Guilty Pleasures – Parshat Noach 5772

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I love junk food.  The sensation of biting into a warm, freshly baked, chewy chocolate chip or peanut butter cookie is ecstasy for me.  The way the dough just melts in my mouth leaves me craving another bite.  And then there is the crunch of a perfectly fried French fry, dipped into any of a multitude of sauces.  Or a nice, juicy hamburger with a perfectly grilled bun and onions grilled just right on top.  If I’m having a bad day, just put any one of these foods in front of me and my day will instantly improve.  I’m certain that we all have our comfort foods, drinks or activities, the “go to” vice after a long hard day when everything seems to be depending on you. 
As with everything in life, moderation is key.  If you have everything in moderation, there will be no problems.  A recent study by Health Magazine lists 10 common vices that Americans have and how each one is actually good for you . . . in moderation.  Drinking a glass of wine, eating a piece of chocolate, sleeping in, playing hooky, massages, coffee, full fat dressing, gender-specific nights out, and more were found to have a positive effect on daily living, when used in moderation.  
This week we read parshat Noach, which tells of the evil impulses running rampant in society, Noah’s building of the Ark, a covenant with God through a rainbow and the building of a tower to approach God.  Noah is the man in charge.   He receives God’s call to build the Ark and the call to put his family and pairs of animals on this Ark.  And, when the flood waters have subsided, he is supposed to regenerate the earth and be in covenant with God.  One can imagine this to do list and the weight of responsibility here sitting heavily on Noah’s shoulders.
But even though Noah is chosen for the job, he isn’t perfect. Noah has his vices as well.  The text teaches us that Noah, as he came out of the Ark, was not only the father of three sons, and not only the one responsible for accepting the covenant with God, but Noah was also the first to plant a vineyard.  We learn in chapter 9, verses 20-21 that “He [Noah] drank of the wine and became drunk, and he uncovered himself within is tent.”  Noah was a man who enjoyed a nice glass of wine after a rough day, but in this instance, he over indulged.  Perhaps Noah found himself alone or burdened with guilt that he survived the flood.  Whatever the case may be, Noah turns to wine and in turn is discovered by his sons, leading them to act immorally and cause shame not only to themselves, but to Noah as well.
Moderation.  The Torah teaches us that there is always a need for balance.  When the people are behaving only on the side of evil, God wipes them out, working to start over again.  And when the people build a tower to reach God, they are reminded that there is a difference between belief in God and wanting to be God.  Here too, while perhaps a moment late, Noah learns that a little wine is acceptable, while too much causes problems. 
Judaism is a religion that appreciates celebration and marks time with pleasurable things: delicious cakes for the holidays, a sip of wine for Kiddush, making a l’chaim at a momentous occasion.  But, each of these is also marked with community, family and moderation.  We can have as many pieces of apples and honey and cake at Rosh HaShannah as we want, as long as we endure the eight days of matzah later on.  Let us work to find and maintain the balance in our lives so that our joyous times are distinguished from our tougher times, making both that much more meaningful.
ללמוד  To Learn: ללמד To Teach: We all struggle with finding the balance between our daily lives, family, technology and a myriad of other things.  Think about your own life and where you’d like to achieve greater balance.  If you’re thinking about balancing mitzvot, consider It’s a Mitzvah by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson.  If you’re looking for balance in meditation or time to cool down, tryThe Busy Soul: Ten-Minute Spiritual Workouts from Jewish Tradition by Rabbi Terry Bookman.  If you’re looking for time management, try 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (He also has a version for teens). 
לשמור  To Keep:  לעשות  To Do: Balance is often about knowing your limits.  If you’re feeling off kilter in your home, or notice your kids slipping towards one extreme, sit down together and discuss this.  What does a balanced day look like?  How do you achieve balance in your own family life?  The best way to teach moderation and balance to our kids is to model it ourselves. 

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.