Debbie Friedman brought a whole new style of joy and love into Jewish liturgy.
Her music continues to inspire us. This rendition of Ahavat Olam, the prayer leading to the Shema, is a timeless reminder of her gifts as we prepare for Shabbat.
Shabbat Shalom
Haskiveinu is the second prayer we share after the Shema, asking for God’s protection through the night ahead.
Dan Nichols has created this wonderful music bringing Hashkiveinu into our hearts. Close your eyes and let the music in.
Shabbat Shalom
Haskiveinu is often thought of like a lullaby, cradling us in the love of the Almighty as we enter the night and its sleep.
May this Shabbat be one of rest and peace. Shabbat Shalom.
Craig Taubman set the final stanza of Adon Olam to beautiful music captured on his
wonderful album Friday Night Live.
Shabbat Shalom
I share the wonderful rendition of Amazing Grace performed by Garth Brooks at the Inauguration.
This beautiful song is for all of us. There was a time when Jews avoided this piece because of historic frictions. But if we are brave enough, we can embrace the power, beauty, and majesty of the music as we march forward with all our brothers and sisters in love.
Shabbat Shalom
Sing a New Song is Psalm 96 that we sing as part of the welcoming of Shabbat in our Kabbalat Shabbat Service every Friday evening.
At this time, we are staying apart to guard against spreading the Corona Virus. But we will emerge, hopefully using this time to reflect on who we are and what is truly important. We will be singing a new song!
Enjoy Moshav’s rendition of Carelbach’s tune to the special words of the poem that is Psalm 96.
Shabbat Shalom!
Ana Bekoach is a mystical prayer employing the 42 letters of the name of God to create this mystical prayer. The acrostic is seven lines of six words each. The prayer is attributed to Nechuniah dating back to second- century Israel.
Siddur Lev Shalem explains a particular phrase Tatir Tz’rurah, Undo the Knot, as perhaps referring to the exile in both its physical and spiritual sense. As we enter Shabbat, we pray that all that has kept us physically and spiritually constrained give way; instead, we hope to begin experiencing the gentle expansiveness of Shabbat. This plea reflects the mystical view that the forces of judgment, constriction, and negativity should not have power or authority on Shabbat.
Shabbat Shalom
I, like so many others, have struggled with Abraham’s responses to God in the stories of Vayera. Why was our Patriarch eager to confront God and bargain to save Sodom and Gomorrah and then be so passively accepting of God’s command to kill Isaac? Abraham responds to what he heard, a message filtered by his own biases and his perception of God, the other in this relationship.
In the Akedah, God instructs Abraham in painful detail, “Take your son, your only son, the one that you love, Isaac, go to Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering.” God is carefully staking out Abraham’s test of faithfulness. There is no room for a conversation. The Akedah is so intense; it is almost impossible for Abraham to catch his breath, let alone say something in response. Although there is no conversation, the ensuing language makes it clear that the next three days, Abraham is thoroughly deliberate traveling to Mt. Moriah. Abraham cannot deliberate with God, but it is clear he is consumed in his mind by what is to come.
Sodom and Gomorrah were decidedly different. God deliberates about telling Abraham His plan, which included assessing the situation on the ground, framing an invitation to a conversation. Abraham joins in, and God encourages it by continuing to engage Despite the trepidation of arguing with the God of Justice about acting justly, Abraham bargains to lower the number of righteous needed to spare the city until he reaches what he perceives as the best he can do, 10- a minyan. The negotiating ends with the best deal Abraham believes he can achieve.
How we hear and understand something sets the table for how we respond to it. Why Abraham feels he has license to argue in one case and not in the other remains one of the mysteries of our text. But it is all too familiar territory for all of us. Each of us responds to what we think we have heard, rendering very different responses, even to the same person, based on the facts and our emotional and situation, among other factors.
What do we hear when another speaks? Have they spoken undeniable truth, or is it an invitation to engage to achieve a better understanding of each other? Knowing when to speak and when to be silent is among the more difficult decisions we make. Grappling with this issue is as hard for us as it was for Abraham. Our tradition encourages us to confront it.
The practice of Mussar works hard at getting us to understand the virtues, or middot, that drive both the person with whom we are in relationship and us. We learn that the successful relationship requires that we appreciate the middot are working on both of us so that it can be complicated. We often do not get it right, but we stand a better chance of engaging in meaningful dialogue when we try. Abraham’s inconsistent reactions to God is a lesson with a timeless message, certainly one that is pertinent to today. Torah is a profound understanding of the human condition. The issues Abraham and all the characters of our tradition confront are genuinely human issues, as relevant today as they were when first written down. Let’s try harder to listen better to understand each other.
Shabbat Shalom
A person should drink on Purim until the point where he can’t tell the difference between “Blessed is Mordechai” and “Cursed is Haman. (Talmud – Megillah 7b) “Ad d’lo yada…”
Why do we drink so that we can no longer distinguish between the “Blessed” Mordechai and the “Cursed” Haman? Perhaps because in this world of Purim where things are turned upside down, the two men had changed places and toward the end of this story, it is impossible to distinguish between them. And this serves as a warning for us to take great care in how we act. The rabbis are admonishing us that underneath this story of triumph and joy lies an ominous message.
Towards the end of the Megillah, the story takes a dark turn. Briefly, the Jews are saved, Haman is hanged. The King grants the Jews permission to annihilate anyone that poses a threat to them, including women and children and to plunder their possessions. Mordechai methodically plans the Jew’s revenge; and the oppressor becomes the victim as the Jews dominate their enemies. First in Shushan, the Jews killed 500 men and Haman’s 10 sons, then another 300 were killed, and then across the kingdom the Jews proceeded to kill seventy-five thousand more. The death and destruction recounted is dreadful. Jews slaughtering in retribution are as horrible as those actions Haman had planned. Mordechai accomplishes what Haman had plotted.
We are admonished to destroy the Amalekite, and Haman is a descendant of Amalek himself. But if we annihilate the enemy, even one who planned to annihilate us, aren’t we just as guilty of murder and bloodshed? It is not only the Amalek who lives as another that should concern us; A piece of Amalek lives inside all of us, call it the yetzer hara, or inclination toward evil. Our yetzer tov, or inclination toward good, is always in competition with it. Purim asks which of these will prevail in our lives? At its core, the destruction of Amalek and the story of Purim are existential questions of our humanity.
And perhaps that is why we drink to oblivion. Usually, we drink wine as a symbol of our joy. But drinking to excess is something else entirely. Heavy drinking is a form of self-medicating. Drinking until losing rational senses is drinking to forget. We drink heavily to escape the brutal reality. Although our people were saved, we committed atrocities- not as a crime of passion, but a deliberate plot to methodically exterminate tens of thousands of people. We drink to forget our shame and horror at what we had done.
To underscore this grave situation, the Gemara on Megillah 7b continues with the bizarre story of Rabba and Rabbi Zeira, where in a drunken stupor, Rabba slaughtered his dear friend Rabbi Zeira. Otherwise good people can do profoundly terrible things. This is what can happen when you lose control, when you lose sight of what is right, betray your core and operate in the absence of God (it is noteworthy that Megillat Esther does not mention God). And it is precisely here that the rabbis insert God back into the discussion as Zeira is resurrected after Rabba beseeches God to intervene and set right what Rabba had destroyed.
When we arise from our stupor, we have a hangover; a brutal headache from the excesses of the night before. We know that a hangover is an indication of dehydration, a lack of water , which further intensifies the message. Water is a metaphor for Torah, and maybe it is the lack of Torah that permitted the carnage.
Megillah Esther warns us to be very careful. The Megillah cautions us to not become “like them” and react to extract revenge, sacrificing both them and our humanity. Megillat Esther challenges us instead to rise up with dignity and respect, embracing the values that have made Judaism the extraordinary gift to the world that it is.
Purim is a layered complicated story filled with cause for celebration and sorrow and an profound admonitory note to soberly review who we are.
