Category Archives: Holidays

The Sixth Cup?

06 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish Identity

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Exodus 6:6-8 is the basis upon which the rabbis determined that 4 cups of wine are to be consumed during the Passover Seder. Each cup corresponds to one of the 4 verbs that describes how God freed the Israelite slaves from Egyptian bondage:

“… I will free you (ho-tzei-ti et’chem) from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you (v’hi-tzal’ti et’chem) from their bondage. I will redeem you (v’ga-al-ti et’chem) with an outstretched arm … And I will take you (v’la-kach’ti et’chem) to be My people, … I will bring you (v’hei-vei-ti et’chem) into the land…”

Wait! There are 5 verbs, not 4, and so we have to wonder why we don’t drink 5 cups of wine.

Some explain that Elijah’s cup is the 5th cup and is the most important of all because it symbolizes the future messianic era when justice, compassion, and peace will characterize all human affairs.

Others say that since the Haggadah is a Diaspora text (the first Seder was held in the middle of the night in Egypt), from the perspective of the Haggadah the 5th verb points to a state of being that has not yet occurred because the people have not as yet entered the land of Israel.

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, some Israelis identify the 5th cup of wine as the “Zionist cup” representing the fulfillment of the Zionist project in the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Rabbi Josh Weinberg (President of the Association of Reform Zionists of America – ARZA) suggests that perhaps there ought to be an additional cup of wine, a 6th cup symbolizing the need of every Jew to understand, acknowledge and reconcile the differences that characterize Diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews, Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews, political right-wing and political left-wing Jews, young Jews and old Jews.

A 6th cup of wine can be a reminder that the unity of the Jewish people must be a principle goal for us all. The concluding verses in the Prophetic Book of Malachi,  the Haftarah portion read on this Shabbat Tzav, present both the challenge  and the consequences of failure in stark terms:

“Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the awesome, fearful day of the Lord. He [Elijah] shall reconcile parents with children and children with their parents, so that, when I come, I do not strike the whole land with utter destruction.” (3:23-24)

May your Seders be filled with understanding and light, renewal and optimism, meaning and significance, good food and wine, loving family and friends, joy and hope.

Shabbat shalom and Chag Pesach sameach!

A Jubilee Haggadah Marking the 50th Year Since the 1967 War

26 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Social Justice

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A new Haggadah has just been published by SISO (“Save Israel – Stop the Occupation”). It is called the Jubilee Haggadah because it marks the 50th year since the 1967 War, a turning point in the history of the modern State of Israel that the writers and editors conjoin with the biblical Jubilee commandment – “You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you…” (Leviticus 25:10) – and with the celebration of Passover, the festival of liberty.

The Haggadah is part of a new initiative begun by prominent Israeli individuals and organizations in partnership with Jewish leaders around the world who believe that the prolonged Israeli military occupation poses a very real threat to Israel’s safety and well-being, and undermines the moral and democratic fabric of Israel and its standing in the community of nations. See SISO’s website – https://www.siso.org.il.

Critics will argue that this Haggadah does not provide adequate historical context nor, in the words of one of its contributors, Professor of Jewish History at Ben Gurion University Haviva Pedaya, a “political outline of how to bring about a solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Dr. Pedaya acknowledges:

“Nor is one party alone guilty for the complex situation. In broad visions, the discussion about the concept of the victim and the subjugator is most complex. But those people who ate potato peels on Seder nights, who recited by heart the Haggadah in the concentration camps, like those people who ate the manna in the desert or those slaves whose children drowned in mortar and were built into the pyramids – those people come to us with the demand: turn the face of the brother to the other and to responsibility.”

So many Jews and lovers of the State of Israel have come to accept what seems to be a historical inevitability, that Israel will forever occupy another people. This Haggadah addresses the moral consequences of failing to advocate for the only solution that can best assure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character – a two-states for two peoples resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

SISO’s editor and publisher describe the Haggadah in these words:

“Thirty authors, artists, and thinkers from throughout the Jewish world have joined together — in commentary, song, and moral outcry — and proposed contemporary interpretations to the Haggadah.

From Amos Oz to Sarah Silverman, Achinoam Nini to Leon Wieseltier, Anat Hoffman to Carol Gilligan, in this fiftieth year, we are proclaiming liberty throughout this land for all its inhabitants.

The Haggadah is edited by Dr. Tomer Persico. The texts are rich, nuanced and diverse, and together with the original artwork and design (by leading Israeli graphic designer Michal Sahar) make this a beautiful work that invites reflection and conversation.

I am honored to be among the thirty contributors (page 4 – item 1). I offer a few commentaries to evoke the spirit of this Haggadah. The entire text that can be downloaded at nif.org/sisohaggadah:

“We were not born to be people of masters… We are condemned now to rule people who did not want to be ruled by us… The shorter the occupation lasts, the better for us, because an occupation is inevitably a corrupting occupation, and even a liberal and human occupation. I have fears about the kind of seeds we will sow in the near future in the hearts of the occupied. Even more, I have fears about the seeds that will be implanted in the hearts of the occupiers…” (Amos Oz – Davar, August 22, 1967)

“We must care for each other. We must see each other clearly… as equal under God … We must recognize each other’s humanity, aspirations, rights, emotions … at the end of the day, the only way to be saved by God from whatever ‘Egypt’ is enslaving you, is to love your neighbor as you love yourself.” (Achinoam Nini – Noa – Israeli singer and peace activist)

“Now that we have returned to the land by the grace of God, and are privileged to move through all of the land of Israel and to settle in it, we have to protect ourselves and to safeguard our security – but not to base our existence on life by the sword. We are tested by our ability not to rule another people by ‘force,’ but to live here by ‘My spirit.’ In other words, to build a model society. If in Egypt we became foreigners who were denied all rights to existence, liberty, and the land, and in this lay the root of our subjugation, we must not do to others what we ourselves hate. The Palestinian people that lives among us also needs its land, its existence, and its liberty…. Only through a brave conjoining of all the children of Abraham who dwell in this land will God’s blessing to our forefather Abraham, and ‘all of the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him’ come true for us.” (Rabbi Michael Melchior, Jerusalem thinker, activist and former Israeli government minister)

“Of all people, Jews know the bitterness of being oppressed – and not being in our own country. That’s what makes the occupation so ironic. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between right and wrong, the situation is complicated and scary, but I’m guessing oppression will always prove to be on the wrong side of history.” (Sarah Silverman, comedian, and actress)

“The quarrel between Israel and Palestine has been a bleeding wound for decades, a wound that is hemorrhaging and is full of pus. You can’t keep waving a big stick and beating a bleeding wound again and again so as to scare it and make it finally stop being a wound and finally stop bleeding. A wound has to be healed. And there’s a way to gradually heal this wound.” (Amos Oz, January 2017)

I recommend downloading the entire Haggadah and using whatever commentaries you choose during the course of your own Seder.

A story of a Jewish soldier fighting in George Washington’s army during Hanukah

23 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Holidays, Jewish History, Stories

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I heard a knock on the door. …and incredibly, my General, George Washington is standing in the doorway.

It is Hanukah in the year of 1776. The winter is hard and the cold is fearsome. We are starving for bread. We have no clothes to warm our bodies and no shoes for our feet.

At these moments, I am reminded of my father in Poland. I recall how much he suffered at the hands of the cruel Baron. I remember I was but a youngster and saw my father dance before the Baron. How terrible was the sight. My father was made to dress up in the skin of a white bear and he danced for the sport of the Baron and his guests. How great are my pain and shame. Father dances as a bear and the Baron jests and revels. I affirm in my heart that I will never be so humiliated myself. At my first opportunity, I set sail to America.

It is now the first night of Hanukah. This very night, two years ago, I fled from my father’s home in Poland. My father gave me a Hanukah menorah and said, “When you will light, my son, these candles for Hanukah, they will illuminate the path for you.” From that day on, my menorah was as an amulet. Wherever I go, I take it with me.

Suddenly, I feel a soft, tender hand upon my head. I lift my eyes and behold it is him, in all his majesty, General George Washington standing upon me. He asks me, “Why soldier do you cry? Is it then so very cold?”

I forgot at that moment that I am a soldier in the presence of my superior, and spoke before him as a child to a parent. “My master the General,” I said. “I cry and pray for your victory. I am certain with the help of God, we shall prevail. Today, the enemy is strong; tomorrow they will surely fall, for justice is with us. We seek to be free in this land; we desire to build a country for all who flee from oppression and suffer abroad. The Barons will not rule here. The enemy will falter and you will succeed.”

The General shook my hand. “Thank you, soldier,” he said and sat at my side next to the menorah. “What is this?” asked the General. I told him I brought it from my parent’s home. Jews the world-over light this menorah to celebrate the great miracle of Hanukah and the miraculous salvation of the Jews.

The light of the Hanukah menorah danced in the eyes of General Washington as he called forth in joy: “You are a Jew from the children of prophets and you declared that we shall prevail.”

“Yes my master,” I answered with confidence. “We will be victorious as the Maccabees of old, for our own sake and the sake of all who follow us to build a new land and a new life.”

The General got up; his face was ablaze. He shook my hand and disappeared into the darkness. My faith was rewarded, victory was achieved, and peace reigned in the land. My General became the leader of our new country, and I became one of its citizens.

I quickly forgot those frightful days and nights at Valley Forge. However, that first night of Hanukah, with General Washington, I carried in my heart always as a precious dream.

The first night of Hanukah the following year of 1777, I was sitting in my house in New York on Broome Street, with the Hanukah light in my window. Suddenly, I heard a knock on the door. I opened the door, and incredibly, my General, George Washington is standing in the doorway. “Behold, the wondrous flame, the flame of hope of all Jewry,” he called forth in joy as he gazed upon its light.

The General placed his hand upon my shoulder and said: “This light and your beautiful words lit a flame in my heart that night. Surely, you and your comrades will receive due recognition for all of your valor at Valley Forge. But this night, accept from me, this medallion.”

He hung the medallion of gold upon my chest and shook my hand. Tears came to my eyes; I couldn’t say a word. The General shook my hand once again and left the house.

I stirred as if coming from a beautiful dream. I then looked upon my medallion and saw a beautiful engraving of a Hanukah menorah with the first candle lit. Below was written, “As an expression of gratitude for the candle of your menorah.”

This medallion is part of the permanent collection in the Jewish Museum in New York.

Shabbat shalom and Hag Hanukah sameach!

Source: Ulpan Or Jerusalem

Is there really nothing new under the sun?

21 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Holidays, Jewish Identity, Poetry

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“Havel havalim amar Kohelet; havel havalim hakol havel – Utter futility! Said Kohelet – Utter futility! All is futile! What real value is there in all the gains a person makes beneath the sun? One generation goes, another comes, but the earth remains the same forever…only that shall happen which has happened, only that occur which has occurred; Ein chadash tachat hashamesh – there is nothing new beneath the sun!”
Ecclesiastes 1:2-9

Depressing, realistic, cynical – or all three?

In the mid-1990s, I taught a year-long weekly seminar at my synagogue on the book of Ecclesiastes and its rabbinic commentary in Kohelet Rabbah. I began with thirty-five students. After a year, five remained.

I was assured by a number of the students that the drop in enrollment wasn’t because I was a bad teacher, though I wondered.

The following year, I taught another year-long seminar on the thought and writings of Rabbi Abraham Heschel. We began with about fifty students and retained most everyone.

I confess that I was relieved and thank Heschel for saving me!

What was the difference between the two classes? Those who delved into the thought of Ecclesiastes wanted to kill themselves whereas Heschel inspired them! Ecclesiastes  depressed the “Kohelet drop-outs” because they didn’t want to spend their Sundays engaged with cynicism/realism (depending how you read the book). They voted down Ecclesiastes with their feet. I have always, by the way, found the book fascinating – but that’s me!

The scroll of Ecclesiastes is the text, nevertheless, from the collection of Writings that we read every year during the festival of Sukkot. Given it’s depressing themes, why would we do that? Sukkot, after all, is called “Z’man sim’cha-tei-nu – a time of our joy.” We greet one another with these words during the holiday: “Moadim l’simchah – May you be joyful during this time.”

Some scholars suggest that Ecclesiastes was an argument against the ancient Greek pagan world when bacchanalian orgies and wild celebrations were taking place. The rabbis thought that reading Ecclesiastes would kick the Jew in the gut and slap his face, recalling Cher slapping the love-sick John Cusack in “Moonstruck” and shouting – “Snap out of it!”

The theme of the changing seasons, as described in the first chapter of the scroll, may be the real reason this text was matched with Sukkot, though Ecclesiastes is a philosophical oddity and counter to the rabbinic worldview. Its philosophy is Greek, not Jewish – though the Rabbinic Midrash attempts valiantly to spin the book as a reflection of rabbinic theology. One can imagine Kohelet taking the Aristotelian and modern scientific view that nothing has ever been created or destroyed, that God as Creator is a necessary truth for the masses of Jews who need not only to believe in a commanding God but also recognize that there must be a higher moral authority when ordering Jewish society, thus giving ultimate meaning to our lives.

The question is – was Ecclesiastes right when he proclaimed – “There is nothing new under the sun!” Did he mean to say that this is the world as it’s always been and ever will be and that nothing we think, feel and create as human beings is ever new?

The 1996 Nobel Prize acceptance speech for literature by the Polish writer Wislawa Szymborska is eloquent. She insisted that, yes, there is something new under the sun – each and every day. She addressed Kohelet directly in these words:

“I sometimes dream of situations that can’t possibly come true. I audaciously imagine, for example, that I get a chance to chat with Ecclesiastes, the author of that moving lament on the vanity of all human endeavors. I bow very deeply before him, because he is one of the greatest poets, for me at least. Then I grab his hand. ‘There’s nothing new under the sun’ That’s what you wrote, Ecclesiastes. But you yourself were born new under the sun. And the poem you created is also new under the sun, since no one wrote it down before you. And all your readers are also new under the sun, since those who lived before you couldn’t read your poem. And that cypress under which you’re sitting hasn’t been growing since the dawn of time. It came into being by the way of another cypress similar to yours, but not exactly the same. And Ecclesiastes, I’d also like to ask you what new thing under the sun you’re planning to work on now? A further supplement to thoughts you’ve already expressed? Or maybe you’re tempted to contradict some of them now? In your earlier work you mentioned joy – so what if it’s fleeting?  So maybe your new-under-the-sun poem will be about joy?  Have you taken notes yet, do you have drafts?  I doubt that you’ll say, ‘I’ve written everything down, I’ve got nothing left to add.’ There’s no poet in the world who can say this, least of all a great poet like yourself.”

The Kotzker Rebbe was once asked if he had the power to revive the dead. He answered: “Reviving the dead isn’t the problem; reviving the living is far more difficult!”

Certainly, nature has set its course; but the human being is a thinking, creating and transcendent being, and we do indeed, I believe, have the capacity to create ourselves anew in every moment and thus improve ourselves (tikkun hanefesh) and the world (tikkun olam).

This series of Holidays from the beginning of Elul through the High Holidays, Sukkot and Simchat Torah is our season for the Jewish people to celebrate spiritual rebirth and renewal. Our world view is a challenge to Kohelet. Yes, there is something new under the sun! Everything!

Moadim l’simchah and Shabbat Shalom.

High Holiday Sermons 2016-5777 – Read and/or Watch

14 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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For those interested, Temple Israel has posted my sermons (below) on our Temple website (written texts and UTube) as well as those of my colleagues, Rabbi Michelle Missaghieh and Rabbi Jocee Hudson.

Hag Sukkot Sameach!

see   http://www.tioh.org/worship/rabbis/clergystudy

Rabbi John Rosove’s High Holyday Sermons:

10 Days-10 of Life’s Biggest Questions Answered by You

29 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Uncategorized

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For the past several years I have participated in a project of “Reboot” in which on each of the days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur I received a question in my email. I answered the questions each day, and the following year was sent my answers. I could see where I was, where I wished to go, and where I am now as the New Year begins.

I recommend this to everyone who wants to utilize the High Holidays for introspection and reflection.

Here is Reboot’s description of 10Q:

Answer one question per day in your own secret online 10Q space. Make your answers serious. Silly. Salacious. However you like. It’s your 10Q. When you’re finished, hit the magic button and your answers get sent to the secure online 10Q vault for safekeeping. One year later, the vault will open and your answers will land back in your email inbox for private reflection. Want to keep them secret? Perfect. Want to share them, either anonymously or with attribution, with the wider 10Q community? You can do that too.

Next year the whole process begins again. And the year after that, and the year after that. Do you 10Q? You should.

10Q begins October 2nd, 2016

10Q: Reflect. React. Renew.
Life’s Biggest Questions. Answered By You.

Get started by clicking onto this site – http://www.doyou10q.com/

10 Suggestions of things to do before Rosh Hashanah

18 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Health and Well-Being, Holidays

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Tonight is the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Elul, and that means not only that there is a full moon that will pass across tonight’s sky, but that in two weeks Rosh Hashanah will arrive.

Tradition teaches that Elul is the “get ready” month before the commencement of the Days of Awe.

In the spirit of David Letterman, I offer here my list of top ten suggestions of things to do to get ready for the High Holidays in descending order of importance:

#10 – Relax: Take your shoes off. A USA Today study reported years ago that those who habitually kick off their shoes tend to live three years longer than the average American. Your feet are like the soul. Feet bound for too long stink and cloistered souls block the light. Slow down. Think about where you are in your life, what you want and need, whether you are happy or sad, fulfilled or frustrated.

#9 – T’shuvah: Be self-critical. Identify those things that keep you from being your better self. Commit to breaking at least one bad habit in the New Year. For example, let go of the anger, resentment, and hurt that you’ve allowed to build up over time. Stop writing everything that comes to mind on social media if what you say is hurtful to others. Assess whether you’ve been honest in your business affairs and taken advantage of others even if what you did wasn’t against the letter of the law. Commit to not doing those things in the New Year. Focus on the good qualities of others and not their bad qualities. Stop complaining about other people. Assume responsibility for what you yourself have done wrong. Clean up your language. If you wouldn’t say something in front of a child or your mother, don’t say it in front of anyone.

#8 – Meditate: The American Institute on Stress reports that 75-90% of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress-related complaints. Meditation is one means to become more self-conscious, self-aware and calmer. Meditating can be done anywhere and at any time, when listening to music, looking at fine art, reading wonderful literature, exercising, walking in nature, and sitting still. Meditation trains us to listen mindfully and to be present fully with our loved ones, friends and even strangers. Become at-one with your environment.

#7 – Exercise: Walk, swim, ride a bike, go to the gym, keep your body toned. Whenever possible, walk stairs and park at the far end of a parking lot. The calories burned this way will shed pounds of fat over time, lower your heart rate and blood pressure, and afford you a greater sense of well-being. Eliminate sugar and salt, soft drinks, packaged food, and fast food from your diet. Reduce the size of your portions. Don’t eat late at night.

#6 – Do at least one of the following each day:
• Have an ice cream
• Eat a piece of dark chocolate
• Buy a loved one a gift for no reason
• Stretch whenever you feel like it
• Sing in the shower
• Say hello to and smile at a perfect stranger
• Let that guy cut in front of you in traffic
• Pet a dog

#5 – Say “No” to requests if you feel already overtaxed and exhausted. Say “Yes” whenever you know doing so will feed your soul and open your heart. Read great literature. Learn from great teachers. Do random acts of kindness. Give tzedakah whenever asked by someone on the street, and don’t question his/her motives. Visit the sick. Call the lonely. Touch, hug and kiss an elderly person who may not have been touched in a long while.

#4 – Friendships: Apologize to the people that you’ve wronged and do so without condition. Don’t blame anyone for your own mistakes. Express gratitude freely. Compliment people when they have done something that inspired your gratitude and praise.

#3 – Worship: Studies indicate that those who worship regularly in community are less lonely, are healthier and live longer than those who never come to religious services.

#2 – Shabbat: Light candles every Friday evening, even when you’re alone. Buy or bake challah for ha-motzi. Drink quality wine for kiddush. Acknowledge God’s presence. Remember before Whom you stand. Sense being at one with everyone and everything around you (i.e. at-one-ment).

#1 – Torah: Learn Torah and find special verses that reflect your faith and values. Make them your own (e.g. “Vay’hi or – Let there be light!” “V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha – Love your fellow as yourself,” “V’ahavta et Adonai Eloheicha – Love Adonai your God,” “Tzedek tzedek tirdof – Justice, justice shall you pursue,” “Shiviti Adonai l’negdi – I have set God opposite me,” “Sh’ma Yisrael – Listen O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai alone!”) Commit your favorite verses to memory. Repeat them to yourself as if they are your mantras.

These are my 10 suggestions for the days remaining in the month of Elul – and beyond.

May the New Year return each of us to lives of kindness, wonder, sweetness, goodness, family, friends, community, the Jewish people, Torah, and God.

L’shanah tovah u-m’tukah (For a good sweet New Year)

“All you need is love!”

04 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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“All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need…” (John Lennon – 1967)

Surveys indicate that we gravitate throughout our lives to the music and musical groups we loved when we were teens. For me, it’s the Beatles, Dylan and much of the classic folk music of the 60s, as well as Israeli music of the classic pioneer era. The Song of Songs was a popular source for much of that music, and perhaps, this is why my wife and I engraved on the inside of our wedding rings “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li – I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” (Song of Songs 6:3)

Attributed to King Solomon as a young man, the eight-chapter  poem expresses the passionate romantic yearning and love between two lovers. Tradition recognizes, however, that the Song is far more than a secular love poem. It is understood as an allegory of the eternal love between the people of Israel and God. Rabbi Akiva said of the Song when debating whether the poem would be included in the Biblical canon at the end of the first century CE: “For all the ages are not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the Writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.”

I recall the Song and particularly this verse because today is the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul in which the Jewish people begins a 30-day period of introspection and self-criticism leading to Rosh Hashanah. Today also commences a 40-day period that crescendos on Yom Kippur, the same period of time that Moses communed with God and received Torah (Exodus 34:28).

The verse – Ani l’dodi v’dodi li – evokes both this Hebrew month and the goal of our 30- and 40-day periods. The verse is an acrostic – the first letter of each word – Aleph – lamed – vav – lamed – spells Elul, suggesting that it is love that can lead us back to ourselves, to everything we cherish, to our families, friends, community, people, Torah, and God – “All you need is love!”

May this season be a time of turning, renewal and love for you, the people of Israel, and all children of the earth.

Journeys into Judaism – Shavuot Truths in the wake of Terrorist Desecration

13 Monday Jun 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Life Cycle, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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The Shavuot experience I am about to describe was taking place at precisely the time of the terrorist attack in Orlando. The contrast of our experience against that hate crime is stark and devastating. I am posting this reflection only 24 hours after the carnage as a way to counter spiritually, emotionally, morally, and Jewishly the desecration and destruction of life and community that terrorism and violence represents.

The three speakers, Jews by-Choice, at our Tikun Leil Shavuot celebration told our community that they do not feel that they had left anything behind when they converted to Judaism. Rather, Judaism had become already an essential part of their identity by the time they underwent formal conversion.

Some had been married to a Jewish spouse already for years once they converted, but they were already living a Jewish life at home and in the synagogue and identifying with the Jewish community and people.

Others had met the love of their lives and decided before marriage that they wished to create a Jewish family and convert.

One grew up in Salt Lake City with a Mormon background and roots in America reaching back to the days of the pilgrims.

Another was born and raised in Texas as a Roman Catholic.

A third came from a non-religious home in the Midwest.

Each was attracted to Judaism because of our tradition’s emphasis on critical thinking and openness to questioning our faith tradition’s ideas concerning  ultimate issues of life and death, faith and God. They loved our people’s commitment to family, our tradition’s emphasis on high ethical living and the value we place as a people in performing acts of loving-kindness, on caring for the most vulnerable, on social justice and tikun olam. They are inspired by our people’s great thinkers and activists – Rabbi Akiva, Rambam, Isaac Luria, Martin Buber, Rabbis Heschel, Kaplan, and Cook. They identify with our historic struggle with God, and our aversion to accepting by rote any religious dogma.

They spoke about their feeling fully accepted for who they uniquely are in our liberal Jewish community. They understood, appreciated and identified with our concerns about preserving Jewish particularism and advancing our universal aspirations, that we care for and take responsibility for the character of own Jewish people and the rights and dignity of the “other.”

As we reflected on the meaning of covenant as it manifested at Mt Sinai and throughout the writings of our sages, and expressed in the Book of Ruth, these Jews by-choice understood that at the core of our people’s covenant with God is love, and love, and love, and love, and love some more – and that true religion must bring people together and not tear them apart.

As I sat and listened to these moving personal stories, I was deeply moved and inspired. We broke into chevruta discussion groups of 3 and 4 people to reflect about the transformative and transcendent moments in our lives and about how those experiences changed us and moved us forward on our respective Jewish paths, I heard that these people loved having found a liberal Jewish community that embraces without judgment and with full acceptance who they are as men and women, LGBTQ and straight, the faithful and the atheist and agnostic, the young, middle years and old.

When we reconvened, I observed how very different Jewish identity is today as compared to a century ago, and how much more embracing it has become of the uniqueness of the individual, but also that today Jewish identity is not a given.

Whereas the immigrant generation of our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents felt in their kishkes that they were Jews, many liberal Jews today come to Jewish life not from the shtetls and the pale of European Jewish settlement, nor from tightly bonded Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jewish families and communities, but from outside the tradition altogether. Consequently, every Jew must make the choice to be and do Jewish, and that takes learning and active engagement with Jewish communal life.

The words of Ruth to her mother-in-law Naomi after the death of her husband and two sons, one of whom was married to Ruth, go to the heart of Jewish tradition: “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.’” (Ruth 1:16)

Ruth’s love and commitment to the devastated Naomi healed them both and clarified the nature of the covenant forged between God and Israel at Sinai and between each of us – that we are a people meant to love and embrace each other, to care for each other and about each other, and to create and nurture communities that are worthy to stand in God’s presence.

Note: I am grateful to my colleagues Rabbi Michelle Missaghieh and Rabbi Jocee Hudson who conceived of and promoted this Shavuot experience.

The Wilderness Within – Parashat Bamidbar and Shavuot

10 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Beauty in Nature, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Quote of the Day

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We celebrate Shavuot on Saturday evening and Sunday this week. In the spirit of this holiday celebrating the giving of Torah, I offer from the literature of our people, ancient and modern, gleanings that consider the meaning of the wilderness as the site of the revelation of God and Torah.

“And God spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, from the tent of Meeting…” Numbers 1:1

“God transferred the Divine presence from Sinai to the Tabernacle, from the Sanctuary (Mishkan) of Adonai which God’s hands had established to the sanctuary which Israel had made. Adonai would henceforth speak to Moses from the tent of Meeting and indicate to Israel by means of the cloud when to journey and when to encamp. The Tabernacle was a mobile Sinai in the midst of them, the heavens and heavens of heavens (the holy place and the most holy place) transplanted and brought down to earth.” Rabbi Benno Jacob (1862-1945) – Reform Rabbi and Biblical Scholar, Germany

“One should be as open as a wilderness to receive the Torah.” Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 55a

“Torah was given in the wilderness because cities are filled with corruption, luxury, idolatry, and other evils…to be pure and ready to receive the Torah, one must be separated from all the vices of the city.” Philo, On the Decalogue I

“There is a wilderness within each person, a desert where selfish desires rule, where one looks out only for one’s own needs. No person is ever satisfied in the desert. There is constant complaining about lack of food and water, the scorching hot days and bitter cold nights. Anger, frustration, disagreements, and hunger prevail. The Torah is given in the desert to conquer and curb the demonic wilderness within human beings. If human beings do not conquer the desert, it may eventually conquer them. There is no peaceful coexistence between the two…” Rabbi Pinchas Peli – Jerusalem Post, June 1, 1985, p. 17

“To a people whose entire living generation had seen only the level lands of Egypt, the Israelites march into this region of mountain magnificence, with its sharp and splintered peaks and profound valleys, must have been a perpetual source of astonishment and awe. No nobler school could have been conceived for training a nation of slaves into a nation of freemen[women] or weaning a people from the grossness of idolatry to a sense of the grandeur and power of the God alike of Nature and Mind.” Nachman Ran, the Holy Land, p. V-27

“Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav…contrasts the sanctuary offered by wilderness to society’s corruption…in his depiction, in the story the Master of Prayer, societies have sunk one step below evil – into insanity. The story describes a series of countries, each organized around its own made obsession. In one, money is worshiped so totally that it has become the key to human identity: ‘Whoever had more money was a human being, and those who were very wealthy were considered gods.’ The master of prayer subversively penetrates these societies and draws people ‘out of the settled places,’ into the wilderness and a life of prayer and meditation…Prayer is the antidote to society’s obsessions because it alone has the power to lift consciousness out of the web of socially conditioned desires into a new matrix whose center is God.”  Rabbi Micha Odenheimer, The People and the Book – “To the Wilderness” – The Jerusalem Report, May 19, 1994, p. 35

“The wilderness is more than a physical location. B’midbar depicts a social wilderness, a human wasteland. This is the place where everything falls apart. It portrays a people wandering, without a shared vision, shared values, or shared words – leaders attempt to lead, but no one listens. The people of this wilderness, driven by fear and jealousy, moved only by hunger, thirst and lust, have no patience for God’s transcendent vision. This is a book of noise, frustration and pain. B’midbar may be the world’s strongest counterrevolutionary tract. It’s a rebuke to all those who believe in the one cataclysmic event that will forever free humans from their chains. It’s a response to those who foresee that out of the apocalypse of political or economic revolution will emerge the New Man. Here is the people who stood at Sinai, who heard Truth from God’s mouth – unchanged, unrepentant and chained to their fears. The dream is beyond them. God offers them freedom, and they clamor for meat…At the end of the book we arrive in the Promised Land – exhausted, depleted, defeated – B’midbar gives way to D’varim – “words” – shared words, shared values, shared direction. Moses talks; people listen. Moses leads; people follow – now shared vision – now dialogue and consensus – the key word of D’varim is Sh’ma – D’varim is a book of listening. This is the Torah’s message of hope, that nothing worth doing in life can be accomplished without crossing the midbar. But the midbar isn’t the last word. There is a promised land of D’varim.” – Rabbi Eddie Feinstein, “The Wilderness Speaks,”  Modern Men’s Torah Commentary, edited by Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, pps. 201-2013