Commanded-ness

Usually I write my own blog posts, but I recently read a d'var Torah (teaching on the Torah portion) about 'Commanded-ness' and wanted to share it on my blog as well.  I couldn't have said it better myself!  Without further ado-

D'varim, Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22

D'VAR TORAH
Commanded-ness
 
Rabbi Yael Splansky

"And I commanded you, at that time, about the various the things you should do" (Deuteronomy 1:18).
The phrase "as God commanded" is repeated over and over again in the Book of Deuteronomy (D'varim Rabbah 1:1). It is a constant reminder that there is a God behind the mitzvot. As Reform Jews, we are constantly considering and reconsidering what motivates us to pursue a life of mitzvot-both ritual and ethical. What is it, really, to be commanded?

The Commanding Voice

For some, the commanding voice comes from the past . We may ask: "Who am I to turn away from 4,000 years of devoted ancestors and tradition? I'm not going to be the weak link in the chain." The commanding voice of history can be quite powerful-enough to claim us. I know an impressive woman, an accomplished physician with real ambition. After her two daughters were old enough for their family to settle into a steady pattern and life was balanced and good, she was eager to get back to her research. And yet, despite herself, she felt obligated to have another child for the sake of the Jewish people: one to replace herself, one to replace her husband, and one for the Six Million. She said it just that simply. Despite her personal preferences, she could not ignore the commanding voice of history. And now her family has a son.

For some, the commanding voice comes from the present-tense community. We may ask: What will friends and neighbors think of me if I do not live by a certain ethic? Today's emphasis on individuality teaches us that doing something for the sake of what the neighbors will say is false, hollow, backward somehow. But in the eyes of our tradition, caring about the community and one's place in it is a core value. There's a difference between doing something for the neighbor's sake and doing something for the sake of being a good neighbor. Community standards can keep us honest and upright.

For others, the commanding voice comes from the future. Our children and grandchildren make us want to do better and be better. On the opening night of our "adult bat mitzvah" class, I asked each student to share why she'd enrolled in the two-year course. Many explained that their study was motivated by their children in one way or another. They were proud to tell their sons and daughters that one night each week they couldn't help with the homework because they had to go study some Torah for themselves. They wanted to make an impression on their children by "walking the talk" and creating a path of mitzvot for them to follow.

And for some, the commanding voice is none other than the Voice of the Living God.
There is a well-known teaching about mitzvot and freedom. It is written: "Gadol hametzuveh ve'oseh mi'she'eino metzuveh ve'oseh,""Greater is the one who is commanded and does it, than one who is not commanded and still does it" (Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 31a). That is, "It is better to do something under command than by choice." This seems counterintuitive. We might think it is better to do something voluntarily, out of the goodness of our hearts, because we want to do the right thing rather than because Someone commanded us. But no, our Sages speak of ol hamitzvot, " the yoke of the mitzvot." Like a beast of burden, we are to feel the weight of the commandments on our shoulders, and carry them because our Master drives us to do so, because God has expectations of us.
           
Jews of all stripes like to talk about the "how-tos" of mitzvot. It's interesting: Are lentils kosher during Pesach? What if you're a vegetarian? What if you have one Sephardic grandparent? The how-tos of mitzvot are enough to keep us busy for a lifetime. Since Reform Judaism took root in this continent, its hallmark approach of informed choice and personal autonomy has led to another collection of interesting questions. But the foundational question, the more challenging question, and in my opinion, the most interesting question of all is: What is it that claims us so strongly that we have no choice but to say yes? What is the Origin of that commanding voice? Let's take the example of nichum aveilim, the mitzvah to comfort mourners. Making a shivah call is an awkward, inconvenient, emotionally difficult thing to do, and yet, without much thought or planning, we find ourselves walking up those front steps. We are duty-bound. More often than not there is no choice in it. There is only a call and a response. There is only the mitzvah to be fulfilled or ignored. What gets us to "yes"?

To Ethicize the Ritual and to Ritualize the Ethical

Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, z"l, a leading light for our Movement, challenges us to consider the great contribution Reform Judaism can make to the Jewish world by "ethicizing the ritual mitzvot and ritualizing the ethical mitzvot." What could this mean?

When Reform Jews refrain from eating t'reif, they fulfill the ritual mitzvah of kashrut. When in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, many Reform Jews boycotted California table grapes and called them t'reif, because the migrant field workers were being treated as slaves, they "ethicized the ritual" of keeping kosher. Or more recently, when there was a movement to boycott Israeli products and my synagogue's Israel Committee responded by arranging for only Israeli wines to be served at Temple functions, they "ethicized the ritual" of making Kiddush.

When Reform Jews turn our synagogues into homeless shelters, they fulfill the ethical mitzvot of "feeding the hungry" and "welcoming the stranger." When the volunteers recite a prayer to start their preparations, when they wear kippot as they serve the warm meal to the hungry guests, they "ritualize the ethical." When a circle of friends support a woman through her battle with cancer, they fulfill the ethical mitzvah of bikur cholim, "visiting the sick." But when she completes the regimen of chemotherapy and radiation, and her friends shower her with heartfelt prayers of hope for a healthy future and accompany her to the mikveh , which "cleanses" the poison from her body, they "ritualize the ethical."

These are examples of Reform Judaism at its best: serious Judaism-ready to take on the mitzvot and carry them with integrity, sincerity, and a good measure of imagination. No mitzvah is off-limits to us. The relevance of each mitzvah is only waiting to be discovered, as is the God who offers it.

For more on this topic see, Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf's "Back to the Future" in Duties of the Soul: The Role of the Commandments in Liberal Judaism, by Niles Elliot Goldstein and Peter Knobel, (New York: UAHC Press,1999).

Rabbi Yael Splansky is an associate rabbi of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Canada. She is the editor of Siddur Pirchei Kodesh, the chair of the Reform Rabbis of Greater Toronto, and a fourth-generation Reform rabbi.

Keeping all the balls in the air

This morning I realized that amidst all the (metaphorical) balls in the air, I accidentally dropped a few.  My husband and I accidentally left the baby's stroller in the car he took to work today, which meant that our au pair has no stroller to use for the day.  I also meant to help my three year-old write thank you cards for his preschool teachers to give to them at today's year-end celebration, and I completely forgot about it over the weekend.  Such is life with two kids - there are way too many details to keep track of everything and not drop a few balls some of the time.

Since becoming a parent more than 3 years ago, I have developed a new-found respect for and understanding of parents in our synagogue community.  I used to be frustrated when parents forgot about Religious School family programs, or forgot about a change in the Religious School schedule... but now I 'get it'... not just intellectually, but viscerally, emotionally.  Being a parent is hard in many ways, and one of the challenges is to keep all the various 'balls' in the air.  I've come to learn that all of us 'drop the ball' sometimes!

The question for me as a Jewish educator is, "How do we help parents keep the 'Jewish education' ball in the air?"  If we send extra emails, parents get annoyed that we email too much.  If we don't send an extra reminder email, then it's easy to forget when special events are happening, or what's going on in the synagogue and in the Religious School.  As an educator, I find it difficult to balance "too much information" vs. "not enough information."  As a parent, I understand well both sides of the coin... I want the reminders, but I'm also overwhelmed with emails, calendar changes, and yes, details.  Such is life in the 21st century, I suppose!

Hoffman Blog Recommendations

Wow, it's been awhile since I've written on this blog!  I was out on maternity leave for a couple of months, and now I'm finally getting back into the swing of things.  As we head into the summer months, I thought I'd suggest a few terrific blogs to read / follow... by a father/son duo...

The first blog I recommend reading is called "God Didn't Say That."  It's by Dr. Joel Hoffman, who is an expert in Hebrew / biblical translations.  Many of his posts are fascinating, including one I read recently that's called "Sometimes the right word is the wrong word to use when translating the Bible."  His post reminds me of something I learned in rabbinical school, which is that translating literally from one language to another doesn't necessarily tell you what the original text meant.  For example... let's say you were living two thousand years from now (i.e. in the year 4012), speaking a completely different language, and you 'discovered' a copy of the New York Times (in English) from our current era.  The headline of the paper said "Wall Street Crashed Yesterday", and you were trying to translate it from English into your current language.  Using a dictionary, you looked up the words "wall", "street", "crash", and "yesterday," and you would probably assume that the article was referring to a street that had a wall on it or near it, and the wall fell down yesterday.  Obviously you and I know that that has nothing to do with the real meaning of the headline... but that's because we know what the phrase "Wall Street" means, and what it means when Wall Street "crashes" - it's not at all about a street with a wall.  As this little example highlights, translation can be a very tricky business, especially when we are translating texts from hundreds or even thousands of years ago!

The second blog I want to recommend is by my former professor and mentor, Rabbi/Dr Larry Hoffman (father of Joel Hoffman).  Rabbi Hoffman is an expert in liturgy, worship, and ritual (among other things), and his blog is called Life and a Little Liturgy.  His posts are fascinating, including his latest, "The Bible is Fiction" as well as one from a couple weeks ago called "Why we need synagogues, or what synagogues need to be."

Hope you find these blogs thought-provoking... let me know if you have any responses and/or questions for me to address here!

Why Jewish Environmental Education Matters

At this point in the year - our first year with a variety of 'tracks' for 3rd-6th grade students - I don't think I have to convince many parents at Temple Isaiah of the need for innovative and track-based Religious School programs.  I've been delighted by the changes we've made, and although there are always small things to work out (finding the best teachers, working with individual students' needs, etc), I think the general path we've taken is a great one.

That being said, I thought I'd pass along a really interesting article called "Why Jewish Environmental Education Matters."  In our community, the "Jewish environmental education" is part of our Teva program for 3rd and 4th graders, although I could imagine a time in the future (if our enrollment is high enough) when we might be able to offer a similar program for older kids, teens, and/or adults.  In the meantime, I'm very happy that we have a program like Teva at Temple Isaiah!

Giving kids and teens more responsibility

I recently read a terrific article in the Wall Street Journal called "What's Wrong with the Teenage Mind?"  In the article, the author describes the challenges faced by teens today, and in truth, by the changing nature of adolescence in general.  Aside from encouraging you to read the article, I also wanted to point out one of the key themes of the article: "If you think of the teenage brain as a car, today's adolescents acquire an accelerator a long time before they can steer and brake."  In other words, teens' minds and urges and passions are revving up, but we as a society are not providing nearly enough opportunities at young enough ages to develop the 'steering' and 'brakes' needed to control the car... which would be way more opportunities to take responsibility and be in charge of things (with supervision and guidance). 

The author points out that on average, puberty hits earlier and adulthood hits later than was the case in previous generations.  However, the types of responsibilities that children and teens used to have are going by the wayside - even jobs like babysitting and the 'paper route' have largely disappeared or given to people who are older (for example, I don't know of almost any parents in our area who typically hire tweens and young teens, ages 10-13, to babysit their children). 

In the article, we are reminded that all humans need to develop a 'control system', and that it is dependent upon learning...  but we can only learn when we have opportunities to learn... i.e. "You come to make better decisions by making not-so-good decisions and then correcting them.  You get to be a good planner by making plans, implementing them and seeing the results again and again."  The bottom line is that kids and teenagers need lots of practice - with jobs, internships, activities that require real commitment and most importantly, responsibility.  We try to provide that in the Jewish community, and certainly here at Isaiah we give teens responsibility as Camp Kefli counselors, Religious School TA's, leaders of LAFTY, and more.  However, we can always do more, and this article has made me think about how we can give children more chances to learn and grow in ways that provide the 'steering' and 'brakes' desperately needed by the time the 'acceleration' really hits in adolescence!

The Future of Jewish Education

I recently saw a YouTube video of "Charlie and Russel's Speech at the Jewish Futures Conference."  This video was shown (or referenced?) by Jonathan Woocher at this year's URJ Biennial, and I finally got around to watching it.  The two speakers - Charlie and Russel - assert that there are four components to the future of Jewish education:

1) Open, discoverable, accessible resources
2) Re-mixing Judaism
3) Community building
4) Making Jewish life / education meaningful & relevant

It's a great 6-minute video, and I recommend watching it if you can!

Long time no blog

Wow, I just realized that it's been nearly a month since I last posted anything on this blog.  That's due, in part, to Winter Break and to my recent trip to Disneyland for my son's 3rd birthday (which was great fun!).  During these times when I'm away from the computer for awhile, I realize how nice it is to be 'off the grid' every once in awhile.  I'm sure many of you experience what I do - the urge (and the need, even) to always be 'on'... to constantly check e-mail, check Facebook, read online news or blogs, etc.  Even when I'm hanging out at home with my husband and son, I still feel the need to check my phone for new emails, calls, etc.  So whenever we get the chance (or are forced) to go 'off the grid,' it feels significant and often quite liberating.

For the last 8 or 9 years, my Shabbat practice has been to go 'off the grid' as much as I possible from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.  I avoid my cell phone, don't use the computer, and try to have a day when I am fully present for those I'm with and for myself as well.  It's difficult, but it's a practice I've tried to maintain most of the time.  As Jews, we are blessed with the gift of Shabbat... a Divine COMMAND to take one day 'off', to take one day for ourselves and our families.  I encourage you to think about the ways that you could transform Shabbat into a day 'off,' for both yourself and your kids.  It's best if it's for a full day, but even for just Friday night...  What would time 'off' (or 'off the grid') look like for you and your family?  Give it a try; let me know how it goes! :)

To get you in the spirit, here's an old You Tube video, "I've Got a Feeling" (The Shabbat Song) -