Going It Alone

The first king of Israel, Saul, was threatened by the brash and charismatic upstart, David and so he did what kings frequently do. Saul tried to kill him and chased David into the wilderness. There, in hiding, David found sanctuary in the beautiful and majestic oasis of Ein Gedi. And there, alone and afraid, he composed the psalm’s words:

My soul is depressed, for they set a trap to ensnare my feet; they even dug a pit to capture me, but they themselves, fell into it, selah.
My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready; I shall sing and chant hymns of praise.
Awake, my glorious soul. Awake, lute and lyre, for I shall awaken the dawn.
I shall acknowledge You among the nations, Adonai; I shall sing of You among the peoples of the world. (Psalm 57)

Sometimes the most heartfelt, and beautiful, prayers are composed in moments of existential crisis. Spiritual longing is often solitary. The quest is singular.

David is terrified Saul is going to kill him and attempts to prepare himself for death. “I am ready.” But then he finds strength. “I shall sing.” He suggests an antidote to his fears. “Awake, my glorious soul. Awake, lute and lyre, for I shall awaken the dawn.”

I often visit Israel during the hottest days of July. Hiking along Ein Gedi’s paths the heat starts to get to the better of me and I can imagine David’s fears. When I finally reach what is now called David’s Waterfall, my exhaustion finds relief. The fear dissipates. The waterfall’s cool mist tempers the heat. My spirit is restored.

Awake, my glorious soul.

More words of David’s poems come to mind:

O God, You are my God and thus shall I be first every morning to seek You out.  

My soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You as though I were parched in an arid land, as though I were exhausted in a land without water.

Surely I have seen You in the sanctuary; I have merited to see Your power and glory. 

And, as Your mercy is better than life itself, my lips shall always praise You.  (Psalm 63)

If not for David’s fears, and angst, if not for his journeys into the wilderness, I might not have these words on which to cling. “My soul thirsts for You.” Artists, and spiritual seekers, need to be alone with their thoughts. They need to work through their challenges, and difficulties; they need to confront their demons, and enemies. There they discover poetry and song, music and art. We become the beneficiaries of their struggles.

And yet Judaism does not want to leave us alone. It counsels us that our best prayers are those said in community. The kaddish is to be said with a minyan of ten people. The tradition exclaims, “It is not good to mourn alone.”

But that is exactly when we confront those anxieties and fears. The thoughts of longing most often occur when alone. We cannot help but think of those we mourn when by ourselves. Are we never to be left alone? Are we always to be surrounded by friends and community? Can a spiritual quest ever be in the singular?

The Torah responds: “If anyone, man or woman, explicitly utters a nazirite’s vow, to set himself apart for the Lord, then he shall abstain from wine…” (Numbers 6) And what is a nazirite’s vow? No drinking of wine. No cutting the hair. And what does Judaism say about this? Narishkeit! Foolishness. We no longer make such vows. We don’t believe that an individual can get closer to God in this way.

The tradition shouts: “Never go it alone.” On Yom Kippur, the community fasts together. Only together can we get closer to God. Even David’s eloquent words are inserted into the Rosh Hashanah prayers. They are not to be said without others. It is as if the tradition states, “Don’t get any ideas about making a pilgrimage to Ein Gedi standing under the waterfall by yourself and reciting David’s words there."

And still, I am left wondering. What about the creative energies that come from personal existential angst and fears?

I turn to another poet. I turn to Rainer Maria Rilke:

I would describe myself
like a landscape I’ve studied
at length, in detail;
like a world I’m coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother’s face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged. (The Book of a Monastic Life)

I require the poems of the individual (and lost) spirit. I need the songs of the community’s (landed) prayers.

The Meaning of Shavuot

Recently, I opened one of the many Torah commentaries that line my shelves, and found these words, “My Haftorah can be find [sic] on pg. 509 in the larger Hertz Chumash.” Forty-five years ago, I read those words before chanting the prophet Amos on the Shabbat when I became a bar mitzvah. As I looked over the pages, I could even decipher transliterations over a few select Hebrew words.

I had opened this Bible in search of an alternative translation of a curious Hebrew phrase. In our weekly class, we were transfixed by an unusual verse and grappling with the meaning of some of the Torah’s words. More often than not, I rely on other commentaries, but on this occasion, I searched for another interpretation. Mysteriously, the Bible opened to my Haftorah. And when I saw my handwriting and the introductory words scrawled above the Haftorah Amos, I stumbled upon my thirteen-year-old self.

I wondered. “Why did the rabbi instruct me to scribble those words in the chumash?” I tried to jog my memory, “Did anyone else turn to pg. 509? Had the rabbi taught me the meaning of the words I chanted?” I do not recall. I do remember the praise of family members and friends. A flood of memories filled my heart. My grandparents acted as if my bar mitzvah was the greatest in thousands of years.

I laughed as I remembered...

This post continues on The Wisdom Daily.

Enough Guns!

After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I thought our country would finally address its epidemic of gun violence. After students spoke out and organized following the murders at Parkland’s Stoneman Douglas High School, I thought our nation would finally develop gun safety laws.

I don’t know why we cannot agree. It is first and foremost about guns.

It is about Americans’ love affair with guns and the easy access we have to these lethal weapons. Our nation is unique among affluent countries. We experience sixty times more gun deaths than people living in the United Kingdom and six times as many as neighboring Canada. There is one explanation for these staggering differences. There are more guns in the United States than people. Why does a nation of 330 million people need 393 million guns?

Will laws eliminate gun deaths? Of course not. Will regulations prevent every person intent on doing harm from injuring or killing? Again, of course not. But can we do more? Should we be doing much, much more? Absolutely.

I cannot even scroll through all the pictures of these adorable, smiling and loving children. I make it only to Amerie Garza and then must look away. Their teacher Eva Mirales’ beautiful smile, framed by our country’s breathtaking landscape, makes me gasp and look elsewhere.

Have I already forgotten Celestine Chaney and Roberta Drury who were murdered in Buffalo last week? How many people remember the name of Daniel Enriquez who was killed in our very own city’s subway? I must not look away. I must take in every single one of these now erased smiles.

Do I even know the names of the approximately fifty people shot and killed by guns every day? Can I even count the names of those additional fifty who use guns to take their own lives every single day of the year?

It is about guns. And it is about our inability to develop better laws that will allow us to continue using and owning guns while also better protecting us from the dangers of these very same guns. How do these innocent lives now taken from their families not call us to do more? I recognize that the young man who pulled the trigger again and again is disturbed. But let us also recognize that he used guns to commit these murders.

It is not an infringement of rights to regulate something that is known to be lethal and injurious.

I still remember the protests against seat belts. I still recall my complaints about how burdensome and uncomfortable these belts were. And now I even clip the belt into its buckle when backing out of the driveway. Cars are dangerous. And yet, I have been witness to them becoming far safer and even more importantly, far less lethal. Part of that transformation is technological advances, and innovations such as seat belts, anti-locking braking and air bags.

The other part of that change is better laws.

We belong to a tradition that believes laws, and commandments, can make our lives better. That is the Jewish contention. This week the Torah declares, “If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments…. I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone; I will give the land respite from vicious beasts, and no sword shall cross your land.” (Leviticus 26)

The Hebrew does not actually say, “follow” but instead “walk.” The laws are a path that we walk upon. They help us to live and allow us to thrive. They enable us to walk proudly.

And so, my prayer is twofold. May we develop laws that guarantee the rights of those who wish to use and own guns. May we write laws that better guarantee the safety of all our citizens and protect every person from needless gun violence. It is not an either/or choice. We can live in safety while affirming the rights enshrined in the second amendment!

I pray. May the memories of Xavier Lopez, Jose Flores, Eliahana Cruz Torres, Jackie Cazares, Ellie Garcia, Jailah Nicole Silguero, Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, Tess Marie Mata, Nevaeh Bravo, Makenna Lee Elrod, Maite Rodriguez, Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, Uziyah Garcia, Amerie Jo Garza, Annabelle Guadalupe Rodriguez, Irma Garcia, Eva Mirele and Roberta A. Drury, Margus D. Morrison, Andre Mackniel, Aaron Salter, Geraldine Talley, Celestine Chaney, Heyward Patterson, Katherine Massey, Pearl Young, Ruth Whitfield and Daniel Enriquez as well as the hundreds of others whose names I do not know serve as blessing and inspiration to help us once and for all work to reduce the number of murdered souls.

May we work to banish the need for these far too commonplace and frequent public memorials when we recite a litany of murdered six-year-olds and ten-year-olds.

Walk by these laws. Stand in safety.

Numbering Our Days with Meaning

We find ourselves in the midst of the Omer, the period when we count seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot. The custom originated in biblical times when we counted from Passover’s wheat harvest until Shavuot’s barley harvest. An omer is a sheaf of grain. During this time semi-mourning practices are observed, namely no weddings are celebrated.

The explanations for this are various and somewhat mysterious. I have often thought that it was most likely because there was worry about the upcoming harvest. Others suggest that during rabbinic times a plague afflicted the disciples of Rabbi Akiva. According to some accounts 24,000 students died.

Miraculously on the 33rd day of the Omer the plague lifted. Today is in fact the 33rd day called Lag B’Omer. On this day the mourning practices are lifted. People celebrate and gather around bonfires. We are no longer downcast. Our worry disappears.

The Omer serves to connect the freedom celebrated on Passover with the giving of Torah on Mount Sinai. The Jewish tradition’s claim is obvious. Freedom is meaningless if it is not wed to something greater, to something larger than itself. Passover is not about the freedom to get to do whatever we want. It is about freely choosing Torah.

That is why the tradition stubbornly insists on counting the Omer. We count from freedom to revelation. We march from Egypt to Sinai. Our history is about the journey from this holiday to the next. Our story is reenacted during the Omer.

The rabbis wonder why the plague was so severe. In typical fashion they see its devastation as a critique of their behavior. They see our remembrance of this tragedy as an opportunity to turn inward. And what was the sin that caused the plague? The rabbis teach: it was because they and their disciples failed to act respectfully towards each other.

What extraordinary self-awareness! What remarkable willingness to offer self-criticism!

Although their historical claims appear questionable the lesson remains instructive. We are again plagued by the failure to act respectfully towards each other. Our leaders scream at one another. Our politicians call each other names.

Our debates no longer appear about ideas but instead grievances. We no longer argue with people whose political views are different than our own. Instead, we shout past each other and raise our voices about who is more aggrieved.

Again and again, I am reminded that the counting of the Omer offers important lessons for today. We best number our days with the meaning Torah provides.

Remembering Annie, Remembering the Holocaust

Shalom and welcome to Congregation L’Dor V’Dor. I am Rabbi Steven Moskowitz, and I am so pleased that you have joined us for this special occasion when we dedicate Annie’s Garden in memory of Annie Bleiberg, a longtime member of our synagogue community…. I had the privilege of serving as Annie’s rabbi for almost eighteen years. It was one of my greatest honors that she chose to call me rabbi. Hearing someone say that who has lived through the history that I only study and teach about feels especially weighty.

And sometimes, when I am reading and learning about the Shoah, I can still hear Annie’s voice in my ears. I can still hear the words she would offer to our students when she came every year to our sixth-grade class to speak about how she survived the Holocaust.

I recall how she would tell them how her life was similar to theirs before the Nazis invaded her native Poland. I remember many things, but a few notes from her story are deserving of mention. She told the students how when she and her family were crammed into a train car heading for a death camp, her father managed to pry open the small window with the tools he had smuggled on the train. Men, and boys, squeezed through the opening and jumped first. And then it was the women’s, and girl’s, turn. The last boy became scared and so Annie who was to be the first girl jumped in his stead and then he after her.

By then the guards on top of the train discovered what they were doing and shot and killed that boy when he jumped. Annie’s last memories of her mother and sister, who were murdered in that death camp, is saying goodbye to her sister in that cramped train car and the feeling of her mother’s hands pushing her from behind to help her squeeze through the window. She never saw them again. Only she and her father managed to survive. Still, even after her many attempts to avoid capture, the Nazis did manage to find her when a former classmate identified her as a Jew. And yet, she would emphasize to the students not that neighbor who turned her in but the other people who hid her or gave her a morsel of food or offered her a warm bath when she was on the run. There were good people who helped her survive.

She spent nearly one and half years in concentration camps. She would try to convey to our students how terrible the experience was in the camps. She was always hungry. She became weak and emaciated. And then she would often tell the students how she and three other girls would share their daily rations. They used one of their tea rations, or what she would tell them was more like dirty water, to color their cheeks. That way they would not look as pale as they actually were. And looking healthier meant one more day of life. And then she would often point her finger and say, “Living is worth it. No matter how bad things seem, life is precious.”

Then she would conclude her story by saying, “Am Yisrael Chai!—the Jewish people lives.” We would then give the students an opportunity to talk about what they heard and come up to Annie and ask questions. They would often want to see her number up close: 38330. Some would want to touch her arm and feel the tattoo and she would let them. She never covered her number up. She wanted the world to see it. Her arm served as testimony against the Nazis and the evil they perpetrated, but also of course witness to her survival.

I would often drive her home after Hebrew School concluded. In the car, we would talk about what she had just shared. I had this sense that telling her story was both simultaneously invigorating and exhausting. she would often say, “You know rabbi I leave out some of the details out when talking to such young students.” I remember thinking, “There were worse moments than jumping off a moving train on a snowy winter night? There were worse memories than drinking dirty water tea and eating a half slice of bread every day?”

On one occasion, she told me the following, “We used to have to squat to go to the bathroom at the edge of these latrine pits. Sometimes people were so weak that they fell in and drowned in those pits. On other occasions the Nazi guards would push people into those pits, and they would drown.” Even going to the bathroom was dangerous. In the camps even that most mundane and basic of human things could mean death. The Nazis robbed Jews of their humanity.

I cannot explain why that is the memory I can never forget. Perhaps it was because I had this feeling that Annie needed to share it and speak it out loud but felt she could not tell such a horror to our young students. She wanted them to remain hopeful. Her goal when telling our students was to instill hope. Even in the midst of sharing the terrors that she experienced, she wanted to protect our children. She did not want them only to see antisemitism and death. She wanted them to see survival and life.

Annie did survive. She married and had a daughter. She celebrated the b’nai mitzvah of grandchildren as well as weddings. She was present for the birth of great grandchildren.

She wanted our students to remember the Nazi evils but also see survival and hope. And that of course is the point of our garden so aptly named “Annie’s Garden.” In the winter there will be its barren trees and bushes and its cold, stone benches. I will then imagine her tumbling in the snowbank when Annie tried to evade her Nazi tormentors. And then every year, around this time, its bushes will start filling with color and its flowers will start blooming. And I will recall her concluding message of hope and her words. “Life is always worth it. Am Yisrael Chai!”

 

Enlarge Your Vision and Feed the Hungry

After several courses at our Passover seder, including matzah ball soup, chicken, brisket, tzimmes, various vegetables, and of course many glasses of wine, dessert was finally served. And then after that quintessential Passover sponge cake, we still found room for a few macaroons, jelly rings and candied fruit slices. What a feast! It seemed fitting for a king or queen.

That is of course by design. When crafting the rituals for our seders the rabbis looked toward the lavish meals of the Greeks and Romans. They thought to themselves, “This is how free people eat. They recline. They are served. They dip their foods. This is how we should celebrate our feast of freedom.”

I think of this lavishness, and yes, its overindulgence, when reading this week’s portion. It contains a list of all the holidays. Shabbat leads the list. Then comes Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and finally Sukkot. (The Torah does not mention our beloved Hanukkah or even Purim because the events these holidays commemorate had not yet occurred.)

Sandwiched in between the instructions about marking Shavuot’s wheat harvest and Rosh Hashanah’s sounding of the shofar, is a commandment that appears out of place. The Torah states: “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I Adonai am your God.” (Leviticus 23)

Not only does this commandment appear out of nowhere but it is repeated almost word for word from last week’s portion. I want to shout: “Did you think I already forgot this mitzvah or that my attention span is that short?” I want to retort, “My field of view, and in particular the horizon of my compassion is not that limited?” Or is it?

All those sumptuous desserts, and the wonderful company of family and friends, can obscure our peripheral vision. The poor and the stranger are cast aside. While the holidays elevate our lives, they can also diminish our sensitivities. The Torah exclaims, “Don’t let your celebrations blind you to the needs of others.” Don’t forget those who are not invited to our tables. Don’t forget the hungry.

The edges of our fields belong to them. Not every morsel of food is ours for the taking. Allow others to gather what we mistakenly label as leftovers. Leave the gleanings for others. Years ago, the organization Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger was founded.

It was predicated on the idea that our holidays, and celebrations present us with two competing mitzvahs. On the one hand, we are supposed to celebrate our holidays with food and festivities. We are intended to rejoice at our simchas. And yet, on the other hand, we are commanded to remember those less fortunate than ourselves and even more importantly, help them find the nourishment and sustenance all require.

How does Mazon suggest we accomplish these seemingly competing goals? Tithe what we spend on our celebrations’ food and make a donation to organizations such as Mazon who then distribute funds to soup kitchens, food pantries and the like. Although we are not feeding the hungry directly, although we are not leaving the edges of our plates for the poor and the stranger, we are enabling Mazon to do this in our behalf.

By all means, celebrate! And by all means, always remember that others are not worrying about if they ate too many macaroons, but instead how they are going to afford this evening’s meal. They are asking, “Will my family’s stomachs growl from hunger this evening? How will I find some food tomorrow morning?”

Take up the Torah’s command. Leave the gleanings! Enlarge your vision. Widen your circle of compassion.

Israel Is About Tomorrow

People often return from trips to Israel and speak about the power of visiting its ancient sites. It is extraordinary to stand in what was once King David’s palace or to play in Ein Gedi’s waterfalls and read the psalms a young David penned when hiding from King Saul. Walking through such archeological sites one can also imagine the moment when the young king and Batsheva first saw each other from afar.

In Jerusalem, one can envision Abraham and Isaac walking those final steps before reaching Mount Moriah where the father was instructed to sacrifice his son. As I trace their path, I think to myself, did they speak? The Torah suggests they walked in silence, but I wonder, how could they not if it also states they were bound together as one. It was there that our ancestors built the holy Temple. All that remains is the Western Wall.

How many people touched these very same stones? How many people tried to reach this place, but died during what was once a perilous journey to the holy land? The medieval poet, Yehudah Halevi, famously wrote: “My heart is in the East, and I in the uttermost West…. A light thing would it seem to me to leave all the good things of Spain—Seeing how precious in mine eyes to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary.” He died on his journey to Jerusalem.

And yet for all the history contained in Israel’s stones, for all our tradition’s words scribed in these very hills, this is not what I most celebrate. Today is Yom Haatzmaut, Israel Independence Day. 74 years ago, the modern State of Israel was founded when David ben Gurion proclaimed: “By virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, we hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael—the Land of Israel—to be known as Medinat Yisrael—the State of Israel.”

Israel is not so much about our history as much as it is about the present. Sure, it is about returning to our ancient roots, and the land where we first became a nation, but its present reality is what should stir the Jewish soul. When I visit Israel, and spend a few weeks in my beloved Jerusalem, I always make a point to make my way up the winding path that climbs from Sultan’s Pool below the Old City and make its way to Lion’s Gate through which Israeli soldiers recaptured the city and the Western Wall.

When I reach the top of the hill, I often stop and rather than push ahead to the Temple’s ruins, I turn around and with the Old City’s walls behind me, I look out and behold the new, and growing, city of Jerusalem. I can see the windmill of Yemin Moshe, the first Jewish neighborhood built outside the city’s walls in the late nineteenth century, and the Reform seminary where I first fell in love with Israel, and where Susie and I first met.

My soul is renewed.

This is our future.

If our people can achieve this in less than one hundred years, we can surmount any challenge and any struggle. This does not mean that I see perfection all around me. No nation is perfect. No country is without its missteps.

It means instead that I see hope.

Israel is about the Jewish people’s return to history. There we are masters of our own fate. This is what sovereignty entails.

And all those new buildings, and the cranes constructing so many new apartments, fills my heart with hope for the future.

I turn my back to the ancient ruins. And open my eyes to a new future filled with promise.

Numbers Don't Tell the Whole Story

Today marks Yom HaShoah. The day the Israeli Knesset set aside, in 1959, to remember the Holocaust.
Setting aside one day, or one service for that matter, to remember six million souls and the countless more they would have fathered and mothered, and the many Jewish towns and villages erased from the map and the flourishing of Jewish culture that is no more, seems immeasurable when compared to the enormity of our loss. How can any gesture or ritual, song or remembrance capture so much destruction and loss?

Think about this. If one were to recite all six million names it would take nearly five months to read the list from start to finish, assuming no breaks for sleeping or eating or even pauses for taking a breath between names. (For the mathematicians among us, I am assuming it takes two seconds to read each name and that there are 31,536,000 seconds in a year.)

Now imagine this....

This post continues on The Times of Israel.

Uneasy Lies the Teacher's Crown

There are many “fours” at the Passover table. There are the four cups of wine, the four questions and of course the four children.

The Haggadah recounts: “The Torah alludes to four children: one wise, one wicked, one simple, and one who does not know how to task.” Each asks a question. And each is answered with an explanation appropriate to their understanding.

I have often bristled at the description of the wicked child. This suggests that the child is beyond teaching, shaping and even saving, that the teacher’s role is inconsequential. Labeling any child, as wicked most especially or even simple, for that matter, implies that the teacher’s role is negligible. The wicked child’s character appears set in stone.

The Haggadah continues:

What does the wicked child say?
“What does this service mean to you?”
This child emphasizes “to you” and not himself or herself! Since the child excludes himself or herself from the community and rejects a major principle of faith, you should  “set that child’s teeth on edge” and say:
“It is because of this, that Adonai did for me when I went free from Egypt.”
“Me” and not that one! Had that one been there, he or she would not have been redeemed.

The child is beyond saving! Was not every Israelite slave redeemed from Egypt? God made no distinctions about their wisdom or abilities. God did not ask if they believed or not.

Back to the classroom. How many math teachers have heard, “What is the point of learning how to do geometry?” Or English teachers bristled at the words, “Why do I have to read what Shakespeare wrote hundreds of years ago?” Or rabbis recoiled at the statements, “Why do I have to study Hebrew?” (Or, if you have been reading my ruminations for the past few weeks, learn about leprosy?)

While teachers might be tempted to castigate students who reject the very essence of what they are teaching, and what they have devoted their lives to, impatience, or in the case of the wicked child, anger, never succeeds in effectuating learning. And herein lies the import of the rabbis’ parable.

It is the teacher’s job to figure out how to teach. It is up to teachers to convey the message, regardless of a child’s ability or understanding. It is not that there are wicked children. It is instead that sometimes teachers, and rabbis, must be reminded that their sacred task is to impart learning. It is not meant to be easy. It is not meant to be quick.

Everyone who leaves the Seder table must not only depart with a belly full of matzah and macaroons, but a heart filled with the message of “Why is this night different from all other nights?” Or as I prefer to ask, “Why does this night still matter for us today, here and now?”

And just because wise children ask sophisticated questions such as, “What are the testimonies, the statutes, and the laws which Adonai our God has commanded you?” does not mean they really understand what Passover has to do with them. Reciting laws, memorizing formulas, quoting sonnets, and chanting verses are not true evidence of taking any learning to heart.

No test can measure that. No prayerbook can uncover that.

It begins in teachers’ hearts. It is sparked from their patience and love.

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown!”

Taste the Matzah of Pain

Most people think that the purpose of Jewish rituals, most especially those performed when we gather around our seder tables, is to make us more Jewish. While this is true, their spiritual goals reach far beyond our Jewish identities. They serve to raise awareness in our hearts.

Rabbi Shai Held comments: “Jewish spirituality begins in two places. One is a place of gratitude, and one is a place of protest. The challenge is to be capacious enough to hold gratitude for life, along with an equally deep sense that the world-as-it-is is not how it is supposed to be.”

The seders we are about to celebrate encapsulate this teaching. On the one hand, they are replete with symbols reminding us that we are free. We drink wine, recline, and eat far too much food to instill sentiments of joy and gratitude in our hearts. We are free!. At the very same occasion, and at the very same moment, we remind ourselves that we were once slaves by eating matzah, maror and charoset. We are commanded to taste bitterness and suffering.

Scholars suggest that slaves and poor laborers were fed matzah not only because it is cheap but because it is filling and as we quickly discover, requires a long digestion period. Matzah is designed by the oppressors to exploit the enslaved. Matzah is the rations of a slave.

Every day we are to taste—and thereby try to feel—what it must be like to be a slave. Of course, our matzah does not come close to the real experience of suffering and slavery, but this is what this symbol is designed to do.

Sometimes I wonder if our feasting overwhelms the matzah’s essential purpose. We butter up the matzah sometimes quite literally and other times repackage it as soup-soaked matzah balls. We lather it with lots and lots of eggs and turn it into matzah brie. We do all manner of things to transform the slave bread into a treat befitting a feast and celebration.

And I worry that in these delicious transformations we undermine the matzah’s simple, but powerful, message. Those measly pieces of bread, draped in decorative cloth, and arranged as a prominent centerpiece on our tables are meant to yank us out of our enjoyment if even but for a moment and shout, “Try and remember what it must be like not to be free. Try to taste what it must feel like to be cast aside, scorned, and treated like a slave.”

Too often we fail to take its import to heart. We relish in the freedom and don’t taste the slavery. We fret about supply chain delays and inflation while Ukrainian farmers are murdered, their fields decimated and their crops unplanted. The world’s breadbasket languishes. Soon people in India and Africa will be unable to find bread and millions will go hungry. Can we taste this matzah? Can we take to heart this suffering and pain?

Can we taste that our world is a slave to hunger and starvation? Protest the world is not yet what is supposed to be.

We force ourselves to eat matzah for eight days so that we can know what it feels like to be a slave, to be a person who cannot choose what to eat but must eat something that we will never win any Michelin stars but is simply filling. Matzah is satisfying only in the basic sense.

Let the matzah inspire our hearts to feel the world’s pain. Allow its taste to linger in our mouths. Let the matzah protest the world’s plight.

Of course, we should be grateful for the meal. We should enjoy the feast and the blessings of family and friends gathered around the table. But let us not allow the seder feast to lull us into complacency. It was not so long ago that this matzah was our meal. Something like this cracker still constitutes a meal for far too many. While we may be free now, while we may be privileged to feast at this very moment, there are countless millions who are not yet free, who are enslaved by oppressors or enslaved by hunger and poverty.

Let this matzah’s unappetizing dryness stick to the roof of our mouths and yank us out of our complacency. Enjoy the meal. Relish in family and friends, but never forget what slavery tastes like. Far too many people are still tasting it.

Ha lachma anya! This is the bread of affliction. Let all who are hungry come and eat!

Harmful Feathers, Harmful Words

A Hasidic story.

One day a man heard an interesting, albeit unflattering, story about another man. (Let’s call the first man Steve and the second, Mike.) It was an amusing tale and so Steve shared it with others. He told lots and lots of people. Everyone found the story entertaining. Steve reveled in the laughter.

Soon Mike noticed that people gave him strange looks as he passed by on the street. He quietly wondered why. “Was it his hair style?” (Ok, I have made some changes to the original version.) Then he noticed that people frequented his store less often. Soon he discovered the unkind words people were saying about him. He asked a friend what they were saying. He could not believe his ears. He soon found out the source of the tale. It was Steve!

Mike confronted the Steve, complaining that he had ruined his reputation by repeating this one, unflattering episode. Steve tried to make excuses that it was such an entertaining story and that it always got a laugh. “But now,” Mike stammered, “Everyone just laughs at me.”

Steve was overcome with remorse and ran to his rabbi (let’s call her Susie) to seek counsel. Steve approached the rabbi and explained the situation. “How do I fix this? How can I repair Mike’s reputation?” The eminently wise rabbi offered a curious suggestion. “Go get a feather pillow and bring it to me.” Steve asked, “A feather pillow? Do they even sell those at Bed, Bath & Beyond anymore?” “This is not the time to make jokes!” Susie exclaimed. “Go, buy the pillow.”

Steve traveled throughout the greater New York area in search of such a pillow. He wondered how this was going to fix the problem. Still the rabbi offered a solution, and he was anxious to repair Mike’s reputation. A week later, he finally found the pillow on Amazon and texted the rabbi about his success. Susie texted him back, “Meet me in the center of town, at the corner of Main and Wall Streets. Don’t forget to bring the pillow.”

Steve thought to himself, “This keeps getting stranger.” The next day arrived, and he eventually found the rabbi standing on the corner, looking beautifully rabbinic. “I see you have been successful,” she said. “Now what?” Steve asked. “Cut open the pillow and empty out the feathers.” Steve did as he was told. The feathers were soon carried away by the wind, flying up and down the street. People stared in amazement and took out their cell phones to post pictures of the beautiful feathers, shimmering in the streetlights.

“Now, Steve” Susie said, “Go gather up each and every one of the feathers.” Steve stammered, “That’s impossible.”

“And that’s exactly my point,” Rabbi Susie quietly, but firmly, offered. And Steve stood there quietly watching the feathers being carried away by the wind.

Who knows where they might fall? Who knows who might gather up a feather or two and place it in their pockets? “Look at the feather I found one evening on Main Street,” they might one day say when they wish to entertain their friends.

And that is exactly the lesson about gossip and the words we speak about others. Once they are told they can never again be gathered up. They are like feathers floating on the wind.

The rabbis teach that even flattering, true words spoken about another can cause harm. Although their prohibition is difficult to observe their counsel is too important to ignore.

A misplaced word can injure. An errant word can create a wound that is impossible to heal.

This week’s Torah reading speaks about leprosy. On the surface this would appear to be disconnected from gossip. And yet we read that Miriam is afflicted with leprosy when she spoke against her brother Moses. The rabbis therefore reasoned that a gossip is likened to a moral leper. They become disfigured by the misplaced words they speak.

Their words are carried away by the winds.

Who could imagine that such a light feather can cause so much harm?

Don't Turn Away from Illness

This past weekend I ran into a former student who said, “I always remember my bar mitzvah Torah portion?” “Why?” I asked. And he responded, “It was about leprosy. I will never forget that!” Indeed, one thing that can be said for certain about this week’s portion is that it leaves a lasting, and memorable, impression on the students who chant its words.

We read about how the ancient Israelites approached this feared disease. When people developed a suspicious looking skin infection, they would go to the priest. If he suspected it was leprosy, he would instruct them to quarantine for seven days. (Sound familiar?) If it disappeared, or diminished after the week, they were allowed to return to the camp.

If, however, the infection grew, and the priest determined that they indeed had leprosy, they would take on some mourning customs, rending their clothes and bearing their heads. They were required to dwell outside the camp for as long as they had leprosy. On their way out the door, so to speak, they were required to shout, “Impure! Impure!” (Leviticus 13)

If it were not bad enough already to have contracted leprosy, shouting, “Impure! Impure!” seems cruel. The Talmud justifies this requirement. The rabbis suggest that these words served to warn others that they were (potentially) contagious. They continue. These words not only serve as a warning but are meant to elicit compassion and prayers.

Some time ago I officiated at a funeral. It was for a woman who lived well into her nineties, but sadly suffered from Alzheimer’s for the last ten years of her life. In attendance at her funeral were four women who cared for her during these years. After I finished speaking, one asked, “Can I say a few words?” I responded, “Of course.” She then pulled out her written remarks and said, “I prepared some words.”

“Even though Sarah could not speak, I knew she was a kind lady. The way she looked up at me told me she was kind. I could see it in her eyes.” I was taken by her words. I marveled at the women's compassion. I was inspired by their devotion.

It is the responsibility of the sick to recognize their illness and ask for help. It is the duty of the community to offer help. This is the Jewish contention. I saw it unveiled in the caregiver’s presence and words.

I wonder, however, that when we hear the words “Impure! Impure!” or today’s variation “Covid! Covid!” we are struck more by fear than compassion. Rather than reaching out with supportive hands, and heartfelt prayers, we turn away.

Let us instead take our cue from these blessed caregivers. Let us no longer look away in fear. Let us instead hear in the pain of another’s illness an opportunity for compassion and prayer.

Let no one be made to feel like a leper.

Feeding the Spirit

People often think that eating and the preparation of food are not religious acts. They are simply among the mundane activities we do, day in and day out, that sustain our bodies. Going out to a restaurant with friends, gathering around the dining room table with family, or even schmoozing with one another as dinner preparations are made, are secular affairs. This could not be further from the truth.

Religions in general, and Judaism in particular, add two key ingredients to every meal: gratitude and limits. Whether it is the Passover restrictions against the eating of bread or this week’s detailed list of prohibited animals, the preparation of meals is infused with the question of “Does my God permit me to eat this or not?”

For some this may appear like an inopportune, or even outrageous, question in the rush of preparing breakfast before heading out the door to work or school, but the asking makes us pause. It adds a sense of religious intentionality to something that our bodies require us to do. We can eat whatever we want, whenever we want, or we can eat with a sense of the holy. We pause and ask, “How does God want me to eat?”

I am not suggesting that the only way to bring a sense of Godliness to the breakfast table is by eliminating bacon. I am proposing, however, that asking the question is how one elevates what we tend to think is only about the body, and the secular, and not about the spirit, and the sacred. Every day I am forced to pause and ask, “Do I use the milk or meat utensils?” It’s not an earth-shattering question to be sure, and I am at times skeptical that the Torah’s prohibition about “Boiling a kid in its mother’s milk” meant I should have a second set of every dish, pot, and utensil, but the question, and sometimes the ensuing discussion, transforms the experience.

I pause. I look up.

I think if but for a brief moment, “What should I be doing?” And then, “Why I am doing this?” And finally, the soul responds, “Because I am Jewish.” Placing limits, or rules, help to introduce the sacred dimension to the everyday meal. The rules can be inherited as they are in my case, or they can be self-actualized as they are in the case of an increasing number of friends who are refraining from ultra-processed foods.

When we pause, we allow the spiritual to enter.

This is the essence of reciting a blessing, of offering gratitude. The greater the distance between what we eat and how it was grown, between how it was slaughtered and how it is arranged on the table, the more we lose touch with the essential religious nature of eating. Robin Wall Kimmerer writes: “[W]hen the food does not come from a flock in the sky, when you don’t feel the warm feathers cool in your hand and know that a life has been given for yours, when there is no gratitude in return—that food may not satisfy. It may leave the spirit hungry while the belly is full.” (Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants)

I am not advocating that everyone should take up hunting or that we should start raising our own chickens to restore this balance. Even though many are now gardening and growing their own vegetables, the distance between earth and plate, can only be traversed by the addition of a second ingredient: gratitude.

Robin Wall Kimmerer again:

Something is broken when the food comes on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in slippery plastic, a carcass of a being whose only chance at life was a cramped cage. That is not a gift of life; it is a theft. How, in our modern world, can we find our way to understand the earth as a gift again, to make our relations with the world sacred again? I know we cannot all become hunter-gatherers—the living world could not bear our weight—but even in a market economy, can we behave “as if ” the living world were a gift?

Think about the words of the motzi, the prayer for bread and the blessing said at meals: “Blessed are You Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.” The rabbis who authored this prayer knew how bread was made. They did not imagine fields of braided hallah growing in the rich earth. Instead, the prayer is to remind us not about the baker but about the place where the food on our tables begins. Be grateful for the earth.

If every meal is taken for granted, or worse yet, treated as my God given right rather than a God given gift, then the food remains about consuming (empty) calories and not about feeding our souls.

Food is about bringing us closer to the earth that sustains us. Meals are about bringing us closer to others who nourish us.

People tend to think that food is so basic as to be outside the purview of religion. This week we are reminded this is false. Our spirits require us to say, “Thank You God for the rules with which I prepare tonight’s meal. Thank You God for the food I am about to eat.”

The preparation of meals and the eating of food are about bringing us closer to the God who animates our spirits.

Take In Some Joy!

Today is Purim, the day in which the tradition suggests all rules are suspended. We are commanded to celebrate our victory over Haman’s genocidal designs with wild abandon. We dress in outrageous costumes, drink far too much wine and drown out Haman’s name when reading the megillah.

It seems like a counterintuitive response to a history filled with suffering. Purim urges us to look within and ask, should we always fixate on antisemitism? Should we dwell so much on the many tyrants who sought to destroy us? What is the cost to our own souls of speaking so frequently about antisemitism and hate?

Purim asks and answers its own question. It suggests that mourning, and eternal vigilance, must not be our only responses. Purim commands.

Let loose. Celebrate. Party.

When the world’s travails can dispirit even the most optimistic of people, Purim suggests that we put these aside at least for this one day. Contemporary struggles tug at our compassionate hearts. Our history gnaws at our souls.

Our spirits require celebrations as much as they need historical know how and attunement to the suffering around us.

On this day, allow the worries of history and even the calls of “never again” to retreat if but for this brief moment. Take in the joy of Purim.

Sacrifices Are the Best Prayers

This week we begin reading the Book of Leviticus. It details the ancient rituals surrounding sacrifices. Until the Temple was destroyed, in 70 C.E., we approached God by offering animals as sacrifices. Because we instead pray, and offer words, it sounds strange to read the details of slaughtering animals, sprinkling their blood on the altar and then turning their flesh into smoke.

My students often turn away in disgust. Even though every single one of them loves a good barbeque, they are repelled by the Torah’s details and the notion that God would want us to bring the choicest bull, sheep, goat or turtledove to the Temple and then kill it. The notion of sacrifice is foreign to them.

The idea of making sacrifices, however, derive from this ritual. We must give up something of value, something that we want and even need. These animals were prized. They were therefore given to God—first. By giving something up our ancestors drew nearer to God. In fact, the Hebrew word for sacrifice, korban, derives from the word meaning “to get close.”

By sacrificing prized possessions, by relinquishing ownership to the creator God, the ancient Israelites demonstrated that their property was not owned, but instead borrowed. In effect, they said to God, “I return Your creations to You.”

To let go, to relinquish ownership, is not how we approach the world. It is not how we look at our possessions. We even call them “belongings.” While I realize that belongings more often refer to those things that we can pack into a suitcase, the word suggests a sense of personal ownership that is absent from the Torah. In our tradition, the focus is on God’s ownership.

The only true owner is God. We care for what God creates. We are custodians and stewards.

Giving up and making sacrifices makes perfect sense if nothing is truly mine. We do not relinquish but return. If everything is borrowed, if all that I hold is but lent to me, then offering it (back) to God is easy. And then sharing with others is even easier.

For when we sacrifice not only do we draw closer to God, but we also draw nearer to others.

Perhaps making sacrifices is the prayer we most need—now.

Stand with Ukraine!

This feels different. And I would like to ponder why.

The war for Ukraine—I believe this to be the better descriptor than the benign Russia-Ukraine war—has affected me in ways that other conflicts and humanitarian crisis have not. While I remain exercised about America’s hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan, the collapse of the country’s economy, and the knowledge that over twenty million Afghanis will soon face hunger and starvation (there are innocent children in that land too!), my heart looks toward the hourly reports from Ukraine.

Why my focus turns toward Europe, why my heart weeps more for Ukrainians gnaws at me, but at this moment I can only look toward Ukraine. This place matters to us. It matters to us as Americans. And it matters to us as Jews. I have only begun to articulate why.

I hear Hayyim Nachman Bialik’s words in my ears:

Arise and go now to the city of slaughter;
Into its courtyard wind thy way;
There with thine own hand touch, and with the eyes of
thine head,
Behold on tree, on stone, on fence, on mural clay,
The spattered blood and dried brains of the dead.

Bialik wrote in Hebrew. He lived in Odessa....

This post continues on The Times of Israel.

How to Respond to War for Ukraine

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, the incomparable nineteenth century Hasidic rabbi who lived and taught in what is now Ukraine, once said, “The whole world is a narrow bridge, but the essence is not to be afraid.”

These days the world appears even more narrow. We are afraid. We watch in horror as ordinary Ukrainians fight battle hardened Russian soldiers. We worry about Vladimir Putin’s designs. We fear about the emerging humanitarian crisis.

If you would like to support efforts to alleviate this crisis, I recommend the following:

UJA-Federation of New York
“In light of the escalation of violence, UJA-Federation of New York has approved up to $3 million in emergency funding to support the Jewish community of Ukraine. To date, $1.375 million has been allocated to our primary overseas partners — the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) — who have the capacity, experience, and reach to provide for the safety and well-being of the Jewish community — as well as to smaller grassroots partners who also have ties to individuals in dire need. We expect additional needs and requests to emerge in the days and weeks ahead.”

World Union for Progressive Judaism
“In the light of the recent conflict on the Ukrainian border, the World Union for Progressive Judaism launches the Ukraine Crisis Fund. We ask people from all over the world to make donations towards the support of the Jewish community in Ukraine. Money will be spent on individuals and communities to ensure their safety and well-being. If the conflict escalates further, your money will become crucial and necessary help for many people. If the tension eases, the fund will be spent on the development of the progressive Jewish community in Ukraine.”

World Central Kitchen
“On February 24, Russia launched a large-scale attack on neighboring Ukraine, invading the country on several fronts. As a result, thousands of Ukrainian families are fleeing their homes in search of safety. Working at a 24-hour pedestrian border crossing in southern Poland, WCK began serving hot, nourishing meals on Friday evening. In addition to providing meals for families in Poland, WCK has a team on their way to Romania to support Ukrainians arriving there. As the situation continues to evolve, WCK remains ready to expand our support for families in need.”

Even though we can, and must, do more than just pray, we pray for a speedy and peaceful resolution to this war.

Rebbe Nachman prays:
"God of unfathomable goodness,
the history of human agony
haunts my soul;
ashes, blood, and cries
pierce my heart;
diabolic schemes of oppressors
plague my mind.
Grant me an extra measure of
strength,
understanding
and faith
to help me find You—
to discover Your Light
midst the blinding dread,
through the revolting horror."

Amen!  And we pray that we might help to bring a measure of compassion and healing to this human suffering.

Fire and Light; Fear and Awe

The Torah declares: “You shall kindle no fire throughout your settlements on the sabbath day.” (Exodus 35) And the tradition constructs a myriad of laws so that one does not even inadvertently light a fire. Electric lights cannot be turned on or off. The stove is kept at a simmer. Driving cars is not allowed. The lighting of Shabbat candles is performed eighteen minutes before sunset and the kindling of the havdalah candle well after it becomes dark on Saturday evening.

And while I am not observant of these prohibitions and drive and cook and turn the lights on and off (if one counts telling Google to do this for me) and even light Friday evening’s candles when our family is together rather than at the exact appointed minute, I understand the Torah’s intention of prohibiting kindling fires.

Fire can be dangerous; it can burn. This is the essence of why it was prohibited. It can consume; it can destroy. Such powers are contrary to Shabbat; they are forbidden on this holiest of days.

Then again, the lighting of candles marks the beginning of every holiday. We kindle yahrtzeit lights to remember those we mourn. These candles serve as beacons, reminders of our loved ones and the sanctity of the holiday.

The dual meaning of fire is part of its power. It echoes the Hebrew term for religious, yirat hashamayim. Literally this means fear of heaven. I prefer to translate this as standing before heaven, placing heaven at the forefront of our thoughts. I lean into feelings of awe rather than those of fear.

The great Jewish philosopher, Abraham Joshua Heschel, writes:

The meaning of awe is to realize that life takes place under wide horizons, horizons that range beyond the span of an individual life or even the life of a nation, a generation, or an era. Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.

Fire is an apt image. Its duality gives us insight into our religious motivations. It can light the way; it can warm. It can also consume; it can burn.

Likewise, yirah contains a dual meaning. It can mean awe, to hold up in reverence and yet, at other times it suggests fear. Sometimes we do the right thing out of fear. And other times we do the right thing out of feelings of reverence and awe. It is best to do the right thing, regardless of the motivation.

Our lives are filled with small acts. They can be as small as lighting Shabbat candles or giving tzedakah. They can seem as ordinary as beholding the yahrtzeit flame illuminating the darkness of our kitchen (or our heart) or as simple, yet profound as reaching out to feed the hungry. In each of these we see the divine.

In the smallest of acts we see the light of God’s concern. It can start with kindling the Shabbat lights. It can begin with looking at the power of these flames.

The Artist's Eye

The artisan, Bezalel, is chosen to fashion the tabernacle and its furnishings. He is from the tribe of Judah, the largest of the tribes. His assistant, Oholiab, is from Dan, the smallest tribe. According to the Talmud this shows that everyone is represented in the building of these holy items.

The rabbis also suggest Moses was displeased that God did not choose him. He assumed God would have picked him because God chooses him to do everything else. Again, the rabbis offer a message. Don’t think that only someone as holy as Moses can draw near to God or in this case, help us build something that adds holiness to our lives. Anyone, and everyone, can help us fashion the sacred and draw the earthly closer to the heavenly.

Moreover, Bezalel is endowed with a “divine spirit of wisdom, understanding and knowledge of every kind of craft.” (Exodus 31) He is a first rate artist. I wonder. What makes an artist top notch? Each of us has our favorite. I may be partial to Ansel Adams and others to Annie Leibovitz. I may like Salvador Dali and others Jackson Pollock. I may prefer vibrant colored artwork and others black and white photographs.

Regardless of these subjective evaluations, I have come to think it is more about the “understanding” rather than any other quality. The artist sees things differently than other people.

I could be standing in the same exact surroundings as Frederic Brenner (the French Jewish photographer who took a photograph of your favorite rabbinic couple) and I will still never be able to see and understand what he sees. No matter how extraordinary and expert my iPhone camera becomes, he understands something that I cannot. I remain grateful for his vision.

I can have the same vocabulary as Mary Oliver and find myself in the same Cape Cod Pond about which she writes, and I will still never be able to craft a poem that captures the spirit she conveys with her words.

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?

I admire the artist. Their understanding of our world renews my spirit. Their ability to see things that I cannot see makes my heart sing. I am filled with gratitude that their artistry offers me a heretofore unseen vision.

Bezalel’s name means in God’s shadow. The artist provides us with a glimmer of the divine. When we peer at their work we stand in God’s shadow.

Lighting Jewish Flames

“What happened to the old eternal light? If it is eternal, how can it be replaced?” the seventh graders asked when our first class met in our newly renovated sanctuary. My answer that the new light is more beautiful and uses an energy saving LED bulb was met with disapproval. “It’s eternal!” they shouted back.

I realized that as far as they are concerned our synagogue has always existed. The founding date of 1963 is just as distant as 1948, or for that matter, 70 C.E. This synagogue is the only place most of them have ever known. I imagine they also think this Jewish space will exist forever. Their synagogue is as eternal as the eternal light. Their questions made me realize that eternity is more about memory than fact. This can be a jarring realization.

Every synagogue has an eternal light. In some they are modern. In others more traditional. I cannot think of a synagogue without this familiar symbol. The term, however, suggests a misunderstanding of the Torah’s intention.

The Torah commands, “You shall further instruct the Israelites to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, for kindling lamps regularly (ner tamid).” (Exodus 27) We are supposed to light this lamp regularly. In fact, the Bible suggests that the lamp was only lit during the evening hours to illuminate the darkness. In later times, the light was kindled two times a day, in the morning and evening, corresponding to the times for prayer services.

It appears that the eternal light with which we are familiar and which we associate with a synagogue’s sanctuary did not become commonplace until the seventeenth century. Even its Hebrew name suggests that it is anything but eternal. Ner tamid should be more accurately translated as “regular light” or even “always light.” It is up to us to light it.

It is also up to us to invest it with meaning. Symbols are about the meaning we assign to them. We like to believe that such things are eternal. We like to think that the symbols we find meaningful have always been part of synagogue architecture and design. Here is the truth we do not wish to admit. Symbols evolve. They change as we march through history. Sometimes a symbol that once had a negative association takes on positive meaning.

The Jewish star, for example, is more recent than one might suspect. Its wider use is traced again to the seventeenth century and the Jewish quarter of Vienna. There it was used to demarcate the Jewish neighborhood. And it appears that it was also at this time that the star began to be incorporated in more synagogue buildings.

It was not until the Zionist movement in the nineteenth century that the Jewish star began to be used in a more positive way. Since the founding of the State of Israel, the star has become for many Jews a source of pride.

People will object. And some might even get angry. They will say, “King David had this star emblazoned on his shield!” This is not true even though the star is called a Magen David, the shield of David. There is no evidence to suggest that its use in association with Jews and Judaism predates the Medieval period.

Hundreds and hundreds of years ago do at times appear like an eternity ago. No symbol is eternal. We invest meaning in the objects adorning our sanctuaries. We assign their importance in our minds. Our memories, especially those from our younger years, make us believe that the symbolic objects we saw back then are as eternal as the world itself.

And so, when looking at the ner tamid, burning brightly above our beautiful Ark holding our sacred Torah scrolls, I would suggest we ask ourselves these questions, “What am I going to do to make sure this light always remains illuminated? What am I go to do to keep the flames of Jewish life burning for generations to come?”

A symbol is supposed to spark an inspiration.

The eternal light is only eternal if we make it so.