Wrapping Tefillin and the Thirteen Attributes

I had a realization about wrapping tefillin today - probably not the first person to notice this, but here goes.

One wraps the tefillin strap around one's forearm seven times. This creates 13 bands - the 7 strap indentations and the six bands between them. This correlates, in my mind, to the Thirteen Attributes of G!d - both the essential attributes in Exodus 34 and the Supernal Attributes in Micah 7:18-20. There are also thirteen blessings specific to the weekday Amidah (between the three opening blessings and three closing blessings always said) - which I also think of as correlating to the Thirteen Attributes.

So not only are the tefillin shel yad a sign on one's hand/arm - so are the marks left behind, serving as a sign of the Thirteen Attributes of the G!d we serve and which we are to emulate, being made in the likeness and image of G!d.

Isaac's Pet Donkey - How He Left His Father and Started a New Life

It might be helpful to familiarize yourself with the Akedah, Genesis 22:1-19, and the G'vurot blessing in the Amidah prayer in the Jewish liturgy prior to reading this.

In the Akedah, Abraham left the two lads with the donkey – the chomer – as he took Isaac off to be sacrificed. He returned to the two lads without Isaac – and they were there without the donkey. The donkey – the chamor – is chumra – stringency – and Abraham had saddled his donkey – his stringency – to be able to murder his son in the service of G!d. But he left the donkey – his stringency – behind to take Isaac up the mountain – and was able to hear the rachmanes – the mercy – of Hashem telling him not to murder his son. But Isaac was able to hear the call of G!d to take up the chamor – his chumra – his stringency – for himself - and left without Abraham, first getting the donkey and riding it off to the next chapter of his life.

It was only by adopting and riding the donkey that Isaac was able to leave the abusive situation he was in and find his own relationship with G!d – ultimately being able, when he went out into the field to meditate – and daven Mincha – that he was able to look up and see camels, gemalim – gemilut chasadim – acts of lovingkindness. 

May we find the gevurah – the strength – to adopt the chumras – the stringencies – that make space for meditating in the field and looking up to see the gemilut chasadim – acts of lovingkindness – we can do – lifting up the fallen, healing the sick, freeing the captives – to be like G!d.

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.