"If your brother falls low, and his hand falters beside you, then you shall strengthen him--sojourner or resident--and he will live with you." (Leviticus 25:35)
This past Wednesday, I attended the fourth annual Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty Conference. Each year at this conference, we receive the most up-to-date statistics available on Rhode Island's poor: adults and children. We also are given the opportunity to learn from experts in the field of fighting poverty in order to make more effective our own state-wide efforts.
This year's topice was: Why Are People Poor? The Systemic Nature of Poverty in Rhode Island. A panel of three leaders in the fight against poverty on the national level spoke: Reverend Peg Chemberlin, Immediate Past President of the National Council of Churches, Rabbi Steve Gutow, President and CEO of The Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Imam Mohamed Magid, President of the Islamic Society of North America. Reverend Chemberlin's presentation included encouragement to act despite the prevalence and the momentum poverty has gained: "Pick something and do it. Don't be overwhelmed. Have a work plan."
I learned Torah from Imam Magid: He taught a midrash from the Muslim tradition in which a poor man comes to Abraham. Abraham asks the man, "Do you believe in God?" And the man responds, "no." "In that case," answers Abraham, "I cannot feed you." The man turns away and God says to Abraham: "I've fed that man for forty years even though he does not believe in Me. I send him to you for one meal and you turn him away?" Abraham ran after the man, apologized and invited him to a meal. The poor man turns to Abraham: "You say God sent you to run after me to apologize to me and to feed me? That is a good God. I will believe in such a God." Imam Magid challenges us: "If you want to say you believe in God, show me what you have done to take care of God's creation!"
Rabbi Gutow shared with us the shocking trend that poverty is decreasing in the developing world and increasing in the developed world. In other words, it is in the societies with the greatest resources that the numbers of those living in poverty is increasing. Rabbi Gutow concluded: "The world will be a better place if we do this work. The world will be a worse place if we don't do this work."
I am sickened by the realities of poverty right under our noses here in Rhode Island: In 2010, there were 142,000 Rhode Islanders (14% of the population) living in poverty. The poverty level is defined as around $11,000 of income per year for a single individual and approximately $18,000 dollars of income per year for a single parent and two children. Of those living in poverty, 43% were living in extreme poverty . . . which means people living on an income less than half of the poverty level figures above. In 2010, there were 42,221 children in Rhode Island (19% of our State's children) living in poverty.
This week's Torah reading, all the force of our tradition, God's expectations of us, all compel us to do more than read about the poor. We cannot click our tongues and make compassionate noises. We must all act. I invite you to contact me if you are ready to move beyond heartfelt compassion to action.
In the meantime, here are two opportunities for involvement: Join the Interfaith Advocacy Project and become a Legislative Ambassador. You will be trained to be an effective advocate, you will learn about Rhode Island's legislative and budget processes and about poverty-related issues being considered in the current legislative session. Contact Reverend Donald Anderson, Executive Minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches if you have the time and the communication skills to take on this kind of role.
Sign a petition. The federal government is seriously considering cutting funding for SNAP, the newest food stamp program for families. This is happening at a time when more and more vulnerable citizens are losing their food security (literally not knowing where there next meal is coming from). A third grader recently told her teacher that she did not have breakfast one schoolday morning because "it wasn't my turn." Please follow this link and add your name to mine: www.bread.org/snapworks.
This week's parashah/Torah reading concludes with a review of the liturgical calendar as determined by God and conveyed to the Israelites through Moses. Shabbat and the three pilgrimage festivals of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot are described. God declares: אלה הם מועדי / eileh heim mo'aday / there are My festivals.
Today, we mark the beginning of each of God's festivals with a blessing over wine. This blessing is called "kiddush" / קידוש which is based on the Hebrew root קדש which is the basis of every form of the word holy. As we raise the kiddush cup and recite the kiddush blessing for the festival, what are we saying?
In the course of this blessing, we praise God for sanctifying us through God's mitzvot (v'kidshanu b'mitzvotav / וקדשנו במצותיו). Holiness is added to our lives as we fulfill the mitzvot, the commandments that are part of our brit, our covenant with God. Holiness is great . . . but it's a little obscure. What does it mean to be holy, to seek to integrate holiness into our lives? A great subject for a future blog!
What are these festivals of God for? Why has God invited us to God's festivals? Our kiddush blessing goes on: Lovingly have You given us the gift of Festivals for joy and holy days for happiness... Here, embodied in the most ancient, enduring holidays of our tradition we are, in essence, invited to party with God! There are My festivals, says God . . . and I want you to come! We stand with wine in our hands and acknowledge that these holy days are given to us as days of joy and happiness to share with God.
Remembering the exodus from Egypt at Passover, reliving the revelation of the Torah at Sinai on Shavuot, revisiting the experience of wandering through the wilderness at Sukkot . . . the kiddush blessing shared by all these festivals reminds us that, as theologically significant as these moments are, these moments are meant to be joyous. Like anniversaries and birthdays, the festivals give us the opportunity to gather together in community and relive great moments with God: "remember when?" Remember how relieved and grateful we were when You released us from slavery behind? Remember how awed we were to stand together and commit to Your Torah at Sinai? Remember how You got us through forty years of wandering even when we complained? Those were the days! Those days are our heritage!
It's not a festival, a party, a celebration of great moments for God if we're not there to celebrate, too. Even God can't party alone. Our recitation of the festival kiddush is our acceptance of the invitation to rejoice with God. Amen!
Our next opportunity for celebrate a festival with God is Shavuot, beginning at sundown on Saturday, May 26th. If you'd like to practice singing the festival kiddush with it's special melody, click here for a special online lesson on our TY website!
A friend and colleague, Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses asks a perceptive and challenging question: "...after all the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt, the very first laws of Mishpatim concern slave ownership. Not the prohibition of owning slaves, as one might want and expect, but the rules detailing the treatment of a slave, slavery an institution that is simply presumed by the text. After all that, after all those years enslaved, after witnessing the plagues, after passing through the red sea to escape slavery, why in the world are the Israelites permitted the ownership of other human beings?" (Click here to read Rabbi Cohler-Esses' entire commentary)
I think the key phrase, in Rabbi Cohler-Esses' question is: "an institution that is simply presumed by the text." In other words, the institution of slavery was a common and integral part of ancient economies and societal structures. As common as salaries and taxes are today.
This week's parashah / Torah reading and many other passages as well, contain rules for the Israelites regarding the treatment of the Hebrew slave (eved ivri) as well as non-Israelite slaves. These passages make it clear that the slave held by an Israelite master was never to be treated with the harshness and cruelty that the Israelite slaves experienced at the hands of Egypt's taskmasters: Exodus 21: 2-3: When you will buy a Hebrew slave, he shall work for six years, and in the seventh year he shall go out liberated for free. If he will come by himself, he shall go out by himself, if he is a woman's husband, then his wife shall go with him." 7-8: And if a man will sell his daughter as a maid, she shall not go out as the slaves go out. If she is bad in the eyes of her master who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall not dominate so as to sell her to a foreign people in his betrayal of her. 26-27: And if a man strike his slave's eye or his maid's eye and destroy it, he shall let them go, liberated for his eye. And if he will knock out his slave's tooth or his maid's tooth, he shall let him go liberated for his tooth. (translation by Rabbi Richard Friedman)
For certain, there are passages in the Torah about the treatment of slaves that seem brutal to us and repugnant in what we deem our holy text. (A master is, for example, allowed to strike a slave, but not, as we've seen, cause any lasting bodily harm. In a related verse, a slave is referred to as the master's money or asset.) All this is a reflection of the reality of the time and place in which the Torah was revealed.
I recently saw a TV advertisement in which a person in very authentic-looking medieval dress hands another person a very modern-looking television remote control. The recipient of the gift expresses very understandable confusion.
If the passages of Torah reflected our 21st sensibilities towards slavery, toward the basic economics of debt service and even employer-employee relations, the response at the time and place of revelation would have been profound confusion. There would have been no collective of people to accept the Torah and declare "na'aseh v'nishma" / "we will do, we will obey" because there would not have been a human alive at that time who could understand and commit to implement those laws.
The power of our tradition, right from the very beginning, has been our commitment to connecting our faith, our religious commitments, our observances to the myriad of times and places in which we have lived. We have demonstrated, time after time after time, that the covenant, laws, mitzvot of our tradition travel with us, reflect and inform the realities of our lives wherever and whenever we live in Jewish community.
This makes looking back confusing at times . . . as if we, in our 21st century culture and dress were handed a medieval farming implement and were expected to use it. These anachronistic moments, though, serve to remind us that our faith, our brit/covenant with God, is always about the lives we are leading right now.
It is hardly an astonishing assertion to state that this week's פָרָשָה / parashah / Torah Reading marks a turning point in the relationship between God and b'nai yisrael / the progeny of Israel. It is in Yitro that Moshe will climb the heights of Sinai and return with luchot hab'rit / the tablets of the law. The brit / the covenant between God and Israel is forged at this moment.
This moment of the revelation of the Torah is not the first time that Moshe has experienced unique, intense communications from and, indeed, conversations with God. From the opening chapters of the book of Sh'mot / Exodus, with the iconic moment of the burning bush, God and Moshe are in almost constant communication.
This moment of revelation of the Torah is, however, the very first time that Israel experiences revelation as a community. The passages of this week's parasha relate: "And Moses said to the people, 'Don't be afraid, because God is coming for the purpose of testing you and for the purpose that His awe will be on your faces so that you won't sin.' And the people stood at a distance, and Moses went over to the nimbus where God was. And Adonay said to Moses, 'You shall say this to the children of Israel: You have seen that I have spoken with you from the skies. You shall not make gods of silver with me, and you shall not make gods of gold for yourselves...In every place where I'll have My name commemorated, I'll come to you and bless you.'" (Sh'mot/Exodus 20: 17-20)
As our tradition developed from sacrifice-centric Israelite biblical religion to the halachah / Jewish law- based rabbinic Judaism we practice today, the centrality of community has been a consistent and treasured dynamic of our people. There are so many elements of Judaism that guide us into community: We need 10 adult Jews to conduct a service. We need 10 adult Jews to read from the Torah scrolls. We need a cemetery, which only a community can maintain. We need kosher food, which requires a critical mass of Jews to sustain. We welcome a new child into the world as a minyan, representing the entire Jewish people embracing this new child as one of "ours." When one of our community passes away, we surround the mourners and help them bury their dead, we sit with them for a week (during shiva) and make sure they have company, meals and community support to say kaddish.
"In every place where I'll have My name commemorated, I'll come to you and bless you." What does "commemorating God's name mean?" I'd say it means standing together as a minyan, as a community, an uttering words that we cannot utter as individuals. It is through Jewish community that we thrive. It is almost impossible to sustain Jewish life in isolation: we need education, we need the spiritual and emotional support of those who share that brit/covenant with us.
"In every place where I'll have My name commemorated, I'll come to you and bless you." I've often said that our Jewish community is a blessing. This revelation of God's confirms just that: it is through Jewish community that we find blessing: the blessing of God's presence, the blessing of each other's presence.
We are welcoming Aaron Tessier to our bimah as a bar mitzvah this Shabbat. It is a delight to have a simchah (joyous occasion) to celebrate with this wonderful family . . . it seems like no time at all since Aaron's older brother, Ethan, was called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah although, I think, it's been 3 years! You may have noticed that, in the above paragraph, I did not say that Aaron was "being bar-mitzvahed" this Shabbat, but rather that he is being welcomed to the bimah "as a bar mitzvah." I thought I'd take advantage of this family and community celebration to talk about this most central life-cycle moment in Jewish life. In essence, bar and bat mitzvah celebrations are the communal acknowledgement of a young Jew's coming of age in religious life. In the early rabbinic anthology of life wisdom, Pirkei Avot / Teachings of the Fathers, we read: (Chapter 5: Mishna 22) "Five years is the age for the study of Scripture. Ten, for the study of Mishnah. Thirteen, for the obligation to observe the mitzvot. Fifteen, for the study of Talmud. Eighteen, for marriage. Twenty, to pursue [a livelihood]. Thirty, for strength, Forty, for understanding. Fifty, for counsel. Sixty, for sagacity. Seventy, for elderliness. Eighty, for power. Ninety, to stoop. A hundred-year-old is as one who has died and passed away and has been negated from the world." There is a lot to discuss, and appreciate, in this early rabbinic (1st-2nd century CE) understanding of the capacities and qualities of humans at different stages of life. For our discussion of bar/bat mitzvah, we notice that the age of 13 is considered the time "for the obligation to observe mitzvot." The common denominator of Jewish peoplehood is the "brit" the covenant with God. In traditional Judaism, our relationship to this covenant is expressed through the language of obligation . . . it is the responsibility of every Jewish person the age of 13 and older to do what he or she can to perpetuate this covenant with God. Once young Jews reach this age of 13, and are now among those who take responsibility for maintaining this covenant with God, they can be called to the Torah, they can be counted in the minyan, and they can lead the community in worship . . . because they are now, officially, as invested in being part of the covenanted community of Jews as are their elders. The bar and bat mitzvah celebrations are not rituals . . . that is, the moment of the "bar mitzvah" does not change the status of the individual. Rituals effect change in a person's life: two individuals become married at a wedding, a newborn is officially part of the covenanted community of Israel through the brit milah or simchat bat, Shabbat begins with the lighting of candles, etc. When a community comes together to celebrate a young Jewish person "reaching the age of mitzvot" we are not witnessing a transforming ritual, we are celebrating a significant birthday. With or without that bar mitzvah celebration, the young person is part of the community invested in perpetuating the covenant of Israel. So this Shabbat, we aren't going to "bar mitzvah" Aaron . . . but we sure are going to celebrate the fact that Aaron has reached the age of bar mitzvah! Mazal tov!
Parashat Ki Tavo Torah Reading: Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8
What do you think of when you hear (or read) the word "mitzvah?"
In every day speech, it's not unusual to hear someone (Jewish) say "He did a real mitzvah?" or "Would you like to do a mitzvah?"
When we talk about "doing a mitzvah," we are talking about doing a good deed. Performing some act of kindness for someone else.
Now . . . what do you think of when you hear (or read) the word "commandment?"
You might think of the Ten Commandments: one God; no idols; Shabbat; honoring parents; no adultery, etc. It's also not unusual to think of commandment as the reason we do ritual things like pray, keep kosher, light Shabbat candles.
It is fascinating to me that these two terms "mitzvah" and "commandment" should evoke such different associations . . . because they are Hebrew and English translations of each other. A mitzvah is a commandment. A commandment is a mitzvah.
The opening verses of this week's parashah / Torah portion shows us exactly how "mitzvah" and "commandment" are, indeed, the same.
"When you have set aside in full the tenth part of your yield and have given it to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat their fill in your settlements, you shall declare before Adonay your God: 'I have cleared out the consecrated portion [that tenth of yield] from the house; and I have given it to the Levite, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow, just as You commanded me; I have neither transgressed nor neglected any of Your commandments.... Look down from Your holy abode, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel....'"
The "mitzvah" of taking care of the vulnerable people in our society is the "commandment" to give a tenth of one's income to support the community [the Levite who had no land and therefore no income but who maintained the religious structures upon which everyone in the community depended] and the vulnerable [the stranger who was vulnerable because he or she had no communal ties and the widow and orphan who did not have the resources to maintain themselves].
The concept of mitzvah/commandment is an enriching one, for it puts into our hands the power to transform a myriad of actions into moments of "kedushah", moments of sanctity. A check to the Rhode Island Free Clinic, or Crossroads, or Amos House, or The Full Plate Kosher Food Pantry becomes a sacred act, a mitzvah. Paying your synagogue dues is analogous to supporting the Levite and is, thus, a sacred act. Putting others ahead of ourselves, sharing our resources, supporting the community that ties us together are all acts of kedushah, sacred acts.
May we stand together as God looks down from heaven, secure in our knowledge that we have done as God has commanded us and that we are deserving of God's blessing.
I am grateful to my colleague, Rabbi Brad Artson, for the wisdom and insight he brings to this week's parashah/Torah reading, Mishpatim. After acknowledging a phenomenon that many have noted in today's society--that personal autonomy has become a much greater driving force than collective values and behavorial norms--Rabbi Artson goes on to note:
"Yet we also pay a price for our autonomy. All this freedom and lack of direction or discipline also produces tremendous loneliness, drifting, and superficiality." (The Everyday Torah/Mishpatim)
It is no small wonder, then, that the myriad of rules that seem to define traditional Judaism (the 613 mitzvot/commandments) strike many people as antiquated and irrelevant.
But Rabbi Artson frames our mitzvot wisely and with perception:
"Judaism celebrates the love between God and the Jewish people, viewing the myriad laws and mitzvot as confirmation of that abiding passion and devotion. Parents who don't tell their children what to eat, what to wear, and when to sleep don't really love their children, regardless of how often they speak of their affection. True love, the kind that nurtures independence of soul and depth of personality requires attention to detail." (The Everyday Torah/Mishpatim)
The mitzvot/commandments of parashat Mishpatim represent that attention to detail. This week's reading includes mitzvot regarding justice for widows and orphans, laws concerning an animal that does bodily harm to a person, the calendar of festivals, prohibitions on sorcery and idolatry, standards of honesty in courts and much more. An amazing variety that expresses the holistic scope of our covenant/brit with God and the potential to infuse everything we do with "kedushah" with holiness.
There is a blessing we recite twice a day just before we declare: Sh'ma yisrael (Hear, Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is One): That blessing acknowledges the Torah as a gift from God and expresses our desire to reciprocate through the study of Torah and the observance of the mitzvot. The blessing is referred to as "birkat ahavah", "the blessing of love."
Just as our children flourish when we guide their development with wise and loving rules--things they must do, things they musn't do--so will we, as adults, flourish when we pay attention to the details of our relationship with God. We all know, we adults, that we are still "works in progress." We all know, we adults, that we don't have all the answers and that we are deeply challenged all the time by the decisions and choices that lay before us. We are never left to our own resources by the loving God of Israel; no matter what issues faces us, great or small, the mitzvot/commandments of our tradition are there for us like a safety net, like the loving arms of a parent, to help us be the best we can be.
This Shabbat our weekly Torah reading brings us to the very beginning of the second book of the Torah: Sh'mot/Exodus.
We are going to witness and relive some of the greatest moments in our history as we read our way, parasha by parasha, portion by portion, through this second book of Torah.
Right at the beginning of the parasha we see the Israelites referred to, for the very first time, as "am," "nation". This is in contrast to the Israelites at the end of the book of Breishit/Genesis who were little more than an extended family. Now, in Sh'mot, the Israelites are a confederation of twelve tribes and are considered by their Egyptian neighbors to be a force to be reckoned with.
We will quickly become engaged in the quagmire and heartbreak of the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt, the evolution of Moses from foundling to prince, from prince to refuge, from refuge to shepherd and from shepherd to national leader and God's collaborator. The sea will part. The Torah will be revealed at Sinai. The Golden Calf will emerge and enrage. The Tabernacle/Mishkan will be constructed in the wilderness and preparations will be made for the establishment of the first stage of Israelite religion: the sacrificial cult.
We will emerge at the end of the book of Sh'mot/Exodus, as a people bound to God through the salvation of Israel from Egypt and through the brit, the covenant forged between Israel and God at Sinai. Our lives will be informed by ethical, ritual, spiritual and moral mitzvot/commandments . . . through this second book of Torah we revisit our roots and our core values. By examining our beginnings as a people our appreciation for the wisdom and the richness of our tradition deepens.
Twice a day our liturgy provides us with the opportunity to recite the following verse (part of the compilation from the Psalms we call "ashrei"). As I contemplate the spiritual journey that awaits us in the book of Sh'mot/Exodus, this verse comes to mind:
Ashrei ha'am she'Adonay elohav Blessed are the people whose God is Adonay. Psalms 144:15
Parashat Hayyei Sarah, is a parasha of transition. Each of the members of Avraham's family is transformed during the course of these few chapters: Sarah dies, Yitzhak and Rivkah meet and marry, Avraham dies, Yitzhak is acknowledged as the next in the chain of covenanted patriarchs, and Yishmael comes to bury his father and himself becomes the father of nations.
The most powerful moment of the entire parasha is contained in one verse: "His [Avraham's] sons Yitzhak and Yishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah . . . . (25:9). How significant, after all the jealousy, banishment, and competition, that these two half-brother are named in the same breath -- and come together to bury their father.
The moment is fitting tribute to Avraham -- for aside from his unshakeable faith in God, his other great attribute was as a seeker of peace and compromise. He made peace with Lot (13: 7-9). He bargained for the lives of the inhabitants of S'dom and Amorrah (18: 23-33). He made peace with Avimelech (21: 22-32). He wanted to resist sending Hagar and Yishmael into the wilderness (21:11). Aside from his successful military campaign against the kings who invaded from the east, we see Avraham as a gentle man, avoiding conflict and treasuring life.
I cannot help but sense the spirit of Avraham inspiring his two sons to seek peace themselves -- between the two of them, and in their relations with others. For all the animosity that their births and subsequent histories could have engendered, we hear of no conflict between the brothers themselves -- and according to the Torah itself, they came together in quiet dignity to bury the father who loved them both.
In these times, when peace between the children of Yitzhak and the children of Yishmael seems so tantalizingly close and then so heartbreakingly far, we should all emulate our ancestor Avraham, the seeker of peace and compromise.
The Birkat Hamazon (Blessings After Meals) is one of the most beautiful pieces of liturgy we have. We express our gratitude for the abundance of blessings God has bestowed on us -- sustenance, land, a spiritual center, hope for the future. There is a section of the Birkat Hamazon in which we ask God to provide us continued guidance, an honorable living, freedom of spirit, and ultimate deliverance. There is room here, I think, for one more request -- one that expresses the ethic demonstrated by the sons of our peace-seeking patriarch, Avraham:
Harachman, hu yashkin shalom bein b'nai Yitzhak uv'nai Yishmael.
May the Merciful One cause peace to dwell among the children of Yitzhak and the children of Yishmael.
In this week's parashah/Torah reading, God renames two people: Abram becomes Abraham and his wife Sarai is renamed Sarah. This act of renaming expresses the reality of a deeper relationship between God and these two people. What profound shift is marked by these renamings?
[Breishit/Genesis 17:1-4] When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him: I am El-Shaddai. Walk in My ways and be blameless. I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will make you exceedingly numerous. Abram threw himself on his face; and God spoke to him further, "As for Me, this is My covenant with you: You shall be the father of a multitude of nations."
Abram and Sarai were wanderers . . . geographically and spiritually. With the establishment of the covenant [brit] with God, they now have both a geographic and a spiritual home in the Land of Canaan and in the God called El-Shaddai (one of dozens of names of God that appear in the Torah]. They are profoundly changed and God's act of renaming them marks the moment that changes their personal life journeys and human history.
I am not on expert on pagan religion, but it occurs to me that in establishing this covenant with Abraham, Sarah and their offspring, God has blessed humanity with unprecedented respect. In the pagan world, there is no covenant. Human beings placate the gods of their imaginings, hoping that gifts, offerings, actions might avert anger or might spare humans from the pagan equivalent of a drive-by-shooting in which humans suffer because they are in the way as pagan gods fight it out amongst themselves.
But the God of Abraham and Sarah establishes a partnership . . . offers values and goals to be shared, offers eternal commitment and infinite potential. It behooves us to remember that Abraham and Sarah are the progenitors of "a multitude of nations," that we share the blessings of this brit we all those who acknowledge and worship the one God: El-Shaddai, Adonay, Elohim, these are all names of the God we cherish and share with the other monotheistic faiths of the world. The brit that will be forged at Sinai between God and Israel will be the particularistic covenant that establishes Judaism for all time, but here, in Genesis, this first brit with Abraham and Sarah, expressed through the changes of their names, casts a wider net.
Let us pray for the time when all those who share the blessings of this covenant with us -- Jews, Christians and Moslems -- all descendants of Abraham and Sarah -- will be ready to embrace as siblings.
has been Torat Yisrael's rabbi since the summer of 2004 and serves as Vice-President of the Rhode Island Board of Rabbis. Rabbi Levin lived in Israel for 20 years and was the second woman to be ordained by the Masorti/Conservative Movement in Israel.
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