I have been in the shul business now, coming on 24 years. And over these years, it has been my privilege to work with literally hundreds of committed Jews both lay and professional.
More than once, I have noticed a member of the congregation begin an adult education class, or sit on a committee for the first time, looking nervous and downright insecure.
I speak with them after the class or the meeting and I acknowledge their anxiety and I ask them why? The synagogue of all the places in our lives is a warm and accepting place. We welcome everyone and we welcome everyone just the way they are.
And then they enlighten me and remind me that I have to pay closer attention. They say “ Rabbi, I am nervous because I can barely read Hebrew. My Jewish background is not very extensive. I am sure most people in this class or on this committee know more than me. I am so new at all of this. I am an accomplished adult out in the world but I feel like a child when I walk in these doors.”
“I feel like a child when I walk in these doors. How can I, of all people, contribute and make a difference in this place, in this community?”
I think of these good people as I read the parasha this morning. It begins with a description of the Menorah in the Tabernacle. What is the Menorah? It is very simply a candelabra designed to light an inner chamber of the Tabernacle. And we read in the text, “daber el aharon v’amarta elav, behaalotecha et hanerot el mul p’nai hamemora, ya’eru shivat ha nerot.” “Speak to Aaron and say to him, ‘when you kindle the lamps, toward the face of the Menorah, shall the seven lamps cast light.” The lights shine towards the face of the candelabra itself. This seems to imply that light of the menorah somehow shines back on itself. Rashi says that the three branches on the left of the Menorah shine towards the central branch and the three candles on the right shine back to the center as well and according to the Artscroll Chumash, this focus towards the center concentrates all seven candles into perhaps, an intense single beam. I think, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the light of God, blinding, brilliant, shining a laser beam that can burn through things. And there is drama here. Divine light exploding into the ritual lives of human beings.
I like this notion inspired by Rashi. It’s interesting. But I find another understanding of the Menorah even more compelling. It is brought to us from the Sefat Emet, a Chasidic scholar, 19th century Poland. He explains the meaning of the Menorah by bringing a midrash from a collection of midrashim called “B’midbar Rabbah.” Art Green translates the passage for us: “A king asked his loving subject to prepare a meal for him. [The subject] did so gladly, but all in his own ordinary vessels. When the king arrived, accompanied by all his retinue and finery, the subject became embarrassed and put all his own things away. When the king asked where the meal was that he had prepared, the loving subject had to admit that he had been ashamed. But the king immediately insisted that all the royal finery be set aside and that they use only that which this devoted subject had prepared for him.”
Sefat Emet then writes, “We see from the story that it was proper for the subject to prepare the meal as he did, even though he saw all the king’s fancy vessels. Despite everything the king already had, the subject had to do his part....”
So this is a very different way of looking at the Menorah. The Menorah is just a utensil like the subject’s serving dishes for the king. The king didn’t care about the dishes, he didn’t even care about the food. He cared about his subject. God is the king in the midrash and God doesn’t care about the Menorah. Does God need the Menorah’s light in the Tabernacle to see what is going on there? Does God even need the Tabernacle; it was just a tent made of animal skins. Inside was a candle holder with seven candles. God’s light wasn’t in there. This was a simple little structures in which were simple little things. It was all that a wandering people in the desert could offer up to their God. One day there would be a glorious Temple in Jerusalem; one of the construction wonders of the world. That was drama. But the Tabernacle wasn’t drama; it was small, it was simple, it was modest. It was the best the people could do. Let me say this another way, “it was the best, the people could do.
And according to Sefat Emet, God was delighted with the gift of the Tabernacle because it was genuine; it was from the heart and soul of the People of Israel. Small gifts matter. Even a slave people wandering in a wasteland, can give a gift worth giving, accepted and beloved of God.
It doesn’t matter who we are. It doesn’t matter what we know. Every human being has something to contribute, no matter how modest they think that contribution may be. I have witnessed some of the most searching and profound questions coming from a brand new student of Torah. I have witnessed some of the most helpful and meaningful contributions to the shul coming from the least experienced committee member. Everyone brings their own personality, their own ideas, and their own selves to the community and without each of those gifts; the community would be very much impoverished.
God doesn’t seek brilliance, He seeks the heart. When the first sibling, Abel, brought his gift to God, it consisted of one of his best sheep. But it was only a sheep; what does God care about sheep? But the text implies, because it was the best of Abel’s sheep, God was pleased. Cain just brought some wheat --it wasn’t the best wheat; he probably didn’t think too much about his gift, he probably didn’t really care overmuch about it and God rejected it.
Every one of us has a gift to give to the community. Every one of us has a contribution to make that will make a difference. If given with love, with generosity, with a full heart, no matter what it is, it will be accepted and cherished by this community and by God.
I have always imagined that the Menorah wasn’t important because it shined light upon the utensils in the inner chamber of the Tabernacle. Rather, the Menorah was important because it shined light upon the face of the Priest. It was what the Priest as a human being could bring to God that mattered to God. It is the gift of our best selves that we bring to each other and to the community that matters to God. The question, then, that each of us must ask of him or herself? “What will my gift be?”
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Shavuot Yizkor and Humility
Jerusalem has been in the news lately --building or not building in Ramat Shlomo, a neighborhood in the northeastern part of the city. Jerusalem has never been far from our thoughts. Every day, we face Jerusalem and we pray. After Yom Kippur services and at the end of our Pesach Sedarim, we say, “l’shana habaah b’rushalayim,” next year may we be privileged to be in Jerusalem. Events in Jerusalem thousands of miles away from Denver often touch us as if they happened in our back yard.
Since King David founded the city for the Jewish people 3000 years ago, Jerusalem has been our holy city, our center, our spiritual home.
So I ask you a perplexing question. If Jerusalem is so central to our religious and spiritual existence, than why do we read in Torah, that of all the places in the world, the Torah was given to the Jewish people not in Jerusalem, but rather on top of some unknown mountain in the middle of the desert: called Mt. Sinai?
Is there anything more important than our Holy Torah? It is the word of God revealed to his chosen people. It is our guide, our moral anchor; it is what has distinguished us from the other nations of the world. It has given the Jewish people its identity.
The Torah is the central religious text of our people; why wasn’t it given on Mt. Zion? Why didn’t god’s revelation occur in the holy city of Jerusalem?
The rabbis of the Talmud were also perplexed about this. There are Midrashim that say that Mt. Zion in Jerusalem and Mt. Sinai in the desert were once joined together as one and when they split, the one became the site of the revelation and the other the site of the Holy Temple.
But that Midrash just begs the question. Why did they split? Why did the central religious event in our history not take place in the physical center of our religious world?
There is another Midrash that I think is more to the point. Rabbi Yose Hagalili and Rabbi Akiva were discussing just this issue. And they said that when God was about to reveal the torah, all the mountains of the world began to position themselves to receive the law. They argued for their position. Two in particular, Mt. Tabor and Mt. Carmel both called out to God, “ the torah shall be revealed on me,” and the other, “the torah shall be revealed on me.”
God looked at both mountains and said, “indeed, you are both great mountains, high and grand, but on both of you the pagans of the world have practiced idolatry, you are not fit.”
The Midrash goes on with another interpretation. It says in the Proverbs, “a man’s pride will bring him low.” The Midrash attributes this verse to Mt. Tabor and to Mt. Carmel which came from the ends of the earth boastfully proclaiming, “we are high and the Holy One, blessed be He, will give the Torah on us.” But the verse, “he who is of lowly spirit, shall attain great honor,’ and the Rabbis attribute this verse to Sinai which humbled itself by saying, “I am a low mountain, alone in the desert.” So God placed his glory upon Mt. Sinai and the Torah was given thereon so that the mountain was privileged to attain to all that honor.
Now this Midrash teaches us something all together new; that it was irrelevant to God, where exactly His revelation would take place. The mountain top where God and Moses met did not need to be the highest or the grandest. In fact, God chose a lowly mountain which sat in a wasteland. Nothing could have been less grand, or more remote.
And I think that that is the specific point the Torah is trying to make. There is nothing grand in appearance about the Torah. It is a book. It’s words on a scroll. It was given in a desert, on a lowly mountain. No one but the people of Israel saw this happen, not the Egyptians or the Amalekites or the Moabites or the Babylonians. Sinai was hidden away in a place that was uninhabitable. Nobody cared about Mt. Sinai or the Sinai desert: it was a wasteland.
From outer appearances, there wasn’t much to see on top of Mt Sinai. There was some thunder and lightning at the time of revelation, nothing terribly miraculous, though. Cecil B. Demille had to make up a whole dramatic scene for this event because there is precious little drama described in the Torah.
God was simply not concerned here with outer appearances. The Egyptians made big deal pyramids, great buildings to show their greatness to the world. Not the Jews. Their formative religious event happened in the desert, the drama kept to a minimum and no one saw what was happening in any case.
To look at the Torah, a person is not so impressed. To be impressed, you must look within the Torah. For what is within, changed the course of human history.
The Jews have always been the smallest, the least dramatic, and from outer appearances, the least impressive people in the history of mankind. But we have survived and thrived longer than any other people in the history of mankind.
For what is great about the Jewish people cannot be seen with the naked eye: what is great about our people is our inner character, our souls, our commitment to a God that also cannot be seen.
I bring all this up today, in particular, because today, the second day of Shavuot, we not only recall the revelation of the Torah at Sinai, but we also remember during Yizkor, those who we loved who are no longer with us.
And if you are like me, what we remember of our loved ones was not their public persona, it wasn’t their appearance: how they looked to other people. What we remember of them what was most important about them to us: was the person they were; their inner character, their souls.
One of my wisest teachers in rabbinical school once said to me: it isn’t what you know, it isn’t how you look, that ultimately counts in this life. But rather, it is who you are. Who you really are. It isn’t the physical appearance that everyone sees, or the talk and the persona that you present to the world. It is the soul.
There is a wonderful Hasidic story about the great village rabbi who knew the whole Talmud by heart. He was revered for his teaching, his piety, and his commanding presence. Over the years, legends arose about this rabbi, one in particular that piqued the interest of one of his students. Since this rabbi was mysteriously absent from shul every Yom Kippur mourning, the legend arose that the rabbi would actually ascend to heaven on this morning, and bow at the foot of God to pray for the welfare of the congregation.
But his student, was a skeptic, and he just didn’t believe the legend, so on Kol Nidre, the student hid under the rabbis’s bed to see what would happen to the rabbi in morning.
The morning came, the rabbi arose and put on work clothes and walked into the forest with his axe. The student followed him. . The rabbi walked out into the woods and cut down a tree and began to split the logs into fire wood. He then carried the wood to an old woman’s cottage and brought the wood into her home. The woman cried, “Oh, woodcutter, I have no money to pay you for the logs. And the rabbi said, “you pay me later; you need the wood to stay warm for the coming winter.
Then the rabbi returned home, put on his good cloths and went to shul.
The student was amazed, and never again doubted that the great rabbi, indeed, went to heaven each year on the morning of Yom Kippur.
There is often great beauty that rests deep within the soul and I have no doubt that it is that inner beauty, it is what lies within that makes the difference in a person’s life.
And that is the lesson of Mt. Sinai. Mt. Tabor, Mt. Hermon, Mt. Zion: certainly greater mountains than Sinai. Revelation on these mountains would have been a great show, a wonderful drama, truly impressive for the people of Israel and for the world. But God chose otherwise, because for His people, He knew that their greatness would never be in their numbers, or in their outer appearance, nor in the face they presented to the world. But rather, their greatness would always lie within. Like the Torah, the words and traditions written within, on the soul of our people, is what has transformed the world.
That is true lesson of God’s revelation. And a true lesson of life.
Since King David founded the city for the Jewish people 3000 years ago, Jerusalem has been our holy city, our center, our spiritual home.
So I ask you a perplexing question. If Jerusalem is so central to our religious and spiritual existence, than why do we read in Torah, that of all the places in the world, the Torah was given to the Jewish people not in Jerusalem, but rather on top of some unknown mountain in the middle of the desert: called Mt. Sinai?
Is there anything more important than our Holy Torah? It is the word of God revealed to his chosen people. It is our guide, our moral anchor; it is what has distinguished us from the other nations of the world. It has given the Jewish people its identity.
The Torah is the central religious text of our people; why wasn’t it given on Mt. Zion? Why didn’t god’s revelation occur in the holy city of Jerusalem?
The rabbis of the Talmud were also perplexed about this. There are Midrashim that say that Mt. Zion in Jerusalem and Mt. Sinai in the desert were once joined together as one and when they split, the one became the site of the revelation and the other the site of the Holy Temple.
But that Midrash just begs the question. Why did they split? Why did the central religious event in our history not take place in the physical center of our religious world?
There is another Midrash that I think is more to the point. Rabbi Yose Hagalili and Rabbi Akiva were discussing just this issue. And they said that when God was about to reveal the torah, all the mountains of the world began to position themselves to receive the law. They argued for their position. Two in particular, Mt. Tabor and Mt. Carmel both called out to God, “ the torah shall be revealed on me,” and the other, “the torah shall be revealed on me.”
God looked at both mountains and said, “indeed, you are both great mountains, high and grand, but on both of you the pagans of the world have practiced idolatry, you are not fit.”
The Midrash goes on with another interpretation. It says in the Proverbs, “a man’s pride will bring him low.” The Midrash attributes this verse to Mt. Tabor and to Mt. Carmel which came from the ends of the earth boastfully proclaiming, “we are high and the Holy One, blessed be He, will give the Torah on us.” But the verse, “he who is of lowly spirit, shall attain great honor,’ and the Rabbis attribute this verse to Sinai which humbled itself by saying, “I am a low mountain, alone in the desert.” So God placed his glory upon Mt. Sinai and the Torah was given thereon so that the mountain was privileged to attain to all that honor.
Now this Midrash teaches us something all together new; that it was irrelevant to God, where exactly His revelation would take place. The mountain top where God and Moses met did not need to be the highest or the grandest. In fact, God chose a lowly mountain which sat in a wasteland. Nothing could have been less grand, or more remote.
And I think that that is the specific point the Torah is trying to make. There is nothing grand in appearance about the Torah. It is a book. It’s words on a scroll. It was given in a desert, on a lowly mountain. No one but the people of Israel saw this happen, not the Egyptians or the Amalekites or the Moabites or the Babylonians. Sinai was hidden away in a place that was uninhabitable. Nobody cared about Mt. Sinai or the Sinai desert: it was a wasteland.
From outer appearances, there wasn’t much to see on top of Mt Sinai. There was some thunder and lightning at the time of revelation, nothing terribly miraculous, though. Cecil B. Demille had to make up a whole dramatic scene for this event because there is precious little drama described in the Torah.
God was simply not concerned here with outer appearances. The Egyptians made big deal pyramids, great buildings to show their greatness to the world. Not the Jews. Their formative religious event happened in the desert, the drama kept to a minimum and no one saw what was happening in any case.
To look at the Torah, a person is not so impressed. To be impressed, you must look within the Torah. For what is within, changed the course of human history.
The Jews have always been the smallest, the least dramatic, and from outer appearances, the least impressive people in the history of mankind. But we have survived and thrived longer than any other people in the history of mankind.
For what is great about the Jewish people cannot be seen with the naked eye: what is great about our people is our inner character, our souls, our commitment to a God that also cannot be seen.
I bring all this up today, in particular, because today, the second day of Shavuot, we not only recall the revelation of the Torah at Sinai, but we also remember during Yizkor, those who we loved who are no longer with us.
And if you are like me, what we remember of our loved ones was not their public persona, it wasn’t their appearance: how they looked to other people. What we remember of them what was most important about them to us: was the person they were; their inner character, their souls.
One of my wisest teachers in rabbinical school once said to me: it isn’t what you know, it isn’t how you look, that ultimately counts in this life. But rather, it is who you are. Who you really are. It isn’t the physical appearance that everyone sees, or the talk and the persona that you present to the world. It is the soul.
There is a wonderful Hasidic story about the great village rabbi who knew the whole Talmud by heart. He was revered for his teaching, his piety, and his commanding presence. Over the years, legends arose about this rabbi, one in particular that piqued the interest of one of his students. Since this rabbi was mysteriously absent from shul every Yom Kippur mourning, the legend arose that the rabbi would actually ascend to heaven on this morning, and bow at the foot of God to pray for the welfare of the congregation.
But his student, was a skeptic, and he just didn’t believe the legend, so on Kol Nidre, the student hid under the rabbis’s bed to see what would happen to the rabbi in morning.
The morning came, the rabbi arose and put on work clothes and walked into the forest with his axe. The student followed him. . The rabbi walked out into the woods and cut down a tree and began to split the logs into fire wood. He then carried the wood to an old woman’s cottage and brought the wood into her home. The woman cried, “Oh, woodcutter, I have no money to pay you for the logs. And the rabbi said, “you pay me later; you need the wood to stay warm for the coming winter.
Then the rabbi returned home, put on his good cloths and went to shul.
The student was amazed, and never again doubted that the great rabbi, indeed, went to heaven each year on the morning of Yom Kippur.
There is often great beauty that rests deep within the soul and I have no doubt that it is that inner beauty, it is what lies within that makes the difference in a person’s life.
And that is the lesson of Mt. Sinai. Mt. Tabor, Mt. Hermon, Mt. Zion: certainly greater mountains than Sinai. Revelation on these mountains would have been a great show, a wonderful drama, truly impressive for the people of Israel and for the world. But God chose otherwise, because for His people, He knew that their greatness would never be in their numbers, or in their outer appearance, nor in the face they presented to the world. But rather, their greatness would always lie within. Like the Torah, the words and traditions written within, on the soul of our people, is what has transformed the world.
That is true lesson of God’s revelation. And a true lesson of life.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Netzach of Malchut: A Thought for Day 46 of the Counting of the Omer
You may have been following the counting of the Omer: we do so for 49 days between the second day of Pesach and the first night of Shavuot. The omer connects the two holidays, one to the other. It is as if the two holidays are really one and this is why. Pesach is a holiday of freedom. The Israelites leave the slavery of Egypt to enter the freedom of the desert. But this is not freedom from all obligation, but rather freedom to serve God with all that that entails. On Shavuot, our people received the Torah with its 613 commandments. On Pesach, we celebrate our freedom, on Shavuot, we learn of our responsibilities to God and to each other. Freedom and responsibility: you cannot have one without the other.
During this connecting period of the counting of the Omer, the Jewish mystics envisioned a connection between the seven weeks of counting and the seven lower sefirot which are emanations of God’s holy light that created the world. They would attach two sefirot to each of the forty nine days which gives us insight into the qualities and characteristics of each day from which we can learn something about ourselves.
So tonight begins the forty sixth day of the counting of the omer and the two sefirot attached to this day are called Netzach and Malchut. Netzach is the quality of endurance. Malchut is the quality of dignity. Endurance means never giving up. We cannot achieve anything in life without a dogged can-do attitude. We make mistakes, we change course, but to achieve anything that is important, we need endurance; we have to stay with it, until we get it done. How does this connect with Malchut, human dignity?. Human beings are unique in the animal kingdom because they can imagine a better future and work to make it a reality in the present. Human dignity comes from doing that which is good. And goodness only comes from our patient, consistent and persistent actions. Endurance and dignity flow one from the other.
Tonight and tomorrow as we observe Shabbat we rest, which gives us the time and space to consider how we will make next week better than the last. May God give us the strength to go out and make a positive difference in the world in the week to come.
During this connecting period of the counting of the Omer, the Jewish mystics envisioned a connection between the seven weeks of counting and the seven lower sefirot which are emanations of God’s holy light that created the world. They would attach two sefirot to each of the forty nine days which gives us insight into the qualities and characteristics of each day from which we can learn something about ourselves.
So tonight begins the forty sixth day of the counting of the omer and the two sefirot attached to this day are called Netzach and Malchut. Netzach is the quality of endurance. Malchut is the quality of dignity. Endurance means never giving up. We cannot achieve anything in life without a dogged can-do attitude. We make mistakes, we change course, but to achieve anything that is important, we need endurance; we have to stay with it, until we get it done. How does this connect with Malchut, human dignity?. Human beings are unique in the animal kingdom because they can imagine a better future and work to make it a reality in the present. Human dignity comes from doing that which is good. And goodness only comes from our patient, consistent and persistent actions. Endurance and dignity flow one from the other.
Tonight and tomorrow as we observe Shabbat we rest, which gives us the time and space to consider how we will make next week better than the last. May God give us the strength to go out and make a positive difference in the world in the week to come.
Bamidbar: Making it Count
Tammy related to me the following story about her father. As many of you know, her father Rabbi Herbert Morris of blessed memory, served the Jewish community of San Francisco for 43 years. She told me of his daily practice in the morning, looking in the mirror, he’d say to himself, “Nu, Chayim, how will you be a blessing to others today?” Being a blessing to others --and being so every day; a worthy aspiration. Important to think about. I will come back to this in a moment.
We begin the reading of the fourth book of the Torah this morning, the Book of Numbers. The name comes from the first major theme of the book, numbering the people of Israel, that is, taking a census. We read God’s command to Moses, “Take a census of the entire assembly of the Children of Israel according to their families, according to their fathers’ households, by number of names, every male according to their head count…from twenty years of age up” (Num 1:1-3).
Now, men over the age of twenty were of the age fit to go out to war. Moses knows that war is inevitable in the desert; he needed to count the people to know the strength of his troops. It was a matter of life and death. In the second book of Samuel, King David does the same thing as we read there, “David counted the people who were with him and appointed over them officers of thousands and officers of hundreds” (II Sam 18:1). The Talmud, however, has issues with the taking of the census and counting Jews in general. In Masechet Yoma (22b), it proves the prohibition against counting by citing this verse in the Prophet Hosea: “And the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which will neither be measured or counted.” Already in Exodus, we learn of the “sin” of counting Jews from the following verse in chapter 30: “When you take the sum of the children of Israel according to their counting, then each man will give atonement for his soul when you count them; then there will be no plague as you count them” (v.12). If you count, you have to ask to be forgiven for your sin. So don’t count if you don’t have to.
The commentators claim that the counting of the Israelites in the Torah always happened indirectly. For example, they’d count the half shekel tax levied on all Israelites and from that, they’d come up with the total number of adults among the people. Counting Jews was a serious business that brought plague and disaster if done improperly; if done for a reason other than to fulfill God’s direct command. For example, King David was punished for taking a second census of the people later on in the book of Samuel (II Samuel 24:2). God didn’t command this census, rather, David wanted numbers to satisfy his curiosity as he says, “[take the census] so that I may know [the numbers of my warriors].” For this sin, God took the lives of 70,000 of his men and almost destroyed David’s city, Jerusalem.
Those of you who are minyan-goers have probably witnessed our angst as we wait for the tenth person to join us to make up the minyan. As we have seen, Jewish tradition discourages our counting so we use a trick to count: we recite a 10 word verse from Psalms 28 (v.9), hoshia et amecha, u’vareach nachalatecha, ur’em v’nasem ad olam.” This verse has nothing to do with minyan: it just has ten words: if we have one person for each word, we daven.
So we don’t count Jews, or if we do, we do so carefully and only for Divine purposes. And although no reason is given for this prohibition, we can imagine its rationale. Counting people is risky from a spiritual perspective. It can be dehumanizing. We have seen the numbered forearms of concentration camp survivors: the Nazis took away the names and identities of their victims and referred to them by number. You can kill a number; numbers hide personalities, personal histories, and personhood. We have some 300 people in the sanctuary today –but that number tells us very little about what is actually going on here. . Each person in this room is a world onto him/herself. Our tradition teaches us that he who saves a single human being is as if he has saved the whole world. This is looking at the individual from God’s perspective. If each human soul is made in the image of God, then each individual is as important to us as God. We are not defined by the collective: we are defined by the quality of each individual soul.
On the other hand, and this is a very Jewish thing,there is always an “other hand,” we do count Jews, we just do it cleverly. Whether it is by the half shekel tax or reciting verses or demographic studies: we are still counting individual Jews to know who comprises what we call, Jewish community. But I think there is a lesson in that, as well. When we count the ten of the minyan, we are saying, in effect, that each person in the room makes a difference; each individual “counts,” if you will; there is no community without each and every one of them. It is amusing in the minyan when the tenth person walks into the room. We are so grateful that we give that person a position of honor for the morning. But then we all think to ourselves that once the tenth person walks in, everyone suddenly becomes the tenth person. All become equal, all become important, in fact, all become indispensable in making a single unified whole: a minyan, that can now begin the morning prayers.
We count, when we as individuals make a difference for the benefit of the whole community. This week, we have all been reading about President Obama’s recent nomination to the US Supreme Court, Elena Kagan. Whether you are in support or not of Ms. Kagan’s judicial proclivities, I suspect most of you have taken note that Ms. Kagan had a Bat Mitzvah when she was 13 years old. If she is confirmed by the Senate, she will make the third Jewish Supreme Court Justice in an august body of nine. One third of the Supreme Court coming from a people making up less than 2% of the population in this country.
For American Jews, their small numbers do not adequately reflect the out sized contribution they make to our country. One justice among nine, one minyanaire among ten, one mother or father or sibling in a family; one worker in a corporation, on senator among 100. Contributions are made by individuals; individuals make the difference, but they make a difference in community.
So we are uncomfortable counting Jews but we do so all the time. We do so every time our tradition encourages us as individuals, to, as the saying goes, “stand up and be counted;” to go out into the world and do some good. So my father-in -law would say every morning in front of the mirror: "Nu, Chayim, how can you make a difference today in touching other human beings?" We should all ask ourselves the same question every day.
We begin the reading of the fourth book of the Torah this morning, the Book of Numbers. The name comes from the first major theme of the book, numbering the people of Israel, that is, taking a census. We read God’s command to Moses, “Take a census of the entire assembly of the Children of Israel according to their families, according to their fathers’ households, by number of names, every male according to their head count…from twenty years of age up” (Num 1:1-3).
Now, men over the age of twenty were of the age fit to go out to war. Moses knows that war is inevitable in the desert; he needed to count the people to know the strength of his troops. It was a matter of life and death. In the second book of Samuel, King David does the same thing as we read there, “David counted the people who were with him and appointed over them officers of thousands and officers of hundreds” (II Sam 18:1). The Talmud, however, has issues with the taking of the census and counting Jews in general. In Masechet Yoma (22b), it proves the prohibition against counting by citing this verse in the Prophet Hosea: “And the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which will neither be measured or counted.” Already in Exodus, we learn of the “sin” of counting Jews from the following verse in chapter 30: “When you take the sum of the children of Israel according to their counting, then each man will give atonement for his soul when you count them; then there will be no plague as you count them” (v.12). If you count, you have to ask to be forgiven for your sin. So don’t count if you don’t have to.
The commentators claim that the counting of the Israelites in the Torah always happened indirectly. For example, they’d count the half shekel tax levied on all Israelites and from that, they’d come up with the total number of adults among the people. Counting Jews was a serious business that brought plague and disaster if done improperly; if done for a reason other than to fulfill God’s direct command. For example, King David was punished for taking a second census of the people later on in the book of Samuel (II Samuel 24:2). God didn’t command this census, rather, David wanted numbers to satisfy his curiosity as he says, “[take the census] so that I may know [the numbers of my warriors].” For this sin, God took the lives of 70,000 of his men and almost destroyed David’s city, Jerusalem.
Those of you who are minyan-goers have probably witnessed our angst as we wait for the tenth person to join us to make up the minyan. As we have seen, Jewish tradition discourages our counting so we use a trick to count: we recite a 10 word verse from Psalms 28 (v.9), hoshia et amecha, u’vareach nachalatecha, ur’em v’nasem ad olam.” This verse has nothing to do with minyan: it just has ten words: if we have one person for each word, we daven.
So we don’t count Jews, or if we do, we do so carefully and only for Divine purposes. And although no reason is given for this prohibition, we can imagine its rationale. Counting people is risky from a spiritual perspective. It can be dehumanizing. We have seen the numbered forearms of concentration camp survivors: the Nazis took away the names and identities of their victims and referred to them by number. You can kill a number; numbers hide personalities, personal histories, and personhood. We have some 300 people in the sanctuary today –but that number tells us very little about what is actually going on here. . Each person in this room is a world onto him/herself. Our tradition teaches us that he who saves a single human being is as if he has saved the whole world. This is looking at the individual from God’s perspective. If each human soul is made in the image of God, then each individual is as important to us as God. We are not defined by the collective: we are defined by the quality of each individual soul.
On the other hand, and this is a very Jewish thing,there is always an “other hand,” we do count Jews, we just do it cleverly. Whether it is by the half shekel tax or reciting verses or demographic studies: we are still counting individual Jews to know who comprises what we call, Jewish community. But I think there is a lesson in that, as well. When we count the ten of the minyan, we are saying, in effect, that each person in the room makes a difference; each individual “counts,” if you will; there is no community without each and every one of them. It is amusing in the minyan when the tenth person walks into the room. We are so grateful that we give that person a position of honor for the morning. But then we all think to ourselves that once the tenth person walks in, everyone suddenly becomes the tenth person. All become equal, all become important, in fact, all become indispensable in making a single unified whole: a minyan, that can now begin the morning prayers.
We count, when we as individuals make a difference for the benefit of the whole community. This week, we have all been reading about President Obama’s recent nomination to the US Supreme Court, Elena Kagan. Whether you are in support or not of Ms. Kagan’s judicial proclivities, I suspect most of you have taken note that Ms. Kagan had a Bat Mitzvah when she was 13 years old. If she is confirmed by the Senate, she will make the third Jewish Supreme Court Justice in an august body of nine. One third of the Supreme Court coming from a people making up less than 2% of the population in this country.
For American Jews, their small numbers do not adequately reflect the out sized contribution they make to our country. One justice among nine, one minyanaire among ten, one mother or father or sibling in a family; one worker in a corporation, on senator among 100. Contributions are made by individuals; individuals make the difference, but they make a difference in community.
So we are uncomfortable counting Jews but we do so all the time. We do so every time our tradition encourages us as individuals, to, as the saying goes, “stand up and be counted;” to go out into the world and do some good. So my father-in -law would say every morning in front of the mirror: "Nu, Chayim, how can you make a difference today in touching other human beings?" We should all ask ourselves the same question every day.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Food and Behar/Bechukotai
Do you know where your food comes from? I heard a clever discussion by a chabad rabbi once as he pulled out an apple from his bag.
He asked: “why do we say a blessing before we eat this apple? “ Because,” he said, “we need to become conscious of where this piece of fruit comes from.” He then went on to trace the journey of the piece of fruit back to its origins.
He bought the apple at the local super market. But to get it to that market, the grocer had to purchase it from a wholesaler, who had to buy it from the grower. For each of these steps, the apple had to be loaded onto a truck and shipped. Trucks need gasoline and that starts a whole other progression which starts from the oil well, refinery, shipped to the gas station into the truck etc.
But back to the apple. The grower had to harvest the apple; the apple had to be picked by machine or by worker. The tree that produced the apple had to be watered by rain or some form of irrigation, which required pipes and ditches that has its own progression back to the source of water. So this tree is watered, grown on the property of the grower; probably fertilized (often with fertilizer that itself is derived from petroleum, believe it or not) and sprayed with some kind of pesticide (made from chemicals; another progression). But the tree, of course, comes from a seed, but first the ground is plowed and then the seed is planted. Where does the land and the seed come from, asked the rabbi? Land and seed are the miracles; they come from God. Hence, the blessing.
Every piece of fruit in the grocery store has this progression. Sometimes the progressions are even more complicated because summer fruit, in our winter, has to be shipped from the places it grows; delivered by ship or plane, then by truck to the store. But the whole progession begins with the land and a seed and to say the blessing is to acknowledge these God given gifts of land and seed and hence, for all of our food.
In the Birchat Hamazon, the blessing after the meals, we recite: “’and you shall eat and be satisfied and bless the Lord your God for the good land God gave you.’ Blessed are You, God, for the land and for the food.”
In the parasha today, the Israelites are to make an adjustment in their relationship to the land. We read, “For six years you may sow your field and for six years you may prune your vineyard; and you my gather in your crop. But the seventh year shall be a complete rest for the land, a Sabbath for God; your field you shall not sow and your vineyard you shall not prune.” Notice the phrase, the seventh year will be a rest for the land and a Sabbath for God. The land and God are intimately related: in our tradition, you can’t have one without the other. The land (meaning here, the Land of Israel) is a representation of God. The land is alive; within it and from it comes Divine blessing. The land needs to be treated with reverence as we treat God with reverence. God is the source of all life; land is the source of all sustenance for all that is alive.
And there are serious consequences in the Torah for abusing the land and ignoring its blessing. In the second parasha of our combined Torah reading today, we read: “if you will follow My decrees and observe my commandments and perform them; then I will provide your rains in their time, and the land will give its produce and the tree of the field will give its fruit. Your threshing will last until the vintage, and the vintage will last until the sowing; you will eat your bread to satiety and you will dwell securely in your land…..but if you will not listen…your land will not give produce and the tree of the land will not give its fruit.”
If all is good, the Israelites will enjoy wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. Seven species of food: sufficient to support human life in the holy land. If all is not good: no rain, no harvest… famine. From the land flows either life or death.
If land and food is a matter of life and death, shouldn’t we spend some time thinking about it? What is our relationship to the food we eat and the land from which that food is produced? How does what we eat define who we are and the values and traditions we pass down to the next generation? Consider the Passover Seder? Rosh Hashana dinner? Pot roast, gefilte fish, chopped liver or matzah. Your grandmother’s kugel, latkes and kishke and corn beef on rye? Kosher, or not Kosher? How much do we eat? Is it healthful or not? With whom do we eat?
Jews are thinking about food, today, in deeper ways than before. You may not be aware that there is a growing food movement in the Jewish community today especially among the younger members of our community. Much to my surprise, I have caught my own kids watching shows on the various food channels: Iron Chef and the like. They find it fascinating as do millions of people who watch these shows. Cooking and baking and trying new tastes. More so than ever before, children of our congregation are entering schools like Johnson and Wales to become chefs. The Young Judea year program in Israel has a specialty tract on culinary arts, learning to cook and bake using ingredients grown in Israel. There is a Jewish food movement, spearheaded by a new organization called “Hazon,” which as they say seeks “An American Jewish community that’s measurably healthier and more sustainable and an American Jewish community that’s demonstrably playing a role in making the world healthier and more sustainable for all.” One the programs they support is called, “CSA’s” which is an acronym for Community Sustaining Agriculture. CSA’s provide a relationship with a local farmer to grow and sell to us organic vegetables. We pay ahead of time to support the farmer, and the farmer grows and delivers the vegetables in their season, native to local soils. We get a basket of vegetables each week and we take them home, cook them and eat them We support the local farmer; we eat vegetables that don’t need to be transported long distances (using less gasoline, less dependence on foreign oil, less support for tyrannical regimes in the Middle East, less pollution, global warming, less pesticides, fertilizer run off into streams, rivers and oceans…. the whole deal). We are also presented with vegetables we have never heard of nor ever seen before, and that makes things interesting in and of itself. We have a CSA program at the Alliance; the Dollin family signed up and we should be receiving our vegetables soon. I will let you know how they are. I am still learning what okra, bochchoi, chard, kohlrabi, collard greens and kale are. I am a cucumber and lettuce kind of guy but it is never too late to try new things.
We have also prepared a garden here at the synagogue. We designed 6 plots in which different families can grow organic vegetables. You have no idea all the issues that are involved. Fertilizer must come from the manure of animals that have never received hormones or antibiotics. The soil must come from land that has never been subjected to pesticides and/or unnatural fertilizer. Even the two- by- fours we use to mark off the plots and into which goes the soil and manure must be of untreated wood (wood from lumber yards is often treated with arsenic and copper and other unpronounceable chemicals; who knew?). We will have classes on how to create a garden, grow vegetables and then cooking classes to learn how to prepare them for our dinner tables. The idea is to get Jews back in touch with the earth, at least in some way, just as our ancestors were in touch with the fields of the holy land of Israel.
Lots to think about and lots to learn. This garden and our CSA are designed to be fun and designed, more importantly, for us to learn. We invite participation in any or all of it. Keep an eye on our website to find out more.
If God expects us to treat the land with respect and reverence and even awe, we need to learn, in a very personal way, what it takes to bring forth food from land. We have to trace our food back to its source of seed and soil. And perhaps even use our own hands to plant and harvest and cook and eat. And then we can for once recite the prayer with complete kavanah, with intention, "to bless the Lord for the good land He has given us, for the land and for the food."
He asked: “why do we say a blessing before we eat this apple? “ Because,” he said, “we need to become conscious of where this piece of fruit comes from.” He then went on to trace the journey of the piece of fruit back to its origins.
He bought the apple at the local super market. But to get it to that market, the grocer had to purchase it from a wholesaler, who had to buy it from the grower. For each of these steps, the apple had to be loaded onto a truck and shipped. Trucks need gasoline and that starts a whole other progression which starts from the oil well, refinery, shipped to the gas station into the truck etc.
But back to the apple. The grower had to harvest the apple; the apple had to be picked by machine or by worker. The tree that produced the apple had to be watered by rain or some form of irrigation, which required pipes and ditches that has its own progression back to the source of water. So this tree is watered, grown on the property of the grower; probably fertilized (often with fertilizer that itself is derived from petroleum, believe it or not) and sprayed with some kind of pesticide (made from chemicals; another progression). But the tree, of course, comes from a seed, but first the ground is plowed and then the seed is planted. Where does the land and the seed come from, asked the rabbi? Land and seed are the miracles; they come from God. Hence, the blessing.
Every piece of fruit in the grocery store has this progression. Sometimes the progressions are even more complicated because summer fruit, in our winter, has to be shipped from the places it grows; delivered by ship or plane, then by truck to the store. But the whole progession begins with the land and a seed and to say the blessing is to acknowledge these God given gifts of land and seed and hence, for all of our food.
In the Birchat Hamazon, the blessing after the meals, we recite: “’and you shall eat and be satisfied and bless the Lord your God for the good land God gave you.’ Blessed are You, God, for the land and for the food.”
In the parasha today, the Israelites are to make an adjustment in their relationship to the land. We read, “For six years you may sow your field and for six years you may prune your vineyard; and you my gather in your crop. But the seventh year shall be a complete rest for the land, a Sabbath for God; your field you shall not sow and your vineyard you shall not prune.” Notice the phrase, the seventh year will be a rest for the land and a Sabbath for God. The land and God are intimately related: in our tradition, you can’t have one without the other. The land (meaning here, the Land of Israel) is a representation of God. The land is alive; within it and from it comes Divine blessing. The land needs to be treated with reverence as we treat God with reverence. God is the source of all life; land is the source of all sustenance for all that is alive.
And there are serious consequences in the Torah for abusing the land and ignoring its blessing. In the second parasha of our combined Torah reading today, we read: “if you will follow My decrees and observe my commandments and perform them; then I will provide your rains in their time, and the land will give its produce and the tree of the field will give its fruit. Your threshing will last until the vintage, and the vintage will last until the sowing; you will eat your bread to satiety and you will dwell securely in your land…..but if you will not listen…your land will not give produce and the tree of the land will not give its fruit.”
If all is good, the Israelites will enjoy wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. Seven species of food: sufficient to support human life in the holy land. If all is not good: no rain, no harvest… famine. From the land flows either life or death.
If land and food is a matter of life and death, shouldn’t we spend some time thinking about it? What is our relationship to the food we eat and the land from which that food is produced? How does what we eat define who we are and the values and traditions we pass down to the next generation? Consider the Passover Seder? Rosh Hashana dinner? Pot roast, gefilte fish, chopped liver or matzah. Your grandmother’s kugel, latkes and kishke and corn beef on rye? Kosher, or not Kosher? How much do we eat? Is it healthful or not? With whom do we eat?
Jews are thinking about food, today, in deeper ways than before. You may not be aware that there is a growing food movement in the Jewish community today especially among the younger members of our community. Much to my surprise, I have caught my own kids watching shows on the various food channels: Iron Chef and the like. They find it fascinating as do millions of people who watch these shows. Cooking and baking and trying new tastes. More so than ever before, children of our congregation are entering schools like Johnson and Wales to become chefs. The Young Judea year program in Israel has a specialty tract on culinary arts, learning to cook and bake using ingredients grown in Israel. There is a Jewish food movement, spearheaded by a new organization called “Hazon,” which as they say seeks “An American Jewish community that’s measurably healthier and more sustainable and an American Jewish community that’s demonstrably playing a role in making the world healthier and more sustainable for all.” One the programs they support is called, “CSA’s” which is an acronym for Community Sustaining Agriculture. CSA’s provide a relationship with a local farmer to grow and sell to us organic vegetables. We pay ahead of time to support the farmer, and the farmer grows and delivers the vegetables in their season, native to local soils. We get a basket of vegetables each week and we take them home, cook them and eat them We support the local farmer; we eat vegetables that don’t need to be transported long distances (using less gasoline, less dependence on foreign oil, less support for tyrannical regimes in the Middle East, less pollution, global warming, less pesticides, fertilizer run off into streams, rivers and oceans…. the whole deal). We are also presented with vegetables we have never heard of nor ever seen before, and that makes things interesting in and of itself. We have a CSA program at the Alliance; the Dollin family signed up and we should be receiving our vegetables soon. I will let you know how they are. I am still learning what okra, bochchoi, chard, kohlrabi, collard greens and kale are. I am a cucumber and lettuce kind of guy but it is never too late to try new things.
We have also prepared a garden here at the synagogue. We designed 6 plots in which different families can grow organic vegetables. You have no idea all the issues that are involved. Fertilizer must come from the manure of animals that have never received hormones or antibiotics. The soil must come from land that has never been subjected to pesticides and/or unnatural fertilizer. Even the two- by- fours we use to mark off the plots and into which goes the soil and manure must be of untreated wood (wood from lumber yards is often treated with arsenic and copper and other unpronounceable chemicals; who knew?). We will have classes on how to create a garden, grow vegetables and then cooking classes to learn how to prepare them for our dinner tables. The idea is to get Jews back in touch with the earth, at least in some way, just as our ancestors were in touch with the fields of the holy land of Israel.
Lots to think about and lots to learn. This garden and our CSA are designed to be fun and designed, more importantly, for us to learn. We invite participation in any or all of it. Keep an eye on our website to find out more.
If God expects us to treat the land with respect and reverence and even awe, we need to learn, in a very personal way, what it takes to bring forth food from land. We have to trace our food back to its source of seed and soil. And perhaps even use our own hands to plant and harvest and cook and eat. And then we can for once recite the prayer with complete kavanah, with intention, "to bless the Lord for the good land He has given us, for the land and for the food."
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Highlights Message June 2010
Food
One’s mercy must extend to all the oppressed. One must not embarrass or destroy them, for the higher wisdom is spread over all that was created: inanimate, vegetable, animal, and human. For this reason were we warned against desecrating food stuffs ... and in the same way, one must not desecrate anything, for all was created by His wisdom—nor should one uproot a plant, unless there is a need, or kill an animal unless there is a need. (Rav Kook; First Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel)
And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink their wine; they shall also make gardens, and eat their fruit (Amos 11; a messianic vision of Jews returning to their land to plant, grow and harvest their own food).
In the messianic era when the world will be perfected, Jews will return to the land and grow their own food. Today, we are so distant from our food sources that few of us really know where our food comes from, how it is grown, harvested and transported to a city grocery store for us to buy. For the most part, we are unaware of how the animals we eat are raised, transported and slaughtered. There is a growing concern about and interest in food and what we might do to encourage the food industry to provide healthier, more ecologically sound and humane sources of food to feed the 7 billion people in this world, 800 million of whom are undernourished. Jewish tradition demands that we be mindful of food and not abuse the earth from which it comes. In light of these concerns, I thought it might be helpful for us to spend some time thinking about these issues from a Jewish perspective.
We will start our exploration with the creation of a synagogue garden which we will call “Gan Kehilati” (the community garden). Fred Karp, Bob Goldman, Kim Turnbow, Miriam Greenberg and others are heading up a project to create a learning garden just south of the synagogue kitchen. We are providing garden plots for people to rent (for a nominal fee). One plot is reserved as a “teaching plot” for classes and demonstrations. After we grow and harvest the organic vegetables, we will provide cooking classes to teach delicious, healthful (and kosher) ways to prepare them. Much more information will follow. If you are interested in the gardening classes or in helping with the garden, please contact Naomi Kirshner nkirshner@headenver.org or Fred Karp fredkarp@earthlink.net. Keep an eye on our website under “Community/Community Garden,” for up-to-the- minute information about this project. You might also consider reading Michael Pollan’s book Omnivore’s Dilemma for background information.
JCC Maccabi Games
In August 2010, Denver will celebrate the JCC Maccabi Games®, welcoming over 1,500 Jewish athletes ages 12-16 with their families and friends, and more than 1,000 volunteers and 600 host families. This Olympic-style sports competition provides a unique combination of sports, cultural and social activities. From August 1st – 6th, delegates from all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, Israel, and Europe will test their skills in sporting events and experience a journey far beyond athletic competition- inspired with the values of community involvement, teamwork, integrity and pride.
By using sports as the vehicle, the ultimate mission of the games is to cultivate a deeper understanding and appreciation of Jewish values within Jewish teens by enriching their Jewish identity in an informal setting and encouraging their identification with Israel at the same time.
Would you like to get involved in this wonderful event sponsored by our community? Call Naomi Kirshner nkirshner@headenver.org or visit the JCC Maccabi Games website http://www.jccdenver.org/maccabi/.
Have a great summer and see you at the games!
One’s mercy must extend to all the oppressed. One must not embarrass or destroy them, for the higher wisdom is spread over all that was created: inanimate, vegetable, animal, and human. For this reason were we warned against desecrating food stuffs ... and in the same way, one must not desecrate anything, for all was created by His wisdom—nor should one uproot a plant, unless there is a need, or kill an animal unless there is a need. (Rav Kook; First Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel)
And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink their wine; they shall also make gardens, and eat their fruit (Amos 11; a messianic vision of Jews returning to their land to plant, grow and harvest their own food).
In the messianic era when the world will be perfected, Jews will return to the land and grow their own food. Today, we are so distant from our food sources that few of us really know where our food comes from, how it is grown, harvested and transported to a city grocery store for us to buy. For the most part, we are unaware of how the animals we eat are raised, transported and slaughtered. There is a growing concern about and interest in food and what we might do to encourage the food industry to provide healthier, more ecologically sound and humane sources of food to feed the 7 billion people in this world, 800 million of whom are undernourished. Jewish tradition demands that we be mindful of food and not abuse the earth from which it comes. In light of these concerns, I thought it might be helpful for us to spend some time thinking about these issues from a Jewish perspective.
We will start our exploration with the creation of a synagogue garden which we will call “Gan Kehilati” (the community garden). Fred Karp, Bob Goldman, Kim Turnbow, Miriam Greenberg and others are heading up a project to create a learning garden just south of the synagogue kitchen. We are providing garden plots for people to rent (for a nominal fee). One plot is reserved as a “teaching plot” for classes and demonstrations. After we grow and harvest the organic vegetables, we will provide cooking classes to teach delicious, healthful (and kosher) ways to prepare them. Much more information will follow. If you are interested in the gardening classes or in helping with the garden, please contact Naomi Kirshner nkirshner@headenver.org or Fred Karp fredkarp@earthlink.net. Keep an eye on our website under “Community/Community Garden,” for up-to-the- minute information about this project. You might also consider reading Michael Pollan’s book Omnivore’s Dilemma for background information.
JCC Maccabi Games
In August 2010, Denver will celebrate the JCC Maccabi Games®, welcoming over 1,500 Jewish athletes ages 12-16 with their families and friends, and more than 1,000 volunteers and 600 host families. This Olympic-style sports competition provides a unique combination of sports, cultural and social activities. From August 1st – 6th, delegates from all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, Israel, and Europe will test their skills in sporting events and experience a journey far beyond athletic competition- inspired with the values of community involvement, teamwork, integrity and pride.
By using sports as the vehicle, the ultimate mission of the games is to cultivate a deeper understanding and appreciation of Jewish values within Jewish teens by enriching their Jewish identity in an informal setting and encouraging their identification with Israel at the same time.
Would you like to get involved in this wonderful event sponsored by our community? Call Naomi Kirshner nkirshner@headenver.org or visit the JCC Maccabi Games website http://www.jccdenver.org/maccabi/.
Have a great summer and see you at the games!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Works in Progress; Acharei Mot/Kedoshim
I asked a member of the congregation once, “So, how are you doing?” What I was expecting to hear, of course, was “I’m fine, how are you?” But this person said something I hadn’t heard before. He said, "How am I doing? Well, I’m a work in progress.”
A work in progress. When I was younger, I had a sense that we learn through our college years and then we go to work and the learning stops. We might take some management courses or something related to our work, but the bulk of what we know, we learned before age 21 and then we simply go out and live our lives. Perhaps that was why I was surprised when I first learned about “elder hostels.” These are programs that provide adult education classes for seniors on virtually any subject including Jewish studies. I wondered what seniors still wanted to learn that they hadn’t already learned through simply living their lives?
I shouldn’t have been surprised: there is a lot to learn at any age --as long as the mind and soul are active, it changes and develops and grows. Just like anything else that is alive, as soon as we stop growing, we start dying.
We are all works in progress: it doesn’t matter one’s age, our place in life, married, single, parents or grandparents. We are not yet what we need to be and that is true up until the time that we take our very last breath.
Last week’s Torah portion focuses on disease. If an Israelite were found to be leprous, the priest would declare him impure and the leper would be forced outside the camp. The Rabbis understood leprosy as a punishment for the sin of lashon harah; they compared the word: metzorah which means leprosy, to the phrase, motzi shem rah; which means slander. When you demean someone else in speech to a third party, you create a kind of disease in the community that can spread out of control. Lashon harah attacks the very fabric of the community like leprosy attacks the body. Speech can be used in beautiful and constructive ways: poetry, kindness, expressions of love and appreciation. Or it can be used to destroy reputations, sow the seeds of discord, envy, pettiness. Last week’s parasha focuses on what can go wrong in the hearts of people in the community, how Israelites can push God away and give in to their baser instincts.
But then we come to this week’s parasha: Acharei Mot/Kedoshim. Here we see just the opposite. We read of the Yom Kippur service in the Tabernacle. This service represents the human spirit reaching out to God, renouncing sin and using our power of speech for prayer seeking atonement. We read also about our obligation to care for the poor, respect one’s parents, observe the Sabbath, be honest in weights and measure, love one’s neighbor. Here again we see the human spirit aspiring to the good, to the Godly, to what the Torah calls, “kedusha,” holiness.
The question then is raised for each and every Jew, in fact, for every member of the human family: will we stay mired in the diseases of the spirit, to what in us is lowly and petty and driven by our baser instincts? Or will we reach out to God, to all that is the best in us, to what makes us distinctively human, and to what makes us good?
Jewish tradition understands this question to apply, essentially, to every decision we make, every day of our lives. Here is the question in other words: will I move towards God or away from God with what I am about to do right now? Works in progress.
From the second night of Passover to the first night of Shavuot, we count the Omer, 49 days in all. We are today counting the 25th day of the Omer. The Omer is a measure of grain, harvested from the new barley crop and brought to the Temple on the second day of Pesach. The Israelites would then counts 49 days at the end of which, they would bring another measure of grain for sacrifice, but this time from the newly harvested wheat crop. Why 49 days and why barley at the beginning of the period and wheat at the end?
The Rabbis understood Pesach as the time the Israelites left the degradation of Egypt. After 49 days of purification in the desert, they came to Mt Sinai and on the festival of Shavuot, they received the Torah. According to tradition, there were 49 levels of Egyptian impurity that the people had to shake off, one level each day, until they were sufficiently pure to receive the Torah.
Now the first omer offering was of barley which is a coarse grain that was used to feed animals. At the end of the seven weeks, they offered up wheat which is a smoother, softer and a more easily refined grain that was used to make bread eaten by human beings.
Can we not say then that at the beginning of the 49 days, just after the people left Egyptian slavery, they were a courser lot, robbed of their humanity, treated like animals and perhaps, even acting more like animals, baser, more instinctual, more violent and cruel? And that the seven week period was really a period of spiritual and emotional refinement: a gradual control of their baser instincts, a turning towards their better selves; from violence to compassion, from hatred to love, from treating each other like objects to respect, from cowardice to courage, from pettiness and jealousy to loyalty?
That, by the way, is why the Kabbalists attached their notion of the 7 lower sefirot to the 49 days of sefirat ha omer. Each of the seven sefirot represents human qualities to which we aspire: love, respect, compassion, courage, loyalty and so on. Contemplating these sefirot each day encourages us to refine the self. Each day we count, each day we get better. In our tradition, the number 7 represents wholeness: 7x7 or 49, complete wholeness. We don’t just refine ourselves between Pesach and Shavuot, we refine ourselves, throughout our entire life, our whole life long.
So you see, we are all works in progress. There is not a person among us who can’t improve him or herself in some meaningful way every day. It takes the simplest act of self-reflection to see where one needs the most work. God doesn’t expect of us, perfection. But He does expect of us a slow, thoughtful, life-long process of developing our better selves. So what will you work on today? Shavuot is fast approaching; we have no time to waste.
A work in progress. When I was younger, I had a sense that we learn through our college years and then we go to work and the learning stops. We might take some management courses or something related to our work, but the bulk of what we know, we learned before age 21 and then we simply go out and live our lives. Perhaps that was why I was surprised when I first learned about “elder hostels.” These are programs that provide adult education classes for seniors on virtually any subject including Jewish studies. I wondered what seniors still wanted to learn that they hadn’t already learned through simply living their lives?
I shouldn’t have been surprised: there is a lot to learn at any age --as long as the mind and soul are active, it changes and develops and grows. Just like anything else that is alive, as soon as we stop growing, we start dying.
We are all works in progress: it doesn’t matter one’s age, our place in life, married, single, parents or grandparents. We are not yet what we need to be and that is true up until the time that we take our very last breath.
Last week’s Torah portion focuses on disease. If an Israelite were found to be leprous, the priest would declare him impure and the leper would be forced outside the camp. The Rabbis understood leprosy as a punishment for the sin of lashon harah; they compared the word: metzorah which means leprosy, to the phrase, motzi shem rah; which means slander. When you demean someone else in speech to a third party, you create a kind of disease in the community that can spread out of control. Lashon harah attacks the very fabric of the community like leprosy attacks the body. Speech can be used in beautiful and constructive ways: poetry, kindness, expressions of love and appreciation. Or it can be used to destroy reputations, sow the seeds of discord, envy, pettiness. Last week’s parasha focuses on what can go wrong in the hearts of people in the community, how Israelites can push God away and give in to their baser instincts.
But then we come to this week’s parasha: Acharei Mot/Kedoshim. Here we see just the opposite. We read of the Yom Kippur service in the Tabernacle. This service represents the human spirit reaching out to God, renouncing sin and using our power of speech for prayer seeking atonement. We read also about our obligation to care for the poor, respect one’s parents, observe the Sabbath, be honest in weights and measure, love one’s neighbor. Here again we see the human spirit aspiring to the good, to the Godly, to what the Torah calls, “kedusha,” holiness.
The question then is raised for each and every Jew, in fact, for every member of the human family: will we stay mired in the diseases of the spirit, to what in us is lowly and petty and driven by our baser instincts? Or will we reach out to God, to all that is the best in us, to what makes us distinctively human, and to what makes us good?
Jewish tradition understands this question to apply, essentially, to every decision we make, every day of our lives. Here is the question in other words: will I move towards God or away from God with what I am about to do right now? Works in progress.
From the second night of Passover to the first night of Shavuot, we count the Omer, 49 days in all. We are today counting the 25th day of the Omer. The Omer is a measure of grain, harvested from the new barley crop and brought to the Temple on the second day of Pesach. The Israelites would then counts 49 days at the end of which, they would bring another measure of grain for sacrifice, but this time from the newly harvested wheat crop. Why 49 days and why barley at the beginning of the period and wheat at the end?
The Rabbis understood Pesach as the time the Israelites left the degradation of Egypt. After 49 days of purification in the desert, they came to Mt Sinai and on the festival of Shavuot, they received the Torah. According to tradition, there were 49 levels of Egyptian impurity that the people had to shake off, one level each day, until they were sufficiently pure to receive the Torah.
Now the first omer offering was of barley which is a coarse grain that was used to feed animals. At the end of the seven weeks, they offered up wheat which is a smoother, softer and a more easily refined grain that was used to make bread eaten by human beings.
Can we not say then that at the beginning of the 49 days, just after the people left Egyptian slavery, they were a courser lot, robbed of their humanity, treated like animals and perhaps, even acting more like animals, baser, more instinctual, more violent and cruel? And that the seven week period was really a period of spiritual and emotional refinement: a gradual control of their baser instincts, a turning towards their better selves; from violence to compassion, from hatred to love, from treating each other like objects to respect, from cowardice to courage, from pettiness and jealousy to loyalty?
That, by the way, is why the Kabbalists attached their notion of the 7 lower sefirot to the 49 days of sefirat ha omer. Each of the seven sefirot represents human qualities to which we aspire: love, respect, compassion, courage, loyalty and so on. Contemplating these sefirot each day encourages us to refine the self. Each day we count, each day we get better. In our tradition, the number 7 represents wholeness: 7x7 or 49, complete wholeness. We don’t just refine ourselves between Pesach and Shavuot, we refine ourselves, throughout our entire life, our whole life long.
So you see, we are all works in progress. There is not a person among us who can’t improve him or herself in some meaningful way every day. It takes the simplest act of self-reflection to see where one needs the most work. God doesn’t expect of us, perfection. But He does expect of us a slow, thoughtful, life-long process of developing our better selves. So what will you work on today? Shavuot is fast approaching; we have no time to waste.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
