Category: Rabbi’s Dvrei Torah

In contrast to 9 B’Av last week – the saddest day in the Jewish calendar – this week had Tu B’Av – one of the happiest days in the Jewish calendar. Tu B’Av is celebrated on the fifteenth of the Hebrew month of Av: “Tu” is really טו – the letters tet and vav in Hebrew which have the numerical value of 15 (ט = 9 and ו = 6). Tu B’Av is more than Israel’s commercialized version of ‘Valentine’s Day.’ It actually is a day with ancient roots dating back to Second Temple times. According to the Mishnah (Taanit 4:8) Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: “There were no better [i.e., more joyous] days for the people of Israel than the Fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, since on these days the daughters of Jerusalem would go out dressed in white…and dance in the vineyards.” The unmarried women were joined by their potential partners in the vineyards, and would say: “Lift up your eyes and consider who you choose [to be your wife].” Just as many tragic events are reported to have befallen the Jewish people on Tisha B’Av, the rabbis attribute, in Taanit 30b, a number of joyous events to Tu B’Av.

“Comfort, comfort My people, says your God.” Nachamu, nachamu ami, yomer eloheichem – Isaiah 40:1 Thus begins this week’s Haftarah, seeking to comfort us after our focus this past week on all that grieves us. We observed Tisha B’Av on Thursday, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar on which many tragedies have occurred. The grievous themes of loss, uncertainty, social disorder, limitations, and exile feel inescapably resonant every year. Fortunately, our tradition reminds us that grief doesn’t get the last word. In fact, Isaiah’s conveying of God’s intent to comfort and console us lends itself to this entire Shabbat, which is known as “Shabbat Nachamu”, the Sabbath of Comforting. It is the first of seven weeks of comforting and consolation that lead up to Rosh haShana.  Our High Holiday season, then, is really inaugurated this Shabbat. This Hafatarah and those that follow for the next seven weeks suggest that now is the time to look for notes of optimism to build upon; to move forward knowing that things will get better and must improve; to channel God’s effort to comfort and reconcile with us into our own capacity for kindness, care, and compassion for others in our lives who need us.

Each week’s Torah portion has an uncanny way of being precisely relevant to something going on in the world or in one’s personal life that particular week. With my family and I preparing to depart next week for Israel, one of the main themes of our double portion this week, Mattot-Masei, resonates on a personal level. This portion concludes the book of Numbers, and in so doing brings us to the end of the first great narrative of our people. What began with Creation, then became the story of Abraham and Sarah’s family, through slavery in Egypt and the Exodus, and finally telling about the 40 years of wandering in the desert as we became a nation, concludes this week with the Israelites poised to enter the Promised Land at long last.

My esteemed teacher in Jerusalem, Rabbi David Golinkin, shared these words this week, and I think they are important to share with you. He is discussing what happened after a horrific attack by Palestinian terrorists that murdered 4 Israelis last week. Large numbers of Israelis attacked neighboring Palestinian villages in response. Since these events and after Rabbi Golinkin shared this message, an Israeli soldier was killed during an IDF operation to destroy a web of terrorist infrastructure in Jenin, a terrorist injured 7 people in a car-ramming attack in Tel Aviv, and a second Israeli soldier was killed (yesterday) in an attack on a patrol near the settlement of Kedumim. As always, the weekly Torah portion offers deep insight and relevance to the events of our day. In this week’s parasha, the grandson of Aaron, Pinchas, is rewarded with God’s eternal ‘covenant of peace’ for having been ‘zealous for God’ in his actions, violent though they were (see the conclusion of last week’s Torah portion, Numbers 25: 1-9). Cheesecake. This holiday celebrates dairy delights. It’s THE holiday for vegetarians. Breakout those lactose pills if you need them! Cheesecake, blintzes…happiness! Shavuot is ‘Counter-Cultural’… Most people don’t celebrate Shavuot, or even know much about it at all. Yet, starting with the early kibbutzniks, secular Israelis have connected with the Biblical aspect of the holiday, which is about celebrating the ‘First Fruits’ of the spring harvest. Like wonderful hippie flower-children, elementary school kids dress in white and literally wear flowers in their hair in the days before the holiday. They decorate baskets filled with (preferably organic) spring fruits to give as gifts.

Here are the ‘Top Ten’ reasons to try out Shavuot this year to see whether it might become your new favorite holiday! Cheesecake. This holiday celebrates dairy delights. It’s THE holiday for vegetarians. Breakout those lactose pills if you need them! Cheesecake, blintzes…happiness! Shavuot is ‘Counter-Cultural’… Most people don’t celebrate Shavuot, or even know much about it at all. Yet, starting with the early kibbutzniks, secular Israelis have connected with the Biblical aspect of the holiday, which is about celebrating the ‘First Fruits’ of the spring harvest. Like wonderful hippie flower-children, elementary school kids dress in white and literally wear flowers in their hair in the days before the holiday. They decorate baskets filled with (preferably organic) spring fruits to give as gifts.

These week’s double Torah portion, BeHar-Bechukotai, concludes the third book of this year’s Torah reading cycle – we finish Leviticus this week. Nevertheless, we continue with business-as-usual again as we immediately begin reading in the 4th book of the Torah, Numbers, next week.

Is there ever really a break? A true vacation? Not from the Torah, no: We famously finish reading the entire cycle of Torah on Simchat Torah and then right away open another scroll and start all over again at the Beginning! The message is that Torah is the exception, the one thing in human experience that – like God – touches our lives to the eternal and never-concluding, the ever-present now.  

But what about on a personal level?

Many of us are solidifying our summer plans right about now, or perhaps some of us are already in the operational phase of those plans. How ‘good’ were you at truly relaxing and vacationing when your kids were smaller? How about now? Is there anything in your daily routine that you cannot take a break from, or don’t want to?

F. Scott Fitzgerald observed that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

The Torah suggests a slightly different, though related, test.

Intelligence is important for this test, but it is not the only aspect. The Torah is decidedly egalitarian, designed to speak to all of us. This test is for all of us: the brainy or less so, rich or poor, all genders and sexualities, young or old, lucky or unlucky, all political persuasions…

“Excuse me? Are you talking to me?….I’m looking around but I don’t see anyone else here?! Oh my God, you ARE talking to me!”

This seems to be the feeling that many people of a certain age experienced three years ago at this season when the Coronavirus pandemic started. As the threat to older people emerged, many were surprised to discover that it was they themselves who were being addressed as the aged population who were particularly at risk. Many humorous though poignant memes circled social media capturing the sense of shock that accompanied being called out by that age; the sense of disbelief and undeniability at the number of years passed circling the sun, the abrupt dissolution of some cognitive dissonance about having qualified – even if only ‘technically’ – as a “senior”, and by the wonder of it…

This week’s Torah portion, Shemini, offers some perspective.

The Jewish People are in a time of fearful crisis. Huge demonstrations are boiling in the streets of Israel, and counter protests are being planned. Political differences are exploiting and magnifying tensions that are inherent to the Jewish people along religious, cultural, and ethnic lines, world-views, and the vision of what – and who – Israel is and must become. The quaking along the fault-lines of Israeli society are of unprecedented magnitude, shaking up the balance between the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of democracy and rattling the ‘rules of the game’ that have governed Israel until now. Israel’s divisions and vulnerabilities are on display to our enemies, and the fractures are weakening our nation and threaten to pull the greatest enterprise of the Jewish People for the last 2,000 years apart at the seams, God forbid.

It feels like spring outside…well, almost.

The sunset is suddenly an hour later since we changed the clocks.

Basketball’s ‘March Madness’ is more exciting than ever.

We begin a new book of the Torah this week, the third of five, with parashat Vayikra.

Passover is nearly here.

This is a time for renewal, hope, and embracing life. Let’s underscore the value and feeling of freedom we celebrate at Passover!

Here is an all-new ‘Top Ten’ list of ways to make this Passover 2023 meaningful, fun, and redemptive!