What Am I Willing To Die Living For? – A Look at Freedom in the Seder

The stage is set thusly: We’re in Masechet Pesachim in the Talmud, chapter 10. Our sages are at it again. The makhloket (argument) this time is over when to lean during the Passover seder. One position holds that we only need to lean to the left for the first two cups of wine, as this is the point where our freedom commences. After we’ve finished reading the story, what’s done is done! The other position argues that we only recline for the third and fourth cups, because for the first two we are still slaves! Only after we’ve read the story of Passover, are we truly free. As we know, the halakhah (ruling) here is that we recline for all four cups, combining both opinions into one. Clearly, these two positions show some sort of correlation between reclining and freedom, but there also has to be some central difference in the type of freedom we are celebrating if the Rabbis are to argue about it. What is it the Rabbis are really arguing about?

To answer this, I want to begin by returning to Purim. Rabbi Joel Levy teaches that on Purim our lives are turned inside out. We realize the fictitious nature of our own stories and our own narratives. He even encourages people to dress up as something they deeply want to express about themselves, to expose their innermost desire, as a way of making more tangible this turning inside out. This experience is so painful, he teaches, that we have to drink to lessen the pain. How is it, though, that one month later, one month after we discover that all our stories are made up, can we celebrate Pesach, which commemorates the central-most narrative of the Jewish people?

The answer is that the story that we read is not just a story of our ancestors thousands of years ago, but it is in fact our story today as well. On Pesach we are supposed to ask ourselves, “What is my personal Mitzrayim [Egypt]?” What is it I want to leave behind this year? What is it that is holding me back, that I need to break free from this year?

This is why Purim is so important. On Purim, we realize that our own narratives are only of our own creation. This is painful, but it allows us on Pesach to finally let go of those narratives that are holding us back. It allows us to break free of the narratives that no longer work in our lives.

So on Pesach, we read the story of our own narrative for the last time! This is the essence of the first two cups. We drink to symbolize the freedom from our old narratives, the freedom from our personal Mitzrayim. After we read the story? ‘What’s done, is done.’

What then do the second two cups symbolize? They symbolize the freedom to write our own new narratives. How though, do we go about writing these freedom to narratives?

Last week, I watched the movie Selma on my flight back to Israel. This fantastic movie recalls the true story of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement’s march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, which propelled the Civil Rights Act and the equal right for people of color to vote in the United States. In one poignant scene, a young non-violent activist, Jimmy Lee Jackson, is brutally murdered by Alabama policemen. At his funeral, Martin Luther King Jr. says the following:

“Our lives are not fully lived if we are not willing to die for those we love and what we believe. Today Jimmy, we’re doing the living and you’ve done the dying.”

Today, we are doing the living and our ancestors have done the dying. Whether they were the Israelites who wandered for years in the desert and never had a chance to go into the holy land or our more recent ancestors who were the victims of pogroms and the Holocaust, these people never had this freedom to. They only had a hope that someday they would have freedom from the oppression, cruelty and antisemitism they faced.

Today, we are blessed to have an unprecedented level of freedom. Today, we do indeed have the freedom to write our own narratives. While we may be purely self-concerned in our quest for freedom from, I contend that we cannot be selfish in creating our new freedom narratives. Freedom to requires that we write others into our narrative, especially those less fortunate than us, because we too ‘were once slaves in Egypt’.
In the same vane as MLK, we must ask ourselves ‘What is it that I am willing to die living for?’ What is so important that I’ll leave my ‘comfortable suffering’ in Mitzrayim for? What is so important that I’m willing to wander in the desert for, possibly never arriving in the promised land?

The first two cups, we celebrate the freedom from our personal Mitzrayim. The second two cups, we celebrate the freedom to create new narratives in our lives. It’s not going to be easy. In fact, it may cause us much pain. But it is my blessing for us all that this year we can fully dedicate ourselves to our new narratives and to the causes we believe in, and that we are successful in leaving our old chametz behind. And may Hashem ensure that when our lives are over, we will have made a positive difference in the lives of others.

Hag Kasher v’Sameach

The Key To Youth and the Aleinu – Parshat V’zot Ha’brachah – Torah From the Holy Land

The Key To Youth – V’zot Ha’brachah

וּמשֶׁ֗ה בֶּן־מֵאָ֧ה וְעֶשְׂרִ֛ים שָׁנָ֖ה בְּמֹת֑וֹ לֹא־כָֽהֲתָ֥ה עֵינ֖וֹ וְלֹא־נָ֥ס לֵחֹֽה: (דברים לד:ז)

Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were undimmed and his natural force unabated. (Deuteronomy 34:7)

My personal motto is to “find your passion, whatever it may be, and don’t lose it, even for one second. You never know whose life you could have changed during that time”. Passion drives every major change in society, and is a must have for any leader. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks asks about the above pasuk, “What then was the secret of the undiminished energy of his last years?… I used to think that “his eyes were undimmed” and “his natural force unabated” were simply two descriptions, until it dawned on me that the first was an explanation of the second. Why was his energy unabated? Because his eyes were undimmed. He never lost the vision and high ideals of his youth. He was as passionate at the end as he was at the beginning… The moral is clear: If you want to stay young, never compromise your ideals.” In the last year, what ideals have you given up on or compromised? What dreams have you abandoned? This new year, commit to renewing those old passions and embrace your inner youth.

You can read the entire drash by Rav Sacks here.

Tefillah: Aleinu – The Final Call

Just as V’zot Ha’brachah ends the cycle of the Torah, so too does Aleinu end our daily tefillot. And just as V’zot Ha’brachah caps a climatic and moving recap of the journey of the Israelites, reiterating the importance of worshiping the one and only Almighty, so too does Aleinu remind us of the majesty of the Crown. Rabbi Yoel Sirkes (1561-1640) in his book Bayit Chadash, a commentary on the Tur, explains: “The reason [for reciting Aleinu at the end of the service] is to ingrain in our hearts, before we leave for our houses, the unity of the kingdom of God. Thus, our faith will be strengthened, in order that we ‘remove the foreign gods from the land.’’ How many ‘foreign gods’ do we still have today? Power, money, success, acclaim, lust, and all the desires of the ego to dominate the other are still very strong temptations in our society. Aleinu gives us one last moment to refocus before going out into the world. It allows us to get our priorities in order, and helps us cultivate a sense of awe and wonder of the miraculousness of the world and life itself. So before you rush off to fold up your tallit, take a deep breath and focus one more moment on the grandeur of the Divine.

Bereshit: A Primordial Light and Yotzer Or – Parshat Bereshit – Torah from the Holy Land

Torah – Bereshit: A Primordial Light

Have you ever gazed longingly at the sky on a star filled night, pondering the immensity of the universe? It’s an incredibly awe inspiring experience. Growing up, one of my favorite places to go was to the planetarium in Minneapolis, but it was shut down a number of years ago. A few months ago, I had the incredible opportunity to visit the Hayden Planetarium in New York. One thought that struck me was the brevity and smallness of human life in the universe. The light we see emitted from stars in the night sky can be light from BILLIONS of years ago, only just now reaching earth to be gazed upon. It reminded me of a Hannah Szenes quote: “There are stars whose light is visible on earth though they have long been extinct. Likewise, there are people whose brilliance continues to light the world, though they are no longer among the living. This light is particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for mankind.” We sit in shul today reading a text thousands of years old, that has spawned the world’s main religions and has been an inspiration for dozens of generations of Jews. And it all started with bereshit, a beginning in which light was created and separated from the darkness. It’s this light that we still feel and experience today in every interaction with our tradition. Today, as you ponder the awesomeness of the universe, ask yourself, how has my tradition been a guiding light for me? In what moments have I experienced this awesome light? And how am I going to amplify and enhance this light for the next generations?

Tefillah – Yotzer Or

In the beginning, the earth was unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep. The Creator said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. The Creator saw that the light was good, and separated the darkness from the light. In the beginning, the Creator created light, and separated the existing darkness.

In our morning prayers, however, immediately after the Barchu, we say the blessing yotzer or u’vorei choshech, oseh shalom u’voreh et hakol, Blessed are you who fashioned the light and created darkness, who makes peace and creates everything. If you look carefully, the tefillot flip the verb used to describe the creation of light, stressing that everything, even darkness, comes from the Creator. The blessing of yotzer or actually comes from Isiah 45:7, which stresses this point even more: “I form light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil-I the Lord do all these things…Shame on him who argues with his Maker, you are nothing but a pot made of earth! Shall the clay say to the potter, “What are you doing? Your work has no handles?…” (Isaiah 45:7-9). It goes on to stress that we humans are nothing but, to quote Reb Simcha Bunim, “ash and dust”. And this awareness of our own limitations and mortality is vitally important. Reb Simcha Bunim would teach that a person’s intellect leads them to an awe of their Creator, and this awe leads to humility. It’s only through humility that one can encounter God, for humility leads a person to find the Truth within. In our morning prayers, we have just cultivated a sense of awe of the Creator through the Psalms. The Yotzer Or brachah then reminds us to humble ourselves, so that we can approach the Creator with our full selves in the Amidah.

On Rebuke and Cleaving to haShem, and Psalm 95 – Parashat Vayera

Vayera: On rebuke and cleaving to haShem

Torah From The Holy Land by Rabbinical Student Sam Blustin

As haShem prepares to destroy the sinful people of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Torah records a curious statement in God’s name: “Now the Lord had said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do [with Sodom], since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him?” (Bereshit 18:17). This passage prompts many questions, such as why would haShem care at all about Abraham’s opinion in this case? However, the more interesting question I believe, is why does haShem hesitate at all in asking Abraham’s opinion? If this is a test of Abraham’s piety, then haShem should have asked him outright! I believe the answer to be that haShem was afraid that Abraham would fail, like Noah in not standing up for the people of the earth before the flood, and haShem’s whole monotheistic project would be over.

The Kedushat Levi teaches on parashat Noah that “there are two types of righteous people, both of whom serve the Lord. The first category does so with enthusiasm and profound devotion, but does so as an individual only, not endeavoring to draw other people, admitted sinners, nearer to their Creator.

There is a second category of tzaddik, righteous person, who not only serves the Lord himself, but who also is instrumental in leading sinners back to their Creator. Avraham was a prime example of the latter type of tzaddik. He was busy converting pagans to monotheism.

According to the Ari z”l, Noach was even punished for not ‎rebuking the pagans in his time…”

The Kedushat Levi continues, “Being “good” to one’s peers ‎involves more than being helpful and charitable; it includes ‎admonishing one’s neighbour when one observes him violating ‎G’d’s commandments.”

Being a student consumed by schoolwork, and now removed from my community studying in Israel, I too often feel like while I benefit from my Torah study, I have not made an real difference in the world around me. If I am even a fraction of a tzaddik, I’m much more like Noah than Avraham, spending my hours consumed in Torah with little attention paid to the life around me.

After the recent election, I am all the more convinced that I can no longer sit sequestered in the Beit Midrash (hall of study), but I must get out into the world and stand up for the ideals of love and justice that I hold to be so holy. I must stand up with those whose rights are being trampled on, and who have not been granted the privileges that I have. This is the holy task which Avraham models for us; it is not enough to endeavor to be close to haShem, but we must also stand up to rebuke those who sow the seeds of hatred and division, and help to bring them closer to that loving essence of the Creator. This is the test haShem hesitantly gives Avraham, and the test that we must rise up and pass now as well.

Tefillah: “They are a people whose hearts go astray”

For some time now, I’ve been bothered by the ending of Psalm 95, which is the first psalm we say every Friday night during Kabbalat Shabbat.

Arbaim shanah akut b’dor, vaomar am toei levav hem, v’hem lo yadu d’rachai. Asher nishbati v’api, im yevo’un El menuchati.

For forty years I strove with that generation. I said, “They are a people who hearts go astray, who have not understood My ways.” So I swore in My anger, “They shall not enter My place of rest.”

What kind of way is this to start out Shabbat? Why do we need to be reminded now of the fact that we can be a little stubborn? I couldn’t figure it out, until I was davening Kabbalat Shabbat a few months ago, and it suddenly came to me. I realized that far from a throw away verse, this was actually the most important key to observing Shabbat.

For forty years, the people stubbornly held onto their ways, closing off their hearts to haShem, and thereby others as well. They lusted after other gods and peoples, created the Golden Calf, and complained incessantly, causing them to stray from the truly important things in life, which are a life dedicated to love and the revelation of haShem in the world through our acts of chesed, lovingkindess. As a punishment, haShem vows that they will not enter the resting place of God. As we know, one of the important mitzvot of Shabbat is menucha, rest (look at the Shabbat song Menucha v’simcha, rest and joy). But without opening our hearts in love, we can never achieve what is the essence of Shabbat: rest. This is why Kabbalat Shabbat begins with Psalm 95; to remind us that we will never be satisfied in the pursuit of the fulfillment of our own egos. Only by opening our hearts will we find peace and menucha, a true Shabbat Shalom.

Sam Blustin is an alumnus of the Conservative Yeshiva (2014-2015) and a current Rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary (Class of 2020). You can view more divrei Torah at www.samblustin.com or contact Sam directly at samblustin@gmail.com.

The Power of Blessing and the Origin of Mincha – Parshat Chayei Sarah

Parshat Chayei Sarah – Torah from the Holy Land

The Missing Blessing

A few weeks ago, as I was walking to a Shabbos meal, a man came up to me and the people I was with. “My wife just gave birth to a new baby girl,” he said, “and my Rabbi says to ask every person I come across for a blessing for my new daughter. Would you offer a blessing for her?” he asked. Taken aback, I offered some sort of blessing that was less than inspiring, as did one of the people I was with (hers was much more inspiring). It struck me that this was the first time I had ever actually been asked for a blessing from someone, and it was someone I didn’t even know!

In the next few weeks, we will see the strife caused by a father’s blessings to his sons. In our parasha however, it’s blessing that is noticeably absent from the end of Avraham’s life. He gives his children gifts, but no blessings. Rabbi Danny Nevins, Dean of the JTS Rabbinical School, comments, “Rashi, working off a midrash in Bereshit Rabba (61:6), feels that Abraham was ‘afraid’ to bless Isaac since there might be implications for the other members of the family. Rashi says that Abraham didn’t want his future grandson Esau to receive the blessing, but the source Midrash says that Abraham was stymied by the challenge of his other children. If I bless Isaac, then what about Ishmael and the children of Keturah? Instead, Abraham gives Isaac material gifts, including the burial plot in Hebron, and then says, ‘I have done my part; if the Holy One wants to act in His world, let Him do so.’ Rashi rephrases this as, ‘let the master of blessings come and bless whoever it fits Him to bless.’” The challenge posed by blessings is great: one the one hand, it can lead to strife and jealousy, and on the other hand it can spread love and kindness to the world. Where is the balance between the silence of Avraham and the inequality of Isaac’s blessings to Jacob and Esau?

Blessings are an opportunity to connect to a person’s core. They say, “I care about you, and I want the best for you.” But for a blessing to uplift the other, it needs to come from that place of love. Not a selfish love, where the blessing is actually in some way beneficial to you as well, but a love that says “May you be blessed to fulfill the purpose for which you were put on this earth.” It may have been this reason Avraham couldn’t bless his own children. He knew that the destiny of one was to rule over the other, and so he left it in the hands of the Holy Blessing One. While he respected the Ultimate blessing, he preferred that his last words would bring his sons together in unity as opposed to divisiveness. This week, may we be blessed with the energy to renew our commitment to our ultimate purpose, and may our way be illuminated with the light of those came before us.

Origins of the Mincha Service

“Isaac went out to commune with God in the field towards evening, and he raised his eyes and saw, and behold! Camels were coming.” (Bereshit 24:63)

Where does the afternoon mincha service come from? Was it ordained by the Rabbis, after the destruction of the Temple rendered the afternoon sacrifice obsolete, or are its origins much older? Many early sources argue this very question, but it’s from this verse that the Talmud (Berachot 26b) and Midrash derive that our obligation for afternoon prayer stems from Isaac himself! While I won’t endeavor to solve that disagreement here, there’s an important question that remains. If the mincha service does indeed stem here from Isaac, what can we learn about the essence and spiritual energy of the service?

The verb translated above as “To commune with God” is lasuach. Lasuach is a complicated word, but could mean to commune, to meditate, to supplicate (as translated in ArtScroll), speak, or complain. In the BDB Bible dictionary, they claim it could mean l’hithalech, to walk or stroll, but the implication, from the use of the word in the context of Noah, is that here Isaac “walked with God”. In contrast to the morning and evening services where the are many prayers surrounding the Amidah (where we commune directly with God), the mincha service is our only daily service in which the Amidah pretty much stands alone. While there are practical time circumstances for this shortened service, the spiritual consequence is important. We come immediately from the outside world of all our cares and worries and walk immediately into the presence of the Divine. The focus of the service, as supported by the biblical passage, is clear; we are there to commune with the Divine. For a few minutes, in the hustle and bustle of our day, we stop to give ourselves perspective and remind ourselves that there is more to life than just the moment we are in. We are a part of something much larger.

You can view the PDF of this Torah here.

Let’s Talk About Israel – Parshat Toldot

Torah: Let’s Talk About Israel

A few weeks ago, we toured Masada, the impressive Herodian fortress made famous as the last stand of the Jews in the Jewish-Roman War. At this site, we discussed three different narratives of Masada: the narrative of the rebels as told by Josephus, the story the archeology tells, and the story of how Masada became a symbol for the modern State of Israel. This later story, which served as a rallying cry for early Zionism (“Shenit M’zadah lo tipol” – The second Masada shall not fall, using Masada as a metaphor for Israel), has begun to go out of fashion as Israel has settled into statehood. This vision of Israel hanging on by a thread, however, is still very prevalent in American Jewish circles. The idea that due to Israel’s fragility we cannot criticize it or hope for a better future for all inhabitants of the land has created a relationship with Israel for many young Jews that is impossible to sustain. To truly have a deep relationship, we must be able to sit down and talk with each other when there are problems.

Rav Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (1816-1893), also known as the Netziv, comments on the difference in the relationship of Isaac and Rebecca from the rest of our ancestors. Rebecca’s “relationship with Isaac was not the same as that between Sarah and Abraham or Rachel and Jacob. When they had a problem they were not afraid to speak about it. Not so with Rebecca” (Commentary to Gen. 24: 65). This lack of communication had dire results for the family. Isaac was incensed at Jacob’s betrayal. Esau resolved to kill Jacob after his father’s death. Rebecca, in fear, had to send her favorite child away for dozens of years. The family was torn apart in a way that would never be repaired.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks comments that “such is us the human price we pay for a failure to communicate. The Torah is exceptionally candid about such matters, which is what makes it so powerful a guide to life: real life, among real people with real problems. Communication matters. In the beginning God created the natural world with words: ‘And God said: Let there be.’ We create the social world with words. The Targum translated the phrase in Genesis 2, ‘And man became a living soul’ as ‘and man became a speaking soul.’ For us, speech is life. Life is relationship. And human relationships only exist because we can speak. We can tell other people our hopes, our fears, our feelings and thoughts.” (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks)

The same is true when it comes to our relationship with Israel. In order for the Israeli project to be sustainable for generations, we must learn how to express our hopes and our fears. We must have a conversation about the values with which we approach our relationship to Israel, and we each must put forth a vision for the society that we wish the Jewish State to be. And no matter where we may be, we must work to make that vision a reality. But it only begins when we can have a candid conversation with each other, listening, pushing, and critiquing, out of a deep love and desire for our State to be the best it can be. The warning in our texts is clear: If we are afraid to speak about our problems, the consequences could be far worse.

T’fillah: And the Blessing One Spoke (Baruch She’amar)

As we saw above, communication, or rather lack of communication, plays a central role in this week’s parasha. It’s the words that we speak, or choose not to, that can have immense power, and we see this in the Beginning. The entire universe was created with “And God spoke: Let there be…”. All that is in this world, all the stuff that life is made up of, was created from these initial words. Baruch She’amar v’haya haolam, Blessing be the one who spoke and the world was. Every morning we begin the P’sukei D’zimra service with this awesome statement. Harkening back to those original words, it’s an important reminder that the words we’re about to offer in praise, in prayer and throughout the day, can both be blessings and curses. Each word that comes from our mouths has the potential to create and destroy worlds. When you come to this prayer in the morning t’fillot, consider using it as a natural stop and focus on your voice. Be cognisant of how it feels as the vocal chords vibrate, creating voice. And let the power give us pause, each word emanating intentionally from our mouth.

You can view a PDF of this d’var here.

Revealing the Hidden – Parshat Vayeitzei

Parshat Vayeitzei – Torah From The Holy Land

Torah and Tefillah: Revealing the Hidden

The last few weeks have been tough for Israel, as it has literally been going up in flames. Some of the fires that have been consuming the north may have been the work of terrorist activity, exacerbated by the dry weather and strong winds blowing around the country. Instead of creating a further wedge between Jewish Israelis, Arab Israelis, and Palestinians, the Arab populations of Israel have gone out of their way in support of the victims of the fire, and contributed firefighters to help put them out. Through the fire, the minority populations in Israel have revealed a face not often seen by Israelis. Israel has come out of it stronger and more unified, with a little more love to go around.

In this week’s parasha, Jacob begins his journey to Haran to find a wife. On the first night, Jacob lays down to rest, and has his famous dream with the angels ascending and descending on a ladder. Jacob wakes up and proclaims “Mah nora haMakom hazeh! YHVH bamakom hazeh v’anochi lo yadati. How awesome is this Place! YHVH is in this place and I didn’t even know it.” Tradition teaches us that haMakom is actually a name of the Divine, one of the many. What is the aspect of the Divine that is revealed through this name?

A few weeks ago, I heard a d’var Torah at the Moreshet Yisrael synagogue in Jerusalem. The speaker, Rabbi Joshua, talked about the phrase that one is supposed to say right before they leave a mourner when sitting shiva, the seven days after the burial of a loved one. The phrase, haMakom y’nachem etchem b’toch sha’ar avelei Zion vIrushalim, May the Place comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, is a curious one for its use of haMakom as the name of the Divine. “Why”, he asked, “is haMakom used? It’s the place itself that does the comforting,” he said quoting his wife. “The community comes around you to keep you company and take care of you.” While I’m not sure it was intended to be a theological statement, it contains an important one nonetheless. It’s through the power of community coming together that we reveal the comforting power of the Divine. When, out of Divine commitment and values, we reach out and join our lives to the lives of others, we come together in Holy unity. This is a nice drash, explanation, but I think it’s even deep than this.

The name of the Divine in our parasha, haMakom, is brought to symbolize a hidden God that in fact was there all along. It’s only when we wake up that we can realize it. Ya’akov avinu was in his own world, worried about what his brother might do him and whether he might be able to find a wife. He was living a dream life, his head in the clouds, not aware of the moment. But he was startled out of his sleep by a visit from the Divine. Finally, he realized what his father and grandfather had known all along: the Divine is in every place, we need only to open our eyes.

This is the essence of the Divine in our parasha. In the moments where it seems like we’re the furthest from the Divine, when our world is literally and metaphorically on fire, we can call on haMakom. And through the fire we realize that even here the Divine is present all along. May the Holy Blessing One bless us in the coming week with a renewed sense of the Divine Spirit, that we may reveal more love, awe, and justice in the world.

You can view a PDF of the commentary here.

Parshat Tetzaveh – Words Matter | R’tzei and the Language of Sacrifice

Torah: Words Matter

Parshat Tetzaveh reads more like a fashion magazine or manual than a typical Torah story. It specifies in exacting detail how each garment that the Kohanim, the Priests, are to wear when attending to their duties in the Mishkan. These garments are not just to look good; if a mistake is made, they can cause any service to become invalid, or worse, can signal life or death. The garments themselves affect a change in the wearer, as it says that Aaron’s garments “sanctify him to minister to Me” (Exodus 28:3). Further, Aaron must wear a robe with bells on them, and that “it must be on Aaron in order to minister. Its sound shall be heard when he enters the Sanctuary before Hashem and when he leaves, so that he not die” (Exodus 28:35). In the case of the Kohanim, the clothes make the man, or at least, the service of Hashem.

Like clothing, words can also be used to dress up a concept. They can make something holy or be used to denigrate another human being. As we know, Judaism places a huge emphasis on the power of words. In the beginning, the Creator created the world with speech, and Balaam, when trying to curse the Israelites, ends up blessing them instead, saying “Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mishkenotecha Yisrael”, “How beautiful are your tents Jacob, your dwelling places Israel.”

And like clothing, words can also be an integral part of one’s identity. Jewish American, American Jew, Jewish Israeli, Palestinian Arab Israeli, and Israeli Arab are all labels that we take for ourselves, or place upon others. Beneath these labels are extensive narratives, told for generations and shaped by the borders that we impose or that imposed upon us in the present. And inside of these communities, words have worlds of meaning. They can define who is in or out of a group, who is too heretical for or perfectly in line with a group’s views.

Last week, I attended an event hosted by the T’ruah Rabbinic Fellows in Israel on the topic of how to take action on our values. The two activists we spoke with, Sahar Vardi and Gili Re’i, both talked about the power of words in their own activism. “Use language that speaks to the other,” Gili said. If the language you are using is a deal breaker for the other person and would immediately stall the conversation, then you have to use language that will invite them into the conversation. As one example, instead of using the language of “occupation”, she takes care to say “the Israeli regime in the territories of Judea and Samaria”, a burdensome phrase, but one in which she’s found people on the right respond more positively to.

In a world today in which it is becoming increasingly hard for people to talk together, it’s important to use language which talks to the other. If we continue to talk past each other, shouting down each other, then we run the risk of further polarizing our society and pushing people further away. This week, may the Holy Blessing One bless us with the wisdom to recognize the narrative of those around us, and may we have the words to speak to the souls of others and the courage to open our hearts to hold the narratives of others along with our own. Amen.

T’fillah: R’tzei and the Language of Sacrifice

R’tzei Adonai Eloheinu b’amcha Yisrael u’vitfilatam, v’hashev et haavodah lidvir beitecha.

Find favor, Lord our God, in your people Israel and their prayer. Restore the service to Your most holy House. (Amidah)

With this parasha focusing on the Kohanim, I want to focus on the blessing that the Kohanim recite during the repetition of the Amidah. While I’ll address the actual text in a later d’var, what interests me here is its placement in our service. The Priestly Blessing comes in the part of the Amidah titled Avodah, Temple Service, where we petition for God to restore the Temple and bring back sacrificial worship. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in the Koren siddur, comments “The last three blessings (starting at R’tzei), called by the sages “Thanksgiving,” are linked because they were said by the priests in the Temple (Tamid 5:1).” This is just one example where the Temple takes primary focus in our prayer. In a time where the Temple service seems so foreign to us, how can the language of sacrifice speak to us today?

First of all, seeing prayer as a replacement for sacrifice changes the direction and purpose that we often associate with prayer. Instead of asking for things from God, we are now offering something of ourselves to the Divine. Prayer then creates a space for praise, thanksgiving, and forgiveness, paralleling the different types of sacrifices offered in the Temple. In addition, it instills in us a sense of commandedness and obligation. Three times a day we stop our normal flow to connect to a higher purpose, no matter how we may be feeling at the moment.

How do you approach prayer? How might a model of sacrifice change that approach?

To view this Torah as PDF, click here.

Parshat Ki Tisa – Higher and Higher | Al Netilat Yadayim

Torah: Higher and Higher

The Lord said to Moshe, “Go, ascend from here… to the Land that I swore to Avraham, to Yitzchak, and to Ya’akov, saying, ‘I shall give it your descendants.’” (Exodus 33:1).

Rashi comments on this verse that “Eretz Yisrael is higher than all other lands. Therefore it says, ascend.” Rashi here is not referring the physical height of the land of Israel, but rather the metaphysical stature of the land. We see both in non-Jewish and Jewish sources the centrality of the Holy Land, illustrated by the map from 1581 placing the land of Israel at the center of the world and Midrashim describing the land as the center of the world as well (see Midrash Tanchuma). All of these sources demonstrate the spiritual pull that the Holy Land has had on the world, and it continues to captivate the world today.

In Zionist writings, this way of thinking continued on in the writings of the students of Nietzsche, who took up his vision of a new society created by those with superior powers and applied it to the Jewish people and the land of Israel. Some thinkers, like Micah Berdichevski, kept the view that a new people of superior might must be created, but others, like Martin Buber, sought the heroism of a morality rooted in service to God. In his essay Hebrew Humanism (1942), Buber writes,

“The Book still lies before us, and the Voice speaks forth from it as on the first day… What it does have to tell us… is that there is truth and there are lies, and that human life cannot persist or have meaning save in the decision in behalf of truth and against lies; that there is right and wrong, and that the salvation of man depends on choosing what is right and rejecting what is wrong; and that it spells the destruction of our existence to divide our life up into areas where the discrimination between truth and lies, right and wrong, hold, and others where it does not hold… The humanitas which speaks from this Book today, as it has always done, is the unity of human life under one divine direction which divides right from wrong and truth from lies as unconditionally as the words of the Creator divided light from darkness.”

Here, Buber lays the claim for the importance of the Torah, a moral Truth, which helps us to distinguish between right and wrong. This, he claims, gives purpose to the Jewish state.

“I am setting up Hebrew humanism in opposition to that Jewish nationalism which regards Israel as a nation like unto other nations and recognizes no task for Israel save that of preserving and asserting itself… If it [the Zionist movement] decides in favor of national egoism, it too will suffer the fate which will soon befall all shallow nationalism, i.e., nationalism which does not set the nation a true supernational task. If it decides in favor of Hebrew humanism, it will be strong and effective long after shallow nationalism has lost all meaning and justification, for it will have something to say and to bring to mankind.”

This debate of nationalism vs humanism can still be found today. Those in the nationalist camp say, “Look at who surrounds us! Do you think so and so Muslim person would have nearly as many rights or nearly as much equality in any of our neighboring states?” While this is enticing, it’s too easy to become complacent. Hebrew humanism, on the other hand, gives the nation a purpose that is authentic to itself. A state that is authentic to its Jewish identity does not ask “How am I compared to others?” It does not concern itself with how others feel about it. It is only concerned with living up to its own Jewish ideals and aspirations. It asks “Am I being the most fair, just society that I can be? Am I responding to a true threat to my security or am I acting out of a fear that is largely unjustified?” Only the latter state will inspire generations of Jews and non-Jews alike. Only the latter will live up to its Jewish potential, and as Buber says, “have something to say and to bring to mankind.”

The verse above commands us to ascend. Not only to physically ascend to the Holy Land, but once there, to continue to strive higher and higher to create our moral society. May the Holy Blessing One bless us with leaders for a vision of how Israel can be, and the strength to continually reach higher and higher.

T’fillah: Al Netilat Yadayim

Hashem spoke to Moses, saying: “You shall make a copper Laver and its base of copper, for washing; place it between the Tent of Meeting and the Altar, and put water there. From it, Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands together with their feet. Whenever they come to the Tent of Meeting they shall wash with water and not die, or when they approach the Altar to serve, to raise up in smoke a fire-offering to Hashem. They shall wash their hands and feet and not die. (Exodus 30:17-21)

One of the first mitzvot we’re commanded to perform in the morning is netilat yadayim, the ritual washing of the hands. Commentators have a number of different explanations for why we do this ritual, but one reason has to do with the work of the kohanim, as seen in the pasuk above. The Rashba (1235-1310) comments (Responsa 1:191):

“Since in the morning we are like a new creation [biryah chadashah]… we must thank God Who created us for His glory, and to serve and bless His name. It is upon this that they instituted the berakhot we recite every morning. Therefore we must sanctify ourselves and wash our hands from a vessel, like the kohen in the Beit HaMikdash who washed from the basin before his service.”

According to the Rashba, we act like the kohanim, sanctifying ourselves to the Divine at the beginning of the day. This higher level of awareness of our words and actions is part of our spiritual practice. By sanctifying ourselves, we remember that we are part of something much larger, that we live to accomplish a larger goal. What higher purpose do you need to work towards today? What steps do you need to take to accomplish that goal?

Parshat Vayakhel-Pekudei – Two Realms of Community Building | Power of a Minyan

Torah: The Two Realms of Community Building

Last week, I participated in a trip with Perspectives, an organization seeking to give students varied mainstream Jewish-Israeli perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We toured the security fence between Israel and the West Bank with Danny Tirza, the designer and architect of the wall. We spoke to a woman who was evacuated from Gaza when Israel disengaged from there in 2005. We spoke to a woman who lives in the closest Israeli settlement to Gaza and walked between the two walls separating Northern Gaza and Israel. We talked with residents of Sderot, a town often in the news as a target for terrorist missiles from Gaza. We spoke with settlers in the West Bank and leftist Israeli activists about their relations with Palestinians. What became clear to me was that while the security barriers were most certainly effective for short term security and have saved many Israeli lives, the long term effect of the physical separation of peoples may make peace nearly impossible.

At the beginning of this week’s double parsha, Moshe gathers (va’yakhel) the Israelites to tell them the laws of Shabbat. The word va’yakhel has the root K-H-L, which is shared with other words such as kehilla and kahal, two different words for community. In Judaism, community is of utmost importance, and is the driving force behind many of our rituals. We can pray on our own, but the Rabbis place much greater emphasis on communal prayer, and indeed there are certain parts of our prayer we can only recite in a minyan of 10.

As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out in this parasha, Moses

“directs their attention to the two great centres of community in Judaism, one in space, the other in time. The one in time is Shabbat. The one in space was the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, that led eventually to the Temple and later to the synagogue. These are where kehillah lives most powerfully: on Shabbat when we lay aside our private devices and desires and come together as a community, and the synagogue, where community has its home.”

There are two realms in which community is built: in space and time. If we adapt this model to the conflict, and really all conflicts, it gives some cause for hope.

In Israel, the realm of space is incredibly tricky. In spaces where Jews and Arabs do share space, it is often in a hierarchical role, with Arabs servings as construction works or maintenance workers in Jewish companies. And the physical barrier separates many Israelis from Palestinians, making relations difficult to sometimes impossible. In our interactions on the trip, the lack of knowledge of the other was clear, but so was the desire to meet their neighbors across the fence. Therefore, space needs to be created in a way that both Israelis and Palestinians, normal people, not politicians, can meet on equal footing and develop relationships with each other.

In the realm of time, Shabbat can serve as our guide. The media portrayal of the other in both Israeli and Palestinian society is often biased and skewed. Only by putting down our media devices and meeting the other face to face will true, deep relationships develop. Israelis and Palestinians must carve out a time in their weeks to be fully present and to hear the narratives of the other, no matter how painful or challenging.

The parasha provides the roadmap; we must be willing to take the first steps, no matter how much fear or apprehension we may have. May the Holy Blessing One bless us all with the courage to challenge ourselves in the coming week to listen and engage with a narrative that is different from our own, and may we succeed in creating holy communities, wherever we may be, that transcend time and place.

T’fillah: The Power of a Minyan

When I’m praying alone, I can get pretty high. I can go at my own pace, dwell on certain lines, meditate, go faster in certain areas, use the melodies I like best. But there’s an issue.

If I’m davening alone, I only have one voice. But if I’m davening with two, then I have the sweetest sound in the universe, harmony, and together we can get even higher. Three, four, five others harmonizing, that’s the highest, we can really transform ourselves.

The Rebbe Rashab taught the following about harmony. In the beginning, as Kabbalah says, God was an infinite pinprick, containing infinite potential in its singularity. But this energy exploded, expanding into infinite possibility. No longer was there singularity. Within this infinite possibility, we have two choices, we can either let the infinite become divisive, or we can let it bring people together. In Hassidut, our souls come down into the mud of this world to get even higher, and so too, here, God does as well. Because the only thing higher than singularity is the beauty of harmony. Our work is to use this harmony to elevate God even higher, and we do that through harmonizing with other human beings. How do we know this? When we say Shema, we say God is echad, not yachid. God is not singular, but God is one. To be echad means to be one of a group, all of us, together in harmony.

So you see my friends, with harmony we can get really truly high, but we need a minyan to move beyond ourselves and change the world. We need a minyan to bring God down into this world. How do we know? Well, what can we say when we have a minyan? Kaddish. And the kaddish is not in lashon hakodesh, the holy tongue (Hebrew), it’s in Aramaic. When we have a minyan, we can bring God into even mundane language, into the chol, into the non-holy.

But why davka ten? One reason that’s brought down is because of Numbers 14:27. There were twelve spies that went into the land. Two came back with favorable reports, and ten came back with negative reports and convinced the people not to enter the land. As the Lubavitcher Rebbe brought down, these spies were afraid of an absence of God in the land. They mamesh couldn’t see God in the world. They didn’t think God could be present while working the land, setting up governments, creating families, and in all of the hard work of establishing a society. So by davening in a minyan, we recall these spies and say, “God, you’re here in this world. I see you. And I want to sanctify you by sanctifying others.”