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Thank you so much for coming to Reform Daf Yomi. If you have stumbled upon this site, we are no longer writing here. But if you want to read more by Rabbi Marc Katz, visit his blog and website.

Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon (5774): Grace

Erev RH Sermon: Grace

It all began with a storm. Traveling as a lowly sailor in the North Atlantic in March 1748, John Newton and his fellow crewmates entered an incredibly violent squall. Newton was known his harsh tongue and obscene jests, but was suddenly speechless as he watched a wave crash onto the deck of his ship. The water pushed swiftly over the deck and washed away a fellow crewmate in the exact spot that Newton had been standing only a moment before. Knowing full well that God owed him nothing, Newton prayed. Banding together, Newton and his crew arrived on the shores of Ireland bearing the scars and exhaustion of their journey.

Years later, Newton would reflect on this near-death journey and pen one of the most indelible religious hymns in the history of the Western World:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a retch like me
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.

In one simple stanza, Newton would summarize, near perfectly one of the most fundamental theological ideas of the western world, that of grace.

The word Grace may sounds foreign to many of us. To many of our ears it sounds Christian. Since the idea of Grace appears so centrally in numerous places throughout the New Testament, many in the Jewish community assume it’s not native to our tradition as well. However, that notion could not be further from the truth. The concept of Grace, known by the Hebrew word chen, is an integral part of the Jewish faith and is wrapped up in nearly every facet of Jewish life, especially the High Holy Days.

So what is Grace? Grace is act of God loving us unconditionally simply because we exist, not because we have earned God’s love.

With grace, instead of asking for God’s love and attention because we deserve it, we ask for God’s love in spite of the fact that we don’t. We are nothing. We are lost. We are blind, but though we are retches, in spite of our failings, save us anyway.

The notion of grace is woven throughout the tapestry our High Holy Day prayers. It’s possible to go through the prayer book and find page after page of these examples, but I’m only going to provide one tonight.

In perhaps the most famous prayer of our High Holy Days season, the Avinu Malcheinu, we communally ask God to look at us with grace. The prayer begins:

Avinu Malkeinu, Choneinu V'aneinu, ki ein banu ma'asim.
Our father, our king, Choneinu, show us grace and answer us, for we are nothing.

Then as one would expect, the prayer continues, imploring God to love us anyway:

Assei imanu ts'dakah vachesed, vehoshiyeinu
Yet in spite of our nothingness, provide us with charity and kindness and save us!

When you think about it, Avinu Malkeinu, the grace contained therein, is counter to much of what most of us think about Judaism because it defies our sense of justice. Especially today, justice is the primary way we think. We want to know our actions matter. We want good to be rewarded and evil to be punished. Unconditional love is a nice idea, but then what’s the point of being good.

The tension inherent between grace and justice and justice is real and it is deeply rooted in Judaism. It appears perhaps the most pronounced in a story we will read on Yom Kippur afternoon.

Like Newton’s story, this story too begins with a storm. Traveling as a lowly sailor on route to the ancient city of Tarshish, the prophet Jonah is fleeing God. God has told him to travel up to the Assyrian capital, Nineveh and to tell its inhabitants to repent. Ninevah is known as a hotbed of immorality and God wants to give them a chance to escape destruction.

Rather than listening to God, Jonah has fled, finding himself in the middle of the Mediterranean when a storm begins. The storm is his fault. God is punishing him for running away. So Jonah asks his crewmates to throw him overboard. They heed his command, the storm stops and Jonah is immediately swallowed by a fish

Sitting in the belly of the fish, Jonah could have acknowledge his flaws and appealed to God’s grace. Instead, he appeals to God’s justice. He recites a poem extolling all his virtues as proof for why God should save him from the belly of the fish. And as he hoped God hears these arguments and commands the fish to spit out Jonah onto dry land.

NOW Jonah knows that God listens to reason. He’s made a good case for himself and God has heeded. I deserved salvation, he thinks, and I got it! So naturally, when Jonah dusts himself off and waltzes into Ninevah to tell of their destruction he expects their imminent demise. There is simply no way, he thinks, that these inhabitants can come up with a compelling argument for why they should be forgiven when their past is littered with so much immorality.

Yet, when Jonah confronts them, they listen to him. But rather than imploring God with argument after argument for their salvation, they simply repent, putting on ashes and sackcloth and fasting. Everyone is involved from their king to their livestock. God sees their actions and turns and relents. God does not bring on the destruction he had threatened.

When Jonah learns of God’s decision he becomes very angry. For Jonah the world needs to follow certain rules. Not everyone deserves forgiveness. He tells God, “I ran away to Tarshish because I heard a rumor you are el chanun v’rachum, a God of grace and compassion. I’d rather die than watch an underserving people like Nineveh be saved.”

What Jonah wants is a good answer to his question, a simple explanation for why God chose to save Nineveh. But grace does not work that way. Instead the story ends with a question, the only book in the Bible to do so: “Why shouldn’t I have pity on Nineveh, a great city with more than 120,000 people who don’t know their right hand from their left hand, and so many cattle as well!”

This debate, between Jonah’s conception of Justice and God’s understanding of Grace is still alive today. Clearly, there are times in our lives that we need to hold fast to an understanding of reward and punishment. Criminals must be tried. Our children must be disciplined. Hard workers deserve raises, lazy ones should be fired. Yet, all too often, perhaps because it makes the most sense to us rationally, we fail to consider the roll of grace in the world and how we can be a part of it.

Our ancient ancestors implored us to “walk in God’s ways,” to imitate God’s action and to make them our own. If that is true, how can the High Holy Days, a season rich with God’s grace, inspire us to act, not just with justice, but with more chen, more grace in our lives? In truth, many of us already do.

This year, I’ve watched as many of my closest friends became parents for the first time. For those who have reached this stage of life, it’s a very strange feeling. My friends, many of whom I had not seen as parental in the least become fountains of altruism as they held their baby in their arms. There’s an old Yiddish proverb that says “about one’s children, every parent is blind.” This saying holds true for many of them. Caring for children is difficult by any standard of measure. A newborn is less a person than an eating, sleeping, and pooping machine. Yet, in spite of the hard work and the lack of independence, in spite of the fact that one’s child has done nothing to earn their affection, new parents love their children. Parenting a baby is a disciple steeped in grace.

Grace however, does not end when we put away the cradle. This year has also been a year of tremendous public altruism. I’ve never been more proud of our community than I was after Hurricane Sandy. In the aftermath of the storm, our community came together. We gathered supplies, made sandwiches and canvassed houses. We put out an emergency call for 600 eggs and received 6,000. People brought with them open spirits and tenacity of heart, and with a combination of love and passion cared for strangers living only a few miles away.

The Torah commands us, “v’ahavtah et hager” (Dt. 10:19), to love the stranger. If taken seriously, this is an incredibly difficult love to achieve. It’s easy to love our friends; we know so much about them. Yet, to love a stranger means to love them before we know their virtues. Those who walked into darkened buildings, who brought flashlights to the elderly and food to the hungry performed acts of love to those who did nothing to earn their love. Those effected did nothing to deserve their care, but in spite of that many of you, nonetheless acted with compassion. Caring for the stranger, caring for these strangers in the storms aftermath was the truest embodiment of grace one can perform.

But one doesn’t need have children or respond to a crisis to carry himself with grace. This is the season for it. The High Holy Day season is the season for forgiveness. As a Rabbi, I’ve watched too many people hold onto anger. We have been hurt, so we hold hot coals in our hands waiting to throw them at another person, all the meantime burning our palms in the process. At times resentment and anger are often warranted. Brothers spit vitriol. Spouses undercut one another. Children act vindictively to their parent. Friends become peddlers in one another’s gossip. Often we feel that those who hurt us the most do not deserve our love and forgiveness. We feel just in holding on to our pain. Yet, in spite of this fact, many forgive. Every act of forgiveness, when we have evidence to do otherwise is an act of grace.

Gracious forgiveness is an old phenomenon beginning with the story of Jacob and Esau. The scene is set 3500 years ago. Jacob has incited his brother’s wrath after stealing his birthright and blessing. To ensure his survival, his parents send him away to Haran to find a wife. Flash forward. It’s nearly a generation later and the two are meeting for the first time. During this encounter, one filled with tears and deep embracing, Jacob asks his brother for grace. You have no reason to forgive me for all the pain I’ve caused you in the past, he intimates, it would be just to punish me, but in spite of that if I have found grace in your eyes, accept my forgiveness anyways. Esau does. Then Jacob says something that has reverberated through the generations:

God has dwelt graciously with me, giving me a family and riches when I did not deserve them. And seeing you act with grace, forgiving me when you could have done otherwise, is like seeing the face of God.

Over our lives, we are perpetually given the opportunity to carry ourselves with the same grace, the same spirit of chen that is alive in our ancient ancestors’ conception of God. And like Esau, every time we do this, we become a little more like God, bringing the divine attribute of grace into the public realm. For this reason, as the song suggests, grace is truly amazing. It defies our expectations. We could have behaved otherwise. In a world of justice, living with grace embraces a world of love. In a society of proof, living with grace challenges us to live lives of acceptance. When others ask why, grace challenges us to ask why not?

My challenge for you is to let this High Holy Day season be a season of grace. Forgive faster. Love deeper. Appeal to God to love you in spite of your flaws. Then turn around and do the same to those you meet. Much of the world functions with a theology justice. Like Jonah they seek reasons for our action. But that doesn’t mean that it’s always right for you. See the world, see your neighbors, see your family, with all their flaws, baggage, and defaults, and in spite of these things…love them anyway.

My Kol Nidre Sermon: The importance of Vulnerability

This year, I stood alongside my wife Julia Katz, as the two of us were ordained. I became a Rabbi and she a Cantor. Notability, we couldn’t have had two different paths to ordination. I was always going to be a Rabbi. I loved religious school, lived for Jewish Camp, and craved the weekends, when I would escape to Jewish youth group events and even as a kid, I Bar Mitzvahed my sister’s dolls.

Julia grew up with a very different story. Coming from an interfaith household, Julia was exposed to certain Jewish practices. However, outside of Hannukah and Passover, Julia’s family did little to celebrate or observe anything Jewish. Raised to become a spiritual person, Julia’s Jewish knowledge was patchy at best. There’s a wonderful family video of a young Julia standing up at the holiday table and promptly telling the Hanukah story…completely wrong!

As she grew, music would become her religion and spiritual outlet. She went to a special arts High School then to New England Conservatory. Graduating from college, Julia was a seeker, trying to find where she could connect music to her broader goals and values. Then one Yom Kippur, a family friend offered to take Julia to services. Hearing a female cantor for the first time in her life, Julia was smitten.

A few weeks later she walked into the Cantor’s office in her locale Boston Synagogue and announced that she wanted to become a Cantor. Then she asked the obvious question, “Can you tell me what a Cantor is?”

Julia quickly learned that becoming a clergy member is much more than having a good voice. To become a cantor, she would first need to learn to become Jewish. With tenacity of spirit and grit, Julia enrolled in Hebrew class, introduction to Judaism, and began singing with local Jewish choir.

However as she pursued her dream, she ran up against obstacles. Many questioned her dedication to Judaism. They didn’t understand how someone who barely did anything Jewish as a child would want to become a Cantor. Because she came from an interfaith household, many in her own community told her that she needed a formal conversion before they would see her as an equal. While I had a pleasant interview at the Hebrew Union College, talking about my views about God and the Jewish people, the committee grilled Julia for almost an hour, making her prove time and again her resolve for her dreams.

People’s comments about her Jewish identity hurt Julia. They were painful precisely because they cut to the core of who she was and who she wanted to be. Julia was excited that she has found a meaningful career, but by choosing to be on this path, she made herself vulnerable. True she opened herself up to new experiences, values, and outlooks but in opening herself up she also left herself exposed to the harsh stings of others comment.

Julia is fine now. She made it past this rocky patch and is a cantor at Central Synagogue, a huge Manhattan synoaguge and is singing Kol Nidre at Avrey Fisher Hall as we speak. However, as the High Holy Days arrived his year, I found myself fixated on her story because of what it teaches about the tension inherent in her vulnerability.

On the one hand, pursuing her dream put her insecurities at the forefront and left her incredibly vulnerable to other’s criticisms. In truth, she felt more pain that she would have, had she not pursued this dream. This is not unique. Leaving oneself vulnerable is frightening because it exposes our weaknesses. We fear sharing our wishes because we worry that others will tell us they are untenable. We silence our dreams because if we fail to achieve them, our failure reflects badly on our character. We are reluctant to learn a new skill because in the interim it means we may be bad at it. Then instead of saying that we are bad at the guitar or Spanish or basketball, we worry that our mistakes, which are a natural part of learning, will just mean that we are bad. We spin stories in our heads: if I can’t learn to strum the guitar does this means I’m incapable of learning things, and if I can’t learn new things does this mean I’m not smart anymore? There is little question that the safest route we can take is to avoid anything that may leave us feeling vulnerable and exposed.

Yet, making herself vulnerable left Julia open to fulfill her dreams. For her, it was worth the struggle. And she’s not alone:

The Torah teaches that 3,500 years ago, when the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, God appeared in a burning bush to Moses and charged him with freeing the Israelites. Yet, no sooner does God finish telling Moses his task than Moses replies, “Mi Ani…who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and free the Israelites from Egypt?”

As God and Moses talk more, it becomes clear why Moses is reluctant to go. He fears failure. He worries that when the time comes to perform miracles he will be unable to do them. He is frightened of his weaknesses. He knows he lacks all the answers. He has a speech impediment that he fears will get in his way of advocating for the Israelites.

In worrying about being exposed as the powerless, inexperienced, inarticulate, prophetic novice that he sees in the mirror, Moses almost passes up the opportunity to be the Jewish people’s greatest leader and teacher. Moses knows that he will certainly struggle and fail during his mission to Egypt and the pain from this is almost too great to bear.

What Moses doesn’t realize when he is about to reject God’s offer is the flip side. By exposing himself to the potential for pain, he will get the chance later to speak with God, panim el panim, face to face. He will teach generations of his people to love God and one another. Vulnerability opens the door for the fulfillment of our spiritual and emotional ideals even if sometimes it is accompanied by feelings of doubt. fear, and shame.

In her recent book, “Daring Greatly” Dr. Brene Brown discovered something odd while researching the subject of vulnerability. She asked her patients for a list of the things that made them feel the most vulnerable. At first they answered in the obvious ways, citing things like sickness, loss of a loved one, loss of a job, and divorce. But when pushed harder, this is what she found:

Standing over a sleeping child

Loving my job

Spending time with my parents

Going into remission

Getting promoted

And

Falling in love

It took a good year of therapy for Dr. Brown to embrace this paradigm shift in thinking. True, being vulnerable means risking failure, but it is also directly tied to happiness.

Each item expressed brings with it a great deal of baggage and fear. The more we love someone, the more that is on the line if that relationship were to fail. The more we let someone in to who we really are, the more fodder they have access to if they were to try to hurt us. The more a parent loves a child, the harder it will be when that child seeks independence. If an addict gives up his drug habit, it means he will be healthier and happier but it also means he may have to face the inner demons he was hiding by using.

As I learned more, I found myself agreeing about the tie between vulnerability and happiness, especially as it pertains to getting promoted. When I began officially as a Rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim a few months ago, I was incredibly scared. I had been the Rabbinic intern for three years and I knew how to do my job. Getting the title of Rabbi meant that I could expect a higher level of scrutiny to my actions. In truth, this fear was my own invention.

This summer, I performed the first four funerals of my rabbinic career, but I almost postponed them all by nearly refusing to perform my first one, which by the way was seven days into the job. I was so worried that I wouldn’t live up to the perfect image of the Rabbi that I had created for myself that I almost said no. I feared little things like forgetting the words to the prayers and bigger things like saying the wrong name of the deceased or God forbid, falling into the grave. I like many others, could only picture two scenarios: I would either need to be perfect or I would be disastrous.

During that funeral, I absolutely made mistakes. I got to the subway only to realize I had forgotten my eulogy on my kitchen table. I misjudged how long the funeral and burial would take and had to catch a ride home to Brooklyn in the hearse. However, these mistakes did not matter. That funeral, and the other three, would become the most meaningful part of my summer. Through the vulnerability created by my becoming a Rabbi, I would enter people’s lives in ways I would never imagine and be inspired more than I knew possible.

In a way, our ancient ancestors knew the tie between vulnerability and positive emotions like joy, creativity, fulfillment, and love. There is an ancient Talmudic teaching that the only way to truly become a scholar of Torah is to stumble over the words (Talmud Bavli Gittin 43a). True we want to be right, but our ancestors knew that the embarrassment felt by not knowing something was the first step to knowledge. If we failed to make mistakes in the classroom we would never improve our skills.

The Rabbis also relate vulnerability to leadership. They ask the question: why is it that King Saul, ancient Israel’s first king, did not warrant his children to be king after him. Why instead does David and his line become the kings of Israel? Their answer is telling. Saul sinned by trying all the time to be to perfect and wasn’t genuine. He never let himself be vulnerable and therefore wasn’t an open enough leader. A real leader, our tradition teaches, must wear his flaws like a coat (Yoma 22b). Only then would he understand those he leads and they him.

Perhaps the most famous acknowledgment about the power of vulnerability appears in the prayer Hineini, which is recited during Musaf services on both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Called affectionately the “Hazzan’s prayer” Cantor’s around the country, like Julia, are called upon to stand publically before their Congregation and express their fears in song. The liturgical poem expresses the fear they may feel in being a prayer leader, the paradox in asking for forgiveness when they themselves are imperfect. They even have to acknowledge, on Yom Kippur of all days, that they could be better looking and have better voices. Yet, the prayer continues, in spite of these and other imperfections. God should accept their prayers. In a way, reciting this prayer and publically acknowledging their vulnerability makes them more human, more humble, and gives them the honor of leading a community in prayer. And it also makes them more open to God.

This is because vulnerability isn’t just the seat of joy and creativity but also of spirituality. Two generations ago, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel came up with the idea of radical amazement, the feeling one gets when he stands in awe of the natural world. Standing before a mountain or a vast expanse of water is powerful, precisely because it makes us feel so small and human. In feeling this awe, Heschel teaches, we feel God. Those who reject weakness, who refuse to feel small, may miss significant experiences with the divine.

Radical amazement is tied to vulnerability in another way: both are surprising. We don’t always know how we will feel. Julia had no idea when she started her journey to the cantorate that it would end up being painful. I had no idea when I decided to stay at CBE that I would be as frightened of my first funeral. Not even Moses knew how hard advocating for the people would be. The important thing is not that you know how you will feel in a given situation but that you don’t run from those feelings.

Since so much good is tied to vulnerability, my challenge for you this year is to embrace it. Be open. Take risks with your heart. Embrace mistakes. Let yourself love deeper. Laugh harder. If you do, you’ll be more present, more available, and more engaged with the people around you, with yourself, and with God. Then you might live out the ideal of our ancient author of the Hineini prayer:

Kol tzarut v’ra’ut, hafach na lanu…k’sason u’lisimcha. L’chayim u’lishalom.

That through our fears and affliction we find joy, life, and peace;


Ha’emet v’hashalom e’havu.

May truth and peace be precious to us


B’A’A Shomei Tefilah

Blessed are you God who hears our prayers.

Fundraising- when giving money be clear (temurah 31b)

I haven't written in a while but this is too good.

Does someone have control over what happens to their money when they donate to their shul? There is an analogy in today's daf that speaks to this question. The answer is maybe...

Here it is. There are two ways one can donate to the ancient temple. On the one hans they can make a bedek habayit. This is a donation fore the upkeep of the temple. The other is called kodshei hamizbeach which means a donation that will be used for a sacrifice to God. According to the Mishnah if someone donates something but does not say to which category he wants his sacrifice to go it becomes bedek habayit and can be used to fix the leaky roof.

I wonder if this is a useful paradigm for temple fundraising today. A plain gift to a temple can be used for anything. But if one expresses a programmatic initiative or specific service one should honor this request (provided it fits the vision for the community). This idea is not novel. Plenty of communities have this policy. However it is interesting that one can find a precursor for it in our tradition.

Please excuse typos. I wrote this ont iPhone.

A religion of deed

Just finished Tractate Chullin! It's my 14th complete tractate! Now onto the post...

One reason I love Judaism is that it is mainly a religion of deed. That's why I was surprised today when I came across a teaching that one can be punished for his thoughts - if that thought was about idol worship.

The teaching come in the context of an incident where a child sends away a mother bird before fetching eggs for his father. Based on the Torah, one is promised a long life if he does either of two commandments (sending away a mother bird before taking their young and honoring one's parents). However, on his way down the child falls to his death, and the text must struggle with the question of theodicy: how can such a bad thing happen to such a meritorious boy?

In debating what went wrong the Talmud suggests that he was punished for his sinful thoughts. However that is quickly dismissed because "The holy one does not consider a sinful thought to be in the realm of deeds." Therefore the child would not be punished on account of this.

However, the text continues, if he was thinking about idol worship that warrants punishment. So what's different about idol worship?

The Meiri has an interesting answer: Idol worship at it's core is a belief in one's heart.

When I pray to God I do a lot. I read words. I bow. I stand. However, my real prayer comes from my intention. That's different than say eating pork because I can think about the other white meat till the cows come home but until I eat it I haven't done anything wrong. Thinking about Baal or any other gods, is in a way akin to actually worshipping them.

So what does this text teach us? There is something special about prayer that nothing else has and it's the fact that we can do it even while others are watching. Prayer is inner and personal. Prayer is sui generis which makes it all the more powerful.

Podcast Parshat Noach

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Temporary Wilderness - A Sukkot Sermon

The News of Gilad Shalit's release after 5 years of captivity prompted me to change my Sukkot sermon last minute. I'd love to hear your thoughts about it.

בַּסֻּכֹּת תֵּשְׁבוּ, שִׁבְעַת יָמִים; כָּל-הָאֶזְרָח, בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל, יֵשְׁבוּ, בַּסֻּכֹּת.

You shall sit in sukkot for seven days, all the citizenry of Israel shall sit in sukkot.[1]

And so we do. We sit in these sukkot, the next verse tells us, so that the generations may know that God made the children of Israel dwell in booths, when God brought them out of the land of Egypt. Sukkot and the sukkah remind us of the wilderness, of the wandering. The sukkah itself symbolizes impermanence. The rules regulating its size and construction, the materials which can be used, even the hole-y roof, all these requirements signify this dwelling’s temporary nature. Even our visitors, the famous ushpizin only come in for a day. They join us for a part of the holiday, and then make their exit. The festival of Sukkot and its booths suggest the transient nature of life, the ebb and flow. To every thing, there is a season.[2]

Why live in these temporary dwellings? Yes, the verse says that we are to remember the exodus from Egypt, but isn’t every other holiday also a time to recall the exodus from Egypt? After all, Shabbat asks us to remember the exodus; it’s right there in the Kiddush! Whereas in other chapters of the Torah, different festivals and Shabbat are tied to the exodus, in our chapter of Leviticus, there is only one mention of the exodus, and that is connected to Sukkot. Only Sukkot, so that future generations will know that God made us dwell in booths when we left Egypt. Why the special significance here? Yes, we lived in booths, but it is also more than that. It all comes back to impermanence, but not of the dwellings, per se, rather of the experience.

For it is also the wilderness which is temporary. Isolation and separation from our land is temporary. The hard days and nights, the tough work of getting to know God and understanding God’s power: that won’t last forever. One day, we will cross the Jordan. One day, there will be one God whose name is one.[3] So, we remind ourselves of that, every year for a week. We come together to build sukkot and celebrate with the Lulav and Etrog. Each year, we string the autumnal colored decorations, repurposing Halloween and Thanksgiving knick-knacks for our temporary dwelling to remind us of the days when we were in the wilderness. We bring with us a recollection of our redemptive journey to freedom and hope for our ultimate redemption. All thanks to the little, temporary structure.

Sukkot asks that we bring the wilderness with us, but sometimes we may choose to highlight the wilderness on our own. How interesting, then, that this year, we are all paying attention to temporary dwellings in a new way. We are called to take note of the wilderness of those isolated and separated. Summoned to see those working hard and not getting ahead. This summer, thousands of Israelis moved to tents in every major city and many not-so-major ones. They were young people looking to establish themselves in their land, though all they found was wilderness. They found rising costs of food, no mannah to gather. They found inaccessible housing, they couldn’t even afford an apartment the size of a sukkah. And so, they built cities of temporary dwellings. All to call attention to their wilderness. They came together in their tents and huts to highlight the wilderness of their present, not to remember the wilderness of their past and hoping for a brighter future.

In this country as well, the Occupy Wall Street movement shines a light on those mired in a wilderness. The wilderness of low wages and high prices for food, fuel and health care. The wilderness of a tax code considered overly beneficial to corporations and the wealthiest. The wilderness of disenfranchisement from representative government, feeling like they don’t have a voice, because they can’t afford a lobbyist. These protestors, whether we agree with them or not, even in part, call to mind a perceived wilderness in this nation through their tents. They are attempting to focus our attention toward the majority who had until now not spoken up, who had not, until recently, reached its breaking point. They call to mind those who are the most vulnerable when left out in the elements. And they do it all from their tents in the financial district, promising not to go home until something changes.

And sometimes, things do change. A little over a year ago, one family set up their own temporary dwelling, outside the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem, on Azza Street. This tent, modest in stature, recalled another wilderness. This time, the wilderness of one. One soldier, who as of today has been in captivity 1936 days. The Shalit family set up this tent saying that until their son was brought home, they would not go home. While their son was in the wilderness, they would brave it with him, and remind people that there was still someone out in the desert. This year, the festival of Sukkot will be remembered not only because of the Shalit family’s temporary dwelling, but because of the redemption that followed. It will be remembered as the time when Gilad Shalit was freed from his captivity and brought forth to freedom. When he crossed back into his homeland. He is due to be transferred to Egypt and then to Israel early next week.

And it is Gilad Shalit’s freedom that ultimately reminds us of the joy that we are meant to feel on Sukkot. For even though the dwellings are temporary, reminding us of the difficulties of the wilderness, the mere fact that we build them means that we have prevailed. We were rescued from Egypt. We have made it through the wilderness in the past, we will do it again.

Whether reminding us of the difficulties in our past, revealing the wildernesses of our present, or serving as a symbol of making it through the desert, our modest huts resonate in impressive ways. The schach on the roof will fade from the green of freshly cut bows to a pale brown. The paper garlands will fade in the sun and be ravaged by the wind and the rain. The gourds will wither. Yet each year we build again. Each year we decorate again. Each year we invite our guests in. We know that the wilderness is only temporary.

May we all recognize the wildernesses these sukkot represent, both past and present. May we rejoice that freedom has been achieved and another of the citizenry of Israel can look back on wilderness rather than forward to more days in the desert. And, with these sukkot all around us as we gather in this holy community, may we all pray for the Sukkat Shalom, the Sukkah of peace to prevail over us, over all of Israel and over all of humanity.

Ken Yehi Ratzon.

---

[1] Lev 23:42

[2] Eccl. 3:1

[3] Zecharia 14:9

Honoring Your Parents - only gains (Chullin 110b)

I've always wondered why so few laws in the Torah have rewards attached to them. Honoring parents (Kibud Av v'Em) is perhaps the most famous. Here's the text:

Honor your father and your mother, that you may long endure on the land that the Lord your God is assigning to you. (Ex. 20:12)

According to the daf from a few days ago there is an interesting reason for this. The text reads:

 Any positive command whose reward is written in the verse alongside its command, the lower (earthly) court is not admonished with respect to it

We know that in the Talmud, a court can compel someone to obey a law, even a positive command like building a sukkah, by punishing them (usually with lashes). However, as the above text teaches, if the Torah gives a reward for doing a commandment, the court cannot compel them to obey the command. That's because the punishment for not obeying the commandment is simply that they will not receive the reward.

In other words: the only thing one has to lose by not obeying his parents is the "reward" of a longer life! Should they mess up, their life expectancy stays what it always would be.

So what's so special about obeying one's parents? I imagine the tradition knows just how hard it is to truly honor one's parents. How do you care for them when they are old? How do you take their advice when you think you are correct?

Like everything we make mistakes with our parents, but knowing what's on the line and that it's easier to mess up here (as opposed to simply not putting up a sukkah), the tradition creates a fail safe. We can only go up from here!

My Rosh Hashanah Sermon - would love to hear your thoughts!

In Marc Foster’s “Stranger than Fiction” Howard Crick’s life is turned upside down when he realizes he might be a character in novel. Immediately, Crick, played by Will Ferrel, seeks out a literature professor to find out what to do. His instructions are clear, figure out whether he is a character in comedy or a tragedy. As the narrative continues we find Crick carrying around a notebook. On one side, he has written the word, comedy. On the other side, he has written the word tragedy. As he lives his life, he begins tallying up moments of tragedy and comedy until he looks his love in the eyes and says, in perhaps the funniest moment of the movie, “I think I’m in a tragedy!”

Howard Crick is not the only person in history to divide stories into comedies and tragedies. Since Aristotle, literature has been placed into one of these two categories. Comedies begin in disarray but over the course of the narrative, they move toward unity until they finish with a final act of unity, usually a marriage. Think “Taming of the Shrew” or even “The Hangover.” Tragedy on the other hand, begins well but because of some fatal flaw everyone ends up dead on the floor. These range from “Hamlet” to Scorseese’s “The Departed.”

It seems today people are still using these classical definitions to debate the present state of the Jewish community. Open the newspaper and you’ll find many arguing that we are living in a tragedy. The Jewish population is shrinking, young Jews lack engagement with Israel, hostility toward religion is more accepted than it ever has been in America, the future of many of our greatest Jewish institutions is in question, including the future of the synagogue. Some view these as fatal flaws and fear that they spell the tragic death of the American Jewish community and perhaps the Jewish people.

Then of course, there are those who feel that we are living in a comedy. Look at the Jewish Meditation Center of Brooklyn and other similar organizations and you’ll see a renewed commitment to Jewish spiritual connection. Pray with Altshul or any other independent minyan and you’ll see an intense and powerful connection to Jewish prayer and community. Anti-Semitism is at an all time low, and in fact, we might actually be in a period of Philo-Semitism, a love of Jews. And of course, the current generation of Jews is the most secularly educated in history and this creates stronger leaders and brings to the table new ideas. Follow the comedy paradigm and the Jewish future has never been more sound than it is today.

In a way, the tragedy / comedy dichotomy is a false one. Jewish narratives do not function as one or the other. Like good postmodern movie, Jewish time combines moments of comedy and tragedy. Let me give you two examples:

Each week, the Jewish calendar relives the story of creation. Just as the world was created out of chaos and emptiness, tohu v’avohu so too does our week begin is disarray. However, our sages teach us that like any good comedy as our week progresses it moves toward wholeness. Monday is less broken than Sunday, Thursday less than Wednesday, until Shabbat arrives and our comedy ends like most, with a wedding as we welcome the Shabbas bride during the singing of L’cha Dodi. This wedding ushers in a 24 hour period where we gain an extra soul, taste the world to come, and experience wholeness unlike any other time during the week. It’s the ultimate happy ending.

However, our story doesn’t end there. Humanity has a fatal flaw. We haven’t brought about redemption. Our world, because of hunger, hate, injustice, and fear cannot sustain the unity of Shabbat. Saturday night arrives, Shabbat crumbles and we need the smells and sounds of the Havdallah services just to survive. Our comedy ends in tragedy. Our world is again in chaos and we must start our comedy narrative anew.

Like the Jewish week, the Jewish year bounces between comedy and tragedy. Each year, during the month of Elul we engage in a sacred drama with God. God, who according the Abraham Joshua Heschel is in search of humanity, goes looking for us. At some point right before Rosh Hashanah God finds us and in an act of love we unite with God. In fact, our tradition teaches us that at this time every year, humanity is so close to God, that God cannot tell the difference between humanity and the angels. For the rabbis who developed this doctrine, the month of Elul isn’t just a 30-day before the High Holy Days; it is an acronym for this process. Elul means ani l’dodi, v’dodi li, I am my beloved and my beloved is mine. God and humanity are intertwined and unified. The Holy Days are the last scene in the Jewish comedy, as God and the humanity are wed.

However, over the course of the year, we begin to fade. Humanity moves further and further from God. Again, humanity has let the flaws of hate, anger and materialism get in the way and we experience tragedy anew. Each summer as a reminder that our world is not whole, we arrive at the 9th day of the month of Av, Tisha B’av and are forced to relive the destruction of the Temple and God’s exile from our midst. But like our Jewish week, time moves in cycles. The month of Elul starts again and our tragedy turns to comedy anew.

Both the Jewish week and the Jewish year are microcosms of Jewish history. These narratives tell us many things about our relationship to God and to the Jewish story. However, most importantly, they tells us that Jewish time is neither tragedy nor comedy but the inextricable linking of the two.

Those who look at Jewish history can certainly make a reasonable argument that we live in a tragedy. I often look around at hostility toward Israel or see the shrinking demographic data and I feel the fear and regret I do when I say goodbye to Shabbat on Saturday night. However, I can also make a reasonable argument that we live in a comedy. I observe the energy in the Brooklyn Jews community, I hear a high-school student say that he’s never experienced anti-Semitism, I see how liberal Judaism has accepted fully the notion of gay marriage and I feel much like I do on Friday night when the Shabbas bride enters.

Throughout time, the Jewish world has contained pessimists and optimists. To steal a phrase from Simon Rawidowicz, Judaism is the “ever dying people.” Yet, we are also the ever-thriving people! Saul Bellow described Jewish literature (as a representation of Jewish life) as “a curious intermingling of laughter and trembling” because the tragedy narrative and the comedy narrative depend on one another. Just as Shabbat is so much sweeter because we experienced the chaos of the week, and Saturday night is so much harder because we’ve experienced the peace of Shabbat, our tragedy narratives make our comedy narratives stronger and visa versa.

A brit milah of a newborn baby has added meaning in light of the narrative of shrinking demographics. Anyone who joins Congregation Beth Elohim or goes to a Federation program proves wrong those who say that our age cohort does not care about Jewish institutions. And it works the opposite way. The narrative of non-affiliation forces congregations and organizations to avoid staleness and self-gratification. The narrative of lack of Israel engagement empowers us to create innovative programs and experiences like Birthright to educate our community about the richness of the state of Israel.

Tragedy and comedy narratives may seem mutually exclusive but they are not. A rich Jewish future is built on mutual interdependence of these stories. As Jews, we must laugh in the face of our greatest fears and view our greatest successes with a bit a fear. That’s the only way to avoid complacency.

However, Jewish time is not an endless cycle of bouncing between comedy and tragedy. Although the two are intertwined, the idea of redemption has always remained a foremost hope of the Jewish people. For some this is called the Messianic era. For others it is called peace, security, or stability. We may live today in both a comedy and a tragedy but it’s been the hope the Jewish people for millennia that we end up well. One day Shabbat will begin and it not end. Then life will be “yom shkulo Shabbat—the perfectly actualized Shabbat day. One day we unite with God at the High Holy Days and we don’t lose that connection. Maimonides’ famous statement, “ani mamamin, b’emunah sh’lemah,” I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the messianic age is statement of faith that we live in a comedy.

Time may vacillate between comedy and tragedy but it doesn’t function like a ferris wheel. We aren’t stuck in a perpetual and inescapable cycle of ups and downsbetween good and bad, joyshope and fears. Jewish time differs from those in say a Greek novel because history has a direction. Jewish time looks less like a hamster wheel and more like a…well a Shofar!

[hold out long, curved shofar]

The shape of the Shofar reminds us that we live in the interplay between the high’s and low’s but more importantly that one day the tragedy narrative will dissolve and we will end our story in a comedy. Yes, a shofar loops around, but it also ends up somewhere a little further ahead than where it began. One reason we blow the shofar is to remind us that there is a better place. We sound the horn to rouse us from our pessimism, to collect up our feelings of exile, pain, and fear and to acknowledge that the “ever dying people” will continue to thrive.

We live in a scary time. However, we also live in a hopeful time. Both narratives are important and both are crucial a whole Jewish story. Whether we see our current reality as a comedy or tragedy is really up the individual. There are enough elements of both to make a strong case for either. But Jewish history and faith teach us that no matter how many checks we put in the tragedy or comedy box we are a link in a history that is always moving toward betterment and self-actualization. There’s nothing more hopeful and entertaining than that!

An authentic reading of tradition - a Shoftim Sermon

“For whom do you speak?” asked our dean Jack Wertheimer.

I was attending a seminar for rabbinical students from all seminaries, orthodox, conservative, reform, and transdemoninational and it was our first session. With a smile, knowing he was about to be controversial, Dr. Wertheimer asked again, “For whom do you speak? As a rabbi, can you ever speak for the Jews? What about your movement? How about your synagogue community? We know that traditionally rabbis are considered a public voice for social justice. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched with Martin Luther King. After the Six Day War, American Jewry was unified in its pride and support of Israel. But today, can you ever speak for any view other than your own.”

It was a provocative question and the answers surprised me.  While the Reform Movement has been an important voice for social justice since the 1960s (and in some cases even before), I quickly learned that that was not the case with other movements. In fact, most of my orthodox classmates were adamant that an issue like climate change and health care is too complicated for any rabbi to advocate for. Jewish ethics do not conform to the intricacies of public policy, they said. You can speak to your own views but its unfair to force Judaism to say what it does not.

I was a minority voice but a loud one. Jewish leaders, rabbis, cantors, and Jewishly educated laity have not only a right but an obligation to teach, preach, and advocate for American interests in a distinctly Jewish idiom. My classmates were right in one regard. Issues are just too complicated and opinions to diverse to ever begin a sentence with the phrase, “the Jews feel that…” If I took a poll, we would find a diversity of opinions on universal health care, environmental policy, and reproductive rights. Unless you give me the right, I cannot speak for you.

What I can speak for (and this applies to anyone who takes the study of our sacred texts seriously) is an authentic reading of our tradition. I am framed by certain key texts in our tradition, one of which appears at the start of this week’s Torah portion and is the phrase, tzedek, tzedek tirdof…“Justice, justice, shall you pursue!” Other texts include the command, v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha, love your neighbor as yourself and the notion that we are all created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of God. Anyone who takes Jewish learning seriously has a right to use that information to frame their worldview and raise a prophetic voice that advocates for justice and equality!

However, I often find myself reluctant to speak up about issues we face today. Am I smart enough to take a teaching from the prophets Isaiah or Jeremiah, couple it with teachings from the rabbis and speak with a prophetic voice for social change? The answer is yes! WE ALL ARE. And we have an apt metaphor for this internal struggle in this week’s Torah portion.

Parshat Shoftim speaks about the notion of the false prophet.  Here, Moses tells the people that after he is gone, God will raise up a prophet in his stead. He will speak the words of truth and the people are commanded to listen to him. However, Moses continues, there will surely arise false prophets among you. How then will you know whether a prophet speaks the truth? Moses explains that if a prophet speaks in the name of God and his prophesy comes true we know he was a true prophet. If not we punish him for uttering a false prophesy in the name of God.

This text is telling but dated. The rabbis acknowledge that after the destruction of the Temple, prophesy halted. God no longer speaks to us directly. Now, when we want to find out our religious duty in the world, we have to look to our sacred texts for guidance. Where once, a prophet knew if he was speaking the truth if he heard God’s voice, today speaking in a prophetic voice for justice is much harder. We have to read texts, make judgments and trust ourselves.

Where once the big question was whether or not a person was a false prophet, today the bigger question is whether when we speak for the tradition, are we speaking truth or falsehoods? Without God’s guidance, it’s a lot easier to be on the wrong side of history and that’s a scary thought.  It’s easy to look back at those rabbis who marched in Selma or who fought to preserve the redwood forests in the 1990s, known affectionately as the Redwood Rabbis and say that their decision was easy. It’s much harder to be in the moment having to choose between a Jewish reading of budgetary issues and social programs, workers or employers, those who wish to immigrate to America and those who citizens who remain unemployed.  

Without divine guidance and forced to make my own judgments about Jewish tradition, it’s no wonder that I and many others would rather simply let Judaism inform our religious life, like prayer, Shabbat, and kashrut, and personal ethics like honoring my parents, avoiding stealing, and treating others with dignity and avoid any mixing of Judaism and public policy.

However, Jewish tradition is clear, a reading of the tradition informed by texts and thoughtfulness is an authentic reading and can serve as a platform to assess and engage with the modern world. As American Jews we can hold two truths in our hands. We are informed by American sensibilities and by Jewish ideals, and together we can each speak for what we feel Jewish ethics mandate from America. Others may not agree with us our conclusions. Many may ridicule our reading of tradition. But without God’s voice in our heads, we can only trust our own judgment as we rightfully and prophetically fulfill our moral mandate to seek peace and pursue justice.

Our struggle to overcome our fear of giving the wrong message and being on the wrong side of history is an ancient struggle that our rabbis faced nearly two thousand years ago.  The Talmud asks the question, “There are so many smart rabbis who study much more than I but some pronounce things ritually pure while other pronounce it impure. Some kosher while others unkosher. What should I do?”

The Talmud answers with a teaching that still speaks to today, “Make your ear like a hopper, which takes in that you hear, but acquire for yourself a discerning heart and don’t be afraid to pick a side.”

The jury is still out about whether we can speak in the name of other Jews, but I submit to you that there is no question that each and every one of us here, can cultivate that discerning heart and can speak with an authentic and prophetic voice in the name of Judaism.  

Play it safe or play it rational (Chulin 48b)

So here's a question: you find a needle in the lung of an animal. Is it the animal (and lung) kosher or not?

The issue at hand is whether the needle punctured the lung. If it did, the lung is considered traif and thus the animal is not kosher. If it didn't the animal is fine.

What's interesting about this question is that Rabbis Yochanan, Elazar and Chanina permit the animal for eating, while Shimon Ben Lakish, Mani bar Patish, and Shimon be Elyakim say it is traif. That's a pretty big (and even) split.

At the heart of the disagreement is how the needle got into the animal in the first place. There are really only two options. The animal could have swallowed it or aspirated it.

If the animal swallowed it, the needle would have had to have left it's digestive track, puncturing it's intestines (another way an animal become traif) then entered into the lungs by puncturing it from the outside. If the animal aspirated it, the needle would simply have gone down the wrong tube (if there is a right one for a needle!) and the presumption is that it would not have made any holes.

At the root of this debate is whether we privilege rational explanations or halachic certainty. Rationally, it makes much more sense that the needle was aspirated than that it left a cows intestines and found it's way into a lung. That's why Yochanan and his group render the animal kosher. However, Shimon ben Lakish and his group privilege something entirely different. As far-fetched at their scenario may be there is a chance it could have happened. Since the only thing you can be sure about in this situation is that you are not eating non-kosher meat if you prohibit the animal they deem the organ traif and play it safe.

Jewish law is a dance between what is rational and what is safe. Sometimes these two ideals line up. Sometimes, as it does in today's daf, they do not and you must decide which of these two values to privilege.

How to avoid a dishonest reputation (Chullin 44b)

A useful teaching in today's Daf:

If one adjudicated a case (concerning contested property) and ruled in favor of one party and against another, or he ruled an item impure or pure or the ruled it forbidden or permitted, and likewise if witnesses testified about the property all of these (the judges and witnesses) are allowed to buy the item [in which they played a role in permitting or invalidating]. However, the sages said, keep far away from unseemliness and from anything resembling it. 

Here the sages give sound advice. If I am a judge and I award someone lost property and then he turns around and sells it to me, doesn't that look fishy? Have I ruled in accordance with his claims because I knew he would sell it to me at a fair price?

The answer may be no, however just by raising the question I have planted in your mind the question of my honesty and integrity. We live in a world where those two values are so easily lost. The sages are right. If there is a change it might seem fishy, avoid any hint of it, even if it is a fair (and smart) purchase.

Matot D'var Torah - collective unity

I want to begin with an odd scene. Picture a ball of bees. When winter rolls around, bees understand that they need to protect their queen, so they swarm her. Creating a giant ball around her, their collective bodies give off heat saving all but the most peripheral bees. Only those bees that remain on the outside, freeze and fall off.

While an odd picture, this natural phenomenon describes a scene that is taking place in this week’s Torah portion, Matot. There, two tribes, Rueben and Gad approach Moses and ask to remain outside of the promised land because the land there is better for their cattle. Moses agrees, provided the men of the tribes first act as shock troops in the conquest of Caanan. After winning the war for the promised land they can return to the east side of the Jordan river with their families and begin life outside of the land.

The rabbis come down hard on these two tribes for their decision to remain outside of the Caanan. Therefore the rabbis paint their motives as flawed. Numbers Rabbah tells us that the tribes asked to remain outside of the land because they loved money more than people. When the tribes first approach Moses about staying behind they explain, “Let us stay here and we will build fenced-in enclosures for our cattle and cities for our young children.' (Numbers 32:16). Moses hears this plea and is appalled. In listing the rationale for staying behind, the tribes have privileged their livestock over their families. When they finally attain permission from Moses, the leader reminds them of what is really important, putting their children foremost on the list of tasks, first “Build cities for your young children” and only then “fenced-in enclosures for your cattle.” (Numbers 32:24).

Ironically, in their quest for wealth these tribes failed to put people first and consequently, they left themselves exposed. As a result of this oversight, they were the first tribes to be conquered and to go into exile. In our beginning example, the bees on the outside of the ball have no choice. In this natural process some need to freeze to protect the queen. But these tribes could have entered the promised land and stayed close to the body politic. If they had remained one unit, together with the rest of Israel, they may not have been taken captive by King Mesha of Moab in the 9th century.

Throughout time, Jewish law and ethics have privileged collective responsibility and unity. We are commanded in the Torah, “lo titgodedu” which the rabbis understood to mean, “do not make factions.” Factions create discord. Factions are weaker. It’s cold out there alone on the outside.

So I leave you with a final image, one from our tradition and very fitting for a Temple so close to the water. The rabbis liken the Jewish people to two barges. When these barges are tied together, God builds God’s palace across their bows and anything is possible. But when they are untied and drift toward their own selfish pursuits as did the tribes of Rueben and Gad, God’s palace has no platform tumbles into the space between the boats, sinking to the bottom of the sea.

May you stand firm in your collective resolve and sense God’s palace all around you. Shabbat Shalom

Plan Ahead - a Parshat Chukat Sermon

Sorry I haven't written in a while. I've been working hard at Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor. Here's a sermon I gave this past Friday:

30 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes. That’s how long William Henry Harrison served as the president of the United States. As legend has it, Harrison came to office on a cold and wet March 4th day. Known for his tough persona, he left his hat and coat inside and delivered the longest inaugural address in the history of the United States, over 2 hours. Needless to say, Harrison caught pneumonia and died soon after.

Immediately following his death, America faced an important question. Who would be the next president? Article two of the constitution is vague. If a president dies the constitution makes it is clear that his vice president, in this case, John Tyler assumes presidential responsibilities. However, what is not clear is whether Tyler would be the new president or the acting president until an emergency election is held. Following the death, lawmakers made a mad scramble to figure out what would happen. After some hard fought battles, it was decided that Tyler would become the new president of the United States. Even on his deathbed, William Henry Harrison had not prepared for his succession and the next generation of leaders had to pay for this oversight.

Why begin a sermon with this story tonight? Besides the fact that it’s the fourth of July weekend, the story shows just how hard it is to get one’s house in order before one makes a transition. Harrison’s story deals with death, but people struggle similarly with preparing successors after moving up in a job or even handing their children over to a new babysitter for the evening. With everything to think about, how can you adequately prepare and guard those after you for the challenges that lay ahead.

Our Torah portion this week, Chukat, gives us two models of transition, one good and one poor. Parshat Chukat contains two deaths, first Moses’s sister Miraim dies, then Moses’s brother Aaron. Both leaders die for mysterious reasons and both leaders die quickly. However, there is one marked difference in the Torah’s depiction of their deaths: Aaron prepares for his transition.

We don’t know anything about Miriam’s death. It appears suddenly at the start of Numbers chapter 20, “The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin on the first new moon, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried.” After this, the Torah moves on. The people do not mourn, the cause is not explained. However, Miriam’s death would play a crucial role in the story of the Jewish people. According to rabbinic legend, Miriam was given a special gift. Throughout the desert, in the driest of climates, Miriam was able to summon a magic well and provide water for the people. Yet, no sooner do we learn of Miriam’s death than we learn that the people are parched. The verse following Miriam’s death reads, “The community was without water, and they joined against Moses and Aaron.” True, we don’t know how Miriam died, if it was sudden or not, but what we do know is that as she was nearing the end of her life, Miriam had not found a successor. No one but her had the power over water. Therefore, when she disappeared so did her well. Trepidation followed Miriam’s death in the same way it did after William Henry Harrison.

Aaron’s death was different. At the behest of God, Aaron was commanded to ascend Mount Hor in front of the whole community. There he took of his priestly garments and dressed his son Eleazer in them. This simple act was all that was needed to pass the mantle of leadership from father to son. Aaron would ascend the mountain as high priest and his son would descend in that role. This simple act by Aaron ensured that would be no power vacuum and there would be someone to serve in his place after his death.

Aaron’s death exemplified an important feature of the way he lived his life. According to rabbinic legend Aaron used to walk around town. If he saw someone who didn’t know the prayers, he would teach them. As high priest, Aaron could have taken care of the people’s spiritual needs. He could have recited the prayers for them. However, knowing that an empowered people are better than a dependent one he took to time to instruct them. The same goes for settling disputes. According to rabbinic tradition, Aaron would stay up the night before a big trial, convincing the plaintiff and defendant to meet. There he would mediate between the two of them. Having worked out their dispute on their own, the two parties would cancel the case. True the courts are capable of ruling between parties, but a people who can compromise and discuss problems is better. This action is why the rabbi referred to Aaron as a “Rodef Shalom,” a pursuer of peace.

Aaron teaches us that although we can’t predict the future, living our life with one eye toward it is crucial. We won’t always be there to recite prayers or rule in disputes, so teaching others these skills ensures that prayers will get said and arguments settled even in our absence. Because of the way Aaron lived his life, his legacy was a more self-sustaining and grounded people, and Aaron’s death was a little less of a tragedy.

Having time to get one’s affairs in order and teach one’s lessons before death is sometimes a luxury we don’t often get. However, when we do have the time, it is important to take advantage of it. According to one rabbinic legend, before Jacob’s death, people died by sneezing. They would feel fine one minute, sneeze, and their soul would fly out their nose. As an aside, this is one reason why we bless those after a good sneeze. However, Jacob’s death would be different. He prayed for sickness, so that he would have time to gather his children together one last time and settle his affairs. With as much pain as it has caused us over time, sickness would be Jacob’s gift to humanity in forcing us to make important end of life decisions.

We cannot settle everything while we are living, but it’s never too late to start. No matter your age, make a decision about organ donation. Talk to your loved ones about what to if you end up on life support. If you have young children, make sure you designate a legal guardian if something should happen to you. Make sure your life insurance is up to date. Buy a funeral plot. The synagogue owns a cemetery and Howard Chwatzky would be happy to tell you more about it.

In the coming weeks, look out for a bereavement guide that Rabbi Morris and I have been working on. In addition to explaining the stages of Jewish mourning, it includes information about legal and living wills, a helpful sheet containing all the crucial information your family may need to know in the case of a tragedy (simple things like your safety deposit box number), and resources on how to fill out an ethical will so that your children and grandchildren may read in your own words the life lessons you want to impart. There’s a lot to remember when planning for the future, and Rabbi Morris and I are happy to be a resource if you would like to talk more about it.

After William Henry Harrison’s death, America faced a challenge because they had not prepared. However, they didn’t learn their lesson. After Harrison, other presidents would die in office, and each time they would rely on a Harrison’s shaky precedent to appoint the sitting vice president. This shows just how hard it is to really prepare. Finally, in 1967, this changed with the ratification of the 25th amendment that spelled out all the steps of vice presidential succession. America had finally learned their lesson and moved from a Miriam model of winging it to an Aaron model of advance planning. In this instance, there would be no more loose ends.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy 4th of July weekend.

Economic Advice in the Talmud - It's not all about the next big idea (Menachot 85a)

In the daf from a few days back the Talmud quotes a disagreement between Moses and two Egyptian sorcerers (Yochana and Mamrei). According to Rashi after the first plague (turning water to blood), these sorcerers mocked Moses, saying "Straw you are bringing to Aforayim!" Rashi explains that Aforayim was a market that was known for selling straw. According to these sorcerers, Moses's "magic" in Egypt was nothing special. Since they were known also for doing tricks and feats, it was repetitive and futile for Moses to try anything supernatural. In essence they mock him saying "It's been done!" For them, doing magic in Egypt was like bringing straw to a market already saturated with the product.

However, Moses doesn't give up. He has an answer, "People say: To a place of vegetables, take your vegetables." For Moses, it's smart business to take vegetables to a market that already sells them. That's because there is already demand for them and because people can compare prices and quality. If your produce is good quality, it can only help you to enter the market. Being the first person in the community to sell tomatoes when no one is accustomed to buying them isn't always good business. Yes, you will corner the market, but people may pass by your product because they are not used to buying it or have never tasted it.

This text is interesting for two reasons. The first is this, that this is one of the many aphorisms found in the Talmud that teaches us the rabbis understanding of economic forces. However, perhaps more important, Moses's response is interesting because of what it says about influencing people.

If you do extraordinary work (like turn water into blood) you hope to get recognized. However, if no one knows to look out for your work, people will miss it - I'm not sure one would miss blood rivers but I hope you get the point. Great ideas are only great if people hear them. Perhaps, it's not about being the first person to do something. Rather it's entering a market that already expects a certain kind of innovation and doing it better (and slightly different) than anyone else. Perhaps that's what make the plague so great. Everyone does magic but not everyone can turn rivers to blood.

This second reading of Moses's statement is important for many reasons, not the least of which is it sums up my view on synagogues. It seems today that people are looking for the next big idea to shape Jewish life. Some of these ideas may be great but they lack something. There is no platform for them. Innovation in Jewish life must happen, but in the marketplace of Jewish ideas, fixing and engaging with an established product, temple life, is the smarter way to make change and impact people. We can support Israel, encourage Jewish practice, fix Jewish literacy rates, and support our needy anywhere. But there is no place that we can do it better than through our institutions.

There are those who always want the next big Jewish idea. There are others who want to enter the race in the middle and build off what others have done. Today, our Talmud gives a vote for the latter.

Oil, Tax Loopholes, and Tithing (Menachot 67b)

First of all, a shameless plug. If you haven't already, please go to www.facebook.com/brooklynjews and "like" the Brooklyn Jews page. It's the organization I work for (the outreach arm of Congregation Beth Elohim) and we are trying to get 100 likes by the end of the week!

Now for the post.

The Talmud asks the question: Why is an idolater's terumah (priestly tithe) valid? Technically, if we read the Bible there is no evidence that an idolater can bring a tithe to the Temple.  The reason for this is because the specific act that makes grain subject to tithing is the "smoothing" of the grain during preparation. Without smoothing, grain is technically not subject to tithes, and any grain not subject to tithes cannot be brought to the temple, even as a gift. Therefore, if an idolater were to smooth grain the grain would never be subject to the laws of tithing.

However the rabbis noticed that something odd was happening with the grain. Since terumah is donation by percentage (like any tithe), it meant that those who were rich and could afford a lot of grain also had to donate a lot to the Temple. So what did they do? They transferred the ownership of the grain to idolators right before the grain was to be "smoothed." Then after the idolator smoothed the grain (and it was no longer subject to the laws of terumah) they transferred the ownership back wealthy person, and thus no one was obligated in this particular tithe.

To counter this, the rabbis decided that the terumah of idol worshipers would be valid!

If we consider terumah to be a tax to the Temple, there is a lot in common with the actions of these wealthy individuals and the oil companies who set up offices in other nations to avoid paying US taxes. The rabbis noticed these tax loopholes in their system and thus added strictures on the biblical law in order to close them?

Maybe we should use the rabbis as a model and do the same?

As it turns out the senate is voting TODAY on at least part of the issue. I don't know enough about the bill to endorse it or reject it but one has to admit, it's funny when timing works out like it does.

The Lesser of Two Evils: Be a Good Samaritan (Menachot 64a)

A good puzzle in Friday's Daf:

Rava asked: If a sick person was assessed as needing to eat two dried figs on Shabbat (because doing so would save their life) and there are two dried figs attached to two stems or there are three figs attached to one stem which do we bring?

Here's the problem. If the person only needs two figs but we bring him three we have plucked on too many figs for him. Jewish law allows one to violate the laws of Shabbat (in this case the prohibition against reaping) in order to heal a sick person. However, anything above the bare minimum is considered a true violation and is not excused in order to help the sick person. This prohibition is called "ribui b'shurin."

On the other hand, if one plucks the two stems each with a single fig on it they have not wasted any figs,  however they have done TWO acts that are a desecration of Shabbat - two reaping are worse than one. So what is the answer?

According to the Talmud, it the answer is obvious. We should bring three figs on one stem. In the fight between a desecration of amount or a desecration of number of actions, the Talmud rules in favor of avoiding the latter.  For our commentators, the reason is because bringing three figs violates a prohibition of the rabbis while plucking twice violates a biblical prohibition.

However, I think there is something more here. When one needs to save a life, they must act fast. There are times when you know what you are doing is clearly wrong. No lifeguard should pull a potential spinal victim out by their neck. Doing so is irresponsible like choose to pluck twice when one only needs to pluck once. However, when you have the potential to save someone's life you shouldn't be held accountable for acting fast even if you make small mistakes along the way. Using the same example, you could have turned the spinal victim more smoothly, you could have hooked them up tighter to the backboard, however, if you do the best you can, you should not be held liable. Don't count the figs like you don't scrutinize the knots on the backboard. Just act!

Rava's puzzle teaches us that good samaritan laws applty in some form to the rabbis.

A coda to the last post (Menachot 62a)

It turns out there is a proof text for why we should engage as many people as possible in ritual acts. In discussing why there are three priests involved in a particular act of ritually waving a sacrifice.

The text reads as follows:
With the multitude of people is the glory of the King (Prov 14:28).

Turns out that sharing in tasks was so important that it wasn't just something the Kohanim did. Rather it was a value for which they looked for a precedent in the Bible.

Now I really have to find Ark openers for the next high holy day!

Ark Openers and Other Crucial Tasks (Menachot 52a)

I always hate being given the "honor" of opening the ark. "Can't the rabbi or cantor just do it," I ask myself. But I always say yes. I don't want to seem standoffish.

What I find is that sometimes the most successful synagogues actually make work for their congregants to keep them involved. Ark openers, english readings, people to undress the Torah, and people to hold it are actually not so crucial to the flow of the service.  And often, the service would seem smoother without these people. So why involve them in these tasks?

The reason is that the more you involve people the more buy-in you have from the community. A great example of this comes up in today's daf (or more precisely the daf quotes a piece of a very long Mishnah from Tamid 4:3). In essence here's the summary of the Mishnah.

There was a definite procedure to offer up the daily Tamid sacrifice in the Temple. To accomplish all the steps of offering the sacrifice, the texts mandate that no less than 9 priests become involved (although there is room for more). Here's the breakdown:

5 priests dealt with the animal (most holding sections of the animal that were cut up)
1 priest dealt with the entrails
2 priests dealt with the two kinds of grain offerings that happen along with the sacrifice
1 priest dealt with the wine offering that happen along with the sacrifice

And then of course there are:
1 priest who slaughters the animal
1 priest who throws the blood on the altar
1 priest who cleans up the ash

Although it's clear that we could have had less than 13 people involved in the sacrifice, I think it's telling that the Talmud mandates this number. Like the ark opener, the task is easily done by someone else (why can't the same person deal with the wine and later clean up the ashes?). However, getting these priests involved is good for everyone. It keeps them invested and feeling like they matter.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so down on ark openers after all?

Repetitive for a Reason (Menachot 44a)

Ever wonder why the line "I am the Lord your God" repeats itself in Numbers 15:41:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the LORD your God.’

Here's an interesting story that seeks to answer the question (translation Soncino). Even though it's not relevant I'm going the whole text because it's really THAT good:

It was taught: R. Nathan said, There is not a single precept in the Torah, even the lightest, whose reward is not enjoyed in this world; and as to its reward in the future world I know not how great it is. Go and learn this from the precept of tzitzit. Once a man, who was very scrupulous about the precept of tzitzit, heard of a certain harlot in one of the towns by the sea who accepted four hundred gold [denars] for her hire. He sent her four hundred gold [denars] and appointed a day with her. When the day arrived he came and waited at her door, and her maid came and told her, ‘That man who sent you four hundred gold [denars] is here and waiting at the door’; to which she replied ‘Let him come in’. When he came in she prepared for him seven beds, six of silver and one of gold; and between one bed and the other there were steps of silver, but the last were of gold. She then went up to the top bed and lay down upon it naked. He too went up after her in his desire to sit naked with her, when all of a sudden the four fringes [of his garment] struck him across the face; whereupon he slipped off and sat upon the ground. She also slipped off and sat upon the ground and said, ‘By the Roman Capitol, I spear I will not leave you alone until you tell me what blemish you saw in me. ‘By the Temple’, he replied, ‘I swear I have never seen a woman as beautiful as you are; but there is one precept which the Lord our God has commanded us, it is called tzitzit, and with regard to it the expression ‘I am the Lord your God’ is twice written (In Numbers 15:41), signifying, I am He who will exact punishment in the future, and I am He who will give reward in the future. Now [the tzitzit] appeared to me as four witnesses [testifying against me]’.

She said, ‘I will not leave you until you tell me your name, the name of your town, the name of your teacher, the name of your school in which you study the Torah’. He wrote all this down and handed it to her. Thereupon she arose and divided her estate into three parts; one third for the government, one third to be distributed among the poor, and one third she took with her in her hand; the bed clothes, however, she retained. She then came to the Beth Hamidrash of R. Hiyya, and said to him, ‘Master, give instructions about me that they make me a proselyte’. ‘My daughter’, he replied; ‘perhaps you have set your eyes on one of the disciples?’ She thereupon took out the script and handed it to him. ‘Go’, said he ‘and enjoy your acquisition’. Those very bed-clothes which she had spread for him for an illicit purpose she now spread out for him lawfully. This is the reward [of the precept] in this world; and as for its reward in the future world I know not how great it is.

The story speaks for itself and is a great example of humor in the bible (I mean come on! His tzitzit come to life and start hitting him!). However, in addition there is a theological message. We are reminded twice that Adonai is "our God" at the end of the Veahavtah (Numbers 15:41) as a further connection to the Shema. If God is really ONE then God is responsible for both the good and the bad in the world.

The Rabbis have come up with something brilliant. We begin the Shema with a statement of monotheism and (with the help of this Midrash) we end the third paragraph of the Shema with the same statement. "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the LORD your God" has become a bookend to the prayer that reminds us just how ONE God really is.