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

Rosh Hashanah 5775: On Joy and Living a Jewish Life by Rabbi David Russo

Let me start today with a question: Does religion, does Judaism, make you happy?

I recently heard this question on a podcast called Freakonomics, which explores everyday questions and situations and analyzes them from the perspective of economics. And their topic a few months ago was, Does Religion make you happy?

The podcast explored many different perspectives on the topic, explaining how religion provides community, social networks, and that religions can sometimes help a person get a job through the interpersonal connections that you make. And, oh yeah, as a sidebar, the podcast mentions that religion can give a person faith as well.
 
This led me to reflect on two basic questions:

1)    What is the point of living a Jewish life?
2)    And is Judaism supposed to make you happy?

Let’s start with the second question – is Judaism supposed to make us happy?

In a wonderful essay,  Prof Solomon Schechter z”l, the early 20th century leader of the Conservative movement, wrote an essay on what is called simcha shel mitzvah – the joy that comes from performing a mitzvah. He identifies at the outset that the halachot, the laws of Jewish tradition, have a harsh sound to them, suggesting that something external is forcing us to observe our tradition.

And as someone who works with children, I can tell you that children and adults alike despise any time that an external force demands burdensome tasks.

Schechter continues by talking about simcha shel mitzvah, the joy of observing Jewish tradition that is essential to the fulfilling of mitzvot. (148) He continues by describing the tale of a woman who celebrated the upcoming holiday of Sukkot. She recalled a rabbinic teaching of our, that we are supposed to make the sukkah like our permanent dwelling.

So this person took this mitzvah seriously, as some here may have in the past, and brought the children to sleep in the sukkah with her.

She was so looking forward to fulfilling the mitzvah of shaking the lulav and etrog that she woke up before sunrise, and waited impatiently for the first moments of dawn, when she could say the beracha over the lulav and etrog for the first time. (150)
 
I remember a similar story of our own Aaron Kamins, who was a part of the Kosher Ribfest this past year. He told me that, after everyone stayed up pretty much all night preparing the delicious fleishiks, that at sunrise a group of people gathered together for a Minyan. They did not only get a Minyan together because they had to – but because they wanted to, because it provided them with great joy.

After the exhaustion of staying up all night, working hard to prepare huge amounts of meat, one could imagine the shacharit service being a great burden; but it can also be an uplifting, joyful moment that relieves stress and exhaustion, bringing about a stronger sense of self and community.
 
Aaron and others found joy not only in the making of chicken and ribs worth salivating over, but more significantly found joy in the morning tefillot that followed.

Being Jewish is not simply for the purpose of happiness – that could be accomplished through something as simple as something like prepping and eating the Ribfest food. The point of Jewish tradition is that we live lives as Jews.

Rabbi Joseph Dov Baer Soloveichik, known as the Rav, talks about being an observant Jew as seeing everything in the world through a Jewish lens.
 
Simcha, for Jews, is always through the lens of mitzvot, our traditions.

During this coming week when we celebrate Sukkot, we get to celebrate one of the most joyful mitzvot – sitting in the Sukkah.

And I remember as a kid in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, even when it was freezing cold, we WANTED to sit in the sukkah. An outside observer would have looked in on us and said, what are you thinking? Even with the tradition of building a sukkah, someone from the outside could say, Moses NEVER imagined that people should sit in sukkot when in frigid, snowy Canada!
 
But we loved every moment of it: building, decorating, and setting up the sukkah. We loved bundling ourselves in jackets and extra scarves, taking in the smell of the evergreens. All we wanted to do on Sukkot was sit as a family and enjoy each other’s company. Our joy was made possible through the observance of the mitzvah.

For Jews, the joy is in the how-to – in learning how to do things like build a sukkah. We learn how to build it, we decorate it, we make it logistically  happen.

And being Jewish is also about with whom we observe Jewish tradition. Judaism is celebrated when we do it with friends, with family, with community.
 
So while Freakonomics suggests that the happiness one derives from religion is based on financial success; and while general American culture tells us that we have a right to pursuing happiness; Jewish tradition instead insists that we find joy from elevating the most mundane moments – sunrises and sunsets, Judaism is seeking to elevate every moment, every place, every thing, every person that we interact with.

Our tradition teaches that once we conclude Yom Kippur we must immediately begin building the Sukkah, in order to transition from one mitzvah to the next. 

Right after we finish ne’ilah, we are not simply supposed to rush to our break-fast. We are supposed to rush to the joy of performing another mitzvah.
 
So I ask you, what is the Sukkah for each of us?
What are we building during, and right after, these Yamim Noraim, these High Holy Days?
What is that mitzvah that you want to ensure you take on with extra joy this coming year?
Is it being more thoughtful in prayer?
Is it in how you perform tzedaka?
Or how you celebrate with your family?
More eager in providing meals for those in our community who are in need?
More active in causes for justice that will help change Chicago?

I challenge every one of us to go through the coming year and constantly ask the question: Am I finding joy in this mitzvah?

One of the new tunes that we introduced this year to the Malkov High Holy Day services is one to simcha le’artzecha – may we have joy in God’s land. The goal of Yom Kippur is to create a prayer service of meaning and yes, even joy – joy that we pray together, joy that we reflect for ourselves, joy in how we pray for a new year.

And our mission is to determine how to bring that joy into everyday life after Yom Kippur.
So may I offer all of us the following beracha:

May we discover Jewish tradition with open hearts;
May we find great joy and meaning in daily life;
May we share that simcha shel mitzvah, that joy of celebrating Jewish tradition with others;
And may that celebration lead to a fulfillment of the High Holy Day mantra simcha leartzecha – of bringing about a land that is filled with joy and peace.
Shana tova.

Kol Nidre 5775: Once a year by Rabbi Abe Friedman

At the beginning of Elul, the Hebrew month that precedes Rosh HaShanah and begins a season of introspection and repentance, a friend asked me a difficult question: What is the significance of a specific day, once a year, on which we atone for our sins and make amends to the people we have harmed, when ideally we take accountability for our wrongdoing day by day as it happens? It’s a good question: What are we doing here, tonight and tomorrow? What do we accomplish with a day of prayer, fasting, and confession? How much power can a single day have to change our lives, when weighed against the thousands of days that have passed and the many days yet to come?

I’ve been considering my answer for the past month, and I’m ready to weigh in. It begins with  teaching from Rabbi Joel Sirkes, also knows as the Bah, a Polish rabbi living at the turn of the seventeenth century. One of the core practices of the Ten Days of Teshuvah is our asking forgiveness of all people we have hurt, emotionally, physically, or financially, in the previous year. The Bah acknowledges that, indeed, we ought to make these apologies throughout the year, each time we offend against another person. But at other times of the year, we may well put it off – “I’ll apologize to her tomorrow.”^[1] Sometimes we have a good reason for this; perhaps we are waiting to see the person again, so we can apologize in person; sometimes we need emotions to cool before we can address the issue; maybe it takes us some time to really understand what it is we have done wrong. Sometimes, we put off our apology because taking accountability makes us uncomfortable, because we are ashamed to admit what we’ve done, or because we hope to avoid the consequences of our actions. Often, we’re not the only ones at fault and our pride resists our apologizing first.

Whatever the reason, the need to apologize and take responsibility for our behavior remains a general obligation; tomorrow or the next day are as good as today. But when I was in Business School, they taught us that a commitment without a deadline doesn’t count – without a due date, there is no accountability. When it comes to reconciliation, Yom Kippur is that deadline. Just this once, tomorrow is not the same as today.

On this day, the Heavenly Court will assemble to judge each of us and the Jewish People as a whole; and we must ask, what will be entered into evidence?

A midrash imagines the Prosecuting Angel coming forward, ready to present his case to the Master of the World, only to find that we have made peace among ourselves; we have settled our accounts, cleared away any traces of wrongdoing, and now stand like angels: pure, holy, at peace with others and with ourselves. The Prosecuting Angel then has no choice but to concede our virtue – and how could the True Judge not be convinced by the Prosecutor’s concession?^[2] It was for that reason that I asked you, at the start of the evening, to forgive even those people who haven’t asked your forgiveness: so that we might make our peace before the Heavenly Court convenes. The deadline of Yom Kippur keeps us accountable.

Still, even if we succeed at making amends and clearing our conscience before Yom Kippur, how much will a single day do for us? More than you might think.

The Hasidic Rebbe of Chernobyl, a disciple of the Ba’al Shem Tov, places great emphasis on something we know from basic life experience: no human being can maintain a given emotional or spiritual state indefinitely.^[3] Whatever we feel today, for better or for worse, we can expect that it will change soon enough. However much we might feel today, on Yom Kippur, that we’re getting ourselves together and coming closer to living by our ideals, we know it won’t last forever. Sooner or later we’ll slip up.

The Chernobyler Rebbe explicitly acknowledges that we can’t hold on to our spiritual growth forever; that’s just part of being human. But that doesn’t mean our striving to grow and improve, on this day or any other, is in vain. On the contrary, the very temporary experience of Yom Kippur – living, for just one day, like an angel – becomes the key to change later in the year and throughout life. The Chernobyler Rebbe teaches that each experience we have in life, however fleeting, makes an impression on us; and when the initial feeling goes, it doesn’t leave completely. The imprint of our past experiences stays with us, creating in us the capacity to find those things again.^[4] In this moment, I have made amends for the mistakes of the past year; I have forgiven those who hurt me. I am at peace with one and all, angelic in my purity. And when, later this week or next week or in a few months, I slip up – I won’t be completely lost. Having felt, even just this once, what it means to be pure, to be free, to be at peace, I can find my way back again.

In just a moment, we’ll begin the selichot service, prayers of forgiveness and confession. As we proceed through these prayers, some more familiar than others, what impression will be left on our souls and psyches? What experiences do we want to carry with us when Yom Kippur is over, to guide us through the year? Tonight, even if it is just for tonight, let us be as angels.

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[1] Bah, Orah Hayyim 606.

[2] Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer (Higger ed.), Ch. 45; Tur, Orah Hayyim 606.

[3] Ma’or Aynayim, Emor, cf. Yitro,

[4] Ma’or Aynayim, Emor, cf. Vayetze, s.v.

Beshallah,