The Embodied Torah of Celebrations on the Jewish calendar

Hag Sameah!

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Hag Sameah, Happy Shavuot! The Asaret Ha’dvarim (Decalogue) were read yesterday, but if you hurry and get to the synagogue this morning, you can catch the second day service, including the book of Ruth, Hallel, and Yizkor. Have a joyous festival!

This note was set up before Shabbat and Yom Tov and auto-published by the WordPress server, which has no obligation to refrain from working on Yom Tov. Nonetheless, I didn’t feel right about publishing a Psalm reflection on Yom Tov. Look for the reflection on Psalm 93 tomorrow, Tuesday morning, at 8:00 am.

Divre Harav/Words from the Rabbi – May, 2015

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Every 7 – 10 years, every cell in our body will have died off and been replaced. This means that on a cellular level, you are a completely different person – the old you has died off and been replaced. Yet, somehow, the patterns of memory that give us our identity are preserved.

On an institutional level, Congregation Ahavas Israel is the same organization it has been since 1937, when Ahavas Achim rejoined Beth Israel after having broken away 36 years earlier. As a congregation, we trace our sense of identity and our place within Grand Rapids history back to the founding of our first predecessor congregation in 1892. Some families and a few individuals have been continuous members for 80, 90, 100 years or more, but most of us came much later. The congregational body, unlike the human body, does not have a genetically influenced end of lifetime. If we care about it and put time, energy, and money into its upkeep, it can survive and thrive indefinitely. The congregation needs you who care enough about it to be members, to sustain it.

As a religious organization, the most consistent heartbeat of activity can be found in our services: shabbat, festival, and weekdays. Every Wednesday and Thursday morning, groups gather for prayer in the chapel. Perhaps this is a place where you can help sustain the congregation – can you help ensure weekly minyanim by committing yourself to morning prayer once or twice a week or twice a month?

The festival of Shavuot is approaching. We’re gathering on the first night for a program that is part social and part educational – a Tikkun Leil Shavuot study session. If you’ve never participated, perhaps this year you’ll try it out. It’s an informal gather at my home (2021 Michigan St. NE) at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 23. The Shavuot morning service the next morning reenacts the giving of Torah at Mount Sinai; the second day of the festival is both Memorial Day on the secular calendar and a day on which we recite Yizkor on the Jewish calendar. The ritual of remembering connects us personally and institutionally, as Jews and as Americans, to those who gave us our identity and to whose lives made it possible for us to live in freedom. Our two identities also intersect at the Ahavas Israel and Greenwood cemetery, where we gather twice a year to place flags on the graves of veterans. We’ll meet at Ahavas Israel Cemetery at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 17 to place flags for Memorial Day.

Shavuot makes the beginning of summer on the Jewish calendar. During the summer months, make it a point to spend a Shabbat once or twice a month (or more!) with us. Your presence will help the heart of Ahavas Israel beat more strongly.

Divre Harav/Words from the Rabbi – April, 2015

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I have a picture of spring in my mind, although as I’m writing this article, looking at the snow and ice covering the ground, the memory feels like an old, faded sepia-tone print of spring. In my distant memory, the temperature is in the mid 60’s, the same as it was back last fall, but whereas the fall air felt chilly, the spring air feels warm. Fall smelled of moldy leaves, but spring smells of sweet blossoms. Fall reminds me of the heavy labor of putting away the bicycles, building and tearing down the Sukkah, and stowing the grill and deck furniture against the winter. Spring is the time to get on my bicycle, sit out on the deck with a beer and a burger, and celebrate Passover (although not with a beer and a burger!).

All my life, even during the times that my Jewish behavior was less serious, I looked forward to Passover. The story of the exodus, the lessons that flow from the Hagaddah, and the way that the

subjugation to redemption narrative infuses Torah, to me at least, form a compelling argument for Jewish engagement. I know that there are Jews who do not have a Seder or celebrate Passover by putting away the bread and cereal and other leavened grain products for eight days in favor of matza. No matter what you do for Passover, I encourage you to take the holiday experience, especially the Seder, seriously.

The critical element of the Passover Experience is not the elaborate food eaten for dinner at the Seder, but rather the thought that goes into preparing food without leavening and the symbolism behind it. One common take on hametz, leavening, is that it symbolizes the ego. The opposite of hametz, matza, symbolizes humility. Passover can be seen as an exercise in reducing the ego and developing a humble attitude towards caring for others.

The critical element of the Seder is not the brisket or the matza ball soup, but rather the retelling of the story of the Exodus, with the focus on how that story moves us to see and address oppression in the world around us.

I regularly speak to people of other faith traditions who envy the rich holiday life that Judaism offers, giving us times not only to connect with family and friends but also points in the year to reinforce our basic human values that reaffirm our covenant with God. We have chosen to embrace a 3500 year old religious tradition, some on our own and some because that’s what our parents or grandparents taught us what to do. Let’s all do our best to celebrate with joy and pass along our love for Jewish practices to others in our family and community.

Psalm 79

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Pour out Your fury on the nations that do not know You, upon the kingdoms that do not invoke Your name. (79:6)

This verse from Psalm 79 was added to the Passover Seder in the Middle Ages, sometime after the ugly series of persecutions beginning with the crusades in 1096 CE. We recite these words as we open the door for Elijah at the time when the Seder begins to come to a close with Messianic overtones of redemption. An early modern addition (probably from the late 19th century) supplies the inverse of our verse, “Pour out your love upon the nations that know you and on kingdoms who call Your name.”

Some liberal-leaning Jews omit the verse from Psalm 79, disliking its violent nature. They might understand it as a Judeo-centric call for God to eliminate all non-Jews from the world, or perhaps they understand it as a verse to protect Jews and Christians but eliminate all others. Perhaps might include Moslems in the “protected” category, reading the verse as a call to eliminate only non-monotheists. In any case, there is a tendency among some religious liberals to eliminate liturgy that they find offensive, and if you read this verse as a call for the wholesale slaughter of groups of people by God, it is certainly offensive.

I read the verse differently, not as a call for God to engage in slaughter or for Jews to do so in God’s name. When reading the verse, I don’t think of atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, or followers of non-monotheistic religion, all people who either reject God, are indifferent about God, or envision a different kind of Divine than the one in the Hebrew Bible which guides my life. I think of people who commit atrocities in the name of God. Such people disgrace God’s name. Even though I am fully aware that God is not going to strike out at them with a carefully-directed bolt of lightning, I want it known that the God in whom I believe has nothing to do with the false god in whose name those people murder, rape, steal, cheat, and in other ways subjugate and oppress others. To those who desecrate God’s name by such acts, I avow that God has nothing to do with you.

Therefore, I read this line at the Seder in a loud voice – certainly not in a whisper, as if I’m embarrassed by it. The door is wide open at this point so, symbolically, I am shouting out to the world my desire that God wipe out those evil people who, despite their professed faith, don’t really know God. And, of course, I also read the inverse paragraph praising people who do acts of courage and conviction and love in God’s name.

Psalm 78

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We will not withhold from their children down to the last generation, telling of the praises of Adonai, God’s might, and the wonders that God performed. (78:4)

Psalm 78 is a relatively long Psalm, retelling the story of Exodus and trek in the wilderness. Telling the story is a sacred enterprise, relating in prose and poetry to each new generation the tale of what God did for us in Egypt in order to inspire their confidence in God. The telling, however, does not hide the fact that the generation of the wilderness was not inspired. They rebelled and complained and sinned. Why not tell the story a bit more strongly? Why spend so much time on the weakness of the Israelites? Clearly, honesty is important. If our faith in God is based on hiding the truth, it will be think faith indeed. A faith that struggles with God but experiences redemption in the end has been tested and strengthened.

The events that we are relating at the Passover Seder are true, not necessarily in the historical sense, but in the sense that they reflect the truth of the experience of an oppressed people. An oppressed, enslaved people is traumatized. Even after freedom comes to them, they are still largely locked in their slave mentality. It can take generations to overcome the trauma which is transmitted from parent to child through stories. That’s why this Psalm is so important. We’re not telling the story of trauma and victimization. We’re telling the story of faith and redemption.