| January 2009
Sinai Update – Week of January 25-31, 2009 Parashat Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16) Reflections on the Torah Portion – Jeremy Wolfe, member of Temple Sinai
Forty-one years ago, Bo was my Torah portion. A look at the pencil marks in my old Hertz Chumash tells me that I read all of four or five verses from the Torah that day. From Exodus 10:2, I repeated God’s command to “tell in the ears of thy son and of thy son’s son, what I have wrought upon Egypt.” That line has special resonance for me, a generation later, as my youngest son prepares to become a Bar Mitzvah in less than two months. But what is the message from this portion that I should tell my son? When he was little, it was enough to tell him at Passover to “remember this day, on which you went free from Egypt, the house of bondage.” (Ex 13:3). But Bo is filled with the appalling price of our freedom, most terribly the death of the first-born of Egypt from the barely comprehensible slaughter of Pharaoh’s son to the unimaginable death of the “first-born of the slave girl who is behind the millstones” (Ex 11:5). Bo tells us that the penalty for injustice was paid by guilty and innocent. It still is. We tell our children in the hope that it will not always be so.
-Jeremy Wolfe, member of Temple Sinai
Prayer for a New President Adonai our God, and God of our ancestors, God of all Creation, of all humankind, bless the new presidency of Barack Hussein Obama, who will soon become president of the United States of America. May his leadership cause a new light to shine and bring a time of renewal to our country.
We pray, O Adonai, that You, who created the myriad of myriads of beautiful faces among our human species, covering our bodies with skin of amazingly different colors, who created us, each one of us, in Your divine Image, You, God, whom we call in Hebrew “M’shaneh ha’briot” – “The One who makes diverse Creatures,” help the citizens of our country see the image of God in every person, that we may come to appreciate one another and all our differences, and respect the many different ways that we serve You. Give us and our brothers and sisters strength, Adonai, Eternal God, that we may broaden the spirit of tolerance and pluralism throughout our country, symbolized by the inauguration of the first African-American president.
Adonai our God, we the Jewish people were slaves once; let us never forget the experience of slavery; inspire us and our country to realize the best values that can be found within humanity.
May our new president be successful in all his endeavors, and guide him to bring about the ancient visions of Your prophets, that violence shall no more be heard in any land, desolation nor destruction within any nations’ borders. Help our new president and us establish peace with those who are near, and peace with those who are far off, and bring them healing . May we together with our new president establish justice within our gates , and seek peace and pursue it . With his leadership, may our country uphold the cause of the orphan and the widow, welcome the stranger, provide food and clothing to the poor and needy . May our country truly live up to the words of Your Torah: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land, to its inhabitants,” that none shall be enslaved, but that all shall go free, that each person may realize the purpose for which he or she was created – that we might all be engaged in the work of Tikkun Olam, repairing Your world.
Amen.
Sinai Update – Week of January 18-24, 2009
America’s new President Barack Obama declared in his marvelous inaugural address yesterday that “what is required of us now is a new era of responsibility.” To my ear, these were the central words of his speech, a call to common duty, that we all as Americans rise to the difficult challenges of our time by accepting obligations upon ourselves. He said, “We have duties to ourselves, our nation and our world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly.” I sense he recognizes that for too long our society has tended to its freedoms and its privileges, and gone beyond that to become a culture of materialism and consumption, and concentrated less on the personal and communal sacrifices we must make in order to help our world function in productive ways.
Judaism, too, of course, speaks of our responsibilities and duties – to our society, to our world and to God. We use the language of “mitzvah,” often defined as “a good deed” or a “commandment,” but also as “a responsibility for Jews.” Rabbi David Saperstein, of the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center in Washington, DC, writes that “the structure of Jewish law and thought… focused on responsibilities… and not on rights” (in “The Use and Abuse of Jewish Tradition in Political Debate, in CCAR Journal, Spring 2008). Those responsibilities and obligations are ritual as well as ethical, and they transcend the generations; the way we act in our lives as individuals, we are taught, affects the whole, often well beyond the horizon that is visible to our limited vision. Performing a mitzvah is more than doing a good deed; it is accepting a sacred responsibility upon ourselves that connects us to the One God. As Jews, we accept mitzvot to fulfill our purpose as individuals and as a people, to perfect ourselves and repair the world. As Americans, we enter the “new era of responsibility” that President Obama speaks of with the hope that we may all realize the best values to which humanity aspires, and bring about a time of renewal for our country and the world. May Adonai, our God and the God of all Creation, bring us all this blessing as a new era begins.
Sinai Update – Week of January 11-17, 2009 The situation with Israel’s military incursion into Gaza, responding to Hamas’ missile attacks, continues to be of great concern to us. It is important to recognize that the Jewish community in Boston – and in Israel – includes many viewpoints about the current fighting.
This week, again, following our Israel Committee’s mission statement, recognizing “the wide variety of opinions and experiences about Israel,” I recommend to our community members a variety of different articles from different perspectives, including Israelis’, regarding the current crisis, below.
• An editorial in Israel’s leading newspaper, Ha’aretz, on Tuesday warns that internal politics may be influencing Israeli decision-makers about the war in Gaza; a news report outlines the different positions of Israel’s prime minister Ehud Olmert, defense minister Ehud Barak, and foreign minister Tzipi Livni.
For the editorial, click to www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054927.html ; for the news report, click to www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055214.html
Another editorial, published Sunday, January 11, www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054296.html , urged Israel’s government to pursue the diplomatic track.
Also published in Ha’aretz yesterday, was a column by Yoel Marcus, who says this is one of Israel’s most justified wars: www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054926.html .
Sinai Update – Week of January 4-10, 2009 Parashat Vayechi (Genesis 47:28-50:26) Reflections on the Torah Portion – Janet Richmond, member of Temple Sinai
This week's parashah focuses on Jacob's death. His death is a "good death." He has lived a full life, changed in his personality from a somewhat self-centered young man and sometimes-careless parent to a person of integrity and promise for the future. His very name change, from Jacob to Yisrael (Israel) culminates this change. We see in him a model for bereavement, and also for familial reunion. Indeed, all his sons and grandsons are with him at his deathbed and all the hurts of the past have been healed.
There is a beautiful midrash that says that as the sons sat at Jacob 's sick bed, he desperately wanted reassurance that his legacy would live on. Midrash Rabbah states that the sons, representing the 12 tribes of Israel, leaned forward and proclaimed, “ Shema Yisrael! Adonai eloheinu, Adonai ehad ." Midrash tells us that the in invoking this phrase, the sons were saying essentially, “Listen Daddy, we're not going to forget the covenant...it will live on...you will live on. God is One." At that point Jacob lies back relieved and content and in a prayer of gratitude and wholeness ( sh’lema ), he whispers, "Baruch shem kavod l'olam va'ed.” At that point he dies peacefully. This midrash is alive every time we recite the Shema, traditionally, with vigor during the first line, and in a quiet hushed whisper for the second line.
How does each of us come to terms with death? What is the legacy that all of us want to leave? And, how can we achieve "a good death?" As Rabbi Shimon in Pirkei Avot states, "There are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood, and the crown of royalty, but the crown of a good name excels them all." - Janet Richmond, member of Temple Sinai
Sinai Update – Week of December 28, 2008-January 3, 2009
Like many in our congregation, I am deeply concerned by the crisis that erupted this week between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Today’s news, that a proposed 48-hour ceasefire will not occur, points forward to more hostilities between Israel and Hamas in the days, and perhaps weeks, ahead, to more loss of life, and more destruction. This is of deep concern to anyone, to any Jew who loves Israel, and to any human being who cares for human life and its sanctity.
I believe that Israel has the right to defend her citizens against Hamas’ rocket attacks, which have numbered over 6,000 since 2005, and intensified in the last few weeks. Hamas’ attacks have terrorized the Israeli towns of Sderot, Ashkelon and now, deeper into Israel, the cities of Ashdod and Beersheva (50 more rockets were launched into the Negev just today), and killed Israelis. Hamas has always rejected Israel’s right to exist, and has expressed its rejection of Israel through violent means. Theirs is not a leadership committed to peace; they must agree to stop their attacks into Israel.
Our support for Israel does not mean we do not question the policies of her leaders. I am also concerned by the tremendous loss of life on the Palestinian side, over 380 reported dead, many of them civilians, and for the humanitarian situation in Gaza. As Jews, we hold ourselves and Israel to the highest ethical standards – that we be “a light to the nations” (Isaiah 42:6) – even in war, and pray that Israel’s leaders will have the courage and wisdom to live up to this standard should this fighting continue.
The Talmud teaches that “if someone comes to kill you, you have the right to kill him first” (Talmud, Sanhedrin 72a), but our vision as Jews is that this should be a false choice. Military power alone will not bring lasting peace to Israel, with or without Hamas in power in Gaza. The real hope for Israel is that stability and peace will be achieved with all her neighbors through a lasting, mutually satisfying, political and negotiated two-state solution. I pray that, once the attacks have stopped on both sides of the Gaza-Israel border, there will be efforts to resume the political process, which is Israel’s best hope for her future. |
