October 2019

The Tree of Life in the Middle of the Garden

“וַיֹּ֖אמֶר מֶ֣ה עָשִׂ֑יתָ ק֚וֹל דְּמֵ֣י אָחִ֔יךָ צֹעֲקִ֥ים אֵלַ֖י מִן־הָֽאֲדָמָֽה׃”
“Then He said, “What have you done? Hark, your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground!”

Shalom,

Names are important. Names are not given at random, especially in the Torah, where they are rich with meaning. For those who read the text in translation often the Midrash Shaem or etymological explanation of one’s name is lost. For instance, this week as we begin the next cycle of our Torah, as we start from the beginning once again, we learn of the first two humans.  They’re given names:  “Adam” and “Eve.” But, rather than understand these names as names like we might give to a person in modern times like “Charlie” or “Sally” we must look at them more like titles.

Adam or אדם meaning from the earth or אדמה, and Eve orחוה  is the life-force and is called: “אֵ֥ם כָּל־חָֽי”

“The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.” (Gen. 3:20)

How might we understand the biblical text differently if instead of using their “names” Adam and Eve, we called them by their titles “Earth” and “Life”?

Would that alter our understanding of the text or of our role as human beings?  To think that we as humans are all descendants of the union of “life-force” with “Earth” might change our mindset and think of the creation story and our profound responsibility or mission on earth.

And then what of their immediate progeny?

קין והבל are generally translated as Cain and Abel, but that really offers us very little by way of understanding who they are and what their titles might be. Kayin could have multiple meanings, and the basic reading in the text offers that this name is from the root of the word לקנות as he was “acquired” or “given” (4:1). However, biblical scholars explain that the word Kayin could come from the word Kaneh or shaft of a spear or staff connecting him with agriculture and his destiny to be the first farmer. Kayin was the symbol of working and settling the land. He was the farmer, the materialist the forbearing of permanent settlement on the earth.

His brother Hevel was the polar opposite. Hevel was the shepherd, the gentle soul whose offering was paid heed by God. Of course, Kayin’s frustration with what he perceived to be preferential treatment led to ride up and murder his brother Hevel. Yes, Cain killed Abel, but that’s missing the deeper meaning.

Hevel appears elsewhere in the Bible and coming off of the holiday of Sukkot we are of course familiar with the Hevel of Kohelet or Ecclesiastes.

Kohelet tells us that:

הֲבֵ֤ל הֲבָלִים֙ אָמַ֣ר קֹהֶ֔לֶת הֲבֵ֥ל הֲבָלִ֖ים הַכֹּ֥ל הָֽבֶל׃
“Utter futility!—said Koheleth— Utter futility! All is futile!” (Ecc. 1:2)
Reading it in context as Dr. Ethan Dor Shav points out, “Kohelet’s famous opening line—“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”—would have been instantly recognizable as an allusion to another text in their unique intellectual heritage: the story of Cain and Abel from the book of Genesis. The most important clue to the mystery of Ecclesiastes, therefore, is found in the striking reference it makes to the Bible’s first book.
Abel is the first human being to die. Just two verses after humankind was denied the tree of eternal life, his story becomes the embodiment of human mortality. It is in this context that we may reread the verses of Ecclesiastes: “Man sets out for his eternal abode, with mourners all around in the street. . . . And the dust returns to the ground as it was, and the life breath returns to God who bestowed it. Havel havalim, says Kohelet. All is hevel.”
However, Abel’s representation of death is only one side of the story. He is also the first human being to offer a sacrifice that God accepts. A far cry from the guilt of Adam, Eve, and Cain, all of whom were rebuked by God, Abel was the first human whom God clearly likes. Before him, we did not even know it was possible. When we read that “the Lord heeded Hevel and his offering,” the verb “heeded,” vayisha, (4:4) carries a powerful overtone of deliverance as well as acceptance.

Furthermore, it appears that God is deliberately accepting, or as the Hebrew connotes, “delivering,” not only the offering, but Abel himself. Not until Abraham do we find such unqualified approval by God.

It is eerily coincidental that on this Shabbat when we begin reading our Torah anew, and read of the creation of the earth, the Garden of Eden with the “Tree of Life in the middle of the garden,” and painfully internalize the world’s first murder, we commemorate one year since the heinous massacre of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Like fleeting cherry blossoms, almost sacredly ephemeral, the transience of hevel inspires Kohelet’s existential transformation. Like the creation story and the Garden of Eden we also are awakened to the beauty of sunsets, autumn leaves, and fleeting light. For it is precisely the transience of these things that moves us. By understanding the fleeting nature of life as a whole, Kohelet is no longer paralyzed by the burden of death.

Proverbs teaches us that it is a Tree of Life to all who hold it strongly, and the creation of the world reminds us of our own mortality and of the fragility of life. As we finish our collective year of mourning (according to the Gregorian calendar) of those who were murdered during prayer, let us read Hevel not as futility or vanity, but as a way of understanding life’s transience as dynamically transformed into a powerful motivational force: an urgency to live, to experience joy, to take action, and above all, to hold fast to our Torah and live by its values.

Let us answer loudly that “We are, in fact, our brothers’ keepers!”  That while we turn our Torah and turn it again to see all that is in it, we must first and foremost cry out against the murderous Cains in our midst. The fact that Jews today are not safe one year after the most horrific anti-Jewish attack in the United States and that we still see more and more threats to our physical safety ultimately causes us to divert our attention and our energy from the mission set forward in our creation story that we were put on this earth “לְעָבְדָ֖הּ וּלְשָׁמְרָֽהּ” – to work the land to be its steward.The blood of our brothers and sisters cries out to us from the Earth and from the Life-force, and may this year see an end to the actions of Cain, and for Abel to hold on to life’s fragility and make the most of it every day.

Shabbat Shalom,

Josh

REFORM ISRAEL APPEAL

HELP MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Shalom,

It is at this moment, just days after the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur, that Reform Judaism in Israel has extended its reach into the hearts and homes of thousands of Israeli families.

The High Holiday season is one of renewal, connection, celebration, and soul searching – a time for many “secular” Israeli Jews to find new Jewish expression.

In this season, we the Reform Movement have welcomed thousands of families into our 65 Minyanim throughout Israel, the largest collection of gatherings we have ever had!

From the gathering of 600 families at the veteran Kehillat Ra’anan, in Ra’anana,  to the 50 individuals who chose to pray at the brand new congregation in Kiryat Shemona (despite opposition from local Orthodox figures), we are humbled and awed to be leading this immense reconnection to Judaism throughout Israel.

We can only continue to bring passionate Reform Judaism to Israel with your help

The Reform Movement in Israel reaches new and previously unengaged Jews who are seeking a Judaism that offers deep spiritual meaning and that leads with its values.

We pride ourselves on bringing a voice of equality, pluralism, and justice, to Israeli society.

We lead the fight against racism in Israel, stand up for rights of LGBTQ+ individuals, Israelis with disabilities, support immigrants to Israel, and so much more.

Our values are your values. We believe, as you do, in Judaism without barriers. 

Simultaneously we are passing the torch on to the next generation, to hundreds of young adults and young leaders who believe passionately in the mission of pluralistic Judaism and are working each day to strengthen and spread the values of Reform Judaism within the grassroots of Israeli society.

During Yom Kippur, over 100 of these young adults chose to attend our annual Tlamim retreat, held in Neve Shalom. Young adults aged 20-35 discussed their place in Israeli society today and ventured on a quest of soul searching to live mission-led lives true to the values of Tikkun Olam, liberal Judaism.

We have touched the lives of more than half a million Israelis, and this year we will be expanding our efforts to reach many more who are seeking to reconnect with meaningful, spiritual Judaism in present-day Israel.

Just imagine how many more Israelis we could reach with your support!

Please make a gift to the Israel Reform Movement today to advance our mission to create a truly whole, just, and compassionate world in our homeland.

We can’t thank you enough for your support.

Warm Wishes for a happy holiday season and a Shanah Tovah!

Todah Rabah,

Rabbi Josh Weinberg and Rabbi Gilad Kariv

The Sukkah of Israel and Diaspora

Shalom,

Yom Kippur has come and gone, we’ve deprived ourselves, fasted, and done tshuvah for our sins. Now it is time to rejoice. If there was ever a time for rejoicing and happiness it is after the most serious and somber days of the year (which also does not require deprivation from joy). The Rabbis actually nicknamed Sukkot, Z’man Simchatenu, the Season of Happiness. The Sukkah itself creates the most natural reason for families and friends to invite and visit each other for festive meals within that dwelling.

In fact, the mitzvah of welcoming guests or Ushpizin is one of the greatest mitzvot one can do, as one is reminded of the teaching of the Vilna Gaon, who taught that there are only two mitzvot that one can enter with one’s entire body:  residing in the Land of Israel and dwelling in a Sukkah.

But while we’re busy rejoicing, making paper chains, shaking our lulavs and etrog, and hanging out in these temporary booths, there may be a deeper meaning for us a people to the holiday of Sukkot.

Rabbi Shimon Gershom Rosenberg (1949-2007, known popularly as Rav ShaGaR) was a trailblazing Israeli thinker, rabbi, and Rosh Yeshiva who wrote prolifically and taught on Judaism, halakha, and philosophy.  In a posthumously published book of his essays called “Faith Shattered and Restored: Judaism in the Postmodern Age,” Rav Shagar attempts to deal with one of the great divides among the Jewish people, those who live in the Land of Israel and those who remain in the Diaspora for which he sees the holiday of Sukkot as a quintessential example and metaphor for our split existence.

“The path from exile to redemption in the Land is expressed by way of the mitzvah of Sukkah. The Sukkah, a temporary dwelling that parallels the temporary exile, is also compared to the Land of Israel,” he writes.  In his essay “Seventy Bullocks and One Sukkah: The Land of Israel, Nationalism, and Diaspora,” Rav Shagar tries to go beyond the classic Religious Zionist narrative and implicitly acknowledges the failure of Religious Zionism to recognize the religious significance of Exile and universalism.

The classical Zionist narrative (based on the teachings of Rav Kook and Ahad Ha’am, among others) explicitly positions the Land of Israel is at the center of our existence. However, the dissolution of grand narratives enables Rav Shagar to see a more complex picture in which the Diaspora is also an authentic expression of Jewish existence. In doing so, he offers an interpretation that may be appealing to Zionists who live in North America and have no plans to make aliyah.

Basing himself on the Maharal of Prague (d.1609), he explains that the Jewish people unquestionably have an essential connection with the Land of Israel, yet the fact that they were able to sustain themselves through two thousand years of dispersion across the world indicates that universalism is also part of their nature. Rav Shagar further explains that “Indeed, the entire world is their place, they are cosmopolitan, and their state of dispersion is a function of their virtue … Its place is beyond geography, and its identity transcends the constricted boundaries of nationhood” (p.181).

The sukkah is a unique symbol that demonstrates the ways in which Diaspora and the Land of Israel must dwell together along with universalism and nationalism. The sukkah is a symbol of exile because it requires us to leave our secure home and all that is comfortable.

However, it is also a profound symbol of the Land of Israel because it is deeply connected with the agricultural cycle which informed the pilgrimage holidays to Jerusalem, for which many Diaspora Jews are sadly disconnected.

Rav Shagar writes that:
“The insecurity of the Diaspora must deeply inform our confidence as the inheritors of the Land. Otherwise, confidence will degenerate into hubris, into the sense that all is due to ‘my power and the might of my hand.’” It is essential for nationalism “if it is not to turn rigid and callous, it must be tempered by universalism.” The same is also true in reverse for, without nationalism, universalism can be dangerous. It can turn into “an abstraction in that it “makes” all human beings identical, effacing the very real differences between people” (p. 186).

Sukkot is a holiday that brings all these contradictions together and shows the potential for their resolution. It is both true that the Jews are a nation that dwells apart and that all nations still come to Jerusalem in order to worship God on Sukkot.

As the majority of Diaspora Jews neither see ourselves as living in Exile and [possibly correlatively] do not have any intention of uprooting our lives to live in Israel. So, the Sukkah can give us the simultaneous experience of celebrating both the harvest season of the Land of Israel and the sense of Exile.

On Sukkot, we can embrace both nationalism and universalism. Nationalism – despite its somewhat negative perception in the current political atmosphere – is essential as it is rootedness in what one is, in an identity unique to the nation and the individual. But, in order for it not to turn callous or even racist, it must embrace universalism which, according to Rav Shagar, subverts the preference for one nation over another, and in religious terms is the place where we encounter the image of God.

On Sukkot we present this dichotomy between Diaspora and homeland. It is quite remarkable to imagine that those who live far away from Israel still celebrate its harvest festival and that those living in Israel take a week to internalize the concept of exile.

When you enter your Sukkot this year, may you rejoice in this happiest of times and catch a try to get a sense of both Israel and Diaspora.

Shabbat Shalom and Moadim L’Simcha,
Josh

The Power of Powering Off

Shalom,

Yom Kippur is the most powerful and power-less day in Israel. It is the one day, more than Shabbat, Pesach or Tisha B’Av, even more than Yom Haatzmaut or Yom HaZikaron, when the Zionist dream can truly be realized.   It is the true embodiment of collectivity and affords us a once-a-year opportunity to understand the notion of a Jewish State in a totally different way.

It is the day when everyone stops. No one works (save for the few kibbutznikim, power plant operators, doctors/nurses, the army, and other essential functions), no one drives, and the entire country experiences a Zen-like 25-hour state of quiet.  The synagogues are full, often bursting at the seams (especially Kol Nidre and Ne’ilah) and people pour out into the streets to ride bikes on traffic-less thoroughfares and to greet each other in the greatest schmooze-fest of the year.

Yom Kippur in Israel, as it turns out, is more than about our souls. More than personal introspection, heshbon hanefesh, and repentance, Israeli Yom Kippur is about the entire world. If the world was created on Rosh HaShanah, the world can be saved by Yom Kippur.

According to the Environmental Protection Ministry, the lack of vehicle and transportation usage for this 25-hour period shows a dramatic decrease in carbon emission. In the Gush Dan region (Greater Tel Aviv), nitrogen oxide levels decreased to about 50 times lower than those prior to Yom Kippur – from 139 parts per billion to just 2.8 parts per billion. Jerusalem’s levels plunged to about 64 times lower than pre-holiday values – from 179 parts billion also to 2.8 parts per billion – while those in Haifa fell to about 82 times lower – from 229 parts per billion to 2.8 parts per billion as well.

On Yom Kippur, we spend the day beating our breasts repenting for our collective failures, and our collective guilt. For being unfaithful, deceitful, and many other personal transgressions. The key here, of course, is the first-person plural of our Yom Kippur confessionals. This serves as a reminder that we are all in this together and must take collective responsibility. While we are taught that Yom Kippur is about our personal behavior, we might take this moment to both recognize our most basic failure to take care of our own planet, of God’s creation and gift to us as living beings, and that the solution is actually found in the day’s perfunctory customs, which can only be achieved in a Jewish society.

Maybe it’s not so coincidental that the now world-renown young activist Greta Thunberg addressed the U.N.’s Climate Action Summit in New York City last week just ahead of, or possibly in preparation for our holiest day.

“You are failing us.” She emphatically preached to the United Nations.
“But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.”

Harsh words for us who are taught to repent and forgive, but ring somewhat familiar and could be taken right out of the Yom Kippur liturgy. She may have even familiarized herself with the Mishna (Yoma 8:9) explaining what Yom Kippur does not automatically forgive for interpersonal transgressions until the transgressor personally seeks forgiveness. Of course, we are taught that seeking forgiveness is trite if one does nothing to alter one’s behavior.

The ability to power off and create a true countrywide Heschelian ‘palace in time’ is one of the greatest contributions and is in fact only possible as a result of the Zionist enterprise which established a Jewish collectivist society.

Internally, on the other side of the Zionist coin, the holiest day of the year led to a highly politicized debate over changing the clocks to daylight savings time in Israel. Without getting into the lengthy historical debates, changing the clocks before Yom Kippur is generally favored by some ultra-Orthodox Jews who claim it makes the annual 25-hour fast easier to endure due to an earlier sunset. However, the early switch to “winter clock” naturally results in a considerably higher usage of electricity costing millions of shekels, spiking an increase in traffic accidents, and generally taking a heavy toll on society and drastically increasing our carbon footprint.

On the evening before DST ended on September 23, 2012, dozens of protestors gathered in Tel Aviv claiming that Israel’s current policy of ending DST before the Yom Kippur holiday favors the ultra-Orthodox sector of the population over practical interests of the secular and modern Orthodox majority (not to mention the 20% of non-Jews living in Israel and the Palestinian Authority who are also affected by this).  The fact that the entire country had to sacrifice millions of shekels and waste great amounts of energy because some wanted to end the mandated tormenting of our souls at a more convenient time seems positively ludicrous. On July 8, 2013, the Israeli Knesset approved the bill to extend IDT even further. According to the bill, IDT will begin on the Friday before the last Sunday of March and end on the last Sunday of October (which this year will be October 27th). While some will sympathize with the shortened-fast advocates, this was certainly a win for the planet and humanity.

A possible answer to one of our greatest contemporary issues is right in front of us.

If we want to be a light unto the nations (literally) rather than, or in addition to, claiming kudos for Israel’s Start-up nationhood, and our pride in having invented the cherry tomato, drip irrigation, “Mobileye”, Waze, or the “Pillcam” – which are all amazing – our contribution as the Jewish people to the world can be quite basic.

In addition to being technologically advanced and hyper-connected, we invented a way for an entire country to power off.  We invented Yom Kippur (ok, depending on your theology, we are mandated by God in the Torah to have Yom Kippur– Leviticus 16:29 and 23:27 – but you get the point), and now it is time to export it.

What would it look like if every country had a Yom Kippur? Yes, it’s never a bad idea for every human to seek forgiveness, and re-evaluate one’s behavior, but what if the entire planet powered off one day a year?
One day with no planes, trains or automobiles, no restaurants or shopping malls, no factories or offices. A no-traffic, no-industry 25-hour period of quiet.
And what would happen if they did that twice a year? Once a week?
How much energy would we save? How much carbon would we offset?

In preparing for the great day of judgment, for prayer, repentance, forgiveness, and deep soul searching as we come before God and fellow human, let us internalize the power of Yom Kippur Israeli style.

Shabbat Shalom and Gmar Hatima Tovah,

Josh