As I was contemplating what I might want to write this Shabbat, my mind kept drifting back to one thing: Michael Jackson. If you know me, you probably know that I don’t talk about, read about, or care about Hollywood gossip all that much. When the OJ Simpson trial was going on years ago, I couldn’t care less. When Jon and Kate announced they were divorcing, I thought, “Why should I care?” But, when I learned that Michael Jackson had died, I had a different reaction. To be honest, I don’t know if I’d say that I was sad. I’m not even sure I was surprised. But I was definitely affected.
This morning while I was at Camp TEKO for the Yom Yafeh service, some of the staff, in particular some who are still in high school, were discussing Michael Jackson’s death and I overheard them saying, “This is going to be like Elvis for our generation.” For our generation? Our generation? “You weren’t even alive when ‘Thriller’ came out!” I thought. Okay, so I barely was either. But Michael Jackson’s music, for better or worse, played a role in the music of my generation. “Thriller” came out when I was four and became a staple of the music I still like and probably influenced many of the musical artists that I came to enjoy during my childhood and teen years.
So, when I learned of Michael Jackson’s death, I was reminded of days at summer camp impressed by the counselors who could moonwalk and singing misheard lyrics from “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” with my brother – “It’s the same as the sound of matzah; it’s the same as the sound of matzah.” But I was also reminded of all of the controversy that surrounded Michael Jackson in more recent years: the irresponsible spending, the legal battles, the erratic behavior. And I couldn’t help but ask myself how Judaism would expect me to remember someone who played such a big role in my childhood, who at the same time might not be the greatest role model.
This week’s Torah portion, Korach, recalls a member of the Levite tribe who leads a rebellion against Moses and Aaron. Korach’s rebellion fails as Moses and Aaron illustrate that God is on their side, and yet, this week’s Torah portion is named for this would-be leader. There is clearly a value that even this person who sought to overthrow Judaism as it existed in his time must still be remembered. Judaism teaches us that we recite Kaddish for eleven months following the death of a loved one. Our tradition tells us that we don’t say Kaddish for a full year because we are not in a place to judge the person we remember and decide that they lived a life that requires a full year of prayer from us. But neither are we in a place to judge their life as so good that we only need to recite Kaddish for a year. We don’t place judgment on how good of a life a person has lived or hasn’t lived. That’s not up to us to decide. Nontheless, we understand the importance and the power of memory.
As a prelude to the Kaddish, Richard Levy writes:
It is hard to sing of oneness when the world is not complete, when those who once brought wholeness to our life have gone, and naught but memory can fill the emptiness their passing leaves behind.
But memory can tell us only what we were in company with those we loved; it cannot help us find what each of us, alone, must now become. Yet no one is truly alone: those who live no more, echo still within our thoughts and words, and what they did is part of what we have become.
We do best homage to our dead when we live our lives more fully, even in the shadow of our loss. For each of our lives is worth the life of the whole world; in each one is the breath of the Ultimate One. In affirming the One, we affirm the worth of each one whose life, now ended, brought us closer to the Source of life, in whose unity no one is alone and every life finds purpose.
Maimonides teaches us that we are supposed to see ourselves as a scale with an equal amount of good and evil and that each decision we make will tip the scale in one direction or the other. In his song, “Heal the World,” Michael Jackson sings:
We could fly so high
Let our spirits never die.
In my heart I feel
You are all my brothers.
Create a world with no fear;
Together we'll cry happy tears.
See the nations turn
Their swords into plowshares.
We could really get there
If you cared enough for the living.
Make a little space to make a better place.
Heal the world.
Make it a better place
For you and for me and the entire human race.
There are people dying
If you care enough for the living
Make a better place for
You and for me.
May we be inspired by those who have influenced our lives to act in ways that tip the scale towards the good. And may we be the inspiration for others, to heal the world and make it a better place.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
A Taste of Torah - Sh'lach L'cha
In this week's Torah portion, Shelach L'cha, the scouts head into the land of Canaan to bring a report back to Moses, Aaron and the Israelites about the land they are about to enter and acquire, as God has promised. All but two of the scouts come back fearful of what lies ahead of them. They say that while the land is flowing with milk and honey, the people living there are like giants, making them appear like grasshoppers.
But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb aren't so intimidated. They tell the people how good the land is and encourage them not to rebel against God. Sometimes it's easy to give in to our fears, even when we know it's not in our best interest. This Shabbat, take on one of your fears and see if you can be like Caleb and Joshua son of Nun, and do what you need to do, knowing you have support and are protected.
But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb aren't so intimidated. They tell the people how good the land is and encourage them not to rebel against God. Sometimes it's easy to give in to our fears, even when we know it's not in our best interest. This Shabbat, take on one of your fears and see if you can be like Caleb and Joshua son of Nun, and do what you need to do, knowing you have support and are protected.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Resurrection and Reform Judaism: Understanding M'Chayeih Meitim and Ezekiel's Vision of the Dry Bones in a Reform Jewish Context
One of the things that I really like about Mishkan T’filah, as a rabbi, is that a new format demands renewed attention. In Judaism we are taught not to pray from memory, but, even when we know the prayers well, to use a siddur, a prayer book, and pay attention to the words on the page. Our new prayer book demands that kind of attention. Our readings change week to week, depending upon who is leading the service and what that leader’s mood is. And even the Hebrew has changed.
In the first prayer of the T’filah, the Avot v’Imahot, the prayer that praises God as the God of our ancestors, we have changed the order of Leah and Rachel, Jacob’s wives. We used to say “Elohei Leah v’Elohei Rachel,” but now, we say, “Elohei Rachel v’Elohei Leah,” allowing us to honor our matriarchs in the way in which we honor our ancestors in Judaism, by acknowledging their deaths, their yahrzeit. Rachel died before Leah. In the Yotzer, the prayer we recite about creation in the morning restores the line “Or chadash al tzion ta’ir, v’nizkeh chulanu m’heirah l’oro, Shine a new light upon Zion, that we all may swiftly merit its radiance.” This line restores a prayer for the Land of Israel, which the Reform movement rejected in our earlier days. Today, we pray for the well-being of Israel and its inhabitants, so we’ve returned that line to its place.
But there is one change in our liturgy that most Reform Jews would probably say does not mesh with their idea of what it is to be a Reform Jew. In the Gevurot, the second prayer of the T’filah which praises God’s power, there are options within the text, words that traditionally are said, but that the Reform movement rejected a long time ago. There is a word that appears in parentheses throughout the Hebrew text of the Gevurot in Mishkan T'filah: meitim. We say, “m’chayeih hakol, You give life to all,” but this word meitim changes the prayer to praise God “m’chayeih meitim, who revives the dead.” Reform Judaism doesn’t hold resurrection of the dead among its beliefs. Neither do most Reform Jews. So, why offer this alternative in Mishkan T’filah, the new Reform prayer book? Is it simply to let us know how other people are saying it? That’s not the way that Reform Judaism works. If we put something out there, it’s because we want it to be useful and meaningful for Reform Jews.
The Haftarah reading - the reading from the Prophetic texts - for Shabbat Chol ha-Mo'ed Pesach might lend us some insight into this change and guide us toward a new understanding of “m’chayeih meitim, who revives the dead.” Because it is a special Shabbat, Shabbat Chol ha-Mo’ed Pesach comes with a special Torah reading and a special Haftarah reading. The Haftarah reading comes from the prophet Ezekiel who writes (in Ezekiel 37:1-6):
The hand of the Eternal was upon me, leading me out by God’s spirit and setting me down in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. God led me all around them. There were a great many of them spread on the surface of the valley, and they were very dry. God said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O God Eternal, You alone know.” Then God said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: You dry bones, hear the words of the Eternal. Thus says the Eternal God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you, and cover you with flesh, and spread skin over you. I will put breath into you, and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Eternal.
In the Talmud, the Rabbis debate this text. Did Ezekiel actually resurrect the dead by invoking God’s name or is this story just a parable? Some say that they are the tribe of Ephraim who were so eager to leave Egypt that they left early and were struck down by enemies in the wilderness. But because of their efforts, God resurrected them when the Israelites made their way out of Egypt during the first Passover. We might be able to imagine, metaphorically, what it would have been like for the Ephraimites to have striven for freedom and not achieve it, but then be able to look back, with renewed strength, upon the remains of their failed efforts of the past. We, too, have struggled and been overcome, only to resurrect our ideals and try again.
When our ancestor Joseph faced death, he had our people promise to take his bones with him out of Egypt. Even if he wouldn’t live to see freedom, he wanted to know that his bones, at least would see freedom. When I was a child, my father used to sing a song to me, a song that recognized the freedom that only came with death for some American slaves:
The poor old slave has gone to rest,
we know that he is free
his bones they lie, disturb them not,
way down in Tennessee
This was the only freedom that Joseph would know. Our Passover story tells us, “Bechol dor v’dor chayav adam lirot et atsmo k’ilu hu yatza miMitsrayim, In every generation a person is obligated to see himself as if he went out of Egypt.” Rabbi Lisa Grushcow teaches, “Al tikra ‘atsmo,’ ela ‘atsmotav’ – In place of ‘himself,’ read, ‘his bones’: In every generation a person is obligated to see his bones as if he went out from Egypt.
But Joseph’s bones almost didn’t make it. According to one midrash (Tebat Marqa, cited in James L. Kugel, In Potiphar’s House: The Interpretive Life of Biblical Texts, pp. 138-39), the pillar of fire and cloud that guided the Israelites stood in their way, preventing their exit. Serach daughter of Asher was the one who remembered that they needed to get Joseph’s bones. The weary Israelites barely had enough strength to get themselves out of Egypt, let alone Joseph’s bones, and asked Moses in the wilderness, “Were there no graves in Egypt, that you took us out to die in the desert” (Exodus 14:11)? They needed to be revived and resurrected in the wilderness, along with the Ephraimites.
Even Ezekiel understood his words as metaphorical (Ezekiel 37:11-12):
Then God said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole House of Israel. They say: Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost; we are cut off from life! Therefore prophesy to them and say: Thus says the Eternal God: I am going to open your graves, My people; I will life you out of your graves and bring you home to the land of Israel.
It wasn’t a literal resurrection of which Ezekiel spoke, it was directed at a weary, exiled people. He lived during the time of the Babylonian exile. The Jewish community around them thought they didn’t have the strength to wait for a return to the Promised Land. They, like the Ephraimites, couldn’t wait any longer. But Ezekiel promised them that God would restore their strength.
This, perhaps, is the message that we Reform Jews can take from the alternative text in the G’vurot. It is not a prayer, I believe, of literal resurrection. Rather, it is a prayer that allows us to acknowledge the times when we haven’t thought we had the strength to push forward, the times when we forgot what we needed to go ahead, like the Israelites that had forgotten Joseph’s bones, but then God provides us with a Serach daughter of Asher, someone or something that gives us the drive to push on. It took tremendous perseverance and fortitude for our ancestors to make their way out of Egypt. And we have to see ourselves as we, too, went free out of Egypt, we and our weary bones, and with that redemption were given new life. May we continue to find new strength and new life. Shabbat Shalom.
Bibliography
Barzilai, Gabby. Redemption, Resurrection, and Passover. Bar-Ilan University’s Parashat Hashavua Study Center, April 10, 2004.
Fishbane, Michael. The JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2002, pp. 426-430.
Gordon, Jonathan. On Viewing the Bones of Idealism. Union for Reform Judaism’s Torat Hayim/Living Torah, April 19, 2003.
Grushcow, Lisa. Parshat Beshallach: HUC Senior Sermon, January 24, 2002.
Romm, Ed. Shabbat Hol Hamoed Pesach. Jerusalem: The United Synagogue Conservative Yeshiva Haftarah Commentary, April 11, 2009.
In the first prayer of the T’filah, the Avot v’Imahot, the prayer that praises God as the God of our ancestors, we have changed the order of Leah and Rachel, Jacob’s wives. We used to say “Elohei Leah v’Elohei Rachel,” but now, we say, “Elohei Rachel v’Elohei Leah,” allowing us to honor our matriarchs in the way in which we honor our ancestors in Judaism, by acknowledging their deaths, their yahrzeit. Rachel died before Leah. In the Yotzer, the prayer we recite about creation in the morning restores the line “Or chadash al tzion ta’ir, v’nizkeh chulanu m’heirah l’oro, Shine a new light upon Zion, that we all may swiftly merit its radiance.” This line restores a prayer for the Land of Israel, which the Reform movement rejected in our earlier days. Today, we pray for the well-being of Israel and its inhabitants, so we’ve returned that line to its place.
But there is one change in our liturgy that most Reform Jews would probably say does not mesh with their idea of what it is to be a Reform Jew. In the Gevurot, the second prayer of the T’filah which praises God’s power, there are options within the text, words that traditionally are said, but that the Reform movement rejected a long time ago. There is a word that appears in parentheses throughout the Hebrew text of the Gevurot in Mishkan T'filah: meitim. We say, “m’chayeih hakol, You give life to all,” but this word meitim changes the prayer to praise God “m’chayeih meitim, who revives the dead.” Reform Judaism doesn’t hold resurrection of the dead among its beliefs. Neither do most Reform Jews. So, why offer this alternative in Mishkan T’filah, the new Reform prayer book? Is it simply to let us know how other people are saying it? That’s not the way that Reform Judaism works. If we put something out there, it’s because we want it to be useful and meaningful for Reform Jews.
The Haftarah reading - the reading from the Prophetic texts - for Shabbat Chol ha-Mo'ed Pesach might lend us some insight into this change and guide us toward a new understanding of “m’chayeih meitim, who revives the dead.” Because it is a special Shabbat, Shabbat Chol ha-Mo’ed Pesach comes with a special Torah reading and a special Haftarah reading. The Haftarah reading comes from the prophet Ezekiel who writes (in Ezekiel 37:1-6):
The hand of the Eternal was upon me, leading me out by God’s spirit and setting me down in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. God led me all around them. There were a great many of them spread on the surface of the valley, and they were very dry. God said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O God Eternal, You alone know.” Then God said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: You dry bones, hear the words of the Eternal. Thus says the Eternal God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you, and cover you with flesh, and spread skin over you. I will put breath into you, and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Eternal.
In the Talmud, the Rabbis debate this text. Did Ezekiel actually resurrect the dead by invoking God’s name or is this story just a parable? Some say that they are the tribe of Ephraim who were so eager to leave Egypt that they left early and were struck down by enemies in the wilderness. But because of their efforts, God resurrected them when the Israelites made their way out of Egypt during the first Passover. We might be able to imagine, metaphorically, what it would have been like for the Ephraimites to have striven for freedom and not achieve it, but then be able to look back, with renewed strength, upon the remains of their failed efforts of the past. We, too, have struggled and been overcome, only to resurrect our ideals and try again.
When our ancestor Joseph faced death, he had our people promise to take his bones with him out of Egypt. Even if he wouldn’t live to see freedom, he wanted to know that his bones, at least would see freedom. When I was a child, my father used to sing a song to me, a song that recognized the freedom that only came with death for some American slaves:
The poor old slave has gone to rest,
we know that he is free
his bones they lie, disturb them not,
way down in Tennessee
This was the only freedom that Joseph would know. Our Passover story tells us, “Bechol dor v’dor chayav adam lirot et atsmo k’ilu hu yatza miMitsrayim, In every generation a person is obligated to see himself as if he went out of Egypt.” Rabbi Lisa Grushcow teaches, “Al tikra ‘atsmo,’ ela ‘atsmotav’ – In place of ‘himself,’ read, ‘his bones’: In every generation a person is obligated to see his bones as if he went out from Egypt.
But Joseph’s bones almost didn’t make it. According to one midrash (Tebat Marqa, cited in James L. Kugel, In Potiphar’s House: The Interpretive Life of Biblical Texts, pp. 138-39), the pillar of fire and cloud that guided the Israelites stood in their way, preventing their exit. Serach daughter of Asher was the one who remembered that they needed to get Joseph’s bones. The weary Israelites barely had enough strength to get themselves out of Egypt, let alone Joseph’s bones, and asked Moses in the wilderness, “Were there no graves in Egypt, that you took us out to die in the desert” (Exodus 14:11)? They needed to be revived and resurrected in the wilderness, along with the Ephraimites.
Even Ezekiel understood his words as metaphorical (Ezekiel 37:11-12):
Then God said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole House of Israel. They say: Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost; we are cut off from life! Therefore prophesy to them and say: Thus says the Eternal God: I am going to open your graves, My people; I will life you out of your graves and bring you home to the land of Israel.
It wasn’t a literal resurrection of which Ezekiel spoke, it was directed at a weary, exiled people. He lived during the time of the Babylonian exile. The Jewish community around them thought they didn’t have the strength to wait for a return to the Promised Land. They, like the Ephraimites, couldn’t wait any longer. But Ezekiel promised them that God would restore their strength.
This, perhaps, is the message that we Reform Jews can take from the alternative text in the G’vurot. It is not a prayer, I believe, of literal resurrection. Rather, it is a prayer that allows us to acknowledge the times when we haven’t thought we had the strength to push forward, the times when we forgot what we needed to go ahead, like the Israelites that had forgotten Joseph’s bones, but then God provides us with a Serach daughter of Asher, someone or something that gives us the drive to push on. It took tremendous perseverance and fortitude for our ancestors to make their way out of Egypt. And we have to see ourselves as we, too, went free out of Egypt, we and our weary bones, and with that redemption were given new life. May we continue to find new strength and new life. Shabbat Shalom.
Bibliography
Barzilai, Gabby. Redemption, Resurrection, and Passover. Bar-Ilan University’s Parashat Hashavua Study Center, April 10, 2004.
Fishbane, Michael. The JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2002, pp. 426-430.
Gordon, Jonathan. On Viewing the Bones of Idealism. Union for Reform Judaism’s Torat Hayim/Living Torah, April 19, 2003.
Grushcow, Lisa. Parshat Beshallach: HUC Senior Sermon, January 24, 2002.
Romm, Ed. Shabbat Hol Hamoed Pesach. Jerusalem: The United Synagogue Conservative Yeshiva Haftarah Commentary, April 11, 2009.
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