Belated Posts of Chanukah Musings from Las Vegas

Shabbat Chanukah Greetings

The weekend is here and with it the chance to sit back, reflect, and spend some family time (and I hope that includes time that does not involve chauffeuring younger family members!). I'm in Las Vegas this Shabbat - a strange place to be for Shabbos I know. But I've found a lovely Reconstructionist service to go to tonight and a Torah study for tomorrow morning. That should keep me out of trouble.

Being here in Las Vegas is surreal - the lights, the noise, the casinos, the over-the-topness of it all. It feels like an alternate reality to the reality of life before I got here last night. A reality of more mass shootings in the US, more people killed and wounded in Israel, more people saying things publicly that you hope they really don't mean.

This week's Torah portion, Vayeshev (Genesis 37:1-40:23) also reminds us that life holds these contradictions and sometimes, to learn important values, we must view things in a mixed-up sort of way - Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery, Tamar disguising herself as a prostitute in order to fulfill a family commitment from her father-in-law Judah and Potiphar's wife trying to seduce Joseph and getting him thrown in jail after accusing him of attempted rape. These stories are all rather strange but at core they touch on fundamental human values - family, honour, promise keeping, loyalty.

This note to you is my transition into Shabbat. My time to reflect about what is important in life: family, community, love, peace. May we all take into account what our important values are and try to uphold them as best we can. May we pray this Shabbat for peace for all peoples and strengthen this prayer by doing acts of loving kindness.

Oseh Shalom bimromav, Hu ya'a'seh shalom aleinu, v'al kol Israel, v'al kol yoshvei tevel. V'imru Amen.

May the Awesome One who brings peace upon us, bring peace upon all of the people Israel and upon all those who reside on this planet. And let us say, Amen.

Shabbat Las Vegas Musing

It's strange celebrating Shabbat in a casino resort, a place that has no havdil/differentiation between day and night, light and dark. It's as if the Awesome One skipped this place during the first day of creation. I need to think on this a bit. 

Went to a lively Kabbalat Shabbat service at Pnai Tikvah Reconstructionist shul with Rabbi Yocheved Mintz and some very enthusiastic younger people. Really needed that to help usher in the existence of Shabbat.

Shabbat Blessings.....

May the light of Shabbat, along with the last lingering tendrils of light from the Chanukah candles, brighten this Shabbat with love, peace and tolerance. May our eyes be opened and our hearts accepting of all who come to us in friendship.
Shabbat Shalom u'M'vorach (Shabbat blessings of Peace)

Vayechi: A [Grand] Parent’s Blessing as Protection in the face of Assimilation

Parshat Vayechi is the last Parasha in the book of Genesis. In this parsha we find Jacob on his deathbed and desirous of blessing his sons. This is the first instance in the Torah of someone getting sick and knowing that their death is approaching. Prior to this point in the Torah, when someone’s death is mentioned, it says “and so-and-so was old, and died.” The commentaries say that Jacob requested of G-d that he become sick before he die, thereby giving him warning that his end was approaching and giving him time to to bless his sons before he died.

In verse 48:1 Joseph found out that Jacob was sick. Joseph then "took his two sons with him." (presumably to bring them to Jacob, although it doesn't say that anywhere). When Joseph and his sons got there, Jacob sat up in bed, and told Joseph that his two sons would now be considered like Jacob's children, and will get a portion in the land just like the rest of the brothers. 

Interestingly, the Torah doesn't say that Joseph brought his sons to Jacob, but that Joseph took his sons with him. What it could mean is that not only did Joseph bring his sons physically to Jacob, but also that Joseph kept them close to himself, so that they wouldn't be spiritually influenced by their non-Jewish surroundings. Jacob recognized this, which is why he felt strengthened when Joseph came to him with his sons.

With the act of Jacob claiming his grandsons as his own, he made sure to stress that it was those two sons that were born in Egypt (48:5). Their greatness and Joseph's greatness was that they identified as and lived as Jews despite living in Egypt. And finally, although his hands were on the two grandsons, Jacob's blessing was that Joseph's children, and anyone who has to live in a non-Jewish world, should be protected throughout history so that we can all be proudly called the children of Avraham and Yitzchak (and Jacob).  The blessing that is given is:  Y’simcha Elohim k’Efraim v’Menasseh”   “So he blessed them that day, saving, "By you shall Israel invoke blessings, saying: God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh."

This is the same blessing that parents all over the Jewish world give their children on Friday nights. What is special about Efraim and Manasseh? They didn’t assimilate. They were the sons of an important man in Egypt, living for much of their lives apart from any kind Jewish community, yet they kept to their heritage. This is a blessing to forestall assimilation. This is a blessing that says you can be successful and fulfilled regardless of where you live and what’s going on around you – and still remain Jewish.

Perhaps this message is why we read this Parasha so soon after Chanukah, a holiday about Jewish identity. With all that is going on in the world today regarding religion and tolerance, the message of this parsha should be taken to heart. Even in a place as hostile to Jews as Egypt was, there was a way to live there and continue to have a positive Jewish identity. My prayer is that in our world today, all people can find a way to live through these hostile times and still maintain their own positive religious identities and at the same time, allow others to as well, whatever religion they may belong to.

Food for Thought: 
~If you were to compose a blessing to give to your children each Friday night, what would it be?
~Jacob blessed his grandchildren, Efraim and Manasseh, before his eldest child Reuben. Why would he do that? Note: consider the biblical motif of the younger son inheriting before the elder. How does that fit in here?

This dvar originally appeared in the Washington Jewish Week.

Shabbat Vayeshev greetings

The weekend is here and with it the chance to sit back, reflect, and spend some family time (and I hope that includes time that does not involve chauffeuring younger family members!). I'm in Las Vegas this Shabbat - a strange place to be for Shabbos I know. But I've found a lovely Jewish Renewal service to go to tonight and a Torah study for tomorrow morning. That should keep me out of trouble. 

Being here in Las Vegas is surreal - the lights, the noise, the casinos, the over-the-topness of it all. It feels like an alternate reality to the reality of life before I got here last night. A reality of more mass shootings in the US, more people killed and wounded in Israel, more people saying things publically that you hope they really don't mean.

This week's Torah portion, Vayeshev (Genesis 37:1-40:23) also reminds us that life holds these contradictions and sometimes, to learn important values, we must view things in a mixed-up sort of way - Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery, Tamar disguising herself as a prostitute in order to fulfill a family commitment from her father-in-law Judah and Potiphar's wife trying to seduce Joseph and getting him thrown in jail after accusing him of attempted rape. These stories are all rather strange but at core they touch on fundamental human values - family, honour, promise keeping, loyalty. 

This note to you is my transition into Shabbat. My time to reflect about what is important in life: family, community, love, peace. May we all take into account what our important values are and try to uphold them as best we can. May we pray this Shabbat for peace for all peoples and strengthen this prayer by doing acts of loving kindness. 

Oseh Shalom bimromav, Hu ya'a'seh shalom aleinu, v'al kol Israel, v'al kol yoshvei tevel. V'imru Amen.

May the Awesome One who brings peace upon us, bring peace upon all of the people Israel and upon all those who reside on this planet. And let us say, Amen. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbah Arlene

The Holiness Around Us

THIS WEEK’S TORAH PORTION IS VAYETZE, GENESIS: 28:10-32:3.

In this parsha we meet Jacob as he is on the run from his brother Esau. One would assume that he is afraid, lonely, missing his mom and unsure of what is to come. He falls asleep in a place that is holy but he doesn’t sense the holiness until after he has that amazing dream of the ladder and the angels. Upon awakening he says, “Surely God is present in this place, and I did not know it.” (28:16)

I love this story because it shows what Judaism is all about — taking the ordinary and elevating it to holiness. We all have moments like this in our lives, perhaps the birth of a child or seeing a rainbow. Jacob falls asleep in what he assumes is this regular piece of land, but upon arising realizes that the place is steeped in holiness. He marks the place to commemorate the holiness. We can do that in our everyday life in many different ways.

 It’s what happens next that has always bothered me.

After Jacob marks the location, instead of thinking about how to incorporate this into his life, he strikes a bargain with God disguised in the form of a vow: “If God stays with me, if God protects me, if God provides for me, if I return safely, then I will believe in You, then “the Lord shall be my God.” (Genesis 28:20-22) Midrash has various explanations that try to prove that this is indeed a vow and not a bargain, including the idea that the Torah actually flips the order in which these events occurred such that Jacob’s vow actually came before the revelation in the dream. Thus, the dream is a response from God to Jacob’s vow/bargain. The second is that Jacob is pledging himself to specific behaviors in gratitude to God for the promise made to his ancestors and that will be fulfilled.

I am choosing to follow the order of the events in the Torah and interpret them accordingly. Jacob goes to sleep along the road and experiences a dream that includes a visible manifestation of God. He wakes up full of awe and appreciation of how the ordinary in one’s life can become extraordinary and holy. But instead of running with that feeling, he acts in a very human way and decides to take advantage of the moment. He thinks “OK, God, now that I know firsthand that you are with me, I am going to ask you to alleviate my deepest concerns. And if you do that, then I will believe in and follow you always.”

Not everyone will agree with my reading. It’s distressing when we see one of our patriarchs do something that lessens him in our eyes. Jacob, however, is one of our ancestors who revels in his humanity with all its frailties. In this reading, Jacob is every person. He has parents who love him but they too are flawed and their flaws impact Jacob’s every action. He does wonderful things, but makes some colossal mistakes. Jacob receives proof of God’s presence, and instead of integrating that into is his life, he proceeds to bargain with the Holy One in his if-then scenario.

Jacob is all of us. We forget that there is everyday holiness. When we notice it, we are awed — and then lapse back into our everyday lives, sometimes denying the very holiness we’ve just experienced. But when we are troubled or afraid, we know what to do. We turn to God and pray. We bargain bargains that are sometimes outrageous in scope but are designed to get us through the bad times. Later, after the crisis has passed, we forget the terms of our bargains and relapse into our everyday lives. We do this because we are human.

My dream for all of us is that we are able to recognize the holy in the world in both the good and the bad times. I pray that the bargains we strike, because we will strike bargains, are of a type that can be kept and that infuse our ordinary world with the holy and the extraordinary that is Judaism.

Rabbah Arlene Berger is the rabbi of the Olney Kehila in Olney, MD.

Published originally in Washington Jewish Week  11/18/15 

Ha'azinu: The Strength of Our Stature

            The Parasha Ha’azinu is the second to last chapter of the Torah and is written as a Shir, a poem or song. One definition of a song in the Torah is a parasha that is written in a certain pattern.  There are 5 such songs in the Tanach– and each marks a passage or critical event. It just so happens that we read two this Shabbat - Shirat Haazinu, our Torah portion, which takes place as the children of Israel are in the desert and are readying to enter Canaan; and Shirat David, our Haftarah (II Samuel 22:1- 51), which takes place at the establishment of the Monarchy (through King David's line). (The Hebrew word "shirat" means "the song of...") Shirat David is only read as Haazinu’s Haftarah when Shabbat Haazinu falls after Yom Kippur, as it does this year.

            The written structure of the Shirim is different than the rest of the Torah. Shirat Haazinu is written in two narrow columns reminiscent of two stacks of bricks, a somewhat shaky or unstable pattern.  Shirat David, its haftarah, is written in one wide column designed to look like one stack of interlocking bricks. It is said that a pattern of interlocking bricks is much stronger than a stack in which each brick lies directly above the one below it.  Rabbenu Nissim (Commentary to Megillah 16a) explains that because Ha'azinu speaks of the downfall of evil, it appears in the Torah like flimsy stacks of bricks, symbolic of evil's inability to stand for long. [The same is true of the list of the ten sons of Haman in Megillat Esther.]

            Shirat David, on the other hand, represents a time when the Monarchy was established and things look promising for the future and is therefore "constructed" in a strong way so that it can stand and even be added to.   If one looks at the end of parashat Ha’azinu, we see that the Torah returns to its regular, wide-column format, thus appearing to give Ha'azinu a solid footing to stand on.  And just as Ha’azinu ends on a solid footing, so does the parasha tell us that G-d will be there to intervene on behalf of the Children of Israel, no matter how far the people fall.

            One interpretation of Haazinu and Shirat David that always inspires me is the representation of the importance of the individual.  The proof that one person can make a difference.  Where would we be today without Moshe Rabbeinu, King David, Joshua, Deborah (the only female Judge) and others?  These individuals lived a long time ago and we still feel the impact of their actions today.

             In the present we have a different set of individuals to look up to and reflect on the impact of their actions. The many firefighters, policemen, EMTS and others on 9/11 who went above and beyond in saving the lives of so many during of the horrific events of that day. Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakastani woman, who became a human rights advocate for education and for women in her country after surviving an attack that would have turned others inward and toward hate. And just this week we have a visit in DC from Pope Francis, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, here to spread faith and optimism for a brighter future and a better world.

            If this season of Teshuvah, Tefilah and Tzedakah (repentance, prayer and acts of charity/justice), teaches us anything, it’s that the actions of one person can make a difference.  We may feel we are standing on shaky ground like Ha’azinu – but then find the courage within to remember that there is a firm base underneath us. Or we may have a more unstable set up like our haftarah, in which case we have to ask for the help of others to get back to firmer ground. May we all find our place and our individual ways to make a difference in this new year.

Also published in Washington Jewish Week, September 25, 2015    

Eikev: The Song Unsung

The Song Unsung

Parsha Eikev Deuteronomy 7:12 - 11:25

Shabbat Saturday 11, 2015

These past weeks we entered into the month of Av and observed two very different yet related holidays. The first, Tisha B’Av (the 9^th of Av) is a solemn fast day that represents for us all the evil that has befallen our people. The primary representation centers around the destruction of the Temples, particularly the second Temple that the Rabbis teach was destroyed for the sin of sinat chinam or baseless hatred. 

Six days later is the second holiday, Tu B’Av (the 15^th of Av), also a post-biblical holiday, but this day is a day of love. Some even call it the Jewish Valentine’s Day! But look what we do – we take a full day to mourn and remember what baseless hatred can do, not only to us but to the entire world, and then less than a week later, we devote a day to love, unconditional love. What a balanced way to live a life!

This summer I have been working as a Pastoral Care Intern at the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington. I’ve been privileged to spend my summer around our elders who have graciously shared with me their life stories – their sorrows and joys;  their hopes, dreams, fears and regrets; their wisdom and yes, even their pettiness. From each encounter I come away enriched, having learned something about how to live, or not live, a life. All valuable lessons freely shared. These are their life stories. These are their legacies.

In this week’s parsha we find the verse, “man does not live on bread alone, but that man may live on anything that God decrees.” (8:3) This summer this verse spoke to me more strongly than it ever has before, loudly affirming that we all have souls as well as bodies.  And if we neglect these souls, our spiritual sides, these sparks of life and uniqueness within each of us, then we do so at our own peril. 

For it is not only bread – food and other material things that nourish and keep us alive – it is our inner selves that sustain us even when we get to the point when the outer world and all its trappings no longer seem as important. We cannot control where our bodies will take us. As individuals, we cannot control the economic condition of the world or the ecological state of the planet. We can, however, control our inner lives, our faith and our spirituality.

I recently learned a beautiful piece of poetry by Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

"I have spent many days stringing and unstringing my instrument

While the song I came to sing remains unsung"

Most of us spend our lives rushing and doing and planning – stringing and unstringing our instruments. It is only when we take the time and listen to the words of Torah, when we remember that there is a power greater than ourselves out there, when we admit that we cannot control everything, that we will remember to take time to sing our own individual songs and truly live our lives. Then we will reach the Promised Land.

Food for Thought:

1.     How would you interpret the verse Deut 8:3 quoted above?

2.     The poem by Rabindranath Tagore mentions the song unsung. What is the song that you want to sing? How can you live a life to make sure that you will be able to sing it?

(Appeared in Washington Jewish Week Newspaper)

Baseless Love

Sinat Chinam. Baseless Hatred. Time to change to love. Now!

"If we were destroyed, and the world with us, due to baseless hatred - sinat chinam, then we shall rebuild ourselves, and the world with us, with baseless love - ahavat chinam."

Rav Kook, Orot HaKodesh, vol III, p. 324