Counting letters in Psalms: From the Sefer Hasidim

A friend who is a rabbinical student sent me this quote from the Sefer Hasidim - and I feel seen!

"There were once two synagogues in a city and the hakham went . . sometimes to one and sometimes to the other. Then he prayed only in the smaller one. They asked him, “Why have you left the larger synagogue where both the many and the prominent pray?” He replied, 'In the large synagogue they hasten [the recitation of] the morning blessings and the Psalms ... but not so in the smaller synagogue. There they recite the morning blessings and Psalms slowly and I gain in this that, while I recite [the Psalm] slowly, I count on my fingers how many alephs there are [in each Psalm], how many bets, and similarly for each letter, and upon my return home I attempt to find a reason for each sum.'"

I was raised in a non-liturgical evangelical Christian tradition without liturgy, other than hymns. I even heard a Pentecostal classmate in high school say that the fact that there are two versions of the Lord's Prayer in different gospels is a sign that we aren't supposed to have written-out prayers, but should only pray extemporaneously from the heart.

However, my prayer personality is such that I need liturgy, fixed words, to be able to pray - for me, the extemporaneous prayer can only arise after praying the liturgy. And I find that praying the same liturgical texts day after day and week after week, getting to know them intimately, deepens my experience of prayer. Getting to know the prayer on the level of the letters makes complete sense to me. I love finding biblical passages from which phrases or even words from the liturgy are taken (and the Jewish liturgy is chock-full of them!) - it deepens my exeprience of the liturgy. I haven't necessarily gotten to the point of counting letters and learning the meanings - although gematria I have learned about particular prayers is illuminating for me and I have incorporated it into how I pray! - but maybe I will.

I love this passage so much!

Eino Ben Yomo, Shabbat, and Our Souls

Last night, I began learning about pots that are ben yomo [child of a day] or eino ben yomo [not a child of a day] (or, as the rabbi teaching said, yoymoy). Food that is fleishig, milchig, or treyf imparts a taste to the vessel it was cooked in, which is then imparted to food cooked in it - but once it has been cool for 24 hours or more [ein ben yomo], the taste is dissipated and, in many circumstances, if food in a different category was accidentally cooked in a clean pot, it likely does not acquire the taste of the previous food and is likely to be kosher. (However, the rules are complicated and there are differences of opinion, so consult a rabbi if this applies to you.)

On Shabbat, from candlelighting until Havdalah, about 25 hours, we remove ourselves from the outside world – and this is especially necessary this week. I would like to think that, after the 25 hours, the taste of the previous, likely spiritually treyf, things that have stewed within our minds will dissipate. Certainly, just as a pot in this category will likely need to be rekashered, the passage of time is not the only thing that needs to happen to fully cleanse us, but it is a great start.

Shabbat Shalom. May this cooling off period bring you peace.

A Reason for the Prohibition against Basar b'Cholov - Mixing Milk and Meat

Rabbinic tradition sees mitzvot as falling into one of three categories in regard to how rational they are. Mishpatim are rational and obvious – the mitzvot to not murder and to not steal fall into this category. Chukim, on the other hand, are mitzvot for which there is no rational explanation. Kashrut (dietary laws) are an example of this. Eidot are an intermediary category – they are commemorative mitzvot that are not immediately rational but commemorate an event in a way that does make easy rational sense. Eating matzah on Pesach is an example of this, since it commemorates the matzah the Jews leaving Egypt had to eat because they did not have time for the dough to leaven.

However, just because there seems to be no rational explanation does not mean that many in the rabbinic tradition did not seek to find them for the chukim. The Rambam (Maimonides) taught that all of the mitzvos, even the chukim, have a rational basis – although for the chukim, this is not readily discernible. He attempts to find such explanations for many of them and encourages others to do likewise and even holds that when human reason fails, it merely means that the rational basis eludes our limited reason, not that the chok in question lacks a rational basis. (I am indebted to Rabbi Isadore Twersky, zt”l, the Talner Rebbe of Boston, who taught about this in classes I took in divinity school as we explored Moreh Nevuchim, the Guide to the Perplexed.)

Basar b’cholov, the prohibition of mixing meat and milk, is a chok and several explanations have been advanced for why this is commanded. The Rambam said that it was prohibited because cooking a kid in its mother’s milk was used in idol worship. Others proposed that it was prohibited because of health concerns or because it was considered cruel – and the cruelty is the reason I had always assumed. The seventh Lubavitcher rebbe compared it to kilayim, planting different species of plants together – we are taught not to mix different types of food together.

In learning the halachot of basar b’cholov, another reason presents itself to me. It is perhaps a particular lesson about cruelty. Abusive parents, rather than nurturing their children, in the process of raising them, pervert the parental duty to raise their children to be their own person. Instead of giving them the tools (including ethical and religious values) to become healthy adults, they use the children to meet their own narcissistic needs, not seeing them as persons created b’tzelem Elokim (in the image of G!d) in their own right. This process of abuse is very destructive and harms the abused children in ways that last long into their adulthood and usually their entire lives. Sexual abusers turn their children into sexual objects, parents who rage turn their children into emotional and/or physical punching bags, narcissists attempt to destroy their children’s innate personalities in order to make them images of themselves. In all of these cases (and other cases of parental abuse), the nurture, symbolized by milk, becomes instead an instrument of destruction, symbolized by cooking the child and ending its independent existence by making it food.

By observing the halachot of basar b’cholov, may parents be more mindful to embrace their holy opportunity for nurture and reject abuse of their children.

Thoughts about the four worlds, four levels of the soul, and four halachic parts of a chicken egg

 Warning: Tim trying to derive spiritual teaching from dry halacha

If a chicken lays an egg naturally, if it is unfertilized, it is pareve (neither meat nor dairy), unlike the hen, who is meat. (If you hit a chicken and cause it to lay an egg, the egg is not kosher because it is considered a limb of a living animal.

If a hen is shechted (slaughtered in accordance with the laws of kashrut), if there are eggs inside, although the minhag now is not to eat them - and I doubt they could be sold in the US anyway, there are different opinions about whether the egg would be considered pareve or meat, depending on how highly developed they are. (The laws are fairly complicated, so I am oversimplifying.)

Rashi says that if the yolk is fully formed and nothing else, it's a pareve egg and not part of the hen. (The Shach concurs in cases of hefsed merubah, great monetary loss.)

The Rashba, with which the Shulchan Aruch concurs, says that if the yolk and eggwhite are fully formed, even without a shell, it's a pareve egg.

The Orchot Chaim, with whom the Rama and, b'dieved, the Shach, concur poskens that if there is a soft inner shell, it's pareve.

The Rashbam (Rashi’s grandson), with whom the Rama and the Shach l’chatchila concur, poskens that it requires a full shell.

Here is my question:

What is the correlation between the four parts of the egg and the four lower parts of the soul (chayah/yolk, neshama/eggwhite, ruach/soft shell, nefesh/hard shell) and the corresponding worlds (Atzilut, Briah, Yetzirah, Asiyah)? What do each of the four positions have to say about each part of the soul – how do we become fully pareve/ourselves in each of the four sections? These correlations are something I want to think more about and – perhaps – might form the basis of a kavannah for consuming eggs.

And a follow-up question:

Am I consuming too much Dr Pepper before learning halacha and is this giving rise to these questions?

My thoughts while the shofar was blown near the end of Shacharit this morning.

The Akedah, read each morning in Shacharit, tells of the ram being caught in the thicket by its horns.

The last verse of Psalm 148, also read each morning - and also read as the Torah scroll is taken up after the reading to begin its journey back to the Ark - speaks of G!d raising up the horn of G!d's people as a praise to G!d's chasidim, people of chesed, lovingkindness.

Maybe our task on Rosh Hashanah, when the shofar is blown in rabbinic communities, is to free the ram's horn from the thicket so G!d can raise it up and we can be people of chesed.

Basar b’Cholov: A Poem

Three times in the Torah it says not to boil a kid in its mother’s milk

The Shulchan Aruch says this teaches that there are three things one cannot do: cook it, eat it, or benefit from it

My name is Tomer Yitzchok – the Date-Palm Tree Will Laugh

The Yitzchok – he will laugh – seems like a mitzvah as well

Yitzchok appears in the Torah 94 times – do I have to find 94 ways to laugh?

Do I have to find five ways to laugh while someone close to me tries to murder me?

The biggest and best laugh was when I snuck out with the donkey – the chumrah chamor – and neither I nor the donkey were noticed when we fled

THAT makes me laugh!

Thoughts on Augustine and His Toxic Theological Legacy

Today, August 28, is celebrated by Roman Catholics and many Anglicans/Episcopalians, Independent Catholics, and Lutherans as the feast of Augustine of Hippo.

I had always disliked Augustine - the Confessions just never really did it for me, even as I know many who found it lifechanging.

Then, in the Independent Catholic jurisdiction of which I was the bishop, a tiny Augustinian order joined and, to show support, I became an oblate - and my dislike was transformed.

It was transformed from dislike to a very deep abiding hatred for the horrendous and very warped views of G!d and humanity that Augustine taught.

First, original sin, which he developed into a doctrine held by most of the Western church, teaches that humans are depraved and cut off from G!d by our nature (or, in the case of evangelicals who do not baptize infants, a tendency toward sin that, with the first sin after someone hits the "age of accountability") and are incapable of any good deeds until redeemed through Jesus. The Jewish teaching that we have both a yetzer tov, a good inclination, and a yetzer ra, an evil inclination - the latter being necessary and good when deployed appropriately but causing problems when it is deployed inappropriately - is much healthier. (Influenced by Rabbi Ira Stone, a contemporary mussar teacher, I see yetzer hara as being concern for self and yetzer tov being the concern for others and Today, August 28, is celebrated by Roman Catholics and many Anglicans/Episcopalians, Independent Catholics, and Lutherans as the feast of Augustine of Hippo.

I had always disliked Augustine - the Confessions just never really did it for me, even as I know many who found it lifechanging.

Then, in the Independent Catholic jurisdiction of which I was the bishop, a tiny Augustinian order joined and, to show support, I became an oblate - and my dislike was transformed.

It was transformed from dislike to a very deep abiding hatred for the horrendous and very warped views of G!d and humanity that Augustine taught.

First, original sin, which he developed into a doctrine held by most of the Western church, teaches that humans are depraved and cut off from G!d by our nature (or, in the case of evangelicals who do not baptize infants, a tendency toward sin that, with the first sin after someone hits the "age of accountability") and are incapable of any good deeds until redeemed through Jesus. The Jewish teaching that we have both a yetzer tov, a good inclination, and a yetzer ra, an evil inclination - the latter being necessary and good when deployed appropriately but causing problems when it is deployed inappropriately - is much healthier. (Influenced by Rabbi Ira Stone, a contemporary mussar teacher, I see yetzer hara as being concern for self and yetzer tov being the concern for others and G!d.)

If this doctrine itself were not bad enough, the idea that humans, despite being incapable of avoiding sin, are nonetheless deserving of eternal damnation and that G!d capriciously chooses to save only a small number of the elect and leaves the rest to suffer eternal conscious torment in hell is mindbogglingly horrifying. Why the "elect" are enjoying bliss by spending eternity with such a monstrous entity makes no sense. It would be hard to find an off-the-rack theological system more ready made to support racism and other forms of bigotry, seeing that humanity is divided into the elect and the damned through no merit of their own. The further development of this doctrine by Martin Luther, a antisemite so virulent that the Nazis reprinted some of his writings as propaganade, and the Genevan serial killer John Calvin only made it worse.

And speaking of antisemitism, Augustine explicitly blamed the Jews for the death of Jesus in his commentary on the Psalms in a passage that prior to Vatican II was part of the office of Matins on Good Friday, required to be read by priests and members of religious orders. The readings undoubtedly influenced the antisemitic preaching that stirred up mobs who attacked Jews on Good Friday.

So glad that I am no longer Augustine's coreligionist. May Christians find the courage and strength to eradicate his toxic legacy from their theology.