Join me for Yom Kippur?

Image: Jewish Gateways Logo for High Holidays 2021. Colorful abstract.

I will officiate at online Yom Kippur services this year at Jewish Gateways. If you still need somewhere to attend, we would be glad to have you. For information, and to register, visit their High Holidays webpage. You must be registered to attend.

The schedule for Yom Kippur Services, all times Pacific:

Wednesday, September 15, 7:00-9:00pm, Erev Yom Kippur

Thursday, September 16, Yom Kippur Day                        

  • 9:00-9:45am: Yom Kippur Family Service for children under 9 and their families
  • 10:30am-12:30pm: Yom Kippur Morning Service
  • 1:00pm: Questions and Open Discussion with Jewish Gateways community members
  • 6:00-7:30pm: Yom Kippur Afternoon Services
    • 6:00-6:30pm: Healing Service
    • 6:30-7:00pm: Yizkor • Memorial Service
    • 7:00-7:30pm: Ne’ilah • Closing Service

G’mar chatimah tovah! (May you be sealed for goodness.)

Online Class: Intro to the Jewish Experience!

Image: Two hands fit two puzzle pieces together, with the words “Introduction” above and “To the Jewish Experience” written below. Artwork from pixabay, modified by Rabbi Ruth Adar.

CLASSES BEGIN SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26.

Introduction to the Jewish Experience, or “Intro,” is a 24-week online class in Basic Judaism. The series is for anyone who hasn’t had a basic Jewish education, or who wishes to learn as an adult.

We study in three terms of 8 weeks, which students may take in any order:

In Jewish Holidays & Lifecycle, we learn about the Jewish year and Jewish time as we explore the important days in the Jewish year, as well as the life ceremonies of Judaism. (Offered Sunday afternoons, 3:30-5pm Pacific Time, via Zoom, beginning 9/26/21)

In Jewish History Through Texts, we learn the history of the Jewish people through approximately 1000 CE, along with the literature of Rabbinic Judaism (Torah, Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud) and we explore the concept of “Jewish Law.” We also explore the origins and history of antisemitism and Jew-hatred. (Offered Sunday afternoons, 1:30-3pm Pacific Time via Zoom, beginning 9/26/21). Will also be offered in January 2022.)

In Traditions of Judaism, we explore those things that the Jewish People worldwide share (Shabbat, the prayer book, the worship service) and we learn about Jewish history through the lens of the varieties of Jewish communities: Sephardic, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, and others. We learn about modern-day streams of Judaism (Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist) and the history of North American Judaism. We finish with an exploration of Jewish food customs. (Will be offered in January and March 2022.)

TO REGISTER: Send an email to CoffeeShopRabbi@gmail.com, with:

  • Your name
  • The class(es) you want to attend
  • A phone number
  • The name of your rabbi, if you have one.
  • Late signups will be accepted until October 1.

TUITION: The cost of classes is $200 for each 8-session term. However no one will be turned away for inability to pay.

Payment takes place through Eventbrite. Click the class link below, and when you get on the page, click the green box “Tickets.” That will take you to a page where you can choose between “Full Tuition” and “Pay What You Can.” Payment is processed by Jewish Gateways, the sponsor of the class.

Jewish Holidays and Lifecycle

Jewish History through Texts

I have had students from the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist traditions. I welcome students from many places: curious about Judaism, converting to Judaism, just want to understand Jewish relatives better, and some who just began working for a Jewish nonprofit. I welcome students from marginalized Jewish backgrounds: persons of color, LGBTQI persons, and students with disabilities. I am myself a fat woman, a lesbian with disabilities, and I became a Jew as an adult. I am a member in good standing of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Women’s Rabbinic Network, and the Northern California Board of Rabbis.

Join Me for the High Holy Days?

Image: Brightly colored logo for Jewish Gateways‘ High Holidays 2021 Logo. A pomegranate is cupped in a blue arc like a hand. A rainbow surrounds.

L’shana tova! Happy New Year! The Jewish New Year of 5782 begins at sundown on Monday night, September 6, and continues until sundown September 7.

Normally I’m a “Jew in the Pew” for High Holy Days, but this year I am pinch-hitting for Rabbi Bridget Wynne, who is recovering from an accident last week. If you’d like to join me for online services with Jewish Gateways, the registration and information for that is available on their website.

For more information about the High Holy Days I recommend reading my article High Holy Days for Beginners, 2020. The dates have changed but the information is the same.

Other ways you may hear Jews refer to these days, all correct:

  • High Holidays
  • Days of Awe
  • Yamim Noraim (Hebrew) (ya-MEEM no-rah-EEM)
  • Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (ROSH ha-sha-NAH and YOM kee-POOR)
  • “High Hols” (very informal)
  • HHD’s (in tweets and other shorthand media)

Whatever you call them, I wish you a Good and Sweet New Year. May it bring you health, healing, light, and love.

L‘shana tova! Happy New Year!

Yemima: An Elul Opportunity

Image:

Naama Sadan is offering a wonderful online class this Elul. She is a teacher of Yemima, which she learned from her grandmother. What’s Yemima? This is Naama’s account of it:

Yemima Avital was a contemporary Moroccan-Israeli healer and a feminine Hasidic Rebbe. Her teachings help the learners build stability and groundedness and develop personal mastery.
The practice includes dictation, journaling, discussion, and self-inquiry. She teaches us tools to help us come back to ourselves with acceptance and compassion. Classes are taught in English and require no prior knowledge. 

“In fact, it is an awakening, to an understanding to renewal. Act to your ability and make many errors. You are allowed to make mistakes and as many as you want. Here she makes a mistake, here she repairs. The power of repair is greater than the power of the error. “ (Yemima)

— Naama Sadan

The art of effortless change. Elul is a time of introspection, the high holidays are coming to remind us that one year has passed and another is about to come. They ask – what has changed?

This question can be intimidating since we often have a complex relationship with the idea of change. 

Yemima suggests a different way: inner work isn’t about change but about connecting. My job is to connect with the soul instead of trying to correct what is wrong. The focus of this series is to prepare for the new year by learning Yemima’s teaching about connecting with our inner world, our source of renewal. 

My name is Naama, I was born in Jerusalem, I learn and practice Yemima for 11 years and it grounds and nourishes me every day. I want to share it with anyone who can benefit from it.

Want to learn a bit more? Click here for more information about the series and Yemima.

Shabbat Shalom: Ki Teitze

Image: One of my bookshelves, with Bibles, a crown, and a yahrzeit candle. (Ruth Adar)

This week’s Torah portion has a little surprise in it.

Readers familiar with the Book of Ruth may be puzzled to read the commandment against marrying Moabites in Deuteronomy 23:4:

“An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord.” Ruth, the great grandmother of King David, was born a Moabite: that is the whole point of the Book of Ruth.

How could King David be descended from a forbidden marriage?

The sages struggled with this text and its apparent conflict with the Book of Ruth, especially since the prohibition is reinforced by a line from Nehemiah 13:1-2: “At that time they read to the people from the Book of Moses, and it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite might ever enter the congregation of God, since they did not meet Israel with bread and water, and hired Balaam against them to curse them; but our God turned the curse into a blessing.”

The sages resolve the issue in M.Yevamot 8:3, ruling that the prohibition is only against Moabite men converting or marrying a Jewish woman; Moabite women are permitted to convert. The Gemara elaborates with a story about an Edomite who suggested to Saul that David may not be fit even to be part of the kahal, since he descends from Ruth the Moabite. Saul’s general, Abner, replies that the prohibition applies only to males, because women stay in the house when men go out to meet strangers. (Yevamot 76b)

Another possibility from modern scholarship: Megillat Ruth (The Scroll of Ruth) was composed from a legend that had circulated for centuries. It was written down in the early Second Temple period when Ezra was making his proclamations against “foreign wives.” It was composed as a reply to Ezra’s attitude about intermarriage, by arguing that even King David had an ancestor who was not born a Jew.

At every point in Jewish history, there is someone warning against converts in general or against a particular convert. As a giyoret (female convert) myself, I take comfort in knowing that there have also been, in every age, someone speaking up for us.

Shabbat Shalom! – Shoftim

Image: A blackboard with “Rules for Prophets” written on it. (Source: Ruth Adar.)

Parashat Shoftim contains what we might call the Rules for Prophets. First we are told what prophets are not: they are not augurs, soothsayers, diviners, sorcerers, casters of spells, or consulters of ghosts. Deuteronomy 18:12 twice uses the word to’evah (abomination) to describe such people. We do not look to the prophets to “tell the future” to us. We look to them for messages from God about God’s priorities.

God promises to raise up prophets for Israel from among the people, citing our choice at Sinai to hear the word of God through Moses instead of directly. Prophets are answerable to God, but we will have to choose which prophets to heed: according to Deuteronomy 18:22, if they speak in the name of God, and what they say comes true, then the prophet is genuine.

This circular solution — believe them IF what they said comes true — is not entirely satisfying. In Jeremiah 28:9 Jeremiah debates Hananiah, a false prophet, and reminds him that “only when the word of the prophet comes true can it be known that YHVH really sent him.” In M. Sanhedrin 1.5, we get a sense of the seriousness and difficulty of determining the veracity of a prophet from the requirement that it requires a full Sanhedrin court of 71 to try a prophet. Jesus of Nazareth may have been thinking of this week’s Torah portion when he said, “Beware of false prophets… you shall know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7: 15-16)

The Age of Prophecy is over, but the problem of judging those who claim to predict the future is still with us. Jewish tradition encourages us to be skeptics and to require facts, to ask, “What are your results?” before we put our faith in a human being. In practical terms, that means we need to question information that comes before us. What is the source? How good a source is it? How well does it prove out, when held up against reality?

The Rabbi Goes Back to School

Image: The cover of Reading Hebrew with Tikva, one of the textbooks for class.

Today, on the first of Elul, I did something I’ve needed to do for a while: I signed up for a class in Modern Hebrew.

“But rabbi, don’t you already read Hebrew?” I can imagine a reader thinking. And yes, I read the Jewish Bible just fine. I can read the medieval commentaries, and of course the prayers in the prayer book.

However, drop me into the middle of Tel Aviv, and my shortcomings will truly shine. Biblical Hebrew is to Modern Hebrew as Shakespeare is to Modern English — yeah, they are the same language, sort of, but the vocabulary has changed. I’ve never been very good at Ivrit Modernit (Modern Hebrew) and my last class was 20 years ago. So, time to fix that!

Would you like to learn Hebrew? Tikva Farber, my teacher, is a highly trained teacher who gets excellent results with students. You can find her upcoming classes on her website, Hebrew with Tikva. If the class times are not good for you, or if you are shy, she offers private lessons, too. I’m signed up for the intermediate class, since I have not forgotten everything, but there are classes for total beginners, too.

Why learn Hebrew? There are many good reasons:

  1. Do you love Torah? Hebrew will take you into the heart of Torah.
  2. Do you care about Israel? Learning Hebrew is a way to express your love for Israel. It is not enough to say, “Oh, many Israelis speak English!” Many Israelis don’t speak English. Moreover, even if they do, Hebrew language is a key part to understanding and being understood in modern Israel. There are words and concepts that do not translate easily — by learning Hebrew, you make a beginning at understanding Israelis.
  3. Are you a critic of Israel? You, too, could benefit from learning some of the language. For one thing, if you want to be taken seriously by Israelis, one way to say, “I’m committed” is to learn some Hebrew.
  4. Attending services is entirely different when you’ve learned to understand Hebrew.
  5. Planning to visit Israel? The person who visits who speaks no Hebrew will be stuck as a tayar, a tourist or sightseer. Want to ask questions of someone beside your tour guide? Want to make friends? Learn some Hebrew!
  6. Finally, are you parenting a Jewish child? Want to communicate to them that Hebrew school is important? Children believe what they see us DO, not necessarily what we SAY. Tell you child Hebrew is important by learning some yourself.

It’s OK to struggle. It’s OK to not be good at it. I am hard of hearing, and I’m terrible at understanding spoken Hebrew. I want 5782 (2021-22) to be the year that my Hebrew gets better, not worse. I invite you to join me!

“Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht”

The title of this post is an old Yiddish saying, meaning “People plan, and God laughs.” We can plan all we want, but sometimes things turn out in unexpected ways. I thought I was done with Coffee Shop Rabbi and this blog– then God laughed.

I will definitely continue to teach Intro to the Jewish Experience, but in a new place: Jewish Gateways, in Albany, CA. The classes will all be online, via Zoom. Classes will start in September, 2021, after the High Holy Days. I will tweak the syllabus a bit. More about that in future posts.

I will return to keeping this blog, although I’m not sure exactly what I mean by that, yet. There will be new posts from time to time, and they’ll have to do with topics that interest me. Again, more about that as clarity emerges.

Here’s a question for regular readers: What topics interest YOU? What would you like to hear more about? You can reply in the comments.

Image: A photo of a little lemur with a surprised look on its brown and black face. Image from Pixabay.com.

Shabbat Shalom: Shelach L’cha

Summary:

  • Moses sends twelve spies to the Land of Israel to report on the inhabitants and the country. Despite the positive report of Joshua and Caleb, the people are frightened. (13:1–14:10)
  • God threatens to wipe out the Children of Israel but relents when Moses intercedes on their behalf. To punish the people, God announces that all those who left Egypt would not enter the Land of Israel except for Joshua and Caleb. (14:11–45)
  • Moses instructs the Israelites regarding setting aside challah, the observance of the Sabbath, how to treat strangers, and the laws of tzitzit. (15:1–41)

Name changes in the Torah text have great significance. Most of us are familiar with the story in which Abram and Sarai become Abraham and Sarah, and the patriarch Jacob gets a new name, Israel.

This week’s Torah portion has another significant name change. 

In the initial list of leaders going into the Land of Israel as spies,

Verse 8 tells us, “From the tribe of Ephraim, Hosea son of Nun.”

Then in verse 16, we read:

“Those were the names of the men whom Moses sent to scout the land; but Moses changed the name of Hosea son of Nun to Joshua.”

What the text does not tell us is why Moses changed the name of Hosea to Joshua ben Nun.

When I asked Rashi, he told me that “by giving him this name Joshua, which is a compound of Yah and Hoshia, “God may Save”, he in effect prayed for him, “May God save you from the evil counsel of the spies.”

When I asked Sforno, he told me that Hoshea was already known to be a man of valor among his peers, who had given him the name Joshua, and Moses was only formalizing the custom that already existed.

When I asked Yerushalmi Sanhedrin, she told me that Moses added the yud to the front of Hosea’s name because it was the equivalent of the number 10, and Moses hoped to arm him spiritually by making him the spiritual equivalent of the other ten spies. The yud he received was a special letter, because it was the yud that was replaced with a hey when God changed Sarai’s name to Sarah. Sarah had a strong spirit, and the yud was given to Joshua for strength.

When I asked Bamidbar Rabbah, she told me that Moses added the yud to Joshua’s name because Caleb would get his reward from the land, as it teaches in Deuteronomy 1:36, “to him will I give the land on which he has trod.” But Joshua received the reward that would have gone to the other ten spies, in that a yod, which stand for ten, was added to his name.

In another place, Bamidbar Rabbah said, “When Moses saw that the spies were a wicked bunch, Moses said to Hosea ben Nun, “May the Lord “YAH” save (Hoshia) you from this evil generation.”

All of this is to say that Joshua was lifted up by God and Moses to be a mighty leader of a strong-willed people. From it we also learn that one of the glories of Torah is that there is no single story, no single right answer. When we perform the mitzvah of engaging with words of Torah, we need not fear that all the answers are found, because we continue learning more from that time to this.

“See the Priest”- Tazria/Metzora

Image: Two people talking at the beach by wei zhu from Pixabay

Tazria/Metzora deals with genital discharges and skin diseases, very unpleasant, embarrassing things. Medicine addresses disease these days, but what if we used the teaching in this portion to address modern plagues: racism, sexism, enviousness, unkindness? Perhaps some family member has pointed out our unkind behaviors, or a friend has told us that an opinion we voiced is racist. Our first impulse on hearing such things may be denial.

The Torah offers us a different path: it directs us to go to the priest (in our day, a trusted counselor) and say, “My wife says I am unkind,”  “I am envious when I see friends get honors,” or “I would hate it if my child dated a black person.” The good counselor would take a close look at the evidence and the context. They’d explore it with us. And perhaps things are not what they seem (“he is clean”) or perhaps there are issues to address. Then they could help us toward change for the better.

Seeking guidance requires honesty, humility, and bravery. It is not fun saying to a counselor, “So-and-so said that my behavior was racist.” 

But as with the mysterious disease in the Torah portion, these things affect others. Some are communicable (children learn racism and sexism from someone) and some are just plain contagious (I am unkind to someone, and that person passes along their pain to a third party.) These problems can’t heal on their own; we may need help to change.

Here in the 21st century, there are many diseases we can cure, and many more that we can manage. Besides physical illnesses there are other plagues with which we have made much less progress. Perhaps the prescription in Tazria/Metzora is also for them, the plagues of the human spirit.

This D’var Torah appeared in a slightly different format in the CCAR Newsletter.