Pinchas

No commerce on Shabbat - we accept the innate perfection within the world.

No commerce (insofar as is possible) during the Three Weeks - we accept the brokenness of the world.

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In this week's parshah, we have the brit shalom with the broken vav (broken wholeness) for PInchas; the note that the entire generation that left Egypt, apart from Yehoshua and Kelev, died in the wilderness; and, in the law of the musaf offerings for Rosh Chodesh, the sin-offering brought for G!d - which midrash tells is to atone for G!d's embarrassing the moon. A true meditation on brokenness. May we, like the daughters of Tzelafchad, push for a tikkun for the brokenness.

Brief thought about holiness - set-apartness

Thought of the day from morning prayers:

The word kadosh (Hebrew usually translated as "holy") means set apart. G!d is holy because G!d is set apart - and by extension, so are we.

Yet, in the words of the seraphim in Isaiah's vision in Isaiah 6, it says that the whole world is full of G!d's glory.

This line appears three times in the Jewish morning liturgy and the first time, it's in the middle of the blessing before the Shema praising G!d for creation.

So here is my thought - what if G!d's set-apartness, G!d's holiness, is G!d's immanence - G!d's presence in the world - NOT G!d's transcendence? Perhaps the angels see G!d as set apart from them precisely because of G!d's presence in the material creation.

Which means that our holiness lies not in transcending or running away from material creation, but in embracing and deeply engaging in that material creation - that we are set apart to be holy material creations?

On the Death of Pat Robertson - BDE

Baruch Dayan HaEmet - Blessed is the True Judge.

The world is a nicer and safer place today.

When my abusive father died, the world felt safer. When my high school bully died, the world felt safer. And now Pat Robertson has died, and the world feels safer.

Pat Robertson was a very wicked man who claimed to serve G!d but whose toxic evangelical Christian theology consisted of spreading hate against lgbt folk and anyone he disagreed with politically - even blaming bad weather and 9/11 on us, blaming poor people and sick people for their poverty and illness because of a "lack of faith," spreading racism by accusing the Haitian slaves who revolted against their slaveowners and won independence of having made a pact with the devil, spreading conspiracy theories, calling for violence against people, and using his ministry to personally enrich himself.

This feels personal to me because it always enraged me, when visiting my parents, to see that my father - who was not wealthy (because the prosperity theology that my father shared with Pat Robertson is a lie) - sent him money every month. When he called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez (who, admittedly, was also evil - but clergy calling for assassinations is an abomination), I complained to my mother and she talked my father into ending the donations - but for some silly reason probably related to my father's narcissism, not for an ethical reason.

A far better theologian than Pat Robertson, the Talmudic sage Beruriah, when her husband, Rabbi Meir, was robbed and he was praying for his robbers' downfall, quoted the final verse of Psalm 104, "May sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more," but said that the Hebrew word for "sinners" should be read as "sins" instead so that the wicked are no more because they have done teshuvah (repented) and are no longer sinners. (Berachot 10a)

Even as I have a lot of anger at the profound spiritual and political damage that this wicked Christian minister wrought, following the holy Beruriah, I express the hope that he repented before his death or that at least he repents now when seeing the enormity of the evil that he wrought in his wasted lifetime.

My Hebrew Name -- תומר יצחק בן אברהם אבינו ושרה אמנו

In a move that I assume surprised no one, I converted to Judaism last week in the days leading up to Shavuot. (Well, some people were surprised to learn I wasn’t already Jewish!) I chose the Hebrew name

 תומר יצחק בן אברהם אבינו ושרה אמנו

Tomer Yitzchok ben Avraham Avinu v’Sarah Imeinu. Several people have asked me why I chose it, so here is a short list of my reasons.

Tomer:

1. In college, my Israeli professor asked that we use our Hebrew names in class. As the only non-Jewish kid, I didn’t have one, so he gave me the name Tomer, meaning “date palm,” presumably because it sounds like Tim.

2. I love the holiday of Tu B’Shvat, even nagging one of my shuls into having a Tu B’Shvat Seder the last couple of years, which I co-led, and having a tree name fits well with that. Plus I like the connection, through that, with the four worlds and the Etz Chaim.

3. My birthday on the Hebrew calendar is 15 Tishrei, the first day of Sukkot, and the lulav is taken from the date palm tree (see Leviticus 23:40).

4. The word tomer appears in that form in Judges 4:5 as the Tomer Devorah, the date palm of Devorah, under which she would sit to make judgment – and I, aspirationally, would like better discernment to have better judgment.

5. There is a commentary on that verse that states that Devorah judged under a palm tree because the Jewish people had lev echad, one heart, in their service to G!d – another thing I would like to strive for. (Megillah 14a)

6. This verse is part of the haftarah for Beshalach, since Beshalach contains the Song of the Sea and the following chapter in this haftarah contains the Song of Devorah – and music is central to how I worship.

7. Just as the haftarah contains my name, so in Beshalach, there are three verses of 72 letters apiece which, when permutated a certain way, produce the 216-letter name of G!d.

8. After crossing the Red Sea, the first place the Jewish people are able to relax and catch their breath is Elim, with 12 springs and 70 date palm trees. (Exodus 15:27)

9. Not counting Tanach/Mishnah/Gemara, after the siddur, my favorite Jewish text is Tomer Devorah, by Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, a work of Mussar and Kabbalah. The first chapter is an exposition of the Thirteen Supernal Attributes of G!d in Micah 7:18-20, which we are to emulate, being made in the image and likeness of G!d, to be loving and of service to our fellow creatures. The tenth chapter is a beautiful exposition of how to bring the sefirot of the Etz Chaim into our lives throughout the day, centered around davening Shacharit, Mincha, and Maariv.

10. The date palm makes an appearance in Psalm 92, Mizmor Shir L’Yom HaShabbat, the psalm for Shabbat. I love the Lewandowski setting of that verse, Tzadik kaTamar.

Yitzchok:

1. The word means “he will laugh” and is given as Yitzchok’s name because both Avraham and Sarah laugh when finding out they will have a son at a very advanced age. I am the only child born to older parents after 20 years of marriage who thought they could not have children. And I love to laugh and to make people laugh.

2. The Akedah, Genesis 22, in which Avraham attempts to sacrifice Yitzchok because G!d told him to until the angel stopped him. My own father metaphorically sacrificed me to his warped religious fundamentalism.  I have wrestled with this text for over 30 years and have come to believe the most important event, for me, is when Avraham returns to the two young men with them after the sacrifice without Yitzchok (Genesis 22:19) – which I now read as Yitzchok walking away from an abusive situation to find a new life – which I have done in my own life.

3. Yitzchok is able to heal from this horrible situation to find his own relationship with G!d and to embrace acts of lovingkindness, when it is related (Genesis 24:63) that he goes out in the afternoon to meditate in the field and looks up and sees camels – I read gemalim, camels, as related to gemilut chasadim, acts of lovingkindness.

4. This is the origin of Mincha, according to the rabbis, and points to my love of liturgy.

5. In Genesis 25:11, it is stated that after the death of Avraham, G!d blesses Yitzchok his son, which Chizkuni and others read as Avraham failing to bless Yitzchok, with G!d making up the blessing.

6. Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer states that the chatimah of the second brachah of the Amidah was uttered by Yitzchok when his soul returned to his body when the angel of Hashem restrained Avraham from schechting him. I find this brachah, G’vurot, very meaningful. There is a question addressed to G!d that is meant to be rhetorical, “Who is like You?” – but which I have realized can be taken as non-rhetorical – the word for like, “domeh,” is the same shoresh as “d’mut,” “likeness,” and Genesis 5:1 states that we are made in G!d’s likeness. We are like G!d when we do the things mentioned in the brachah – lifting up the fallen, healing the sick, freeing the captive – that G!d is prasied for doing. What these things have in common is that they restore people to the fullness of their selves, whom they are created to be – and helping people to do this is more difficult than just helping them solve a problem.

7. There is also a Mussar connection to Yitzchok that is meaningful to me. In the Mussar text Mesillat Yesharim, the Ramchal lays out the path to go from being Yashar (upright) to Tzadik (righteous), through restraining one’s yetzer hara. Then, by expanding one’s yetzer tov, one can move from Tzadik to Chasid (pious). By devoting oneself more and more to the love of G!d, one becomes Kadosh (holy). These spell out Yitzchok. As Rabbi Moshe Shapira observes in Afikei Mayim, this same progression is used in the Shokhein Ad prayer near the end of Psukei d’Zimra in Shacharit of Shabbat – b’fi yesharim, tithalal – by the mouth of the upright, You will be praised, etc. I actually now think of this connection each Shabbat morning during the Shokhein Ad, making it a prayer that I may grow in this path of Mussar through these steps. I love Joey Weisenberg’s setting of this prayer.

I hope and pray that, as I enter the Jewish community, I may live up to the name Tomer Yitzchok.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 Adar - Anniversary of my father's death

Today is the fourteenth anniversary of my father's death (on the Hebrew calendar, which he knew nothing about) and he died late on a Sunday night and this year as well, the anniversary is on Sunday night - Monday. I was with him when he died and officiated at the funeral.

He was abusive and we had a very difficult relationship, so the anniversaries of his death are complicated. I attended a synagogue service this morning and I'm glad I did.

This coming Shabbat (and also the Shabbat after his death and, I suspect, this is true of most years, given how the calendar falls out) is Shabbat Zachor, which has a special short Torah reading read after the weekly Torah portion. The special reading is Deuteronomy 25:17-19. Many people have the custom of reading it daily as part of the Six Remembrances after morning prayers (although I do have a kabblalistic siddur that has Ten Remembrances) - a list of six short Torah passages with things that are commanded to be remembered.

The passage begins "Remember what Amalek did to you" and ends with the curious and contradictory instruction: "you are to blot out the name of Amalek from under the heavens; you are not to forget!" Many, many drashes have been given over the years about this set of contradictory instructions. But in the context of my father's death, although I am not saying he is Amalek, in terms of the abuse, I have to both remember it and the ways I need to grow and change and "go forth . . . from my father's house, to the land [G!d] will show me" (Gen 12:1) AND at the same time blot out the memory so I can not be consumed by it. I think this is the task of survivors of abusive relationships.

I have recently begun to understand with compassion that the very destructive fundamentalist Christian faith that they practiced was a structure they needed to cope with their own chaotic and deeply troubled childhoods filled with abuse, even though it was a religious system that was very damaging and abusive for me.

May they rest in peace.

Korbanot in Mincha

Although I use Nusach Ashkenaz, which is what the synagogues I attend use (one uses Koren and one Lev Shalem), something that Nusach Sfard and the Sephardic and Mizrachi nuschaot get right, imho, is that the korbanot are recited at the beginning of Mincha, since the Tamid was offered both in the morning and the afternoon and it seems odd to me to only recite it in the morning. (I do realize that this is not actually an issue for Lev Shalem, which omits korbanot entirely.)

But I had another thought today - the four sections of Shacharit are correlated with the four levels of the soul and the four worlds in kabbalah:

Brachot/Korbanot - Nefesh - Asiyah

Psukei d'Zimra - Ruach - Yetzirah

Shema - Neshamah - Briah

Amidah - Chayah - Atzilut

Maariv has the Shema. Mincha, beginning with Tehillim perek 145, has an abbreviated Psukei d'Zimra. If it also begins with Korbanot, then all four of the sections/levels of the soul/worlds are repeated. (Obviously, the Amidah is repeated a second time.) I need to think more about what that means - and why they are divided as they are between Mincha and Maariv.

But it feels like it's an important thing to do.

Bibliomancy: A Recollection from My Teen Years

BIBLIOMANCY (use of the Bible or other sacred text for divination)

In an in-depth Talmud class the other night, looking at Sanhedrin perek 10, considering the prohibition of using a certain verse from the Torah as an incantation to heal a wound (a verse that, weirdly to me given this prohibition, is in the bedtime Shema!), the rabbi mentioned that in some varieties of Orthodoxy, bibliomancy is practiced, using the letters of the Rebbe or the like, and I mentioned a couple of examples I’ve run across in Christianity.

The Roman Catholic religious order I was in, the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, entered the Roman Catholic denomination in 1909, but were founded as an order in the Episcopal Church in 1898. The Episcopal priest who founded them got the name “Atonement” from a New Testament verse he opened to at random in the pulpit Bible in his church one Sunday afternoon after praying (and there were a couple of other verses of significance to the order he similarly found).

But as a teenager, I knew someone personally who practiced bibliomancy with her Bible. Although raised Baptist, she was involved in the charismatic movement, in the prosperity gospel end of things, and met my father through some charismatic event (I think at a local charismatic Bible school event run by a very sketchy evangelist). She paid for a trip to Hawaii for my parents (I stayed with other friends they had met through a charismatic church we attended for a few months – the husband gave my parents some far-right Christian nationalist publications which were quite frightening and appalling – and I got macadamia nuts and the autobiography of Karl Hilton from my parents on their return). She would frequently pray and then open her Bible, put her finger on a verse, and assume that was “G!d” speaking to her.

She was, despite her religiosity, one of the most overtly narcissistic and frankly greedy materialists I’ve ever met. She was not a member of one particular church, but would go to different churches. (She did once go to the United Methodist church I had joined to introduce some stability into my religious life and start distancing myself from my parents’ toxic fundamentalism – and that was the Sunday the associate pastor gave a benediction in which he prayed for the “grease of our Lord Jesus Christ” to be on the congregation – he had meant to say “grace and peace” – and the congregation dissolved into laughter – and she said afterward she needed the laugh.) She had been involved in a divorce proceeding with her wealthy husband – whom she claimed only became wealthy through her efforts – for over seven years. At one point, she wanted to hide assets in my parents’ bank account – and my father was stupid enough to agree – my mother and I objected, so he condescendingly had this awful woman talk with us to persuade us otherwise. I was not persuaded (not even “Almost Persuaded” as the emotionally manipulative altar call hymn is entitled) – but as a minor, I had no real say. But rather than settling the divorce and start over with what were, by her own admission, quite brilliant business skills, she wasted many years of her life fighting with her ex-husband over their assets. Her ex-husband was indeed most likely a terrible person – but she made it clear she wouldn’t be satisfied until she took EVERYTHING he owned. (She only had one adult daughter who already had a child by the time we met her – and the daughter was from a prior marriage.)

She also gave me three birthday presents in successive years – two years in a row, she very insultingly gave me copies of the SAME Bible story book written for kids 9-12 – I was in my teens and had already studied New Testament Greek and pored over my father’s copy of the Interpreter’s Bible Dictionary and felt profoundly unseen. Another year, she gave me a key to some motel room she had stayed in – she couldn’t remember the city – which was very weird and, in retrospect, profoundly creepy. I’m certain nothing physically ever happened between her and my father, but it was definitely an emotional affair, and my mother, who was pretty miserable at that point as the only breadwinner, after my father had been fired from four churches in two denominations, was made even more miserable by this woman’s relationship with my father – and her periodic descent on the household to consume all the oxygen with her drama.

I went off to college and my parents ended up as Southern Baptist missionaries to Iowa to convert the heathen (Lutherans and Catholics, but the one – and only – good outcome of my father’s involvement in the charismatic movement was becoming more ecumenically minded, so he was actually friends with the ALC/thenELCA and RC pastors). At one point, there was a “revival” and my father had a friend who was a bivocational Southern Baptist minister and jeweler come preach for it. This awful woman also came. She and this minister fell in love and got married quite quickly – even though my parents urged caution and going more slowly. It was at least her third marriage – maybe her fourth. It ended in an acrimonious divorce and she blamed my parents (who deserve blame for much – but not for this, since they had urged caution!) and largely stopped talking to them, other than Christmas cards.

When my father died and I was going through their address book to notify people, I decided to send her a notice – but NOT include any of my contact information, since I do not need that kind of insanity back in my life. I later googled her – she had a charitable remainder unitrust (which is not something one has without some wealth), gave money to a right-wing Texas fundamentalist politician, and got stuck in a snowbank and was rescued by some college students. She has since died, having lived into her 80s.

Good times.