Friday, April 27, 2018

Random Musing Before Shabbat - Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 5778 Same Yet Different

This is yet another of those Shabbats when things are out of sync. We're already in a period when Israel and the Diaspora are out of sync with Torah readings, and will remain so for a few more weeks until we both begin the book of Bamidar/Numbers together. This week is one of those weeks when Ashkenazim and Sephardim read different haftarot for parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim. To further confuse things, although officially the Reform movement is following Ashkenazi tradition this week, some Reform congregations will read the Sephardi haftarah based on some choices that Rabbi Gunther Plaut made when assembling his Haftarah Commentary some years back.

So here's the thing. All the differences and confusion aside, these two haftarah selections pretty much have the same theme - they just take very different approaches to it. Both provide a rebuke and a caution to the people of Israel, as well as a hint of redemption/forgiveness.

Ezekiel gets really hung up on G"d forgiving/redeeming Israel more for G"d's own vanity (though I suspect Ezekiel wouldn't put it that way or even agree with me.) G"d forgives Israel its transgressions so that G"d won't appear a fool before all the other nations. The short reading from Amos is focused on redemption despite Israel's history of transgressions.

In the haftarah from Ezekiel, G"d accuses the Israelites of failing to heed G"d's instruction to not bring along the fetishes and other trappings they had acquired in Egypt. The people did not obey, and G"d was apparently ready to pour out G:d's wrath on the Israelites right there in Egypt. Then, a change of mind:
וָאַ֙עַשׂ֙ לְמַ֣עַן שְׁמִ֔י לְבִלְתִּ֥י הֵחֵ֛ל לְעֵינֵ֥י הַגּוֹיִ֖ם אֲשֶׁר־הֵ֣מָּה בְתוֹכָ֑ם אֲשֶׁ֨ר נוֹדַ֤עְתִּי אֲלֵיהֶם֙ לְעֵ֣ינֵיהֶ֔ם לְהוֹצִיאָ֖ם מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃
But I acted for the sake of My name, that it might not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they were. For it was before their eyes that I had made Myself known to Israel to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
I don't know bout you, but I struggle with this idea of a vainglorious, face-saving G"d. At least, in the sens of some sort of omniscient G"d. doesn't make a lot of sense. If, however, we embrace a G"d than can be limited, or that can limit itself, then seeing a G"d with human-like emotions isn't as much of a leap. Perhaps our very failing all along has been to imagine that G"d is beyond such things, and we are simply too limited to fathom this ineffable G"d. Maybe. embracing G"d's humanity will...ah, but there's a catch here.  I'm not ready to accept the idea of G"d embodied in a human. That's for other folks. So how to imagine a G"d with human qualities and emotions but still keep G"d a separate entity, non-corporeal? One hope I would have is that a G"d that is subject to human frailties would thus be more forgiving of human beings and their frailties. On the other hand, one of our less-than-stellar human qualities is to sometimes not be as forgiving as we should. Maybe not being able to understand G"d is a good thing after all? But no, I can't go there, at least not yet. I have to keep trying to understand G"d and my relationship to G"d and G"d's relationship to Jews, to all humans.

Amos paints a different picture of G"d. The haftarah from Amos starts with a really interesting verse:
הֲל֣וֹא כִבְנֵי֩ כֻשִׁיִּ֨ים אַתֶּ֥ם לִ֛י בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל נְאֻם־יְהוָ֑ה הֲל֣וֹא אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל הֶעֱלֵ֙יתִי֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם וּפְלִשְׁתִּיִּ֥ים מִכַּפְתּ֖וֹר וַאֲרָ֥ם מִקִּֽיר׃
To Me, O Israelites, you are Just like the Ethiopians —declares the LORD. True, I brought Israel up From the land of Egypt, But also the Philistines from Caphtor And the Arameans from Kir.
One the surface it is easy to read this as a statement that Israel might not be that special or chosen after all. With a little rabbinic wrangling (isn't that nicer than saying apologetics?) it can be read in a way more supportive of the Jewish notion of chosenness by suggesting that G"d is in charge of the movements and happenings to all the nations - whether they know it or not. G"d manipulates the other nations so that G"d might fulfill G"d's promises (and rebukes) to Israel.
In the next verse, G"d is already tempering the rebuke with hope:
הִנֵּ֞ה עֵינֵ֣י ׀ אֲדֹנָ֣י יְהוִ֗ה בַּמַּמְלָכָה֙ הַֽחַטָּאָ֔ה וְהִשְׁמַדְתִּ֣י אֹתָ֔הּ מֵעַ֖ל פְּנֵ֣י הָאֲדָמָ֑ה אֶ֗פֶס כִּ֠י לֹ֣א הַשְׁמֵ֥יד אַשְׁמִ֛יד אֶת־בֵּ֥ית יַעֲקֹ֖ב נְאֻם־יְהוָֽה׃
Behold, the Lord GOD has His eye Upon the sinful kingdom: I will wipe it off The face of the earth! But, I will not wholly wipe out The House of Jacob —declares the LORD.
 The remainder continues in that manner - offering rebuke, describing punishment, but ultimately ending with:
וּנְטַעְתִּ֖ים עַל־אַדְמָתָ֑ם וְלֹ֨א יִנָּתְשׁ֜וּ ע֗וֹד מֵעַ֤ל אַדְמָתָם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר נָתַ֣תִּי לָהֶ֔ם אָמַ֖ר יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ׃
And I will plant them upon their soil, Nevermore to be uprooted From the soil I have given them —said the LORD your God.
Now there's a verse that can support chosenness, and also be parlayed into lots of fuel to add to the fire surrounding the modern state of Israel. Of course, if we're measuring closer to it's own time, then this prophecy of Amos wasn't on target at all, for there were subsequent times of uprooting.

Amos' G"d is the G"d of "I promised this, I will keep it. Even if I have to rebuke you and cause you pain, I will ultimately insure My promise is kept. Ezekiel's G"d is a G"d who worries what it will look like to other people when G"d doesn't keep promises made to the Israelites.

When I started, I wondered if there was a way to reconcile these different views of G"d and G"d's relationship to and treatment of the Jewish people. I can certainly see how both the views above might be considered as portraying G"d as somewhat human in nature (or vice versa - B'tzelem anashim, as I have often remarked.) So there is some connection. At the same time, one of the joys of Judaism is to be able to hold that both Ezekiel and Amos provide equally valid and useful descriptions of G"d. Same yet different. Judaism is full of so much of this. Instead of finding it difficult, we should embrace it.  Some people can't handle holding things in tension like that, but it seems to me that to be Jewish requires it.

For those who need it simple, Mssrs. Gilbert and Sullivan poke fun at the British society of their own time by putting these word on the lips of the characters in The Mikado:
And I am right,
And you are right,
And all is right as right can be!
In that world, it's rule number 1 - "The Mikado is always right" and rule number 2, "when The Mikado is wrong, see rule number 1." Within Judaism, there are people, even great sages, who assert that this is Judaism's truth as well. When G"d is wrong, see rule number 1. (A great deal of energy has been spent over the millennia on manufacturing the apologetics necessary to defend this view.)

That's not the Judaism of my understanding. Here's mine:
Townsperson: Why should I break my head about the outside world?  Let the outside world break its own head….Tevye: He is right…Perchik: Nonsense. You can’t close your eyes to what’s happening in the world.Tevye: He’s right.Rabbi’s pupil: He’s right, and he’s right.  They can’t both be right!Tevye:  (Pause). You know, you are also right.
Let's all go out and be right. Let's all go out and be the same yet different.

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
(c)2018 by Adrian A. Durlester

Other Musings on this Parasha:








Friday, April 20, 2018

Random Musing Before Shabbat–Tazria-Metzora 5778–Excessive Prevention (Redux 5770)

Life interfered with my ability to create a new musing this week. How fortunate that just this week in the news we are learning news about new flu strains and drug-resistant infections once again – just as it was 8 years ago when I wrote this musing. So that lessens the guilt I feel at not being able to provide a new one.

From 2010:

Sometimes the ideas for my musings come from unexpected places. I've actually been having a somewhat difficult time finding words to speak once again about Tazria-Metzora. I've sat down several times, each time doing the digital equivalent of crumbling up the paper and throwing it away. So I took a break from it.

As I was doing other chores this afternoon, I was also listening to NPR's Talk of the Nation Science Friday. The topic was anti-biotic-resistant infections, and how they were on the rise yet again on our population.

Many interesting points were raised by the participants in the discussion, as well as by callers. We have a truly paradoxical situation here. Our efforts to prevent disease are actually working against us.

We've become an extremely germ-phobic society. We have anti-biotic agents that we build into our work surfaces, cookware, storage containers, clothing, linens, and more. Bottles of antiseptic hand wash are prevalent everywhere - even our supermarkets and big-box stores have anti-bacterial washing materials near their entrances. We've become ridiculously obsessed with preventing sickness.

As one expert on the radio said, it's a pointless battle. It's a battle between our intelligence and bacterial genes. The genes are going to win every time. It's the job of every bacterial strain to find a way to survive. Survive it will. Put it in the presence of many anti-biotics, and evolutionary pressures will force the dominance of an anti-biotic resistant strain. One expert suggested that we should simply stop all the "routine" uses of anti-biotics (for example, in animal feed) and simply allow the normal, non-resistant strains of bacteria to thrive. This will reduce the presence of the resistant strains, an we can then treat those who get sick from the ordinary strains as necessary (but not too excess, or we're back in the same vicious cycle.)

What's all this to do with our parasha? Well, some obvious questions come to mind. Is this ancient obsession with skin diseases, molds, etc. really a good idea? Could such a strong focus on these conditions actually be counter-productive, and actually increase their occurrence?

Of course, like so much else in the Torah, this could all be metaphorical-really being about "spiritual rot" as I've written about in these musings in the past. Nevertheless, isolating one with an obvious skin condition from the rest of the community seems like a reasonably prudent idea, especially considering that they really had no clear knowledge or idea about disease transmission. (Of course, just as some still insist that the dietary laws were rudimentary forms of health codes, they say the same of the rules in Tazria-Metzora. I don't buy it, personally, but I also agree with the idea that what we think of as primitive societies aren't always so primitive.)

So, if this is all about spiritual rot, is there still a connection? Yes. Look at how obsessed we are these days about religion and G"d. Books critical of and supportive of religion and a belief in G"d. It's a hot topic. It's far too easy for us to get all wrapped up in a debate that maybe we really don't need to be having. Or perhaps this debate is just what is needed to sustain the necessary balance between resistant and non-resistant strains of belief. Both sides in this debate are coming on strong. The opponents of religion see religion as a bacteria that we need to wipe out. Yet there seems to be an even stronger strain of resistant believers coming into existence. Maybe if the opponents of religion eased off on their attack, there'd be less of the fanatical resistant strains of believers. Similarly, maybe if people of faith stopped hitting back so hard at their opponents, they, too, would decrease in numbers, and a more natural balance could be restored to our society.

You know, with all the internal struggles and doubt we all deal with on a daily basis, with our constant struggle to be true (or deliberately untrue) to ethical and religious principals, it's no wonder we aren't all struggling with outward skin conditions that betray our inner turmoil.

Or maybe it's not us showing these manifestations, but our greater society itself? Is our society showing physical manifestations of the spiritual rot that may be undermining our social structure? What might these manifestations be? (Could the Holocaust have been one of them?) Tough questions to ask. Even tougher to answer. enjoy the struggle.

Shabbat Shalom

Adrian ©2010 by Adrian A. Durlester

Other Musings on this Parasha:

Tazria-Metzora 5777 - The Overlooked Lesson (Revisiting 5767)
Tazria-Metzora 5775 - Singing a Song of Leprosy Again
Tazria-M'tzora 5773-Even Lepers Bring Good News-Redux, Revised, & Expanded
Tazria-Metzora 5772 - We Are the Lepers
Tazria-Metzora 5770 - Excessive Prevention
Tazria-M'tzora 5767-Once Impure, Not Always Impure
Tazria-Metzora 5766 - Comfort in Jerusalem
Tazria-Metzora 5758/5764-Getting Through the Messy Stuff
Tazria-Metzora 5761-Lessons For Our Stuents
Tazria-Metzora 5762-Sing a Song of Leprosy

Tazria/Shabbat HaHodesh 5774 - Fifty Fifty
Tazria/Shabbat HaHodesh 5771 - It's Good To Be the King
Tazria 5768 - Just Not Good Enough is Just Not Good Enough
Tazria 5765-If Naaman Can Be Forgiven...
Tazria 5760-Preventing Spiritual Rot

Metzora 5774 - Go With the Flow
Metzora 5771 - Afflict This!
Metzora 5768 - Human Nature
Metzora 5765-Defiling the Tabernacle
Metzora 5763-Not So Irrelevant
Metzora 5760-Even Lepers Bring Good News

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Random Musing Before Shabbat–Sh’mini-Machar Chodesh–Drops That Sparkle (Redux and Revised from 5774)

Once again, this Shabbat has a special haftarah reading. Since the new month, Iyyar, begins after sundown on Shabbat, we read the special haftarah for machar chodesh - tomorrow is the (new) month. So even though it has only been 4.5 years since I wrote this musing, I’m going to share it again, with some revisions. It doesn’t come around all that often (but it’s not the rarest of the haftarot.)

Last year was the 20th anniversary of my “GEFTS” musing for Sh’mini, and I commend it to you. You’ll also find my original “Crispy Critters” musing about Nadav and Avihu and subsequent follow-ups, along with the other musings for Sh’mini linked at the end of this post. I had some new insights into the Nadav and Avihu story this year, but they’re too fresh, raw, and unworked through to share this year – but just wait until next year!

Also, a caveat to those of you intimately familiar with Buberian philosophy as expressed in Ich Und Du, I apologize for the simplicity and un-nuanced approach I take here.

Haftarah Machar Chodesh: I Samuel 20:18-42

This haftarah comes from stories from the Tanakh which have seen increased interest in the past few decades – the relationship between David and Jonathan. The question has been asked, for countless ages, if the relationship being described is platonic, homosocial, or homosexual.

While this topic, in and of itself, makes for fascinating discussion, it is not my focus today.  That being said, I believe there is ample reason to believe that  Oscar Wilde was correct when he spoke at his trial  when questioned as to the meaning of the “The love that dare not speak its name” (the closing line to Lord Douglas’ 1894 poem, “Two Loves.”) Wilde said, at trial:

" ‘The love that dare not speak its name’ in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan…”

This haftarah and the relationship between Jonathan and David spoke out to me this week mostly because I have been re-reading Buber’s “I and Thou” in preparation for participation in an online study group. In a most unusual circumstance for me, I find myself in almost total agreement with the rabbis, who in the Mishnah (Avot) cite the relationship between Jonathan and David in this way:

What love is that which is inspired by ulterior motives?E.g. the love of Amnon and Tamar. And what love is without such motives? E.g., the love of David and Jonathan.

Or a smoother translation/interpretation:

Any loving relationship which depends upon something, [when] that thing is gone, the love is gone. But any which does not depend upon something will never come to an end.... What is a loving relationship which does not depend upon something? That is the love of David and Jonathan. [Avot 5:18]

The story of the relationship of Amnon and Tamar is told in II Samuel, chapter 13. It is a sad tale. Amnon, one of David’s sons, is besotted with one of his half-brother Absalom’s daughters, Tamar. Through deceit he manages to get Tamar alone, and, despite her protestations, have his way with her (she was a virgin.) Yet once the deed was done, he lost all passion and interest for her, and, again despite her pleas to the contrary, sent her away. Absalom tells Tamar to keep quiet for the moment, planning to serve his revenge cold, which he does some two years later, having Amnon killed.

The relationship between Jonathan and David is the classic example of an “I-You” relationship. What makes this all the more amazing is the potential for the benefits of an “I-It” relationship between Jonathan and David.  Remember who they were. Jonathan was Saul’s son, potential heir to the throne. David was the young upstart that, upon G”d’s insistence (well, at least according to the prophet Samuel) would be replacing Saul as King.  To begin with, there was every reason for jealousy and rivalry between these two – even before David’s role as replacement for Saul became known. However, from the beginning, their relationship is one of admiration, respect, loyalty, and, most importantly, love. It was a mutual love, and one not based on how one could be of benefit to the other.

Such was the love between Jonathan and David, that when Saul decided to stand against David, Jonathan backed not his father, but his friend (lover?) with the knowing risk of forfeiting his own opportunity to sit on the throne. Jonathan seemed to believe that David would make a better King than Saul, and perhaps better than Jonathan himself.Consider the many other ways this story could have unfolded. Jonathan and David could have easily engaged in “I-It” relating, each seeking some ulterior purpose.

And what of Amnon and Tamar? Was that even a relationship? There’s no indication at all that Tamar was interested in Amnon. This was a one-way lusting. Love? Was there any love in this relationship? As profound and deeply as Amnon may have felt, there was no love present, at least not ahava love.

So, while I agree with the rabbis that the relationship between Jonathan and David was an example of pure, unselfish love, I (and you knew this was coming) have to take exception to their using the story of Amnon and Tamar as a comparator. Surely they could have found a better example of a love and relationship based on selfish motives? Cain and Abel. Jacob and Esau. Rebecca and Esau. Rebecca and Jacob, for that matter. David and Bathsheva? David and Uriah?

Jonathan winds up dead, and David is certainly no high moral achiever during the remainder of his life. Yet, in a  lifetime of questionable moral choices, David’s relationship with Jonathan is a Noah-like “not bad considering everything else” moral moment. It is worthy of being held up by the rabbis as a paragon of relationships.

I-It relationships can be easy, but eventually empty and meaningless. I-You relationships are difficult to establish and maintain. I imagine that all of us have experienced both types of relationships. In reality, I think many relationships hover between I-You and I-It, sometimes comfortably, sometimes uncomfortably.

(I’m not delving much deeper into Buber and “I and Thou” in this essay. I refer to it in a sort of stereotypical over-simplification. “Ich und Du” is too complex and profound a work to do much more than that here and now.)

In the haftarah, Jonathan arranges to meet with and/or warn away David. He defends David’s noticeable absence at court to Saul, who remains enraged and both David and Jonathan for siding with David. Seeing that there is no hope, Jonathan uses the pre-arranged signal to entice David from hiding, whereupon they meet, profess their abiding love, and go their separate ways. Knowing, of course, that this might likely be the last time they ever meet. It’s a heart-wrenching scene. Yet the relationship of David and Jonathan, being somewhat like that of Romeo and Juliet, was doomed, perhaps, from the start. David & Jonathan may have sensed this from the beginning, but they could not help themselves, so strong was the attraction, the bond, the love between them, even from the start. (How rare it seems, the affection or crush that turns out to be true, reciprocated, unselfish love.)

The story of David and Jonathan gives me hope. I’m not sure why, because it doesn’t turn out well, at least not for Jonathan. David, at least, was able to console himself with his many futures wives and concubines. But those relationships were likely different, and not as purely I-You as the one he had with Jonathan. Perhaps it gives me hope because it reinforces the notion of better having loved and lost than to never have loved at all. It gives me something to strive for, to be a better person, even with all my imperfections. Better, that for one, brief, shining moment, there was a Camelot. A story perhaps reflected somewhat in the stories of David and his son Solomon.

How do we work to make our relationships truly loving, to be truly as I-You as possible? How do we handle it when we are less than successful – when the relationship is asymmetrical. Can a true I-You relationship ever fail? If it fails, was it ever truly an I-You relationship? Hard questions to both ask and answer. If nothing else, reading about the relationship between Jonathan and David inspires me to keep trying, to the best of my ability, to have and maintain truly loving, unselfish, I-You relationships. Such relationships can exist in many forms – in a marriage or partnership, in a friendship, even I dare suggest, in a professional relationship. I-You relationships seem to go against the norm for business relationships in a capitalistic society, yet I believe they are possible, and can even be the gateway to a whole new way of doing “business” that is more predicated on an I-You way of thinking as opposed to “I-It.”

I don’t want to spoil anything for any of my readers who might later read “I and Thou” but I am also seriously considering how these relationships can and might work in educational situations. (Does, for example, standardized testing utilize an “I-It” perspective, and if so, how can we measure student learning in a more I-You way? I certainly find personality profiles, like the Myers-Briggs, DISC Model, et al) which are often used in organizations in their staff development programs ripe for abuse. While the oft-stated intent is to help staff work together by learning how to interact with the different personality types of other staff, the sad reality is more often they are used as exploitative tools by supervisors seeking to exert control over those they supervise.)

What re-reading “I and Thou” along with thinking about the relationship of David and Jonathan does for me is cause me to reconsider how I interact with all people – students, friends, lovers, spouses, merchants, strangers. It makes me want to have better relationships with all of them. It makes me want to show myself and others what is possible. It compels me to carry forward the message of what is possible in human relationships (and relationship with the Divine) by retelling the stories of those brief, shining moments.

What we see in our political system these days, and particularly in the executive branch and the oval office, are quintessential “I-It” relationships. Everything is about what others can do for me. The “ask not” days of the Camelot of the Kennedy administration are being forgotten. Having “I-It” relationships is what makes possible the demeaning and devaluing of entire groups of people.Sadly, some of this occurs on both sides. When others are only objects of use to you, it is easy to disregard their value, to treat them as worthless.

In these very troubled times, when human relationships feel as strained as they have ever been, when so many relationships are I-It in nature, we need all the hope we can get. There is, in each and every one of us, the ability to engage in meaningful I-You (and potentially I-G”d) relationships. In dark times like these, I look to the stories that inspired me in my youth. Stories like those ones that inspired JFK. T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King” and the Lerner & Loewe musical based loosely upon it, “Camelot.”

At the end of the musical Camelot, when Pellinore asks Arthur who was the young man he was talking to, the youth that Arthur instructed to leave the battlefield so that he might carry on the message and myth of Camelot, and not let it be forgotten, Arthur replies:

One of what we all are, Pelly. Less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea. But it seems that some of the drops sparkle, Pelly. Some of them do sparkle!.

Let us all strive to be the drops that sparkle, and carry the message of hope to others now and in the future.

“Run, boy! Run, boy! Runnnnn! Oh, run, my boy.”

http://youtu.be/JbYwf1BJgWA?t=5m40s

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
©2018 (portions ©2013) by Adrian A. Durlester

Other musings on this parasha:

Sh'mini 5777 - GEFTS 20th Anniversary
Sh'mini 5775 - Vayyidom Aharon (Revisiting Calm In A Crisis)
Sh'mini 5774 - Indubitably Delicious
Sh'mini 5772 - Collect Call
Sh'mini/Shabbat Parah 5771-So Say We All
Sh'mini 5770 - Don't Eat That, It's Not Kosher
Sh'mini 5769 srettirC ypsirC
Sh'mini 5767-Don't Be a Stork
Sh'mini 5766-Palmwalkers
Shemini 5765-It All Matters
Shemini 5764-Playing Before Gd
Shemini 5763 - Belly of the Beast
Shemini 5762-Crispy Critters
Shemini 5761-Lessons From Our Students
Shemini 5760-Calm in a Crisis
Shemini 5759-Porking Out

Thursday, April 5, 2018

Random Musing Before Shabbat - Shabbat 22 Nissan 5778 - OTD: On and Off the Derekh?

This is one of those weird situations one encounters in the world of liberal Judaism. In the traditional world (and for most Conservative and even Reconstructing Jews) it’s not an issue at all. Observing 8 days of Pesakh is the norm. Therefore, on this Shabbat, they will use the Torah and Haftarah readings for Pesakh Day 8 when it falls on Shabbat.  Unless, of course, they are in Israel, where only 7 days are observed. So, for the next 6 Shabbatot, the Diaspora and Israel will be out of sync for the parashat hashavua – the weekly Torah reading. Traditionalists holding to an 8th day of Pesakh will be a week behind Israel, and will “fix” the problem by combining the last two parashiyot of Leviticus, Behar and B’khukotai, as is also done during other years of the 19-year soli-lunar Jewish calendar when necessary. So on May 19th, Israel and the Diaspora will be back in synchronization again as far as weekly Torah readings.

Reform Judaism, not wishing to make things too confusing, gives a nod to tradition and strives to stay in synchronization with the Diaspora cycle – and does so with the somewhat strange adaptation of dividing parashat Sh’mini into two parts – this week, Lev 9:1-10:11 and next week 10:12-11:47. Similarly, they divide the Haftarah up, the first week II Samuel 6:1-23 and the next week II Samuel 7:1-17. It should be noted that not all Reform congregations follow this custom.

So the question becomes “about what do I write this week?”  The 8th day of Pesakh reading with chunked up sections of Deuteronomy chapters 14-16 with an added maftir reading from Numbers 28, the hafatarah for Pesakh 8 from Isaiah Chapter 10, or the first half texts for parashat Sh’mini and the haftarah from II Samuel?

I could choose, I suppose, based on my custom of observance. Aye, but here’s the rub. I revel in my inconsistency, and go back and forth from time to time and even year to year between observing 7 or 8 days of Pesakh. Adding further to the ironic nature of my inconsistency is how often I have challenged, in these musings and elsewhere, the now somewhat ridiculous practice of continuing to observe second-day yom tovim where modern science has clearly eliminated all uncertainties. (The second day yom tovim having been added at a time when distant communities could not be certain of the exact times in Israel, so an extra day was added to play it safe.)

An additional rub – here it is just before the eve of the 7th day of Pesakh, and I am as yet undecided if I will observe the dietary restrictions for 7 or 8 days. It should be any easy decision, given my position about the obviation of the need for second-day yom tovim. However, I always strive to make such decisions with full intent and with comfort as to my choices. It would be much easier for me if I simply followed orthodox/traditional practice consistently, or Reform practice consistently. Actually, I suspect following traditional practice would ultimately be easier. While I’ll be the first to admit that a large percentage of people who consider themselves Reform Jews do not make conscious theological decisions on such things, and simply default to the simpler and easier option of 7 days without much thought, I am not one of them, and I am not alone. (I also believe the same hold true for many Conservative and Reconstructing Jews.) (Hey, don’t blame me, I’m not the one who changed the name from reconstructionist to reconstructing. I’m just trying to respect that choice, as much as I struggle with it.) Were I an adherent  to orthodox practice, there would not be a choice to make. The halakhah is clear. I do not mean to imply that living an orthodox life is easy. It is filled with many challenges. I do not mean to imply that orthodox Jews do not discuss and debate aspects of the halakhah – they do frequently. There are certainly small areas of difference in orthodox practice between different groups that fall under the orthodox umbrella (which is why even defining orthodoxy as simply adherence to Halakhah is problematic.) By and large, however, on the macro-scale of things, most orthodox Jews agree on accepted halakhic practices.

The Reform Judaism of the 50, 60s, 70s, and 80s was of a kind – and it developed its own set of customs, practices, and default preferences. From the 80s and on into the 90s, 00, 10s, and soon the 20s Reform has seen  significant change – though not all of it consistently towards one common understanding. It started with Jews of my stripe – who were convinced that Reform had indeed thrown the baby out with the bathwater, and yearned for reincorporation of some of the practices and liturgy that had been thrown aside. The new siddur, Mishkan T’fila, was largely a reflection of that yearning. It gave us back the choice to say m’khayeh hameitim in the G’vurot, recognizing that those words need not necessarily represent a desire for the clearly unscientific idea of a physical resurrection of the dead (though is anything – even the unscientific – truly impossible for G”d?) It provided the text for those who wished to do all the paragraphs of the Sh’ma. I’ve only scratched the surface of what the new siddur did. It also seems to have had some unintended consequences. WARNING – really long run-on sentence – try to follow. Though I am thrilled to see it include the full set of prayers in both the weekday and Shabbat amidah, coincident with the adoption of Mishkan T’filah the practice of reading the avot/g’vurot/kedusha followed by silent prayer until the end of the amidah – a harkening back to a more traditional practice in which the entire amidah is silent (the first time through – as it is repeated in a traditional service by the chazzan or leader of the service, with some communal responses) – has sadly deprived us of many brilliant and inspiring musical settings of the remaining prayers of the amidah.

One encounters many variations in practice when visiting Reform congregations around the country. While this might be a good thing, it becomes an even greater challenge for we Jewish educators who work in Reform settings, who, as part of our goals, have always wanted to enable our students to feel comfortable attending worship in other congregations. It’s difficult enough to prepare them for the differences they will encounter in Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructing, Chabad, Sephardi, and other settings – yet it is also an educational opportunity to teach them the theological underpinnings of the choices made by the various movements and how that impacts the liturgy. Trying to explain to students the not always small and subtle differences they might encounter from one Reform congregation to another can be really challenging. (I should also note at this point that one can certainly observe the same phenomena in Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructing, and other Jewish settings. Though they often lack enough background to understand the differences, I still find it a worthwhile practice to help students to note and try to understand these differences even among the supposedly homogenous Orthodox Judaism. As an adult Jew, I would find myself very lacking were I not able to understand such things. This is why I study Talmud, Shulkhan Arukh, the writings of the great sages and commentators, the writings of modern orthodox scholars, and participate actively in Facebook groups with Jews of all stripes – even ones where the liberal Jews are a clear minority. (Yes, sadly there are some groups where liberal Jews or traditional Jews would be unwelcome.) Even if I were not holding myself to the standard of informed choice that underlies Reform practice I would want to understand the parts of my Judaism which I do not practice – out of simple curiosity if nothing more.

Even writing all this out loud, I’m no closer to deciding if I’ll observe 7 or 8 days of Pesakh this year. As I’ve said – I revel in my inconsistency. I’ve kept Kosher at times in my life. I’ve also eaten foods which are not kosher at times. There are some things I do consistently. Though I do inconsistently observe 7 or 8 days of Pesakh, for all of those 7 or 8 days I do not eat food that is considered not Kosher for Pesakh. (As to kitniyot-a word meaning legumes, but expanded to include grains and seeds such as rice, corn, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, soybeans, peas, and lentils-which Ashkenazi Jews generally do not eat on Pesakh but Sephardim do - I’ve gone both ways. Nowadays, it seems even many orthodox Ashkenazim suddenly become Sephardi during Pesakh so they can consume kitniyot.  Same for gebrokts, I gone both ways - though that one was just to difficult to do with any consistency and I only tried it one year. Give up matzah balls and matzah brei? Pesadike cakes? Never! (Gebrokts, literally meaning “broken” is a term for matzah that has absorbed some moisture. It’s really a modern practice, only going back a few hundred years. Both the Talmud and Rashi seem to approve of the practice of mixing matzah and water, as long as the matzah was properly prepared within the 18 minute limit, it cannot again be made chametz by combining with water, hold most poskim (deciders.) But in the spirit of “my Judaic practice is more stringent than your Judaic practice” which seems to maintain its  annoyingly fervent grip upon the Orthodox world, not eating gebrokts and/or kitniyot has become a point of pride among many Ashkenazi sects.)

Seem what I mean? The idea that following Orthodox practice is any easier is silly on its face. Yes, the basic understanding of modern Orthodox practice is, when unsure, ask your LOR (local Orthodox rabbi.) Orthodoxy has, over the centuries, really thought about how to keep the commandments, even as the world changes. There’s a reason there’s an Institute for Science and Halakhah. I, and other liberal Jews may not find the halakha binding, but I think we deceive ourselves when we assume the Reform ideal of informed choice is necessarily the more difficult path than the orthodox one. It is true that, for the most part, the Orthodox have a path, a derekh to follow, and that could, possibly, make the destination easier to reach. The liberal Jew must contend with many possible paths, and, along each path. many, many choices. Now, if you’re the kind of liberal Jew who just says “chuck it all, I ain’t doing that, I’m Reform” – well, good luck to you. You may very well find your path rather easy to navigate. Me, and other liberal Jews who try to abide by the idea of informed choice, it is just as possible for us to go, as the Orthodox say, OTD – off the derekh. It’s a harder condition to ascertain, for sure, since they are so many paths, so many choices and options available to us. It would be easy for me and other liberal Jews who follow the informed choice route to simply write off the “we don’t do that, we’re Reform” crowd as being OTD in Reform terms. But who are any of us to make that judgment of another?

For some, the path, the derekh, is found in the words of the oral Torah, the Talmud, the Shulkhan Aruch and other commentaries and writings. For others, the path is found by examining the ideas found in all those texts and working to find a modern understanding that works with the world as we know it. For yet others, it is a constant process of finding a path, losing it, finding another (or the same path, without regard to ancient writings in which we place no stock other than a grudging respect for their centuries of tradition. It seems to me that whatever path we choose, even if it changes from moment to moment, it remains possible to fall off that path, to be OTD.

If I choose to observe only 7 days this year, will I feel like, on the 8th day, that I might have gone OTD? Or is it possible, if I observe 8 days, that, on the 8th day, I feel like I’ve gone OTD?

If, as we are taught, the gates of t’shuva – return/repentance – are always open, then going OTD need not be something to be feared. If we can find our way back to our path (or to a new path that fits us better) it will be as if we had returned. We should always allow ourselves that latitude, and not be so hard on ourselves if we find ourselves off the path. I remain unconvinced that having a well-worn, well-trod path, such as one encounters in traditional Judaism, makes t’shuvah, returning to the path, any harder or easier than for those whose Judaism allows them to experience a multitude of paths. Both are hard. Both take effort. Both take courage. Both are Jewishly meaningful. Both can also be paths of least resistance. Both can be the easy way out. Both can be abrogating your individual responsibilities.

Besides, which, and you knew this was coming. Ultimately, who cares about the path so much? It’s not the destination that really matters. It’s the journey.

Journey down your road, dear friends.

Shabbat Shalom (and Chag Kasher v’Pesakh Sameiakh to you 8-dayers,)

Adrian
©2018 by Adrian A. Durlester

Other musings on this parasha:

Shabbat Hol HaMoed Pesakh 5777 - Valley of The Donald
April 11, 2015 - Cop Out
Pesakh 5775 - Day Off (Literally)
Shabbat Hol HaMoed Pesakh 5773 - The Whole House of Israel
Pesach 5772 - Don't Believe This
Pesach 8th Day 5772 - The Bread of Freedom
Shabbat Hol HaMoed Pesakh 5771-Admat Yisrael
Shabbat Hol HaMoed Pesakh 5769 - Valley of the Dry Economy
Pesach VII 5768 - Department of Redundant Anamnesis Department
Hol HaMoed Pesach 5767-Not Empty
Intermediate Shabbat of Passover 5766-A Lily Among Thorns
Pesach VII 5761 (Revised 5765)
Hol HaMoed Pesach 5764-Dem Bones & Have We Left Gd behind? (5578-60)
Hol Hamoed Pesach 5763-No Empty Gestures (Redux 5762)
5761-Pesach VII-Redundant Anamnesis