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 

“Clothes make the man,” said Shakespeare (Hamlet I:iii).  Jewish tradition couldn’t agree more.

This week’s Torah portion (Shlach) brings a mitzvah (command) to tie fringes to our clothes.  This is the derivation of the Jewish tallit (prayer shawl) tied with tzitzit (fringes).  Torah records God to tell Moses (Num. 15:37-40): “Speak to the Israelites and tell them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages, then attach to the fringe at each corner a cord of blue.  You will have fringes; looking at [them], you will recall all of God’s commands and do them, so you won’t turn after your hearts and eyes to prostitute yourselves.  Thus you will be reminded to do all My commands and be holy to your God.”

Tradition wisely understood that we distractible humans need physical reminders – like strings tied around the finger – to rivet attention, jog memory and shift behavior toward holy living.  The first of Judaism’s physical reminders was clothing: tzitzit were ancient spirituality’s fashion sense.

Sense for what?  This week’s portion is named for scouts that Moses sent (shlach) to investigate the land that the Israelite wanderers were about to enter.  The scouts returned afraid of the land’s native inhabitants and feeling tiny compared to them – like grasshoppers beneath a giant.  God and Moses rebuked them for false fears, and many died in the ensuing struggle.  Only after that painful story do we encounter Torah’s teaching about blue tzitzit to focus our attention.

Fear comes to every life.  Our fears can lead us astray; we might feel small compared to our challenges or adversaries.  Torah reminds us that we can shift our focus so that our small fears won’t dominate us, and that we can use what we see – even the clothes we wear – to shift our focus.  The tallit evokes God’s light: we imagine God to be clothed in light (Ps. 104), so we wrap ourselves in a garment of light.  Onto those vestments evoking holy light, we tie threads to remind us of this week’s story of scouts who felt too small.  We wear this garment as a protective cloak against fear and unholy distraction.  Whatever your fashion sense, make in your life a visible reminder that you come clothed in light and strength.  Wear that garment grandly, and do not fear.

Rabbi David Evan Markus

Age is an invitation and not a closed door. Take this week’s Torah portion, Naso. A census of the Levitical tribes is required. The priests with caretaking duties between the ages of 30 and 50 are recorded and enlisted for duties in the Tent of Meeting, where sacrifices were offered.  We can opine as to why this age range was best suited for priestly duties – was it an assumption about agility or ability peaking between these ages? Perhaps it was merely to limit the ages of services so as to allow another generation to learn and step up to the tasks. I was intrigued by a more modern idea. Perhaps it is that at different ages we can offer different qualities of spiritual leadership. For me, this is an opportunity to notice how new doors of spiritual leadership opened for me after the age of 50.

I do not claim to be priest-like, but I am a recently ordained Rabbi. I was 56 on the day of my ordination. I am acutely aware of my age, not because I fear death or disability, but rather in gratitude that I have the skills at this age to lead and inspire others and even the chance for more personal growth. In Biblical understanding, there are many age indicators. 20 years is the age of counting males in the census for a military role (Numbers 1:3). 70 years is considered a full life (Psalm 90:10). Despite any indication from the Torah that I may be past my peak age for certain priestly duties, I believe that I am in prime time for a rabbinical role. I have life experience to share.  I have had personal challenges to both soften my heart and toughen my skin.  I have an ever expanding spiritual life and relationship with God, that I would not have imagined possible when I was 30 or even 50.

There was a time when my mind may have better retained new information or when I could hit a tennis ball much harder. Yet, I try to focus on the new opportunities offered me precisely because I am 57. It just means that I accept the limitations as well as the capacities. This does not cause me to despair but rather connect with the application of wisdom gained by my life experience. There are new opportunities in growing and maturing. As Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z’l, described it, I want to transform “aging into saging.”

Rabbi Evan Krame

Take a breather: rest isn’t just for the weary.  That’s the enduring message of this week’s double portion ending the Book of Leviticus (Behar-Bechutotai, Lev. 25:1-27:34).

In our ancestors’ society, spiritual truth translated from agricultural means.  Our ancestors worked the land, planting and reaping harvests, so often they expressed spiritual truths in terms of the land.  To them, Shabbat was more than a weekly day of rest: it was a principle of ethics and good stewardship of the land.  Even the land, they knew, needs a Shabbat.  Their land-Shabbat came every seven years – the Shmitta year of letting the land lay fallow, recharge and gather back its strength, so that it can continue to remain productive.  To make a land-Shabbat work, the people had to rely on what they had reaped the prior six years, which led them to be not only good agriculturists but also good economists: they had to save, mindful in the other six years that the land would have its Shabbat.

In our day, we might save for retirement or save for rainy days, but few of us save for sabbatical years.  Few of us take sabbatical years.  In today’s fast-paced economy, even the rare person whose job entitles him or her to take sabbaticals rarely does so.

And yet, this system on which modern society mostly turned its back is the root of what we call “liberty.”  In our ancestors’ sense, “liberty” is what happens when we have a Jubilee Year – the year marking every seventh cycle of seven years (the 50th year), when land ownership reverted back and debts were cancelled.  From this system of Shmitta and Jubilee derived our understanding of not only good land stewardship but also fairness and justice – indeed, our very understanding of liberty itself.  From this system comes the quote on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land for all its inhabitants” (Lev. 25:10).

Liberty, we learn, is tied to the land, to fairness and justice, to letting the earth have her due.  We need only observe today’s geopolitical disruptions arising from environmental injustice, global climate change making water and food unstable for vast swaths of the world, to appreciate the subtle wisdom of our agricultural ancestors.

How we work the land – how we tend the earth, how we care for the planet – is essential to our lived spirituality.  Our planet has the capacity to produce enough food for a hungry world, but only if we tend it wisely – honoring the planet’s cycles of time, water and air.  Honoring the God-spark among all the people means shifting from unfettered production to wise stewardship.  It means taking a breather: as partners with God, this is our responsibility and our spiritual calling.

The Jewish Studio/JoHanna Potts, Rabbi David Evan Markus

This week’s double portion, Acharei Mot-Kedoshim (Lev. 16:1-20:27), contains the famous phrase that Talmud’s Rabbi Akiva recited while standing on one leg to summarize all of Torah (B.T. Shabbat 31a): “love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18).  This phrase, emerging from the middle part of Torah’s middle portion dedicated to kedoshim (holiness), is the beating heart of Torah and living pulse of Jewish spirituality.  This mitzvah (connecting command) to love others as ourselves is so central to Jewish life that it might as well be Torah’s innermost sanctum, the Holy of Holies at Torah’s very core.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” – easy words to say, but sometimes difficult words to live.  In the rush of modern life, sometimes we forget.  Sometimes our neighbors don’t seem especially lovable.  Sometimes we ourselves feel too strained, hurt or bothered to love anyone (including ourselves).  Human life can be difficult, and in those moments of difficulty, it can be especially difficult to love another as we love ourselves.

Difficult, but not impossible.  Jewish spirituality is meant to be lived precisely in the messiness of life, not cleanly adorned, venerated from afar or cloistered safely away.  Jewish tradition’s sages were eminently practical: key to their creed was the idea that God, Torah and tradition must ask only what is possible (B.T. Bava Kama 84a, Chullin 11b, Niddah 67b) – lest spirituality be only theoretical, frustrating, guilt-provoking or worse.   The mitzvot of spirituality and good living aren’t far away – across the sea or in the heavens – but rather already in our mouths and hearts, so we can do them (Deut. 30:11-14).

Even if these words at Torah’s heart might be familiar and close, however, we still need pointers, a how-to primer when life gets hard.  The rest of this week’s Torah portion surrounding these heart-words provides exactly such a primer, full of pointers on how to live a neighbor-loving life.  Give to the poor, protect the disabled (don’t curse the deaf or put stumbling blocks before the blind), honor parents, maintain fair weights and measures in commerce, – the list goes on and on.  Perhaps some of these pointers reflect Torah’s pre-industrial context of the ancient Near East, though many of these pointers seem as prescient in 21st century America as they did millennia ago.  All of them together offer us a timeless formula for holy living.

Maybe your own formula for holy living looks a bit different.  Maybe if you could write your own Holiness Code, it would cite different examples.  So go ahead: make your list.  Really – make a list of what holy living would be for you.  Odds are good that whatever your list about holy living, it might read a lot like Rabbi Akiva’s essence of Torah on one foot: love your neighbor as yourself.  Whatever your own examples of holy living might be, they are only examples of this timeless core of wisdom.  In Rabbi Akiva’s famous words, all the rest is commentary – now go and study.

Rabbi David Evan Markus