This is the beginning of the month of Elul, the month that precedes the holiday-packed month of Tishrei. It is now that we begin sounding the shofar daily, signaling that it is the time to prepare for the transformation we hope to make in the coming year. First we must look into our spiritual mirror and honestly at ourselves. We need to engage in a “soul searching” that reveals ways in which we hold ourselves back, act out of fear and close ourselves off to different ways of seeing our role within this world. This isn’t an occupation review. It is about how you do, not what you do. There are a few questions to consider in this process: 

How are we living up to being made in the image of God and seeing others as made in the divine image as well? How can we be our most generous selves? Do we give others the benefit of the doubt? How do we feel and express gratitude? Do we see the wonder in our world? How do we alleviate the pain others may feel? How do we support our community? How do we pursue justice?

If we find, while gazing in that spiritual mirror, that the image of ourselves reflected back doesn’t yet match our aspirations, each day gives us an opportunity to come closer to it.

by JoHanna Potts

Were the Bible written today, it might include wisdom on start-up businesses, communitarian governance, positive psychology and organizational skills. At least those are the “bibles” I notice people reading around me nowadays. To the modern purveyors of how-to business literature, success often means not only financial reward but also position in the industry, innovating for the future and organizational restructuring. These principles are not just for businessmen. Non-profit organizations spend huge amounts of time on new modes of operation, financial development and creative marketing. They measure success by metrics – emails opened, clicks on links, donations made, attendance at events. Why not wonder if business contributes to creating a healthy society or if non-profits sustain the souls of people?

Success in the ancient Jewish world would have meant rainfall when needed, healthy animals and abundant food. Eager to prime the pump with the Source of plenty, sacrifices would be offered and rules were admonished (but not always followed). It is a model we find the second of three paragraphs following the Shema, which traditionally we read twice daily. Some progressive Jews have stopped reading this altogether: a Torah of reward and punishment is challenging to the modern Jew.

I think that there is a common flaw with the nouveau guidebooks on success and the way we are wont to read Torah. It is not so much what is said but how we receive the message. Torah isn’t about believing that a prescription will yield a positive healthful result.  Torah is about faith in a Creator/Source/Power that sets in motion the possibility of reward and the potential for punishment. For example, if we don’t take care of the earth and if we pollute and scorch the atmosphere, then we plant the seeds of our “punishment” growing naturally from our actions. And if we care for each other and share resources well, then we plant the seeds of those “rewards.” God is in the formula.  God is the inspiration and the energy to make change happen.

There is reward and punishment in the collective sense of identifying core values and upholding them in our work and in our society. Torah inspires us to reach beyond literal meaning and focus on the planetary and societal goals that our activities and livelihoods should serve. Along with every book on starting a business or restructuring operations, there should be a reminder from Torah that we must measure success by the qualities of meeting collective needs – preserving and enhancing life. Let that be our bottom line. Add peace, freedom, protection, and resources to the list of metrics of success: let those be our bottom line. With that kind of how-to and purpose to what we do, we can live out heavenly days right here on this earth.

R’ Evan Krame

See the path of your life.  Really see it.  What do you see?  Do you like what you see?  If not, what readiness do you need to change it?

This week’s Torah portion (Dvarim) heralds the approach of Tisha b’Av, commemorating the destruction of the Temple and countless other tragedies in Jewish history.  It also heralds Shabbat Chazon, the coming Shabbat before Tisha b’Av named for this week’s Haftarah portion (Isaiah 1:1-1:27), which begins with Isaiah’s Chazon (vision) about dire consequences of poor life choices.

We might be forgiven for seeing here mostly doom and gloom: after all, we’re approaching the Black Sabbath (not the rock band, but the darkest moment of the Jewish year). Doom and gloom have their place, but there also is light: Tisha b’Av carries also the kernel of liberation, the breaching of inner walls that make new journeys and freedoms possible.  As Leonard Cohen so poignantly wrote in his song Anthem, “There’s a crack in everything: that’s how the light gets in.”

What we’re called to see is light – even and especially light amidst the doomsayers, darkness and destructions that are inevitable parts of life. We’re called to see the true reality of our lives, beyond the walls, unprotected by walls, freed from walls.  We’re called to see the path before us and begin again, like the journeys recounted in this week’s Torah portion, to get up from our doldrums and go.

But go where?  Desert journeys we recall in this week’s Torah portion are long past, but we recall them now as metaphor for our journey of the next seven weeks, between now and Rosh Hashanah – a mirror-image of the seven weeks between Passover (liberation) and Shavuot (revelation).  Once again, like our desert forebears, we can journey from narrowness to expansiveness, from darkness to light, from brokenness to a new wholeness.  The journey will take effort, but the effort is the purpose of the journey.

That is the deep meaning of this week of preparation, this moment of seeing clearly the path stretching before us.  May your vision be clear as we ready for this journey anew.

Rabbi David Evan Markus

Women and Men are equal. Why would I even need to write those words? The Torah reading for this week, Pinchas, incorporates a story of a rung on the ladder to climb a wall toward such equality. We have not yet finished the climb.

We read that the five daughters of a man named Zelophehad demand their share of his inheritance in a world where women had no such rights.  After consultation with God, Moses offers limited rights to these women.  With further push back from the men of their tribe, their inheritance rights are later affirmed but limited in scope.  Two steps up, and one step down.

Women are still seeking equal rights.  I am acutely reminded of this with the death of Rabbi Bonna Haberman on June 16, 2015.  Bonna was the founder of Women of the Wall, a group pressing for egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall.  For decades, she brought awareness that women have an equal claim to pray and ultimately access to God in all places, especially at the remaining wall of the holy Temple in Jerusalem.

That same week, the modern Orthodox Yeshivat Maharat in New York ordained five more women. While the Orthodox leadership is not ready to call them rabbis, a rose by any other name.

There are many examples of women’s degradation in this world. I choose this week to be inspired by the climb toward equality of women in our faith communities. We have not yet reached the heights.  There’s more wall yet to scale.

Women’s equality, gay rights, inclusion for persons with disabilities, ending racism, . . . all of these human rights are processes which remain unrealized goals.  The Torah points us to note a starting place and reminds us that the process will happen in fits and starts.  As the Talmud teaches, it is not your job to complete the task (of perfecting the world), but neither are you free to desist from it.  pirke avot 2:21).  In the wake of July 4 Independence Day, remember to keep the momentum toward full human rights going in your interactions.  Check your bias. Open your eyes and your hearts. Extend your hands. Be an advocate. If you are a woman, demand your share.  Keep climbing.

Rabbi Evan Krame.

This week nine people killed in a church in Charleston will be laid to rest down in the ground.  14 times in six years there have been mass killings in the United States.  After such a tragedy we might seek some positive message in Torah. This week we learn that from descent comes ascent, and from the depths of despair we can surge forward and upward.

In parasha Chukat for this coming Shabbat, Miriam dies and the miraculous water source that followed the people through the desert has dried up. The people are again on the verge of rebellion. Moses is instructed by God to only speak to a rock to provide water. Instead, Moses strikes the rock and chastises the rebels. It appears as though Moses has lost faith. Even today, we can feel his despair.

In the widely shared video of Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, Stewart noted (I will paraphrase) that he was certain we would look at the problem and again do “jack ***”. The despair that Moses felt again confronting a rebellious people is the same kind of despair Jon Stewart shared with us that night.

Yet the Torah gives us hope.  Soon after, the princes of the tribes dig a well. Water springs up from the well.  New and cooperative leadership provides a solution to the problem. In fact, they do so joyfully, making their voices heard and singing a song as they dig.  And then, in an extraordinary bit of word play, we read that the people travelled from Midbar to Mattanah and from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth. Translated loosely, the people went from the wilderness to a gift, from a gift to an inheritance and from an inheritance to a high place. In rapid succession, they went from both a geographic and psychological low place to an elevated place on the verge of transformation and entry into the Promised Land. In getting together to solve a problem, they moved forward and upward.

Moses’ leadership was ending in the Torah reading (and Jon Stewart is leaving the Daily Show). I maintain hope that new and cooperative leadership in this country will raise us from the depths of violence and racism, so that we may move forward and upward. We can’t just rely on others. We have to make it so. Will you be among those that retire in despair or will you choose to make your voice heard and dig wells that will spring forth waters of justice and peace?  As a start, share this blog post with others and share your concern with someone else, . . . perhaps a person in Congress, or two.

Rabbi Evan Krame