Two in one day--Sermon for Pkudei

Parshat Pkudei

March 1, 2014

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

The Book of Shmot, Exodus ends:

When Moses had finished the work, 34 the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. 35 Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting, because the cloud had settled upon it and the Presence of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. 36 When the cloud lifted from the Tabernacle, the Israelites would set out, on their various journeys; 37 but if the cloud did not lift, they would not set out until such time as it did lift. 38 For over the Tabernacle a cloud of the Lord rested by day, and fire would appear in it by night, in the view of all the house of Israel throughout their journeys.

http://www.jtsa.edu/PreBuilt/ParashahArchives/jpstext/pkudei.shtml

Our sefer, our book opened with the Jews descending into Egypt and ends with God’s presence, the Shekinah, descending into the Tabernacle.  While in Hebrew the language (entering vs dwelling) is not the same, I was struck by the parallel of the opening and the closing of this story.  It made me think about the parallels in our own lives.

In Sophocle’s Oedipus, the Sphinx asks Oediphus: “What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?”  The answer, of course, is man, people.  From infancy we learn to crawl, then walk, and then for many of us, at a certain point walking becomes more difficult.

Life has phases.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Yet we have to live in all of them.  In my chaplaincy, in my work with our community, I find people that are happy in every stage of life and those who are bitter in every stage.  There are some that say “if only” and some that say “Thanks.”

I think that the conclusion of Exodus is God saying “Thanks.”  God shows God’s appreciation of our ancestors hard work by dwelling among them.  The Holy One saw all the work, the time, the energy, the money, the resources that went into building the Tabernacle and said, “This is a Holy Space.”

In the days and weeks ahead, let us recognize the Holy Spaces around us.  Let us recognize the Holy People around us.  Let us recognize the Thanks that we have to our Creator and to all who make our lives liveable.

The other day, I had someone say to me “You probably do not know it, but I really appreciate you.  You are a nice guy and I am glad to see that the nice guys always step up.  Thank you.”

I have to say that I really appreciated that gratitude.  We all can use a reminder of the good we do.  Personal thanks can really make a difference in some one’s day.  So with that, I say:

Thank you to every one of you.  I truly appreciate you.  Your hard work makes my job much easier and makes me far more effective.  

Yesterday I went with Mike and Mark Copans and Steve Licker to a seminar on networking.  My take-away was the important reminder that depth is more important than breadth.  I can give away a thousand business cards without having a real conversation, or I can talk to a few people, develop a rapport, build a relationship, and they can share their experiences with others.  Either way I can reach a thousand people, but the second way has far more lasting effects.  

I have said it once and I will say it many more times.  We do great things here.  If we want to make others aware of it, we only have to tell them, bring them, and share the love.  One person at a time can and will change the world.  Amen.

Superman Sam and gratitude

Gratitude.  Thanks.  Appreciation. תודה

In the Jewish tradition we say blessings daily.  We thank God that we wake up, that our soul has been restored, that we can move and breathe and see and walk.  We even say these blessings when not all of those conditions are true, praying that we can say them fully again.  We have blessings for eating and drinking and seeing a beautiful tree, flower, or person.  Over my desk I have a very old poster from the Melton Research Center for Jewish Education reminding me of the blessings of appreciation for fragrant trees, fruits, on seeing thunder, etc.

In my mind, one of the greatest gifts of Judaism is this reminder to stop and THINK, to stop and THANK.

Whether as part of the formal liturgy or in a moment of quiet, I try to regularly demonstrate to myself and those in my life that I am grateful for their existence.  I try to count my blessings and thank God for the gift of my life, for the gift of my rabbinate, for the gift of Newburgh and Congregation Agudas Israel.

In that vein, I am also grateful for sadness.  I am grateful that I have empathy and can hear the joy and the sadness in the lives of others.  I am grateful that I can listen to the stories of others (one of the greatest gifts of being a rabbi!).  

I believe that I have previously spoken of Superman Sam, a young boy who died a few months ago from a particularly aggressive cancer.  As a response, 36 rabbis (more than that now) began fundraising for research for childhood cancers. http://www.stbaldricks.org/events/mypage/10921/2014/  They are close to their goal of $360,000 raised!

I am grateful to the family of Superman Sam.  Not only did they choose to share the difficult story of their son's diagnosis, treatment, remission, relapse and passing, but they are continuing to share their grief and joy in the months since.  Sharing their story, they remind us that every single person has a story, that every single person has trials, tribulations, joy and wonder in their lives.  We ALL have good days and bad days.  We ALL have blessings and curses in our lives.  Through it all, through heartbreak and loss, this family has shared holiness, blessing and love of God, Torah and Israel.  Their story is a lesson for all of us:

http://supermansamuel.blogspot.com/

The Power of Art

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

Congregation Agudas Israel

Feb. 15, 2014

Before I begin, I have a question for you:

What book, movie, painting, sculpture has touched you more than any other?

For all of us, there are moments when art has touched our lives.  Whether it is in reading the words of a gifted novelist, seeing the form of a great sculptor or a painting that cause us to stop and think.

Art lives and breathes within us.  Our souls crave expression and light up when we see kindred spirits in the art of others.  Art can anger us or inspire us (or both).  It can be simple or grand, but when it is great, it touches something deep within us.

Parshat Ki Tissa has two vastly different experiences of art within it.  One is the work of Bezalel:

Chapter 31

1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 2 See, I have singled out by name Bezalel son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. 3 I have endowed him with a divine spirit of skill, ability, and knowledge in every kind of craft; 4 to make designs for work in gold, silver, and copper, 5 to cut stones for setting and to carve wood — to work in every kind of craft. 6 Moreover, I have assigned to him Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and I have also granted skill to all who are skillful, that they may make everything that I have commanded you: 7 the Tent of Meeting, the Ark for the Pact and the cover upon it, and all the furnishings of the Tent; 8 the table and its utensils, the pure lampstand and all its fittings, and the altar of incense; 9 the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the laver and its stand; 10 the service vestments, the sacral vestments of Aaron the priest and the vestments of his sons, for their service as priests; 11 as well as the anointing oil and the aromatic incense for the sanctuary. Just as I have commanded you, they shall do. (http://www.jtsa.edu/PreBuilt/ParashahArchives/jpstext/kitissa.shtml)

Bezalel and Oholiav inspired the people Israel.  They helped them find their hidden talents.  They helped former slaves build the Mishkan, the traveling Temple.  Together they built something magnificent, a way for the people Israel to be inspired and connect to God, a dwelling place for the Holy One.  This art, this creation brought people together for generations, through the wilderness, into Israel and all the way until the time of Solomon when the Temple was built.

Yet just a few verses away we find another creation--the Golden Calf.  This art also was inspiring to some--yet its creation was a sign of great alienation.  It was of a people not ready for freedom, a people unsure of their destiny, even with sign after sign after sign and miracle after miracle after miracle from God.  This artwork brought people together for a moment but quickly tore them asunder, as God’s plague wiped out its creators and major followers.

The same is true for art today.  There is art that brings people together and art that separates them.  For art to reach people’s souls, sometimes it disturbs sensibilities.  Artwork that inspires us today sometimes scandalized the generation of its creators.  Without naming specific artists or works, we can all think of many such examples.

For me, one of the most inspiring works of art is the Talmud.  Knitted together across centuries, bringing scholars and teachers, populists and radicals together, it has been a source for Jewish law and practice for generations.  Within it are words that inspire and some that seem revolting to the modern reader.  Medical and philosophical ideas sometimes seem long before their time and elsewhere they seem hopelessly antiquated.  Yet these words have inspired generations.  Jews of all stripes, hats, outfits, genders and philosophies have used the Talmud to change their lives for the better.  

In 1906, the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design was founded.  From the beginning our Zionist forbears knew that in order for Israel to be successful, for the Jewish State to exist, art and culture had to be a central part of it.  A Jewish nation-state needs Jewish art!  Naming the academy after the artist of our parsha, the founders connected our Biblical heritage, our religious heritage to our land.  They sought to unite Jews through inspiration.

In every generation there are teachers and artists who inspire us.  Their words and their work speak to their communities--or sometimes to communities that have yet to be born!  

May we cultivate these artists, these cinematographers, these writers.  In order to create the next generation of scientists and mathematicians, we need artists, too.  Creativity is a skill that leaps disciplines.  Training a student of Talmud helps her become a greater mathematician.  Helping a young Picasso creates the next cancer researcher.   Our schools (Jewish and public) need funding for music and arts as much as they need funding for the science labs.  These are not either/or questions; this is not a zero sum game.  With both STEM and art, our world will be a better place.  Let us learn from Bezalel and remember that!

Talmud Yoma

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

2/8/14

Parshat Tetzaveh

When is it ok to kill someone?  

Would we be better off without the yetzer hara, the “bad” impulse?

At what age do we start teaching children to fast for Yom Kippur?

When should a sick person or pregnant woman eat on Yom Kippur?

Does your office or a synagogue need a mezuzah?

Did Abraham follow the entire Torah?

What actually happened in the Holy Of Holies, the Kodesh HaKodashim, on Yom Kippur?

What’s the deal with the scapegoat on Yom Kippur?  Who is Azazel?

How did Manna look, taste, feel?

How did the High Priest use the Urim and Tummim to ask Gd questions and prophecize?

And why does it take until the 8th and final chapter for Yoma to get to the issues of fasting, bathing, avoiding comfortable shoes, and tshuvah?!

These are just a few of the questions that are discussed and sometimes answered in Tractate Yoma, the volume of Talmud theoretically discussing Yom Kippur.  While ostensibly a Holy Book, a volume discussing the details of the actions of the High Priest on Yom Kippur--the Avodah service we read that day, it includes many big ethical questions, amidst long discussions on sacrifice and offerings.

In my mind, Yoma is a perfect example of Judaism in the modern world.  As modern Jews, we live today, in the United States.  We do not offer sacrifices in the Temple, but instead come to synagogue.  We pray and watch what we eat, yet we do not tie a crimson thread to a goat and shove it off a cliff on Yom Kippur, waiting for the thread to turn white as snow and announce that the People Israel have been forgiven this year.  Yet we might blow shofar over the Hudson River or toss our crumbs in, symbolically throwing our sins away.

Some Jews might write off our traditions and our texts as antiquated, but amidst the discussions of sacrifices or where to go the bathroom or how large a mikvah needs to be, we find questions that resonate today.  We discover issues and problems that we share with our ancestors.  

In Parshat Tetzaveh, what we read this morning, Aaron, the High Priest’s uniform is discussed.  Amongst the details large and small are the issues of the breastplate, with the 12 jewels for the 12 tribes.  Within it, Exodus 28: 30  writes: “Inside the breastpiece of decision you shall place the Urim and Thummim, so that they are over Aaron's heart when he comes before the Lord.”

I might imagine that the primary issue the Talmud would have with our parsha is the specific details of the garments.  What did they look like? How were they constructed?  If the Temple would be rebuilt tomorrow, would the Cohanim be properly prepared? Exactly how did the prophecy work?? Yet the bigger issues the rabbis worry about is human--jealousy and honor!  Will the Cohen Gadol, the high priest, be upset if someone else wears his clothing?  What should the priest who leads the army wear?  What about a temporary Cohen Gadol?  

An important principle to the rabbis (and to us) is that we should always strive to raise our holiness, that we ma’alin bakodesh v’ein moridin, we increase holiness but do not diminish it.  Once a backup Cohen Gadol has worn the garments of the COhen Gadol and served in that role, he can no longer be a regular priest, yet once the Cohen Gadol is healthy enough to resume his duties, he does so, because he cannot decrease either!  The backup Cohen Gadol remains in limbo until the main Cohen Gadol dies!  

To any West Wing acolytes out there, it makes me think of when President Bartlett stepped down when his daughter was kidnapped.  The Speaker of the House took over, but had to resign his position.  From wikipedia: “The Speaker is required by the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 to resign as he can act as President only "upon his resignation as Speaker and as Representative in Congress". Walken himself states that no one can serve in two branches of the government at once”.

Returning to our Gemara, there is another section that really touched me.  After seven chapters of focusing on the role of the High Priest, with the various asides I began with, the last chapter focuses on the meat and potatoes of our modern observances--fasting, affliction, etc.  “The biblical basis for all the Yom Kippur prohibitions is Leviticus 16:29, which instructs, “You shall afflict your souls, and shall do no manner of work.”” Yet the rabbis are very uncomfortable with asceticism.  They do not say we must make ourselves uncomfortable.  We do not have to turn off the A/C or the heat on Yom Kippur (as needed).  We do not need to sit on nails or fast for weeks.  We are simply commanded to refrain from a handful of routine actions, to recognize that the day is different, to focus on reforming our souls and ignoring our bodies for 25 hours.

Yet, the rabbis are very concerned over those who are not pillars of health.  If pregnant women are hungry, they are required to eat.  They are to be reminded that it is Yom Kippur and if that does not stop their hunger, they MUST eat.  If a person is ill, we check with a doctor.  If the doctor says the patient must eat and the patient does not want to eat, he is forced to eat.  If the doctor says the patient can fast, but the patient feels he or she needs to eat, we listen to him or her and allow a broken fast.  Health comes first.  Even the chance of saving of a life allows the violation of the commandments of Shabbat (or Yom Kippur).  

In this building, we have discussed the importance of ethical and living wills, of medical directives.  In the last chapter of Yoma, these issues come to the forefront.  How far do we go to save a life?  What about if there is virtually no chance that the person will live?  Answers are given, but they are debated to this very day.

Earlier I mentioned that this tractate was a paradigm, a model for all of Jewish life.  Even as it includes sections that seem irrelevant to modern life, we discover that through study, the ideas and emotions, the questions and the answers ring true today.  I know many of you look at Torah, read commentaries and think about big questions.  As a rabbi, as a thinking Jew, we must make this part of our lives.  Whether it is 5 minutes a day or the hours we spend together on a Saturday morning, our lives are richer, more nuanced, more challenged, more meaningful when we make study a part of them.  

Shabbat Shalom

Sources:
http://www.jtsa.edu/PreBuilt/ParashahArchives/jpstext/tetzaveh.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Allen_Walken

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/160836/daf-yomi-68