Parashat Ki Tetze (Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19)

Reflections on the Jewish Calendar - Rabbi Andy Vogel

As of this week, we are in the month of Elul, the somber but joyful 30-day month of reflection and meditation that precedes Rosh Hashanah and the Ten Days of Awe. It is a time of soul-searching, cataloging our strengths and weaknesses as well as our misdeeds during the previous year, and re-orienting ourselves toward the way of life we want to live. Traditionally, to set the tone for the High Holy Days, the shofar is blown every morning in the month of Elul.

In an ancient midrash, Rabbi Joshua ben Korcha taught that it was this 40 day period (30 days of Elul, plus 10 days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur) that Moses ascended to the heavens a second time to get the second set of tablets, after the Jewish people had abandoned God for the Golden Calf (see Midrash Pirke D'Rabbi Eliezer #46). On the first day of the month of Elul, God said to Moses: "Now, come up to Me on the mountain," and the shofar was blown. The implications are beautiful for us today living in our own month of Elul: God welcomes us back, even after the mistakes we have made, and, as the shofar is blown, we have renewed access to God's gifts of love to us (symbolized by the Torah). If we engage in teshuvah, repentance, God envelops us in love and forgiveness, as if we were ascending a mountain to be close to God.

- Rabbi Andy Vogel

Friday, July 25, 2014

A Shabbat message from Rabbi Andy Vogel

Parashat Mas'ei

This has been an extremely difficult week for Jews around the world. The violence between Israel and Palestinians has been terrible this week, and the headlines and stories that have unfolded have been deeply painful: the tremendous loss of life on both sides; the deaths of Israeli soldiers this week; the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians; the inability and refusal by Israel and Hamas to achieve a cease-fire; the eruption of angry anti-Semitic and anti-Israel demonstrations across Europe; the continuing rocket fire sent into Israel by Hamas terrorizing Israelis; the devastating incursion by Israeli ground forces into Gaza. The cycle of violence and killing goes on and on. And the confusion that some of us feel with the whirlwind of emotions that accompanies this dizzying list of events is profound.

As we enter Shabbat, how can we respond? It could be easy to let despair overwhelm us, or to disengage emotionally. But I don't think that is the Jewish way. For one thing, I feel in my heart that as Jews we are inextricably linked to Israel and to Jews around the world, and so we are part of the story, just as it is part of us. Even more, however, is my feeling that if we experience pain at the unfolding of events this week and this month, we should not walk away from brush that pain aside, but we should allow ourselves to experience it so that it can instruct us.

This week's Torah portion, Mas'ei (Numbers 33-36) includes a list of all the places where the Jews journeyed in the desert in previous years where various calamities occurred to us in earlier chapters of the Torah. Rather than forget those places or episodes, we recite them once again, to re-live our painful experiences, so we can learn from that pain. As this Shabbat arrives, I suggest that that be our starting point. If this Shabbat cannot promise us peace, the cessation of anger, the end of hatred, anxiety or violence, perhaps it can offer us the opportunity to just feel our pain at the place where we stand today - to feel the pain of Israelis, and the pain of the Palestinians as well. I deeply hope and pray that Israelis and Palestinians will choose to extricate ourselves from the worsening cycles of violence and retribution, and I pray that the Jewish age-old dream to be a people at peace will come to pass. As we enter a Shabbat acknowledging that we are far from that dream, we also accept that our pain can be our teacher, if we let it. Perhaps we can learn from it that we do not have to repeat the past, and that the future can be better.

I wish you a Shabbat shalom, as I pray for a peace that we all very much need. May the people of Israel find the blessing of peace.

- Rabbi Andy Vogel

ALSO: Please join us on Tuesday evening, August 5, at 7:30 p.m. (the conclusion of Tisha B'Av) for an opportunity for a directed, thoughtful Temple Sinai community discussion about the events in Israel and Gaza, in which respectful dialogue and careful listening and learning will be primary values.

My Fast for Choosing Life

Dear Israel Committee of Temple Sinai:

Today, July 15, I am observing a daytime fast, and participating a special joint Jewish-Muslim fast against violence. Today happens to be the 17th of Tammuz, a minor fast day in the Jewish tradition on the day when, in the year 70 CE, the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem. (It is not a fast I usually observe in other years.) It is also a day during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting. A group of Israelis and Palestinians organized today as “Bokhrim B’Chayim / Choose Life,” a day of a joint fast, a day of accounting and “collective reflection, for all who feel affected by the recent fighting between Israel and the Palestinians. We hope to come together to pray for peace, an end to fighting and bloodshed and a hope that reconciliation can soon be reached between both sides.” (You can read about the organizing of “Choose Life” in this article from the Times of Israel, http://www.timesofisrael.com/aided-by-calendar-jews-and-arabs-unite-in-joint-fast/) To mark the occasion, there are events occurring in Israel, the West Bank, and around the U.S., and in addition, hundreds of Jews (who might otherwise not have fasted) have chosen to take on the observance the fast.

It is my prayer, as the missiles continue to be aimed at Israel, and as the bombing continues in Gaza, that a cease fire will be reached soon, and that a period of peace will eventually arrive for Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Muslims and Christians. There has been so much pain in the last few weeks, an eruption of hatred and violence against one another, that our peoples need healing and the opportunity for mutual recognition of each other’s humanity. Perhaps by sharing some of that pain today, in a joint fast, we can share the experience of each other as human beings again. This is the purpose of my fasting today.

- Rabbi Andy Vogel

D'var Torah for Shabbat Mattot (Numbers 30:2 – 32:42)

Week of July 18, 2014

The Torah, and the Fury of War

It is no coincidence that our Torah portion, Mattot, deals with the very issues pressing on the minds of Jews around the world this week. Just as last week’s portion, Pinchas, addressed issues of extremism and violence, of zealotry and extrajudicial punishment, very much in last week’s news headlines, so, too, does Mattot speak to us about unleashing war and fury, which weigh on our minds this week. This should be no surprise. Words of Torah come to provide us with a mirror in which to peer and see ourselves and our lives reflected. The Torah portion arises in this very moment to speak to us where we are in our lives, just as it always does.

In Mattot, Moses is commanded by God to engage in war of revenge against the Midianites, the nation that seduced the Israelites into committing idolatry a few portions ago. The Israelites call up their troops, a thousand from each tribe, sound the shofar and take to the battlefield, and proceed to slay every male, including the five kings of Midian. But the Israelites spare the women and children, and present them to Moses. Moses becomes enraged that they have not killed out the women as well. Moses becomes angry they have done so, and in his anger, commands the troops to put all the Midianite women to the sword, because earlier they were responsible for the lascivious idolatry of the Israelites, and commands that all the male children, too, be slain. Surprisingly, the next command to the Israelites is uttered not by Moses, but by Elazar the Kohen.

Without offering any further comment, the Torah seems to approve of these acts of warfare and revenge, the killing of the Midianite women and their innocent children, the anger of Moses. And yet, despite this narrative, the Rabbis of Jewish tradition offered their own internal protest against the portion’s events. In a few, select fascinating statements, the Rabbis who shaped Judaism read this portion and voiced their opinions about its events. Frequently, to be sure, the ancient Rabbis accepted the events of this war and bloodshed as necessary. But in other comments, some of the ancient Rabbis also voiced their discomfort with aspects of Moses’ and the Israelites’ behavior.

In Midrash Numbers Rabbah 22:4, the Rabbis imagine Moses’ internal struggle with God’s command to exact revenge. They write: “When the Holy One had told Moses, ‘Seek vengeance,’ God used the singular form of the verb (n’kom), meaning, ‘You yourself shall do it.’ But Moses sent others [by recruiting troops, and not going to war himself]! Moses thought: It is not right for me to cause distress to a people who have been good to me! As the proverb puts it: ‘Do not cast a stone into the cistern from which you drank.’”

This passage demonstrates the Rabbis’ discomfort with this war. Didn’t Moses experience compassion and shelter in Midian, and weren’t Moses’ wife and beloved father-in-law Jethro both Midianites? The Rabbis depict Moses as remembering his personal experiences with them, and as remembering that elements within the Midian people are capable of goodness and compassion. Indeed, they have been his very family members. Moses sees the basic humanity of those against whom he is commanded to engage in war. He is moved by this realization, moved to examine his personal responsibility regarding the war. This is an alternative perspective on violence, and it is our ancient Rabbis who give expression it.

We turn our attention to the wholesale slaying of the Midianite women and children, an act which in modern times, too, has drawn the criticism of many readers. Another ancient Talmudic midrash also shows the Rabbis’ own deep protest against the slaying the women. In tractate Pesachim 66b, Resh Lakish (Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, 3rd century rabbi) said: Any person who becomes angry, his wisdom will depart from him, and his prophecy will depart from him. For example, see Moses; as it is said: “Moses became angry with the commanders of the army” (Numbers 31:14). Moses then commanded the slaying of women and children. The Torah reports that it was Elazar the Kohen, not Moses, who issued the very next commandment. From this we learn, says Resh Lakish, that God’s word was unavailable to Moses, that it was hidden from him, because of his anger.

The Talmud’s conclusion is deeply instructive. At the very moment when Moses instructed his commanders to kill the Midianite women and children, his access to God’s wisdom and prophecy had fled from him. Here the Rabbis present an alternate view to the Torah’s narrative; they do not approve of indiscriminate killing of civilians, even in wartime. Though they do not go so far as to call Moses’ act a violation of human rights, we can read in their judgment of Moses a protest against unleashing fury on innocent people.

Repeatedly, our ancient Rabbis used their midrashic imaginations to write new layers to the Torah and lay them over its explicit words. On occasion, they even showed their willingness to question the mainstream narrative, to articulate alternative viewpoints, to challenge authority for the sake of justice. Jewish tradition approves of internal debate and sees protest as very healthy. Such debate helps to clarify our values, and ideally, to inform what actions we take as a people. It helps us better achieve justice.

At this week of turmoil, our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Israel, for safety and security. We pray that bloodshed and war will end, and that our people’s leaders will recognize the humanity of innocent people, and be blessed with wisdom to truly bring peace, justice and tranquility for all God’s creatures.