Shabbat Shelakh-L’kha: Why So Negative?

The parashat hashavua for this week is Shelakh-L’kha. It chronicles a significant debacle in the lives of our ancestors, the Generation of the Wilderness: it is during the events described in this parashah that they doom themselves to remaining the wanderers they’ve become. 

One year and some months after the Exodus from Egypt, with our new understanding of the divine and a new system for connecting with it constructed and up and running, we traveled across the Sinai wilderness (which is not that big) and arrived at the borders of the land that according to our people’s narrative was promised by G-d to our ancestors as their descendants’ home. 

And then the troubles began. While the rest of us waited, excited to be nearly there, at the border of the land, Moshe sent a representative from each tribe to scout it out. They returned with grapes so abundant and giant that they had to be carried between two. Just as the people were beginning to rejoice, the scouts added, 

“the land does flow with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. However,the people that dwell in the land are fierce, and the cities are fortified, and very great; and we also saw giants there. The people of Amalek live in the South; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the mountains; and the Canaanites live by the sea, and along by the side of the Jordan.’ (Numbers 13.27-29)

Upon hearing this, our ancestors panicked. After weeping and moaning all night, in the morning they determined, “Let us appoint a leader, and return to Egypt.” (Numbers 14.40).

It was at this point that G-d and Moshe realized a great truth: some people can’t be freed from their negativity. Worse, they will follow it even when it is only one of the possible perspectives. 

It was the negativity of the Generation of the Wilderness that doomed them. G-d saw that they could not trust, and therefore could not possibly survive as responsible agents in a new, free society that would depend upon patience, kindness, and the ability to assume the best of people. They were not ready to live as one people, committed to each other no matter what, in covenant with each other and with G-d.

In the mystical teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman haLevi Epstein, known as the Maor vaShemesh after the title of his most influential book, we are invited to go deeper into this insight. In his commentary on this parashah, he writes that 

“before the divine Presence was revealed to human beings, it was understandable that G-d had to be very patient with humanity, since mistakes were easy to make. But after the revelation of the divine Presence had been revealed, as indeed was the case with the Wilderness Generation, you would think that G-d would not be so patient with evil doers. And so this story comes to teach us that also, within revelation, there is patience and compassion.”  (Maor VaShemesh, Shelakh, 2:226)

It is said that our sins separate us from G-d. Certainly that is true of our experience of the divine Presence, which according to Jewish tradition is felt in our kehillah kedoshah, our holy community. If the divine Presence is known through patience, when we lose it, we lose the sense of the Presence as well.

We push our wholeness away every day; we pull back from the Presence when we distance ourselves from each other. Even though it has been revealed to us and we know better, we still commit lashon hara’ and listen to it; even when we have felt the joy of supportive community, we undermine ours with unkind words. 

Yes, it is good to have the teaching that there is always another chance to improve our behavior, and that we will not always be bereft of the sense of a holy presence in our lives because of the evil we do. But still, why so negative? why choose to remain in the wilderness, when it is within our ability to get over ourselves, and be in peace, and wholeness, with each other?

Shabbat B’Haalot’kha: What the Light Reveals

The parashat hashavua (Torah parashah for the week) begins with G-d’s command to the High Priest, Moshe’s brother Aharon:

“When you raise [b’haalot’kha] light in the lamps, they shall be lit so as to illuminate the face of the menorah” (Numbers 8:2). 

If you remember that this was a menorah not of candles but of oil lamps, shaped as in the photo, it becomes easier to understand this instruction. The menorah is standing against the wall of the Mishkan, and the oil lamp upon the top of each branch should be situated so that the wick end is toward the front of the menorah, away from the wall.

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This may simply be good fire-prevention advice, but of course our tradition sees the possibility of deeper meaning in these words. Consider:

The Jewish creation story does not describe a conquering and destroying of darkness in order to create light; rather, light is drawn from the darkness, even as forms are drawn from formlessness. The mystical text Sefer Yetzirah describes creation in this way: “Out of chaos G-d formed substance, making what is not into what is, hewing enormous pillars out of ether that cannot be grasped.”

When we kindle light, as Aharon is commanded to do in this parashah, we then stand in the light that that we have created. To kindle light is to move, quite literally, from darkness into light. As we do so, we are invited to consider the deeper meaning of kindling light –  to step into the light, to see and to be seen. In a Jewish sense, this does not mean that we should try to eradicate the parts of ourselves that are “dark”, but rather that we should try to stay focused on the light and what it shows us. 

All the Israelites were in a state of awe at standing in the presence of G-d. There is an old midrash which relates that Aharon was embarrassed that, as High Priest, his job was merely to light the seven lights of the menorah, and that he had not been called to bring a sacrifice as others had at this point in the Torah narrative. 

Yet he obeyed: “Thus Aaron did in front of the menorah” (Numbers 8.3); he did not change what he was doing, nor hide. Only after doing his job did he come to see the importance of the light he had kindled for others as well as himself.

It is easy to shrink from light that reveals you. To focus on the light, to fulfill what is expected of one even when one is overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the All in which one participates, is to stand before G-d, revealed as yourself. To be willing to be revealed – to others, to ourselves – is not easy, but that is the command. “Lift up the light toward the face” of the menorah, that the light may enter the sacred space that you share with us. Only after will you see what you are meant to see by that light.

A mystical teaching promises that one who can approach the light in that way, willing to share what the light will show, can be healed and made whole by the act of that lighting. Anyone lighting Shabbat candles with this kavanah (intention) will fulfill the role of the High Priest, and by the kindling evoke Aharon’s lighting of the first Menorah. And then all will be raised up by that light which you have kindled out of yourself, sharing yourself – up, just a bit more than we were before, unto an Upper World of wholeness, and peace.

Moreynu Rabbeynu Byron Sherwin זכרונו לברכה

On Erev Shabbat BaMidbar, my teacher Byron Sherwin became an echo of Eternity.

I first met Byron over the phone in 2000. I had heard about doctoral studies at Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago and hoped that this would be a way into more spiritual growth. At the time, I felt stymied: an associate Rabbi at a large congregation, I was so busy helping others that I could see no way of furthering my own spiritual journey. Doctoral studies seemed a perfect way out, or forward, or …. something.

Dr. Sherwin wasn’t so sure that I was right for the program. I remember our conversation, remember being somewhat surprised; I had been an honor student in college, did just fine in Rabbinical school. What was his question? Was it that I didn’t quite know what I wanted? It frustrated me. It made me think.

Byron, who became my teacher and my mentor, was just that kind of provocative, insightful spirit. There must have been something in my voice of the chip on my shoulder – a half-baked feminist, reactionary reformist, mostly thoughtless sloganeer. What Byron heard in my voice, I now know, was indicative of a very green apprentice. Perhaps just considering what it would take to gentle me out of my ill-considered anger, to help me settle down to listen to the Still Small Voice, was exhausting.

Whatever – he let me into the program. I thanked him with an excoriating evaluation after my first learning seminar in Chicago.

Later, much later, he would explain to me that he had been quite ill at the time, more than he had known. And, in truth, all the later years of my learning at Spertus were better than that first one. And, in truth, the first one wasn’t bad. I have the notes. His reach, and his grasp, of the material was extraordinary.

Thank G-d, and thank Byron, I am no longer half-baked, half-thoughtless, half-reactionary. Here are some of his teachings:

1. Feminists don’t have to go outside of Jewish tradition to make their case. They just have to become learned enough in the tradition to find their ammunition there.

2. Corporations are golems. Just you wait and see.

3. Some day a person will have two, or three, or maybe four parents. Halakhah can make sense of this.

4. Life is lived below as well as above the neck. Try to unify yourself.

Byron Sherwin was a brilliant mind in a quirky psychology in a body that let him down too soon. He took care to supply all of us, his students, with voluminous resources on the topics we studied, “so that for the rest of your career, you’ll have what you need to teach.” He spent careful time reading final exams that numbered in the hundreds of pages, and didn’t grade on a curve. He cared about our personal lives  no less, following the role modeling of his own masters, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and others, Rabbis in the Hasidic tradition:

One day the Rabbi asked the student, how is your study partner?

the student replied, I don’t know.

The Rabbi shouted, what do you mean, you don’t know? you study together, you eat together, you work together – how can you not know if your study partner is happy or sad, content or in need?

Byron cared about our personal lives and took us in as far as we needed. I only wish I did not have the feeling that we were not, really, able to give him what he himself needed from us, his students.

It is said in the Talmud that a faithful student does not speak a word contrary to the master’s teachings in his lifetime. I confess I can’t imagine why I would, now.

ברוך דיין האמת

 

Shabbat BaMidbar, erev Shavuot: What Is This Torah That We Receive?

The very first lines of Pirke Avot, a famous collection of Rabbinic 1st-century ethical “sayings of the ancestors”, goes like this:

Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; 

Joshua to the elders;

the elders to the prophets; 

and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Assembly.

– Pirke Avot 1.1

The question is, what exactly is that Torah? A close reading of the Scriptures itself indicates that what Moshe received and what he passed on were not identical. We see this in several instances in which Moshe has to consult G-d for guidance, even after the Torah, with all its laws, is given. And Moshe also “edits” G-d’s directions (which is what Torah literally is, the word “Torah” being Hebrew for “direction”); as the people prepare to receive the Torah at Mt. Sinai, described in Exodus, we see him explicitly doing so:

HaShem said unto Moshe: ‘Go unto the people, and sanctify them to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash their garments, and be ready for the third day; for on the third day HaShem will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai. … And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their garments. And he said unto the people: ‘Be ready for the third day; do not come near a woman.’  (Exodus 19.10-15)

If Moshe transmits Torah with interpretation at the moment at which Torah is transmitted, then it seems clear that Torah is understood to be something more than the five written books that we revere as key to the meaning of Jewish life in all ages. It’s the “all ages” part that we should note. As our friends in the UCC church put it, “G-d is still speaking,”

Torah means “direction”. We are directed upon a path, in Hebrew halakhah. The meaning of our progress upon that path is always being interpreted; we, directed by the Torah sheh-b’khtav, Written Torah, are constantly accompanied by the Oral Torah, Torah sheh-b’al peh. Moshe invented it at the moment that he interpreted G-d’s directions for getting ready to receive Torah. And this process of interpretation, of making what we should do clear to us at every moment, must continue as it always has, because otherwise Torah would no longer direct us in our lives as they are now. Life keeps changing. Teachers keep unveiling new levels of understanding implicit in Torah. They were always there, just as the petals of a rose were always there in the tightly closed bud: under the light of sun and warmth, the rose unfurls new beauty, and with the light of interpretation and commentary, Torah does the same.

This is why we need not be irritated by the specifics of Moshe’s interpretation. It must have been necessary at that time, in that place. But Torah continues to unfurl. We are not limited by its shape in earlier days; rather, we are all gardeners, invited to help to bring Torah into the 21st century more fully – more open, more relevant, more amazing in the learning we can do and the depths of human spiritual experience we can reach.

BaMidbar, our parashat hashavua, means “in the wilderness”, and indeed we often find ourselves wandering, wondering where to find direction along our path. At the close of this Shabbat we’ll have a chance to review the path, the direction, and the gift as the Festival of Shavuot begins. According to Jewish tradition, we confirm our acceptance of Torah every year on Shavuot, and in some ways, every time we recite the blessing for Torah. What is this Torah we receive?  What does it mean for us?

May we each find our own personal blessing in Torah’s direction, as well as that of our community and our people, so that we can join the Psalmist in declaring that “these words are a light for my eyes, a lamp for my feet.” (Psalm 119.105)

shabbat Emor: the price of disrespect

Parashat Emor includes, coincidentally, the mitzvah (command) of Sefirat haOmer, the counting of the omer (a sheaf of barley). The original idea is probably agricultural: during the ongoing barley harvest, bringing a sheaf from each day’s harvest for a formal count may have been some kind of ritual effort to keep the harvest abundant. It is true that we sometimes delight in counting out or otherwise measuring that which we are excited about, or care deeply about.

Today, erev Shabbat, is the 34th day of the Omer; yesterday was the 33rd, which is a minor holy day known by a name derived from the count: Lag BaOmer literally means “33 of the omer”. (Every Hebrew letter has a numerical value, and so every Hebrew number can also be pronounced. Thus the names of the holy days Tisha b’Av, the 9th of Av, and Tu b’Shevat, the 15th of Shevat.)

  וּסְפַרְתֶּם לָכֶם, מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת, מִיּוֹם הֲבִיאֲכֶם, אֶת-עֹמֶר הַתְּנוּפָה:  שֶׁבַע שַׁבָּתוֹת, תְּמִימֹת תִּהְיֶינָה

Count for yourself from the day after the day of rest, from the day that you brought the omer to wave; seven complete weeks

  עַד מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת הַשְּׁבִיעִת, תִּסְפְּרוּ חֲמִשִּׁים יוֹם; וְהִקְרַבְתֶּם מִנְחָה חֲדָשָׁה, לַיהוָה

until the morrow after the seventh week, count off fifty days; and then present a new meal offering unto HaShem. (Lev 23.15-16)

Lag baOmer, the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer, marks the end of the period of semi-mourning which characterizes the first 32 days of the counting period. Why should the first 32 days after the Pesakh Seder be a somber time, when by traditional minhag weddings are not celebrated, beards are not cut, and parties and dancing are considered inappropriate?

The traditional explanation is that during this time period, long ago in Israel, 24,000 students of the celebrated Rabbi Akiba died of plague. The Talmud does not stop with the story, though – it goes on to give a reason:

“Rabbi Akiva had twenty-four thousand students and all of them died in one period of time because they did not treat each other with respect. It is taught that they all died between Passover and Shavuot, and that they all suffered bitter deaths” (TalmudYevamot 62b). 

It may seem outrageous that so many would die as a result of being disrespectful, but consider the ancient teaching that “because of baseless hatred, the Temple was destroyed and we were exiled from our land”. (Talmud Yoma 9a) Much of what happens to us, insists our Jewish sources of learning, has to do with our morality. Certainly the prophets would agree. After all, it’s not as if we are asserting that if we behave badly, a giant hand will appear from heaven and punish us in some way; the prophets insist that, rather like losing one’s kingdom for the want of a horseshoe nail, the integrity of our world depends upon apparently small, small things. After all, we are taught that the entire world does rely upon three things: study, internalization of that which is learned, and acting with kindness at all times – Torah, Avodah, and Gemilut Hasadim.

Whatever the source of sadness that echoes through the Jewish calendar at this time of year, it is real. The traditional minhagim restricting joy during these 33 days (it lets up after Lag BaOmer) are a haunting reminder of a grief that is no longer remembered directly. Like a yahrzeit, it comes yearly to remind us that we have mourned, as a people, the consequences of immoral behavior toward each other. 

On this Shabbat, consider the destructive consequences of your smallest acts of disrespect toward others – your colleagues, friends, children, parents, strangers – and seek to replace them with kindness. May we all become more mindful of the power we wield.

Shabbat Akharei Mot-Kedoshim: The Goal of Torah Study

This week’s parashah is once again a double: Akharei Mot, “after death” and Kedoshim, “set apart”, which is what “holy” means in Jewish religious culture. 

Because every couple of years these two parashot occur as a double (meaning that we read at least a third of them both), it was only natural that our inquisitive and creative Sages who comment upon and interpret every aspect of Torah should comment upon this too: what do we learn from the juxtaposition of these two parshas, and their names? Are we to understand that after death we are holy? what exactly would that mean?

It’s not a stretch for us to accept the idea that the memory of our beloved dead is holy to us, that is, it is set apart in our hearts in a special place, so to speak. We might even set that memory apart to recall only at special times, such as yizkor, the memorial prayers we recite four times a year (at the Festivals and on Yom Kippur). 

When we pause to consider the place of death in Jewish tradition, we discover that other aspects of holiness may come into play. For example, we read in the Talmud that after the Roman massacre of Jews at Betar, we were not allowed to bury the bodies – in this final battle of the third failed Jewish revolt against Rome, they were to be a terrible lesson to the rest of us. The Talmud asserts that years later when we were able to bury the bodies, they had – miraculously – not decayed. This idea of a miraculous preservation is later expressed in connection with a belief in what happened (or didn’t) to the dead bodies of tzaddikim, “righteous ones”, such as great Rabbis. These bodies have become different, set apart in our religious tradition, and therefore, in a way, holy.

But does death itself connote holiness? A dead body carries the quality of making all that come into contact with it tamei, “spiritually unready” to stand in G-d’s presence. It causes one to be “set apart” in that way, and such a one must undergo a ritual process in order to become once again tahor,  “spiritually ready”, or what we might call normal, as afterward one does return to normal life.

The place of death in our lives is alternately problematic, fearful, tragic, and inevitable – and sometimes even a blessing. All of us will face it. The Jewish question is how does Jewish learning help me face it? Torah study is able to follow us everywhere. The question is whether we let it in.

Aryeh Ben David, writing for eJewishphilanthropy on February 11, 2015, notes that Jewish learning has been conceptualized as having two primary foci.  Now, he suggests, it’s time for a third.  The first stage of Jewish learning asked the question – “What do I know?” The second stage of Jewish learning asked the question – “Am I connected to what I know?” 

He writes:

The third stage of Jewish learning asks “How can I bring my learning into my life? How does what I know and my personal connection to this knowledge change me? How is Jewish learning making me a better person?”

2,000 years ago, Judaism instituted the reciting of blessings before eating. The goal of saying a blessing is not only to know the words and meaning of the blessing. The goal of saying the blessing is not only to feel connected to the words of the blessing. The goal of the blessing is ultimately to affect me and transform how I eat.

The test of saying a blessing is whether it changes how I actually eat.

Similarly, the goal of learning Torah is not only to know content, and not only to be connected to what I know.

The test of learning Torah is whether it changes how I actually live.

http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-third-stage-of-jewish-education/?utm_source=Feb+11+Wed&utm_campaign=Wed+Feb+11&utm_medium=email

May your learning change your life and all that touches it for good.

Shabbat Tazria-Metzora: Time Out

This week’s double parashah reflects a fundamental understanding of ancient Israelite religion – and we are not sure that we know what it is. Between parashat Tazria and parashat Metzora, we are presented for four solid chapters of VaYikra (Leviticus) with rules of what anthropologist Mary Douglas called “purity and danger” in her book of the same name.

The guidance presented by Torah in these verses (12.1-15.33) separates the tamey from the tahor, two categories that are unhelpfully translated as “pure” and “impure” when in truth the situation is more complicated than that. In her examination of the religious laws which include this as well that other famous duality of Jewish law (kosher or not), Douglas insists that we regard these ideas not with the dismissive superiority of moderns but with what I like to think of as a post-modern curiosity about that which is not yet understood. These ideas should be approached as “a shorthand summary of the categories of Israelite culture….taken as a whole and related to the totality of symbolic structures organizing the universe.” (Douglas, Natural Symbols, 60). 

At a glance, even the most casual, it is not difficult to detect the ancient Israelites’ desire to keep the world ordered and coherent. One is always in either a state of being which is tamey or tahor. The activities and situations which cause one to be tamey are neither bad nor to be avoided, and they are not associated with sin. They include birth, death, sex, and food, among other basics of human life.

Most interesting is the requirement for “time out” in between the two states of being. For example: if one is in a state of being tamey because one has been ill with a contagious disease, one is required, for the good of the community, to be isolated for a specific time. When one is no longer showing signs, one is expected to return to one’s former place. In other parts of VaYikra the same rule applies to one who has been in the presence of death: one takes time away from the community, and then returns to one’s “normal” social existence. 

One of the great gifts of Jewish tradition is its insistence that we take time to recover from our experiences, and that certain situations carry certain ordered and religiously-mandated responses. Since the effect of illness or grief is often to cause us to feel isolated, there is a simple logic to the ancient Israelites’ understanding that the sense of isolation might be acted out and respected. One is given a specific pattern of behaviors to follow to help one move through the experience, and its aftermath. 

Since at the end of the “time out”, the Israelite is once again able to enter the sacred grounds and stand before G-d, we might understand one possible interpretation of the terms tamey and tahor to be “spiritually unready” and “spiritually ready”. Certainly we all feel the need sometimes to “take a break” from the community’s expectations of us – that might be our time of spiritual unreadiness. If so, what might be a relevant way for we moderns to move through the experience so that we can return to “normal”, and our beloved companions on our journey? Our ancestors went off alone into the wilderness (or at least a short walk away from camp); how can you in your own life make space for yourself so that your spiritual unreadiness is respected, moved through, and made ready?

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Ariel

Shabbat haGadol: Preparing for Today

This is the last Shabbat before we leave. Grab what you think you can take with you, we have no idea, really, what we’ll be facing, only that we’re leaving.

בכל דור ודור חייב אד לראות את עצמו כאילו הוא יצא ממצרים . In every generation, each person is obligated to see himself as if he went out of Egypt.  (Mishnah Pesakhim 10:5)

This mitzvah, this obligation, is at the heart of our celebration of Pesakh, the Festival of Matzah. And on this last Shabbat before Pesakh we are to prepare, and to help each other to prepare. But here’s the paradox: the moment itself, should we reach it (may we reach it in peace!), will be something we cannot be prepared for.

How shall we be prepared for that which we cannot prepare for? The regular parashah this week, parashat Tzav, holds a clue to the answer. Among the directions for maintaining the newly established sacrificial system we find the following:

  אֵשׁ, תָּמִיד תּוּקַד עַל-הַמִּזְבֵּחַ–לֹא תִכְבֶּה.

Fire shall be kept alight upon the altar continually; it shall not go out. (Lev. 6.6)

We find that the Jerusalem Talmud comments, “continually—even on Shabbat; continually—even in a state of spiritual unreadiness.” (PT Yoma 4.6)

In a very real way, this is still our daily work: to keep the fire burning. The mystics teach that every aspect of the physical Sanctuary has its counterpart in the inward Sanctuary, within the soul of the Jew. Your heart, they teach, is that altar. Our most important task is to keep the fire – of passion, of love, of joy – burning. 

How do you prepare for the unknown that Pesakh commands us to face? by keeping your inner fire bright. That which you do to take care of that inner fire – even on Shabbat, even when you are distracted, bored, not “spiritually ready” – that will keep you prepared, even for that which you cannot imagine in your future.

In this context we note that the name here for the continually burning fire is eysh tamid, from which we get the ner tamid, that light in every Jewish sanctuary which is misunderstood as the Eternal Light. The only thing eternal about it is the regular daily dedication of those who were tasked with keeping it going, regularly, all the time! Once that was the priests on behalf of us all, but since the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed, we act according to the Torah’s teaching that “you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy people” (Exodus 19.6). We are all priests now, and that fire’s regular light depends upon all of us to keep it going, not only for ourselves but for each other.

The Talmud records the teaching: “the one who has enough to eat today and worries about tomorrow has no faith.” (BT Eruvin 54a) This is not meant to encourage you against future planning – only to understand that essentially we cannot control tomorrow, but we can act upon today. Especially upon ourselves. Worry about yourself today, the Sages suggest, and you need not fear tomorrow. Keep that fire going for today. One day at a time. Right now.

Shalom Shir Tikvah Learning Community,

We have begun reading from the third book of the Torah in our ritual cycle; the book VaYikra, translated as “Leviticus”. The word refers to all things priestly, literally, of the Levites. It gives precise instructions for how the ancient sacrificial cult was to be enacted, and probably was originally meant only for the priests, as a sort of manual.

Sacrifice – killing animals in a ritual way, offering them up along with grain, wine and water (with incense and salt added) – here is a whole swath of Torah that seems so far beyond relevance for us today. 

Yet the Jewish dance with Torah is a committed one; we continue to hold on even when the steps aren’t so certain. As Martin Buber taught, we who are covenanted with G-d see the Torah as our ketubah. We are always to accord it the same respect that we would a human interlocutor. That is to say, we do not decide in advance if the person speaking to us will offer words worth considering. Rather, we grant that courtesy in advance, for the sake of authentic communication. In the same way, with every verse, we give Torah credit for having something to say to us that is worth hearing, and keep our minds and hearts open for what it might be.

We begin to bring the conversation out of obsolescence and into provocative territory simply by noting the Hebrew name of the book. VaYikra, “And he called out.” This is the first word of the narrative, yet unlike in good English grammar, there is no named subject, no definition of “he”. One must go back to the preceding words, at the end of the book Shemot (Exodus), to find the referent. It is G-d, calling from the newly-built sacred space that the Israelites just spent the last few parshas constructing. 

The lack of clarity here invites us in; it is not so clear what is summoning or to whom, and so we can ask ourselves; in what way does this apply to me? what, for example, summons me, even if I am not entirely clear yet about it? What is it that pulls at us so softly that we cannot quite name it?

Jewish tradition offers us a way to listen more closely to that which summons us. It comes from an interesting aspect of this very first word. As written in the Torah, the last letter is too small: 

vaykro
That first letter, the alef, sits there and says to us darsheni, “interpret me!” And so we consider: the first letter is first, which connotes importance, even centrality; it is not a surprise, then, that the alef is the first letter of the word you need to express yourself, your “I”: ani.  This letter’s place in the initial word of the book VaYikra can be seen to offer us a lesson all by its small self. It is the insight taught by the mystics: if you want to experience G-d, get your “I” out of the way.

When you feel that uncertain something, that invitation to consider not what is but what might be if you are ready to contemplate a new learning, don’t let your “I” stop you. It will say “I don’t believe” or “I don’t want to change” or “I already understand” or even “I have a right to….” 

This first word of the book that calls out is calling out to you not to let surface strangeness put you off. It is not dangerous to corral your “I” (a mystical practice called tzimtzum, voluntary contraction of the self) when you do it from a place of choice. And when you do it, leaving defenses behind and making room for that summons, the word VaYikra hints at what you might find – something very yakar, “precious”. And if not a certain finding, certainly a sense of something pulling you toward what might be, yet, to learn.

Getting Ready for Pesakh: What Is Matzah Really About?

It’s all about the matzah. The official name – and the  most ancient name – of our early spring festival is Hag haMatzot, the Festival of Matzah. Eating matzah is a mitzvah, an obligation for every Jew.

But what if you’re gluten free? this question has of course already been answered by the matzah industry: along with all the other varieties, there is gluten-free matzah. 

But this answer is too quick; it doesn’t give us the chance to really consider the question of why we are obligated to eat matzah in the first place. After all, we are forbidden the five grains wheat, barley, spelt, rye and oats. but we can eat them in a matzah state, so the grains themselves are not forbidden….or what?

The answer is not about food at all, but about our illusion of control over our lives. Why matzah, i.e. unleavened bread, bread that is entirely untouched by the natural or introduced presence of yeast? 

Our ancestors lived and died by the amount of grain they were able to grow, gather and store by the hard work of their own hands. One can imagine the care they took in storing grain so that it would last as long as possible without fermenting, which after all is the first step in rotting.

And now imagine a festival which is marked by the cleaning out of all the old grain – even before all the new grain is gathered in. This is our ancestors’ ultimate leap of faith – to clean out the old before the new was a sure thing was to demonstrate with their lives and that of their families that they trusted the old Jewish idea that if you take great care with today, tomorrow you will be all right. 

Note the interesting verb tashbitu in the verse: 

שִׁבְעַת יָמִים, מַצּוֹת תֹּאכֵלוּ–אַךְ בַּיּוֹם הָרִאשׁוֹן, תַּשְׁבִּיתוּ שְּׂאֹר מִבָּתֵּיכֶם:  כִּי כָּל-אֹכֵל חָמֵץ, וְנִכְרְתָה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַהִוא מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל–מִיּוֹם הָרִאשֹׁן, עַד-יוֹם הַשְּׁבִעִי.

“Eat matzah for seven days – on the first day, tashbitu the grain from your houses. Anyone who eats hametz from the first day until the seventh day will be cut off from Israel.” – Exodus 12.8

The root of tashbitu is sh.b.t. This hint of Shabbat is possibly meant to remind us that we are not in control; that you can store up all you want against life’s contingencies, and you are not, after all, going to be able to control them.

The eating of matzah is a positive obligation; that is, it is not about avoiding something, it is about doing something. In this case, eating matzah. That is why, even if you are gluten-free, it is incumbent upon you to do so. There is something profoundly symbolic about it, so much so that if you do not, you cause yourself to be alienated from the People of Israel. You do not have to eat matzah all week; just an amount equal to the volume of an olive. If you absolutely cannot eat even that small amount, it’s best to get together with others who are truly gluten averse and 

invest together in one box of that expensive gluten free matzah – one more way to demonstrate our absolute need for each other, and the reason why the idea of being cut off from Israel is the worst outcome our ancestors could possibly envision