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Category Archives: Divrei Torah

Reflections on this Passover – 2020

06 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Uncategorized

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Dear All:

This is as difficult a year to celebrate Pesach as any of us born after WWII has ever known; but this year is not an anomaly in Jewish history. We’ve known as a people years of suffering before that the Haggadah itself documents in Midrash, rite, ritual, and song. As we do every year, we ask especially now what is the meaning of Passover.

The traditional Haggadah has a statement inserted during times of great oppression that calls upon God to “pour out Your wrath” upon the enemies of our people who caused us such suffering. Many modern Haggadot, however, deleted this reference and replaced it with “pour out Your love” upon Your people and all peoples, especially upon those suffering from oppression, illness, and want.

That being said, it’s entirely appropriate for us to be angry at those federal, state, and local government officials who have been derelict in their duty to follow the advice of medical experts and scientists who early on advocated taking aggressive steps to stem the tide of this pandemic and thereby protect, as much as possible, the well-being of our citizenry. Though many of our nation’s governors, mayors, health-care professionals, first-responders, and community leaders have stepped up to protect us, history will judge harshly those who failed to be the leaders we so desperately need.

Our Seders should include prayers for the healing of every person across the globe who is ill with this virus. Here is the shortest prayer in the Hebrew Bible (Numbers 12:13) that Moses offered on behalf of Miriam who had been struck with leprosy – “El na r’fa na la – Please God heal her.” We can put it into the plural for all those afflicted – “El na r’fa na lahem – Please God heal them.”

This year our Seders likely will be the smallest gatherings we’ve ever experienced. But we can still  celebrate our festival of freedom and renewal, be grateful for our families, friends, and tradition of hope, and say dayeinu – that may be enough.

Hag Pesach Sameach.

The Most Humble Person Who Ever Lived – D’var Torah B’ha-aloecha

13 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Jewish History, Quote of the Day

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In this week’s Torah portion B’ha-a-lo-techa (Numbers 8:1-12:16) we read this description of Moses – “a very humble man, more so than any other person on earth.” (12:3) The Hebrew for ‘humble’ is anav and appears only one time in the five books of Moses – here. Given Moses’ extraordinary career as a prince, shepherd, prophet, liberator, chieftain, military leader, and judge – arguably the greatest Jew in history – it’s legitimate to wonder what “humility” meant as it applied to Moses.

I answer this question in my blog at The Times of Israel. See https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-most-humble-person-who-ever-lived/

Tristan and Iseult – Courtly Love and Covenant

04 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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The Jungian therapist Robert Johnson wrote in a little book called “We”:

“Here we are confronted with a paradox that baffles us, yet we should not be surprised to discover that romantic love is connected with spiritual aspiration – even with our religious instinct – for we already know that courtly love, at its very beginning so many centuries ago, was understood as spiritual love, a way of loving that spiritualized the knight with his lady, and raised them above the ordinary and the gross to an experience of another world, an experience of soul and spirit.”

I discuss the medieval myth of Tristan and Iseult the Fair in the context of this week’s Torah portion Bamidbar, the Biblical prophet Hosea, and the Festival of Shavuot that begins this Saturday night as similar expressions of spiritual love.

To read my d’var Torah, you can find it on my blog at the Times of Israel at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/tristan-and-iseult-courtly-love-and-covenant/

 

Radical Evolution Throughout the History of Judaism – Reform Voices of Torah

02 Sunday Jun 2019

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity

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I respond in this 10 minutes of Torah through the Reform Movement’s website to Dr. Ruhama Weiss, Ph.D.  the director of the Blaustein Center for Pastoral Counseling at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem.

See link to both Dr. Weiss’s piece and my response at http://bit.ly/2HRPzMi

This post originally appeared on ReformJudaism.org and is part of “Ten Minutes of Torah” http://www.reformjudaism.org/sign-receive-ten-minutes-torah

Moses and God’s Tears – A Poetic Midrash for Vayikra

13 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Divrei Torah, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

I have written a poetic midrash based on the word “Vayikra…” And God called Moses. You can read on my Times of Israel Blog at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/moses-and-gods-tears-a-poetic-midrash-for-vayikra/

A place of senseless hatred, rage, and violence instead of love and the unity of the Jewish people

08 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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Note: The following d’var Torah was written by my friend, Rabbi Joshua Weinberg, Vice-President of the Union for Reform Judaism on Israel and Reform Zionism and President of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA). This week marks the 30th anniversary of Women of the Wall and their peaceful prayer was interrupted by violence from the Ultra-Orthodox community in Jerusalem.

The unfolding drama this week takes us to the center focus point for all Jews from time immemorial. Reports of angry mobs showing up to kick, fight, spit at, and rip off the tallitot and kippot of those coming to pray and celebrate with the Women of the Wall on the occasion of their 30th anniversary, filled the air of the Western Wall plaza this morning. Rabbi Noa Sattath left bloodied but unbowed, and Yizhar Hess, head of the Israeli Conservative (Masorti) Movement wrote that in “ten years of praying at the Kotel each Rosh Hodesh, he had never seen such hatred, such violence, and such rage in their eyes.”

The drama has been at this place, and at this exact place on earth, for three-thousand years. In fact, it is this week that we read in the Haftarah of Parshat Pekudei (Kings I Chapters 7-8) about that moment when King Solomon built his Temple.

בָּנֹ֥ה בָנִ֛יתִי בֵּ֥ית זְבֻ֖ל לָ֑ךְ מָכ֥וֹן לְשִׁבְתְּךָ֖ עוֹלָמִֽים׃ (מלכים א’ ח:יג)

“I have now built for You a stately House, A place where You May dwell forever.” (Kings I 8:13)

This was the place that was meant to be for worship, for pilgrimage and as the single symbol meant to unify our people. The Temple Mount is the single most important symbol that we have as a people. It served as the focal point for all of Jewish society while it stood, and its memory served as the most important force in keeping us alive during our centuries of exile.

The term Zionism was coined (c. 1890) to connect directly to the memory of the Temple in Jerusalem as the last time we had sovereignty in our Land. It was also to say that the establishment of a Jewish sovereign political entity would, in fact, be the Third Commonwealth, the Third Temple.

After the 1967 Six-Day War, when the famous 3 words roused the entire Jewish world “הר הבית בידינו” “The Temple Mount is in Our Hands,” we then had sovereignty over the remnants of our ancient site. Soon after it again became a point of contention. The Israeli government and the antiquities authorities could have turned the area surrounding the Temple Mount into a historical/archeological preservation site, and place of pilgrimage, a ceremonial plaza, and tourist attraction like Massada, Tziporri, Gamla, and many more. But instead, it became an Orthodox synagogue. Yes, Jews have been praying there since we had access, and yes it was a mystical custom to place a note in the cracks of the wall, but no other site became an officially sanctioned prayer space like this one.

The significance of the Temple Mount is more than just a place of prayer. It in fact symbolizes the national struggle and for some is a symbol for national liberty.
Philosopher Tomer Persico wrote in 2014:

“Make no mistake – this is not about untrammeled longing for the burning of sacrifices. It is neither the observation of the biblical commandment nor the upholding of the Halakhic stricture that matter to these Knesset Members, even the religious ones among them. The Temple Mount serves Regev, Feiglin, Edelstein, and Elkin as a national flag around which to rally. The location of the Temple to them is nothing more than a capstone in the national struggle against the Palestinians, and the sovereignty over the mountain becomes a totem embodying the sovereignty over the entire country in its commanding figure”

And today, it became once again a place of senseless hatred, of rage, of violence, a place where Jews showed up to fight and to prevent their fellow Jews from welcoming this happiest of months.

Rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinowitz appealed to the groups saying, “that the Western Wall plaza is not a… demonstration area and asked [for attendees] to refrain from provocations, and to guard the Western Wall as a unified place, and not a place of division.”

“On Rosh Chodesh Adar II (Friday), I urge everyone to refrain from bringing their war to the Wall,” he said. “Please – the Western Wall is not a platform for ideas and not a platform for holding demonstrations.”

Oh, the irony. Not a platform for ideas??? Huh?

This is the exact spot where Hillel and Shammai argued, where our sages sat in the Sanhedrin, where Christians attribute some of the most important actions of Jesus, the place where Muhammad ascended to heaven (according to Islam). Not a place for ideas???

If you don’t want demonstrations Rabbi Rabinowitz then please call on the leaders of your movement, and movements such as Hazon (not the Jewish environmental organization) who placed a fake front page newspaper showing that “The Reform Jews Have Conquered the Kotel” and calling on everyone to show up this morning to rescue it. Call on those who spit, rip clothing and tallitot, and physically assault fellow Jews that this is not a platform for holding demonstrations.

Just imagine that today, on the beginning of the month of Adar II, the authorities of the Western Wall said “Today we are commanded to be happy, and we welcome you with open arms! Today, we realize that you are not a threat to our form of Judaism, and you are just trying to pray and exalt God’s name like we are! Please come, read the word of the living God, and rejoice in this most joyful of days.”

Just imagine what would happen if so many people were praying and dancing and singing and celebrating that they didn’t even notice a couple of hundred women coming to this holiest of spots.

Now, there is great debate among us, even in the Reform Movement about the place, significance, and efforts around the Kotel. Some say it’s insignificant, and some say it is.
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the Chief Rabbi of the Western Wall shared with us this pearl of wisdom in his drasha on this weeks’ Torah portion today: “But ongoing and persistent action has the power to create real change in someone’s life.”

Thank you, Rabbi, that is sound advice.

Bezalel – Judaism’s First Artist

28 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Art, Divrei Torah, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Uncategorized

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On the face of it, the verses from this week’s Torah portion Vayakehl describe the matter-of-fact building of a movable edifice. But this isn’t merely an architectural plan. It’s a description of the highest aesthetic vision of the ancient Israelites, a standard that would impress itself upon the hearts, minds, and souls of generations of Jews to come…

Not just any craftsman could design and build this sacred structure. Only someone with the right qualities of heart, mind, soul, skill, and communal attitude could do the job, qualities spelled out in the text.

To read the entire d’var Torah, go to https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bezalel-judaisms-first-artist/

“Make for me a Sanctuary that I may dwell within them” – Parashat T’rumah

07 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Art, Divrei Torah, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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The Mishkan (i.e. Tabernacle) was a physical manifestation of God’s presence on earth as designed and built by human hands, just as the created world (through the twenty-two letters of the aleph-bet) is an emanation of Divine thought into the creation of the universe. In each case, the same verb asah (make) appears in the Biblical text. There being nothing of coincidence in the Hebrew Bible, the rabbis concluded that there was a direct correlation between the creation of the world by God and the creation of the Mishkan by the ancient Israelites.

For my full d’var Torah, please see my Blog at the Times of Israel at  https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/make-for-me-a-sanctuary-that-i-may-dwell-within-them-parashat-terumah/ .

The Aleph is the first letter of the Ten Words – Parashat Yitro

25 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Divrei Torah, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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The first letter of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet and the the first letter in the first word of the Ten Commandments (lit. “words” – aseret ha-d’varim) is the Aleph (Exodus 20:1).

Commentators find deep meaning in the form and construction of the Aleph. It is made of two yuds, one pointing up (i.e. towards heaven) and the other pointing down (towards earth). The connector between these two yuds is a vav (the sixth letter of the Hebrew aleph-bet). The gematria (the number equivalent for the letters of the aleph-bet) of the three letters yud + yud + vav (10 + 10 + 6) equals 26. 26 is the number equivalent as well for the holiest Hebrew Name of God, known as the four-letter tetragrammaton (Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh — 10 + 5 + 6 + 5 = 26). Therefore, the number equivalent of the three internal letters that form the Aleph carries the same number equivalent as the holiest four-letter name of God.

The upper Yud of the aleph represents the absolute and transcendent realm of God. The lower Yud represents the corporeal and physical world of humankind. Moses’ role as  chief among the prophets is represented by the Vav which connects the lower Yud of humankind and the upper Yud of God. Moses therefore connects the lower and upper worlds, the transcendence immanence of God, the spiritual and metaphysical realm as opposed to the material and the physical world.

The number equivalence of the Hebrew vav (6), represents the six directions (north, south, east, west, heaven, and earth) signifying God’s ever-presence.

Thus, in the letter Aleph is the intimation of God’s unity with creation, the joining of the implicate and the physical, the merging of the world to come and the world that is, God’s pathos and Moses’ prophetic empathy.

Sources: I am grateful to Reuven Matheison and his article “The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters” from Visions of the Psalms Through the Gate of Colors, by Moshe Tzvi HaLEvi Berger, p. xix. I am grateful also for the notes of the artist, Moshe Tzvi Berger whose primary sources were The Hebrew Letters by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburg; Sparks of the Holy Tongue, by Rabbi Matityahu Glazerson; and Secret of the Holy Letters, by Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag (z’l)

 

Hearing God at Sinai again – Parashat Yitro

23 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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This week is the 5th Torah portion in the Book of Exodus – Parashat Yitro – in which the Ten Words are uttered, inscribed in the tablets of the law, and brought down from Sinai by the prophet Moses to the people of Israel. As we consider this singular event in the history of Judaism and western religion, it’s worth our while to pause for a moment to consider the nature of the first and most transformative event in Moses’ life.

He was in Midian tending sheep when he came upon a bush that burned unconsumed. The sight of it was so unusual that Moses stopped to ponder the miracle. Then he heard God’s voice charging him to go to Pharaoh and free the Hebrew slaves and take them out of Egypt.

The portion begins by telling us about Jethro, a Midianite Priest and Moses’ father-in law, who rabbinic commentators suggest enjoyed a close mentor/mentee relationship together.

The Torah describes how Jethro taught Moses to govern the people – to delegate and decentralize, to appoint judges and give up control over smaller cases, to allow others to act, judge and lead, to relinquish many of the burdens he carried as prophet, judge, and military chieftain.

Moses did as Jethro advised and we might imagine that Moses became calmer, more intentional and self-reflective. In this relaxed state Moses could heard God’s voice – not as an audible sound but as an intuitive quiet murmuring sound, much like the sound that breath makes as it passes through the lips, like Elijah’s kol d’mama daka, the voice of conscience.

One commentary notes that we can read “Mi chamocha ba-eilim Adonai – Who is like you, Adonai, among the mighty?” another way – as “Mi chamocha ba-ilmim Adonai – Who is like You, Adonai, among the silent ones.”

This reading of the text suggests that Moses entered into a quiet internal dialogue with God!

We don’t know the exact location of the sacred mountain of Sinai, but where ever it was the experience of the divine transformed each individual there and the Jewish people as a whole.

Each time we learn Torah and interact with the sacred text, tradition teaches that we reenact the Sinai experience, that we join our ancestors as our people received Torah. If we listen carefully, perhaps we may be able to hear God’s voice echo from the mountain top through time to us.

To hear, however, we first must rid ourselves of the noise in our lives, pause, and listen. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said: “Only when we’re able to share in the spirit of awe that fills the world are we able to understand what happened to Israel at Sinai.”

Yitro teaches that the revelation of Torah filled the world with limitless potential for holiness and spiritual uplift.

Tradition teaches that whenever the Ten Words are read, the congregation stands in memory of the experience at Sinai when Moses brought down Torah.

 

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