RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:maggots,worms,dust

 RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:maggots,worms,dust

JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:SHABBAT 5/9/09 TORAH,TANAK,TALMUD,SPIRITUAL, ETHICAL VIEWS

 

Shalom my beloved Chaverim v' Talmudim:

 

Another glorious week has passed and as a gift that keeps on giving, God has yet again given us another Shabbat to have true Oneg and Shalom in.

 

The lesson as usual is for next week's shabbat which will have as at day 30 of the counting of the Omer. I mention this because on the 33rd of the Omer, which we call Lag B'Omer, as Lag means 33, we have a holiday. This would be Tuesday May 12, 2009. Before this time, for the first 32 days of the Omer, or different schedules depending on which halakah one follows, there is actually a period of mourning occurring. Why?

 

Some Talmud: Bavli Tractate Yevamot 62b: In Judea circa 100 CE a great plaque occurred killing 24,000 of the rabbinic followers of Rabbi Akiva. Why were they struck dead? Because these rabbis wanted Kavod ha Rav (honor due to rabbis) for themselves, but would not give Kavod ha Rav to each other. Each thought their learning, their spiritual level, their semikah ordination if you will, was better than the next. They were killed. On Lag B'omer, the plague ended. Avika was left with just 5 rabbinic students.

 

Some more Talmud: Bavli Tractate Eruvim 21a: ''A human being must either climb up or climb down.''  We either must learn from the spiritual and ethical lessons of our Talmud and sages and grow spiritually as individuals and as a people, or ignore them, and decrease spiritually and intellectually. 

 

Some more Talmud; Bavli Tractate Beracoth 61b : Akiva was killed by torture by the Romans. He was one of our ten Martyrs. His last words were the Shema which is how this became our custom.

 

Some more Talmud: Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 14a: Akiva's 5 students were left without a teacher and needed semikah ordination. Up to this time, one became ordained after studying with many rabbis on many subjects, by one rabbi, and witnessed by two rabbis. The Roman emperor Hadrian decreed , in trying to do away with Judaism, that no more ordinations of rabbis could take place. Further he said, that any town that allowed a rabbi to ordain, would be destroyed.

 

The line of succession was saved by Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava's martyrdom: he took no other rabbis with him, and five students of the recently martyred Rabbi Akiva, to a mountain pass far from any settlement or farm, and this one Rabbi ordained all five students. These new Rabbis were: Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Yehudah (ben Ila'i), Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Elazar ben Shamua – an entire generation of Talmud leadership. When the Romans attacked them, Rabbi Yehuda blocked the pass with his body allowing the others to escape and became one of Judaism's ten Rabbinic Martyrs himself by being speared 300 times. Hence, semicha is also granted from one Rabbi to a new Rabbi, without the need of two witnesses, and the above five Rabbis carried on this tradition even to today.

 

 Unfortunately the sad reality, is just as the debate lingers as to who is a Jew, the debate lingers as to who is a rabbi. The Reform movement in a Responsa states that for their Temples, pulpit rabbis need to attend and complete their academic program at the Reform movement's Rabbinic schools or a handful of schools that they accept.  But they further state that this does not negate other sects of Judaism from accepting the time-honored semicha of one-on-one. Nor do they deal with the issue of rabbis who are not pulpit rabbis but teach, study, and do research. They do say that the need for three rabbis is unneeded as the two additional rabbis are just witnesses and cannot attest to the new rabbi's knowledge. Most if not all orthodox sects do not accept Reform ordination, and definitely do not accept any female rabbis' ordination.

 

Have we learned much since the first rejoicing on Lag B'omer?

 

Some more Talmud: Bavli Tractate Shabbat 33b: The other reason we celebrate this holiday is it is the death of  Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai the Kabbalist author of the Zohar who spent more than ten years living and meditating in a cave eating carobs. He is the same Shimon who received one-on-one semikah from ben Bava above. If he were alive today, he would not be hired by a URJ temple. Because Bar Yochai brought light to the world with Kabbalah, bon fires are lit all over. (Zohar means radiance). Lag B'omer is also a Rabbinic scholars holiday reminding them to treat each other with respect and Kavod, and not the  way rabbi Akivah's dead 24000 rabbinic talmidim treated each other.

 

Some more Talmud: Bavli Tractate Makkot 22b:  Rava declared, "How foolish are people who stand before a Torah, and not before a Talmud scholar, when a Talmud scholar can provide an interpretation which runs counter to the Torah's literal words!"  What the Rava is teaching (he was one of our greatest scholars circa 270-350 CE Babylon, is that Jews who do not understand what Judaism is, and pray and bow before a Torah scroll, or perhaps in today's parlance, serve on a board or a committee in a synagogue, but who do not pay sincere respect to a Rabbi who has studied all of Talmud, are being very foolish. It is Talmud as a companion to Torah that is Judaism, and written Torah alone that is Hebraism. If not for rabbis, we would be spending each shabbat in our homes in the dark either freezing or boiling, eating room temperature spoiling foods.

 

Some more Rava and Talmud: and this is for my adult Talmidim who have children, bless them, finding their way back to Judaism, but may be in a very strict sect. Tractate  Beracoth 17a, "The goal of wisdom is repentance and good deeds, so that one should not study Torah and Talmud, and then despise his father and mother because of their ignorance."

 

So this leads us to our 7 week study of Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, which you can find for free at

Text of Chapter Three - Chapter 3 .

 

And we will use  a mishna from rabbi Akiva above:

3:1. Akiva the son of Mahalalel would say: Reflect upon three things and you will not come to the hands of transgression. Know from where you came, where you are going, and before whom you are destined to give a judgement and accounting. From where you came--from a putrid drop; where you are going--to a place of dust, maggots and worms; and before whom you are destined to give a judgement and accounting--before the supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. The Talmud teaches that if we are not spiritual awakened, and are silly enough to hold grudges, we paint another person with our own defects. In other words, if one says, ''I do not like Moshe because he talks too much,'' chances are the complainer suffers from chronic oral logarrhea. The story is told of a rabbi invited to a home to read a short prayer service and to expound on Tractate Rosh Ha Shana, during the evening meal of the second night of Rosh Ha Shana. And as we have learned the Talmud clearly tells us this is not the Jewish New Year but the New Year for all mankind, and we all have one heavenly Father, one set of human parents, all made in God's image, and many other ways to teach us to love one another. So the rabbi doing what he was invited to do, speaks on these topics inviting everyone to participate. Low and behold, 7 months after this holiday, he hears from the hostess, that a fellow there, has a grudge against the rabbi, because he talked too much, especially to his  friend, who was very interested in Jewish education. The fellow then admits he likes to be the center of attention at dinner parties to tell his jokes. If the rabbi knew the fellow wanted 'the floor' to tell some jokes, the rabbi would have gladly yielded. Rabbis are not mind readers. So the above mishna teaches us how we can avoid sinning....and holding a grudge against someone is a sin. Don't take ourselves so seriously. We come from a ''putrid drop'' from our fathers. Like it or not, this is how we started. Our drop could have just as easily ended up elsewhere. And where are each and everyone of us going to be ending? Food for worms and maggots. And becoming dust. Are the things we get upset about, that we allow to make hedges between one another, worth it? Will they really matter when we are dead and gone? Of course not. Keep this is mind the next time you have a chance of judging someone harshly, or decide to be loving and offering friendship instead. But the next words are confusing. Know... before Whom you are destined to give a judgment and accounting. We are to give a judgment on ourselves?? That's not the way we were taught the Heavenly Judge acted when we were in Hebrew school. Was it? The Talmud tells us that when we come to the heavenly court, we first get asked to judge someone else's life.  After we foolishly judge another we are told we have the same defects of character and hence we have just passed judgment on our own failings.  In reality, those of us who are not spirituality awakened, via Jewish Spiritual Renewal, www.JewishSpiritualRenewal.org , do this every day. So we are judged before we are give our accounting. Our accounting will be a list of all of our good deeds. But how we actually treat another human, how we judge others, whether with kindness or with harshness, determines how we are judged. We see the same idea in Mishna 3:16:  "Retribution is extracted from a person, with his knowledge and without his knowledge." When we pass an opinion on someone, we now have made a rule that we have to live up to. Going back to Sanhedrin 14a, if a sect declares those with 10 years of study, including all of Talmud, are not good enough to serve in their Temple, and their curriculum has little Talmud or Halakah study, having their rabbis miss-teach and mislead, doing the grave sin of lifne iver**, they have set themselves up  for a greater level of judgment against themselves, then if they never judged in the first place. So we are left with a great insight  on the human soul. We have the power of freedom of choice and are all made with the spark of God inside of us. We can become homo spiritus and turn that spark into an Aish ha Torah, a fire of Torah, or we can listen to our evil inclination and try to snuff it out and deny it, being nasty to folks, we don't like, because as the Talmud says, they only remind us of our own defects. So what this mishna is teaching us, that with our freedom of choice, we can choose life, for now, and eternity... by not judging others, by being loving and with chesed.  When our souls come in front of our Heavenly Father, may we all live to 120 years, even with our faults, ''The only power on earth or heaven that can judge man is man himself. '' (see chapter 4 on How to do a Chesbon ha Nefesh, a moral accounting of your soul,  in ''The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew.'' Rabbi Arthur Segal : (001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal ) ** Lifne iver means don't put a stumbling block before the blind. Obviously that law isn't there to literally keep folks from tripping the disabled. But it means in business, let us say a dental office, a person is blind, and the dentist cannot sell them crowns (caps) when cheaper fillings will do. In Judaism, most congregants are considered blind and unstudied. We cannot lead them astray and tell them they do not need shabbat, or that its ok to cheat on IRS forms that a shul fills out. Shabbat Shalom:

Rabbi Arthur Segal
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

Member:Temple Oseh Shalom

Parasha Emor: Leviticus 21:00-24:23

Rabbi Arthur Segal
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

"Don't Follow Leaders, Watch Those Parking Meters"

Judaism is a beautiful religion - and much more than that - it is a wondrous way of life. One of cornerstones of Judaism is continuous learning and exploration.

We are indeed the people of the Book - and of many books. Judaism gives us an obligation to study and to question. While the Torah has literary allusions to us being the sheep of God, we are certainly not expected to act like cattle. We are the children of Israel, and we need to remember always that Jacob received his new name because he wrestled with God.

As Jews, and especially as modern Jews, we need to reevaluate continually and personally our relationships to God and to our traditions. King David asked in Psalm 27 to be lead "on the path of integrity." As long as we strive to stay on this path, we will maintain the true essence of a Jew, which is to have moral and ethical direction. Our Jewish Spiritual Renewal depends on this.

When Judaism encountered the modernity of enlightenment and emancipation in the late 1700s the intellectual walls that we erected were collapsing along with the political, social, and physical (ghetto) walls. In Hebrew, enlightenment is "haskalah," from the root word s-kh-l, to understand. Understanding and its partner, wisdom (binah in Hebrew), brought with it the obligations of continual study. The Reform movement was Judaism's eventual response to these transformations in Europe.

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant saw enlightenment as "the human being's release from self-imposed tutelage." Kant meant that we as humans tend to accept an external authority as our guide in determining how we are to believe and to live. It implied that men take the easy way out and invent self-imposed rules to avoid grappling with philosophical issues.

Many Jews, too, had forgotten how to wrestle with issues and were content to listen to their schtetle's rebbe for advice and wisdom. Politically, these two movements of enlightenment and emancipation saw the abandonment of the divine right of kings. This was replaced by Thomas Hobbes's doctrine of the social contract whereby the state was founded on agreement among people. The people decided on an order that would protect their rights and interests. This lead to both the American and the French Revolutions. As Americans and as Jews we must stay educated or our rights of self-determination can and will be limited.

This parasha talks about the period known as the Counting of the Omer. During the period from Passover to Shavuot we traditionally study a book of the Mishna called Pirkei Avot, Chapters (or Teachings or Ethics) of the Fathers. You can find 100 percent of this text in every traditional sidur and about 20 percent in liberal sidurim.

 "The world is sustained by three things: by the Torah, by worship, and by deeds of loving kindness." (1:02). "Do not say when I have leisure time I will study as you may never have any leisure." (2:05). Why do I remind you of this in this d'var Torah?

"You shall not desecrate (lo te-chal-lu) my Holy Name (shem)." (Lev. 22:32). The concept of "chillul ha Shem" is now introduced to us. Desecration of God's name, according to Talmud Bavli Tractate Yoma 86A, is one of the most serious of sins and one for which it is the most difficult to atone.

As Jews we are to know what   proper man-to-man behavior is and not let anyone lead us astray from this regardless of their title. We saw in history how Pope Urban II said, "Deus vult" (God wills it), and the Crusades began. We saw in recent times how a rabbi told his student that Prime Minister Itzchak Rabin was a "rodef," a stalker against the Jewish people, and Rabin was assassinated. These are the true "chillul ha Shems." This is why we need to be informed modern Jews so that we cannot be led astray.

A most interesting case of chillul ha Shem unfolded in southern New Jersey. A local rabbi was arrested some time ago on charges of killing his wife. He did not admit to the killing, but did admit to three affairs with his congregants whom he was counseling. This happened in 1994.

A male congregant of the rabbi, whom he had also counseled, came forth to the police and confessed to the murder. However, he stated that his rabbi allegedly told him to murder the rebbitzin because she was someone who hated Israel. This, the rabbi allegedly said, would make the murder justifiable. In addition, the rabbi promised to get this fellow a job with the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service.

Now how many of you are seeing this rabbi with a long, white flowing beard dressed in black? Well, please erase that image from your eyes. The rabbi and his congregant are members of the CCAR and URJ. What is so perverse about this, besides the murder, is that the alleged murderer, whether his rabbi told him to do it or not, thought that this is how religion works. It is just as spiritually deficient as a Jew gunning down Moslems in prayer in Hebron, Moslems car-bombing Jews, Protestants and Catholics killing each other in Ireland, and Moslems and Hindus fighting in the Indian subcontinent.

The rabbis in Talmud Bavli Tractate Kiddushin 46A tell us we should always consider ourselves to be in equipoise, where one positive action will bring salvation, but one sin could bring condemnation. We must think. We must study. We must grapple. Bernard Shaw said, "most people would rather die than think, and most do."

The way one does this in Jewish Spiritual Renewal is with a daily chesbon ha nefesh, a moral accounting of our thoughts and actions.

The rabbi and his co-conspirator congregant were eventually found guilty and are serving time. His dead wife was our baker in NJ, and a piece of her wedding cake, a wheatless chocolate torte, is still in our freezer. Never did we think a slice of her cake would outlast Diane, OBM.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow recently wrote that chillul ha shem literally means the hollowing out of the Name of God. It means one is taking all the life out of the Name while pretending it is still there, like a hollow tree. He says, "It is acting in such a way to teach Jews and non-Jews that a profoundly anti-religious act is carried out for the sake of God." This is why the rabbis in Tractate Yoma of the Talmud Bavli said chillul ha Shem is the worst of sins.

As the rabbis said in Pirkei Avot, quoted above, study is one of the three pillars on which the world rests. As we can see from above, these words are not just hyperbole. Judaism has a long-standing tradition that when the Messiah comes, the law will be changed. And Judaism has had its share of false messiahs that have attracted large numbers of Jewish followers.

Jacob Frank and Sabbetai Zvi were two of these false saviors. In the Midrash Aleph Bait of Rabbi Akiva 3:27 it states, "The Holy One, blessed be He, will expound to all the meaning of a new Torah which He will give through the Messiah." In Mishna Ecclesiastes Rab. 11:1, Rabbi Hizquaya in the name of Rabbi Simon bar Zibdi said, "The whole Torah which you will learn in this world is vanity compared to the Torah of the world to come."

In the Yemenite Midrash (p. 349) the rabbis say, "The messiah will sit in the supernal House of Study and all those who walk on earth will come and sit before him to hear a new Torah and new Commandments." Furthermore in Halakhot Gadolot it states that, "Elijah will come in the Messianic age and explain and expound all the secrets of the Torah and all that which is crooked and distorted in it." Will our children and we be able to debate intellectually with those who wish to teach us to distort our teachings if we do not study continually?

In teaching the rules of the Omer, our parasha in Lev. 23:15 states, "You shall count for yourselves." We have an obligation not to trust others to count for us or to lead us in counting.

 The count starts on the second night of Pesach and ends on the 50th day on Shavuot. Shavuot, as you recall, is traditionally when we received the Torah on Mt Sinai. The omer was a measure of barley, about 3 1/3 dry quarts of grain, which we were commanded to bring to the Temple as an offering. Unlike our elementary school days, where we counted down the days left of school, we Jews count up in anticipation of the receipt of the Torah.

Why were we commanded to count for ourselves (lo-chem)? There is no benefit to God for our action. We are to use these 50 days to refine ourselves to get ready for the Torah. The Torah uses the word ve-so-phar-to for counting. Sepher connotes books and study. Sephirah has the same root as sapphire, a clear jewel. We are to try to shine like a jewel in our studies.

We do not just count, as Rabbi Dovid Green has written. We as Jews must make each day count. The 50 days of the Sephirot Ha Omer (counting of the omer) lead us to the Kabballot Ha Torah (the receiving of the Torah). The omer counting is also the period of time in which Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai revealed the hidden secrets of the Zohar and Kabballah circa 80 C.E.

The Sepher Yetzirah is one of the most famous texts of the Kabballah. It was written in 200 C.E. It means Book of Formation. Rabbi Judah Ha Levi in 1120 wrote that this text "teaches us the existence of a single divine power by showing us that in the bosom of variety and multiplicity there is unity and harmony and that such a universal concord could only arise from the rule of a Supreme Unity."

 Part of this book is the "Fifty Gates of Binah" (Understanding). These 50 gates correspond to each of the 50 days from Pesach to Shavuot. It is said in a Midrash that Moses only achieved 49 of these gates. The Kabbalists said that one must pass through these 50 gates before attempting to attain the 32 Paths of Wisdom.

The 50th gate is knowing God, the Ayn Sof. Ayn in Hebrew means "no thing," as God is beyond existence. Sof means "without end." God has no real attributes because they can manifest only within existence, and existence is finite, and God is infinite. The kabala says the reason for existence is that "God wished to behold God." The previous phase of nonexistence was a time when "face did not gaze upon face." God then of His own free will, withdrew His absolute all, the Ayn Sof. This contraction is called zimzum by the kabballists. The rabbis say, based on this concept, "God's place is the world, but the world is not God's place."

The 32nd Path of Wisdom, in comparison, is called Administrative Intelligence. It is the wisdom to direct and administer the motions of the planets in their proper courses. Thirty-two is written in Hebrew as the letters lamed-beth, and these are the last and first letters of the Chumash.

The number 32 is obtained 2 to the fifth power. We can see easily that the path to wisdom and understanding is never ending. Laib, LB, as a Hebrew word, means heart. Thus, knowledge and wisdom, enlightenment and emancipation, begin in our hearts with the love of God, love of our fellows, and the love of study. This parallels the verse in Pirkei Avot quoted above in this d'var.

Carl Jung, the renowned psychiatrist wrote, "You trust your unconscious as if it were a loving father. But it is inhuman and it needs the human mind to function usefully. The unconscious is useless without the human mind. It always seeks its collective purposes and never your individual destiny. Your destiny is the result of the collaboration between the conscious and the unconscious."

 As King David wrote in Psalm 139:13, "It was You who created my inmost self, and put me together in my mother's womb." As informed modern Jews, committed to study, our children and we will never, to quote Dylan again, "need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

Shabbat Shalom:

Rabbi Arthur Segal
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

Member Temple Oseh Shalom

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A Short Snap Shot of Rabbi Arthur Segal

Rabbi Arthur Segal

United States

I am available for Shabbatons, and can speak on various aspects of Jewish history, (from the ancient past to modern day, and can be area specific, if a group wishes), Spirituality, developing a Personal Relationship with God, on the Jews of India and other 'exotic' communities, and on Talmud, Torah and other great texts. We have visited these exotic Jewish communities first hand. I adhere to the Mishna's edict of not using the Torah as a ''spade'', and do not ask for honorariums for my services. I am post-denominational and renewal and spiritually centered.

 I am available to perform Jewish weddings,  and other life cycle events, ONLY IF, it is  a destination wedding and the local full time pulpit rabbi is unavailable, or if there is no local full time pulpit rabbi,  or it is in my local area and all of the full time pulpit rabbis are unavailable.

 My post-doc in Psych from Penn helps tremendously when I do Rabbinic counseling. My phone number and address will be made available once I am sure of one's sincerity in working with me.

Rabbi Segal is the author of three books and many articles on Torah, Talmud and TaNaK and Jewish history. His books are : The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew, A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud, and  Spiritual Wisdom of our Talmudic Sages. The first two are published by Amazon through their publishing house, BookSurge.

For information on how to purchase these, please contact RabbiSegal@JewishSpiritualRenewal.net and visit WWW.JewishSpiritualRenewal.Net.  OR CLICK ON THE IMAGES BELOW. 

 Todah Rabah and Shalom v' Beracoth. Rabbi Arthur Segal ,( Dr. Arthur Segal )RabbiASegal@aol.com . 

 

Click to Order	THE HANDBOOK TO JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal distills millennia of sage advice into a step-by-step process to reclaim your Judaism and your spirituality in a concise easy-to-read and easy-to-follow manner. If you find yourself wishing for the strength to sustain you through the ups and downs of life; if you want to learn how to live life to its fullest without angst, worry, low self-esteem or fear; or if you wish that your relationships with family, friends and co-workers were based on love and service and free of ego, arguments, resentments and feelings of being unloved...this book is for you. Price: $19.99 254 Pages Published by: Amazon's BookSurge
Click to Order	A SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL COMPENDIUM TO THE TORAH AND TALMUD Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal dissects each of the Torah's weekly sections (parashot) using the Talmud and other rabbinic texts to show the true Jewish take on what the Torah is trying to teach us. This companion to The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew brings the Torah alive with daily relevance to the Modern Jew. All of the Torah can be summed up in one word: Chesed. It means kindness. The Talmud teaches that the Torah is about loving our fellow man and that we are to go and study. The rest is commentary. This compendium clarifies the commentary and allows one to study Torah and Talmud to learn the Judaic ideals of love, forgiveness, kindness, mercy and peace. A must read for all Jews and deserves a place in every Jewish home. Price: $24.99 494 Pages Published by: Amazon's BookSurge

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(001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal

In The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew, Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal distills millennia of sage advice to reclaim your Judaism and your spirituality.

• Price : $19.99

(002) A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud

A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud dissects each of the Torah's weekly sections (parashot) using the Talmud and other rabbinic texts to show the true Jewish take on what the Torah is trying to teach us.

• Price : $24.99

(003) Tzadakkah Bundle

The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal and A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud. Purchase both books as a set, and I will donate a portion of the sales price in your name to the tzadakkah of your choice. -- Rabbi Segal

• Price : $44.98

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