Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/jewish_wisdom/page/25/)
Degradation & Grime, Abundance & “Good Breeding” Bechukotai 2 2011
How do we respond when confronted with the impact of degradation on people? Political correctness seems to demand that because people are of a minority we must never speak about their faults, which can’t be right.
Community-building and tikkun-ing the world are two themes A Traveling Jewish Theatre has explored during its thirty-four years. After receiving the Tikkun Award, theater co-founder Naomi Newman told two stories. The first, excerpted from Coming from a Great Distance — the theater’s inaugural piece — emphasizes the importance of community and is based on the life and stories of the Baal Shem Tov. Her second story illustrates our ability and responsibility to heal our potentially perfect, yet imperfect world. Don’t miss her dramatic performance:
[youtube: video=”apoGSoKZbDc”]
The Torah has little to say about transsexuality, but it has a lot to say about people who do hard-to-explain and sometimes terrible things in order to be true to themselves. My personal archetype was Jacob. I had never liked Jacob, but even as a child I recognized his life as an uncomfortably apt metaphor for mine.
The idea that morality as a concept and practice is the result of forces of power in society is developed in Foucault and others. Is this definition of power = morality the case in Jewish thought?
Rabbi Artson argues here that “The universe, if left to its own devices, will produce goodness, righteousness, decency, all by itself.” That this is true, despite everything we do to the contrary, is an encouragement to us to fight social evil, to give thanks to all who came before us and to feel at one with all people.
Crossposted from Hitzei Yehonatan. “You Shall be Holy, for I the Lord am Holy”
A commentary on the first sentence of the Torah portion that might literally be translated as Holies or Holy Ones. A friend of mine and loyal reader of these pages, Rabbi David Greenstein of Montclair New Jersey, was disconcerted by a remark I made a few weeks ago (Metzora, Supplement II) in which I stated that “Holiness is somehow connected in Jewish thought and in halakhic thought with separation, with making distinctions, drawing boundaries.” He argued, citing Sha’arei Yosher by R. Shimon Shkopf (a major Lithuanian Talmudist of the late 19th and early 20th century, who developed a philosophy of the underlying principles of Jewish law), that the holiness demanded of us is not “to distance ourselves from permitted enjoyments… but that the purposeful goal of our lives [is that] all our service and toil should always be dedicated to the good of the collectivity, that we not avail ourselves of any act or movement, benefit or enjoyment unless it have some aspect that is for the benefit of those other than ourselves.”
Whether intentionally or not, my friend raised the same question as is implied by a well-know midrash on the first verse of this week’s parasha, which warns against confusing Divine holiness and human holiness. In Leviticus Rabbah 24.9 we read:
אמר ר’ שמעון בן לקיש… “קדושים תהיו”. יכול כמוני? תלמוד לומר: “כי קדוש אני ” – קדושתי למעלה מקדושתכם. The Torah states: “You shall be holy [for I the Lord your God am holy]” (Lev 19:2). Is it possible [that you be holy] like Myself? Scripture states: “For I am holy.” My holiness is above your holiness. God is by His very nature utterly different from human beings or, as Rudolf Otto puts it, “Wholly Other”: His holiness transcends the corporeal world, and He dwells in realms far beyond our comprehension, let alone our ability to participate therein. Hence, when the Torah speaks of human beings, or specifically Jews, as being called upon to be holy, or even to emulate God’s holiness, it refers to something utterly different in nature than God’s holiness—and it is this which Rav Shkopf, and my friend, had in mind. Our midrash does not provide any positive definition of what human holiness is, but suffices with stating the radical difference between Divine holiness and human holiness. However, from the continuation of our parashah and the laws contained in the chapter that follows this general statement, one may infer that it means caring for one’s fellow man, behaving in an ethical manner, and creating an ethical society based, not only on decent behavior, but on loving and generous attitudes towards others. (Verses 5-8, which are concerned with ritual issues of consuming the flesh of a zevah offering within a certain period of time, are a kind of exception that proves this rule, and one might well ask what these verses are doing here—but that is a question for another time.)
An interesting insight into this idea is provided by Rav Yehudah Ashlag in one of the essays in his book Matan Torah (brought to my attention by another friend, Professor Emeritus Yehuda Gellman). Ashlag speaks there of the purpose of human life generally and the reason for Creation, beginning with the statement that it is the very nature of God to give. God needs nothing for Himself; He is infinite and omnipotent, and is in any event incorporeal and without the needs of flesh and blood. Hence, his nature is to give; the Creation of the universe was, so to speak, an expression of His need to give, to have someone to love.
The Seventh day of Passover is a holiday, much like the first day. It deals with redemption and also with another stage of the deliverance from Mitzrayim, that of the splitting of the sea which allowed the Israelites to cross, and then returned to its natural state in order to swallow Pharoah’s cavalry, which had been in pursuit of the former slaves.
Please listen to it at http://www.jewintraining.com/
Leigh Marz began a yearlong process of converting to Judaism in 2004. In preparation for Leigh’s conversion ceremony her “Jew coach” (as Leigh calls him) asked her to share a written summary of her experience with guests. “A written paragraph or two should do it,” he suggested. What seemed a simple task became a brief obsession and led to the writing of Tales of Jew In Training. In preparation for the ritual, Leigh made each guest a handbound copy.
One of the great poems of the 20th century — surely the greatest American Jewish poem. It should be read during Passover (it begins with a celebration of the Exodus) and celebrates the Jewish tradition but reaches far beyond it to the whole of Humanity.
I’d like to share an annual Passover message from the courageous leader of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel, Rabbi Arik Aschermann of Jerusalem. On this Passover holiday I invite you to become our fellow provocateurs by making a generous donation to Rabbis for Human Rights. Passover/Shabbat HaGadol Thoughts
by Rabbi Arik Ascherman
On Saturday night a Ta’ayush activist called me right after Shabbat ended. In a choked up voice he told me about the day’s events I had not witnessed because of the fact that I am Shabbat observant. Thanks to the work of our OT legal staff the valley of T’wamin was filled with Palestinian shepherds and their flocks for the first time in over ten years.
On all other Passover nights, we just read the Haggadah but on this night, we will create a special link between spirit and body, blessing and eating by examining Passover through the scientific understanding of our brain. Interpersonal Neurobiology connects our brains, minds and relationships.
Dusting off my Haggadah several months early, I was once again intrigued with the nuances of the parable. Far from being a simple description of four types of children, I now saw the parable as offering profound insight into the elements that impact the development of the child, and by extension, the formation and potential for transformation of the world.
Or Rose reviews Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman’s new book, “Freedom Journeys: The Tale Of Exodus And Wilderness Across Millennia.”
Judith Butler, in a recent book, argues that even insinuations present in speech acts alone can already be damaging and destructive to society. The Ben Ish Hai in his Aderet Eliyahu provides a vivid example of how minor translocations of speech and action contain within them the capacity for what I prefer to label as dis-location, that is a movement away from normal place of being with a negative connotation.
In this year of uprising in Egypt what does the Passover story have to say to us? What would liberation throughout the world mean? FOR YOUR SEDER, here is a Haggadah supplement — not a replacement. If you don’t normally do a Seder, you can use this supplement as the basis for an interfaith gathering in your home on April 18, the first night of Passover, or on any of the other nights of Passover until it ends on April 26. Many people read part or all of this at any Seder they attend, sometimes going around and having a different person read each paragraph.