G-dcast

I don't know if I should call this a blog, because even though it comes in weekly installments, it's not really just that.

G-dcast.com  is an attempt to animate the Torah, essentially.  Each week, the new parshat comes up, always with a new commentator.  I've been enjoying it since Bereshit, although my favorite so far is Lech Lecha.  I highly recommend stopping by every Monday for a quick dose of something to think about.

Blog Link: Shalom

From Jewlicious: Dare to Bless

This one starts out with a little bit about this week's parsha.  My favorite part comes at the end, when he breaks down the word "shalom".

Reb Shlomo taught that the very lettes of the word Shalom teach us important lessons about peace.  'Shalom' has three letters, Shin, Lamed, and Mem.

Shin - The first way to bring peace is to bring two sides together, like the middle of the 'shin'.  (The letter 'shin' consists of three 'vavs' which are joined at the bottom).

Lamed - The tallest letter.  It goes from the highest to the lowest.  If you want to bring peace, you have to stick out.

Mem - The 'mem' is closed, with no openings.  Shalom has to be complete, like a little wall.  The wall of peace has to be complete.  You can't say, "I am peaceful, but I have a little opening for getting mad in an emergency."

Service 2-23-2008

Today's Torah portion covered the Golden Calf Incident.

The discussion didn't center on idolotry, though, which was pretty cool.  Instead, we talked about God's discussion with Moses.  I hadn't really ever noticed that Moses found out about the idol from God, while he was still up on Mt. Sinai.  

The Rabbi pointed out that the way it was phrased (...what YOUR PEOPLE have done...) was a lot like how spouses argue.  The relationship between Moses and God was that personal, familiar, and passionate.  It's a powerful picture.

What comes next is equally revealing:  God tells Moses to go away and deal with the people, because God is so very angry that he needs to be alone, because all he wants to do is destroy the Hebrews.  Incredibly, Moses is the one to calm him down.  Moses points out that God had just brought the people out of Egypt, and that it wouldn't make sense to kill them now, because what would the Egyptians think?  God agrees to give them another chance, the Hebrews live on, and God...apologizes.

This brings up a terrifically interesting issue: if God did something that requires an apology, then does that mean he can make mistakes?  The Rabbi says that there are midrashim that say, yes, God is falliable.  And since God isn't perfect, he likewise does not expect perfection from us.  What he wants is for us to follow the laws as best we can, and admit when we've done wrong.  

It's beautifully freeing, especially for me, being a perfectionist...from a Christian tradition that always felt like it demanded absolute perfection in order to be worthy.  I know I'm not the only one who felt that way; when I was in high school, there was a huge problem with eating disorders among the high school youth group.

Apt Torah Portion

Commentary on this week's Torah portion.  It has a stunning parallel to events currently happening in my life.

I just quit my night job.  I've been working two jobs for over a year and a half, and it just got to be too much.  I want to be able to have friends, and spend time with them.  I want to eat food that doesn't come out of a package.  I want to go to the gym.  I want time to read and learn.  I'd maybe even like to have a romantic relationship again.

Still, it's a drastic change in my life.  I barely know what to do with myself on those rare occasions when I get a weekend off.  It's daunting, and I don't even really have my freedom yet, because I have to serve out my two weeks.

Shabbat service: My First Torah Service

Today we did a Torah service. Usually, we just do more of a prayer
service and we only look at the Torah in the Ark. Today, though, we
took it out and showed it around. We touched our prayer books to the
Scroll and then kissed them. Then the rabbi undressed the Torah, and
prepared to read today's Torah portion. He told us that he had planned
to read the section with the burning bush, but changed his mind. We
heard the beginning of the book of Exodus, instead. He also told us
that it's part of the tradition to have somebody read along in a
Chumash, just to make sure that the pronounciation is correct. He
encouraged the Hebrew readers to call out corrections, if necessary.

Sent from my iPhone

Saturday's Service: cancelled

When I went to the temple for shabbat morning service, there was no minyan, so we couldn't hold a proper service.  Instead, we talked about the torah portion (Genesis 32:4 - 36:43), which covered the rape of Dinah.

This is an interesting story.  It's not often talked about in Christian churches, and I'd never been taught the story before.  It's a really difficult and confusing passage.  We mostly talked about it in the context of honor killings, and of the marginalization of women in the biblical text.  The Rabbi mentioned a comparison to The Godfather again, this time in reference to Jacob.

I understand it as an unethical overreaction to an incredibly difficult situation.  Key parts of the story are missing.  We don't know how Dinah felt about Shechem.  Even that brings up the question of whether or not that matters.  If it were a date-rape situation, would that make it less wrong?  And if Shechem's actions weren't morally reprehensible, what effect does that have on the reaction of Dinah's brothers Simeon and Levi?  It would seem that their reaction would be even more extreme and difficult to understand, and very unethical.

At the same time, Simeon and Levi come off very badly in the story, and it seems that the author is trying to paint them as unethical.  It's all very much a gray area, though.  Jacob rebukes them at the end of the story, saying that their actions have made him and his people look bad.  It's a very weak admonition, and it's not even the last word in the argument; Simeon and Levi get that, in defense of their actions.

It's an extremely challenging text, and I really don't know what to think of it, other than to realize that there are as many reactions to a situation as there are people.  Beyond that, there are a million ways to interpret the behavior, especially when it's recorded forever in a pretty cryptic fashion.

Saturday's Service: Haftarah

Today, we didn't go over the Torah portion for the week.  Instead, the Rabbi wanted to talk about the Haftarah portion, which was from the beginning of 1 Kings.

It was about the death of King David and the succession of King Solomon to the throne.  The Rabbi was particularly interested in the references to political machinations among Bathsheba, Adonijah, Solomon, and David himself.

This represented the second time I've heard the Rabbi compare the story of King David to The Godfather.  It's an interesting comparison, the way he tells it.  David had a protection racket going, which is one of the ways that the Mafia made money.  He also had a hitman in Joab, who he specifically instructed Solomon to kill, almost as a last dying wish.

It seemed particularly apt, as I watched American Gangster with my mom after I was done at the synagogue.  I will admit that it was the Magen David around Russell Crowe's neck that initially made me think of comparing the kingpin to King David, but...it worked, at least on the surface.  I want to study more, because I probably don't know enough about either the Mafia or King David to be accurate.  My prior lessons in the Hebrew Bible (aka Old Testament) are best characterized in one word: brief.

If nothing else, it serves as a reminder that the characters in the Bible were human.  They were good people who did bad things, and  sometimes bad people who did good things.  What I take away from it, more than anything else, is that I don't have to follow tradition to the letter; it's more important to learn, understand, and make things relevant.

Online Classes

I stumbed across Jewish Pathways  the other day, but only just started actually exploring it.  It's an educational outlet of an Orthodox Jewish website.

Turns out, they've got some online classes that are FREE!  For a limited time, of course.  But you can't get any better than free.  Not to mention that study is a mitzvah...

One of them requires buying a text, which is kind of lame for an online class, but it happens to be a book that my Rabbi recommends, so I was planning to buy it anyway.  I've signed up for the Laws of Shabbat, Chumash Themes, The Way of G-d, and Deed & Creed.

So far, I've started the Chumash course, and it's pretty interesting.

Yesterday's Service: From Sarai to Sarah...Palin

The Torah portion yesterday was about Abram's wife Sarai (the same people who God renamed Abraham and Sarah). She was unable to have children, and in that time, that was a vital function for a wife. The had rules for how a man could go about having children if his wife had difficultites, and one of those was to take a concubine from among the household's maids. This is what Sarai suggested that Abram do. They chose Sarai's handmaid Hagar the Egyptian to do the duty.
They then encountered a problem. After Hagar became pregnant, Sarai felt that Hagar no longer respected her.

This is where the lesson came in. Instead of teaching us the story, the Rabbi wanted us to discuss honor, and what it means to honor someone. And he wanted to talk about the opposite of honor, because that is what Hagar did to Sarai.

Firstly, the word for honor that was used in the Hebrew text, translated literally, means "to give weight to". The word used in this story was "to make lighter". There's a bit of room for interpretation as to what exactly that means. In fact, everybody who shared their ideas had a slightly different opinion.

The Rabbi also told us that he found it interesting that the Bible says to "love your neighbors", but does not say the same about your parents. We are supposed to "honor" them, with honor being from the same Hebrew root.

I think this means that God knows that you will have disagreements with your parents (or your masters, if you're a maid), and they will do things and say things that will make you not love them (hopefully only temporarily). Even so, you must be able to respect them because of their positions.

This got us into talking a bit about politics, because similar logic should apply to political leaders. The Rabbi asked, if George W. Bush were to walk through the door, would you shake his hand? He argued that most people would, although most present disagreed. The Rabbi asked about other figures. That brought us from Sarai to Sarah Palin. Most of us would shake hers.

EDIT:  For those who are sent her by Google and want to know Sarah Palin's religion, she says she's Protestant.