Judaism for the Thinking Person

And Sarah was Stroking Avraham's Head: Rilke, Pandemic & The Intimacy of Caring for the Dead

Jewish law demands we bury our dead, yet human nature is to "protect the mourner in their grief" by distancing them from doing the act themselves.  Jewish law follows suit by, over time, taking the demand to lovingly care for your dead and creating distance from that to "protect" the grieving.  Rehearsing Rilke's opening from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rabban Gamliel's decrees on simple loving burial (despite our natural inclination to use "do whatever rich people do" as our definition of "honoring" our dead in burial customs), the reawakening to these truths during COVID's guidelines for not touching bodies, and the archaeology of burial caves and ossuaries, I synthesize a different approach. 

Sarah's Laugh and the Wisdom of Menopause

The Rabbis see Sarah's laugh (at the divine prophecy of a pregnancy) as thumbing her nose at God and at her husband, now that her "period" (or "sexual enjoyment" -- edna could be translated as either) has ended "in the way of women" at a certain age.  I've always found the Rabbis overwrought in their interpretation of Sarah's laugh, but in this podcast I take it seriously.  I use the article (I just discovered) of Sandra Tsing Loh from The Atlantic in October 2011 called:  "The Bitch Is Back: Are menopausal women mad, bad, and dangerous? Yes—but they’re really just returning to normal."  It's a review of Dr. Christiane Northrup's landmark book The Wisdom of Menopause. 

In that landmark book, the "thumb your nose at the expectations of your husband and of others" experiences of perimenopause are not looked at in their typical negative light, but rather as a "coming into your own" as a woman, knowing what matters for yourself, unwilling any longer to comply with the expectations of others.  This is the way I see Sarah's laugh in this podcast:  of course the Rabbis don't like it --spouses and kids don't like it either-- when a woman stops serving everyone but herself, but in a way it's a very serious liberation.  And, interestingly, the Hagar story can be seen similarly.  I explore the wisdom of menopause, of coming into your own, of being done with the office/home politics of all getting along and keeping in one's lanes, in Sarah's laugh.

The Sarah & Hagar Narratives: Rethinking Privilege Through the Gift of Life in Genesis

This is a full-on "sermon" (delivered on Rosh Hashanah, "the Birthday of the World," in 2020) in which I look frankly upon the Sarah and Hagar narratives -- mistress and slave/servant/mother-- through the lens of the issues of "privilege" we are processing today.  Schleiermacher -- among the half dozen most influential theologians in Western thought-- correctly argued that a certain consciousness of the gift of life is the fundamental basis of all true religion, leading to humility, passion, grace, and a connection to God-- yet in the Genesis narratives it does not lead to all these great things, it instead leads to an unfeeling competition for resources, and deep division.  Sound like America today?  I take us through the intricacies of the narratives, of the interplay of power and powerlessness, of the nub of this country's divisions through one true story from my life, and to a potential spiritual resolutation through another true story from my life, ending with Hannah (the haftarah on Rosh Hashanah) breaking the pattern trapping us.

3 Dimensions of Time Intersecting in Shemini Atzeret & the Poetry of Louise Gluck

Shemini Atzeret has the special distinction of being all of the following:  1) The only holiday that has no official traditional explanation.  (Atzeret means some form of gathering, but we are left to speculate whether it's a special harvest ingathering, or a human gathering at the end of Sukkot, or a kind of makeup "extra day" of Sukkot for those who arrived late, but all these are speculative:  no reason is given.)  2)  It's still one of the four High Holidays (the others being Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot) and is a real holiday unto itself, and 3) It concluded the High Holiday period.  One dwells in the sukkah but does not say a blessing for doing so.  Shemini Atzeret is very special and odd.

In this short podcast, I try to explain it as the confluence of different ways of experiencing time.  Biblical scholars for decades have reflected on how the book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) views time as circular while the Torah and Prophets view time as linear (leading to a Messianic horizon).  In this podcast, I show how Sukkot is the ultimate "linear" experience of time, like traveling forward, and that Shemini Atzeret, with its signature chanting of Kohelet/Ecclesiastes, is the ultimate experience of circular time, and eternal time.  We go from living in the present moment to a very special eternal moment as the "finishing strong" of the entire High Holiday period.  I use Louise Gluck's (whose name I mispronounce -- it should be pronounces as "glik") poem "The Denial of Death" to make my point.

Filtering Out the Noise by Practicing Essentialism Under Pandemic

The pandemic has forced most of us into a "Shabbat," a ceasing, a forced limitation on our time and resources, and yet we are faced with demanding decisions that have no clear right and wrong, and lots of risk in all directions.  How do we allow this year to give us the gift of getting 'comfortable with discomfort' (rather than the "discomfort with our comfort" that we usually have)?  In my own life, I use Greg Mckeown book on practicing "Essentialism."  I share how I do that, and how you can, too.

"The Clothes On Your Back Did Not Wear Out" - The Cost of Our Clothes

Deuteronomy repeats that God tried to demonstrate how to walk with God when our clothes "did not wear out, nor your shoes" during the journey in the wilderness, as we learned that we "do not live on bread alone."  During the pandemic, I've noticed that I wear three sets of clothes:  Zoom clothes, non-Zoom clothes, and Shabbat clothes, and as we've slowed down our pace and we're not running around during this endurance stretch until a vaccine, we are --as Ibn Ezra interprets the "true" miracle-- realizing we walk with God in our slowing down, in our living the simple life, and we realize the craziness of an industry that has brainwashed us into a fashion industry of disposable clothes and environmental devastation.  Can we go back to having just a few sets of clothes that you wear all the time?

Does Pursuing Justice Begin with Carrying Around the Emoluments Clause?

In the section of Deuteronomy customarily called "Shoftim" (which means both "Judges" and "Leaders"), we find the famous command that "Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue" but strangely without reference to the pursuit of social justice, community organizing, or even the personal awareness of victims.  Instead it might mean that people in that position begin the process by focusing on the emoluments clause and their oath of office.  What if our personal Torah, our personal scroll we carry around with us and occupy our minds with every day, was not the entire Torah but just our oath of office?  What would this tell us about the Torah's message to healing ourselves and our society?

"You Must Extend a Loan to Your Brother" - Racial Discrimination in Lending Today

The Rabbinic Commentators focus on the fact that Deuteronomy frequently and repeatedly uses the word ach, brother, to describe the needy person who isn't related to you.  Whereas earlier in Torah, we are told not to oppress the "poor" or "afflicted" person, Deuteronomy modifies this language by insisting that we must loan to these people because they must be seen as our "brothers and sisters."  I don't see any reading possible other than that the Torah is focusing on the problem of redlining, of consciously or unconsciously avoiding loaning money to people who look different from the family of the loan officer.  In 2020, the Trump Administration has proposed changing the anti "redlining" guideliness in ways that bypass the Torah's concern, as I explain here.

The Conquest of The Land and The Problematic of "Indigenousness"

Recently Rabbi Andy Kahn and Comedian Seth Rogen broadcast loud statements that Jews have been lied to and that Jews are not indigenous to the land of Israel.  On the heels of these statements, the Jewish people in 2020 are going through the lengthy portion of Deuteronomy conveying both a demand of conquest and a moral framework.  Can we learn from what the Torah is saying?  Is the term "indigenous" just another progressive bludgeon that can mean whatever the twitterer wants it to mean?  In this podcast, I explore a way forward.

The Book of Numbers: The Dissolution of Community in the Breakdown of Face to Face Communication

The Book of Numbers is about the failure of "community" in the wilderness.  After all the community building of the Exodus, of Mount Sinai, of familial and tribal ties, of building the Mishkan, of the inspiring blueprint for a new society in a land of milk and honey, of Moshe's leadership, of being in God's physical presence, of communal ritual feasting and celebration... none of it has worked, which, when you think about it, is absolutely amazing!  In this dvar Torah, I give my answer as to why by looking at the common issue of the Miriam/Cushite incident, the 12 Spies catastrophe, and the Korach rebellion.  The word "religion" is based on the word "religio" -- bonds.  What is the bond that holds people together in community?  It's not belief, it's a certain kind of emunah, a kind of faith that normally is translated as "trust."  Trust is built through face to face communication, not shared experiences or shared beliefs.  The lack of it is breaking apart society today, and we may not be able to turn back the clock.  It's what's missing in the kind of "friendship" a new generation is experiencing.  The Industrial Age is passing to the "No Face to Face Communication Age."