The Hundred and First Time

בס''ד

Parshat Mishpatim

22 Shvat, 5771

January 27^th, 2011

My first Shabbat in college, I, a very Jewishly engaged teenager, proudly walked into Hillel expecting to find my place immediately. This expectation was not to be born out.

Everything seemed wrong: they prayed wrong, services felt wrong, people acted wrong. No one was friendly. Nothing was right. I was then asked to make Kiddush, which, to my mortification, I proceeded to butcher in front of 200 people. I stepped out of that building and didn’t return for two years.

 The irony, of course, is that I’ve found my home in Torah and Judaism, made a grateful life out of its practice. Those people who weren’t friendly (who were actually just giving me space) are good friends.

There is a beautiful teaching that helps me to understand my experience. “There is no comparison,” teaches the Midrash, “between one who has studied a chapter a hundred times and between one who has studied it a hundred and one times.”^Ö

            I cannot deny the power of the newness of things and the attraction of love at first sight. However, it seems to me that first sight is also where we’re the most blind.

            Torah is almost ridiculously in favor of second sight: not of reading, but re-reading; not of experiencing, but rather re-experiencing. Its wisdom is that our lives regularly turn out in ways that we could not have dreamed of previously, and that we often make treasures out of what we initially reject: even ma’asu habonim haitah l’rosh pinah – the stone that the builders rejected has become the foundation. Psalm 118

May the wisdom of understanding through repetition become part of your spiritual practice.

Shalom u’Verakhah

Peace and Blessing,

Rabbi Scott Perlo

           

^Ö Midrash Zuta, Kohelet 9

It Takes Two

בס''ד

Parshat Yitro

16 Shvat, 5771

January 21st, 2011

When you walk into a synagogue during the Torah reading, you will always see multiple people crowding around the bimah. This is not, as most would suppose, only about correcting the reader. Rather, says the Shulhan Arukh, “since Torah was given through a mediator (Moses), so too do we use a mediator to read Torah.”*

Basically, the giving of Torah (coming to you this week at shul) wasn’t a solo act. It was, rather, a duet.

We have a weakness for solo leaders: the hero alone, the one who stands against many. We are all, always, waiting for a messiah, and when we find a likely candidate for the post, we’ll often load our deepest expectations onto that one person. And then we wait for our dreams to come true, or be disappointed.

But that is not the model that Torah and life experience present us: God and Moses gave Torah, Moses and Aaron led the people, Abraham and Sara created us, Esther and Mordehai saved us. The most successful, the most effective, the most creative and vibrant of our ventures are developed in partnership. “Havruta o mituta,”** teaches the Talmud, “partnership or death.”  Redemption comes in twos.

*Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 141:4. The original source of this quote Talmud Yerushalmi, Masekhet Megillah 74d

** Talmud, Masekhet Taanit 23a

Metaphorical Danger

בס''ד

Parshat Beshallah

9 Shvat, 5771

There was, in my first full year in Israel, a point when I began to get frightened. The year was 2005, and the Disengagement from Gaza was rapidly approaching. In the media, on the buses, in public places I started to hear a repeated phrase about the prospect of the withdrawal: “it’s like Sharon is coming to rape my sister.” This statement terrified me.

            It terrified me because this peculiar metaphor means something to Jewish ears. There is a  law in the Talmud called the rodef – the pursuer. It describes a person who is coming to murder or to rape another human being. The law states that it is permitted, perhaps even commanded, to kill such a person before they accomplish their crime. What I was hearing was the religious justification for political assassination.

            What I was hearing also wasn’t true. Ariel Sharon was attempting to leave Gaza, and forcibly remove Jews from their homes. But no matter one’s opinion on the Disengagement, he was not, in fact, coming to rape anyone’s sister.

            Using metaphor this way is damned dangerous and irresponsible. Hitler was Hitler – not the leader of the political party we despise, who isn’t in fact a genocidal terrorist. Nazis are Nazis – not the au courant favorite political insult both here and in Israel. And a blood libel is the false belief that we used the blood of Christian children in baking matzah – a lie for which we died by the tens of thousands – not the response of a criticized politician.

            Torah is unequivocal about our responsibility to watch our words: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Proverbs 18:19 We are awash in metaphor, and it’s time to stop.

Blasphemy

בס''ד

1 Shvat 5771

January 5^th, 2011

The Governor of the Punjab, Salman Taseer, was assassinated this week by his own bodyguard, incensed by his employer’s opposition to a law that condemns those who insult Islam to death. Facebook pages in support of the assassin are sprouting up faster than Facebook can take them down.

This presents a problem for us Jews, though it is not the problem you might think.

The problem is that Torah contains a commandment identical to the Pakistani law:

“And a fight broke out in the camp and…The son of the Israelite woman pronounced the Name of God, cursing it, and he was brought to Moses…

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: take the one who cursed God outside the camp; and let all who were within hearing lay their hands upon his head, and let the whole community stone him.”

Leviticus 24:10-13

You may have noticed that even in the most earnest of Jewish circles we no longer stone people to death for blasphemy. Have we then abandoned Torah?

We have not. But we have brought revolution to religious ideas. And we do believe that those revolutions bring us closer to God. The relevant revolution here is what my teacher, Rabbi Sharon Brous, teaches as the central Torah of her life: that God’s dignity is expressed through human dignity; that injustice harms the image of God. So we’ve learned that to kill a person for cursing God degrades God’s holy Name even more.

Fundamentalists are forever attempting to uncover the Torah (Bible, Koran) in its immaculate form. But only dead things don’t change. Etz hayyim hi – Torah is a living tree. It is eternal because lives beyond change. To ignore our own spiritual evolution is to ignore God’s plan for the world.

Christmas

בס''ד

15 Tevet, 5771
December 22nd,

     Staples, like every other retail outlet in the U.S., is now playing nothing but nonstop Christmas carols in their stores. I’ve long since resigned myself to the corporate connection between “holiday spirit” and buying as much as humanly possible, so I’ve learned to tune these out.*
      But then Neil Diamond starting singing Christmas carols. Not a foofy one either, like “Jingle Bells,” but a real one: “Hark Hear the Angels Sing.” And my ears perked up. For two reasons.

      The first is because of that inimitable warble he’s got (you know what I’m talking about). And the second is because he’s Jewish.  

      How to relate to Christmas in this country will always be a question, for we are a minority. And because interfaith families who are active and full members of our community confront it head on, it is a particularly poignant one.

      The question is a difficult one. I readily confess that I enjoy Christmas. Not retail Christmas, religious Christmas. I was on a peace march that coincided with Christmas in Nazareth, no less. It was beautiful. Hearing Neal Diamond sing about the virgin birth, however, grated against me, which means that I have some internal line drawn in the sand. 

      I have no straightforward answer about how Jews should or should not engage Christmas, especially not for interfaith families. Rather I have a question, which has helped me in a world where identity is so malleable. Our Talmud teaches that one should bless over not only miracles that have happened to our entire people, but also over miracles made for individuals. The question is asked: who should bless over such individual miracles: the person him/herself? That person’s family? That person’s friends?

      The Rashba, a brilliant teacher of the Talmud, teaches that one should bless if one was as a partner in that miracle – if, as a result of that miracle, you are here. So this, I think, is the question as we engage the world around us: is this my miracle? Is this my children’s miracle? If yes, then we have the obligation to bless it, to celebrate it, to let its light shine. If not, then we celebrate the devotion of others, living their own lives of meaning.

Shalom u’Vrakha,

Peace and Blessing,

Rabbi Scott Perlo


*For those interested in the longstanding connection between conspicuous consumption and religion in this country, Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism remains a classic. For a lighter but still profound take, check out Reverend Billy and the Church of Life After Shopping – www.revbilly.com.

Foolishness

בס''ד

9 Tevet, 5771

December 16^th, 2010

A midrash teaches: An incident occurred, that a man died and left instructions in his will that "My son should not inherit anything of mine until he becomes a fool.

Puzzled, the son brought the will to court for an explanation. The provision perplexed the rabbis there, and they brought it in turn to one of the great teachers of their age: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korha.

“When they arrived at [Rabbi Yehoshua’s] place they hid from his sight because they found him crawling about his hands and knees with a straw in his mouth waddling after his young son. After he had finished playing with his son, they approached him and asked him if he could interpret the will. He began to laugh and said to them: "By your lives, the matter of which you have come to inquire, just this past moment I had been demonstrating (that the man's son would not inherit anything until he became a father)." From here we learn that when a person becomes a parent, s/he becomes a clown."' (Midrash Tehillim 92:13)

           

            Would that we all had people to instruct us in the wisdom of foolishness. I am lucky, because our ECC kids try to remind me of this Torah every day. To live in complete seriousness is to miss the essence of life. To laugh, to sing, to cry, to be creative, to jump in piles of leaves – these things are necessary. The dry cleaning is not. This is the truth that wise people live.

            May we all be blessed with holy foolishness.

Special thanks to our ECC Moms for learning this Torah with me during Mom’s Shmooze.

Men

בס''ד

יום ז' לחנוכה

1 Tevet, 5771

December, 8^th 2010

To the endangered species of our world, let us add another: the vanishing American religious male. While he’s not near extinction, he’s definitely PBS-special worthy. His disappearance isn’t just within Judaism – his lack of participation extends to every religion in the American landscape. And rabbis, priest, pastors, imams, demographers, and sociologists are trying to understand why.

            The far reaching Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey (http://religions.pewforum.org) indicates that women outclass men in all the most important indices for religious belief and participation. It is actually quite stunning how much misogyny still exists in American religion, considering how many more women than men engage in spiritual practice.

            What concerns me most is the distance that many men hold from Torah and Judaism.  What worries me is that, as Thoreau wrote, “the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation,” but do not see Torah as a vessel to ascend beyond their frustrations. “…they go to the graves with the song still in them.”

            We wonder why our Torah teaches, ve’ahavta – and you will love, rather than ve’he’emanta – and you will believe. It is because belief is not Judaism’s fulcrum, but rather closeness. The secret to living a life of Torah is holding it close, and letting it give expression to our souls. We men need to ask ourselves why it feels so far away.

Rather,[this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it. Deuteronomy 30:12-14

I would appreciate any thoughts from our community, from both men and women, as to why they think men feel less connected to religion. This piece is not meant to invalidate, in any way, the many and real spiritual struggles that women face.