Tag: Torah: Output

Things said.

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?“

G?d’s Hamsters

(With welcome help from special guest star Ann Autumn.)

“The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.” – Samuel Beckett, Endgame

You can’t know who you are without knowing where you’ve been.

Mr. Beckett, most famously the author of Waiting for Godot, was not Jewish. By all accounts, though raised in a religious home, he identified as atheist. Yet the above quote could have been describing this week’s Torah portion, Devarim (Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22), the first parasha of the Torah’s final book.

Moses begins “his” book – a 14,294-word Mosaic monologue – by recalling in some detail the Israelites 40-year desert trek; i.e., the events of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

In doing so, our greatest prophet reveals an important truth: You can’t know who you are without knowing where you’ve been. What do you see when you reflect back on your journey? As with Torah’s cast of characters from Genesis forward, along the way there have been others shaping your path – your malachim (“angels,” or “messengers”), your pharaohs, even the occasional stranger pointing the way. As someone once said, “I promise you that along your path you have been helped by people whose names you will never know.”

May we each and all continue forward, looking back when necessary, recognizing that – just as Deuteronomy takes us directly to Genesis – endings are also beginnings, and yet: we go on.

Bargain Abasement

Sermon delivered last night (2507.25). I won’t be offended if you sit this one out.

HERE’S A LITTLE-KNOWN FACT: Not every Israelite settled in the Land of Promise – but then again, that was by choice.

The Torah this week, in Parshat Matot/Masei (the final portions of the Book of Numbers, 30:2-36:13), lays out the scene. The adult children of the redeemed Israelite slaves are poised at the border of Canaan, on the Jordan River’s eastern bank, about to enter the land G?d had gifted to Abraham and his descendants. They are fresh from a 38-year wilderness-wander, and are aching to become Divinely sanctioned farmers, herders, and tradesfolk.

However, there’s a small hitch…

However, there’s a small hitch: the tribes of Reuven and Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, want to stay put. They are cattlemen – cowboys, if you will – and the east bank of the Jordan is prime cattle country. They’d rather remain there than take their tribal portion with everyone else in what’s soon to become the Land of Israel.

As he often does in such circumstances, Moses gets a bit … peeved. “Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here?” he cries. “This is what your fathers did, when they spied out the land and brought back tales of giants and unconquerable cities. They took the heart out of the people, and caused them to wander for decades in this desert wasteland. You’ll do the same!”

Unfazed, the tribes counter Moses’ rebuke by agreeing to give in order to get. They promise they’ll enter Canaan first as shock troops, and only return to their beloved ranches once the land is duly subdued. On hearing this, Moses is mollified. He even says that if they do what they say, they will thus win G?d’s approval.

These two-and-a-half tribes are fine exemplars of the principle of negotiation – giving up something to get something greater in return.

Torah is rife with negotiation, especially negotiating with G?d: Jacob vowed that if G?d saw to Jacob’s basic needs, the runaway patriarch would build G?d a holy shrine and tithe all Jacob’s belongings to his Boss. Abraham famously argued with G?d over the fate of the cruel Sodomites. And Moses talked G?d out of destroying the Jewish people in the wake of the Golden Calf incident by saying, in essence, “What would the Egyptians think?”

So my question tonight is: Have you ever been willing to give up something in order to get something else you wanted? Perhaps even for a greater cause?

[pass the mic: many comments, including one woman’s tale of giving up a well-paying job she hated in order to pursue right livelihood, and another woman’s account of choosing her heartthrob over the scholastic life]

Thank you, everyone. May all our deals, especially for our ideals, turn out at least half as well as they did for our ancestors. Shabbat shalom.

Talk Shop

DUE TO THE Hebrew calendar’s complexities, we sometimes double up on the weekly Torah readings. The first of this week’s two portions, Matot (Numbers 30:2-36:13), concerns the laws of vows. Words are supremely powerful in Judaism – after all, our Torah holds that G?d created the universe by speaking it into existence – and how we use them matters. Our words can hurt or heal, create or destroy, bring people closer or push them apart. As the saying goes, “With great power comes great responsibility.” May our words be truthful, kind, and uplifting, each and all when necessary – and don’t forget to add a little humor!

Reluctant Shepherds

OUR TORAH PORTION this week (Pinchas; Numbers 25:10-30:1) contains a powerful lesson in leadership dynamics. G?d reiterates to Moses that the mistake the prophet made a few chapters ago – smacking a rock instead of commanding it to produce water for the thirsty Israelites – will keep him out of the Land of Promise. But Moses doesn’t rationalize his mistake, complain about G?d’s unfairness, or otherwise try to change the divine verdict. Instead, Moses pleads for a successor (Numbers 27:16-17): “Let Adonai, Source of the breath of all flesh, appoint someone over the community who shall go out before them and come in before them … so that Adonai’s community may not be like sheep who have no shepherd.”

Leadership is a difficult thing for one who wields it. It can too easily become an ego-trip, and it can be challenging to put ego on hold and act for the greater good. Such ego-less leadership is a gift that few possess, and those who do possess it tend to use their precious gift as did Moses and his successor, Joshua. An unattributed saying can be applied here: “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” So let it be with leadership; so let it be with life.

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.

Breaking Class

(Sermon delivered this past Saturday morning. Feel free to scroll past if you’re not into that sort of thing.)

KI TISA IS ONE OF those Torah portions that helps give G?d a bad name.

It seems that every time we turn around, in Torah and in the rest of the Bible, G?d is getting mad about something. Jealous. Wrathful, even. What could be behind this extreme behavior?

According to Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, there is one thing and one thing only which sets G?d off: idolatry. Turning our backs on G?d is something that G?d just can’t abide.

Which makes sense. Not only were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob promised that their descendants – that’s us! – would become a vast population, but that with G?d’s help, we would thrive.

In addition, there’s G?d’s delivering us from Egyptian slavery with plagues and miracles. “You owe me,” G?d seems to be saying. “After all I’ve done for you, and you go lusting after idols? Take THAT!”

But as we’ve also heard this morning, Moses calls G?d’s bluff (if it is a bluff) to annihilate the Jews with a “what-would-the-neighbors-think” argument. And G?d relents.

Of course, Moses – no stranger to anger himself – then proceeds to smash the Tablets of the Ten Precepts, as R’ Adin Steinsaltz calls them. Moses destroys the only record of the Sinai Contract, then carves out a new and slightly different one that has lasted more than 3,000 years.

The aliyot my friend Stephen Steiner just chanted are from chapter 32 of Exodus. Stephen points out that in Gematria, Jewish numerology, 32 is also the numerical equivalent for the word “lev,” lamed-bet, meaning “heart.”

Active debate with G?d might be understood as one aspect of the Jewish heart. We don’t always take what G?d says at face value, whether it’s Abraham arguing on behalf of the S’domites, Jacob’s chutzpadik deal-making en route to Laban’s house, or the rabbis of the Talmud rejecting divine miracles as legal proofs.

But iconoclasm might be seen as another Jewish heart-aspect. If Moses hadn’t broken the Tablets, our ancestors wouldn’t have awoken from their idolatrous slumber. Moses is in good company: with Abraham breaking the idols in his father’s shop, Elijah breaking the reputation of Baal’s priests in this week’s haftarah, and Jews in general throughout history making radical breakthroughs in social justice, medicine, science, entertainment, agriculture, and many other fields of human endeavor.

We’re the little kid who points a finger at the unclad emperor and dares to say so; and sometimes, we’ve taken our lumps for it. But our holy chutzpah has always been in service of creating a better world – not just for Jews, but for everyone.

May it always be so. Shabbat shalom.

One Letter (Alright, Two)

(If you’re not hot for stretchy, out-on-a-limb Jewish linguistic mysticism, best sit this one out. Otherwise, please enjoy.)

IT’S NO SECRET THAT JEWS love words. (After all, Torah begins with “God” speaking the world into being; if you need further convincing, check out almost any Jewish comedian.) Our tradition teaches that Torah contains no unintentional words nor letters – and that meaning can be extracted from it anywhere and everywhere you look. It’s all to play for, and we play hard.

Take, for example, the words “eved,” or “slave,” and “Ivri,” “Hebrew” – not the language, but a member of the tribe. Reading Fig. 1 and 2 from right to left, as one does in Hebrew, you’ll notice the third letter in each word looks very much alike: in eved, that letter is a dalet (D) and in Ivri it’s a reish (R). Another point is that the root word for Ivri is “eveir,” which means “to cross over.”

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Now, stay with me here. It’s about to get weird.

Dalet is a 90-degree right angle, while reish is more of a sweeping curve. One way of understanding this difference may be that a slave is boxed in and constrained. A Hebrew, on the other hand, is a constraint-crosser: one who goes where the flow takes them in order to become more.

Mind you, this quality is not specific only to Jews, but to anyone who walks a way of self-transcendence. Jewish tradition teaches that anyone and everyone can practice growth – in skill sets, wisdom, spirituality, and character. But that osmotic, gut-level tradition is also one reason why there are so many Jewish doctors, scientists, philanthropists, Nobel Prize winners, and others devoted to improving the human condition.

And how exactly does one do that? See the last letter in Ivri? It’s a yod (Y), which symbolizes intuition and literally means “hand” – the appendage with which we effect change. Only good, hard, inspired and diligent work enables us to make a difference in this, the most interesting and problematic of all possible worlds.

Class dismissed.

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