Like Father Like Son (Not Exactly) (Naso 5775)

Sometimes when we look in the mirror we see ourselves looking just like our parents or we catch ourselves acting just like one of them. But at other times not. 

How can both be true?  There is a clue in this week's Torah portion, Naso. The Torah describes in repetitive detail the nature of each tribe's offering for the dedication of the wilderness altar. 

The Torah is repetitive and seemingly redundant in that each tribe's offering included the same things - measure for measure - as the other tribes.  There seems to be a lesson in Torah abandoning its typically efficient language to repeat the list of offering materials twelve times instead of just once. 

One lesson may be that even one's actions that look identical to another person's actions, could be different if one person's motivation animating those actions are different from another person's.  In other words, conduct animated by one motivation is different than the same conduct if animated by another motivation. 

Another lesson may be that things that look the same are often different.  The Jewish tradition recognizes the power of individual motivations to transform actions.  For example, Proverbs 22:6 teaches, "Teach a student according to his

Measuring and Treasuring Time (Emor 5775)

We can do just about anything with time. Consider all the actions or verbs we associate with time: add, bend, count, delay, extend, find, get, have, invest . . . just about anything. 

Alicja Kwade's 'Void of the Moment in Motion'

This is a season for counting days -- counting up all the projects and learning we've accomplished approaching the end of a school year, counting down to the final days of high school for our seniors. It also is a season of counting in Jewish terms -- we traditionally count each day between Passover and Shavuot. We learn that custom from this week's Torah portion, Emor. The portion also reminds us about counting days in the week for Shabbat and counting other moments in time for festivals. 

It is a way of saying that every moment in time should be valued and treasured; no moment should be taken for granted.

To illustrate our relationship with time, I shared a corny story with my students this week.  A woman was on the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall in Jerusalem and wanted to check the time.  But her cell phone battery had died so she asked a stranger for the time.  The stranger replied, "I don't know the time; I don't have a watch or phone." "Then how do you keep track of time," she asked.   "Oh, during the day," he told her, "I ask people on the street for the time."  

Food for Thought: Generosity and the Stork (Shemini 5775)

We all know food is an essential element of Pesach. But why is it that as soon as Passover is done food is also prominent? Many crave a return to pizza or other foods traditionally off-limits during Pesach. At the smallest of Israeli pizza shops, i have heard the phone ring off the hook an hour or two after Pesach ends. (I have a special fondness for pizza with corn and green olives because of Pizza Sababa in Jerusalem).  

The power of food both during and after Pesach illustrates that food is about much more than physical nutrition it also is about emotional nourishment.  

That theme echoes in this week's Torah portion, Shemini, which contains detailed descriptions of the types of food that are fit or kosher and those that aren't. Only certain animals are eligible to be kosher. There are rules as to what makes an animal or a fish kosher. Fish, for example, must have both fins and scales. 

But when it comes to birds -- the Torah does not describe general rules. Rather Torah specifically describes each specific bird – by name – that is disqualified.

One explanation for treating birds differently is that the disqualifying characteristics for most animals and fish are visible to us. One can readily tell, for instance, if a fish has fins and scales (at least if one actively fishes).

But for birds it's different. 

Empowered to See and Seek Freedom (Pesach 5775)

Rev. Martin Luther King and Rabbi Joachim Prinz
(next to each other above)
meeting with President Kennedy

The festival of Pesach annually rehearses an ancient national journey from bondage to freedom. It also inspires us on the personal journey aspects of life that enslave us toward aspects that liberate us.

This came to mind last Shabbat when Rabbi Gershon Albert of Beth Jacob Congregation taught the community about the essential duality of Pesach symbols and rituals. More on that below.

Duality in life is persistent and especially manifest at this season during which we experience both darkness and light, decline and renewal, and suffering and hope.  Ironically, we often need the lack of something to truly appreciate its value. What would light mean to us without the experience of darkness? What would innocence mean to us without the experience of wisdom? What would liberation or freedom mean to us without bondage or slavery?

Taking Pleasure From Giving: When a Table Is More Than a Table (Terumah 5775)

We love having people over for dinner or lunch on Shabbat!  But our beautiful, antique dining room table was getting in the way -- too wide and too many table legs.   People sat so far apart they had to practically shout across the table or were always bumping a table leg jostling the table, spilling soup.  

So this week we decided to swap out the antique for a plain oak table in the studio because that one is narrower and has only only four legs.  

My dad used to manufacture furniture. The plain oak table was a gift from him almost 40 years ago when i first had an apartment big enough for a dining room table. Since then it has moved across the country with me -- it has been a kitchen table, a dining room table, a table for my kids' art projects, a desk, and a study group table when I returned to graduate school.  I've seen a lot of it over the years.  But only this week when we carried it into the dining room did I see a distinctive marking from my dad (who died this 17 years ago this month) on the bottom of the table.  Seeing that marking brought a flood of memories of my dad giving me that table -- that table holds precious memories.

There also is a table to hold precious items in this week's Torah portion that is part of the tabernacle in in the wilderness.  As work on the tabernacle begins, our ancestors are instructed, "take for Me an offering . . . from their hearts." (Exodus 25:1-2)  The Hebrew seems odd at first because it does not say, "give to me" instead it says "take for me."  

One understanding of this oddity is that in order to give from the heart, we need to take from among those things that are precious to us.  My dad's marking under the table reminded me that he specially took from his inventory something precious to give to me.  

Yet in a more powerful sense, when we give to others we tend to feel better about our world and about ourselves.  We take delight when we are able to give to others. I know how much pleasure my dad took in giving the table to me. And the greater pleasure even that he took watching me study and eat, create and play, and host others around that table.  

The Sages teach a similar lesson in Talmud, "One accomplishes restoration  (lit. atonement) through the table."  (Chagiga 27a)  According to Rabbi Yissocher Frand now that there is no more sacrificial altar, the "table" means the dining room table.  How we use that table to nourish the hungry, to bring light at moments of darkness, to show kindness to strangers and guests -- all of that is, in effect, an altar bringing restoration.  

May we have the strength to take from that which is precious to us and share it with others.  May we have the wisdom to accomplish restoration through our nourishing others with food and laughter around our tables.  May we take much pleasure from all that we give others.  

From Slavery to Empathy: Treating Strangers With Compassion Instead of Fear: (Mishpatim 5775)

What do Black History Month and the 1865 letter from a free person to his former slave master have to do with Torah?  Quite a bit this week!  As a 7th grade student once told me two of the most conflicting sentences in Torah come from this week's Torah portion -- and they are about slavery.  From these we draw a powerful lesson about receiving strangers with compassion.   

Israelite Slaves appox. 1400 BCE

On the one hand there is the lofty "Do not oppress a stranger. You know the soul of a stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 23:9)  On the other hand, there is the gritty, "A Jewish slave may work for [another Jew] for six years but must be set free in the seventh year."  (Exodus 21:2)  

"Seriously!?!" this seventh grader moaned, "did our ancestors forget so fast what it's like to be slaves they started taking their own as slaves right away!"  It was hard for her to hear Torah talking about the ways to hold slaves right after we being freed from slavery in Egypt. 

Finding One's Authentic Voice: Empowered Through Others (Bo 5775)

We know Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to be one of the most inspiring orators -- ever. Yet there is a legend about when he entered seminary that King was still developing his 'voice.'  For example, he took nine (!) homiletics courses in just three years at seminary.  According to one legend about his time there, King was encouraged to go out with classmates and listen to other preachers.  Learn from them.  Even before that, King had developed many powerful ideas.  But he needed to listen to and collaborate with others in order to develop his own authentic voice. 

Rabbi Heschel, Rev King, Rev Abernathy,
 Rabbi Eisendrath  Rabbi Gendler (1968)

I shared that message with the annual Women in Leadership conference of the Bay Area Teachers Development Collaborative hosted by Jewish Community High School earlier this week. The conference theme this year was "Honoring Your Authentic Voice."  

An oddity in this week's Torah portion suggests an insight.  It opens with God telling Moses, "Go to Pharaoh."  (Exodus 10:1) The Hebrew here is different from the first time Moses gets a similar instruction.  (Compare "bo" in Exodus 10:1 with "lech" in Exodus 3:27.) Yet usually both terms are translated the same:  "Go!"  The Hebrew term used this week literally could be translated as "Come!"  Like Martin Luther King centuries later, Moses was a community leader still trying to find his authentic voice.  Moses had developed powerful ideas but was reluctant to express them in words.  Just the opposite, Moses expressed reluctance to use his voice; afraid he was not up to the task.