Rachael’s Reflections

As with most of the book of Deuteronomy, we are reading things the Torah has already told us but we are seeing it through Moses’ eyes.  In this week’s, parashah Re’eh, we again hear about not eating the blood of an animal, and not worshipping the idols of the nations.  We’ve heard this before, in fact, there is often a connection made in Torah between what we eat and our spirituality.  It is not because of something wrong with certain animals, or unclean about blood, it is because both our bodies and our souls are holy. 

The Sages taught that our body and soul bond together, each bringing a different universe of awareness to the other.  The body experiences the unending physical world of growth it knows, and the soul experiences the infinite spiritual world it knows.  Neither can understand the other’s world and so they bond together to elevate the view of the other.  The soul must trust the body’s authority in physical matters, and the body must trust the soul’s authority in spiritual matters.  When they are at odds with each other, we experience anxiety, stress, and an inability to resolve an issue.  Judaism teaches us to learn a vocabulary that the body and soul can use to communicate and stay balanced.  It begins with trust. 

Part of limiting what we can eat is the Torah telling us to trust that the soul may respond to certain foods in ways the body might not.  Blood is repeatedly called ‘the soul’, the nefesh, in other words our bodies would digest blood easily but our souls would react to ingesting what it perceives as the nefesh of another creature. 

Then the parashah warns us again not to worship foreign idols.  Jewish worship is something we do with our bodies – we move our lips when we pray, we quietly murmur the words, we bow, we sway.  If prayer is silent and motionless, we do not consider it prayer, we consider it mediation, it happened entirely within us and formed no expression.  The warning not to worship foreign idols seems to be only a spiritual warning, but is actually a warning against the physical worship.  We are also forbidden to worship God with the physical expression of idolatry, we are never allowed to cut ourselves to show devotion to God. 

Moses is cautioning us not to think in binary terms of body and soul, one being entirely physical and the other being entirely spiritual.  They are both equally holy, they have bonded together and cannot find expressions that do not speak of that unity.  The laws of Kashrut, and the laws of prayer should always be understood by us as the bridges between our bodies and our souls. 

I’d like to wish everyone a sweet and peaceful Shabbat —our Jewish time to regroup, rest, and reinvigorate. 

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Rachael 

This week’s Torah reading, parashat Eikev, has layers of meaning for us today, and as we begin to approach the High Holy Days.  Moses is repeatedly telling Israel that the things they do, the choices they make, will have consequences that will rebound onto them, and onto the world around them.  It’s a difficult concept in the best of times, how much more so for a people who used to be slaves.  As a slave, accountability is to the master, and repercussions are swift and personal.  Freedom necessitates a more global understanding of our actions and their impact.  The word Eikev, meaning ‘because’, immediately speaks to cause and effect, a sense of outcome and accountability.  The problem is, the people Moses is talking to were never slaves. 

With very few exceptions, everyone from Moses’ generation has died and he is now speaking to their children who have no memory of Egypt.  This generation has lived in the wilderness, and has indeed experienced God with accountability, responses, and a clear message that their actions will have consequences.  Then why is Moses repeating this message so often and with such emphasis? 

Part of the answer lies in the fact that we all teach the way we learn.  When we try and explain ourselves to others, we resort to things that make sense to us but might not necessarily make sense to someone else.  When that happens, it’s hard for us to see we’ve done it, and we can easily end up with misunderstandings.  Moses was taught that the people following him were slaves and he learned to address them as such –he is unable to make the shift, and so he continues to speak to them as such.  We are being shown why he cannot lead them into Israel. 

But another part of the answer is that even though we understand what accountability is, we often confront it in hindsight.  I look back at the things I’ve done and will hold myself accountable.  Moses is trying to make Israel understand that accountability begins when we choose a course of action before we’ve actually enacted it.  We must hold ourselves accountable with our choices as Judaism will hold us accountable later for our actions.   

Rosh Hashanah is approaching, and thoughts of accountability begin to enter our days.  It is not the understanding that we will enter the High Holy Days and hold ourselves accountable in retrospect, it is that we now begin to question patterns and choices we currently make, and whether they should be reconsidered before we act. 

I’d like to wish everyone a sweet and peaceful Shabbat –our Jewish time to regroup, rest, and reinvigorate. 

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Rachael 

This week’s Torah reading, Va’Etchanan, begins with the difficult words Moses utters when he says: “And I pleaded”.  Moses desperately wants to enter Israel, and pleads with God, but God tells Moses that will never happen, and that Moses must stop praying for it.  The midrash tells us that Moses continues to find ways to argue his point up to his last moments of life.  In other words, do we ever agree to stop praying, even if God commands us to?   

The Jewish response to everything we encounter is to receive it with awareness, intention, soulfulness, and action.  The very first Jewish couple, Abraham and Sarah, were told to journey, Lech Lecha, and once that journey begins, it cannot stagnate.  We are commanded to educate ourselves, engage our souls, and formulate actions that heal and repair.  Part of engaging our souls is to move ourselves deeper into prayerful moments that make us reflect inward, as well as make us connect with each other, and with God.  How is it possible that God has told Moses to stop praying? 

In fact, this very question speaks to us today.  When we watch what is happening in Israel these last few weeks, it is troubling to our souls.  There are synagogues that have decided to stop saying the Prayer for the State of Israel in protest of a government they feel they cannot support.  They are choosing to stop praying, sometimes because they question whether God is listening, sometimes because they feel it is the only way to express their protest.  But the pain of what we see on the news is powerful because it is our nation, the Jewish people, clashing internally.  It is our family hurting each other, and as we share one soul, we are all hurting. 

The Jewish response to a challenge is never to stop praying, it is to invest ourselves more.  Rather than turn away from the news, we are to invest more in understanding the situation, more intentional supports, more soulfulness.  The Prayer for the State of Israel should be followed each week with a prayer for peace within the Jewish people.  We do not walk away from spiritual investment, we lean into it. 

Even when God explicitly tells Moses to stop praying, Moses finds ways to continue –it is the power of who we are, and we will always bring it to God. 

I’d like to wish everyone a sweet and peaceful Shabbat –our Jewish time to regroup, rest, and reinvigorate.

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Rachael 

This shabbat is called ‘Shabbat Chazon’, the ‘Shabbat of Vision’.  It is the shabbat before Tisha B’Av, the 9th day of the month of Av, the day of Temple destructions, Jewish exile and wanderings.  It is the moment in ancient Israel when all was lost, and Judaism itself faced the threat of extinction.  Without our country, our place of worship, and our infrastructure, Judaism needed to redefine or disappear, as did the other nations under the rule of powerful empires – we redefined. 

What emerged is the Judaism we recognize today.  For 2000 years with no land, our country moved into our texts, and we found our ground there –we took them with us wherever we were cast.  Our expanding borders became the growth of discourse and debate, and Jewish borders expanded.  The Sages of Temple times watched their world crumble and had the vision to seed the future, even in their darkest moments.  The ‘Shabbat of Vision’ is named for the fleeting moment in a difficult Haftarah reading this week when the prophet, after outlining the horrors of loss, states there is a better vision of a world that could be.  This shabbat, we honour that better vision. 

According to the rabbis in the Talmud, the people of Temple times studied Torah, performed commandments, and enacted good deeds, yet we lost the Temple because of ‘baseless hatred’.  All the Torah learning, and seemingly good deeds, were empty because we incubated hate within us that sat on nothing of substance.  According to some rabbis, hatred of that kind cannot be contained because it is not aimed at an evil, it is aimed at difference.  It is when we normalize hating anyone who is not as we are, not validating us because they are different.  Two thousand years ago, our Sages warned us that this would lead to the loss of everything. 

At times, it’s hard for us to connect to Jewish history that may not speak to us with relevance today.  Ancient Temples, powerful empires, exiles and migrations all seem to sit so far from us, but it’s not the historic moment that Tisha B’Av centres on, it’s the enduring message.  One of our greatest modern Jewish thinkers, Rav Kook, once said: “If we were destroyed, and the world with us, due to baseless hatred, then we shall rebuild ourselves, and the world with us, with baseless love” —therein lies the vision of this Shabbat –to glimpse a time when difference is not tolerated, but welcomed and embraced. 

I’d like to wish everyone a sweet and peaceful Shabbat — our Jewish time to regroup, rest, and reinvigorate. 

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Rachael 

This Shabbat we finish reading the book of Numbers.  It’s a double parashah reading, Matot and Masei, and by finishing the book of Numbers, we finish our time in the wilderness.  Next week we start the book of Deuteronomy, Moses’ reflections on his journey with Israel.  But how do we learn to move goals from one generation to the next?  How can our time in the wilderness be over, and the next generation be prepared to encounter new horizons? 

Part of the challenge is in the transition of identity.  The Israelite slaves left Egypt and were led, commanded, taught, persuaded, and threatened, in order to become free thinkers.  It didn’t work.  God decreed that their lives would be spent in the wilderness. At least the constraints of Egypt were gone, and the openness of the desert could soothe them. 

However, their children, the ones who don’t have an Egypt experience, will enter the land, and build something new.  How can a generation that doesn’t understand freedom raise a generation that does?  How can a parent or a grandparent prepare their child for a new world that the grandparent won’t see? 

The answer lies in the names of this week’s Torah readings:  Matot, which means tribes, and Masei, which means journeys.  The first name refers to the reality of the previous generation, Masei, Tribes.  When the Israelite slaves left Egypt, they were tribal, separate clans.  Their journey in the desert was toward peoplehood, an understanding of collective responsibility and shared destiny.  The second name, Masei, Journeys, is the message to the next generation that they must journey away from their parents’ realities to forge something new.  But we connect these two readings so that we understand it is not one generation disconnecting from the other, it is the process of taking touchstones from their parents without taking on their parents’ challenges.  Torah, covenant, its morals and values are the tools the next generation needs to forge their own Jewish journey forward.  If they do not travel forward, Torah becomes a prison and will anchor them in the wilderness. 

As we leave the desert, the last lesson of the book of Numbers is to understand that every aspect of Judaism is an invitation for our free thought.  The Jewish debate never has constraints, it never takes Egypt with it.  Once we enter those layers, we encounter the changing world around us with the inheritance and legacy of Torah, Covenant, and the treasures every previous generation bequeathed us. 

I’d like to wish everyone a sweet and peaceful Shabbat –our Jewish time to regroup, rest, and reinvigorate. 

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Rachael 

Recently, South Korea changed how it counts birthdays.  Up until now, a newborn baby was considered one year old and each birthday added another year.  In other words, while we count a newborn in months until their first birthday, a baby in South Korea born at the same time would be counted as one year older.  Numbers can be tricky things, especially in a modern society that attributes rights to age –whether someone is a minor or a senior depends on the number of years they’ve lived, not their experiences.  We assume numbers to be equalizers.  

In this week’s Torah reading, parashat Pinchas, we read of numbers: the census.  Every man is counted to create a national tally.  The assumption is there is strength in numbers and therefore we want to see how many we are.  Yet, in the midst of the census of men is the name of one woman: Serach, the daughter of Asher.  She is the daughter of the original Asher, one of the sons of Jacob, one of the brothers who originally went down to Egypt.  How is this possible? 
According to the Sages, Serach is indeed the granddaughter of our patriarch, Jacob, and she went to Egypt with her family during the famine.  She was among the those who met Joseph and settled in Egypt.  She is hundreds of years old at this point.  Tradition tells us that she was a woman of extraordinary compassion and empathy, and was thus chosen to be the keeper of all our living memories. 

Serach becomes the witness of all our eras, all our transformations and growth.  Her name means ‘abundance’ and we understand that she was granted an abundance of years in balance with her abundance of compassion.  The focus of her life was to create the memories that will ground us, the anchor of our past as we move into our future. 

Only Serach lives a life that begins in Canaan, moves to Egypt, leaves in the exodus, and survives the wilderness to enter Israel.  She is the unbroken thread from covenant to exile to redemption.  She is the soul of each of us. 

By mentioning Serach in the middle of the census, the Torah reminds us that we are never to focus on numbers and statistics –they are tools, not goals.  Strength does not lie in numbers, it lies in compassion and integrity.  We are always shaped by our experiences, which form our memories, which shape our legacies that create paths for the future. 

I’d like to wish everyone a sweet and peaceful Shabbat –our Jewish time to regroup, rest, and reinvigorate. 

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Rachael 

In the Torah reading this week, the double parshah of Chukat/Balak, God tells Moses to speak to a rock and bring water from it for the people.  Everyone has already gathered, in anger, to accuse Moses of bringing them into the wilderness to die of thirst.  Tempers are running high, Miriam recently died, and through grief and fear the nation is turning to Moses with despair and anger.  As a result, Moses hits the rock instead of speaking to it. 

God now tells Moses that he will not enter the land of Israel –he will lead the people to the border but never set foot into the land.  Moses, like everyone of his generation, will perish in the wilderness after devoting his life to leading the people, and fulfilling God’s instructions.  It seems unimaginable that such a seemingly slight offense should cost Moses the final piece of his life mission: to enter the land of Israel. 

The problem is not that Moses sinned, it’s that his leadership is still framed by Egypt.  Moses was raised as royalty in the Egyptian palace.  The first time he leaves the palace, Moses sees an Egyptian beating a slave and he kills the Egyptian.  With all the resources of the palace available to him, Moses strikes out in anger and takes a life.  Years later, while standing with Israel at Mount Sinai, Moses comes down the mountain holding the Ten Commandments.  He sees Israel worshipping the Golden Calf, and deliberately shatters the Ten Commandments in anger.  And in this week’s reading, standing in front of the rock, Moses is pressured by the people and resorts to the tactics of Egyptian leadership by displaying aggression and anger –he strikes the rock.  

Moses has now come full circle to when he first left the palace grounds in Egypt.  His response at that moment was to strike out, and in this moment, he again strikes out.  Moses had a lifetime to resolve his responses, but he could never overcome his anger.  Moses can never enter the land because the tactics of violence and aggression learned in the palaces of ancient Egypt must never frame the new society of Israel.   Not entering the land is not a punishment for Moses, but a barrier set between a culture of anger and a culture of Torah. Moses had a lifetime to resolve his responses, but he never did.  

 This difficult emotional moment of Torah challenges all of us to find the things within us that we know we should address, yet we keep putting it off for another day.  We are not perfect, but we are always learning new ways to improve, and in this moment, Moses continues to lead and teach us. 

I’d like to wish everyone a sweet and peaceful Shabbat –our Jewish time to regroup, rest, and reinvigorate. 

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Rachael 

In this week’s parashah, Korach, we watch as Korach challenges Moses’ and Aaron’s leadership.  It’s a powerful moment of challenge and Divine Response.  Ultimately, the earth will open its ‘mouth’ and swallow Korach and his followers. With such a drastic reaction to a challenge of leadership, it begs us to question: what was so terrible?

            Korach is Moses’ cousin, and argues that he, as well as others, are equally holy and close to God, and therefore he deserves to be the leader.  What makes Moses so special?  One of Korach’s first steps is to turn to a family from the tribe of Reuben for allyship.  It’s a subtle yet clever step since the original Reuben was the first born of Jacob, the patriarch, and should have inherited the patriarchy.  Instead, leadership went to Judah, leaving Reuben as a follower.  The tribe of Reuben may have sympathized with the Korach’s question: what makes Moses so special?

            So, Korach, a disgruntled relative, seeks out a rejected leader to mount a challenge.  The Torah introduces everything with the word ‘vayikach’, ‘he took’, but doesn’t say what Korach took.  Generally, we understand it to mean that Korach and his followers took themselves out of the people.  Their first step was to create their own group, and step outside of the identity and concerns of the people. The difference between mounting a challenge or mounting a revolution depends on where you’re standing when you do it.

            Challenge or change that occurs from within something is an evolution, an organic process of growth and change.  Finding disgruntled outliers and mounting a challenge, once you’ve already stepped outside of something, is a revolution, an attack on an existing reality.  Judaism is an ever-growing covenant with God that creates mechanisms of evolution —we are commanded to engage, add our voices, and move the meanings of Torah forward.  Revolution, as seen with Korach, is much trickier. 

The Torah commands us to fight evil in the world with whatever tools we have, and revolution may be an option then. Otherwise, Judaism rejects revolution as a process of growth because it begins with a statement of rejection and exclusion —the group has already stepped outside and will now attack from there. 

            Change and growth are intrinsic to a living Torah, and to living a vibrant Jewish life.  The lesson is never whether we debate and question, but rather, where are we standing when we ask those questions.

            I’d like to wish everyone a sweet and peaceful Shabbat —our Jewish time to regroup, rest, and reinvigorate.

Shabbat shalom,

Rachael

Our Sages tell us that each person has 3 parents: mother, father, and God.  It is a true parenting triad – the mother and father provide the body, and God provides the soul.  This parenting bond begins with the conception of the baby and continues throughout the life of the person.   

Maimonides comments that of all the 613 commandments in Judaism, the hardest one to keep is to honour our parents.  I’ve heard that our parents will always know how to push our buttons because they are the ones who installed them.  With the 3 parents in our lives, what is true about our relationship with our mothers and fathers is true about our relationship with God.  When God pushes our buttons, those are some pretty big buttons, and they can have huge consequences to us. 

Understanding that makes us appreciate the importance of Birkhat haKohanim (the Priestly Blessings) that appear in this week’s parshah, Naso.  God tells Moses to teach Aaron how to bless the people with the three blessings whose simplicity and beauty says everything we’d want to say: 

“May God bless you and guard you 

May God shine the Divine Face on you and be gracious 

May God lift the Divine Face toward you and place peace upon you” 

It begins as a ritual of the Kohanim blessing the people, and it eventually becomes the blessing of parents on their children every Friday night.  It is the time when parents speak with God as one parent speaks to the other.  We hold our children and grandchildren close to us and quietly speak God’s words back to God, as one parent saying to the other: ‘when they’re with me, I’ve got them covered – but in those moments when I’m not there, I expect that you’ve got them covered’. 

It is the perfect example of how ritual is meant to work.  It starts in the Torah, moves through time and history to speak with relevance to our most important relationships and bonds today.  The Jewish people are always one family.  As we prepare for Shabbat, I offer this week’s parshah blessing for us all: 

May God bless us and guard us. 

I’d like to wish everyone a sweet and peaceful Shabbat –our Jewish time to regroup, rest, and reinvigorate. 

  

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Rachael