I hope to
see everyone here for Temple Rock on Saturday night. It is unbelievable how hard the committee has
been working to make this evening the great success it always is – a real
highlight of our calendar year. I hope
to see you here!
I also hope
you noticed the email we sent out earlier today about our new young couples
group. Over a dozen very
enthusiastic individuals have taken on leadership of this new venture. They aren’t all members of TBE, but that
doesn’t matter. This group is open to
everyone – including interfaith and other non traditional couples, with and
without kids. If you are looking to expand
your social horizons, here’s your chance.
We find that people are so busy these days that it’s hard to break away
and just be a human being for a couple of hours. Here’s a chance to step back from the rat race
and meet other crazed, incredibly busy people looking to do the same
thing. If you (or your adult kids) want
to join them for their movie and bar night this Tuesday, contact Matt Miller at
mattmiller585@gmail.com.
Join us on Shabbat
morning as we celebrate our TBE BCDS 8th graders as they
prepare to leave for their Israel experience.
We look forward to sending off Eddie Weinstein, Matt Greenbaum, Matt
Zweibel, Danny Goldblum, Hudson Price and Steven Yudell - and also thank those of their families who
will be sponsoring our lunch tomorrow. ‘
Speaking of
Israel, my son Dan
is now at Hebrew U for spring semester, and he is continuing to blog about his
travels at http://dhammerman.blogspot.com/. Mara and I look forward to visiting him in
March.
Speaking of
my family, my dad’s
music was featured in a recent radio show that highlights classic cantorial
music. If you are interested, you can
find it here. Go to the program of Jan. 20,
2014 (#233), and drag the mouse along the recording bar to side 2, about 35:25 minutes
in. It’s a little complicated, but
instructions are there. The person
interviewed who spoke about my father got a number of the facts wrong, but it
was still very moving to me to hear from someone who knew him long before I was
born (and in fact was bar mitzvah on the day my dad came to Brookline for his
audition). And then, of course, to hear him chant reminds us that although Jewish
liturgical has moved, by necessity, to a new place, there is something magical
about the great hazzanut of yesteryear. (If you want to hear more, you can also
hear some of my dad’s music that I’ve collected here).
Speaking of
Shabbat morning, tomorrow
I’ll be continuing my series of Learners’ Shabbats, where a key theme of
contemporary Jewish life is wedded to both the portion of the week and a prayer
from the liturgy. Tomorrow’s theme is Love,
Unity and the Tabernacle – as we’ll look at the Sh’ma and the
portion of Terumah, exploring themes of Jewish unity and God’s
Oneness. One, we’ll discover, is
definitely not the loneliest number.
You can get a sneak peak at the parsha packet here. And you can also look back last week’s
packet, on the topic Commandment and Choice: How should Post-Modern Jews
Relate to Jewish Law? part
one is here and click
here for part two.
And speaking
about send-offs, this evening
at Kabbalat Shabbat services we’ll have a send-off of sorts for Pete Seeger,
who died this week. Among his many other
his contributions, he brought Israel to the forefront of American popular
imagination in a very positive ways, back in the 1950s. His relationship with Israel later became
more complicated, but through his efforts, an Israeli song actually made it up
to #2 on the American charts in 1950.
Now, for my
annual Super Bowl Prediction (Using Jewish Sources):
It’s not
easy for me to make my Jewish Super Bowl prediction this year, still in mourning
for my New England Patriots. But since I’ve almost always been right, as a
public service I must meet the challenge.
So who will
it be: Broncos or Seahawks?
Let’s start
with geography. I’ve always liked Seattle, and the Native American leader Chief Seattle was known for his pearls of environmental wisdom.
But not even the lovely Cascades can beat the Rockies for sheer natural
beauty. But it’s not just about
mountains. When Gershwin wrote “the
Rockies may tumble, Gibraltar may crumble, they're only made of clay; but our
love is here to stay,” he was paraphrasing Isaiah 54:10: “For the mountains may
depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you.” Was God speaking to Bronco fans in that
verse?
Or how about
this? In Joshua 24, we read that Joshua
was buried north of Mount Ga’ash, which was
known to be a volcano. Seattle is
situated north of North America’s most famous volcano, Mount St. Helens. It so
happens that Ga’ash
today is known as a nude beach north of Tel Aviv. Seattle, like Israel, has nude beaches
(sorry, no hyperlink. Just trust me, it
does). Denver doesn’t
have nude beaches. So the needle
seems to be leaning Seahawks here.
Since both
teams come from states that have legalized marijuana, neither gets the edge
derived from Genesis 9:3, where God says, “Every moving thing that lives
shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you
everything.”
Coffee? Howard Schultz, owner of
Starbucks, is Jewish. But there is
no Starbucks Haggadah. That honor is reserved for Maxwell House, and there’s a Maxwell’s
Coffee House in Denver. Plus Golda Meir once
lived in Denver and she was known to drink a dozen
cups of coffee a day. But she is
best known for fixing a
steamiong pot of tea for guests. Jewish
folklore favors tea. Jewish history
favors Golda. Edge to the Broncos.
Oh yes, and
there are also more Jews
in Denver than Seattle. Another plus
for the Broncs.
There is to
my knowledge no “seahawk” in the bible, but hawks do appear. In Leviticus, chapter 11, the hawk is listed among
unkosher birds. Interestingly, the hawk
is listed just below the raven and indeed, the Ravens won last year’s Super
Bowl.
The Eagles
also appear there, both before and after, possibly indicating that while the
Eagles would GET to the big game before the Seahawks, which they did, they
wouldn’t win it until later, which, if Seattle wins this week, will indeed be
true.
Hawk in Hebrew
is “Netz.” (I thought they played in Brooklyn!) Commentaries about the bird focus on its blinding
speed. And if we are comparing the two
quarterbacks in this game, the Seahawks hold a definitive speed edge.
The rabbis
commented on the hawk’s keen eyesight, saying in the Talmud, “It can live in Babylon and see everything
that people are doing wrong in the land of Israel.” That speaks to excellent scouting and
Seattle’s superior pass defense to stop long range throws.
As for the
Broncos. Horses don’t typically do well in
water - unless they are seahorses, of course.
A few weeks ago in the Torah, we chanted the triumphant Song of the Sea…
triumphant for Israelites, I should clarify, but not good for horses.
“Ashira
L’Adonai Ki Gaoh Ga’ah,” it begins, “(“I will sing to God, who has
triumphed gloriously,” “Soos v’rochvo ramah va’yam” (“Horse and
driver have been hurled into the Sea”). Considering the fact
that the game is taking place in the Jersey swamps, it is tempting to toss
in all the cards at this point and proclaim that the Seahawks will sink Denver
in a rout.
Especially
when you figure in how “Ga’ah sounds like “Ga’ash” and there are
no nude beaches in Denver.
But the Broncos
were incredibly impressive in their win over my Patriots (sigh) two weeks ago. And there are some positive signs in our
sources.
There is even
a biblical character (Numbers 13) whose last name is “Soosi.” The
root meaning of “soos,”(horse) incidentally, is “swift,” which pretty much
describes the Broncos, both offensively and defensively. They are
built for speed.
According
to an online concordance, the word soos appears 283 times in
the Bible. With the land of Israel being so mountainous, horses were
not as useful as mules and oxen and therefore not as plentiful as they were in
flatter places, like Egypt and Arabia. On the plain, horses and
chariots were formidable, but you can ask the Canaanite general Sisera how
things went once it got hilly and wet. Or ask Pharaoh. And
they never had to play in the swamps of New Jersey.
Bottom line
– a wet, muddy field favors Seattle. A snowy field all the more.
Typically,
horses are seen as instruments of war, typically employed by the enemies of
Israel See (Deut 20:1)
Despite their threatening status (and how often in history have Jews been
chased down by the horses of Cossacks, Roman soldiers and Crusaders), they are
also admired, especially for their speed (see Isaiah 30:16). Clearly,
the biblical authors were aware of the Broncos’ lightning fast
attack. Horses are also symbols of dignity and honor (Esther 6:11). Think
of that scene in the book of Esther when Mordechai, not Haman, got to ride
through town on horseback – one of those great “gotcha” moments in Jewish
history.
But a horse
is also a symbol of vanity and false hopes. Psalm 33;17
is rather indicative of the Broncos’ recent history: “A horse is
a false hope for victory; Nor does it deliver anyone by its great
strength.”
So, what
will happen on Sunday?
The
numerical equivalent of the word “netz” (hawk) is 140. That is equivalent to the word “koom,”
“arise” (without the vowel). Perhaps the numerical equivalence is hinting
at something here. The Hawks will arise late in the game – and it might come
down to whether the Seahawks are headed toward the south side of the field in
the fourth quarter.
Interestingly,
only a few verses earlier in Job, in verse 39:20, we read: “Have you given
the horse his strength? Have you clothed his neck with fierceness?” Could this juxtaposition of hawk and horse verses
be the Bible’s way of informing us their positioning on the scoreboard, that
the hawks will score 26 and the horses 20?
If you need more proof, check out verse 18: “When the time cometh,
she raises her wings on high, and scorns the horse and his rider.”
And how will
it end?
In Hebrew,
the name of Seattle’s quarterback, Russell, is an acronym for sergeant. With
military precision and a strong ground game, Wilson will lead the Seahawks down
the field for a go ahead score late in the fourth quarter.
The Hebrew
word Peyton (“pie-tan”) means “poet,” or the composer of a prayer (a piyyut). So
Denver’s Manning will throw up a prayer in the game’s final seconds, a “hail
Mary,” as it were.
It will fall
incomplete. Horse and driver will be
hurled into the swamp.
Only one
thing can save them. The Talmud
prescribes a magical amulet where suspending the tail of a fox between the
eyes of a horse wards off evil. In order to win, then, Bronco coach John Fox
must head to the end zone before the game and squat between the eyes of the
Bronco logo. Apparently, only the
coach’s tush can save the team.
Otherwise,
I’ll go with the Joban verse discrepancy and say that the final score will be
26-20, Seahawks.
…of course it must be stated that
in no way do I condone gambling, and past performance should not be an
indicator of future results…
