Tag: There’s a God in My Soup

Religious experience, or at least the experience of religion.

Reading Assignment

WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW, stop – and order from your favorite bookseller Liel Leibovitz’ How the Talmud Can Change Your Life (Surprisingly Modern Advice from a Very Old Book). It’s a breakneck-speed, 272-page survey of Jewish history, bringing to life the key sages and lively times of the Talmud like never before, with illustrations drawn from Aldrich Ames and Billie Holiday and Weight Watchers and the Dewey Decimal System. I read it in three days, only grudgingly taking time for sleep and meals; it’s mildly profane and very learned and joyful and engaging and funny and sweeping and heartbreaking and really, really, real. You owe it to yourself, and to your understanding of Judaism, to read this book.

Seriously. Do it now.

The Handshake

THE UBER DRIVER’S HAND was warm and calloused, but its electric charge was unexpected.

It shouldn’t have been, though, since for the past forty-five minutes we had free-associated on topics that don’t lend themselves to easy or uncomplicated conversation: God, mind, the uselessness of AI, Self-realization (not a typo) and ego-death, gurus, the constancy of change, the Indian fashion-industry, meditation, capitalism, health and healing, life’s unpredictability, Hindu holyman Ramana Maharshi.

His car was a late-model Tesla – ironically, since we also agreed we shouldn’t colonize Mars – enroute to a faraway hospital, where my copilot was undergoing heart surgery. I told him this toward the end of the ride, and he reached back a ringed and metal-braceleted hand to take one of mine.

“Aw, man,” he said. “Blessings come from God.”

That was when something unexpected passed between us.

“For her,” he said with earnest intensity.

We conversed a bit more before pulling up to the hospital.

“Thank you,” I told him as I got out. “And thank you for your blessing.”

“Aw, man,” he said. “Blessings come from God.”

“Yes,” I replied. “But thank you for being the conduit.”

A few minutes later I stood next to my copilot’s bed. She had just come out of surgery, pale and weak-voiced and pained of expression. Her escape from the Beyond had been a close one, but her doctors were skilled. With a why-not-it-couldn’t-hurt shrug, I touched her leg with the hand the driver had grasped. Nothing unexpected this time, just a loving gesture of comfort.

Mind you, I am a skeptic in the original sense of the word: an open-minded soul who doesn’t chase after explanations of the inexplicable. And really, earnest handshakes are common enough. But over the next few hours, as she went from colorless and tentative to walking with me about the cardio unit, beaming a delighted smile at everything we passed, I wondered.

Perhaps that’s the way her sort of surgery is supposed to work. I like to think it does.

But on the other hand, every little bit helps.

New & Then

(A recent sermon. Skip it if you like – you won’t hurt my feelings.)

THERE IS AN OLD STORY about a rabbi who was so engrossed in his Talmudic studies that he didn’t pay attention to the weekly Torah reading. When he was asked by his congregation to deliver a sermon, he ascended the bimah and said: “A good sermon should be about the week’s Torah portion. It should also be true and concise. I do not know what this week’s Torah portion is. That is the truth, and it is concise. Shabbat shalom.”

Not yesterday or tomorrow – but today.

Moshe Rabbeinu – Moses our Teacher – has a similar concise moment in this week’s Torah portion from Deuteronomy. The book is Moses’ recounting and personal perspective of the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. According to the 13th-century Torah commentator Nachmanides, our portion finds Moses wrapping-up the mitzvot – the 613 commandments incumbent on all Jews. Nachmanides says that Moses finishes this long and winding list with Deuteronomy 26:16-17, which reads: “Your G?d Adonai commands you this day to observe these decrees and laws; observe them faithfully with all your heart and soul. You have affirmed this day that Adonai is your G?d, in whose ways you will walk, whose decrees and commandments and laws you will observe, and to hear [G?d’s] voice.”

Notice the repetition of the phrase “this day” – “hayom hazeh.” In verse 16, G?d commands us to keep the mitzvot. In the very next verse, we affirm our willingness to do just that. And what is the upshot, the payoff? That we will hear – “shema” – G?d’s voice. Not yesterday or tomorrow – but today.

One understanding of this could be that doing the mitzvot will add a perception of the Divine to our lives. Keeping Shabbat, welcoming the stranger, paying our employees on time, and observing the festivals – including the upcoming High Holidays – might not bring us material success. But the mitzvot might benefit us in other, more subtle and transcendent ways. They help us become better people by keeping us mindful of the fragile interconnectedness of all things – and in turn, by making us more appreciative of life’s great and small miracles.

But that’s harder than it sounds. After all, keeping hundreds of commandments is a heavy responsibility. And having to keep them every day for the rest of our lives? Help!

However, one of our most famous Torah commentators proposes a solution. Rashi – wine merchant by day, devoted scholar by night – speaks to us from 11th-century France. He says: “The mitzvot should always seem as new to you as on the day you were first commanded to observe them” – this day!

Time can be experienced in two different ways. Sometimes, it’s linear – each day slipping from the future into the past. Sometimes, it’s cyclical – with different seasons bringing their own special blessing, including birth, life, death, rebirth. Jewish time is both linear and cyclical. For example, we celebrate the holidays in the same way every year. But each year finds us in a different physical, intellectual and spiritual place. We grow more mature and – we hope! – more wise, or at least more experienced.

But all we really have is “hayom hazeh” – this day, which has never been before, and will never be again. So my question today is, “How do you make your observances fresh and new, and meaningful to you?“

Reverse Coarse

(Sermon delivered yesterday morning. Feel free to skip it if Jewish resilience isn’t your thing.)

HERE’S A QUESTION: Why are we still here?

The traditional opening of any Jewish morning prayer-service, and also what Jews say upon first entering the synagogue, is “Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishkanotecha Yisrael.” The best-known translation is, “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling-places, O Israel.”

After all, we’re called the “stiff-necked people” for a reason.

According to tradition, the reasoning behind this practice is nuanced. It expresses the awe and reverence we should feel on entering the Beit Tefilah, the house of prayer. And given its origin, which we’ll examine in a moment, Mah Tovu marks the notional connection between Jews and the outside world.

As we learned by what our Torah reader just chanted, Mah Tovu’s first line appears in this week’s Torah portion. The wizard Bilaam was hired by King Balak to curse the Jews – but every time he opened his mouth, out came blessings instead.

Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t it be great if the people who cursed us had a change of heart, or at least of tongue? Especially now, given our post- October 7th hellscape?

It takes great courage not to focus on the negative these days – to believe, as Jews have for millennia, that this world can and will be redeemed from oppression and darkness. To believe that if we work very, very hard for it, hate and fear will one day fade into memory. To believe that shalom – peace, harmony, and integrity – will eventually reign for all peoples everywhere.

We are too stubborn to give up this determined and well-ingrained optimism. After all, we’re called the “stiff-necked people” for a reason.

But times are scary and bad right now. That’s one reason why, instead of the traditional Mah Tovu, Shir Shalom’s services are beginning with, “Hinei mah tov uma naim, shevet achim gam yachad” – roughly translated as “How good it is, and how pleasant, for siblings to sit together.”

Because it is.

We’ve sat together during other scary and bad times: under the Egyptians, who enslaved us. The Babylonians, who destroyed our first Holy Temple. The Romans, who banned Torah study upon pain of death.

But I don’t want us to wallow in injustice and pain. I want to emphasize that despite the most unspeakable circumstances, we have always survived. More than that, we’ve thrived, serially outliving one oppressor after another, and another.

So my question is: What’s our secret? How is it that we continually overcome Jewish curses with Jewish blessings? Jewish misery with Jewish joy? Again: Why are we still here?

[pass the mic: the congregation’s dozen-or-so answers included “that we teach our children to be Jews,” “chutzpah,” “G?d’s love/covenant,” and “chicken soup.” One woman captured the general spirit by saying, “I am proud to be Jewish – and I wouldn’t want to be anything else.”]

Thank you, everyone. May we all have the strength to go forth and do likewise. Shabbat shalom.

Thirsty Work

What did Moses do wrong?

IN THIS WEEK’S TORAH PORTION, Chukat (Numbers 19:1-22:1), Moses disobeys G?d’s command to speak to a rock and thereby produce water for the thirsty Jews and their animals. Instead, Moses – perhaps in grief over his sister Miriam’s very recent death, or just fed up with the ever-complaining Israelites – twice wallops the rock with his staff. Abundant water does indeed flow forth but G?d, annoyed with Moses’ failure to sanctify his Boss in the eyes of the multitude, forbids him from ever entering the Promised Land.

Some say Moses’ mistake would have been a small thing in an ordinary person but huge for one of Moses’ stature; imagine the reaction had Moses spoken up rather than struck out! On the other hand, perhaps Moses had already had his time by getting us out of Egypt so we could receive the Torah, and G?d would have found some other way to keep him out of our then-undiscovered country. The Talmudic sage Ben Azzai tells us: “There is no one that has not their hour, and there is no thing that has not its place.” On this Independence Day of 2025, may we each find our own hour and place to help others quench their thirst for kindness and justice.

Where Are You?

(Sermon for Parashat Vayikra [Leviticus 1:1-5:26], 4/5/25.)

THIS WEEK’S TORAH PORTION, LIKE the entire book of Leviticus it’s taken from, asks: “How do we get close to G?d – and survive?”

Leviticus’ answer is excruciatingly detailed – so much so that it strikes fear into b’mtzvah students whose birthdays fall anytime during its reading season. But this third book of the Torah opens simply enough, with G?d having Moses tell the Israelites: “When any of you presents an offering to Adonai…”

Note the operative word: “when.” Not if, but when. The Torah assumes that our ancestors would do like their surrounding cultures, and worship their deity by sacrificing slaughtered animals on a flaming altar. So ingrained was this practice that if Moses and his charges could see us gathered here this morning, they’d wonder why we don’t offer animals like they did – as the Torah tells them to do.

In fact, the purpose of this “offering” is built into the Hebrew word that depicts it: “korban,” which shares its kuf-reish-bet root with the word “kiruv,” meaning “to draw near.”

There is something very moving about the idea of sharing an intimate meal with G?d.

The esteemed Torah commentator Rashi emphasizes that our portion begins by talking about voluntary offerings – not those brought to atone for a sin or other trespass. When someone felt the need for a spiritual boost for whatever reason, they would bring to the Altar whatever their means allowed – domestic ruminants, turtledoves, matzah, or even raw flour. If they wanted to express to G?d their gratitude, for example, their animal’s fats and organs would burn on the Altar, and its meat would be consumed by the worshipper and their friends and relations.

There is something very moving about the idea of sharing an intimate meal with G?d. It’s quite the contrast to the people’s attitude at the foot of Sinai in Exodus 20:16. There, they heard G?d’s voice and subsequently begged Moses: “You speak to us and we will listen; but let not G?d speak to us, lest we die.”

The word translated as “we will listen” is “nishma” – from the root shin-mem-ayin, or “Shema.” (Sound familiar?) Indeed, the concept of Shema is so important that we’re commanded to focus on it in prayer twice daily. That’s reminiscent of the twice-daily offerings burning on the Altar of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) – and later, the Holy Temple.

But the question remains wherever religious folk gather: How do we experience G?d, the Divine, the Holy One, or however you think of It? Through study? Prayer? Acts of kindness? Something else entirely? Let’s listen to each other, and hopefully learn a little something…

[PASS MICROPHONE]
The handful of replies included “In nature,” “Random moments of intuition,” and finally, “Just sitting in silence.”
[THEN]

Thank you, everyone, for your input and insights. Riffing on that last answer, the Sufi poet Rumi once said, “G?d speaks in silence. Everything else is a poor translation.” Shabbat Shalom.

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