Temple Torat Yisrael

For the fifth year, I participated in the Annual Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition's conference, "Fighting Poverty With Faith."
For the fifth year, I walked out of the Conference with so much frustration, I did not know what to do with it.  It is appalling to listen to the statistics and translate those numbers into the reality of people's lives:
In 2011 (the year for which we have the most recent statistics), there were 148,800 Rhode Islanders living in poverty.  That means that 148,800 of our neighbors and fellow Rhode Islanders were subsisting on $11,000 a year for a single individual and around $18,000 a year for a family of three.

Those are the people who are merely "poor."
68,800 people in Rhode Island are living in "extreme poverty" with income less than half of the poverty level:  $9,265 for a family of three.

It is too easy . . . and way too inaccurate . . . to label the poor as those who do not work, whose lives are tainted by addiction, as criminals or parasites on the public. 

The poor could be any of us in a blink of an eye:  lose a job; get a divorce; become chronically or critically ill . . . and any of us can join the ranks of those who struggle to keep a roof over their heads and need to decide any given week between heat or food.

As a congregation, we are proud of our continuing and consistent support of the Edgewood Food Closet in our old Cranston neighborhood and the Chester Kosher Food Pantry run by the Jewish Seniors Agency.  We continued to collect food for both food security projects all during our interim stay in our TY house on Middle Road and we have designed built-in bins in our new TY synagogue lobby (just lift the benches under the windows!) to accommodate our donations of non-perishable food.  We hear over and over again that most of the people who come to the Edgewood Food Closet for help are working . . . at minimum wage jobs . . . and are still making that heart-breaking decision between paying the electric bill or buying food.

The minimum wage in Rhode Island is $7.40 an hour.
In 2012, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Rhode Island was $1,176.
A cost burden exists when more than 30% of a household's income is spent on housing.
A worker would have to earn $22.62 per hour and work 40 hours a week year-round to afford this rent without a cost burden (meaning without the average rent taking up less than 30% of the worker's income).

We do need to continue or unflagging support for our two beneficiary agencies:  The Edgewood Food Closet and the Chester Kosher Food Pantry.

But I suggest we need to do more.
I think there are projects we can take on as a congregation that could help to assure a more viable future for some of our state's poorest children, young people or even adults.  Can we tutor children to read?  Can we offer basic information in any of the fields of endeavor in which many of us work?  Can we teach someone how to use a computer?  Can we show someone how cook inexpensive, nutritious meals?

We cannot do all of these things.  Perhaps what we can do effectively is not even on my short brainstorming list.  But our neighbor, Newport, is the fifth poorest city in our State and we can sit down with those who are involved in the specific challenges of Newport and devise a project that will help a few people out of the vicious cycle of poverty.
Call me if you would like to explore ways to help:  419-5577.
Write to me if you would like to explore ways to help: rabbi@toratyisrael.org

The Star Thrower (Loren Eiseley)
An old man had a habit of early morning walks on the beach. One day, after  a storm, he saw a human figure in the distance moving like a dancer. As he came  closer he saw that it was a young woman and she was not dancing but was reaching  down to the sand, picking up a starfish and very gently throwing them into the  ocean.
"Young lady," he asked, "Why are you throwing starfish into the  ocean?"
"The sun is up, and the tide is going out, and if I do not throw  them in they will die."
"But young lady, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it? You cannot possibly make a difference."
The young woman listened politely, paused and then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves, saying, "It made a difference for that one."
The old man looked at the young woman inquisitively and thought about what she had done. Inspired, he joined her in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined, and all the starfish were saved.

This week, we read the opening chapters of the book of Numbers, Bamidbar.  This is a clear case in which meaning is lost in translation:  The book is entitled "Numbers" in English based on the census that is related in the opening chapter of the book, but in Hebrew the title "Bamidbar" means "wilderness" . . . as the book relates the saga of the Israelite journey through the wilderness from Sinai to Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel.

This is also a week in which the whole world is watching the spiritual wanderings of the residents of modern Israel.

The Christian Science Monitor, The Arab News as well as The Jerusalem Post, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and every other Jewish news source has covered the turn of events at the Western Wall this week.

One month ago, at the beginning of the new Hebrew month of Iyyar, police arrested (for the umpteenth time) women who were participating in a participatory women's service celebrating the new month . . . for disrupting the peace.  Following these arrests, a series of Israeli justices have ruled that it is not the praying women who have disturbed the peace of this significant historic sight (the Western Wall is the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount, the height on which the long-destroyed First and Second Temples stood). 

Today, the beginning of the Hebrew month of Sivan, saw a new development in the wake of the court decisions.  This month the women returned to pray . . . but instead of arresting the women, as ultra-Orthodox Jews threw chairs, water and worse at them, the police restrained the outraged onlookers.

Since 1948, with Jewish sovereignty over Israel established, a significant dynamic of wandering came to an historic resolution.  We are, in the words of Israel's national anthem: am chofshi b'artzeinu . . . a free people in our land.

But in other profound ways, we have not yet arrived.

The tendency to self-righteousness and even contempt between Jew and Jew is not limited to the conflicts within Israel around the Western Wall.  Although generally less violent, there are those within the Jewish community who label other Jews as violaters of Torah, abductors of innocents, sabotagers of our tradition. 

In my view, we will remain at the very beginning of our spiritual growth as a people as long as we foster theological one-upsmanship and self-righteousness.  I await the spiritual milestone at which all of us who identify with our Torah and our people and our God and our tradition will be able to address each other with theological humility and say: your path may not be mine, your interpretation of Torah may not be that which is practiced in my community, but we are all the children of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekkah, Jacob, Leah and Rachel and we share the same God, the same values and deserve the same respect.

This week, we read a double parashah, two Torah portions are linked together: Behar and Behukotai.  These two readings are comprised of the final chapters of the book of Vayikra/Leviticus.  Vayikra has been a bit of a hiatus from the Sh'mot/Exodus narrative flowing from leaving Egypt, the revelation at Sinai and the instructions for the construction of the Mishkan/Tabernacle . . . and leading to the book of Bamidar/Numbers in which we will journey along with the wilderness generations of our ancestors to the end of the Torah itself.

The final verse of the first of this week's parshiot/portions reads thus:
"You shall keep my Sabbaths and honor in awe My sanctuary, I am Adonay."

This coming Shabbat, our Torat Yisrael family will gather in our new sanctuary for the first time.  We will carry our Torah scrolls from our interim space in the accommodating TY Middle Road house (we've been a "close-knit" community this year, for sure!) with song and praise and will deposit our scrolls in the temporary ark lovingly constructed for us by instructor Bill Scott and the Amos House Carpentry Class.

This is most certainly a week to contemplate how to honor God's sanctuary in awe.

Through all the many meetings and conversations and consultations and impossible-to-count volunteer hours that have been devoted to the goal of bringing our Torat Yisrael congregation to this moment, we have always kept in mind the purpose of this building.  For the purpose of our beautiful new synagogue building is not just to exist for its own sake, but to provide foster the Jewish learning, worship, celebration and community growth of the members and friends of Temple Torat Yisrael.

The contemporary Jewish scholar and theological, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz writes:  "What does it mean to identify oneself as a Jew?  The most obvious first answer is that a person is a Jew by religion.  In fact, that is a hard argument to make, as odd as that may seem.  There is no basic set of meaningful principles on which all Jews would agree.  And there are huge variations in both practice and belief.

Are Jews members of a race?  This is clearly not the case.  Jews come in every color and exhibit every combination of ethnic features.

Do Jews belong to a nation?  Following the involuntary exile inflicted on us many centuries ago, the notion of Jews as a people living in one place, speaking one language, or even sharing one culture does not fit.

Even linguistically, we are splintered.  Hebrew is our official language, the language of the land of Israel and of our sacred texts, but many Jews have no knowledge of it at all.

What we are is a family.  We are the biological or, in the case of converts, the spiritual children of the House of Israel.

We are connected to one another, whether or not we agree with one another, whether or not we even like one another.

We are not a perfect family, but we are a real family."    (Pebbles of Wisdom)

I find Rabbi Steinsaltz's image of the Jewish people as a family very compelling . . . .  As an international family or a nuclear family or a communal family, like Torat Yisrael, we will always have differences of opinion, shared aspirations, a variety of talents to contribute and the desire to turn to family at times of challenge, grief and joy.

When we walked out of our 60 year old Torat Yisrael home on Park Avenue thirteen months ago, I spoke about how wrenching it is to leave the "family home" in which so many of us had celebrated, found spiritual inspiration, shared and forged close friendships, learned and grown as Jews.

Now the doors are opening to our new spiritual home and beginning this Shabbat we will again have a home in which to embed new "family" memories.

How do we honor God's sanctuary in awe?  By filling this space with our presence, by coming to learn and play and pray, by coming to thank God and support our friends and "kvell" over our growing children.  As much as the wilderness Tabernacle was treasured by our ancestors because God's presence among the people was so deeply a source of honor and promise, I'd suggest that our presence in Torat Yisrael's new sanctuary is our most effective means of honoring God in awe.  Our family's journey to East Greenwich is complete. . . . and that, to me, is a source of awe and pride and gratitude.

This week, the Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode Island took a leading role in making Rhode Island history.  After publishing the following statement, and after have a number of Board of Rabbis members, myself included, having testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing a few weeks ago, and following up with e-mails, we have succeeded in making it clear that there is visionary, compassionate and religiously committed spiritual leadership in Rhode Island.  

We stood with an impressive number of other faith leaders and organizations around the state including the Rhode Island State Council of Churches.  At a meeting at Gloria Dei Church in Providence, a few weeks ago, my colleague, Rabbi Peter Stein, reported that a room full of marriage equality activists from all over the Rhode Island faith map stood and cheered at the mention of the Board of Rabbis role in this effort.

It has been a consistent principle in our statement and in interviews I have subsequently held, to emphasize that there must never be any judgment towards colleagues whose theological commitments do not include the embrace of same sex marriage.  This made the testimony of Rabbi Barry Dolinger of Congregation Beth Shalom in Providence all the more impressive.  Rabbi Dolinger is also an attorney.  He stood before the Senate Judiciary Committee and explained that he supports the civil institution of same sex marriage precisely under the conditions of the current legislation because there is no coercion of any clergy to officiate at such unions should their theological commitments dictate otherwise.

I am proud to share with you the words of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode Island:

Statement in support of Marriage Equality in Rhode Island


The Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode Island, representing different movements and practices, endorses the idea that the right of civil marriage should be available to all Rhode Islanders. 

Our support of full civil marriage rights for same-sex couples rests on two key principles. First, lessons from Jewish history provide us with a mandate to work for civil rights. We understand the right of same-sex couples and their families to enjoy liberty and equal justice under law as a civil right. Married couples receive many federal and state-level legal protections, benefits and responsibilities with a civil marriage.  Recognition by the State of Rhode Island of the right of same-sex couples to marry would provide access to such fundamental family and financial rights. 

Second, is the clear distinction American law makes between civil and religious marriage.  Legal recognition of same sex civil marriage should not and will not require clergy of any faith or denomination to officiate at or recognize the religious status of same-sex marriages.  This is consistent with our understanding of the separation between church and state. This liberty is in keeping with Roger Williams’ vision for religious freedom that is pivotal to our state's identity
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As rabbis we believe that every human being is created in the image of God; thus, it is our obligation to defend vigorously the dignity of and respect for every human being and every loving couple.  For all the reasons stated above, the Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode Island supports  the legislation proposed to the Rhode Island General Assembly providing marriage equality in Rhode Island.

As we approach Shabbat here in Jerusalem, word has reached us that those responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings are two brothers from Chechniya. With the sparse information reaching us, it seems incomprehensible that an eight-year-old child posed any kind of affront or threat to these brothers. It is the random nature of the bombings that makes the bombings an act of terror.

This same week ends with the stunningly disappointing and irresponsible inaction of our Senate regarding the gun control legislation.

This week, we read a double Torah portion: Aharei-Mot and K'doshim. The words Aharei-Mot mean "after the death" and in the original context of the passage in Leviticus, refer to the death of Aaron's two sons. The second Torah portion of this double reading is K'doshim. The context of the name of this reading is a message to the Israelites: "Holy you will be, for I your Gor am holy."

But in the combining of the names of these two portions we create a new phrase: acharei-mot k'doshim, after the death of the holy ones.

The Torah describes Aaron's response to the shock of the death of his sons: Aaron stood in shocked silence.

There are a few moments after the shocking death of innocents, of those with souls bestowed by the Holy One, when standing in shocked silence is, perhaps, the only possible response. It gives us the opportunity to choose our response with care and compassion and perspective. To take responsibility for the common good, to protect the innocent as best we can against the randomness of terrorism and, at the same time, take care not to indulge in the emotional "terrorism" of bigotry and suspicion and blame.

We pray that friends and family and the God who created us all will bring comfort to the bereaved families of Newtown and Boston and West, Texas. That our leaders will put the welfare of our people ahead of political self-interest. That the injured and those who support them will heal quickly and completely in body and spirit.

Shalom from Jerusalem.

This week, the Jewish world marked the beginning of the new Hebrew month of Iyyar.  The beginning of each Hebrew month is observed as a semi-holiday called "Rosh Hodesh," the "head" of the month.  The synchronicity of the lunar month and the female biological monthly cycle has led to a long-standing special relationship between women and Rosh Hodesh. 

There are many ways in which Jewish women have celebrated Rosh Hodesh: refraining from cooking or sewing, gathering a group of women together for study or discussion . . . and for more than two decades, a group of women have gathered together every Rosh Hodesh to conduct a prayer service together at the Western Wall in Jerusalem . . . actually the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount.

What began, in the 1980s, as an informal group of women seeking to deepen their spiritual engagement in Rosh Hodesh by gathering at this unique, historic site has become, over the years, an official organization with a director and a president.  Women of the Wall have supporters . . . and detractors . . . all over the world.  As women's prayer groups go, Women of the Wall is pretty tame.  They are guided by liberal Orthodox halachah (Jewish law) meaning that there are passages of prayer they will not recite as a group of women in the absence of a minyan (prayer quorum) of Jewish men.  They are on the left edge of the liberal Orthodox Jewish world because it is quite accepted practice for these women to wear tallitot (prayer shawls) and they do read Torah together (although they have been forced to move their Torah reading away from the Western Wall for several years now).

The photograph above documents this month's new outrage:  Anat Hoffman, chair of Women of the Wall, was arrested with four other women, on the charge of "disturbing the peace" by attempting to pray, early in the morning, modestly, as has been their practice for decades while wearing tallitot and holding a Torah scroll.

This is actually not the first time this has happened . . . but this month's arrest led to an unprecedented judicial decision.  The website thejewishpress.com reported:

After examining the evidence, Judge Sharon Larry Bavly stated that there was no cause for arresting the women, WOW Director of Public Relations Shira Pruce reported.

In a groundbreaking decision, the judge declared that Women of the Wall are not disturbing the public order with their prayers. She said that the disturbance is created by those publicly opposing the women’s prayer, and Women of the Wall should not be blamed for the behavior of others. The women were released immediately, with no conditions.


This decision is long overdue . . . the travesty of arresting and harassing and allowing others to abuse women who are simply trying to pray has been an ongoing source of shame.  Personally, I've never participated in a Women of the Wall service, even when I've been in Jerusalem on Rosh Hodesh . . . largely because I find perseverating about a retaining wall politicizes and distracts from prayer.  On the other hand, I cannot accept the legitimacy of any authority that seeks to prosecute women who seek to pray . . . in a public space . . . respectfully . . . knowledgeably . . . and I am deeply relieved that Justice Bavly has put the weight of her office behind the obvious: "...Women of the Wall should not be blamed for the behavior of others."

There is a bit of irony that this arrest took place during the week that we read the Torah portion Tazria-Metzora.  The parashah (Torah portion) opens with a controversial passage defining the protocol a woman was to follow to restore her ritual purity after childbirth.  One aspect of this passage which is often overlooked as people deal with the apparent inequities of the system is that it is absolutely clear that the assumption was that a woman was responsible for her own state of ritual purity or impurity, that no one was authorized to act on her behalf to rectify a state of ritual impurity, but rather that she was expected, with the means at her disposal, to bring her own olah offering on her own behalf, placing her offering directly into the hands of the kohein/priest herself.  

How odd and how sad that 2000 years after the women of Jerusalem were freely entering the precincts of this outer courtyard bounded by the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount, purchasing animals for their own sacrifices, that their 21st century counterparts should be frog-marched off of that same piece of real estate for exercising that very seem spiritual responsibility established in the Torah.

Justice Bavly has inched us back towards the right direction.  Natan Sharansky is addressing this issue through other avenues at the Prime Minister's request.  We are not finished discussing the issue of women praying at the Western Wall . . . but I sure hope we're done with women getting arrested at the Western Wall.

Every year, within a week of emerging from Passover's journey from slavery to freedom, we gather together as a community to remember and to mourn on Yom HaShoah:  Holocaust Memorial Day.

The proximity of these two days is thought-provoking: truly for neither our ancient Israelite ancestors in Egypt nor for our more immediate forebears in Nazi Europe did "Arbeit Macht Frei" . . . did work generate a state of freedom.

For much of the last half of the 20th century, Jews all over the world (although less so in Israel) suffered from a form of collective Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  We were well and truly traumatized by the truths revealed about the Nazi campaign to create a Judenrein Europe . . . a Europe stripped of any Jewish presence.  The truths revealed by the mountains of human hair and eyeglasses and suitcases . . . the emaciated prisoners liberated by Allied Forces . . . the testimony recorded at the Eichmann trial . . . it was all stunning, shocking, too much to take in.

In the Torah, in the books of Shmot/Exodus and Bamidbar/Numbers, we are witness to some dramatic expressions of faith, doubt, fear, backsliding and commitment coming from the released slaves following Moses through the wilderness.  Considering all that they had been through, and no doubt suffering from some PTSD themselves, our ancestors who did not die at Egyptian hands had a lot of processing to do before they could formulate a new, coherent, positive Jewish identity and commitment to the Torah and the covenant with God.

Two thousand years later, there was a wide spectrum of reactions within the Jewish world as we emerged from World War II:  some Jews found their faith reinforced . . . only a caring God could have succeeded in seeing any remnant of the targeted Jewish communities survive.  Other Jews lost their faith . . . there could not be a God after all if a horror like Auschwitz could have come into existence.  Yet others simply remained angry at God for the rest of their lives . . . how does the God described in Deuteronomy as אל רחום וחנון . . . as a merciful and caring God . . . remain silent and inactive as that God's covenantal partners, the Jews, are brutally enslaved, tortured, slaughtered, traumatized for life, marked for life . . . 

As a Jewish kid in New Jersey growing up in the 50s and 60s, I was being educated as a Jew at a time when the adults in my community were still figuring it out:  they were figuring out what really happened; they were figuring out how to take care of the survivors and their families; they were figuring out what this horrific attack meant for us as a people; they were figuring out what to tell us kids.  I have a very vivid memory of sitting in the sanctuary of my New Jersey synagogue as an elementary school student, watching a film about the Holocaust that no Jewish educator today would be allowed to show to anyone under the age 16.  Those images seared themselves on my brain . . . perhaps for better, perhaps for worse.  I can't say I was traumatized by those images more than I was traumatized by other events in my life; but I did "get the message": being Jewish from now on was going to have to involve living with the shadow of the Holocaust.

It is 2013.  World War II started almost 75 years ago.  Like our ancient ancestors who came back home to Canaan after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, we are a generation informed by, but not directly touched by, our experiences of slavery.  We are about to celebrate the 65 anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel.  We are making history in East Greenwich opening up the town's first synagogue since the town was established in 1677.  We are comfortable and safe here . . . more comfortable and more safe then our ancestors were when they followed Joshua into Canaan.

Our journey has led us into and out of Egypt, into and out of Auschwitz . . . and where will our journey take us next?  What need we take with us from our history as we create our renewing identities as Jews today?  

Twenty, thirty years ago, we were still talking about the importance of preserving Jewish tradition and community and observance in order not to hand Hitler a posthumous victory.  It was a compelling image at the time, but I find that I need much more than the specter of Hitler to inspire me as a Jew.  Hitler's dead, we're still here.  Pharaoh is dead, we're still here.  Titus is dead, we're still here.  Stalin is dead, we're still here.

Surviving is great . . . but it is not enough.  As we gather as a community to contemplate the incomprehensible chapter of Jewish history called the Shoah, let us also come together to integrate our past experiences into a positive Jewish identity that inspires us and infuses our lives with "kedushah" / holiness and "simchah" / joy.

Our seder night is a brilliantly crafted experience:  we are surrounded by evocative smells and flavors, melodies and pictures, all designed to draw us in to the journey from slavery to freedom.  Horseradish brings to our eyes tears like those of our slave ancestors.  We conclude with joyous verses of praise to God for reaching into the black hole of Egyptian bondage and pulling us to the safety of the far shore of the sea of reeds.

One sentence in the Haggadah expresses the soul of this night:
בכל דור ודור חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאילו הוא יצא ממצרים
In each and every generation, each person is obligated to see him/herself as if he/she came out of Egypt.

In North African Jewish communities and in  India, it was customary to pass the k'arah [seder plate] over the heads of everyone at the table in a circular motion. Encompassing all gathered in the historic experience. It was an acknowledgment that as the world turns, first we were slaves, then we became free. www.myjewishlearning.com)

The most moving collection of seder customs I have ever experienced was in Jerusalem.  One year, I was asked to lead the seder at a battered women's shelter in the neighborhood in which I lived and led a congregation.  Women and children from Russia and Morroco and Israel and England and Ethiopia and the United States and France and Argentina all sat together at the same seder table.  Only the common denominator of having suffered violence at the hands of husbands and boyfriends and fathers could have created such a miscellaneous and yet homogenous group of people.  The women had prepared the seder meal in the shelter's communal kitchen.  Each woman had volunteered for a dish: soup, desserts, main dishes, side dishes . . . a Morrocan woman had said that she wanted to make her grandmother's special "seder soup."  Everyone was delighted, until an Ashkenazic housemate strolled by the pot, lifted the lid and stirred and asked:  "aifo hak'naidlach?" (Where are the matzah balls?).  The Morrocan soup-chef asked "What's a matzah ball?" and that started a whole rebellion!  All the Ashkenazic women ganged up protested:  How can there be a seder without matzah balls?  They came to a perfect solution:  one of the Ashkenazic women taught the Morrocan woman how to make knaidlach and when we got to the soup course, our Morrocan soup-maker proudly ladled us each a bowful of her grandmother's seder soup with an Ashkenazic matzah ball floating in the middle!

Passover is absolutely about the journey:  for these women and children, on their own journey from oppression to a new life of self-determination, that seder night was particularly evocative.  We all saw ourselves as if we each had left from Egypt . . . and found some very moving milestones along the way.

The Shabbat immediately preceding Passover is referred to, in the Jewish calendar, as Shabbat HaGadol / the Great Shabbat.

With so much time and energy devoted to preparation for Passover, one might wonder why we need a Great Shabbat right now.  What makes this Shabbat so great?

Historically, when the role of the community rabbi was conceived differently, Shabbat HaGadol was one of very few Sabbaths during which the rabbi would give a major D'var Torah, a major sermon.  The subject for this particular Shabbat was meant to be the ins and outs of Passover observance, in order to ensure that there would be no chametz found anywhere within the defined boundaries of the community.

Today, a Great Shabbat might be one in which the rabbi does not give a major D'var Torah!  Sermon or no, I suggest that there is still something Great about this Shabbat.

Many of us are engaged in preparing for Passover.  We're finishing up the crackers and vacuuming behind the couch.  Those of us who are hosting seders are polishing the silver and hunting out last year's hit recipes. 

All of this physical preparation is very absorbing, and it's pretty easy to get fixated on the small details of cleaning, shopping, switching out dishes and cooking.  The huge spiritual gift that is Passover can easily get lost among the kugels.

This is why Shabbat HaGadol is Gadol, this is the greatness of the Great Shabbat:  the essence of Shabbat as a day of rest provides us with a well-deserved hiatus from the shopping and chopping.  Shabbat HaGadol is a day to anticipate the spiritual high of the seder.  Anyone who has planned a wedding or a bat mitzvah or a fiftieth wedding anniversary party knows that the profound simchah at the heart of the celebration can easily get lost as we focus on the logistics.

The simchah of Passover is much too important; Shabbat HaGadol helps us shift our focus back to the reason for all the preparations:  the simchah we celebrate on Passover is the unique, momentous moment of "yitziat mitzrayim."  God, "with an outstretched arm" reached across the borders of the ancient world to scoop us up out of slavery and set us down on the safe side of the Sea of Reeds.  We looked back and, like the young couple in the painting above, we rejoiced.  We sang, we danced, we thanked God for this profound act of love.

When we gather this week at the seder table, amid the shining kiddush cups and the steaming matzah balls, we will, God willing, revel in the love around the table shared with our family and friends . . . and we will, because God willed it, sing and rejoice and remember that the core of our identity as a people is rooted in God's love.

This week, our Torah portion contains the opening chapters of the book of Vayikra / Leviticus.  In Leviticus, we will generally be taking a hiatus from the engaging narratives of Genesis / Breishit and Exodus / Sh'mot . . . and we will take up the narrative again in a few months when we embark on the book of Numbers / Bamidbar.

In the meantime, we will immerse ourselves in a book of the Torah that is refered to in our traditional sources as "Torat Kohanim" . . . basically an instruction manual for Aaron and his descendants, the Israelite priests / kohanim. What kind of sacrifices need to be brought to the Mishkan / the Tabernacle?  Who shall bring those sacrifices? When?

The Kohanim function with the absolute authority of God behind them and their role in the community is established by birth: Aaron, his sons, their sons for all generations constitute the priests, the kohanim of Israel.

Rabbis, as you see from my photograph above and the photographs of my three immediate predecessors at Torat Yisrael, come in all shapes and genders.  We have no garments which embody the sanctity of the tasks we perform.  We wear kippot and tallitot as do the members of our congregations because our role is not established by birth, we are not the descendents of anyone chosen by God.

In fact, the roots of the rabbinate can be found in something of a populist revolution beginning in the last century or so before the Common Era.  Through the establishment of the Temple in Jerusalem, the priestly caste had evolved into a sort of Israelite aristocracy . . . a closed circle with an essential power base, the Temple and its sacrificial cult.  To be a priest, a kohein, your father had to be be a kohein.  That was the only way in.

In houses of study around the Land of Israel, scholars were gathering to study the Torah and ask existential questions about the nature of Jewish practice in an economy and a cultural setting that was fundamentally different than life in the wilderness during forty years of wandering.   These sages began to ask a question that we are still striving to answer today?  "What is our 'best practice' as Jews in this time and this place?"

Unlike the kohanim, the only thing you needed to become a rabbi, one of these sages, was a good head on your shoulders, the willingness to study Torah with an open mind and a profound commitment to the survival of the brit, the covenant between God and the Jewish people. 

These are the roots of the rabbinate which I share with Rabbi Parness, Rabbi Bloom and Rabbi Rosen . . . it has nothing to do with who our fathers were, it has nothing to do with being invested with esoteric divine powers like a priest . . . or a pope . . . it is about dedicating our lives to keep alive the unique relationship between God and the Jewish people.  And that, my friends, is a privilege.