RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: ECO-JUDAISM : Vezot Ha’berachah: MOSES' DEATH

 

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: ECO-JUDAISM : Vezot Ha'berachah: MOSES' DEATH

 

Jewish Spiritual Renewal: Shabbat 9/04/10 : A Path of Transformation :

 

 

LAST CLASS

 

The JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL class list is hosted by Shamash: The Jewish Network, a service of Hebrew College. 

 

Shalom Dear Talmidim, Chaverim v ' Rabbanim:

 

For those of you celebrating Selicoth Saturday Evening September 4, 2010, may it be a true spiritual renewal process for you. When we look over the chapters in ''The Handbook to Jewish Renewal : A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew,''  (001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal - Rabbi Arthur Segal we can see a close relationship with the Holidays and Rituals of Elul's Chesbon ha Nefesh (inventory of our souls), Selicoth's Vidui (confession), Rosh Ha Shana's Tashlich (casting away our defects), and Yom Kippur's Teshuvah (making amends). 

 

Today's class is the last in this year -long series on the Path of Transformation via the Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal. I am humbled by the so many of you that have shared in confidence your chesbon ha nefesh, and who have called, many from other continents, to do vidui, and to discuss your spiritual growth. So I thank you. The Talmud teaches we rabbis that we learn more from our Talmidim than we have from our rabbinic teachers. (Talmud Bavli Tractate Ta'anit 7a).

 

I have enjoyed this journey with you. Each journey begins with a small step and we have taken that first step and many more together. Spiritually, we have traveled miles. God willing, we will continue our journeys and grow ever more spiritually, ever more close to God and ever closer to our fellows. "May it be your will, Adonai, our God and God of our ancestors, that you lead us toward peace, make us reach our desired destination for life, gladness, and peace. Blessed are you, Adonai, Who hears prayer. Amen.''

 

REMEMBER PLEASE: Today's class is to be read over a month' s period, not all at once. Enjoy and savour it, please. It is a bit longer than usual. It contains our last class, and of course as usual a D'var Torah for 9/4, but also ones for 9/11 as well the special readings for Rosh Ha Shana and Sukkoth. Also included is the D'var for the last parasha of the Chumash, read on Simchat Torah, October 1 ,2010. I apologize for the length, but I will be rabbi-ing in the Pacific N.W. from pre Selicoth to Yom Kippur, leading services, but more importantly, teaching Jewish Spiritual Renewal.

 

So, we will take a break during the High Holy Days, and circa Simchat Torah a new class will begin, our 4th for Hebrew College's Shamash on- line class program, which will be no more than one page per week, on Jewish ethics, mussar, and Derek Eretz. So our Journey for Jewish Spiritual Renewal and Growth, continues. Remember Rabbi Hillel's warning: If we don't grow spiritually, we don't just stay where we were, we move backwards. (Talmud Tractate Pirkei Avot 1:13...He who does not increase his spiritual knowledge, decreases it.) So we never rest on our laurels.

 

As we say on every day of Elul up to and including Yom Kippur : May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year. And let me add a L' Shana Tova for Rosh Ha Shana, an easy fast for Yom Kippur, and a true ziman simchatanu , a season of real joy, for Sukkoth.

 

Today we will conclude  our study of a  path of transformation via Jewish Spiritual Renewal, with the second half of the last chapter,  Chapter 14,   "How to Live Happy, Joyous and Free Each Day,''     from  (001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal - Rabbi Arthur Segal  or http://www.shop.jewishspiritualrenewal.net/product.sc;jsessionid=5C09106E770F711A24A135C59A7E346E.qscstrfrnt03?productId=1&categoryId=1 .

 

To those new to the class, Baruch ha Ba, welcome! You can access last week's class, and from there work back with links to the first class, at  Rabbi Arthur Segal: RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL; LIVE HAPPY, JOYOUS AND FREE  or http://rabbiarthursegal.blogspot.com/2010/08/rabbi-arthur-segal-jewish-spiritual_761.html .

 

 

What final words do I wish to impart to you, so as to not make this last class any longer than it is ?

All of Torah and Talmud is to teach us Ahavath Chesed, loving kindness. Let us ask God each day, that Still Small Voice inside of us, that Divine Spark that all of us have, how we can be of maximum service to God and our fellows.

 

Let us learn to ask each day to align our will, with God's will for us. Let us learn to love, not judge, see the goodness in everyone, avoid lashon ha ra and gossipers, avoid exclusiveness,  and realize as we learned this year, that when we live a life when our will becomes our own god, we end up bumping into the egos of others, and some form of retaliation or resentment begins. This is no way to live.

 

Ask God each day do help us all do what is right and good in His eyes, not rationalize what we think is right and good in our eyes, or some organization's eyes. Learn to become integrated, whole, shlema, which will lead to true shalom, abounding serenity, and let us live with happiness, joyousness and freedom, every day of our lives.

 

''Great is peace! For to make peace between husband and wife, the Torah instructs that the name of God, written in holiness, should be blotted out in water .'' [Talmud Bavli Tractate  Chullin 141a] . The Sages are referring to the Sotah ceremony, but the point is, that God would rather have His name blotted out, and people live in shalom with one another, than for us to go to synagogues, pray using his Holy Name, and be unkind to our fellows.

 

Talmud Bavli Tractate Beracoth 34b teaches: ''In the place where those who have done Jewish Spiritual Renewal, e.g. Teshuvah, stands, even the perfectly righteous do not stand." In other words, those that have done, or are working on their Jewish Spiritual Renewal, are in a more spiritual place, than someone who has always been spiritual.  As we have hopefully learned ahavath chesed, [loving kindness], tzedakah, [righteousness], and humility, are the traits,[ middot ], we should acquire.  When we become spiritually awakened, we exude Chesed Ilaah [superior kindness] and Rav Chesed [abundant kindness] because we bring the Holy Sparks of God into all our relationships with others. God's chesed radiates and diffuses infinitely.

   

We have learned  to live a life being more concerned about how we can love, than seeking love, and how we can understand, rather than seeking to be understood. As mentioned in my books and essays we rarely pray for ourselves. We are at our best when we ask Ha Shem how we can help others, rather than ask for things for ourselves. Our ego hasn't a clue as to what we truly  need. God gives us a life defined with a cup overflowing.  "Whenever one unites himself with the needs of others, he increases the chance that his prayer will be heard." (Talmud Bavli Tractate Beracoth 30a). This is why the sages wrote many prayers in the first person plural.

 

As we have learned this year, the gauge of our success is our attitude. If we see ourselves as  victims of circumstance, of competitors, of bankers, of stock brokers,  of what our friends think of us,  then our happiness is allowed by us, to be put in the hands of finite flesh and blood humans. We are spiritually disconnected.

 

As we experience the Divine, we know that God wants us to be happy, joyous and free. "Sorrow locks the gates of Heaven. Prayer opens locked gates. Joy has the power to tear down the walls." (The Baal Shem Tov ) . This does not mean we sit around all day mediating on our pupiks, our navels.  As we have learned trusting in God  doesn't mean waiting   around for miracles. It means that we do our best, our honest, fearless, unselfish, loving best, and then not get attached to outcomes. It means having confidence in what we are doing right now, because we know we have  put ourselves on the right path and whatever happens after that is in the realm of the Divine Universe.

 

By taking the path of transformation to Jewish Spiritual Renewal, we now have  the experience with the Divine, and that God  is always with us in whatever we do. We learn that we have the key to living happy, joyous and free, without fears, without grudges, without selfishness, without hate. We learned that we make our own problems, and we have the key to transform, to change our destiny, by acting good and just in God's eyes. As we have seen, our lives are now spiritually connected. And since the Divine is Infinite, we are no longer in a bondage of our finite selves.

For a year now, and for two classes before that on Jewish Ethics and Spirituality in the Torah and Talmud, I have been quoting rabbis from circa 2500 years ago to the present, as well as Moshe Rabbanu from 3300 years ago. Allow  me please to end with a modern psalmist, a non-Jew, because we are taught to accept the truth from whoever it is who says it, as Maimonides taught, "Listen to the truth from any source,'' :

 

 ''If you hear the song I sing, You must understand ,You hold the key to love and fear , All in your trembling hand . Just one key unlocks them both , It's there at your command , C'mon people now, Smile on your brother, Ev'rybody get together . Try and love one another right now , Right now ,Right now! '' (Jesse Colin Young 1967)

 

May God bless all of you!!!

 

Chapter Fourteen: How to live Happy, Joyous and Free Every Day (second half of chapter 14, the last chapter)  from (001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal - Rabbi Arthur Segal 

 

 "It is harder to change one bad character trait than to learn the complete Talmud. It is just as great a distance from knowing something to not knowing something as is the distance from knowing something in your head alone to internalizing it into your heart...As long as one is still alive, one can still work on perfecting himself." said Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. When your heart is connected with your mind, you have become integrated and you will know true shalom, shlema, wholeness and Oneness with God.

"The strongest trick in the storehouse of the yetzer ha ra is to take what you know to be truth and make you come to have doubts about it. If you are not careful, this can cause you to come to sin even where you are spiritually strongest." (Duties of the Heart, Rabbi Ibn Pakudah, 1050 C.E. Spain). "The yetzer ha ra starts as thin as a spider web strand and if one does not conquer it, it grows thicker than a cart rope...The bigger that one spiritually is, the bigger his yetzer ha ra is." (Talmud Bavli Tractate Sukkah 52a).

Being happy, joyous and free does not mean being a Pollyanna and it doesn't mean that everything will be perfect in your life. It does mean you will learn that God controls the universe and that you can go with the flow of His universe. You can accept both good and bad things that come your way without changing your attitudes about life and of God. The more you grow spiritually, the more your evil inclination wants you to fail, as your ego does not want to die.

The Torah (Deut. 21:10) reads, "Kee saytzay la milchomo al oyvecho - when you go out to war against your enemies." Hebrew, depending on whether one is addressing one person or more than one has separate singular and plural forms of expressing "you." In this verse Moses is talking to the Hebrew people. Moses should use the plural "saytzu" (you go out) as if he were speaking to many, but the Torah uses the singular "saytzay" (you go out) as if Moses were talking to only one person. The commentaries explain that the Torah is saying that the basic war in life is the individual's war against his number one enemy, the yetzer ha ra within.  The yetzer ha ra strives to keep each person's Jewish Spirituality down by keeping his ego alive. The yetzer ha ra has the individual do his own will. This leads one to negative actions due to character defects. This leads one farther away from God and mitzvoth.

This is why in this program of Jewish Spiritual Renewal, as soon as you did your chesbon ha nefesh gadol you began doing a chesbon katon each night. This is why this program is not just Shabbat or holiday oriented, as are most of today's synagogues. Your ego, your yetzer ha ra, is always trying to lead you astray. It will speak to you loudly. Your yetzer ha tov doesn't speak as loudly. It is what Elijah called "a still small voice" (1 Kings 19: 12) inside of you, that you must purposely access via prayer and meditation, walking with God consciously throughout the day, and by daily spiritual growth.

One character trait that you can work on that will continue to keep you happy, joyous and free is humility. Humility is the removal of the wall between you and others, whether it is God or other people. Humility lets your heart and mind "make room and let the other in." Conversely, arrogance and resentment let no one into your mind and heart except you. Humility is the negation of ego and self-centeredness. You can only attain humility with God's aid because He created you with ego.

Other character traits discussed in this book are the love and awe of God and chesed (kindness). You need to develop zeal or in other words non-procrastination. The first law in the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) is, "Strengthen yourself like a lion to wake up in the morning to serve the Creator." The Talmud Bavli Tractate Pesachim 4a reads, "The zealous are quick to do mitzvoth."

You need to be good-hearted, just, and respectful of others. You need to be compassionate and not judgmental and always give the benefit of the doubt. You need to be patient, forgiving, and slow to anger. You have to learn that you can live without having your way. God will provide what you need, so if a friend wants to see movie X and you want to see movie Y, go see movie X.

As this chapter implies, a character trait to develop is one of happiness and joy. Things will not make you happy. We have all met the guy who is in love with his new boat. A week later he is miserable again so he buys a new Harley. Now he is happy again...until another week passes. So he runs out to buy an RV, and a month later he is miserable yet again. Then his business slows and he has all of these bills to pay so he has more misery piled on top of misery. If he knew that happiness and joy come from inside and never from outside, he could have kept his money, sat by the ocean and enjoyed more than he enjoyed from his toys. He would have thanked God for the ocean rather than polluting it with gasoline and speeding through no-wake zones just to feed his ego...and scare the dickens out of the seagulls.

Orchos Tzadikim said that happiness and joy is "calm in the heart without any sense of wound." "Who is truly rich? The one who rejoices with what he has." (Pirkei Avot 4:1). You will find happiness and joy by understanding your purpose in this world, to love God and His children, and to do mitzvoth for them, and to "serve God with happiness" (Psalms 100:2).

All of the work you have done, and will continue to do, toward your Jewish Spiritual Renewal, is to live a life of shalom, peace, shlema, and wholeness. Psalm 34:15 reads, "Love peace and pursue it." This is echoed in Pirkei Avot 1:12, Rabbi Hillel said: "Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving your fellow creatures and bringing them close to the Torah." While other mitzvoth will have us do them as the occasion warrants, like paying a day worker before the sun sets, we are commanded to pursue peace as well as to love it.

When you read the chapter about meditation you learned that your channels must not be blocked with resentments and teshuvah owed, and that you must be open, nevi, to hear God.

"Shalom is the only pipeline through which blessing comes down to earth from Heaven." (Midrash Bamidbar Raba). All of those defects and resentments will keep you from true Shalom. You learned in this text that the God's name in the Talmud is "Shalom." You learned that all of God's and Torah's "ways are sweet and all of its paths are peace" (Proverbs 3:17). We learned we must rid ourselves of defects and resentments. We learned we must continue to do so daily. Allowing ourselves to reattach to our defects, leaves us not in Shalom, but at war within and with the universe and others in it.

"Great is peace between husband and wife."(Talmud Bavli Tractate Chullin 141a). Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel, Talmud Tractate Avot De Rebi Noson 28:3, says: "A person who brings peace into his house is considered by God as if he brought peace on the entire Jewish people." We all know what living in a house with no shalom bayat (peace in the house) is like. None of us could leave that home and go to work and be as kind and gentle as we would like. So developing the character trait of Shalom is the ultimate in living happy, joyous and free with Jewish Spiritual Renewal.

Never lose sight of the fact that God created all of us to be happy, joyous and free. He wants us to live in Shalom. We have the power to "get back to the Garden" every day of our lives, if only we choose to do so.

I have enjoyed this journey with you. Each journey begins with a small step and we have taken that first step and many more together. Spiritually, we have traveled miles. God willing, we will continue our journeys and grow ever more spiritually, ever more close to God and ever closer to our fellows. "May it be your will, Adonai, our God and God of our ancestors, that you lead us toward peace, make us reach our desired destination for life, gladness, and peace. Blessed are you, Adonai, Who hears prayer. Amen.

You have now completed the text :'' The Handbook for Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew.'' Mozel Tov. Throw a Siyum, a celebration of this completion (siyum means completion) with a seudat mitzvah, [ a meal in honor of this mitzvah of completion],  for this occasion and give a talk on what you learned to your friends and family.

As mentioned above, We will take a break during the High Holy Days, and circa Simchat Torah a new class will begin, our 4th for Hebrew College's Shamash on- line class program, which will be no more than one page per week, on Jewish ethics, mussar, and Derek Eretz.

As usual, a D'var Torah for the Shabbat of September 4, 2010 follows. And as mentioned above, two others to complete the Chumash, along with the special readings for the Holy Days. 

 

Shalom uvracha:

Rabbi Arthur Segal www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal www.jewishrenewal.info
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

 

Parashot Nitzavim and Vayeilech: Deuteronomy 29:09-31:30

Rabbi Arthur Segal www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal www.jewishrenewal.info
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

"You Know it Ain't Easy, Its Often Unkind; But You Better Have to Make up your Mind"

Parasha Nitzavim gets its name from the Hebrew word for "standing." Moses renews God's covenant with Israel and warns against idolatry. He tells the Israelites that, while God will punish them for being sinful, He will eventually restore them. Moses says that the Torah will always be accessible to the people, and not hidden in the domain of the priests. He ends by reminding the Jews that they have free choice.

Parasha Vayeilech tells of Moses' 120th birthday. He is about to leave the people of Israel, and presents them with the Book of Deuteronomy. He says that during the holiday of Sukkoth, this entire book should be read aloud. God tells Moses that he is about to die and that he should write a song for the people. He gives the reign of political command to Joshua. He gives spiritual command to the Levites and tells them that he knows that they will stray, sin, and be corrupted.

"I have placed life and death before you, blessing and curse, and you shall choose life." (Deut. 30:19). With only three portions left to conclude the Chumash, some of our leader's final words to us are to "choose life." We have the choice. It is always in our control. We had it in the Garden of Eden, and we had it throughout history. The Torah has shown us time and time again how bad choices bring about disastrous results. Sometimes these calamitous sequella show up generations later. The Torah is "a tree of life to those that cling to it."

The parasha insists that Torah be accessible to all. "It is not hidden from you and it is not distant. It is not in heaven...it is not across the sea...the matter is very near to you...in your mouth and in your heart." (Deut. 30:11-14). In Talmud Tractate Niddah 30B we are taught that a fetus is taught Torah in the womb and is caused to forget it at birth. What were the sages teaching?

The instructions in the Torah about how we are to behave to one another, even when read for the first time, ring true. The rabbis are saying that when we are born, we have inside us the intrinsic knowledge to know good and to be good. A small child knows when he or she is being naughty. As we get older, we learn to rationalize the things we do that are not good. When we rationalize to ourselves, we lie to ourselves. Whether the lie is "everyone cheats on their taxes, so why can't I?" or "one little piece of pie won't ruin my diet," lying to ourselves seems part of the human condition. But we also truly know that it is wrong. Moses is telling us to continually stay focused, be rational, and make choices that promote life, goodness, and harmony. But Moses knew human nature well. He predicted that the Israelites would return to sin, and soon after Joshua's death, they did (Judges 2:7).

Knowing that we sin, the Torah gives us a way for growth. The Hebrew word for sin (chet) means to "miss the mark." It is an archery term. We are not condemned or damned for eternity when we fall short of our goals. We can say we are sorry to others, and to ourselves, and vow to do better. The Hebrew word for sorry is selicha. You'll hear this word in Israel, maybe, on a crowded bus as someone pushes past you. A week before our new year, we have a holiday called Selichot named from this very word.

Selichot are penitential prayers. They are traditionally recited before the morning service during the last week of month of Elul. They are also said between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. When a sacrifice was brought to the Temple in Jerusalem, it was examined for four days before to ensure it had no blemishes. The sages felt that we should feel like sacrificial offerings the week before Rosh Hashanah and do sincere self-examination to lead us to do teshuvah. Teshuvah is more than repentance. It is from the Hebrew word meaning "to return." It is not enough to say we are sorry. We need to fix the bad that we have done, if possible, and not do it again. We are taught that God has forgiven a sin when we no longer do that sin.

The traditional service is a collection of liturgical poets who lived during the millennium following the close of the Talmudic era (circa 500 C.E. to 1500 C.E.). Originally, the service had groups of biblical verses, which emphasized the 13 attributes of God, which we are to emulate. As the years moved on, the service adapted the sound of most other services with multiple kaddishes. Psalm 145 was added, as was a confessional. In America, with people used to staying up late on Saturday night, the custom began to have the service at this time, rather than at dawn on Sunday morning. It is also traditional to have a study session before the service, at which some aspect of the meaning and the purpose of the High Holy Days is discussed.

All of us have struggles. As my dear friend Lisa Segal (no relation, but a wonderful Cantor and woman) wrote, "How we respond to our struggles is what truly matters." We have discussed many times that the Torah teaches us to help one another deal with life's hardships. Sometimes, the way to choose life has unfortunately been to choose death. The life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer lends us some modern insights into Selicoth.

When Great Britain's present Prime Minister Tony Blair was asked, "Which German figure past or present, do you admire most?" he replied, "Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor, who spoke out against the Nazis and died in a concentration camp." Bonhoeffer was one of the few church leaders who stood in courageous opposition to Hitler. His experience under Nazism thrust him into profound conflict with much of his religious tradition. He raised questions that he was unable to resolve before he was killed in Flossenburg on April 9, 1945. Like most Christians of his generation, he believed that God's special destiny for the Jews included their eventual acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah.

Jewish and Christian scholars evaluate Bonhoeffer's legacy differently. To Christians, his resistance against the Nazis and his writings offered new ethics to the Protestant church. Some Jewish scholars contend that Bonhoeffer acted out of patriotism on behalf of his church and not for the sake of the Jews.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on February 4, 1906 in Breslau, Germany. His mother was university educated and his father was a psychiatrist. He graduated from the Union Seminary of New York. In 1939 he taught theology in Berlin. His church, German Evangelical Protestantism, was shaped by obedience to state authority and by nationalism. Most church leaders welcomed the rise of Nazism as a response to the liberalism and chaos of the Weimar Republic.

A group of German Christians, called Deutsche Christen, was the voice of Nazi ideology within the Protestant Church, and removed the Old Testament from the Bible, claiming that it was "too Jewish." In 1933, when the Nuremberg laws prevented non-Aryans from being in civil service, they also forbade non-Aryans from being ministers or religious teachers. For example, a Protestant, with one Jewish grandparent, could not teach or preach in their "pure Aryan" German church. But they went further. Repudiating Gospel teachings, they said that the non-Aryan Jews were banned from converting to Christianity.

Bonhoeffer's opposition to this Aryan anti-Semitic Deutsche Christen was not based upon disagreement with the Nazi's racial policies, but upon the group's repudiating Church policy as defined in the Gospel. It was a battle of Church independence from Nazism. The church avoided the deeper issue of the rights of German Jews. Many of the church leaders who were against the Deutsche Christen were in favor of the Nazi Aryan policies.

Bonhoeffer opposed the Deutsche Christen, saying that they surrendered Christian precepts to Nazi ideology. He said if non-Aryan Christians could not be in the German Protestant church, he would start a new church, called the "Confessing Church." This church would be free of Nazi influence. This was a minority view. Most German bishops wanted to avoid antagonizing the Nazi regime. As the Nazis became stronger, Bonhoeffer's Confessing Church became paralyzed.

In his essay The Church and the Jewish Question, published in 1933, Bonhoeffer called upon the church to defend the Jews. He did so not because of moral or humanitarian concerns, but because the church needed the Jews to accept Jesus. He says the homecoming of Jesus happens "in the conversion of Israel to Christ." But he also broke new ground in saying that the church must fight political injustice and to help victims of injustice whether they were members of his church or not. His essay became an explicit ethical commitment to all those persecuted by the Nazis. He even drafted a message to Rabbi Stephen Wise, head of the Reform Jewish Movement in the United States.

Theologically, Bonhoeffer still felt the Jewish question would be resolved if all the Jews converted and Judaism no longer existed. This was against the Nazi and Deutsche German view of exterminating anyone with Jewish blood and not accepting their conversion or their grandparents' conversion. Bonhoeffer's struggle became more with his own church than with the Nazis. He enlisted help from churches outside of Germany. He attended the World Alliance Christian ecumenical meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria, and convinced the delegates to pass the following resolution in April 1933: "We especially deplore the fact that the State measures against the Jews in Germany had such an effect on public opinion that, in some circles, Jewish race is considered a race of inferior status."

However, when Bonhoeffer's sister asked him to conduct a Christian funeral for her husband's brother who, like her husband, was a converted Jew, Bonhoeffer succumbed to pressure from his church superintendent and refused. By November 1933, he regretted this decision and apologized to his sister. He turned down a parish post in Berlin and moved to London. His church in London became a haven for both Christian and Jewish refugees. In April 1935, he returned to Germany to help his Confessing Church. One of his members, deaconess Marga Meusel, no longer just denounced the church and the Nazis for their treatment of Jews who converted to Christianity. She denounced the Nazis and the church for their treatment against all Jews. Some leaders of Bonhoeffer's own church wanted to dispute Meusel's beliefs and only defend Jews who converted. They actually wanted to go so far as to agree that the Nazis could do what they wished with non-Christian Jews. This would have given sanction to the Nuremberg laws by Bonhoeffer's church. His church's synod met and dismissed Meusel's view and avoided discussions about the Nazi regime. They simply decided to support the baptism of Jews and support non-Aryan Christians.

For the next two years, Bonhoeffer taught quietly at the seminary of his Confessing Church at Finkenwalde. In 1937, the Gestapo declared his school illegal, as it opposed their Jewish blood laws. Twenty-seven of Bonhoeffer's students were arrested. During the next two years, Bonhoeffer traveled around Germany in secret supervising his students who were working illegally in small rural parishes. In 1938, the Gestapo banned him from Berlin and in 1940 forbade him from speaking publicly.

During the period from 1938 to 1940, Bonhoeffer's philosophy changed. For the first time he described Judaism using the same terminology as he used for Christianity. He said that in God's eyes the church and synagogue were equal. He said that Jews were the brothers of Christians, and that Jews were the "children of the covenant." These were radical statements. The regular Protestant movement in Germany just had culminated their 1939 conference on "Researching the Removal of Jewish Influence on the Religious Life of the German People."

After the November 9, 1938 Kristallnacht, Bonhoeffer protested the Church leaders who said that this pogrom was "the curse which has haunted Jews since Jesus' death on the cross." Bonhoeffer rejected this vehemently and said it was sheer violence revealing Nazism's godless face. Bonhoeffer then organized his members. Pastor Heinrich Gruber helped 2000 Jews escape Germany. Confessing Christians who were expelled from Germany worked with their German colleagues. One was Adolf Fruedenberg, who helped from Switzerland. Another was Henry Leiper from the United States, who was an outspoken critic of Nazism and urged a boycott of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He worked with Jewish groups to spread the word about what was really happening in Germany.

In 1939, Bonhoeffer's other brother-in-law, Hans von Dohnanyl, became a high- ranking member of the German Military Intelligence under Admiral Wilheim Canaris. Secretly, Dohnanyl was a member of the resistance. Dohnanyl told Bonhoeffer that war was imminent. Bonhoeffer left for New York to teach at the Union Seminary in 1939. By the time he arrived in America, he realized that his place was in Germany fighting the Nazis and helping the Jews. He returned to the belly of the beast one month later in July 1939. Reverend Dietrich Bonhoeffer made an important, crucial decision. He joined the resistance.

Bonhoeffer became a double agent for the resistance by working for his brother-in-law at German military intelligence. The Nazis thought Bonhoeffer would use his church connections to help the Reich. Instead, he helped the resistance gain support as he traveled in Italy, Switzerland, and Scandinavia in 1941 and 1942. However, the Allies treated him with distrust, because the German generals against Hitler wanted guarantees of German territorial integrity and their own positions in power after the war. In 1943, Churchill and Roosevelt said that only unconditional surrender of the Nazis would end the war and did not wish to help the German resistance movement of the anti-Hitler Army officers.

When Jewish deportation started on October 15, 1941, Bonhoeffer wrote detailed memos about it that were smuggled out of Germany on October 18th. Dohnanyl and Canaris, while running the German intelligence office, ran Operation Seven. This secret project smuggled 11 converted Jews and 3 Jews to Switzerland. Using Jews in the Intelligence under the Nazis was not unusual. Hitler himself ordered Canaris to use Jews as spies and send them to the United States. Canaris was happy to oblige. The only orders he gave the Jewish spies was to escape as soon as they got out of Germany. The Gestapo discovered this operation by a trail of money leaving Germany to help the refugees. They arrested Dohnanyl and Bonhoeffer in 1943 on charges of corruption. Later they realized they were smuggling Jews.

In July 1944, an attempt by Canaris's group to kill Hitler failed. It was only after the conspirators' arrest that the Nazis learned of Bonhoeffer's true involvement. He was hung at Flossenburg concentration camp in April 1945, together with his brother Klaus, Canaris, his brother-in-law Dohnanyl, and others.

In his essay Who Stands Firm, Bonhoeffer wrote, "Only the one for whom the final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all these, when in faith and sole allegiance to God he is called to obedient and responsible action: the responsible person, whose life will be nothing but an answer to God's question and call."

This parasha says that all of us are "standing today" (Deut. 29:9). Our covenant with God was sealed not just with those standing with Moses circa 3,300 years ago, but "with whoever is not here with us today" (Deut. 29:14). Our covenant is binding upon unborn generations. We have a choice whether to accept Torah's ethical teachings or not. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is an example of a man who, after some starts and stops, decided to choose life. He gave up his own life for the greater good.

Let us determine to do our best to choose life-affirming actions. Let us work toward tsaddakah (justice) and chesed (kindness). As the prophet Isaiah says, "For Zion's sake, I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be still, until her righteousness shall go forth like a bright light." (Is. 62:01).

Let us begin, or continue, by doing good within our homes, workplaces and synagogues. Let us begin our own Jewish Spiritual Renewal. Let us "beat down the highway, clear it of stone, and raise a banner over all the peoples" (Is. 62:10) that will bring about Tikun Olam (repair of the world) speedily in our days.

Parasha Ha'azinu: Deuteronomy 32:01-32:52

Rabbi Arthur Segal www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
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'Comin' Around, Comin' Around Again"

In the preceding Torah portion, Moses is commanded by God to write a poetic song to the Israelites. I hated, when as a kid, my class was assigned a poetry-writing lesson. But Moses, ever faithful to God's orders, wrote a 47-verse poem that makes up 90 percent of this parasha. When he was done, God told him it is time to die. Why? Was this poem out of rhythm or meter? Was there too much or not enough onomatopoeia or alliteration?

Moses' song begins: "Give ear" (ha'azinu). This is from where this parasha derives its name (Deut. 32:01). The theme is that Israel will sin, will suffer, will repent, and will be saved by God. Traditionally, it is believed that this song is prophecy. As per the critical theory of Biblical authorship, which was discussed in Deuteronomy's first D'var Torah in this series, this chapter was written after the return from the Babylonian exile. It is therefore putting a divine meaning of punishment onto their exile, as well as a meaning of divine intervention for Israel's return to their land. It ignores, therefore, the historical realities of the day. Big nations were conquering little nations. But Judaism is more than a nation. It is a philosophy of ethical living, and hence is borderless.

Israel and Judah were taken captive not because God punished the Jews. Israel and Judah were taken captive because they were militarily weaker than other nations around them. Judah returned to the Promised Land because the Persians conquered the Babylonians. Persian King Cyrus, who felt the Jews were loyal to him, wanted them in this territory, and not the people that the Babylonians imported to live there in the Jews' absence. The Jewish people stayed alive under Babylonian and Persian rule because they kept their core beliefs, but adapted to the new environment. Ironically, when the call was given to return to the land of Israel, most Jews stayed in what is now Iraq and Iran.

There are some interesting points that we can glean from this portion. Talmud Tractate Beracoth 21A derives the rule of saying a prayer before Torah study from verse 32:3-4. It also decrees that when three or more eat together, one should call upon the others to recite the "Grace after the Meal" (birkat ha mazon). This is why you hear Grace begin with, "chaveirim va chaveirot n'vareich" (friends, let us praise).

Traditionally, the call is "rabbotie n'vareich" which is asking men, or rabbis, to praise God. A timeless bit of truth, to those who are students of history, is included in Moses' song. He says in verses 32:15-18 that Israel became fortunate and lost her moral compass. People are prone to "indulge their lusts when they have the resources to do so," says Rabbi Nosson Scherman. Israel, like other nations before it, and other nations after it, failed the test.

As the modern Jewish poet and songwriter Bob Dylan writes, "the first one now will later be last." Israel, called Jeshurun, became "fat, thick and corpulent." Jeshurun means upright, straight and unbending in Hebrew. Orthodox means the same thing. Yet, even though they followed the ritual and brought sacrifices to God, they succumbed. Why? Their morals and ethics were forgotten. They did not take care of the poor in their land. They treated each other horribly. Their very nation, rich and powerful under King Solomon, split in two a generation later. Jews fought with Jews. Rituals were done, but hatred and pride were in their hearts. Moses is warning us, and all nations, that it is important not to forget the ethics, morals, and man-to-man laws when we become successful. This admonition is great advice not only to the leaders of our country, but  also to us as individuals.

During the High Holy Day season, the days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Moses' song promises redemption to the sinning nation and to sinning individuals. But Moses himself does not spare punishment for his transgression when he hit the rock, instead of speaking to it, in the wilderness. God tells Moses to climb Mount Nebo, look at the Promised Land that he will not be allowed to enter, and die there. Thus ends this parasha, the second to the last of the Chumash.

This Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is called Shabbat Shuvah, meaning the Sabbath of Return. It gets it name from the first word of this portion's Haftarah. The Haftarah is made from three sections of three different prophetic writings: Hosea 14:2-10, Joel 2:11-27, and Micah 7:18-20. Hosea 14:02 begins, "Return oh Israel, to God." Because of the busyness of the two holidays, our synagogues are sometimes not quite full on this Sabbath, giving it another name, "Shabbat of No Return."

The theme of these three prophets, which make up this Haftarah, is that "the gates of repentance (renewal) are always open" (Mishna Deut. Rabbah). No matter how much we have sinned, if we make a sincere effort to change, we are not lost. "Who, oh God, is like You, Who pardons iniquity and overlooks transgression?" (Micah 7:18). What a wonderful time to begin our Jewish Spiritual Renewal process if we have not already.

At our Tashlich service, after the Rosh Hashanah service, we cast bread upon the waters. This symbolizes our desire to get rid of our bad habits and strive to be better people. "Cast into the depths of the sea, all your sins." (Micah 7:19). And what does the Micah say God wants from us on this last Shabbat before we traditionally believe our fate is sealed on Yom Kippur? Is he browbeating us to keep the dietary laws, or pray three times a day? No. "He desires kindness!" (Micah 7:18). The word chesed (kindness or mercy) appears often during this most holy time of the year. We ask God for chesed when we say, "grant kindness to Abraham" (Micah 7:20). In return, God asks us for chesed to each other.

Many Jews have asked me why their Tashlich does not work. They cast all of their sins upon the water and walk back to their cars and the sins hop back unto them. Their rabbis or temple lay leaders have not explained the Talmudic Teshuvah process.

First one must accept God. There really is no getting around this.

Second, one must accept the fact that we have a yetzer ha ra, an evil inclination, and without God's help turning our will to be aligned with His, we will continue to do our will.

Third, we must decide once and for all to put our lives and will into God's loving hands. The Mishna says that when we pick up the yoke of God, all other yokes fall from our shoulders.

Fourth, we must do a chesbon ha nefesh, a written complete moral inventory of our soul, and honestly list our defects of character and those to whom we hold grudges.

Fifth, we must do vidui, confession, to God and to our rabbi or Talmud or Torah study partner - someone who knows us well so we are sure not to hold anything back.

And sixth, this is the catchall; we must find that our sins and our grudges are objectionable and abhorrent to us. It is not enough that our friends and families find us a pain in the ass. We must recognize it ourselves!

Upon completing the first six steps, we move on to a seventh step; asking God to take our sins and resentments away from us by doing tashlich. But the work still is not done.

When we walk back up the hill from the moving body of water, we must immediately begin to seek out those we have harmed with our sins and resentments, putting aside what they have done to us, and make face to face teshuvah – amends - to them. If they refuse to see us, we try three times. If they are dead, we go with another, to their grave and make teshuvah. Each day thereafter, we ask God to keep us from these defects and from anger, so we don't sin again or develop new resentments.

This process of Jewish Spiritual Renewal is discussed comprehensively in my other book, The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew.

The Midrash says that we know God has forgiven our sins when we are faced with the opportunity to sin, and we do not. The Talmud tells us that anyone who comes away from prayer, Tephilia, self judgment, and is not a better person, that person has not prayed properly.

May we all vow to return to the ethics, values, caring, and compassion that sustains our people and great nations. May we pray to God to help us in our Jewish Spiritual Renewal. May we pray that we, as well as our leaders, use our personal and nation's resources to help those in need. May we all inscribe ourselves, and each other, into the "Book of Life." La Shana Tova! Amen.

Parasha Vezot Ha'berachah: Deuteronomy 33:01-34:12

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"Death Don't Have No Mercy In This Land"

This is the last portion of the Chumash. Moses blesses each of the tribes of Israel individually. But did Moses bless all twelve? When he is through with his farewell blessings, Moses ascends Mount Nebo, sees the land of Israel from the mountaintop and dies. Who buries Moses? If the entire Torah was traditionally believed to have been given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, did he write the last verses describing his death as well? Upon Moses' death, Joshua takes over the reigns of leadership. To learn more, we invite you to read more.

Like Jacob centuries before him, Moses blesses each of the twelve tribes. Like Jacob, Moses' words are both blessings and prophecies. The Hebrew word v'zot (and this) is how Moses begins his blessings. This is the same phrase that Jacob uses to end his blessings (Gen. 49:28). The Midrash says that this is to show continuity of the people from their earliest times as individual sons of Jacob to the time soon to come, when they will enter the Promised Land and become a nation after wandering in the desert for 40 years. Moses used this same phrase when he began his summation of the Torah in Deuteronomy 4:44. Ramban (Nachmonides of thirteenth-century Spain) says that this symbolizes that it was the ethics of Torah that carried Israel through its past journeys, and Torah ethics will continue to carry Israel through its future trials.

This portion is read on Simchat Torah. As already mentioned, it is the last of the Chumash. As soon as we finish it, we immediately cycle back to the beginning; Genesis, the first book of the Torah. This symbolizes that our people can never consider the ethics taught in the Torah to be completed. Our study, as well as our living ethically, continues year in and year out.

This Shabbat's Haftarah, taken from the first chapter of the book of Joshua, is the book of the Holy Scriptures that follows Deuteronomy. In this Haftarah, Joshua solidifies his leadership and the Jews pledge loyalty to him by saying, "all that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go." This is reminiscent of the words said by the Israelites in the desert to Moses: "We will do and we will listen." While the ethics of the Torah are unchanging in a circular pattern, Jewish history and our adaptation to the times must be linear.

Moses is called "a man of God" (Deut. 33:01). His last act on earth, knowing that he would die, was to bless his people. Rabbi Yaakov David says that homiletically, Moses is asking the leaders of the tribes to not only be strong and wise, but to be honest and kind as well. Moses calls the Torah a heritage (Deut. 33:04). It is to be transmitted from generation to generation. It is not an inheritance. One can do what one wishes to do with an inheritance. A heritage is something valuable and special that is handed down to succeeding generations. The rabbis in Talmud Tractate Pesachim 49B take the Hebrew word for heritage, change one consonant and one vowel, and read the new word as "married." Israel and the Torah are married.

The Twelve Tribes are blessed by Moses. Ephriam and Menassah are combined as Joseph, who was their father but did not have his own tribe. Simeon is left out. Ibn Ezra, of the 12th-century, says that this is because Jacob has castigated Simeon in Genesis 49:05, and because the sinners in the orgy at Baal Peor were Simeonites (Num. 25:03). Ramban disagrees. He says that the Twelve Tribes are always listed as twelve. Usually Levi is deleted, as this tribe is landless. But Moses wished to bless Levi, as their task of transmitting Torah values was extremely important. He therefore had to omit a tribe and chose Simeon. He omitted Simeon, as their population was small. According to the critical theory of Biblical authorship, Simeon was incorporated into a part of Judah as early as in Joshua's time (Josh. 19:02). By the time of Deuteronomy's writing after the return from the exile in Babylon, this tribe was all but forgotten.

Zebulun and Issachar are mentioned together. Zebulun engaged in successful maritime commerce and supported Issachar, who devoted time to study and teaching Torah (I Chron. 12:32). Rashi says that this symbiotic relationship is codified by halakah (Jewish law). A rich man, with no time for study, can pay someone to study and they both will get credit for fulfilling the commandment to study Torah. In spiritual Jewish philosophy, this goes against the spirit of studying Torah to make us better people. We study Torah ethics and do good deeds because it the correct way to be, and not to garner God's favor.

In Deuteronomy 34:05, Moses dies. There are eight more verses of the Chumash. The rabbis debate who wrote these. In Talmud Bavli Tractate Bava Batra 15B there are two opinions: Joshua wrote these eight lines, or God dictated these words to Moses, who wrote them with tears from his eyes, rather than with ink. The Vilna Gaon, of 18th-century Lithuania, says both rabbis of the Talmud are correct. Moses got the entire Torah from God. The part that had to do with his death came as one long stream of letters. He says that the Hebrew word "dimah" can mean either "tear" or "mixed-up." The Gaon says Moses wrote the letters, but Joshua made them into intelligible words. I must inject a personal note here. Whenever I read about Moses dying, I get tears in my eyes. While alive, Moses is called a man of God. When he dies, he is called a servant of God (eved Adonai; Deut. 34:05). In death, he is completely in Heaven's realm. As a living being, he is a man, able to make choices and able to make errors.

We are told that Moses dies "by the mouth of God" (Deut.34:05). Rashi says that this means Moses dies by a divine kiss. The rabbis of the Talmud discuss all the various ways one can die. They decide that this is the best of all the ways to die. While the text says that God buried Moses, some rabbis argue that Moses buried himself. Another tradition says that Moses' grave was ready for him since the evening of sixth day of the creation at precisely twilight of the first Shabbat (Pirkei Avot 5:06). Talmud Bavli Tractate Sotah 13A says that the verse, "and no one knows his burial place to this day," means that Moses himself did not know where it was. No one is to know where it is even now, so as not to make it into a shrine.

The rabbis discuss another interesting point. Verse 34:08 says, "the children of Israel bewailed" Moses' death. They juxtapose this with how the Torah says Aaron was mourned. Numbers 20:29 says Aaron was mourned "by the entire house of Israel." The rabbis say that Moses was mourned by men to whom he taught the law. The sages say that all the men, women, and children mourned for Aaron because he taught them love, kindness and how to pursue peace. Aaron was known to go throughout the camp transforming friends and families who had disagreements into having loving and amicable relationships with each other again.

In Tractate Sotah 14a, Rabbi Simlai notes that the Torah ends with an act of kindness (chesed); God burying Moses. The Torah also begins with an act of chesed in Genesis 3:21 when God clothed Adam and Eve. The Talmud records that chesed is the founding principle of the Jewish people and of what we call ethical monotheism. Abraham's mission was preaching chesed toward one another.

The Talmud teaches that chesed is associated with spiritual perfection and is the most important aspect of the Torah. "Chesed is the unifying factor of creation," says rabbi Pinchas Winston. If one masters the trait of kindness, one masters the traits for building relationships. Abraham and his original religious philosophy believe that the world was created for chesed and for loving, kind relationships with each other. King David reiterated this idea in Psalm 89:03: "A world of chesed You created."

Imitating God is a higher spiritual experience than doing rituals or even talking to God, as we learned when we read about Abraham stopping his conversation with God to care for three strangers. When one makes chesed a high priority in life, one is doing one's best to resemble God. God says in Genesis 1:03, "Let there be light (or)." Abraham is called a light in the Midrash. The Midrash also says, "when Moses was born he filled the house with light." We know that God calls light good. We know of Abraham's many acts of kindness, but what was Moses' major act of kindness? Moses, the Midrash says, did a "chesed shel emet" (true kindness).

While the Jews were busy collecting gold from the Egyptians just prior to the Exodus, Moses found Jacob's coffin, which was buried in the Nile River, and brought it to the surface. He carried it with him for forty years and instructed Joshua to bury Jacob in Shechem.

Why is this called an act of true kindness? The sages say it is an act that can never be repaid. Because of this one act, the Midrash says, Moses merited burial by God Himself. It was not due to the teaching of the 613 commandments. It was not due to bringing Israel out of slavery and through the desert safely to the banks of the Promised Land. It was not due to being shomar Shabbat (strictly observant of Shabbat), or following exacting rituals of the dietary laws. Moses is called a man of God, a servant of God, and is buried by God because he did an act of true, unrepayable chesed.

I close this last D'var of the Chumash with a quote about Moses by Elie Wiesel: "His passion for social justice, his struggle for national liberation, his triumphs and disappointments, his poetic inspiration, his gifts as a strategist and an organizational genius, his complex relationship with God and His people, his requirements and promises, his condemnations and blessings, his bursts of anger, his silences, his efforts to reconcile the law with compassion, authority with integrity - no individual, ever, anywhere, accomplished so much for so many people in so many different domains. His influence is boundless. It reverberates beyond time."

Special Holiday Readings

Rosh Hashanah

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Selected Readings:

Genesis 21:1-34

1 Samuel 1:1-2:10

Numbers 29:1-6

Genesis 22:1-24

Jeremiah 31:1-19

Happy New Year! La Shana Tova!

"We Can't Return, We Can Only Look, Behind from Where We Came"

On many Jewish holidays there are special sections of parashot read to help us remember themes of the holidays. The theme of God's mercy and kindness is woven throughout these special readings. Genesis 21 tells of Sarah, a 90-year old woman, giving birth to Isaac. It also tells of Hagar and Ishmael being expelled by Abraham at his wife's insistence. God rescues them in the desert. Genesis 22 tells of the binding of Isaac, Abraham's faith in God, and God's rescue of Isaac. The reading in Samuel tells of Hannah who is childless, prays to God for intervention, and gives birth to Samuel. The section of Jeremiah tells of God rescuing Israel from her captivity and restoring her greatness. Lastly, the verses from Numbers tell of the rules for a holy convocation from which our sages derive the laws and customs of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

Numbers 29:01-05 reads, "In the seventh month, on the first day of this month, there shall be a holy convocation for you and you shall not do laborious work. It shall be a day of shofar-sounding for you. You shall make an elevation offering...one young bull, one ram, seven male lambs in their first year, unblemished. And their meal offering...one male of the goats for a sin offering to provide you atonement." There is a similar law given in Leviticus 23:23-26. Does this sound like our Rosh Hashanah celebration today?

We are commanded to celebrate an unnamed festival on the first day of the seventh month. No details are offered. The seventh month is later called Tishrei. The Jewish first month is Nissan, in which we celebrate Passover. Pesach is our national new year, as we were liberated from slavery then.

We are to refrain from work and to make sacrifices on this first day of the seventh month. This is no different than any other holiday. The difference is that we are commanded to blow the ram's horn. The verse in Leviticus says we are to blow the shofar with loud blasts. A verse in Numbers says it is a day when the shofar will be sounded. No other explanations are given.

The words "Rosh Hashanah" first appear in the Talmud in Tractate Rosh Hashanah 1b. The rabbis teach that we have four new years. The one in Tishrei was designated for calculating the years for foreign kings, as well as for counting the Sabbatical and Jubilee years. It was also a time for planting trees and vegetables. We also are told that on this day, "all who come into the world pass before God like legions of soldiers." Some translations say, "like a flock of sheep." The rabbis say that this means that God passes judgment on all humans on this day.

Rosh Hashanah's significance is tied to the Holy Day of Yom Kippur. This is the day we make expiation for our sins (Lev. 23:28). The rabbis extended Yom Kippur's reach back to the first day of the month of Elul. The rabbis decreed in the Talmud that the shofar be sounded a month before Rosh Hashanah to aid us in our annual process of self-evaluation and Jewish Spiritual Renewal. Eventually, Tishrei replaced Nissan as the first month. This comes out of a debate the sages had that is recorded on this tractate's folios 10B and 11A. It has to do with the precise time the world was created. Rabbi Joshua claims that the world was created on the first of Nissan. Rabbi Eliezer says it was the first of Tishrei. The rabbis agree with rabbi Eliezer. This is why after the three shofar blasts, we say, "Today the world came into being."

The rabbis made Rosh Hashanah into a time of universal renewal. They want us to be reminded that we can bring order into our chaotic lives. We can say good-bye to the old and welcome in the new. A traditional blessing is, "May the year and its curses end, may the year and its blessings begin." Just as the Sabbath does to weeks, Rosh Hashanah does to years.

We ask that we can be written into God's Book of Life. We do this writing, not God. The scripts of our lives are written by each of us individually. Rosh Hashanah is a time to take stock of ourselves and put our bad habits and our old selves into God's Book of Death. As rabbi Neil Gilman writes, "we say good-bye to our old selves and hello to our new ones." This is why the Talmudic rabbis took these six verses and turned them into a large Tractate of the Talmud.

Traditionally, Jews welcome the first of the month with a special prayer for the new moon. Rosh Hashanah always falls, as per the law in Numbers, on the new moon of Tishrei. Yet no new moon prayer is said. The rabbis say that this is "in order to confuse Satan." The sages say that Satan is waiting for Rosh Hashanah in order to speak ill of us before God. The rabbis decree that if we do not say the new month prayers, Satan may not know it is Rosh Hashanah and could miss his chance. The day before Rosh Hashanah the rabbis decree to be "hattarat nederim." This is a release from all vows that one may have made but has forgotten about. Gravesites are also visited at this time. It is a time for charitable giving. The rabbis decree that giving to charity helps absolve one from past sins.

Tractate Rosh Hashanah continues on 16B: "All are judged on Rosh Hashanah and the verdict is sealed on Yom Kippur." Rabbi Kruspedia says, "Three books are opened on Rosh Hashanah: one for the utterly wicked, one for the perfectly righteous, and one for the intermediates. The perfectly righteous are straightaway inscribed and sealed for life; the wicked are straightaway inscribed and sealed for death; the intermediates are suspended and wait from Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur. If they merit, they are inscribed for life; if not - they are inscribed for death." In Leviticus 16:30, Yom Kippur was the day when "atonement be made for you to cleanse you, from all of your sins you shall be clean before the Lord." The rabbis made Rosh Hashanah into a day of reflection, repentance, and judgment. The Midrash says that "the gates of repentance (renewal) are always open," yet the Talmud alludes to certain hopeless evil people who have no hope of forgiveness.

It also talks of purely righteous people. The rabbis decide that both categories rarely exist, and that humans fall into the third, intermediate category. As rabbi Ismar Schorsch writes, Rosh Hashanah is called Yom Hazikaron, a day of remembrance. It is a time for us to accurately remember our past year. We are to judge our own actions and to find a correct direction. It is a time to right any wrongs that we have not yet corrected. It is a time for introspection, tefilah (self-judging), repentance, and teshuvah (returning, spiritual renewal).

Maimonides, of 12^th century Spain, writes, "The merit of penitents is higher than that of the perfectly righteous, because the former have struggled harder to subdue their passions." In the Talmud, rabbi Abahu says that a person who has sinned and stopped is of a higher religious order than one who has never known sin. He says, "In the spot where penitents stand, there is no room for the perfectly righteous." Rabbi Yochanan disagrees, but the sages agree with rabbi Abahu. The sages write in Talmud Bavli Tractate Beracoth 17A, "It does not matter whether you pray a lot or a little. What counts is that you direct your heart to Heaven."

They further posit, "Whether we succeed in observing a lot or a little, what counts is that our heart be solely directed toward God." The Talmud is clear that it is the purity of our intention in relating world around us and to others that is important, and not the mechanical or obsessive doing of ritual minutia.

As the old year closes and the new one opens, many of us search for answers. We pray to God to "feel for us, pity us, embrace us with mercy, restore us, don't forsake us, don't abandon us and to answer us." We read of Hannah's and Sarah's pleas for children being answered. We see Isaac being rescued from sacrifice. We hear the promises of Jeremiah promising our nation salvation, which may seem trite now to some American Jews, but provide words of comfort to so many of us who have not been so abundantly blessed. We also read of Hagar, lost, thirsty and hungry in the desert, after being expelled from Abraham's camp. God hears the cries of her son, Ishmael, and "opens her eyes and she saw a well of water" (Gen. 21:19). The well had always been there. Hagar just could not see it. God opened her eyes so she could see the answer. Many of us are too oblivious to the wells of change and salvation that lie within our reach. We really can change our lives if we find ourselves in a rut. It is hard, but it is possible. We have to want to see that we can do it.

Real teshuvah, turning our lives around, does not come from a spring of divine grace. It comes from pure human effort. As Spiritual Jews, we know that we will receive forgiveness from God by asking, but we must make teshuvah to those humans we have harmed. Even the Talmud says that the consequences of our actions can be mitigated, but not erased or reversed. We can learn from them and not do them again, but also not wallow in our past sins.

The rabbis say, "penitence, prayer and good deeds can annul the severity of the decree," but do no more. We as people must fix the hurt we have caused others and ourselves. Judaism does not believe we are "captives on a carrousel of time." We do not have to let ourselves be caught going "round and round in the circle game" repeating our same destructive behaviors. We can break free and change via Jewish Spiritual Renewal. This is how we can assure ourselves that on Rosh Hashanah we will be inscribed in our books of our lives, and on Yom Kippur we will seal it. Amen!

Sukkoth

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Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

Selected Readings:

Leviticus 22:26-23:44

Numbers 29:12-16

Zechariah 14:1-21

I Kings 8:2-21

"We Can't Return, We Can Only Look, Behind from Where We Came"

The special readings from Numbers and Leviticus give the laws of the Sukkoth holiday. The chapter in Kings tells us how King Solomon celebrated Sukkoth, while the chapter in Zechariah uses the booth as an analogy to God's rescuing and sheltering us from warring neighbors.

The Torah in Leviticus 23:39 says, "On the fifteenth of the seventh month, when you gather in the crop of the land, you shall celebrate God's festival for a seven day period: the first day is a rest day and the eighth day is a rest day. You shall take for yourselves on the first day, a fruit of a beautiful tree, the branches of date palms, twigs of a plaited tree, and brook willows, and you shall rejoice before your God for a seven-day period...it is an eternal decree. You shall dwell in booths for a seven-day period; every native in Israel shall dwell in booths. So that your generations will know that I caused the children o Israel to dwell in booths when I took them from the land of Egypt..."

Traditionally Sukkoth reminds us how God provided shelter during our 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Sukkoth is the time to rejoice in our wellbeing and to give thanks to God. It is sometimes called the "Jewish Thanksgiving." Some historians have written that the Pilgrim fathers of our United States of America fashioned their first Thanksgiving feast after this Biblical holiday. Sukkoth is also called chag ha asif (the harvest festival), and is the only holiday called ziman simchatanu (the time of our joy). The summer's produce is gathered, so therefore we know we can physically go on eating and living. The High Holy days are over, and we know that, traditionally speaking, our lives have been granted to us for another year by God.

The Midrash and Talmud, as we have seen with all holidays described in short verses in the Torah, expand the rules. Most important to them, the rabbis write pages on how to construct a sukkah – the booths described in Leviticus 23:39. They discuss the minimal number of walls, the height and thickness of the walls, the construction of the roof, and the materials to be used. They determine that this unspecified "fruit from a beautiful tree" must be a citron (etrog in Hebrew). This is a lemon-like fruit. They say that the four species mentioned symbolize the unity of us as individuals. The etrog symbolizes the heart. The lulav (palm branch) is the spine. The hadasim (myrtle leaves) are the eyes. The aravot (willow branches) are the lips. When we hold all four together, we are reminded that all parts of us must be integrated to lead ethical lives.

The Midrash gives another lesson. It says that the etrog, which tastes and smells pleasant, symbolizes one who studies and does good deeds. The lulav, whose fruit, the date, tastes good but has no aroma, is like one who studies but does not do good deeds. The myrtle, which has no taste but smells good, is like one who does not study but does good deeds. The willow has neither taste nor smell. It symbolizes one who does neither study or good deeds. The Midrash teaches that we hold these all together to remember that everyone is beloved by God and that a loving community is made up all of sorts of people.

When you are physically in a sukkah at night and your body lacks the comforts you are used to inside your home, it is very easy to ask what crucial lesson is learned from leaving the security and protection of our homes to go live in this hut. The Talmud Bavli, in Tractate Sukkah 11B, says that these booths serve to remind us of two things: either the temporary dwellings in which we lived in the desert, or the Clouds of Glory that protected us in the desert. By building flimsy booths covered with roofs that one can see through made with schach, we are reminded of the fragility of our existence and how lucky we are to have shelter that we sometimes take for granted. In a modern spiritual and renewal Jewish, tikun olam (repair of the world) sense, this may be a good time of year to remember the homeless in our cities who have no shelter and would look at these ticky-tacky huts as luxury dwellings.

The Talmud states that the roof must be made of loose earth-grown materials. However, the walls can be made of anything and can be completely enclosing. Rabbi Samson Hirsch, of 19th-century Germany, says that even though a rich man's walls may be built with metal and the poor man's wall built with old wooden boards, they are both subject to the same weather from above. These booths remind us that the comfortable walls we build for ourselves, as well as the titles and material wealth that we collect, are all just illusionary, false securities. It takes a lot of faith for a modern, soft suburbanite Jew to sleep in a sukkah, fending off humidity, rain, and bugs if one lives down south, or suffering through the autumn chills of night if one lives up north.

The Talmud also teaches that one must build a new sukkah each year. This is to remind us that the world is constantly undergoing renewal. Everything is always new and we should never take any condition for granted, but learn to adapt. The schach must be porous enough that one can see the stars through it, but opaque enough that one cannot look clearly at the constellations (mozel) and think that luck (as in mozel tov, commonly used Hebrew-Yiddish expression for good luck) will see him through these seven nights.

Another custom is to welcome a special guest from our past on each night of Sukkoth. We are taught in the Midrash that not only does the Divine Presence, the Shechinah, dwell with us, but that She comes with seven "faithful shepherds." These ushpizin (Aramaic for guests) come visit us, one each night. Who are they? They are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and David. Each one of these men left the comforts of their surroundings and lived in temporary shelters. Kabbalistically, each guest represents a character trait of God on the sefirot tree. For example, Abraham is chesed (loving kindness), Isaac is gevurah (spiritual strength), and Jacob is tiferet (spiritual glory). For spiritual Jews, this is a significant custom that reminds us of the attributes we should try to emulate to become better partners with God in Tikun Olam. Besides these spiritual guests, it is customary to invite a different human guest to your sukkah each night.

The rabbis, in Tractate Avodah Zarah, speak of living in a sukkah for a week as being the ultimate test for modern man to show his faith in God. They tell of the time of the "final redemption," when idol worshippers will say, "Please, God, do not send us to Hell. If we were given the Torah, we would have accepted it also!" The rabbis say that God makes a deal with them. He says He will give them just one of the 613 commandments He gave the Jews. If they fulfill this one mitzvah, they will enter olam haba (the world to come). They are told to live in a sukkah for a week.

The Talmud says that when the noon sun beats through the schach, the idol worshippers will "kick down the walls and flee in disgust." This story is mentioned to help modern Jews who see no benefit to the sukkah mitzvoth as a way of appreciating God's bounty and gaining some insight into Jewish spirituality, even if it is for one outside meal during the weeklong holiday.

Verse 23:37 of Leviticus mentions doing "a feast offering and its libation." During the Temple time, a unique offering was brought to the altar during Sukkoth. Each morning a water libation was poured over the altar. This pouring of water was called nisuch hamayim." It was celebrated with much fanfare. Masses of people would gather to dance, sing, perform, and throw precious water on each other. Special mammoth lamps were lit so that the party could go on all night. These lamps were great golden menorahs set on bases fifty yards high. Each menorah had four branches terminating in huge cups filled with oil. Four ladders were placed against each menorah and four young priests continually ascended these ladders to keep oil in the cups and to keep the fires burning. The wicks were made from worn garments of the priests. The Talmud records that these lamps illuminated all of Jerusalem.

This celebration was held every night of Sukkoth except for Shabbat and the first night. The rabbis wrote in Tractate Sukkoth 51A, "whoever did not see this celebration never saw a celebration." This weeklong party was known as Simchat Bait ha Sho'eva (the Rejoicing of the House of the Drawing).

The prophet Amos (5:21-27) writes that he visited the Temple during Sukkoth and the revelry that he saw made such an unfavorable impression upon him that he condemned the Temple and the entire ritual. Hosea (9:01), another prophet, also protested the bacchanalia atmosphere. Isaiah (28:7-8) tells us that even the priests were drunk in the sanctuary. He writes: "they are confused because of wine, they stagger because of strong drink." And these were the Levites and Kohanim! I leave it to your imagination to think of how the other tribes' members were misbehaving.

Water was, and still is, a precious commodity in the Middle East. Just as the Talmud Bavli says we are judged on Rosh Hashanah, it says the world is judged as well (Tractate Rosh Hashanah 16A). We bring a water offering to ask God to give us rain for our crops. However, since we are living in booths, it is considered a curse by God if it rains during Sukkoth (Tractate Sukkoth 28B). During the harvest season, some farmers do better than others. Even though Yom Kippur is only a week before Sukkoth, some people will think they are better than others based on their wealth. The water ceremony reminds us that we are all dependent on the same basic things to sustain life: water, food, and shelter. As we learn when we hold the four species, we are all interconnected and all dependent on the same things. Even the garments that some use to distinguish classes were useless during these ceremonies. Everybody got wet and frankly, their garments became see-through. As many of us know from our days in a public high school locker room, it is very hard to act haughty when one is naked. This is the only time the Talmud mentions that men and women celebrated separately because of diaphanous clothing.

Rabbi Michael Cohen compares Yom Kippur with Sukkoth. He says Sukkoth counterbalances Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is heavy and serious. Sukkoth is light and joyous. Yom Kippur takes place on the inside. Sukkoth takes place on the outside. We fast on Yom Kippur and feast on Sukkoth. On Yom Kippur we pray with our minds. On Sukkoth we build with our bodies. On Yom Kippur we hold a book in our hands. On Sukkoth we hold a lulav and etrog in our hands. On Yom Kippur we are serious and reflective. On Sukkoth we are joyful.

Isaac Luria, the 16^th century Kabbalist, instructed his students that their cultivation of joy is a prerequisite for attaining mystical illumination. When Jews come to services only on Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah, they are missing out on the joys of Judaism. Both holidays are necessary, just as both work and play are needed in a balanced life. Sukkoth is a time of rejoicing and being thankful for the blessings we have. As we spend time in our booths, let us think of ways we can liberate those who are permanently dwelling in huts, or less. The best way of saying thank you for God's bounty is to share it with others. This is how, in the words of the prophet Zechariah, we can fulfill his wish of, "And the Lord shall be King over all the earth, on that day shall the Lord be One, and his Name One." (Zech. 14:09).

 

Shabbat Shalom and may you be inscribed  and sealed into the book of life.

Rabbi Arthur Segal www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal www.jewishrenewal.info
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

 

 

   

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