Shabbat BeHar-BeHukkotai: The Torah of Tokhekhah

COVIDלֹֽא־תִשְׂנָ֥א אֶת־אָחִ֖יךָ בִּלְבָבֶ֑ךָ הוֹכֵ֤חַ תּוֹכִ֙יחַ֙ אֶת־עֲמִיתֶ֔ךָ וְלֹא־תִשָּׂ֥א עָלָ֖יו חֵֽטְא׃

You shall not hate your neighbor in your heart. Reprove your neighbor, but incur no guilt because of them. – VaYikra 19.17

On this Shabbat we come to the end of the book VaYikra, Leviticus, and we are confronted by a difficult section of the Torah called the tokhekha, “reproof.” We already learned a few weeks ago the mitzvah above, that rather than be angry or condemning of another person because of their behavior, one should find a way to speak up.

This has been called the most difficult mitzvah of the entire Torah, and not for the reason one might immediately infer. Yes, it is difficult to confront someone whose behavior is causing distress to oneself or to others, but that is not the worst of it. The worst of it is if your attempt to repair a breach causes one which is greater.

In these days of frustration, of anger – even rage – at the politicization of so much that should not be, one of the greatest challenges is that of remaining loyal to the vision we each have for ourselves as ethical human beings. 

When we are confronted with official callousness towards deaths caused by COVID-19 or by state violence, when against our better judgement we tune in and watch a presidential press conference, when reading the news about some group that protests its inconveniencing blindly using high-sounding rhetoric, it is difficult not to run afoul of the mitzvah of tokhekhah. 

We might find ourselves wanting to descend into hating those who hate, and dismissing as worthless those who seek power and profit at the expense of many lives. And here is the real challenge.

Judaism teaches that every human being is born holy. Each one of us reflects the light of the divine. When we deny that, we undermine our own ethical strength in these days.

A story:

A Jew, badly used by her employer, fell into the self-serving trap of complaining endlessly to everyone she could about the bad behavior from which she suffered. Finally one day her interlocutor responded: “He must be in so much pain to be so cruel.”

She was brought up short. A new perspective opened before her. Rather than sinking to the level of responding to negativity with her own negativity, she began to reflect upon the possibility of feeling sorry for the boss who had caused her so much grief. His behavior was, after all, pathetic. She realized that it was a two-way dance, and that up to that moment, she had been, all unwittingly and feeling the victim, willing to play her part in it.

From that day, even though she continued to work for him, her boss never again hurt her the way he had. His behavior did not change; her willingness to accept it did.

The real danger of evil people is that they drag us down, slowly and by self-righteous degrees, to their level of human interaction. This is the failure of tokhekhah. The only way to rebuke someone without failing is to cling to the standard we’ve set for ourselves, no matter the temptation to “fight fire with fire” or to “give as good as you get.”

Stay focused on the pure, clean light within you. Let it seek out the spark of light in all life that surrounds you. This is the ethical work of our days.

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Ariel

Shabbat Emor: To Count and To Mourn

Our parashat hashavua this week is Emor, which contains an account of the mitzvah which is the practice of counting the Omer.

וּסְפַרְתֶּ֤ם לָכֶם֙ מִמָּחֳרַ֣ת הַשַּׁבָּ֔ת מִיּוֹם֙ הֲבִ֣יאֲכֶ֔ם אֶת־עֹ֖מֶר הַתְּנוּפָ֑ה שֶׁ֥בַע שַׁבָּת֖וֹת תְּמִימֹ֥ת תִּהְיֶֽינָה׃

From the day on which you bring the omer [sheaf of elevation offering]—the day after the Shabbat—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete.

As we near this Shabbat, many of us are counting more days that this of coronavirus lockdown. 

Many of us are experiencing a bewildering range of strong, negative emotions: the fear of contagion, the sadness for lives lost, the disappointment of missed milestones, the frustration of cancelled events. Some of us are grieving the death of loved ones, struggling with anger over the callous bungling of our political leadership, perhaps even feeling rage over the treatment of the vulnerable.

We are facing terror and helplessness, two emotions that no one ever wants to be good at enduring. Yet – and this is perhaps no surprise – our Jewish tradition has been here, has done that.

For two thousand years, this time of counting the Omer has been associated with mourning. 

According to the Talmud, tens of thousands of Rabbi Akiva’s students died in a plague during this time, and the blow to the community was so great that the feelings of loss continued ever after. Because it was said to happen during this time of year, between Pesakh and Lag baOmer (the 33rd day of the Omer count), these days have been marked by mourning practices ever since (observant Jewish men do not shave, weddings are not held). 

Another interesting theory is that the plague is actually a cover story, and the catastrophic number of deaths we suffered were actually those of young men who followed Bar Kochba into the third, and final, war against Rome. The Talmud records:

The Romans killed [Jewish] men, women and children until their blood flowed into the Mediterranean Sea… It was taught that for seven years the gentiles cultivated their vineyards with the blood of Israel without requiring manure for fertilization. (BT Gittin 57a)

Whatever the reason, these days of the Omer have existed for us as a time in which mourning is never far from the surface. What could be more appropriate for us in these tense and uncertain times, as we live with an abiding sense of mourning, more and more aware of all that is lost in these days?

We are not good at mourning; we are not practiced at sadness. We live in a society which rewards optimism and encourages hope, and as a result we do not even have the vocabulary to express our feelings. We feel badly, and we are told that we are feeling grief. But not every sadness is grief, and we cheapen the word by overuse. It reminds me of the urge to recite shehekheyanu for every happy moment, again mostly because of a lack of awareness of other brakhot, other options for articulating joy.

How can we learn to more deeply feel our feelings? For some of us this is a real difficulty. Feelings themselves have great power, and it takes careful discernment to differentiate what we feel from what we are. It’s useful to remind ourselves that feelings are not acts; that it is never wrong to feel what we honestly feel. Indeed, if we can dig into what we feel, we will learn what we need to learn about why we are feeling this way. 

The sign of maturity, for Jewish tradition, is not controlling feelings, but controlling the acts that are prompted by the feelings. It has been said that we have no thought police in Judaism; neither do we denounce the way we feel. G*d willing, we do the right thing even though we are afraid; as it has been said, courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to act regardless.

Feeling sadness, letting oneself live there, is necessary if one would feel joy when the sadness lifts. Feeling disappointment and anger is necessary if one would learn to differentiate between emotions wisely. Not everything wrong causes grief; not everything bad causes anger.

On Lag baOmer – literally “the 33rd day of the Omer,” since Hebrew numbers are also letters, and 33 in Hebrew is לג – the traditional semi-mourning phase of the Omer count ends. We don’t know why. Did the plague let up? Did the Jews win a battle? 

All we know is that we made time and space to mourn effectively enough that when it was over we could feel the uplift, and it too is enshrined in our tradition. 

This counting of our own plague days will one day be over. If we have not experienced our emotions fully enough during this time so that we can articulate them, how will we ever be able to feel the joy we anticipate as we would like?

Today in the mystical Omer count we confront the human – and holy – characteristics of hesed and hod, kindness and gratitude. These qualities of our lives come into sharper focus when we are mourning and someone seeks to comfort us. May we feel all the qualities of our days, the bitter and the sweet, fully and deeply, that we may truly be said to live each day we count.

למנות ימינו כן הודה ונביא לבב חכמה

Limnot yameynu, keyn hodah v’navi levav hokhmah

Teach us to count our days, that we might become wise

Shabbat Akharei Mot/Kedoshim: Plumbline Ethics

Some of us are lucky enough to call ourselves fortunate these days, if despite the pandemic we are feeling well and our greatest challenge is cabin fever. We know that so many are suffering, both within our community and beyond. 

How to respond? What can we do in these days to share whatever we are lucky enough to have? How not to be dragged down by despair and fear in these strange and uncertain times?

We are fortunate in another profound way: we have an ancient tradition that guides us toward justice at all times. The ancient Israelite prophet Amos once used a wonderful metaphor for the Jewish idea of justice: he called it a “plumbline.” Our ancestors learned about the plumbline, אנך anakh  in Hebrew, from Egypt, where it was developed over four thousand years ago.

A plumbline, held in the hand of a worker on top of a wall, is a weighted string. When allowed to hang freely it shows the “plumb” angle and allows those building to avoid creating an off-centered structure.

Jews and those who love them who belong to and are informed by Jewish community and its ethics are lucky: we are never adrift, wondering how to act or react, how to initiate or respond – how to help and how to live.

This week our parashat hashavua includes a direct treatment of this theme. Whether your issue is how to vote in our local elections, how to figure out what you can do to share what you have safely and effectively, or just how to think about your life this week and next, the guidance for Jews is clear. A few examples:

1. That which we are lucky enough to have is not ours alone, according to the Rabbis who developed our justice tradition. That which we’ve worked for is only rightfully ours once we’ve shared it (the law of tithing is of Jewish origin). The work of our hands is not kasher  until it is shared – that goes not only for produce but for other kinds of productivity.

וְכַרְמְךָ֙ לֹ֣א תְעוֹלֵ֔ל וּפֶ֥רֶט כַּרְמְךָ֖ לֹ֣א תְלַקֵּ֑ט לֶֽעָנִ֤י וְלַגֵּר֙ תַּעֲזֹ֣ב אֹתָ֔ם

You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger. (Lev.19.10)

2. We must insist upon the truth, we must support those who work to find and uphold it, and we must speak truth ourselves. While it’s tempting to become cynical and adapt our expectations to the shocking deceit displayed by those with power over us, that way is not plumb, to use Amos’ image. That house will fall.

לֹ֖א תִּגְנֹ֑בוּ וְלֹא־תְכַחֲשׁ֥וּ וְלֹֽא־תְשַׁקְּר֖וּ אִ֥ישׁ בַּעֲמִיתֽוֹ׃

You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another. (Lev.19.11)

Erev Shabbat falls on May Day, long associated with the celebration of all those who labor, i.e. all essential workers. The plumbline of Jewish justice is not swayed by nightly applause when cheers do not have the ethical effect of just wages, access to care for all regardless of social status, and respect for human dignity among all people. 

לֹֽא־תַעֲשֹׁ֥ק אֶת־רֵֽעֲךָ֖ וְלֹ֣א תִגְזֹ֑ל לֹֽא־תָלִ֞ין פְּעֻלַּ֥ת שָׂכִ֛יר אִתְּךָ֖ עַד־בֹּֽקֶר׃

You shall not defraud your fellow. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning. (Lev.19.13)

You shall be holy in all your doings. That is the clear Jewish plumbline by which we can check our words and our doings. And what is is to be holy? It is not to give in to cynicism, not to despair of the effectiveness of your acts, and not to forget that you are part of an ancient, incredibly wise tradition of human beings striving to understand how best to live our lives in gratitude for the gift of life we are given.

Need more support for your choices? Torah study will sustain you for the rest of your life if you immerse yourself in it. It will help you hold that string steady and see how it falls clearly, all the days of your life.

Shabbat shalom

Shabbat Tazria/Metzora: “The One Who is Ill Shall Be Separated from the Camp”

…and other surprisingly relevant aspects of ancient Jewish text in the days of COVID-19

In years past it has been tempting to dismiss this doubled parasha in VaYikra (Leviticus) as superstition at worst and outmoded at best. Because of the focus on skin disease, we laugh at “the dermatologists’ parsha” and wait for more uplifting examples of holiness and ethics in the chapters to come.

It’s a funny thing about ancient wisdom, though, how one day we are brought up against the fact that our human reality is, existentially, no different.

With only a few thousand years of human life between “the one with a strange and unknown infection showing on the skin” in the ancient Israelite camp and those of us with a strange and unknown infection of our own to fear, the parallels are striking:

  1. One is immediately quarantined, for a period of up to fourteen days. During the time of isolation one is followed by healthcare professionals
  2. One does not diagnose oneself
  3. One must not make light of the disease nor risk others’ health by not informing them
  4. The disease may be spread on surfaces
  5. The isolation lasts as long as there is a chance of contagion

The worst of it all, then and now, is the uncertainty. One may be seriously ill, or not, from the contagion; one may be isolated for a short period, or longer. 

Imagine the state of the one separated, for her good and ours, from the camp of the rest of us: the feelings of fear for one’s own future, compounded by the sense of guilt, wondering who else he may have infected. The boredom as the days go by; the second-guessing whether this is all really necessary. And the fear of death.

All this fear and uncertainty is magnified when we are alone with our thoughts; unlike a bad dream, we awake to the same lack of stability, the same worry that cannot be assuaged right now. It may be, tomorrow, but we cannot know today.

This is a terrifying time; but it is not grief, contrary to what you are being told by some opinion articles on line. Grief is existential loss; losing one’s high school graduation ceremony or one’s girls’ night out is difficult and disappointing. In the hierarchy of things, it ranks far below losing one’s job. And none of that compares to losing loved ones. 

We haven’t been taught this kind of hierarchy; many of us haven’t experienced this up close. We don’t have the vocabulary for our current experience close at hand. But our Jewish people does know this situation, and is familiar with it.

What we are experiencing is existential uncertainty.

This existential uncertainty is a terribly difficult condition for us all – especially for those who have not experienced anything like it before. Those who have known the way that poverty and prejudice can crush one’s plans have some wisdom to share, but those who have been accustomed to a comfortable sense of being able to enjoy planning a happy future are bereft.

The self is not meant to live in isolation. We are herd animals and we know who we are in relation to others with whom we live, and within groups where we feel safe. Of course, the safety and security was always an illusion, but it’s easy enough on a normal day to go shopping, or take a hike, or visit a friend to keep the fear below consciousness.

But now we are forced to face it. We have no way of knowing when this will be over, what the world will look like, or even if we will live to see it. In the meantime we Jews (and those who love us) know a tremendous blessing: our people has been here before. We know how one suffers existential fear and celebrates the holiness of life at the same time, without denying the truth of either reality. 

You may be feeling isolated. You may be feeling terrified. But you never need feel alone. You have a community, and opportunities to be in touch that will give you not only grounding, but help you develop the understanding, and perhaps even the wisdom, that only those who know the existential struggle, and its beauty, can know.

Shabbat Shemini: Teach Us To Count Our Days

למנות ימינו כן הודע ונביא לבב חכמה

Limnot yameynu keyn hoda’ v’navi levav hokhmah

“Teach us to count our days that we might acquire a heart of wisdom.”

Psalm 90.12

“What day is it?” This isolation we are practicing for the sake of public health, and the disruption of the routines that define the days for us, makes it hard to keep track of time. All the more reason to be grateful, I find, for the ancient Jewish practices that keep insisting on their relevance no matter what happens in our so-called secular (aka not Jewish) lives.

A curious coincidence: the name of our parashah this week is Shemini, which means “eighth.” And today is the eighth day of Sefirat ha’Omer, the Counting of the Omer. ”Who knows eight?” As the song at the end of the Seder proclaims, shmonah yemei milah, the eighth day is Brit milah, the Jewish covenant of circumcision which was the very first identity marker of which we know that was adopted by the Jewish people for all those with male bodies (regardless of expressions of gender or sexuality – you can find much more on that in the Talmud.) 

On the surface – p’shat – level, our parashat hashavuah, the parashah for this week in the Torah, describes the beginning of the sacrificial practices associated with the Mishkan, the tent set up on the middle of the Israelite camp in order to create a sense of connection between us and HaShem. But we are taught that there are four levels of interpretation for every verse, every word, every letter in the Torah. Digging deeper into levels of drash (“investigation”), remez (“hint”) and sode (“secret”) opens up for us a fascinating door into the profound meaning of counting our days.

We begin with the name of the parashah, shemini, “eighth.” The context of this number is provided at the end of last week’s parashah, with the words “Your ordination will require seven days.” (Lev. 8.33). The words are directed to the first kohanim, priests, who will serve in the Mishkan and were undergoing a week of training to prepare.

The eighth day in Jewish tradition symbolizes that which comes after the perfection of Creation. In seven days HaShem created the world, we are told in Bereshit, and on the eighth day the story of human action within that creation began. So also in this parashah, in which the Mishkan, which is a microcosm of Creation, becomes active on the eighth day, through human agency, in partnership with HaShem.

The Zohar, the primary source of much Jewish mystical speculation and insight, offers a closer, more literal reading of Leviticus 8.33.

כי שבעת ימים ימלא את ידכם

Shivat yamim y’maley et yedkhem 

Seven days shall fill your hands 

Drawing upon the unusual syntax, the Zohar suggests that “We have learned: they are six, all included in this (seventh) one, which is totality of them all.” The Seven mentioned here is Binah, “understanding,” the mother sefirah out of which the world of emotion, of physicality, in short of the world we know, was born.

The sefirot that compose our world are the six mentioned by the Zohar plus the final one that represents the world as we know it. Noting the similarity between the word sefirah, “counting” and the word sefirah, “characteristic”,  opens the mystical door to seeing these as the sefirot that we are to count during the Counting of the Omer period. 

There are many places on the web where you can find a daily guide for counting the Omer. It lists the sefirot that compose our world, as characteristics that also compose us, in the order of the weekly counting. In short, it offers you a profound way to meditate upon an intensely personal consideration of who you are, and how you are, both in your inner existence and in the world.* It can help you keep track of what day it is. More, it may fill your hands with a sense not only of each day that passes, but of the Binah, the wisdom, that gathers them, and us, all up.

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Ariel

*there is much, more more to be said about this, and I have said it in my Because All Is One

Because All Is One has been republished!

It should be very easily available now here: https://www.becauseallisone.com/

For all those who asked that I arrange for the republication, I thank you for your patience. Should you have reactions or questions based upon it, I look forward to reading them. You can contact me here at your convenience. May it be good learning!

Rabbi Ariel Stone

Shabbat VaYera: Seeing Behind the Veil

Parashat VaYera begins and ends with ways of seeing the UnSeeable, that is, G*d. The Torah shows us that there are many ways to see. The first opens the parashah and names it:

 

וירא אליו ה באלוני ממרא

VaYera elav HaShem b’eylonei Mamre

HaShem appeared to (literally, “was seen by”) Abraham at the oak grove at Mamre. (Gen.18.1)

 

This “seeing”, what religion calls revelation, develops a certain specific type of experience of the holy, signified by the very next verse. Notice that the verb is the same; it is only the conjugation that changes, from “was seen” to “saw”:

וירא והנה שלושה אנשים

VaYar v’hineh shloshah anashim

He saw three people

Generations of commentators puzzled over this juxtaposition. Rashbam (Shlomo ben Meir, Rashi’s grandson) suggested that HaShem appeared to Abraham not directly but via three angels disguised to look like human beings, that conveyed HaShem’s message. This goes well with our received tradition that we are not able to see HaShem and live.

 

Another interpretation: when he “saw” HaShem, what he was actually seeing was the reflection of the divine image in the three strangers who appeared to him. This explanation goes well with the following story, in which he goes out of his way to welcome the people, making them lunch and giving them a safe place to rest on their journey.

 

Which one is correct? both are, and neither. According to Jewish tradition, every verse has seventy possible interpretations.

 

What else is seen in this parashah? The other end of this parashah describes the Akedah, the “binding of Isaac” during which the father nearly sacrifices the son. Oceans of ink have been applied to realms of paper in interpretive struggle with this story, all with unsatisfying results; even when we manage to make some kind of logical sense of the story, it is still horrifying.

 

Seen through the lens of seeing and being seen, however, it is instructive to note the occurrence of the same verb and to try to understand what might be expressed, or hinted at, from that perspective:

וירא והנה איל אחר נאחז בסבך בקרניו

VaYar v’hineh ayil akhar ne’ekhaz basvakh b’karnarv

He saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns (Gen.22.13)

And thus at the fateful moment Abraham, apparently not content to leave an altar unused even when he heard the voice of HaShem told him to lay off his son, saw a ram that he could offer up in place of the human being.

 

The end of the Akedah is not often remarked upon, since we’re all too busy reeling from the main event. But note the parallel to the beginning of the parashah:

בהר ה יראה

B’har HaShem Yera’eh

At HaShem’s mountain it shall be seen (Gen.22.14)

At the beginning and at the end of this parashah we have instances of VaYar and VaYera, to see and to be seen. Once at an oak grove, where seeing prompted one human being to offer another water, and more, in the harsh desert environment; and once atop a mountain, where the seeing once again forestalled death.

 

What is it that ”shall be seen”? Is there something about “seeing G*d” that in some way helps us find our way from death toward life? In this parashah, at least, it seems so.

 

If to see G*d is to see – to understand, perhaps – life itself, then what can it possibly mean that “no one can see Me and live”?  This is what HaShem will tell Moshe, down the road. Jewish mystical speculation offers one thought: that although we long to discover the very heart of existence, it will forever be a mystery to us – and we court our own end when we seek to look behind the veil.

 

Humility is key to seeing, then. You can’t see it all. But oh, what you will see, when you get a glimpse through the veil of the holy in this life.

 

 

 

Shabbat Bereshit: the power of naming

This week marks the beginning, again; once again we turn to the opening pages of our Torah and read of the beginning.

Except that we do not. The first words of our Torah are

בראשית ברא אלהים
 Bereshit bara Elohim

Which literally means “during the beginning, G*d created…”

And what does that mean? Well, we already know that at the “beginning,” there are already water, the abyss itself, and a divine wind. Beyond that comes midrash, with so many possibilities – we are taught that every verse, every word, indeed every letter of the Torah has seventy different faces, that is to say, different interpretations. Torah is like a prism: “turn it over and over, for everything is reflected in it,” said the Rabbis of the Talmud. 

One possible interpretation: during the process of the beginning, the following sub story occurred, and the creation of our reality is then narrated. Another possibility, well known to mystics: with the six upper sefirot, G*d was created. There are sixty-eight more possibilities, at least.

Torah is multivalent; it is an obvious step from there to say that the voice of G*d, or our awareness of holiness, must also, therefore, be multi-valent, since Torah is our primary source of understanding holiness in our lives.

It is less obvious, perhaps, to understand the human part in that glorious diversity of meaning, and the beginning of the book of Genesis is here to remind us. The first human beings are called adam and havah. “Adam” comes from the Hebrew adamah, which literally means that which, or one who, comes from the earth. Havah, from the Hebrew word root for existence, means giver of life.

In the first chapter of the book Bereshit, which we translate Genesis, w are told that both were created, and that in such a way, the Image of G*d came to be in the Creation of G*d. One way of understanding this is to interpret that two people were created, in two different and distinct genders. But another way to understand the verse comes from the well-known midrash that sees that one human being, who carried all the gender markings, was created. The first human was gender fluid, non-binary, and in the words of our tradition, perfect.

The next thing that the creation required was more names, and it’s fascinating to see that the Creator expected the Creation to name itself. That is to say, the animals were given the names that the human chose.

The responsibility of this naming echoes unto our own day. To name is to know; it is also to interpret; it may also be a way of accusing, of oppressing, or of lifting up. To call an animal an elephant is to distinguish it from a giraffe; but it is also a way of telling the hunter where to aim, or the arrogant what to consider less alive than oneself.

Thus we gaze upon and define our world, and each other. This old, old insight from the beginning of our identity myth is still astonishingly relevant. May we recognize our power to name, and its attendant responsibility, even as we recognize our power to create and to destroy. May the creative impulse be stronger.

Shabbat Shuvah: Return To Yourself

Shabbat Shuvah is so named because it falls on the Shabbat between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, the time when we are urged to Shuvah, “return,” to our best selves. It is also the opening of the Haftarah, which is composed of excerpts of the greatest hits from Rosh HaShanah, Tashlikh, and Yom Kippur.

There is no one word we will hear more than teshuvah during this ten day period, and no concept more difficult. To return means to remember where one was, and memory is an elusive, often traumatized element of our minds. To return means to recognize that there is something of great worth that we’ve left behind somewhere, and that our going forward is actually dependent upon our going back for it – and from that perspective to re-vision our future path, and re-orient ourselves to it.

To return, according to our tradition, is to be able to imagine – and from there begin to see – that

We once knew a great unity, when we were very young.

Then, all being was one seamless, living organism.

We were more than a part of it; we were of it and it was of us.

Then we were born and everything began to fall apart:

Mothers and children, father and mothers, siblings,

lovers, families, villages, nations.

Earliest childhood is living in the unity;

adulthood is surviving the brokenness.

And what has come to be called spiritual maturity

is remembering the ancient unity

and trying to reassemble the shards.*

 

To do teshuvah is to walk toward wholeness in oneself and with everything else. On this Shabbat of the Days of Awe, may the path toward your wholeness, and healing, be smoother than you realized when you began to walk it.

Shabbat shalom, Shanah 5780 Tovah Tikhateymu!

___________________________-

*Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Five Cities of Refuge, 140