This week's parashah/ Torah reading, Ki Tissa, doesn't offer much tranquility . . . as we have gone from meteorological storm to meteorological storm this week, our ancient ancestors in the wilderness underwent emotional storm after emotional storm.

Moses, descending from Sinai, shatters the Tables of the Covenant just created by God.  Fury, frustration, incomprehension are all packed into this moment.

In the aftermath, God tersely instructs the Israelites that they will embrace and adhere to the following:

For you shall not bow down to another god---because Adonay: His name is Jealous, He is a jealous God--that you not make a covenant with the resident of the land . . . .You shall not make molten gods for yourself. You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread.  Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, which I commanded you . . . Every first birth of a womb is Mine, and all your animals that have a male first birth, ox or sheep.  You shall redeem every firstborn of your sons.  And none shall appear before Me empty-handed.  Six days you shall work, and in the seventh day you shall cease: In plowing time and in harvest, you shall cease.  And you shall make a Festival of Weeks, of the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Gathering at the end of the year. . . . You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice on leavened bread. You shall bring the first of the firstfruits of you land to the house of Adonay your God.  You shall not cook a kid in its mother's milk."  (excerpted from Sh'mot/Exodus 34: 14-26, Friedman translation)

This has a ring of the Aseret Hadibrot / Ten Utterances / Ten Commandments of course.  Especially in the opening strictures of not bowing down to another God and not making molten images.  Clearly, at the moment, these commandments needed repeating:  the people had just contravened exactly these commandments in their building and worshipping the golden calf.

The rest of the list is interesting and does depart from the familiar Ten Commandments list:
Observing Passover.
The unique place of the firstborn of animals and humans as dedicated to God.
Shabbat.
Shavuot.
Sukkot.
The stricture against blood sacrifice.
The first fruits offering.
The prohibition against cooking meat in milk.

The list is quite different from the Ten Commandments list in that the theme of mitzvot guiding the relationship among humans is missing, the "mitzvot bein adam l'havero" commandments between one person and another:  there is not "you shall not steal," "you shall not murder," "honor your father and your mother," . . . Every mitzvah on this post-golden calf list is in the category of "bein adam lamakom", "between a person and God."  These are mitzvot about our relating to God.

In contemplating this list, it strikes me that this is a list of mitzvot that place our consciousness of our relationship to God before us on an ongoing basis.  These are mitzvot that are scattered throughout our day, our week, our year, guiding us to constantly keep in mind that we are in relationship with God at all times.  

God has learned, the hard way, that among the frailties of human beings we must count short memories and lack of confidence.  After the glory of the redemption at the Sea of Reeds, the awe of the revelation at Sinai . . . within weeks we were building an idol and looking to worship it.  Anathema to God and a complete dismissal of the commitment (na'aseh v'nishma . . . we will do, we will obey) we had made at Sinai.

Ours is a tradition that puts our relationship with God before us all day, every day, in a multitude of ways.  Ours is not a one-day-a-week tradition or a tradition that can easily be pigeon-holed.  Judaism is at its richest and most meaningful and most inspiring when we engage with it every day.

Ask yourself:  What are the observances and practices that most say "Judaism" to us?  I'd imagine that somewhere at or near the top of your list would be:  Shabbat.

Celebrating Shabbat in Jewish community has been a core experience for millennia.   Indeed, one of the most profound statements about Shabbat was penned by a an early 20th century Jewish essayist who wrote:  "More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews."

One of the striking things about this statement is that it was written by Ahad Ha'am (the pen name for Asher Ginsburg [1856-1927]) who was a secular Zionist thinker!  Shabbat reigns in the imagination even of the non-observant Jew.

The roots of Shabbat are found in the creation story of Genesis.  After a day-by-day account of what God created each day, Breishit/Genesis relates:  "God had finished, on the seventh day, the work God had made, and then ceased, on the seventh day, from all work of creating. God gave the seventh day a blessing and hallowed it, for on it God ceased from all work, that by creating, God had made." (2:2-3)

The initial model of this seventh day is that of a day of rest.  This was a groundbreaking concept in the ancient world, in which no concept of a weekly day of rest existed.

Since that first concept of a day of rest, our Jewish people have embroidered on, deepened, enriched the concept of our day of rest.  Our great theologians have waxed poetic about our Shabbat:

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote (The Sabbath):
"Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.
Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else."


Shabbat, teaches Rabbi Heschel, is the opportunity to step back, slow down, appreciate the mystery and the holiness that surrounds us.  Shabbat gives us the opportunity to savor our own holiness, by virtue of the soul implanted within us by God.

Almost two thousand years ago, a midrash (homiletic text) related:
 "Israel said before the Holy One, Blessed One: 'Master of the world, if we observe the commandments, what reward will we have?' God said to them, 'The world-to-come.' They said: 'Show us its likeness.' God showed them the Sabbath." (Otiot de-Rabbi Akiva).

The world to come:  In Judaism, this is a time that will be free of strife, free of struggle.  We will no longer be plagued by disease or fear or insecurity.    Shabbat is meant to give us a glimpse of just such a time.  

Jews who savor this imagery will save their best clothes and best food for Shabbat.  Friends will gather around each others dining room tables, enjoy generous meals, sing, talk about Torah and life, laughter and indescribable warmth.

As we cross the threshold into the sacred time of Shabbat this evening, we at Torat Yisrael will gather together for social community (at Shalom to Shabbat this evening before services), for a unique prayer experience (with our unique Friday evening service designed for the month of Elul preceding the High Holidays) and for multigenerational, interactive study (at tomorrow morning's Torah at the Table).  These are the ways we here create for ourselves a glimpse of the world to come.

There is a length of retaining wall supporting the western side of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem that is probably the most iconic piece of real estate in the Jewish world:  The Wall / The Wailing Wall / The Western Wall / The Kotel . . .  there is not a bus tour of Israel that does not include a stop at this place.  Every Jew around the world engaged in prayer faces north, south, east or west in order to face this spot.

Instead of serving as the focal point of tranquility and spirituality and mutual respect throughout the Jewish world, we have witnessed repeated clashes between the ultra-orthodox and almost every other segment of our people acted out on this spot.  Almost twenty years ago, involved in leading the Masorti (Israeli Conservative) Movment's Tisha B'av service (commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples . . . according to one tradition because of senseless hatred among Jews) I was removed from the Kotel plaza by Israeli police.  Over the last several months, news reports have documented Israeli police alternately (depending on the month and the latest court ruling) either removing women praying at the wall for Rosh Hodesh (the new month) or restraining angry ultra-Orthodox protestors who were outraged by the women praying at the wall for Rosh Hodesh.  The Israeli paratroopers--iconic in themselves within Israeli society--used to be inducted into their units at the kotel . . . until the ultra-orthodox succeeded in prohibiting the ceremony because female Israeli soldiers sang at the ceremony.

This seems to be one place where we do not seem able to separate religion from politics.

But I was present at one unique moment of blessing standing before the Kotel.  I stood with Imam Farid Ansari, Reverend Donald Anderson, and representatives of the Hindu and Confucian faiths.  Ringed by quiet but curious ultra-orthodox youth, we each prayed in our own way as part of the First International Jerusalem Symposium on Green and Accessible Pilgrimage.  These few moments changed forever my associations with the Kotel and set me to dreaming once again about a spiritual center of tranquility and inclusivity and universal blessing:

On my first day at Torat Yisrael, in the summer of 2004, I sat myself down at the desk in the rabbi’s study and started opening drawers to see what “treasures” my predecessors had left for me.
     I opened a file and found a memo, written in 1985, by my
predecessor, Rabbi David Rosen, making the case that the congregation’s most
promising future could be fulfilled through a move to East Greenwich.
      Here and now, with the leadership spearheading our congregation now, with all the complicated realities of economics and demographics and the very human aversion to risk.  Here and now, when congregations around the country are closing their doors,  it is now that we are  dedicating our new synagogue building in the very promising land of East Greenwich.
    Over and over I have had occasion to marvel at the commitment, the perseverance, the determination, the generosity, the selflessness of the
members of our congregation.  Over and over, I have witnessed delays, resistance, barriers, and I’ve thought, “please God, let them not lose heart.”  And over and over the leaders of this project rolled up their sleeves, regrouped, got creative and got it done. 
 
It is our privilege to dedicate this beautiful building לשם ולטפארת / l’sheim
ultiferet, for the Name and the wonder of God.  Within these walls, generations of our people will come together to delve into the infinite richness of our Torah, to embrace each other as a community of Israel, to find guidance and inspiration from our traditions and practices, to ponder and to attempt and to explore new avenues of Jewish life.   
      During the mindful process of designing this building, it has been our goal to embody or to facilitate some of our most cherished, eternal Jewish values:
 בל תשחית   / Bal Taschit: Our commitment to the mitzvah of avoiding unnecessary waste of resources is expressed in our investment in a unique LED and fluorescent lighting system that barely sips electricity.
מכשול בפני עיוור /You will not throw up a stumbling block before the blind:  Through this mitzvah we are instructed
to anticipate and facilitate safe and accessible movement for all.  In this spirit, one of our first decisions regarding the new building was to build all on one level, making every space in the building accessible to every person coming in.  In that same spirit, one section of the coat rack in the cloakroom will be at a height comfortable to both the wheel chair bound and children to hang up and retrieve their own coats.
הזן את הכל /  Who Feeds All.  In the blessings recited after a meal, we praise God as “hazan et hakol,” the One  who feeds all.  Our tradition encourages us to internalize the values embodied by God’s own actions.  In that spirit, our congregation supports two food-security programs:  the Edgewood Food Closet in our former neighborhood in Cranston, and the Chester Kosher Food Pantry maintained by the Jewish Seniors Agency of Rhode
Island.  We have literally built our commitment into our building: the benches lining our lobby under the windows are actually bins in which we collect non-perishable food items for these programs.
העם: האנשים והנשים והטף / The people: the men, the women and the children.  Towards the end of the book of  D’varim/Deuteronomy, God instructs Moses to gather together the people and readthem the words of the Torah.  In
that text, the “people” , the body of Israel, is defined as “men, women and children.”  Our commitment to making sure that all men, women and children are welcome and comfortable in our sanctuary is expressed through the unique wall of windows separating our sanctuary from our library.  Shades reaching from the bottom of the windows upwards will provide privacy for nursing moms while still seeing and hearing what is happening in the sanctuary.  Bins of quiet toys will keep little ones occupied while their supervising parents can still be part of the service.  A parent, or grandparent!, who needs to “walk” a baby or comfort an unhappy toddler can do so without being cut off from the community.
מה גדלו מעשיך /  How great are Your works?   The Psalmist exclaims “mah gadlu ma’asecha?”  How great are Your
works, O God?  With the gift of conservancy land along the eastern border of our property, constructed an
  eastern wall that is almost entirely of glass. As we sit in our sanctuary, our social hall and our library, we are free to simultaneously enjoy and praise God’s natural world.
     We are celebrating a tremendous milestone in the history of our congregation.  Let us remember that a milestone marks a significant stop along a path, not the end of the route.  Yes, indeed, our geographic wandering is over, but there are many more paths for us to follow as a congregation.  This is a building that we are turning into sacred space by our presence as a kehillah k’doshah, a holy congregation.  How will we express our sense of the sacred here?  How will we pray?  How will  we learn?  How will we celebrate?   What kind of communal goals and aspirations will we strive for?
     TY members have contributed so much time and concern and skill as members of our Building and
Dedication Committees.   Thank them when you see them.  A project like this only comes to fruition when a few people throw themselves, body and soul, into the project.  Our president, Susan Smoller and the chairman of our building committee, Andrew Sholes, and the chairman of our capital campaign, Marc Davis are those “body and
soul” leaders who have inspired us and brought us to this day.
     Our Building Committee and our contractors and our architects and our painters and electricians and plumbers are done. Now it is our turn to fill this beautiful space with the joy, the challenges, the richness, the comforts, the spiritual horizons of the Judaism we love.

Have you ever heard someone say: "Those people still think Jews have horns!!"

It's an image that has become the iconic expression of ignorant anti-semitism.  We consider that a person who "still thinks Jews have horns" is a person who lives in such an isolated, ignorant world that they have never met a Jewish person.

It's an anti-semitic image that has been around for a very long time.  But where did it come from?

Amazingly enough, this negative image that has plagued Jews for centuries is rooted in bad translation!  

In this week's Torah portion, the Israelites are in the wilderness waiting for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai.  God and Moses have been in "executive session" for forty days and nights, and the people are getting nervous.  When Moses returns, the Torah reports:"And the children of Israel saw that "karan" the face skin of the Moses' face."
וְרָאוּ בְנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל, אֶת-פְּנֵי מֹשֶׁה, כִּי קָרַן, עוֹר פְּנֵי מֹשֶׁה

The key is the word קרן / karan.  The correct translation is the past tense verb, "shone" . . . but at some point along the way, someone mis-translated the word as the noun "keren" meaning "horn."  Hence, Moses . . . and by association, Jews . . . have horns.

But Moses' face was infused with light from his proximity with God during the revelation of the Torah.  This imagery is one of our most elevating legacies from Moses . . . we, too, can be infused with light in the presence of God and in our engagement with Torah.

So, we may not have horns . . . but we do have light!

This week's parashah / Torah portion continues the revelation at Sinai begun during last week's dramatic, shofar-blasts-smoke-and-thunder forging of the brit/covenant between God and Israel.

This week's chapters of Torah settle down to the task of laying out our responsibilities as we fulfill our commitment to maintain our covenant with God.  The scope and diversity of the mitzvot / commandments delivered in our parashah, Mishpatim (which literally translates as "laws") is are tremendously comprehensive.  As we look through laws that outline our relationships with other human beings, with God, with other elements of creation, like animals and plants, the realization dawns that our tradition is holistic . . . our thoughts, our actions, our aspirations can all be elevated and bring holiness to the world if we turn to the Torah and the covenant for guidance.  "One who steals a man, and has sold him, or he was found in his hand, will be put to death." (Exodus/Sh'mot 21:16)  "And if an ox will gore a man or a woman and they die, the ox shall be stoned, and its meat shall not be eaten--and the ox's owner is innocent.  And if it was a goring ox from the day before yesterday, and it had been so testified to is owner, and he did not watch it, and it killed a man or a woman, the ox will be stoned, and its owner will be put to death as well." (21:28-29)  "You shall not bring up a false report.  Do not join your hand with a wicked person to be a malevolent witness." (23:1)  "And you shall not oppress an alien--since you know the alien's soul, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt." (23:9)  "And six years you shall sow your land and gather its produce; and the seventh: you shall let it lie fallow and leave it, and your people's indigent will eat it.  You shall do this to your vineyard, to your olives." (23:10-11) "You shall not cook a kid in its mother's milk." (23:19)

Few of us in East Greenwich have fields to leave fallow (and anyway, that particular mitzvah is reserved for Jewish-owned fields in Israel) or have to worry about the behavior of our ox.  But the values couched in those ancient middle-eastern realia find expression in our own practices, traditions and standards today.

This past Sunday morning, our third, fourth, and fifth graders, their parents and even a few grandparents gathered at the Frenchtown Road Stop and Shop for a "Mishpatim Moment."  After having studied about kashrut in class with teacher Joie Magnone, our students and parents met at the supermarket to put theory into practice.  Armed with a booklet showing a variety of kosher symbols and a shopping list of ten items to find that sported those symbols, our kosher shoppers took off:  salad dressing, pasta, breakfast cereal, prune juice, crackers, canned peaches . . . we spread through the store collecting kosher non-perishibles.  

Lesson #1 learned:  It's actually pretty easy to eat kosher.  Most of our favorite national brands are kosher!

After checking everyone's basket and purchasing our 10 items per family, we arrived at Lesson #2:  We met Susan Adler, Director of the Jewish Seniors Agency, which runs the Chester Full Plate Kosher Food Pantry.  Sue accepted our kosher offerings with enthusiasm and promised to stock the shelves of the pantry for the over 125 clients of the JSA who are food insecure . . . who do not always know where their next meal is coming from.

Our Mishpatim Moment:  We learned a bit about what kosher food is and how to find it . . . and we got it into onto the tables of those in our community who need it most.

This week's parashah / Torah portion includes one of our people's defining moments:  the revelation at Mount Sinai.

With a real sense of the dramatic, the Torah describes this moment:
"Now Mount Sinai smoked all over, since Adonay had come down upon it in fire; its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace, and all of the mountain trembled exceedingly.  Now the shofar sound was growing exceedingly stronger--Moshe kept speaking, and God kept answering him in the sound." (Sh'mot/Exodus 19:18-19)

I've often tried to imagine what it was like to stand at the bottom of that mountain, hear what our ancestors heard, see what our ancestors saw.  It must have been overwhelming to all the senses . . . intense and awe-filled.

In the summer of 1979, I had the opportunity to travel to the site referred to today as Mount Sinai.  Even though I was engaged as one of four counselors leading 80 teenagers through the Sinai desert, I still had the time to pick up my head and look where we were:  a vast, stark, unchanging landscape.  Not a vestige of fire and smoke, not a hint of thunder, shofar and the voice of God.  The stage was empty.  My surroundings conspired to teach me the limitations of my mortality.

Today the mountain referred to in the travel books as Mount Sinai (the site of the the Santa Katarina Monastery) is indistinguishable from the surrounding mountains in the Sinai wilderness.  If ever the pyrotechnics described in Sh'mot/Exodus did take place on that mountain, if ever God's voice was somehow sensed by the Israelite former slaves huddled at the foot of the mountain, there is no perceptible trace today.  Mount Sinai looks like any other height in that neighborhood of awe-inspiring, beautifully tinted hills.

What a perfect setting for God's definitive collective revelation to an entire people.  The message of that venue is that there is not one locale to which we must return in order to receive God's message to us.  We don't really know which height was the height of Sinai.  There is no trace because we should not be able to trace a path back to that place.  God met us, as a people, in the middle of nowhere because God can be accessible to us in the middle of anywhere.

After taking something of a narrative hiatus in the book of Vayikra/Leviticus (which serves as a handbook for kohanim as the rules and roles of the sacrificial system are put into place and issues of ritual purity and impurity are defined) we are picking up where we left off at the end of the book of Sh'mot/Exodus.  In other words, we are "bamidbar" . . . we are in the wilderness.  Specifically, still camped at the foot of Har Sinai.

Here we see Moshe as camp bus counselor (count the kids as they get on the bus at camp, count the kids when they got off the bus at the amusement park, count the kids when they get back on the bus back to camp . . . ): God turns to Moshe and instructs him to conduct a census, a head count.  "We're breaking camp, packing up, and continuing the journey through the wilderness, Moshe, so make sure you know how many people you've got before you leave."  

Then God delivers instructions further instructions for Aaron and his sons, the tribe of Levi:  "At the breaking of the camp, Aaron and his sons shall go in and take down the screening curtain and cover the Ark of the Covenant with it.  They shall lay a covering of dolphin skin over it and spread a cloth of pure blue on top; and they shall put its poles in place. . . .Then they shall take a blue cloth and cover the lampstand for lighting ...they shall put it and all its furnishings into a covering of dolphin skin, which they shall then place on a carrying frame . . . Next they shall spread a blue cloth over the altar of gold . . . "  (Bamidbar/Numbers, Chapter 4)

The act of packing up is also of significance . . . all the accessories that had been so lovingly crafted in order to initiate the sacrificial system connecting God and Israel are now to be packed up as well, and very specific instructions are given to the tribe of Levi concerning how that packing was to be done.

Just a few weeks ago, we at Torat Yisrael packed up the sacred accessories that had enhanced our worship in Cranston for 60 years:  our sacred scrolls, the white high holy day mantles, the eternal lights and the different sorts of prayer books and bibles we read, the Torah crowns and shields and pointers, the memorial plaques and dedication plaques, the ark curtains and doors and the building full of mezuzot as well . . . .  It was a jarring sight to watch these iconic items taken down, wrapped up, packed into trucks and transported to storage.  I had a strong sense that the kedushah, the sanctity, of each piece was being wrapped up along with the item itself.  These objects cannot be reduced to mere "things."  They are infused with the sanctity of their roles as they cover the scrolls, point to sacred words, adorn the Torah, reflect God's light in our places of prayer. 

Just as the tribe of Levy mindfully wrapped up those items preparing to leave Sinai, we have mindfully wrapped and stored our items in anticipation of the day when our new synagogue building will be dedicated.  Then our Torah scrolls, our Torah pointers and crowns and shields and mantles will be unwrapped and brought into their new home.  Then their kedushah will be released from its wrappings and will be free to infuse our new sacred space with the holiness of our Torah and our kehillah k'doshah, our sacred community.

This week's parashah/Torah portion establishes one of the cornerstones of Jewish tradition:  there are two categories of animals, those that may be consumed and those that shall not be consumed by those who consider themselves to be part of the brit/covenant between God and Israel.
     Not that long ago, "keeping kosher" was normative practice among Jews in the United States.  Jews who today do not maintain kosher kitchens in their homes most probably recall the kosher homes of their parents or grandparents.  Living in a state in which there are no kosher butchers (although Trader Joe's always carries fresh kosher meat and poultry!) and one kosher coffeeshop/bakery (Wildflour Bakery in Pawtucket, yum!), it is clear that a minority of Rhode Island Jews follow kosher guidelines when making decisions about food.
     Last night I had occasion to write in an e-mail to a Torat Yisrael member that it is often the case in the Torah that a mitzvah / commandment is given and no reason is provided.  Thus, Passover, according to the Torah, lasts seven days.  and although we might come up with engaging and inspirational reasons for this number, the bottom line remains that Pesah lasts seven days for the simple reason that God said so.
     Keeping kosher is largely about religious discipline.  It is a statement: all the food God created is healthy, delicious, nourishing . . . but as an expression of the centrality of my Jewishness in my life, I am going to avoid eating pigs and lobsters and veal parmesan.  Here is a place where we might very well expect "God said so" to be the only available reason in the Torah. 
     But Parashat Shemini not only provides criteria for kosher creatures (mammals with cloven hooves that chew their cuds, water creatures with both fins and scales) but we get a reason, too.  Toward the end of the parasha we read:
(vayikra/leviticus 11:44-45) For I am the Lord your God, and you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, because I am holy, and you shall not defile yourselves through any creeping creature that crawls on the ground.  For i am the Lord Who brought you up from the Land of Egypt to be your God.  Thus you shall be holy because I am holy.
     Here we are given to understand that accepting the discipline of kashrut endows us with holiness.  i find this to be an astounding and energizing concept:  holiness is not exclusively a divine state, it is an attainable goal for human beings as well.
     In traditional parlance, a Jewish congregation is referred to as a kehillah k'doshah, as a holy congregation.  I believe that our Torat Yisrael community, on the verge of leaving our 60 year old building in Cranston and preparing to settle in East Greenwich is very much a kehillah k'doshah, a holy community.  We express this in innumerable ways: we support the hungry in our state through our partnership with the Edgewood Food Pantry in the Church of the Transfiguration on Broad Street and our support of the Chester Kosher Food Closet; we support the homeless in our state through our annual Kosher Christmas Dinner for the Rhode Island Family Shelter; we are committed to the perpetuation of the covenant between God and Israel through our outstanding Torat Tots, Yeladon and Cohen Religious School; we deepen the Jewish spiritual and intellectual journeys of our members through our services and Torah study.  We declare our commitment to striving for that exalted k'dushah / holiness that God offers us through our adherence to the system of Kashrut.
     The insights of this week's parashah are a gift: by the simple, accessible means of choosing eggplant parmesan over veal parmesan we can take a step towards human holiness: a gift of an eternally accessible opportunity to us as individuals and to us as a kehillah k'doshah, a holy congregation.