I have never felt so squeezed on time as I do now. My to-do list is endless. I have Scout training items to work on, cub scout pack meetings and den meetings to plan, and camp forms to send in. I need to plan the summer trip we are taking to New York after the kids finish camp. Noah’s bar mitzvah year is counting down. I have to get bids for a new roof after that hailstorm and deal with a bee infestation. It’s time to protest the property taxes and I have a project at work. I need to study my torah readings and write this dvar. There is always more to do. Part of this parasha lists out the special times of celebration for the Israelites like the weekly Shabbat observance and the annual Jewish holidays. No matter what is going on during the year, we are told to pause at these appointed times, these “moadim,” to celebrate them in the prescribed manner. Each of these holidays and times is important to God. They summon us from our mundane lives and bring us to “meet” with Hashem. By taking the time to prepare the sacrifices in a specific way, by eating the unleavened bread, by counting the days of the Omer until Shavout, the holiday rituals ground us in our dedication to God by deliberately focusing our actions on celebrating our connection with our Creator. And although it is not listed in the Torah—Moshe seems to have left it out—we know of one other “moed,” another special moment in time we are called upon to celebrate each year: the anniversary of the founding of our Kehillah. On THIS particular anniversary, our 10^th, we should take a pause. Just as God paused after the 6 days of creation, to rest on Shabbat and delight in its offerings, we too should pause and reflect on what we have created over the last 10 years and delight in our accomplishments.

We started with borrowed siddurim and machzorim. When we purchased the Sim Shalom siddurim, we did so before any of the other area shuls. We wanted more than one choice for chumashim, so we bought two different ones for people to use. We borrowed a Torah, then bought it, then a few years later we bought another one. We started to hold classes and to participate in community events. We suffered, like many organizations did, during Covid, but we realized it was more meaningful to be together than to be apart. 

Before the founding of our Kehillah, when I was a member of Shearith Israel, I didn’t give a second thought to missing a day. It didn’t matter to anyone if I wasn’t there. But here? It gives me angst when I have to miss a Shabbat, because I know my friends are counting on me. I know I am a valued member here. When I broke my shoulder, all of you were there for us, bringing us meals. Everyone is valued here, and whatever role you have decided to take on—be it leading services, reading Torah or haftarah, sponsoringa kiddush, working on our website, acting as a gabbai, editing our Nuggets newsletter, researching and delivering divrei torah, or being one of our “seat fillers” on Shabbat, ensuring that we have a minyan simply through your presence—every single one of you is the Kehillah. If even one of these roles goes unfilled, our Kehillah service can’t be complete. 

For the last two out of three weekends, I have been away at a leadership class put on by Boy Scouts of America, called Wood Badge. Wood badge, which started in 1926, is a multi-faceted leadership training course that combines team building activities, leadership education, and ends with each person committing to doing five things of their choice that betters the scouting program. Leadership is many things. It is developing a vision and mission, communicating with people, and guiding people towards achieving a goal. The vision of the Kehillah back in 2013 was to “provide a warm, engaged, Jewish prayer community and provide educational, religious, social, and recreational activities.” I think we have remained true to that vision. If we consider participating in the Kosher Chili Cookoff to be recreation, then I think we have been fulfilling it.    

Parashat Emor details the duties of the priestly leaders of the Israelite community, delineating both the behavioral restrictions that the priests must adhere to and the personal characteristics they are expected to display. In doing so, Emor describes two distinct approaches to leadership we can apply to our own lives. The first is through education, by directly preparing the next generation of priests—or in my case, scouts—by teaching them how to fulfill their roles. The second way to lead is through influencing others. Your actions can sometimes speak volumes—even more than your words. By living lives demonstrating an almost extreme example of holiness, the priests could influence the average Israelite to live a righteous life according to God’s teachings. Likewise, a scout leader’s behavior—their method of teaching, the way they speak to their scouts, and the inspiration they can inspire, can be a role model whose influence can last a lifetime.  

Some of you may be considering Susan’s Kehillah Anniversary Challenge of trying something new in your Jewish lives; some of you may have already taken up the challenge. Some of you may have decided that taking on this challenge is too much for this moment in your lives. Regardless of your choice, I would like all of you to think about how your willingness to try something new, both in the Kehillah and elsewhere, can influence another person you know to step out of their personal comfort zone and try something new as well. In the Yotzer prayer, which comes just before the Ahavah Rabbah and the Shema, we describe God as “ha’mchadaysh b’tuvo b’chol yom tamid ma’asei breisheet.” Loosely translated, this means that, in God’s goodness, the work of creation is constantly being renewed each day.

Today, I ask you to take a pause, to count your blessings, both in the Kehillah, and in your personal lives. Take stock of your friendships near and far and renew your dedication to creating and recreating them each day as you envision what your own life and the life of this Kehillah might become in the future.

Happy Kehillahversary and Shabbat Shalom.

Shabbat Shalom and thank you for letting me celebrate my second bar mitzvah here at the Kehillah. This Shabbat morning offers me the opportunity for a do over.

What do I mean by this?

Well long story short;  I  go back to my days in graduate school. I lived at home and commuted between home and school via the NYC subway system. It appears that a young Catholic priest was also commuting the same route and after a few weeks of seeing each other we ended up seated together and I noticed he was carrying a book – a Jewish History book, which was an opening to an ongoing conversation. He was a brother, a monk, of an order of teaching monks and was particularly interested in Biblical history and the history of the People of the book- of us, the Jews.

A few weeks later he asked if I would like to visit his monastery and meet with his Abbot and some fellow brothers to answer some questions about modern day Jewish observance.

We met and it was a very pleasant experience although I remember very little of what we discussed except for one particular comment by the Abbot.

He offered that he wished that the Catholic Church would come up with a ritual similar to our bar mitzvah. He thought it was brilliant that just as a young Jewish boy was going through puberty and adolescence, with its confusion, self-doubt, issues of self-identity, that their families devoted months where he was the center of their attention. They helped him prepare for a coming-of-age ceremony where he would be the focal point, and this would be followed by a celebration where he would be the star.

I probably nodded in agreement but knew that that wasn’t my bar mitzvah experience.

My experience was anything but confidence building. You see, some time after I turned 12, I was told that my bar mitzvah parasha was actually a double one: Acharei Mot-Kedoshim. As a boy raised in an Orthodox home, and as a student in an Orthodox day school, I was expected to chant both parshiot in their entirety as well as the haftarah and to deliver a dvar torah on my Bar Mitzvah.

The idea of performing in front of a congregation was frightening; delivering a dvar torah filled me with terror.

I was introduced to my tutor, Mr. Brichansky, may he rest in peace, a small, patient—very patient—man, who had no idea of the challenge I presented.

I was tone deaf! Still am, as those of you who sit next to me in shul will testify. Reading the Hebrew wasn’t the problem. Learning the trope was. Mr. Brichansky would chant a trop and I would repeat. There were on some occasions, very few actually, where my version of what he chanted was in some way or form similar to his.

The year of preparation was torture, consisting of hours of study, sleepless nights, night sweats, and nightmares. I did get through my Bar Mitzvah somehow, but the congratulations were muted if offered at all. And to top it all, Mr. Feldman, a neighbor, dropped my Bar Mitzvah cake, completely obliterating my name, which had been emblazoned in royal blue icing.

But now it is time for me to deliver a dvar torah.  And I have absolutely no recollection of the one I delivered at my Bar Mitzvah.

I do recall, vaguely, reviewing possible topics but can’t recall which of the many presented in these two parshiot, I chose. So, let’s review the choices together and see if we can find one to discuss which would have been appropriate for the 13-year-old I was then as well as for the 83-year-old I am now

Parshat Acharei Mot begins with the words “After the death of Aaron’s two son’s for getting too close to G-d.” I think G-d overreacted! No. Not d’var material.

What’s next? Oh. The tenth day of Tishrei—we call it Yom Kippur today—and the concept of the scapegoat. A goat is chosen by lottery and the High Priest transfers all of Israel’s sins to this innocent creature and sends him off to die in the wilderness to expiate their sins. Really. Then this concept is repeated regarding individuals expiating their sins with sin offerings. So, you steal or cheat in business, lie under oath, mistreat a slave or servant and then you sacrifice an innocent calf, or goat, or any sweet innocent animal, who could never lie or cheat in business, as an expiation for your wrongs. Skip that one.

O.K. Now it’s time for the sprinkling of the blood throughout the Tabernacle and the Holy of Holies. How this ceremony using a dead animal’s blood could sanctify anything made no sense to me. Although it is a basic concept in Christianity, it’s not a topic for a d’var.

Well, the next topic worth skipping regards incest. Right—a topic perfect for a 13-year-old’s Bar Mitzvah speech. Don’t have sex with your father’s wife—oh that’s my mother—and it’s also a no-no for my aunts. Really? Have you ever seen my aunts? Similarly, sisters are off limits, but not to worry as I have no sisters. But I do have brothers and we did sleep together every night; the three of us in two beds pushed together. Room was tight for the 10 of us in a three-bedroom apartment. And the final topic of this parasha: homosexuality. I knew it was considered wrong but at that time had no idea what or why. So, desperate for a d’var torah topic I moved on to this week’s second parasha, Kedoshim.

The Lord spoke to Moses. Speak to Bnai Yisrael and tell them: you shall be holy.

I had no idea how one becomes holy. The Torah is holy, Jerusalem is holy, God is holy, and Moses was holy. I know this because I heard my family say Holy Moses many times.

But despite not knowing how to fulfill the mitzvah of being holy, this parasha had a lot I could relate to. Thank God.

For example: revere your parents. I was blessed with good parents—no problem.

Don’t worship idols! Not to worry.

Leave the corners of your field for the poor to harvest. I had no fields but what a neat concept.

Don’t steal – duh! Don’t deal falsely with one another, don’t swear falsely, don’t cheat, don’t rob. And here’s one that was really advanced for its time: don’t withhold the wages of a day laborer to the next day.

It keeps getting better. Don’t insult the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind. This was three thousand years before the A.D.A.—the American Disability Act.

Don’t let your judgment be influenced by a person’s wealth.

As for the stranger living among you, you shall love him as yourself. Well, that’s one that we need to work on.

And then the one sentence that summed it all up.

V’ahavta l’re’acha kamocha – ואהבת לרעך כמוך

Love your fellow as yourself.

There is more—about ecology and—oh, the list goes on, but I’ll leave some things for you to discover on your own.

There is, however, one verse and commandment that actually means so much more for me today than it did in 1953: You shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old.

I assume that I spoke about one or some of these mitzvot, but I did not have an answer to my question about how one becomes holy.

That is, not until I was a bit older. The Torah actually gives the answer immediately following G-d’s commandment to be a holy people. Observing all the mitzvot that follow makes us holy. We become holy when we observe the mitzvot found in this parasha.

This parasha also answers my question about what is wonderful about Judaism.

Three thousand years and still relevant! Wow!!!

Shabbat Shalom!

A dvar torah honoring Alicia Bach and Joel Portman on the occasion of their upcoming wedding (website version).

Consider the following six items:

1. Shaatnez (also known as linsey-woolsey: a material comprised of linen and wool)
2. A lobster
3. A dead body
4. נֶגַע צָרָעַת  (Nega Tzara’at) — spoken of in this week’s Torah reading: a disease that bears some similarity to leprosy.
5. Childbirth
6. A threshold

What are some of the biblical Jewish practices or laws that these items share with one another?

• Some aren’t kosher, meaning Jews aren’t allowed to consume or make use of them, namely lobsters and shaatnez.
• Some are bodily conditions that render a person טָמֵא — ritually impure — such as childbirth and Nega Tzara’at.
• Some are objects in the world that are טָמֵא, and are able to transmit their impurity to the people or objects they touch, for example: dead bodies

In fact, five of those six items are connected by the Biblical concept of טְמֵאוּת, of impurity. But the sixth one—the threshold—calls to mind the old Sesame Street song: “One of these things is not like the others; one of these things doesn’t belong.” Or at least, it doesn’t belong if the linking thread is impurity.

In fact, you might legitimately wonder why I am suggesting that we look for a unifying commonality between all six of these items at all.

My reason is simple. The link between them not only exists, it speaks to a fundamental, metaphysical truth about Jewish reality—one that forms the foundation to our Jewish beliefs and which lies at the heart of our Jewish ritual practices.

So, what is the metaphysical commonality underlying these six items? To understand this, we must first take a step back from metaphysics and re-examine these items as objects and experiences within the physical world.

And what do we see when we do so? We see that all of these items are “crossovers” of a sort. Each one is an object, a moment in time, a point in space, or a state of existence that does not fit into a single category, but instead encompasses two at once or, even worse, straddles the  line in-between so that it is not one thing or the other. Consider the following:

• Shaatnez is neither plant nor animal but a mixture of both.
• A lobster is a creature that looks like a land animal (a kind of large bug) but lives in a water animal’s environment.
• A dead body is no longer a human being since it lacks a soul, but it still retains human form.
• The condition of נֶגַע צָרָעַת (tzara’at lesions) turn a person into a categorical ambiguity. The lesions are caused by a disease that could be fatal—but also might not be. The lesions change one’s skin tone from a darker hue to a bright, almost white color. (Note that the Biblical text is quite clear, here, on the point that our ancestors were not light-skinned people) The skin of a person afflicted with nega tzara’at was neither uniformly dark or completely light, but an unsettling mixture of both, which rendered such a person impure. For a priest to declare such a person “purified” and once again free to interact with members of the community, one of two outcomes needed to occur. The 1^st possibility involved the afflicted person becoming completely lesion-free once again, with his/her skin reverting back to its original, darker hue. The 2nd possibility has the diseased person becoming completely covered in lesions, so that his/her visible skin becomes completely white. In both outcomes, the person’s skin color will no longer multi-hued, but becomes straightforwardly one color or the other. In the case of nega tzara’at, the priests are not so much concerned with the afflicted person’s illness and return to health as they are with the ambiguity the disease caused in his/her metaphysical status of purity or impurity as manifested in the physical world through lesions causing a change in the pigment of his/her skin.
• The process of childbirth is more complex yet, encompassing a twofold ambiguity that is both physical and metaphysical: The creature being born is no longer a fetus but is not yet a baby while the woman experiencing childbirth is neither pregnant nor a mother but exists in a state in-between the two.
• And now we come to the last item on our list—the one that is not simply an ambiguity but actually a paradox: the threshold. What is a threshold? It is a location in space whose particular place cannot be described relative to itself. With any other point in space, you would be able to name its location—the roller coaster, the back yard, 6632 Crestland Road—but not with a threshold. You can name the places a particular threshold stands between—between the living room and the kitchen, for example—but you cannot name the location of the threshold itself, because it doesn’t truly have one. If the two spaces it links together were to vanish, so would the threshold. It has no independent existence, yet without it we could not move from one place to another.

The ambiguity inherent in these “crossovers” manifest in the metaphysical world as well as the physical. Examining each one would take too long and would take us in too many different directions, so we will narrow our focus today to the item discussed in the opening verses of our Torah reading, which is not leprousy, as one might assume, but childbirth.

Let us begin by considering the following thought experiment known as Schroedinger’s Cat:

Imagine a sound-proofed box containing two bowls of cat food, one of which has been poisoned while the one other has not. Now imagine that a cat is placed inside that box and the box is then sealed shut. In the moments that follow, between sealing and unsealing the box, an observer cannot know what is occurring inside. The cat might eat from the bowl containing poisoned food and die, or from the other bowl and live. The cat might also choose to eat both, in which case it will die, or the cat might eat neither, in which case it will live. According to Schroedinger, this experiment creates a liminal point in time when all of those potential possibilities exist at once, as do all of their possible outcomes. During that liminal period, Schroedinger suggested, the cat is, metaphysically, both alive and dead.

Childbirth is a similar liminal intersection of time, space, and potential. It is a physical process that holds tremendous transformational potential but also significant danger. The mother’s body, which has carried only life for the past 9 months, now contains the potential for both life and death depending upon the outcome of the childbirth process. The pregnant woman could become a mother. The fetus could become a baby. One or both of them could also become corpses—bodies without souls—another manifestation of a physical reality which straddles the metaphysical line of the in-between. The process of childbirth, like the process of Divine creation, is the quintessential example of physical and metaphysical liminality: an intersection of time and space which contains every potential outcome of that reality so that all of its possible outcomes are, at once, both true and untrue; both possible and impossible.

Eventually, both in the case of Schroedinger’s Cat and in the process of childbirth, one set of outcomes will become reality thereby rendering all other possibilities null and void. The cat will either eat poison or not; it will either live or die. The pregnant woman will either becomes a mother or will not; her fetus will either become a baby or will not.

Considered strictly from the physical perspective, it makes sense that we often describe transformational experiences such as these using the metaphor of a threshold. For example: “On the day Sarah gave birth to Isaac, she crossed the threshold into motherhood.” 

However, while this the metaphor may be an apt depiction of the physical reality, it is woefully inadequate in describing the metaphysical one. Because metaphysically speaking, when we enter a state of liminality, we don’t cross over a threshold—we become the threshold. And thresholds, as we’ve seen in the example of childbirth, can be extremely dangerous places to be.

Is it any wonder, then, that Jewish tradition has us place protective amulets—mezuzot—on each of the thresholds in our homes? Or that the custom is to reach up and touch each one as we cross over and kiss it, as if invoking God’s protection in that moment of liminality when we stand not in one place or in another but exactly in-between, a location that has no true metaphysical reality of its own.

In fact, if you were to start examining our Jewish rituals, you would find that nearly all of them occur at moments when our actions and words turn us into metaphysical thresholds straddling the in-between. Some examples:

• Reciting a bracha and affixing a mezuzah to one’s front door, words and actions that enable us to transform an uninhabited, generic dwelling into a Jewish home.
• Reciting a bracha and performing a circumcision, words and actions that enable a mohel to change a newborn’s metaphysical status from “boy” to “Jewish boy.”
• Lighting Shabbat candles and reciting the bracha or else reciting the kiddush, words and actions that enable us to create the metaphysical bubble in time that is Shabbat or some other Jewish holiday

And, of course, we cannot forget the threshold ritual that Alicia and Joel will soon take part in: the ritual of Chuppah V’Kiddushin—the wedding canopy and the words and deeds of sanctification which they will use in order to create their marriage.

Alicia and Joel. When you come to stand under your chuppah, with your community of friends and family looking on with love and joy, remember: the chuppah, the rings you give each other, even the words you say to one another—they are not the transformational threshold you use to cross into marriage; they are the means by which the two of you become that threshold thus giving you the power to create your marriage. Your love for one another coupled with your intent to build a life together empower your words and your actions, opening up a liminal intersection of time and space in which every possibility and potential outcome of your love and your marriage coexist all at once, with each one of them true and real.

Unlike the thresholds we become in the examples of liminality I gave just a few moments ago—thresholds that wink out of existence as soon as the mitzvah in question has been completed, the liminal threshold you will become during your wedding ceremony does not dissolve at its conclusion. In fact, every choice you make together in your marriage, in addition to solidifying certain truths and dissolving others, als creates an infinite number of new possibilities and realities that the two of you might realize. The semi-liminal threshold that the two of you will become on the day of your marriage, with all of the amazing potential for creation that such a state of being entails, continues so long as you are married and building your lives together.

May your marriage be filled with adventure and possibilities, with liminality and love.

Shabbat Shalom

This week’s Parashah Shemini includes numbers. I did not use ChatGPT for today’s D’var Torah, tempting as it may have been. I did find an intriguing, to me, D’var Torah from 4 years ago. It was written and delivered by Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis. He serves as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations to the Commonwealth based in London and is an Orthodox rabbi. He has held this position since September 2013 when Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks retired. Both of whom have been knighted. Rabbi Mirvis had previously been the Chief Rabbi of Ireland from 1985-1992 and was born in Johannesburg, SA.  In this D’var, Rabbi Mirvis explains the hidden depth of numbers in Jewish teaching.

What is special about the number 8? The fact that this week’s Parashah is called Shemini, which means ‘the eighth’, issues an invitation to us to answer the question.

In Kabbalistic teachings, the number 6 represents the natural world. Hashem created our world in 6 days, and therefore we work on 6 days. The number 7 represents the perfection of people. On the 7^th day we celebrate Shabbat which is known as ‘M’ein Olam Haba’ the closest we can come in this world, to the perfect spirituality of the world to come. The number 9 represents Ha’Kadosh Baruch Hu. It is the divine number. In math, quite extraordinarily, a number can only be divided by 9 if its digits add up to 9, or any multiple of 9. For example, in the number 459, 4+5+9=18 which is a multiple of 9, and therefore we know it is divisible by 9. It shows that 9 fits perfectly into the world around it, and that is a description of G-d. At the end of the Shema, we conclude the words ‘Hashem Eloheichem the Lord your G-d, but we always add the word ‘emet’ onto it which means truth. That is because the Talmud teaches us ‘chotamo shel HaKodesh Baruch Hu emet’, the seal of G-d is truth. The gematria of the word ‘emet’ adds up to 441 which is 4+4+1 which equals 9, indicating that the truth of G-d is represented by the number 9.

So if 7 represents the perfection of people and 9 represents Hashem, 8 represents the bridge, connecting us with our creator. This is why a baby boy has his ‘brit milah’ through which he establishes a covenant between himself and Hashem on the 8^th day. That is why the festival of Chanukah is 8 days long when we recall the divine intervention which saved our people. And that is why between Pesach and Shavuot for a period of 7×7 days we prepare ourselves for the re-enactment of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Once we reach that number 49, we are prepared for the festival of Shavuot, which takes place at the beginning of the 8^th week, reminding us of that ultimate revelation when Hashem appeared to us – the ultimate bridge between Heaven and earth.

Now we can understand our Parashah, ‘vayehi b’yom hashemini’-and it came to pass on the 8^th day. Once the Mishkan (the sanctuary in the wilderness) had been completed, and the altar was there to be dedicated, for 7 continuous days the people offered sacrifices with no response from G-d, but after those 7 days, ‘va teitzei aish min ha Shamayim’ on the 8^th day, fire came from heaven and consumed the animal on the altar signifying that connection between Heaven and earth.

The number 8 is a special number. It issues a call to us to embrace the natural world represented by the number 6 and to strive to reach our greatest potential for perfection, represented by the number 7. In that way, may we merit to live up to aspirations of the number 8, to feel the presence of Hashem in our lives and to enable Him to bless us always.

Let us continue to pray for peace in the Ukraine. Shabbat Shalom.

The teachers of the Kehillat Chaverim: Rabbi Michele Sullum, recipient of the Kehillat Chaverim 10^th Anniversary Award Golda Meier Award for Excellence in Teaching and Fred Nathan and Larry Tobin, recipients of the Kehillat Chaverim 10^th Anniversary Maimonides Awards for Excellence in Teaching

Let’s begin our D’var Torah today since we all want to end on time of our High Tea, which I named our British Yiddish Kiddush. I have attended synagogue in London at the New London Synagogue on the famous, Abbey Road. They have a prayer to the King, as we have a prayer to our country so for today I will include G-d Bless King Charles III.

Today’s Torah reading Tzav continues the Torah’s instructions regarding korbanos (altar offerings). Where Parashat Vayikra focused on the altar aspect of the offerings, Parashat Tzav concentrates on the human aspect: which parts of each offering are given to the kohen, which parts of each offering are eaten by the bringer of the offering and his family and guests, and which offerings are not eaten at all.

Instructions are provided clearly and decisively. They are teachings to be followed. We, too, have teachings quite often as we attend our services at our Kehillah. We have members who clearly and decisively select scholarly courses of study for us covering different topics than our weekly dvar Torah. Aren’t we fortunate to have such a learned group of our teachers volunteering to give us such a fine selection of courses on an ongoing basis? When the Kehillat Chaverim 10^th Anniversary Challenge was announced, Fred asked what the award was. I said it was to do a mitzvah, which is true. Today as we approach our 10^th anniversary it is time to give awards to our teachers, who didn’t wait for the challenge. Each individually stepped up to offer an array of classes for us. They have tirelessly put together classes for us on different topics in Jewish history and studies, spending time preparing and customizing each class just for us. They also are great resources who answer our questions and provide additional information from their scholarly studies during our services. Everyone in the Kehillat does their part, but these individuals also bring their Jewish scholarship and are such a benefit to our Kehillah community and our services.

First let’s learn about Michele, our only current member who is a rabbi.

Education: BA in Philosophy (UCLA), MA in Education & MA in Hebrew Letters from the University of Judaism in LA, Ordination from JTSA in NYC. 

Work Experience: Chaplaincy at NYU Medical Center, Education Director at SAJ in NYC, Judaic Studies Director at Gesher JDS in NoVA, Education Director at Cong. Shearith Israel in Dallas, TX.

Classes Michele taught for KC: 

What’s God Got to Do With It? How and Why Halacha (Jewish Law) Developed.

The History of the 4 Jewish Movements

Kedoshim: Jewish Concepts of Holiness

High Holiday Class: Giving Forgiveness in Jewish Tradition

Pre-Passover Workshop: Hidden Messages of the Haggadah

Why did Michele  become a rabbi? Originally her plan was to obtain an MA in Jewish education. She decided to study for rabbinic ordination when she realized that her professional ambitions in Jewish education demanded learning and skills that an MA in Jewish Education couldn’t give her. In order to achieve her goal properly and well, she decided she needed a program of study that would enable her to become a deeply educated Jew as well as a spiritual leader. Her ultimate goal in becoming a Jewish educator was to change the Jewish educational paradigm so as to make elementary and teen Jewish learning experiences more engaging, challenging, spiritual, creative, & enriching because she believed that doing so would enable students to achieve much higher levels of understanding and proficiency in core Jewish subjects such as Hebrew, Tefillah, Torah, and Jewish rituals. At that point in time, the University of Judaism in L.A. (now the American Hebrew University) was offering a dual curriculum program which allowed students to work on an MA in education simultaneously with their first two years of rabbinical school – after which they would finish ordination studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in NYC. This program seemed ideal for Michele’s purpose, so she ended up becoming a rabbi in addition to a Jewish educator. Although American society tends to view the title “Rabbi” as superior to that of “Jewish Educator,” Michele believes that Jewish education has always been the heart and soul of Jewish life. Without a good Jewish education as its foundation, one’s Jewish identity can easily become a kind of perceived ethnic superiority – the very antithesis of the central Jewish belief that all of humankind was created in God’s image.

Next let’s learn about Fred.

Frederick Nathan, born in Brooklyn, N.Y., attended Jewish day elementary

and high schools. Received a B.A. from Yeshiva College and B.H.L. (Bachelors of

Hebrew Literature) from Teachers’ Institute of Yeshiva University. Spent half his

junior year in Israel at Hayim Greenberg Institute for Teachers in the Diaspora

where he met his wife Esther. Awarded a fellowship to NYU graduating with a M.A.

in Education. Awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Jewish Theological

Seminary in 2008.

Fred started teaching religious school at age 18 and at age 23 assumed his first

position as principal. He spent the next 46 years as head of Jewish Day Schools in a

number of communities in America, retiring at age 69 from his last position as head

of School at Ann and Nate Levine Academy in Dallas, TX.

He is married to Esther and the father of three and grandfather of six.

Fred integrated story telling in his lessons and began writing following his

retirement. He has published two fictional novels and is presently completing two

short stories based on Jewish history. He is a history buff and news junkie.

Now let’s learn about Larry Tobin

Larry received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in math from Purdue University. Larry then went on for a Juris Doctorate in law at Southwestern School of Law in Los Angeles.  Larry attended high school at the Skokie Yeshiva and Chicago Jewish Academy. Larry taught Sunday School for 3 years at two different synagogues and he taught  junior high and high school math and science for 8 years (4 years in public schools and 4 years in Jewish Day Schools).  He taught college math for 1 year at a Community College. When he completed junior high and high school teaching, he worked as an attorney for 26 years. Larry ran his own firm with 13 attorneys and a staff of more than 30 for 20 of those 26 years. He taught various law classes to staff attorneys and claims examiners during his attorney years. He also prepared a workers’ compensation manual for an insurance company teaching the subject nationally to its attorneys and claims examiners when he worked as an attorney for the insurance company

Isn’t it nice to learn more about our teachers? Today we express our appreciation for their contribution to our community. Their work is not done, of course, as we get ready to embark on our second decade. Let’s move on to the award ceremony, since we all want kiddush on time today.

I asked Michele for a copy of the KC logo. She asked what it was for and said its use should stay within the Kehillah. Well today she will learn what I did with it and, of course, we are within the Kehillah. I’d like to ask Joel Roffman, President of the Kehillat Chaverim, to present our teachers with their awards.

Joel Roffman then presented Rabbi Michele Sullum with the Kehillat Chaverim 10^th Anniversary Golda Meir Award for Excellence in Teaching and presented Fred Nathan and Larry Tobin with the Kehillat Chaverim 10^th Anniversary Maimonides Award for Excellence in Teaching.

All of us at the Kehillah thank all of our teachers for their contributions and the work you do to prepare and give us such wonderful educational opportunities.

Let us continue to pray for Peace in the Ukraine. Shabbat Shalom.

Vayikra 5783 – Is it Real?

Over the past several months, the use of the artificial intelligence engine, ChatGPT, has received lots of media attention. I am fascinated with the capabilities and the dangers of this technology.  Would it be possible for these artificial intelligence engines to one day replace what we rely on human intelligence for? During Kiddush lunch a few weeks ago, Joey and Stephen Spiro educated me on how ChatGPT is being used successfully today to write computer code. How will this technology advance to take over other aspects of our daily lives?

As a test, I asked ChatGPT the following, “write a 500 word dvar torah for parasha Vayikra and include relevant information to current times”.  About thirty seconds later I had a d’var for Vayikra. I will read the d’var word-for-word with no edits while I ask you to listen carefully for accuracy and the message delivered.

“Parshat Vayikra is the first portion in the book of Leviticus, and opens with the instructions for the various offerings that were to be brought in the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, in the wilderness. The focus of this portion is on the act of sacrifice and its role in the lives of the Israelites and their relationship with G-d.

In Vayikra, we see the different types of offerings that could be brought as a way of expressing devotion and remorse. The different offerings represented various aspects of a person’s relationship with G-d, including burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, and sin offerings. These offerings were meant to be a physical manifestation of a person’s commitment to G-d, serving as a means of purification and atonement for one’s sins.

One of the key lessons from Vayikra is the importance of intentionality in our actions. The sacrifices offered in the Mishkan were not just about giving an animal to G-d, but about the person giving of themselves and their devotion to G-d. This was a way for the Israelites to show their commitment and to seek forgiveness for their misdeeds. The act of sacrifice was not just a physical act, but a spiritual one, requiring a person to examine their inner self and make a deliberate effort to improve their relationship with G-d.

This message of intentionality is relevant to our lives today, as we too seek to deepen our relationship with G-d. In our modern world, we may not bring physical offerings, but we can still embody the same spirit of sacrifice through our actions and intentions. This means making a conscious effort to live a life that is in line with our beliefs and values, and striving to better ourselves and our relationship with G-d. It also means being willing to forgive others and seeking forgiveness for our own mistakes.

Another important theme from Vayikra is the idea of holiness. In this portion, we see that G-d is described as a “holy G-d”, and the offerings are said to be “most holy”. This concept of holiness was meant to inspire the Israelites to strive for holiness in their own lives. This means living a life that is in line with G-d’s values, and striving to bring out the divine in all aspects of our lives.

In our current times, the idea of holiness is still relevant and important. As we navigate the complexities of our modern world, we can still strive for holiness by living our lives in accordance with G-d’s values and principles. This means being mindful of our actions, striving to bring out the best in ourselves and others, and seeking to live a life that is in line with G-d’s vision for the world.

In conclusion, Parshat Vayikra teaches us about the importance of intentionality, sacrifice, and holiness in our lives. By examining the offerings brought in the Mishkan, we can learn valuable lessons about our own relationship with G-d and how we can deepen that connection. These lessons are as relevant today as they were thousands of years ago, and provide us with a powerful reminder of the importance of living a life that is in line with our beliefs and values. May we all strive to embody these lessons and bring holiness and intentionality into our lives, as we seek to deepen our relationship with G-d.”

So, what did you think?

I recently finished reading the non-fiction book, Homo Deus, written by the Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari in 2015. Amongst the many topics addressed, this book predicts what will happen in the twenty-first century as artificial intelligence becomes a natural part of our lives. This book was written many years before the advances we have seen in the past year in artificial intelligence. He believes it is not if AI will replace humans but when.

There is no doubt that artificial intelligence will replace many of the jobs and tasks only human intelligence was able to perform in the past. There have been many advances in technology and medicine already. But, will AI replace what we have relied on rabbis for? While I do not feel this AI generated d’var is strong enough as is, it certainly is a starting point from which I could make edits to and significantly decrease the time it takes to research and write a d’var. Will AI ever be able to replace the compassion, the wisdom, and the personal experiences that a person and specifically a rabbi provides?  I would never want a halacha based decision or spiritual guidance to be purely based on textual facts.

 I leave you with this thought to ponder on. Just as the Israelites could not imagine worshipping G-d without animal sacrifices following the destruction of the second Temple, we too have difficulty imaging a time when artificial intelligence will replace our rabbis. Change is inevitable, but how much we accept Rabbi Robot is up to us. I hope.

Shabbat Shalom.

After I signed up to give the D’var today, I looked at the narrative in Vayakhel. “Construction of the Tabernacle.” Gather the goats’ hair, the dolphin skins (dolphin skins in the desert? Whatever.), etc. “They made 50 loops on the edge of the outermost cloth . . .” Ideas for a D’var? Not yet. Then I remembered that this was a double parashah, so I went to the P’Kudei. The Tabernacle – Part 2. “They made bells of pure gold and attached the bells between the pomegranates – a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate . . .” Good grief!

The entire narrative of creation took 34 verses. The construction of the tabernacle comprises around 500 verses. Clearly, there was something I was missing. It seems that for G-d to create a home for humankind was much simpler than for humans to create a home for G-d.

I began to get a clue as to what my D’var could focus on when I read that the Book of Genesis is about G-d’s creation of humankind and the Book of Exodus is about the creation of Jews as a people. The narrative that begins with us as slaves now comes to its conclusion with the description of our building a tabernacle as a major joint effort that requires the input of everyone. Families that likely had barely known one another came together in a common purpose. Cooperation and teamwork are definitely not traits of slaves, but rather of free people.

Remember that the Israelites were divided into 12 tribes or clans. Moses faced a problem not totally unlike many cultures face today – that of a multi-ethnic society in which factors that divide are sometimes more pronounced than factors that unify. And further, these people – the Israelites – love to squawk. (Things haven’t changed much!) Even soon after Revelation, they complained about the lack of food, water, a nice cool shower – everything! They’re cranks! But even cranks can be inspired.

Before this activity of tabernacle-building, we see G-d acting on behalf of the people – freeing them from bondage, dividing the sea, and entrapping the Egyptians. Now, it was time for the Israelites to do things for themselves. And note that during this entire construction period – a significant portion of the Book of Exodus – there was no squawking. This is behavior we haven’t seen before. It is almost as though the Israelites had been transformed. A nation has been created out of a sense of shared responsibility. And that shared responsibility transcended perceived differences between clans and families.

The Torah is thus not only a book about individual responsibility and a code of ethics. It is a book about how we construct a society – a small one, like ours here in the Kehillah, or a much larger one, like our community and indeed, our country.

We read a few weeks ago in Teruma, that G-d told Moses to have the Israelites build a tabernacle so that G-d might dwell among them. But the ultimate meaning of the tabernacle isn’t that G-d lives there. Did G-d really “need” a place so that G-d might dwell among G-d’s people? Most of us don’t really believe that.

No – the meaning of the tabernacle is that G-d is present wherever we subordinate our will to G-d’s will. Numerous times in the tabernacle’s construction, we read, “As the Lord had commanded Moses.” The tabernacle symbolized the place where G-d’s will was obeyed – where it reigned supreme. The tabernacle is where what we read in the Torah and are commanded to do, how to live, how to treat our fellow humans, is first learned, and given the opportunity to come to life. In following G-d’s commands and building the tabernacle, and in subordinating our perhaps natural inclinations and our will to the will of G-d, we become G-d’s partners in creation and in the unfolding history of humankind.

By constructing a tabernacle in the most exacting way, we have, in effect, also built a space in our hearts and in our minds; a space for G-d. In its construction, the Israelites were changed. Literally and figuratively, the people needed to first build the space that would enable G-d to fill it.

Judaism’s teachings are the ways we can begin to heal wounds brought about by humans, and the only way to create a world worthy of G-d’s presence. I like that, and I like the imagery of Gd’s presence in our kehillah.

Note that the Torah doesn’t say, “Have them build a tabernacle so that I can dwell there.” It says, “Have them build a tabernacle so that I may dwell among them. We’re here today – we come to shul today – not so that we can visit Gd. We’re here so that G-d can visit us.

Ki Tisa- Cracks of Light                                          Michael Carr               03/11/2023

It’s been said that we don’t see things as ‘they are’; we see things as ‘we are’ because we see reality through our emotional history.

Each of us experiences emotional sensory situations differently when we read, listen, or taste. These sensations may evoke pleasure, pain, distaste- well you get the idea. Yet it is what was seen at Mt Sinai, according to author Sarah Gershman, often that has the greatest impact upon our emotions as described in Parsha Ki Tisa.

40 days beyond the Israelites exodus from Egypt and that storm cloud on Sinai where G-d speaks to Moses and the Israelites, Moses meets up with G-d. The people eventually grew restless and impatient in the desert following their adventurous entrance to freedom. They were filled with uncertainty about their future and did not know if Moses would return from his meeting. He had already been up there for days, and it is said he was running late by about a day.

Sure there was this G-d that freed them from hard labor and unhealthy conditions they experienced over centuries. There was really no one telling them what to do now. They had time on their hands. No one had told them what structures to build and how/where and when to build them. Nor what crops required harvesting or planting. They were unsettled with very little direction in their lives.

But who was this ‘G-d of freedom’? They believed their Egyptian G-ds and idols provided comfort, guidance and safety. As slaves, their beliefs shaped the world that they saw. Now, through their new life reality, it seemed their lives lacked clarity and direction. They were learning to believe in a completely new life and new world.

Would this G-d do the same? This G-d did get them out from under Egyptian rule. And where was Moses? What the heck was he doing up on the mountain with this G-d and why was he late in returning?

Lots of uncertainty and waiting around for the ‘next move’. After all, Moses had not shown up when he said he would (not that there were any sophisticated time pieces other than the sun, moon and stars).

Perhaps like a baby or young child, the Israelites had ‘separation anxiety’. Yep – separation from Egypt, separation from Moses and maybe also, separation from this ‘G-d of freedom’.

In-spite of G-d’s commandment to have no other G-ds, and no sculptured likenesses or images, infidelity and yes the pull of idolatry get’s the better of them but again, supposedly not as a replacement for G-d, as Gershman explains. The replacement is a ‘place-holder’ for Moses.

Absent anxiety meds, a good novel, binge watching a Hulu series or exploring social media feeds, Aaron (talk about forgiveness – remember he’s destined to be the future high priest – Cohen Gadol) gets pulled into melting everyone’s gold earrings and creating a golden calf for the people.

The recently freed Israelites had been missing a reference point and certainly missing what had been familiar for 400 years. They demonstrated no restraint.  Once again, they saw a symbol and were able to find joy in a golden calf that in their minds provided soothing comfort – like alcohol for an alcoholic or drugs for the addicted.  What was their purpose?

As Yogi Berra would say, ‘it’s deja vu all over again’, that is for G-d. He obviously sees what’s happening below in Sinai, becomes furious and tells Moses it’s time to start all over again – ala Noah and his Ark.

Of course Moses is not yet able to see what G-d has already taken in. He pleads with G-d to help G-d understand that decimating the Israelites and ‘starting over’ is not the answer to getting things straightened out and perhaps getting a written solution for this mistake is the better direction.

Moses with divine tablets in hand crafted by G-d heads back down. Except of course sees the atrocity of the golden calf and the joy of the Israelites on his way down. Moses smashes the tablets (that is—the covenant between G-d and the Jewish people) to the ground.

So G-d invites Moses back up and commands him to carve new tablets for the Jewish people with the same words that were on the first set. That is the words of G-d that Moses inscribes.  To me this symbolizes Moses repairing the relationship (the covenant) between G-d and the Jewish people after one of the most egregious mistakes the Jewish people could make early on following their flight to freedom.

It is written that the broken tablets are not discarded and instead are carried by the Israelites through the period of 40 years of desert wandering.  Broken-ness is normal—nothing to shy away from or hide from. It’s part of our life story; it’s what makes us who we are.  The expectation was not and still is not perfection.

We can strive for improvement and aspire to be better human beings. Improve our relationships with each other, the world and G-d.  This message is captured in Leonard Cohen’s song Anthem: 

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in….”

Shabbat Shalom!

Today’s Parsha is Tetzaveh. Tetzaveh means commanded. I could talk to you about how G-d commanded Moses to have the B’nai Yisroel bring pure olive oil to keep the everlasting flame of the Menorah burning in the Mishkan. I could talk to you about the clothing that the Kohanim wore. Almost half of the Parsha is dedicated to this topic. All very interesting. But isn’t there some lesson we can learn from this Parsha?

You know I wouldn’t have raised this possibility if no lesson could be learned. Let’s work together to try to figure this out. But first a few questions for you out in audience land, or perhaps never neverland ( I hope you’re interested in my D’var and are listening).

Question #1: Who was supposed to be appointed Kohen Gadol (High Priest)? If you answered Aaron, give yourself half credit, since he is the one actually appointed. But Aaron is not the correct answer to this question.

Question #2: What is the biggest sin committed by the B’nai Yisroel in the wilderness? There are many half credit answers since many sins were committed. But only one sin gets full credit.

Question #3: What did Moses pray to G-d after the B’nai Yisroel committed the terrible sin referenced in question 2 above? If you answered that Moses asked G-d to forgive the B’nai Yisroel, give yourself half credit. But this is not the full credit answer.

When we correctly answer these three questions, we will be on the right path to solving the mystery of what lesson can be gleaned from the Parsha.  So, let’s continue by providing the fully correct answers.

Although Aaron was appointed High Priest, Moses was actually G-d’s choice for that position. Only at the urging of Moses to give Aaron this honor was Aaron appointed.

The mega sin committed by the B’nai Yisroel in the wilderness was the Golden Calf. It is believed that this sin so angered G-d that He was prepared to destroy the B’nai Yisroel.

At the pleading of Moses, G-d spared the B’nai Yisroel from total doomsday destruction. Moses begged G-d to spare them, but also stated that if G-d chose not to forgive them Moses wanted his name removed from the Five Books of Moses.

Well, how do these answers teach us an important lesson? If you carefully examine this Parsha you will find that Moses name never appears in the Parsha. Was this G-d’s way of punishing Moses for challenging G-d about forgiveness? Was the lesson to be learned: Be careful what you ask for because it may come to pass? Nope!

Moses wanted to put his brother Aaron in the limelight by handing over the High Priest position to him. What better way to follow through with Moses’ wish while following through with name eradication than to eliminate his name in this Parsha. Aaron as High Priest could now be the center of attention in the Parsha. We learn about his dress, some of his duties, etc.

What lesson is conveyed by this Parsha? Humility!  Only through the humility of Moses did the Parsha become dedicated to Aaron and the priesthood.

Good Shabbos and stay humble.

The first 2 verses of Parashat Terumah read: G-d spoke to Moses, saying:  Tell the Israelite people to bring me gifts; you shall accept gifts for me from every person whose heart is so moved.

By asking for donations, Tzidaka, G-d invites everyone in the community–rich and poor, old and young, wise and innocent–to participate in building the meeting place where the Israelites would gather to encounter G-d. By asking for donations of the heart, G-d makes it clear that all donations–whatever their size or monetary value–are to be valued as equally precious because they come from the heart–and that makes them more valuable than anything money could buy.

These first 2 verses are similar to the way Kehillat Chaverim Shabbat services work. Everyone is invited to participate in whatever way their hearts move them and every kind of participation is a precious gift to the community. It doesn’t matter if we read Torah, provide the location for us to meet, lead a service, open the ark, give a dvar, set up tables, or arrive on time to make the minyan, we are all giving our community a gift by being here.

The gift I have brought to the Kehillah today is the story of a precious memory I received from my Mum, Father, brother, our house, neighborhood, and also from Benjamin Netanyahu. This week my heart moved me to share this memory with the community as a gift of sorts.

Fast Facts: In the 1970’s the Israel Government sent Benjamin Netanyahu under the name of Ben Nitay to the US to get his undergraduate and Master’s Degree at MIT. Part of his agreement was to be available to speak to the community.  He completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture and management at MIT.

Who knows Fred’s wife’s first and last name, please say it. (Her name is Esther Nathan). My parents were named Esther and Nathan. My parent lived to 120. Our address was 120 Woodchester Dr., Chestnut Hill, Newton. At the time the street was 100% Jewish, referred to as the guilded ghetto. Of course walking distance to the conservative shul, my father would not buy a house that wasn’t.  My Mother was a Zionist and also the American and Zionist Affairs chairperson in Boston Hadassah for many years.  At the time Hadassah was more about education of Israel and less about being social and other issues like it is now. It has always been strong on fundraising for the Hadassah Medical Center and Youth Aliyah, which was a favorite project of my Mum. She would speak, be interviewed on the radio, and arrange for speakers. My parents went on an Israel Bonds Leadership tour to Israel in 1973 and met with David Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, among other leaders

Continuing with fast/fun facts:  My father put himself through Harvard and Harvard Law with partial scholarship and working as a tutor for Harvard student who spent the semester on yachts at Newport. Perhaps the tutoring business led Harvard to later institute an attendance requirement. He said he would tutor students differently if they wanted an A or a B or a C.

My cousin Michael went to Tufts Medical School and became a doctor. My brother Robert, had learning difficulty, but was able to pass the real estate broker test on the first try.

In 1976 while working on his Master’s Degree at MIT, my mother called Ben Nitay, a name on the Hadassah speaker’s list and arranged for Ben to come to our home one evening to speak at a Hadassah meeting. My Mum invited the young student for dinner at our home before the meeting. He took public transportation to Newton from Cambridge and my Mum picked him up. I was not there, I already graduated college, moved to LA, working by day, disco dancing by night. My brother, father and Mum had dinner with Ben followed by a Hadassah meeting at our home where Ben spoke. My mother did not like his politics, and it was a memorable evening.  Then in June 1976 Ben was on his way to get a doctorate in political science when his older brother Yonatan died in a commando raid that freed passengers on a hijacked plane in Entebbe, Uganda and Ben returned to Israel.  It also marked the beginning of his career in politics, mere weeks after dining at our home with the family.  Netanyahu was the son of a Cornell professor and spent a good part of his early life in the US.

I wrote a midrash, as any midrash it is based on facts and is plausible, but may or may not have happened. There is a midrash about Moses and the 10 commandments with a comic twist. G-d asked different people in the day, will you take my commandment and G-d was asked what is included and G-d replied thou shalt not kill, they said no we make our living by killing. G-d asked another people will you take my commandment and was asked what was included and G-d said though shalt not steal and their reply was no we make a living from stealing. Then G-d asked Moses will you take my commandment and Moses asked how much? G-d replied they are free and Moses replied well then, we will take 10.  Is this true? Perhaps it is or perhaps not.

My midrash. My mother introduced Ben to my father, saying Ben, this is my husband Nathan, a Harvard lawyer. Nathan, the Israel Government sent Ben to MIT to get his Master’s Degree. My father, this will reveal things about him and also the great rivalry between Harvard and MIT, which my father always referred to as Tech, said upon meeting Ben, if my nephew Michael could go to Tufts and become a doctor, if my son Robert could pass the real estate broker’s exam on the first try, Oh, well. So the Israel government sent you to Tech to get your Master’s degree, well then you could be the Prime Minister of Israel and the rest is history. Is this a true midrash? We don’t know but it may be. However, the only living person we can ask, if he remembers, is busy answering questions of a very different nature in Israel.

This year our community of Kehillat Chaverim will be 10 years old. So, it seems appropriate to celebrate by bringing gifts–not material gifts, but gifts of ways we can contribute and enrich our services.

Is there some new thing in shul you’ve thought you might like to do one day? Why not try it this year? Thereby you will participate in our Kehillat Chaverim 10^th Anniversary Challenge.  What are the donations you will give us, not of money, but of participation in our services that need you. I challenge you to do it. I plan to relearn the Torah trope, stay tuned to see if you can tell of my efforts to do so.

Yet again my dvar takes us back to the 1970s. This will be the final visit to the 1970s in my dvars, not that I have no more 1970s stories, but there are no more 1970s stories of mine suitable to be told in shul. Please rise and turn to p. 488 and we will sign Hatikvah. Shabbat shalom, Peace in Israel. Peace in the Ukraine. (holding up peace sign), Peace Out.