Devarim 5774

This week, we bring you reflections on the current situation in Israel from our dear friend Rabbi Chaya Rowen Baker of Jerusalem’s Ramot Zion congregation. At the end, we have included some practical things each of us can do to support Israel and Israelis in these challenging times.

To all our dear friends and supporters overseas,

At the beginning of the fighting there were several sirens in Jerusalem. Thankfully our preschool classroom is itself a bomb shelter and therefore the kids could stay protected and relatively unalarmed. Last night Hamas shot another rocket at Jerusalem, which luckily was intercepted by the Iron Dome system. Our families and friends elsewhere in the country - all the way from the Gaza border to Tel Aviv and beyond - are less fortunate: they must run to find shelter several times a day and hear the rockets exploding overhead either intercepted by Iron Dome or sometimes - regrettably - on the ground, on homes, schools, businesses and vehicles. People leave home as little as possible because you never know when you will be under attack. Even during a ceasefire... You can imagine what that does to the economy and to the general morale. Not to mention the elderly, the sick and the disabled, who cannot easily run to shelter and who are often alone and helpless... It’s scary and sad and we are praying for it all to be over.

We at Ramot Zion have been supporting our members and our brothers and sisters in the south, checking in on the community elderly, offering home hospitality to families from the south, sending foodstuff and supplies to families who spend more time in bomb shelters than out of them, and home-cooked meals to our soldiers. We are in the midst of organizing – in collaboration with the municipality – a farmers’ market for merchants from the south to sell their merchandise in Jerusalem (of course in a facility with a bomb shelter) since they have had virtually no business for over three weeks.

Some thirty soldiers from Ramot Zion were drafted on the emergency draft to active reserve duty: Sons, daughters and siblings of congregants (including my own sister...), husbands and fathers. We are all very tense and worried for our loved ones. However we realize that this is necessary for the survival of Israel; that if it weren’t for our soldiers there would be scores of terrorists roaming Israel, having sneaked in through the many tunnels they have dug right into our border towns and kibbutzim, murdering or kidnapping the residents of those places and others, and there would probably be hundreds more rockets shot at our cities. So we pray for the safety of our soldiers and keep busy offering help and support to their families: periodical phone calls, cards, home-cooked meals, and help with the kids.

It is all so terrible, since on top of all this difficulty the human tragedy in Gaza is overwhelming. Our hearts ache for the Gazan civilians who are suffering such terrible casualties. We wish the international community would exert pressure not only on Israel but also on Hamas for using them as human shields, forcing them to stay in their homes that house terrorist activity when they would rather evacuate, and executing those who dare to protest.

It is so distressing to see the way this war is portrayed in the world, the anti-Jewish (not anti-Israeli) demonstrations across the world, the lies and false footage dispensed by Hamas, and the double standard and one-sidedness of the media.

On the social front we are dealing with groups within us lashing out at one another. This war, coupled with the intensity of new social media, is bringing to light a great deal of animosity among Israelis of different political convictions and we at Ramot Zion see the amelioration of that animosity as one of our main missions at this time. Our Tisha B’av commemoration will be a joint study session with Orthodox synagogues in French Hill – the first ever and the result of delicate, intensive efforts – in the spirit of finding common ground and nurturing fraternity.

I would like to end with a prayer for peace – among Jews, peace in our entire region, and peace among the nations. I hope you will dedicate time in your services for prayer for the safety of our soldiers and civilians and for an end to this violence and peace for all.

With warm regards,
Rabbi Chaya Rowen Baker

Many of us ask what we can do, here in Chicago, to support our brothers and sisters in Israel. At this week’s Israeli Solidarity Rally, JUF’s president Steven B. Nasatir made several practical suggestions, including:

1. Educate yourself and others about the facts of what is happening in Israel. Good resources include Ha’aretz (www.haaretz.com), The Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com), and the Times of Israel (www.timesofisrael.com).
2. Reach out via email or phone to anyone we know in Israel to demonstrate our support. 
3. Purchase products made in Israel to support Israel’s economy and counteract the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.
4. Contribute to the JUF Israel Emergency Fund, which directly funds emergency medical services, bomb shelters and other public safety measures, and support for families affected by the rockets and the mobilization of army reserves: https://donate.juf.org/IsraelEmergency.

May we soon see a secure peace for Israel and all its neighboring people.

Re'eh 5773

Re'eh 5773

I would like introduce you to a translation of the Torah that you may not have heard of before, by Dr. Everett Fox. Dr. Fox seeks to provide a translation of the Torah that sounds as close to the original Hebrew as possible. Here is an example from this week’s parsha, Devarim 15:7-8:

“When there is among you a needy-person from any-one of your brothers within one of your gates, in the land that God is giving you, you are not to toughen your heart, you are not to shut your hand to your brother, the needy-one. Rather, you are to open, yes, open your hand to him…”

Where most translators would translate the original Hebrew  as: “open your hand,” or “you shall surely open your hand,” Fox strives to translate in a fashion similar to the original Hebrew, “open, yes, open your hand.” Here he is emphasizing a phrase that grammarians call this the “infinitive absolute,” where the verb is repeated in order to emphasize the critical nature of this Biblical imperative.

In these verses, we are commanded not to toughen our hearts and shut our hands. The parsha continues as if we did not listen the first time, by repeating this in verse 11:

For the needy will never be-gone from amid the land; therefore I command you, saying: You are to open, yes, open your hand to your brother, to your afflicted-one, and to your needy-one in your land!

There are times when I, and I am guessing many of you, wonder, when can this tzedaka work end? Is it worth doing this if we will never be able to solve issues of poverty in our world?

The Torah emphasizes this harsh reality, while also encouraging us – yes, it is overwhelming. Yes, there is a lot of poverty, hunger, homelessness, around us. And no, it is not going away. But, still, patoach tiftach, open your hand, keep working at it, for we must support our neighbors who need help.

It is around this time of year that we ask for your help. In the end of August, we pack and deliver food for the holidays for Jews in our community who otherwise may not be able to have festive meals. We also have a food drive during the High Holy Days to support the Ark. And, we are in high gear, with our Na’aseh, our social justice committee, leading the charge in coordinating volunteers for the Uptown Café and the Night Ministry. But we need your help. Please feel free to contact me or Ashley Kain (ashleykain15@gmail.com). Because if more of us are opening our hands, we can be the people who, even though we don’t solve all of the world’s issues of poverty, can still make a difference for those in our community who need help.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi David Russo

Devarim 5773

Devarim 5773

This week’s parasha, Devarim, is read every year on the Shabbat before the fast of Tisha B’Av and is known as Shabbat Hazon (the Sabbath of the Vision) – a name taken from the vision of Isaiah which constitutes the Haftarah.  Inasmuch as this is portion is about history it is appropriate for this saddest period of the Jewish year.. But history is not a series of random events; history has a purpose. The prayer book teaches, “because of our sins were we thrown off our land.” The reading of this portion becomes a time of soul searching over past sins and future redemption.

Unlike the personal and individual sins which we contemplate on the only other full day fast of the Hebrew calendar, Yom Kippur, on Trisha B’Av, we contemplate the sins of our people as we learn in the parasha:

 “Then you retreated and wept before the Lord, but the Lord did not listen to your voice and He did not hearken to you” (Deuteronomy 1:45)

Tradition teaches that both the first and the second Temple in Jerusalem were destroyed on the ninth of Av. It was a day of destruction the like of which the Jewish people had never known. And that is why on Monday evening many will gather at Anshe Emet Synagogue in order to usher in the fast of Tisha B’Av – the ninth day of the month of Av. (I will not be able to join you as I will still be in Israel and will observe the fast with my family overlooking the ancient walls of Old Jerusalem.)

Because we live in an age of individualized spirituality I fear that the message of Tisha B’Av eludes so many of us. Identifying with the Jewish people and with the tragedies which we have faced and survived as a people are not as compelling for all Jews as they once might have been.  But as someone with whom the notion of Jewish peoplehood still resonates most strongly I am very touched by the following words written by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, Dean of the Ziegler Rabbinical School at the American Jewish University in Lost Angeles:

“To observe Tishah b'Av in Jerusalem is to allow the past to engulf the present, to induce a willful amnesia in the conviction that the resultant memory will be more true, more incisive, and more real. To mourn the destruction of ancient Jerusalem is to deny the present its despotic hold on contemporary souls, to affirm that there is much to learn from the past -  about human living, about coping with despair and suffering, about redeeming the human  heart…

“Suffering alone cannot provide purpose to Jewish identity, but one cannot come to terms with  what that identity has meant without grappling with the ancient and resurgent presence of  anti-Semitism. On Tishah B'Av, we mourn that so many people have hated so much. We cry over the consequent suffering of innocents beyond counting.

“But this fast is not simply to record the endlessness of Jew hatred and Jew beatings. This day also marks the end of Jewish sovereignty, of the kind of security and self-confidence that can only emerge when a people controls its own destiny, lives on its own land, determines its future for itself….

“On Tishah B'Av, then, we mourn our lost independence and our weakened self-confidence.  We mourn our dependence on the whims and kindnesses of strangers.”

Many have questioned whether or not the creation of a modern Jewish state means we should cease observing the fasting and mourning rituals of Tisha B’Av.  But Rabbi Artson reminds us that there is also a spiritual side to this day.  He reminds us that in the absence of a rebuilt Temple we need to restore wholeness to our people if not our entire planet by striving to be a holy people.

As the sages teach us, “You are not required to complete the task, yet neither are you free to desist from it."

And in the words of Rabbi Artson, “It is up to us to begin.”

I wish you both Shabbat Shalom and an easy fast from the land of Israel,

Rabbi Matt Futterman

Senior Educator