Rabbi Jon's Website and Blog

The Elul Love Your Neighbor Study Challenge

Dear Friends:

This Shabbat is the first day of Rosh Chodesh Elul, the new moon marking one month before Rosh Hashanah. I want to invite all of you into a challenge with me: the Elul Love Your Neighbor Study Challenge.

Part of the process of teshuvah (returning, redirecting ourselves) is studying what the Torah says about relationships between people and our responsibilities in the world. One of the unique ways the Jewish community can reshape the world in the new year is by bringing into action our teachings about compassion and justice.
 
What better way to start doing both of those things than to study this month a verse that is at the literal center of the Torah: וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ V’ahavta l’ray’acha kamocha “Love your neighbor as yourself”
 
The tradition of Jewish commentary on this phrase, each word within it, and its context in the Torah make clear that this is not some vague and gooey teaching. Rather, it opens up a set of challenges and questions that we have to figure out how to apply in our personal lives and as citizens.
 
The challenge:
I would like to study this verse during the month of Elul, between now and Rosh Hashanah, with at least 75 people. I hope many will be people who don’t already usually study Torah.
 
When and How:
If you are interested in hosting a study salon at your home, or setting up some study time with me for yourself or a small group at the synagogue or another place, contact me as soon as possible! Or, come to one of these ready-made opportunities:
 
Love Your Neighbor Café (coffee, tea, etc are on me!)
Thursday, Aug. 16 10:00-11:00 a.m. A&E Coffee Roasters, 135 Rte 101A, Amherst
Friday, Aug. 17 10:30-11:30 a.m. Buckley’s Bakery and Café, 436 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack
Wednesday, Aug. 22 1:00-2:00 p.m. The Village Bean, 33 Indian Rock Rd (Rte 111), Windham
Tuesday, Aug. 28 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Riverwalk Café, 35 Railroad Square, Nashua
 
Lunch Hour Torah – call in or participate by video through the web
12:00-1:00 p.m. Aug. 14, 22, or 30
Just click https://zoom.us/j/5530075723 or call (929) 436-2866 or (669) 900 6833, use meeting ID 553 007 5723

Beit Midrash In-Depth Study Session – 2 Hours of Torah (With Snacks)
6:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday, August 16 and Tuesday, August 28
at Temple Beth Abraham (20 minute interlude for minyan at 7:30 p.m.)
 
I hope this sparks many conversations. I know I will learn a lot through this learning together, about ethics and relationships and even politics, and we will figure out ways to share what we learn. I'll post updates on how far we are toward the surface goal of the challenge, and include a small taste of the topic in my regular Elul e-blasts.

May this be a step toward a Shana Tova Umetukah, a good and sweet New Year!

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov, a good new month,
Rabbi Jon

Boston

The bombings in Boston this week were attacks on our own community.  From God's point of view, so to speak, this week was no more horrible than any other.  Monday was hardly the only day when people were killed by human beings with no regard for the sanctity of life, for any of the reasons one group terrorizes another or for no reason at all.  And yet, it's a fact that for us, this was here, this was home.

If we're shaken up, it's not only the shock, and our fear for the safety of people who we know.  When someone succeeds in killing in this way, our foundations shudder.  We live always in a combination of belief and unbelief in the notion that people are good enough, that we are not just restrained from hurting each other but actually would rather treat others well and make each other's lives better.  The bomber or bombers make us wonder whether human goodness and the sense of responsibility are truly that strong.

The response of faith is:  Yes, it is.  One person can kill and maim hundreds, and one small group can kill thousands in the blink of an eye.  It takes longer than that for one person to save hundreds, or for one small group to rescue thousands from death or suffering.  But the Torah says in this week's parasha that our holy acts are not just symbolic, but powerful.  "You shall be holy, as I Adonai your God am holy" (Leviticus 19:2).  Our holiness and goodness can equal God's.  As God's acts are powerful through their holiness, so too our own.

To let ourselves be distracted or demoralized now means we would overlook an opportunity to do a mitzvah, and that would prove prove the bombers right.  It's not just that small things matter.  Small things are big.  We have to work harder at mitzvot than the bombers work at destruction.  But our power is like God's power, and therefore greater.

That power was evident within an instant of the first explosion, and magnified after the second one.  Many people have remarked on the fact that some people nearby did not run away, but almost instinctively ran toward danger to pull debris off of people, to bind horrifying wounds.  As my colleague and teacher Rabbi Shai Held wrote this week:  Saving lives, running to people in great danger who might have already died -- this is what it means to imitate God in holiness.  This is what people not only can do, but actually did this week.  No matter how many plotters will be discovered in the Boston bombing, the heroes will far outnumber them.

May our own response, and God's comfort, be with all of the victims of the bombing in Boston and with all their families and loved ones.

 

 

Acharei Mot-Kedoshim: Do Ritual and Ethics Need Each Other?

This week we reach the very middle of the Torah.  In the parashiyot of Acharei Mot and Kedoshim, we read the central chapters of the middle book of the Torah (Leviticus, Vayikra).  Needless to say, position matters -- nothing in the Torah is where it is without a reason.

Some scholars look at Leviticus Ch. 16 as the center of the Torah.  This chapter details the biblical ritual of Yom Kippur, when the Kohen Gadol would enter the Holy of Holies to purify it from a year of Israel's sins.  Others regard Ch. 19 as the true center.  This is the "Holiness Code", in which the Israelites are commanded, "Be holy, for I Adonai your God am holy."

We could regard the two views as one.  Both address the relationship between the day-to-day actions of the community, and certain key rituals.  The Yom Kippur ritual is a response to the whole ethical (and spiritual) life that the community has lived.  It was a necessary periodic purification, on a large scale -- at the very center of the Israelite camp, where God's presence was most felt.

Chapter 19 elaborates the interconnection of ritual and ethics.  The laws in this chapter completely interweave -- revering parents, observing Shabbat, leaving food in the field for the poor, the proper manner of eating sacrifices, loving your neighbor, not eating blood, honest conduct of business.  It's not ritual, then ethics, or the other way around.  The Torah is not presenting us with a difference.

Do we need both?  One part of the answer is easy.  One of the participants in Noreen's class quoted Shakespeare:  "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."  Nachmanides said:  It is possible to be a scoundrel within the boundaries of Torah.  So yes, ritual on its own does not guarantee goodness or holiness.

Can you be good or holy without ritual?  Obviously, yes.  But here's how I look at it:  If you're trying to be more ethical, rituals can help.  It's easier to be thankful if every day or every Shabbat you have a prayerbook with the Modim section in the Amidah:  "We are thankful to You..." with a list of the many blessings.  It is easier to watch our speech if you regularly say:  "Adonai, guard my tongue from evil."  It is easier to pursue justice if you recall regularly a God of justice, who rescued us from slavery.  It is easier to do teshuvah, to make ourselves change, when we have set times in the year that remind us to do it.

Does that mean rituals are a crutch?  I'd say they are more of a tool.  What's wrong with that?