How do we repent when we are happy?

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

Congregation Agudas Israel

7/13/2013

Parshat Devarim and the three weeks

How do we repent if we are happy?

Right now we are at the tail end of the three weeks, almost done with the nine days.  On the Jewish calendar this is one of the most depressing and yet hopeful times of year.  Today we read the third Haftorah of Admonition.  Monday night begins Tisha B’av, the most terrible day on the Jewish calendar.  (Join us Monday evening at 8PM for our memorial service, which begins the fast with the lighting of candles and reading of Eicha, the book of Lamentations.)  Yet after all of this self-affliction, after the fasting and the avoiding of meat or music, we find ourselves next week with one of the most beautiful Shabbatot--Shabbat Nachamu, the Sabbath of Consolation, which leads us 7 more weeks and then Rosh Hashanah.

In this way, we find a transition from mourning to joy, from sadness to celebration.  While for some Rosh Hashanah is a time of trepidation, it is also a time of joy.  It is a time of new beginnings.  Yes, it is a time of judgement, but when the judging is done, celebration begins.  On Yom Kippur afternoon, the traditional minchah Torah reading is all about forbidden sexual practices.  Why?  Because after the scapegoat was offered, after the sins were forbidden, everyone celebrated and engagements were announced.

This week we open the book of Devarim and hear Moses’ perspective on the events of Torah.  Our sefer, our book, our parsha, opens with Moses explaining why they are not already settled in the land and our our parsha closes:

3:21 I also charged Joshua at that time, saying, "You have seen with your own eyes all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings; so shall the Lord do to all the kingdoms into which you shall cross over. 22 Do not fear them, for it is the Lord your God who will battle for you."

Our Haftorah on the other hand is both depressing and inspiring:

Opening:

2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth,

For the Lord has spoken:

"I reared children and brought them up —

And they have rebelled against Me!

And closing:

27 Zion shall be saved in the judgment;

Her repentant ones, in the retribution.

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

The message of this Shabbat Hazon, this Shabbat of Vision, this third Shabbat of Admonition, is that we have sinned and that we must repent.  

And yet, I am happy!  I feel very blessed.  I have a wonderful wife.  I have a fabulous daughter.  I am inspiring people to Jewish life.  With your help, we are welcoming new members to this community.  We are learning Torah.  We are learning Halacha.  We are reading Jewish books, sparking interesting conversations.  So for what do we have to repent?  How do we repent when we feel so blessed?  (And yet, like many optimistic people, I also have a pessimistic side, and sometimes fear the evil eye--or as the yiddish speakers say ken ayin hara or kana hura squished together.)

When we suffer, we are told to examine our deeds, and if we cannot find a reason for our suffering, we should study more Torah.

The Gemara (Berachot 5a) teaches: “If a person experiences yissurim / suffering [from the same root as “mussar”], he should examine his deeds. If he examined his deeds and did not find a reason for the yissurim, he should blame his neglect of Torah study. [Some commentaries interpret that he should blame his yissurim on his neglect of Torah study, while others interpret that he should blame his inability to identify any sins that he committed on his neglect of Torah study.] If he has not neglected Torah study, then his yissurim are “yissurim shel ahavah / suffering of love.” [Until here from the Gemara]http://www.torah.org/learning/hamaayan/5772/eikev.html

But what about when we are not suffering?  What if everything is good?  Our first response should be of gratefulness.  We should appreciate all that is good and wonderful in our lives.  We should offer our thanks and our prayers.  In our tradition we have a tradition to say 100 blessings a day, to say the 19 blessings of the Amidah thrice daily, to thank Gd for our food when we eat, to appreciate when we have something new, taste something good, smell something nice or see something beautiful.  For some people, saying blessings is a way to demonstrate their appreciation of Gd and all that is good in this world.  Others try to cultivate an attitude of blessing and gratitude through mindfulness.  Whether they meditate regularly, they try to notice the world around, the holiness that is our creation.

If we aren’t suffering though, we still to have to examine our deeds.  While many people think of only the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as the Ten Days of Repentance, in Judaism, EVERY SINGLE DAY is a day of repentence.  In the second chapter of Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Eliezer would say: The honor of your fellow should be as precious to you as your own, and do not be easy to anger. Repent one day before your death.*  

רבי אליעזר אומר, יהי כבוד חברך חביב עליך כשלך, ואל תהי נוח לכעוס, ושוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך.

I was asked the other day about the weekday Amidah and hitting one’s chest during it.  During the blessing of tshuvah, repentance, we are encouraged to consider our place in the world and our lives, to see that tshuvah, is a state of mind and one that can be continuously cultivated.  Tshuvah is NOT only for the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, it is an attitude to be worked on throughout the year.

As Jews, we are a self-improving people.  Following the Solomon’s wise words in Ecclesiastes, there is a time for mourning and a time for dancing.  Our holidays and commemorations reinforce this message--yet in our daily prayers we can find that to reach joy we must also have some sorrow AND we must always continue reaching towards our best selves.

Shabbat Shalom.

Interesting and related thoughts from Rabbi Daniel Nevins of JTS:

http://learn.jtsa.edu/content/commentary/devarim/5773/just-and-sustainable-society

A brief philosophy of Jewish life--or a Bar Mitzvah Sermon

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

Congregation Agudas Israel

6/29/2013

Parshat Pinchas

This morning is a special occasion.  We are joining together with D---’s family to celebrate him becoming a Bar Mitzvah.  Note my language.  We are not celebrating D---’s Bar Mitzvah, but rather we are celebrating him BECOMING a Bar Mitzvah.  To be a Bar (or Bat) Mitzvah is to become a son or daughter of the commandments.  It means that one accepts one's responsibilities as a Jew.  Classically, at a Bar Mitzvah, the father says a very interesting blessing.  He says “בָּרוּךְ שֶׁפְּטָרַֽנִי מֵעָנְשׁוֹ שֶׁל זֶה” “Blessed (is the one) that exempts me from the punishment of this.”  While the blessing sounds a little strange, what it is really saying is that, at this holy moment, at this time when a young man begins to acknowledge his own responsibility, he is taking charge of the Jewish choices in his life.  When the son says that he is ready to take on the responsibilities of Jewish adulthood, the father, the parents must take a step back, as well.

The Torah reading that D--- read this morning was from Parshat Pinchas, named after a biblical Jewish priest, who saw injustice, saw public criminal behavior and stopped it.  Yet the majority of this parsha is not the story of Pinchas, but instead, the story of the sacrifices for all of the Jewish holidays and every day of the year.  As such, it is one of the most popular selections in the Jewish calendar.  Some Jews read a selection from it every single day, while others read only on Shabbat or holidays.  In our ark, I always keep one Torah rolled to this parsha, since I know that virtually every Jewish holiday will require a second Torah reading from this section.

This morning we heard of the specifics of the offerings.  D--- read:

Chapter 29: 35

35 On the eighth day you shall hold a solemn gathering; you shall not work at your occupations. 36 You shall present a burnt offering, an offering by fire of pleasing odor to the Lord; one bull, one ram, seven yearling lambs, without blemish; 37 the meal offerings and libations for the bull, the ram, and the lambs, in the quantities prescribed; 38 and one goat for a sin offering—in addition to the regular burnt offering, its meal offering and libation.

39 All these you shall offer to the Lord at the stated times, in addition to your votive and freewill offerings, be they burnt offerings, meal offerings, libations, or offerings of well-being.

Chapter 30

1 So Moses spoke to the Israelites just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

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

One might wonder what a bunch of burning animals have to do with Jewish life today.  Why should we care about what our ancestors made at their BBQs?  Why would Gd even want any of those offerings?

In the prophets we read that our ancestors had some of the same questions.  Hosea 6:6 says “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”  Just last week in the Haftorah, we read from Micah: “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  We have not even had a Temple since the year 70!  In Avot D’Rabbi Natan 4:5, which we saw in our Siddur this morning we saw Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai consoling Rabbi Yehoshua, saying “Be not grieved, my son.  There is another equally meritorious way of gaining atonement even though the Temple is destroyed.  We can still gain atonement through deeds of lovingkindness.” (translation from Siddur Sim Shalom for Shabbat and Festivals, p. 68 (1998))

When we think back to these sacrifices though, what we see is our ancestors doing three things. One, they were showing their gratitude to GD. Two, they were taking from themselves and giving to others. Three, they were showing that our lives have a rhythm, a calendar that organizes everything.

Jewish life today has all three of these elements. Through prayer, deeds of lovingkindness, and our daily choices, we acknowledge Gd in our lives.  Whether it is saying a prayer when we wake up, before or after we eat, or simply when we see a rainbow or the ocean, acknowledging the blessings in our lives is a powerful force.  When we see that we are not alone, but are instead connected to an entire community and the Creator of the Universe, we cannot help but live our lives with a greater sense of purpose.

To the second point, sacrifices were expensive.  While certain offerings had substitutions based on one’s income, sacrifices required sacrifice.  They required making decisions about how to spend one’s money, how to use one’s resources.  Just as we have to make decisions about what in our lives are needs and what are wants, so too did our ancestors.  Their choices might not have been iphone vs galaxy or ipad vs kindle fire.  When giving tzedekah they didn’t have to consider giving to the Met or the Hebrew Free Burial Society or AJWS or their synagogue, but when choosing to give one of their animals for a sacrifice, choosing to follow Gd’s command they still had to give up a major part of their income for the year.  Yet when they did, like when we give to those that need it, when we support our community, they found a deep sense of satisfaction, of knowing that their work supported not just themselves, but was also doing good.

To the third point, the rhythm of our lives, the calendar of our lives, this week’s parsha demonstrates exactly that. In showing the sacred calendar, the sacrifices for each day, for each Shabbat, for each month (Rosh Hodesh), for the festivals, Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we imagine ever expanding circles of time.  In these circles, we see the rhythm of our lives.  Yes, we could live without a calendar.  We might even be able to live without holidays, but we cannot live without each day.  The sacred calendar again gives us purpose.  It brings meaning into our lives through its insistence that we take time with our families and friends, through its demand that we occasionally put aside our homework and tests, projects and papers.  Through these oases of holiness, we find the sacred is not found in some esoteric place, not just in the rainbows and the oceans, but it is found within us, within each moment that we are aware of our own holiness and the sacred that is found within our friends, our family and GD.

As Jews, we have a sacred responsibility to live our lives in accordance with our traditions.  While discovering the meaning of life is nice, living it can be more challenging!  Following the mitzvot, the commandments adds so much to our lives, and that is truly what becoming a Bat Mitzvah is about.  It is about recognizing that one is part of a sacred chain, going back long beyond our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, all the way to Mt. Sinai, to Egypt, and to the Promised Land.

As tokens, of this occasion, as signs of this covenant, we share with D--- a few small gifts, reminders of this sacred time and all the sacred time to come.  Now D---, I ask you to come forward.  This morning we are presenting you with gifts from our community, from our congregation, Agudas Israel.  We have a new book, The Observant Life, which while it might be a doorstop for the next year or two, I hope you will eventually open.  WIthin it are explanations and conversations about every single aspect of Jewish life, from holidays to relationships, from prayer to business ethics, from college to childhood and back again.  It is not a book to be read all at once, but to be perused, to be studied, to be discussed.  If you are so moved, you can even join our monthly discussion group on the book, whose next session will be reading chapter 1, discussing Prayer, on July 11.

We also present you with a Kiddush Cup, which we hope you will use every Shabbat and festival, connecting you to your ancestors and your parents in sanctifying those holidays.

From the Jewish Federation of Greater Orange County we have a gift towards an Israel trip.  Having just been in Israel earlier this month, I cannot begin to express how inspirational and simply powerful it is to spend time in our Holy Land.

From my heart, I offer this prayer.

D------,

As you walk the path of your life,

may our synagogue (and every synagogue) be a place of refuge for you.

May it be a place of joy, of holidays, of fun.

May it be a place of laughter, of food, of celebration.

May your Judaism be a part of every choice you make.

May it be a comfort when times are tough.

May Gd be a source of strength and thanks when life is good.

May you realize that when you are Jewish, you are never alone.

Wherever you go, you will have another brother or sister, another friend.

Most importantly, may you see in the examples of your parents and grandparents that today is not the end, but the beginning, that Judaism and Jewish leadership are not stops along your highway, but that they are the road itself.

May the LORD (YHWH) bless you and guard you -

יְבָרֶכְךָ ה’, וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ

May the LORD make His face shed light upon you and be gracious unto you -

יָאֵר ה’ פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ, וִיחֻנֶּךָּ

May the LORD lift up His face unto you and give you peace -

יִשָּׂא ה’ פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ, וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם

Parshat Hukkat/Father’s Day/Flag Day/Graduation BBQ

June 14, 2013

Tonight is a special occasion.  Today we honor those who have reached a milestone in their lives.  We are grateful for their presence in our lives and look forward to their return, yet we also wish them good luck in all their endeavors.  I ask ___ and ___ to come forward, to receive a token of our admiration.  Whether in their room at home, a dorm room, or a room in their future homes, may these mezuzot provide a reminder of their heritage, may they be a sign on the doorpost of their hearts, that they keep our traditions dear, and hold them in their hearts.  Thank you for being here tonight, and I pray that we will see you regularly in the future.  Whether at OCC or Cornell, I pray that Hillel becomes a second home for you, that your Yiddishe Neshama, your Jewish soul, will guide your choices and your actions today and each day forward.  You may be seated.

Today is Flag Day, a little known holiday.  Two hundred and thirty-six years ago, on June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted our current flag.  While not an official national holiday, it is renewed regularly by presidential proclamation, reminding us to think about our blessed status as Americans, to think about the symbols that bind us together.  Whether on the national stage or the Jewish one, we have symbols that remind us of our values.  The flag reminds us of liberty, of freedom, of democracy, of the ideals of 13 separate colonies that did not always get along, yet chose to band together, declare independence and create a free country.  The flag reminds us not just of the gifts of our American heritage, but of our obligations, taxes, voting, sometimes even military service. In our Jewish tradition, we have many symbols, from tallit and tefillin to Torahs, yads, mezuzot, Seder plates, or Hanukkah candles.  Each of these symbols reminds us of our commandments and obligations.  The mezuzot that we include today are not just pretty cases.  Within them is a handwritten parchment, including the words of the Shema.  We are commanded to love Gd with all our bodies, minds and souls, with our hearts, our lives, our might, and our resources.  We are commanded to remember Gd’s commitment to us and declare our commitment to Gd.  We declare Gd’s oneness, Gd’s singularity, and remember this when we lie down and when we rise up, when we sit in our homes and when we walk along the road.  By putting a mezuzah on our doorposts, we have a physical reminder of our spiritual commitment, of our Jewish heritage, but also of our Jewish present and our future.

Tomorrow morning, we will read Parshat Chukat.  We read about Israel’s journey in the wilderness and the challenges of water availability, culminating with Moses striking the rock.  (While we have not worried so much about water in our recent rains, the availability of potable water worldwide is a major challenge!)  Most powerfully, this parsha includes the death of Aaron.

Chapter 20:23 At Mount Hor, on the boundary of the land of Edom, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 24 "Let Aaron be gathered to his kin: he is not to enter the land that I have assigned to the Israelite people, because you disobeyed my command about the waters of Meribah. 25 Take Aaron and his son Eleazar and bring them up on Mount Hor. 26 Strip Aaron of his vestments and put them on his son Eleazar. There Aaron shall be gathered unto the dead."

27 Moses did as the Lord had commanded. They ascended Mount Hor in the sight of the whole community. 28 Moses stripped Aaron of his vestments and put them on his son Eleazar, and Aaron died there on the summit of the mountain. When Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain, 29 the whole community knew that Aaron had breathed his last. All the house of Israel bewailed Aaron thirty days. http://www.jtsa.edu/PreBuilt/ParashahArchives/jpstext/hukkat.shtml

While incredibly powerful to see the ENTIRE house of Israel mourning together, more interesting to me is the moment before.  Gd commands Moses to take off Aaron’s priestly garb and place it on his son.  Before Aaron can die, he must pass on his legacy to his son.  While sending a child off to college is hopefully not as final, it is a transitional moment, a time when we think about our values and what comes next in our children’s lives.  In college, young adults have opportunities and temptations with far less supervision, yet parents must trust that the values they instilled will make for responsible choices--or at least that poor choices have limited long-term consequences!  With the advent of facebook photo sharing, parents and future employers can see many of their children’s choices--whether they want to or not!  When Aaron gave his son his priestly garments, he was giving him the responsibility to care for the entire nation of Israel, to offer atonement on their behalf.  He had instilled in Eleazar his values and had to trust that Eleazar would use those values.  In the same way, we are faced with such choices today.

For me, this is a special weekend.  For the first time Father’s Day is not about buying a card or a tie for my dad, but a little bit about me!  Yet I see it as a reflective time.  What kind of father do I want to be?  What examples do I use from my own father and grandfathers, or my father-in-law?  How about uncles and brothers-in-law, rabbis, teachers, friends? How do I co-parent with my wife?  When do I make decisions on my own and when do I consult with her?  How will I be prepared in 18 years to send my daughter off to school?

Clearly these questions will not be asked nor answered all at once, but I pray that in the coming years, I follow the best examples of the ones I love.  I pray that I will teach my children how to make responsible choices AND when it is safe and acceptable to be silly or goofy or simply let loose.  I pray that all of our collective children grow to be healthy, responsible adults, who value the gift of a Jewish life, and use their Jewish souls to make good choices.  Shabbat Shalom!

The Constitution and Parshat Emor

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

Congregation Agudas Israel

Parshat Emor

April 27, 2013

This week’s parsha, Emor, includes many commands from Gd to Moses to the people Israel.  While they are on diverse topics, life and death unite them.  Death opens and closes our parsha, yet festivals and celebrations are in between..

Our parsha opens:

1 The Lord said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: None shall defile himself for any [dead] person among his kin, 2 except for the relatives that are closest to him: his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, and his brother; 3 also for a virgin sister, close to him because she has not married, for her he may defile himself. 4 But he shall not defile himself as a kinsman by marriage, and so profane himself.

5 They shall not shave smooth any part of their heads, or cut the side-growth of their beards, or make gashes in their flesh. 6 They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God; for they offer the Lord's offerings by fire, the food of their God, and so must be holy.

It closes:

17 If anyone kills any human being, he shall be put to death. 18 One who kills a beast shall make restitution for it: life for life. 19 If anyone maims his fellow, as he has done so shall it be done to him: 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The injury he inflicted on another shall be inflicted on him. 21 One who kills a beast shall make restitution for it; but one who kills a human being shall be put to death. 22 You shall have one standard for stranger and citizen alike: for I the Lord am your God.

23 Moses spoke thus to the Israelites. And they took the blasphemer outside the camp and pelted him with stones. The Israelites did as the Lord had commanded Moses.

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

In between we have the festive calendar, the command to be joyous and celebrate the festivals.  We are commanded not to work on the festivals, not to afflict ourselves, but so that we may have time to enjoy, to celebrate.  If we are always connected to work, whether physically or mentally, we cannot truly celebrate.  If we are always waiting for one more call at a birthday party or one more email at a romantic dinner, we are not truly experiencing the moment.  To me, that is perhaps the greatest reason for the command not to work on the Sabbath and Festivals.  The command is not to keep one from enjoying a freshly prepared, hot meal, but to keep anyone from being a slave in the kitchen or anywhere else.

Speaking of commands, I want to return to the commands around death.  The opening of our parsha teaches us the laws of mourning, of the people who are so important to us, that we must stop everything we do, and focus on their loss.  While the loss of any individual is difficult, the loss of a parent, a sibling, a child or a spouse is even more so.  (Although not mentioned in this text explicitly, spouses are included in this category)

When we lose anyone in these categories, which unfortunately, is inevitable, we are commanded to stop our normal routines.  We literally put our lives on pause.  Ideally, the community rallies around us.  They help us with our basic needs, so that we do not have to worry about them.  Our homes are prepared, a special meal is prepared for after the funeral (as well as meals for the duration of shiva).  Rather than leaving our homes and going to shul for minyan, the minyan comes to us.  Together, in community, with at least nine others, we say our daily prayers and praise Gd.  Even in the midst of tragedy, we remember that we were created for a reason, and even with the loss of the ones we love, our own purpose remains.

In recent months, we have seen the loss of too many old friends.  When my grandmother passed away, I was overwhelmed with the support from this community.  Every single night in Atlanta, food arrived from different places and different members of the shul.  It was so appreciated, so appreciated.  I pray that we can one day do that for ALL members.  So thank you, but I challenge us to be even more proactive for those in need.  Now a small tochecha, a small criticism, to those in mourning.  Shiva is important.  I know for some it is difficult to sit a full week, to have guests every night or every day, but we lose something when we sit only one or two days of shiva.  Yes, it is overwhelming.  Yes, for some, it can be irritating to have so many people over when they just want some time alone.  If you need alone time, it’s perfectly acceptable to kick people out, but first you must allow them in.  In Victorian England, mourning clothing had strict customs for extended periods of time.  I’m not suggesting that we need to wear black for three years, but our holy customs can bring us some solace!

In this parsha, we do discover that the Cohen Gadol, the high priest’s duties were solely to Gd and the community.  That individual was exempted from normal mourning, his duties were so important to the very survival of the community. Very few of us have jobs like that.  Even if we are surgeons or accountants before tax time, we need at least a little time to process the loss of those dear to us.

Our parsha ends with the law that is sometimes called lex talionis, an eye for an eye.  The sad thing in the modern world is that many who see the Bible as archaic or the “Old Testament” as brutal or harsh focus on these laws.  By reading too literally, they miss the point of the laws entirely.  What these laws are teaching is that we are all equal in the eyes of Gd. Rich or poor, prominent or not, we all have value.  As such, even if the least of us are harmed by the greatest of us, they deserve fair and just treatment and compensation.  In the rabbinic tradition, in the Jewish tradition, these laws were rarely, if ever, seen to be literal.  Rather, our tradition teaches us that financial compensation was the norm, not physical compensation.  Judaism teaches that vengeance and justice do not go together, but that true justice comes about through due process and the legal system.

How many of you watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart?  I recently started watching again and was deeply moved by three segments that they showed recently.  Two were discussing gun control and using the example of Australia.  In previous years, Australia had numerous episodes of gun violence like we saw in Sandy Hook not long ago.   To be precise, 13 gun massacres from 1978-1996. Since passing comprehensive gun reform in 1996, there have been exactly ZERO gun massacres in Australia. “Studies found a marked drop in gun-related homicides, down 59 percent, and a dramatic 65 percent drop in the rate of gun-related suicides, in the 10 years after the weapons crackdown.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-usa-guns-australia-idUSBRE9320C720130403

Speaking with former Australian Prime Minister Howard, as well as several conservative law makers who lost their seats, but were happy to make the political sacrifice for the greater good.  This was shown in a major difference in perspective to American legislators who see success as re-election, rather than serving their citizens!  

The third segment was about due process and our Constitution.  Quoting FoxNews Anchors, they showed clips suggesting the removal/restriction/or ignoring aspects of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th Amendments.  Regarding not just terrorists but also the rest of us citizens, Fox anchors had no problem establishing or limiting religion, allowing unreasonable searches and seizures, allowing double jeopardy, taking away due process, the right to counsel, and trial by jury, allowing cruel and unusual punishment and taking away rights that are not specificall enumerated in the Constitution. I would love to say they were consistent in supporting states rights (the 10th Amendment) but in disregarding the ninth, the tenth goes along with it.  Guess which amendment they did support though?  The Second Amendment!  They said “it’s black and white, how can you limit it”--after systematically eradicating the rest of the Bill of Rights!  Jon Stewart closed the segment with  "Yes, it turns out there’s only one amendment in our Constitution’s pantheon that is exempt from statistical analysis or emotional freak-out-itude, and it is the Second.  God help us if the muslims ever decide to form a well-regulated militia.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/jon-stewart-fox-news-shre_n_3153921.html

Concluding from our parsha, whatever your take on gun control, even for terrorists, due process and constitutional protections apply to all--even if we don’t like them!

Yom Hashoah

On Sunday April 7 at 2PM, the Newburgh Jewish Community Center (along with my synagogue, Congregation Agudas Israel) joined with Mt. St. Mary College for a Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Commemoration.  An annual program of the Newburgh JCC, this year’s program was organized by Debbie Sanford, that organization’s Executive Director.

I (Rabbi Philip Weintraub) was proud to participate in this program, offering memorial prayers and psalms, as well as inviting participants to light 6 memorial candles, representing the 6,000,000 Jews murdered by the Nazis and their associates during the Holocaust or Shoah.  Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, was created by an act of the Knesset(Parliament) in Israel to be a world-wide memorial to those murdered by the Nazis, but also as a reminder of the Jews who had the opportunity to fight back, who rebelled against the vicious Nazis, for example in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Debbie Sanford brought a powerful speaker, Rudy Rosenberg, to educate us about the horrors of the Holocaust.  Rudy Rosenberg was born in Belgium.  He and his family went into hiding in 1942 and remained there for the rest of the war.  The author of And Somehow We Survive, he shared the difficulties of a life in hiding.  While he hid with his mother, he was separated from his sister and father for much of WWII.  Over the course of an hour, he shared details of his wartime experiences.  This included numerous close calls and the difficult decisions his parents made to survive.

Rudy is part of the Hidden Child Foundation (http://archive.adl.org/hidden/default.asp) which seeks to share the experiences of those who survived the Holocaust in hiding, many of whom lived separately from their families during the war, and remain as the sole survivors from their families.

For more information about Yom Hashoah, see the websites of the US Holocaust Museum in DC: http://www.ushmm.org/remembrance/dor/

In NYC, we have the Museum of Jewish Heritage: http://www.mjhnyc.org

In Rockland there is the Holocaust Museum and Studies Center: http://www.holocauststudies.org/

The Newburgh Jewish Community Center hosts numerous educational and social programs: www.newburghjcc.org/

My congregation is Congregation Agudas Israel www.congregationagudasisrael.org

And I can be found on facebook https://www.facebook.com/RabbiPhil or Twitter @tweetedtalmud

Marriage Equality, Kashrut and Truth

Rabbi Philip WeintraubApril 6, 2013Parshat Shemini

My homiletics teacher at JTS told me I should never ask more questions than I intend to answer, that when you do so, people think about their answers rather than yours.  Great advice, but sometimes it needs to be ignored!  So I ask you:How do we read the Torah?  Do we read it literally?  Do we read it allegorically?  What is Truth with a capital T?So before I continue (and lose you), what are your thoughts on any of those questions?


You might ask what inspired me1) Letter saying marriage is defined by GD (and that we shouldn’t support gay marriage)2) Parshat Shmini discussing death of Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu3) Parshat Shmini discussing rules of kashrut


On Friday I read a letter in Thursday’s paper telling us why, since Gd said marriage should be between a man and a woman, the state or federal government should agree.  Ignoring the Constitutional issues, such as the first amendment’s establishment clause, as much as I support Gd and Torah, I think that I read it just a little bit differently than the letter’s author.  On that note, before I continue,I want to share with you a letter I wrote to the editor of the Times Herald Record.  I think it is important for people to know that people of faith believe that gay marriage should be legal.  Even if you religiously believe that it is unacceptable for your church or synagogue to perform gay marriages, it should be legal for those that are not members of your church or synagogue.


My letter read:I read in the THR Friday  (oops-Thursday’s paper-I read it Friday) from a minister saying that only G-d defines marriage.  While that may be the case in his church, as is his first amendment right, NY state defines marriage within this state.  He is free to perform any marriage legal in the state and is under no pressure to perform gay marriages in his church.

On TV and in the paper, we often equate religion and anti-gay or even homophobic sentiments.  As a Conservative Rabbi, I remember that one of the first parts of creation was G-d noting that it was "not good for man to be alone."  I cannot imagine a loving G-d, who would create people with no acceptable marriage possibility.  That is why I support marriage equality.

If fundamentalists of any stripe are going to spend a lot of time parsing Leviticus, they should join me in keeping kosher: abandoning pork, shellfish and mixed meat/dairy meals.  If they aren't willing to live by the laws of the Bible, perhaps they shouldn't impose them on others.  That, too, is the principle of the First Amendment.

Additionally, our parsha speaks about the story of Nadav and Avihu, who offered “strange fire” before Gd.  The commentators fall over themselves trying to explain how this must be a just punishment from a just GD against evil people.  They say Nadav and Avihu made all sorts of different mistakes, that they disobeyed Gd.  Modern commentators speak of them being under the influence, perhaps that “strange fire” was them imbibing in illicit substances or drinking too much.  Others take another task, that they were so righteous and so so desired to be one with Gd, that they purposely sacrificed themselves!  However we read the story, it is a different one, that challenges our ideas about Gd and ourselves!

Finally our parsha concludes with animals we can and cannot eat.  It literally discusses the sacred and profane, implying that “we are what we eat.”  There is a great holiness to keeping kosher.  If we are aware of all that we put before our lips, if we say blessings over what we eat, we create a connection to Gd’s holy creation.

I found it particularly appropriate that the letter writer wrote this week, as we read about Kashrut.  I find it fascinating how so many people take the Bible so literally, yet are very selective in how they follow it.  Many people are quick to judge others for their sexual morality, yet have no interest in the numerous other prohibitions surrounding those.  

Returning to my original questions:How do we read the Torah?  I read the Torah with a loving eye.  I see it as the source of my life, the source for all life, the place where all secrets are hidden and the place where Gd shows Gd’s love to us and the world.  (While that may sound a little Christian, in my recent studies of the Christian Bible I discovered that 97% (my guess) of what Jesus says is either elsewhere in the Jewish Bible or in rabbinic literature.  It is Saul/Paul who drastically changed Jesus’ message.)Do we read it literally?  Yes, sometimes.Do we read it allegorically?  Yes, sometimes.In the Middle Ages, Saadia Gaon argued that a biblical passage should not be interpreted literally if that made a passage mean something contrary to the senses or reason (or, as we would say, science; Emunot ve-Deot, chapter 7). Maimonides applied this principle to theories about creation. He held that if the eternity of the universe (what we would call the Steady State theory) could be proven by logic (science) then the biblical passages speaking about creation at a point in time could and should be interpreted figuratively in a way that is compatible with the eternity of the universe.It is only because the eternity of the universe has not been proven that he interpreted the verses about creation at a point in time literally (Guide, II, 25), but he still insisted that the creation story as a whole was written metaphorically (Book I, Introduction). (http://www.myjewishlearning.com/beliefs/Issues/Science/Creationism_and_Evolution/Bible_as_Allegory.shtml)

What is Truth with a capital T?  Truth is love.  Truth is the spirit behind the words.  Truth is what lives deep inside of us, in the light that is our soul, in the Gdliness that is demonstrated by Bereshit’s note that we are all created in the image of the Divine.  Truth with a capital T is not found simply by reading the words on the page.  It is in the words, under the words, struggling with the words.  It is reading 4 translations and 8 commentaries.  It is parsing with a chevruta, studying with a friend.  Truth is Divine.Shabbat Shalom.

Marriage Equality

My letter to the Times Herald Record today. Let's see if it gets published!

I read in the THR Friday from a minister saying that only G-d defines marriage. While that may be the case in his church, as is his first amendment right, NY state defines marriage within this state. He is free to perform any marriage legal in the state and is under no pressure to perform gay marriages in his church.

On TV and in the paper, we often equate religion and anti-gay or even homophobic sentiments. As a Conservative Rabbi, I remember that one of the first parts of creation was G-d noting that it was "not good for man to be alone." I cannot imagine a loving G-d, who would create people with no acceptable marriage possibility. That is why I support marriage equality.

If fundamentalists of any stripe are going to spend a lot of time parsing Leviticus, they should join me in keeping kosher: abandoning pork, shellfish and mixed meat/dairy meals. If they aren't willing to live by the laws of the Bible, perhaps they shouldn't impose them on others. That, too, is the principle of the First Amendment.