Lekh Lekha 5775

Lekh Lekha 5775

This week’s parshah, Lekh Lekha, includes a fascinating supporting character: Melchizedek, king of Shalem. The geopolitical background to his story has a complexity worthy of contemporary cable drama: four kings have united to dominate the cities of five other kings; the five weaker kings rebel – unsuccessfully – and in the course of battle Abram’s nephew, Lot, is taken captive. Abram, who until now has remained uninvolved on the sidelines, musters his household into a small private army and marches into battle to rescue his nephew; in the process, he defeats the four kings and restores the others to their cities.

In the aftermath of this battle, Melchizedek suddenly appears. We have seen no mention of him until now; although his city was in the same general area, he, like Abram, seems to have been uninvolved until now. Melchizedek, who is additionally described as a priest of God Most High (Gen. 14:18), brings wine and bread to meet Abram, and blesses him. Abram, in turn, gives Melchizedek a tenth of his war spoils. Then, just as suddenly, Melchizedek vanishes and our story resumes where it left off (see Gen. 14:17-21ff).
Who is this mystery man? While Israelite society separated the roles of priest and king, some other local cultures merged the two. Melchizedek, as a priest-king, was clearly a man of substantial power; and yet he comes to Abram with wine and bread – clearly ritual items – and blessed him in the name of El Elyon, “God Most High.”

Scholars have noted that the Divine name El Elyon is very ancient, appearing in some of the oldest Semitic texts available to us. Melchizedek, then, stands as one of the rare Biblical monotheists outside of Abraham’s family and the eventual Israelite nation. While we often think of Abraham as the person who brought monotheism to the world, Melchizedek’s appearance here reminds us that no person, culture, or nation has a monopoly on truth; Abraham might have done more than any other Biblical character to promote and spread monotheism, but even he was not the only one to recognize God’s role as Creator of heaven and earth (Gen. 14:19).

This Shabbat, as Melchizedek briefly flashes across our consciousness, we have the opportunity to take this lesson to heart and to remember that wherever we go – at work, in our families, in the spheres of religion, politics, or society – we must walk humbly, recognizing that no person has an exclusive hold on the true, right, or best answers in life.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Abe Friedman

Noach 5775

Shabbat Shalom!

In Sunday’s outstanding SHMUSY play, one of the hilarious scenes involved an older gentleman being quizzed on his knowledge of brachot (blessings) by Rabbi Russo before partaking of food from the Shabbos Kiddush table. The kids and Rabbi Russo enacted the scene with humor and passion. 

As I reflect back on the question of blessings, this week, my heart is drawn to the beauty of the blessing our tradition offers upon seeing a rainbow, “Blessed are You, Ruler of the Universe, who Remember the Covenant.” What covenant does God remember and do we remember when we see a rainbow? Not the much acclaimed covenant of Abraham and God. No, not the particular covenant between the Jewish people and the Divine. Rather, the covenant we remember when we see the rainbow, naturally, is the covenant that God made with Noah after the Flood. Precisely the topic of this week’s Torah portion.

In Genesis, Chapter 9, verse 13, the Torah reads, “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.” The rainbow is God’s covenant not with the Jewish people (Abraham has yet to be born) but rather with the whole of humanity. Looking upon the rainbow, we are reminded that we too are covenanted not only with our Jewish brothers and sisters, but also with all those children of God, all those children of Noah, who survived the same Flood, who came from the same Source, and who deep within our collective past witnessed the same miracle of a dove, an olive branch, and a rainbow saying, “life goes on… there is hope… God loves you always.”

In Aharon Yaakov Greenberg’s collection of Chasidic commentary, Iturei Torah, Zion Hillel is quoted sharing this insight: “How does the rainbow symbolize peace, unity, and the continuing existence of the world? Because the rainbow is composed of many colors and shades and they all merge into one unity!  And so it is with the differences between people, in all their groups, tribes, and nations.  Life is based on understanding and mutual tolerance, on harmony and on peace, and they are the foundation of the continuing existence of the world. "

This Sunday, SHMUSY President Aaron Kamel and I will be joining Pastor Michael Neal’s community of Glorious Light Church at 9:30am to deliver the 1500 books donated by the AES community over the High Holidays to Real Men Read. This project, inspired by our own youth leader, symbolizes a moment of “remembering the covenant.” We are partnering with our African American Christian brothers and sisters on the South Side to provide literacy to those in need of education and encouragement. We are demonstrating that we remember that we come from one God and that we have one destiny as children of Noah. We are living out the wisdom of Zion Hillel in celebrating the Rainbow of Humanity, with all its colors and shades, of which we are an integral but not a singular part. If you are so moved, we would be honored to have you join us as we celebrate the coming together of our two communities, and our shared faith in the covenant of God shown in Noah’s rainbow, “life goes on…there is hope… God loves you always.”

-Rabbi D'ror Chankin-Gould

Bereshit 5775

This coming week we end the annual ritual of reading the national history of our people, the Torah. And immediately after we finish, we roll the scroll all the way back to the beginning and start over. Why? There’s a saying that the stories never change, but we do. Every year when we hear these stories of our ancestors, we as individuals living in the present are in different places and circumstances in our own lives, giving us new perspective on the old stories. I love that concept. But in some ways, it is insufficient to address some of the ways in which we identify with the stories of the Torah. Our circumstances may change, but do we?

While things may change over time (see: electricity, industrial revolution, the invention of the cookie – to name a few seismic advances in civilization), we stay human. The quality of being human is universal and constant. In that way, the stars of this year’s SHMUSY play, “Holy Cow! I’m Having a Bat Mitzvah,” have come to the same conclusion. That our ‘human’ness is indelible and unchanging. For instance, humans always have a need for finding meaning and order in the chaos of their lives. This year we’re playing with a seminal story in the Torah about that very thing: the Golden Calf.

What relevance does the Golden Calf story have to the High Holiday season? In Haazinu, we hear the last words from Moses before we move on to the promised land without him. Without Moses. Only one other time since escaping slavery in Mitzrayim have we Israelites been without Moses. And that episode gave us the Golden Calf. We were unable to cope without leadership, without constant proof of God’s presence. And now God is trusting us to make our way into Canaan without our prophet, our hero. What lessons can we learn from the first episode of Moses’ absence to help guide our way moving forward? Both in biblical time and in year 5775? That is what we aim to explore in this year’s play. Come see it at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 19 in Blum Community Hall to see if we have come up with any good answers to this dilemma! There will be cookies.

- Jon Adam Ross

Sukkot 5775

Guests for Doing Good.

One of my favorite Sukkot customs is inviting the Ushpizin to join us in the Sukkah.  The Ushpizin are seven pairs of spiritual ancestors – Abraham and Sarah; Isaac and Miriam; Jacob and Deborah; Moses and Hannah; Aaron and Abigail; Joseph and Huldah; and David and Esther – who we invite, one pair each night, to join us in the Sukkah.

The custom originates in the Zohar, one of the central works of Kabbalah; and while many Jews today are not familiar with the reasons why we invite these spiritual guests, the Zohar (Emor, 3:104a) explains the rationale:

Rabbi Eleazar said: “The Torah does not demand more from a person than he can perform, as it says, Each person shall give as he is able (Deut. 16:7).”  A person should not say, “I will eat and drink first, and what is left I shall give to the poor;” instead the first of everything must be for the Ushpizin. And if he makes the Ushpizin happy and satisfies them, the Holy Blessed One rejoices with him and Abraham proclaims about him, Then you shall delight in the Lord, etc. (Isaiah 58:14)... Happy is the portion of the person who attains all this!

Inviting the Ushpizin, for the Zohar, helps us cultivate a sense of connection with others; rather than being concerned primarily with my own satisfaction, I practice empathy and awareness of the needs of others.

While for the Zohar this is largely symbolic, Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (Prague, 1565-1630) builds on the Zohar’s teaching:

The general principle: A person should first verbally invite the aforementioned tzaddikim, and afterward give their portion to the poor people who sit around his table.  And he does not have [poor people] around his table, then he should send [food] to the poor in their homes, for this portion belongs to them (Shnei Luhot HaBrit, Sukkah, Ner Mitzvah #8).

In other words, by inviting the Ushpizin we create an extra place set at the table; having set aside a portion of food, we then donate the extra food to feed the poor.

These days, we have other avenues for supporting the poor: over the High Holy Days, we collected food for the Ark; Rabbi Siegel encouraged us to donate the value of the food we would have eaten on Yom Kippur to Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger; and the Lakeview Pantry, a few doors down from Anshe Emet, is always in need of donations. To make it easier for you, I have included links at the end of this d’var Torah.

Wherever you’re eating this holiday, I hope you will take the opportunity to reflect on the blessings you enjoy, and to set aside a portion – food or money – to help those in need.

Mo’adim le-Simhah,

Rabbi Abe Friedman

The Ark: www.arkchicago.org

Lakeview Pantry: www.lakeviewpantry.org

Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger: www.mazon.org