Rabbi Zeitlin

Sefer BaMidbar is commonly (i.e. in non-Jewish circles) known as the Book of Numbers, and numbers do, indeed, play a large part in what there is to learn that goes much deeper the pshat, simple or surface definition.It’s a basic concept, really, although it is based in the deepest levels of Kabbalah (Judaism’s sacred mysticism) that the approximately 600,000 letters (theoretical, since many of the letters are only implied or part of the “oral tradition”, Torah Sh’b’al Peh, also known as Torah l’Moshe MiSinai (Torah revealed to Moshe from Sinai (while he was transcribing the written Torah we have today)) that make up a full Sefer Torah. And, as I recently explained (see “What Are We Celebrating?”), this number also links together the entirety of our potential knowledge/experience of God Himself to both Torah and Am Yisrael, the Jewish People. Just as a Torah Scroll isn’t kosher if it is missing a single letter (or a single letter is damaged (i.e. hurt), Am Yisrael is defective with the absence (or damage to) a single Jewish soul, conditions which make it impossible for any of us to fully experience The Holy One.

This assumption validates the various “number games”, Gematriya/Gematriyot our sages have employed throughout the millennia to discover deeper truths by manipulating the relationships between the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet (refer to the 32 paths, ל-ב, which, as a word means heart and which, in turn, represents the 22 letters of the Hebrew aleph-bet, את, “et” or “at”, either the indefinite article or the feminine second person of the word that means “you”, occasionally means “and” (B’reishit Bara Elohim EtHaShamayim v’EtHaAretz, commonly translated as “In The Beginning God Created (Et) The Heavens and (Et) the Land”–Books, including the entire Zohar have been written on the first word, Breishit, In The Beginning, alone.) and the ten letters which represent the digits 1-10 (א-י).

Anyhow, these insights validate various rabbinic analysis techniques so that they result in actually revealing deeper meanings that are really there, rather than merely clever word play, “sound and fury signifying nothing”, to quote Shakespeare in Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 6). Thus when the Chernobyler Maggid, Rabbi Menachum Nachum Twerski, in Meor Eynayim, points out that employing another valid letter-substitution technique called את-בש, AtBash, where we replace the letters of a chosen word with the letter equidistant, but from the end of the alphabet rather than the start,  to the first two letters of the word מצוה, Mitzvah, commandment or a mandated action to bind us together, both as a people, Am Yisrael, and to God, the Mem and Tzaddi become Yud Hei, י-ה. Combined with the rest of the word, ו-ה, Vav-Hei, we have generated God’s Name, Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei.

Thus, when we mindfully perform a Mitzvah with the proper kavvana, focus/intention, that focus being to perform that act as a way of embodying God’s Presence (the Name itself, often euphemized as Shem Havayah, discloses an inner meaning of that Name itself, which is Being (“I Will Be What I Will Be”). The Meor Eynayim goes further to point out that the first two letters, Yud and Hei are the flow of energy from the highest realms, passing through the Vav, which resembles a pipe, and which often refers to Masculine Energy, to the final Hei, usually representing Feminine Energy, which gathers and consolidates it all. This final Hei is also called Malchut, Kingship (obviously a masculine term) and, simultaneously, Shechinah, the Holy Divine Feminine Presence (which is what activated/activates the Holy of Holies in the Holy Temple.

The Chernobyler goes even further, relating the relationship of the masculine and feminine before they are combined, as Dalut (from the letter dalet) which means poor and devoid of anything.  It is this unification, represented by the ד (dalet) descending via the ladder-like ל (lamed, related to the word meaning to learn) that empowers, fills the empty tank, as it were, of an otherwise meaningless action, to become a Mitzvah, rather than just a random action, turning it into something that binds us together as a people, unites the masculine and feminine in a way that this union can be truly productive, and joins us with (and invites the participation of ) the  Shechinah herself.

Thus, with this mindfulness which is a product of understanding that the words of Torah, including and especially “The Rule Book” (Halacha) reveal layer upon layer of deep meaning and detailed instructions of how to mentally perform the Mitzvot, that we become agents of true change and benefit to the world, to ourselves and to those with whom we are connected.

Shabbat Shalom

Shavuot is the anniversary, celebrated continuously for 3334 years, of receiving the Torah. It’s also celebrates, each year, the day-by-day process of inner refinement and contemplation from our first steps of freedom (Pesach) until true autonomy (life with Torah). We celebrate that once again, each in our own way and facing our own challenges, earning Torah.

But what are we really celebrating? A comprehensive rule book? Even a guide to living a kind, ethical and meaningful life? Are we happy to have received a tradition that allows for and encourages a lifetime of study and contemplation? Is it enough that our Torah has formed the foundation of western civilization and is it appropriate/sufficient thus to celebrate our historical place in the world?

Our mystics, Mekuballim, those who received, or, perhaps more accurately those who align themselves (the root, K-B-L (ק-ב-ל), while a familiar word in Hebrew only appears once in the “five books”, and that’s describing how the loops in the curtains of the Mishkan (Sanctuary, the residence, as it were, of the Shechinah) were aligned with each other so they could be joined with fasteners) i.e. those who try to describe the Infinite in finite terms when they declare that Torah (Oraita, also meaning illumination and instruction), God (HaKodesh Baruch Hu (also Kudsha Brich He), grammatically referring to both the masculine and feminine aspects of Infinity) and Yisrael, the Jewish People, Chad Hu, are One.

When we received the Torah, all those years ago, through a mass and public experience of God, what we really received on that morning, 3334 years ago, was God Himself. And each of us internalized this meta-reality in our own ways, according to our spiritual and emotional needs, according to our unique experiences, unique potentials and understanding.

If only we acknowledge it, Shavuot marks our abilities and sets of processes, meditations and contemplations, to have an active relationship with The Creator/Sustainer Of All. Necessarily, this experience is unique to each of us, although our understandings and insights are all bound together as the six hundred thousand root souls of Israel and the six hundred thousand letters of the Torah comprise and compose the Great Unity.

Additionally, this means that lovingly working together, each of us respecting and loving each others perspectives and insights and priorities, is actually possible to begin on Shavuot, as a first step in truly manifesting Torah as the blueprint God used in creating the universe.

Perhaps this is the process we commemorate and continue each year by supporting and loving first, always working from the inside outwards, those closest to us, then including those who are nearby, eventually including all of Yisrael working together at and in this Greater Yichud. It seems to me that with this realization we will truly have something to celebrate.

Chag Shavuot Sameach, followed immediately with Shabbat Shalom. It’s a dream that can come true.

Tonight, Yesod sh’b’Yesod, is the yahrzeit of the Ramchal.
He reveals about Bayit Shlishi, the Third Temple, that it will be fully divinely built and will remain in the highest heaven and, at first, only its spiritual essence will radiate to the ground. Only later will a physical edifice be built to surround it. And eternal peace and calm will fill the world.
This is, perhaps, the ultimate expression of it being a House Of Prayer For All Nations, one that unifies and does not divide, one that benefits all.
Perhaps the idea of it first manifesting on earth only as spiritual energy is to give everyone the time they need to start to experience this unity and peace, dissolving opposition in a way that no people will feel threatened or displaced……
Each of us, in our unique ways with our uniques personalities, can help to manifest at least a fragment of this ideal world.
Isn’t it time to focus on why we’ve been brought here?

(my interpretation from Mishkenei Elyon)

I heard this story twice in recent days. It’s just in time, as daily life in Israel could be mistaken for a crisis. This is how it goes:

Someone was walking home from one of the anti-government protests we’ve lately been having, Israeli flag in hand. Someone else, on the opposite side of the actual street and the political fence, was just arriving for a pro-government rally (they’ve been going under the alias pro- and anti- judicial reform) and realized he had left his flag at home. You see, both sides are convinced that only their point of view protects the nation and that the other side endangers and even attacks it. Also, Israel is a very patriotic country and the days around Yom HaAtzmaut, our Independence Day, are filled with Israel flags everywhere you look.

So, the person who had forgotten his at home asked the flag-bearing person approaching him, who by all measures endangers us all with his political opinions (just as the fellow leaving the protest feels that the approaching one endangers us all), if he could borrow the flag for his protest. As I heard this story, he handed it to his friend with a smile, a hug and a cheerful, “Achi“, my brother!

And this is just part of the beauty of the conundrum of Israel. While one side accuses the other of actions that will lead to a totalitarian halachic (run under Jewish religious law) state, the other fears a totalitarian secular regime that is no more Jewish than the World Soccer League, each fiercely loves the same country and rarely misses an opportunity to wave our flag.

Of course, this works here because, “Kol Yisrael Eravim Zeh BaZeh” (TB Shavuot 39a), the entire Jewish nation are intertwined with one-another. Not only do we talk about being One Family, we are. And like all families quarrel from time to time,  even hate one another at time, the deeper connection always overrides. This is such a fundamental principle that the Maharal (Netivot Olam) uses it as proof of God’s essential unity!

No matter how much any one of us knows, there is always more he doesn’t, can’t. For that very reason, it’s essential to be able to turn to those whose points of view are the farthest from our own in order to learn what’s beyond the boundary of our own knowledge. Not only do we need our “enemy”, we’re totally dependent on him to complete our own wisdom. That kind of interdependence with the total “other”, necessary to fill in our own gaps and just as necessary for him to fill in their gaps, also best describes love, where each partner is eager to give freely of all they are.

We are, indeed, mandated to love our friend as we love ourselves, V’Ahavta l’Reyacha K’mocha (Vayikra 19:18), which Rashi explains is, according to Rabbi Akiva, a major theme of the entire Torah. How much grater a challenge it is, with proportional reward, to love our (within our extended family, Am Yisrael, that is) enemy or, at least the one whose knowledge appears the farthest from our own. In fact, it is only through a loving relationship (acknowledging the validity of that opinion, all the while maintaining one’s own opposite opinion) with our “enemy”, with our opposite number, that we can begin to understand the full truth and reality of anything. We can, and should, embrace this “other” as the necessary extension to our own vision.

After all, that is the technique we’ve employed for the thousands of years of Talmudic reasoning. Likewise the fundamental dialectic of our deepest spiritual system where both Chesed and Gevura are both necessary in equal measure to derive Tikferet (Netzach + Hod > Yesod), where it takes a man and a woman to create a new life (and the very act of creating that new life is referred to as Dea, meaning to know!).
Of course I’m not saying that Love is the enemy of Strength, or that men an women are enemies, but that we must bless (which means gratitude to The Creator) that the one who is farthest from ourselves (along these types of parameters) is as much a part of the world as we are. Likewise, we’re enjoined to offer a prayer for the bad that we receive exactly as we offer a prayer for the good. (Mishna Berachot 9:5). Reconciling these extremes can, at times, require super-human strength as well as super-human belief, but attempting and, hopefully, approaching that ideal is, nevertheless a required step on becoming fully human.

And so, by sharing the same beloved flag, the symbol of the mutually beloved nation, although each person had a radically different idea of that nation from the other, is part of the great beauty of Am Yisrael and  a key insight why it’s such a deep and profound pleasure and privilege to live in the State of Israel.

Life is never static. We ascend and descend along an almost infinite range of parameters. We also move laterally, as it were, between these parameters: relationships, career, art, physical endeavors, spiritual explorations, politics and more. We play many roles: children and parents and spouses and boy-friend/girl-friend, teammate, captain, boss, worker, lover and hater, and we often take different roles within the same relationship.

We can both learn from our relationships on the human plane to better understand our relationships with The Creator and can learn important lessons from how He relates to us to deepen, balance and improve our relationships with other people and ourselves, too (and perhaps with other entities as well).

Our relationship with God is a unique one (for many reasons), and perhaps the main distinction is that it is never one between equals. Among the fundamentals of our Torah and beliefs, God is perfect and complete within himself and, not lacking anything from His Essence, needs nothing from us. All the energy flows from Him to us, from Above, as it’s usually described, to below. Nonetheless, He recognizes our need to feel capable and independent and thus gives us a list of requirement,  mitzvot (while often (mis)translated as commandment, the root of the word refers to joining and binding) to allow us to also experience being givers and not always takers. He also places us in a complex and sophisticated framework which allows us to ever more closely resemble Him and His Ways by giving to others in order to transcend our own built-in limitations.

A powerful model described by a few of the Chassidic masters have God embedding Himself, as it were, with each of us. (The Meor Eynayim uses the imagery of food which we eat, since everything that exists is really just a manifestation of The One). Not only does the nutrition in the food literally power us, but we most intensely and directly experience the Divine core of the food in its taste and flavor. The Ta’am, taste (the word also means the reason for something) is how we detect the Netzutzei Kodesh, the Holy Sparks of Divinity which fill and permeate all existence (M’lo Kol Ha’Aretz Kvodo).

But not only does food, for example, serve to lift us up and energize us to the deeds we do, but by incorporating the sources of said food, be it animal or plant, we are sharing our holy work with them, thus also lifting them, giving the cow or fish or apple or wheat stalk a portion of deepest accomplishments, something they could never achieve on their own in their first incarnation. Thus we both are elevated and we elevate! Likewise, when we perform one of the commandments, mitzvot, we’re said to bring a “joyous spirit”, Nachat Ruach to God himself.

Likewise, with our relationships with other people, and if you think about this you can apply this principle to every kind of relationship we have, friends, business partners, teammates, lovers, too! We can summarize the goal for any healthy friendship is for both friends or partners or lovers or teammates to contribute what actions and emotions and, occasionally, material, to not merely sustain, but actually to lift the other. And in lifting, we ourselves our lifted. We understand and appreciate our own power and potential, we fulfill ourselves through giving the love we feel an actuality and not just a fuzzy emotional buzz.

Although guided at the beginning, knowing what acts we can perform which by which we, as it were, penetrate God’s Essence and “lift” Him and are lifted by Him, just as when the direction is reversed as first described.

Even with uneven relationships, take, for example, the parent/child, which begin with the parent providing and caring for the child and often develops to the child, now grown up, supporting and caring for the elder parent, we see the same pattern of interpenetrating in order to nourish and to lift. Certainly this is the ideal in what should be a more equal love relationship between two adults.

Of course, it’s much more than merely the mutual providing of “first aid” when needed, but two people. powering each other, can often go much farther together than either could alone. Just as with our relationship with God, there is no limit to the spiritual heights we can reach. And even if God doesn’t actually “receive” anything concrete from us humans, and He can’t rise higher since He already fills the entire universe from top to bottom, from east to west, He does provide us with the feedback as if we were able to coexist in actuality with The Infinite.

Further, when one has penetrated the other, the “other” can be said to function as a garment, a levush to the other, protecting as well as lending pieces of an external identity. Just as we’re commanded, Kedoshim Ti’hyu Ki Kodesh Ani, Be Holy (of course Kodesh has many more and deeper meanings than this abstract concept we call “Holy”, you get the idea) because I am Holy. We’re invited to take on God’s exclusive quality of Holiness, as a product of our penetrating Him and Him, simultaneously, covering us as a levush, all the while allowing us to retain our unique identity (since levush is a garment, not a costume). Likewise, people who work together in almost any context begin to resemble each other, all the while remaining theirselves. Long term couples often display this, as we all have experienced.

An intersting example of this is part of our current practice of counting the forty-nine days from Freedom to Enlightenment, from Pesach to Shavuot. We’re taught (through a sophisticated analysis of several verses) to count both days and weeks. This is further abstracted and adapted from periods of time to the seven personality traits represented by the seven (lower–there are actually ten sefirot completed by the “three upper ones” which usually represent the intellect rather than the emotions) sefirot. Conveniently, each of the seven weeks is comprised of seven days, so the progression of major themes of the weeks echoes in the individual days as well. In this way, we interpenetrate each of the seven with each of the seven, and observe and meditate on this cyclic motion. Ideally, each week spirals up from the previous one, just as each individual day raises the week and the levush of the week raises each day.

May we together rise and raise higher and higher, in all our relationships, including the one with ourselves, but aimed to our relationship with The One.

Most of us have been walking for so many years that it becomes unconscious. It’s pretty much the definition of toddler, and since that point, when we want to be somewhere else, we stand up, move our legs one foot in front of the other, and don’t really think much about it. After everyone makes such a big deal  of our mastering this basic human skill, we then just take it for granted–that’s what we, and everyone else, does. And assume that we’ll continue to take it for granted for the rest of our lives–to walk without thinking too much of what we’re doing.

But it doesn’t always, probably it doesn’t usually, continue so unconsciously throughout our lives. Injury, age, illness will change all that, and often quite in just a moment. It really shouldn’t be that unexpected, although I assume that everyone who does pass this mark usually feels it came without warning (for me there was a medication issue almost seven years ago, followed by a period of falling and broken bones), and a return just a couple weeks ago getting on a bus which had suddenly become insanely crowded, erasing most of the previous recovery.

So, I’m back to walking much more slowly, much more aware of the pain each step might (but not necessarily) bring, conscious of where and how I put my foot down. And always so aware that I’m moving so slowly……

But after a couple weeks of feeling sorry for myself, it dawned (a very appropriate and accurate word here) that I WAS walking. That in spite of the injury, in spite of the pain, I’m still able to walk the beautiful streets of this holy, sacred city. According to our tradition, one earns Olam HaBa, Eternal Life, for every Dalet Amot, four cubits one covers here. Think about what that means in terms of expanded awareness and consciousness. Not only that, but the beauty and hope and gratitude that each step brings has infinite worth, generates within me infinite gratitude. 

Obviously, when I crashed my foot a few weeks ago I had no idea I had anything but pain to look forward to. That and, of course and, don’t forget self-pity. That in just a handful of days I will have learned such a deep lesson came as a complete surprise, although it shouldn’t have. A lifetime of experience keeps repeating, in one form or another, that same lesson–that every single moment is an opportunity to grow and to learn.

Which is one good reason to savor every moment of life. In the medium-to-long term, they will all be precious.

The Mei HaShiloach (Parshat Tazria) reminds us that the Good, the Tov, with which The Creator daily renews all Creation is identical to Ratzon Hashem, His very will. That ever element of life is not merely potentially good, but, in actuality, a direct connection to Holiness. We just need to remain open to it, perhaps taking a risk that by allowing ourselves to fully experience it will only be to our, and to the world’s benefit.

Yom HaAtzmaut, commemorating Israel’s rebirth as an actual country on this earth, restates this theme. We became a nation in present-time, not because we gained recognition by the United Nations and not from world guilt of the Holocaust, but it happened simultaneously with our refusal to ever be victims again. With that, is our determination to transform whatever comes into ever deeper understandings of our place in the world, true triumph. No matter the prices we pay, our lives are always filled with nothing but blessings when we open our eyes.

Chag Sameach

One of the hardest challenges I have comes after I finish something. Once in a while I want to sit back and admire my work and just enjoy it. Often, if there is some appreciation out there, I admittedly want to enjoy some praise. The better I did, the more I feel like sitting still–perhaps I don’t want to risk this recent success with a future failure. I am one of the people who looks at everything I did right as some sort of fluke, a lucky mistake, and am terrified that next time I’ll fall flat on my face, so it can be hard to motivate myself to take the gamble.

But, eventually, the next project calls. I have an insight or an image (I did work as a photographer for 45 years, and there would be days and weeks of relentless assault of new visions of beauty, sometimes almost silent in simplicity, other times raging in complexity, which I just had to share) that demands to be shown. Or I’ll hear a tonality or a lilting chord I can’t keep to myself.

Next thing I know, the process of the old falls into the past and, if I’m lucky, I am more of less engaged with the next. In many ways I have it easy because I’m not searching for a new theme or subject. Since as long as I can remember, I believe this might have been my first photo exhibition with Hal Gould z”l at his Denver gallery (Colorado Photographics Art Center, 1977 or 78), in between periods of being religious, I have always attempted to show M’lo Kol HaAretz Kvodo”, He (i.e. God) fills the entirety of Creation with His Existence, that All is, if only we can see the projection back to the Source, God.

Granting myself some degree of success, immediately after illustrating that God underlies and sustains and, ultimately, is All, I go right back and try to do it again, this time with an even stronger or more subtle or compelling example. Finishing one task I turn to the next, only to find it’s not really something new.

Parshat Sh’mini (Eighth), which always falls soon after the seven mandated days of Pesach, talks about the day after the week the newly built Mishkan (Holy Dwelling) and the newly-annointed Kohnim (Priests) have been consecrated. Through a variety of verses and references to the Zohar and Sefer Yetzira (a fundamental text of Kaballah, attributed to Avraham and likely passed down orally until it was written by Rabbi Akiva in early talmudic times, and later re-revealed by our great mystics), the great Chernobyl Maggid, Menachem Nachum Twerski, one of the earliest chassidic masters, points out that in that previous week of dedication, each days followed the sephirotic order, with the first expressing the essence and influence of Chesed, Love and pure energy, the second Gevura, Strength, form and structure, the third day Tiferet, Beauty and balance, etc.

This, of course, follows the practice of counting the Omer, the days between Pesach and Shavuot, building from initial Redemption to Enlightment/Empowerment (Receiving the Torah), a seven-week period with each week assigned one of these Sefirot and each individual day representing the slow, deliberate journey, step-by-step and mirroring the Seven Days of Dedication (which, themselves, represent the Seven Days of Creation, as we enter a fractal universe of echos and reverberation, itself the Harmony of Divine Music).

The Chernobler asks what follows that week of dedication (Y’mei HaMiluim, literally the days of filling the hands of the Kohanim (Priests) so they are enabled to fulfill their tasks) and answers, simply, another week of seven days.

What’s next is our next opportunity to improve our most recent attempt at partnering with The Creator to Perfect The Creation. The next of an endless opportunity to grow, to do better and better, to love more deeply and strongly, to become more and more fully human.

Shabbat Shalom

We often don’t notice truths that are too obvious until they’re pointed out to us. For millennia, for generations, Jews have shared an experience while preparing for Pesach every year. It’s so common, so expected and, thus, taken for granted that we usually miss it.

There is never enough time. There is always just the right amount of time.

Pesach is the most effort-intensive of the Jewish calendar. To whatever extent one observes, perhaps it’s just the arrival of spring and new beginnings or perhaps it’s the rigorous halachic requirements to make one’s house, or at least kitchen, properly kosher for Pesach, followed by the mad rush to shop and cook, either hosting or contributing to a festival meal often including several households or just getting out of the house and to your hosts without delaying everyone with your tardiness…. The further requirement to say to (teach) your son  (children) also takes time, in ever-shorter supply, to prepare.

Perhaps it’s genetic and runs in families or maybe it really is more Jewishly universal, but even when I haven’t hosted or prepared a Seder in years, enjoying the hospitality and friendship of others, by noon on Erev Pesach, the day before the festival actually begins at sundown, I feel all the internal signs of anxiety and distress. My feet tap, I yearn for yet another coffee, my eyes turn this way and that. It’s not unusual that the night before I’ll have one of those recurring dreams where, magically, I’m a teenager, back in school, realizing that I hadn’t prepared for the exam about to be administered. But…… I take a breath and get started, anyhow.

These are, indeed, primal lessons of Pesach. There’s always one more spot of potential chametz (leaven) you forgot to clean. One more favorite dish there just won’t be time to cook or bake this year. One more insight to prepare to share with friends and family, perhaps with students or congregants. One more nagging sense that it’s already too late to flag down a taxi to the site of your Seder and that you’ll arrive hot, sweaty, exhausted and late.

But even if that happens, somehow the Seder always starts, even if somewhat late (fortunately, for those precise about halacha, there’s a time to stop weekday “work” and to light candles, but no prescribed time to begin the actual Seder).  Seated around the table, even if the younger kids are beneath it or madly running around it, voices will join singing the familiar starting song, Kadesh Urchatz, Karpas Yachatz…….

For those familiar with American slang, I’ll assume you know what the last three letters of the acronym SNAFU stand for. But keep in mind the first two, “Situation Normal”.

My Rebbe, teacher and mentor growing up in Denver, Rabbi BCS Twerski, often remarked that there will plenty of time for “peace of mind” after 120 (the biblical lifespan). Life is not meant to be a vacation, but nor is it a lifetime of drudgery. The lesson of Pesach is that, somehow, with all the slavery and drudgery and pressure and anxiety of “everyday life”, we’ll have exactly the right amount of time.

May we all experience, and be aware that we’re experiencing, the redemption from unrelenting pressure and restriction and anxiety (an expanded definition of the Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim) to a Redemption, Geula, ever-expanding life and love and connection and Being. Chag Pesach Sameach.

And now, back to the kitchen to finish the charoset…….

(I’ve been trying to express and share my thoughts as they’ve developed over the last several, relatively quiet, months. In order to finally share something before Shabbat, I ask you to please forgive and overlook spelling and grammatical errors, but to the time pressure. Humbly, with thanks–RHL)

I doubt that we’ve ever been more divided as a people, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The more of the entire spectrum we cover, potentially the more of full reality we can bring under the umbrella of Kedusha, of Holiness, Tachat Kanfei HaShechina beneath the wings of the Shechina, the Holy Divine Presence.

At the very minimum, and most obvious, is the gap between what those of us who have taken the opportunity to live with what is soon to be an absolute majority of our people, no longer under foreign and hostile sovereignty, whether we personally describe ourselves as “religious” or “secular”, “Ashkenazi” of “Sephardi”, “right” or “left”, and our brothers and sisters, even (especially the ultra-orthodox?) anywhere else (even in such orthodox strongholds as Lakewood, New Jersey, or Stamford Hill).

Those who remain in the Diaspora have a single duty, the one they’ve served, for better or worse, throughout the world, for the last two thousand years. That is to survive, too often within a murderously inhospitable environment. That is first, to remain alive, and second, to preserve an at least recognizable Judaism and Torah culture against all odds. As a people, we’ve succeeded beyond all possible expectations, and regardless of distortions and unhealthy trends, between the assimilation-seeking and the backwards-looking approaches, we still have our unique identity (often enforced from the outside, but still keeping us together), a continuous study of Torah and of Jewish ethics and morality, our stiff-necked personalities, our heart-tearing music, heart-soaring poetry, our unique intellectual bent (which extends beyond those who maintain talmudic analytical methods to our greater Jewish culture). Two thousand years in Germany and Poland and Iraq and Egypt, in Russia and Italy and Libya and the US, never anywhere for more than just a few generations before driven elsewhere, we’ve made it from the year 70, and the Great Destruction of Jerusalem and our Holy Temple and our exile throughout the earth, to now, when many of the Jewish People are returning home to our land, The Land Of Israel.

Without minimizing the danger of a hundred year war against any Jewish presence at all in the Holy Land, or the constant threat of annihilation (now with Iran collecting a mass of nuclear-bomb-grade uranium), the hostility and diplomatic betrayal of former allies, we have survived. We have achieved that millennia-long task. Our job now, and this has always been part of our mandate, at least when we could afford to focus on it, is to increase awareness of God, of the Infinite, in this limited physical world. We are in a time when it’s not merely possible, not merely permitted, but mandated to celebrate that God has created 600,000 root-souls (corresponding to the 600,000 letters in an ideal Torah scroll) of Jews. That we no longer need force ourselves into the strict conformity, comforting and fortifying for some, brain/soul-deadening for others, that was enforced both from without and from within these past two millennia. We’re invited/mandated to explore and live the infiniteness of The Infinite One, and to see, at the end of the day, that Infinity is contained in The One.

Each of us, growing into this responsibility at our own paces, must manifest ourselves and, at the same time, accept and celebrate our fellow Jews as they, at their own paces, manifest themselves.

We’re pushed into such extremism in Israel today. Perhaps it’s a necessary, but painful full step, part of the process of differentiating, to see our differences with others, but in the true love of Ahavat Yisrael, mutually loving and supporting and understanding that each of us is but a small part of a whole which is greater than any of us.

It all seems so urgent right now, but I’m sure that if we each step back and look more historically at the challenges we’ve faced to get to where we are today, we can confidently embrace the challenge of Kol Yisrael Eruvim Zeh b’Zeh, All of Israel is intertwined, one with the other.

Of course, there a commonality among all humanity, but let’s give ourselves the opportunity to face one challenge at a time, confident that we’ll get there, too. But, for now, if all of us, Am Yisrael, The Jewish Nation, can accept and support each other in love, we’ll deserve a lot of credit.

Shabbat Shalom

Rosh Hashanah is rapidly approaching. The first (week)day without sounding the Shofar is almost over.

Throughout the day, however, my head has been filled with an idealized version of the Shofar’s song. Tekia, Sh’varim Truah, Tekia, Tekia Gedola….The song builds in my heart. It’s so much better than any of the times I’ve practiced over the month.

Tomorrow, we all hope it will be brand new……