The Jewish Valentine's Day

 

 Laura Ockel on Unsplash

Probably most of us remember that this Sunday, February 14 is Valentine’s Day, or rather Saint Valentine’s Day. More than just a holiday celebrating love, it has become an economic powerhouse, a day eagerly awaited by retailers. Despite the pandemic, or perhaps because of it, this year consumers are expected to add 27 billion dollars, that’s correct, BILLION dollars, to the economy through Valentine’s Day purchases.  In other words, in our times, this holiday has become highly commercialized.   One of my teachers at the Rabbinic Seminary told us he and his spouse wanted to celebrate the day but were uncomfortable with the apparently Christian associations of Saint Valentine’s Day. Therefore, they exchanged gifts the following day, February 15, on, as they called it, “Ain’t Valentine’s Day”!

We don’t know for certain who Saint Valentine was or how his name came to be associated with romantic love. Prior to 1375 there is no record of Valentine’s Day being observed as a holiday of love. In that year renowned poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a famous poem called “Parliament of Fowls” in which he links the Saint Valentine’s Day Feast with the day that both birds and humans come together to find mates. This then, may have been the beginning of Valentine’s Day as we know it.

The Jewish tradition has a day analogous to Valentine’s Day, but far more ancient. It is called Tu B’Av because it falls on the 15^th day of the month of Av. The holiday would always fall in mid-summer. It is no longer officially celebrated. In Biblical times, however, the young eligible women of Jerusalem would dress in white and dance in the vineyards before the eligible bachelors of Jerusalem. They would sing, “Young man, consider who you choose to be your wife.” The day, as all Jewish holidays, began at sunset. Being on the 15^th day of the lunar month, there would always be a full moon shining over the fields and vineyards where the dancing took place. This would serve to further enhance the atmosphere of romance and love.

I find it interesting that Tu B’Av, the holiday of love, the holiday where the young at heart imagined their future, fell just 6 days after Tisha B’av, the holiday in which we remember all of the disasters that have befallen the Jewish people in the past. It seems to fit a pattern. Consider that we break a glass at a wedding to remember the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem just before we begin the music and feasting to celebrate the wedding. In Israel, Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s day to remember those who fell defending the State, come just before Yom Ha-Atzmaut, Israel Independence Day. It is as if we want to remind ourselves that we should never lose sight of hope, even in our darkest moments. We may experience sickness, destruction and even death, but we must have faith that healing can take place, that life will renew itself. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, writes, “The Jewish way is to rescue hope from tragedy. However dark the world, love still heals…...”

Shabbat Shalom

Is the Covid Vaccine a Miracle?

 

Despite the frequent frustrations, the constant worries and the maddening delays in deploying the Coronavirus vaccine, some of us have managed to get our first injection. Surely, many of us feel, we ought to recite a blessing when receiving what most consider a life-changing vaccination. But what blessing should we say?

Rabbi David Wolpe of Los Angeles suggests that upon receiving our Covid vaccine, we recite a blessing that thanks G-d for miracles. He cites the blessing recited by Joseph when he returned to the Land of Israel to bury his father Jacob in Hebron. The midrash relates that on the way Joseph stopped to see the pit into which he was thrown by his brothers. There, years later, looking into the pit, Joseph recites the blessing, “Blessed be G-d, who performed miracles for me in this place.” Rabbi Wolpe says that the idea is that when we are in danger and we are saved, we thank G-d. He feels that it is appropriate for all of us to recite this blessing when we receive our Covid shot -- “Blessed be G-d, who performed miracles for me in this place.”

But some of us might wonder whether the development of a vaccine for Covid is a miracle! As we remember, the rapid development of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were often described as a “miracle” both in the media and in conversations.  Whether or not it is a miracle depends on our definition of the term. Last week we read of the parting of the Red Sea. The Torah tells us that the waters of the Red Sea formed a wall on the right, and a wall on the left, and the Israelites walked through sea on dry land. No one who experienced that, or who reads about that, could doubt that this was a miracle. We read about how G-d rained bread from the heavens to feed the Jewish people in the desert. No one would doubt that the manna, so called, was a miracle. The Israelites are thirsty. G-d tells Moses to strike a rock and water will issue from it so the people can drink. No one could doubt that this too, is a miracle. In this week’s Torah portion G-d reveals himself to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. Yet another miracle that no one would doubt. These events all conform to the Oxford language’s dictionary definition of the word “miracle” – “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency”.

By the dictionary definition, the Covid 19 vaccine would not be considered a miracle. Although it is a welcome event and surprising in its rapid development, by its very nature it is explicable by scientific laws. But there is another school of thought that holds a very different definition of “miracle”. Consider our prayer for thankfulness in the Amidah, the “Modim” prayer, in which we affirm that G-d’s miracles are with us every day! The Piacezna Rebbe, writing from the Warsaw ghetto, maintains that the workings of the universe are merely cloaked in what we see as cause and effect. We perceive the world operating by the laws of nature, because it is through the laws of nature that G-d works in the world. But the truth is, says the Piacezna Rebbe, that it is all a miracle. The miraculous is camouflaged in the prosaic, the commonplace, and the everyday.  The great 13^th century Rabbi, scholar, physician and kabbalist Nachmanides declares emphatically that a person has no part in the Torah of Moses unless he believes that all ……. occurrences are miracles.

The renowned scientist Albert Einstein is reputed to have declared that there are two ways to live your life. One way is to live as if there are no miracles. The other way is to live as though everything is a miracle. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel teaches that “living as though everything is a miracle” means that we should live our lives in a state of wonder. If we look deeply into our soul, he writes, we will understand that nothing can be taken for granted. The fact that anything at all exists is unbelievable, wondrous. Each thing is a surprise. We should be amazed at the fact that there is anything at all. Indeed, our tradition mandates that we recite a hundred blessings every day, a way of keeping us awake throughout the day to the very miracle of being.

However, if we want to hew to the dictionary definition of a miracle, we can choose to recite the Shehechiyanu, the prayer gives thanks for bringing us to an important moment in our lives when we receive our vaccination.  Others my wish to recite the Birkat HaGomel, the prayer recited upon deliverance from a dangerous situation. Or, we can make a blessing using our own words, in English.

May G-d send healing to all who are suffering as a result of the virus, and protect all who have not fallen sick. May we soon see the day when the virus no longer is the scourge that it is, the day that we will all return to our normal lives and societies and communities will resume their normal functioning throughout the world.

Amen

Martin Luther King Service

In 1963, the German born American Rabbi Joachim Prinz,  who had a long history advocating for civil rights, participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom led by Martin Luther King, Jr. Rabbi Prinz  spoke prior to  Dr.  King that morning.

He said, “When I was the rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin under the Hitler regime, I learned many things.
“The most important thing that I learned under those tragic circumstances was that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problem.
“The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence.

 He went on to say referring to Germany:

“A great people which had created a great civilization had become a nation of silent onlookers. They remained silent in the face of hate, in the face of brutality and in the face of mass murder.

“America must not become a nation of onlookers.
“America must not remain silent.

“Not merely black America, but all of America. It must speak up and act, from the President down to the humblest of us ……..not [only] for the sake of the black community but for the sake of the image, the idea and the aspiration of America itself.” Martin Luther King perhaps summed this sentiment up the best when he wrote, “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

That was 1963. We have come a long way in terms of addressing racism in our country since Dr. King’s time, but as we look back at our history since Dr. King we see that there are countless examples of racism that serve as reminders that   in fact, we have not come as far as many of us had hoped or imagined.  We all need to continue the work of moving towards   equal justice and equal opportunity to all of our citizens, which was at the heart of Martin Luther King’s mission.

What can we do? In an article last year in Oprah magazine readers responded to the question about how they were personally responding to racism. Here are a few of the answers to that question:

Katherine Isabel, 45, had joined a committee addressing racism in her company that hoped to bring more accountability and inclusion in her predominately white workplace.

Woody Wheeler, 69, took part in the Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle and increased his contributions to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Sheila Morreale, 51, Franklin, Tennessee, joined the Beloved Community, a movement in the Episcopal Church that promotes awareness and discussions around radical injustice and inequality.

Others are incorporating books about the Black experience into their book clubs. The Dick Marshall Memorial Book Club, of which I am a member, has read and discussed books such as Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander,  Justice Failed by Alton Logan,  and The Immortal Life of Hernrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabelle Wilkerson to name just a few.

Most important, we can all stand up to racism in our neighborhoods, in our schools, and in our communities when we see it. When someone makes some racist, belittling or demeaning comment on social media or in our everyday conversations, we need to call them on it. We can discuss the issue of racism within our families, with our children.

We are all aware of the growing anti-Semitism in our country and around the world, especially on the extremes of the political spectrum. We do not hesitate to confront it when it appears. We should do the same with  racism. As Hillel said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

Maintaining Liberty in Law

 

This week we begin to read the Book of Exodus, parasha Shemot. It begins with the Jewish people enslaved in Egypt by a Pharoah who, the Torah informs us, did not know of the contributions of the Jewish people to Egyptian society. The parasha proceeds with the liberation of our people and culminates in the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai. As we know The Festival of Passover commemorates our liberation from Egypt, freedom from the tyranny of oppression.  The Festival of Shavuot, commemorates the giving of the Law. These two holidays are joined together by the 49 days of the counting of the omer. Thus, the connection of the Festival of Freedom with the Festival of the Giving of the Law teaches us that without Law there can be no freedom. The two are inextricably linked.

This week we watched in shock, anger and horror as an unruly and violent mob invaded our Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the results of a fair and legitimate democratic election for the President of the US.  Honoring the rule of law is at the core of our democracy. Those seeking to subvert the rule of law are the enemies of freedom, not its champions. 

My colleague Rabbi Leonard Matanky observes that the morning started off by the President exhorting his supporters to “show strength and be strong”. In the end, the ones who showed strength and were strong were those Republican and Democrat legislators who refused to be deterred but worked through the night to complete the democratic process that had been interrupted.  Through their show of strength and their determination the rule of law prevailed and our system of government survived.

In 597 BCE the King of Babylonia conquered Jerusalem and exiled a portion of the population to Babylon. Settled in a strange land, disoriented, their lives turned upside down, the exiles wrote to the prophet Jeremiah for advice. He sent them a letter, urging them to build houses, plant gardens, marry and have children in their new land. Above all, he said, “Pray for the welfare of the city where I have sent you, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”  Thus the rabbis instituted the practice of praying for the government into our order of prayers. Only in praying for and working toward the welfare of society as a whole can we, as individuals and as a Jewish community, assure our own welfare, happiness and prosperity.  Only through the fulfillment of democratic ideals and the democratic process can we attain the Biblical ideals of freedom, justice, and the equality under the law. Imperfect as democracy may be, it is still the best form of government we know for the fulfillment of G-d’s desire to establish a society that affirms human dignity and social decency, and maintains communal harmony.

In 1893, a 33-year-old English professor from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, Katherine Lee Bates, inspired by a trip she took across the country by train, wrote a poem she called “Pike’s Peak”.  The poem was set to music and in 1910 it was published as “America the Beautiful”. One of the verses reads like a prayer:

America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

With the help of G-d may we work together toward a more perfect union.  Let us pray and work toward a renewed commitment to social order, domestic tranquility and equality under the law. May we begin to heal a nation torn by political and racial unrest, by extreme economic disparities; a nation grieving under the weight of a widespread and deadly pandemic. And may G-d bless America.

Shabbat Shalom

 Photo: Sayed F. Hashimi on Unsplash.com

The Sacredness of Tears

 

When I was 9 years old, my father had to go to the hospital to repair a hernia. These days a hernia repair is an outpatient procedure followed by a few days of bedrest.  In my father’s day a hernia repair was treated quite differently.  My father was in the hospital for an entire week, was out of work for a month, and had to be careful moving about for an entire year! That was the year he could not go ice skating with me at the local park, he couldn’t lift any of his three children up, he couldn’t throw a football with me in the back yard. But the thing I remember most, that startled me the most, was the report I heard from my Aunt Bea, his sister, after she visited him in the hospital. I overheard her tell my mother that when she entered his hospital room, she found my father crying. My father crying? My father doesn’t cry, I thought to myself. I cry, but I’m a kid. My father is a big strong man, a veteran of World War ll. My father took part in the US army campaigns in Africa, in Sicily, in Italy, in Southern France and in Central Europe. How can my father be crying?  

 

Looking back now I find it interesting that even by age 9, I had been socialized to think that a man crying was a sign of weakness and a reason for shame. As we know, that was a strong and firm belief held by most Americans to the extent that when Senator Edmund Muskie shed some tears in public it derailed his 1972 presidential bid.  

Yet the Bible records many stories in which men cry. In the climax to the story of Joseph which we read this week, Joseph and his brothers fall into each other’s arms and cry when finally reconciled in Egypt. Next week we will read that Jacob “cried mightily” when he was re-united with Joseph in Egypt. These are all tears of joy. Earlier in the Bible Jacob and Esau cry when they met after a 20-year estrangement. These are tears of relief. David and Jonathan cry when they part. These are tears of sadness, as they know not when, and if, they will see one another again.  David cries when his son Absalom dies. These are tears of grief. The Psalms are replete with accounts of men crying at times of turmoil, desolation, misery or fear.  “Weary am I with groaning and weeping,” writes the author of Psalm 6, “Nightly my pillow is soaked with tears.” These are the tears of someone in pain. Hezekiah, the King of Southern Israel, weeps bitterly when he is told by the prophet Isaiah that he is about to die. His are tears of despair. Mordechai cries when he hears the decree of King Ahasuerus. These are tears of supplication. There are many other instances of grown men crying in the Bible. Clearly our Holy Scriptures do not view crying as a sign of weakness or something to be ashamed of.  

 

Our rabbis teach that Moses, our greatest teacher, our most courageous leader, a man of towering strength, wrote the final lines of the Torah not in ink, but with his own tears.  These final verses were the verses that recorded Moses’ own death. Rashi teaches us that G-d would dictate the Torah to Moses and he would repeat each word before writing it down in ink. But when it came to recording his own death, G-d dictated and Moses wrote with his own tears, unable to repeat the words. 

 

Why did Moses cry? Were these tears of anguish over his being denied by G-d entrance into the Promised Land? Were they tears of anxiety over what would happen to his people once he was gone? Were they tears of impotence over having to leave this world before his task was complete? Tears of happiness that his mission on earth was now complete? The rabbis don’t say.  

 

The Kotzker Rebbe teaches that our tears are desirable. Why? He explains that a child cries because the child believes that their mother or father will hear their cry. When we adults cry it is a sign that we believe that someone will hear us.  That “someone” is G-d, who loves us like a parent. The Kotzker Rebbe teaches that when someone turns to G-d with eyes full of tears, their prayers fly straight to Heaven and are heard by the Holy Blessed One. The Gates of Tears, says the Kotzker, are never closed.  

 

We should never be ashamed to cry. Tears are not a sign of weakness but wordless messengers that communicate a wide range of human emotions, whether anger, grief, contrition, or love.  We should not try to cover up what we are feeling, or judge others who are expressing their emotions. Our tradition teaches that tears are simply part of being human. Our tradition teaches that there is a sacredness, purity and holiness to our tears.   Shabbat Shalom 

Celebrating our Diversity

 

Levitt Home in Naperville

It seemed to come earlier this year. The weekend before Thanksgiving my neighbors began to put up their Christmas decorations. “Just taking advantage of the warm weather,” my next-door neighbor Steve said to me when I complimented the lights he and his son were stringing on the eaves of their roof. It was as if he felt he had to apologize for decking out his home so early! I thought to myself that possibly putting up the decorations early had  more to with the bleakness of the year and the desire to have something to celebrate than with the weather. No doubt about it. We are all eager to bring some light into this dark period  in  our lives, a tough and bruising year which has caused unimaginable pain and desolation in our country and all over the world.   

 As we all know Chanukah comes during the time of year when many of our friends, neighbors, and colleagues, are celebrating Christmas. It is a time when we American Jews most feel our sense of “otherness” from the majority culture. Everybody is doing one thing, and we are doing something else. Many of us have family members who celebrate Christmas as well.  We cannot avoid it, nor should we want to. Rather, we should see the celebrations of Christmas and Chanukah as expressions of the diversity that is one of our country’s greatest strengths. And we should take some pride in the knowledge that, without the Jewish people, there WOULD be no Christmas. At the same time, we should keep in mind that for us, Chanukah is a relatively minor holiday on our liturgical calendar despite being celebrated around Christmas, a major holiday for Christians.

Still, living as a Jew in a society that is flooded with the Christmas spirit can be challenging at times. Rabbi Reuven Taff tells about the time he and his wife Judy took their three-year-old son, Avi, to the mall one Friday afternoon in December. As they were sitting on a bench in the mall eating ice cream, Rabbi Taff noticed that Avi was fascinated by the group of children lined up to sit on Santa’s lap.

Rabbi Taff and his wife wondered whether their son would say something about wanting to speak to Santa. They pictured themselves dragging Avi out of the mall as he protested that he, too, wanted to visit with Santa. But, when it was time to go, Avi left with them quietly. As they were exiting the mall, Avi turned to his mother and said, “Ima, I’ll be right back.” He took off toward Santa, and as his mother ran after him, she heard him yell at the top of his lungs, “Santa, Santa”. Everyone in the line stopped to look. Then Avi yelled, “Shabbat Shalom, Santa”.

Shabbat Shalom and Chanukah Sameach!

 

 

Peter Paul Rubens
The Reconciliation
of Jacob and Esau

Last week we read in the Torah about Jacob fleeing from his home in Canaan in fear of his life. He had stolen his brother Esau’s blessing and Esau had vowed to kill Jacob once their father died. Jacob camps for a night on his way to Haran and has a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder. In the dream G-d gives Jacob a blessing and promises to protect him in his journey and to bring him back to the land of Canaan.

Following this dream, Jacob makes a vow. He says, “If G-d remains with me, if He protects me on this journey I am making, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safe to my father’s house – Adonai will be my G-d.” This is an interesting vow because of what Jacob did not say. We might have expected him to vow, after experiencing such a vivid dream and divine promise: “Surely G-d will remain with me; surely G-d will protect me on my journey; surely G-d will give me bread to eat; surely I will return safe to my father’s house…..”

Why does Jacob use the word, “if” instead of “surely”? Because Jacob is not sure. He is only just starting out on a journey. He is not entirely sure that the G-d of his grandfather and grandmother, Abraham and Sarah, the G-d of his father and mother, Isaac and Rebecca, can fulfill his promise to him. Perhaps he is not sure that the G-d who is so powerful in the Land of Canaan can be equally powerful hundreds of miles away, in another country, whose people worship other gods. So Jacob qualifies this vow with the word “if”. As Jacob plunges into the unknown future, he has hope, but not certainty, that he will be able to meet the challenges ahead.

Throughout our history, we Jews, like Jacob, have faced crisis after crisis with the hope, but without a guarantee, that we would successfully meet the many challenges to our survival. This hope is symbolized by the lighting of the Chanukah candles, which begins next Thursday night. You know the story well. When the Maccabees were ready to rededicate the Temple in Jerusalem that had been defiled by the Syrian Greeks, they found only one vial of pure oil, an amount that would last but one night. They lit that oil, and it lasted for eight nights. One might well ask, “Why, then, do we celebrate Chanukah for eight nights?” The miracle, after all, was only for seven nights. The one vial of oil would certainly burn for one night. That first night was not a miracle!

The miracle of Chanukah lies not only in the fact that one days’ worth of oil lasted for eight days. The miracle of Chanukah also lies in the willingness of those who lit the menorah to take the first step to rededicating the Temple without any assurance that the lamp would continue to burn for eight days.  They had an opportunity and seized it without knowing how, or whether, they could keep the darkness out until new, pure oil could be found. We see this same spirit of hope expressed in Jacob’s journey to a foreign land; we see it expressed in millions of Jews throughout history who set down new roots in the lands which form our Diaspora; we see it expressed in the halutzim, the pioneers of modern Israel who were determined to found a new state in an ancient land. All took a step into the future not knowing how it would end but determined to begin nonetheless -- All of these actions based on hope alone.

 There are times in our own lives we do not start something because we are not sure where it will lead us. We don’t pick up a musical instrument because we cannot be assured of mastering it. We don’t embark on Jewish studies because we don’t believe we will become scholars. We convince ourselves that since success is far from assured, there is no sense in even making an effort.

As we begin our celebration next Thursday, let us remember that the Chanukah lights teach us to trust in our beginnings, to seize the opportunities that the moment presents, to begin despite the fact that we have no guarantee we will reach the goal we set out for. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, teaches us that there is a difference between optimism and hope. Jews, he says, are not optimists, but we are a people with hope. “Optimism is the belief that things will turn out for the better,” he says. “Hope” is the belief that if we work toward something, we can make things better.” As Jacob sets out for Haran, he is not optimistic. Rather, he hopes that through his intelligence, hard work, and help from G-d, he would succeed. It is a model for us all.

Shabbat Shalom