Category: Rabbi’s Dvrei Torah

This week’s Torah portion, V’etchanan, includes some Hebrew words that, if a person in their life utters any Hebrew words at all, these words are probably among them: Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad… “Hear O’Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One.”

I’m curious what these words – so familiar – really mean to us?

From these words which our tradition has taken from the Torah and made into a prayer, a statement of faith – What do we internalize and make part of our being? These words which are to be our last said before going to sleep, when we wake up, and before we die; Words we are told to set upon our hearts, teach with care and loving and patience and intensity to our children; Words we are to say in our home and all along the roads we travel in our lifetime; Words we are supposed to bind onto our hands and keep before our eyes; The words we put in the mezuzot on our doorways and on our gates…What do these words really say to us?

Do we treat these words as a kind of magical incantation? Are these words a kind of catechism that we have to believe? (Don’t you think God was smarter than that – telling Jews what they have to believe?! Good luck with that!)

Shalom Chaverim!

Oftentimes the simplest things are the best. Sometimes they are the most important, too.

Take for example this week’s Torah portion which begins the last of the five books of the Torah. The world calls this book “Deuteronomy” which we can sort of understand from its Latin and Greek roots: deuteros meaning “second” (as in the number, sequence) and nomos, meaning “law”. The title “Deuteronomy” suggests that this book is about the 2nd presentation of the Torah as law. Indeed, among many other things, Deuteronomy contains Moses’ retelling of all that has come before. However it is told with elaborations, nuances, and many other details that make it more than a mere repeat.

Shalom Chaverim!

Do you like mysteries?

Have a look at the Hebrew below from the start of Numbers chapter 33 and notice the order of the underlined words in the second verse. This is from the start of the second of this week’s double Torah portion, Mattot-Massei:

אֵ֜לֶּה מַסְעֵ֣י בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר יָצְא֛וּ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם לְצִבְאֹתָ֑ם בְּיַד־מֹשֶׁ֖ה וְאַהֲרֹֽן׃

וַיִּכְתֹּ֨ב מֹשֶׁ֜ה אֶת־מוֹצָאֵיהֶ֛ם לְמַסְעֵיהֶ֖ם עַל־פִּ֣י יְהוָ֑ה וְאֵ֥לֶּה מַסְעֵיהֶ֖ם לְמוֹצָאֵיהֶֽם׃

With no need even to translate, did you notice that the order of the words has been reversed? There is nothing accidental in Torah. So we can ask “Why has the order been reversed? What is it trying to teach us?”

Though it probably is not your favorite thing to do, I nevertheless ask you to take a moment or two to try to recall something about Yom Kippur: Several times throughout the services of Yom Kippur, we recite the vidui, the “confession”. You know the one, where we strike our hearts accompanied by a plaintive melody as we list all the bad things we did. Those sins for which we confess are listed aleph-ad-taf, from “A” through to “Z”. The Reform Movement’s machzor (High holiday prayerbook) calls this “an alphabet of woes.” Now, keep in mind that each of us is not necessarily guilty of having personally committed all those ‘sins’. Nevertheless, we rise as one community to make the confession because we are all involved whether collectively as a community, as humans, and/or as members of a democratic society in which (as Heschel said) “not all are guilty but everyone is responsible.” Indeed, just before we recite the long list of misdeeds we say: “Our God and God of our ancestors, may our prayers come before You, and do not turn away from our supplication, for we are not so insolent and stubborn as to declare before You, Adonai our God and God of our ancestors, that we are righteous and have not sinned. For, indeed, we have sinned.”

I am eager for the approach of sunset today and the start of our annual Shabbat-on-the-Beach services. What I most love about the Jewish experience of life I find to be present in abundance when folks gather together at a beach to greet Shabbat as a community: The creating of a spirit of Jewish culture and innovation; The celebration of beauty and life-in-general by experiencing life specifically as Jews-in-particular; Being in-tune with “Jewish time” and the universe as we greet Shabbat to the waves’ rhythm; Experiencing the moment with you all and being a part of this community… What does true community feel like? Moses Maimonides said that because God is so beyond what we mere humans are, we cannot fathom anything that truly describes what God IS. So, claims Maimonides, the best we can do is to say what God is NOT. I’m not sure I agree totally, but Maimonides’ point came to mind when I re-read the poem below, by the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai. This poem is a fascinating reflection on this week’s Torah portion, Balak.

You know you must sound like ‘a broken record’ to your kids when you yourself have grown tired of repeating the same mantra to them!

My little one has been attending a summer day-camp all week, and all week long he only deigns to speak with me to complain about how bad everything is: what is lacking or dysfunctional or boring or disliked; what is not tasty or too much of or not enough of or which is somehow else dissatisfying; what is wrong, outdated, or not-as-good-as….or (it feels like) he grants a vast silence if he can’t find anything negative to say. In assessing how something was, I’ve learned that a shrug can feel like a resounding endorsement when compared to silence or bitter condemnation! Who knew?!

Focus on the positive, I tell him again and again, not the negative.

In last week’s Torah portion, Shelach Lecha, we saw the disastrous results of the spies’ focus on the negative rather than on the positive. This week’s Torah portion, Korach, seems to repeat the message, showing us again the consequences of how Korach put a negative spin on everything about the leadership of the Israelites in the desert to foment a rebellion that led nowhere but down.

Perspective can make or break the world.

What is dismissed as small or unimportant, could in fact be crucial.
Where some people see problems, others see not problems but challenges.
Bigger might not always be better, nor is more sophisticated always the most efficacious.
When some see crisis, others see opportunity.
When some fearfully warn, others encourage hope…

In this week’s Torah portion, Sh’lach Lecha, spies are sent to scout out the Promised Land. All the spies see the same things. Except for Joshua and Caleb, the spies give a bad report on the Land and express fear and doom if they try to enter it. Joshua and Caleb give a glowing report and express the hope that the Land is there for them to take and inhabit. The people hear the fear and take the warning. As a result, the entire generation of Israelites proves itself unworthy of going to the Promised Land. They wander the desert for another 38 years or so until they all die off in the wilderness. It will fall to a new generation to go up and conquer the Land on which to build the utopian society the Torah prescribes.

Shalom Chaverim,

There was an event going on down the block from my house recently.

On the sidewalk was a laughing toddler trying to chase after her granddad without falling down. She was laughing because her granddad was doing his best to clown her – spinning a ball on his finger, calling her name in a sing-song voice, doing a silly dance as he led her down the walkway. He picked a flower and stuck it in his mouth as he continued to spin the ball. In response he got a new gurgle of laughter and a couple more teetering steps.

The lengths we’ll go to make a baby laugh! To coax a smile from our beloved! To find moments of awe, wonder, and delight in our world!

One place I look for wonder each week is in trying to understand what the week’s ancient Torah portion has to teach us about what is going on in our world right now. Perhaps I do this because it is usually so much easier and accessible to find wonder here than by climbing a peak hoping to glimpse a brilliant brief sunrise, or getting down to the beach to meditate in rhythm to the crashing waves, or whatever. It seems there is always something in the Torah if I just look for it…

The “highlight” of this week’s Torah portion, Nasso, is something you are all familiar with: The Birkat Kohanim, the priestly blessing of the people of Israel. You know the one [from Numbers 6:24-26]… May the Eternal bless you and protect you; May the Eternal’s Face give light unto you and show you favor; May the Eternal’s Face be lifted toward you and bestow upon you Peace. In fact, the original Hebrew is even more concise and sublimely structured, with the first line composed of only 3 words, the second line 5 words, and the last line 7 words. The first word is “יְבָרֶכְךָ֥” – ye’varechecha, “may [God] bless you”, and the concluding word is “שָׁלֽוֹם” – shalom, “peace”. There is yet another crucial insight we learn from the ‘structure’ of this blessing. The priestly blessing concludes chapter 6 of Numbers, and the Torah portion itself concludes at the end of chapter 7 by emphasizing that the words of Torah – including the words of our priestly blessing – are transmitted to Moses when Moses comes to the Tent of Meeting and hears the Voice of God speaking to him from atop the Ark of the Testimony, from between the two cherubim.

Shalom Chaverim, The Festival of Shavuot, which begins after Shabbat this Saturday night – we begin a new book of the Torah with parashat BaMidbar on Shabbat morning – is one of […]