A week under the stars

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For a week we live a strange dichotomy.  On the one hand we are totally invested in plant life. We’ve spent time and energy picking a lumpy lemon also known as an etrog (symbolizes the heart), a sharp palm branch (symbolizes the spine), a willow branch (symbolizes the mouth), and a myrtle branch (symbolizes the eyes) and we see ourselves reflected in nature.  Every morning, we put these four species together and shake the bundles in the six directions of the world symbolizing that divinity can be found absolutely everywhere.  On the other hand, at night we retire to our Sukkah and Jewish law says that ideally the roof shouldn’t be densely covered- we need to see the stars! [1]  For a week our eyes are trained towards the heavens and our bodies are immersed in plant life. 

                There is no question that the star of the show is the palm branch and the esrog, myrtle and willow are fine accessories. Our palm branch needs to be long and straight just like a spine that connects the high functioning brain with our low functioning toes.  What we learn is that we also need to connect the light that the stars represent with this world. So what do the stars represent exactly?  There are two types of darkness in this world.  There is a darkness that is an absence of light and there is a darkness that is subjective, a blinding that comes from an overabundance of light.  This is hinted at in our daily prayer, ‘G-d creates darkness and forms light’.  Now, the word create, בורא, is a higher level than the word, יוצר, form- darkness is a higher level than light![2] The darkness is actually a higher form of light- it is a blinding light that is beyond perception (until the next world).  The sublime stars are the remaining sparks of that light.[3] In other words, the stars are the inspiration for where we are going, a world of ultimate light. 

                Joy comes from the connection between the sublime and the mundane.  On Sukkos we live that connection from head to toe, from star to plant.  It is no wonder that Sukkah is described as the ‘time of our happiness’ because it is this dichotomy that makes life sizzle.  To the extent that we connect the two not only on Sukkot, but also during the year, is the extent that we will live a joyful life.

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[1] Mishna Brura 531.3 ‘It is the way to cover it lightly so that one can see the stars.  However, if it is covered thickly and one can’t see the stars it is still kosher.

[2] See the Vilna Gaon commentary on the siddur

[3] Rav Hutner Pachad Yitzak Maimer ט

Rosh Hashanah: Real life

Rosh Hashanah: Real life

                Here in Israel, the talk revolves around gas masks- ‘did you get one’ or ‘where did you get yours’?  Of course, we are well past the ‘boy who cried wolf stage’ as threats like these are routine and nothing usually happens. So the attitude is as one Rabbi quipped, ‘these gas masks will only be used on Purim’.  Either way, these threats are timely as they are excellent preparation for the high holidays. If the daily blast of the shofar hasn’t woken us up, then maybe Assad can- nothing like some threats on our life to help us think about life, after all, isn’t that what Rosh Hashanah is all about?  

                 The Talmud says, ‘there are three books opened on Rosh Hashanah: one for completely evil people, one for completely righteous people and one for the in between people. The completely righteous are written for life immediately, and the evil people are written for death immediately. The in between hang in the balance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur…’[1].  Why are they books?  And in general, what does this mean?  A simple understanding is that on Rosh Hashanah our physical life hangs in the balance.  In a few days, it will be decided whether missiles will be landing somewhere in Israel. But that can’t really be what Rosh Hashanah is all about- how could a righteous person ever pass away? Do we say he had a bad 80^th year all of a sudden?  So the Talmud can’t be taken at face value.

                To understand what the Talmud is talking about, we need to know what life and death are really all about. It says elsewhere in the Talmud (Berachos 18a) that a righteous person is called alive even when physically dead, and an evil person is called dead even when physically alive.   What is that referring to?  It means that they are cut off from the spiritual source of connection.  In other words, they are alive physically but they lack a spiritual vibrancy.  With that we can understand what Rosh Hashanah is all about. It is decided how spiritually vibrant our year will be, how full of inspiration and connection.  Will we be going through the motions for another year, or will we be spiritually sensitive this year and connect to deeper moments.  That is the idea of a book.  A book is a mode of expression.  Will our mode of expression this year be vital or will it be impotent?

                Ultimately, Assad can’t really help us- he has no control over our real life.  On Rosh Hashanah we decide that we want to recognize a spiritual reality in the world.  If we do, we will be blessed to draw energy from it, and feel alive. And if we don’t, we will continue to live in an endless cycle of vagaries that will constantly whisper in our year, is this what life is all about?

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[1] Rosh Hashanah 16b

a rare sight

                In front of the Smithsonian museum of Air and Space, a tour group of Asian students sat on the steps waiting for the bus to come.  Out of the ten students in front of me, I counted eight engaged with their ipad oblivious to the other members of the group.  Although these gadgets are produced in Asia, I don’t think this sight had anything to do with their Asian background. This is a standard scene for most young adults in the developed world and it may explain a strange incident that took place a few days earlier.

                We were seated for breakfast at a coffee shop in the heart of Jewish Long Island with another religious couple and their baby.  My two kids were mostly on the floor crawling around and playing with some books.  We chatted amicably and caught up about the happenings of the last three years since we last saw them.  In the midst of our conversations a middle aged man with pinkish skin, light eyes and upturned nose approached our table. He looked dignified in his business suit and didn’t appear to be unbalanced; in fact he was in a business meeting with a religious Jew a few tables away.  He turned to us and said in a confident, but slightly nervous tone, ‘this is beautiful to see two families having a nice meal together with their kids, it is really great. You guys are awesome*’.

                We thanked him and returned to our conversation, not sure what exactly we had done to warrant such lavish praise. Was it the kids, or was it that adults were having a conversation without a smart phone or a computer on the table, or did we just look happy?  But, a compliment was not enough. A few minutes later, the man, on his way out says, ‘you guys are really awesome’ as he plunked a fifty dollar bill on the table, ‘I want to pay for your meal’.  Stunned, we politely refused, but he insisted and walked out. We ran after him and forced him to take the money back.

                I am not sure if this man was an evangelical Christian who wanted to fulfill the promise that G-d makes to Abraham that he will bless those that bless Abraham (or his descendants) or if he was genuinely moved by the scene or if he was in a midlife crisis and he missed having family or we can get cynical and maybe he lost a bet. I’ll never know, but if we did move him in some way, it could be that the display of real connection is not common place, but a commodity in our distracted world.  Indeed, as the parsha warns us in the first line, there are no small things in the world and we don’t know which mitzvah it is that will ring the highest bill of all.

                

A sore thumb

A sore thumb

                If we look at our hands, there are four fingers and then a fifth finger that is so different, it warrants a different name, a thumb. Despite its less than regal name which means ‘swollen’, the thumb is the most important finger.  Its movements and strength decides what makes it into the hand and what doesn’t- it is the key to a good grip. 

                The number five’s claim to fame is not only the hand, but also the famous five books. The fact that our hands, which help us act in the world, are modeled after the Torah which also helps us act in this world is no surprise. But the comparison goes deeper as they are structured similarly.

The last book, Devarim, is akin to the thumb in many respects as it is set apart from the other books in both tone and content. The tone is more human and the content is largely a repetition with explanation of what came before.  Even on a technical level, each of the previous books begins with a connective letter ‘vav’, which means ‘and’: V’ele Shemos, Vayikra, Vayomer Hashem Bamidbar since they all flow naturally from the first book Bereishit, while Devarim starts without a ‘vav’ to signal that it is different.[1] 

In Bereishit we find out there is a creator involved in the world, and then in Shemos the plagues demonstrate G-d is One and controls everything, and then in Varyikra we are commanded to bring sacrifices as a constant reminder that everything is part of G-d, and finally we have Bamidbar that expresses the idea that G-d’s unity is most easily seen in the land of Israel, ironically in today’s fractured age.  Where does Devarim fit in to the picture? 

                It fits as the human struggle with the previous ideas- would they receive it, would the thumb chose to grasp it or let go?[2] Moses admonishes the Jewish people in his own words throughout and reminds them of how they erred. It is clear that the idea of One G-d involved in the world was a tough pill to swallow even then, revelation and all.  But, as we approach T’Sha Be’av, we are reminded that our struggle with these ideas is not worth it as the alternative is much worse. When we don’t integrate values that befit the knowledge of one G-d into our life and treat each other accordingly, the result is opposite of connection, ‘chibur’ and becomes ‘cherev’ distruction.[3]

               

               

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[1] Rabbeinu Bachya Intro to Devarim

[2] Maharal Tiferes Israel 43

[3] חבר becomes חרב- the same letter in opposite order

The masculinists

                Imagine a child comes home from his first day of school with a dejected look on his face.  The parent asks, “what is wrong?”

The child replies, “it is not fair!”

The parent probes further, “what is not fair?”

The child blurts out, “almost every other kid in the class got to wear glasses, and I didn’t!”

The parent, hard pressed to keep from laughing and losing an empathetic touch, responds, “it is actually the other way around, you are lucky that your eyes were made perfectly while everyone else’s eyes were not”. 

We’d like to think that conversations like the one above are relegated to the arena of parent and child, but unfortunately, this conversation is happening among adults. To what am I referring to?  To the claims that traditional Jewish prayer is discriminatory towards woman-they don’t count for a minyan and they don’t get to wear the same fancy prayer uniforms (tallis)or use the same prayer tools (tefillin) as men. And what is maddening is that the women’s side is smaller at the Kotel! So is traditional Jewish prayer discriminatory? 

                This misperception stems from a wider misperception on how we can understand the first verse of this week’s parsha.  A woman has a baby and she herself is rendered impure from the experience. But what is hard to understand is that she is more impure (impurity represents a spiritual blocakage that prevents a person from connection to G-d. The word impurity, טמא, is טמ-א, the א or G-d iniside is blocked, טמ) when she gives birth to a baby girl than to a baby boy. She gets fourteen days of impurity for a girl versus seven days for a boy and she has to wait an additional 66 days until she can go visit the temple for a girl and 33 days for a boy. These verses indicate that there is an endemic problem on how Judaism views woman. 

                That is if one does not understand the reason for the impurity in the first place. There are three major impurities in the world. There is an impurity that results from over expressed arrogance whose manifestation is through evil speech and an impurity that is expressed from over indulgence in base desires. The third impurity is an existential one. Once Adam sinned, our souls lost the verve they once hand, so inherently, we never live up to our full potential.  This loss of potential is a major cause for spiritual blockage or impurity- we cannot connect to G-d like we used to. 

                It follows, then, that the greater the loss of potential, the greater the impurity.  In other words, if a thirty volt bulb is dimmed to fifteen volts it feels darker than when twenty five volts falls to fifteen volts.  If a woman is impure for longer, it means that her inherent spiritual quality is greater because there is a greater loss when she is not able to fulfill it.   With a higher natural connection, she does not need prayer uniforms (tallis) or prayer tools (tefillin) and she does not need formalized prayer like men do to connect.  And if there is no need for it, then certainly she does not need as much space for it. And she also can’t count in a group for a person who needs to be there for the prayer to be effective, namely a man, just like a kid who puts on fake glasses can’t count in a classroom survey as a child who wears glasses.  In case it is not obvious enough, these women of the wall are essentially complaining that they want glasses too! What they don’t realize is that they don’t need them. They have thereby denied their greatness as a female in their desire to be male- is that feminism?