Tag: Bo

Categories
Sermons

Action is the Goal: Engaging More Jews in Jewish Living – Bo 5783

“Actions speak louder than words.”

We think of that in particular surrounding gestures of kindness or generosity. Physically showing up to help a friend in need is often much more valuable and appreciated than verbal expressions of sympathy. 

In Jewish life, actions transmit more than words. Lighting Hanukkah candles; blotting out Haman’s name; cleaning out the hametz; tashlikh; fasting; dancing with the Torah. Yes, all of those things come with a story. And there’s so much more background and history and ideas and textual sources that go along with the story. 

But Jewish life requires action. Our tradition wants us to do something, not just think or talk about it. God wants you to get off the couch, get out into the world, and perform a physical action. And carrying out the actions of Jewish life – Shabbat, kashrut, holiday rituals – is why we are all still here. 

“But rabbi,” you might be thinking, “What about Rabbi Akiva, who said that study is greater than action?” (BT Qiddushin 40b)

I would respond by saying, of course you are correct. Who am I to disagree with Rabbi Akiva? But Rabbi Akiva’s reasoning is that study leads to action. So action is still the ultimate goal. The reason we learn is that study helps us bring meaning to the action, which makes it more valuable, which makes you more likely to do it.

In the opening words of Parashat Bo, from which we chanted this morning, included the following (Exodus / Shemot 10:1):

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר ה֙’ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה בֹּ֖א אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֑ה כִּֽי־אֲנִ֞י הִכְבַּ֤דְתִּי אֶת־לִבּוֹ֙ וְאֶת־לֵ֣ב עֲבָדָ֔יו לְמַ֗עַן שִׁתִ֛י אֹתֹתַ֥י אֵ֖לֶּה בְּקִרְבּֽוֹ׃

God said to Moshe, “Go to Pharaoh. For I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his courtiers, in order that I may display these My signs among them.”

Now, what is most curious about this verse, and in particular the word that identifies the parashah, is בֹּא / Bo. If you’ve learned any spoken Hebrew, you probably know this word: it means, “Come,” as in, “Come over here and check out this very interesting verse.” So when God tells Moshe to בֹּ֖א אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֑ה / Bo el Par’oh, he is saying, “Come to Pharaoh,” where we might expect לֵךְ, “Go to Pharaoh. 

One commentator, R. Yosef Bekhor Shor, who lived in central France in the 12th century, reads this statement as God saying, “Come with me to Pharaoh.” That is, Moshe should understand that he is coming along with God to request freedom for his people; he is not going alone.

When performing any holy action, just like Moshe, it is up to us to see that God wants us to come along. God wants us to recite berakhot over eating; God wants us to refrain from physical labor and dine luxuriously with family and friends on Shabbat; God wants us to recite words of prayer, Shema and Amidah daily; God wants us to light candles and give tzedaqah and shake the lulav and etrog and wash our hands before making motzi and of course wear a tallit and tefillin at appropriate times. 

And when we perform these actions, when we connect our hearts and minds to our hands and feet and mouths in all those moments of holy opportunity, God is coming along with us. 

And, by the way, it does not matter if you fulfill the mitzvah of handwashing before making motzi in the Grand Ballroom of a palatial synagogue or in the humblest of kitchens, you still get all the credit. And God is right there with you no matter what.

Now, something which we might run up against in performing the actions of Jewish life is that some of those mitzvot and customs were historically only reserved for men. In particular, positive, time-bound mitzvot – positive, meaning things that you do (as opposed to refrain from doing) and time-bound, meaning that there is a particular time-frame in which they must be performed – from which women were traditionally exempted, and, one might say, even excluded. Think of tallit and tefillin, or leading the congregation in tefillah / prayer, or reading from the Torah or taking aliyot. 

I know that it is hard to believe, now half a century after the ordination of the first female rabbi by the Reform movement, and approaching forty years since the first Conservative female rabbi was ordained, that this gender differential still plays out. It is hard to believe that in this congregation, where many women lead us in prayer and in teaching. 

But there certainly remains a stubborn gender gap in performing fundamental Jewish actions, not only because many of us in this room grew up in a non-egalitarian world, but also because of the resurgent influence of Orthodoxy. 

And so as part of this vision of increased commitment to action for all Jewish adults who are benei mitzvah, the Religious Services Committee this week decided that we are going to gently begin to try to nudge all of us to take action on these positive, time-bound mitzvot, and in particular to encourage the most outward signs of commitment to our tradition.

Now, we are not ready to force anybody to do something that they do not consider themselves obligated to do. However, please consider the following:

In 1984, Rabbi Joel Roth, one of my halakhah teachers at the Jewish Theological Seminary, wrote a landmark teshuvah / rabbinic responsum which permitted the ordination of women as rabbis, but it mandated that in order for this to happen, women must “self-obligate” to all the positive, time-bound mitzvot from which they have traditionally been excluded.

Thirty years later, however, in 2014, Rabbi Pamela Barmash, who herself was permitted to be ordained due to Rabbi Roth’s teshuvah, wrote her own teshuvah on the subject of women and mitzvot. And Rabbi Barmash said something which, I think, should be broadcast loudly and proudly throughout the Jewish world.

She reasoned that the traditional exemption of women from those positive, time-bound mitzvot was solely due to their historically subordinate status. That is, they were not men, and were not equally obligated to men. And then – this is the best part – she pointed out that (wait for it!) “times have changed.” She concludes with the following statement, which is absolutely revolutionary:

The halakhah has recognized that when social customs change significantly, the new social reality requires a reappraisal of halakhic practices. The historical circumstances in which women were exempted from time-bound positive mitzvot are no longer operative, and the Conservative movement has for almost a century moved toward greater and greater inclusion of women in mitzvot. In Jewish thought and practice, the highest rank and esteem is for those who are required to fulfill mitzvot. We rule therefore that women and men are equally obligated to observe the mitzvot. 

We call upon Conservative synagogues, schools, and camps to educate men and women in equal observance of mitzvot and to expect and require their equal observance of mitzvot.

In other words, says Rabbi Barmash, all adults are invited to and indeed should strive to fulfill all of the mitzvot of Jewish life.

Now, as I have already stated, we are in the stage of encouraging here at Beth Shalom, not requiring. In addition to the new tallitot in the back of the room meant to encourage people who have not taken on this mitzvah, we will also have an upcoming series featuring Rabbi Dr. Rachel Adler to introduce tallit and tefillin to those who are unaccustomed or perhaps anxious about taking the next step. Even sooner than that, the Men’s Club’s World Wide Wrap is two weeks from tomorrow; we will be teaching tefillin (and tallit) here and at JJEP, and of course there will be breakfast. And the Religious Services Committee will continue to discuss how to encourage the performance of these mitzvot during our services moving forward.

Remember that all of this is in service to the goal of getting you all to do something Jewish. Not to be a passive participant, because it is the actions that bring meaning and frame our lives. It is the mitzvot of Jewish life which bring its value to heart. We cannot just talk about it; we have to live it. And God has invited us all to come along.

Rather than “compete” with the empty, material aspects of contemporary life, we have to demonstrate the value of what we do. And we have to do it.

It is through these actions that we are all – every single one of us – fulfilled in a rich and varied way, and it is through the performance of the mitzvot of Jewish life that we will continue to cast light on our generations into the future.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 1/28/2023.)

Categories
Sermons

For All Time – Bo 5782

There is a standard rabbinic story about three rabbis, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox, who, in a spirited attempt at pluralistic cooperation, decide to meet to discuss issues of halakhah / Jewish law. At their first meeting, they find that they all agree that smoking cigarettes is clearly assur / forbidden. It is damaging to your health, and since we are forbidden from causing deliberate damage to our bodies, God has therefore prohibited smoking.

The following week, they arrive at their meeting, and each of them is smoking. They regard each other with curiosity.

The Reform rabbi says, “Halakhah is a system that was intended for an ancient audience, and this particular aspect holds no meaning for me today.”

The Conservative rabbi says, “Halakhah has continued to develop and change throughout our history, and although we are bound by it, that was last week, and this is this week. Times have changed.”

The Orthodox rabbi shrugs nonchalantly, and offers, “I sold my lungs.”

***

A few years ago, when we asked members of Beth Shalom to answer a survey question about potential adult learning topics, the topic that was most frequently suggested was effectively, “What are the principles of Conservative Judaism?” That is something that I do try to include in many of my sermons and classes.

So it seemed to me like a natural opportunity to come up with a Conservative response to a recent back-and-forth on a halakhic issue that appeared in the pages of the Jewish Chronicle. A few weeks back, Rabbi Barbara Aiello, who is originally from Pittsburgh but now serves a congregation in Italy, wrote an opinion piece that suggested that the ancient Jewish calendar, set up during Talmudic times, is an “obstacle” to greater Jewish observance of holidays, and we should therefore set up a “Diaspora calendar” which would fix holiday dates to the Gregorian calendar. For example, Rosh Hashanah would always begin on the third Friday evening of September, and Hanukkah would always be December 21-28.

Not surprisingly, a more traditional, presumably Orthodox Squirrel Hill resident, Reuven Hoch, wrote a response for the Chronicle, in which he calls her suggestion “odd” and “upsetting,” and declares that making changes to suit contemporary patterns of observance is detrimental to Judaism and Jewish life.

The forces of current Western culture — social, political and ideological — that operate against authentic Jewish values and beliefs, can be alluring and overwhelming. These forces must be confronted and met head-on, with a confidence and determination that can only exist in concert with a commitment to a life permeated with traditional Jewish values and allegiance to the Jewish people.

I agree with Mr. Hoch about maintaining the Jewish calendar. To change up the Jewish year according to Rabbi Aiello’s suggestion seems to me such a dramatic break with Jewish tradition that it would sever us from our past in an irreparable way. We have been doing it this way for thousands of years. The Jewish calendar depends on the cycles of the moon; it would make no sense for Rosh Hashanah to be separated from the new moon, and for the Pesaḥ seder not to take place when the moon is full. 

The mosaic floor of the ancient synagogue at Beit Alfa in northern Israel, 5th-6th c. CE. The mosaic depicts the signs of the zodiac with their names in Hebrew, four seasonal quadrants of the year denoted by their Babylonian / Hebrew names, as well as the Greek sun god, Helios.

Where I disagree with Mr. Hoch, however, is in his reasoning. His argument is that trying to accommodate contemporary secular values by forcing Judaism to adapt has failed repeatedly throughout our history.

So, as you might expect from a Conservative rabbi, I am going to propose that the answers to the future of Judaism lie somewhere in between. We are, in fact, called “Conservative” because the original intent of this movement was to conserve Jewish practice, to be conservative in the slight changes that we make as we adapt. That is the intent of the unofficial slogan of the Conservative movement in the last century: “Tradition and Change.”

Because, of course, Judaism and halakhah / Jewish law have always changed and will continue to change. One does not have to dig too deeply into the subjects of kashrut / dietary laws or Shabbat observance to find a rich history of development and disagreement among our sages over centuries and continents. What it says in the Torah (e.g. “Do not boil a calf in its mother’s milk” – Shemot / Exodus 23:19) is interpreted by the rabbis in the Talmud, and then further in medieval codes, and to the point today where we debate whether a pareve dessert cooked in a pan used in the past for dairy may be served following a meat meal. And God forbid you should use the wrong spoon!

Jews have, by necessity, always grappled with how to treat new technologies, new ideas, and new environments. The Jewish calendar itself is an example of an innovation due to changed circumstances. Prior to the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the dispersion of Jews throughout the world, the date of Pesaḥ was determined by specially-trained witnesses who could tell, at the beginning of the month of Adar, whether the wheat would be ready to harvest in time for Pesaḥ and bake matzah, six weeks later. If it would not be ready in time, they would add in an extra month of Adar. When the Jews were no longer living in the land of Israel, there had to be another way to determine that extra Adar. Hence the system of adding seven such extra months over a fixed 19-year cycle, which we continue to this day. This system keeps the lunar year more or less aligned with the solar year, and Pesah therefore always falls in the spring.*

So the issue with change is not that it detaches us from our roots; some change is necessary. But change should come slowly and thoughtfully and even somewhat reluctantly. You are probably aware of the liturgical changes in our siddur to reflect our egalitarian outlook; thank God, no Conservative siddur opens the morning service with “Praised are You, God, who did not make me a woman.” We say instead, “Praised are You, God, who created me in Your image,” acknowledging that every person is created with a spark of the Divine. It’s a subtle change that you have to know to look for, and you would have to be here at 7:30 AM Monday through Friday, or 9:30 on Shabbat to hear it, but it’s quite meaningful nonetheless.

We in the Conservative movement have a body of rabbis, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which meets regularly to discuss issues in halakhah / Jewish law, using principles that date back to Talmudic times. We live within the halakhic system, and it is up to this body to think about change very carefully, not only to ensure that such change is permitted according to traditional sources, but also that its consequences are considered.

In Parashat Bo, from which we read today, there is a passage that resonates through this process. The Exodus narrative takes a brief break for an aside about how to celebrate Pesaḥ, including instructions on preparing and eating the Paschal lamb, along with matzah and maror, bitter herbs. And then the Torah says the following (Shemot / Exodus 12:24-27):

וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֖ם אֶת־הַדָּבָ֣ר הַזֶּ֑ה לְחׇק־לְךָ֥ וּלְבָנֶ֖יךָ עַד־עוֹלָֽם׃ …וְהָיָ֕ה כִּֽי־יֹאמְר֥וּ אֲלֵיכֶ֖ם בְּנֵיכֶ֑ם מָ֛ה הָעֲבֹדָ֥ה הַזֹּ֖את לָכֶֽם׃ וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֡ם זֶֽבַח־פֶּ֨סַח ה֜וּא לַֽיהֹוָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר פָּ֠סַ֠ח עַל־בָּתֵּ֤י בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ בְּמִצְרַ֔יִם בְּנׇגְפּ֥וֹ אֶת־מִצְרַ֖יִם וְאֶת־בָּתֵּ֣ינוּ הִצִּ֑יל 

You shall observe this as an institution for all time, for you and for your descendants… And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’ you shall say, ‘It is the passover sacrifice to the LORD, because He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but saved our houses.’

Ad olam, for all time. We have carried this story, this ritual, this Torah / instruction with us for millennia, and we have retold it in many languages and contexts. And whether we are reading from a manuscript, a printed book, or sharing it over the Internet, the Torah still inspires us to be better people. It is because of these verses that we ask the questions at the Pesaḥ seder, and all the other questions we ask and answer throughout the Jewish year, as we go about teaching our children.

We cannot live in a sealed Jewish bubble; we have to be in multiple worlds. While some quarters of the Jewish world believe that they have shut out secular influences, they are kidding themselves. The Hasidic movement and the other right-wing quarters of Orthodoxy are as much a response to modernity as Reform. The Jewish world continues to reshape itself again and again.

And those of us in the middle, who clearly embrace and live in the contemporary world while upholding Torah and mitzvot, the holy opportunities of Jewish life, the challenge is upon us to prevent Judaism from becoming a secondary pursuit, squeezed in between school, work, soccer practice and bingeing TV series, but rather a constant force in our lives and our world for good.  

It might seem like a good idea to lower certain temporal barriers to Jewish life. But the fact that you have to take time off to observe Yom Tov days is a testament to your commitment to our tradition, and doing so only strengthens our tradition for future generations. Contrary to Rabbi Aiello’s assertions, there is research that shows that the higher the expectations of a religious group, the stronger the adherence of its members.  

Ad olam, for all time.

And when your children ask you, why do you cling to this ancient lunar calendar, or this or that quaint custom that my non-Jewish friends do not do, you should tell them that it is because these rituals not only saved us from slavery in Egypt, but they continue to keep us healthy and safe and strong today, even as we live as citizens of the contemporary world.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 1/8/2022.)

* The Muslim calendar is also lunar, but does not correct for the approximately 11-day difference between 12 lunar months (354 days) and the solar cycle of 365 days. So Ramadan, for example, the month during which Muslims fast every day, precesses, each year falling 11 days earlier according to the Gregorian calendar. It’s much less burdensome when it falls in the winter, when fasting ends at about 5 in the afternoon, than when it falls in the summer.

Categories
Sermons

Building Bridges of Prayer – Bo 5781

The 46th president of the United States, just before he was sworn in on Wednesday, did something remarkable: he prayed. As his predecessor boarded Air Force One to head out of town, Joe Biden went to the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, presumably to daven (pray) the Catholic equivalent of shaharit / the morning service.

As you know, I am a big fan of prayer. I do it every day, and I am convinced that tefillah / prayer is good for you. It is the original Jewish form of mindfulness meditation. Tefillah centers me; in the morning it gets me ready to face the day; in the evening it is a gentle, reflective conclusion, an opportunity to check in with myself. 

I am convinced that if we all did just a little more prayer, if we all took reflective moments more frequently, our world would be a better, kinder, gentler, more united world. And of course that applies to all of us – not just the Jews, of course, or the Christians, but all of us, and even those who do not belong to a particular faith tradition. Prayer, whatever form it takes or whatever you call it, has the potential to bring us all together, to build bridges.

The television coverage that I saw on Wednesday morning did not actually show the president-elect in prayer, just the exterior of the church. Nonetheless, to see this very public, yet also very private moment of prayer brought tears to my eyes.

A little while later, Father Leo O’Donovan, a Catholic priest, gave the invocation before the swearing-in, and he said the following:

There is a power in each and every one of us that lives by turning to every other one of us, a thrust of the spirit to cherish and care and stand by others, and above all those most in need. It is called love, and its path is to give ever more of itself. Today, it is called American patriotism, born not of power and privilege but of care for the common good – “with malice toward none and with charity for all.”

In Father O’Donovan’s words, I hear the yearning to be once again “one nation, under God,” acknowledging the love and faith that should bind us together as a society in pursuit of the common good. 

And so we find ourselves this week in perhaps a more prayerful stance as a nation, and it is absolutely serendipitous that we read from Parashat Bo this morning, including arguably the most essential items in the story of yetzi’at Mitzrayim, the Exodus from Egypt.

One of the key features of the Exodus narrative is that the freedom, the redemption from slavery that Moshe and the Israelites seek includes as a fundamental principle the ability to worship the one true God. By definition, slavery (in Hebrew, עבדות avdut, from the shoresh עבד, to serve), precludes service to God. Integral to that freedom for the Israelites is the license to worship God, the autonomy to be a servant of faith rather than a servant of other people. 

Almost every time, when Moshe approaches Pharaoh to ask for freedom, he says something similar to what we find up front in Parashat Bo, Shemot / Exodus 10:7: שַׁלַּח֙ אֶת־הָ֣אֲנָשִׁ֔ים וְיַֽעַבְד֖וּ ה’ אֱ-לֹהֵיהֶ֑ם Shalah et ha-anashim veya’avdu et Adonai eloheihem. Let the people go to worship the Lord their God! 

Freedom, as the Torah sees it, includes that holy relationship with the Qadosh Barukh Hu.

And so too today: building a better future in our very divided country necessitates God’s presence in our lives, however we understand that presence.

Now, do not go reading this as a screed against atheists, or a repudiation of the separation of church and state. On the contrary: we need a greater sense of shared faith in this country, among the diverse people of this nation, because, as Father O’Donovan suggested, that will, through love, enable us to build a better nation, infused with a unified pursuit of the common good. As servants of God who see the Divine spark in each other, who see our shared humanity, we can and should work together to build bridges, to create a stronger, more resilient society and a healthier democracy. Even those who reject theology outright can, I hope, get on board with seeking the common good through shared love of humanity, of our fellow citizens.

And a key piece of this sense of shared love is interfaith cooperation.

You may know that I grew up in an area with relatively few Jews. Until I went to college, virtually all of my friends and neighbors and classmates were Christian, mainline Protestants and Catholics, and my family was among a handful of Jewish families in my home town. We all knew each other, and I think it is fair to say that, to some extent, we the Jews felt like outsiders. Not that our neighbors treated us badly or as enemies, but there was definitely a mutual awareness of our difference. Sometimes this awareness bred resentment, as, for example, when well-meaning Christian friends failed to understand that we did not celebrate Christmas. It was sometimes hard to see past this, given some of the history of Christian/Jewish relations. There was a time in my life when I would not have wanted to listen to the words of a Catholic priest giving an invocation at an official gathering.

My sense is that things are somewhat different today; the religious landscape in America has changed. Many of us now look at each other across religious divisions as allies. Yes, of course there are issues that divide us. But what we who are partners in faith share is much greater, and much more powerful.

Rabbi Jeremy Markiz and I were at a meeting on Thursday of the Priest-Rabbi dialogue, a discussion between local Catholic and Jewish clergy which meets from time to time to discuss interesting theological issues. At this meeting, we read a statement from 2002 produced by a group of influential North American Christian scholars attempting to reframe the historically fraught relationship between Jews and Christians. Among the principles expressed in this document were, “God’s covenant with the Jewish people endures forever,” and, “Ancient rivalries must not define Christian-Jewish relations today.”

Our discussion broke toward the points of disagreement among Christian theologians and within the Jewish world about some subtleties of our beliefs. But the greater message is well-taken: today we are allies in the struggle against disorder, disunity, and distrust. We are united in facing the challenges of poverty and racism, hunger and homelessness, mental health and addiction and isolation. 

I heard a podcast this week from the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem about Parashat Bo, taught by Pardes teacher Tovah Leah Nachmani, about emunah / faith. She pointed to a commentary by Ramban, aka Nachmanides, who lived in 13th-century Spain. In surveying Parashat Bo, Ramban points to the symbols of emunah found in this parashah: the annual observance of Pesah / Passover that we read this morning, and the wearing of tefillin (Ex. 13:16, the last line in the parashah). Ramban suggests that these symbols (the Hebrew term is ot, sign) of faith are meant to remind us of the role that God plays in our lives. There will not be an Exodus in every generation, says Ramban, but every year when we celebrate Pesah we remember that power. The tefillin that we put on every morning are an ot, a sign of the binding promise that God has made with us to help us live better lives through the framework of mitzvot.

Ms. Nachmani expands on Ramban’s line of thinking to include Shabbat and regular tefillah, such that we have daily, weekly, and annual signs before us: The weekly reminder of Shabbat, also described as an ot (beini uvein benei Yisrael, ot hi le’olam – Ex. 31:17) gives us a taste of the true peace that will someday come if we commit to the common good. 

Faith and freedom are intertwined; we must keep those symbols of faith in front of us; we must use them to remind ourselves to reach out to our neighbors in love. We must also remind ourselves that we have partners, who do not celebrate Pesah or wear tefillin, yet who also have faith; these signs of faith can also lead us to dream about what we can accomplish when we are all praying together.

We remembered this past week the strength of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, what he accomplished, inspired by God and the words of the biblical prophets. Consider that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel had the vision to reach out to and march with Dr. King as a partner in faith, at a time when many of us were not thinking far beyond our own community. 

Our future depends on building bridges of prayer and bridges of emunah / faith. Our Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist friends and neighbors are all interconnected with us; we may differ on how we approach or understand the Divine and the role that the holy relationship plays in our lives, but we mostly agree on the outcome: that we can build a better world through shared prayer, faith, and love.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 1/23/2021.)

Categories
Sermons

Truth-Telling from the USCJ: Love and the Jewish Future – Bo 5778

You may have noticed that I like to talk about the Jewish future, about how our community is changing, about how the institutions of the past (including this one) have to change to account for where the Jews are.

Well, the recent convention of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ), which was in Atlanta at the beginning of December, was extraordinarily gratifying for me, because USCJ is now embracing the future full-throttle. Our delegation from Beth Shalom totaled seven.

Masorti Movement Thriving but Threatened | Atlanta Jewish ...
Yoel Sykes of Nava Tehila at the USCJ 2017 convention in Atlanta

First, a brief word of Torah.

The opening words of Parashat Bo are grammatically curious (Exodus 10:1):

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר ה֙’ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה בֹּ֖א אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֑ה

Vayomer Adonai el Moshe, bo el Par’oh…

Then God said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh…

Ordinarily, when one gives an imperative to somebody to go see a third person, we use the verb “to go.” As in, “Go tell Aunt Rhody, the old grey goose is dead,” or, “Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land / Tell ol’ Pharaoh to let My people go.”

But that’s not what the Torah says. Despite what you’ll find in every single translation, the Hebrew says, “Then God said to Moses, “Come to Pharaoh…” And that doesn’t quite make sense. The text should read, “Lekh el Par’oh.” Go to Pharaoh.

Joseph Bekhor Shor, the 12th-century French commentator, explains the grammatical oddity this way:

בא אל פרעה. לא היה אומר לך כי אם בא ביי”ן בלע’ שמשמע שאני אלך עמך

The text did not say “lekh” (“go”), but rather “bo” (“come,” like the Old French “viens”) because the meaning suggested is that I [God] will go with you…

Bekhor Shor is suggesting that God is reassuring Moshe: “Come with Me,” says God, even though you and I both know that I will harden Pharaoh’s heart even after this next plague, and he will not let the Israelites go.

It’s Moshe’s come-to-Pharaoh moment. The challenges are great; we might fail. But you and me, Moshe, we’re going together.

Hold onto that for a moment; we’ll come back to it in a bit.

The theme of this convention was, “Dare Together.” And I must say that it was, in fact, a daring convention, in that the ideas that are being bandied about today in the movement are very different from what they were historically. I learned a lot of good stuff to bring back to Pittsburgh; it was so good, in fact, that you should really consider coming with us to the next one in Boston in two years.

In addition to all of the practical learning, however, I also gained some new insights from a couple of great teachers of Torah: Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, and Rabbi Brad Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles (where Rabbi Jeremy Markiz, Beth Shalom’s Director of Derekh and Youth Tefillah, was ordained nearly two years ago). They spoke on different days and to different audiences, but their messages dovetailed in a way that, in retrospect, works out very nicely. Kurtzer spoke about today’s challenges and Artson gave us a perspective on how to address them.

Dr. Kurtzer spoke at a session that was limited to rabbis, entitled, “Jewish Identity, Belonging, and Community.” That’s a pretty vague title, but the subject matter was anything but. He began by asking the following questions:

What does it mean to live in a world in which we are fully integrated into wider American society? Who represents Judaism in such a climate?

In asking these questions, he reminded us of the existential crisis that contemporary American Jews face: that in the absence of the ethnic trappings of our parents’ and grandparents’ days, when it was abundantly clear to everybody who was Jewish and who wasn’t, that today’s boundaries are muddy. The question of who is a Jew today is much more complicated. He noted that, in a recent study in the New York area, about 5% of people claiming to be Jewish had no Jewish parents and had not converted. That didn’t happen in the 1950s.

Dr. Kurtzer identified four specific sub-challenges related to the question of who is Jewish and who represents us.

Challenge 1: What happens when self-evident truths disappear in a generation or two?

Jews light candles to welcome Shabbat. They don’t eat pork. They circumcise their baby boys. These used to be fundamental, self-evident truths, accepted without question by our grandparents and most of our parents. Today almost anything can be questioned. This type of change is unprecedented.

Challenge 2: We have a global perspective today that is unlike any time in history.

We are in a particularly ironic moment for Jewish collective living. Prior to the 20th century, Jews had no real sense of connectedness; you were Jewish, and the Jews you knew were all just like you – from the same region. Nothing connected the shtetlakh in Poland to Jews in Baghdad or Provence or Tunis.

Today, most of us live in the US and Israel, and we are more internationally networked than we have ever been. But while the American Jewish community is busy creating all sorts of new paths in Judaism (did you see the JTA’s recent article about a Jewish event in San Francisco called “Trefa Banquet 2.0”?), the State of Israel requires clear boundaries as to who is a Jew. In this climate, how do we continue to define Jewishness around the world?

Challenge 3: The data is moving faster than ever.

We love demographic data. But big demographic studies are almost obsolete the moment that they are published. The pace of change in today’s world is a challenge in that it may not be useful to determining what is next in Jewish life.

Challenge 4: The challenge of halakhah / Jewish law.

In Orthodoxy and in the Conservative movement we still understand halakhah (Jewish law) as being binding on us. But the challenge is that halakhah evolves slowly; that the rate of change in our technologies and the way we live is much faster than the rate at which halakhah is evolving.

Cognizant that he was speaking to a room of Conservative rabbis, Dr. Kurtzer said, “It’s not up to me to tell you how to do your jobs.” But his implicit message is that we have to acknowledge the halakhic challenge and do something about that.

He concluded by saying that although the boundaries are not clear, that although times are rapidly changing, we should not focus our energies on the questions of who belongs and who doesn’t, or is this behavior acceptable or not. Rather we should work harder as a community to draw everybody in closer to the center.

And how might we do this? This brings me to the inspiring words of Rabbi Artson, who spoke to the entire convention at the closing plenary. The guiding principle we must teach, he said, is ahavat hinnam, which he translated as “unearned love.”

Rabbi Artson opened with some truth-telling: “God is King,” he said, does not speak to us today. And most Jews do not really buy the idea of halakhah / Jewish law as law. But everybody understands and can relate to love – the feeling showered upon you by those that brought you into this world, who sacrificed time and money and personal space to make you what you are. “Ahavat hinnam, unmerited love,” he said, “is our first and most profound experience, and our mandate in life.”  Many of us will immediately recognize this metaphor as a way to understand our relationship with God.

Rather than teach religious ritual, law and custom as oppression, a burden to the pious, we have to instead translate Torah into “dignity, glory, and dance.” The Torah has been, at times in Jewish history, wielded as source of guilt.

But nobody wants to feel guilt. So let’s translate Torah as love. “Mitzvot are about radical love,” said Rabbi Artson. “Being in God’s image takes practice. Saying, ‘I love you, but I don’t want to change anything I do,’ is a sure recipe for loneliness. We are the people in the world’s most abiding romance.”

ahavah

“Romance,” he said, “is not just about maintaining the past – it is about change.”

So, when God says to Moshe, “Bo,” “Come with Me,” we might read that as a symbol of the eternal love between us and God, the intoxicating power of that ancient romance. “Come with Me, My love, and we will change the world. We will set you free.”

That’s the message we have to teach. That has to be the message of the Jewish future: Come with Me; be My partner. Yes, there are guidelines. Yes, you may have to change. But I promise you ahavat hinnam, unearned love. it’s worth it. Shabbat shalom.

 

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Shabbat morning, 1/20/2018.)