Rabbi Lynn Greenhough

It has been quite a week. Meeting new members, hearing of a young boy needing emergency surgery and then put on life support, another boy needing surgery, a dear friends daughter died, another friend’s mother died, I met with two young couples getting married this summer, some people needed an ear as they contemplated life changes.  And, as you do, our members have stepped up with food, and most importantly with compassion and offers of help. Thank you all.

This week as we open up the Book of Vayikra, we notice one of those anomalies in Torah that fascinate us. The aleph katan, the little aleph.

The word aleph means “to teach” implying we should all allow ourselves to be humble in our learning, throughout our lives. The greatest teacher in our midst, Moshe Rabbeinu, was known to be the most humble of men that ever lived. Any of us that have taken on learning as adults know how challenging – and humbling – it is to learn new and difficult material. Wrapping our tongues around new sounds, learning to lead prayers in Hebrew, struggling with new concepts is humbling to the core. Perhaps this is why Judaism demands we always be learning, always challenging ourselves; we should know to be humble in the face of all there is to learn and know. May this little aleph sustain us all as we help each other learn and grow in our wonderful Kolot Mayim community, no matter what challenges we face.

With great love,

Rabbi Lynn

Details, details, details – such is the stuff of life and certainly of Torah. We seemingly spend acres of ink – and time – to parse out what all these details signify, both in meaning and practice. I spoke on Shabbat about Torah being the social media of its day – where we learned together about our responsibilities as a people who said yes to the mitzvot and to God. We had much to learn, then and now, and the conversations continue.

The learning we engage in about how to best have a good life are a constant. How many conversations do we even have at home about housework? Who is responsible for what, when, and how? How do we handle our finances – separate accounts, joint accounts, pre-nups, savings, budgets? Who is cooking and who is shopping – and who is cleaning? Torah, the mitzvot ask another level of engagement and learning, for us as Jews: How do we navigate Jewish observance – or not – in our respective households?

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Although I am not a lawyer, Mishpatim will always be a favourite and memorable Torah reading for me. This was the parashah of my conversion, my birth-day, if you will, and I hold each specific memory of that time in 1992 as a jewel in my mind.

Judaism is not anarchist by nature; our halachah recognizes our human tendency to chaos and reinforces at every turn order and stability, reliability and recognition, even as it is circumstantially pliable. I am certainly honoured to serve as rabbi of Kolot Mayim, but I am utterly honoured to be counted as a Jew. Thank you to all for your continued welcome.

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Over these past few days I have had a chance to catch up on some reading – I actually read a few books. I uploaded several to Kindle: Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel, a British stand-up comedian who addresses anti-Semitism within the progressive left, and People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn. I highly recommend both books. Horn is an excellent writer and there is much to recommend this book.

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