May 13, 2011-Parshat Behar

"What's that got to do with the price of tea in china?" Did you know we Jews have an equivalent quip? The beginning of this week's Torah portion, Behar, inspired it; Mah inyan Shmittah etzel Har Sinai (what's the connection between Shmittah - the sabbatical year - and mt. Sinai)? This question comes as a response to the Torah portion's opening sequence where the intricate laws of the Sabbatical year are introduced with the prelude that God spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Why is this point singled out here? The classic response teaches that not only were the broad outlines of God's will revealed at Mt. Sinai, but all the details of ALL the laws were articulated there as well, even if they are taught much later in the Torah.

As a very important side note, this commandment requires that the entire country lie fallow for one full year, and that God will provide three years worth of produce in the sixth year to cover year six, seven, and the first of the next cycle since no work was done during the seventh. This would be a preposterous claim for a human author to make if the Torah were not of Diving origin. In addition, there are no records of historical famine or breach of this remarkable unnatural occurrence that recurred every seven years for close to 1000 years of living in the land of Israel. Think about it.

As Penn segues into Graduation mode and the tents are staked securely into the earth (in anticipation of some heavy rains), there is a lesson here in the Torah that may shed some light on the deeper meaning of this colligate ceremony . The laws of Shmittah apply when we as Jews enter the land of Israel. And yet the Torah teaches us that their details were enumerated at Mt. Sinai. A time of information, gestation, and then practice. Graduation is really a transition from the theory to the practice, not merely a completion of one separate stage and the beginning of another. We'll sing tonight in Lecha Dodi, written in Tzfat by R' Shlomo Alkebitz some 500 years ago, sof maase v'machsheva techilah (God's action is the end, His thought/vision the beginning). We're meant to have thought, learned, contemplated and prepared. And now we celebrate the transition that makes those theoretics practical. Bringing things into the world of action is what makes us most Divine, what fuels our spiritual uniqueness of creativity.

But Shmittah teaches us something far more valuable. In the world of hard work - tilling the proverbial soil of life - it becomes very easy to forget God and His blessing and rely on our own might for sustenance. Shmittah reminds us that every 7 years, everything we have is a gift. A gift from God. We're His partner and do our share for 6 years, but on the 7th the relationship moves to a whole new level. As we enter into the 'real world', we cannot forget from where we come, why we're here, and Who is truly guiding our existence and rooting for our success. We Jews have been called the conscious of the world for this very reason. To be anchored in right vs. wrong, God's will, spiritual sanity and humility - these are the traits we stand for even amidst the deception and gruel of hard work.

To our graduates - we wish you spiritual success in life (with the requisite material grace you need to succeed).

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn

May 6, 2011- Parshat Emor

"To everything, turn turn turn, there is a season, turn turn turn, and a time for every purpose under heaven."

One thing's for sure, when the Byrds wrote it, they didn't have Forest Gump in mind. And they most certainly didn't take their cue from this week's Torah portion either. But, as a fitting note to school's end and the very rare instance where the English language gets it right - commencement - the lessons gleaned from the Torah here are priceless. "These are the moadim..." Sorry, but I can't translate it. There's a word in Hebrew for time - zman, and festival - chag. But this one, moadim, is elusive (I've seen it translated as appointed festivals - whatever that means). Suffice it to say, this passage begins the detailed list of all the stations along the Main Line of the Jewish year. Come to think of it, "stations" is not a bad stab at what's really going on. A time for this, a time for that - no station repeats itself, and each is fundamentally necessary for the journey. Pesach, Shavous, Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, Succos and some of the more "local" stops, Hannukah, Purim, Tu B'Shvat, Tu B'Av, Lag B'Omer, Tisha B'av and back again and again, turn turn turn.

Every end is always a beginning. Every measure of time is only that moment which necessarily connects the previous moment to the next. But there exists the option of steering each moment in any number of directions creating a continuum of either good or evil, right or wrong. "Time" means that it once began, and as certainly as it began, it mush finish. There is a goal to its creation, or it loses all reason to exist. Each moment along the way is either calibrated towards Time's intended end, or by definition most callously diverted. But there are stops along the way - stations and pit stops to "freshen up" - priceless opportunities to tap into the regiment of the human condition and well the depths of the spirit. No station's the same, and none is superfluous. Each has its own language, culture, nuance and message and is inextricably connected to the whole system which proudly presents itself a year later for revisitation. These are the "stations" that God gave the Jews - festivals of time and spirit and Divine awakenings.

Through a year, and back again, in and out of weeks, and back again... Some years we're at Penn, others not. But the "stations" are consistent and it's there where we'll measure up the muscle and maturity we garner through life. The Almighty created many different components of time - hours, days, weeks, months, seasons, years, generations - all which require understanding, definition, appreciation and dexterity. We progress in concentric circles, spiraling through life revisiting each and every station, but as a different being each and every time. May we all continue to grow and reach the milestones we're meant to reach, and may we have the good sense and fortune to recognize when we've actually met them.

A blessed beginning to all and a good summer,

Rabbi Lynn

April 16, 2011- Parshat Acharei Mot/Shabbat Hagadol

It's always a remarkable image: little Jewish children sitting around the Passover table cheering on the devastation and destruction of the Egyptians through methodical, step by step torturous and murderous plagues. One by one, blood, frogs, lice, beasts, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and finally death. Yippee! Isn't Passover so much fun?! As if that wasn't enough, Moshe taunts Pharoh (at God's urging of course) with debilitating psychological warfare, pretending to ask for a mere 3 days "vacation" to fatten and slaughter a few sheep (doubly insulting because sheep were the Egyptian god). Pharaoh knew it was an escape plan, but politics were politics even back then. Granted, the Egyptians had deceived the Jews into becoming "servants" of Pharoh through careful manipulation, and then maintained 120 years of brutal slavery and sadistic decrees - their demise was well deserved and who could fault the Jews for gawking. I mean, we're still at it millennium later.

Really, the plagues were as much for them as they were - and are - for us. Each plague serves a distinct purpose. Each plague elucidates a specific attribute of the Hebrew God that no other nation could possibly fathom: One singular entity whose existence encompasses all of creation leaving nothing to chance, save the free-will autonomy of man. No grain of sand, no gigabyte too small to be rendered insignificant; nay, the entire universe is one giant stage of almost infinite significance upon which the story of the human soul will unfold. The 10 plagues correspond to the 10 statements of creation, the 10 commandments, the 10 Sephirot (for you kabalists), the 10 catagories of joy (for you romantics), and even your 10 fingers and toes. The world was de-created, re-created and shaken and stirred until every morsel of God's attainable glory was highlighted, and the Jewish people lifted to the status of a Nation - an entity far greater than the sum total of its parts, a new dimension where we as individuals cease to exist, yet where we coalesce into a creation much more God-like, and hence much closer.

Egypt was the world super-power in everything, including magic. So much so that the Jews couldn't fully 100% believe in the plague or Moshe's signs. 99% maybe, but not 100%. Even though the Egyptians couldn't reproduce more than the first two plagues, Jews always deep down harbored a sense of superiority and maybe figured Moshe could best the best. (Sinai eventually cleared up any doubts). During the third plague of lice, the Torah teaches that the Egyptian magicians tried, but were unsuccessful and headed to, at least, the "finger of God". Why couldn't they compete? Our Sages teach that lice were too small. Really? Rivers into blood, millions of miraculous frogs, but lice were too small?!?

The power of magic has no dominion over something with no substantive size - less than a mustard seed. The Maharal of Prague explains that magic is a manipulation of all the negative forces in creation, or more accurately, a utilization of the forces of creation negatively (much like love can be guided or misguided, ire, wealth, gravity...). Yet again, it begs the question, "why? Why can't magic rule over things smaller than a mustard seed?" If this is the most you've ever heard about a mustard seed, herein lies the answer. This is not some random comparison. The yardstick of something of substance, something of its own girth, so to speak, is a mustard seed. Anything less has no legal status, doesn't exist as its own entity. Magic, or utilitarian forces for evil, can only dominate over something that otherwise boasts of its own identity, its own self-perpetuating existence. One's ego, or self-inflation, is by definition an affront to the very concept of the Jewish God. It is here that evil takes root. But when the Jewish people humble themselves and no longer consider their own existence outside of God and the Jewish nation, magic has no recourse. When we're unified, we're only unified because we ignore the petty, the physical, the ego. This is the goal. This is one of the great consequences of experiencing the plagues - for a few moments in history we had our sights set on perfection, on oneness of purpose. These moments are precious. So precious we celebrate them year after year. We revisit and recreate anew this sublime sense of unity and belonging.

We'll sing next week Dayenu, and each stage of that treasured tune has remarkable merit - plagues, sea splitting, etc. But one line is troubling. "If you only brought us to Mt Sinai and not given us the Torah, it would have been enough." Really? What's the big deal of getting to Mt. Sinai if nothing were to happen? To this question I heard a wonderful answer. The Torah intimates that when we finally arrived at Mt. Sinai, we were so unified that we're described as "one being with one heart". Even without receiving the Torah, for the Jewish people to experience such unity and love, that too would have been enough.

Have a Chag Kasher v'Sameach - a beautiful holiday to all.

Rabbi Lynn

April 1, 2011-Tazriah

I can't believe it's snowing. Big giant flakes of snow on April 1st. It's certainly the last snow we'll see for a while - I hope you stopped for a moment to marvel. I think it's quite fitting, however, that the snow-calendar has taken its cue from the Jewish calendar as we prepare to wrap up the leap year month of Adar (the 2nd). Our system of direct calibration of the solar and lunar cycles leads us every few years to stick in an extra month for good measure (literally), thus pushing Passover right back into the spring, where it belongs (that's how we know to calibrate, btw).

We leave winter with thoughts of spring. And for many of us, it's spring cleaning that makes the most noise. The mad dash to chase down every last spec of chometz - leavening - begins, and frankly turns us all into paranoid, ocd neurotics. Why the madness? Freedom. I suppose we could try a different tactic to prepare for Pesach; we could spend a few weeks shacked at the wrists and ankles in solitary confinement and then release just before the Seder. Thankfully, our Torah came up with an alternative. Chometz busting.

Why are we so hung up on it? Because most of the year, we're hung up on it - so much so that it rules our existence. What does it stand for? Why is it antithetical to freedom? It's the ego. It's physicality devoid of spiritual content. It's simply metaphysical hot air. It's what gets in the way of true freedom. Hedonistic indulgence and self indulgence (one and the same) are the hurdles we face every day and the chains that shackle more than our wrists and ankles. On Pesach night, we will have (should have) broken free. But not without a fight. Know the enemy well. Seek and destroy.

This week's torah portion chronicles all the laws of purity and impurity - very elusive subjects for us nowadays. However, the impurities we suffer from today are quite obvious and the Torah's call to sensitivity and purity should be a call to action. The freedom we seek is also equally elusive. It's not a freedom to do whatever we want whenever we want to - that's more the enemy's motto than ours. If we make a list of what we feel we should be, what we aspire to be, what we want our spouses, children, confidants and friends to think of us, we'll find it's full of sacrifice, hard work and determination. And the chometz of life stands in the way.

Ready, aim, fire.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn

March 25, 2011- Shemini/Parah

Our illustrious Sages decreed that we revisit four portions of the Torah specifically in the weeks preceding Passover. Of course, they expect far more spiritual and physical preparation than that, and let's face it, if we show up to Seder night without any prior thought or input, we'll stand very little chance of tapping into its timeless potential. But at the very least, on a communal level they wanted to hit home with four fundamental ideas. This Shabbos is host to one of them.

The great Phil Rizzuto's staple expletive during 40 years of Yankee broadcasts was, "HOLY COW!!!!". I was just picking up my son from his play group and heard Meat Loaf's Paradise by the Dashboard Light coming over the radio and smiled. Does G-d really have that kind of sense of humor? Meat Loaf purportedly tricked Rizzuto into taping a fictitious baseball announcement for the song which has long since become famous. If you know what I'm talking about, you're smiling as well. It turns out he knew full well what he was recording, but faked ignorance to get his priest and his wife off his back. "HOLY COW" is in the song as well. Our Shabbos portion is another Holy Cow.

Where'd he get it from, that expression? Ever wonder? No. 10's been retired from the Yankees and "the Scooter" has been retired from existence, so there's no one to ask. But with the little sleep I've had this week, my mind starts to wander. Perhaps parshas Parah? This very Torah portion that we're assigned so close to Passover talks of the Parah Aduma - the red heiffer - a Temple sacrifice so profound that it can purify the most impure of impurities, something that even King Solomon the Wise couldn't understand (in fact the only thing). Only G-d can do and understand such an impossibility. Making the totally impure, completely pure. And this cow, this holy cow, is the way forward.

The high priest in the Temple performed the task with the greatest of purity himself, only to be rendered impure himself the second the impure recipient becomes pure. A paradox of epic proportion. But the message we can understand, and we must understand before we experience Jewish freedom on Passover.

The Torah describes the process in great detail and the central component is the ash of the sacrifice (a completely unblemished, unworked, red heffer). However, at the very end of the portion, the Torah changes its diction from 'ash' (Ayfer in Hebrew) to 'dirt' (afar) - changing an alef to an ayin. What's the difference between ash and dirt? Ash is thoroughly destroyed - the remnants of something that was and is positively and irreconcilably no longer. Dirt, however, has no past, but is only potential - the future. In it things can grow, take root, absorb its nutrients. It is the life giving cocoon that this world provides. The Parah Aduma sacrifice represents G-d's ability, nay promise, to raise the dead, so to speak. From that which by all standards is completely destroyed and cannot give life, He will bring forth life. When the Jewish people seem to have no future, no hope of future greatness, they are promised to rise again. This is our message as a People. We speak it of ourselves and the miracle of our existence, and we speak of G-d's promise and His prowess. Precisely just when there seems to be no future, there is nothing but hope. That's what we stand for, and that message is so crucial to Passover.

Holy Cow, indeed.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn

March 18, 2011-Tzav/Purim

I had a very poignant conversation with a student this week which highlighted our approach to Jewish holidays. They are not commemorations,
but rather re-visitations. We fast on the fast of Esther because we need the message and the repentance. We rejoice on Purim because we need to feel the love of what it means to be a Jew. In short, we endeavor to re-experience the array of emotions and strengthen our steadfast convictions to the mission of the Jewish people. We shed the tears of pain and euphoria almost simultaneously. As only Jews can.

Over spring break, we once again journeyed to Poland - what better
preparation for Purim can there be. Without question, we experienced the lows of the lows, and thusly the highs of the highs. But something else happened this week which should give our fast of Esther some bite. And less the message be slightly unclear, we will be reading the Torah portion of Amalek this Shabbos, the remembrance of that nation whose only joy is the annihilation of the Jewish people.

Last week we stood at the mass grave of over 800 children from Tarnow in Galicia, Poland in a forest called Zbylitovska Gura. The Nazis sadistically rejoiced in exterminating the third reich's greatest enemy, Jewish children. And now, 70 years later, the same beast called Amalek has reared its head yet again. Last Shabbos the Fogel family in Israel was brutally slaughtered in their home - a father, mother and 3 children ages 11, 3 and 3 months - by hand with a knife as they lay in bed. In the streets of Gaza and the west bank, arabs celebrated and passed out candies and treats. If this isn't sobering, I don't know what is.

Please do not turn a blind eye to this tragedy. If you didn't know, be sure to look it up. If you did know, be sure to shed a river of tears.

It seems every year Purim becomes more and more relevant. We don't need to look around anymore for Haman - he's made himself quite known. And his henchmen are bloodthirsty in their loyalty to Amelek's anthem.

So how do we respond? We sing and dance and drink and eat. We read the Megilah which tells the timely story of our Divine salvation on the brink of extermination. We see that the Almighty was there all along - even in the darkness when He seemed furthest away. We pay attention to that story and strengthen our resolve to see through the haze of history and know with complete faith that even in our present darkness, the Purim story holds the key to our salvation. We dress in costume to mock the veneer of 'how the word looks' and we send gifts to our fellow Jew and alms to the Jewish poor to increase our love - nay, infatuation - for this enigma call the Jew and our responsibility to it. And we drink. Drink to feel the love. Drink to
bring out the heart which can defeat the skepticism of the head.

If you think Purim is one big excuse for a pub crawl, then unfortunately the holiday has been adulterated. And if people choose to spend the time as an excuse for frivolity and blithering drunkenness, then we will have fallen behind once again in achieving the lofty and elusive goal of tikkun olam. The Purim story is the most powerful message we can revisit today. Drunkenness for the sake of drunkenness is further fodder to our enemies. A drink for the love of being a Jew is the prescription of Purim.


Good Shabbos, and a Freilichen Purim.
Rabbi Lynn

February 18, 2011- Ki Sisa

I realized something else I have in common with my kids. We both think that the lady who sings 1234 really wrote the song about penguins at the door and chickens just back from the shore and an obsession with counting. Little did we know that a woman dubbed feist is actually working towards a different career. Personally, I like what she did here better.

She loves counting. So does Hashem. But we do it sans chickens and monsters and ceilings of 4. The Torah portion this week begins with counting. God wants Moses to count the Jewish people. And the portion is named after the first telling words - Ki Sisa - which means when you raise up the Jewish people (it's translated as 'when you take a census', but the root of the word means to raise). What does counting have to do with raising up?

Sesame Street: Feist sings 1,2,3,4

As a side note, the Torah clearly teaches us not to count their heads, but rather have everyone give a half a shekel, and count them instead. We don't like to put a fixed number on counting people. It's an evil eye thing that the little red bracelet won't dispel. But what is even more interesting is that the Torah teaches that Moses couldn't figure out what the shekel was supposed to look like, so God showed him a coin of fire - matbei'ah shel aish. What didn't Moses know? What was he bothered by? and how was this the answer.

The word for counting in Hebrew is 'lispor' from the root of the same word 'sipour' meaning story and the word 'sefer' meaning book. When Jews count, we're not counting for quantity alone, but rather we're mostly counting for quality. Quality of Oneness. A story is a series of different events that are woven together to teach a single theme or to accomplish a single entity called 'the story'. The 'sefer' is the unification of those events under one cover. The same root which means 'to count' is of a similar vein. We count not for the amount, but to create a greater whole. Moses' question was really how can we 'raise up' the Jewish people and count them in a way
which unifies and doesn't disperse. More deeply, as a leader, he wanted to understand how to unify a people. So God showed him a coin of fire. Fire is the great consumer. Everything that enters it, becomes it. It reduces the individual components of the thing to energy, thus destroying the elements which distinguish it from something else - in size, texture, color, dimension, space and time - and turning it into pure energy - its spiritual component - so that it can 'serve' the greater One. Fire is the great equalizer. God was showing Moses the power of the spiritual oneness already latent in each and every Jew and the opportunity to bring that out. To the degree to which the Jewish people will know their spiritual truth, to the degree to which they will be willing to sacrifice the superficial, physical components of their being, will be the very recipe for Oneness - the ultimate goal for the nation of Israel.

This what it means to be 'counted' among the Jewish people - a feat that spans time and space. This is the Jewish 'story' and our Torah is the sefer in which we strive to be written.

Good Shabbos,
Rabbi Lynn

February 4, 2011- Terumah

From the surface, the word "adultery" says a lot of how we see ourselves maturing through life. I haven't checked the dictionary, but I imagine we're describing an event which is...well...a manifestation or expression of adulthood. Consenting adults. But not quite. One of these is "faithfully" committed to someone else. And unbeknownst to them, their trust is being
obliterated. Could such an abusive violation of the very gift of intimacy really be coined with a word that drips of maturity? Perhaps I've got it wrong. But from the looks of things out there, and the staggering rates of illicit behavior, it may seem that the very staple of adulthood is thoroughly rotted with its namesake, adultery.

Seems like we should stay kids forever, no?

By the way, in Judaism the stakes are raised exponentially. "Adultery" is not transgressed by only the very brazen men and women of action, but any adulterous violation of the purest intimacy is included. A spouse who has thoughts of another whilst loving his or her "beloved" of holy matrimony, is considered on par with the very worst. In the bedroom, there exists the potential for either the holiest and least lonely of life's experiences, or, God forbid (and He did ;-)), the most severely profane and most lonely moment in existence.

This week's Torah portion is called Terumah, and deals predominantly with the details of the Tabernacle and its accompanying vessels. Lying atop the Ark of the Covenant in the Holiest place on earth, encasing the most sacred tablets of our people, are the cruvim כרובים (by their Greek translation -cherubim). They are little, winged, baby-faced "angels" perched above the contract of existence, the tablets of our partnership with the Almighty, their wings outstretched upwards towards each other and the Heavens. And with typical miraculous fashioning, their posturing will change to reflect the spiritual state of the Jewish people vis a vis their covenant. With bowed heads and draped wings, the cruvim would tell a frightening tale of the Jewish state of affairs, longing once again to hold their heads upright and reach towards the Heavens. Many times in our history have they reflected such misfortune, and often have they radiated with the success and beauty of our people. Were they revealed to us today I shudder at imagining their pose.

Why children? Why children with wings? Why atop the Aron HaKodesh? Children are nothing but potential -waiting to be drawn out and brought to completion. Waiting to fulfill a great destiny that sprouts from toil, dedication, nutrients and nurture, that grows and develops into vessels of unlimited vision and hope, and develops capacities of almost infinite potential. This can be realized. Or this can be lost. But the potential is what God has given us, and that potential flows from one source alone - Him- and through one source as well - His Torah. The Cruvim stand above the Ark, fashioned from one piece of gold with the Ark's cover - drawing their existence from the contents within and spreading the light of Torah through the Jewish people and the world. Or not.

And now for some numerology: God is, obviously ONE (see the Shma). The number which most reflects the very next option for created existence is, you guessed it, TWO. Good. As we know, all Hebrew letters have consistent numerical values. ב=2, כ=20, ר=200. These are the letters that represent all that flows from the ONE. The Torah begins with a beis ב because that's the place where Torah begins (reading that line requires the right emphasis -you can work it out, I'm hopeful) - the place where the spiritual world can first begin to flow into this one. The word for blessing, brocha, is made from these letters. A chariot, rechev, as well (bringing things out - can
you see it?). And, of course, Cruvim. (I know, you Hebrew speakers are wondering about cabbage - chruv - take a look at a whole one and you'll see the "bringing out" of all the leaves). Bringing things out into potential is the key to Jewish success and focus of much of our attention.

Adulthood, and subsequent acts of "adulthoodness" are meant to be
actualizations of atomic potential, not adulterous stoopings to animalistic urges. As we grow and develop ourselves, we should be both frighteningly aware and euphorically hopeful of the great privilege and responsibility that lies in being raised, raising ourselves further, and one day (if not already) raising others.

Wishing you a lovely Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn

January 29, 2011- Mishpatim

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.... The classic Dean Martin rendition can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN7LW0Y00kE. This, like many other xmas songs was written of course by jews - this one by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne. But despite the highjacking by St. Nick, it's actually a sweet little love song that doesn't mention saturnalia or its coca-cola substitute xmas even once. Just a little bit of love under a blanket of snow. Fitting for this Shabbos.

Parshas Mishpatim (the Torah segment called "ordinances") - a laundry list of tort laws, marital laws, by-laws and more laws (including sorcery!). What a wonderful parsha. For those of us who spent years in yeshivas, this is the bread we've been raised on. All the subtleties, nuances, details, applications, manifestations, incarnations of God's Law. Each word rings with hours and days and weeks of Talmuldic discourse, reams of commentaries, plumbed depths of philosophy and logic. The familiar smells of home, the tastes that linger and remind us of the place to which we yearn to return.

The parsha begins, "And these are the ordinances". As we all learnt in grammar school - never, never begin a sentence with "and", let alone a whole book, so to speak - except, of course, if you're God. When He says it, He means to connect this entire teaching to the previous - not merely a run-on, but inextricably intertwined. Just as the previous parsha (10 commandments) was spoken and given on Har Sinai, so too were all these details. God's world is like pointillism: the greatness of the big picture is only a result of an appreciation of the details, while the details themselves have no
meaning other than their place in the larger context. Details, details,
itty-bitty nitty-gritty beautiful, gorgeous details...

The measure of love is in the details. Go ask anyone who has navigated the labyrinths of marriage successfully and thus finds him/herself enveloped in love and oneness to sketch a picture their better half - what you'll get are details and more details, well beyond the physical appearance. An open-ended story with infinite discoveries. And only a true lover will relish them -every last one to the nth degree.

The Torah is a love story. The Sages liken the revelation on Har Sinai to a wedding, with the mountain being our Chuppah - God and the Jewish people as bride and groom. I would be so bold to say that Egypt was the courtship, The Red Sea splitting the engagement, Har Sinai the marriage, and Mishpatim the honeymoon. These laws and intricacies, sometimes blamed as the source of ultimate frustration and abandonment of Torah, are actually the very keys to
marrying the metaphysical. Judaism stands alone in striving to find God in the details - which really translates into bringing the spiritual in the physical, giving every inch of life and all its scenarios a connection to its source, and discovering holiness in the seemingly otherwise profane.


Wishing you a "white" Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn

January 21, 2011- Yisro/Tu B'shevat

A week of birthdays. Happy birthday Rabbi Lynn (40 - whoa!), happy birthday Rosa Lynn (8), and happy birthday trees (5771). And although it's not the actual date this week, the Torah portion recounts the original 'Birthday' of the Jewish nation at Mt. Sinai (before that, we were merely a family - now we became a nation). But let's get back to the trees for a second. Yesterday was Tu B'Shvat, which basically means the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shvat (Tu is the sound the Hebrew letter numerical system would make if you pronounced it, much like 'vol' would be VL or 45 in roman numerals), and it's known to be the birthday of the trees.

There are two points which need an explanation. Firstly, the Talmud teaches that there are actually four Rosh Hashanas. We know of the one for us, but there's another for water (succot), grains (passover) and trees/fruit (tu b'shvat) - four distinct cycles of time where these essentials are recycled and thus 'judged'. On our Rosh Hashana we review the previous year's crop of good deeds vs bad deeds and set the course for the coming year's consequential allotment. So too for water, grain, and fruit at their appropriate time, with however one small note of importance; neither water nor grain nor fruit misbehaves - rather WE are judged on these days vis a vis water, grain and fruit. On a simple level, or measure of these things for the coming year is meted out on these dates (and there are special additions to our prayers and customs accordingly). However on a much deeper level, we are 'judged on these days vis a vis what water grain and trees represent to us. Water is Torah and Grain means our livelihood. But what are the trees about????

Here lies the second point - and a very beautiful one. To Shakespeare, tis the winter of our discontent. To the world at large, winter represents death, dearth, darkness, dread and dreary. Spring is full of life and vigor. Etc. Granted, the world looks quite bleak during the winter. The days are dark, the cold oppresses, and life seems a million miles away - as of this writing, the snow has begun to fall in Philly. And yet, in typical Jewish fashion, we are the iconoclasts. In the dead of winter, the very heart of death and darkness, the Jew celebrates life. Tu B'shvat's ritual is namely the eating of fruit - tons of it, classically 15 different kinds, or at the very least the species indigenous to the land of Israel. In the heart of winter we celebrate life because we have a secret; our Sages teach that unbeknownst to those with superficial perception, the sap actually begins to enter the tree on this day, when everything else looks bleak. WE know that the seeds of life are sown amidst the outward gloom, rays of light are planted in the heart of darkness because the world in never what it seems when God runs the show and you are His people. We celebrate that faith, that trust, that no matter how grim things seems, salvation is already on its way. Bitachon - trust - the Jewish way of understanding. That's what Tu B'shvat is all about.

And if you've been following this so far, then the both aforementioned points make sense together. Tu B'shvat is the Rosh Hashana when we're judged specifically vis a vis our faith and trust in God's system. Do we have it? Can we pass the tests? Can we not be fooled by trends and externalities? Not so simple. But oh so Jewish.

As I send my little girl off into her eighth year full of life and sparkle, I turn an auspicious corner in my own timeline and endeavor to take the Tu B'shvat message to heart.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn

December 17, 2010- Veyechi/ Fast of Teves

Today is the 10^th of the Hebrew month of Teves. And while there are plenty of aromatic temptations in the kitchen so close to Shabbos, today is traditionally a fast day (not a 'full' fast like Yom Kippur, but since dawn this morning through evening). Once upon a time, it was actually a 3 day fast (light eating and drinking in the evenings), commemorating certain paradigm events of Jewish tragedy that 'coincidentally' occurred on the darkest days of the year. We Jews are of course poetic people to boot and the significance of darkness is never lost on us, the people of light. Today it is reduced to one day of fasting and is set aside to commemorate the beginning of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, the death of Ezra the Scribe and arguably one of the most prominent leaders of the Jewish people both spiritually and politically, the end of prophesy and the translation of the Torah into Greek. All of these share the common theme of wresting the Jews away from their source and catapulting us into the darkness where the light of truth will be ever more elusive.

However in today's day and age where the translation of Hebrew books is heralded by the Jewish people and has been solely responsible for a wealth of renewed study and erudition, how can we understand the 'tragedy' of the Torah's translation into Greek as something tantamount to Jerusalem's destruction and the arrest of prophetic communication? There is a statement attributed to the great leader of German Jewry, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, whose canon of inspiring essays and books saved European Jewry from complete assimilation. "Theology is man's study of God. Torah is God's study of man." The Greeks accomplished something so subtly dangerous - a mere translation - that demands a day of fasting, repentance and introspection.

There was, however, a great miracle as well. The Greeks ordered 70 of the Sages into separate chambers and demanded an accurate translation. Miraculously, each of the Sages made the exact same edits and addendums to assure that the Greek translation could not be used in any defamatory way against the Jews. This translation of 70 became known famously as the Septugent. And while nowadays translations are welcomed and appreciated, this translation was different.

When we speak of engaging Torah - we speak of 'learning' Torah. In Van Pelt and other university libraries, you 'study' Torah. Studying connotes one's own mastery and control over the subject matter. It becomes the possession of the its student, to be used as pleased. We 'master' it and it becomes ours. 'Learning' Torah is powerfully different. We subjugate ourselves to the Torah, understanding the truth of its Divinity and its 'mastery' of us. We humbly accept the task of learning the will of the Almighty - imitation dei - striving our entire lives to live up to His and the Torah's standards. The Torah is not something to grace our book shelves as another intellectual conquest, as the Greeks so cleverly schemed, but rather the pulmonary system of the Jewish people which has always served us uniquely well when held in the highest esteem, and conversely when shunned or merely 'studied' we Jews have never found success.

Anatomy will teach you much of the human being. It can surely be studied and mastered. But it is in no way representative of what a person really is when alive. The academic approach to Torah will similarly show no life. The 'learning' of Torah is about nothing else. The Greeks sought to sever us from our source. With this they surely succeeded. They've left their armies in place, but there's hope for the Jewish people nonetheless and we long for (and work tirelessly towards) the restoration of Torah values and a Torah life.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn

December 10, 2010- Vayigash

The following was written last year on the anniversary of the Mumbai attack.
It was this week's Torah portion, Vayigash.

I heard it with my own ears. Someone remembered that 27 years ago, the
Kloisenberger Rebbe gave a talk and mentioned something about Jews in India, dying "al kiddush Hashem" (sanctification of God's name, ie martyrdom). The recording was uploaded to digital and made the rounds - it was broken, scratchy and the Yiddish was very hard to discern, but then right there in the middle he said it. In the times before the Moshiach, the entire world will be brought to an understanding of the Jew through a series of events and even the far reaching places filled with throngs of people completely unfamiliar with the Jew (even by negative association) will be enlightened when one Jew in India is killed "al kiddush Hashem". I know messianic talk is an uncomfortable subject for most Jews - either it smacks too much of christianity or rings of apocalyptic fanaticism - but like it or not it is a central part of normative Judaism. Much like the patriarchs, Moses, the prophets, etc. who grace the annals of Jewish history, there will be an emissary of God, a king to the Jewish people, who will usher in an era called Geulah, or redemption. What this looks like exactly is not our subject here, but in some ways nothing we recognize will remain the same and yet in others nothing will be different other than a sovereign theocracy under this King and God's Torah. Necessarily, Jewish "philosophy" as it were must assume an ultimate state of perfection in sync with the perfection of the Creator, where all becomes revealed - every question answered, every lion with every lamb, and the spiritual truth of existence as clear as day. Our tradition teaches that the span of time before Moshiach will not exceed 6000 years and the redemption can come anytime before. This year is 5769.

What we don't do, however, is purchase megaphones, placards and soap boxes, crowd around times square pronouncing the end is nigh. Nor do we sit around our ancient texts wringing our hands with cacophonous laughter at the coming cataclysms. And yet, our Sages have elucidated for us much of what seems to playing before our very eyes - and the more I read and hear, the more accurate it becomes, and the more the world seems to be following a script that, although I may know the ending, is wondrously weaving its way there with no shortage of surprises and captivating brilliance. The great Rabbi Akiva was remembered to have "laughed" at the sight of Jerusalem's destruction because if the words of the prophets came true in this was with such perfection, then surely their words of redemption and Divine unity will likewise come to fruition. When our Sages, our Righteous predict and foretell and our own eyes bear witness, we're meant to strengthen our resolve, embolden our faith, take our own thoughts and deeds more seriously, and prepare for the battles we'll most likely face - both national and personal.

The Koisenberger Rebbe was the young scion of Sanzer Chassidim. He rose to meteoric heights of spiritual purity and Talmudic brilliance, leadership and vision. He lost his wife and 11 children in the Holocaust, remarried afterwards and bore 7 more, and somewhere in between survived the most horrendous conditions while still shepherding his flock, the Jewish people. He was renowned for leading the Jews in the DP camps, and for rebuilding Torah Judaism and his own Chassidus both in American and Israel after the war, and for asking General Eisenhower to fetch him a lulav and etrog from Italy for the Succot immediately following liberation. When a man of such sacrifice and stature, with such an unbounded love for God and His people, looks into the future, he doesn't prophesize, per se, but he'll intuit the ways of the Almighty much like a parent intuits the thoughts of the child she knows and loves so well.

A Maimonides alum purchased for us a Megilas Ester for Purim online that was printed in Munich right after the war under the American Vaad Hatzala (salvation committee) as a gift to "the Shaaris HaPlaytah", the holy remnants of the Jewish people. This was the Kloisenberger Rebbe's community/congregation. This may have even been held by him (the thought of whose hands caressed these pages sends a chill every time). The Megilah and Purim both tell the story "behind the scenes". Everything on the outside seemed bleak and God-less. And yet in the heart of the darkness, in the depth of the "abandonment", God was lurking in every detail, every second and every turn. Every community will read this Shabbat the story of Joseph where ultimately he reveals himself to his brothers not as one sold into slavery but rather the viceroy of Egypt and savior of their fate. The Megilah tells a similar story. The Kloisenberger Rebbe lived such a story himself, and could see with prophetic intuition the unfolding of yet another such tale. We seem to be the players as the scenes unfold.

Wishing you a very lovely Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn

December 3, 2010- Miketz

So last night, we cut Yehuda's hair. He went from a gorgeous little (just) 3 year old with flowing blond locks and the sweetest disposition to a boy. A real boy! In mere seconds he seemed to be transposed into the proverbial 'wildchild' with cunning and mischief as his modus operandus. Granted, it could have been the sugar overload and hours of adoring attention (the haircut was a very public event - snips for everyone), but something very powerful was indeed unleashed. At 3, a Jewish child takes 'form' and is introduced to Torah and Mitzvot. He takes physical form (that's the haircut) and spiritual form as well - we begin the alefbeis, he gets his first pair of tzitzis, peis, and of course the yarmulke. A Jewish life begins stage 2 at 3: deeply rooted in Torah, and that's the celebration.

The Greeks came to "make us forget God's Torah". That was their objective, and all their decrees were mere strategies. How do you cause someone to forget. Take the wind out of their sails in that very area. Don't underestimate the Greeks, they were quite intelligent. They knew the only way to neutralize the Jews was to cut them off from their source - to separate them from their beginnings; not only were we to disconnect from our national inception at Mount Sinai, but every additional expression of newness was to be eradicated. They specifically prohibited Rosh Chodesh (the New Month festival) where time is sanctified and the month (chodesh) begins anew (chadash), Bris Milah, Shabbos (the beginning of every week where our breathe is drawn and our lungs rejuvenated), the Tamid offering (the daily start of Divine service), and of course Torah learning, the most blatant connection to the Sinai experience where God spoke and every word of subsequent Torah learning is merely a continuation of that very dialogue. The Greeks even went so far as to abduct every betrothed (and yet unwed) Jewish maiden lest her "beginning" be pure. This was not a decree of licentiousness, but rather a dagger in the heart of the most Jewish institution. Every beginning was soured, soiled, spoiled and utterly annihilated.

If you cut us off from Sinai, if you take away the phoenix-like power of rejuvenation that permeates the entire Jewish experience, then we are truly a nation under siege.

This Shabbos is the Shabbos of Hanukah, and the coming week brings Rosh Chodesh, the first of the month of Teves. There is no greater moment in the calendar that screams victory from the rooftops than this. We stand atop the ashes of every nation that's sought our destruction and continue to bring light into the world where our enemies have left nothing but darkness as their memory. But a victory dance in and of itself is useless unless we live precisely in the manner which aroused their hatred. We connect. We connect the dots, the seconds of 3,500 years of Jewish history to an unshakable commitment to its future. And we commit to renew again and again the Divine seed of our existence through every portal the world offers - time and space, thought and deed.

Take a moment to reflect. And another to connect. And one more, if you can spare it, to begin again.

Good Shabbos,
Rabbi Lynn

November 27, 2010- Vayeshev

So the word on the web is that 46 million turkeys are killed for thanksgiving every year. If you like, to stave off the genocide, you can join ellen degenerous and adopt a turkey instead of eating it. I'm not sure it's as cute as the cabbage patch fad of yore, but you'll have plenty of plumes for your calligraphy lessons. There's also tofurkey for the vegans and turducken, john madden's concoction of 3 birds one stuffed inside the other for the real carnivores. This is America's answer to seder night. In Plymouth, MA in something like 1621 the native Americans had helped the newcomers adapt and cultivate food for survival and for that they were treated to a meal of gratitude, with the indigenous and bountiful turkey as the centerpiece. This was probably a lovely gesture considering the future the native Americans would face at the hands of the grateful.

Interesting tidbit: many religious Jews who immigrated to the colonies refused to eat turkey because it's apparently not to be found in Europe, certainly not the middle east, and thus there was no tradition to its Kosher status (and the birds in the Torah named - none of them with overt turkey designation). But we've managed to work it out, thank G-d; otherwise we'd feel so un-American.

Lest our gratitude for life and blessing be lost on heartburn alone, we've got black Friday to justify our deep seeded desire for stampedes, pillaging, plundering and hedonism. Seems like the turkeys get their 'stuffing' revenge when we stuff ourselves with far worse than bread crumbs. As I write these words, the lines outside Target are growing in size and tension.

On Thursday night, the 2^nd night of Chanukah, we are making an UPSHERIN for our Yehudah. This is the celebration of his 3^rd birthday accompanied by his very first haircut (upsherin in Yiddish). More than the haircut, however, is the opportunity it provides - the making of the peios (side locks seen most prominently on Chassidim, but worn by all observant jews, often a bit more modestly). He'll also get a kippah and tzitzis, but the peios are the essential source of the celebration. Besides their spiritual and kabalistic significance, they are a true sign of a Jew - distinct and different, beautiful and unique. As with a bris milah, a Jewish boy gets (needs) another sign to distinguish himself and show his Jew colors. For this, once the scholars, tzadikim, family and friends have snipped a locket or two of his gorgeous blonde mane, we will pull out the stops and have our own thanksgiving meal, with quite a different menu - latkes and lights, and anything BUT the turkey and sweet potato pie.

Chanukah is the time to celebrate the sacrifice and miracle of Jews who realized assimilation was a death warrant and Jewish distinction should be a source of pride, if not a vital organ of existence. I am feeling a deep, beautiful sense of 'revenge' in celebrating, nay creating, my son's peios during Chanukah. That the menorah and its oil stands for the victory of Jewish religious service and namely the power of Jewish wisdom, this is the message I will devour with every scissor snip as our dear Yehuda is set apart. The other correlation of an upsherin is to the mitzvoh of orlah - a tree is to be left alone for 3 years as it grows and critically strengthens itself and its roots. The 4^th year of its fruits are considered holy - for G-d alone. From then on it will feed the Jewish people. We surely hope he's grown strong, and will endeavor to make his 4^th year holy, and G-d willing continue to raise him as an integral part of the Jewish people. BTW, you're all invited!!!! Seriously.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn

November 19, 2010- Vayishlach

Brotherly Vengence

Clearly, he's not a Jewish turkey. I'm thankful for thanksgiving (lowercase t - not the hallmark holiday, but rather merely the concept). There's a Jewish Law which requires us to notify the recipient of our kindness (not charity related where anonymity is key) of our kindness, so that they should have the opportunity to be thankful. The specific scenario recorded is having given someone's child something to eat and intentionally smearing some of the food in a visible place so the parents can notice and come to uncover the kindness done. And then be thankful. During the communal recitation of the central component of public prayer, where Jews connect as a nation after having prayed as individuals, and where we join in the single voice of our appointed chazan, when it comes to the portion of thanks, we each utter our own personal supplement because thanks can only be that - personal. That's the only way it works, when it comes from within. Most significant, however, the last line of the personal thanks in the public forum is thanking the Almighty for creating the opportunity to thank Him. Think about it - it's a fundamental Jewish message.

In this week's Parsha, Vayishlach, the Torah recounts the total slaughter of the city of Shchem by the brothers Shimon and Levi. While black friday usually witnesses the slaughter of one's neighbor for the last cabbage patch kid or wifi on the shelf at next to nothing prices, Shimon and Levi carried out their revenge after the complicit city wide abduction and defilement of their sister, Dina. With Shchem's appetite for Jewish daughters whetted, they agreed to undergo unanimous circumcision to enter into the "tribe" and continue their ways. Shimon and Levi proposed the deal, and on the third day following, where every male was in the weakest state after the procedure, they single-handedly wiped out every one of them. The Klausenberger Rebbe, a survivor of the Holocaust in his own right, was purported to have said in the DP camps afterwards that Shimon and Levi knew that by circumcising all of Shchem, they would be considered internationally as Jews, and no one cares when Jews are being killed.

On a final and more uplifting note, Rabbi Yaakov Kaminetzky writes that while Jacob chastised the brothers, he merely addressed their anger. It should be watched and controlled as its potential for wrongdoing is tremendous. But its potential for right-doing is equally relevant. He didn't condemn their actions vis a vis Shchem, just cautioned their natural proclivity for revenge. However, let it be known that no one else was prepared or courageous enough to respond to the defilement of Jacob's daughter with uncompromised commitment to the purity and holiness of the Jewish people. In this Shimon and Levi had no equal. As our tradition teaches, Jacob, and for that matter G-d Himself, appointed them with the most treasured guardianship of the most crucial Jewish undertakings. Levi was elevated to the tribe of priests from which the Cohanim would descend, the appointed tribe of Torah scholars, and the guardians and servants of the Holy Tabernacle/Temple and all of its music, service and vessels. He could be counted on to suffer no infraction of holiness or purity. Nothing un-Godly could ever be tolerated. Likewise, the tribe of Shimon was entrusted with the holiest of holies - the sanctum sanctorum of the Jewish people - our children. Where un-Godliness, impurity and profanity can never, never creep, is amongst our children's education. They are the teachers, the purveyors of generational transmission and responsibility. They have proven themselves to defend righteousness and purity with their lives. They were thus asked to continue where it counts.

Wishing you a thankful thanking to be thankful,

thanks,

Rabbi Lynn (proud member of the tribe of Levi, and humbly one of the privileged MLF turkey basters bringing Torah and Leadership to Philly and beyond)

November 12, 2010-Vayetze

Jacob's dream. Jacob's ladder. Images from our childhood Hebrew-school days, or a Chagall. Angels ascending. Angels descending. The scuffle of twelve stones battling to be his pillow. The bliss of their morphing into one. All of existence unified in purpose - to serve and envelope, comfort and praise the father of the Jewish people. Jacob's surprise at arriving here, at The Place - the central point of all creation - is attributed to kfitzas haderech, the miraculous folding of the earth, like an accordion, under the feet of the righteous lest he experience any delay in reaching his destination. The world bends, bows, kneels and submits to the core of Jewish existence. The soul of the Jewish people knows no subjugation to this-worldly endeavors, but rather just the opposite is true. There is no mother nature with which to contend. The physical laws of creation will gladly concede to the spiritual arrival of truth and oneness.

As the days of Chanukah approach, the smells and anxieties of an age-old war against the Jew resonates from its latest stop in Mumbai. The Greeks lay claim to one such stop as well. The darkness they brought upon the Jewish people can still be felt today, even well after their flame's estinguished - no shred of power, intellect, philosophy, prowess, beauty or importance can be attached to present day Greece. It is less than a shell of what it was. And yet, there once raged a mighty battle. Historians will know it was not so much mighty in number and noise, but mighty it surely was.

The Talmud tells of an encounter between Alexander the Great of Macedon, and Shimon the Righteous, the high-priest. Many years before the onslaught of Nazi-esque decrees and outright aggression, Alexander was entreated by the Kutim to raze the Jewish temple to the ground. Shimon HaTzaddik donned his priestly vestments, and came out of Jerusalem to greet the formidable army. Alexander immediately dismounted and prostrated himself, and among the gasps of his own men, explained that since his youth, the vision of this Righteous Jew went before him in battle. The season of miracles was beginning to take root. The Greeks eventually created every decree they could think of to divorce the Jewish people from spiritual connection: they defiled our daughters' purity (on the night of their wedding - by official decree), they banned any Torah learning or teaching, all doors must remain open lest one mitzvah be performed, they broke through the barriers of separation around the Temple (not a physical slight, a supremely spiritual slight), prohibited the daily offerings, and ultimately destroyed the Menorah and contaminated all its oil. Jews were even meant to parade their cattle through the streets having written on the horns, "we have no place in the God of Israel." Nothing truly spiritual could exist in Greece. Only Man, only nature. To them they were one and the same. There is no darkness darker than this.

Our story, the story of Jacob, tells a very different tale. We live above and beyond the parameters of nature. As God created its laws, He also created their suspension. When we merit, we rise above the world and raise it up as well. When we don't, we, more than any other nation or creation, will be swallowed whole by its wrath. The designs of people whose dreams and spiritual rewards are no more than hedonistic physical indulgences of deflowering and conquering are once again set on targeting the Jew. The Greeks, Romans, Third Reich and many more have and will continue to mobilize their entire machinery - every ounce of energy, every penny, every person - to rid the world of the one Jew, sitting in the safety and silence of his own home, learning Torah, doing Mitzvot, and testifying to the Oneness of existence and sublime perfection of a kind, vengeful, just, omniscient, omnipotent and perfect God. May we be the lights that push away the darkness. May we find amidst the destruction of goodness, the reservoir of oil within. And may we merit the flame and Divine intervention to take what little oil we have to heights unimagined by mother nature and mortal man.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn

November 5, 2010

Jacob and Esau. Better known as Yaakov and Eisav in their mother's tongue. Their names tell the whole story. As we've learned before, a Jewish name is not just a name, but rather the essence of the thing. שם Shem means name and sham שם means there - right there's where you'll find it. And a thing is not just a thing, but rather only an emanation from God. דבר Davar means thing. Davar means spoken word. And we know how God creates - with His word. So His word is the thing and the thing gets a name and that name is the essence of God's word in this world. These are the portals through which we crawl in from our end down here and reach into the recesses of the spiritual source. Knowing the name, or rather naming the name is at the heart of the named. For example:

Everything in the world was created with its counterpart. Male and Female mimic the Heavens and the Earth, and everything down below has its very own significant other (everything has a male and female component in creation, everything), signifying the process of e pluribus unum, division becoming One. Adam didn't have it yet and he searched the expanse of creation. Every animal passed before him and he knew it (even in the biblical sense of knowing, you know?), he knew its essence and by so doing gave it its name. So someone who really understands an elephant, Hebrew, and a specific smattering of Kabala will understand why a פיל (piel) is an elephant. Got it? Can you see it?

Also, when we're born or have children, parents get Ruach HaKodesh (holy spirit, but that has really terrible connotations for Jews in a Christian world - doesn't mean anywhere near the same thing). Meaning, the Almighty puts the thought and affinity for the name in your head because He knows the essence of the soul, and its name needs to be its name. No joke. This is normative Judaism. Now, of course, this probably only works for parents who are anyways looking for the kid's essence in the name and using the soul's language (not modern Hebrew, sorry) where Roderick and Winifred are not really options. But nonetheless, the name is achieved through Divine intervention. If you don't know your Hebrew name, it's high time figure it out. If you don't have one, got to get one.

So too with Yaakov and Eisav. Our Sages tell us that Eisav's name עשו comes from נעשה na'ase which means done/completed. He was born with so much hair, red hair no less, that he appeared several years older. Why? Because hair grows where we are expressed out in the world. Eisav's whole existence was as a warrior, conqueror, trapper and man of earthly conquest. His entire being was in the world of action. He was meant to be Yaakov's partner, to actualize all of his worldliness for good and for God, but once he chose his heretical ways, Yaakov was left with the task of absorbing Eisav's earthly prowess, poetically played out in his disguising himself with woolen hands as Eisav before his blind father Yitzhok.

Yaakov, on the other hand, is a construct of two ideas. יעקב Yaakov means taking the yud י , the letter representing the most refined spiritual presence in the physical dimension (the least amount of ink and suspended well above ground level), down to the עקב the heel, the bottom and final point of the creation of man, the central figure in and purpose of creation. He was created to bring out the spiritual source and purpose in all of creation, even to the thickened and trodden "heels" of this world, and accomplish total self-perfection.

The battle between Yaakov and Eisav is the essential battle between Jew and pure physicality. While Art Garfinke and Woody Allen sing pagan praises to Manhattan, we might just shudder at the hairy hands of Eisav and the seeming nonexistence of the underlying mystical truths of creation. And that's from a former fan of Art and Woody's, NYU film school, all things Yankee, and the Staten Island Ferry.

Wishing you all a very holy Shabbos.

Rabbi Lynn

October 29, 2010

Have you ever seen a ches up close? What's a ches? One of these: ח in Hebrew. This one doesn't do it justice because the one I'm really looking for is the Torah one (that font has escaped the standard Word collection). In the Torah, the ches is written with two zions זז attached with a tiny chuppah on top (a wedding canopy). Chuppah begins with a ches. The Chuppah makes the ches. A Chuppah is a ches. You see, zion is the seventh letter of the aleph beis. Seven always represents completion in the physical realm - six sides/dimensions to everything corporeal and the seventh dimension correlates to its spiritual source/purpose. For example, a table is the wood in the physical -6- and its use in the spiritual -7. Ches is the eighth letter. The next dimension. That which connects the seven to its spiritual mirror image above. Seven is the spiritual manifest in the physical. Eight is spiritual at its source.

A Chuppah, a Jewish wedding, enjoins two complete and separate entities (man and woman who are physically mature and spiritually whole - if you're not sure of either of those qualifications, see me another time). Miraculously - meaning beyond the laws of nature - they become one, and that "one" is greater than the sum total of its parts, well beyond what either could ever have achieved independently. "One" becomes doubled. Two "sevens" turn to eight - above and beyond the limits of the natural order. This week's Torah portion overflows with ches.

Abraham mourns his beloved Sarah, purchases from the people of CHES the Kever Hamachpaylah (the "doubled cave", otherwise known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the heavily contested Hebron) where she is to be buried, and in turn sets the stage for other couples as well, (as it happens, Adam and Eve were already there) Isaac and Rivka, Jacob and Leah. Quite the romantic resting place, no?

The Torah then turns to the journey of Eliezer, Abraham's trusted servant entrusted with finding a wife for Isaac. Rivka's kindness and flawlessness of character win her the role with miraculous fanfare, and Isaac is thus consoled from the death of his mother. A new Ches is born, in place of the old. The Chuppah of the Jewish people continues its legacy intact.

The Cave itself represents more doubling, more "ches". It was the place towards which our patriarchs and matriarchs prayed. It was there where they calibrated their physical existence with their spiritual source. Each of us has an eighth dimension - a purely spiritual "double" which never tars from our physical blemishes. It lays above us in perfection, representing ourselves having achieved 100% of our spiritual potential. Those who achieved their own perfection and simultaneously their marital perfection are forever entombed beneath the earth of the "doubling cave".

Those of us still on the journey can draw strength from the cave's inhabitants - Adam & Eve, Abraham & Sara, Isaac & Rebecca, Jacob & Leah - and can thus try to calibrate our own lives with our spiritual double. We can strive for our own fluid synthesis of body and soul, and hope to find refuge in a marriage of similar caliber, where we finally stand the chance of catapulting ourselves towards transcendence and purpose of being. It ain't easy, I know. But a valiant effort will be well rewarded, and to not try is a crying shame.

Good Shabbos,
Rabbi Lynn

October 22, 2010

Seven years ago during the intifada, the tragedy which seemed to trump all others occurred. Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter, Nava, were killed by a suicide bomber in a Jerusalem café, as they stole a few moments together over coffee the night before her wedding. Her fiancé is someone I know. We lived in his building in Har Nof. They were 'sweethearts' since childhood. Her wedding dress adorned his wall, amidst the tapestry of photos hiding any trace of anything else, until it was moved to the holy burial site of our matriarch, Rachel. David Applebaum, a pious, brilliant, learned Jew and doctor - famous in Israel for having revolutionized emergency room/trauma medicine and himself the head of Sharei Tzedek Hospital - was as righteous and beautiful a person as you could find. A student of the great Yeshivos of Brisk. I can still remember the clock standing still when I heard their names over the radio.

An outrage. Anger at God. How could He? Not like this! Not them! I remember an article published by a colleague of his who bore his existential and philosophical crisis to the public. "We must protest to the Almighty, for when the Almighty does wrong, it is incumbent upon us to rebuke", he cried. And his proof - Abraham arguing with God over the destruction of Sodom, which we will be reading this Shabbos. Abraham, though with great humility and caution, "argued" the Almighty down from 50 to 10, the number of "righteous" that could thus save the entire city from destruction. While the ten were never found and the city destroyed, Abraham's stance was successful. However, this columnist raised the following question himself, "Why didn't Abraham protest when asked to sacrifice his only son?" He left it unanswered.

Rav Naftoli Tzvi Berlin answers the question very poignantly. Before the Almighty announces His plan to destroy Sodom, He pontificates, as it were, and asks rhetorically, "Should I hide my ways from Abraham?" As if to say, "If he's meant to be the father of the Jewish nation, he must learn how I work in the world." And what follows is not at all an argument, but rather an intimate lesson on understanding the parameters of God's judgment and providence. This is born out very clearly in the verses. However, by the Akeida (the binding of Isaac, also found in this week's Torah reading), there was no such discourse, but rather a call to action. In my own humble opinion, were Abraham not to have been beckoned to probe and understand the Almighty's ways, he may not have had the resolve and conviction required to stand the greatest test of all. Protest, we don't. Accomplish, we do. Learn, we must. Anger? It's often an understandable reaction. But to understand and internalize God's ways, this is most critical of all. All we have to do then is live it.

We question to understand, to strengthen our resolve. And we stay steadfastly committed to carrying it out.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn

October 15, 2010

There's a very strange occurrence in this week's Torah portion, לך לך, which describes the first war recorded in the Bible. While the details of each nation and its ruler and the ins and outs of the battles are themselves fascinating, the Torah clearly describes the end of the battle, pillaging of spoils, and the "departure" of the marauding, victorious army. Then, in the very next verse, it says, "and they captured Lot and his possessions - Abraham's nephew - and they left." But they had already "departed"? Why did they come back? Why weren't the victory and the spoils enough to have justified the war? What did they want with Lot?

The word for war in Hebrew is milchomah, מלחמה, which really means - to make bread. People fight for sustenance and survival. One may think it's merely physical, but underneath, the true threat is spiritual. The first recorded war focused on capturing Lot, Abraham's nephew. The Sages tell us Lot was made of the mettle of Moshiach - the redeemer: he had the essential mix of spiritual connection (through Abraham) and worldly prowess (as evidenced by his subsequent political positions in Sodom). In a sense, he was an almost perfect fusion of the spiritual and physical, that which the eventual Messiah will be. His whole being was antithetical to the pagan nations who battled for dominance. Their temporary conquest was incomplete with mere territorial victory and excess wealth. They came back for Lot. When Abraham heard that this war had escalated to the spiritual realm as well, that Lot had been seized, then and only then did he get involved and single-handedly turned the tide, returning Lot once again to his family.

You see, the other nations fought a war confused as to why they were truly fighting. The wars being fought today are likewise confused. What we do see, however, is that the concept of conventional war is dead and gone. The physical manifestations of the wars being waged, namely terrorism, are deeply indicative of their spiritual qualities. In this same Torah portion, Ishmael, the patriarch and embodiment of our Arabic cousins, is named and born, in that order. A tanaic collection called Pirkei D'Rebbe Eliezar, written some 1500 years ago, describes in detail the meaning behind five people who were named by God before their birth (and then "coincidentally" given that name by the parents). Ishmael, ישמעאל , technically means, "God will hear", and is explained as follows: In the end of days, God will hear the cries of the children of Israel at the hand of the children of Ishmael. The traditional and historical approach to the battle with Ishmael is deeply spiritual at its core. What the world is facing these days is an ideological battle of spiritual dominion. At least one side views it as such.

What an interesting turn of events that the conversation in the Middle East in now hinged on semantics. A two state solution is no longer the key issue. Neither are 'settlements'. Rather the focus is the JEWISH state of Israel. Will Israel be recognized as a "Jewish" state - that is the issue Israel is pushing, that is the issue the PA is fighting, and that is the issue everyone else is trying to ignore.

We are always hopeful that things will work out without conflict. Either way, the goal is to strengthen our resolve, strengthen our spirit, strengthen our connection to our roots and strive to perfect ourselves and the world around us. The rest is in Someone else's hands.

Wishing you all a good shabbos.

Rabbi Lynn

October 8, 2010

The dove and the olive branch. Ever wondered from where it originated? Not Picasso. But rather from this week's Torah reading, the story of Noah. After previous unsuccessful attempts to find land, the dove returned with the famous branch showing God's flood had begun to subside. Life would be renewed. A world of peace could be built upon the ruins of a world already ruined before the first raindrop. The evil, debauchery, thievery and ungodliness which prevailed was no more, and the olive branch was the first to raise it's head above water and declare victory for God, Noah, righteousness, morality and humankind. Beautiful.

So why was the dove punished? That's right, something it did was so consequential that its eternal Blessing was forever compromised (so says our tradition). In fact, the language, rather word choice of the Torah seems to describe the branch not as plucked, but rather killed - עלה זית טרף בפיה the olive branch was 'killed' in its mouth. Says our sensitive and exacting tradition in the Midrash, "if it were not killed, how many tress may have grown." It didn't need the olive, the seed, per se to bring the message of salvation and hope to a desolate world. It should not have been over exuberant in its announcement of success. Rather it should have understood, especially considering the circumstances of potential environmental genocide, the potential of life, its value and its sacredness.

A branch in the dove's mouth would have been enough of a sign for peace. The olive would have populated the world one by one by one by one, and perhaps we'd be tasting the offspring-oil of the very first fruit that was granted a peaceful world. Our sages teach of exacting care and precision, even when performing a mitzvoh, and appreciation for all of God's creation. Now I know it doesn't seem right giving the proverbial messenger of peace and good tidings such a raking over the coals, and we must certainly appreciate all the dove's efforts and its timeless message. But when we're discussing 'peace', we Jews know the word Shalom is rooted in the word Shaleim - meaning complete. Completion is our goal, peace the result. We should be wary of over-exuberant gestures of Peace in place of critical and careful consideration, no matter how exciting they are and how anti-climactic the opposite.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn

Sukkot 2010

Hello my friends and Chag Sameach!

Yesterday I had a wisdom tooth pulled. 'Pulling' may be a bit too soft a description. Obviously I'm very appreciated of novocain, but the image of the dentist with his foot on my shoulder for leverage as he sweated and grunted trying to dislodge this bastard tooth might just send me to therapy. At the end of it all, he scolded me. "In the Dental world, you're a great disappointment. Only 2% of the country has their mother's teeth and father's jaw to allow perfect placement of wisdom teeth, and you blew it through sheer negligence." I admit, there was a candy a year ago on purim that dislodged my filling back there and I did nothing about it. And now here I am on vicodin and ibuprofen and loving it ;-). But that wisdom tooth is now relegated to the realm of 'missed opportunities'. I let it slide and have paid the price. In a world of consequence (Divinely orchestrated as such), we need to take advantage of what we have and the messages life sends us. We need to internalize the truths we capture with our brains, bring them into our hearts and take them out into action. That's what Sukkot is all about and it begins tonight.

So we've presented our plan for the coming year on Rosh Hashanah, we've spent ten days auditing our naughty and nice lists, and finally a Yom Kippur of heart-wrenching atonement and tears. Now what? Now we have to put our money where our mouth is, or rather put it all to the test. The head and heart are on board - now to the body. The Mitzvoh right after Yom Kippur is to build the Sukkah. Here comes a holiday where the whole experience is physical. The Mitzvoh is really just to live in the Sukkah - eat, sleep, drink, breathe - whatever one does, he does it in the Sukkah. Our home becomes a flimsy, temporary dwelling which cannot on its own stand strong without Divine support. And that's precisely where we put ourselves. If we believe in everything we've done until now, the only place we should want to live is with the Almighty. The schach (okay, there's really no way in English to make this Hebrew word happen - try both "ch"s as guttural as you can get them and you'll be halfway there), or the palm frond roof, is called in Kabbalistic writings the Tzaila D'hemnusa - the Shade of Faith. We leave the brilliance of Rosh Hashahah and Yom Kippur by leaving our homes which feign stability and human accomplishment and live as one with the real Master of Ceremony.

If there's one message we're getting clear these days - it's that nothing you thought was stable truly is, especially the value of your home (who knows, at the rate mortgages are crumbling and the markets nosedive we may all be living permanently in straw huts). Jews live in their Sukkah for an entire week, just long enough that when you return to your home, you're basically still living in the Sukkah. You've been acclimated to a Divine existence and try very hard not to lose sight of it until next year. This was basically one of the intentions of 40 years 'wandering' the desert - to turn the lessons learned on Mt. Sinai into internalized instinct. And if that analogy doesn't work, think of all the phantom blackberry vibrations you still feel in your hip well after you've put the blackberry away. The Sukkah is there to keep the 'holiday spirit' with us for another 11.5 months. My family used to play a game after Yom Kippur growing up (wasn't the most religious household then) - who will sin last. Since we were all brothers, it usually flipped itself around and became who can sin first. But that's because we didn't have a Sukkah to go to. Try to make your spiritual achievements of Yom Kippur really count. Live them. Infuse your very being with them. Eat, sleep and drink them if you can. If you need a Sukkah's help, and we all do, we'll be happy to help you find one (ours is always open)! Have a lovely Chag (another guttural "ch" please)

Chag Sameach,
Rabbi Lynn

September 17, 2010

There's a famous case illustrated in the Talmud of a superbly non-pious man who marries a woman on condition that he is righteous. The Rabbis insist that we must proceed as if the marriage was binding in Heaven, because no matter how wayward a person may be, it only takes one momentary thought of regret or repentance to change one's status from wicked to righteous. Therefore, it's entirely possible that despite all his actions to the contrary, at that point in time he may, in fact, have become truly righteous, with a Divine stamp of approval, thereby rendering the marriage valid. But can it really be that such a momentary 'lapse' can count for so much?

Maimonides, in his treatise on repentance (chapter 3), writes, "Just as one's merits and sins are weighed at death, so too are they every year for every person on Rosh Hashana. He who is found completely righteous is sealed for life, he who is found completely wicked is sealed for death, and the 'middle-ones' (all of us) await judgement until Yom Kippur - if they repent they are sealed for life, and if not, for death." What Maimonides doesn't leave as an option is for the middle-one to remain simply a middle-one. At the same time, the Arizal (the purveyor of the Kabbalistic tradition) writes that the day of Yom Kippur alone has the exalted spiritual status capable of sealing even a middle-one for life. Maimonides seems to require teshuvah (repentance) for the middle-one to become righteous, while the Arizal seems to ascribe the power to the day itself.

The discrepancy is rectified by viewing two sides of the same coin. It's ultimately the combination of Yom Kippur and the heartfelt, honest sentiment of teshuvah, which brings atonement. Maimonides doesn't leave any option for remaining in the middle because the nature of Yom Kippur is such that there is no other option; one who can truly muster up an earnest repentance - one who can tap into the spiritual truth and power of the day, one who is at the core sensitive enough to realize what's at stake - that person is called 'righteous'. And he, who, despite the reverence and power of Yom Kippur, cannot find within himself any residue of regret, is undeniably the opposite. Our tradition teaches that in the Almighty's kindness, Yom Kippur was created - a moment in time with atomic spiritual energy to wipe the slate clean, or rather re-create the already created. An opportunity to calibrate our being to His. A 26 hour period of spiritual pyrotechnics to pull us from our shells and draw us upward, to inspire us to great heights which can only be grasped from a heartfelt moment of lowness. We need to make the first move. We need to dig deep. There's no greater time.

Wishing you all a complete and good 'seal',

Rabbi Lynn

September 3, 2010

Hello my dear friends.

Season's greetings ;-). It's been quite a summer and this post has been on hiatus too long - while it may seem silly, I often get the profound feeling that I'm sitting with all of you (well over 400 MLF alumni) as I type. Delusional, I know, but a very warm feeling nonetheless. Nice to see you again....

This Shabbat, Jews around the world will be reading the Torah portion called Netzavim, named for the first verse which reads, "You are all standing (netzavim) today before the Almighty, your God: your leaders, your tribal heads, your elders, your judges - every person of Israel." Moses, on the last day of his life, had gathered the nation to deliver his final message, to review the covenant which God had offered and we accepted. In Kabalistic writings, the word today, hayom, in the Torah always refers to THE day, Rosh Hashanah. In fact, this portion of the Torah always coincides with the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah and, in a sense, is alluding to our impending approach to the coming days of judgment where we, as a nation in utter unity, will present ourselves to our Creator for the ultimate accounting. We are 'standing' to answer for our part of the deal.

There's an apparent contradiction of sorts, however, in our sentiment towards this holy day of reckoning. Rosh Hashanah is, after all, the day of judgment, followed 10 days later by the day of atonement, and yet the tone of the day is surprisingly jubilant - there's no mention of confession, guilt, sin, there's no heaviness to the service, the liturgy is full of the Almighty and Israel's praise, the meals are festive and lavish - have we forgotten this is the day of reckoning? Which books are opened? That here we confront our own accountability and the unspeakable finitude of life itself? Have we missed our cue?

While it is true that the prospects are menacing, "judgment" is merely a minor theme of the day - we'll save the trembling for the next 10 days and Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah however, a day when the entire nation presents itself for judgment, bespeaks a far greater message; one where all joy surpasses fear. We stand as one with the Almighty in fulfilling His will and bringing the world to its completion. This is the mission we accepted and, more importantly, for which we were accepted. Yes, we have fallen short, and yes, there is much to repair. But the covenant itself, the mission and intimate partnership with God, is tremendous cause for celebration. It is precisely at the time of reckoning, when we realize the extent of our responsibility, with Whom we partner, the mission in all its grandeur, and the privilege of participation, no matter how difficult.

It is said that the biggest blow to all our spiritual enemies - those which tempt our resolve and subpoena our every move in the Heavenly tribunal - is the very fact that we walk into the courtroom on our own volition, in perfect acceptance and appreciation of what judgment really means. They've been trying to put us on trial, but we beat them to it and volunteered ourselves. The Jewish People rises well above its simple, fallible, and ultimately forgivable humanity. Rosh Hashanah is the joy of getting into the night club of all night clubs, and even though what lies beyond the great velvet ropes upstairs may be daunting, critical, punishing and painful, the entry is so sweet. Praiseworthy are we who stand in judgment, for the privilege of being chosen for the job.

Wishing you all a good writing and signing and a very sweet new year!

Rabbi Lynn