Ruminations

In the wake of the national spectacle that was last month’s confirmation process of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, there have been many people around the country who have wondered if the #metoo movement should now be considered dead…

On Sunday, September 23rd, we began another exciting year of Makor at Temple Beth Or! Our first day was action-packed, and it was lovely to see parents and children who had not been together for much of the summer reunite. It also was wonderful to have our “campOrs” (what I call our students) have an opportunity to meet their new teachers for the year.

Most Jews are aware of two new years we celebrate per calendar year: Rosh Hashanah in the fall and the secular new year, on January 1st, in the winter. Knowledgeable Jews may also note that there is a third new year that comes each spring—Tu BiShevat—which marks the new year for trees. How many of you, though, knew that Judaism actually suggests that we mark fournew years (not including January 1st)?

The New Year in Judaism—and, by extension, the entire period of the High Holidays—gives us an opportunity to refresh ourselves. If we follow the “process,” the rituals, associated with this time of year, we too—like God after creating the world—can feel as though we are renewed, “ensouled.” As with God after the creation, we after the High Holidays can feel refreshed, as though we’ve just woken from a perfectly restful night of sleep. We can enter the year fifty-seven-seventy-nine with the wisdom and experience that come from five-thousand-seven-hundred-and-seventy-nine years of life, but, simultaneously, with the youthful optimism, vigor, and thirst for discovery that come from having only experienced creation yesterday.

“Tuvia’s mother was wailing and tearing her hair. His father was sobbing. His sisters were terrified. ‘Tuvia, my dear son,’ his mother cried. ‘My only boy, why are they tearing you away from me?’

Tuvia was taken, half-asleep, to a large house where many frightened, wide-eyed children were crying, ‘Mama, Mama. Take me home to my Mama!’ The children cried all that sleepless night.”

Larry Domnitch, The Cantonists: The Jewish Children’s Army of the Tsar, 79-80. Minor edits made for style.

Joseph Trumpeldor, who died in 1920 defending a Jewish settlement in the Galilee and was one of the great Zionist heroes of the late 19th/early 20th centuries, classically is known as the man whose final words were: “tov lamut be’ad artzeinu,” “it is good to die for our land.” These words became a rallying cry for generations of Israel’s defenders. The only problem? Modern critical historians increasingly question whether Trumpeldor actually said this, even suggesting that—if he uttered them at all—he may have meant the opposite!

Much as I love Makor and am a little sad to see it end each year—and I really, really do and am—even I must confess that I love the freedom and rest that a summer break provides. Though I’ll be sad to say goodbye to Makor for a few months, I will greatly appreciate getting a little more sleep each Sunday morning!

My own personal feelings about this imminent break notwithstanding, it is worth us recognizing how un-Jewish the idea of a summer break is….

We live in a post-1948 world, 70 years after the creation of the modern State of Israel, where the conflict between Israel and her neighbors—most of whom are majority-Muslim—has been acrimonious and public. The bitter fruit of this decades-long, bloody conflict has been the deterioration of a once-healthy relationship between Muslims and Jews.

The teachings of the first Rabbis, recorded in the Mishnah, suggest that mi-she-nichnas av, m’ma-atin b’simchah; or: “Once Av begins, we diminish celebration.” Several centuries later, Rabbi Yehudah (son of Rabbi Samuel bar Sheilat) coined the more famous corollary to this phrase: Mi-she-nichnas adar, marbin b’simchah; or: “Once Adar begins, we multiply celebration.”

With the PyeonChang Olympics approaching, a certain element of this year’s lead-up to the Games has me thinking of a major highlight from the 1980 Winter Olympics: The so-called Miracle on Ice.

Though it might seem like tzedakah is one of the simplest ideas in Judaism—so basic that any explanation would be unnecessary—it still is worth refreshing our understanding of what this word truly means and to remind ourselves of its importance. The term itself is liable to be confusing. Though people often translate it as charity—and though there is some overlap in meaning—tzedakah invokes an ideal far more expansive than the English “charity” might suggest.

What are the lights on the menorah moving you to do? How have they inspired you to act differently? To make the lights from Hanukkah meaningful, we must make ourselves remain continuously aware of their deeper meaning: They are meant to remind us of an historic event during which our people triumphed over forces powerful and numerous enough that victory, to the Jews, seemed impossible. They are, additionally, meant to be symbolic of the ways that Jews, Jewish history, and the unique Jewish approach to moral issues can make the world a brighter place.

People often joke that Judaism has a blessing for everything. Unfortunately, this adage, while admittedly mostly true, has often characterized our faith as rigid and formulaic. In truth, our proliferation of blessings motivates Jews to be conscious of how profound our day-to-day lives really are. The blessings Judaism invites us to say do not just over-saturate our lives with ritual, rather they shake us to recognize how special and sacred our world is, even the things which may seem mundane.

It is clear that, as Jews, we are obligated to act to make the world right (to perform tikkun olam) as soon as we can identify ways that we are capable of doing so. There is no waiting or procrastination permitted in the doing of what is right. This echoes famous, well-known words which have resonated throughout many centuries of human history, specifically that “justice delayed is justice denied.” In view of the teaching above, this dictum clearly harmonizes with Jewish values, as demonstrated by this line from Pirkei Avot (5:8): Destruction enters the world through the delay of justice and the perversion of justice.

Tishrei, the Jewish month during which the high holidays fall, holds at least two (depending on how you count) entirely different types of calendrical celebrations, agricultural (Sukkot) and religious (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, andSimchat Torah). In fact, even the name for this month hints at the multi-calendared reality Jews have lived for millennia: Tishrei, along with all the other so-called Jewish months, was actually a month from the Babylonian calendar which the Jews long ago adopted.

If you have a child who is at an age that makes Jewish camping possible, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you provide them with the chance to experience Jewish identity in this way, at a Jewish summer camp. To borrow language used in Genesis, it will give them a chance to “yi-nafash,” to let their Jewish souls be filled with energy.

To me, it feels much too soon to say this; however, here it is—Our Makor school year is over! It is already June, and we have finished our first year of our new Makor program. I am very proud of the deep Jewish teaching and learning all of our teachers and campOrs did between last September and now. At this time, as we are preparing for our 2017-2018 year, I would like to inform you all of some changes we will be making to our program to make it more effective and exciting for our kids.

During our seders, we discuss the infamous “four sons.” These sons are well-established archetypes in Jewish lore; and yet, the Haggadah does not merely mean to tell us about four particular varieties of children. Instead, the Haggadah—and the Jewish tradition that created and preserved this narrative—wish to emphasize the reality that a parent or instructor must tailor a child’s educational program to his or her specific needs, no matter what they may be.

In 2017, it still seems that many Americans  resist welcoming those who do not “look sufficiently American.” The recent spate of anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim attacks that have taken place in the country are a loud reminder of this; and, lest we think that looks aren’t often what matter in such cases, we can consider the attacks on Indians in America (that is, American citizens who emigrated from India) of the last months that have been motivated by the fact that, to some, such individuals apparently look like “the enemy.”

As Jews, we are members of a nation that often strives to merit the title “or l’goyim,” a “light unto the nations.” However, it is fallacious to think that we are not also a nation that is tied up in the world that we help to create. Even as we may strive to make the world a better place for others, we are also subject to the results of the world take part in forming. To use the “light unto the nations” metaphor: Even if our primary ambition is to provide light for others, we need it too!