You Can’t Be Late to Sinai

During our Torah service this Shabbat, we will read the Decalogue, the 10 commandments, and as a community, we will stand to reenact that pivotal moment. This act of physically rising is an echo through time and space of our ancestors who, themselves, physically stood at Sinai to receive this great and sacred obligation. It is also a nod towards the rabbinic teaching that every Jewish soul, created and yet to be, Jew by birth and Jew by choice, all of us stood at Sinai to receive the Torah together.

This ‘timelessness’ and also the bending and breaking of time is known in the Talmud as “אין מוקדם ומאוחר בתורה /Ain Mukdam oh Mei’uchar bah Torah.” or “In the Torah that is no early or later.” Many of our great rabbinic sages argue that one should not understand the Torah in chronological order; that there is a natural fluidity that comes from this being a text infused with divine wisdom. It can exist within, and outside, of our understanding of time. For instance, according to the Midrash, at the very beginning of time, God looks in the Torah for guidance on creating the universe. Similarly, the rabbis argue that when Moses received the entire Torah on Mount Sinai that revelation included his eventual tragic fate; destined to never enter into the land of Israel. And what was Moses’s response? To scribe those words with his own tears.

A far less dramatic example can be found in this week’s Torah portion, away from the hustle and bustle of the Decalogue- when Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, arrives and reunites Moses with his family. Moses, as we know, was a workaholic trying to treat every element of Israelite society as his own responsibility. Jethro tells him “It is not good! לא־טוב. Lo Tov! This thing you have done!” And this phrase “It is not good!” is found only one other time in the Torah; at the beginning of creation when God looks at the lonely, singular, human and declares “It is not good for people to be alone.” And the Rabbis understand that this is Jethro giving his son-in-law Moses not only a bit of warm fatherly advice but also using the very words of the Torah to try and break through to our weary prophet.

But here comes the anachronism. Torah has not yet arrived in the world, Moses is still days away from receiving it! And furthermore, Jethro has not yet chosen to join the Jewish people! How would he know this quote? So, we return to that first idea that “There is no early or late in the Torah.” Torah is, inside itself and in every generation that follows, timeless. Not all of its wisdom needs to be understood with the hard logic of our minds, sometimes we understand it best with our hearts.

While every Shabbat is special, this week is an especially good time to come and be part of our Holy Blossom Temple Community as we read from our Torah and celebrate our ancient heritage, responsibility, and gift. I hope to see you there!

Sharing the light this Chanukah

The first Toronto snow is falling and a few things are coming to my mind.

First are the memories I have of the happy snowy winters I’ve had here in Toronto while visiting my in-laws. We would pack up our bags in Atlanta, fill them with cold winter clothing, wrestling with zippers as we did our best to fit our warmest coats into our carry-ons. Taylor, in true Montreal fashion, would remind me that Toronto is not nearly as cold as her hometown. I would dutifully nod and remind her that, nevertheless, it was still winter in Canada. We would be thankful for these heavy coats when we arrived. And we always were! The blast of cold air as the doors at the airport opened was a physical reminder that now it was the season for light, family, and Chanukah!

As we are experiencing our first ‘full-time’ Toronto winter, I cannot help but think about the people of our city for whom winter is a time of danger and suffering. Those who are sleeping on the street, those who will struggle to pay for heating, those who cannot afford regular hot meals.

This Chanukah, Holy Blossom Temple is honoured to be partnering with Ve’ahavtah to provide our members with a chance to serve those in need face to face and to spread the light of hope and dignity to those struggling day to day. From December 19-22, Ve’ahavtah has reserved seats on their mobile service center for our members to pass out supplies, hot meals, and warm clothing to those in most dire straights.

You can sign up for a shift HERE. While space is limited for this exciting program, we look forward to launching it as a full-time initiative in early 2023. Please be in touch with me at [email protected] if you’d like to learn more about our efforts in Tikkun Olam.

Chanukah may still be a month away, but winter is here. Together, let us live up to our sacred responsibility. Both our constant obligation to care for our neighbours and the stranger and the call of this holiday to ‘publicize the miracle’ by sharing the light of hope and the possibility of redemption in the world.

Comfort

As a child, I had a security blanket, knit by a family friend, made of resilient white yarn. It was my token of safety, and it was something that I couldn’t sleep without. It was my one and only, no other object could do, no matter how worn out or threadbare it got. One morning I couldn’t find it. Despite knowing that it had been with me when I went to sleep, and therefore was in the house, I cried myself hoarse feeling the panic of simple need.

Now, as a father myself, when I tuck my daughter in at night for the bedtime shemah, there are all sorts of comforting tokens I make sure she has. The stuffed bear/blanket which was a gift from one set of grandparents, a pig-shaped pillow from the movie Moana, a Winnie the pooh blanket, and of course her sus, attached to a stuffed sloth, that a student of mine gave us when she was born. Yet none of these things can avert her crying if one of her parents doesn’t sit in “abbas chair/ mummas chair” as she falls asleep.

Comfort comes in many forms. Sometimes in things, stuffies, knick-knacks, and handmade gifts. Sometimes comfort comes in knowing that, even in the darkness, the people you love are at your side. During the 7 weeks we find ourselves in right now, the period between Tisha B’Av and Rosh Hashanah, we read the haftarot of consolation. This week, as a part of the haftarah, we read an extraordinary verse; one of the very few in Tanach which imagines God in the role of the divine feminine. כאיש אשר אמו תנחמנו כן אנכי אנחמכם ובירושלם תנחמו. “As a mother comforts her son, so I will comfort you; you shall find comfort in Jerusalem” (Isaiah 66:13)

What a powerful and wonderful vision of the divine comforter. In his book Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow, Rabbi Arthur Green writes, “(God) loves us fully, the way only a parent can love a child. This is a God who accepts us as we are, with all our shortcomings. However, God is also a parent who cares enough to make demands on us. God as parent has not given up on us and maintains faith always in our ability to grow and change. God knows that this growth if it goes far enough, will eventually bring us back to our deepest selves and to a relationship with the One who is our Source. A trusting parent knows that any road the child takes will lead back home.”

When I close the door and turn off the lights, my two-year-old daughter knows I’m not going anywhere, and yet she is still worried. My blanket wasn’t lost, it was simply in the wash. The need for comfort and consolation are not always in response to rational fears. Sometimes they are simply about being loved unconditionally.

God calls out to us from a text nearly three thousand years old, with words of comfort and words of love. These words remind us that God has not gone anywhere, like a parent sitting in a chair or a blanket in our arms.  And, as we enter into the month of Elul, there is also a gentle reminder of another kind of comfort; the comfort that comes in faith, relationship with the divine, and in choosing to live a Jewish life.

May this month of Elul continue to bring your spirit comfort. Chodesh Tov!