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

Ellul

 Time is our greatest commodity.  We lose it an alarming rate.  Perhaps.  Perhaps we can make time as well as lose it.

 

Here’s an interesting take on the preciousness of time:

Whenever my husband, Ben, does minor work on the car, he invites our 6-year-old grandson, Jake, to help.

One day Jake’s dad asked him, “What does Grandpa pay you for all that help you give him?”

“Grandpa pays me attention.”

 

As we approach Ellul, the month that is a prelude to the New Year, we ought to become aware of the impermanence and flux of time.  It is a time to consider.  Another year has passed.  Have we been paying attention?

 

Our task is not to ask what has changed since last Rosh Hashanah but how have we changed? 

Yes, we have all grown older.  A few more lines.  Some of us have more money than last year, others less.  Health never seems to be static.  Age has brought vigor or a diminution of strength.  The face that stares back at us in the mirror is significantly different than a year ago but what about what is inside, behind the visage?

 

In one study of time scientists determined that when we are fully engaged in life, time goes by slowly.  For example, as children an hour seemed like a lifetime because we were so immersed in the wonder to the moment.  When we are disengaged, perhaps bored, times streams by and we gasp at where the year, or decade, went.

 

The aim of a life well-lived would then seem to be one where we are challenged by opportunities, relationships, and new ideas.  The ebb of life will lessen while the flow of life increases.

 

This would seem to be the aim of new month of Ellul which is often taken as an anagram, “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine” (Ani l’dodi v’dodi li).  God wants us to be partnered with Him.  We know that living a meaningful life each day should involve bringing us new learning and greater insights. To be beloved of God is to act in concert with the Divine mitzvot.  It is about what we do.

 

Advisory: Life is not about feeling good.  Good feelings are fleeting.  When you bought that expensive item, it felt good but that feeling was only buttressed or maintained when you went out and bought the next item. And the next.   The same goes for drugs, liquor or anything that brings a momentary high.  Feeling good should not be the engine that drives our lives.

 

Life is about doing good.  We are supposed to leave this world in better shape than we found it. Will this be said of us when we pass from this world?  Will God reckon that we have done well with our allotment of time?

So, as we walk closer to the end of this year and the opening of a new one what has changed?  How are we different?  And, most importantly, what new goals will we set for ourselves to live a quality life where each moment is another opportunity to grow in moral stature?

 

It may be as simple as paying attention like the grandfather.  It might involve determining if we have kosher mezzuzot on our doors.  Learning some Torah.  Helping someone in need.

 

May we all be worthy of being called “beloved” in the eyes of the Almighty by how we live this year with goodness and integrity.  May this be our desire as the clock of life ticks.

Where Time Coverges

There is an odd passage in the Talmud:

Rav Pappa went to his teacher and asked, “Why were miracles performed in earlier times but not for us?  It cannot be because of our learning.  We study the entire Mishna whereas they devoted themselves only to study the passages on “damages.”  Yet, when the great Rabbi Yehudah would remove even a single shoe from his foot, rains would fall.  Why does God take no notice of us?”

The answer: “In earlier generations they were ready to sacrifice themselves for the sanctification of G-d’s name.  We consider only ourselves.”

 

To see shifts in contemporary thought we need to look over our shoulders to former times as a barometer of how we have changed.  Ask the elders of your family or community what life was like when they grew up.  They will tell you about growing up without technology, the hardships of getting by with less, family squabbles over meals, a chance meeting at a dance, milk delivered in glass bottles, the simplicity of a less complex life….  With a faint smile they will reminisce.  It is hard to imagine a life so significantly different from ours.  Equally, those who came before us also had trouble imagining what life was like in their parent’s time and so on for the generations before them. 

 

Society mores, attitudes and behaviors change.  Those changes happen imperceptibly and only those who are exceptionally attentive are able to discern those shifts.  In fact, those who witness those developments and report to us how we are changing are prophetic.  Prophets in the Jewish tradition are not predictors of the future; they tell us what is happening now with a clear lens.

 

Not surprisingly, prophets were almost always dismissed by their peers.  Labelled as crazy they wandered alone, often shunned, were unable to quiet their conscience and so lived a life of inner turmoil.  Knowing the truth and finding themselves incapable of convincing others of that truth, they often fell to despair.  

 

It is hard to see the world as it really is, and not through the filter of a society that accepts everything as “normal.”  

 

Example: Covid.  We accepted this virus as a part of our lives, almost as if it was always with us. In a few more years, perhaps it will be as if it were always present in one form or other.    And now technology has replaced so much of our interactions.

 

Example: Politics.  Were politics always so fractious? Did politicians really speak in pejorative terms?  Did they always humiliate ridicule on another and those who disagreed with them?  Not likely.  But when it happens with relentless frequency, we start believing things were always this way and cannot change.

 

In the middle of the forest all we can see are the trees that surround us.  

 

In the biblical book of Ecclesiastes the author states, “A generation comes, and a generation goes…while the earth remains…” The keen objective viewer understands that time passes while only a few inviolate truths remain.  What is unacceptable today will be embraced in the future.  The opposite is also true.  And as history is written those who read it will find our actions incomprehensible.

 

As Jews we are taught to question everything.  It is our way of ascertaining truth.  If what is being cited can hold up under rigorous examination, it is truth.  Our tradition teaches us to look at what we prioritize and ask whether this is congruent with what G-d wants.

 

The excerpt from the Talmud above is meant as a spur to think as the prophets of long ago.  When we elevate the ephemeral to the eternal we are committing a sin.  When we sanctify the name of G-d with our thoughts and actions and not sacrifice them to the zeitgeist we are being true seekers of truth.

 

Enjoy the summer months.  Dance, sing, discover and find joy in the present all the while remembering what has come before – who you are and where you come from – as it is a lasting truth.

 

Truth

 “Dialectic generally means “of the nature of dialogue,” which is a conversation between two persons.  Nowadays it means logical argumentation.  It involves a technique of cross-examination, by which truth is arrived at.  It’s the mode of discourse of Socrates in the Dialogues of Plato.  Plato believed that the dialectic was the sole method by which the truth was arrived at.  The only one.”  So wrote Robert Persig.

 

Truth is the goal of life. It is also the goal of Torah.  

 

Truth is not ephemeral; it is not true for one generation and untrue for another.  It is eternal.  The aim of Judaism is to arrive at truth through the art of dialectic.  For those who have studied case law or Talmud it is the precise application of argumentation to make sure that the “truth” we seek does not sink to the level of dogma.

 

A question I ask often of students is, “What truths do you know?”  The easiest, most accessible response is naming the physical – a chair, a shoelace, or yogurt.  Truth does not shift or change with the times.  It is eternal.  But what about the harder truths, the ones that are supposed to undergird society?  The ones that make us function as a caring society?   The ones we frequently ignore at the expense of our life’s meaning?  Truths are different than beliefs. 

 

In this brief article I’d like to list some truths. Some are from Torah, some from Talmud, and others from our Sages. 

 

> Helping someone to overcome their personal obstacle(s) to realize their potential is good.

> “Anyone who destroys a human life is considered as if he had destroyed and entire world.

Anyone who preserves a human life is considered to have preserved and entire world.” Talmud

>The ultimate purpose of mitzvot is to enter into a relationship with the Almighty.  It is responding “heneeni” to the question, “Where are you?”

> It is not about who is “right” but who is righteous (Heb. tzedek or tzedaka).

> You are unique (as are the people you love and those whom you ignore).

> If you treat people with kindness they will surprise you, and perhaps themselves.

> If you treat people with kindness and forgive them you elevate your soul.

> You have qualities that can enable building or razing, creating or eradicating.   

> Evil exists.

> Evolution of the mind and character are not givens; they are earned.

> Growth or death.  We are either learning/growing or unlearning/diminishing.  We are never still.

> Lashon ha-ra, gossip, is destructive and evil.

> Listen.  That is why you have two ears and only one mouth.

> If your life were to end now, would the world be a better place because you have lived?  Or not yet?

> Morality does not evolve.  Human instincts remain as they have always been.  If you want change, become it.

> What you do, how you behave is who you are.

>What you say, the words you utter, you become.

> You are the determinant of your happiness.  No one else.

> Shabbat is a gift God gave but you must accept.

> Sharing elevates both the giver and receiver.

> What you have owns you, not the other way around.

> Believing in God is less important than believing that God.

> The universe is awesome - from the tiny amoeba to the tallest mountain peaks.  See it.  Feel it.

> Bless the clerk, the homeless woman, the banker, gas station attendant, bless every person you pass whether known or unknown and then you will ultimately become a blessing.