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June 14, 2014

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Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons), Numbers (במדבר)

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Shelach Lekha 5774 – Making the Minyan

A man living in Jerusalem was saying the mourner’s kaddish for his mother.  That’s the prayer that Jews say for eleven months after the death of a parent.  In order to say it, however, one needs to be praying with a minyan, a quorum of ten Jewish adults over the age of Bar Mitzvah.

Every day, consistently, the man would go to a synagogue so that he could pray with a minyan, and thus be able to say the prayer.  One night, the man returns home really late, at 3 am.  He collapses into bed, exhausted.  As soon as he turns out the light, he bolts upright.  “Oh no!  I did not pray Arvit!” the evening prayer.  “I missed saying kaddish for my mother!”

With tremendous effort, he drags himself out of bed and starts to dress.

Where is he going to find a minyan at this hour?

No problem.  As anyone who lives in Jerusalem can tell you, day or night, you can always find a minyan at the Shteibelach— a building filled with a bunch of small synagogues in the Zichron Moshe neighborhood.  People gather in one of the rooms, and as soon as a minyan shows up, they start praying.  You can show up at pretty much any time of day and find a service about to begin.

But not at 3 am.  When the man gets to the shteibelach, it is empty.

He takes out his cell phone and dials the number for a taxi company.

“Hello! Can you please send six taxis to the Shteibelach in Zichron Moshe?”

“Adoni (my dear sir)! It’s three o’clock in the morning! You think I have six taxis? What do you think I am, a magician? …I only have five.”

“Okay. So send five!”

He dials another number. “Hello, please send five taxis to Zichron Moshe…”

“Atah meshugah! You’re crazy! I only have four!

“Fine.  I’ll take them.”

Within twenty minutes, there is a line of nine taxicabs parked neatly outside the Shteiblach.

“Adoni,” says one of the drivers, “Why do you need nine taxis? There’s no wedding here, no Bar Mitzvah, nothing.”

“I want you all to turn your meters on and come inside with me. We are going to pray together the evening prayer — arvit.  I will pay each of you just as if you’re giving me a lift.”

These taxi drivers are not observant Jews.  Some of them have not been inside a synagogue since their Bar Mitzvah.  Although they are fluent in Hebrew, they have no idea how to pray: what and when to answer; when to speak aloud and when to stay quiet.

It takes them quite a while. But the kaddish man, shows them exactly what do do.  At 3:30 am in Jerusalem that night, he is able to say kaddish for his mother.

Afterwards, they all go outside to the taxis; the meters in the cars are pushing upwards of 90 shekels per car.  The man pulls out his wallet and starts to count out the approximately 800 shekels it is going to cost him.  That is more than two hundred dollars

“How much do I owe you?” he asks the first taxi driver in the line.

“Adoni, what do you take me for? Do you honestly believe I would take money from you. who just gave me such an opportunity to help my fellow Jew say kaddish?”

He moves down the line to the second driver, who gives him the same answer.  “Do you know how long it is since I prayed?”

And the third and the fourth, all the way down the line to the ninth…

Not one takes a shekel.

And so they embrace and drive off to a new morning in the holy city of Jerusalem!

 

The name of the prayer the man said, the Kaddish, comes from the word Kadosh, meaning holy.  It is an ancient prayer in which we publicly proclaim the sanctity, or holiness, of God’s name.  A leader recites the words, and the congregation responds in certain places with various interjections: Amen, B’rikh Hu, or Y’hei Sh’mei Rabba m’vorach l’alam ul’almei almayah – May God’s great name be blessed throughout Eternity.  The Rabbis of the Talmud think it is so important that they declare that a person who responds to the Kaddish with enthusiasm is assured of a place in the world to come.

There are other important prayers that are also connected to this word.  The Kedushah is the special set of verses that we recite during the reader’s repetition of the Amidah.  In it, we act as if we are Divine Beings, blessing God like the angels.

In order to be able to recite both the Kaddish and the Kedushah, we are required to have a minyan.  A person praying alone, or in a group of less than ten Jewish adults, must skip over those sections of the service.

Why is that?

Our Rabbis of the Talmud teach that “Any words of holiness may not be recited with less than ten.”  (Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 23b)  In order to sanctify God’s name, that is to say, declare God’s holiness in a particularly special way, we must have a minyan.

In addition to reciting the Kaddish and the Kedushah, the Talmud identifies other religious actions which also require ten.   Chanting the Torah in public, invoking God during the introduction to the Grace After Meals, and forming a line away from a funeral to comfort the mourners are several more examples.

In ancient times, only Jewish males over the age of Bar Mitzvah were included to make up a minyan.  In recent years in the Conservative movement, we have expanded our interpretation of Jewish law to include Jewish females over the age of Bat Mitzvah as well.

Our tradition has always placed great value on communal prayer.  In Judaism, our prayers are said to reach higher into the heavenly chambers when we are together in a minyan as compared to when we pray alone.  The Talmud teaches, “Whenever ten pray together, the Shechinah (God’s Presence) is with them.”  (BT, Berachot 6a)  It seems to be taken almost as a given that minyan equals ten.

But there must be a reason.  Why ten?

Whenever I pose the question, I tend to receive several responses.

The first, and perhaps most obvious: ten fingers.

The second is from the Book of Genesis, when Abraham argues with God over the fate of wicked inhabitants of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.  He convinces God to save the cities if ten righteous individuals can be found.  Alas, ten cannot be found, and the cities are demolished.

But the reason that is offered by our ancient sources is different.

The Talmud identifies this morning’s Torah portion as the origin of the minyan.  It uses a particular kind of interpretational tool called a gezera shava.  A verbal analogy.  The way a gezera shava works is as follows.  We identify two completely separate biblical passages that have nothing to do with one another.  They do, however, share a word in common.  That word in common allows us to make an analogy between the two verses.  If something is true in one verse, it must also be true in the other verse.

The Tamud asks why is it the case that God’s name cannot be sanctified with less than a minyan of ten Jewish adults.  Now please bear with me for a minute.  This is kind of complicated.

Rabbenai, the brother of Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba, a Babylonian Sage from the third century, brings the answer, using a two step gezera shave.  (BT Berachot 21b)

Here is step one.  In this morning’s Torah portion, after the spies have given their report about the land of Israel and its inhabitants, sowing seeds of panic amongst the people, God becomes enraged.  Ad matai la-edah ha-ra’ah hazot asher hemah malinim alai – “How much longer shall that wicked community keep muttering against Me?”  (Numbers 14:27)  In next week’s portion, Moses and Aaron are facing a challenge from their cousin Korach and his followers.  Again, God becomes angry, and instruct Moses and Aaron to back off from the rebels so that God can cause the ground to swallow them alive.  Hibad’lu mitokh ha-edah ha-zot – “Separate yourselves from among this congregation!”  (Numbers 16:21)

Notice that the word edah, meaning “congregation,” appears in both passages.  In the first one, the story of the spies, we know exactly how many people are present.  There are twelve spies in total.  Joshua and Caleb bring a positive report.  That leaves ten remaining spies.  Therefore, we conclude, the word edah refers to a group of at least ten individuals.

Now for step two.  Back in Leviticus, God declares v’nikdashti b’tokh b’nei Yisrael – “And I will be sanctified among the children of Israel.”  (Leviticus 22:32)  Again we refer to the verse from next week’s Torah portion: hibad’lu mitokh ha-edah ha-zot – “Separate yourselves from among this congregation.”

Now we focus on the common word tokh – “among” – which appears in both passages.  If God is to be sanctified b’tokh – “among” – the children of Israel, exactly how many does that imply?  Well, since tokh and edah – “congregation” – appear together in the other verse, it must mean at least an edah‘s worth.  How many is an edah?  From the story of the spies, we know it is at least ten.

Therefore, to sanctify God’s name requires at least ten Jewish adults to come together.

Admittedly, this explanation seems convoluted, and perhaps a bit of a stretch.  It is quite possibly an after-the-fact justification of a long-accepted and widely-embraced tradition.  But there is a deeper message that goes beyond the linguistic gymnastics.

The whole concept of a minyan is quite positive.  It encourages community.  Jewish worship takes place not in a synagogue, but in any place where ten Jewish adults come together.  It is about the people, not the building.

For thousands of years, the idea of the minyan reinforced Jews’ motivation to live in close proximity to one another.  Jews needed to be able to pray together, support one another in times of loss, and celebrate holidays with community.  Even God is sanctified when Jews form a minyan. It is impossible to lead a complete Jewish existence by oneself.

But the origin of the number ten, we now learn, comes from what is perhaps the greatest sin committed by the Israelites in the entire Torah.  Believing the spies that they have no hope of defeating the Canaanites and conquering the Land of Israel is the sin that earns the Israelites forty years of wandering in the wilderness.  After all they have seen, the miracles in Egypt, the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, the Revelation at Mount Sinai, the Israelites lack the imagination and the faith to believe that God can deliver the land into their hands, as promised.

Rooting the minyan in this story of faithlessness is ironic.

Perhaps joining together in the same symbolic number gives us the opportunity to repent of our ancestors lack of faith.  Once upon a time, it was ten people who failed to sanctify God.  Now we come together as ten to sanctify God.

Perhaps another lesson is that things can go either way.  When we come together in community, things can go the way of the ten spies, in which one person’s fears spread to the entire group.  Or, we can inspire one another.  One person’s kavannah, spiritual focus, can help the other worshippers express what is in their hearts too.

In the story of the nine taxi drivers, one mourner’s kavannah to honor his mother by saying kaddish for a year inspired the rest of the minyan to connect to a ritual that they had not encountered for many years.  Surely, God’s Presence was among that edah, that holy congregation, at 3:30 am that morning in Jerusalem.

When we come together as a community, whether to worship here in the sanctuary on Shabbat, or to support someone during shiva, the week of mourning, our kavannah can be contagious.  We give each other strength: strength to connect with what is in our hearts, strength to express ourselves with honesty, strength to connect with each other, with our tradition, and with God.

In that way, God is truly sanctified amongst the People of Israel.

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May 17, 2014

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Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons), Leviticus (ויקרא)

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Bechukotai 5774 – Climate Change, DNA, and God’s Challenge to Us

On Monday of this week, two scientific papers were released by two separate teams that studied melting patterns on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.  The groups conducted their studies independently, and used different methods to conduct their studies.  They did, however, come to the same conclusion.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet sits on a bowl shaped depression of earth, with the base of the ice below sea level.  Ice on the edge of that bowl has been melting as it comes into contact with warming ocean water.  As that ice melts, it destabilizes the rest of the ice sheet, starting a chain reaction that will cause it to slide off the continent into the ocean.  The studies found that the melting has passed the point of no return.  Even if the water temperature goes back down, the progress of the glaciers cannot be stopped.  In fact, they will continue to accelerate into the ocean.

The cause is not clear.  Scientists think it has something to do with stronger winds stirring up the ocean and raising water temperatures.  Some think the stronger winds are caused by increased temperatures in other parts of the world due to global warming.  Others think that the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica has added energy to the winds.  Natural variability may also be a factor.

The result, according to the studies, will be an additional rise of global sea levels of up to twelve feet over the next few centuries.  That is on top of other predictions, which do not take the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet into account.  The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has already warned that sea levels could rise up to three feet by the end of the century without significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.  With the new discovery, that estimate will have to be raised.

We are not going to go into whether global warming is caused by humans or not.  People’s emotions tend to overwhelm their brains in such discussions.

Let me state one undeniable fact: climate change, whatever the cause, exists.

What will the impact of rising sea levels be?  In America, a rise of up to four feet would inundate the homes of 3.7 million Americans.  Cities like Miami, New Orleans, Boston, and New York would all be vulnerable.

It is already happening.  The question is: what are we doing to prepare for it?  The collective decisions that we make over the coming decades will determine what kind of toll climate change will take on human lives.

The first half of this morning’s Torah portion, Bechukotai, records a series of blessings and curses which will befall the Israelites depending on their adherence to the covenant with God.  Im bechukotai telechu… it begins.  “If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit…”

The blessings are everything that ancient people could want: abundant rain, successful crops, peace in the land, strength to defeat their enemies, and a constant awareness of God’s Presence and love in their midst.

The curses are the opposite.  The sky will turn to iron, the land will not produce food, disease will spread, famine will ensue, enemies will terrorize the land, and eventually the nation will be exiled.

Whether the blessings or the curses befall the Israelites is entirely up to them.  The national fate will be determined by whether the people follow the mitzvot, that is, the commandments outlined in the Torah that are the Jewish people’s covenental obligations to God.

As moderns, the idea of the weather or the conduct of enemy nations being determined by our actions is a troubling theology.

What these blessings and curses are describing is not so much theology, however, but human nature.  The extent to which a community embraces shared values determines to a large extent whether a crisis will result in blessing or curse.

When the oceans rise, the impact on human lives will be determined by how we have prepared for that event, and how our society cares for the people that are affected.  Developed countries will fare better than poor countries.  We know this, because that is what always happens in natural disasters.  But human societies, whether in local communities, in nations, or globally, have it in their hands to do something about it.  The question is: will we?

Unfortunately, the answer is probably: not very likely.

Every living creature has a biological imperative to perpetutate its own existence.  Human beings are no different.  It is built into our DNA.  But that imperative operates at the individual level rather than the collective.  Individuals tend to do things which enhance their own abilities to survive, thrive, and repopulate.  It seems that there is no collective biological imperative for the perpetuation of humanity’s existence.

We form groups for the benefits they bring to our own ability to survive.  We make choices about what we think will further our own well-being, but are far less inclined to make decisions that will benefit humanity, especially when it will involve some sort of self-sacrifice.

This is not a moral point.  It is a matter of biology and genetics.

So many human civilizations over the millenia have ignored the warning signs and gone down paths that led to their collapse.  The biological imperative is for individual survival, not for collective survival.  That perhaps explains why so many societies today engage in wasteful and self-destructive behaviors.  We are not naturally inclined to do what is best for humanity as a whole.

So we pollute our environment, we use up too much of our fresh water, and we drive other species into extinction.  Why?  Because there is nothing in our DNA to stop us.

The Torah challenges us to overcome our biology.  The mitzvot, the commandments, are a comprehensive system of laws that govern all aspects of our lives: how we treat ourselves, how we function within our families and our communities, and how we are to treat the strangers among us.

Our tradition also tells us how to function within the context of a larger society that is not Jewish.

And of course, Jewish life is full of rituals that bind us through the observance of sacred practices and the marking of sacred time to Jewish people of the past, present and future.  Ritual also enables us to express our yearnings to God.

In asking us to live by the mitzvot, God challenges us to rise above our genetics.

To follow halakhah, the Jewish system of commandments, is to impose an unnatural code of ethics on our human interactions, and to instill a deep sense of humility into our relationship with Creation.

Ki li kol ha-aretz  “For the entire Earth is Mine,” God declares at Mount Sinai before giving us the Ten Commandments.  As Jews in a covenantal relationship with God, we are asked to remember this at all times, and not treat the earth as something that exists only for our exploitation.  As God’s possession, the earth must be treated with reverence.

In the kedushah we recite the words kadosh kadosh kadosh, Adonai tzeva-ot, m’lo kol ha-aretz kevodo.  “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord of hosts, the fullness of the the entire earth is God’s glory.”  How might human treatment of our planet differ if we saw every element in the natural world as a manifestation of God’s glory?  Think about the impact on things like pollution, deforestation, and carbon emissions.  Consider how our own behavior might change with regard to the kinds of plants we put in our gardens, the length of our showers, and the things we choose to purchase, if we were conscious of utilizing resources that belonged to God.

The Torah is speaking to a particular community: the Jewish people.  The Torah’s way is the Jewish recipe for overcoming our basic human instincts.  But the underlying principle is universal.  It applies to all peoples separately, and to humanity as a whole.  God asks all of us to be more than our DNA.  To work for the flourishing of all people, and to treat the earth with humility.

As evidenced by our behavior, it seems that humanity does not have an especially humble posture with regard to the earth.

A detail in the presentation of curses reveals an insightful point about human behavior.  The curses do not all happen at once.  They come in waves.  After each wave, we are offered a chance to return to God.  If we do not take advantage of that opportunity, then the next wave will strike.  One gets a sense that God really wants Israel to redeem itself, to prevent further curses.  But the Torah describes it as almost inevitable that the community will not be able to reverse course.  Curses will follow more curses, with people never recognizing that their fate is the result of having gone off course from the path of blessing.

The cycle ends with the land desolate and the people in exile.  Only then will a small remnant realize their mistakes and the mistakes of their ancestors and return to the covenant.  When that happens, God will be waiting, eager to take them back.

Weird weather, rising ocean temperatures and acidity, melting glaciers, more powerful hurricanes, shrinking fresh water reserves – as we see sign after sign pointing to increasingly severe consequences of climate change, what are we going to do?

When will we start to take real action?  The kind of action that calls on us to make lifestyle changes, to transform how and where we live, and what we eat.  Action that will shift how our economy is structured and how success is measured?

Humanity’s track record is not great.  We tend to not be good about making investments in preventative strategies for catastrophes that are not yet upon us.

Whether the challenge is man-made or not, our responses are always in our own hands.  The way that we come together as a community will determine whether this challenge will become a curse or not.

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April 5, 2014

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Building Our Singing Community

The most profoundly meaningful moment of prayer in my life occurred on the day that I did not get in to Rabbinical School.

Growing up, I was about as involved in my childhood Conservative synagogue as you could be.  I was a leader in USY.  I was first a teacher’s assistant and then a full teacher in the Religious School.  I came to services just about every Shabbat throughout middle school and high school.

So naturally, everybody who knew me, from the members of the congregation, to the Rabbi, to my non-Jewish public high school teachers, told me that I should become a Rabbi.

While I was a well-behaved teen-ager, I still wasn’t about to do what a bunch of adults told me to do, so I did not give it too much thought.

As I went through university, however, I stayed Jewishly connected, and by the time I graduated, becoming a Rabbi had become a very real possibility.  I spent a couple of years working outside of the Jewish world, just to be sure, and that helped me make my decision.  It was now time to apply.  And this is where I made my big mistake.

I believed what everybody had been telling me.

I figured I was a shoe-in, but I did not really understand what I was in for.

There is a legend about rabbinical school entrance interviews at the Jewish Theological Seminary.  The stories go like this:  There is a panel of 6-7 esteemed professors and Rabbis sitting around a table, with the candidate alone on one side.  The table is glass.  At some point they offer the candidate a glass of water and watch to see whether or not he or she recites a blessing before drinking.  They ask the candidate what the current date is on the Hebrew calendar.  And so on.

The Seminary was under renovations at the time of my interview, so I didn’t experience the glass table, the water, or the calendar question.  I was asked about faith and practice.  What do I believe about the origins of Torah, and how are my actions expressions of that belief?

These are certainly important questions about religious authenticity for a prospective rabbinical student, but I had never considered them for myself, and certainly did not have the language to discuss the matter.  I totally bombed the interview.

A certain member of my interview committee was not pleased, and he let me know it in no uncertain terms – so much so that the Dean of the Rabbinical School, Rabbi Alan Kensky, had to intervene and gently tell him to back off.

I was allowed to attend a preparatory program, but I would have to re-interview at the end of the year to begin Rabbinical School.

That experience was crushing to me.  At the time it felt terrible, but in retrospect it was one of the most important experiences in my religious life.

All of this took place on a Friday.  Shabbat was beginning that night.  I didn’t have any close friends in New York City at the time, so I walked by myself to a modern Orthodox synagogue on 110th Street, Congregation Ramat Orah.

My ego having been deflated that morning, there was an empty space in my heart that night for true prayer.

I still remember it.  The wooden-pew lined sanctuary was packed with people who were all strangers to me.  Chandaliers hung from a tall ceiling, lighting the room with a warm glow.  And everyone sang.  I still remember the melody for L’cha Dodi.  It was slow.  It took a really long time.  And it was perfect.

In one of the rare true-prayer experiences of my life, my usual barriers were stripped away.  I was vulnerable.  My emotional state, combined with an atmosphere in which it felt safe to let go, provided an opportunity to pray to God in an honest way.  To recite words which were familiar, but infused with kavanah that could only come from a place of brokenness.

Those moments have been rare in my life.  I suspect that moments like this are rare for many of us.

Last Shabbat, our community had a unique prayer experience.  Joey Weisenberg, a musician and ba’al tefilah, prayer leader, introduced us to the idea of building a singing community.

While Joey spent some of his time with us talking about what makes prayer “work,” the most profound lessons came when we experienced it first hand.

I learned a few things last weekend:

1.  We can sound really good.  [Listen to this brief recording of our pre-Kabbalat Shabbat session]

2.  The physical space in which we are praying matters.  Singing in the chapel, close together, is very different than singing in the sanctuary when we are spread much further apart.  The acoustics of the social hall, with its sound dampening ceiling tiles and carpet, is radically different than the reflective tile and glass surfaces of the foyer.

3.  How we are configured matters even more.  To be a singing community, people have to hear and see each other.  It is hard to do when we are far apart.  It is easy when we are close together – and as we found out when we crammed together around the podium, that means really close.

4.  The melody is secondary to all of these other factors.  When we came together in the center of the room and sang the exact same niggun as when we were spread out to the edges, people were brought to tears.

And finally, the last point, which is the most crucial of all:

5.  To build a singing community, the members of the congregation are at least as important as the person leading it.

That means that it is up to all of us.  If we want to continue our transformation into the singing community that we experienced last Shabbat, we have to do things differently than we have been doing them.  We have to break patterns.  We have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable.  I promise:  It will be uncomfortable.

But isn’t that kind of the point?

So many of our people say that they don’t find services to be spiritually meaningful.  American Jews report that they are more likely to feel God’s presence in the woods than in a synagogue.  If that’s the case, then we are doing something wrong.  Where else should a Jew expect to find God than in a synagogue?

Listen to these words describing the synagogue in America:

Services are conducted with dignity and precision.  The rendition of the liturgy is smooth.  Everything is present: decorum, voice, ceremony.  But one thing is missing: Life.  One knows in advance what will ensue.  There will be no surprise, no adventure of the soul; there will be no sudden outburst of devotion.  Nothing is going to happen to the soul.  Nothing unpredictable must happen to the person who prays.  He will attain no insight into the words he reads; he will attain no new perspective for the life he lives.  Our motto is monotony.  The fire has gone out of our worship.  It is cold, stiff, and dead.  True, things are happening, of course, not within prayer, but within the administration of the temples…

When do you think this was written?

Abraham Joshua Heschel delivered these words to Conservative Rabbis at the 1953 Rabbincal Assembly Convention.  He later incorporated them into his beautiful book on prayer, Man’s Quest for God.  (pp. 49 – 50)  In it, he offers a poignant critique on Jewish worship that is as relevant today as it was then.

But don’t conclude that the problem lies in the rote nature of the prayer itself.  Don’t assume that by changing the words of the siddur and introding flashy innovations, we will suddenly be able to feel something when we pray and have real kavanah.  Heschel suggests otherwise:

The problem is not how to revitalize prayer; the problem is how to revitalize ourselves. (p. 77)

I first read this book in Rabbinical School, and it has stuck with me.  One section in which Heschel discusses the role of the sermon has particularly resonated.  The sermon, he says, was never of primary importance during Jewish worship.  And yet now, as he speaks to his rabbinic colleagues in the mid-1950’s, it is given “prominence… as if the sermon were the core and prayer the shell.”  (p. 79)  Then he complains about sermons that are indistinguishable from editorials in the New York Times, popular science, or the latest theories of psychoanalysis.  Or, that Rabbis deliver scholarly, intellectual discourses that identify the historical pre-Israelite pagan roots of various Jewish holidays.  All of this misses the point entirely.

“Preach in order to pray.”  Heschel urges.  “Preach in order to inspire others to pray.  The test of a true sermon is that it can be converted to prayer.” (p. 80)

Heschel’s plea is always present for me.  Always.

“Preach in order to pray.”  I find it to be a tremendous challenge.  My default mode is “intellectual.”  I do not think of myself as the kind of person who expresses a sense of deep spirituality.  I am not someone who would be comfortable leading meditation.  I am very comfortable discussing the various traditional interpretations of a biblical phrase, and then comparing them to modern biblical scholarship.

“Preach in order to pray.”  That would require me to be open, honest, and vulnerable.  That is scary.  On the other hand, the times in my life when I have allowed myself to be vulnerable in front of others – times when I have been honest about my mistakes, my fears, and my doubts – those are the times when I have been able to pray with the greatest kavanah.  But to bring myself to do that every week is not easy for me.

But this is not about me.  It is about our community.  Heschel’s challenge, and Joey’s, is to us not as individuals, but as a community.

Do we want this to be a place in which tears can flow?  Do we want to be surprised when we pray in this room?  Do we want to find God in our synagogue?

There are numerous ways in which to build a community in which these kinds of things can happen.  Heschel doesn’t have anything specific in mind.  He writes:

“My intention is not to offer blueprints, to prescribe new rules – except one: Prayer must have life.  It must not be drudgery, something done in a rut, something to get over with…”  (p. 76)

Singing together is a powerful way to give prayer life.  It has been an important part of Judaism ever since we crossed the Sea of Reeds.

So here is what I suggest.  And again, it is up to us.  It will be different, and possibly uncomfortable.  When we return the Sefer Torah to the ark in just a few moments, we’ll bring the Torah around the room.  Today we’ll go around the back and come down the aisle on the other side so that we cover more ground.  As the Torah passes you, if you like, join in the procession behind it, continuing all the way up to the ark, where we will sing Etz Chayim Hi together.  It’s a Tree of Life – but only when we give it life.

Then, we’ll go straight into musaf.  Again, you are invited to stay up front and stand close together around the podium, joining all of our voices in song and prayer together.

If we are going to become a singing community, we’ve got to commit.  If we make that commitment, I am confident that it will happen.

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December 17, 2013

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Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons), Genesis (בראשית)

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Coming Face to Face with Poverty – Vayechi 5774

In the last few weeks, I have been approached on two separate occasions by people, both Christians, about our community getting involved in charitable causes.

The first was for limited involvement in Santa Clara county’s Faith-Based Reentry Collaborative.  For a criminal who has served his or her time, getting back into society can be extremely difficult.  There is a high rate of recidivism, of people not being able to get their lives back together and winding up back in prison.  People often don’t have the social resources to become self-sufficient.  Perhaps they have burned their bridges with family members who could take them in.  Or maybe their criminal record makes it difficult to find work.  They fall back in to unhealthy social circles.

As a society, we do a terrible job of helping people reintegrate into society in a healthy and productive way.  The county has recently begun to establish partnerships with local houses of worship that will welcome former prisoners into their communities and provide them with mentorship and support.  So far, three local churches have opened up reentry centers, and the county is still trying to figure out ways for other faith communities to help.

I was approached about getting the Sinai community involved in a limited way.  A newly released prisoner often has nobody to come and pick him or her up.  Furthermore, the prison does not issue clothing, so they wear what they came in with, which may not be sufficient.

Members of our community could help out in that critical first 24 hours by picking up a released prisoner at midnight, bringing a set of warm clothes, dropping him or her off at a motel which we paid for, and providing them with a meal.  There would not be any further obligations.  Just that one night.

The second program about which I was approached is called Refugee Foster Care.  It is sponsored by Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County.  It would involve a far more substantial commitment.  A family or individual would become foster parents for a child who has no parents, either because they were killed, or because they gave them up.  The kids are between 12 and 17 years of age and come from war-torn places around the world.

These two solicitations for our community’s involvement got me thinking.  Would Sinai members be interested in taking on causes like these – causes which bring us face to face former criminals, with children who have experience suffering most of us cannot even imagine?

Why is it that many Christian communities seem to be so motivated to get involved with human suffering in this way?  Why are we not involved in projects like these?  Projects of bringing people into our cars, or our homes.  Causes that demand us to give of ourselves?  Aren’t these essential Jewish values?

Our ancestors make the transition from a family into a people in this morning’s Parshah, Vayechi.  Jacob dies, and his sons carry out their promise to return his body to the land of Canaan to be buried in the Cave of Machpelah.  After the mourning period ends, the brothers are terrified that Joseph has only been behaving civilly to them out of respect for their father.  Now that he is gone, they worry that Joseph is going to take revenge for what they had done to him so many years before.  They send word to Joseph that their father had wished for him to forgive his brothers.

Joseph’s reaction surprises them.  He cries.  So they appear before him themselves, offering to become his slaves.  Joseph reassurs them that it was all part of God’s plan.  He has no intention whatsosever of taking revenge.  Not only that, he offers to help.  “And so, fear not.  I will sustain you and your children…” he says.

Joseph has introduced the idea that will be elaborated extensively throughout the Torah – that a Jew who is in the position to do so has an obligation to provide for other Jews who need help.

It is significant, perhaps, that the transformation into a people and Joseph’s commitment to care for them occurs outside of the Promised Land, in the Diaspora.  For millenia, Jewish communities in far-flung locations around the world found themselves in situations of having to take care of their own.

Until the last century, most Jewish communities were poor.  They also tended to be tightly knit.  Most people knew each other.  The community had to take on the responsibility of caring for its own poor – because there was nobody else to do so.

This was done in a variety of formal and informal ways.  There was a communal tzedakah fund called the kupah, with elected collectors and distributors.  It served as a kind of tax to cover communal expenses and provide a safety net for the poorest members of the community.

In addition, there was the tamchui, which was kind of an ad hoc soup kitchen.  The official collector might show up at your doorstep to collect a meal on behalf of another individual or family in the community who needed it.

At celebrations, the needy would be welcomed to attend.  They did not need an invitation.  People would go out of their way to invite poor people to their Shabbat and holiday tables.

Consider the passage that we recite at the beginning of the Passover seder.  We open the door and announce “Let all who are hungry come and eat…”  I don’t think it used to be a metaphorical statement, as it is for most of us today.  I think there were times, until very recently, when those who could afford it would invite those who could not to their dinner tables, including those who might have been homeless.

In Pirkei Avot (1:5), the collection of ethical teachings that was compiled nearly 2,000 years ago, Yossi ben Yochanan of Jerusalem teaches “Let your home be wide open, and make the poor into members of your household.”

Just think about all of the folktales from our tradition, covering all periods of history except the modern era, in which poor Jews are welcomed into the homes of other Jews.  I assume that those stories exist because things like that used to actually happen on a regular basis.

Synagogues used to function kind of like homeless shelters, especially on Shabbat.  Travelers, poor students, and people who did not have anywhere to stay would sleep on the benches of the shul.  The community would often provide them with a meal.

As Jews, we used to come face to face with poverty regularly.  Thankfully, Jewish communities today are wealthier than ever before.  It’s not to say that there are not plenty of Jews who struggle financially.  There are.  It is undeniable, however, that the global Jewish community has thrived in contemporary times.

Our empasis on tzedakah (charity) and gemilut chasadim (act of lovingkindness) remains important, but the way that we express those values has shifted along with economic and social realities.  Jews continue to give a lot to charity, but instead of a mandatory tax on the members of our community, everything is voluntary.

With the almost total acceptance of Jews into American society, the proportion of funds donated to Jewish non-profit organizations has fallen dramatically, especially among younger generations.  Our giving is directed to causes that we care about.  But rarely is money or assistance given face to face to needy members of our own community.

Like in most synagogues, a minuscule portion of Sinai’s annual budget goes towards charitable activities and social action.

Sinai has had some great Tikkun Olam activities over the past couple of years.  But for the most part, our efforts have not put us into direct contact with poverty.  We have served several meals at local soup kitchens, but even then the contact with the homeless is limited.

We have not invited the homeless into our synagogue.  We have not sponsored programs that would assign members of our community to be mentors to people who could really benefit from that kind of guidance, whether former prisoners, kids who cannot read, or refugees.

How would we respond if someone who was obviously homeless walked into the synagogue during Shabbat services?  Would we welcome that person with open arms?  Would we be worried about safety?  Would we ask him to leave?

In the Bar Area, there are churches, and even some synagogues, that house rotating homeless shelters.  Why not us?

There are other religious traditions that seem to place a much greater theological emphasis on direct service to the poor.  For example, there is a story in the New Testament of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples’ feet.  The new Pope, Francis, recently made news when he washed the feet of 12 juvenile prisoners.  Back when he was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he would frequently wash the feet of AIDS patients and drug addicts.  It is about humbling oneself in service to other human beings.  For Christian communities who are trying to literally follow Jesus’ example, having that direct contact with the poor makes sense, theologically.

For most of Jewish history, our communities could not afford to direct so much of our charitable activities beyond our own communities.  Facing so much discrimination, Jews had to take care of their own – and they did a phenomenal job of it.  But now that the direct need is either not as great, or just more hidden, what should we be doing?

My goal this morning is to raise questions.  Should we be devoting considerable resources to directly serve those who need it most?  Should we open up our synagogue, or even our homes, to people who would otherwise never enter our lives?  Should we give substantively of ourselves to non-Jews?

The answer is not easy.  Jewish communities around America are struggling to retain and attract sufficient members and funds to remain viable.  Can we afford to send our limited resources outside our community?

When asked, American Jews seem to recognize the importanec of serving humanity.  A 2001 study asked American Jews about involvement in this kind of work.  It found that around ninety percent of American Jews agreed to the following statements:

  • “Jews have a responsibility to work on behalf of the poor, the oppressed, and minority groups”
  • “When Jewish organizations engage in social justice work, it makes me feel proud to be a Jew.”
  • “Jews’ involvement in social justice causes is one good way to strengthen ties with other groups in society.”

The difficulty is, it is possible to feel just as strongly about working on behalf of the underserved without attributing those motivations to Judaism.  I do not need to be Jewish to help the poor.  What is it from our own tradition that would compel us to give so much of ourselves to non-Jews?

It is an open question.  The invitations stand  As a Jewish community, do we want to help human beings who have made some wrong decisions in life get back on track after they have been released from jail?  Do we want to encourage and support Jews in our community who are willing to foster a teen-ager whose life has been torn apart by war?

I would like to hear from you – either today during kiddush, or some other time.  What should we be doing as a kehillah kedoshah, as a holy Jewish community?

When Joseph makes the commitment to his brothers, “fear not, I will sustain you and your children,” he is committing to serve his own siblings.

In the 21st century, who are our brothers and sisters?

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September 7, 2013

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Isaac’s Bar Mitzvah Speech – Rosh Hashanah II 5774

I can’t believe this day has finally arrived. There were definitely a few moments when it was not at all certain that I would be standing here before you.

I know what you all must be wondering. What happened up there – on the mountain? It is difficult for me to talk about. Some of it I still do not understand. I keep replaying the events of those three days over and over in my mind, and different images keep flooding into my head – many of them contradictory. Looking back, I don’t quite know what was real and what might be a figment of my imagination.

Father has never talked about “the incident” since. He barely even spoke while it was going on. It all started when Father came to me, and said, his voice filled with gentleness: “My son, my favorite son whom I love, Isaac, you must come with me tomorrow. We are going to worship the Lord.”

Father had been telling me about the Lord for as long as I can remember. That this God, the only God, sent him on a journey from his native home to the land of Canaan, where we live now. Father left everything behind, and set out with Mother to come here. God had communicated with Father several times, promising that Father would be the founder of a great nation.

I was to be the one through whom this blessing, this b’rit, or covenant, as he called it, would pass. Although Father told me about the Lord often, I never heard the voice. I was never visited by angels. Father always seemed so certain, so unwavering. He knew in his heart that these promises would be fulfilled. And so I have always trusted him, even though I felt that this was too great a burden for me to bear.

When he told me to get ready for our journey, I went along.

On the morning of the third day, Father looked up and saw a mountain. He asked the two servants who were with us if they could see anything out of the ordinary, but they could not. I could see it, however. Moriah. The mountain was enveloped in clouds, with a pillar of fire flashing within.*1* He sent away the two lads with the donkey, and gave me the wood for the burnt offering to carry. Father took the flint and the knife.

Something was missing. “Father,” I asked, “Here are the flint and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering.”*2*

“God will provide, my son,” he replied. There was something in his eyes at that moment. A distant look, as if he was concentrating on a voice that was meant only for him. Then he looked at me lovingly, and without a word placed his hand on my shoulder and we walked up the mountain together.

When we reached the top, Father began collecting large stones to build an altar. It was at that moment that it became clear to me what I had known all along. There would be no sheep. I was the sheep.

But I didn’t know if I could do it.

“Father,” I said, as he put the last stone in place, “I am just a boy. I don’t know that I will be able to stay still for the sacrifice. I am worried that if I get scared, I will tremble out of fear of the knife, and you will feel sorrow, and perhaps then your sacrifice to God will become invalid. Please, Father, bind me extra tightly.”*3*

And so he did. He stacked the wood on top of the stones, and placed me, bound, on top. Then Father grasped the knife.

At the moment that he raised it high, I looked up, and beheld something wondrous. The heavens opened. I saw the Shekhinah, God’s very Presence, seated in the heavenly throne room, which was filled with angels. For the first time, I understood a little about the One who commanded Father to offer me up as a burnt offering. My soul flew out of my body.

An ethereal voice cried out, “Abraham, Abraham! Do not raise your hand against the boy.” The Holy One revived me. I came to, and all I could think to do was praise the Lord: “Blessed are you Adonai, who gives life to the dead.”*4*

I then realized that my eyesight had gone blurry. While my soul was leaving my body, Father’s eyes were dripping with tears. Apparently, he could no longer keep his emotions bottled up, even as his heart was filled with joy at fulfilling God’s command. Father’s tears poured into my eyes. I have had difficulty seeing ever since.*5*

I was in a daze. Suddenly, there was movement off to the side. It was a ram, its horns caught in a thicket. I recognized this ram, although I don’t think Father did. It was from our flock. We had named it, ironically, Isaac.

Father had come to worship the Lord, a task which he had to complete. Without betraying any emotion, he freed the other Isaac from the bush, and brought it to the altar, where he offered it up to God.

Since that day, Father and I have hardly spoken. I was sent off to the Garden of Eden to recover. Then, Father enrolled me at the Shem and Ever Day School to learn God’s Torah and the mitzvot.

But a mystery still haunts me. I was the one through whom the Covenant would be fulfilled. And yet, I was the one whom Father was asked to sacrifice. Father says that this was a test. I don’t know what exactly it was a test of. A test to see if his faith in God was greater than his love for me? A double test, to see if he would carry out the command to the very end, confident that he would be stopped at the last minute so that God’s promise of children as numerous as the starts could be fulfilled? Whatever it was, it seems that Father passed it.

Afterwards, an angel blessed him, because he did not hold back. Therefore, Father, myself, and all of our descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the shore. The nations of the world will be blessed through us, because Father obeyed the Lord’s command.

And now here I am, becoming a man.

There are a few people without whom I could not have made it to this day.

First of all, I would like to thank all of my teachers at the Shem and Ever Day School.*6* You taught me Torah and mitzvot with so much love and passion. I will strive to pass on that same love of Torah to my own children.

I also want to thank the angels at the Garden of Eden Convalescent Home.*7* You nursed me back to health when I needed you. You healed my neck, which was nicked by the knife. You did such a great job that I only have a tiny scar the size of a bead.*8* I literally would not be here without you.

Ishmael, my brother, you had to leave when I was really young, and I still do not quite understand why. Mom said you were a bad influence on me, but I really missed having a big brother around. We do not see eye to eye on most things, but I think we have more in common than most people assume. I hope we can find an opportunity to spend some time together so that we can really get to know each other. Maybe then, each of us might be able to hear and accept the other “where he is.”*9* We have spent way too many years apart.

Mom, I know that you are here with me in spirit. I was the son you always wanted. You had given up on ever having children, but then, miraculously, you got pregnant and had me. Sometimes I wonder if, having been born so late, you and dad might have put too many hopes in me. I know you protected me fiercely from what you saw as bad influences, and I do not blame you for that. You loved me more than anything in the world, and you put my future ahead of everything. You and dad each loved me intensely, but quite differently, and that could be confusing sometimes. Mom, I heard you died right after “the incident.” I overheard the angels at the Garden of Eden Convalescent Home whispering something about how the Adversary told you what Dad and I had been up to, and the shock was too great. I was so sad to not be able to mourn for you at your funeral. Whenever I look at your empty tent, I am painfully aware of the hole in my heart. I long for the day when my memory of you will not be so difficult.*10*

Last, Father. I don’t blame you for what you did. I know you love me as much as it is possible for a father to love a son. It’s just that your faith in God was stronger. My faith, I think, is not the same.

When I have kids one day, God willing, I plan to do things differently. I prefer a quieter life. I don’t want to travel far and wide. I don’t want to seize the gates of my foes. I want to be close with my kids.

I worry about how my descendants will understand what has happened to me. There will come a time when they will suffer persecution, when they will be oppressed and murdered for being heirs to this covenant. What, then, will they do – when their love for God is so great, matched only be their love for their children? What will they do when the bloodthirsty mobs come, demanding that they break the covenant, and turn over their sons and daughters, whom they love?

I know what they will do. They will look to me and Father as examples. And they will offer up their children to God. But there will be no angel to stay their hands. There will be no miracle to turn aside the hordes at the gates. They will accomplish that which Father only showed a willingness to complete. “Yours was a trial,” they will say “mine were the performances.”*11* They will compose elegies to glorify their martyrdom, such as this:

On the merit of the Akedah at Moriah once we could lean,

Safeguarded for the salvation of age after age-

Now one Akedah follows another, they cannot be counted.*12*

Is this what it means to be chosen? Chosen for what? For suffering. For love. For death.

No. Not for death. I refuse to believe that. For life. Maybe the test was a lesson. After all, God stopped Father at the last minute. “Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him!”*13* cried out the angel. God does not want parents to offer up their children as burnt offerings. God wants parents to raise up their children with love, and learning.

Thanks to all of you for being here with me as I celebrate becoming Bar Mitzvah. If there is one lesson I take from what happened to me, it is to treat every day as a gift. Every day we are alive is a day that God has sent angels to protect us. We must strive to make the most of the blessings we have been granted.

That is the legacy I will leave to my descendants.

 

*1*Genesis Rabbah 56:1,2

*2*Genesis 22:7

*3*Genesis Rabbah 56:8

*4*Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer 31 quoted in Shalom Spiegal’s The Last Trial, pp. 30-32

*5*Genesis Rabbah 56:8

*6*Genesis Rabbah 56:11 (4)

*7*Abravanel on Genesis 22:19 (5-6)

*8*R. Joshua ibn Shuaib, Sefer Derashot (Cracow, 1573), Hayye Sarah, 96.

*9*Genesis 21:17

*10*Genesis 24:67

*11*Shalom Spiegal’s The Last Trial, p. 16

*12*Selihah by Rabbi David bar Meshullam: “O God, do not hush up the shedding of my blood!” quoted in Shalom Spiegal’s The Last Trial, p. 21

*13*Genesis 22:12

 

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August 24, 2013

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Shut Up and Listen – Ki Tavo 5773

Ernesto Sirolli is an Italian aid worker. In a Ted talk, which is viewable online,*1* he tells the story of his first project in Africa, in the 1970’s. He was part of a group of Italians who decided to teach Zambian people how to grow food. So they went to Southern Zambia to a beautiful, fertile valley that led down into the Zambesi River, and they brought a bunch of Italian seeds, intending to teach the locals how to grow tomatoes and zucchini and so on.
The locals, of course, had absolutely no interest in doing that, so the Italians paid them to come and work. Sometimes they showed up. The Italians were amazed that, in such a fertile valley, there was no agriculture.
Instead of asking the Zambesi about it, the Italians said “Thank God we are here to save the Zambian people from starvation.”
Everything grew beautifully – better than in Italy, in fact. “Look how easy agriculture is,” they told the Zambians.
One night, when the tomatoes were big and ripe, two hundred hippos came up out of the river and ate every last vegetable that they had planted.
The Italians said to the Zambians: “My God! The hippos!”
And the Zambians said: “Yes. That’s why we have no agriculture here.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“You never asked.”
Sometimes, it pays to listen.
It is the last day of Moses’ life, and he knows it. The Israelites are assembled before him in the Plains of Moab on the Eastern Side of the Jordan River. This is the next generation, the children of those who had left slavery in Egypt. They have all been born in the wilderness.
Now, they are poised to enter the land of Israel. Moses, knowing the end is near, has been giving a series of speeches to the people. He has reviewed the history of the Exodus. He has presented the laws, including those that will be applicable once they enter the Promised Land. And now, in this morning’s Parshah, he pronounces a series of blessings and curses which will befall them depending on how they uphold the terms of the covenant with God.
Moses turns to the people and says:
Hasket ush’ma yisrael…
“Silence! Hear, O Israel!”*2*
This theme of listening has been a recurring one throughout the Book of Deuteronomy. Moses tells the people many to listen times. Our most famous prayer, the Shema, is from the Book of Deuteronomy. So it is not unusual that Moses tells the people to listen. What is unusual is that he tells them to shut up first. Hasket ush’ma. “Silence, and listen…” It is the only time in the entire Bible that the word hasket appears. When a word appears only once like this, scholars call it a hapax legomenon. As the medieval Rabbi and linguist Ibn Ezra comments, “its explanation is according to its context, for it has no parallels [in Scripture].”*3*
We are left with a question: If the idea of listening is so prevalent in Deuteronomy, why, on this single occasion, does Moses feel he needs to first tell the Israelites to be quiet? To answer that, let’s look at what he tells them to listen to this time:
hayom hazeh nih’yeta l’am ladonai elohekha
“Today you have become the people of the Lord your God.
Is this true? Is this day, at the end of the fortieth year of the Israelites’ wanderings, the day that they finally become God’s people? Didn’t that already happen a long time ago – at the time of the Exodus or at Mt. Sinai?
The great medieval commentator Rashi explains Moses’ instructions as follows: “You should consider every day as the day on which you entered into a covenant with [God].”*4*
Moses is not speaking just to the Israelites born in the wilderness. He speaks to all of us. He challenges all of us to treat “today” as the day on which we enter into a covenant with God.
Perhaps that explains why he tells the people to be quiet before he tells them to listen. Back at Sinai, they did not need to be told to shut up. There was a cacophonous sound and light show that overwhelmed the senses – earthquakes, thunder, lightning, fire, smoke, the sound of the shofar. Believe me, they were paying attention.
Forty years later, in Deuteronomy, there is no miraculous revelation by God. There are only words. In order to listen, to really listen, to what Moses is saying, the people must first stop talking. Only then can they, and we, open ourselves up to Torah and become the people of God.
“Shut up and listen!” he says. If we want to be a people of God, we have to stop making noise. We have to stop projecting ourselves and our egos out into the world.
In a world that is full of the noise of our own making, this is an important reminder. We tend to spend a lot more time talking than listening. When we do that, when we shut ourselves off from what the other has to say, we put up barriers. It is impossible to be in a relationship with someone to whom we do not listen.
I did a search online on the expression “Shut Up and Listen.” There were articles that advocated this approach for salespeople. We can be much more effective when we pause to listen to the customer say what the customer actually wants instead of telling the customer what he or she wants. Makes sense.
A self help column spoke about the importance of listening to criticism from other people. Rather than arguing back, it advocated simply saying “thank you,” and trying to really understand the critique. That is an important strategy that can help us learn about ourselves. Also makes sense.
And I found the story of the Italian aid worker in Zambia that I told earlier. The reason that more than one trillion dollars of Western aid money in Africa has done far more harm than good over the past fifty years is that most well-intentioned do-gooders don’t stop to ask people what they actually need. They would do well to shut up and listen.
While all of this may be true, that being quiet and listening may help us improve our sales numbers, or better ourselves, or help impoverished societies, Moses is getting at something deeper. He teaches us that the secret of being in an authentic relationship with another, whether it is a relationship with another human being, or a relationship with God, lies in our ability to shut up and listen.
Silence is more than just the absence of words. To be silent, we have to let go of our defense mechanisms. We have to stop acting as if “the world was created for me” and start acting like “I am but dust and ashes.” When we force down our ego, we create an open space that can be filled by another.
To be in a true relationship is to be in a covenantal relationship, which carries obligations.
The French Jewish philosopher Emanuel Levinas said that we encounter God when we truly look into another person’s face. Our self falls away and there is only the commanding Presence of the Other. Being in authentic relationship with another person is wrapped up with being in authentic relationship with God.
While there are many aspects of silence, it does come down to words. Words are our primary tools for projecting ourselves into the world. What if we only had a limited number of words that we could use each day?
The American poet Jeffrey McDaniel ponders this in his poem, The Quiet World.*5*

In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

Just imagine what it would be like.

*1*http://www.ted.com/talks/ernesto_sirolli_want_to_help_someone_shut_up_and_listen.html
*2*Deuteronomy 27:9
*3*Ibn Ezra on Deut. 27:9
*4*Rashi on Deut. 27:9
*5*Listen to author read the poem at: https://myspace.com/jeffreymcdaniel/music/album/the-forgiveness-parade-5886367

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May 25, 2013

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Inclusivity and Pesach Sheni: Be-Ha’alotekha 5773

Judaism is a religion of memory. All of our holidays, including Shabbat, have a central component that orients us back to some past event – whether the Creation of the World, the Exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the wilderness, the saving of our people in ancient Persia, the victory of the Maccabees and subsequent rededication of the Temple, the destruction of the Temples… and the list goes on. When we observe these holidays, we don’t just remember what happened once, a long time ago. It is always a reenactment. We continually re-experience the formative events of our predecessors. The ancient stories of our people become renewed through us.

This has two complimentary effects. The first effect is a (lower case “c”) conservative one. Our observance of Jewish holidays roots us in the history of our people. We perform the same traditions that our forebears have performed since ancient times. This establishes and strengthens our connection not just to the actual people who were redeemed from slavery in Egypt, but to every generation since that has remembered and re-enacted the Exodus since.

Alongside the conservatism implicit in an ancient tradition, we also innovate. In every generation, every single year, in fact, we have to be creative to make ancient traditions relevant to our lives today. That is why our holidays have layers of observance and meaning that have expanded over the centuries, and continue to expand today.

We see this conservatism and innovation expressed in the Torah from the very beginning. This morning’s parshah is set in the second year after the Israelites have left Egypt. On the fourteenth day of the first month, what we call the month of Nisan, the Israelites observe Passover. And what is remarkable is that only one year after the Exodus itself, they are already performing the ritual of remembrance. They are already making the transition into a people of memory.

But there are some folks, even then, who are left out of that first Passover after the Exodus. They had been in a state of ritual impurity, and the Torah says that in order to offer the Passover sacrifice, a person must be in a pure state. When everyone else is eating roast lamb with matzah and bitter herbs, they have to just watch.

This group of people is eager to celebrate Passover, and they are not content to sit on the sidelines. So they turn to Moses: “Yeah we’re impure, but why do we have to be left out?”

Moses does not have an answer for them, so he tells them: “Stand by, I’m going to ask God,” which he promptly does.

And God issues the ruling: “Anybody who can’t present the Passover offering because he is ritually impure or on a long journey should offer it exactly one month later, on the fourteenth day of the second month. But don’t think this is a free pass. A person who could have offered it at the right time but didn’t… is guilty.”

This has come to be known as Pesach Sheni – “Second Passover.” It is a rather unusual law in the Torah. Most of the Torah’s mitzvot are just given. This is one of only a handful of laws that comes as the result of a particular case.

One other example in particular, shares some similarities. Towards the end of the Book of Numbers, the five daughters of the deceased Zelophehad come to Moses. As in this morning’s case, the existing law leaves them out. The sisters point out that because only sons can inherit, their father’s land will be lost to their family. So they make the case that their father’s land should pass to them.

Again, Moses does not have an answer, so he turns to God. God affirms the sisters’ claim, and the law changes to allow daughters to inherit from their father when there is no male descendent.

Both stories, Pesach Sheni, and the daughters of Zelophehad, feature groups of people who are left out of the normative social structures. In the first, it’s a group of impure people who really want to celebrate Passover. In the second, it is women, who are ignored by the law.

They both make their case to the leader, Moses, who doesn’t know what to do. He understands what the law says, but he also knows that there are human beings in front of him. He turns to God. In both cases, God recognizes that the point is valid. These groups have been marginalized, left out, and so God changes the law to be more inclusive.

That these cases are codified in sacred scripture should tell us something. The Torah could have just presented the ruling. But it didn’t. It wanted us to know about the real, human situations behind the law. It wanted us to be aware that the rules of society in those particular times was excluding people.

It illustrates the tension between conservatism and innovation. Moses was lucky. He could just say: “Hold on a minute. Let me go ask God.” It’s not so easy for us. We are the ones who must negotiate often competing values. With an ancient tradition that is rooted in sacred scripture, but that also values inclusivity, how do we account for change?

This has been a constant tension in Judaism. To what extent do we preserve Jewish law and tradition as we have received it, on the one hand? And on the other hand, how much can we innovate to respond to new situations, new technologies, and new understandings of human experience.

This tension, between conservatism and innovation, is an identifying feature of Conservative Judaism: a movement that affirms halakhah, our commitment as individuals and communities to Jewish law; and a movement that also embraces the best of what modernity has to offer.

As for issues around inclusivity, this has meant that the Conservative movement has moved slower than some elements in the Jewish world, and faster than others.

Over the last century, the Conservative movement has embraced women’s equal involvement in religious life, it actively embraces Jews by choice, it has recently made greater efforts to reach out to intermarried families, and over the last decade has created new laws and traditions to welcome gay and lesbian Jews into mainstream Jewish life.

As in any established movement, the pace of change is slower than some would like, and faster than others would prefer.

But the overall direction in which we are moving is clear. We have made great strides in making our communities more welcoming to people who have been historically marginalized, whether due to gender, sexual orientation, wealth, ethnicity, etc. aBut we still have a long way to go to remove the walls that keep out those who would find a home in Jewish community.

I have learned that in many cases it is not enough to just say: “We are a friendly community. Everyone is welcome.”

At Sinai, we pride ourselves in being a fairly traditional, friendly, and heymish community – and that is by and large true for anyone who is courageous enough to walk through our doors. But with limited resources, we don’t do a whole lot to reach out beyond the walls of our synagogue.

It is one thing to say, “anyone who wants to join us is welcome.” It is something else to go out of our way to personally extend the invitation.

Our Torah, and our Jewish tradition, points us in the direction of inclusion. What can each of us do to make our community even more inclusive than it already is?

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March 16, 2013

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Starting with Leviticus – Vayikra 5773

I just saw the documentary from a few years ago, Waiting for Superman. It notes that American students’ rankings have been falling precipitously in math and science over the past few decades. It also notes that every President since Eisenhower has claimed to be the Education President. As our nation struggles to get back on track, education is once again brought out as a key concern. Universal access to quality education has been an important principle since our nation’s founding. Nowadays, everyone recognizes that a failing educational system will have economic and social impacts down the road, but we can’t come together on the best way to fix our broken system.

The emphasis on education is an aspect of Jewish culture in which we take great pride. From our people’s beginnings, education has been considered to be of utmost importance. Our tradition does not entrust the transmission of knowledge to an intellectual or religious elite. Since the days of the Torah itself, the importance of passing on knowledge to one’s child has been a primary religious obligation.

It is not only an individual responsibility. We can even identify in our sources an obligation to entire communities to provide universal education. With one caveat: as anyone who has seen Yentl knows, until modern times, the focus was on educating boys, and girls were often an afterthought.

The Shulchan Arukh, the great sixteenth century law code, lays out specific instructions about public education. While it is true that parents have to teach Torah to their own children, the community as a whole also bears responsibility. The Shulchan Arukh*1* teaches that a community is obligated to hire a melamed, a teacher, for its children. The men in any community that does not have a melamed are to be excommunicated until they hire someone.

Children are supposed to start learning the aleph bet when they are 3, and then start school at 5 or 6 years old, beginning with the study of Torah.

An ancient midrash reports the custom of beginning a child’s education with the Book of Leviticus. Then it asks the question: Why do children begin their learning with the Book of Leviticus rather than the Book of Genesis?

After all, for a young child, the laws of sacrifices seem like a strange place to begin. If I was designing a curriculum for Torah study, I might choose to start somewhere different. Perhaps Genesis, as the midrash asks about. After all, it is the beginning. It describes the creation of the world. It is full of stories about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Noah and the Flood, the Patriarchs and Matriarchs…

Or, maybe we might choose to begin with the Book of Exodus. It describes the beginnings of the Jewish people, the Exodus from Egypt, and the receiving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.

But no. The tradition was to begin with Leviticus. To teach children about different categories of sin, and the respective types of offerings that had to be brought for each one. To memorize the techniques of slaughtering animals and sprinkling blood on the altar. To learn how to distinguish between the various offerings that were brought at different times of the year. And all of these details about a way of worshipping God that had ceased entirely when the Temple was destroyed in the year 70 C.E. Why, the midrash asks, would we start children’s education here?

The answer, as taught by Rabbi Asi, has to do with a certain similiarity between children and sacrifices. All of the sacrifices written in Leviticus have to do with purity. Children are pure, and have not yet experienced sin. Therefore, the Holy One said, ‘let the pure ones come and engage with matters of purity, and I will consider it as if you were standing before Me and offering sacrifices.’ It is children continuing to learn the laws of sacrifices that enables the world to continue to stand.*2*

Rabbi Shabbatai ben Meir HaKohen, a mid-seventeenth century Ashkenazi Rabbi reports that the custom of starting a child’s education with the Book of Leviticus was still being practiced in his day.*3*

I don’t know of any Jewish schools that continue this tradition, although I bet there is at least one yeshivah in Brooklyn that does. I am not endorsing a change in our curriculum that would have us teaching the laws of sacrifices to 5 year olds.

But I like the idea expressed in the midrash that God considers children learning to be the equivalent of worship in the Holy Temple. And that the world itself is sustained on the merit of children learning.

Those have certainly been core values in Judaism.

But let’s look at where things stand now. In California, between 1981 and 2011, higher education spending has decreased by 13% in inflation-adjusted dollars. In the same time period, spending on prisons has increased by 436%.*4* The state Legislative Analysts Office reported that in 2011-2012, the state spent $179,000 per incarcerated youth. For every child in Kindergarten through 12th grade, the state spent $7,500 per year.*5*

Nationally, as an overall percentage of all federal spending, children account for about 10%. Over the next ten years, that is expected to fall to 8%, with the biggest drops expected to be in education.*6*

If the world stands on the learning of children, we need to do something radically different with regard to our priorities.

 

*1* Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 245:7,8

*2* Leviticus Rabbah 7:3, Midrash Tanhuma Tzav 14

*3* Siftei Kohen on Yoreh Deah 245:8

*4* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/california-prisons-colleges_n_1863101.html

*5* http://www.cjcj.org/post/juvenile/justice/misplaced/priorities/california/s/spending/prisons/vs/higher/education

*6* http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/15/feds-spend-7-on-elderly-for-every-1-on-kids/

 

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March 9, 2013

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Do Jewish And Love It – Vayakhel-Pekudei 5773

This morning, we read the double portion of Vayakhel-Pekudei. It describes the building of the Tabernacle. We hear a lot about the chief craftsman – Betzalel. There is even a major university in Jerusalem named after him, The Bezalel School of Art and Design.

But we don’t hear so much about his number two guy – Aholiav. He is mentioned only five times in the Torah, once at the beginning of last week’s Parshah, and four times in this week’s double portion.

Here is what we know about him: Aholiav was the chief assistant to Betzalel. His father’s name was Ahisamach, from the tribe of Dan. He was an expert carver, designer, and embroiderer in blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and in fine linen.*1* That is pretty much it in the Torah. And the Rabbis don’t have much more to add.

The Talmud*2* cites a midrash about one of Aholiav’s descendants. When King Solomon was building the Temple in Jerusalem nearly four hundred years later, he recruited a lot of top talent. One of the artisans mentioned is named Hiram from Tyre. This is a different Hiram than the well-known King Hiram from Lebanon. Hiram of Tyre is described in the Book of Chronicles*3* as being “skilled at working in gold, silver, bronze, iron, precious stones, and wood; in purple, blue, and crimson yarn and in fine linen…” His mother is from the tribe of Dan, and his father is a Tyrian.

The midrash notes that Hiram’s mother and Aholiav both come from the same tribe, Dan. And, they both share common skills in artistry. The lesson is then drawn that a child should never abandon his or her parent’s trade.

Elsewhere in the Talmud*4*, we are taught: “Happy is a person who sees one’s parents in an exalted trade. Woe to a person who sees one’s parents in an inferior trade.”

The Torah Temimah, Rabbi Barukh Epstein’s turn of the twentieth century commentary that weaves together the Torah and the oral tradition, ties these two midrashim together:

“When [a peson’s] parents seize on to a nice trade, s/he too will seize on it. And so to when [a person’s parents] seize on to an inferior trade, s/he too will seize it. Therefore, happy is one who sees his/her parents in an exalted trade, because s/he will consequently seize upon something similar.”*5*

The Torah Temimah is not saying that children have to follow their parents into business. No, the burden is not on the child to follow his or her parents’ examples. The burden is on the parents to be the example for their children. And the result, according to the midrash, is “ashrei,” happiness.

So much of our path in life is set into motion by our upbringing. Our parents are our moral, intellectual, and emotional role models. Whether we embrace their example, or reject it, we will always be responding to what we experienced growing up.

A son who sees his mother making ethical decisions in business is much likelier to make decisions ethically himself. Similarly, if a person’s father lied and cheated, his daughter is far more likely to behave similarly.

This is also true when it comes to transmitting our Jewish tradition. The big question everyone in the Jewish world wrestles with today is continuity. How do we ensure that the next generation is going to continue to identify Jewishly and affiliate with the Jewish community?

And so, the money pours in. Lately, the trend is towards trans or post-denominationalism. The big bucks have gone towards Jewish day schools, summer camps, and free trips to Israel for young adults. Spend the vast amount of resources on creating Jewish experiences for young people, the thinking goes, and they will continue to affiliate when they start to have families of their own. Maybe it will work.

At the local level, although we don’t quite have the big bucks, we are also concerned with the questions of Jewish continuity. When I speak with parents before their children’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah, this is by far the number one goal that they express for their kids.

For decades, synagogues have invested their energy in children’s programming: religious school, youth groups, Shabbat youth programs. And these things are important. We have to provide engaging religious and educational opportunities for kids in our synagogue.

But that, in and of itself, is not going to achieve the desired outcome. Pouring all of our religious commitment into our kids is not going to make them better Jews. It is not likely to produce a deep and lasting faith, or a life-long commitment to Judaism.

The model cannot be totally kid-centered. When it is, the message it sends is that as soon as you have your Bar or Bat Mitzvah, or for some, graduate high school, then you are done.

When we pour all of our efforts into kids, it means that there is nothing left for adults except to repeat the pattern with their own kids.

The solution for Jewish continuity is not to create more and more programs and educational opportunities for children. These things are certainly important, but are ultimately hollow if we don’t do something else.

The solution lies with all of us: We have to do Jewish things, and we have to love it.

This has been my driving goal for our Purim celebration. Growing up, Purim was always a kid-centered holiday. It was great fun dressing up, eating lots of junk, running around, and making a lot of noise. But when you outgrow that, what is left? My goal for Sinai has been to take back Purim from the kids. The adults have to have fun. Because you know what, if we are having fun, the kids are going to have fun too. And they are going to expect to have fun when they grow up.

The same is true for Pesach, in just over two weeks. When there are a lot of kids around a seder table, there is pressure to cater to them. To skip the adult-level conversations and hurry up to the meal. But when we do that, we are not doing the kids any favors. Children need to see adults engaging in the seder at an adult level. And they need to be welcomed to participate at that adult level when they express an interest. That leaves a powerful impression, a more powerful impression, I suspect, than a seder that is only about games and exclusively kid-oriented activities.

It is also true with regard to the daily practice of Judaism. When Jewish ritual is normative in a household, and embraced positively, that leaves an impression.

To a parent who asks “what can I do so that my kids will be Jewish when they grow up?” my answer is “Have Shabbat dinner at home every week, and make sure that you enjoy it.”

When children see the adults in their lives embracing Jewish life in meaningful ways, that becomes a model for themselves.

Imagine a child complains “why do I have to go to Hebrew school? It’s so boring.”

If the answer is “I know it’s boring, but you’re going because I had to go when I was your age,” what do you think that child is going to take from the experience?

Think about how different the lesson would be if the answer is: “because learning is a really important part of Judaism, and religious school is where you go to learn. I am learning by reading such and such a book, or taking such and such a class.”

So many Jewish adults today ended their formal Jewish education right after their Bar or Bat Mitzvah. So many parents never had a chance to engage formally as adults with our rich tradition.

If we want our kids to embrace Jewish life as adults, the answer is not forcing them to do it as a necessary rite of passage. We have to embrace Jewish life ourselves, and then we can invite our kids to join us.

If the midrash connecting Aholiav and Hiram is true, I would imagine that the children of the tribe of Dan saw their parents engaging in fine craftsmanship from a young age. They saw adults having meaningful conversations about metalwork and embroidery. They saw uncles and aunts, neighbors, and elders showing and admiring one another’s work.

The young Danites attended formal and informal classes where they learned the basics of artistry, and then entered into apprenticeships as teen-agers, before finally opening up shops of their own as master craftsmen.

By creating such a culture, the great great great great great grandson or nephew of the number two artisan in the construction of the Tabernacle was privileged to serve as one of the primary architects of King Solomon’s Temple.

 

*1*Exodus 38:23

*2*BT Arachin 16b

*3*II Chronicles 2:13

*4*BT Kiddushin 82b

*5*Torah Temimah on Exodus 31:6

 

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March 2, 2013

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Ki Tissa 5773 – Oy For The Extra Soul

וְשָׁמְרוּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת־הַשַּׁבָּת לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת־הַשַּׁבָּת לְדֹרֹתָם בְּרִית עוֹלָם.  בֵּינִי וּבֵין בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אוֹת הִוא לְעֹלָם כִּי־שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים עָשָׂה יְהוָֹה אֶת־הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת־הָאָרֶץ וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי שָׁבַת וַיִּנָּפַשׁ. *1*

…uvayom hashevi-i shavat vayinafash

“It shall be a sign for all time between Me and the people of Israel. [For in six days YHVH made heaven and earth,] and on the seventh day He ceased from work and was refreshed”

On its surface, this passage is connecting the observance of Shabbat to the Creation of the universe. The idea that God spent six days working, and then as the final act of Creation, ceased all labor and rested, is the origin of the human need to rest. As it often does, the Torah speaks in anthropomorphisms, ascribing to God the word vayinafash. It means more than just “then He rested.” There are other words for that. The word nefesh conveys the idea of soul, or vitality, or essential character.*2* Robert Altar translates the expression as “on the seventh day He ceased and caught His breath.”

A midrash reads something else into this word: vayinafash. Something happens during Shabbat, when we observe it, that is a contrast from our experiences during the other six days of the week.

In the Talmud,*3* Resh Lakish teaches that “The Holy Blessed One gives a person an additional soul (neshamah yeteirah) on the eve of Shabbat, but at the end of Shabbat it is taken away. [How do we know this?] As the Torah says: shavat vayinafash – “He ceased from work and was refreshed.” keivan sheshavat – once that day has ceased, vay avdah nafesh – woe, that soul is gone.

Reish Lakish is pointing to a legend that teaches that we gain an extra soul on Shabbat. That extra soul attaches itself to our seven-day-a-week soul and remains with us for all of Shabbat. When it leaves on Saturday night, we are sad. So the word vayinafash really is a contraction of vay – “oy!!” and nefesh – the soul.

Oy for the loss of the extra Shabbat soul.

Rashi adds that the extra soul enables us to fully enjoy the eating, drinking and relaxation of Shabbat. Food tastes better. The rest is more rejuvenating. And when that special time is over, it’s kind of sad.

It’s like when the last day of a vacation arrives (the kind of vacation that includes relaxing on a resort). We don’t want it to end. We don’t want to go back to work and school, and cooking and cleaning up after ourselves. But every vacation must end. Oy!

Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Kotzk, the Kotzker Rebbe, understands the passage a bit differently. He takes the midrash of vayinafash as a lament: “oy for the soul.” But it is not at the end of Shabbat as the extra soul is departing that it happens. It is at the beginning of Shabbat.

Here is how he imagines it: as Shabbat enters us on Friday evening, we are aroused from our foolish slumber and given extra clarity. We look back to the previous six days, and with this new insight, recognize all of those moments that we were not devoted to Torah study or spiritual practice. And then, we cry, “Oy. Woe, that soul that was lost! Woe for all the time wasted in useless endeavors.”

How many minutes spent on Facebook? Or watching TV? Or procrastinating?

How much more time could have been spent with partners or spouses, or friends? Or reading with children? Were there times when we could have been learning Torah? Or performing gemilut chasadim, lovingly helping others?

As Shabbat begins, and we set the distractions aside, we are made painfully aware that our time could have been better-spent.

And so, we are left with two different interpretations of vayinafash. Either it’s the end of Shabbat, and the soul is lamenting the loss of its partner and anticipating the loneliness it will face in the coming week. Or, it’s the beginning of Shabbat, and the newfound awareness instills in us a sense of regret for how poorly we have treated our souls during the previous week.

Either way, “oy!”

Thank God, Rabbi Simchah Bunim has a more positive take on it. He would have us live in the moment. As soon as a person begins to rest on Shabbat, ovedet nafsho “vay” shelah. A person’s soul loses its “oy.”*4*

Shabbat is a taste of the world to come. True Shabbat rest means being fully in the moment. Not regretting the past, nor anticipating the future. Just being present. And when we can do that, all of our “oy’s” float away. I like that.

So which is it? What is Shabbat for us? Is it a temporary opportunity to experience spiritual joy, and heightened sensuality? Is it a painful reminder of how much time we spend not engaged in fruitful endeavors? Or, is it a respite from the difficulties and burdens of life? Probably a bit of all three.

A challenge that many of us face here in the South Bay is that we don’t know how to observe Shabbat. I think that there are a lot of people that recognize a need to slow down and take a break from all of the busy-ness of our lives. A lot of people are longing for spirituality, and would love to be able to have a Shabbat like the midrash describes. A Shabbat on which an extra soul attaches to ours. When food and drink really do taste better. When we get to have rest that is truly rejuvenating.

A barrier for some is, quite simply, not knowing how to do it. Not knowing the prayers to recite around the Shabbat table on Friday night, or how to sing the Shabbat zemirot, the special Sabbath songs. Or, having kids who resist any sort of limits placed on their actions.

In neighborhood Jewish communities, there is a Shabbat feeling that permeates the streets. When we lived in New York, we would pass dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people on our way to and from synagogue. The shul did not have a weekly sit down kiddush, because people in the community would regularly invite each other over for Shabbat lunch, and spend the whole afternoon together. Kids could easily go over to friends’ homes.

Life in the suburbs makes this a whole lot more difficult. Most of us do not have neighbors who are observing Shabbat. The atmosphere in the streets of San Jose does not experience a palpable shift on Friday evening. Few, if any, people in our community are hosting Shabbat lunches in their homes.

So we have brought Shabbat experiences into the shul. For the last several years, we have made a concerted effort to provide a full Shabbat lunch almost every week. We say the berakhot together before the meal, and always sing Birkat HaMazon afterwards, for those who choose to stay long enough. And sometimes, we sing zemirot. For kids, we have brought in books, games, and sports equipment, to make this a fun place to be, and gain positive Shabbat memories. This creates an opportunity, for those who choose to embrace it, to celebrate Shabbat together, and not feel like we are on our own in our homes, longing to have some sort of experience, but not having the resources to do it.

But I still think there is a longing for more. I know there is a longing for more. More opportunities for our souls to lose their “oy’s” by being truly present in the moment. And I think that we can find more of those opportunities together in our shul.

Opportunities to spend Shabbat together: singing, talking, learning, resting. Waking up to become aware of the extra soul.

Shabbat has the potential to transform our entire lives.

That is part of the idea behind havdallah. After the three stars appear in the sky, and Shabbat is technically over, we try to hang on for a few more minutes. So we invoke the senses one last time, hoping that the extra soul will stick around a bit longer.

Havdallah is about beginning the new week with Shabbat still part of us. It sends a hopeful message that we can enter the days of creation without forgetting what we are here for. This week can be the week when the additional soul stays with us. The week when we remember to be spiritually aware in every moment, and when this awareness adds that special spice that makes our food taste better, our rest more rejuvenating, and our love for each other stronger.

This Shabbat can be the Shabbat when the “oy” leaves our soul, and does not come back.

 

 

*1*Exodus 31:16-17

*2*Nahum Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary:Exodus, p. 202.

*3*BT Beitzah 16a, Ta’anit 27b

*4*Itturei Torah III, 256.