RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:YITRO:MEDITATION:

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:YITRO:MEDITATION:

 

Parasha Yitro: Exodus 18:01-20:23

Rabbi Arthur Segal
Hebrew College, Newton Centre, MA, USA
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC;Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

 "Well Now it's Time to Say Goodbye to Jed and All His Kin"

Imagine, if you will, a movie trailer advertisement that yells loudly at you as your popcorn flies into your lap: "Coming Soon! Charleton Heston staring as Moses in Jethro!" This parasha takes the children of Israel to Mt. Sinai for the Revelation, the giving of the Ten Commandments and Torah. Yet the portion is not named after these Ten Utterances, but after Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, a Midianite priest.

Our rabbis teach that God chose the wilderness of Sinai to reveal Torah so that no one nation could say that Torah was given to our country. So it is fitting in this regard that this Torah portion was named after a person who was not a member of the tribe.

Our rabbis also teach that each of the 613 commandments given in the Torah stem from one or more of the Big Ten (The Ten Commandments, that is. Not Michigan, Ohio State, et al!). Even the law against gossiping is said to be stealing a man's reputation and actually murdering him. Of the 613 mitzvoth, most cannot be performed today as there is no Holy Temple, and many other mitzvoth are only valid in the original territories of the twelve tribes, or if the Sanhedrin (Jewish court) has jurisdiction. (The Sanhedrin has not functioned fully since the Roman conquest.) As individuals we need to reclaim the revelation for ourselves so that we can perform those mitzvoth that help us remember to adhere to the Ten Commandments, via a path of Jewish Spiritual Renewal.

The universality of our religion was promoted by our prophets and our Talmudic rabbis. By their time, God was no longer thought of as the tribal protector-judge of Israel. Our teachings, in part, were co-opted by Christianity and Islam. Maimonides stated that the popularity of Christianity and Islam are part of God's plan to spread the ideals of Torah throughout the world. The Ten Commandments move society closer to a perfected state of morality and toward a greater understanding of God. Western law and democracy – especially the Constitution of the United States – finds its roots in Torah.

This premise leads to some interesting conclusions as we are now into the third Gregorian millennium. In a thought-provoking article in Tikkun Magazine (November-December, 1999), Rabbi Rami Shapiro of Miami's Temple Beth Or and director of the Shema Center for Jewish Mediation makes five points, which I have elaborated or amended.

1.      We need to stop thinking in terms of Jews and "non-Jews." We must cease defining people by what they are not and begin to understand them for what they are. There are Hindus, secularists, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, atheists, etc. And we need to stop labeling them as non-Jews, Gentiles, or worse yet "goyem."

2.      We need as Jews to remember as we read this Torah portion that we all stood at Mt. Sinai when God declared us to be a holy, set aside, people. God did not command us to be Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, or Reconstructionist. We need to direct our energies away from labeling each other and away from denominational competition. We need to focus on what we have in common and not on man-made walls and rules that keep us apart. There are two types of Jews: serious and not serious. Serious Jews, Rabbi Shapiro continues, range from the most halachic to the most humanist. We share a love of a commitment to Jewish civilization, the basics of which we read in this Torah portion.

3.      We need to develop a similar service and liturgy that brings us closer to God and does not puts us into a paper chase to read every last prayer in a rushed and non-meaningful way. Talmud Beracoth makes it very clear that Kavenah (spiritual concentrated intention and attention) is the most important element of prayer and that an abbreviated version of prayer said in one's vernacular is more meaningful than a rushed full prayer said in a language one does not understand. We need to create a new liturgy that opens us to God in our prayers and to each other as a united, loving, caring community.

4.      We need, to quote Rabbi Shapiro, "to mainstream the mystical." There are three fundamental aspects to Judaism: culture, ethics, and spirituality. For the past fifty years, Rabbi Shapiro posits, we have emphasized the first often at the expense of the last. One no longer has to be Jewish to enjoy Levy's Rye Bread, but we as Jews have failed to make Jewish practice compelling. We must reclaim the inner life of Judaism and speak to our souls in a powerful and mystical way. We need to recapture the feeling Abraham had when he prayed to God and not let the walls that we built over the millennia keep us from God. By living spiritually and walking humbly with God, as our prophet Micah suggested, and remembering what was taught in this parasha, we will not only be good to ourselves, but also to our community, and our society. Tikkun olam, repairing the world, can really only begin when we repair our own souls.

5.      Lastly, when we read Parasha Yitro, we must remember the light we were (and still are) and were meant to be to the other nations. We need to reclaim Yeshu the Jew, as opposed to Jesus the Christ. Let's face it, Yeshu is the most influential Jew of all time. We have allowed the horrors done to us (and others) in his name to prevent us from claiming him as one of our own. Yeshu was a first-century Jewish mystic, reformer, and healer. We need to understand not the religion about Jesus, but our own religion, which was the religion of Yeshu.

So many of the things that are originally Jewish, but that the Church does well, we as Jews shy away from as non-Jewish or goyish. We, as Jews, need to develop healing services. We need to have mitzvah or ahavath chesed committees to help the rabbi do his work within our community the way churches have pastoral committees. When disaster strikes, let our synagogues be open to provide shelter and food. This is not just a Christian thing, this is a Jewish thing.

In closing, as we listen to the Torah read this Shabbat let us individually and communally vow to personalize the Revelation, and reclaim Spiritual Judaism for our use and for our doing all that is truly Jewish and be renewed.

 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Arthur Segal
Hebrew College, Newton Centre, MA, USA
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC;Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

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Comments re last week's class:

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Ben from Chabad:

Rabbi,

Something that comes to mind is the Hebrews prayed to this incredibly violent G-d one who smotes and accepts prayers of violence........during these times did the true personality of the Judaic G-d regret these peoples feelings?  I am trying hard to understand how we made the leap from the G-d as you mention that smote the Egyptians at the sea of reeds rather then prevent their passage through cutting them off some other way, to the G-d of the Jewish people who forgives transgression understands inequities etc. 

 

 I guess what I am trying to say is did this Jewish feeling G-d exist in the Hebraic G-d?  What changed him? Why  has he become compassionate and stopped showing his hand to men as he had during the time of the Exodus?  It seems to me if we say ''shema yisrael hashem elokeynu hashem echad'' there is only one G-d. Why did he have a personality shift so to speak? We did not begin to have a kinder gentler new improved G-d because of the sages....

 

My feeling is that the Hebrew G-d and the Jewish G-d are obviously one in the same as there is only one. However we truly are in his image he has evolved as we have evolved. I hope that is not blasphemous in any way just seems to me once he got us on the right track he saw it was so and he also changed.......

 

How is it the Hebrew G-d still seeps into so many Jewish heads? 

 

 Thanks for listening...... a bit of a vent..... but this topic frustrates me because it makes it even harder for the Jew than it already is, we are scorned, chastised, rebuked and even killed for our beliefs. Isn't it hard enough to be a faithful believer? 

 

 In addition to all of this we are taught about the Hebraic G-d and often not showed the Jewish G-d , the G-d who loves his people like his own children who gives even when they are not interested in him.  I think if we were all taught the spiritual renewal and Talmud more in schools we would be a better adjusted society, as far as the Jews go, with an identity that makes sense to them and one that gives their soul comfort and strength to go forward and be more every day.

Ben

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Amayn.

I learned some interesting facts.
Have a wonderful seder.
I was teaching some Tu B'Shvat at my workshop on Sunday and i give out barren fig tree branches so many people can grow new fig trees, as they do each year, from my tree.

Take my hug and share it with Ellen and all. Hugs are like flames with  warmth. The more you share them, the greater they are and don't diminish. (i made that up.)

A friend wrote me today that she is waiting in shul tonight for me to  receive my hug, as she especially needs it today.

Please make misheberach for Atlanta resident, Ronnie, Reuben Alter ben Chava Yocheved who had brain surgery today, only getting out 80 %.

 Shabbat shalom,  
 Joy from Renewal in LA

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