9th Elul – the relationship between synagogue and commuity

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9th Elul  17th August 2021

On this day in 1267 Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Nachmanides/Ramban) arrived in Jerusalem having been exiled from Aragon after the Disputation of Barcelona. Tradition has it that he founded a synagogue once he arrived, having allegedly found only two Jews living openly there and a ruined domed building which he reclaimed. (This story is in a document purporting to be a letter to his son, though it is a deeply problematic text in many ways).

He is alleged to have written

    “Many are [Jerusalem’s] forsaken places, and great is the desecration. The more sacred the place, the greater the devastation it has suffered. Jerusalem is the most desolate place of all. … There are ten men who meet on the Sabbaths they hold services at their home. … Even in its destruction, it is an exceedingly good land.

The story goes on that Nachmanides decided to rebuild the Jewish community by rebuilding the synagogue as a place where they could come together to pray, that he brought back scrolls that had been hidden in Shechem, and that in just three weeks, in time for the services of Rosh Hashanah, there was a Jewish community to pray in the recreated synagogue.

One should add that Nachmanides was seventy two years old at the time he made Aliyah and then rebuilt a Jewish community.

Whether this ancient synagogue really was revitalised by Nachmanides is at the least questionable, but the premise -that a synagogue builds a Jewish community as much as a Jewish community builds a synagogue-  is an important one.

Many people question whether they should join a synagogue. Often the questions are framed in a transactional mindset – “what do I get from paying my dues?” Rarely do we ask “what does my supporting a synagogue give to enhance my own values?”

Rabbi Paul Kipnes wrote after reflecting on the question he was asked by a former member “How does my being a synagogue member make my life better? This is his response:

I thought about her question a lot and struggled. I’m wondering how YOU would answer. My answer was:

Depends on what you mean by “better”.

If you mean physically healthier, it won’t… Join a gym.

If you mean more beautiful physically, it won’t, go to Nordstroms or a make up artist or…

If you mean richer, it won’t, get a higher paying job.

If you mean more mentally stable, it won’t, go to a shrink.

If you mean more knowledgeable, it won’t, take a class at Pierce.

If you mean… Then go …

But being part of a synagogue allows you to be part of a larger community… of YOUR people.

Being part of a synagogue means promulgating values that your tradition, and you, hold dear.

Being part of a community is like ensuring that your “room” is still there even if you go away to college. You can always come home. Or if you are an adult, you can not show up but we are still here.

Being part of a community teaches future generations that being a Jew matters, even if you aren’t a power user of the synagogue at the moment.

Being part of a community means that there will always be high holy day services for you and the community.

…That you have a place to turn if you are in need.

…That there is always Torah in your community

…That you have a spiritual home.

…That your values are played out through social justice

…That you have a place to go to sing Mi Shebeirach…

…That Israel has an advocate in the community.

…That you take responsibility for the next generation, like the previous one did for yours.

Its not about money, because everyone can join regardless of wealth or lack of money. Its about commitment to community.

We live in a world that speaks of consumer values. What do I get if I pay. Judaism is a people/religion/nation/culture/ethnicity/more that transcends that, asking what will being part of a community do for OUR world, ALL people, OUR people, OUR community. That’s how I think and its how I want my children to think.

If it is how you want to think, come home. If not, home will still be here for you if you ever decide you want to come home.

(Oh, and Judaism, synagogue and community can make you more beautiful because you feel better about yourself when you are spiritually centred. You will be richer because you will have enriched your life and those of others. You will be smarter because you will be able to partake in 5000 years of Jewish knowledge. You will be mentally more stable because you will have adjusted the balance of the mind, body, spirit. Of course all this presupposes that not only do you join but you also connect in and come.)

So, that’s my answer. The shofar’s in your court…

8th Elul

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8th Elul 16th August

The Psalmist asks “Eternal God, what are human beings that you should care for them, mortal creatures that you should notice them?”

The question is carefully posed.  We recognise that we are indeed fragile presences on the earth, our lives barely impacting in time or space, yet we confidently assert that God notices us and cares about us.  We wear celebratory white during this season of penitence because we know that God will forgive us if we sincerely repent.

Our tradition provides us with a strong sense of ourselves. We are at one and the same time both “dust and ashes” and “the beloved children of the Sovereign”.  We are mortal and yet we are bound up in immortality. We are fully individual and also we are a small part of a whole creation.  It takes a particular view of the world to be able to hold both all the opinions at the same time, yet the Jewish mind is asked to somehow encompass them all, just as our liturgy speaks of God in a variety of ways all at the same time. And it is this dynamic tension that traditionally nurtures our distinctive identity and sense of self. 

Yet how easily could we agree with the Psalmist today? Are we able to put a direct question to God? And even if we are comfortable with that relationship, would we dare to remind God that a precondition of the conversation is that God must pay attention to us and care for us? For many of us the easy familiarity of the covenantal relationship is lost and we struggle to find a bridge to that place.  This is what the month of Ellul is for, and it is also some of the work of the High Holy Days.  We may no longer be sure of God; we may wonder about the purpose of prayer. And yet part of us doesn’t want to let it all go; we want to return to that clarity that gives meaning to our lives. The Psalmist had many doubts and fears, but he knew his worth in relation to God.  It is time for us to reclaim that knowledge, to search ourselves and to begin to really know ourselves. This understanding is the foundation of the bridge we build into the future, the bridge we build back to the knowledge of God.

7th Elul the triumph of hope over experience – the second marriage of Amram and Jocheved

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7th Elul 15th August 2021

We read in the Book of Exodus that when the new Pharaoh became anxious about the “foreign” Israelites in Egypt becoming “too strong” for the native people, he commanded that all the baby boys must be killed at birth.

Midrash tells us that as a response to this Amram divorced his wife Yocheved, and because of his perceived status in the community, the rest of the Jewish men separated from their wives rather than bring children into this harsh and violent world. But Miriam, the daughter of Amram and Yocheved challenged him  “Father, your decree is harsher than that of Pharaoh. Pharaoh only decreed against the males, but you have decreed against both the males and the females [neither sons nor daughters would now be born]. Pharaoh decreed only for this world, but you decreed both for this world and the next. It is doubtful whether the decree of the wicked Pharaoh will be fulfilled, but you are righteous, and your decree will undoubtedly be fulfilled.” Amram understood what she was saying and returned to his wife, whom he remarried in a public celebration. The other Israelites saw and also returned to their wives (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai; Pesikta Rabbati 43).

According to tradition, the date of this remarriage of Amram and Yocheved was the 7th of Elul and as a consequence of their reunion, Moses was born.

The midrash fills a lacuna in the text, but it does so much more than that. The story of Miriam, a young female child who spoke up against the actions of the elders of the community, who saw not just the present situation of depression and fear but also the possible future. She saw greater unfairness heaped upon her sex. She is a voice for optimism and – amazingly – her voice is heeded.

If a young female child in such a patriarchal structure can have her voice heard and her words acted upon, then how much more so can we, in our modern structures, be heard? If the voice of what appears to be completely unfounded optimism can lead to action which will ultimately lead to the Israelites leaving slavery behind and building an eternal covenant with God, then how much more so should our small optimism be nurtured? Who knows what the future might be if we speak up for justice and for hope?

6th Elul

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Elul 6 14th August 2021

Gary Larsen, the quirky cartoonist, was born on this day in 1950. His drawings challenge us to see the world differently, wondering what else might be happening just on the edge of consciousness. One of my early favourites was a triptych showing three cows standing on their hind legs in a field near a road. A cow a little further from us calls out “car!” and in the second frame a car drives past the cows grazing happily. The third frame shows the road empty once more and the three cows back on their hind legs chatting.

That sense that there is another possibility just out of view – but not out of reach – is one that we take with us into Elul. We just need the imagination to bring it forth.

Elul 6 14th August 2021

Gary Larsen, the quirky cartoonist, was born on this day in 1950. His drawings challenge us to see the world differently, wondering what else might be happening just on the edge of consciousness. One of my early favourites was a triptych showing three cows standing on their hind legs in a field near a road. A cow a little further from us calls out “car!” and in the second frame a car drives past the cows grazing happily. The third frame shows the road empty once more and the three cows back on their hind legs chatting.

That sense that there is another possibility just out of view – but not out of reach – is one that we take with us into Elul. We just need the imagination to bring it forth.

5th Elul – auditing the ethical accounts

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Elul 5 13th August 2021

Elul is the time for us to do cheshbon nefesh, the accounting of our soul. The language is curious – it feels more like the language of commerce than that of spirituality.  Yet the tradition is replete with such language and metaphor for our spiritual cleansing.

In Pirkei Avot we read “Rabbi (Judah haNasi) said: which is the straight path that a person should choose for themself? One which is an honour to the person adopting it, and [on account of which] honour [accrues] to him from others. And be careful with a light commandment as with a grave one, for you do know not the reward for the fulfilment of the commandments. Also, reckon the loss [that may be sustained through the fulfilment] of a commandment against the reward [accruing] thereby, and the gain [that may be obtained through the committing] of a transgression against the loss [entailed] thereby. Apply your mind to three things and you will not come into the clutches of sin: Know what there is above you: an eye that sees, an ear that hears, and all your deeds are written in a book.” (2:1)

There is a clear sense that our lives become balance sheets, with credit and debit columns that can be examined and checked against us.  Spiritually we can both make profits and losses.

So with this metaphor in mind, Elul is the time for us to look at the balance sheets and make a plan so that next year we will look more spiritually solvent.

What will bring us honour and what will only bring us satisfaction? When we choose our path through the next year, tradition reminds us that there are bigger needs than our own immediate gratification. At some point there will be a reckoning – better to have the annual audit and make our adjustments gradually towards a more honourable life.

For after all, as we also find in Avot (2:15) “The day is short and the work is great, the workers are lazy and the reward is great and the Ruler of the House is insistent”

4th Elul – holy texts holy people

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Elul 4 12th August

On this day in 1553 Pope Julius the third ordered the confiscation and burning of the Talmud.

‘Once these books are removed,’ an advisor to the Roman Inquisition had written, ‘it will soon be that the more that they are without the wisdom of their rabbis, so much more will they be prepared and disposed to receive the Christian faith and,’ what he calls, ‘the wisdom of the word of God.’

The Inquisitors confiscated every copy of the Talmud in Italy; On Rosh Hashanah 5314 (9 September 1553), that the Talmud and many other Jewish books were burnt in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome.

On 12 September 1553 another papal decree was issued, demanding that all copies of the Talmud throughout the Catholic world be gathered and destroyed. In Venice – then the world centre of Hebrew printing  – the order was interpreted to include other Jewish books as well. On Saturday, 21 October 1553 , 3rd Cheshvan 5314 all  the books gathered were burned in Piazza San Marco.

Other Hebrew books were burned in 1568 in Venice.

Throughout the remainder of the sixteenth-century, a complete edition of the Talmud could not be found anywhere in the region.

Later, the printing of Hebrew books was permitted once more, but under censorship. They were checked and licenced by the authorities (licenza dei Superiori)  whose imprimatur can be found in all Hebrew texts printed in Venice from the second half of the 16th century onwards.

The Talmud is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and studying it has shaped Jewish thinking. Those of us who have read a page a day (daf yomi) for the seven and a half years it takes to complete the books  will attest to a change in how the world is perceived. Yet the ideas of a people do not only reside on the printed page, and the burning of their books did not destroy the Jewish people.

Judaism resides in the spirit of the Jewish people. Ideas may be suppressed, people may be martyred, but as Leo Baeck wrote centuries later “A people only dies when its spirit dies”.

On the plaque recording the great burning in Rome there are two quotations. One from the Talmudic story of the martyrdom of Rabbi Hananiah ben Teradion, who, wrapped in a burning torah scroll called out “The parchment is burning but the letters fly up to heaven”, the second from the lamentation Sha’ali Serufah ba-Esh, a kinah by Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg, written in the 13th century after the Disputation of Paris led to the destruction of almost every copy of the Talmud in Europe. The question is directed at the Torah, how can the text given in holy fire be destroyed in worldly fire?  “My question, burned in the fire, about the welfare of mourners” (Sha’ali Serufah ba’Esh, leshalom avelai’ich”

For all that study of our texts has sustained and nourished us, informed and shaped our thinking, allowed us to express our reality and pursue ideas to their sometimes extraordinary conclusions, the texts themselves repeatedly tell us that it is the ideas they embody rather then the physical artefacts that matter. What is given in holy fire cannot be destroyed in worldly fire. It is our interaction and engagement with the ideas of Judaism that keeps our spirit alive, and keeps our people alive.

This coming week, month, year find some texts and engage with them. It can be bible or siddur, Talmud or commentary. Let yourself be touched and changed, discover for yourselves the holy fire.

3rd Elul: invention and reinvention

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Elul 3  11th August

On 11th August 1942, Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr (called “the most beautiful woman in Hollywood”) received a patent with composer George Antheil for a “frequency hopping, spread-spectrum communication system” designed to make radio-guided torpedoes harder to detect or jam. Lamarr and Antheil made an interesting pair of collaborators. She was an Austrian-born beauty and American film star who practiced electrical engineering when off the movie lot; he was an avant-garde composer, notably of Ballet Mécanique, a score that included synchronized player pianos. The two devised a method whereby a controlling radio and its receiver would jump from one frequency to another, like simultaneous player pianos, so that the radio waves could not be blocked.

The two submitted their patent to the US Navy, which officially opined that Lamarr could do more for the war effort by selling kisses to support war bonds. On one occasion, she raised $7 million. She and Antheil donated their patent to the US Navy and never realized any money from their invention, which would eventually become the basis for wireless phones, Global Positioning Systems, and WiFi, among other cutting-edge technologies.  (from JWA.org)

Hedy Lamarr was born to a comfortable Viennese Jewish family, and in later life she often spoke of her childhood as a kind of paradise, with forest walks and piano lessons, attending the theatre and later herself becoming an actress in theatre and film. She had an extraordinary life, with six husbands and other lovers, a Hollywood career where she was called the most beautiful woman in film and was generally cast as a kind of mysterious temptress, sexually alluring and always somewhat on the outside of normal life. Life followed art, she lived in America and was a film star, but was not of America, and the role-playing of her professional life seems to have been mirrored in her private life.

Hedy Lamarr never told her family that she was born a Jew, that she grew up with Jewish parents. Her own children did not know of that part of her identity even though Hedy’s mother came to live in the United States and they grew up knowing her. Both Lamarr and her mother had converted to Catholicism – Lamarr for marriage in 1933 her mother some five years later. The children found out their maternal background only as adults, when a documentary maker told them of it.

In the month of Elul we  think about our own lives and how we invent and reinvent ourselves, how we try to hide what is inconvenient to our preferred narratives and what we prioritise and why.  While we may not be living a life as complicated and as cryptic as that of Lamarr, each of us have questions to ask ourselves about our choices, and about whether we are living our lives as our best selves.

2nd Elul 5781 We can each do our share in making the world a better place.

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2nd Elul 2021 10 August 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg sworn in United States Supreme Court

On this day in 1993 RBG was sworn in as the second woman – and the first Jewish woman – to serve on the US Supreme Court.

At the time she said “I am a judge born, raised, and proud of being a Jew. The demand for justice runs through the entirety of the Jewish tradition. I hope, in my years on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, I will have the strength and the courage to remain constant in the service of that demand.”

Throughout her life and career, Justice Ginsburg fought against oppression and inequality. She is credited with transforming opportunities and livelihoods previously dictated by gender inequalities. She was influential on Civil Rights Law, and dismantled a network of laws which supported sex discrimination. Perhaps surprisingly, many of her landmark legal successes came while she was representing men. Ultimately, Justice Ginsberg was clear: gender inequality is harmful to everyone. 

She also said “Promoting active liberty does not mean allowing the majority to run roughshod over minorities. It calls for taking special care that all groups have a chance to fully participate in society and the political process.”

We can’t be RBG, but she was carrying on a legacy of justice that is our inheritance and obligation too. We may not be able to change or to create legislation, but in our own ways and our own worlds we can have the strength and courage to serve that command.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, asked to give advice to young people about how to fulfil that obligation said “Let them be sure that every deed counts, that every word has power, and that we can do our share to redeem the world despite all absurdities and all the frustration and all the disappointment.”

We can each do our share. Indeed, it is all that we can do. The only question is how we plan to do it.

Rosh Chodesh Elul

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1st Elul  2021 Rosh Hashanah Le’ma’aseir Behema    9th August

Mishnah tells us there are four New Years, and the 1st of Elul is the New Year for the accounting purposes of tithing domestic animals.

While this is a date for a Temple practise and therefore has no practical significance today, the date has been glossed in order to publicise the Jewish value of Tza‘ar Ba’alei Hayim  – of preventing the suffering of animals.

The phrase originates in a Talmudic discussion about the treatment of domestic beasts, their loading and the conditions they must work under (BT Bava Metzia 32b).

Hebrew uses a number of words for animals – in Genesis animals, like humans are “Nefesh Chaya” – living souls. Biblically we see behema/ot are domesticated animals, Chaya (literally “alive” the word for wild animals (in modern Hebrew the generic word for animals, while wild animals are chayat bar, animals of the wild). But this  Talmudic  phrase Ba’alei Hayim not only recognises that animals are living, but that they are quite literally the masters or owners of life.

What does it mean to be an owner of life? And how does seeing our domestic animals as such figures influence how we think of them and treat them?

Judaism generally treats God as the Owner of Life – the One who gives and takes away life. We read in Talmud (Berachot 60b) the prayer familiar to all who read the morning service, the Elohai Neshama…:

When one awakens, one recites:
My God, the soul You have placed within me is pure.
You formed it within me,
You breathed it into me,
and You guard it while it is within me.
One day You will take it from me and restore it within me in the time to come.
As long as the soul is within me, I thank You,
O Eternal my God and God of my ancestors, Master of all worlds, Possessor of all souls.
Blessed are You, O Eternal who restores souls to lifeless bodies.

While it is clear that the Talmudic phrase “Ba’alei Chayim” is referencing animals that are in the service of human activity, it uses a lens we frequently ignore or even deny. Animals, even those who work for us or are farmed and herded in order to provide food for us, have a level of existence and meaning that also reflects the Creator of Life. We humans may have accorded ourselves the highest level in the creation story, the ones who name the animals and who will use them for our own benefit, but animal life too is important and has a spark of divine force, and it is not enough simply to avoid unnecessary cruelty.

Talmud tells us (BTBava Metzia 85a) “Once a calf being led to slaughter thrust its head into the skirts of Rabbi [Yehudah HaNasi]’s robe and began to bleat plaintively. “Go,” he said, “for this is why you were created.” Because he spoke without compassion, he was afflicted [at the hand of Heaven].(the midrash tells us he suffered toothache for 13 years)

Then one day, his maidservant was cleaning his house and came upon some young weasels. She was about to chase them away with a broom, when Rabbi Yehudah said to her, “Let them be, for it is written: ‘God’s tender mercies are upon all God’s works'” (Psalms 145:9). They said [in Heaven], “Since he is merciful, let him be treated with mercy.” [Thereafter, his pain ceased.]

This day, Rosh Chodesh Elul, is the day to consider the value of Tza’ar Ba’alei Hayim and ask ourselves, how do we value Creation in our daily lives.

Naso. Birkat Cohanim – we are commanded to bless God’s creation with love

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Rabbi Elazar ben Shammua was once asked by his disciples: To what do you attribute your longevity? He said to them: In all my days, I never made a shortcut [kappendarya] through a synagogue. Nor did I ever stride over the heads of the sacred people, i.e., I never stepped over people sitting in the study hall in order to reach my place, so as not to appear scornful of them. And I never lifted my hands for the Priestly Benediction without first reciting a blessing. The Gemara asks: What blessing does the priests recite before the benediction? Rabbi Zeira says that Rav Ḥisda says: Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Sovereign of the universe, Who has sanctified us with the sanctity of Aaron and commanded us to bless Your people, Israel, with love.  (BT Sota 39a)

This blessing is unique in its formulation. The Cohanim (priesthood) are commanded to perform the blessing with intentional and conscious love. While there are three commandments to love in Torah To “love your neighbour as yourself”(Leviticus 19:18); To “love the stranger as yourself” (Leviticus 19:34); and “You shall love the Eternal your God for all your heart, soul and strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4), there is no other blessing over a commandment that requires us to perform it “with love”

Rav Joseph B Soloveitchik  taught that this blessing, recited by the Kohanim prior to their delivering God’s Birkat Kohanim to God’s People, has much to teach us with its unique commandment to bless God’s people Israel with love. Rav Soloveitchik explains that this is not a blessing on the mitzvah per se “but it is a desire for the Priestly Blessing to be accompanied by love.”

He notes that the commandment of Birkat Cohanim has two separate parts – there is “the  transmission of a direct blessing from God” as the priests speak the words and God blesses the people and there is also  hashra’at ha-Shechinah (the manifestation of God’s presence).”

In effect, when the  Birkat Kohanim is recited, there “is a direct meeting with the Shechinah that presents us with an intimate encounter in which we come [so to speak] face to face with God.” (Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Darosh Darash Yosef: Discourses of Rav Yosef Dov Halevi Soloveitchik on the Weekly Parashah)

Unlike any other prayer or any other benediction, this ancient text of threefold blessing, given in community yet addressed in the singular to each and every person,  has the power to eradicate the distance between the people and God. And so, says Rav Soloveitchik, we are reminded to enact it with intentional and deliberate love.

When Moses is told to tell Aaron about the giving of this blessing, the text is clear. The priests will say the words, but the blessing is to come directly from God. This is why the Cohanim uttering the words do not have to be deeply righteous or saintly people necessarily – they are only the vessels through which the blessings come.  On ascending the bimah to give the blessing they become faceless, their heads covered by their tallit they neither look directly at the people nor do the people look directly at them. Their role overrides any personal history at this moment.

And yet – this is more than those of Aaronic descent being the conduit for a divine blessing. As Rav Soloveitchik understands the event, they are not only conveying the divine blessing but they are re-enacting hashra’at ha-Shechinah – literally creating an immediate and intimate encounter between God and the Jewish people.

By doing this with intentional love, it seems to me that the Cohanim are taking on something of the role or characteristic of the Divine.  Unconditional love, deliberate and intentional love, is a pre-requisite of the ceremony. Regardless of who is saying the words of blessing, regardless of the actions and choices of each of the individuals receiving those words of blessing, the bond is formed through loving acceptance of the other.

The word for love used in the blessing “ahavah” is first used in the narrative the Akedah, when God speaks to Abraham of his son Isaac “the one you love” before testing that love to the limit. Ahavah seems to be used biblically across a full spectrum of loving feelings – from parental love to sensual love to loving friendship to spiritual love.  All use the verbal root alef hey beit.

The mystical tradition notes that the numerical value of ahavah (love) and echad (one) are the same – 13, and that the verse that precedes the command us to love God ends with the word “Echad” – describing the unity of God – a verse best known as the first line of the shema.

From this comes the idea that perceiving unity is the ultimate objective of love, and that love both brings the understanding that not only God is One, but creation too is connected and makes up one whole – even while we tend to note diversity and difference more frequently than we note unity and similarity.

So why are we commanded to love God? Because loving God – who is unified and whole – should cause us to love Creation – which is unified and whole. Loving God means we have to love people – all people, regardless of whether we might find them appealing or appalling, regardless of whether they are “of us” or are different from us.

The Talmud (Yoma 9b)  tells us that the destruction of Jerusalem and the Exile of the Jewish people from the Land of Israel was a direct result of sinat chinam –  causeless hatred.  Rav Abraham Isaac Kook famously wrote that to rebuild Israel we would have to cultivate ahavat chinam – causeless love.

Causeless love is the requirement in the blessing before Birkat Cohanim, the priestly blessing. It is the only time we say the blessing to fulfil a mitzvah with these words. We need to nurture and cultivate the ability to causeless love for the other, not because this makes us fit to be the conduit for God’s blessing in the world, but because this makes us able to bring God’s presence into the world.

As Rabbi Akiva said, “Love your neighbour as yourself is the foundational principle (klal gadol) of Torah”.   He was not talking about love as feelings, nor as something to be earned or deserved, but to treat other human being with respect, with justice, with awareness that they too are part of the Unity that God has created, that they are part of us as we are part of them.

In this time of increasing polarisation, of rising anxiety and tensions, of spewing hatred in social media and on our streets, it is time to remember the unique formulation of blessing before enacting hashra’at ha-Shechinah, trying to bring God into the world; time to remember and be intentional knowing that God commands us to treat God’s people with love.