Torah Thoughts – Nitzavim

Torah Thoughts
Parshat Nitzavim Deuteronomy 29:9 – 30:20
September 27, 2008   27 Elul, 5768

“You stand this day, all of you before The Holy One your G!d…” Nitzavim has such a dramatic beginning, and leads so well into not just the historic narrative of the text but also into the Holy Days, when we once again all stand together before G!d. It is a statement of anticipation and of anxiety. We are all standing on a precipice – all looking into what we hope is the promised land of our future, trying to figure out the ways in which our pasts will lead us into our futures. The covenant which was established with Children Israel, as they stood there in the presence of G!d, was designed precisely so we would feel this angst when we read these words at this time of the year – we are about to stand before our G!d. Are we ready?

According to Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Judaism is a religion of time, aiming at the sanctification of time… the Bible senses the diversified character of time. There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious. Judaism teaches us to be attached to the holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events.” (The Sabbath) Most of what we do as Jews is based not on things but on time, time of the day, time of the week, month, year. We mark days for remembrance. Look at the mahzor (the prayerbook for the Holy Days) or a siddur (prayerbook) and you’ll find the word “Yom” (day) more often than you might originally think. “hayom harat olam“, today is the birthday of the world from the Rosh Hashannah liturgy, and also the day when we stand before our G!d.

I like to tell this story a lot. Maybe you’ve heard it. I was on the subway once when I saw a man who looked totally exhausted sitting across from me. I watched him struggle to stay awake, watched him as he anxiously peered out the window at a stop to see if he had missed his. It took me a while, but I figured out why he was so tired. His shirt had the name of his company on it: “Time Movers”. No wonder he was exhausted! He had spent his day moving time!

Time movers. I wonder what they do, and how they do it. Think about it: if you could move time, how would you do it? Would you move time in a way which is different from the way we currently experience it? Would you make time move faster or slower? (After all, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?)  Would you move your time to a different age altogether, like the 17th century or the 25th century?

I wanted to wake the Time Mover, to ask him how he does what he does, and to seek his advice on how I could learn his technique. Unfortunately, such things just are not done in New York. With the exception of the Time Movers, the rest of us live in time which can’t be moved. Life has really just two tenses: past and future. We are in the constant flow between the two, every moment is either about to happen or has slipped by.   We experience time each moment as it comes, each day as we live it, each week, etc.

Rosh Hashannah takes the concept of holiness in time one step further. It marks the passage of a complete Jewish year. Rosh Hashannah begs the question: If you can’t move time, what have you done with the time since last Rosh Hashannah?  What have you done with the 550,080 minutes, the 9168 hours, the 382 days, the 54 1/2 weeks since last Rosh Hashannah? (These are the actual numbers since last Rosh Hashannah. (5768 was one of those leap years with an extra month in the calendar.) Have you lived these times to your fullest? Rosh Hashannah asks us to begin a process of examining how we lived our time, and how will we use our own time in the future.

Rosh Hashannah is the Jewish time to reflect on how we have used our time as a nation, as a people, as human beings. Think back and list all of the things that have happened this year in human history. And what has happened this year in your own life? What really made you proud? Where did you find your nachas – your sources of joy? What were the challenges you faced? How did you do with those challenges? What remains undone, unexamined, unapproached? Who was sick, who is sick, who has recovered? What were your major life-changes of this year, and what became more comfortable for you in its ongoing reliability? Think of two moments in the last year which made your heart sing, and two moments which made your soul ache.

Rosh Hashannah is the moment of transition between what was and what will be. We begin today to look at our lives over the past year, and start considering for the year to come. How do you want it to be? In what ways do you have to change in order for the desires of your heart to happen? What needs to be done to undo the things you have done that were wrong? How can you prevent them  from happening next year? During the next weeks will be in limbo between how we lived our lives in 5768, and how we will live our lives in 5769.

The rabbis teach us that we should live each day of our lives as though it were our last day, because, in reality, we never can know. Live each day fully, one day at a time, live time fully, for each moment could be our last.

This Rosh Hashannah, may we all be blessed beneath the wings of shehinah, G!d’s Holy Presence, with the strength and courage to face our failures, to own our weaknesses, and may we find the help, the security, the compassion we all seek. May we look at our time, forgive ourselves and commit to the changes that we must make to move peacefully through time, rather than to move time. May we be blessed with that which is truly precious and therefore most holy – time.

Torah Thoughts Ki Tavo

Torah Thoughts
Ki Tavo      Deuteronomy 26:1 – 29: 8
September 20, 2008     20 Elul 5768

Some of the recurring themes of the High Holy Days are t’filah, t’shuvah and tzedakah – prayer, repentance and acts of lovingkindness – themes that are reflected in the u’netanah tokef prayer.  When it comes to prayer, it is difficult to quantify whether we have prayed enough, prayed with adequate feeling and commitment, or even prayed according to Jewish tradition. Only G!d knows whether prayers are acceptable. Did I spend enough of my time meditating on life, thinking about what I was doing, where I was going? I can wonder whether I have engaged in conversation with G!d, listened enough to what G!d wants me to hear, but I probably could have done more, been in the process more. Is there ever enough?

When it comes to repentance, once again, “Have I done enough?”  “Did I miss opportunities?” “Should I have done more?” While I may think that I have reasonably repented, G!d’s view may be totally different. Did I ask for enough forgiveness? G!d knows, and I know, that I should ask for forgiveness, but I may not even know all the people I have offended, or be able to count that high! Did I forgive myself for being such a failure in the things I expected to get done, that I have yet to start? Did I come up with ways to be more gentle with myself and less judgmental about my life? To be honest, I probably could have done more, been in the process more. Is there ever enough?

But, when it comes to acts of lovingkindness, the Torah is clear on one aspect of this theme, we need to give a minimum of 10% of our gross income to help others in need.  Every year when we speak to our accountants before tax time, it’s right there in black and white. Either I made the mark or I didn’t.  Either I gave at least 10% or I didn’t!  Therefore, as I see it, of the 3 fundamental principles of the High Holidays, the only one that is quantifiable in human terms is tzedakah, charity/acts of lovingkindness. There are other acts of lovingkindness we can do, but this one we can measure.

So how are you doing with this concept of 10%? Look at your books. Take an inventory, now, before the Holidays. If your last gift was last year, if you’re not giving nearly 10%, are you even attempting the number?  Everyone, even a beggar on the street, is obligated to give to help others. I would venture to guess that no one reading this Torah Reflection is a beggar. Think about 10% for a moment. No matter what you’re earning per year when you divide the 10% of your earnings by 365 days, it comes out to a very small amount of money to give away daily.

Okay, some of our readers are now saying  “No way, the rabbi is nuts! I have too little already!” So don’t start out giving at 10% if you feel you can’t afford it. Go for 5%. Can you do that? Get started somewhere and build your giving. The paradox of giving: the more you give away, the richer you’ll feel. The more good you do by helping others, the better off you’ll be. If you light one candle with the flame of another candle, that does not diminish the light – it actually makes it stronger. And while working for an organization is good, meaningful, and helpful, it does not excuse you from the responsibility of giving money, too.

Do your math. If the answer to your personal question is yes, I could have done more, get going!

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, contains all kinds of blessings and curses for when the people will come into the land of Israel at the end of their long journey in the desert. But the curses come with an interesting chorus: “And all the people will respond ‘amen’”. I wondered about that “amen” line. Why is it there? “Amen” is a word of affirmation: do I really want to affirm the curses?

Change is sort of a dialog, both internal and external. We go from who we were, to who we are, to who we will be. Each step of these curses is a step in our personal journeys. By saying amen, we affirm that we are on the road, making our journey with G!d at our side. With each step we are essentially different from who we were before we took that last step, and we will be different from who we are now when we take the next. Each step is a step in the direction that is right for us. In saying “amen” we affirm that we’re on that road with G!d.

So this “holiday preparedness season” is asking you to say “amen”, not to the curses, but to the actions which lead you away from the curses. It asks you to look at your life, your prayer and meditation, your relationships with G!d and others, and your checkbooks, to see exactly where you stand as you approach a time to say “amen”, a time when you say “I did the best I could”.  Assess where you are, now, just a few days before Rosh Hashannah, and note that praying or repenting endlessly from now till Rosh Hashannah will probably not do it for you. But you can certainly take a step in the right direction by examining your giving patterns and saying amen – to walk this journey of life with G!d at your side by doing the things we’re supposed to do. Say amen not to the curses to but to the journey away from the curses. And let us say, amen.

Rabbi H. Rafael Goldstein, BCC
Spiritual Life Coach
Dynamics of Hope Consultants
www.dynamicsofhope.com
ravrafael@earthlink.net
602-459-1819

Torah Thoughts – Ki Tetze

Torah Thoughts
Ki Tetze   Deuteronomy 21:10 – 25:19
September 13, 2007   13 Elul, 5768

This week, we read in our Torah portion that  “If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life.” My question: Why? Why not take the mother with her young? What’s the big deal here? Perhaps the reason is tsa’ar ba’alei hayim – protection for the feelings of the animals. A mother hen should not have to watch her chicks slaughtered, same as we have with boiling a kid in its mother’s milk.

Maybe that’s really what this is about, but it seems lame to me. If you don’t take them together, which should you take? If you take the mother, the chicks will die. So they are wasted. If you take the chicks (or the eggs) what good are they? Assuming that the eggs are fertilized, which is why the hen is sitting on them, you can’t use them for food – they aren’t cookable eggs. If they are fledgling birds, they also are useless for food, there’s no meat on their bones. You couldn’t put them in an incubator and raise them. They needed their mother to survive. Either way the chicks are wasted.

If we look at the law as having a deeper meaning, what would it be? It seems to me that we should treat each other with the same care and concern. If we’re supposed to care for animals, show them mercy and concern, how much the more so are we supposed to show our concern for human beings. Remember the end of the book of Jonah, which we read every year on Yom Kippur? G!d shelters Jonah from intense heat of the  sun by growing a gourd. The gourd then dies. Jonah kvetches about the loss of the gourd. G!d chastises him saying, “you care so much about a gourd, and not about the city of Nineveh with 120,000 people in it?”

So this Torah portion is really about how we are supposed to behave as people toward other people. It’s put in terms everyone should understand, about chickens and eggs. Especially now, in the weeks before Rosh Hashannah, it’s the time for us to consider our relationships with people, and see if they fit the “chicken and egg”  caring test. I want to suggest three personal activities which can be helpful in focusing on how we are doing in caring for other people; all are things which we can and should be able to make changes in the upcoming weeks.

a. lashon ha-ra. Bad mouthing people.  It has to stop. All of us do it, and all of us need to consider ways to lessen the negative impacts of our mouths. Just as we need to worry about the emotional impact our behavior may have on an animal, we have to consider the impact gossip, bad mouthing people, can have on the people whose reputations we are harming, the people listening to our nonsense, and ultimately on ourselves. By participating in lashon ha-ra, we destroy lives as surely as we destroy the lives of the birds in the Torah portion. And in so doing, we also lower ourselves.

lashon ha-ra also applies to the nasty things we read on the Internet, often about candidates we don’t like. Passing on the vile lies about political candidates we read daily is lashon ha-ra. How do you know if it’s true? Look it up yourself; verify it. If you did not hear the candidate say what s/he is alleged to have said, look up the texts for yourself. If you can’t find the evidence, why are you passing it around? There are plenty of valid grounds for all of us to pick apart the people who are running for office. We don’t need to make stuff up, and certainly don’t need to accept, on face value, someone else’s lies.

Ask 3 questions before you engage in any talk about another person: (1) Is it true? (2) Is it nice? (3) Is it necessary? If you can’t say yes to all questions, it’s lashon ha-ra.

b. hah-nasat or-him. Making people feel welcome in our homes. I have noticed that few people invite me to dinner, ever. Maybe it’s me. But it’s not the way I remember. I remember going to people’s houses, sitting at their tables, enjoying a meal together. Now, if I do food with someone, we go to a restaurant. When you open your home to others, though, it’s not about the food. It’s about being and sharing lives together.   Reaching out to others, inviting them to a meal, dessert or something in your home is a hallmark of how we are doing in caring for others in our community.  It’s not about the guests, and how they benefit at our tables, it’s about us, and how we benefit from their presence. As we look at Holidays and start our personal planning, are we sure that everyone, including older singles and new families with little kids, have welcoming homes to go to for Holiday meals? If you can, invite some guests into your home to help make the High Holy Days holy at home.

c. tzedakah: plan to give. Yizkor, the prayer of memory for people whom we loved and who are now dead, used to include a line about making a donation to keep their memory alive. It’s missing from many modern prayerbooks, because people thought it was tacky to talk about money in remembering the dead. But it’s not only an act of righteousness, of doing justice for your own good, but a way of keeping the loved-one’s name associated with doing good. What more would we want than to have our names associated with good deeds even after our lifetimes?

As you manage not to kill off little chicks, or harm the hen’s feelings, think abut how you are also supposed to make the world a better place for all of us by giving and doing acts of justice. There are lots of organizations that would welcome your participation, and your check, but’s not about the organizations that will benefit – it’s about your own need to do that which is right.

We need to stop talking about people behind their backs; welcome people into our homes, and consider how we can make the world a better place. The compassion we are supposed to show for a mother bird with her chicks is an example of the compassion we are supposed to show for other people and for ourselves. May we all be blessed, as we focus on the upcoming year, with the ability to seek ways to improve our lives, ways to improve and respect the lives of others, and ways to bring our dreams to reality. May our New Year be filled with the same compassion that we would show to mother birds in our midst – compassion for our families, our community, and for ourselves.

Torah Thoughts – Shoftim

Torah Thoughts
Parshat Shoftim    Deuteronomy  16:18 – 21:9
September 6, 2008     4 Elul 5768

We have just  began the month of Elul, the month preceding the High Holidays, a month  traditionally set aside for thinking about getting ready for the High Holy  Days. It says in this week’s Torah portion “tamim tehiyeh im adonai  elohecha” You will be simple (wholehearted) with the Holy One, your G!d.”  In other words, you will trust in G!d, surrendering unto G!d that which is  G!d’s domain. G!d is commanding us to take responsibility for that which we  can control, to fulfill our obligations, to do that which is right and just.  The Torah portion then goes on to forbid sorcery, which is an effort to  control those things over which we have no domain.

According to  Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Judaism is a religion of time, aiming at the  sanctification of time… the Bible senses the diversified character of time.  There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at  the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious. Judaism teaches us to be  attached to the holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events.” (The  Sabbath) Most of what we do is based not on things but on time, time of  the day, time of the week, month, year. We mark days for remembrance.

Our Torah portion speaks about cities of refuge for people who have  committed manslaughter, for them to go to for safe-keeping until the death of  the High Priest, who, if he were doing his job right, would have prayed well  enough to prevent the disasters of accidental deaths. The month of Elul is a  refuge in time, for all of us, who have done terrible things, some  purposefully, some unintentionally.  Elul is when we look inside to see  how we are using our time, which we get to control. Elul is the beginning of  our process of transition between what was and what will be. We begin to get  ready for the Holidays by looking at our lives over the past year, and start  considering for the year to come. How do we want it to be? In what ways do we  have to change in order for the desires of our hearts to happen? What needs to  be done to undo the things we did that were wrong? How can we prevent them  from happening next year?

The month of Elul gets us thinking about the  High Holidays, and whenever I start thinking about the Holy Days, I am  reminded of the scariest poem in our liturgy, and feel an obligation to help  people to understand it better. The scary poem is included in every Rosh  Hashannah and Yom Kippur service in almost every synagogue. The part most of  us are most familiar with says that On Rosh Hashannah it is inscribed, and  on Yom Kippur it is sealed, who shall live and who shall die.  The  poem then goes on to list some of the possible ways in which people  might die – by fire, water, plague, starvation, etc. It’s a specific, but not  exclusive, list.

Written by Rabbi Amnon of Mainz, one of the greatest  men of his generation, the circumstances that led him to write this poem were  unfortunately not all that unique for Jews of his time – he had been tortured  in an effort to force him to convert. According to the legend, he either wrote  u’netanah tokef on his deathbed or dictated it after his death in a  dream to Rabbi Kolanymous. I’m not sure what to make of the legend, and  similarly, most Jews are really not sure of what to make of the poem.
When I was a kid I puzzled over whether or not it was okay for  G!d to write on Rosh Hashannah. After all, we were told it was  forbidden to write on yom tov – a holy day. Certainly, on Yom  Kippur, I couldn’t figure out why it was ok for G!d to seal anything since we  are forbidden to do such work on Yom Kippur. Beyond my own confusion, I  learned much later that a lot of people find this poetry very disturbing.  There’s a book out there, somewhere, in which our fates are written, closed,  sealed. What’s the point of having such a book, and, if it’s written down  during these ten days, how does what we do the rest of the time effect that  fate? Isn’t it rather cruel for decisions made in September or October about  the fates of people who will die next June? What if they are really good  between now and then? Does G!d include in this book the deaths of babies who  are born after the Holidays and die before next year’s holidays? What kind of  G!d would intentionally make this kind of decision in  advance?

Okay, it’s all a metaphor, but, for most of us, we miss  the entire point. We focus so much on the list of the ways in which people can  die that we miss the words that follow the list, that make it all make more  sense. Those 7 words are “u’teshuvah, u’tefillah, u’tzedakah, ma’vaerin et  roah hagezerah”. Repentance, prayer, and acts of lovingkindness can shift  (or remove) the bitterness of the decree. Repentance, prayer, and acts of  lovingkindness do not remove the decree, they remove the bitterness thereof.   They can make the decree tolerable.

Repentance, prayer and  acts of loving-kindness. Some of the most positive ways in which we can live  our lives: recognizing what we have done wrong, correcting the mistakes,  seeking forgiveness from those we have harmed; seeking G!d in our lives,  relating to and relying upon G!d for the strength to improve our lives; and  acts of loving-kindness, helping other people, making life better for others,  not just for ourselves. So Rabbi Amnon’s paragraph focusing on death is really  focusing on surrender. People die in all kinds of ways over which we  have no control. Some deaths are tragic or make absolutely no sense. Some seem  downright cruel. They are all out of our control. Whether we live or  die in the upcoming year, according to our poet, we really don’t get to  control. We just have a list of some of the core issues over which we have no  choice but to recognize our powerlessness.

But we do get to  control the ways in which we live.  If we live our lives with a focus on  teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah, repentance, prayer, and acts of  loving-kindness, we might come to feel very differently about the ultimate  decree. It may not be so bitter after all. We may come to a place of  shalom, of inner peace, through the focus not on that which we can’t  control, but rather on that with which we can. We can rail against G!d for not  consulting us in these things or we enrich our lives living with G!d, taking  control over how we live.

In other words, Rabbi Amnon’s poem is  reflected in the very familiar quotation based on a statement by Reinhold  Niebuhr: G!d, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,  the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the  difference, The Serenity Prayer.  We cannot change the ways we are  going to die; we can change how we live in the meantime.

The rabbis  teach us that we should live each day of our lives as though it were our last,  because we never can know. Live each day fully, one day at a time. Live  time fully, because each moment could be our last. As we enter Elul,  our city of refuge in time, may we all be blessed beneath the wings of  shehinah, G!d’s Holy Presence, with the strength and courage to  face our failures, to own our weaknesses, and may we find the help, security,  and compassion we all seek. May we recognize the things over which we have no  control, and surrender them to G!d, have the strength and courage to work on  the things that we can control, and may we find the wisdom to understand the  difference fully. May we be blessed with that which is truly precious and  therefore most holy – time.

Torah Thoughts Re’eh

Torah Thoughts
See…Listen
Re’eh  Deuteronomy 11:26 – 16:17
August 30, 2008      29 Av, 5768

If you had a choice between being blind or being deaf, which would you choose? Why?

Both are essential senses, but I have no doubt of my choice. I would hate it, but I could live without seeing. But deafness? Not hearing, never hearing the sound of another person’s voice, not engaging in conversation directly, without signs, for me, would not be my choice. Hearing is the essence of communicating. Most people in our century are afraid of the dark, including the real darkness of blindness.  For me the fear is more personal. To not be able to communicate, to connect with other people and beings – that to me would be the major challenge.

All this talk about hearing and seeing and blessing and curses is, of course, directly related to this week’s Torah portion, Re’eh. Here’s how it starts: re’eh, ano-hi noten lifney-hem hayom b’raha u-k’la-la. See, I place before you today blessing and curse.  Blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the Holy One your G!d which I enjoin upon you this day. The first word, re’eh, “see”, is followed in the next sentence by the word tishm’u “listen”. See, listen.

What’s the difference? Why the different wording?  Seeing is immediate. You look, you see. To get a picture, you just push the button, you get instantly what you see. All the information is right there, whether or not you absorb all the details. But listening requires involvement – it requires waiting and focus, and time. Imagine me saying this next line out loud: “You – can’t – know – what – I – am – about – to – express – until – or – unless – it – happens”. Listening is long term.

I was listening to the radio in my car and heard an interview with a composer for film scores. He said something very interesting. In movies 10 to 20 years ago, the scores were much more simple, much more evocative of emotions, suspense and beauty because the films they accompanied were less action-packed, less special-effect oriented, and more “acted”. Film scores now have to wrap around sound and special effects on screen, which in the case of a Jurassic Park or Star Wars movie are the movie. The visual experience is dictating the audio experience. The visual demands an immediate response, the audio is a cumulative response over the course of the film.

This week’s Torah portion begins with the immediate statement, “Hey you, look!” Blessing is right here before you in front of your face. But even as it’s there, don’t get lost in the special effects. Listen to what I (G!d) am telling you. In listening to what you see, maybe there will be a way for it to sink in.

Seeing the blessings may require us to listen to the blessings in our lives, to take them in and see more than we see with just our eyes. Seeing is not believing. Seeing is taking a picture. You don’t need belief if you can see it! Belief is in the hearing – in the depth of the experience. But we live in a society which is so completely fixated on the visual that’s it’s no surprise that we don’t have time to listen.

In the three sentences which begin our Torah portion, the word hayom, today, appears three times – “today” I put before you blessing and curse; listen to these commandments “today”. “Today” appears again in the next sentence, about the curse. I find that repetition of the word hayom, “today”, to be very meaningful. Each and every day we have choices, we have opportunities, we have chances to make the blessings happen and to be there in our own lives. Each day we can start again, try anew. Each day we can change our habits, and move from a perception of curse to blessing. Each day we can move from seeing to hearing.

The other remarkable thing about the Hebrew in the first two sentences is that there is a transition between singular and plural which you miss completely in English, since the word “you” in English is for both singular and plural. But in Hebrew, there’s a singular “you’ and a plural “you”. Here are the sentences again:

The first sentence says “See, I place before you (singular you – each individual) today blessing and curse. The second sentence says  “Blessing, if you (plural you, like the entire people) listen to the commandments of the Holy One your G!d which I enjoin upon you this day”.

The text moves from you – individuals, to you – community. Choices we make, in experiencing blessings or curses, have an impact on the community at large, on our people and the people with whom we live. Each of our acts touches others, whether we see it or not, and has a ripple effect in our world. We are tied to other people, even when we are hermits, in that our absence also has meaning. Every decision, every act, every touch, every move, requires others to respond or experience in some way. When G!d puts before the individual blessings and curses, we as a community are connected to one another’s responses.

The singular “you” is connected with seeing. Seeing is personal and immediate. We can be in the same room and see the same thing and experience it in the same way. The plural “you” is connected with hearing. We all know how we hear experiences differently, process information differently, less from seeing and more from hearing. Hearing, in this case, is an outgrowth of our singular visions. We find direction in our own lives, and in so doing, communicate with others in hearing G!d in our lives.

May it be Your will, Holy One, that we see and hear the blessings in our lives, even those which seem to be hidden in curses, today, each day, differently from the days before, and that we, as a community,  hear – support one another, and create opportunities for us all to see what we hear.


Rabbi H. Rafael Goldstein, BCC
Spiritual Life Coach
Dynamics of Hope Consultants
www.dynamicsofhope.com
ravrafael@earthlink.net
602-459-1819

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!