Author: Eve Posen

When We Were Younger – Parshat Bereshit 5772

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As a child I had a Cabbage Patch doll named Helena Zena.  Helena Zena and I went everywhere together, including family vacations.  On one such vacation I was holding Helena Zena by the ankle, dragging her on the very bumpy rocks on the shore of one of the Great Lakes.  My parents asked me to stop and I responded, “But she likes it!”  But of course the truth was that I was the one who liked it.
As children we learn what we like and don’t like very quickly.  Children are able to engage in a world of discovery and pleasure.  When they discover what they like, they prefer to continue to do it over and over again, generally without regard for safety or other children.  Children under a certain age lack the cognitive ability to understand self control.  While pleasure and pain are two basic instincts, understanding how our actions effect others requires a developed conscience and an understanding of the world that only happens at an older age.
Parshat Bereshit, the first parshah in the Torah, reminds us of the blissful nature of ignorance and the consequences we learn as we grow.  The parshah begins with the narrative of creation when God brings order to a chaotic entity, creating the world in which we live.  Then comes the narrative of Adam and Eve, the first human inhabitants of this world.  As the first human beings, their first moments in the Torah are euphoric.  They are placed in a luscious garden with plenty to eat, animals to watch and each other to keep company.  While they might be fully grown human beings, they are still new to the world and therefore in the mindset of a small child.  We can picture them roaming from place to place in Gan Eden taking in every new experience.  The only rules were to refrain from eating from the “tree of knowledge of good and bad.”  But, every child likes to test boundaries, and that is exactly what they did.
With a little prodding, Eve eats from the tree and convinces Adam to do the same.  At this moment, neither Adam nor Eve has been introduced to the concept of consequences.  They are living in a world without conscience, and judging from God’s strong, negative reaction to their act, it appears as though God had intended for human beings to be created to live in a world of pleasure, to understand boundaries and not cross them or question them.  Anyone who’s ever spent time with a three-year-old knows that boundary testing is a given.
After the rule is broken, Adam and Eve receive their consequences.  For Eve, the punishment is pain in childbearing, attraction to her partner and male dominance.  For Adam, he is to work the ground; no longer will food come easily.  He will be forever tied to the dirt of the earth.  After God hands down these consequences, He states in chapter 3, verse 22:  “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad…”  The text implies that up until this moment, God was the source of moral awareness and the only being that could understand good and evil.  Now, human beings have gained the capacity to make that distinction, and God becomes concerned with the outcome.
Through one simple act, Adam and Eve and all human beings gained a conscience.  From this moment on, they could no longer eat or live instinctively; their minds were now open to the rights and wrongs of the world.  The innocence of childhood, of learning pleasure and pain, is short lived.  But once we’ve acquired our conscience, we have the ability and responsibility to do good in the world.  The punishments of Adam and Eve teach us that knowledge requires action.  Each of them is expected to work in order for their world to make sense.  And so each of us is in turn asked to listen to that internal voice, to be guided by our innate knowledge of pleasure and pain and instead of continuing the cycle of evil, we are to act in a godly fashion, to become like God in righting the wrong in our world.  It is when each of us accepts this responsibility that we will have taken steps towards the order that God set to the world in creation.
ללמוד  To Learn: ללמד  To Teach: Judaism is a beautiful religion in that we are trained to continue finding meaning in a text we’ve read over and over again.  Rabbi Ben Bag Bag in perkei avot, ethics of the fathers teaches that we are responsible for looking over the Torah text again and again because there is always something new in it.  Make this year the year that you read the parshaheach week and learn from it.  Some great, English commentaries are: The Bedside Torah by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, The Women’s Torah Commentary, published by Jewish Lights, The Torah Portion by Portion by Seymour Rossel.  Feel free to ask me for more suggestions.
לשמור  To Keep:  לעשות  To Do:  Parshat Bereshit reminds us that 6 days of our week are meant to be spent creating, engaging physically with the world, but that on the 7th day, God ceased creating.  There’s no time like a new beginning to try refraining from creating.  On Friday night as Shabbat begins, talk about what each of you has created in this past week, how have your words, deeds and activities led to creation?  Then, stop creating, challenge your family to spend 25 hours enjoying what already is, not creating something new.

On the Release of Gilad Shalit

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This time for us as Jews is known as Z’man Simchateinu, the time of rejoicing.  In an ordinary year we celebrate in our Sukkot, aware of the fragility of the structure, and then move into celebrating the completion and rereading of the Torah.  This year we have extra reason for celebration with the safe return of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier taken captive 1,940 days ago.  Regardless of political viewpoints, Jews around the world felt the loss of one of our own in his capture.  For years we have led efforts to raise awareness of this situation.  We have kept a seat vacant in our prayer spaces to remind us that the Shalit family has an empty place at their table and synagogue, and to remind us that our Jewish community is always responsible for one another.  In following this situation, our students have seen Jewish communities come together across the board from the right and the left, they have learned about the tremendous value the Jewish people place on each and every life, and in some ways, they have witnessed a miracle in Gilad Shalit’s safe and healthy return to Israel and his family. 
Our students were excited when the news broke a week ago about the deal to return Gilad Shalit, and this morning as we joined together in prayer and celebration for Sukkot they brought tears to my eyes as they rejoiced in the news of his freedom.  Removing the chair reserved for Gilad Shalit from our bimah was especially poignant for our students. 
At this time there are no doubt many mixed emotions, and many prayers to be uttered.  We may thank God for the release of the prisoner, or for the good news.  We may also pray that this deal causes no future harm or terror for the Jewish people.  We may pray that Gilad Shalit and his family know no further pain.  Whatever our prayer is, we come together in this moment as a Jewish People and celebrate the value of every Jewish life. 

Be Our Guest – Sukkot 5772

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Emily Post, the guru of entertaining and etiquette, wrote “The joy of joys is the person of light but unmalicious humor. You will, if you are wise, do everything you can to make him prefer your house and your table to any other; for where he is, the successful party is also.”  Successful entertaining isn’t easy.  There’s so much to consider: how the house will look, how the personalities of the guests will blend, what foods will be served (with which allergies avoided), the logistics of cleanup, and the list goes on. 
Especially with all of the holidays in our tradition, it comes as no surprise that welcoming guests,Hachnasat Orchim, is a Jewish value, and its roots go back all the way to Avraham and Sarah welcoming the messengers to their tent.  We welcome guests to our home as a sign of openness and blessing.  The Talmud even teaches in Brachot that the guests have an obligation to bless their hosts.  The festival of Sukkot, which is now upon us, is a holiday of welcoming guests to join us in our open and temporary dwellings, though the logistics are a bit out of the ordinary. 
Like other holidays, we have blessings for the wine, the challah, and lighting the candles.  But we are also commanded during this time to sit – leyshev – in the sukkah, the temporary hut, outdoors, away from the comfortable couch in whatever weather we might have at the time.  Sukkot is also unique in that before we recite Kiddush, we insert a special prayer that invites heavenly guests to join us on this day.  These guests are called the Ushpizin.
The Ushpizin come from the central text of Jewish Mysticism known as the Zohar, and asks us to consider inviting, along with our living guests, seven “heavenly” guests: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron and David.  Modern traditions also include inviting the women, or Ushpizot: Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, Miriam, Deborah and Ruth.  These guests are primarily meant to remind us of our history and the great deeds that each of these ancestors took upon themselves, but they remind us of so much more.  They recall our covenant with God and implore us not only to link one generation to the next, but to help us see the truth of who we are as human beings and remember the model set before us for righteousness and leadership. 
Sukkot certainly has more themes than I’ve mentioned here, but the one that really speaks to me this year is the sense of community at its core.  We are commanded to not only sit in our temporary huts, but to share our culture, traditions and practice with others.  Inviting guests to our home offers us an opportunity to not only fulfill a Mitzvah, but to share culture and learn about one another.  In a similar way, building a community is about sitting together and learning from one another.  Sukkot gives us a moment in time when our brick and mortar boundaries are gone, and our minds and hearts are open to learn and to share. 
ללמוד  To Learn: ללמד  To Teach: Each night of Sukkot have a discussion with your family, whether inside the Sukkah or just outside in your yard, about the theme related to the Ushpizin of the evening.   (Steinberg, Paul.  Celebrating the Jewish Year: The Fall Holidays.  2007)

(Sample)
Evening
Ushpizin
Ushpizot
Theme
First
Abraham
Sarah
Parents of Faith
Second
Isaac
Rebecca
Transmitters of Legacy and Foundation
Third
Jacob
Leah
Progenitors of Israel
Fourth
Joseph
Rachel
Nurturers of the Past and Caretakers of the Future
Fifth
Moses
Miriam
Leaders of Freedom
Sixth
Aaron
Deborah
Harbingers of Peace
Seventh (Hoshanah Rabah)
David
Ruth
Living Legacies of Israel for the Past, Present & Future
For next year, remember to contact Rabbi Posen to find out how to build a sukkah yourselves!
לשמור  To Keep:  לעשות  To Do: Invite friends to share in a meal with you.  Sukkot reminds us how temporary housing is for some.  Volunteer as a family in a soup kitchen. 

What’s Mine is Yours, and What’s Yours is Ours – Yom Kippur Reflections 5772

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It’s the cliche you’ve heard a hundred times.  “There’s no ‘I’ in team.”  Maybe you’ve even heard the typical, sarcastic pre-teen comeback, “But there is “me.”  It’s the coach beckoning out to the player who isn’t sharing the ball with his teammates.  It’s the orchestra or band conductor when one musician doesn’t match their pitch with the others. It’s the teacher in a classroom when one student constantly calls out the answers before anyone else has a chance. Or it’s in a professional setting when one co-worker is constantly promoting themselves at the expense of another.  One of the hardest and most essential lessons to learn when interacting in society is how to share, how to be a part of the community.  We try to teach our children as young as we can that they are a part of the family, they are a part of the community, and that we have a responsibility to others to do our part to help.  But sometimes, when this lesson is taken to heart, we find ourselves so entrenched in the problems and workings of the community that we lose ourselves as individuals.  The ideal is a balance between personal responsibility and communal responsibility, and real peace is a world of give and take. 
Clearly, we don’t live in this utopia; in fact, we live in a world where finding the balance can be exceedingly difficult.  This problem of finding balance is most notably obvious when looking at the liturgy we’re about to spend 25 hours engaging with for Yom Kippur, when we’re spending time in the pews instead of glued to college football (*insert favored team cheer here).  It is on this special day that we are asked to look deep inside ourselves, to ask for forgiveness for the wrongs that we as individuals have done during the course of the year.  We are supposed to spend the day in personal thought and prayer, hoping to individually be inscribed in the book of life.  Yet each time we arrive at a moment of confession for our transgressions, it is written in the plural.  “We abuse, we betray, we are cruel…” are the words we recite.  We stress personal responsibility, but our liturgy informs us that for better or for worse, we are responsible in some way for the actions of all human kind.  While I might not be the literal transgressor, I live in a world where these transgressions continue to occur. 
“But Rabbi,” you might say, “I can’t take care of everyone!  That’s crazy!”  It’s about balance.  We strive towards a work/life balance, a food balance, a TV balance, and even here, a balance in our communal responsibilities.  Hillel, the great rabbinic scholar, taught:  If I am not for myself, who will be for me; If I am only for myself, what am I, and if not now, when?  This teaching reminds us that we have multiple obligations. 
●        If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
We must understand that we have a responsibility to take note of ourselves and to set boundaries that allow each of us to live a healthy and balanced lifestyle.  This phrase reminds us that we are each individually required to live a life that fulfills our own souls, and at this time of the year, we must take for ourselves precious moments for prayer that fulfills our needs.  We must be true to ourselves, and on this and every day, we must search deep inside ourselves for the truth in our prayers, thoughts and deeds.  We must understand what it is that we do or haven’t done because of our own reasons. 
●        If I am only for myself, what am I?
But, Hillel teaches, if we are only for ourselves, then we’ve done nothing.  If we only confess for the transgressions that we have done individually, then we have missed the boat on what it means to live.  “What am I,” we must ask ourselves, “when I don’t take a stand in the community, when I play for the ‘me’ instead of the team?”  As part of Am Yisrael, the Jewish people, we have a responsibility towards one another and the greater world to act for justice and righteousness.
●        If not now, when?
Finally, Hillel teaches us that the time is now.  Instead of waiting for the right time to take on that next project, start today.  We arrive at this season of repentance and renewal anxious to move forward and begin a new year.  As we make this fresh start, free from transgressions, we are to think about the now, about our commitment to the community.  The blessing is in the plural because we are all a part of the team.
ללמוד  To Learn: ללמד  To Teach: The Ashamnu is the communal confessional prayer of Yom Kippur.  Find it in your Machzor and as a family read through each of the “sins” or “missed marks” and discuss how you might work together as a team to stay on target this coming year.
לשמור  To Keep:  לעשות  To Do:  Yom Kippur is a day of atonement, asking for forgiveness, which can be very abstract to children.  Sit with your child and ask them what they’re asking for forgiveness for this year.  Perhaps even help them write a letter to the person they’ve hurt.

Your Inside Voice – Rosh HaShannah/Parshat Ha’azinu 5772

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I’d like to share one of my favorite poems, “The Voice: by Shel Silverstein:
There is a voice inside of you that whispers all day long
I feel that this is right for me, I know that this is wrong
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend, or wise man can decide
What’s right for you, just listen to the voice that speaks inside.
Around this time of year, we often talk about the voice inside us and listening to our conscience, but each of us also has an individual voice, the voice that we use to speak to one another.  Sometimes it is a sweet, upbeat, light voice, and other times, it is loud, heavy, and angry.  The voice we use can change based on our environment.  When we’re outdoors having fun, we might be giggly and light spirited, but in front of the boardroom or class during a presentation, we try to make our voices firm, grounded and unwavering.  Voices can also make a distinct first impression when we hear someone before seeing them, which is the premise behind NBC’s show called “The Voice.” Our voice can allow others to know what we’re feeling at a given moment and, if we listen, alert us to how our peers are feeling.  The voice is a powerful tool.
We are in the midst of the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, the days that represent not only a new year for the Jewish calendar, but days that require us to take accounting of our own souls, actions and deeds and to take ownership of the wrongs we have done in the past year.  We move quickly through the celebration of the New Year to the Shabbat of liminality, Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of return or repentance that prepares us for Yom Kippur, the day of ultimate judgment.  All the while, we’re expected to use our voices to ask forgiveness, listen to others as they ask for forgiveness and listen to our internal voices as we determine our next actions.
During the unetanetokef prayer of the Rosh HaShannah liturgy we will read this week, we read the words “The great shofar will be sounded and the still small voice will be heard.”  This phrase from the liturgy contrasts the loud and soft voices we’re hearing.  Sometimes the right choice, the right voice, is loud, booming, alarming and in your face like the blasts of the shofar.  And other times, the voice is nearly silent, a whisper, hidden in the thought process that leads to decision making.
Rosh HaShannah serves as this day of calling out and beginning to be in tune with our voices, with our choices, with our conscience.  Finding our voice is as much about what we say as it is about what we hear.  Between Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur we read parshat Ha’azinu, the last portion of the Torah cycle read on Shabbat morning and a poem of Moshe recapping God’s glory.  He begins: “Give ear, O heavens, let me speak; let the earth hear the words I utter.”  Moshe conjures up two listeners: one includes the universe, God and the expanse unseen; the other is the earth, the material, that which happens between human beings.
The voice can connect us in prayer with one another and with God and can just as easily alienate us with violent words.  As we begin a new year, listen to the blasts of the shofar, the alarm of awareness.  Search for your own voice, but remember to “just listen to the voice that speaks inside.”  Only when we are in tune with our inner voice can our voice that is heard aloud truly make a difference.
ללמוד  To Learn: ללמד  To Teach: The parshah this week, chapter 32:7tells us: Remember the days of old… Ask your father, he will inform you.  This echoes the commandment of Passover to remember our past and teach our children.  Trace your family tree and see where you’ve come from.  As a family search for a custom for Rosh HaShannah from this place and try it out this year. http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Jewish_Holidays/Rosh_Hashanah.shtml
לשמור  To Keep  לעשות  To Do: During the Yamim Noraim pay special attention to the voices you use when talking to different people.  How do you sound?  Are you angry?  Frustrated?  Is this tone caused by the person to whom you are speaking or a separate incident in the day?  Awareness of the voice we use to speak to others can help us move forward with stronger relationships.