Welcoming in 2021: The Best & Worst of Times

In an article by Michael Rosenwald in the Washington Post (Dec. 30 issue), he reported on a question posed to 28 professors of history at major universities:  What was the worst/most stressful year in world, U.S., British history?

The strong consensus was the worst year in world history was 1348 when the Black Death claimed 200 million lives.  2020 ranked sixth among the worst years for the world.

 

For families who have lost loved ones to Covid-19, 2020 will likely rank at the top of worst years for them without any mental comparisons to other historical moments including plagues, wars, and the like.

 

The reasons for these feelings need no explanation, but we can benefit from perspective on just how painful such losses are and how we should avoid thinking of individuals in terms of ‘statistics’.  In the Mishnah, the fundamental text of Rabbinic Judaism, we find this perspective in a section about how judges question witnesses in capital cases.(Sanhedrin 4:5)  Because the justice system of the time relied on witnesses, judges admonished those coming forward with testimony that the results of false testimony would be catastrophic.  The judges would say:

 

“Adam was created alone to teach you that anyone who destroys one soul…the Torah condemns him as if he destroyed an entire world.”

 

One life is an entire world, a world of love, friendship, experiences, contributions to the world, and more.  While fewer people have died from Covid19 than the Black Death, the loss is no less painful to each victim’s loved ones and this pandemic has already changed the fabric of our societies just as the Black Death transformed European society.

 

While the world around us is changing, one element that can help prevent changes for the worse is, given the recognition of “every life is an entire world”, that we continue to take action to protect ourselves and others.  By protecting ourselves with masks and distancing we help ourselves and we also help others, and the reverse is true as well.  We can be responsible for ourselves and for others at the same time without compromising our freedoms or individuality.  In the Talmud, the Rabbis make a statement that clarifies our responsibility to sanctify and protect the lives of others from threats, no matter who they are:

 

A certain person came before Rabba and said:  An official of my place said to me:  ‘Go kill so-and-so, and if not I will kill you.’ (What shall I do?)  Rabbi responded:  Let [the official] kill you and you should not kill.  Who is to say your blood is redder?  Perhaps that one’s blood is redder.

(Sanhedrin 74a)

 

Rashi (France, 1040-1105) explains ‘blood is redder’ to mean, “Who knows that your blood [your life] is preferable and more pleasant to Your Creator that the other’s…”

 

If neither person’s life is “preferable and more pleasant” than another’s, then we are all responsible for ensuring the health and safety of others when pressed into action by an outside force.  The outside force in the teaching is an official with local power and influence, but we can easily translate the teaching to name Covid19 as the outside force.  The difference with Covid19 is no self-sacrifice is demanded other than taking reasonable precautions even for people who must go out of the house for work every day.  

 

As we enter 2021, we now have two ways of thinking about responding to the pandemic that can guide us as we take actions to protect that one life that multiplies exponentially to many more.  If every person we see is that ‘one life’, and we’re able to protect that ‘one life’, then hopefully 2021 can be at most a year of anxiety and inconvenience rather than a world-destroying tragedy.  The pandemic is bigger than us, bigger than our country, and transcendent of the world, but we are each an integral part of the world and the limits we place on ourselves now can help us to live into the future in ways that are unlimited.  

 

May 2021 be a year of healing and blessings, and if not one of the best years ever, then let it be a year when hope grows a little stronger each day.

 

 

The Post-Chanukah, Post-Hasmonean, Dilemma

On this Shabbat of reading Parshat Mikketz, we are invited to contemplate the fact that the Hasmonean dynasty did not last long after the events that we celebrate as Chanukah.  Looking at the history this way may cause us to feel a dilemma that our ancestors sacrificed and fought for religious freedom only to see that freedom dissipate.  Inspiration from the Torah reading in Mikketz and the Haftarah about King Solomon can help us with a fresh, and energizing perspective, not to remove the dilemma but to see ourselves in a more dynamic way such that we can live with, and beyond, the way this dilemma makes us feel.

The last Chanukah candles are now just colorful wax on the menorah.  Our family menorah has gathered up so much multi-colored wax over the years, but we never chipped away at it since it was evidence of years of prayers, singing, a reflection of our family’s story, a journey through time, similar to the wine stains on Passover Haggadahs.

 

The remains of the candles also tell another story, a story that unlike the Chanukah miracle, tells of a reality that occurred after the miracle days ended.  The Hasmonean regime that grew from the sons of Matityahu remained in power for a little over 100 years until the Romans came in and then there was no sovereign Jewish presence in the Holy Land until 1948, just under 2,000 years later.  

 

And so we might begin to wonder what is the justice of such a great victory both of faith and of armed struggle to happen and then to flicker on for such a short time compared to a much lengthier period of foreign rule and oppression?

 

Our readings today offer two helpful perspectives on the big picture of justice in history, one comes through Judah, not the oldest, but the emerging leader from among Joseph’s brothers, and the other comes through King Solomon in today’s Haftarah.

 

In the Maftir reading today, Judah steps forward to Joseph, who he does not know is his brother Joseph at that time, and responds to Joseph’s accusation that someone has stolen his special cup.  None of the brothers took the cup, Joseph had it put in Benjamin’s bag.  Now Joseph tells the other brothers to leave while he will hold Benjamin in Egypt, since he is responsible for the crime.  

 

To this, Judah says Ma nomar ladoni?  Mah nedaber Uma nitztadak?  What can we say to My Master?  What is there to say and how can we prove our innocence? God has discovered our sins.

 

Rabbi Shmuel David Luzzato makes an observation here that clarifies Judah’s thinking, Luzzatto explains Judah knows if he presses their innocence, Joseph, here disguised as vizier, will get even more angry.  How could he not?  The brothers are travelers, outsiders.  He realizes in that moment he cannot save Benjamin, and so instead he takes up the guilt for stealing the cup on all the brothers so that it will not fall on Benjamin alone.

 

In thinking on the short lived Hasmonean dynasty following the dislodging of Antiochus and the Seleucids from power, instead of lamenting how relatively short lived it was, Judah’s example reminds us of the power of unity, the strength of the Am, the Jewish people, when we strive for unity, and hold true to a sense of purpose even when other great empires or events push and pull against the Jewish people and the countries where we live.  Joseph’s brothers choose to be a ‘we’ instead of an ‘I’, and years like 2020, when it can be tempting to focus on the ‘I’ and the survival instinct kicks in, it’s even more important to stay connected to the ‘we’, the anachnu, if we take a closer look at the 2^nd paragraph of the Shema, we’ll see the responsibility to keep the covenant falls on us as a people.  God is telling us we’re responsible for each other both during the times when it’s easy to do this and when it’s not.  As a colleague of mine taught me, the Hebrew word for life, Chayim, is in the plural, we might feel alone sometimes but we’re not, and if anyone in our communities is feeling this way then it’s up to each of us to bridge the gap.

 

The second perspective on justice comes from the famous story of King Solomon, Shlomo Hamelech, in today’s Haftarah, the story of two women, one woman’s child dies in the night and she places the dead child in the arms of the other woman and takes the other woman’s living child for her own.  When the dispute comes before Solomon and the women cannot be reconciled, he decrees, cut the child in half and give one half to each.  One says, please don’t kill the child, give the other the living baby!  And Solomon now knows who the real mother is.

 

The real mother’s feelings are raw and real.  Solomon is clever enough to find a way to bring them out.  A lesson here about justice in the fall of the Hasmoneans just a few generations after the Chanukah story is that our emotions also tell a story through us.  On Chanukah we still feel keenly and deeply the pain of losing our holy places, the pain of being subjugated, the pain of not being able to be who we are and who we want to be.  The sufganiyot and latkes are delicious, the songs are beautiful, but there is a feeling of righteous indignation that is discomforting, and that is a good thing. When the Hasmonean dynasty fell, that feeling became lodged in the Jewish soul, and as uncomfortable as it is, it’s a spur to action, to connection, and it’s needed.  Sometimes we rub a bruise or a wound long after it’s gone, and the memory is bittersweet, and can be painful, and it can also remind us of strength we have that we thought we lost.

 

The Chanukah candles may have burned down for 2020, for 5781, but they are lit up inside us, inside us all, when we look at each other we can see them, and each of us is a shmash, here to relight the flame in each other when inevitably it will temporarily go out from time to time.  Perhaps this is what the Rabbis were thinking of when they composed the words, or chadash al tziyon Ta’ir, may a new light sine on Zion, because every time the light wanes or goes out, we’re there and ready to light it again.  

Braysheet 2020/5781: Created before Creation

For us, Rosh Hashanah and the holiday season begin in the summer, in the month of Elul.

 

Every year we take a whole month to prepare.  We do this because it’s too quick a turn around to wake up the morning of Erev Rosh Hashanah and be able to have a plan in mind for our spiritual journey into the new year.

 

Just like a show on stage, first we need the scenery, and then the play goes on.

 

On this Shabbat, we go back again to the spirit of Rosh Hashanah, that was, among other things, hayom harat olam, the day the world was created.  This week, we start reading the Torah again from the beginning, from Braysheet.

 

But the Rabbis knew that just as we can’t jump from summer to the New Year, God also could not create the world without first setting the scene, without first preparing certain things so that both the creation itself and future events could unfold in a thoughtful way.

 

There are many suggestions about what was created before the completion of the world.  One list suggests 10 things were created at just this time of day on the eve of the very first Shabbat, at twilight on the 6^th day of creation.  

 

These things are:  The mouth of the earth that would one day swallow Korach and the other rebels, the mouth of the well where our ancestors drink water in the desert, the words the donkey speaks to Bilaam when he strikes the donkey for stopping in front of an angel the donkey could see but he could not, the rainbow that signaled the end of the flood, and the manna we ate for 40 years, the staff Moses used to call forth God’s miracles, and the shamir, a legendary worm that could eat through stone, enabling the building of the temple without the use of iron implements, and also created at twilight were the words that would be inscribed on the tablets at Sinai, the instrument for etching the writing on the tablets, and the tablets themselves.

 

What do all these things have in common?  The first 3 are associated with miracles, the next 4 are all symbolic of God’s presence, guidance, and tools to demonstrate these things to the people.  The final 3 are the heart of the Torah, that our tradition also says was created before the world was complete.

 

Miracles, symbols of God’s presence, and the beginnings of Torah.  

 

These 3 categories of items suggest God creates a world, and creates us, and then wants to make sure to stay involved in this world.  Unlike the stark medieval Jewish philosophers who suggest God is the unmoved mover who started everything but stays conspicuously distant, the Rabbis here show God setting up the implements by which to maintain a connection between Creator and us, God’s creations.

 

But perhaps the most important element God places in us at creation is that we are made in God’s image, b’tzelem Elo-him, and that as we enter this new cycle of Torah reading, back at the beginning again, we realize we are more than players on a stage, in a drama that’s been written and who’s ending is known.  We are God’s partners in the ongoing work of creation.  Every prayer we say, and every mitzvah we do, every word we speak in love, in anger, in sadness, in compassion, these all are a significant and impactful part of the world of holiness and blessing we will strive to create in this New Year.  We have all the tools ready to go, let’s get to work.  Shabbat Shalom.

Believe: Dvar for Lech Lecha, 2020/5781

  

Twenty-two years ago, the film Prince of Egypt retold the Exodus story in colorful animation with its most memorable and climactic song, “When You believe”.  There can be miracles when you believe, though hope is frail it’s hard to kill.  Who knows what miracles you can achieve?  When you believe somehow you will…

 

The irony for us is that as a matter of faith, there is a significant debate about whether as Jews we must believe in something.  Some argue, we’re born or convert to Judaism, then we’re Jewish, regardless of what we believe in our hearts and minds.  Others argue the first of the ten given at Sinai is a command, rather than an opening statement, that we must believe and accept Ado-nai is God.  Once, on a Hillel retreat in college, a guest speaker said, in his view, the only thing that all Jews believe is that we’re Jewish and that’s meaningful to us.  Tragically, even that vague and minimalist statement isn’t 100% true.

 

For us, here and now, during this time of dramatic change, when the world is turned inside out, and nothing proceeds as we’re used to, it is a time when apart from this debate about Jewish religion, we may be questioning our previously accepted beliefs, and assumptions, and also our previously formulated outlook on life both in the present and what will be in the near future and long-term future.

 

And, as it so often happens, what we are reading in the Torah at this moment, during a pandemic, right before a national election, our Torah portion provides wisdom on how to navigate these fraught moments through the story of Abraham, who as you heard in this week’s reading, is himself at a crossroads in his life, at a time when circumstances challenge his recently acquired belief in the One God of the Universe.

 

He has followed God’s command to risk his life to travel hundreds of miles west, when God does not even specify exactly where he is going.  And he has heard God promise him that his offspring will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand under his feet.  But he does not have a child of his own.  When God makes the promise to him he will have his own offspring, Abraham responds with belief.

 

The Torah says at this moment he didn’t do anything, it was all internal, he chose to believe.

 

V’he’e’meen B’Ado-nai

 

And when God notices this, the sentence ends:  Vayach’she’veha lo tzedakah, and God credited this belief to Abraham as a righteous thing.

 

At this moment, Abraham accepts without question that a miracle will happen.

 

Shmuel David Luzzato observes the language here, the Torah says ‘ve’he’emeen’, past tense, suggesting he already believed in God before the promise made to him.  And so the promise here only confirms his belief.

 

That is to say our beliefs are not static.  They can change or they may remain consistent but they can evolve and adapt.  When we’re celebrating, we may focus our beliefs on God as a source of life, light, and blessing.  When we’re mourning, we focus on God as the source of compassion, the Eternal One, the creator of consolation.  Sometimes we may think of ourselves in religious terms, sometimes we think of ourselves as part of the Jewish nation, and other times we spark our Jewishness when we eat foods cooked to a recipe from a parent or grandparent. 

 

In the messiness of belief, of doubt, of renewed belief or of disillusionment, our ancestors, starting with Abraham, issue us a challenge, a challenge for us to hold onto beliefs that can strengthen us at times like this, when our lives are changed, and restricted, when due to the stress of not knowing when this situation will end, we become filled with anxiety, with a constant pressure of heightened awareness about infection and sanitizing.  All these things take a toll, just like the toll of not knowing his destiny troubles Abraham.  At times like these our tradition asks us to have bitachon, a sense that the universe, however random and maddening it can be, exists here for a reason just as we do, and that however dark the moment may be, our ancestors challenge us to summon up strength and conviction, that is bitachon, the conviction that the nature of our beliefs may change, but the intensity of our desire to live, to learn, to be a part of a holy community of support and love, all these things do not change.

 

As Rav Yosef Yozel Hurwitz teaches, if you see that someone came to the station after the train he wanted had already left, do not say that the man was late and missed his train, but that he came early for the next train.  For everything is in the hands of heaven.

 

And so, thinking back on the lyrics from the Prince of Egypt, our ability to believe is itself a miracle.

A Dayenu for Tisha B'Av: Shabbat Chazon 5780/2020

This Shabbat is the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av, the day that we remember the greatest tragedies and sufferings of Jewish history beginning with the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem.

Tisha B’Av day falls this coming Thursday.  If we want to know what day of the week Tisha B’Av will be, look at what day is the first day of Passover.  Tisha B’Av will always be on the same day.  

These two holidays though are linked by more than a quirk of the calendar, and they also link to our experience of Jewish life, and life in general, during these pandemic days.

On Passover we say, “Dayenu”, it would have been enough, if God had only taken us out of Egypt, Dayenu, if God had only given us Shabbat, Dayenu, if God had only given us the Torah, Dayenu, it would have been enough.  All things Goddid for us.

And when the Rabbis looked back at the destruction of the Temples and of Jerusalem, they claimed in contrast to Dayenu that we caused the cataclysm.  After all, how could God permit the Destruction of God’s House & city?  The Rabbis teach the Temples were destroyed because we worshipped idols, we hated our fellow Jews, because judges ruled too strictly to the letter of the law, and we neither read the Shema morning and night, nor did we educate school children well-enough.

The litany of ways we caused the destruction of the Temple reads like Dayenu.  If we had only worshipped God, and not idols, Dayenu, if we hadnonly loved and cared for each other, Dayenu…

Looking back on the Exodus from Egypt and our return at Tisha B’Av, how could it be that God led us to the Holy Land, established us here, only for us to be exiled again?!

God’s teaching after the Exodus though makes it clear to us God wants us to be a free people, independent, thoughtful, self-determining, able to care for ourselves and others as we shed the shackles of slavery in mind and body.  

But he prayers and readings of Tisha B’Av speak of us as slaves once again, olale’ha hal’chu she’vi, in the opening verses of Lamentations, the children of Zion have gone into captivity.

So we clearly did not merit the gift of freedom God gave us at the Exodus.  And then we search our souls to figure out what we did wrong, like we sometimes do in our relationships, especially when we have fights:   if I had only kept my voice down, if I had only taken the time to look ahead and provided for the need I knew there would be.  If only I had done it, dayenu.  

It's important to look at ourselves, the way we think and act, the way we relate to others, we see that beginning next week we have 7 weeks until Rosh Hashanah.  This is the time that teshuvah begins.  This is the time to begin to unravel our bad habits and our beliefs, and how it is we find ourselves again and again in similar crises and conflicts.  

And there’s something else that’s important to realize and internalize at this time, and that is the power of dayenu in the face of the continuing worldwide pandemic and all its bitter ripple effects, that in our religious life as Jews, as adults, as parents, as members of the Jewish and larger community, it’s important for us to give ourselves dayenus of a kind.  It’s important for all of us to know that whatever efforts we’re able to make Jewishly and otherwise, whatever contributions to our communities we are able to make, or unable to make during these times, dayenu, our efforts are praiseworthy, they’re enough.  If our children couldn’t focus this past spring on that day’s school or religious school Zoom call, or any more time online, dayenu, it’s enough.  If Shabbat dinner became cold cereal in pajamas sitting on the floor, dayenu.  If gemilut hasadim, service to others, can only be calling someone who lives alone or a single parent struggling between children and work, dayenu.  

If our ancestors could have thought this way, maybe they wouldn’t have loaded their shoulders with burdens of blame in addition to watching the Holy City burn and going into exile.  Maybe they could have focused their attention on the fact that they were, and we are responsible for our actions, but the invasion of Babylonians and Romans had nothing to do with whether we cared for each other enough.  

And if we can adopt a dayenu mindset, a proactive, thoughtful, dayenu mindset, then  instead of feeling constantly these days as thought we cannot find fulfillment, instead of feeling guilty, we can celebrate what is possible, what we are able to accomplish, and then, like our ancestors who walked out of Egypt, or like our later ancestors who went into exile with Jerusalem very much still alive in their hearts, no matter what the circumstances are, we will be free.

Studying Shnei Luchot HaBrit: #1, Lost and Found

Shnei Luchot HaBrit (Two Tablets of the Law) #1:   Lost and Found

Two years ago, after reading and teaching regularly from Yesod Ve’Shoresh Ha’Avodah, I was looking for a new source of inspiration to study in a similar way – slowly over time – like Daf Yomi but not necessarily a page a day.  Yesod ve’Shoresh Ha’avodah a book by Rabbi Alexander Ziskind of Grodno (d. 1793), is a book of ethics and reflection on Jewish life and prayer.  Joseph Klausner’s article in Encyclopedia Judaica, on his ancestor’s work, explains, “the essence of observance is intent (kavvanah); the deed alone, without intention, is meaningless.”  The way he taught that kavannah to pray to God always  joyfulness, for example, inspired R. Nahman of Breslov to say that R. Ziskind was a Hasid even before there was Hasidism.”  

The pace of my life at the time I studied and taught this book, as well as work and family stress, was helpful in a way I could not have predicted.  One lesson specifically helped clarify a healthier perspective for me as Ziskind teaches us the value of hishtavut, that we should neither pay attention to the negative messages people direct to us nor seek praise from others.  Instead we should be shaveh, as the root of the word indicates, meaning balanced, calm, or in a state of equanimity.  Suffice to say it’s very difficult to live in the “hishtavut zone” when it feels like your life is falling apart with troubles and work is bleeding over into discord at home.  Somehow though I kept returning to, and reminding myself of, hishtavut and when I took up a new job in a new place the ship of life that had tossed through countless waves finally began to settle into a reasonably flowing current.  

I bought myself a set of the Shnei Luchot Habrit by R. Isaiah Horowitz as a gift in honor of completing my study and teaching of Yesod Ve’Shoresh.  I chose this particular book to study by a method comparable to shopping on Amazon when we find after scrolling down the screen a section titled “People who bought this also bought…”  I was looking for further inspiration for life from a point of view not solely rooted in Hasidism or the Talmud or Jewish law.  And in searching for similar themes I discovered Shnei Luchot HaBrit (Meaning “The Two Tablets of the Covenant”), a multi-volume work that Horowitz wrote one hundred years prior to Ziskind with commentary on faith, life, ethics and more.  I began reading Shnei Luchot during the time of upheaval which led to packing up our house to move.  The monumental job of discarding, donating, and packing for the move derailed that study project, and then, after we arrived to our new house, I found the box with the other three volumes of Shnei Luchot but not the first one.  After several attempts to find the lost book, I summoned up hishtavut again and turned attention to the new job.  Like the Ark of the Covenant, the book called ‘Two Tablets of the Covenant’, disappeared into the ether.

When the Covid-19 epidemic struck, I was already six-months into my new job, and with the kids deep into the school year, it was necessary to carve out enough working spaces in the house for everyone.  One such space is a desk in the basement where I usually sit to sort mail.  Frustrated by the buildup of paper on this small black desk, I went through it all and organized it.  There is a pink storage cube by the desk with even more papers in it that I reached into and pulled out yet another stack to sort.  When I lifted up this pile, the first volume of Shnei Luchot was there.  In that moment, I felt like Indiana Jones uncovering the Lost Ark.  It felt as though the disappearance was not an accident.  Just at the moment I could begin to mentally devote enough energy and presence of mind to study something for its own sake, as opposed to material for work, it appeared as a chance to resume a relationship that had gone cold.  Looking back on the discovery, I am reminded of Paolo Coelho’s teaching in the Alchemist, “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”  

Through this reflection on studying Shnei Luchot, I want to share both R. Horowitz’ wisdom and also the experience of studying a text in the context of real life and living.  The act of studying is an admittance of a teaching I heard in High School, a quotation from Aristotle, “The more we know, the more we realize we don’t know.”  During this time of uncertainty, it’s important for us to stay hungry for learning, for asking good questions, and challenge ourselves to grow.  Through sharing my learning project, I hope I can contribute to the conversation about how we choose to live both during this difficult time and beyond.

Shabbat Shekalim 2020/5780: We count

One of my favorite characters from Sesame Street is the count, who asks us what is the Sesame Street number of the day, and then counts the bats flying around his castle to tell us.

This new year 2020 is a time the County would love as we begin the national census, an effort to count, itemize, and find out more about who we are, where we are, and hopefully how best resources can be allocated to benefit our needs.

And we find ourselves this Shabbat observing Shabbat Shekalim, a day that recalls an ancient mitzvah of counting the people of Israel when they brought a half-shekel to the Tabernacle in the wilderness and later to the Temple in Jerusalem as a donation. 

Whether it’s an ancient census in which everyone gives a coin of small value, or a modern census when advanced technologies analyze and interpret data, the bottom line is the striving to show that everyone counts, everyone is recognized and validated.  

The Rabbis compare the various censuses taken in the Torah to the loving way a child counts and recounts her toys and special objects to make sure that every item is present.  They say the same is true of God looking over all of us.

But there are those times, despite the half-shekel or the census when we feel we don’t count, when we’re not recognized, left out, and overlooked, when we don’t feel others are listening to us, when we’re surrounded by people but still feel alone,  or when we are lost – not knowing what to do, what to say, or where to go.

The Rebbe Yakov of Izhbitz teaches us we all face moments like these, when we struggle to overcome what we’re lacking, what we’re hoping for.

The Izhbitzer Rebbe teaches us that to correspond with all of what we feel we lack and we’re hoping for God gives us a spark of holiness, that even in the smallest actions causes us to experience what is good, and holy, wholesome and helpful in this world,  showing us how God is present in our daily actions, however tiny they may be in relation to the bigger picture of our lives.

The half-shekel coin is like this spark of holiness inside of us – reminding us that even our small contribution, given in the cause of holiness and unity, given in the spirit of fellowship, creates a house of holiness more remarkable and bigger than the largest holy Temple could ever be.

If we could begin by seeing each other in the fullness and blessing of who we are, who we strive to be, through all that we struggle and celebrate, if we could count each other and remind each other  we are here together and you are meaningful, you are important, you are valued, we would make God  and the count from sesame street, so happy. 

Shabbat Shira - Shabbat of Song 2020/5780 - Sing it out!

The Torah explains Moses started singing and our ancestors joined in.  We don’t know if Moses is a tenor or a baritone. We don’t know if our ancestors harmonized, whether it was a hip hop sound or even barbershop.  All we know is their spirits overflow when the door of freedom opens and they sing.

So often I’ve heard people say, I don’t have much of a singing voice, or I can’t even carry a tune in a bucket.

Let’s keep in mind that, just as an example, we remember Leonard Cohen as a great singer songwriter as much as we reverence the great classical cantor Yossele Rosenblatt and others like him but of course Leonard Cohen, alav hashalom, did not have a voice like a Rosenblatt or a Koussevitzky.  He did have a heart, a spirit, a kavannah – intentionality and sense of art and purpose.

On this Shabbat Shira, it’s important for us to emphasize how our ancestors teach us God looks to the heart, rachmana liba ba’ey.  When we sing in shul, or anywhere for that matter, when we sing about what is meaningful and important to us, when we sing to advocate for causes of tzedek of righteousness, when we sing at both simchas and moments of loss, God is only listening to the character and intention of the heart, and everyone, whether you sound like Bob Dylan or Matisyahu, everyone gets the golden buzzer, everyone gets a standing ovation from heaven.

The Talmud tells the story of Rav Yehuda who was so great in his presence in the world that by removing his shoe he could cause rain to fall, whereas we cry out to the universe and the response is silence.  But the Rabbis comfort us in this passage saying, rachmana liba ba’ey, God seeks the heart, as it says in the Book Samuel, God is speaking to Samuel as he gets ready to identify who will be the next King of Israel, and God says there, “God does not see as a human being sees, people look at outward apperances, but God looks at the heart.”

And so today, on this special Shabbat of The song, and more generally a day of celebrating in song, I’m curious for us to explore which songs are most meaningful to us, which prayers that we sing, which songs from our lives are most meaningful to us and why?  What happens to us when we sing them?  

May God give us strength and open up our hearts to sing today and throughout the year in praise of the Holy One who created us with the breath and ability to make the world more beautiful with the music we create ourselves and share, that with our voices we may start the wave of tikkun that will repair the broken places in our hearts, the gaps between us, until we achieve the unity of fellowship and purpose that, with God’s help, can transform the raw and discordant melodies of polarization, violence, and injustice into what Martin Luther King Jr. called a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.