This week I'm writing about what the weekly parashah/Torah reading is not about!  This final passage in the book of Sh'mot / Exodus describes the finishing touches to the priestly vestments.  Moses checks that everything has been prepared according to God's instructions and God's presence fills the Tabernacle for the first time.  All is ready for the establishment of the sacrificial cult, kohein/priest-driven, which will serve as the focal point of Israelite worship until the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 CE.

If ever there was Jewish clergy, in the sense of an intercessor between God and the people, who facilitated atonement, who held exclusive authority to perform rites and wear specific vestments it was the kohanim, the priests, the male descendents of Aaron.  If all of Israelite experience, up until the destruction of the Second Temple, had centered around the sacrificial cult, there would be no Judaism, which is rabbinic  Judaism, today.  The Temple would have been destroyed and without the focal point of that sacrificial system, the Israelites would easily have been dispersed and absorbed into the surrounding cultures of the Roman Empire around them.

So what saved us?  What was the safety net that caught us when the Temple fell?

The saving grace of our people was a populist movement that had begun to develop almost two centuries before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem:  the rabbinic movement had begun.  The existence of scholars who were not kohanim/priests is extraordinary in a general culture in which the leaders of pagan cultic worship held the esoteric texts and practices of their faiths in closely guarded, limited circles.  The general population had no access to the most sacred texts and instructions.

But in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses decrees that everyone, men, women, children, will all have direct access to the Torah, the Instruction of God:

Everyone needs to learn, everyone needs direct access to the Torah.  Extraordinary.

Those who came together to study and discuss Torah, while the Temple in Jerusalem still stood, were a populist movement.  The Torah describes these men: wealthy and poor, landowners and shoemakers, with one thing in common: a commitment to exploring the depths of the Torah and making sure that the precepts of the Torah were being faithfully followed in a location and culture and economy significantly different from the place and language and culture and economy of the nomadic wandering generations who were present at Sinai.  These scholars asked each other questions:  What does this word mean now?  How do we fulfill this mitzvah in this time and place?  How do we integrate this piece of new realia into the framework of the Torah?

It is a conversation that continues until this very day on many levels . . . including, and most important, among "the men and the women and the infants", not just the scholars, not just the rabbis, but everyone who is part of the community.

There are lots of Jewish "things to do" . . . pray, give tzedakah/charity, support the institutions of the Jewish community, support one another through illness and bereavement, chose to keep the dietary laws of kashrut . . . but the Mishnah (the earliest layer of rabbinic text redacted in the 2nd century CE) declares that תלמוד תורה כנגד כולם / Talmud Torah kneged kulam / the study of Torah stands equally with all the other Jewish practices and observes combined.  It's a bold statement.  The traditional understanding has been that it is through the study of Torah that we will learn how and why and be inspired to pray, give tzedakah, support the community, take part in the community and deepen our individual Jewish identities.

The world of Jewish learning covers as wide a spectrum as the human experience itself . . . jewish learning leads to Jewish living.  And Jewish living also covers a wide spectrum of identity and lifestyle and commitment.

It is for these reasons that the members of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode Island is offering our first public event: an evening of eclectic Jewish learning.  Drash and Dessert.  "Drash" is the Hebrew term for the exploration and interpretation of Torah.  "Dessert", well that's self-explanatory:  Jews come together and there has to be food, yes?

We are proud and inspired by the wide variety of topics on offer at our Drash and Dessert event tomorrow evening after Shabbat.  Whether you have sent in an rsvp or not, we hope you will join us.  Click here to see the full program including time table and descriptions of our 14 different study sessions involving 16 members of our Board of Rabbis!

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.

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:

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 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.

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.

This opening verses of this week's Torah reading / parashah present a core principle of Jewish tradition that, truthfully, has confused many people for a long time:

"And Moses assembled all of the congregation of the children of Israel and said to them, "These are the things that Adonay has commanded, to do them:  Six days work shall be done, and in the seventh day you shall have a holy thing, a Sabbath, a ceasing to Adonay.  Anyone who does work in it shall be put to death.  You shall not burn a fire in all of your homes on the Sabbath day."  (Exodus / Sh'mot 35: 1-3)

The passage then continues in a direction we would not expect.  Instead of continuing to define "work," instead of listing the activities that are "holy enough" for Shabbat, we move on to a mitzvah/commandment directed to our Israelite ancestors in the wilderness to collect certain rare and expensive items to donate to the construction of the Tabernacle: the walls, the accessories, the priestly garments, the food items to be sacrificed . . . 

The effect of this "turn without signalling" has been to spark the rabbinic imagination.  A 2nd century rabbinic text, the Mishnah, connects the two passages and concludes that the "work" that is prohibited in verse 2 is defined by the human activities required to construct and create all of the pieces of the Tabernacle described in the ensuing verses.  Thus, building, hammering, planting and sowing, creating fire, cooking, carrying items back and forth, weaving, cutting to measure . . . all of these become prohibited as "work" on Shabbat.

There is another derivation of "work" that is hinted at in verse 2: just as the seventh day was a day of "ceasing" to God--in Genesis/Breishit God rests on the seventh day after creating light and dark, dry land and oceans, plants, animals, stars and moon and humanity--so the seventh day should be a day of "ceasing" from creating for human beings as well.

What is it that we humans create?  Our human endeavors, over the ages, have largely been focussed on providing food, clothing and shelter for ourselves and our loved ones.  It is certainly the case that today, few of us are directly engaged in wielding a hammer, weeding a vegetable garden or cutting a sewing pattern . . . and when we are, it is more often a hobby or personal passion than a direct, compelling imperative to put clothing on our backs, food on our tables and a secure roof over our heads.

In today's complex economy, we provide food, clothing and shelter for our families by going to work and earning a paycheck and by shopping.

It may be physically challenging to carry a carton of books from the basement to the attic, but it isn't "work" in the Shabbat sense . . . that act of "shlepping" is not contributing to the creation of food, clothing or shelter.  It may provide a sense of peace and accomplishment to pull out our knitting on Shabbat afternoon . . . but knitting is a human activity that literally creates clothing and, as such, is an activity proscribed by this definition of Shabbat.

Why bother?
For the majority of us, who have not made the commitment to turn to Jewish law / halachah to guide our actions, why should we turn the week's most convenient errand day into a day that produces no progress in the "food, clothing, shelter" department?

The rabbis of 2000 years ago suggested that Shabbat can be "a taste of the world to come."  If we were to project ourselves into an existence where all that toil and worry about food, clothing and shelter were no longer necessary, what would our lives look like?  No wallets.  No watches.  No ATMs. . . . an existence infused with peace and health and security and time to bask in the presence of our loved ones.  

That is the potential of a "work-free" Saturday . . . a weekly opportunity to taste the world that might be.

Our congregation's move to East Greenwich engages us in the life of the greater East Greenwich community more fully than in previous years, when we were still rooted in Cranston.  The faith community here in East Greenwich is a mutually respectful and supportive coalition of houses of worship in town.  We saw this ourselves when the clergy of several East Greenwich churches wrote letters on our behalf to the East Greenwich Zoning Board and came to testify at a number of Zoning Board meetings as well.
     My clergy colleagues in these churches have told me that together their congregations sustain and maintain an Interfaith Food Cupboard housed at St. Luke's Episcopal Church on Peirce Street.  This is a model of community cooperation with which we are familiar through our participation in and support of the Edgewood Food Pantry housed at the Church of the Transfiguration on Broad Street in Cranston.
     East Greenwich enjoys a reputation as a beautiful town with affluent residents and a superb public school system.  This is a hard-earned and well-deserved reputation.  There is another side to East Greenwich from which many of us are sheltered:  there are hungry adults and children in town who the professionals call "food insecure."  That means they do not always know if there will be a next meal, let alone where it is coming from.
     Chris and Steve Bartlett, who run the EG Interfaith Food Cupboard at St Luke's have reported that in July alone 256 individuals received food from the Cupboard, and this includes 21 new families who had never turned to the EG facility for this support in the past.
     This coming Shabbat is referred to in our calendar as Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Consolation.  The consolation is God's response to us on the loss of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 AD at the hands of the Roman Empire.  The loss posed a fundamental theological challenge to Judaism, as it was through the korbanot, the sacrifices at the Temple that Israel drew closer to God and atoned for their transgressions.  In an early rabbinic gloss on the Mishnah (Avot d'Rabi Natan 4:5) Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai consoles a colleague who is mourning the loss of the Temple.  Rabbi Yohanan says:  Be not grieved, my son.  There is another equally meritorious way of gaining atonement even though the Temple is destroyed.  We can still gain atonement through deeds of lovingkindness. For it is written (Hosea 6:6): "Lovingkindess I desire, not sacrifice."
     
Our consolation, at this distance of two thousand years, should also be expressed through acts of lovingkindness.  I hope you will all take a moment during the summer weeks that remain to drop off non-perishable food at our TY house for all three of our food-support projects: the Edgewood Food Closet, the Chester Kosher Food Pantry, and our East Greenwich Interfaith Food Cupboard.  You can designate where you want the food to go, or you can leave it to Beverly Goncalves, our Social Action Chair, to divide up the food and pass it on to those who deliver it.


Here is some basic information about the EG project:
East Greenwich Interfaith Food Cupboard

 The Interfaith Food Cupboard, located in St Luke’s Parish house on Peirce Street, is open from 10:30 AM -12:00 noon each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The service is available to any East Greenwich resident, member of an East Greenwich congregation, referral from a clergy or someone in need of emergency food.   We are currently asking for donations of the following food products: canned ham, chicken or fish, cereal, oatmeal, canned fruit, soups, pasta sauce, juice and juice boxes, jam/jelly and crackers. Other products that we always need include staples like cooking oil, mayonnaise, salad dressing, mustard, sugar, flour, coffee, tea, etc.     If you would like to make a cash donation rather than food, your check can be sent to your clergy or directly to the EGIFC.  We have a very dedicated volunteer staff and on their behalf, we thank you for your support of the East Greenwich Interfaith Food Cupboard.      Chris and Steve Bartlett