Living under Lockdown Day 23 - Bad Day

It is not humanly possible to be upbeat all the time. Humour is helpful and healing of course. And some days just suck. But they will end. So I'm feeling the feelings, and then it's time to channel Scarlett O'Hara. Nighty night.

Parshat Vayikra

Another brief d'var for the Or 'Ammim website. If you're interested, you may read the Italian version here.

Parshat Vayikra

27.03.20

This Shabbat we begin a new book of the Torah - Vayikra. The Mishkan (Tabernacle) has been built, and now the presence of God can dwell amid the people. This week’s portion describes the 5 different korbanot(sacrifices) that must be offered to God in order to maintain and restore the relationship between us. Since the desert wanderings of the Children of Israel are over, and the Temple in Jerusalem has been destroyed, we are no longer able to bring these offerings of animals and grain. How then may these words of Torah be relevant to our life in Italy today?

The Hebrew word for sacrifices is korbanot. The root is karav, to draw near or come close. For our ancestors, this was their way to connect with their God, to express their desire to be in a positive relationship. After the debacle of the Golden Calf, God realized that we humans have a great need for a physical sense of connection, through our senses. Thus God appeared to the Israelites as a pillar of smoke during the day, and a pillar of fire by night, leading them through the desert. God designed the Mishkan as a place where God’s presence could rest among the people. And the ceremony of the sacrifices – the sounds and smells of the animals being slaughtered, the priests tasting their portions, the feel of the grain in one’s hands – made it all so very real. The people were communicating with God, through sin offerings, guilt offerings and peace offerings.

We have no Mishkan here, and cannot follow the instructions as originally intended. Neither is there a Temple any more. However, after the destruction, our leaders taught us that we can still connect with God, we can still come close. Rather than bringing our offerings to the priests so they can follow the very detailed instructions, we can speak to God directly, ourselves, through our prayers. 

The prayerbook tells us what to say in our prayers. But that is just when we go to the synagogue. It is also possible to speak during our everyday lives. In this time when we are all more physically distant, we are lucky that technology can help us maintain social connections. At the same time, having been locked down for so long is making us all more anxious and tense. There is real danger out there and we are afraid of its touch. Our instinct is to withdraw, to protect ourselves. But if our fear makes us abandon our most important relationships, as we see with the Children of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, we can lose our way completely. Of course we must stay safe. But we can also stay in touch.

Perhaps the 5 korbanot listed in our portion might correspond to 5 words and phrases that are part of everyone’s daily life. Saying please, or thank you, I’m sorry, I love you; or just hello. It’s not easy to talk to God, especially when you may not be sure if God actually exists, or if God is listening. So let us practice by starting conversations with each other. Please would you share your challah recipe? Thank you for sending that Zoom tutorial! I’m sorry I sounded grumpy. I just called to say I love you. I just called to say hello. The Torah is telling us that we must find ways to come close to each other. Our korbanot are deeds that connect us to each other. As we experience how we are present in each other’s lives, we may begin to notice the signs that God is also in our midst, waiting to hear from us. 

Shabbat shalom.

Living under Lockdown Day 17 - Horseradish

Last year I discovered how hard it was to find raw horseradish in Modena. There was nothing in the supermarket, and even the famous Albinelli market gave me no joy. We had to rely on a friend in Bologna to bring something to the Seder. This year our Seder will be small (just L & me & Sara the Cat), but we shall be Zooming with our friends in Bologna and beyond. Thus, it was thrilling to go through the international section of Conad (La Rotunda) and spot this little jar on a shelf. Hurrah! We have our bitter herbs!!

Living under Lockdown Day 15 - Home School

I have learned to love including cardamom seeds in my apple compote, and today for lunch L put some in the delicious zucchini she made. It got me thinking - how many ways might there be to use cardamom. And this came to mind:  

Living under Lockdown Day 12 (extra) - the Indigo Girls

The power of two women, our dear Amy & Emily, giving a concert from home on FB tonight ... although reception drifted in and out, at one point I think there were 60k people tuning in. Sixty thousand people! Lovely to hear songs old and new, and to see how many of my FB friends from several different eras of my life and all across the world, how they were listening too, singing along ... what a wonderful hour together. Grazie mille Indigo Girls!

Living under Lockdown Day 12 - Bidet

From the inside looking out, it seems like a lot of people are knocking Italy at the moment in terms of how the government and the people are dealing with the current crisis. I'm sure some mistakes have been made, and if so, hope that those further down the pike will learn from them and help to save more people. Meanwhile, as toilet paper memes flood my social media pages, and trying to accentuate the positive, here's a message from me and Sara the Cat:

Living under Lockdown Day 9 - Hanging in There

Yesterday on FB my cousin posted a video of how she is using her time in isolation to practice her aerial yoga. I froze the vid and tried to draw what I saw. I hope she doesn't mind!

Living under Lockdown Day 7 - Toilet Paper

Saw a vid on FB the other day of two women in a Woolies in Oz fighting over loo rolls. Didn't know Woolies still existed!

Living under Lockdown: Day 5 - the Sneeze

Maybe this happened to someone I know

Parshat Ki Tissa

Since we cannot meet in person at the moment for Shabbat and Festival services, or study together, we thought that even if there is physical distance, there does not have to be spiritual distance (as noted by several of my colleagues this week) and so I wrote a brief comment on the weekly Torah portion, Ki Tissa in the book of Exodus. We posted the Italian version already - here is the English just in case. 

Via San Giacomo today. The banner reads "andrà bene", it will get better.

Parashat Ki Tissa

Greetings from Modena! As we enter Shabbat, here is a thought that came to me while looking at the Torah portion.

“When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, ‘Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.” (Exodus 32:1)

This week, while Moses is up high on the mountain, receiving instructions from God for the life of the community, the people lose hope. Moses has been gone a very long time, and the Children of Israel fear for their future. They cannot wait for him any longer, and decide to make their own god, a god that they can see and touch. This Golden Calf does nothing for them, except get them into trouble.  When Moses does come back down the mountain, and sees what they have done, he smashes the two tablets of stone into pieces. He melts their calf of gold, and makes them drink it. Then, God sends a plague upon the people as punishment for what they had done. Ultimately, they are forgiven, and God offers to replace the tablets of the Law that Moses had broken.

I absolutely do not believe that a pandemic such as Covid19 is in any way a punishment from God for anything any human beings may have done. I don’t think that is the way things work. I cannot give you a reason for why this virus began. But, rather than wasting time looking back and trying to place the blame somewhere, I prefer to think about what we can do now. I think the Children of Israel definitely needed to do something. The problem was that they made a bad choice. We too are waiting. We are also anxious, and  frustrated. So what can we do? What choices will we make?

Later in our portion, God comes down in a cloud, and stands together with Moses saying:  “Adonai! Adonai! A God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34:6). These words tell us all we need to know.

Our tradition teaches that human beings are made in the image of God. Like God, let us be compassionate and gracious. Let us be slow to anger, and abounding in kindness. If we go to the supermarket, and must wait 47 minutes before it is our turn to enter, let us not show our frustration in how we behave with the other customers and the people at the checkout counters. If we are staying home, let us reach out to others by internet and telephone. Do you know an older person, or someone who lives alone? Give them a call and ask how they are doing. Above all let us try to be patient, and follow the instructions that are designed for the life of our communities, of our country.

We are together. We are Or ‘Ammim.

Shabbat shalom

Rav Ariel, LiOr & Sara the Cat

(if you'd like to see the Italian of this, click here. Thanks to LiOr for all her help!)

Living Under Lockdown: Day 4

Today's procrastination took the form of finding my favourite fountain pen and doing a bit of drawing.

Remembering 4-F

Guthrie's anti-Vietnam-War song from 1967

Growing up in London, I was lucky enough to have a father who was able to explain some of the differences between American and British English. His record collection also provided a small window into US popular culture of the 1960's, which is how I came across Arlo Guthrie's song "Alice's Restaurant". At one point I was able to recite the entire piece, all 18 minutes of it. Luckily for my friends, a receding memory now limits me to only a few highlights. 

It was "Alice's Restaurant" that introduced me to the concept of the draft for the Vietnam war, and how Guthrie was ultimately rated 4-F (in fact this was just for the song. It seems that his rating was 1-A, but his lottery number never came up so he did not serve). That designation came to mind many years ago when I interviewed for my first North American pulpit. After applying to c. 18 different communities across the country, the night before Matching Day one of my thesis professors called me and said I should not expect any callbacks as I was too "other" for the American rabbinate. In a moment of wry humour I designated myself 4-F for the American rabbinate, the 4 F's being: Foreign, Female, Fat & a Feigele.

Nu, last week I happened to find out what the origin of 4-F is supposed to be. I knew that with regard to its use in US military language, it was a classification given to someone not acceptable for service in the armed forces for medical or other reasons (e.g. homosexuality). I read that it goes back to the Civil War/War between the States. In order to load a rifle quickly the gun powder cartridge needed to be ripped open with one's teeth. The teeth in the back of the mouth were no good for this task, only the front teeth could be used. The rule was that one must have at least 4 front teeth with which to tear the powder packages open. 4-F.

Shavuatov.