Author: Temple Sinai

Goodness. Happiness. Peace…

…If our positive wishes for people do come true, then Goodness, Happiness, and Peace are what you can expect this weekend. The Shabbat during Chanuka is always and (almost) uniquely a triple-header of holidays: Rosh Chodesh – the New Month of Tevet on the Jewish lunar calendar, Chanuka (still!), and of course Shabbat. As greetings and blessings we say all these today: “Chodesh Tov”, “Happy Chanuka”, and “Shabbat Shalom” – May you have a Good month, a Happy festival of lights, and a Peaceful Shabbat…

Perhaps, though, we might fall into saying these wishes and blessings as mere pro forma greetings, or words that suffice to express a general and positive hope for the world. Ideally, we would instead offer these wishes with clear mindfulness and focused intention, as a specific and measurable outcome that you full-heartedly wish for the someone whom you are addressing on a particularly auspicious day in the calendar.

I’m sure you are all as deeply unsettled as I am by the shocking rise of antisemitism across the U.S. and around the world, on college campuses, and expressed as an almost normative outlook by certain repulsive cultural and political figures.

I think it was Rabbi Leo Baeck who noted that we Jews view the world through ancient eyes. If so, and knowing our history, perhaps we should not be so shocked to see antisemitism on the rise once again. And yet we are shocked, disappointed, and afraid. How can this be happening?!

There are many answers as to how hatred metastasizes in society, generally, and how and why it is doing so today in particular. I invite you, though, to consider a different question over this Shabbat, parsahat Vayeshev, and during the upcoming Chanuka holiday. The question for us is: How do we respond?

I’m the father of three boys, two of whom are the age of military service. Their many good childhood friends, cousins, and children of some of my own closest friends are all currently serving in the IDF. This drasha written decades ago by my teacher Rabbi Shmuel Avidor haCohen, z”l goes straight to my heart today as I think and worry constantly about these soldiers I love.

“When we study the Rashi, it becomes clear that our father Ya’akov [Jacob] in this torah portion stood before a problem far greater than a possible attack from his brother Esau. Rashi explains the redundant expression of Yaakov’s fearfulness in Beresheit 32:8 as follows:

וַיִּירָ֧א יַעֲקֹ֛ב – Jacob feared: What did he fear? That he might be killed.

וַיֵּ֣צֶר ל֑וֹ – and he was fearfully distressed: Why was he fearfully distressed? That he might have to kill others.

The discussion in our weekly Torah study class on Monday nights is lively. For me personally, it almost always produces some profound insight that I treasure and think about the rest of the week, if not longer.

For this week’s parasha, Veyetzei, we talked about the famous angels going up and down the ladder in Jacob’s dream. Who or what were these ‘angels’?

Possible answers abound both from the traditional Torah commentators and those suggestions we ourselves came up with. Just as important to understand, perhaps, is the ability of Jacob to ‘see’ those angels. That is, for him to be aware of the experience of holiness or to the presence of his guardian angels or to pay attention to the glimpse of the historical future displayed to him in his dream. Whatever the ‘message’ is, there is the message’s content, certainly, but there is also the ‘mechanics’ of how that message is communicated and how it is received.

I hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving yesterday!

Let’s acknowledge the important symbolism of all those leftovers in the fridge that need to be eaten, even if your tummy remains full from yesterday:

Giving thanks is never really over and done with. If you live another day there is always more to be grateful for.

Today, as you gnaw on a turkey sandwich, is a day to prepare for tomorrow’s Shabbat which is the holiday day we get to have each week for taking a step back, relaxing, and appreciating all we have. For giving thanks.

This week’s Torah portion is Toldot, in which Isaac discovers there is much work still to be done in carrying on the birthright of Jewish legacy and blessing…

…and so it is with us, although not just in terms of eating leftovers from the Thanksgiving feast!

…and so it is with us, although not just in terms of planning and preparing Shabbat dinner tonight!

It seems odd that our Torah portion this week is entitled Chayei Sarah, “the life of Sarah” when it immediately announces the death of Sarah and recounts nothing of her life!

As always though, the Torah has a purpose and a lesson. Our job is to “turn it and turn it because all is found within it” (Pirkei Avot 5:6) – if we study enough we will discover both the right questions to ask and find the answers we need.

Perhaps we learn how odd indeed it is that we consider death an absolute ending or the inevitable culmination of a person’s life. Maybe the Torah gently suggests exactly the kind of mourning we practice: When someone we love dies, we recount and recall their life. We make their memory an inspiration for us to live better in what remains of our own lives.

Sen-No Rikyu was a 16th century Japanese sage, the greatest master in the art of hosting guests in the Tea House that ever lived. A disciple once asked him: “What precisely are the things that must be kept in mind at a tea gathering?”

Rikyu answered:

“Make a delicious bowl of tea;

Lay the charcoal so that it heats the water;

Arrange the flowers as they are in the field;

In summer suggest coolness, in winter – warmth;

Do everything ahead of time;

Prepare for rain;

And give those with whom you find yourself every consideration.”

The disciple was dissatisfied: “That much I already know…” he said.

“Then if you can host a tea gathering,” retorted Rikyu, “without deviating from any of the rules I have just stated, I will become your disciple.”

This Shabbat is the start of a new year for our weekly reading of the parashat hashavua – the weekly Torah reading. Among many other things, the weekly parasha is a unique – perhaps Divine – marker of time. Our lives and the events of our week so often seem somehow to connect to, reference as allusion, or otherwise assume some quality or character of an aspect or theme of the weekly Torah portion. The weekly portion often seems to have a mood that marks the season. And the portions dovetail with the Jewish calendar and holidays…If you have only ever perceived the years of your life through the usual January to December calendar of days, weeks, and months, and the same old “Monday thru Friday, weekend” rhythm of experience, you have an opportunity to try something different. If you have never yet spent a year of your life living on the Torah’s paradigm of time, you are in for a treat. I invite you to give it a try…

One way to do so is to read this email each Friday, which follows the parasha and which I hope will give some worthwhile food-for-thought and discussion over Shabbat dinner. These emails usually contain a link to a more detailed consideration of the portion as well. 

Another great way to mark time with the parasha is to attend shabbat morning services and hear/discuss the weekly Torah reading with others during the service and over kiddush lunch!

These last couple of days during our Sukkot holiday, the words of our daily evening prayer have echoed in my head: “ufros aleinu Sukkat shlomecha, God, please spread over us the “Sukkah”, the shelter, of your peace.”

The prayer expresses a feeling and a need that I think we all share. There is rarely a day in our everyday lives without the urgent need for a spreading of peace, in which the word “shalom” also suggests “wholeness”, and “completion”. The Sukkah itself is a kind of peaceful oasis: connected to nature, a place simply to sit, to enjoy the company of friends and family, a place of beauty, humility, imperfection and yet gratitude.

·       The urgent need for a spreading of “shalom” feels especially relevant this week: Russia’s war in Ukraine is intensifying as Ukraine regains its territory, and we all fear just how potentially world-destructive Putin could become as his losses mount. 

·       Two Israeli soldiers died this week in terrorist attacks, and the situation feels like it will continue to deteriorate.

·       Yesterday the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6^th attack on the U.S. Capitol held yet another hearing and we were all reminded just how fragile the peace of our society really is…

“Ufros aleinu Sukkat shlomecha: God, please spread over us the “Sukkah”, the shelter, of your peace.”

The Soulful Architecture of the Sukkah

“The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own, we have no soul of our own civilization.”— Frank Lloyd Wright

I don’t know if Frank Lloyd Wright ever sat for a meal in a sukkah. If I could, I’d invite him along with the ushpizin*, just to see what he’d say about the architecture of the sukkah structure and how it reflects on the soul of Jewish civilization.

Wright would immediately notice that a sukkah is very modest, especially compared to the phenomenon of suburban McMansions and particularly compared to the real mansions on the Neck in Marblehead or out over the “cliff walk” in Newport, RI! The sukkah is no skyscraper either, usually reaching just over our heads. (The absolute maximum is about 30 feet high.) According to Israel Meyer Kagan (the “Hefetz Haim”, a great nineteenth and early 20th century halachic scholar) any sukkah built too high would require strong walls to support it. The makeshift walls of the low-lying sukkah, however, remind us that the sukkah is meant to be an impermanent structure. It should withstand a blustery wind, but not a major storm.