Rabbi Birdie Becker
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Yom Kippur DVAR 2020

9/27/2020

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Shofar Service for weekday 2020

9/19/2020

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A Letter to God from a Healing Broken Heart (original poem half way down)

9/23/2018

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I begin with a story. The Master Key by Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin. A Chasidic tale.

One year, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov said to Rabbi Ze’ev Kitzes, one of his senior disciples: “You will blow the shofar for us this Rosh Hashanah. I want you to study all the kavanot (Kabbalistic meditations) that pertain to the shofar, so that you should meditate upon them when you do the blowing.”

Rabbi Ze’ev applied himself to the task with joy and trepidation: joy over the great privilege that had been accorded him, and trepidation over the immensity of the responsibility. He studied the Kabbalistic writings that discuss the multifaceted significance of the shofar and what its sounds achieve on the various levels of reality and in the various chambers of the soul. He also prepared a sheet of paper on which he noted the main points of each kavanah, so that he could refer to them when he blew the shofar.

Finally, the great moment arrived. It was the morning of Rosh Hashanah, and Rabbi Ze’ev stood on the reading platform in the center of the Baal Shem Tov’s synagogue amidst the Torah scrolls, surrounded by a sea of tallit-draped bodies. At his table in the southeast corner of the room stood his master, the Baal Shem Tov, his face aflame. An awed silence filled the room in anticipation of the climax of the day—the piercing blasts and sobs of the shofar.

Rabbi Ze’ev reached into his pocket, and his heart froze: the paper had disappeared! He distinctly remembered placing it there that morning, but now it was gone. Furiously, he searched his memory for what he had learned, but his distress over the lost notes seemed to have incapacitated his brain: his mind was a total blank. Tears of frustration filled his eyes. He had disappointed his master, who had entrusted him with this most sacred task. Now he must blow the shofar like a simple horn, without any kavanot. With a despairing heart, Rabbi Ze’ev blew the litany of sounds required by law and, avoiding his master’s eye, resumed his place.

At the conclusion of the day’s prayers, the Baal Shem Tov made his way to the corner where Rabbi Ze’ev sat sobbing under his tallit. “Gut Yom Tov, Reb Ze’ev!” he called. “That was a most extraordinary shofar-blowing we heard today!”
“But Rebbe . . . I . . .”

“In the king’s palace,” said the Baal Shem Tov, “there are many gates and doors, leading to many halls and chambers. The palace-keepers have great rings holding many keys, each of which opens a different door. But there is one key that fits all the locks, a master key that opens all the doors.

“The kavanot are keys, each unlocking another door in our souls, each accessing another chamber in the supernal worlds. But there is one key that unlocks all doors, that opens up for us the innermost chambers of the divine palace. That master key is a broken heart.”

I struggled this year to prepare for the holidays. I tried to write and nothing made sense. I tried to study and could not concentrate. As the days of Elul passed, I knew I had to do something. One morning I sat down and let the tears flow. Only after writing what I am going to share with you now, was I able to return the over the following day to write the more joyous sermons you heard on Rosh Hashanah and that you will hear tomorrow, but I want to share the process with you.

A Letter to God from a Healing Broken Heart by Rabbi Birdie Becker 8.2018
Dear God,
It’s been a year since last I stood before the open book.
Into your hands, I cast my lot, but found there no safe nook.
Instead it opened every door that ever I had closed
And made me open wide the gates to things I never chose.
What is a human being if not a working piece of art?
What is a soul if not the depth of heaven when it parts?
To look inside the melding body only leads astray
   the final outcome we each reach when it’s the close of day.
I thought I had it figured out, I thought if I believed
Then fate would deal a hand of kindness on all that I perceived.
I thought that prayers and pledges, pleading, promises and tears
   would safely guard the future from the ‘lions, tigers and bears’.
Love came, and I did not grasp it hard enough, to gather it forever.
It passed away and with it went the best of my endeavor.
How can you ask of me to stand again before your open book?
How can you dare to say to me that life still brightly looks
   ahead to beauty, to wonder, to fulfillment, to all the world can hold?
You surely should have warned me of the losses to unfold.
You did! You say.
Well, I reject the notion that you did.
My heart was breaking every day, and I believe you hid.
Who by fire? Who by water? Who by agony?
Who from age? Who alone? Who with family?
Why this day? Why this hour? Why that one and not this?
Who can justify the meaning of the latest kiss
of death that moves the soul beyond this land to its next hallowed   sphere?
I don’t care what I am told, I want my loved one here.
To have and hold and share another day another year…
Another hour?
Another moment?
This grief I cannot bear.
Yet.. I will.
I will continue for God, that is the way
That You tell us You are with us, each and every day.
In our thoughts and in our hearts and even in our tears.
You let me rail against the dark, against the black, against the coming years
Of memories that will grow deep and stories to be told
Of feelings bearable someday and even humor trolled.
Who am I to question You?
Not Job or Abraham.
Not Hillel, not Lincoln or even Sam I am.
Yet question You is what we do, each and every day.
Because it lets us know that You are never going away.
You’re here, right here, by my side.
And, I, as mad as I may be,
I know that You will never go too far away from me.
Like all good friends, You’re there to let me give a primal scream.
And when I’m at my lowest, it’s upon You I can lean.
I may not always understand, it’s not for me to agree.
The sun has once again revolved,
A year has passed by Your decree.
Who remembered? Who forgotten? By woman or by man?
Each held in love, caressed by grace in Adonai’s grand plan.
From off the earth each one has touched Shechinah’s wings and flown.
Belonging now to eternity,
Divine and Thine alone.
 
Life is a journey, my friends. What I want to impart to you most is that all relationships require work but you need never journey alone.

May your journeys this year be sweet and fulfilling.

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​A SEASON OF REJOICING

9/11/2017

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We will soon all gather to begin the holiday season. Due to the divisiveness within which we are living, it seems somewhat more difficult to make teshuvah, the turning required to wipe away the sins of our past year. It seems so much easier to be able to blame someone else this year for our difficulties, for our failings, for our discontent. Perhaps more than in other years that is why we really need to come together and pray as a community, be a community, know we are part of a community despite our differences.
 
While Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur focus us on the ‘me’, they are followed quickly by Sukkot, a definite ‘us’ holiday. In fact, Sukkot not only helps to focus on ‘us’, but brings the joy of the renewal, of freshness experienced at Yom Kippur into full measure.
 
We remember the blessings of annanim kavod, the clouds of glory that accompanied us through the desert; our clothing and foot garments never wore out and we were protected from the elements of nature. This was the blessing we received when Moshe Rabbeinu received the second set of Esert HaDibrot, the Tablets of Commandments. In return, we begin the year performing a mitzvah. We build and dwell in a Sukkah. So anxious was the Maharil[1] to perform this mitzvah, he had the custom of beginning the building of the Sukkah the night after Yom Kippur.  We open our temporary shelters to guests, both ancestral and contemporary.
 
Inside the Sukkah, we lift and shake the Lulav, the four species. The Bahir[2] compares these species to human anatomy and our senses. Hadas (myrtle) is the eye that we must keep open against hate, bigotry and bribery. Aravah (willow) are the lips with which we may speak out for justice. The Etrog (citron) is the heart so that we feel compassion, love and empathy. The Lulav (palm) is the spine, that we be straight and strong, to serve as God’s loyal and grateful people. In bringing the four species together and shaking them in all six directions, we are reaching out, pointing a way, to promote the recognition of divinity in relationships, in community and among communities.
 
With the rising hatred in the world, may this be the year the Sukkah brings people together for rejoicing. Ken yihi ratzon. So may it be God’s will.
 
From my family to yours, wishing you a joyous, healthy new year.
L’Shanah Tovah Umetukah
Rabbi Becker
 
 


[1] Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Moelin, Talmudist of German Jews whose minhagim was a source for the Shulchan Arukh.

[2] Bahir or Sefer HaBahir is an anonymous mystical work, attributed to a 1st-century rabbinic sage Nehunya ben HaKanah 
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YOM KIPPUR UNATANA TOKEF 2016

10/15/2016

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I read an article by a woman who wanted to be warned before the chanting of the Unatana Tokef so that she could walk out and not have to suffer from the images it evoked. On the one hand I thought, “Wow, a congregant who takes prayer seriously and knows what she is praying. This is wonderful!” On the other hand I wondered, “Isn’t this what prayer is supposed to do? Are we not supposed to wrestle with ourselves and yes, with God, too?”
 
Yisrael, God wrestler. That is what the word means. We are God wrestlers. We aren’t meant to leave the room when things get tough. We aren’t meant to be silent victims, either.  We are meant to wrestle, turning this way and that until we return to the text with new understanding. We return - T’Shuvah to Tefillah -prayer and with the hope it leads to tzedakah – good, charitable deeds. That’s what we say, T’shuvah, tefillah and tzedakah can amend the decree.
 
 
I remember as a child, all the children were sent from the sanctuary before yizkor, the memorial prayers were recited so as not to tempt the evil eye. I have often wondered if it was really to not see a lot of adults crying. Today, we don’t worry about that as much. About either – tempting the evil eye or adults crying. And, I don’t have a problem with making people uncomfortable with a prayer or at least having them wrestle with it.
 
Should we eliminate all the prayers and readings that might offend any sensibilities? Shall we preface each prayer with “you might wish to step out before we read this”? I have the feeling there would be  no prayers left and no one remaining to say those that were.
 
I have a friend who was raised as a Reconstructionist Jew. She recently changed congregations but didn’t want to take an aliyah because of the word differences. In Reconstructionism the aliyah blessing is changed from Bachar Banu mee kol ha’amim,
‘who choses us from all people’ to Kervanu l’avodato ‘draws us near to serve’. Both then continue, VeNatan Lanu et Torahto, ‘and gave to us his Torah. We discussed the differences and the interpretations held therein and afterward she was able to view the words of ‘chose us’ as an inference to being chosen to serve to present Torah to the world. When she finally took an aliyah, she said the words came easily. She had done the hard work, wrestling with the written words and the meaning, the spiritual intention and how they could speak to her.
 
Unantana Tokef is one of our more difficult prayers. For anyone who has experienced a recent loss, it often seems like a slap at this time of year when we are seeking solice. It doesn’t matter that Unatana Tokef was actually a poem probably written in 6th century Palestine and had nothing to do with the story we now read about the French rabbi being dismembered and burned. It doesn’t matter because we are to wrestle with the words of our prayers… just as we wrestle with Torah. We recite the words of this prayer because every year there ARE floods and fires, there ARE earthquakes and epidemics, there ARE famines and droughts. War has not ceased nor has poverty ended. People are afflicted by bullying, and teasing and domestic violence and chance violence. Corruption, rebellions, insurgencies and revolution happen around the circumference of the globe.  Although it is interesting to note that the Western hemisphere, is for the first time, without technical war, armed conflict between nations, although the final negotiations are back at the table in Columbia but there’s hope.
 
WE have a rather lengthy list of names…family and friends…for healing. Nearly every week, we have some catastrophe around the globe to add to our Mi Sheberach prayers. The spiritual, physical, emotional and mental welfare of community, country and world are constantly in need of abundant good wishes. Who are we to opt out when it strikes near? Shouldn’t that be a time to opt in? To lend our voice, in fact our entire being in support?
 
I hope it goes without saying that I am not indifferent to someone who has suffered and may feel deeply pained by the words we pray. I feel them, too. “Who shall live and who shall die? Who by fire and who by water?
 
It is just that our words tell our stories and our stories are what keeps us united as a people. Why else would we continue to read Torah without end - and I mean that literally; for no sooner do we finish Torah with the final verses than we begin again with the first verses of the scroll. Yes, why else read these stories without end? These thirty five hundred year old stories that we interpret and reinterpret and revisit and re-imagine. It doesn’t matter if they are scientifically accurate. It doesn’t matter if they are historically accurate. It doesn’t matter if they are a mix of Israel and Judaen stories. It matters only that they are OUR stories. So, too, it is with our prayers, with the Unatana Tokef prayer.

In this global world, we should all be suffering and this prayer should make every one of us ask, why anyone by hunger or thirst? Why are people in this country unable to drink the water that pours out of their own faucets? Not just Flint, MI. “The nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG) tested municipal water in 42 states and detected … 141 unregulated chemicals for which public health officials have no safety standards, much less methods for removing them.” [1] And if you think that you can avoid the problem because you can afford to purchase bottle water, a Colorado proclivity, it is not a reasonable alternative since the source for many companies is “municipal” water, meaning you’re paying extra to drink bottled tap water.

Who by age and who not?” The tragedy of losing someone because they are an elder hurts no less but the even though the expectation rises for its eventuality. When illnesses and tragedies strike, we are all struck by the injustice held within the experience. When it occurs in violence, through bullying, hate mongering and categorizing the other, objectifying and enslaving a gender, we need to speak up and out. Half the world’s population is women, how many are lost through child marriage, sex trafficking or another form of emotional, mental or physical domination.

Why, let us ask, are so many still being driven out? Most by war but already many by environmental impact and that will only continue to escalate. And, I wrote this prior to Hurricane Matthew which has left beach erosion and coastal flooding in its wake taking with it things such as the eggs of this year’s Turtle Nests along with so many lives.

One of our incredible poetesses, Emma Lazarus, is memorialized on the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your Tired, Your Poor, Your huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse or your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless tempest tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the Golden Shore.”  Remember, it was not so long ago that we were the tempest tossed asking that quotas be lifted.

So let the awesome, sacred power of the day be proclaimed. Let it make us uncomfortable. If we remember our deeds, and we challenge ourselves, we can wrestle with prayers and …with God.


[1] How Safe Is Tap Water?, http://environment.about.com/od/healthenvironment/a/tap_water_safe.htm, Updated January 22, 2016.  This heartwarming yet chilling story was told by Rabbi Baruch Rabinovitch of Munkacs, father of the present Munkacser Rebbe, about his late father-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Elazar Spira (1871-1937), known as the "Minchat Elazar."

 

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ROSH HASHANAH DIN

10/4/2016

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EREV ROSH HASHANAH 2016
 
The first blast of the shofar was on Labor, the 2nd of Elul. As I blew the set of notes for a bat mitzvah ceremony, I realized that for me, they were not the normal attention call. I was wide awake. I had been awake all summer, in fact all year. And the din that I was hearing was a mix of the English din of noise and the Hebrew din of judgment.
 
With the first blast of the shofar, Tekiah, I was reminded that the holiday season arrives whether we are ready or not, or as is the title of Rabbi Alan Lew’s book, This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared. You see, the holiday season is not as most people think 2 days or 3 days or even the entire ten days from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur known as Yomim Nori’im. It is actually 40 days, from the beginning of Elul, the month prior to Rosh HaShanah through Yom Kippur. Even then, the season doesn’t end for we have Sukkot, Shimini Atzeret and Simchat Torah in quick succession. But the point is, we have an entire month to prepare ourselves for the month to follow, to redress wrongs, to ask for forgiveness. We have the month for introspection, to look back on the year and see where we have fallen short. What expectations did we have that we didn’t meet? Where did we fail and how? And why? Did we not put in the effort or was the opportunity overlooked? How do we change the visions that we laid out as the year progressed? Did we give up too easily when we encountered an obstacle?
 
It was 15 years ago when I first came to this community, one week after 9/11. There was no din amongst the American people then. Having driven across the country, I remember that there was only a sense of unity, of oneness. This was as close as I can remember this country approaching indivisible.

9/11, more than any day, has become an American day of observance. While Memorial Day, Labor Day, the 4th of July and Thanksgiving have turned into joyous celebrations, on 9/11 we have begun to have holy gatherings. But how long will that last? Already there are those who don’t recognize the role of top players: first responders, rescuers, fellow workers; those who deny what was done altogether, ‘the conspiracy theorists’, and those who fight against providing these true, real life heroes with even the dignity of medical care.
 
Then there are those who don’t seem to understand the significance of the date. I have a group of 6th and 7th graders who have a program once a month after class to do community service. They were asked to write thank you cards to New York fire fighters and police on the first day of their meeting this year as that Sunday happened to fall on 9/11.  When I asked the follow Sunday what it meant to them, they said, ‘nothing’. They did it because they were told to. They had no feeling for 9/11 and some did not even know what it referenced.  Are we living in a time where everything passes so quickly that we can’t take a moment to remember those who have died, those who are suffering because of a tragedy and those who are making a difference in our world because of events that changed theirs? Have we lost the story so soon?
 
I’m not looking for the country wide silent moments such as those observed in Israel for Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Remembrance, just a simple recognition of one humanity. I suppose it is not so simple.  I wonder is it possible?  Will it ever be? 
 
What will happen to this point in time that was seems so prominent in our lives? An event which turned the course of our country’s basic philosophy regarding civil liberty and altered our march toward human rights acceptance. When will it be rolled into all other days of remembrance, lost in significance like Pearl Harbor Day or VJ Day? 

Speaking of which – did you all see that Greta Friedman died in September? She was 92.  Who was Greta? The woman in the famous picture that represented the end of WWII, the kiss between sailor, George Mendonsa, and a nurse, Greta.
 
Even these iconic images are becoming relics. As our culture changes, we take offense at old ways of viewing things. Rather than appreciating them for what they were within their context, we denigrate and deplore what they seem to represent now. George, a half drunk sailor, according to his own recollection, at the end of a war, in pure elation desired to share it, with the first pretty stranger he encountered. Would that picture now be viewed as a sexual assault?
 
This tendency to outdate, to view as passé, even offensive, happens also with our prayers.  Therefore have we added new prayers, new melodies, new words to old prayers and new translations to old words. Often we recite words but do know what we are saying. For the most part, does it matter? No. But here’s what does matter. That our minds and hearts are directed toward the prayers. That we allow the words and melodies to move us, to move through us so that we connect to something beyond ourselves. That we are spending the time not thinking about our next text message or who’s winning the football game, but that we spend it thinking about who’s winning our soul.
 
 
Through the Window (slightly Edited)
By Yerachmiel Tilles[1]

On Erev Rosh Hashanah (the first night of Selichot) over one hundred years ago, instead of going to the large Shul to signal the beginning of the prayers, the rebbe, Rabbi Shalom of Belz, ordered his attendant to harness the horses. He said they would be going into the forest.

The astonished attendant wanted to remind the Rebbe that thousands of chassidim were waiting in the Shul, but he knew better than to ask questions and went out to prepare the wagon. After a half hour drive the Rebbe signaled him to stop. They alighted and walked down a narrow path till they saw a small hut in the distance. The Rebbe signaled the attendant to wait for him, and then tiptoed alone up to the window and peeked in.

An old Jewish man was sitting alone at a table. On the table was a bottle of vodka and two small cups, one in front of him and the other before the empty seat opposite him.

Through the window the Rebbe couldn’t hear what the old man was saying, but he saw him raise his cup in a toast, drink it, and then drink the second cup as well. This he repeated two more times, after which the Rebbe tiptoed back to the attendant. They walked quickly to the wagon and the Rebbe motioned him to drive back to Belz.

Meanwhile the chassidim had been waiting for over an hour and were becoming worried. But when the doors of the Synagogue opened and the Rebbe entered, the congregation fell silent. All eyes followed him to his place at the front of the Shul, and then the room burst into prayer.

When services ended the Rebbe turned to his attendant and said, "There is an old man that came in after everyone and I’m sure he will finish after everyone also. He’s the one I saw in the house in the woods. Please wait for him to finish, and then tell him I want him to come to my study where I will speak to him privately."

Half an hour later the simple Jew was standing in fear before the Holy Rebbe.

"Sit down, Isaac," said the Rebbe, indicating a chair. "I want you to tell me what you did in your house before you came here tonight. What were those two cups of vodka for and what was that strange l’chayim you made?"

"The Rebbe knows that?" he exclaimed, his eyes bulging in amazement. Then he started to shake. "How does the Rebbe know?"

"I sensed that something important was going to happen," the Rebbe answered, "so I drove to the woods and peeked in your window. But I want to understand the meaning behind what you were doing."

"The Rebbe peeked in my window? The Rebbe peeked in my window? How could it be? I am a nothing!"

Now the poor chassid was really confused. He was silent for a moment. Then, realizing that there was no alternative, he sank down onto the chair and began to explain.

"I’m a poor man, Rebbe, I have no children and my wife passed on years ago. I live alone with just a few farm animals. That is, until a few months ago when my cow became sick. I prayed to G‑d to heal the cow. ‘After all’, I said to G‑d, ‘You create the entire world and everything in it; certainly you can heal one cow!’

"But the cow got worse. So I said ‘Listen G‑d, if You don’t heal that cow I’m not going to shul any more!’ I figured that if G‑d doesn’t care about me—I mean, it’s nothing for Him to heal one old cow—so why should I care about His place?

"But the cow died anyway. I got mad and … and… I stopped going to synagogue.

"But then my goat got sick! I said to G‑d, ‘What! You haven’t had enough? Do you think I’m bluffing? Listen, if this goat dies I’m not putting on tefillin any more!’ But the goat died and so I stopped putting on tefillin.

"Next, my chickens got ill. I told G‑d that if they die I’m not going to recite Kiddush or keep Shabbos. Well, a week later I was without chickens and G‑d was without my Shabbos.

"I held out for weeks until suddenly I realized that the holidays were approaching. I thought to myself, ‘What, Isaac, you aren’t going to go say Gut Yuntif to the Rebbe? What, are you nuts?’ But on the other hand I was angry with G‑d and had vowed I wasn’t going to the shul. So I held out.

"But then I remembered that once I had an argument with Shmuel the butcher. For about a month we didn’t even say hello. Then one night he came to my house with a bottle of vodka and said, ‘Let’s forget the past and be friends, enough enemies outside the community; why be enemies.’ So we made three l’chayims, shook hands and even danced around a little together. Baruch Hashem, we were friends again.

"So I figured I would do the same thing with G‑d. After all, Rebbe, we are told that on these days, we are forgiven - if we atone for the sins against God - as these are the only ones for which God can forgive us. So, I invited God to sit opposite me, poured us two cups and said, ‘Listen, G‑d, you forget my faults and I’ll forget yours. All right? A deal?’ L'chayim!

"So I drank my cup and understood that since G‑d doesn’t drink, He probably wanted me to drink His. And after we did it twice more I stood up and we danced together! Then I felt better and came to shul."

The Rebbe looked deeply into Isaac’s innocent eyes. In a serious tone, he said, "Listen to me, Isaac. Before we began, I saw that in heaven there was a terrible decree on our holy congregation, because the chassidim were saying the words in the prayer book but they weren’t really praying seriously to G-d. Of course, there are a lot of distractions and other excuses; nevertheless this terrible decree was looming.

"But you, Isaac, in your sincerity have saved the entire congregation! For you, Isaac, you talked to G‑d like He is your friend.”


-----
In our SALMON HANDOUTS PG 10, #24 we read together
24. A READING by Sheila Peltz Weinberg
 
O God,
Let me be willing to be a true friend,
To walk along Without always knowing the destination
Let me have enough faith in Your presence
To know that letting go is not giving up
Surrender is not annihilation
O God,
Help me move through the arid dessert of
Loneliness and fear
Toward Your creatures, Your creation
Toward Your outstretched arm of freedom,
Your protecting wing of peace.
 ------

May we each find our way to draw near to our friends on earth and in Heaven and bring healing into our lives and the world. AMEN

[1]http://www.kabbalaonline.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/2299022/jewish/Through-the-Window.htm


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NEW PERSPECTIVES

9/16/2014

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TEKIAH! Wake Up! As the month of Elul ends and we head into the month of Tishrei, we enter with heightened awareness of how we look at the world and ourselves in it - or we should. The preparations for the High Holidays, gives us an opportunity to make the holidays a more meaningful experience. A facebook friend recently posted that he awoke to the sound an “intruder trying to enter a bedroom window!!!”  It turned out to be a raccoon that he chased away repeatedly for 30 minutes by periodically pounding on the window as it left and returned, left and returned. I wrote, “Happy to hear it was only a raccoon.” I saw him a week later. He told me that of the many responses he had received, mine was the only one with that perspective. OK, he said, “It takes a rabbi’s perspective.” But the truth is, it doesn’t. What it takes is a change of perspective.  

We have become so accustomed to looking at everything in the negative: politics, news, reports from authority figures, even weather. It takes practice to see the positives in life, but there is a positive side to each negative. That’s how the world was made. Two sides to the coin, three if you count the edge. That gives us more than one way to look at every situation.

Opening ourselves up to new perspectives allows us to enter the High Holidays more prepared. ‘Where I have done well and where I have gone astray’, will not be as daunting if you have been contemplating it over time. The wrestling of the soul becomes a familiar exercise and with it life appears different. Like the raccoon that came and went, you may feel that sometimes you are winning the wrestling match and sometimes it has you flat on your back, but the struggle is building strength for the inner spirit. Like all exercise, it takes time. That’s why each year we have the ten days of Yamim Noraim, (the Days of Awe), the month of Elul, and it is said that the Gates of Repentence are never closed. Keep the exercise going all year.

I wish you and yours L’Shana Tovah U’metuka, a very sweet and healthy New Year.

 

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KOL NIDRE 2013 Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue

9/14/2013

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The Torah is filled with laws and calls for justice. Be holy, for I, Adonai your God, am holy. The holiness code instructs us how to behave but not how to feel or to think. This comes from behaving day after day in a given fashion. Learning to have a certain outlook, to anticipate specific outcomes, to seek outlets.

I have lived in Colorado for nearly thirty years. I cannot imagine awakening with anything in my heart but joy for another day, another opportunity to make life better. Not a day goes by that I am not appreciative of living in what I have come to call my piece of heaven and in the United States. 

Then, as the day evolves, being the news junkie I am, I let myself out of my heart and into my head. Who shall live and who shall die, we ask? And how? How shall it occur? I am wholly aware that on the other side of the world Jews are at risk. We are still fleeing from and being transported from harms way every year.  Christians are at risk in the Middle
East. Dozens of churches have been burned, though for some reason, until the latest Egyptian uprising, this was not making the nightly news. In India, Hindus and Muslim have been in constant conflict, and children have been attacked for singing their national anthem, though this, too, did not make our national news. 

Americans are sorely at risk. My prayers are with those who provide our country with strength and protection, who are
devoted to their chosen professions of service to the country. May they return to their families safely and with honor.

At a time in history when half the world is recognizing the human rights and dignity of people of every race, creed, color, ethnic and sexual persuasion, it seems that the other half of the world is racing head long in the opposite direction. Most of us are familiar with the phrase, tzedek, tzedek terdof, Justice, justice shall you pursue. (Deuteronomy 16:18 - 20) but not everyone knows what precedes those words.

18 You shall appoint  magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice. 19 You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just. 20 Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 

In the bronze age, the time in which Torah was written, humanity already knew some things about the human soul. They
knew that pride and power could distort a person’s judgment. They knew that an individual could bring an idea but a group was needed to implement it, the power of numbers – we might call it peer pressure. Maybe that’s why we need ten adult Jews to form a minyan, ten to pray. They knew that the soul is weak when tested and the body is weak when tempted. They knew that it is easy for wealth to blind the eyes of the wise and that words of the just - are just as easily confounded by gain. 

They knew that people needed a focus. They needed to be able to engage their senses. They needed to turn their hearts and reach their hands toward something tangible. They needed to be involved. 

Recently, while listening to a speaker, I was completely taken by a throwaway line because it was like a light bulb going off – it was just so true. He said, “It all began with the clicker.”   It all began with the clicker.    Suddenly, with no effort at
all, one could turn away from the sights and sounds they didn’t want coming to them over the TV. You didn’t even need to get out of your chair. Enjoying a light hearted show – click – now I don’t need to hear a plea for UNICEF. Getting into the rough and tough western – click – don’t tell me how many have died in battles. Fantasizing about living in that future world – click – I can’t be bothered with sink holes swallowing houses and resorts, or disappearing bee colonies. 

We want things to exist but we no longer want to be responsible for that existence. Institutions are included in those things we want to exist. We want the Temple or at least a Jewish community available when we need it, but we want to “click” the rest of the time. We want Israel to exist so we feel we have a refuge, or maybe a nice place to visit. We’ll even celebrate it on the holidays and chant ‘next year in Jerusalem’ when it is appropriate but otherwise, click – we have our own problems. And, indeed, we do.

It should send a chill down the spine of every Jew who knows even the merest trace of Jewish history that Russia is rounding up people based on their life style. The reform Jewish community is in the forefront of the LGBT human justice issue. I would go so far as to say that anyone who says, “I am not related to and have no friends who are part of the LGBT community”, that they can say that because most likely the people around them know how they feel and simply are not being open and honest.  Who by hatred? Who by fear? Justice shall you pursue.

As a country we are facing many issues. Issues that are further dividing us rather than helping us find unity. The World Health Organization has found gender violence to be the most common human rights abuse. “Worldwide, women aged 15-44 are more likely to be killed or maimed due to male violence than by cancer, malaria, war and traffic accidents combined.” Were it not for the Violence Against Women’s Act, enacted in 1994, the effects in the United States would be
even worse. Thanks to this Act, in the past 20 years the number of individuals killed by an intimate partner has decreased 34% for women and 57% for men. Who shall live and who shall die at the hand of the one they love? Justice shall you pursue.

Prior to entering the clergy world, I was a social worker. While I worked with several different societal groups including run-aways, the psychiatric unit at the VA, home health watch which has since become termed hospice care, my primary field for nearly 12 years was reproductive health care. I can’t help but look at what is happening in a third of the states in this country and wonder why they want to turn back the clock fifty years when it comes to women’s health care, family privacy and freedom of choice. Justice shall you pursue.

In Isaiah we read, “Is not this the fast I ask for: To unlock the shackles of evil, To loosen the thongs of the yoke, To send forth crushed souls to freedom, To tear every yoke in two!  To tear up your loaves for the hungry, To bring the poor wanderer home, When you see the naked, clothe them, When you see flesh and blood, do not turn aside! Then your light will burst forth like the morning and new flesh will cover your wounds.”  
 
He further says to reach out to the soul of the hungry and ease the soul of the bruised; to remove the menacing hand and the abusive words and the oppressive yoke.”

Jews have known disenfranchisement and subjugation in so many lands, not just Egypt and not just 2500 years ago. This is why our prayers are dotted with the reminder that we were strangers in a strange land. Our Torah is spotted with ‘you shall be holy for I your God am holy’. That is why our history is marked by involvement in civil rights wherever and whenever they appear. 
 
When Jews appeared on these shores in 1654, Stuyvesant tried to send them back to whence they came, the Portuguese Inquisition. When told by the Dutch West Indian company that they were to stay, (there was a no return policy) he enacted laws that restricted those colonists. They could not serve in the military but because they did not serve in the military they had to pay a tax for not serving in the military. They were not allowed to build a synagogue. Colonial voting laws were set locally and so in many regions, Catholics and Jews, Native Americans and African Americans along with all women were NOT allowed to vote.

English jurist William Blackstone wrote in the 1700s: The true reason for requiring any qualification, with regard to property, in voters, is that it gives a great, an artful, or a wealthy man, a larger share in elections than is consistent with
general liberty. Yes, they knew that in 1700.

August 26th marked the 93rd anniversary of voting rights for women. That week, Hadassah announced VISION 2020: Five goals to be achieved by the centennial anniversary of the 19th amendment:
Women in senior leadership positions
Pay Equity                                                    
Family-Friendly workplace policies
Youth Education and civic engagement, and
Voter Mobilization promoting participation in the political process.

From the voting booth to taking care of the poor, the children and the minorities, Justice, justice shall you pursue. 
 
Why justice twice when we are told the Torah uses words sparingly? Justice has two sides. We forget that when we
rally for a cause, there is someone on the other side. When we celebrate victory there is someone who is not rejoicing. Rabbi Pinchas HaCohen Peli (1930-1989) a tenth generation rabbi of the 20th century and Professor of Jewish Thought and Literature at the Ben-Gurion University, wrote, “It is, indeed, much more difficult to find a way between two claims, both of whom have justice on their side, than to decide a priori which of the two sides is absolutely just and must be be aided.”

The Sefat Emet, Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib of Ger, an eminent Chassidic sage and the second Gerrer Rebbe of Warsaw, Poland, 1847 -1905, wrote commentary on the Torah. In his view, justice and truth are synonymous and neither is obtainable. Therefore, the pursuit of justice is endless as is the pursuit of truth.  

The pursuit of truth. There’s a notion. The truth is  -----  we are a nation in turmoil, Americans, yes. Jews even more so. 

For nearly 25 years, women have sought the right to pray at The Wall, The Western Wall, HaKotel, wearing tallit and tefillin, and to read from the Torah as a group. As a group they are known as WOW which is the acronym for Women of the Wall. During the last week of July, when it was NOT Rosh Chodesh – Rosh Chodesh is a the holiday that celebrates the new moon, the new month in the Jewish calendar - ten women prayed in tefillin and tallitot without incident at the Kotel. Why? Because, in truth - most people are not bothered by this. They need to be incited to throw rocks and chairs and spit at men and women who want to beseech God for peace and blessings. 
 
The courts have stated that it is not WOW that is causing the disruption at the Wall but those who are protesting their presence. Yet, while prior to the ruling many of the women, both Israeli and visiting Americans have been arrested or detained, the current protesters are not approached by the Wall police. Even the whistle blowers – no, not the Edward
Snowden type, these are men blowing whistles just feet from the women praying – even they are not bothered by the Wall police who do not view whistle blowing as ‘creating a public disturbance’, A PUBLIC DISTURBANCE - the crime for
which the women in prayer had been arrested so often.  

In truth, do the protesters enhance their own kavannah (intention for prayer) through such actions while at this sacred site? In truth, how many of those who block the women’s section from the members of the WOW (Women of the Wall) would come there to pray on their own rather than come to protest as a group? Indeed, we know a large percentage are
gathered only for the purpose of disrupting the prayers of the WOW. 
 
And this is not the only difficulty in my beloved Israel. Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, a prominent leader in the haredi
world, and I quote Rabbi Iris Richman in Moment Magazine, “instructs his followers that Jews who serve the land of Israel and want Haredim to become educated participants in Israeli life, with the civil obligations of all Israeli citizens, are the greatest enemy of the Jewish people. The followers of this rabbi are praying three times per day, every weekday, that (other) Jews should be “destroyed in a moment” for supporting an Israel where all of its citizens live together in shared responsibility and unity.”  

To be clear, this is an influential rabbi speaking specifically about [Yair] Lapid [Israel’s Finance Minister, and her Education Minister Shai Piron)  as Amalek – the worst enemy of the Jews. It is from Amalek that Haman and
Hitler were to have descended and according to Torah, Amalek is deserving of death.  
 
For nearly 25 years, I have prayed in a tallit, worn tefillin and read from the Torah. I did not have to endure rocks and chairs, merely snide comments, barbed looks, questions and shunning. I went through back doors to be accepted and had to prove myself repeatedly to rank and file. However, I am no longer the unusual female davener clad in
traditional garb.

I cannot understand leaving a house of worship, any house of worship, wanting to do harm to others. I quite frankly
do not want to begin to contemplate what I might need to say to you to not only make you think it ok, but to encourage it. I cannot comprehend teaching and preaching hatred when fear is already a menacing pursuer. 
 
Rabbi Peli again, “While there are those who perceive justice to be always on their side, there are others, who in
their fervour to do justice to their opponents, tend to forget that there is justice also on their side.” Justice, justice shall you pursue. Remember to see both sides of justice. At this season, we ask God to temper justice with mercy for we know we are each, from time to time, on either side of that justice. 
 
There is a parable of a king who had cups made of delicate glass. The king said, “If I pour hot water into them they will expand and burst; if cold, they will contract and break. So he mixed the hot and cold and they remained unbroken. So, too, did God say, If I create the world with mercy alone, its sins will be great; if only with justice how will it endure? So, God created the world with both justice and mercy.”

How far does the world need to regress - to devolve? Fifty years? 200 years? Back to the bronze age, the 2nd Temple generation?

A short tale from Shlomo Carlebach as retold by Diane Wolkstein (in Mitzvah Stories) and adapted here. 
 
Shlomo Carlebach’s father, Naftali Carlebach, was the rabbi of a large synagogue in Berlin in the 1930s. This was a very intolerant time, even among the Jews. In Naftali’s synagogue, a German Jew stood by the entrance, and if any Jews came from Poland, he would tell them that they had to sit in the last two rows of the synagogue. At that time in Germany,
Polish Jews were not allowed to stand at the pulpit to give the blessings of the kohanim during the high holidays. Shlomo’s father began the custom of allowing Polish Jews to join German Jews at the pulpit at Yom Kippur to offer blessings. 

After one holiday, a German Jew who was a multi-millionaire, found himself standing next to a Polish Jew whose socks were torn and who smelled terrible. The next day he sent a letter to Shlomo’s father. The letter said:

Dear Rabbi Carlebach: 

Yesterday in synagogue, I stood next to a Jew whose socks were not only torn but he smelled so terrible that I could not pray. Either you end this new custom of allowing Polish Jews to stand as kohanim or I quit.

Signed: Max Kugelman

Rabbi Naftali Carlebach wrote back to him:

Dear Mr. Kugelman:

Thank you for your letter. I was expecting a letter from you. But the letter I had hoped you would write said:

Dear Rabbi: Yesterday in shul, my heart opened as I noticed my neighbor was was standing next to me. He must have
been so poor he could not afford to bathe or buy new socks for the holidays. I thought, ‘I have so much. How can I help this man? If his socks are torn, maybe his heart is also torn.’  Tell me,
Rabbi, what can I do?”

Signed:
Rabbi Naftali Carlebach      
 
Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, said, “I do not believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.” He was right. It was not and is not. What you may not know is that two Jewish organizations were officially recognized as sponsors of that March: the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (today the Union for Reform Judaism) of which this congregation is a member, and the American Jewish Congress. Rabbi Richard Hirsch, Founding Director of the Union’s Religious Action Center in Washington, D.C.  was one of the organizers of the march and it was inside the Religious Action Center of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, that the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights was housed.  It was there that the civil rights act was signed.  

It was not Rabbi Hirsch, but rather Rabbi Yoachim Prinz, who serving as president of the American Jewish Congress 50
years ago, spoke on that late August day on the steps in Washington DC, that day whose anniversary we just observed.  Prinz was an immigrant, a refugee from Germany. Prinz stressed that the greatest sin of the German masses under the
Nazis, when confronted by the evils of discrimination, persecution and social injustice, was the sin of silence. Justice, justice shall you pursue.

Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father Our King,
Chaneiynu v’aneinu be gracious and answer us
Asey emanu     Do for us    
tzedak v’chesed     justice and kindness. 

And together we say, 
Amen.  


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Preparing for the New Year

8/9/2013

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This is the beginning of a new month, a new season. A season of renewal; renewal of spirit, of soul and of mindfulness. As Elul begins, our textual studies speak of peace and hope and promise.  The promise to the Israelites of living in a new land. That promise meets the reality of providing for life’s daily needs; needs that until now have been provided by God
and have been overseen by Moses. Now the people must take living into their own hands.

Living involves more than mere existence. It means being aware of the world around us and our place within that world. It means reacting to that world and learning to act within the world to better it and ourselves.  While the rest of the year asks us to focus on tikkun olam, repairing the world, these forty days, from the beginning of Elul, the twelfth month of the Jewish calendar until Yom Kippur, offers us a time to focus on ourselves.

One practice within Judaism that helps us see how we function in the world and how we need to repair our relationship within it is called mussar. Mussar takes a variety of forms but primarily directs individuals to look at their character traits, known as middot, and deal with them, one at a time, for a period of time, and then move on to the next. After the traits are each addressed, the individual cycles back and begins again to move to another level within each trait. 
 
While the modern mussar movement was formed in the 19th century, its roots can be traced to medieval ethical literature. It enjoys Chasidic, Kabbalistic, Ashkenazi and Sephardi variations. Duties of the Heart, The Path of the Just and The Gates of Repentance (same name but different text from the reform version of the machzor) present philosophical approaches on how to be a practical, moral Jew. 
 
Today, perhaps the broadest mussar practice is one presented through the Mussar Institute established by Alan Morinis. Character traits are infinite in number however, a set of traits is generally established within the practice. Each of us chooses which of the traits we want work on to improve ourselves. These might include: humility, anger, respect, trust,
generosity, forgiveness, gratitude and – well, you fill in the blank.

How much more will the Holydays mean if we have each spent a few weeks contemplating how we can improve, how we can draw closer to the Divine in the world and the Divine in ourselves? Even a few minutes each day spent recognizing where WE can make improvements rather than what is wrong with someone or something else, can make a tremendous difference when we unite as a community to sing joyfully about the creation of humankind and seek compassionate assistance as we continue to strive to be the best we can be as individuals and as a community. 
 


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    Community educator, choreographer, composer, performer, Becker, M.S.W., M.Ed., M.R.S., Ph.D., serves as rabbi for Temple Emanuel-Pueblo, cellist for Apples and Honey and is a Storahtelling Maven.

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    FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ISRAEL
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    WOMEN OF THE WALL http://www.nytimes.com/video/2012/12/22/world/middleeast/100000001969698/women-at-the-western-wall.html
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