Wonder Who Will Water All The Children Of The Garden ( Hunter, Garcia, Lesh - St. Stephen)

This has been quite an eventful week in our home. Our 11 year old daughter just returned from camp. When I met her at the bus the look on her face suggested two over arching ideas. First, “I am very tired because I was up late with my friends crying on the last night of camp”. Second, “While I have physically returned home, I don’t want to be here. I want to be back in camp. I will need some time to adjust to reentry to the home and the family.” So my wife and I have been very respectful of granting our daughter “space for re-entry”. We both acknowledge that we want this and most transitions to go smoothly. We understand that while we want to spend time with her, hug her and do all the things that 11year olds find annoying in their parents; we also realize that we are constantly aware that the way we deal with today can, to some extent, impact upon tomorrow.

Needless to say, as Shabbat approaches I am particularly excited to have our 11 year old home so I give her a bracha without any distance between us. On Erev Shabbat, before we begin Friday night Shabbat dinner, we perform several rituals including blessings over the candles, wine and challah. However the most meaningful and powerful Erev Shabbat ritual occurs when I bless my children. When I bless my four children and look into their eyes, I am overwhelmed with the sense of being a link in the chain of our people. Not only do I bless them by invoking our patriarchs and matriarchs and hope that God’s benevolence shines upon them. I also invoke thousands of years of learning, thousands of years of Halacha, thousands of years of a holy covenant and relationship to God. When I bless I am praying that they will know how precious this moment is, how beautiful Shabbat is, and how meaningful life is when it includes God, Torah and Mitzvot. When I bless my children, I pray that my children will yearn to pass down Mitzvot, learning, a sense of holiness, and the words of Torah to their children. It is at this moment I feel linked to my ancestors; it is at this moment I feel linked to our tradition, and to God, stretching all the way back across the millennia.

This week we begin the final book of the Torah, Sefer Devarim, with Parsha Devarim. Traditionally known as Mishnah Torah – or the repetition of the Torah, Parsha Devarim is the introductory Parsha to Moshe’s formal teaching of the Torah to this new generation. Moshe Rabeinu, now only a few weeks from the moment of his death, imparts his teaching and his wisdom upon B’nai Yisroel like a dying grandparent or parent would to his/her children. Eilah HaDevarim Asher Diber Moshe El Bnai Yisroel B’Eiver Yarden-These are the words that Moshe Spoke to all Israel, on the other side of the Jordan…(Deut. 1:1) Moshe's teaching and Moshe’s repetition of the Torah embodies tradition. Moshe’s teaching and his repetition of the Torah, exemplifies every parent’s responsibility to strengthen the child’s connection to Judaism, to Torah, and to God.

How do we as parents, and grandparents, teachers, and clergy, friends and neighbors, pass this tradition to the next generation? First and foremost we must start with ourselves. We should be grounded in our belief system and understand the role of Judaism in our lives. Judaism must be relevant to our own lives. Torah is not just a book but rather a code that allows us to engage in a meaningful relationship to God. The purpose of observing Torah and Mitzvot is to live a life of greater sanctification, a life based upon adding holiness to the mundane as opposed to diminishing holiness from the mundane. While there have been or will be times when we struggle in our relationship with God; we can find comfort in a tradition that reminds us that we are the great great great great… grandchildren of those men and women who stood at Sinai and saw and heard God speak to them.

Once we have worked on ourselves, once we have struggled with and accepted the primordial, and even primitive importance of maintaining our Jewish identity, of observing and learning we can begin passing this sense of importance to our children. Once we have accepted that in the very core of our souls, the place where we define ourselves as human and humane, that that sense of human-ness, and sense of humanity is Jewish, then we can pass Eilah Hadevarim, these words to our children. Once we have accepted that the only legacy we leave on this earth after we die is our children and our ideas, and then we are ready to pass Eilah Hadevarim, these words to our children, our legacy. Even if we have not accepted any of these things, even if we are still struggling, even if we honestly believe that this is all childish stuff, we must still pass down Eilah Hadevarim at least for one reason. Everything else that we leave for our children, our grandchildren and our community is finite. Money runs out always needing replenishment. Resources are finite and eventually need replenishment. Only Judaism, like God is infinite. The more it is used the more there is. More learning leads to more observance. More observance leads to more Tzeddakah. More tzeddakah improves the lives of those less unfortunate. The better off the unfortunate will lead to a kinder and gentler community. The kinder and gentler the community, the holier the world has become.

We teach and pass down Eilah Hadevarim, these words, by doing these words. We teach by speaking, we teach by doing. We teach by acknowledging that our children will model our behavior. On this Shabbat, the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av, the Shabbat prior to our commemoration of the destruction of the Holy Temple as well as numerous other tragedies, let us re-affirm that our ability to survive is a direct result of our ability to pass Eilah Hadevarim, these words to our children. As I bless my daughter for the first time in five weeks, I am reminded of just how sacred Eilah HaDevarim, These words are. As I bless my daughter for the first time in five weeks I pray she passes These Words to her children when they return home from summer camp.

Peace,

Rav Yitz

Just Want to Have a Little Peace to Die ( Hunter & Garcia - Black Peter)

Last Sunday, I conducted a funeral, and my seven year old wanted to join me. Conceptually, I think it is important that children are exposed to these various life cycle events. I explained that I could not bring him this time because: this was a funeral for a person he didn't know, and I wouldn't be able his Abba, I had to be the mourners’ Rabbi. He understood. However I was intrigued by the request nonetheless. For my son, and for all our children, we want them to understand and accept these life cycle types of moments as a way of understanding how to live with the subsequent emotions due to the event. The most important gift my wife and I can provide for our children is the emotional strength to treat life and death as "matter of factly" as possible. That doesn't mean there are no emotions, rather those emotions are part of the process of dealing with these life cycle issues in a matter of fact type of way. In a sense we want them to be whole and complete people. We don't want them being scared of life and death, we don't want them to grow paralyzed by life and death, and we don't want them to become emotional basket cases or emotional zombies in regards to life and death. We don’t want their souls and their beings to remain stuck in the emotional intensity and extremes of life. This is our Brit Shalom - Coven anent of Peace for our children.

This Shabbat we read from Parsha Pinchas. The first few Psukim of the Parsha are a direct continuation of the previous Shabbat Parsha Balak. There is no elapse of time in the narrative. Balak concludes with a plague upon Bnai Yisroel for its worship of Moabite/Midianite god, Baal Peor. Aaron’s son Pinchas zealously acts by killing Zimri from the tribe of Shimon and Cozbi the Midyanite woman. God tells Moshe to reward Pinchas for his behavior by giving him the Brit Shalom, the Covenant of Peace. This covenant is only for Pinchas and his descendants. Keeping in mind that B’nai Yisroel has now concluded it 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and are poised upon the eastern bank of the Jordan River; a new census is taken. Just like we needed to know how many left Egypt, we now need to know how many will enter into Eretz Canaan. After the census is taken Moshe must judge a legal case concerning the laws of inheritance when a man has only daughters. This brief narrative is about the “Daughters of Tzelophchad”. Following this narrative, God commands Moshe to teach the new generation the laws for time bound offerings including the Shabbat offering, the Rosh Chodesh offering, the offerings for the Shelosh Regalim (Three Pilgrimage Festivals etc).

Isn't it odd, or perhaps even disturbing, that Pinchas' zealousness, his subsequent spear throwing and impaling his targets is rewarded with a Brit Shalom - a Covenant of Peace and Brit Kehunat Olam - a covenant of an everlasting Priesthood? (Num. 25:12). Through our modernist lens, I imagine that most people consider or at least can understand why some may consider Pinchas act to be nothing more than fanaticism or vigilantism. If we consider Pinchas' behavior to be no different that some fanatic or vigilante; then have a difficult time in understanding Hashem’s rewarding Pinchas. To offer Pinchas Peace and the Priesthood becomes seems incomprehensible. Ibn Ezra (Toledo, Spain 1090 – 1164) explains that God's Brit Shalom was a pledge that Pinchas would be protected from Zimri's kinsmen (the tribe of Shimon) and their desire to kill Pinchas.
The Torah Temima (Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein – Russia 1860-1940) explains that the reward of Peace and the Priesthood was God's way of demonstrating to Moshe, and the rest of the Elders, as well as ChaZaL - Our sages of blessed memory, that such a deed was the result of unadulterated zeal to advance the glory of God. Yet as I read that all I can think of is a terrorist perpetrating a similar act in God's name. The Torah Temimah explains that since we are unable to determine who acts selfishly thereby committing murder and who acts selflessly (advancing the glory of God); the Brit Shalom and the Brit Kehunat L'Olam would only have been given to Pinchas if he indeed acted selflessly. Again, The Torah Temimah's comment makes the assumption that God would never have rewarded someone for committing a heinous act; rather a reward could only have been the result of an act that had been deemed as "good".

However there is another way of looking at this "reward". The Neziv (Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Berlin Poland 1817-1893; the Rosh Yeshiva of the Volozhin Yeshiva) explains that the Brit Shalom is a guarantee of peace from an inner enemy from whatever lurked within Pinchas that caused him to kill another human being without due process. "The Holy One Blessed He blessed him [Pinchas] with the attribute of peace, that he should not be quick tempered or angry. Since it was only natural that such a deed as Pinchas' should leave in his heart an intense emotional unrest afterward, the Divine blessing was designed to cope with this situation and promised peace and tranquility of the soul." We can now begin to make some sense of these covenants. Once Pinchas committed his first act of zealous defense of God's glory, perhaps it becomes easier and easier to commit a second third of forty-eight act of zealous defense of God's glory. At some point, from the Neziv's perspective, the zealot's soul becomes damaged, the zealot's emotions are incapable of feelings, and the zealot's eyes become unseeing except through the lens of their zealousness. The zealot by definition is an extremist and we know that extremism in Judaism is frowned upon and Halachically unacceptable (see the laws of the Nazarite). Precisely because the zealot does not know peace when he/she commits such an act, in Pinchas' case the only gift God could give was that the tumult of his own soul should cease and he should be whole, complete and at peace.

From this perspective, that Brit Shalom was not so much a reward of external gain as it was a reward for internal “normalcy”, the Brit Shalom and the Brit Kehunat L’Olam seem much more appropriate. Isn’t that what we wish for our children? We know that during the course of their lives there will be moments of tumult. We know that they will experience tension between their belief system and the realities of daily life. We know that they will be exposed to extreme emotions of joy, of sadness, of anguish and of anger. Like Pinchas received a Brit Shalom, we offer that same covenant to our children. Indeed when they do experience extreme and intense emotions of life, we want pray that they will be able to return to a state of peace and contentment with themselves and their lives.

Peace,

RavYitz

Still I Know I Lead TheWay, They Tell Me Where I Go (Barlow/Weir - Estimated Prophet)

We were away on a mini vacation. We had a simcha in New Jersey which allowed us to spend Shabbat and Sunday morning with some of our cousins. When we arrived in Teaneck, we had several hours before Shabbat. Our cousin had promised to take her young children to the local firehouse, and we decided to tag along. My children had been to firehouses as part of school field trips, but this was a little different. We had a chance to spend some time with the captain of the firehouse, a big strapping guy of Irish descent who was probably a little younger than me. He was someone’s husband, and he was a father. This seemed to be a very important quality for my children. The kids asked him about the fire trucks, about the equipment. He even put on all his equipment including mask and air tank. The kids had a chance to hold the hose and spray water from it as if they were putting out a fire. I had a few moments to speak the captain and asked him about his experience during 9/11. Teaneck is located just across the George Washington Bridge maybe 10-15 miles from New York City. The captain explained that he was there, he like so many other braved the infernos and help put them out. He like so many other firemen also participated in the search and rescue mission after the towers came down. As he began to speak and share his story with me, my children gathered around both of us and just listened. I began to well up. When he finished sharing with us that horrible day and the days and weeks afterwards; it was time for us to leave and get ready for Shabbat. As we said good-bye, and thanked the captain, my children asked me if this man was a hero. I said yes, this man and many like him are heroes. My daughter thanked the Fire captain, and offered the following statement. “You’re wife and children must be very proud to know that you are a hero. Thank you for being a hero and keeping people safe.”

This Shabbat we read from Parsha Chukkat. Chukkat begins by telling us the Law for the Red Heifer. A Chok is a statute for which there is no logical reason. Unlike a Mitzvah, which is a commandment, and for which reasons and rationale may abound in order for the Mitzvah to make sense, a Chok is simply taken on faith. Unlike a Mishpat, which is a judgment that comes from a specific case/decision, a Chok is seemly plucked out of the air and there is no thought given to decisions. The Chok concerning the Red Heifer is that the individual Priest who prepares the mixture that will render the entire nation spiritually pure, will himself become impure from the mixture. However the Parsha continues the theme of Chukkat following the statute of the Red Heifer. A brief narrative concerning the death of Miriam, the lack of water and B’nai Yisroel’s resulting anxiety and lack of faith leads to the issuance of another Chok. Moshe and Aaron don’t know what to do; so God tells them: Kach et HaMateh v’Hakhaeil Et Ha’Edah Ata v’Aharon Achicha v’Dibartem El HaSela L’Eineihem V’Natan Meimav V’Hotzeitah Lahem Mayim Min HaSela V’Hishkita et HaEidah v’Et B’Iram – Hashem spoke to Moshe saying: Take the staff and gather together the assembly, you and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock before their eyes that it shall give its waters. You shall bring forth for them water from the rock and give drink to the assembly and to their animals (Num. 20:8). This statute was directed at Moshe and Aaron. There was no apparent logic or reason for it. The Torah text offers a very simple explanation of Moshe’s sin and ensuing punishment. After striking the rock twice, water came out from the rock, and the assembly drank. God explains the reason for the harsh punishment. Ya’an Lo He’ehmantem Bi L’Hakdisheine L’Einei Bnai Yisroel Lachein Lo Taviu et HaKahal Hazeh el Ha’Aretz asher Natati Lahem: Because you did not believe in Me to sanctify Me in the eyes of the Children of Israel, therefore you will not bring this congregation to the Land that I have given them (Num. 20:12). The most humble man, who had the closest relationship to God, receives perhaps the most hurtful of punishments for a moment of weakness.

Certainly, it is possible to question the punishment as too severe for what transpired. Why does Moshe need to take the rod, the same rod he used to touch the Nile in order to begin the plague of blood? The last time God issued a command about drawing water from a rock; Moshe was commanded to strike the rock (Ex. 17:6). Why pick up the rod if he wasn’t going to use it? Now, without warning God has changed the way Moshe was to draw water from the rock. Now without warning of the punishment if Moshe fails to heed the directive, Moshe is unable to fulfill his mission and bring B’nai Yisroel into Eretz Canaan. The Parsha concludes with Bnai Yisroel defeating the Amorites and temporarily dwelling on the planes of Moav, on the Eastern side of the Jordan River.

Our commentators offer a variety of explanations for this apparently harsh punishment. Rashi explains that Moshe’s fall from the pedestal of “the Hero” because he hit the rock rather than speak as he was commanded. Rambam explains that Moshe’s error was the fact that he was incredibly angry with the people. Since Moshe is a direct emissary of God, the people mistakenly thought that God was mad at them as well when that was not the case. In this Parsha we are never told that God is angry at Bnai Yisroel. Rabeinu Chananel explains that the mistake was the fact that Moshe and Aharon had used the phrase HaMin HaSelah HaZeh Notzim Lachem Mayim – Shall we bring forth for you water from this rock?” The phrase suggests that Moshe and Aharon had forgotten that God was going to bring forth the water, not Moshe and Aharon. The statement intuits that Moshe was elevating himself above God. Instead Moshe should have rhetorically asked if God will bring forth water for you…. The Midrash Tanchuma and Abarbanel explain that Aharon and Moshe already fell from their heroic pedestals. Aharon had not yet been punished for his involvement in the episode of the Golden Calf and Moshe initiated the episode of the spies. God had never commanded Moshe to send spies. The Chiddushei HaRim explains that Moshe and Aharon’s failure and reason for punishment has to do with speaking to the Rock L’Eineihem – before their eyes – before the people. For the Chiddushei HaRim, Moshe’s ultimate shortcoming was that he wasted an opportunity to teach this new generation, this generation that was not familiar with slavery, nor familiar with life in Egypt, nor directly experienced the miracle of the Exodus.

While we may disagree with severity of Moshe’s punishment, perhaps we can appreciate why God could no longer support Moshe as the leader to bring Bnai Yisroel into Eretz Canaan. For God, leading Bnai Yisroel means serving as a role model. For God, being a leader, indeed, being heroic means possessing the strength, the courage and the faith to sanctify God when all reason, and context suggests that do so is ludicrous or even life threatening. For God, being a leader, engaging in heroic behavior means bringing others, family, community, or an entire people closer to a meaningful relationship with God. Most of us do not sit in such positions of authority. Most of us are not leaders of industry. Most of us are not role models for society at large. However, within our families, parents are role models for their children. Older siblings are role models for younger siblings. Within our community, we are all role models for other members of the community. We all are presented opportunities to draw other members into the community or to push members out of the community. The captain of the Teaneck Fire Department not only had the opportunity to act heroically on numerous occasions, including 9/11; he has the opportunity to teach children and adults what it means to act heroically and to lead through both word and deed. We can either engage or alienate. We can be honestly warm and friendly or we can speak Lashon Harah behind a person’s back. Depending upon what we do, we will either create a community that is vibrant, observant, thoughtful, and warm. Moshe, the greatest teacher, prophet, and transmitter of law and theology missed a glaring opportunity to teach Bnai Yisroel. When such a person with vast amounts of power and responsibility miss a sacred opportunity to teach, to explain and create an opportunity for the common folk to draw closer to God, then we can understand the harshness of the punishment. Hopefully my children now can begin to understand that leadership and heroism sometimes is as much the fulfillment of a Chok as it is the fulfillment of a Mitzvah.

Peace,

Rav Yitz

"For a Person as Perfect as You" (John Barlow, Bob Weir, Brett Mydland - Hell in a Bucket)

This past Sunday night, I received a text message from my eldest daughter “to turn on the news; the President was about to speak”. Usually Presidents like to speak during prime time during the weeknight, not on a Sunday night. Certainly Presidents do not like to ever speak after 11pm EST. However this President did precisely that, appearing before the American people a little after 11:30pm on Sunday night. President Obama stated quite simply that a Special Forces op had found and killed Osama Bin Laden. Considering that two Presidents over the course of nine years and 7 months had been looking for Bin Laden, this was certainly newsworthy. As more information about the special operation consisting of two helicopters and Navy Seals was revealed; several important ideas became evident. One of the Helicopters malfunctioned and landed in Bin Laden’s compound as opposed to outside the compound as originally planned. There was some doubt as to whether Bin Laden was at that compound. Although, due to its size at the height concrete wills and barbed wire fence; administration officials believed that there was a strong likelihood that bin Laden was there. The Navy Seals and bin Laden’s body were all loaded onto one helicopter and quickly fled from Pakistani airspace with three Pakistani jets giving chase. This information and information similar to it supports the administration’s claim that this mission was far from perfect. What has captured the fancy of the press and the American public is that this special ops mission overcame several “several less than perfect” variables and situations and still managed to succeed. At the very least, it was abundantly clear that these Navy Seals performed in a manner that allowed them to overcome the “less than perfect”. Had the Seals performed in a less than “perfect” manner, American lives would have been lost, Bin Laden may have survived, and the United States would have become a laughingstock, as with the 1979 failed hostage escape from Iran. We learned from this very successful Special Forces op that we can practice behavior, control our responses, and perfect our behavior as we respond to that which may or may not be perfect.

This week we read from Parsha Emor. The four chapters that comprise Parsha Emor focus on the various aspects of Perfection. First the Torah focuses upon the importance of the physical and spiritual perfection and purity of the Kohen. He must remain in a perpetual state of purity. He is restricted in terms of whom he can marry. He is restricted in regards for whom he can mourn. He cannot go to a cemetery. He cannot make sacrificial offerings if he has physical abnormalities. The second of the four chapters reminds B’nai Yisroel that when approaching God with an offering, the individual must be spiritually pure and perfect and so must the offering. These offerings must come directly from the individual making them and not from “the hand of a stranger” (Lev.22:25). The third chapter of the Parsha deals with the perfection and the purity of time. Time is define as perfect in the season follow an order, the holidays such as Shabbat, Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur are designated to come in a particular order. That order is both pure and perfect since time and the designation of “Sacred” time comes from God. The fourth chapter speaks about maintaining purity and the perfection of physical space in this case the Mishkan, and all that is in the Mishkan. The Torah even deals with perfection and purity of human relationships and the punishments to be meted out when that perfection, purity and holiness is violated. “If a man inflicts a wound on his fellow, as he did, so shall be done to him: a break for a break, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…” (Lev.24:19-23). In a sense, this last chapter reminds us of God’s charge to B’nai Yisroel.

Everything we do is designed to sanctify God’s name through deed. Whether attending to the Mishkan, the treatment of animals or of our fellow man, it all boils down to the sanctification of God. It is quite evident that the Parsha deals with both the “big picture” of human behavior (“a life for a life” Lev. 24:18) and the seemingly insignificant minutiae of measurements of certain offerings “a meal offering shall be two tenth ephah of fine flour mixed with oil,” (Lev. 23:13). It is also quite evident that parts of the text seem overly restrictive, discriminatory, and harsh. By combining both the “big” issues, and the minutiae, we learn that Judaism is a holistic orientation designed to elevate every aspect of our physical existence.

In Parshah Emor, we learn why Judaism can be so difficult. Our sole purpose as Jews is mentioned in Leviticus 22:32. V’Lo T’Chalelu et Shem Kodshi V’Nikdashti B’Toch B’nai Yisroel, Ani Adonai M’Kadishchem –“You shall not desecrate my holy Name, rather I should be sanctified among the Children of Israel, I am the Lord who sanctifies you.” In a way, desecrating God’s holy name (blaspheming) is tantamount to murder. Why? Both blasphemy and murder are punishable by death, or in other words “a measure for measure”. We know that mankind, like other animals, seeks pleasure. However unlike the rest of creation, mankind is the only animal that is capable of spiritual pleasure as well as physical pleasure. Judaism’s orientation is based on the value that sanctifying God can be a pleasurable experience. Yet, the irony of our society is that doing "good" is often difficult and perhaps painful. Very often being good and doing good is considered boring, and “not cool”. Also, the prevailing attitude of our society is neither “measure for measure”, nor the assumption of responsibility for our actions. Instead we try to “get one over” on the next person. Parshah Emor teaches us that we “cannot get one over on the next person”. Ultimately, we are all equal. While the expression of such equality may differ, we are all equal. Ultimately we have the same purpose. Ultimately, we are all charged to uphold Torah, and live a life of Kedushah, Holiness. Ultimately we are all judged by one law (Lev. 24:22).

Certainly Judaism is difficult. Part of the difficulty is that climbing the ladder of holiness requires effort and desire. Climbing this ladder will affect and even change our lives. It affects what we eat, it affects how we relate to our mates, it affects our treatment of others, it affects how we look at time and space, it affects our relationship to God, and how we relate to ourselves. The other reason for its difficulty is that we are all examples to our families, our communities and the outside world. Therefore Judaism, and the knowledge required to do Judaism must be accessible to all of us. We only need to put in the work. Judaism must be accessible not only to the Orthodox but to all of us since we, as a people, are supposed to be a “light unto the nations”. We are supposed to be role models for the rest of the world. If Judaism, the sanctification of the self, and the sanctification of God were easy, then neither could we appreciate it, nor commit to it. Therefore we must struggle to climb the ladder of holiness everyday. Only by climbing this ladder we begin sanctifying God as well as ourselves and demonstrating to all that life of Mitzvot can be very meaningful.

Peace,

Rav Yitz