Almost time for Passover dinner and the assembled guests are shifting their interests from songs to soup. At the apex of the Seder, we point to the Passover symbols and begin our meal with horseradish and haroset. It is also the moment when we balance the existential bitterness with the perception of sweetness.

According to the Talmud (tractate Pesachim daf 116), explanation of the Passover symbols is among a very few essential elements of a Seder. These explanations are offered just before blessings over the food. They are the symbols of a lamb sacrificed, the bread of affliction and a taste of bitterness.

Bitterness emanates from the realm of emotion.  Bitterness is developed in how we react to adverse events, often beyond our control.  When we despair, when we lose hope, when we are weak in our faith, bitterness metastasizes.

One lesson gleaned from the Seder is that bitterness can be tempered with an appreciation of what is sweet. We remember enslavement by pointing to the maror but we eat the bitter herbs together with some honeyed haroset. We redeem ourselves when we control our bitterness with a balance of sweetness. And the sweetness is delivered in a symbol of oppression, the concoction of nuts and apples that reminds us of the mortar used to build Pharaoh’s storehouses. Haroset invites us, in the grips of adversity, to seek some sweetness – knowing that for our enslaved ancestors, sweetness must have been very, very hard to find

A challenge of Passover is finding balance to the adversities in our lives; ranging from the daily routine to the great challenges of life and death, love and loss that touch everyone at one time or another. Our task is to identify and try to connect with what is also sweet in our lives perhaps with appreciation for our blessings. The process culminates on the seventh day of Passover with a celebration of crossing the sea in the final steps away from Egyptian oppression.  How can we facilitate the transition from bitterness to sweetness? When we permit ourselves faith in possibilities of a better life and improved world in which we live. Both the physical journey to the Sinai and the psychological trek from bitterness to blessings takes courage and determination. The result is a legacy of hope that we pass down from generation to generation, – a hope that our tradition remains vital and continues giving us the chance for an ever more meaningful and joy-filled life.

R Evan Krame

(Join us Friday night April 29 at 6:30 for a sweet musical and mystical last day of Passover and welcoming of Shabbat at the Women’s Club of Bethesda – www.thejewishstudio.org/our-calendar).

It’s time for spring cleaning, a lead-up to Passover’s journeying of renewal and liberation from narrow places.  Bounding beyond the narrow (tzar) troubles (tzarot) of bondage in “Egypt” (Mitzrayim) toward freedom anew maps to this week’s similarly-named Torah portion (Metzora) journeying from illness and isolation toward health and restoration.  In this journey from Egypt (Mitzrayim) and this illness (Metzora), the message is going forward: means may be unclear and readiness may falter, but the time absolutely and urgently is now.

To understand this pre-Passover message, we enter deeply into the eerie ancient world of tzora’at, the Hebrew word (notice the same Hebrew root, tz-r) for this illness.  Tradition imagines tzora’at as leprosy, except houses also got tzora’at (Lev. 14:34). We know only that tzora’at was a spiritual sickness affecting both people and buildings, and whose symptom was surface eruptions (from skin or walls).  In either case, the remedy was temporary isolation and then a complex purification ritual.

Some ancient rabbis reasoned that anyone ill deserved it for some spiritual reason (B.T. Berakhot 5b). Explanations abounded: some said that tzora’at visited the slanderer, with skin eruptions bringing outside the condition of one’s inside. Maybe tzora’at afflicted the arrogant, symbolized by the lowly hyssop bush used for cure (Lev. 14:4). Others imagined tzora’at plaguing the stingy, emptying the afflicted’s house so all could see hoarded wealth withheld from charity (Lev. Rabbah 17:2).  All we know for sure is that these explanations share a common sense of inner narrowness.

Against that backdrop, given the Jewish premium on community, the tzora’at cure of isolation – being placed outside the camp – was important and symbolic.  Rabbi Shefa Gold teaches that the cure for narrowness was then – and remains today – a spiritual time-out and separation from routine and community.  In modern forms it might be a retreat, going out and away from routine.  In psychological terms it might be a temporary ejection to re-set emotional and psychosocial circuits.  Whatever the form, the message is much the same: when narrowness comes, you can’t stay where you are. And a second message follows the first: the response to seeming external affliction (skin eruptions) focused internally.  Appearance might be skin deep, but perception and reality root deep within: it’s at this level that our search for healing and renewal must most focus.

So too with Passover. When it was time to go, there was no readiness: had our ancestors waited until they felt ready, they might never have left!  And so too with Passover’s rituals: the outer rituals of home preparation, eating matzah and conducting a seder seek not outer performance but inner change, to identify inwardly with the fleeing slaves: “I do this because of what God did for me when I came out of Egypt” (Ex. 13:8).

So whether it’s inner bondage or outward appearance, how we speak or what we give, where we live or where we travel, this moment readies us to journey past every sense of narrowness and inner sickness we can fathom, trusting that separation from community or routine might be necessary to recalibrate us for the journey ahead. Get ready, knowing that there’s no real ready.  Get set, knowing that set is besides the point.  Just go.

Next time you are in a synagogue, gaze at the eternal flame atop the Ark.  Its symbolism represents the beating heart of spiritual and community life, if we make it so.

Our spiritual ethos, hope, aspiration and calling is that the light never goes out – or so we tell ourselves.  This week’s Torah portion (Tzav) evokes this timeless image: “An eternal flame will be kept burning on the altar, never to go out” (Lev. 6:6).   These words inspire the ner tamid atop the Ark, and with it Jewish narratives of perseverance and eternal Presence.  Its reprised motif on Chanukkah inspired Peter, Paul & Mary’s Chanukah hit, Don’t Let the Light Go Out.  (Rabbinic musicologists can say what they want about the Bangles’ 1989 Eternal Flame and Bon Jovi’s 1990 Blaze of Glory.)

The eternal flame was more in ancient days – and is more symbolic today – than just a fire that kept burning.  The altar’s eternal flame was no supernatural miracle: it wasn’t a burning bush or divine pillar of fire that led the people in nighttime desert wandering.  This eternal flame kept burning because the people kept it burning by a laborious communal effort to refine a constant supply of pure olive oil for that purpose (Ex. 27:20).  The eternal flame’s placement on the altar, in the center of the Israelite camp, became the heart of communal and spiritual life.  Its stated purpose was to allow perpetual and immediate access to purification, without the delay of kindling a fire anew.  To access purification and holiness, there could be no time to lose.

These three facets of the eternal flame – communal creation, central location, immediate access – must be our keystones of modern spiritual life.  Some imagine that we keep the eternal flame atop the Ark because it connects us to our ancient lineage, and that is true.  But if we’re only backwards connectors and don’t look forward, then we’re mere spiritual historians.  Nobody, my teachers taught me, drives a car looking only in the rearview mirror.

So what will be tomorrow’s ner tamid, the eternal flame of community, centrality and immediacy in spiritual life?  I don’t pretend a clear answer, and maybe for now that’s as it should be.  Any good answer, by its nature, must emerge from community and by community’s own effort.  It will need to figure centrally in defining community, and it will need to offer immediate spiritual access.   If no clear answer emerges yet, maybe the question itself is our attractive flame of community, centrality and immediacy.

Let this question burn and shine as an eternal flame for our people – to help keep us motivated, together and connected – no less than for our ancestors whose eternal flame we celebrate and honor today.  For centuries our yearning and questions kept the lights on in Jewish spiritual life.  Today as never before, we need that eternal flame to keep shining bright.

Rabbi David Evan Markus

“Doesn’t anybody stay in one place any more?” sings Carole King lamenting a distant lover.  Mobility is a defining characteristic of our modern world.  An ever-evolving Judaism is one that to be sustainable must be portable.

Once again, ancient Torah text offers modernity a message. In Parshat Pekudei closing the Book of Exodus (Shemot), our wandering ancestors completed their traveling tabernacle. Previously we learned that among its construction features were carrying poles placed in rings and never removed from them, so the Miskhan could move on a moment’s notice (Ex. 25:15; B.T. Menachot 98a). The Mishkan would move with the people following their image of God, cloud by day and fire by night.

In this century, Jews again have been on the move – whether fleeing danger or re-settling promised lands. The geopolitical story of Jewish mobility also has psycho-spiritual aspects. Planes, trains and automobiles stretch families across continents, and Internet connectivity is helping reconnects some of what became overstretched. All of these, in turn, relocate and redefine Jewish community.

The impacts on Jewish life have been dramatic. A people that began spiritual life with a mobile Mishkan, that later learned to fix holiness in the fixed place of a synagogue, now is learning how to become mobile again. Mobility emboldens our yearnings for experiences and entertainment. Accessibility diverts our attention from the qualities of being domestic to the “waze” of being itinerant. For many progressive Jews, synagogues are less the center point of Jewish life than they once were.  The holy place is wherever one lets God in, taught Menachem Mendl of Kotzk (1787–1859).  Absent a Mishkan or Holy Temple as God’s abode, slowly we come to realize, in the words of the Sfat Emet (Yehudah Lieb Alter, 1847-1905), that holiness can be found everywhere – but we have to seek it.  And seeking often requires moving.  We can’t just stay put.

The qualities of a movable sanctuary, traveling amidst a people, remain valuable.  We still need the richness of a sanctuary: the home and communal gathering places are still vibrant Jewish centers.  But we also need our Judaism to have legs, designed for portability, not fixed – ossified, even enslaved – to the bounds of place.

The Mishkan of The Jewish Studio evolves for precisely this reason.  A Shabbat hike brings Judaism to how and where we are, rather than only prescribing where we should be.  A mobile event venue constructs Jewish experiences in places we want to go.  We don’t stop being Jewish anywhere, so we need a Mishkan everywhere.

We are on the move: our Judaism comes with us.  Let’s go.

Rabbi Evan Krame

Rabbi David Evan Markus

Some people see the world as rational and ordered, and yet bad things happen. Others see the world as a chaotic and unpredictable place full of terrible things. Some see the world in the control of God and the things that happen have a reason even if it is not comprehensible to mere mortals. Others see the world as having been created and set in motion by God but no longer directed by God.

These are just a few of the ways we interpret and try to make sense of our world. These viewpoints have embedded strategies for containing fear. We employ denial, pushing thoughts about scary things away – if I don’t think about it, it doesn’t exist. This is most easily done if one keeps very, very busy. We just avoid dealing with the things that frighten us. For some, the fear controls their decision making; people who won’t get on a plane, or go to Israel, or speak in a group.  Others believe that God is in control or has a master plan and whatever happens is God’s will.

An example of a reaction to fear is in this week’s parsha, Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:11 – 34:35, the Children of Israel build the Golden Calf. The tradition speaks of the “sin of the Golden Calf” which we (or at least I) have understood to be the sin of idol worship. My previous interpretation of this story was that the people were not yet ready for such an abstract God and needed a “transitional” object. In rereading the parsha, it seems that they were just as likely trying to manage their fear. Their fear of the unknown, their fear of abandonment by Moses, and their fear of vulnerability.

In ancient and modern times, worship rituals help make the world feel less frightening. Sacrifices and prayer give a sense of control. For instance, one can pray to effect change in order to eliminate the source of fear or pray for strength to face their fears. In Harold Kushner’s book, “Conquering Fear.” Kushner introduces the notion of an eleventh commandment, al tir-ah-u – Do not be afraid (Ex. 20: 17). The sin of the Golden Calf is being afraid.

Yet fear is an important self-defense mechanism. That is why we go inside during thunderstorms. Fear may even keep risk-taking to safe levels. When is it a sin to be afraid? Being afraid by itself is a feeling while sins are usually actions or inactions that are “wrong.” But being afraid may not just be a feeling. Just as coveting is a feeling of overwhelming jealousy that leads to sinful behavior, it is possible to let fear overwhelm us and lead us to do the wrong thing. In that case, it is a sin that leads to another sin.

All of us have something(s) that we fear – snakes, bats, public speaking, the dark. Some of us fear being alone, or a lengthy illness, or death.

So what are you afraid of and is it a healthy fear, or an overwhelming fear, a fear that holds you back from living fully? How do you recognize your fear and face it? When you feel that fear, how do you control it so that it doesn’t control you? The Jewish Studio offers some solutions. Join us for prayer or a session of mindfulness. Together, we can create containers for our fear. 

JoHanna Potts