Sh'lach 5773

In this week’s parsha, Sh'lach Lecha, we read the story of the 12 spies. After the devastating report of 10 of the spies, Calev ben Yefuneh stands up in front of the entire people (Numbers 13:30):

“And Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.”

Calev creates a dream, a goal for the Israelite nation; one that the other spies believe is simply unattainable. The other spies have no hope, no desire to enter the Land that they had thought about for so long; they have no dream for the future of their people.

We see another example of problematic visioning later in the parshah. After the people see that those who spoke badly about attempting to enter the Land of  Canaan die, some of them seek to remedy the mistake. They wake up early in the morning, and tell Moshe that they want to enter the Land, that they want to fight the current inhabitants of the Land. But Moshe says to them, No, now is not the time. They do not listen to him, and they go and fight, and they get killed. These people have a concrete action in mind; but they do not have a clear vision for the future of the Israelites.

The great Jewish thinker Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes in a similar vein about prayer:

“Prayer is no substitute for action. It is, rather, like a beam thrown from a flashlight before us into the darkness. It is in this light that we who grope, stumble, and climb discover where we stand, what surrounds us, and the course which we should choose.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, pg. 342)

Heschel advises us, as the parsha does, to combine dreams and actions, to determine a vision, and then follow it through with action. What are your dreams? For this summer? For the next school/fiscal year? What do you want to accomplish?

I wish all of us a summer full of big dreams, hopes, and goals, and the ability to follow it up with appropriate action.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi David Russo

Beha'alotcha 5773

A Lamp of The Lord is the Soul of Man

This week’s Torah portion, Beha’alotcha, opens with God’s instructions to Aaron about how to light the lamps of the menorah in the Mishkan – which raises a difficult question: why does Aaron light the menorah only here, more than halfway through the Torah, instead of earlier – in parashat Pekudei, when the Mishkan was set up, or in parashat Shmini, when it was dedicated?

We are familiar with the use of light as a metaphor for spiritual experience; the book of Proverbs tells us, For the mitzvah is a lamp, and the Torah is light (6:23). And light, as we know, has special qualities. Only light can travel vast distances, literally across the universe, without ever slowing down or weakening.  And only light – specifically, candle light – can spread without diminishing the original light.  If you take a cup of water and divide it into two cups, you have half as much water in each cup; but take a candle and light a second candle, and you have twice as much light as before.

The menorah is lit now, after the census of the Israelites at the beginning of the book of Numbers, to remind us – again, in the language of Proverbs – that A lamp of the Lord is the soul of man (20:27).  Aaron is only able to light the lamps in the Mishkan after each and every Israelite has been accounted for, because each person is God’s lamp, bringing divine light into the world.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Abe Friedman

Nasso 5773

Nasso 5773 It is that time of the year when so many of us are thinking about gifts: gifts for mothers’ day and gifts for fathers’ day and graduation gifts and we are wondering how to make those gifts special and personal and meaningful.  And then along comes Parashat Nasso with its repetitive list of identical gifts brought by each of the twelve tribes for the dedication of the tabernacle in the wilderness. There is little if anything that indicates that room was left for even a spark of creativity.  Perhaps that was the intention of the original Biblical text which did not want us to think that the Torah favored any of the tribes over the others.  If all the tribes brought the same gifts then all the tribes would be perceived as being equal.  Certainly that is how it would appear that we are meant to read the situation. However in Midrash Bemidbar Rabbah 13.14 we learn that each tribe’s gift was actually in some way symbolic of its own unique personality, history, character, values and style in ways that were too subtle to be revealed in the Torah. Each tribe may have brought a bowl, for example, but the bowls brought somehow connected with their particular devotion to the study of Torah or the leadership roles assumed by their members or some other tribal trait. This tension between routine gifts and the unique personal touch is something we experience in other parts of our lives as well.  For example, one of the greatest gifts a parent can bestow upon a child prescribed by our tradition is that blessing contained in our parasha usually known as “birkat ha-kohanim/ the priestly blessing”.  While I have great memories of my children hiding beneath my tallit while it was chanted in the synagogue by the kohanim, I have even fonder memories of my children lining up for me to recite the blessing with my hands resting on each their foreheads just before we made Kiddush at home on Friday evenings. According to the tradition we recite a different introductory passage for our sons than for our daughters.  For our daughters we recite: May God make you like Sara, Rebecca, Rache and Leah.  And for our sons: we recite: May God make you like Ephraim and Menashe. And then we continue:   May Adonai bless you and keep you   May Adonai cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you   May Adonai turn His face towards you, and grant you peace         (Bemidbar 6:24-26). These three short, beautiful verses, which God commanded Aaron and his sons to use to  bless the Jewish people with the gift of God's presence, indeed God's face, are deeply ingrained in Jewish cultural memory. It would seem as if like the gifts brought by each tribe to the dedication of the tabernacle everyone is equal as each child is blessed using the same words of the same Torah based formula. But the truth is that after each recitation of the Biblical blessing I pull my child’s head close to my own and at that moment add my own private prayers – my own special gifts thinking about the needs of that child at that moment – creating at that moment the kind of gift that reenergizes the special bonds between us and each child we treasure – that strengthens the bonds between us and each person we love.  And just as the blessing ends with a request that God grant our loved ones the gift of peace on Shabbat, I wish you Shabbat Shalom. Matt Futterman Senior Educator

Shavuot 5773

Shavuot 5773

Next week, we will celebrate the holiday of Shavuot. And Shavuot arrives every year, as we conclude the secular academic year. What is interesting is that according to rabbinic tradition, Shavuot represents the beginning of Jewish learning for children, rather than the conclusion. The great 12th century Rabbi Elazar of Worms relates a vivid first day of school in his volume called Sefer Harokeach (Laws of Shavuot, 296):

“It is the custom of our ancestors that they bring children to learn [for the first time] on Shavout since the Torah was given then… At sunrise on Shavout, they bring the children, in keeping with the verse “as morning dawned, there was thunder and lightning” (Exodus 19:16). And they cover the children with a cloak from their house to the synagogue or to the rabbi’s house. They put the child on the lap of the rabbi who teaches them, in keeping with the verse “as a nurse carries an infant” (Numbers 11:12).

And they bring the slate upon which is written “Torah tziva lanu Moshe – Moses commanded us the Torah” (Deut. 33:4). Then, the rabbi reads every letter of the alef-bet and the child repeats after the rabbi.

The rabbi puts a little honey on the slate and the child licks the honey from the letters. And then they bring the honey cake upon which is inscribed “The Lord God gave me a skilled tongue to know…” (Isaiah 50: 4-5), and the rabbi reads every word of these verses and the child repeats after the rabbi… They feed the child the cake and the egg, for they are good for opening the mind.”

What an exciting first day of school for a child – having the community parade you to the synagogue or rabbi’s house, celebrating with you, having you taste delicious foods, all for the purpose of creating an intimate first formal learning experience.

While we do not begin school learning on Shavuot in our world today, it is a strong reminder to continue learning even during the change in many of our schedules during the summer. I hope that Shavuot, and the coming months, provide all of us with many opportunities to learn in serious, meaningful, celebratory, and tasty environments.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi David Russo