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December 2008
1. The best answer as to why Chanukah is not a major holiday is that it is not mentioned in the Jewish Bible. With the sole exception of Purim, only the holidays mentioned in the Bible, like Pesach and Shavuot, require cessation from ordinary activities. The Books of Maccabees, which describe the retaking of the Temple in 165 BCE, are not part of the Jewish Bible. This date was more than 300 years after the last of the Davidic line was king in Jerusalem . Judah Maccabee and his family were not descendants of King David or of his tribe of Judah , but the Hasmonean dynasty that they founded did rule successfully for over a hundred years. The Romans ultimately turned over kingship to the Herodians. Like virtually all aspects of Jewish life, the Talmud has quite a bit to say about Chanukah, including even down to a discussion of the order in which the candles should be lit. Incidentally, the legend of the long burning candles is found in the Talmud, while the Books of the Maccabees make no mention of it.
2. Actually the countries mentioned - Brazil, the United States, South Africa, Sri Lanka – were all first settled by Sephardic Jews, as a result of the same dynamic. In the early 1600's the Netherlands was the only seafaring power that allowed Jews to travel and trade freely. About this time the Netherlands was breaking free of Spanish power and welcomed refugees, including many Sephardis formerly from Spain and Portugal , who were fleeing the Inquisition and forced conversions. As Amsterdam grew into a major trade capital, Jews sailed in Dutch ships to all corners of the new trading empire – to Brazil in the 1630's, to New York in 1654, and to South Africa and Ceylon about the same time. The Dutch have been righteous people for quite some time!
3. The Hebrew word “kadosh” – holy – is first used in Genesis 2:3 in reference to the Sabbath. “And God blessed the seventh day and called it holy ….”. So the first application of “kadosh” is invoked by God, but not to describe God's uniqueness. Nor is this first reference to any person, place, or thing; examples of all these will come later. The first holy entity named in the Bible is a time, the special time of Shabbat.
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November 2008
1. The Rabbi affirmed that all are to perform acts of charity, rich and poor alike, because of common human dignity. Jewish law says that everyone must give tzedakah — even if a person is on welfare! According to Jewish tradition, the spiritual benefit of giving to the poor is so great that a beggar actually does the giver a favor by giving a person the opportunity to perform an act of charity. Those who are dependent on public assistance or living on the edge of subsistence may give less, but must still give to the extent they are able. No person should give so much that he would become a public burden.
2. In James Carroll's view, the near omnipotent “enemy” of the early Christian Church was Rome , not the diverse Jewish world into which it was born. The Gospels of the Christian New Testament were written between 68 and 100 C.E., several decades after the events they chronicled, during the period when the land of Israel was experiencing the first of the devastating Roman Wars. (The Epistles of Paul were written somewhat earlier). Rome 's victory was complete and her civilization absolutely dominant in this period. The Jewish world was traumatized. As Carroll says “to read the New Testament apart from the Roman war against the Jews – as it almost always is - amounts to reading ( Ann e Frank's) The Diary of Young Girl without reference to the Holocaust”. At this time Christianity was a marginal persecuted upstart sect. It did not become the official state religion until many centuries later, early in fourth century of the Common Era when Constantine reunified the Empire.
3. This is a challenge from the “how quickly we forget” department. The construction period for the current expanded synagogue spanned from mid 2001 to the fall of 2002. The local people and town institutions were very kind to us and outstanding temporary quarters were readily found. There was no single building that could accommodate all our activities, so operations were distributed around Acton.The congregation of St. Mathew's Methodist church on Central Street could not have been more welcoming, making us feel right at home for services in Campbell Hall. Acton-Boxborough Regional High School proved to be a very nice Hebrew School venue during the construction diaspora. The high school auditorium served us well during the High Holydays. And half way between St. Matthew's and the High School, the administrative offices found a comfortable home away from home at 3 Windsor Avenue in West Acton . The fact that the new building is generally working so well is due in huge part to Marty Krasnick . He succeeded in bringing the project in on time and on budget despite a number of crises, like late steel deliveries and HVAC design miscalculations. Marty very ably followed the example of the late Gerson Stutman, the very beloved congregant who was in charge of the first expansion back in 1988.
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October 2008
1. Many meaningful traditions have become associated with Rosh Hashanah over the years. Chapter 23 of Leviticus mandates a celebration on the first day of the seventh month (Tishri) and calls for the blowing of the shofar. The suggestion is one of rest and renewal, though the day is not yet called Rosh Hashanah. By the time of the codification of the Mishnah in the first centuries of the Common Era, the day had come to mark the new year and the passing of judgment on the world, when our fortunes written in the Book of Life. Not much later, during Talmudic times (200-500 C.E.), Babylonian Jews began to treat Elul – the month before Tishri – in a special way. They studied, thought, and prepared for the renewal in their lives for forty days, the thirty days of Elul plus the ten days of Tishri through Yom Kippur. The custom of Tashlich originated last of all. Tashlich comes from the Hebrew “you will cast” and this is quite descriptive as we empty out the contents of our pockets and throw bread into a nearby body of water, as we symbolically cast off last year's sins. According to Arthur Waskow, in his wonderful book on Jewish holidays “Seasons of Our Joy”, there is no mention of Tashlich until late Medieval times. Then it spread from Europe to the Sephardic regions in the sixteenth century, primarily through the influence of the mystical Kabbalists of the town of Safed in Galilee.
2. The Yom Kippur morning Haftarah encourages us to overcome our discomfort and look at fasting in a constructive way. Isaiah maintains that fasting and inward self-mortification are by themselves of no value, but that the fasts the Lord desires are “to let the oppressed go free…share your bread with the hungry…clothe the naked…do not ignore your own kin”. We fast so we can understand the hunger of others …and then hopefully do something about it. As Arthur Waskow paraphrases this passage, it is this “outward help to others that God demands and recognizes as the deed that brings atonement. The notion of a “Second Isaiah” comes from the observation that there are two or more distinctly different styles in the single book of Isaiah, the first extending through the first 39 chapters. The “second Isaiah”, the author of the remaining chapters, completes the book, exhibiting much more lyricism and far less concern with past history.
3. To answer this question it helps to go back to the origins of the religious concept. The connection to the Hebrew root on the left in given in parentheses.
A. To dwell -->1. Mishkan, the tent of meeting or Tabernacle (where God dwells)
B. To count --> 6. Minyan, a quorum for prayer or worship (count to at least ten adults)
C. To repeat --> 2. Mishnah, compilation of rabbinic teaching (to be repeated by followers)
D. Womb --> 5. Rachamim, mercy (a mother's feeling toward her child)
E. To stand --> 8. Amidah, central prayer of Jewish liturgy (recited while standing)
F. To walk --> 3. Halakhah, body of Jewish law and custom (walking in God's path)
G. Separate --> 4. Kadosh, holy (separate from the mundane)
H. Seven --> 7. Shiv'ah, week-long period of mourning (seven days long)
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September 2008
1. Many scholars feel the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is the greatest event in the history of archeology. At least from the point of view of understanding Judaic and Christian history, nothing else comes close. Since the first discovery in 1947 of a cave in Judean desert containing seven ancient scrolls, over the next decade another ten local caves were found to also contain treasures. In total, the remains of about 870 separate scrolls have been found, consisting of thousands of fragments. All are devoted to religious subjects and date from the first or second century B.C.E., before the books of the Bible had been fixed or “canonized”. This cache includes the oldest known versions of every book of the Bible (except Esther), many with “editions” of books never before seen. There are previously unknown psalms and prophecies, new stories of Abraham and Noah, and new writings claiming Moses as the author. There was a very torturous path in making the immense amount of Dead Sea Scroll material publicly available but this finally happened in 1991, so almost all the translations are now publicly available.
2 . Yiddish is a magnificently expressive language. As one journalist once observed, “I speak ten languages – all of them in Yiddish”. It certainly has an especially rich set of ways to describe various sorts of scoundrels, many of which have been adopted by today's American English. For example, a shikker is a drunk, not to be confused with a schnorrer, who is a moocher and chiseler. And the shlemiel is a gauche sort of born loser, while his cousin the shnoook is a timid, wimpy schlemiel, a real patsy. Chronically unlucky souls will also identify with fellow schlimazels, those who always manage to pick exactly the wrong thing for any occasion. Of course, shmos know what it is like to be hapless fall guys. At least they are better than your everyday shtunks, who are the mean and nasty kind of jerks who sneer when they cut you off in traffic. Of this entire list, only “shayner Yid” is complimentary - and very much so. This is somebody who is admirable in character and virtue; it is a wonderful tribute to say one is a shayner Yid, literally a “beautiful Jew”.
3. For Rosh Hashanah, the only positive commandment is that the shofar be blown. The first verse of Numbers 29 repeats the injunction of Leviticus 23:24-25 against normal work on this day, and then commands “you shall observe it as a day when the horn is sounded”. But there is one important exception; shofar blowing is not performed when Rosh Hashanah occurs on a Sabbath, but that is not the case in 2008, and Beth Elohim will hear from Herman Kabakoff and the other shofar blowers at our synagogue. Thank you to them all the others around the world for this mitzvah.
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May 2008
1.
As many Gimel students know, all of these events provide an opportunity to say the brakhah of the Shehecheyanu, ("Who has kept us alive") the name given to the blessing recited oversomething new or special in time. The English translation and spelling of the blessing itself vary but the sense is always very close to this. "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has kept us alive [She-hecheyanu], sustained us, and brought us to this time”. The events range from lighting a candle on the Hannukiah to eating the first fruits of a season and celebrating holidays; the Shehecheyanu always marks the special moment in time. The tractate in the Mishnah dealing with blessings,Berakot, prescribes several situations when this blessing is to be recited, such as moving into a new house or getting new kitchen utensils. Given that the Mishnah was codified almost two thousand years ago, this brakhah is woven very deeply into the fabric of Judaism, and that is indeed a blessing. The Shehecheyanu is also a common prayer said when one first lands in Israel , as those on our Congregation's recent trip did. They went up to a high area, overlooking the old city of Jerusalem , and did a group Shehechyanu. It was a powerful experience.
2.
The character of Moses pervades the Bible. He is the vehicle through which Judaism received so much of its sacred texts, its mitzvot, and its practices. The Torah and our tradition remind us that, though he talked to God, he was just a man - not a Greek demigod - and thus had a family like the rest of us. His mother was Jochabed, who hid the baby Moses in the reeds and was later summoned to care for him by Pharaoh's daughter. His musically talented sister was Miriam, who danced with timbrels after the fleeing Israelites crossed the Sea of Reeds . Exodus also relates the story of how an exiled Moses met his wife Zipporah, one of the seven daughters of a Midianite priest. Moses had to leave his homeland of Egypt and of his adopted grandfather, the Pharaoh, when news spread of his killing of an Egyptian overseer for beating Hebrew slaves. It's hard to think of Moses as an Egyptian. But the very name of Moses is not Hebrew but Egyptian, drawn from the same semantic root as a likely contemporary, the great Pharaoh Rameses II (Re-Moses) whom most scholars believe is the pharaoh of the Exodus story. And here's an interesting fact. Moses appears nowhere in the Hagaddah, even though it is his story which is recounted.
3.The Feast of Shavuot occurs exactly fifty days after the first day of Passover. In between, time was kept by counting the omer , which is a sheaf of barley. People would bring an “omer” of barley to offer to God in hopes of a good wheat crop. This was done for a “week of weeks” or forty-nine days, then the fiftieth day was Shavuot. The barley began ripening around Pesach, and by Shavuot the wheat was usually ready. This would therefore naturally be not only a time to bring the fruits of the barley harvest to market in Jerusalem but also a cause for celebration. This day is also celebrated as the date on which Moses received the Torah and the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai , perhaps the most significant in the history of the Jews. In modern times, receiving Torah, or “teaching” is observed by staying up all night Erev Shavuot, studying. You can join our congregation's tradition by coming on June 8th to study with us until midnight, after Confirmation. There is no particular day traditionally associated with either the arrival of Joshua in Canaan or Elijah's ascension to heaven.
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April 2008
1. The February trip was indeed a very special time, quite outside the everyday experience of Acton adults or teenagers like Jessie Cranin. The most profound experience that Jessie and several others noted of their evening in the desert was the absolute quiet. There was no noise, no rustling, just stillness. One can really reflect in such a place. Is it any wonder that so many of the world's great religions have connections to the desert? By the way, our intrepid fellow congregants also happened to observe an early morning lunar eclipse, just before setting out to climb Masada .
2.
The Pesach observance is prescribed in the Torah, just before the Exodus from Egypt . Moses commanded all generations to remember the hasty flight from slavery. All this is familiar to us because of the seder traditions. The word “seder” comes from a Hebrew root meaning "order," because there is a specific set of information that must be discussed in a specific order. It is the same root from the word "siddur" is derived, since the siddur (prayer book) likewise specifies the order for services. In modern Hebrew, the equivalent of "OK" is "b'seder", which literally means "in order".
3.
Leo Trepp's The Complete Book of Jewish Observance inspired this question. He explains the logic that guided the rabbis of old in interpreting the key commandment to abstain from work on the Sabbath. The 39 prohibitions and 7 major categories covered very well the situations and options available several centuries ago. In most cases, their underlying logic applies quite directly to conditions a very observant Jew could encounter today – like those mentioned in this question. No, it is not strictly acceptable to open an umbrella - even while walking to the synagogue – because that is “building shelter” and too much like work. Yes, it is fine to let that pot simmer on the stove, just as long as you turned on the stove (“lit a fire”) before Shabbat began. Sorry, in the most meticulous practice, one should not carry anything outside the home on the day of rest, even a Tallit bag. That's work. If, however, you wear the Tallit, that is acceptable since it is then a garment. (To be more precise, the prohibition applies to carrying items from one “domain” to another. That is why orthodox Jews often construct an “eruv”, which creates a single domain out of an entire neighborhood and thus allows people to “carry” on the Sabbath.) The rabbis would always advise you to read a letter from your mother, provided it is not about business; but make sure the letter is already opened. There is one principle governs all situations is that any mitzvah may be broken if a life is in danger. That would seem to cover giving medicine. Trepp closes this section with a discussion that is respectful of all the various traditions of Judaism. Most do not advise or insist upon the scrupulousness of observance suggested above, but all are “united in the emphatic affirmation of the Sabbath as the cornerstone of Judaism.
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March 2008
1.
Shabbat Shirah typically occurs in January, when the Torah reading contains the “Song of the sea”. After the escape from Pharaoh's army through the Sea of Reeds , the Israelites celebrated their good fortune in song. Verses 20 and 21 of Chapter 15 in Exodus relate that “ Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her in dance with timbrels. And Miriam chanted for them, ‘Sing to God, for God has triumphed gloriously…' “. Our choir spends several months practicing for this special Sabbath, so that's why we wait until March for this not-to-be-missed service in song.
2. The Mishna, a code of laws governing Jewish life, was committed to its present form about 200 C.E. It is organized into sixty three topical areas, or tractates. The first chapter of the tractate “Pirke Avot”, or Sayings of the Fathers, gives the direct line of descent of the Oral Torah from the Revelation at Sinai in an unbroken chain to the then contemporary Judaism. The chain starts of course with Moses, and then includes his handpicked successor, Joshua. After Joshua came the elders, who were the Biblical Judges down through Samuel, when the monarchy was established. The elders handed the knowledge to the prophets, who are also celebrated in the Bible. Last came the Men of the Great Assembly. This included the scribes and teachers who continued the work of Ezra after the return from the Babylonian Exile and built the Judaism of the period that created the Mishna.
3. The great American musical play evolved in New York City during the early decades of the twentieth century from the imaginations of a truly extraordinary cluster of talents. Jerome Kern wrote almost 1000 songs, including such memorable ones as “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and, with Oscar Hammerstein's lyrics, the classic “Ol' Man River”. Like many other New York Jews of that time, Oscar Hammerstein's father worked in a cigar factory. He did not quite live to see his son's crowning achievements in “ Oklahoma ” and “The Sound of Music”. In the 1920s, it was said of Irving Berlin that he ”has no place in American music. He is American music”. He was the son of a Russian cantor but had no musical training. This did not keep him from creating “There's No Business like Show Business” and “White Christmas”. His “Alexander's Rag Time Band” opened up jazz to a much wider audience back in 1911. George Gershwin helped bring jazz even more into the mainstream with his “Rhapsody in Blue”. Earlier Gershwin also drew strongly on Negro folk traditions for “Swanee”, and again towards the end of life in the great American opera “Porgy and Bess”. This question was inspired by another cluster of extraordinary musical talent, that of our own congregation.
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February 2008
1. Per the advice of Hillel, the festival of Tu B'shevat was fixed as the day of the full moon of Shevat, the fifteeth day of the month. It was celebrated in the time Hillel, almost two thousand years ago, but then ignored for many centuries. The holiday was revived in Israel in the early 1900s when Jews began repopulating the land. Deuteronomy 8:7-8 emphasizes the connection with the land when Moses speaks of “a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey…”. These are the seven species, all were found in Israel more than three thousand years ago. Corn, lemon trees, dates, apples, and tomatoes may grow there today but do not have the distinction of being mentioned in the “seven species” passage of Deuteronomy. There is a growing tradition of a Tu B'shevat seder, where the table is set with these diverse agricultural products of Israel . Incidentally, both corn (maize) and tomatoes are New World plants, although Max Israelite notes that the term “corn” was commonly applied to the principal grain of a country in the centuries before the discovery of the Americas. Thus Biblical references to corn actually refer to barley.
2. Actually Bill Cady did every one of the things mentioned. He did start an endowment fund for Beth Elohim. And decked out in his inimitable 60s tied-dyed shirts, would cook up a storm in the synagogue kitchen for the Brotherhood breakfasts and “Elegant Dinners”. Incidentally, during our most recent renovation, he was the one who worked out the detailed design and fixtures of the kitchen. My personal favorite “Wild Bill” memory was the time he came to the Board several years ago insisting that we had to investigate buying an adjacent 9-acre tract that the wealthy DeMoulas family, racked by an internal squabbling, would soon be putting up for sale. Like several others, I at first thought he was crazy and the parcel well beyond our means. He was prescient and his advice ultimately carried the day; part of today's building and all of the parking lot and driveway sit on this new land. And of course this veteran of the ‘60s planted a peace garden, a no-brainer if you knew him at all. He and his wife Wally were beloved members of a nine-person Adult B'nai Mitzvah Class, a group that studied together for two years and celebrated by reading the Torah on March 6, 2004. It was truly a treat to be a fellow traveler with Bill. His memory is a treasure.
3. Bob Hilliard is today a mild-mannered Emerson College professor. But the story of his and his Army buddy Ed Herman's exploits in postwar Germany is awe-inspiring. It is a lesson in what a person can accomplish. You won't find their story in official accounts. These were two everyday GIs who were simply stunned by the condition of the prisoners after the Germans were evicted from the camps and the lack of basic attention to these survivors. For many months after April, 1945 they wandered in numbed groups and many continued to die. The American command under General Eisenhower was focused on other priorities. Bob and Ed could not tolerate this official indifference to a humanitarian crisis, so they started a grass roots campaign, writing friends and family and urging them to send help. Their efforts started a groundswell which eventually came to the attention of President Harry Truman. Things quickly began to change and by the latter months of 1945, aid and medical help began pouring in. We are immensely fortunate to have a witness of these historic events like Bob Hilliard. Ed Herman died in Florida in 2007, and Bob was there to give a eulogy. God bless both of these amazing people.
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January 2008
1. Jerusalem may have impressive walls and several spectacular buildings, but it is the water system that most impresses students of engineering. About three thousand years ago, several waterworks, fed by the Gihon spring, were carved into the rock beneath the City of David and they are the most complex and advanced of any known from Biblical cities. The three main systems were planned in different periods, but were in operation simultaneously in the First Temple period (i.e. from the time of Solomon to the Babylonian destruction in 586 BCE). The most amazing of these is Hezekiah's tunnel, which was cut through a half a kilometer of rock during the eighth century BCE. It guaranteed water during the time of siege, and likely was built in anticipation of the siege of the Assyrian Sennacherib. Several centuries later, three great aqueduct systems were also built by various rulers, the Hasmoneans, Herod the Great, and later the Romans. These were up to 20 kilometers in length.
2. The Books of the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible, are divided into three sections – the Torah, the Nevi'im (“prophets” in Hebrew), and the Kethuvim (writings in Hebrew). Although there are other references to prophets in the Bible, the last fifteen books of the Nevi'im are named for those commonly referred the “major” and “minor” prophets. The first three books – those of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel – are considerably longer than the rest. These people are thus called the major prophets. (You will also hear references to first Isaiah or second Isaiah because there are two very distinct writing styles in this book. Some scholars will even cite a third Isaiah as the author of the closing chapters of this book.) The remaining twelve books are those named for the minor prophets. In his very informative book “Biblical Literacy”, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin hastens to remind us that “minor” refers only to the length, not the importance of the messages in these books. Amos and Jonah, for example, contain images and stories well known to millions. As for length, Obadiah, with but a single chapter of 21 verses, is the shortest book of the Bible. Perhaps we ought to return to the terminology of Rabbinic literature, in which these prophets are simply known as “the twelve”.
3. The Jewish social groups of Medieval times answered the then current religious requirement that certain objects must be "owned" by those participating in a ceremony. A bride had to be married in "her own" dress and had to be given a ring the groom had "purchased". Likewise for a proper circumcision rite, rabbinic interpretation required that the mohel have his own instruments. In the poor Azhkenazic communities, most families did not have the resources to comply, so they "bought" - albeit on temporary basis - the items to fulfill these requirements. Later on the group conveniently bought them back. This system obviously worked well when items were needed neither continuously (e.g. a burial shawl) nor simultaneously by all members of the community (e.g. Passover dishes). More recently, it is worth noting that the design of Boston 's largest private umbrella social service agency, the United Way , was strongly influenced by the formation of the first independent federation of Jewish agencies, established in Boston in 1895. We should remember these charitable traditions in these difficult times.
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