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