Friday, March 30, 2012

Weekly Parsha - Tzav


This week’s Parsha details how the daily sacrificial service was done daily in the Mishkan (tabernacle-while the Jews were in the desert), and later in the Beit HaMikdash.  One of the details that the Torah describes is the process of cleaning off the ashes on the mizbeach (the altar) in order to maintain the fire which was supposed to be constantly burning.  The verse says (Leviticus 6:5-6), “The fire on the altar shall be kept burning, not to go out…a perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out.”
Often we use fire as a symbol for passion, excitement and enthusiasm.  If we look at this part of the service allegorically, we are given good advice on how to lead a consistently meaningful religious life.  Many of us find inspiration and excitement at times of the year, during a specific religious event, or even when learning some torah.  In the heat of the moment,  we might promise ourselves to try harder or do more, only to forget about those plans shortly after.
The lesson from the Parsha is that it takes work to keep that “flame” burning.  If we don’t do anything to take care of it, nurture it, and maintain it  then it will extinguish.  With regard to our own religious lives, when we feel a passion and excitement about something, it isn’t enough to simply list plans in our minds .  When we are feeling the burning excitement, we should take a step back to establish realistic goals, and maybe even write them down so that we can look back over time and make sure that we are still on track.  As the saying goes, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration”.  We have to do the work to reach our potential.

Weekly Parsha - Vayikra


Many kids who grow up in the Modern Orthodox world spend what is called, “a gap year,” studying in Yeshivas or seminaries in Israel before going off to college.  So the summer after I finished high school, I packed up and headed to study in Israel.  During that year, for various reason, I ended up switching to a small yeshiva in Tsfat for the second half of my gap year.  This experience truly lived up to the gap part of the phrase gap year.  Living in Tsfat was a truly unique experience, not like anything I had ever done before, or like anything I have done since.  
I can vividly remember sitting and studying in the Yeshiva one day towards the end of the year when out of the blue the head of my school, the rosh yeshiva, came up behind me, clopped me on the back and said דניאל you might leave tsfat, but tsfat is never going to leave you.  When I think back to how different life was when I lived in tsfat, sometimes I wonder about what he could’ve meant.  After tsfat I went to college, I struggled with my beliefs and have evolved in my religious  perspective, I’m a very different Jew today than I was back then.  But there was something about that experience that I can look back on fondly and has influenced the way I feel about Judaism and my connection to God.  That feeling of closeness which I was able to experience somewhat naively back then, and have seldom experienced since, has been monumental in influencing the decisions and beliefs which have led me down the path I have chosen.
The necessity of developing memories which connect us to God is something I see reflected in this week’s Parsha.  This week, we begin reading from the book of ויקרא, Leviticus.  The parsha consists mostly of a list of all the different types of sacrifices which were to be brought in the tabernacle, and later in the temple in Jerusalem.
It’s no secret that the sacrifices are an aspect of Judaism that many if not most of us have a really difficult time connecting with.  In today’s day and age many of us find it hard to relate to animal sacrifice.  Some of us might even be turned off by its seemingly primitive and animalistic nature.  But despite our moral or esthetic discomfort with the idea of sacrifices, we can’t ignore the fact that these sacrifices are important in Judaism.  We mourn the destruction of the temple and the loss of our ability to bring sacrifices, our prayer services are modeled after the temple sacrifices, a hope for a time when we can once again bring sacrifices in the temple is incorporated into our daily prayers.
In the beginning of this week’s Parsha there are a number of strange things which have prompted many commentaries over the ages.  The Parsha opens with God calling out to Moses telling him to speak to the Jewish people and instruct them on how to offer sacrifices.  
If this section of the torah is supposed to be a practical guide for bringing sacrifices then why is God speaking to Moses, why not deliver the instructions through Aaron, the high priest?  After all it is primarily his responsibility to make certain they are done right. Yet any commands to Aaron are not mentioned at this point.
Furthermore, the introduction of sacrifices into Jewish ritual life would seem to be more appropriate if it had begun with פרשת צו where the technical details for the priests of how to do sacrifices is outlined.  So why does God give the list of the types of sacrifices before teaching the priests anything about their role in making sure the sacrifices were done right?
But the biggest question is in the first verse which says, “God called to Moses and said to him.”  It’s a redundancy which doesn’t have a parallel.  Usually the Torah either says that God called to Moses, or God spoke to Moses, so what is being added here by saying both?
All these problems can be resolved if we realize that the primary purpose of this week’s Parsha is not to teach us the practical laws of the sacrifices.  The torah is teaching us that first and foremost sacrifices are about giving human beings the opportunity to engage God in a relationship.  It’s not about a religious cult practice irrelevant to most except the chosen few, rather it is a model of the many ways to develop a relationship with God in a way that is open to and important to everyone. This is why the God is addressing Moshe in this week’s Parsha.  Who better to teach the Jewish people this lesson about engaging in a relationship with God than Moses, the man who spoke to God פנים אל פנים, face to face?  
Rashi gives us insight into why it was particularly important that Moses was the one to introduce sacrifices into Jewish life even though he would not be the one to perform the service.  Rashi comments on the word ויקרא, explaining that it is לשון חיבה.  The best way to translate this phrase is a type of loving or endearing statement.  
The word ויקרא is used in Isaiah to describe the way the angels glorify god’s name, which you might recognize from our prayer service in the קדושה prayer.  Before the angels proclaimed God’s glory, they would call out to each other, וקרא זה אל זה ואמר....  Rashi understands the angels calling out to each other as an act of love, they would call out to each other giving each other permission to be part of the group before they would glorify God’s name.  Just as they called out to each other in love, here in our Parsha God calls out to Moshe with love.
God and Moses have been engaged in a deep and complicated relationship.  Moses tries to say no to God when told to go to Egypt, Moses reprimands God when God wants to destroy the Jewish people for sin of the golden calf, and Moses also calls out to God in sadness and frustration when he needs to. But Moses is also the first one to sing praises of God אז ישיר משה… For Moses, God’s presence was real, it was a complicated relationship; it wasn’t just an abstract object of prayer.  God was to be constantly engaged in a relationship at different times, in different ways, and with different emotions.
Moses argues with God, he rationalizes with God, he praises God, he also obeys God and so much more, but most importantly he spoke to God פנים אל פנים face to face.  He engaged God in a deep personal relationship.  
This is why the sacrifices needed to be taught by Moses to all the people.  Moses’ message was that it is not only possible, but necessary to engage God.  We shouldn’t just observe and praise God;  Sometimes we should get angry or disagree; we should ask God for help with the same passion and realness that we fight with God; we need find ways to bring God into the entirety of our lives to highest degree possible.
The sacrifices are a model for engaging God in a variety of ways and times in order to build a deep and complicated relationship. The word itself קורבן, means to come close.  In what ways should we come close?  Most of us think of sacrifices as either something priests did on holidays with little to no connection to the average person, but really they are a symbol for the potential of the individual to have a personal relationship with God. There are many different ways to bring sacrifices and many different reasons to bring sacrifices.  The sacrificial practice given to us by god serves as a model of relationship building between man and God.  Just as there are so many different sacrifices, there are many different ways for a person to engage in a relationship with God.  For example some people experience God in acts of charity, others connect through studying, and for others through prayer.
All the details of the sacrifices can be seen as symbols to represent ways of bringing God into the vast sea of human experience.  There were sacrifices for guilt, gratitude, holidays, lifecycle events, atonement, sometimes by free will, sometimes they were commanded.  They all involved acts of moving, waving, pouring, throwing, sprinkling, and confessing as symbols of things that people do being part and parcel of the sacrifice experience.  And there were different types of things which were sacrificed, bulls, lambs, goats, sheep, cows, birds, oil, flour, wheat, fruits, and produce.  These varieties can represent varieties of people and each person’s ways of connecting.  And the way in which the same person connects differently at different times of the year or different times of their lives.
This idea is very important to me when I reflect on my experience in Tsfat.  The feeling and culture in Tsfat made it possible for me to engage in a relationship with God in a way that we usually don’t ever have the time or inclination to do. There aren’t a lot of distractions in Tsfat.  Sometimes at night I would find the time to sit alone in corner of the old city and talk to God.  It gave me an opportunity to talk about what was on my mind, express ideas, concerns, doubts, desires and to do it in a way that was directed at God.  While I have not been able to replicate this experience, and to be honest I’m not sure I’d still want to, nevertheless I look back on that experience with a longing for the closeness that I felt back then, and more than 10 years later those experiences still  help me focus and connect when I pray today.
And so the lesson of Parshat Vayikra is, whether we can bring sacrifices today like they did in the temple or just find the time to imagine and meditate, or something else, the message of finding ways to personally connect to God still resounds.  We may not be Moshe, but we are his descendants and we need to find a way to engage God as a real presence in our lives like hedid.  If you’re not sure how to do this talk about it with a loved one, a friend, a Rabbinical figure, but try.  ויקרא ה' אל מושה was just the beginning, God is calling out to all of us begging us to call him back.  
When you reach out to God, you may be surprised to find God reaching back.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Vayakel-Pekudei


The majority of this week’s Parsha contains in it a description of the construction of the Mishkan (Tabernacle).  The Parsha opens by discussing the types of work which are forbidden on the Sabbath.  The sages argue from the connection of these to seemingly disparate topics, that the work forbidden on the Sabbath is the exact same work that was needed to build the Mishkan.  Furthermore, the word for work here, in the context of building the Mishkan, is the same word used in Genesis when it says that God completed the work on the seventh day. 
Jewish mysticism learns from these connections that the physical labors which we abstain from on Shabbat have their spiritual mirror image in the heavens.  Everything we do has an impact on this world that goes far beyond our abilities to perceive that impact.  This is why these specific actions are forbidden on Shabbat.  So that we are not doing the very acts that God did to create the world on the day that we are supposed to be resting from creative activity in order to commemorate God’s creation of the world. 
One lesson to derive from this mystical approach is the significance of our actions.  Everything we do has significance and an impact on this world beyond our ability to notice it.  Therefore, it behooves us to act in this world with mindfulness, to consider the possible ramifications of everything we do, both good and bad.  We should all be motivated by mindfulness to perform more good and refrain from doing bad. 

Parshat Ki Tissa/My Brother's aufruf



This week’s Parsha contains in it the terrible tragedy of the sin of the golden calf, and the subsequent destruction of the tablets by Moses when he returns from Mt. Sinai to the Jewish people worshipping the idol they built in his absence. After destroying the first set of tablets and dealing with the people in the aftermath of this sin, God instructs Mosesto return to the mountain and carve out a new set.

When you compare the first and second set of tablets, we would automatically assume that first set is holier and of more importance than the second set, because they were made by God and not Moses. Yet, it is the second; man-made set that last for all eternity, while the divinely wrought tablets survived only for moments before being destroyed. This is strange because usually between things that are made by man to things that are made by God, it is the things that God makes which last forever.

Furthermore, in this week’s Parsha when Moses returns with the second set of tablets, we learn that his face was illuminated, there is no similar description to the radiance of Moses' countenance after having received the first set of tablets.

Despite the fact that they were manmade, it seems like the second set of tablets hold more significance than the first set which were made by God. How are we to understand this?

Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his commentary on this week’s Parsha, provides us with an approach as to how to make sense of this strange situation. Rabbi Sacks explains it by connecting it to a fundamental principle in Jewish mysticism.

Sometimes spiritual moments of awakening are initiated by God, and other times they are experienced as a result of the effort exerted by people. The Kabbalah calls these two types of divine human encounters – איתערותא דלעילה, איתערותא דלתתא - an awakening from above, and an awakening from below. The most important distinction between the two is that, while an awakening from above may be a more intense experience in the moment; it can have the power to change nature, but it does not change human nature. When the connection comes from above, the person involved was passive, there was no effort expended and therefore no permanent growth experienced. The experience is overwhelming, but it is fleeting and impossible to replicate. It is not the basis of realistic and sustainable relationship with God.

When the connection to God is motivated by the effort and struggle of the person down here, in this world, connecting to God through normal life, then a person’s nature can change, and true growth happen, and a meaningful relationship with God can develop. We get out of our relationships what we put in. To experience a true awakening that has a lasting impact on us, we need to do the hard work. This is why the Torah demands such a rigorous system of performance of mitzvoth and observing halachah in all aspects of our lives. The mitzvoth are for our benefit, they are the tools we use to develop a lasting connecting to God, in a way that challenges us and forces us to grow.

This is what is symbolized in the lasting nature of the tablets that Moses made versus the divinely wrought set, and it is why Moses' face shone with divine light after doing the hard work of carving out the second set of tablets. Just like the first set of tablets which were made by God and only lasted a short time, when we are inspired by an intense but fleeting spiritual emotion, our connection is severed when that moment passes. But when we put the work in to commit ourselves to permanent connection, even when it’s less intense, then just like the second set of tablets , it can stand the test of time.

There is a midrash which reflects this idea, the midrash is trying to establish what the most important verse in the Torah is. The midrash says,

Ben Zoma says that it is the shema, with its focus on the oneness of God.

Ben Nannas’s opinion is that the most important verse is, you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself, because of its focus on charity and obligations towards your fellow human being.

Ben Pazzi said that there is still a more important Pasuk than either of those. He cites the verse for the daily sacrifice which was brought every single day in the Temple. ואת הכבש האחד תעשה בבוקר ואת הכבש השני תעשה בן הערבים. Because of its focus on consistency. Without consistency, no feeling of religious fervor inspired by faith in God or by community is of any value.



This is an important lesson with regard to the way in which we consider our relationship with God. It also serves as a vital lesson about the relationship with a spouse and the transition of marriage, on the occasion of my brother's upcoming wedding this weekend.. When you first fall in love it is like the divinely inspired awakening which is intense and exciting, but it is not what gives the relationship the strength and tools to stand the test of time. The beatles were wrong, love is not all you need. What you need is consistency, hard work, and dedication. Marriage is 24/7, you are always together, not just in your good moods, but in the bad moods too. Marriage is about doing what’s best for the relationship even if you don’t feel like it.

At the end of this week’s Parsha, Moses makes a strange request of God, he asks God to maintain the divine presence amongst the people despite their sins, because as the verse says, “they are a stiff-necked people.” This is very strange because only a chapter earlier God said, “For I know them, and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me along so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.” What is going on? If God wants to destroy them because they are a stiff-necked people, why in the world would Moses tell God to remain in the their midst for the same reason?

I think that Moses is teaching us an important lesson about relationships. A relationship that has true love and can stand the test of time is not a relationship where there is no disagreement or conflict. It is when there is conflict, but that conflict is dealt with in a healthy way. It is normal for people who spend more time with each other than anyone else in the world to get on each other’s nerves, it is normal for them to upset one another. But when both people truly care about each other and are devoted to one another, they deal with those areas of tensions, and they can look on another in the eye when they’re upset. They do not avoid areas of conflict, through dealing with conflict in a healthy way, they make their relationship stronger.

This is what Moses was asking God. He was asking God to stick it out, to remain in a relationship that will take some work. There might be things that make you want to kill each other, but working through those moments makes the relationship so much stronger, and the love felt for each other much much deeper.

This is what marriage is all about. There will always be moments of love from above when you just feel like it’s right, but the true strength of a relationship comes from the work that the individuals put into the relationship when it’s not easy. Which is why the traditional Jewish blessing to give to a married couple is, “may you build a בית נאמן בישראל (secure household in Israel),” because a healthy relationship isn’t a passive experience, it is always a building in progress.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Tetzaveh


Looking for parking in New York City can often be an incredibly frustrating experience.  There’s a story of a man looking for a parking spot in New York City one afternoon.  He’s in a rush, he’s already late for a meeting and he’s been looking for a spot to open up for close to an hour.  In frustration, he calls out to God, “God please if you find me a spot, I’ll go to Minyan more often, I’ll learn more Torah, and I’ll give more tzedakah!  I just can’t look for a parking spot anymore, please make a spot open up for me.”  As he opens his eyes from his heartfelt prayer, he notices the car immediately in front of him pulling out.  So he looks up at the heavens and says, “never mind God, I found one myself.
There is a classic debate among theologians and philosophers both Jewish and non-Jewish.  To what degree is God involved in the world?  Does God have a hand in everything that happens, or is God like a watchmaker who is no longer involved in the operation of the watch after it has been put together and set in motion?  The bottom line is that we don’t know; religious belief is not the same as knowledge.  I know that the sky is blue; I know it because I see it very clearly, I don’t have a choice.  But I believe there is a God and I believe that this God is the primary mover of the world constantly willing everything into existence, I believe this whether it’s explicit or not, and it’s usually not.
When it comes to belief, God gives us a choice.  We can choose whether or not we believe in God, we can choose whether or not we believe that God is actively and directly involved in this world at all times, and we can choose whether or not we want to follow God’s commandments.  Our religion wants us to choose in the affirmative, but we have the freedom to make that decision for ourselves.
Matters of faith cannot be absolutely proven, to do so would make it knowledge of something and not belief.  When we try to prove a matter of faith, what we are really doing is establishing our reasons and reminders to believe.  In Judaism, Jewish philosophy and learning serves as an intellectual reminder that there is a God.  Shabbat, Holidays, prayer and many more mitzvoth are ritual reminders.  We also have physical reminders like the mezuzah, or the synagogue’s sacred space.  For a person of faith, we need these reminders to constantly keep the faith in a world where God is not always obvious. 
The tabernacle and its many artifacts served as physical reminders of the connection between the Jewish people and God.  This is evident in the beginning of this week’s Parsha, where we see the word for testimony – עדות, being used with regard to the items in the tabernacle.  The second verse of the Parsha says, “Aaron and his sons shall set the lights of the menorah in the tabernacle outside the curtain which is over the עדות.”  In the many translations, עדות, the Hebrew for testimony, is translated as the Ark of the Covenant.  Although the Ark of the Covenant is often used to relate to this idea of testimony, that is not the literal translation of the verse.
In fact, the Talmud in Masechet Shabbat 22b understands this verse to have a different meaning. The sages say that in this context the עדות – testimony is referring to the testimony of the Menorah, which gives testament to the idea that the divine presence dwells among the Jewish people.
Every day before sunset the Cohen would light the menorah lamps which were each filled with just enough oil to last through the night.  Every morning the Cohen would find six of the lights extinguished, but the middle light would miraculously burn all the next day until just before sunset on the following evening when the Menorah would be prepared and lit for that night.  This lamp was called the Ner Tamid, the continuously burning light.  It was a symbol for the connection between the Jewish people and God.
The Menorah was not a light fixture whose purpose was to illuminate a dark space, the room it was in had windows which let the light in during the day, and the room was not in use at night.  The Menorah’s sole purpose was testimony to the continuous connection of the people to God.  This reminder is necessary, because God’s presence is not naturally seen or felt in the world during our daily lives unless we actively choose to see the world that way.
This is one of the most important lessons from Megillat Esther and the story of Purim.  An interesting fact about Megillat Esther is that even though this is a religious document and part of the Hebrew bible, it does not contain the name of God, not even once.  There are also no explicit miracles in the story of Purim.  On the surface, it is simply a story of Jewish survival.  But the Jewish people at this time saw their survival as miraculous.  All of the coincidences which put Mordechai and Esther in the position to influence Achashverosh in way that would ultimately save the Jewish people were not seen as mere coincidences, the people saw them as the hand of God.
They chose to see their salvation coming from the hands of God even though there were no explicit miracles, they could’ve chosen to give themselves the credit for their survival and forgotten about God. This is why our sages in Masechet Shabbat 88a explain that on Purim the covenant between the Jewish people and God was reaffirmed for all eternity.
The Talmud discusses the Midrash which says that God held mount Sinai over the Jewish people’s heads when offering them the Torah and said, if you accept the Torah it will be good for you, but if not I’ll drop the mountain on top of you.  The sages of the Talmud point out the theological problem in this Midrash. In Jewish law, if a person is forced to sign an agreement under duress, the agreement is invalid.  So the sages make the same argument about the accepting the Torah at Sinai under the conditions in this Midrash.  The challenge is resolved by the Purim story.  At the end of Megillat Esther 9:27, it says, “The Jews upheld and received upon themselves and their descendants.”  The sages of the Talmud understand this statement to mean that they now voluntarily chose to uphold that which was already received, the Torah.  This acceptance makes the Torah a binding agreement between the Jewish people and God. 
To me, the contrast between the accepting of the Torah at Sinai versus that of Purim has a lot to do with the historical reality at the times of those stories.  We don’t have to understand the Midrash as saying that the mountain was literally held over their head, but it’s expressing the idea that it would not have been reasonable to see the Jewish people during the Exodus as even desiring to choose.  They had just experienced the outstretched hand of God miraculously saving them from Egypt, followed by the revelation of God at Sinai.  They didn’t have a choice because too much had happened for them to believe otherwise.  This was not the world that most Jews would live in for all of eternity.  Most of us live in a world where faith in God and God’s involvement in this world is a choice, because we don’t see God as obviously as they did then.  Therefore the Jews at the time of the Purim story serve as a more realistic role model for the rest of the Jewish people for all future generations.
God’s existence and involvement in the Exodus was a matter of knowledge, the people acknowledged God after the splitting of the red sea, proclaiming, “This is my God and I will exalt him.”  But God’s existence and involvement in the Purim story is not as clear.  The people of Shushan chose to see their redemption as being through the hand of God even though it wasn’t obvious.  And the people chose to obligate themselves to uphold the Torah because of their faith in God’s divine presence continuously dwelling amongst them.
We live in a world where, like the Jews of Shushan, we have a choice whether we want to see God, believe in God’s presence amongst us, and obligate ourselves to follow in the ways of the lord, is a matter of free choice.  But when we choose to see the world in such a way, we are illuminated by the divine radiance, like that of the Menorah, through this relationship.