SHELTER OF PEACE

Sermon for Erev Rosh Hashanah 5780

September 29, 2019

Happy New Year!

I’m so glad that everyone is here this evening to celebrate the Jewish New Year. 

However, and I hesitate to tell you this, but if you search carefully through every single word of the Torah, you will not find a single mention of the 1st day of Tishri being Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. 

But please don’t rush off!  I can still assure you we didn’t all get the date mixed up!

Let me try to clarify this confusion:

It is true that the first mention in the Torah of what we now observe as Rosh Hashanah does not characterize it as a new year festival at all. 

Rather, what the Torah says at Leviticus 23:23-24 is this: 

וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר יְהוָ֖ה אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה לֵּאמֹֽר׃

“Adonai spoke to Moses, saying: 

דַּבֵּ֛ר אֶל־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לֵאמֹ֑ר בַּחֹ֨דֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִ֜י בְּאֶחָ֣ד לַחֹ֗דֶשׁ יִהְיֶ֤ה לָכֶם֙ שַׁבָּת֔וֹן זִכְר֥וֹן תְּרוּעָ֖ה

מִקְרָא־קֹֽדֶשׁ׃

“Speak to the Israelite people thus: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with ‘TERU’AH’”  

The word “teru’ah” is translated there in the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh as “loud blasts”.   

And a similar reference in Numbers 29, which is our maftir reading for both mornings of Rosh Hashanah, describes this day as being

מִֽקְרָא־קֹ֙דֶש...י֥וֹם תְּרוּעָ֖ה

“a sacred occasion… a day of TERUAH”

 which the Jewish Publication Society translates there as “a day when the horn is sounded.”

But no mention of these loud blasts --- or of this sounding of the horn --- as being connected with any sort of New Year festival. 

Indeed, you may recall that the very first mitzvah in the Torah that is applicable to the Jewish people as a people is the mitzvah that God proclaims to Moses and Aaron just before that first Passover when we leave Egypt.  And what is that mitzvah?  As it says in Exodus 12:2 – 

הַחֹ֧דֶשׁ הַזֶּ֛ה לָכֶ֖ם רֹ֣אשׁ חֳדָשִׁ֑ים רִאשׁ֥וֹן הוּא֙ לָכֶ֔ם לְחָדְשֵׁ֖י הַשָּׁנָֽה׃

This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.  

And, of course they are talking there about Nisan – the month at the start of spring when we celebrate Passover.  That’s the month that the Torah consistently identifies as the first month of the year.

Admittedly, elsewhere in the Torah, the beginning of every month, Rosh Chodesh, is designated as a semi-holiday.  But, that still leaves us with the question:  Why then is the “Rosh Chodesh” of this seventh month of the Hebrew calendar – the month later known by its Babylonian name “Tishri” – why is the beginning of this seventh month considered a full-scale festival? 

Later commentary in the Talmud identified this first day of the seventh month as being the anniversary of the creation of the world.  Actually, even that is an oversimplification since there is an argument in the Talmud that the world was created on the 25th of Elul and that this 1st day of Tishri is not the birthday of the world, but rather the birthday of humanity (i.e., the sixth day as described in the Creation story of Genesis chapter 1).

But, long story short, ultimately, it became the normative Jewish tradition to treat this seventh month of the Biblical calendar as the start of the year for purposes of counting the number of years since the creation of the world.

Of course, I am assuming that none of us in this room take any of that chronology literally. It is way more than 5780 years since our world was created, at least in the way we define “years.”  But I am also assuming that I don’t have to convince you that the profound lessons which scripture teaches need not lead us to reject our modern understandings of science.

We praise God as the author of Creation in our standard prayers every day of the year.  And on this day when we celebrate the anniversary of Creation itself --- however many billions of years ago that might have actually been --- how much more so are we inspired to pause to reflect on the awesomeness of it all.

The Talmud says that this is the day on which humanity is judged and on which our fates are determined for the year to come.  And, the traditional teaching goes on, since none of us are wholly good or wholly evil, we have another ten days until Yom Kippur to tip the balance ---   through our efforts to atone for our misdeeds and to make things right between ourselves and our fellow creatures and between ourselves and God.

But all that is later gloss on what is actually written in the Torah.

Going back to the Torah’s portrayal of this day as being “zichron teruah” (“commemorated with loud blasts”) or “Yom teruah” (“a day when the horn is sounded”) – descriptions that do not identify this day with the New Year --- why are we making a big deal out of this day? 

Or to put it in other words, if Tishrei is the seventh month and not the first month, what’s with all the shofar blasts?

If we go back to the Torah, in its own terms, at the time of its own writing,  the horn blasts of the first day of the seventh month --- and the purification rituals of Yom Kippur --- all of these are just preliminary steps leading up to the big day – the full moon of the seventh month --- The holiday known as Chag Hasukkot – The Festival of Booths.  Indeed, later on in the Talmud, Sukkot is simply called “He-Chag” – “The Festival” par excellence.

Now, I know you’re all here tonight because it’s Rosh Hashanah, not because we’re anticipating Sukkot which starts two weeks from tonight.    

But, even as we recite the traditional prayers of Rosh Hashanah tonight and tomorrow and the day after, and even as we recite the traditional penitential prayers of Yom Kippur ten days from now --- and even as we recite our prayers throughout every day of the year --- the image of the sukkah is never far from our consciences.

During the entire month of Elul and throughout the High Holidays, it is traditional to recite Psalm 27. 

And in Psalm 27, verse 5 we have this poignant image:

כִּ֤י יִצְפְּנֵ֨נִי ׀ בְּסֻכֹּה֮ בְּי֪וֹם רָ֫עָ֥ה יַ֭סְתִּרֵנִי בְּסֵ֣תֶר אָהֳל֑וֹ בְּ֝צ֗וּר יְרוֹמְמֵֽנִי׃

“For God’s sukkah will shelter me in days of evil; God’s tent will conceal me, raising me high upon a rock.[1]”   

And every evening of the year, in the Hashkivenu blessing, our prayer that we be safe from any and all dangers that may lurk in the night, we ask: 

וּפְרוֹשׂ עָלֵינוּ סֻכַּת שְׁלוֹמֶךָ

 (“ufros aleynu sukkat shelomekha”)

“Spread over us the sukkah of Your peace.”

What is a sukkah – it’s a flimsy shelter at best.  Susceptible to wind and rain, open to the elements.  A couple of weeks from now many of us will spend some time in the sukkah, even if just for the few moments of reciting a couple of blessings and sampling some wine or grape juice and challah.  The ones among us more ambitious in their piety may eat some meals in a sukkah or even sleep in it.

Tradition invites us to think of it as our temporary home.

But thinking of this precarious structure as a home sensitizes us to the fact that many people are without sturdy homes.  

One such poor individual here in Duluth tried to warm himself on a cold night just a few weeks ago by dwelling in the sukkah belonging to Adas Israel Congregation and starting a fire.  It appears that this homeless man was also suffering from mental illness that clouded his judgment.  Supposedly, when the fire got out of control he tried to put it out by spitting on it; then walked away --- in panic, in confusion, in despair – it’s hard to say.  Admittedly, it’s hard to know definitively what may or may not have been going through his mind.

The incident has left all of us shaken.  We live in a particular period in history when hate crimes have been on the rise, including hate crimes against religious and racial minorities --- we saw this happen in the past year to synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, to Mosques in Christchurch, and – not long before that – to an African-American church in Charleston.

When Adas Israel burnt down many of us first thought (dare I say “hoped”) that it was an electrical fire.  Then, when we heard that a suspect had been arrested and charged with arson, we feared the worst.  If it was a hate crime, then that would fit in with the scary picture that we may have in our heads if we spend too much time obsessing on social media and tabloid news.

Yes, there are real security issues for synagogues – and for society in general – to address in this age when there is too much hatred in the air and too many guns on the street.  And I know that your Temple Israel Board of Trustees is focused on addressing those concerns.

But still, that is BY NO MEANS the whole story.  The bigger story, the more important story --- is that love conquers hate and I’ll be damned if I ever would believe that there isn’t more love than hate in this room, in this city, in this state, in this country, and in this world.

As for the case at hand, our hearts go out to our friends and neighbors at Adas Israel Congregation.

And we pray that as we mark this holy day of Rosh Hashanah 5780, and as we live out each day of our lives, that we remember those who are homeless, that we remember those who are in need, and that we open our hearts to God and one another.

That is ultimately what Rosh Hashanah is all about.  That is ultimately what Yom Kippur is all about.  That is ultimately what Sukkot is all about.

That, my friends, is ultimately what life is all about.

Lshanah tovah tikatevu

May all of us be inscribed in the book of life and may it be a shanah tovah umetukah, a new year of goodness and sweetness, for all of us, for all Israel, and for all the world.

© Rabbi David Steinberg (2019/5780)

[1] Translation by Rabbi Ron Aigen

�

LOYALTY OATH

(Dvar Torah given at Temple Israel on Friday evening 8/23/19)

Thoughts on Ekev (5779/2019)

(Deut. 7:12 – 11:25)

Our Torah portion this Shabbat, Parashat Ekev, includes some praise-filled poetry describing the Eretz Yisra’el/ the Land of Israel.  As it says in Deuteronomy 8: 7-10:

כִּי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, מְבִיאֲךָ אֶל-אֶרֶץ טוֹבָה: 

7 For the Eternal your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey; 9 a land where you may eat food without stint, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper. 10 When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Eternal your God for the good land which [God] has given you. (Deut. 8: 7-10)

            And later on in Parashat Ekev, at Deuteronomy 11: 11-12, Torah teaches –

11 And the land you are about to cross into and possess, a land of hills and valleys, soaks up its water from the rains of heaven. 12 It is a land which the Eternal your God looks after; the eyes of the Eternal your God are always upon it, from year's beginning to year's end. 13 If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the Eternal your God and serving [God] with all your heart and soul, 14 I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil — 15 I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle — and thus you shall eat your fill.

            For the Jewish people, our ties to that land extend back thousands of years, and Eretz Yisra’el has been a focus of our religious and cultural identity from generation to generation  -- ledor vador ---  in all the lands of our dispersion  -- from Egypt to India; from Lithuania to Minnesota.

            We don’t worship the land of Israel. We don’t turn it into an idol.  Rather, we see it --- whether we are God-believing Jews or Atheist Jews or anything in between --- as the place in which the Jewish people made its home in antiquity; the place from which we were exiled first by Babylonians and later by Romans; and the place where we re-entered history as a sovereign nation with the rise of modern Zionism.  

            The political Zionism of Theodor Herzl is certainly, in part, a product of the culture of nineteenth century Europe – a Europe that gave birth to many nationalist movements.  And the same can be said about modern Palestinian nationalism on the part of Arab residents of the region.   Before modern Zionism, Jews believed that the return to the land would only come with the arrival of Messianic Days.  Before modern Palestinian nationalism, Arabs in the historic Land of Israel saw themselves mainly as residents of their local towns, or as members of the worldwide religious Muslim world that was born in the Arabian peninsula. 

            As for Israel – aka -- Palestine, both peoples have compelling narratives connecting us to the same land, which is why it ought to be a no-brainer that compromise is needed.  The content of such compromise is well understand by both the Israeli leadership and the Palestinian Authority leadership:  Two states – Israel and Palestine – living side by side in peace, with a shared capital in Jerusalem, and with borders based on the 1949 armistice lines as adjusted by mutually agreed upon land swaps that would put some Israeli settlements near the green line into Israel and some Israeli land into Palestine.

            Both Israel’s political leaders and the Palestinian Authority’s leadership have missed many opportunities over the years to close this deal.

             And into this morass, lumbers in  --- on one side  -- BDS supporters like Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib --- and – crashing in on the other side --  that bull in a China shop – President Donald Trump.

            Representatives Omar and Tlaib support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.  BDS undermines the possibility of achieving a two-State solution for the Israelis and Palestinians by failing to acknowledge that Jews are an indigenous people to the Land of Israel, and by failing to acknowledge that Zionism is a movement not of European colonialism but rather of national liberation.  But at the same time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is equally hard at work undermining the possibility of achieving a two-state solution through its continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

            Omar and Tlaib were planning to visit the region this month, ostensibly on a fact-finding mission in their roles as members of the U.S. House of Representatives.  Their agenda pointedly referred to their destination as simply “Palestine” with no mention of “Israel.”  Chances are, their visit would have created media soundbites critical of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. 

            The Israeli Knesset two years ago had passed a controversial law barring entry to Israel of supporters of BDS, but Israel’s Ambassador to the United States had assured the U.S. government that Omar and Tlaib would be admitted nonetheless out of respect for the role of the United States Congress. 

            But then Trump intervened via presidential Tweet all but daring Israel to bar Omar and Tlaib or otherwise appear “weak.”

            So, the Israelis changed course and barred Omar and Tlaib.  Then Tlaib petitioned Israel to be allowed to make a personal visit to her grandmother in the West Bank, promising not to turn the visit into a political stunt.  Israel said yes.  But then Tlaib, no doubt succumbing to pressure from her erstwhile allies, herself changed course and said she wouldn’t go visit her grandmother after all if she had to refrain during her family visit from calling for boycotts of Israel.

            That’s where things stood on Tuesday.  A total SNAFU (If you don’t know what that acronym stands for, ask your neighbor.)

--------------------------------------------

            And then, not content to leave bad enough alone, President Trump on Tuesday decided he wanted to say more about the Omar-Tlaib affair.   He declared as follows:

“I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”[1]

             This triggered widespread outrage and a certain degree of confusion –As Avi Mayer, the Assistant Executive Director and Managing Director of Global Communications at the American Jewish Committee (AJC), quipped later that day on Twitter:

“Much as I enjoy the Talmudic debates around that age-old question—"to whom is the President of the United States accusing Jews of being disloyal?"—let us take a moment to reflect on how insane it is that we have to discuss this at all.”[2]

 The following day Trump clarified what he had meant.  In a statement from the White house he said:  

“If you want to vote Democrat, you are being very disloyal to Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel,”[3]

             Many people across the political spectrum have been condemning Trump’s remarks as anti-Semitic because Trump appears to be saying that American Jews are more loyal to the State of Israel than to the United States – or at least more loyal to the State of Israel than to Donald J. Trump.  

            Ironically, if you listen closely, what Trump really was saying was that American Jews – at least the vast majority of American Jews who typically vote Democrat – are not strong enough in their dual loyalties.

            Supporters of Trump – including many Israeli Jews and some American Jews – shake their heads and wonder --- what’s the problem here?  Don’t those unknowledgeable disloyal American Jewish Democrats understand that Trump is the best friend Israel has ever had in terms of his support of the Netanyahu government, his move of the American embassy to Jerusalem and his recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights?

            I’ll say this:  As an American Jew – the only undivided loyalty I have is to God as I understand God – or, in more humanistic terms --- the only undivided loyalty I have is to the dictates of my own conscience.  That, at any rate is how I understand teachings like those we find in this week’s parasha where it says ---

אֶת־יְהוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ תִּירָ֖א אֹת֣וֹ תַעֲבֹ֑ד וּב֣וֹ תִדְבָּ֔ק וּבִשְׁמ֖וֹ תִּשָּׁבֵֽעַ׃

You shall revere the Eternal your God: it is only [God] that you shall worship, to God shall you hold fast, and by God’s name shall you swear.  (Deut. 10:20)

            As for worldly, temporal loyalties --- I am loyal to the United States of America – or as we say in the words of the pledge of allegiance to our flag – “to the republic for which it stands”. 

            Indeed, as we learn in the Talmud --- “Dina de malchuta dina” – “the law of the state is the law”. 

            At the same time I am loyal to the principal of “Ahavat Yisrael” – Love of our fellow Jews – and this certainly includes the majority of the world’s Jewish population who live today in the State of Israel.  Though I’m not a citizen of the State of Israel I am deeply concerned for its welfare and security.  And I am certain that both will be strengthened by achieving a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the establishment of Two States for Two Peoples. 

            So, I’m not so concerned  -- and I don’t think any of us need to be so concerned --  about accusations of dual loyalty – or as in this week’s bizarre turn of events -- of accusations of not being dual enough in our loyalty.

            No, what really is upsetting, and counter-productive and just overall un=American  -- is President Trump’s continual efforts to promote divisiveness and intolerance in our country within the American Jewish community and among Americans generally.

            Danny Maseng, who is the composer of many wonderful Jewish liturgical settings, including an arrangement of Mah Tovu that our Temple choir sings on the High Holidays, wrote a fiery public post the other day on Facebook.  Here’s what he had to say in response to the President’s remarks this week about American Jews who vote for Democrats:

            And I apologize in advance – it is indeed more polemical than would typically be my own style of expression – and yet, the times call for such words.

            So here’s Danny Maseng’s facebook post. It’s entitled “As a Jew”:

As a Jew

Since you called me out as a Jew, Mr. President, since you thought to call me disloyal or lacking knowledge by not voting for you, I’d like to respond to you personally, even though I have no illusions you will read this.
As a Jew, Mr. President, I am commanded to love the stranger who dwells among us no less than thirty-six times in the Bible you claim to treasure. I am commanded to have one law for the stranger and the citizen. No exceptions.
As a Jew, Mr. President, I am commanded to pay my employees on time, including undocumented workers at casinos, construction sites, or golf courses.
As a Jew, I am commanded to repay bank loans and investors.
As a Jew, I am commanded to never bear false witness.
As a Jew, Mr. President, I am commanded to guard my tongue and speak no evil.
As a Jew, Mr. President, I am commanded to never embarrass my fellow human being in public, lest I be accused of spilling their blood – including Ted Cruz or the late Senator and war hero, John McCain.
As a Jew, Mr. President, I take great offense in my president attacking Denmark, a country that gallantly saved its Jews from the Nazis, while most of Europe fell asleep.
As a Jew, Mr. President, I take umbrage in my Grandfather, the sainted Dr. Rabbi Harry S. Davidowitz, who inhaled poison gas in the trenches of WWI as a US Army chaplain, being called disloyal because he voted Democrat.
As a Jew, born and raised in Israel, I take offense at you calling me disloyal to America AND to Israel because I oppose your inept, ghoulish, uncouth, deceitful, inhumane farce of leadership. How many tours of duty have you performed for Israel during wartime? Or, for that sake, the USA?
As a Jew, Mr. President, I reserve the right to oppose Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib (neither of whom called upon the help of a former KGB operative to help them in their election to office), while simultaneously condemning your divisive, racist rants and policies.
As a Jew who has proud Republican family members who I love and cherish, I am ashamed of what you have done to the Republican party; to conservative ideals – even if I do not share all of those ideals.
As a Jew whose Christian uncle fought heroically at the Battle of the Bulge for our country and for the salvation of Europe – I am ashamed by the mockery you visit upon his sacrifice.
As the son of a Christian pilot, later converted to Judaism, who led American pilots to glorious victory over Nazi Germany, I am outraged by your embrace of neo-Nazi’s and racists in America (that same pilot, who became a squadron commander in the Israeli Air Force, and fought for Israel’s independence).
As a Jew, I am disgraced by your fawning adoration of the worst dictators of our century – you violate Christian and Jewish values by doing so.
As a Jew; as a well-informed Jew who loves and cares deeply for Israel and for America, I condemn you and call you out for the divisive fool, the ogre, the ghoul that you are.
May my soul not enter your council, let me not join your assembly.[4]

(words of Danny Maseng)

---------------

So, this is where we are this Shabbat – the second of the Seven Sabbaths of Comfort and Consolation leading towards Rosh Hashanah. 

We cannot give up the hope for extremism on all sides to be defeated.

We cannot give up the hope for mutual respect and compromise to come to ascendancy in our own country, in Israel/Palestine and around the world.

Parashat Ekev describes God’s relationship to the Land of Israel by saying:

It is a land which the Eternal your God looks after; the eyes of the Eternal your God are always upon it, from year's beginning to year's end.

May that divine providence be over not just our spiritual homeland of Israel -- but also over these United States of America and over all the world – working its way through we the people.

Let us not let divisiveness and hate stand in the way.

Shabbat shalom.

(C) Rabbi David Steinberg

August 2019/ Av 5779

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/us/politics/trump-jewish-voters.html?module=inline

[2] https://twitter.com/AviMayer/status/1163954559888347136

[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-doubles-down-calling-jewish-democrats-disloyal-israel-n1044861

[4] https://www.facebook.com/danny.maseng/posts/10216795961544980

THE VISION THING

Thoughts on Shabbat Chazon (5779/2019)

[Torah portion: Devarim (Deut. 3:23 – 7:11)]

 [I shared the following dvar torah with the congregation on Friday evening 8/9/19, the start of Zippy’s bat mitzvah weekend.]

This Shabbat is traditionally known as Shabbat Chazon – “The Sabbath of Vision” after the first phrase in tomorrow morning’s Haftarah:

א  חֲזוֹן, יְשַׁעְיָהוּ בֶן-אָמוֹץ, אֲשֶׁר חָזָה…

1 The vision (“chazon”) of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he envisioned (“chazah”) concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

ב  שִׁמְעוּ שָׁמַיִם וְהַאֲזִינִי אֶרֶץ, כִּי יְהוָה דִּבֵּר:  בָּנִים גִּדַּלְתִּי וְרוֹמַמְתִּי, וְהֵם פָּשְׁעוּ בִי.

2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Eternal has spoken: Children I have reared, and brought up, and they have rebelled against Me.

(Isaiah 1: 1-2)

Now, I don’t know how rebellious a child Zippy has or hasn’t been towards her parents in the first 13 years of her life.  However, I think it’s safe to say that with regard to her Jewish heritage she has embraced it rather than rebelled from it. All of us here at Temple Israel are so proud of Zippy for her diligence and thoughtfulness and dedication that has brought her and her family to this happy occasion. And I for one have confidence that, to the extent that Zippy may be rebellious in her future life--  it will be righteous rebelliousness on behalf of creating a better world.

As for Isaiah’s vision of the rebellious children of Israel, the reason Zippy will be chanting those particular words in the haftarah tomorrow morning is because the Shabbat of Torah portion Devarim is always the Shabbat immediately preceding the observance of Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av.  The Mishnah teaches that the 9th of Av was the date of a whole slew of calamities in Jewish history, including the destruction of both the first Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE. 

Shabbat this week falls exactly on the 9th of Av but our tradition is that the joyfulness, peace, thanksgiving and hope of Shabbat trumps the mourning and sadness of Tisha B’Av, so, those who observe Tisha B’Av will not begin doing so until tomorrow evening when Shabbat ends. 

And, admittedly, even when it doesn’t coincide with Shabbat, the prescribed sadness of Tisha B’Av doesn’t resonate all that much with many of us.

The Talmud teaches that the second Temple was destroyed because Israelite society of the time was filled with “sinat chinam” (“causeless hatred”)[1] and traditional Jewish liturgy asserts that we were exiled from the Land “mipnei chata’eynu” (“because of our sins.”).[2]  That sort of “blame the victim” theology is generally repugnant to many of us. 

But nevertheless, when we try to put this all into a contemporary context – isn’t our own American society today engulfed with sinat chinam/ causeless hatred?  And, in particular, hatred of would be asylum seekers and migrants fleeing violence and abject poverty in search of a better and safer life here in this country?

Indeed, the images of national calamity and starving refugees that we find in Megillat Eicha/ The Book of Lamentations and in other liturgy of Tisha B’Av – these images resonate this year. 

Here’s an excerpt from an article from today’s edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer that my friend and colleague Rabbi Shawn Zevit shared on social media today:,

The article is entitled: “For Jewish Groups In Philly Protesting Trump’s Treatment Of Migrants, The Spiritual Is Political.”

I’ll share a short excerpt:

“As President Donald Trump continues to toughen his policies toward immigrants, particularly those who mass at the southwest border, Jews in the Philadelphia area and across the country are escalating their protests and public actions to levels that, some say, have not been seen since the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

“They’ve become an increasingly visible presence, helmed nationally by such newborn Jewish coalitions as Never Again Action, formed in June, as well as older groups like the human-rights organization T’ruah.

“Many of them will be participating in a Jewish-run vigil at the Liberty Bell on Sunday. It will coincide with the fast of Tisha B’Av, commemorating the destruction of the Holy Temples, and use the fast’s liturgy to raise awareness of the tortured journey of today’s asylum-seekers.”[3]

Here in Minnesota, there will be an action taking place in Elk River on Sunday evening that I plan to attend.  What is going to be happening is that at 7:30 p.m. this Sunday, as Tisha B’Av draws to a close, a number of Minnesota and national Jewish groups will be gathering in Elk River, Minnesota, outside the  Sherburne County Jail, which is where the largest number of ICE detainees are held in our state while they await trial.

The description of the event --- which you can find on Facebook[4] – goes on to say:

“Join us in Elk River at 7:30 PM for peaceful, lawful assembly, with a focus on Jewish ritual. We will pray, chant Eicha, and blow the shofar, calling us in to action, advocacy and solidarity, demonstrating publicly that the Jewish community will not turn its back on refugees arriving in our country and our immigrant neighbors already here […]

After a few more logistical details it says…

“The immigrant-led organization United We Dream is asking allies to hold vigils and protests outside Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) office nationwide. On Tisha B’Av (August 11, 2019), NCJW, T’ruah, Bend the Arc, the RAC and J Street are partnering to coordinate Jewish vigils and protests nationwide, demanding an end to this unfolding modern-day catastrophe.”

And on the website for Truah – which is an organization of North American rabbis from all streams of Judaism concerned with human rights issues --- you can find the following background information:

“Tisha B’Av is a day of mourning for the plight of our refugee ancestors. On this Jewish day of mourning, we cannot ignore the cries of those whose tragedy is right before us, the many immigrants and asylum seekers who are being treated inhumanely by the Trump administration. We need to demonstrate publicly that the Jewish community will not turn its back on refugees arriving in our country and our immigrant neighbors already here.”[5] 

***************

 The kipah I’m wearing tonight is from El Paso, Texas.

[Reads text on inside of kipah which has the English and Hebrew names and dates for the Bar Mitzvah of Aaron Rosendorf in 2017.]

So, my good friend, New Mexico State University Las Cruces History Professor Neal Rosendorf, the father of Aaron -- whose bar mitzvah I was thrilled to attend in El Paso two years ago --- my good friend Neal was lovingly haranguing me a couple of weeks ago about how absolutely critical it is for all of us to stand up to the cruel, inhumane immigration and asylum policies of our current presidential administration.

I was frankly a little annoyed and exasperated when Neal insisted on texting me photos of harsh conditions in ICE detention camps near El Paso which he himself had photographed. 

And I was discomfited when Neal hectored me wanting to make sure that I was reading closely enough all of his many tweets on Twitter on the subject.

And, in the last sentence of a long text message he sent me on July 30th he said, and I quote,

“What are you doing, period, to address the central moral issue of our time?”

And he followed that up the next morning by texting me:

“Nota bene, that last message is meant more as a call to arms than a rebuke – although I will not underplay its pointedly admonitory tone.  You have considerable moral authority and convening power, and a concomitant responsibility to deploy them.  Join the fight.  Lives, and the soul of America, depend on it.”

Phew …

Okay – so I decided not to respond while I took some time to cool off. 

But then, only three days later, came the terrorist attack in El Paso by one of our fellow Americans who decided that shooting up a Walmart in pursuit of an immigrant-free America was a noble cause.   The terrorist reportedly claims that his repugnant ideas – which he posted on the internet twenty minutes before committing mass murder --- preceded any policy enactments of the current presidential administration.  But the terrorist’s words – decrying a so-called “invasion” on our southern border -- echoed those of our Commander-in-Chief.

So, last Saturday afternoon, once I learned about the shootings in El Paso, I put aside any annoyance I had with my friend Neal and I contacted him to make sure that he and his family were okay

AND to tell him that I appreciated his passion for justice on this issue

AND to assure him that I do in fact speak about the immigration crisis in my work as a rabbi

            -- as in fact I am doing in speaking to all of you right now.

********************************************

Tisha B’Av this year is as relevant as it has ever been because sinat chinam (“causeless hatred”) is running amok just as our tradition teaches was the case in the land of Israel in the year 70 of the common era.

So here in the year 2019 of the common era, let’s counter sinat chinam / causeless hatred – with ahavat chinam --- causeless love ---

Love that requires no justification. 

Love of our neighbors and love of the stranger.

The sort of love and compassion that we strive to cultivate in our families and in our communities, including the community that comprises this holy congregation of Temple Israel --- and the worldwide fellowship of Am Yisra’el/ The Jewish people.

Together, as Jews and our allies committed to Tikkun Olam/ the repair of the world, with God’s help, may we achieve that Chazon – that Vision – of Isaiah which Zippy will chant about in her haftarah tomorrow morning: 

Learn to do good.
Devote yourselves to justice;
Aid the wronged.
Uphold the rights of the orphan;
Defend the cause of the widow.

"Come, let us reach an understanding,

--declares the Eternal--

Be your sins like crimson,
They can turn snow-white;
Be they red as dyed wool,
They can become like fleece."

If, then, you agree and give heed,
You will eat the good things of the earth;

[…]

After that you shall be called
City of Righteousness, Faithful City."[6]

Shabbat Shalom.

© Rabbi David Steinberg

Av 5779/ August 2019

[1] Yoma 9b

[2] See, e.g., Koren Siddur Nusach Ashkenaz edited by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (musaf Amidah pp. 812-813)

[3] https://www.inquirer.com/news/jewish-immigration-protests-ice-spiritual-20190809.html?fbclid=IwAR1U7zScNh7YdKvMX3_b1tDAE7PlyoiyFdDtBCwqc1H4_c7S6Z1m-ZAu_cQ

[4] https://www.facebook.com/events/2321854877903710/

[5] https://www.truah.org/tisha-bav-jews-say-closethecamps/

[6] Isaiah 1: 17-19, 26b

REMARKS AT RALLY FOR MIGRANTS

Temple Israel was one of the faith communities that participated in a walk and vigil on Sunday, June 23, 2019. Here is a link to a news story about the event: https://www.wdio.com/news/migrant-policy-awareness-twin-ports-interfaith/5399983/

Various local faith community leaders were invited to share brief statements. Here is the statement that I shared:

 The Torah in Exodus 12:38 reports that when the children of Israel left Egypt to journey to the Promised Land “a mixed multitude went up with them.”  It’s hard not to see a parallel between the mixed multitude who wanted to join up with the Israelites in the time of the Book of Exodus and the mixed multitude of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who want to come to the United States in our own day and who seek a path towards citizenship. Once we get past the xenophobic tweets of those who would falsely brand them as rapists, terrorists and drug smugglers, we realize that most of those who yearn to come to our country are motivated by the same forces that brought so many of our own ancestors here: The search for a safer and better life. We in the Jewish community can identify with them because we too are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants.

THE ROADIES DON'T MIND

(Dvar Torah on Parashat Bemidbar, Numbers 1:1 – 4:20)

[I’m currently serving on the Board of Directors of my professional association, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. Earlier this month I was invited to give the dvar torah for our Board meeting in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. Here’s what I shared with my colleagues]

            As you all surely know, the Israel and Diaspora Torah reading cycles are currently divergent because of 8th day of Passover having fallen on Shabbat this year.  In my congregation we are following the Israel cycle so we did Parshat Bemidbar last Shabbat and will do Parashat Naso this coming Shabbat.  But since Parashat Bemidbar is the official Diaspora reading for this week I’m hoping it will be okay for me to share some of what I wrote about for last Shabbat.

            When Parashat Bemidbar comes around each year I think of the singer Jackson Browne. In his classic album from 1978 entitled “Running on Empty” (and chas vechalilah[1] that any of us at the moment should feel that we are running on empty…)  --- in that album Jackson Browne has a song called  “The Load Out”.

            And what does “The Load Out” have to do with Parashat Bemidbar? Well, when I recite the lyrics to you right now, wherever Jackson Browne refers to “roadies” just substitute in your mind the word “Levites” and you’ll see what I mean[2]:

Now the seats are all empty
Let the roadies take the stage
Pack it up and tear it down
They're the first to come and last to leave
Working for that minimum wage
They'll set it up in another town
Tonight the people were so fine
They waited there in line
And when they got up on their feet they made the show
And that was sweet,
But I can hear the sound
Of slamming doors and folding chairs
And that's a sound they'll never know

Now roll them cases out and lift them amps
Haul them trusses down and ge t'em up them ramps
'Cause when it comes to moving me
You know you guys are the champs
But when that last guitar's been packed away
You know that I still want to play
So just make sure you got it all set to go
Before you come for my piano

But the band's on the bus
And they're waiting to go
We've got to drive all night and do a show in Chicago
Or Detroit, I don't know
We do so many shows in a row
And these towns all look the same
We just pass the time in our hotel rooms
And wander 'round backstage
Till those lights come up and we hear that crowd
And we remember why we came

Now we got country and western on the bus
R&B, we got disco in eight tracks and cassettes in stereo
We've got rural scenes and magazines
And We've got truckers on the cb
We've got Richard Pryor on the video
We got time to think of the ones we love
While the miles roll away
But the only time that seems too short
Is the time that we get to play

People you've got the power over what we do
You can sit there and wait
Or you can pull us through
Come along, sing the song
You know you can't go wrong
'Cause when that morning sun comes beating down
You're going to wake up in your town
But we'll be scheduled to appear
A thousand miles away from here[3]

So that’s Jackson Browne’s ode to the Roadies.

And here’s Parashat Bemidbar’s ode to the Levites: 

וְאַתָּה הַפְקֵד אֶת-הַלְוִיִּם עַל-מִשְׁכַּן הָעֵדֻת וְעַל כָּל-כֵּלָיו, וְעַל כָּל-אֲשֶׁר-לוֹ--הֵמָּה יִשְׂאוּ אֶת-הַמִּשְׁכָּן וְאֶת-כָּל-כֵּלָיו, וְהֵם יְשָׁרְתֻהוּ; וְסָבִיב לַמִּשְׁכָּן, יַחֲנוּ. 

And you shall appoint the Levites over the Tabernacle of the Testimony, all its furnishings, and everything that pertains to it: they shall carry the Tabernacle and all its furnishings, and they shall tend it; and they shall camp around the Tabernacle.

            That’s what it says in Numbers 1:50.  

            Later in the parasha we have descriptions of the specific porterage duties of the three Levite clans – the Kohathites, the Gershonites, and the Merrarites.  

            The description of the duties of the Kohathite clan has a prominent place, since it forms the conclusion of Parashat Bemidbar.   

            Here’s what the Torah says about the particular job of the Kohathite clan within the tribe of Levi:  Their job is to carry on their shoulders all of the holiest objects in the Israelite camp whenever the camp would journey onwards (or, to use Jackson Brownian metaphors – whenever the band would be taking its show to the next town on its tour).  For Jackson Browne’s band that would include the amps, the guitars, the lights, the chairs and that holy of holies – the piano.  For the Israelites it would include the ark, and the tablets within the ark, and the furniture and utensils used in the rituals of the Tabernacle.

            Earlier in the parasha, the text had specified that the Kohathites don’t start transporting those holy objects until after Aaron and his sons have dismantled them and wrapped them up.

And now, in the very last verses of the parasha, Numbers 4: 17-20--- we get a couple of portentous warnings:

יז וַיְדַבֵּר יְ-ה-וָ-ה, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל-אַהֲרֹן לֵאמֹר.  יח אַל-תַּכְרִיתוּ, אֶת-שֵׁבֶט מִשְׁפְּחֹת הַקְּהָתִי, מִתּוֹךְ, הַלְוִיִּם.  יט וְזֹאת עֲשׂוּ לָהֶם, וְחָיוּ וְלֹא יָמֻתוּ, בְּגִשְׁתָּם, אֶת-קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים:  אַהֲרֹן וּבָנָיו, יָבֹאוּ, וְשָׂמוּ אוֹתָם אִישׁ אִישׁ עַל-עֲבֹדָתוֹ, וְאֶל-מַשָּׂאוֹ.  כ וְלֹא-יָבֹאוּ לִרְאוֹת כְּבַלַּע אֶת-הַקֹּדֶשׁ, וָמֵתוּ.  {פ}

Adonai spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: Do not let the group of Kohathite clans be cut off from among [the rest of] the Levites. Do this with them, that they may live and not die when they approach the most sacred objects: let Aaron and his sons go in and assign each of them to his duties and to his porterage. But let not [the Kohathites] go inside and witness the dismantling of the sanctuary, lest they die.

            We should first note here that the Hebrew phrase in Numbers 4:20 --- כְּבַלַּע אֶת-הַקֹּדֶשׁ (“kevala et hakodesh”) – translated in Plaut/JPS as “the dismantling of the sanctuary” could more literally be translated as “the swallowing up of the Holy.”  Others translate the verb in this context as “cover up” or “wrap up.”

What’s going on here?  Why can’t the Kohathites look at the holy objects while they are being dismantled or covered or wrapped or swallowed up?  Why is it critical that Moses and Aaron take special care to make sure that the Kohathites don’t get “cut off” from the rest of their fellow Levites?

            Traditional and contemporary commentators offer various explanations.  However, for me, the view of the 19th century German commentator Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch resonates most strongly.

            Hirsch offers this explanation:

“If we are not in error, the intent of this prohibition is that the sacred things should remain to their bearers ideational concepts, not objects of physical perception, so that these individuals should be inspired all the more by the ideals the objects represent.  The spiritual contemplation of the sacred objects entrusted to the care of the Kehathites would seem to be an essential aspect of their duties, and a physical perception of these objects while they are being covered would distract the Kehathites from their spiritual contemplation and thereby in effect desecrate the objects themselves.”  [4]

            If I might put this into my own words, I think what the Torah and Rabbi Hirsch are talking about is the danger of cynicism when one is too much of an “insider.”

            The Kohathites might metaphorically “die” in the sense of being spiritually disillusioned by seeing the holy objects swallowed up or in a state of disarray.  Sort of like Dorothy in the Wizard of OZ peeking behind the curtain and seeing just an ordinary person playing with sound effects. 

            If your passion is music, maybe you might get disillusioned by getting too much of an insider’s view of the business side of contract negotiations and labor disputes.  (Hopefully, that hasn’t been the case for Jackson Browne’s roadies.)

            If you’re a legislator you might get disillusioned by the messy “sausage making” deals involved in passing laws.

            If you’re a school teacher or academic you might get disillusioned by turf wars and budget battles.                  

            For us as rabbis, and for any of our fellow clergypeople, we might get disillusioned by congregational or agency politics.

            I think what the Torah is saying --- when it warns Moses and Aaron to wrap up the holy objects so that the Kohathites don’t see those objects in their dismantled state is this:  We need to safeguard our idealism through our own conscious efforts to avoid cynicism. In this sense, we are like the Kohathites of old.  We have to consciously work at not being cynical.

            At the same time, we hope to be shielded from cynicism by the support and mentorship of others who can help protect us from disillusionment.  Such was the role of Moses, Aaron and Aaron’s sons with respect to the Kohathites.  In this sense, we are like Moses, Aaron and Aaron’s sons for those who look to us for mentorship.  One of our jobs as rabbis is to model idealism and to put up roadblocks against cynicism for those who look to us as mentors.

            Ideals are by definition illusory in the sense that they are not yet reality. 

            The Torah took care that the Kohathites would not suffer the death of being swallowed up in cynicism and disillusionment.  As for us, may we be blessed with the capacity to retain our ideals while guarding ourselves from such a fate. 

For we are a people who are called upon to choose life. 

© Rabbi David Steinberg 5779/2019

[1] Traditional exclamation roughly translated as “Heaven forbid”

[2] To hear the song go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk7mFRWt-sY

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_on_Empty_(album)

[4] (The Hirsch Commentary, edited by Ephraim Oratz, translated from the original German by Gertrude Hirschler, New York, The Judaica Press, 1986, p. 526)

THE VALUE OF A LIFE

(Thoughts on Parashat Bechukotai - Leviticus 26:3 – 27:34)

[Dvar Torah given at Temple Israel on Friday 5/24/19]

Earlier this month the renowned teacher and writer Avivah Zornberg visited us here at Temple Israel to deliver this year’s Silver Interfaith Memorial Lecture.  The subject of her lecture was the Book of Ruth, the Tanakh’s great story of a one-time stranger joining a new community.  Indeed, subsequent Jewish tradition sees Ruth the Moabite as the paradigmatic example of the ger tzedek or giyoret tzedek – the righteous proselyte who, while not being born Jewish, chooses to join our people. 

We read in Ruth 1:14 that Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi tried to convince Ruth to go back to her native land --- וְר֖וּת דָּ֥בְקָה בָּֽהּ׃  “BUT RUTH CLUNG TO HER” – and two verses later Ruth further declares to Naomi: 

“Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus and more may the Eternal do to me if anything but death parts me from you.” [1]

The Book of Ruth is traditionally read on the festival of Shavuot, which arrives just over a week from now.  One obvious reason for this is to remind us that, even for those of us who were born into Jewish families, we all in our own ways choose how we will inhabit our Jewishness.  Just as Ruth chose to join the Jewish people, so in our sacred story did our people as a whole choose to accept God’s Torah on Mount Sinai – an event we commemorate on Shavuot. 

But still, there is something special and auspicious about a person deciding for themselves to convert to Judaism.  As my colleague Rabbi Goldie Milgram beautifully expresses it:   

“It is not easy to become a Jew; we don’t have instant conversions.  There is a process of admission involving extensive study and serious ritual.  Not everyone is meant to be Jewish in this life.  If your soul needs it, however, it is my experience that nothing will stop you from finding your way in.” [2]

One of the key rituals involved in conversion to Judaism, representing the end of the long process of preparation, is immersion in a mikveh – a ritual pool that contains so-called 'Mayim Chayim,' ---  living waters --- which are connected to a gathering of natural rainwater.  Emerging from the mikvah is compared to emerging from the waters of the womb, in effect a new birth.  Indeed, it’s no coincidence that Christian traditions of baptism also often involve similar metaphors of being born again.

We at Temple Israel are particularly appreciative of how our congregation has been enriched by the presence of many gerey hatzedek – many Jews by choice.  Indeed, tomorrow morning one such individual, who completed her process of conversion earlier this week, will be called to the Torah for the first time, and our Shabbat kiddush lunch tomorrow is being sponsored in her honor. 

In the course of my career as a Rabbi I have worked with quite a few conversion candidates.   And it used to be the case for me that  ---  whenever I would be in the situation of having worked with a conversion student for many months  ---  and when I would finally hear the sound of their head coming back up to break the surface of the water after their first immersion   --- on such occasions I would think to myself – wow --- I guess the way I feel is somewhat akin to what it must feel like to give birth – to deliver a new soul into the world.

Well, in recent years I have stopped invoking that metaphor.

Why?  Because women friends of mine who have ACTUALLY given birth to new human beings --- Jewish or otherwise – have politely but firmly assured me that I  -- as a person who has not physically given birth to a human being --- HAVE NO IDEA – AND CAN’T POSSIBLY HAVE ANY IDEA --- OF HOW IT FEELS TO GIVE BIRTH OR OF WHAT CARRYING A CHILD TO TERM WITHIN ONE’S OWN BODY FEELS LIKE.

Yes, I am duly humbled by this.

I guess new Dad Prince Harry said it well a few weeks ago when he humbly admitted –

“How any woman does what they do is beyond comprehension”[3]

Yes, humility is definitely in order for anyone who would purport to impose controls on a pregnant woman’s control of her own body as she deals with a process that is indeed “beyond comprehension” for someone who has not experienced it themselves.

And yet, we see an increasing trend of state legislatures in this country seeking to limit a woman’s right to make her own choices regarding whether to carry a pregnancy to term.  It is true that some of the proponents of stricter limitations on abortion are themselves women, and, indeed, it was a woman -- Alabama Governor Kay Ivey -- who last week signed that state's controversial near-total abortion ban.[4]

However, many of us will agree that the bigger picture is one of men subjugating women by attempting to take away from them choices that should ultimately be for pregnant women themselves to make.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a broadly-based organization whose affiliate members include both the Union for Reform Judaism and Reconstructing Judaism, issued a statement on this matter last week which reads in part as follows:

“Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) condemns Alabama’s new law banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest, as well as other extreme anti-abortion bills in various states. These measures undermine women’s reproductive freedom, endanger women’s health, and criminalize women who get abortions and doctors who perform them.

“Though Alabama’s new law is the most extreme so far, other states, such as Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Mississippi, have adopted or are close to adopting bills that effectively ban abortion, including “heartbeat” and other similarly restrictive laws. Many of these new bills criminalize women obtaining abortions and abortion providers, who could serve life in prison.

“We are deeply concerned about the growing effort to overturn Roe v. Wade and limit women’s reproductive health care access. Courts should immediately enjoin these bills, as they clearly violate settled Supreme Court precedent.

[…]

“JCPA is committed to safeguarding and strengthening the spirit and impact of Roe v. Wade. For decades, we have advocated at the state and federal levels, joined amicus briefs, and adopted policy resolutions in support of women’s reproductive freedom. The decision to end a pregnancy is a difficult and personal one that should only be made by a woman in consultation with her doctor and others she chooses to involve.”[5]

How did we get here?  That’s a far bigger question than can be answered in a brief dvar Torah.

But I have no doubt that this mindset of trying to control women’s autonomy is an age-old problem.  We need look no further than this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Bechukotai (Leviticus 26:3 – 27:34) .

In Leviticus 27 – the last chapter of Leviticus --- in a sort of appendix to what is in many respects is the most problematic of the five books of the Torah --- the Torah sets out a framework for determining the value of a person. 

Basically, this was a practice by which a person desiring to make a special donation for the upkeep of the Tabernacle (or later, the Temple), could do so by making their donation in an amount that was determined to be equivalent to the economic value of a specific individual.  However, the valuation of a woman of any particular age was always set at significantly less than that of a man of the same age. 

As it says in the opening verses of Leviticus 27:

“The Eternal spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When anyone explicitly vows to the Eternal the equivalent for a human being, 3 the following scale shall apply: If it is a male from twenty to sixty years of age, the equivalent is fifty shekels of silver by the sanctuary weight; 4 if it is a female, the equivalent is thirty shekels. 5 If the age is from five years to twenty years, the equivalent is twenty shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female. 6 If the age is from one month to five years, the equivalent for a male is five shekels of silver, and the equivalent for a female is three shekels of silver. 7 If the age is sixty years or over, the equivalent is fifteen shekels in the case of a male and ten shekels for a female.”[6] 

One can argue that the Torah was only reflecting the lived social realities of its time in saying that women were worth less than men as an economic measurement.

But, is it really too much to argue that, if we truly valued women as much as men, then we wouldn’t consider restricting a woman’s autonomy over her own body?   

There are moral gray areas in all of this.  People may differ concerning the personhood of a fetus at various stages of its development.  And people may differ concerning society’s interest in protecting not only existing life but potential life.

However, women I know have in recent days been expressing visceral fear and anxiety about these latest legislative efforts to take away from them their right to make their own choices about their own bodies.

And, as Jews who believe in the value of treating each person as btzelem Elohim/ in the image of God --- and who believe in particular that – as it says in Genesis 1:27 that this characterization of btzelem Elohim goes for both women and men  -- we cannot let this threat to women go unchallenged.

The inequities in the valuation scale in Leviticus 27 remind us that inequities exist to the present day in the way we treat one another.  Sexist attempts to take away from women the fundamental right of bodily autonomy should concern us all, even – and perhaps especially – when they stem in part from aspects of our own religious heritage and of that our fellow citizens.

Shabbat shalom.

© Rabbi David Steinberg (Iyar 5779/ May 2019)

[1] Ruth 1: 16-17

[2] Rabbi Goldie Milgram, Reclaiming Judaism as a Spiritual Practice: Holy Days and Shabbat, 2004, p. 133.

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/world/europe/meghan-markle-baby-boy.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article&region=Footer

[4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alabama-abortion-law-governor-kay-ivey-signs-near-total-ban-today-live-updates-2019-05-15/

[5] https://www.jewishpublicaffairs.org/jcpa-is-committed-to-protecting-womens-reproductive-freedom/

[6] Lev. 27: 1- 7

A GENEROUS GIFT

(Thoughts on Parashat Metzora for Shabbat Hagadol 5779/2019)

Dvar Torah given at Temple Israel on Friday evening 4/12/19 

This Shabbat is Shabbat Hagadol/ “The Great Sabbath” – our tradition’s nickname for the last Shabbat before the start of Passover.

This Shabbat is also the second of two Shabbatot when the weekly Torah portion deals with “tzara’at.”  Old translations of the Torah translated the Hebrew word “tzaraat” as “Leprosy,” but Jewish commentators throughout the centuries have been clear that whatever “tzara’at” is, it’s not that.

What exactly is it?  If a person is “Metzora” which is to say, if a person is afflicted with “Tzara’at” what does that mean?  The Jewish Publication Society translation that we follow translates tzaraat as an “eruptive plague”, but it’s still difficult to figure out what that means, since the term “tzaraat” in the Torah is applied to various seemingly unrelated phenomena including skin conditions, discolorations on articles of clothing and --- in this week’s Torah portion – colored streaks in the walls of brick houses. 

With respect to the latter phenomenon, the Torah introduces the topic in this weeks Torah portion, Parashat Metzora, at Leviticus 14: 34-38 as follows:

34 When you enter the land of Canaan that I give you as a possession, and I inflict an eruptive plague upon a house in the land you possess, 35 the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, "Something like a plague has appeared upon my house." 36 The priest shall order the house cleared before the priest enters to examine the plague, so that nothing in the house may become unclean; after that the priest shall enter to examine the house. 37 If, when he examines the plague, the plague in the walls of the house is found to consist of greenish or reddish streaks that appear to go deep into the wall, 38 the priest shall come out of the house to the entrance of the house, and close up the house for seven days.

What shall we do with such a weird law?

Well, for one thing, there’s a teaching in the Talmud that says we should treat this all as a symbolic allegory.  As we learn in Tractate Sanhedrin 71a:

 -----------------------------------------

בית המנוגע לא היה ולא עתיד להיות ולמה נכתב דרוש וקבל שכר

“A house inflicted with plague never occurred and never will occur in the future.  So why is it written?  To study it and to be rewarded for studying it.”

------------------------------------------

But that still begs the question:  What are we supposed to learn from studying it?

One traditional response comes from taking a closer look at the language of Leviticus 14:34. The Jewish Publication Society translation of this verse says:

 “When you enter the land of Canaan and I INFLICT an eruptive plague upon a house in the land you possess….”

But the original Hebrew says “VENATATI” which doesn’t literally mean “and I inflict.” The literal translation of “VENATATI” is “I will give!”

And, according to some of the classic commentators , the expression VENATATI – “I WILL GIVE” (from the root nun-tav-nun) implies “MATANAH”  a gift (That is to say the words “venatati” and “matanah” are derived from the same Hebrew root)….

But how can a plague be a GIFT?

Rashi quotes an old midrash that says that when the Israelites would enter the Land of Israel and occupy houses abandoned by previous inhabitants, that the plague in the walls would lead them to  knock down the walls and that when they did so they would find buried treasures of gold.

I guess this is another way of expressing the well-known idea that even our worst tragedies can have a silver lining. 

But that’s still hard to accept when one is in the midst of a crisis or in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy.  Sometimes it just takes time before we can find the gift, the blessing, in the challenges that life places before us. 

Another interpretation of tzaraat as a gift is found in the Talmud in Tractate Arachin where the plague is considered a “gift” in the sense that it serves as a timely warning of one’s own character flaws.   Just like the pain one senses when touching a burning stove is a gift in the sense of alerting us to pull our hand back before it gets even more hurt. 

Here’s what the Talmud in Tractate Arachin says about this:

אמר ריש לקיש מאי דכתיב (ויקרא יד) זאת תהיה תורת המצורע זאת תהיה תורתו של מוציא שם רע

(Arachin 15b)

“Resh Lakish said:  What is the meaning of the verse: “This shall be the ritual concerning the metzora”.   (Lev. 14:2) It means “this shall be the ritual concerning “motzi shem ra” (one who speaks calumny)”

In other words -- one who speaks ill of another, one who engages in lashon hara/ evil speech.

Rashi says that the divine warning to watch one’s tongue first appears in the walls of one’s house, then, if not heeded, appears in one’s clothing and finally, if not heeded, on one’s body.   All to try to tell us to be more sensitive regarding the way we speak to or about others.

That seems especially important in times like these when ideological battles divide our country to an extent that we have seldom seen in modern times.  As candidates start gearing up for next year’s national elections it still remains to be seen whether the winning candidate will be the one who manages to mobilize their own hyperpartisan base or whether it will be the one who manages to reconcile at least some of the divisions that distance us from one another. I, personally, am betting on the latter.

Another moral lesson that the Torah gives us in Parashat Metzora concerns the importance of being charitable and generous.  For this interpretation, the Talmud in Tractate Yoma focuses on the language used in Leviticus 14:35.

The JPS translation that I read you a few moments ago for this verse renders it like this:

35 the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, "Something like a plague has appeared upon my house." 3

However, that translation smoothes out the Hebrew, which, if translated literally, is a little clunkier.  The beginning of the verse doesn’t actually say “the owner of the house shall come.”  Rather it says – 

וּבָא אֲשֶׁר-לוֹ הַבַּיִת

 “The one that to him is the house” comes and says to the Kohen --- Something like a plague, it seems to me is in the house.”

The Talmud asks – why does the Torah use that awkward locution?  Why does it say “the one that to him is the house”-- or, more specifically, what does the language “to him” imply: 

And it gives the following answer:

“Why then ‘to him’? [That means to say that] if one devotes his house to himself exclusively, refusing to lend his belongings by pretending he did not own them, the Holy One, blessed be God, exposes him as he removes his belongings. Thus ‘to him’ excludes [from the infliction of the house plague] him who lends his belongings to others.”[1]

This refers to a midrash:

It is written, "The produce of his house will disappear, they shall flow away in the day of His anger" (Iyov 20), they will flow away and be found.  When? On the day that the Holy One arouses His anger against that person.  How does this come about? A person says to his neighbor, "Lend me a kav of wheat." The neighbor replies: "I have none." "Then a kav of barley?" "I have none." A woman says to her neighbor: "Lend me a sifter." She replies, "I have none." "Lend me a sieve?" She replies, "I have none." What does the Holy One do? He brings a plague on the house, and when the man is forced to take out all of his belongings, everyone sees and they say, "Didn't he say that he had nothing? Look how much wheat he has! How much barley! How many dates there are here!" (Vayikra Rabba 17)

And so what we learn from this midrash is that we should be generous in our dealings with others.

It is in that spirit that we also concern ourselves with the poor and needy in our society.

And it is in that spirit that we will say at our Passover seder tables next week:

“All who are hungry, let them come and eat.  All who are needy, let them celebrate Passover with us.”

Shabbat Shalom.

(c) Rabbi David Steinberg

Nisan 5779/ April 2019 

[1] Yoma 11b

A GOOD AND PLEASANT VISION

Thoughts on Tzav (5779/2019)

(Lev. 6:1 – 8:36)

We often open our Shabbat evening services with the beautiful words from Psalm 133, “Hiney Mah tov umah na’im, shevet achim gam yachad” ---  which our Friday night siddur, Mishkan T’filah translates as “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity!”

But that’s only the first verse of Psalm 133.

Here’s the whole psalm:

א  שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת, לְדָוִד:
הִנֵּה מַה-טּוֹב, וּמַה-נָּעִים--    שֶׁבֶת אַחִים גַּם-יָחַד.

1 A Song of Ascents; of David.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is that brothers (and sisters) dwell together in unity!

ב  כַּשֶּׁמֶן הַטּוֹב,    עַל-הָרֹאשׁ--
יֹרֵד,    עַל-הַזָּקָן זְקַן-אַהֲרֹן:
שֶׁיֹּרֵד,    עַל-פִּי מִדּוֹתָיו.

2 It is like the fine oil upon the head
running down onto the beard, the beard of Aaron, that comes down upon the collar of his robe;

ג  כְּטַל-חֶרְמוֹן--    שֶׁיֹּרֵד, עַל-הַרְרֵי צִיּוֹן:
כִּי שָׁם צִוָּה יְהוָה,    אֶת-הַבְּרָכָה--
חַיִּים,    עַד-הָעוֹלָם.

3 Like the dew of Hermon, that falls down upon the mountains of Zion;
for there the Eternal commanded the blessing, everlasting life.

These latter verses of Psalm 133 come to mind for me because this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Tzav, includes a detailed description of Aaron’s ordination as Kohen Gadol or High Priest.   This ordination ritual includes the detail at Leviticus 8:12 about Moses pouring the anointing oil upon Aaron’s head:

יב  וַיִּצֹק מִשֶּׁמֶן הַמִּשְׁחָה, עַל רֹאשׁ אַהֲרֹן; וַיִּמְשַׁח אֹתוֹ, לְקַדְּשׁוֹ.

12 And he poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head, and anointed him, to sanctify him.

We might wonder – What does all of us dwelling together in unity have to do with this apparently messy anointing ceremony?  Rashi explains that this refers to a teaching in the Talmud, in Masechet Horayot where the sages discuss the meaning of the words of Psalm 133: 

Our Rabbis taught: It is like the precious oil … coming down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, etc., two drops like pearls hung from Aaron's beard. R: Papa said: A Tanna taught that when he spoke they ascended and lodged at the root of his beard. And concerning this matter, Moses was anxious. He said, 'Have I, God forbid, made an improper use of the anointing oil?  [By having applied too much (Rashi Ker. 5b).] A heavenly voice came forth and called out, “Like the precious oil …like the dew of Hermon; as the law of improper use of holy objects is not applicable to the dew of Hermon, so also is it not applicable to the anointing oil on the beard of Aaron.” Aaron however, was still anxious. He said, 'It is possible that Moses did not trespass, but I may have trespassed'. A heavenly voice came forth and said to him, [Hiney Mah Tov Umah Naim, shevet achim gam yachad] Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity;  just as Moses is not guilty of trespass, so are you not guilty of trespass.  (Horayot 12a)

So, basically, Moses and Aaron were each worried that they had messed up the ordination ceremony by being sloppy with the oil, and God said – don’t worry it’s all cool.

How might we apply that teaching to ourselves?

I guess we might say that what it means for us “shevet achim gam yachad” / “to dwell together as brothers and sisters in unity” is that we should all chill out a bit and not be too tightly wound up with concerns about ceremonial details.  So maybe Moses and Aaron were each a little klutzy with the oil. Maybe sometimes we ourselves are socially inept, or physically uncoordinated. We should do our best – put our hearts and souls into what we’re doing – and not beat ourselves up --- or beat up one another over our imperfections.

This reminds me of one time when I was in rabbinical school and we were having some sort of student-run program.  One of the moderators made a request of all of us.  The request was that when someone was making a presentation, we should make a conscious effort to “beam support” to the person making the presentation. 

When we “beam support” we’re thus like the heavenly voice that gave assurance to those two brothers in our Torah portion, Moses and Aaron, that they were doing okay.  That they needn’t worry about making a bit of a mess with the anointing oil -- that they were getting the important things right.

But what about that other simile in the Psalm  -- that the “shevet achim gam yachad” / the “siblings dwelling together in unity” is not only like the oil spilling down from Aaron’s head to his beard and his clothing --- it’s also “ketal Chermon sheyored al harirei Tziyon/  “ like the dew of Hermon that falls down upon  the mountains of Zion.”

“Hermon” (חרמון ) , of course, refers to Mt. Hermon.  Nowadays, we think of Mt. Hhermon mostly in the context of its strategic location in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, on the border of Syria.  It’s also the locale of a popular ski resort.  The entire Golan Heights area, including one side of Mt. Hermon, was seized by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967.  Prior to that, Syrian forces had periodically used the Golan Heights as a vantage point from which to attack Israeli communities in the Upper Galilee region located below it.[1]

Coincidentally, just yesterday, President Trump “tweeted” the following message: 

After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!

A Twitter message does not constitute formal governmental policy, so we will surely continue to hear lots of noise about this from all sides of the political spectrum in the coming days until some other story overshadows this one in the news cycle.[2]  At the moment, as with Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to West Jerusalem, a number of commentators are saying that this apparent policy shift is for political purposes – both to shore up Trump’s base in the States, and to help out Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s current re-election campaign.

However, as a matter of “facts on the ground,” no one really expects Israel to be leaving the Golan Heights.  And no one really disagrees that Israel’s presence on the Golan Heights is of critical strategic and security importance to Israel.  And no one really disagrees that Israel’s presence on the Golan Heights enhances regional stability given the ongoing chaos and Iranian incursions in neighboring Syria.

As for the significance of Mt. Hermon in classic Hebrew texts, Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler in the JPS Jewish Study Bible suggest that when Psalm 133 refers to Mt. Hermon, the psalm might be hinting at hopes for the reunion of the tribes of Israel --- with the ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel being symbolized by Mt. Hermon and the two remaining tribes of the southern kingdom of Judah symbolized by the Mountains of Zion.[3] 

As you may know, following the reign of King Solomon the ancient Israelite kingdom had split in two, and the ten northern tribes had been lost to history following the conquest of the north two centuries later by the Assyrian Empire.

So, Psalm 133 represents a fervent hope for the future that someday our estranged tribes would come together once more as in days of old.

And we do indeed live in a world of estranged tribes.  This Shabbat, we are still reeling from the massacre one week ago of fifty Muslims at the two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.  And it’s only a couple of months since the terrorist attack on a Roman Catholic church in the Philippines in which twenty Christians were killed.  And five months since the attack on the synagogue in Pittsburgh in which eleven Jews were killed.  And, lest we forget, twenty-five years since the Purim Day massacre by a twisted hate-filled American-born Israeli Jew of twenty-nine Muslim worshippers at the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron – the site venerated by both Muslims and Jews as the burial place of our common ancestor Abraham, also known as Avraham, also known as Ibrahim  

But let us not despair of our world.  Let us keep hope alive through our prayers, and through our reaching out to one another both within our community and across cultural lines --- as we seek to actualize the psalmist’s vision – “Hiney mah tov u’mah na’im” -- that “good and pleasant” vision ---  of a peaceful and harmonious world.

Shabbat shalom.

© Rabbi David Steinberg

Adar Sheni 5779/ March 2019

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-21/why-golan-heights-matter-to-israel-syria-and-trump-quicktake

[2] Note:  a few days after I wrote and delivered this dvar torah, President Trump followed up the tweet with an official proclamation:   https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/trump-officially-recognized-israels-annexation-of-golan-heights.html

[3] JPS Study Bible http://www.amazon.com/The-Jewish-Study-Bible-Publication/dp/0195297547   , p. 1432

LETTING GO (Dvar Torah by Elyse Carter-Vosen)

[The following dvar torah was given by Temple Israel member and College of Saint Scholastica faculty member Elyse Carter-Vosen on 1/18/19 at our special Shabbat Shirah service for the week of Torah portion Beshalach (Exodus 13:17 – 17:16).  Kol Hakavod, Elyse!]

This week’s Torah portion, Beshalach, “when he let go…” refers to Pharoah releasing the children of Israel into the desert. But I’d like to reflect more broadly on the idea of letting go, and its implications for justice work, for I have found this theme of release central to both human relationships with the natural world and to the transformative power of song.

 In order to draw people together, to work in harmony with each other and especially with land, requires a deep well of energy and optimism, strength and resiliency. Working toward economic and environmental sustainability as well as social equity and cross-cultural respect can be an exhausting and sometimes paralyzing task. What I have realized is that one must first know and free oneself from oppressive mindsets. The most dramatic part of the Beshalach occurs in this way:  

“And Pharaoh will say about the children of Israel, They are trapped in the land. The desert has closed in upon them.” And the children of Israel, feeling trapped and frustrated, cried out to Moses, questioning him:  “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us to die in the desert? “ Why didn’t you just leave us there? They wondered. The known oppression was better in that moment than the unknown wilderness. 

But Moses said to the people, “Don't be afraid! Stand firm and see the power that God will wield for you today,” And God told Moses that if he raised his staff and stretched out his hand, the sea would part, and the children of Israel would somehow miraculously go through to the other side. Then Moses and the children of Israel sang to God, and later Miriam, the prophetess, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women came out after her with dances.

For me, the image of the parting sea that includes looming, gargantuan walls of water on either side has never particularly spoken to me. As a very sensorily-oriented person, I imagine what it would feel like, and I cannot embrace it because my fear takes over. My chest feels like it’s crushing in and I start to panic.  I’m deeply claustrophobic. I get that from my mom. And there is another legacy she passed along to me: a deep curiosity and desire for adventure and discovery, and especially a deep yearning for closeness with land, with its openness and its possibility. 

I was seven when we moved onto our thirty acres of pine and birch, with the loons and the deer, the warm sun on fallen logs and the soft dark mystery of the mossy swamp. I knew immediately those woods were the place for me. I loved wandering in them with my mom. I soaked up her knowledge, wanting to know every plant and every tree. Sometimes I pretended to run away into the woods, and imagined what it would be like to live there, but what always held me back was that feeling of aloneness. I ultimately needed other voices.  I ventured out but then I had to turn back home.

My very first year of college, Spring Break came, and there was an opportunity to travel across the country from Minnesota to go rock-climbing in Joshua Tree national monument. I picked up the phone to call my single mom and I thought, “I’m prone to heatstroke. I could fall off a cliff. There’s no way she’s going to say yes to this.” But she said, “Go.”

Having never spent time in the desert, I was mesmerized by its stark beauty. We each spent an afternoon on a solo hike, and I remember that feeling of being completely alone with my thoughts, for hours. As someone who keeps my mind busy with thoughts from morning until night, I imagined it would be overwhelming, but when I got out there, I stepped calmly away from a rattlesnake, watched the sun slowly creep up the canyon wall, and I felt surprisingly free.

The summer after my sophomore year, there was an internship possibility in Bangor, Maine As I picked up the phone, I thought, “Ok, she let me do this once, but this time, I know no one. I don’t have a car, I don’t have a place to live.” And she said, “Go.” When I roommate took her car every weekend and went home to New Hampshire, I wandered the Maine countryside walking five, eight, ten miles at a time. I wandered through farmers’ hayfields and got lost in the woods. 

Years later, my mom went on a 10-day solo trip to New Zealand. My dad couldn’t get away from his work in Australia, so she just booked herself a tour, and she went. She had been living with her life-threatening autoimmune disease for a couple of years, and I think it focused her. She started taking more time to breathe, but also taking more risks. She didn’t know a soul, but she went. She traveled with new people, learned about Maori culture, and drank in the power of the lush green mountains. Throughout my whole life, I was inspired by her adventurousness and courage, from the life of survival she created for us in the woods and her backbreaking work in the mines, to living through her health challenges and ultimately facing cancer, to this trip she took on her own in her sixties. Her curious, artistic spirit and openness to other people have left me a path to follow.

So perhaps it is no surprise that when the opportunity came last year as an ethnomusicologist to pursue fieldwork in the Berkshires of Connecticut, the woods of upstate New York, and the Mohave Desert, I went. I went to Boston and Philadelphia too, seeking Jewish communities where I’d never been before. In the West Philadelphia neighborhood of the Jewish Farm School and Reconstructionist congregation Kol Tzedek, I saw people taking beautiful risks, reaching out across their differences. There are partnerships with the local mosque, with the local branch of Black Lives Matter, with churches on immigration issues, and with a whole range of urban farmers that host Philly Farm School volunteers to ameliorate food insecurity in West and Northeast Philadelphia. Kol Tzedek shares its worship space with two churches, and the Jewish Farm School share an office and learning space, which hosts Shtetl Skills workshops and a nigun collective.

I spent a Shabbat at Kol Tzedek in West Philly, at a gathering called Let My People Sing. Its founders believe in “the liberatory power of song and the importance of vibrant Jewish singing communities.” The creators of these weekends of song are all graduates of the Adamah farm fellowship, which immerses a cohort of 20-35 year olds in a three-month intensive experience of work, prayer, and study on a six-acre organic farm at Isabella Freedman, also home to Hazon, the headquarters of the Jewish environmental movement in Connecticut. I spent Sukkot and Shavuot at Isabella Freedman, drinking in Torah study, hikes, food grown on the Adamah farm, prayer, and song. I spent a day at the farm at Eden Village Camp, getting sunburned and dragging a rake through muddy soil, helping prepare fields for planting. While we thinned tiny carrot plants, I got to talk with a set of college students doing a summer fellowship at the camp’s farm.  I sat down and talked with the camp director about his philosophies of creativity, which encompass growing food, kids, hands-on learning, and artistic expression.

And thirty years after my first trip to the desert, I found myself back in the desert again.  This time my travels took me near Death Valley, celebrating Passover with Wilderness Torah. It was a long plane trip, an even longer drive through LA traffic on 12-lane freeways. Incredibly, the rush of traffic gradually narrowed to 8 lanes, then 4, then 2, and then, almost impossibly, I found myself on dusty dirt roads with no more phone signal, outside the ghost town of Ballarat in the Panamint Valley. There a small village of tents had been constructed of steel poles weighted down by sand, with canvas tops and sheer black mesh walls so the wind comes through, adorned by large batiked cloths and filled with colorful, vibrant people of every age, gender, and Jewish ethnicity.

On Shabbat morning, we chanted the morning blessings, sang some psalms, and then walked out into the desert for an extended silent Amidah.  For me, it was anything but silent, especially at first, because I was surrounded by the clamor of thoughts in my head.

In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitzrayim. According the mystical text of the Zohar, the name is derived from m’tzarim, meaning “narrow straits” or “from the narrows.”  The children of Israel came through that narrow strait and went out into the midbar, the wilderness. And it was there that they wandered until they found themselves.

My “narrow place” is being devoured by my thoughts and worries.  I know I am not alone in this constriction. Many of us drive ourselves too hard, succeeding, producing. Carrying so deeply about so many things has its price: we carry a cacophony of critical voices and fears in our heads.

Sitting in the desert, I was struck by the fact that being in touch with earth, in whatever form that takes, forces us to encounter the world directly through our senses.  I made a list of all of the sounds I heard:  the rush of the wind, the peeping song of a single bird, a fly buzzing by, an insect rustling a twig as it crawled over it. And here was I, quiet enough that I could listen to the beat of my own heart. Hineni.

I looked around and saw colors. The orange canyon, the ridged red rocks, pink and white quartz, charcoal basalt, green sage, deeper green creosote bushes with bright yellow flowers, tiny white flowers in a gray dried bush, smooth cream and beige mountains, and some deeper brown mountains with smooth wrinkles like an old person’s face.

After three hours, at the sound of a shofar blowing, one by one we wandered back to the Tent of Meeting. We sang “Esa Einai” and “Ma Norah HaMakom Hazeh” (how awesome is this place). And it was. We sang the same song on Shabbat morning this fall at the Reconstructing Judaism convention, once more in the heart of Philadelphia. It was a rich, harmonious sound. We were invited to turn around and look around us, to take in all of the beautiful, imperfect people who were a part of this beautiful, imperfect place.

For me, the greatest gifts are gratitude and quiet, and they are both hard-won.  I have recognized that this yearning for openness of my soul is shared by many people of several generations I have encountered during this past year. We feel weighed down by anxieties, pulled in many directions by responsibilities, and at times trapped by the narrow places of wanting so badly to solve the world’s injustices, all the while pushing ourselves to ill health. The incidence of anxiety and depression has skyrocketed during the past two generations. According to psychologists, up to 33% of all adults in our country over age 18 has a diagnosed anxiety disorder. The youngest generation speaks frequently at how overwhelmed they are at all of the choices and problems in the world. 

It’s messy, seeking freedom. The sea doesn’t open up neatly and make a path. As David Teutsch notes in a commentary in Kol Haneshamah, the divine-human partnership, the process of becoming, is messier than a retreat in the wilderness because we have to do our lives every day. He notes, “in the rabbinic imagination, the ancient Israelites slog through mud up to their knees, their waists, even their chests. It falls to us to continue the task of redemption—to face the contemporary morass and find the resolve to wade through it with waves threatening to submerge us on either hand…The hint of the Promised Land is in our loving moments.”

What I am finally starting to come to, nearing age 50, is this realization of needing love not only others but oneself deeply enough to connect to that deeper love and healing that permeates the world.  We have to seek those moments of wholeness in the midst of all of the forces trying to pull us apart. For me personally, I find the same feeling of quiet and healing in sitting and singing, hearing other voices just as I do in hearing the wind or the water, cataloguing the ancient colored rocks and absorbing the wisdom of the mountain’s face, digging my hands into the soil and pulling out weeds. In all of these things is a focus, and a feeling of purpose. Not just idle singing. Not just idle digging. Both are for healing the illnesses of ourselves and the world. 

My mom, spent a lot of time working to heal other people. She supported and cooked and nurtured and problem-solved. She was a bartender, so she listened to a lot of people’s daily struggles. She was a union steward who represented maintenance and cleaning staff in positions of lesser power. She took care of her dying mother. And she fought cancer.  I am acutely aware of the stress in her life and if there is still time left, I want to try to find better health. I am so grateful for the seeds of light and joy my mom sowed, even in the course of her struggle with the messiness of everything life threw at her. As physically and mentally tough as she was, she never stopped being vulnerable to other people. She never stopped building community and creating beauty around her. I took her spirit with me on so many of my adventures this year. 

As we move from Martin Luther King Day toward Passover off in the distance, and as we come to the place in the Torah this week where Miram and the women sing and dance on the muddy bank of the river, I hope we can embrace the value of getting dirty in all of its forms. We need to slog through the mud of our own shortcomings and then find ways to let go.

All week I’ve been carrying around a song in my head which I think gets at the cost of the stress of injustice on our bodies and hearts, and also at the healing power of song, breath, connectedness, and also surrendering to something larger than ourselves. It’s from a Let My People Sing composer named Aly Halpert, and it’s called “Loosen.”

Loosen, loosen baby / You don’t have to carry / The weight of the world in your muscles and bones / Let go, let go, let go

            Holy breath, and holy name / Will you ease, will you ease this pain         

Surrender is something I am continuing to work on, and I want to keep finding places to encounter it, whether through nature, community work, or song. We as humans are awed by the immense beauty of creation, and are humbled by our own imperfection. We know we cannot do things all by ourselves. We work together to rebuild structures that are constraining and oppressive. We express joy and celebration at overcoming our struggles. The fight for justice goes on and we extend it beyond ourselves. These are Jewish values.

STRANGERS NO MORE

Thoughts on Bo (5779)

(Exodus 10:1 – 13:16)

[dvar torah given at Temple Israel on Friday evening 1/11/19]

The climax of this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Bo, is the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt – yes, that same yetziat mitzrayim that we mention in the third paragraph of the Shema every morning and every night – and that we recall in the Kiddush over the wine or grape juice every Shabbat and Festival – and that we recount in the Haggadah at the Passover seder each year.   

But according to our parashah, it was not just the Israelites that left Egypt on that fateful day.  As it says at Exodus 12:38 ---   

  וְגַם-עֵרֶב רַב, עָלָה אִתָּם...

And a mixed multitude went up also with them…

(Vegam eyrev rav alah itam…)

Who was this eyrev rav?  This “mixed multitude?”

Rashi (11th century France) identifies them as “ta’arovet umot shel geyrim.” (“an ethnically mixed group of converts”).  

For most of Jewish history, the Jewish people have not sought out converts.  In part this reflects the political circumstances of living under various Christian or Muslim regimes past and present where to do so was a capital offence.  However, surely more importantly, Judaism has never held itself out to be the only acceptable religious path for humanity.  Instead, Judaism asserts that the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come.

Those who DO convert to Judaism are highly respected in our tradition.  There is even a special mention of Jews by choice in the thirteenth blessing of the weekday amidah, where we ask for God’s blessing “al gerei hatzedek”   [The Mishkan Tefillah Reform siddur translates the phrase “al gerei hatzedek” as “toward those who choose sincerely to be Jews.” ]

Further, anyone not born Jewish who chooses to convert to Judaism is supposed to be treated as equal in every way to those who are born Jewish. Jews by Choice are traditionally seen as having mystically already been present at Sinai.   Jews by Choice are  entitled (according to no less an authority than Maimonides) to use the traditional prayer formulation  “eloheinu veylohei avoteinu”/ “Our God and God of our Ancestors,”  which traces our Jewish ancestry back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. 

As Maimonides says in his famous “Letter to Obadiah the Proselyte,” – “no difference exists between you and us, and all miracles done to us have been done as it were to us and to you.”  (A Maimonides Reader, Isidore Twersky, editor, Behrman House, 1972, p. 476).

And, as this week’s parashah emphasizes soon after the mention of the mixed multitude -- “Torah achat yihyeh la’ezrach velageyr hagar betokhekhem”/ “There shall be one law for the ezrach and the ger who dwells among you.”  (Ex. 12:49).  Both those words --- “ezrach” and “ger” are multivalent. “Ger” means “stranger” but also has traditionally been understood to refer to converts to Judaism.  “Ezrach” can mean a Jew who was born Jewish –-- or, more broadly, it can mean a citizen who is a native of the country in which he or she claims citizenship. 

It’s hard not to see a parallel between the mixed multitude who wanted to join up with the Israelites in the time of the Book of Exodus and the mixed multitude of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who want to come to the United States in our own day and who seek a path towards citizenship. 

Once we get past the xenophobic tweets of those who would falsely brand them as rapists, terrorists and drug smugglers, we realize that most of those who yearn to come to our country are motivated by the same forces that brought so many of our own ancestors here: The search for a safer and better life. We can identify with them because we too are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants

We learned in Parashat Shemot a couple of Torah portions back, that Moses named his first child Gershom.  If you split up those two syllables into two separate Hebrew words you get “Ger” “Sham” --- literally “a stranger there” –

As it says in Exodus 2:22 --

וַיִּקְרָא אֶת-שְׁמוֹ גֵּרְשֹׁם:  כִּי אָמַר--גֵּר הָיִיתִי, בְּאֶרֶץ נָכְרִיָּה. 

(Vayikra et shemo Gershom ki amar, gar hayiti be’eretz nochriyah.)

“and he called his name “Gershom” for he said – I was a stranger in a foreign land.”

I am reminded of the evocative title of American author Adam Haslett’s short story collection published in 2002.  The title of that book is “You are not a stranger here.”  

And that’s really our vision for our own people as well, is it not?

As a wise person said this week: “The symbol of America should be the Statue of Liberty, not a thirty-foot wall.”[1]

And like the mixed multitudes of the Jewish people through the millennia – and like the mixed multitudes of this sweet land of liberty in which we currently dwell, we ask – in the words of the siddur --  Barkheinu Avinu Kulanu ke'echad b'or panekha – “Bless us, O source of being, all of us, as one, in the light of the Divine presence"    

Shabbat shalom.

© Rabbi David Steinberg

January 2019/ Shevat 5779

[1] https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1082894520398811137