Accountability and Arrogance

Last Shabbat morning I read Torah (Matot-Masei). I hadn’t read in awhile, but this was a portion I had done last year, so I will admit to being lazy and choosing the same section to read so that my prep time would be minimal – which it was, at 30-45 minutes total. The intern asked me why I chose the verses I chose because it is a large portion (being double) and there is a lot of stuff to choose from. This is what I read:

Moses replied to the Gadites and the Reubenites, "Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here? Why will you turn the minds of the Israelites from crossing into the land that the Lord has given them? That is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to survey the land. After going up to the wadi Eshcol and surveying the land, they turned the minds of the Israelites from invading the land that the Lord had given them. Thereupon the Lord was incensed and He swore, 'None of the men from twenty years up who came out of Egypt shall see the land that I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for they did not remain loyal to Me — none except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they remained loyal to the Lord.' The Lord was incensed at Israel, and for forty years He made them wander in the wilderness, until the whole generation that had provoked the Lord's displeasure was gone. And now you, a breed of sinful men, have replaced your fathers, to add still further to the Lord's wrath against Israel. If you turn away from Him and He abandons them once more in the wilderness, you will bring calamity upon all this people."

Now, I will admit this seems kind of random and not the best part to read, but here are my reasons. The Gadites and Reubenites had just asked Moses and Eliezar and the chieftans to remain on the side of the Jordan that would be better for their cattle. As you can see above, Moses has a bit of a fit over this, and in my opinion, rightly so. I think what is important here is that Moses is stressing responsibility to the entire community as a whole, not just your own insular groups. Our actions affect those around us, not just us individually or as a small group, but everyone, especially in this case. You must be accountable to yourself, but you must also be accountable to your people.

Beyond the idea of responsibility and accountability is that of plain old chutzpah. One of the commentators we read pointed out that the Gadites and the Reubenites should be praised because they are, in fact, expanding the holdings of the Israelites. My response to that is: if God wanted the holdings of the Israelites expanded to that side of the Jordan, don’t you think God would have indicated it to begin with? How incredibly arrogant of the Gadites and Reubenites if that was, indeed, a motive. They are, in a way, setting themselves on the same level as God.

So, that is what I brought away from the portion. Be accountable. Don't be arrogant. Amen.

It is a tree of life

I posted a couple of months ago (here) about the re-emergence of my love of painting. I have been painting a lot. When I say a lot I mean 4 or 5 times a week, multiple times on a weekend if I can. It has become a bit expensive, but totally worth it. I’m going to take this post to talk about a few of the paintings.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to try my hand at a creation series. I’m pretty happy with most of the paintings, but think I may need to tackle a couple of the days again. For each day I took one aspect or event that always struck me (so Day 1 might seem perfect for “Let there be light!” but I have always liked the “unformed and void” part of creation. So, that is what I chose to attempt to paint. I’m not sure how successful I was, but this was my first try at a series and I know I do want to try another creation series again in the future.

Day 1:

My favorite day was Day 2: separating the waters above from the waters below. I have always loved the idea that the sky and the oceans were at one point the same thing.


My least favorites: Days 5–7. Those I will definitely be attempting again. I found it very difficult to portray the creation of animals, humans, and Shabbat. For Day 6 I kept getting stuck on depicting a soul. How do you paint a soul?

Something else I’ve wanted to tackle is for my favorite translation of the Gevurot:

1) We pray that we might know before whom we stand,
the Power whose gift is life,
who quickens those who have forgotten how to live,
having implanted within us eternal spirit.

2) We pray for winds to disperse the air of sadness,
for rains to make parched hopes rise again.

3) We pray for love to encompass us
for no reason save that we are human,
that we may blossom into persons
who have gained power over our own lives.

4) We pray to stand upright, we fallen; to be healed, we sufferers.
We pray to break the bonds that keep us from the world of beauty.
We pray to be open to our own true selves.
We pray that we may walk in a garden of purpose,
in touch with the power of the world.

5) Praised be the God whose gift is life,
whose cleansing rains let parched men and women rise again.

Rabbi Richard Levy
(From Mishkan T’filah, G’vurot, Shabbat Evening II)

This one is for paragraph 4 above:

I also have an interpretation of paragraph 3, but that one was also a lot more personal, so I’m not sure I’m going to share it publicly right now.

And finally, my tree of life:

d'var Torah - במדבר

I realize it has been a number of months since I posted. I'm going to try and get better about that.

So, as a step back into things, this is the d'var Torah I gave last night at my temple board meeting. It was my 2nd month in a row doing it because last month I'd forgotten that it was my turn and hadn't prepared; I did pull something out of the air, but I was embarrassed and so volunteered for this month.

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This week we begin a new book of the Torah: Bamidbar, which means “in the wilderness,” referred to in English as Numbers because of the counting of the Israelites. The portion begins with a lengthy listing of the tribes of Israel and the number of males over the age of twenty whose duty it is to serve as the army and surround the Mishkan on all sides. However, the Levites are not included in this number as they are not considered a part of the army. Instead, their count begins at the age of one month and their duty is to guard the Mishkan itself and to assist the kohanim, the priests.

What interested me most doesn’t come until 3:1

“These are the descendants of Aaron and Moses on the day that Adonai spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai. These are the names of Aaron’s sons; the firstborn Nadav, and Avihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.”

Why doesn’t the Torah list the descendants of Moses? Rashi says: “[Scripture] mentions only the sons of Aaron, yet they are called the descendants of Moses – because he taught them Torah. This teaches us that one who teaches another’s son Torah is considered as having procreated them.”

The religious school teachers at Valley are charged with the Jewish education of our congregation’s children, but this is a task that should not be limited to those who teach on Sunday or Tuesday. Each member of this board, each member of the congregation, is in some way a teacher of our children. Whether you are guiding the third graders through learning about Shabbat or showing up on a Saturday morning for services and Torah study, you are a teacher and what you do is important. We can all take pride in our students – when they learn to say the Sh’ma in kindergarten and when they stand in front of us at their bar or bat mitzvah. Whether we had them in class in a formal setting or not, they are still our students.

Speaking personally, I know that when I enter the classroom each week to teach Hebrew to the 4th graders I do so with the knowledge that the groundwork that we lay in Alef is one that they will continue to build on, through Bet and Gimmel and on through their b’nei mitzvah training. And at the end of the year when they have gone from sounding out words letter by letter to reading the V’ahavta it is an absolute joy to see their pride in their own progress. But teaching our students how to read Hebrew, or about the holidays, or about Jewish history, is not enough. It is our duty to instill a love of Judaism that they will be able to carry with them throughout their lives. We teach them Torah, in the sense that Torah encompasses all that we are to learn and do Jewishly. As Rashi stated, one who teaches Torah to a child is considered to be like a parent, and as parents it is essential that we share our Jewish values, our history, and our customs—and not just as casual observers or distracted volunteers. When our students are with us in Religious school they are our children and it is a sacred duty to assist in raising them Jewishly during those few hours we have each week. At the end of the year we are able to look back and see how our children have grown in their Judaism and we have the pride of a parent. And when our students see us rejoicing in Shabbat, studying Torah, and doing Jewishly we are able to continue to teach them with our actions.

The beginning of this Torah portion counts the Israelites whose sacred duty it was to surround the Mishkan and guard it for safe keeping. We must step up and be counted now, as Jews who love our Judaism, who take pride in our temple, support our community, and teach our children, because it is our sacred duty to guard the future of Judaism.

The Heart of Reading Torah

I ascend the 2 steps to stand on the understated bimah, trying to carry the tune for the song I have chosen to begin the Torah service. I am horribly off-key, but sing loudly anyway, knowing that I need to lead the few who have shown up for services this morning in prayer, and that includes prayer in song.

Al shlo-sha d’varim...

Open up the doors to the ark, first the right, then the left. One more step to reach the Torah, lifting it carefully so as to not bend the crowns, thinking don’tdropitdon’tdropitdon’tdropit. Turn. Fumble with siddur, say the Sh’ma, sing some more and undress the Torah with some help. Close the doors to the ark.

Deep breath. I remember I need to ask someone to do the aliyah, announce the page numbers for the blessing and for the reading. At this point my heart is beating quickly and my voice is unsteady. Another deep breath. I need to help the congregant chanting the Torah blessing to begin and flash back to the first time my rabbi had to start me off.

Another deep breath and I am ready to begin.

And suddenly my voice is a little clearer, my heart seems to not be racing so much as soaring. The words come clearly for the most part and I can practically taste them as they tumble off my tongue. There is an energy, an electricity, that is running through me as I trace the sacred Hebrew words with the yad. Before I know it I am coming to the end of the twelve verses I had prepared.

Vayomer al-tikrav halom shal-ne'aleycha me'al ragleycha ki hamakom
asher atah omed alav admat-kodesh hu.

I pick up the translation to read. I go too quickly through the English, the words rushing and pushing together.

And suddenly I am done and I need to remember to begin the after blessing for the congregant doing the chanting. I can feel myself shaking a bit as we dress the Torah and I set it gently aside but keep the crowns off because I know that I am likely to bend them when putting the Torah away later.

I chant the Haftarah blessing and read from Isaiah. The words are a blur to me, but I read loudly, and clearly, and try to calm my heart, slow my breathing. But I am unsuccessful and my voice is shaking as I chant the after blessing.

My mouth is dry as I turn to pick up the Torah again, to return it to the ark, fumbling with my siddur again, trying to sing.

Eitz chayim hi...

And then the Torah is back in the ark and the doors are closed, but I am still shaking, still unable to calm myself down. I grab the yahrzeit list off the lectern and descend the bimah steps to finish the service. Aleinu. Kaddish. Closing song. My voice is weak now. It shakes and I stumble over words that have become second nature for me.

Shabbat Shaloms are exchanged and I turn off the lights in the sanctuary and throughout the building, put away the commentaries from Torah study, get ready to close up and head home. But I cannot leave just yet. For 15 minutes I stand in my rabbi’s office, looking at the books on his shelf, feeling my heart rate finally slow to normal, feeling the adrenaline drain from my body and I know that I will sleep hard later.

Back Up On The Horse

This weekend my rabbi and our rabbinic intern are taking the middle school students up to Detroit for a retreat, which means we will be rabbi-less for Friday and Saturday services. Friday night a rabbinic student will be handling things, but Saturday morning I get to lead Torah study and services, which I haven’t done since the summer. I also haven’t read Torah since July, so between using a prayerbook that I’ve never lead from (Mishkan T’filah) and being a bit rusty with my Torah skills, it should be an interesting morning. I met briefly with my rabbi last night to roll the Torah to its spot and to chat briefly about Saturday. He said that if I want to do a Gates of Gray service that would be perfectly okay. Which is tempting, mostly because it is a prayerbook I know like the back of my hand and service prep would be minimal. But, we’ve been using MT for a few months now and I have really begun to appreciate the different choices and different translations/interpretations (see my last post for a specific example). I don’t really want to step back into Gates of Gray just for ease of use. So, I have a lot of work to do to get ready for Saturday morning. Here is my list:

• Practice Torah reading! I’ve been working with the voweled side of my Tikkun; tonight I need to take stab at no vowels.
• Read the Torah portion and go through the commentaries I have at home (Etz Hayim and Rashi) and check for some online/modern commentaries. I wish I had thought to bring home the Rabbi’s Sforno or Ramban last night. Oh, well. I can borrow them on Friday night after services.
• Take a tour through MT with a stack of Post-Its to lay out the service. Maybe practice a few melodies (I am not a fan of leading any of the singing, but I’ll do it; I’m okay with the chanting of the blessings, the Barechu, and the chatzi kaddish; I’ll probably choose some of the shorter versions).
• Prepare a sheet for Saturday morning of items to discuss. I’m not sure if I am going to prepare any kind of a hand-out. What I will most likely do is have everyone take a different Torah commentary and just get through what we get through. I’m a fan of the multiple-commentary-route because I think it helps people feel more participatory. I’m less a fan of “this is what I found interesting and I am now going to teach you for the next hour and we’re not going to really deviate from that.” Sometimes that is okay, but I think it takes a lot away from Torah study if you aren’t encouraging others to direct the course of the discussion.

It’s a pretty big list for 3 nights; I wish I had gotten started a little earlier, but no use fretting over that now. I need to be a busy little bee and resist the temptations of my Battlestar Galactica DVDs...

On another note, Hebrew class went pretty well last night. I'd been quite frustrated after the last couple of classes, feeling like a fairly ineffectual teacher. The differences in behavior and learning styles of the class I had last year and the class I have this year are enormous and I need to keep re-inventing how I approach these lessons. Last week was a necessarily dry class to go over the special rules and exceptions to what they had been learning so that on Sunday we could begin in our new book which introduces actual prayers. I realized this going in, but I didn't want to spend more than one class period on the rules, so it WAS a lot to get through. But last night one of the parents came up to me afterwards and told me that their child thought that "Hebrew would be boring tonight." Now, I can understand wanting to bring this to my attention if it is a concern. What really got me is that they said it within earshot of a number of other parents, students, and other temple members who had been there for adult Hebrew. I was a little annoyed about that, but whatever. I think last night's class was fun; we moved forward in the lesson, we played a game, and we reinforced some reading and listening skills.

תהו ובהו

In a famous passage from a fifth-century collection of rabbinic musing, we find the Rabbis wondering how God knew in advance what the universe should look like. If, as the Rabbis staunchly maintained, God created the universe out of nothing, there could have been no preexistent model available. How, then, did God, the divine architect, imagine a universe when no such architecture had ever existed before. The Rabbis solve the problem by imagining that God used the Torah as a primal blueprint. It is as if the Torah is eternal, transcending all time, even the moment of the big bang, when time as we know it began.
-- The Journey Home: Discovering the Deep Spiritual Wisdom of the Jewish Tradition, by Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman; p. 32

It is difficult for us, as humans with a long history to draw on, to imagine God creating something from nothing, with no reference points at all. I find it interesting that the Rabbis mentioned above felt the need to figure out how God knew what things would look like if He had no reference to begin with as it seemingly ignores the idea of the ineffable God that Heschel writes so well about. It is not surprising that the Rabbis couldn’t grasp the idea that God does not need a reference point to create, because, well, He’s GOD and we are not. It is inconceivable to the human mind to be able to imagine a world with no reference to anything else; we simply cannot grasp the idea of תהו ובהו and so how could we understand how God created the world from nothing? But, I would argue that it isn’t something we should try to understand or explain away. We cannot know the nature of God; we can search, and we can hope to find some sliver of understanding in our prayers and our deeds, but the bulk of God will always be out of reach. Personally, I’m okay with that. I don’t know that I would be able to handle the awesome ability to understand God, nor do I think I would want to.

To me the simple explanation is that God is God and if how He created the world without a reference is because He is God and it will remain a mystery to me.

However, returning to the quote above in context, the Rabbi Hoffman is trying to illustrate how “Torah defines the ideal shape of human life.” He goes on to detail how the Torah is much like Human life, with Genesis illustrating birth and childhood, Exodus is our lives as young adults, Leviticus dealing with our day to day lives where we find purpose, Numbers is our mid-life crisis, and Deuteronomy our end of life. I’m not far enough into the book to really write about what he is getting at, but it’s interesting and thought provoking so far, so I’m sure I’ll have more to say at a later date.

I’ll leave off with one last quote from Rabbi Hoffman as he addresses Leviticus:

The first two Hebrew words in the book are crucial: vayikra elohim. “God called.” The centerpiece of spiritual life is the sense that we are not here by accident. We are called. That is to say, every moment of life, from beginning to end, is a chance to rehear God’s love-laden call to purpose.
--p. 37