Standing Together on a Path of Purpose (Nitzavim 5775 and Rosh Hashanah 5776)

Standing Together: Asia and Aubrey

The journey of a school year is not a sprint, although it can feel like one when our plates are overflowing with opportunities or challenges.  But neither is it a marathon completely beyond the reach of most of us. 

Each new school year is more like a 10k race. That is, short enough to be finished. Long enough to require perseverance and partners. 

The start of each new Jewish year also is brief enough to be completed and long enough to require perseverance and partners. This idea is reflected in the final Torah portion, Nitzavim, of the year that is just coming to a close.  

But before more on Torah, I have in mind a particular 10k from March 2015 in Louisville. It involved two ordinary folks who did extraordinary things: Asia Ford, a black mom, and Aubrey Gregory, a white cop. Asia entered the race and Aubrey worked the race.

Heads or Tails (Ki Tavo 5775)

Have you every flipped a coin to help make a decision? For some it is way of handing decision authority over to 'fate' or letting a coin toss seem like an expression of divine will. "Heads or tails" also are invoked at some Rosh Hashanah (Jewish new year) tables. Around some Rosh Hashanah (lit. 'head of the year') tables one might hear a wish for the new year to be made "a head and not a tail." 

That odd formulation has ancient roots in in this week’s Torah portion. When Moses is describing the benefits of positive engagement with the ways of the Jewish people, those benefits include becoming "a head and not a tail . . . and never the bottom."  (Deut. 28:13) Although this is voiced in the singular, some commentators hear it as a group aspiration: the Jewish people wish to be autonomous and set their own destiny. Or wish to inspire or lead other communities toward acts of justice and mercy.

One commentator, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev (18th century Russia/Ukraine) reads it differently. He questioned why "tail" and "bottom" was included at all - if coming out a head was all that mattered, why did the text even need to say "not tail, not bottom."