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Table of contents
- Jewish Renewal - Velveteen Rabbi
- Site Search
- Philosophy Department
- Zen and the art of nuclear war
- Search form
Deep thanks to The Jewish Studio , our fiscal sponsor, for making this week possible -- and to my hevre , for dedicating their hands and hearts to the proposition that everyone can be a builder, and that a meaningful, accessible, renewing Judaism is ours to build together. With [some of] my Bayit hevre: building toward the Jewish future together. Our sages compare Shabbat to a garden. Shabbat is called both a foretaste of the world to come and a return to Eden, the primordial garden of abundance and bliss.
What more perfect place to experience the sweetness of Shabbes than a garden? We met at the front entrance to the New York Botanical Garden.
Jewish Renewal - Velveteen Rabbi
After getting ourselves organized, we walked in contemplative silence -- marveling at the spectacular beauty all around us -- until we reached a shady place where it made sense to stop. Beside a tiered reflecting pool we stopped again in the shade. More walking, more quiet singing. On an enormous expanse of rock we listened to mystical teachings on the week's Torah portion. We rose there to sing our closing prayers. We blessed wine and challah. And when our community time together was done, Rabbi David and I walked through the most spectacular rose garden I have ever seen. More kinds of roses than I can describe, every shape and configuration and color and scent, and all of them in bloom.
It may indeed be a description of heaven. At least for me -- I can't think of a sweeter way to spend a week. It's also a description of what I'll be doing on my summer vacation!
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Bayit's founding builders are renting a house on the seashore during the first week of July, and we'll spend a week together learning, praying, playing, and dreaming big about the things we hope to build. We're bringing teachers from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Yeshivat Maharat so we can nourish our souls with Torah study. We'll dive into big questions: what does the Jewish world most need? What does genuine innovation look like, and how can it be fostered and shared?
What structures will best support the flowering-forth of renewal in Judaism and in spiritual life writ large? The learning and visioning week will be once again be sponsored by The Jewish Studio , under whose umbrella Bayit is housed. The Shibolei Haleket R. Zedekiah b. Abraham Harof Anav, d. Just kidding. Hametz is grain that has fermented. When we left Egypt, we didn't have time for natural sourdough to leaven our bread, so we baked flat crackers and left in haste.
Torah offers us two instructions 1 eat matzah as we re-live the Exodus, and 2 get rid of leaven. The matzah part, we'll do during Pesach. The getting-rid-of-leaven part, we have to do in advance. Today is Shabbes, our foretaste of the world to come.
Philosophy Department
Today we do no work. We rest and are ensouled, as was God on the first Shabbat.
But tomorrow, and in the weekdays to come, many of us may be doing some spring cleaning as we prepare to rid our homes of leaven for a week. Of course, getting rid of leaven doesn't "just" mean getting rid of leaven. It can also mean a kind of spiritual housecleaning. Hametz can represent ego, what puffs us up internally. The therapists among us might note that ego is important: indeed it is.
Without a healthy ego, you'd be in trouble. But if one's ego gets too big, that's a problem too. The internal search for hametz is an invitation to examine ego and to discern what work we need. Some need to discard the hametz of needing to be the center of attention. Others need to discard the hametz of not wanting to take up the space we deserve.
Another interpretation: hametz is that within us which has become sour. Old stories, old narratives, old scripts. Old ideas about "us" and "them," old angers, old hurts.
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- Not Every Girl.
- The Torah as God’s Song.
Look inside: are you carrying the memory of someone who made you angry? Are you holding on to old grievances? Search your heart: what's the old stuff you need to scrape up and throw away?
Zen and the art of nuclear war
That's where this week's Torah portion, Tzav , comes in. This is the ritual of the burnt offering, says God. Keep the fire burning all night until morning. And every morning, take the ashes outside the camp, to a clean place.
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Notice that removing the ashes is mentioned right up there with burning the offering. Because if the ashes are allowed to accumulate, they'll choke the fire. The spiritual work of keeping our fires burning belongs to all of us. It's our job to feed the fires of hope, the fires of justice, the fires of our own spiritual lives that fuel our work toward a world redeemed.
Keep the fire burning all night: even in our "dark" times, when we feel trapped, even crushed, by life's narrow places. The thing is, over the course of a year our fires get choked with ash. Disappointments and cynicism and overwork and burnout keep our fires from burning as bright as they could be. This week's Torah portion reminds us to clean out our ashes. It's no coincidence that Tzav comes right before Pesach. Pesach offers us spiritual renewal. Pesach invites us to live in the as-if -- as if we were redeemed; as if we were free; as if all of this world's broken places and ugly "isms" were healed.
But in order for our spiritual fires to be renewed, we have to clean out the ashes. If this inner work sounds like the work we do before Rosh Hashanah, that's because it is. I learned from my teacher and friend Rabbi Mike Moskowitz that we work on our imperfections both during Nissan now and Tishri the High Holidays , and we can dedicate one to working on our "external" stuff and the other to what's hidden or internal.
Another link between Passover preparation and the teshuvah work of the new year: this season, too, is called a new year. Talmud teaches that we have four "New Years"es. The new moon of Tishri is the new year for years. The new year for trees, Tu BiShvat, is in deep winter. The new year for animals is on 1 Elul. And then there's the new moon of Nisan, ushering in the month containing Pesach This whole month is our springtime new year.
Right now the moon is waxing. The light of the moon can represent God's presence -- sometimes visible, and sometimes not, but always with us. Right now there's more moonlight every night, and we're invited to experience more connection with holiness with each passing day. Our work now is to clean house, spiritually, by the light of this waxing moon -- in order to be internally ready to choose freedom. When you think of a miracle, what do you think of? Maybe the parting of the Sea of Reeds: that's a big, shiny, visible miracle from the Passover story.
But hope growing in tight places is also a miracle. The fact that we can make teshuvah is a miracle. The fact that we can grow and change is a miracle. The fact that we can do our inner work and emerge transformed is a miracle.
On Thursday night, some of us will hide crusts of bread around our homes. We'll search for them by the light of a candle. And then on the morning of the day that will become Pesach we'll burn them, destroying the old year's hametz. And we'll begin some of it together during our contemplative mincha service this afternoon. What is the old stuff you need to root out and discard in order to walk unencumbered into freedom?
How can you "carry out the ashes" so the altar of your heart can become clean and clear, ready to burn with the fire of hope, the fire of justice, the fire of new beginnings? This is the d'var Torah I offered at my shul this morning cross-posted to my From the Rabbi blog. Come join us on retreat for Shavuot, the Jewish holiday that commemorates the revelation of the Torah on Mt. Sinai as well as the first fruits of the growing season. What revelation awaits you this year?