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

Tragedies often leave us bewildered and disaffected.  But Torah offers profound lessons in the wake of seemingly inexplicable tragedy.  In parashat Shemini, the text details eight days of dedication ceremonies for the beautiful new mishkan, God’s tangible abode, including lots of animal sacrifices.   At its end, the oldest sons of the High Priest, Aaron, make one more offering beyond what was expected or required resulting in their being “zapped.”

In commenting, God (Leviticus 10:3) says, “those who are close will sanctify me, and before all of the people I will be honored.”  Nadav and Abihu, by virtue of their role as priests are seemingly closest to God.  We would assume that their rituals sanctify God.  However, they are overly zealous, drunken with ceremony, and are eliminated.

Immediately following the death of Nadav and Abihu, the text describes which animals are kosher to eat. At first blush, the shift from Nadav and Abihu’s death seems obtuse.  We hardly have a chance to comprehend how two leaders are consumed by holy flame and then we are instructed in dietary laws.  Upon second glance, we are offered an important lesson.

The rules of what to eat are a contrast to the preceding detailed instruction about building ornate structures and then a parade of animals sacrificed in dedication.  The common element is kedusha or holiness.  Sometimes we need the pageantry to refocus us toward what is holy.  However, holiness is an every day thing.  Each day as we choose what we eat, we have a regular opportunity to bring holiness into our lives.

There is an important parallel between this text and the current trend in Judaism.  When 20th century Judaism in America shifted the locus of holiness to the bimah in synagogues and clergy as our surrogates, we set Judaism on a dangerous course.  American Jews were concerned with construction of buildings and became bystanders to the rituals and services.  We abdicated being a nation of priests, and left it to a few leaders to serve God.

The shift taught in this Parasha is to seek holiness in our most everyday choices.  To achieve its value, Judaism must be exercised as a regular, personal practice. We cannot handover our spiritual lives to our leaders.  Rather, we must remember that our partner in holiness is God and God is honored by what each of us does in the most ordinary of moments. . . like making choices in eating.   And its not just kosher, but selecting what is good for our bodies and how the sources of our food have been tended.  When it comes to holiness, we must be active participants each day in the most ordinary of ways so we can honor God.

Rabbi Evan J. Krame, inspired by Bat Mitzvah Lilah Katz

Ideas to Make Your Passover Seder Great 

By Johanna Potts       

Reduce the Passover Seder stress with these ideas on how to make your Seder great.  In fact the Seder within its own structure gives you some direction.  For example, the point of reading about four children and their approaches to the Seder is to say to Seder leaders that all who are at the Seder are supposed to get the message of Passover in a way that is meaningful to him/her. For some it is the songs, for some it is the food, for some it telling and thinking about the story year after year. The challenge is to make it feel fresh and familiar at the same time.

Some ideas to make your Seder great will incorporate some unexpected activities (to everyone else).

1.      After karpas (parsley or celery) serve a salad with carrots and lettuce – after all you have said the blessing for things that grow in the ground.

2.       Incorporate some traditions not your own – if you are Sephardi, add something Yemeni; if you are Ashkenazi, try something Sephardi, etc.  For example, participants at a Sephardic Persian (or Iranian) Passover Seder will simultaneously chant the Passover song “Dayenu” and hold bunches of either celery, chives, leeks or scallions in their hands and lightly beat each other on the back and shoulders to symbolize the sting generated by the whip of the Egyptian taskmasters. A variation of this custom with Sephardic Persian Jewish families will have participants at the Passover Seder table take turns being an Egyptian taskmaster, lightly beating another person with the celery, chives, scallions, or leeks.

3.      Make puppets for all of the characters in Had Gadya and assign roles and sounds

4.      Pick a theme and imagine a new symbol for it, let guests know the theme and send out discussion questions ahead of time.  For example: Freedom from the Electronic/Information Age.

5.      Use a popular TV show or movie as a framework for the Seder

6.      Do part of your Seder sitting on cushions/pillows on the floor;

7.      Assign different parts of the Seder to people ahead of time and ask them to find/write a reading and lead that part

8.      Find time to include an important family story as part of the Seder

9.  Write your own Haggadah. Some On-Line Resources are:

1.      https://seder2015.org/  from University of Washington Communication and Leadership and an interactive firm Civilization

2.      https://www.rac.org/pesach-themed-haggadot from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

3.      https://ajws.org/what_we_do/education/resources/from_the_sources/fts_pesach_5771.pdf includes many readings and even a children’s book

4.      https://www.haggadot.com/ open source haggadah sections and haggadot from diverse orientations.