East Melbourne Synagogue

Genesis and the reappearance of God

Contribution By Marcel 

I believe that imagination plus knowledge leads to creativity. My writing is about using the little knowledge I have, and combine it with my imagination that has no limits, to generate creative responses to the Hebrew Scriptures.

My hope is that my creative response will also awaken the reader’s imagination, so together we can create something even bigger, and both move closer to the Ultimate Creator.

*Wherever “man” is mentioned, “woman” is also intended

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Bereishit provides some wonderful insights into improving G-d-man* relationship, just like the good old days in the Garden of Eden.

Nowadays it seems G-d has assumed a position of irrelevance in many peoples’ lives, and I believe this comes at a great cost to us all, including the planet.  As a result, it seems many individuals act as if they were the ultimate rulers on earth, that they can do whatever they want, including wanton raping and pillaging.

Bereishit is a reminder of man’s true status, not as omnipotent beings, but solely as custodians, or tenants of Mother Earth, with the responsibility and accountability such a position holds. Bereishit goes back to the roots of the matter, and offers us the opportunity to change some of our ways, and to remember our true position on Mother Earth, as custodians and not as ultimate rulers.

In the Parsha, G-d instructs Adam and Eve to name all sentient beings, and they do so, with no other motive than the command. One can only wonder whether such a privileged task eventually went to man’s head, deflating man’s heart, and giving humanity a false sense of superiority as the quintessential labellers.  Our actions certainly indicate our exclusivity at naming rights has gone askew somewhat.

I suggest this is most apparent in our naming of G-d.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with labelling and categorisation. As humans we have a unique need to understand, and to find meaning in life. Especially within the limitations of our perceptions, sight, hearing, touch, etc.

However, labels come at a cost. We are no longer the naïve Adam and Eve living in Nirvana with only pure intentions driving our behaviour. For example, it is common for many to declare some people as depressed, or anxious or as narcissists to explain certain behaviours. This process is called pathologising.

Trained labellers use scientific evidence to substantiate their reasons for labelling. Both approaches have the propensity to develop self-interest groups, for example in the medical profession, or cliques that outgroup the vulnerable. Victimisation can be an outcome of out grouping, which is antithetical to Jewish moral code

Labelling can also lead to missing the experience, rather seeing the label first, compromising the uniqueness or beauty of the person or item.

I remember my two sons as little boys chasing sea gulls, excited and elated. At the time they had no idea what a sea gull was, but were enchanted by the flying, swooping and elusive creatures above them. Nowadays, the sea gulls continue to swoop, but my sons like most of adults, have lost interest.

I suggest labelling has been a contributor to their non-participation. Labelling has killed their creativity in this context. They now see the label first which blurs their experience of the birds.

I agree with the Buddhist saying “ once you label a butterfly, you never see the butterfly again”., and suggest this is what we have being doing to G-d for a long time.

Labels are great for alleviating uncertainty in us, but a relationship with G-d requires uncertainty, a leap of faith into the unknown, using creativity and imagination.

Mankind inspired by the labelling trend appears with good intentions, to have given G-d multiple names as part of our desire to make sense of the relationship with Him.  Names such as “The Lord’, “Our Father”, “The King”, “The Judge”, “Compassionate One”, to name some.

I suggest anthropomorphising G-d with such labels comes fraught with its own problems. Mainly because the labels are loaded with expectations, and expectations often lead to disappointments. Plus the labels miss G-d’s own revelations to man, found in the Hebrew Scriptures.

For example,  “I will be what I will be”, when Moses asked G-d to identify Himself, reminding us, it is impossible to pin down G-d using Human attributes.

And “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways”, declared by prophet Isiah to the Jews. In other words, we must not expect to understand His actions, as they make no rational sense to us. Even though to this day we are not convinced, and scratch our heads asking why bad things happen to good people, and vice versa?

When Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden, before eating from the Tree of knowledge, their relationship with G-d was pure, and authentic, there were no expectations, and thus no disappointments.  They were one with G-d, and with all sentient beings, as well as with the planet. Labelling of all life was a pure egoless act.

Adam and Eve were initially    blessed with a natural curiosity, the segue to creativity. Of course this also got them into trouble, as it was curiosity not malice that drove Eve to eat from the forbidden fruit

Those halcyon days are unfortunately gone forever and the self-interested ego rules supreme. However given some love and some encouragement, we all still have the ability to reawaken the creativity we inherited from the first people on Earth.

Remembering we are not alone, can help us to become inspired to once more be curious, take risks jump into the unknown using our imaginations and creativity, cognisant that the Unknown is G-d’s home. That G-d is particularly close to us, but most of the time, aided by mnemonics such as labels, we can be aeons away from Him.

Instead of the above emotionally charged labels for G-d, we should consider also naming Him as the “Umanifested”, or the “Unknown”, or the “Unfathomable”, or “No-thing”. This would then familiarise us to G-d’s real home in the Unknown, and help us to be better equipped as “things’ to get closer to “No-Thing”.

We can be each other’s life buoys, so when we jump into the abyss and the chaos, there are others of us waiting above with love, tenderness and compassion, and don’t forget with that bowel of chicken soup with matzo balls.

Contributed By Marcel

I believe that imagination plus knowledge leads to creativity.

My writing is about using the little knowledge I have, and combine it with my imagination that has no limits, to generate creative responses to the Hebrew Scriptures.

My hope is that my creative response will also awaken the reader’s imagination, so together we can create something even bigger, and both move closer to the Ultimate Creator.

This week’s Torah portion provides essential clues on getting closer to G-d.

Firstly, a major premise is G-d lives in the present, past, and future simultaneously, and has no concept of time as we know it. Thus generally, we have an opportunity to draw closer to Hashem, by encountering Him in the present, past and future as best we can. In the moment time stands still, G-d dwells.

Engaging with G-d in the past is easy. As G-d informs Moses, “I shall remove My hand and you will see My back” (after G-d has passed). Thus the Torah written thousands of years ago is relevant today.

We can easily exhort G-d for a better future, encouraged by His words in the Parsha  “Preserver of Kindness for thousands of generations”

However, our efforts to encounter G-d in the moment, seem to be fraught with danger, “You will not be able to see My face, for no human can see My face and live.”

In the  Parsha further G-d informs us our relationship with Him is complex when He declares, “I shall show favour, when I choose to show favour, and I shall show mercy, when I choose to show mercy”. Words indicating G-d is not easily flattered, or beguiled by our praises, nor our actions to appease Him. Praying that we will be better Jews in the future, and asking forgiveness for our past transgressions, does not automatically lead to G-d’s acquiescence. Piety as an effort to engage with Hashem in the moment does not guarantee one favourable response by G-d. Of course piety does not mean there won’t be a favourable response. The Jew-G-d relationship as stated, is complex.

In addition the Parsha states clearly, the iniquity of parents is carried by the third and the fourth generations. Living a pious life today, does not preclude being punished for the transgressions of our great grandparents.

True intimacy can only occur in the present. Love affairs based on future predictions, or past experiences lack substance. It would mean if I only loved my wife because of her good looks when she was young, then by default I would lose interest in her as she ages she aged. G-d seeks our love NOW.

The Parsha offers a way of encountering Hashem in the moment.

The two Tablets of Stone mentioned in the Parsha, hold the key. They contain the Ten Commandments, the most exemplary moral code on HOW humans need to live their lives. The messages the tablets hold are unequivocal, and ensure living life with a  mutual respect for one another, a positivity towards all sentient beings, and to the planet. This is only possible through deep connections, only possible when we are fully engaged with life in the  present moment.

I believe reinstating the Ten Commandments to its position of importance and reverence, provides us with access to the ultimate moral code, a template on how to live a good and true life. A life where we are truly connected with all sentient beings and with the planet.

Since it is nigh well impossible for us to connect with G-d in the moment, as Moses, the greatest of all prophets found, surely the next best thing is to connect with his creations.

What does all this have to do with Sukkot?

Living in the moment is the most difficult thing for many people to do, exemplified by the never ending “to do lists” we carry in our heads, always taking us away into an unknown future, and often driven by negativities in our past. However, the present is the only time we are at our most vulnerable, able to show our true humanity. This is the encounter Hashem needs from us.

Living in booths is a ritual, and rituals generally do not make sense. We could celebrate Sukkot by simply reading the scriptures, in the comfort of our air conditioned home, rain and wind free, yet Hashem dictates us taking action, and with Melbourne’s weather in Spring,  inconveniencing ourselves at times as well. This ritual increases our vulnerability and our humanity.

Rituals by their nature compel us to experience the moment, because they are ‘unknowing’, just like the Unknown. This idea of being ‘unknowing’ takes us out of our frontal lobes, where endless planning, categorising, thinking and remembering occurs, leaving us to simply experience the ritual unprotected by our usual defence mechanisms, thereby getting closer to G-d.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach

Marcel

By Dr Howard Goldenberg

When my stroke struck it struck my words

I’d speak a word and hear it slurred

The stroke struck my spoken word –

My word! How dear to me my darling words

The stroke struck words

Uttered aloud at prayer

I slurred those words

Unless I prayed with care

When I spoke the word

I recalled the ‘absurd’

Tale of the  Baal Shem,

Master of the Name:

when a man is born his words are numbered:

a man lives and speaks and exhausts his store

of words, then falls,

silenced, is heard no more…

That tale, to which I’d ascribed no store

Came to mind, and led me to deplore

The words I’d tasted,

Words I’d wasted

The basilar artery

That feeds the pons

Sometimes doesn’t

And it happened to me.

As strokes go

It wasn’t much –

Not so much a stroke

As a gentle touch –

And as strokes go

Mine went.

My words returned!

To heaven sent

But it was a stroke

Pontine infarct in fact

Seen by scan

It took me aback

Mum said, after her second stroke,

The next one will get me –

Three strokes and you’re out!

We both laughed at death’s little joke.

Or was it a joke?

 Words are the weapon of the Jew. Amoz Oz and his daughter co-authored a book on the subject of Jews and words. We have a love of words. Our Commandments are called The Ten Words, and by contrast, when Scripture endows an animal with speech, the endowment is potent for evil (the serpent) or for truth (Balaam’s ass).

 The stroke, (more a caress than a stroke, really) fell in the month of Ellul. Was Balaam’s ass talking to me? – I wondered. A wound to my words, that’s all it was, and only those words uttered without thought. That is, I was afflicted only when I davvened without intent. The immediate result was a slowing of that automatic utterance which had become my ritual. And when I slowed, words and phrases leapt out at me: I’d awaken and I’d say Modeh ani l’fanecha (I thank you…)  I’d start the Amidah with: Hashem, sfatai tifthach  (Hashem, open Thou my lips!) and I’d close that passage of pure prayer with Elokai, n’tzor l’shoni me’rah (My God, guard my tongue from evil).

I came to realise that our practice of spoken prayer was itself a sly joke: we use words to pray that our words be good. I heard myself reciting the prayer to Hashem that He should listen (shema koleinu, Hashem Elokeinu) when I, the speaker was not even attending. That realisation of my careless holy speech reminded me how colossally impertinent I was, as if I’d addressed the Bench with my back turned.

This enterprise of prayer is, by its nature, audacious. We speak to Hashem with our requests (nineteen of them, in fact, in even a routine Amidah). The act of prayer presumes to imply that the Almighty should listen, take heed and alter His plan or His intent: Hey, listen, God, I’ve got this great idea, actually a better idea than Your own.

***

In sefer Dvarim Moshe warns us: motza sfatecha tishmor (guard that which departs from your lips). Perhaps he’s recalling that occasion when Miriam, his own sister, traduces him for his union with a Cushite woman. For that sin of speech she is stricken with leprosy. Moshe’s immediate response is instinctive and impassioned. He cries, el nah, refah nah la (O God, heal her, I pray!)  Moses’ words redeem Miriam’s words. Moses literally asks God to reverse His decision. God heeds, acts and heals.

 ***

Ellul turned to Tishrei. On Rosh Hashanah I blew the shofar: one

hundred impassioned notes, now the pained cry of tekiah, now the helpless yelping of teruah, now the stuttering of shevarim. One hundred notes and not a single contaminating human word, nothing insincere, nothing half-hearted, nothing sly, sophistic or even clever. Pure prayer. The shofar had stopped my lips from speech.

In this season of confession it’s meet for me to confess. An addict of words, a wielder of words – in work, in play, in creation, in war, I’ve erred and I’ve wounded. I offer this confession with these public words, which alone will be utterly vain, unless underlaid with deeds. That’s our paradox: we’ll use speech to try to atone for speech. Other than the whirling of chickens overhead in an attempt to make the thought flesh, we have only words.

So, we’ll solemnly pray to God to annul our vows. We’ll say contritely al chet she’chtannu bevitui sfattayim, for the sin we sinned before You by an utterance of our lips.

We’ll follow this with al chet she’chattanu… b’dibbur peh, for the sin we have sinned before You in speech,

and shortly afterwards with al chet she’chattanu… be’vidui peh for the sin we have sinned before You by insincere confession.

The liturgy searches out my errors relentlessly:

Al chet she’chattanu … be’tumm‘at sefattayim (for the sin we have sinned before You by impure speech (ah, all those dirty jokes, all that sexist speech.)

Al chet she’chattanu…b’tifshut peh for the sin we have sinned before You by the folly of speech.

I thought of Roberta Flack:

Strumming my pain with his fingers

Singing my life with his words

Killing me softly with his song

Killing me softly with his song

Telling my whole life with his words

Killing me softly with his song…

And I thought of Moshe Rabbeinu, who said, va’ani aral sfattayim, (and I am uncircumcised of lips), and remorsefully, and vainly, I wished I was too.

Victor Frenkel the great Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor is often asked why he didn’t flee while he had the chance once Hitler occupied Austria.

He explains that although he had a visa to flee to the USA, he was wrestling with the dilemma of abandoning his aging parents who weren’t able to travel with him.

One day he saw a broken shard of marble on the table at his family home. His father told him that when the national socialists burned down the largest Viennese synagogue, he had taken this piece from amongst the rubble because he noticed it was from the ten commandments that had been  part of the building façade.

One gilded letter was on the shard of marble referencing one of the ten commandments. Which of the ten was it referencing? Honour your father and mother so that you may live a long life on this earth. It was from this “little sign” that Victor Frankl decided to remain in Austria with his parents and the rest is history. He was taken to the concentration camps where he developed a therapy and therapeutic approach that saved the lives of countless people in the concentration camps.

Sometimes it is the broken shards of the law that teach us the most important lessons in life.

Our tradition teaches us that the Holy of Holies section of the ancient temple in Jerusalem housed the ark of the covenant with the stones of the ten commandments. To which set of ten commandments are we referring ?

We know that when Moses descended the mountain and found the Israelites sinning with the golden calf he threw the two tablets with the ten commandments to the ground and shattered them. The midrash offers this dramatic vision of the shattered stones lying on the ground and the Hebrew letters flying upwards to heaven. 

At that point G-d was pretty much thinking this whole Divine revelation to a chosen people was a bit ill conceived. He suggested un-choosing the Israelites but Moshe rejected this suggestion and prayed for their forgiveness and another 40 days later received a second set of tablets that remained whole and carried the words of the law for posterity.

Here’s where it gets interesting: The Talmud says that  it was both the whole tablets and the broken tablets that were kept in the ark of the holy of holies in the temple.

This is quite shocking! 

The broken tablets were the evidence of a people who turned against G-d at precisely the moment that they made their commitment to being faithful people. Or as the Talmud rather colourfully puts it  – as a spouse desecrating the marriage covenant whilst still under the wedding canopy.

What possible benefit is there in keeping these broken tablets, a remnant of a disgraceful episode in our history and keeping them in the holiest location of all.

There are many explanations to this formidable question. Some relate this notion to the psychology of life where we carry our broken experiences alongside our whole ones.

Yet an even more profound explanation relates to the relationship between a fallible human and a perfect law.

Moses descended the mountain with great hope and fanfare celebrating the monumental occasion of delivering the law to the people holding tablets stating ten of the most critical commandments. Lo and behold he finds the people desecrating the very first two commands on the tablets.

I can almost picture Moses looking up at the frenzied scene in front of him of the people worshipping a golden calf and then back down at the tablets that explicitly forbid this. Looking at the people; back at the tablets and thinking well this isn’t gonna work…

At that point Moshe, our leader and teacher, had a stunning and simple choice. Something has to go; the people or the law. 

And Moshe, spontaneously and instinctively, cast down the law shattering it into pieces.

And the people endured.

He chose the people over the law. Not because the law isn’t important or holy, it certainly is, but because no matter how valuable the teachings or law is, it is worthless without the people to bear its teachings and practice its principles. 

This might sound controversial but the tablets and indeed the Torah despite being filled with sanctity and life changing ideas, is an inanimate object containing abstract ideas. 

It is the practice of these ideas by humankind that gives the Torah its true meaning and life. If (and when) we fail there is no other choice but to reboot and start again. 

In the final words of the entire Torah, Moshe is regaled for the acts and decisions he made before ‘’the eyes of all Israel.” Rashi,  the most famous 11th Century Torah scholar, comments that the final words of the Torah are alluding to Moshe’s greatest act – the shattering of the tablets. 

This is Moshe’s greatest act? The final word on Moses? The final message of the whole Torah? The greatest prophet who threw G-ds word to the ground and shattered the law!

Every year we commemorate the day of the giving of the Torah on the 6th of Sivan and then 40 days later we commemorate the destruction of the tablets on the 17th of the Hebrew month of Tammuz.

It is a sad day because it teaches us of the fallibility of human decision making but it is also a hallowed day because from within the broken shards Moshe taught us his greatest lesson of all.

A body of laws and ideas needs living – even if fallible – practitioners to bring its words to life. 

One day on the eve of the festival of the giving of the Torah, someone walked into the shul and gifted me with a broken folio of torah she had found in an antique shop in rural Morocco. Perhaps serendipitously the section she gave me was precisely the description of the festival we would commemorate that night. The giving of Torah and the ten commandments.

I looked at this broken piece of the Torah and was reminded of the shattered stones of Moses that rested in the holy of holies. 

Our responsibility is to be the living bearers and practitioners of the law.  We carry it. We teach it. We practice it. We give it its life as it gives us our life.

Speaking of those who bear the law with such distinction I want to acknowledge all of you who come in every year for this service and for the work that you do throughout the year. This year we pay special homage to Justice Weinberg as he comes to the conclusion of this phase of his career for bearing and applying the law with such integrity.

I also just wish to say a personal thank you to Justice Kaye on behalf of our shul and the entire community for without your enthusiasm and encouragement this important service may well have faded. 

Every year I receive a thank you with the Supreme Courts letterhead and before I open it I’m always certain that some of the unsavoury actions of my troubled youth have finally caught up with me, but no they are a most dignified and heartfelt letter of thanks from Justice Kaye for hosting the legal year service. You deserve our appreciation for bearing the spirit and the practice of our law with dignity and integrity. And thank you to Raph, Ruth, Bronwyn, Sam, Didi, Adam, Danny and Paul and all who contribute to this service.

I wish you all a successful year in your most hallowed role of being at the forefront of those who are the living bearers and practitioners of the law in our community.