RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:GALUT:GILA:GEULAH:
Jewish Spiritual Renewal:Shabbat 2/14/09 Hebrew College:Torah,Talmud,TaNaK
Shalom Talmidim v' Chaverim, and again, a big Yasher Koach to our students at Aleph Yeshiva in Phila and Hebrew College Yeshiva outside of Boston:
Again, I am getting this class out, not post-Shabbat, but pre, due to the Tu B'shevat holiday and the large turnout of wonderful people coming to the Tu B'shevat seder.
At the end of the d'var I am posting some comments from last week's class.
Many people who are not spiritually connected tell me they do not believe in miracles. My definition of a miracle is seeing God's handiwork manifest itself daily. To me, my first breath in the morning is a miracle, and one which I give thanks for with a beracha...''modeh ani...''
But I have been witnessing a wonderful miracle with two of our chaverim...one at Chabad in Florida, the other, clear across the globe in South Africa who is without sight....but spiritually sighted. And the fellow in South Africa called out to me for help in getting Braille Jewish texts, and I asked the fellow in Florida to help him. Without hesitation, and with full -speed -ahead he did and is.
And the Ahavath Israel, the mutual love that I see, is beyond words and is a miracle. This is what God's will is for us.
Another: as you're aware, I published, without copyright, a Tu B'shevat Seder Hagaddah from a Jewish Spiritual Renewal view point. I was over whelmed with the number of communities world wide within days who thanked me for it and their use of it. But the greatest one came from the Madrid , Spain Jewish community, who translated it into Spanish, and its on their web site for Spanish speaking Jews world wide.
The point of the above two vignettes is that when we open up our hearts to do God's will, altruistically, without any attachment to outcome, we never know how we can effect others in a positive way.
Conversely, when we do our will, puny compared to the Majesty of our Creator's, there is a good chance that we can hurt someone. And when we hurt others, we invariably, maybe not at that moment, but certainly at some point in the future, hurt ourselves as well.
Some Kabbalah, which is part of our Oral Tradition:
Kabbalistically we are made of three items. The Nefesh is the "soul" that all breathing creatures, man and beast, possess - their lifeforce. The Ruach is the spirit that distinguishes man from the animals. The Ruach gives man with the ability to go beyond the physical existence of animals, and reach into spiritual dimensions -- specifically to try to understand the deeper meanings of God's Torah. All people have a Nefesh and Ruach within their being. The Neshemah however, is an additional part of man's spiritual makeup. Neshemah is a spirit (or "spiritual connection"), given by God when a person through faith/trust, begins to truly seek Him and combines with his fellows. The Neshemah is the spiritual faculty given to man that connects with the Ruach haKodesh (God's Holy Spirit) and the souls of one's fellows, human and animal.
As the above teaches all of us have a Nefesh and a Ruach . This makes as Homo Sapien. But if we want to move forward and become Homo Spiritus, with a vibrant Neshemah, we have to develop a relationship with God, that sustains us even during rough times, and keeps us loving our fellows, even when we feel jealous, and want to lash out with lashon ha ra against them.
Some Rabbinic wisdom: "Fear only two --- the Creator and he who has no fear of Him." Trust me on this because I lived a life before with no love or awe of God. And neither did my friends or with few who went to Temple. If one is so bold to deny God, and deny His Providence and boundaries, how do you think he will behave towards yours? The Yetzer Ha Ra rules this person and their tongues kill multiple times daily with slander and guile. Oh, they can be charming and kind to those they wish to be, and even do some good deeds, but it all gets negated when they hurt others, because the sages teach that one who does mitzvoth and then does lashon ha ra, the merits of those mitzvoth, are given to the victim of the gossip.
Some Torah from our Parasha: Ex: 18:15-18: ''15 And Moses said unto his father-in-law, Because the people come unto me to inquire of God: 16 when they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge between a man and his neighbor, and I make them know the statutes of God, and his laws. 17 And Moses' father-in-law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good. 18 Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for the thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.''
It is sage advice from Jethro, that if his son-in-law Moses tried to judge and teach all of the Hebrews it would kill him. Eventually after 40 years of it, it did. We are a stiff necked people, and we know very soon as Rabbis that trying to get Jews to behave as Jews ought to behave is like herding cats.
While Jews may not be known to be great yacht men or sports figures, with some exceptions, we excel in one sport fantastically....killing Rabbis. We tried for 40 years to rid ourselves of Moses, kvetching our way thru B'midbar. We had an armed rebellion led by Korach, Moshe's own relative. Judah ha Nasi, the redactor of the Mishna, and one of our famous rabbis, had body guards, not to protect him from Romans but to protect him from Jews. And our priests and kings killed Rabbis, rabbis hated each other as well, and caused each other early deaths.
So we rabbis are taught early on to ignore these slings and arrows. If Moses and Rabbi Judah ha Nasi couldn't please all of the Jews and Hebrews, if Korach was denying Moses' and Aaron's right to lead, both God given, and in a sense calling their ordination, second rate, we rabbi are already prepared for such lashon ha ra.
Unfortunately, it just shows that many Jews still wish to be Sapien and not Spiritus, be second rate humans, and not have a healthy developed Neshemah. It also shows that these Jews aren't very original and as we will read below, are spiritually disconnected from God, are short on wisdom and lack understanding. Our Talmud excludes them from being witnesses in court, teachers and of course, Rabbis.
Some more Torah from our Parasha:Ex.: 20:18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die."20:20 Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning."
Some TaNaK from this coming Shabbat's Haftarah: Isaiah 6:5: '' "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."
Notice how Isaiah is not just saying only Hebrews, whom he is teaching, commit lashon ha ra. He does it also. It is awfully hard to avoid completely. But we must guard our tongues and try with God's help.
Some Talmud Bavli Tractate Yoma: "Rabbi Elazar Ben Azarya expounded upon the following verse: 'from all your sins before the Lord you shall be purified.' For sins between man and God – Yom Kippur atones; for sins between man and his fellow – Yom Kippur does not atone until he the sinner appeases his fellow and receives his forgiveness."
Some more TaNaK: Job:28:28 And he said to man, 'The fear of God--that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.'"
Be kind to one another. We rabbis, just as Moses could not, cannot be assigned, nor is it our task, as your hall monitors in life. Any fool can be a gossip. It takes a strong and wise person to speak kind, sweet and loving words.
Some Midrash: ''The Gates of Repentance [Shaʻare Teshuvah] are always open.[ Lamentations Rabbah 3:43, section 9].''
And so another miracle occurred this week: I was told of a new Jew that had moved to town. I had not met him. So I called to invite him and his wife to our Tu B'Shevat seder. Even though I announced who I was, he proceeded to launch into a diatribe about me reminiscent of Korach's defamation of Moses. He obviously did not realize with whom he was speaking.
Now because I pray and meditate thrice a day, all of this lashon ha ra washed over me like a soothing shower, as I immediately went into prayer for this fellow. When he was through, I re-announced who I was, and said that he was still invited to our seder, but he had just committed some very grievous sins of lashon ha ra.
In a polite and loving conversation that followed, I found that he indeed had never met me, but got his gossip from folks around the area who make sport of 'killing' rabbis and anyone who is not ultra reform. Following God's will and Judaic principles and staying with humility and not bruised ego, I returned detraction with love.
Now, here is the miracle of God working in our lives. The fellow made sincere repentance. And we have made future plans to study together.
Some more Talmud: Bavli Tractate Yoma 86a :''Rabbi Hama, the son of Hanina says: "Great is repentance, for it brings healing to the world."'
This fellow started the conversation with what our sages equates to murder, but because he was able to access the spark of God inside all of us, he did a bit of Tikkun Olam, (healing, repair of the world), and unhusked a bit of God's bright face, that was covered over , the Zohar tells us, when the world was created and God contracted ,tzimtzum ,to make room for man and his free will. He caused some of God's brilliance, radiance, [what the name Zohar means], to break through into this world.
And he made himself a new friend, in me.
Please develop your Neshemah with Jewish Spiritual Renewal. As my friend and teacher wrote me today: The Divine One is The Source of Joy. To be joyous is to be connected with the Source – one who is connected to the Source IS joyous! Move from Galut, exile, to Gila, joy, into Geulah, redemption.
Love peace and pursue peace, bring each other closer to God, to Torah and each other, say our sages in Pirkei Avot. Do not be a maker of makloket, strife, as the Torah teaches,"Do not be like Korach." Be loving toward one everyone. Life is too short for anything else.
Many blessings, and 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
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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