Tag: Torah: Output

Things said.

Give It Away Now

THE TALMUD SAYS THAT ONE who teaches Torah to a child is as if one gave birth to that child.

What it also says is, “That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

As noted elsewhere, Torah is a great interest and passion of mine, even more so than my other passions and interests. But if I only study Torah for my own edification and increasing my personal knowledge base, it’s as if I never studied it at all. What earthly good or use is knowing anything if you don’t share it with others?

There’s an important Hebrew concept called “l’dor vador.” This phrase is mentioned twice in the daily prayer service and is sprinkled throughout our Bible and its related teachings. It’s usually translated as “generation to generation,” and means each generation teaches the next what it has learned, all the way from Abraham to the end of recorded history (please G?d we should live so long, especially these days). Torah even states this explicitly in Genesis 18:19, where G?d says, sotto voce, “For I have singled [Abraham] out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of יהוה by doing what is just and right.” If Abraham had kept his monotheistic ethics to himself, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

A friend who served as a combat medic summed up his training thusly: “Learn one, do one, teach one.” It’s a nice organizing principle, whether in medicine, in Torah — or in life. Pass it on.

Fable, With Apocalypse

IN THE MIDDLE OF A flat grey wasteland, under a grey streaky sky, a handful of figures warm themselves at a snapping fire.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

One of the figures has turned to gape across the waste: a vast landscape of broken dryers and tumbledown swingsets, with here and there half a gas station or bowling alley.

“Don’t do that,” says the speaker. He takes the gaper and turns him tenderly toward the flames to warm his hands again.

“Thanks.”

“It’s why I’m here. And that” — a sweeping arm — “is why that’s there. The wasteland is only good for wasting you.”

“Thanks again.”

“Don’t mention it. Just keep your hands warm. Even when you’re the last one here.”

Five Thoughts

1. WE HAD A WELL-ARMED GUARD at our synagogue service this morning. (In the United States. IN SONOMA. Which, as you may imagine, made/makes me feel both glad and sad.)

2. When our rabbi asked those visiting for the first time to rise, nearly two dozen people stood up from within the packed sanctuary. The rabbi then gave them the Priestly Blessing (Numbers 6:24-26), with great feeling from him and a rousing “AMEN!” from us.

3. Prior to reciting the Kaddish, a prayer for the dead, it’s our synagogue’s custom to ask those assembled to offer names for whom they’re mourning. When it was my turn, I said, “the innocents.” (Or I might have said “the innocence.” I’m still not sure.)

4. Two things I hated, because we are generally otherwise a very welcoming community: 1.) The unfamiliar guy on the cellphone in the parking lot who asked our rabbi if this was a church (we share a campus). “Yes,” the rabbi told him. “A church.” 2.) We have been Zooming our 23-year-strong Saturday morning Torah study since COVID began, and this morning, an unfamiliar name popped into the waiting room. “Anybody here know a [Jane Doe]?” I asked. No one did. So I blocked her.

5. We also made space/time for each of us, as the spirit so moved, to share/vent/cry with each other. When it was my turn, I said that words were insufficient for the current situation. But I then related that, at Hebrew school this past week, our youngest student (and unofficial mascot) asked the rabbi, “Who do you hope wins this war?” “In war,” the rabbi told him, “nobody wins.” I hope his words entered the students’ tender hearts — and long memories.

(Don’t) Be Like Moses

B”H, the following is scheduled to be delivered by me at today’s Yom Kippur service in Sonoma. Take from it what you will, or leave it be.

TO PARAPHRASE ANOTHER FAITH’S holiday greeting, “Teshuva [repentance, return] is the reason for the season.” What I want to tell you about is a rather embarrassing teshuva of my own.

First, let me take you back to an exciting day in our people’s history: the consecration of the Tabernacle, the portable wilderness tent containing the ark with the Ten Commandments, and where Moses spoke with G?d for the rest of the prophet’s life.

On that day, according to chapter 9 of Leviticus, a most wondrous thing happened: after the ritual offerings had been slaughtered and placed atop the altar, fire came forth from the Tabernacle and consumed them.

The people all shouted and fell on their faces – I mean, wouldn’t you? But their joy lasted only a moment.

In the very next verse, and for reasons that have been debated for millennia, Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu made an unauthorized incense offering. Fire then came forth from the Tabernacle – and consumed them.

Moses, perhaps moved by brotherly concern, tells Aaron that “This is what יהוה meant by saying: ‘Through those near to Me I show Myself holy and gain glory before all the people.’” In other words, “Somebody had to demonstrate how seriously we must take having the literal Presence of G?d in our midst – and how important it is to get things right.”

The Torah then tells us: “And Aaron was silent.” Continue reading “(Don’t) Be Like Moses”

365 Names: The Encounterable

THE ENCOUNTERABLE IS A NAME I invented about three minutes ago (as of this writing: 2112.12 @ 2150), but is meant to express one understanding of the Consciousness inherent in the universe. As written elsewhere, I do not “believe” in a God* that can be prayed to or beseeched, but rather One that can be experienced, either through unexpected spontaneity or by creating a patterned context for such an experience (through disciplined and deep meditation or contemplation, say). “Belief” doesn’t quite enter into the equation; no words can fully express the encounter’s undeniable and all-unifying immediacy. As Maimonides likes to say, “Those who know, know.” Continue reading “365 Names: The Encounterable”

L’Shana Tovah!

THE JEWISH LUNAR/SOLAR CALENDAR begins the New Year 5782 tonight at sundown. The classic understanding of that number reflects the years since the world’s creation, but many of us find that explanation somewhat problematic. On the other hand, humanity’s recorded history began, by definition, with the invention of writing nearly 6,000 years ago. And since we cannot easily separate and/or reconcile the worlds inside and outside our heads, isn’t that a difference of degree rather than of kind?

The Torah Guides’ Torah Guides

THE TORAH CAN BE A great read — inspiring, comforting, uplifting, provocative — but without the explanatory input of generations of commentators, it can also be a bit daunting. Fortunately, Jewish tradition has portioned this essential text into weekly bites for easier consumption. In the spirit of Simchat Torah, which begins Saturday night and marks the (at least) 2,355th end and rebeginning of the annual Torah reading cycle, here are some of the resources used by our local community over the years we’ve spent engrossed in this Book of Books.

The Sapirstein Edition: Rashi (5 volumes)
Author/Publisher: Artscroll
Slant: Very Traditional (11th to 12th Century CE)
Points: Rashi is the commentator par excellence. He is strictly concerned with elucidating the Torah’s plain meaning, and he brings to bear on each verse nearly the entire corpus of the Jewish textual tradition as it existed in his time. Use this if you want to understand Torah as Serious Jews have done for almost a thousand years. (Nice literal translation too.)
Caveats: A good deal of Rashi’s work has to do with Hebrew grammar, so keep that in mind — he can sometimes be a tad dry. Also keep in mind that he was a literalist, operating from the model that the Torah was Divinely written. Even if you don’t share that view, there’s a tremendous amount of classical Torah nutrition here. Continue reading “The Torah Guides’ Torah Guides”

On Writerly Spirituality: Yom Kippur Edition

THIS DAY IS STEEPED IN regret — and resolve.

Yom Kippur is not as joyful as Pesach or Shavuot, which respectively mark the exodus from Egypt and embrace of the Torah[1], but it’s a day which carries its own spiritual riches. It is both comforting and discomforting to take stock of one’s last-year deeds, deciding what to build on and what to discard; call it one soul-bending enrichment experience. Continue reading “On Writerly Spirituality: Yom Kippur Edition”

5 Thoughts: It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Teacher

1. EVANGELICAL ATHEISTS LIKE TO STATE two reasons why the Torah is irrelevant: 1) It was written in the Bronze Age, and 2) it’s festering with contradictions.

2. Leaving aside the point that many of our species’ current intellectual systems also date from the Bronze Age, I’d like to address the so-called contradictions. Sure, they exist. But my argument is that they’re not accidental, but intentional. Continue reading “5 Thoughts: It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Teacher”

5 Thoughts: Pattern Matching

1. THERE ARE TWO TORAH STORIES which have troubled me for some time.

2. The first is about the giving of the Ten Statements (AKA the “Ten Commandments,” but “statements” is closer to the actual Hebrew). What should have been a joyful event was marred by the incident of the Golden Calf — epiphany ruined by idolatry.

3. The second has to do with the consecration of the Tabernacle: the portable God-tent containing, among other things, the Ark of the Covenant (which itself contained the aforementioned Statements). Continue reading “5 Thoughts: Pattern Matching”

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