Episodes
Wednesday Apr 22, 2020
Wednesday Apr 22, 2020
When Aaron's sons Nadav and Avihu suddenly die by fire while offering the first sacrifices, we have an odd series of verses that seem to suggest --on the surface-- that God has glorified Godself by killing them and now God demands that Aaron show no grief for his own sons also for the greater glory of God. What? Do the verses really say this? A closer look (helped by the commentator Sforno), shows us what's really going on: there are times when we glorify God by choosing to do our jobs (when lives are at stake) over allowing ourselves to feel our feelings of grief, of anxiety, or fear. What seems so unfeeling of God, so self-glorifying and cruel, comes alive to us now: we are only told to postpone our fears, our emotions, our worry, our wailing, our mourning, when we find ourselves (even unbidden) in the chain of operations meant to save lives. God even bestows a personal word of loving care to Aaron: don't turn to the bottle, another message so important at this time.
Sunday Apr 12, 2020
Sunday Apr 12, 2020
In this teaching immediately following the Seder(s), I follow through the commandment to see ourselves as if we experience(d) the Exodus story at this profound time. I explore how the food of Passover is restoring our humility, our connection to our humble (poor) roots, how the moral dimensions of money are now exposed to create, when we are at our most honest, a compassionate human interaction over returning or paying funds --just as God brings grace (at the exact moment of the 10th plague) to the interaction of money between Israelite and neighbor, and finally the fact that the text never says the plague only affects the guilty and Israelites are spared. Our overlapping Zoom shivah services belie that, and now we experience that the text never says that: we bring the bones of our dead with us until the future.
Saturday Apr 04, 2020
Are We Experiencing Apocalyptic Symptoms? The "Reset" Revealing What Had Been Hidden
Saturday Apr 04, 2020
Saturday Apr 04, 2020
We are experiencing synchronicities with the Torah: the locust plague, the sheltering in place of the 9th and 10th plagues, the 10th plague which is simply plague itself, the Torah telling the Nasi (president) to make expiation for his sin, now the Seder -- blood on the doorposts of the 10th plague so similar to the red cross painted on the doors of homes quarantined during centuries of European plague-- with mathematical models predicting infection and death during the Pesach holiday as the Seder commemorates sheltering in place. Are these signs? What is apocalypticism? Is it the dubious book of revelations, wars of Gog and Magog, the end of times, some infantile Nostradamus notion of Bible prophecy,? Or could it be something different, hinted at in the final Pesach-preparation (Shabbat Hagadol) haftarah of Malachi (predicting ruin if we aren't caring for those at or below the poverty line) and suggested by the Torah curses themselves: signs that the human societal structure we consider totally normal is off and therefore can crumble at a plague (which shows the weakness of our man-made social system)? Is what is happening "revealing" ("apocalypse") how broken and arrogant the system we take for granted truly is, and how it's the poor who end up suffering the most?