Hanukkah -- 5775

I awake in darkness, and want nothing more than to stay in bed.   It is pitch black when I leave synagogue at the end of the day.  This is the season for hibernation, and despair.

The rabbis taught:  When Adam, the first human, witnessed that the daylight waned [after his creation in September (Tishrei)], he said ‘Woe is me!  Perhaps it is because I sinned that the world grows darker and is slowly returning to a state null and void.  This is what the heavens decreed upon me.’  So, Adam stood, fasted, and prayed for eight days.  Then Adam saw that the month of Tevet [the month following Kislev and Hanukkah] arrived and the days began to grow longer.  He said to himself:  ‘This is the natural way of the world’ [i.e., the days grow shorter and longer throughout the yearly cycle].  Therefore he celebrated for eight days and the following year he set it as an annual eight-day festivity.  Adam set it as a celebration in honor of God in Heaven; they [the pagans] established it as a time of idolatry. (BT Avodah Zarah 8a, in Steinberg, Celebrating the Jewish Year, p. 25) 

As children, we learned that Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of the oil.  We were later taught about the Maccabee’s military victory over Antiochus.  So too, Hanukkah is the Festival of Light because it reminds us of what the rabbis of the Talmud knew:  in dark days like these, the human soul craves warmth and light.  We need the promise of springtime.  The candles of the Hanukkiah, both glowing and growing, offer a message of hope.  They remind us that light, now just a glimmer, will return.  Long, bright days and abundant harvests will be with us once again.

Vayeishev -- 5775

 Tamar has been played by her father-in-law, and now she returns the favor.

The widow of Judah’s son Er, Tamar was entitled to marry Er’s brother, Onan, upon Er’s death.  And when Onan died, she was entitled to marry the youngest brother, Shelah.  Judah denied her this chance at security, afraid that his youngest would die, too.

Tamar takes matters into her own hands.  She disguises herself as a prostitute and stands in Judah’s path.  He hires her, promises to pay her later, and leaves his staff, cord, and signet ring as pledge.  When Tamar conceives, Judah, enraged at the infidelity, orders her to be burned.  At that point, Tamar, slyly, produces the evidence of Judah’s complicity.  “’I am with child by the man to whom these belong.’  And she added, ‘Examine these:  whose seal and cord and staff are these?’”  (Genesis 37:25).  Judah recognizes them, and acknowledges that she is in the right.

Tamar displays many positive qualities.  In particular, the rabbis of old celebrate her righteous restraint.  She could have shamed Judah publically, but declines to do so.  The Talmud teaches that humiliating another is akin to killing them – the blood drains from their face, and their reputation can’t be returned.

Throughout the day, we’re given opportunities to embarrass or humiliate one another.  Showing some one up feels good in the moment, but that feeling doesn’t last.  Whatever “points” we score are quickly lost.  Much longer lasting to hold our tongue.  And, when we cannot, it is better to offer our rebuke gently and in private, as Tamar did.

Vayishlach -- 5775

Rachel yearns for a child.  “Let me have children,” she demands of her husband, “otherwise I am a dead woman!”  (Genesis 30:1).  Despite her husband’s love and devotion, Rachel feels worthless without a baby.  Does she want to create life?  Does she want to give her husband a gift or to incarnate their love?   Does she feel motherhood is her duty?  Perhaps she wants to defeat her fertile sister.  We don’t know the cause of her emptiness; we only know her pain.

This week, in Parshat Vayishlach, Rachel gives birth to her second son.  She dies delivering him.  

And so it is for us all.  When we have a goal and work towards it, we can be consumed with our vision and the need to realize it.  But devotion to one cause, whatever it may be, perforce requires abandonment of something else.  We need to give up something to get what we want.  Accomplishment brings with it lost opportunity, lost health, and lost relationships.

When setting out towards a goal, it’s important to consider not only what success will look like, but also what losses you’re prepared to accept.  Can you name them?  Anticipate them?  Feel them?  Until you do, you’re not truly ready to begin.

There is always a price to pay.

Thanksgiving -- 5775

Of all American holidays, Thanksgiving focuses the most on food.  Sure, we gorge on candy for Halloween and we barbeque on Independence Day.  But Thanksgiving’s menu is the most proscribed.  The meal takes center stage.  On Thanksgiving, like many Jewish holidays, food forms the ritual.  The food tells a story (even if that story isn’t factual).  The stories of Thanksgiving are not only national (“first feast”), but also familial (“grandma’s recipe,” “Dad always carves the turkey.”)  On Thanksgiving and every day, the foods we eat tell us who we are.

Temple Emanuel’s recent class on Jewish eating was fascinating.  We explored the rules that dictate what we eat in biblical, rabbinic, and ecological language.  We considered the many reasons for eating –nutrition, surely, but also pleasure, sociability, remembrance, geography, politics, and many others.  All these reasons are on display at Thanksgiving.

The class concluded by considering a proposed policy for eating at Temple Emanuel.  Until now, we’ve had expectations, but there hasn’t been a clear and public policy document.  In drafting the policy under consideration, the Ritual Committee policy sought to declare our Jewish identity while also acknowledging the realities of the ways most of us live.  It strove to promote inclusiveness by making Temple Emanuel a welcoming place for all kinds of Jews and all kinds of people.  Should one expect to eat at synagogue as one eats at home?  It’s a fascinating balancing act.

I urge you to consider the many rules that govern your own eating.  Not just kashrut, of course, but the “grammar” of your own diet.  Where, specifically, do you eat?  What do you eat at home and what away from home?  What constitutes a “special” meal for you?  At what times of day are certain foods allowed?  Do you have any taboo foods?

Let us be aware of the earth’s bounty, which sustains us each day.  Let us be aware of the others at our table, who enrich our lives.  From all of us at Temple Emanuel, Happy Thanksgiving!

Toldot -- 5775

There are no coincidences in Torah.  In fact, encountering the unexpected in a passage is often a clue that there’s a profound truth to be mined.  Textual oddities are windows into the mystery of the Torah.

The story of Jacob, Esau and the stew, from this week’s portion, Tol’dot, is a familiar one.  After a long day at the hunt, Esau, manly man that he is, returns to camp empty handed.  Ravenous, he asks his domesticated brother for a bowl of lentils.  “I’m famished; let me gulp down some of that red stuff!”  (Genesis 25:30).  Jacob seizes the opportunity, and trades his twin brother (elder by a hair) a bowl of soup for the birthright.

Rashi sees wickedness in Esau’s easy dismissal of his inheritance.  Others fault him for imagining himself so close to death.  But I find myself disappointed in Jacob who took advantage of his brother’s weakness, bargaining hard instead of feeding the hungry.

What if each of us looked out for our own interests only and ignored our brothers’ and sisters’ needs?  I believe the Torah answers this question with the verse that immediately follows the episode of the stew:  “There was a famine in the land” (Genesis 26:1).

While most readers see this stark, ominous statement as an introduction to the subsequent story—the famine causes Isaac to emigrate in search of food— I read it as a bridge between the two episodes:  famine is not only the cause of the journey, but also the logical result when one man’s selfish actions are repeated many times over.  It cannot be coincidence that the Torah follows a story about stinginess with food with the verse “there was a famine in the land.”  Famine occurs when we refuse to share our bounty with those in need.

What a gap there is in our world between those with access to food and those lacking basic nutrition.  “Some 805 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That's about one in nine people on earth,” says the World Food Program.  Some on our planet have little reliable access to food and others experience “food insecurity,” where their access to quality nutrition is unstable and/or insufficient, while the world’s wealthy enjoy unprecedented access to a wide range of food.  How often have you and I stood in the aisle of a grocery store deciding which cheese to buy while a billion people go hungry?

We have a moral obligation to assist those without access to nutritious food.  There are lasting solutions to the problem.  Globally, microcredit facilities work:  (relatively) tiny loans enable poor families to support themselves over the long term.  Visit www.kiva.org, a website through which individuals can make loans to aspiring entrepreneurs with small businesses in the developing world.  How exciting to be able to make such a powerful difference in the life of a family and community!

There is a “Jewish Response to Hunger”:  Mazon.  Jews and Jewish organizations of all kinds donate 3% of the cost of simchas, and the money is pooled to support life-changing projects in local communities and in Israel.  It’s a wonderful way to enact Jewish values, and develop a collective sense of Jewish Peoplehood.  More information is found at mazon.org.  Why not set an empty chair when you throw or attend a dinner party or Shabbat meal—that is, donate the cost of one meal to a local organization combating hunger and food insecurity?

Learn more about Global Hunger through the American Jewish World Service website:  ajws.org/reversehunger, and take their Hunger Quiz.

The ideas, resources and expertise exist to feed our planet—if only each one of us would share what’s in our bowl.

Chayei Sarah -- 5775

Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for his son, Isaac.  The man is remarkably quick about it: he identifies Rebekah within moments of arriving in the Old Country.

Rebekah is one of my favorite characters.  I love her drive to do chesed as she tends to the traveler and waters his camels.  I love her self-determination, accepting the offer of marriage on the spot.    She’s upbeat and looks to the future.  Rebekah’s got spunk.

Her brother Laban, however, is sneaky and treacherous.  He’s dazzled by the array of gifts Abraham offers.  Even after the deal is struck and Rebekah determined to leave, Laban and their mother declare “let the girl stay with us another few days – ten, perhaps – afterward she may go” (Genesis 24:55). 

I find that’s a pattern with negative people.  Like black holes, their negativity feeds on pulling down positive folk, draining energy.  The more energy you give them, the more they demand.  They feel validated by making happy people feel down.

Management guru Jim Collins, in his bestseller “Good To Great,” teaches bosses that if you’d be glad to hear that someone in your employ has resigned, you should fire them immediately.  While there are important ethical obligations and we can’t expect to like everyone in our world, the lesson is an important one.  We don’t have to allow other people’s misery to seep into our own lives.  Protect yourself by building a barrier between yourself and them.

There’s no value in playing a role in someone else’s drama.  Although it’s not easy, don’t stay mired in someone’s mishegas.  Instead, take a page from Rebekah’s playbook.  When asked if she was ready to leave home, she answered plainly, her bag already packed:  “I will go.”

Lech L'cha -- 5775

Once, not far from the Dead Sea, the kings of Shinar, Ellasar, Elam, and Goiim took to the field against the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim.  Thousands of years later, their bodies have disintegrated, everything they ever touched has passed from the earth, their very countries have ceased to exist -- and yet their names remain known to us, inscribed and preserved for all time.  Their names and a single one of their deeds.

Lives are lived in detail.  “Who’s doing pick up tomorrow?”  “What’s for dinner?”  “That report needs to be on my desk by Thursday.”  During the High Holy Days we examine an entire year, and when planning for retirement we consider decades.  Most of the time, however, we make choices reacting to the present moment.  We are rarely afforded a longer-range view. 

What will our lives mean three thousand years from now – or three hundred?  What will be left of our existences?  What will the stresses of getting out the door, the inter-personal animosity we live with mean then?

Genesis 14, in the parsha Lech L’cha, doesn’t only tell about the kings who rebelled and pursued.  It also shares that Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought bread and wine to Abram, blessing him with the words “blessed be Abram by God Most High, Maker of heaven and earth, and blessed is God Most High, who has given your foes into your hands”  (14:19-20).  That’s how Melchizedek is remembered:  as a mensch.

What if, I wonder, some single scrap of our own lives happened to be recorded in a history book?  What if one of the decisions I make today, rushing to be on time, crossing items off my to-do list, interacting with others, were to be the way I’ll be remembered forever?  What if one data point about me came to stand for the whole?

When faced with a dilemma or choice, press ‘pause.’  Imagine that particular moment recorded for posterity, and that your name will be linked forever to the outcome.  Three thousand years from now, you’ll be remembered as the person who ________. 

Now what’s the right thing to do?

Noach -- 5775

 Noah, we are told, was “a righteous man; in his generation he was above reproach” (Genesis 6:9).

How are we to understand this – that Noah was absolutely good, or only that he was relatively good?  Given what we know about the other people of his time, the distinction is substantial.   “In the land of the blind,” the Spanish saying goes, “the one-eyed man is king.”

Noah existed within his time and place, but it seems that he was not truly of it – that is, he lived according to different values than those of his neighbors.  In this way, Noah reminds me of the Jewish experience in the diaspora.  We take part in the national culture and obey its laws, but at the same time we are slightly removed.  We are forever translating from the generic experience to our own. 

I feel this dissonance most profoundly during the “winter holidays,” when I’m constantly reminded that this isn’t my place.  I sure felt it this summer, when the international conversation turned against Israel, while I knew the Jewish state had the right to defend itself and was doing so as morally as possible.

People deal with this cultural dissonance in different ways.  We may remove ourselves from mass culture (as the ultra-Orthodox do), or we may assimilate into it completely.  In between are a range of options, generally referred to as “acculturation.”

What about you?  What balance do you strike between your civic identity and your Jewishness?  Can you share an example of a time you made a choice?

Ki Tavo -- 5774

Where do fruits and vegetables come from?  The grocery store.

That’s what many of today’s youngsters think, removed as they are from farms, orchards, and gardens.

The ancient Jew was under no such misconception.  He or she lived far closer to the land than we do, and regularly followed the commandment to “take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from your land that your God is giving you, put it in a basket,” and bring it to the Temple (Deuteronomy 26:2).  “The priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down in front of the altar of your God” (26:4).



We reap what we sow.  We live with the results of our actions in the world.

These are the days of tshuvah, of reflection, repentance, and transformation.  These are the days to consider what you’ve sown in the world:  how you’ve spent your time, how you’ve treated others, how you’ve treated yourself.  What connections do you see, whether positive or negative, between your behavior and the life you’re leading?

On Rosh Hashanah, we will bring our harvest to God – that is, we will bring our entire beings: the fullness, the yearnings, the fears, the joys, the passions.  We will bare our souls, for they are what we have to show for the year now concluding.  And we will take responsibility for the people we have become.

These are the days of tshuvah.

Ki Teitzei -- 5774

Stop and go.  The Torah advises both approaches when making a decision.

Early in Parshat Ki Teitzei, we are told to stop.  When an Israelite warrior captures a foreign woman and wishes to make her his wife, he must allow her a month’s time to lament her parents before marrying her.  If, at the end of the month, if “you no longer want her, you must release her outright” (Deuteronomy 21:14).  The immorality of indentured wives notwithstanding, the Torah recognizes that lust can cause us to act in harmful ways.

Lust, greed, jealousy and pride, among others, are powerful human forces.  While they can sometimes bring good, they often bring hurt.  If the driving force behind our action is one of these, we’re well advised to pause and let the moment pass before something irrevocable happens and lives are damaged.

On the other hand, sometimes we must act in the moment.  “When you make a vow to the Eternal your God, do not put off fulfilling it, for the Eternal your God will require it of you” (Deuteronomy 23:22).  When we make commitments, whether to God, to another human being, or to ourselves, we should rush to fulfill them.  Similarly, when we desire to do something good – to help another, to give tzedakah, to live up to our potential – we shouldn’t put it off.  The moment may pass and our opportunity to do the right thing may disappear along with it.  The world is, as a result, a little bit worse off.

Our society is all about instant gratification.  Banks, pharmacies, and supermarkets are open 24/7.  We can watch any TV show whenever we want.  Text messages demand immediate response.      While this is powerfully convenient, it also lulls us into acting without reflecting.  Human beings are called “homo sapiens” for a reason.  Let’s not forgo our ability to think.

When a passion comes upon you, take a moment to consider the source.  If it calls you to a negative act, see if you can wait it out.  If it calls you to a mitzvah, pursue. 

Re'ih -- 5774

Parshat R’eih’s exploration of poverty and obligation contains an odd contradiction:  “There shall be no needy among you,” and “if, however, there is a needy person among you” (15:7 and 14, respectively).  If no one is in need, how can it be that someone is needy?  Rabbi Jill Jacobs presents a compelling reading that illuminates two approaches to helping.

Some people respond to pressing need, such as feeding the hungry tonight.  This is called Social Action.  Others recommend Social Justice – making structural changes to the way society is organized so that fewer people are hungry in the first place.  Which is more important?  “The Deuteronomic response to this debate is a refusal to take sides,” Jacobs writes (Righteous Indignation, Jewish Lights, page 150).  Both approaches are required – to meet pressing need and to prevent need as well.

How can I determine the right way for me to help?  Later in the parshah, when discussing the offerings we make to God at the pilgrimage festivals, the Torah shares some wisdom that might apply here:  “Each with his own gift, according to the blessing that your God has bestowed upon you” (16:17).  Each of us should bring our special blend of abilities to bear.  If you’re particularly personable, perhaps you could volunteer at the food pantry and make visiting more pleasant.  Good organizers can run food drives; those of strong bodies can glean citrus trees.  Everyone can give tzedakah of some amount.  To find your way to feed locals in need, visit UnitedFoodBank.org or call them at 480-926-4897.

There is much we can to do help, but we cannot stand idly by.  We do not have the luxury of being overwhelmed into inaction.  Our brothers and sisters are relying on us, and we cannot harden our hearts.

Va'etchanan -- 5774

Moses is full of contradictions.  Addressing the Creator, he says “’O God, You who let Your servant see the first works of Your greatness and Your might hand…’” (Deuteronomy 3:23).  Moses’ reference to God’s anatomy is understood to mean God’s power.  But when Moses continues, speaking to the Israelites, he reminds them that “you saw no shape when God spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire” (4:15). 

Does God have a shape or not?  Does God have a form that resembles the human body?  We are told, after all, that we are created ‘b’tzelem Elohim -- in God’s image.”  Perhaps God is anthropomorphic.

Embedded within Parshat Va-et’chanan -- and indeed throughout Hebrew Scripture -- is the admonition “not to act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured in age in any likeness whatever:  the form of a man or a woman, the form of any beast on earth…” (4:16).  God has no body, we hold, that can be represented through physical material like stone or wood.  God cannot be limited in such a way.

Perhaps this is because the human perception of God should not be limited.  At some times in our lives, we relate to God in a particular way but that relationship changes as we do.  As children, we experience God as an authority figure, like a king or a parent.  As adults, we may be engaged by God as friend or as energy.  At Yom Kippur we contemplate God as a Judge; at Passover God is the Redeemer.  When we concretize God in sculpture or in perception, we reduce God’s possibilities.  We also diminish the ways we can connect with, and benefit from, the God-idea.

Although the Israelites did not see God, the Torah tells us that they heard God:  “God spoke those words – those and no more – to your whole congregation at the mountain, with a mighty voice out of the fire and the dense clouds (5:19).”  What is the difference between hearing and seeing?  For one, the ear can hear multiple sounds simultaneously – the siren AND the music AND the child’s chatter.  Perhaps the Torah uses the metaphor of hearing God, while rejecting the metaphor of seeing God, to remind us of God is available to us through a multiplicity of personae, and that one need not block another.

Dvarim -- 5774

“You talking to me?” Travis Bickel famously asks in the film Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976).  The children of Israel could well ask Moses the same question in this week’s parsha, Dvarim.

Moses begins the Book of Deuteronomy with a long soliloquy.  He recounts how the Generation of the Wilderness doubted God’s promise and was condemned to wander in the wilderness.  “Yet you refused to go up, and flouted the command of your God.  You sulked in your tents and said, ‘It is out of hatred for us that God brought us out of the land of Egypt, to hand us over to the Amorites to wipe us out’ (Deuteronomy 1:26-27).”   But Moses is actually speaking 39 years after that betrayal, and the people he’s talking to aren’t that first generation, but rather their children.  “Moreover, your little one who you said would be carried off, your children who do not yet know good from bad, they shall enter it; to them will I give it and they shall possess it (1:39).”  It is to these children, now grown, that Moses is speaking in Deuteronomy, not their faithless parents.  Yet he seems not to be aware of that fact.  He cannot see who the people right in front of him actually are.  Moses is stuck in the past.

Sometimes, the people we think we’re talking to are not the people we are actually talking to.  Our own needs may be clouding our ability to listen and process.  We may be projecting our expectations onto the other person.  Or the other person may be dealing with a situation about which we are entirely unaware.  All these keep us from clear, direct communication.

As I rabbi, I experience this regularly.  People sometimes assume I hold a certain belief.  People sometimes assume I’m judging them.  They are not speaking to Rabbi Dean Shapiro, but with their childhood rabbi, or their image of what a rabbi “ought” to be, or with their own guilty conscience.  There’s not much I can do about their projection onto me except be aware of it. 

It’s helpful to pause before beginning a conversation, to take stock of our emotions and our expectations.  It’s helpful to think through our hopes and needs from the communication (these are not the same thing).  It’s helpful to identify the person to whom we’re speaking as they truly are.

In these ways, we talk to, not past, each other.

Ma'asei -- 5774

Aaron, the High Priest, climbs Mt. Hor and dies.

I imagine him, in his final moments, surveying the land and his life, too.  He saw the journey from slavery until now, a continuous line superimposed on the landscape before him.  “Here I built the Golden Calf; here I spoke against Tzipporah,” he thinks.  But I also imagine that, from his heightened vantage point, he was also able to see what he couldn’t see before:  “There was an easier way around that mountain; there was a spring of fresh water so close to us, but we didn’t find it!”  He is suddenly aware that life is full of possibilities, of countless roads not taken.

Later in the parsha, God defines the boundaries of the Promised Land.  But, looking at the Land from the Mountaintop, Aaron couldn’t see any such demarcations.  All he saw were swaths of forest, the sapphire sea lapping at the shore, and the wind blowing hot across the desert.  There were no boundaries and no barriers, only open space.  As a younger man, a journey-man, he had encountered confrontations, impediments, and obstacles to be overcome.  Now, looking back on his life, he sees possibilities unexplored, choices he hadn’t known existed, solutions that were there for the taking.

“If only,” Aaron thinks, and breathes his last.

Pinchas -- 5774

When a challenging inquiry comes before Moses, he does something phenomenal:  he admits he doesn’t have the answer.

Zelophehad’s five daughters plead to inherit his estate, having no brothers.  Why should an uncle or male cousin benefit, and they be left without?  The question of female inheritance had never been raised before.  Moses doesn’t know what to do, so he goes to inquire of God.

In our times, “I don’t know” is not an acceptable response.  We expect others – and ourselves – to have answers on the tip of our tongues at all times.  If a fact is in dispute, we whip out cell phones and look it up.  Emails that aren’t returned within 45 minutes get follow-up-e-mails.  The pace leaves us without time to think or to process.  This leads to thinking that’s shallow, rote, and reactive.  Better results come from taking ample time to noodle.

Next time you get stumped by a tough question, try something revolutionary:  say “I don’t know.”

Shlach L'cha -- 5774

The High Holy Days have already begun.

Emily and I are talking through our vision for the services.  The Ritual Committee is getting organized.  The venues are booked.   It might seem early, but the chaggim are only three-and-a-bit months away.  Important actions take time to prepare; it’s time to start getting ready.

With its ancient, cyclical wisdom, the Torah gives us a gentle nudge this week.  After the Israelites disobey yet again and God desires their annihilation, Moses reminds God of God’s supreme qualities: 

Moses speaks:  “The Eternal!  Slow to anger and abounding in kindness; forgiving iniquity and transgression...” 

God responds:  “I have pardoned, as you have asked.”   (Parshat S’lach L’cha, Numbers 14:18, 14:20)

“Adonai!  Erech apayim v’rav chesed, noseh avon v’fasha v’nakeh.” 

“Vayomer Adonai, ‘Salachti kid’varecha.’”

These words may sound familiar – they are woven into the Yom Kippur liturgy.

Real forgiveness doesn’t come easily.  It’s a process of acknowledging hurt, understanding the cause, letting go, crafting a renewed vision of the relationship, and building towards its realization.  There are no short cuts.  And it begins with the self.

While there’s still plenty of time, begin your High Holy Day preparation now.  Identify any anger you’re holding.  Remind yourself of your qualities of forgiveness.

Just as God did, people need to be reminded to forgive.  We especially need to remember to forgive ourselves.  Human beings are tough self-critics – both for what we’ve done and for what we haven’t done.  Responsibility is a heavy burden.  It’s also a hard one to set down.  Now is the time to begin.

Naso -- 5774

“To err is human,” Alexander Pope wrote.  We all make mistakes.

“When men or women individually commit any wrong toward a fellow human being, thus breaking faith with God, and they realize their guilt, they shall confess the wrong that they have done.  They shall make restitution in the principal amount and add one-fifth to it, giving it to the one who was wronged” (Numbers 5:6-7).

When mistakes happen between people, the fabric of their relationship is ripped.  The relationship is diminished, even if only a little bit.  It is harder to trust, enjoy, and love each other.

In Parshat Naso (an uncomfortable Torah portion, generally), we find recognition that human relationships take work – especially when one person has harmed another.  Bygones are never bygones.  Rather, we need to take proactive steps to mend the fabric of a relationship.  First, we must own up to what we’ve done, acknowledging that we know what we did was harmful.  It’s hard to trust someone who doesn’t even understand that he or she hurt us.

“I’m sorry” is not enough.  We also need to make restitution – we need to try to make up for what we’ve done in some way.  If we don’t square our accounts with another person, then we don’t truly care about them.

But we must go even further.  The Torah, in this passage contemplating stolen funds, advocates a cash payment over and above the returned money.  It’s a way to demonstrate that someone else’s loss is real, that their pain must be accounted for.  It is through this additional step that true balance is restored.

You might think this restitution is for the victim – whom it surely benefits.  Why, then, does the Torah require it be paid to the priest in cases when the victim is deceased?  “If that party [is deceased and] has no kin to whom restitution can be made, the amount repaid shall go to God for the priest” (Numbers 5:8).  Because when we owe an emotional debt, we need to pay it.  We need to clear our conscience by performing an affirmative act.  Only then can we move on healthfully.

“To err is human,” Alexander Pope wrote, “to forgive, divine.”  Judaism agrees entirely with the first part of the statement, but only partially with the second.  Forgiveness comes not only from God, and not only from the human beings we’ve harmed, but also from -- and to -- ourselves.

Bamidbar -- 5774

Parashat Bamidbar, the opening portion of the Book of Numbers, recounts a survey of the Israelites:  “Take a census of the whole Israelite company by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head.  You and Aaron shall record them by their groups, from the age of twenty years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms” (1:2-3).

Numbers are generally very important for military and other purposes.  Through most of Jewish history, however, our numbers haven’t mattered.

Our numbers didn’t matter in Israel’s War of Independence, when the Jews of the nascent State beat the odds to secure its borders.  All throughout our history, we have been a comparatively small group of people making an exceptional impact on humanity.  The Jewish nation is great in spite of our numbers, not because of them.

Some like to tout the extraordinary high percentage of Jewish Nobel prize winners.  We look to the statistics as proof of our worth, even superiority.

The numbers may help us feel good, but they don’t actually matter.  The significance of the Jewish people does not reside in the force of our numbers, but rather the force of our ideals:  social justice, compassion, reverence, humility, community.

“Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6).

B'chukotai -- 5774

B’chukotai spells it out clearly:  obey God, and God “will grant your rains in their season so that the earth may yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit … You shall eat your fill of bread and dwell securely in your land” (Leviticus 26:4-5).  Disobey, and God “will wreak misery upon you – consumption and fever … and your foes shall dominate you.  …  Your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit” (Leviticus 26:16-17,20).  The dichotomy could not be starker.  In this week’s parsha, God is the God of the natural world.  What’s more, the land’s health – and our own – is inextricably linked with following God’s laws.

Contemporary, liberal Jews don’t generally hold that God visits natural disaster on rule-breakers.  Earthquakes, tsunamis and outbreaks of disease aren’t punishments.

But we can sense that something in our environment is shifting and, scientists tell us, human beings are responsible.  It can’t be right to throw nature off balance by taking more than can be sustained, destroying habitat, and by failing to clean up after ourselves.  It’s not healthy to satiate every immediate whim and fail to think of future generations.  There are too many of us consuming too much.

According to a report issued by the government last week, the climate has already begun to change.  (Explore the report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program at www.globalchange.gov.)

I fear a world that has too many mega-storms and not enough bees.  I worry for the refugees displaced by both flooding and drought.  I despair for civilization in general, and my son in particular.  Last week and this week, we’ve been given wake-up calls.

To learn more about Judaism and the Environment, and a religious response to climate change in Arizona, visit:

• The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) deepens and broadens the Jewish community’s commitment to stewardship and protection of the Earth through outreach, activism and Jewish learning.  www.coejl.org.
• Arizona Interfaith Power & Light mobilizes people of faith in Arizona to reduce the causes of global climate change through education, advocacy, action and prayer.   www.azipl.org.

Emor - 5774

Parshat Emor outlines the “fixed times” of the year – the sacred festivals of the Jewish people.  It tells us to count the seven weeks of seven days between Pesach and Shavuot.  This is the Counting of the Omer, the season in which we currently find ourselves.

The counting concludes with “an offering of new grain to YHVH” (Leviticus 23:16).  God is, after all, the source of the bounty.  Then, seven verses later, we are taught that “when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger:  I YHVH am your God” (Leviticus 23:22).

A share of our produce goes to God; another share goes to the poor and the stranger.

A widow once told me that her husband’s motto had been “never take everything.”  In grocery stores, he always left a box or two of an item behind because the next customer might need it more than he.  It’s a virtue that’s basic and profound, but seemingly forgotten: leave something for someone else.

American restaurants serve portions that would feed a family elsewhere.  We tear up the earth to extract oil and metal, and tear down the rainforest to graze cattle.  We speak so loudly on our cell phones that others can’t converse.  We don’t let other drivers merge into our lane.  We expect others’ schedules to conform to our own, and curse them when they don’t.

Whether it’s a product at a store, the earth’s resources, space on the bus or someone else’s time, be considerate enough not to drain all the stock.  Instead, leave enough for others to have a share, and for the supply to be replenished.  In the words of Bernard Etzine, “never take everything.”

Kiddoshim -- 5774

“Kdoshim tihiyu ki kadosh Ani Adonai elohechem.  You shall be holy for I, your God, am holy.”

To whom is God speaking?  Not to any specific person, but to the entire people.  Both “kdoshim” and “tihiyu” are in the plural; “kadosh” and “ani” are singular.

How does a group of people become holy?  Together.

Parshat Kdoshim outlines rules of interpersonal ethics and sexual morality.  It describes ways we are meant to treat each other and be with each other, even though we don’t agree with or conform to all of them today.  When we connect with each other respectfully and thoughtfully, we become greater than our own, isolated selves.  When individuals connect in service of the good, we become holy.

Holiness can be found in the flow of the many into one, from the plural to the singular.  Just as God has many names that describe a Single entity, just as light is comprised of many colors that merge into pure white, so too can disparate people become a unified community.  We do this through mundane acts like breaking bread and extraordinary acts like honoring survivors and liberators.  We become a K’hillah Kdoshah – a holy community - by supporting each other and celebrating with each other.

Our Temple Emanuel community gathers together this weekend at a series of special events.  We’ll break bread, eat dessert, sing songs, drink, laugh, and cry together.  Strangers will meet, kids will lead a service for very the first time, and babies will toddle on the grass.  We’ll laugh a lot, and cry a bit.  We’ll let our hair down.  None of these is particularly noteworthy on its own.  Together, however, they are holy.  Together we become holy.

Pesach 5774: From Yachatz (“Split”) to Afikomen (“Dessert”)

At our Seders on Monday night, we will hold up the middle of three matzot and proclaim: “This the bread of affliction, which our ancestors ate in the Land of Egypt.”  Then we will break it in two.

When we break the matzah, we remind ourselves that our world, too, is broken.  This sphere is one of misunderstandings, shortcomings, disappointments, and failures.  Our dreams come to naught.  We say things we don’t mean.  We hurt others, both on purpose and unintentionally.  There is poverty and pain.  Not only is the world broken, but we are broken, too.  Life, like a piece of matzah, is bumpy, uneven, and brittle. 

But all is not lost.

When we’ve told the story and our stomachs are full, we remember that lost piece of matzah.  We’ll realize that our meal is incomplete without it.  The broken bit has become the afikoman, the dessert.  What appeared worthless is actually perfect just as it is.  What was once hopeless has been redeemed.  This world is simultaneously imperfect AND marvelous, as is each one of us.

A Seder is a telling of the Exodus story through food.  Each bite, each idea, each song is a piece of a jigsaw puzzle of understandings.  By reliving our slavery and our liberation, we declare our supreme identities:  free people capable of empathy.  Through the telling of the story, the fragments become the whole.

Metzorah 5774

Metzorah, this week’s parshah, describes the skin condition of tzora’at.  Previously, tzora’at was mistakenly identified as leprosy (Hansen’s Disease).  The parshah describes the ritual for spiritual purification of the sufferer.

Rabbis are regularly asked, “Why me?” when someone gets sick.  It’s a powerful question, full of anguish.  I have asked it myself, in times of loss and confusion.  The question expresses a belief, found in the Torah, that illness can be a moral statement rather than a medical one.  It can sometimes feel as if suffering were a moral judgment, a punishment doled out by a disapproving God like a bitter headmaster with his wooden ruler.  Painful as that idea is, some find it more soothing than grappling with the idea that the universe is incomprehensible to us, that neither success nor failure are moral indications.  Pain doesn’t make sense.

Jewish tradition does not believe that suffering is redemptive.  It does not come to punish us, nor to teach us a lesson.  I do not believe that we are given pain in order to help us grow. 

That said, we may indeed learn and grow from our suffering.  This is a subtle, but very important difference.  I have certainly learned from my pain, but I do not believe that the pain was “sent to me” in order that I might learn those lessons.  The pain is just pain, no more nor less.  The meaning I make of it is up to me.

Tazriah 5774

This week’s Torah reading, Tazriah, oozes, flakes, and sticks.  When a person’s skin has a swelling, discoloration, rash, or burn, he or she is to call the priest.  The priest will declare whether the person is “tameh/ritually unclean” or “tahor/ritually clean.”

We regularly use the categories of “unclean” and “clean” – unclean goes in the hamper, clean goes into the drawer.  But the categories of “ritually unclean” and “ritually clean” have ceased to have currency for us.  We’ve lost the vocabulary to describe spiritual health and un-well-ness.  Even so, we have an innate sense of when we need to restore our balance so that we can continue properly.

After a fight, we need to restore balance.  After witnessing a car crash, we need to offer thanks.  We wash our hands after handling meat, even if we were wearing gloves.  We know we shouldn’t leave the cemetery and head right to the preschool.  It’s not that we’re carrying contagion, but rather that the essence of one doesn’t mix with the essence of the other.  Human beings need to transition from one state to the other.  Through time and ritual, we become ritually pure once again.

These categories were very real for the ancients.  Perhaps they were more in touch with their spiritual states; perhaps they were obsessed with something that didn’t really exist.  We cannot know.  Modern life, with all its bells and whistles, makes awareness of our spiritual nature difficult.  And it is even harder to be aware when we lack words to describe it.

Unlike our biblical ancestors, we do not believe that disease is an expression of our spiritual states.  Even so, it behooves us to think of the bad energy we bring from one experience to the other, the spiritual baggage we carry with us.  It’s worth considering how to shed it.

Sh'mini 5774

The mishkan is up and running, having been duly consecrated.  Now, Moses tells Aaron and his sons, “today the Eternal will appear to you.”  It’s all systems go.

What a horror, then, when two of Aaron’s sons are incinerated by God after they offer “alien fire” on the altar.  “And fire came forth from the Eternal and consumed them; thus they died at the instance of the Eternal” (Parshat Sh’mini, Leviticus 10:2).

The episode is shocking on many levels, and it also can also teach us spiritually.  The rabbinic commentators have argued for centuries about what “strange fire” actually means, but I notice that the sons are devoured by the same force they promoted  –  fire.  Isn’t it the case that the world gives us what we look for?

I have observed that …

• Angry people find reason to be angry.
• Fearful people have lots of opportunities to fear.
• Negative people experience a negative world.
• Joyful people experience joy throughout the day.
   

To be clear, I do not believe in phony philosophies that hold that one’s mere thoughts create their reality.  Thoughts turn to mindsets, and mindsets shape the way we see and react to the world.  They do not, I am certain, summon good, evil, joy, or pain into our lives.  There’s plenty of all these to go around.

Rather, I think that our mindset shapes what we see – so that we notice the good, evil, joy, or pain in our lives when that’s what we expect to find.  It’s not that what we put into the world comes back to us.  Instead, we see in the world what we expect to see.

Tzav 5774

To prepare for their ordination, Aaron and his sons eat parts of the sacrifice.  They consume the offering of meal and meat; the rest is turned to smoke on the altar.  They dress in priestly garb, are anointed with oil, and are consecrated to God.

The fire of the altar is long since burnt out; the priesthood is no more.  Still, the act of preparing and consuming food remains a sacred one.  Many Jewish customs derive from the priests’ ritual behavior.  The Talmud transforms the Temple’s altar into the kitchen table (BT B’rachot 55a).  We wash hands before we eat bread because priests did so, too.  Shabbat challah represents the showbreads offered when the Temple stood.

When we offer blessings before eating, we elevate the act from an animal need to a sacred act.  When we restrict what we consume by following the laws of kashrut, we impose a discipline on ourselves that develops self-control.  Through these several steps, we pay attention to what we eat and drink, and elevate ourselves in the process.

Few members of our community make the blessings over food.  Some eat meat of all species.  No matter what your practice, try -- just this week -- to bring consciousness to your eating.  Pay attention to the choices you make and the flavors in your mouth.  Pause and offer thanks.  In so doing, you can become more attuned to yourself, your community, and God. 

We are what we eat.  Let’s make ourselves holy.

Vayikra 5774

And so we begin Leviticus/Vayikra.  It is a playbook on how to sacrifice animals to God.

In the coming weeks, we’ll read of bulls, rams, goats, turtle doves, and grain turned to smoke.  We’ll learn about washing entrails, and dashing blood on the altar.  We’ll study the different classifications of offering:  sin, burnt, purgation, expiation, and wholeness.  We’ll ponder the rules of kashrut, especially which animals cannot be eaten.  We’ll hear about ritual impurity after childbirth.  We’ll contemplate diseases of the skin and of buildings.

What does this have to do with us?  Why should we pay attention through the long slog of Vayikra?

The Hebrew word for sacrifice, l’hakriv holds a clue.  Its root, koof-resh-vet, signals its true meaning:  drawing near.

The ancients offered sacrifices as a way to draw near to God.  According to Arnie Eisen, “giving things of value to God is part of that effort, and so is giving up things of value to us. Both are instruments of drawing near, overcoming distance, making right what had been wronged” (JTS Torah Commentary).

While we no longer offer animal sacrifice, the human need to draw near to God remains.  We long to connect with the Source of the Universe.  We long to transcend our finite natures, and partake in the Great Mystery of Creation.  We do this through prayer.  We do this through silence.  We do this in song.  We do this in nature.  We do this through denial, and we do this through pleasure and beauty.  We do this by trying our best.

For the next 10 weeks, let this be our quest:  to remember that we are more than “To Do” lists, more than mere clusters of atoms.  Let us draw close to God, the Source of All.

P'kudei 5774

Two artisans, Bezalel ben Uri and Oholiab ben Ahisamach, design and craft the vestments the priests will wear.

These include the ephod and breast piece, with gold, blue, purple and crimson yarn and fine twisted linen.  Semi-precious stones, among them lapis lazuli, emerald, turquoise, sapphire, and amethyst, are set into these.  “They were encircled in their mountings with frames of gold.  The stones corresponded [in number] to the names of the sons of Israel:  twelve, corresponding to their names;’ engraved like seals, each with its name, for the twelve tribes” (Exodus 39:13-14).  The priests wore these highly worked garments when they made sacrifices.  We no longer offer animals to God; instead, we offer the prayers of our hearts.

What if we treated each word we pray like a precious stone?  What if, instead of merely mouthing words learned by rote, we made each one as beautiful as we possibly can?  We can make the effort to shape each sound beautifully.  We can engrave each word with kavannah – our heart-felt intention.  We can encircle each thought with love.  We can value each feeling as if it were a gemstone.

Praying this way requires supreme attention.  When we pray in this way, we offer our very best up to God.

Ki Tissa 5774

The first set of Commandments is carved “by the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18). The finger of God!  Can it be that God has a finger?  Anthropomorphic images of God abound in the Torah:  God breathing the breath of life into Adam, God walking with Noah, God’s outstretched arm freeing the Israelites.  Are we to understand that God has a body?

Rambam, a great sage of the Medieval period, tells us that the “Torah speaks in human language.”  That is, the Torah employs metaphoric language to convey concepts that outpace the human mind.  Since the Torah wants us to understand, it uses language we can comprehend. 

Language routinely uses simile and metaphor to convey ideas that are complex or novel.  Even young children understand that it never actually “rains cats and dogs.”  Why should the Torah be less subtle than everyday speech?

What is meant by the image “the finger of God”?  That the Torah emanates directly from God.  That God creates the words, and that they are holy.  If the words come from God, they can certainly hold multiple, simultaneous truths.

Tetzaveh 5774

The lamps flicker, filling the tent with smoky yellow light.  Shadows dance on the walls.  This is the Mishkan – the place of encounter between God and humanity.  It is lit by a golden menorah, and by a ner tamid.  Each light is fueled by olive oil.  The oil must be clear, made of beaten olives (Exodus 27:20).  

How appropriate that the holiest, purest element of the Mishkan, the one that symbolizes God’s presence, comes from something that’s been beaten and crushed.  Human beings pass through many difficulties as we live and, if we are lucky, some of them transform us into something better than we were before.  We all experience challenges, angst, suffering, and doubt.  They are part of the human experience; no one moves through life unscathed.  Although they are horrible, they can also be catalysts for growth:  they can help us know ourselves, prove our mettle, and forge ourselves anew.  They teach us empathy and make us who we are.  Like the egg on the seder plate, pressure can make us stronger.

I call this process “going through the fire.”  It’s the trial that toughens us up and helps us understand life more fully.  For me, it was the death of my college roommate.  That ushered me into a new and truer understanding of human life.  The pain was great, but so was the learning.

Let me be clear:  I am speaking metaphorically and not about getting beaten or abused physically.  Neither Judaism nor I hold that suffering is redemptive.  Although we may sometimes grow out of pain, that’s not the intention of this verse.  Rather, the oil is produced here with sacred, not demeaning, intention.  The process transforms without destroying.

What’s true for oil is true for human beings:  when we encounter adversity, and stretch to overcome it, we can recreate ourselves into something truer, purer, and brighter.

Mishpatim 5774

The many rules in Parshat Mishpatim provide the foundation for civil society.  Most can be placed into general categories:  slavery, assault, robbery, vicious animals, borrowed property, and credit.  As we read the list, we can discern at least one important theme:  the obligations incumbent upon individuals.

If your ox gores someone, you are responsible.  (21:28)  If you dig a pit and don’t cover it, you have  obligations to anyone – human or animal – who falls in.  (21:33)  You can’t let your livestock graze on someone else’s land.  (22:4)  If you lend someone money and take collateral, don’t do so in a way that’s punitive or degrading.  (22:24)

In a free society, it is tempting to believe that our personal freedom is infinite.  But civilization requires it to be curtailed in some cases.  The Torah espouses a civil contract, and denies that we are purely free agents.  Our actions – and the ways we treat others – matter.

Most of us happily conform to laws that protect personal safety.  But there is a troubling trend in our culture, a movement of disrespect of other’s person, dignity, and time.

How regularly do we expect that another person be available to us precisely when we want them?  We get angry or frustrated when their schedule doesn’t conform to ours.  How regularly do we demand that a product or service conform to our specific requirements?  We want what we want when we want it, and act out when we don’t receive it.

I discern an extraordinary sense of entitlement in today’s culture.  If the Kardashians and “Real” “Housewives” of Beverly Hills can be demanding and get away with it, why can’t we? 

I suspect that the ubiquity of the internet plays a big role in this.  All the information in the world is available in our own pockets, 60/1440 -- that is, each minute of the day.  Waiting feels primitive.  Since multi-national corporations have taken over almost every shop, we are far more likely to interact with “workers” than “owners” – and so we, as customers, expect to be always right.  We take instant gratification for granted and grow frustrated with anything less.  Are we becoming a society of four year olds?

No matter what the wider society may expect, we are reminded this week that we are to respect each other’s person, as well as their dignity and their time.  We may not have livestock, but we must nonetheless respect the integrity of another’s space.