Torah & more… תורה ועוד

A few years ago when I was working on the annual ceremony for Yom Hazikaron, in my usual zeal and enthusiasm, I invited, begged and twisted every arm around me to attend. For the Israelis among us Yom Hazikaron, the day to remember IDF fallen soldiers and terror victims is more serious and somber than Yom Kippur, so in the cultural gap between Israelis and American, “Memorial Day” is one of the very top, if not the pinnacle itself. The only “Memorial Day sale” Israelis know about, is of flowers and candles at the entrance to the cemeteries. That is also where the traffic jams are on that day. It’s the day “no one can understand” (as portrayed in an aliya commercial some time ago). It’s a day that we’re really sad, but if to be completely honest, we’re also a little full of ourselves as if we own mourning; as if we own sadness; as if we’re the only ones who ever lost anyone to war, battles, tragedy, bravery, independence, values.
So back then, when I was walking around preaching, convincing, guilt tripping, on and on about coming Yom Hazikaron , one gentleman responded with, “sure, I’ll come to your yoma… whatever it is, if you come to our Memorial Day service”. And his poignant eyes that have seens World War II, Korea and Vietnam bore right through me.
For a moment, I thought he was kidding. Memorial Day service? Here? Does he mean the clicking sound of the doors opening at Macy’s and Nordstrom Rack?? The hiss of the BBQ flame?
But, to my great surprise I discovered there are such things. This year, we opted to visit the USS Hornet, one of 4 aircraft carriers-turned museums nationwide, docked right here, in Alameda. True, it’s not quite the same but it seems right to take some time and pay attention to each other’s pain.
***
Today, the 28th of Iyar, is Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day. This day commemorates the reunification of the city in 1967. It is told that many, many years ago, Shem, the son of Noah suggested that this clear-mountain air city would be called shalem, wholeness, perfection; but Abraham suggested that this site, chosen by G-d, should have the word yir’a, reverence, awe in it.
G-d, who listened to both decided to combine both names into one, and call the city yeru-shalem, but then Shem came back all sad: “not enough you put me second, Abraham’s name is longer: mine is 3 letters and his is 4”. G-d decided to rearrange things slightly, making from yir’a – yir’u (which combined the alef and heh into a vav, maintaining their numerical values), so Shem wont be upset. But after he left, G-d decided to add another letter, the letter yod for His name, maybe so we remember our priorities, and so that Yerushalayim will have 7 letters (in Hebrew) like the 7 days of the week and the 7 branches of the menorah.
Nowadays there are bulldozers and cranes and buses and a new light-train and traffic jams and taxi drivers honking through narrow streets; merchants are yelling in the open markets where people rush between bins of fresh vegetables, sweet fruits, and colorful spices, avoiding the tahini sauce smeared on the sidewalk; There are kids running around. And soldiers. There are religious, secular, Arabs, Jews, tourists, foreigners, locals dressed in clothing styles from all over the world; countless languages and accents. Talking about peace and reverence seems delusional. And yet, a gateway is naturally full of hustle and bustle; a place that connects heaven and earth can’t be all heavenly perfection. It’s very much earth but it’s still, well, Yerushalayim.
***
There are many interesting topics in this week’s Torah reading but the winner of the most complex, difficult to understand, raising objections comes right before the laws of the nazirite and the mention of the priestly blessing, and is no doubt the ordeal of the Sotah: “Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them: If any man’s wife go aside, and act unfaithfully against him”… The Sotah is the “suspected” unfaithful woman who goes in front of the priest in order to drink “magic” water: if she indeed was unfaithful to her husband, the water can cause her great public pain and embarrassment; if not, the water would have no affect and her name would be cleaned.
There are issues with the translation. for example, the Hebrew says “ish, ish” where the English only mentions “man” once. But there are much more serious issues with the fact that in this most private matter, and one that if absolutely necessary, can be solved by a court, we call upon a miracle and border line magic; we, who preach lo bashamayim hi, “it is not in the heavens”. There is a huge problem with 1. asking for a miracle in the first place, 2. the area we are asking for that miracle (shouldn’t we reserve miracles for really important stuff rather than pettiness between husband and wife??) and 3. the way in which it is done (including erasing God’s name).
In the Mishna and Talmud there is a tendency to move away from this ceremony for all the same reasons we might move away from it too (and historical complexities), but according to the Rambam, we ask for this miracle-interference davka (especially) in this area of relationships because everything else is based on that. A People is not made of big “wows”. Sinai happened once; Shabbat happens every week. A family’s well being is not about the ‘one time we went to Disney World’. It’s about the daily, often most mundane interactions: the dishes, the garbage, the late night cup of tea or glass of wine.
The fact that one needs a divine miracle shows great helplessness. What happened before they went to the priest? On the surface (and from our critical modern gaze) it looks as if he “went crazy”, suspected her “out of nowhere” and dragged her to a public humiliation. In action, this is not possible. We have to move away from the text and imagine life between the husband and wife. What happened to their communication, relationship, time together? What happened to ‘honey please’? She could not be ambushed and dragged to the priest in her sleep; she had to be warned, in advance with great specific details, and with witnesses. If she was with “someone else”, it couldn’t have been a onetime incident. There had to be “histatrut” – deliberate hiding. And of course, as divorce is permitted, she can also refuse the whole ordeal and the marriage can be dissolved. Thus, this procedure is only for a couple that both want to recover their marriage and restore their trust!
Last but not least, the rabbis, like us, were bothered by the lack of symmetry between husband and wife: she must drink strange water and? What about him? In Torah times a man could have more than one wife which made this more complicated but the Talmud (Masechet Sotah) and the Rambam say that the Sotah ordeal only worked if the husband has never sinned against his wife.
With the destruction of the Temple, the Sotah ordeal was abolished, but the importance of mutual trust in a relationship remained. There is a beautiful midrash about Rabi Meir who gave up his honor for a woman who was suspected by her husband. In defense for taking such extreme measures (he told her to spit in his eye) he said, that he was just trying to be like his Maker, who likewise lets His name be erased. How far should one go to make peace between husband and wife? It is always very complicated but the Torah in this parsha goes pretty far.
Shabbat shalom.

As far as I can remember, I’ve had one association with the 14th of Iyar: It’s the day my father, Aharon Kohane z”l, passed away. He was only 48 years old and died from ALS, a horrible debilitating disease. As a child, I dreaded yod dalet (14) in Iyar. It meant people pointing and looking at us with pity; it meant standing in shul, mumbling Aramaic words; it meant heading to the cemetery in the hot days of early summer, staring at the white stone and thinking about things I was way too young to think about.
So it took me a long time to learn that the day of his passing is actually a unique date that originated in the Torah; a day critical in meaning as well as ancient and modern practices.
We turn to the Book of Numbers, 9:1-14, and are witnesses to an interesting situation:
Moses tells the Children of Israel about the Pascal offering, which should occur on the 14th of Nisan (the month parallel to April). This seems pretty straight forward, but unlike most of the time when Moses speaks and everybody says amen, here a few people raise their heads from their notes and wonder, yes, but what if…??
We’ll see it again later with Tzlofchad’s daughters (Numbers 27:1-11). Here too, we’re presented with a case study: There were people who were ritually impure because they attended to a dead body and thus could not celebrate on the 14th of Nisan. What should they do? Should they miss this annual celebration??
“Wait here”, says Moses, “and I will hear what G-d commands concerning you”. These are the moments I like and admire Moses the most: when he says, ‘I don’t know’; when he doesn’t assume; when he models to us that it’s ok to not know, and it’s ok to ask.
And G-d answers with such a reasonable and Jewish () reply: “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: If any man of you or of your generations shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off… in the second month on the 14th day at dusk they shall keep (the Pascal); they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs…”
If you missed the first Pesach, (for a good reason), says the Almighty, that’s alright. You have another chance one month later (which this year is tomorrow), thus called Pesach Sheni, 2nd Passover. No, there is no need to go crazy and clean the house from chametz, again, just because one of the family’s members was away or “ta-me” (ritually impure, and on that concept a longer conversation some other time -) or on a journey, but we should not miss an opportunity to come close to G-d.
We’re not naïve: There are enough things in life which come only once and once they are gone, they’re gone, but for those things we can have a second chance with? Let’s!
One of my favorite verses is in this week’s portion, Bechukotai: “If you walk in my laws”… (Leviticus 26:3). Walk in my laws? I can get that we are supposed to “keep” laws, “remember” or “fulfill” laws, but walk in them??
Indeed, the Torah is very clear that it’s all about a journey, and what we have is a map for a good path to travel between arrival and departure from this earth. How wide is the path? How far can we veer off to see a nice vista point or explore a bit before we lose the main road? Is it ok to travel in jeans and t-shirt or should we wear skirts and hats?? There are times that we think we got the answer, and we “know” it all. Then comes Moses and reminds us that even he had to ask; even he had to learn that, when it’s possible, there is room for second chances.

Pesach Sheni has been declared a “Day of religious Tolerance” in Israel

Yom Hazikaron & Yom Ha’atzmaut: Yom Hazikaron begins here not with sunset the day of, but with the first note of somber Israeli music, broadcasted from 9000 miles away, 10 extra hours earlier. Obsessively, I listen to galgalatz (Israeli music plus) traffic reports, as if it’s me who is maneuvering Haifa’s roads on my way to my friend’s grave-site (very crowded along the beach, near the military cemetery and outside my high school, where one of the biggest memorial ceremonies takes place). On these two days, which just passed this week, I feel like Captain Hook’s crocodile – my head slightly above water, but in my belly – a different clock is ticking, marking another time.

A few years ago, I invited a friend to join in Yom Hazikaron commemoration ceremony “ey sham” (somewhere) in Northern CA. It was a bit of a patronizing invite that had the tone of: ‘you need to come to see what a sacrifice my friends and I had to make, so you and others like you can live here peacefully, because, you know if we didn’t have a state… and we wouldn’t have had a state if not…’. These were the lines we were fed as kids, growing up in Israel, and I spat them out without a second thought.
‘Sure, I’ll come’, he said. ‘Will you also come to our Memorial Day?’
‘Memorial Day?’ I asked surprised. ‘that’s for shopping and BBQ. Sure, I’ll come’, I chuckled.
‘We meet at the entrance to the cemetery. You want to be there by 10am. Parking is a pain’, he told me. He wasn’t joking.
So often, American and Israeli Jews stand facing each other clothed with ‘holier than thou’ expressions. The short is – lo tzarich. It’s not necessary. We’re part of same family. Let’s find out more about each other instead of less.

This week’s Torah portion is another one of these – this or that? Yes. And this time the question on our table is: Communism or Capitalism? Yes!
The Book of Leviticus has opened before us like a beautiful flower: we started by dealing with our possessions, then our animals, from sacrifices to the laws of kashrut; then people, from birth through life, then Peoplehood in general with the priest’s Yom Kippur atonement, and now, we’re coming to the laws regarding The Land.
We’re also reaching new heights in the peculiarity of our laws. We might have gotten used to it, but the shmita year must really be just one of our craziest mitzvot: “Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in the produce thereof; And the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath unto God. You shall neither sow your field, nor prune your vineyard” (Levitics 25:3-4). And just in case we didn’t get it (let’s be honest: how could we get this??), the next verse states: …”it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land”, and in case we still didn’t get it (‘wait, are you sure it’s not crop rotation? You really mean a whole year of rest to the land’??), the next verse also calls it: …” the Sabbath of the Land”…
So did we get it??
On the surface, it’s simple: The shmita year is like Shabbat, but for a whole year. Imagine what would happen if we got such a commandment. We barely make it through one “hands-off” day. How would we deal with a whole year? The Children of Israel must have asked that too, and God said: “And if you shall say: ‘What shall we eat on the seventh year?… then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth produce for the three years” (25:20-21). Why three years? Because we need food for the 6th, 7th and beginning of 8th year too. And this just gets “worse” when there is a jubilee (the 50th year in a cycle), when we will need food for four years before we can harvest our own produce off our own land!
Of course, we learned how to work with the system because a restriction and discipline is often just a push for more creativity, so we learned to grow plants above ground (rather than in the soil), and near by “The Land” rather than in the land. But is that all it is? A trick or challenge for us??
According to Rabbi Hirsch of the 19th century, shmita makes three things possible for a human being: to bridge and flow better between the materialistic and spiritual worlds; to highlight our connection to The Land, because shmita is only binding in Israel; and to learn the correct approach to social class, richness and poverty in a just society.
Winston Churchill is quoted saying: “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries”. The Torah offers us a careful mix of both which I’ve seen called “capitalism with a conscience” or “socialistic capitalism”. Either way, we want to express the idea that it’s not an either or.
It’s great that some people can reach for the stars and pick some, but those who can’t, still deserve the basic respect of human dignity. Thus we have countless laws how to make sure that the gap between rich and poor, land owners, laborers and gathers, balabatim (heads of households) and the widows, doesn’t grow endlessly, but rather that we maintain care for each other. This way, we advocate for free economy, and those of us with creative powers who are capable of increasing their wealth, are encouraged to do so, but greed is curbed, the needy are served and given a place as valued members of society too. And the Torah tells us that the Land belongs to God (25:23) and we are but temporary tenants on it, so once every seven years, we return what we have to the rightful owner.
Recent history has seen the world separate “isms” out, trying to make them stand on their own. Some of them have had a good idea at the core, but their isolation from the greater system, made them fail with dreadful consequences. And although we are not in the Land of Israel and don’t have to let our land lay fallow, we can still live by some of these values, and especially this week, remind ourselves of this Land uniqueness and beauty.

If by any chance you forgot one of the Torah holidays, fear not! There is one chapter where you can find them all: Leviticus 23, in the heart of the Torah portion of Emor. All together – seven (7) holidays, including Shabbat, Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot & Shmini Atzeret, from spring to fall with no Biblical winter holidays.
But wait, then what is Shabbat doing here?
Shabbat is mentioned in a lot of places throughout the Torah. I like it here as one of the holidays to remind us – perhaps – that, in spite of the differences (between the “real” holidays and Shabbat), our ability to connect with G-d and each other, to contemplate and celebrate who we are, comes, not only annually, but weekly. There is no need to wait for Yom Kippur or Pesach. Every week we can stop and take a moment.
In fact, “stop” is what Shabbat is all about. Shavat, in Hebrew, means to strike (like a worker’s strike, not like a blow); to cease working. G-d on this 7th day created something super important for us: the stop.
We know that when we work, there is always just one more thing to do: maybe my next draft will be better yet; maybe my next email is The important one; I’ll just finish one more thing…
When is the point of “enough”, “we’re done”?
Apparently, sometimes there is no “point”. One more correction, one more brush stroke, one more dish, one more load of laundry… G-d says, just stop! Now! You’re done. We can easily go on and on. This is what I would do even just with this entry here, not to mention longer writings. If draft number 18 was better than 17, I should go over it again. And again. And again. Right? Wrong. But that ability to pause has to be learned. The pause is just as important to the music as is the tune.

In between the holidays, we find another reminder of the value of here and now. The Torah tells us:
“וספרתם לכם ממחרת השבת, מיום הביאכם את עומר התנופה, שבע שבתות תמימות תהיינה, עד ממחרת השבת השביעית, תספרו חמישים יום”…
“And you shall count unto you from the morrow after the day of rest, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the waving; seven weeks shall there be complete; even unto the morrow after the seventh week shall you number fifty days”… (23:15-16).

This refers to the counting of the Omer where are now: seven weeks of seven days from Pesach and Shavu’ot. Time has seen us add numerous explanations and customs, and even holidays to the sfira, the count. All the “Israel days” are concentrated here; as kids, growing up in Israel, we were particularly religious about Lag Ba’omer, celebrating it with grand bonfires for which wood (very precious in Israel!) was collected (not to mention sometimes stolen) weeks in advance. This was in honor of Bar Kochva (the “hero”), Rabbi Akiva and the great revolt following the Temple’s destruction (we were not told of the disastrous results of this revolt…). Special minhagim were kept during the sfira: no shaving, no weddings (except on Lag Ba’omer).
And somehow, between it all, the original injunction of the sfira, was a little lost.
The sfira, first of all, is supposed to help us connect between Pesach and Shavu’ot; between the exodus and the time of giving of the Torah; between the wow of liberation and the reason of that liberation, or else, we’d still be running “free” in the desert. The sfira is a countdown (count-up?) to a special event, like waiting for a birthday, a big trip, a gift; something we expect excitedly; something without which we would be going nowhere with no purpose at all.
And, the sfira also reminds us that things don’t happen all at once, that things take time, and a process, sort of like creation. After all, G-d can do anything, so why take 6 days to create the world? Can’t he just say “poof” and ‘let there be world’?? Why break it down to light and dirt and plants and various animals? And why take a break in between?
Maybe to teach us that good things take time; that in order to build something real and beautiful, there is a course to go through, like a spiritual pregnancy. We can’t plant a seed and expect a blooming flower and fruit ripening on the tree on the next day. The seed has to rot in the ground, going through a process that many of us would consider disgusting, until a beautiful flower comes out. We can’t be born and immediately start hiking; we can’t be slaves, and get the Torah immediately.
Sometimes we forget, especially nowadays, when we’re bombarded with slogans for immediate gratification, everything from “peace now” to fast food, we want whatever it is, yesterday. We want others to guess our needs and give it to us sooner rather than later, before we even figured it out ourselves.
But the Torah says – the journey itself takes precedence to reaching the destination: “im bechukotai telchu”– if you (just) walk in accordance to my law”… (26:3). Each step along the way is a goal in itself, which we can’t do without. Like children, we count: One. Two…. Twelve… Twenty one… Thirty Three… We need each piece to complete the puzzle, even if we don’t always see the whole picture right away. We learn and practice patience and structure and putting things together…
In Genesis, we hear about Abraham who was “ba bayamim” (Genesis 24:1). “Ba bayamim” is a figure of speech which means advanced in years, but it literally means ‘comes in the days’, or better ‘comes with one’s days’. That means, said the sages, that when he was coming and going, he still had all his days; he still knew exactly what he did yesterday, and the day before, and a year ago, And since he managed to make each day meaningful, he came with all of them.
And so it is with us. We’re still taught to count. We need to count every day because every day counts.

Shabbat Shalom.

I still like reading to my kids, though they are all pretty much grown up with excellent reading skills of their own. So it was a recent late Shabbat when the timer on the light had another hour to go, that I pulled out one of my favorites.
Seder Yom (“A Day’s Order”) by Adam Baruch, one of Israel’s finest writers, forever straddled the Jewish Orthodox and Modern Israeli worlds is a fabulous collection of shorts, connecting halacha and the halachik process to current daily life, often based on questions people asked him. I open randomly, and chanced upon a section titled sh’chenut tova, good neighborlyhood. Yes, I know, this word doesn’t – yet – officially exist in English, but for the sake of this conversation, it means neighborly relationship. He wrote the piece in response to an inquiry about erecting fences. Quoting Jewish sources, the writer states that erecting fences builds good neighborly relationship. For only when I have a safe space to be who I am, and so do you, we can also have good relationship with each other.
I thought about it again in conjunction with this week’s Torah portion which on one hand includes the most famous “Love your neighbor as yourself”, and on the other hand, peculiar laws such as “don’t mix wool and linen in the same garment”. Any chance they are actually related, or that in some way, each can help us understand the other better?
We tend to think of “love your neighbor” as a mitzvah that “makes sense”, while of “sha’atnez” (the mixing of wool and linen) we think as a “chok”, a commandment which has no rhyme and reason and we can’t comprehended. But, seriously, can we, who on most days barely stand ourselves, love another human, possibly a stranger, just as much? What should we do on those days when we short-change ourselves? Do the same to another?? And what about the fact that the Torah, although stretching us up, is not unreasonable, while this law, in its simplest form, is??
Since it says here “you shall keep (guard, maintain) my laws” (Leviticus 19:19), Rabbi Hirsch takes us back to the first time we see the verb “to keep”, lishmor, which is when G-d placed the first humans in His Garden (Genesis 2:15). What did he need to “guard” or “maintain”? For that, we go just a little earlier, to the 3rd day of creation, when G-d says: “’Let the earth put forth grass, herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree bearing fruit after its kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth.’ And it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after its kind; and God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:11-12).
Like a chorus, the repeated statement is “after its kind”: each was created to be who and what it is, and to grow within its realm to the fullest potential. Certain mixes interrupt with this process, with this purpose of creation, and we have to guard against that.
When I was very young, I was told that it’s not good to mix wool and linen because they shrink differently in hot laundry. Well, maybe that too. But the Torah, through many commentaries, tells us that “wool” and “linen” are two very different “kinds” beyond the thread in a garment. For example, there is a midrash that this is a reminder to the fight between Cain and Abel: Cain brought flax seeds as a sacrifice (linen) while Abel brought sheep (wool), and as we know, it would have been better if these two “kinds” were kept separated.
Interestingly, the same verse (in this week’s reading) also instructs us not to “let (your) cattle gender with a diverse kind”. We gain some insight from a unique word used here: “kil’ayim”, which means “materials that are mutually exclusive”. Rabbi Hirsch, in his poignant dig into Hebrew roots, points to the fact that “kil’ayim” shares its roots with “kele”, jail, prison. It literally can mean – “two jails”. Accordingly, mixing things that don’t fit with each other “imprison” both of them in a place they should not be. Some things help us grow and some things – don’t. In a world where everybody supposed to live happily happy after, these ideas might seem unpopular, but for those of us who traveled a bit and got some dust under our earthly shoes, we know it’s so.
Which brings us back to “love your neighbor”. Because of the Hebrew grammar in the verse, Rabbi Hirsch concludes that we are not asked to “love” all people in the simple or romantic sense of the word, which would likewise be impossible, but, we are asked to see them as we’d like to be seen ourselves, namely, as equal and yes, separate, special human beings created in G-d’s image, each unique for who he or she is. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Shabbat Shalom.

Pesach is a holiday of songs: we make our youngest stand on a chair and sing the ma nishtana; we stay up late into the night singing songs we barely understand (please feel free to share a satisfying explanation to chad gadya!) and on Shabbat Pesach (or there about, depending on one’s tradition), we read Shir Hashirirm, the Song of Songs.
The Song of Songs (also Song of Solomon or Canticles) is one of the megillot (scrolls) found in the last section of the Bible. It’s unique within the Hebrew bibles as it makes no reference to the commandments, historical facts or G-d. Instead, it celebrates love and its expression. It encompasses 17 almost independent songs, meshed into one long poem. Some say that the name “Song of Songs” is a contraction of ‘A Song that is comprised of many Songs’ (the breakdown into chapters is actually something we inherited from the 11th century Christians). Even in the way it’s written, this book is different. It’s not a story or a list of directives, but two alternating voices, like a stage play or a conversation, with two lovers harmonizing.
The erotic-sexual nature of the Book didn’t escape our Talmudic sages who debated in length whether it’s even suitable to include such writings in the Holy Bible. It was Rabbi Akiva who said: “The whole world is only worthy for the day the Song of Songs was given to Israel, as all the writings are holy and the Song of Songs is the holy of Holiness” (Mishna, Yadaim, 3:5). Not everybody agreed with him about the book being the ‘holy of holiness’, but they did decide to include it in the canonized version of the Bible.
The ever-intriguing topic and the somewhat illusive style of the book, combined with the passage of time, have resulted in countless writings, from lessons in couple relationships regarding how spouses should treat each other in order to maintain that same excited spirit, to spiritual messages about the eternal and his people. One way or another, it’s a beautiful love story.
And the connection to Pesach?
The text offers some. It’s spring: “For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land” (2:11-12). It also reminds us of the Exodus: “I have compared you, O my love, to a steed in Pharaoh’s chariot” (1:9).
But it’s more than digging for specific words. It’s that feeling of love, because Pesach is when the Children of Israel and G-d chose to give up all other options, and “eloped” in the middle of the (Exodus) night, escaping to the desert, to get married in Vegas…
And ever since, Pesach is the anniversary celebration of our engagement, which calls for a party. We push all the junk aside, get our special dishes and foods, placing in the middle of the table a reminder of our early days. We invite family and friends, talk and sing and tell endless stories about our great love, about how we met, how beautiful we seemed to each other, and what extraordinary things we did together… “Ten songs are in the Bible and they all include ups and downs, good and bad moments, except for the Song of Songs that is all praise and joy” (midrash zuta). The Song of Songs itself was written much later but in a way, I think it’s fair to say that its spirit was the background music when we started our journey.

Mo’adim Le’simcha & Shabbat Shalom!

Song of Songs related fun clips:

http://www.mako.co.il/music-Magazine/specials/Article-e6840d508630541006.htm

On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, while we are wrapped in prayers, quivering with remorse, begging forgiveness, and promising to be oh so good in the upcoming year, the high priest faces two “se’irim”, fairy he-goats: one, he will sacrifice on the altar, and the other – send to the desert as atonement for the misdeeds of the Children of Israel. The goats are practically identical. The choice which one is going where is decided by a drawing, a lot.
Why is it that davka on Yom Kippur our central worship focuses on something that is out of our control, like drawing a lot? Indeed, Yom Kippur is the day we’re judged on our actions, but just in case we get the illusions that everything is dependent on us and what we do, here’s a reminder.
The section about the high priest’s task on Yom Kippur is read twice in the year: once, on Yom Kippur, and once, just around Pesach.
Wait, but why? Shouldn’t we be reading the stories of the Exodus right around now? We are still in Leviticus, struggling with priests and sacrifices? But I thought on Pesach we celebrate freedom? Which way is it, freedom or prescribed destiny and random lots?
Yes.
David Ben Gurion, in a famous quote from 1939 said: “We must fight the war as if there was no White Paper, and the White Paper as if there was no war”, referring to fighting the British White Paper and laws on Jewish immigration to then Palestine while simultaneously supporting the Brits in their efforts against the Germans. This has always been who we are: able to hold two conflicting ideas at once.
In the back of our minds we remember that some things are beyond us. We were born to a certain family, at a certain time. We have certain qualities. But Pesach takes front and center stage, asking us to ignore all that just for now, pack our stuff and once again leave our personal Egypts.
Because for me, Pesach is not just a historical – national celebration; it is also a very personal challenge. How do we achieve true freedom? We laugh at ancient people, worshiping wood and stone, while we drag our gods in: power, prestige, pleasures, progress, personal gain, youth, and some. Our gods are mostly invisible, giving us the illusion they don’t exist, and the smoke from the sacrifices we bring to them covers our eyes and blinds us.
Wait, what’s wrong with progress, one wonders, or with pleasure?
You’re right, they are not bad by themselves, until they take over our priorities.
The Torah teaches us that freedom lies within discipline. In Hebrew, mishma’at (discipline) shares its root with mashma’ut (meaning). Only within a strict structure, one can be truly liberated. But aren’t we exchanging one slavery for another? Yes. That’s all we got. Real freedom, says 11th century poet, Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, is choosing who is our master, nothing more. Nothing less.

And in the spirit of “in haste we left Egypt”, some shorts:
Acharei Mot, this week’s parasha, gave us the most important 2 words in the Torah: vechai bam. You shall live. That’s what S/He said. Enjoy.
Pesach Cleaning: No, it cannot be done “symbolically”. Roll up your sleeves and scrape that gunk from under the fridge’s drawer.
Pesach food: Pasta, cereal, cakes, and now even blintzes, Kosher for Pesach?? Once a year, just give me my matza please!
The Haggadah: Yes, it’s meant to be read. Yes, even the pages in the middle. Study, discuss, sing, imagine, elaborate on, play with it, debate it, enjoy. That is the main course. The rest is commentary.

Shabbat Shalom & a very meaningful and happy Passover!

From the Prince of Egypt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kr4aCUYg8A

Which was is it? Yes! Quote by Stephen Covey

What do we think about Mozilla’s CEO stepping down?Brendan Eich is widely known for a number of major contributions to the evolution of the Web, including inventing JavaScript and being the co-founder of mozilla.org. Last Thursday he had to step down, 11 days into being Mozilla’s CEO, forced out by the uproar over a donation of $1,000 he made six years ago to a ballot measure against gay marriage.
No, I am not going to debate Prop 8 here, nor the changes in our country since 2008. I likewise think it’s irrelevant that his contributions were way offset by other Mozilla workers who donated in support of gay marriage. And I’m not going into the fact that his (small) donation stands in stark contrast to other companies’ leadership staff who donated against gay marriage, yet have continued to work and be promoted. All that can be found on the web; the “open” web Eich helped create for all.
Eich’s situation is unique: Mozilla claims to carry the banner of openness, a banner he initiated and fought for. Mozilla Chairwoman Mitchell Baker wrote in a blog post Thursday: “Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality.” She emphasized the company’s support of “the open Web” and confessed to having screwed up “because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves.” She continued saying: “While painful, the events of the last week show exactly why we need the Web. So all of us can engage freely in the tough conversations we need to make the world better,” she wrote. “We need to put our focus back on protecting that Web. And doing so in a way that will make you proud to support Mozilla.”
So here’s my issue: do you throw someone out of an “open company” which stands for “all of us engaging freely in tough conversations” – the same someone who co-founded this company with these principals, because, well, he acted on them? Because he allowed himself to express who he is, even when in a minority? I remember my kids once questioning whether I think “normal” is like me. We laughed but it’s a dangerous pitfall we all can fall in, and open Mozilla is no exception. I would like to ask Ms. Baker when she speaks about “openness”, does she actually mean, open, or does she mean – open to people like her? I would argue that having people of different views as leaders of a company, much more expresses these values of openness, than having people with same views, all chiming to the same tune!

I don’t know Eich, and if he came over for Shabbos, we would probably argue about this and other issues. I would tell him about my friends who suffer because of discrimination, and I believe he would tell me about his too. Either way, I don’t think I would kick him out of my house for having different opinions than me. Isn’t this what diversity is all about? Having different opinions and supporting different causes (yes, within reasoning, and I can already hear the critics saying: what if he supported the Nazi party? you’re right, then we’ll have a different conversation, but the fact is, he doesn’t, he isn’t out to hurt anyone, and we, the “open minded” people of the modern world, must be able to tell the difference. More on that in his own blog).

My concern here is that we are quick to react and we do so from a place of fear. In the effort to force ourselves to become more “open”, we actually become more closed. In that sense, freedom can become just another jail.

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818–1865) was a Hungarian physician of German extraction, (and some say of Jewish heritage). In the mid 1800’ he discovered that the incredibly high mortality rate among the birthing mothers (10-35%) could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Semmelweis’s observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time, and despite his documented successes, his ideas were rejected by the medical community. Only after his tragic death, it’s become obvious that there was something to his discovery.
I thought about him this morning, writing my blog about tzara’at; about how quick we are to judge things we don’t already know.What is tzara’at? The quick answer is leprosy! Didn’t we see them in the Papillon? Yes, that would be correct in Modern Hebrew, but not for this Torah portion. Aligning Torah tzara’at with leprosy is a result of sad translations mishaps, and we’d be better off if we simply said, ‘we don’t know’. The Biblical tzara’at is, well, the Biblical tzara’at. And while for people of old it was a real disease, for us, it begins with a humble exercise approaching something we don’t know, and have a hard time even fathoming, sort of like the doctors around Semmelweiss. And by the way, to confuse matters further, the Biblical tzaraat was not healed by doctors, but by the priest!
So if it’s not leprosy, what is it? I typed צרעת quickly in Hebrew, my letters got mixed up and became צערת, related to Hebrew for sadness צער. This coincidental find is probably as close to its meaning as anything. Torah tzara’at is a set of symptoms that appear on one’s skin, clothing and even house walls, that have to do with a growing distance one acquires from the spirituality that the Torah teaches us as a way of life. Therefore, the treatment is also spiritual, and not physical. We learn about it best from people throughout the Tanach who contracted tzaraat, and discovered that it is a by-product of behaviors that involve tzarut-ayin – צרות-עין – narrow eye, or narrow mindedness and related by acronym צר-ע, but the most common situation is speaking lashon hara. The famous among those is Miriam being stricken with tzaraat (Number 12) after speaking about the “Kushite woman”. The assumption is that she said something bad. The sages thus taught that tzaraat has to do with motzi-shem-ra, speaking badly about another person.
So what is it doing here? Why not speak about it later, with Miriam, for example?
If we step back and look at the Book of Leviticus from the beginning, we see that we’re slowly climbing a ladder: we started with an inanimate objects (the mishkan on one hand, and on the other, cases of theft and possessions), learned our to deal with animals (korbanot, sacrifices and kashrut), then people, and what makes people unique. We looked at individuals: the woman and her baby, and now, we’re moving to the next stage: a group of people, society. Society is not just a bunch people doing whatever they feel like. It is a new structure, a “being”, a new compound. And the first and foremost tool to create, maintain and achieve longevity in this construction is speech.
Interestingly, even with the tzaraat, there is a ladder: it can affect one’s skin, then clothing, then houses, then be a result of inappropriate usage of sexual abilities and relationship.
Wait, who ever heard of a disease that affects houses??! I find it so intriguing, and no, it’s not mildew, because whatever this was, if this “thing” affected skin and clothing, why not the tents where the Children of Israel lived in the desert? True, the desert is dry, but then, why could it affect clothing?
Further, the tzaraat of the houses appears only in the Land of Israel. It opens with: “When you are come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession” – we expect an uplifting follow up to such a celebratory opening! But the verse continues: “and I (G-d) put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession” (Leviticus 14:34). Why does it say “I put”, straight, like a promise? Why not only if we’re behaving “badly”??
The midrash says that tzaraat in the houses in Israel was a good thing: it forced people to clear the house of their belongings and in some cases knock it down. When the house was knocked down, the inhabitant discovered treasurers in its walls, rewarding them and reminding us how a bad thing can turn into a good thing. Another midrash teaches how people had to be much more generous with each other, knowing their belongings might be out for all to see. I prefer the Kli Yakar (Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz 1550 –March 3, 1619) who noticed the use of “I give you for a possession” in the first part of the verse, as opposed to “your possession” in the latter. Accordingly, as long as a person remembers that his house and belongings are a gift from the Almighty, s/he will also be giving and generous to others; once we think our “stuff” is “our possession”, we will get a reminder in the form of an affliction on our houses, that, well, it’s not.
Nowadays, we no longer have the same spiritual sensitivity that previous generations had. To the best of our knowledge, we are not afflicted when we say something about another, and we have the illusion that we’re lucky. At the same time, it seems that we lost the ability to clearly distinguish what we’re doing wrong. A lot of it is left to ‘opinion’. Who’s the say? Well, oblivion is nice but it takes away our ability to repair.
And still, we cant get away with it so easily. Speech continues to be considered a critical tool. G-d created the whole world with words, and we, who were created in His image, are left to do our part with the same tool. Shabbat Shalom.

ובא אשר- לו הבית והגיד לכוהן, לאמור כנגע נראה לי בבית” – ויקרא י”ד,ל”ה Drawing by Ahuva Klein