Shanah Tovah uMetukah!

Image: Symbols of the New Year: pomegranate, apple, honey, and grapes. (Ajale / Pixabay)

I wish each of my readers a good and a sweet year in 5780, the year that begins at sundown tonight (Sunday.)

This is one of those Jewish holidays that commands us to step back from the world to whatever degree we can, to take stock, to regroup, to enjoy what we can and to make amends for anything we’ve done.

I know that for many of you, a day completely off is not possible. Maybe you are in a job you’ll lose if you miss, or maybe you are a new parent who hasn’t slept for a week and has to keep up with the needs of an infant. Maybe you are on disability, but you still have the tough job of being a mensch when life is really quite difficult. For all of you, I wish a bit of rest and a bit of peace.

For clergy friends who are in the midst of the annual marathon of services, I wish you health and strength to keep up with it all. I also hope that the people who like your sermons and the congregants who appreciate you are at least as vocal as the ones who don’t.

May 5780 be a good year for all of us, for the Jews and for the world.

Why is the Jewish Year 5780?

Image: A child carries a shofar. (With parents’ permission, all rights reserved.)

The short answer: tradition!

The longer, more complete answer: A long time ago, before we had scientific method to explore the “how” of the world, a Jewish scholar used the text of the Bible to count back to the date of creation. Then the Jewish community chose to number the years according to “the number of years since creation.”

By that accounting, the birthday of the world is Rosh Hashanah. If we baked a cake for the world, it would have 5780 candles. (And we would have a fire on our hands, I imagine!)

Today we have science to explain phenomena in the world, and Jews do not rely on the Biblical text for scientific knowledge. Instead, we go to the texts for questions of meaning: questions science cannot ask or answer. We explore the text to ask questions like, “What does it mean to live a good life?” or “What should we do about suffering?” Those are questions science cannot address.

So why continue counting the years from a date we are absolutely sure wasn’t the date of creation? The answer is simple: it’s our tradition!

Online Rosh Hashanah Services!

Image: Temple Sinai, Oakland, CA

Not everyone can get to synagogue for Rosh Hashanah services. Because of my health issues, I will be able to attend in the daytime, but the evening services (in a hall where the chairs hurt my back) are impossible.

However, my synagogue streams services, and I invite you to join me for the evening service Erev Rosh Hashanah, Sunday night, Sept 29!

Services will stream at the Temple Sinai Community Facebook Page beginning at 7:30pm, Sunday, September 29, Pacific Time. I will be watching from home as well, so we can wish each other a “Shanah Tova!” before services begin.

The next morning, Rosh Hashanah services will stream at the same Internet address (see link above) at 8:30am and 11:30am Pacific Time. My wife and I will attend the 11:30 service in person, so I will not be watching the service from home.

Watching long distance is not ideal, but a whole lot better than nothing! I hope that some of you will join me in watching and participating from home on Sunday evening.

Al Cheyt, Regarding Ivanka

Image: Ivanka Trump at the Holocaust Memorial. (Public Domain)

I just saw some chatter on Jewish Twitter about Ivanka Trump. Doesn’t matter who was writing, or what they said; it was the same stuff as usual, and I started to do what I’ve been doing for years and let it pass. Then I realized that I need to make teshuvah, because my silence has been a sin.

So I confess it, Al cheyt, Concerning the sin of listening in silence to lashon hara (literally “evil tongue,” spreading lies) I am guilty. I have let people say cruel and untrue things about Ivanka Trump and I have said not a word.

Ivanka Trump is giyoret, a convert to Judaism like myself. She converted to a different branch of Judaism, and she has made a lot of choices that I don’t like, but that doesn’t change the fact that her conversion was legitimate. Like it or not, she’s one of us.

It has become fashionable in some circles to speak ill of her Jewish practice, to cast aspersions on her legitimacy as a Jew, and to use the word shiksa (Yiddish for non-Jewish woman, but literally “filth”) to refer to her. I’ve listened to people say such things, and I was silent.

Her conversion is legitimate. Her observance may not be perfect, but whose is?

She is a public figure, involved in the U.S. government. It’s fair game to disagree with her politics and her fitness for her job. It’s fair game to question her business practices. I don’t even have to like her.

It is not OK, it is downright wrong, for me to stand by while people throw words like shiksa at a convert. And from now on, I shall behave differently: I will change the subject, I will send the conversation elsewhere, or I will confront the person saying these things privately.

For the sin of evil speech, spoken or accepted, which we have committed before you, God of pardon, pardon us, forgive us, atone for us. 

– Adapted from Al Cheyt prayer in the Yom Kippur service

Do Not Believe These Lies

Image: Person w/ name tag, “Mr. Know-It-All.” (Rob Byron/Shutterstock)

I just had a conversation online with a very nice gentleman. He had been given a bunch of misinformation by a Self-Appointed Jewish Misinformer (SAJM.)

The question in this case was, “Can a person convert to Judaism?” The SAJM answered, “No, a person has to be born Jewish.”

It happens that I had that same conversation many years ago, with another SAJM. There was no reason to doubt this person, so instead of converting early in my twenties, I converted at age 40, after a better-informed Jew told me that the previous answer was bunk. I lost almost 20 years of Jewish living to that Self-Appointed Jewish Misinformer.

SAJM’s do a lot of damage to Am Yisrael (the People of Israel.) They spread all kinds of misinformation, for instance:

NOTE: ALL OF THE STATEMENTS IN THE LIST ABOVE ARE UNTRUE! If you want to learn more about them, click the link for each UNtrue statement.

Sometimes misinformation (or even information, poorly delivered) can be cruel. For a real-life example, read “my teacher said im not jewish.”

How not to be a Self-Appointed Jewish Misinformer:

  • Refer questions of Jewish identity or status to a rabbi. If you want to show off, offer the questioner names and contacts of several rabbis.
  • If you thought you learned it somewhere but you can’t remember where or from whom, at least look it up before you reply.
  • Remember that there is great diversity in Judaism. Not everyone is from your shul, your movement, your particular Jewish heritage. Even for rabbis, not all answers apply to all Jews!
  • Remember that humility is a virtue, and teaching error is a sin.

Don’t be a Self-Appointed Jewish Misinformer! By making appropriate referrals, looking things up, and remembering the vast variety in Judaism, you can contribute to the Jewish world.

A Rosh Hashanah Letter to my Christian Friends

Image: Apples, Honey, and Pomegranates are among the traditional foods for Rosh Hashanah. (Lakovleva Daria / Shutterstock/ all rights reserved)

Dear Friends,

You’ve likely noticed words like “Rosh Hashanah” and “Yom Kippur” are coming up in the calendar. You may or may not know that those are Jewish holidays. You also may have noticed Jewish friends or co-workers maneuvering to take time off for those days. Here are some things to know if you want to be a good friend and a supportive ally:

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year, but it isn’t like secular New Year’s Eve. We spend part of it in synagogue and often the rest of it at a holiday gathering with relatives. For many of us, synagogue is not optional on that day, nor is the time with family: we really have to be there. It is both a joyful and a solemn day.

Yes, this applies even to the Jews you don’t think of as “religious” Jews. Rather than make a joke about how you wish you had holidays that “gave” you time off (which you do, it’s called Christmas) why not give a friend a break and help them take the time?

“Happy Rosh Hashanah” is OK but please don’t wish me a “Happy Yom Kippur.” Yom Kippur means “Day of Atonement,” and we spend it fasting and praying for 24 hours. For many of us, that fast includes water. It’s not a fun day, nor is it intended to be, and we may not feel great the next day, either.

If you are curious about the High Holy Days, here are some articles that may help you understand what we’re up to:

18 Facts about Rosh Hashanah

What’s Yom Kippur? 12 Facts

The Jewish Calendar: Why 5779?

May the year 5780 be a good year and a year of peace for all the world!

Nitzavim: We Stand Together

Image: The menorah in the Knesset garden in Jerusalem. (Possi66/Wikimedia)

The beginning of Parashat Nitzavim is thrilling. Moses is speaking to the community, and he makes it clear that he is speaking to everyone:

You stand this day, all of you, before the Eternal your God—your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water drawer—

to enter into the covenant of the Eternal your God, which the Eternal your God is concluding with you this day, with its sanctions; to the end that God may establish you this day as God’s people and be your God, as God promised you and as God swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Eternal our God and with those who are not with us here this day.

— Deuteronomy 29:9-14.

First of all, the word translated “stand” in the first line means much more than “stand.” It means established, or rooted: that all the people gathered together are determined to enter into this covenant with God. Moreover, they stand as equals, from the highest to the lowest members of society, each of them is established as a full member of the People of Israel, a sharer in what would become, over the coming centuries, the great project of Judaism.

Secondly, all of them are named as children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: there is no distinction here between men and women, or adults and children, and there is no distinction between the DNA-bearing descendants of Abraham and those who came along as part of the “mixed multitude” from Egypt:

And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle.

— Exodus 12:37-38

And then, just as the reader is tempted to think, “Wow, that’s inclusive!” there’s yet another dimension, the dimension of time: “those who are with us this day… and those who are not with us this day.” So that all the Israelites who have ever been, all the way back to Abraham, and all the Hebrews who perished in Egypt, and all the Jews who would be born in the years to come, right down to this very day, were all standing together at this moment. Thus it is an eternal moment, a cosmic moment, in which we all stand together as the People of Israel.

It gives me the chills.

Whenever I am tempted to be discouraged by all the fighting among Jews, I think of this passage. Perhaps we can agree on almost nothing but by golly, Moses looked at us – looks at us, in this cosmic moment, and he says to us, “You, ALL of you, are established today before the Eternal your God.”

We may scrap and fuss and and quarrel among ourselves — oh, how I wish we did not! — but we are all Am Yisrael, the people of Israel, past, present and future. Nothing changes that, not the Egyptians, not the Babylonians, not the Romans, not the Spanish Inquisition, not Hitler, and certainly not the modern-day creeps who threaten us. And even among ourselves, when we squabble about who’s the most authentic, who’s the most Jewish: before this passage in Deuteronomy, it all fades away.

We stand. We are established. We are rooted in the truth of who we are: and no one, absolutely no one, can diminish that, or take it away.

What are Hagbah & Glilah?

Image: Hagbah at Congregation Dorshei Emet in Montreal. (Geneviev2/Wikipedia.)

Some things just go together: coffee and doughnuts, movies and popcorn, beer and pretzels. Hagbah and glilah are like that: you rarely see one without the other, since they are part of the ceremony of reading from the Torah scroll.

Hagbah [“lifting”] is the dramatic lifting of the Torah scroll after a Torah reading. It is done by the magbiah, who lifts the scroll in such a way that the part of it that was read is visible to the congregation. Hagbah takes both muscle and technique, since even a light Sefer Torah may weigh 20 pounds and is an extremely fragile object, sewn together with sinew from a kosher animal. (See How is a Sefer Torah like a Space Shuttle? for photos of Torah assembly.) A heavier Torah may weigh 50 pounds or more, and be just as fragile.

We lift the Torah so that everyone in the community can see that the reader was actually reading from the scroll, not from a book. It is also a reminder that at the first Torah reading mentioned in the Bible, everyone could see the scroll:

Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people.

– Nehemiah 8:5

The stakes are high: traditionally anyone who drops a Torah scroll and anyone who sees it drop must fast for 40 days. Also, a dropped scroll will have to be checked by a sofer [scribe] and repaired if damaged. If dropped during hagbah, while it is open, the parchment may tear, which requires a complete replacement of one or more panels of the scroll, a very expensive operation.

Who does hagbah? That will depend somewhat on the custom in the congregation. In most Reform and Conservative congregations, the magbiah must be an adult Jew who has been trained to do it safely. Training in hagbah, as with many things in congregational life, gets passed down the chain of tradition, person to person. If you are an adult Jew, and you are interested in learning, ask your rabbi or cantor to teach you or to point you to the person who can teach you.

Glilah [“rolling”] (pronounced GLEE-lah) seems somewhat less glamorous, since it is not a feat of strength, but it is no less important for the care of the Sefer Torah. After hagbah, the magbiah lowers the scroll carefully within reach of the goleil [person who does glilah] and helpers. They are usually sitting, and seize the top handles of the scroll as it is lowered towards their lap. Resting the bottom handles on their thighs, they roll the scroll snugly together, being careful not to pinch it or strain it. They tie the belt or wimple on the scroll, to hold it together, and then lower the Torah cover over it like a dress.

This is the procedure for Ashkenazi style Torahs, which have dress-like covers. A Sephardic style Torah is encased in a special box and remains in that box to be read. In most Sephardic services, hagbah comes before the Torah reading, not after. In its case, the Torah is heavy to lift, but easy to roll. (For an explanation of those terms, see What do Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi mean?)

Glilah may also be done by any adult Jew, according to the custom of the congregation. If you are invited to be a goleil (m) or golelet (f) and you have not done it before, just let the clergy or whoever is leading the service know that you will need a little help. While it is not as dramatic as hagbah, the potential for dropping or damaging the scroll is still quite real. I personally always ask for a hand when I’m the golelet – better safe than sorry!

Hagbah with a Sephardic style Torah.
Hagbah with a Sephardic-style Torah in its case, at Moshav Porat in Israel. (Public Domain)

What is a Kittel?

Image: A kittle, folded up like a shirt.

A kittel is a garment you might see during the High Holy Days or at a wedding. It is a white garment made of lightweight fabric, usually cotton or a polyester blend. It looks a bit like a very light lab coat with a cloth belt, generally in a mid-calf length, and it is worn buttoned-up.

You may also see a kittel on the chatan [bridegroom] at a wedding.

In both cases, the kittel signifies the purity of heart one tries to bring to those situations. The color white is sometimes said to take its inspiration from this verse from the prophets:

Come now, and let us reason together, says the Eternal; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be like wool.

— Isaiah 1:18

A kittel may also be worn by the meyt [body of the deceased] in the coffin for burial. Usually it is paired with long trousers of the same material. The persons who wash the body for burial dress it before putting it in the casket. You are unlikely to see a meyt in a kittel because it is not the custom to view a body after death; Jewish funerals are always closed-casket.

This gives us another reason that some people choose to wear a kittel during High Holy Day observances. There is a focus on the end of life during those days, especially Yom Kippur. Wearing the garment in which one might be buried is a sharp reminder of our mortality.

A Prayer for the Body: Take Two

Image: A footprint in the sand on the beach. (pixabay)

I just took an unpleasant little trip down memory lane, but with good news at the end of it. I’ve been dealing all summer with a minor foot problem, and avoiding the podiatrist. I knew I was avoiding him, rather as one might avoid the dentist. Today I finally got to the office, and as soon as I saw the big chair featured in podiatrists’ offices, all the memories came flooding back.

In March and June of 1985 I had surgery for bunions. The podiatrist-surgeon had an excellent reputation and the bunions had become a real barrier to a goal of mine: I wanted to run a marathon, but I couldn’t push off with the front part of either foot. So I went to this nice doc who said he could fix it, and I fell down a rabbit hole that would completely change my life.

I’ll spare you the details; the gist is that my mangled left foot is one of the reasons the rest of my body has troubles. I have stayed away from podiatrists’ chairs ever since my recovery from the final salvage surgery in 1988. I sat in that chair today, and I held Linda’s hand to keep memory at bay.

But here’s the lovely thing: today’s meeting with the doc was no big deal. My left foot, the mangled foot, had coped nicely with the splinter that had driven deep into it. My immune system swatted away any infection. The life force within me packaged up a long splinter that had gotten in there and had done such a good job sliding it back out that all the doc had to do was take a forceps and pull. My body works.

Back in rabbinical school, there was a prayer that used to make me angry and/or sad to say it as part of the daily prayers. It went:

Blessed are You, Eternal our God, who formed the human body with wisdom and placed within it a miraculous combination of openings and organs. It is evident and known before Your honored throne, that if only one of them should be opened or blocked at the wrong time, it would be impossible to exist and stand before You. Blessed are You, Eternal One, the healer of all flesh and worker of wonders.

“Asher Yatzar,” Shacharit

It was the “stand before You” that annoyed me – my body was steadily losing its ability to stand without pain in those years, until I finally rewrote the prayer:

Thank God it all works! — No. —

Thank God enough works.
For all our science, and all our technology,
These bodies You have made in Your wisdom are wrapped in mystery: Rooms within rooms, openings and closings,
All work so wonderfully that we only notice when they don’t.
We are able to stand or sit before You, our Creator,
Because enough works today.

Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Ruler of Time and Space,
Who heals our flesh and continues doing wonders.

Asher Yatzar, Ruth Adar, 2004

And I say that revised prayer today in gratitude, because the foot still has its problems, but the beautiful systems within me continued to function on other levels. And that was enough, praise God.

I know – so much fuss over a splinter! Ridiculous. But such is the power of bad memories. If there is some health matter you’ve been putting off out of dread I hope you will attend to it as soon as you can.