Plain, Simple Shabbat - Nitzavim-Vayelech 5771/2011

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

We love vacation and spending time away from home.  We crave special days, days off, national holidays with parades and parties.  We love the novelty of changes and transitions, or at least the heightened energy of anticipated new experiences.

We like novel and amazing combinations.  In today’s Beettle Bailey cartoon, the Sergeant commands Beetle to order a special pizza, “My sergeant wants a pizza with a banana, strawberry, and whipped cream topping.”

And then, equally as strong, is the comfort of the familiar:  The regular day; The routine.  It’s nice to know that 99.9% of the time when we order a pizza there is a crust, sauce and cheese on top. 

Nevertheless, we might sincerely believe and expect that the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah would be a major occasion, a moment for recognition and celebration of the upcoming New Year.  At the very least, we might expect this Shabbat to have a special name just the way the Shabbat after Rosh Hashanah has a name, Shabbat Shuvah.

This Shabbat however is a plain and simple one.  Our tradition does not even call this Shabbat the usual name given to the Shabbat before the beginning of a new month Shabbat Mevarchim, the Shabbat of Blessing.  We actually do not announce this week the coming of the New Month since Tishrey, the first month is different than the others.  There is judgment ahead, and it is a time for spiritual preparation and reflection.  Also, according to tradition, we want to fool Sahtahn, the Accusing Angel, of when the New Year will come so that this Angel will not bring curses for our New Year.

It’s a plain Shabbat, vanilla, no toppings, cheese pizza, monochrome.

And in that plain-ness, in that routine-ness, there is a blessing for us.  There is a reminder that every Shabbat is a holiday.  Every Friday night through Saturday is special and holy.  While Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with the shofar, the white kittel, bowing low, exalted words are all part of the way we welcome and begin to create the New Year, the weekly Shabbat marks the time.

 A regular experience of the weekly Shabbat can make the High Holidays more meaningful.  It is the spiritual exercise that gets us ready for the High Holiday marathon.  It is the place where we familiarize ourselves with the words of the Torah so that when we turn back to Genesis and Leviticus for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we’re reviewing and deepening our readings of these passages and we are more closely connected to their context.  The regular Shabbat is the place for us to live in a world filled with God’s Presence so that we will be able to on Rosh Hashanah fulfill the opening words of this week’s parasha and stand more confidently in God’s Presence.

Another reason we do not announce the new month on this Shabbat.  From the pen of Chasidic Master Rabbi Shmuel Bornstain, we do not recite the new month blessing since the New Month-New Year does not flow from the week before.  It does not require any energy of the time that precedes it.  And for Rabbi Bornstain this idea is a lesson for us that in the New Year we can start completely anew, as though on the first day of Tishrey we will be born and the preceding days disappear and do not come to mind.

Let’s enjoy this plain Shabbat together so that in the days ahead we will be more ready for the wonderfully rich and exalted experience of the High Holidays.  Let us also remember that we are also at heart simple, flesh and blood, people who want to live the best way we can in this world, and looking for hope and renewal in the New Year – today we realize our humble origins and the sound of the shofar, and the prayers of our community, will once again raise up our spirits, our hopes, and our aspirations.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parshat Ki Tavo - Being our 'Best'

Ki Tavo Dvar 2011/5771

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

To do our best is a goal.  It’s a hope, a striving, a desire to fulfill our potential.

When we have a ‘best’ moment it inspires us and gives us strength.  It is an ideal moment of sharing when we give something to the world that is nourishing, energizing, and that motivates others to stretch themselves and achieve greater heights.

When we give our best effort, even when that best effort does not reach the level we hoped, it is important for us to recognize the people who helped us, who taught us, who trained us, who devoted their spirit to us so that we could succeed. 

The same idea infuses the ritual of bikkurim/first fruits that the Torah describes in the opening verses of parshat Ki Tavo.

When the Israelites enter into the Land, they will bring their first fruits to the Temple, and present them there to the kohen/the priest.  Then they will recite the familiar story of our national origins that we read in the Haggadah at our Passover Seders, “My ancestor was a wandering Aramean…We went down to Egypt…God freed us with a mighty hand…brought us to a land flowing with milk and honey, and so now I bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O God, have given me.”

That “You, God, have given me?”  Didn’t my family and I plant and tend the soil?  Didn’t we work the land, survive through the change of seasons and harvest the crop by bending our own backs, scratching up our hands, and flexing our muscles? 

A commentary called ‘Akedah’ looks closely at the commandment to bring the first fruits and notices that the verse reads, “You will take from the first fruits of the earth that you will bring me’artze’cha/from your land.”

And he makes the following observation:  The reason for the commandment of bikurim/first fruits is to remove from our thinking that ‘artzecha’ means the land belongs to us.  He argues that we might get stuck on this point and not notice that the same verse ends with, ‘…that Ado-nai, Your God, gives to you…”  By bringing the first fruits, we demonstrate that we know the land and its produce are not ours and that the blessings that come from them are infused with the Presence of God who brought us here from Egypt and gave us the opportunity to farm this land.

The same is true as we reflect on all that our coaches, teachers, and mentors have given us to enable us to do our best. Lest we ever begin to think that we are only a product of our own skill, our own initiative, our own inventiveness.  How can we recognize all those people who influenced us and guided us to the moment when we are sharing our best with the world?  Can we even remember who they all are?  It is likely that many of these influences were not even intentional.  They happened through chance encounters, things we heard or read from people we do not know personally and may never meet.

If we can raise the consciousness that we are a patchwork stitched from the influence and inspiration of others, then we will keep our humility and sense of self—and in all that we do, we will always be doing our best.