Rabbi Eve Posen

In order to begin the job search process as part of the last year of rabbinical school (WOAH!), we had to come up with our metaphor for the rabbinate. I spent a lot of time debating over different metaphors- rabbi as park ranger, rabbi as juggler, rabbi as conductor. But none of these really resonated with me in what I see as the role of the Rabbi. I settled on Rabbi as Relationship Therapist. As a rabbi I see it as my role to help people build relationships, plumb the depths of the relationships, what makes them work? How have they changed? What are we lacking in them? What can we do better? As a rabbi I want to help people build relationships with themselves, with their partners, lovers, friends, community, texts, traditions, history and with God. My job is to help these relationships blossom, flourish, and grow into a deeper, more meaningful relationship. Along the way, I will offer encouragement, suggest texts to push the learning deeper. I will engage in the hard conversations that accompany growing with oneself and with one another. I will be supportive on the journey and challenging when a little push is needed to really move to the next level in these relationships. Sometimes our relationships are broken, in disrepair, and I hope to be able to guide others through the process of healing. This is my hope as a rabbi- to be able to foster relationships with, love of and comfort with Judaism, people, tradition, ourselves.

A D’var Torah given on Friday Night, Erev Sukkot at my internship. Actual delivery varied from text!

growing up in Michigan my biggest sukkot worry was that it would snow in the sukkah, or those other times when it would rain and the paper chain I’d spent hours piecing together would be ruined, soggy, gone. Sukkot always meant hot apple cider, chilly nights outside, mittens. And then I came to LA, it was warm, even comfortable in the sukkah, I didn’t have to worry about my paper chains being ruined- what a weird experience. It wasn’t until I moved to LA 6 years ago that I even learned that Schach, the word for what we cover the sukkah with didn’t mean evergreen. I came to LA and was very confused when there were palm branches on top of the Sukkah, Of course they didn’t have evergreen trees in the desert as they were traveling, but for me, it was a huge blow to my world.

A couple of weeks ago as I was learning more about Etz Chaim, I heard the following conversation: There was a problem with the Schach, the covering for the Sukkah. Apparently if it was delivered too soon it would dry out and become a fire danger. Now, some of you might be thinking, DUH, this is obvious, it’s dry, we live in a desert? I’d never even thought about that, I only saw the luxury in living somewhere that had weather above freezing for sukkot.

listening to this conversation I was again humbled at my place on this earth. Sukkot, this holiday we have just entered into provides us with a space to think about our journeys. While we may not be physically journeying from place to place with this temporary structure as our only shelter, we are journeying through life. We have just spent days thinking about who will live and who will die, praising God for the good in our life, wondering how we can help others. And now we have arrived at Sukkot and are again reminded of our temporary residence in the world. The sukkah, like our relationships with one another takes effort to build, requires constant care, checking in on, nurture in order to make it through just an 8 day celebration. The sukkah stands for us as a symbol of community.

Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shelomeicha. Spread over us the shelter of your peace, of your completion. This phrase is part of the Hashkiveinu prayer said every night during Ma’ariv, the evening service. It has always stood out to me as a line of poignancy, one that speaks to me on many levels. Physically, we build the sukkah, we build this temporary structure to live in for the 8 days of the holiday. It becomes our home, our center. And on a much higher level, we think about a much larger structure, being wrapped, embraced in God’s arms, in God’s shelter of peace, of tranquility, of completion. The Sukkah is much bigger than what we can build in our own backyard.

We are on a journey, trying to find the space that we will call our own. The sukkah thtat we build is strong, but can only last for so long.

We ask God to spread over us his shelter of peace, to support us on our journey. Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shelomecha. Over the next week as we celebrate the joy of the harvest festival, as we continue on our journey through life, finding our place under the shelter of peace, think about where your journey is taking you. We have this gift each year of 8 days to sit with ourselves, to think about where our journey is taking us.

And so, it is my prayer, my hope, the prayer of my heart that God spreads over you, over us his/her shelter of peace. That each of us finds our peaceful place, a place of center, contentment, happiness. That the loving embrace of God helps each of us to find our own place, our makom Kavua (set place) in this world, and we enjoy the journey to that place!

Shabbat Shalom, Chag Sameach!

A drash on V’zot HaBrachah- once again, written text is not what the actual presentation was!

what if you could write your own Eulogy, you own ethical will? What would you say? who would you bless? How will you be remembered? What would others say? We are often remembered by our words, what we say to another person can often leave a mark.

This Parshah, Parshat V’zot HaBrachah is Moses’s ethical will, his parting words to the people of Israel. As I was growing up, my dad used to send me emails of encouragement, of support, of blessings and of love. When he is no longer here with me, his words remain, encouraging me, they allow him to live on.

In many ways, Moses’s words in our parshah do the same thing. he brings in memory of what was, he reminds them of what he had seen them do, who they were and how far they have come. Deuteronomy, Chapter 33, verse 1 states: This is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, bade the Israelites farewell before he died. And then goes on to bless the tribes. The order of this blessing and the blessings given are nearly identical to what is given to those tribes in Genesis. Moses concludes his life with a blessing, with his wishes and dreams for the future.

in Chapter 34, verse 5, Moses dies, “So Moses, the servant of the Lord died there, in the land of Moab, at the command of the lord.” The verse states Al-Pi-Adonai literally by the mouth of the lord. So I ask the question, what does it mean to die by the mouth of the lord?

In the Babylonian Talmud, in Moed Katan, 28a the Talmud states that God reclaimed the soul of Moses by kissing him. The same God who breathed life into Adam in the beginning of the Torah takes Moses in the same way at the end. Life, Breathe, a Kiss. So simple, so profound. Our mouth is the window to our soul- we live through it, we can injure with it, our words can hurt and heal, By the mouth Moses died, and by the mouth, we live.

In tractate Brachot 31 the Talmud teaches that a person should only leave his fellow with a word of Halachah, a piece of Law as it is through this that one will be remembered. Our words allow us to remember people, to create meaning and memory. After we are gone, whether by distance or by death, often our words are how we are remembered.

Our Parshah- V’zot HaBrachah tells us that this is the blessing. We are able to use our mouth, life is blown into us to bless us, we can bless those around us. This is what our blessing is.

Moses will be remembered through his blessings, his laws, his deeds. My father will be remembered by so many for so many things, but his legacy for me lives on through his emails, those words that speak to me more each day.

What is your blessing?

*the Drash I Delivered before Ne’ilah on Yom Kippur to the PicoEgal Minyan. This is not at all how it came out of my mouth*

10 days ago Jews sat together as the birth of the world was celebrated. We took joy in the new year, and we were reminded of our mortality. In just the last 10 days we’ve seen who will live and who will die, who by water- the floods in the South East and who by fire. Our mortality is known, God is judge. We may not have begun the act of teshuva of asking for forgiveness 10 days ago, some of us are planners, some of us began working on the journey of asking for forgiveness long before Rosh HaShannah. And others in this room might be procrastinators, trying to get it all in right now, in this last service before the book of life and to quote reb mimi the book of not so much are sealed. Some of us fall in between. Wherever we fall on the spectrum, we’ve made it here to this moment.

We have this feeling of accomplishment, We’ve made it, we’re almost there. As a child, I remember coming to services for Neilah, there were no children’s services, everyone was in this serious, sort of loopy mood with the affects of the fast weighing heavily on their bodies. I remember my mom and dad talking about standing for an hour, how they dread it every year. My grandparents, sat down while the ark was open, something I’d never seen. And all I wanted to do was wait for Havdallah when I would get my glowstick and get to play on the Bimah.

It was very easy for my parents, who had been fasting all day to focus on the pain of Neilah, the need to stand for what feels like forever. It is easy for us to want to really get through Neilah, we’ve spent the day beating our chests, standing, sitting, reflecting, we’re done. Our mind starts to wander; our feet might hurt, our tummy’s are rumbling, we’re tired, and rightfully so. The challenge is to stay focused.

It says in the talmud, Masechet Brachot, at the opening to the fifth perek- Ein Omdin L’hitpalel ela mitoch Koved rosh. One should not stand to pray (usually the Amidah) without Koved Rosh- without proper intention in their mind. The Talmud goes on with a lengthy discussion of what this means, and what each suggestion has in common is that one should not stand to pray without a clear mind. Without the space to have uninterrupted communication with the divine, one should not pray.

The Talmud goes on to have a discussion of what it actually means to have Koved Rosh- some might translate it to mean a heavy head. One can only stand in prayer if their head is burdened, if they feel the weight of their deeds. Others interpret it as having Kavanah, as having the proper intention. As being able to focus your mind solely on the task at hand. Prayer is not something that you can multi-task at. You have to be present.

In a few moments we will open the Aron, as a symbol of the open gates to the Temple and metaphorically, the open heavenly gates. We will speak of God as as Noten Yad Le-Foshe’im the god who spreads our his hand in forgiveness to sinners. A God of forgiveness. When all else fails in the work we do, God will forgive.

We are at the last level, the final push towards really entering a new year with a clean slate. Hopefully we have done the work needed to arrive at this moment of Neilah before the gates have closed and really truly stand as individuals, stand as ourselves in pure concentration, pure meditation on what it means to stand before God.

As we begin to chant the last Amidah of the season of repentance, say that last vidui prayer, I challenge each of us to really stand with Koved Rosh, focus your intention on the process, on the meaning, on the work we’ve done together this last 25 hours.

The challenge is to get over the physical stress and really live in the spiritual challenge of being present. Let us stand here as a community with Koved Rosh, with intention, with focus, with love.