Commentary

What makes a good leader?  Is it just about their proposed policies?  Or is it also their relatability and trustworthiness?  To what extent should it matter to us to choose a leader who is kind?  Or just?  Or wise?  Today, we might even argue that some of these qualities may actually be detrimental to a leader.  A kind leader might be viewed by his adversaries as weak, a just leader may be outmaneuvered by someone more unscrupulous, and a wise leader… who’s to say what wisdom even is these days when truth seems to matter so little.

In this week’s parsha, Shoftim, the Torah tells us what kind of a king should be appointed over Israel.  The Israelite king, says the Torah, shall not acquire too many horses, nor shall he marry too many wives which was normal a couple thousand years ago.  Nor shall the king amass too much wealth in silver and gold, says the Torah.  And when he ascends his throne, he shall write two copies of the Torah in its entirety so that he may carry a Torah scroll with him wherever he goes. 

If you read carefully, the text says something rather funny.  Other than the commandment for the king to write two Torah scrolls, it’s easy not to notice that in that whole section about wealth and horses and wives, the Torah doesn’t actually “command” anything of the king, rather, the commandment is directed to us, the Israelites, who we are to APPOINT as king -- keeping in mind that the title of king is usually either inherited from a relative or won in battle, but not usually appointed.  What’s funny is that by putting the responsibility of the commandment on the Israelites, the Torah becomes uniquely relevant to Jewish people today living under democratic governments which give us the opportunity to fulfill that mitzvah every few years by choosing who we vote for.  And perhaps today it’s unlikely we’ll find anyone on a ballot who has a thousand wives, or a legion of horses, but just in case, the Torah tells us why it’s so important.

The king will be one who reads the Torah every day so that he will learn to fear God, perform mitzvot, and embody all of the lessons of the Torah, “l’vilti room l’vavo me’echav, ulvilti soor min hamitzvah yamin usmol” – “in order that he should not be haughty over his brothers, and so that he will not turn away from the commandments either to the right or left”.

Most of the Israelite kings of old certainly did not live up to the Torah’s expectations, and the Tanach is rife with the suffering of the Israelites’, often as a direct result of the corruption in the monarchy.  Even the wise King Solomon, himself, had a thousand wives.  But what might we achieve if the world were so blessed that each and every one of its leaders were thoughtful, wise, humble, generous, principled and well-intentioned people?  The Torah doesn’t say what would happen, and perhaps we will never know.  But can you just imagine?  The choice is ours.

Shabbat Shalom
                         --ChazJ

In parshat Vayakhel, the actual construction of the Tabernacle is described. It begins with an overview of the materials involved, a brief tangent into the observance of Shabbat, but then we begin with the construction of the tapestries, wall panels, sockets, curtains. This is followed by the construction of the menorah, and the incense altar, the outer altar and the washing station, the mesh curtains which surrounded the Tabernacle courtyard, and the various beams and hooks that anchored them into the ground. All in all, it’s a rather dry parsha. Typically, parshat Vayakhel is paired most years with a second parsha, Pekudei, read on the same Shabbat, and is only split into two separate weeks on leap years, such as we have this year, so as to make enough parshiot to fill out the entire year. The double-parsha is something of a blessing for rabbis (and cantors as the case may be) for the process of developing sermons, because it can be a bit challenging to find topics and themes in the text that congregations will find both interesting and relevant to modern times. And when we do have a leap year, and we only have parshat Vayakhel to work with, you can almost be guaranteed that the topic for a sermon will be about the part that discusses how the Israelites were so willing to donate their riches to the building project that Moses actually had to tell them to stop. This is followed by the tongue-in-cheek bemoaning of how hard it is to raise funds for essential shul maintenance and programming today. But the fact remains that sometimes, albeit very rarely, we can go searching for something deep and meaningful in the Torah, something relevant and pertinent to what is going on in our lives today, and actually come up somewhat empty handed.

So what do we do when the Torah is silent? What happens when sometimes we desperately need an answer to a burning question, guidance in a time of need and our tradition has nothing to say? What happens when our situation seems to fall into a dark crack between Jewish law, when the blade has found a soft spot between the plates of our armor? I wish that I knew. All I can think to do is shine as much light as possible in the darkness, and see if the answers reveal themselves. So, Let There Be Light.

I was always terrified to become a dad. Having taught classrooms of almost every age group, I’m confident around children, but I am essentially ignorant when it comes to babies. I have no idea what to do with them, and I find they usually don’t know what to do with me. But Jamie is a baby whisperer, a diaper juggler, and a degreed expert in early childhood education. The fear stemming from my lack of confidence melted away (admittedly not entirely) the day she became my wife. But for two whole years we tried, sought medical help as our hopes and dreams cycled through worries and fears until God’s miraculous universe finally coalesced for us. It was a Friday evening after zoom davening when the stick said something it had never said before. We thought it had to be a mistake and tried several more test kits, they all said the same thing and still we had a hard time believing it. Most couples tend to have at least a few moments to themselves to absorb the news, but at the very same time, my parents appeared on our doorstep dropping off a freshly baked challah for us. The news was plastered onto our faces, and they could see it immediately. There was joy, there was panic, and plenty of crying.

The joy stayed with us, even as the morning sickness began complicating life, but began to fade when morning then became all day and all night. Further complications had us in and out of the hospital on a regular basis. We were fortunate though, to have a family of doctors which included specialists in obstetrics to guide us, answer our questions, and help keep our anxieties in check. “The first trimester is the worst”, they told us. It kept us hopeful that pretty soon we could breathe a small sigh of relief and actually enjoy our miracle, if only we could hang on a bit longer. And although we were already several weeks into the second trimester, eventually the worst symptoms subsided, or at least we’re not as omnipresent as they had been, and we did get to enjoy our miracle for a short time. But that was, of course, until a fateful Wednesday morning when during a routine checkup, Jamie asked specifically to see an ultrasound again because she “just had a feeling”. Due to COVID protocols, I was on speakerphone in the room while I sat in the car in an alley behind Mount Sinai hospital. Typically when there is something wrong, the ultrasound technician won’t give the news, but will bring in the doctor. But even through the surgical mask, Jamie could see it on the technician’s face and called her out. “You can’t find the heartbeat”.

We were at 18 weeks. The technician paused, knowing that the secret was already out and confirmed that she was having trouble finding it. Some technicians at smaller clinics can have difficulties with their equipment, others are just less experienced, but an ultrasound technician at Mount Sinai hospital does not make these kinds of mistakes. The doctor was called, the hallway outside the room was asked to be cleared, and we already knew.

Induction was scheduled for Friday morning, two days later, and we arrived at Mount Sinai with a suitcase, extra blankets and pillows, and a Shabbat food package from Bikur Cholim that came complete with electric candles sticks. They didn’t actually work in the end, but the sentiment was nice.

Not all miscarriages are the same. We could have scheduled the procedure for a week and a half later, and it would have been classified as stillbirth. The labour lasted 14 hours, but the pain medication stopped being effective after the first 6 or so. An epidural was ordered and we were transferred to the delivery room. I could hear babies crying in the rooms we passed by as we rolled down the hallway on the gurney. Thankfully, Jamie was far too distracted to hear them. The needle was seconds away, but too late. And minutes later it was over. He arrived and left us in the same moment. Noah Menachem ben Yirmiyahu Lev v’Chaya Bracha z’l.

Jewish tradition has very little to say about situations like this, much like the people around us who understandably struggle to find the right words, themselves. I certainly don’t know. Jamie held him and said goodbye, but I couldn’t. She told me he had her almond shaped eyes, my thin lipped wide mouth, and a clubbed foot just like Jamie had also been born with, but on the other side. But yet our tradition teaches that Noah wasn’t a baby. Though we feel pain and anguish, we are not in mourning. Though we had a casket that I held in my arms, sang to and covered with earth, there was no funeral. Though we sit at home, remembering, sharing stories, receiving the most beautiful messages of comfort and consolation from our friends, family and community, there is no shiva.

We know that our feelings are acknowledged and supported by all those around us, and for that we are so blessed. But the gaping hole in our religious teachings is an emotional pit that is hard not to fall into, and begs questions that I’m not certain that I want to know the answers to. Did Noah have a neshama, a soul? Where is it now? Am I a dad, or am I not? And of course we can have our own opinions, our own imaginings and theories as we plumb the depths of Jewish knowledge, searching for a source that we can use for some small bit of guidance. But, sometimes a parsha just doesn’t quite have what we need. Sometimes, on a leap year, while a new war rages, an ongoing pandemic keeps us apart, rising antisemitism heightens our fears, sometimes the parsha is Vayakhel. And as is the case, all we can do is resort to the only sermon Vayakhel offers us. But unlike Moses, we will not ask for your contributions to stop. Your thoughts and messages are what continues to sustain us through this difficult time in our lives, and we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.

Shabbat Shalom,
          —ChazJ

Shabbat Shalom and welcome to a brand new season of a YouTube series we are calling Kosher Food For Thought, that will include fresh takes on topics of Jewish interest, reflections on the weekly Torah portion, factoids from Jewish history, and conversation starters to use around the Shabbat dinner table.  That brand new opening sequence is in honour of this week being Shabbat Shirah, the Shabbat of Song, so named because this week’s parsha contains the Song of the Sea.  A beautiful piece of ancient Hebrew prose in the Torah which is the song that the children of Israel sang when the walls of the Sea of Reeds came crashing down behind them, destroying the Egyptian army.  Free at last after 200 years of slavery, the Torah records how the Israelites, overcome with emotion, burst into spontaneous song.

While the words of the song can be found in the Torah, we honestly don’t have any idea what the song actually sounded like.  The text tells us, “vatikach Miriam hanevi’ah achot aharon et hataf b’yadah vatetzenah kol hanashim achareha batupim uvamachalot”, - “And Miriam the Prophetess, sister of Aharon, took a timbral into her hand and led the women in drumming and dancing” – the timbral was an ancient drum.  The text paints us a bit of a picture, but still, what did the song SOUND like?  The truth is… we don’t know!  Most of the traditional synagogue music that stands out in our minds today was written during the last couple of centuries.  There are some melodies that are older such as the prayer modes, but we really can’t much trace their usage further back than a few more hundred years.  Even the melodies we use to read Torah are only relatively modern interpretations of trope symbols that have only been around a thousand years.  It’s weird… a thousand years doesn’t get you too far back when you’re Jewish.  Except though, when we read the Song of the Sea in shul, it is customary for the Torah reader to switch into a different melody, just for that section.  “Ashira L’adonai, ki ga’o ga’ah, soos verochvo rama vayam”.  We have no idea where that melody came from or how long we’ve been using it.  But the melody is actually quite interesting because while Western music is based on a 12 tone series – that’s all the letter-named notes and sharps and flats that make up pretty much all the music we know and love, the melody we use for this spot in the Torah, known as the Shira melody, only has 5 tones.  The 5 note scale, also called a pentatonic scale is the oldest known musical mode that we know about, a musical mode that ancient musical instruments were often built in a number of civilizations around the world, including the middle east.  In fact, it is reasonably likely that whatever the original Song of the Sea sounded like, there’s a good chance it was sung in a pentatonic mode.  So who knows?  Perhaps the melody you hear in shul this Shabbat really is the very same song the Israelites once sang three and a half thousand years ago, on the banks of the Sea of Reeds. 

Just some kosher food for thought.  
                                                             Shabbat Shalom!
                                                                                           Chaz J

The Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, is the biblical story in which God tests Abraham’s loyalty by commanding him to ritually sacrifice his son.  And even though Abraham is stopped at the last moment, this story is arguably the most disturbing story in the entire Torah, both for its narrative and what it appears to imply about traditional Jewish theology.

Are we really meant to glorify Abraham for his faith in God while ignoring something really dark?  Who is this God who we’re supposed to believe is infinite, mighty and fundamentally good that would ask such a terrible thing, even without intending to follow through?  Tough questions usually mean tough answers…

Parshat Vayera begins by demonstrating one of Abraham’s greatest strengths that the Jewish people continue to value greatly to this day: hospitality.  We’re only six chapters into learning about Abraham as the most recent main character in the Torah, and we’re paying particularly close attention to him because only since introducing Abraham is the Torah really talking about the Jewish people.  Before Abraham, the Torah is telling us the story of humanity as a whole with Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood, and the tower of Babel.  Abraham is the first character we meet in the bible in whom we really want to see something of ourselves as Jews.  And so the parsha opens with Abraham welcoming three strangers into his home who turn out to be angles, and prophesize that even though Sarah has been barren her whole life and getting on in years, she will conceive and bear a son.  And as miraculous as that is, it’s hard for us to be too surprised, because God has a promise to keep with Abraham to turn him into a great and mighty nation, which would be pretty hard to do otherwise.  And yet, as we begin the final chapter of Vayera, the situation turns deadly serious. The entire story of the Binding of Isaac takes place over one single chapter of the Torah, just 24 verses long, but each word has a lot to say.

God calls out, “Abraham”, and Abraham answers, “hineini”, “Here I am”, a word that reminds us of Moses answering God’s call from the burning bush.  God says, “kach na et bincha, et yechidcha, asher havta, et Yitzchak, v’lech l’cha el eretz haMoriah, v’ha’aleyhu sham l’olah al echad heharim asher omar eilecha”.  “Take now, your son, your special one, the one you love, Isaac…”

In an only 24 sentence story, this is a lengthy way of getting around to Isaac.  Sure, there’s a dramatic effect doing it this way, but our sages imagine Abraham trying to pretend to God that he doesn’t understand.  God says take your son, Abraham says, “what do you mean, I have two sons?”… you forgot about Ishamel!  God says, “your special one”, Abraham says I know one of my sons was born rather miraculously but both are special to me.  “The one you love” says God.  “I have only one son of my beloved wife Sarah, but I love both of my sons”, replies Abraham.  “Isaac” says God.  “Yeah, well what about him?” we imagine Abraham saying.  “V’lech lecha el eretz HaMoriah”, “And go to the land of Moriah, and sacrifice him to me as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will show you.  The Hebrew eerily echoes the very beginning of the story of Abraham where he is told to leave the land of his fathers and settle in Canaan, “a land that I will show you”.

Early the next morning Abraham gets ready to go.  The Torah specifically makes us understand that this was EARLY the next morning without further explanation.  We are left to wonder, where was Sarah?  Perhaps still sleeping?  Or perhaps Abraham felt so conflicted that he knew if he didn’t set off as soon as possible, he might never have the courage to go through with it?  The Torah also tells us Abraham brought with him two servants, and yet the next words are about him splitting wood.  Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for the servants to do it?  Our imagination paints a picture of Abraham insisting that he split the wood personally while quietly processing what he was being asked to do with it.

The next verse begins with the words “Bayom Hashlishi”, “on the third day they reached their destination.  What happened on the first two days, we don’t know.  What did they talk about?  Clearly Isaac is old enough to notice something’s wrong.  As Abraham and Isaac go up the mountain alone, Isaac asks, “hinei ha’esh, v’haeitzim, v’ayey haseh l’olah?”, “Here’s the flintstone, here’s the wood, but where is the sheep to sacrifice?”.

Abraham answers, “Elohim yir’eh lo haseh l’olah, b’ni” – “God will see to the sheep sacrifice, my son”.  This is how most translations read the text, but when we see the words in the Torah and remember that the original Hebrew has no vowels or grammar, a chill goes down our spine when we realize that that comma in the English translation is doing a lot of heavy lifting, and could just as easily be moved over one word.  The verse concludes, “vayelchu sh’neihem b’yachad”, and the two walk on together, which is an interesting phrase that will mean more in a moment…

They reach the summit, Abraham builds the altar and the Torah proceeds to describe each step as Isaac is bound and placed on the wood.  Abraham raises his knife over Isaac and at the last possible moment, an angel calls out to him to tell him that the test is over, and that the future generations that would come from Abraham’s line are assured.  When the Torah described Abraham and Isaac going up the mountain together, now upon their return, Isaac isn’t mentioned at all, leaving us only to wonder, how a son now regards his father.  More curiously, the Torah tells us that Abraham and his servants stayed in Beer-Sheva, again the Torah gives us no explicit reason, but they didn’t go home to see Sarah.  As this week’s parsha ends, Abraham receives reports of the goings on of his family from Beer-Sheva, and the Torah is not clear as to whether he ever sees Sarah again before her death, which begins next week’s reading.

In the sanitized Hebrew school version of this story, we glorify Abraham as a hero, the man whose faith was so strong he was even willing to give up his son.  But it is probably more appropriate to view Abraham as a tragic hero, one who lost his way in the end… and even though it will be some time before Abraham dies, this really is the end of his story.  It’s even bookended with the phrase “lech lecha”, a literary technique that we often find in ancient Hebrew, so that Abraham’s story both begins and ends with the theme of the journey.  

But how is any of this even possible?  Abraham was following God’s instruction… humans, even Biblical heroes, we can accept as fallible, but God?  How can we justify God’s actions?

It’s curious that it isn’t actually God who stops Abraham in the end, but rather an angel.  In fact, after commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, God never speaks to Abraham directly again.  It is almost as if Abraham, in fact, failed the test.  And I think it’s ok to be at peace with that.  I imagine God waiting, generation after generation, for the right person to come along to begin elevating the human race to a greater purpose, to begin a civilization where people live ethically and in harmony with the universe, where they care for others as a matter of principle and not as means of leverage, a civilization that champions mercy.  And along comes Abraham with all of the best qualities that humanity has to offer, who believes in the sanctity of human life, who treats others with respect and dignity, who wants to embrace spirituality and living conscientiously .  Abraham has all of the right building blocks, but he doesn’t yet have the experience to understand God.  The people who would come to know God would have to be a stiff-necked people, not a compliant people.  They would need to champion knowledge and study, to learn to think and reason for themselves.  They would need to be people with chutzpah written into their DNA so that they could become, as the Torah would later call the Israelites, a nation of priests, each individual person born with the audacity to cultivate their own personal relationship with the Divine.

Abraham may have proven his faith and loyalty, but he also proved that his progeny would have to be carefully molded for generations to come, which is why even though Abraham’s story is over, the story of the Jewish people continues on.

Shabbat Shalom,
                           --ChazJ

What makes a style of music, or a particular melody or song choice appropriate for use in prayer?  There’s no shortage of differing opinions on this question, as it pertains to many religious communities around the world.  Even within the same religion, the answer will continue to vary by religious denomination or sect, by individual synagogue, church, mosque or temple, and even within the same community at different periods in that community’s history.  If you joined us for Rosh Hashanah this year, you know that it’s certainly true for us at Beth Radom, which, by the way, if you haven’t seen this year’s Rosh Hashanah adon olam a cappella music videos, pause this video right now, head on over to the Beth Radom YouTube channel and check them out, the rest of this video will make a lot more sense after you do.  Let’s begin.

Shabbat shalom, shanah tovah and g’mar chatimah tova to everyone out there, I certainly hope your Rosh Hashanah celebrations for 5782 were happy, sweet and fulfilling, and if this is your first time checking out what the Beth Radom YouTube channel is all about, welcome.  We hope you enjoy this little d’var Torah where we’re about to pack in some Torah, Jewish philosophy, Jewish history, and popular Jewish culture all into about 10 minutes, so strap in, and if you like what we do, don’t forget to hit the subscribe button, and keep in mind that there’s still time to give our office a call if you’d like to join us for virtual Yom Kippur services.

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This week’s parsha, Vayelech, always falls during the Yamim Nora’im, or the Days of Awe.  These are the 10 days between the Holydays of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the fast of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  The parsha takes us through the last day of Moses’ life, which also happens to be Moses 120^th birthday.  This is the source of the traditional Jewish birthday blessing, “may you live to 120 years”, “ad me’ah v’esrim”.  After Moses formally passes his leadership role to Joshua, he composes a “shirah” which is a song or a poem, for the Israelites to learn by heart.  The song is about teshuvah, which is the Jewish concept of repentance, literally meaning ‘to return’ to God.  Knowing how irreverent the Israelites can be at times, Moses believes that making them study and learn this song about Teshuvah will one day be helpful in guiding the Israelite people back to a life of righteousness.  Even to this day, every educator knows that if you want to commit something important to memory, turn it into a song, or a rhyme. Personally, I still can’t remember which of the months have thirty days and which have thirty-one until reciting, “Thirty days hath September, April, June and November…”.

And so it was in ancient Israel that music and poetry was an essential part of Israelite religious culture, teaching theological principles, and of course, bringing beauty to the act of worship in the Temple.  

But throughout recorded history, it is clear that not all musical forms were deemed appropriate for worship.  For as long as Jewish prayer music has existed, so has secular music, which included tavern drinking songs, work songs, songs for dancing, songs of love and seduction, which we might assume were kept far removed from the Levitical Temple choir.  But then again, perhaps not.  

The book of Psalms contains 150 sacred poems, most of which begin with some kind of superscript, an introductory note with special instructions.  For example, the superscript for Psalm 8 reads, “Lamnatze’ach bin’ginot al Hashminit, Mizmor L’David”, meaning “to the director, for playing upon the 8-stringed harp, a song of David”.  Or the superscript for psalm 84 which reads “Lamnatze’ach al hagigit livnei korach mizmor”, meaning “to the director, for playing on the gigit, a song for the children of Korach”, the gigit being some mysterious untranslatable name for a musical instrument that has been lost to time.  But a few of the psalms have superscripts that seem particularly curious.  Psalm 22 begins with the superscript, “Lamnatze’ach, al ayelet hashachar, mizmor L’david”, meaning “To the director, according to the deer of the dawn, a song of David”.  The phrase, ‘deer of the dawn’ seems a strange phrase as an instruction to the director.  As are the superscripts for psalms 45 and 69, which both read, “Lamnatze’ach al shoshanim“, a message to the director suggesting the psalm should be performed according to “lilies”.  Scholars agree that Lilies and Deer of the Dawn were likely names of popular secular songs at the time, indicating that the psalm should be sung to the melody of the popular tune, which means, singing sacred texts to popular secular melodies has been a Jewish custom for at least two and a half thousand years!

Of course, if we import secular music into our prayers, it should be done with care.  As we just discussed, songs are mnemonic devices, and when we bring a secular song into our modern prayer service, it comes along with whatever it may have been associated with previously, including the song’s original lyrics, it’s themes, and even the reputation of the composer.  So of course, there are songs to avoid bringing into shul with us, not that we can’t otherwise enjoy them, but only because singing them in shul would take away from our prayer service more than they would add.  And that’s really what it boils down to – does singing a religious text to the melody of a particular secular song bring beauty, meaning, and dare I even say “fun” to prayer?  You be the judge.

Shabbat Shalom, have a happy, healthy and sweet new year, and an easy fast.
                             --ChazJ

“Ideological and political intolerance, even with the best and most sincere intentions, produces results that are the direct opposite of those intended."
                                                                                         --Mikhail Gorbachev

This past Sunday, in a shocking display of the darkest of ironies, young members of Jerusalem’s ultra-orthodox community were bussed to the Kotel in the Old City, the Western Wall, not to pray, not to take in the beauty and majesty of the kotel in the main plaza, but to go directly to the out-of-the-way south side of the kotel, a place that for some years has had a tradition of providing limited access to egalitarian worshippers, a family space where men and  women, boys and girls from the Conservative, Masorti, Reform and other non-orthodox Jewish movements, so they could pray together in peace.  The youths targeted the egalitarian worshippers, throwing dirty diapers, spitting at them, and drowning out their prayers and harassing them with loud cursing and taunting.  The irony is that the incident took place on Tisha B’Av, a day of fasting and prayer in Judaism in memory the destruction of the Temple, the once central focus of Jewish existence, which is now only a wall, the kotel.  According to Jewish tradition, it was a catastrophe which was brought about because of toxic sectarianism… Jewish hatred of other Jews. 

It has been a tumultuous week.  Ben and Jerry’s ice cream has allied itself with BDS, the Boycott Divest and Sanctions movement that seeks to delegitimize and destroy Israel by economic means.  There’s a lot more to be said on this, and we WILL be diving into it over the course of Shabbat, but suffice it to say that the Jewish world, together with other people of conscience, will be preferring Haagen-Dazs from here on in.  

As a Jewish community, our attention is also on Nigeria, where Israeli middle east peace activist, Rudy Rochman together with journalist Edouard Benayim and film maker Andrew Liebman have been detained by the Nigerian secret police for more than two weeks now.  Rochman and his team were in Nigeria filming a documentary about Jewish communities in Africa when their gift of a sefer Torah to a local community was perceived as giving support to a Nigerian separatist movement.  For now, we are meant to wait with baited breath while the Israeli embassy works toward their safe release.  In the meantime, one thing we can and should do is take a moment to look up some of Rudy Rochman’s videos on YouTube and see the incredible grassroots work he has been doing in building relationships between Israelis and Palestinians, while combatting anti-zionism and anti-semitism.  Beyond that, we will continue to simply pray for their speedy and safe release.  Links to Rochman’s videos can be found in the description of this video. 

Today however, we are focusing on what happened at the kotel, which, to be fair, often sees clashes between egalitarian and ultra-orthodox worshippers.  But when these clashes happen, it has always happened in the main kotel plaza area, where activist groups such as Women of the Wall come to pray on Rosh Chodesh.  Although accosting them is inexcusable, they do expect and prepare to be harassed so that at least the media will continue to pay attention to the cause.  But this attack happened at the south wall, an out-of-the-way place at the kotel intended for egalitarian worship so as not to cause offense.  I was there, personally, back in 2017 celebrating the bar mitzvahs of two of my cousins.  Attacking us here was meant to send a message that it is not good enough that non-orthodox Jews should be banned from praying in accordance with their values at the main kotel plaza, but anywhere and everywhere, and that anyone who does not abide by ultra-orthodox values should be stripped entirely of their Jewish identity and seen as enemies of Judaism.  Here is their message on Israeli news: 

The man (in the video) speaking words of hate, lies and ignorance is the former head of the office of the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Dov Halbertal, an extremist who no longer represents the office of the Chief Rabbi, but is a voice within the ultra-orthodox community who often shows up on Israeli news to defend perceived offenses on the part of some schools of thought within ultra-orthodoxy.  For context, the video showss Rabbi Halbertal back in 2018 commenting on the pride parade in Jerusalem: 

What is also ironic is that this week’s parsha is V’etchanan, which amazingly, is a review session of all that the people of Israel have learned.  We even have a complete rehash of the 10 commandments, the same 10 given at Mount Sinai, way back in the book of Exodus.  “Observe them faithfully”, says Moses, “for that will be the proof of your wisdom and discernment to other peoples”.  So in the spirit of parshat V’etchanan, shall review with Rabbi Halbertal and his supporters a few important words of Torah that he must have forgotten.

לֹֽא־תִשְׂנָ֥א אֶת־אָחִ֖יךָ בִּלְבָבֶ֑ךָ הוֹכֵ֤חַ תּוֹכִ֙יחַ֙ אֶת־עֲמִיתֶ֔ךָ וְלֹא־תִשָּׂ֥א עָלָ֖יו חֵֽטְא׃

Do not hate your brother in your heart.  Reprove him, but incur no guilt because of him.

לֹֽא־תִקֹּ֤ם וְלֹֽא־תִטֹּר֙ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י עַמֶּ֔ךָ וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ אֲנִ֖י יְהֹוָֽה׃

You shall not take vengeance, or bear a grudge against your countrymen.  Love your fellow as you would yourself, I am the Lord.

אָמַר רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא זֶה כְּלָל גָּדוֹל בַּתּוֹרָה

So said our great teacher Rabbi Akiva, “this is a fundamental principle of the Torah”

I have no further commentary on this.  Eileh Mishpatim, these are Mishpatim – simple, self-evident laws of decency, like do not place a stumbling block before a blind man, or to treat all people equally before the law regardless of wealth or status.

As I prepare this d’var Torah, only hours ago, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, chief rabbi of Har Bracha, a respected voice within the ultra-orthodox community, has spoken out, calling on the authorities in charge of the Western Wall Plaza to accommodate Reform and Conservative prayer groups at the south wall, saying “orthodox and haredi people who adhere to Jewish law and tradition need not be bothered by these groups which come to the Western Wall.  Rather, they should be happy that more of their Jewish brothers and sisters are connecting to the site of the Temple, and more of them want to pray to their Father in Heaven.”  In this statement we see that Rabbi Halbertal’s statement does not represent all orthodox Jews, or even all ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel, and that co-existence and mutual tolerance is indeed possible. 

Still, again in the spirit of parshat V’etchanan, on this first Shabbat of consolation following Tisha B’Av, one final reminder to Rabbi Halbertal and his followers… a story they know very well because it is arguably the most well-known Talmudic story of them all, found in Masechet Gittin, 55b.

There was once a Jewish man who had a friend named Kamtza and an enemy named Bar Kamtza.  The man had prepared a feast and asked his servent to invite his friend Kamtza to the event.  Confused over the similar sounding names, the servant mistakingly invited Bar Kamtza.  Upon receiving the invitation Bar Kamtza took it as a gesture of forgiveness, dressed in his finest clothing and came to the feast.  But when the host noticed Bar Kamtza, he demanded that he leave.

Embarrassed, Bar Kamtza asked the host if he could be permitted to stay, and that he would pay for anything he ate or drank.  But the host refused his offer.

“Allow me, then, to stay and I will pay for half of the entire feast,” begged Bar Kamtza, trying to avoid abject embarrassment.  But the host refused the offer.

“Then I will pay for the full cost if you will only not embarrass me further”, pleaded Bar Kamtza. And the host had Bar Kamtza dragged from the feast and thrown into the street.

Bar Kamtza decided then and there to go to the Roman Emperor Nero and slander the host, along with all of the rabbis who did not come to his defense at the feast. 

In an audience before the Emperor, Bar Kamtza exclaimed, “The Jews are plotting a rebellion against his Imperial majesty!  As proof, send a sacrifice to the Temple, and you will see it will be rejected!” 

Together with a delegation of Roman soldiers, Emperor Nero sent a choice calf back with Bar Kamtza to be offered, but along the journey, Bar Kamtza secretly made a blemish on the animal, one that he knew would cause it to be rejected. 

As expected, upon reaching the Temple, the animal was rejected for sacrifice.  Word of the rejection reached the Emperor who became enraged, and so because of the hatred between brothers, Rome began its march on Jerusalem whereupon the House of God was burned, and the Tabernacle destroyed on the 9^th day of Av, Tisha B’Av. 

ר' חנניא בן עקשיא אומר רצה הקב"ה לזכות את ישראל לפיכך הרבה להם תורה ומצות

The Mishna teaches us that God gave the Jewish people this amazing Torah, this incredibly complicated, difficult Torah filled with rules and obligations not to punish or oppress, but to challenge us, to hold us to a higher standard and dare us to be better than we are.  Rabbi Halbertal, that is real Judaism, and you’re welcome to come join us when you’ve decided to become religious enough. 

Shabbat Shalom
                            --ChazJ

Al Kiddush Hashem – for the holiness of God’s name.  It isn’t a battle cry.  It’s a special phrase we use that describes those who have been murdered because of their Jewishness.  The victims of the holocaust, fallen Israeli soldiers, victims of pogroms, blood libels, lynchings, are all examples of those who we say have died al kiddush Hashem, for the holiness of God’s name.  It’s a phrase most of us know very well as we invoke it on the holidays and memorial services.  But what about killing in God’s name?  To be fair, there are many examples in the Tanach where Israelites were instructed by God to kill, but the concept of killing in God’s name, the idea that one human being can understand the morality of God with such certainty so as to justify the killing of another, is fundamentally alien to Jewish ideology.  Judaism prohibits killing in the name of God.

The title of our Parsha this week, Korach, is named for the man who challenges Moses in the desert for leadership of the Israelite people.  At this point in the biblical narrative, the people of Israel have already reached the other side of the Sinai desert and saw with their own eyes the land promised to them by God.  Except that they didn’t enter the land on account of the sin of the spies from last week’s parsha, because while all the spies agreed that the land was indeed flowing with milk and honey, only 2 of the spies believed that with God’s help, the Israelite nation would be able to successfully conquer the land from the Canaanites.  The other 10 spies, however, disagreed, believing that the Israelites had no chance of mounting a successful campaign.  For their lack of faith, God decided that the people were not yet deserving of the land, and instructed Moses to lead the people back into the desert where they would wander aimlessly until a new generation of Israelites could at last become the people to merit crossing the Jordan river.  We can only imagine how the Israelites must have felt at this point – dejected, resentful, and hopeless that despite the wonders they had seen, knowing they, themselves would die in the desert without ever setting foot in the land of Israel.  Enter Korach, who, with the support of 250 elders, marches up to Moses to demand a referendum on his leadership.  It makes perfect sense from the perspective of the Israelites, that their confidence in Moses would be shaken.  After a contest followed by a fire and light show in which God demonstrates his preference that Moses and Aaron retain their roles as the leaders of Israel, God causes the ground to open up and swallow Korach, his family, and all of his followers.

That’s the literal interpretation of the Torah narrative, and we can pretty much all agree that it sounds pretty awful.  Challenging our leaders and holding them accountable is supposed to be a hallmark of democracy.  If the Torah is meant to be the foundation upon which western civilized society is built, it should be encouraging debate and free speech.  It should abhor authoritarianism, and at the very least, it shouldn’t be the kind of administration that kills dissidents, their families and all of their followers.

Of course, it doesn’t really make sense to judge 3000 year old political systems by our modern standards but don’t worry, we’re not about to let the Torah off the hook here.  The Torah is supposed to be timeless, and have something to teach us in every generation.  It’s going to take some doing getting there, but follow along this line of reasoning with me.  

Let’s first remember that the basic premise of Judaism, and certainly the Torah, is that God is always right.  For religious Jews, which for most of Jewish history, was ALL Jews, the story of Korach would not have posed any moral problems.  God chose Moses and Aaron, end of story.  Anybody opposing Moses and Aaron is also opposing God, and since God is always right, any challenger is morally deserving of whatever they get.  The Israelite nation, at the time, was definitively not a democracy, and therefore the Torah need make no apology.  Except, though, that it seems that the traditional commentators are also bothered by this story, highlighting passages that, with some interpretation, portray Korach as power hungry, disrespectful, not at all concerned about what would be best for the Israelite people, and therefore deserving of his fate.  In a way, it appears that even the commentators do not feel that the argument that “God knows what He’s doing” is sufficient for them.

There are a lot of good points that the commentators make in order to justify the death of Korach and his followers.  The most convincing one that I can see is that idea that the Torah makes many references to Moses innate humility, to be a person who is truly selfless, and therefore best suited to be the person to both commune directly with God and lead the Israelite people.  How often can we say that for certain about our leaders today? And for me, that’s as good a reason as any, because this would mean that Korach and his followers were usurpers of power for their own self-interest, and completely out of step with the Divine plan that was already underway.   But that’s not what the story of Korach means to me.  Rather, I believe the lesson of Korach is really about the story of how our sages have interpreted it throughout history.  Think about it - never has there been a time when we simply accepted that the killing of Korach was intrinsically moral just because God chose Moses.  This, I believe, is exactly the way of thinking that has always set the Jewish people apart from the other ancient civilizations.  It is what gives the Jewish people a special cultural uniqueness, and allows us to realize our value as a Light Unto the Nations.  It is because even though our theological understanding of God is that He is intrinsically moral, it doesn’t stop us from questioning God’s morality, as illustrated in this clip from the movie, Bruce Almighty, where God is played by Morgan Freeman.

Morgan Freeman’s fantastic characterization of God notwithstanding, here we see perhaps the most bizarre theological contradiction in mainstream Jewish ideology – Jews are allowed to question God who is unquestionable.  We can ask why, we can strive to learn by cultivating a relationship with the divine, but we must in the end admit that we don’t know, and never will.  It’s what makes that wonderfully awkward pause at the end of that video clip so deliciously appropriate, but it’s also why even though millions of Jews have died ‘al kiddush Hashem’, for the sake of God’s holiness, we do not kill for this reason. Jews don’t kill in the name of God.  Which isn’t to say there have not been religious Jewish zealots, even in our recent history, such as Yigal Amir who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin in 1995, or Baruch Goldstein who murdered 29 Muslim worshippers in 1994.  But whenever such atrocities have happened, the entire Jewish people have responded in an immediate, clear and unified voice of condemnation.  As media campaigns continue to lie and smear Israel for the sin of surviving, and as we Jews in the diaspora endure a dramatic rise in antisemitism as punishment for the same, we hope that the world might one day realize that the Jewish people stand against all religious zealotry, including Jewish zealotry.  But make no mistake, the Jewish people will fight to protect ourselves, to preserve our people, and safeguard our right to existence, self-determination and to be free from oppression, just as is the right of every other human being on earth.

Shabbat Shalom
                            --ChazJ

Holiness.  It’s a word that Judaism tends to throw around a lot.  Most of us have a pretty good idea of what kinds of things are holy.  Of course God is holy.  Torah is holy, along with other sacred texts.  We have ritual objects that we consider holy like a mezuzah or a shofar.  And we also have places that are holy, like a synagogue, the kotel (what many know as the wailing wall), or the whole city of Jerusalem, for that matter.  It’s actually a topic we’ve covered on this channel before, where we learned that holiness really, can be anything that is special or dear to us.  It could be something expensive and glamourous, like a piece of heirloom jewelry, or it could be something simpler like a picture of a loved one that we treasure, or a song that carries special meaning for us.  What about people though?  Can a person be holy?  Of course!  Traditions around the world have holy men and women.  Some are holy because their tradition teaches that they speak on behalf of God, some are holy for their great wisdom and attunement to the harmony of the universe.  But in Judaism, we tend not to label individuals as being either a holy man or woman, even when it comes to great rabbis.  And it’s not because we don’t believe they’re holy, and there isn’t even anything wrong with CALLING them holy either.  The reason we don’t do it is because in Judaism, we are ALL holy.

In this week’s double parsha, Acharei Mot / Kedoshim, the section for kedoshim begins with the words, “vay’daber Adonai el Moshe leimor, daber el kol adat b’nei yisrael v’amarta aleihem, k’doshim teehiyu, ki kadosh ani” – “And God spoke to Moses saying, speak to the entire assembled people of Israel and say to them, you shall be holy, for I am holy.”

So you see, it’s a bit weird in Judaism to single out one particular person as an example of someone who is holy, because we are all supposed to be holy.  But, says the torah, holiness works a bit differently with people.  As with objects, we are holy because we are precious and significant to the people in our lives.  But there is a second dimension to holiness within people because we also have the opportunity and the obligation to make ourselves precious and significant not only to others, but also to ourselves.

How do we do that?  A huge chunk of the Torah that we are reading this week is dedicated to what scholars refer to as The Holiness Code - a long list of rules and regulations on how we must conduct ourselves both ritually and morally.  Between laws that teach us not to spread gossip, or to take unfair advantage of others, we also have laws that get up close and personal as they teach us about intimacy,  while others simply tell us to avoid buying into meaningless superstitious beliefs.  In the end, the Holiness Code can be rolled up into one word… respect… respect for ourselves and others.  It is showing respect that gives us our holiness.

As I prepare this message, Ontario remains in lockdown due to the recent surge in COVID cases.  For many of us, this latest lockdown barely feels any different than what we have endured over the past year.  Still, the weather is getting warmer, and despite the slow vaccine rollout, we know that better days ARE just head so long as we sit tight.  And yet, for many of us, this doesn’t bring us much comfort.  In fact, there is a higher tendency for many of us to simply feel a bit numb to all of the drama at this point.  A New York Times article from this week suggests that the word for what we are experiencing now is ‘languishing’.  It’s not depression.  Surprisingly, it’s not even anxiety anymore, which used to be a big one for a lot of us.  Rather it’s a feeling of a lack of motivation, difficulty focusing, and just a big gigantic collective feeling of “meh”.

The soul within each of us that connects us all to each other and to God means that we are all forever spared from being meaningless.  Nobody is meaningless, and therefore we can’t ever really lose our holiness.  But we can lose our meaning.  In fact, it is easy to lose our joi de vivre when we’re stuck inside all day every day.  It’s easy to fall into a rut where we lose respect for ourselves, and lose sight of the main goal of being human, which is to bring beauty, knowledge, and healing to the world, which in turn fills us with meaning and holiness. It’s easy to give up on our ourselves when there’s nobody around to keep us accountable.  

So, God says, you will be holy because I am holy.  Not necessarily because others are holding us to a standard, but because God is holding us to a standard.  We cannot languish because God doesn’t languish.  Holiness is a job that God has charged us to do at all times, whether we feel like it or not.  You’ve gotta keep doing you’re job, God says, because I’m staying committed to mine.  We all MUST keep filling the world with holiness.  That was the deal, no matter what.  We are in this together.

Have a Shabbat Shalom.
                                      --ChazJ

I've said a few times before that I want so badly to be done talking about American politics, and it does feel like very soon, that that beautiful day will come when the humdrum of American political discourse will return to being of only passing interest to Jewish Canadians.  But that day isn’t today, especially since it so happens that the parsha we are reading in the Torah this week has something important to say about it.  I’m speaking of course about the impeachment trial, which, other than the coronavirus, has been essentially the only news story being covered this week by just about every news network in both the US and Canada.  

Does the former president of the United States bare responsibility for the capitol insurrection on January 6?  Lead house impeachment manager, and certified member of the tribe, Jamie Raskin, functioned as a prosecuting attorney laying out the case for conviction.  The most compelling part for me, at least, was the 13-minute video that included footage taken from the capitol’s cc tv cameras and various rioters’ smartphones, assembled in chronological order showing how the whole event unfolded, and how it synchronized with what the former president was communicating at that time on twitter.  The video captured the horror of the riot itself, the former presidents own words urging the rioters as well as shouting and chanting from the rioters, themselves, who were echoing the former president and declaring that they were acting upon his instruction.  I also appreciated that Raskin broadened the scope of his analysis of the former president Trump’s behaviour, demonstrating how it related to his claims of election fraud, the attack on the Michigan capitol on April 30th of last year, and the Charlottesville white-supremacist protest back in 2017 where we saw videos of skinheads marching to the haunting chant “Jews will not replace us”.

Though I cannot claim impartiality, I can at least share that the consensus even among Trump supporters, and reportedly even Trump, himself, was that his defense attorneys were disorganized and ineffective at presenting their side of the story.  But the gist of their argument was that politicians must be granted considerable leeway in using hyperbolic, flowery, and even zealous language, because that is the nature of political discourse, and it all falls under the umbrella of protected speech in accordance with the first amendment to the US Constitution.  We are to understand, for example, that Trump’s statement “fight like hell, or you won’t have a country anymore” is meant to be understood metaphorically, and cannot be construed as inciting a specific, planned violent attack.

Though, as I said, I’m not impartial, I can at least admit that the Trump attorneys have made a fair point.  Trump has always used that kind of language, and although it seemed that Trump was directly instructing the mob in light of how the riot unfolded, we can’t ignore the fact that Trump has been saying stuff like this for 5 years, and so far as we can tell, they haven’t been taken literally before… or have they, and we just didn’t want to believe that people would actually act on them?

This week’s parsha is Mishpatim, which means “laws”.  It seems appropriate given that out of the 613 commandments in the Torah, parshat Mishpatim has 53 of them, more commandments by far in a single parsha than we’ve had so far.  But more than that, the term “Mishpatim” refers to the whole category of laws that are inferable, or laws that can be derived from common sense such as the prohibition of accepting a bribe, or against physically striking one’s parents, or cursing God, to name a few.  These are in contrast to the Chukim, or “statutes”, those laws which may not necessarily make perfect sense to us, but we follow them anyways, because Judaism sometimes does that, like the prohibition against eating pork or against wearing a garment that uses a mixture of wool and linen thread.

In our parsha, alongside all of the other laws of common sense, is the prohibition against enticing someone to idol worship.  “V’shem Elohim acherim, lo tazkiru, lo yishma al picha” – “you shall not recognize the names of other Gods, they shall not be heard upon your lips”.  In both the commentaries by Rashi and Ibn Ezra, they seem to be particularly concerned that a Jewish person should not even ask a non-Jew to swear by their god as a way of making a binding promise.  In the Sefer Hachinuch, a rabbinic text that expounds upon the 613 commandments in the order they are given in the Torah, the commentary simply says about this law, “the reason is obvious”.   Of course, it’s a Mishpat, an obvious, common sense law that a theologically based civilization has a rule that says first in the 10 commandments, don’t worship idols, and then in the next parsha, don’t encourage others to do it either.  But what, specifically, does it mean to “entice” someone to practice idol worship?  By what mechanism do we determine if someone was joking, or maybe just exaggerating?  While it is often true that the Torah can be cryptic and lacking in detail when it comes to many of the mitzvot which is where the vast library of rabbinic literature comes into play, in this case, the Torah gives us all the detail we need.  “Lo yishma al picha” – “it shall not be heard on your lips”.  In other words, JUST DON’T SAY IT – no joking about it, no exaggerating, nothing.  Nachmanides even suggests that if you have to use the name of a foreign God for a good reason, perhaps if you’re studying world religions in an academic setting, that we should try changing the name a bit, like saying “Jebus Pryste”.  Yeah, it’s a bit weird.  But like hate speech or inciting violence, if we truly believe that there’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed, then we have to be willing to give up a small piece of our sense of entitlement to say whatever we want whenever we want.

But what about our rights?  How far does this censorship go?  Where do we draw the line?

Admittedly, it’s a bit easier for the Torah to simply forbid specific speech outright.  We must remember that the concept of personal rights and freedoms, such as the freedom of speech, didn’t exist for the ancient Israelites, who instead only understood that they had obligations.  While I hold my religious obligations in the highest regard, I also feel privileged to live in a society that also grants me certain rights and freedoms, including the freedom of speech which I’m exercising right now.  The Torah considers the prohibition against enticing idol worship a common sense law, but if we are not prepared to also accept the unilateral prohibition against certain speech, including joking and exaggerating in the way that freedom of allows me to do, then common sense gets decidedly less common.

Luckily, rights don’t come from Judaism, rights don’t really even make sense in Judaism.  Rather, they come from my Canadian-ism, and Canadianism is not about being accountable to God, it’s about being accountable to other Canadians.  In this context, the system of rights and freedoms works just fine.  If I exercise my free speech which allows me to insult each and every one of my friends, Canada will not throw me in prison, but I am still accountable to my friends who can exercise their freedom to not speak to me anymore.  And whose fault is it?  Mine, of course!  Rights and freedoms are powerful things that form the bedrock of our society, but they are not part of our deal with God.  Instead, they are a part of a deal that we make with each other in that we must be accountable for the consequences that arise out of exercising those rights and freedoms.  If we can’t accept those consequences, then we don’t deserve our rights and freedoms.

Since the US Senate requires a two thirds majority to convict, it would have mean that quite a few Republicans would have to vote with the democrats which seems unlikely.  The acquittal will represent a failure for common sense and decency.  It will, as we have seen, invite future lawmakers to practice these same kinds of rhetorical tactics that are designed specifically to create cults of the self, rather than accountable public servants.  It is a tactic that is, at its core, the modern version of enticing others to idol worship.  If it cannot be legislated away by law, then it will be up to all of us to be on guard for it next time, call it out when we see it, and help each other understand that it goes against who we are as the Jewish people.

Shabbat Shalom,
            --ChazJ

Last Friday night, eight Toronto Conservative synagogues came together virtually for an amazing joint Kabbalat Shabbat service filled with ruach and music.  Five hundred screens joined us for the event, maxing out our zoom capacity, and another 300 were watching on Facebook.  It was by far the most people I’ve ever seen gather together for a simple Friday night service, and I was so proud to be a part of it.

You know, as Toronto goes into its third week of lockdown in this latest wave of the pandemic, I find that I’m pausing to reflect on just how accustomed I’ve become to this new reality, and I imagine that I’m not alone in this.  I think that many of us by this point have almost become a bit numb to the cabin fever.  Going a bit crazy, stressing, disinfecting groceries is just a part of our day now, so much so that we’ve pretty much stopped complaining about it.  But last Friday night was a reminder, at least to me, of what we’ve been missing in our lives.  It was a reminder to stay strong and not give into the kind of depression that many of us are fighting hard to try and stave off, some of us more successfully than others, and that there’s good reason to be hopeful that we’ll be able to return to our old lives soon.

This week’s parsha, which we WILL be reading in shul this week (be sure to join us on zoom), is Vayishlach.  Jacob’s camp is on the move, trying desperately to stay ahead of his brother Esav, still bent on killing Jacob for stealing his blessing.  Jacob decides he’s going to split his camp in two so they can go off in different directions.  That way, if Esav catches up with one of them, the other might have a better chance for survival.  Can we possibly imagine the emotional turmoil that Jacob must have experienced in this Sophie’s Choice moment.  As he does this, he sends messengers to intercept Esav with pleas and gifts in the chance that they might assuage Esav’s anger.  Esav the fast and mighty hunter reaches Jacob’s camp, and they come face to face for the first time in almost 20 years.  And as they look at one another, Esav’s anger, Jacob’s fear melt away and they embrace.  What a relief!  Just like that, the sibling rivalry is over, because we all know that that’s how it works right?  One moment you can be insanely angry with someone, enough to kill them, and the next everything is ok, right?  Of course not.

So what happened?  The answer is that 20 years happened.  When Jacob stole his brother’s blessing, it was a devious and bratty thing to do.  Let’s not let Jacob off the hook so easily, because Esav had every right to be angry.  But what happened to Jacob since then?  When Jacob ran off to live with his uncle Lavan, he worked for Lavan for 7 years to marry Rachel, only to be duped, and forced work another 7 years.  Some might say that it was the first time that Jacob finally got a taste of his own  medicine.  When Jacob then wrestles the angel, one modern interpretation is that the angel represented Jacob’s own conscience, realizing in the end that in order to become a better man, he must hold himself to account for the wrongs he had committed against others, including Esav.  When Jacob and Esav finally meet, the Torah says that Esav fell on Jacob’s neck, kissed him and they wept.  The word in the Torah that describes Esav kissing Jacob is “vayishakeihu”, which appears in the Torah with a sequence of strange dots above the word that beg for interpretation.    Commentators suggest that the word is meant to be especially significant because this act by Esav was outside his usual brutish character, indicating that he too had changed, than in 20 years, he had found some semblance of peace and learned to become a good and decent leader.

I have to admit that there are times when I feel like this pandemic has lasted for 20 years.  It has certainly aged us all.  We’ve had to learn to live a new normal, and give up things we never thought we’d ever have to.  But I think we’ve also grown a lot.   We’ve learned to appreciate so many little things that we took for granted before, going over to a friend’s house, going out for dinner, having a workout at the gym.  We’ve also learned to better appreciate some of the big things too, like going to a big beautiful wedding, or packing ourselves into shul for the High Holydays.  We’ve come to realize that it wasn’t really about “the thing” that we did so much as the people we did it with.  Do you know what proves it?  It’s the fact that all the cantors that participated in last Friday night’s huge service all know perfectly well that the 800 people watching weren’t there to necessarily listen to all the cantors do their thing, but rather, just to scroll through all of the other screens and see the faces of friends and neighbours that we haven’t seen in so long, all watching the service together from their homes.

Of course, we’re all eager for the pandemic to end, and it will.  But what I’m looking forward to especially is that I think we are all going to experience a renewed zeal for friends, for family, for community and for life, and I think it’s going to be amazing.  To help get keep that wonderful spirit alive until then, we’ve got lots more in store.  We have our huge Toronto-wide virtual Chanukah concert coming this Sunday night.  Plans are underway to do a big malaveh Malka program in January, just the way we did our big Kabbalat Shabbat, and even the Kabbalat Shabbat, I have no doubt will be returning again very soon.  Why?  Because in all of this madness, in a century that has taught us to become more inwardly focused, we discovered that what we really needed all along was each other.  

Shabbat Shalom,
                            --ChazJ

This past week has been a mesmerizing onslaught of news from the Biden victory in the American elections, to President Trump's refusal to concede amidst baseless accusations of election fraud.  Even the announcement of death of beloved Jeopardy host Alex Trebek was only just barely powerful enough to attract the attention of the mainstream media.  While the world wasn't paying attention, the great Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks passed away, only a few months after disclosing that he had cancer.  In a quiet instant, the world lost one of its greatest Jewish scholars, authors, educators and communicators of the modern era.  Under other circumstances, his funeral would have attracted tens of thousands, and dignitaries from all over the world.  Instead, he was buried quietly and quickly in accordance with London's COVID restrictions, and no more than 30 people in attendance.

There is an old Chassidic story that tells of the deaths of two men in one town on the same day.  One was a great rabbi and scholar, and the other a murderous villain.  By some accident during the preparation of their bodies for burial, their identities were mistaken and their caskets switched. As a result of the mistake, the villain's funeral was presided over by a host of dignitaries, and was accompanied by thousands to the cemetery where the casket was buried in a place of honour.  Meanwhile, the great rabbi's funeral was a modest one, with only a few in attendance.  Why would God allow such a tragic disrespect for the great rabbi, and such an honour for a villain?  The chassidic masters teach that by this, the villain could be rewarded on earth for the small acts of righteousness he had done in his lifetime, so that he could then earn his eternity in Gehenom.  Meanwhile, the rabbi's indignity was the earthly consequence of the small sins he committed in his lifetime, so that he could then merit an eternity in paradise.

In memory of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, I invite you all to watch this amazing video of him giving a TED talk in 2017 which could not be more relevant today . It is a true testament to his scholarship and genius as a communicator to watch him speak to a world audience, about world issues, from the perspective of Jewish wisdom.

Shabbat Shalom,
--ChazJ

“I'm always pushing for human responsibility. Given that chimpanzees and many other animals are sentient and sapient, then we should treat them with respect.”
                            --Jane Goodall (1934-), primatologist and anthropologist

What is sentience?  How do we determine whether an organism is sentient?  Is it a measure of the awareness of self?  A measure of intelligence or cognition?  To be perfectly honest, I actually don’t know what the answer is.  I think it should be easy enough for everyone to agree, though, that human beings today are sentient, and that if we go far back enough along the evolutionary chain, we must eventually come across some kind of homo sapien ancestor who is not sentient, even if we have to go as far back as a single-celled organism.  I can also admit that I have no idea whether the human transition to sentience was an extremely long and gradual process, or whether it was a short one in our evolutionary history.  But no matter what, we must be able to say at some point a transition happened.  Whether we are talking about one individual who was the first to be sentient, or a larger group over a longer period of time, let’s metaphorically call these first individuals Adam and Eve.

“And God formed the man of dust from the ground, and He blew into his nostrils the soul of life; and man became a living being.” (Gen. 2:7).  The story of sentient humanity begins.  The human, becoming self-aware, began to try and understand the world in which he or she lived which seemed to magically have everything that was needed for survival, shelter in caves, fruit and berries for food, a care-free Garden of Eden.  Except, it was not entirely care-free because there existed in it something that was forbidden.  The sentient human does not yet have a sense of morality, but only a rudimentary understanding of a distinction between things that can be used for benefit ,and things that, unless avoided, will cause harm.  The latter is represented by the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Meanwhile, “God had formed out of the ground every beast of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he would call each one; and whatever the man called each living creature, that remained its name.” (Gen. 2:19) According to our metaphor, this translates to the sentient human gaining intellect, learning rudimentary language and assigning names to the animals and other objects around him, whether gestural or vocal so that more complex ideas can shared between other capable human beings.  As language develops, and human social interaction develops, man and woman are able to bond as a pair beyond sexuality and we now have intimacy.  I believe this concept is particularly well reflected in the biblical language as God describes the intention for the partnership between man and woman to be ‘ezer k’negdo’ – literally translated as ‘a helpmate opposite him’, a relationship based first on social interaction, not on sexuality.

At this point, what we’ve done is draw a parallel between what we can reasonably understand about the anthropological development of human sentience and the biblical narrative.  But we could rightly ask, what do we actually learn from this?  Let me suggest that what we are really learning about here is the nature of God.  Although God may be personified in the story of creation, as strange as it may feel to say it, the Jewish concept of God is that God is not a person.  Traditionally, God is more easily described by what He is not, than by what He is.  The traditional positive description of God comes from Exodus 34:6-7, “God, compassionate and gracious, preserver of kindness for thousands of generations, forgiver of iniquity, willful sin and error, and who cleanses”.  However, in light of our exploration of the story of Adam and Even, perhaps we might also say that God is the source of sentience in the universe, and creator of purpose.  While it is demonstrably true that the universe could certainly exist without sentience, what would be the point?  Why should it matter at all whether or not the universe exists if there is no being who can appreciate it?  Make something of it?  Fill it with amazing things?  You might even say that sentience IS the point of the universe.  Humanity, therefore, is God’s gift to the universe that it might know itself.  We learn from this that our sentience is a precious gift, and that we are meant to use it to learn, explore, feel, create, and show our gratitude to God who gave it to us.

Shabbat Shalom,
                        --ChazJ