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Showing posts with label Shmot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shmot. Show all posts
Thursday, December 23, 2021
In This Moment: Dec 23: Reasons to be Hopeful. Really. Moses, Jesus, and Frodo; Handeling the Messiah; Shabbatica Exotica
Friday, January 17, 2020
Shabbat-O-Gram: MLK - Heschel Shabbat; Spiritual Audacity; Moses and the Mysterious Midwives
Shabbat-O-Gram
The first conference on religion and race took place in Egypt. The main participants were Pharaoh and Moses. Moses said, “Thus saith the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go.’” And Pharaoh answered, “Who is the Lord that I should heed His word? I will not let them go.” The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The Exodus began, but it is far from being complete.
-Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Abraham Joshua Heschel at a convocation at Congregation Kehillath Israel in Brookline, MA in the 1960s. That's my father, Cantor Michal Hammerman, leading the procession.
We received this lovely thank-you note from the staff of Building 1 Community
after the holiday party we prepared for them in December. B1C facilitiates the successful immigration of immigrants and their families to our area. We are proud to work with them toward that end, so that all who reach our golden shores will feel embraced by their community.
Shabbat Shalom
Every so often the stars align, where MLK Weekend coincides with the yahrzeit for Abraham Joshua Heschel and the portion of Shemot - the first portion of the book of Exodus. That's the part where the Israelites are enslaved and Moses receives the call the prophecy. Such is the case this year. Heschel's yahrzeit was this week, on the 15th - coinciding with King's actual birthday. In honor of that yahrzeit, I'm focusing on Heschel in this O-Gram.
Both great leaders were prophets who spoke a lot about the ancient Israelite prophets, who, according to Heschel, were the ones who first commented on the evil of indifference. They also walked together in Selma.
On Friday night, Beth Styles will again join us, and she has produced a very special MLK Weekend service, assisted by Jason Terry and the New World Chorus. It will be a Gospel-Jewish Mashup, worthy of Heschel, King, and, for that matter, Moses. This is something I approached her with months ago - a way to celebrate this special weekend as it needs to be celebrated: with a love that reaches beyond one faith group within our community. We will be sprinkling in relevant quotes and thoughts related to one of Dr King's most lasting speeches, culled from the Talmud of MLK, a recent project of the innovative Jewish startup, "Repair the World."
Not to be outdone, on Shabbat morning we'll have another Shabbat-in-the-Round, where I will be joined by Cantor Deborah Katchko-Gray. As we explore the portion of Shemot, a special point of emphasis will be the role of heroes, both known and unknown, in particular, Moses himself and the heroic Israelite (or Egyptian?) midwives Shifra and Puah, who saved Israelite boys from drowning at the hands of Pharaoh's evil decree. Join us for breakfast - service begins at 9:45, and then a kiddush lunch follows. Read more about those mysterious midwives from TheTorah.com and the Jewish Women's Archive, and here's another feminist take on the story. And preview the parsha packet here.
Also on my recommended reading list this week:
- Secular Synagogues Taking Root in Israel (Tablet magazine) My own take on this phenomenon is that it's not far off from what many congregations here are doing, echoing ideas expressed a century ago by Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, author of "Judaism as a Civilization."
- How Shall We Pray During Impeachment? (Religion and Politics)
- Bitterly Funny Eretz Nehederet Israeli Show Spoofs "Elections 2030" and Absurd Political Reality (JPost) I watched it on Israeli TV - really funny - and it's good to know that Israelis still know how to laugh at themselves. Over here, SNL is still struggling to find its voice.
- Fifth World Holocaust Forum (Yad Vashem website) will take place on Jan 23, next Thurs., and world leaders will converge on Jerusalem as the world commemorates the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz the following week. The event will include speeches by will include speeches by Heads of State from France, Great Britain, Russia (yes, Putin will be there), the United States (VP Pence) and Germany.
- Religious Leaders Can Be Part of the Solution for Peace, Not the Problem (RNS) See also https://abrahamicfaithspeacemaking.com/.
Middah Yomi: Daily Dosage of Jewish Values for 2020
This week's focal point for character building:
Spiritual Audacity:
The Legacy of Abraham Joshua Heschel
So what is there to say about Abraham Joshua Heschel's legacy, 48 years after his passing?
His accusations against the American Jewish establishment were piercing, often characterizing it as shallow, materialistic and indifferent. He was also critical of rabbis and synagogues, saying:
Quote #1: "Has the synagogue become the graveyard where prayer is buried? Are we, the spiritual leaders of American Jewry, members of a burial society? There are many who labor in the vineyard of oratory; but who knows how to pray, or how to inspire others to pray? There are many who can execute and display magnificent fireworks; but who knows how to kindle a spark in the darkness of a soul?"
His daughter, Susannah Heschel, wrote the following in Tikkun on the occasion of his 25th yarhzeit, summing up his many contributions:
Quote #2"So much of what Jews have created in the last 25 years stems from Heschel's inspiration: the Havurah movement, social-conscious political activism, the revival of Jewish spirituality, renewed interest in Hasidism, creative Jewish theology, the renewed pride in being Jewish. What we are missing today, however, is the voice of moral leadership that we heard with Heschel, and, I add, with Martin Luther King. His prophetic tradition has been replaced by voices of witness that describe anti-Semitism, voices of doom that decry statistics of assimilation, and voices of anger that insist on narrow definitions of Judaism. They leave us with a cynical taste in our mouths; none that gives us the transcendent vision we need. Today, in celebrating my father's memory, we have to bring to life the joyful and thoughtful aspects of Judaism he taught and exemplified: that we are all made in the image of God, that God's creation is filled with wonder and awe and that God needs us as partners in caring for our fellow human beings and all of creation."
And now, with a full generation having grown to adulthood since Heschel's death, it is easier to see just how profound and lasting his influence has been. The activism that this generation of rabbis (and many of their congregants) espouse is Heschelian activism, as distinguished from the New Dealism that characterized the prior generation. It still trends to the left politically, but it is based on a vision steeped in Heschel's Hasidic roots, his joyous spirituality, his unabashed love of Judaism and his unbending willingness to speak truth to power. Heschel practically invented the modern notion of "Tikkun Olam," joining it to Martin Luther King's bending the arc of history. He was the one who "prayed with his feet" at Selma and who, in protesting against the Vietnam War, said famously:
Quote #3 "In a free society, some our guilty, all are responsible."
Heschel was an unashamed Zionist and even saw glimpses of messianic fulfillment in Israel's 1967 reunification of Jerusalem. Still, he was clear that "We do not worship the soil," meaning that the land is not holy; it is, he affirmed, a place where holiness is to be created. So, although he did not live to see the results of Israel's continuing possession of the Territories and the failed attempts at peace, it is fair to speculate that he would not be a supporter of holding on to the biblical land of Israel for religious purposes. It is also fair to say to suggest that Heschel's activist legacy is directly responsible for the civil disobedience of the "Women of the Wall," which has long sought opening of the Western Wall to egalitarian prayer.
In his essay, "Existence and Celebration," (found in the collection "Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity," Heschel distinguishes between Jewish survival and renewal. It is an important distinction, one that we should draw, because American Jews have gotten stuck in a survivalist trap. Heschel writes that it is more productive to be preoccupied with enhancing the present than to nurture fears about the future. Here we are, living not in the moment, not in awe of the moment and of God's presence in this moment, but living in utter fear of whether our great grandchildren will have a Christmas tree. Heschel would advise us to let the future take care of itself. He scoffed at surveys.
Quote #4: "Our community is in spiritual distress," he said, "and some of our organizations are often too concerned with digits." He bristled at the stifling of criticism within organizational life, the "dogma of infallibility," as he called it. The true problem, he said, is not how to survive, but what to survive for.
Heschel did not live in a world of potential Iranian nukes, but Israel was no safer then than it is now. The existential dangers to Jewish survival are, in fact, far less severe now than at any time in Heschel's life. But even while the Holocaust was still going on, he quoted the Ba'al Shem Tov in stating,
Quote #5: "If a man has beheld evil, he may know that it was shown to him in order that he learn his own guilt and repent; for what is shown to him is also within him."
To that Heschel added:
Quote #6: "Soldiers in the horror of battle offer solemn testimony that life is not a hunt for pleasure, but an engagement for service; that there are things more valuable than life.... Either we make (the world) an altar for God or it is invaded by demons. There can be no neutrality. Either we are ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil. Let the blasphemy of our time not become an eternal scandal. Let future generations not loathe us for having failed to preserve what prophets and saints, martyrs and scholars have created in thousands of years."
In words spoken at the General Assembly of North American Federations toward the end of his life, he waxed prophetic about what it meant to be part of a Jewish community in America. What Heschel said then, and what is true now, is that Jewish institutions have fallen victim to what he calls "a campaign of spiritual liquidation," a malaise of hopelessness that leads only to more blaming and bitterness, to a basic view of Jewish existence that sees only the negative, that speaks only in material terms. He said:
Quote #7: "Our institutions maintain too many beauty parlors. Our people need a language and we offer them cosmetics. Our people need style, learning, conviction, exaltation and we are concerned about not being admitted to certain country clubs. To paraphrase the words of Isaiah: What is to me the multitude of your organizations says the Lord. I have had enough of your vicarious loyalty. Bring me no more vain offerings; generosity without wisdom is an evasion, an alibi for conscience....We are ingenious in fund raising, which is good; we are shipwrecked in raising our children, which is tragic. We may claim to be a success, but in the eyes of Jewish history we may be regarded as a failure."
If we are to bring the spirit of Heschel into our Jewish communities, we must place spiritual growth above all other goals, including survival itself. For without God, without a sense of covenant, without Torah and Sinai in our midst, there is nothing to survive for. The human being without God, he exclaims, is merely a torso. We have built a fine midsection. Have we lost the head? Have we lost the heart? Have we lost the soul?
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
To sign up for our Eastern Europe trip,
Friday, December 27, 2013
Shabbat-O-Gram for December 27
Shabbat-O-Gram
Thank you to our TBE volunteers at Inspirica (here photographed with "Lander Claus") and Pacific House, who brought holiday cheer to so many last Tuesday night. It was, as always, a deeply inspiring and humbling opportunity to perform an important mitzvah. Thanks also to all who prepared food and donated time and other items for this important annual project. Next year, I fully intend to sit on Steve Lander's lap, as long as all cameras are OFF!
A Look Back... A Look Ahead
As we stand on the cusp of a new secular year, this is an appropriate time to look back and look ahead.
Looking Ahead:
I'll be going solo this evening with the cantor away, but this year-end setting provides us with the perfect opportunity to take a sneak peak at a new Sabbath prayer book still in production. This siddur is based on the very popular new High Holidays machzor that we began using a couple of weeks ago. Curious to try this one out (and share reactions)? Come tonight at 7:30.
Looking Back:
Many of us look back with great fondness at the years Rabbi Barb Moskow served our school and community. I'm delighted that Barb will be delivering tomorrow mornings d'var Torah. Join us for services, beginning at 9:30.
Meanwhile you can look back at last week's parsha packet Moses and the Hero's Journey, which, along with some additional Legends of Moses' Childhood, enabled us to compare the stories of Moses with the journeys of ancient historical and mythological heroes from other cultures and faith traditions (including, appropriately, Christianity).
Looking Back:
Many of us look back with great fondness at the years Rabbi Barb Moskow served our school and congregation. I'm delighted that Barb will be delivering tomorrow mornings d'var Torah. Join us for services, beginning at 9:30.
Looking Ahead to the new week: Our experiment in Doodle Minyans has passed with flying colors. We've had minyans every day since the Minyan Maker went online. But past performance is no guarantee of future results. So sign up for the next few days here.
Looking Ahead to the New Year:
Check our upcoming bulletin and other announcements for a plethora of January events. Of special note is a showing of the film "Journey of the Universe" on Jan. 14, with guest speaker Teresa Eickel of Interreligious Eco-Justice Network. It's one of the most inspirational spiritual films I've ever seen, and yet it hardly mentions religion at all. See more information here.
Y.A.C at T.B.E: Jan. 10 @ 6:30 - a wine and cheese reception for young couples, the premier event for our new Young Adult Couples group. If you know of a young couple in our area, (member, non member, child of a member, including interfaith couples, married, unmarried, straight, gay,) let us know so we can invite them personally. As for age range - we'll let you determine that! Our goal is to be as inclusive as possible.
Also, we've got some great Shabbat programming coming up, including a new series of Learner's Services, where a key theme of contemporary Jewish life will be wedded to both the portion of the week and a prayer from the liturgy: Shabbat Conversations: Parsha, Prayer and Purpose.
Also, we'll continue the series "This American Jewish Life," with TBE congregants sharing perspectives on their life journeys. These testimonies showcase the extraordinary stories our congregants have to tell. At the next one, on Friday Jan. 10, we'll hear from a TBE young adult who has confronted the demons of addiction and recovery.
And the Israel trip information session has been rescheduled to Sunday Jan 5 at noon. Over 20 people have already registered! You can preview the trip and book online here. Space is limited!
Looking Back at 2013:
Below is an article of mine appearing in this week's Jewish Week's Year End Supplement. To you and yours, a safe and happy secular new year!
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
It Was a Great Year. Really.
By Joshua Hammerman
2013 was a very good year for the Jewish people - and an even better one for the Jewish Message.
Wait, what? How can I say this at the end of a year when the Pew report led pundits to declare that the sun is setting on American Jewry; a year featuring major organizational scandals involving sex abuse cover-ups, kickbacks, illicit affairs and, in the case of the Holocaust Claims Conference, $57 million taken out of the pockets of survivors? A year when Israel and America were at loggerheads over a risky deal with Iran, when Ryan Braun was suspended for doping and Steven Spielberg failed to win the Oscar for "Lincoln?" Fittingly, the Oscar for best song was won by Jewish director Sam Mendes' aptly named film, "Skyfall."
But the sky did not fall.
American Jewry is in fact ascendant, and Israel, despite approaching a crucial crossroads with Iran, has never been in a superior geostrategic position, with the Arab world engulfed in internecine conflict. And with vast untapped natural gas reserves off shore and water desalination in high gear, Israel's economic potential is soaring.
The most significant revelation of the Pew survey was not the increasing rate of assimilation or the attrition rate of all the movements (Orthodox included). It's that almost every American Jew loves being Jewish. We feel pretty - and we look it. Now we can make fun our old neuroses (such as when Sarah Silverman suggested recently that Brandeis team mascot is a nose), knowing that Adam Levine is People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive and Esquire's Sexiest Woman is Scarlett Johansson. Deep down, we like ourselves. We look like Mila Kunis, pitch like Craig Breslow and win six Nobel Prizes in a single year. In 2013, Woody Allen morphed into Stuart Smalley.
When 94% of U.S. Jews say they are proud to be Jewish, this is nothing short of miraculous, given the Chicken Little version of history that we've been force fed for generations. I can't think of another time in Jewish history where 94% would even have had the confidence to open the door for the pollster, much less admit openly that they are proud to be Jews.
A new kind of Jewish community is being forged, one less dependent on traditional boundaries and definitions. A wider variety of behaviors has become normative and acceptable. Fewer are being left out of the big tent - including those who are non-observant, intermarried, gay, people of color or not halachically Jewish. This is scary to many, but the train has left the station. Not just here. The reigning Miss Israel is of Ethiopian background, and the 2013 winner of Israel's version of "The Voice" was an Israeli Arab. This is the year when the Women of the Wall finally broke through that glass Chuppah, and when Israeli women refused to sit in the back of the bus. The Sharansky plan to create space for pluralistic, egalitarian prayer at the Kotel was yet another example that the Jewish message of inclusiveness, the mandate to love the stranger, is winning out.
In the U.S., that message was embodied this year by Edie Windsor, her lawyer Roberta Kaplan and the three Jewish Supreme Court justices, who together overturned the Defense of Marriage Act and set the country on a new track where marriage equality has not only become imaginable, but inevitable.
The Chicken Littles will point to evidence that younger Jews are rejecting denominational labels (like young Americans of all religious backgrounds), and many are fleeing ritual, synagogue affiliation and organizational involvement. Theirs is more of a Judaism-by-choice, a cafeteria Judaism where God and tradition are no longer the only items on the menu.
It's interesting that only 39% of Pew's "Jews by religion" claim that God even exists. But 42% of Jews who claim to be of "no religion" attend Passover Seders, and many attend High Holidays services - those occasions when the Jewish Message is most powerfully reinforced. Something very tangible is keeping even the most assimilated Jews in the Jewish orbit at a time when ethnicity and nostalgia have lost their pull. And for many whose ancestors long ago left the fold, something is pulling them back.
Pew indicated that the Holocaust has enduring power for American Jews. But for Pew Jews, the lessons of the Shoah emphasize resilience, hope and loving the stranger, not fear, shame, hatred, revenge and despair. Seventy years after Auschwitz, our mourning has dissolved into pure, constructive remembering. We are moving on. Pew painted a picture of a Jews who feel welcome in their neighborhoods and are unscarred by bias (fewer than half - 43% - feel that Jews face discrimination). In fact, Pew Jews think several other groups face more bigotry than they do, including, wonder of wonders, Muslims.
Amazingly, post Holocaust Jewry has never abandoned its basic human capacity for kindness, even as we continue to struggle with the God who allowed Auschwitz to happen, and who allowed 20 children to die in Newtown, hundreds of lives to be shattered in Boston and 1127 to die in a decrepit Bangladesh clothing factory and nearly 6000 in a Pacific typhoon. So we struggle with God, but struggling with God has always been a central feature of the Jewish Message.
The defining battle taking place in the Jewish world right now is not between Orthodox and liberal, because the same struggle rages within each of the movements too. It is the battle between justice and love, strictness and acceptance, between exclusivity and inclusivity, between keeping out and welcoming in. In 2013, the pendulum tilted toward love.
In the Sh'ma's opening paragraph, the one that begins "You shall love," it states that "these words shall be on your heart."
Why "on" your heart and not in it?
The Kotzker rebbe responds:
"We should at least keep these words "on" our hearts, for everyone has a time when his heart opens, and if we have kept the words on our hearts, then they will be ready to fall in, in that short moment of openness."
In 2013, our hearts opened just slightly, just enough for that divine message, the one imploring us to love, to sink in.
We've officially entered the post-guilt, post victimhood era of American Judaism.
It was a very good year.
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