Shelach-Lecha - 20 June 2009, 28 Sivan 5769
June 19, 2009 by karyn
Shelach-Lecha
Plaut Number 13:1-14:45 Page 1104
Haftorah Joshua page 1262
28 Sivan 20th June 2009
Rabbi Gary J. Robuck
Senior Rabbi, North Shore Temple Sydney Australia Emanuel
Just before Shavuot, my wife Jocelyn and I returned from an overseas holiday in the US. We enjoyed our trip thoroughly, however, as any one who has been near an airport recently will attest, traveling is not easy. Though still possible to go just about anywhere at any time, there exists an increased number of taxes and surcharges. Fares are higher as a result of rising fuel costs and heightened security measures at the airport can make it difficult to even get to your gate on time. In addition, many new rules and services have been introduced to bring about a cost savings for the airlines. Here is an “actual” exchange between a flight attendant and a passenger resulting from some of these new rules.
Attendant: Welcome aboard Ala Carte Air, sir. May I see your ticket?
Passenger: Sure.
Attendant: You’re in seat 12B. That will be $5, please!
Passenger: What for?
Attendant: For telling you where to sit.
Passenger: But I already knew where to sit.
Attendant: Nevertheless, we are now charging a seat locator fee of $5. It’s
the airline’s new policy.
Passenger: That’s the craziest thing I ever heard. I won’t pay it.
Attendant: Sir, do you want a seat on this flight, or not?
Passenger: Yes, yes. All right, I’ll pay. But the airline is going to hear
about this.
Attendant: Thank you. My goodness, your carry-on bag looks heavy. Would you
like me to stow it in the overhead compartment for you?
Passenger: That would be swell, thanks.
Attendant: No problem. Up we go, and done! That will be $10, please.
Passenger: What?
Attendant: The airline now charges a $10 carry-on assistance fee.
Passenger: This is extortion. I won’t stand for it.
Attendant: Actually, you’re right, you can’t stand. You need to sit, and
fasten your seat belt. We’re about to push back from the gate. But, first I
need that $10.
Passenger: No way!
Attendant: Sir, if you don’t comply, I will be forced to call the air
marshal. And you really don’t want me to do that.
Passenger: Why not? Is he going to shoot me?
Attendant: No, but there’s a $50 air-marshal hailing fee.
Passenger: Oh, all right, here, take the $10. I can’t believe this.
Attendant: Thank you for your cooperation, sir. Is there anything else I
can do for you?
Passenger: Yes. It’s stuffy in here, and my overhead fan doesn’t seem to
work. Can you fix it?
Attendant: Your overhead fan is not broken, sir. Just insert two quarters
into the overhead coin slot for the first five minutes.
Passenger: The airline is charging me for cabin air?
Attendant: Of course not, sir. Stagnant cabin air is provided free of
charge. It’s the circulating air that costs 50 cents.
Passenger: I don’t have any quarters. Can you make change for a dollar?
Attendant: Certainly, sir! Here you go!
Passenger: But you’ve given me only three quarters for my dollar.
Attendant: Yes, there’s a change making fee of 25 cents.
Passenger: For cryin’ out loud. All I have left is a lousy quarter? What
the heck can I do with this?
Attendant: Hang onto it. You’ll need it later for the toilets.
So travel isn’t as simple as first thought! Yet maybe it has always had its challenges. Just ask the 12 m’raglim (the spies) who in our parsha were sent on a tour of Eretz Yisrael to “suss” out the land; to determine whether it was hospitable or not, whether the natives were friendly and whether the cities were fortified. Their journey into the land yielded an interesting travelogue which unlike today’s ephemeral e-mails, has been preserved in our Torah. (Numbers 13:32-33)
“All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
The rabbis found this whole business most peculiar and asked the question: how did they know this? That is: how could they have known what the inhabitants of the land thought of them? Rashi, in a fanciful comment inspired by the ancient Midrash, says that the spies reported overhearing the giants talking to one another, saying: “there are ants in the vineyard that resemble human beings.”
Sometime later, the European commentator Yaakov ben Asher (14th century) also known as the Ba’al Turim quotes a different Midrash which make the spies seem as if they may have been under the influence of something not quite kosher. In this version the spies are heard to report:
“One of the giants ate a pomegranate and tossed aside the husk, and all 12 of us entered it and sat down in it…we sat down in it like grasshoppers.”
That is psychedelic, 1960’s era pomegranate!
In a d’rasha written by Neal Loevinger, a contemporary American Rabbi, he insists that this Midrash may not be as silly as it at first appears. This is what he says concerning the enormous pomegranate husk:
“We can hear in this Midrash the fear the spies must have been feeling: desperate to avoid the challenge of going up to the land, perhaps they found themselves saying anything that came to mind, even if it was biased to the point of absurdity. Their insecurities overwhelmed their reason.” (For this reason) says R. Loevinger, “we should reconsider (our feelings) about the spies”. A very conciliatory perspective given that their report initiated a panic in the camp from which ensued a series of dramatic and tragic events leading directly to the 40 years of desert wandering. Nevertheless, says R. Loevinger, “we should not scorn them, bur rather sympathise with them.”
Perhaps we should put ourselves in their shoes and try to imagine how we might feel if we were faced with a daunting task like theirs, when still unsteady in our faith and unsure of our direction. It is not hard to do. Indeed, I would contend that we are more like the spies than not. For we, when faced with new challenges, new frontiers; at work, at home at school, can and often do, recoil, reassess and pull up short, scared that we will fail. We see ourselves as unworthy, ill-prepared, and unable to adapt when facing a crossroads in our lives. We grow suspicious, skeptical, and cynical of our prospects.
But it needn’t be so. We can instead try to be more Joshua and Caleb, who demonstrated a can-do spirit, who didn’t waver even for a moment. And that is, in part, what this story is encouraging us to consider: how can we come to see ourselves in a generous light, and not as grasshoppers? How can we detect within our souls the potential which others do not see at first or at all and how can we tap the potential for growth and the strength which others may not detect in us? And finally, how can we summon the confidence to set out upon a derech (a path) which few may choose to travel.
This parsha is like every one of us, much more than meets the eye. In it is contained not only the story of one fateful journey, but many. Whether as young children setting out from our homes for the first time or one when facing a mid-life career change; if contending with unwelcome new circumstances or when approaching one’s twilight years, our Torah is telling us to lech – to “move” forward with confidence, like Joshua and Caleb, to trust in God and in ourselves. Doing so will permit us to go places in our lives which even the most advanced, the largest plane, can not take us.
Shabbat shalom!
Reform rabbis to be ordained in Berlin
June 19, 2009 by Steve
June 17, 2009
BERLIN (JTA) — Three new Reform rabbis will be ordained in Berlin in the second such ceremony held in Germany.
The Abraham Geiger College at the University of Potsdam, which is marking its 10th anniversary, will ordain Gábor Lengyel, Richard Newman and Roly Zylbersztein.
Also graduating is Juval Porat, who according to an announcement from the Geiger College is the first person to be trained in Germany as a cantor after the Holocaust. Porat trained at the college’s new Jewish Institute of Cantorial Arts, established in 2007.
The ceremony, which will be held Thursday in the Rykestrasse Synagogue in the former East Berlin, is being hosted by the Central Council of Jews in Germany, which earlier this month co-hosted the ordination of the first two Orthodox rabbis trained at the Rabbinerseminar zu Berlin.
Some 500 guests are expected at the ordination ceremony, including Rabbi Ellen Steinberg Dreyfus, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
The Geiger College rabbinical program was founded in 1999 and held its first ordination ceremony in the fall of 2006 in Dresden. It is supported by the German federal government; the state of Brandenburg; the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of all the German states; the Central Council of Jews in Germany; and the Leo Baeck Foundation.
For full story go to http://jta.org/news/article/2009/06/17/1005952/reform-rabbis-first-cantor-ordained-in-berlin
Reprinted with thanks to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Beha’alotcha - 13 June 2009, 21 Sivan 5769
June 12, 2009 by karyn
Beha’alotcha
Numbers 8:1 – 12:16
The Torah: A Modern Commentary, pages 1075 - 1100
Revised Edition, pages 952 – 966
Haftarah Beha’alotcha
Zechariah 2:14 – 4:7
The Torah: A Modern Commentary, pages 1259 – 1261
Revised Edition, pages 974 – 976
Saturday 13th June 2008, Shabbat Sivan 21 5769
From Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins, Emanuel Synagogue, Woollahra, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
This week’s parasha sweeps us from the heights to the depths, from harmony to dissolution, challenging us with concepts that range from militarism to healing. In the midst of this sweep are two mysterious verses set off by two inverted “nuns” (the Hebrew letter, not Catholic practitioner). Prior to those verses, the opening chapters of the parasha continue the theme so far of the book B’Midbar – the organization around the Tabernacle. We read of the menorah which symbolizes illumination emanating from the Ark where the Word of God is housed; the purification of the Levites for service in the Tabernacle; the celebration of the first anniversary of Pesach; the establishment of the Tabernacle and the beginning of the march toward the Holy Land with God’s protecting guidance through the pillar of fire by day and the pillar of cloud by night. This is the beautiful, harmonious image we read prior to these verses strangely set off in the Torah text.
Immediately after these verses we hear stories of excess and complaint, which presage the remainder of the book of B’Midbar, filled as it is with conflict, revolt and the ultimate punishments: 40 years of wandering in the wilderness for the Israelites, the death sentence for all the men over the age of 20 years, and the command that Moshe himself must die and not enter the land. The stories of dissolution we read in this week’s parasha include the complaint of the assembled horde for meat instead of manna and the challenge to Moses from his own brother and sister.
In between these two starkly different narrative pictures come these two verses, separated out in a way that has led tradition to speak about them as a book of their own. To many they would be familiar because they have since become part of the Torah service (except not to be found in Gates of Prayer or its replacement Mishkan T’filah). In their Torah context they have militaristic imagery: “When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: ‘Advance, O Lord! May Your enemies be scattered and may Your foes flee before You!’ And when it halted, he would say: ‘Return, O Lord, You who are Israel’s myriads of thousands!’”. If these verses form a book of their own, it is a short, two verse book, with a beginning, an end and no middle. With the Ark guiding the people on their way, not just to the Holy Land but also into battle, perhaps the missing content is the “Book of the Wars of the Lord” referred to later in B’Midbar (Numbers 21:14).
It is most likely because of this “militaristic imagery” that these verses have been removed from many Reform Siddurim. Ironically, it is the removal of these verses from the Siddur that maintains their more militaristic image, while the inclusion of them in the Torah service itself enables us to approach them as yet another teaching about the essence of Torah. Reciting, “Advance, O Lord! May Your enemies be scattered and Your foes flee before You!” just before we take the Sefer Torah from the Ark makes us reflect on what it means to be “an enemy of God”. While there will be some who suggest that this concept of “God’s enemy” proves that religion is the cause of all wars and God an evil projection of humanity, deeper reading can take us elsewhere.
We must always remember that the name of God in Hebrew is a conjugation of the verb “to be” and that our concept of God is “being” or “becoming” or “is-ness” or “existence” or….Certainly all these understandings are life affirming – in fact God as life force is the beginning of the story. Consequently, “God’s enemies” would be forces of death and destruction. Hearing this verse chanted as we take out the Sefer Torah we recall that Torah itself is ultimately a teaching to overcome these forces. As we learn in the Proverb of Torah (and these verses are also part of the Torah service), “Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace.”
God can only work through us, and we as Jews can only be guided by Torah. When we hear verses about scattering enemies and fleeing foes we are reminded what it means to be a Jew. We do have foes in those who oppress, use violence for solutions to problems and in many ways threaten individuals or societies with death. To wish for their energy to be scattered and for enlightenment to reign supreme is to encapsulate the message of this week’s reading. Beha’alotecha opens with the image of illumination and closes with the stirring words from the prophet Zechariah, “not be might nor by power, but by my spirit says the Lord”. The time is ever urgent for us to embrace our call.
Naso - 6 June 2009, 14 Sivan 5769
June 5, 2009 by karyn
Naso
Numbers 4:21 – 7:89
The Torah: A Modern Commentary, pages 1043 - 1075
Revised Edition, pages 923 – 936
Haftarah Naso
Judges 13:2 – 25
The Torah: A Modern Commentary, pages 1256 – 1258
Revised Edition, pages 947 – 949
Saturday 6 June 2009, Shabbat Sivan 14 5769
From Rabbi Paul Jacobson, Emanuel Synagogue, Woollahra, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Shock Value
The fifth chapter of the book of Numbers describes a puzzling and ancient ritual known as the Sotah. If a husband suspects that his wife has gone astray and committed adultery, but cannot prove such a transgression, then he must bring his wife before the priest for adjudication of this issue. The priest offers the woman a potion consisting of sacred water, dust of the sanctuary floor, and a parchment containing a curse (yuck) and the woman must drink the concoction. If the woman has remained faithful to her marriage, then she will be immune to the effects of the potion. But if, in fact, the woman has strayed from her marriage, the potion will “cause her thigh to sag and her belly to distend” (Num. 5:21), and she shall be regarded as a “curse among her people” (Num. 5:27).
This scene represents one of the more shocking scenes in the Torah. And while the ancient rabbis wrote pages upon pages of rules and stipulations in the Mishnah and Talmud (where we find a tractate called Sotah) to make it exceedingly more difficult to actually execute such a ceremony, we cannot overlook the problems presented by the Torah.
To begin, where is the communication between husband and wife? After years of marriage, after committing oneself to another as a life partner, friend, confidant, and lover, how can the husband be so quick, so conniving, so manipulative, and so cruel as to even desire that his wife endure such torture and embarrassment? To continue, why aren’t husbands treated in precisely the same way as their wives? Does Torah suggest a double-standard, implying that men are free to commit adultery while women are not? To conclude, why is a horrifying ritual such as this one even present in the words of our people’s most sacred text?
These are huge questions. But it may be sufficient simply to say that the importance of this week’s portion lies in its “shock value.” The Torah does not say, “a partner who is unfaithful will receive a slap on the wrist and a $50 fine.” No, rather, the Torah teaches that adultery destroys a relationship, destroys both partners’ lives, and eradicates trust. And while the potentially (or suspected) promiscuous behaviour of husbands can neither be overlooked nor condoned, it is clear that by the time a husband even conceives of bringing his wife to the priest, their relationship is long since over. In explaining to the woman what is about to transpire, the priest appears to hesitate, asking both partners, “Are you sure you really want to go through with this? You know that once we go through with this ceremony, there is no turning back. It’s not too late.”
A little later in the year, we will read of an episode in the Torah where parents who have a “wayward and defiant child” are permitted to bring their son to the elders of the community, and after claiming that they have “tried everything,” may allow the community to stone him to death (Deut. 21:18-21). Our rabbis claim that such a practice never actually took place, but was included, like the scene in our parashah this week for “shock value.” By creating the vision of a seemingly incomprehensible punishment, the authors of Torah force us to look inward, to question the nature of our relationships, and to find positive, meaningful, respectful, ethical ways of resolving our conflicts and differences. No relationship is easy. Bonds of trust are far more easily shattered than constructed or rebuilt. We have in the Torah the image of an irreparable situation. Through conversation, counselling, and support, it might be possible to preserve a relationship. But even when a relationship must meet its end, Torah still reminds us to steer away from shame and humiliation, working, at the very least, to preserve one another’s dignity. Shabbat Shalom
World Union replies to controversial comments by Chancellor of Yeshiva University
June 1, 2009 by Steve
By Dr. Philip Bliss, Vice Chair / Advocacy
The irony with the premature kaddish for the non-Orthodox movements as proposed by Dr. Norman Lamm (The Jerusalem Post; May 10, 2009) is that the main problem that certainly affects the Progressive movement is finding enough funds to support the ever-increasing demand for Reform/Progressive services around the world.
Every year the World Union for Progressive Judaism helps fund summer camps in the FSU for over 1,200 children. With more resources this number could easily treble. There are hundreds of fledgling Reform communities around the FSU and Eastern Europe that are crying out for support so they can develop and expand their Jewish communities with a welcoming and inclusive attitude that is promoted by Progressive Judaism. Progressive movements around Europe, Britain and Australasia are thriving.
Every year in Israel, thousands of Israelis utilize the services of Progressive congregations for b’nai mitzvah, marriages and other life cycle events. The demand is huge and the only thing holding back an explosion of the Progressive movement both in the FSU and Israel is the problem of raising enough funds to support the needs.
The reason is simple: so many families who wish to either re-unite with their Judaism or families where one partner may not be Jewish but wish to raise their children in a Jewish environment see the Progressive movement as being inclusive, warm and welcoming. We would rather welcome a non-Jewish partner with the future hope of conversion than risk alienating the Jewish spouse. There are thousands of families who bring their children up as Jews in a Jewish home but where one partner may not be Jewish. We see this as part of the mission for our movement so we can unite families and help and support with any future conversions.
The Progressive movement led by the World Union for Progressive Judaism sees no advantage in excluding Jews whether by sexual orientation or who feel themselves on the fringes of the Jewish world.
Jewish education, Tikkun Olam and a recognition of Jews living in a modern society have all helped to develop the Progressive/Reform movements around the world. If only more Progressive members could help support this work then Progressive Judaism will enjoy unlimited years of success and growth.
Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, chancellor of New York City’s Yeshiva University. Inset: Dr. Philip Bliss, the World Union’s vice chairman for advocacy.
IRAC wins landmark court victory on conversions
June 1, 2009 by Steve
The Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the legal and advocacy arm of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, last week won a precedent-setting case before the country’s High Court of Justice that says the state must provide funding for conversion classes of the Progressive and Masorti (Conservative) movements.
According to IRAC executive director Anat Hoffman, “the case itself may seem inconsequential but the implications are huge. This is the first time that the court has declared that government funding must be provided to non-Orthodox Jewish religious services in Israel.”
The three-judge panel, led by Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch, found that favoring Orthodoxy was discriminatory and ran counter to the state’s responsibility to ensure freedom of religion. It cited a previous high court ruling (in a case brought by IRAC, together with the Naamat women’s movement in 2002) that “Jews in Israel cannot be seen as only one religious sect.” The panel ruled that the state now has to fund all private conversion preparatory programs, and not just those of the Orthodox stream, and must reimburse the non-Orthodox programs back to 2006.
Hoffman called the verdict “amazing.” She added that it went “well beyond simply requesting equal funding” and also addressed the “core issue of religious freedom in Israel.”
Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, the World Union’s vice president for philanthropy, concurred, calling the court decision a “victory in the long, drawn-out battle over the question of ‘Who is a Jew’ and, often, ‘Who is a rabbi.’ By recognizing that conversion through the auspices of the Reform and Conservative communities is an important part of the klita (absorption) process, the court is recognizing the legitimacy of Jewish identity and expression as promoted by the liberal movements. This is a victory, pure and simple.”
Rabbi Gilad Kariv, executive director of the IMPJ, said the ruling would give new impetus to the movement’s conversion activities, which this year have included some 200 candidates in 20 classes. “With this recent verdict - which puts oil in our wheels - the IMPJ will focus in the coming year on expanding and developing its conversion efforts, addressing more and more potential conversion students and offering them a pluralistic gate to the Jewish world,” he said.
The court ruling has already elicited predictable results among Israel’s ultra-Orthodox leaders. MK Moshe Gafni of the United Torah Judaism party and chairman of the Knesset’s Finance Committee, said he’ll work to block the transfer of funding to non-Orthodox conversion programs.
“The Reform movement is not a legitimate form of Judaism,” Gafni told The Jerusalem Post in a phone interview. “The Reform are a bunch of treacherous backstabbers to Judaism. They are jokers who operate without hierarchy and without rules. MKs are not a bunch of marionettes who will do whatever the Supreme Court tells them to do. I will block any attempts to provide state funds to [the] Reform.”
The IMPJ’s Kariv replied to Gafni’s statements by calling the haredi MK “one of the prominent examples in Israeli public life of how religious faith becomes a source of hatred and prejudice, instead of a source of love for the other and respect for humankind.”
The conversion issue has lately been at the forefront of news in Israel, where the High Court of Justice recently gave the country’s top religious court 90 days to explain why it overturned conversions performed by the National Conversion Authority, a special body operating under the auspices of the prime minister’s office. It was established over a decade ago as a compromise aimed at easing the way for the estimated 300,000 non-Jews who immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return in the 1990s.
Left: Israel’s Supreme Court. Right: Classroom at a Progressive conversion course.
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