Rabbi Zeitlin

Introduction

The Siddur, the Jewish prayer manual, is a rich, perhaps sometimes too-rich, historical collection of prayers, praise and, most-overlooked but most important, mantra meditations. It is unfortunate that, over the years, these prayers have been preserved and integrated in a serial, rather than an array format. By that I mean that a current siddur overwhelms us all with too many words within too short a time-frame. Prayer, both Jewish and non-Jewish, is a dialogue, a relationship, an attempt to merge with the Creator, with the underlying yet transcendental and universal Power/Consciousness/Awareness/Wisdom beyond the limitations of our own imaginations and analyses. It isn’t merely presenting a “wish list” and, even more so, it isn’t, as it all-too-often can seem, an exercise in foreign-language speed-reading. We pray not to achieve nor to receive, but to experience, to join in the eternal process we call “tefilla” or “davening”.

As I began to explain, much of the service was originally intended as mantra meditation. It was probably not the original intention that everyone make the same meditations every day. The daily psalms and the liturgical differences between weekday, Shabbat and holiday all point to that. Either alone or with guidance, we were probably intended to choose a manageable amount of material, not necessarily the same every day, for each morning. Several units, however, should probably be included daily.

Rabbi Twersky z”l had suggested that we try to concentrate on the first sentence of the “Shema” and on no more than two or three sections of the “Amidah”. I’d like to present a series of thoughts and associations which might aid you in contemplating the “Shema” and the first prayer of the “Amida”. I know that for me, while somehow getting through the entire service every day, if I feel I performed these two brief sections with true “kavana”, intention/intensity/sincerity, I am pleased. I don’t always achieve it. Try to take at least five seconds thinking about each of these words. It isn’t necessarily that easy.

SHEMA

Shema means to listen, not merely to hear. It’s activating a process which is all-too-often, in our very noisy world, passive. It means opening ourselves up to what is already there to be heard.

Yisrael is one name for the Jewish people. It’s also the named earned by our ancestor Jacob after a night of wrestling with a higher power. Jacob personifies balance and integration and he also personifies struggle. This meditation isn’t exclusive to a single ethnic or religious group but is addressed to that part in all of us which struggles to make sense, to find a way, to take what has come before us and to transform it and balance it for future use. We resist complacence.

The Lord, God’s name which we use here is a pointer to time as a dimension, as an integral part of the time-space-spirit reality. Transcending our human limitations, time becomes an expanse, not a flow. But that point of view is that of the infinite and the eternal.

Is our God does not make an ethnocentric statement that our candidate is the top contender for top god. Rather we realize that among the infinite powers of God is the ability to penetrate our world on a personal basis, to somehow self-transform from unreachable to intimately approachable. This name for God is often associated with the concept of compression and constriction, the Infinite taking on the appearance of the finite so we may approach.

The Lord once again returns our thoughts to the infinite, the eternal, the all-encompassing.

Is One is not merely a formal statement of monotheism. It’s much deeper and more profound than that. We should try to experience how ultimately everything is unified through sharing the essence of the One. No other person, no other creature, no other object, no other thought, no other emotion is of less importance than I. We, and everything else, are unique aspects of the All.

AMIDAH

Baruch, Blessed is related to the word for knee. We begin a ritual bow on this word by bending our own knees. Not merely do we want to reinforce whatever humility we might have developed, we also can imagine the Creator metaphorically “lowering” to the threshold of our human perception.

Ata, Art Thou (literally “you”), not aloof as Creator, Judge, Transcendent Nature, but a partner in dialogue.

Adonai, Lord, who even while relating to us on a human scale remains wholly transcendent over time-space. We recall the infinite and eternal.

Elohainu, our God reminds us of the personal and unique relationship we all have with the Creator. We think of the unimaginable power to self-bind the infinite into unique, individuated facets, each of which reflects the All but is custom-suited to each of us.

V’Elohai Avotainu, and the God of our ancestors: This prayer is, on a certain level, a specific approach from a specific culture. Judaism is more than a religion but is also a People, an extended family, and even in our current diversity we share roots. On a deeper level, we remember that we’re not self-made nor isolated. We come from a past, genetic, cultural, family and more and we lead to a future. We are part of the mysterious flow of time.

Elohai Avraham, God of Abraham: Generally seen as the paradigm of chesed, overflowing generosity and loving-kindness, Abraham’s door was always open. Nonetheless, he was the product of struggle. We need to activate our innate goodness, to nurture it, to give it the environment and the energy to manifest.

Elohai Yitzchak, God of Isaac: Isaac embodies strength, gevurah, but not chaotic power. This is the strength, self-control and discipline we need to achieve any goal. Like Isaac survived the disorienting terror of being offered as a human-sacrifice by his loving father, we often need strength to continue on our way when the signposts are dim.

Elohai Yaakov, God of Jacob: Jacob who balances strength with good nature, who lives a life of exile, bereavement, betrayal and exploitation but also sees his family flourish. Never able to enjoy long-lived happiness but never giving into despair. Always wrestling and growing, he gives his name to the people he founds.

Ha-El HaGadol HaGibor v’HaNora, the God great, strong and honored: We once again remind ourselves of the infinite power beyond even our imaginations, transcending space, time and even our concepts of abstract spirit.

El Elyon, sublime God: We think in absolute silence for a moment of what it means to be even beyond what we imagine as beyond our greatest conceptual abilities. Our human greatness and history of achievements, when seen through this lens of humility, further magnifies the mystery of the unknowable.

Gomel Chasadim Tovim, bearing Abundant Loving-kindness: Bearing “personally”, the essence of all this power and energy is reflected in our world of experience as true, knowing and unconditional love.

V’Koneh Ha-Kol, and Master of all: Not expressing ownership or impressing an obligation of gratitude, but much more fundamentally describing our unity within the all-encompassing.

V’Zochayr Chasdai Avot, remembering the achievements of our forebears: We don’t start from scratch, either in our material or our spiritual pursuits. We build on the foundation and accumulated wisdom of those who went before us. No matter the social, technological, economic or cultural changes, we remain human, endowed with all the dignity and faced with all the challenges that implies.

U-Mayvee Goel Livnai V’nayhem, who redeems their childrens’ children: On the one hand, this refers to us as we try to further the work of partnership in the creation and stewardship of the world. But “children” also implies the future and “childrens’ children” reminds us that there are always unforeseen consequences. Our knowledge is limited but we still do our best to love and nurture, to prepare a better future than the present.

L’Ma’an Sh’mo B’Ahava, for the sake of his Name with love: Again confronted with the infinite, the unknowable, the all-powerful, we have, finally, only one possibility, Love.

Melech, King: We start the journey to ourselves from the most aloof, distant, unchanging imperturbable image of “king”.

Ozer, Helper: Distant, yet available, but we need to initiate this aspect of the relationship by asking, by recognizing our finiteness, by trying to develop humility and compassion.

Moshiah, Savior: Perhaps the “parent” paradigm is useful here. We learn by mistake but somehow need to survive them. Call it “luck” or divine-intervention, our own recklessness, even in our danger-fraught century, has yet to destroy us. We’re all-too-often unaware of the daily miracle of life.

U’Magen, and Shield: Even closer than our own skin, we’re bathed in the web of existence. The light, the love which surrounds each of us.

Baruch Ata Adonai Magen Avraham, Blessed art Thou our God, shield of Abraham: Having danced this dance of thought and feeling, of high and low, of our uniqueness and our finiteness, having marvelled at the Eternal and Infinite, rather than having reached the end, we are finally,with the loving-kindness of Abraham, with a new beginning, prepared to start.

Rabbi Harry Zeitlin, September 1997

Yedid Nefesh

Prayers based on the Four-Letter Name of God, such as “Yedid Nefesh”, can serve as a vehicle to meditate on meanings implied by that name. We talk about unifying the Name in prayers such as the “Alenu” (“And on that day He will be One and His Name One”). One thing this means is to coordinate and integrate our breaths, thoughts and intentions.

Yod of “Yedid” represents a point. A point has no dimension, no mass. The Kotzker Rebbe when asked “Where do you find God”, answered “Wherever you let him in”. Expelling our breath we empty ourselves and create a place.

The first, “upper” Heh of “Hadur” represents its numerical value, five and, by extension, a hand. A hand passes, and this,the upper Hand, passes from God, as it were, to us. We breathe in, accepting the Divine energy.

Vav of “Vatik” is a straight line and a conduit. We retain the breath of Divine energy within ourselves, the upright “Vav”. It cleanses, energizes, purifies.

The final Heh, “Higaleh” (“Make known, illuminate”) is our “Heh”, our five, our hand which passes our now purified energy into the world as we expel our breath and return to the nothingness of Yod, beginning the cycle again.

L’Cha Dodi

The manifestation of the Shechina, the feminine energy, the Shabbat Queen as we rise from the creativity of the work-week to the higher level of creativity of Shabbat.

The main thrust of what I want to share is from the Slonimer Rebbe’s insights into the dual nature of Rosh HaShana and Yom HaDin versus Yom Tov, since it’s defined both ways in the Tora. Partially this explains why Rosh HaShana, two days even in the galut, is considered one long day (which thus contains two aspects).

Our relationship with God also is based on the two aspects of Ahava and Yira. The Yira, of course, is more related to the idea of Din and comes first (“Raishit Chachma Yirat HaShem”)–we need to adjust and redefine our respect and awe of God in order to stand in judgement in a way that our bitachon and emuna can assure us that we’ll be written in the Sefer Ha-Chayim. Which then leads us to the next and higher level of the relationship, the Ahava. Thus we’re able to celebrate the renewal of creation which is symbolized as the renewal of our Brit with the Creator, further symbolized by the “hachtarut”, the “coronation” as it were–the growing recognition of the spiritual essence and presence of the Creator throughout the creation. This “yedia”, ideally a complete knowledge/total relationship becomes synonymous with “ahava”.

Going from the other side and looking at the shofar in two aspects, we learn that one of the functions of shofar is shattering the barriers we place between ourselves and the Creator. As the obstacles to understanding and feeling are removed, not only can the sense of “ahava” and “d’veykut” grow, but we reach a point of spritual purity in which we no longer have anything to fear from Din.

The Slonim and the Karlin chasidim (more or less a merged group), like many chasidim, place a great emphasis on joy and happiness. Also on music–their niggunim are the most beautiful for my taste in the Ashkenazi world.

A simple definition of Torah is, by definition, inadequate. A non-exhaustive list would include the interface of the infinite and the finite, a description of all reality compressed through untold levels into relatively few words; it’s Revelation, it’s a spiritual path, it’s a way of life.

Most simply stated, as taught by the Ramchal and others, God created the world in order for His dominant characteristic, love, to fully manifest by flowing to another. To bestow that infinite goodness, a being, Man, was created to receive it. In order that this Divine goodness be at its highest level, Man is given an opportunity to finish creating and then to earn it. The ultimate good being God himself (Hebrew isn’t a gender-neutral language, but God’s essential infinitude transcends the concept of gender while different aspects of how God relates to the world is characterized by gender in much the same way a sub-atomic particle is characterized by charge), our ultimate good is directly related to our success in aligning ourself to God. Thus joining God in creating, in rectifying and refining, in putting the finishing touches, as it were, on creation, we not only create good ourselves, we also become creators.

The Torah often relates an individual to all of creation by referring to both as an “olam”, a world, either large (the universe) or small (each uniquely individual person). Our self-fulfilling task is just that, self-fulfilling. We’re charged to simultaneously refine ourselves and the world at large, to repair damage and, if possible, to create new connections within ourselves and between ourselves, other people and the world. We call this “Tikun Olam”, fixing the world.

The Torah also manifests itself as a guide to this adventure. It lays out the goals, including a just and peaceful society as well as loving, secure, mature, fully-developed, generous and courageous individuals. It also presents us with a multi-pathed approach, halacha, a “going” to help reach these goals. Thus, when understood properly, the system of rituals and regulations and disciplines, rather than an externally-imposed burden to rail against, is are best aid in achieving the goals we already want for ourselves.

A big problem, however, is determining just all of this really means. Are we merely supposed to mimic the rituals of previous generations (assuming that they merely mimic the rituals and those before them) or are we supposed to try to analyze these messages from the past to develop for ourselves, as they did, each generation for itself, the refinements needed to approach the universal and timeless goals we share. Is paralysis our goal or is God? We’re taught that the Torah is given “in the language of man”. However, the written Torah is more than 3,000 years old and much of the oral tradition is at least 2,000 years old. Although we can literally translate the words, I think that the largest part of the message is left untouched, either lost in ignorance or avoided from misplaced fear.

The written Torah, which contains deep within it all wisdom and knowledge, presents it in language immediately relevant to the newly-freed slaves, just in the process of becoming a nation. People living in a specific time and place. The eternal truths within the Torah were first publicly revealed in a form understandable to them. From that time on, the Torah-sh’b’al Peh, the oral Torah, took over explaining and re-explaining, finding newly-appropriate insights and newly-needed language to maintain the life of our tradition and our people, to keep us focused on and ever-approaching our goals.

The challenge is, and always has been trying to re-translate and re-explain the poetry, and by that I mean the multiple layers of meaning within the text and the previous translations and explanations. To understand and to state in our languages and in metaphors of our lives and experiences in order than we truly integrate the meaning into our lives rather than merely pay it lip-service. At the same time, we must avoid trivializing it into a feel-good pop-psychology complacence since that also evades the goals.

Taken literally, fundamentalistly, the Bible is meaningless, at best an inaccurate and fanciful historical tale, even though there are elements of historical import within it. The real value of the Torah is in it’s literal name, The Teaching, the techniques we need to learn and employ to achieve our highest human goals, as well as the portal itself to our goals.

The Torah, the Jewish tradition, is a unique spiritual path. Whether it’s the only one, the best one and other chauvinistic issues are completely trivial, since it mandates love and respect to all of creation. If we’re involved with it, it is our reality.

We need to study our texts and traditions with all our gifts, each of us in our uniqueness of strengths, experiences, tastes, interests, loves as well as our shortcomings and fears. One field of desperately-needed research is to analyze individual halachot to determine, as best we can, how they work individually and as part of an organic whole. A path, a halacha, is determined by three things: 1) the goal, 2) the starting point and 3) the terrain between the two. While the goal, in its essence, remains timeless, the other two features necessarily change from person to person, from place to place and from time to time. Halacha always has and always must be constantly re-aimed and re-focused. Otherwise it becomes irrelevant at best and dangerously counter-productive at worst. To worship a model which no longer works is, like any form of avoda zora, a deflection from our goal.

We need to see Talmud as more than a primitive rule book, but as a text on logic and thought. So far removed historically from the time of the talmud, it’s easy to misread it. For example, while on the surface Shabbat may be discussing the laws of Shabbat observance and Brachot the structures and timings of prayers, the real topics are the abstract logic skills needed to understand the world and our way of working within it. Shabbat and Prayer were taken as givens in that world–they provided a set of familiar and common experience in order to illustrate the concepts, much as apples and oranges do in the “story problems” of a contemporary mathematics textbook (which, obviously, is not about apples or oranges). Once again, Torah speaks the language of man in order to teach.

So yes, Shabbat and Brachot and civil laws and religious laws are all important, but they were also part of environment. I doubt if the early sages really worried about the situations they talk about really occurring so much as they employ each example as a new lens, a new perspective to add to understanding the world in all its depths.

It’s a journey of discovery, of communal effort both across place and across the generations of time. Every unique point-of-view and insight is an essential part of the whole. There is also a synergy which incorporates the mere fact of the combining of outlooks, views, backgrounds and experiences. This is, perhaps, an underlying meaning of talmud Torah k’neged kulam, the study of Torah is balanced with everyone.

Harry Zeitlin, September 1998

Three great teachers each left me with brief statements which have guided me as a rabbi, an artist, a parent, a husband, a teacher, a person.

When I first asked Rabbi Shloime Twersky zt”l about moving back to Denver (I was living in Los Angeles at the time, photographing as well as studying at Yeshiva University of Los Angeles) and studying with him for smicha, he took my head in his hands, looked me in the eye and told me that the greatest mistake he’d made as a rabbi was to let people become dependent on him. He would be happy to “work something out” for me to study with him, but he warned me that if he saw me even begin to become dependent on him he’d kick me right out his door.

Dr. Hisashi Ohta, who was a Living National Treasure of Japan, a Zen Master, the finest painter I’ve ever know and my teacher from his eightieth year until his death at eighty-two, often told us that “Beauty is not always sweet”. He also gave me a stunning calligraphy which hangs to this day over my desk. It says, “Colors, so-called in this world, all of them become hollow.”

Rabbi Daniel Goldberger, a recently-retired congregational rabbi in Denver and a lifelong family friend (I grew up with his children and remain friends with them), once told me, “the only luxury I won’t try to afford myself is 100% certainty”.

One of my greatest blessing in this life has been my teachers. I honestly can’t think of a truly horrible teacher at any point from pre-school through college and later art, music and smicha. While many of my teachers were rabbis, certainly not all were “orthodox”. However, my college advisor was a devout Mormon, my painting teacher a Zen Buddhist, my closest friend and artistic guide a former Vedanta monk. Our sages teach us that to become wise we must learn how to learn from everyone.

Each year we face an old holiday as new people. Our experiences over the previous year change us as well as our goals for the new year. Our relationship to “constants” also changes, keeping the holidays themselves alive.

My thoughts about Purim this year have much to do with my deepening study of the Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzatto, a late-seventeenth century kabbalist, moralist and poet, much of whose focus was updating an understanding of the great talmudist and mystic, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the author of the Zohar, in light of the relatively recent revelations of Rabbi Isaac Luria, the famous Ari of Zefat.

Hopefully, this pedigree won’t be off-putting since ultimately our mystical traditions, our ethical traditions and our historical traditions all merge into the multi-faceted gestalt of our Jewish experience.

Anyhow, perhaps the most obvious, although often overlooked feature of the entire Purim story is the elevation of Esther, the Queen, personifying the feminine, to becoming co-equal with the King, obviously the male principle.

Not surprisingly, the ultimate rebalancing of our universe which we code-word as “Geula”, redemption or Mashiach, Messianic reality, is described by our mystical language as the rising of the Feminine and it’s ultimate unification with the Male, completing the Wholeness of God.

The connection to Purim is thus pretty obvious. The resolution is the salvation of our people, Light and Happiness, the world put aright. “Tikkun Olam” in current, but timeless language.

Here, however, I hit a brick wall since I cannot fully understand what this Feminine Nature is that must rise to its own level. I do know that it isn’t the Feminine miming the Male, since if that were the case there would be no point. It’s illuminating that in our mostly male-composed literature, we use the phrase “Raz”, secret or mystery, to describe that which is as utterly unknowable to men as the Male is to women. But perhaps that is part of the beauty of it all.

Purim always falls around the Tora portion of “T’Zaveh” which focuses on the clothing and the initiation of Aaron, the Cohain Gadol or High Priest. Judaism doesn’t subscribe to nepotism, so Aaron’s merit of this position has nothing to do with his being Moshe’s brother. Rather, as the Ramchal points out, his chief activity of “ohev shalom v’rodef shalom”, loving and actively creating peace, especially in the realm of “shalom beyn ish l’ishto”, peace and love between man and wife, uniquely qualifies him to be the human agent to work towards this unification of the Divine Feminine with the Divine Masculine within the activities of the Temple, the Divine Resting Place. Perhaps, by donning the holy clothes and drinking from the holy vessels plundered from the Temple, Ahashueros inadvertantly invokes this special energy which initiates the entire process, culminating in the final rebalance.

So, Queen Esther rises and perhaps we, both men and women, can allow our feminine sides to rise to their own uniquely co-equal status within each of us so that this year truly, “L’Yehudim Hoyta Ora v’Simcha”, “to the Jews (that part of reality we code-name “Jews”, i.e. balance, morality, integrity) there will be Light and Happiness”

Chag Purim Sameach

Outside of the very real issue of transmitting a culture, like many “enlightened” people, I have to overcome a gut reaction against the idea of cutting a baby. Since I’ve yet to find that our shared spiritual path is inherently inconsistent, however, I’ve tried to develop with some ideas which I think fall much more strongly into explanations than apologetics.

The extended Shabbat P’sukei D’zimra includes the phrase, “sur mey-ra v’osey tov”, turn away (or remove) evil and do good. In the past I’ve relied on the thoughts of the “Meor Eynayim” (founder of the Twersky dynasty) who talks about the need for a teacher to insist on growing levels of tshuva from his/her student before revealing/discussing ever-deeper levels of meaning.

A Brit Mila, however, is, obviously, much more physical and I think the significance is also much more obvious and physical. It’s not mere chance that the penis has a portion which is expendable. And it isn’t radical feminism or male self-hatred to observe that most tikkunim of humanity at this point in our evolution have to do with blunting aggressiveness and raising the feminine and balancing it with the masculine.

The circumcision itself only begins the process of completing and perfecting a man by de-emphasizing all that the penis has come to symbolize. Just like birth is only the beginning and that pain will also soon fade in memory (so I’m told, of course). Now that we’ve done the “sur mey-ra”, removed the excess emphasis nature gave men, we now have to “osey tov”. Perhaps it’s fortuitous that we’re approaching Purim where, not even that far beneath the surface of the story, the real action is the elevation of the Queen. And as I’m sure you’ve studying in many approaches to kabbalistic symbolism, the important tikkunim, no surprise, are the opening up and the elevation of the feminine, bringing it to balance with the masculine in the ultimate “yichud”. Yehi Ratzon that the seeming cruelty and pain is actually Chesed which helps him begin this process by removing such a basic and obvious obstacle.

Where do we learn of this Mitzva? From the Shema, “U’Ktavtem al Mezuzot Beytecha U’V’Sha’arecha”

What is it we write? What is in the Mezuza itself? The Shema!

Jewish thinking, Jewish reasoning is associative. As I’ve said many times, the sages didn’t have many doubts as to practical halachic decisions. Rather, the ‚Gemara is a textbook using familiar concepts (Shabbat, Tallit, etc.) to teach advanced logic like a math textbook using apples and oranges).

So what’s in the Shema?

SHEMA

Shema means to listen, not merely to hear. It’s activating a process which is all-too-often, in our very noisy world, passive. It means opening ourselves up to what is already there to be heard.

Yisrael is one name for the Jewish people. It’s also the named earned by our ancestor Jacob after a night of wrestling with a higher power. Jacob personifies balance and integration and he also personifies struggle. This meditation isn’t exclusive to a single ethnic or religious group but is addressed to that part in all of us which struggles to make sense, to find a way, to take what has come before us and to transform it and balance it for future use. We resist complacence.

The Lord, God’s name which we use here is a pointer to time as a dimension, as an integral part of the time-space-spirit reality. Transcending our human limitations, time becomes an expanse, not a flow. But that point of view is that of the infinite and the eternal.

Is our God does not make an ethnocentric statement that our candidate is the top contender for top god. Rather we realize that among the infinite powers of God is the ability to penetrate our world on a personal basis, to somehow self-transform from unreachable to intimately approachable. This name for God is often associated with the concept of compression and constriction, the Infinite taking on the appearance of the finite so we may approach.

The Lord once again returns our thoughts to the infinite, the eternal, the all-encompassing.

Is One is not merely a formal statement of monotheism. It’s much deeper and more profound than that. We should try to experience how ultimately everything is unified through sharing the essence of the One. No other person, no other creature, no other object, no other thought, no other emotion is of less importance than I. We, and everything else, are unique aspects of the All.

What’s a Bayit ? What’s a house? First, it’s a letter, the first letter of the Torah.

Rabbi Itzchak Marmorstein writes in his rather kabbalistic (which means concerned with the inner, psychological meaning of Torah) Mila Yomit:

“Bet-(B) -House, a vessel defined by a floor, a roof and a wall with an open side, similar to our universe that provides us with a floor, a roof, a wall allowing for verticality and an open future.

Bet is the first of the seven double letters, those that are pronounced hard or soft (bet or vet). As seven they each represent a day of the week and reflect the duality of our daily experience. Bet corresponds with the first day; Sunday and is dominated by Chochmah-wisdom.

Numerical value 2- representing the first emerge of two, the Creator and the Created.

Sefira Correspondence-Chesed-Love. The creation as an act of love.”

One also refers to wife as a Bayit. In these days, perhaps we can and must update the definition to the sense of family, of friends, of community. Torah must live and that means to grow and to develop. Thus, we want to seal our Bayit, our house, our family, our community and our world with the lessons of the Shema.

There is also the equally important concept of Sha’ar, gate. Perhaps this takes us back to tying everything together because a Sha’ar, a gate, usually refers to the mouth. And this gives us a clue how we use the Shema, how we put the MitzvaÝ of the Mezuza to practical use, rather than just as some sort of magic amulet or ethnic decoration.

Our mouth is our main port, in computer-speak, out means of input and output: the air we breathe, the food we eat and drink, our words. We have a habit of making Brachot when we eat or drink. Not everyone makes the Brachot and not everyone follows the dietary laws and not necessarily in the same way, but the idea is to create awareness of what we eat, of how it’s derived, of what use it will be put to. Will our mouths, our individual Sha’ar be sealed with the Shema? None of us are, at least I know I’m not, at such a spiritual level of eating only for sustenance. I have a terrible sweet tooth and love spicy food! But do we try to be aware when we eat that it will give us energy to act and the choice then is ours how to use this fuel?

And when we speak, perhaps the most powerful act humans regularly perform, will our mouths, our individual Sha’ar be sealed with theShema? Not spouting pietisms, but will we really use our mouths in a Godly way, in a way to bring peace, to join people, to help create community and insight and growth and progress?

And not only do we dedicate our Bayit, our “home base” to this, although perhaps we can and should look at home as a “charging” center. Because if we recall the rest of the Shema, we remember the words, U’velechtecha BaDerech, when we go on our way. Perhaps on a grey, rainy afternoon like this there’s nowhere we’d rather be than in our warmBayit, our house, especially now filled with family, friends, community. But when the day breaks, in this case a new secular year, we take everything from our house, our Bayit, sealed with the Shema within these ÓÊÂʉ cases, pass through the Sha’ar, the house-gate, our mouths, “take it on the road” and try to continue our unique ways to improve the world.

Keyn Yehi Ratzon May it be Your will.

One of the three required topics at the seder table and ingredients on the seder plate is the shankbone or Pesach, which shares it’s name with the entire holiday. In the “enlightened 90’s”, it’s often very difficult to talk about Karbanot, Animal Sacrifices, without some feelings of embarrassment or apologetics. When you’re vegetarian as we are, it’s the only time in the year meat is even at our table!

We often begin the discussion with a sense of historical pride that our Jewish tradition, beginning with the Akeda, the Binding of Isaac, initiated the transition towards a higher level of civilization, ending human sacrifice by substituting other animals. Rav Kook, first Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel, taught that in the Third Temple, and let us forgo trying to understand that concept right now, sacrifices will be further refined and limited to the Karban Mincha, the meal-offerings. So, we can see this shankbone as a step along the way and, in fact, our most recent one.

Sacrifice, both in it’s literal meaning of “making something sacred” and in it’s vernacular meaning of giving something up, is an extremely inadequate translation of the Hebrew word and concept of Karban. As many of you know, the root of the word means to approach, to bring together. The spiritual function of the Karbanot was to bring humans closer to the Creator, to somehow become more complete, more fully human. This was achieved by the simple act of giving up something of significant value in order to feed those without resources, since we should remind ourselves that most karbanot weren’t merely slaughtered and burnt, but rather supplied food for the Cohanim, the Temple priests, who had no land or flocks of their own. It was also, in the case where the donors ate (as in the Karban Pesach), a way to heighten our awareness and refine our eating. Remember, in those days and throughout most of Jewish (and human) history, not only was meat a rare luxury, but food didn’t come pre-packaged and already prepared.

We now come to an interesting question which is why Aaron and his descendants were in charge of this process. Thankfully, for most of Jewish history, nepotism and dynasticism were not strong forces. Aaron was not chosen to be Cohain Gadol, High Priest, merely because his brother was the tribal leader, Moses, but because of his own unique personality and qualifications. The very little information we have about Aaron is that he was Ohev Shalom and Rodef Shalom, not merely “loving peace”, as who among us doesn’t, but actively trying to create peace, especially beyn ish l’ishto, between a man and wife. In other words, this overriding concern to bring people together, this gift to create peace, qualified Aaron to pursue this task also in the spiritual and transcendental relationship between man and God. (Much of this is based on writings of the Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzatto in the early 1700’s.)

All right, I’m feeling a little better about karbanot in general now. I don’t feel I must apologize for fondly remembering an ancient barbaric ritual. But I still haven’t started to explore this particular one, the Karban Pesach.

Rashi, the “Great Commentator”–really much more than that,he teases us throughout our studies with hints and clues to deeper meanings–begins his commentary on the entire Torah wondering why it starts with the Creation story and not with the initial preparations for the Karban Pesach which are the first commandments given to the Jewish nation. He hints, at least, that there is something very primal and essential about this karban. He points to further exploration.

I next turned to the Maharal, Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, a sixteenth century scholar and community leader who wrote a very illuminating book about the descent into and the redemption from Egypt. When he examines the Karban Pesach he finds that everything about it leads back to the concept of Achdut, Oneness. It’s eaten whole in one house by one family (or one group of families if there is too much food for a single family). It is eaten for one night only. It cannot be broken up in the preparation (even a broken bone disqualifies it) and is roasted rather than boiled in order to keep it from coming apart in a broth or stew. It comes from a Seh, a lamb or kid, one year old. He relates a beautiful rabbinic comparison of this small animal, this Seh (as opposed to a large animal such as a cow or an ox) with the Jewish People whereas if you pull one leg of this lamb, the entire animal follows just as when one Jew grows, all of us benefit and when one of us sins, all are brought down. In other words, this points to the oneness of our people.

Finally we see this shankbone no longer memorializing a quaint custom but continuously focusing our attention on the idea of oneness.

The question arises, of course, what do we mean by One? Are we being inclusive or exclusive, universal or tribal or, as my wife described it, single or whole?

Both historically and halachically, we’ve looked at Jewish oneness as a celebration of our uniqueness but never as a template all others must follow. Rather, we’ve looked to a much more universal goal where each individual in their uniqueness, each group and family and tribe and nation in their uniqueness, is a necessary and organic part of a functioning whole, a universe in which we’re partners in Creation by the act of our re-creating, refining and evolving ourselves.

The Maharal goes even further when he reminds us that the Pesach, leading up to Oneness specifically, as we remember, through the act of Chesed, kindness, the karban, must be eaten with the Matzo and the Maror, the unleavened, simple bread and the bitter herbs, the symbol of freedom and the reminder of bondage. The possibilities, the experiences, the choices are all contained within the Oneness, the source of all.

We say Hag Kasher v’Sameach, a happy and kosher holiday. Let’s remember that kasher doesn’t mean only “according to Jewish dietary laws”, but fully-prepared. May we prepare ourselves individually, communally and universally for this next step.

Hag Kasher v’Sameach.

he Mishna of Rosh HaShana begins with the not-so-apparent and perhaps not so relevant information that there are actually four dates considered New Years, each for a different purpose. However, it has long been our tradition and with no dissent or uncertainty, that these upcoming days at the beginning of Tishrei, mark what is universally, within Judaism, known as Rosh HaShana. The other dates all have other names or holidays associated with them, Pesah (in Nissan), Tu B’Shvat, or collapse back into the Tishrei date (the first of Elul, in terms of the dialectic in the Mishna), leaving only three. It thus seems obvious that our sages are trying to push us to think in terms of the related concepts of four and how they work together in an interplay to jar us into greater awareness and growth for this turning of the season and the turning of the year. Also, the alternation between three and four seems an important hint.

A number of Jewish fours spring to mind. Perhaps the most obvious is the four-letter name of God, Yod Hay Vav Hey. This leads us to the concept of the four kabbalistic worlds, Atzilut, Briya, Yetzira and Asiya, four levels of our consciousness and four levels of ever-more-interior/basic/higher/more-fundamental analysis of how things are. This also points us towards many classical Jewish meditation and breathing techniques as well as hinting, by the tip of the Yod, the wonder of what’s beyond the Four Worlds, to the unknown and unknowable, the Ein Sof, the ultimate source of humility, awe and respect for that both most deeply within us and that completely other from our self-conceptions. However, in many systems the Yod itself, as well as the world of Atzilut represent that which is beyond our knowing, returning us effectively to three levels in which we function.

Two other major areas of four also spring to mind. The four Imahot, the Matriarchs, Sarah, Rivka (Rebecca), Leah and Rachel, four aspects of the great feminine energy which not only complement but also enclose and enclothe the three aspects of masculine energy represented by the Patriarchs Avraham (Abraham), Yitzchak (Isaac) and Ya’akov/Yisrael (Jacob/Israel) (whose dual name/dual nature bridges the realm of three to the realm of four). We learn that Avraham represents Chesed, pure lovingkindness, Yitzchak, Din, strict justice and structure and Ya’akov Tiferet, the balance of the two. And as Yisrael, he transcends the limitations of mere clan-ness and, with his own four wives encompasses all and creates with them nationhood. Again a four which becomes three which becomes four…..

Next, we return to the very beginning of the Tora and read in the Creation story of the river which flows out of Eden and splits into four “heads”, irrigating, nourishing, illuminating and informing the world.

Turning to the Zohar, the basis of most Kabbala, in the Idra Zuta, that final, mysterious meeting just before his death that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai holds with his closest students, trying to pass on the deepest wisdom for a final time, we hear of the three “skulls” or heads which represent the stages of divine energy, of the vitalizing force which creates and sustains reality. Stumped and disappointed–I wanted an easy connection, I then remembered the fourth, unseen head, the Raisha D’lo ItYada, literally the head which can’t be known, that which fully transcends our human ability to perceive or imagine, the Ein Sof which, as it were, encompasses all (just as the four Matriarchs enclose and enclothe the three Patriarchs). Also within the Kabbalistic “Worlds” description we have the vibration between four and three and back again as the three “lower” worlds exist co-equal with the highest, then become secondary and dependent as defining/revealing/completing “garments” for the highest and thus most abstract reality and then return as independent but interdependent entities as the fourth is once again beyond our perception.

Going out on a limb, especially since I hesitate to propose any easy definitions of either masculine or feminine, I offer this historical and future perspective on Rosh HaShana. It certainly isn’t meant to be an exclusive Truth, but I hope it will contribute to our individual and collective efforts at growth, healing and evolution.

Many historians, sociologists, anthropologists and, perhaps dreamers have proposed a prehistory where the feminine was dominant. Certainly most of recorded history has been the age of masculine power, but that has rapidly been changing. We learn that on Rosh HaShana the world was created and according to the Ari,cited by many masters, on each Rosh HaShana the world, as it were, is reset to it’s starting values. In other words, each year we have a chance to rebalance and to begin anew. Keeping this in mind, perhaps a message to take with us into our meditations and prayers and plans is the rebalancing of these forces, masculine and feminine, unique but co-equal, each necessary and only -together-sufficient to invite the Third Partner, who in ultimate transcendence is, perhaps, also the Fourth, to reach new heights this year, to integrate and motivate, to unify and celebrate uniqueness, to make this a year that together we more closely approach our potentials and our destinies. A year of song as a metaphorical string vibrates between and creates a harmony of these two values, a year filled with light and love for all.

Keyn Yehi Ratzon