From the Rabbi’s Desk

Ki Tisa

February 19, 2019 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk

Shalom Aleichem.

ki tisa, golden calf Life has many blessings, and many pitfalls. So too does Ki Tisa. This is another one of those parshiot filled with verbs – remember, provoked, ascended, descended, smashing, carved – as if to remind us that every action we take, even the act of intention, holds tremendous import.

Ki Tisa is about our relationships – with each other and with God. One of the primary ingredients necessary in any relationship – as any long-married couple will tell us – is patience. Not just endurance, which implies a certain thin-lipped fortitude, but generous-hearted patience.

Who holds patience for us? In Ki Tisa we read how God gave Moses a precious gift, two tablets of stone inscribed by the very “finger” of God. But then God noted to Moshe the corruption of the people at the base of the mountain, dancing in front of flames and, heaven forfend, a golden calf. God wanted to annihilate the people, but agreed to reconsider such an action after Moshe’s fervent pleading for God to, “Relent from your flaming anger and reconsider…”

Tetzaveh

February 11, 2019 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk Tags: tetzaveh •

Shalom aleichem

We read very early in Tetzaveh the exquisitely detailed instructions God gives to Moses with regard to the “garments of sanctity” – his be’gdei kodesh, garments that will be made by wise-hearted people to dress the High Priest, the Kohen Gadol.

The Chevra Kadisha continues to use these garments today – by the same name – michnasyim, k’tonet, avnet, and kittle. These are the garments worn by the dead to transform them into their sanctity for their journey ahead. The garments in Tetzaveh, described so beautifully, are more elaborate than the simple white linen or cotton garments worn by the dead today. Yet, it is always a special moment after gently washing a meitah, after pouring nine kavim of water over her, when we then begin to dress her. First we put on her mitznefet, her bonnet, then almost at the same time her michnasayim, trousers, and k’tonet, a long under shirt. We tie bands just under her knees and then we gently pull her kittel over her headdress, tie her avnet and finally tie her apron to the avnet. If it has been her custom to da’aven with a tallit we then wrap the tallit around her, cover her face in lace (a local minhag we learned from the women in Nova Scotia), and then we lift her gently into the aron, wrap a white sheet around her, the sovev, and close the lid.

Terumah

February 4, 2019 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk Tags: Temurah •

Shalom Aleichem,

This week in my Rabbinics class we were asked to write about Pastoral care. This is my submission, in part.

Who amongst us has not lost a beloved one, be they a parent, a spouse, a sibling, or God forbid, a child. This week our Jewish community lost a teacher of many years, a woman who guided so many children into their adulthood, a woman who valued her Judaism with all her might and all her soul. The same week, the mother of one of our beloved members of Kolot Mayim died. Last Sunday was a day of Remembrance for all those souls who perished in the Shoah. As we look at photographs of these souls, men, women, children, we can only begin to imagine what our world has lost as each one person perished. The literature, the scientific discoveries, the music, the theatre, the Torah learning – those souls gone up in flames, or buried in mud.More

Mishpatim: Civics and Angels

January 30, 2019 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk Tags: angels, civics, mishpatim •

Shalom Aleichem

I alluded last week to my maniacal preparations for my own ceremony of Bat Mitzvah as a grown woman, and as someone who chose to enter the covenant. Mishpatim is that sidra that caused me to pause and consider my need to allow others to help me prepare for that day.

Mishpatim includes many of our civil laws – the Covenant, our legal code, laws which have to do with our interactions with each other – a conjunction which seems entirely fitting for someone choosing to join this community. We have just heard the big picture at Sinai – but now we come down to the pragmatic details. We learn that our conduct amongst ourselves is equal to any theology. We are to live out our relationship with God in real time with real people.

Yitro

January 23, 2019 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk

Shalom Aleichem,

Yitro is the חוֹתֵן, the father-in-law of Moshe, a relationship that is reiterated and reinforced many times in the first section of this sidra. The name Yitro means abundance or riches – and truly this is what Yitro gave to Moshe. Not riches of kind, but of counsel regarding sustainability, practical counsel that would yield abundance for generations to come.

Yitro was that voice against hubris. His was the voice that continues to be heard by would-be-superwomen/supermen everywhere: “You can’t do it all; you need to get help; you need to delegate, and distribute the load. Share your power.” I am not sure we could not call Moshe, Rabbeinu, our teacher, if he hadn’t learned this lesson from Yitro.

B’shallach

January 14, 2019 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk

Shalom Aleichem,

I didn’t realize until I had to write a d’var Torah every week, how often I say, “Now this is truly one of my favourite sections in all of Torah” – I am like a woman with many grandchildren. Years ago I was in Brooklyn. I had made arrangements with a very orthodox/observant Chevra Kadisha (Jewish burial society) to come by, and if possible, help with a taharah, (ritual preparation for burial). The woman in charge and I went back and forth on the phone discussing my wish, because of course you can never plan these things. When I arrived at noon, she said, Welcome! Your prayers have been answered – we have a taharah in 30 minutes – and then we both laughed. Chevra humour.

Bo

January 7, 2019 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk

Shalom Aleichem,

Many years ago, while on a sabbatical in Los Angeles, we had been invited for an upcoming Shabbat afternoon to visit a friend – and her pool – which at 100+ degrees sounded like a great idea. Except we were Canadians. It was January, and it never occurred to either of us to pack our swimsuits. So, I shopped all over LA, as I wanted to find something that didn’t plunge down to there or up to there! Such a suit was not to be found, not in LA. Finally, in desperation, en route to our friend, we stopped at a local Target – more for the air conditioning than any hope of finding anything suitable.

Surprise – a simple black maillot was purchased, and now, well cooled by the frigid air conditioning, we drove a few more miles, parked our pickup truck (one of only two we saw our entire time in LA), and walked around the back to the pool. Imagine my second degree of shock and surprise when all the lovely ladies were floating in the water, au naturelle. Turns out I didn’t need that bathing suit after all. Maybe this was God giving me a sign I should not shop on Shabbos!

At any rate, all of this is mere background to the word “Bo.” Whilst we were floating in the pool, Aaron noticed a small pack of dogs racing around a very large back yard compound. He asked our friend (originally from Winnipeg) about the dogs and it turned out that the cute little terrier was a stray they hadbrought back from their last trip to Israel. Aaron called out, “Bo!”(Come) and the dog screeched to a stop. He looked around, very excitedly, and Aaron called “Bo” again. The dog almost ran into the pool! Such is the power of mamaloshen, the mother-tongue. Even the dog was thrilled to hear Hebrew spoken again.

In our reading this week, God is saying to Moses the word Bo.“Come to Pharaoh, for I have made his heart hard.”And so in Bo we again encounter a God who decides to, “amuse Myself with Egypt” – all with an eye to Moses (and us) repeating what will eventually happen to our children and our children’s children. I don’t know how much Hebrew Moses knew. He grew up in Egypt, then recused himself to the hills of Midian – I am not sure the word Bo was as electrifying for Moses as it was for our little dog in LA. And why should Moses go to Pharaoh if God is so clearly toying with the Egyptian leader – what is in it for Moses? Other than a good story eventually – which as my opening will attest, is always money in the bank.

In Bo, we will read of the final three plagues – culminating in the death of the first-born, which leads Pharaoh, in a heart-broken rage, to banish the people Israel from his land. In the dark of the night, the angel of death “passed over” each household where the lintel was painted with blood, and thus the people left this land of servitude and hardship. Not the most auspicious of leave-takings.

In some ways the people at this point resembled that mongrel dog. They were hungry, worked to death, and probably had very little hope of any redemption. But saved they would be.

Moses was challenged from the beginning of his story. Early on in Shemot after he kills the Egyptian overseer, he is addressed defiantly, in words that archly foretell the up-coming challenge from his cousinKorach: “Who made you a man, a ruler, and a judge over us?” Moses is in that classic middle manager position – caught in a vise grip between the people, embittered and edgy, and an equally, at times, bad-tempered God. At this stage, God can seem to be a vengeful and almost frivolous God, seemingly toying with a people to see how far He can push them.

Moses can’t please the people and he can’t, seemingly, please God. Oiy, such rachmanes, compassion, I have for him.

Bo – a one syllable command – as commands tend to be. Interestingly, the word Bo is modified by a disjunctive trop symbol, a tipcha, indicating a small pause after the word is sung – perhaps this mixed message (Come-but-pause) also connotes a mixed sense of how everyone is to proceed.

Bo, kinder, do me a mitzvah. Come with me, children, says God, and I will give you a story for all time. A story of freedom that the whole world will tell, a story so that all people, for all time will know, “I am HaShem.” Sometimes Bo is just Bo. Sometimes Bo evokes a world of memories. And sometimes Bo opens a door to an unimagined future. Bo. Past, present and future, Ehyeh asher ehyeh, I am Bo. I am Be-coming..

Aleichem shalom.

Vaeira: Jewish Take-out

January 2, 2019 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk Tags: vaeira •

Vaeira is another one of those sections of Torah that sounds familiar to us – mostly because of our annual re-telling of this story. It all sounds very familiar: our ancestor’s servitude in Egypt, the recounting of the 10 plagues, Pharaoh’s hardened heart. One almost wants to break out into a raucous Dai Dai-einu and toss a few marshmallows around the room (for hail).

If anyone ever doubts our Jewish agrarian roots, have you noticed how many times and in how many places goats turn up? Even in our traditional marriage contracts, or ketubot, the bride, the kallah gives and is in turn, promised a certain amount (100 zuzim) if the marriage should dissolve. We don’t really know today what the value of azuz would be today, but we can guess. At the end of our Pesach Seder as we sing “Chad Gadya” we sing that 100 zuzim would be enough to buy 50 goats. “My father bought for 2 zuzim, chad gadya (one little goat).” Based on that information, we can calculate that 50 or 100 goats would keep most women in clothing and shelter for awhile!)

Back to Vaeira: God effectively verb-alizes His promise to Moses. Hence the four verbs of redemption: Take out, Deliver, Redeem and Acquire. While it is difficult not to think of the first two of these promises as Chinese take-out — otherwise known as Xmas Day dinner — altogether these four verbs sum up God-as-a-Be-coming God to all the Children of Israel and not just a private promise to Moses.

In His guise as a Burning Bush, God assures Moses that He will always be at the side of Moses. As we saw last week, Moses is not easily convinced, and he argues relentlessly with God about his lack of suitability for this job. It is almost as if his heart too was hardened – well prior to God hardening the heart of Pharaoh, a section of Torah that we all stumble over. So just who is hardening whom? And why? Moses finally relents, but one senses that his heart is certainly less than enthusiastic about being seconded by God. The peaceful shepherd leaves the hills of Midian and goes back into the torpidity of Mitzrayim.

Pharaoh, of course, is not interested in losing his workforce, regardless of the demands of their God. What’s a Pharaoh/god to do but refuse these early asks in Vaeira, regardless of the ensuing plagues. His sorcerers have already effectively hardened Pharaoh’s heart – he is a jaded man/god and cannot be seduced by mere illusion. If we step out of the drama of plagues for an instant, (join me, stage right), we read in Torah and in the V’ahavta prayer, that God demands a softening of our hearts with the words of Torah. 36 times we are commanded to be kind to the stranger, for we too were strangers in Mitzrayim. Our work as Jews, it would seem, is to not consider the strange/other a stranger, but to face that stranger with the same degree of openness that we welcome those familiar to us.

This past Shabbat we had guests for an early supper – I had thought they were coming the following week, but found out at the very last minute they were coming within 30 minutes! I flew around the house, thawing soup, clearing the table, whipping up a batch of scones – with such joy and anticipation. We hadn’t seen this family for two years – I was so full of love, and yet today I wonder would I have dropped everything with such joy for a stranger needing some soup?

Sometimes I gestalt Torah as I read Torah. I find it useful to consider the story from all angles, to become all players, if you will. So, today, I am Pharaoh sitting on my gilt throne, staring at this man-almost-my-grandson. I adopted you, I think to myself, I took you in, my daughter loved you as her son, and you rejected my daughter, me, and all that I have. Why should I even listen to you? I am Moses: I look up and see your cruel stern face. You were kind to me, but to my people you showeda hard-heartedness beyond anything you ever showed me. Who are you? You are my grandfather in name only. I am God: I look down at my children, their hearts are colliding. Iron will-refusal-of-a shared-past meets strength-of-hope-in an-uncertain future.All are caught in a rusting chain of wills. And I am now the River running red with blood; the blood of all the babies I swallowed, the blood of the women who cleansed themselves, I am the blood of death, the blood of life. I am the River. I am.

This drama we read in Vaeira will continue, but today, let’s pause here. Let’s reflect on our own granite-heartedness, and ask ourselves: Where am I implacable? Where can I just not give any further? When do I say, never again? What will push me into be-coming and not just be-ing? And if not now, when?

At our Pesach Seder we eat a Hillel sandwich. This is what Hillel did when the Temple existed: He ate the Paschal lamb, the matzo and the bitter herbs as one, in fulfillment of the verse, “with matzot and maror they shall eat it”(Numbers 9:11).

With that bite of maror, of bitterness, we remember our obligations of freedom. Just as Shabbat is that added spice that makes our Shabbat meals so delicious, so too is bitterness our essential herb of memory. Shabbat shalom.

Shemot

December 23, 2018 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk Tags: shemot •

This week, we have shifted from the first to the second book in the Five Books of Moses, or our Written Torah. We have left Bereshit, Genesis and are now in the book of Shemot, or Exodus. We have also shifted from the stories of our Avot and Imahot, our patriarchs and matriarchs, – Avraham, Yitzhak and Yaakov, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah – into the story where the two main protagonists are God and Moses. We will follow these two “actors” throughout the rest of Torah.

In Shemot, Moses meets God for the first time. In a fascinating tension of introduction, Moses asks first, “Who am I,” Mianokhi – as a prelude to the idea of, “Who am I – that I should go to Pharaoh?” Such a question hangs in the air, in self-doubt perhaps, but maybe even of fear. Moses, left Egypt after killing an Egyptian overseer, and even growing up in the Egyptian palace may not save him from such an act.

Later Moses asks of God, “Who are You?” This question is asked, as Moses attempts to deflect God’s seconding of Moses. God waits Moses out, choosing him to go from being a shepherd in the hills of Midian to becoming a great teacher, Moshe Rabbeinu, leading the Children of Israel out of enslavement to freedom. Moses says to God that the Children of Israel will ask him who has sent him to them, “What is His Name” – they will ask. What is His Name? We too may ask the same question of God, Who we name by many names: Judge and Source, Rock and our Redeemer.

In Shemot, which more correctly is the Book of Names, and not Exodus as it has come to be known in English, such questions are significant. Last week we talked about ethical wills, about leaving a written legacy of values, ethics and ideals to our children, and our children’s children. What is our legacy? In order to leave a legacy we need to know who we are: how and why we are named and how we are to be remembered through that name.

God reveals a Name that is poetic and enigmatic, “I Shall Be What I Shall Be – or in just a few words later, “I Shall Be.” Ehey Asher Eheh. אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה. A Name that is pure breath in it’s very enunciation. A Name that reveals an essential ‘verb-ness – a process of a God that is always in a state of Becoming! In this Name God reveals our own capacity for our own be-coming. We grow into our own name-selves and in doing so, we too learn to live in our own becoming truth.

And just a little bit further in the text (3:13-15), God makes it even easier for the Children of Israel, by declaring that He is the “God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” – a phrase we repeat in the Amidah prayer. “This is My Name forever and this is My remembrance from generation to generation.” God will be remembered in each generation and we will be remembered by God in each generation – we are in a Remembering-relationship with God and God is with us for all time.

We don’t generally think of God as a protagonist in a story – and yet, what is Torah but our story of our becoming a people, our becoming the people Israel, choosing to accept the quid-pro-quo that God offers us not just at Sinai, but throughout Torah. We will see this relationship be informed by an ‘if-then’ modality, a covenant which informs much of our Biblical relationship with God.

As modern people, many of us are skeptical about such a seemingly conditional relationship with God. How do we change and challenge the ‘if-then’formula of that early stage of our relationship, into a relationship that allows for more human agency in this world? Should we think of ourselves as agents who hold power in our own hands? Is this what the rabbis of Talmud teach in the oven of Ahknai?We will learn this story at our Shabbat service this week. Come and join us this Shabbat morning at the JCC at 10 am for a fascinating story about how a seemingly simple oven challenges our rabbis!

Vayechi

December 16, 2018 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk, Uncategorized

Shalom Aleichem.

And he lived, Vayechi, in the land of Egypt, Mitzrayim. The story of Jacob is coming to an end. His years were 147, and “the time approached for Israel to die…”

Rashi, our beloved French medieval commentator, notes an unusual pattern in the Sefer Torah. Usually, in the Sefer Torah each new parashah opens after a division of a certain number of blank spaces. Vayechiopens after the space of only one letter. Rashi asks why this passage is “closed.” He states that when Jacob closed his eyes in death, so too were the heart and eyes of all Israel closed. Alternatively, he suggests (in BereshitRabbah, a book of Midrash written between 300-500 CE), that Jacob wanted to reveal “the end” to his sons (the ultimate end of exile for all the people Israel, (according to Gur Aryeh, the16^th century Maharal of Prague, in his commentary on Rashi’s commentary!!), but that vision was closed to his eyes.

Jacob makes his desire to be buried in his homeland known and then he proceeds to call his sons and grandsons to him for his final words. Here we have the template for some of our rituals as we prepare for death today.

In Jacob’s last words to his sons and grandsons we find our first ethical will, a tradition of millennia within Judaism, yet now, somewhat lost in our modern world. In 1991 Jack Reimer wrote a book (So That Your Values Live On: Ethical Wills and How to Prepare Them) which details examples of ethical wills. Reimer advocates for why such documents should continue to hold a solid place in our tradition. Sometimes short, sometimes lengthy, sometimes pithy, sometimes convoluted, these wills belie the import of only concerning ourselves with preparing our financial arrangements.

As Jacob prepares to meet his sons, Chapter 47, verse 29, he utters this phrase; “do kindness and truth,chesedv’emet with me.” Chesedv’emet are words which are the defining motto, if you will, of every ChevraKadisha, Jewish burial society. Members of every ChevraKadisha hold a deeply held commitment to performing their work with chesedv’emet, even apologizing to the deceased at the end of their task, for any indignity they may have caused the deceased to suffer.

Jacob’s example of how he speaks to his sons also teaches us to speak words of eulogy, of hesped, with truth and with kindness – to never disparage the dead– but to also not embellish the hesped with pretty and false words. We are called to speak honestly.

Jacob speaks the plain truth, and so should we. Over the past 18 years, I have conducted many funerals and eulogized many souls, some of whom I knew, but many of whom I only “met” through the words of their family members. Our job, in this position, is to find that core truth of their life, and speak to that truth – not to recite a chronology of their accomplishments. I try to listen between the lines of what I have heard from family members, and I find that when I write down a turn of phrase that causes me to shiver, causes me to ask myself if I can really say these words out loud, these are the exact words that need to be said and heard. I always speak these words with kindness – and when I see the tears of sons and daughters, I know I was correct in bringing this particular truth to light. That moment is always a moment when healing begins, that and the sound of dirt hitting the aron, the coffin. Stark truth is what we need to face into the starkness of death.

I differ from those who advocate for “celebrations of life” instead of a funeral. I think grief is grief and must be given adequate room. Our eyes too must close. Just as we saw in Chaye Sarah, we see in Vayechithe imminence of death in the word of life, chaye. We are dying each moment we live. This truth does not in any way diminish our capacity for joy, for immersing ourselves in new challenges, for welcoming new family members – in fact, it does the opposite. Facing into our deaths, we celebrate life in our living – I suggest this is our true celebration of life.

At the end of Vayechi Joseph too dies, after the blessing of seeing three generations raised up through Ephraim. His grandchildren were “raised on his knee.” What an exquisite phrase depicting a loving and present grandparent. Before he died he assured his family that they too would be brought up out of this land. But that is another story, kinderlach. For now, l’chayim.