Category Archives: Judaism

Who You Gonna Serve Now

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"The Delivery of Israel Pharaoh and his Hosts Overwhelmed in the Red Sea" by Francis Danby (1825)

then he sang this song to moses and the
israelites singing i am your god and you will
enshrine me the god of your fathers you must
exalt me i am the man of war who went up
against the false gods of egypt and cracked them like so
much dry straw the one who hurls chariots and soldiers
into the sea like small stones the one who will cast terror and
dread on the inhabitants of canaan for their sins i’m
your champion your protector your god my commands will
soon be revealed to you follow them lest i strike
you down as i’ve destroyed all the others maybe
someday you’ll be ready to serve the master
the one who’s greater yes even greater
than me

(Exodus 15: 1-5, 15-16, 26)

A New Reconstructionist Dialogue on Chosenness

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Check out this lovely dialogue on the meaning of “chosenness” in Zeek Magazine by two eloquent Reconstructionist rabbinical colleagues: Rabbis Deborah Waxman and Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer.

Ever since Reconstructionist Judaism’s founder Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan famously (some believe infamously) dispensed of the Chosen People idea from his conception of Jewish theology, its meaning has been a point of lively debate in our movement.  Here’s a taste of how that conversation is playing out now in the 21st century:

Rabbi Waxman:

Rejecting chosenness is an explicit embrace of a modern discourse pointing toward universal truths; it is an articulation of harmonious and consistent principles out of competing voices. Rejecting chosenness is about getting down to the hard work of being one of the many peoples of the world, jostling with one another on the path toward the divine, rather than holding ourselves separate and nurturing a belief in God-given superiority. As postmoderns, we may have the capacity to hold multiple and conflicting values. When it comes to chosenness, I would argue that that we should not indulge in this capacity; by moving beyond chosenness, we make a deliberate statement about our highest values.

Rabbi Fuchs-Kreimer:

(No) matter what I choose in my own religious practice, I cannot simply ignore a core piece of our tradition. The idea of chosenness has not gone away. As a Jew, I still own it, even if I do not speak of it in my prayers. In the interfaith encounter, I have to resist the temptation to claim only the parts of Judaism I love. If I skip over the Jewish ideas I find objectionable or, more often, if I explain that they belong to someone else – “the mistaken Jews” – I am acting in a way that is both arrogant and untrue to my own pluralistic commitments. My dialogue principles require that I learn to understand the beliefs of my co-religionists even when I do not share them.

Passover Observance Then and Now

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and when your children ask you what
do you mean by this rite tell them
in the beginning we offered late night sacrifices
and supplications while our god meted out
punishments against the gods of egypt later
we hid behind behind doorjambs swelled with
dread murmuring pour out your wrath on
those who seek our blood and destroy the nations who know
not your name but now we observe by bursting the
gates of fear wide open proclaiming let all who’ve been
broken gather each another’s scattered
shattered pieces let all who seek liberation
come to the table let all who are hungry
come and eat

(Exodus 12:12, 26-27)

Joseph Remade

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joseph was brought up from the
dungeon scrubbed clean his hair
shaved and stripped naked layer by painful
layer until he realized it’s not me it’s
never been me god has been dreaming
these dreams for us all along
then he was dressed in robes of the finest
linen a royal ring was slipped on his finger and
a gold chain was placed around his neck he was given
the name zaphenat-paneah but joseph secretly named himself
manasseh that means i don’t mind the pain any more and
ephraim that means come i am ready
to feed you

(Genesis 41:14,16,42,45,51,52)

New Musical Greetings for Hanukkah!

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Happy first day of Hanukkah! If you’re looking for ways to light up this dark season, here are two gorgeous musical Hanukkah greetings courtesy of Pharoah’s Daughter. Check out these great versions of  Hanukkah classics “Maoz Tzur” (above) and “Al Hansim” (below). Both were filmed at the 2008 Rabbis for Human Rights – North America Conference in Washington DC.

(Anyone else growing weary of the utterly overused yet still somehow requisite German-folk setting we Ashkenazim use for Maoz Tzur? I’m going with this one when I light the candles tonight…)

Jacob Gets His Blessing

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he tells him let me go the sun is rising but
jacob doesn’t hear all he hears is esau the elder esau the
stronger esau his father’s favorite who had eagerly
entered his father’s tent he’s hearing those awful
cries don’t you have a blessing left for me bless me
too father bless me too the words bursting out of
the tent please please bless me too
father over and over and over their bodies are writhing the
dark water splashing against the cold night air please bless
me too father bless me
he pins him against the slope of
the riverbank now jacob is screaming please bless me father he
shakes him like a limp rag doll sobbing i will not
let you go until you BLESS ME
the sun peeking over the jabbok jacob
looks down at his face and sees
his father beaming with love and pride at
long last his mother saying
it is safe to come home now my son his
brother saying seeing your face is like
seeing the face of god jacob blinks water
from his eyes the river is silent still mirror
clear he stands up sees the sun
and slowly limps his way across
the water

(Genesis 27:38, 32:25-27)

In the Beginning, In God’s Image

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Rabbi Akiva says: “‘Love your fellow as yourself'” (Leviticus 19:18), is the greatest principle of the Torah.

Ben Azzai says, “‘When God created man, He made him in the image of God’ (Genesis 5:1) is the greatest principle in the Torah. You should not say: Because I have been dishonored, let my fellow be dishonored along with me…”

Rabbi Tanhuma explained: “If you do so, know whom you are dishonoring – ‘He made him in the image of God.'”

— Midrash Genesis Rabbah 24

In this classic Midrash, Rabbis Akiba and Ben Azzai are doing what Talmudic rabbis do best: playing a lively game of spiritual oneupsmanship. The question at hand: what is the central value of Torah?  According to Akiba it is the famous verse from Leviticus, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Ben Azzai counters with the insight from this week’s Torah portion: humanity was created in God’s image.

Rabbi Tanhuma’s final statement reinforces the weakness of Akiba’s claim: though it is certainly praiseworthy to love your fellow as yourself, this might imply that you only need to treat your fellow as well (or as badly) as you yourself are treated. Ben Azzai points out that if we truly understand that all people are made in the image of God, we must accept that any time we shame, insult or abuse another, we do the same to God.

In a sense, Ben Azzai raises the moral stakes of the equation. As the saying (often misattributed to Dostoevsky) goes: “where there is no God, all is permitted.” This drives home the radical imperative made clear in the very first chapter of Genesis: if all people are made in the divine image, all people are of infinite worth; all people are deserving of dignity, respect and fair treatment.

The Torah thus begins with this foundational principle, which has both interpersonal/ethical as well as global/moral implications. As we start Torah anew yet again, we return to its central question: how can we find the wherewithal to treat everyone we meet as a fellow child of God? How can we, as Americans, as Jews, as global citizens find dignity and respect for all who dwell on earth?

A Poem for Sukkot: The Season Turns

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It’s the festival of Sukkot – the holiday in which we (among many other things) liturgically chant from the book of Ecclesiastes.

Here, below, is my new version of the most famous part: Chapter 3, verses 1 through 8.

Kohelet 3:1-8

an eon turns to a millisecond
swing from here and to
there keeping rhythm here
to there and back again we are
born and we
die we plant and
we uproot
we kill we heal we
destroy and we rebuild again
we cry out and we laugh to the high
high heavens we throw stones and
gather them up once
more we embrace and we turn
away cast our eyes down
down to the ground we seek and
we lose we may yet find we
hoard and we purge we tear
and then sew back up we hold our tongues
and we scream like rain
we’re spitting in the wind
such a fine fine line between
love and hate and war
and peace enjoy it
while you can

The Season of Our Service: Sermon for Erev Rosh Hashanah 5772

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As my Torah study students will attest, the book of Deuteronomy can be pretty tough stuff. Deuteronomy, of course, is the final book of the Torah, and most of it is a monologue delivered by Moses to the Israelites before they cross into the Promised Land. As Moses is about to die, he engages in a kind of review lesson for the people, relating their history, describing their journey and reminding them of the laws they have agreed to as part of their covenant with God.

This last part – the theological emphasis on the covenant – is a major theme in Deuteronomy. Over and over, God tells the Israelites through Moses: “You’re about to enter the Land. Just follow my laws and you’ll be fine. But break them and you’ll be very, very, sorry.”

It’s really not to hard to discern these theological threats throughout Deuteronomy– in fact we read them over and over and over again. God tells the Israelites that a deal’s a deal – and they had better hold up their end or else. And of course the “or else” is spelled out repeatedly – often in gruesomely vivid detail.

Now, of all the laws contained in this covenant, there is one in particular that God seems particularly uptight about: that is, namely, the law against worshiping other gods. That’s not to say God isn’t concerned about laws such as murder, theft, providing for the poor, caring for the stranger… While these kinds of laws are certainly mentioned, the stakes always seem to be the highest when it comes to the commandment against idolatry – against serving gods of foreign nations.

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