Rabbi Zeitlin

I’d like to ask some of my colleagues a favor.

I teach Torah for a living, often to people who don’t have a lot of background. Many of them are wary of Halacha in the first place and inexperienced in the beauty of Gemara. As you know, Jewish living and tradition are far removed from literal readings of “scripture”, but, rather, depend for any kind of real understanding on our Torah Sh’Ba’al Peh. I’m sure that you know, as I do, that we hold our Oral Torah in just as high regard and legitimacy as we do the physical words written in a Sefer Torah, both being, literally, Torah L’Moshe MiSinai, even as many of my students, living so far removed from Jewish tradition, are unaware of this. You, as well as I, depend on the faithfulness of the transmission of Torah from generation to generation through our great rabbis and sages.

Of course, almost all of you are very fine people, idealistic and true Ohavei Yisrael (Lovers of Israel), moral, ethical and careful in both your private and professional lives. That’s part of the responsibility we take on when we become teachers of Torah. We rely on the knowledge that each person who has been part of that tradition, while obviously not a perfect human being (as even the Avot, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, not to mention Moshe Rabbenu himself, no matter how highly revered, are not considered “perfect humans”), always reminded by our Yirat Shamayim (Awe/Fear of Heaven), strived to be yahsar (upright and honest).

Of course, as there are in any group, we do have a few of our fellows we’re all ashamed of because of their scandalous personal behavior. In our love for Torah, we’re always the first condemn that behavior in public, so these aren’t the folks from whom I’m asking this favor.

Rather, it’s you, again a tiny number of Rabbaim, Ohavei Yisrael and Yirat Shamayim all, in your love and enthusiasm, perhaps because of your isolation from the larger community of Jews in the world and unaware of how to engage with them, who try to push a heavily Chumrah-(strictest, not necessarily any more correct)-directed Judaism on us all, who confuse a minhag (custom) with a middah-chassidut (an extra measure, “beyond the call of duty) with an actual chiyuv (halachic obligation), who, so lovingly engaged in your own derech (path), delegitimizes any other style of observance and attacks all other approaches and opinions, who blame Medinat Yisrael (the State of Israel) and Jews living in our homeland (even though your own leaders fled to Eretz Yisrael to escape the Holocaust), it’s you that I need to ask for some help.

No, the problem isn’t that you push away a lot of Jews who are “on the fence”–they just haven’t yet encountered that Rav who will speak their language and inspire them. No, the problem is that when too many people observe your behavior, your middot (underlying personality traits) and your intolerance, they lose respect for the institution and concept of rabbis. And then, without sufficient exposure and experience, they project their impressions backwards in time, to the eras of our Anshei Knesset HaGadol, our Tannaim and Amoraim who developed Torah L’Moshe MiSinai into the Talmud and the Holy Zohar, our Rishonim and Acharonim, the great sages who faithfully further developed our traditions and teachings, keeping them always alive, always relevant, always true, which continue to develop as our Living Torah.

Because, you see, if you make people lose respect for rabbis in general, they lose respect for our Gedolim and they can no longer accept that our Torah is, indeed, from The Creator. And when that chain of trust is broken, it becomes impossible for me to teach my students that the entirety of our Torah is interconnected, woven together in a complexity and beauty which transcends the abilities of “a bunch of smart men in the past”. I need your help to show that Halacha is not random and arbitrary and thus, at best (chas v’shalom) optional, but rather that it is a real and effective road-map to connect ourselves and our world with the hyper-real, living, life-sustaining Holy One Himself.

So please, reach out to all of Yisrael. Lead our people under Kanfei HaShechinah (the Wings of the Divine Presence). Find your inner courage to rely on our Gedolim like Rambam in accepting converts. Discover 21st century, rather than 18th century, ways we can all comply with authentic Halacha. Emulate Shamai who taught “M’Kabel Kol Adam b’Sever Panim”, to accept every Jew, even those who don’t yet know the first thing about Torah, even those whom, because of bad experiences, today mock and reject our (including their own) Torah, please remember to receive each of us and them with love and welcome in your eyes.

One of the miracles of the Jewish People is that, at least as a core group, we’ve remained united as one. Taking into consideration our vast differences in thought and customs, the miracle is that much greater. Our contemporary State of Israel is comprised of Jew and Arab, Christian, Druse and others, and in the Jewish sector we have religious and secular, ultra-orthodox and anti-religious, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Eidut HaMizrach, along with Jews from Yemen, Ethiopia, India and China; we have Sabras, native born Jews, and , recent immigrants. Many advocate a much more vigorous opposition to terrorist attacks while there are those who, just as passionately, advocate conciliatory relations with our Arab neighbors. The cliché of “two Jews, three opinions” is reality, but in the face of all of that, with a tiny number of exceptions, truly statistically insignificant, Israelis identify as “Israeli” and, increasingly, most participate in sharing the responsibilities to maintain the nation in security and prosperity. Although people are more than aware of the faction(s) they identify with, you don’t have many hyphenated Israelis.

The Jewish People are rooted in this miraculous bonding of many into one. While the original twelve brothers could look to their father, Jacob, as a uniter, as the generations passed, he, as well as the original brothers became more and more distant memories, largely recalled in the collective experience of Torah, which, itself, became the great unifier of the Jewish People over the millennia. While we’re taught that each of the twelve tribes had their own gate through which to enter Jerusalem–in fact each had their own nusach (liturgy), or style of approaching God in prayer–we have always primarily identified as Bnei Yisrael, the Children of Israel, rather than a Dan-Jew or a Naftali-Jew or any other hyphenated designation. Emphasizing this primal connection, most of our years in Exile have been spent not even knowing our individual tribal affiliations (1). Just as, kaballistically, movement towards God requires uniting the opposites of Chesed (Love) and Gevura (Fear), we’ve always realized that even passionately held ideologies and affiliations must be transcended (not repudiated) for our mutual survival. Our entire intellectual tradition is based on understanding and accepting these differences.  We are, indeed, the original e pluribus unum, “from many….one”.

Contrast the spectacular decline we’ve witnessed over the past almost-decade in the United States. With official nurturing of “identity-politics”, the nation whose (de facto) motto has long been e pluribus unum (2), on the verge is disintegrating into a society where the hyphenated portion, be it “African”, “Asian”, “Latino”, “Arab”, as well as “lesbian”, “gay”, “trans”, “straight”, etc. takes more precedence than “American”. A society that divides itself into the mythical “1-percenters” and “the other 99-percenters”, into men and women, is a nation whose economy and innovation have lost all vigor, whose military strength, an unavoidable necessity in a much-less-than-perfect world, is a mere shadow of what it was only a decade ago, whose international status has fallen from undisputed world-leader to a sad joke.

Although there are some in Israel, dwelling in the extreme fringes, who have lost their sense of common purpose, Medinat Yisrael, less 70 years old and, from before its inception, always confronted by formidable armies and bands of sworn enemies, is in no danger of disappearing. Nor, thanks to its vigorous internal disagreements about virtually everything except loyalty to Israel, of stagnating. Just as the Mishkan (Dwelling) enlisted the donations and handiwork of all, as their individual hearts (souls) inclined, we all have a hand in crafting the future of the Jewish People. Kol Yisrael Yesh LaHem Chelek L’Olam HaBah, All Israel has a hand in the world of the future.

1. Although we commonly distinguish between Kohen, Levi and Yisrael today, we recognize that these categories, tribal affiliation, are tentative and, at this time, far from certain.
2. The United States was founded as a republic of the thirteen original colonies. Curiously, taking into account Yosaif’s tribal identity split between his two sons, Ephraim and Menashe, there were actually thirteen, not twelve tribes of Israel. In the desert, the Mishkan, which was also the camp of the tribe of Levi, was surrounded by the other twelve.

Yes, you read the title correctly. We can employ antisemitism for our own benefit. Of course, we’d be better off with out it, but since it not only exists, but persists and flourishes over millennia, we need a better way to deal with it.

The two major ways we’ve historically dealt with Jew-hatred is bemoaning it or saying that it’s some sort of justified divine retribution for our many sins. Both of these approaches have some, but very limited utility.

When we cry “it’s not fair” and try to hitch our wagon to other groups of oppressed people, we repeatedly learn that no one really gives a damn. With very few exceptions throughout history, leaders of other groups have never supported the Jewish People with much more than occasional lip-service. It might bring us some internal solidarity when we all cry together, but all too often, especially in contemporary times, we even find ourselves fighting the antisemitism of our “fellow” Jews.

The other main approach, and, ironically, this is shared both by the pious and the self-hating, is to say that we’ve caused antisemitism by our own actions. The far-left of our people condemn us for being “too Jewish”, too committed to what they call an “obsolete (and worse) religion” (i.e. being exactly what the far-right would like us to be), especially not being sufficiently apologetic and suicidal for our  offense of being Jewish, and the far-right for being exactly the sinful folks those on the left would prefer we all be. In both cases, the extremes take satisfaction that we’re being “punished for our sins”. It would be funny if the reality wasn’t the death, maiming and fear that continue afflict our people….

On the left, antisemitism is exploited to motivate us to be more “socially conscious”, whatever that means since helping our fellow Jews doesn’t seem to be part of that “social justice” agenda. To the right, the suffering we experience is, at best, a refinement and tempering, just as intense heat will burn impurities from mixtures of gold and silver and will make steel infinitely stronger.

The one thing, especially at this time in history, we don’t do is exploit the freedom that antisemitism gives us. As successive Israeli governments have seen (but, sadly, not learned from), no amount of apologizing for who we are, for our historical and legal rights to live throughout Eretz Yisrael, nor our willingness for “flexibility” (read “surrender”) and accommodation, not to mention bragging about our virtue (i.e. creating a liberal democracy which focuses on civil and human rights for all, being the “start-up nation” and providing the bases for some many modern conveniences), increases our love from the “international community”. Even the irrationality of paying salaries to our murderers (as Israel continues to not only turn over monies to the PLO, but also provides free electricity, water and other utilities which enable greater investment in weapons to attack us) wins us no points. Periodic offers to evict ourselves from our own heartland, not to mention previous self-evictions, are never enough to turn off the flow of hate directed towards us. The examples are endless.

What would a rational people do? I propose that rather than sacrificing more and more, hoping against reality that we’ll somehow find any ground this side of complete suicide, we open our eyes to the fact that this hate is not even a little bit within our control. We will be hated no more when we act in our own self-interest than we already are with our pathetic attempts to be liked. Just as in previous generations our assimilation and giving up our own values and traditions won us no friends.

Our tradition uncompromisingly teaches that there is one God and that all reality flows from Him. Yes, to a certain degree God lets loose our enemies to remind us to return to our unique path. But He also reminds us with that reality that our responsibility is to follow that path, to perfect the world not by accepting an agenda that benefits everyone but ourselves, but rather through the tools He gave us, Torah and Mitzvot, primary among them is living in, cherishing and protecting Eretz Yisrael. We’re going to face resistance whether we walk or we crawl, but we’re going to complete our task and reach our destiny only when we walk towards it rather than crawling abjectly away.

Isn’t this a lesson from the Golden Calf, that all the other paths, by definition false paths, no matter their superficial attractiveness, no matter our “idealistic” motivations for wanting to choose them, lead us directly away from the prize?

Shabbat Shalom.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it’s all-too-often difficult to resist the temptation to do a cost-benefit analysis when asked to do something. I think we’re all tempted to ask whether the rewards of any action will be worth the effort (as well as worth the possible benefits of doing something else that might seem more attractive). As we get older and, hopefully, mature a little, we begin to be able to understand that our actions will have effects on others around us, and those effects might or might not be consistent with their effects on us. Something that is mightily gratifying might come at great expense to everyone else and oftentimes self-sacrifice can bring great benefits to others.

The Kedushat Levi (Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev (1740-1809)) begins his famous studies of the weekly parshiot by teaching that God’s first creation was the very category of existence itself! בראשית (Bereishit), In the beginning, is transformed into ברא יש (Bara Yesh), He created Yesh, Beingness. In contrast to anything we can conceive of creating, because everything needs it’s elements/ingredients which we then transform into something else, only God is able to create יש מאין (Yesh m’Ayim), something out of nothing, or ex nihilo as philosophers use the Latin phrase. Ayin is the realm that lies beyond our abilities to perceive, know or even sense/intuit. It might very well be filled with many entities, but they are entirely closed-off to us and, thus, non-existent as far as we’re concerned. This is the realm of the אין סוף (Ayn Sof) and the אין תכלית (Ayn Tachlit), without beginning or end, i.e. with no boundaries to enclose anything at all, necessary requirements for “thing”- or “being”- ness.

Human understanding can, often with great effort, comprehend the Yesh, but we have absolutely no insight into the Ayin (with the exception of the wisdom that enters our realm from that one through Revelation (i.e. that one-time event of Matan Torah (the Giving of Torah) and נבואה Nevuah (Prophecy (which has little or nothing to do with predicting the future, but rather indicates knowledge graced to a tiny number of individuals because of their hard-earned דבקות Deveykut, “Attachment” to The Creator)). Thus, the realm of Yesh is where we can experience and evaluate the effect that מצוות Mitzvot and משפטים Mishpatim, commandments and laws, have on ourselves and others. Although we have many hints that all of our actions, especially our performance of Mitzvot and Mishpatim in the “real world”, have even greater effects in the “Upper Worlds”, the realms of Ayin, we are completely blocked from knowing what they are. A large segment of our Emunah, “belief”, is that just as phenomena and their consequences are necessarily limited in our finite, bounded world, they are unlimited and unbounded in that infinite realm of Ayin.

So, when we attempt to “game the system”, to determine whether or not it’s worth our effort or cost in terms of what we might expect to consciously feel and experience, we’re necessarily working with a mere infinitesimal slice of the total picture, the effect in the realm of Ayin and how that might, in the “feedback system” we call Hashgacha Pratit (Individual Providence), later effect us. Essentially, we attempt to elevate ourselves to a position at least equal to, and often in our hearts and minds, above that of God.

While this, in the end, is a paragon of arrogance, it might not start out that way. The attempt to tweak the mitzvot to make them “relevant”, to make them attractive and “rewarding” is not only tempting, but at times necessary to motivate participation in the Mitzvot “system” at all. But when the emphasis goes from the mitzvot to our feelings or our perceived benefits, be they physical, emotional or “spiritual” (which is often just a subset of emotional….), it becomes “All About Me”, all about the Yesh, our own very limited perceptions and concerns, rather than about the Ayin, the unseen but infinitely greater than our narcissism.

Mishpatim is chock-full of laws and rules and regulations (none of which can be understood relying on the פשת (P’shat), simple literalist level, but this is another issue), commandments and decrees. Some (with explanation), such as those which form the basis of civil law, make sense in terms of creating a civil society. Others, the prohibition of milk and meat (also not explained at all in the p’shat, literalist, reading), elude our understanding since they function entirely in the Ayin realm. But even those rules which “make sense” to us reveal only the tiniest hint of their real significance which takes place beyond our understanding.

It’s easy, too easy as each of us experience in our life’s adventures, to be seduced by the obvious. The art, however, is to have faith in the Ayin, in that realm which is only God’s.

My living room features four guitars on various stands, along with a five-string banjo. When I’m listening to recorded music at a high-enough (not necessarily that loud) volume, I hear and can often see the open strings vibrating sympathetically with certain notes. This is known as resonance.

I recently wrote, describing the Siddur as a learning experience and a compendium of basic Jewish source-material, that constant repetition over time will embed many words, verses, psalms and rabbinic truths into our hearts and minds. Even if we don’t daven “perfectly”, with complete focus, kavanah and devotion each time (I certainly don’t and I doubt if there are many, if any at all, who are able to do this), the words and phrases continue to deeply reinforce their impressions each time we revisit them.

These words were not arbitrarily drawn whole-cloth from the air, but were deliberately chosen by our earlier sages, all of them masters of both niglah (revealed Torah) and nistar (mystical Torah) for a set of reasons, some of which we can understand, most others we have to work very hard to even begin to understand. One of the reasons behind this design is to establish and form a network of resonant associations we experience whenever we read from the Tanach or learn our traditional seforim. We see everywhere we look a shimmering field of words and phrases we’ve seen before, and when we bring our studies back to our tefilla even more of our siddur experience lights up ever brighter for us. We create a symphony within ourselves, then throughout our communities and, together we participate in this “mega-symphony” of Kol Am Yisrael, the entire Jewish people, stretching not only across the world, but across all time. And we each contribute exactly our own unique voices.

I teach Torah for a living, focusing on trying to empower (mostly) adult students to read and negotiate for themselves the world of seforim which make up a large part of our collective, kaleidoscopic view of the world. Most of my students are relatively new to, and with little past positive experience with, our traditional sources and with those who base their practice of Judaism on them. I could say, “It’s an uphill battle,”, but that would be false and unfair–it’s not a battle, but rather a shared joy, and we’re all, teachers and students, rabbis and laypeople, all of us beginners.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that the major challenge most of my students face is not their facility with Hebrew, either translating or reading “without the dots”. (With practice both of those skills advance.) The greatest common deficit I observe is the lack of context and lack of familiarity with phrases, prayers, rituals and psalms that the authors of these seforim take for granted. In today’s jargon, there is no commonly accepted Judaism 101.

Yes, I often disparage the unimaginative endless repetitions of entry-level classes offered by most synagogues as “Judaism 101”, but that’s because these repetitions of the simplest lessons, often taught down at a child’s level of spoon-feeding “do”, “don’t” and “don’t think about it”, block students from ever learning something new and deeper. However it is important to have a basic body of core knowledge, to give us a common language for intelligent conversations and spiritual journeys. Like much in Judaism, our best resource has long been in our possession, but, taking it for granted, we often overlook it.

“The Siddur,” one of my rabbis long-ago taught me, “is a Jew’s best friend.” Unfortunately, as our conception of תפילה (Tefillah) prayer is often so far removed from its real meaning and seen, rather, through a Christian lens of asking favors from God, these ancient words and their subtle meanings easily becomes trivialized. And then, for too many “actively participating” Jews, they have merely become a script of words to speed-read. The richness of this resource is frequently overlooked.

(My examples will come from the Berditchever Siddur that I personally use, one of many Nusach Sfard siddurim. In general, there are three basic groupings of siddurim. Nusach Ashkenaz, the “German” formulation (נוסח, nusach, is a form of the word סיח, si-ach, which means conversation but also implies תפילה, Tefila, Prayer (TB Berachot 26:)), common to non-Chasidic Europeans-derived Jews, Nusach Sfard, common to Chasidim (Nusach Ari, a version based on the ideas of the Ari z”l, the famous 16th century Kaballist, is a variation of Nusach Sfard and is commonly used by Chabad (although most Chasidic groups argue that their nusach is also faithful to the Ari z”l) and Nusach Eidut HaMizrach, the Oriental liturgy, common to Sephardim (from Spain/Turkey and other Mediterranean communities) as well as Jews from North Africa and the Arab countries that used to host millennia-old Jewish communities (now all but destroyed). In reality, these three versions are substantially the same, usually differing slightly in the order of several prayers, the addition of others or, in a few cases, choosing a different authority’s expression of the prayer. (There are also people currently working to develop a Nusach Eretz Yisrael, appropriate for living in Israel rather than in the diaspora, much of it based on the Yerushalmi rather than the Bavli Talmud, and also influenced by Yemenite custom.) In spite of the high degree of similarity, there is no standardization, Baruch HaShem, of any of these three nusachot and you’ll likely find minor variation between individual siddurim.)

Yes, reciting these words does offer a script and a technique to “connect with God using the Prayer Channel” (as I’ve written extensively in earlier essays) and that is the siddur’s primary purpose. But a quick overview of our siddur reveals so much more. It begins with the Modeh/ah Ani which, daily, reminds us of the very concept of soul, Neshama. Donning our Tallit, there are four pasukim, Mah Yakar, Yirv’yun, Ki Im’cha Makor Chayim and M’shoch Chasdecha, to contemplate, slowly but surely deepening our understanding of their meanings day after day, year after year. Tefillin present us with more deep pasukim, but also with the last reading from Parshat Bo, Kadesh Li Kol Bachor and V’Haya Ki Yaviacha. Before we’ve uttered a word of “prayer”, we’ve already familiarized ourselves with verses and chapters and deep concepts!

We continue with Adon Olam and/or Yigdal, the first a description of God’s inscrutable relationship to us and our world, the second a poetic summary of Rambam’s list of trans-logical qualities of God and His relationship with mankind. Next we visit Birchot HaShachar, a list of morning blessings/acknowledgements/thanks to The Creator for making us and our world exactly as they are. Many of these, we find, are based on various Psalms (146 contributes a number of phrases), so we simultaneously visit and familiarize ourselves with them. There’s a daily recital of Akedat Yitzchak (the near-sacrificing of Yitzchak) as well as, later on, the recital of Shirat HaYam, the Song of the Sea. We not only read the Torah’s mandates for the daily offerings and their preparation, we also study the chapter of  Mishna (Zevachim 5) that actually describes the procedure for a number of sacrifices performed in the Bet HaMikdash. We daily review the thirteen scriptural analysis techniques of Rabbi Yishmael (which also correspond to the Thirteen Principles of Divine Mercy). We recite, day after day, collections of pasukim from Tanach and then a number of set Tehillim (Psalms) as well as special ones for each weekday. The Shema and it’s brachot not only ground us in three chapters of Chumash, but many phrases from both Tehillim and various Nevi’im (Prophets). There are also phrases and ideas from the Talmud and the Zohar interwoven throughout. Over time we become evermore sensitive and appreciative of the deep knitting of all these diverse threads together into a single magnificent tapestry of devotion and wisdom.

You should get the idea that not only do we chant these words with special devotion, but we also familiarize ourselves, and deeper our understanding and familiarity, with the same body of knowledge that Jews, including the authors of the rabbinic texts I teach, have been familiar with for millennia. Our seforim were written with the presumption that their future readers would share this background and would, thus, recognize the references to them.

Additionally, familiarity with the verses and the songs and the brachot we regularly say provide us with the vocabulary we often fear we lack when we encounter these words in our texts. Our daily repetition becomes a major element in our “toolbox” to decode and understand the deep wisdom our sages so desperately want to transmit down the generations to us and to our own descendants.

While it goes without saying that it’s a mitzva to pray three times a day, with the Siddur our script for that, it has so much more to offer each of us.

An enduring passion for Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, has been taken for granted for two millennia as a universally-shared Jewish trait. Learned or not, Ashkenazi, Sephardi or Mizrachi, yeshivische or chassid, secular or devout, man or woman, those of us who pray have pleaded for a return to this land three times every day and those who don’t pray at all also kept it close to their heart. As a refuge, as a fulfillment of God’s promise, as a romantic ideal, Eretz Yisrael has always, even in our moments of greatest discouragement, been identical to Jewish identity.

Ironically, as the western, democratic, world has devolved into the strenuously non-democratic mire of “identity politics”, the one group which, in this wave of ethnic adherence, swims against the stream and prominently features many who loudly and publicly repudiate their identity and celebrate their “independence” from their people is, of course, our own. Of course, these are a tiny minority of the people who self-define as Jews, but given their disproportionate voices in the ubiquitous media, they attempt to lend legitimacy to anti-Israel Jews.

This, of course, stimulates a backlash where their credentials as Jews is seriously questioned. Many in the more traditional wings of our people have taken to referring to them as the Erev Rav, the “mixed multitude” of never-Jewish opportunists who first attached themselves to our people when we were redeemed from Egypt B’Rachush Gadol, with great wealth. Our Oral Tradition blames this group for all our misdeeds in the desert, especially the twin great sins of the Golden Calf and the Spies. Hangers-on, they’re first in line to claim the perceived benefits of being Jewish, also the first to undermine the Jewish people from, seemingly, within. Today, their prominence in the academy and media fits the stereotypes both of “Jews control the universities/media” and “Jewish liberals”.

As a rabbi, especially as an orthodox rabbi, I will not offer a halachic opinion this issue. Not only am I, personally, not qualified, but I question if there is today any legitimately authorized rabbinic organization that can make these pronouncements. Rather, I propose a self-test in today’s  current epidemic of savage, murderous attacks on Jews in Israel and elsewhere.

Three times a day, when I recite the Amidah, the centerpiece of each prayer service, I encounter the prayer Rofei Kol Amo Yisrael, where I pray for the healing of the entire Jewish people. Like many, I use a pause in this bracha to insert the names of family and others I’m directly connected with, along with others I’ve been asked to include, for whom I’m personally and specifically asking God for their returned health. In this current wave of deadly attacks, I next think about those who have survived these attacks and are in one stage or another of recovering from their wounds. I realize that just as I’m shocked and in need of God’s loving help when my own relatives are seriously ill, so are the parents, siblings and children of all the victims, both those who have survived and those who, Rachmana L’tzlan, didn’t.

Radiating from the center of the attack victims themselves to their immediate and then extended families and then to their friends and colleagues, to every Jew living in Eretz Yisrael (who are also now living with fear) and, finally, to all the Jewish people who are arevim ze l’ze, interwoven together as one people, to some extent we’re all survivors of this horror together and are, all of us, currently experiencing one or many manifestations of PTSD. Some of us are in the frantic or mourning stage, some of us experience this as rage and anger, many of us are, by now, just numb. To one degree or another, all of us whose neshamot are connected within the great web of Jewish neshamot can’t help but feeling these symptoms at this time.

If you cry with each attack, you’re Jewish. If you scream with rage as well as with pain, you’re Jewish. If you shake your head in sadness and disbelief, you’re Jewish. If each new savagery seems to leave you deeper in a tunnel of silence and despair, you’re Jewish. But if, instead,you just don’t care or if, chas v’shalom, you blame each victim and the family of each victim, no matter your genealogy…..well, fill in your own blank.

I went to a talk Rabbi Shlomo Riskin gave shortly after he made aliyah in 1983 or 84. He compared Shalom Achshav, Peace Now, with Moshiach Achshav, Moshiach Now, and said they were both equally unrealistic. The entire Jewish people, he pointed out, pray for both peace and redemption three times every day, as we have for almost 2,000 years! Of course, we all desperately want both and, to say even more, we all have faith, emunah, that we will, eventually, reach both of these goals. The unrealistic element is expecting it to be instant, as if chanting, protests/rallies, signs and slogans, or even just prayer, were all it takes.

For better or worse, we live in an instant society. Coffee, oatmeal, even “Instant Karma” is available for the asking. Who doesn’t dream of short-circuiting the slow, often painful and frustrating process of hard work, incremental-at-best-with-frequent-downturns progress, by winning the lottery? Signing up for an online workshop, or maybe a weekend at Esalen  should be all it takes to bring eternal bliss, right? A new haircut and the right clothes, some steroid supplements and a lifetime of sex is right around the corner. Hope and change, occupy whoever you think has your share of the pie, Save the Chipmunks and,(again fill in your own blank)-lives matter. Add a couple of what I grew up calling number or pound signs, now called “hashtags” to be ‘with it’ and ‘in the know’ and you, too, are not just a social-justice/peace/Disneyland-For-All warrior, but a visionary and, if you go viral, the latest celebrity, too!

The dream and fantasy factory is thriving, thank you very much. It operates world-wide and with ‘just a little’ luck, you can be next! Hard work is just so…..yesterday.

Like many of my vintage, I spent summers in the 1950s and 60s at Jewish summer camps where I developed a love for folk music. Although I was in Denver, these were the years where the musical menu came straight from the summer camps in the Catskills which were among the very few employment possibilities for many artists who were blacklisted during these McCarthy years. Pete Seeger and his disciples were prominent and set the tone for many of these songs. A favorite was “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream”, whose message is that “they”, whoever “they” might be, “decided to put an end to war”.

A beautiful fantasy, but oh so naive. Like many “progressive” myths, it presupposes there is an evil cabal-of-the-powerful who make all the decisions for everyone. Whatever “they” decide will be done. (Interesting how the far right and far left converge in this conspiracy fantasy/theory…) It presupposes unanimity among this group which, presumably, represents every continent and nation on earth. If only they’ll be nice, just this once….. When you think about it, this “they” comes to resemble what we call God–all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise, all-benign. Curious, also, how this fantasy converges with John Lennon’s famous and ubiquitous “Imagine”, an anthem to “imagine there’s no god…”. Both nightmares envision simple, instant change to an idealized paradise-on-earth. Both present an impossible fantasy with the deceptive expectation that its instant achievement is simple.

A major feature of  traditional Judaism is repetition. It annoys the hell out of some people. “I fasted last year!” “I gave tzedakah back in 1997!” “I said the Shema when I was fifteen!” “Didn’t I just put those tefillin on yesterday?” “We’ve already read the entire Torah every single year! How about a new book to serialize?”

Reality, however, much more resembles our traditional process. Repeating the Shema twice a day, the Amida three times, say it all again the next day and the next. Every seven days is Shabbat and we return to the next Torah reading, starting again on Simchat Torah for yet another year. The months’ cycle, Rosh Chodesh, the periodic holiday, all in the yearly cycle. Then we have the Shmitta (Sabbatical) cycle of seven years, the Yovel (Jubilee) of fifty years, turning over and over and over again.

With hard work, dedication and no little good fortune, we can make small refinements each time every repetition of each cycle, tefilla (prayer service), daily, weekly, yearly… We can anticipate missteps and failures along the way, but, still, we can try to transform a static circle into a dynamic spiral. Not instantly, but eventually we can, together, reach the goal. Galut (exile) appears to be fading as Geula (Redemption) shimmers but solidifies in an ever-closing distance.

Of course we want everything NOW–we’re still children in many ways. But we pray for במהרה בימינו (Bim’heyra B’Yameinu) speedily, in our days. I’ll be more than happy for that.

Rashi begins his monumental commentary on Tanach with the statement that according to Rabbi Yitzchak the Torah should actually begin 6/7th through Parshat Bo! Shemot, Chapter 12, verse 2 states, …הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים (HaChodesh Hazeh L’chem Rosh Chadashim….). “This month will be for you the beginning of months…” is the first מצוה (Mitzvah), commandment (binding precept) given to the Jewish people as a nation. Rashi, anticipating the political realities of more than 1,000 years in the future, explains that the Torah began at Bereishit in order to refute those who deny the Jewish People our connection with the Land of Israel. Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo (and many others), explain that we necessarily must learn about humanity before fixing a body of laws.

Bo is also special in that we read the seventh aliyah every weekday (after donning the tefillin). These two short paragraphs, along with the first two paragraphs of the Shema, which we say twice daily, make up the four paragraphs embedded in our tefillin, whose obvious symbolism is to bind our physical beings to The Creator. Tefillin, although the mitzva is ‘officially’ commanded much later (in Devarim 6:8,  וּקְשַׁרְתָּם לְאוֹת עַל־יָדֶךָ וְהָיוּ לְטֹטָפֹת בֵּין עֵינֶיךָ, “And you shall tie them as a sign on your arm and as ‘totefot‘ between your eyes”), are referred to twice in this aliyah (Shemot 13:9, 16), וְהָיָה לְךָ לְאוֹת עַל־יָדְךָ וּלְזִכָּרוֹן בֵּין עֵינֶיךָ לְמַעַן תִּהְיֶה תּוֹרַת יְהוָֹה בְּפִיךָ כִּי בְּיָד חֲזָקָה הוֹצִאֲךָ יְהוָֹה מִמִּצְרָיִם “And it will be for you for a sign on your hand and a reminder between your eyes so that God’s Torah will be in your mouth because God extracted you from Egypt with a strong hand” and וְהָיָה לְאוֹת עַל־יָדְכָה וּלְטוֹטָפֹת בֵּין עֵינֶיךָ כִּי בְּחֹזֶק יָד הוֹצִיאָנוּ יְהוָֹה מִמִּצְרָיִם, “And it will be a sign on your hand and ‘totefot‘ between your eyes because God extracted us from Egypt with a strong hand”.

We’re given explanations for tefillin long before we’re given the actual commandment, much like we’re given the lessons from which we derive our values (in Sefer Bereishit) long before where Rashi indicates the Torah, that art/science of 613 modalities/mitzvot with which we approach and join with The Creator, really begins. Bo, בא, while a commandment to Moshe and Aharon, is for us an invitation to step into the future.

Cultural triumphalism is one of the big taboos of modern liberal thought. The very idea of chosenness, as in our being “The Chosen People” has become anathema to many well-meaning but not so well-informed of our people. This is so tragically sad.

We don’t claim moral superiority or any kind of overriding virtue with our designation as עם סגולה (Am Segula). The one privilege which accompanies our particular form of ‘chosenness’ is the Torah, specifically our relationship to Mitzvot and the indescribable joy possible with each one we perform.