One Last Voice Is Calling You And I Guess It's Time You Go (Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia "Sugaree")

We are still in the midst of the Pesach Festival. The Sederim are behind us. The first two days of the Festival are behind us. For a few days all of our children, including our eldest, who came in from New York, were home with us. Sure it was terrific seeing our children helping with all the preparations for the Holiday,  sitting at the Seder, asking questions, singing, laughing, and eating way too much. However, my most favorite moment occurred when I arrived home from Shul. I walked in the house and they were waiting for me in order to begin lunch.  No one was angry or frustrated with me because I had kept them waiting. Instead, my wife and our four children were sitting on the floor playing together, laughing, enjoying each other’s company, and getting along so sweetly. As I took my eldest daughter to the airport so she could return to New York, I explained to her how important it was for her to come home every so often for my own selfish needs. It was a great moment. Perhaps it is because of the Pesach Festival, but I actually find myself thanking God for allowing me to have had such a moment. Hopefully, I should have similar moments in the future.   

When we make the Shabbat Kiddush, we invoke a certain imagery of God. Zikaron L’Maasei Breishit, Ki Hu Yom Techila L’Mikra’ei Kodesh, Zeicher L’Tziyat Mitzrayim- We invoke the image of God as the creator. In the Kiddush we remind ourselves to “Remember the event of Creation”. That is God created for six days and rested on the seventh day, hence Shabbat. We also remind ourselves of the Yetziat Mitzrayim- The Exodus from Egypt. Specifically we remind ourselves that “With an outstretched arm and a mighty hand”, God brought us out of Egypt, and God redeemed us from slavery. Both of these images of God are of a powerful God, a mighty God. Associated with these descriptions of God is that God was fulfilling his Brit, his covenant with Avraham Avinu that we will be chosen and a great and mighty nation. Also by God redeeming us from Slavery, we were to receive the Aseret Dibrot, the Ten Commandments in order to re-affirm God’s covenant to us and our covenant to God.

            On Shabbat Chol Ha’Moed Pesach, the Intermediate Sabbath of Pesach, we invoke a very different sort of image of God. This is rather ironic when, considering the imagery we use to describe God at our Seders. Again at the Seder we invoke the image of Avadim Hayinu B’Mitzrayim, V’Yotzieinu Adoshem Elokeinu Misham B’Yad Chazakah Uvizroah N’tuyah – We were slaves in Egypt and  The Lord our God brought us out from there, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. Certainly Pesach and the Exodus from Egypt should invoke images of God’s strength etc. However we know that Shabbat invokes a different type of image. And just like a regular Shabbat invokes images of  “Lecha Dodi Likrat Kalah P’nai Shabbat N’Kablah – Come My Beloved with chorus of praise, Welcome Shabbat the Bride, Queen of our days, images of Bridal splendor and royalty, on Shabbat Chol HaMoed Pesach we need to invoke that imagery of God as well. Unlike a regular Shabbat, when on Friday Night we invoke that imagery during the Kabbalat Shabbat – Friday Evening Service, we don’t conduct Kabbalat Shabbat. We don’t mix the joy of the Shabbat with the joy of the holiday. So what do we do?

            We read from the scroll of Shir Ha’Shirim, the Song of Songs. We read the scroll that is traditionally ascribed to King Solomon when he was young. We read of lovers who yearn for each other. While on a literal basis our sages had great difficulty with this scroll as part of our biblical canon, symbolically they understood its importance. Shir HaShirim reminds us that our relationship to God is that of lovers, is that of husband and wife. Kol Dodi Hinei Zeh Bah M’Daleig Al  HeHarim M’Kapeitz Al Hagvaot – The voice of my beloved! Behold it came suddenly [in the form of redeeming me], as if leaping over mountains, skipping over hills (Song of Songs 2:8). In a Midrash – Rabbi Yehudah taught that the voice of my beloved is the voice of Moshe. When Moshe came to B’nai Yisroel and told them that our redemption from slavery was imminent. We didn’t believe him; we reminded him that God told Avraham Avinu that we would be enslaved for four centuries, not two centuries. Moshe explained that God couldn’t stand being away from us, his beloved. So he leaped over mountains, that is he jumped over the remaining two centuries in order to be with us. (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 2:1).

            How flattering! God has missed us. God wants us at God’s side. God wants a relationship with us, and God wants this now. On Shabbat Chol HaMoed Pesach, we invoke a God who yearns for us as much as we yearn for God. This is a very powerful image as well but very different. We don’t normally view God as a loving partner. Yet what could be more appropriate than reminding these slaves, this generation that was a few days removed from Egypt, that there is more to the relationship, more to the covenant than our serving God. There is a tender relationship, a loving relationship based upon a mutual understanding of fulfilling responsibilities. Shabbat is the time when we stop the mundane existence and step away from the frenetic pace of life and remind and re-affirm our loving and tender relationships with our loved ones base upon our mutual understanding of fulfilling responsibilities. Besides the relationships with our husbands and wives, our parents and our children is our relationship to God.

Peace,

Rav Yitz

For A Taste Of Your Elegant Pride (John Barlow & Bob Weir - "Hell in a Bucket")

As we have been preparing for the Pesach holiday, running to various supermarkets in Toronto, bringing up the Pesach dishes, kashering the oven, cleaning, and cooking while simultaneously get children to their various activities and still take care of my responsibilities at work, I had a very interesting phone conversation with our son. I had just finished meeting with a family in preparation for a funeral. I called my wife to check in and to check if she needed me to pick run any errands. Our son answered the cell phone. He was talking very quietly and I asked him where he was. “Mommy took us to the mall because one of your daughters needed a blouse or something.” I asked why he was talking so softly. “I don’t want mommy or your daughters to hear what I am about to say. I hate going to the mall with them. I hate shopping with them. Girls have cooties. Please pick me up and get me out of here.”  The poor kid sounded like this was his one call from jail. Thankfully he couldn’t see me smiling. I agreed with him regarding his assessment about girls. “Yes, when I was your age, girls have cooties. Trust me, as you get older you will realize that they don’t.” I re-assured him that they would be leaving in a few minutes as our son had to get to his activity anyway.  I hung up and thought about what our son had said and thought about myself when I was eight. After all, when we little boys still feared the girls, and thought of them as “gross”, the boy who was the Cootie Doctor held an enormous amount of power. He determined who had been rendered contaminated. Make no mistake, the Cootie Doctor made it very clear, just touching the girl, accidentally grazing her arm, let alone her punching you after you pulled her pig tails, rendered us boys contaminated. Only the Cootie Doctor could re-purify us. It was only now, after listening to my son explain that he too thought that girls have cooties that I realize if the Cootie Doctor had any entrepreneurial spirit whatsoever, he could have made a tidy fortune off of every eight year old boy’s perspective on girls.

This Shabbat we read from Parsha Tzav. While the previous Parsha, VaYikra spoke of the various rules and regulations for the number of offerings; the Parsha focused upon Bnai Yisroel, the types of animals that are brought for Korbonot (usually animal offerings) and what happens to the animal at the time of the Korbonot. In Parshat Tzav, the first two chapters, focus is upon the role of the Kohanim, the priests, their entitlements, their privileges and the responsibilities in the sacrificial process. Some offering are to be burned completely and the Kohen is not entitled to anything, and some other offerings are NOT to be burned completely and the Kohen is entitle to the food that is left over.

The Torah text suggests that the transfer of purity and impurity is similar to our “little boy” perceptions of Cooties. All we needed to do was touch or be touched and we could be rendered as pure or impure. However the notion of transferring purity and impurity wasn’t confined only to people. It could occur with our offerings and our food.  In outlining the Meal Offering the Torah explains that  Kol Zachar Bivnei Aharon Yochlena Chok Olam L’Doroteichem Mei’Ishei Adoshem Kol Asher Yigah Bahem Yikdash – Every male of the children of Aharon shall eat it, an eternal portion for your generations, from the fire offerings of Hashem; whatever touches them shall become holy (6:11). Rashi clarifies that the Meal Offering state of purity is quite powerful.  If a food or vessel touches the meal offering in such a way that the second vessel absorbs the taste of the Meal Offering, then that food/vessel must be treated with the same stringencies as Meal Offering. Meaning the second vessel of food must be eaten in its entirety and in the same place as the Meal Offering is consumed. The holiness of the Meal Offering has been transferred to the second food vessel; and must be treated as holy.

Unlike children and the neighborhood “Cootie Doctor”, we adults have a difficult time with this notion of purity and impurity. Yet from a spiritual perspective it makes complete sense. If we touch things that are not holy, we are rendered unholy. If we touch things that are holy, we have become holier. There are certain behaviors, certain foods and certain people we avoid because it we may be harmed. The same holds true in the spiritual realm as well. No, we don’t have “Cootie Doctors” anymore. But as Jews throughout the world make their final preparations for the Passover Holiday, we rid our house of Chometz. We rid ourselves selves of the unholiness that chometz, (leavened grain products) represents. In so doing, we will be able to sit down at the Seder table and, like our son who will be sitting next to his sisters not worrying about “cooties”; we won’t have to worry the chametz. Instead, we will be in an elevated state of purity.

Peace,

Rav Yitz

Would You Come Closer If I Asked You To? (John Barlow & Bob Weir "Lazy Lightning")

       Our ten year old daughter is quite tech savvy.  She recently noticed that the I Pad had a new commercial. How do I know this? In our home there is a direct correlation between new advertisements of things my children want and their asking me to buy them these things.  I have known for a while that she wants an I Pad for her birthday. Then for several months, she has been quiet. Now since the new commercial, she will ask, negotiate and strongly suggest the educational advantages of buying her an I Pad.  I have noticed that as my children grow older, they are quite vulnerable to the rampant consumerism of our society. I also know that when we buy our children things, they take care of it and use it for a short period of time and then they stop caring and stop using it. We are a nation of consumers. We look for the “best deal”. We look for the “highest quality”. Some consumers like to save as much money as possible when purchasing goods and services and some consumers like to pay for quality or “trusted name brands”.  Some consumers strike a balance between these tensions and some consumers do not. In either case there is nothing we cannot purchase and we can spend as much or as little as we want on an item. Religion in Canada and the United States is no different. Religion is as much a consumer item as purchasing a car. We like certain models; we like certain makes. We want certain features and colors in the car that we buy. Certainly for the amount of money spent on a car we expect it to be just the way we want it. Many of us feel the same way about Judaism. 

        This Shabbat we begin the third book of the Torah with the Parsha of the same name, Vayikra otherwise known as Leviticus. Unlike Breishit and parts of Shmot which were narratives or other parts of Shmot with were a series of legislative acts, teaching us law after law; Vayikra is something very different. We are all able to relate to narrative and to stories. We can even read the law that governed biblical Jewish society and admire the laws’ humanity, admire the ethical lessons the law tried to teach or even admire the people that the law tried to protect. However when we begin Parshat Vayikra, we all have a problem connecting to the concept of Korbonot, the term used to describe animal sacrifices. We all have difficulty connecting to the various types of Korbonot; the animals permitted for an offering, and the technical aspects of the offering. Do we really need to know how to check of the animal, and to slaughter the animal? Do we need to read about sprinkling the blood of the animal; roasting the animal, and finally eating the animal? Parsha Vayikra and in fact the entire book of Leviticus truly challenges those of us living in modernity. If for no other reason, we are challenged because we don’t have a Mishkan, we don’t have a Holy Temple and we don’t make animal sacrifices.

        Certainly there was wide array of offerings. There was flexibility in what type of animal could be brought: ox, sheep, lamb, dove etc. However the type of animal offered was not a function of what we wanted to offer but rather what we could afford to offer. Even more powerful is how Parsha defined afford. It is certainly very different than how we define “afford”. Quite often we “moderns” define Korbonot as a sacrifice. This means that our ancestors had to give something up to God. Understanding a Korbonot as an animal sacrifice suggest that the more expensive or the more valuable the offering; the more God would like it.  However, the Prophets teach us that God doesn’t need our sacrifices. The Prophets remind us that the Korbonot is not about the thing that we give up: the ox, the sheep, the pigeon or the meal offering. Rather the Korbonot should be about our drawing closer to God; Korbonot was a process of drawing towards God in a relationship built upon thankfulness and holiness. Therefore if the wealthy person brought a Korbonot consisting of an animal that did not mean very much to him, then there was no point in bringing an offering. When a poor person brings an offering that had value to him but did so with an attitude of rote activity or with the hopes of public recognition; then there was no point in bringing an offering. The point of the bringing the animal or the point of making any offering is an expression of what we are willing to put into our relationship with God.

          How much of ourselves are we willing to put in this relationship? Because as much as we put into our relationship with God will be about as much as we get from God. Yes, we are all consumers. We consume goods; we consume services. We know people who consume relationships. Ironically such person puts very little of him or herself into the relationship. Many of us want our Judaism the way we want it, at our own individual convenience, at times that fit our schedule, on days that we are not so busy, and at moments when we are in need. Sadly, I know that after I buy my daughter or any of my kids something that they just can’t live without, it falls into disuse and disrepair. However when they work for things, or are rewarded for something; they are invested. They take better care of the item. They stop being a consumer. The more we are willing to offer God, the more richness and meaning we receive in return.

Peace,

Rav Yitz

Everybody Is Playing In The Heart Of Gold Band (Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia - "Scarlet Begonias")

Our twelve year old daughter made the school basketball team. This is the first time she has played an organized team sport. This is the first time that she has sweated with teammates, bonded with teammates, and shared a common purpose with teammates. Right now they are 0-2 and they have a lot of work to do in order to be more competitive. However as parents, we have notice a huge change compared to before her tryouts. Before she would get sick and the whole world would have to stop and take notice of her being sick. Now if she is sick she wants to be healed immediately so as not to let her teammates down. Before, the world revolved around her. Now she is so much more helpful around the house because she understands that we, as a family, share common goals and we each have our jobs to do in order to achieve those goals – just like her basketball team. Our oldest daughter started in a full time job this week. It is interesting that she played team sports in middle school and in high school. She also enjoyed playing intramural sports while attending university. She is now works for an organization called Mayors Against Illegal Guns –spearheaded by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York. She is part of team. Like her younger sisters, she realizes the merit of working with people towards a common goal. She understands that everyone on the team has a job to do and success in the individual job translates into success for the team. Both have learned that there is something powerful when individual success is put aside for the success of the group as a whole. Perhaps this is the transition from childhood to adulthood, from the centrality of the individual to the centrality of more than the individual: to the team, to the group or to the family.

            This week’s Parsha is Vayakahel/Pekudei. Following the sin of the Golden Calf and Teshuvah (repentance), B’nai Yisroel begins executing God’s instructions for the Mishkan, the Ark, and the Tent of the Meeting. We recall that when God gave these instructions to Moshe, God started from the middle of the structure (the holiest point of the structure) and worked out towards the outer walls of the structure. Moshe gave the instructions to Bnai Yisroel in the same manner, beginning with the most sacred spot, the Aron and concluding with the least sacred spot, the Ohel Moed 0- The Tent of the Meeting.  However when Betzalel and Olihav begin organizing the construction of the project,  they begin with walls of the Tent, and then conclude with the altar and finally the Ark. 

After the destructive behavior of worshipping the Golden Calf, B’nai Yisroel comes together, and shares a common constructive experience bound by a common goal. Their goal is to complete the construction of the Mishkan. The common experience is their contributions to of raw materials. V’Yavo’u  kol Ish Asher Nasahu Libo V’chol Asher Nadvah Rucho- Every man whose heart inspired him came; and everyone whose spirit motivated him brought the portion of God for the work of the Tent of the Meeting, for all its labor and for the sacred clothing (Ex.35:21). By participating in this constructive process, everyone had an opportunity to repent for the sin of the Golden Calf and for his/her respective lack of faith. If viewed as a process, B’nai Yisroel began on the idolatrous fringes in its relationship to God, after repentance, after bringing the materials, after organizing individuals, families and tribes into cohesive construction units, they began moving towards the Holy of Holies. First they built the walls of the Tent of the Meeting, the altar, then the holy of holies.

For the vast majority, we approach God in a similar way. As we become inspired, we are drawn towards Judaism. As we become motivated, we dedicate a greater portion to God, both in terms of tzedakkah and time. It is very rare when our motivation or dedication comes as a result of a “bolt of lightening” or some existential metaphysical sign or wonder. No, our motivation and dedication is a result of our recognition that there is something missing in our lives. We miss meaning in our lives. We miss contentment in our lives. We miss peace in our lives. Certainly we can be happy without meaning. Certainly we can be happy without contentment. Certainly we can be happy without peace. Why? Happiness is rather fleeting and quite often it is the result of some external factor. Meaning, contentment and peace are ultimately internally influenced and far less fleeting.  Our movement towards God, our movement towards greater observance, is a series of steps. We don’t begin as a Tzaddik observing all mitzvot.  Rather, one mitzvah leads to another, learning leads to more learning which eventually leads to doing.

We learn several vital lessons from this Parsha. First, we learn that Judaism works best as a communal experience. Certainly we all have our own individual lives to lead and Mitzvot to follow. However, observance is much easier when its shared. Experience is more meaningful when it is shared. Whether sharing it with the family on Shabbat and Holidays or sharing it with members of the community during prayer, Judaism works best when it is done as a team sport. We learn that when the community shares a commons sense of purpose, something wonderful happens. We achieve that balance between God and ourselves. The result, of course, is that God will dwell among us. God’s dwelling among us makes our community a little warmer, a little kinder, and more significant. Third, we also learn that the actual process of building requires hard work. B’nai Yisroel, like any team, shared in the task’s difficulty. Greater participation made the experience that much more meaningful. When the experience is more meaningful, then the reward will be greater. What is the reward? The reward is a community that shares simchas and tsuris, victories as well as defeats. The reward is that no individual member of the community should ever feel alienated and alone. The reward is a community that strives for growth and improvement. This brings more meaning to the life of the individual, the family, and the community.

Peace,

             Rav Yitz