Pinchas 5769: Throwing out the trash

Yes folks, I know I'm still a week behind. I'll be posting an old posting for this week shortly, and will have a new piece for D'varim. --Shlomo

In the wake of the Baal-Peor incident, Pinchas is promised the job of high priest.

11. Pinchas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the people of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the people of Israel in my jealousy.12. Therefore say, Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace; 13. And he shall have it, and his seed after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the people of Israel. [Numbers 25]

Pinchas as it may be remembered stopped a plague that was killing the people because of their straying from God and worshipping Baal-Peor. His solution was pointed: a well known man, Zimri, a prince of the tribe of Simon, was doing rather obscene things in front of the Mishkan with a Midianite princess, while some were crying to God.

7. And when Pinchas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand;8. And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague ceased from the people of Israel. 9. And those who died in the plague were twenty four thousand. [Numbers 25]

The brutality of this act and it s significance seems odd to reward. How are we to think of this act? I came up with one solution in an odd place: my upcoming move to a new apartment. After living in the same place for sixteen years, I'm now moving. When I was younger, I tended to move once every three years, no where seemed to be a comfortable home for me. But when I moved where I live now, I stayed. After thirteen years, a lot of stuff ended up in my small studio. There is of course my rathere extensive library, which took 42 boxes to pack. There is always stuff that gets under other thing like beds and shelves. Then there is the stuff that accumulates in drawers. The net result is every time I think I finished in one area I find more things to do underneath it. This can of course be very frustrating.
I of course have two options. One is to take all that stuff as it is now and move it. This would mean moving extra stuff I don’t need and may not even want. But there is a second idea – throw stuff out. There are a lot of my clothes in my closet that don’t fit me anymore. In my electronics drawers I have 9-pin serial connectors, which fit no computers made today. There was dried up paint and broken sculpture from my early attempts at art. Since I’m moving in with the love of my life, there really is no need anymore for that whole bookshelf of dating books either. Such stuff of course has no real use. So instead of wasting my time packing it and moving it, I threw it out or donated it.
The key to doing so is not having to move it, it’s not having to deal with it in the new apartment. Having uncomfortable clothes around means I can waste storage space and also wear uncomfortable clothing. The 15 year old VCR doesn’t even have the right connections to hookup to my television anymore. Why keep it around?
It is interesting to note this will be the last time we will hear of the people dying en masse in Torah. The attack on Midian will incur no casualties. Starting with Numbers 26, the tone of Torah changes. It is no longer about wandering in the desert but about moving in to the new neighborhood. It is therefore reasonable to believe the last of the first generation, the generation of the spies, were among the 24,000 who died in this plague. God removed the junk before moving into the land.
Now for some that seems heartless, but I often look at such passages about the Israelites not as a people but as thoughts in our minds. And here again is something important I’ve been thinking about my move. There are a lot of old habits and ways of thinking that were once important in my current apartment and my current life. Some were not important but did also become habit. In my new place, they will become problematic. I am no longer coming home to an empty house but for the first time in my life to someone else I love very deeply. I cannot come home at 9:00PM from work anymore, nor eat out every night. My patterns will need to change to reflect the new reality of my life.
We all have such things, many times to the change in someone else and not in ourselves. The classic of course is the parent who treats their college grad son or daughter like they are still five years old. It’s hard to break such patterns but to make relationships work, we must be able to break and bend such things.
Sometimes it takes one small effort to realize our thinking is faulty. There is one story in the Talmud that the reason the first goblet was broken at a wedding was a party for a great Rabbi’s son was getting out of control. The crash of the 400 dinar goblet brought everyone to their sense again. The plague ended because the death of Zimiri and Cozbi at the hands of Pinchas woke everyone out of their trance of faulty thinking. Suddenly they realized what they were dong and that it was wrong. God was going to kill anyone doing wrong in the Plague, but those that repented were spared. The death of two by someone other than God brought everyone to their senses. It takes a shattering moment to realize what we really need to do.
In a change of any kind there are moments which you realize the change is real and true and embrace it. One of mine came from a very little thing actually. It was a graphics tablet I had for years, stuffed into a desk I rarely use. Looking at the plug I realized it was a 9-pin serial connector, which hasn’t existed on most computer systems for quite a long time. There was a lot of the old me in that desk along with that graphics tablet. Most of what was in that desk is no longer in my apartment but a dumpster. In throwing it out I changed too, I threw out the old me who used such stuff instead of talking to people. I need to be a loving caring human being now, not some shy geek behind a computer screen. For Pinchas it was a javelin or spear, for some it may be a painful argument, for me right now it’s a trash bag. So I’m getting rid of the old me so, I can look to the bright future ahead of me.
Though Pinchas needed only one spear, I think I might need a lot more trash bags.

Hukkat Balak 5769: Blessings and curses?

This week, we have a double portion, and a lot of story, but there are a few episodes I’d like to highlight. In Hukkat, Miriam dies, which starts the people complaining there's no water. Moses in a hissy fit strikes a rock instead of talking to it like God wants. God responds by telling Moses that he's never going to set foot in Israel for that stunt. Later the people will not complain about water, but dig their own wells.
Then in Parshat Balak, King Balak of Moab has watched all of his neighbors go down to defeat militarily at the hands of the Israelites. Realizing military solutions are a bad idea, he sends envoys to the greatest magician in the area, Balaam, to curse the advancing Israelites. After some odd adventures, Balaam meets up with Balak, and sets up the curse. Three times in a row, the curse ends up as a blessing, the most famous being “ma tovu” and Balak is furious. The only thing that actually seems to slow down is another suggestion by Balaam. The Midianite women seduce many of the Israelites, including senior officials, to start worshipping Baal-Peor. God gets upset with this and starts a plague. One such tasteless coupling happens in front of the Mishkan, in sight of a shocked Moses and congregation. Aaron’s Grandson Pinchas gets up, grabs a javelin and runs them through, ending the plague.
 
This is a week late for a reason. I haven't been in the best of moods to write this, because I was in an auto accident. While I’m uninjured, my car wasn’t. After a lot dealing with auto body people, tow truck companies and insurance companies, I’m rather rattled.  Then there is the “should have” thing that keeps running in my head. I keep thinking when I decided to get into the car I should have gone with my first idea of taking the bus.  It’s not very inspiring to write this. Then I remembered some words of a rather disappointed Balak talking to his hired spiritual gun Balaam

11. And Balak said to Balaam, What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and, behold, you have blessed them. [Numbers 23]

Such is not a new phenomenon. When god first talks to Abraham, we read:

1. And the Lord had said to Abram, Get out from your country, and from your family, and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you; 2. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing; 3. And I will bless those who bless you, and curse him who curses you; and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.

What is considered a blessing or what a curse. Can we really tell which is which? A Zen parable describes a farmer who once has a series of events, some fortunate and some unfortunate. While his neighbors all make judgments of whether it is fortunate or unfortunate, all the framer says is “could be”
 
I’m still rattled by the accident. Dealing with body shops, tow companies and insurance companies seem out only out to victimize and exploit those who were in the accident,a long drawn out affair to get back to normal seems a curse in my mind.  Was it? It is indeed a blessing there was no real injuries, or loss of life. Not having my car for a few weeks is a curse. There may yet be a blessing in this, that I was not in another accident somewhere else which could have been life threatening. I cannot know.
 
Yet I think of another event that may have been a curse for some. For me, it is the greatest blessing bestowed on me, an answer to a prayer I made at the Wall in Jerusalem. The weekend after Christmas last year, a freak snowstorm shut down a large city that rarely sees snow. Someone who rarely checks their e-mail who I knew twenty years ago sent me a birthday greeting, and I sent a thank you back. Since she was trapped at home and bored, she wrote me back. We wrote each other five times that day. The next day, three times, the next two days very long letters about Hebrew and Aramaic. Then we had a chat via Facebook on my birthday, and more e-mails over the next week while I was on vacation. By the end of the next weekend, we were calling each other daily. We have every day since then. Sweetie’s moving in with me next month.  The love of my life never would have happened if not for the curse of a snowstorm.
 
Curses and blessing are not absolute, but a matter of perspective. I can think that Insurance companies, auto body shops and the like are also blessings: I don’t have to fix my own car. I’d still like my car back, but eventually that will happen too. Balak got it wrong: cursing doesn’t make a good weapon, they can become a blessing far too easily.

The Israelites learned this with water as well. When Miriam dies, their source of water died with her. But later in the text not having Miriam or Moses give them water led them to finding their own. The curse of losing a constant supply meant the blessing of learned skills to find water everywhere.
 
May you find many blessings in your life.

Korah 5769: What's my place?

This week we have more rebellion in the camp. Right after the debacle of the spies and being condemned to exile in the wilderness for forty years, a Levite and relative of Moses, Korah, leads a rebellion against Moses. This is no armed rebellion however; Korah actually convinces a lot of the prominent people in the community to confront Moses on an Issue:

You have gone too far, for all the community are holy, all of them, and the lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourself above the Lord's congregation?"[Num 16:3]

Why are only the priesthood allowed to perform sacrifices? If all the people are holy, why can't everybody? From a modern viewpoint, this seems like a perfectly valid argument. Why a theocracy, with Aaron and his male descendants being the only ones who can make offerings? How can a nation of priests not perform priestly duties?

We have to remember it was less than a year from this incident when Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu were fried alive by the Ark for offering an "alien fire" in their incense pans [Lev 10]. They didn’t follow proper procedures and they died. Both Moses and Aaron are all too aware of what happens if you do the wrong thing in the Mishkan.

Moses nonetheless lets them try their hand, although he's all too aware of what’s to happen. Like Moses’ nephews before them, the conspirators are fried alive. Korah and the chief conspirators are swallowed up by the Earth. The only exception is the sons of Korah, who not only knew their place, but according to the Talmud were practicing their place at the time:

The sons of Korah did not die. A Tanna taught: It has been said on the authority of Moses our Master: A place was set apart for them in the Gehenna, where they sat and sang praises [to God].[Sanh 110a]

The sons of Korah were musicians, and they knew it. So instead of aspiring to other things they could not have done, they sang. Everyone has a calling. Some are musicians, some builders like Betzalel, some warriors like Joshua, some are priests like Aaron and Elezar and Pinchas. The conspirators in this rebellion see that they are good managers, so they think they can be good leaders too. Leadership is fraught with many dilemmas that managers don’t have to deal with. Leadership expert Peter Drucker said it best. Mangers do things right, Leaders do the right thing. There's a big difference there. When a Leader doesn't do the right thing, other people suffer- sometimes the whole organization gets swallowed up by the earth.

I spent the last week thinking about that. I realized last week how many hats I do wear. I am an artist, photographer, food safety consultant, health educator, quality assurance auditor, social media expert, educational psychologist, computer support tech, instructional designer, blogger, biblical historian, Jewish scholar, kashrut expert and spiritual pundit. These just the things that I consider professional. What really were Korah’s talents? Numbers 3:31 tells us of the responsibilities of the Kohathites, of which Korah was one.

And their charge shall be the ark, and the table, and the lampstand, and the altars, and the utensils of the sanctuary with which they minister, and the screen, and all its service.[Numbers 3:31]

The Kohathites then, were in charge of the most sensitive stuff in the temple, carrying the sanctuary to the place they were to camp, and quickly set it up before the people arrive [Num 10]. The Gersonites and Merarites were in charge of mere construction materials: walls and outer curtains. Korah had some of the most important jobs of all out side of the Levites. He had little to complain about, with a rather elite role already. Yet it was a backstage role, and he may have wanted that front stage role Of Aaron.
Nowhere in Numbers 3 does it mention who sings in the Temple. The Sons of Korah singing psalms is also remarkable as there is nowhere that God mentions one set of Levites to be Musicians. They too went past their appointed role, yet somehow survived. The difference between their father and themselves was a small but important one. They knew who they were. They were musicians and understood that calling and used it constructively. How they figured it out one cannot know, but in the putting together of the tabernacle, they knew Singing for them was Life.

Like me, we may all do a lot of things, all with a thread of who we truly are underneath. Hidden in many of the things we do are some of our own identity and who we need to truly be, to be a spared and blessed as Korah’s sons were, and not thrown into Sheol like Korah. The trick is to find what they are and weave them together to form a cohesive whole.

I spent last week with a lot of fascinating people and places, which is why this was late. One was a former pediatrician, another one was a litigation attorney. A scientist, a health educator, and a lot of passionate health inspectors also made me think. What they all made me think about was a simple question, the one Korah never asked: Who am I really? What do my skills and abilities and personality lead me to do? How did these people get to where they are today?
With all my talents and new ones I acquire every day, I’m still looking to find my place and to stand on it like Korah’s sons. But I know it can be done, not by knocking off any of those people, and standing in their lime light, but in creating my own place, my own calling, and standing in it.


May we all hear our inner calling.

Shelach Lecha 5769: My next thirty years.

This week we have the well known portion of the spies, who instead of bringing back a good report of the land bring back one full of fear. When the people believe them, and want to go back to Egypt, God punishes them by the 40 years wandering in the desert. For me however, Shelach Lecha has another meaning: it is my Bar mitzvah portion. This year it has been 30 years since I read that portion.
There are lots of memories of that day. Mine was far from the ostentatious parties or elaborate synagogues of many young people. Indeed I didn’t even have a Bar mitzvah speech. I was far too shy to do so. But I remember studying. I remember the events leading up to this day, some of them not pleasant ones. But the day itself and the weekend was wonderful. It was the first and only time I would have all of my grandparents at my home, instead of visiting them. I will always remember my grandfather’s davvening during services, in that gravely Ashkenazi pronunciation. Our synagogue, was a converted garage, we has a plain building and sat on metal folding chairs. I got up there and sang my maftir and haftarah. I remember little of the party afterwards, but remember the family get-together the next day where my youngest cousin tried to sell the leftovers of the previous day’s party to everyone.
It was not long afterwards that I began to turn away from Judaism. I had prepared for My Bar mitzvah in an Orthodox Hebrew School, though only going on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My unobservant ways were looked down by the other students, with encouragement of the teachers. I was a second class citizen in this environment. It was one of the last straws to make me look for somewhere that seemed more connected to God than to one’s pride of doing mitzvot. Like many Jews I went towards Buddhism and Taoism.
So it was an irony that I finally wrote that bar mitzvah speech twenty years after my bar mitzvah. To celebrate my 20th anniversary of my bar mitzvah I did not just read a memorized maftir again, but this time translated it on the fly. The shy boy in the powder blue suit had been replaced with a far more exuberant character. I gave a D’var that day that talked about the blessings in my life, my Promised Land. I wrote on that day of sending a spy not into the Promised Land of space but into time. He would travel from June 1979 to June 1999, and report back on my life in the future. There would be many of my blessings of course, including my return to Judaism, my living in Downtown Chicago, and my master’s degree in Education. But there is Amalek there too. Like the Spies whotold the Israelites of the people of the land seemed unconquerable, my spy into the future would have to tell of some of the darker parts of my life. I understood the spies and their fear back then, the thirteen year old me would have been terrified if he knew what he would have to endure. I’m still terrified remembering it.
That 20-year late Bar Mitzvah speech was a beginning for me. It lit something under me to write. Three years later, I started Shlomo’s Drash, and close to every week I crank another one of these out. In the last ten years I’ve gone from barely knowing Hebrew to translating both Hebrew and Aramaic. I’ve gotten my Master’s Degree in Jewish studies. I’ve had some downturns, such as the loss of my Grandparents, but nothing that was traumatic. I’m a scholar, an artist and can pick my way around a guitar. Life is good.
Of all the biblical characters, Joshua has stood out for me. While there are other instances of Joshua showing up in Torah, it is here where the story is more his and not Moses’. Here he is a spy. In the haftarah, 38 years later, he is the leader sending out spies. For the last ten years, the midrash on Joshua has fascinated me. There is one, which tells that Joshua’s confidence in taking the Promised Land is discounted because he is single and has no family. Nowhere in Torah does it say Joshua married. It is left to the rabbis to come up with that story. So it was only when I was able to read Aramaic that I found out that not only did Joshua marry and have a few daughters who would be the mother of the late prophets like Jeremiah, but he also married the sexiest, most powerful woman in the Region: Rahab of Jericho.
But Joshua’s beginnings present some interesting challenges for Midrash as well. We read in this week’s portion:

8. From the tribe of Ephraim, Oshea the son of Nun.[Numbers 13]

And a few verses later we find

16. These are the names of the men which Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Joshua. [Numbers 13]

It would seem that this is when Moses changed Joshua’s name. However, there are several time when we find that not to be the case, including not long after the Israelites cross the Red Sea.

8. Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.
9. And Moses said to Joshua, Choose for us men, and go out, fight with Amalek; tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand. [Exodus 17]

Later in Exodus, we wil read:

11. And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he turned again into the camp; but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not from the Tent.[Exodus 33]

Joshua was named Joshua before the episode of the spies. Rabbinic lore tells that the letter yud in Sarai, which was lost when God changed her name to Sarah, was given to Joshua. Yet the chronology does not exist here either.
The Zohar, however, believes Joshua’s renaming did happen at the time of the spies

AND MOSES CALLED HOSHEA THE SON OF NUN JOSHUA: As much as to say: May God save thee from them!’ R. Abba said: ‘As he was being sent for the purpose of entering the land, it was requisite that he should be perfect, to wit, through the Shekinah, for up to that time he had been called “a lad”, and therefore Moses joined the Shekinah with him. And though we find the name Joshua before this in the text (e.g. Ex. XVII, 9; XXXIII, 11), it is there used in anticipation.’[ Bemidbar, III, 158b]

The yud is also a letter of God’s name and thus the addition made Joshua a more holy person, to counteract the evil report of the ten spies. Yud also is the letter ten, again reflecting on those ten spies. Yud is the letter that makes the fire Aish of immaturity, into a man ish.
The Zohar believes that he was called a lad in previous portions, and this was to prepare him to be an adult. The word for lad is also the word for servant. This name change also changed the character of Joshua. In the previous cases he was a servant, and did Moses’ bidding. From this point on, he is his own man, the one who will cross the Jordan into the land.
It may be a stretch, But Joshua changed from a person of obedience to a person of responsibility in this reading. While we cannot tell Joshua’s age, Moses may very well have been at the very first bar mitzvah – that of Joshua’s.
It is a wonderful thought to share this day with Joshua. Thirty years later from my own Bar Mitzvah so much has changed, and the sweetest has occurred. Like Joshua when he crossed the Jordan to Jericho, He found his perfect match. I too have found mine. Sweetie has none of the past nor the dubious profession of Rahab, but in the tradition of wise strong women, she stands along Rahab, Asnat, and Ruth.
With her with me, I’d love to see what the next thirty years will look like.

Parshat Behaalotecha 5769: Mom’s Retirement

This week, a lot goes on in Torah. Yet there is one obscure passage brought up during a Torah discussion that was rather timely,

23. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 24. This is it what concerns the Levites: from twenty five years old and upward they shall go in to wait upon the service of the Tent of Meeting; 25. And from the age of fifty years they shall cease waiting upon its service, and shall serve no more; 26. But shall minister with their brothers in the Tent of Meeting, to guard the charge, and shall do no service. Thus shall you do to the Levites concerning their charge. [Numbers 8]

Much of the discussion surrounded the mandatory retirement age of fifty. Much of the conversation surrounded the idea of a mandatory retirement. But much of the conversation made an assumption, based on the idea of a western view of retirement. The western view is that when one retires one stops working completely and lives a life of leisure. This however is not reflected in this text,. Levites will stop in doing the tasks of worship but will continue to guard the charge. But what do we mean by guard? Are they not able to do service but are able to stand sentry duty?
The verbal root SH-M-R used here had many meanings, including to guard, to keep, and to observe. I don’t believe sentry duty is what is meant here. The Aramaic translations, known as Targums, have the word l’mitar. The root here, N-T-R has meanings closely related to Sh-M-R. MaTaR also means to drip or to rain. The N-T-R root also has one more meaning: to preserve. Looking at the rain outside dripping down some trees, I was reminded of the beginning of the Perkei Avot:

Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the men of the great assembly. The latter used to say three things: be patient in [the administration of] justice, rear many disciples and make a fence round the Torah. [Avot 1:1]

A tree collects rain and drips it down to the saplings below, allowing them to grow. So too does Moses drip the Oral Law down to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders. The fence around Torah is that same oral law, transmitted and evaluated by each generation. In every aspect of life there are things that are not written down. Someone often orally transmits them to the next generation. When that does not happen, the subtle knowledge of hope to do something is lost.
Later in the Perkei Avot we read a famous schedule of the stages of life.

He used to say: five years [is the age] for [the study of] scripture, ten-for [the study of] Mishnah, thirteen-for [becoming subject to] commandments, fifteen-for [the study of] Talmud, eighteen- for the [bridal] canopy, twenty — for pursuing, thirty-for [full] strength, forty — for understanding, fifty- for [ability to give] counsel…[Avot 5:21]

One can quibble with the time table of course, though this is one of the two places in Mishnah where the age of a bar mitzvah is mentioned. The rabbis here too, linking our verse to the life of everyone, claim that it is at fifty one is able to counsel others. Retirement is not ending one’s work life; it is entering a new stage. A verse from Psalms reads:

34. Give me understanding, and I shall keep your Torah; I shall guard it with my whole heart. [ps119]

Up through forty everything we do contributes to our understanding of Torah and life. It is at fifty, the retirement age we become a sage. It is then we use our knowledge to preserve the tradition through the three saying of the Great Assembly: judging the law, teaching it to as many we can, and guarding the fences of that tradition.
While the actual age is not important, there is a point in our lives we change from a worker to a sage. The Torah forbid priests who were fifty and older from making sacrifices, but they were there to make sure all the active priests did it right. It was that D’var Torah I gave the day after that Torah discussion, at my Mom’s retirement party. After many years of work, she’s decided to stop doing the 40-hour daily grind. To celebrate that event we had a party of family and close friends. Up until the party I had nothing to say, but on the way to the party I thought about the retirement of the Levite, and gave this short D’var Torah. But then I noted something else. Shlomo’s Drash could not have existed without her. The resources and knowledge in this weekly column came from her efforts. I had the desire and put in a lot of work to learn Hebrew, Aramaic, Tanach, Mishnah and Targum, but finding the ways to fund that education was all her.
She’s beginning a new part of her life now. It is not just sitting around enjoying a leisurely life. It is a lot of taking time to steer grandkids in the ethical and spiritual directions she herself has mastered. Parents are often too busy or too often thought the disciplinarian. Grandma and Grandpa are different, and can do things parents can’t. She’s the one who now tells the stories of the family, to drip them down to the next generation. She’s going to be there to give advice on the many things she is such an expert at to me and the rest of our family.
In my forties, I’m still struggling to gain understanding, I’m far from the stage she is now. She and I will share travel together and I will cherish every moment of her wisdom and understanding during those trips. There’s so much left for me to learn.
So I dedicate this Drash to My mom. Thanks Mom for everything and for everything yet to come.

Naso 5769: Alien thoughts

One of the odd things about the scheduling strangeness in the triennial cycle I wrote of last week is a first for Shlomo’s Drash. For the next couple of weeks, the Torah Reading at my synagogue occurs before I write the Drash for that portion. Thus there are Torah discussion days before I sit down to the keyboard, and so others have given me a lot of ideas. Yet where I take it is of course my own invention.
Last week the discussion was based on a rather small passage in Torah:

1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying 2. Command the people of Israel, that they take out of the camp every leper, and every one who has a bodily discharge, and whoever is defiled by the dead 3. Both male and female shall you take out, outside the camp shall you take them; that they defile not their camps, in the midst of which I dwell. 4. And the people of Israel did so, and took them out outside the camp; as the Lord spoke to Moses, so did the people of Israel.

In my public health role, I understand the literal text. Set up a quarantine of those temporarily affected by something that makes them impure. Those with the skin disease Tzaarat, those who have a sexually transmitted disease, and those who have been handling corpses do run a high risk of transmission of disease to others. All of these are spelled out in detail in the book of Leviticus between Chapter 12 to 15.
The question most people in the discussion were answering was: what kind of God would shun from his presence those in most need of help of some kind? But to ask that question begs another I have mentioned before: what kind of God promises 600,000 men of military age that they will live in a land of milk and honey then proceeds to take the entire book of Numbers killing off all of them, including their leader Moses, so that only two of their number enter? Something else must be going on here.
God did not promise an individual, but a people. In that sense, God kept his promise. It is a collective, B'nei Yisrael, that God promised, not a set of individuals. One can represent that collective not just as a group of people but a psyche as well. The book of numbers is a story which gives us a roadmap of personal transformation from a slave state to a free one. If that is the case, what does this passage have to do with personal transformation?
We need to look at the context of Naso. The story here is the setting up of the first God encounter after Sinai. The people make the Mishkan operational with a series of laws, actions, commitments and sacrifices. At the end of this series of offerings, we read:

89. And when Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with him, then he heard the voice of one speaking to him from the covering that was upon the ark of Testimony, from between the two cherubim; and he spoke to him.

Moses would hear God’s voice from above the ark, between the two figures known as. This is the Goal therefore of Naso, to set up the divine encounter. We have no more sacrifices since the destruction of the temple. Instead we have prayer. Prayer opens that connection between man and God. As Abraham Joshua Heschel noted many people do not understand prayer, thinking it’s only about asking God for things. It’s more than that; it’s making a personal connection between us and the divine. “Prayer does not save us”, Heschel said, “but makes us worthy of saving.” There are two parts to that connection, like in any conversation. There is a set of rituals and texts to read to accomplish this, the keva. It is the Kavvanah, the intention and effort put into prayer which is the metaphorical reason for the taking all these taamei, or unclean people out of the camp.
For many prayers such as the Amidah, a deep sense of concentration is needed. The Talmud wants intense concentration, so much so that

Even if a king greets him [while praying] he should not answer him: even if a snake is wound round his heel he should not break off. [Ber 30b]

When one meditates or prays there are those odd thought which don’t belong there. It might be “my leg itches” or “what’s for lunch.” Often one finds the mind wandering. A snake is a small distraction compared to those inner, alien thoughts. Trying to make them go away makes the situation worse.
The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism believed that the alien thoughts contained at their core a holy element, a divine spark. During prayer any alien thought we have is not to be shunned, but healed and cleaned of the crud that made it fall from heaven in the first place. The Baal Shem Tov speaks of healing the thought, not shunning it. Oddly enough to shun it only makes it stronger, and more of a distraction. The taamei in the congregation are the alien thoughts to the whole of Israel. Their afflictions will be of the self, not of the group.
I remember a few years ago, my mom was concerned about how often her thoughts wandered in prayer. At the time I explained to her alien thoughts. I pointed out noticing she was wandering in her thoughts was a step in the right direction. Many people are so routed in their alien thoughts the genuine thoughts are lost. Even sadder is they are not even aware of it. There is a Hasidic story about the Seer of Lublin who had a man ask him how to get rid of alien thoughts. The man then enumerated his alien thoughts one by one in a large list. The Seer replied, “Well they are not so alien, they seem quite at home there.” Until we identify the alien thoughts as alien we cannot go to the next step of healing them.
I’m not immune to alien thoughts; I have then all the time. Either in prayer or meditation they are often all I get. Sometimes I’m not even sure what is divine connection and what isn’t. There was this time at a Jewish retreat that we did a meditative exercise. Everyone discussing their experience afterwards said things like “I saw the unity of the universe” I was too embarrassed to share. While everyone else was getting profound messeages and experiences. I got Loony Tunes. Bugs Bunny was hitting Elmer Fudd with a wooden mallet as an answer to Elmer’s question to know the secret to all knowledge. I’ve wondered about that vision. Was it an alien thought or was it an actual connection like we were supposed to have in the exercise? How do we tell the difference? The Baal Tem Tov of course gave me the best answer. There is always a kernel of holiness to all these thoughts. Your job is the quickly see that kernel and then the thought will become holy.
I have tried to apply this to prayer, and I’ll admit I need a lot practice to elevate an alien thought. Yet in every attempt I do get better at it. Things that crossed my mind a year ago now transform into butterflies of light and float away as soon as they enter my mind. Yet thoughts still cross my mind, and interrupt my prayers like lead balloons. It takes a lot of practice, something I’ve yet to accomplish. Indeed I think everyone has this problem whether they admit it or not. Many have it when they talk to humans, too busy thinking about other thing to list to the person they are conversing with. Of course this is rude. How much more so to God?

Shavuot 5769: Commitment

This evening is Shavuot, the anniversary of the revelation at Sinai. There is much to be said about the day of giving the Ten Commandments by God to Israel. One tradition surrounding Shavuot is the recitation of the Book of Ruth. Five holidays during the Jewish Year have an associated biblical reading of an entire book from the writings, known as a Megilah. Most known of course is Esther and Purim. There is also Ecclesiastes for Sukkot, the Song of Songs for Passover, and Lamentations for Tisha B’Av. Each book has some association to the holiday involved. Lamentations bewails the destruction of Jerusalem, Purim the telling of the story of the holiday. Some are more difficult. Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes may reflect the feeling of the season of the year, spring and autumn respectively.
Ruth might be both of these. Most obvious is the seasonal aspect. Besides being the giving of Torah, Shavuot marks the barley harvest, and we read in Ruth:

22. So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, with her, who returned from the country of Moab; and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. [Ruth 1]

But there is another reason. The story of Ruth is about the Moabite woman Ruth and her Israelite Mother-in-law Naomi. Naomi, her husband and their two sons try to escape a famine in Israel by moving to the neighboring country of Moab. Her sons marry Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah, while there. Tragically, Naomi’s husband and sons die in Moab. With Naomi, Ruth and Orpah now widows, Naomi decides to go back to her hometown of Bethlehem, hearing the famine is over. She insists that her daughters in law stay with their native people and their religion. Orpah eventually agrees to stay in Moab, but Ruth is adamant

16. And Ruth said, Do not entreat me to leave you,
Or to keep from following you;
For wherever you go, I will go;
Where you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
Your God my God;
17. Where you die, will I die,
There will I be buried;
May the Lord do so to me, and more also,
If even death parts me from you. [Ruth 1]

With this statement, Ruth and Naomi travel on to Bethlehem, to live as paupers until a combination of Ruth’s determination and a relative of Naomi’s late husband invoking Levirate marriage laws end up with a happy ending. Ruth has a baby boy named Obed. So happy is the ending we are told the descendants of the baby,

22. And Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David. [Ruth 4]

The Davidic line of kings comes from this story, and thus by implication the lineage of the Messiah. As is made clear by the story, Ruth is not Jewish. What makes her a matriarch of line of David and Solomon? There have been several answers. One is her lying at the feet of Boaz and asking him for the levirate marriage. Yet my belief is that it is 1:16-17 above that is the true act that marks her as Jewish. We read at Sinai that the people said we will do and we will hear. [Exodus 24:3] The reversal of doing and hearing is taken as a deep sense of faith and commitment. So too with Ruth, explaining poetically she will follow Naomi and Naomi’s people. It is commitment that is key, a commitment to God. The Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai will cross through Moab in their journey to the Land. There they will face their last test of commitment. Some fail in the worship and subsequent plague of Baal Peor. Most of the Israelites will succeed in Moab, and resist temptation. Ruth, in her journey from Moab to Judah will do the same. By making clear her commitment to Naomi and Naomi’s God, she makes clear her commitment to God.
Passover was the time to declare our freedom. But freedom without a structure, a commitment to something, is chaos. After reflecting on what our commitment might be for 49 days, we make that commitment. The people at Sinai went through a conversion on the first Shavuot, as did Ruth when she declared “your god (is) my god.” The commitment made them Jewish. All were converts by embracing a structure of mitzvot and God. Thus Ruth and the people on this day commit to the path of mitzvot.
Yet, to commit to something often means breaking other commitments. For Ruth to commit to there shall be no other gods before me requires breaking her old commitments to other gods. She does break those commitments of course. I was thinking about such commitments in the last weeks due to a problem some of my congregants are going to run into, which is part of one I described last week.
Up till a few weeks ago, I was involved with creating a schedule of Torah readings for Shabbat services. This may sound easy, but as a Reform synagogue using the Conservative triennial cycle there are lots of problems. The triennial cycle breaks the Torah reading into three parts read on successive years. One problem is that when there is a double portion, one must break up the portions in a particular order that takes into account all three years of the cycle. This makes for a rather confusing set of rules to get a complete cycle of Torah readings, one that few understand, particularly when our synagogue does not have the same start of the cycle as the Conservative movement uses. We are pretty much alone to my knowledge in our use of this system in this way, so there are no references to follow. The second problem reared its ugly head a few months ago when our cantor noted a problem with the schedule. Using the Conservative schedule, Shavuot is two days long, so this Shabbat is a special Shavuot reading. But Reform has only a one day Shavuot, making this a regular Shabbat, so our schedule is off. There are ways to accommodate this, and the way the cantor and I picked means there is a few weeks where our synagogue will be off the readings of other synagogues. There has been confusion already.
As I mentioned last week, when I decided to cut out a lot of the activities that I can’t handle in my schedule, my involvement with the Torah schedule was one of those casualties. I made new commitment to do my job so I get paid, and to spend time with Sweetie. I could live a life of exhaustion or be committed to a few things that really matter. But the questions about this system continue. So I have had to resist getting involved again, and getting lost in this quagmire. I had had questions headed my way, and as angry or disappointed as those people might be at my answer, I have to stick to my commitment and tell them “I can’t help”
For many of us, it is easy to get sucked into things we made a commitment not to do. But that is part of our positive commitments too. It can hurt to not help someone and to stick on track. But that is the proverbial paved road of good intentions. We must stick to our primary commitments, or get hopelessly lost. When I was involved with this, I gave 100%. But when I realized what I need to do required dropping it, it means dropping 100% of it. That is the commitment Ruth is embracing. She is embracing a commitment to never see her family, friends or gods ever again. It is a huge commitment, far more than a small volunteer position. For those I know who make such commitments I have a huge amount of respect. It’s not easy changing everything, as I’ve learned in the last few months. But sometimes the really good commitments require it. The commitment to true love either of God or one’s soulmate does require it.
As we celebrate the commitment tonight, may we pray all our commitments are for good, and we leave our commitments for bad behind.

B’midbar 5769: Inventories and the Final Drash

This week we begin the Book of Numbers with the following:

1. And the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they came out from the land of Egypt, saying, 2. Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by families, by the house of their fathers, according to the number of names, every male by their polls; 3. From twenty years old and upward, all who are able to go forth to war in Israel; you and Aaron shall count them by their armies.

This week we take a census of those able to be called to combat among the people. The rest of the portion is the names and numbers of these Israelites who are at Sinai. It is from this rather boring beginning that we get the English name for this portion, Numbers.
But in Hebrew, we call this portion B’midbar, which means in the wilderness. Hebrew books are named for the first significant word in their text, but this word is very descriptive of the entire book. B’midbar is the story of moving from Sinai to the land of Israel, and the trials and tribulations of the people along the way.
B’midbar as a story presents problems for many due to its violence. During the text everybody but three people die, all at the command of the Lord. Such an outcome is a bit much for many, complaining that a religious book condones that many people killed.
While the Torah is written in the language of humans, and we are to look at the literal meaning, I tend not to look at the literal story. This is not a story of individuals, but of a nation. Components of that nation do exist, and are specified but they are part of a collective. Moses, Miriam, Aaron, Joshua, Caleb, Korah, Dathan, Abiram, Pinchas and to some extent Balaam are just parts which may signify other parts of this collective body. In my view, this body is not even a body, but a mind, a soul. In this view, B’midbar is more than a really bad 40 year long tale of the road, but a journal of transformation from one state of mind to another. People in this view are different thoughts or scripts that we live with and dictate our actions.
But to begin this process of change we need to know who we are. We need to do not a census but an inventory, a taking stock of who is up there in our heads. This is the meaning of this week’s portion, to figure out who is really up there. Who is really making this journey? Where do we start? What is good and what might be problematic?
I’ve realized I’m about to begin another of those journeys. Change will require me to think about a lot of things differently. A change that happened about a year ago however is at the core of what has been happening to me. This change came at a big cost for me, the excessive exhaustion I’ve been feeling lately. A stomach and back that is killing me, a body that aches just about everywhere, an otherwise sharp memory forgetting way too much, and eyes that just won’t stay open are all signs of a bigger danger. Fighting to keep myself from falling asleep at the wheel is now a daily occurrence on my commute home. For weeks I know it has been building but this weekend was the worst. The 60 hour work weeks are getting to me. Even Shabbat is a mere drop of relief in a desert of exhaustion. During this weekend I decided to makes another journey through that desert to a land of Milk and Honey where I am living a life without this exhaustion. Working my consulting Job, my Quality job, and my computer job is just too much. Like most people in this economy, dropping one or all of them is not an option. I want to go to my wedding and not my funeral, but at the moment I’m headed towards my funeral just as fast as towards my wedding.
I made a few important decisions. The first is that I have to get rid of anything that wasn’t helping me make a living. What that translates to is dropping all of my volunteer activities at my Synagogue, some of my classes I’m taking, and most importantly dropping Shlomo’s Drash. Yes, I decided this is the last Shlomo’s Drash you will ever read. This column takes about four to six hours a week to write. Many of you might have noticed I have been reprinting old columns a lot lately, or posting this on Friday or even the Monday after and that is why – I have no time to write in the six days I do write. This was a decision I made after a lot of agonizing about it. For seven years I dreamed of being a Jewish scholar. Last year I realized the time investment to get that dream going and get some books, speeches, and other writing out into the market was not going to happen if I was to make a living in the meantime. That time consumption eventually ate the Wednesday morning I had allocated for Shlomo’s Drash, the one thread left of that dream. And now, just to keep up, I’m going to have to cut out the Drash completely.
Interestingly this issue of energy comes up in the Talmud.

Our Rabbis taught: Four things require to be done with energy, namely, [study of] the Torah, good deeds, praying, and one's worldly occupation. [Brachot 32b]

While I am essentially making my life lopsided here, the Perkei Avot believes there should be balance in these

Rabban Gamaliel the son of R. Judah the Patriarch said: excellent is the study of the Torah together with a worldly occupation, for the energy [taken up] by both of them keeps sin out of one's mind [ Avot 2:2]

There is also this

Our Rabbis taught: And thou shall gather in thy grain. [Deut 11:14] What is to be learnt from these words? Since it says, This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, [Joshua 1:8] I might think that this injunction is to be taken literally. Therefore it says, ‘And thou shall gather in thy corn’, which implies that you are to combine the study of them with a worldly occupation. This is the view of R. Ishmael [Brachot 35]

To exclude Torah study from my life would indeed be dangerous. One works along with the other to make the person who does not sin. One alone is not enough.
It was last Sunday morning I was thinking about what I was going to write in this last column when I came up with the idea of the inventory. Thing was as I really began to do that inventory, I realized something. This is not just a matter of running out of time, but where my time is going. Overwork slows down my productivity so what I am doing in eight hours probably could get done in two if I was fully functional. But more importantly, the pile of stuff is not completely my fault. Most are projects I started months, if not a year ago that I am waiting for others to get me something. What I was remiss in doing was making sure they were getting me information in an efficient manner, so everything piled up on my desk. Ironically it is not a lack of time that is the problem but how I manage my resources that is. The only way I know is by keeping inventory of my resources, and allocating them appropriately.
That of course is what God is telling Moses to do. This is not just a count, but a way of understanding what resources are available. As we will see this is not a single event, but a process that will continue. At the end of B’midbar in Chapter 26, there will be another census to see the change from the beginning to the end of the journey. The journey of B’midbar is most of all a change of how we view the world. On one level it is the transformation of a people from passive slave mentality to the active observance of mitzvot, Avodat Hashem. The way there is not by killing people but by changing ideas. Each of the negative types of thinking that we will encounter in various characters in the next few weeks represents the negative thinking, the limiting beliefs or the self destructive behavior we all have at some time. In the face of adversity, or even perceived adversity as we will see, how do the Israelites respond? In the same way, how do we respond to adversity? What is the right thing to do and what is the wrong? That is the journey we will take here in B’midbar.
I am thus left with a decision. As much as I would love to reclaim that four to six hours a day to make a living, I also realized to do so would kill me. Maybe my salary feeds my body, but Shlomo’s Drash feeds my soul. Without it I would be dead spiritually, as it is my deepest most beloved Torah study. I need the Torah and the worldly occupation, one without the other is death. The time management inventory points out a lot I can do to change how I deal with time, and reclaim that time in another manner to make the Drash possible. So I will continue to write this, with the hope and prayer that one day it will be both my Torah Study and my worldly occupation.
Cayn Yehi Ratzon.

Behar Behukotai 5769:Sabbatical Change

This week we have a double portion, yet it begins with a different type of Shabbat:

2. Speak to the people of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath to the Lord. 3. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in its fruit; 4. But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest to the land, a sabbath for the Lord; you shall not sow your field, nor prune your vineyard. 5. That which grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your vine undressed; for it is a year of rest to the land. 6. And the sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you; for you, and for your servant, and for your maid, and for your hired servant, and for the stranger who sojourns with you, 7. And for your cattle, and for the beast that are in your land, shall all its produce be food.[Leviticus 25 ]

As discussed several times before Shabbat is a rest from the work from the six other days of the week. The shmita year, or Sabbatical, provides a rest for the land. While many have debated the economic points about the Shmita year, I think there is something else that needs to be explored: how does it affect people every seven years.
As they did with the carrying prohibition on Shabbat, and what to do with large amounts of leavened products on Passover, the rabbinic mind found a way to handle the issue of the shmita year, and actually let produce grow on it in the Sabbatical year. Like the hometz locked in a closet for the duration of Passover. The fields are sold to a trustworthy gentile for the year, and thus are not owned by Jews. Modern Israel does indeed follow this practice, though some still think it's a cheat and leave their fields fallow.
A year ago it was a Shmita year in Israel. I was there on a tour with my mom at the time. One of our stops of course was the Kotel. There I placed a small note in the wall, and had a profound experience. One was to hear clearly in my mind the words of the Song of Songs: “My dove in the cleft in the rock” as a dove flew overhead an landed on a crack on the wall. I also heard something else too, a line from Richard Bach's book The Bridge Across Forever. To say the least not only was the note granted but the line from the book that has struck me true since I read it decades ago also came true:

you already know her

. The change that I have experienced in the last year is phenomenal. Sweetie came into my life, and I realized this week how much has changed in my environment, and what now needs to change: my mind.
It is a very different thing after living so many years as a completely single person being in a relationship, and having to think about someone else, and she has to think about me. There's a lot of give and take, a lot of negotiation, but in the context of someone I'm so deeply in love with and connected to, it is a blessing to have those discussions. It is neither the Drama we both can't stand or something we have to work on. Someday we'll live under the same roof, and how we define each of our personal spaces and boundaries will bring more adjustments to how I think and live. Those too, will be a blessing.
After thirteen years in the same apartment and now contemplating spending my life with Sweetie, I realized something. I have some very set patterns, and because of those set patterns I have not been able to see where I can improve and grow. The Torah this week tells us that the Sabbatical is for the land to rest. Yet, in doing so it makes a change every sevens years in the status quo of how people think. How one gets their food or makes their living changes radically. In that change we see all the things we take as the status quo in a new light, and we have the ability to see if we should change or not.
Whether one is forced to trust a stranger for year with a livelihood and six years of personal effort, work, or stops and does nothing for year, the farmer who observes the sabbatical year changes his whole perspective. Even looking at what is good and what is evil changes. Looking at those who have nothing, the widow and the orphan, changes.
This may be the reason so many curses are connected to the observance of the shmita year. We need that time, otherwise we might descend into evil deeds without even noticing. Not only does the land rest if we are exiled from the land but in exile we are exposed to the extreme in a change of world view: we are thrown from our home to live among strangers, and left there until we repent fully of our evil deeds.
The point of the Sabbatical to me is clear. It is to allow the land to rest, but it also to allow a year of reflection and change in ourselves.

Drash Emor 5769: The Shabbat Flunk Day.

This week, we once again have a schedule of holidays, which begins with:

2 Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: These are My fixed times, the fixed times of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions. 3 On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a sabbath of complete rest, a sacred occasion. You shall do no work; it shall be a sabbath of the Lord throughout your settlements. [Leviticus 23]

This is one of ten mentions of Shabbat that provides us with insight about Shabbat. Notably it is the holiday mentioned first. Unlike any of the annual ones listed like Passover, or counting the Omer or Sukkot, it is only Shabbat that is a weekly occurrence.
It was Philo of Alexandria who first made a leap based on a passage from Exodus. Shabbat is about Human rest because human rest allows us to be more productive the other days of the week. In that passage also known as the V'shamru prayer in the liturgy, there is a mention that on the seventh day God rested and was v'yinafash.

16. Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant. 17. It is a sign between me and the people of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.[Exodus 31]

This is an example of a noun acting like a verb. Nefesh means soul, life or body. In this verbal form, it means to refresh one self, to resupply the body and soul. God does so in order that we follow his example, and keep ourselves in prime condition to serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
It would be just as easy to say that we should rest one out of seven days. Yet, such a commandment would prove useless. While the intent is wonderful, it requires some structure such as a set time in order for it to get executed in some way. I thought a lot about that while contemplating how I'm overwhelmed with stuff; mostly work related projects that need to get done.
I had just written a message on Facebook complaining of how tired I was when I started finding status updates from several of my college friends about Flunk Day. Flunk Day at my college is a day in the last trimester of the school year when classes are canceled. Everybody, both students and faculty, just stops and has a crazy day of merely fun activities. In the tension of that last part of the school year and after a long winter, it was always a welcome relief. I was not one for much of the fun of Flunk day when I was in school, though I do have a few favorite memories. Actually my favorite Flunk Day tradition was to sleep in. For the most part, I did nothing that day, just rested. Being non-practicing at the time, I really didn’t know about Shabbat.
Twenty years ago, if you were to ask me about Shabbat, I would tell you it was God's day of rest, not mine. I would be very puzzled if you told me that I was supposed to rest. For me, it seemed Shabbat was more about following a set of rules and prayers. It seemed to me to be a lot of work, more work and more stress than a regular day at school. From my Conservative synagogue and Orthodox schooling, I learned that by saying or doing anything wrong, I was a bad person. Such structure is known as keva. Being brought up with too much Keva had taken its toll. By the time I was in college, I turned away from Judaism because a religion of just Keva seemed too heavy for me. A Shabbat of just Keva held neither spiritual connection nor Physical benefit for me.
About ten years ago I was on another College campus, this time in Corvallis Oregon. While there was no Flunk Day, there was Shabbat. Yet, this Shabbat was so different from the ones of my youth. It was the ALEPH Kallah, the educational gathering of the Jewish Renewal movement. Within the Renewal movement is a strong emphasis on Kavvanah. Kavvanah is the intention and feeling of mitzvah. Shabbat this time made me think of Flunk day again. Friday night was a night of a singing and dancing prayer service with an incredible Shabbat dinner following it. While I did get up early, it was to go to a beautiful prayer service of singing and chanting. Much of the rest of the day was resting and spending time relating to people. It was such a different experience, and a very spiritually uplifting one. I was once again hooked on Shabbat there, where I learned what the Kavvanah of Shabbat was.
Abraham Joshua Heschel spends much of his writings discussing polarities, and the polarity of keva and Kavvanah becomes common in his writings. He believes that there is a need for balance between these two, for they each perform a function to optimal spiritual experience. Keva provides the structure, while Kavvanah provides the feeling. One without the other tends to not work so well. In my view, Keva alone is cold, weighty and conformist, while Kavvanah by itself tends towards chaos and self absorption.
So several years later, I moved from Renewal to Reform Judaism in order to find the balance that worked for me. I've found Shabbat to be both Keva and Kavvanah in the minyan where I go to services regularly. Yet last week was one of those completely overwhelming weeks, so overwhelming I broke down and cried on several occasions. I was completely wiped out. Saturday morning however, I got up and did something I’ve never done before: Declare a Shabbat Flunk Day. After making an incredible breakfast, I got back into bed until 11:30. Doing nothing but dozing and being warm in bed was so wonderful. Getting up late, and heading up to the family’s vacation home, only stopping for a wonderful lunch with the love of my life was even better. Last Saturday I dumped the Keva of my Saturday mornings for pure Kavvanah of a flunk day. And it was very good.
Now that is not for every week, to be sure. Usually we need balance between Keva and Kavvanah. But every once in a while, when the Keva is overwhelming, it’s nice to take a Shabbat flunk day, skip service and just enjoy a day of rest. Such days restore the Kavvanah to the balance. I sure enjoyed mine.

Drash Acharei Mot- Kedoshim 5769:The Spirit and Science of Blood.

This week we have a large list of commandments following the death of Aaron's two sons Nadab and Abihu. Among them is this passage:

10. And whoever there is of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among you, who eats any kind of blood; I will set my face against that soul who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people. 11. For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul. 12. Therefore I said to the people of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, nor shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood. 13. And whoever there is of the people of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among you, who hunts and catches any beast or bird that may be eaten; he shall pour out its blood, and cover it with dust. 14. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for its life; therefore I said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any kind of flesh; for the life of all flesh is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off. [Leviticus 17]

It is repeated later in the second part of our double portion.

You shall not eat any thing with the blood; nor shall you use enchantment, nor observe times.

The prohibition of blood is a interesting one. Scholars cannot find another group within the region of the Israelites which practiced this prohibition. Torah however forbids Jew and gentile alike from eating blood. It's first case is when God prohibits Noah and his sons from eating blood.

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. 4. But flesh with its life, which is its blood, you shall not eat.[Gen 9]

In many of these verses is nefesh the world for life and body. Nefesh however may also be translated as soul. To eat blood is to eat the soul of the creature, to eat it's life-force. In our portion we are told explicitly and repeatedly that blood is for God alone. For this reason there is a death penalty meted out for eating blood, but an odd one: karet. Karet come from the word to cut off in Hebrew. Often in these verses about the eating blood there is a penalty of cutting off the person from the congregation. While one might think this means in a literal sense to excommunicate a person, it actually is a death penalty meted out by God. Based on Psalm 90:10 the number of our years are seventy, we all have a number of years we are to live which are planned ahead by God. But those years are shortened when we engage in activities that carry a karet penalty. Desecrating Shabbat, the sexual transgressions which is also part of this portion, touching a dead person and not getting cleaned by the waters of sprinkling all carry a karet punishment.
I have been having a problem with the text. With last week's talk of tzaarat we had some form of skin disease which could affect clothing and buildings as well. This week we have these prohibitions concerning blood, and the prohibitions about certain types of sexual behavior. Both make me think of my public health profession, yet as a student of Torah, I also look at this in a spiritual way. The two are not very compatible and so I am left to dance a razor edge fence looking at both.
From the public health view I look at risk behaviors. And all of the items that would shorten one's life according to God also have the potential to shorten one's life in reality too. Excessive stress and exhaustion comes from a seven-day work week, Various both genetic and transmitted diseases can come form the sexual practices of Leviticus 18. And then there is the blood borne pathogens, the various diseases that come from body fluids. I can think of all of this as an ancient practice for health. Avoiding dead bodies, blood and improper sexual relations was just healthy.
On the other hand, there is the spiritual side, one I'm not as clear about lately. From the spiritual side there is a commandment a mitzvah that eating blood is not allowed by god many of karet punishments are also Huqim, laws that do not have a good reason, they are just what God wants us to do. We make a connection with God when we fulfill the rule. As part of my own spiritual practice, I do follow the blood rule, and since the same things that make steak red is what makes blood red, so I don't eat any red meat, even Kosher red meat. The spirit of the animal is still too close for me to eat.
These two positions just don't seem to want to reconcile, and yet both are true, and I believe both of them. While they should be mutually exclusive, instead they both seem to be in my blood. But how they both can be there I don't know.
Any ideas?

Drash Tzaria-Metzora 5769: Am I a Murderer?

Moving from all the death of Animals and children of last week, this week we get birth and disease. We start with the procedure for a mother after giving birth, we then move into the beginning of a rather long two portion discussion of Tzaarat, what in later time would be mistakenly called leprosy. This week, much of the text is about the clinical symptoms of Tzaarat, not only on humans, but on clothing as well. Finally we have the procedures for dealing with the Tzav, someone who has a sexually transmitted disease.

Chapter 12, which covers the birthing, reads:

1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2. Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If a woman conceives, and bears a male child; then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of her menstruation, shall she be unclean. 3. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. 4. And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying for thirty three days; she shall touch no consecrated thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled. 5. But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her menstruation; and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying sixty six days. 6. And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering, to the door of the Tent of Meeting, to the priest;

Why is there a sin offering? Genesis 1:28 reads: And God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. How could a fulfillment of a commandment be a sin, particularly when the contrary position not having a child, is considered a really big sin? We read in the Midrash:

Ben ‘Azzai lectured: He who refrains from procreation is as though he shed blood and impaired [God's] likeness.[Genesis rabbah 34:14]

Someone who chooses to not have kids is for all intents a murderer according to tradition. So why is there a sin offering for fulfilling be fruitful and multiply? Twice in this section about birth we read in the days of her menstruation, shall she be impure. Leviticus 15:19 tells us that a woman is in menstrual impurity when she has a blood discharge. At the end of the seven-day period of the discharge she has to give an identical sin offering to this one at a birth. (Lev 28:30)
What is ta'amei, or impure, among animals, humans, buildings and clothing is all covered among chapters 11 through 15 in Leviticus. Such things as non-sacrificial animals and disease make sense, but what of menstruation? The blood of menstruation and childbirth is not voluntary; it comes with being a fertile woman and the process of birth. But it is in a very literal sense the shedding of blood, and it is that blood that renders the woman ritually impure. The loss of any body fluid is considered something defiling, and thus requiring a sin offering. The male equivalent of this is wasted seed, and this too is bloodshed, but again it may happen involuntarily, and thus is not punished like murder. Sin offering is for the sins we due to ignorance or lack of control. The worst punishment is the price of a pigeon.
This brings us back to ben Azzai and his quote about bloodshed. If this is outright murder then the death penalty applies. And as soon as ben Azzai says these lines he is called a hypocrite:

Said R. Eleazar to him: Teachings are becoming when they are uttered by those who practice them, but you, son of ‘Azzai, preach well, but do not fulfil your teaching! That is because I desire to study Torah, he pleaded, while the world can be preserved through others.[Genesis Rabbah 34:14]

Ben Azzai was too busy studying to actually have children and left the preservation of the world to others. Ben Azzai however meets an untimely end. Ben Azzai using meditative means enters the higher realms. With nothing to ground him in this world, his soul does not return, killing his body. The executioner in such cases is not a human one but God.
This really worries me. If one takes this literally, it means I am a murderer and will meet an untimely end. A few years ago just after starting my master’s degree in Jewish Studies, I made a very agonizing and very personal decision to pursue my studies to the exclusion of having children. My view is that I could do one or the other well, I could not do both effectively. According to ben Azzai, that is a death sentence.
I am not alone here in my death sentence. Every Jew who decides not to have children is in this same conundrum. While the rest of the world has to worry about population growth, American Jews are concerned about population shrinkage. We are in a very real sense diminishing the Jewish people. Such is also true of intermarriage, as by traditional accounting when a man marries a gentile woman, there will be no more Jews from him, killing the people.
Only four times in all of Talmud, Mishnah, and Midrash, was ben Azzai called a rabbi though he is referenced over two hundred times. He was the perennial student, always studying or arguing with his teachers, like R. Akiba, but never really doing anything with his learning outside of the academy. Baba Metzia 33a, however reads:

If [a man's] own lost article and his father's lost article [need attention], his own takes precedence. [if] His own and his teacher's [then] his own takes precedence; [if] his father’ s and his teacher's [then] his teacher's takes precedence, because his father brought him into this world, whereas his teacher. ‘who instructed him in wisdom, brings him to the future world.

And in K'rithot 28a,

So it is also with the study of the law; if the son has been worthy [to sit] before the teacher, the teacher comes before the father in all places, because both a man and his father are bound to honour the teacher.

Even though the Ten Commandments and much of Torah says to honor you mother and father, one is to honor your teacher more, because a teacher is a parent of the good soul, and can teach physical parents too. In the end of tractates Berakoth, Yebamoth, Nazir and K'rithoth, we read a saying by R. Eleazar, who also pointed out ben Azzai's hypocrisy, pointing out a solution:

R. Eleazar said in the name of R. Hanina: The disciples of the Sages increase peace in the world, as it is said, And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children(Is. 54:13) . Read not ‘thy children’ [banayik], but ‘thy builders’[bonayik]. [K'rithoth 28b]

There are many ways to kill the next generation or build it up. One is by bodies in this world and one is by souls for the world to come. Both the physical and the spiritual need to be addressed, neither by itself is enough. Those not addressing one must address the other. Ben Azzai, who was so stuck in his books he did not teach, rarely seemed to do this. Those of us who do not have the children to save the Jewish people should at least try to save the soul by teaching and inspiring. Too many parents are too busy trying to raise their children to teach them the Shema, as it is written and you shall teach them to your children. That is where those us who do not have children come in, and where we can change from murderers to respected builders and builders of builders, of children from 2 to 92.
I am not a murderer. On the side of my desktop computer, I have a sign in Aramaic to remind me of that every day: R.Samuel b. Nahmani said in R. Jonathan's name: He who teaches his neighbor's child Torah, Scripture ascribes it to him as if he had begotten him. [Sanh. 19b] In my mind, and in many ways in the minds of the rabbis, the best way for some of us unable to have children is to Teach and inspire. I have made my decision to be a teacher, and I believe in perfect faith that this is what God intended for me. May it be the will of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that I and many others inspire others to the beauty that is Torah.

Shmini 5769: A Diet of Alien Fire

This week we have the last of the sacrifices for the dedication of the Mishkan with a glorious ending. But then tragedy strikes:

1. And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took each of them his censer, and put fire in it, and put incense on it, and offered alien fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. 2. And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.[Leviticus 10]

Following the aftermath of Nadab and Abihu’s death, we have the prohibited and permitted species to eat, the core of the rules of kosher food.
I’ve looked at this portion in so many ways, as a food safety person, and as an exegete trying to figure out what Nadab and Abihu were doing. Yet, there is something that I’ve never written about when it comes to this portion, tying together those two seemingly different ideas. It has to do with pants.
I just bought my first size 40 waist pants. Now individual bodies change and vary so what size pants any given person never wanted to own might be different. But for me it was a 40. It was upsetting, as upsetting as realizing the reason I felt uncomfortable all the time is that none of my clothes fit. So I’m going on a strict diet.
I did this once before, and in the last five years have been slowly slacking off. But that diet was successful, losing 35 pounds rather quickly, maintaining that weight for three years, and then gaining them back over the last two. Thinking of what I did then and what I’m going to do now made me think of aish zarah, alien fire. I’m thinking of Nadab and Abihu’s alien fire differently. Aish zarah is what we don’t have to offer or do. It’s the kind of fire that is superfluous. Removing alien fire is really the most basic weight loss diet – literally.
Basically, calories measure fire, they measure the amount of fuel burned. Different kinds of foods have different amounts of fuel, and contribute to the fire that is our life force. In such a view alien fire would be the calories we don’t need. My first attempt at a diet happened around the same time as the Atkins Diet craze. While I did not do the Atkins diet, Atkins did focus on what I thought might be a target for a diet: my intake of carbohydrates. What I did do was limit my intake of carbohydrate to a specific limit. I had found I have a very large intake of carbohydrates. Most of the things that I was eating I really didn’t need to eat. Much of my carb intake was aish zarah, so I focused on cutting that, with rather stunning results.
The first time I did this diet, I thought of carbs in a parallel to the last part of this portion, the permissions and prohibitions of eating different species. Very much like a pig in this week’s portion, carbs for me were a spiritually forbidden food. To look at a piece of cake was like looking at bacon. Not only were they forbidden, they weren’t even appetizing or even something that made sense to eat. And so, stripping hundreds of grams of carbohydrates a day from my diet, I lost most of the weight in a mere three months. I kept to that philosophy of excessive carbs as trief. In the months after that, such an attitude kept me at a low weight. Eventually I somehow faltered however, and lost my way, only to slowly gain everything back.
In the wake of a Passover that fell during Easter I’ve though a lot about eating, and the significance of our eating patterns and how we get ourselves into the inconsistencies that got me heavy again. For Passover, we change our normal patterns of eating. For some this could easily become a very simple low carb diet. Eat the one required piece of Matzah a day, and restrict all other carbohydrates and you’re observant of the Mitzvah. Instead, any given way of using potato starch and eggs shows up in recipes. But what really gets me is the people who in being Passover observant, go out and order a lobster dinner but refuse to have a bread basket on their table. Of those who did go to Easter events, how many ate ham while munching on their matzah? Such absurdity happens all the time. My favorite personal example was the time, many years ago, when I picked the bacon out of my clam chowder. Picking out the Bacon in a prohibited cream base with prohibited shellfish simply doesn’t make sense. It was in the wake of that I changed some of my own observances.
My own current observance of kashrut is far from strict or traditional observance. I eat no red meat for example, even kosher red meat as I more strictly adhere to “you shall not eat its blood” Yet I do eat poultry and fin fish, though I do not eat shellfish. I follow the logic of a minority opinion in the Talmud that of Yossi of the Galilee who believed the prohibition of dairy mixing with meat did not extend to poultry. It may not be according to the rules we read in this portion, but in my observance, and in my own way I say “I love you God” by not eating these things.
As much as I enjoyed bacon and lobster when I was far younger and rather agnostic, I don’t either crave them or miss them now. They are food for other people in my mind, not for me. So too I must think about the excessive things I put into my body. Many of them taste incredible, like a big hot fudge brownie sundae. But to have one frequently is alien fire, and damaging to me. I can enjoy myself, and can find things that taste good, and are indeed on my diet such as a small piece of 70% dark chocolate, or a sprig of broccoli.
One of the big problems with diets is our insistence that the things we are giving up are good, when often their long term effects is about as opposite from that as we can get. But maybe by looking at “I can’t live without Bacon” or “I can’t live without chocolate cake” we are looking at the issue wrong. Hillel taught that our bodies are the vessels for a bit of the Divine which is our souls. It is up to us to care for that vessel, out of respect not just for ourselves, but for its passenger, the nefesh, that bit of God in us. To eat healthy is to say “I love you God” as much as not eating Ostrich or Ham or a Cheeseburger.
I guess for the last two weeks I’ve been saying the same thing: Do not complain that you cannot eat something, but bless that you have the ability and holiness to refuse to eat it.

Passover 5769: The Bread of Affliction?

As I was driving home last week I saw a sign on a synagogue that disturbed me. On one of those outside announcement signs that usually say something like “JUF FUNDRAISER APR 1” or LEVY BAR MITZVAH AUG 30 I read the following: HAVE AN EASY PASSOVER.
I don’t normally get angry at signs, but this one really bothered me. It read too much like another sign which you sometimes see around Yom Kippur: HAVE AN EASY FAST. Now I’ll be the first to admit the fast of Yom Kippur is not an easy one, but for the observant in the northern hemisphere, it’s a piece of cake (so to speak) compared to the longer fast of Tish B’Av. Passover is far from a fast, indeed for two Seders and all those leftovers one could easily be stuffed. Many a Seder I feel like God’s angry retort to the people complaining manna isn’t enough, they will be so stuffed it will be coming out of their noses. [Numbers 11:20] To be honest I’m very happy I’m that stuffed.
I’ll also admit there is one very difficult task that happens before Passover: getting ready for Passover. Cleaning the house, preparing the food for the week and changing the dishes is not an easy task by any means. For me that means cleaning a small studio apartment, paper plates and preparing my Yemenite Haroset, and that is hard enough compared to what family households have to do. But the sign did not say Have an easy preparation for Passover. It was implying Passover is hard. Eating Passover foods and prohibiting the seven species of grains for one week is some kind of affliction on our lives according to that sign. I have a problem with that.
Right at the beginning of the Seder, we read about Matzah as an affliction in the Haggadah:

This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. All who are starving come to eat. All who are needy come to the Passover meal. This year here. For the year to come in the land of Israel. This year as slaves, for the year to come as free men.

As one of the Aramaic passages in the Haggdah, I expected to find the passage quoted in Talmud Balvi. In looking up this passage, I could find no Talmudic mention of the passage. Medieval sources such as the Rambam and Ramban quote it completely. Wherever its original source, It is based on a biblical passage indicating the procedures for Passover:

3. You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shall you eat unleavened bread with it, the bread of affliction; for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste; that you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. [Deuteronomy 16]

While the Talmud did not explicitly mention the haggadah passage, the idea of such a passage does come from a Talmudic source

Samuel said: Bread of [‘oni] [means] bread over which we recite [‘onin] many words. It was taught likewise: ‘Bread of [‘oni]’ means bread over which we recite [‘onin] many words. Another interpretation: ‘Bread of [‘oni]’: ‘ani [poverty] is written: just as a beggar generally has a piece, so here too a piece [is taken]. Another interpretation: just as a poor man fires [the oven] and his wife bakes, so here too, he heats and she bakes. [Pes 115b-116a]

In a series of word plays on the word for affliction,’oni, the rabbis note that the word for affliction could also mean poverty and recitation. They made the conclusion it could mean both. We are to recite many words over the matzah to tell its story and why it is so significant. Read another way, we are to not bless over a whole matzah like a rich man but like a poor man. We are to have only a piece, which is why we break the middle matzah in two. Finally a poor man has little wood and has to bake very quickly, so too we need to bake in haste as though we are poor men.
The Talmud also mentions another passage which I find instructive. To answer the four questions, the Talmud instructs to so in the following way:

According to the son's intelligence his father instructs him. He commences with shame and concludes with praise; and expounds from ‘a wandering Aramean was my father’ until he completes the whole section.[Pesachim 116a]

The text tells us to use a passage from Deuteronomy, related to the first fruits offering:

5. And you shall speak and say before the Lord your God, A wandering Aramean was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians dealt ill with us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard slavery; 7. And when we cried to the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression; 8. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great awesomeness, and with signs, and with wonders; 9. And he has brought us to this place, and has given us this land, a land that flows with milk and honey…11. And you shall rejoice in every good thing which the Lord your God has given to you, and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the stranger who is among you. [Deuteronomy 26]

Today’s Haggadah not only recites this passage, but the whole story of the Exodus, with many commentaries along the way. The recitation of Deuteronomy 26:5 gets expanded but now reads An Aramean tried to destroy my father, a reference to Laban by changing the meaning of the word for wandering to destroy. But the point of the Seder and Passover is found in verse 11. We are to rejoice in every good thing in our lives. We are to remember that God blessed us. One of the most powerful of those blessings was freedom. We ate matzah because we were leaving affliction behind, not that Passover is an affliction, like that synagogue sign seemed to imply.
To say Passover is an affliction is to be like the people in the desert of Numbers 11, who were whining things were so much better in Egypt, the same ones that God wanted stuffed to their nostrils. The status quo of slavery for them was apparently better than being free and eating manna. They were saying that the freedom we were granted by God on Passover is not worth anything. That sign said the same thing. It was saying the bounty that is on our tables for Passover is not worth anything. Is a few muffins, oatmeal and a slice a bread so horrific to go without?
Through the Passover story, the bread of affliction transforms into a bread of freedom. As, the bread of affliction the passage relates, it is the transformation from slavery to freedom, from starving to full. Like the people in the desert we too can be slaves to the status quo. Like them, it is then we suffer and perish.
Passover, like the first fruit offering, is about counting the blessings we have been given. Passover is the most observed Jewish holiday. It is not the most observed holiday because it competes with other holidays, as does Hanukkah. It is not due to some deep meaning of praying for our soul like Yom Kippur. Passover is the ultimate home holiday, the one where we surround ourselves with family and friends and celebrate all that we have. Every bite of matzah is not an affliction, but a blessing of having all of this around us. It is a blessing in hearing the noise of the kids, the blessing of making all that food, it is a blessing in hearing a young one saying the four questions, or belting out Dayenu off key. It is a blessing in trying to stuff too many chairs into too little space for all those people to be there. It is the blessing of having that first Hillel sandwich, and chicken soup with matzo balls. While the seders may go on for two evenings, Passover goes on for seven days, which might seem a lot, but each one has its blessing. Everything that is traditional for Passover, even refusing foods, is a celebration. Freedom is not just that oppression had ended but that we can now choose what we do. To choose not to eat hometz is a choice we can make that is demonstrating our freedom. We show that we will not give to the oppression and slavery of craving or habit.
It is also a reminder not everyone does have those blessings in their lives, and our responsibility to help those who need the help, to bring those people blessings as well. Maybe this year is bad for them; next year will be good for them with our help. A Hasidic rabbi once stated that “Next year in Jerusalem” is not about a place but a state of mind. We are in a state of blessing, as though we were at the temple in Jerusalem. Next year in Jerusalem is not about just us, but about everyone being there, and about bringing everyone to such a state.
So when we read in the Aramaic, Ha lach-ma Anya, remember the week of Passover is not one of affliction, but of celebration.
May everyone have a joyous Pesah, filled with blessing.

Tzav 5769: Fires, Bridges and Bottles

This week’s portion has near the beginning:

5. And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out; and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings. 6. The fire shall be burning always upon the altar; it shall never go out. [Leviticus 6]

This is one of two places we read of a fire not going out. The other is the lamp:

20. And you shall command the people of Israel, that they bring you pure beaten oil olive for the light, for the lamp to burn always. 21. In the Tent of Meeting outside the veil, which is before the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order it from evening to morning before the Lord; it shall be a statute forever to their generations on behalf of the people of Israel. [Exodus 27]

Two fires burned continually in the Mishkan, one on the altar and one on the lamp. Even today all synagogues keep a lamp lit continually, a ner tamid. When last week it was pointed out to me the verses we read this week in the synagogue, I had a lot to think about continual burning, about having these fires there all the time.
Interestingly, the altar is tended to in the morning and the lamp in the evening. For the night the attention is to the lamp, in the day to the altar. Why all this light and fire, besides the use of keeping the sacrifices burning?
Once again I believe this is a case of communication with God. In the past week I overheard a few conversations in various places which made me pause to think. A week ago I was in a coffee shop listening to two of the counter help talk about their cel phone use. One describes how she calls her boyfriend, he then answers and they carry their cell phones around with an open connection all day even though they don't say anything to one another. They might even watch two different television shows at the same time, once in a while making a comment to the other. At the time I thought it was a bit of a waste.
When I bought my cell phone plan I never expected to use up 99 text messages. I never saw the point. I watch people much of the time texting away and truly wondering what was so important that they couldn’t dial the person, have a short conversation and hang up. Why spend the whole day going back and forth on text messages?
My first inkling of what was going on came with my use of the internet messaging system known as Twitter. Twitter is comprised of small messages of no more than 140 characters which are sent out to a huge pool of messages. People can filter those messages by “friending” the sender, and thus become part of the conversation. Most users of Twitter may have many people they have friended, and may continually get into conversation with them. The compact size of Twitter messages, or tweets, make them ideal for mobile platform like iPhones and Blackberries while allowing for quick, short interactions. Yet as I learned, it is way too easy to leave up the Twitter connection and listen and converse all day, every day, as I experienced over the last week of December being the only one in the office all week. Twitter was on nonstop all day so I could have a connection to someone else in the lonely office. I’ve thought about this as well looking at the volume of e-mails I’m sending out lately and where most of them are headed to. I’ve also lately been getting closer to that 99 per month text message limit. I’ve been having a need to connect with someone lately and often.
Human beings are not meant to be alone. However, John Donne was wrong, all men are islands. Every human being is isolated from everyone else. Yet these islands are close enough that we can build bridges or send messages in bottles. As the classic song Message in a Bottle by the Police describe it:

Seems I’m not alone at being alone
Hundred billion castaways, looking for a home

Bridges to other islands take many forms, as do message in bottles. Even if a bridge is not used, there is a sense of comfort in having the bridge always there. All that electronic communication by cell phone, text message or Twitter all points to the same thing: our need to connect off of our own little island. The bridge's importance is not in its use, but that the bridge is there to be used if we want to. A cell phone with silence, but the knowledge that some will talk to you if you speak into it is more of a comfort than many will be prepared to admit.
For humans of course there are more than electronic methods of communication. Nothing beats face to face contact. Sitting down by someone and merely looking at them is a far more powerful experience than anything done on an internet service. Being in the room makes a huge difference. Judaism often makes sure there is such contact, from the minyan required for the recitation of Kaddish, to the Passover Seder, to shiva calls and visiting the sick, to the debate of a hevruta. Face time is important and vital to our well being. Yet, what about God, who we cannot see face to face and live?
Like the electronic bridges and bottles of a cell phone or Twitter, just leaving the line open is a connection. One such connection is found in the eternal fire. It is the carrier signal, the sign that communication is open between the Divine and us. It is the hiss in the background of an open cell phone connection. Even if we are silent, there is connection and communication. In light and smoke, it is a statement that we want to communicate, if only we had something to say. In tending the fire and adding the firewood, the priesthood kept the connection going to God who is looking to us as a partner in creation and communication.
Yet today we have no altar. A continual fire is only in the ner tamid of the synagogue. Or is it? While it may not be continual in the sense of never going out, there may be something to replace the altar. One can remain on the internet non-stop, receiving information. Or at a specific time every day one can get on and check e-mail and chat. Just the act of that one daily ritual may accomplish the same thing as nonstop communication. Checking in with one regularly may indeed be even more powerful as we do not take the connection for granted, which we might for a nonstop connection. In my mind at least, the lighting of candles before Shabbat, Passover or any holiday is that periodic reconnection. By doing it under regular circumstances, we make the connection forever, yet we do not take it for granted. It becomes far more precious. The fires of Shabbat candles are as sacred as the altar. We connect with God and make those bridges with the lights of those candles. The eternal fire continues, not in one altar in one place, but candles everywhere at sacred times.