by Ner Tamid | Feb 11, 2024 | Sermons
I’d like to share my favorite parable of all time. This parable animates my approach to the rabbinate and really, my approach to life. It’s a story told by Rav Nachman of Breslov, a Chassidic rebbe, known for many things, one of them being a great storyteller.
This particular story is of a prince. He lives the good life with his mother and father, the king and queen; the finest clothing, the best education, an opulent and pampered life. But one day, out of the blue, the prince removes all his clothing, gets on all fours, starts eating crumbs from the floor, and starts making gobble-gobble sounds like a turkey.
His parents, as you can imagine, were beside themselves. What in the world is going on? They give him a few days, hoping it’s a phase, but he’s still on the floor, debasing himself and acting like a turkey. And so, they swallow their pride and start calling in the experts. Psychiatrists prescribe him medication, therapists try every modality under the sun, educational experts cycle through the royal palace. But the prince is still on the floor claiming to be a turkey.
Let’s pause here and try to understand what is going through the prince’s mind. The prince is not as crazy as he seems. On the contrary, it is the king and queen and all the royalty who are the crazy ones. You see, the palace life is full of choreography, rules of etiquette that must be abided by, outfits that must conform to the royal protocols, curtsies and bows and pleasantries. Life in a palace is one big show, or more accurately, it’s one big fraud. Everyone is following a script, and no one, absolutely no one, is themselves.
The prince is a thoughtful young man. While everyone is standing in adoration of the king and queen, he sees right through it. We’re not special. Our blood is not blue, we have no special gifts, it’s all one big game. If anything, says the prince, you know what we really are? We are no different than an animal in the wild. We eat, we sleep, we enjoy ourselves. That’s all I really want, and that’s who I really am. And so, the prince, the one honest person in the palace, strips off his stifling clothing, he drops his ridiculous royal mannerisms, and gobbles-gobbles like a turkey.
Nietzsche, one of the most influential philosophers of all time, made the same argument as the prince in Rav Nachman’s story. Humans, he writes, were once driven by instinct, and as long as that was the case, we were truly the kings of the world. But then we developed something called civilization, with rules that curbed our instinct. They forced us to act against our inner animal. In this state of being ‘civilized,’ in this state of living by a moral code that went against our natural spirit, we became divorced from who we really are, and in his words, we became “the sickest of animals.”
It’s the prince who is the most authentic person in the palace. He embraces his base desires, his yearning for unbridled freedom, for no rules. “This is who I am.” Of course, every doctor who tried to cure him was unsuccessful. How could they be? They were trying to tell him that he is someone he is not. They are trying to force him to be inauthentic. Once the prince tasted the richness of being true to thyself, there is no allure to the palace life with all its games.
Who here feels like a turkey?
Who here feels stifled by the rules we must abide by? And I don’t even mean the rules of the Torah. The rules of life. The smiles we need to plaster onto our face, the pleasantries, the unspoken rules that dictate our every move. The prince is far more relatable than we thought.
The story continues:
One day an old man came to the door of the palace. He said he had a cure for their son. He had no credentials, but they were desperate, so they ushered him in. The old man enters the room that the prince is in and finds him under the table, unclothed, eating scraps of meat that have fallen to the floor. The old man removes his jacket. He then removes his shirt. He then gets fully undressed and gets under the table next to the prince. The prince eyes the old man suspiciously.
But the old man ignores him and starts gobble-gobbling himself. He joins him in eating the scraps of food off the floor. He spends a week under the table as a turkey.
At the end of the week, the old man snaps his fingers, and the king’s servants drop his and the princes’ clothes under the table. The old man starts to get dressed. The prince turns to him, incredulous: “What are you doing? I thought you were a turkey?!” And the old man explains that just because he’s a turkey doesn’t mean he can’t wear dignified clothing. The prince ponders this for a moment and then puts on his own royal outfit. But they are still under the table.
A week later, the old man snaps his fingers, and the servants bring him food on beautiful China and magnificent cutlery. And again, “What are you doing? I thought you were a turkey?!” And the old man explains that just because he’s a turkey doesn’t mean he shouldn’t delicious food.
And this continues until finally, the prince is acting like royalty; with all the clothing and mannerisms that it entails. All the while, the prince still considers himself to be a turkey. Only that now he realizes a turkey could act like a human, a turkey can even wear a crown.
What Rav Nachman is trying to convey in this profound story is that the prince was right; we are all just animals. Some people embrace that reality – I will follow my instincts, I will embrace what other people may call my flaws, and I will just be true to myself. And there are others who are completely divorced from reality; they have no self-awareness, no sense of who they are, they are living their lives conforming to whatever they are told to do. The life of the true-to-thyself prince is myopic and self-centered, and the life of the superficial king is stifling and inauthentic.
And then there is the wisdom of the old man, who tells us that we can and we must know who we are, perhaps we are an animal at our core. But that doesn’t mean we cannot act in the most dignified fashion. That knowledge does not preclude us from acting like and embracing the divine. True growth and true greatness comes precisely from the individual who knows who they really are, who is brave enough to go to the darkest of places and face their inner demons. The richest life is live by he or she who is bold enough to confront the gap that exists between who we really are and where we need to be.
I’d like to share with you something a little esoteric. Today is Rosh Chodesh Adar Rishon. The Jewish calendar is a hybrid between the cycle of the moon and the cycle of the seasons. One of the rules of the calendar is that Pesach must always fall out in the spring season. But because there are less days in a lunar year than there are in a solar year – there are 365 days in the solar calendar and 354 in the lunar, a 10.5-day gap, our Sages instituted an extra month to “catch up,” and ensure that the two remain in sync.
The mystics point out that the moon is so to speak more authentic than the sun. The sun shines every day. The moon waxes and wanes. Which one of those is more aligned with human nature? Absolute consistency or days of highs and days of lows? It’s the moon, of course. The moon that almost disappears, as we feel like almost giving up, and then, boom, we bounce back with a vengeance.
The gap between the lunar calendar and the solar calendar represents the gap between who we are and who we want to be. When we acknowledge our deficiencies, when we acknowledge our moon-like behavior, when we embrace our moon as we do in a Jewish leap year by adding a lunar month, you know what happens? The lunar calendar actually becomes longer than the solar year. This year there are 384 days in the lunar calendar. Says the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Adar Rishon, this extra month, this month that represents our acknowledgment of our deficiencies, this month of kaparas pasha, is a month that propels us forward well beyond the years in which we ignore who we really are. Those who forget they are turkeys live an inauthentic life but those who remain turkeys live an incomplete life. It’s the prince who now wears a crown, who knows who he is, who lives the richest life of all.
This idea is not limited to people shying away from their own weaknesses. There is a similar phenomenon of people who are afraid of difficult theological questions. These “kings and queens” pretend there are no questions, no difficulties, and stifle their inner voice whenever she makes a peep. And there are those “prince-like” people who get so weighed down by their questions on G-d, and they just give up. They are both missing out on the richness of seeing the light after grappling with darkness. This is the message, and this is the power of Adar Rishon, the extra lunar month that propels us forward; face the darkness, work through your demons, and then, and only then, will you taste the richness that life has to offer.
There is a beautiful letter written by Rav Yitzchak Hutner to one of his students who wrote to him about some terrible failings. This is how Rav Hutner responded:
“…Know my friend, that the key for your soul is not the tranquility of the yetzer hatov, but the war against the yetzer hara… There is a saying in English, “Lose the battle and win the war.” You surely have stumbled and will stumble again, and you will be vanquished in many battles. However, I promise you that after you have lost those battles, you will emerge from the war with a victor’s wreath on your head.
The wisest of all men [King Shlomo] said [Mishlei 24:16], “The tzaddik will fall seven times and will rise.” The unlearned think that this means, “Even though a tzaddik falls seven times, he will rise.” The wise know well that the (true) meaning is: “Because a tzaddik falls seven times, he will rise.”…”
Sharing in your suffering,
Confident that you will prevail,
Praying for your success,
Yitzchak Hutner
The prince is right. We are all turkeys. But we would be fools to remain living under the table.
by Ner Tamid | Feb 3, 2024 | Sermons
There is a famous psychological phenomenon known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence overestimate their abilities. For example, students who get D’s and F’s on their exams tend to think they scored much higher. Elderly people who can no longer drive very well often think they are still excellent behind the wheel. In a study on emotional intelligence, participants were asked to rate their own emotional intelligence, meaning, how well they understood themselves and others. Those who scored the lowest rated themselves the highest. I find this to be an incredibly scary thought; we are often blind to our own deficiencies, and we foolishly walk around overestimating our abilities.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is quite well-known; I’d venture to say that most of you are familiar with it. But there is another component to the Dunning-Kruger Effect that is not as famous. And that is the inverse. Those with high levels of competency often underestimate their abilities. The students who got an A often assume they got less. The excellent driver thinks she is not so great at driving. And those with high emotional intelligence do not realize how emotionally intelligent they really are.
There is a parallel phenomenon in the spiritual world. It doesn’t have a name and because I wrote this when I was quite exhausted, we are going to call it the Spiritual Dunning-Kruger Effect. I know, very creative. The Spiritual Dunning-Kruger Effect represents the fact that we often overestimate in the material realm and underestimate in the spiritual. Take the Jewish People traveling in the desert as an example. They are a group of slaves who were beaten daily and fed a measly diet, if they were fed at all. Two days into their exodus from slavery, they all of a sudden felt that they need meat. A heavenly bread falling from the sky was not enough for them; they “could only survive” if they had a good juicy steak, something they presumably did not experience in Egypt. And yet, when it came to spirituality, when G-d started speaking to them on Har Sinai, they begged Him to stop. Despite being the descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, despite having a piece of G-d, i.e., a soul, within them, they claimed to not be holy enough to hear G-d’s voice; “it’s too much for us.” They overestimated their physical needs and underestimated their spiritual abilities.
And as bizarre as this seems, hos different are they than all of us who want nicer vacations, bigger homes, better food, and even the best secular education. But when it comes to our spiritual needs, we are content with a whole lot less. “I’m not that spiritual.” We overestimate our physical needs and abilities and underestimate in the spiritual realm.
Truth be told, es chato’ai ani mazkir hayom, I want to publicly acknowledge a failing of my own. I, Yisrael Motzen, underestimated your spiritual aptitude. I did.
In mid-September, I gave a speech on Rosh Hashana (not that one…). I spoke about Rabbi Akiva and the importance of learning Torah. And I thought I was being so bold by asking of you all to learn for a maximum of 13 minutes a day. The topic I was asking you to learn was an easy one, the weekly parsha. And here we are, just a few months later, and about 140 people in our shul have been studying a page of Talmud a day, a difficult 35–55-minute daily endeavor.
There have been hiccups, challenging hiccups, and now is not the time and place to get into all that. But the bottom line is I was wrong. I sold you short. I too suffered from a form of the Spiritual Dunning-Kruger Effect. (I know, I know, we need a better name.)
All the research on the Dunning-Kruger Effect points to one effective way of overcoming these biases, and that is feedback; having someone else tell you who you really are, how your actions are seen by others. So allow me to right my wrong and give some feedback this morning on what I am seeing:
What I am seeing in this room and in our Ner Tamid community is nothing short of a spiritual revolution.
I am sure many of you are thinking, “Eh, this is nothing. We just did it for the money.” Maybe you think you did, but I don’t believe you. I do not believe that you spent all that time just for the money. I just don’t.
I sent out a poll this past week on the Daf Yomi chat with some questions about people’s past learning experiences, and over 2/3 of respondents stated that prior to this Daf Yomi initiative they were not learning daily, with 33% of respondents saying they almost never learned Torah. One of the questions that was asked on the poll was, what did you cut out from your day to make time for the Daf? And most respondents wrote, ‘leisure time.’ Many of us realized that we do not need as much unwinding as we previously assumed. I could get by with less TV, less scrolling, less listening to music. In short, a good percentage of our community just made a significant 90+ day change to our daily habits.
On Rosh Hashana, I mentioned the dirty little secret, which is not much of a secret, the sad reality that for some reason, in Modern Orthodox circles, the centrality of Torah learning and the level of Torah learning is not as strong as it is in other Orthodox circles. There’s no reason a school cannot have exceptionally high standards of secular education and exceptionally high standards of Jewish education, but for some reason, parents are often left choosing between them. These past three months have given me hope that maybe we can change that. And that’s because when I go to the youth lounge every Shabbos to teach the daf to a group of teenagers on a Saturday morning and they are engaged, and they ask me deep questions, and they are thirsty for more Torah, I have hope. This is nothing short of a spiritual revolution.
When I see people who never opened a Jewish book in their life walking around with a gemara, when people tell me that their whole household is walking around listening to the Daf Yomi podcast, when I come to shul meetings and the topic of conversation is yesterday’s daf, when our shul has what I believe to be the highest concentration of women doing the daf in North America, when I wake up in the morning and open my phone and see tens of people who started their day with some Torah learning, this is nothing short of a spiritual revolution.
That’s my feedback. I underestimated you, I underestimated myself. I underestimated our community. We are capable of so much more.
And so now the question is, what’s next? Do we just collect our $1000 and catch up on all the episodes of Suits that we missed? That’s what the Jewish People did in the desert; they received the Torah and 40 days later they were dancing around a calf. They didn’t get it. They didn’t realize how far they came, how much they grew. They didn’t believe in their spiritual aptitude. But we can.
And so I’d like to share with you all a menu of different daily learning programs. Whether you participated in the Daf Yomi project or not, you can still join this revolution. There is truly something for everyone, whether it’s Daf Yomi, Amud Yomi – a class I hope to start here where we will learn half a daf daily, Nach Yomi, or Mishna Yomi. And we’re going to keep that chat – that whatsapp chat that I initially thought was sooo annoying where everyone typed in that they learned that day. It’s a chat I’ve grown to love and be inspired by. It reminds me throughout the day what we are doing here.
One more thing – if you recall, when I came back from Israel, I shared with you a story about a woman we met outside the destroyed police station of Sederot. This young woman’s husband was a police officer who was killed by terrorists on October 7th. Our learning of the Daf was done in memory of her husband. In less than four weeks from now we will be celebrating our conclusion of Bava Kama, and this woman, Hodaya Harush, and her three adorable little children, will be joining us for a weekend.
When I met this woman, she was a police officer. However, her husband, Eliyahu, had always told her you are capable of so much more, you would make an excellent police investigator. After shloshim, she decided, this widow with three orphaned children under 8, to go further, to grow in her career, to be able to do more for the Jewish People, to be a greater merit to her deceased husband, and she enrolled in a program to become a police investigator.
You’ll meet her soon, and you will see how she is brimming with faith; not only faith in G-d, but a healthy faith in herself, in what she can accomplish. Rav Tzadok HaKohein writes that inasmuch as we are commanded in this week’s parsha to believe in G-d, we are also commanded to believe in ourselves; to stop selling ourselves short.
I look forward to being able to share with Hodaya not only what we already accomplished in her husband’s memory, but what we will continue to accomplish. I look forward to continuing together in this spiritual revolution. Because each one of us is capable of so much more.
by Ner Tamid | Jan 27, 2024 | Sermons
I will not be speaking about her… Just needed to get that out of the way.
However, being that today is Shabbos Shira, a Shabbos designated for song, I want to teach you an old Chassidic niggun. It goes way back, and it goes like this:
Nanana…
Is anyone familiar with that tune?
Good. I am glad you’re not familiar with that song because it is not a Chassidic niggun. It was written by Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield, ie, Metallica, a hard rock band that I may or may have not have possibly loved when I was a teenager. But it sounds pretty Jewish, doesn’t it? (For those reading, this is the haunting tune from the end of The Memory Remains.)
So let’s play a little game here – we’ll call it Jewish or Jew-ish (to borrow a term from a former and now disgraced congressman).
Here’s another song:
Yidden, Yidden, kumt aheim!
Moshiach vet shreiyin
In di gassen fin Yerushalyaim
Yidden, Yidden, kumt tzu gein!
Is that song Jewish or Jew-ish?
Sounds pretty Jewish, right? This was a wildly popular song, sung by Mordechai Ben David, that was played at all the Bar Mitzvhas when I was growing up. It even had its own little dance to go along with it, which I always thought was a very yeshivish dance.
The only problem is that the song and even the dance was a complete rip-off of a German song all about Genghis Khan and the many children that he fathered. The song is totally inappropriate, and we’ll just leave it at that.
Or how about this one? At the end of Neilah, right before the shofar is blown, if you were to walk in to a Lubavitch shul, you would hear them singing an upbeat tune. It almost sounds like a tune that a marching band would march to. The truth is, it actually is one. The tune is called Napolean’s march, and it was taken from… Napolean’s army.
What makes a tune Jewish?
According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, the preeminent Halachic authority of American Jewry of the 20th century, it seems like there is no such thing as a Jewish tune. He was once asked if it is appropriate to use the tunes composed by a certain Jewish composer who engaged in a number of very problematic behaviors. There is a prohibition against learning Torah taught by a sinner. What about their music? He responded in Igros Moshe (Even Ha-Ezer, I, no. 96) that there is no intrinsic holiness to a tune and therefore it is allowed. It would seem, according to Rav Moshe, that there is no such thing as a “Jewish” tune.
Okay, let’s move onto the food category.
Is gefilte fish Jewish?
It doesn’t get more Jewish than gefilte fish. Right? Only that the first mention of this dish, gefuelten hechden, goes back to a non-Jewish German cookbook from the 14th century. Apparently, Gefilte fish was a very popular dish during… Lent – when Christians could not eat meat.
How about cholent? Cholent is a Moorish dish, dating back to the 11th century.
So no, there is no such thing as a Jewish food.
A while ago I was talking to a group of thoughtful Jewish people who were describing their connection to Judaism. They told me, proudly, it revolved around lox and shmear, brisket, and learning Jewish values from… Bob Dylan.
It was very sad. Not only was it sad, but it was also incorrect. There is no Jewish ethnicity – look around this room. There is no intrinsically Jewish culture – most of the music, food, or art that we describe as Jewish is borrowed from our host cultures.
So what is Jewish?
Some may say that Judaism is a collection of values. Judaism certainly has an incredible collection of values. To quote Christian historian, Paul Johnson: “To them (the Jews) we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person; of the individual conscience and so a personal redemption; of collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind.”
But values are only half the story. Our tradition never revolved around values, it revolved around laws, what we call Halacha, the practical application of those values. What makes something truly Jewish, is when it is codified in Jewish Law.
And so today, as a case study, and since unfortunately war is on all of our minds, I’d like to share with you two laws, two halachos that relate to war. Two laws that we can use to conceptualize a truly Jewish approach to warfare.
The first law is found in the Talmud, in Meseches Shabbos. There is a law that on Shabbos one may not carry any items in an area that does not have an Eruv. However, if you are carrying something that is seen as an adornment, like jewelry, that is permitted. On Daf 63, we find a debate about carrying a sword. Rabbi Eliezer says, it’s an adornment, you are allowed to carry it on Shabbos. The Sages say, you cannot.
Now if you were learning Daf Yomi, you would tell yourself, “Okay, one opinion says this, one opinion says that. Let’s keep on going!” But if you would pause and take a moment to think about what they are really getting at, you would hear the Sages say, “Yes, many people see their weapons as a sign of power, as a sign of brute beauty. But the Torah does not. The Torah paints weaponry as a necessary evil. And therefore, a weapon, no matter how beautiful it may be, is intrinsically not an adornment. It is ugly.”
The Sages are teaching us, and this ruling is codified in the Shulchan Aruch, that regardless of how buff and beautiful our boys and girls in green may look, war is intrinsically unattractive. There is nothing glorious about a Merkava tank, there is nothing wonderful about an F4 Phantom fighter jet. Weaponry, our Sages are teaching us, should not get us excited, it should offend our sensibilities.
There is another law about warfare that is found in our parsha, the Mitzvah to destroy the nation of Amaleik. We read today how Amaleik attacked our ancestors even though we were nowhere near their land, and they broke every rule of engagement, even by ancient standards. The Torah subsequently commands us to obliterate them, timcheh es zecher Amaleik. This includes men, women, and children, what we call in modern times, genocide.
Now it’s worth noting that according to Maimonides, we first encourage them to accept the seven Noahide laws, a baseline of morality. If they say yes, we leave them be. Only if they reject this offer, only if they say, no, we will hold onto our immoral ways, then and only then, is our army to attack. Though this mitigates some of the challenge, the Torah does instruct, if they refuse, to kill them every member of this nation, and many, understandably see this Mitzvah as morally challenging.
While I am troubled by the Mitzvah, I could also acknowledge that my moral compass is not as refined as G-d’s moral compass.
There’s another issue with this mitzvah that I find equally puzzling and that is our obsession with it. This Mitzvah is no longer in practice, we have no idea who the descendants of Amaleik are and therefore even if we wanted to, we could not perform this Mitzvah. It would be absolutely forbidden to commit genocide or even to kill those who are innocent. And yet, despite it being entirely irrelevant to our modern lives, we have an entire Shabbos dedicated to remembering this Mitzvah. There are people who remind themselves of this Mitzvah every day. Why? It would be quite convenient to bury this Mitzvah under a pile of shaimos and call it a day, but for some reason, we are enjoined to make a fuss about this Mitzvah every single year.
The common thread between all those who address this question is this: The reason we are obsessed with this Mitzvah is because it is relevant to our everyday lives. It is a Mitzvah, I would argue, that is needed today more than ever. Because even though Amaleik no longer exists, the eternal and ongoing Mitzvah to destroy Amaleik is meant to remind us that evil still exists. The eternal and ongoing Mitzvah to destroy Amaleik is meant to remind us that despite the emphasis Judaism places on compassion for the downtrodden, we cannot allow that to blind us to the fact that we must defend ourselves against those who come to attack us. It is meant to remind us that the ugliness of weaponry notwithstanding, weapons of destruction must be used at times to remove evil from this world.
In the words of Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm: The motif of this Mitzvah is to “reserve our… hatred for the unusually hateful individuals who commit historic crimes and whose malice is monstrous and premeditated. Anti-Semites who wish to destroy all the Jewish people; monsters who seek sadistically to wipe out whole populations–such people remain deserving, on purely moral grounds, of actual contempt and hatred.”
There are Jews who glorify violence. And there are Jews who wish that Israel put their weapons down and allow Hamas to continue killing Jews. Both views claim to be Jewish, but they are at best, Jew-ish. They are not consistent with Jewish tradition and Jewish law.
Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. It’s a day that I always assumed Jews do not need. How could we, the people who grew up on Never Forget, fail to remember? But it seems like many Jews have forgotten that evil exists. Many Jews have forgotten that when they come for us, they do not care for our politics. Too many Jews have forgotten the Mitzvah of mechiyas amaleik.
Judaism, true Jewish law, promotes a love of peace but also demands of us not to be naïve. What’s truly remarkable is that our modern State of Israel, despite not claiming to run its army according to Jewish law, incorporates so much of these values into their protocols. For example, the IDF is a defense force, and goes to unimaginable lengths to preserve life – because we do not glorify violence. Not only do we not glorify violence, but our hearts are truly broken over the many innocent Arabs in Gaza who are being killed, the collateral damage of this war. And at the same time, to put down our weapons when there are missiles aimed at our cities, to stop fighting when there are people who proudly proclaim that they will continue to steal our children and violate our women, not a chance. Thank G-d, our values have held on for all these years.
There is nothing wrong with culture. On the contrary, we can partake in whatever good we can from all around us. But culture, even Jewish culture, it comes and it goes. What has lasted for three thousand years is not Gefilte fish or Bob Dylan, our ancestors sang the song at the sea I would assume with an Egyptian tune. What has lasted for three thousand years are the laws of the Torah and the values that those laws represent. So enjoy all that is Jew-ish in the world, but never lose sight of what we really stand for.
by Ner Tamid | Jan 20, 2024 | Sermons
What do you think of when you see snow?
As a child, the first thought you have is, “NO SCHOOOOL!”
As a parent of young children, the first thought you have is, “What in the world am I going to do with these kids for a full day?!”
As a rabbi, the first thing I thought of when I looked out the window on Friday morning was, “Darn, there goes our minyan…”
What you think of when you see snow has a lot to do with who you are.
Jewish literature has a lot to say about snow. There are halachos of snow, like, can you make a snowball on Shabbos? (no) Can you shovel your walkway from snow on Shabbos? (yes) Can you use snow as a mikvah? (sometimes)
But what I’d like to focus on is the symbolism of snow in Jewish literature.
One approach is to see snow as a hindrance, a challenge, a difficulty, a pain. When it snowed, and I mean really snowed. Not like the 3 inches of snow that you non-Canadians cancel school for… But when it really snows, everything is forced to shut down. Historically, before modern transportation, after a snowstorm, people traveling could be stuck in their location for weeks. Wars were scheduled around the seasons to avoid getting bogged down in the snow. The amount of work that the cold weather in general and snow in particular demanded of us was immense. Making sure the livestock didn’t freeze to death. Making sure the people didn’t freeze to death. Snow was an absolute pain.
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch writes that snow and the cold season were created by G-d for precisely that reason – to be a pain, to force us to toil, to make our lives complicated. He quotes an opinion found in the Medrash of Bereishis Rabbah that suggests that prior to the great flood there was only one season, spring. The weather was always pleasant and peaceful, which on the one hand is wonderful. At the same time, there is a danger when things are too peaceful. King Shlomo writes in Mishlei, how the devil loves idle hands. Too much peacefulness lends itself to sin. L’fum tzara agra, according to the struggle is the reward, our Sages teach us. We need some tension in our lives, some pressure, some intensity, that is where the real growth is found.
And so, Rav Hirsch suggests, that after the flood, in order to ensure that humankind never becomes too complacent, to ensure that we never fall prey to the dangerous lure of endless relaxation, G-d introduces seasons to the world. And specifically, the cold season with all its difficulties.
Snow according to this approach reminds us of our frailty. How we need to keep ourselves busy to stay out of trouble. How it’s hard to be a good and honest person. Snow reminds us of our spiritual vulnerability.
There are other sources about snow that go even further, associating snow with death. When G-d speaks to Moshe at the burning bush, Moshe tells G-d that the Jewish People are unworthy of redemption. How does G-d respond? By turning Moshe’s hand “white like snow.” Later on, Miriam turns the same color for speaking negatively about Moshe.
The commentators, explaining why snowy white is the color chosen for the punishment, suggest that snow is a lifeless color. It’s the color of death. The message behind Moshe’s hand and Miriam’s skin turning white is that one is undeserving of their life. White is a sickly and deathly color.
Along the same lines, according to the mystics, snow represents the fact that there are times in our Avodas Hashem, in our service to G-d, when we feel cold; there’s no blood pumping, no energy. In Eishes Chayil, we speak of the woman of valor who does not fear snow because her house is “lavush shanim,” it’s weatherproof. What that means is that she is wise enough to navigate the dark and snowy times in her spiritual life. She knows how to ride the inevitable lows as represented by snow.
But not all Jewish sources depict snow as dark and gloomy. Some Jewish sources see in snow majestic beauty. King David creatively describes snow as a source of warmth – hanosen sheleg katzemer. G-d who makes snow like wool. What he was trying to convey by associating snow with wool, the source of warmth is that there is nothing as soothing as snow. Robert Frost uses snow to evoke an almost hypnotic feeling in his famous poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep…” There is something magical about a landscape transformed under a blanket of snow. Or even better, the warm and cozy feeling of watching the confetti-like snow slowly falling from the heavens.
King David invokes snow as a sign of G-d’s majesty. When we see that beautiful white tablecloth, the source of cold and the source of inner warmth, we are to see Hashem’s greatness. The Rambam writes that the most straightforward pathway to developing love and awe of the Divine is …
בשעה שיתבונן האדם במעשיו וברואיו הנפלאים הגדולים ויראה מהן חכמתו שאין לה ערך ולא קץ מיד הוא אוהב ומשבח ומפאר ומתאוה תאוה גדולה לידע השם הגדול
When we see something majestic we are expected to see who is behind it. Whose the artist who painted this majestic picture and how do I draw close to Him?
So while the first approach sees within snow a reminder of human frailty, this second approach sees within snow, the majesty of G-d.
Elsewhere, snow is used as a symbol of repentance, “If your sins are red, I will make them white like snow…” The prophet wisely chooses a snowfall to depict change to encourage us – Yes, there is change that is sometimes a total transformation of one’s self. But there is also a change that is skin deep, or snow deep, and it’s still meaningful. The landscape is totally transformed even with a small sprinkle of snow.
So why do I bring this all up?
There is a fascinating set of verses that describe the moment that Moshe transformed from being an intelligent shepherd to the leader of the Jewish People. Moshe sees a bush on fire. He also notices that the bush is not consumed.
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֔ה אָסֻֽרָה־נָּ֣א וְאֶרְאֶ֔ה אֶת־הַמַּרְאֶ֥ה הַגָּדֹ֖ל הַזֶּ֑ה מַדּ֖וּעַ לֹא־יִבְעַ֥ר הַסְּנֶֽה׃
And Moshe said, “Let me go see this great vision. Why is the thorn bush not consumed by the fire?”
G-d responds by saying, take your shoes off – experience this moment. The desert floor was not filled with snow; but it was hot, it was filled with thorns, pebbles. By telling Moshe to take his shoes off and allow his bare feet to touch and feel the ground, G-d was telling Moshe to stop being a scientist, to stop asking what is going on here and how does this work, and instead to just feel and experience the moment.
We love talking about weather! We love analyzing the weather. How many inches, how much damage, where the storm is coming from, where it’s going. G-d is saying to each and every one of us, just feel the snow – experience it.
Yes, we could still celebrate a day off of work or school. Yes, I will still get nervous about our lack of minyan. But as Jews, we could also see our un-shoveled walkway and be reminded of the frail nature of humankind and the necessity of the seasons as Rav Hirsch taught us. We could look at the beautiful white and warm blanket and just stand in awe of G-d’s creation like the Rambam poetically wrote. We could be reminded of the times that we feel dead inside and take this moment to reflect on the fact that gam zeh ya’avar, bad times, like bad weather will pass and we’ll get reenergized sooner or later. Or we could remind ourselves that like a snowfall that transforms the landscape, we are all capable of taking small steps and changing who we are.
To be a Jew is to be a poet. A poet does not see something, even something ordinary, and certainly something out of ordinary, and simply just walk by. A poet is moved and if not naturally moved, the poet removes her shoes, she forces herself to experience and be moved by the world around.
I hope the weather picks up, I really do. I’m freezing and I hate having just barely a minyan. But next time we see it snow, let’s awaken the poet within, let’s awaken our soul and be moved by its beauty and be inspired by its many lessons.
by Ner Tamid | Jan 13, 2024 | Sermons
She is all alone.
The only nourishment she receives is a small trickle, without any consistency.
She cries out constantly, but no one hears her.
She wonders if anyone even knows she’s alive.
Every day that passes, she gets a little weaker. She knows she cannot go on like this forever.
I am not referring to one of the 136 hostages still held in captivity. I am referring to a hostage-taking that we are partly guilty of ourselves. I am referring to the captivity of our soul.
As Jews, we believe in a soul; she’hechezarta bi nishmati, we thank G-d every morning for returning our soul to our body. As Jews, we believe there is some level of tension that exists between our body, meaning, our physical drives, and our soul, our spiritual yearnings. And as self-aware and honest people, we could probably all admit that our body is often times holding our soul captive; not giving her the nourishment she needs, not listening to her cries, and in doing so, allowing her to whither away.
I’ve struggled to imagine what those hostages in Gaza feel like until I realized I have an all too perfect example living inside of me. My soul can relate to the pain and loneliness that the hostages are experiencing every day.
“Will they ever come for me?” she asks. “Will my voice ever be heard?” “Will I be constrained in the darkness for all of eternity, or will I have the opportunity to thrive and to blossom?”
Our collective soul is no stranger to this feeling of being held hostage; it goes back thousands of years to the sunbaked fields of Egypt. Our ancestors were so beaten down, so overwhelmed that they had no capacity to dream of a different life. “V’lo shamu el Moshe, and they could not listen to Moshe, mikotzer ruach umei’avoda kasha, due to a shortness of spirit and their all-consuming difficult work.” Does that not sound familiar? Are we not, at times, so beaten down, so stressed, so focused on survival, that the notion of change seems impossible?
Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, an 18th century Kabbalist, saw in the story of our Egyptian slavery a mirror to our modern lives. In his magnum opus, Mesilas Yesharim, he interprets Pharoah’s insistence on increasing the Jewish People’s workload after Moshe arrives, as a model for the tension between body and soul. When our body senses that our soul is starting to awaken from her slumber, when it senses a flash of inspiration, the body’s response is to overwhelm her; with stress, anxiety, busyness – anything that will distract her from making any real changes of a spiritual nature.
In 2024, with the busyness of life, the incessant interruptions beeping out of our pockets, the stress and anxiety that seems to be in the air we breathe – our soul is being beaten down at every moment.
Have you ever gone on a walk or started driving your car in silence and felt uncomfortable? Uneasy with the quiet? That’s our Neshama trying to speak to us, to awaken us, to remind us that there is more to do, that there is greater depth to life, to stop living so superficially. Our soul is not as abstract as we may think. Our soul is that magnetic pull we sometimes feel towards being a better person, to wanting more meaning in life, the desire to transcend the mundane and the meaningless.
But what do we too often do in response to that gnawing feeling? We distract ourselves. We turn on a podcast – maybe even a Jewish podcast, but it’s still a distraction. We turn on some music; anything to prevent us from sitting there with that pull of our soul.
Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, a man who spoke about the soul in his writings probably more than any other Jewish writer describes the great need for solitude, for allowing our soul to feel free: “The greater the soul a person possess,” he writes, “the more time such a person needs to be on their own.” To allow their soul to soar, to be unencumbered by the noisiness around us; to allow their soul to be free.
Imagine how rich our lives would be if we would spend just a few minutes daily in solitude, in reflection, in touch with our spirit.
But G-d in His infinite wisdom recognized that solitude is not easy and so He instituted a daily practice to give our soul the nourishment that she needs.
Rav Kook writes in Olat Re’iyah, that our soul is constantly talking to G-d. But her soft voice is usually drowned out by all the noise and distractions in our lives. However, when we pray, we are opening the door to her prison, we are giving her a microphone, we are giving her the expression she so desperately yearns for.
Now of course, Rav Kook is not referring to when we mumble the words while we daydream with a siddur open in front of us. That doesn’t do it. They say the Baal Shem Tov once walked into a shul and immediately turned around and walked out. They asked him why he didn’t go into the shul, and he explained that there was no room for him; it was too stuffy. So they cleared some tables, they gave him a lot of space, but he still wouldn’t enter. Until he finally explained to them that the room was filled with prayers; prayers that were said without any meaning, without any focus, without any reverence and without any love. And so, those dry prayers remained grounded, in the shul, they never went up to G-d in Heaven.
I shudder to think of how many of my own prayers are still down here in this room because I never gave them the wings to fly.
And it doesn’t take much. The Torah describes the prayer that was the catalyst for our ancestors’ redemption. Vayiz’aku min ha’avodah, they cried out due to their hard work, and G-d heard them. It was a wordless prayer that was born out of their pain. It was a krechtz, a deep sigh. But it was sincere. It was genuine. And that’s all it took to break them free.
There are times in history when our collective soul is stirred. After the six-day war, there was a spiritual awakening. Many Jews who grew up rejecting a Jewish life, or at the very least, grew up apathetic to an observant lifestyle, changed their lives around. A similar phenomenon is on display right now. Jews, who otherwise would hide or downplay their Jewishness, are proudly embracing it.
One example of many is the Shabbat of Love. The Federations, meaning, the umbrella for the Associated and all the Jewish Federations country-wide are pushing for a full-fledged Friday night observance for next week. They’re encouraging people who otherwise would not be observing Shabbos to light candles, to say kiddush, to share divrei Torah and have meaningful discussions at their meal. In the past, there have been movements like Project Inspire and the Shabbat Project. Those were Orthodox-led initiatives, but this is not. This is the largest collection of Jewish organizations coming together on their own to create a spiritual space for their awakened souls. Are we taking advantage of this spiritual awakening? Are we enhancing and elevating our Shabbos observance?
I’ve been reading the literature they’ve been producing about the beauty of Shabbos and it makes me wonder how many weeks have gone by that I have squandered this incredible gift of 25 hours to let my soul recharge…
***
She is indeed all alone.
The only nourishment she receives is a small trickle, without any consistency.
She cries out constantly, but no one hears her.
She wonders if anyone even knows she’s alive.
Every day that passes, she gets a little weaker. She knows she cannot go on like this forever.
Tomorrow marks 100 days since our brothers and sisters were taken into captivity in Gaza. We are limited in how we can help them. We can and we must continue to place pressure on our elected officials. We can and we must continue to support the soldiers of the IDF. But as Jews, as Jews who believe in the power of prayer and in existence of a soul, as Jews who look to the story of the Exodus as a model for a future redemption, it is critical for their sake and ours that we give our Neshama the sustenance she needs. By spending time each day in silent contemplation, by engaging in heartfelt prayer, and by experiencing the beauty of Shabbos.
In that merit, may every hostage, those inside of us and those in Gaza; may they all break free.
by Ner Tamid | Jan 7, 2024 | Sermons
I love lashon hara, I really do.
Is there anyone here who does not love some good gossip?
We all know it’s wrong, but it’s also really hard to overcome. Someone starts talking and your brain comes up with three million reasons why you are allowed to keep on listening. “I may end up hiring this individual one day. Maybe one day our grandchildren will get married.”
So how do we curb this very human impulse?
Some people have a jar. They gossip, they speak or listen to lashon hara, and they put a dollar in a jar. Eventually, you spend too much money, and you kick the habit. But I believe there’s a better way; it involves a deeper understanding of where our love for gossip comes from.
Dr. Robin Dunbar is the preeminent scholar of gossip. “She suggests that gossip functioned as a sort of grooming tool for social groups that were growing in size. As human beings shifted from smaller, hunter-gatherer societies to larger communities, there was a need for an effective, low-cost way to communicate social norms and keep bad behavior in check. Gossip was a way for our ancestors to mitigate the negative impacts of delinquents and free riders.” (https://www.vice.com/en/article/ne9ae8/gossip-may-have-played-a-role-in-human-survival)
But there’s another reason I heard years ago from Rabbi Shlomo Freifeld that really resonated with me, and it goes like this: If you had a choice of two types of gossip. Behind door one is gossip about John Doe, a stranger you never met. Behind door two is gossip about your next-door neighbor, or the person sitting next to you in shul, or even better, me. Which one are you going for?
No question about it. You’re going for door two. Why is that?
Let’s think about how we view ourselves. Are you a stingy person or a generous person? Are you smart or not so smart? Are you an honest person or not?
What many of us do is we look around and we define our worth based on our surroundings. For example, am I smart? Well, one friend of mine says words that I have to check up in the dictionary after we’re done speaking. Another friend does not know how to spell dictionary. Me, being somewhere in the middle, I guess I am of average intelligence.
Am I honest? Well, I have one friend who never told a white lie, who makes sure to return all the pens she mistakenly took home from work, sends back the package to Amazon when they send a double of her order, and thinks three times before she says anything lest it be a lie. This other guy I know is in jail for embezzlement. I’ve never been arrested before, so I guess I’m a pretty honest person compared to that guy, but not so honest, compared to Ms. No White Lies.
But let’s say you come over to me one day and tell me that Ms. No White Lies regularly cheats on her taxes. You know what happens to me and my self-worth? It goes up. A moment ago, I was plotted somewhere in the middle between Mr. Jail Guy and Ms. No White Lies. But now that she’s down here, I just went up.
Most of us define our self-worth relative to others. And so, when we gossip, specifically about the people in our lives, the people we know, and best of all, when we gossip about people who we are supposed to look up to, it takes them down a notch, which in our relative assessment of our own self-worth lifts us up.
You bet that makes us feel good.
But a person who judges their own attributes based on his or her own potential, a person who does not look to the right or the left and instead looks inside, that’s a person who does not need gossip. If my self-worth comes from within then I really don’t care about what he or she did; it doesn’t affect me at the slightest. The greatest antidote to gossiping is being happy with who we are. (Rabi Freifeld suggests this to be the meaning of the well-known verse: “Who desires life” meaning, the individual who is in touch with their own life, “guard your lips from speaking evil,” is someone who is well-equipped to not speak lashon hara.)
Not speak Lashon Hara has developed into a beautiful trend in Jewish circles. Obviously, it has been a mitzvah for a few thousand years but it only really became “in” about 100 years ago when Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kaganoff wrote a book outlining the laws of forbidden speech. Then about thirty years ago, a man by the name Michael Rothchild started something called the Chafetz Chaim Heritage Foundation which published endless books and movies on the topic. A few years ago, the New York Times featured an initiative taken on by a number of Orthodox girls’ high schools to not gossip one hour a day.
But like all good things, sometimes too much of it is not that good at all. There is a caveat to the laws of Lashon Hara – if one has information that can save people from harm, not only are they permitted to share that information, they are obligated to do so.
For example, if someone calls you about a man or woman they want to date and you know something egregious about said person, you are obligated to warn them. You are not doing anyone any favors by withholding that information. You are causing untold anguish.
Even worse, unfortunately, in our community, when people know of an abuser, they sometimes refrain from letting the authorities know. Why? Lashon Hara. That is a perversion of the laws of Lashon Hara. If someone is a danger to others, we are obligated to do what we can to prevent them from harming others, be it physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. And to be clear, telling a rabbi does not count as preventing further abuse. I have yet to meet a rabbi who is qualified at policing perpetrators.
Rabbi Avraham Hirsch Eisenstadt, the author of Pischei Teshuvos, was one of the most influential Halachic authorities of the 20th century. This is what he wrote about not speaking Lashon Hara when it is warranted:
“There is a sin even greater than [speaking lashon hara], and one which is more widespread, namely, the sin of refraining from informing another about a situation in which one can save him from being victimized—all out of concern for lashon hara… One who behaves in this manner, his sin is too great to bear, and he violates the injunction “You shall not stand by the blood of your brother.”
Lashon Hara is bad. Not speaking lashon hara can be much worse.
In our parsha, the Jewish People gossip about Moshe. After he kills the Egyptian slave-master, he comes to the fields the next day and learns that people were talking about him. When Moshe hears this, he exclaims, “Achein noda hadavar. Now I know!” Now I know what? Rashi explains that Moshe was struggling to understand why the Jewish People were suffering so terribly. When he realized that they were engaging in gossip he understood. The Maharal of Prague sheds some light on Rashi’s comments. He explains that gossip has such a negative effect on us because words are otherworldly, they belong in the spiritual realm, they do not belong here on earth. When we bring them down, when we take an idea from our soul, into our mind, through our mouth, and into this world, we need to make sure it is protected. It’s like nuclear energy; in the right setting, it is the engine of the world. In the wrong hands, it brings about destruction. When we misuse our words – that spiritual gift exclusive to humans, it has devastating effects on us and the world around us.
May we develop a sense of self that is independent of our surroundings; a sense of self based on who we are and who we need to be. May we appreciate the precious gift called language. And may we refrain from bringing destruction by saying too much and refrain from bringing destruction by saying too little.
