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Thursday, September 24, 2015

Parashat Ha’azinu 5776 - Imagine

Echoes of Eden
Rabbi Ari Kahn
Parashat Haazinu 5776
Imagine

As we move away from the High Holy Days and return to life as usual, should we be satisfied to return to our status quo ante? Perhaps the experience of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur should not be limited to retrospection and stock-taking of the passing year. Instead, these days of introspection might equally be an opportunity for spiritual transformation. We might use them as a springboard for the year ahead, and come away from the holidays not as we were, but as a “new and improved model” of ourselves.

How can we achieve this? First and foremost, we might look to the Yom Kippur service itself for assistance. In addition, this week’s Torah reading contains a message that we can apply in the days and weeks after the holiday season, a lesson that will enable us to descend from the heights of spirituality achieved during these unique days without sliding back to where we were before.

Parashat Ha’azinu is Moshe’s parting song, and it is read each year during this period of heightened spiritual sensitivity. One particular verse, which has become an integral part of our liturgy, leads Rashi to connect the song of Ha’azinu to the service in the Beit HaMikdash:

When I proclaim God’s Name, praise God for His greatness. (D’varim 32:3)

In his comments on this verse, Rashi cites a Talmudic[1] teaching regarding the appropriate response to the recitation of a blessing. We are all familiar with the normal response to a blessing: “Amen.” This short statement is both an affirmation of the content of the blessing itself and a testament to our shared belief in God. However, in the Beit HaMikdash, the response to a blessing was, “Blessed be His great Name (the Name of Kingship) forever and all time.” This same response is recorded in the Yom Kippur liturgy in which we recount the Kohen Gadol’s service in the Beit HaMikdash: When the Kohen Gadol uttered the ineffable Name of God, all those within earshot would fall on their knees, bow and prostrate themselves, and declare, “Blessed be His great Name (the Name of Kingship) forever and all time.” Even today, this scene is reenacted in many congregations during the Yom Kippur recitation of the Avodat Kohen Gadol, despite the fact that the ineffable Name of God is no longer spoken.

The message we might take with us from this once-a-year experience lies in its uniqueness: In the course of our daily “non-Beit HaMikdash” life, we respond to blessings that include God’s Name by saying “Amen”. At no point in our lives is the ineffable Name of God spoken, nor is it our practice to kneel or prostrate ourselves in prayer. Despite this, we are reminded of what once was, of what should be, and what will be the proper order of things when the Beit HaMikdash is rebuilt; Yom Kippur helps us keep our sights on that other reality by transporting us to a different place and time – a place and time that once was, and will one day be again. On the holiest day of the year, we re-create the Beit HaMikdash experience, and we attempt to insert ourselves into that reality and imagine ourselves among those assembled in the courtyard of the Temple, bowing in awe as the Kohen Gadol declares God’s omnipotence. If we are able to refer back to that experience whenever we hear a blessing, if we are able to make that other reality a part of our inner world, we can take the Yom Kippur experience with us through the rest of the year. Each time we answer “Amen,” we have an opportunity to hear, in our innermost ear, to envision in our mind’s eye, the response to a blessing uttered in the confines of the Beit HaMikdash: “Blessed be His great Name (the Name of Kingship) forever and all time.”

Other elements of the Yom Kippur liturgy pose a similar challenge; most notable among these is the “Aleinu” with which we conclude prayers throughout the year. Coming, as it does, at the end of every service, Aleinu  “don’t get no respect;” more often than not, Aleinu is mumbled in a rush as worshippers hurry out the door of the synagogue. However, on the High Holy Days, Aleinu has a central role in the liturgy. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Aleinu is recited slowly, deliberately, with great concentration and intent, at the very heart of the service. On these Days of Awe, Aleinu takes on an entirely different character: Worshippers bow and kneel as the words of this sublime prayer – which are exactly the same all year round – help them reach new heights of spirituality. Here, then is that same challenge: Can we muster the fervent intensity of the prayers of the High Holy days throughout the year? Can we recall the High Holy Days experience of Aleinu as we repeat this prayer three times daily throughout the year? The awe of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, as our lives hang in the balance, makes all our prayers more fervent, more intense, but spiritual awareness is not something we should reserve for ten days each year. Our challenge is to draw upon the holiness of the High Holy Days all year long. Perhaps our thrice-daily repetition of Aleinu can remind us of that challenge and help us rise to meet it.  

We have the capacity to infuse our lives with holiness. To do so, all we have to do is utilize the greatest gift God gave us: the human imagination. If we use it to picture holiness, we can uplift our everyday lives and achieve new levels of spirituality.

For a more in-depth analysis see:




[1]Ta’anit 16b. 

Echoes of Eden

Parashat Ha’azinu Audio and Essays

Parashat Ha’azinu

New:  Echoes of Eden Project:

(Don’t) Look Back

Listen and Hear: Heaven and Earth

The Straight and Just Path

The Song of Moses




audio
Haazinu



Sunday, September 20, 2015

Yom Kippur 5776 “And though the holes were rather small...”

Echoes of Eden
      Rabbi Ari Kahn
Yom Kippur 5776
“And though the holes were rather small...”

In a daring and optimistic passage, the rabbis describe the Divine assistance[1] received by those who make even the smallest gesture of repentance:

R. Yassa said: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel: My children, make for Me an opening of repentance no bigger than the point of a needle, and I will widen it for you into openings through which wagons and carriages can pass. (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 5:3)
The Gaon of Vilna[2] focused on the odd language of this passage, which seems to be built upon a mixed metaphor: When referring to the eye of a needle, it would be more appropriate to use any of the words that denote a small gap, crack or hole. Instead, the word used is petach (opening), which is most commonly associated with an architectural gap such as a door or window. Alternatively, the contrast might have been drawn between the hole a pin leaves in a garment, rather than the eye of the needle, as compared to the wide gap created when a door is opened. The Gaon learned a very deep and significant lesson regarding repentance from the peculiar wording of this passage:
Sometimes, a small hole is of no significance. For example, when dough is left to rise, one may poke a hole in it that causes the dough to collapse, but the retreat is only temporary; soon enough, the dough will rise even higher than before. On the other hand, if one makes a hole in a garment – the hole is clear and permanent. The Gaon taught, based on this difference, that although God recognizes even the smallest gesture of repentance and responds with great largesse, man’s gesture must be real, and not merely a fleeting, halfhearted gesture that leaves no impression on our own inner world.
The examples used by the Vilna Gaon to illustrate this teaching seem far from haphazard or coincidental. The first image, of dough as it rises, is an image familiar to readers of the Talmud as a metaphor for the evil inclination.[3] As dough becomes leavened, it expands and rises in a manner analogous to the human ego. Like the yeast in the mixture, sin draws all the other ingredients that comprise the human personality into the inflated sense of self-importance and self-sufficiency upon which the evil inclination feeds. Sticking a needle into the evil inclination, like poking a finger into a batch of rising dough, is a futile gesture; it makes a very temporary impression. This, the Gaon teaches us, is not the sort of repentant gesture that will stir God to come to our aid, to meet us along our path to repentance and guide us toward the light. Simply poking at the growing, festering mixture as it expands and rises actually helps the yeast work more effectively; this is not real teshuva.
On the other hand, a hole made in a garment is qualitatively unlike a hole in rising dough; it is permanent, discernable – a proper petach or opening. This second image employed by the Gaon refers to a “beged,” a word rooted in the Hebrew verb begidah, betrayal: The first clothing appeared after Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree and became suddenly aware of their nakedness. The clothing worn to cover their innocence is, therefore, both a consequence of sin and a sign of their rebellion, their betrayal of the trust God had placed in them, and their loss of innocence.
The fight against sin is a difficult battle, and the message the Vilna Gaon hoped to convey in this teaching is that we must be sincere, and make a real and discernable effort to change. Lip service or a bland poke at our own puffed-up egos will not suffice to convince God to come to our aid. Only when we feel the consequences of our own sin upon our shoulders, only when we become aware of how we have clothed ourselves in self-justification and continue to glorify our own rebellion – only when we make a hole in the garments of sin with which we cloak ourselves will we be capable of breaking through and tapping into God’s mercy. In a way, we may compare this hole to the tear a mourner makes in his or her garment, expressing a sense of loss and irreparable damage. And just as the torn garment cannot truly express the grief and pain of losing a loved one, the hole we make in our “clothing of sin” cannot fully express the remorse and shame that is the core of teshuva. Even so, just as the smallest tear is a permanent sign of mourning, so too the smallest hole in our tightly-woven web of ego and self-deception is guaranteed to arouse God’s Mercy. Even a hole the size of a pinhead becomes the starting point for a new relationship with God. Through that small but permanent petach, a world of teshuva is born.

Echoes of Eden





[1] Also see Shabbat 104a.
[2] Liqutei HaGra m’Vilna, Moadim p. 252f.
[3] Talmud Bavli, Brachot 17a.



Thursday, September 17, 2015

Audio and Essays: Parashat Vayelech and Yom Kippur

Audio and Essays Parashat Vayelech and Yom Kippur

Hakahel and Chag Haasif

Essays:
Parashat Vayelech 5776:
The End of the Shmita Year: An Opportunity to Begin Again


Gather the People

All For One and One For All

audio:
Vayelech



Teshuva:
Audio:
“Shuvu Banim”

Going to Azazel


Teshuva the connection between the Individual and the collective


The Disappearance of Truth


The Ten Days of Teshuva


Yom Kippur and Transcendence


The Teshuva of Resh Lakish version 1  -2010

The Teshuva of Resh Lakish -version 2  -2013-


Yom Kippur and Affliction



Lectures in Hebrew: שיעורים בעברית

כל נדרי - תפילה עם 9 נשמות (Kol Nidrie – a prayer with nine lives- Hebrew)


חולה ביום הכיפורים - שיטת ר' חיים

מְעֻוָּת לֹא־יוּכַל לִתְקֹן



התשובה של ריש לקיש






Parashat Vayelech 5776 The End of the Shmita Year: An Opportunity to Begin Again

Echoes of Eden
Rabbi Ari Kahn
Parashat Vayelech 5776
The End of the Shmita Year: An Opportunity to Begin Again

Every week, as Shabbat comes to a close, we mark the departure of the Shabbat Queen with a short havdala ceremony, as one weekly cycle ends and the next begins.
Often, havdala leaves a bittersweet taste in its wake. On the one hand, we are forced to lower the curtain on our much-needed day of rest, and return to the mundane concerns of our daily life.
On the other hand, the day’s end also frees us from the many prohibitions of Shabbat.
Even one of the greatest Jewish philosophers of the modern era, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, admitted that despite its holiness, the limitations to creativity and action that Shabbat observance places upon us can be “annoying.”
In much the same way, as the end of the Jewish year approaches, we are on the cusp of a new annual cycle as well as a new seven-year shmita cycle. As the sun sets on the last day of 5775 and we usher in the new year, we simultaneously take leave of the shmita year, its unique holiness – and its unique restrictions. Although there is no havdala ceremony to mark this transition, we would be well served by putting some thought into the start of a new seven- year cycle.
The desire to live in the Land of Israel is multifaceted. For some of us, it is mainly an outgrowth of our awareness and desire to connect to this land’s history, while for others the excitement of building Israel’s future is the strongest bond.
There are those for whom Israel is a natural expression of our peoplehood, while others are swept up by the holiness of this unique place – holiness which is often associated with the very earth beneath our feet, the ground on which our patriarchs and matriarchs carved out our national ethos, the fields and plains that have served as the bedrock of our national history for millennia.
Jewish law has always addressed this holiness, serving as a tool to heighten our awareness and connection to the land itself. The laws of the sabbatical year are a primary example, but they are much more: By encompassing aspects of spirituality, social justice and socioeconomics, they mirror many other facets of our national existence.
Allowing the land to “take a break” is sound agricultural practice. It is also healthy, both physically and emotionally, for the farmer – although it is far less healthy for the farmer’s bank account.
The laws of shmita seem to compound the difficulty. Not only is it forbidden to work the land in the seventh year, but the land and all its produce become ownerless for the duration of the year. Anyone and everyone, humans and animals, are equally entitled to enjoy what the Land of Israel brings forth.
It is therefore not difficult to understand why the laws of shmita have historically been quite difficult to observe. Farmers and, by extension, the entire economy were faced with a Herculean challenge, as the nation’s finances shifted to “faith based economics.” In a preindustrial society, alternative food sources were scarce, even nonexistent; the prospect of hardship must have been overwhelming, and the required level of faith in God extreme.
And yet, the sanctions and consequences spelled out by the Torah and the prophets are severe: Failure to observe the shmita will result in exile.
No wonder, then, that at the end of the shmita year, not unlike the end of Shabbat, our feelings are mixed. For some, a sigh of relief is in order – not only relief from the prohibitions and limitations on proactive working of the land, not only the rush of adrenaline that Israel’s farmers feel as they are permitted to rekindle their active love affair with the land, but, in recent times, relief from the divisiveness that has come to be associated with shmita observance.
There may be no area of Jewish law marked with as high a level of discord as shmita, whose observance is marred by competing kashrut sensibilities that are often diametrically opposed to one another.
The irony is poignant, since even the most secular modern Israeli is familiar with the famous adage, borrowed from rabbinic commentary to the Torah, “What does shmita have to do with Mount Sinai?” Today, this phrase usually points out that two subjects are completely unrelated, but a cynical reinterpretation of it may aptly describe today’s shmita observance: There is no connection between shmita, the most fractious of all subjects, and Mount Sinai, where the nation stood “as one man, with one heart.”
Perhaps we can draw from another aspect of our weekly experience. As Shabbat wanes, we begin looking ahead to the next Shabbat. For some, these thoughts and musings are of a culinary nature: Which food or wine would we like to have at our next Shabbat table? Others look ahead to the social opportunities, planning who their next guests will be or with whom they would like to spend their next day of rest.
As the shmita year comes to an end, we should be thinking along these same lines: How will the next sabbatical year look? What does shmita mean in a modern, mainly non-agrarian, industrialized society? How can we make shmita more relevant and more significant to our lives in the modern State of Israel? How can we improve the shmita experience and reconnect with its original purpose? Can we find better ways to tap into the social underpinnings of these laws and apply them in a postindustrial economy? How can the benefits and the burdens of shmita observance be shared among all sectors of society? Is there a way to apply debt cancellation, an integral part of shmita observance, in our current financial system, and to allow Judaism’s vision of social justice to help bridge the vast chasm between Israel’s haves and have-nots? These are questions that we should address right now, as we end one shmita cycle and begin again. If we put shmita on the back burner and wait six years to ask these questions, it may be too late to formulate any meaningful response to the challenges and opportunities the sabbatical year holds in store.
As the shmita year draws to a close, we would do well to ponder two diametrically opposed talmudic teachings.
The first is dark and somewhat ominous.
In a discussion of the destruction of both the first and second Jewish commonwealths, the sages note (Ta’anit 29a) that in both cases the destruction took place in the post-shmita year. Apparently the Jewish people had not properly observed shmita; society, unraveled from within by discord and disheartened by a lack of faith, was unable to withstand the external threats it faced.
However, on a more positive note, the Talmud (Megila 17b) records a tradition that, ultimately, redemption will come at the end of the shmita cycle. In a sense, this upbeat teaching is a challenge. Proper observance of shmita creates social justice and unity, and these, without a doubt, are the key to our national and personal redemption.


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This article originally appeared in The Jerusalem Post (Metro & In Jerusalem sections), September 11. 2015. Reproduced with permission.

Echoes of Eden

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Book review of "When God is Near" by Rav Amital

When God is Near
by Rabbi Yehuda Amital
Adapted and Edited by Rabbi Yoel Amital, Translated by Karen Fish
Yeshivat Har Etzion, Maggid Books 2015

Reviewed by Rabbi Ari Kahn

When reading any book written by someone you know (or knew), and most especially books written by one’s own teachers or mentors, we can often hear their voice as we read the printed words, and we are transported back to the classroom or beit midrash. However, reading When God Is Near is more complicated: Rav Yehuda Amital spoke and taught almost exclusively in Hebrew, and in the time I spent at Yeshivat Har Etzion I do not believe I ever heard him speak any other language. Nonetheless, despite the barriers of time, place and translation, while reading this volume of Rav Amital’s sichot (talks), I was able to hear his voice, and not only the teaching voice Rav Amital used when he addressed us in the study hall, but his voice as shaliach tzibbur, leading his beloved Yeshiva in prayer. In a certain sense, the latter may be the more important voice, for Rav Amital was, in the broadest sense of the term, a shaliach tzibbur, and it was this same role, this calling and sense of responsibility, that he strove to pass on to his students and followers.

While Rav Yehuda Amital’s name may be familiar to the English speaking public the world over, I suspect that his torah is not as well known; perhaps this is one of the many unfortunate byproducts of the divide between religious Zionism and its close relative in the diaspora, modern orthodoxy. While these two communities face different challenges, the points of similarity between them make the present work (and others like it) all the more important to the observant English-speaking community outside the Land of Israel. Admittedly, few American Roshei Yeshiva will dedicate a key lecture or lesson to those who are not present in the room, as Rav Amital did regarding talmidim who were absent due to active military service. However, the underlying orientation, the educational message, the challenge presented by Rav Amital’s sichot, should speak to every Rosh Yeshiva, and student: To raise students who serve the larger community and are engaged with the world beyond the parochial confines of the beit midrash.

When God Is Near is comprised of lecture notes and transcriptions of short pre-selichot – Rosh Hashana, and Yom Kippur talks, Rav Amital gave in Yeshivat Har Etzion. Each of these sichot shimmers with the introspection and holiness of the Days of Awe, while at the same time allowing the reader a taste of Rav Amital’s personal torah. As a whole, this book is about responsibility. It is about personal greatness. Its foci are man, God and change. At various junctures, the reader may get the sense that Rav Amital was addressing himself, or perhaps allowing us to share his inner world. Those who were privileged and fortunate enough to have attended a shiur or sicha can still hear his voice speaking through the text; others may simply draw inspiration from the tremendous insight and wisdom each chapter holds. In either case, Rav Amital’s greatness as a teacher is unmistakable: In each sicha he attempts not merely to impart information, but to mold and inspire his students, and to pass on to them his own passion for Torat Yisrael, Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael.

Rav Amital proves to be a sensitive reader of texts, whether the text in question is biblical, rabbinic or liturgical - but that is only the point of departure for many of these sichot. His vivid imagination and ability to paint a picture for his audience are, quite literally, inspiring. Indeed, Rav Amital actually explains the basis for these flights of imaginative fancy (page 171): In The Kuzari, Rabi Yehuda Halevi encourages us to visualize the significant events of Jewish history, including the Revelation at Sinai and Akeidat Yitzchak. Rav Amital rises brilliantly to this challenge, and throughout When God Is Near, he shares with us what he sees: deliberations between biblical characters, scenes that he imagines taking place in heaven, and so much more. Similarly, his insights are often illustrated with scenes from his own past: the Europe of his childhood, or the war years, his experiences as a lone survivor and his participation in the great drama of building a new country in a very old land.

In the chapters that comprise When God Is Near, teshuva (repentance) is transformed from an individual concern into an issue of community responsibility. Unlike those who take great pride in the unprecedented numbers of Jews currently studying Torah, Rav Amital laments the unprecedented number of Jews who are distanced from Torah or who have rejected Torah outright. Despite having been born into a Hasidic Hungarian-Jewish family, Rav Amital fell under the influence of Rav Kook from a very early age; remarkably, Rav Amital managed to acquire and hold on to Rav Kook’s writings throughout his years in Nazi labor camps. Rav Kook’s concept of teshuva as a national goal, and not merely as a personal quest, was a major influence on Rav Amital, who would not allow himself to be satisfied with life ensconced in his Yeshiva when so much disbelief was ravaging the Jewish community just beyond the walls of the beit midrash. In this context, Rav Amital draws upon a daring teaching of the Hasidic master Rav Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin: If a person’s self-identification or identification by others is Jewish, this is sufficient reason to allow their conversion – even if their acceptance of mitzvot is lacking (page 214). The collective Nation of Israel includes all those “to whom the name Israel is applied, ” and the holiness of the Jewish People falls equally on those for whom the sobriquet “Jew” is their only connection to Judaism. Rav Amital stressed that the purifying power of Yom Kippur is available to these Jews as well, even though their knowledge and practice may be limited when compared to that of the Yeshiva student. Rav Amital’s message is clear: The privileged and entitled Yeshiva student should feel a deep sense of responsibility for the larger community, and never feel superior to other Jews simply because circumstances provided him with better Jewish education. Our introspection on Yom Kippur, then, must encompass the collective, with all its disparate elements, and we must pause and consider whether or not we have met our responsibility to the Nation of Israel. Additionally, we are called upon to take stock of our behavior as citizens of the even-larger collective: As human beings, we must take responsibility for the world in which we live, and universal concerns such as the eroding ozone layer and pollution are raised as well. God assured us that He would not destroy the world with a second flood, but we are given no guarantees that the world will not be destroyed by our own greed, carelessness or stupidity (page 149).

For the most part, the chapters of When God Is Near are undated, an unfortunate editorial oversight in a work so firmly rooted in the author’s personal vision. Thus, for example, the many discussions of Akeidat Yitzchak leave the reader in need of a chronological anchor. Rav Amital wonders aloud about Avraham’s emotions, thoughts and words as he made his way toward the holy mountain, his beloved son at his side. What personal akeida, we wonder, haunts each of these sichot? Is it the loss of his entire extended family, or of European Jewry as a whole? Is it the loss of his beloved students, killed while heroically defending the Land of Israel and its people that colors his analysis of the Akeida? In one particular essay, Rav Amital contrasts the willingness of the father to sacrifice his son and the willingness of the son to be sacrificed - with the “shaheed”  (suicide terrorist). He reports searching through midrashic literature, to no avail: He could not find even one midrash in which either Avraham or Yitzchak are assured of a share in the World to Come that awaits after the Akeida. Rav Amital then goes on to express theological disappointment with those who believe in an abstract, non-corporeal God on the one hand, but whose vision of heaven is obsessively tangible, physical, “a place where they can realize their wildest and ugliest fantasies,” (Page 157) on the other. Had this essay been placed in historical or political context, the message would have been far more poignant to the reader.

I admit that I am unaccustomed to reading Rav Amital’s words in English (although this is not the first volume of his teachings that has been translated). If I were to quibble, I would complain that at times the translation in When God Is Near is a bit formal: Often, a phrase or verse that is used as the starting point for an essay would be more easily understood in the original Hebrew. Though there are occasional transliterations, they are too few and far between. In fact, it would have been far more helpful to quote biblical verses and quotations from the liturgy in Hebrew; even for the average English-speaker, these basic texts are far more familiar in the original.

Despite these minor complaints, this is an important book. Rav Yehuda Amital was a great teacher, and the leader of a large and important community. He charged his students to take responsibility. He taught them to be independent, he groomed them to lead, and he charged them to be holy and to sanctify God’s Name – and never to desecrate it. Unfortunately, Rav Amital’s voice is largely unheard in many of the communities that have the most to gain from his teachings, and those who are unfamiliar with his work would do well to learn his torah, hear and heed his unique voice, and accept his challenge: Dare to be great.