Category Archives: Divrei Torah

An ultimate spiritual reality at the core of Jewish faith

05 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Quote of the Day

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The midrashic tradition teaches that t’shuvah (i.e. repentance, turning, returning) is an ultimate spiritual reality at the core of Jewish faith, and was one of the 10 phenomena that God created before the creation of humankind thus giving us the capacity to extricate ourselves from the chain of cause and effect.

The following are selections from classic Jewish texts and from some of our people’s most inspired and profound thinkers (ancient and modern) on the meaning, nature and impact of  t’shuvah on the individual, community, world, and God.

1. “T’shuvah is a manifestation of the divine in each human being…T’shuvah means “turning about,” “turning to,” “response” – return to God, to Judaism, return to community, return to family, return to “self”…T’shuvah reaches beyond personal configurations – it is possible for someone to return who “was never there” – with no memories of a Jewish way of life…Judaism isn’t personal but a historical heritage…T’shuvah is a return to one’s own paradigm, to the prototype of the Jewish person…The act of t’shuvah is a severance of the chain of cause and effect in which one wrong follows inevitably upon another…The thrust of t’shuvah is to break through the ordinary limits of the self…The significance of the past can only be changed at a higher level of t’shuvah – called Tikun – tikun hanefesh – tikun olam…The highest level of t’shuvah is reached when the change and correction penetrate the very essence of the sins once committed and create the condition in which a person’s transgressions become his/her merits.” (Gleaned from “Repentance” by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, 20th-21st century, Israel)

2. “For transgressions committed between an individual and the Omnipresent, the day of Atonement atones.  For transgressions between one individual and another, the Day of Atonement atones only if the one will regain the goodwill of his fellow.” (Mishnah, Yoma 8:9, 2nd century CE, Palestine)

3. “Even if one only injured the other in words [and not in deed], he must pacify him and approach him until he forgives him. If his fellow does not wish to forgive him, the other person brings a line of three of his friends who [in turn] approach the offended person and request from him [that he grant forgiveness]. If he is not accepting of them, he brings a second [cadre of friends] and then a third.  If he still does not wish [to grant forgiveness], one leaves him and goes his own way, and the person who would not forgive is himself the sinner.” (Maimonides, Mishnah Torah, Laws of Repentance, 2:9-10, 11th century CE, Spain and Egypt)

4. “The primary role of penitence, which at once sheds light on the darkened zone, is for the person to return to himself, to the root of his soul.  Then he will at once return to God, to the Soul of all souls…. It is only through the great truth of returning to oneself that the person and the people, the world and all the words, the whole of existence, will return to their Creator, to be illumined by the light of life.” (Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, early 20th century, Palestine)

5. “Humility is the root and beginning of repentance.” (Bachya ibn Pakuda, 11th century, Spain)

6. “Know that you must judge everyone with an eye to their merits.  Even regarding those who are completely wicked, one must search and find some small way in which they are not wicked and with respect to this bit of goodness, judge them with an eye to their merits.  In this way, one truly elevates their merit and thereby encourages them to do teshuvah.” (Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, Likutei Moharan 282, 18th century, Ukraine)

7. “Rabbi Abbahu said, ‘In the place where penitents stand, even the wholly righteous cannot stand.’” (Talmud Bavli, Berachot 34b, 3rd century, Palestine)

G’mar chatimah tovah u-l’shanah tovah u-m’tukah!

The Torah is Political – Rabbis can be too

02 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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Every year before the High Holidays the issue of politics, rabbis and the pulpit are raised in the Jewish and general media. Should they or shouldn’t they speak on contemporary issues such as Israel, health care, economic justice, the poor, minorities, civil rights, war and peace, etc. that have political dimensions to them? Should they speak only about purely “spiritual” and personal matters? What, if any, limitations should rabbis impose on themselves?

This past month the following pieces appeared in the Jewish and general media:

  1. “The Torah is Political – Rabbis Can Be Too.” by Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights, North America, The Huffington Post, September 26, 2011 – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-jill-jacobs/rabbis-and-political-sermons_b_980423.html
  2. “When Rabbis Politicize the High Holidays,” op-ed by Dennis Prager, LA Jewish Journal, September 14, 2011 http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/when_rabbis_politicize_the_high_holy_days_20110914/
  3. “Blank Slate Rabbis” – “Letters to the Editor,” LA Jewish Journal, by Rabbi Ken Chasen, Leo Baeck Temple, LA, in response to Dennis Prager’s op-ed piece http://www.jewishjournal.com/articles/item/letters_to_the_editor_high_holy_days_un-vote_palestine_20110921/

Before I offer a few operating principles that have guided me, it is important to define what we mean by “politics.” Here is a good operative definition from Wikipedia:

“Politics (from Greek πολιτικός, “of, for, or relating to citizens”), is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs. It also refers to behavior within civil governments. … It consists of “social relations involving authority or power” and refers to the regulation of public affairs within a political unit, and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.”

Should rabbis be “political?” We should and have every right in the sense of the meaning above. There are limitations, however. What we say must be said on the basis of Jewish religious, ethical and moral principles that promote common decency, equality, justice, and human freedom, and based on both the values of B’tzelem Elohim (that every human being is created in the Divine image and is therefore infinitely worthy and valuable) and Ohavei Am Yisrael (that we share a “love for the people of Israel”).

Every rabbi should understand when speaking that we Jews hold multiple visions and positions on the myriad issues that face our community and society. Rav Shmuel (3rd century C.E. Babylonia) said Eilu v’eilu divrei Elohim chayim (“This and that are the words of the living God”). In other words, there are many legitimate and authentic religious and moral perspectives that must be respected.

In the realm of partisan politics, the American Jewish community has no unanimous political point of view, though since WWII between 60% and 90% of the American Jewish community has supported moderate and liberal policies and candidates for political office locally, at the state and national levels. We are a politically liberal community, and there are also conservatives among us.

The Reform movement (represented by the Religious Action Center in Washington, D.C., the social justice arm of the Union for Reform Judaism) has consistently taken moral, ethical and religious positions on public policy issues that come before our government and in our society as a whole. These positions are always based on our movement’s understanding of the Jewish mandate L’taken ha-olam b’malchut Shaddai (“To restore the world in the image of the dominion of God,” which means for us to adhere to standards of justice, compassion and peace – i.e. Tikun olam).

This being said, my view on the role of the Rabbi on the bimah aligns closely with Rabbis Jill Jacobs and Ken Chasen (above). I take issue with Dennis Prager’s position for the same reasons that my friend, Rabbi Chasen, did in his Letter to the Editor.

In addition to what my colleagues wrote, there are a few operating principles that guide me when I speak or write:

  1. I do not publicly endorse candidates for political office;
  2. When I offer divrei Torah and sermons, I do so always from the perspective of what I believe are the Jewish moral, ethical and religious principles involved. At times those sermons are, indeed, “political,” but they are not, in my view, “partisan;”
  3. I do not claim to have the final word on any matter that I address. I respect opposing views and believe that the synagogue should be a place where honest and respectful debate occurs. I have therefore invited people to speak in our congregation with whom I do not agree;
  4. I speak for myself alone and say so when I take positions in the media.

Plato warned that passivity and withdrawal from the political realm carry terrible risks: “The penalty that good [people] pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by [people] worse than themselves.”

G’mar chatimah tovah.

Lost Property; Lost Health; Lost Soul; Lost Self – D’var Torah Ki Tetzei

08 Thursday Sep 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah

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“If you see your fellow’s ox or sheep going astray, do not ignore them; you must take it back to your fellow. If your fellow does not live near you or you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home and it shall remain with you until your fellow claims it; then you shall give it back to him. You shall do the same with his donkey; you shall do the same with his garment; and so too shall you do with anything that your fellow loses and you find; you must not remain indifferent.” [1]

There are at least four ways Judaism has applied this passage. The first is on the material level of lost property. Jewish tradition requires as an ethical duty that lost property be returned to its owner (this is not the case in American common law). We are not permitted to ignore a lost item as if to say, “It’s not my problem!” This is such an important ethical duty that no repentance is possible for its violation because we cannot repent if we are unaware against whom we have sinned. [2]

Tradition is clear that the finder of lost property must do everything possible to return the item to its owner. If the owner cannot be immediately located, the finder must publicize that the lost item has been found. If necessary, the finder must hold the item in trust indefinitely until the owner claims it. If holding it, however, the finder incurs expense for its maintenance, the finder can expect to be compensated by the owner once the item is returned. The finder is prohibited from accepting a reward for its return because every mitzvah is expected to be performed for its own sake. [3]

The Sefer Hachinuch [4] teaches that only when lost objects are returned can society be sustained and relationships of trust be promoted. Rabbi Moshe ben Chayim Alshich [5] noted in his commentary on this verse that fulfilling this mitzvah also fulfills another commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” [6]

Maimonides expanded the mitzvah’s application to the field of medicine including it under the obligations of a physician to heal the sick. “A physician, given the opportunity to return lost health, must do that, since restoring lost health is at least as significant as restoring lost property.” [7] For this reason Jewish law forbids a doctor or any medical practitioner to go out on strike. [8]

Beyond property and health, Rabbi Chaim ben Moses Ibn Attar said that “The Torah is really concerned with the fate of lost souls (i.e. those Jews who have lost their spiritual way). If a Jew goes astray, it is our obligation to bring him into our house (i.e. the Beit Midrash) and steer him towards the right path.” [9]

One Chassidic Rebbe went further still when he said that “If your brother is not close to you and you don’t know him, you should bring him into your house, warm him with Sabbath wine, gladden his heart with festival joy, and he should stay with you until your brother can expound his letter.” What is the meaning?

According to the Zohar, every Jew has his/her own letter in the Torah. Our individual spiritual task is to find the one lost letter that is uniquely ours, that one personal connective point that will restore us and unite us to the Torah.

If we are morally required to return lost property, and if the medical professional is ethically required to return lost health, then we are also spiritually obligated to assist lost souls to find their lost letter (i.e. to return to Torah, Judaism and Jewish life).

The fourth dimension is, perhaps, the most difficult to effect of all; namely, to return our own lost selves to ourselves. Losing ourselves is the most extreme form of emotional, psychological and spiritual alienation. This return (i.e. teshuvah) to ourselves, our loved ones, our Jewish community, Torah and God is the central and pre-eminent occupation of the Jew during this season of Elul leading to the High Holidays beginning on Wednesday evening, September 28.

We can begin anywhere this process of return, even by searching for our lost letter. We might even be so fortunate to find it in this week’s Torah portion.

Chazak v’eimatz – May we be strong and courageous.

Shabbat Shalom!

Notes:

[1] Deuteronomy 22:1-3 – 7th century B.C.E.

[2] Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides), Hilchot T’shuvah 4:3 – 12th century C.E.

[3] Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De-ah 336 – 16th century C.E.

[4] Mitzvah #538 – Sefer Hachinuch is an explanation for all 613 mitzvot;  written by an anonymous sage – 13th century C.E., Spain

[5] 1508-1600, a noted Sfat Kabbalist and student of Rabbi Joseph Caro

[6] Leviticus 19:18 – 6th centry B.C.E.

[7] Mishnah Torah, Hilchot Nedarim 6:8 – 12th century C.E.

[8] Rabbi Yehuda Leib Zirelson, Responsa Atzai Halevanon, no. 61 – 1860-1941, Ukraine.

[9] Ohr HaHayim – a prominent Moroccan rabbi who made aliyah in 1733 and died in Jerusalem – 1696-1743.

 

 

 

D’var Torah Re’eh – Compassionate Annihilation!?

26 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Israel/Zionism

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Ever since Zionism brought the Jewish people back into history from exile we Jews and especially the State of Israel have had a major challenge; namely, how to remain rachmanim b’nai rachmanim (compassionate children of compassionate parents) while at the same time protecting ourselves from real enemies.

In this week’s Torah portion, Re’eh, we encounter a passage set down during the time of the reign of the Judean King Josiah (7th century BCE) who was in the process of solidifying his political control over all the land of Israel while the Assyrians were busy fighting on their eastern front. Here is the offending passage:

“Smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and everything in it…gather all the spoils…and burn with fire the city…and it shall be an eternal ruin forever; never again to be rebuilt. Let nothing that has been declared taboo there remain in your hands…God will then grant you mercy and the Almighty will be merciful to you, and multiply you as Adonai has sworn unto your fathers.” (Deuteronomy 13:16)

The juxtaposition of Israel’s utter annihilation of an enemy on the one hand and the reward of compassion by God on the other is jarring. Rabbi Akiva (1st-2nd century CE) tried to ameliorate the brutality of the text by saying that the phrase “God will grant you to be merciful” means that you are not to kill the children (Tosefta Sanhedrin 14).

Following the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70 CE when the Jewish people lost political control over their homeland, Talmudic tradition writing mostly from Galut (exile) is replete with discussion of mercy and compassion as a principal Jewish trait to be nurtured and developed l’dor va-dor (from generation to generation). One of the most famous of these is found in Yevamot 79a:

“It is taught: There are three distinguishing signs of the Jewish nation: mercifulness, humility and loving-kindness. Mercifulness, as it is written ‘God will then grant you mercy and the Holy One will be merciful to you….’”

Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar (known as Ohr HaChayim – 1696-1743 CE) remarked that the killing of another human being, even when done in self-defense, can lead the killer to become accustomed to bloodlust and eventually will corrupt the heart of Jewish civilization itself. Judaism teaches that we cannot become cruel and still call ourselves Jews. It is a tragic consequence that with the establishment of the State of Israel there have been far too many occasions when Jews have been forced to get our hands dirty. Even so, tradition warns that we Jews can never forget the virtue of mercy.

With this value uppermost in mind the Israel Defense Forces developed a policy called Tohar Haneshek (lit. “Purity of Arms”) that is, to this day, an essential aspect of the training of every Israeli soldier. Tohar Haneshek teaches how to fight a war as compassionately as possible, even at the risk of one’s own life, in order to avoid causing harm to innocent civilians. Indeed, no army in the history of the world has done more to avoid such harm to civilians than has Israel. Few know this because the Israel-haters use every opportunity to accuse the Jewish state of inhumanity and war crimes. Nevertheless, despite Israel’s uncommon record, many Israeli soldiers come home from military duty both in times of war and after service in the administered territories morally scarred and emotionally devastated by what they had to endure.

Israel’s current government, in my view, is guilty in a way no other Israeli government in its history has been so guilty of presiding over a hardening of heart vis a vis the Palestinians and a disregard for democratic principles affirming the human rights of individuals on which the State was founded, that I believe in time Jewish history will judge very harshly.

The passage from Deuteronomy above set down 2700 years ago is disturbingly relevant today. Compassionate annihilation!?  Please. There is no such thing and we ignore that truth at our own peril.

D’var Torah – Parashat Ekev – Joining Heaven and Earth

19 Friday Aug 2011

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

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This week’s portion contains one of the most famous verses in Torah:

“God afflicted you and made-you-hungry, and had you eat the mahn (i.e. manna) which you had not known and which your fathers had not known, in order to make you know that not by bread alone do humans stay-alive, but rather by all that issues at YHWH’s order do humans stay-alive.” (Deuteronomy 8:3 – translation by Everett Fox)

The Hebrew Bible drives home the truth that God is present here and at all times, at once abiding within us and outside of us, and greater than the mind can ever expect to fathom. Our most challenging religious/spiritual question is how to maintain our conscious awareness of God’s ineffable Presence as we move through each day?

Recognizing this challenge, the rabbis of the Talmud developed the B’rachah (blessing) as a way for us to focus on what is taking place in our lives moment by moment. There are blessings for every conceivable activity: when we taste, hear, see, smell, and sense something unusual, glimpse the ocean and desert, hear thunder and see lightning, meet a friend and encounter royalty, Jewish and non-Jewish scholars – many opportunities to collapse the abyss between oblivion and consciousness, God and us, heaven and earth.

The b’rachah’s power and significance is that we experience the worlds below and above simultaneously, that we recognize constantly that God is immanent and that the material world is infused with divinity.

Rabbi Meir (139-163 C.E.) taught that every Jew should say at least one hundred blessings daily.

Here is a list of twenty blessings I could say upon rising just this morning:

  • Awakening from sleep
  • Being restored to consciousness
  • Discovering that all my physical functions work
  • Becoming conscious that I can see clearly enough
  • Hearing a mockingbird singing outside my bedroom window
  • Standing up
  • Walking on my own two feet
  • Greeting my dog and receiving her morning sweetness
  • Taking her outside and smelling the grass and flowers
  • Feeling the coolness of the morning air
  • Knowing that God is in this place
  • Being grateful for my life
  • Feeling grateful for my family, friends and colleagues
  • Knowing that I have meaningful work to do today
  • Welcoming Shabbat this evening
  • Being a part of an ever-evolving and dynamic Jewish community in Hollywood
  • Teaching Parashat Ekev this morning to my weekly Friday morning Men’s Torah Study group
  • Reading the ancient and holy tongue of the Jewish people
  • Feeling grateful for the people and State of Israel despite its problems and challenges
  • Feeling gratitude to God for the miracle of existence itself

Later in Deuteronomy (30:11-20) we read that Divinity is not far away that we should have to go and seek it. Rather, it is very close to us, upon our lips, in our breath, eyes, taste, touch, thoughts, hearts, and souls.

When we recognize all this we also recognize the truth of these words (Psalm 150); Kol ha-n’shamah t’haleil Yah – Halleluyah.  Every soul sings praises to God – Halleluyah!

Shabbat Shalom.

 

 

D’var Torah – Va-et’chanan – Transforming Personal and National Yearning

12 Friday Aug 2011

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This week’s Parashah, Va-et’chanan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11) begins: Va-et’chanan el Adonai  ba-eit ha-hi leimor…“I pleaded with God at that time, saying…” (3:23+)

Rashi asked why should the first word of the verse and parashah be Va-et’chanan (“I pleaded”) and not Va-et’palel (“I prayed”)? He explained that Va-et’chanan comes from the root chanan and suggests that Moses was asking for a gift from God that he knew he didn’t deserve or merit, but he wanted it badly; indeed, he yearned to enter the Promised Land which he had forfeited as a consequence of his earlier defiance of God.

Moses’ pleading is particularly shocking when we consider the spiritual pre-eminence of the man. He was after all the greatest of the prophets, the only one who spoke panim el panim, face to face with God, the great liberator who led the people out of Egypt, the law-giver who received the Torah at Sinai, and the guide who led the people to the edge of the Promised Land.

Such yearning is understandable, and anyone who has ever suffered any kind of loss or extreme disappointment knows the feeling.

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev offers, relative to the opening words of the parashah, an important insight into Moses’ state of mind. This great Chassidic Master didn’t believe that God actually punished Moses by not granting the prophet’s fervent request to enter the Promised Land. Rather, Levi Yitzhak placed the onus of Moses’ exile on Moses himself because his spiritual orientation wasn’t quite right, and he, Moses, was responsible for his own condition, not God.

Rebbe Yitzhak came to this conclusion because at the end of the first verse appears the word leimor which he believed was a superfluous addition included to emphasize that what would follow are words from God, but what preceded were from Moses – “I pleaded with God at that time, leimor – (i.e. saying)…” This was the only time in Moses’ long career that he felt the need for Divine assistance in his prayer, and so he turned to God in the language of pleading – va-et’chanan – begging the Eternal One to put words in his throat as God had done so many times before and be near him.

Va-et’chanan (I plead) is the language of exile, and that it introduces the Torah portion this week, only days following Tisha B’Av, is not an accident. For Tisha B’Av is the holyday that recalls the pain of our people’s destruction, loss and exile, our separation from God, from the land, and even God’s exile from God’s Divine self. The Destruction of the two Temples were national catastrophes to the Jewish people without parallel until their time.

Our yearning this week as a people with time and with the assistance of t’shuvah (and we begin to look forward to Elul and the Days of Awe even now), is the challenge before Moses and before our people in these days following Tisha B’Av. This is also an opportunity for transformation, healing and renewed hope.

Chazak v’eimatz. May we be strong and courageous!  Shabbat Shalom!

 

 

 

 

Despair and Hope: The Challenges of Tisha B’Av

07 Sunday Aug 2011

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

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One of the least commemorated holydays in the Jewish calendar cycle comes this Monday evening and Tuesday, Tisha B’Av, the day marking the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem (586 BCE and 70 CE). Each was a horrendous and traumatic event in the ancient Jewish world. Historical documents record that blood flowed like a river through the streets of Jerusalem, that all was destroyed, that the survivors, such as there were, became slaves to the Babylonian and Roman conquerors respectively, and that God was driven into exile with the people.

Beyond the geo-politics of those events, sages of later generations linked the two destructions to the people’s behavior. Following the first destruction they explained mip’nei chataeinu gilinu m’artzeinu (“because of our sins we were exiled from our land”). The sins included the perversion of justice, disregard for the needs of the widow, orphan and stranger, and worship of the false gods of profit and materialism. Following the second destruction, our sages said mipnei sinat chinam gilinu m’artzeinu (“Because of gratuitous hatred [of one Jew for another] we were exiled from our land”).

Over the centuries Tisha B’Av became a day of national mourning. For modern Jews focusing on the sins of the people as the first cause of the destruction raises difficult theological and moral problems especially after the Holocaust. Yet, even if we believe we are individually and collectively innocent of the oppressive and hard-hearted conditions that characterize our era, Rabbi Heschel reminds us that “some are [indeed] guilty, but all are responsible.”

Towards the end of the day, during Minchah, the mood of Tisha B’Av abruptly changes. At that hour, tradition teaches, the Messiah will be born. Thus, our mourning is transformed suddenly into celebration and our dejection is converted into anticipation of reunification with God.

Though national in character, Tisha B’Av has personal parallels. This past Friday evening during Shabbat services I witnessed the  devastation that death brings in its wake and that Tisha B’Av commemorates for us as a people.

A dear long-time member of our community who had raised both her daughter and son at Temple Israel had just returned from New York where she buried her 60 year-old daughter. Her younger son had died at the age of 51 five years ago. She had come to say Kaddish.

A parent’s absolute worst nightmare had been visited upon her twice. As I prepared to say Kaddish with her I recalled Rose Kennedy’s loss of four children in her life-time and the words she taught her children when they were young as recalled by Ted Kennedy in his memoir True Compass:

“The birds will sing when the storm is over;  The rose must know the thorn;  The valley makes the mountain tall.”

May Tisha B’Av be a day when as we recall our national and personal traumas we also remember that as long as we have life there will come a new day if we are patient enough.

From Cult to Canon – D’var Torah – D’varim

03 Wednesday Aug 2011

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The reading of Parashat D’varim (the first Torah portion in the 5th book of the 5 Books of Moses – Deuteronomy) always precedes Tisha B’av (lit. 9th of Av), the Holyday commemorating the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem (587 BCE and 70 CE). Why, and what might this juxtaposition of holiday and parashah mean for us?

The Hebrew word d’varim (singular davar) means “word(s).” The Hebrew root daled, bet, resh also takes the form d’vir (“oracle”). In 1 Kings 8:6, the earliest occurrence of this verbal form in the Hebrew Bible, we read, “The priests brought the Ark of the God’s Covenant to a place underneath the wings of the cherubim, in the Shrine [D’vir] of the house in the Holy of Holies.”

Here, d’vir appears in one verse in parallel with m’komo (his Place – the rabbis always interpreted “Place” as the equivalent of God) and with Kodesh ha-Kodashim (Holy of Holies), the shrine from which God spoke. Much later the Talmud invested the d’vir with new meaning and connected it with the holy word itself, or The “Book.”

This development from shrine to word is not an accident. The Talmud asserts that despite the destruction of the two Jerusalem Temples, the embodiment of holiness (formerly found in the sacred precinct – i.e. the Holy of Holies) and God’s presence amidst the people in that shrine did not disappear from the Jewish people upon the Temples’ destruction and the people’s exile.

Evoking the essence of what the Jewish people’s sacred duties are, Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel asked, “Why and for what purpose was Abraham chosen to become a great and mighty nation, and to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth? Not because he knew how to build pyramids, altars, and temples, but ‘in order that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of God by doing righteousness and justice’ (Genesis 18:18-19).”

Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, the former Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, put it this way, “Judaism survived because it replaced its cult with a canon. A portable and imperishable book that could transcend the traumas of history provided the bridge to eternity once ensured by a sacred space. Wherever the Jewish people might go, God went with them. The Torah became the inexhaustible wellspring for law and life, for piety and polity, the most treasured object of a religious culture that privileged literacy and learning. In the synagogue, the ark that houses it came to replicate the Temple’s inner shrine…book and shrine serve to perpetuate the experience of revelation, the verbal distillation of ‘that still, small voice’ that joins soul to Soul and mind to Mind.”

The rabbis believed that the first Temple was destroyed because the people had veered far from Torah and that they had forsaken the fundamental principle of tzedek, justice (“Tzedek tzedek tirdof – Justice, justice shall you pursue!” Deuteronomy 16:20). They believed, as well, that the second Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, baseless hatred between one Jew and another.

Theirs is not an ancient message for an ancient time. The message of justice, compassion, love, and faith is ever relevant today in our Jewish community, in this country, in Israel, and throughout the world.

Tisha B’av is commemorated Monday evening and Tuesday, August 8-9.

D’var Torah – Parashat Mas’ei – Recording our Secrets

25 Monday Jul 2011

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For nearly 20 years I have coped with Los Angeles traffic by listening to books on tape and CD in the car. Of the hundreds I have “read” biographies and autobiographies fascinate me because of the secrets they reveal about the individual and the human condition. One day I hope to write my own story to at once record the significant moments, encounters and experiences that have shaped me, and to leave a legacy for my children and grandchildren. I am motivated to do so in part because I have so very little material evidence of my father’s life whose 52nd Yahrzeit comes in two weeks. Most of us, in fact, have little evidence of our family histories beyond 2 or 3 generations.

Several years ago my brother told me of a pack of letters that had been buried away in a trunk that my father had scribed to his family during WWII. In them my dad described sailing into Pearl Harbor a month after Japan attacked as well as his experiences in the four years that followed in Hawaii, Guam and Midway Island where he served as a medical officer. Those letters, for the first time in my adult life, offered me a glimpse into his heart, mind and soul. I learned not only much about him and of that era in American history, but also that he was a gifted writer and keen observer of the human condition.

I raise the issue of the importance of telling our stories because in this week’s Torah portion, Mas’ei (see Numbers 33), there is a description of 42 stations through which the Israelites passed on their journey from Egypt during the 40 years of wandering. The Torah text doesn’t explain why Moses wrote down this list of places, some of which appear nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. God does not explicitly command him to do so. However, the Midrash attempts to explain by imagining that God, indeed, did tell Moses to “Write down all the places through which Israel journeyed, that they might recall the miracles I wrought for them.” (Bamidbar Rabba 23:1)

There is something of importance for us here beyond the details of the 42 stations and why they were important in the ancient world. I am grateful to Rabbi Arthur Green who notes that just as the ancient Israelites were wanderers, so too are we wanderers. “In the private region of our own inner lives, we all have such sacred lists, all the important stopping places in our journeys.” (The Modern Men’s Torah Commentary, pps 248)

I was raised in Los Angeles and have lived in Berkeley, San Francisco, New York, Jerusalem, and Washington, DC. Yet, despite my comfort and familiarity with all these places there is something in me that is eternally restless, that seeks constant newness and discovery despite feeling “at home” where I live today. This seeking quality in me is not unique to me. Indeed, I see it as part of the human condition, which begs the question – What does feeling at “home” really mean?

Numbers 33 suggests that so often we move physically from place to place, but our deeper journey (the Hebrew Mas’ei means “marches” or “journeys”) is spiritual. Pesach reminds us that we began as a wandering people. Living in a sukkah for 8 days annually reminds us that being human means never truly settling, that our lives are fragile and our circumstances flimsy at best, like a temporary hut. This sense of wandering and homeless vulnerability is built into the Jewish psyche.

Rabbi Green wrote, “We are still wandering through our wilderness, not knowing if we’ll ever get to our Promised Land. Meanwhile we struggle with the meaning of all this travel, seeking to find out how each way station will reveal some secret. All we can do for now is to write them all down. What they mean is something we’ll hopefully figure out later, when we have time.” (Ibid, p. 250)

Mas’ei is the portion for this coming Shabbat (Numbers 33:1-36:13) and concludes the Book of Numbers.

Chazak chazak v’nitchazek – Be strong, be strong, and together we will strengthen one another.