Torah for now

Archive for June, 2026

A Psalm in Praise of Tears.

I am teaching a brief series about psalms. Psalms address their voice to the Holy One of blessing, they are rhythmic and use parallel repeats. They are perhaps the most widely read, and beloved book of the Tanach (Bible). I have challenged (optional) the learners to create a personal psalm to use in prayer. One of the events of this double reading, is that Miriam Moses and Aaron’s sister dies- in the wilderness. The very next thing that happens is that the community is out of water! SOURCES HERE

The water that is missing are the tears. There is no public ceremony, no tears recorded shed by her Brothers, or the community. Rashi writes that a magic well of water followed the Israelites during their wanderings. With her gone, so was the well. Torah is akin to water, and tears are healing. My experience is that you can’t go around grief, only through it. In the ancient Temple in Jerusalem there were bottles for tears – a lacrimatory The more tears, the more the respect and affection for the departed. These bottles were placed in the grave. We are mostly made of water, that weird and wonderful chemical, whose “stickiness” (think wet) makes life possible. Water is life! Even the name “Miryam” (spelled as the Hebrew sounds and is spelled) contains the word “yam” meaning sea. Miryam rescues her brother from the Nile, leads in song as the free crossed the sea of reeds – her life is linked with water. In this week’s reading, Chukat/Balak, Miriam dies, and the light that shone when she announced Moshe’s (Moses’) birth was dark. Yet no tears are shed- his heart is hard. This leads to the disaster of Moshe hitting a rock to bring water for the thirsty people, and calling them Marim-rebels. Moshe was supposed to speaking to the rock. As a result, he dies by the “kiss of the Holy One” at age 120 before reaching the promised land. I suggested that his inability to properly mourn Miryam’s loss led to his anger

I am learning with students about psalms. I have rewritten a poem about my own blocked tears and tears rediscovered. to fit the psalms, I share it here

A Psalm, dedicated to my students

Yah, my God, you filled me with life force

I am filled and strong against life’s storms

You brought me to this world and I am grateful for my life

But when the music of my small world

turned to screams, smacks and strife

This little girl you made built a wall so tall

And pretended that All was ok.

But the funny thing was,

Tears would stream down her face.

In a sad story or tale

Yet In the face of her own losses, tears refused to fall

The wall refused to come undone.

Until choice and challenge opened a path of grace

Bringing her face to face with the hurt child inside

Then she finally shed tears for those long gone from her side

And finally reach out for those souls who no longer did abide

who left a hole within her life.

Healing me with the beauty of their presence

After a lifetime my heart broke and was made whole.

Oh Holy One, now I can praise you with all my soul,

Tears have freed me

I am grateful overflowing for my wonderful, mixed life bowl.

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Truth, justice, kindness, and peace: Korach

Which is the most fundamentally important of these values, in your life, in our world: Truth, justice, loving kindness and peace or faith? Choose one, for the sake of this exercise. To help you – answer this question -What would the world look like if this were lacking in your life?

If you say peace, can you remember a times many of us give up our dignity for the sake of peace, especially women, I know I did – conflict avoidance. There are times to approach a conflict with courage. There are times to make good trouble, to challenge authority. These may be such times?.

Perhaps you chose justice, for without justice there can be no peace. How I wish for justices on our courts as of old – Bader Ginsburg for example. And without the truth, can there be justice? so maybe truth is the greatest? But what is the absolute truth, and are there times when the whole truth is hurtful? When Sarah says how can I become pregnant with my husband so old, even G8d tempers the truth. Every bride is beautiful at the wedding. says Talmud ketubot, in the opinion of Hillel. Shamai disagreed, you should be 100% truthful. But what is the truth about beauty?

Truth must the always be tempered with loving kindness. Loving kindness alone however is not great by itself, it can lead to spoiled kids and abusive spouses, who take the gift of the love they are given for granted.

What about emunah? Think of a time when you knew G8d was with you, immanent, not transcendent – palpable and in the room.

The Torah of Korach teaches us that the greatest of these is emunah – faith. Not that You believe in G8d, but that you know G8d believes in you. The challenge was not about leadership – but about whether we will follow G8d up – to the spiritual heights of Siinai, or go back to what’s familiar.

An insight that I received as a gift, is that the pit that opens to swallow Korach is the grave/kever that receives us all. The people are terrified by the fate they have gleaned by not knowing that G8d was with them in the debacle of the spies. You have brought us here for G8d to kill us in the wilderness.

We are all mortal, but we can choose to die in the wilderness or to know that G8d is with us in life, and even facing death. It is possible to fully experience the precious quality of each minute of life in our very mortality. But it can be terrifying; The ground opens to receive us all, What’s the difference in the case of Korach ? The ground receives his family, l’dor vador disappears. For the rest of the wilderness generation, We may not get there, but our children may – and that has to be enough. Our tradition is not happy with the fate of Korach’s children – Midrash tanchuma says that when Jonah was in the belly of the fish the fish traveled way down to the foundation stone upon which the world was founded. And what are they doing – Singing!

There is a story of a Kingdom where the ruling Queen loved her subjects so that she invited all her subjects to the palace who desired, an audience with her. On that special day the Palace was opened, and the subjects flocked in! They first experienced the amazing palace gardens, with scents and color patterns to delight and dazzle the senses. Many subjects were so intoxicated, they lingered here and did not move on. Next were art galleries that filled the eyes with such insights and delights to enlighten the mind. Many people stayed in this part of the palace. Then a concert hall replete that bathed the ears and soul with moving and beautiful sounds. Heavenly choruses, and instruments of all types in perfect harmony. Many more souls lingered here. The Queen remained alone at the center of the palace. Visit the Queen, she is so lonely for our love.

Psalm 85, a psalm of the sons of Korach:

Chesed v’Emet yifgashu – loving kindness and truth have met – balancing one another

Tzedek v’Shalom nakashu – Righteousness and peace have kissed – balancing one another

And truth shall spring up from the earth

And righteousness shall rain down from the sky

And G8d will provide the good

And the earth will nourish body and soul, the earth will nourish us whole!

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Sh’lach, 5786 The Danger is not how big the enemy is…

…it’s how small we tell ourselves we are in comparison. We live in challenging times, the truth is for sale – Lies are peddled today for profit or power. And fear is the emotion that sells. And fear becomes hate.

This week’s portion is Sh’lach, meaning “send” and begins with the choosing and sending of scouts to tour the Promised land. This venture will end in catastrophe. The scouts famously bring back giant fruit, they have to carry it between poles it’s so big, and explain that there be giants there and even mythical creatures, Nephilim who fell from the sky. 10 of the 12 scouts send out words -slanders Yotziu dibat ha-aretz some are true, some false, to intentionally create terror. They lie to try to convince the people they have only one option”, they explain – to go back to Egypt, the real land of milk and honey., the land will eat us!

וַיֹּצִ֜יאוּ דִּבַּ֤ת הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ … אֶ֣רֶץ אֹכֶ֤לֶת יוֹשְׁבֶ֙יהָ֙ הִ֔וא

וַנְּהִ֤י בְעֵינֵ֙ינוּ֙ כַּֽחֲגָבִ֔ים וְכֵ֥ן הָיִ֖ינוּ בְּעֵינֵיהֶֽם׃

we were in our eyes like grasshoppers,
and thus were we in their eyes!

What’s so wrong with feeling overwhelmed, feeling inadequate, or like a grasshopper in your own eyes? And what’s the a subtle lie in the verse –we cannot know how we appear in someone else’s eyes! Perhaps these are the most damaging lies -the ones we tell to ourselves -about ourselves! “I’m not good enough, I am worthless” . According to Sforno, the Israelites thought G8d hated them for their sins, and so were bringing them to die. Perhaps these former slaves have internalized the hateful words of their brutal slave masters.

So how can we counter these feelings? How remember we are children of the Divine, and how hold on to the moments of clarity and inspiration?

A song from proverbs 3 Ira Levin

When you need more than your own understanding, lean on the power of love

The wisdom you’ll hold is worth ten times the gold that some sell their souls for in vain

and a Peace that surpasses every thrill on this plane

is heard when your soul calls your name.

When you experience a calling, when you’re true to that – your soul calls your name – To abandon that calling is another thing the spies were guilty of. The Israelites should have known that G8d was with them: they lived the miracles: redemption at the sea and revelation at Sinai. What a gift!. What do you do with that inspiration? You want to hold it, to let it guide your life. In Sh’lach instead, words inspire fear, and fear leads to violence. Soon the whole community threatened to pelt Joshua and Caleb with stones (Numbers 14:10)

a. acting from fear

b. by mixing lies with truth

c. by forgetting that God had been with them, redeeming them against all the odds

d. by belittling themselves

violence and chaos errupt. A few verses later, the scouts have worked the people up to a mob that plans to stone Joshua and Caleb.

June is Pride month, where the LGBTQ+ community declare, we are in the Divine image, God is with us, we have heard our soul call our names. Before covid, while I was still teaching full time at Brookdale, the campus one night went on full security alert – a suicide had occurred and the person trans.n I had another trans student who was homeless when their parents kicked them out on the street. The suicide ideation rate is upwards of 50%-80%, it is a matter of life and death.

U’vacharta b’chayim, choose Life, Deuteronomy pleads.

How can we remember in this crazy world that G8d is with us?

Perhaps. That’s what our tradition is for (show talit)

A story: Tainted wheat

There once was a Queen, beloved by her people. One day her chief advisor, Menachem approached her with a very worried expression.

What’s wrong, the Queen asked? Your majesty, it’s the wheat. It has been infected with a mold – it has spread to every field in the kingdom.

The subjects will have no choice to eat bread made from this wheat or they will starve, but when they eat it, they will lose their minds, they will see visions, they will not what is real and what is imagined.

Don’t we have an emergency reserve stored up” asked the Queen. Yes, replied Menachem, enough to feed one person.

What should the Queen do? Feed herself, and watch all her subjects go insane?

Menachem, You shall eat the wheat. But your majesty, you will not know what is right or wrong. Ah yes, but I will look to you Menachem, and you shall give me a sign, and I will know when I am veering from the right path.

What is that symbol, you ask.

When the whole world’s gone insane, our tradition brings us back to center.

The tzitzit reminds us like a string around our fingers. The last verses of this weeks reading is about these reminders.  When we see them we are reminded we live in a crazy world, and there is a deeper truth.

And don’t mess with grasshoppers, when they face drought the transform into….locusts – together they are a force to contend with!

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Lighting the Candle of Inspiration. & God and Moses as nursing Mothers.

Have you had mentors who energized and inspired you? I have been fortunate to have teachers, Rabbis and Hazzanim who inspired me. My dearest hope is to touch others in this way – if you touch the two flames together, they shine more brightly.

Moses was the greatest teacher the Israelites have had. Very soon, by the end of this week’s Torah reading, B’haalot’cha, we will see the foundation for insurrection. A rejection of Sinai, a desire to return to slavery and the old ways. A rejection of Manna which was heaven sent for cucumbers, leeks, and most of all meat. But at the beginning of the Torah portion, there is also much joy!

B’Ha’alotcha means raising up (the menora) to light the light. Moshe is like that light. Chapter 9 of Numbers begins so hopefully and positively. In some of the most dramatic trope I’ve read, the wandering Israelites “make the Pesach” festival. I imagine, since they took their flocks with them, they had meat offerings, and a feast. Followed by a “complaint” or question, by a few that who were tamei (ritually impure) because someone near them had died, or they were traveling and could not partake in the festival, and could not draw near to G8d with an offering as the other Israelites could. Unlike the complainers or the insurrectionists to come, these folks only wish to draw close to Sinai. Moshe treats them with absolute respect, taking their question right to the Holy One of Blessing, and getting the very first amendment to the Torah – they could participate in a Pesach sheni – a second chance to offer the sacrifices. !

Sources here Rashi interprets this questioning like a star student asking a great question, and says this is akin to prophecy!

Happy, indeed, is a human being (lit., one born of woman) who may so confidently rely that at any time when he wishes to do so he may speak with the Shechinah! — This section, in fact, ought to have been said by Moses, just as all the other sections of the Torah, only that these men were privileged that it should be promulgated through their intervention, because “meritorious deeds are brought about by worthy men”

By the time we get to Chapter 11 of Numbers, the situation of the complainers is so difficult for Moshe, he asks G8d for help, or, if not, for death! In Moses’ frustration with leadership challenges, G8d answers him by using Moses as a candle to light the flames of others. 70 elders, Eldad and Medad become prophets, to taste what it’s like to be so inspired. -“speaking with the Shechinah” as the midrash and Talmud allude to above. When Joshua sees Eldad and Medad ecstatic and running around prophecy-making, he tries to protect his boss (Moses) but Moshe (Moses) say – “would that all the people were prophets” The prophecy that Eldad and Medad were telling was that Moshe would not lead them across the Jordan, rather Joshua would! Just as my fondest wish – to pave the way for my replacement(s) by inspiring others!

Also, for fun, some gender bending commentaries about Moses and G8d being nursing mothers, for Pride month. This first Rashi is about the Manna. Perhaps God is the nursing mother, and the rebellion of the people is like the toddlers (Israel is a fledgling nation) being weaned. About the taste and texture of Manna:

Our Rabbis (Sifrei Bamidbar 89) explained it as meaning “breasts’ (i. e. just as the suckling imbibes, so to speak, every possible flavor with the mother-milk. so the Israelites found all flavors in the manna;

And about Moses: He imagines himself as a nursing mother, and then rejects that image for himself – but first he, and all of us, get to imagine it. Sources here

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