferings, but also with my virtues, with my achievements and joys. Here we are, here I am, willing to explore my sorrows, my fragility, my fissures, to progressively recompose them, to go - not too little - learning to live with them.”

My blessing to all of us this Shabbat is to open our hearts to the words of the prophet Isaiah, finding his core message to his society, so we can find our core values in it, and act accordingly in our times.

Tisha B’Av begins this Saturday night, immediately after Shabbat. The complexity of this day is an invitation to revisit our past, struggle with our present, and build the future we want to see.

Matot-Masei 8/3/19

D'rash from this week's Rabbi in Residence at Camp Ramah, Caifornia
Rabbi Rebecca Schatz, TBA Assistant Rabbi

I was 12 when I began my journey at Camp Ramah in Ojai. I began the summer of Adat Shalom because my brother was old enough to join me for a week of Gesher. I do not remember walking onto the bus, but I do remember knowing many people and yet feeling very nervous, homesick and alone in this journey. It was my choice and my interest to attend and yet there was a feeling of lech lecha, of going for myself, to prove I could do it, that made the journey daunting and important. Avram is told to go for himself, lech lecha, from his birthplace, and his parent’s home and to a land that God will show him. A solo journey to an unknown place, and each step getting further and further away from the center of those vital concentric circles. Avram was told he would be made into a large nation and his name would be known and he would “be blessing.” Our leader, and our people’s journey, begins with individual intrigue and results in communal identity and responsibility.

This week, in parasha Matot-Massei our people recount their steps of journeying from Egypt to outside the land of Israel. A communal journey retold by an individual participant. Moses points out each moment of departure and encampment along the way – va’yisu va’yahanu. Interesting that there is no mention of feelings, just step by step schedule and locations.

Often, when I would finish a week or sometimes even a day with my hanichim, I would recount the steps of our day for them. “Close your eyes and picture yourselves walking from t’fillot to aruchat boker (breakfast), to peulat tzrif (bunk activity), etc.” However, each child had the space and time to think of their own unique moments, feelings and encounters rather than retell them my perceptions of our day. Maybe that was Moses’s plan. He was guiding our people through their history and allowing their own stories and journeys to percolate in their minds as they were reminded of unique steps in the process.

The experience of returning to camp as many of our tzevet and chanihim’s Rosh Edah is powerful and thrilling. To see the journeys each of these young individuals took to arrive at their destination this summer is remarkable. And yet, the way that they remember our summers together and the moments I remember are often different and impacted our separate journeys and stories. One tzevet member told me today that he remembered a part of our edah culture from 2010. I did not remember this particular anecdote but it is impacting his style of leadership and teamwork.

Avram left on a journey alone with encouragement and promise of becoming part of a people and community. Moses journeyed through the desert with community and encouraged the people to remember the details, the feelings, and the unique moments that created their stories. In a midrash, Rav Tanchuma explains these journeys with a parable: “A King’s son became sick so he took him to a faraway land to have his son healed. On the way back, the father began citing all the stages of their trip, saying ‘This is where we sat, here we were cold, here you had a headache, etc.’”

Camp Ramah is a journey for a lifetime. A journey of individually choosing who you want to be as a Jew, a person and part of a community. A journey bringing many individuals into a community of great names, of beautiful souls, of experienced opportunities, and of blessing.

Days pass and the years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles.
God, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing;
let there be moments when Your Presence, like lightning,
illumines the darkness in which we walk.
Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns unconsumed.
And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness, and exclaim in wonder:
How filled with awe is this place, and we did not know!
- Chaim Stern

Pinhas 7/27/19

Piety for God, or for Self?
By Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Let’s face it. Most readers of Parshat Pinhas, across time, read the man Pinhas and his actions far more favorably than is probably deserved.The main plot of Pinhas’s celebrated and rewarded act of religious and moral zealotry takes place not this week, during the parsha “named” for him, but tucked in at the end of last week’s parsha, Balak.There and then, an orgiastic, adulterous, idolatrous miasma was spreading through the Israelite camp. Israelite men were whoring with Midianite women.It was the Golden Calf, all over again, but rated X.In response, two violent and deadly acts take place. The first comes directly from the top. God tells Moshe to tell the pure and untainted Israelites to slay the sinners.The second is self-motivated: Pinhas impales an Israelite man and his Midianite companion as they try to come close to the Israelite camp, and the Tent of Meeting.He cannot let such uncleanliness and unseemly behavior render the holy camp toxic. So he makes a split decision, kills them both, and thus stops the divinely-ordained plague that took the life of 24,000 transgressors.

Is he a hero?Or a terrorist? Jewish (and non-Jewish) scholars have reckoned with that question for ages. Most in the former camp read him heroically, at least according to the Torah’s internal moral code.After all, God took the lead in this vicious response.He was “following orders,” with the Holy One as the inspiration.

But many of us are uncomfortable with complete apologetics regarding Pinhas, worrying that a comprehensive white-washing of his viciousness might, even unconsciously, sanction equally vicious behavior in the name of supposed piety. (Recent history is more than overflowing with horrific examples of terrible things being done in God’s name, with the antagonist certain that s/he is acting virtuously.Pinhas has been emulated, both directly and indirectly, in awful ways).Some cling to the reading shared by the great Nechama Leibowitz who understands thatבריתי‭ ‬שלום (briti shalom), the “covenant of peace” that God extends to Pinhas early in the parsha is less reward than it is corrective. (Perhaps even a self-corrective to God, recognizing, and ruing, all the killings).From this angle, Pinhas is rehabilitated, away from violence, rather than celebrated unreservedly for his zealotry.That read is nice. (And Rabbi Schatz may be exploring it more in her teaching on Shabbat morning) It feels good and right. But it, too, smacks of apologetics, straying a bit too far from the text’s most likely meaning.

In the vein of lovely (re-)readings which, however stretchy, at least give us some material to work with and some echoes of goodness to aspire towards, I share with you the interpretation by Rabbi Pinhas of Koretz, an 18th c. early Hasidic master, and a direct disciple of the Bal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidut.He looks at the verse preceding the one in which the covenant of peace is given.In that verse, God recognizes that whatever Pinhas did, it reversed God’s own wrath (the killings ended, after all), and it did so because Pinhas waged his zealotry, for God…בתוכם.B’tokham.Among them.What is the significance of that last image, that he did what he did “among them?”Reb Pinhas (who is linked to this story in a most personal way, given his namesake) reasons that zealots sometimes self-aggrandize. They focus on their own glory.Zealotry is replete with “look-at-me-ism.”One wonders, when considering such piety, whether the practitioner is more interested in the good or the self.Such personas transcend religious zealotry and become, or can become, demagogues.(This is a specifically interesting cautionary tale by an early Hasidic master, and thus a student of the Jewish movement that ultimately did deify, in some way, the rebbe/zealot/Pinhas who would lead each sect!).But that, says Reb Pinhas, is not what happened with our biblical Pinhas. He did not run to “build an altar for himself.”He sought not accolades, nor rewards or celebrations of himself. He did what he did (whatever one thinks of what he did), b’tokham, among them.As a part of, in the name of, dedicated to כלל‭ ‬ישראל.K’lal yisrael.In the name of all the people of Israel.For that, he is rewarded. And because of that, even God is chastened.

Certainly, even that lens can be abused. One can be convinced that one’s own objectionable, or even abhorrent, act is being done on behalf of the Jewish people.But at the very least, Reb Pinhas offers a healthy corrective to our own aspirations to piety.Is this act, or this pronouncement, or this tweet, or this post, or this drash, or this devotion, or this religious moment…something that is essentially for me?Or for God, and the Jewish people, and all of humanity?

Let us linger on the question. And try to minimize the former category, and lift up the latter category as most worthy of our aspiration.

Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Hukkat 7/13/19

The Next Generation
By: Rabbi Rebecca Schatz in honor of Samson Schatz and Aarian Marshall’s wedding

Parashat Chukat is an emotional and moving parasha for familial reasons, which is hidden amongst the descriptive language of sacrifices. In the Etz Chayim, our friend Rabbi David Lieber of blessed memory wrote, “In the course of this parasha Miriam dies, Aaron dies, and Moses is sentenced to die without reaching the Promised Land. A transition of generations is taking place. The narrative’s center of gravity is moving farther from Sinai and closer to the challenge of conquering the Promised Land. Soon there will be no Israelites who actually stood at Sinai, only Israelites who have heard about it from parents and grandparents.”

Though those entering the land of Israel will not have been the original generation at the foot of Sinai, they are the receivers of a new type of Torah. The generation entering the land needs to figure out how to lead, how to manage a people and how to take that which was heard at Sinai and mold it for functionality in their new lives.

This week, in my family, this parasha helps us focus on how new transitions are at times poignant and healthy. Starting at Beth Am is a change for me, for our staff, and hopefully for the greater community. I stand on mighty shoulders of those who had this role before me, teachers who have brought me to this place and g’dolim, true thinkers, who allowed our tradition to accept and bless me with the role of rabbi in a community. Also, my brother, Sammy, is getting married tomorrow, changing the fabric of our family to grow another branch, to add more light and love to our legacy. Sammy and Aarian are approaching a new land, as a new generation, with those who have Sinai lessons and Torah to teach and guide them. They will begin a life, a family, and a future surrounded by people they love, with the memory of others in their minds and hearts and their own values and morals to be set forth for the next generation. Sammy and Aarian both beautifully acknowledge where they came from and feel the support, but even more impressively build upon that grounding for their own future.

In this parasha, Moses loses Miriam and Aaron, his support team, and though our rabbis’ reason for him not entering the land is because of his bad temper, it might also be that he would not successfully have made the approaching traumatic transition without his “persons” or his support team. Without the guide of those who came before us in our midst, we, like the next generation, are able to create and conquer tradition in a way that best influences and reflects our own goals and desires. The generations are advancing, onrushing toward us and each next step is daring and new. Whether or not we were at Sinai, the people who now surround us and those who preceded us have woven it into the context of our being. And the newlyweds will emerge from the Chupah as a new entity, a new couple, a new people, and a continuing future. As their sister, and as your new Assistant Rabbi, I am eager to be at your side and look forward to marching forward into many promised lands, building beautiful generations and futures to come.

Korah 7/6/19

Holy Conversations
By Natan Freller, TBA Rabbinic Intern

Parashat Korach is known for the challenge that Korach posed to Moshe and God. Korach questioned Moshe’s legitimacy and therefore, God’s will. This Shabbat I don’t want to focus on their debate in itself, but how Jewish tradition understands it, and more broadly, how we can manage better debates and disagreements like it.

The Torah offers a model for dealing with this challenge that is difficult for our modern minds and hearts to digest. Korach dies, with all his followers and their possessions. They are all swallowed up by the earth.

“The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households, all Korach’s people and all their possessions.” (Bamidbar 16:32)

Korach’s actions are seen as deviant in the Torah, not acceptable to the point that God had to act in an extreme way. The Torah is radical and not always as pluralistic as our modern minds wish to encounter. Judaism as we know is not conceived only by the Written Torah, but also by the Oral Torah, the interpretations that our sages developed and still develop in our days. Our sages also struggled with the way that this debate ended. There are also many other examples of how one should engage in difficult conversations offered in the tradition. I want to share with you a model found in the Mishnah that I find powerful and applicable to our lives.

We read in the PirkeiAvot: “Every dispute that is for the sake of Heaven, will in the end endure; But one that is not for the sake of Heaven, will not endure. Which is the debate that is for the sake of Heaven? Such was the debate of Hillel and Shammai. And which is the debate that is not for the sake of Heaven? Such was the debate of Korach and all his congregation.”

Bartenura, 15th-century Italian rabbi, wrote: “(…) the argument which is not for the sake of Heaven, its desired purpose is to achieve power and the love of contention, and its end will not endure; as we found in the argument of Korach and his congregation - that their aim and ultimate intent was to achieve honor and power”. Our efforts in every conversation or debate need to be constantly leshem shamayim – for the sake of heaven – and not for the sake of our own ego and power.

Instead of focusing on the punishment given to Korach and his fellows, our sages focused on learning from that event and using it as an educational tool for the future generations. In the beginning of ParashaKorach, when Korach is being admonished for his actions, together with his group, they were set aside as communities must be holy, and whatever they were doing was not for the sake of holiness.

“They combined against Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the LORD is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the LORD’s congregation?” (Bamidbar 16:3)

The key to handle our debates and disagreements is to never lose the capacity of being holy. We need to deal with controversial and complex issues while still maintains our holiness. The means do not justify the end. A debate that will endure is a debate that respects people’s opinions and allows them to be part of the conversation. The Mishna teaches even more about the endurance between the healthy debate between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel:

“And why do they record the opinions of Shammai and Hillel for naught? To teach the following generations that a person should not always persist in their opinion, for behold, the ancestors of the world did not persist in their opinion.” (Mishnah Eduyot 1:4)

Jewish tradition is wise as it was never meant to be frozen. The most authentic Jewish tradition is to look to our past, our Torah, and find the guidance we need to bring holiness into our lives today. As Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer z’l used to say: “a Jew should walk in the world with the Torah in one hand and today’s newspaper in the other”.

Humility is to acknowledge that we might not be completely right, and our answers might not always be right at all. What was right before might not be right for now. What is truth now, might not be the answer for our problems tomorrow. We cannot engage in a serious debate with the conviction that there is nothing beyond our own truth. We need to be able to see ourselves as part of a holy community that holds as many truths as there are members.

Shabbat Shalom directly from Brazil.

Shelah-Lekha 6/29/19

Humble Grasshoppers?
By Rabbi Matt Shapiro

“What man thinks of himself, of society, of humanity, determines his way of making a decision”
-Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

I’ve been working at Temple Beth Am for just over one year and I remember quite clearly how I was feeling around this time last year- a good amount of anxiety, a sense of inadequacy, confident in my sense that I can’t measure up. I have a distinct recollection of being in my briefly-shared office with Rabbi Lucas, sweating through the short drash I was going to be delivering at services on my first Friday night. He gently and kindly reflected back to me, essentially, “you’ve done this dozens of times before. You can handle this.” As I now find myself on the verge of another professional shift that, though within the same institution, is substantial and significant, I find myself wrestling with some of these same feelings. My experience over the past year allays some of my concerns, because of the experience and skills I’ve gained, the relationships that I’ve developed and the communal trust I’ve begun to build, but, at least for me, times of transition are particularly prone moments for doubt to seep in.

One of the most psychologically astute phrases in the entire Torah can be found in this week’s parsha. It occurs during the story of the spies who went to scout to the land, at the point of the narrative when 10 of the 12 of them negatively assess the situation. During their description of what they learned, after describing the inhabitants of the land as giants, the spies state that “we were in our own eyes as grasshoppers, so we surely seemed that way to them.” Nu, what made them like grasshoppers? Antenna? Thoraxes? The commentator Chizkuni easily explains that they weren’t talking about actual bugs, but that grasshopper is a metaphorical construct for something very small. The spies considered themselves as paling in comparison to those they were next to.

When a people lives in servitude for decades, the imprint of that slavery lasts months and years after the period is over. Even though there have been moments of freedom and revelation along the way, this is still a generation that has been habituated to seeing themselves as insignificant and inferior. Small wonder, then, that in this time of imminent change, they can’t help but to regress a bit, and see themselves as tiny. Interestingly, the report that all 12 spies bring back is the same- looking a few verses earlier, the spies all share the same information about the land itself and who’s there. It’s only in the interpretation of the data that the negativity and insecurity emerge from the majority of those who return.

Last week, we read about how Moses was the most humble man who ever lived...but, at least from the typical way in which we think about being “humble” today, that doesn’t quite fit. Moses was no shrinking violet! I’ve been taught that, rather than “humility” being a near-synonym for “meekness,” having humility is about being right-sized, neither too big nor too little, fulfilling your role as befits you, uniquely you. The spies were neither grasshoppers nor giants; neither are any of you, nor am I. We’re each people, with something to offer, and much to learn. As I move into this new role, I’m grateful to have support and guidance from those around me, people who can help to elevate and uplift me if I’m feeling too low and who can offer some needed perspective if I start to overinflate. Remaining right-sized is only possible in an incubated environment of love and care- it doesn’t seem be a coincidence, in this regard, that Moses the most-humble was the one member of that generation who didn’t grow up enslaved.

The verse that Chizkuni uses to highlight how “grasshopper” is metaphorical is taken from the 40th chapter of Isaiah, also known as the haftarah for Shabbat Nachamu, on which we are comforted after Tisha B’Av. The verse states that “it is God who is enthroned above the vault of the earth, so that its inhabitants seem like grasshoppers, God who spread out the skies like gauze, like a tent for them to dwell in.” I am committed to working with each of you to spreading out our communal tent, together, creating an environment of faith, generosity, trust, and closeness, bringing us all together so that we can affirm the holiness and wholeness we each contain. Taking into account Rabbi Heschel’s words above, this informs how we each think of ourselves and our community; that, in turn determines how we handle our transitional times and make our decisions, times when we might turn towards negativity and doubt. We will act not driven by fear or insecurity, but with thoughtfulness, trust, and love, as we move through challenges and journey forward.

Beha'alotekha 6/22/19

Exploring Solitude
By Cantor Michelle Stone, TBA Ritual Innovator

I sometimes get lonely during the work week. My office at the Shalom Hartman Institute is at my house. While I have meetings and conference calls, many days, I don’t speak to or see anyone for hours on end. Normally, I’m fine with it. But, when I’m having a tough day or dealing with a difficult professional situation, I get lonely. Sometimes, but not often, I remember to call one of my colleagues or friends for advice or just to chat, and every time I do, I always feel reinvigorated and ready for the task.

In the parasha this week, Beha’alotekha, Moses is at a low point in his leadership of the Israelites. Once again, the people are complaining about being in the desert. This time, instead of complaining of hunger or fear of enemies, they are grumbling about how boring the manna is. They want to go back to slavery in Egypt because they lack variety in their food. Moses is at his wit’s end. He says to God, “Why have You brought this trouble on Your servant and why don’t I find favor in Your eyes, that You put the burden of all of these people onto me?...I cannot carry this entire people by myself, this is too much for me.” (Numbers 11:11-14) Moses is feeling defeated, and to make it worse, he is defeated and alone. Every leader has moments when they feel that they cannot carry the burden of their work all alone. God senses Moses’ feelings of solitude and provides him with a very practical solution. God tells him, “Gather for me seventy of Israel’s elders…and bring them to the Tent of Meeting, and let them take their place there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will draw upon the spirit that is on you and put it on them; they will share the burden of the people with you, and you shall not bear it alone.” (Numbers 11:16-17) Moses does not have to face the cantankerous people by himself. He has other community leaders who can stand with him and help solve this problem. God is reminding Moses that he does not have to do this work alone. He has wise, experienced people around him to help him, to advise him, to be a friend when things are challenging.

Right before the Israelites start this latest rebellion, Moses has an encounter with his father-in-law, Yitro (called Hovav in this scene). Moses promises Yitro that, when they enter the land, they will be generous to him. Yitro declines, saying he will return to his native land. Moses pleads with him not to leave them, saying, “Please do not leave us, for you know where we should camp in the wilderness and can be our guide. So if you come with us, we will give you the same bounty that God gives us.” (Numbers 10: 31-32) Moses started with a generous offer of land, but ended with a plea for help. He showed his true motivation for his proposal to Yitro. Moses could not imagine continuing through the wilderness without Yitro. It isn’t clear from the text if Yitro acquiesced and decided to stay with the Israelites or left to go back home, though it’s noteworthy that he is not mentioned again in the Humash, so perhaps he did leave. As a reminder, Yitro was the one who suggested that Moses set up judges and courts to help the people deal with their disputes back before Mt. Sinai. He was the first person to advise Moses to not deal with the burden of leadership all by himself. And now he is gone. Perhaps Moses’ despondent response to the people’s complaints is a reaction to losing Yitro, his trusted and crucial adviser.

When God tells Moses to gather the elders around him, God is being that adviser; giving the counsel; playing the role of Yitro. How often have we relied on one person in our life for much needed guidance, and when they were gone, wondered if anyone could ever fill that void? God showed Moses that he was not lost without Yitro. There were others in his life he could turn to.

The end of the story is strange. The elders don’t actually do anything. They just stand with Moses at the Tent of Meeting, while God put the spirit that was Moses on all seventy men. He didn’t need their help to tell the people what would happen next. But they stood there, next to him, and he was no longer alone. They shared in his spirit. They gave him strength by their presence. We all need companionship and guidance in our lives. Pirkei Avot 1:6 states, “Make for yourself a rabbi [mentor/teacher/adviser] and acquire for yourself a friend.” I hope I remember it the next time I’m home alone, spinning my wheels on a challenge, forgetting that a friend or mentor is just a phone call away.

Bamidbar 6/8/19

Under a Banner of Holiness
By: Rabbi Hillary Chorny, Cantor

I remember the feeling of joy rising in my body when I spotted the group of Jewish day school students buying toothpaste and popsicles at the general store that serves as the beating heart of Yosemite’s campgrounds in the summertime. They must have been coming back from an early morning hike, blue shirts caked in dirt, but I could make out the Jewish stars emblazoned on their backs. My people!

There is something unfailingly exciting about spotting a Jewish star or flag while traveling. The Chabad house off the freeway on the way to Bryce Canyon in Utah. The logo on Jewish hospital that sticks out prominently in the skyline of Louisville, Kentucky. An Israeli flag dangling off the side of a hostel in Amsterdam. You’ll forgive me, please, for referring to these as “Easter eggs,” gems to be spotted and treasured like the “Hidden Mickeys” all over Disneyland, carved into topiaries and the moulding of buildings on Main Street. Jewish symbology signals warmly that Jews were here, planted like the stars and stripes on the moon. Or that we are here, and will be here, the way we pick up a flag to wave it with proud affirmation on Independence Day.

There’s a snapshot of ancient rabbinic wisdom captured in the midrash about the flags, the degalim, that feature prominently in Parshat Bamidbar. Chapter 2 verse 2 of Bamidbar cites:

אִישׁ עַל־דִּגְלוֹ בְאֹתֹת לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם יַחֲנוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מִנֶּגֶד סָבִיב לְאֹֽהֶל־מוֹעֵד יַחֲנֽוּ׃

Each person was to be underneath the flag with the symbols of their ancestral house; the children of Israel were to camp at a distance, around the tent of meeting.

Bamidbar Rabbah (2:2), an old collection of midrashim, imagines that the Israelites appeared grand and holy beneath their banners, and that all the other peoples would gaze upon them and wonder and proclaim, “Who is this [people] who shines like the dawn…?” (Shir Hashirim 6:10). Our flags beckoned to others in the wilderness: come see what wisdom and love and holiness dwells in this encampment!

Because I was born and raised as a Jew in a secular society, I have always thought of Jewish insignia, flags, and banners as signals that were calling out to me as a sister of the tribe. And sometimes that is exactly the job a flag is supposed to do. The image of the tribes in this week’s parsha is wholly different, imagining Jews as hoisting their flags high as a matter of declaration and publicity to anyone who might encounter them in the wilderness. In fact, banners can be used a thousand different ways. To celebrate pride of identity. To congratulate. To welcome. To tell a story.

We are so very practiced as a community at telling our story to one another. What story are we telling, what flags are we flying, to the communities that surround us? What wisdom, love, and holiness is so valuable to us that it’s worth spreading beyond our walls?

Behukotai 6/1/19

The Path of Our Lives
By Rabbinic Intern, Ariel Root Wolpe

Last week, after five years of study, I received my rabbinic ordination at American Jewish University. It was an incredible few days of celebration and transformation, made sweeter by the fact that my father Paul Root Wolpe was asked to speak at the graduation ceremony while receiving an honorary doctorate. During his commencement speech, my father offered a challenge and a blessing to the impending graduates: that we use our education to reinvent Judaism, as every generation has done, through creating and reinvigorating rituals which reflect our values.

It was a poignant charge for our class, which consists of a spread of innovative and traditional viewpoints, but all of whom carefully consider the evolving needs of the Jewish community. Balancing the new and the old is a classic tension in Jewish living and in rabbinic text. Chazal uses rabbinic logic to flip pshat understanding in Tanakh, the kabbalists add layers of meaning to every letter, all while the Torah says that we should not add or subtract a single thing (Deut 4:2). So, as the descendants of Hebrew ancestors who upended the beliefs of their time to follow a divine calling, and also as the descendants of Jewish ancestors who preserved a complex and demanding tradition through centuries of exile, where do we find our balance?

This week’s parshah Bechukotai warns us that if we follow God’s laws, we reap peace and prosperity, but if we stray, the land and its inhabitants will curse us. But what it means to follow God’s law is quickly expanded. According to Rashi, in the opening verse of our parshah, Leviticus 26:3, the work chukim in the phrase אִם־בְּחֻקֹּתַי תֵּלֵכוּ/If you follow my laws, refers not to laws, but to studying Torah. Rashi concludes this because the verse already says וְאֶת־מִצְוֺתַי תִּשְׁמְרוּ/and observe my mitzvot, and actions must be balanced by wisdom. Unsurprisingly, Rashi believes that studying Torah, thus gaining the ability to interpret and apply its teachings to the present world, works in tandem to the observance of mitzvot. This elevates Torah from an instruction manual to a conversation through the generations, empowering each generation to reinterpret our holy texts.

Our parsha continues that if we follow the chukim and mitzvot, God will bless us and be with us:

וְהִתְהַלַּכְתִּי בְּתוֹכְכֶם וְהָיִיתִי לָכֶם לֵֽאלֹהִים וְאַתֶּם תִּהְיוּ־לִי לְעָֽם׃

I will be ever present in your midst: I will be your God, and you shall be My people.

(Leviticus 26:12)

Italian commentator Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno hones in on the phrase והתהלכתי בתוככם, I will be ever present in your midst. He says that the meaning of this reflexive conjugation can be read as, “I will walk with you in whatever direction you are going, back and forth and sideways.” God is not in a single location, not even in a single route of God’s choosing—God, if we pursue righteousness, will walk with us in whichever direction we go. Wherever the righteous are found, Sforno adds, holiness will be present.

When you think back on your Jewish life, at what moments did you feel holiness present? Which of these moments are from the Judaism of your youth, that older generations presented to you, and which moments came from the creations of your generation? Have you noticed any of your peers using their Torah learning to shift practice and create Jewish observance? Can you identify ways that your generation has shaped the path we are walking on?

Sforno and Rashi, while interpreting different verses, hang their understanding on the same verb, הלכ, to walk—in the first case, referring to the path of Torah study, and in the second, referring to the path of righteous lives. Halakha, the body of mitzvot and process of enacting Torah in our every step, comes from this same root. From living halakhic lives, these commentators know that this root indicates a layered, complex process of living Jewishly. Our tradition teaches us that while we must observe mitzvot and draw on an ancient understanding of God’s voice, the ultimate goal is to walk beside God in present time on the path of righteousness. How we get there depends on what each generations needs and believes, but it can only occur with a balance of observance and study, of deeds and wisdom, of old and new.

We walk through our neighborhoods, passing blooming flowers and playing children, and so too we step through time, our traditions and innovations directing the path of our lives. I know that through my rabbinate, it will sometimes be unclear which practices to observe as my grandparents did and which to experiment with. But it is not the rabbi’s job to reinvent and conserve the pieces of Judaism they find lacking or meaningful. That is all of our job. And our rabbis and Jewish professionals and teachers are here to empower each generation to find a way, to build a communal Judaism of righteousness and meaning.

May we continue to choose the path which brings us in step with God, holding dear what we’ve been given, and what is yet to be.

Behar 5/25/19

Let The Earth Rest
By Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

I have a conflicted relationship with plastic. I use it, all the time. It is hard not to in our world. As Benjamin Braddock was famously encouraged to do in “The Graduate,” plastic’s ubiquity in our civilization surely made its early, and perhaps current, investors very wealthy. I benefit from plastic’s ease of use, both in reusable and single-use forms. The keyboard on which I type this mini drash and the machine used to print and duplicate it rely on plastic’s versatility and strength. Try to go a day in your life without encountering, directly, plastic in its many forms, and it will be a true challenge. We rely on the stuff.

And, I hate plastic. It literally haunts my mind, both when awake and when I sleep. Sometimes I have to consciously jar my mind from perseverating on the troubling factoid that nearly every piece of plastic ever created is still in existence. Most of it in garbage dumps, flood drains or part of the ocean’s vastness. I recently read a report of a sea-diver who successfully dove to one of the deepest depths to which a human ever reached, protected by a slew of technology to help his body survive the enormous pressure (much of that technology, of course, relying on plastic). At the bottom of this dive, hovering on this otherwise virginal sea-floor literally miles beneath the surface, this nature-loving, Earth-exploring diver found odd and infrequently-encountered sea creatures and vegetation. And…a plastic bag.

There are many injurious things that humankind does to the Earth, justified by all sorts of things, many of them laudable. But plastic, in particular, troubles me. Can’t the Earth get a break?

The Earth gets a break in Parshat Behar. Or, we Jews are at least commanded to give it. While the verse to which I refer now mostly guides us in principle, in the ancient world the exhortation was literally intended, and observed. God tells Moshe to tell the Israelites that when they finally reach the land that is to be their inheritance, ושבתה הארץ, שבת לה'. V’shavtah ha’aretz, shabbat ladonai. The land will “sabbath.” The Earth will rest. Must rest. It is a divinely-ordained rest. The subsequent verses describe the mitzvah of שמיטה/sh’mitah, whereby fertile land lies fallow once every seven years, as part of an agricultural sabbatical. But the initial word used is shabbat, one of Judaism’s most important and beloved concepts.

The 18^th/19^th C. Hasidic sage, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Eichenstein of Zidichov (now in NW Ukraine) counts this “sabbatical” as the third of 3 biblical sabbaths. The one ordained in the creation story, and the one we observe once per week, is for the health and restoration of the nefesh, the soul. The human body, which houses and protects the human soul, needs a weekly respite from m’lakhah, or labor, in order to be well. Therefore, the restrictions upon the Jew on this weekly sabbath are the most comprehensive. One may not even do labor (in this case, cooking), to prepare food from scratch on Shabbat. The second sabbath is the series of Biblical festivals (Sukkot, Pesah, Shavuot, etc…) that observant Jews celebrate almost like a Shabbat. A few more things (cooking, carrying, for instance) are permitted on hagim/yontef than compared to Shabbat. According to the Zidichover, this is because this sabbath is not for the nefesh/soul, but rather for time itself. As we say in the concluding blessing for kiddush on festivals, we pause our mundane work for the sake of מקדש ישראל והזמנים. M’kadesh yisra’el v’hazmanim. To sanctify not only Israel, but time. It is as if the concept of time, beyond the needs of the human body/soul, needs some irregular interruptions in order to stay calibrated. When I think of this concept, I imagine the ur-clock, in Greenwich, England, needing a break here and there if it is going to continue to be relied upon for setting time for all of humanity. And the last sabbath? It is the one in our parsha. It is for Earth, herself. Because of that, the restrictions on this sabbath, the sh’mitah year, have more to do with earth, land, dirt, plants, fruit, nutrients of the ground…than with human behavior. The only thing an observant couldn’t (and, in Israel, still can’t) do that year is to work the soil to make it produce.

I fear that our distance-in-time from when these laws were given, and our distance-in-space from where they still obtain, and our distance-in-concept from most of agriculture and the earth’s needs, given that we procure most of our food from supermarkets, businesses, Amazon Fresh, etc… rather than from the ground…has lulled us into a lassitude, at best, and a corruption, at worst, with respect to the first mitzvah of our parsha. We just don’t care, that much, about what the earth might need. Particularly if it gets in the way of what we want.

I don’t know how to solve this. I am not introducing legislation. I am not cursing your every use of a one-time plastic bag. But I would like to awaken all of us to the clarion call, and perhaps the anguished plea, emerging from Parshat Behar. The Earth is not limitless in what it can give. The Torah personifies it akin to a servant or slave worked ceaselessly, without shabbat, who surely will give out from raw exhaustion. How much plastic can one Earth bear?

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Emor 5/18/19

From Nothing to Everything
Rabbi Shoshana Cohen, Conservative Yeshiva Faculty

In describing the yearly cycle of festivals, Parshat Emor describes the period we are in now, the seven weeks between Pesach and Shavuot, commonly referred to as the Omer*.

According to this description, this time period is all about grain. On Pesach ridding ourselves of chametz means getting rid of last years grain products. Having done that we turn to the new grain harvest (23:9-10) and bring an offering of the first of the grain(omer) to the priest. Until this offering is brought, which happens according to the Rabbis on the second day of Pesach, it is not permissible to use any of the new grain, as it says in verse 23:14: "You shall eat no bread or parched grain or fresh ears until that very day, until you have brought the offering of your God."

After omer offering is brought, we are to count seven weeks (23:15-16) and then bring another grain offering, know as "the two loaves." (23:17). These differ from the omer in that the omer is the sheaf itself whereas the two loaves are processed, made from flour ground from the new grain. According to the Mishna in Menachot 10:5 there is another difference between the omer offering and the two loaves.

"The omer permits [the new grain] throughout the land, and the two loaves permit it in the Temple." The bringing of the omer offering allows people outside of the Temple to partake of the new harvest, whereas in the Temple the new harvest is not permissible for use until the bringing of the two loaves seven weeks later.

Following the details of special sacrifices on Shavuot (23:18-21), we get the laws of leket and peah, the command to leave the gleanings and corners of the field for the poor (23:22). Although this command applies year-round, it makes sense for it to appear here, when the Torah is discussing the grain harvest. But there may be a deeper message there as well.

The period from Pesach to Shavuot is about more than just the ripening of new grain; it is a time of transition from having nothing to having everything. The cleaning out of chametz on Pesach is a ritual representation of the state of having nothing we experienced in Egypt. In the same way the omer offering that is brought "When you enter the land that I am giving you and you reap its harvest" is a ritual representation of what it means to have something. The pinnacle of this process is the two loaves, an offering made of processed loaves made of the finest flour. If Pesach is the holiday of 'lechem oni' - the bread of poverty - Shavuot is the holiday of plenty and satisfaction.

As the Torah understands, it is best not to go directly from one the other, just like it is best not to eat an enormous meal after a fast. We need a process and this process is the counting of the Omer. During the harvest we set some aside, we bring the first fruits, we even hold off on bringing grain offering in the Temple. We carefully transition from a state of having nothing to a state in which we have everything. The offerings allow us to acknowledge that our bounty is not our own, that we are not solely responsible for our own success. The laws of leket and peah reinforce this message, ensuring that as we accumulate and take stock of our own success we see those around us who are less fortunate and make sure to make offerings to them as well.

(*NOTE: when "Omer" appears capitalized, it refers to the counting of 7 weeks; when it is not capitalized, it refers to the "omer" offering.)

Kedoshim 5/11/19

What is Kedusha
By Rabbinic Intern, Natan Freller

If I had to explain what Judaism is all about in one word, without a doubt I would say: Kedusha (Holiness).

Parashat Kedoshim is also known as the “Holiness Code”, a sequence of laws that cover almost every aspect of human life: doing business, Shabbat, moral behavior, Kashrut, family relationships, and non-Jewish Gods. So the question that Jews have been trying to answer throughout time is, of course, what does holiness actually mean?

A more literal reading of Kedusha that I think is very helpful to understand this complex concept is “to set aside”. The first mention of this concept in the Torah is during the creation story, and its role there is to set one day (Shabbat) aside from the other days of the week “vaikadesh oto” (God sanctified it – Shabbat). Shabbat is divine for being different than the other days of the week. The opposite of kedusha is chol (ordinary, commonness), which helps us understand this concept of setting aside, making it different, or extraordinary, if you will. The question that remains is: different how? This reading might not be sufficient enough to explain it completely, but Shabbat became the quintessential way of marking time in Jewish life as holy; so, if you want to understand kedusha, you must experience Shabbat.

This week’s parasha teaches “kedoshim tihiu - Be holy, for I, Adonai your God, am holy”. Our role in relating to the divine is to pursue the divine holiness in imitating God, being Godlike. Later on, our parasha teaches also “Make yourselves holy and be holy, for I am Adonai your God”. This second wording puts even more focus on human action, and not God’s actions, like we saw regarding Shabbat. We need to make ourselves holy, different, extraordinary and stay in that state. Then, the next verse says: “You shall faithfully observe my laws: I, Adonai, am the one who makes you holy.” Here is the key: God gave us Torah, by living a life of Torah, God makes us holy. We need God to be holy, but God cannot make us holy without our partnership and action.

The core message of this teaching for me is that we are all created in the image of God, and therefore have the potential to be Godlike. We need to strive to learn God’s ways of holiness through Torah study and acts of lovingkindness. The Talmud teaches (Sotah 14a):

“Rabbi Ḥama, son of Rabbi Ḥanina, says: What is the meaning of the verse: “After the Lord your God shall you walk” (Deut. 13:5)? But is it actually possible for a person to follow the Divine Presence? But hasn’t it already been stated: “For the Lord your God is a devouring fire” (Deut. 4:24), and one cannot approach fire.

He explains: Rather,the meaning is that one should follow the attributes of the Holy One, Blessed be He. He provides several examples. Just as He clothes the naked, as it is written: “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin, and clothed them” (Gen. 3:21), so too, should you clothe the naked. Just as the Holy One, Blessed be He, visits the sick, as it is written with regard to God’s appearing to Abraham following his circumcision: “And the Lord appeared unto him by the terebinths of Mamre” (Gen. 18:1), so too, should you visit the sick. Just as the Holy One, Blessed be He, consoles mourners, as it is written: “And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed Isaac his son” (Gen. 25:11), so too, should you console mourners. Just as the Holy One, Blessed be He, buried the dead, as it is written: “And he was buried in the valley in the land of Moab” (Deut. 34:6), so too, should you bury the dead.”

So what can we learn from experiencing shabbat and walking God’s ways?

Am Kadosh (Holy People) – God commands us, right before uttering the 10 commandments, to be an Am Kadosh, a Holy People. I can only understand the concept of a chosen people through this prisma of kedusha. Being a people that has certain set of values, laws, and practices that are clearly different and counter cultural to society is what makes us an Am Kadosh. Our narratives offer worldviews that could only be fulfilled if the entire world would abide by God’s Torah, once they all realize is truth. I’m constantly challenged by this perspective, I don’t hold my truth be higher than other’s truth, but I hold it as something dear to me, something that gives meaning to my life. Being part of the Jewish People has taught me how to model behavior, the constant work we put on to be a holy nation, can only be manifested through our actions and our relationship with others. Parashat Kedoshim also teaches: “Love your fellow as yourself”, as the sage Hillel taught a version of it in the Mishna, this is all the Torah, the rest is commentary. Now go and study.

Kedoshim tihiu, it all starts with you.

Aharei Mot 5/3/19

Fire Is Fire
By Rabbi Hillary Chorny, Cantor

Everyone woke up with the sun on our camping trips. Sunrise was our alarm clock and in any case the cold crept inside our sleeping bags and our breath would fog and condense on the inside of the tent flaps as we unzipped them at dawn. There was the campfire, crackling since long before the sun went down the night before. The whole campsite smelled of charcoal and glowing ash and s’mores. We liked to heat a cast iron pan on the fire as we built it back up for the day, and when it got just hot enough we’d throw on a couple of fresh-caught trout. I have memories of warming my hands on a coffee mug and sipping French-pressed grounds as I watched the fishtails curl and sizzle.

This is how I picture the eish tamid tukad al hamizbeah, the perpetual fire that the Israelites were commanded to keep kindled on the altar (Vayikra 6:6). A toasty communal hearth that served as an essential ritual tool, it was the beating heart of Israelite sacrificial space. In this week’s parsha, Aharei Mot (Vayikra 16:12), Aharon is commanded as part of his priestly service to remove a panful of glowing coals from the altar fire. The Babylonian Talmud records an Amoraic debate between Abayye and Rava (Yoma 46b) as to whether it was permissible to extinguish the fire that still glowed in those few holy coals. There was such sanctity ascribed to the fire that undergirded the precious sacrificial system that the flames and fuel were rendered nearly untouchable to the rabbinic imagination, even while they smoldered on the ground.

This ancestral anxiety is still something we carry in our guts, but rather than stoke a perpetual fire we fret over the continuity of our peoplehood. We stand around our little Jewish campfires and warm our fingers noting wistfully that the flames aren’t as bright as they used to be and if we don’t do something about it soon surely it will die altogether. Every diminution of Jewish vibrancy is a threat to the entirety of the Jewish project and every horrific act of violence against a Jewish community casts a shadow of dark prophecy.

The Sefer Hakhinukh, a 13th century Spanish guidebook of halakhic and ethical wisdom, can be read as a powerful counterbalance to the culture of foretelling doom at every negative turn (Mitzvah 133). He says that the reason fiery coals can be removed from the perpetual fire on the altar (sorry, Abayye) is that it’s simply not an act of extinguishing. Removing a firepan of coals does not change the status of the eish tamid tukad. The fire is still a fire. A fire that is dying can be rebuilt into a roaring inferno in an instant with the right infusion of fuel.

We’re at a particularly harrowing juncture of Jewish discomfort in the country and across the world. Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, a survivor of recent anti-Semitic terror, wrote in the New York Times this week that, “We believe that helping any human being tap into their divine spark is a step toward fixing this broken world and bringing closer the redemption of humanity.” Even on the days when we find ourselves in the darkness, we are glowing, potent embers prepared to the give endless light into the world.

Pesah 4/27/19

Who Knows One - Jane Shore

Who knows One. I know One.
One is God for God is One—
The only One in Heaven and on earth.

Who knows two. I know two.
Two are the first two: Adam and Eve.
One is God for God is One—
It takes one to know one.

Who knows three. I know three.
Bad things always come in threes.
Two trees grew in the Garden of Eden.
One is God for God is One—
One rotten apple spoils the barrel.

Who knows four. I know four.
What were you doing on all fours?
Three’s the hearts in a ménage à trois.
Two’s the jump ropes in double Dutch.
One is God for God is One—
One good turn deserves another.

Who knows five. I know five.
Five is the five in “Slaughterhouse-Five.”
Four is Egypt’s plague of flies.
Three the Stooges on TV.
Two the two-faced lie he told.
One is God for God is One—
One hand washes the other.

Who knows six. I know six.
Six are the wives of Henry VIII.
Who? What? Where? When? Why?
Four the phases of the moon.
Three the bones inside the ear.
Two eyes—the better to see you with, my dear.
One is God for God is One—
There’s only one to a customer.

Who knows seven. I know seven.
Seven the year of the seven-year itch.
Six the paper anniversary.
Asked if he did it, he pleaded the Fifth.
Four are my absent wisdom teeth.
Three is the three in the third degree.
Two can play that game.
One is God for God is One—
Public Enemy No. 1.

Who knows eight. I know eight.
The Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week.”
Wrath is the seventh of the deadly sins.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
He lost it all in five-card stud.
Four bits in a nibble equals half a byte.
Three is the beginning, middle, and end.
Two are the graves in the family plot.
One is God for God is One—
The only one in a hole in one.

Who knows nine. I know nine.
Nine are the lives of an average cat.
Eight is the day of circumcision.
Seven the locks on Samson’s head.
Six the sense I wish I had.
Five the five in nickeled-and-dimed.
Four cold feet in the double bed.
Three’s a crowd.
Two’s company.
One is God for God is One—
The only one in a one-night stand.

Who knows ten. I know ten.
I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.
She dressed to the nines.
Fellini’s “8½.”
Seven the times the bride circles the groom.
Six the number perfect in itself.
She daubed her wrists with Chanel No. 5.
Love is just a four-letter word.
Three is as phony as a three-dollar bill.
Two is the two in doubletalk.
One is God for God is One—
There’s one born every minute.

Who knows eleven. I know eleven.
Eleven are the stars in Joseph’s dream.
Ten is the Roman numeral X.
Possession is nine-tenths of the law.
Infinity’s a sideways figure eight.
Seven long years Jacob had to wait.
Six is the Lover’s Tarot card.
Five is indivisible.
Four, cruel April.
Three witches in “the Scottish play.”
Two is the two of “I and Thou.”
One is God for God is One—
One in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Who knows twelve. I know twelve.
Twelve are the face cards in a deck.
Eleven are the thieves in “Ocean’s Eleven.”
Take a deep breath and count to ten.
It takes nine tailors to make a man.
Eight are the people on Noah’s ark.
Seven are the hues in a rainbow’s arc.
Six is . . . I can’t remember what.
Five the rivers of the Underworld.
Four the rivers of Paradise.
Three on a match.
It takes two to tango.
One is God for God is One—
In one ear and out the other.

Who knows thirteen. I know thirteen.
Thirteen is the skyscraper’s missing floor.
Twelve are the men who walked on the moon.
At the eleventh hour, his life was spared.
Do not covet your neighbor’s ass.
Nine are the circles of Dante’s Hell.
Eight is the game of crazy eights.
The phone was busy 24/7.
They deep-sixed their love affair.
The five-o’clock shadow on your face.
Four is putting two and two together.
Three is the eternal triangle.
Two plays second fiddle.
Two minus one equals one.
One is one all alone.
You were my one and only one—
The only one whose number’s up.

Pesah 4/19/19

We Made It!...Now What?
By: Rabbi Matt Shapiro, Interim Associate Rabbi

Whenever you’re reading this, the work is over. Whether it’s on the cusp of your seder on Friday night or in shul Saturday morning, you’ve cleaned, prepped, cooked, and are either heading into a substantive and joyous celebration of our exodus from Egypt or you still have the words and songs from last night ringing in your ears. But...to what end? What was it for? You had a meaningful and fun seder (or, at the very least, I hope, the food was delicious). What do you do with that experience now?

It calls to mind advice I once received myself and now often give to couples who are in the midst of wedding planning. Weddings are joyous, chaotic, wonderful events, yet if the exclusive focus of those efforts is on the ceremony and the party, something is missing. It should be a beautiful day, to be sure- and that day can then be a springboard of love and joy into everything that comes after those precious few hours. Yes, you should plan intensively and mindfully for the event, and you should plan just as intensively and mindfully for the days and weeks and years to come.

Our tradition knows about the challenge of losing the forest for the trees. The concept of and insistence upon building a meaningful structure on top of significant and lasting moments appears in countless ways in and around Jewish practice, ritual, and teaching. One such location for this is found in the counting of the Omer, beginning Saturday night, on the second day of Pesach, as we count the 49 days until Shavuot, when we celebrate, remember, and honor receiving Torah at Mount Sinai.

The mystics of our tradition explore and delve into how each day of the Omer isn’t just a number to be checked off, but how each one is a nexus point of different sfirot, the lenses through which we can view and understand attributes and aspects of God which are in turn mapped onto our own personalities and experiences. You can see a full chart online (for example: here), but you can also conceptualize a 7x7 grid, on which one element (the first of which is chesed, loving-kindness) moves through each of the lower seven sfirot for that week. We then transition into the second of those sfirot for week 2, and so on, getting us to a total of 49 before celebrating Shavuot. The first day of the Omer, for example, encourages us to look at chesed within chesed, seeking out the deepest point of compassion and kindness within ourselves, even and especially when it’s not easily given or found. Then, on day 2, we turn to exploring gevurah (judgment/might/justice) within chesed, the need for boundaries and structure to help shape and guide the love we seek out and offer. Each day offers a new dynamic tension and/or exploration and/or challenge to push us to look within our selves.

Based on my experience, I can’t help but connect this with the language and concepts of addiction recovery. Each of the previous six years, while working at Beit T’shuvah, the language of “one day at a time” rang throughout these seven weeks; particularly, and not exclusively, in early sobriety, a full 24 hours of abstaining from addictive behaviors is in and of itself a miracle. Each day is worthy of recognition and celebration. Each day, with its own spiritual challenges and opportunities for growth, is one step along the path of recovery, just as each day of the Omer is a step on the path to receiving Torah.

This can be seen as a corrective to the haste with which we fled Egypt, leaving no time, of course, for even our bread to rise. These weeks, these days of the Omer come to remind us that continued haste without pause leads to chaos. After we ran so quickly to escape oppression, persecution, and horror, we are then challenged to be able to slow down enough to recognize what’s present, possible, and necessary within each day we are blessed to be alive. This process isn’t just the next chunk of time that happens to come after a holiday. It’s a necessary element to lean into, a gift that’s offered up to us. We, in turn, make a decision in our response. We don’t just experience freedom from slavery- we are given freedom to choose how to live our lives, which we express through cultivating the aspects of our inner lives that need further development.

What’s the seder for? To commemorate that we left Egypt. What’s the point of leaving Egypt? Everything that comes after: wandering, Torah, growth, struggle, change, learning, mitzvot, service, love, and on, and on. The Omer gives us a beautiful, prismatically filtered set of days and weeks through which we can begin to map out what post-slavery life looks like, a continued, daily process that we get the privilege of living. Now that we’re out of Egypt, I’m so grateful and glad to be walking continually towards Sinai with you, one day at a time.

Shabbat shalom, and chag sameach.

Pre-Pesah Taste of Torah 4/13/19

As we prepare for Passover next week, I’m honored to share two short pieces of Torah from one of my teachers, Rabbi Mark Borovitz, that offer the opportunity for reflection before Pesach. It’s easy to get lost in the material preparations, yet it’s just as important to prepare ourselves for the deeper meanings of the holiday as well. Rabbi Borovitz plays with symbols and rituals that many of us already know quite well and refracts them through a different lens through which to view these observances. I hope you find these teachings as resonant and thought-provoking as I do! -Rabbi Matt Shapiro

“The difference between unnecessary suffering and bitterness is found in the maror and charoset. When we eat the maror alone, we recoil from the taste of its bitterness. So too, should we recoil from the bitterness of our current slavery. What about our lives tastes so bitter that we commit to not engage in these bitter activities? When we eat just the charoset, the taste is much more palatable. This represents the way most of us see our lives. Life is palatable, not great, not too terrible, just sort of a low-grade temperature. This is the worst enslavement of all! Many of us just become fatalistic and say this is how life is. We accept our suffering in our slavery, in our daily routine as part of life and believe that it will never change. This is the antithesis of Pesah.

Many of us are complacent and feel like we deserve and are comfortable with our enslavements; it is our response to the pains that we feel. It works for a while, then, it traps us and we believe that we have no way out. We don’t have to give in to this. This ‘suffering’ becomes a warm blanket and a trusted friend; it becomes how we define ourselves. Pesah is the answer to this type of life. We have to know that slavery is bitter, it is not comfortable, it is not our friend. We are not meant to be slaves! By eating the maror, we are reminded of this bitterness and the belief is that once we taste this bitterness, we will resolve to become free and liberated. This bitterness is the taste we have in our mouths that says: I won’t come to this place anymore!”

“Matzah tells us that the way out of tolerable slavery is to return to our basic self, our soul. We clean our homes for Pesah. We get rid of all of the chometz, anything that has a leavening agent in it. Why? If we try and get out of slavery when we are full of ourselves, when our ego is puffed up, we will get stuck. The Israelites in the Torah had euphoric recall of what it was like in Egypt. They remembered good times that never happened. They needed to eat meat, quail, fish, etc. because they used to sit and eat by the flesh pots of Egypt. But- they were slaves and this never happened! Matzah is the bread of transition. It helps us transition back to our essential selves/souls and then stay lean enough to get out of slavery.

There is a wonderful midrash on chometz and matzah. The difference is one letter, the hey, instead of the het. The puffed up chometz is symbolic of our egos. It is closed and impenetrable. The matzah is the symbol that if I allow the puffed up part of me to leave, then I am left with my soul- this is the part of me that allows me to be open and teachable. I am able to connect with God, my true self (all of me), and others. The matzah reminds us of our spiritual need for simplicity. Write down one enslavement that you commit to leave this year. Take some time this year to talk about what enslaves you and the one enslavement that you are committing to leave. Tell each other what help you need from them to make this a reality.

Remember, transformation from slavery to freedom is 5% transformation and 95% maintenance. The maintenance, like the transformation, can only be done in community.”

Excerpts from Liberation of the Soul Kit, by Rabbi Mark Borovitz

Tazria 4/6/19

Calling Out, Calling in
Prepared by Natan Freller, TBA Rabbinic Intern

מָוֶת וְחַיִּים בְּיַד־לָשׁוֹן וְאֹהֲבֶיהָ יֹאכַל פִּרְיָהּ׃

Death and life are in the power of the tongue; Those who love it will eat its fruit.
(Proverbs 18:21)

For a long time, I’ve heard connections between leprosy and lashon hara (lit. evil tongue. i.e. defamation, slander, gossip). How are these two related?

There are two interesting connections in our vast literature that I want to share with you today and hopefully learn meaningful lessons from them.

The first connection we see is in the Torah itself, a more contextual reading. Later on, in the book of Bamidbar, Miriam and Aharon spoke against Moshe for marrying a Cushite women, Tziporah. After that, God calls the three of them to the Tent of Meeting and rebukes their behavior. Once God’s presence leaves, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow.

The second is a famous midrash about the meaning of life:

Another explanation for the verse: "This shall be the law for a leper" (Leviticus 14:2) – the answer is in what is written (Psalms 36:13), "Who is the man who desires life?" There is a story of a peddler who would go around to towns that were close to Tzippori. He would shout out and say, "Who wants to buy the potion of life?" They would all cling to him. Rabbi Yannai was sitting and interpreting texts in his reception room and heard him shouting out, "Who wants to buy the potion of life?" Rabbi Yannai said, "Come down to here, sell it to me." He said back to him, "You do not need it and those like you do not need it." Nonetheless, he made the effort to come and go down to him. He took out a book of Psalms and showed him the verse, "Who is the man who desires life?" The peddler said, "What is written after it - 'guard your tongue from evil [...] Turn away from evil and do good' (Psalms 34:14-15)." Rabbi Yannai said, Kind Shlomo wrote: (Proverbs 21:23), 'He who guards his mouth and his tongue, guards his soul from troubles.'" Rabbi Yannai said "All of my days I was reading this verse and I did not know how to interpret it until this peddler came and made it understood - 'Who is the man who desires life?'" Therefore, Moshe warns Israel and says to them, "This shall be the law for a leper (metzora)" - the law of the one that gives out a bad name (motzi shem ra) to another person. (Vayikra Rabbah 16:2)

So, what is the deeper meaning of the connection between leprosy (tzara’at) and lashon hara?

The Talmud (Arakhin 16b) explains that a person who has tzara’at needs to sit outside the camp for an entire week. Why? Since the person brought division between spouses or between two friends therefore the Torah says: "The one with tzara’at shall sit alone...". And that is what happened to Miriam after speaking against Moshe’s wife, Tziporah.

Lashon hara is not taken lightly by our tradition. The consequence for it is a process isolation that should lead into a process of teshuvah, repentance. I was thinking about this forced process of isolation and what could be a modern comparison to that. We don’t live in a camp in the desert anymore, so how does this process look like? I think that there is, or should be, a natural process of isolation to those who are constantly speaking lashon hara. When we witness lashon hara, either against ourselves or directed towards other people, it is our obligation to do something with it. Recently, I learned a new expression in English that I want to share with you as a response to lashon hara in the modern world. Instead al calling out someone for doing something wrong, we need to call them in! Isolation might have been a successful tool for the ancient world to deal with this problem. Our world is in need of love. Don’t call them out. Let’s call them in! We need to bring up these kinds of conversation to a civic discourse, explain why disrespecting someone with words is dangerous and counter productive to the society that we are trying to build together.

The Midrash about the peddler and Rabbi Yannai teaches us a mantra, a way to walk in God’s world and live a life of meaning and holiness: "Who is the man who desires life?" The peddler said, "What is written after it - 'guard your tongue from evil [...] Turn away from evil and do good' (Psalms 34:14-15)."

About our own behavior, 'guard your tongue from evil’. This is a constant exercise. Write it down. Carry a piece of paper with that phrase as a reminder. Make it your cellphone’s background. Frame it and keep it in your desk. This is a message from our tradition to keep us accountable for our behavior and a reminder of our values.

About what to do when we see lashon hara in our midst: ‘Turn away from evil and do good'. We need to find the strength to turn away from it, avoid listening it. And instead of calling it out and going away, the verse teaches us: ‘do good’. Call it in! Share your love with them and teach them the core teaching of our tradition: Love your fellow as yourself.

Shabbat Shalom

Shemini 3/30/19

Aaron: Imposter or Perfect Fit?
By: Dr. Erica Rothblum, Head of School, Pressman Academy

I am friends with an amazing woman - she is accomplished and brilliant. Her work is changing the world on a daily basis. Her humor and insight can leave me breathless.

She recently texted a group of our friends asking, “how many people here feel like a failure on a regular basis? Or don’t trust themselves the way they wish they could? Second guess? Feel insecure in certain rooms or in dealing with certain people?” While of course we all texted back with reminders of her brilliance and bravery, my friend is not alone in dealing with imposter syndrome. Even Michelle Obama recently offered, “It never goes away, that you’re actually listening to me. It doesn’t go away, that feeling that you shouldn’t take me that seriously. What do I know?”

Imposter syndrome—the idea that you’ve only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your talent or qualifications—was first identified in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes. They find imposter syndrome most often in people with perfectionist tendencies. While the literature on this syndrome is fairly recent, we can trace imposter syndrome back to this parsha:

The Mishkan is finally complete, and now the time has come for Aaron and his sons to begin their priestly service. Moshe gives them various instructions and then says to Aaron:

קְרַ֤ב אֶל־הַמִּזְבֵּ֙חַ֙ וַעֲשֵׂ֞ה אֶת־חַטָּֽאתְךָ֙ וְאֶת־עֹ֣לָתֶ֔ךָ וְכַפֵּ֥ר בַּֽעַדְךָ֖ וּבְעַ֣ד הָעָ֑ם וַעֲשֵׂ֞ה אֶת־קָרְבַּ֤ן הָעָם֙ וְכַפֵּ֣ר בַּֽעֲדָ֔ם כַּאֲשֶׁ֖ר צִוָּ֥ה יְהוָֽה׃

Come near to the altar and sacrifice your sin offering and your burnt offering, making expiation for yourself and for the people; and sacrifice the people’s offering and make expiation for them, as the LORD has commanded.

The sages were puzzled by the instruction, “Come near.” This seems to imply that Aaron had until then kept a distance from the altar. Rashi gives the following explanation:

Aaron was ashamed and fearful of approaching the altar. Moses said to him: “Why are you ashamed? It was for this that you were chosen.”

We know that Aaron is still feeling guilt and responsibility for the situation with the golden calf. Aaron was deeply uncomfortable with acting as the High Priest when he had, just recently, profoundly sinned. He felt like an imposter - how could anyone take him seriously? And at that moment, Moshe tells Aaron something radical and life-changing: “It was for this role that you were chosen.” The task of a High Priest is to atone for people’s sins. It was Aaron’s role, on Yom Kippur, to confess his wrongs and failings and to plead for forgiveness.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks offers on this topic:

“That,” implied Moses, “is why you were chosen. You know what sin is like. You know what it is to feel guilt. You more than anyone else understand the need for repentance and atonement. You have felt the cry of your soul to be cleansed, purified and wiped free of the stain of transgression. What you think of as your greatest weakness will become, in this role you are about to assume, your greatest strength.”

In other words, Aaron thinks he is not fit to be the High Priest because he has sinned, but it is precisely because he has sinned that he can be the best High Priest. We need to stop expecting perfection from ourselves. Like Aaron, we need to recognize that we have things to offer the world, we have expertise, and we have strength because of our weaknesses. And just as Aaron assumed the mantle of the High Priest, so too do we need to step forward and do those things that scare us. To paraphrase Rabbi Sacks, our weaknesses make us human; confronting those weaknesses and harnessing them for good brings us purpose and strength.

Pekudei 3/9/19

Prosper the Work of our Hands
By Zachary Golden, Ziegler Student

Psalm 90 is the psalm of Moses, who in the psalm, contemplates the shortness of human life and the frailty of humanity in the sight of the Eternal God. He sees how God, whose day is like a thousand years, towers mightily over sinful human beings, who live for seventy years – or eighty if they have the strength. Whereas God builds the world, and fashions the mountains, human beings return to dust. Moses has one balm for this terrible image of our helplessness and limitation. In the last line of the psalm, he asks God to bless the work of his hands. This is a strange method of comfort – if it were really the case that we are nothing before God, wouldn’t it stand to reason that our work -which is even frailer than human beings - is even more meaningless? But if there is one person in the Torah who could make the case that our work is more meaningful than the miniscule span and immeasurably small pureness of our lives in the eyes of God, it would be Moses!

In our parshah, Pekudei, Moses and the Israelites assemble the Mishkan, the roving Tabernacle. In previous parashot, all the pieces are made – and here they are assembled; and according to a Midrash, by Moses with the help of God. Moses then blesses the work in verse 39:43, and according to Rashi, he blesses it with the last line of Psalm 90 – “May God’s favor be upon us; may the work of our hands prosper, prosper the work of our hands!” In this reading of the psalm, Moses sees the building of the dwelling place of God, the Mishkan, the reason why human beings can claim any significance at all. Holy work is the only work that is more significant than us, not less significant. It is more eternal than us, not more temporary. And by being a part of this kind of work, Moses sees hope for us despite our insignificance.

Let us understand more deeply how different holiness, and therefore holy work, is from anything else. One does not descend from holiness – this is a rabbinic principle. It means that anything that is holy does not become unholy – though things that are pure can become impure and vice versa. In the scale of holiness, there is impure, pure, and holy. We are individually impure and pure. We go in between a state of being allowed near God, and being told to stay away, in alternating spans of our lives. But it says in verse 39:30 to inscribe the diadem of the High Priest with the statement “Holy to God.” There is no return for the High Priest – he is bathed in holiness. Holiness means he belongs to God, and God’s possessions are less than God but they are allowed to be nearest to God, desired by God. Holiness means breaking the cycle of purity and impurity to be near God, who is holy. When we contributed to the building of the Mishkan, we brought the possibility of having our representative come close to God and away from our limitations – and this is what gives us the hope for significance despite our limitations before God in the psalm of Moses. But we can be even more than enablers of holiness.

We are told to be a holy people – and one day we will be. We will all do work that will be work on behalf of a cause or a need that is precious and holy to God, not just for our own ambitions. And like Moses, we will find that the difficult task of assembling the heavy panels of the Mishkan will be aided by God, as long we desire to do the impossible. Often what is moral does not seem effective, what is good is not feasible, because of the fears we have of our limitations. But our limitations are a crisis in meaning rather than capability. Were we to do something we believed in, to become servants to a higher cause, we would see how easily we could step out of the picture - we could give up the petty things that tell us that we can not, and only see the truth and beauty of the work of creating the world alongside God. Reflecting on our limited time on Earth, we might ask God to “teach us to count our days rightly, that we may obtain a wise heart.” (Psalm 90:12) Then we can build something greater than ourselves, and make us more than the dust of our bodies. Let us be so blessed to “prosper the work of our hands!”

Vayikra 3/16/19

All in the Timing
By: Josh Jacobs, Ziegler Student

My sister has been a vegetarian her whole life, ever since she saw the movie Babe, when she was seven years old. The movie ended, and my parents innocently asked, “Did you like the movie, Rachel?” She turned to them, tears in her eyes, and said, “You never told me that food comes from animals.” I’ve always admired her for making a decision at seven, and sticking with it her entire life.

Needless to say, Vayikra is not her favorite parsha. The vast majority of it deals with the vivid details of animal sacrifice, pinching off of heads, and dashing of blood on the alter. The good news is Babe was a pig so…he’s safe. But Vayikra begs the question, why does God demand animal sacrifice? Clearly, it’s not that God likes the smell of barbeque. What if, Maimonides postulates, the entire system of animal sacrifice was a Divine concession to the reality of a human growth curve?

Rambam points to how, upon liberating the Israelites, God “…did not lead them [by] way of the land of the Philistines for it was near, because God said, ‘Lest the people reconsider when they see war and return to Egypt’…” (Exod. 13:17). In other words, it’s possible that timing truly is everything in life. We could have gone the direct route, but we weren’t ready. We could have entered Israel forty years earlier, but ten of the twelve spies weren’t ready. Similarly, we could have skipped right over animal sacrifice to “Let the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be acceptable to You” (Psalms 19:15), but perhaps we weren’t ready.

As I turn the pages this week and heads are flying off left and right, I am reminded that the “pleasing fragrance” (ניחח ריח) God requires of us is not the smell of barbeque, but rather the sweet fragrance of a devoted spirit. The kind stirred up in our souls when we direct our thoughts toward gratitude. It just so happens that Samuel articulates this notion beautifully in the corresponding Haftorah for this week, proving once again, there’s something to this timing thing.

The Haftorah clearly prepares us for Purim, recounting Saul’s compassion toward Agag, who is understood to have been Haman’s progenitor. Interestingly, it also unequivocally weighs in on animal sacrifice. After raiding Amalek, Saul not only spares Agag, but also the entire cast of Babe. When Samuel rebukes him, Saul says he intends to sacrifice the animals to God. Samuel replies, “Has the Lord (as much) desire in burnt offerings and peace-offerings, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than a peace-offering; to hearken (is better) than the fat of rams” (Samuel 15:22). Saul failed to listen to God, but perhaps his greater failure was the inability to see down the long road. A road of prayer that leads to words and song. A road of Agag that leads to Haman.

Vayikra challenges me to look down my own road, and to consider my own growth curve. In what ways am I taking the long way? In what direction do I ultimately hope to evolve? If it’s all in the timing, what’s keeping me from being ready now? Shabbat Shalom and Chag Purim Sameach.

Ki Tissa 2/23/19

God, Let me see you!
By: Natan Freller, Rabbinic Intern

Do you remember the last time you saw God? Take a minute to think about that experience. What did God look like?

In this week’s parasha, Ki Tisa, we read the famous episode of Moshe asking to see God. Interestingly, this story is actually mentioned twice in this parasha. First, the narrator tells about how the meeting between God and Moshe happened, from an outsider’s perspective. Later, we see the dialogue between them.

In the first account, it is said that a pillar of cloud would stand at the entrance of the Ohel Moed (the Tent of Meeting), and God would speak to Moshe panim el panim, face to face, inside the Tent.

In the second account, Moshe said to God: “Please, show me Your Kavod!” The word Kavod here can be translated in many ways, such as: dignity, honor, importance, or presence. God answered, saying: “I’ll make my goodness pass before you, (…) and you will not be able to see my face, for no human can see my face and live. (…) and you will see my back, but my face may not be seen”. I like translating Kavod here as presence. For me, Moshe knew that he could not see God physically, and that is why he asked to see God’s presence. And God responded offering one of God’s attributes, God’s goodness.

One could argue that there is a clear contradiction between these two texts. I want to offer another perspective, where we can learn from both experiences how to find the Divine in our lives.

Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno, an Italian rabbi, wrote in the 16th century about these verses: “All existence draws its existence from God, even though these phenomena do not appear to be related to one another. This is what Isaiah meant with the words: “all the earth is filled with God’s Kavod” (Isaiah 6:3). These different visions might look different from one another, but they were both divine manifestations.

The narrator of the first account and the author of Moshe’s dialogue with God might have had different life experiences of the same Divine revelation. God’s presence in this world can be manifested in different ways, from the nature of the clouds to the spiritual presence in times of prayer.

Judaism is known to be a religion of practice, not a religion of beliefs. There is no belief on God that unifies Jews across the board; still, we pray together as a community in order to support our members who lost someone dear to them.

In that sense, I want to offer another perspective in understanding the encounter between Moshe and God, between human and Divine. In this parasha we also read another famous text in the Jewish Tradition: Adonai, Adonai, El rachum v'chanun, Erech apayim v'rav chessed ve-emet; Notser chessed la-alafim, Nose avon vafesha v'chata'ah v'nakeh.

Adonai, Adonai, God gracious and compassionate, Patient and abounding in kindness and faithfulness, Assuring lovingkindness for a thousand generations, Forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, And granting pardon.

Known also as the 13 divine attributes, Moshe used this formula to plead before God in the behalf of the People. God’s attributes are in fact descriptions of what God does, which creates what God is.

It is part of the human condition, to experience God from a relational perspective; it is not about what God is, but what God does that matters. We are all able to experience God, and it is not going to be the same experience for everyone, just as it is not going to be the same experience every time.

Sometimes we might not be able to see God, just like Moshe could not. Instead of seeing God, Moshe experienced his time with God by seeing the divine attributes. We can learn from Moshe that our experience with the divine will be through the divine attributes, finding and seeing God in what God does. It is up to each one of us to open our eyes to see God, since God’s presence is out there waiting to meet us.

Rabbi Harold Schulweis was able to say it better than I could: “What is it that I believe in? I really believe in the attributes of divinity. I believe it completely. I believe that they're real. I think it's the most real thing in the world. The question is not "Do you believe that God is love?" The question is "Do you believe that love is godly?" Of course I believe that love is godly. And I know darn well that if I want to express what the bible put so brilliantly in the beginning that God created me in the image of divinity that that is what it means to do. I've got to live out God, to behave God, not to believe but to behave God. That's the deepest vindication, testimony of the existence of the truth of godliness.”

May we all be able to see the divine presence in our lives this week.

Shabbat Shalom.

Vayakhel 3/2/19

What does it mean to volunteer your heart?
By: Jenna Turow, Ziegler Student

During rabbinical school orientation, we had a luncheon with students from the school for nonprofit management, some of whom are Christian clergy. During that lunch, a pastor at my table asked us all when and how we received our “calling” to the rabbinate. Some of my schoolmates around the table were a bit uncomfortable with this question and concept, but I was eager to discuss it. I truly feel that I have been called to become a rabbi, that I am compelled by the spiritual force of God. The concept of a “calling” has been mostly abandoned in Jewish culture, but it is evident throughout our narrative; perhaps it’s time to reclaim it. There are countless stories of our ancestors being called to act for God, such as Abraham’s lech lecha, Moses and the burning bush, and many of the later prophets. These callings may seem obvious and antiquated because those people were in direct conversation with God, but there are many ways to experience a calling from a higher power. This week’s parashah, for example, tells the story of a collective calling, a time when the people of Israel were asked to look within and sense their own calling for contribution.

Parashat Vayakhel tells the story of the building of the Mishkan. It repeats the detailed information given in Parashat Terumah, this time in action. Much of this portion consists of details of building materials, measurements, and construction. There is a phrase mentioned in Terumah that is repeated throughout Parashat Vayakhel; God is asking for all contributors to be a נְדִיב לֵב (n’div lev). Sefaria.org translates this as those “whose hearts have moved them,” and I would translate it as those “whose hearts have volunteered.” Throughout this parashah, the people are asked to bring various materials, give their abilities as builders and constructors. They are given two criteria for their contributions: that they have the physical materials or physical ability for their task, and that they have this n’div lev, a willingness or voluntary compulsion of their hearts and minds. What does it mean for your heart to volunteer for something? It is to be so compelled by your own inner will, that you feel called from within to contribute to the task at hand. In this parashah, we see that God is adamant that the people should only contribute if they feel compelled by their own hearts, that they are called on from the depth of their soul, to come forward with materials and able bodies.

The exact wording of “calling” may be foreign to us contemporarily, but the concept of n’div lev has continued through today for the Jewish community. There is a beautiful phenomenon among the Jewish people to be individually and collectively compelled by our hearts to take action and bring good into the world. When faced with a crisis of social justice, for example, the Jewish community rallies together to bring their materials and able bodies to the task at hand. When one person in a community feels so compelled, they rally their friends, family, and community members to join their cause. When we are asked to bring our “blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linens” and our chochma, or skilled ability, to contribute to a holy space, the Jewish people do not hesitate if their hearts are called as well. When a community seeks to help refugees, or combat homelessness, or promote inclusion, the Jewish people answer the call. We cannot stand idly by, because our hearts and minds are so moved individually and as a group to contribute to God’s work in the world. In this way, the concept of a “calling” has continued to pervade the Jewish collective consciousness. Parashat Vayakhel teaches us that we must keep our hearts and minds open to the calling from God, and from our own souls, to bring our abilities and ourselves to build the proverbial Mishkan, to make good. May we continue to be in tune with our souls, as the Israelites were in the desert, and jump to action when so called. May we all continue to find our calling, and answer it.

Tetzaveh 2/16/19

Taste of Torah: Tetzaveh

A Sign Upon Your Heart

By: Rabbi Hillary Chorny, Cantor - Temple Beth Am

When I sit on a beit din, a rabbinic panel, that’s considering a candidate for conversion to Judaism, I have a favorite question. I ask the candidate, “What is it about you, in appearance or behavior, that will make clear to the people around you that you a Jew?” I’ve gotten lots of answers about kippot or necklaces with Jewish symbols. Most frequently, someone will say, “My coworkers notice my kosher lunch” or “people notice my absence on holidays”. Their ritual observance sets them apart.

In Parshat Tetzaveh, there is a setting apart beyond the chosen-ness of the Israelites of the people as Aaron and his sons are brought forward and decorated in honor of their priestly status. The instructions for adorning their breastplates are accompanied by the amendment that the names of the children of Israel should be al libo… l’zikaron lifnei Adonai tamid: upon his heart… as a reminder before God always.

Who is the beneficiary of the reminder here? Is it the priest who feels the weight of these stones of remembrance around his neck? Is it God, who is the heavenly witness to the priestly rites? Is it both? The name of the breastplate gives us a context clue: hoshen mishpat, the breastplate of law. The Netziv, 19th-century Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, emphasizes the instruction that this is worn over the priest’s heart, and therefore it is intended as a reminder for him to pray on behalf of his sisters and brothers when empowered to do so. This garb is a reminder of the priestly clout and ability to impact the lives of all of Israel. But the verse includes the specific instruction that the breastplate is worn “before God,” so it might equally serve as a reminder to God of the precious human souls at stake when heavenly decrees take hold.

Wearing something of symbolic importance can be dually experienced by the wearer and the beholder, in identical or radically different ways. When someone chooses to don a chamsa necklace as they embrace their Jewish identity, others may or may not notice. The magic happens, I think, in the conversation that the necklace sparks between the wearer and the observer. In the breach. In the human intersection. The necklace matters, but not as much as the portal of connection that it opens.

Last year, I sat on a beit din for conversion and asked my usual question: “How will the people around you see that you’re Jewish?” The candidate responded: “I used to drive like a maniac. Then I started wearing a kippah. And I realized that people were looking over at this guy who cut them off and not just cursing me but cursing all Jews, because that’s what that they saw: a Jew. I’ve cooled down on the road and I get more smiles and nods now. I like to think that someone out there is going, ‘Those Jews are such friendly drivers’”.

A kippah matters, but not as much as the behavior it inspires and the lives that may be impacted as a result. Every symbol we wear, no matter where we wear it, is a symbol on our heart as it reminds us to keep close who and what we represent. And every outward expression of identity is an invitation to grow and strengthen our relationships who might see us, and see what we do, as a representation of a greater whole.

Terumah 2/9/19

The Heart Will Follow
By Rabbinic Intern, Ariel Root Wolpe

דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְיִקְחוּ־לִי תְּרוּמָה מֵאֵת כָּל־אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר יִדְּבֶנּוּ לִבּוֹ תִּקְחוּ אֶת־תְּרוּמָתִֽי׃

“Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves them.” (Exodus 25:2)

Every person must bring gifts—but not all gifts are to be accepted. How would you feel if, after selecting a few items from among your precious, scarce possessions, you brought them to the mishkan and were rejected? If you were told you could not help build the dwelling place of God and center of ritual practice because your contribution did not come from your lev, from your heart?

We all have different reasons we contribute to projects in our communities. Sometimes the guilt of our fortunate circumstances motivates us, and we alleviate that feeling through giving our wealth to just causes. Sometimes, our giving is initiated by a sense of obligation, a belief that we are commanded to invest in Jewish institutions and philanthropic endeavors. And sometimes we give purely because we see a need and desire to fill it. Sometimes, we give from the heart.

Rebbe Simcha Bunim Alter applies the concept of na’aseh v’nishma, we will do and we will hear, to the above verse of Parashat Terumah:

כיוון שאמרו ישראל נעשה ונשמע, מיד אמר הקב"ה למשה ויקחו לי תרומה. פירוש הדבר: מצוות צדקה צריכים לעשות בלי התחשבות יתירה, בלי שיקולים, אלא נעשה ואחר כך נשמע. כי אם יחשוב וישקול קודם, לעולם לא יגיע ל"נעשה".

Since Israel said ‘we will do and we will listen’, the Holy Blessed One immediately said to Moshe ‘and you must take terumah for me’. An explanation of the matter: the commandment of tzedakah requires action without excessive contemplation, without excessive consideration, but rather to ‘do’ and afterwards to ‘listen’. This is because if one contemplates and considers beforehand, one will never arrive at ‘we will do’.

Giving, Rabbi Alter explains, is something we must get into the habit of just doing. If we overthink our impulse to give to a person or organization, we will come up with better ways to use our money and will be less likely to part with it. Before our mind begins to turn with warnings of careful spending, we must reach out our hand and give.

In this way, it doesn’t even matter whether your original motivation to give comes from guilt, obligation, or desire. All that matters is that you strive to be generous with your resources, to be someone who donates money and energy to the causes that deserve support. Over a life well lived, your desire to give will only grow.

Where the hand gives, the heart will follow.

Mishpatim 2/2/19

Judaism, Beautifully Done
By Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

If only the whole Jewish world knew, and lived by, this one comment of Rashi. If only that…then the Jewish people would be kinder, more ethical and more dignified.

Let me rev this up by saying that one of my recent and current pet peeves (which is saying it lightly. What I am about to describe is a source of tremendous pain and anguish for me about Jewish living) is the discourteousness (again, to say it lightly) exhibited by some who are punctilious about ritual Jewish observance. In my mind, I have thought of this as “ugly Judaism.” A Judaism which valorizes, and pays attention to, halakhic/legal/ritual detail, while eschewing (sometimes simultaneously) basic politeness and rudimentary ethical comportment. Myriad examples jump to mind. Jews who are so careful about not touching a person of the opposite gender such that it impacts where they sit on an airplane, but seem to jettison all expressions of patient, flexible kindness when trying to meet those needs. Jews who are careful and ubiquitous when it comes to regular, obligatory prayer, and who can recite the prayers fluently and fluidly…but then resort to lashon hara (gossip, damaging speech) as soon as there is a gap in the service. Jews who are so set on venerating the Torah that they literally knock people over (and thus knock over the values of that very Torah) on the way to giving the Torah a kiss. Some might call that last example as veneration-turned-idolatry, with frenzy having replaced honor.

(I am neither a perfect Jew nor a perfect human. I try to name and efface as many of the flaws that I recognize within myself as possible. So I will accept “guilty as charged” for any of the ways in which I fall prey to the very phenomena discussed above.)

I muse about how we got to this place in Jewish sociology wherein the class of phenomena I named is so prevalent. Perhaps it should not be such a surprise. Human beings are complex and riddled with internal inconsistencies. We undermine, and betray, our own values and principles all the time—sometimes unaware and unconscious, and sometimes quite aware, but as a result of some negotiation, or rationalization, with self. But even if this is true, ought we not try to aspire to something better, something higher?

The commentary of Rashi I referenced above is his first on Parshat Mishpatim, and emerges from a pretty wonky and zoomed-in read of the text. The parsha begins with the words ואלה משפטים / V’eleh hamishpatim / “And these are the laws/statues…”. The parsha then continues with a litany of laws (making Mishpatim the parsha with the second-most number of mitzvot among all the 54 parashot, with only Ki Tetze having more). Most of those laws are related to civic life, business practices and ethical living, with rather few of them existing purely in the ritual realm. Rashi notes that all sorts of sentences in the Torah begin with the introduction of “אלה / Eleh / These…” And he notes, or suggests, a pattern: When the opening word is just Eleh, the word is meant to separate what is to come from what came before. It would be read something like “Now that we have finished that topic, these are some other things, in another category.” But when the opening word is “V’eleh” (as it is in our verse), the opposite is true: The word connects the upcoming verse(s) and concept(s) with the antecedent, as if we should read it something like “And these things, as well!”

Rashi is highlighting the import of the slim, humble, almost indiscernible vov-letter that begins the word and the parsha. Within that tiny letter is the following exhortation: lest you delude yourself into thinking that the laws about to be commanded are somehow other, or lesser, or disconnected from the “true revelation” we just had in Parshat Yitro…lest you erroneously think that all (any!) of the commandments after the initial 10 are secondary, the vov of “V’eleh” sets you straight. You thought that the Sinai moment ended last week? Hardly. It continues into Mishpatim, with no conceptual or hierarchical separation. So as you remember Shabbat and render it holy, and as you commit to monotheism and to not taking that one God’s name in vain, so too do you promise to act towards your servants with decency, and pay the damages of one you have injured, and guard your animals lest they create havoc, and ensure that your open pits do not pose a danger to unsuspecting wayfarers, and treat the stranger with empathy, and support the widow and orphan, and ease the burden of an overladen animal, and on and on and on. They, too, are part of God’s revelation to us, and expectations of us. While the latter category without the former category might be ethical humanism, I would say again that the former category without the latter is ugly Judaism.

Remember that vov, and act on it. Connect your conception of Sinai to how you hold yourself, especially while you find yourself in the midst of a ritual act. Make God’s name truly holy by having your very being be a conveyor of holiness, from the ritual to the civil, and back.

Shabbat Shalom

Yitro 1/26/19

In the exquisitely lean five books of Torah, that which is repeated shines with importance. The aseret hadibrot, the ten utterances/commandments, appear twice with only slight discrepancies. The connection between these commandments and the grandeur of revelation serve to highlight their significance. If the Torah could be scribed in bolded font, Parshat Yitro and the ten commandments would certainly get that treatment.

But if the creed of the ten commandments is so very critical, why don’t we recite them like a pledge each day, or even multiple times a day? The testimony of God’s oneness by way of the Shema was deemed so central that it was assigned a spot in two out of the three daily services -- and the Shema only appears once in the Torah! Kal v’homer, through an a fortiori argument, we might think that the ten commandments deserve to be recited ritually. And, in fact, they once were. Mishnah Tamid 5:1 recounts the morning blessings by the appointed priest:

...קָרְאוּ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, שְׁמַע, וְהָיָה אִם שָׁמֹעַ, וַיֹּאמֶר…

“...they would chant the ten commandments, the Shema, V’haya im shamo’a, Vayomer…”

Later, in both the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, there are accounts of the ten commandments being removed from the liturgy.

אמר רב יהודה אמר שמואל אף בגבולין בקשו לקרות כן אלא שכבר בטלום מפני תרעומת המינין

Rav Yehuda said that Shmuel said: Even in the outlying areas, outside the Temple, they sought to recite the Ten Commandments in this manner every day, as they are the basis of the Torah (Rambam), but they had already abolished recitation of the Ten Commandments due to the grievance of the heretics.

What was the rabbinic concern? That highlighting this particular set of laws and norms would make them appear to be more central or more important than the rest of the instructions in the Torah. There was a specific concern among early rabbis that sectarians like the followers of Paul were claiming that only these ten rules were divinely ordained. Reciting the ten commandments daily might inadvertently reinforce the fallacy that the ten commandments were the most critical laws in the whole Torah, or -- worse -- that they were the only God-given laws. Maimonides even forbade standing during the chanting of the aseret hadibrot lest one part of the Torah seem more important than any other portion.

When our rabbinic forebearers went through the exercise of fixing a daily liturgy, over and over again in each generation they debated how our Torah should be treated. What should be included. What should be omitted. Inclusion and omission are powerful markers of storytelling. Anyone who has edited a speech or a eulogy, or prepared a bar or bat mitzvah montage, or gone through a parent’s home knows that the story is told by the remnants.

But the choice to hit delete or stuff something in a donation bin is only paralyzingly daunting if we believe that our stories are all told in one go. While the aseret hadibrot were removed from the siddur, they are still publicly chanted not once, not twice, but three times each year, with special music trope and much grandeur. After all, while they are not God’s only instructions, they were God’s first instructions to the Israelites as a newly forming people.

Similarly, no single speech or slideshow or box of things can tell the story of a life. Savta’s armoire may be in someone else’s family room now, but it also lives in the photo album with pictures of birthday parties through the decades. That story you decided not to tell at the funeral can be told at shiva, or on a yarzheit, or on the phone call with your sister when something reminds you of that one time when your father did that thing. And the picture that didn’t make the bat mitzvah montage cut? Just wait until your daughter calls you asking to see it because she wants to look for her own son’s smile in the snapshot of herself at two years old.

The result of editing the ten commandments out of the siddur is that their occasional recitation in the Torah reading cycle is exciting and comes with renewed understanding each year. When we choose to remove an object or a story or a picture from daily rotation, we make space for the thrill of rediscovery in the years to come.

Vaera 1/5/19

Stages of Redemption
By: Ariel Wolpe, TBA Rabbinic Intern

The Israelites moved through four stages from slavery to freedom, teaches Rabbi Yaakov of Izbica, a 19th century chasidic teacher. Walking out of the gates of Egypt is only the beginning of the journey to mental, physical and emotional freedom. God hints at each stage through these promises in parshat Va’era:

Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am YHVH. I will remove you from the labors of the Egyptians and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I am YHVH your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians.

When God says, וְהֽוֹצֵאתִי, “I will remove you,” Rabbi Yaakov teaches that God is promising to make the Israelites aware of their suffering. We know that the Israelites called out to God when they were in slavery, and God heard their cry. But while they knew their circumstances were inhumane and their souls cried out in protest, they did not grasp the extent of their suffering. Generations of slavery had numbed the Israelites to their inner experience, subduing hope of freedom, encouraging acceptance of their enslavement. Not only were their bodies bound to labor; their minds were weighted with mortar, disabled under bricks. But in order to become a free person, each Israelite had to fully understand the suffering he or she was going through. A person can only change their circumstances when they are conscious of what needs to change.

The promise וְהִצַּלְתִּי, I will deliver you, refers to the physical release from slavery. This is when the Israelites cease their work and flee, right before Pharaoh’s change of heart. In that moment, they are delivered out of making and lifting bricks, out of the reach of the taskmasters. Their bodies are their own, their work their own. This could only occur after the Israelites became fully aware of their suffering because otherwise they wouldn’t have left. To a people who had dwelled in the cities of Egypt their entires lives, the desert was unknown, uninhabited and full of dangers. As they journeyed towards the promised land, the Israelites fondly recalled the delicacies they ate Egypt, lamenting the loss of such luxuries. They had soothed their suffering with food, grown dependent on Egyptian lifestyles, and they had to tear their bodies away from such comforts on the road to freedom. Gaining autonomy over their bodies and their work was the second step towards freedom.

This step rings true for many of us. We live in a society with abundant luxuries, and we grow dependent on them even when they are not good for us. Pleasures of the body numb the complaints of the heart. We may soothe loneliness or purposelessness with food, TV, drugs or the internet. We begin to pursue a momentary release of serotonin instead of a holistic happiness. Escaping this state of slavery requires experiencing on our suffering without distraction, so that we are motivated to put forth the effort to leave Egypt.

Then God says וְגָֽאַלְתִּי אֶתְכֶם בִּזְרוֹעַ נְטוּיָה, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm. The Israelites are already released from slavery in body and mind—what is God referring to? Rabbi Yaakov explains this promises a release “from the depths of the imprint that slavery left on you.” Imagine God’s metaphorical arm reaching deep into the inner psyche of each Israelite, pulling out the thorns that cling there, one by one. While they appear free on the outside, God knows that they are still enslaved within. This is not something that happens spontaneously, is not a moment of revelation or rebellion. This is a process that takes years, 40 years for all of the Israelites to complete. It is the process of clearing out all of the beliefs, the doubts, the apathy and the hatred that has accumulated from enslavement. Only after this process is there room to develop a new sense of identity and worth. Only then can the Israelites see the promise of the future.

Without reaching inwards, each one of us will inevitably return to our state of slavery. It is the skipping of this step which causes cycles of suffering in our lives, when we make the same mistakes again and again despite desiring a change. As we age, our own thoughts leave imprints in our minds about who we are and what we are capable of. Like our ancestors, we must root out our harmful beliefs in order to transform ourselves and live freely.

The final step, וְלָֽקַחְתִּי אֶתְכֶם לִי לְעָם, I will take you to me as a people, is God’s promise to free every Jew from the bondage of slavery, and instead bind them to Torah. God reminds us that we are part of a people with a rich tradition which guides us in living our lives. Unless all of us are free, none of us are free. We are responsible for our families, our communities, and every being in this world. Freedom, ultimately, is not just a state of mind or a state of body. It is a universal transformation that we have yet to achieve.

Through learning Torah, good works, and acts of lovingkindness we move closer to freedom. It is our purpose as a people who have journeyed out of the bonds of slavery to instill freedom in the world around us. But first, we must begin with our own enslavement. First, we free ourselves.

Beshallah 1/19/19

Joy, Freedom and Holiness
By Natan Freller, Rabbinic Intern

“Joy drinks pure water. She has sat with the dying and attended many births. She denies nothing. She is in love with life, all of it, the sun and the rain and the rainbow. She rides horses at Half Moon Bay under the October moon. She climbs mountains. She sings in the hills. She jumps from the hot spring to the cold stream without hesitation. Although Joy is spontaneous, she is immensely patient. She does not need to rush. She knows that there are obstacles on every path and that every moment is the perfect moment. She is not concerned with success or failure or how to make things permanent. At times Joy is elusive - she seems to disappear as we approach her. I see her standing on a ridge covered with oak trees, and suddenly the distance between us feels enormous. I am overwhelmed and wonder if the effort to reach her is worth it. Yet, she waits for us. Her desire to walk with us is as great as our longing to accompany her.”

-The Book of Qualities, by Janet Ruth Gendler

What I found beautiful in this piece of art is how the writer transformed a feeling into words, stories, and relationships. Sometimes we struggle with many feelings, desires and emotions that we can't express as we would like to.

Judaism is a way to walk in this world. Judaism is a lens to live life. Judaism can help to transform reality into the world that we want to live in. Different from philosophies of life that work just in the realm of ideas and religions focused on just the technicism of the rituals, I see Judaism as a full embodied experience in itself. There is no value in Judaism that exists by itself without practicing it - and so there should be no meaningless ritual. Every ritual is full of different, old and new, meanings and values that can enrich our lives.

This week we read Beshalach, the Exodus story, the moment when the Jewish People was finally free from slavery. What is now understood has a central value in our tradition, freedom was not a given value for their time, but an achievement of an entire generation. Its celebration was real. This Shabbat is also known as Shabbat Shira, the Shabbat of song, poetry, and music. This Shabbat received this name because of the celebration of freedom that is found in it. Shirat hayam, the “Song of the Sea”, is the real celebration of the divine redemption. The Israelites were pouring out their hearts, trying to find words to describe their emotions, and they found them while singing to God. Joy was welcomed in and never left that party. Joy become the special guest of the Jewish People, as we celebrate the achievement of the divine values.

The hebrew verb to make something holy is lehakdish. It means to set aside. To make it different, special. The Jewish People eternal goal is to be holy, to live our lives in a different way. This is an invitation for challenging ourselves to find deeper values and create meaningful experiences. Being Jewish is an invitation to transform the ideal into the real. Shabbat is the ultimate experience for that. It is the day when we enjoy a small piece of olam haba - the world to come - the world that we are creating together.

Shabbat is known in our tradition as a special day for joy. It is a day when we rest and enjoy our lives in a different (holy) way. Let us welcome joy with open arms. Run towards her as Shabbat starts, and hold it tight, enjoying its presence while she is here, so we can spread her energy during the next week.

May this Shabbat be full of joy. Let us make our lives holy, meaningful and taste together the world we all want to live in, so that we can recharge our energies to share more joy, freedom, and holiness during the next week.

Shabbat Shalom!

Shemot 12/29/18

Torah as Wisdom
Natan Freller, TBA Rabbinic Intern

I don’t think that I grew up believing in every single story or detail written in the Torah as an absolute factual truth. At the same time, I did not have the tools to question it or even the authority to question how accurate the Torah is describing the origins of our people. For how long were the Jews slaves in Egypt? How many were there? Did the plagues actually happen? And the sea splitting, is that true?

I remember a few classes I took in my twenties, where for the first time I was allowed to disagree or challenge the texts of our tradition, whether that was the Torah, a siddur, or any other book. That changed the way I see Jewish texts and made me love our tradition even more.

My question for us this Shabbat is: How should we read Torah today? What kind of content can I find in it?

One of my favorite verses in the whole Torah is in the last book, Devarim 4:6. The verse says: “Observe them faithfully, for that will be proof of your wisdom and discernment to other peoples, who on hearing of all these laws will say: Surely, that great nation is a wise and discerning people.”

One might think that this verse is theologically very complicated, questioning our relationships with other peoples that might sound like arrogance. I read this verse as the mission of the Jewish People. Many characteristics can be perceived from afar, like being tall or short, for example. Being wise is a characteristic that can be only identified through someone’s behavior. Our goal is not to show off to other people how wise the Jewish tradition is, but rather this language teaches us that if we do not transform the wisdom contained in the Torah into behavior, we are missing the point. We need to be so meticulous about our behavior that others will see it as a unique feature of the tribe.

I want to give you an example from this week’s parasha. The Talmud, the book that best understands the benefits of challenging our texts to find its wisdom, has an interesting debate about the verse: “And there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph” (Shemot 1:8).

Rav and Shmuel (Sotah 11a) disagree about the interpretation of this verse. One says that this means he was actually a new king, and one says that this means that his decrees were transformed as if he were a new king. The one who says that he was actually a new king holds that it is because it is written “new.” And the one who says that his decrees were transformed holds that it is because it is not written: “And the previous king of Egypt died, and a new king reigned.” This indicates that the same king remained. According to this interpretation, the words: “Who knew not Joseph” (Shemot 1:8), mean that he was like someone who did not know him at all. Although he certainly knew Joseph and his accomplishments, he acted as if he didn’t.

Notice that the discussion regarding reality has been present in our tradition since its early beginnings. The sages of the Talmud felt comfortable asking questions about what actually happened in the stories because they knew that the goal was to learn something from it, and not just repeat it to the next generation.

What does it mean to have a new king? What does it teach about relationships between peoples and how to take care of other groups who live in your midst? The wisdom in this phrase can be found throughout the book of Shemot to the end of the Torah. The answer given to the way the Israelites were treated in Egypt is: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Empathy, lovingkindness, and respect. Those are the key values we are responsible to make them a part of our behavior as individuals and as a people.

I want to invite you to start preparing for Pesach a little bit earlier this year, and I don’t mean cleaning the house or cooking the soup. I mean start asking yourself the real questions about our story, and don’t wait until the Seder to ask a simple technical question. Take the opportunity to carefully read the text of our tradition week after week, looking for the real questions you have and the wisdom that you can learn from it. Think about your life in the 21st century and what values you need to practice in order to be the best person you can be. Don’t let the Torah stay obsolete in the closet; take it out, read it, let’s share its light and wisdom by being morally righteous until other people look to us and say: what a wise people!

Vayehi 12/22/18

Inheriting a Transcending Torah
Rabbi Matt Shapiro

“At each stage of development, the world looks different, because it is different.”

These words, from the contemporary writer Ken Wilber, offer a window into one of his core concepts: “transcend and include.” He takes a broadly developmental perspective on humanity, seeing how, over time, we collectively have moved (and continue to move) through stages that are progressively more expansive. As we move from one stage to another, we transcend the earlier stage, and it also remains included in our new stage. This process of growth is true of us both collectively and as individuals. Wilber further holds that religion can be uniquely instructive in spiritual development, as the world’s religions still contain early myths and teachings which are absent from more recently developed spiritual systems. Connecting to a religion shouldn't necessarily stay in the “mythic” stage, but it offers an opportunity to start at, and grow from, that originating time, eventually transcending and including its origins.

There's a quirky little phrase that’s easy to gloss over as Jacob is transmitting his final blessings. In the JPS translation, the start of Genesis 48:22 is written as “I assign to you one more portion than your brothers…” but the original Hebrew indicates something different, and potentially more interesting. It can also be translated as “I give you Shechem as a portion over your brothers...” In the narrative, Shechem is primarily known as the focal point of the narrative where Dinah was taken captive and then avenged by her brothers Shimon and Levi. The verse itself, however, seems to be referring to a military victory won by Jacob, as it concludes “...which I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow.” There is, in fact, a midrashic tradition that indicates that Jacob joined with Shimon and Levi to defeat the people of Shechem after the incident with Dinah. Though this isn’t in the Torah itself, it seems to be embedded within the larger corpus of ancient Israelite lore.

As time went on, however, this understanding of events seems to have faded, with a different normative interpretation taking hold. In most rabbinic interpretations, the second clause of the verse is understood not as referring to an actual sword and bow, but rather as elements in one’s Jewish observance, like types of prayer or ways of studying Torah. Presumably due at least partly to our people’s evolution from a wandering tribe who needed to fight physical battles to a textually based religion, we find interpretations like Sforno’s, who understands the verse as describing “chochma and bina,” wisdom and insight, a metaphorical reinterpretation of Jacob’s sword and bow

Our tradition also has a counterpoint to applying layers of metaphors on top of the seemingly clear original meaning of a text. In the Talmud, on Shabbat 63a, during a related discussion where Psalm 45 is being similarly re-read. Mar, son of Rav Huna, responds to this technique: ein mikre yotzei miyad pshuto, a verse doesn’t depart from its literal meaning. There seems to be an internal conflict regarding rabbinic re-reading, between the apparent original intent of the verse- describing an actual military victory won by Jacob- and how it's later understood by the rabbis.

One way of understanding how Torah is transmitted is as continuous revelation- that Torah was initially revealed at some point in time, and continues to be revealed- which is helpful in framing how different understandings of the same verse can each hold truth. A Wilberian perspective offers an additional layer to this frame. The ancient Israelite myths, the text of the Torah, the metaphorical understandings of the rabbis, the internal insistence of the tradition on its own original context, our own contemporary navigations through these elements- all of this is the grand narrative of Judaism itself unfolding, and we collectively transcend and include. We have moved from a tribe that needed to defend itself militarily to the people of the book, encompassing a wide-ranging panoply of understandings. Our collective understanding, therefore, evolves from a literal understanding of the text to a more metaphorical reading, and onwards, which is mirrored in our paths as individuals. Most literate, intellectually sophisticated Jews don’t believe in God as the bearded, jealous “guy in the sky” caricatured by fundamentalist atheists, yet having stories and teachings that are comprehensible and meaningful to us at earlier stages of development provide us with the grounding to evolve as individuals. Of course a verse doesn’t depart from its simple meaning- and it doesn’t stop there. As we grow and Judaism grows, we continue to weave the tapestry of our tradition. We don’t leave our stories, myths, traditions, rituals, practices behind; they continue to inform and help us develop into the people and communities we can and want to be.

So, what did Jacob give Joseph and how? He gave him Shechem, which he conquered; and he gave him an extra portion from his brothers; and he taught Joseph how to pray and learn; and more, and more. The different layers and seeming contradictions, the multivocal multiverse of our tradition, is one of its greatest and deepest strengths, always carrying us forward into the next iteration of meaning, as we both transcend and include, passing this, our dearest inheritance, on.

Vayigash 12/15/18

Wield Thine Power Justly
By: Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Vayiggash on my mind. In fact, it has been on my mind, constantly, for nearly a year. As many of you know, I teach a weekly class on Rashi’s commentary on the Torah. (We meet every Wed AM at 8:30, for an hour. No experience or Hebrew fluency required. Come join us!). We read each verse, carefully and slowly. We try to anticipate the questions Rashi might have asked on the verse, and then both aim to understand the plain meaning of his commentary as well as the sometimes-obvious and sometimes-subtle sermonettes within his words. Just last week we celebrated a “siyyum” (completion) of Parshat Vayiggash, which we had been studying methodically since about January.

The text recited at a siyyum includes the phrase הדרן עלך והדרך עלן (Hadran alakh v’hadrakh alan). It can be translated in (at least) two ways. Addressing the text itself, it can mean “we honor you, and you honor us.” Or, “we will return to you and you will return to us.” In this personification of text itself, we both praise the words of our tradition and claim that those very words will linger in our consciousness, awaiting our eventual return to them.

Overly nearly 20 years of teaching a similar class, I have found that though I have more than a rudimentary familiarity with every verse of the Torah, this painstakingly slow study opens my eyes to insights and awareness that had never occurred to me before. When I offered my own closing thoughts and homage to Vayiggash before we jumped into Vayehi (the last parsha of the book of Genesis/Breishit. When we finish that one, it will be one doozy of a siyyum. All are invited!), I named that for me that the most novel insight I had had over the previous months was related to the last set of verses in the parsha, ones often jumped right over when rabbis and teachers are looking for fodder for divrei torah. After lingering, poignantly, on Joseph’s reunion first with his brothers, and then with his father Jacob, and spending several verses on Jacob’s own fascinating encounter with Pharaoh, the text seems to go back in time a bit explaining the nitty-gritty aspects of Joseph’s leadership through the years of plenty and famine, with details one would think only an economist would love (we have an economist in our class, and he loved this section!).

But when you slow down rather than race through, the text’s profundity and prescience—particularly through Rashi’s careful and, yes, biased lens—screams out. Consider this: As Joseph seems, both prophetically and magnanimously, to be taking great economic care of the Egyptians, his adopted home, he also seems, eerily, to be imitating the ways of the very Pharaoh who will ultimately enslave the Israelites…because “he knew not Joseph”! The means of protecting the famished people is, essentially, acquiring them. First by distributing excess food (47:12). Then by collecting their money in exchange for food (v. 14). Then by appropriating their livestock as payment for provisions (v. 16). Then by actually acquiring their land and their very bodies (!!) in return for bread (v. 19). Then, by dispossessing them of even a place to call home, choosing rather to move them around from city to city (v. 21). Rashi explains that this was to protect Joseph’s brothers, the newcomers to Egypt: if no one has a home, then no one is a stranger. A more cynical—and perhaps accurate—read is that this is an important step in imposing total control over a person, a people. The last step in this coup (a coup which both sustained the people and divested the people of their very selves) was to engineer a system by which the people received seed with which to regrow produce, both to provide for themselves and to create an economic base for ongoing taxation (v. 23-24). The upshot of this precise (proto-tyrannical?) system is chilling, particularly if you look at the Hebrew words. Remember what we sing every Seder night? עבדים היינו לפרעה. Avadim hayinu l’Pharo. We were slaves to Pharaoh. Well, that turn of phrase does not originate in the book of Exodus. Rather, the third-to-last verse of Vayiggash has the Egyptian people (perhaps including, perhaps excluding, Joseph’s family. It is hard to tell) exclaiming, “You have given us life!...And now we will be עבדים/avadim/slaves/servants to Pharaoh. Rashi, alert to the obvious allusions, is quick to explain that they weren’t slaves, God-forbid. Only the later Pharaoh would do that to the Israelites. No, in this case they are “just” servants of Pharaoh in that they remit to him annual taxes. I love Rashi more than I love some of my family members…but this answer of his just begs and amplifies the question: Why is it that under Joseph’s stewardship, the Torah tells us that the people (for their own well-being!) end up in some servitude to him, and to Pharaoh, in a situation that was at least far more beneficial to ones in power than those subject to it.

I have no succinct answer. I am still marinating at a “wow” lurking in these verses that I had never noticed before. Two brief takeaways, other than that I encourage you either to come to our class, or at least just to read the parsha slowly and carefully when you do read it. 1) How easy and pernicious it is that sometimes when we think we are doing what is best for those under our authority, or thumb, the ones benefiting most is our very selves. 2) Sometimes what keeps people from becoming a Pharaoh, or acting Pharaonically, is just the opportunity. And a convenient rationalization. A few short verses, and narrative years, before Joseph’s descendants will become truly enslaved to his boss’s successor, he seems to be effectively and perhaps cruelly imposing at least an echo of that power-wielding over the contemporaneous Egyptians.

Wield thine power, and authority, justly and humanely. As you would want it wielded if you were its subject.

Shabbat Shalom

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5777

Ki Tavo 9/9/17

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Rachel Marder

When we read the Torah publicly, Jewish law prescribes that we be meticulous: Each word must be pronounced properly and the community strives to hear every word. Not so in this week’s parashah. A tradition arose for the Torah reader to speed through, in a half whisper, the lengthy and terrifying list of curses with which the Israelites are threatened.

God’s covenant with the Israelites on Mt. Sinai was a moment of supreme affirmation; the people said, “We will do and we will understand – na’aseh v’nishma [Ex.24:7]. But the covenant described in this week’s portion, formalized on Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, seems to be grounded in profoundly negative language. The consequences of failing to follow this covenant are set forth in painful, even gruesome, detail.

The terrible fate that could befall the Israelites should they not remain loyal to God represents an undoing of their entire narrative, as God seems to rescind previous promises set forth in the Torah. God threatens to send the Israelites back to Egypt “by a route which I told you you should not see again,” saying they will try to sell themselves back into slavery (Deut. 28:68). God also appears to cancel the promise to Abraham that he will be the father of a great nation, saying: “You will be left a scant few, after having been as numerous as the stars in the skies” (28:62). God declares that other nations will not look to Israel as a model of Divine providence. Instead, “you shall be a consternation, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples to which the Lord will drive you” (28:37). Finally, Israel will be dispersed from its land, lose political sovereignty, and fall into idolatry, thus also losing its religious identity. As Dr. Bernard Levinson writes, in The Jewish Study Bible: “In the absence of the national destiny provided by the covenant, historical existence has no meaning.” God thus makes clear to the Israelites that through their own actions, they can undo their entire journey to this point, thereby rendering their existence hollow and their future blank. Forgetting God, forgetting the covenant, will lead to disaster.

My friend Tali Adler, a Maharat student, wrote the following description of her family’s narrative this week: “People lied so that my grandparents could come to this country after WWII. The Jewish community organized to support those lies--people happily signed papers claiming that they were related to strangers or that they were more closely related than they actually were. My family remains grateful, three generations later, to the people who lied for us, and we teach their names to our children. You want to talk about illegal immigrants? Those were, on some level, my grandparents. If your grandparents came here after the Holocaust, look up their papers, cause there’s a good chance that they were yours too. Those lies were holy lies, and they’re why I’m showing up for other people desperate for a chance. If you’ve been lucky enough in your family’s history to benefit from holy lies, I hope you show up too.”

Tali’s story begins in a lie and ends in prosperity. Because of her family’s story, she knows from where she came, feels immense gratitude to those who saved their lives, and now takes responsibility for helping others.

Immediately preceding the section on blessings and curses, all Israelites are commanded to bring the first fruits of their harvest to the priest, and declare, “My father was a wandering Aramean” (26:5). They are instructed to tell the story of starting out as a small people that grew in Egypt, became enslaved, cried out to God and was then liberated, and conclude by saying, God “brought us to this place and gave us this land” (26:9). By offering these words at the new harvest, the peak of blessing, the Israelites give thanks to God for bringing them from wandering to permanence, from slavery to sovereignty, from idolatry to monotheism, and from hunger to plenty. Each person must recite this narrative as his or her own. In other words, even future generations, born in the land of Israel, are taught to identify with the Exodus, wandering, and arrival. We affirm that we ourselves are direct descendants, just one generation away, from a wanderer -- whether the Aramean is Abraham or Jacob -- and that we were brought into a promised land.

What is the connection between these two sections of Ki Tavo – the curses and the declaration upon bringing the first fruits? This portion emphasizes that memory and gratitude are both integral to Jewish identity, and to the continued survival of the Jewish people. To be Jewish, that is, is to remember and give thanks with words and deeds. That is why we are called, in Hebrew, “Yehudim” (literally, “grateful people”). If we forget or fail to tell our story in a way that acknowledges the forces beyond our control that made our good fortune possible, we deny our national identity and purpose. Such behavior will lead to the spiritual and physical destruction of our people. Perhaps that is why we hurry through the curses in this portion in a half-whisper and dwell on the blessings instead. It is our God-given blessings that we want to recount with gratitude, now and in the future.

Consider to whom you feel gratitude for making your current blessings possible. To whom are you grateful for your family’s journey to the United States and elsewhere? How do you offer thanks to God and to people? Drawing from your own story, for what principles will you stand? What commitments will you take on? A mentor of mine makes a point every Elul of reaching out to someone who made a great impact on his life and expressing thanks to that person. Let us do the same. Let us also recall our family’s and our people’s origins and their implications for us, and avoid the shattering consequences of failing to give thanks.

Shoftim 8/26/17

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern, Rachel Marder

Shoftim: A call for self-scrutiny

Parashat Shoftim presents a somewhat bizarre scenario and ritual that holds particular relevancy for us in the month of Elul. Moses tells the people that if in the Land of Israel they come across a dead body "lying in the open" and the killer is unknown, the elders and magistrates of the nearby towns should measure the distance of the corpse to their towns. The elders of the town located nearest the corpse must then break the neck of a heifer and ask God to absolve them of the killing. They shall declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. Absolve, O Lord, Your people Israel whom You redeemed, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among Your people Israel” (Deuteronomy 21:7-8).

In the absence of witnesses and information, the leaders seek to absolve themselves and the people of responsibility for a death that occurred in their town under their jurisdiction. They should be held accountable, but a heifer is killed in their stead, washing away the innocent blood that was shed and any connection they have to this crime. But the ritual is not only about absolution. Nechama Leibowitz explains that the Torah wanted the loss of this single anonymous, precious life to "shock [the elders’] complacency and summon them to severe self-scrutiny." The elders’ declaration only comes after a thorough investigation of any role they played in the crime.

The Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud disagree about what the leaders' conclude after their self-scrutiny, specifically for whose blood they are seeking forgiveness: the slain or the slayer. For the Babylonian Talmud, the leaders’ declaration implies that they played no role in the events that led to the victim’s death. "No one came within our jurisdiction whom we discharged without food and whom we did not see and whom we left without providing him an escort" (Sota 46b). They provided the necessary hospitality and public safety measures for the victim. But between their words, what is unsaid is most powerful: The measures we provided were not sufficient to protect this person. Behind the declaration is an admission.

The Jerusalem Talmud understands the pronouncement to be absolving the leaders of having not caught the perpetrator. "No one came within our jurisdiction,” they declare, “whom we discharged and failed to put to death, that we overlooked him and neglected to bring him to justice." The town’s courts were not negligent, yet they did not bring the culprit to justice, their ultimate obligation. The judges are instructed earlier in the parashah: “Justice, justice shall you pursue… thus you will sweep out evil from Israel” (Deuteronomy 16:19, 17:12).

In a fascinating move, the Malbim, a 19th century Ukrainian commentator, combine the different Talmudic explanations of the declaration. When the elders say, “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done,” they are really saying: "We were not indirectly instrumental in this murder on account of not providing the murderer with food for the lack of which he was driven to commit this capital crime.” The Malbim recognizes that perhaps the murderer, not only the victim, required hospitality. He provides an explanation for what may drive a murderer to take a life. Perhaps his own life is not valued by society. The Malbim intensifies the elders’ self-scrutiny. They asked questions we are not inclined to ask ourselves: What role, direct or indirect, did we play in this crime? What could we have done to prevent the murderer from committing this crime in the first place? How have we failed him as well as the victim?

While the elders and the town are absolved of any connection to the crime, it is the self-reflection -- reviewing their town’s public safety measures, the quality of their justice system, and how hospitable they are to strangers -- and the resulting public declaration that bring them atonement. Though they declare themselves innocent, their words betray a sense of guilt and accountability.

As we enter Elul, we begin the process of deep self and communal reflection. Soon we will admit to our transgressions publically in the vidui prayer and commit to being kinder and more compassionate versions of ourselves in the coming year. And by the end of Yom Kippur we too will have achieved atonement. Let’s begin that process now. Let the shofar blast shock us out of our complacency and summon us to severe self-scrutiny. Because we cannot say honestly that our hands are clean from transgression and that we did not witness any wrongdoing this year.

Re'eh 8/19/17

Prepared by Rachel Marder, Rabbinic Intern

Protest: The world is in our hands

I grew up going to summer camp, and loved pretty much every minute of it. Camp is not for everyone, but it was for me. Song sessions, gaga, even cleaning the cabin with my friends was thrilling. The one aspect of camp that bothered me from age 8 to 23 was the communal punishment. I could not stand losing free time or being sent to bed early because others in my unit were not behaving. “This is YOUR free time,” the director would thunder towering over us in the dining hall. He was speaking to everyone, but I always felt he was talking directly to me. The longer I sat in the sweltering dining hall, willing my peers to stop making “inappropriate additions” to the birkat hamazon, I felt my precious free time slipping away. We as a people are all intertwined with each other, for better or for worse. The Rabbis enshrined this notion, teaching that “All of Israel are guarantors for one other,” (Shevuot 39a) also translated as “responsible” and “mixed up” with each other (ערבים).

“See this day I set before you blessing and curse” (Deuteronomy 11:26), Moses tells the Israelites. Follow God and God’s commandments and you will find blessing; turn away from God and you will be cursed (you will lose a lot of free time). Commentators notice a peculiarity in our verse. “See” is in the singular and “before you” is in the plural. The verse could be read as: “See, you individual person, this day I set before you all blessing and curse.” The verse teaches that each person has free will to make her own choices, but the blessing and curse that result from that decision impact the whole people. In one verse the Torah dispels us of the notion that individual choices only affect the individual.

The Kli Yakar (1550-1619, Prague) teaches on this singular to plural move that we are all bound up with one another, and one person’s mitzvah or transgression ripples across the world. He cites the passage in the Talmud stating that each person should see herself as if the whole world were divided in half between the meritorious and the guilty, and if she would perform one mitzvah or transgression she could tip the scale of judgment, not only for herself but for the world (Kiddushin 40b). The Torah states that the blessing and curse God sets before the Israelites will be pronounced at Mount Gerizim and Mount Eval in the Land of Israel (11:29). It is at that moment of blessing and curse, the Kli Yakar writes, that Israel became responsible for each other. In essence, we became a people. At the moments in life when we can choose between blessing and curse, when we can choose to speak with moral clarity to ensure a blessed future, or remain silent ensuring we are all cursed, we are tested as a people.

If we are guarantors for one another that means we also pay the price for each other. Why is everyone, the Jewish people and all of the world, responsible for one person’s transgression ultimately? Why is the individual responsible when others transgress? The Gemara answers: “They had the ability to protest and they did not protest” (Shevuot 39b). Maybe only a minority committed the crime, but everyone should have protested against it. This is the mitzvah of mecha’ah/מחאה (protest) and we must do it for the sake of our own souls and for the fate of the world. Protesting for what is good and moral is valuable in it of itself.

The sickening sight of throngs of white supremacists holding torches and chanting anti-Semitic and racist slogans was chilling. The deadly gathering should serve as a wake-up call that hateful forces in our society are finding their way into the light of the mainstream. We must speak out unequivocally. One act of mecha’ah ripples across the world and can tip the scale of judgment. The very world is in our hands.

Ekev 8/11/17

Prepared by Michelle Stone, Cantorial Intern, Temple Beth Am

This week’s parsha, Eikev, presents an ethical paradox that occurs throughout the book of Deuteronomy. As the parsha opens, God commands the people that when they enter the land of Israel, they must “destroy all the peoples that the Lord, your God, delivers to you, showing them no pity.” (Deut. 7:16). The doomed people referred to here are the seven nations that inhabited Canaan before the Israelites entered the land. God explicitly tells the people that the non-Israelites in their midst must be destroyed completely otherwise they will lure the Israelites to idolatry.

Then, just three chapters later, God sends the Israelites a very different message. Because God “upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger (ger), providing him with food and clothing. You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deut. 10:18-19). Wait, what? Didn’t God just tell Israel to kill everyone around them? God provides food and clothing for the stranger? Does that include the strangers that God wants Israel to destroy? How are we supposed to interpret this paradox? How does the book of Deuteronomy understand its own paradox, its national requirement to wipe out the seven nations with its moral requirement to love the stranger?

The law to destroy the indigenous nations is understandable in the greater context of a religious war against idolatry. Deuteronomy exhibits a natural fear of the cultural and religious impact of the majority culture on these newcomers entering the land. The book is realistic. It knows that when Israel comes into contact with their neighbors, they will naturally develop relationships and be influenced by them. Israel, this one small nation among these much larger nations, will easily fall prey to their cultic practices, which would mean the end of monotheism. And yet, even though this sounds logical, the commandment is, of course, ethically problematic. So we have to ask the question, “Was this ever practiced in reality?” Biblical scholars and archaeologists still debate the conquest of Israel, but most argue that there is no physical evidence of annihilation of non-Israelite local communities. On the contrary, there are multiple stories in the Tanach where Israel lives side-by-side with their neighbors. There is ample evidence of systematic destruction of idols and icons, but no evidence of genocide. Dr. Israel Knohl, professor of biblical studies at Hebrew University, explains that we can assume that ancient Israelites interpreted this commandment to require war against idolatry, but not war against idolators.

In addition to expressing a great fear of idolatry, the book of Deuteronomy is highly concerned with ethical behavior toward the most vulnerable in the society, a notion unique in the Ancient Near East. In our parsha, God is described as a righteous judge who takes care of the orphan, widow, and stranger. Deuteronomy implores us to aspire to the same, particularly with regard to the stranger, with the term appearing 20 times throughout the book. We are commanded to care for and celebrate with the ger, the stranger. In fact, later in the book, the stranger enters into the covenant with God along with the Israelites. So what do we do with our paradox? Deuteronomy recognizes that there are times when we are required to embody two seemingly contradictory ideas. As a religious document, it is at once exhibiting a natural fear of religious dilution at the hands of non-Israelites, and at the same time, concerned with an ethical obligation toward the non-Israelites living in their midst. In the real world, we have to live with paradoxes. Sometimes, we face ideological threats, and it important to handle those judiciously. But the command to kill the seven nations is theoretical and represents hatred of an idea, not of a people. The strangers we were commanded to take care of were the people living with Israel at the time, and they needed to be cared for. Ancient Israel had great empathy for the stranger in its midst and felt a great deal of responsibility to take care of its neighbors. Shabbat Shalom.

Vaethanan 8/4/17

Devarim 7/20/17

Prepared by Rabbi Joel Rembaum

Deuteronomy & Tisha B'Av
We begin reading the Book of Deuteronomy on the Shabbat before Tish’a B’av — the day we mourn the destructions of Jerusalem and our two Temples (586 BCE and 70 CE). Our Sages teach that the First Temple fell because Israelites sinned by practicing idolatry, and the Second Temple fell because of the sin of baseless hatred among Jews. Deuteronomy stresses the sinfulness of idolatrous activity, and this corresponds with the Rabbis’ explanation for the events of 586 BCE, but it seems to have no relevance to the 70 CE destruction. Yet, there may be a connection between the Deuteronomic message and the evils of baseless hatred among Jews.

In its uncompromising denunciation of paganism Deuteronomy stands as the most clearly articulated statement of monotheism in ancient literature. As such, it established the theological foundation of Judaism and its “daughter” religions, Christianity and Islam, and it gathered all spheres of human activity under a single umbrella of allegiance to the One God. Monotheism remains the foundation of our faith, and, as many thinkers remind us, it is the theology that best corresponds to what we know about how the universe operates.

There is in Deuteronomy, however, an intolerance unlike that of the other books of the Torah. Thus, we read in Exodus (23 & 34) that God will forcefully remove the pagan nations of Canaan from the land. In Deuteronomy the Israelites are commanded to wage genocide against these peoples — to “not let a soul remain alive” (20:16-18). What about an Israelite town whose residents have turned to paganism? All the men, women, children, and cattle are to be killed, all the booty is to be obliterated by fire, and the town is to be razed and never to be rebuilt (13:13-19). Such extreme measures may have been relevant in the period when the “Deuteronomic school” formulated its teachings (650-450 BCE). In light of the horrific slaughter of human lives in the 20th century, however, such words are anathema to us.

Today, these and similar teachings in the sacred literature of the world’s monotheistic faiths are taken literally by fundamentalist religious extremists. Clearly, not all fundamentalists follow these mandates, but such ideas sow seeds of distrust, disrespect, and hatred between believers of different faiths and among people within the same faith community.

In the Jewish world rigid intolerance has become more divisive. Torah emanating from Zion, instead of unifying the Jewish people, has polarized us. The monotheistic ideal of Deuteronomy has been infected by a virus of dogmatic midrash that exaggerates the book’s intolerant side and ignores the book’s more humane elements — justice, integrity, love of God, love of the stranger, etc.

Thankfully, our Sages have a flexible midrashic principle with which they get around unworkable laws: halakhah v’eyn morin keyn, “it is a law by which we do not rule.” So, here is how Jews should follow Deuteronomy: Live by its powerful spiritual and ethical laws and principles, “archive” the problematic pieces of its codes, and take to heart Leviticus 19:18 — “Love your neighbor as yourself, I am Adonai.”

Korah 6/24/17

Bamidbar 5/27/17

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern, Rachel Marder

The Measure of a People

Every year on Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, thousands of Jewish Israelis take to the streets of Jerusalem to celebrate Israel’s victory in 1967 and its reunification of the capital. While Israel has much to celebrate in its history, it should be with deeply mixed emotions that we acknowledge this year that half a century has passed since Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem. As we remember the triumph of the Six-Day War, we also recall its grave consequences, the loss of precious life over the decades, and the continuous state of war in which Israel exists. This week some Jewish Israelis marched through the Old City in a show of pride and joy, while others marched primarily to send a message of dominance to non-Jews who dwell there. Like a pep rally, such demonstrations can stir up healthy patriotism. However, they also glorify the ruling power, emphasizing one group’s authority over another, and may be perceived as threatening by those who do not belong to the dominant culture. Our tradition warns us this week that even the act of counting -- of displaying and making a show of our military might -- can be dangerous.

When Jews count other Jews in Tanakh, the consequences are typically negative. As a result, there is a Jewish tradition that we should refrain from counting individuals in a group. The quintessential example of why we refrain from counting one another comes from an incident in Second Samuel chapter 24. After King David takes a census of troops in Israel and Judah, God, considering this act a sin, sends a plague that wipes out 70,000 people.

According to the Talmud, it is prohibited to count Jews directly even for the sake of a mitzvah (Yoma 22b). That’s why when God orders Moses to take a census of the Israelites, God specifies that each person should give a half-shekel to represent him/herself so that the people are not counted directly (Exodus 30:12-13). This is also why there’s a tradition when counting Jews for a minyan that we use a verse that has 10 words in it to count people off by word rather than number. We commonly use Psalm 28:9, “hoshea et amecha uvarech et nachlatecha ureim v’nasei ad ha’olam” (Save Your people and bless Your inheritance, and tend them and elevate them forever). The midrash famously teaches that all Jews -- no specific number -- past, present, and future were present at Mt. Sinai for the receiving of the Torah. Rabbi Elazar in the Talmud cites as textual support for the mitzvah against counting Jews the verse, “And the number of the children of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured and cannot be counted” (Hosea 2:11).

Israel’s greatness cannot be reduced to a quantifiable number, certainly not the number of soldiers or weapons it possesses. It is our values, especially our commitment to life, that define us and illustrate the quality of who we are. Still, King David probably just wanted to know the number of his troops in order to be prepared for any upcoming battles. What is the crime in counting up troops?

Sefer Bemidbar, the Book of Numbers, which we begin this week, takes its English name from all of the counting that goes on in the first parashah. God orders Moses: “Take a census of the whole Israelite community by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head. You and Aaron shall record them by their groups, from the age of 20 years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms” (Numbers 1:2-3). Now God wants Moses to count those eligible to serve in an army? How is this any different from King David counting his troops?

Israeli Bible scholar Nechama Leibowitz z”l offers a relevant teaching about the difference between King David’s census and our census in this week’s Torah portion, explaining why one causes so much destruction and the other is beneficial. Medieval commentators agree that God ordered a census among the Israelites because they will need to form an army before entering the Land of Israel, to establish themselves and for self-preservation. King David, however, had no battles on the horizon and therefore no need to count for a potential army. Leibowitz explains: “The census which David ordered was for the creation of a permanent force, after the Almighty had given him peace from all his enemies... and he had no longer any need of military defense. But he wished… to boast and display his pride before his enemies... In short, the army and the soldier are only required in time of need, but should not be gloried in, as having any intrinsic importance” (Studies in Bamidbar, pg 22-23).

An army, a state, a land, and even a people have no intrinsic greatness. Our greatness stems from pursuing peace whenever possible, and even when it seems impossible. It comes from sanctifying each individual life, not from counting and glorifying a mob. Let us not boast of Israel’s strength only through parades, air shows, and other demonstrations of military might which unnecessarily diminish our spiritual greatness, like the plague that killed 70,000 in biblical times. Let us rather mark the anniversary of the Six-Day War by reflecting on the tremendous human and spiritual cost of using permanent force to reign over another people, and recommit ourselves to true greatness through a continuing quest for peace.

Ahare-Mot Kedoshim 5/6/17

Prepared by Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Is it a command? Or a promise? Or some combination of both? I refer to the opening idea of the second of the two parashot we will read tomorrow morning in shul, Kedoshim. The words used are fairly simple: “kedoshim tihyu ki kadosh ani--you shall be holy, because I, God, am holy.” The concepts contained in those words are far from simple.

Even if we brush aside the question of what it actually means to be holy (sacred? different? better? special? unique?...), we are left with wondering what the relationship is between God’s holiness and ours. Are we commanded to be holy because God is holy, so that we emulate the most esteemed qualities of our Creator? Or is it that by recognizing God’s holiness, and by living life according to God’s decrees we are, in a sense, promised a life of holiness and meaning ourselves?

Great Jewish minds have read this verse differently. The great mystical text the Zohar relates that when the students of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai arrived at this verse, they rejoiced. They saw it as a great promise rewarding their decision to live tahat kanfei hashekhina--beneath the wings of God’s presence. To be a Jew is not easy. To be a conscientious, observant Jew is demanding on many levels. If by choosing to live that way, we achieve kedusha, an elevated, sanctified, rarefied status...then we can more easily rejoice in our Judaism.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel saw it differently. Torah does not make promises. Rather, Torah lays out expectations. In his words, “Judaism is an attempt to prove that in order to be a man, you have to be more than a man; that in order to be a people, you have to be more than a people. Israel was made to be a holy people.” So this verse is our challenge, not our reward. If we are to earn the title “Israel,” we are to reach towards kedusha, reach towards God, so that we are worthy of God’s attention.

There is, of course, a middle-ground, offered by the Rabbis in Vayikra Rabba, the classic book of Midrash on Leviticus. It understands the idea this way: “Kidshu atzm’khem l’mata--make yourselves holy down here...va’ani ekadesh etkhem l’ma’la--and I, God, will make you holy up there.” Meaning what? That the idea of holiness is both a challenge/command and a reward/promise. We Jews have an obligation to see the world, and see our actions, through the lens of sanctity, through the prism of what could be. As a result, our faith is that, in a sort of Divine matching-funds program, God responds to our efforts by making us holy.

How God “makes us holy” is the subject of great debate. A metaphysical reading suggests that we earn the afterlife by living with holiness in this life. A more spiritual reading suggests that sanctity is its own reward, but you won’t truly figure it out unless you actually do it. Act holy, and you will be holy.

However we are to understand the reward, the challenge itself is pretty clear: pay attention to Torah, to mitzvot, to our potential to live with meaning, to the idea that God expects something from us in our days. Those are the pathways to kedusha, to holiness.

I wish you a shabbat kodesh, a Shabbat of holiness...of challenge and reward.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Tazria-Meztora 4/29/17

Prepared by Nitzan Stein Kokin, rabbinical student, Zacharias Frankel College, Berlin

Facing Stigma

Parashat Tazria/Metzora is one of the most puzzling parshiyot for the modern mind. It lays out the laws of purity and impurity. “Purity” enables inclusion in society, “impurity” effects exclusion and is associated with death. A metzora is a person affected by a skin disease (tzaraat) which renders him/her impure and necessitates quarantine until the symptoms disappear. A priest will then facilitate the person’s readmission to the community via a purification ritual. However, anyone who suffers from a persistent form of this skin disease will be an outcast: “As for the person with a leprous affection, his clothes shall be rent, his head shall be left bare; and he shall call out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ … He shall dwell apart; his dwelling shall be outside the camp” (Lev. 13:45-46). Cut off from the flow of life, excluded from any close personal contact, the metzora indeed wanders in limbo as a living dead. He even “may be mourning his own ‘death’” (Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Studies in Bible and Feminist Criticism [2006], p. 331).

It may seem that there is a pragmatic reason to quarantine someone who is sick. Maybe the illness is a real danger to the community. Maybe this is the most economic and efficient way to get treatment to the ill. We might try to explain the phenomenon of the biblical tzaraat by comparing it to the recent epidemic of ebola. This can help us rationalize the necessity for isolation. However, besides the physical suffering that the afflicted person and his/her family undergo, their human drama cries out to heaven. The case of tzaraat, then, comes down to the dynamic of the community versus the plight of the suffering individual. From this perspective, the biblical commandment seems rather cruel: The victim of the disease is even obliged to reinforce his isolation by calling out “Unclean! Unclean!” There is no way to overlook their separation from the community. How can we, today, possibly justify an approach demanding that victims stigmatize and withdraw themselves?

But perhaps the intent of this ritual is not to isolate or shame, but rather to evoke an empathetic response from the rest of the community. Mishnah Midot 2:2 takes a contrasting approach to stigmatizing, recognizes the danger of ignorance, and reminds us of our communal obligation for empathy and care: “Anyone entering the Temple Mount would enter by the right, circle around and exit from the left, except for someone to whom something had happened, who would circle from the left [thereby encountering the crowd face to face and prompting the people to notice and ask:]‘Why are you circling from the left?’ [S/He would answer:]'Because I am a mourner!' [and they respond:] 'May the One Who dwells in this house comfort you.' [Or s/he would say:] ‘I have been banned.’ According to Rabbi Meir, [they would reply:] ‘May the One Who dwells in this house put in their hearts to draw you near again.’”

While we cannot take away the suffering of the afflicted person, our task is to face the individual and extend ourselves with empathy and prayer. At the same time, the suffering individual is not to withdraw either. The Babylonian Talmud picks up the Mishnaic impulse and reinterprets the verse from this week's Torah portion as follows: “For it was taught: ‘And he shall cry, “Unclean, unclean” (Lev 13:45).’ He must announce his trouble to the public so that they may pray for mercy on his behalf” (Nidda 66a). In this reading, announcing impurity is no longer isolating, but rather becomes a way to reclaim one’s place within the community. As Rabbi Shai Held writes in a recent d’var Torah (“Struggling with Stigma: Making Sense of the Metzora” [2015], p. 7; available online from Mechon Hadar): “Those who are unafflicted may be tempted to look down at those who are ... To be asked to pray for someone is to be charged with affirming their humanity totally and unconditionally and with cultivating empathy for them...reminding both the metzora and the community that despite illness and impurity, the metzora is still a human being who deserves and is entitled to the care and concern of the community as a whole.”

This week's parasha thus contains an imperative to our self-understanding as a community to create a safe, open, inclusive, and caring environment. Only in this way will people who are isolated through whatever life condition find the courage to cry out and make themselves and their struggles known to us and to feel assured, that they will be embraced by a caring and empathetic community.

Shemini 4/22/17

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern, Rachel Marder

Making them Count
I have been doing a lot of counting this week. My sister gave birth on the seventh day of Pesach to my beautiful nephew. I have had the blessing of being with my family over these days and have joyfully offered my services as dodah (aunt). The counting began at the labor: how often are the contractions coming, how many centimeters dilated is she. And it has continued in gusto since he was born, noting his weight and length, for how long he sleeps and nurses, and making sure that he nurses at least every three hours. My sister writes everything down meticulously to keep track of his eating and digestion.

We as a people are also doing some meticulous counting right now, noting the day in the Omer cycle each evening (or in the morning if you forget). Sefirat haOmer (“counting of the sheaves of wheat”) begins on the second night of Pesach, and continues for 49 days until Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks. The name Shavuot comes from the fact that it takes place seven weeks after the offering of the first fruits of the barley harvest. Shavuot celebrates the end, or according to some scholars, the start, of the wheat harvest and God’s bounty in the land. The Israelites are instructed: “And you shall count off seven weeks from the day after the sabbath, and from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation; they shall be complete. You shall count until the day after the seventh sabbath, fifty days; then you shall present an offering of new grain to the Lord” (Leviticus 23:15-16). Sabbath here refers to the first day of the holiday and the sheaf of elevation, omer ha-tenufah, were two loaves of bread from the new wheat crop offered to God.

Our Shavuot bears little resemblance to this biblical account because the Rabbis transformed the holiday from an agricultural celebration to one of profound historical and theological meaning. We instead celebrate matan Torah, God’s giving of the Torah (Pesachim 68b), our most precious gift, as important as any agricultural sustenance. The 49 days leading up to Shavuot are an accounting and recounting of the Israelites journey from leaving Egypt and slavery and reaching Mt. Sinai and Torah, the ultimate reason for our freedom. Rabbi Shai Held of Mechon Hadar writes that “Jewish tradition, so committed to the ideal of freedom for a sacred purpose as opposed to mere freedom from external constraint, Pesach needs to lead somewhere, and Sinai-Shavuot is that destination. Counting the 49 days thus becomes an exercise in anticipating revelation... In counting these days we re-experience the excitement and anticipation that the first generation of liberated Israelites felt” (“Between Grief and Anticipation: Counting the Omer”).

Counting the Omer is a daily reminder that we are on a collective journey towards God and Torah, and that each moment in our journey matters. We recount where we have been and where we are ultimately going, but also where we are now. These are days of excitement and tension-building (!!), like a countdown, as we take a moment with intention to focus on each unique day of the Omer. By instructing us to count these in-between days from liberation to purpose, these “moments in the middle,” as my friend Alex Maged, a rabbinical student at Yeshiva University, calls them, we are tasked with remembering that they count as well. We live our lives mostly in the middle, in the journey between big spiritual moments. These are the moments, like the small, crucial moments in which my nephew nurses, that anticipate something much larger; a coming revelation or a growing child. By counting these moments we remember that they also count immeasurably.

Tzav 4/8/17

Prepared by Rabbi Ari Lucas

This is the ritual of the burnt offering: The burnt offering itself shall remain on its fireplace...

-Leviticus 6:2

Barbecue season has officially arrived. Coincidentally, our Torah reading this week offers the instructions for the daily barbecue our ancient ancestors made in Temple times. Though the ritual laws relating to animal sacrifice have been inoperative for nearly 2,000 years, rabbis throughout the generations look to these passages for inspiration and religious guidance. One such insight comes from the small mem (pictured above) found at the beginning of Parashat Tzav.

The passage describes the olah (elevation) offering. Daily, two lambs were offered up to God and were wholly consumed on the altar. These sacrifices were not eaten by a priest or anyone else. Rather, they would remain on the altar grill (mok’dah) over burning firewood all night until the morning. When morning came, the ashes from the previous day’s offering were cleared out, a new fire was set up, and the process began all over again.

Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch of Riminov views the instructions surrounding this ancient ritual as a recipe for service of God. “The mem is small,” he writes, “[in order to teach that] when a person performs a mitzvah, it must be felt deep, deep inside his heart, so that his soul burns within him, but the flames should not be outwardly visible to all.” This teaching views the offering on the altar as a metaphor for any mitzvah or holy act. The firewood and flames are symbols of a person’s enthusiasm. For R. Tzvi Hirsch of Riminov, the small mem teaches that passion should be felt internally, but ought not be expressed outwardly. Genine service is not flashy or showy, even though it is deeply enthusiastic.

Extending the cooking metaphor, flambe is an exciting way to cook - the flames elicit “wows” from those watching - but the real heat source is hidden beneath the grill and must be fueled and nurtured to cook something through. Likewise, when the coals are first kindled with lighter fluid, the big flames are shocking and impressive. But only once the flames die down and the coals turn white hot can the real work begin on the grill. The small mem represents that humble, internal heat source.

What role does passion play in our religious lives? Often we come to synagogue, go through the motions - stand when we’re told and bow when we’re supposed to. We give the requisite tzedakkah when asked and read the haggadah at our seder tables until people lose interest or fall asleep. But the message of the olah is that service of God should be done with fiery enthusiasm. Our prayers and other mitzvot should be performed with zest and energy. But the small mem reminds us not to confuse flashy outward demonstrations of piety with a genuine sense of devotion in one’s heart. God asks all of us to bring the fullness of our passions to the performance of mitzvot. But to do so privately and discreetly - like that small mem retreating from its place on the fiery altar.

This is part of a series Rabbi Lucas is writing on the big and small letters of the Torah

Vayikra 4/1/17

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Rachel Marder

The Silent Struggle: Yardena and her husband decided to get married very young, and pushed off having kids while they were still in school. As the years went by, they watched as their friends started to have one child after another, and decided they were ready. In Yardena’s mind, once she had made the decision to start the process, it would happen quickly and easily as it had seemed to for many of the women around her. After a year went by, and she had not conceived, Yardena discovered she was not ovulating and needed to take Clomoid to correct the issue. After some time she was able to conceive, but then suffered a miscarriage. To mask her pain she continued to tell friends she and her husband were not ready to have children, though this was far from the truth. Friends would ask how she was, and Yardena mustered a “fine,” so as not to reveal her struggle and sadness. Yardena met with a fertility specialist who recommended IUI (intrauterine insemination) and FSH shots, which help the eggs develop. Yardena found herself going through endless blood work, ultrasounds, waiting for weeks on end for news, and feeling discouraged. She next tried IVF, and now in addition to physical and emotional pain, she and her husband struggled under the financial burden -- IVF and its medications can cost upwards of $16,000 -- as it was not covered by insurance.

Yardena found it hard to continue getting together with friends who spoke of the funny and cute things their children were doing. Synagogue became an emotional minefield, starting with seeing the strollers parked at the synagogue entrance on Shabbat morning. Yardena started to pass up invitations from friends for Shabbat and holiday meals. As the years went by, she decided to keep her struggle with infertility largely to herself since she felt nobody would understand what she was going through and she did not want anyone to think there was something wrong with her. Yardena would hear people say things like, “I sneeze and get pregnant” or “All I need is for my husband to look at me and I get pregnant.” After years of trying, the IVF cycle was a success for Yardena, and though she experienced complications during pregnancy, she was able to give birth to a baby girl. Today she feels immense gratitude toward God, but also remembers that not everyone gets her happy ending. Yardena shared her story with Yesh Tikvah (“There is hope”), a Jewish community for support in fertility issues, because she knows how isolating it can be.

This Shabbat many synagogues around the country are talking about this silent struggle in order to decrease the stigma and isolation some individuals and couples feel. One in eight couples in the United States suffer from infertility, according to a 2006-2010 study by the Center for Disease Control, and 15-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. If you feel this personally, know that you are not alone. The Beth Am clergy and community are here to listen and support you.

The Mishnah famously teaches and it’s written in haggadot that “in every generation a person must see herself as if she went out of Egypt” (Pesachim 10:5). In Rambam’s (1135-1204) and other Sephardi haggadot however a different version of this text appears. It states, “in every generation a person is obligated to show herself as if she went out of Egypt.” What is the difference between these versions? One is about how we see ourselves and the other is about what we show and reveal to others. A miscarriage or struggle with fertility cannot be seen from the outside, and it is not always easy to tell others about the narrow place we are in or have been in even to caring friends and family.

Every person is different and will have different needs in this area, but we as a community can heighten our awareness and sensitivity to one another. We should not assume a couple or individual is experiencing infertility and offer unsolicited advice or ask questions about when they are going to have children. The best thing we can do is listen if someone reaches out to tell his or her story. Validate their feelings and let them know you will be there for them. Check in even with a text message to let them know you care, but try not to bring it up every time you see them. When hosting a meal or get-together if there are individuals who are unmarried or do not have children, make sure the conversation does not revolve around marriage and children; include everyone in conversation. Parents and grandparents can take care to be especially sensitive to their children and grandchildren in the midst of this struggle. Asking about when they will give them a grandchild can be a hurtful reminder; showing that you love your child or grandchild in their own right with or without children is important.

We can also take advice from God in this week’s parasha, Vayikra. “And he called to (Vayikra/ויקרא ) Moses, and the Lord spoke to Moses from the Tent of meeting, saying” (Leviticus 1:1).

Why is God’s speaking to Moses preceded by a personal call? Rashi explains that vayikra is an expression of love and care that we see every time God is about to communicate with Moses. We can do the simple but crucial act of reaching out to our friends and family to express our love for them. Our love, care, and support should precede anything else we have to say.

The Yismach Yisrael’s haggadah (18th-century hasidic) understands our passage as “in every generation a person is obligated to see her essence as if it went out of Egypt.” He writes that in every generation a person should strengthen her inner spark out of a narrow place. If you are facing fertility issues, know that your worth is immeasurable. Your inner spark, who you are innately, is worth nurturing, and your rabbis and community are here to support you.

Vayakhel-Pekudei 3/25/17

Prepared by Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

A wonderful midrash responds to a logical question asked on Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei, during which we read about the building of the elaborate mishkan (sanctuary) in the desert. Since the Torah records that the Israelites despoiled the Egyptians of their gold and silver, we know where the precious materials for the mishkan came from. The Israelites' flocks were the source of the material for the curtains in the mishkan. But verse after verse calls for wood. In particular, cedar wood. Where could the Israelites have found such abundant wood in the desert? The Midrash Tankhuma tells us that Jacob planted them. When he went down to Egypt, he said to his sons: "My sons, in the future you are destined to be delivered from there, and when you are redeemed, God will tell you to build Him the mishkan! So plant cedars now so that when you are told to build the mishkan, the cedars will be ready immediately." And so they planted the trees as they were told to do.

As Rabbi Gustavo Suraszki points out, this midrash elevates the act of building to a cross-generational spiritual project. It is easy to read these parashot as a musical rendition of dry architectural plans, as if spiritual space were created just of metal, wood and well-made joints. But the midrash probes deeper, asking us to consider that the building of the mishkan was anticipated for centuries, and that generations long gone contributed to, and thus had a stake in, what was built in the desert.

What a natural linkage to our times, and to our own project of building a new sanctuary and new school building. Both for those intimately involved in the project, and those who have seen the signs and banners and renderings and capital campaign updates…and wonder when this project will be completed, it is all too easy to reduce this project to just another collection of wood and metal. And yet we should understand that Jews of yesterday and tomorrow are stake-holders in our building. Just as Jacob planned so that his descendants could find God more directly on their journey, so we plan, and invest, now so that our children and grandchildren will know how central Judaism must be in their lives.

At times, I hear this refrain, and I resonate with it: wouldn't it be easier if this project were already done? Wouldn't it have been simpler had we inherited this well-lit, acoustically sound grand-but-intimate sanctuary, as well as this state-of-the-art, firmly-functioning, gym-equipped school building? All fully paid for? I suppose it would be easier. But not necessarily preferable. Rabbi Suraszki also points out what was lost when the Israelites transitioned from their temporary mishkan to the permanent Temple in Jerusalem. In exchange for certainty and stability, they had to surrender the energy of building. The courage, creativity and vision that is required as builders is not as much in demand as inheritors. When the project is complete, how easy it is to take it for granted.

Of course, we'd like a healthy balance. We'd like a completed project, enabling a far-reaching and vigorous vision, so that those who come next can both inherit the fruit of our labor, and also understand the value of their own ongoing contributions.

(Oh…and if you haven’t made your commitment yet, our campaign closes on June 30^th! Let’s talk…)

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

Ki Tissa 3/18/17

Prepared by Rebecca Schatz, Rabbinic Intern

I Became a Bat Mitzvah

Face to face, פנים אל פנים. Think about your face. What do you look like? How do you use your face to express your feelings? When do you choose to speak, or listen, or show emotion and impressions on your face? Are you aware of the face you are making all the time? Our face is the one part of our body that we are unable to see without assistance. We need a mirror, picture, someone else to tell us we have food in our teeth, or another person’s reaction to how we are choosing to express ourselves.

16 years ago, on shabbat Ki Tisa, I chose to express my Bat Mitzvah words of Torah through the image of Moshe’s radiant face. ’ומשה לא ידע כי קרן עור פניו בדברו אתו’ “And Moses did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while God spoke with him (Exodus 34:29).” The effects of God’s words, ordinances and relationship had physically changed Moshe’s face. However, he did not know until he approached the people as leader and commander, and they interpreted this change to be Divinely inspired and powerful. Moshe’s face lit up, according to thirteen-year-old Me, (as well as Rambam) as a result of humility and his special relationship with God. God, with the presentation of the second set of tablets, is thought to have shared for the first time the Oral Law with Moshe. We become “enlightened” and perhaps we flush with wonder and sudden awareness of our absolute presence in a heightened moment, prompted by teachers, mentors, family and friends. How much more so Moshe after closeness with God.

Today, this parasha is more to me than just the moment of Moshe’s radiance. It is about other faces as well. In the beginning of the parasha, Moshe challenges God’s quick anger against our careless ancestors, saying, “Why, Adonai, should your anger be kindled against Your people… (32:11).” The words for anger are חרה אף, a common way to refer to God having a temper tantrum, but literally means “burning nose.” Moshe could envision God, like a teased and tormented bull, nostrils aflame and a smoke. And like a mirror held up to the unseen face, Moshe was allowed to unmask God’s face to God, consoling and tempering God’s response. And the student became the teacher.

Moshe then speaks to God face to face, פנים אל פנים, “as a man would speak to his companion (33:11).” Communicating face to face, looking into another’s eyes, and acknowledging a shared presence and closeness demands trust, security and respect. And maybe love. Intimate communication exposes vulnerabilities. We are unshielded and unable to see ourselves. And yet, we are distracted when sitting opposite someone whose back is to a mirror, drawing our attention to our own image as if to see us as the other might see us.

We are each of us both consumed in our own lives and yearning for another(s) to share with us how we are loved, perceived, heard in the world. We need to do a better job of seeing faces. Today our world is extremely small, knowing about tragedy and calamity all over, and yet we do not know these people face to face, so we hide behind computers, and phones and generously give our assistance. We need to look deeply at others and not be complacent about the “close, small world” that is digitally paraded across multiple screens, as if that is the same as being with someone. However, I can’t share the presence of me, the smell and warmth of me, or the touch of me except by being near and looking into your face. I can cry to the accompaniment of videos of far-flung sufferers, but any action I take will be remote and my deep humanity will be unshared.

However, what would the world look like if we each gave of our time, money, aid and also listened, and mirrored the faces in from of us? Our faces would become radiant! Our faces must become radiant! We must share enlightenment, anger, disappointment, fear, relief, joy and humor, as did Moshe with God. Try פנים אל פנים, “face to face”. Get close enough to be a mirror. And glow!

Mishpatim 2/25/17

Prepared by Rachel Marder, Rabbinic Intern

Your Burden is My Burden

This past Monday the Jewish community in St. Louis, Missouri awoke to a vicious attack on its local Chesed Shel Emet cemetery. Over 200 headstones were found toppled or damaged. Unfortunately this is not the first act of anti-Semitism that has rattled our community this year. Some 53 Jewish community centers have received a total of 68 bomb threats in just the last six weeks. In the wake of the latest vandalism, however, an astonishing act of chesed, lovingkindness, and solidarity took place. Two Muslim-Americans launched an online fundraising campaign to repair the damage, and they have raised roughly $122,000 from over 4,186 donors just this week. Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American and an outspoken advocate for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against the State of Israel, co-led the fundraising effort with activist Tarek El-Messidi. While plenty of Jews are offended by her politics, it is hard not to be moved by this incredibly generous response from our Muslim brothers and sisters and fellow Americans.

In parashat Mishpatim, God instructs the Israelites in some basic laws for creating a just society. One of these laws concerns an Israelite’s obligation when s/he sees an enemy’s donkey collapsing under the weight of its burden. While you “would normally refrain from raising it, you must surely raise it with him” (Exodus 23:5). The Talmudic Sages understood this to mean that one should unload the burden from the animal and repeat the action even four or five times if necessary, since the verse states emphatically, "you shall surely help" (Bava Metzia 32a). It’s possible to read this verse as an act of kindness to prevent tza’ar ba’alei hayim (the suffering of living creatures). After all, while you may feel no obligation to assist an enemy, why should the innocent donkey suffer? But I believe there is a deeper message in this verse about people coming together and transcending their differences.

The verse does not say “you must surely raise it,” but rather offers a surprising construction: “you must surely raise it with him,”(Hebrew עִמּוֹ). Hizkuni, a 13th-century French commentator, argues that such a burden would be too heavy for one person to lift. It would require two people to unload it (possibly in numerous attempts), with one person standing on either side of the animal. The Talmud even teaches that if the animal’s owner sits down and says, “since it is your mitzvah, if you want to unload, unload,” you, the onlooker, are exempt from unloading the burden, because you must perform the act with the owner, provided he is physically able to (Bava Metzia 42a).

Muslim-Americans are, of course, not our enemies. And while tensions have arisen over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, lately, given the political climate Jews and Muslims seem to be “forging alliances like never before” (See “How Trump’s Politics and Rhetoric are Forging Alliances Between U.S. Jews and Muslims, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 5, 2017). Now is a time for us to work together to lift each other’s burdens, especially regarding the concerns we share as Americans. The Torah’s message is clear: Your burden is my burden and my burden is your burden. Some Jews see in the president’s immigration policies, including the ban on immigrants from seven Muslim countries and arrests of undocumented immigrants, echoes of their own families’ refugee stories. Because our Torah repeatedly emphasizes the mitzvah of welcoming and loving the stranger, some Jews are protesting these policies, joining in marches and prayer vigils to show solidarity with targeted groups. We also saw women from different communities supporting one another when they joined together in the Women’s March last month, co-organized by Linda Sarsour, who helped launch the stunning fundraising campaign to repair the St. Louis Jewish cemetery.

Sarsour, El-Messidi and the thousands of other Americans who have contributed to this effort to repair the cemetery and stand with the Jewish community are helping us shoulder our burden in the face of an Anti-Semitic attack. How can we stand with Muslims and other minority groups when they feel threatened? How can we show support to people in our society who are feeling oppressed and insecure? For the burden is too great for anyone to shoulder alone.

Bo 2/4/17

Prepared by Rebecca Schatz, Rabbinic Intern

Close your eyes. Darkness. Open your eyes. Light.

When you close your eyes, you still see: Your mind amps up with access to dreams, memories and creativity. Likewise, when our eyes are open, we sometimes do not see. Not only might we be inured to the miraculous wonders that envelope us constantly; but our other senses might be dulled in deference to eyesight.

Clear your mind…now close your eyes. What did you see? Open your eyes, and is the world more clear?

In Parashat Bo, the plague of darkness is inflicted upon the Egyptians (Exodus 10:21), “And God said to Moses, put out your hand to the heavens and there will be dark on the land of Egypt, an increasing darkness.” The midrash explains “increasing darkness” as one of growing fear and frustration as the people struggled in response, much like a victim trapped in quicksand, whose situation worsens with the writhing. The darkness was like sand between our fingers and in our lungs: Exodus Rabbah 14:1-3, “The darkness was doubled, redoubled, and thick to the degree that it was tangible.”

The text goes on to say (10:23):

לא-ראו איש את-אחיו ולו-קמו איש מתחת שלשת ימים ולכל-בני ישראל היה אור במושבתם

“an [Egyptian] man did not see his brother, nor did he rise from his place for three days, but for all of B’nei Israel, there was light in their dwellings.”

This darkness was disabling, mummifying the living sufferers, and blinding them in isolation from their fellow sufferers. The Chiddushei HaRim, Yitzchak Meir Rotenberg-Alter (19th century), the first Rebbe of the Ger Hasidim, comments that this is the greatest darkness, when a man cannot see his fellow. “In which, a person becomes oblivious to the needs of his fellow person.” If this is to happen, the person is obstructed from their own personal development as well: “…nor did he rise from his place for three days.”

If we close our eyes, we can dream, hope, and imagine the social architecture of our future. Most importantly, we can still feel those around us, seeing one another in safety, compassion and empathy. With what little light breaks through we must envision a world of caring and sharing, of community and oneness, of plurality and fairness, welcoming the stranger as we were so often strangers. This week, many of our own community, and the broader global community, stood up in this depth of dark and made sure that we had light. Made sure that we could see one another, feel each other in hugs, cries, concerns and fears. Made sure that when the dark was less thick, that the light being shown was not just to see, but to vision a world of difference. We strive to look into someone’s eyes, draw close to them and say, “I am here for you; my community and country are here for you; you matter.”

In Tractate Megillah there is a story, “Why should a blind person care whether it is dark or light? And then the following incident occurred – ‘I was once walking on a dark night when I saw a blind man walking in the road with a torch in his hand. I said to him ‘My son, why do you carry this torch?’ He said to me ‘As long as I have this torch, people see me and save me from the holes, and thorns.’”

God did not inflict darkness to blind us. God inflicted darkness to show the reliance we have on those around us, on the light that we bring to others’ lives, and that we ennoble humanity by shedding light on the world.

May we, on this Shabbat especially, reflect on the light we bring to this world and find the darknesses that are seeking our light.

Vaera 1/28/17

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern, Rachel Marder

Water is Life

In recent months, the water supply and sacred land of the Sioux tribe of Standing Rock in North Dakota have come under attack by construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The project, initially routed near Bismarck, the state capital, was deemed too risky for the water sources there given the frequency of oil spills, and so was rerouted by Standing Rock instead. Protesters call this “environmental racism.” In response, the tribe has made its rallying cry “water is life,” and, with the help of allies, is seeking to halt construction of the oil pipeline, which would run through the upper Missouri River, the only water supply for the Standing Rock reservation. While the debate rages over the pipeline’s construction, one thing is clear to me: to attack a people’s water source is an attack on its very life and dignity.

What does it mean to attack a people’s primary source of life? The first plague that God brings on the land of Egypt in this week’s parasha, Va’era, is an attack on the Egyptians’ water source, the Nile. Midrash explains that since there is little to no rainfall in Egypt, the people rely on the rising and falling Nile to water the land. God instructs Moses to approach Pharaoh bathing in the Nile and say that because you have ignored God’s call to “let my people go,” God will turn the water in the Nile into blood, cutting off the Egyptians’ life source and killing all life in the river. If water signifies a living people and tradition, then blood signifies the slaughter of that people and their way of life.

In response to Pharaoh’s and Egyptian society’s callousness and oppression of the Israelites’ dignity, God punishes Egypt by removing that which sustains it and allows the people to provide for themselves. In other words, God takes away their dignity. A midrash explains that because the Nile was Egypt’s water source, it was also considered a deity. “Why were the waters first smitten with blood? Because Pharaoh and the Egyptians worshipped the Nile, and God said, “I will smite their god first and then his people’” (Shemot Rabbah 9:9), alluding to the final plague, makat b’khorot, the slaying of the first-born son. The first step toward killing the Egyptian people is destroying their water source.

The latest attempt with the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline to destroy the Lakota tribe at Standing Rock follows a history of genocide, broken promises, land theft, missionizing, and cultural oppression of Native Americans in this country. We should hear this story and recall our people’s suffering in Egypt, Europe, and elsewhere. Our story links us to other peoples who have endured oppression and survived. The Torah urges us as a result of our experience to recognize the sanctity in all human life. We are instructed not to oppress the stranger “for you know the soul of the stranger having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt” (23:9). Our story is meant to teach us empathy. While the Native Americans are not strangers in their land, this pipeline seeks to separate this people from their land and water, rendering them strangers to each other.

Water is a frequent metaphor for Torah in Rabbinic tradition. Just as water bubbles forth, gives life, and is capable of transforming an arid place into a thriving place, so too is wisdom from Torah never-ending, sustaining of human life, and transformative. In a midrash on a verse about the Israelites’ journey, “They traveled three days in the wilderness and found no water” (Exodus 15:22), some rabbis of the Talmud explain this to mean that the Israelites went three days without Torah and became exhausted as a result. For this reason, it was instituted that they should read Torah three times a week (Shabbat, Monday, and Thursday), just as we do today, “so they should not be kept for three days without Torah” (Bava Kama 82a). You could say that for the Jewish people “Torah is life.”

What should we do when the values of our “water” are under attack, when empathy and dignity of human life are challenged? Let us stand with Standing Rock, advocate for the protection of their water source, and pray that “justice will well up like water, righteousness like a mighty stream” (Amos 5:24).

Shemot 1/21/17

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern, Rebecca Schatz

In honor of 3 birthdays: my brothers Jonah and Sammy and my grandfather Bill Goodglick – for teaching me to lead with my feet, and to be honest, kind and intentional with my words

On January 16, the nation celebrated a man for whom there are 4 famous words associated, “I have a dream.” Today, the ideals of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are more powerful, poignant and pressured than at any other time I can recall. As our government transitions into new hands, it is easy to fear that liberal religious tolerance is targeted, stereotypes are heightened and social justice is threatened.

We began the week in memory of Dr. King as well as with the start of reading a new book of Torah. By chapter 4 of Parashat Shemot, we are already immersed in stories of Moses as anxious and self-conscious in his newfound leadership. In verses 15-16 God tries to calm and prepare Moses for his important leadership role by saying:

“You shall speak to [Aaron], and you shall put the words into his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will instruct you both [as to] what you shall do.

And [Aaron] will speak for you to the people, and it will be that he will be your speaker, and you will be his leader.”

Moses’ birth story aside, this is an insecure, shy, stuttering spokesperson through whom God will invent a new nation, a new kind of people, a new way of understanding a community’s bonds to the divinity of its Creation and to each of its people, low or high. What kind of a leader is Moses? Torah teaches that we are led by following the actions, the compassions, the visions and the moral conflicts that trail-blaze a new legacy. Dr. King, unlike Moshe, was not cotton-mouth muzzled and he spoke as the greatest prophets spoke. He also sacrificed physically and emotionally to lead with his body and soul, marching arm-in-arm with activists, stepping first, like Nachshon, into the, as-yet unmoved, depths of stillness and hatred.

As Jews, one of the most famous aspects of the March on Selma, is Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s infamous “praying with our feet” mantra. In our parasha, Aaron and Moshe are tasked with the management of a people. However, the leader is Moshe because he acts, he does not just preach or speak for others, he fights for “the other” and their rights to become unified with the worldly whole. “I will be with your mouth and his mouth.” God was with the words of Aaron and the character of Moshe.

With this sermon begins a week of change for our country. A moment where we pray for Dr. King’s sermon to ring true in all communities, for Rabbi Heschel’s mantra to jump people on to their feet to make the change they wish to see and to listen for the Godliness in our voices. Choose words of leadership, of power, of criticism and of praise carefully. God is with our mouths and we must be both Aaron and Moshe. We must act and speak for action. But first we listen. We must listen to lead, and speak to motivate others to find the courage in themselves to be leaders. I pray that this Shabbat you find your voice, the voice that speaks truth and honesty for you as a leader of the Jewish people.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.)

Vayehi 1/14/17

Prepared by Rabbi Ari Lucas

Sacred Endings

Joseph lived to see children of the third generation (shileishim) -Genesis 50:23
The book of Genesis begins with an open letter and ends with a closed one. The big bet at the beginning of the B’reisheet is bookended by the big mem sofit in this week’s parshah, Vayehi (pictured above)1. The passage describes Joseph, at the end of his life, appreciating his family and considering his legacy. The big mem appears at the end of the word shileishim - third generation. Like kaf, nun, peh, and tzadi, mem is one of the letters in the Hebrew language that takes a final form - meaning, it looks different when it occurs at the end of the word. Perhaps the large final mem is calling attention to the fact that the book is coming to a close.

The Hebrew letters are considered to have mystical qualities. Even the shapes of the letters themselves are imbued with significance. Ancient rabbis appreciated the openness of the letter bet with which the Torah began (pictured below). R. Levi points out that the bet is closed on all sides except for the one to its left. In a right to left language, the bet serves as an open bracket. Extrapolating, R. Levi suggests that we ought not philosophize about what came before the moment of creation, but rather to focus our mental energy on everything that happened from that moment onwards.2

Similarly, commentators see significance in the shape of the final mem. The mem sofit is a closed letter - a complete square - and is thus seen as a symbol of completion and finality. One commentator3 on the mem in this week’s parshah calls our attention to another anomalous mem later in the Bible. In Isaiah 9:6 (pictured below), tradition prescribes that the mem in the word l’marbeh be written in the closed form, despite its position at the beginning of a word. This tradition, ostensibly breaks the rules of the Hebrew language and the sight of it is surprising to the Hebrew reader.
The passage in Isaiah describes the end of days when a Messiah from the Davidic line will usher in an era of peace. These two exceptional mems are pointing to some poetic message about sacred endings.

The story that began with the creation of the universe, ends with an image of an elderly man, imparting his wisdom and blessings to children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. Genesis is a book of beginnings, it tells us about where we come from. But it is also has a vision of where we are headed. On the personal level, each of us is asked to consider the end of our days. What wisdom do we wish to transmit to future generations? How might we live our lives today, so that when that day comes, we can greet it with equanimity. On a human level, Genesis hints at the end of all time - when we believe a more peaceful and just era will supplant the current reality. In this subtle way, Genesis is a book that encompasses all time - from the very beginning to the very end. As we close this book, we hope that its inspiration has brought us closer to the Bible’s vision of a more complete world. Such a vision begins with achieving peace in a single family and ripples outward to the entire universe.
__________________________________________________________________________
1 Many Torah scrolls (including at least five at Temple Beth Am) do not reflect the tradition in Mahzor Vitry to make this mem large. There are different scribal traditions relating to the big and small letters.
2 B’reishit Rabba 1:10
3 Mahari Katz - Hosafot L’fa’aneah Raza

Vayeshev 12/23/16

Prepared by Rabbi Adam Kligfeld

I have been thinking a lot recently about the spirit. The soul. The part of us that is clearly us, but is ethereal and non-tangible. The part one cannot locate in any spot in our physiology, but which is essentially us.

I think about this when I counsel and comfort the bereaved, and encourage them to lean in to the notion that there can be relationship beyond what is corporeal; that one can love a soul even if one cannot hug it. I think about this when I think, when I hope, when I fantasize… and I wonder who or what is the actual force within me producing those thoughts, hopes and fantasies. Can it really be reduced to pure physiology, neurotransmitters, axons and neural pathways? Is there an “I” that is beyond my cell structure?

And I think about this when I consider a lovely teaching about Hanukkah by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyadi, who was the first rebbe of the Lubavitcher Hasidic dynasty. He notes that for most Jewish holidays the primary symbol is a tactile one. Most of our symbols have physicality: the matza on Pesah which we can hold, crumble and taste (OK…not much taste, but you get the picture); the sukkah on Sukkot which we build, sit within and are physically protected by…not to mention the lulav and Etrog which we cradle, wave and smell. Against that norm, Rabbi Shneur Zalman notes that Hanukkah seems to stand apart. Its primary symbol is utterly non-tangible. It is light. Flame. The piercing of darkness. One can see a flame, feel its heat and sense its warmth. One can attempt to follow the contours of a flickering candle, but it is elusive, dancing and changing its shape constantly, pushing the observer to wonder in what way this flame, this “thing” actually and tangibly exists. According to Rabbi Shneur Zalman, this is apt because the message of Hanukkah is about the triumph of the spirit, the Jewish will; Hanukkah is meant to celebrate and release Jewish light.

The Jewish spirit is indeed strong. Not always (ever?) fully unified. But persistent and determined, across generations and transcending calamities. And we are entering (or are already in the midst of) an era in which that very intangible Jewish spirit will be tested in meaningful ways, and through which, therefore, Hanukkah’s enduring message will need to be broadcast and lived out beyond the last week of December. When Jews in Whitefish, Montana, including a rabbinic colleague of mine, are targets of severe, Nazi-overtoned anti-Semitic hatred in response to their organizing in order to reinforce that Whitefish is not a city of hate despite its being the home city of Richard Spencer, the neo-Nazi who coined the term “alt-right, and the city in which his mother still resides…the Jewish spirit is tested. When a Jewish family feels pressure to flee, anonymously, Lancaster, PA after threats against them accusing them of using their “Jewish influence” to cancel the local public school’s production of a Christmas-themed show…the Jewish spirit is tested. And when our country, historically the most embracing of Jews and Judaism of any country to ever exist, finds itself painfully divided, with identified and proud Jews spread out across the political spectrum and set of arguments; and when accusations fly regarding who, after all, owns the larger piece of the “Jewish truth” and “Jewish morality” pie as pertains to America’s policies and parties…the Jewish spirit is tested.

We all exemplify and thus will release Jewish light differently. Some of it extends from our particular educations and the accidents of our birth and circumstances. Some of that difference emanates from reasoned and thoughtful distinctions about what Torah means, and ought to mean. Some of that variety is untraceable, connected to each of our truly unique and inimitable—and intangible—spirits which flicker inside of us. I proffer no hope that we will or should all agree. But I do hope that this Hanukkah season will awaken the truest and brightest lights within us all, and encourage each of us to use our flame to illumine whatever it is we feel is most darkened.

Shabbat Shalom

Vayishlah 12/17/16

Prepared by Rabbi Ari Lucas

Then Esau ran to greet him and he hugged him and he fell on his neck and he kissed him and they wept. --Genesis 33:4

Jacob and Esau were rivals from the womb, which sets the stage for an emotionally charged reunion in Parashat Vayishlah. Jacob splits his camp into two lest Esau approach with violent intentions. After years apart, Jacob is unsure if Esau is still filled with rage. Does he still harbor resentment over the stolen birthright? At this moment of peak tension, the text reports that “Esau ran to greet him and he hugged him and fell on his neck and he kissed him and they wept,” (Genesis 33:4) The reader breathes a sigh of relief. The brothers soften and, ostensibly, experience a genuine moment of reconciliation.

But there is a rabbinic debate over the sincerity of this exchange that hinges on a striking textual anomaly. In the Torah scroll, the word, “vayishakeyhu - and he kissed him” has dots over each letter in the word (see picture above). There are nine other instances of these dots in scripture and many believe that they serve the function of highlighting a word as dubious to the original text. Rather than erase a word from the Torah, scribes indicate their suspicion by putting dots over the letters. The tradition seems to be skeptical of Esau’s kiss. Rashi comments that the dots serve as a hint that “Esau did not kiss [Jacob] with his whole heart.” In that same midrash, Rabbi Shimon b. Yochai voices a dissenting opinion that Esau’s kiss was, in fact, sincere. The dots appear to capture the Jewish ambivalence towards a powerful older brother figure extending a gesture of love and rapprochement. Given the Jewish historical experience, one can hardly blame the rabbis who suspect that Esau may be the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Another tradition tells a fantastic story about this moment of brotherly embrace. In a clever play on words, B’reishit Rabbah suggests that Esau did not come to kiss him (לנשקו - lenashko), but rather to bite him ( לנשכו - lenashkho). According to this midrash, a miracle happened at this moment -- Jacob’s neck turned into marble. Both brothers then proceeded to cry - Jacob on account of his neck and Esau on account of his teeth. This interpretation subverts the plain meaning of the story in the text. Tears that appeared to be expressions of emotional release and love are recast as tears of pain. Although not explicit in the midrash, I always imagined that this interpretation viewed the dots above the letters as bite marks on Jacob’s neck.

Was it a genuine moment of reconciliation (a la R. Shimon b. Yochai) or was this yet another instance of the aggressive Esau attempting to hurt his younger twin? Perhaps in the debate over these mysterious dots we can find a rorschach test for our own willingness to trust those who were once our enemies. I’ve spoken with siblings who have clashed throughout the years and now wonder if an overture made by a sibling is sincere. A couple who has endured a contentious divorce wonder if they can trust their former life partner. The same is true of political rivals. When Sadat came to visit Jerusalem in 1977, I imagine there were many who were suspicious of his motives. When Arafat and Rabin shook hands at Camp David, many wondered if he could be trusted. Sticking out one’s neck to embrace an enemy is fraught with fear and vulnerability, but it also opens the door to the possibility of reconciliation and peace. Without the courage to risk being hurt in our relationships, we can expect the cycles of anger and pain to persist. A kiss is awfully close to a bite - may we be wise and cautious like Jacob taking tactical measures to protect ourselves and the ones we love from harm. And may we also find the inner courage of Jacob to be open to embracing our enemies with hopes for peace even at great personal risk.

Vayetze 12/10/16

Prepared by Rabbinic Intern Rebecca Schatz

This drash is written in honor of my brother, Jacob Lev’s, 24th birthday for embodying what it truly means to be a thoughtful, spiritual man of full-‐heart:

Stop for a moment and focus on your heart. Notice your breathing. Listen to the thumping, rhythmic beats. Watch your belly rise and fall. Now try and feel your heart. Some feel pain, others love. Some feel wholeness, others brokenness. Some feel full, others feel vast. Our heart is the most important muscle in our body, not only Flowing with and pumping blood through our organs but, as the Gemara translates, our לב (lev), is also our mind. Feelings often generate how we think, how productive we can be, how we choose to motivate ourselves to act on and what to learn about in order to effect change. Our heart connects us to our mind; the most spiritual affirmations to our most physical sustenance.

In Va’yetzei, Jacob steals a heart. Jacob, having now both Rachel and Leah as his wives, wants to return to his father and his homeland, and sneaks away not saying goodbye to Lavan or anyone else in the community:

ויגנב יעקב את לב לבן הארמי על בלי הגיד לו כי ברח הוא

“And Jacob stole the heart of Lavan the Arami, for not telling him that he was Fleeing.”

Lavan’s daughters are his life, his physical and spiritual nourishment. When they are gone, his source of life is as if stolen. The Torah could have used the word “broken” or “crushed,” instead the word “stolen” is repeated multiple times in Genesis chapter

31. There is no sense of Lavan’s heart still being within his body to be crushed or broken, without his family. It is as if there is a hole left where this vital organ used to pump life. Therefore, though Jacob intends to enliven his family with bringing Rachel and Leah home, does he consider the emotional consequences thrust on Lavan and everyone of that household as a result of his actions?

Empty hearted, Lavan goes on a search to revive himself by Finding Jacob and his daughters. Once upon them, he says to Jacob:

מה עשית ותגנב את לבבי ותנהג את בנתי כשביות חרב

“What did you do that you stole my heart and you treated my daughters like prisoners of war?!”

The Netziv, Reb Hirsch Leib Berlin of the 19th century, says that geneivat ha-‐lev, the stealing of Lavan’s heart, has to do with Jacob showing, in his taking away of Rachel and Leah, that he does not love or honor them as any father would want their daughters to be loved. Lavan’s heart was “stolen away” by Jacob’s actions. Even if Jacob is correct, to leave with Rachel and Leah expands?? Jacob’s heart and yet leaves Lavan void. The image above shows a person stealing another’s heart, usually connoting falling in love, however, from the visual we see that the person stealing now has two hearts, leaving the other empty, without anything.

Focus back on your heart. Feel the beating, notice your breathing, watch your belly rise and fall. This is all possible because you have a heart. No, I do not mean a physical organ pumping blood, I mean family, friends, community, tradition, religion, social justice, etc. You have aspects of your life that keep you going, that keep the blood Flowing. Lavan knew, from the absence of his family that to be a Godly, full man, he needed them in his life. It’s hard to know if Jacob and Lavan are ever resolved in their hearts, which makes it all the more important that when we feel unresolved or have our hearts stolen, that we do the things we need to do to help our hearts keep beating. What makes up your heart? Without what in life would your heart be stolen? I pray for us this Shabbat that we take time to recognize the drumming of our heart, what keeps it beating, and keep Filling it with spiritual and personal nourishment.

Hayei Sarah 11/26/16

Prepared by Rabbi Ari Lucas

And Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her. - Genesis 23:2

Read another way, however, the small kaf hints at a different matter entirely. If we remove the kaf from the word “and to weep over her (v’livkotah),” the meaning of the verse changes. Without the kaf, the word “livkotah” reads - “ul’vitah - Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and for her daughter.” Did Abraham and Sarah have a daughter that the Torah did not mention? Rabbeinu Ephraim, one of the medieval Tosafists and Rabbi Judah of the ancient midrash suggest that, in fact, they did. According to their interpretation, Abraham cried not only because his wife had died, but also because she didn’t live to see her children marry. Neither Isaac nor this unknown daughter was married by this point in the text.

Female characters are often left out of the narrative of the Torah or they appear as supporting characters to the male heroes of the story. For example, Lot’s wife doesn’t have a name. Neither does Pharaoh’s daughter who was instrumental in rescuing and raising Moses. An ancient midrash says that there were female twin siblings corresponding to each of the twelve tribes, but we don’t know much about them either.

How does our understanding of the story of the first Jewish family change if we imagine that there was a daughter in the tent? We might wonder what her experience was like growing up alongside Isaac and Ishmael. The Torah does not record her thoughts or her statements, but surely she had influence on the life of their family.

Perhaps we can learn from her absence as well. Too often, women’s voices and insights are minimized (like the diminutive letter) in patriarchal societies. In a recent article in Lilith Magazine, Claire Landsbaum describes how female staff members’ contributions in the Obama White House were often overlooked by their male counterparts. So women worked together and “adopted a meeting strategy they called ‘amplification’: When a woman made a key point, other women would repeat it, giving credit to its author. This forced the men in the room to recognize the contribution—and denied them the chance to claim the idea as their own.” It appears that we still have much work to do in honoring and recognizing the contributions of women as equal in the workplace, in religious life, as well as in popular culture. Famously, the Bechdel test measures whether or not TV or movies depict two women engaging in dialogue about a topic other than a man. Surprisingly (or not) many movies fail this test.

Those of us in the Jewish world who are committed to rectifying the historic and ongoing inequality between men and women can learn from the small kaf in Parshat Hayyei Sarah. Perhaps, hiding in that small letter is a hint at a Biblical character whom we didn’t get to know because the Torah didn’t tell us the details about her life and journeys. One way we can honor the memory of Abraham’s daughter is to uncover and recover these voices unrecorded by history and ensure that all voices are equally respected in our society,