Torah for now

Posts tagged ‘exodus’

Passover 5785

In the middle of all the cooking and preparing for the Holiday this year, I recognize, this year is different. Mah nishtanah ha Pesach HaZeh: How is this Passover different from all the others? What part of today’s world can we let the world in to our seder that won’t ruin this cherished family tradition? This year we are torn by events of the times, as was Joseph’s cloak, torn and dipped into the blood of a goat. The song at seder’s end, Khad gadya, or “one little goat” reminds us of that cruelty.“Do you recognize this coat? A wild beast must have torn Joseph,” the brothers lie to their heartbroken father. Is this cloak the broken, bloody remnant of our hopes? The karpas on the seder plate, reminding us of the greenery of the field also means “a woven cloak” in the Persian-speak of Purim. The prequel of the Exodus story is the story of parental favoritism, unequal treatment and near fratricide: Exodus begins with that reminder: a new King arose who did not know Joseph. Things go very wrong from here on: slavery, abuse, and the murder of the first-born male infants. In other words – tough times, like those we are in now, make up the first part of the seder. This story of despotic, cruel dictators with delusions of G8d-hood collides with current reality of being terrorized by power run amok.

Then come the plagues: When you throw infants into the river, of course it turns to blood, it is already bloodied! When you pour ten million tons of carbon dioxide per day into the atmosphere, of course there will be karma/ Divine consequence. And without these consequences, the status quo could never change. The plagues, awful as they are, are the turning point toward redemption. as the pogroms, and Cossack conscription, drove my grandparents across an ocean.

As the group of refugees makes their way to the wilderness, they bring the memory of that torn coat, and the slaughtered goat, with them: Joseph’s bones are exhumed from the Nile, and carried with them.

This Shabbat is called Shabbat HaGadol the “Great Sabbath”. We read of a day of justice and judgment, in the finale of the prophet Malachi, culminating in a great healing: “I will send Elijah the prophet… he will turn the heart of the parents to the children and children to their parents. Some in the generation of potential young parents are wondering if it’s ok to even bring children into the world. How heartbreaking! The apples of the charoset on the seder plate remind us of the merit of women who seduced their reluctant enslaved husbands under the apple trees, that brought children into a world of genocide in Exodus. Shabbat ends, and immediately Passover begins. Perhaps this year at the seder we can once again honor our tears with salt water, dip our torn hearts into it, and acknowledge the transformative nature of the Blessed Divine One. Then we can envision that kinder world, keeping it in our sights, and keeping our hearts turned to one another.

Resource: Dayenu’s guide, an insert for the Haggadah, with Climate change in mind.

Arthur Waskov 50 years of the Freedom seder

Make your own Hagaddah, featuring Ellen Bernstein’s Promise of the Land

PS I am now in the afterglow (and exhaustion) of seder, and cleaning up. Thesa are my addenda to my family seder this year Lion King Passover

This first song was so much fun: used for the Maggid section, from 613’s music video

  1. Circle of life.                   Call out:

Mah nishtanah ha’layla hazeh, mikol halailot

(mah nishtanah, nishtanah ha’laya) repeat chant 4x

In the days we prepare for the seder

It seems like we’ll never be done

There’s more to clean than can ever be cleaned

Grab a candle and search for the crumbs

When the seder table is ready

And all the chametz has been found

Our family arrives, and the sun leaves the sky

At the table we’ll gather around

At the seder tonight, Passover retold

With our prayers of hope; .

And the seder plate; Helps us tell our story

At the seder , the seder tonight.

I JUST  CAN’T WAIT TO BE FREE

Now, Pharoah you’re a mighty king,

But I’m tellin’ you beware

(Pharoah) You’ve come into my palace making threats now don’t you dare

Your days of making us your slaves are done forever more

And if you challenge G8d, ten plagues will shake you to your core

I’m telling you, you’d best listen to me

It’s time to let my people go, you see

‘Cause we just can’t wait to be free!

From Rabbi Ebn Leider on Substack: As we witness the truly shocking events of our day: … the terrifying injustices coming from the highest levels of power, it is natural to be angry, fearful, shocked and devastated…. we can try to shift our perspective …Pesach is perhaps an opportunity to see a larger perspective and to vision together, not just a return to a more peaceful status quo, but a truly transformative change that is in the pangs of being born. ~R Ebn Leider             

This version of the four Children is by Rachel Barenblat’s, from the Bayit publication “The Broken Matzah”

All Four Children (are one)

Today the Four Children are a Zionist,

a Palestinian solidarity activist, a peacenik, and

one who doesn’t know what to even dream.

The Zionist, what does she say? Two thousand years

we dreamed of return. “Next year in Jerusalem”

is now, and hope is the beacon we steer by.

The solidarity activist, what do they say?

We know the heart of the stranger. To be oppressors

is unbearable. Uplift the downtrodden.

The peacenik, what does he say? We both love this land

and neither is leaving. We’re in this together.

Between the river and the sea two peoples must be free.

And the one who doesn’t know what to even dream:

feed that one sweet haroset, a reminder that

building a just future has always been our call.

All of us are wise. None of us is wicked….

We are one people, one family. Not only

because history’s flames never asked what kind

of Jew one might be, but because

the dream of collective liberation is our legacy.

We need each other in this wilderness.

Only together can we build redemption.

R. Rachel Barenblat

Category:

Uncategorized

Tagged with:

Don’t worry, be happy?

Every life has its creation, revelation of great truths, and redemption from forces greater than us. It seems to me that we in the US have suddenly started ignoring our revelation of democracy. It was only 250 or so years ago, that we conceived a new way of government meant to empower the populace: a better way than monarchy. And we’ve turned our back on it. Satan has been whispering in our ears, something about immigrants, the price of eggs, and things aren’t like they used to be. We made the bad old days into the new normal. And we’re laughing and partying?

On the holiday of Purim, we’re supposed to be happy. “I always hated Purim, admitted my friend, Chaim.” He didn’t like to be told to “be happy!” That’s understandable! American culture loves to tell us to be happy: party, have fun, divert yourself. Here’s Dick Van Dyke singing Put On a Happy Face. “wipe off that frown and cheer up, put on a happy face” It sounds obnoxious to be told “cheer up, it’s not that bat” On the other hand, Laughter really can be the best medicine! When is the last time you had a really good belly laugh? It is wonderful at breaking the tension, and it’s great, and humbling to make fun of your self, or impossible situations. Clowns and comedians are among our favorite entertainers.(Make ’em Laugh) Even if things are rough, it’s good to laugh at it! Who can forget Mel Brooks’ “Springtime for Hitler”, from the Producers?!

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay
We’re marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race!

But humor is subjective, and sometimes not at all the right timing. On Purim The Book of Esther is an amazing political farce, basically SNL in Ancient Persia, railing against the monarchy. It begins with a king who is so disinterested in the people he rules that at the end of a 180-day drinking and feasting party for the princes, he declares, you guessed it, another week-long drinking party. When his queen refuses his demand to “dance” for his princes, he proclaims an edict to disempower all uppity wives. This is a dangerous situation, one which leads in just a few moves to a proclamation of genocide from the monarchy. If not for the courage of a woman who hid her identity, and was clueless about the genocide order, who seduced the king and made him jealous (careful not to appear uppity) all would have been lost. Whew. For this reason we fast on the day of the edict, and when the day is done we are supposed to joke, drink and be happy? Isn’t it drinking to a stupor that got us in this predicament.

For many, these are difficult times: our democracy seems to be replacing itself with something not very kind: A ruling party that cares about empowering and enriching itself, to the exclusion of the welfare of the most vulnerable. A party seeking scapegoats, who has little respect for truth or justice, and even empathy for others. We can stop assistance to fight malaria and AIDS abroad, round up folks who are undocumented, and scare the insides out of those of us who have lost a federal job, who know about climate change and the 1% among us who are trans, and their parents. And yet life seems to go on. Superbowl parties, celebrities partying on TV…. Yet what is wrong with trying to party and have a great time all the time? As I was preparing to chant from the book of Esther, I noticed a new line, from chapter 4, verse 2, that I had never paid attention to. The hero of the story, Mordechai comes to the gate of the walled city, but is not allowed in. He is in mourning, dressed in sac cloth, and no-one dressed that way is allowed in. Trying to shut out what and who disturbs us so we can be more cheerful? That’s not a time for laughter.

In the Torah reading for this week, the Israelites are also having a good party, dancing and in bawdy, raucous joy around a golden calf. They had been so worried that Moses was late, Satan whispering in their hearts that he was gone, “whew, that was a close one, good thing we made this calf!” they must have thought. This uninhibited dancing and release is why Moses broke the G8d-carved set of tablets. Not when he saw the idol, but the inappropriate revelry. The legend/ midrash tells of a character that disappears mysteriously from the tale: Hur, an assistant to Moses and Aaron. The legend explains he was murdered when Aaron hesitated to build the calf. Hur’s name translates to “hole” This is no time to be dancing ecstatically. We have just been freed from slavery. The Israelites saw the awesomeness of revelation, a scripture that would bring us closer to “love our near ones as ourself” and in a flash have been “stiff necked” unable to apply it when Moses was “late” coming down the mountain. In a flash, the old way of doing things becomes the new normal.

In the Babylonian Talmud Rava instructs us: It is one’s duty levasumei,  to make oneself fragrant [with wine] on Purim until one cannot tell the difference between ‘arur Haman‘ (cursed be Haman) and ‘barukh Mordekhai’ (Babylonian Talmud) levasumei is sometimes translated as “get drunk” The S’fat Emet disagrees, we get drunk on, not wine, but the fragrance of the Ten Commandments, the fragrance of revelation. Drunk with this we get silly, we get on the floor with the kids, as was the habit or the Baal Shem Tov, get messy and make mistakes so that we may rise again. And we see beyond the dualities of right and wrong. The Israelites have committed idolatry, yes. But in this same weekly reading, a new covenant based on forgiveness are revealed as Moses makes a second trip up the mountain and yearns to experience. El rachum v’chanun, erech apayim v’rav chesed v’emet. Love, grace, patience, kindness and truth. Second and third chances are possible. Perhaps it was a good thing the tablets of the commandments were smashed so they wouldn’t become an idol, says the S’fat emet.

On that Purim day, when we’re snookered on the Commandments, and loving one another as ourselves, we’ll be able to sing this song, and all will be Eden again.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense ~Rumi

(Melody coming soon for this!)

Category:

Uncategorized

Tagged with:

Bring a little awe and love down! Terumah

In the reading from the Torah this week are the detailed instructions Moses receives to make the portable sanctuary by which the community who stood at Sinai can take inspiration with them, and to have the Holy One of blessing living in their midst. Most of the rest of Exodus is concerned with this, with one notable exception: the sin of the golden calf. Perhaps the sin of greed and insecurity which led to the golden calf. But how can the Holy One convey this to Moses, and why the detail? A midrash/legend from Bamidbar Rabba ” Moses said before the Holy One blessed be He: ‘My God, am I able to craft like these?’ He said to him: ‘Like the form “that I [am showining you]”’ (Exodus 25:9), “with the sky-blue, the purple, and the crimson wool, and with the fine linen” (Exodus 38:23). And G8d inscribes the pattern in fire on Moses’ palm.
The Midrash goes on to say, if you do this I will dwell in your midst, constricting/ focusing energy in this place you build. The same source places the reason for those colors of the sanctuary to reflect places on earth rather the heavens: “Its cushioning of gold” (Song of Songs 3:10) – this is the earth, which produces the fruit of the land and the fruit of the trees, which are similar to gold. Just as gold, there are different types and different shades, so too the fruits of the land; some of them are green and some of them are red.
“Its seat [merkavo] of purple wool [argaman]” (Song of Songs 3:10) – this is the sun, which is placed above, rides on a chariot [bemerkava], and illuminates the world, just as it says: “It is like a bridegroom leaving his bridal chamber…” (Psalms 19:6). By the power of the sun rain falls, and by the power of the sun the land produces fruit.

Finally, ““Its interior is inlaid with love” (Song of Songs 3:10) – as after all the act of Creation, He created Adam and Eve…”

In other words the travelling artwork/ sanctuary is the inspiration of the fire in the sky and the miracles of earth created in architecture and art.

We look to the heavens and the forests and fields for inspiration, they have a design which is far beyond our capacity to understand and imagine. If we can open our hearts to the awe and love they inspire, and bring the awe via music and art into our midst, gratitude and humility and joy can happen

It is written in psalm 16: 8 “I have set G8d before me continually” This can become a powerful practice, in Hebrew “Shiviti Adonai L’negd tamid”

SHIVITI (Miryam Margo Wolfson)

Category:

Uncategorized

Tagged with:

Advice from a Father in Law: no kings

This week’s Biblical reading is called “Yitro” it is named after Moses father-in-law Jethro, who we meet for the second time in chapter 18 of Exodus. The first time is in the Wilderness. This great song in the Prince of Egypt gives Yitro a voice (the stunning voice of Brian Stokes Mitchell!) This part of the Torah is famous for the 10 Commandments and revelation at Sinai in Exodus 20. Even though Jethro is heard two chapters prior, the medieval commentator Rashi convincingly argues that his encounter with Moses comes after revelation at Sinai. (Number 5 on the source page) Jethro has heard about the redemption at the Sea And revelation at the mountain top and seeks out his son-in-law with Moses’s wife and two sons in tow. He then gives up any status that he had a Midianite priest and reunites this broken family, as he joins the Israelite faith.

The advice that Jethro gives Moses is excellent. Jethro says that people are standing in long lines to see Moses and ask him questions. He tells his son-in-law Moses to delegate, and to appoint leaders over the thousands, the hundreds and the tens of people. This is supposedly so that Moses doesn’t get tired out. But I suggest that it is a redistribution of purpose, authority and power down to the level of families rather than a concentration of purpose, authority, and power in one man. The Israelites were so frightened after receiving the 10 Commandments, that they told Moses to go up for them, or they would die. Thus, they removed their own honor, authority, purpose In fear. My first Jewish teacher as an adult was Rabbi Henry Weiner of Blessed memory. He explained that every person who was present at Sinai and all of us from future generations, each have a place on the slope of the mountain. Each has a place that is unique and contributes to the whole In a way that no one else can. As Jethro restores Moses’ family, So he restores our place. Israelite people are standing in lines all day long waiting to talk to the great Moses, as if to the Wizard of Oz or some billionaire politician. They are not being honored physically, emotionally or intellectually. The Bible subversively warns against setting kings over themselves (Deuteromy 17:15-20) and if they insist God will choose for them, but “he must not keep many horses or send people back to Egypt and not have many wives. He should not let his heart go, astray or amass silver, and gold to excess… So that he may not raise his heart over his brothers” Even the great Moses was not meant to be king. Perhaps it is why his brother Aaron was chosen rather than he to be the spiritual leader, and he was not permitted into the Promised land. Jethro returns, whether of his own volition or fate, or the hand of God, to bring Moshe down to earth where God’s kavod dwells, after Sinai. Returning the feminine in the guise of Moses’ wife and the feminine aspect of God in the Earth herself. 

(*God’s kavod is the honor, or glory, indwelling immanent feminine aspect in mystical teachings)

King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in the palace. You shall not set a king above you. (from ‘Hutchinson’s History of the Nations’, early 1900s ) Painting by Edward John Poynter

Category:

Uncategorized

Tagged with:

Singing at the Shores of Release & Black History month (and psalm 13)

Sometimes things feel so bleak, you feel squeezed on all sides between a “Rock and a hard place”. But you are here today you made it: the baby was born, you recovered from that breakup, disease, accident: you were redeemed, and life felt suddenly new and shiny again. (I ‘m a big fan of the Pixar movie Soul, which acts out such a scenario!) Remember that feeling, the inspiration? One of the names for G8d is Rock, “tzur” in Hebrew. And the word for Egypt, “Mitzrayim” has the same root as Tsures – squeezed, troubles all around. (Funny, I never noticed the homonym there!) This week’s Torah reading, named Beshalach, referring to Pharoah sending the Israelites out of Egypt. This is the first climactic moment of the Passover story, of the Exodus. What is the response of the Israelites to freedom after 400 years of slavery? It is to sing! Does that seem likely to you? One day this past year, after I had been holding in frustrations, I rode my bike to an abandoned field. I tried to scream, but what actually emerged from my body was song. Maybe not so weird! This beautiful poem, the Singing by Rick Barot speaks of the power of a woman’s song. I wonder what the black woman in the poem saw on her phone that brought on the song? Announcement of a birth? a death? the daily news? a memory? A woman’s voice, in mourning, in lullaby, in despair, it seems like her song has all of these. She sings. she sings. she sings. she sings.

This is also Black History month in the US. There are many powerful songs that emerged from African slavery here in America, including “Swing low, sweet Chariot” The Chariot is code for the Underground Railroad! Many of these songs are still sung in churches today. They help deal with being overwhelmed and oppressed: squeezed with tzurus.

The first sound the Biblical slaves made in Exodus was groaning or crying out. They had been silenced, to repressed to make any sound until now, taking their condition as “the way it was” It was this primal cry that brought G8d into their midst. But their second was song. When did they sing and what did their song sound like? The answer in the text is that there were two times of singing: First Moses and the sons of Israel sang aspirationally: I will sing. Then Miryam, whose name I share, sang with the instruments brought along for just such a miracle and sang, dancing a circle dance. Many commentators put the women second, but the chasidic S’fat Emet explains that Moses song is aspirational in the world of our dreams, but Miryam sings for all both men and women in the now, dancing the circle, in which all are equal in their relationship to G8d who is in the center.

Miryam my biblical namesake, is derived from Mar (bitter) and yam, meaning sea. From the bitterness of slavery her song brought sweetness to the Israelites. Directly after freedom the Israelites become bitter again, concluding that G8d hates them. A living well of water follows them through the wilderness, which according to midrash is Miryam’s well – a rock that yields water! Connecting all those places and stories in the wilderness, creating a song which lasts all of Miryam’s life. The Israelite people now read the song of songs as an emotional description of the Exodus, and of G8d’s love. Perhaps the song was a love song. There is disagreement on whether the song began while crossing or after, but according to Chizkuni, Miryam began her song while the Israelites were still crossing! (source 7) This song is the moment of awareness of the immanent presence of the Holy one – the moment of falling in love. Song is the most appropriate sound!

Remembering: a postscript

For a long time the stories of enslaved people were not told. Here in Florida, it recently became illegal to teach those stories again in the public schools, and a young professor who happens to share my last name lost her post from a public college because she taught the history of slavery. As Isabel Wilkerson teaches so powerfully in her Pulitzer prize winning book Caste to deny this history is like denying your family history of disease when you go to the doctor, or to deny old damage in a house. It doesn’t work. The Biblical psalms are a study in Crying out to G8d, Here is a setting of psalm 13. In this psalm the poet despairs of G8d forgetting them – lets go all those emotions. But then remembers: Oh yeah, remember that time I was redeemed, you were there G8d and can be there again for me in love.

Category:

Uncategorized

Tagged with:

CONSTRICTED THROATS: Moses, me and Esther

– Did you ever get emotional, so that there was a lump, a constriction in your throat, and you were temporarily unable to speak? When The Holy One asks Moses to go to Pharoah and demand “Let my people go” Moshe responds “NO, they won’t listen to me! I have a kabed peh, a heavy mouth u’chvad lashon What does it mean to have, like Moses, a heavy tongue?

G8d’s answer: Who but I give a mouth (and speech) to humans, and who makes those who are mute?

But G8d creates all through acts of speech (in what language I’m not sure: math, physics, music, love?) and creates we humans who are partly defined by speech and are Btzelem Elohim In the Divine Image, in that way. Is G8d also the power who creates those who are mute? Many things can make a person mute: being born without hearing, for example. With therapy sign language can be taught. The mind can make you mute: my eldest daughter, so brilliant and super sensitive would lose her voice whenever she became sick! But trauma can make a person mute as well, as the heart wrenching literature of the Shoah attests.  The Slonimer Rebbe speaks of slavery in Egypt as so crushing, that their minds were enslaved, not just their bodies. He explains when finally the slaves were able to get out a geshrei, a good primal cry, it was the first step in their deliverance. That was when G8d heard their voice, their cry and sends Moshe. He speaks of the tightness or constriction in the throat where the soul cannot get out or express itself.  Moshe, the Slonimer continues was actually as an avatar of the Israelite people. Therefore he was unable to speak fluently! The word ּכְבַ֥ד  The shoresh/root also means “honor” Perhaps “k’vad peh uchvod lashon” means a mouth and tongue that honors the people that Moshe serves. There are times when it is inappropriate to be verbose, such as entering a house of mourning.  Until the Israelites could move from the Narrow place of tzuros, Mitzrayim and be free and to SING at the sea, Moshe could not be the orator who would be the channel of Torah from Heaven to earth. I personally found my voice first through teaching, then through singing. I am still finding my voice.  Moshe’s life begins in a similar way. He is born into danger. Zipporah, his mother keeps him hidden and safely for three months. When he is no longer able to be silenced, she trusts him to G8d, fate and the Nile. Now he can cry and win the heart of the Pharoah’s daughter..

In the land of Shushan, Persia, many years following was a beautiful Jewish girl named Haddassah. But when the kings men came to uncle Mordechai’s house looking for the most lovely to be queen, she was silenced, not to reveal her true identity, and given a new name, Esther, from the same root as nistar, hidden.  She hasn’t been paying attention to the happenings of the kingdom when she is told of Mordie in sack cloth and ashes – send him some new clothes. She wants to remain deaf and mute to trouble, hard to blame her, who wants trouble?!  Mordechai then delivers my favorite line of the whole Megillah

Chapter 4:6 “If you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, while you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have risen royal position for just such a crisis.”

And our unlikely heroine is born. She does not fight hatred with fists, but with seduction and revelation.

What is it in our lives that we’d like to ignore, issues we’d rather not think about. And what is your position of influence, what can YOU do? Moshe’s heavy mouth was a sign of his complete entanglement in the people he served. Esther’s hiddenness, the secret of her success. Perhaps it is your deepest flaw or disability which can actually be your superpower.

Category:

Uncategorized

Tagged with: