A little awkward…I see my birthday coming up on the calendar and as is my custom, I ask that if you are thinking about a gift, it would give me no greater pleasure than if you made a donation in honor of my birthday to the Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund. Funds are getting quite low as usual this time of year and having the fund replenished would be the greatest present of all.
We began counting the Omer at the second night Seder, a watchful period of seven weeks of seven days between Passover and Shavuot when we receive The Law at Mt Sinai. The number seven is featured prominently throughout Judaism.. There are even seven levels of Heaven. That’s where the expression 7th Heaven comes from, the top rung.
Agriculturally we watch for the proper rains to fall, shifting our prayers from the one for rain (winter season) to the one for dew (summer season) that is included in our new Mishkan T’filla prayer book. Historically, we remember the all too short period the former slave Israelites have to prepare for receiving the Ten Commandments and more. Emotionally we shift gears from a very snowy winter to a rainy spring punctuated by new growth, the calls of birds, bright colors, fragrant smells, and moving forward.
As is also my custom I will write weekly Omer notes to contemplate over Shabbat.
My bulletin articles have asked the question why has Shabbat fallen by the wayside for many liberal Jews? Let’s begin to answer the how of Shabbat. How do I celebrate Shabbat? Here is the first of seven things for Friday night, Erev Shabbat.
Prepare the house: There is a Rabbinic story about a Jewish family returning home from Shul for Shabbat dinner. An angel sits on each shoulder of the father, one a good angel, one a naughty angel. (Yes we have them.) The family enters the home and the place is a wreck, no food is even in the house much less on the table. “Quick let’s go to KFC!” shout the kids. The naughty angel says, “May all their Shabbats be thus.” Another family walks home, the angels sit on the shoulders of the mother, they enter the home, the place is neat, the table set, the automatic timer in the oven just goes off and the smell of roasted chicken and potatoes wafts to the door. The family, who all had a hand in this beautiful setting, help put the candles, Kiddush cup and Challah on the table to bless. The good angel turns to the naughty one and says, “May their Shabbats be ever thus.”
Saturday comes every week whether we anticipate it or not. Shabbat, on the other hand, the Palace in Time, as it is called by Abraham J. Heschel, comes only when we bring it down from heaven. It is a gift from above. It is Divine Time if we allow it, nurture it, cultivate it. But we must prepare for it or else it is just another TGIF.
Our Sages instruct that in order to appreciate Heaven after we are gone from this earthly abode we need to practice Shabbat here and now, otherwise we will not understand or appreciate Paradise. We will be too out of practice.
A group of Chasids decided to experiment with Shabbat and try celebrating it on Wednesday. They started preparing Tuesday and lit candles, said Kiddush, and Ha Motzi Tuesday night and lo and behold, to their horror, Wednesday was just like Shabbat. They were afraid to tell their Rebbe what they had done but they got up the courage and the Rebbe said, “But of course, Chevra! Shabbat is a gift from G-d but in order for it to find its abode in this earthly world we humans must build a sanctuary, a mishkan me’at, a small tabernacle, for it.” Every week.
How will you prepare your abode for Shabbat? It may be as simple as setting the table, putting on a favorite tablecloth and those candlesticks from your grandmother. This Shabbat, the first in the period of Omer, find a preparation that marks this time and your home as special. Bring Shabbat down from heaven.
Noah Golmant Bar Mitzvah 2/6/10
Noah Golmant Bar Mitzvah Charge
February 6, 2010 Yitro
We all know about the boy, Noah, whose hair grew way down in front of his face, covering it to shield what might be expressed there. I wanted to make the illusion between you and Moses, when he came down from the mountain and his face shown so radiantly that he had to cover it with a veil, for the Israelites could not look upon his face, it was so dazzling.
But then you got a hair cut, I guess for this occasion. And bought a nice suit. And now you’re a man, as they say, though you are but thirteen years old. But you have shown us that you can lead and you can lead under change and stress and in a snowstorm. And we see in you the radiance of the next generation.
Your Torah portion is about covenant. And though this covenant scene is our most spectacular, even the Israelites who saw the drama of smoke and fire and thunder and lightening on the mountain had to remake and renew the covenant every few days, according to the text, as some among them began grumbling about returning to slavery.
The rabbis noted in last week’s portion that “the people got thirsty after three days” and they say that is why we read Torah every three days. Though the human body cannot live without water for much more than three days, the human spirit, too, cannot live without Torah for more than three days. As you noted, if we all didn’t live by these Ten Commandments we would slip quickly into chaos and brutality. (i.e. the Beltway snipers of 2002)
We, as liberal Jews, it is now constantly repeated, are “Jews by choice.” We no longer live in the ghetto and our lives do not depend on the Jewish community to survive physically. No one is berating us to lay tefillin everyday, to go to cheder, or salt the chicken. So we have to make that covenant, made so long ago at Sinai, over and over again. Some make it once a year at High Holidays or Pesach, or Hanukah. Some once a month, once a week, but getting to know you I know that you make that commitment maybe everyday, whether overtly or covertly. Just as your Mitzvah project is “Hungry for Music,” and by the way you can live over two weeks, some a month without food, you Noah are thirsty for everything Jewish. And you drink from it at least every three days. You are fortunate that between your parent’s devotion to our heritage and the Temple we can provide a wellspring for you. Because it is not easy to live a Jewish life in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
So today I am not going to compare you to Moshe Rabbbenu but I am going to say it is exciting to witness the coming of age of a Jewish adult who is comfortable in his skin, who is comfortable with his Jewish identity, passionate even, about his Jewish identity even when the going gets tough, even amidst challenges. In a snowstorm you can thirst for that which quenches the spirit but especially in a snowstorm you can find much that nourishes the soul.
Please come back up with your parents for a blessing on this special day.
Rosa Parks in Jerusalem
“Rosa Parks in Jerusalem”
Shabbat Va’era January15, 2010
Imagine if you got on a bus after a long day at work and were delighted to see a free seat in the front row with plenty of legroom. You sit down next to a handsome soldier in uniform from his base on his way home from duty. At the next stop a group of men enter the bus and one of them points to you and then to the back of the bus. You do not understand what he means by his hand signals. He says in a very loud gruff voice, “You must go sit in the back of the bus with the rest!”
What would you do?
Sounds like Rosa Parks, doesn’t it? But this scene takes place in Jerusalem. The soldier is a young Israeli. The group of men are from a Haredi sect and the women they are demanding move to the back of the bus are older orthodox women. Miriam Shear, a 50 year old Orthodox woman said “No!” politely to the man who told her to move to the back of the bus. For refusing Miriam was slapped, hit and kicked by the men. Those who came to her aid were held back. Others, both men and women, yelled out “Stupid woman, you don’t know your place.” Her case has been pending in the courts for four years.
So now that you know this is not “ancient history” from America’s 50’s, how does this change your lens? Does this change your actions?
There are over 100 segregated-by-gender busses in Israel, mostly between orthodox towns and Jerusalem’s Wall, the Kotel. They are not marked as segregated and there is no halachic (legal) basis for this extreme position. One of the most respected Orthodox Rabbis of the 20th century, Moshe Feinstein, ruled that seating on public transport need not be segregated by gender for modesty purposes (sniyut). The Israeli Religious Action Center (IRAC) filed a petition with the Israeli Supreme Court three years ago which is still pending. The Court has ordered the Transportation Ministry to come up with a plan. Things move very slowly in Israel, too.
Speaking of busses to the Western Wall, I have made you aware that the same gender segregation is being intensified at the Wall. There is now a “Men Only” walkway between the entrance to the plaza and the men’s section. A woman, a 5th year medical student and IDF Officer, has been arrested for wearing a tallit at the Wall. She was followed to jail by the Women of the Wall and released after several hours of interrogation. She faces six months in jail and a $2500 fine.
Two months later Anat Hoffman, the director of IRAC was brought in for questioning, fingerprinted and threatened with being charged with a felony. The Head of Agudat Yisrael asked what would happen if Buddhists or Catholics or Taoist wanted to pray in their style at the Wall, where would we be? insinuating that women wearing tallit and reading Torah was a form of alien religion.
Our Union President, Eric Yoffie has called the religious control of our holiest site an extremist reign. It was not ever thus. There are postcards and photos of men and women praying together at the wall at the turn of the last century and at its recapture in 1967. A modest mechitzah was erected and that has gotten higher and higher and more fortress like in only the last 10 years. Why this recent extremism?
Because of the arrest and threatened arrest of Women of the Wall, the segregation of busses, and the proposed segregation of El Al planes, our Union of Reform Judaism is studying the possible responses and the best actions to take in order to express our disdain and concern for these draconian developments against liberal Judaism. The Kotel, a Holy site for all Jews is run like an Orthodox Shul.
This is why tonight, the Israeli Religious Action Center (IRAC) has asked us to wear our tallitot as demanded by the Israeli courts, like a scarf around our necks, and blacken our fingers as if fingerprinted on this Rosh Hodesh of the month of Shvat. Eli Weisel once said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.” It is not the ultra Orthodox who are to blame for this travesty in Israel. They represent only 10% of the Israeli population. It is the secular and liberal majority who remains ignorant of what is occurring and allows this to go on, allows the extremists to control births, marriages, conversion, death and the Holy sites in Israel. Let your voice be heard. This is not just about getting women out of the kitchen. This is about your ability to sit next to your sister, daughter, wife, or mother. This is about whether the conversion of your spouse, children, or friends means anything in Israel. Write the Israeli Ambassador. A sample letter is below. We are a powerful one million strong and we have had an effect in the past.
In the words of Anat Hoffman, “We are committed to and inspired by the words of Mordecai to Esther that we will read this coming Purim. He tells Esther not to keep silent, and she obeys, telling Mordecai to assemble all the Jews in Shushan in support. The antidote to silence is action; we are now turning to the whole Jewish world, men and women alike, to help us reclaim the Wall (and the busses) for all Jews. HaKotel l’kulam — the Kotel is for all of us.
In the words of Hillel: That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah (not where you sit on the bus) The rest is commentary. Go study it.
Checking In and Checking out
Checking In and Checking Out:
Israeli Security at the Airport
Shabbat Shemot-January 8, 2010
Rabbi Devorah Lynn
Have you ever checked in to an Israeli airline? Checking in to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv is a horse of different color from any airport in the world. It begins when you drive into the parking lot and instead of a toll-booth for a parking lot ticket you are met by an agent who asks a few questions of your driver. Behind him are imposing uzi toting soldiers. But there is only a short line and a few seconds extra. Once you unload your bags and enter the brand new airport building there is a line for check in but way before you get up to the line you are approached by an agent who begins a unique conversation. “Your passport and tickets please.” Says the handsome young man. “Where are you flying today? Why were you visiting Israel? Where did you stay? Do you have relatives in Israel? Where do they live? What do they do for a living?” The questions come quickly, politely, they are not rote, one follows logically from the other. The questioner looks me straight in the eye.
He notices from my passport that I have been in Israel a year on a student visa. “Where were you studying?” “HUC in Jerusalem.” “What were you studying?” “To be a Rabbi.” “Ahhh,” he says, “why aren’t you speaking Hebrew?” He asks in Hebrew. Lamah lo midaberet Ivreet?” “My Hebrew,” I answer in Hebrew, “is lo tov, not good.” “Why?” he asks. Because I cannot speak a sentence without Israelis interrupting. “Mipnei sheh lo yecholah lidaber ivreet im Yisraelim bieyn mafriah. “ “yecholet” he says, correcting my verb with a rye smile. “Bedeyuk!” I answer. Exactly!
“Have a nice flight,” he says putting a red sticker on my ticket and handing me back my papers. “We are done?” I ask incredulous and disappointed. It has been only a minute or so and I now have a small crush on this charming and handsome representative of Israeli security who I can trust with my life. “Gamoor,” he answers. I usually complete the transaction with, “Thank you for your important work.” And jokingly, “Does your mother know you do this for a living?” Any mother could be proud of a child who saves lives as much as any doctor.
The next phase is fascinating, lifting my hand luggage onto a table where it is opened, swabbed and the swab stuck into a machine looking for traces of weird things. Then on to a belt and xrays. No shoe removal, no liquid removal, all done efficiently, quietly, without drama or yelling. (Yelling: TAKE OUT YOUR LAPTOPS AND PUT THEM SEPARATELY ON THE BELT. ALL LIQUIDS MUST BE IN 3 OZ CONTAINER AND IN A QUART SIZE PLASTIC BAG! SHOES, HATS, COATS, CELL PHONES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES MUST GO ON THE BELT). None of that nonsense.
Now, I get to check into the ticket counter. My checked luggage was picked up the day before, free of charge. This to give them more time to examine and keep the lines moving.
Little do I know it, but I have been under intense scrutiny since I entered the perimeter of the airport but there is little evidence of that. Much of the security is secret, trained observers behind double mirrors or hidden cameras at the toll booth, on the roads, in the reception hall, sitting in cafes, on computer screens at passport control. A lot of security is at the back doors of the airport where I will never go. There is little drama like in the US and little inconvenience. It is all very clever and cunning, a method that will alert them to bombers not bombs. The Israelis believe we are misguided in our search techniques in America because, to paraphrase the NRA, bombs don’t bring down airplanes, people do.
Dozens of articles since 2001, particularly after each incident that wakes us up, have argued the merits of Israeli security and the possibility of its implementation in the US but I believe only Boston Logan hired an Israeli security company to upgrade their procedures after 9/11.
We Jews are a terribly clever people. We have to be for our own survival. It’s not genetic, it’s learned. The world is not terribly enamored of our cleverness. It took many years for the Department of Homeland Security to listen to Israeli experience on the torture of prisoners. It doesn’t work very well they told Congress late in the Bush administration. Being nice to terrorists, gaining their confidence works much better.
And so too, at Airport Security at Ben Gurion, professionalism and kindness work very well for them.
Our Torah portion tonight even teaches us that story. We have two stories of cleverness, craft and cunning. First the midwives, Shifrah and Puah make up the bubba meisah (wives tale) that Israeli women drop their babies like animals before they even get a chance to kill them. And the midwives are believed because of the prejudices of the Egyptian people.
Miriam, in the next tale, stakes out the perfect moment to float Moses in the bulrushes in front of Pharoah’s daughter and then has the chutzpah (nerve) to offer her mother, Moses’s real mother, as the wet nurse so that Yocheved can raise her own boy and keep him alive. So clever, so cunning. Done with little theatrics. We are nimble, flexible, adaptable, always thinking. For our survival.
This is who our people are. We are clever, cunning and unafraid to do what needs to be done at close range. In America we tend to buy our way out with technology that keeps us at arms length, which eventually fails us and has to be replaced with something bigger, more invasive, possibly unhealthy and decidedly annoying. Look at the “progress” of our health care system and our belated attempt to shift medical school emphasis back to the personal face-to-face method of the family practice physician. Just imagine how many intelligent, respectful, well trained and decent paying jobs could be created if we adopted the Israeli style of surveillance instead of buying invasive and embarrassing full body scanners for every airport in America. Looking for terrorists beats flippin’ burgers. Not only could we help our employment situation with those dollars meant for machines, but we could prevent TSA from taking away our dignity.
Many people think the questions asked by the Ben Gurion “interrogators” are invasive. For me it’s a game of Jewish geography. Some complain about profiling but since the Ben Gurion airport was attacked in 1972 by Japanese terrorists, Israelis are looking for people with fanatical thinking and nervous facial expressions not those from certain countries or with certain facial features. They may have caught our Timothy McVeigh. Can it be scaled up from such a small economy as Israel’s? Think about the cost and time delay of full body scans. We are a light unto the nations we are taught by Torah. Israel has cornered the market on a pantheon of technical skill. Wouldn’t it be nice if the US had the wherewithal and sechel (wisdom) to ask those who run the safest airlines and airports in the world to help us out? I’m sure they have but for some reason (security machinery producers’ lobby?) we are not implementing their method. Ask your Congressman why we still have to take off our shoes but not our pants.
Vaychi
Vaychi. The Game of Chance
January 1, 2010
When I was pregnant people would say “Good Luck!” as a farewell greeting. I thought there’s something wrong with that. Couldn’t put my finger on it. I guess I did not want to depend on luck, on my stars, my mazel for such an important event. I started to leave my pregnant friends with a good bye of “May the Force be with you!” and they seemed to appreciate that a bit more than “Good luck.”
Dreidel, our Hanukah pastimes is a game of chance, a game of luck, good and bad. Some sages say it is just like life. Life they say is a game of chance that spins around a single point.
We just came back from a trip to Bermuda, our home for fifteen years. The luck of the dreidel seemed to follow me from the beginning of the trip. My flight from National to Philly was canceled in the middle of the night because National Airport flooded from the big rain storm after Christmas. My 10:15 Philly to Bermuda was going to leave without me and the family was already there. By luck I woke up at 3AM, decided to check the flights on the Internet and discovered the cancellation calamity. With only three hours sleep I managed to realize I could take a train to Philly and catch that plane to Bermuda. It took 15 minutes to book a train, 15 minutes to order a taxi and I was well on my way to Philadelphia when the airlines called to inform me that my flight had been canceled. I got to Philly airport with time for breakfast, a chair massage, and leisure time to board the plane to my family.
Whew! Luck or pluck? Who or what had woken me up at 3AM?
Once I got to Bermuda, a friend in the hotel business got us out of a run down depressing accommodation and got us into the newest, highest end hotel on the Island for next to nothing, what they call “comped.” We arrived very late and they had sold our standard room to someone else. I had visions of our luggage out on the street but NO! They were going to give us a complimentary upgrade. A comp on top of a comp. When we entered the room not knowing what to expect our bell hop said, enjoy the honeymoon suite! Luck of the dreidel.
My mind started reviewing the other upgrades we had received in our life. The four of us booted up to First Class on a transatlantic flight, the Presidential suite at the Paris Marriott because they had given our rooms away there too. An invite to ride in the cockpit of an Egyptian airline because they had oversold the seats. Luck of the dreidel.
If when bad things happen we blame someone else but when good things happen we credit ourselves, we are missing the point. Gam zeh L’tovah. This too is for the good, says our Jewish tradition. We are too small to get credit for either good or bad and we are too small to understand the big picture and what good may come from a bad situation.
In the movie “Up in the Air” with George Clooney, he has the unenviable but highly paid job of informing people that they are fired. After their outbursts of blame, shame, anger and angst he tells them that, "Everyone who's ever built an empire has sat right where you're sitting right now." In other words you can make or break this as an opportunity. Our Mussar tradition would say that gratitude, hakarat hatov, is being grateful for come what may and recognizing the good in any situation.
Our comic/tragic character Joseph, who finishes his story in our portion tonight, Vayechi, teaches his brothers this very concept. “Though you intended me harm, God intended it for good, in order to accomplish what is now the case, to keep alive a numerous people.” (Genesis 50:20) This is not luck but God’s grace, chen, a word that is wholly Jewish but that we have ceded to Christianity. Grace means being fortunate for no apparent reason. The reason is beyond our limited understanding. Joseph, the immature dandy, now sees that it is not about him but about a Force beyond him that had his father send him to the “Man” who sent him to his brothers who sold him to the traders who brought him down to Egypt. “Have no fear, for am I in the place of God?’ he asks his brothers rhetorically. Just because I am rich and powerful does not mean I believe I got here of my own accord. Luck of the dreidel.
I didn’t have much of a chance of getting to Bermuda last Monday, but I did (after making a bargain with God I might add). Twas the luck of the dreidel. We didn’t deserve that honeymoon suite for free more than any other. It was the luck of the dreidel. It came out of a bad and depressing situation in our old hometown. But it ended up for the good. Lest you think everything goes my way, it was 50 degrees in Bermuda (10 degrees below normal) with gale force winds and driving rain everyday I was there. I never saw the sun. This week is 75 and sunny. Gam zeh l’tovah, I read a novel, wrote this sermon, and slept a lot. Luck of the dreidel.
All is determined by God but we have free will is Judaism’s greatest conundrum. Perhaps it means that though our destiny is fixed we are in charge of how we perceive it, whether we recognize it for the good or bad “luck.” Hakerat Hatov. Can we recognize the good in all that comes our way?
Maya Angelou once said, you can tell a lot about a person by how they handle lost luggage. Whether this new year brings you fortune or not, good luck or bad, mazel tov or mazel not so tov, may you recognize that though it looks like harm, God may have intended it for good.
My family and I wish that the Force may be with you in this year, 2010 to come and may you always find a blessing in your misplaced luggage.
Miketz Hanukah last night December 18th, 2009
On Sunday night I went to a party at a friend’s house up in D.C. The house was crowded with friends and family and colleagues from her entire life, about half were Jewish and half not. Her grown daughter was there with a dozen or so lovely girlfriends from the various schools in her life. The buffet table was set beautifully with yummy food, thick latkes, a selection of fancy cheeses and wines and a platter of shrimp. On the table were two unassuming Hanukiahs, both I remembered from my friend’s childhood home on Wayne Ave in Silver Spring, Maryland.
My girlfriend asked me to do the honors. I grabbed a box of candles and began pushing them into the holders while humming O Hanukah, O Hanukah amidst the noisy gathering. The young women friends were the first to get with the program and started to sing the words. I struck a match and lit the shamashes. The volume increased as more and more joined in until any one who knew the song in the room was singing at the top of their lungs. I lit the other six candles and let the song repeat a few times and then went right into the candle blessings joined by a strong crowd, one that had found its voice in the singing of a familiar tune. One song, two blessings, four candles, done. We went back to drinking our Beujolais Nouveau, dispersing like the crowd at a flash mob. No sermon, no story, no explanation, no outreach. This ritual seemed to be our little secret. Sometimes Hanukah is just Hanukah and a Rabbi is just a friend.
I can enjoy some of the rituals of other peoples’ holidays. I’m not fond of the crowds at the stores, the extra traffic, and the lack of parking, though the last two years have been great. But I do remember each year going hand in hand with my family to see the Christmas Trees on the Elipse in front of the White House, fifty identical evergreens lined up on either side of the walkway, one from each state, on the way to the gigundo tree at the center. The National Tree. I was impressed with the twinkling lights that towered up 100 feet. I marveled at the work involved, from logging the trees, transporting them here, setting them up just so and hanging the lights. And I was darn glad I didn’t have to do any of it. It never really felt like it was my tree. Though I still enjoyed the experience. Certainly the hour or so my father took off from the frenetic pace of selling jewelry for the holidays was a real treat. But the National Tree never seemed really ours though we were American through and through. No ours are these little birthday-like candles in menorahs, no two hanukiahs ever seemed alike.
Ours is the relief that though “we are beleaguered by Christmas American style we can take a weird pleasure in the simplicity of not decorating, not buying tzatzkis and not having to store it or fix it or throw it away and buy more.” (Sabina Weitzman) I must admit I put up a Hanukah door décor for the first time in my life this year; a plastic sheet with a brightly colored menorah on it the full length of the door. I turned my Betty Boop table towards the window and placed the hanukiah upon her uplifted golden waitress tray. It seemed so unlike me a plastic, garish display. But each night when I drove home from work this week the multi colored menorah on the front door was a cheery comfort, I have to admit.
Hanukah will never hold a candle (pardon the pun) to Christmas but when you see the kids singing “O Dreidel dreidel driedel, I made it out of clay” for the umpteenth time but they sing it like it’s the first, who cares. We Jews have been through such difficult times we can be comforted with small and precious gifts. We’re not in competition any more. We’re not in competition with anybody. We have already won. Over and over and over again. In every generation. Not by might is right, not by buying power, but by spirit alone.
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