From the Rabbi

Today at services, I read from the passage in Genesis in which God breathes life into the human. But before I chanted, I asked if those in the community who felt, acutely, the need for more breathing space to come forward. After the Torah blessing and the passage were chanted, I spoke to them about a gift of our liturgy, the first prayer to be said upon awaking: Modeh Ani (Modah Ani is the female form).

This brief prayer provides each of us the opportunity to pause before we begin the day, to acknowledge our gratitude for life.

Each morning, we recognize that the day before us will never come again. It is, therefore, both sacred and precious. To take a moment to give thanks for life each morning can also act as a reminder. During this day, allow yourself to breath. Breathe gratitude, breathe love. Breathe your thanks for the smile of your beloved, for the laughter of your friend, for the innocence of a child.

The entire prayer is found below, for those who might be in need of more breathing space. And even if all you do is say the first two words (I give thanks) each morning when you awake, you will find you have a great deal more breathing space than you knew.

L’shana tova!

Rabbi Barbara

Modeh ani (Modah ani)          I give thanks
Lefanecha                                   before You
melech chai v’kayam               eternal and living King
she’he’chezarta bi nishmati    who returns my soul within me
b’chemla.                                    With mercy.
Raba emunatecha.                   Great is Your faithfulness

High Holy Days: A Note from Rabbi Barbara

On meditation, gardens, and journaling for wisdom’s sake…

During these High Holy Days I would like to visit four gardens with you. Erev Rosh Hashanah, we will visit Gan Eden, the garden of creation, the garden of pleasure. During Rosh Hashanah Shacharit services, we will follow Enoch into the Garden of Righteousness. On Kol Nidre we will accompany the rabbis and enter the Garden of Discernment. On Yom Kippur, our tradition will take us to the Garden of Compassion and Understanding. In each garden, I hope, we will find that our Torah is as we say she is: Our one tree, the tree of life and wisdom.

We will be doing some journaling during several of our services, so please consider bringing a small diary or notebook with you!

Please join us for a musical, rich, and reflective experience of the Days of Awe.

Temple Or Olam High Holy Day Service Schedule

• September 13: Erev Rosh Hashanah Service, 7 p.m. McGill Baptist Church, 5300 Poplar Tent Road, Concord, NC
• September 14: Rosh Hashanah Morning Services, 10 a.m. – 12 a.m. followed by brunch and Tashlich at Dorton Park: McGill Baptist Church, 5300 Poplar Tent Road, Concord, NC
• September 22: Kol Nidre Service, 7 p.m.: McGill Baptist Church, 5300 Poplar Tent Road, Concord, NC
• September 23: Yom Kippur Morning Service, 10 a.m. – 12 a.m.: McGill Baptist Church, 5300 Poplar Tent Road, Concord, NC
• September 23: Neilah Service: 6:30 p.m., Havdalah, and break fast: McGill Baptist Church, 5300 Poplar Tent Road, Concord, NC

Temple Or Olam does not require tickets for attendance at our services. Suggested donations for guests to defray our rental costs are below:

Suggested donations for non-members:

• Families: $216
• Individuals: $108
• Students: gratis

Please visit www.or-olam.org for more information.

As Shabbat ends tomorrow night, the month of Elul begins.  On that night, on Rosh Hodesh Elul, tradition tells us that Moses ascended Sinai one last time to prepare a second set of tablets to replace those broken after the Israelites themselves broke with God, worshipping a golden calf.  Moses descended at the end of Yom Kippur, we are told, when Israel’s repentance was complete.

It is the sixth month of the year.  Elul, the rabbis point out, is spelled ALEPH-LAMED-VAV-LAMED.  These letters, they say, are an acronym of one of the most well-known phrases of Tanakh: Ani l’dodi v’dodi li, (I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine), a verse said to be spoken from the people Israel to God, Godself.

Elul, we are told, is a time when The Holy One leaves heavenly realms in order to wander on earth, walking in fields and meadows, waiting for us to approach, to confide, to speak our heart’s needs.  To be God’s beloved, we must trust in God’s love.

It might be time for a daily notation in a bedside journal.  It might be a time for a quiet, nourishing conversation with a family member.  It might be a time to practice letting go of grief and anger.

Elul is a time for loving awareness: Who is it that we long to be?  How, in the past year, did we come closer to realizing a dream of goodness and kindness?  How do we want to do better in the coming year?

May Elul reveal the answers you seek.

Rabbi Barbara

Elul and Psalm 27 as Recommended Reading

This year, Rosh Hodesh Elul arrives just after Shabbat ends, on August 15.

The rabbis say that Moses ascended Sinai for the last time on the night of Rosh Hodesh Elul. He went to recover the covenant, to make it anew. The first tablets had been destroyed after the terrible debacle of the Golden Calf. Hope seemed broken beyond repair.

And yet, Moses ascended. This time, God told Moses to carve the tablets. This time, the covenant would be carved and inscribed by both human and divine energies.

Elul was – and is – a month for reflection: Moses remained above with God, learning that the covenant would have to be a joint project. The Israelites stayed below, reflecting on the burdens they had schlepped into their new lives. How could they let go of things they no longer needed to carry?

The name of the month of Elul has exactly the same numeric value as the word binah, wisdom. It is a good time to reflect on the stuff of the past year, on the pain and trouble we have carried, the misguided decisions and the hasty actions we could wish away. It is a time to reflect on hopes and dreams yet unrealized, on the longing to draw near to God.

Elul: The name of this month is an acronym, so our sages say, for a well-known phrase from Song of Songs: Ani l’dodi v’dodi li: I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. During Elul, we hear the call of our Beloved in the shofar that is sounded each day of the month in traditional communities. That primal sound awakens us, reminds us.

For what? To discover our own wisdom. To reflect on who we are now and who we long to become.

Our covenant is being rewritten and reinscribed every year. During the month of Elul, we partner with God in the renewal. As this year ends, we define what we long for in the next.

Elul: Wisdom and love. May we go up just as Moses did, and may we, like Moses, receive.

With many blessings,

Rabbi Barbara

Psalm 27

For some Jews, reading Psalm 27 is part of their daily practice during this month.  For those of you interested in a beautiful translation, here is one from the founder of Jewish Renewal, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l.

Psalm 27, as translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Yah! You are my light.
You are my savior.
Whom need I dread?
Yah, with you as my strong protector who can make me panic?
When hateful bullies gang up on me, wanting to harass me, to oppress and terrorize me
They are the ones who stumble and fall.
Even if a gang surrounds me my heart is not weakened.
If a battle is joined around me my trust in You is firm.
Only one thing do I ask of You, Yah:
Just this alone do I seek, I want to be at home with you, Yah,
All the days of my life.
I want to delight in seeing You.
Seeing You when I come to visit You in Your temple.

You hide me in your sukkah on a foul day.
You conceal me unseen in Your tent.
You also raise me beyond anyone’s reach
And now, as You have held my head high despite the presence of my powerful foes
I prepare to celebrate and thrill, singing and making music to You, Yah!
Listen, Yah, to the sound of my cry
And, being kind, answer me!
My heart has said, I turn to seek you.
Your presence is what I beg for
Don’t hide Your face from me.
Don’t just put me down, You who have been my helper.
Don’t abandon me, don’t forsake me, God my support.
Though my father and my mother have left me
You, Yah, will hold me securely.
Please teach me Your way.
Teach me Your way and guide me on the straight path.
Discourage those who defame me
Because false witnesses stood up against me belching out violence.
Don’t let me become the victim of my foes.
I wouldn’t have survived
If I hadn’t hoped that I would see, yet,
Your goodness, God, fully alive on earth.
So I tell you, my friends: you too hope to Yah! Be sturdy!
And make strong your heart. And most of all, keep hoping to Yah.

Destruction.  Trauma.  Pain.  Jews mark such experience during the summer months,  on the ninth of Av.

Today is Tisha B’Av.  It is a day when many Jews fast, read the Book of Lamentations, and recall the destruction of both the First and Second Temples, both of which occurred on this day.  Many other terrors occurred on this same day: The Jews of England were expelled on Tisha B’Av in 1290 as were the Jews of Spain in 1492.  And, in recent memory, the Warsaw Ghetto was liquidated on the ninth of Av.

But many Jews neither know about Tisha B’Av or actually mark the day.  How would present-day Jews mourn for temples they would likely not want to see rebuilt?  The temples of our ancient times were sites of ritual sacrifice under the leadership of a long-gone priesthood. The vast majority of Jews in our time would not wish to return the slaughter of animals back to Jewish practice.

As we prepare for the month of Elul and our High Holy Days, we might think about what the word “temple” might mean for us.  Recently, our community meeting demonstrated  that our members are deeply concerned about the state of the temple we all inhabit — the one the earth itself provides for us.

Our earth is a sacred place and most be treated with reverence.  There is much to mourn in the way that we have harmed and even destroyed our earthly temple.  This year, we can mark Tisha B’Av as a day that reminds us of our calling: To engage in the real world, to heal in the real world.

It is important to recognize what we have lost.  It is critical that we respond with acts of teshuva — with return, with restoration, and with respect for the holy earth we inhabit.

Keyn y’hi ratzon.

Rabbi Barbara

The Journey

Jewish Renewal attempts what may seem impossible in a secular day and age: The creation of sacred communities.  What do the rabbis, cantors, rabbinic pastors, and spiritual directors of Jewish Renewal work to achieve, wherever they are?

We remind ourselves and our congregations: We are walking toward revelation each and every day, and that we walk as a mixed multitude but a committed community.  Our intentions are to create healthy communities which consciously seek to foster and protect sacred space.  At Sinai, we will receive the law which we know is dear, a law which asks us to name our mistakes, and to commit both to listening and to speaking honestly and directly.

It is hard work.  Freedom is hard work.  Thinking constructively, acting generously, learning how to be ever more inclusive of those who have been isolated and rejected  — these are the tasks of a Jewish renewal community and of its leadership.

As is thinking beyond ourselves, into the world, as part of the world.  We go to Sinai, yes, but we remember that Rabbi Ishmael told us that the Torah was given in a no-man’s-land because it belonged to all humanity.

We walk on, to Shavuot, to the giving of Torah, to the mountain of Sinai.  We go, renewing our community, our understanding of Judaism, our hope for the world.

May your Passover lead to renewal,

Rabbi Barbara

P.S. TOO member and historian Sheldon Hanft responded to yesterday’s post about teachers and students and the honor they do one another with this beautiful note:

“My mother was a kindred soul to Rav Shmelke of Nickolsburg. The day preceding the first Seder we would go to the Streitz Matzot factory and she would gently touch the boxes to find one that was still warm from the oven. The matzot may not have been perfect but at least she knew the contents were fresh.”

Thank you, Sheldon.

The Baking of Matzot and the Making of Mitzvot

Rav Shmelke of Nickolsburg was willing to give his life for the performance of any mitzvah. When it came to baking matzah for Pesach, he attended to his task with scrupulous care so that there would be no doubt that they were kosher for Pesach. Yet he was plagued by a terrible fear that he had not done everything perfectly.

Once his matzot were baked, Rav Shmelke would sort them out, rejecting one after another until he had selected the three best and finest matzot for his seder table. Though he prayed for the blessing of the Holy One he was filled with anxiety – had he somehow failed in his duty?

One Erev Pesach, he was returning from the bakery with his three prized matzot, his worries were revealed in his anxious face. A student of his came alongside him, his face suffused with joy. The tzadik knew that such happiness could only come from a mitzvah just performed, and asked his student what he had done to make him rejoice. “I am happy,” his student said, “that I have just baked these matzot in my hands for my seder table.”

The tzadik, envious of his student’s happiness, asked if he would be willing to exchange his matztot for those he himself had baked. The student was delighted to do so. The pupil rejoiced sevenfold at being privileged to eat matzot baked by the master, for these were certainly ten times more kasher than his own.

Why did the tzadik rejoice over his student’s matzot more than his own? “All the time I was baking my heart was troubled,” he explained. “I was beset by doubts. But these matzot have been baked by a man who is upright and he testifies of them being baked properly; in such ease there is no place for doubt.

From this we can derive the following lessons.

1. The Torah was not given to the angels in heaven but every Israelite is capable of completing the mitzvot properly. If the student’s matzot had been improper, then God would have prevented them coming into the hands of the tzadik.
2. The love of their fellow Israelites and their confidence in them is more important to the tzadikim than all the effort and energy they exert in learning Torah and practicing the mitzvoth.

Emmanuel Kitov, The Book of our Heritage