Say the words “holy man” and the image that comes to mind is of a person living a solitary life of monastic isolation, a cave-dwelling monk or a meditating ascetic.  But what this week’s Torah portion reminds us is that, in Judaism, holiness is achieved within the context of community and in the details of everyday living.  Parashat Kedoshim (the second part of this week’s double portion) begins by commanding us: “You shall become holy, for I, Adonai, am holy” (Leviticus 19:2), and continues by listing the ways to become holy, all of which entail ethical behavior with one’s family, in the marketplace and business, in caring for the powerless or weak orphan, widow or stranger. 
   

But Jewish teachers didn’t stop there; they inferred from this first verse a theological statement about God’s relationship to the everyday.  If being holy for Jews means an engagement with the world and a refusal to step back from the world, this implies that God, too, is present and engaged with the world.  God says “You shall be holy” – that is, in the everyday – “for I, Adonai am holy” – in a similar fashion.  Rabbi Abraham Samuel Benjamin Sofer (Germany, 1815-71), known as the “K’tav Sofer,” commented on this verse that just as God watches and surveys every movement of every creature, and is deeply connected to human beings, we, too, must take care to be involved and care for those around us, and not withdraw from our obligations to society as a whole.
-       Rabbi Andy Vogel

Sinai Update – Week of April 19-26, 2009
Parashat Tazria-Metzora  (Leviticus 12:1-15:33)
Reflections on Jewish Values – Rabbi Andy Vogel

I see a strong connection between President Obama’s White House Passover Seder earlier this month and the president’s disclosure last week of the methods of torture used during CIA interrogations on enemy combatants.  The story of Pesach affirms the human dignity of each person and the right of each person to freedom from compulsion.  In Egypt, it was we the Jewish people who were denied our humanity as Pharaoh arrogantly exerted his power – his divine omnipotence, so he thought – and acted above the law to oppress others.  But Judaism’s view is that such human claims to the total control of another human being is more than mere arrogance.  It is idolatry, worship of the self, and therefore wrong.
    

In an article in the New York Times this Sunday, the link was made between torture and the type of slavery we talk about in our people’s Passover story.  Dr. Darius Rejali, a professor of political science at Reed College, and author of the book Torture and Democracy, was quoted saying, “What’s fascinating to people about torture is it gives one person absolute power over another, which is both alluring and corrupting,” said.  Torture, like slavery, corrupts both individuals and societies, he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/weekinreview/19shane.html?_r=1&scp=7&sq=week%20in%20review&st=cse . 
   

As a rabbi and a Jew, I believe that torture is wrong, and that no one should be above the law.  One obstacle to stopping torture today is that no country wants to prosecute its own who engage in it.  I hope that the White House will move forward on a thorough investigation of the harsh interrogation tactics that it has leaked to the press, and hold accountable those who tortured others and those on the leadership level who made the decisions authorizing torture.  I hope that the story of Pesach will touch the heart of President Obama, that he will be moved to affirm the basic human rights of all, and that no person will ever be tortured by our country.
- Rabbi Andy Vogel

Sinai Update – Week of April 12-18, 2009
7th day Pesach begins Tuesday night, April 14
Shabbat Torah portion: Parashat Shemini
Reflections on the Jewish World – Rabbi Andy Vogel

Passover in Tel Aviv this year coincides with celebrations for the 100th birthday of the city.  It's hard to believe, but in 1909 Tel Aviv was nothing but a sand dune.  One hundred years ago, 66 families stood in the sand allocating plots of land of the new town through a raffle using seashells.  Today, Tel Aviv is Israel's thriving cosmopolitan business and cultural center, her most populous city and the heart of Israeli life.  The city's name, "hill of springtime," is found in a verse in the prophet Ezekiel, and calls to mind Passover, the ancient religious festival which we celebrate "in the month of Aviv, for in the month of Aviv you went forth from Egypt" (Exodus 34:18).  So, in Tel Aviv this week and last, including the days of Pesach and beyond, hundreds of performers are participating in events to celebrate the milestone anniversary of the city, events which organizers have estimated the cost of at 70 million shekels (about $17 million).  According to one website ( http://tlv100.haaretz.com/news.asp?p=404 ), performances have so far included the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra playing pieces by Tchaikovsky and Strauss, conducted by special guests Zubin Mehta and Ilan Mochiah, major Israeli and international rock bands, an outdoor disco five blocks long, a 42-km marathon run throughout the city, fireworks displays and a photo to mark the original 1909 photo of the city's founding. 

For me, Tel Aviv represents a modern wonder.  Although I have always been more drawn to Jerusalem, the historic Jewish capital, City of David, of the Western Wall of the Temple, birthplace of three world religions and city in which I resided for more than two years, my first memories of visiting Tel Aviv as a teenager and again in college are sweet -- days spent bodysurfing in the waves off Tel Aviv's beaches, sipping coffee in airy cafes on its broad avenues, listening to the Mizrachi music beats bounding through the city's old bus station.   Moreso than modern Jerusalem, I feel that Tel Aviv's free spirit epitomizes the dream of Zionism: to be a normal people, as Herzl imagined, a free people in our own land, enlightened, living unafraid and at peace.  This dream, not yet fully realized, is the extension of the Passover story, whose fulfillment we still strive for.  As Yom Ha'atzma'ut, Israeli Independence Day, draws near (we'll observe it at Temple Sinai on Friday, April 24), we remember the dream of those 66 families, and commit ourselves to helping Israel achieve a meaningful, peaceful future.
- Rabbi Andy Vogel
 
Read this op-ed from Ha'aretz, Israel's leading newspaper, on the Tel Aviv centenary:  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1077231.html .

Sinai Update – Week of April 5-11, 2009
Passover begins on Wednesday evening, April 8
Reflections on the Jewish Calendar – Rabbi Andy Vogel
The beginning of Passover tomorrow night (Wednesday,  April 8) coincides with an odd and obscure Jewish ritual, observed only once every 28 years: birkat ha'chammah, the blessing of the sun.  This brief and little-known ritual (which happens to be getting a fair amount of press this year, including an article in this past Saturday's New York Times) marks the rising of the sun on the day when, according to the astronomy of the Talmudic era, it is located in exactly the same spot as when God first created it.  The Talmud says (Brachot 59b), "Whoever sees the sun at its rising at its equinox in the month of Nisan... has the opportunity to recite: 'Baruch... Oseh bereshit' -- 'Blessed is God, the One does the work of Creation.'"  The Talmud adds that that moment occurs every twenty-eight years in Nisan… on the evening of a Tuesday, going into Wednesday," which corresponds to the date of April 8, once every 28 years.  Only rarely does this blessing fall on the same morning that Passover begins; this occurred in 1925, and before that only in 1309, six centuries ago!
     

Aside from the accuracy of the Talmud’s astronomy, this blessing speaks to us today, declaring that God continually renews creation.  Each day holds new promise – or (as in the case of the birkat ha’chammah) each cycle of the sun holds new promise.  God “does” the work of creation each day.  Renewal is the message of Passover, too; it is no coincidence that Pesach occurs in springtime.  More, the Jewish people, who had been enslaved as a nation under Pharaoh for 400 years, had lost our nationhood and our identity as a people until our liberation from Egypt.  Only once we had been freed could we regain our humanity.  We retell our national story, which coincides beautifully this year with an obscure ritual celebrating God’s renewal of nature, every year when the cycle of the sun comes to this point, reminding ourselves of the gift of renewal, personal renewal, national renewal and the rebirth of nature in spring.  May you have a very happy Pesach!
- Rabbi Andy Vogel

Sinai Update – Week of March 29-April 4, 2009
Parashat Tzav (Leviticus 6:1 – 8:36)
Reflections on the Jewish Calendar – Rabbi Andy Vogel

Slavery still exists today.  That was the conclusion of some of our 6th & 7th graders this week, at the end of a discussion during T’filah at Tuesday religious school.  Sitting on the floor in the Sanctuary with me, one of our 6th graders reported that he had heard that some companies, including one prominent corporation that makes soccer balls, use children in their factories as laborers, driving down wages and exposing the child laborers to terrible working conditions.  A human rights website verifies that in India, “after over a decade of promised reforms from the sporting goods industry, child labor in soccer ball production continues.”  The 6th grade student was deeply concerned that children are being exploited in this industry – and for a game that so many children worldwide enjoy! – and that modern-day slavery continues to persist. He was considering mentioning child labor at his Passover Seder next Wednesday night, April 8.
   

At the Passover Seder, we re-tell the ancient story of our people’s liberation from slavery, and it is just as important to share stories about present-day enslavement.  The task of Jews in every generation, to paraphrase Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook (d. 1935), is “to make the old new, and to make the new holy.”  The ancient Hagaddah still speaks to us of human suffering.  We learn from it today that we are obligated to act in the world today to relieve that pain, which, sadly, is far from ancient history.  We tell the ancient story of our people to remember our own people’s narrative, and then to get to work in our own times, bringing about liberation, saying, “This year we are slaves, but next year may we all be free people!”
   

May you and your dear ones have a very sweet and happy Passover.
- Rabbi Andy Vogel