Divre Harav/Words from the Rabbi – May, 2013

The third of the three Biblical Pilgrimage festivals, coming approximately at the beginning of the summer, is Shavuot (“Weeks”), named after the practice of counting the days and weeks from Pesah to Shavuot. Although it is a harvest festival in the Torah, this aspect of the festival has been eclipsed by its post-Biblical connection to the revelation of Torah at Mount Sinai. Today, Shavuot is the holiday on which we read the Ten Declarations/Commandments and celebrate receiving the Torah.

Torah is, of course, the foundational text of Judaism. Traditional Judaism is structured around the practices of Torah, also know as mitzvah.

The literal, Biblical meaning of mitzvah is commandment, an obligation that God has imposed upon you. The implication of this is spelled out clearly in the Bible – God rewards those individuals and communities who follow the mitzvot, and punishes those who are disobedient. If this theology works for you as a motivation to engage in serious Jewish life and practice, you can stop reading here (and I’ll see you on Shavuot!). If you, however, like most Jews, do not believe that God cares whether you observe mitzvot, don’t believe that God rewards and punishes, keep reading – I’m going to give you an alternative meaning of mitzvah, inspired by a talk given by my colleague Rabbi Brad Artson.

The hasidic tradition noticed that the root of the word mitzvah in Aramaic means, “to connect” and understood mitzvah to mean “a connection.” Mitzvah is our means of making connections. When we are in a relationship, we do things for the other person not because we are seeking reward or afraid of punishment, but because the things we do express our desire to be in that relationship. The acts of mitzvah are acts which express our intimate relationship with God and/or with Torah and/or with the Jewish people and/or with the broad and eternal concept of Judaism. Most Jews at certain points in their life, find incredible and deep meaning in mitzvah – it may be within funeral ritual, it may be at a Passover Seder, it may be at a child’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah celebration, or it may be at a synagogue service. It is an experience of finding a connection to eternity through the texts and rituals that have sustained the Jewish relationship with the Divine for millennia. As in any relationship, the more you do, the deeper the relationship becomes, and the more joy you find in the relationship. Shavuot is the holiday on which we read the “love letter” and marriage contract of the Divine-Human relationship. See you at Mount Sinai!

The full talk by Rabbi Artson, Contemporary Meaning of Mitzvot, can be found online at ZiegerTorah.org.

***

I do a variety of things in addition to writing sermons and bulletin articles, answering questions by phone or email, going to Board and Committee meetings, teaching religious school classes, leading study groups, and visiting members of the congregation. Here are some of my activities of the past month:

• Partially planning and leading a 9^th grade religious school trip to New York. We visited three different synagogues for services, two Jewish museums, a number of kosher restaurants, a walking tour and a museum of the Lower East Side, a Broadway Show, and more.
• I gave an Introduction to Judaism talk and tour of the Synagogue to students of Westwood Middle School of Grand Rapids.

Divre Harav/Words from the Rabbi – April, 2013

April 7 is Yom Hashoah V’hagevurah, the day designated by the Israeli Kenesset as the day to remember the Holocaust and the Heroism of those who resisted. I have been thinking a lot lately about how we commemorate Yom Hashoah. Some survivors choose to remember by telling their story, others are very reluctant not only to tell the story but to have it know that they have a story at all. Having heard quite a few survivors speak, I understand quite well those who feel that telling the story satisfies a human voyeuristic impulse to gaze upon another’s pain, but can never fully transmit the depth of the actual experience and does not always transmit useful lessons.

What troubles me about the stories is when the survivor uses his or her story as a weapon, a club to beat people over the head with. I heard one such story the last time I took a group to the Halocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills – the survivor repeatedly looked at the audience and accused them of passivity, complicity, and asked them what they are going to do to prevent another holocaust. “This is what happened to me,” the survivor said, “and you” – looking at my Christian college group – “would have been guilty. This is what they did to me – what would you have done about it?”

I fully support Steven Speilberg’s project or documenting, recording, and saving the stories. We need to retain the hard evidence of human stories and suffering to keep the holocaust deniers at bay. However, if the only result of publicly telling a story is to make the audience squirm with guilt that they, who were born 50 years after the end of WWII, didn’t take action, what’s the use of the story?

There are many ways of commemorating Yom Hashoah. My Rabbinic colleagues have created a “Megilah Hashoah,” a Holocaust Scroll, modelled after Jeremiah’s Biblical book of Lamentations. They suggest reading it liturgically on Yom Hashoah just as we read Lamentations on the 9^th of Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Some fast; most do not. Some say Kaddish for those whose lives were lost. Some give tzedakah to organizations that fight hated and/or murderous dictatorships. Some gather together and tell and hear stories. Some say extra prayers for the souls of the murdered six million. Some demonstrate against ongoing holocausts and other slaughters taking place in Africa and the Middle East today. Any and all of these things are good ways to observe Yom Hashoah. The only thing that should not be acceptable is to ignore the day completely. So take action. Make April 7 into Yom Hashoah. Post a remembrance on your Facebook status. Do something.

I don’t want the world to forget, and I want the remembering to have a useful outcome.

***

I do a variety of things in addition to writing sermons and bulletin articles, answering questions by phone or email, going to Board and Committee meetings, teaching religious school classes, leading study groups, and visiting members of the congregation. Here are some of my activities of the past month:

• • Unfortunately, we experienced three funerals in the past month, and one additional Shiva home from an out of town funeral.
• • Between Purim and Pesah, I studied a tractate of Mishnah, concluding the book on the morning prior to Pesah with a celebratory meal to break the fast of the first born.
• • I administered the Ma’ot Hittim program – collecting money, buying Meijer gift cards, and distributing them to those who need extra help buying Pesah food.

Divre Harav/Words from the Rabbi – November, 2012

I have been observant of traditional Sabbath practices (shomer Shabbat) for about 26 years, and my Shabbat practice has become so second nature to me that I sometimes forget the extent to which it is out of step with the way most people live their lives. However, I didn’t grow up strictly Sabbath observant. It’s something that I began to explore as a teen at Camp Ramah and in my home synagogue, and began to adopt seriously during my year studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It was not until I came home after that year that I made the commitment to incorporate the restrictions of a traditional Jewish Shabbat observance a consistent part of my life.

It was not only an adjustment to me, but to my family and friends as well. When I stopped using the telephone on Shabbat, my family was worried about how they would contact me in case of emergency. I assured them that if I was home, I would listen to the answering machine, and if it was an emergency I would pick up. One of my friends began leaving 5-10 minute messages on Shabbat afternoon and calling me 10 minutes before the end of Shabbat, which I suspect was a passive-aggressive way of dealing with his unhappiness at my evolution into “Religious Jew.” Slowly, though, friends and family adjusted.

It was not a terrible adjustment for Congregation Ahavas Israel when I arrived in Grand Rapids.  Most of the previous rabbis, including my predecessor, also had a fairly traditional Shabbat practice. However, it is worthwhile periodically discussing how my Shabbat and Holiday practice affects my functioning and availability as a rabbi, and how to contact me in case of emergency, such as death or serious illness.

The answering machine that I had when I first arrived in Grand Rapids has gone the way of the dinosaur. Voicemail has some advantages, but I have not figured out a way to screen calls on Shabbat and pick them up of they are urgent. In the case of death or serious illnesses,if you need to reach me on Shabbat or holidays, there are a couple of options:  You can call my Google Voice number (616-929-0459) and leave me a message which I will get immediately after Shabbat or the Festival ends. Alternatively, you can stop by my home or ask someone else to come to my home to notify me. I will discuss funeral arrangements to the extent that I am able, given that it is Shabbat and I will not have access to my calendar. If it would be helpful, I could walk to the hospital (Blodgett or Butterworth only).

Despite the occasional hardships of not using electronics on Shabbat, I find it to be tremendously liberating. I sleep better and have sharper concentration. If you would like a detailed discussion on the use of electronic devices on Shabbat, you can find a very well written paper by my colleague Rabbi Danny Nevins on this page, under the category of Shabbat: http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/jewish-law/committee-jewish-law-and-standards/orah-hayyim

Divre Harav/Words from the Rabbi – Summer, 2012

The Fast Days of Summer

Fasts of mourning are not the most popular of fasts, especially in the middle of the summer. The sun is warm and bright, and the last thing that we want to do is mourn the loss of an ancient Temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the subsequent exile.  There is a reason, however, why Judaism has such elaborate rituals for death and morning … funeral customs, shiva, and Yahrtzeit.  Judaism believes that we are not disconnected beings creating and living our lives on our own.  Rather, we are intimately connected with and dependent on those who preceded us.  We inherited a world and a religious tradition from the hundreds and thousands of generations of humanity that came before us.  After our brief time on earth, it is our responsibility to pass along that heritage to those who will follow.  The rituals of death and mourning create the memory link between us and our past, and give us a framework in which to transmit the stories of our past to the next generation.

Tisha B’Av, the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, is the anniversary of the day upon which both the first and second Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed, and Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and Spain in 1492.  It is one of two major fast days on the Jewish calendar (the other being Yom Kippur).  Aside from fasting  and refraining from wearing leather and from engaging in intimate relations, it is observed by reading the book of Aicha, Lamentations, traditionally ascribed to the Prophet Jeremiah, who lived through the Babylonian exile after the first Temple was destroyed.

Three weeks prior to Tisha b’Av, on the 17^th of Tammuz, Shiva Asar b’Tammuz, the walls of Jerusalem were breached. Shiva Asar bTammuz is observed as a minor fast day (sunrise to sundown) on Sunday, July 8.  These three weeks are observed as days of semi-mourning, in which weddings and other joyous celebrations should not take place.  During the first nine days of Av, one should not eat meat or drink wine (except on Shabbat), or cut one’s hair.  Three special Haftarot are chanted, known as the Haftarot of destruction.  The Haftarah the week prior to Tisha b’Av is chanted using the trope of Aicha (Lamentations). The three weeks lead us into the emotional low of the consideration of exile and the destructive nature of anti-semitism, prejudice, racism, and all forms of hatred.  Following Tisha b’Av, a series of 7 Haftarot known as the Haftarot of consolation take us back up to the emotional high of Rosh Hashanah, 7 weeks later.

Tisha B’Av will be observed on Saturday night, July 28, and Sunday, July 29.  Services will be held at the synagogue beginning at 10:00 p.m. on July 28 and 9:30 a.m. July 29.

Divre Harav/Words from the Rabbi – March, 2012

Purim is the quintessential children’s holiday, right?  It’s the Jewish version of Halloween, when we dress up in costumes and and make lots of noise during the synagogue service and get treats, right? No wonder that Purim in many synagogues is attended primarily by families with grade school age children.  As the children age out of the years when they look cute dressed like Esther, a Disney princess, Haman, or the season’s hot villain or superhero (Darth Vader, Spiderman, or Superman), they stop coming.  The parents, who are only coming because their children look so darn cute in their costumes, also stop coming.

Purim is in fact not a children’s holiday, but an adult holiday. Not along the lines of a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, which reported on an Israeli retailer trying to shake things up by selling adult oriented Purim costumes. Don’t all nurses wear fishnet stockings?  Shouldn’t every cat costume come with a bondage mask and whip?  Wouldn’t a police officer costume be incomplete without a latex bodice?  And for the ultimate in bizarre religious syncretism, how about dressing as a sexy Santa for Purim?

Like all sophisticated Jewish experiences, Purim is an adult holiday that makes room for children. The story of Purim, a provocative piece of literature, raises questions about the lengths we should go to fight evil, the limits of taking revenge, and the extent to which we should hide our Jewish identity in the public sphere.  The book of Esther can be read as a revenge fantasy or a fantasy of what we would do if only we had the power to shape the world in our favor.

The news coming out of Persia these days is awfully dark. It’s not hard to find articles coming out of Iran baldly stating the desirability of a world without Jews and giving legal and moral justification for taking steps to annihilate Israel.  Just in case the lesson of the 20^th century has begun to fade, Purim is a reminder that Haman is not a relic of some dark day in history, but rather a living threat in our world today.

A strong religious practice does not hide us from the reality of the world, but neither does it constantly beat us over the head with it. The function and purpose of Purim is to give us momentary relief from hatred and violence, to allow us to experience a moment of pure joy unadulterated by evil and suffering. This is something, I would argue, that adults need much more than children.  I hope you will join your Ahavas Israel family on Wednesday evening, March 7, for our Purim celebration.