The custodian of our congregation is somewhat eccentric. For our purposes, it's only important to know that while he pays little attention to personal grooming and dress, he is meticulous in the work he does for all of us. He places Oneg Shabbat tables perfectly equidistant from each other by counting floor boards in our old wooden floor and makes sure that tablecloths hang down the exact same length on all four sides, measuring with a ruler. As we are a very small minority in our largely Christian community, I have more than once had our congregation identified to me as "the church across from the hospital where the man is out there every Friday afternoon, regardless of weather, polishing the brass railings." Watching him gather trash after a full morning of religious school or after a wedding or bar or bat mitzvah celebration, sorting the recyclables from the garbage, I am keenly aware that sometimes shmutz is just shmutz, no matter what exalted activity produced it. On the other hand, the people who deal with our shmutz are often invisible to us.

A young man comes to a rabbi and says, "Rabbi, I would like to study Talmud with you."
"Very nice," says the rabbi. "May I ask what background you have in Talmud?"
"None," says the young man.
"I see," says the Rabbi. "Have you studied the Mishnah, which lies at its core?"
"No," says the budding scholar.
"Yes, I see, and what of the Torah; have you studied Torah and its commentaries?"
"No . . ."
"Yes, well, you see young man, the Talmud is a very complex and complicated art. May I ask, what makes you think you are ready for such a task?"
The young man smiles patiently. "Well, Rabbi, I have an undergraduate degree from Harvard, and my MBA from Wharton. You teach. I am sure I will be able to learn."

"I'll tell you what," says the sage. "I will give you a test. If you pass, I will teach you Talmud. If not, maybe you will start by joining my Torah study class."
"Fine," says the young man, indulgently. "You can give me a test. How many questions will be on it?"
"Just one," says the Rabbi. "Are you ready?"
"Two men come down the same chimney. One comes out with soot on his face. The other's face is clean. Who will wash his face?"
Without even taking a moment to think, the young man replies: "The one with a dirty face."
"No," says the Rabbi. "The one with a dirty face sees the other with a clean face and assumes that his face is clean. Why would he want to wash a clean face?"

The young man smiles. "OK, you got me. But, give me another question and I will pass your test."
"You would like another question?" says the Rabbi.
"Yes," says the young man.
"Alright," says the rabbi. "Two men come down the same chimney. One comes out with soot on his face. One's face is clean. Who will wash his face?"
The young man smiles oddly, thinks a bit, and then says: "The one with a clean face."
"No," says the Rabbi. "They both will."

Vayikra: G-d called

Does G-d call us today?

What are you hearing?

Two years ago, this blog began with an entry for Vayikra.  Now The Torah In Haiku has about 250 visitors a month, more than 100 fans on Facebook and almost 150 followers on Twitter.    I am grateful to everyone who has taken the time to share this fun way of exploring Torah.

Shabbat had little meaning to me as a child. My family never attended a Friday night service, lit candles, or bought challah, and my husband's family did not either. Shabbat dinner? Neither my husband nor I attended one until we were grown-ups. Now, as parents, we want to make Shabbat a part of our 2-year-old son's existence.

Once or twice a month, we light the candles and sing the prayers over the candles and the bread. One of the first times we lit the candles, Simon's face shone in excitement.

"Birthday?" he said. He started to purse his lips and move closer to try to blow out the two candles. "No, Simon," I said. "It's Shabbat. We don't blow out the candles on Shabbat." His Dad and I tell him that on Shabbat, we let the candles flicker until they burn out. The light in his eyes stays, and he is content to watch the flames dance. He grins, too, as we sing the prayers, and often tries to sing along with us.

Tonight will not be a Shabbat night. We will dine with my parents to celebrate my Dad's upcoming birthday. This time, a candle may be blown out. If we ate at home, I am not sure I would pull out the candlesticks. It is not something I have ever done with my parents. It is something my husband and I do with Simon.

As the God of Israel noted, the endeavor is getting some pretty amazing press, including a front-page article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal and this write-up in New York Magazine. Check it out for yourself at www.twitter.com. Not a tweeter? No worries...you can sign up just to follow along. And, while you're there, don't forget to follow the Union and the RAC.

As for me, I'm anxiously awaiting the cameo appearance late in the drama of my favorite character: Nachshon. Yes, I can wait a few weeks for this year's matzah, karpas and farfel sprinkled in sweetened coffee, but Nachshon? I don't know...how many tweets until @Nachshon enters from stage right?

"There is movement in this room," said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), in summary of a two-day meeting I attended in Atlanta. "There is movement in this room," he repeated, to emphasize the depth of conversations and experiences shared by the participants, who are leaders of 25 of the largest congregations in the URJ. Every two years, this meeting of large congregations is convened, to focus our efforts on the biggest challenges we face as the primary address of progressive Jewish life in North America.

The themes brought out at the conference included:

• The challenge of demographics - our adult population is again and the generation under 50 is not necessarily affiliating at the same rate
• The challenge of financial stability - our operating expenses rise faster than our revenues, so we need to find multiple avenues to achieve the revenue needed
• The challenge of articulating clearly the value of synagogue membership (to a generation with many choices and few barriers) and the value of the Union itself.

Recently, forty-nine educators from URJ congregations across the United States came together for the tenth annual conference of Early Childhood Educators of Reform Judaism (ECE-RJ), Take the Lead In Your Own Growth: A Leadership Intensive, held March 7-9, 2010 in Dallas Texas.

Maybe because we've been reading on Shabbat about the brothers Moses and Aaron, I was particularly sensitized to brothers when our Torah study class recently read Jacob's dying exhortation to his sons. What particularly struck me was the efforts of several Biblical translators to avoid translating achim as brothers.

Our teacher, Rabbi Andrea London, along with many class members, had the Women's Torah Commentary, and most of the others had the revised Plaut Commentary, both of which present Chaim Stern's translation of Genesis. My text was the Art Scroll Stone Chumash with a translation by Nosson Scherman.

The line we were talking about reads, in the Hebrew, Shimon v'Levi achim, klei chamass m'cheirotaichem. Left to my own devices, and aided by my own desk dictionary, I would render this Simeon and Levi are brothers; their weapons are instruments of violence. (My Ben-Yehuda-Weinstein Pocket Dictionary also offers kinsman or countryman as possible ach translations, but neither of these figure in the translations of Genesis I consulted.)

Seeing achim, I was startled to hear Rabbi London read Simeon and Levi are partners; instruments of violence are their plan. And my surprise was only enhanced when I looked at the translation I had in front of me: Simeon and Levi are comrades; their weaponry is a stolen craft.

The time is upon us
for freedom...
for freeing
ourselves
from the bondage
of slavery
of winter

spring comes
and we break free

Nisan comes and it's like the world opens up.

The waters part
the world renews.

The new moon of Nisan is only 15 days from the moment of the Exodus...it takes only a few moments for freedom to come, but a lifetime to truly believe in it.

Experience the Exodus as you've never experienced it before - in every generation, we should feel as though we personally went forth from Egypt. If I had been there, I'm sure I would have tweeted it - http://twitter.com/TweetTheExodus - it will be amazing.

One should never occupy oneself with the legends and midrashim relating to the messianic age, and should not consider them as central beliefs, as they foster neither love of nor obedience to God; likewise one must not calculate the end - as our sages said, "accursed be those who calculate the end." One must simply wait and believe... -Rambam (Maimonides) Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 12:2

Because of its commitment to the state of Israel, and to having that state function as a modern, democratic, Jewish state, Orthodox Zionism was from the beginning viewed positively by many "secular" Israelis. While these Orthodox aroused opposition and resentment sometimes by their insistence on public observance of religious strictures (no El Al planes on Shabbat, no pork...), they were also respected as loyal, constructive citizens who were generally moderate in their Orthodoxy (witness the Orthodox kibbutz movement), and who shouldered their full share and even more than their share of the sacrifices needed to build the country. Indeed, since the beginning of Zionism, the stridency of the polemic between the different strands of Orthodoxy (pro- and anti-Zionist) has been greater than that between the Orthodox and secular wings of Zionism.

I just read the entire "Percy Jackson & The Olympians" series - marveling at Rick Riordan's casual incorporation of ancient Greek mythology into modern life. The whole notion of "Western Civilization" is tracking the energy and ideas of this culture as it has moved to stay with any time period's most powerful nation in the world. I'm tickled to think that Mount Olympus is connected to New York, and the underworld to Los Angeles, we can blame the Bermuda Triangle on the Sea of Monsters!

The Dalai Lama is aging, and his voice isn't as strong as it used to be. Interestingly, he begins sentences strong, and then fades. The inaudible part is remarkably easy to fill in, because his teachings have completely permeated Western society. The most challenging idea was "If you can fix something, do it. If not, forget about it. (This only applies if it's yours to fix in the first place.)" Imagine living so confidently that there is no regret and no worry, no fretting over the next right step, just seeing what is yours to do and doing it.

When leading services last Shabbat in Sterling, IL, I asked the folks what they would say if they could have a "face-to-face" with God, like Moses had. Some would challenge God, and ask why there ever had to be a child in a wheelchair, unable to play; another woman wanted to just listen. At the end of services, Margo said, "I love your stories...you tell them so I understand and relate them to my life, and then I can remember them!"

Rabbi Rapport ends his d'var Torah by noting the title of the book and the parashah are taken from the opening word, vayikra, "and [God] called," which he interprets to mean that "God calls us to holiness, to a life of meaning, to a path of harmony."

This is a valiant attempt to redeem Leviticus for the modern reader. But I can't help thinking that if the central message is the search for holiness, surely it could have been delivered more poetically, more invitingly, more . . . spiritually. Should not God's call to us to find holiness in life be rendered in words flowing with holiness and piercing immediacy themselves?