Radical Torah

This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Terumah, is one of those portions that can be the bane of every Bar or Bat Mizvah kid: a seemingly endless litany of picayune details regarding the construction of the Mishkan (Tabernacle). What on earth can we possibly learn from this parade of dolphin skins, acacia wood, crimson yarns, loops and clasps generic cialis?

If we understand the constructions of the Mishkan as a metaphor for creating sacred community, the lesson is should be obvious: details matter.

I’ve been acutely aware of this lesson as my congregation (Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, IL) is currently constructing a new synagogue building. In addition to the many details that come with a construction project of this magnitude (e.g., fund raising, location, budget, design, zoning, etc.) our board made one important decision early in the building process: that we would build our building in the most environmentally sustainable manner possible. Guided by the sacred Jewish value of Bal Tashchit , we have now begun construction on what we intend to be the first certified “Green Synagogue” in the world. Continue reading »

This week we publish from KOACH Kallah 2007 at the University of Pennsylvania viagra online pharmacy. We’ll be talking to the young college Jews about our favorite biblical comic cialis.

In this week’s parsha, Moses is alone with YHWH in Her private, mountaintop abode viagra online. Does our god reveal to her favorite human the meaning of life generic viagra? Does she allow him to glimpse the wonders of creation or give him advice on managing the affairs of Her chosen people ? Nope, Her first instructions are on how to decorate Her new home.

SHABBAT SHALOM! - a & s

We’re entering a section of Torah which I used to find repetitive and kind of dull, and which I now look forward to ardently: the details of the construction of the mishkan, the portable Tabernacle in which the tablets of the covenant where carried, which the Israelites built (according to detailed instructions) as a home for the presence of God.

Parashat Terumah begins with God’s instruction to Moses to tell the Israelites to bring gifts to God, as their hearts move them, and to put those gifts to work in the construction of the mishkan. These are freewill offerings: not tithes, each according to how much a given household can afford, but extravagant gifts of the heart. Give, God seems to be saying, what you most long to see placed in My service. Give your creativity and craftsmanship and compassion. Make a worthy home for My presence in the world.

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This week’s portion, Moses and 70 elders of Israel have lunch with their god, YHWH, and we see, once again, that Moses is G!d’s favorite Hebrew.

Meanwhile, in heaven, we peek in on a Torah study session featuring another newly minted angel.

“You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23:9)

The most oft-repeated commandment in Torah - it appears 36 times - is the injunction against mistreating the stranger. (It actually appears twice in this week’s portion, Parashat Mishpatim). The “soul of the stranger,” of course, it a central theme in the Torah. Many of the narratives of Genesis underscore the experience of the partriarchs and matriarchs as sojourners in the land. When Abraham seeks a burial place for his wife, Sarah, for instance, he describes himself to the Hittites by saying, “I am a resident alien among you…” (23:4). There is also an important forshadowing of the Israelites future experience as an oppressed alien minority: “Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs…” (15:13)

The commandment to protect the stranger in their midst, then, seems to be woven into the very fabric of Torah itself. The Israelites are somehow born into the world as strangers and are thus commanded - more often than anything else - to protect the stranger.

While this commandment appears in our portion amidst a litany of civil, criminal and social laws, it is underscored by an important theological claim: “You know the soul of the stranger.” In other words, the injunction to protect the stranger comes from a shared sense of “other-ness” - particularly with those who might appear at first to be “strange” to us. This spiritual insight was explored powerfully by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, in his book “The Dignity of Difference:”

We encounter God in the face of the stranger. That is, I believe, the Hebrew Bible’s single greatest and most counterintuitive contribution to ethics…The human other is a trace of the Divine Other. As an ancient Jewish teaching puts it, ‘When a human being makes many coins in the same mint, they all come out the same. God makes every person in the same image – God’s image, and yet each one is different.’ The supreme religious challenge is to see God’s image in one who is not in our image. (pp. 59-60)

Yes, it certainly does feel counterintuitive. How can we possibly see God’s image in someone who we don’t know personally? How can we see God’s image in someone whose values are fundamentally different from our ours? How do we find God’s image in someone who might seek to do us harm? The answer, of course, is that we are all strangers one way or another. But it is only when we look truly and honestly into the face of the one who is different from us that we understand the truth of our common humanity.

It is truly paradigmatic of our times that such a suggestion might seem impossibly naive. Sacks’ book was published in the immediate wake of 9/11 - now five years hence, it might well be claimed that our world has been utterly gripped by collective stranger anxiety. But in truth, these words are even more critical for us now than ever before. To see the face of God in the stranger is indeed the supreme religious challenge of our age.

The other day I found myself reading a lovely internet article by Michael Medved entitled “Why the World Hates the Jews.” (No, I won’t provide the link for you here, but I’m sure you can find it if you’d like to read it yourself.) When I finished I ended up asking myself, is this really what it all comes to? Is this really what it means to be Jewish? At the end of the day, is it all really just about “Us vs. Them?”

I found myself pondering the same question as I read this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Yitro, Continue reading »

This week’s Torah portion, Yitro, invites us to join our ancestors in preparation, purification, and encounter. We’re invited to follow Moses toward the place where God will descend into creation — to follow Moses inward, into the Sinai of our hearts — and to cluster together as a community at the base of the mountain, to hear the unfolding of revelation.

At this moment in our story, the Israelites have just been freed from slavery. They are probably feeling overwhelmed, and maybe scared, and almost certainly fragile. And this is when God speaks to them — not when they’re well-rested, settled in a new place, or prepared for a new chapter in their lives.

I can relate to that. I imagine most of us can. Maybe you’ve left a difficult job, or made a challenging transition. Maybe you’re out of the hospital and the longed-for world seems too bright, your nerves too raw. Maybe you don’t know why you’re at the base of this mountain, but you are, and now there’s a Voice speaking directly to your core in a way that makes you tremble, a way you know you’ll never forget. We’re all in this together, but what each of us hears comes through her or his ears alone.

Here’s some of what I hear.

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Editor’s note: Welcome to Nati Passow of the Jewish Farm School and Teva Learning center.

Shalom and welcome to a Tu B’Shevat edition of Tikkun Tips, a monthly nugget of eco-Jewish thought from your friends at the Teva Learning Center. Today on nytimes.com the leading headline declared, “Climate Panel Issues Urgent Warning to Curb Gases.” The article describes the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group that operates under the auspices of the United Nations and was chartered in 1988 to provide regular reviews of climate science to governments to inform policy choices.

For the first time in the group’s history, it asserted with 90% certainty that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses from human behavior were the main causes of the global warming trend since 1950. The 20 page summary, released today, warns that the world is already committed to centuries of warming and shifting weather patterns, but that the warming can be substantially stymied by prompt and decisive action that would bring us away from our current patterns of burning coal and oil.

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In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Beshallach, the newly liberated Israelites do battle with their arch-enemies, the Amalekites. After the Israelites emerge victorious, God tells Moses:

Inscribe this in a document as a reminder, and read it aloud to Joshua: “I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven!” (Exodus 17:14)

At first glance this seems like a bizarre statement. Why would God want to blot out the memory of Israel’s enemy? Wouldn’t it make more sense for God to say, “Never forget Amalek!” (In an even more puzzling version of this verse, we will later read in Deuteronomy 25:19: “…you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”)

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“What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’?”—Exodus 14:11-12

“It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.”—attributed to Emiliano Zapata, Mexican revolutionary

As the last of the four par’shot that comprise the Exodus story, beshalach finally moves the Israelites from slavery to freedom. Having just witnessed so many miracles first hand, we might expect the Israelites to be confident, defiant. Yet the par’sha is characterized primarily by doubt—on four separate occasions, the Israelites long to be back in slavery!

Why would the Exodus story end on such a down note? Given the unified thematic nature of the narrative, it would have made much more sense to end par’shat beshalach with the Song of the Sea, providing neat and obvious closure.

One answer can be found in the words the Israelites speak to Moses as Pharaoh’s armies approach: “Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt?” That is, the Israelites always feared that their struggle would end in disaster.

Like sh’mot, va’era and bo, beshalach is really about the period of time before a revolution has occurred. It is about the doubts and fears that keep people from striving for their own liberation. The story concludes on this theme because it is only after the narrative is done that readers will really begin to decide how to apply its lessons to their own lives. And at this moment, the fears will surface.

When we talk about what it will really take to create a just and sustainable world, it’s not uncommon for a certain fatalism to surface. In my own conversations, this occurs most rapidly when I say that industrial civilization must be abolished, that control of land needs to be handed over to traditional indigenous caretakers, that police and the state have to go, and so forth. Even people who agree with me often get frustrated when I make such extreme claims.

“Ok,” they say, “so colonialism/the state/civilization is inherently oppressive. What do you expect us to do about it? There’s simply no way for us to live without it.”

Or, “The system’s collapse would create lawlessness and suffering far surpassing anything that we deal with now. Our best hope is to tinker with what we’ve got, even if it is inherently unjust.”

In my previous three posts, I argued that the modern way of life is based on murder and that privileged First-Worlders must join the fight to overthrow the current order, even though such a revolutionary struggle will inevitably entail much suffering.

I admit it: That’s really easy to say from where I’m sitting—in front of my Internet-connected computer, inside my heated house.

There’s certainly a lot to be scared of. What would it mean if we actually allowed traditional indigenous people to live off the land and were not able to mine it, pave it or graze cows on it? What would it mean if we really foreswore any technology that was not sustainable?

There’s also a lot to imagine. What if we didn’t have to worry about cancer anymore, because we were no longer pumping out toxins around the clock? What if no one had to work a job they hate, because we all had access to land for growing our own food?

I think I may have made a mistake, when I wrote about par’shat sh’mot, in emphasizing our privilege. Because I don’t think anyone is going to be very privileged when the Earth’s life-support systems collapse—certainly not those of us who have grown up disconnected from the processes of feeding and sheltering ourselves. Our privilege won’t go very far when the resources run out and the global economic system (founded on industrial production, remember) fails.

And I sure don’t feel privileged in a world where the people I love get cancer, suffocate under the weight of crushing depression, develop hormone and neurological disorders, die in car crashes, or get fatally shot by police. And all this before my 26th birthday.

Entering the wilderness—braving the unknown—is an important theme in the Bible. Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and David all have to leave their homelands at critical points in their lives, not knowing what they will find or how their lives will change. At the end of the Exodus story, the whole Israelite nation must undergo this experience. It is understandably terrifying.

I could argue that God takes care of them, that there is a miracle in response to every complaint. Some other time, I might make that case—but I don’t think too many people would believe me if I did it now.

Instead, I will simply say that the world does not have to be the way it is. We were not meant to be slaves. We were not meant to breathe and eat poison. Children were not meant to have asthma or die of starvation.

I challenge you to imagine the world that you really want. Don’t be afraid of where this might take you. Don’t be afraid to admit that it’s not just the slavery, but the whole land of Egypt that’s the problem.

And above all, don’t be afraid to reach for that liberation. Because whatever the consequences, whatever the suffering we must go through, I know this with all my heart: It will be worth it.

And if not we, then our children or our grandchildren will finally dance on the shore of freedom’s sea, and sing.

Shabbat Shalom.

This week we’re in parashat Beshalach, in which the Israelites pass through the Sea of Reeds and begin their wandering in the wilderness. Late in the parsha, the people camp at Rephidim, where there is no water, and the people begin to grumble. Moses cries out to God, “What shall I do with this people? Before long they will be stoning me!” God offers this in response:

Pass before the people; take with you some of the elders of Israel, and take along the rod with which you struck the Nile, and set out. I will be standing there before you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock and water will issue from it, and the people will drink.

The two obvious questions arising out of these verses are, what does it mean that God will be standing there on the rock, and what does it mean that God tells Moses to strike a rock with his staff?

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“Pharaoh hurriedly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, ‘I stand guilty before HASHEM your God and before you. Forgive my offense just this once, and plead [that your God] but remove this death from me.’… HASHEM caused a shift to a very strong west wind [so that] not a single locust remained in all the territory of Egypt. But HASHEM stiffened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.”—Exodus 10:16-20

“They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one: They promised to take our land, and they took it.”—Red Cloud, Lakota leader

Certain aspects of the Exodus story are troubling, even disturbing. The suffering caused by the plagues is not pretty, and it’s all too easy to imagine the great wail that went up with the death of the firstborn in Egypt. Worse still, it seems that if God had not actively intervened to make Pharaoh more stubborn, the Israelites might have been free before this even had to happen!

Yes, I find Par’shat Bo disturbing. But it does not make me question God’s moral fiber or buy into Christian interpretations of a wrathful “Old Testament” deity. On the contrary, it fills me with admiration for the Torah’s keen insight into the pathology of power.

The thing is, I don’t think we are meant to read the Torah like a novel, with God as simply one character among many. In the Exodus story, God is a historical force sweeping the Israelites to freedom, and events unfold as they are destined to. Since I view this story as a blueprint for revolution, I see the disturbing aspects as serving an important didactic function.

The Torah admits as much in this week’s opening verse: “Then HASHEM said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh. For I have hardened his heart… in order that I may display these My signs among them, and that you may recount in the hearing of your sons and of your sons’ sons how I made a mockery of the Egyptians.”

The Torah narrator is breaking the fourth wall, saying, “Pay attention! This part is important!” God does not really usurp Pharaoh’s free will; the Torah is merely adding literary embellishments to make sure we don’t gloss over the significant parts.

Because Pharaoh’s stubbornness is very important. It represents the characteristic of the powerful that most decent people, to their eternal grief, find hardest to understand: Some people are so wedded to their power, so invested in the oppressive systems that they head, that nothing short of death will ever make them change.

Four times, Pharaoh promises to free the Israelites, only to go back on his word the moment the pressure is removed. Even after he frees them, as we will read next week, he goes back on his word again. Only twice does he give up his power over the Israelites, and both times only after human beings have been killed. The second time, he is one of them.

If you have ever been involved in radical political struggle, you probably recognize this pattern. It can be summed up by one of the most important rules of the game: “Cops lie.” It’s not just cops, of course—the fact that politicians lie is more widely accepted than the theory of evolution. And don’t even get me started on the corporations (tobacco companies, anyone?).

On the small scale, this means that the cops will often arrest you after striking a bargain to the contrary. On a larger scale, it means that the US has violated every treaty it has ever signed with an indigenous nation. It means that First World countries talk about democracy, but send in the CIA or Marines if an election doesn’t go their way (Arbenz and Allende, anyone?).

I’ll tell you why the cowboys always seem to win and the Indians always seem to lose: it’s because we keep believing that our opponents are people like us. And most of us are simply not the kind of people who torture prisoners, deliberately terrorize civilian populations or make deals with someone just so we can kill them easier.

But the powerful are not like us, we who value life so highly. The powerful are worshippers of death, and like Pharaoh, they will do anything to hold onto their power. We could make a case for this psychologically, but I think that the American continent’s 500-year history of terror and genocide is a far more compelling proof. To take just one example, it is well documented that the FBI orchestrated the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton in 1969.

I truly believe that every human being is capable of profound change. But there is a great difference between being able to change and being willing to. And I see no evidence, in history or the present day, that the powerful have any intention of giving up the privileges that they reap from their ongoing oppression of the poor, the brown and the nonhuman.

As disturbed as I am by the wailing of the Egyptian mothers, I am far more disturbed by 400 years of wailing Israelite mothers, by 500 years of wailing indigenous American mothers and by the blood that cries out to us at this very moment, as it is spilled. And I will not weep, nor take wine from my cup, for anything suffered by the slavemasters, until all the slaves are free.

A man can’t get a break. Okay, a man occasionally gets a break, but they’re few and far between. Let me give it to you straight:

I’m in desperate need of finishing funds for the production of ShulShopper, the first component of Jew It Yourself set to launch in just under two weeks. I need your help to get the site up and running.

For more than two years now, I have tried to raise funds to build Jew It Yourself. Indeed, I have applied to nearly two dozen organizations, and though many took a sincere interest in the project, only one gave funds to support it.

Since embarking upon the wild ride that has been Jewschool, I have tried my best to examine the issues facing the Jewish community and to creatively and actively address them, whether dealing in issues of Jewish identity and affiliation, or of our relationship to Israel. While neither my analysis nor my solutions have resonated with everyone, in these last four years I have found camaraderie and solidarity in hundreds of Jewish people, of all backgrounds and ages, with whom we together collectively share an understanding of, and vision for the Jewish community.

By and large, those with whom I have spoken, whether Jewish professionals or simple am haaretz, have told me that that which I am trying to accomplish with Jew It Yourself, if it’s not the direction that the overall Jewish community is going in, it is certainly the direction in which they would like their Judaism to be going.

I have been offered letters of support from dozens of pioneering Jewish organizations; built a board of directors and an advisory committee consisting of some of today’s greatest Jewish thinkers and innovators — all of whom are committed to this vision; and I have personally committed myself (even to the verge of my own financial detriment) to bringing, not my vision alone, but our communal vision to life.

I’m tired of trying to convince stiff-necked wealthy eccentrics to support this project. They clearly aren’t interested. They’d rather hold focus groups masquerading as young Jewish leadership initiatives and outsource our ideas to disinterested businessmen who are motivated more by their own profit than the fulfillment of our vision.

If you believe in Jew It Yourself — what it represents and what it will do for your Jewish life — I need your money. We’re at the point where you have to be willing to commit more than your ideological allegiance alone. You have to commit the fruits of your labor. And while a kickdown of $10 or so is greatly appreciated, I’m talking about real money: 10% tithings and the like.

We are on the brink. ShulShopper is 9/10ths complete and once it launches and gains both popularity and visibility, it is a surefire funding candidate (whereas federations and foundations alike will be fighting over who gets to attach themselves to it, as per Schopenhauer’s “Three Stages of Truth”). But I need private donors right now. I need your support.

I’m doing this for you. Really, honestly, sincerely, with everything I have in me. But I need your help to get it done. Don’t email me the name of another foundation to try. Give me $1000.

Please, support Jew It Yourself. Make a donation today.

“And the blood on the houses where you are staying shall be a sign for you: when I see the blood I will pass over you, so that no plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” — Exodus 12:13

Why does God ask the Israelites to mark the doorposts of their houses with blood? Being omniscient, wouldn’t God automatically know the difference between an Israelite and an Egyptian house? Rashi famously answers this question by pointing to the words “a sign for you.” According to this interpretation, the blood on the doorpost is less a sign for God than it is for the Israelites - presumably as a reminder of God’s redemptive power.

Taking Rashi one step further, we might regard the blood on the doorpost not only as an internal sign for the Israelites, but as an external sign for the Egyptians as well. After all, by marking their doorposts in the way, the Israelites were publicly identifying themselves and their households throughout Egypt. Marking their homes with blood was thus be an act of proud defiance - the Israelites were, in a sense “wearing their oppression” openly to the outside world.

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