Congregation Kneseth Israel in Annapolis, Maryland
  • What's Happening
    • Location & Contact
  • About us
    • Meet Rabbi/Cantor David Sislen
    • Our Proud History
    • Life Cycle Events >
      • Brit Milah and Baby Naming
      • Bar and Bat Mitzvah
      • Weddings
      • Funerals, Cemetery and Jewish Burials
    • Sisterhood
  • Worship
  • Membership
    • New Members
    • Existing Members
  • Donate Today
    • Online Donations
    • Support for Ukraine
    • Other Ways to Support
  • Weekly Drash
  • In The Community

Bechukotai

5/26/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
12 years out of our 19-year lunar calendar cycle, last week’s parsha, Behar, and this week’s, Bechukotai, are read together. The pairing is apt, since the two compliment each other. Ordinarily, we’d learn the last batch of mitzvot (commandments) which relate to our normal lives, hear the Tochacha, the “warning” or “admonition” which cautions us regarding the disasters we will suffer if we don’t obey the mitzvot, and then, as we conclude the book of Vayikra (Leviticus), get one more, last ditch chance at holiness by being able to consecrate persons, property or livestock to G-d. The double-header makes literary and homiletic sense. But, in the remaining 7 years of the cycle, we can learn much from looking at these two relatively short portions.

The fact that Behar and Bechukotai are read separately on a 7 year rotation is more than apt.

The number 7 in Judaism is a special one; it is a number of wholeness, of completion. G-d completed the creation of the universe in 7 days, with the last one being Shabbat. In Behar, the concept of 6 days of work followed by one day of rest is magnified. We learned of the Shmita, sabbatical year, where every seventh year we allow the fields to lie fallow and rejuvenate. Then, after a cycle of 7 times 7 years, we reach the Yovel, jubilee year, where fields are left barren for the 49th and 50th years, and our entire socio-economic structure hits the reset button. On the most basic level, our cycle of concentric “sevens” encourages us, symbolically if not literally, to emulate the Divine in our life cycle.

This week, however, Parshat Bechukotai takes us by surprise. The Tochacha, one of the most harrowing parts of the Torah for its stark and frightening descriptions of the penalties for forsaking the mitzvot, is similarly arranged in a 7x7 literary matrix. Seven categories of abrogation of the commandments are each followed by seven punishments. One can take the predicted horrors as being literal or suggestive, but the message is clear: if emulating the “sevens” of completion can bring us closer to G-d, it is only logical that disregarding them would have precisely the opposite result. One of the parting shots of the third book of the Bible is a not-too-subtle reminder that our choices and our actions have a cumulative effect. Following the mitzvot and striving to emulate the Divine will be rewarded sevenfold; being careless or dismissive of the commandments will punish us “sheva al chatotecha,” (seven times for your sins).

In the commentaries, Chazal (our blessed sages) take it one step further, teaching us the concept of “Mida k’neged mida,” (measure for measure). We learn that after Israel reached the promised land, that the laws of Shmita and Yovel ultimately fell by the wayside, and were not observed for a period of 70 years. As a result, the exile following the fall of the first Temple lasted for the same number of years.

May the closing chapters of Vayikra teach us to number our days such that we get ever closer to G-d, losing neither our footing nor our resolve to continue moving upward toward the Divine. We pray that we will be rewarded for our merit and never punished for our laziness or disregard of our partnership with all that is holy.

Chazak, Chazak, v’nitchazek!

Be strong, be strong, and may we strengthen each other!


Rabbi/Hazzan David B. Sislen
0 Comments

Behar

5/20/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
​If you’re paying attention, the Torah never misses an opportunity to say, “I told you so!” Behar begins with a description of the cycle of sabbatical and jubilee years. Every seven years, we are commanded to let the fields lay fallow and slaves are freed, and then in the 50th year, there is not only an agricultural reset, but a socio-economic one as well. All previously unredeemed properties revert back to their original owners. Why does this happen? The Torah tells us: “The land shall not be sold permanently, for Mine is the land, and you are residents to Me. (25:22)” 

Just consider that for a minute. On a regular 50 year cycle, the Torah gives us the right to sell, exchange, mortgage, and pledge the rights to our land, but then teaches us that we are only temporary custodians ; our property and proprietary rights will expire at the end of the Yovel, jubilee, cycle. The natural way of typically opportunistic humans would be to make the most of the chance while we have the ability. The Torah, however, predicts this inevitable bit of human behavior. “A man shall not oppress his fellow, and you shall fear your G-d, for I am Hashem, your G-d. (25:17)” 

We could easily stop here and learn a lesson or three from the text. We are merely caretakers and residents of the land. If we have a biblical mandate to allow it to rest and regenerate on a regular basis, how much more should we protect the resources it provides? How can we justify what we do to our environment which is doing permanent damage to the global climate, and write it off as being vital to our survival? There’s a reason why the Torah places the verse about oppression in the middle of the section. We have made a commodity out of our perceived right to abuse the environment, in the name of our societal needs, to the point where the global ecosystem may not be able to recover.

Did we not get the hint? Look ahead at 25:35. “If your brother is impoverished and loses his means, you should support him, even if he is a stranger or resident, that he should live with you.” Simple economics says that it’s a whole lot easier to pay down that debt in advance instead of having to make up the difference later. After a year of record deforestation in the Amazon, known as the “lungs of the world” for the amount of CO2 it absorbs, can we reconcile our mandate to be caretakers of our fields with our management history? When cities need to tell their residents to stay indoors because the air quality is hazardous to their health, we’ve clearly exceeded our 50 year reset window.

After the seven, and seven times seven year cycle, slaves are freed and G-d reclaims His right to restore the land to its original status. The laws against oppression warn us about the dangers of claiming the land for our unfettered and unbounded use. Behar ends with a seeming non-sequitur, which, in actuality, is anything but. “You shall not make idols for yourselves, nor shall you make a statue or pillar or a sacrificial stone in your land to bow down to, for I am the Lord your G-d. (26:1).” If we don’t renounce our slavery to the worship of the forces which have granted us the ability to manipulate and commoditize our resources, then we will have failed in our roles as caretakers of the gift we were given. If we can see each other amidst the smoke of the climate change induced fires, survive the hunger from the famine we have created, and overcome the oppression of those who continue to use our dwindling resources for profit, maybe, just maybe, we can fulfill the warning we were given, but did not heed, three millennia ago.

G-d told us so.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi/Hazzan David B. Sislen
0 Comments

Emor

5/13/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Emor opens with a description of the laws of holiness for the Kohanim (priests), specifically as regards the death of close relatives or proximity to corpses. Under ordinary circumstances, contact with the dead is prohibited for a Kohen, although Chazal (our blessed sages) teach us that there are cases in which a priest may attend to the preparation and burial of a relative, even up to and including the Kohen Gadol (High Priest), who may be the officiant of last resort. The Talmud teaches that a Kohen is required to become unclean to properly attend to the burial of his deceased wife. Rabbis Moshe Feinstein and S. R. Hirsch suggest that these laws are intended to encourage the Kohanim to teach their children from an early age regarding the importance of keeping themselves and their actions in balance as is required by their elevated status; they are priests by gift of birth, but the special benefits they enjoy require moderation with the care and discretion they must practice over the course of their lifetimes. A series of laws which echo the same theme follow, outlining the differences between the Kohanim of old and everybody else.


Then, at Emor’s conclusion, we encounter a curious piece of narrative. The son of a mixed marriage—an unnamed Egyptian father and a Jewish mother from the tribe of Dan—gets into an argument with an anonymous Israelite, during which the son blasphemously pronounces the Name of G-d. He is removed from the camp and stoned to death by those who heard the curse. We do not know the subject of the argument, nor why it got so out of hand that capital punishment was indicated. But we can speculate. Some say that the son was critical or dismissive of the Tabernacle ritual. Others suggest that the argument was personal, and that a hot-headed young man took what should have been a rational debate and allowed it, being unschooled in self-control, to escalate one step too far. Rashi infers from the text that the issue concerned the tribal identity of the son, who had been denied residence among Dan since, while Jewish due to his mother, he had no tribal lineage since his father was not Jewish. Several Midrashim even suggest that the man’s father was none other than the Egyptian officer killed by Moses, given a parallel anomaly in the language with which each is described. Despite the Israelite son’s unique status as a tribeless Jew, G-d reminds us that the same laws apply to a resident stranger, proselyte, or native. The well-known litany of legal tit-for-tat (life for a life…eye for an eye…tooth for a tooth…etc.) follows; in other words, you do the crime, you do the time, regardless of who you are.

Why does Emor bookend the parsha with these two pieces of text? The common thread between the two is that the responsibility for moral and ethical education begins at home, in a broad sense. At Emor’s opening, the Kohanim learn that their elevated status does not preclude them from the responsibilities they must undertake, even to their own detriment or defilement. At the Parsha’s closing, we learn that not even having a child who is a product of a mixed marriage, a broken home, a single parent, or having a tribal identity problem absolves their parents and society from offering proper instruction in spiritual and societal values. Sadly, it’s when there is an ethical imbalance in a home, community, or society, that spiritual impurity or moral degradation are most likely to occur. We have become too used to simply accepting it as reality. It does not, however, need to be so. If the same rules apply both to the most privileged in society and to its most disadvantaged, why isn’t it yet in our nature to take responsibility for each other? Why do we habitually segregate ourselves, physically and idealistically, when we can all help each other achieve the sense of hegemony the Torah describes and G-d desires? The text even makes the connection through parallelism in its language. Emor’s opening, in discussing the Kohanim who represent and sanctify G-d, invokes the prohibition against blaspheming His Name. The parsha’s conclusion, in describing the man who is killed for blasphemy, connects to the sanctification of the Divine. Where can we get the inspiration to make the connection ourselves and change the world? The Masoretic mnemonic for the 124 verses in Emor spells the Hebrew word “Uziel.” It's translation?

“My strength is G-d’s.”
Rabbi/Hazzan David B. Sislen
0 Comments

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.