Rabbi Zeitlin

Make no mistake, Eretz Yisrael is unique. The differences are not merely that it’s easy to find tasty kosher food, or that Hebrew is the national language or the secular calendar respects the Jewish one, but rather that the potential quality of Judaism in Israel, tied halachically and mystically to the land itself and activated when it (very soon now) passes the tipping point of being home to more than half of the world’s Jews under, albeit imperfect, Jewish sovereignty is unique not merely in place but in history.

Many rabbis and other scholars have noted that Judaism has gone through several distinct phases/paradigms, beginning as a small family clan, emerging from the crucible of Egyptian slavery as a homeless nation. We next became a nation at home, focused on our Holy Temple, not just once, but twice, with a traumatic exile between them. Almost two millennia ago, we transformed once again, armed with our spiritual tradition of the rabbinic Judaism of the Babylonian Talmud and all it was to become, as a nation scattered in world-wide diaspora but, somehow, retaining an identity based on shared values, shared dreams and the shared history of oppression.

Galut/Exile-mode Judaism, as coined by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim, has seen as its mandate, in which it has been spectacularly successful, the two-millennia survival of the Jewish People and the preservation of Jewish traditions and values, all-too-often in unimaginably hostile environments. Designed in the beginning years of the seemingly-unending Roman exile and continuing to develop throughout the lands of our dispersion in the following centuries, it necessarily remains the dominant mode of traditional Jewish observance worldwide.

However, beginning with the קיבוץ גליות (kibbutz galliot) the ingathering of the exiles as Jews, spearheaded by religious leaders inspired both by Chassidut as well as their rivals, the mitnagdim inspired by the Vilna Gaon, from Europe, as well as many Jews from North Africa and the Middle-East, beginning in the late 18th century began returning in ever-growing numbers to Eretz Yisrael, through the Zionist Aliyot, the miracle of Medinat Yisrael, The State of Israel, and beyond. Especially as Israel regained sovereignty of Har HaBayit, The Temple Mount, in 1967 the potential of transformation began to appear to some visionaries, most notably, even before the founding of the modern State, Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook (1865-1935).

The full mandate of Judaism goes far beyond mere survival. While that holding pattern has been absolutely necessary to bring us to the present, the real mission has been, from the very beginning, to partner with The Creator in completing and perfecting the universe He created. While refining ourselves, תיקון עולם קטן (Tikkun Olam Katan), repairing/refining the “little universe”, as each individual human is described, has been available to us throughout our history, even in exile, תיקון אדם גדול (Tikkun Adam Gadol) repairing/refining the “large man”, i.e. the universe (these terms point to the parallel efforts and analogous techniques to achieve these twin goals) can really only be achieved in Eretz Yisrael, by means of those special mitzvot (commandments/instructions) which are relevant and activated only in the Holy Land, eventually culminating in the realization, activation and operation of Bayit Shlishi, the Third Temple (whatever that might come to be and however it might manifest).

I often feel torn in two because I now see a few brave rabbis and other leaders in Eretz Yisrael already embarked on discovering and developing this future Torah Eretz Yisrael. I long to join them, but I realize that while I am still living in galut/exile myself, I’m bound to this mode of Judaism. I’m impatient with it, often angry with it (especially as it continues to dominate most Torah-based Judaism in Israel, a phenomenon I describe as גלות בגאולה (Galut b’Geula), still exiled while surrounded with redemption, even as I deeply appreciate what it has done and continues to do for us in the diaspora).

My mind and my heart yearn to engage with that future which holds the possibility of real success, of real significance, of real tikkun. But my reality, like many of my fellow Jews who, like me, honestly and passionately long for Eretz Yisrael even as it persists in eluding our individual efforts, remains anchored in the diaspora.

There is only one path for each of us, and that is to do our best, both in fulfilling our roles in Bavli-based (Babylonian Talmud, developed in and for the diaspora) Torah and in trying to reach our Promised Land, both without and within Eretz Yisrael where, with the help of The Almighty, we can participate in Geula (redemption)-based Judaism.

כִּי בֵיתִי בֵּית־תְּפִלָּה יִקָּרֵא לְכָל־הָעַמִּים

Because My house will be acknowledged a House of Prayer for all the nations (Isaiah  56:7)

(I apologize to those readers who will be angry or offended by these words, but I hope they’ll understand that they are offered in love to all mankind.)

At first glance, while it currently endures the degraded status of exclusive/excluding turf, it’s hard to understand the world-wide focus on the approximately 11-1/2 acres of Har HaBayit, the Temple Mount. Tens of thousands of human beings have recently been slaughtered, many in the cruelest ways imaginable, within a radius of five hundred miles of that point, with too little international concern, but every time a Jew or Christian opens their lips in prayer within these tiny confines, it’s an international incident and Israel is condemned.

Most of the secular world, including, sadly, Israeli governments from 1967 onward, either believes or goes along with the fantasy that this is a dispute over turf, mere real estate. “There are already two long-standing (dating from the 7th century) mosques occupying that space, so why are some Jews,” the thinking goes, “trying to disrupt the status quo?” “Even the Israeli government,” they point out, “ceded control of the Temple Mount to the Moslem Trust, the Waqf.”

However, there is a major difference between the way our people view the Holy Temple and the way this area is currently governed by the Waqf. While the current rulers of this holy site enforce a view that it is exclusively for Moslem prayer and use (the majority of the acreage is actually used for very non-holy activities such as picnics, soccer games and rock-throwing), we have, from the very beginning, starting with Shlomo HaMelech (King Solomon) using an international team to build the First Temple in 957 BCE, seen it as a universal portal to bring God’s holy שפע (Shefa), flow of Divine Energy, into the world for the benefit of all. Isaiah’s prophecy, quoted above, proclaims that our Holy Temple is a house of prayer for all nations. We don’t require them to be or convert to be Jewish, but all are welcome (Moslems included) to come just as they are. Moving the world along to a point where this shefa flows freely and to all is the unique Jewish mission. This singular geographic point, the portal from which all life energy can flow into our physical world, can either function as a stopper when its holiness is restricted and strangled, or it can, when operated properly and open to all, be a true fountain.

I’m baffled that the world’s liberals and humanitarians, including those in Israel and those among the American Jewish community, don’t support and even encourage the replacement of a highly discriminatory, sectarian institution with an open, universal one, aimed at the betterment of all. Of course, those who self-proclaim their superiority over all humanity will fight, as we see everywhere, but especially within this 500-mile radius of Har HaBayit, to “prove” it. And all the time this is tolerated and even encouraged by the international community, these lyrics (War–1976) of Bob Marley, based on Haile Selassie’s 1963 address to the United Nations General Assembly will, sadly, remain true.

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior
And another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned –
Everywhere is war –
Me say war.

That until there are no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes –
Me say war.

That until the basic human rights
Are equally guaranteed to all,
Without regard to race –
Dis a war.

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace,
World citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued,
But never attained –
Now everywhere is war – war.

As every parent of more than one child has learned, it’s impossible to treat each child identically, and even if that were possible, it would be terrible parenting technique. Each child is born unique, with unique skills and strengths and with unique needs as well. Actually, this is pretty obvious from a spiritual point of view in that we also realize that each נשמה (Neshama), soul, while fully connected to the Almighty, is completely unique with its own set of נצוצות (Netzutzot), Holy Sparks, to locate, restore and elevate.

We had a mantra in my home when my children were young, each jockeying for their “best deal” as wonderful kids are wont to do. “Life’s not fair and we don’t compare,” was oft-heard those years.

Nothing, of course, runs more contrary to current political sloganeering which calls for equal outcome for all. I think that attitude shows how far liberal secularism has drifted from a world view that includes God. It’s only possible in an atheistic universe for Man to become the center of it, all powerful and able to solve everything if only he’s smart enough (or, in the minds of radical environmentalists, all powerful and all evil–if only humans didn’t exist, goes their fantasy, Mother Nature would roll merrily along without any inconvenient disruptions…).

But even allowing for a totally empirical view, it’s obvious that Man is neither wise nor powerful enough to perfect the world on his own. Disregarding the fact that human-defined “perfection” is a rather trendy and changing concept, I don’t think we’ve ever lived in a more dangerous, and rapidly deteriorating environment than what all our engineering, social and otherwise, has brought us to today.

There’s probably no other parsha which more offends modern liberal sensibilities than אמור, Parshat Emor. In it, God demands that the Cohanim, the Temple priests, be free from a large catalogue of physical defects in order to perform the Divine Service. What would the American’s With Disability Act have to say about this? It is unapologetically discriminatory, unfair if you like. There is no appeal process, no advocacy authority. Of course, no one misses out economically–even a disqualified cohain receives his share of the sacrificial meat and other priestly gifts–but the prestige is never available to him. (For that matter, women born to a priest are also not eligible to participate in these activities, but that’s another discussion….or is it?)

Life’s not fair and that’s just the way it is. It never has been and, in this world, עולם הזה (Olam Hazeh), it never will be. Partially, this is because we don’t view this world as the only, or even the supreme phase of existence. But it’s also a reality, as described by the Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzatto) in his classic, ‘דרך ה (Derech HaShem), 2:2:7, that our souls will occupy different levels even in Olam HaBa, the World to Come, according to our deeds in this world.

Ultimately, if we grant and believe in God’s existence, we also need to realize and admit that we humans, no matter how gifted, brilliant or even holy we might be, have no access whatsoever to understanding His priorities. Our tradition assures us that, ultimately, they’re consistent with our (more specifically, our souls’) best welfare and that we should welcome and accept them, but whether we do or not, ‘רצון ה (Ratzon HaShem), God’s Will, will prevail, whether we think it “fair” (and whether or not it is, by our standards).

Frustrating and infuriating as it is, and it frequently is even to the most devout of us, it can also empower our spiritual journey.

There is a famous disagreement whether we should enter prayer, תפילה (Tefilla) focusing on the grandeur of God, which will make us realize our own humility, or if we should begin thinking of our own humility which will bring us to appreciate the greatness of God. Both approaches bring us across the entire gamut and are acceptable strategies, but, ultimately, the latter is preferred.

Life’s very unfairness and our inability to play the role of The Great Equalizer, while frustrating at first, can open the door to great revelations.

Shabbat Shalom

I should have prefaced my previous article, You Choose, to avoid misunderstanding. While I left a lengthy comment, those are rarely read. Here is a slightly revised version of that comment, followed by the original article–RHZ

It’s impossible to “prove” that God exists because, at least as we define Him, He so greatly transcends our limited tools of logic and observation. Nonetheless, if we merely allow ourselves to, we can experience God. I think this is what Rambam had in mind when he placed God in a list of beliefs–rather than presenting an “acid-test” creed, as those looking for any excuse to reject traditional Judaism charge, he was simply telling us that there are some phenomenon which cannot be intellectually grasped and are knowable only via the “Belief Channel”.

The most primal of contests involves exactly two opponents. Perhaps that’s why boxing has remained such a popular sport through the ages. Stripped down to the essentials, without supporting team members, equipment advantages or any other distractions, when two primal opposites enter the ring only one can be victorious. As much as we might want to process opposing opinions as “both/and”, some concepts truly are mutually exclusive.

With this in mind, I propose that each of us, both now and throughout time, have exactly two choices as to how we’re going to live our lives. We can either live as if God exists, giving our lives concrete form, morality and some mandated behavior, or we can live in an “everything goes” mode, convinced there is no meaning to anything we do.

Or, as our tradition teaches, הכל בידי שמים חוץ מיראת שמים, Everything is in the hands of God except the recognition and acknowledgement(1) of God.

You choose.

(1)  יראת שמים (Yirat Shemayim) is often translated as “fear of heaven”. Taken literally, it is based on the root ראה which means to see. I’m translating the word שמים (Shemayim), heaven, as God.

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Bucking world trends, Israel is one of the few, if not the only developed nation with an increasing birthrate. While most of the industrialized world no longer has enough babies to merely maintain its population, Jews in Israel, and not only among the ultra-orthodox but also among the secular, continue to reproduce at a growing pace. It might seem counterintuitive, observing from the outside and assuming, falsely, that Israelis fear the future, but most Israelis actual feel confident about their future and bringing the next generation of Jewish Israelis into the world.

Our parsha, Tazria, describing women in the days and weeks immediately following giving birth, twice uses a very unusual expression, תֵּשֵׁב בִּדְמֵי טָהֳרָה (Teishev b’dmei tahara), she will sit in her blood of purity (Vayikra 12:4 and 5). Right before this phrase the Torah, seemingly contradicting this idea, uses the phrase וְטָמְאָה (v’Tamah), and she will be (ritually) impure (Vayikra 12:2 and 5).

I need to digress for just a moment to explain that the concepts of טהרה tahara) “pure” and טאומה (tumah) “impure” are not in any way equivalent to “good” and “bad”. Rather they are a measure of proximity to death, a human corpse being the אבי אבות (Avi Avot), literally “grandfather”, i.e. highest form of tumah. The reason a menstruating woman is considered temporarily tamei, “impure” is not because of a squeamishness about blood, but because, as a missed conception she represents close proximity to a life which didn’t occur.

Thus, when birth occurs, a new life happens, even though it is accompanied with blood which, coming from the womb, resembles menstrual blood, this time it’s the blood of tahara, of life! This celebration of birth, calling special attention to a new life, is especially poignant as the Torah was given shortly after Yetziat Mitzraim, the exodus from Egypt where, not long before, the fate of baby boys born to the Jewish people was instant death, being thrown into the river.

Indeed, in our long history it’s been an all too common fate of Jewish children to die young. Anywhere from one-half to three-quarters of the Jewish people (a significantly greater percentage of our people than during the Shoah/Holocaust) were slaughtered by the Romans during Bar Kochba’s attempt to free ourselves (especially commemorated during this period of Sefira (the counting of  forty-nine days (seven weeks) between Pesach and Shavuot). As perennial targets of pogroms in both Christian Europe and the Moslem Middle East and North Africa, as the first victims of the Crusades, of course as victims of the Shoah/Holocaust and as recent terrorism has targeted our children as well as adults, bringing Jewish children into this world has always been an act of defiance, courage and faith.

Chazal, our sages, explain in the Talmud (נידה לא:ב) that the reason a new mother is required to bring a חטאת (Chatat) sin-offering (Vayikra 12:5, continuing our verses) because in the midst of childbirth pain they swear that they’ll never have another child, but after experiencing the joy of the new baby they realize that it was an oath they don’t intend to honor, thus the required sacrifice. I believe that fear of immediate pain is very much the minor component of why a Jewish woman would, sensibly, be reluctant to have another child. Rather, this historically-justified fear that her child might become an innocent victim of hate against Jews is a very real fear. One can imagine a deep “what have I just done?” regret when a Jewish mother holds her precious new baby.

Rather, as the Torah describes or prescribes, we celebrate our defiance of fear and hate. We say לחיים (l’Chaim) and celebrate Life, the ultimate source of טהרה (Tahara), purity.

When I was very young I had a recurring dream, so vivid that I recall it more than fifty years later. I would walk down the stairs to the basement landing of my house and would find the basement flooded. There was a rowboat tied to the highest step. I’d board the boat and start rowing towards the far wall. As I approached the wall I’d row right through it and find myself back at the start of this long basement room. I’d continue rowing until I reached the far wall and would row through it again, returning once more to the beginning. Again and again until I awoke.

Given my background, intellectual makeup and current situation, it’s likely that I’ll never gain the breadth of Torah knowledge I’d really like. Unless I find the right long-term (and I mean lasting years) chavruta, study partner, I’ll probably never learn all of Shas (the full Talmud). I doubt that I’ll study, cover-to-cover, the entire Shulchan Aruch (Rabbi Yosef Karo‘s 16th century comprehensive compilation of halacha) nor the Mishna Torah (Rambam’s 12th century compilation of halacha). These are not unreasonable goals–I know a number of people who have achieved it. And there are so many other seforim (books) I desperately desire to study and I know that I’ll only touch a very few of them.

On the other hand, there are a number of seforim and sections of seforim that I have studied over and over and over. I do this because I’m delighted to find new, deeper insights every single time I engage with that fragment of Torah. I realize that I am very lucky, very blessed that our Torah reveals herself to me this way. Of course, I’ve studied each weekly parsha year after year after year, but so have a large proportion of observant Jews. Each year as I return to it I’m a new person, the world is often profoundly changed, and so is my understanding. I honestly can say that I’ve never studied a passage in a sefer a second, third or more time without something brand new popping up for me.

Another way of looking at that is that Torah, like reality, reveals truths in layers, a little at a time. Hopefully, each year we find that last year’s answers are no longer sufficient nor satisfying. Answers and interpretations which satisfy children, of course, will not be adequate for an adolescent, and the adolescent’s understanding shouldn’t satisfy a young adult and my knowledge at age sixty will, hopefully, at age seventy appear to me to have been hopelessly naive and simplistic.

Of course, one reason for this phenomenon is that we are all works-in-progress who are growing in maturity and wisdom. Taken from the other side of the equation, however, God, the subject/object of our study and exploration is never knowable to us. Just as soon as we think we have a hold on what God is really all about, it dissolves into meaninglessness and we have to try to build yet another, better model, another visualization. Of course we intellectually know, and are constantly reminded in almost every sefer we’ll ever pick up, that God is totally beyond our comprehension and that we should use our imagings only as stepping stones. Unfortunately, there is a common human failing, since we are finite beings, to fool ourselves that “this time I’ve really got it”. It’s sort of like the old song (attributed to Donovan, but I remember singing it at summer camp long before he started his recording career), “First there is a mountain then there is no mountain then there is…”

Just the other night I was studying Gemara Avoda Zara (4b) with a friend. In it, the Nations accuse Israel as being no better than themselves (and all other idolators) because we made the Egel HaZahav, the Golden Calf.  Of course, that question has bothered every generation since the tragedy occurred. How can a people who have in the past very few weeks experienced the miracles of the exodus, the splitting of the sea and, to top it all, receiving the Torah directly from the Creator Himself, turn their backs, build and then worship a tawdry statue? Among the common answers in our tradition is that we’d both grown too dependent on Moshe and also miscalculated the date he was to return from Har Sinai–thus we were desperate for another concrete form to worship. Others lay the blame on the ערב רב (erev rav), the “mixed multitude”, those parasitic hangers-on who opportunistically followed us out of Egypt (or those toxic, unneeded and unwanted parts of our personalities/neshamot). For different reasons, each of these and other well-known answers partially satisfy, partially dissatisfy and they all provide important moral lessons.

Rashi offers a totally different insight. He says that we had fought and totally overpowered the yetzer hara, the evil inclination which tempted us to build and worship this idol. And once we reached that great spiritual height, inexplicably God Himself, with a Gezeirat HaMelech (Decree of The King), overruled our resolve and forced us to commit this very great sin anyway. Rashi continues that this was in order to give פתחון פה (pitchon peh), literally the opportunity to open one’s mouth, the opening to make a plea for Divine Mercy and Forgiveness by future Ba’alei Tshuva, sinners who come to repent. In other words, according to Rashi, God took away our most precious possession, our bechira, free will, and in this case our free-will decision to follow God’s own commandments to have no false gods before Him, just because He had other plans of which we were not privy. We should also keep in mind that the immediate result of this sin was thousands of deaths!

While we can extract a certain amount of truth from Rashi’s idea, I believe he deliberately offers us such an outrageous and unbelievable explanation to open our eyes to the more profound reality that every attempt to explain and, thus, contain God or His actions will fail.

Ultimately, there is no answer of which we can conceive that will fully explain why God decided to inspire Nadav and Abihu, the sons of Aharon, the Cohen Gadol, to offer aish zara, a “strange fire” which results in their deaths. We’ll never understand why God allowed the Shoah, the Holocaust, and all the other massacres and torments our people have suffered over the ages. We can’t answer why God brought Medinat Yisrael, the modern State of Israel, into being only to have it immediately attacked with intent to destroy us by all of our neighbors.

Of course there is much value in the progressive layers of provisional answers, and we very much need the wisdom and comfort they provide. But, in the final analysis, Rashi points the way to accept that no matter how complex an answer might be, no matter how much it defies all human logic, we will never arrive at the “real” answer because God is, indeed, beyond our ability to understand. There will always be yet another layer to explore and then transcend.

More than thirty years ago, during the period my father z”l was in his final illness, we were talking about something or other and I asked him how he felt about whatever the topic might have been. He answered with, for him, a characteristic and very logical analysis so I asked him again, “But how do you feel about it”. He gave me another, slightly different, logical analysis. This went on several more times until, as I repeated my question, “How do you feel?”, he started to cry.

For many years I thought it was because he finally realized that I was really concerned with his feelings, with his emotional response. Since he always cast himself in the role of the provider and much less so (I, at the time, incorrectly thought) the comforter, I was sure that it never occurred to him that people who loved him cared about his feelings as well as his intellect.

Recently a different reading of this story has begun to develop. Perhaps, after repeatedly trying to teach me an important lesson, he cried in frustration at my refusal to hear what he was saying. As I was nearly thirty at the time, perhaps he thought it was high time I focused more on obligations and how I might fill them, and less on the feelings.

Consciously or unconsciously, I think that most of us in the western world, especially my generation and younger, absorbed Karl Marx’s dictate that “religion is the opiate of the people”. Even those of us who have remained active and committed to our religious/spiritual traditions often miss the point of them, trying to twist their focus towards ourselves rather than towards God. Religion is offered as a comfort, a means to fulfillment and “enlightenment”, in other words, as an opiate. It’s supposed to help us create and maintain a “positive self image” rather than following it’s paths and techniques to achieve aims above ourselves.

Despite my curmudgeonly bluster, of course we function within Torah to share our joys and to support each other in our sorrows, but even here the actual goal isn’t celebration or mourning, but our participation in these rituals in order to fulfill the obligations of the Torah which really means to participate in those aspects of actual Tikkun Olam which life presents us.

It’s often perplexing when our mitzvot are arational, when we don’t experience some sort of immediate uplift as we fill them. Our expectations are so high, as they should be, but too often they’re misdirected to a very limited view of the world. Even those of us who study and explore our mystical/spiritual traditions of worlds beyond our abilities to perceive, even those of us who deeply believe in them, are tempted to ignore them when we don’t get some sort of payback, at least on an emotional level. We’re so easily discouraged.

I could say that we should train ourselves to feel joy and fulfillment knowing that we’ve met our obligations, but that’s just not realistic. Even if that potential is “hard-wired” into our makeup, it faces too much competition in a world focused on the surface and the immediate.

This Shabbat, which is also, this year, the eighth day of Pesach in the galut, the diaspora, will be the fiftieth anniversary of my Bar Mitzva. For me especially, it will be a day of looking back and trying to take lessons into the future. While I don’t want to give the impression that my father z”l was unusually dour–I remember the joy and pride he had in my milestone, just as I have so many memories of him laughing until tears ran from his eyes and he couldn’t catch his breath–I’m grateful for the gift, all these years later, of his advice to me in that long-ago conversation.

“Harry”, he was actually telling me, “it doesn’t always matter if you’re happy or sad. You’ll feel both many times throughout your life. What is always important is if you tried your best to be responsible, to fulfill your obligations in life. The right thing might or might not make you feel good, but it is the right thing.”

And as I think about it as we come to the end of our festival of freedom, I realize that we must also free ourselves from the dictatorship of our own feelings.

Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom.

The preferred format for Torah study, which is the paradigm for Tikkun, repair, is the חברותא (Chavruta), a study-partner. Based on and sharing the root letters with חבר (chaver), friend, it defines the ideal friendship within our tradition–a friendship based on the shared values of Torah.

To an outsider, a typical בית מדרש (Beit Midrash), study-hall, is the very picture of chaos. Grouped in pairs, the air is full of argument and disagreement. Opinions and interpretations are passionately attacked and defended. Miraculously, minds are frequently changed as we often see that our own ideas are weak and that our chavruta’s are much better. There is no shame in admitting defeat; to the contrary, we can only move forward when we realize we’ve been traveling down the wrong road and have changed our course.

One of my oldest friends commented on a recent article I wrote here, speaking about Miracles and Pesach. He said, “I do not think that we pray for miracles. Rather we pray to Hashem in the belief that he has a plan and ultimately whatever happens will be for the best. If in the course of that plan a “miracle” happens, we are grateful. Looking back, the fact my parents survived the Shoah was a miracle. I believe the Six Day War was a miracle. There are every day events that are miracles.For those I thank G-d and hope I am worthy of the kindness he has shown me. Have a kosher and joyful Pesach and a good Shabbos.”

It was my privilege to say to him, “I agree completely and I stand, with gratitude, admiration, humility and love, corrected.”

This is especially relevant to Pesach where one of the main themes, as we remove and burn chametz (leaven) from our homes and hearts. We try, as much as possible, to excise our puffed-up self-image and arrogance, the illusion that not only are we always right, but that we possess 100% of TRUTH.

The very nature of Chavruta teaches every one of us that none of us know it all or are always right. It’s my privilege today to thank God for this small miracle, allowing me to enter Pesach this time around with a humility I previously lacked. A true chaver, friend, helps us complete ourselves, provides the tikkunim, repairs our souls require.

Chag Sameach to all.

We live in an age that likes to consider itself logical and hard-headed. Although both William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy o”h were listed as equal co-stars in Star Trek, almost everyone’s favorite was Spock. Miracles have very little place in most of our world-views (even if few of us could begin to offer a logical explanation of just the technology that fills our world, let alone all the other inexplicable events we experience) as we deal in terms of “realpolitik”, economic theory and what presents itself as “objective science” (an imaginary species yet to be discovered on this earth). I myself, in a previous article,  suggest that we make every effort, to avoid situations where we’re down to miracles to rescue us.

Pesach is nearly here and we’ll greatly extend our festival meal to talk at length about the miracle of Yetziat Mitzraim, the Exodus from Egypt. A week later we’ll celebrate another miracle, Kriyat Yam Suf, the splitting of the sea as we, transcending nature, walked across a huge body of water on dry land.

And yet we’re not supposed to rely on miracles.

Can we believe miracles are even possible in our empirical-only world of today? Can we, parallel with our own hard work, pray for Divine intervention and hope for miracles? I ask this not only in light of our contemporary secular culture, but also in terms of our own spiritual tradition. Are miracles, at best, just part of our mythology or can they take an active part in our present and future?

I propose a different question. Especially now, as the ultimate Geula, redemption, seems to some of us so close we can practically taste it, and while at the same time the challenges to our very existence seem so frighteningly reminiscent of that period just before The Shoah, Holocaust, can we afford to not acknowledge and accept the miracles, each as great and dramatic as our original exodus from Egypt, that accompany us every day? Even more than that, can we, while actively doing everything we can to avoid dependence on miracles, afford to not pray for them at all?

Moadim l’Simcha