Hard to Say Goodbye for the Summer - Part I: Key Moments and Keystone

Today was the last day of classes at Jewish Community High School of the Bay (JCHS); finals begin tomorrow.  

It is a bittersweet time of year.

The entire school community gathers as students share words of appreciation for and gifts with members of the professional community who are leaving to deepen their learning (like through a science educators program at Cal), teach elsewhere (like teaching English in Madrid), or pursue their passions (like returning to college coaching).  

The final group of Seniors conclude their Keystone presentations; we call it 'graduation by demonstration.' 




Outgoing Knesset (student government) President reads her "thank you letter" to students and professionals.  She finishes by remarking to faculty and staff how cool it has been to spend every day for four years surrounded by her role models!  Her final words are freshman, sophomore, and junior students urging them to cherish every experience and opportunity presented by JCHS.  

She and the other outgoing Knesset officers pass the torch (well, literally a vest or styrofoam microphone or hat with angels wings or gnome) to the new execs.  The Film & Media Club presents a short film about what makes JCHS special.  The Yearbook editor presents a slideshow of photos too goofy for the Yearbook itself.  One of the outgoing execs is quoted in the Yearbook:  "I remember pausing in the middle of a song during the Shabbat Stroll (at the Shabbaton) and listening to the voice so my peers and teachers all around me singing with such joy.  It made me think how lucky I am to be a part of such an exceptional community."  (YC, Class of 2013).

Counting on Your Compassionate Voice

We are coming to the end of the Omer -- the period of counting days from Pesach until Shavuot.  Just as our ancestors in the Torah wilderness prepared themselves physically for receiving the Torah, the Rabbis imagined this period as an opportunity for self-reflection and personal growth necessary before rehearsing the receipt of Torah on Shavuot.  They saw the Torah as a huge gift and felt it was a gift that we needed to earn.  

One traditional way to prepare is to study Pirke Avot (that portion of the Talmud devoted to ethical wisdom) throughout the period of counting the Omer.  In recent years some beautiful complementary materials have been created.  Thank you to Yael Raff Peskin for curating several of these resources at her blog, Omer Harvest.  One of the seminal modern resources is the flipbook (old-school on paper) crafted by Simon Jacobson.  He offers daily meditations, questions, and exercises that encourage self-reflection based on the so-called "lower" seven sefirot.

There have been years when the 49-days of self-reflection have been intense.  When my tendency to self-critique swallows-up my sense of self-realization.  At those times I recognize a need for self-compassion at the end of the Omer.  

Bamidbar 5773: Lifting Up Our Heads

As we start a new book of Torah, Bamidbar – or Numbers – there is a census taken of our ancestors in the wilderness.  Two years out from the Exodus from Egypt, the community stops and takes stock.  


The Hebrew directive from God about taking a census, however, is unusual (Bamidbar 1:2.)  Instead of a familiar Hebrew verb for counting, Torah uses here the verb for lifting.  This oddity draws our attention to the fact that what is lifted is literally the head of each member of the community.  Instead of looking at a mass crowd, Torah urges us to distinguish each individual in the crowd by lifting each face.

How important is it to lift our faces, a story about that before returning to the Torah.  There was once a murder trial.  A man was charged with murdering his neighbor – but there was very little evidence apart from the fact that the two neighbors were heard violently arguing for weeks before and the defendant had loudly threatened to kill the supposed victim on the same night he disappeared. 

Behar & Bechukotai 5773: When I Count My Blessings I Count You Twice

In this week’s second parsha, Bechukotai, we read the tocheha - the curse - the warning about which punishments will result if our ancestors in the wilderness  do not follow Torah.  This follows a series of blessings if the Jews adhere to Torah.

Art/Eye Chart:  When I Count My Blessings I Count You Twice

What is particularly striking about the blessings and curses is that the curses -- 49 of them in this week’s Torah portion -- outnumber the blessings by a ratio of 3 to 1.  It is also fascinating at this season of counting the omer -- when we count the number of days between Pesach and Shavuot -- that it also is exactly 49.  


Throughout the tradition there are a number of explanations about why the curses so far outnumber the blessings.  Ibn Ezra (12th century, Spain), for example, suggests the blessings aren't as few as they appear but are written in more general terms.  As a result each generalized blessing includes many more specific parts that do not need to be (are not) expressed.

My teacher and colleague, Rabbi Avi Weiss, Founder and President of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah who will be retiring this year, reminds us in this context that Torah speaks in the language of human beings.  People talk up the curses or sadness we experience much more than we talk up the blessings or goodness in our lives.  

Emor 5773: Memory & Celebration - We Need Both

What a week we just had

We started with Yom HaZikaron but before we could get to Yom HaAtzmaut, there was the tragedy in Boston . . .  then the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas.  Ricin-laced letters.  Then the hunt for suspects.

As the satirical online magazine "The Onion" mock reported, Maryland resident James Alderman said  "Seriously, can we wrap this up already? Because, you know, I'm pretty sure we've all had our hearts ripped out of our chests and stomped on enough times for one seven-day period, thank you very much." 

And that was what The Onion published online before Boston was closed all day on Friday and we entered the weekend with one Boston Marathon bombing suspect dead and the other captured. 

Then there were storms that flooded Chicago, discovery of possible life-supporting planets, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hitting China. What a week!

The idea of a week, counting time in seven day increments is one Jewish gift to the world.  

Last Days of Pesach 5773: Mitzvah of Remembering Bitter and Sweet Together

Welcome back, precious students, it has been nearly four weeks since we were all together with Journeys and Pesach Break.  

As I sat in shul this week for the last day of Pesach my mind wandered during the festival Torah reading.  My mind was thinking ahead to the end of Pesach that night when I would be able to eat real pizza or have a real slice of cake, but the words of Torah startled me.

During the Torah reading for the last day of Pesach there is an unusual mitzvah (commandment/divine exhortation) saying “Seven days you are to eat matzah – the poor bread – as you left Egypt in a rush – le’ma’an tizkor – in order that you remember the day of your Exodus from Egypt all the days of your life.”  (Devarim 16:3.) 

A commandment to remember the Exodus, really?!?  Weren’t these the same people who actually were liberated from slavery and rescued by the parting of the Sea?  They needed a commandment to remember?  How could they have forgotten?

Think about our own lives – how easy it is to forget.

So here comes a mitzvah of remembrance precisely because we forget too easily.  Then, as my colleague Salomon Gruenwald asks, "I wondered whether we are supposed to remember the bitterness of slavery or the sweetness of freedom."  The Torah is ambiguous here. 

Like Salomon, I believe the answer is “both.” We are to remember both the bitter and the sweet.  Some of us are inclined only to remember sweet moments – others only bitter ones.  It is how some of us are wired. 

Torah comes to remind us that a full life, a meaningful life, is filled with some of each – not all bitter and not all sweet. On the last day of Pesach, Torah is reminding us to take it all in, carry forward each of our memories, don’t discard them. 

Isn’t that why during the Seder we eat Matzah, bitter herb and sweet charoset all together because our lives are blended?  The two transform each other.  The bitter is tempered by the taste of something sweet.  We are able to appreciate the sweetness more powerfully when there is something bitter with which to contrast it. 

So, precious students, as we enter the fourth quarter of the year. Take a moment to think back over the last few weeks since we all sat together. 

Take a moment to remember something from your Pesach or your break that caught you up short, that stung or hurt. Maybe it was a conversation you regret, a gesture you wish you could take back, an opportunity you let pass.  Reflect on the lesson you can learn from it going forward. 

Now take a moment to remember something from your Pesach or your break that was sweet – maybe it was a relationship renewed, or a risk you were brave enough to take, or an accomplishment that makes you smile.  Reflect on the lesson you can learn from that going forward. 

Follow the lesson of the Pesach Torah reading – remember, don’t forget, remember the bitter with the sweet, use it all in the days and weeks ahead. 

May you have a wonderful quarter – filled with lessons from moments that are bitter and delight from those that are sweet.

Terumah 5773: RABBI DAVID HARTMAN z"l and the Power to Listen Deeply

This week is all about listening.

Yesterday was Rosh Chodesh Adar – the first day of the Hebrew month Adar – a moment when we anticipate hearing laughter and joyfully listening to the Megillat Esther (the scroll of Esther) on Purim.

    Rabbi David Hartman z"l 1931 - 2013   

It was also a day when we heard news from Israel that again women were detained by police at the Kotel in Jerusalem simply because they silently wore a tallit (prayer shawl) typically worn by men.

And we heard sad news from Jerusalem about the death of one of Rabbi Ladon’s dear teachers and a teacher of mine and many others here, Rabbi David Hartman, may his memory be a blessing.

The power of listening to all this is prefigured in this week’s Torah portion, parshat Terumah.  The Torah portion amplifies an important aspect of listening when God talks with Moshe and refers to the cover of the Aron (ark) saying, “It is there that I will set My meetings with you and I will speak with you.”  (Shemot 25:22.)  Even though God could speak to Moshe from anywhere, in order for Moshe to listen he (Moshe) needed to be present in a particular place.  So it is with us, in order to listen to others we really need to be present with them. 

In a couple of weeks, while we are still in Sheloshim (the first thirty days of mourning) for Rabbi Hartman, we will read parshat Ki Tissa.  It brings another lesson about listening.  In that Torah narrative we learn that at the top of Mt. Sinai God gives Moshe two tablets inscribed by God.  As Moshe prepares to leave the mount, he experiences the camp of Israelites praying to a Golden Calf.  This angers both God and Moshe. 

When Moshe reaches the base of Mt. Sinai, Joshua who has been waiting for him there says “the sound of war is in the camp.”  (Shemot 32:17)  Moshe replies, “It is not the sound of victory or the sound of defeat, rather it is the sound of singing that I hear.”  In other words, Joshua hears noise from the camp and assumes it is a struggle.  But Moshe is discerning and listens to the people celebrating around the Golden Calf. 

Often times we just hear what is said around us and we neglect to really listen – to the tone of voice, to the intensity of speech, to the feelings that animate someone else’s voice.  We fail to authentically listen. 

The lesson that true leadership depends on listening and not just hearing was taught by my teacher of blessed memory, Dovid Hartman. 

He could listen, discern, and carefully understand what you were trying to say as well as any teacher I ever had.  He could finish your sentences for you – and often did.  He could 'hear' even more beautiful and powerful insights in your words than you were capable of expressing yourself. 

He was known around the world as a champion of diversity and pluralism within Judaism. And a champion of joyful and authentic encounters with Jewish texts and the Jewish people. 

And he often talked about how people listened to him.  After being a pulpit rabbi in Montreal for 15 years, Rabbi Hartman and his wife, Bobbie, made aliyah with their children.  Looking back on that moment Dovid would say, “I spent 15 years telling my congregation that we all should all make aliyah to Israel and when my family finally made aliyah in 1971, I looked around, saw we were the only family that had made aliyah that year.  I realized, after 15 years of talking, I was the only one who listened!” 

But Rabbi Hartman was wrong.  Philosophers, teachers, rabbis, and students have been listening to him deeply for more than 40 years.

He brought teachers and rabbis and philosophers and politicians from all different perspectives to listen to and learn from each other at Machon Hartman.  My daughter studied in hevruta with an orthodox rabbi for the first time at Machon Hartman, she wore a tallit at the Kotel with Women of the Wall on Rosh Chodesh ten years ago because of Rabbi Hartman, my own hevruta at Hartman brought together voices of a conservative rabbi, an orthodox rabbi, a reform rabbi as we struggled with text and context together. 

All because so many of us were listening to Rabbi Hartman.

Our ability to hear him is diminished by his death – but not our ability to truly listen to him.  The strength of his passion for pluralism within Judaism – the power to transform our lives by listening to and being in relationship with others – especially others whose views are different from our own.  Rabbi Hartman taught, “being is in relationship.”  There can be no being without relationship. 

So, in memory of Rabbi Hartman, and inspired by Moshe this week, I invite you to make this a week of relating to each other and to those who are important to you by going beyond merely hearing and instead to really listening to what others say and feel.