Emor: The Responsibility of Choice

Instead of recapping what this week's portion of the Torah says, I will share with you the thoughts that came to me as I was reading it and thinking about this new congregation to which my husband, Jan, and I belong.

While reading this week's portion, Emor, what I found interesting was the way that commands from G-d were imparted to the people. Throughout this section we read: "G-d said to Moses: Speak to the priests...," or "G-d spoke further to Moses, speak to Aaron and say...," or "G-d spoke to Moses, saying, speak to Aaron and his sons, and to all the Israelite people and say to them..." And so on.

G-d did not speak directly to anyone else. Only to Moses. And, except for occasional grumbling, the people did what Moses told them to do. They had reason to believe. They had heard Moses warn Pharaoh about the plagues that later afflicted Egypt. They had experienced the miraculous escape from Egypt directed by Moses. When they were short on food, Moses promised manna from heaven and it came. Even if they didn't believe blindly in G-d, they were certainly going to believe blindly in a leader who was so powerful!

Some people today have no doubts about their belief in G-d. Other people are more skeptical. They believe in G-d, yet they are not certain that his commandments to Moses apply today. In fact, some may not even believe that the commandments came from G-d at all, but rather from Moses, a great man and leader, but not G-d. These people analyze, they consider their lives and the world as they know it, and then make decisions. I think most of us in this congregation fit into this category. We believe in G-d, yet we have a great deal of uncertainty about how rules and structure created ages ago apply today.

As Reform Jews, we can make these decisions. We can seemingly decide which traditions we follow and which we don't. However, as Reform Jews, we have certain responsibilities as well. According to the UAHC, the "governing body" of the Reform movement, declaring that one is Reform is not to be used as a rationale for ignoring or rejecting customs and practices at will. Rather, the Reform movement expects its adherents to make responsible decisions based upon knowledge and understanding of Jewish ideology and an appreciation of its history. This means that before any individual can make a decision about the Jewish customs he or she will follow, that individual must first understand the custom and the practice and then make an informed choice.

Remember, this is the Torah. It has been around for over 3000 years. It survived the rule of the Greeks, the Roman Empire, and medieval times. It was around for Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Napoleon, Einstein, Hitler and most any other historical figure you can think of. It's quite an amazing document!

We can think it's arcane. We can choose not to follow its teachings. But we can only do this if we first understand what the Torah says--and if we enable future generations to understand what it says. If we change it, or forget parts, or neglect parts, these parts will be lost. It is our responsibility, then, to pass on this 3000-year-old document and its contents intact, to let future generations make the same kind of decisions we are making now.

Sometimes, during our ritual commitee meetings, we talk about leaving out certain things from services, such as the mentions of ritual sacrifices at the Temple. Yet we often end up agreeing to leave these parts in in some form. If we were to just discard them, dismissing them as arcane practices, we run the risk that future generations might not even know that their ancestors sacrificed animals at the Temple.

So, you say, that doesn't seem so bad. But what if we forgot about the Temple altogether? What if we forgot about Israel? What if we forgot about Moses?

Further, if the ritual committee were to choose to leave things out, it would be making decisions for you without giving you the choice. We cannot simply toss away those things we no longer believe in, like the sacrifices at the Temple, the laws of kashrut, keeping men and women separate in synagogues, or-- to give some examples from this week's Torah portion--burning the daughters of priests for harlotry, risk being cut off from one's kin for not practicing self-denial on the Day of Atonement, and so on.

I feel that my job at the Reform Jewish Congregation of Ashland is to learn about my choices in Judaism. As a member of the ritual committee, my job is to help you make choices, so you can decide for yourself which traditions you will follow and which you will not. A large part of that job is to ensure that you understand what you are choosing. As a congregation, our community practices may not match our individual choices, and our committee decisions may sometimes seem to be on the conservative side. But only if we start from a full understanding of the practice can we each make our individual choices.

During our first organizational meetings, I was surprised at how many said they were there for their children. That is OK, there is nothing wrong with that. But I knew that I needed to come to educate myself. Not to maintain my childhood understanding of the Jewish religion and culture, but to take a new and fresh look at Judaism as an adult. I am making a conscious choice to be a practicing Jew, and in participating in the congregation, you have made that choice too. Please join us in learning about what we have actually chosen.

Don't follow the ritual committee blindly as our people once followed Moses and G-d. We are not powerful as Moses was. We know we do not speak for G-d as Moses may have. Rather join us in learning. Assist in leading services, in studying the Torah, in teaching the children. And in the process, learn for yourself and make your own decisions. We are all beginning in different places, we come from different backgrounds, but we all have things to offer and we can all learn together.

Cheska Komissar gave this dvar Torah at the Friday night service on May 3, 1996

Lashon Harah: The Power of Words

The commandment against speaking lashon harah is probably the hardest one to follow. It's more difficult than keeping kosher. It's much harder than not working on Shabbat. It's harder even than honoring your mother and your father. It's also one of the most important ones.

Lashon harah means "evil tongue," or as we might say in English "bad mouthing." Almost every discussion about lashon harah begins with this story.

Once there was a man who had said awful things about someone. Realizing that he has done something awful, he goes to his rabbi and asks, "Rabbi, what can I do?" The rabbi thinks a bit and tells the man to bring him a feather pillow. The man brings the pillow, and the rabbi tells him to go outside, rip the pillow open, and shake out the feathers. The man does that. As he shakes out the feathers, the wind catches them, and they start flying everywhere. The man comes back to the rabbi and says, "I did as you said. Now what." The rabbi says, "Now go back outside and pick up all the feathers." The man looks startled and says, "How can I? The wind took them! I don't even know where they are now." The rabbi says, "Exactly. Just like your words. Once they're out, it's impossible to get them back"

What is lashon harah?

By definition, lashon harah is when person A tells person B something derogatory about person C. An important thing to remember about lashon harah is that, by definition, the thing being said is true. Spreading lies about another person, is called motzi shem ra, spreading a bad name. Related to lashon harah is rechilut, gossip, or literally "peddling." Rechilut is when person B tells person C that person A said something derogatory about C.

Lashon harah can be done without actually saying anything. When we say things a certain way, "Well, I wouldn't say that he's a genius, but...," it is called avak lashon harah, the dust of lashon harah. Or when we say, "So-and-so said something about you, but I won't tell you because that would be wrong," that's called avak rechilut, the dust of gossip.

Why is it hard to avoid lashon harah?

One reason that we seem drawn to speaking lashon harah is that it gives us a sense of power and mastery. In an office, the person who doesn't know the scuttlebutt is out of the loop. The person who knows what everyone's up to is considered well connected. One way you know you're a member of a group is when people start listening to what you say about others.

Lashon harah also keeps us from facing our own shortcomings. If I say what I tightwad so-and-so is, or how badly he treats his wife, it makes me feel that I'm magnanimous and a paragon of husbandly virtue.

Another reason is that our culture encourages it. Political news is often more allegation than explanation. We spend time talking about the personal lives of celebrities who sometimes seem to be professional objects of lashon harah.

Why is lashon harah so bad?

The rabbis teach that lashon harah is like killing three people because it destroys the reputation of the victim, damages the perceptions of the listener, and diminishes the standing of the speaker.

But I think the main reason has to do with what the Maharal, Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, said: the common thread of all lashon harah is its capacity to create division and separation.

Like any other Jewish law, there are fine points about lashon harah. The authority on the subject is the Chofetz Chayim, Israel Meyer Kagan, who died in 1933. He wrote several books about lashon harah which go into great detail. The basics of the law are these:

• you are not to say derogatory things about anyone whether they are true or not
• you are not to imply derogatory things about anyone
• you are not to listen to derogatory things about anyone, and if you do, you're not to believe it

The restriction on listening to lashon harah seems odd. How could hearing something bad about someone hurt you? Here's something that happened to me:

A friend was talking about a mutual friend. She was angry, saying nasty things about him. After seeing that I wasn't joining in, she said, "Well, he's said some bad things about you too." I asked, "What?" She wouldn't tell me at first, but I insisted. Finally, she told me what he had said about me. She had been right. It wasn't nice. At that instant, my friendship with these two people changed forever. I was hurt that she told me. I was hurt that he said it. It was hard to not be wary around them. I couldn't believe she told me something that bad. And I was never really sure that he actually said what she said he said.

When is lashon harah permissible?

But what if someone is bad? What if you know someone about to go into business with someone known for shady deals? What if your friend is involved with someone known to be violent? In such cases, we are permitted to speak about these things. But the laws of permissible lashon harah are very clear. You can't excuse lashon harah by saying "I'm just trying to help."

You are allowed to speak lashon harah to help someone, to prevent someone from being victimized, or to resolve major disputes but only when what you say is based on firsthand information, what you're saying is true and accurate, the person who is in the wrong has been spoken to and refuses to change, there is no other way to meet the goal, and what you say will not cause undue harm.

What can we do?

It's one thing for me to tell you how not eating BLTs has brought a level of the divine into my everyday life; to say "See this works for me, why don't you try it?"

It's a different story when I'm talking about lashon harah and an hour later I'm on the phone with someone about what so-and-so said about such-and-such.

And saying, "From now on I'll guard my tongue, I won't speak lashon harah any more," is very hard. Try it. Listen to what people around you say, what and who they're talking about. Listen to what comes out of your own mouth.

As Reform Jews, we are required as individuals to choose for ourselves those mitzvot, those commandments, that are meaningful to us and that further our spiritual growth. But we are also a congregation, not only a legal corporate entity but a spiritual one as well. And as a congregational body, we make choices and decisions about what we will and will not do.

The Chofetz Chayim said: If an entire group resolves together to guard their speech, the merit is greater than if only one individual has made this resolution.

My wish is that we resolve together, from now on, to watch what we say, not only here in this congregation, but in our "other lives," at work, with our families, and with our friends.

Philip Borenstein gave this talk at services on January 3, 1997

For further reading:
  Words That Hurt, Words That Heal by Joseph Telushkin

Melachot: The 39 Categories of Labor

"How to Put Up a Mezuzah

Jews have been putting mezuzot on the doors of their houses since biblical days. We read the commandment concerning the mezuzah every time we read the Shema: "inscribe them [these words] on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." The mezuzah reminds us of our relationship to God every time we leave our houses and every time we return.

A mezuzah can be made of practically anything: glass, wood, plastic, ceramic, clay, metal, but no matter what it's made of, the important part of the mezuzah is the parchment inside. The parchment contains two passages from Deutoronomy. The first passage is the first paragraph of the Shema (Deut 6:4-9), the second is the second paragraph of the Shema (Deut 11:13-21) which is not usually recited in Reform services. Both of these passages contain the commandment for affixing a mezuzah. To be kosher, these passages must be written by hand on parchment. You can get kosher parchments for about $25 from virtually any of the Jewish bookstores in the area.

The back of the parchment contains the word Shaddai which means "Almighty," but also stands for shomer delatot yisrael: guardian of the doors of Israel. If you place the parchment in the mezuzah case yourself, roll it from left to right so that the word Shaddai faces out. If your mezuzah has an opening, Shaddai should appear in it, otherwise align the word with the front of the case.

The mezuzah goes in the upper third of the right doorpost (as you're going in). The top of the mezuzah should be angled toward the inside, but if the doorpost is too narrow, it can be placed vertically. Before affixing the mezuzah, say the following blessing:

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam,
asher kidshanu v'mitzvotav v'tzivanu likboa mezuzah.

Blessed are you Adonai our God, sovereign of the universe,
who makes us holy with the mitzvot and commands us to affix a mezuzah.

Telling the Pesach Story

The commandment to tell the story of the going out of Egypt comes from Exodus 13.8:

And you are to tell your child on that day, saying: It is because of what God did for me, when I went out of Egypt.

In fact, Haggadah, the book we use for the order of the Pesach celebration, means "the telling."

But if we're supposed to be telling the story of the going out of Egypt, why doesn't the Haggadah just do so? Why do we start with hand-washing, greens-dipping, matzah-breaking and only then get into the story of the Exodus with a description of the matzah (This is the bread of affliction)? Why doesn't it just tell the story of how Joseph and his brothers came to be in Egypt, how we came to be Pharaoh's slaves, how God commanded Moses to demand our freedom, and how we crossed the Sea of Reeds to begin our wandering in the wilderness?

Maybe it has to do with the way we tell stories about key events in our lives. When you're recounting something that happened to you, you normally start somewhere in the middle and then embellish forward and back and eventually get to the whole story. If it's a family story--how your parents met or how your grandparents came to America--you may never get around to telling the whole story from beginning to end because everyone knows the story already. All that's needed is to tell a few episodes to evoke the entire story.

The story of our going out of Egypt is like one of these stories. The Haggadah assumes that everyone knows the story of the Exodus and rather than laying out the narrative, it calls up key episodes of the story.

The Mishnah instructs the leader of the seder to begin the story of Pesach with the disgrace of slavery and idolatry and to end it with the glory of liberation and revelation and to use the verses beginning with "A wandering Aramean was my father..." (Deut 26:5) to tell the story of the Exodus. That's as close as the Haggadah comes to telling the story.

But in these days, when many of us only know the barest outline of the story of our going out of Egypt, it could be a good idea to preface or to substitute this part of the Haggadah with a straightforward telling of this central story of our emergence as a people.

Is this practice a departure from the Haggadah? No, because as the Haggadah itself says: The more we tell and the more we expound on the story of our departure from Egypt, the more praiseworthy we are.

Pesach: Remember the Ladies

"Remember the ladies and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors."

So wrote Abigail Adams in her famous letter to her husband John while he was in Philadelphia in March 1776 as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. Although John Adams chose not to do so, we can borrow Abigail's advice when we celebrate Passover at our seders.

The purpose of Pesach (Passover) is to retell the story of our going out of Egypt so that we feel as if we had been personally liberated from slavery. As the Torah says: "And you are to tell your child on that day, saying: It is because of what G-d did for me, when I went out of Egypt." The story of the Exodus, as most of us learned it, goes something like this: Moses and his brother, Aaron, repeatedly ask Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, threatening an ever-increasing round of plagues if he refuses. Moses parts the waters at the Sea of Reeds so that the people can escape the pursuing Egyptians. Moses brings down tablets of the law from Sinai. Moses leads the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years.

Moses, Moses, Moses! Where are the women in this story?

It was, in fact, a pair of women who set the whole story into motion. When Pharaoh told the midwives that they should kill any Hebrew boys the moment they were born, two midwives, Shifrah and Puah, refused to do so.

Later, when Moses was born, it was his sister Miriam who prophesied that he would be the one to lead Israel out of slavery. By this time, Pharaoh had decreed that all newborn boys were to be drowned in the Nile. When Moses's mother placed him in a basket, it was Miriam who stood by to see what would happen to him.

Pharaoh's daughter found Moses in his basket and took him to raise as her own son even though she knew Moses was a Hebrew child. Although the Torah does not record her name, one rabbinic tradition names her Batya, daughter of G-d.

When Miriam saw that Moses was safe, she asked Pharaoh's daughter if she wanted to get her a Hebrew wet nurse for the foundling. Pharaoh's daughter agreed and arranged for Moses's own mother, Yocheved, to nurse him.

Once in the wilderness, Miriam's Well, a holy well that was among the last things G-d made at the end of the sixth day of creation, followed Israel wherever it went, providing them with fresh drinking water in their journeys. When Miriam died, it was the first time since the Exodus that Israel lacked water.

Were it not for all these women, Shifra and Puah, Miriam, Batya, and Yocheved, Moses would have never had a chance to grow up and lead Israel out of slavery, and we might be there still to this day.

That's why today, in addition to Elijah's Cup, many families place a cup of spring water, designated as Miriam's Cup, to remember Miriam's Well and the pivotal contributions of women in the story of the Exodus.

For further reading:
  See the Women's Studies department of the Sha'arei Shalom Bookstore.

Shavuot: The Book of Ruth

The Book of Ruth is traditionally read on Shavuot. This is a brief summary of it.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Tu b'Shevat

The Talmud calls Tu b'Shevat (literally the Fifteenth of Shevat) The New Year of the Trees. In the days of the Temple, Jews brought a portion of the fruits from trees that were over three years old for the priests and the other Temple workers. Tu b'Shevat served as sort of a fiscal year to mark the age of trees. The rabbis explain that by the fifteenth of Shevat most of the rain that's going to fall has fallen (in Israel at any rate) and that on Tu b'Shevat the sap starts rising and fruits begin to form.

After the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were dispersed, Tu b'Shevat served as a reminder of our connection to the Land of Israel. In the 16th century, the mystics of Safed (who devised the Kabbalat Shabbat service) reinterpreted Tu b'Shevat with kabbalistic imagery. They took the day not just as the new year for trees, but rather as the new year for the tree--the kabbalistic Tree of Life whose roots are in the inaccessible and inexplicable realm of the Infinite and whose trunk and branches reach down to us. On Tu b'Shevat the flow of divine goodness is renewed.

The mystics celebrated Tu b'Shevat with a seder of fruits and wine. The fruits represented three of the four worlds: assiyah-action, the world around us; yetzirah-formation, the ideal world; and beriah-creation, where the ideal forms are created. The fourth world, atzilut-emmanation, from which the creative force of God emanates, could not be represented on earth.

Beriah needs no protection, so it is represented by fruits that are entirely edible: grapes, figs, apples, etc. Yetzirah needs protection only at its heart, so it is represented by fruits with pits but edible outsides: olives, dates, apricots, etc. Assiyah, our world, needs the most protection, so it is represented by fruits with inedible shells: almonds, chestnuts, pistachios, etc.

The mystics' seder used red and white wine. The first cup was all white wine. The second was red and white mixed to slightly pink. The third was a mixed to light red. The fourth cup was completely red. These cups were said to represent the changing seasons.

Today there is no standard way to celebrate Tu b'Shevat. Since the founding of the State of Israel, it has become a custom donate money to plant trees in Israel. Some Jews celebrate by planting parsley to be used during the Pesach seder. Others celebrate a seder derived from the kabbalistic seder. The Reform movement publishes Seder Tu Bishevat: The Festival of Trees which contains seders geared for adults and children.

One way to celebrate Tu b'Shevat is simply to eat one of each of the three kinds of fruits: grapes, peaches, and almonds. Another is to eat the fruits and grains mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:8--wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates. In addition to the parsley you'll use on Pesach, you can also start planting the seeds for your garden.

Sources: Seasons of Our Joy, Arthur Waskow. The Jewish Holidays, Michael Strassfeld.

Vayechi: Family and Tradition

Although this portion of the Torah (Vayechi Gen 47:28-50:26) concludes with the deaths of Jacob and Joseph, it is very much about life. About living a life that is full of family and tradition.

As Jacob blesses Joseph's sons (and hence Joseph) from his death bed, he is mapping out their destiny: "In them may my name be recalled. And the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac." This blessing is to remind Joseph that as a father and as a son, he has a dual role: preserving the traditions of his forefathers while shaping the future of his children. Like all of us, Joseph has the responsibility of fusing the past and the future.

A similar scene occurs later as Joseph himself lays on his death bed, and calls for his sons, to bless them. "I am about to die," Joseph says. "God will surely take notice of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham , to Isaac, and to Jacob. When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry my bones from here.

Torah commentaries suggest that Joseph's greatness is in large part a measure of his own awareness that he is serving a higher destiny. It implies that Joseph is a man who, in many ways, represents the "Jew-to-be." One who remains a son of his father and of his people, who desires to return to his origins, and who, even in death, will not be separated from the fate of his descendants.

This sense of common ancestry also binds those of us here tonight, and serves as the foundation for our congregation as we wrestle with the task of merging family and tradition. For here we represent the modern family that boasts a lifestyle full of activity but void of spiritual comfort. We aspire to uphold the Jewish traditions we grew up with and would like to interpret them in a way that is meaningful to us today: manageable in an interfaith household, stimulating in an age of electronic bells and whistles.

If we do not all represent a common ancestry, then we do represent a community. And the congregation represents to coming together of the community to worship. But the congregation exists only if its members, the community, feel that it successfully meets the requirement of bringing Jewish traditions to the family in a way that is clear, interesting, and sustainable. This is our mission. And to fulfill our mission, we need everyone's input and direction.

Judy Seltzer gave this dvar Torah at the Friday night service on January 5, 1996