Ahz mah (So what)

When I did my chaplaincy training years ago, one of the most striking differences I encountered between myself and my Christian colleagues was the ease and frequency with which they uttered "spontaneous" prayers and blessings. My sense is that as more rabbis go through chaplaincy training, this skill is gaining in popularity. In my own work, I have found that there are situations where it is both appropriate and powerful. Still, I continue to ponder the relative merits of spontaneous versus established blessings. In the biblical Book of Numbers, set in the wilderness, we encounter instructions for the Israelite priests on what to say when blessing the people. The words of this brief blessing, considered by scholars to be extremely ancient, are beloved in both Jewish and Christian contexts to this day: May God bless you and guard you. May God shine God's face upon you and be gracious to you. May God lift up God's face toward you and grant you peace. Rabbinic commentato...

When I was about eight or nine years old, I wrote a letter to the President of the United States. My older brother was not keeping his fish tank clean, I told the president, and I was distraught at the possibility that the fish might die. My mother apparently intercepted that letter before it reached the mailbox. I don't remember any other details of the incident, but I do have a pretty good sense of how I felt... because it is a familiar feeling even decades later. What was I feeling? Outrage, righteous indignation - and a sense of unfairness - because he got the fish tank when I was the one who wanted it (and was, of course, the one more worthy of having it). My concern for the fish may have been genuine, but I imagine that my distress was primarily due to my sibling envy and sense of unfairness. The Torah is full of expressions of envy, particularly (although not always) between siblings. In the book of Genesis alone, there are many famous examples: Cain and Abel, Sarah and Hag...

One summer evening, my friend Leah and her daughter took me and Alan and Jacob away from the bustling, tourist-filled streets of Bar Harbor Village to the end of a side street. It was low tide, and a sand bar leading to a nearby island had emerged. It was dark, about 9:00pm, and a fog hung over the water. With only the faint glow from distant lights, we set out to cross the sand bar. No one spoke. We were all concentrating on feeling our way forward in the dark. The salty air was so moist that our hair was wet. As I took one step at a time, unable to see my feet, I had an "aha" moment. Here was a window into the mythic experience of the Israelites crossing the Sea of Reeds out of slavery! The water is "parted" - temporarily - and passage across the sand bar is possible. But for how long? And how far is it, and how long will it take us? Who can see where we're headed? How do we move forward when we can't even see two steps in front of us? How to trust that th...

How many times have we heard the expression, or said it ourselves: "I don't just want to be a number"? Jews traditionally have a complex attitude regarding the notion of counting people. In fact, we have a very ancient tradition of avoiding counting people directly. With roots tracing back to the Bible itself (and likely earlier), counting people directly has been considered taboo. When counting was necessary, as for a military census, it was supposed to be done indirectly - for example by having all the eligible men contribute a half-shekel coin and then counting the coins instead of the men. When we need to know if there are ten Jews present to make a minyan, a quorum for public prayer, it is traditionally forbidden to simply count - rather we are taught to count indirectly by reciting a biblical verse (such as from Psalms) containing exactly ten words. Is all of this merely superstition? In this week's Torah reading from the beginning of the Book of Numbers, the Is...

The ancient impulse to hold back chaos is something we can relate to. The world feels very chaotic and frightening sometimes (perhaps often). Disasters strike. Innocent people suffer. It could happen to us - it does happen to us. So it becomes a very real question - How do we create space in our physical world that will provide some spiritual structure for holding back chaos? In the ancient realm of the book of Genesis, holy space is found - it is encountered. For example, when Jacob dreams of a stairway/ladder with angelic messengers ascending and descending, he wakes up and expresses awe at having happened upon a holy place. By contrast, in the equally valid worldview of the book of Leviticus, holy space is created. You want God's presence in your life? In the life of your community? It's up to you to create the space, to set up boundaries to hold back the chaos of the world. So what is this book of Leviticus? If you think of the Torah - the Five Books of Moses - as a story ...