Holy, Holy, Holy

In the context of a less than fully gratifying political, economic, diplomatic and environmental period it has been somewhat difficult to find a vein of cheer during these High Holy Days. Admittedly, I do find myself thinking holy thoughts these days. These sacred musings are generally followed by an exclamation point, to whit: “Holy cow, my retirement fund lost how much!” or “Holy Mackerel, did the Braves lose again?”

Interestingly, although we go through these days wishing each other well on the “High Holy Days”, that term appears nowhere in the Hebrew lexicon. It is not a biblical, Talmudic or rabbinic phrase. The term in Hebrew for the days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is “Yomim Noraim”. We commonly translate this phrase as the “Days of Awe” but it can also be interpreted as the “Days of Terror” or “Terrible Days”. While “Days of Terror” may be a more accurate term for the High Holy Days, it makes for a less than satisfactory greeting card (except, of course, if you are a Cossack: “Dear Raphael Family, Happy Days of Terror from Igor the Malicious. We’ll be there on Tuesday between 9:00 am and noon to plunder.”)

It is hard to read or listen to the news and not feel that these are days of terror. We face global economic meltdown, political paralysis, ongoing international strife and global warming that is rapidly turning our planet into an Easy Bake Oven. Perhaps these are terrible days.

As Jews, when we use the term “holy” it is as a translation of the Hebrew “Kadosh”. Kadosh can be interpreted as holy and sacred, but I am drawn to “sanctified”. Holy and kadosh are adjectives – descriptors, are while “to sanctify” is a verb –a word of action. If these days are to be sanctified, it is up to us. Perhaps, this is the lesson of the season for all of us: These days can be filled with terror. Calling a day “holy” doesn’t necessarily make it so. But all of us can use these Days of Awe to be in awe of our families, friends, communities, country and our planet and to sanctify our time together.

Redemption - New York Style

It is that time of year. We cover our faces with masks to mock our tormentors while hiding ourselves so as not to reveal our true hopes and fears. Perhaps a hitherto unknown hero will be revealed to strike down our oppressors and lead us on paths home – where it seems we haven’t been for so long.

We long for the possibility of salvation and redemption knowing that even it comes, the path will be long and hard, filled with dangers, lurking with those who would seek to strike us down.

We have been enslaved, feeling helpless and unredeemed for so long. But as the new sprouts emerge from the earth and warm breezed begin to blow, we begin to hope anew for redemption. And even though salvation rarely comes we can always hope of a brighter future.

This is the lot of a Met fan.

For us, it is fitting that the baseball season begins in the spring as we finish off those last humantashen and begin the proud Jewish communal tradition of Kosher for Passover extortion where great and wise sages bilk us for all we are worth for small jars of apple sauce and ersatz ketchup. We think of the week before Passover known in the Jewish communities of Lithuania as “the days of eating dangerously” when we cleanse our cupboards and ice boxes and nourish ourselves with peanut butter and sardine sandwiches on hot dog buns washed down with the sad remainders of grape juice from Passovers long ago.

At this time of need and hunger; when we are destined to be disappointed by Passover cookies and remain unfulfilled even after consuming sixteen pounds of maztah brei, the Mets return, once again, to remind us that, in fact, life is unfulfilling and we should stop kvetching and get over it.

The Wise Son asks: “Will the Mets complete lack of pitching ultimately lead to this year’s downfall”?

The Wicked Son Asks: “Why not root for the Yankees?”

The Simple Son Asks: “Can’t we turn off the Mets and watch something fun on television – like Schindler’s List?”

As for the Son Who Does Not Know How to Ask: You should tell him to keep quiet and drink his beer.

And this Maror – this Bitter Herb – why do we eat it? Because we are from New York and we don’t know any better. Why else would we root for the Mets?

We were slaves in Egypt for 400 years. We wandered in the desert for 40 years. All of this is but a flicker of an eye – a glinting moment – relative to the unrelenting torment of being a Met fan.

But once again we will sing songs of redemption and pray for a better world. We open our doors to the possibility that a savior will come; perhaps someone with a 95 mile an hour fast ball and a terrific change up. Perhaps a batter who won’t turn to salt as the umpire calls the third strike. He will uplift our eyes to the heavens with a towering home run and we will rise as one. But alas, Met fans – close the door and drink some more wine. There’s no one out there but the cat.

This year we are slaves in the cellar. Given bloated contracts of underperforming players and the Mets’ owners’ misplaced devotion to Madoff as a modern day monetary Moses, next year will probably not be much better. Had Gadya .. just one kid…a kid who can hit or pitch.

All God All The Time

Growing up in New York there was a radio station (1010 WINS) that proclaimed as its tag line “All news all the time.” Prayer is alike that: “All God all the time.” We praise God, thank God, extol God’s virtues and proclaim our allegiance and full devotion. But, for those among us who struggle with the meaning of God and, at times, the very existence of God, Jewish prayer is difficult. In the words of my friend and colleague Rabbi Bill Rudolph: “Who is this HaShem guy anyway?”

Over the last three years I’ve been attending Tuesday morning minyan and, over the last two weeks, after the passing of my mother, I’ve been davening everyday. During this time I have been looking for meaning, for clues – what do all these words mean – what do they say to me? Thus, rather than just reading the Hebrew, which I struggle to do anyway, I’ve been reading prayers in English and attempting to find meaning. How are these words helpful in enabling to find my way through the day and find meaning in all that is happening?

One morning, I settled on one particular prayer in the very first pages of the Siddur.

The act of putting on T’fillin is, in itself, a mysterious act of devotion. It’s actually quite odd. As cars whiz by on Roswell Road we are placing black boxes on our foreheads and wrapping leather straps around our arms. It is as if we are wiring ourselves to talk to God. But the prayer we recant while wrapping the straps around our fingers is, in my thinking, quite remarkable:

כא וְאֵרַשְׂתִּיךְ לִי, לְעוֹלָם; וְאֵרַשְׂתִּיךְ לִי בְּצֶדֶק וּבְמִשְׁפָּט, וּבְחֶסֶד וּבְרַחֲמִים.	21 And I will betroth thee unto Me forever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in justice, and in loving kindness, and in compassion.
כב וְאֵרַשְׂתִּיךְ לִי, בֶּאֱמוּנָה; וְיָדַעַתְּ, אֶת-יְהוָה. {פ}	22 And I will betroth thee unto Me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know the LORD. {P}

This is a little difficult to, if you will, “unwrap”. Who is speaking to whom? Is God saying this to Israel, is Israel committing this to God. Reading the book of Hosea, from where the verses are taken, makes it even more complicated. Essentially the message from God to Israel in Hosea is: “You are a harlot but I love you anyway.” Read it.

But the core message of the verses we read that the relationship/marriage/betrothal between people and God is frame by five key elements:

Righteousness – צֶדֶק

Justice - מִשְׁפָּט

Kindness - חֶסֶד

Mercy - בְרַחֲמִים

Belief/Faith – אֱמוּנָה

It seems to me that if we wanted to come up with five key elements that would elevate all of our engagement with the world, and mark them with holiness, we would be hard pressed to find better ones than righteousness, justice, kindness, mercy and faith. Can we begin each day by contemplating how we will act with righteousness; how we will treat each other with justice and kindness; what acts of mercy we will show? Can we learn to have faith in ourselves and others?

Our prayer can vacillate between mindless recitation and a Hebrew sing-a-long. But if we take the time to explore the words we can find great wisdom, remarkable beauty and meaning.

Musings on My Tallis

My tallis seems to have a mind of its own. Upon entering the sanctuary and finding a seat, I dutifully remove it from its matching bag, unfold, wrap around my torso, find the approximate midpoint on each side – always left side first – and fold over each of my shoulders. Two minutes later one half of the tallis has become askew and waits to be refolded. Two minutes later the other side falls completely off. At least one time during the service I’ll step on a tzitzit causing me to grab onto my chair to prevent myself from falling on my wife or whoever is unfortunate enough to be sitting nearby. As the Shema draws near, I initiate the tzitzit hunt, knowing that, invariably, one of them will furtively bury itself behind my back or become entrenched in some hidden space between the seats. Where could it possibly be? It was there when I put it on. As the opening words of the Shema are intoned I frantically trace the ends of the cloth to each corner. The knotted threads are united and wrapped around my fingers in the nick of time: “and they shall make themselves fringes, (kiss) on the corners of their garments”. At the end of the Shema the insubordinate corners return to their hidden locations and the cycle of folding and falling begins anew. Having lost my tallis clips a week after my Bar Mitzvah, and being unprepared to invest in another pair of silver plated clips adorned with a garish Jewish star, there seems to be no salvation from this skirmish that doesn’t involve either crazy glue or push pins. At the end of the service, having completed the battle, I dutifully refold the tallis and return it to its matching bag – only to have one or more tzitzit get caught in the zipper, precipitating a drawn out struggle to free it from clenched metal jaws.

It is for these reasons that I am now working with a small, elite technology team to create the first ever tallis app. (see photo). While I have yet to fully vet the device with religious authorities, I am hopeful that it will meet all, if not a few of the halachic requirements. For everyday use, with the iphone in full operating mode, the tallis app will provide downloadable prayers (both in Hebrew and in transliteration) for donning the tallis, along with a web link to the full Sacharit service, torah portions and a bagel calorie counter. At a small extra cost, gps locators can be placed on each tzitzit for easy location as the Shema approaches. Carefully camouflaged earphones allow you to listen to your favorite music while appearing to be praying or listening to the rabbi. These additional features can be disabled in Shabbat mode, however, the radio can be left on for all of Shabbat allowing you to discretely listen to “Car Talk” during the extended Bar Mitzvah portion of the morning service.

But, while I am working on the Tallis app, as well as other possible tallis innovations (the spandex tallis, the survival tallis for Yom Kipper, a Kevlar tallis for the IDF), I must admit that there is a simple pleasure in enclosing myself in my trusty white and blue one – purchased in Jerusalem many years ago. There is something comforting about enclosing myself within its folds. Perhaps it is tactile; perhaps it is something more than skin deep –something ancient, visceral, and pre-conscious.

As the Shema approaches and my search for each fringe ensues, I find myself mouthing the words: . “Bring us together in peace from the four corners of the earth”. I think of my tallis as representing the Jewish people. We are unruly and uncooperative. Each individual segment has a mind of its own and seems determined to go its own way. Segments of our people have been lost and then rediscovered. When will all of our corners be settled – each in its place- each understanding that we are all of the same cloth? How long will we court danger through baseless hatred for each other - “Tzinat Chinam” – the same baseless hatred that precipitated the destruction of the Second Temple? Wrapped in the folds around me and clinging to the cloth, I ponder that each of us has a role to play in bringing together the disparate corners and the fringes of our people.

Perhaps, as we struggle to bring together each corner of our tallesim, so too does God strive to gather God’s people from the four corners of the earth. Together we wrap the tzitzit around our fingers and close our eyes. We pray that there will come a time when the Jewish people will come together in peace and, as one, proclaim the belief that unites us: "Shema Y'srael HaShem Elokenu, HaShem Ehad"

Laws for Drinking Single Malt During Kiddush

Recently a trove of ancient Hebraic documents was found in Afghanistan. The following was among them:

1. You shall not imbibe blended Scotch during Kiddush as it is an abomination.
2. You` shall not imbibe Scotch from a paper cup as it too is an abomination.
3. Twelve years shall Scotch be aged lest it taste cleave to your tongue in a wholly unpleasant manner not unlike Thanksgiving dinner with your in-laws.
4. He who drinks Scotch before the rabbi shall be called to do Hagbai for 40 consecutive weeks or until he is no longer capable of lifting a shot glass without significant nerve damage.
5. He who does not wash is glass after drinking Scotch is alike a heifer who shares his cud with others. His reward shall be a large and painful cold sore on his upper lip.
6. If you are drinking Scotch and cannot recall whether you have had one glass or two chances are you’ve had enough.
7. Rabbi Aburia used to say: “It is better to drink 15 year old Scotch with 12 friends than 12 year old Scotch with 15 friends. He who drinks 10 year old Scotch generally drinks alone.”
8. If you are immersed in the ritual bath and realize that the time has come for the drinking of single malt it is permissible to exit the bath. However, it is incumbent on you to don raiments lest your affiliation with the Jewish people become pronounced.
9. Until when may one drink single malt on Shabbat? Rabbi Pinchas states: “Until the kiddush egg salad fully consumed.” Rabbi Elihu the Flatulent replied: “Until the chulent of the siudah shelishi is fully expunged from the system.” Until his internment in the Betty Ford Clinic, Rabbi Chananaya would exclaim: “Until the recitation of Sheer Shel Yom on Thursday”.
10. If you are drinking Scotch and the messiah comes it is permissible to complete your drink before welcoming him. Given the circumstances, however, you may want to consider offering him a taste.
11. Rabbi Yechiel of Smirna and Rabbi Elchanan the Parsimonious were drinking Scotch during Kiddush. Rabbi Yechiel commented: “Verily, this Scotch has a palate that is less than fully pleasing. From whence it came?” Rabbi Elchanan replied: “It is the Kirkland Brand acquired while the rebbinsin was purchasing salmon at Costco”. With this, Rabbi Yechiel brought his Tikun down on Rabbi Yechiel’s head with great force causing an odd excretion to emit from his ear.