Shemot

Jewish tradition has some very strong opinions about naming. 

In Ashkenazi circles it is a strongly ingrained custom to name a child for a family member who died, 

in particular someone whorecently died. 

In Sephardi homes naming follows a more prescribed order,

typically first child for father’s father whether living or not, 

second for mother’s father and so on. 

Parents spend considerable hours, days, weeks and even months discussing and debating their future child’s name. 

There is also a custom, of renaming a sick child so as to trick the angel of death. 

Many of those of older generations named Hayim or Haya are often called these names for this reason.

All of this is by way of introducing this week’s Torah portion, 

Shemot—Names. 

First we read the names of Jacob’s sons who find their way into Egypt and of course settle there, 

ultimately leading to our slavery and eventual freedom. 

In chapter two we first meet Moses. 

Curiously no one in this story is named until Moses is rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter and finally named by her. 

It is a fascinating story and begs the question:

Why would the Torah not name its greatest hero immediately? 

Why do we hear so little of his lineage?

It is as if the Torah says:

" Somebody married somebody else and gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.”

In Pirke Avot we read: 

"Rabbi Shimon said, 

there are three crowns: 

the crown of Torah, 

the crown of priesthood, 

and the crown of kingship. 

But the crown of a good name is superior to them all." 

The most important name is that name we earn. 

It is not what we are given by our parents. 

As much as these names may symbolize our connection to the past, what others call us because of the good we do are our most important names.

That is the lesson of Moses’ name. 

Here was a man who changed history. 

He was not born into a famous family. 

In fact his birth was not the most significant event of his life. 

His parents did not even name him. 

His story instead began when he was pulled from the water by a complete stranger. 

He earns his name! It is what others call him. 

He began from the humblest of beginnings.

He was born to an ordinary family. 

And then changed history and rescued his people. 

And that of course is our task

to earn a good name. 

No matter our beginnings,

it never beyond any of us to save others. 

A good name is within our own hands.

Mikeitz

At the beginning of our week's parsha, the pasuk says:

“Miketz shnatayim yamim…”

" At the end of two years "

The Medrash Rabbah relates these words to a pasuk in Iyov ( Job )

“Ketz sam l’choshech…”

" He put an end to the darkness "

G-D decided that after the two year period in which Yosef was to sit in prison, the time had come for his release.

Since the time for Yosef’s release had now arrived, Pharaoh had his dream.

The Beis HaLevi makes a very important point.

We often get confused between cause and effect.

A simple reading of the narrative at the beginning of Parshas Miketz gives us the impression that

the “cause” was

Pharaoh’s dreams and the fact that his advisors could not interpret them to his satisfaction.

The effect was

that Yosef was brought out of jail to interpret the dreams and thereby rose to a position of authority in Egypt.

The Beis HaLevi points out that the Medrash is teaching us that just the reverse is true.

The CAUSE was that it was time for Yosef to be released from prison and take up a leadership position in Egypt.

The EFFECT was that G-d made Pharaoh dream troubling dreams, which his advisors could not interpret.

The world has a Grand Plan. G-d makes things happen in the world so that the plan will be carried out.

G-D calls the shots, not man.

That is the paradox of the human condition as understood by Judaism.

On the one hand we are free.

No religion has so strongly insisted on human freedom and responsibility.

Adam and Eve were free not to sin.

Cain was free not to kill Abel.

We make excuses for our failures – it wasn’t me; it was someone else’s fault.

But these are just that: excuses.

It isn’t so.

We are free and we do bear responsibility.

This is the paradoxical interplay of fate and freewill.

As Rabbi Akiva said in Avot: “All is foreseen yet freedom of choice is given”.

Isaac Bashevis Singer put it cleverly:

“We have to believe in free will:

we have no choice.”

We and God are co-authors of the human story. Without our efforts we can achieve

It is interesting that Shabbat Hanukkah nearly always coincides with Parshat Miketz,

this week’s Torah portion about Joseph and his brothers.  Here is why I find this coincidence so intriguing.

The very first Hanukkah was quite different than our own.

The first Hanukkah was about fighting not to be like others. 

But in our Torah portion Joseph is the first Jew to live in a foreign land. 

He lives among the Egyptians, making a home for himself there and becomes the second in command of all of Egypt. 

It is therefore more than a bit ironic that on the Shabbat when we celebrate Hanukkah and its message of being different than others and more importantly our right to be different,

we read of Joseph taking on an Egyptian name and acting so much like an Egyptian that his brothers don’t even recognize him when they come begging for food. 

Throughout the generations Judaism has gone back and forth between these poles. 

We want to be different. 

We want to be the same. 

Look at the next generation! 

Back and forth with the names we travel, always struggling to live as a Jew while being a part of the world at large. 

We want to be different. 

We want to be the same. 

That is the eternal story of Hanukkah.

Parashat Vayeshev

When I was a young student at After Shabbat dinner I walked 2 of my hosts back to their hotel.

On the way, One of the guest naively observed and asked the other host:

" Since you go to shul every Shabbat, you must have a strong faith in G-d."

His response surprised me:

"Truthfully, I have little faith. I don't go to temple to be with G-D! I go to be with other Jews."

The difference has to do, in part, with Jews being a minority. Especially in small communities, we feel a strong need to be with other Jews.

What is being Jewish?

Being Jewish often is frequently about Israel, values, social justice, ethnic bonds, customs, rituals, and preserving those traditions from generation to generation.

Some can wonder why we don't have more G-D-talk.

They wish they could feel the Presence of G-D more intensely in their lives.

They long for just a fraction of the faith that some of their neighbors have.

In Parashat Vayeishev, we read that when Joseph was in Egypt, the following :

" the Eternal was with Joseph."

Moreover, it is written, his master, Potiphar, the Captain of Pharaoh's Guard,

"saw that the Eternal was with him" (Genesis 39:2-3).

What does it mean:

" to be with G-d"?

How did Joseph get to be with G-d?

What would it take for you and me to "be with G-d"?

Let's consider how our tradition might respond to these questions.

In Midrash Rabbah, the Rabbis teach that Joseph whispered G-D's name all the time, when he came in and when he went out

(B'reishit Rabbah on Genesis 39:3).

Rashi agreed that Joseph uttered the name of G-d frequently.

Faith has something to do with being aware of G-d and of G-d's Creation on a regular basis.

Faith is enhanced by our regular recitation of blessings of appreciation, such as:

HaMotzi, Birkat HaMazon, or the Shema at bedtime.

It also does Our awareness of blessing intensifies increases our sense of God's nearness!

Another midrash on this verse teaches that G-D was with Joseph because he was young and, unlike his brothers, he wason his own.

As such, his ideas were still in the process of formation and therefore he needed G-d's Presence and guidance more than his older siblings

From this midrash we might learn that the time to foster religious faith is when we are young and most impressionable.

Nachmanides, in his commentary, offers another perspective.

" the Eternal was with him [Joseph]"

means that Joseph was successful and knew that his success came from G-D.

This parallels the Torah text itself where Potiphar attributes Joseph's success to the fact that the Eternal was with him.

All of these interpretations are instructive and lead to the same conclusion. Nachmanides explains it best:

G-D was with Joseph because Joseph realized that whatever he accomplished came from G-d.

He understood that his achievements were not solely the result of his talents.

He was God's instrument.

This explanation anticipates Joseph's own words to his brothers in Genesis 45:1-9,

where he relieves them of guilt for having exiled him from the family.

He insists that this was all part of God's plan for him.

We find ourselves in the midst of the amazing journey of Joseph who started out as a spoiled brat and who is maturing before our eyes each week.

"Joseph's growth began when he left his father's protective presence and set out on his own. Away from the oppressive attitude of his brothers and their jealousy, he could begin to look at himself in realistic terms. It often takes leaving their parents' house for children to begin to develop a stronger sense of themselves and take responsibility for their lives. How many of us have been utterly amazed at the transformation of our kids when they go off to college?

Perhaps faith in God is the answer to the growing narcissism and egocentrism of our contemporary society.

Can humility born of such faith help us achieve a better balance in life?

Can it help us, as it did the young Joseph, to mature?

Can it help us understand that we are not radically independent creatures,

but, rather children of the living God endowed with blessings and responsibilities!

YES IT CAN AND DOES!

Shabbat Shalom

Best RegardsJean - Pierre FETTMANN + 65 94604420

VAYISCHLACH

This world is like a wedding hall!

A man is staying in a guesthouse for a few nights.

The first night he heard music and dancing from next house,

They must celebrate a wedding!

The next evening he heard the same sounds and again the evenings after that!!!

The man went to the house keeper and asked:

" how can it be so many weddings in 1 family " ?

The guesthouse keeper answered:

" that house is a wedding hall " !

Today 1 family holds a wedding, and tomorrow another.

It is the same in the world, people are always enjoying themselves, but someday is one person, and other days is another!

No single person is happy all of the time! 

The world may indeed be like a wedding hall,

Every day is a day if someone 's celebration!

But, how sad it can be,

It can also be like a cemetery, 

Every day, someone buries a person dear to him! 

We might even think the world as an Hospital,

Some visit the terminal ill, others rejoiced healers , and there are some who celebrates new life's!

There is a reason that no single metaphor is sufficient to picture the world!

In our life's , we experience the world is wedding hall, cemetery, Hospital and many other places.

The very nature of life is we must shift from experience to experience !

Change is the basic element of our being. However, change is not always easy!

Forever Changed , 

yes, in our weeks parashah, this is what happened with Jacob.

Truly life-changing moments are few and far between.  

A specific encounter can touch your heart, 

or,

a story on the news can make you think, 

but very few of these moments reach us so deeply that our lives are never the same again.  

However, occasionally an event which seems superficially insignificant can lead to an unexpected transformation.

This is the case in

Parashat VAYISCHLACH

which we read this week. 

The portion is filled with what should have been huge,  life-changing moments for Jacob. 

Jacob and his twin Esau reunite and make up after a 20-year estrangement.  

Following this, Jacob’s daughter Dinah is involved in a violent incident in Shechem that prompts her brothers to take revenge on her behalf, 

Rachel dies in childbirth, 

and Jacob’s father, Isaac dies.  

All of these significant events likely impact Jacob in one way or another, 

but it’s before all those events, 

at the beginning of the parashah 

when his life is changed completely.

Jacob is preparing to meet his brother after decades apart, and he struggles with an angel in his sleep.  

This unique encounter changes him in an instant, 

both physically and emotionally.

The wrestling knocks his hip out of its socket, and Jacob’s name becomes Yisrael, literally

" one who struggles with G-D.”

When Jacob and Esau reunite, 

Jacob is overcome with emotion.  

And we read: 

Jacob proclaims, 

“Seeing your face is like seeing the face of G-D ”  

The text in Genesis Rabbah, 

a 5th century commentary on the Torah, 

suggests that Jacob is talking about his own transformation, 

and Not,

about his brother’s appearance. 

Jacob is sharing with Esau that he has seen the face of G-D and is a changed man, not the deceitful brother who tricked his twin. 

He no longer sees Esau as a rival, but as an equal, deserving of honor and dignity.  

Clearly Jacob is a new person.

It’s a cliché to simply say 

" people can change.” 

Our parashah reminds us that change is really about 

having our perspective shifted so that we may see the world differently.  

The hope is,

that we recognize in ourselves,

not only these significant moments when they happen, but the potential for them to occur at all.

Parashat Vayetse

Vayetzei 

Before anything,

Judaism is a religion of love: 

three loves. 

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might." 

" You shall love your neighbour as yourself." 

And

"You shall love the stranger, for you were once strangers in a strange land." 

Not only is Judaism a religion of love. 

It was the first civilisation to place love at the centre of the moral life. 

or in Hillel's negative formulation:

Don't do to others what you would hate them to do to you. 

Judaism is also about justice. 

The only place in the Torah to explain why Abraham was chosen to be the founder of a new faith states, 

It is written:

" For I have chosen him so that he will instruct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just". 

So why the combination of 

justice and love? 

Why is love alone not enough?

Our Parasha contains an interesting and exciting passage of only a few words that gives us the answer. 

Let us recall the story:

Jacob, fleeing home, 

taking refuge with his uncle Laban. He falls in love with Rachel, Laban's younger daughter. 

He works for seven years so that he can marry her. 

The wedding night comes, a big deception is on him. 

When he wakes up the next morning he discovers that he has married Rachel's elder sister Leah. 

Angry, he confronts Laban. 

Laban replies that 

" It is not done in our place to marry the younger before the elder." 

He tells Jacob he can marry Rachel as well, in return for another seven year's work.

We also need to know that Leah was not hated. She was just less loved. But someone in that situation can only feel rejected. 

What has happened. 

It began with love. 

It has been about love throughout. Jacob loved Rachel. 

He loved her at first sight. 

There is no other love story quite like it in the Torah. 

Abraham and Sarah are already married by the time we first meet them. 

Isaac had his wife chosen for him by his father's servant. 

But Jacob loves. He is more emotional than the other patriarchs. 

That is the problem. Love unites but it also divides. 

It leaves the unloved, even the less-loved, feeling rejected, abandoned, forsaken, alone. 

That is why you cannot build a society, a community or even a family on love alone. 

There must be justice-as-fairness also.

If we look at the eleven times the word "love," ahavah, is mentioned in the book of Bereshit 

we make an extraordinary discovery. 

Every time love is mentioned, it generates conflict. 

Isaac loved Esau but Rebekah loved Jacob. 

Jacob loved Joseph, Rachel's firstborn, more than his other sons. 

From this came two of the most fateful sibling rivalries in Jewish history.

The first time the word love appears in the Torah, in the opening words of the trial of the binding of Isaac:

"Take now your son, your only one, the one you love ..." 

Judaism is a religion of love. 

We are here because G-D created us in love and forgiveness asking us to love and forgive others. 

Love, G-D's love, is implicit in our very being.

So many of our texts express that love: 

The Shema itself with its command of love. 

The Song of Songs, the great poem of love. 

Lecha Dodi, "Come, my Beloved,"  Yedid Nefesh, "Beloved of the soul." 

If you want to live well, love. 

If you seek to be close to G-D, love. 

If you want your home to be filled with the light of the Divine presence, love. 

Love is where God lives.

But love is not enough. You cannot build a family, let alone a society, on love alone. For that you need justice also. 

Love is partial, justice is impartial. Love is particular, justice is universal. 

Love is for this person not that person, but justice is for all. 

Much of the moral life is generated by this tension between love and justice. 

It is no accident that this is the theme of many of the narratives of Bereshit. 

Bereshit is about people and their relationships while the rest of the Torah is predominantly about society.

Justice without love is harsh. 

Love without justice is unfair, 

Let us love, but let us never forget those who feel unloved. 

They too are people. 

They too have feelings. 

They too are in the image of G-D.

Best Regards

Jean - Pierre FETTMANN 

Parashat Toledot

This week's parasha is TOLEDOT, generations , our generation

We read:

“The boys grew up. Esau became a skilful hunter, a man of the outdoors; but Jacob was a mild man who stayed at home among the tents.  Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob” (Gen. 25:27-28).

We have no difficulty understanding why Rebekah loved Jacob. 

G-D told Rebecca :

“Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23).

Jacob was the younger. Rebekah seems to have inferred, correctly as it turned out, that it would be 

he who would continue the covenant, who would stay true to Abraham’s heritage, 

and who would teach it to his children, carrying the story forward into the future.

The real question is why did Isaac love Esau? 

Could he not see that he was a man of the outdoors, a hunter, not a man of God? 

Is it conceivable that he loved Esau merely because he had a taste for wild game? 

Did his appetite rule his mind and heart? 

Did Isaac not know how Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup?

Was this someone with whom to entrust the spiritual patrimony of Abraham?

Isaac surely knew that his elder son was a man who lived in the emotions of the moment. 

Even if this did not trouble him, 

the next episode involving Esau clearly did: 

It is written:

“When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and also Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite. They were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah” (Gen. 26:34-35). 

Esau had made himself at home among the Hittites. 

This was not a man to carry forward the Abrahamic covenant which involved a measure of distance from the Hittites and Canaanites 

and all they represented in terms of

religion, 

culture

and morality.

Yet Isaac clearly did love Esau. 

We sense this at the beginning when Isaac asks Esau: 

" Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die.” 

This is not Isaac’s physical appetite speaking. 

It is his wish to be filled with the smell and taste he associates with his elder son, so that he can bless him in a mood of focused love.

It is the end of the story that really expresses the deep feelings between them. 

Esau enters with the food he has prepared. 

Slowly Isaac, and then Esau, realise the nature of the deception that has been practiced against them. 

Isaac “trembled violently.” 

Esau “burst out with a loud and bitter cry.” 

The Torah generally says little about people’s emotions. 

During the whole of the trial of the binding of Isaac we are given not the slightest indication of what Abraham or Isaac felt in one of the most fraught episodes in Bereshit. 

The depth of feeling the Torah describes in speaking of Isaac and Esau at that moment is such rare and almost overwhelming. 

Father and son share their sense of betrayal.

The bond of love between them is intense. 

So the question returns: 

why did Isaac love Esau, despite everything, his wildness, his out marriages?

The sages gave some explanation, I will retain one of them, closer to the plain sense of the text, and very moving. 

Isaac loved Esau because Esau was his son, and that is what fathers do. 

They love their children unconditionally. 

That does not mean that Isaac could not see the faults in Esau’s character. 

It does not imply that he thought Esau was the right person to continue the covenant. 

Nor does it mean he was not pained when Esau married Hittite women. The text explicitly says he was. 

But it does mean that Isaac knew that:

A father must love his son because he is his son. 

That is not incompatible with being critical of what he does. 

But a father does not disown his child, even when he disappoints his expectations. 

Isaac was teaching us a fundamental lesson in parenthood.

Why Isaac? 

Because he knew that Abraham had sent his son Ishmael away. 

He may have known how much that pained Abraham and injured Ishmael. 

There is a remarkable series of midrashim that suggest that Abraham visited Ishmael even after he sent him away, and others that say it was Isaac who effected the reconciliation. 

Isaac was determined not to inflict the same fate on Esau.

There is a fascinating argument between two mishnaic sages that has a bearing on this. 

There is a verse in Devarim (14:1) that says, about the Jewish people, 

" You are children of the Lord your G-D ” 

Rabbi Meir said that it was unconditional: 

Whether Jews behave like G-D’s children or they do not, 

they are still called the children of G-D.

The Central idea to Judaism of 

Avinu Malkeinu, 

Prayer we prayed not Long ago, 

Our Father, Our King,

G-D is first our Father, then our King,

This is to say that we have to invest our relationship with G-D with the most profound emotions. 

G-D struggles with us, as does a parent with a child. 

We struggle with him as a child does with his or her parents. 

The relationship is sometimes 

tense, 

conflictual, 

even painful, 

And what gives it its depth, is the knowledge that it is unbreakable. 

Whatever happens, a parent is still a parent, 

and a child is still a child. 

The bond may be deeply damaged but it is never broken beyond repair.

Perhaps that is what Isaac was signalling to all generations by his continuing love for Esau, 

so unlike him, 

so different in character and destiny, yet never rejected by him 

just as the midrash says that Abraham never rejected Ishmael and found ways of communicating his love.

Unconditional love is not uncritical but it is unbreakable. 

That is how we should love our children  

for it is how G-d loves us.

Kol Nidre

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PARASHAT VAYEIRA

PARASHAT VAYEIRA, 

is about

SEEING THE OTHER!

I’ve been told that I look like my father. In fact, at this very moment, I probably resemble my father more than any moment before today. 

And if we’re going to be discussing fathers and sons, what better Torah portion could we ask for? 

We just read the Akeidah, 

the Binding of Isaac. 

It’s an interesting thing,

 people resembling each other. 

I wonder whether Isaac looked like this father. He probably did.

I’d assume that Abraham and Isaac looked something alike. I’d also assume that when Abraham looked at Isaac, he saw himself and remembered his youth. 

Isaac resembled Abraham.

And I can only wonder what it must have felt like for Abraham to look down at Isaac, bound on the altar.

Take your son, your only son, the one you love- take Isaac.

We can only keep on imagining what it will feel like to look into the face of someone who resembles us. 

But what must it have felt like for Abraham to see Isaac’s face, resemble it, 

love it, 

look into Isaac’s eyes, 

and raise up the knife? 

What must it have felt like to harm someone who looked just like him?

Even more than that

As a human being, created, in the image of God, Abraham resembled God! What could have been going through God’s Mind when God commanded a human being, created in God’s image, 

to kill?

Think of it as a three-leveled mirror: 

God looking at Abraham 

looking at Isaac. 

Our story is about three beings that resemble each other. 

And so many questions come to mind when we read this section of the Torah.

Why does God command this?

Why does Abraham say yes?

Where is Sarah during the entire story?

What psychological ramifications does the Akeidah have on Isaac?

What must it feel like to know that you resemble someone?

And what must it have felt like to be brought to a mountain to be sacrificed to God by someone who looks just like you?

Listen to the words that God speaks to Abraham: 

Take your son, 

your only son, 

the one you love.

God refers to Isaac by four names, and only the last one is Isaac’s name. 

Every other

name is in relation to Abraham:

your son, –your only son, – the one you love- And finally, –Isaac.

Isaac reminds Abraham of his youth, of Abraham’s family line. 

For Abraham, who has been promised countless descendants, this command from God amounts to suicide. 

He is killing his future. 

And that is what he sees in Isaac,

his future.

Abraham simply does not see Isaac as a separate person

he sees Isaac as an extension of himself. 

Abraham does not see is Isaac as a separate individual

But, as the Other. 

Abraham is willing to commit suicide, not murder.

My rabbi, once took part in a biblio-drama where different participants took on different roles within the story of the Akeidah. 

Ironically enough, He played G-D.

An audience member posed a question to him and said, 

“G-D- how could you command such a thing?! 

You finally gave Abraham and Sarah a child, and you’re commanding its death? 

Why are you doing this?”

His response was moving, and is a strong part of my thought today. He answered, 

“Don’t you see that every person I’ve created has gone the wrong way? I just want to know that I got it right. I feel like Abraham is my chance to prove that people can love me and listen to me, even when it’s hard! Abraham is my chance!”

Even God only sees Abraham as an extension of God’s self.

Abraham is God’s chance. Just like Isaac is Abraham’s future.

This is a great message to take from the story,

We must see the people around us as separate individuals, as the Other.

I deeply believe that we will never understand the texts completely, and that is what

Emmanuel Levinas, the great French Jewish Philosopher meant when he taught that 

the Torah is holy because it has infinite meaning. 

We can never exhaust the meaning of the text, and so the text of Torah is holy.

And that is what it means to be the Other.

To be the Other is to have unlimited potential. 

We will never realize the entire potential of the Torah. 

So when we can view the Torah as the Other, and not as an extension of ourselves, and therefore not completely knowable

that’s when we are really learning Torah. That is when we sense the holiness of learning.

And I believe that the same is true for G-d

we can never exhaust the meaning of G-d, and so God is also the Other. 

When we can view G-d as the Other, not as an extension of ourselves, and therefore not completely knowable  

that’s when we are really in a relationship with G-d.

The same is true for people. 

To look at someone in the eyes and recognize infinite potential is to see that person as an independent Other,

that’s when we are really in a relationship with another person.

Even at the end of the Akeidah, Abraham hasn’t recognized Isaac as the Other. 

When G-d reveals that this whole mission has been a test, what does Abraham do? 

He sees a ram and rushes to sacrifice that. But what doesn’t he do?

 He never unties Isaac. Isaac must have untied himself! Isaac was aware of his own needs, but Abraham saw only his own.

My father and I do resemble each other! But our close relationship is based on recognizing that we are different people.

In other words, I will never completely know you. Only you can do that. And since every one of you here is the Other to me, every one of you here is also holy.

And so,

If the student is the Other to the Teacher, then I will always be the Other to Torah.

If children are the Other to their Parents, then I will always be the Other to my child.

If the Other contains infinite possibilities, then God will always be the Other.

And if those are true, then Teachers, Children, Parents, and God are all Holy.

So I want to bless us all that we should find deep faith in our lives, remembering once in a while that each one of us, each Other one of us, contains infinite meaning within us.

I also want to bless us all that we should begin to realize that infinite meaning is within the person next you, the person you pass on the street, and the people we have yet to meet.

May we never, ever, slow down in our journeys to see the Other.

Shabbat Shalom.

Neilah

The Neilah Prayer on Yom Kippur

Neilah is the fifth and final prayer of Yom Kippur. On an ordinary day we pray three times – evening, morning and afternoon. 

On Shabbat, holidays, and Rosh Chodesh we have an additional fourth prayer, musaf. 

Only on Yom Kippur is there a fifth prayer.

Neilah means “locking” 

and therefore indicates the close of the ten days of judgement. 

Having the gate locked in front of us is a jarring image, 

one that is meant to motivate us to intensify our petitions before it is too late. 

One of the Chassidic Rebbes taught a gentler image of the closing of the gates. 

It is as if God says to each individual: 

During these awesome ten days we became so close, therefore I want to grant you a private audience. So please come in and close the gate behind you. In other words we are inside the gate, not outside! There is a subtle, paradoxical allusion to this due to the fact that the ark is actually kept open the entire prayer, another unique aspect of Neilah.

The image of being on the “inside” actually symbolizes the very nature of Neilah. 

We are taught that there are five levels of soul:

Nefesh, the “animal” soul, 

Ruach, the emotional aspect of man, 

neshamah, the intellectual component, 

chaya, the bridge between the conscious and superconscious soul and 

yechidah, the place where the human soul unites with its Divine origin.

The yechidah, the fifth and highest level of soul, 

is manifest through pure faith, sincere and complete devotion 

and 

the will to sacrifice all for God.

Neilah activates this most elevated aspect of man. 

It is the culminating and defining moment when we gather all our inner forces one last time to express the deepest longings of our being before our Creator.

Yom Kippur, which literally means the Day of Atonement, is mentioned explicitly for the first time in Leviticus. Throughout its description in the Torah the idea of atonement is repeated continually, ending with the words: “And it shall be an everlasting statute to you, to make atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year.”

Along with a detailed description of the service of the High Priest in the Temple on this holy day, the Torah commands us to “afflict” our souls. The oral tradition explains that to “afflict” the soul means not eating or drinking, not anointing the skin with oil, not wearing leather shoes and not engaging in marital relations. Abstaining from these five physical actions separates us from the needs of the body and instead we concentrate solely on the soul and spiritual matters.

Though the actual day is not mentioned in the written Torah, it is explained in the oral tradition that Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the second tablets containing the ten commandments on Yom Kippur. This symbolized God forgiving the Jewish people after the terrible sin of the golden calf, which caused Moses to break the first tablets. Therefore, the first Yom Kippur in the desert, which preceded the laws given in Leviticus, was a day of great joy, forgiveness and atonement. This energy is impressed upon all subsequent Yom Kippurs.

Worshipping the golden calf represents the ultimate perversion of physicality while “afflicting” the soul rectifies this misuse of the material world. Although today we “afflict” our souls, it is ultimately a day of great joy for what feels better than to receive forgiveness, atonement and the chance to begin anew.

Parashat Haazinu

With  HA AZINU ,  we climb to one of the peaks of Jewish spirituality. 

For a month Moses had taught the people. 

He had told them 

their history,

Their destiny, 

and the laws that would make theirs a unique society of people bound in covenant with one another and with God. 

He renewed the covenant and then handed the leadership on to his successor and disciple Joshua. 

His final act would be blessing the people, tribe by tribe. 

But before that, there was one more thing he had to do. 

He had to sum up his prophetic message in a way the people would always remember and be inspired by. 

He knew that the best way of doing so is by music. So the last thing Moses did before giving the people his deathbed blessing was to teach them a song.

As we already mentioned in our last week's dvar Torah, 

There is something profoundly spiritual about music.  

Many biblical texts speak of the power of music to restore the soul. 

When Saul was depressed, David would play for him and his spirit would be restored (1 Sam. 16). David himself was known as the “sweet singer of Israel” (2 Sam. 23:1). Elisha called for a harpist to play so that the prophetic spirit could rest upon him (2 Kings 3:15). The Levites sang in the Temple. Every day, in Judaism, we preface our morning prayers with Pesukei de-Zimra, the 'Verses of Song' with their magnificent crescendo, Psalm 150, in which instruments and the human voice combine to sing God's praises.

Mystics go further and speak of the song of the universe, what Pythagoras called “the music of the spheres”. This is what Psalm 19 means when it says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands . . . There is no speech, there are no words, where their voice is not heard. Their music 3 carries throughout the earth, their words to the end of the world.” Beneath the silence, audible only to the inner ear, creation sings to its Creator.

So, when we pray, we do not read: we sing. When we engage with sacred texts, we do not recite: we chant. Every text and every time has, in Judaism, its own specific melody. There are different tunes for shacharit, mincha and maariv, the morning, afternoon and evening prayers. There are different melodies and moods for the prayers for a weekday, Shabbat, the three pilgrimage festivals, Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot (which have much musically in common but also tunes distinctive to each), and for the Yamim Noraim, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

There are different tunes for different texts. There is one kind of cantillation for Torah, another for the haftorah from the prophetic books, and yet another for Ketuvim, the Writings, especially the five Megillot. There is a particular chant for studying the texts of the written Torah: Mishnah and Gemarah. So by music alone we can tell what kind of day it is and what kind of text is being used. Jewish texts and times are not colour-coded but music-coded. The map of holy words is written in melodies and songs.

Music has extraordinary power to evoke emotion. The Kol Nidrei prayer with which Yom Kippur begins is not really a prayer at all. It is a dry legal formula for the annulment of vows. There can be little doubt that it is its ancient, haunting melody that has given it its hold over the Jewish imagination. It is hard to hear those notes and not feel that you are in the presence of God on the Day of Judgment, standing in the company of Jews of all places and times as they plead with heaven for forgiveness. It is the holy of holies of the Jewish soul.4

Nor can you sit on Tisha B’av reading Eichah, the book of Lamentations, with its own unique cantillation, and not feel the tears of Jews through the ages as they suffered for their faith and wept as they remembered what they had lost, the pain as fresh as it was the day the Temple was destroyed. Words without music are like a body without a soul.

Beethoven wrote over the manuscript of the third movement of his A Minor Quartet the words Neue Kraft fühlend, “Feeling new strength.” That is what music expresses and evokes. It is the language of emotion unsicklied by the pale cast of thought. That is what King David meant when he sang to God the words: “You turned my grief into dance; You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to You and not be silent.” You feel the strength of the human spirit no terror can destroy.

In his book, Musicophilia, the late Oliver Sacks (no relative, alas) told the poignant story of Clive Wearing, an eminent musicologist who was struck by a devastating brain infection. The result was acute amnesia. He was unable to remember anything for more than a few seconds. As his wife Deborah put it, “It was as if every waking moment was the first waking moment.”

Unable to thread experiences together, he was caught in an endless present that had no connection with anything that had gone before. One day his wife found him holding a chocolate in one hand and repeatedly covering and uncovering it with the other hand, saying each time, “Look, it's new.” “It's the same chocolate,” she said. “No,” he replied, “Look. It's changed.” He had no past at all.

Two things broke through his isolation. One was his love for his wife. The other was music. He could still sing, play the organ and conduct a choir with all his old skill and verve. What was it about music, Sacks asked, that enabled him, while playing or conducting, to overcome his amnesia? He suggests that when we “remember” a melody, we recall one note at a time, yet each note relates to the whole. He quotes the philosopher of music, Victor Zuckerkandl, who wrote, “Hearing a melody is hearing, having heard, and being about to hear, all at once. Every melody declares to us that the past can be there without being remembered, the future without being foreknown.” Music is a form of sensed continuity that can sometimes break through the most overpowering disconnections in our experience of time.

Faith is more like music than science.5 Science analyses, music integrates. And as music connects note to note, so faith connects episode to episode, life to life, age to age in a timeless melody that breaks into time. God is the composer and librettist. We are each called on to be voices in the choir, singers of God's song. Faith is the ability to hear the music beneath the noise.

So music is a signal of transcendence. The philosopher and musician Roger Scruton writes that it is “an encounter with the pure subject, released from the world of objects, and moving in obedience to the laws of freedom alone.”6 He quotes Rilke: “Words still go softly out towards the unsayable / And music, always new, from palpitating stones / builds in useless space its godly home.”7 The history of the Jewish spirit is written in its songs.

I once watched a teacher explaining to young children the difference between a physical possession and a spiritual one. He had them build a paper model of Jerusalem. Then (this was in the days of tape-recorders) he put on a tape with a song about Jerusalem that he taught to the class. At the end of the session he did something very dramatic. He tore up the model and shredded the tape. He asked the children, “Do we still have the model?” They replied, No. “Do we still have the song?” They replied, Yes.

We lose physical possessions, but not spiritual ones. We lost the physical Moses. But we still have the song.

Sukkot

The power of SUKKOT is,

that it takes us back to the most elemental roots of our being. 

- You don't need to live in a palace to be surrounded by clouds of glory.  

- You don't need to be rich to buy yourself the same leaves and fruit that a billionaire uses in worshipping God."

Of all the festivals, SUKKOT is surely the one that speaks most powerfully to our time.

Ecclesiastes, 

known in Hebrew as Kohelet, 

is in the Writings (Ketuvim)

and is read during the week of Sukkot.

KOHELET could almost have been written in the twenty first century. 

Here is the ultimate success, 

the man who has it all, 

the houses, 

the cars, 

the clothes, 

the envy of all men,

who has pursued everything this world can offer,

from pleasure to possessions 

to power to wisdom 

and yet who, 

surveying the totality of his life, can only say, in effect, 

“Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless.”

Kohelet’s failure to find meaning is directly related to his obsession with:

the “I” and the “Me”: 

“I built for myself.  

I gathered for myself. 

I acquired for myself.” 

The more he pursues his desires, 

the emptier his life becomes. 

KOHELET was also, of course, a cosmopolitan: 

a man at home everywhere and therefore nowhere. 

In the end KOHELET finds meaning in simple things. 

- Sweet is the sleep of a labouring man. 

- Enjoy life with the woman you love. 

- Eat, drink and enjoy the sun. 

That ultimately is the meaning of Sukkot as a whole.

It is a festival of simple things. 

It is, Jewishly, the time we come closer to nature than any other, 

sitting in a hut with only leaves for a roof, 

And taking in our hands 

A palm branch, the LULAV,

2 willows, ARAVOT,

A minimum of three myrtles, HADASSIM

And one lemon , ETROG 

The power of Sukkot is that it takes us back to the most elemental roots of our being. 

Living in the sukkah and inviting guests to your meal, you discover 

– such is the premise of Ushpizin,         the mystical guests – 

that the people who have come to visit you are none other than: 

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives. 

What makes a hut more beautiful than a home is that when it comes to Sukkot there is no difference between the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. 

We are all strangers on earth, temporary residents in God’s almost eternal universe. 

Sukkot is the time we ask the most profound question of what makes a life worth living!

Having prayed on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to be written in the Book of Life, 

Kohelet forces us to remember how brief life actually is, 

and how vulnerable.

What matters is not 

how long we live, 

but 

how intensely we feel that life is a gift we repay by giving to others. 

Joy, is the overwhelming theme of the festival, 

Most majestically of all,

Sukkot is the festival of insecurity. 

It is the acknowledgment that there is no life without risk,

yet 

we can face the future without fear when we know we are not alone. 

G-D is with us, in the rain that brings blessings to the earth, 

in the love that brought the universe and us into being, 

Sukkot reminds us that G-D's glory was present in the small, portable Tabernacle Moses and the Israelites built in the desert!

A Temple can be destroyed. 

But a sukkah, broken, can be rebuilt tomorrow. 

Security is not something we can achieve physically but it is something we can acquire 

mentally, psychologically, spiritually. 

All it needs is the courage and willingness to sit under the shadow of God’s sheltering wings.

VAYELECH

The moment had come. Moses was about to die.

With words of blessing and encouragement he hands on the mantle of leadership to his successor Joshua.

The time had come for another age, a new generation, and a different kind of leader.

But before he takes his leave of life God has one last command for him, and through him, for the future:

“And now write for yourselves this song and teach it to the children of Israel,

put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me among the children of Israel”

understood by rabbinic tradition to be the command to write, or at least take part in writing, a Sefer Torah.

Why this command? Why then, at the end of Moses’ life? Why make it the last of all the commands?

And if the reference is to the Torah as a whole, why call it a “song”?

The oral tradition is here hinting at a set of very deep ideas.

First, it is telling the Israelites, and us in every generation, that it is not enough to say,

“We received the Torah from Moses,” or “from our parents.”

We have to take the Torah and make it new in every generation. We have to write our own scroll.

The point about the Torah is not that it is old but that it is new;

it is not just about the past but about the future.

It is not simply some ancient document that comes from an earlier era in the evolution of society.

It speaks to us, here, now – but not without our making the effort to write it again.

And why call the Torah a song?

Because if we are to hand on our faith and way of life to the next generation, it must sing.

Torah must be affective, not just cognitive.

It must speak to our emotions.

If our Torah lacks passion, we will not succeed in passing it on to the future.

Music is the affective dimension of communication, the medium through which we express, evoke and share emotion. Precisely because we are creatures of emotion, music is an essential part of the vocabulary of mankind.

Music has a close association with spirituality.

Song is central to the Judaic experience.

We do not pray; we daven,meaning we sing the words we direct toward heaven. Nor do we read the Torah.

Instead we chant it, each word with its own cantillation.

Music is the map of the Jewish spirit, and each spiritual experience has its own distinctive melodic landscape.

Judaism is a religion of words,

If we are to make Torah new in every generation we have to find ways of singing its song a new way.

The words never change, but the music does.

It is the songs we teach our children that convey our love of God.

So it is with a poetic sense of closure that Moses’ life ends with the command to begin again in every generation,

writing our own scroll, adding our own commentaries,

the people of the book endlessly reinterpreting the book of the people, and singing its song.

The Torah is God’s libretto, and we, the Jewish people, are His choir. Collectively we have sung God’s song.

We are the performers of His choral symphony. And though, when Jews speak they often argue, when they sing, they sing in harmony, because words are the language of the mind but music is the language of the soul.

SPEECH FOR R"H

HAVE YOU EVER FOUND YOURSELF UNDER SO MANY PRESSURES THAT IT FEELS AS IF,

HOWEVER HOW HARD YOU WORK YOU JUST CAN'T KEEP UP, JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU FINISHED YOUR DAY'S WORK, THERE IS ANOTHER CALL, ANOTHER TASK,

JUST WHEN YOU GOT HOME ABOUT TO RELAX, THERE IS ANOTHER EMAIL DEMANDING IMMEDIATE ATTENTION!

SOMETIMES YOU CAN BE SO BUSY MAKING A LIVING, THAT YOU HARDLY HAVE TIME TO LIVE!

THAT, ACCORDING TO MAINONEDIS, IS WHAT THE SHOFAR IN ROSH HASHANAH ALL ABOUT.

IT IS A WAKE UP CALL SAYING:

STOP FOR A MOMENT AND OPEN YOUR EYES TO WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

AND ASK YOURSELF: IS THAT REALLY THE WAY TO SPEND THE LIFE?

TRAVELING SO FAST THAT YOU NEVER HAVE TIME TO ENJOY THE VIEW!

LIFE, THAT IS THE KEY WORD OF THE HOLIEST DAYS OF THE JEWISH YEAR!

LISTEN TO THIS ONE SENTENCE WE REPEATEDLY SAY FROM ROSH HASHANAH UNTIL YOM KIPPUR:

" ZOCHENU LAHAYIM "

" REMEMBER US FOR LIFE O KING WHO DELIGHTS IN LIFE, INSCRIBE US IN THE BOOK OF LIFE, FOR YOUR SAKE, O G"D OF LIFE "

LIFE IN JUDAISM, IS G"D GREATEST GIFT. THE ONE HE GIVES TO EACH OF US IN EQUAL TERMS!

BECAUSE, HOWEVER RICH WE ARE, HOWEVER POWER OR SUCCESSFUL,

THERE IS STILL ONLY 24 HOURS A DAY, 7 DAYS IN A WEEK, IN A SPAN OF A YEAR, THAT'S ALL TOO SHORT!

THE SHOFAR, ACCORDING TO MAIMONEDIS, IS G"D's WAY TO SAY TO EACH OF US:

" DO YOU WANT ANOTHER YEAR OF LIFE ?

WELL,

HOW DID YOU USE THE YEAR I GAVE YOU LAST? DID YOU JUST SPENT IT,

OR,

DID YOU JUST USE IT WELL? THAT's THE QUESTION!

I THINK THAT IS WHAT MAIMONIDES WAS HINTING, THAT WHAT PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS DONE AND WILL ALWAYS BE DOING TODAY:

WE MISTAKE THE MEANS FOR THE END, WE FOCUS ON THE HOW BUT NOT THE WHY!

LET ME SHARE WITH YOU A SHORT STORY OF THIS RABBI WHO TOOK A YEAR OUT TO CONTEMPLATE THE STATE OF THE UNIVERSE!

AFTER HE REACHED HIS CONCLUSION HE LOOKED UP AT HEAVEN AND SAID:

" RIBONEI SHEL OLAM " " MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE "

" LIFE IS GOOD! " BUT TELL ME MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE:

IF THINGS ARE SO GOOD, HOW COME THEY ARE SO BAD???

THE BEST ANSWER I CAN GIVE: IS THAT WE KEEP MISTAKEN THE MEANS FOR THE END!

WE CONCENTRATE SO HARD ON THE JOURNEY THAT WE FORGET WHERE WE ARE TRYING TO GET TO!

THE SHOFAR ON ROSH HASHANAH IS G"D's CALL REMINDING US , WHY WE ARE HERE: TO DO GOOD TO OTHERS, TO BE A SOURCE OF BLESSING TO THE WORLD! TO THANK G"D ABOUT WHAT WE HAVE AND NOT SPEND OUR LIFE's WORRYING WHAT WE DON'T HAVE!

TO GIVE, TO FORGIVE, TO LOVE,

THIS ROSH HASHANAH, MAY OUR EYES BE OPEN TO THE BEAUTY OF G"D's WORLD ! MAY OUR HEARTS BE THANKFUL THAT WE ARE HERE TO ENJOY IT !

MAY WE RUSH LESS AND LOVE MORE!

GMAR VECHATIMA TOVA!

MAY IT BE A YEAR OF BLESSING FOR US, FOR YOU, FOR THE WORLD!

Rabbi Jean Pierre Fettmann

Nitzavim

Why Be Jewish?

In the last days of his life Moses renews the covenant between God and Israel. The entire book of Devarim has been an account of the covenant - how it came about, - what its terms and conditions are, - why it is the core of Israel's identity as an : am kadosh, a holy people,

Moses, however, is careful not to limit his words to those who are actually present ! About to die, he wants to ensure that no future generation can say:

"Moses made a covenant with our ancestors but not with us!

We didn't give our consent. We are not bound."

It is written in the Parasha of this week Nitzavim:

It is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant, but with whoever is standing here with us today before the LORD our God, and with whoever is not here with us today.

As the commentators point out, the phrase

"whoever is not here" cannot refer to Israelites alive at the time who happened to be somewhere else.

In fact, this cannot be, since the entire nation was assembled there.

It can only mean:

"generations not yet born."

The covenant bound all Jews from that day to all times.

As the Talmud says: we are all mushba ve-omed me-har Sinai, " foresworn from Sinai "

By agreeing to be God's people, subject to God's laws, our ancestors obligated us.

One of the most fundamental facts about Judaism, we do not choose to be Jews. We are born as Jews.

We are part of the covenant from birth.

That choice took place more than three thousand years ago when Moses said

"It is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant,

but with ... whoever is not here with us today,"

meaning all future generations including us.

BUT, HOW CAN THIS BE SO?

How can we be bound by an agreement to which we were not parties?

How can we be subject to a covenant on the basis of a decision taken long ago and far away by our distant ancestors?

THIS IS NOT A SMALL QUESTION!

In short, this is the question of questions of Jewish identity.

How can we be bound by Jewish law, without our choice, merely because our ancestors agreed on our behalf?

We inherit many things from our parents

most obviously our genes.

But being Jewish is not a genetic condition,

it is a set of religious obligations !

For the most part, Jews did not ask the question, "Why be Jewish?"

The answer was obvious. My parents are Jewish.

My grandparents were Jewish.

So I am Jewish.

Identity is something most people in most ages take for granted.

The sages answered the question mystically. They said, even the souls of Jews not yet born were present at Sinai and ratified the covenant (Exodus Rabbah 28:6).

Every Jew, in other words, did give his or her consent in the days of Moses even though they had not yet been born.

Demystifying this, perhaps the sages meant that in his or her innermost heart even the most assimilated Jew knew that he or she was still a Jew. That seems to have been the case with figures like Heinrich Heine and Benjamin Disraeli, who lived as Christians but often wrote and thought as Jews.

Perhaps a simpler answer to this question is :

Not every obligation that binds us is one to which we have freely given our assent.

There are obligations that come with birth.

The classic example is a crown prince. To be the heir to a throne involves a set of duties and a life of service to others. It is possible to neglect these duties. In extreme circumstances it is possible for even a king to abdicate. But no one chooses to be royal. That is a fate, a destiny, that comes with birth.

We are part of a story that began long before we were born and will continue long after we are no longer here, and the question for all of us is:

will we continue the story?

The hopes of a hundred generations of our ancestors rest on our willingness to do so.

Deep in our collective memory the words of Moses continue to resonate.

"It is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant, but with ... whoever is not here with us today." We are part of that story. We can live it. We can abandon it. But it is a choice we cannot avoid and it has immense consequences. The future of the covenant rests with us.

Rabbi Jean Pierre Fettmann

Ki Tavo

We Are What We Remember! One reason religion has survived in the modern world despite four centuries of secularisation

is that it answers the three questions every reflective human being will ask at some time in his or her life:

Who am I?

Why am I here?

How then shall I live?

These cannot be answered by the four great institutions of the modern West:

science, technology, the market economy and the liberal democratic state.

• Science tells us how but not why.

• Technology gives us power but cannot tell us how to use that power.

• The market gives us choices but does not tell us which choices to make.

• The liberal democratic state as a matter of principle holds back from endorsing any particular way of life.

The result is that,

contemporary culture sets before us an almost infinite range of possibilities,

but does not tell us

who we are,

why we are here,

and how we should live.

these are fundamental questions.

Moses’ first question to God in their first encounter at the burning bush was:

" Who am I?”

The real meaning of this verse is that it was a rhetorical question:

Who am I to undertake the extraordinary task of leading an entire people to freedom?

More deeper, the plain sense was a genuine question of identity.

Moses had been brought up by an Egyptian princess, the daughter of Pharaoh.

He then married Zipporah, one of Jethro’s daughters, and spent decades as a Midianite shepherd.

So when he asked God, “Who am I?” there was a real question.

Am I an Egyptian, a Midianite, or a Jew?

By upbringing he was an Egyptian,

by experience he was a Midianite.

Yet, what was decisive, was his ancestry.

He was a descendant of Abraham, the child of Amram and Yocheved.

When he asked God his second question,

“Who are you?”

God first told him,

“I will be what I will be.”

But then he gave him a second answer:

Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, the name you shall call Me from generation to generation.

Jews have told the story of who we are for longer and more devotedly than any other people on the face of the earth. That is what makes Jewish identity so rich. In an age in which computer and smartphone memories have grown so fast, from kilobytes to megabytes to gigabytes, while human memories have become so foreshortened, there is an important Jewish message to humanity as a whole.

You can’t delegate memory to machines. You have to renew it regularly and teach it to the next generation.

Winston Churchill said: “The longer you can look back, the further you can see forward.”

Or to put it slightly differently:

Those who tell the story of their past have already begun to build their children’s future.

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Fettmann