From the Rabbi’s Desk

Kedoshim

May 7, 2019 by • Tags: •

Shalom Aleichem

Kedoshim is a sidra dense with instructions about how to bring holiness into our lives –to bring ourselves closer to the Divine. These mitzvot are also, dare I say, designed to create an envelope of trust, for what could be closer to holiness than trust?

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Acharei Mot

April 30, 2019 by • Tags: •

Shalom Aleichem

Acharei Mot. This is a complicated sidra especially for the LGBTQ community. Leviticus 18:22, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination,” is often used as an example of how Torah can be used and abused as a religious smorgasbord – what to choose to observe and what to ignore – even as fundamentalists try to use this same verse to reinforce their internalized bigotry. As many have suggested, choosing to focus on this one verse, whilst not, for example, stoning ones recalcitrant sons at the city gates, etc. is an action that is both arbitrary and hateful.More

Pesach

April 17, 2019 by • Tags: , , •

Chag sameach everyone, I hope you all have a freilech, a joyous Seder and Pesach.

Even as some of us may be scrubbing corners of cupboards and thinking about menus for the coming week, I have suggested that this is also a time for us to take a spiritual inventory, an opportunity for cleaning out the inner shmutz that may have collected over this past year.

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Selling Chametz – Information and Form

April 9, 2019 by • Tags: , , •

With thanks to Rabbi Sutker and Rabbi Blane 

 Why sell? 

Divesting ourselves of chametz, the old food in our pantries, is one of the important rituals of preparing for Pesach/Passover. On the physical level, this ritual offers us an opportunity to clean out our kitchens. Perhaps more importantly, while doing the physical work of cleaning, we have the opportunity for a spiritual assessment. Such work offers us an opportunity for self-examination. We can ask ourselves what old habits we have been clinging to, and how we want to nourish ourselves spiritually in the future. 

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Tazria

April 2, 2019 by • Tags: •

tazriaTzaraas. Afflictions, in more pustular detail than you had ever imagined! 

Have you ever gone to a paint store and tried to find the right shade of white – or as Procol Harum sang, a Whiter Shade of Pale? There are many, many shades of white, and concomitantly, many degrees of tzaraas, and places where tzaraas can appear.  

White, a colour we now often and still associate (however incorrectly) with purity and virginity, in Torah is a harbinger of tumah, of what we bluntly consider to be religious impurity. 

Anyone who has watched the inexorable growth of white mold on a cement floor, knows there is cause to worry. There is a contamination, a damp destabilization of a structure that must be attended to. And yet it seems, whilst dampness can indicate a dis-ordering, a presence of tumah, in Torah, water is an agent of spiritual cleansing. Fire and water – both carry negative and positive potential. 

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Shemini

March 27, 2019 by •

Sung in Eichah trop 

“Aaron was silent” (Lev. 10:3). 

My sons. I cannot breathe, I cannot speak their names, my heart has no words, just No, I say no, this cannot be; when all that is left of my boys is ashes.  

Their names folded into that fire- air, flames that sucked breath from their souls.  

God, you chose me, You dressed me, you have me set aside portions of korbanot to taste, yet all I taste today is ashes.  You chose me – and through me You chose my sons – for this, for this, you chose me?

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Tzav

March 19, 2019 by •

Shalom Aleichem. 

Tzav – command! The word is a sticky, fricative syllable that in one iteration or another crosses our lips daily as we perform a mitzvah.  

Reflecting again, back to the final readings in Exodus, the Book of Shemot, we read about the construction of the Sanctuary, the Mishkan– and we read about fire. Fire is an element that follows us throughout Torah: God appeared to Moses in a burning bush; the Golden Calf “appeared” to Aaron and the Israelites out of fire; fire was carefully modulated to create the golden Chrubim, Keruvim and other elements of the Mishkan, and now we read about fires consuming sacrifices. In Hebrew the word for sacrifice is korban, plural, korbanot, and implies a coming closer, nearer to God. We are also taught to not make fire on Shabbat and on Festivals. Fire, then, is both a negative and positive element as are our mitzvot, and fire follows us from Shemot into Leviticus, Vayikra, and this week, into Tzav.  

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Vayikra or Postcard from the Wilderness

March 11, 2019 by • Tags: •

vayikraMany of our teachings in Torah were and are revolutionary – in every way from economic to social. In the book of Exodus, of Shemot we were called to remember and keep Shabbat. Let’s try and think for a few minutes about how utterly revolutionary that command was and still is: Stop working. Do not engage in any manner of creative work.

Millennia ago, we were a people who knew nothing but enforced work. And then God demanded we cease and desist from any manner of work that in any way replicated the 39 melachot, the 39 acts of work used to create the Sanctuary, the Mishkan. These activities are symbolic of God’s own creating, but where humans create and alter elements. Be it by plowing or winnowing, sifting or smoothing, shearing or spinning (or any modern-day variations of these kinds of work), we are enjoined by God to rest on Shabbat.  Instead of ceaseless melachah, God wanted us to know joy and rest, menuchah, Shabbat.

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Pekudei – Rock, Paper, Scissors

March 5, 2019 by •

pekudeiWe open up Pekudei and read: 
 
אֵ֣לֶּה פְקוּדֵ֤י הַמִּשְׁכָּן֙ מִשְׁכַּ֣ן הָעֵדֻ֔ת אֲשֶׁ֥ר פֻּקַּ֖ד עַל־פִּ֣י מֹשֶׁ֑ה עֲבֹדַת֙ הַלְוִיִּ֔ם בְּיַד֙ אִֽיתָמָ֔ר בֶּֽן־אַהֲרֹ֖ן הַכֹּהֵֽן׃  

“These are the “accounts”, the records of the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle of the Pact, which were drawn up at Moses’ bidding—the work of the Levites under the direction of Ithamar son of Aaron the priest.”  

We begin with a financial accounting. Pekudei is the final of the five last Torah parashiot in Exodus, detailing every aspect of construction of the Ark, the Mishkan. All costs and every gift must be carefully recorded.   

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Vayakhel

February 25, 2019 by •

Shalom Aleichem

In this week’s Torah portion, we again meet Bezalel, the Leonardo da Vinci of the Mishkan world. We learn in Exodus 35:30-34:

“And Moses said to the Israelites: ‘See, the Lord has singled out by name Bezalel, son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. He has endowed him with a divine spirit of skill, ability, and knowledge in every kind of craft and has inspired him to make designs for work in gold, silver, and copper, to cut stones for setting to carve wood — to work in every kind of designer’s craft – and to give directions.’”

We first met Bezalel last week, so not only do we meet him a second time, we are now given his full name and a description of his extraordinary and multiple talents. (In a fascinating aside, we also see that Bezalel was Ben Hur, son of Hur, a name that became famous with Charlton Heston)!

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