The Synagogue

I am an optimist by nature. I would rather think the best and most situations and people. Having said that, I do not confess to believe in utopia either on the grand or micro level. The fight is part of the plan. Struggle makes living worthwhile. That is why meaningful relationships are born through tumultuous times and productive work often turns out to be disappointing.

The book of Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, is read during the Fall days of Sukkot.  It cautions, “Everything is beautiful in its time.” The Sages interpret this phrase to mean that everything happens for a purpose, which may not immediately discernible to us. We learn and grow from every experience. Even the bad. Especially the bad.

And elderly Jewish woman was convinced by her children to come join them at their modern synagogue in suburbia. She came for the holidays from her old shteibel. At the end of services they gathered around to ask their mother what she thought about their synagogue’s striking architecture or, the plush cushy seats, air conditioning and their American rabbi. She agreed it was all very nice but she had one complaint, “alles is shayn, ober men ken nisht vaynen dorten,” (Everything is beautiful but there is no room to cry).

The full range of emotions must govern our lives and be considered part of what it means to be fully human. To exclude the possibility of facing up to difficult situations is to deny ourselves growth. The shul is the paradigm exemplar of the home. We cry and bless, we soothe and challenge, fight and dance in this place.

I pray that you find in your synagogue a place to feel free to exercise the full range of your emotions. The purpose of it is not to be beautiful but a place to inspire.

An offering from the Talmud:

I am a creature of God

And my neighbor is a creature of God.

I work is in the city

And his work is in the field.

I rise in the morning to go to my work

And he rises in the morning to go to his work.

As he cannot excel in my work,

So I cannot excel in his work.

 Perhaps you will say that I do great things

And he does small things.

We have learned that it does not matter whether one does much or little

Only if he directs his heart to heaven.

-Berakhot 17

Shavuot

There is an ancient tradition among Jews to mark events of the past with reminders that align us closely to that time. Each holy day is and opportunity to recall experiences from our long past. We relive them through song, movement, food, ceremonies and hopeful prayers.

Thus on Hanukkah we kindle tiny lights as a memorial to a festival of light. And on Purim we revel in song and costume. So too with Shavout, often referred to as Pentecost. The prefix penta, 50, refers to a cataclysmic event which affected only a small tribe of people but whose power continues to reverberate through the epochs.

Some seven weeks of seven days after witnessing the terror at the Sea of Reeds, the faithful found themselves at the foot of a towering mountain. Sinai.

Convulsing as if in labor, the earth trembled beneath the feet of the Sons of Israel. The mountain shook as the skies belched fire and cracked the heavens. Terrified, the people watched as their leader ascended the mountain to receive the Word.

Shavuot comes on the 50^th day after the Exodus as an eternal reminder of God’s gift to humanity. That one event so many millennia ago has irrevocably changed the path of mankind. That revelation of the will of God set a new standard of morality for all people.

Beginning with the 10 Ordinances and culminating in Five Books of Law, new yardstick of acceptable moral behavior was in place. Humanity was no longer free to kill with impunity or create its own levels and standards of good behavior but had to rely instead on and independent code.

The evening of Shavuot marks the anniversary of that event.  Shavuot begins with the appearance of three stars visible in the night sky.  Until late in the evening, Jews gather in homes and that Synagogues to recall the day with Moses climbed Mount Sinai amidst the deafening roar above and below.

Rosh Hashanah

All kings and queens throughout history have had a responsibility toward their subjects; to appear with regularity and declare the affairs of state.  It is a regal event with all the pageantry and majesty that would accompany such an event, as if it were lifted out of story book.  Gilt covered carriages pulled by massive horses and glinting swords strung from the waist color the day.  Then the coup de grace; a glimpse at the magnificent jewels adorning the monarch.

Rosh Hashanah is the coronation day of the Holy One, blessed be He.  As the Lord sits with the crown on His head, he casts His gaze over the universe.  It is the moment of judgment.  This is the new beginning with all the accompanying majesty and awe.

According to Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Shimon, Rosh Hashanah is the time for the reckoning of years.  A jubilee or date of a festival could not officially start until judgment had been rendered.  Only then would the calendar advance another digit.  And the harvesting of the first fruits of the three-year-old trees would be decided and commence on Rosh Hashanah.

In the starry heavens late at night on the way home from shul, a new moon the companies us toward quiet homes. A new dress, recently shine shoes, candles ablaze on the table, all of these things give a sense of calm and joy. The date portends new possibilities, new choices, and new decisions to old conundrums. One cycle is finished. We begin again.

It is said that the Gates of Heaven are open wide. Is it to give us a glimpse of the King of Kings and adorned in regal splendor? Or is it to give the One-Who-Rules a more perfect view of humanity? Everyone is judged according to some unknown, impenetrable scale of justice. It will be decided who will be granted another year of life and who will be assigned death.

If we are deemed worthy of life, is this a new beginning. If it is the end of life, it is also a new beginning….for the living, survivors, as well as the dead.

I look forward to a full, good year with you, if it is God’s will. No doubt we will cry together, dance at the same weddings, share the same magnificent joys and pains that life affords.  It is a new beginning for us all.  We join together in drinking from the cup of life

An anonymous figure in history once penned, “This is the beginning of a new day. God is giving me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good. What I do today is important because I'm exchanging a day in my life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something I’ve traded for it. I want it to be gain, not loss; good, not evil; success, not failure; in order that I shall not regret the price I paid for it.”

Is the wisdom, vision and inner strength to grow and have no regrets about tomorrow. However you may choose to say it, Gute Yontif, Shanah Tovah, May God be good to us.

Real or Artificial?

Real or artificial?

[Warning: this article may contain harmful substances ]

The supermarket search is on.

Racing down aisles with carriages jockeying for the nectar of Eden, we level well-aimed jabs at jars and tins in blazoned with words declaring purity. Bold print screams out at the seasoned shopper: pure vegetable oil, low in saturated fat, all natural, organic! 

You ever let your eyes meander over the ingredient list for fruit juice? Of course you have. Most contain corn syrup, artificial sweeteners and artificial flavors. One famous brand proudly proclaimed that it has 10% real juice in it.  Gottenu! Others claim that they come from fruits that are naturally processed…along with the pesticides and residues from acid rain that annually falls.

Many years ago we decided to raise her children on nourishing foods, ones that were free from contaminants and unnecessary additives. So we bought apple juice with no more than two ingredients listed on the labels, water and apples.

Then came another scare something called a Alar. Remember that?  I heard that I was guilty of poisoning my child with some trisyllabic word.  Less fastidious parents than we -- filling baby bottles with root beer instead of superpure apple juice -- were the heroes, the real caring guardians of the child’s health. I remember feeling deceived and violated.

We live in an age when Cheetos are touted as health food. After all, they have real cheese in them don’t they? Nature stores sell items antithetical to sound nutrition.  Do we trust? And we are called upon to make choices every day, real or artificial?

We live in the healing universe.

Huge machine spew six smokers they grind intrude into the earth displacing massive boulders, uprooting trees. Gaping wounds spill over onto untouched ground like flesh peeled back from the skin, exposing the bowels of the earth. I’m ready soil is ripped up as the life force of the earth bleeds.

Truly amazing is that these terrible dismemberments gradually heal. By themselves. Moss slowly grows over the shattered and twisted lambs cast about. Grasses return to unfold the stark landscape. Flowers bring back bees and with them, arrive insects and turtles.  Left alone, all the radiation, smog, pollution, non-biodegradable shmutz is absorbed and healed by the universe.

We are just too small to see the magnificence of life; we are like fleas on a dog.

The holy days recognize the supremacy of nature as the hand of God behind the falling leaves, the darkening skies, the rain, the snow, the wind and sun. It is no wonder that we grow quiet and introspective when we open our eyes and hearts.  Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, offers this advice:

Remember your Creator and appreciate life

In the days of your youth, before the days of sorrow,

And years draw near when you will say,

I have no pleasure in them.

To sum up the matter,

Revere God and for fulfill His mitzvot.

Thinking About Pesah

According to Kabbalah, the mystic tradition, there are 10 powers that G-d employs in the universe. These 10 are G-d’s attributes.

On erev Pesah, the eve before the festival commences, we have an unusual custom.  Called bedikat hametz, it is the search for vestiges of forgotten bread around our home.  Until this moment we frenetically shop, clean, invite, gather our Haggadot, shine the silver, set the table, and cook.  Then, while the soup is still boiling away on the stove we engage in the final search for leaven.  We do this because the Torah explicitly mandates, “No bread shall be seen in your home.” (Exodus 13)

Here is the ancient tradition:

We scatter ten pieces of bread in our home.  Then uttering a blessing we light a candle, take a plate and feather and then proceed to search through our home to find these ten pieces of hidden bread (in addition to any other leaven hiding in our home).

Gathering up the pieces our mind focuses on realizing the Divine energy that inheres in everywhere and us.   Part of the religious journey that calls to us is seeking the holy within.  This powerful act of bedikat hametz symbolizes the deep yearning we have to connect with G-d to fully realize and own our liberation.

Whether we need to awaken our soul to the desperate cries for redemption throughout the world or simply open our soul to the Supernal Being that we want to fill us this quiet mitzvah has the potential to connect us to the potential of what we can become.

May the Holy, blessed be He, be a recognized Presence at your table this Pesah.