What “No Comment” Reveals

Spirits are high in our brightly-lit classroom turned art makerspace. I feel the carbonated delight that comes from a good chevruta (partnered learning) session: minds melding, excited exclamations bubbling to a din, texts opening portals to new ways of seeing. I announce that now we’ll transition from text-based learning to art-making, and just a few rules apply. (Many of these rules Rabbi Jay has introduced in preceding newsletters!) Perhaps the guideline most subject to skepticism is the friendly silence the Jewish Studio Process calls “No Comment”. For the entirety of our use of materials, participants refrain from chatting about, interpreting, or in any way interjecting about what another is doing in their art. We also refrain from commenting on our own work, benching our inner critics if only for the allotted twenty to thirty minutes. Inevitably, eyebrows furrow in protest and hands raise to ask about exceptions. (Yes, you can ask someone to pass the scissors.)

The silence invoked in the Jewish Studio Project creative process is a gift, not a punishment. For a moment it can seem awkward or even rude not to pepper our communal art-making with the compliments and constructive feedback. Creativity is vulnerable, and I am no stranger to the glow and relief that can come from a kind reflection - a validation that what I’m daring to put out has worth, or at least, that I chose a cool color to make marks with. 

Yet the absence of commentary or any expectation of it in a shared space can create a new way of listening inward that is, dare I say, revelatory. In those quiet ‘alone-together’ moments, we return to a way of knowing evoked in the wilderness at Sinai - that unique transmission of Divine wisdom that we celebrate this week on Shavuot. However you interpret revelation, the Torah’s account of Sinai offers us a radical, accessible vision of communal transformation that celebrates the wilderness within each of us, and allows for a transmission of wisdom that benefits the collective without stifling the individual.

The Rabbinic midrash Shemot Rabbah 5:9 relates:

Come and see how [God’s] voice would go out among all of Israel - to each and every one according to their strength: the elders according to their strength; the young men according to their strength;... the babies according to their strength; the women according to their strength; and even Moshe according to his strength…(Exodus 19:19) 

Implied in this midrash are the conditions that allow each and every individual standing at Sinai to have an unfiltered, uninterrupted experience of receiving the Divine wisdom. Only by holding a reverent silence together could each human be receptive to hearing the unique way that Divine wisdom wanted to be channeled through them.

The “No-Comment” rule creates a container of trust and solidarity among creative souls so they can hear the unique revelation intended for them. Critically, though the Israelites each receive according to their unique capacities and needs, they do not stand indifferent to one another in this space of holy transformation. A teaching transmitted by David Elcott relates that when Israelites stood at Sinai, God resided in their midst only when the people looked “into each other's eyes” (Numbers 14:14). Sinai’s revelatory delivery does not happen until the people communicate to one another (inaudibly) that they are in this awesome moment together. Silently, but potently, the people shared their readiness to receive God’s word, alone-together, and only then did each hear what they needed to, as they were able to.

Similarly in the JSP studio, just because we’re not commenting doesn’t mean that we feel an absence of Presence. Quite the opposite - to collectively agree to be vessels open to giving and receiving creativity together is profound in a way that amplifies a simple solo experience. We are conscious witness-bearers, we are courage-stokers, we affirm that each of us belongs here as much as the next person.

Infinite creative seeds of wisdom were planted at Sinai. Rather than expect each to grow identically, God saw to it that each could act on their own unique potential. Rabbi Hilly Haber notes,  “As Jews, we celebrate the particular joy of Jewish unity that was forged at Sinai - a unity that is the very opposite of uniformity, for, as Audre Lord teaches, our diversity is our source of power.”

She continues:

“At Sinai we learned who we were and who we would become in the world: a border-crossing people, confined to no single territory, no single language, no single expression of Jewish identity; a multi-vocal, multi-racial, multi-ethnic movement still trying to live out the radical lessons of revelation.” 

Rabbi Haber reminds us that the potency of ‘No Comment’ is not only felt at the individual level, but it undeniably strengthens the potential of the whole.

When we meet each others’ eyes in the studio, on the dance-floor, in sanctuary and in navigating life’s challenges with the commitment to ‘No Comment’, we restoke the creative fires of Sinai that allow us all to go where we’re called intuitively, and learn by getting lost and finding our way home. The comment-free freedom we give each other, even for a few moments, allows us to emerge with a more resilient roadmap for navigating the wilderness ahead.

Chag Sameach!

Rabbi Laura Rumpf

Guest written by Rabbi Laura Rumpf, Director of Project Kavod at Jewish Family Services and Jewish Studio Project Facilitator

Notice Everything

After taping a large sheet of watercolor paper to the wall, I dab some gobs of pink and red tempera paint onto a plate, grab a brush, and get busy making art. A flick of the wrist creates one vivid streak, then another. The awkwardness of starting gives way to the intent exhilaration of creative flow. The room fades from consciousness - it is just me, the paintbrush, the tempera, and the unexpected world emerging on the paper. This is the zone, where all of my attention coheres into one activity, blissfully free of distraction. But as I turn to get more paint, I see Holly a few feet away, clearly in the zone as well. Her use of bright and dark colors draws me in as she merges them together. The room comes back into focus, and I take a minute to scan what everyone else is doing. Wait - is that someone making a tinfoil sculpture with a strange little yellow wig on it?? Whoa - I’d never thought to speckle paint on a canvas with a toothbrush like that before! Mm - how interesting that Elyza has expanded the corner of her canvas with a page from a magazine, sticking out beyond the edge. I return to my mark-making with new ideas to steal borrow. This is the magic of making art together through the Jewish Studio Process. And in particular, what happens when you follow the rule of: Notice everything! 

The fourth book of Torah, which we begin this week, offers through its English and Hebrew names two models of noticing. In English, we call this book Numbers because there are multiple censuses taken of the people. Dozens of paragraphs detail the tribal enrollment numbers, a proactive and precise form of noticing. Reading the first few chapters of Numbers, you start to become impressed with this ragtag group of formerly enslaved people who have transformed into a well-organized and orderly nation. However, the Hebrew name of this book hints at the messier stories that characterize the later chapters - Bemidbar, “In the Wilderness.” In the wilderness, the people send scouts into Canaan to notice on their behalf, but the scouts only notice what will be difficult about settling the land. Again and again, the people notice every opportunity to complain and take full advantage. Wilderness noticing in this book seems often tinged with negativity, but it also summons forth the powerful noticing of the prophet Balaam, who sees in the people nothing but blessing. In the wilderness, noticing itself is wild with danger and possibility. Noticing in the wilderness is a form of wandering attention, not directed but responsive, not precise but present to whatever emerges. 

One powerful mode of noticing the self is to do a body scan. (Here’s one version that I find very accessible. Please note that this may not be a useful activity if trauma or overwhelming pain is present.) The purpose of a body scan is to practice noticing the body (and all the thoughts and emotions that come up when we think of our bodies) without judgment, simply to notice what is there. In the body scan, the two modes of noticing blend - we notice in a particular order (Numbers) and yet while our attention rests in one area we soften into wandering with what’s there (Bemidbar). Often, mindful teachers will explain that there are three general categories for what we notice - pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. Unpleasant or uncomfortable feelings draws our attention often, and we pursue pleasurable sensations intuitively. Neutral areas can be rich places to deliberately spend more time noticing, since we spend most of our lives ignoring them.

Sacred text. Returning us to Torah, imagine reading it like a body scan! Where do you notice pleasure - words that inspire you or where you see clear alignment with values, stories that resonate with your lived experience and offer new ways to make meaning, perhaps intellectual delight in tackling an interesting text and exploring the ever-expanding world of commentary. 

Where do you notice unpleasant words, stories or laws that cause some discomfort? For many of us, the sacrificial offerings or some depictions of God may be difficult to stay with. Yet, there is deep wisdom within those words if we can be present without judgment and explore them a bit more. There may be stories that are not always productive or safe to engage with, what feminist scholar Phyllis Trible calls “texts of terror”, in which “the story is alive, and all is not well.” 

And then there are the neutral aspects of our text, the places where the subject material is just not that compelling or understandable. Like a census, for example… But if you look closely even at the parts that normally you glide right over, you may discover hidden vitality pulsing. After a lengthy listing of each tribe’s enrollment, Numbers/Bemidbar 1:44 reads: “Those are the enrollments recorded by Moses and Aaron and by the chieftains of Israel, who were twelve in number, one participant from each ancestral house.” A basic summary, I suppose. But medieval commentator Sforno declares that we should take it literally - Moses and Aaron had personally counted every single person. A tremendous feat of noticing! And this is how many of the sages of the past read Torah - attending to every verse, word, even letter. 

Notice everything. Methodologically. Spontaneously. With curiosity and care. And of course imperfectly. In the Jewish Studio Project, “noticing everything” assumes that I need to learn from others who are seeing things differently. I can’t personally see everything myself! But when I see what others are doing, how they are using the materials and making creative choices and interpreting familiar texts in new ways, my field of noticing expands. This is true for us all individually, and collectively it is so critically important to notice the world through perspectives that have historically been marginalized. When we hear voices of women, lgbtq+ folks, people whose bodies and minds work in diverse ways, people with different racial and ethnic identities, our noticing leads to more justice, more truth, more creative joy. 

Here at Kavana, over the next several months, these newsletter openings will come not just from my perspective, but will sometimes feature the voice of others on our staff as well, one way of broadening perspectives within and beyond our community and noticing in new ways. 

This Shabbat, may you notice in new and nourishing ways!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Follow Pleasure

The final chapters of Leviticus offer a meditation in time and purpose (or rather - moments of apparent purposelessness). Leviticus 25 sets the maximum degree to which land and people can be pressed into productive service. Land and people observe a shabbat - rest. Indentured slaves must not be oppressed (their human dignity must remain intact - our understanding today assumes even the “kindest” slavery violates human dignity). In other words, this chapter carves out time where our reality is not only consumed with labor, productivity, and cultivation. But what are we to do in this open time?

Leviticus 26:2 answers in part: “Et shabtotai tishmoru!” We might translate this as: preserve these shabbat times! Keep them sacred, don’t let anything override these reminders of our full human dignity and agency. One sage, Sforno (16th century, Italy), stresses this point: “Even in days of servitude or oppression, even though the restfulness (menuchah) of them just reminds us [painfully of our lack of] freedom.” Sometimes our attempts to be fully ourselves make us confront how many forces are restricting or rejecting us, trying to control or erase us. Nevertheless, sh’mor shabbat - preserve that non-productive bubble of time. 

But that still doesn’t answer what we are to do within the shabbat time. How are we to experience ourselves as fully whole? The Jewish tradition developed a rich framework of Shabbat observance, which through its many “do’s and don’ts”, has created a beautiful communal container for counter-cultural connection and soul nourishment. But I think there is more we can do to internalize oneg shabbat - the delight of shabbat - as a daily practice. 

That’s where the Jewish Studio Project’s studio rules come in. As I mentioned last week (link here), JSP has four rules that create a container for art-making. “Follow pleasure” is the most delightful and sometimes the most bewildering rule. Is pleasure actually good to follow? That sounds a bit self-indulgent, dangerous even if we’re just looking out for our own gratification! Now that I think about it, what even is pleasure? Do I know what feels good to me, not what I think should feel good? How do I hear my own voice amidst all the advertising and social pressure and cultural expectations? Can I trust myself? 

Notice young children playing and you’ll rarely catch them doubting or wondering about pleasure. Rabbi Adina Allen explains that “There is something very playful about art-making... It is a process of letting oneself be led by pleasure, it allows other parts of oneself to come to the fore. It is a chance for adults to practice what children do all the time: parallel play.” If the opposite of shabbat time is work, then perhaps one aspect of shabbat is play. 

But it is something we lose touch with as we grow older. Shel Silverstein had a tragic little poem that highlights the consequences of forgetting or fearing what brings us pleasure.

“Masks”

She had blue skin,

And so did he.

He kept it hid

And so did she.

They searched for blue

Their whole life through,

Then passed right by - 

And never knew.

And according to Rebbe Nachman (an early Hasidic master), it isn’t just us who lose pleasure when we hide away from it (Likutei Moharan I, 60:6):

“There are people who are virtually asleep their entire lives, and even though it appears to the world that they serve God and engage in Torah and prayer, even so, God gets no pleasure from any of their efforts, because all their work remains below and cannot rise and ascend above.”

Art-making, and specifically granting ourselves permission to follow pleasure and practice listening to our own senses, is a way of re-awakening to ourselves. The call to follow pleasure is urgent, spiritual, ethical - not a distraction or disaster. Alive to ourselves we can appreciate the aliveness of other beings and protect them from abuse and exploitation. Reclaiming our right to say, this feels good and that doesn’t, disarms the manipulative messages that bombard us. “Pleasure,” writes adrienne maree brown in her book Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, “is a measure of freedom.”

Leviticus 26:13 declares that freedom powerfully: “I Adonai am your God who brought you out from the land of the Egyptians to be their slaves no more, who broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.” Kom’miyut - erect, upright, free, standing in your truth and power and dignity and agency. Kom’miyut - an interior reality that arises when you follow pleasure, learn to trust your intuitive wisdom, and play creatively in the world.

Wishing you a pleasurable, playful Shabbat!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Forget Your Perfect Offering

He shall not enter behind the curtain or come near the altar
for he has a defect (moom).He shall not profane these places 
sacred to Me, for I Adonai (yhvh)have made them holy.
(Leviticus 21:23)

Last week, the Torah called us to be holy. This week, it says you have to be perfect to access the holy. I mean, first you have to be born male into an elite priestly family, and then you have to be perfect, at which point you can dare to dart through the curtain and be in the room where it happens - the Holy Place in the Temple. Here, a most profound spiritual practice occurs, the transformative magic of ritual offerings, linking the earthy world of cows (etc.) and the lofty imaginative spheres of the divine. Here at the altar, you can access Connection, Purpose, Meaning, Love, Success, Insight, Belonging. But again, only if you have no "defects".

In order for the Torah to be relevant in a time with no Temple, this instruction manual for the priests must be read as if we are all priests, and we can in some way strive to enter into the holy space where all of our greatest fears melt away and our deepest yearnings well up. Parshat Emor presents a difficult path, one that might turn us away altogether. There are so many voices in the world telling us we are not enough, we don’t belong, for a hundred different reasons. It is painful to turn to Torah for sustenance only to see exclusivity, elitism, patriarchy, ableism, and apparent divine sanction for all of that right at the center of this book’s spiritual vision. 

There have been beautiful teachings in past centuries seeking to help us walk through the curtain and access joy and meaning in this text. One that I’ve recently studied comes from the 18th century Hassidic rabbi Avraham Dov Auerbach of Avritch, in his book Bat Ayin (Emor 40):

And this is what the verse says: “[A priest] who has a defect (moom) shall not approach…” Moom in gematriya is elohim. This interpretation means that each priest who had a moom [in fact had within himself] the aspect of elohim, which is the aspect of judgment, the aspect of contracted mind, the aspect of divine hiddenness. The interpretation of “...shall not approach…” is that the priest is unable to approach God, because they don’t have wholeness of service until their essence clings to the soul-trait of lovingkindness (chesed).

The Bat Ayin transforms moom from physical imperfection to a lack of lovingkindness. This flips our natural first reading on its head - because now judgments about falling short of imperfection (rather than imperfection itself) are exactly what disqualify the priest from his holy station. Kindness is the key to wholeness, not precise perfection. 

For the past 18 months, I’ve been training to be a facilitator with the Jewish Studio Project, along with my wife, Rabbi Laura Rumpf. At the core of what we are learning is the Jewish Studio Process, designed by Rabbi Adina Allen and building off the work of her mother and colleague Pat Allen. And at the core (you might imagine this as the Holy of Holies) of the Jewish Studio Process is art-making. For me, making art is one way to encounter the image of my own imperfection. When I grasp a paintbrush, I also grasp every weapon of judgment there is - an armory of ugly assertions about my worth not just as an artist but as a rabbi and human. And - when I bring kindness to those voices and firmly tell them, I’m going to make art anyway, the paintbrush starts to feel just a little bit holy. I am stepping into my wholeness when I embrace imperfection. 

Rabbi Adina Allen teaches what she calls a “Torah of Creativity”: 

God’s first act is one of creativity. Only a few verses later we read that humans are created b’tzelem Elohim (“in the image of God”). If God is, first and foremost, a creator, and we are created in God’s image, then we too are created to be creators. Each of us is endowed with creative capacity simply by being human.

Daring to be creative means by default asserting that what is still needs transformation. Surrounding the art-making in the Jewish Studio Process are four rules that hold a safe container for us to encounter hard voices, to play and explore, to transform materials and ourselves. 

• No commenting

• Follow pleasure

• Notice everything

• Keep going

For the month of May, I plan to share in each week’s newsletter interpretations of Torah and our world through the lens of one of these rules. And if you want to experience the full Jewish Studio Process - please join us this Thursday night for our final monthly Kavana Art MakerSpace this programmatic year! We will learn Torah, and we will make art, but all you need to bring or know is your wonderfully imperfect self. 

Rabbi Adina says in a forthcoming book, “We bring our struggles, our questions, our longing or our pain to the page and invite forces beyond ourselves into our process. Without fail, the universe will give us back a gift: understanding, insight, comfort, connection. It will always weave us back into the fabric of all of life. Our art is our offering on the altar, it brings us back into relationship with ourselves and with that which connects us all.” 

Art is our offering on the altar…an altar every one of us has access to, that requires no perfection, only the brave willingness to tolerate and learn from imperfection. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Searching for a Calling

“All the voices of the wood called ‘Muriel!’”

So starts the poem “Then I Saw What The Calling Was” by 20th century Jewish-American poet Muriel Rukeyser. What a wonder, to walk through the world and feel called by each creature, to know: I am known! I belong and I matter. My life has significance.

Our Torah portion, Acharei Mot-Kedoshim, contains one of the most mysterious callings in the entire Torah, a calling not from the voices of the wood but from the voice behind all voices, the Source of Creation. God tells Moses: “Speak to the whole community of Yisrael and say to them: ‘You shall be holy (kedoshim tih’yu) because I, God, am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). 

Holiness is the mysterious vocation of the Jewish people. 

How are we to be holy? Leviticus 18:3 clarifies that it means to walk a different path from other peoples: “You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt where you dwelt, or of the land of Canaan to which I am taking you; nor shall you follow their laws.” 

Holiness comes with responsibility and ethical ambition, not arrogance and ethnic exclusivity: “The strangers who reside with you shall be to you as your citizens; you shall love each one as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I Adonai am your God” (Leviticus 19:34).

Holiness is intrinsic to the idea of being a “chosen people”: “For you are a holy people to Adonai your God, and God has chosen you to be God’s treasured people from all the nations that are on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6, and 14:2). The Jewish people have a calling, an aspiration, a significant difference to live out in the world. 

Or do they? In the continuation of Muriel Rukeyser’s poem, the voices she hears calling her name suddenly reveal themselves in part as her own projected desire for special significance.

“All the voices of the wood called “Muriel!”but it was soon solved; it was nothing, it was not for me.The words were a little like Mortal and More and EndureAnd a world like Real, a sound like Health or Hell.”

In the verbal Rorschach test, she heard all of these words that are a little like “Muriel” and mistook them for a personal calling out. But actually, she wasn’t that special. 

In the haftarah (selection from the biblical prophets) that accompanies our Torah portion, the specialness of being chosen gets destabilized as well. 

“To Me, O Israelites, you are

Just like the Cushites

—declares Adonai.

True, I brought Israel up

From the land of Egypt,

But also the Philistines from Caphtor

And the Arameans from Kir.” (Amos 9:7)

Oh! There’s obviously a lot to unpack here theologically and politically. The deliberate pairing of the Torah portion and Haftarah by the ancient rabbis makes me think that they wanted us to wrestle with this deep need to be special. To acknowledge how much of our behavior stems from a need to be seen, to make a difference, to have a purpose, to belong and matter. And to be wary of the harms that can result from the self-centered desire to be superior. That yearning to matter (or the deep despair and anger of not mattering) has started wars and ended them, has sparked violence and pushed some into the good fight and ennobled others to remarkable feats of peacemaking. 

Although the Jewish tradition generally leans heavily on us having a calling (with the rare exception like the Amos text), Muriel Rukeyser gives us a different perspective. A secular world where no one - God or creature or person - is necessarily calling to her at all. It is a lonely world in a way, one that has resonated with me from time to time, where I begin to wonder - do I matter? Do I have a purpose? Where do I belong? How do I gather the facts of my experience into something meaningful? What do I do with a lurking fear that the universe is indeed random, and nothing matters? What’s the point of it all? These questions sound melodramatic, but how we answer them has a direct impact on our well-being. Humans need significance to survive. Luckily, Rukeyser moves through her own destabilizing awareness that no one is calling to her in an extraordinary way:

“Then I saw what the calling was: it was the road I traveled,the cleartime and these colors of orchards, gold behind gold and the fullshadow behind each tree and behind each slope. Not to methe calling, but to anyone and at last I saw: wherethe road lay through sunlight and many voices and the marvelorchards, not for me, not for me, not for me.I came into my clear being; uncalled, alive, and sure.Nothing was speaking to me, but I offered and all was well.

And I arrived at the powerful green hill.”

May you come into your clear being, and rededicate yourself to what you have to offer.

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Sacred Scrolls, and Sabbatical

In our Jewish tradition, we have a mechanism -- a "spiritual technology," if you will -- for remembering the events of our people's past. All of us are familiar with the most prominent example, as we just celebrated Passover, where we recounted the Exodus from Egypt at seder tables everywhere. The Exodus story is also encoded in our weekly practice (e.g. the words "zeicher liytziyat mitzrayim" in Friday night kiddush) and in our daily liturgy (with shirat hayam, mi chamocha, and more). Other important historical memories, too, find their way into our liturgy throughout the year. If you are familiar with the Ten Martyrs of Roman times, it may well be because you've heard the liturgical poem Eleh Ezkerah (the heart of the Martyrology section of prayer) recited on Yom Kippur. The destruction of the Second Temple lies at the heart not only of our Tisha B'Av observance, but also in a set of fast days sprinkled throughout the year. We recall how the biblical villain Amalek attacked our Israelite ancestors through a special Torah reading on the Shabbat before Purim, when we also connect the events of ancient Persia through our reading of Megillat Esther. And, as Rabbi David Golinkin of the Schechter Institutes in Jerusalem points out, although there are countless historical, scholarly books about the Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, because that event hasn't become embedded liturgically in our ritual, it is relatively less known.

This question of Jewish national memory and how we mark time liturgically has been at the forefront of my mind this week. As I write, we find ourselves on the Jewish calendar located 15 days (two weeks and one day) into the counting of the Omer, book-ended by two contemporary holidays: Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) this past Tuesday, and Yom HaZikaron (Israel's Memorial Day for fallen soldiers) and Yom HaAtzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) this coming Monday night/Tuesday and Tuesday night/Wednesday respectively. These holidays feel like an especially big deal this year because the numbers are round: it's been exactly 80 years since the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and 75 years since the founding of the State of Israel.

On Tuesday of this week, I happened to wake up to an email from the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem, and I quickly hopped on an early-morning Zoom call. (I regret that I hadn't paid enough attention to this event in advance to share it with the Kavana community; I will endeavor to do so in coming years!) This online event was an international reading of a relatively new text: Megillat HaShoah (the Scroll of the Holocaust). As Professor Golinkin explained in an interview (click here to listen), this new scroll was initially the suggestion of a Holocaust survivor named Alex Eisen in 1999 (someone who lived through seven labor camps during the war). Eisen knew that he and his generation would not live forever to tell the story of his experiences, and he wanted to record the Holocaust not just through history books, but also in living, liturgical Jewish memory.

In response to this suggestion, the Schechter Institute commissioned now-retired Professor Avigdor Shinan -- an expert in Jewish literature, midrash and aggadah -- to compose a new liturgical text for Yom HaShoah. Shinan settled on a six-chapter scroll, in memory of the 6 million Jewish victims, with each chapter focusing on a different major aspects of the Holocaust: 1) historical antisemitism & Nazi's plan to destroy Jewish people, 2) the Warsaw Ghetto, 3) the Nazi labor camp, 4) the destruction of Jews in Auschwitz, 5) an elegy (in the style of Tisha B'Av) eulogizing the 6 million, and 6) the survivors and rebirth of the State of Israel. On Tuesday's zoom call -- the International Reading of Megillat HaShoah -- I heard Shinan's text read by readers from all over the world in a multiplicity of languages (Hebrew, English, Spanish, Yiddish, and Ukrainian this year). I hope that this online reading, which came to be during/because of the Covid shut-down in spring 2020, will remain a tradition into the future. With its international audience, this virtual meeting felt like it symbolically united the entire Jewish people to recall the horrors that transpired in Europe some eight decades ago, in a sacred liturgical format. To read the powerful text of Megillat HaShoah yourself, in the English-Hebrew version (something I highly recommend), click here.

Next week, as I said above, we will also mark Israel's Memorial Day followed by its 75th birthday. For Yom HaZikaron, Kavana is once again co-sponsoring a Joint Memorial Service which brings together Israelis and Palestinians (see below for more details). 

For many communities, a straightforward celebration (falafel and Israeli folk dancing? a 75th birthday cake?) might feel appropriate for Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel's Independence Day. But, as I've shared in past weeks, Israel's future as a democracy hangs in the balance right now. Locally, members of the Israeli expat community here in the Puget Sound region have been gathering weekly to rally in favor of democracy, coordinating their messages and content to match the flavor of the large-scale protests that have been happening every Saturday night over the past several months in the streets of every major Israeli city. 

As members of this Israeli pro-democracy group (which calls itself "UnXeptable") have come together locally and discussed what would constitute a meaningful Yom HaAtzmaut observance for the Seattle area this year, they have settled on a celebration that features not only Israeli food and dancing (although yes, those!), but also a reading/study of Megillat HaAtzmaut, Israel's Declaration (literally "Scroll") of Independence, proclaimed by David Ben Gurion on May 14, 1948 (5 Iyar 5708) -- click here to read this text for yourself. Like the annual reading of the new Megillat HaShoah described above, I believe that an annual reading of Megillat HaAtzmaut could serve an almost liturgical function, recentering Jewish people everywhere on the ideals with which the State of Israel was founded. I hope that some Kavana folks will be able to attend this gathering (see below for details -- Congregation Kol Ami is hosting in Kirkland), and that moving forward, we will be able to institute a new tradition in our community of reading this sacred scroll each Yom HaAtzmaut.

Lastly, shifting topics a bit, I also want to share the news with the broader Kavana community that I will be taking a three-month sabbatical during the months of May, June and July. This is a plan that's been in the works for a number of years. Kavana will be turning 17 this summer, and this will be my first extended time off (with the exception of parental leave many years ago... but trust me, that wasn't really down time!). ;-) The Kavana board agreed to this sabbatical at my last contract renewal point, several years ago, and this year -- now that we have hired new staff members, including a second rabbi -- it finally felt realistic to schedule this time off. I am deeply grateful to the Kavana board and to our partner community for the support to do this, and to my fellow staff members for making this time off a reality.

The idea of a sabbatical has its origin in the Torah, of course, and right now, there is also a movement underway in the nonprofit sector to encourage sabbaticals in order to reduce burnout, retain talent, and spark new ideas. Back in the fall, I was even awarded a sabbatical grant from a new group called R&R, which wants to promote the value of sabbaticals in the Jewish world (and indeed, assuming all goes well, it is my intention to implement a new sabbatical policy for all of Kavana's full-time staff upon my return). I plan to spend these three months of down-time recharging my own batteries... rekindling relationships with old friends, spending time with family, taking some hikes, reading for fun, and traveling to a few places I've never been before. 

Returning to the framework of liturgy for a moment, I have purposefully scheduled my three sabbatical months for a quieter time of the Jewish year. I will depart soon after Yom HaAtzmaut, in the middle of the Omer period, and I plan to return to the office in early August, soon after Tisha B'Av but well in advance of the month of Elul and the Jewish New Year that follows. In my absence, the rest of the Kavana staff will be pitching in for coverage, especially Liz Thompson, who will serve as Interim Executive Director, and Rabbi Jay LeVine, who can field all rabbinic and pastoral questions. I look forward to returning refreshed in August, and to being able to share what I have gleaned from my sabbatical time with you all then.

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom, in this week that is so saturated in Jewish memory,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Holy Mess in the Middle

Leviticus is well-known as a dry rule-book for archaic purity rituals, a manual for a profession (priests) that has long been out of business. It has within its twenty-seven chapters only two stories. But if its contents are not as accessible as some of the other books of the Torah, its structure holds remarkable beauty and meaning. 

In the 13th century CE, the great scholar Moshe ben Nachman (Ramban, or Nachmanides) noticed that the structure of the Mishkan (the portable temple built in the wilderness) mapped onto the instructions for boundaries around Mt. Sinai at the giving of the ten commandments. The people could gather at the base of the mountain but go no higher. Similarly, regular people could enter the Outer Courtyard of the Mishkan. Mid-way up the mountain Aaron, his sons, and the elders ascended. But only Moses reached the top where God’s intimate presence communed with him. Similarly, the regular priestly class could cross the first screen in the Mishkan and access the Holy Space. But only the High Priest could enter through the second screen into the Holy of Holies, from where God’s presence emanated. Both Mt. Sinai and the Mishkan create a three-tiered structure of access to holy intensity.

In her book Leviticus as Literature, the anthropologist Mary Douglas maps that same three-part structure onto the book itself. She imagines the act of reading the book as a tour through the structure it revolves around. I won’t go into the details of how she arrives at the layout (if you want to go deeper on her work without reading the whole book, here is an excellent 15-page article with illustrations that elaborates on this particular idea.) The key point is that the two stories in Leviticus function as the screens in the Mishkan, the gateways from one area to the next. Both stories involve violations of the rules laid out in Leviticus. The second screen, Leviticus 24:10-22, relates the crime and punishment of one who gathered firewood on Shabbat. The first screen is in our Torah portion Shmini. We learn the fate of Nadav and Avihu, two of the High Priest Aaron’s sons, who offer “strange fire” and are themselves consumed by divine fire for their misstep. 

These stories that transport you from one place to the next are about messy moments. They remind me of the second act in a play. If Act 1 is about establishing the rules and the stakes of a story, Act 2 causes lots of damage and mayhem. In Act 2, everything seems to fall apart, although by Act 3 most stories bring about a cathartic resolution. The two stories in Leviticus are Act 2 stories, messy middle stories, mid-way points from one place to another. 

In the Talmud (Kiddushin 30a), we learn that there used to be people called sofrim, often translated as sages or scholars because of the root meaning of sefer as scroll/book. But that word can also mean “to count”, and the Talmud teaches that these counters would “count all the letters in the Torah. They would say the letter vav in ‘belly’ (Leviticus 11:42) is the midpoint of the letters in a Torah scroll. Darosh darash ‘diligently inquire’ (Leviticus 10:16) are the midpoint of the words…”

So if you were to find the mid-point, the messy middle of the whole Torah, you’d land right in our Torah portion! The phrase darosh darash is particularly significant as a beating heart of the Torah, because that root is all about interpretation, learning, study, inquiry - in other words, the principle way we engage with Torah. 

These words come right after the story of Nadav and Avihu die. Aaron and his other two sons appear to do something that Moses didn’t direct them to do, and he becomes angry and challenges them. They end up convincing him they are right, but it is an odd moment. Everyone is still grieving - perhaps Moses was afraid after losing some family members to an incorrect ritual that he is about to lose more relatives to sloppy ritual. Or perhaps we are getting yet another glimpse of Moses’s habitual anger that will continue to get him into trouble. 

The 18th century Moroccan commentator the Or HaChaim has another take: “Personally, I think that Moses had not yet decided to permit consumption of the meat of that sin-offering…We may therefore understand the words darosh darash (diligently inquiring) that Moses was still busy researching the applicable ruling. The repetition of the words is a hint that it could have either of two rulings. The reason Moses was angry was not because Aaron and his sons had done wrong but because they had taken it upon themselves to decide the issue without asking him.”

What I love about this reading is not that Moses appears to be micromanaging Aaron, but that he is still involved in learning. God doesn’t just lay out every rule for him to parrot. Moses has to study hard to discern Torah. We get a glimpse of the Moses the Student, not Moses the Teacher. And it happens right in the middle of the Torah, right at the messy Act 2 story that also serves as a sacred doorway into a holier place. 

What I take from this is that when we are in messy moments (and who isn’t?), when we are feeling lost, confused, unsure, hopeful but not confident, when we are struggling to see the horizon, or feel sad or alone, we might take comfort in this: Messy, hard moments are where we also learn deep and wise Torah, and messy, hard moments are a precursor to holiness. Or as Brene Brown says in her book Rising Strong, “the middle is messy, but it’s also where the magic happens.” I don’t wish messy middles on anyone, but I know we will all move through them from time to time. May we, like Moses, darosh darash, seek out meaning, and look for the doorways to the next holy home place on our journey.

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Jay LeVine

We Are Not Yet Free

This evening at sunset, we will move into the Shabbat before Passover, known on the Jewish calendar by the special name "Shabbat HaGadol" ("the Great Shabbat"). The 16th century Jewish law code Shulchan Arukh (in Orach Chayim 430) records a custom that on the afternoon of this special Shabbat, people would gather in the synagogue to recite sections of the haggadah. Presumably, the goal was for the whole community to familiarize themselves with its contents in preparation for their own home-based seder rituals.

Taking up this old tradition, I want to use this opportunity, as we head into Shabbat HaGadol, to invite us to reflect on the central meaning of the Pesach festival, now just days away. The heart of the Passover seder resides in the maggid, the 5th of the 14 sections of the haggadah's ritual, where we tell the Passover story. And as you may know, maggid opens with the famous "Ha Lachma Anya" passage, an Aramaic text which translated means:

"This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come and eat. Let all who are needed come and celebrate the Passover with us. Now we are here; next year may we be in the land of Israel. Now we are slaves; next year may we be free."

In preparation for the seder, I want to draw our attention to the last part of this declaration. Next Wednesday and Thursday evenings, as we sit down to our Passover banquets, we will open our telling of the story with these words to remind ourselves that "we are here," implying that this is not where we want to be.* [*In my reading of this text, "land of Israel" doesn't necessarily have to mean the physical land of Israel... if it did, it wouldn't make much sense that this text is still recited even at contemporary Israeli seders; rather, this refers to a redeemed, post-exilic world which we have yet to achieve/reach.] Despite the fact that we clearly have enough material sustenance that we are able to invite others to join us in our meal, we still assert that "we are slaves," meaning that we are not yet free. In other words, we enter into the core act of story-telling by highlighting that -- even as we recall a history of having moved from injustice to freedom -- we still fundamentally see ourselves a residing in a world that is, as yet, imperfect and unredeemed.

This powerful beginning to our sacred story-telling begs the question: in what ways are we "here" rather than there, enslaved rather than free? With this orientation, it is clear that it's not enough simply to read the words of the haggadah and recount what happened to our ancestors. We must consider the world we live in and pay serious attention to enslavement, oppression, and injustice as they play out around us. 

This is why, in my opinion, the best seders aren't the ones where every word of the haggadah is read, taking turns around the table, but rather, seders that also feature genuine and dynamic conversation and debate about the imperfections of our world. The goal is to draw on our people's story of past liberation to inspire us to make a difference here and now, bringing us all a step closer to redemption! 

Of course, the trick is that there's no one "right topic" to be talking about at the seder. The themes of the Exodus resonate when applied to our individual human psychology, to our relationships and family dynamics, to nature and the environment, to a wide range of societal issues. We explicitly ask "Why is this night different from all other nights?," but could equally use "Ha lachma anya" to ask ourselves "Why is this year different from all other years?" (or, to paraphrase, what are the particular arenas in which the seder ritual could serve as a helpful lens this year?).

At my seders this year, I imagine we'll touch on the tyranny of gun violence and the oppressive targeting of queer folks (especially trans youth) in our American society. I hope we'll talk about the events that have unfolded in recent weeks in the Israel, as hundreds of thousands of people in the streets have rallied to try to steer their country away from dictatorship and towards greater democracy. We may put something gold or silver on our seder plate again and pull out the great resource that Kavana created last year to anchor racial justice and reparations conversations in the seder. We may follow the lead of Kavana partners Vicky & Jeff, Suzi & Eric (see the invitation at the bottom of this email about an event happening this evening) who are connecting the stories of Afghani women fleeing their home country to preserve their lives and rights to our people's story, and we might talk other immigrant narratives as well, particularly as our government continues to debate asylum and immigration policy.

What will YOU be talking about at your seder this year?!? As you recite the words of "Ha lachma anya" -- "Now we are here; next year may we be in the land of Israel. Now we are slaves; next year may we be free" -- what examples of oppression, enslavement, and injustice do you feel called to address?

I send wishes to our whole community for a Shabbat Shalom and, of course, a joyous and meaningful Passover. May it inspire us to move ourselves, our community, our society, and our whole world towards liberation and justice, freedom and redemption.

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

AI and Jewish Story

“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

To mould me man? Did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me?”

-John Milton, Paradise Lost

“You need to understand,” Craig warned me before he started his demo, “this is going to change everything about how we do everything. I think that it represents mankind’s greatest invention to date. It is qualitatively different — and it will be transformational.”

-Thomas Friedman, “Our New Promethean Moment”, The New York Times

At this point, I am getting tired of being in the midst of historical transformational moments. It wouldn’t be so bad to imagine that five years from now will look much the way things look today. Let alone twenty or thirty years. But, here we are! I’m not even confident I can predict what next year will bring.

In the last few days I have seen article after article and several of my go-to podcasts ramping up attention on artificial intelligence (AI).  A new iteration of ChatGPT just released and companies like Google and Microsoft are integrating artificial intelligence into their products and platforms. It feels surreal to me, something I could not fathom and definitely dismissed as unrealistic in my lifetime. Of course, it is entirely possible that AI will not blossom into the fullest version of what people imagine. But AI represents a wild spectrum of risk and return, ranging from a useful tool to an existential threat to our species. I believe we need more moral and strategic models to ground our relationship to artificial intelligence. 

If you (like me two weeks ago) have only the foggiest idea of what AI is and what the stakes are, you can just google and find tons of articles. Here are a few resources that I’ve encountered recently that go deeper into the weirdness of AI. 

• Ezra Klein, “This Changes Everything”

• Thomas Friedman, “Our New Promethean Moment”

Friedman, in particular, tries to help us understand this moment through two literary references - the chaotic tornado that brings Dorothy to a vibrant and confusing new land of Oz; and the Greek myth of Prometheus, who granted humanity the radically transformative technology of fire. While the lesson Dorothy learns is that at the end of the day, there’s no place like home, there’s no turning back from the gift of Prometheus. Home is forever in the past. 

The quote I started with from John Milton resonates with two other literary references we can use. First, Mary Shelley uses is as an epigram to begin her work, Frankenstein. A creature we bring to life and consciousness leaves us shaking with horror… 

But Milton’s words are placed in Adam’s mouth, of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And that feels to me like a good place to start in generating Jewish resources to ground us. For Milton, Adam bewails his banishment from the Garden, reminding God that he didn’t make himself. Why should he suffer for the design flaws of the divine creator? 

I prefer to read the story of Eve and then Adam eating from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as an archetype for technological paradigm shift. Like with AI, the fruit gives them exponentially greater access to knowledge. And what does God do? God reminds them of their humanity, or rather “curses” them into experiencing their mortality and their humanity. Labor, pain, and death are not so much curses as the foundations of our shared humanity, and in a moment of leaping forward, this story teaches us to come back in touch with our animal selves, and integrate the new capacity slowly. 

The Tower of Babel also gives us insight into the present moment. In that story, all humans come together with a joint project of building the world's tallest tower. They aim for the heavens, and once again God “curses” the people by making them speak different languages. No longer able to collaborate, the project falls apart. 

Today, there is an AI arms race among companies and governments. It appears to be the opposite of the Babel project, but I think there is in fact a shared language driving the speed of building this new technology. This is the language of competition, fear, greed, and “me first”. Many of the commentators on the Babel story suggest that in their desire to build swiftly, the people would lament when a brick fell but ignore humans falling to their death. They lost sight of the dignity and worth of human beings. 

If we were able to speak more fluently the language of ethics and responsibility, we wouldn’t be able to collaborate so well in the competitive drive to succeed first regardless of who gets damaged along the way. 

A third Jewish resource for conceptualizing our relationship to AI is none other than the book of Leviticus! This book generates a vision of Israelite community oriented around three big ideas: (1) God’s holiness is the source of good and also powerfully dangerous; (2) human nature means we will mess up; (3) so we implement safeguards and create pathways to repair the mess. 

I am in no way trying to equate God with AI, just to be clear. But what I find most compelling about Leviticus is its obsession with holiness and its fear that people will approach it in the wrong way. One of the only two stories in the book has Nadav and Avihu offer “strange fire”, and they in turn are consumed by God’s fire. While some say they made a mistake, others suggest that they so yearned to experience God’s presence that they willingly offered themselves into oblivion. In a 2022 survey, AI experts gave a 1 out 10 chance that AI would cause “human extinction or similarly permanent and severe disempowerment of the human species”. And these are the people actively developing AI! 

Leviticus offers us a model that brings human nature into balance with a mysterious, dangerous, yet ultimately beneficial Presence. The stories of Adam and Eve and the Tower of Babel, and the big picture teachings of Leviticus, all bring a clear-eyed assessment of human nature’s failings, and yet they remind us that when we balance our drive to succeed and discover and invent with our also-human capacities for compassion, kindness, justice, and ethics, we have a hope of enduring thriving, even amidst great changes. 

All of these thoughts are very much just the beginning of my thoughts on AI and its relationship with Judaism. I’d love to hear more from you about what questions, concerns, and ideas you have! 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

From Crowd to Community

In this week's parasha, Vayakhel-Pekudei, Moses assembles the Israelites and they spring into action on a giant community project: the construction and assembly of the Mishkan (also known as the Tabernacle, the portable sanctuary they used during their 40 years in the wilderness). As Exodus 35:21 reads, "And everyone who excelled in ability and everyone whose spirit was moved came, bringing to God an offering for the work of the Tent of Meeting and for all its service and for the sacral vestments." The next many verses detail the kinds of gifts and unique contributions that the Israelites bring: brooches and other gold jewelry; colorfully dyed yarns, fabric and skins; silver and copper. Skilled women begin spinning and trained artisans begin to cut stones, carve wood, and assemble tapestries. Piece by piece, a sacred structure emerges from the efforts of ALL the people, regardless of gender or status or even ability-level. 

In his book The Home We Build Together, the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks argues that this shared project is what turns the crowd of Israelites into a community. He writes: "A nation -- at least, the kind of the nation the Israelites were called on to become -- is created through the act of creation itself. Not all the miracles of Exodus combined, not the plagues, the division of the sea, manna from heaven or water from a rock, not even the revelation at Sinai itself, turned the Israelites into a nation. In commanding Moshe to get the people to make the Tabernacle, God was in effect saying: To turn a group of individuals into a covenantal nation, they must build something together."

I love this piece of Torah from Rabbi Sacks, because here at Kavana, this idea of creating -- of "building something together," of tackling shared projects together -- is one of the go-to plays in our playbook. Week in and week out, we bring together individuals from our community with a shared purpose or project. Not only do we accomplish a lot in terms of outputs, but we also manage to forge community in powerful, connective ways! 

Over the past week alone, we've had so many examples -- here are but a few:

1) Feeding Hungry Neighbors: Kavana volunteers Alex, Aviva, Danny, Diane, Isaac, Julie, Karling, Robin and Ronnie teamed up last weekend to provide a meal to the residents of the Low Income Housing Institute's Othello Village. Each person prepared a single pot of soup, a loaf of bread, or a dozen cookies at home... but together, this added up to a full meal prepared and delivered with love! As an added bonus, this project has been a partnership between Kavana and Minyan Ohr Chadash (a Modern Orthodox community in Seward Park), which means in addition to connecting our chefs with one another and with our low-income neighbors, it's also been a beautiful way to build ties across the Seattle Jewish community. (Huge thanks to everyone who has participated so far! The next opportunity to participate will be on April 23 -- menu details coming soon.)

2) Taking a Stand about Israel: Braving cold weather and an early wake-up the morning after springing our clocks ahead, many Kavana folks turned out in Bellevue last Sunday to protest Israel's new ultra-right coalition and to call for democracy there. This, too, was an opportunity for us to connect with a broader Jewish community (and a sense of peoplehood), as the UnXeptable rallies are grassroots endeavors being organized by Israeli expats living around the world. Everyone is welcome to join us this Sunday again, at 10am on the north side of Bellevue Downtown Park!

3) Teen In-Service: Last weekend, the young adults in Kavana's High School Program had the opportunity to dig into some important Jewish texts and grapple with our tradition's take on responsibilities to community and on tzedakah priorities. Their boisterous beit midrash-style conversations were accompanied by action; here are the students, holding some of the 60 wound-care kits (complete with bandaids, gauze, sterile gloves, antibiotic ointment, etc.) that they assembled for Aurora Commons. Of course, along the way, these wonderful teens are creating strong bonds of friendship with one another!

4) Kavana's Caring Committee: Across multiple house parties, Kavana cooks and bakers teamed up to prepare soups, stews, lasagnas, and baked goods with fresh ingredients. We purposefully chose meals that would freeze beautifully so that we can keep a great stash of food on hand and have meals ready to go whenever a need arises in our community. Our volunteers also had a blast together and forged new ties as they worked side-by-side in the kitchen! Best of all, now we have delicious food ready for you... so please don't hesitate to be in touch (email Avital) if you or someone you know would appreciate a home-cooked meal and the warm community hug it represents (because of an illness, surgery, loss, new baby, or for any other reason at all!)

I can't help but notice that all of these examples I just shared from the past week were about putting our values into action through community service or advocacy. Of course, at Kavana, we also bring people together for many other purposes as well... for example, ritual groups for prayer, the singing circle, learning and discussion groups, social gatherings, and infrastructural committees. Today, our staff is even at an off-site together, tackling the shared project of reflecting on this year's programming and beginning to imagine what we could do together in the coming year, while at the same time continuing to gel into a great professional team.

At Kavana, we manage to produce lots of things together: from meals and wound kits to music and teachings. Ultimately, though, the single most important outcome of our shared endeavors aren't any of these, but rather, the community itself: a covenantal community, bound together by our shared values, our collective sense of purpose, and our strong relationships with one another. This is the essence of the parasha's title of "Vayakhel," which comes from the Hebrew root k-h-l meaning community.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

The Grammar of Community

Ninja turtles, butterflies and fairies, soccer stars and cowboys, witches and wacky onesie wearers… There were a lot of characters at our Purim megillah reading this year! Our community gathered at the exuberant intersection of brewery vats and ancient melodies (many thanks to the wonderful folks at Rooftop Brewery, and to everyone who chanted the story of Esther). One character, though, was apparently absent. God does not appear explicitly in the biblical book of Esther, a striking omission that leaves many readers searching for clues to the hidden divine.

The name Esther is taken as a pointer to hester panim, “the hiding of [God’s] face”, a warning given in Devarim 31:17. But also in our Torah portion this week, God refuses to be fully revealed. In a moment of sudden yearning, Moses cries out, “Let me behold your presence!” And God says, “You cannot see my face…” (Shemot 33:18,20)

But God does make a concession for Moses. God will pass by, and Moses can glimpse God’s “back”. 

God passed before Moses and proclaimed: “Adonai, Adonai, a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness…” (Exodus 34:6)

The list of attributes that God proclaims in passing by are known as the Thirteen Middot, the qualities that define God’s goodness. There are endless beautiful and spiritual commentaries on these traits, and yet the one that I have been sitting with this week anchors itself in nothing other than the tedious rules of grammar. To be specific, in a particular Jewish methodology for reading Torah, another list known as the Thirteen Middot of Rabbi Yishmael. Here is the chassidic rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev’s insight (Kedushat Levi, Ki Tissa 14-16, translated by Rabbi Josh Feigelson):

“My master and teacher Rabbi Dov Baer taught that the thirteen interpretive principles (middot) through which the Torah is interpreted are identical with the thirteen attributes (middot) of Divine compassion… The [Divine] attribute of rachum, compassion, is identified with the principle of gezera shava [deciding a case based on an identical word in another case]. In general, when one who is wealthy is compassionate toward one who is poor, the wealthy person must identify with the poor one, connecting with their pain and marginalization. In doing so, the wealthy person and the poor person find their common humanity. We can imagine this is how the Divine relates to us, as the book of Psalms states, ‘I will be with you in moments of trouble’ (Psalms 91:15). This is how the middah of compassion is the same as the middah of gezera shava.”

Okay, if you have read this far, I hope you stick with me on unpacking the grammar of compassion here. I often think of rabbinic spirituality as a literary or linguistic spirituality, seeing letters and words as building blocks of reality and imagining life as a Book. Here, a common interpretive technique becomes an analogy for how we cultivate compassion among humans. 

Gezera shava literally means “an identical term or category”. When reading a verse of Tanakh, if the same word or phrase appears elsewhere in Tanakh, even if the context is completely different and the use appears to be unconnected, gezera shava allows the verses to collapse together, juxtaposed and creating new possibilities for meaning. 

For example, the medieval commentator Rashi notes that when Joseph encounters an anonymous ish (“man”) in the field when trying to find his brothers, another verse that uses the word ish actually refers to the angel Gabriel. Therefore, Joseph must have encountered not a man, but an angel! If Rashi had chosen to connect ish to a different verse, we might learn that Joseph encountered not a random man, nor an angel, but a mensch of good character, or a left-handed man, or - you get the idea. The common element brings two verses together, and the unexpected differences generate interpretive chemistry. 

Our teaching is interested in transferring the grammatical tool to human interaction. What might it mean to acknowledge that humans are simultaneously different from each other in radical ways, yet share “common terms”? You awaken compassion by drawing close to someone who in many ways is quite distant from you, by seeing in them something that resonates with your own identity, experience, or circumstances. The common element brings us close together - and then the creative possibilities of relationship come into being because we are so different in other ways! 

For Levi Yitzchak, one of the expressions of God’s presence, what Moses so yearned to see, is the practice of compassion and the creative experiment of community. That’s what we do in our Kavana Cooperative. We care about each other, and as we are drawn together by some shared common terms, we offer our unique gifts which interact to create new possibilities for living a life of meaning and purpose. In that sense, God was indeed present at our megillah reading, not in the text of Esther, but in the spiritual grammar of community.

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Stories of Violence, Stories of Hope

If you've been following news out of Israel**, you already know that a new, far right-wing coalition -- Israel's thirty-seventh government -- came to power in late December. (**If you haven't been following, I totally get it... it's been overwhelming news and very emotionally heavy; that said, as someone who cares about Jewish life, I invite you to tune in now and continue reading.) 

Over the past couple of months, it has become clear that the priorities of Netanyahu's new coalition include further centralizing Orthodox control over state Jewish services, expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and moving towards annexation of Palestinian land (without granting citizenship, of course). This government has been shockingly brazen in its aims to assert a far-right, nationalist vision of Jewish supremacy on the country. Driven by the real threat that Israeli's judiciary will lose its independence and ability to keep executive and legislative power in check, and also by internal civil rights concerns (for example, LGBTQ+ rights!), hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews have taken to the streets to protest and are beginning to organize large-scale strikes.

Last week, my daughter Yona was lucky enough to be in Tel Aviv and she attended the protests (now happening weekly, every Saturday night), where she reported Israeli flags were everywhere and the whole crowd was chanting "de-mo-krat-ya, de-mo-krat-ya." And yet, there is -- as many journalists and analysts have pointed out, and to quote NIF head Daniel Sokatch -- an "elephant at the pro-democracy protests," which is that Israel's democratic vision has never extended to the millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the words of a statement signed by nearly two dozen Israeli NGOs today, "there can be no democracy while there is an occupation and inequality."

Given all this, it is not surprising -- as the Israeli government lurches hard to the right -- that violence has been escalating quickly in the West Bank. In recent days alone, there have been three brutal murders of Israeli Jews at the hands of Palestinian gunmen. The worldwide Jewish community is reeling and mourning; each of these losses of a human life is a loss of an entire world. I want to be clear that I condemn these acts of violence and terror against our Jewish siblings in Israel unequivocally.

Equally disturbing to me, though, is the Jewish violence that has followed these attacks, and I believe we need to be talking about this too. Several days ago, a mob of some 400 settlers launched a retaliatory attack (some news sources called it a "pogrom") against the Palestinian town of Huwara, ransacking and torching homes and cars, beating residents and terrorizing families, leaving one dead and hundreds injured. In a video that circulated online, the most troubling moment to me was watching this vigilante mob stop to daven ma'ariv (that is, to come together as a minyan for communal evening prayers). This is not my Judaism.

And yet, it is. On this -- of all weeks of the Jewish calendar year -- it wouldn't feel honest to me not to acknowledge that our tradition has a dark underbelly. The Purim story we tell in Megillat Esther -- of Vashti and Ahasverosh, Mordecai, Esther and Haman -- resolves towards a happy ending with "light and joy, gladness and honor," "merrymaking and feasting, and... sending gifts to one another." But along the way, much of the ninth chapter of the Megillah preserves a heavy legacy of violence and revenge. After Haman's genocidal plot is foiled, the Jews of Persia are given permission to fight back against their enemies. As the text says, "So the Jews struck at their enemies with the sword, slaying and destroying; they wreaked their will upon their enemies" (Esther 9:5). First, according to the Megillah, they killed 500 people in Shushan (in addition to Haman's ten sons), then another 300, and then "they disposed of their enemies, killing seventy-five thousand of their foes... That was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar; and they rested on the fourteenth day and made it a day of feasting and merrymaking" (Esther 9:16-17).

Honestly, it's hard to know what to do with this part of the story. It reads like a revenge fantasy of a victimized people: slaughtering 75,000, and then sitting down to feast and celebrate. This must be farcical exaggeration, right?! And yet, throughout Jewish history, Purim has indeed been associated with Jewish violence and with vengeance. 

This summer on our Kavana-Mishkan Israel trip, we visited the grave of Baruch Goldstein, the American-Israeli physician and Jewish extremist who walked into a mosque in the Palestinian city of Hebron on Purim Day in 1994 and opened fire on worshippers, killing 29 and wounding 125 more before being beaten to death by survivors of the shooting. Seeing his tombstone made me nauseous (it calls him "holy" and says that "he gave his life for the the sake of the people of Israel, its Torah, and its land"). However, his grave has become a make-shift outdoor synagogue space and a pilgrimage site for Jews who share his ideology (and Israel's current Minister of National Security in this new ultra-right coalition, Itamar Ben-Gvir, famously had a photograph of Goldstein hanging in his office until recently).

As my colleague Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann (of Mishkan Chicago) pointed out, Jewish victimhood is real, but chapter nine of the megillah only makes sense as a fantasy while Jews are powerless. There is extreme danger in someone in power perpetuating a victim narrative and then using it to justify violence. British-American poet WH Auden expressed this well in 1939 in the following short poem:

I and the public know

what all schoolchildren learn,

those to whom evil is done

do evil in return.

Again, it is hard to pay attention to the news from Israel these days. And yet, we must, because we are living through a pivotal moment in Jewish history. Particularly as we approach this Purim -- where it is so clear that the stories we tell about our victimhood, survival, and joy are also wrapped up in violent impulses and revenge fantasies -- we must confront the violent impulses that come from within our own tradition.

Thankfully, many Jews are working to actively counter the violence. Our Israeli tour-guide from the summer, Karmit Arbel Rumbak, visited Huwara yesterday, as part of a solidarity meeting with Tag Meir (an Israeli organization that seeks to counter right-wing settler violence by battling racism and supporting democratic values). Karmit reports that she was initially afraid to make this trip, but that she felt called to be there, hoping to be part of a "wave" working in opposition to the hate and fear that the town's residents experienced last week. True to form, she managed to connect on a personal level with women, men and children of the town yesterday. She writes, "They were excited that we came to support them, and their hearts softened, and they said that they wanted us all to live in peace and security next to one another. I can't fix everything, but if I managed, at least, to counter the hatred and to enter into someone's heart a bit... then it's good that I made the trip."

As for us, we certainly can't fix everything either. But, if you care about Israel, the Jewish people, or both, now is the time to lean in, to learn more, and to speak up. I hope that we can celebrate Purim together next week and read the Megillah -- both the beautiful and the challenging parts of the story -- in the context of a loving community. And, I also hope that you will join me in finding ways to stay informed about what's happening in Israel so that we can continue to be part of this important Jewish story. One great opportunity (see below) is that Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the New Israel Fund, will be speaking here in Seattle in a few weeks. I strongly encourage you to click here to order a copy of his book Can We Talk about Israel through my favorite local bookstore (I've read it and it's excellent!), and then register to join me there (either in person or via livestream).

With wishes for a Shabbat Shalom, and hopes that peace, compassion and justice will prevail over evil and violence as we head into Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat before Purim,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Halakhah of Reproductive Justice

What are we learning when we learn Torah? When we are reading about the mitzvot - the various rules, laws, commandments, guidelines, and instructions that establish the practice of Judaism - it is tempting to think we are encountering God’s wishes for how we are to live. If the Torah says “do X”, then that seems pretty straightforward! We are learning what to do. 

However, Jews don’t learn how “to do” from Torah. At least not directly. Our “doing” is contained within the ongoing project of halakhah, often translated as “Jewish law” but literally related to the word for “walking or going.” If life is a journey, halakhah helps us see and stay on worthy paths. Or to use another metaphor, halakhah is the ongoing, vital interpretative stream flowing from the source waters of Torah all the way to our Jewish practices today. Along the way, that stream of interpretation flows over the ground of our collective lived experiences. Both the waters of Torah and the silt-memories of our past experiences inform halakhah. They are both ways of knowing, and offer values and lessons and practices for discerning wisdom for the present moment. 

[Content warning: violence, abortion]

The Torah portion this week contains the biblical source for Jewish conversation around abortion, and in recent years the National Council of Jewish Women has established the Shabbat of Parashat Mishpatim as Repro Shabbat, to focus our attention on matters of reproductive freedom and reproductive justice. We are just a few weeks past marking what would have been 50 years of Roe v. Wade, and almost a year into mourning the overturning of that decision and an aggressive and scary wave of abortion restrictions in many states, including the potential for abortion pills to be banned nationwide by a Texas district court judge. I know many of us are both worried and furious. 

What does our halakhah teach us?

When we turn to Torah, we have this one lone ruling related to abortion: “When [two or more] parties fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman’s husband may exact, the payment to be based on reckoning. But if other damage ensues, the penalty shall be life for life…” (Exodus 21:22-23).

From this case study, we learn that there is a categorical difference between life in actuality - the woman’s life - and the potential life of a fetus. The rest of Jewish law derived from this verse takes up the idea that while life is sacred, there are times when a pregnant person’s physical and mental well-being must be prioritized over the potential life of a fetus, and allows (or even mandates) abortion on these grounds. 

As Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg says, “There is not a single person to be compelled to continue a pregnancy against their will who does not experience mental pain, emotional suffering or violations of dignity in some way. If we want to say you have to have a good justification for an abortion, every person who is forced to carry a pregnancy against their will has a good justification for an abortion, according to our own texts.” In an article from last summer, Rabbi Ruttenberg points out how abortion restrictions are also violations of religious freedom. 

In 1965, a Jewish nineteen-year-old student at the University of Chicago named Heather Booth received a call from a friend, asking if Booth could help the friend’s sister get an abortion. “Upon learning that her friend’s sister was on the verge of being suicidal, Booth decided that even though what she was doing was considered illegal in the United States, she was doing the right thing. As she put it later, she knew her actions would save the woman’s life. Soon, more people began reaching out to Booth for help, prompting her to form an underground abortion network.” The network, the Jane Collective, operated until Roe v. Wade became law of the land. (Full story here.)

This too is part of our Jewish silt-memory. When lives are in danger, we organize, we educate ourselves, we foster acts of love. Some of us may even break laws so that we don’t become morally broken. 

I was startled to learn that Heather Booth had wanted to be a rabbi. But she was told that only men could become rabbis. Returning to the Torah portion, it seems awfully clear to me that although this text generates nuanced and care-oriented halakhah around abortion, it also reflects back an ugly diminishment of the world. Two men are fighting, and a woman gets hurt. Her husband is the one who gets paid compensation. The center of the Torah’s universe appears to be male. But the ground of Jewish experience holds male, female, transgender, non-binary, and every possible expression of human identity. 

If you want to support reproductive justice and abortion rights, you can donate to organizations, learn more about Washington state abortion law, show up for demonstrations, and lobby for policies. And we can also learn from and lift up women’s and trans and gender non-binary voices. We need our progressive version of halakhah, a fully inclusive source of wisdom that reflects back each of our lived truths and points us towards a world of dignity, choice, care, and love.

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Standing Again at Sinai: Re-Drawing Communal Bounds

Ever since I was in high school, this week's Torah portion - Yitro - has always made me think about the bounds of Jewish community. The passage that first brought this important topic into the foreground for me appears in Judith Plaskow's seminal 1990 work of Jewish feminism, Standing Again at Sinai. It reads:

"Entry into the covenant at Sinai is the root experience of Judaism, the central event that established the Jewish people. Given the importance of this event, there can be no verse in the Torah more disturbing to the feminist than Moses' warning to his people in Exodus 19:15, "Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman." For here, at the very moment that the Jewish people stands at Sinai ready to receive the covenant--not now the covenant with individual patriarchs but with the people as a whole--at the very moment when Israel stands trembling waiting for God's presence to descend upon the mountain, Moses addresses the community only as men."

How had I not noticed before that women weren't included among "the people" as the Israelites prepared for the pivotal covenantal moment of the receiving of the commandments at Sinai? Jumping off from this problematic Sinai moment, Plaskow makes a passionate case that feminism must transform Judaism and change the bounds of the Jewish community of our age. I marveled at this whole collection of ideas: that every community exists by virtue of its boundaries, that communal boundaries shift over time, and that we can play an active and intentional role in shaping and re-drawing the boundaries of our communities.

Judaism has survived for centuries and millennia precisely because the boundaries of the Jewish people have always been elastic. There is room within our tradition to radically rethink things as the world around us changes, and that flexibility has given Judaism the ability to withstand major changes and to remain relevant.

Feminism was the central challenge to American Jewish communities of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Synagogues and seminaries debated women's participation in ritual leadership; different answers to these questions separated denominations. Today, in liberal Jewish communities like ours, egalitarianism is a given. Additionally, our understanding of gender has become more expansive over time, such that now we are increasingly able to think beyond binaries (at Kavana, young people may now celebrate not only a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah, but also a b'nai mitzvah or b. mitzvah!). Within the broader Jewish community, we have learned that even where there are significant differences (for example, between Kavana, in which people of any gender can participate equally in prayer/ritual leadership, and Orthodox congregations, where men and women still pray on opposite sides of a mechitza/divider during prayer), we can still undertake joint projects and sit around the broader communal table together.

At Kavana, this theme of setting maximally expansive communal boundaries comes up all the time. Internally, we ask: how can we be sure that our community feels like a home for younger adults and for older adults alike (not to mention for children and for middle aged adults)? How do we create safe space to welcome individuals with a wide range of perspectives on Israel (a topic which is used to litmus test who's in and who's out in many other Jewish organizations these days)? How do we help Jews who may feel marginalized in some other spaces -- for example, Jews of Color, queer folx, interfaith households, and more -- feel seen and accepted and also have the opportunity to connect with others who share their identities within Kavana? Plaskow's commentary on the Sinai moment reminds me that we must pay attention to communal boundaries -- both the ones that are delineated explicitly and those that are there implicitly -- and do our best to re-draw them whenever we notice a problem with the status quo. Because our society is constantly changing, our community bounds, too, must be revisited and revised with regularity.

It turns out that Plaskow's observation about Exodus 19:15 -- that women were seemingly left out of the revelatory experience at Sinai -- bothered others long before it bothered her. The Midrash of Shemot Rabbah 5:9 seems to have anticipated Plaskow's critique many centuries before she lived. Citing a phrase that comes just a few verses later in the Torah, the midrash teaches:

"Come and see how the voice [of God at Har Sinai] would go out among all of Israel - each and every one according to their strength: the elders according to their strength; the young men according to their strength; the infants according to their strength; the sucklings according to their strength; the women according to their strength; and even Moshe according to his strength, as it is stated (Exodus 19:19), 'Moshe would speak and God would answer him with a voice' - with a voice that he could withstand."

The rabbinic authors of this midrash specifically name multiple groups of people who they imagine must have stood at Sinai, explaining that when the commandments were given, each of them were able to perceive God's voice in the way that they needed to, "according to their strength." They read women back into the story and in so doing, make an important statement about how they understand the boundaries of their own community.

Today, we continue the work together: the conscious expansion of the boundaries of Jewish community, modeled for us by both an ancient text (Exodus Rabbah) and by a contemporary feminist theologian (Judith Plaskow). When Kavana's new website launched just a few weeks ago, you may have noticed that there is some new and revised language on the "Who We Are" page. The text there now reads: "We welcome folks in all life stages and from all backgrounds, and shape our community around every person who chooses to join us in this experiment of Jewish community building. We are families with children of all ages, families of birth and families of choice. Some of us are parents, some aren't; some were raised very religious, some with no Judaism at all... We welcome you to bring your whole self, in all your complexity, to our community."

Indeed, we will keep naming and re-naming who we are and who is here, as we seek to build the most expansive Jewish community we can. This is our way of saying that the experience of standing at Sinai is one that we all can share.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Exodus and Addiction

“You can’t think your way into right action, but you can act your way into right thinking.” 

“Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point.”

Bill Wilson, Alcoholics Anonymous. 

This Shabbat morning, Kavana will host a Serenity Shabbat gathering as part of our regular monthly Mussar series. Several Seattle synagogues have hosted this rotating moment to turn our attention to addiction and recovery within Jewish community (with much gratitude to Kavana partner Marla Kaufman, executive director of JAAN, the Jewish Addiction Awareness Network, for initiating the Serenity Shabbat series). Addiction is an issue that affects Jews, but not always one that is easy to talk about. There are a growing number of Jewish organizations and resources addressing addiction, but still work to be done in seeing and supporting people in recovery and those impacted by loved ones struggling with addiction. Please know you can reach out to your rabbis for support as well.

The Torah portion this week, Beshallach, offers deep wisdom when we read it through the lens of addiction and recovery. (For further reflections on the exodus story and addiction, here is one great article. Other excellent Jewish sources on recovery can be found here.)

The Israelites are fleeing from enslavement in Egypt. But with the Egyptians in hot pursuit, and a sea blocking their escape, the people’s voices rise in despair. Moses gives a rousing speech about trust in God: “Have no fear! Stand by, and witness the deliverance which God will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again. God will battle for you, so you just keep quiet” (Exodus 14:13-14). 

Moses promises that if the people can surrender their anxiety over to God, they will be held safe and serene. What a reassuring idea! God, though, snaps at Moses: “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward [into the sea]” (Exodus 14:15). God tells the people to trust in an active rather than passive way. They are to do something, and through that doing discover their own liberation. 

So Moses tells the people to move forward, and prepares his staff to part the waters. Here the Torah moves in big picture grandiosity - the sea splits, the people move through, they burst into dance and song. But of course the details of how a thing happens are always a little more complicated. I once had an economics teacher who drilled home that you can’t go to the grocery store and buy “food”. There’s no aisle with stuff on it simply labeled “food” - you have to buy avocados and bananas. Similarly, when the Torah says the Israelites moved, it glides over the fact that “people” is actually a broad category for many different individuals. And how did the individuals move? Who went first? How did they organize? These are the messy and amazing details behind every mass movement that in retrospect appears unified. 

A famous rabbinic midrash explores these details at length (Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael 14:22, also in Talmud Sotah 37a). One rabbi suggests that some of the tribes were arguing about who got to go first, an argument of the eager. But the more famous teaching comes from Rabbi Yehudah, who taught that the tribes were hesitant to go first (for clear reasons - they were being asked to walk directly into the sea!) While all the people were debating, one brave leader took the first step. 

“Because they stood and deliberated, Nachshon the son of Aminadav leaped into the sea. Of him Scripture writes (Psalms 69:2-3) "Save me, O God, for the waters have reached my soul. I am sinking in the slimy depths and I find no foothold. I have come into the watery depths, and the flood sweeps me away." (Psalms 69:16) "Let the floodwaters not sweep me away, and let the deep not swallow me, and let the mouth of the pit not close over me."

When we hear versions of this story today, usually we hear it this way: Nachshon was the only one brave enough (or trusting enough) to walk into the water, and because of him, the waters split. It is a story about how possibilities open up when we jump into difficult experiences. However, the midrash has a slightly different take:

“At that time Moses waxed long in prayer — whereupon God said to him: My loved ones are drowning in the sea, and the sea is raging, and the foe is pursuing, and you stand and wax long in prayer? To which Moses replied: Sovereign of the universe, what can I do? And God said to him (Exodus 14:16) ‘And you, raise your staff, etc.’”

In other words, it isn’t Nachshon’s action that splits the sea, it is God’s empathy for Nachshon’s suffering and imminent danger. Nachshon’s trust is met with God’s care. It is important that Nachshon is imagined to lament his suffering. Trust is not ignorant of reality. Wise meditation teacher Tara Brach teaches that “Suffering is our call to attention, our call to investigate the truth of our beliefs.” We spend so much of our lives denying or ignoring or avoiding the painful parts of the human condition. When we spend time acknowledging what is hard, where there is pain and sorrow, we have the opportunity to awaken the God aspect within us, av harachaman, the Source of Compassion. And awakening the Source of Compassion is the first step towards true freedom. 

Another teaching from Tara Brach helps us understand the inner dynamics of our own exodus stories: 

“Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns...We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.”

Marla Kaufman said to me a few months ago that when it comes to addiction “there is no us or them.” It is part of human nature to crave pleasure and avoid pain, and we all have behavioral patterns that exist on the spectrum of addiction. But when those patterns result in harm and we feel out of control, we enter into an inner egypt (lower-case to emphasize a symbolic state, not the historical place or modern state). The only way out is through the turbulent waters of confronting reality, practicing trust and courage and compassion. Openings to inner freedom just may appear. 

At our Mussar gathering on Shabbat, we will explore this story more, bringing in song and ritual to open our hearts and enlighten our minds. Although Nachshon provides a role model, the story also clearly emphasizes that it takes a community for each individual to stride towards liberation. All are welcome, whether or not you have a personal connection to addiction. 

Wishing you all a Shabbat of trust, compassion, courage, and serenity.

Rabbi Jay LeVine

A Night of Vigil

This week, in Parashat Bo, we read about the final plagues and how -- after 430 years in the land of Egypt -- the Israelites finally arrive at the night when they are to depart from Egypt. About that specific night, the Torah says (in Exodus 12:42):

לֵ֣יל שִׁמֻּרִ֥ים הוּא֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה לְהוֹצִיאָ֖ם מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם הֽוּא־הַלַּ֤יְלָה הַזֶּה֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה שִׁמֻּרִ֛ים לְכל־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לְדֹרֹתָֽם׃

Leil shimurim hu ladonai l'hotziam mei'eretz mitzrayim, hu halaila hazeh ladonai shimurim l'chol b'nei yisrael l'dorotam.

That was for Adonai a night of vigil to bring them out of the land of Egypt; that same night is Adonai's, one of vigil for all the children of Israel throughout the ages.

This is a puzzling verse; like nighttime itself, its meaning feels somewhat obscured. The phrase "leil shimurim" -- "a night of vigil" -- is unique to this pivotal moment in Torah, mysterious and powerful. The word shimurim, in fact, appears twice in the verse, as it seems that the Israelites (b'nai yisrael) are called on to emulate God throughout time in standing watch, or being awake, or guarding, on this night. (Incidentally you also might recognize another famous phrase -- "ha-laila hazeh" ("on this night") -- from the Four Questions we recite at the Passover Seder)!

Rabbinic interpretations of this verse mostly center around the meaning of "leil shimurim," the "night of vigil.” Midrashim link this particularly wondrous nighttime event to other examples of Divine intervention or revelation that come at night (e.g. "And God came unto Balaam at night..."). Night, it seems, is a particularly ripe time for communication between humans and God. In addition, commentators argue about whether this particular night of the Exodus represented finality and the ultimate example of divine protection and redemption or -- in contrast -- a first example that sets all of Jewish history up to be about the anticipation of future redemption. 

Meanwhile, this text has been hanging out in the back of my brain all week, and I keep hearing echoes of it in the many activities and discussions swirling in our community. This has prompted more questions than answers for me, and I'm happy to be able to share some of my own swirl, inviting you to take up any of the questions below that might feel ripe or helpful to you this week. For example:

• You might have noticed that Wednesday was the first time since early November that sunset happened after 5pm here in Seattle. Local news stories drew attention to this transition, prompting me to consider again how much of our time we in the Pacific Northwest spend in darkness during these winter months. I wondered to myself: what kinds of openings to the Divine presence might we experience in this season of long nights?
  
  

• Last Shabbat, a number of us gathered to study liturgy before the Shabbat Minyan. We read a nugget that's embedded inside the Nishmat prayer each Shabbat -- "Va'Adonai lo yanum v'lo yishan..." -- a poetic passage about how "God never slumbers nor sleeps" but rather "wakes the sleeping." Jumping off from both that liturgy and our parasha verse, I ask: What kind of protection are we craving? In what ways are we ready/needing to be roused into a greater state of wakefulness? 
  

• At Prep & Practice on Sunday, our learning with families/kids focused on Rosh Chodesh and the big idea that the Hebrew calendar is connected to the natural world through the moon cycle. This week's new moon, in particular, marked the beginning of Shevat, the month in which we'll celebrate birthday of the trees and consider the fruit they promise to bring in their new season of growth. I wonder: How might we look up at the night sky to get our bearings? What hints of future redemption - or at least growth and potential - can we perceive right now, in our own lives, our community and our society?
  

• Today/Friday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Separately, important conversations have been swirling in the Seattle Jewish community this week around antisemitism (how to define it, how to combat it, and more). And, this has been yet another week characterized by gun violence, hate crimes, and police brutality in our country. At times of greater distress and challenge we humans tend to yearn for Divine protection... and that was no less true as the Exodus unfolded than it is today. How might the “leil shimurim” concept serve as a helpful lens, inspiring us to perceive God’s vigil and calling us to stand guard ourselves in the face of oppression and hatred (whether directed towards ourselves or others)?

• Finally, the holiday of Passover is now just under ten weeks away, which means it’s not too early to start thinking about how we will mark this special night of "leil shimurim" through our Passover seders this year.

One place to consider all of these questions, in good company, would be at tonight’s Kabbalat Shabbat service with Kohenet Traci Marx. It feels thrilling to say that this Friday night service will be back in person for the first time in nearly three years... and it promises to be beautiful, musical, and reflective as always. Please do join us!

Chodesh tov and Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum 

Can You Imagine?!

Right at the beginning of the Exodus narrative, we see the story of the rest of the Torah foreshadowed. The Israelites are suffering in Egypt, and God charges Moses to lead them out to freedom and into covenant. 

God tells Moses: “Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am Adonai. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, Adonai, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession, I Adonai.” (Exodus 6:6-8)

This is the plan then. God will free the Israelites - this is the Exodus itself. God will take them as God’s people - the commentators teach this refers to Mt. Sinai, where the Ten Commandments were given and the covenant with the whole people really begins. And then God will bring them all back home to the land of promise. 

But the next verse subverts God’s plan, and paints a picture of what will ultimately happen. “When Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage” (Exodus 6:9). 

The 16th century commentator Sforno writes that they couldn’t hear Moses because they couldn’t “consider deeply all of this, so that they would trust that God could rescue them and give God credit. In this they were different from Abraham [who believed in God’s impossible-sounding promises]. Therefore God’s promise of giving them the land [of Canaan] was not fulfilled for them, but rather it was given to their children.”

The people who cried out for liberation end up limiting their own ability to be free. Their imaginations have been stunted, and therefore their capacity for renewal and transformation withers. This lack of imagination results in fear, complaint, anger, cowardice, and ultimately failure. 

I’m struck by the connection Sforno makes between imagination and trust. The Hebrew word he uses for “consider deeply” is hitbonen. It is hard to translate in a simple way. Hitbonen means to make something known within yourself, to contemplate and absorb and internalize and discern and feel its ramifications for your life. Hitbonenut is one of the classic words used for Jewish meditation. Because meditation often involves visualizations, I am translating hitbonen in this context as a form of imagination, being able to see an image of a new reality. Sforno assumes that if people could really imagine their liberation and a meaningful and just life (i.e. the covenant with God), they would trust in its possibility and act with courage and love to make it happen.

In a recent interview on the philosophical legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., Ezra Klein asked Harvard professor Brandon Terry about the role of faith and trust in King’s thought. Here’s what Terry suggested:

“What you have to be committed to, in the last instance, is that evil is not the totality of who we are as persons, that people have the capacity, emotionally and rationally, to reflect on their life plans, their practices, their commitments, and change them, maybe not all of them, maybe not all at once, but that those things can be changed, and that politics is really a field where contingency is the key word, that although there are structural constraints and everything can’t be done at every moment, that the unprecedented, the new, the unexpected, happens in this realm.

“And the only way that we can confirm that nothing new will happen, that oppression will last forever, that the future bears no hope, is if we don’t act. That’s the only way we can confirm that it’s true for all time, is by failing to act in pursuit of justice.”

To me, that is the potency of hitbonenut! If we can reflect on the past and who we are in the present, if we can imagine a better future, if we trust that something new really can emerge, and then we act in some way or another, then perhaps we can be among the generations that inherit a promised land where justice and compassion are commonplace, and where joy and creativity thrive.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Remembering Heschel, and Continuing the Fight Against Pharaoh

This Wednesday (the 18th of Tevet) marked the 50th yahrtzeit of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Heschel was truly one of the greats! Born in 1907 into a Polish Hasidic dynasty, he was plucked out of Warsaw and brought to safety in London in 1939, just weeks before the German invasion of Poland. Heschel arrived in the U.S. the next year, serving first on the faculty of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati (the Reform seminary, which had helped arrange his visas) and then of the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) in New York. There, for the remaining decades of his life, he taught Jewish ethics and mysticism, wrote books, and became a celebrated theologian and philosopher.

A few years ago, the elementary school students in Kavana's Moadon Yeladim (afterschool "Kids' Club") program studied Heschel's life and legacy. We learned about his teaching that "our goal should be to live life in radical amazement" -- that is, that spiritual life and especially a sense of awe and wonder are what make life worth living (God in Search of Man). We read excerpts from The Sabbath, where he argues that Judaism finds holiness primarily in time, and "the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals." And, of course, we examined a photo of Rabbi Heschel marching together with Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, and unpacked his now-famous statement that "I felt my feet were praying."

This Shabbat -- the same week as Heschel's yahrtzeit -- is also the week of Parashat Shemot. The opening chapters of the Book of Exodus begin with Jacob's descendants living in Egypt, and with a new Pharaoh arising who "knew not Joseph." Pharaoh oppresses the Israelites from a place of fear; Moses is born and saved and raised in the palace, then called by God to lead his people out of Egypt. The ensuing show-down between Pharaoh and Moses becomes the central Jewish narrative of all time.

This week, I read for the first time the speech that Heschel gave in January 1963 at the National Conference on Religion and Race in Chicago. (Incidentally, this conference -- a watershed moment in Civil Rights history -- is where he first met Martin Luther King Jr.) His speech is remarkable, and, if you have time and interest, I highly recommend reading the text in its entirety here, or watching this video to hear some of the words in Heschel's own (heavily accented) voice. Heschel opens like this:

"At the first conference on religion and race, the main participants were Pharaoh and Moses. [Audience laughs and applauds.] Moses' words were: 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me.' While Pharaoh retorted: 'Who is the Lord, that I should heed this voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover I will not let Israel go.'

The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. [Audience laughs again.] Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The exodus began, but is far from having been completed. In fact, it was easier for the children of Israel to cross the Red Sea than for a Negro to cross certain university campuses..."

In this speech, Heschel goes on to tackle the racism of his day head-on; he doesn't shy away from talking about humiliation and hatred, murder and bloodshed. He also refuses to let his generation off the hook easily, arguing: "That equality is a good thing, a fine goal, may be generally accepted. What is lacking is a sense of the monstrosity of inequality. Seen from the perspective of prophetic faith, the predicament of justice is the predicament of God." This may be Heschel's most important legacy: viewing the political and social questions of his day as fundamentally moral and religious ones too. 

Even fifty years after Heschel's death, these questions remain potent for us. After all, it is still true, even in 2023(!), that "the outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end" and "Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate." The battle lines of American racism have shifted today: we've clearly moved past marching to desegregate universities, lunch counters, and buses, but we still face a whole array of challenges: police violence against Black and Brown people, racial disparities in health outcomes, economic stratification and generational wealth gaps, mass incarceration, and more.

Rabbi Heschel's daughter, Susannah Heschel (a professor at Dartmouth), now seeks to carry her father's legacy forward. In a piece from a few years ago entitled "The Challenge of the Selma Photograph," she writes:

"As the daughter of Rabbi Heschel, I have long felt that the photograph of the Selma march should not signal celebration but challenge: are we as Jews addressing racism, asks the photograph. Are we actively forging alliances with the African American community? When will African American and Asian American Jews feel fully at home in Jewish institutions? Can we put aside our pride in the efforts of Jewish civil rights workers of the 1960s and recognize how much work is left for us to do? Let us take responsibility for the entire Selma photograph: for the warm smiles on the faces of the front row of marchers wearing leis and full of optimism for the future, but also remembering the horrific violence, physical and verbal, that surrounded the marchers. The photograph can bring inspiration only when we understand it as a challenge."

With Heschel's yahrtzeit, Parashat Shemot, and MLK Day all swirling around us this weekend, we would do well to take up the mantle of her challenge. After all, Rabbi Heschel's words from 1963 are no less true today, that "the exodus began, but is far from having been completed." Let us honor the memory of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel on this yahrtzeit by continuing the fight against Pharaoh that was the apogee of his life's work.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Concerning Communication

As the book of Genesis winds to a close, so does the life of Jacob. On his deathbed, he assembles his twelve sons for some final words. It is a moment of poignance - and prophecy?

“And Jacob called his sons and said, ‘Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come’” (Genesis 49:1).

As his children gather round, Jacob seeks to impart wisdom. He has lived many years, and learned many lessons (and failed to learn some, as well). And yet, what he tells us he is about to do isn’t any ordinary transmission of life lessons, but nothing less than prophecy. “Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come (acharit hayamim).” As if, as he approaches the crack in the world between life and death, Jacob can see more clearly than the rest of us. 

However, he proceeds to offer some strange, dense poetic verses to each son. Rashi explains: He wished to reveal to them the end of Israel’s exile but the Shechinah departed from him and he began to speak of other things (based on Genesis Rabbah 98:2). 

Jacob saw the future, but words failed him right as he tried to communicate. I have certainly felt the frustration of seeing something in my mind’s eye and simply being unable to capture it well in words. The most important things, like love, care, appreciation, hurt, and sadness, have so many words devoted to them over centuries and centuries, and yet so often still feel inexpressible in their deepest sense. They are simply too vast to live fully inside little letters. 

Another commentator, the Ba’al HaTurim, offers a seemingly silly commentary on what happened to Jacob’s intention to communicate what he saw of acharit hayamim, the final days to come (another rendering of the Hebrew phrase):

Jacob asked, "Perhaps there is sin (cheit) among you?" They said, "No, if you examine our names, you will not find the letters chet or tet in them. Then he said unto them, "Arise, there is also no kuf or tzaddi letters (ketz - end) in them [either]. 

In other words, even if Jacob could have found the words to describe the future, they didn’t have within themselves the capacity to hear or process them. Perhaps you too have had a moment where you had exactly the right words, but the wrong listeners. To feel like if someone could only grasp what you were saying, they might have crucial information to live better into the future. 

Even as Genesis concludes with as close to a happy resolution as the Torah gives us, cracks in communication remain. All of Jacob’s sons are together, in stark contrast to every previous generation. But once Jacob dies, Joseph’s brothers worry that Joseph still bears a grudge against them (Genesis 50:15). Joseph tries to reassure them, speaking upon their heart (Genesis 50:21). We never hear from the brothers again, so we can only speculate that they were in fact reassured. 

How often have we “apologized”, “explained”, “reassured”, etc. without checking to make sure our words have actually been received that way? George Bernard Shaw once said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” 

So we have three models of communication breakdown - (1) when the speaker can’t put into words what they are thinking, (2) when listeners can’t or won’t receive what they are hearing, and (3) when it appears as if communication has happened but in fact it actually hasn’t gone as intended. 

In this new year of 2023, I have no prophecies, only a hopeful blessing: May each being find ease in expressing what they need to. May each being listen attentively and wisely to messages coming their way. May all of us lovingly keep seeking mutual understanding with everyone we are in relationship with. A world with kinder, clearer communication would be a step closer to the future I imagine Jacob hoped for us. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Coming Full Circle: from Joseph's Wagons to Kavana's Year-in-Review

This week, in Parashat Vayigash, the Joseph story comes full circle! The parasha opens with Judah pleading with Joseph (now a high official in Pharaoh's court) not to keep the youngest brother Benjamin as a prisoner. The brothers collectively seem to have passed Joseph's test -- their willingness to protect Benjamin marks a dramatic change from their earlier abuse and abandonment of Joseph -- and he reveals his true identity to them. 

Next, Joseph seeks to reunite with his father Jacob, who still resides in the land of Israel. As the conversation unfolds, one surprising detail in the text of Genesis 45 is that "wagons" (Hebrew: "agalot") are mentioned over and over again:

• v. 19: And you are bidden [to add], ‘Do as follows: take from the land of Egypt wagons for your children and your wives, and bring your father here.

• v. 21: The sons of Israel did so; Joseph gave them wagons as Pharaoh had commanded.

• v. 27: But when they recounted all that Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to transport him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived.

The presence and prominence of agalot/wagons of course captured the attention of generations of Torah interpreters! Citing a classic midrash (Genesis Rabbah 94:3), Rashi, for example, explained: 

"As evidence that it was Joseph who was sending this message he had informed them of the religious subject he had been studying with his father at the time when he left him, viz., the section of the Heifer (עגלה) that had its neck broken (Deuteronomy 21:6). It is to this that Scripture refers in the words “And he saw (i.e comprehended the meaning of) the עגלות (here to be taken in sense of Heifer) which Joseph had sent — and it does not state “which Pharaoh had sent” (as one would expect if עגלות meant wagons)." 

In other words, Rashi and the midrash are using word play to connect the word "eglah" to "agalot"... a clever interpretation, given that the concept of "eglah arufah" fundamentally is about who bears responsibility for wrongdoing, a conceptual question that certainly could be applied to Joseph's own personal story. 

Another explanation I've been thinking about this week is that the Hebrew word "agalot" can also mean "circles" or "cycles." In sending wagons from Egypt to his father Jacob, it is possible that Joseph was alluding to the ways in which his own life had come full circle. In this sense, the agalot could signify acceptance and forgiveness, making these wagons not only a tangible mode of transportation (sort of like sending a car to pick him up!) but also a beautiful symbolic invitation to Jacob to join with all of his children in Egypt for a family reunion.

Circles and cycles are so important throughout Jewish tradition. When I hear the word "agalot," I also can't help but think of the phrase "ma'aglei tzedek" from Psalm 23... often translated "right paths" but literally meaning "circles of justice." (Incidentally, this concept of "circles of justice" is the reason the Israeli Supreme Court building in Jerusalem incorporates so many curves and circles into its architecture!) And finally, one other important cycle is established in this parasha: the cycle of exile and return, which is both demonstrated on a personal/family level and set up on a collective/national level in this week's Torah portion.

Musing on the theme of agalot, circles, and cycles feels particularly appropriate during this, the last week of calendar year 2022. This is the week when we're all awash in year-in-review summaries; it can feel satisfying to see stories circle back on themselves as they come to a close.

As 2022 draws to a close, it's lovely to be able to reflect on how far we at Kavana have come over the past 12 months (our small circle) and also over the past almost 17 years (our larger circle). When we look back on 2022, we will always remember this as the year in which Kavana emerged from our pandemic triage mode into a new phase of growth, expansiveness, and new community offerings! This year, our educational programs returned to in-person formats (to the delight of students of all ages!); Kavana hosted glorious Purim and High Holiday "festival-style" events; we've continued to support our partners through life-cycle moments both wonderful and challenging; we sent our first-ever travel group to Israel and the West Bank; we hired three incredibly talented new full-time staff members (welcome, Rabbi Jay, Rachel O, and Avital!); and we participated in a Project Accelerate cohort to strengthen our organizational capacity... including a successful fundraising campaign that will unlock matching funds and will lay the groundwork for continued growth and evolution in the year(s) to come!

My Kavana co-founder, Suzi LeVine, recently shared with me a document we created before Kavana was formally launched -- a "Kavana Cooperative Executive Summary" dated January 2006 -- in which we had attempted to commit our initial vision to paper. Back then, we wrote: "We hope to create a pluralistic and non-denominational community group in Seattle making Judaism joyous through spiritual, educational, communal, and next-generational programming." While Kavana's language and demographics have certainly shifted a bit during the many years since 2006, our core aspiration remains pretty much intact. It feels incredibly gratifying to circle back to this early articulation of our vision in order to be able to see just how far we have come! 

Thank you for being part of the story, and for traveling these circles with the Kavana community. As we read this week about the wagons that Joseph sent to his father Jacob, we too can consider how meaningful it is to be tied to one another in ever-cycling ways. As one year comes full circle and we move together into the next, here's to a wonderful 2023 for all of us!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum