Torah 
Wed Feb 24, 2010 at 16:59:14 PM EST
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You probably know that this coming Sunday is Purim, the Jewish festival commemorating the events in the biblical Book of Esther. What you may not know is that the “minor” Fast of Esther proceeds Purim and, this year, is observed on Thursday February 25th (as a “minor” fast, this day is only commemorated from sunrise to sundown).
In the Book of Esther the title character is a Jewish Persian queen who, when the Jews* are threatened with mass extermination at the hands of the courtier Haman, takes action to lobby her husband the king to turn the judgment around and save the Jews and to instead allow the execution of Haman and his followers. As the story goes, prior to making her efforts with the king, Esther requested that the Jews (along with herself and her attendants) fast for 3 days in prayer and support. After the victory over Haman, the Jews establish not only the celebration feast of Purim, but also the fast of Esther, as days of commemoration in perpetuity.
This practice, of fasting when faced with a threat to survival, goes at least as far back as the story of Moses fasting when confronted by the Amalekite threat. The concept of these acts of self-denial is to ground the warriors, or the threatened people, in the notion that victory and survival will not come through military might alone. For the Israelites, this survival was understood as coming by divine intervention, through the agency of a higher Power.
For ourselves,
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Thu Jan 28, 2010 at 09:59:56 AM EST
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This Saturday January 30th is also, in the Hebrew calendar, known as Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish “new year for trees.” This day’s origins go back thousands of years, and was first marked as a way to consistently measure the age of trees for the purpose of tracking tithing obligations on the fruit. Since the Middle Ages, some Jews have marked this day with a feast of fruits that traditionally grow in ancient Israel . In the spirit of the day, I want to share a very old tree story. The Talmud – the Jewish code of laws, stories and traditions that was written in Babylonia some 1,500 years ago – tells the story of Choni the Circle Maker. Choni was what we might describe as a miracle worker or a shaman, known for his ability to make rain, and on one occasion for negotiating with God by refusing to leave a circle until there was adequate rain. When Choni was already an old man, he was walking along and saw a man planting a carob tree (aka St. John's Bread). Choni inquires: “How long does it take for a carob tree to bear fruit?” The man replies: “Seventy years.” Choni then asks: “Is it clear to you that you will live for another 70 years to enjoy the fruits of your labor?’ The man: “I came into a world full of grown carob trees. Just as my ancestors planted those trees for me, so too I plant for my children.” Choni continues on his way and,
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Mon Apr 06, 2009 at 10:10:53 AM EDT
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Click here to download a beautiful PDF of a bookmark with JFSJ's 2009 Pesach message--perfect for holding the page in your haggadah while leaving two hands free to juggle parsley and salt water. Text of the message below: The economic collapse has left many of us feeling powerless and despondent. The world, it seems, has drifted into a new Mitzrayim, a term that refers geographically to the land of Egypt, but literally means a narrow or constricted place. It is not easy to escape from Mitzrayim. According to the Torah, the ancient Israelites endure slavery for hundreds of years before
summoning the strength even to pray for liberation. Frightened when freedom comes, the people continue to long for a return to the security of slavery. At one point, God comments, “They will know that I am Adonai their God who brought them out of Mitzrayim to dwell among them.” (Exodus 29:46) Rashi, an eleventh century scholar reads this verse conditionally: “On the condition that I dwell among [the people], I
have brought them out of Egypt.” That is – as long as the people allow the divine presence to dwell among them, they will remain free from Mitzrayim. But the moment the people stop actively trying to make the divine presence manifest, they will metaphorically return to the constricted space
of Mitzrayim. By giving tzedakah, by working for policies that will create opportunity for everyone, and by helping to create a more just society, we too can make the divine presence evident among us, even – or especially – in difficult times, and will lift ourselves collectively out of the narrowness of Mitzrayim. — Jill Jacobs, Rabbi-in-Residence for Jewish Funds for Justice and author of There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition (Jewish Lights 2009), is a leading expert on Jewish perspectives on economic and social justice.
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Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 00:31:42 AM EST
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"She is more in the right than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah". And so arrives the moment of epiphany for Judah, changing him forever as perhaps this week's parshah, Vayeshev, indicates.
It is often impossible to predict which are the experiences that will forever change us. The most important and life-altering experiences so often come "out of the blue", shocking us with their impact for months or years thereafter. We describe the life-altering event as unprecedented, seemingly unrelated and unpredictable, offering us a new perspective or freedom from our limited perspective.
This is precisely what happens to Judah in the Torah reading this week.
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Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 10:04:49 AM EDT
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( - promoted by Sheila Webb-Halpern)
This parshah continues Moses' second address with some of the Torah's most profound social laws, laws which have found their way into many democratic nations and legal systems today. In fact the RaMBaM, or Maimonides, calculated that 72 of the 613 mitzvot in the Torah are in this parshah alone! Within the parshah many of the laws refer to situations that we still struggle with in our society today such as abusive relationships, rape, treatment of foreigners, workers' rights and wages, honesty in business, humane treatment of animals, military conduct, and many others. As we move through the Hebrew month of Elul, opening the doors of our heart and soul to the teshuvah we need to do ahead of us, this parshah can act as an audit for our own actions. While, at the same time the Torah exhorts us to live a Godly life, there is a tradition that the very laws we interpret or create in our quest for a sacred and secure existence, should themselves be developed in such a way that their observance is not so out of reach of the majority of people that we set up a society pre-disposed to moral failure. In a Talmudic commentary Rabbi Yehoshua advises his community not to establish such strict laws of observance that it will be impossible to faithfully observe them, "A restriction should not be imposed on a community unless the majority can follow it." (B. Talmud, Bava Natra 60b). This sets up an acknowledged tension between inherited law that may need to be reconstructed in light of contemporary values, which most liberal Jewish movements have done around the role of women, gay, lesbian and interfaith household inclusion, halachik interpretation, and so on. We do the same in the realm of civil law all the time. This tension is not by definition a negative one, and some of our passion for creative expression and work for social, environmental, and economic justice stems from the Jewish commitment to engage in the world from a values-based foundation, and advocating for change when the structures or laws themselves no longer uphold the evolving sense of ethical behavior and spiritual life. In fact, democratic societies such as ours can often present greater challenge and require more intense commitment in both Jewish and American culture, because of the emphasis on choice over obligation.
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Mon Aug 18, 2008 at 14:22:30 PM EDT
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As you may know, jspot features a d'var torah (Torah commentary) each week. These pieces focus on the weekly Torah reading from a social justice point of view, and are written by a variety of scholars, activists, rabbis, and others. As I'm thinking about whom to invite to write for us next year, I'd love your thoughts--whose point of view would you like to see here? What writers should we invite? For examples of past divrei torah, click here. Don't want to include your ideas in the comments? Feel free to send an e-mail to me: jjacobs[at]jewishjustice.org
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Thu Aug 07, 2008 at 10:25:41 AM EDT
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This sunday, August 10th, is Tisha B'Av - a historical day of Jewish mourning, originally tied to the date of the temple destruction and then added in over the centuries with layers of mourning for tragedies of Jewish history (e.g. the expulsion from Spain, the Holocaust). Every year I end up in conversations with my modern minded friends of diverse political persuasions who struggle with this day; its relevance to a politically empowered Jewish people; its Jewish-centered focus in the space of so much else that goes on in the world; its orientation of mourning for things lost that some may not wish to see returned (e.g. animal sacrifice). For myself, I seek to connect its core with our contemporary experience, and to see the connection with how those who lived in lamentation 2500 years ago experienced their world, and how we experience the world around us. Given my obession with coal miners, my friend Seth Winberg (a student at Chovevei Torah) reminded me today of the passage from Eicha (Lamentations 4:8) describing the scene in the streets of Jersualem in the days of destruction of the first temple. Their appearance has become blacker than soot, they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones, it became as dry as wood.
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Fri Jun 06, 2008 at 15:36:45 PM EDT
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The festival of Shavuot celebrates God’s revelation of the Torah to the Children of Israel at Mount Sinai. Throughout the ages, Jewish thinkers have interpreted this foundational narrative in a variety of creative ways, in light of their beliefs and experiences. One teaching on matan Torah (“the giving of the Torah”) that I find particularly inspiring in my work as a religious activist is a homily by the Hasidic sage, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi of Ropshitz (1760-1827), recorded in the book Zera Kodesh.*
The Ropshitzer (as he is called by Hasidim) begins his commentary by quoting his teacher, Rabbi Mendl of Rymanov, who asserts that at Sinai the people of Israel heard “nothing from the mouth of God other than the letter aleph of the first utterance—‘Anokhi, I am the Lord Your God’ (Exodus 20:2).” ** In other words, what the Israelites heard at Sinai from God was undifferentiated sound or the “sound of silence,” for a freestanding aleph makes no sound at all. In either case, this interpretation is a significant revision of the biblical text (see Exodus 20:1), as it denies that God articulated any specific content to Israel.
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Fri May 30, 2008 at 11:07:42 AM EDT
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The power of seven; seven days of creation, seven days of the week, we rest on the seventh day, slaves go free in the seventh year, land lies fallow in the seventh year, debts are remitted in the seventh year, after seven series of seven years, all property reverts to it original owner.
Parasht b'hukkotai maintains the power of seven. If the people of Israel continue to disobey and reject God's covenant, God will visit upon them a seven-fold punishment; the ultimate punishment is exile.
We know that the land can become tame', polluted, impure. We read about this quite clearly in the Haftarah for Shabbat Parah-a passage from Ezekiel, the prophet of the exile. What Ezekiel tells us is that the people, through their impure actions, alienate themselves from God, and this alienation transfers to the relationship between the people and the land. Indeed, there is a triadic alienation-the people from God, the people from the land, and God from the land. As punishment, the people are exiled from the land-alienation of people and land. This undermines God's holiness as the people of God are scattered and landless-alienation of people from God. The land becomes desolate, uninhibited-alienation of God from land.
The first step is to reconstitute the land, reclaim it.
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