Chukat 5774

Title: The Heaven is My Throne
Artist: Paul Palnik
Year: 2006

This week we celebrate Shabbat Rosh Chodesh – when Shabbat and Rosh Chodesh, the New Month, happen together. When we have this combination, the haftarah of Rosh Chodesh supercedes that of Shabbat.

The opening words of the haftarah are dramatic: “הַשָּׁמַיִם כִּסְאִי וְהָאָרֶץ הֲדֹם רַגְלָי - The heaven is My throne, the earth My footstool.” The statement is one of God’s transcendence – that God reigns above our earth. But it is also one that recognizes God’s immanent presence in our world, that God still has a foot, still has investment in human affairs. 

Dr. Michael Fishbane teaches that we recite this on Rosh Chodesh because the haftarah mentions when all of Israel is gathered from the exile, that all flesh will worship God, “new moon after new moon” (Isaiah 66:23). The haftarah promotes the particular prophecy of the Jewish people along with universal redemption, that Rosh Chodesh in the future will be celebrated as God’s festival for the Jews and all humankind.

This week, I will be at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin for Shabbat. And at Ramah there is a beautiful illustration of this verse, seen on this page. Paul Palnik, the artist, creates a literal throne that rests on the earth. While the partial physical manifestation of God can seem heretical to many, the piece movingly represents God’s total omnipotence on the one hand, and God’s having footing on earth on the other.

I deeply appreciate that Ramah tries to bring to life Jewish themes and content through every media, including art, at camp. This neighborhood sends 60 campers to the Ramah Day camp in Wheeling and overnight camp in Wisconsin. I am so proud of that, and hope that those numbers will only continue to grow because at Ramah, our campers get a better of understanding of themes like that in this week’s haftarah.

So whether at Ramah or Anshe Emet, I hope that this piece creates food for thought for you as it does for me every time that I see it. I hope that you will consider what it means for God to on the one hand be distant in the heavens and on the other for God to be immanently close; that you will consider what it means for the Jewish nation to be redeemed while simultaneously working towards the redemption of the entire world.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi David Russo

Korach 5774

BRING BACK OUR BOYS

Last week three Yeshiva students were taken captive as they journeyed home to join their families for Shabbat. With every passing day the chances of finding Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach grow more distant.  While the State of Israel has every right to confront individual, group, or government who is suspected of involvement with this nefarious act, there is only so much that the IDF can do.  After the release of Gilad Shalit in exchange for more than 1,000 convicted Palestinians, no one will be surprised when the ransom demands are made public. 

How should the Government of Israel respond if and when that time comes?

Sadly, the problem of ransoming Jewish captives is not a new one for the Jewish community.  Knowing the value that Jews place on every individual, as well as the obligation we feel to help one another has emboldened captors over the centuries.   From a very early time our Rabbis asked if there is a price that is too high, or is the Jewish community obligated to pay whatever is asked in order to redeem the captives?  The Mishnah put it this way:

One does not ransom captives for more than their value because of Tikkun Olam (for the good order of the world, as a precaution for the general good) and one does not help captives escape because of Tikkun Olam.  (Gittin 4:6)

In other words, the needs and the safety of the community must come before the individual needs.  This was the debate during the time of Gilad Shalit’s release and one that Americans are debating, amongst others, in regards to recent exchange for Bowe Bergdahl.  Ultimately, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Knesset will have to make this impossible decision for these three young men. 
What can we do at this moment?  The most important thing that we can do is to stand together in solidarity with our brothers who are being held, pray for their strength and the success of the IDF to find them.

1. For those who use Twitter send the Bring Back our Boys Tweet at #bringbackourboys
2. Attend the Emergency Vigil to call for the immediate release of abducted Israeli teens on Monday, June 23 at Noon, Thompson Center Plaza, 100 W. Randolph
3. Gather with your family and friends to offer a prayer for their release along with reading Psalm 121

Prayer for Safe Return of Kidnapped Israelis
The Rabbinical Assembly released the following prayer (along with this statement), written by Rabbi Tamar Elad Appelbaum and translated by Rabbi Peretz Rodman, for the safe return of the missing students.

God of Israel,
Beneficent sovereign of all Creation,
enable us now
to have true faith
and to pray and to call out to You
with plea after plea,
so that our cry might rise
to the very Gates of Mercy,
to Mercy itself.
And all reality shall be turned around
so that relief, rescue, and life
may be the lot of those young men,
Ya'akov Naftali ben Rahel (Frenkel),
Gil-ad Micha'el ben Bat-Galim (Shaar)
and Eyal ben Iris Teshura (Yifrach).
Act on their behalf, Lord,
take up their cause without delay,
and may You grant them life and
blessing forevermore. 
So may it be Your will, and let us say:
Amen.

Sh'lach 5774

The Knotty Problem of Obligation

The mitzvah of tzitzit (ritual fringes), discussed in the final passage of this week’s Torah portion, has traditionally been understood as a mitzvah observed by men and not women. The Talmud, however, reports that “Rav Yehudah would tie tzitzit on his wife’s garments” (Menahot 43a). A few lines below, the following dispute is recorded: “All people are obligated to wear tzitzit: Priests, Levites, Israelites, Converts, Women, and Slaves. Rabbi Shimon exempts the women…” The majority position, at least in this place, seems to believe that women as well as men are required to put tzitzit on their four-cornered garments.

The question of tallit, tefillin, and women’s participation in mitzvot has returned to the forefront of Jewish discourse this year, spurred by a series of essays last fall questioning the extent of the Conservative Movement’s commitment – in deed, and not just in word – to egalitarianism; the recent decision of two Modern Orthodox day schools in New York to allow some female students to wear tefillin; and, most recently, by the acceptance in April of Rabbi Pamela Barmash’s teshuvah (ruling on contemporary Jewish practice), which places equal obligation in all mitzvot upon women and men, as an official position of the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.

There is not room here for a full consideration of Rabbi Barmash’s teshuvah and the many responses it has elicited from her colleagues, but for those who are interested I am preparing a longer treatment that I will post to my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/rabbiabe) shortly. For our purposes here, the key issue at the heart of the latest debate centers on the question of mitzvot and obligation: what do we understand ourselves to be doing when we perform a mitzvah? Is a mitzvah the “King’s decree” that the traditional sources describe? Are all mitzvot voluntary in our generation? Are we stuck choosing between an ever more anachronistic metaphor – most of us have never known a King or his decrees – and a framework of individual discretion that separates us from our ancestors?

I believe there is a third option, a way out. My teacher, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, notes that the Aramaic word for mitzvah – tzavta – also means “connection.” In his recent book God of Becoming and Relationship, Rabbi Artson writes that “While most contemporary Jews don’t believe in a God who verbally issues commands, most do recognize that mitzvot connect them to the divine… What if we said what we truly believe, which actually makes sense of our patterns of practice? We affirm that mitzvot connect us to God; link us to Torah and the best of Jewish values; forge a relationship between our individual lives, families, and those of the Jewish people around the world and across the ages” (p.98).

In other words, what if mitzvot were obligations – just not obligations imposed upon us by an external, dominating authority. What would it mean, instead, to conceive of mitzvot as a set of obligations that we take upon ourselves as part of mutual relationships: between ourselves and the Divine, with other Jews in our community and around the world, and with the generations of Jews who have passed on and the generations yet to come.

For me, these are the most important questions raised by the current debate over the role of women in our communities.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Abe Friedman