GETTING READY FOR ROSH HASHANAH, IN WAR AND IN HOPE

We learned a lot this week, the Jewish community, about war and loss and grief and senseless violence and how we hold one another in community. 17,000 people watched a funeral taking place in Jerusalem attended by thousands more. To say nothing of the five other funerals taking place with less fanfare, though not a drop less of grief. We learned nothing about how to live with enemies, as neighbors, or how to move from war to peace. To say nothing of school teachers and students murdered by a 14-year old, Ukraine, or the war in Sudan which just can’t seem to capture our attention. Or the personal lists each of us holds in our households and hearts.

Psalm 27, A Psalm of David
The LORD is my light and my help;
whom should I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life,
whom should I dread? When evil men assail me
to devour my flesh
it is they, my foes and my enemies,
who stumble and fall.Should an army besiege me,
my heart would have no fear;
should war beset me,
still would I be confident…

According to Talmudic tradition, the Book of Psalms was written by King David. David devoted most of his life to war; in this psalm, he requests that God grant him physical and spiritual refuge from warfare. In the 12th century, the commentator Rabbi Kimhi observed that David wrote this Psalm to “let us know that with all his heart, he asked to give respite from wars. Even though he has faith that God will save him from all harm, even so, his heart is troubled by the wars…and so he asked of God to dwell in God’s house:” *

One thing I ask of the LORD,
only that do I seek:
to live in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life…Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud;
have mercy on me, answer me.In Your behalf my heart says:
“Seek My face!”
O God, I seek Your face.

Beginning this week, Ashkenazi Jews recite Psalm 27 every day. We keep it up through Sukkot. The custom is first noted in a siddur from Germany in 1745. It’s part of how we’re invited to step into the season, preparing for Rosh Hashanah with a prayer-poem that acknowledges our fears, our search for spiritual connection, our profound uncertainty of how to live in an uncertain and complicated world. Its final lines give us the recipe, the heartbeat of the Jewish people:

Had I not the assurance
that I would enjoy God’s goodness
in the land of the living…Hope to God;
be strong and of good courage!
Hope to God!

A friend said to me at some point this week: as Jews, our job is to always be working on improving ourselves. The holiday calendar gives us a deadline: every fall, you’re going to check in on your progress. That’s the essence of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. The annual physical, only instead of seeing the doctor to assess our bodies, we see…ourselves, each on our own and all together, and we check in with God who, in the form of our conscience, gives us a prescription for the upcoming year.

So how do we get ready? In part, with Psalm 27. A few ideas for what you might do with it:

1.
Sing it with me and Cantor Kissner; she wrote a beautiful melody for the first verse, which we recorded for you in my backyard. Plus, we sing this at Oheb, so you’ll know it and be able to sing along. Part of how we get ready is familiarizing ourselves with services, the songs and prayers. To that end, Cantor Kissner and I have recorded a few melodies that we will send out in the coming weeks.
2. Read it every morning, or evening. If you have a tallit or tefillin sitting in a drawer someplace, maybe put them on and read it. See where it moves you.
3. Use it as a journaling prompt.
4. Try it as a meditation prompt.

There is so much sadness and grief in this world; and also so much resilience, goodness, hope. We hold it all, every day of our lives.

Show me Your way, O LORD,
and lead me on a level path

I am grateful to be on the path with you all, seeking wisdom and understanding, and working each of us on becoming our best possible selves.

*From a
d’var torah by Rabbi David Golinkin.

THE OLYMPICS, JOSEPHUS, AND THE ENGLISH COTTON MERCHANT

We are not much of a TV-during-dinner family, but for the Olympics, we gather to watch the daily recap over dinner each night. I love to watch the world come together, more or less setting aside that which divides us, to endeavor in sportsmanship and personal striving and good-natured patriotism. As each competitor takes their turn to shine, a picture of something more enduring and larger than each of us takes shape.

My intention had been to write about the Olympics this week. But then Aileen, Oheb Shalom’s librarian, asked me to review a stack of books, and the detour began. Aileen’s request on July 31 brought me to my own bookshelves, or rather to the bookshelves in the office I now occupy. There is one book that I take off the shelf sometimes, just to admire its book plate and inscription, to wonder how it ended up here and to adore it for its existence. I treasure this volume, which Rabbi Cooper left behind for me to discover, as generations before him had assuredly done. Old brown cover, embossed in gold on its binding: The Works of Josephus, History of the Jews, Illustrated (viewable here). A book plate on the inside cover, stating that it belonged to one Neville Laski (viewable here). And written in exquisite calligraphy on the inside of the first page (viewable here):

Presented to Harry Frankenstein
in commemoration of his 13th birthday 
By Nathan Laski 
July 31st, 1880

July 31. 144 years ago, to the day. I hadn’t noticed the exact date before, but here I was, holding this volume on the very day this Nathan wrote the inscription to a bar mitzvah boy. So, I thought, maybe I won’t write about the Olympics.

Who were Neville, Nathan, and Harry? The sleuthing began. According to the British archives, Nathan Laski (1863-1941) worked as an Indian merchant in the cotton industry for over fifty years. He retired in 1930 and devoted himself to social work, serving as chairman of the Manchester Jewish Hospital and Manchester and Salford Jewish Council and chairman of the Manchester Jewish Board of Guardians. In 1889 he married Sarah Frankenstein. No trace of a Harry Frankenstein in my online search, but undoubtedly they were related. Nathan and Sarah had two sons and a daughter. One son is Neville, of the bookplate. Online records reveal that Neville Jonas Laski (1890-1968) served as Chairman of the Manchester Victoria Memorial Jewish Hospital; President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, 1933-39; Judge of Appeal of the Isle of Man, 1953-56; Recorder of Burnley, 1935-56; member of the General Council of the Bar, 1950-56; Chairman of the Professional Conduct Committee, 1952-56; honorary treasurer, 1955-56; Judge of the Crown Court and Recorder of Liverpool, 1956-63; and as President of the Elders of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews Congregation, 1961-67. In other words, they were machers.

Sarah was no slouch, either. According to the Special Collection of the University of Southampton, Sarah was born in Manchester in 1869, mothered three children, and “was to dedicate considerable time and effort throughout her lifetime to social work in the city of her birth. Initial work confined to Jewish charities, such as the Ladies Visiting Committee and Soup Kitchen, but in 1914, Sarah Laski became a member of the Manchester Board of Guardians, and was its chairman from 1926-29. From 1926 onwards, she served as a member of the Manchester City Council, representing Cheetham ward. She was elected an alderman in 1942. Sarah Laski was remembered as one of Manchester’s “foremost citizens” for her “fine record of [40 years of] quiet, unselfish, public service” and her “wide and understanding sympathy with the problems of poverty.”

I have no idea how this book ended up on the shelves of the rabbi’s study of Oheb Shalom Congregation. Standing there, on the anniversary of its gifting to a young Harry F, I realized something else: that the historic volume I was holding was itself a history book. One which also pertains to the Olympics.

About Josephus, much is known. He lived in the first century of the Common Era, serving as a general of the Jewish forces fighting against Roman occupation until he surrendered in 67 AD to the Roman Army led by Vespasian. Vespasian took him on as a slave, and in an ironic twist, Josephus – the former Jewish general fighting the Romans – ended up serving as translator to Titus during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD and recorded the destruction of the Temple and the city. His works are crucial extra-Biblical accounts of the era including what happened at Masada and in the earliest days of Christianity. And so there, on page 669:

How Herod celebrated the Games that were to return every fifth Year, upon the Building of Caesarea; and how he built and adorned many other Places after a magnificent manner, and did many other Actions gloriously. 

About this time it was that Caesarea Sebaste, which he had built, was established. The entire building being accomplished in the tenth year, the solemnity of it fell into the twenty-eight year of Herod’s reign, and into the hundred and ninety-second Olympiad. There was accordingly a great festival, and most sumptuous preparations made presently, in order to its dedication, for he had appointed a contention in music, and games to be performed naked. He had also gotten ready a great number of those that fight single combats, and of beasts for the like purpose: horse races also, and the most chargeable of such sports and shows as used to be exhibited at Rome, and in other places. He consecrated this combat to Caesar, and ordered it to be celebrated every fifth year… Now when a great multitude was to come to that city, to see the shows, as well as the ambassadors whom other people sent… he entertained them all in public inns, and at public tables, and with perpetual feasts, this solemnity having in the day-time the diversions of the fights, and in the night-time such merry meetings as cost vast sums of money, and publicly demonstrated the generosity of his soul, for in all his undertakings he was ambitious to exhibit what exceeded whatsoever had been done before…”

As I placed the book back on the shelf, I felt a profound connection to the past, a reminder that our lives are but chapters in an ongoing story. The Olympics bring nations together for a moment, and enable individuals to shine with honor and dedication. As each athlete takes their turn in the arena, so too each of us takes our turn briefly on the world stage. It is these threads of history that bind us across centuries and continents, that unite us in our shared humanity. In this, we find our enduring legacy.

ON POTHOLES AND GRATITUDE

New life experience: watching as someone steals your packages off your front stoop. Not a thing when you live on the 15th floor, as we did until last year. I didn’t have this new life experience, but other members of my household did, and then had the additional new life experience of working with the police to identify the thief (who was having, as it turned out, a pretty unlucky day and had already been caught by the time our incident was reported, just minutes after it happened. I guess wearing sweats during a heat advisory and working in broad daylight didn’t work out so well for the blending-in part of the job). That’s not my point, nor are the root causes of why someone would steal, which invites us to explore compassion in equal measure as we strive to maintain a civil society. My point is this: the South Orange Police Department was on it. I mean, they had already found the guy by the time we called, and in working with them, their level of professionalism and expertise was clear. 

The next day, the power on our street went out. A nuisance, but also sort of an adventure, especially as it was Tuesday, my day off, and I was in the middle of cooking large quantities of brisket for the freezer of a friend who lives alone and is undergoing surgery soon. Again, not my point. My point is that we reported the outage along with our neighbors, and after a few hours, PSE&G figured it out. Lights and AC and oven back on.

Day three: the street paving crew showed up to fix the potholes on our block. To be clear, the entire street needs a new surface, and we were told that we’re on the list for 2026. Which on the one hand is nuts; how can our towns be backed up by years on such things? And on the other hand: wow, that’s amazing, they have a system and are working through it, and in the meantime are providing the temporary fix of potholes repaired.

Here’s my point: there’s a whole lot that really works, and a whole lot of real live people in our very towns who work to make things work. 

And yet, we walk around filled with anxiety and dread, watching election season unfold, despairing over government and country. At the state level, in a week in which our own senator was convicted; at the national level, watching debates and national conventions; at the international level, following the news from Israel, Ukraine, and now France, among others. Yes, there is a lot to be anxious about. I do not diminish that or disregard that sensibility. We have a lot to fret over. But too often, we lose the ability to see the good mixed in. To see all that is working.

Too often, in other words, we lose the ability to feel gratitude. We have trouble even seeing, much less naming, that which is going well.

I once heard a dharma talk in which the teacher (whose name I no longer remember) pointed out that every time he emerged from months of retreat at the monastery, he was struck anew by the headlines in the newspapers. The economy on the brink of failure! The government about to collapse! Or some other doomsday titillation. How is it possible, he thought, that every time I come back out into the world, we are always on the cusp of some terrible disaster? He went on, in this particular talk, to say: every single person alive right now is here because someone had enough compassion to care for them. Someone got up all night long when each of us was an infant, to feed us, to clean us, to soothe us. And this is happening all the time, every day and night, always, in the whole world. Every day there are people who get into fast-moving trucks to race to help people in medical need or to extinguish fires. But you won’t see the headline: “woman got up every two hours to care for a child” or “firemen did a great job last night.” All that works, all the kindness already here with us, is reduced to background noise until we stop noticing at all.

Modah* ani lefanekha: I am grateful before you. These are the words Jewish tradition invites us to recite every day, first thing in the morning when we wake up. Some say it right as they open their eyes, or when they get up out of bed. I often say it when I first leave my house in the morning – something about leaving the cocoon and encountering the fresh air brings the words to my lips. The line is an orientation, a way of setting an intention: no matter what else creeps into my day, my heart, I hereby orient myself around gratitude and finding the good. Looking at what is working, starting with my own being alive today. I am grateful before You. Or, I am grateful before you. Either way. I am grateful.

Is it terrible that there are people who steal in the community? Yes. Are police officers always perfect, impartial, correct in their judgment calls or actions? No. Does the economic system which undergirds how we run electricity have major problems? Absolutely. But is there a whole lot that works every day, for which we should be grateful, for which we might cultivate a sense of gratitude, which we might even put into action by thanking the good people who show up to work every day to serve us? Yes. 

I am grateful for all of that. I am grateful before you. I am grateful before You.

Some Modeh Ani resources:

  • Cantor Kissner and I have a Modeh Ani playlist going on Spotify, which we wanted to share with you. Rock on.
  • Here’s a link to an all-English-transliteration version of the traditional prayer in video form.
  • Andhere it is in slow, learn-with-me-syllable-by-syllable Hebrew for those learning or thinking about learning Hebrew
  • And finally, for those who don’t use Spotify, here’s at least one fun musical version you can find online.

*Modah in the feminine, modeh in the masculine

JULY 4: SHINE BRIGHT

When the kids were little, we used to take them to visit my in-laws for July 4. My (very wonderful) parents-in-law live in Brighton Beach, just a few blocks away from the beach and Coney Island boardwalk fun. The real highlight, however, lay in the opposite direction. As dusk turned to dark, we watched as dozens and then scores of simultaneous fireworks shows would bloom and burst before our eyes. It would start slowly – at first, while it was still light, just one or two firecrackers from a distant lot. Then, more would join – a small show at a park lasting several minutes – “Look, there, to the left!” “Over there, straight ahead!” We could see from a distance the beachfront shows off towards the coastline, and the big show on the Hudson River, depending on the year. All far enough below or out toward the horizon so that the noise would not reach us. But in the siren-pierced cityscape of Brooklyn, what would unfold was the magic of thousands of people celebrating the holiday in backyards and parks, on street corners and rooftops. Some right up close and others far away. Some displays were professional – from that perch you can see far off the Manhattan skyline, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, and the Atlantic shoreline – but those were outnumbered by the smaller, home-grown variety. All colors, all shapes, no coordinated timing. Just lots of people doing their own thing, in their own way, but also together, a celebration of country and freedom and expression and exhilaration of all sorts.

There is something about that image that I find deeply moving: the image of all those exuberant, short-lived sparkles lighting up the sky and then dying out, each having their moment. Each lit by someone or a group of someones, each with its own story and flavor. None particularly spectacular on its own and also each spectacular on its own. Watching from a distance, we would be filled with the sense of greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts, the sense of being part of or at least witnessing something grander than what anyone on the ground could grasp.

There is wonder to this story, and exhilaration, and awe. There is also humility, the knowledge that each of us is nothing more and also nothing less than a spectacular firework brought to life through the imagination and dreams of others. Each of us has just a short time here, to delight and light up the darkness, to provide others with a chance to come together and express wonder and joy. It’s not going to last long. And we won’t really know if we are a starburst or a sparkler, green or red or gold, until it’s happening and nearly over. We won’t know who was watching, what forces were whispering blessings and oohing and aahing over us from afar.

In his collection Tales of the Hasidim, published in 1961 but collected from the decades before that, Rabbi Martin Buber shared the story of the Rabbi Simcha Bunem, an 18th century Hasidic rabbi. It was (by now famously) said that he carried two slips of paper, one in each pocket. One was inscribed with the saying from the Talmud: “For my sake the world was created.” On the other he wrote a phrase from our father Abraham, from the book of Genesis: “I am but dust and ashes.” The trick, he taught, was knowing which slip to take out when.

As this country wakes up to its 248th Independence Day, we need all of it: the exuberance, the excitement, the celebration. The sense that each of us is here for a brief bright moment and so we must vote and march and advocate for all the holy things that need to happen l’taken olam, to heal the world, that the world should be a little brighter because we were each here. And also: we need that sense of distance, of watching something larger than us. We need to remember that our little explosions are after all not very much in the grand scheme of things, and that when we feel anxious or overwhelmed it’s not all on any one of us. This week, in the aftermath of the presidential debate and watching hurricanes move in and wars continue, we need to remember that part, too.

In the early 20th century, there was a movement to make July 4 “safe and sane.” That was literally the name of the movement: the Safe and Sane Movement. July 4 had become dangerous from all of the fireworks and Roman Candles and cannonballs and other explosive-related celebrations; tetanus from the shrapnel from the fireworks and other explosives killed thousands of people each year. (The mayor of Chicago, for example, issued an executive order in 1903 that prohibited not only fireworks and gunpowder, but also “the placing upon the car tracks of any street railway… any torpedo, bomb, or other thing containing any substance of an explosive nature.” Apparently, that was a thing. In case we thought modern gun control issues were without precedent.) I imagine many of us would agree that this movement to return our nation to safety and sanity would be apt in this moment of national life, too. Beyond the national, though, or perhaps riffing of it, of what it does to our insides: I turn to the personal. The inner world we each secretly hold. May you be safe. May you be sane. May you shine bright, burning and delighting all around you. And may you sparkle, knowing you are part of something much larger, something made brighter because of you are here. At Oheb Shalom, in the Jewish community, in this country which has been so good to the Jews these 248 years, in this world.

MINT OREOS AND THOSE 2,000 YEAR-OLD TEFILLIN

It only took until Tuesday.

It wasn’t the Mint Oreos that Naomi brought home from Target, though they didn’t help of course. Or the invitation to join the girls for ice cream in Maplewood. I mean, “choose life,” right? (Deuteronomy 30:19). After all, the vow was not even about sugar.

I made this vow last Shabbat morning, at services. There we were reading about the nazir, and we decided that the real power of the vow made by the nazir is that it was temporary. That he would refrain from something for just a while, and then be done. What, we wondered, might we take on that would serve us well emotionally and spiritually, as a temporary vow? What might we refrain from for one week that would serve us well in some way?

My vow was not about Oreos or ice cream, though given my sweet tooth it could have been. My vow—since you’re wondering—was about refraining from feeling angry at myself for one week. When I run late, when I don’t get to call people back or return their emails, when I give in with a little too much abandon to that sweet tooth. What might it be like to refrain for one week—not from those habits, but from self-recrimination?

That’s what only took until Tuesday. I suppose my public confession is pretty ironic. I’m publicly self-recriminating myself for not privately refraining from self-recriminating myself. Please laugh with me.

Which brings me to the headline of the week: did you see that archeologists found 2,000 year old tefillin in Israel?! You know, those little black boxes that get strapped to the forehead and arm with black leather straps, with the shema and some other lines of Torah inside. You know, that the Chabad guys will sometimes try and get (Jewish-seeming men) to try on. The ones that I and a number of Oheb congregants do lay, solo or when attending weekday morning minyan.

The headline was not actualy about their discovery. The headlines were about the 2,000 year old tefillin not being dyed black which is the only way they are made today, per Jewish law.

What does this have to do with refraining from negative self-talk and temporary vows, though? Well here’s a cool factoid: there are four Torah passages written inside those tefillin boxes. Inside the arm-box, they are all written on one piece of parchment. But on the head-box (get this): each one is written on a teeny tiny piece of parchment, and inside the box are four compartments, and each parchment gets its own little chamber. One compartment in the arm box, four in the head.

We either do something or we don’t. Eat the Oreos, put on the tefillin, say the kind thing or the nasty thing. One compartment on the arm tefillin. But what goes on in our minds is much more complicated. We struggle with the different ideas in our minds, the different voices in our heads. We want to do something but shouldn’t. We did something and regret it. We vow to refrain but the habit is too strong. We are always in a conversation with ourselves.

There is something inspiring about those 2,000 year old tefillin in this context. That they were likely not dyed black is cool evidence that Jewish law morphs over time (I’ve always thought a feminine or queer version would be patent leather, at least, or some bling). That our ancestors wore tefillin, made tefillin, hid them away with their precious texts and objects, is mind-blowing. We are the inheritors of a people who have played with how to be human, how to live a good life, how to struggle with the different voices in our heads and make the best decisions for ourselves. (That they were living in the Land of Israel, at this moment when so many people like to call Jews “colonizers,” also feels important.)

Somehow tefillin became out of vogue with progressive Jews. So yes, as your rabbi I am putting tefillin back into the conversation for us as a community. But more than that: I’m wondering, how does Jewish wisdom help us struggle with our own selves? What are the ways our inner conversations maps onto Jewish practice and ritual?

How might our most ancient Jewish practices—tefillin, prayer, coming together at minyan during the week and/or on shabbat, showing up for one another in caring community and friendship—help us live up to that sense of being b’tzelem elohim, worthy and beautiful and wonderful creatures made in the image of God?

I have no plans to stop the Mint Oreos or ice cream. I also will keep playing with refraining and indulging, laying tefillin and praying, and most of all being with you all in this work of being human, being Jewish, and using all of that toward a life of wisdom.

RAFAH, COMPASSION, AND HOLDING MULTIPLE TRUTHS

Maybe because of the images from Rafah all week, maybe out of a sense of being misunderstood, or maybe because of the opening lines of this week’s parasha*, I am going to take a risk, and share with you a few pages from my diary. The entry is dated October 29, 2023. I share it out of a sense of wanting to be in this with you all – setting aside the recent verdict for a minute to remember what the headlines were all week until then.

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SERVICE, SERVICES, SERVING: A Note for Memorial Day

In today’s America, the idea that we are obligated to serve—that our lives are somehow to be “of service”— feels pretty counter-cultural. Unlike Israel, in this country military service has been — for several decades — optional and voluntary. So too in Jewish life many eschew the idea of chiyuv — our obligation as Jews to fulfill the mitzvot, living a life of service to God and the Jewish people. I see this most often when people translate the word mitzvah, “commandment,” as “good deed” instead.

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OhebKids! Shabbat Morning

A weekly, teen-led Saturday morning experience for Oheb kids to connect, pray summer-camp style, and explore the weekly Torah portion. Meet in the Youth Lounge.