The middle letter of the Torah is….

Posted on April 2, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

The middle letter in the Torah is in this week’s reading, and is a Vav. It appears in the word gachon (belly) in Leviticus 11:42.
A Torah scroll writer is called a sofer”, which literally means ‘someone who counts’. I think of mother duck who “counts” her eggs. Anything we really care about, we treat with utmost attention. Counting the Torah letters was no different. A Torah scroll contains 304,805 letters, so this Vav should be the 152,403rd letter (with 152,403 letters on either side). However, a careful count (which I admit, I didn’t do but accept the findings of those who did), shows that this Vav is actually the 157,237th letter. The middle letter accordingly would be in Leviticus 8:28, and is an Alef of the word הוא, hu (pronounced like who), which stands for He, and that’s another long story.
But most still teach that it’s the Vav. There are ways to rearrange the count; say we’re counting “long” letters, “unusual” letters, with or without spaces; how are we counting “double words” (“Abraham, Abraham” in Genesis 25:19) and others. One way or another, we teach that it’s the Vav.
Vav, the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, literally means a “hook” and is used as “and” in the Hebrew language. For example Abraham and Sarah is “Avraham veSarah”. Extra meaning is added by the fact that “and” in Hebrew is not a separate word but only one letter that “hooks” to the next word and becomes one with it.
I often say that the commentary teaches more about the commentator than about the issue. I believe this is a critical rule in learning. In this case, even though we count the letter carefully over and over again, the message is stronger than the objective count. Vav, the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, literally means a “hook” and is used as “and” in the Hebrew language. For example Abraham and Sarah is “Avraham veSarah”. Extra meaningful is added by the fact that “and” in Hebrew is not a separate word but only one letter that “hooks” to the next word and becomes one with it.
We want to be mindful that this whole book is all about making a meaningful connection, between people, and between us and G-d.
And while we’re on letters:
The three most frequently occurring letters in Hebrew are yod, heh and vav. These are also the letters that make G-d’s name. According to some, these are the hints for G-d’s presence in the world; according to others, this is how the world was made – it was all one “G-d block”, which was broken into smaller chunks that we can comprehend and that will be meaningful to us.
Shabbat Shalom.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Holy Trash

Posted on March 26, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

The whole idea of “sacrifices”… I can make sense of it etymologically, finding some meaning in the fact that “korban” (sacrifice) comes from k.r.v., “coming close”, and I do believe that the two are related; that becoming “close” can be directly related to how much we’re willing to do for, to give-up, to “sacrifice”. The classical example is parenting, especially when the child is very young, and yet, the more the parents “give”, “give-up”, and “sacrifice”, the more they look at their child with love and feel a special bond. This can be true for any relationship.
And still, in the background loom the “real” sacrifices, including detailed descriptions of body parts, what to burn where etc.
Most of my family lives on different meat-avoiding diets, from vegan to vegetarian to Rav Cook’s diet (fish or chicken for Shabbat and holiday, and veggie during the week). The whole thing seems ancient, outdated, irrelevant. Who cares? This is what they did long ago and we’re now “modern” and “progressive”!

Well, first, we might wonder if shopping for a piece of animal in the store – not to mention the treatment it goes through before it got there – makes us really more “progressive”, but I’ll leave that for now.
Because what’s worse, is that in the process of the discussion about meat, we miss much of what else going on. For example, in this week’s reading, the first thing the priest does every morning is – take out yesterday’s trash. In order to do so, he wears special clothing, and I think just that – is amazing.

Trash gets special care and attention. Trash is important. Trash has a special place to be put bamakom tahor , in a holy spot (Leviticus 6:4).
Again, withy modern eyes, this might sound very environmental to us, and environmentalism is indeed not absent from Torah life, but sages of different cultures saw more in taking out trash.

One of my favorite Yoga stories is about a young student who goes to his master asking him to teach him the ways of the Light. The master knows the student was not ready but rather than tell him so, decides to convey it in a lesson. The next morning, the master goes to the student with his own (the master’s) dirty food bowl, and asked the student to put some fresh food in it. The bowl looks disgusting and the student refuses: ‘sorry master but you need to clean out your old dirt first; then I can put fresh food in it for you’. The master
(as they often do in these stories), smiles and says, ‘indeed. You need to do the same with your mind. Before I can teach you anything new, you need to empty out the old stuff’.
And yet, cleaning out trash is just the first step. What next? The “trash” or ashes and remnants of the sacrifices, were initially carefully placed by the altar, and even when taken out of the camp, placed in a “holy place”. Why? Because they were not “stam” (nothing, unimportant) trash; they were the left-overs of our greatest dedication, commitment and love. And so, even when they have burned out and are seemingly no longer useful, they still hold some of that original intent; they can therefore teach us about who we are, where we come from, what things worked and what things didn’t work, and from there, perhaps where we should go next. We’re told that the Maggid of Mezerich was once asked how one can sustain love and passion. He was talking about G-d but this might apply anywhere. He said: “He who needs fire should look in the ashes.” (Cited in Degel Machane Ephraim, Tzav, “And the Lord spoke”) “מי שצריך לאש מחפש באפר.” .(דגל מחנה אפרים, פרשת צו, ד”ה וידבר The potential of new fire is within its old ashes, right near by.

Shabbat Shalom.

Zoe admiring an environmental statue made of trash at a converted landfill near Berkeley CA

 

 

 

Posted in life and some, shabbat shalom, Uncategorized, פרשת השבוע לחילוני האדוק | 2 Comments

These Days of Purim: 3 shorts on a holiday that doesn’t make much sense

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

There is a word missing from Esther 5:1. It says, “and Esther wore royalties’ – ותלבש אסתר מלכות. Shouldn’t it have said, that she wore royal garments? But rather, she wore royalty itself. According to the Malbim (European commentator of the early 1800’s), her outward appearance was royal because she embodied these qualities, and her clothes were secondary. Do we make our clothes or do they make us? A is often the case, the answer is – yes. The Hebrew for “beged” – one of the words for clothing – shares its root with “bgida’ – betrayal; a covering can at times become false covering (and in English – covering for someone-). What about our outside is real and what is false? Life is a constant stretch to match the two. Perhaps Esther was able to approach the king (or King -) only when the two were the same.

* * * * * * *

Why did Haman want to “lose” all the Jews (לאבדם – originally ‘to lose valuable possession’ but also to kill, completely get rid of)? Prejudice and hatred are often attributed to “stupidity” and being “misinformed”. Someone once told me that the holocaust happened because the Jews lived in ghettos and were too isolated. ‘If only the non-Jews in Europe knew the Jews’… Sorry, wrong. The Jews of Germany were as integrated as anyone; my family would have not been saved had they not had close, caring non-Jewish friends. Not to mention, that there is a huge space between not knowing all of certain People and between wishing them all dead.
Luckily, Haman was not shy, and told us his reasoning: “There is one People, scattered and dispersed among the nations… and their laws are different… (which means) they do not execute the laws of the king, and it is not worth it for the king to keep them” (Esther 3:8). It’s an amazing passage, so logical! this is how we go from labeling someone as “different” to (therefore) not being law abiding to (therefore) being not worthwhile for us to have among us. Wait, “we”? Aren’t we talking about Haman? That evil dude? Who’s “we”?
But I never believe there is anyone but “we”, and we – have not changed that much, or else who cares about an isolated incident in Persia of 2500 years ago. At times, I’m sorry we drown Haman’s name during megila reading in noise-makers, though now I wonder if maybe, it’s more of an alert: watch out, there goes Haman! again! right here and now! do something, now, before it’s too late!

* * * * * *

It’s late in the evening. The house smells like baking as an assembly line of mishlochei manot piles up ahead. “Sending gifts (of food) to each other” is one of the mitzvot of Purim, but I can’t help wonder, what are we doing? We’re making these little, hopefully cute, baskets with “stuff”, which we’ll deliver to friends around, only to find at the end of the day, that some of the same friends and others will be leaving us similar baskets at our door. Wouldn’t it be better for each of us to just make our own thing for ourselves?? The exchange seems superfluous and unnecessary.
There are two seas in the Land of Israel: the Sea of Galilee and the Salty – or Dead Sea, both fed by the Jordan River, both running through the Jordan Valley as the Syrian-African Rift crosses Israel. The first one is sweet and fun. Lots of beautiful settlements lay all around it, fishermen enjoy its bounty and for decades, it has been the water source for the rest of the Israel. The latter – is dry, hot and almost inhabitable for anything. The first one has a river that flows in and out of it; the second – has the same river only flowing in but not out. The first – gives and takes, thus remaining sweet; the latter – only takes, thus becoming salty, dead and not suitable for living.
These lakes – that is just the way they are, but they have also served been used as a metaphor. Contrary to what we might think, taking is stifling, while giving and taking, participating in the flow of life, is what is essential to being alive.
This mitzvah of mishloach manot is not seemingly “useful”: each one of us on this holiday can bake their own little cookie, eat it by ourselves and call it a day. But what kind of day shall we call it then??
Purim comes towards the end of the ancient Jewish year, which started with Pesach. It is a reminder that while we might have miracles in our past, those are not what make us survive the day to day and go on tomorrow. It’s not the big thunder and lightening, splitting of the sea and a burning bush but the small acts like making special baskets of goodies for each other that make ours and the life of those around us a little sweeter.
Happy Purim!

Posted in life and some, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

To Remember & Forget

Posted on March 19, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

I step out of my neighbor’s house and something about the evening air, angle of dim streetlights, and the general silence around, reminds me of the last time I was on the same stone steps. Back then, this past fall, I was talking to another friend about someone else. So now, in an instance, this third person, who has never been in this spot and whom I haven’t seen for some time, is right here with me.
Memory is such an amazing and at times strange thing. How do things travel in the brain? This Shabbat, the Shabbat before Purim is known as Shabbat Zachor – Shabbat of Remember! – because of a special passage that is added to the regular reading which begins with this word. The passage, dealing with ‘Amalek’ and challenging on many levels, invites commentators to expand on it. But this morning (soon to be afternoon-), I am just interested in the fact the Torah thinks it can command us to “remember’, and to “not forget”. How is this possible, to command someone to remember?
There is a famous incident in Joseph’s life. Sitting in jail, he had an opportunity to explain dreams to his two cellmates, the baker and the butler. When the butler is promptly released, Joseph asks him: “within three days, Pharaoh will restore you to your office… remember me (zchartani) when it will be well with you, and do this kindness with me, and mention me (hizkiratani) unto Pharaoh…” (Genesis 40:14). Twice he asked; However, not only did the butler not remember Joseph, he also forgot him (40:23), which teaches that to remember and to not forget are not the same.
The issue of remembering things is so strong that there are “6 Zchirot” – 6 things to remember mentioned in the prayer book, like Shabbat, as it is said in the Ten Commandments: “Remember the Shabbat day to keep it holy…” (Exodus 20:7). What makes us remember and forget? And if we can control this, why do we lose our keys, forget our shopping list, miss a birthday etc?
It’s been said, “out of sight out of mind”, but is seeing something or somebody the only guarantee to remember them? Then we must wonder, how did the Jewish people continue to pray for Israel, a land they mostly have not lived on – and the majority never saw – for almost two thousand years?
In English “re-member” is to consciously make something a part of something else; In Hebrew too, per 19th century Rav Hirsch, z.ch.r means to “store (in memory)”. Also in Hebrew, zachar (literally “he remembered”) is the word for male, and again per Hirsch, “bearer of tradition”, someone who carries the seed from the past to the future, for while memory looks backwards, it also inevitably, looks forward.
Alternatively, sh.kh.ch – the root for forget, is related sh.k.h. which means to give someone drinks or to saturate. Therefore, forgetting means letting go through being taken up by other matters; mentally to be so full of something that there is no room for anything else.
If so, maybe what the Torah asks us is to be aware of what we put in our mind; to sort and clear out the unnecessary stuff and make sure we have room to keep that which is most important.

Shabbat Shalom!

 

 

Posted in life and some, shabbat shalom, פרשת השבוע לחילוני האדוק | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

On Clothing and more

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

“Write down 5 of your identities”, asked the speaker, “the first 5 that come to mind”.
What shall I write? What makes me who I am?
I scribble one, then two, then think. 5 is surely not enough to describe who I am, rebels the student in me, contemplating to be creative. What about 6 or 7? He probably expects us to write nationality, religion, race, socioeconomic background but what about profession or hobby or… As I’m debating with myself, I hear the speaker instructing the group to erase 2 of the 5. Then erase another 2. What’s left??
I am one of more than 300 educators in a regional in-service day and can easily hide, but the question remains with me: is identity a prism or is there a core? What is superficial and what is critical about who we are?
The new moon of these days welcomes the month of Adar (Adar II, for this is a leap year in the Jewish calendar too), and in two weeks, it’s going to be Purim. The simple story – stupid king, pretty queen, smart uncle, evil minister – gets more and more complicated the more one reads it. Almost nothing makes sense, and nothing is quite the way it seems.
It’s no wonder then, that one of the customs of this holiday is to dress-up. It is us exprloing different layers of who we are, playing with an opportunity to take on a new identity, if only for the day.
What to be??

The last Torah portion in the Book of Exodus also deals with clothing, and this time, it’s the beautiful priestly garments with their many rules and deep symbolism. There are other stories which center around clothing: Jacob, dressed like Esau trying to fool his father to get the blessing; Joseph, first with his multi-colored striped coat, then with his master wife ripping his shirt, then facing his brothers, all decked out like an Egyptian; Tamar, who dressed up to meet Judah; and of course, Esther, about whom the text explicitly says that she “wore her royal dress to go to the king” (5:1) and I wonder, why specify that? Was she usually hanging around the palace in her sweats and jeans?? And there are more.
In addition, clothing can have a mitzvah (putting on tzitzit, fringes on a four cornered garments) and be affected by tzara’at, a strange Biblical skin condition that erroneously is translated as leprosy but can touch houses and clothes.
A lot can be learned from the first time something appears in the Torah (and much more in Meir Shalev’s book “Resheet” / Beginnings). The first time we hear about clothing is in the Garden of Eden, when the first humans discovered their nakedness after disobeying G-d. Their first “suits” were made for them by G-d Himself. Ever since, dressing – and undressing – has become related to getting near and far from G-d.
If so, it may be no wonder that this is what the Torah chooses to close this book. The Book of Exodus is the story of creating a People, of building a congregation, and yet in the end, it’s what we do as individual makes the community we’re in. It ‘winks’ to our early beginnings and reminds us that where there is a break, or a “tear” if you will, that a seem-line can be stitched and that amends can be made.
The Hebrew word for clothing is begged, which is made of three consecutive letters (bet, gimel, dalet) and means “cover”, “outer appearance”. Thus, the same root is used to create the word for garment (beged), and also – traitor, being unfaithful (bodeg, bgida). The same thing can be one and its opposite. Are we our outside or inside, and are these two, the same?
The month of Adar usually corresponds to the zodiac Pisces sign: two fish, one of the top and one below, in two directions, that go opposite from each other, yet make one picture. This is maybe what Purim and this season is – sometimes almost forcefully we want things to make sense, but they don’t. Life is made of contradictions and opposites and impossible stretches. In the end, not only I wrote more than the “5” identities instructed, I didn’t erase any. There is just too much color to give up any.

Shabbat Shalom.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Building a Mishkan- in time and space

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

95% of couples get together due to a simple musical chairs game. You’re out there playing, dancing around and suddenly, the music stops, and this is it. You could have been fishing in Alaska, hiking in Nepal, diving near Bali, but you happen to be taking a class on Late Renaissance Philosophy in some college. The clock was ticking, the music stops and there he was.
Ok, the truth is, I have no idea if that’s how it is and what the percentage is. For one, if I try to look up anything about dating, I get advertisements, articles promoting “free relationships” and info about archaeology and carbon 14 “dating”.
So I made it up – in order to make a point.
This week’s Torah portion opens with Moses assembling all the people to build the Mishkan, the mobile Tabernacle. After lengthy instructions, it’s now time to actually start working. Everybody comes, tools in hand, materials ready for donation, talents willing to work. The excitement is contagious and the energy is high. Moses will reveal the instructions he received while being alone with G-d; maybe even bring a model of what to do, like G-d showed him a few things back on Mt. Sinai. Ready? Set? We begin! Then Moses tells everybody to keep Shabbat…
How can it be? I am about to build G-d’s house! Surely, that’s more important than anything!! But not so. No Temple will survive the turmoils of history, but Shabbat will. Shabbat takes precedence and yet, they are closely related.

As has been said elsewhere, the Mishkan, and later the Temple, is in the dimension of space, what Shabbat is in time: a place to enter and connect. If Genesis was the story of a family, the Book of Exodus, which we’re now ending, is about building a nation. What is needed in order to build such an entity, and by extension, a couple, a family, or an organization? We say we need a common past; we need a common future; we need a language and culture, but our history shows that all of those might be lost to us every so often. What we need to create and sustain a relationship are tools in the present – things to do together, places to be in, and times to meet.

This Shabbat is also one of special four Shabbatot in the spring around Purim and Pesach. I bring someone else’s voice for 3 minutes of wisdom:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APPzt5V4jkU&feature=youtu.be

Shabbat Shalom.

Posted in shabbat shalom, פרשת השבוע לחילוני האדוק | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Moses’ Ikea Tablets

Posted on February 27, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

In our “Lessons in Leadership” class, I ask my students: Was it ok for Moses to break the Tablets? At first they are shocked that I would even ask such a question. The incident of the Golden Calf is often referred to as one of the worst breakdown of faith – and leadership – in the desert. How could the people who were just taken out of Egypt, who just witnessed all the miracles and who just received the Torah at Mt. Sinai, build for themselves a “calf” because “they didn’t know what happened to Moses” (Exodus 32: 1)??
For one, sure they knew! They saw him go up the mountain! Two, even if Moses had actually “vanished”, how would a calf made of gold, help?? Don’t they know it was G-d who took them out of Egypt and not Moses?? We often say, ‘if only I witnessed a miracle, I would believe in G-d!’ Here we see the people who witnessed the greatest miracles ever, and yet, within just a few weeks, at best, lost their faith not a “doubt” but to complete idolatry. Clearly, something terrible happened!
As readers, we expect some consequences to the people, but even more so, to the leaders who let that happen. Then we notice something strange: neither Moses nor Aaron get punished for their part in the Golden Calf.
Don’t get me wrong: those directly involved do get punished, but not Aaron, and not Moses. Is it possible that Aaron was not in the wrong supporting the people? that Moses was not in the wrong breaking the tablets??
On round 2, G-d tells him to make a new set of tablets “like the first ones” (Exodus 34:1). This should mean that nothing was wrong with the first ones themselves as far as the content, except this time Moses is going to make them himself. Amazingly, the second set is the durable one, not the first set, which was made by G-d Himself
Research explains the “Ikea” phenomena, and the success of cake mixes which can be almost as expensive as a ready cake. Why go to the trouble of making our own furniture? Baking our cake? We can get it all easily all done! But it turns out that we feel a greater connection when we put effort into making something, then when things come “readymade”.
Similarly, the first set of tablets came in a wondrous show – lightening, thunder, G-d’s voice. Clearly, everybody said yes, na’ase venishma (we will do and we will listen – Exodus 19:8)! What else? Who would dare say no to this grand combination of fear and awe?
But then life crept in and the great excitement of that first “date” (some say, wedding day-) started to wear off. There were dishes in the sink and dirty laundry to sort. Would the relationship be strengthened by more gifts or diligent work?
No doubt, the gifts kept coming, but in the connection between heaven and earth, the ready-made “wow” that came from above was not going to be enough. There was a need to recreate the vows from below; to chisel and carve each letter. Only this was to be enduring.

Shabbat Shalom.

 

Posted in life and some, shabbat shalom, פרשת השבוע לחילוני האדוק | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Take pure olive oil”…

Posted on February 20, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

Drawing trees as a child, mine were all two dimensional green ball on a brown stick. With time I added little orange circles on the green tuft. Inspired by my grandparents home in the moshav, I also specialized in green triangles on shorter, slightly fatter, brown sticks. My family looked at my creations and concluded that my brother was “the artistic one”, while I was “more social”. Talking has always been a strength, and drawing, I dutifully dropped. About twenty years later, considering a career in landscape architecture, I was forced to stop and really look at trees again.
Turns out, they are not all circles and triangles. And they are definitely not all the same – one and only – green crayon in my pencil-box, but range from the assortment of purples-burgundies- orange – yellow in the fall, to 50 million shades of green in the spring, from bright yellow-chartreuse to silvery and dark, almost black-green. I go into the school yard, or sit near my computer on that hill, and notice how they change, hour by hour, with the light, the sun, the rain, and the spring springing all around.
People have always had special relationship with trees. The Torah tells us “ki ha’adam etz hasadeh” – for a (hu)man is like a tree of the field (Deuteronomy 20:19). Originally this was actually the opposite: the idea was that trees are not like people, for they cannot run away and therefore, we should not wage war against them, especially fruit trees. But over the centuries, the verse took on a new meaning. The Talmud in Pirkei Avot (3:17) compares people to trees – those with good deeds and great learning are like those with extensive branches and deep roots – and much later Kabalistic and Chasidic teachings embellished on that.
16th century Rabbi Judah Loew known as the Maharal of Prague writes that man’s “branches are in heaven, for the head, which is the root of a man, faces upwards…” (Sefer Gur Aryeh). The idea was adapted into a modern Israeli poem by Nathan Zach.
This week’s reading focuses on the High Priest, his duties and his garments, which is all full of symbolism. It starts with an instruction to “bring pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually”. And of course, the question is, why olive oil? One beautiful commentary connects this with another interesting fact about this week’s reading: it is the only parasha when Moses is alive but not mentioned. The traditional explanation is that during the incident of the Golden Calf, when Moses was arguing for the sake of his people, he said to G-d, “please forgive them, and if not, erase me from Your book” (Exodus 32:32). This is one of many examples of Moses’ humility, and the Netivot Shalom (Chasidic rabbi and commentator -1911-2000) connects it to olive oil.
Olive oil can be gotten only when the olives themselves are crushed. Aside from having a fruit, and aside from being able to produce a liquid from the fruit (as is the case with other juices), the unique quality of the olive oil is that it gives light, which in turn can light other lights. He suggests that there is a part of us that lights up only after a lot of work, trials and tribulations.
Most of us don’t necessarily enjoy or welcome hardship, and in “real time”, I don’t appreciate when people meet another person’s pain with “it’s all for the best”. Our role is to try and be compassionate but at the same time, in retrospect we often realize that in order to learn certain things, become certain people, we had to encounter those challenges that we have had; we had to have certain parts of us “crushed”. In spite of the immense pain in the process, this is exactly what sometimes helps our light shine.

Enjoy the beautiful spring all around and Shabbat Shalom.

 

Posted in shabbat shalom, פרשת השבוע לחילוני האדוק | Leave a comment

A Spotlight on a Family Reunion

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

About 2½ years ago, I got the first email. It had a lot of “maternal” and “paternal” in it, and a string of family relations I could not follow. The writer told me that he’s been looking for me since he believes we are second cousins. What in the world are “second cousins”?? It was exactly the kind of email that could be followed with something like – ‘and now that my family and I are stranded in Nigeria / Cyprus / Buenos Aires, we need a loan of…’
I am embarrassed to say, I didn’t even make it to the end. Clearly – spam. I clicked ‘delete’ and went on my day. Then another email came. And another. What was that?? If anyone in my immediate family would have known about anything like this, it would have been me! and I knew for sure that there were no unknown relatives on that side of the family.
But, wait, aren’t “unknown relatives” by definition, unknown until known??
By the third or fourth email, I gave in and actually read the whole message, still struggling to understand what was going on. No, it did not make any sense. As a child, I always wanted a bigger family, a noisier dinner table, a busier play area. I envied my friends who had more siblings and who on Shabbat had aunts and uncles and swarms of cousins from all sides, all different versions of each other, making their own neighborhood soccer teams, while my brother and I walked over to the field, just the two of us and the ball’s bounce echoing in the empty street. I could never figure out, why there are pages of pages in the Haifa phone book of “Kahana”‘s and none of them, none! is in any way, shape of form, my relative.
My cousins on my mother’s side lived in another town; we went to see them on vacations and there got a taste of the “real things”, but close family gatherings were comprised mostly of the same people: my grandmother, my uncle, my aunt. Sometimes, another uncle and another aunt. Everyone was an adult. Everyone was serious. Everyone had a story. No one talked much, because whatever it was, wasn’t anybody’s business anyway. Gossip was out of the question. The past was nothing new; the present was shared. Eating was done with one’s mouth closed, focused, chewing quietly. And if I asked one too many questions, they said, nu be’emet, which roughly means, ‘really, you got to be kidding, how dare you, don’t you have homework’ (and I know it’s hard to believe that two words could say all that, but, well, in their own way, they did).
Sometime in the early 1970’s this guy showed up in our house. Alexander. He had, what my mother would call, a “Slavic face”, broad and reddish, with thick glasses in a black frame, and disheveled, silver curls. His buttoned, often stained, shirt, exploded over his bulging belly. He had a loud laughter. He loved chocolates. And vodka. And he had an accent – not the “appropriate” yeke (German) accent, but a heavy, Russian accent. Worst of all: he said he was my father’s cousin.
He was a regular guest in our home until he died about 20 years later, and I don’t think I ever seriously explored, how in the world were we related??
“A cousin of some sorts”, my mother would say of her late husband’s family, “give me a break, please, nu be’emet!” Only in the last 2-3 years I learned that my grandfather was one of 7 siblings. And while not everyone survived WWII, and not everyone went on to have children and grandchildren, enough of us did. One of these children was Alexander, and one of the grandchildren is the one who insisted on finding me, Michael, funny how names get recycled in the family. Somewhere in Germany of the 1920’s and 1930’s, and then in Israel of the 1930’s, 40’s – our parents were each other’s cousins. A World War, other wars, thousands of ocean miles and life, separated them and we all lost touch. Almost. Until now.
Shabbat Dinner
We organize a whole weekend which starts with a Shabbat dinner here. My kids are a little reluctant: ‘do we have to?’ I shuffle between the kitchen and dining area, giving orders: get another chair, from there, no, from there; wait, the soup, oh no, did I forget the fish, what if the challah, did we get enough…
I light candles. Last touch ups. The house quiets down. We wait. Are you sure it’s ok? What do I wear? Do they have the address? Did we set the right seats?
Then the door bell. They start in: Hi, I am… I have a rough chart printed out, and we show each other our branch on the family tree. Some old photos are on the table too: yes, that’s my father and his father, your grandmother’s brother… oh yes, here’s a picture of her…
The evening flows as if we’ve been doing this every week. So does the next day. And the next eve. We share, ask questions, tease, joke around, speak sincerely. When someone asks if I’m “really religious”, I have to smile, for I know my father was asked some of the same questions in another lifetime. So it goes. We search for resemblances, looking for ourselves in each other’s faces, likes, movements, manners, preferences, skills, tastes. In some strange way, everybody seems familiar. We are someone’s tomorrow, and someone else’s yesterday. I realize how family helps shape a person, learn where one begins and where another one ends.
Spotlight
Much has been said about Spotlight, the incredible movie that is now up for six academy awards nominations. And while I too am touched by the story like the rest of the audience, I also watch it completely selfishly. There is Liev Schreiber, playing editor Marty Baron, hunched over the paper, the light still on in his office long after everybody has gone home as he brings new meaning to investigative journalism, and all I can think of is, someone else in this family writes!! It’s the first time in my life that my passion has company. I walk out amazed, inspired and proud to be part of this newly found greater “us”.

המשפחה החדשה 128

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Teruma: Constructing the Menorah, and Life

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

Sometimes I think my students leave my class more confused than they walked in. We talk about Moses’ leadership traits and delve into the story of the Golden Calf (to be read in a couple of weeks). As we recall, Moses comes down from Mt. Sinai and smashes the tablet, and the question is, was that ok? Was there maybe an educational purpose to this act? But then, how dare Moses just throw them to the ground? After all, the tablets were made by G-d Himself!
I take a detour and ask them, ‘Wait, isn’t everything made by G-d? Shouldn’t we be careful with everything?’
A split second of silence and then one student “explodes”: ‘I don’t want to live as if I can’t do anything because everything was made by G-d and I have to be so so careful because oh, what if I drop something or break it! I want to be able to have a life; I want to live it! Isn’t that what we’re here to do? Weren’t we given the world to enjoy it? G-d doesn’t want us to do nothing and just be scared of Him, does He? Which way is it’
As with most ‘which way is it’ questions, I have to say, “yes”. I want them to realize there are more colors than black and white; there’s greater depth. And – as mentioned elsewhere here – sometimes it’s a big yes to two conflicting ideas.
In this week’s reading of parashat Truma, we’re learning about the construction of the Mishkan, the mobile temple. The Mishkan is an amazing structure designed exactly for saying yes, but I’ve often felt that the reading about it, is a section for engineers, designers and architects; not for me. I strain to keep all these details in my mind and quickly get lost: how many what where? And this fits together, how?
Luckily, I’m in good company. We’re told that Moses too could not figure it out. When G-d told him how to build the menorah, Moses just could not see it: one piece of gold with flowers and buttons?
לא וְעָשִׂיתָ מְנֹרַת, זָהָב טָהוֹר; מִקְשָׁה תֵּעָשֶׂה הַמְּנוֹרָה, יְרֵכָהּ וְקָנָהּ, גְּבִיעֶיהָ כַּפְתֹּרֶיהָ וּפְרָחֶיהָ, מִמֶּנָּה יִהְיוּ. 31 And you shall make a candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work shall the candlestick be made, even its base, and its shaft; its cups, its knops, and its flowers, shall be of one piece with it.
לב וְשִׁשָּׁה קָנִים, יֹצְאִים מִצִּדֶּיהָ: שְׁלֹשָׁה קְנֵי מְנֹרָה, מִצִּדָּהּ הָאֶחָד, וּשְׁלֹשָׁה קְנֵי מְנֹרָה, מִצִּדָּהּ הַשֵּׁנִי. 32 And there shall be six branches going out of the sides thereof: three branches of the candlestick out of the one side thereof, and three branches of the candle-stick out of the other side thereof;
לג שְׁלֹשָׁה גְבִעִים מְשֻׁקָּדִים בַּקָּנֶה הָאֶחָד, כַּפְתֹּר וָפֶרַח, וּשְׁלֹשָׁה גְבִעִים מְשֻׁקָּדִים בַּקָּנֶה הָאֶחָד, כַּפְתֹּר וָפָרַח; כֵּן לְשֵׁשֶׁת הַקָּנִים, הַיֹּצְאִים מִן-הַמְּנֹרָה. 33 three cups made like almond-blossoms in one branch, a knop and a flower; and three cups made like almond-blossoms in the other branch, a knop and a flower; so for the six branches going out of the candlestick.
לד וּבַמְּנֹרָה, אַרְבָּעָה גְבִעִים: מְשֻׁקָּדִים–כַּפְתֹּרֶיהָ, וּפְרָחֶיהָ. 34 And in the candlestick four cups made like almond-blossoms, the knops thereof, and the flowers thereof.
לה וְכַפְתֹּר תַּחַת שְׁנֵי הַקָּנִים מִמֶּנָּה, וְכַפְתֹּר תַּחַת שְׁנֵי הַקָּנִים מִמֶּנָּה, וְכַפְתֹּר, תַּחַת-שְׁנֵי הַקָּנִים מִמֶּנָּה–לְשֵׁשֶׁת, הַקָּנִים, הַיֹּצְאִים, מִן-הַמְּנֹרָה. 35 And a knop under two branches of one piece with it, and a knop under two branches of one piece with it, and a knop under two branches of one piece with it, for the six branches going out of the candlestick.
לו כַּפְתֹּרֵיהֶם וּקְנֹתָם, מִמֶּנָּה יִהְיוּ; כֻּלָּהּ מִקְשָׁה אַחַת, זָהָב טָהוֹר. 36 Their knops and their branches shall be of one piece with it; the whole of it one beaten work of pure gold.

At the end of Exodus 25, G-d says to him: “And see that you make them after their pattern, which is being shown you in the mount”. The midrash says that Moses was so lost in the previous description of the menorah that G-d just showed him a picture of what He has in mind, thus “is being shown to you”.
Let’s look back at verse 31 above: “And you shall make a candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work shall the candlestick be made”… it seems that there are two different instructions. The first is simple: “you shall make!” But then it follows with “(it) shall be made”, in the passive, as if, this will be done for you – by someone else. Which way is it? Yes. There are things to do and act on and push for; and things to let get done, and life is about sorting those out and finding the balance between them.
Shabbat Shalom.

 

Posted in shabbat shalom | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment