Tag: Learning Jewishly

“A little Torah is all anyone knows.”

Unplug: Can You Do It?

LAST NIGHT I DREAMED I was drunk, belligerent and enjoying myself — not a good combination, nor one which I experience (or wish to experience) in real life. The subject of my tirade seems to have been the apologetic and paralyzing self-consciousness of the modern Jewish stereotype, and while I don’t remember exactly what I said I was truly “all het up” about it. (Which I occasionally am in real life, and maybe why it felt so good to express it.)

But that sense of muddy frustration evaporated when I discovered http://www.sabbathmanifesto.org/ and their call for a National Day of Unplugging from sundown March 4 to sundown March 5. Wondering what to do with your time? Ten suggestions are right here (from “Avoid technology” and “Get outside” to “Find silence” and “Give back”), but participants are also encouraged to create their own.

The basic idea is this: No one can run 24/7 without burning out, even someone as necessary and busy as you. So take a regular day off. See what’s within arm’s reach, and maybe rediscover who you are and what you’re doing here — or at the very least, take a well-earned nap. (Remember naps?)

(And if you found this via Facebook during one of many five-minute “just checking” sessions, you might just want to unplug right now.)

My Plan For Jewish World Domination

(YOU MAY READ THAT TITLE as either “domination of the world by Jews,” or “domination of the Jewish world.” Either way, it may be better than what we have now, or at least more entertaining. Certainly more well-fed. But.)

The point is this: Build fewer Museums of Tolerance and Holocaust Memorials. In fact, stop building them altogether, and instead build more Jewish schools/centers, for both kids and adults to interact face-to-face with well-trained Jewish teachers. We cannot help but carry the past, of course; but with our hands full, who will build our future — or our present?

The Yad In The Kitchen

IN ONE OF OUR KITCHEN cabinets is a knot shaped like the Hebrew letter “yad.” It’s something we’ve lived with for 11 years but only pondered tonight.

Fig. 1.

According to some of Judaism’s lesser-publicized traditions, “yad” as the first letter of the yad-heh-vav-heh — God’s most holy name — is associated with the element of fire, the tongue of the flame of holy generation and inspiration, which is also the Godhead (that concentrated chunk of God located in the human soul). “Yad” also literally means “hand.” It is also the little sculptured wand (tipped by a hand and pointing finger) which indicate passages in the Torah, itself considered as one long Name of God.

Fig. 1.
So: Yad is the seat of intuition; it is also the hand guided by intuition, and which points to the Sourceless Source of that intuition (and everything else). In orbis veritas. That it’s on the flour cabinet, proves the divinity in food — and ingenuity.

Al Tirah – Fear Not

A MOVE TO KICK DESPAIR out of Lower North American political life is taking a Biblical imperative to the 21st century — and “joining” is as easy as deciding not to be manipulated by people who want you to hate your neighbors.

“When the heroes of biblical times despaired, God would speak to them. ‘Al Tirah! Fear Not!’ God commanded. Good advice then, good advice now,” proclaims the website for Al Tirah USA, a project of Jewish Funds for Justice. “Al Tirah America! Fear Not! Time to shake off our despair, and get back in the game.”

We at Metaphorager.Net applaud anyone opting for calm over cynicism, reason over rancor and thought over fear. (And the cool thing is, you don’t even need to believe in anything other than your own free agency. Right?)

5 Thoughts: How To Preach A Sermon

1. Make ’em laugh with, but not at, you and your topic. But make ’em laugh first.

2. Remember that you’re a student too, no more learned (and perhaps embarrassingly less) than those listening to you. Your task is to reveal rather than entertain, to share rather than “teach.”

3. Be honest. It shows. Continue reading “5 Thoughts: How To Preach A Sermon”

Torah Study Anew Abu!

TODAY’S POST COMES FROM GUEST-BLOGGER Ann Clark and concerns our weekly living-room Torah study. We begin the reading cycle anew tomorrow (technically, yesterday and today) — but do we ever really begin, or end, anything?

France Street Torah Study
Neal and Ann’s House – scoop at sonic dot net for directions
Saturday, October 2, 2010 – 10 am to noon

Torah Portion: Bereshit [Genesis 1:1 through 6:8]
Haftarah: Isaiah 42:5 – 43:11 [Ashkenazim]

I love the endless-loop nature of the Five Books of Moses — every completion is but a beginning, because there is no “end” to Torah. This is so perfectly visualized on Simchat Torah when we unroll the scroll and stand with Genesis touching Deuteronomy…such powerful imagery.

And, yet, as Northern Californians well-versed in psycho-speak, some of us (okay, me), are fond of the concept of “closure,” wrapping things up, placing the final period, writing the journalist’s “30.” We’re a culture of final examinations, final grades, last acts, curtain calls, nightcaps, and closing times (well, except for Safeway). And we’ve brought that notion into some of our most painful experiences — separation, divorce, the end of friendships, and death. Some of us have been taught that we must process these experiences to “closure” — implying that there will come a time when we have dealt with them so effectively that we won’t need to deal with them anymore. However, anyone who has suffered a painful loss (which is to say, all of us) knows that it doesn’t quite work that way — it’s not that linear.

Torah, the wisest psychologist of all, understands and in fact models the circular nature of experience.

David Mamet, writing in “Five Cities of Refuge,” says that “Closure is a concept foreign to Jewish tradition. It is an overwhelmingly secular, modern and arrogant idea — that one, by an act of will, manipulation, or aggression can ‘complete’ a disturbing experience [and declare] triumph over fate, chance, anger, grief, or injustice.” Mamet goes on to say that “the struggle to deal with an unjust, confusing, incomprehensible world does not impede our life, it IS our life.”

Finally, he writes: “Bereshit, the very beginning of Torah, counsels that there is and will be no completion, there is no ‘closure,’ and that this lack is not to be decried but, in fact, celebrated.”

I hope you can join us here at Beit Attinson on Saturday to celebrate the ongoing nature of, well, everything. Starting with Genesis 1:1.
The story continues.

Ann Clark Attinson

5 Thoughts: EthnoReligiUfology

1. IF YOU DON’T READ THIS carefully, you’ll come away thinking that I think “God” is an alien, Moses a contactee and the Event at Sinai one of the humankind’s first recorded UFO sightings.

2. I really really don’t. But I do “believe” (cf. https://metaphorager.net/four-points-of-contact/) that Something Impressive happened in the Sinai desert 3,200ish years ago. Continue reading “5 Thoughts: EthnoReligiUfology”

Saturday Morning Live

Lay Led Torah Study & Service — 7/10/10, 9a to 10:15/10:30 to noonish
Congregation Shir Shalom, 252 W. Spain St., Sonoma

JOIN THE SONOMA VALLEY JEWISH community tomorrow morning at 10:30 for a laid-back, lay-led “Reform Mellow” service at Congregation Shir Shalom. We will begin in the classroom at 9 a.m. with a study of the weekly Torah portion (Mattot, Numbers 30:2-32:42), which covers vows, wars and errant cattlemen) before adjourning to the sanctuary.

Our siddur is the new Mishkan Tefilah; the service will include Shir Shalom-traditional melodies (including Bonia Shur‘s “Kedushah”); a d’var Torah titled “Plugging The Holes: Hands, Vows, and Why We’re Here;” and whatever surprises it pleases God to send us (and/or whatever pleases us to thank God for sending).

Shabbat shalom!

Song of the Universe

TONIGHT IS SHAVUOT, WHICH CELEBRATES the gift of Torah at Mt. Sinai some 3,322 years ago. Whether one believes the Torah’s own account is inconsequential; what we celebrate is the living text (rather, Living Text) itself and its indivisibility from the Jewish soul. (It’s not just about Mel Brooks and rye bread, folks.) Jews the world over will be cracking the books for an allnighter of mind-stretching scope, G?d willing. For the hardcore, that means a survey of the Hebrew Bible (Torah, Prophets, Writings), Talmud (Mishna and Gemara), Law Codes (Mishneh Torah, Shulchan Aruch), Commentaries (Midrash) and a smidgen of qabala (Zohar), learning in pairs until dawn (or if unable, in bed until sleep).

Locally, that means a study party at our rabbi’s house tonight between 9 and midnight (if you don’t know where that is, shoot one to scoopatsonicdotnet and I’ll tell you). Everyone is invited to bring a personal piece of Torah to share; I’ll attempt to convey the thousand-year grandeur of the Talmudic intellectual tradition in fifteen minutes, and also acquaint everyone with a little-known text (at least until recently, at least to me) called Perek Shirah.

Perek Shirah (“Verses of Song”) is Torah writ large — 84 verses worth of Universe As Teacher. The text is at least 2,000 years old, according to its Jewish Encyclopedia article, and of uncertain authorship. Each verse (Psalms or Prophets, but mostly Psalms) illustrates how Torah is transmitted through a particular element, plant or animal. Its preface quotes the Talmud (Eruvin 100b), and fairly summarizes the work’s intent: “R. Yochanan said: ‘If these things were not prescribed in the Torah, we could learn decency from the cat; the ant would preach against robbery, and the dove against incest.’

By my own level of scholarship, Perek Shirah is somewhat over my head — which only interests me further. A free copy may be downloaded from three different websites (it’s the same 208k PDF):

http://www.archive.org/details/AkivaPerekShirahperekshirahebengslifkinpdf
http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/files/perek20shirah20booklet.pdf
http://www.zootorah.com/books/Perek%20Shirah%20booklet.pdf

Chag sameach (happy holiday)!

4:20 Torah (not what you think)

France Street Torah Study
Saturday, May 15, 2010 – 10 am to noonish
Home of Neal and Ann (707.933.9430 for directions)
Parsha Bamidbar: Numbers 1:1-4:20; Haftorah Hosea 2:1-22

THIS SHABBAT, AT LEAST IN Sonoma, at least on France Street, brings us a bit of a pickle — really more of a relish plate.

Our weekly Torah portion is Bamidbar, the beginning of Numbers: four chapters and twenty verses full of marching orders, duty rosters and difficult-to-pronounce names. While I am the last person in the world to grouse about our holy Torah, I will admit that some bits are more challenging than others to interpret with apparent relevance to our lives. (Leviticus, say.)

Since this will be the Shabbat before Shavuot (see announcement below), our textual choices include the Book of Ruth (traditionally read /on/ Shavuot) and Pirke Avot (a collection of rabbinical proverbs read on the Shabbat afternoons between Pesach and Shavuot; some say Pesach and Rosh Hashanah). We can study these instead of or in addition to Bamidbar (and either speed-reading or synopsizing the latter).

Come to Torah study. And exercise your power of choice.

Shabbat shalom,

Neal

Nutshell Rabbinics

“HERE’S HOW THE TORAH WORKS, at least from a classical perspective: What’s important, really important, is not just the text — it’s your relationship to the text. Which means you get to say what Torah means, but within parameters as defined by your understanding of the Torah as a whole. People who’ve been studying it longer than you have will then either say ‘Good job!’ or ‘What were you thinking?'”

(From a conversation, this represents my understanding to date of the Jewish understanding of Torah practicum. I naturally invite those who know more than I to comment and correct as needed — with thanks.)

Torah: Learn A Little!

REMEMBER THE SATURDAY MORNING TORAH study Ann started back in 2001? Well, we’re still doing it, and if you’d like to do it too — and you’re going to be in Sonoma between 10 a.m. and noon tomorrow — you are hereby invited to our humble home. (Email me at scoop at sonic dot net for directions.)

Torah Portion: Emor (Leviticus 21:1-24:23)
Haftarah: Ezekiel 44:15-31

This week’s portion mostly offers advice to the kohanim, or priests (hey, it’s Leviticus, right?). Among other things, Torah tells the kohanim must be as physically unblemished as the animals they offer to God (a nice metaphor for leadership, that) and reminds us of the importance of the six major Jewish festivals: Shabbat, Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot.

I don’t know how the latter passages affect others, but I always get a little thrill from reading in the Torah about something that we’re still doing. Something there is about holding a torch lighted long ago, by people I never met but with whom I am connected in some tenuous but undeniable way. The torch still burns — how does it light your footsteps? Let’s find out together Saturday morning!

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