Jewish Spiritual Renewal:Shabbat 3/20/10; A Path of Transformation.
Shalom once again my dear Chaverim v Talmidim v Fellow Rabbanim:
Rabbi Cooper wrote to me: ''Many of our sages attempted to depict the nature of the evil inclination that constantly attempts to lure us from doing good. In Tractate Beracoth, one sage compared the evil inclination to a fly that sits between the two gateways of the heart (Bavli Beracoth 61a). The fly buzzes around inside of us trying to putrefy that which is wholesome. Thus a proof text is offered: Flies of death fester and putrefy perfumed oil (Ecclesiastes 10:1). A single dead fly can indeed spoil a canister of perfumed oil and, similarly, the buzzingly annoying evil inclination can damage a good heart as it flies in and out whenever the gateway is opened. In this sense, the evil inclination appears to dwell inside us, a small voice that tries to corrupt from within whenever the opportunity arises. ''
Elsewhere in the Talmud the evil inclination is rendered in terms of an outside force acting upon us (Bavli. Bava Batra 16a). One sage tells us that it appears in different forms: "He is Satan, he is the evil inclination, he is the angel of death." It is the same force that at first descends to this world at the Almighty's behest and seduces people to do wrong.
We have learned in the first 6 chapters how our yetzer ha ra affects us and those around us who we harm with it. We found out about our character defects and ask God to take them from us. Now we must do teshuvah, make amends to those we harmed in our lives with our ego, our selfishness, our self centeredness, our emotional dishonesty and our fears.
I know many of you are scared to change. You've written, you've called. Your yetzer ha ra does not want to be tamed. Your ego wants to preserve itself. Said Rabbi Joshua ben Levi: When a person walks along the way, a troop of angels march before him and announce: "Make way for the image of the Holy One, Blessed Be He" ( Midrash Rabbah, Devarim 4). When we walk in God's path, His simple plan for us, we loose that fear.
The rabbis in Likkutei Sichot, Vol. I discuss this very fear of change. ''How long will you vacillate between two opinions? Sitting on the fence is worse than crossing to the other side. ( i.e. not changing from living a life ruled by our ego, our yetzer ha ra, and going back and forth, is worse than just deciding to give up a life ruled by our yetzer ha ra!).
The Hebrews did teshuvah and said, twice: "The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God. This went beyond even the moment of revelation on Sinai, when it was said only once, ''I am the Lord, your God.'' For repentance takes a person higher in spirit than he was before he sinned. This is the clear implication for today's class. The need is to amend, and to reach back to the heights of the spirit.
All people are interlinked. And the light of those of us who do teshuvah will reach those who we have they hurt with our ego. We will be answered by a Divine response of compassion and mercy. There is nothing to fear. (Please review your list of fears in your Chesbon ha Nefesh in Chapter 5, especially the 4th column on your work sheet.).
There is an interesting Midrash about creation and kindness. ''First, God thought to Himself, "I desire light. I desire love. I desire acts of kindness and beauty." And He saw that this was good. Then, He made Himself forget that entire vision, blocked it from His mind, so to speak, as though it never was. And He made a world. As though that was the whole point, a world for the sake of being a world. Only much later did He whisper in someone's ear, "Do you know the real purpose for which I made this world?" ''
Yes my friends, my students, my fellow rabbis, the reality of living is hard, yet love is warm and soft. Apathy in our synagogues and on the streets flows easily, but ahavath chesed, loving kindness, has to over come the ego's high walls. Light comes and seems to be the intruder into the world of darkness and many people's hearts. Yet that Jewish Spiritual Renewal light is the hidden destiny of everything, including each of us.
Eventually all of us will realize that we are not the end all and be all, that there is something more important for us. We will learn God's simple will for us. To live in a world were we heal those we have harmed, try to make anyone we meet better for having met us, will take precedence over our selfishness. When this happens we have true Revelation as momentous as our being at Sinai.
Ok. So know let us look at the first third of the Chapter on Teshuvah. Please do not start to make teshuvah until we finish the chapter. You'll understand why as you read below and the rest of the chapter.
Chapter Seven: Selicah and Teshuvah - Making Amends (first third of Chapter)
Saying You're Sorry And Making Whole Anyone You Have Harmed With Your Defects; and How To Do This With Someone Who Is Dead, Unable To Be Found, Or Refuses To Speak With You
So far you have learned to identify and admit your character defects, or sins. You have learned to abhor them and to ask for God's help in ridding yourself of them. This brings us to the last step in clearing up the errors of your past, clearing the path for your connection with God and Spirituality. Now you must be willing to make amends (do teshuvah) with those you have harmed. First, you will make amends with those whom you can contact and with whom you can make amends without doing further harm.
"The Holy One, Blessed be He, was asked, 'What should be the punishment for the sinner?' He answered, 'Let the sinner repent and he will find atonement.'" This is the meaning of the verse: "Thus You show the sinner the way. You show the sinner how to repent." (Yalkut Shimoni, Tehellim / Psalms 25). Rabbi Yaakov used to say, "One moment of repentance and good deeds in This World is better than all of Life in the World to Come." (Pirkei Avot, 4:22).
Remember, you are on a spiritual path and now know that holding grudges is a defect that you wish to remove from your life. You have forgiven anyone who has done you harm. You will discover that many folks out there are not on this same path. They may not wish to see or hear you. However, you are still willing to take responsibility for your actions.
An 18-year-old Jewish girl tells her Mom that she has missed her period for 2 months. Very worried, the mother goes to the drugstore and buys a pregnancy kit. The test result shows that the girl is pregnant.
Shouting and crying, the mother says, "Who was the pig that did this to you? I want to know!"
Without answering, the girl picks up the phone and makes a call. Half an hour later, a Mercedes stops in front of their house. A mature and distinguished man with grey hair and wearing a yarmulke steps out of the car and enters the house.
He sits in the living room with the girl, her father and her mother and speaks to them, "Good morning. Your daughter has informed me of the problem. I can't marry her because of my personal family situation but I will take responsibility. I will pay all costs and provide for your daughter for the rest of her life."
"Additionally, if a girl is born, I will bequeath two retail furniture stores, a deli, a condo in
Verclemt, the mother who has been silent to this point, places a hand firmly on the man's shoulder and tells him, "You'll try again, right?"
The Hebrew word selicah means "I am sorry" or "excuse me." You will hear it spoken often on a crowded bus in
Through teshuvah, you will return those whom you have harmed to the state they were in before becoming the victim of your ill behavior. The best place to start is to ask to speak to each one. Tell them that you wish to make amends. Tell them in simple terms of the spiritual path that you now travel. You don't want to go into too much detail because this meeting is not about you; it is about them. To that end, you will need to avoid any mention of their role in whatever it was that put you at odds. Your intention is to make amends for your selfishness, dishonesty or whatever you did to hurt this person. What they did is of no consequence. For example, the old you might say, "I deleted all the songs from your iPod because you threw my cell phone into the pool." The new spiritual you will say, "I hurt you when I deleted all the songs from your iPod and I am sorry. What can I do to make you whole again?" Then, you will be quiet and listen.
Whatever you say, keep it brief. Three or four sentences should do it. Any more and you start to exhibit the same old ego that you are trying to get rid of.
Bernie and Yossi were down on their luck and decided to do some part time external decoration work to earn extra money. To start off their new venture, they asked their Rabbi if he would be interested in having them paint his house, for a very keen price of course. The Rabbi said yes and so Bernie and Yossi went out to buy the paint.
They drove to the local Ace Hardware store in Moonachie to buy the paint. They bought the cheapest paint they could find, which they planned to mix with water to further increase their profits. Then they went back to the Rabbi's house and started work.
When they had finished painting the Rabbi's house, Yossi called the Rabbi and his wife to come out and inspect their work.
"It looks wonderful," the Rabbi said. But as he started to hand them their check, it started to rain quite heavily. All at once there was thunder and lightning, the Rabbi's house was drenched, and the paint started running down the walls.
Suddenly, as the three of them stood there in disbelief, a voice from heaven roared: "Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more!"
Listen carefully to what the person to whom you are making amends says. Do not interrupt because at this moment this person is your teacher. You may learn something about yourself that you hadn't thought of when you did your chesbon ha nefesh gadol. They might tell you that all is forgotten and you owe them nothing, or they may give you a specific task to do. There is always the chance that they will tell you that you are such a momzer (bastard) that there is nothing you can do to make up for what you have already done. Never put up an argument. Thank them for their time and tell them that you will do your best to fulfill what they have asked of you.
Some of the people with whom you need to make amends may be deceased. This does not let you off the hook! Traditional Jewish ritual asks you to visit their gravesite with a bet din (a group of rabbis or other Jews) and make amends by speaking to the headstone. This may be appropriate for parents, grandparents, children or a spouse. It is up to you and might depend upon how far you now live from the burial site. If you cannot visit the gravesite, or don't know where it is, there is a custom for making teshuvah with those with whom you cannot speak. Write a sincere letter to the person and then burn it. God, the "Eternal Postman," will deliver it for you. This process is also acceptable for people who, after making a sincere effort, you cannot locate. This also works for those nameless people in your past that you may have harmed with rudeness or cruel words, like that guy who cut you off on the highway the other day.
You might run into trouble from people who refuse to see you or speak to you, a bitter ex-spouse for example. You may also write a letter to those folks, but only after making a sincere effort to see them face-to-face. Failing that a letter will suffice, but you can't burn this one. The Eternal Postman may decide that it is His will that it be stamped "Return to Sender." You'll have to cough up real postage and send it because you are truly willing to make amends. One more thing, don't use email. In the first place, it lacks sincerity. Secondly, the potential for violations of confidentiality are too great and you risk offending your recipient further.
Because we are all so different from one another, we can expect that there are rather broad deviations in the severity of what is revealed from one chesbon to another. Since you must not omit anything, it is highly probable that some of your chesbons include criminal acts. This can make things difficult, to say the least, as you might be faced with the prospect of confessing in vidui to a crime for which the statute of limitations has not expired. I have known people to make teshuvah to people for criminal acts and they were forgiven, but one cannot assume that this will always be the case. This is a very delicate situation and you have to use the utmost common sense. We are dealing with the spiritual, not criminal law. I am a rabbi, not a lawyer, and I cannot offer legal advice. As a general rule of thumb, from a purely spiritual point of view, if you have committed what in the eyes of the law is a criminal act and wish to do teshuvah for it, do so anonymously. Do not put anything in writing, on paper or via email and do not speak of it on the phone. This type of issue should be discussed with a clergy person in the strictest of confidence. So discuss such matters only with someone you trust completely.
Something you need to consider if you have unpunished crimes in your past is that since you are now living a spiritual life, you must no longer do harm to anyone. If you have a family, for example, and you put yourself in a situation that may see you sent to prison or charged with a substantial fine, both of which will detract from your family's standard of living and cause them to suffer, you are committing a selfish act and causing your family harm.
Again, this is a very sensitive and rather tricky issue upon which you must pray and consult with your rabbi. If you are uncomfortable or afraid of doing so, please feel free to contact me, anonymously of course, and I will be happy to counsel you.
Rabbi Cohen was saying his goodbyes to his congregation after the Sabbath service as usual when Esther Glickman came up to him in tears.
"What's bothering you so, dear?" inquired Rabbi Cohen.
"Oh, Rabbi, I've got terrible news," replied Esther.
"Well what is it, Esther?"
"My husband, passed away last night, Rabbi."
"Oh, Esther," said the Rabbi, "That's terrible. Tell me Esther, did he have any last requests?"
"Well, yes he did Rabbi," replied Esther.
"What did he ask, Esther?"
"He said, 'Please, please Esther! Put down the gun!'"
You must take care not to harm someone while making teshuvah. For example, if you had an adulterous relationship that remains unknown to both parties' spouses, do not make teshuvah by revealing the affair, as at least two people will be hurt. The only acceptable teshuvah in this case is to stop the affair if it is still going on, and never have another.
God willing, we will continue with more of Chapter &, next week.
A d'var Torah for the first parasha of Leviticus for the Shabbat of March 20th is below. Please note, one of the four Jewish New years, The First of Nissan, is March 16, 2010. As we have learned in previous classes for Shamash on line classes, a service of Hebrew College, this New Year is the true New Year for the Jewish People and Nissan is our first month. We learned that One Tishrei, called Rosh ha Shana, is the New Year for all Humanity, not just Jews. It celebrates Adam and Eve's birth reminding us we have all have the same set of Human parents and the same Divine Parent. The third new year we learned is Tu B'Shevat, originally on the first of Shevat, but changed by R' Hillel circa 100 BCE to the 15th of Shevat. It is the new year for tithing fruit yielding trees. And lastly we have the first of Elul, the new year for tithing farm animals.
So, Happy Jewish New Year on the first of Nissan, starting at sundown, March 15th.
Shalom u'vracha:
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Leviticus
Parasha Vayikra: Leviticus 1:01-5:26
Rabbi Arthur Segal www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
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Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA
"Teach Your Children Well"
This Torah portion brings us to the beginning of the Book of Leviticus. It was so named by church leaders, as it is full of the laws and rituals incumbent upon the priesthood. Its Hebrew name however is Vayikra, meaning, "He called." If you take a moment and open your Chumash (Five Books of Moses) you will note that the Aleph, which is the last letter of the word Vayikra, is written in a smaller font than the other letters.
Rabbi Bunam, a leading Chassidic rebbe at the turn of the nineteenth century in
As we read through this portion we note that it is about sacrifices. Again, we are given a mistranslation of the Hebrew. The Hebrew word is korban, or offering. It comes from the root word meaning "coming near." Offerings were the means to bring one closer to God. But if God is omnipotent and lacking in form, what does God need of our farm animals? Was it just to keep the priests on a high-cholesterol diet? Was this the original high-protein weight loss diet?
Of course God has no need for offerings. Maimonides (the Rambam-Rabbi Moses ben Maimon) in his Guide for the Perplexed says that we had become accustomed to this ritual dependency from other pagan sacrificial rites we had witnessed. He posits that the Torah amended these rites into something more palatable. But why would these laws continue into the days of the
Nachmanides (the Ramban-Rabbi Moses ben Nachman) writes that these korbanim relate to various aspects of our need for exoneration for various sins that we as humans commit regularly. The ultimate ritual of spilling the blood of an animal is to remind us of how precious life is and how close we are to having our own lives taken without warning.
When modern Jews do teshuvah for our sins, do we "return" and come closer to God? What do we offer? What is our korban? What is our sacrifice? Rabbi Samson Hirsch says a sacrifice implies giving up something of value to for the benefit on another. An offering is a gift that satisfies the receiver.
Since we now understand that God does not need our offerings, we come to the realization that the offerings were to our own benefit. The giver was also the receiver. Offerings were needed to deal with emotions from private and communal sinning, guilt, and dishonesty. We also needed korbanim to ask for peace. But did we then and do we now?
"I desired Chesed-kindness, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." (Hoshea 6:06). The writings of the prophets give us another way of coming closer to God. The rabbis in the Talmud do as well. But this way takes a lot more effort, sacrifice, and offering than did bringing prize livestock to the priests. Returning and claiming Judaism via Jewish Spiritual Renewal also takes a lot more effort than today's "checkbook Judaism" requires.
"The human being who only does good and never sins does not exist on earth." (Ecclesiastes 7:20). We are continually making errors. It is part of the human condition. It would be wonderful if we could always learn from our mistakes, fix any problems we caused, and not repeat them. Better still, it would be grand if we could teach others of our errors, so that they would not make the mistakes that we have made. If this actually worked, the 11 o'clock news would be a half hour of weather reports.
In Deuteronomy Chapter 11, Verse 13, in what we call the Shema, we read that we are to "love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul." In the Talmud Bavli (Tractate Ta'anit 2A), the rabbis ask, "What is the service of the heart?" And they answer, "prayer."
Many of us think we know what prayer is. Again, we are saddled with a mistranslation. Tephilah comes from the root of hitpallal, to judge one's self. We are not praying to God, asking for things to be given to us, although at times, that is what is seems like. True prayer, with full kavenah, intention and concentration, should be like an intensive psychotherapy session. We need to take a daily (if not twice or three times daily as we traditionally did) accounting of our blessings, actions, good deeds, and errors. Even the Hebrew word for sin means to miss the mark, as an arrow that has not made contact with its target.
In archery we know that with time, patience, and practice we will hit the target more often than not. If when we pray, we do real tephilah, real self-judging, and learn from our errors, do teshuvah and try to fix the harm we have caused others, we will have made a modern korban and will have come closer and more intimate with God and our own souls.
The holiday of Purim occurs in the month of Adar. In Talmud Ta'anit (29a) the rabbis write, "When Adar arrives, we increase our joy." They teach that Adar is the best month to try to remove personal barriers to holiness. The rabbis counsel that true happiness is not achieved by satisfying our corporal needs, but rather is achieved by using the wonderful pleasures of this world to gain spirituality.
Adar's zodiac sign is the fish. I am a Pisces and I am known to be a bit spacey and sometimes out of touch with the nuts and bolts of daily existence. Fish do not have eyelids. Our eyes are always open. We see what is, and we also see what can be. We are always doing hitpallal, self-judging. We swim in an ocean of spirituality held buoyant by Talmudic values. I never thanked God for my blessings when younger. I took it for granted. I finally appreciate what I do not have anymore, and I thank God every day for the many blessings I still am given.
One final point before this d'var Torah ends. If you are reading this book in order on a weekly basis, many times this is Shabbat Zachor. [In 2010, Zachor was Shabbat February 27.] We are commanded to remember Amalek. We fulfill this mitzvah by reading three verses from Deuteronomy, in addition to this parasha (Deut. 25:17-19). Amalek was a tribe that snuck up on the rear of our camp, killing women and children. We were told by God to always remember them.
This special Shabbat precedes Purim, as Haman, we are taught, was a descendant of Agog, king of the Amaleks. The lesson in Zachor is excellent for any time, this year, after Purim and before Passover. Most of our sages interpret this to mean we should always be on guard for anti-Semites who are set out to destroy us. Unfortunately, the disease of Amalek is not confined to those outside of our religion. Each of us has the capacity to be Amalek. Thank God most of us keep that part of us, our yetzer ha ra, our evil inclination, in check.
But there are those of us, many who have positions in our very synagogues, temples, and shuls that engage in murderous behavior. The Chofetz Chaim (Rabbi Kagen) teaches that one who does loshan ha ra, gossips, bad mouths, even if the information is true, murders three people: the subject, the person they speak to, and their own self. The Talmud Bavli (Tractate Beracoth) also says that one who snubs or does not respond to a greeting in a similar matter is also a murderer as they cause the blood to drain from a person's face and cause intended good will to be destroyed.
Our temples, which house our sanctuaries, were meant to be places of refuge from the sinful behavior that is found on the streets. If we go to our synagogues to do offerings with the service of our hearts, to study to gain closeness to God, to do kavenah- filled tephilah so we can become better people, can we truly accomplish this while witnessing Amalek-type behavior? Yes, but we have to add prayers for these spiritually deficient people. Perhaps this Shabbat Zachor, when we remember Amalek, we cannot only pray for those people outside our synagogues' walls that practice hurtful behavior, but those among us, inside our sanctuaries, as well.
Shabbat Shalom:
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