Interruptions?

November 8th: Lech Lecha
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

Recently, a friend and I were re-negotiating a lunch meeting. It had been on our schedules for quite a while, but, as we commiserated together, “Life sometimes gets in the way.” It was not an atypical conversation, but, afterwards, the philosopher in me wondered whether it was life that got in the way—or our original plans. We make our plans not knowing what interesting and challenging situations may arise and necessitate logistical adjustments.

Think about Moses, for instance. While we look at his encounter with God at the Burning Bush as the start of real significance, how does he regard it? He is eighty years old, set in his career as a shepherd in his wife’s family business. He is comfortable in his home and society and all the joys of tribal life among the Midianites. Though his immigration from Egypt and immersion into the Midianite culture takes only a single paragraph in the Torah, he has been there for more than forty years. He is at home in Midian—so much so that he thinks of Egypt as the strange land.

So, when God interrupts this comfortable life and sends him off on the hardest errand of his life—one that will literally consume his life, Moses has got to feel disrupted.

The same could be said for Abram, whose story begins in this week’s portion. He is seventy-five years old, an immigrant from Ur of the Chaldees (at the mouth of the Tigres and Euphrates River system), and has been settled with his family in Haran, Syria, for many, many years. All of a sudden and out of nowhere, God appears to him and interrupts his life: “The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you.’” (Genesis 12.1-3)

To us, it sounds like an incredible opportunity—the beginning of true meaningfulness, but, to Abram and Sarai, it is totally unexpected and a disruption in their lives. We are not privy to their conversations about such a radically life-changing move, but move they do, and the rest is history.

My point here is that the unexpected call—this detour—turns out to reveal their lives’ true and elevating purposes. Is God’s call what gets in their way, or is it their other pre-existing plans? Is their true purpose what they have on their calendars, or is it the holiness and destiny which they have not hitherto expected?

Planning is important—for all sorts of reasons, but many are the opportunities that arise unexpectedly and which might give our lives much more meaning than what they interrupt.

Let me share with you one of my favorite stories, Stranger on a Bus, from Rabbi Lawrence Kushner’s book, Invisible Lines of Connection (Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, Vermont, 1996). It is a true story, and it shows how a random encounter and an unplanned opportunity literally save a life.

“A light snow was falling and the streets were crowded with people. It was Munich in Nazi Germany. One of my rabbinic students, Shifra Penzias, told me that her great-aunt, Sussie, had been riding a city bus home from work when SS storm troopers suddenly stopped the coach and began examining the identification papers of the passengers. Most were annoyed but a few were terrified. Jews were being told to leave the bus and get into a truck around the corner.

My student’s great-aunt watched from her seat in the rear as the soldiers systematically worked their way down the aisle. She began to tremble, tears streaming down her face. When the man next to her noticed that she was crying, he politely asked her why.
‘I don’t have the papers you have. I am a Jew. They’re going to take me.’

The man exploded with disgust. He began to curse and scream at her. ‘You stupid bitch,’ he roared. ‘I can’t stand being near you!’

The SS men asked what all the yelling was about.
‘Damn her,’ the man shouted angrily. ‘My wife has forgotten her papers again! I’m so fed up. She always does this!’
 The soldiers laughed and moved on.

My student said that her great-aunt never saw the man again. She never even knew his name.

Rabbi Kushner continues:
”You are going about your business when you stumble onto something that has your name on it. Or, to be more accurate, a task with your name on it finds you. Its execution requires inconvenience, self-sacrifice, even risk. You step forward and encounter your destiny. This does not mean you must do everything that lands on your doorstep, or that you should assume every risk or make every self-sacrifice. But it does mean that you must tell yourself the truth about where you have been placed and why.

You do not exercise your freedom by doing what you want. Self-indulgence is not an exercise of freedom. But when you accept the task that destiny seems to have set before you, you become free. Perhaps the only exercise of real freedom comes from doing what you were meant to do all along.

If everything is connected to everything else, then everyone is ultimately responsible for everything. We can blame nothing on anyone else. The more we comprehend our mutual interdependence, the more we fathom the implications of our most trivial acts. We find ourselves within a luminous organism of sacred responsibility.

Even on a bus in Munich.”

Now back to my friend postponing our lunch meeting. Who knows what sacred errand called her at the time we had set? Was it an interruption, or was it an opening between heaven and earth? I’m glad she was available.

God Reconsiders

November 1st: No’ach
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

The story of a Great Flood is found in many ancient cultures, and there are all kinds of theories for this common theme. Could there have been an actual great flood like the Bible describes? Could this tale be referencing a pre-historic flood that filled in the Black Sea or the Mediterranean Sea? Or, could this be a psychologically fear-driven story, based on flash flooding in the dry river beds many ancients inhabited?

Whatever the common concern or memory, the difference between the Jewish version—in Genesis 6-9—and the other ancient versions is the moral component. Whereas the Babylonian story of Ut’napish’tim (in the Gilgamesh Epic) presents the “problem” as humanity’s noise, the Bible speaks of God’s consternation at human immorality. “The Lord saw how great was human wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by their minds was nothing but evil all the time. And the Lord regretted the creation of humans on earth, and God’s heart was saddened. The Lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the humans whom I created—humans together with beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I regret that I made them.’ But Noah found favor with the Lord.” (Genesis 6.5-8)

Why Noah? The Torah gives a nuanced answer. “Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noah walked with God.” (Genesis 6.9)  “Righteous” and “walked with God,” sound like good character traits, but the middle phrase, “blameless in his age,” provides two interesting evaluative possibilities. On the one hand, it suggests that Noah might not have been that good. His comparative righteousness was only better than the truly terrible morality of that evil generation. On the other hand, it might be a sign of great moral strength. Given that his peer group was horrible, it must have taken incredible moral resolve to be righteous in such a cauldron of wickedness.

In any event, Noah is good enough for God to save, and Noah becomes the ancestor of humanity’s second chance. The next question revolves around God’s intentions in regard to this second chance—and whether there is a possibility for a third or fourth chance, too.

After Noah and his family and all the animals come off the Ark, God speaks the following: “I now establish My covenant with you and your offspring to come, and with every living thing that is with you—birds, cattle, and every wild beast as well—all that have come out of the Ark, every living thing on earth. I will maintain My covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

In all the years of reading this passage, my only reaction was relief: God was/is reassuring humanity that such a flood will never come again. I never wondered why God made this promise until Bat Mitzvah student Ellie Kaufman asked about God’s motivation. I asked her what she thought, and her answer is quite astounding. She compares the situation to an artist who works very hard on a painting but who makes a mistake at the end and destroys the painting. Afterwards, the artist reconsiders and regrets destroying his/her work—and wonders if there might have been a way to fix the mistake.

As Ellie understands it, God makes the Rainbow Covenant with Noah and the future of humanity because God has figured out a different and better way to deal with human misbehavior. From now on, God will develop a system of repentance and atonement—of Teshuvah—and thus work for human improvement.

As evidence, Ellie brings up the example from our Yom Kippur Haftarah of the story of Jonah. God loves the people of Nineveh even though they are wicked and is willing to accept their repentance. Jonah is disappointed because he wants to see a bloodbath, but God explains:  “Should I not care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not yet know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?!” (Jonah 4.11)

 And so, I thank Ellie for seeing God’s promise in a different way and for teaching us all about how God—and we!—can learn and improve.

In these early years of the Creation, God learns that human goodness is not automatic. It must be learned and often re-learned. But, even with our inadequacies, God loves us and wants desperately for us to improve. Thus does the rainbow serve as a double reminder—reminding God not to send another flood, and reminding us that we can do better.

.בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶך הָעוֹלָם, זוֹכֵר הַבְּרִת
Baruch Atah Adonai, Elohaynu Melech ha’olam, zocher hab’rit.
We praise You, O Lord our God, Ruler of the world, who remembers the Covenant
(with Noah).  

"Adam Kad'mon" and You and Me

October 25th: Beraysheet
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

One of the most important techniques in the Jewish art of Torah study is to find “problems” in the text. The Hebrew word koshi refers to any problematic passage or word. It can be something unexplained or something that is contradicted elsewhere in the text—any difficulty or anomaly. Finding a koshi is not considered an attack on the Torah, but rather perceiving an invitation for deeper understanding. Midrash is that kind of Jewish literature which seeks to answer or solve koshi’s, “solving” the problem with a story that also teaches a moral lesson.

A case in point comes with a comparison of the first two chapters of Genesis. In Chapter One, we have the six days of creation narrative. Beginning with, “When God began to create the heavens and the earth—the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God hovering over the water, God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light,” we have a step by step description of Ma’aseh V’raysheet, the Creative Process.

On the sixth day, we have the creation of all the land animals and the creation of the human being. “God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth every kind of living creature: cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts of every kind and cattle of every kind, and all kinds of creeping things of the earth.’ And God saw that this was good. And God said, ‘Let us make the human in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.’ And God created the human in God’s image, in the image of God was the human created; male and female did God create them.” (Genesis 1.24-27) Everything seems complete, and God celebrates the first Shabbat.

However, in Chapter Two, we seem to be in a world where none of this creating has taken place. “This is the story of heaven and earth when they were created: When the Lord God made earth and heaven—when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the soil, but a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth, the Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth. God blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.” (Genesis 2.4-7)

In this version, the plants and animals are created after man, and the human is only male—with the female being created from the man’s rib. Since none of the animals were fitting companions for the man, “the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon the man; and, while he slept, God took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that spot. And the Lord God fashioned the rib taken from the man into a woman; and God brought her to the man.” (Genesis 2.21-22)

What happened to the man and woman—and animals—in Chapter One? Why do we have dueling creation stories? This discrepancy is a koshi of the first order.

Some suggest that Chapter One represents God’s planning process. Just like a builder comes up with an idea and sketches it out on a drawing board, God has to figure out how everything would come to be and fit together. Among other things, God has to invent physics, chemistry, emotions, philosophy, intelligence, etc. There is a lot to think about, and, even if the Infinite God can do this very quickly, it still requires a planning phase. The plan is formulated in Chapter One, and, in Chapter Two, it is brought to fruition.

One of the advantages of this interpretation is that obviates the whole issue of the time involved—and the discrepancies between science and the Biblical account. If the six “days” represent God’s thinking and designing, then the billions of years that science teaches are not an issue. The actual execution of the plan, in Genesis Two, is not described in specific time periods.

Another advantage is that the Planning-in-Chapter-One-and-Physically-Doing-Creation-in- Chapter-Two interpretation offers the Kabbalists a better understanding of the concept B’tzelem Elohim—that we humans are created in the image of God. Jewish mysticism teaches that the first chapter’s Adam is the prototype for humanity, a “model” that comes in both male and female. It is created as the perfect human being—the one that embodies the best of godly qualities. When it comes to forming the actual human beings who walk the earth, these productions are based on the prototype but are not as perfect. Perfection is a drawing board notion, while the practical world and the complexities of life result in a lessening of human perfection and godliness. Nonetheless, the perfection still exists in our design, and we are urged to work on ourselves, getting better and better, as we approach the ideal of Adam Kadmon.  

This is the hope of humanity, and it is the goal of practical Kabbalah. When a person comes to consult a Kabbalist and ask for help in improving, the technique is to ascertain those attributes of Adam Kadmon where the penitent is falling short and then to prescribe a spiritual and behavioral remedy (tikkun) to help the penitent actualize the godliness that dwells within. It is there, in our design. Our task is to bring forth the Divine that we were designed to be.

The Clothes of God

October 18th: Sukkot
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
For our Torah Commentary at this season, we shall be publishing Rabbi Ostrich’s Yom Tov sermons. This is from Yom Kippur: The Clothes of God.

On Rosh Hashanah, I began with the question: What are we doing here? And I ask it again. What are we doing here this evening? Are here to petition the Almighty? Are we here to come to grips with our Jewish Identities? Are we here out of a vague sense of familial or ancestral obligation? Or, are we here out of a perennial and traditional curiosity—to ponder and feel in Jewish ways during these moments of High Holiness.

While we can get specific and philosophical, I also find it helpful to be rather expansive in categorizing this communal encounter. Indeed, I find it helpful to consider the words of a non-Jewish thinker in his description of religion and God—and therefore these gatherings.

The philosopher William James defined Religion as the human response to an undifferentiated sense of reality—to what he called the More: an undefinable, non-empirical feeling of a Presence. People of religion gather to contemplate and approach this Presence, and we Jews have developed a whole tradition full of insights and techniques, achieving some real profundity.

Among the approaches to the ineffable Presence we call God is the prayer we chant during this season, Un’taneh Tokef. In it, we speak of God judging everyone, both the hosts of heaven and those who dwell on earth. “As the shepherd seeks out the flock, and makes the sheep pass under the staff, so do You muster and number and consider every soul, setting the bounds of every creature’s life, and decreeing its destiny.” It is a problematic passage—one that is often discussed, and yet there is some truth to the reality it approaches. We believe that our decisions make a difference, but we also find that other factors—factors we do not control—impact our lives in significant ways. Thus do our Yom Kippur prayers go in two directions. We pray to ourselves that we will make good choices, and we pray that the Greatest of Powers ease our way and make our challenges manageable.

Among our prayers for protection, we have Hashkivaynu. Coming after Mi Chamocha and before the Amidah, on pages 32-33 of our Machzor, we just prayed these words:  
“Shield us, we pray, against enemies, disease, war, famine, and sorrow, and strengthen us against the evil forces that abound on every side; give us refuge in the shadow of Your wings.”

There is also this traditional Bedtime Prayer:
“Behold the couch of Solomon, with sixty mighty ones of Israel surrounding. Gripping the sword, skilled in warfare, they protect us from fear in the night...In the Name of the Lord God of Israel, may the angels protect me. May Michael be at my right, Gabriel at my left. May Uriel be before me, Raphael behind me, and above my head the Presence of God.”

Of course, ours is not the only religious tradition in which God is invoked for protection. Among the more interesting prayers that I have found is an extended metaphor in Christianity for what is called The Armor of God. In Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, our Christian friends pray:
“Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil...gird your loins with truth; cover your chest with the breastplate of righteousness; Your feet shall be shod with the gospel of peace; your shield shall be faith with which you can stop all the fiery darts of the wicked. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the word of God.”

When a Christian friend introduced me to this passage, he explained it in terms of his faith persuading/invoking God to protect him with holy armor.

However, as I reflected on this Christian passage, it occurred to me that there is another way to read it. While there are certain kinds of clothing that protect us—in this case the Armor of God, there is also clothing that affects our movement or our moods. Take flip-flops, for instance: one walks in them differently than in regular shoes. The same could be said for high heels, work boots, or orthopedic shoes. Or, take fancy clothes or a military or work uniform: we feel differently when we wear them.

So, in addition to whatever protection Christian faith might afford my friend, could it not also be possible that the clothes of faith affect his behavior? When one is wearing the truth on one’s body, there should be a tendency to behave truthfully and in line with true values. When one is wearing peaceful boots, there should be a tendency to walk in peaceful ways. The same can be said for the helmet of salvation and the sword of God’s word. When wearing or wielding these, there should be the tendency to behave in godly ways.

I do not know if this is a particularly Jewish way of reading the Ephesians passage, but it is certainly in line with the spiritual interpretations of our own Jewish ritual clothing. Though some may regard Kippah, Tallit, and Tefillin as mere customs, the fact is that Tradition has imbued them with attitudinal expectations.

In the case of the Kippah or Yarmulke, the original purpose is reverence—that covering one’s head caps one’s ego both psychologically and emotionally, reminding us that there is a reality greater than we. There is also the sense of sacred identification—that wearing the Yarmulke represents to the world that we are Jewish, members of a sacred community and dedicated to its values. This kind of awareness should affect our attitudes and behavior.

In the case of Tefillin—when we bind God’s words “as a sign on our arms,” the prayers draw a very strong connection between ritual ornamentation and our behavior. As one wraps the leather strap around one’s finger, Tradition prescribes a vow from the Prophet Hosea (2.21):
“I will espouse you forever: I will espouse you with righteousness and justice, and with goodness and mercy. I will espouse you with faithfulness, and you shall be devoted to the Lord.”

A Kabbalistic interpretation sees the wrapping of the leather strap on one’s arm as tying ourselves and God together—of d’vekut, cleaving to God. The words one says while wrapping can also lead to insights. Tradition prescribes the verse from Psalm 145—which we may know best from Ashray:  “You open Your hand to satisfy the will of every creature.” Some see these words as a prayer asking that God’s Hand be opened generously to give us lots of blessings. Rabbi Shefa Gold, however, sees it as more of a reciprocal process. When she prays, she likes to translate it spiritually as “You open Your hand; I open my heart to this abundance.” The Tefillin can inspire us to be receptive to the blessings God gives and to learn satisfaction and appreciation.

When one puts the leather Tefillin box on one’s forehead—“between one’s eyes,” it can be seen as a dedication of both thinking and vision to godly values. It always reminds me of a phrase from a Reform Religious School curriculum in the 1980s, To See the World Through Jewish Eyes. When we mediate our vision and mental functioning with holiness, we are drawn to seeing the world and thinking about it the way God does.

The Tallit, which is traditionally worn at morning services but which is also part of our special Kol Nidre holiness, is even more direct in speaking of the effect of godly clothing. The meditation prayed before putting on the Tallit, from Psalm 104, speaks metaphorically about robing ourselves in God’s glory and sensibilities:
“Bless the Lord, O my soul: O Lord, my God, You are exceedingly great:
You are clothed in glory and majesty, Wrapped in a robe of light;
You spread out the heavens like a curtain.”
Wrapping ourselves in the Tallit is seen as wrapping ourselves in the mitzvot—dedicating ourselves to the mitzvah life and to exemplifying godliness in our behavior. Wrapped in godliness, we can represent God—actually, present God in the world.

Covering our heads with reverence, wrapping our arms with appreciation and commitment, influencing our vision and our thinking, and wrapping ourselves in holy possibilities is like putting on a uniform of our highest and most holy aspirations. Whether we wear these clothes of God literally or spiritually, let us wear them with true kavannah, with a sense that our attitudes and behaviors matter, that we have holy potential and are resolved to bring it forth in our lives.

 May our meditations and prayers on this most holy of days open our hearts and our eyes to the significance of our roles in the world. May we bring holiness and goodness and lovingkindness and mercy. May we be devoted to the Lord and be God’s channels of light and blessing in the world.

Our Jewish Stories

October 7th-12th: Yom Kippur
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
For our Torah Commentary at this season, we shall be publishing Rabbi Ostrich’s Yom Tov sermons. This is from Rosh Hashanah Morning: Our Jewish Stories

 לשנה טובה תכתבו

May you be written for a good year in the Book of Life. The Book of Life: an ancient metaphor for the judgment that occurs on the awesome Yom HaDin, Day of Judgment. As we read in our Machzor:
“This is the Day of Judgment! Even the hosts of heaven are judged, as all who dwell on earth stand arrayed before You. As the shepherd seeks out the flock, and makes the sheep pass under the staff, so do You muster and number and consider every soul, setting the bounds of every creature’s life, and decreeing its destiny. 

About 1000 years ago, Bachya ibn Pakuda approached this idea from a slightly different angle when he said, “Days are like scrolls: write on them only what you want remembered.” Thus does our Tradition tread a double path, teaching that our fates are a combination of what God writes and what we write. We are active participants in our own stories. And, since the communal or tribal aspect of Judaism is certainly at play, we are also active participants in the Jewish story.

Much of our ambivalence about Judaism and Jewish Identity—which we all have to various degrees—involves the way we feel a part of some Jewish stories and not a part of others. This is on our minds every time we study a Jewish story. Do we see ourselves as part of the story? How does it reflect our Jewish Identities?

One often hears the Torah characterized as The Law, but this is only a partial description. While there are legal aspects, the meta-message of the Torah and the Bible is a dialectic—a conversation—between Heaven and Earth. God offers a Heavenly vision, but the translation to Earthly reality is never exact, and there are lots different experiences and opinions about how to get God’s mission accomplished. As Israeli thinker Micah Goodman puts it: the Bible is a continuing critique of the Jewish people, both encouraging Jewish religion and criticizing Jewish religion.

To see this dialectic—this “coaching”—at play, let us consider two stories, one well-known and one rather obscure.

The well-known story is from Deuteronomy 5, where Moses is reviewing the history of the Israelites in a series of farewell lectures. When he gets to the Revelation at Mount Sinai, rather than simply repeat God’s words, he gives an interpretation. In other words, the Exodus version of the Ten Commandments is slightly different from Deuteronomy’s interpretive version. The Sabbath commandment is a good example. In Exodus God says:
“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God: you shall not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements. For, in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and God rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

However, when Moses reviews it, he begins: “Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

God in Exodus says זכור / Remember; Moses in Deuteronomy says שמור / Observe. Whatever sermonic reasoning we or the Tradition could imagine for this change, the fact is that Moses seems to be interpreting rather than repeating. He is taking part in the conversation between Heaven and Earth.

Then, when Moses gives the reason for the Sabbath Day, he does not repeats God’s “For, in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and God rested on the seventh day...”
Instead, Moses explains the purpose as follows: “So that your male and female servant may rest as you do. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God freed you from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.”
Tying Shabbat to the Israelites’ experience of oppression in Egypt, Moses looks back on his and his people’s experience and says, “I was liberated; I can liberate others. God is a liberator; if I want to be like God, then I need to be a liberator, too.” He responds to his blessings with moral resolve—with what we call today a commitment to Tikkun Olam.

Contrast this to the story of King Josiah who reigned over Judah back in the 600s BCE. We’ll be reading his story not from the Book of Second Kings, but from the Book of Second Chronicles. Though the Biblical Books of Kings and Chronicles cover the same historical period, they were written by different factions with different views of Jewish history. While Josiah is nothing but praiseworthy in Kings, he comes in for some subtle criticism in Chronicles.

The biggest event in King Josiah’s life was a renovation of the Temple around 622 BCE and an ancient scroll that was “found” in an old storeroom. The “ancient scroll” initiated a number of religious reforms—among them a wholesale purging of regional worship sites and a different way of observing Passover. According to the scroll, Passover had not been observed properly for a long time, but Josiah followed the instructions in the scroll and had a spectacular Passover. We read from Second Chronicles 35.16: “The entire service of the Lord was arranged well that day, keeping the Passover and making the burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord, according to the command of King Josiah. All the Israelites present kept the Passover at that time, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days. Since the time of the Prophet Samuel, no Passover like that one had ever been kept in Israel; none of the kings of Israel had kept a Passover like the one kept by Josiah and the priests and the Levites and all Judah and Israel there present and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. That Passover was kept in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah.”

This all sounds wonderful, but, after this spiritual highpoint, with Josiah and his people feeling especially close to God, his confidence and religious fervor leads to a disaster. The text continues:
“After all this furbishing of the Temple by Josiah, King Necho of Egypt came up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out against him.”

At this point in Jewish history, roughly 620 BCE, the tiny kingdom of Judah was right in the middle of two enormous and fighting empires, the Egyptians to the south and west, and the Mesopotamians to the north and east. The other little Jewish kingdom, Israel, had been destroyed by Mesopotamia some 70 years before, and the position of Josiah’s Judah was quite precarious. Why did Josiah get involved in this battle of the titans? Let’s continue with the text:
“(The Egyptian king Necho) sent messengers to Josiah, saying, ‘What have I to do with you, King of Judah? I do not march against you this day but against the kingdom that wars with me, and it is God’s will that I hurry. Refrain, then, from interfering with God who is with me, that He not destroy you.’ But Josiah would not let him alone; instead he donned his armor to fight against him, heedless of Necho’s words from the mouth of God; and he came to fight in the plain of Megiddo. Archers shot King Josiah, and the king said to his servants, ‘Get me away from here, for I am badly wounded.’ His servants carried him out of his chariot and put him in the wagon of his second-in-command, and conveyed him to Jerusalem. There he died, and was buried in the grave of his fathers, and all Judah and Jerusalem went into mourning over Josiah...”
What possessed Josiah to make such a risky move? How could he possibly stand against Egypt? How much help could he have been to the giant empire of Mesopotamia? What was he thinking?

Realizing that the Bible is not just a history book and is not just a set of laws, realizing that the Bible is a critique of the Jewish people, both encouraging and criticizing our Jewish religion, we should also ask the following question: Why does the Book of Chronicles put these two stories—the story of the properly observed Passover and the story of Josiah’s poorly conceived and ultimately disastrous military campaign—next to each other?

The Israeli thinker I mentioned before, Micah Goodman, suggests that the Bible puts them together to connect the exhilaration Josiah felt at Passover with his absurd military confidence? Whereas Moses considered the Passover story and responded: “I was liberated; I can liberate others;” Josiah filled himself with the Passover story and said: “I was saved by God from Egypt; I’ll be saved by God no matter what I do.” He thought he was pursuing a holy course and doing God’s work, but it was his ego rather than God’s will—and he was not saved. Chronicles is trying to teach us a lesson.

Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna, taught that Torah is a great power; it accentuates our qualities. When he said, “Torah makes what we already are greater,” he meant that Torah can make our good qualities better and our bad qualities worse. In Josiah’s case, observance intensified his feelings of righteousness, and he felt invincible. Was this the only conclusion possible from his observance and closeness to God?

An antidote to self-righteousness or religious fervor comes in the Midrash where we learn “Common sense was created before the Torah,” which is interpreted as “Common sense takes precedence over the Torah.” (Leviticus Rabba 9.3)  In other words, knowing how intoxicating religion can be, our Tradition warns us that a sense of closeness to God is no reason to go running into disaster.

Earlier I used the word ambivalence and suggested that all of us experience some level of ambivalence about our Jewish Identities—about how we fit into the Jewish story. The point of this comparison between Moses and Josiah—and the fact that it is included in the Bible and in the Rabbinic literature—is to show how loyalty to the Jewish story or process does not mean unthinking and unwavering acceptance of every word of Torah. Indeed, the Torah and the Bible themselves discuss how to regard our sacred stories—offering both criticism and encouragement as we work on our individual and tribal narratives.

לשנה טובה תכתבו

May you write good years for yourselves, for our community, and for our people.

Yiddish Kopf / Nefesh Yehudi

October 4th: High Holy Days
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
For our Torah Commentary at this season, we shall be publishing Rabbi Ostrich’s Yom Tov sermons. This is from Erev Rosh Hashanah: Yiddishe Kupf/Nefesh Yehudi

What are we doing here? What are we doing here? I suspect, at one time or another, each of us has asked that question—to our parents, our teachers, ourselves. When we go to High Holy Day services, what are we supposed to be doing?

I remember a delightful story by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner in which he focuses on the wool pants he and his brother had to wear to Temple in the late 1950s. The story resonated with me because I remember the wool pants of that era and, like Rabbi Kushner, remember the fact that these standards of proper attire made little boys feel like thousands of needles were poking their legs. The result was squirming and flattened-out creases and irritable mothers and aunts.

The pants were important at the Kushner family’s temple in Detroit—in the sanctuary they called The Big Room—because, as he puts it, “Every year we would go to temple where my brother and I would be inspected by every Jew in Michigan, all of whom seemed to know my parents and cared that my wool pants were neatly creased.”

As an adolescent, young Larry felt cynical about the whole scene. “All anybody seems to care about here is how they’re dressed. This isn’t religion; it’s a fashion parade. Why does everyone only care how they look?”

Then, with a few more years’ observation, he began to see things a little differently. He writes, “There is a religious power of simply being seen and looking good in the ‘Big Room.’ It is a way of appearing before God who we suspect is not beneath looking through the eyes of the community. Being seen by the congregation is like being seen by God. All those souls, together in that sanctuary, make something religious happen.”

I would, this evening, to explore the religious something that happens when we enter the synagogue, and I want to think about it in terms of two Jewish expressions which describe the result we are seeking to produce: a Yiddishe Kopf, a Jewish Head, and a Nefesh Yehudi, a Jewish Soul. Yiddishe Kopf is Yiddish and is generally a compliment about a person who has mental agility—as some would put it, a head on his/her shoulders. Whether in regard to Jewish learning or practical things like business, the term Yiddishe Kopf reflects our hope and belief that Jews are good thinkers. Nefesh Yehudi is Hebrew and is familiar to many of us from the words of Hatikvah, Israel’s National Anthem. Based on a poem by Naftali Herz Imber, the idea is that,  “So long as still within the inmost heart a Jewish spirit sings:“ there is an internal sensibility and spiritual truth present in Jewish people—a spiritual essence that yearns for fulfillment.

We are here, I submit, to develop and exercise our Yiddishe Kopfs and our N’fashot Yehudi. We are here, in this big room, to engage in Jewish tradition and to harvest the fruits of our ancient spiritual and ethical fields.

When anthropologists look at religious experience and try to identify the processes that make a ritual work, they have found two factors/steps in pretty much all religious rituals in all human cultures. The first is a separation from the regular. In order for the religious ritual to begin, the participants do something different from their regular activities. They might go to a different/special place, or wear different/special clothing, or use different/special terminology or language.

The second part of the process involves an aggregation of the individual into a greater community—what anthropologist Victor Turner calls communitas. The individual experiences a profound sense of union with something larger and more significant.

There are certainly more details in a ritual process—especially when we look at a tradition as old and vital and complex as our own, but these two factors seem to be present in all rituals, and I believe they are worthy of consideration. 

Think of how these steps work in Judaism. We come here, to a special place. We wear special clothing—yarmulkes, tallesim. Many of us make a point of wearing dress-up clothes—what some country folk used to call Sunday, Go-to-Meeting Clothes. We also use a special language. In our case, it is Hebrew—a language that is not only a language. Hebrew is, in the words of Rabbi Bahir Davis, a spirit language—expressing spiritual values above and beyond the actual meanings of the words.

Perhaps this is why so many of us feel the importance of praying in Hebrew even if we are not adept at it in vocabulary and grammar. There is something about using Hebrew in Jewish circles that makes us feel more Jewish, more connected to the God and Jewish Tradition.

Even in the most classical of Classical Reform Temples, where Hebrew was minimized dramatically, there was still some Hebrew—perhaps just the Bar’chu or Shema, or perhaps just Hebrew songs sung by a choir. Without some Hebrew, it just didn’t feel Jewish.

It is also interesting to me how, in the Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) community in Israel, their special prayer language is Ashkenazic Hebrew. These Israelis speak regular Sephardic Hebrew everyday—and in sermons and announcements, but they pray from the Siddur and chant from the Torah in the old-fashioned Hebrew of their Europeans ancestors. Separating from their regular, they are working for an extra measure of holiness.

The second ritual step, as we go through our rituals and prayers, is to find a sense of unity with something greater than ourselves. Spiritually, there is the sense of oneness with the One God, what the Kabbalah calls yichud. This yearning for communitas can be found in the second prayer after Bar’chu, the one right before Shema. There, on page 81 of the Machzor, you can read the passage at the bottom of the page: “You Who chose us, drawing us near to Your great Name in utter truth, so that we may give thanks to You and unite You in love.”

There is also the sense of universal Jewish unity we can feel when we know that, all over the state, and nation, and world, Jews are going through these communal rituals, all approaching God in our sacred ways, on our sacred days.

And, don’t forget about the sense of historical unity many of us feel in synagogue, as we join with all the generations of our people, from Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah and Rachel to our more recent ancestors—and going on to our descendants. We are all part of a sacred chain in which the ancients are our past, and are we and our descendants are their Jewish future.

I studied this analysis of religious ritual—from anthropologist Victor Turner—back when I was in college, and, over the years, I have always been struck at the way these dynamics are indeed at play. Not only does it explain many of our Jewish approaches, but it also helps me understand the religious mores of our non-Jewish friends and neighbors. An example is the curious vocabulary used by certain Christians in their religious circles—where everyone is called either Brother or Sister, where the word stewardship means dues, and where the word fellowship, a noun, is used as a verb. (“After the service, we’ll all gather in the social hall and fellowship...”) It also explains the insistence among some Evangelical Christians that the only proper Bible is the King James translation with its Elizabethan English. In these various ways, people of religion are separating from the regular, a first step in their prayerful attempts to unite with God or Christendom or their ancestors or all three.

I also find this analysis helpful in understanding the spiritual infrastructure of our ritual processes and the ways we strive for a Yiddishe Kopf and a Nefesh Yehudi. Both concepts express a separation from the regular and a joining of ourselves with a greater presence. Each term indicates an essential difference between the way Jews think and feel and the way others see the world. Moreover, when we speak of a Jewish mind or a Jewish spirit, there is the image of an ideal, archetypal, heavenly Jewishness to which we are all invited to aspire.

Religion can be seen as transactional. God demands certain things, and we either do them or don’t. This is certainly the way much of the Torah and Bible are written. However, over the generations, there has also been a discussion of the ancient texts which is much more a dialogue between sacred aspirations and human realities. As much as our sacred texts may be inspired by God, there is the sense—for more than the last 2000 years—that we are partners with God in figuring out how best to bring holiness into the world.

Our voice in the discussion is evidenced in the continuing interpretation called Talmud and Midrash—much of which is devoted to our communal goal of having Yiddishe Kopfs and N’fashot Yehudi. Given our long-term experience and our Tradition’s observations about life, what is the best Yiddishe thinking we can muster on the big and small questions of life? And, what is the Jewish spiritual truth to consider when we look at our tradition and apply it to our modern souls?

This discussion is complex and ongoing, and it holds many enduring questions. While it is part of our essential truth to focus on our Jewishness, is it not also part of our Torah to focus on our humanity and that of all humans—both Jews and non-Jews? While part of our essential truth calls for us to focus on the spiritual, is it not also part of our Torah to be utterly practical—to figure out how to be holy in the real world?

What are we doing here? We are engaging in our ancient and continuing effort to think and feel and aspire to bring Heaven’s blessings to this world.

Let me conclude with a piece from the French thinker Edmond Fleg who ponders the many co-existing goals of Judaism and finds great meaning in our sacred mission.
“I am a Jew because born of Israel and having lost it, I feel it revive within me more alive than I am myself.

I am a Jew because born of Israel and having found it again, I would have it live after me even more alive that it is within me.

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel requires no abdication of my mind.

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel asks every possible sacrifice of my soul.

I am a Jew because in all places where there are tears and suffering the Jew weeps.

I am a Jew because in every age when the cry of despair is heard the Jew hopes.

I am a Jew because the message of Israel is the most ancient and the most modern.

I am a Jew because Israel’s promise is a universal promise.

I am a Jew because for Israel the world is not finished; we will complete it.

I am a Jew because for Israel humans are not yet fully completed; we are creating ourselves.

I am a Jew because Israel places Humanity and our unity above nations and above Israel itself.

I am a Jew because above the Human, the image of the Divine Unity, Israel places the unity which is divine.”

Our Expansive and Purposeful Community

September 27th: Nitzavim
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

There’s a bit of a contextual problem in this week’s Torah portion. We begin with what seems to be an important ceremony: “You stand this day all of you before the Lord your God; your tribal captains, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the stranger who is in your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water; that you should enter into covenant with the Lord your God, that the Eternal may establish you today as a holy people, and that the Lord may be to you a God.”. (Deuteronomy 29.9-12) It seems important, but it is not clear where and when this gathering takes place.

The passage comes in the middle of Deuteronomy, in one of Moses’ farewell lectures just before the Israelites enter the Promised Land, but there is no further description of such a covenantal event. The big event is at Mount Sinai, some forty-one years ago. Could this passage be a retelling of that dramatic story? Or could Tradition be conflating the Revelation at Mount Sinai and Moses’ farewell lectures—seeing all forty-one years in the wilderness as one prolonged Matan Torah event in which God makes a covenant with us and trains us?

In any event, the most curious part of the passage comes in the next verse and expands the constituency of the covenantal congregation. In verse 13, we read, “It is not with you alone that I make this covenant and this oath; I make it both with those who stand here with us this day before the Lord our God, and also with those who are not here with us this day.” Who are these people who are “not here with us this day?”  The original meaning was probably that the covenant includes both those out at the mountain and those back at camp—the sick and their care-givers, those watching the animals or on guard, etc. (It is sort of like the way we count the minyan on Saturday mornings. If we only have ten people, and one or two take a bathroom break, we figure that, as long as they are still in the building, they are “present.”)

However, our mystics see the verse as much more expansive. They say that all the generations of Israel—past, present, and future—were included at Mount Sinai, affirming our relationship with God and entering the covenant. Even though the covenantal ceremony happened some 3200 years ago, we were all there!

What are we to make of such a notion?

A first insight is what my teacher, Dr. Alvin Reines, called Birth Dogma in Judaism. We are born Jewish and obligated to Jewish beliefs by virtue of our births. Though we have welcoming rituals for children (Brit Milah for boys and Baby Naming for girls), the ceremonies do not make the children Jewish. According to traditional Halachah, the children are already Jewish—are born into a chain of Jewish ancestry/membership that goes back to the covenant we entered at Mount Sinai. Such origin of status is in contradistinction to our Christian friends who are not born Christian but who must be made Christian through the sacrament of Christening or Baptism. This observation may seem a little pedantic—because children born and raised in Christian families are inevitably and de facto Christian, but it is a theological distinction that is important in Christian theology.

For the last 2000 years, traditional Halachah has held that Jewish status is passed down automatically only when a baby’s mother is Jewish. In the 1980s, the Reform movement took a different position based on a sense of egalitarianism and on the practical aspects of raising a child religiously. Our position is that that the Jewishness of either mother or father can be passed down to a child if the child is raised Jewishly and then observes Judaism.

Was every Jewish soul that will ever be born present that day, receiving the Torah from God at Mount Sinai? This notion may be difficult to see as a historical or scientific truth, but it is not presented as either science or history. It is a mystical teaching that speaks of trans-generational spiritual experience and commitment. Our Jewish identities do not only exist alone and individually—or just in this time. An essential aspect of Judaism is the community—hence the value we find in congregations, in other Jewish organizations, and in Jewish history. We began as a sacred congregation, and we continue that way, joined to each other and all the generations.

Our passage also speaks to the importance and inclusion of gerim/converts for, according to the Rabbis, the souls of all converts were there at Sinai, too. As they have been part of our spiritual community from the very beginning, their incorporation into Judaism is part of our communal fate. Perhaps this is why so many gerim say that they felt Jewish before they even knew what the feeling was called. For so many, gerut/conversion is really just a formal recognition of the long-time state of their souls.

I find great meaning in these mystical teachings for they inspire me to feel my own soul as part of this timeless community, committed to God and to God’s ongoing sacred mission.

But there’s more: In the next chapter, there is a passage that speaks of the natural proclivity we Jews have for Torah—for the way of thinking and living taught by Torah. In Deuteronomy 30.11-14, we read, “This commandment which I command you this day is not hidden from you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who shall go across the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it.

The relationship with the Eternal that we entered back there at Mount Sinai has engraved upon our sensibilities an innate desire for holiness. The Torah’s ambience and sensibility seems right to us, and we find that we are naturally suited to live holy lives. Though we may differ in the ways we interpret or observe religious traditions, Jewishness is part of our souls and our innermost yearnings.  

As Dr. Reines would put it, Jewish Identity is, for us Jews, an Ontal Symbol, a sign of ultimate meaningfulness. We have been touched by the Infinite, and we continue to bask in its glow.

Wandering Arameans

September 20th: Ki Tavo
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

Memory is a curious thing. We can remember some things with great accuracy, while other things disappear from the mind. We need to remember, but our memories can be selective. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that Judaism focuses so much on memory—on memory of the historical nature of our experience.

A case in point is the statement of identification that the Torah presents as a prayer before God. In Deuteronomy 26, we have the description of an ancient religious ceremony—one in which the worshipper presents to God the first fruits of his harvest. Though God presumably already knows who the worshipper is, the instructions include a statement of self-presentation—“This is me, God.” The ancient author seems to think that one’s approach to the Deity requires particular information and memories.

Think of moments when we present ourselves—at social gatherings, in job interviews, at a doctor’s office, or running for an elected position. Though our lives can be described with lots of information, we tailor our introduction to fit the context. The purpose of this ritual is appreciation, and the Torah prescribes a review of the long-term relationship between God and the worshipper: “My father was a wandering (or fugitive) Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. We cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and the Lord heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. The Lord freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and wonders. God brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

You may remember this prayer from the Passover Seder—another ritual where memory is very important.

Sometimes, memory is important in and of itself, while, other times, it encourages moral development. Sometimes, history is a way of showing respect to the people who preceded us, while, other times, it presents us with examples to follow—or warnings. There are also times when history is “non-historical”—when it is a window less to our past than to our current situation. History/memory can show us a long-time context in which we are still very much a part. This is how I understand the term Arami Oved—the wandering or fugitive Aramean. It is not our past, but rather our essential reality.

The original statement seems to refer to a population of semi-nomadic shepherds who moved around in Western Mesopotamia in the Second Millennium BCE. They were not settled, and the Bible tells of varied experiences with the villagers and townspeople they encountered in their sojourning—their semi-nomadic travels. These Wandering Arameans felt a sense of spatial impermanence, and their social and religious mores were adapted to this reality. The villagers and townspeople, on the other hand, felt a sense of permanence. They felt belonging and ownership and secure.

Of course, the archeological record shows that no one’s permanence was actual permanent. In the many tels that have been excavated throughout the Middle East, we see layer after layer of habitation that lasted for a while and then did not last. A few centuries later, someone else would come and occupy the site, but their habitation was temporary, too. Even if people lived on the site for centuries, eventually something happened and the dust covered their city. Their time on the site is something we uncover, layer by layer.

My point is that impermanence is an essential truth in the human experience. We know that our lives are limited—as the Psalmist (90) says, “Three-score years and ten, or given strength, four-score years,” but we nonetheless hold onto a fantasy of earthly permanence.

Of course, we work at building families and businesses and institutions that will weather the test of time. Of course, we should be grateful for prior generations who built and maintained the families, businesses, and institutions that have blessed us in so many ways. And, we do have an obligation to future generations to continue the blessings that can go forward. However, all of these things are ultimately impermanent, and that context is important to remember. We are all, in a sense, Wandering Arameans.

If a family builds a business and runs it for years—for generations, the time could nonetheless come when the business is no longer viable. If a family clears land and farms it for years—for generations, the time could nonetheless come when the land is no longer suitable for farming. If some people build a city and do the things that make a city for years—for generations, the time could nonetheless come when the place is no longer good for a city. Whether the causes are environmental, political, economic, or military, the lands where our flocks have been pasturing—the land of our sojourning—may cease to be viable, and we need to move on to another place.

I do not mean to devalue the emotional attachment we have to places or institutions or the deep sadness that comes when change assaults us, but impermanence is the human predicament, and our success requires living with it and adapting to the changes.

 One may wonder why the Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael and the Almost Sacrifice of Isaac are the Torah portions for Rosh Hashanah. Traditionalist may also ask why the Almost Sacrifice of Isaac is part of the daily Shacharit—the Morning Service. One explanation is both poignant and troubling. These portions are chosen to remind us that the ground on which we are standing is not sure. The things upon which we depend—the people, institutions, places—can change or vanish in an instant. To survive, we need to find something more secure.

The Psalmist (146) counsels, “Put not your trust in princes, in mortal humans who cannot save…Happy is one who has the God of Jacob as a help, whose hope is in the Lord God…Who keeps faith forever….The Lord shall reign forever, your God, O Zion, from generation to generation, Hallelujah!”

We are all Wandering Arameans, Wandering Jews, sojourners and wayfarers. We look for permanence in the world, but the only permanence is in God’s love and God’s ways. In them, we can touch eternity.

Unexpected and Unpleasant Mitzvot

September 13th: Ki Tetze
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

There are an awful lot of mitzvot—613 according to Tradition, and this week’s Torah portion has more individual mitzvot than any other (72!). The large number strains the mind and the memory, and, as a result, the Sages have divided them up into various categories—analytical divisions that speak to the nature of divine obligations. Some mitzvot are only applicable if one lives in the Land of Israel, while others apply everywhere. Some mitzvot are time-bound and have to be done on a schedule, while others apply all the time. Another famous division is explained in the Talmud, Tractate Makkot 23B:
“Rabbi Simlai taught: 613 commandments were given to Moses at Mount Sinai. 365 Mitzvot Lo Ta’aseh (Thou Shalt Nots), corresponding to the number of days in the solar year, and 248 Mitzvot Aseh (Thou Shalts), corresponding to the number of the parts of the body.”  

There is also a division which one can see in this week’s portion, mitzvot one anticipates in a regular life, and mitzvot one does not expect—in fact, hopes do not become necessary.

 One of these “hoped against” mitzvot comes at the very beginning of the portion. “When you take the field against your enemies….” (Deuteronomy 21.10) One is not supposed to hope for war. However, if war becomes necessary, there are certain standards which God teaches about how we conduct the war.

Similarly, there are some mitzvot involving severe marital discord. In verse 15 of the same chapter, we read, “If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him sons, but the first-born is the son of the unloved one—when he wills his property to his sons, he may not treat as first-born the son of the loved one in disregard of the son of the unloved one who is older.” This is clearly a situation for which one does not hope. However, should it develop, there are standards of fairness (mitzvot) upon which God insists.

The next paragraph’s exigency is nothing short of dreadful. “If a man has a wayward and defiant son, who does not heed his father or mother and does not obey them even after they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the public place of his community. They shall say to the elders of his town, ‘This son of ours is disloyal and defiant; he does not heed us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Thereupon the men of his town shall stone him to death. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst: all Israel will hear and be afraid.” (Deuteronomy 21.18-21.) God forbid that this should ever come to pass! It is certainly not something for which someone hopes. Nonetheless, notice how there is a kind of safeguard in place. Both the father and the mother must participate in the condemnation. If one gets angry and wants to cause harm, he or she cannot act alone. One can also imagine the wayward and defiant son opting out of the family situation; in a sense, he too must participate. Even in this nightmare of a situation, the Torah cautions a kind of propriety.

And, then, there is divorce. “If a man takes a wife and is husband to her, and she fails to please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and he writes her a bill of divorcement, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house…” (Deuteronomy 24.1) The Torah does not encourage divorce, but it does accept that some relationships fall apart. As opposed to some Christian denominations in which divorce is considered a sin and is prohibited, Judaism accepts the fact of divorce and attempts to bring some fairness and respect through the mitzvot of proper divorce.

By the way, I hope that no one reading this ever has the need to divorce, but, should it come to pass, there is an excellent book that discusses dissolving a marriage with decency and holiness: Divorce is a Mitzvah: A Practical Guide to Finding Wholeness and Holiness When Your Marriage Dies, by Rabbi Perry Netter (published by Jewish Lights). Again, the mitzvah is in behaving with respect and fairness, and not letting the anger or sense of betrayal lead us into anger and vengeance and sin.

 An important final note and caveat:
In addition to whatever positive lessons we may try to draw out of this portion, one cannot ignore the aspects which are repellent to modern sensibilities. Forcibly marrying war-captives, stoning children, male-dominated marriages and divorces, and even polygamy go against our modern sensibilities of fairness, equality, and respect. Thus are passages like so many in this week’s Torah portion difficult to read and revere. Our obligation, with traditional texts such as these, is to reinterpret them so that the literal and ancient reading is not all we have. Things have changed much since the ancient days, and we have, thank God, expanded the notions of true personhood and human rights.  As much as we revere the Torah and see it as the first step in our ancestral quest for wisdom and truth, we also realize that its world is not our world. Indeed, we have made much progress since those days, and the only way we can hold the Torah as holy is in recognizing the difference between ancient forms and eternal truths. We study the ancient forms, but we evaluate them and feel commanded by God to improve those areas of our Tradition that need improving. It is a continuing religious quest for God and holiness, and being Jewish means continuing the work.

The Torah and the First Amendment

September 6th: Shof’tim
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

In our modern world, we compartmentalize various aspects of our lives and keep them separate. Some things are in the realm of religion, while other things are in the realms of health and hygiene, etiquette, civil law, criminal law, or Home Owners Association rules or covenants, etc. Thus it would be inappropriate for one realm to intrude in another. The Government has no business regulating our religion. The Civil Code has no business telling us how to care for our bodies. Etiquette may have influence, but it has no legal authority.

This was not the case in the ancient world—the world of the Torah and much of the Talmud, where everything was under the aegis of God and therefore religion. So, when we read the opening passage of this week’s Torah portion, we should realize that the judges being appointed are not restricted to religious matters. “You shall appoint magistrates and official for your tribes, in all the settlements that the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice. You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just. Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”  (Deuteronomy 16.18-20)

These magistrates’ and officials’ province—delivered with due justice—was everything God created, i.e., everything! Thus do we have Leviticus dispensing medical advice in regard to skin conditions, Baba Metzia (Talmud) stipulating rules for neighborhood zoning, and Pesachim (Talmud) prohibiting (for health reasons!) the eating of meat and fish at the same meal. The goal of the Torah was to create an ideal society in every aspect, and thus every aspect of life was discussed and enforced.

The problem, of course, is when two or more groups of people—each with its own rules of conduct—live together. Whose rules apply to whom, and under what conditions?  Oh, yes, and there is that other pesky issue: human rights. Why does anyone get to tell another human being what to do?

These issues have always been of concern to thinking people, but various economic, governmental, civic, and philosophical factors converged in the 17th and 18th Centuries (the Enlightenment) to make some major changes in the Western World. Among these changes was a principle upon which our nation was founded—that each individual is endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights, rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is Biblical, in that justice and fairness are the goals. But the modern struggle for justice has found that the un-Biblical philosophy of compartmentalization is an important instrument.

An example is the First Amendment to the United State Constitution:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Though the goals may be justice and fairness, the means involve keeping government and society out of much of our individual lives.

President Thomas Jefferson gave an early and significant interpretation to this amendment in his Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association (1802). Though he explains that the passage, "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," builds a “wall of separation between Church & State,” there has nonetheless been a tendency for the State or Society to push its way into the tent of individual religiosity. Should not all businesses close on the Lord’s Day (Sunday)? Should not all public school days start with prayer? Should not all prohibitions for the public good—liquor, hallucinogenic mushrooms, or animal sacrifices—apply to everyone, regardless of their religion? Should not programs for the public good—like mandatory health insurance—apply to everyone, regardless of their religious views on some of the services provided?

The struggle to live communally but autonomously continues as does the conversation about it, and we are fortunate in our community to have a formal and public chance to participate. On Sunday September 15th, from 1:00 – 3:30, Centre County will have our annual Constitution Day. This year, the festivities will be at Tussey Mountain in Boalsburg, and everyone is invited. There will be exhibits on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, speakers, musical entertainment, and a number of food trucks. And, the music will continue on until 6:00 PM.

Members of our congregation will be participating in many of the exhibits. Make sure to stop by the First Amendment exhibits and our presentation on Freedom of Religion and the “Establishment Clause.”

As I said, the struggle for justice and fairness and liberty continues, and it is important that we understand the principles and the history of our great communal project.

Different, But Still the Same

August 30th: Re’eh
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
Though the Book of Deuteronomy presents itself as a set of farewell lectures by Moses, critical scholarship of the Torah suggests a slightly different origin and agenda. According to a story in II Kings 22, during a renovation of the Temple (622 BCE), an “ancient scroll was found,” and the information in that scroll was the basis of a series of religious reforms. Modern scholars think that this “ancient” scroll is what we now know as Deuteronomy and that it was actually written in Josiah’s reign and ascribed to Moses to establish its authority.

Among the clues Biblical scholars have used to make this case is that fact that Deuteronomy seems to address a number of long-standing conflicts and questions that had been plaguing organized Jewish life for a number of centuries. All of a sudden, answers appeared, and they were from the hand of the greatest of all Hebrew prophets, Moses (though he happened to have died some 600 years before).

Among Deuteronomy’s reforms is that instructions in the Torah—i.e., God’s words to Moses—are immutable and never to be changed: “Be careful to observe only that which I enjoin upon you: neither add to it nor take away from it.” (Deuteronomy 13.1) This significant change—since God had been given to changing instructions from time to time up till this point—comes in the middle of a discussion which bans forms of Hebrew worship which had been in existence for centuries. No longer could the One God be worshipped in holy sites around the country; worship of the One God could now only be done at the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. And, lest someone come later and try to change things, this section warns the people about False Prophets. If anyone says that God wants things done differently from Deuteronomy’s rules, that person is a False Prophet and should be executed. Anything different, any changes are lies and are not to be tolerated.

I cannot speak to the wisdom or necessity of centralizing national worship during Josiah’s reign. However, the finality which Josiah and his planners placed on our religion left it without the flexibility necessary for adaption and adjustment in the future.

We’ll hear more about Josiah’s problematic thinking on Rosh Hashanah, but right now I would like to consider the way our Judaism recovered from or worked around Josiah’s and Deuteronomy’s constraints.

The problem is textual inflexibility. If the instructions given are immutable and unchangeable, what does one (or a religion) do when the instructions are no longer applicable or relevant or helpful? What happens when new situations require instructions not included in the originals?

As a dynamic and ultimately successful religious civilization, Judaism has developed a number of flexibility and creativity mechanisms, but we have always had to work around or negotiate the Deuteronomic thinking that prohibits anything resembling a new or different instruction. Here are a few of our most successful Halachic “work-arounds.”

The most creative mechanism was the nature/source of Rabbi Akiva’s knowledge. Given that no word of the Torah could ever be changed, it was taught that Rabbi Akiva’s innovations were not innovations at all, but rather interpretations already written in the Torah. Where? In the taggim, the little crowns on some Torah letters. There is neither rhyme nor reason to these scribal ornaments; they are just an artistic tradition handed down over the centuries by the Scribes. However, Rabbi Akiva was believed to have had extreme mystical experiences where he learned hidden knowledge—among other things, the ability to understand God’s hidden meanings in the taggim! Thus were what seemed to be innovations actually God’s Will all along!

Rabbi Akiva’s creativity was just a microcosm of the larger Rabbinic enterprise in which Biblical Judaism was completely remade. The mechanism was something the Rabbis called Torah She’b’al Peh, the Oral Torah. Rather than change even a letter of the Torah—which Deuteronomy forbade, the Rabbis taught that there was a second Torah given orally to Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai and then passed down orally for a thousand years. The Rabbis had received this Oral Torah and anything they developed from 200 BCE to 200 CE was not new or innovative. Rather they were just promulgating God’s original intentions. This Oral Torah was the basis for the Mishnah and the Gemara—together called the Talmud—which completely reformed Judaism. Thus was flexibility and adaptation not change but rather restoration.

A final example—though there are many more—was the mysterious teacher who revealed to Rabbi Israel son of Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, the innovative insights that led to Hassidism. This teacher was Achiya the Shilonite, a minor prophet who lived in the days of King Solomon. Though dead for some 2500 years, he would come to Rabbi Israel at night and teach him hidden knowledge that was ancient and from God, but that no one on earth had known for a long time. The Rabbinic authorities of the time, including such personages as Rabbi Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna, were mortified at the changes the Hassidim preached, and they opposed them and even convinced the Polish or Russian authorities to imprison many of the early Hassidic rabbis. Thus was Hassidism very, very different, but, in the minds of its adherents, all based on God’s ancient teachings. This story of Achiya the Shilonite gave their changes the Bible’s imprimatur.

Looking back, one can certainly make the case that the Rabbinic innovations of the Talmud were good for Judaism—that they helped the essential truths of our religion continue through dramatically changing times and helped Jews negotiate very tricky waters. The same could be said for the innovations and contributions of Hassidic Judaism. However, both are clearly violations of Deuteronomy’s instruction, “to observe only that which I enjoin upon you: neither add to it nor take away from it.”

As important as Tradition is in our long and continuing Jewish endeavor, flexibility and adaptation are also essential. Though we strive to venerate the old ways and keep connected to our past, the vicissitudes of life and the realities of the world have made adaptation necessary for our continued mission. We have just had to word our new ideas carefully—lest we lose our moorings and drift away from our Divine Calling.

Dogs Bark, and the Convoy Passes Through

August 23rd: Ekev
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

This week’s Torah portion is extremely important theologically. It establishes what is known as Deuteronomic Theology, the belief that that God will reward the obedient and punish the disobedient. If we (Israel) obey our covenant with God and follow all of God’s mitzvot, there will be lots of blessings. However, if we disobey God’s mitzvot and betray the covenant, the consequences will be disastrous.
“If you shall obey My commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve Me with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will give you the rain of your land in its due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, and your wine, and your oil. And I will send grass in your fields for your cattle that you may eat and be full. Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them. For the Lord’s anger will flare up against you, and God will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain, and that the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the Lord is assigning to you.” (Deuteronomy 11.13-17)

 There is something hopeful about this theology—that good will be rewarded and evil punished, but the facts of life are not always so fair. From the Biblical Book of Job to Rabbi Harold Kushner’s modern When Bad Things Happen to Good People, we have been wrestling with this Deuteronomic Theology for millennia. Too often, we see the wicked prospering and the good in dire straits. Is God paying attention? Is God holding judgment for some later date? Sometimes we wonder whether there is any sense in the world. Is there a connection between what we do and what happens to us?

This question—of the connection between what we do and what happens—brings us to a modern news story: the attempted trip to Israel by U.S. Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. As with most controversies, there are lots of angles. And, as with most controversies these days, there is a tendency to focus on Donald Trump’s role or reaction. The news media cannot seem to take their eyes off of our President—even when he is not the main player.

Who are the main players in this story? The main players are:
(1)   The State of Israel and its established law that bans BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) and other anti-Israeli propagandists from visiting and using their visits to incite trouble and bad publicity.

(2)   A BDS effort to bring the two U.S. Representatives, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, on a propaganda and incitement tour of Israel. This tour was organized by or coordinated with Hanan Ashrawi, an eloquent and well-connected Palestinian diplomat and propagandist.

We can argue all day about the strategic wisdom of the Israeli policy or of the way that the policy was enforced, but the ultimate truth is that the trip was intended to bring shame upon Israel and incite riots in sensitive areas (like the Temple Mount). We may pretend that the strategies with which Israel handles such attacks matter, but the fact is that there is no way that Israel could have dealt with the proposed trip that would not have ended in indignation and existential criticism of the Jewish State. It is reminiscent of an ancient commentary in Midrash Rabba on Lamentations:
A Jew passed in front of Hadrian and greeted him.
The Emperor asked, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am a Jew.”
The Emperor exclaimed, “How dare a Jew pass in front of Hadrian and greet him?! Take him and cut off his head.'’
Another Jew passed, and, seeing what had happened to the first man, did not greet Hadrian.
He asked, “Who are you?” He answered, “A Jew.”
Hadrian exclaimed, “How dare a Jew pass in front of Hadrian without giving greeting?! Take him and cut off his head.”
The Emperor’s senators said to him, ‘'We cannot understand your actions. He who greeted you was killed, and he who did not greet you was killed!”
The Emperor replied, “Do you seek to advise me how I wish to kill those I hate?!”

This is what the Holy Spirit meant when It cried out (in Lamentations 3.60), and said, “Thou has seen all their vengeance and all their devices against Me!”

In other words, those who hate Israel will hate Israel no matter what Israel does. This indeed is one of the problems with BDS. While there are some members who are supporters of Israel but think that boycotts, divestment, or sanctions will help nudge the Israeli government into different policies, most BDS activists are against the existence of the Jewish State and are working to destroy it.

Now, back to the news media—and our responses to them. Not only can reporters and editors not take their eyes off President Trump, they are also fixated on everything the four new congresswomen—Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley, and Tlaib—say and do. Part of it may be an insatiable desire to focus on underdogs or aberrations. The other may be playing into President Trump’s attempt to make these political outliers the face of the Democratic Party. In either case, all the attention is far out of proportion to the significance of the controversy. These new congresswomen are not representative of the Democratic Party’s attitudes or actions on anything, much less Israel. And, American support for Israel is essentially a non-issue. While the American community or American Jewish community may discuss or argue about particular policies, the unequivocal support for Israel in both parties is over 90%.

Yes, there are those who hate Israel and work to destroy it, and Representatives Omar and Tlaib are among them. This is not news. Why elevate their cause by making them the center of attention? Why engage in their antics when we all know their true purposes?  As an old Hebrew saying puts it: “The dogs bark, and the convoy passes through.”

Our Own Connection with the Torah

August 16th: Va’et’chanan
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

“Kad’shaynu b’mitz’votecha, v’ten chel’kaynu v’Toratecha.
Make us holy with Your mitzvot, and give us a portion in Your Torah.”
In this passage of the Shabbat Amidah, we ask for connection with the Divine—praying that the process of hearing and observing mitzvot will work and bring us holiness.

It also asks that we be given a portion/piece/stake in the Torah—this pursuit of Torah being a vital part of the Jewish process. As Simon the Righteous used to say (Avot 1.2), “The world stands on three things: on Torah, on Worship, and on Deeds of Lovingkindness.” Our congregation stands ready to help you in this threefold quest—with Torah study and education, with fervent worship services, and with social justice projects, but, this week, there is a more particular application.

 The weekly Torah portion includes the Shema and Ve’ahavta (Deuteronomy 6.4-9):
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them diligently unto your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house, and upon your gates.”

As it is a passage many of us know in the Hebrew, it affords us an opportunity to feel that this portion in God’s Torah is our own. And so, our plan for this coming Friday night’s service is to invite everyone up to the bimah for the Torah reading and give everyone a chance to read together these important verses from the Torah itself.

There is much to consider and discuss about the meanings of the passage, but here is an opportunity to feel the connection viscerally. Join us and make this portion of the Torah your own.

Courage, Readiness, and Holy Work

June 28th: Shelach Lecha
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

When we read the story of the twelve spies sent to scout out the Land, most of us feel that we would have been like Joshua and Caleb, strong and of good courage. We would have been optimistic about following our Divine mission and taking the land. We would not have been like the other ten spies, worried about the strength and walled cities of the inhabitants of the land—and lacking faith that God would do another miracle.

Or, if we had been in the crowd hearing their reports—and seeing the enormous clusters of grapes they brought back, most of us feel that we would have supported Joshua and Caleb and been ready to enthusiastically pursue God’s plans.

This situation reminds me of a question a park ranger asked us when we took the Revolutionary War tour in Boston. If you had been in Boston in the 1770’s, she asked, would you have been a Patriot, or would you have been a Tory? Of course, everyone declared that they would have been Patriots. Then, she began to describe the personalities and predilections of the Bostonians who were involved in the conflict—with the Patriots being intolerant rabble-rousers, upsetting business and ripping the social fabric to launch their revolution. It was a sobering moment, and I had to admit to myself that my peace-making and talking-to-everyone-on-all-sides-of-a-controversy personality would have made me a Tory. Indeed, I might have been one of the fellows whose house was burned down by Sam Adams.

The point is that, when push comes to shove, we may not be the heroes we think we would be. Or, we may see issues in a different light.

So, let us go back to Numbers 13 and 14 and the Wilderness some 3200 years ago. Where would you have stood when the spies brought back their reports on The Land?

Ten of the twelve spies are frightened at the prospect of taking The Land, and the people take them at their words: “The whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night…‘If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we might die in the wilderness! Why is the Lord taking us to that land to fall by the sword?!’” (Numbers 14.2-3)

God, as one can imagine, is not happy.  “The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, ‘How much longer shall that wicked community keep muttering against Me? Very well, I have heeded the incessant muttering of the Israelites against Me. Say to them, “As I live,” says the Lord, “I will do to you just as you have urged Me. In this very wilderness shall your carcasses drop. Of all of you who were recorded in your various lists from the age of twenty years up, you who have muttered against Me, not one shall enter the Land in which I swore to settle you—save Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.”’” (Numbers 14.26-30)

However, some commentators present a less harsh view, arguing that God is more disappointed than angry and that the real problem is the genuine lack of preparedness of that generation. When the spies report, “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them (the Canaanites)” (Numbers 13.22), it is because they—and the rest of the Israelites—are completely ill-equipped to mount an invasion. In other words, despite God’s angry outburst, God realizes that this generation is simply too weak, too untrained, too lacking in the tactical and military wherewithal to take on the holy mission. God might be able, but the people are not, and God realizes that a new generation must be trained for the sacred task.

I like to think of myself as willing to take on God’s work, but my suitability depends on the tasks involved. In the case of studying Torah and teaching Judaism, I am able. But, there are plenty of other important tasks for which I am not a good candidate. This is why I am thankful for those other people who have dedicated themselves to training and preparation for the things I cannot do. From doing surgery, to flying airplanes, from digging coal to fighting wars, from supply chain logistics to making movies, there are all kinds of people upon whom I am able to depend, and I thank God for them and their skills.

 Such an insight led Albert Einstein—certainly a very capable person—to reflect on other people’s talents and contributions: “Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why.  And yet, sometimes we seem to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, we know this: people are here for the sake of other people. Above all, we are here for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow humans, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.”

A similar sensibility is expressed in this prayer—composed in the 1930s in Pittsburgh for the “old” Union Prayer Book: “How much we owe to the labors of our brothers and sisters! Day by day they dig far away from the sun that we may be warm, enlist in outposts of peril that we may be secure, and brave the terrors of the unknown for truths that shed light on our way. Numberless gifts have been laid in our cradles as our birthright. Let us then, O Lord, be just and great-hearted in our dealings with others, sharing with them the fruit of our common labor, acknowledging before You that we are but stewards of whatever we possess. Help us to be among those who are willing to sacrifice that others may not hunger, who dare to be bearers of light in the dark loneliness of stricken lives, who struggle and even bleed for the triumph of righteousness. So may we be co-workers with You in the building of Your kingdom, which has been our vision and goal through the ages.” (Included in our Siddur B’rit Shalom on page 95.)

Why Do We Complain?

June 21st: Beha’alotecha
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

When we open the Ark, the tradition calls for us to intone these words: “When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: Advance, O Lord! May Your enemies be scattered, and Your foes flee before You!” (Numbers 10.35) Though our Ark is not the same as the ancient Ark, and though we are not going anywhere, we say these words to invoke God’s help. May the Torah which we are about to read help us to banish whatever enemies we may face.

We may be worried about people or nations who threaten us. There are bad people in the world, and we pray that God will help us elude or defeat or survive them.

We should also be worried about the enemies that dwell within—that threaten the purity of our purpose. Greed, selfishness, impatience, and arrogance are just some of the enemies that inhabit our minds and our spirits, and they can be plagues. Our religion teaches us that the Torah’s wisdom can help us battle Yetzer HaRa, the Evil Inclination. Perhaps, this is why our Torah service also includes this meditation from the Zohar: “Beh ana rachetz…O may it be Your will to open our hearts to Your Torah and to fulfill the worthy desires of our hearts and of the hearts of all Your people Israel: for good, for life, and for peace. Amen.”  (Zohar, Vayak’hel 369a)

Note how the passage qualifies the prayers that we hope God will answer. Realizing that our hearts may not always rise to highest heights of morality, we pray that God fulfill “the worthy desires of our hearts…for good, for life, and for peace.” Our prayer is that God’s Presence—as manifested and experienced in Torah—will help us and improve us, helping us to bring forth the Divine we all carry within.

Of course, we can be resistant. In this week’s Torah portion, we read about our ancient ancestors’ curious discontent. Despite the fact that we had been saved by God from Egyptian slavery and rescued from the murderous charge of the Egyptians (into the Red Sea), and despite the fact that God had chosen us and given us the Ten Commandments, and despite the fact that we had plenty of manna to eat, many of us were profoundly unhappy. “The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, ‘If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to see!” (Numbers 11.4-6) The Torah follows this complaining with a description of the manna: “It was like coriander seed, and in color it was like bdellium. The people would go about and gather it, grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar, boil it in a pot, and make it into cakes. It tasted like rich cream.” (11.7-8)

The Rabbis in the Midrash go further and say that it tasted like whatever one desired, but even this was not enough. What would it have taken to please us?!

Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz (1690-1764) suggests that it was not the taste that led to the dissatisfaction, but rather an internal attitude.  To feel prosperous, he observes, enough is not enough. To feel prosperous, one must have more than others. Since everyone had manna—and all that they needed, no one could feel the ego surge of having more than someone else.

Another possibility is simply that there is something in the human heart that always wants more—that wants what we do not have. I certainly suffer from this foolishness, and I think it is endemic in much of the world. As we read in Ecclesiastes (1.8), “The eye is never satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing.” We always want more, and giving up possessions or the possibility of more possessions can be horrifying. As we read in our Yizkor Service, “Like a child falling asleep over a bed full of toys, we loosen our grip on earthly possessions only when death overtakes us.”  Thus does the ancient Ben Zoma counsel us, “Who is rich? One who rejoices in things already owned.” (Avot 4.1) Was this a statement of fact or an aspiration for his own soul?

There is also the passage in the Shabbat benediction in the Amidah which is one of my favorites, “Sab’aynu mituvecha, Teach us to be satisfied with the gifts of Your goodness.” Or phrased another way, we can pray, “May we learn satisfaction, and delight in the blessings we are given.”

When we stand before the open Ark and pray that God’s “enemies be scattered,” here is a way to mean the prayer: “Advance, O Lord, into our hearts! Let the enemies within be scattered! May the foes of satisfaction and happiness within flee before You! Thus will we be granted the grace and the peace You would like us to have.”

Working for God

June 14th: Naso
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

Our portion this week deals with the very curious institution of the Nazirite. We do not know much about this status other than it is chosen voluntarily by an individual, that the status is for a limited amount of time (declared at the beginning), and that a Nazirite does not cut his/her hair, drink wine, or come in contact with the dead. As to why someone would choose to be a Nazir or what he/she does is simply not included in the Torah. All the text tells us are the above rules and the rituals for the conclusion. These rules make up the bulk of Numbers 6.  

As one can imagine, the concluding ritual involves sacrifices and prayers, but the most interesting aspect is the shaving of the “sacred hair”—that is, the hair that is not cut during the Nazirite’s term, and burning it under the Zevach Hash’lamim, the Sacrifice of Well-being. One wonders if the foul odor of the burning hair is part of the ambience of the ritual—or if the aroma of the barbequing ram covers it up.

Immediately following these ritual instructions, we have the famous and very holy Priestly Benediction, known in Tradition as B’rachah Ham’shuleshet, the Threefold Benediction. Here is the way it appears in the Torah: “The Lord spoke to Moses: Speak to Aaron and his sons: Thus shall you bless the people of Israel. Say to them: May the Lord bless you and protect you!  May the Lord deal kindly with you and be gracious to you! May the Lord smile upon you and bless you with peace! Thus shall they place My Name on the Children of Israel, and I will bless them.” (Numbers 6.22-27)

Though the Torah does not directly link the Threefold Benediction to the Nazirite completion ritual, the fact that they are presented together must mean something. Here’s a possibility: Since the purpose of B’rachah Ham’shuleshet is to “place God’s Name on the Children of Israel,” could the decision to serve as a Nazir represent an individual’s desire to place a sense of godliness on him/herself and his/her life? 

Many who feel the Presence of God desire to show it in some manner. Some choose particular ritual observances and may even add observances for certain periods or for certain holy times. Others may embark on a period of study, deepening their understanding of our religion and tradition. Others may devote themselves to some kind of holy work—serving the congregation or some other charitable institution. These are all ways of dedicating ourselves to God.

When we do respond to this call from On High, we can feel very inspired, very holy, very much an agent of God, and this is wonderful. Perhaps these good feelings are God’s instrument for guiding us into good works.

However, we must also beware self-righteousness—those feelings telling us that, because we are doing God’s work, everything we do is good and holy. Though we may attempt to be clear channels for godliness, we are imperfect beings, and our egos and prejudices and misjudgments can often interfere with the purity of our aspirations. This is a subtle balance, a delicate tension, as we seek to do the bidding of our God with confidence and faith and yet proceed carefully and cautiously. We may think that caution indicates a lack of faith, but the opposite is true. If we truly want to be like God, then we should be enlightened by our Tradition’s reflections on God’s deliberations—on God’s wrestling between competing goals. Here are some examples from the Midrash.

When Moses is at the Burning Bush, and God is explaining the whole plan for the Exodus, Moses interrupts God and asks, “This plan of Yours is going to take a year. Why cannot You just free the Children of Israel now?” At this impudence, God’s Right Hand of Justice lashes out to destroy Moses, but God’s Left Hand of Mercy catches the Right Hand and stops it. God realizes that Moses is only concerned with the extra year of suffering the Israelites will have to endure—and the fact that some might not survive until the Exodus.

When The Children of Israel are caught on the shore of the Red Sea, God splits the sea for them and drowns the Egyptians. Though God has other options, the decision is made to destroy the Egyptian army—a decision God does not find pleasing. Thus, when the angels in heaven start singing “Hallelujah,” God shushes them with, “My children are floating dead in the sea!”

In another Midrash, the Rabbis are discussing imitatio deo, the ways that humans can be like God. Since we are supposed to pray, someone asks whether God prays—and for what and to whom. The answer is that God prays to Himself, praying that the Divine Attribute of Justice will always be overwhelmed by the Divine Attribute of Mercy. Both are Divine, and God has to adjudicate the struggle between them.

In other words, just as we are often caught between competing principles—both of which are good, so is our God. Ultimate goodness means meeting more than one ultimate goal—different ideals not always being aligned with one another. God must think and deliberate and agonize in order to make decisions that combine justice and mercy—with hopefully a little extra mercy.

One other point: Notice the way the Threefold Benediction works. The priests say the words, but God blesses the people: “Thus they place My Name on the Children of Israel, and I will bless them.”  The priests are not God but rather just the conduits for God’s energy. This is a point on which the Rabbis of the Talmud insist. Even when we do God’s work, we are not God. We are servants of the Almighty and the deliberative process which occupies God all the time.

When we dedicate ourselves to God—as did the ancient Nazirites, let us place on ourselves the attribute of the Most High that strives earnestly to reach all good aspirations—especially those that involve blessing, protection, kindness, grace, smiling, and peace.

Who Counts?

June 7th: Bemidbar
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

As we begin the Book of Bemidbar, called Numbers in English because of the census commanded by God and conducted by Moses, I am drawn to reflect on the way that we count and classify human lives—specifically in the continually raging controversy over abortion rights. Who is a living human being? Who gets to decide? Who counts?

 Here are some observations:

(1)  The Bible does not mention abortion—neither the Jewish Bible (“Old Testament”) nor the Christian New Testament. Some speakers get creative with a few poetic passages and create proof texts, but the fact is that the Bible does not address this issue. The only remotely relevant passage (Exodus 21.22) is in regard to torts when a pregnant woman is accidently injured and miscarries. “When men fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman’s husband may exact from him, the payment to be based on reckoning. But if other damage ensues, the penalty shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” In other words, the loss of the fetus is regarded as an injury to the woman and not a loss of a human soul.

 
(2) Traditional religions did not and do not regard the zygote, the embryo, or the fetus as an en-souled human life. Evidence to this fact can be seen in the absence of funeral rituals marking miscarriage. Neither Judaism nor Christianity nor Islam identifies a miscarried fetus as a person who is to be named or buried or mourned. Though expectant parents may be heartbroken when a miscarriage occurs—and as supportive as some religious communities can hopefully be in such situations, the loss of a pregnancy was and is not treated the same as the loss of a born and en-souled human being.

(3) There is, in much of the anti-abortion rhetoric, an anti-sexuality bias. Speakers often assume that abortion is only for women who have engaged in the sins of premarital or extra-marital sex. A common complaint is that abortion “allows sinful females to escape the punishment that they deserve.” Is this what we believe, and, if not, how can we let this anti-feminist and anti-sexual liberation mentality drive such a debate?

 
(4) There is a tragic short-sightedness in the efforts to defund or close down Planned Parenthood, an organization which is about much more than abortions. Among its most important work is general health care—a trip to the obstetrician/gynecologist being the only doctor’s visit for many women. In other words, closing down Planned Parenthood is harmful to many women’s general health. Then there is the contraception work which, regardless of one’s beliefs about pre-marital sex, is realistically the best hope of decreasing unwanted pregnancies. Indeed, in a number of localities, anti-abortion and pro-choice groups have found common ground in teaching contraception and making it readily available, thereby decreasing the number of abortions performed.

 
(5) One of the great and painful ironies of this issue is how differently women react to pregnancy. For some, it is the answer to prayers, while, for others, it is a nightmare. There are women—both married and unmarried—for whom a pregnancy presents danger and insecurity. For those seeking abortions, there is a sense of emergency—of urgency and desperation. Regardless of what they may feel about the issue in general, when it comes to their unwanted pregnancies, many women feel the need to resort to abortion. This is even true in the anti-abortion movement where those protesting at abortion clinics one week may bring a neighbor or relative for an abortion the next week. Regardless of “principle,” an individual in an emergent situation feels that her need requires an extraordinary solution.

 
(6) Though Roe v. Wade was written some forty-five years ago, the science has not changed enough to answer the lack of certainty that is at the base of Justice Blackmun’s reasoning. We still do not know when “life” begins. Given this gaping hole in our knowledge, Justice Blackmun balances the two competing rights, that of a woman to control her own body AND that of a potential/developing life to continue developing toward life. His answer is a sliding scale of rights. In the first trimester, the rights of the potential/developing life are overruled by the rights of a woman who does not want to carry the pregnancy to term. In the third trimester, the rights of the potential/developing life overrule the rights of the woman over her own body—unless continuing the pregnancy poses tangible harm to the woman. (This, by the way, is the Jewish tradition, as explained by Rashi back 1000 years ago: if the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother, the fetus is likened to a rodef, a pursuer, and one is allowed to kill a pursuer in order to save one’s life.) The middle trimester is one in which the two competing rights are more balanced, and Justice Blackmun follows Federalist thinking and allows each individual state to make its own determination.

 
(7) A final thought: Though I generally do not use opera as a basis for ethical, religious, or political thinking, there is something about Puccini’s Madama Butterfly that speaks to the reality of this issue. Through its tragically beautiful music, we see how the promises and optimism of an aroused male can cool very quickly—especially when the realities of a pregnancy present themselves. Based on a true story, the opera tells a tragically common tale. While most men live up to their responsibilities and care for their pregnant partners and children, far too many are nowhere to be found. The woman who finds herself pregnant bears the ultimate responsibility and does not have the option of leaving town or the hemisphere. As such, each individual woman should have the right to determine her own fate.

A Loving God

May 31st: Bechukkotai
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

Though our Tradition speaks of God’s love for us, this Divine love is not something we always remember. In a world filled with doubt and uncertainty, the teaching that the Divine has an emotional attachment to each and every human may seem more theoretical and theological than real. And yet, we are taught that God’s love for us is overwhelming—overflowing! In the morning service, just before Shema, we pray: “Ahavah rabbah ahav’tanu, Adonai Elohaynu, chem’lah g’dolah viterah chamal’ta alaynu: With a great love have You loved us, O Lord our God, and with enormous and overflowing compassion have You cared for us.”

The parallel prayer in the evening service also speaks of God’s love for us: “Ahavat olam bayt Yis’ra’el am’cha ahav’ta. With eternal love do You love Your people Israel.” Of particular note is how both of these prayers proceed to speak about the ways that God shows this love. Oh yes, there is an emotional feeling when love is involved, but real love always has behavioral manifestations. God’s love, according the Tradition, is expressed in a number of ways. The evening prayer explains: “Torah and mitzvot, laws and precepts have You taught us.” And, in the morning version, “For the sake of our ancestors, who trusted in You and to whom You taught the laws of life, may You also grace and teach us. O compassionate One, have compassion upon us and help our minds to know, understand, listen carefully, learn, teach, guard, observe, and lovingly maintain all the words and teachings of Your Torah.” In other words, God’s love is shown to us by revealing ways for us to live good lives. This is the significance and purpose of the Torah.

In our Torah portion this week, God promises other behavioral manifestations of love. In Leviticus 26.11-12, God specifically offers a sense of Divine Presence: “I will establish My abode in your midst, and I will not spurn you. I will be ever present in your midst: I will be your God, and you shall be My people.”

The Torah describes the nature of God’s Presence and blessings in agricultural terms: “I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit. Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and your vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your fill of bread and dwell securely in your land.” (Leviticus 26.3-5) In other words, God’s Presence is to be felt in tangible blessings.

The post-Biblical Judaism of the Rabbis continues this sense of God’s Presence and adds other manifestations. An example is the Amidah whose nineteen blessings—seven on Shabbat—express a wide range of the blessings with which God loves us. Consider the topics. God is our Shield and Help and gives us eternal life. God is holy and is the source of knowledge. God both desires our repentance and forgives us—and makes our lives meaningful. God heals our bodies and spirits and provides us sustenance. God remembers and helps the oppressed, loving justice and righteousness and working to remove evil from the earth. God is the support of the righteous. God builds Jerusalem and plants the seeds of our redemption. God listens to our prayers and is present for us in Jerusalem and every place. God is generous and worthy of our appreciation. And, God is the source of peace. The point is that each manifestation of God is loving gift, and praying is our way of acknowledging this Heavenly love.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro approaches this same attitude in his prayer poem, We Are Loved by an Unending Love, speaking of God’s love as expansive and sometime coming unexpectedly:
We are loved by an unending love.
We are embraced by arms that find us
even when we are hidden from ourselves.
We are touched by fingers that soothe us
even when we are too proud for soothing.
We are counseled by voices that guide us
        even when we are too embittered to hear.
We are loved by an unending love.

We are supported by hands that uplift us
even in the midst of a fall.
We are urged on by eyes that meet us
          even when we are too weak for meeting.
We are loved by an unending love.

Embraced, touched, soothed, and counseled...
Ours are the arms, the fingers, the voices;
Ours are the hands, the eyes, the smiles;
We are loved by an unending love.”

A religion and civilization as complex as Judaism can be viewed in many different ways. We have been accused of being an overly legalistic tradition, and there are indeed lots of laws and rules and procedures. However, also included in our covenantal relationship with God is a deep and profound affection. Lest we focus only on the history and laws and technicalities, our Torah portion reminds us that God loves us, and that affection is part of God’s essential nature and of our reality. We are loved.

Strangers "with" God

May 24th: Behar
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

Rabbi Chananya ben Teradion says: “When two people sit and words of Torah pass between them, the Divine Presence rests between them.” (Avot 3.3) Thus do we have an ancient description of the ever-blooming Tree of Life that is our Torah. In our textually based religion, there is always something new coming from the Divine through our sacred study.

A case in point comes in Leviticus 25.23. In discussing the Jubilee Year, when all property ownership reverts back to the ancestral families, God instructs, “The land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me.”

The basic meaning, of course, is that human land ownership is a temporary construct—one allowed by God for human purposes, but ultimately more a lease or a loan from the Almighty. God created the world and owns it; whatever we have is but lent to us—we stewards of God’s property.

A deeper meaning is taught this week by Rabbi Ben Spratt of New York City in the weekly D’var Torah on ReformJudaism.org—the website of the Union for Reform Judaism. Rabbi Spratt quotes Rabbi Moshe Chaim Efraim (1748-1800), the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, who focuses on the last word of the verse, imadi. It is usually translated as resident with me, indicating that God is the landlord, and we are the tenants. However Reb Moshe reads imadi as along with me—“you are but strangers along with Me,” suggesting that God is a resident stranger just like us. Reb Moshe writes: “…for whoever is a stranger has no people with whom to cleave and to draw near and to tell of his experiences. And for anyone whose heart has no friend…when he sees a fellow stranger (and feels resonant as a fellow outsider) then he may recount with this person his experiences.” (Degel Machaneh Efraim)  Reb Moshe notes the human tendency to stay among our own kind, hesitating to stress ourselves with strangers and their strangeness. But, if we realize that we are strangers, too, then perhaps we can feel camaraderie with them and seek them out. For Rabbi Spratt, this is the way that we can partner with God—by joining God in reaching out for strangers and bringing them into relationship. It is a powerful ethical teaching, enhanced by the mystical sensibility that we and God are working together.

The idea that God is a stranger reminds me of a teaching of Rabbi Marcia Prager, a neo-Hassidic thinker from Philadelphia. In her book, The Path of Blessing, Reb Marcia discusses the meaning of the Hebrew word kadosh, usually translated as holy. Though we use the word holy fairly often, the exact meaning is difficult to specify. The earliest use of the root K D SH is in regard to marriages—which are called kedushin: one partner sets the other partner apart from all other men or women in the world, solidifying this special relationship. The sense of the word seems to involve separation and difference—separating something that is special. The times and items and relationships we identify as kadosh / holy are special and revered—and thus quite different from others.

So, if God is described or defined as holy—as in Leviticus 19.2, “I the Lord your God am holy,” then this makes God utterly different and separate. Utterly different. Utterly separate. Reb Marcia then proceeds to identify a deep difference. Everything in creation is either present or not present in one place. If I am here, I am not there. If you are there, you are not here. God, however, is utterly different from everything else inasmuch as God is both present in every place and simultaneously not present in every place. In other words, while God fills the Universe, there are places where it is as though God is not present. The salient factor is Divine Influence.  When God’s Influence is present, it is as though God is present: people behave in godly ways, doing God’s work in the world. If, however, people behave in ways that are ungodly, it is as though God is absent—history being filled with times and places where God did not seem to be known at all. Tying this back to Rabbi Moshe Chaim Efraim’s insight, we could say that God is a stranger, potentially present at every place and in every moment, hoping that someone will channel the Divine and manifest God in the world.

Thus can we conclude with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel—whom Rabbi Spratt quotes in his D’var Torah: “The destiny of man is to be a partner of God, and a mitzvah is an act in which man is present, an act of participation; while sin is an act in which God is alone; an act of alienation.” (Between God and Man, page 80).

Though so much of our religious heritage speaks of God’s immense power, there is something remarkably inspirational in the Kabbalah’s suggestion that God depends on us. We have the power to say Yes or No, to bring God into the world or to ignore the possibilities of godliness. It is an awesome choice, a wonderful opportunity.

Revering the Ancient Text, But...

May 17th: Emor
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich

While there are portion of Leviticus intended for the general population, much of it seems to be a handbook for the Kohanim, the priests whose modern day descendants no longer function in the ancient ritual roles. There are some Jews who still pray every day for the restorations of the Temple and the sacrificial cult, but most modern Jews view this whole priestly/sacrificial system as a thing of the past. Sometimes, we can draw metaphorical or allegorical lessons from the rules, but sometimes, the ancient sensibilities are most troubling to consider.

 A particularly problematic passage comes in Leviticus 21.16-23:
“The Lord spoke further to Moses: Speak to Aaron and say: No man of your offspring throughout the ages who has a defect shall be qualified to offer the food of his God. No one at all who has a defect shall be qualified: no man who is blind, or lame, or has a limb too short or too long; no man who has a broken leg or a broken arm; or who is a hunchback, or a dwarf, or who has a growth in his eye, or who has a boil-scar, or scurvy, or crushed testes…He may eat of the food of his God, of the most holy as well as of the holy; but he shall not enter behind the curtain or come near the altar, for he has a defect. He shall not profane these places sacred to Me, for I the Lord have sanctified them.”

 What are we to do with such a passage? Etz Hayim, the Torah with Commentary we use in our sanctuary, usually endeavors to put a positive spin on whatever ancient ideas our ancestors recorded in the Torah. However, it pretty much throws up its hands on this one:
“The reader may be troubled by these rules disqualifying physically handicapped kohanim from officiating in public. Perhaps their disfigurements would distract the worshippers from concentrating on the ritual and, like the offering of the blemished animal, would compromise the sanctuary’s image as a place of perfection reflecting God’s perfection (cf. Lev. 22:21-25, where similar language is used for the animals brought to the altar.) In later texts, in the Psalms and the prophets, the Bible emphasizes that the broken in body and spirit, because they have been cured of the sin of arrogance, are specially welcome before God. ‘True sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; God, You will not despise a contrite and crushed heart.’ (Psalm 51.19)

 Today we might well consider the religious institution that is willing to admit its own imperfections and is willing to engage physically handicapped spiritual leaders as being better able to welcome worshippers who are painfully aware of their own physical or emotional imperfections. Many congregations have made special efforts to provide access for the handicapped.”

As a Conservative commentary, it just cannot seem to bring itself to reject this attitude as prejudiced baggage from our ancient past. And, yes, there is this notion of bringing only the best before the Lord: perfect lambs and calves and even doves, the best flour, the best oil, the best wine. To offer anything less would be to lessen one’s respect for God, and, if one believes in God and God’s power, such a strategy is not to be encouraged. However, do we extend this sense of perfection to people?

I would address this in two ways. First, we are fortunate not to have to deal with this perfection mentality of the ancient Temple. Once the Temple was destroyed and the sacrificial cult was no longer functioning, Rabbinic Judaism was relieved of some of the Biblical sensibilities and was able to craft a prayer system that was more focused on sincerity and piety than strict adherence to public performance details. One can see an interesting dynamic in the development of Rabbinic Judaism as it follows a dual path: praising and rarifying the ancient priestly system, while crafting a very different kind of heart and head oriented Jewish religion.

Second, we must realize that our ancient ancestors shared many of the prejudices and misunderstandings that have plagued humanity for millennia. While they experienced moments of spiritual grandeur and profound wisdom, they were people of their times and places, and only some of the things they recorded and taught are of the highest level. Others are mired in the lack of understanding out of which humanity is still trying to grow. Let us not forget, we who are habituated to the idea of giving equal respect and granting equal access to persons with disabilities, that it has taken a long, long, long time for society to look at less than perfect bodies and see the image of God inside. The Americans with Disabilities Act was only passed in 1990, and there are still many areas of contention or adjustment. It seems to me that we can accept the real wisdom of our ancestors while disagreeing with their prejudices or misunderstandings. We can revere our ancient texts without accepting everything.  

Speaking of the development of Judaism—from Biblical to Rabbinic and to modern, there is a very curious passage in Leviticus 22. In the continuing discussion of priestly purification, we have the introduction of a word commonly used in Kashrut conversations: trayfah or trafe. In modern Jewish discussions, trafe means anything that is not kosher, but, in the Torah, it specifically means something that was not slaughtered in a kosher manner. In verse 8, we read: “He shall not eat anything that died (n’velah) on its own or was torn by beasts (t’rayfah), thereby becoming impure.” The context is clearly a discussion of priestly purity for priests—for priests and not for regular Israelites. It is theorized that this as well as all the other Biblical kashrut laws were intended only for the priests as a part of their special status—and not applicable to regular people. Indeed, as one plots the development of Rabbinic Judaism from its origins in the Bible, there seems to be a pattern of adapting priestly practices for non-priests. The Rabbis did not want to supplant the priesthood—which was still in existence and operating for some 150 years of Rabbinic Judaism ((200 BCE-70 CE), but they sought to give regular Jews a sense of holiness and closeness to God. Hence, regular Jews have sacral clothing, special “priestly” rules for food, and even daily prayers that coincide (coincided) with the sacrifices offered in the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem.

In so many ways, Rabbinic Judaism improved on the religion of the Bible, keeping much of what was profound and innovating new and better ways of accessing God.