Ahz mah (So what)

The biblical patriarch Jacob is on his way to Haran, to get away from his brother Esau’s murderous anger and to find a wife for himself from among his mother’s kin. He comes to a well, where the local shepherds get water for their flocks of sheep. There is a large stone covering the well, which normally takes several men to move. He sees Rachel arriving with her sheep. Here’s how the Torah tells what happens next: “When Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Lavan his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Lavan his mother’s brother, Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of Lavan his mother’s brother. And Jacob kissed Rachel, and raised his voice and wept.” Jacob tells Rachel who he is, and she runs to tell her father. It’s a great love story, isn’t it? The power of love is a wondrous thing. Now here’s another way of understanding the story: Our ancient sages make a link between scriptural images of water and Torah as the wellspring of wisdom. So in t...

According to Jewish mystical tradition, each of us is born with a unique purpose. There is soul work, an inner transformation, that only we can do. We each have to walk our own path to do this soul work – you can’t walk my path, nor can I walk yours. Within this perspective, obstacles that we encounter on the path of life may be understood as opportunities for personal development and transformation. How you deal with difficulties is part of what makes you who you are. (The tradition goes even further, suggesting that obstacles are gifts, always meant for your benefit – but I find the notion of “opportunities” less theologically problematic than “gifts.”) The tradition also suggests that each person is born with unique soul characteristics, a unique combination of attributes and temperament. This too is related to the transformative work we need to do. For example, a person may need to transform the relative weight of anger and patience they were born with. In this week’s Torah reading...

I had a wonderful long talk about God recently with a seven-year-old friend of mine, who gave me permission to mention our conversation today. I had asked her to meet with me over the summer because I needed her help in thinking through how to talk about God.  My little friend told me that sometimes before she falls asleep she wrestles with the question of whether or not God exists. She then articulated for me the logic she was using: Either such-and-such is true, in which case God exists; or such-and-such is true, in which case God does not exist. It sounded like it was only a matter of time before she would come to a logical conclusion. As I listened, and as I heard the either/or nature of the logic, I tentatively offered her what I had been thinking about, as another way of framing the question of God’s existence. Then together we played around with ways to say it that would be understandable and useful. I hoped that this alternate way of framing the question would perhaps liber...

We tend to think of generosity primarily in terms of the willingness to give money or material possessions. But actually, in Jewish tradition, financial giving to support the community as well as those less fortunate is considered an obligation, not an expression of generosity. Tsedakah, which is often erroneously translated as charity, actually means righteousness. So financial giving is understood to be an expression of justice and covenant, not so much of generosity. Supporting the community as well as those less fortunate is just what we Jews do, regardless of how we feel. Generosity, on the other hand, is understood in Judaism to be a movement of the heart. There is a quality of openness and giving that arises in the heart and manifests as a sharing of self as well as a sharing of material possessions. I believe that generosity is both an attitude and an activity. It is a fundamental spiritual practice, closely associated with the practice of gratitude. Generosity is about acts of...

Wavy Gravy was, and continues to be, a serious social activist and philanthropist as well as a very funny clown. In his 70s now, he is perhaps best known for his role as m.c. at Woodstock 40 years ago. Many of his impromptu statements back then became enshrined as 60s slogans. My favorite: “We’re all bozos on this bus, so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.” Believe it or not, this is one of the deepest messages of the Jewish holy day Yom Kippur: We are stumbling, bumbling, goofy human beings. We keep trying, and we keep falling on our faces, and it’s all okay. We’re doing the best we can. And we’re all on the same bus, together. But as Elizabeth Lesser writes in her wonderful book “Broken Open,” the source of our suffering is that we keep imagining that there is some other bus on which the passengers are all healthy, happy, gorgeous, and well-dressed! But that’s an illusion, and Yom Kippur is about shattering illusions. We are all just lovable, flawed bozos on this bus calle...

In the Jewish mystical understanding of human nature (humans being a microcosm of the cosmos as a whole), there is a dynamic tension between the forces of lovingkindness and strict judgment. Chesed is the Hebrew word for lovingkindness. Gevurah is strict judgment. Too much of one at the expense of the other, and life is intolerable. Both in our emotional life, and in our interactions with others, the healthy goal is balance. What some people call the Inner Judge is a manifestation of too much Gevurah, strict judgment insufficiently balanced by lovingkindness. I know from personal experience, this voice of judgment can be merciless. Unrelenting. Taking it a step further, the mystics boldly assert that Gevurah untempered by Chesed is the source of evil in the world. Rosh Hashanah teters on this balance between Gevurah and Chesed. Our high holiday liturgy is filled with expressions of the cosmic quality of judgment. It’s hard to miss. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were designed by the anci...

It's a sad-and-funny thing that something like 97% of new year's resolutions evaporate within months, sometimes within weeks or even days - and then they are solemnly resolved again the following January. Are we kidding ourselves year after year? What's going on here? And if Rosh Hashanah the Jewish New Year is analogous to January 1st, then are all our words of prayer hypocritical? Rosh Hashanah is all about teshuvah - turning around, turning back, returning... in other words, about re-volutions. Classically, teshuvah refers to the process of regretting an action, saying you're sorry, and intending not to do that regretful action again in the future. Another way to think about the process is as an inward spiral: Teshuvah is about coming back again and again to who we really are, who we are meant to be. This true self has nothing to do with how much we weigh, or how much we exercise, or how much money we have saved (the focus of typical American New Year's resolutio...

What does it mean to go into a situation with an "open mind"? Is it possible, or do we always enter a situation with some idea of how we imagine things ought to turn out and how we will benefit? In the biblical book of Numbers, there is a famous story of the prophet Bilaam. Balak king of Moav sends persuasive messengers to Bilaam, requesting that he come and curse the Israelite tribe that is camped nearby. Balak is fearful of the power of these Israelites, and hoping for some supernatural assistance in getting rid of them. You may be familiar with the comic scene in which Bilaam's donkey three times attempts to save her master from a sword-wielding angel to which he is somehow oblivious. Three times Bilaam punishes her for straying off the path, and finally God opens the donkey's mouth and she expresses her frustration at being maltreated. They quarrel briefly, until suddenly God uncovers Bilaam's eyes, and he sees the terrifying vision of the angel right in front...

One of my projects right now is making a new prayer shawl for the warmer weather. The prayer shawl that we wear, called a tallit, is distinguished by its elaborately tied fringes on the four corners. It happens that the biblical instruction from which we derive this custom appears at the end of last week's Torah reading: "God spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves tsitsit (fringes) on the edges of their garments.... Look at it, and recall all the commandments of God, and observe them, so that you do not follow after the desires of your heart and your eyes." So originally the instruction was to wear these tsitsit all the time, on one's garment where they could be looked at. Nowadays, you may have seen Orthodox men with tsitsit visible. (Others keep them tucked in.) I also know some non-Orthodox men, and even a few women, who wear them every day too, because of this ancient commandment. All of this reminds me of th...

To raise a child in America today is a daunting task. To raise a child with a deep, positive sense of Jewish identity is even more daunting. It is for this reason that I want to honor a group of people in our community who play a crucial role in this process, and yet who are least often thanked - and they are the non-Jewish parents who are supportive of their children being raised Jewish. You encourage and support your children's participation in the life of the Jewish community through attending Community Learning, Shabbat and holiday services, and other temple activities. By your actions you are teaching your children the value of being raised in a faith tradition; I also imagine that at home they are learning respect for the tradition in which you were raised, and in which your extended family lives. Please know that your loving support and trust are deeply appreciated by the Jewish community, and that you are giving a precious gift to your children and to the world.

Spring is a favorite time for weddings. In the Jewish tradition, the ultimate wedding celebration happens in springtime. On the festival of Shavuot - May 19-20 this year - we celebrate the anniversary of the "marriage" of the Jewish people with God. The ketubah/marriage contract is the Torah. Like many Jewish holidays, Shavuot has multiple meanings. It is first mentioned in the ancient biblical text as a harvest festival. After the destruction of the ancient Temple made the bringing of agriculture offerings impossible, the early rabbis linked the festival to the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. The days from Passover until Shavuot are counted down to parallel the Israelites' journey out of slavery and into the wilderness to receive the Torah. What happened at Mount Sinai? We will never know. But we don't need to know in order to benefit from the deep teachings our tradition has developed around this holiday. Shavuot is known as "Z'man matan Torateinu,...

The Torah is full of sibling stories. Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers and sister, just to name a few. Plenty of tension and jealousy, and occasionally reconciliation and respect and even love. Just like in real families. Precisely at the half-way point in the Torah stands a powerful story of two brothers that is much less well known. In our cycle of annual Torah readings, we are in the middle of the book of Leviticus, the central of the five books of Moses. The ultimate goal of the Levitical system has been achieved: The sacrificial system is up and running, and the glory of God's presence descends to dwell among the Israelite people. However, in the process of making that happen there has been a human tragedy - two of Aaron's sons, Nadav and Avihu, bring "alien fire" into the holiest part of the sanctuary without being instructed to do so, and a fire blazes up and consumes them. At the moment of their death, Moses - brother o...

What does it mean to be generous? We find a subtle teaching about generosity hidden in an unlikely spot in the Torah. Near the end of the biblical book of Exodus, there are a series of detailed instructions for the creation of the portable sanctuary - the mishkan - that the Israelites will carry with them in the wilderness. Many readers skim over this section because it looks like an artisan's technical manual rather than the dramatic stories we are accustomed to reading in the Torah thus far. But look more closely.... The very first instruction for the sanctuary: "God spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, that they may take me a gift; from every person whose heart moves them, you are to take my gift. And these are the gifts: gold, silver, copper, different color yarns, linen, goats hair, animal skins, wood, oil, incense.... And let them make me a holy sanctuary and I will dwell among them." Two surprises in the language: First, notice that the original...

In the Passover haggadah we read: “In every generation a person is obligated to see themselves as if they went out from Egypt.” In other words, we are instructed by the ancient rabbis to relate to the Exodus story as if it were our own personal story. Now the biblical word used to refer to Egypt is mitzrayim , which can be translated as “narrow places.” So you could understand the haggadah’s instruction in this way: We are each obligated to consider our own lives as a journey out of the narrow places. Every year, my preparation for Passover (besides house cleaning!) includes some pondering about what my own particular mitzrayim is right now. I invite you to experiment with this practice, too. Where are you feeling stuck? What experience(s) are feeling difficult and perhaps painful, but which you also sense are propelling you towards freedom? It is no coincidence that Passover occurs in the spring. Spring is a time of birthing, of blossoming, of hope and new possibilities. There are man...

Has anyone ever been mean to you? This week we celebrate a special Shabbat called Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembering. On this Shabbat we are required to remember the biggest bully in the Torah. In the lengthy list of instructions to the Israelite people towards the end of the Torah, it says: "Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt - how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in the rear. Therefore... you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!" It's a strange, paradoxical instruction - blot out the memory of Amalek, AND do not forget. You would think that if you could blot out a memory, you would no longer need to (or want to) remember. But the Israelites are instructed to somehow do both, and every year we are invited to ponder what this might mean to us. We are reminded about Amalek on this Shabbat before the holiday ...

I have recently been having an extended conversation with some of my friends, both in-person and via email, on the subject of having a purpose in life. As in all truly Jewish conversations, we are ending up with more questions than when we began! I invite you to join the conversation, or start your own. The initial question I raised went something like this: Do you think you could articulate your purpose in life? Do you think there is any benefit in trying to articulate your purpose in life? Do you even believe that there is such a thing as having a purpose in life? In what way(s) is it different from your goals in life? So ask your family members, ask your friends. It’s a good stuck-in-the-house-in-the-winter sort of conversation starter. (I first thought of it the day of the big snow storm in December!) Because there is no one “right” answer, and certainly no one right Jewish answer, it’s great for people of all ages and interests. And like all good Jewish questions, it will hopefull...