Holy Days

 Beth Shalom has been an anchoring rock for more than a century in our community.  Founded by European immigrants it originally was an Orthodox synagogue and gradually moved to accommodate an English-speaking and acculturated Jewish community in Columbia.  Through the many decades each successive generation has worked and succeeded to keep the congregation informed and provide numerous entry points to accommodate the full range of Jewish practices and knowledge.

 

Now well into the twenty-first century, we continue to nurture membership and outreach to those unconnected to the congregation, support the whole Jewish community and act as a conduit to our non-Jewish neighbors.

 

The building of the infrastructure of the Beth Shalom Synagogue is not static.  We continue to innovate and provide new opportunities to enter into both the faith of our ancestors as well as remain committed to the tenets of Conservative Judaism.  This requires imagination and a steadfast unswerving dedication to our Judaic heritage.

 

This High Holy season we are testing new ground by creating new doors to enter our sacred tradition.  The mystic tradition of Kabbalah informs us that there are seventy doors to the Castle.  Seventy, they tell us, because each person has their own point of entry. Numerous choices await as you come in to join with the many familiar faces inside your hallowed home.  

 

We understand that each person is different and is moved by accessing their faith in a unique way.  Some want to pray as we have for millennia.  Others are looking to be moved to an experience that touches their soul in a profound way.  Some want to express their connection to their soul by deep reflection and some by kabbalistic practices of breathing and movement.  Many people are moved by a supernal meeting with those biblical forebears who lie at the roots of our tradition.

 

Each of these pathways will be offered to you and your guests these holy days.  You will choose to enter the door that beckons your soul.  These are not services as usual.

 

Doubtless you have heard about the many entryways already.  You will read more about them in this issue of the newsletter as well as in the media in the coming days.  Think deeply about your personal needs to connect with your past and allow it to meet up with your present when electing how to be touched this New Year.

 

You are invaluable, one-of-a-kind.  Each of us is crafted by the Almighty to be uniquely gifted to be who are meant to be.  In providing these numerous opportunities to engage your self, mind, and soul, the Yamim Noraim – Days of Awe – we hope that everyone will find moments to be uplifted and challenged in ways never imagined. Do not be surprised to find life’s trajectories changed as we make our faith more accessible than ever.

 

As the great sage Hillel taught two thousand years ago, “Come and learn.”   Choose the door that speaks to you and enter the Castle.

 

Return

 We chose pain.

If there is a single moral to the tale of Creation it is that Adam HaRishon (primordial man) elected to take the path of pain instead of spending his days on utter comfort.  The Garden was perfect.  There were no needs or wants.  They did not have to work and the possibility of failure did not exist.  There could be no failure.  Likewise there was nothing to succeed at.  All Adam HaRishon had to do was breathe.  
In the taking the forbidden fruit shame launched itself in the consciousness of the two beings.  First naked and unashamed (2:25) Adam and Havvah felt their vulnerability grow into an unrelenting self-conscious throb.  Now, instead of roaming about the Garden Adam and Havvah now crouched in the bushes.  Just moments before the universe stretched before them.  Now, the world had closed in on them.  The skies felt like they were crushing down upon them.  
Self-loathing and fear gripped Adam and Havvah.  Dark suspicions colored the previously pristine Garden.  They accused one another, contemptuously.  He said, “The woman that You gave me—she gave the fruit…” The woman said, “The serpent…”  Perfection was blemished.  Shunned from Eden, Adam and Havvah now had to deal with unimagined pains that would assault their physical being and relentlessly pursue their consciousness.  They crouched lower into the foliage, terrified of the inner darkness.  
Why did they choose the path of pain?
On Hanukka we celebrate in many ways.  Among the more opaque observances is the tradition of spinning the dreidle. B'nei Yissachar said that the difference between Hanukka and Purim is best demonstrated by the dreidle and the gragger.  The dreidle is spun by taking hold of the top and twisting one’s wrist.  The gragger is sounded by taking hold of the bottom and yanking it around.  One is gripped from below; the other above.  That reminds us of the difference between the two holidays.  While Purim celebrates Esther’s ability to find her self and God and save the Jews (below); Hanukka recalls God’s intervention in coming to the aid of the Hasmonean warriors (above) with the miracle of the oil.  
Redemption has different origins in the two holidays.   There are times when we depend upon God and other times when we must depend upon ourselves.  Yet, the connection between Purim and Hanukka is that redemption only comes about through struggle, pain.  Both tales are pock-marked with rivalry, desperation and fear.
It would be nice if life was different…and it was for a brief flicker of time in our past.  We return to our first question: why did they do it?  Why did the sole inhabitants of Eden forfeit perfection?   Why could they not turn their backs from the Tree of Knowledge and forever walk in the Divine Radiance?
The searing question of pain is compounded in this week’s parasha as Jacob’s family descends into the grasp of Egypt.  At first it is a most that benefits everybody.  Prosperity swiftly turns to anguish as Jacob’s children becomes slaves to their present-day neighbors.  Why such pain?  Why must generation after generation endure agony?
In connection with the Torah reading, the Midrash offers:  A farmer needed to yoke his cow.  The cow had no desire to have the wooden plank placed and tightened around her shoulders so she balked. Turning her neck this way and that the farmer could not put the yoke on the animal.  So what did he do? 
The farmer went to the shed and led her calf out in front of the mother.  Pathetically bleating the calf caused the cow to lurch protectively forward. Because of her child the cow allowed herself to become yolked.
It was foreseen that Jacob would have to migrate to Egypt (15:13) long ago.  It was part of the pact that God made with Father Abraham.  There were countless ways to facilitate Abraham’s descendent leaving Canaan for Egypt but God decided to bring the calf first to induce the mother.  The Holy One declared: "He is My firstborn.  Shall I then bring him down to Egypt in disgrace?    I will draw his son before him, and so he will follow despite himself.”  Jacob was forced to go down to Egypt.
So God wants us to suffer?  He ordained the slavery?

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said: The Holy One, Blessed is He, gave three good gifts to the Jewish people, and all are acquired through suffering: Torah, the Landof Israel, and the World to Come. (Brachot 5a)

Chassidic teaching explains that two counter-objectives had to be achieved. On the one hand, Jacob had to be compelled to relocate to Egypt -- a voluntary migration would not have been an exile! Galut, by definition, is a place where one does not want to be -- a place that is contrary to one's intrinsic self and will. On the other hand, the fact that Jacob arrived in Egypt in honor, glory and in a position of power as the father of that country's ruler, rather than as a prisoner in chains, meant that he and his descendents would never truly be subject to their host country. Thus the key to Israel's eventual liberation from Egypt was already "programmed" into the circumstances under which their galut 

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai [the author of the "Zohar"] taught: "Come and see how beloved is Israel to the Holy One, the Source of all blessing. Wherever Israel went into exile, the Shechina went along into exile. They went to exile to Egypt, the Shechina went with them as it is written, Did I not appear to your ancestor's family when they were in Egypt [enslaved] to the house of Pharaoh (Samuel 1:2-27. They went to Babylon in exile and the Shechina went with them, as it is written, because of you I was sent to Babylon (Isaiah 43:14). And when they will eventually be redeemed, the Shechina will be redeemed along with them, as it is written, Then the Lord your God will bring back your captivity and have mercy upon you (Deut. 30:3). The verb used in the verse is not veheshiv, the proper grammatical way to express bringing back someone else in Hebrew, but veshov which expresses the idea of returning oneself; to teach you that God Himself returns along with Israel from its exiles. (Talmud, Megilah, 29a)

 

Purim fun

 Oy. 

I want to talk about the economy and the Jewish response to the spoliation of our world.  Things have gotten so bad.  It is just terrible.  The economy charges ahead and retreats.  Debt spirals upward but does not seem to come down.  

Alert: A major unidentified oil company had to lay off twenty-five congressman last week! Making matters worse, Tom Bodett finally turned the light off.  It is time for us to take action.

We could learn a lot from Bubbie.  She knew how to use and re-use.  She was green before her time before it was even a color.  After she washed the floor she used yesterday’s newspaper as a coverall to protect her work from dirty feet and spilled chicken livers.  Bubbie never met a piece of wrapping paper she couldn't use fifteen times. In fact, through judicious use, rinsing, and re-use of aluminum foil, one Bubbie only used two rolls of foil during her entire life! 

Don't waste money!  Keep lights off, even in the dark. You can save thousands, maybe even millions on electricity bills by using night vision glasses, which can be bought cheap at any military hardware store.   Don't waste an entire sheet of fabric softener when you can cut the thing in half. Soap can molded into bar mitzvah centerpieces, swans or models of the Ten Commandments. As a bonus, guests can use them when they wash hands. 

With rocketing inflation, it's time to resurrect the fine art of haggling. After the register has tallied your groceries and the credit card machine screen asks, "Is $231.98 okay?" don't just press the "okay" button. Make a deal!  A metsia! Start your counteroffer at $27.54.

After Passover, my friend Harry sold his swept up matzah crumbs in a Ziploc bag for eighteen bucks on ebay! I don't know what's up with these eBay shoppers, but if they're dumb enough to buy matzah crumbs from the floor, they'll buy broken toys, and your van with no engine. Heck, offer that folding chair held together with only duct tape and with the screw sticking out of the seat pad, and see what you get!

Cook creatively.  Concoct visionary meals such as "refrigerator soup," anything you can find in the back of the fridge or freezer that doesn't yet have anything growing on it. Tabasco sauce, the unrecognizable leftovers with freezer burn, and you're in business. If your family complains, say, "You want fancy?  Tomorrow we'll have borsht."

It’s time for action.  Did you hear on the news how one man became so depressed that he called a suicide hotline.  They connected him to an operator in Afghanistan.  They became excited as they asked, “Can you drive a truck??”

Happy Purim!

Disclaimer: Liberally plagiarized, copied, pilfered and stolen from several sources.

Unique Change

 A rich and poor child attended school together.  One day the wealthy one brought in a fine leather wallet.  The other students gaped and were envious of the beautiful object.  The other children began to their save money so they could buy one just like it.  The poor one had no chance; it was hard enough to just get fresh pencils and a backpack.  That child felt miserable…

The child went to the local storekeeper, put his meagre change on the counter and said, “This is all the money I have.  Can I please have that wallet?”

“So you do not have another penny?” asked the owner.  “Tell me, if you have no more money, what good is the wallet to you?  You have nothing to put in it.”

The storekeeper makes sense.  As adults we would say the same.  And yet, there would be a small inner voice that understands the cry of the child who yearns to be like everyone else, wants to have what they have, and does not wish to stand out as different.

The child has grown up but still struggles over the same issues.  We want and cannot always have what want.

It has been said by many pundits and economists that the economic slump that we are in is largely due to living beyond our means.  We wanted the lovely wallet, could not afford it, but got it anyway.  Everybody felt the same way, including the banks.  We went out and bought what we should not have purchased.

Looking around it is easy to fall prey to desiring what others have.  Just watching television is an exercise in restraint as commercial after commercial tells us “If we order now….”  We are barraged by billboards, ads on radio and on the Internet that imply satisfaction and contentedness if we -- along with the rest of the country -- buy what they are selling. 

Sociologist George Ritzer has called this phenomenon the “McDonaldization of America.”  In this new world everyone gets the same car, same house, same TV, and the same everything.  One city looks like another and states lose their individuality until all America looks alike.

On an individual level, Talmud has a distinctly different idea.  “Man strikes many coins from one die and they are all alike.  The Holy One, blessed be He, however, strikes each person with the same die as Adam but not one is the same as the next.”*  Not only does our faith tell us about the uniqueness of our formation but it declares we each play an indispensable role in the universe.  In other words, we have special gifts that only we can give to the world.  In the absence of that gift the world is incomplete.

What this all means is that we are not supposed to look for ways to be like one another.  Instead, we are called by God to seek out our own destiny.  Certainly, others will play a role in that process but it is our journey towards becoming whole, not theirs.

“According to the effort is the reward.”**  Our task is to bring about the fullest self we can achieve.  There is no one who can do this but you: you are one of a kind since the inception of Creation.

*Sanhedrin 38a

**Avot 5:26