Va-Yakhel (Shekalim): Can You Count to 500?

You're not gonna believe this - I certainly didn't - but this blog post you are reading right now is actually my FIVE HUNDREDTH post! Yup, that's right. Somehow, over the course of nine years and seven months (give or take...), I have managed to write something vaguely-intelligible in this space 500 times. And 140,000 page views later (well, technically, 139,957; but who's counting?), I guess you're still finding it worthwhile to read. Thank you, everyone, for your interest, your feedback, and your support. I still enjoy writing them, so as long as you still want to read my Take on Torah, I guess we'll just keep meeting here like this! :-) Thanks again.

Every year it feels funny to say this, but even though it's still winter and we haven't even celebrated Purim yet, this weekend begins the countdown to Passover. Since it's one of our most significant holidays of the year, the rabbis inserted four (but really, five) special Shabbatot on the calendar to help us get psyched about the

festival and really build up to it. We begin that journey with an occasion known as Shabbat Shekalim. This name comes from the special supplementary reading, the maftir, that we add to the end of the Torah portion, where God tells Moses to instruct the Israelites to take a census. As they wander through the desert, it's helpful to know who's actually here and how many able-bodied men (yes, they only counted men; it infuriates me too...) are ready to defend them against potential dangers and enemies along the way. So each male above age 20 has to contribute a half-shekel to the public coffers, and when they ultimately tally up all the accumulated funds (divided by two), they have the total number of testosterone-y Israelites. Chauvinist, yes, but straight-forward. Right? Ok, then why is the Torah terrified that taking this census may cause a plague??

Oddly enough, the text states the following: "Each [dude (my insertion)] shall pay Adonai a ransom for himself on being enrolled, that no plague may come upon them through their being enrolled." (Exodus 30:12)

Why a ransom? And what's with the plague?? Well, have you ever heard of the superstition that we're not supposed to count people? It isn't quite as common these days, but centuries (and decades) ago, if you went to a synagogue's morning minyan, and they wanted to count to see if they had reached a quorum of ten, they would say "nicht-ein," "nicht-zwei," meaning "not-one" and "not-two," so they weren't *really* counting. Or they came up with a phrase that's ten words long, and used that instead of counting, e.g. "To be or not to be, that is the question." Superstitions are hard to pin down, both in origin and meaning, but there seems to be a concern about tempting "The Evil Eye" (spirit with ill-intent), if you acknowledge that a group of Jews has come together. It's dangerous to even just state out loud: "Hey, how great that we got all these people together!" And the Torah reading for Shabbat Shekalim represents an early example of this deep fear.

Honestly, I'm not even that bothered by superstitions. I'm not a mystic or a Kabbalist myself, and I don't subscribe to these fears about tempting The Odious Orb*, but I acknowledge that it speaks to a primal, nervous, fight-or-flight tendency
in all of us to maintain vigilance against potential dangers. However, what DOES bother me is that some of these superstitions stand as polar opposites to gratitude and mindfulness. If we stop for a moment and appreciate something, declaring out loud that we are aware and grateful for our health, our families, our good fortune - whatever - then we're inviting calamity. But then how can we be mindful and reflective, if the very act of doing so puts us in harm's way? So this is the part I find really interesting: the Torah says, essentially, 'take the census anyway.'

Despite all the risks, the potential plagues, the looming Perilous Peeper*, we are STILL commanded to determine how many Israelites are present. The benefits of valuing each person, of stating publicly that every individual head-of-household 'counts,' outweighs the fears. And one commentator

even suggests that the reason for a HALF shekel is to remind each man that there's a whole other segment of the population (women and minors) that they must represent. So even though we might be tempted to dismiss their superstitions, it is also interesting to note that these fears were quite genuine for our ancestors, and they went ahead with the census regardless. How much more so, then, might we say that today we NEED to recognize the contributions of every individual. Wealthy or poor, Jewish or not, and without consideration of gender, race, sexuality, religion or any other factor; we all contribute to society. Everyone is accounted for, and - Ignoble Globe* be damned - everybody counts.

*I got bored repeating "Evil Eye" over and over, so I decided to make up new synonyms for it...


Pictures in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Picryl
2. CC image courtesy of JVR Pictures on YouTube
3. CC image courtesy of Shelly on Flickr
4. CC image courtesy of Bank of Israel on Wikimedia Commons

Ki Tisa: Learning to Break and Tolerate the Broken

A few weeks ago, I attended a really fascinating lecture on the Talmud. Now, I was a Talmud major in college, and I studied quite a bit more of it in rabbinical school.

And yet, I had never heard it described anywhere NEAR the way I did last month. A teacher from a Yeshiva called "S'vara" spoke about their school's approach to Talmud. S'vara describes itself as "A traditionally radical yeshiva." It is an inclusive, modern institution that teaches Talmud through a queer lens, which - let's be honest - you NEVER hear anyone else doing. In fact, it doesn't even sound plausible. What kind of queer, LGBTQ lens could EVER be used to understand rabbinic (male, straight, cis, old-fashioned) discussions from 2,000 years ago? Enter S'vara's introductory talk, that each new student hears when they first attend the Yeshiva, and which not only has given me an entirely new outlook on some old methods... but has really shifted how I read this week's Torah portion. They call it "The CRASH talk."

What I heard was, essentially, The CRASH Talk. It was amazing. I'm not going to do it justice, because I need to boil it down to four paragraphs here, but hopefully you'll get a sense of what it's all about... and maybe it'll provoke you a little.
At its core, The CRASH Talk makes two essential points: 1) In life, we are always part of a story. We have origin stories from our childhood, community stories about where we belong, value stories about what we believe. Constant stories! We all create narratives that help us walk through life and make sense of the world around us. And 2) All stories crash. It's not about whether they "should" crash, or do we enjoy when they shatter, or if it's helpful for them to break. No, it's just the reality of being flawed, imperfect human beings, who live in a chaotic world where no story or narrative can stand up to ALL scrutiny. The question we should be asking is *not* whether crashes happen or not, it's what do we do when they inevitably occur?

Insert the brilliant lens of S'vara. The Talmud isn't actually about stuffy, old men, writing laws for an ancient society; it is a blueprint for HOW to deal with the inescapable crashes that happen in life. Destroyed temples, oppression, persecution, in-fighting, calamities - the Talmud, and indeed the entire rabbinic enterprise, is about how to handle these crises, process them, and keep living.

Amazing!! Again, I'm not doing this justice, because it's actually a much longer, well-developed approach that I just hijacked. So you've probably got lots of questions and disagreements. Don't worry; I intend to keep sharing my own personal processing of this radical concept right here on the blog. We can do it together!! :-) For now, let's briefly look at one powerful example of this: The Golden Calf incident. This week, we read the infamous story of the Israelites rebelling against God while Moses is on Mount Sinai. When Moses returns to find them worshiping a bovine idol, he smashes to the ground the Tablets containing the Ten Commandments. That's right, this is a literal CRASH story!

It's also a disaster, right? An absolute worst-case scenario. Rebellion, rejection, destruction of the Divine Word, anger, punishment, death. So why then do we find multiple rabbinic stories, midrashim, that see the broken tablets as a *good* thing?

The ancient scholar, Reish Lakish (himself an ex-gladiator... and possibly queer, but we don't have to go into all that now...), goes so far as to state that even God declared, "Yasher Koach (well done!) that you broke them!!" How can this be?? Maybe the rabbis understood that the most powerful learning doesn't come when a teacher imparts all the knowledge and the students just sit silently and memorize. Maybe the rabbis of old - and the traditionally radical rabbis of S'vara - realize(d) that some things need to be smashed to smithereens to allow new learning to emerge from the rubble. Because if EVERYTHING crashes, then perhaps our task on this earth isn't to tiptoe around and avoid bumping into anything. What if, instead, our job is to build up tolerance for mistakes, failures, disappointments, difficult emotions, pain, sadness, and all the other "crashes" that simply come with being alive? It sure does put a new spin on the shattered Ten Commandments, doesn't it? That story just isn't the same for me any more; the old narrative is broken. And maybe that's precisely where new learning begins.


Images in this blog post:
1. Image of S'vara's Hebrew letters decoder sheet
2. CC image courtesy of LillyCantabile on Pixabay
3. CC image courtesy of Big Dave Diode on Flickr
4. CC image courtesy of freestocks.org

Tetzaveh: The Clothes Make the Man(ner)

One thing people sometimes know about me is that I like fashionable clothing. I'm not the most stylish person in the world, by any stretch, but I enjoy wearing suits, I look for opportunities to dress UP rather than dress DOWN, and I especially relish
opportunities to match clothing. When possible, I try to make sure my socks match my shirt, match my tie, and (ideally) match my kippah. :-) Unfortunately, as my weight has fluctuated greatly over the years, it has been hard to create a comprehensive wardrobe, because I have six or eight different sizes of things all mixed together. But that's not the point I wanted to make. What I really like about focusing on clothing is not (I hope) the vanity of it, or trying to "dress the part," meaning to pretend to be something I am not. Instead, I emphasize the intentionality of it. Being deliberate about our appearance, our behavior, how we present to other people; all of these things can really have a powerful effect on the individual AND on the community.

The High Priest in the ancient Temple knew what I am talking about. Back then, they may not have had three-piece suits or fancy, colorful socks, but each item of the priest's clothing was imbued with meaning and symbolism.

This week, our Torah portion focuses almost exclusively on the wardrobe of the High Priest. In naming all the mindful intentions of his garments, the text urges us to think about how to use our own clothes in a similarly purposeful way. Aaron was instructed to wear a headdress (Ex. 28:37) with a sign hanging on the front of it that stated "Kodesh Ladonai," "Holy [or consecrated] for Adonai." And God also told Moses to make Aaron's robe with golden bells all along the hem, "so that the sound of it is heard when he comes into the sanctuary before Adonai, and when he goes out" (35). But perhaps the most interesting of all the ritual garments was Aaron's breastplate, which contained the names of all twelve tribes.

What I really love about the breastplate - which the text deliberately describes as being worn "over his heart... for remembrance before Adonai at all times" (29) -  is
the notion of Aaron's accountability to his fellow Israelites. In his role as High Priest, he might be at risk of starting to think of himself as "better" than everyone else, as omnipotent, above scrutiny, and infallible. The Torah therefore has him *literally* weighed down by a constant reminder of who he represents. He is the servant of the people, and they are trusting him to atone for their sins, intercede on their behalf to God, and generally keep them on God's good side. Everything about his ritual garb directs the High Priest to remember his responsibilities, to be humble and grateful for this task, and to not become self-aggrandizing or egomaniacal.

This year, we're reading the final third of the parashah, and it begins with a curious ritual. Sometimes, if we imagine what Aaron and the other priests looked like, we picture them in pure, unstained, freshly-laundered

white vestments. Well, our reading begins with God instructing Moses to dash blood all over the priests AND their clothing, which thus makes them holy (!!!) (29:21). So much for lily-white... And certainly a good example of creating a permanent stain-like reminder of the life-and-death implications of the priestly responsibilities. Imagine if we had even a tiny fraction of that intention with our dress today! Knowing that it showcased our priorities, our values, and our obligations. Almost as if we were wearing our hearts on our sleeves... We're not likely to ever go to the extremes of Aaron's "threads," but I wonder if it can impact how we see ourselves nonetheless. What kind of an impression do we make? How do others perceive us? How might our intentions guide our clothing - and how can our choices of clothing help serve as a reminder of the things we care about? A little extra dose of mindfulness is always a good thing... and a pinch of extra style never hurt anyone either! :-)

L'Chaim: February, 2019 - Expanding the Meaning of “Us”

I want to add a Hebrew word to our vocabulary. I know there are already a lot of Hebrew concepts and phrases that are challenging to keep track of, so adding one more isn’t great, but let’s give it a shot anyway. Over the last few years, we’ve done a lot of work together, as a community, to be more inclusive of interfaith families, of the LGBTQ community, and of other cultural, religious, and racial groups. In Hebrew, we might say that we’ve been really emphasizing the value of Kiruv (pronounced “KEY-roov”).

Kiruv comes from the word “Karov,” which means “to be close.” It is, in essence, the Hebrew word for “Inclusion.” What I like about the Hebrew word Kiruv, is that it reminds us that we have to get close to one another. We have to let others in, be vulnerable ourselves, and really change and shift our mindset to make room for another. We’re not just trying to absorb someone else into our homogenous, melting-pot-of-a-community, so that they too will adopt our values. Instead, we are trying to expand our capacity as a congregation, to make room for everyone’s needs, priorities, hopes, and expectations.

Among many other things, February is Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month (JDAIM). This year, on the weekend of February 22nd and 23rd, we are going to spend some time examining our own Kiruv when it comes to our inclusion of people with disabilities. We do aspire to make our synagogue accessible and open, with a lift to help everyone ascend the bimah, a rear entrance that accommodates wheelchairs, and a sound system that assists those with hearing impairments. What more can we do? Well, for one thing, we can ask ourselves the question: “What more can we do?”!!

I know that I want to dedicate our Friday evening Shabbat B’Yachad service to this topic, and our D’var Torah on Saturday morning as well. More than that, I’m not sure. Will you be part of this conversation? And this planning process? If this topic resonates with you – whatever you interpret that to mean – please be in touch with me in the next couple of weeks.

Kiruv is a central Jewish value, and Ohev Shalom already aspires to make all who enter the doors at 2 Chester Road feel included, seen, and important. One way that we continue to embody this core principal is to repeatedly ask ourselves how we can do more. How can we bring more people closer, creating a spirit of inclusion and welcoming that endures and expands?

I cannot answer this question alone. In fact, if you look back up at that acronym for this month of Disability Inclusion, it’s almost the whole word “Judaism.” It’s just missing two letters, which happen to be the two letters this project needs most – US.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Gerber

Terumah: A New Light Beams Down on Our Holy Space

The Israelites are in the desert. God has started giving them laws to govern their lives, and the oppression of Egypt now seems long gone. It's time to create

a society, and it's time to begin observing rituals. So, the Israelites set about building a worship space, or perhaps more specifically, an altar on which to offer ritual sacrifices to God. The Torah calls it a Mishkan, which is often translated as "Tabernacle" (a super-helpful word that definitely doesn't alienate any English-speaking readers...). In essence, we're talking about a sacred space; an area that is separated from the rest of their encampment, to be used only for communing with God. And how do you make such a space unique? How do you designate it as holy and important? By making it fancy-shmancy, of course! :-)

Our parashah starts by inviting all the Israelites to bring "gold, silver, copper, blue-, purple-, and crimson-yarn, fine linen, goats' hair, tanned ram skins, dolphin skins, acacia wood, oil, spices, aromatic incense... and precious stones for the breastplate" (Ex. 25:3-7). Anything beautiful, valuable, scented, rare, or unique

was collected to spiff up this holy area. Makes sense, doesn't it? Even today, when we want to mark something as important and/or sacred, we beautify it in order to indicate to others that this is valuable to us. I'm telling you all this, because a related verse in this text jumped out at me. Right before that list of precious gifts, the "suggested donations" chart, the Torah states, "you shall accept gifts for Me [God] from every person whose heart so moves him/her" (v. 2). So all of that "stuff" listed above constituted voluntary contributions, not mandated or required ones. These were free-will offerings that came from the heart. Well, right here at Ohev Shalom, we witnessed the fulfillment of this verse in real time.

Last week, we installed a new window in our synagogue building. And not just any window. Our smaller prayer space, the "Sally & Benjamin Balin Chapel," has only one window, and it used to be nothing much
to look at. Now, however, we have a beautiful stained-glass window, depicting a gorgeous tree covered in orange fruits, with a mocking bird hidden among the branches, and words of love and affection interwoven throughout the tree. This window is the definition of a gift from the heart. Naomi and Harvey Spector commissioned this work of art for us in memory of their son, Andrew, who passed away last year. The words - in Hebrew and English - that adorn the tree speak to the myriad ways that Andy improved and enriched the lives of all who knew him.

I love everything about this new window; the symbolism, the inspiration, and just the incredible aesthetics. I especially relish how it embodies the values of our ancient ancestors in THIS week's Torah portion! It is filled with personal meaning

that moved a particular family, but in gifting it to the community, they have allowed all of us to be inspired by the beautiful life of Andrew Spector AND they have elevated the holiness of our prayer space. Back in the Torah portion, right after listing all those items for donation, the Torah expresses a very famous sentiment. God says: "Let them make for Me a Sanctuary, and I will dwell among them" (v. 8). You might have thought that God would say, "make a Sanctuary, and I will dwell... IN IT." Instead, it says "among them," inside the people themselves. Indeed, when we designate something as holy, and pour ourselves into the project with our energy, our resources, our joy, our love, our dedication, and our hearts, holiness doesn't just fill the project itself. It permeates us as well. The new, warm, comforting glow that pours into our Chapel through Andy's window is certainly a testament to that.

May his memory always be for a blessing.


Images in this blog post:
1-3 - Shards of glass that embody Andy's personality, getting ready for assembly
4 - Andrew's Window, completed.

Mishpatim: What's Lurking Behind the Laws??

Our Torah portion this week is SO focused on rules, ordinances, rituals, behaviors, legal clauses, and contracts that the very name of this parashah is Mishpatim,

meaning "laws." Gone are the readings about mysterious angels, Divine miracles, fantastical plagues, and inexplicable phenomena. Now we're ready for the nuts-and-bolts of the Israelite legal system, and the "fine print" that governed their society. However, this dichotomy isn't actually correct. Hidden behind the wording of all these mitzvot, these commandments, are countless references to spirits, angels, super-natural events, and even a preoccupation with dead and the hereafter. This upcoming Monday, Rabbi Miller are I are leading yet another Death Café conversation; it'll be our third. And this time, we thought we'd try something different, namely inviting people to share their own experiences of things other-worldly, mysterious, or perplexing.

Why? Because we never otherwise talk about these things. I mean, Judaism doesn't believe in spirits, demons, and all that mumbo-jumbo... right? Well, I'm not so sure. I think a lot of people DO believe in these things, and when we state, unequivocally, that Judaism does not, we alienate them.

Especially when our tradition very much incorporates these Other Worldly elements. Even a text like this week's, which is so heady and law-focused, still manages to spend a surprising amount of time on the paranormal. I hope you'll come to the conversation on Monday evening, to perhaps discover just how common and pervasive these kinds of experiences really are. When we dismiss things we do not understand, without giving them a second thought, we are actually closing ourselves off to something that can be quite important. Something deeply emotional and vulnerable, and perhaps even fundamentally human.

The hints are sometimes subtle, but they're unmistakable. In the midst of giving laws around interpersonal relationships and financial agreements, the Torah all of a sudden declares: "You shall not let a witch/sorceress remain alive" (Ex. 22:17).

There are many examples of these kinds of unsanctioned practitioners, and one theory is that the Torah was mainly concerned that their magic and spells WOULD work, not that they wouldn't! The authors very much believed in the power of dark magic... they just saw it as outside the realm of our Jewish ritual practices. The text also tells us that God "is sending an angel before you, to guard you on the way" (23:20), and adds "pay heed to him and obey him. Do not defy him!" (21), which definitely suggests the writer believed this was a concrete, visible angel! At the end of the parashah, we also read that Moses and the elders "saw the God of Israel" (24:10) and that God then "appeared before all the Israelites" (17). All of these, one might argue, are supernatural phenomena.

But why focus on all these "weird" things? Well, I think in today's world, we allow ourselves to get into a one-dimensional (and pointless...) debate about science vs. religion. As if it must be one or the other.

What if, instead, we imagined that most things in this world adhered to the laws of gravity, math, and logic... but that some things were outside that sphere? What if some aspects of our reality (and beyond) were simply inexplicable? If nothing else, our encounters with The Spirit Realm might be articulating some deep, emotional, desperate need; walling ourselves off to that voice can really do us harm. When hearing someone else share a mystical, weird story, we might be inclined to laugh, raise an eyebrow, or just think that person is a little crazy. Perhaps we could fight that inclination, and instead be open, accepting, and curious. It's easier to be skeptical and cynical, but there ARE other options. Death is, in fact, a vital element in the life cycle, even as it remains unknown and scary to many of us. A sense of mystery is very much in our nature as humans, just as it's intrinsic to our Biblical heritage. Let's suspend disbelief. Let's share and let's listen, and perhaps we too will actually SEE the Divine Spirit among us! Now wouldn't that be something?


Images in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of grigorezubat on Flickr
2. CC image courtesy of Rene Schwarz on Wikimedia Commons
3. CC image courtesy of Alice Popkorn on Flickr
4. CC image courtesy of Fotorech on Pixabay