The Power of Blessings

It strikes me that this week's Torah portion, Balak, almost couldn't feel more relevant to the moment! Its central story is a rich and interesting one. (If you aren't yet familiar with it, you're welcome to click here to read the parashain its entirety on Sefaria, or here to view a cute two-minute BimBam video.) Here's my summary version, in a nutshell:

Balak, the king of Moab, hears that the Israelites are headed his way. He knows that they have recently defeated a number of nearby kingdoms in battle, and he's terrified for himself and his people. 

To deal with this threat, Balak hires a secret weapon: a local prophet named Bilaam, who he tasks with cursing the Israelites. 

The prophet and God engage in some verbal wrestling about whether or not he should undertake the mission, until finally Bilaam goes. On his way to the Israelites' encampment in the wilderness, though, Bilaam's donkey halts suddenly and refuses to continue moving, as an angel is standing in his path blocking the way. Bilaam, however, cannot see the angel and beats the donkey, who then opens its mouth and scolds Bilaam. This part of the story is resolved by the angel of the Lord telling Billaam: "Go with the men. But you must say nothing except what I tell you."

Finally, the prophet finally reaches his destination, a hill above the Israelite camp. Looking out over the camp, he opens his mouth to do the job he was hired to do of cursing the Israelites, but each time he does so, God puts words in Bilaam's mouth and out comes a blessing instead! In line after line of poetic verse, Bilaam praises the Israelites, infuriating the Moabite king Balak. Ultimately both prophet and king return home, unsuccessful in their bid to damage the Israelites.

When we read the same Torah stories in a cyclical way each year, what we see in the text certainly relates to the lens we bring to it, based on what's happening in our own minds and in the world around us in real time. Given the week it's been in terms of the American political landscape, then, it's probably not surprising that I am finding multiple lessons embedded in this morality tale of a parasha that feel like they speak very directly to this moment. Here are three that have jumped out at me this week:

1) At the very beginning of the parasha, the text reads: "Balak son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. Moab was alarmed... and dreaded the Israelites, saying... 'now this horde will lick clean all that is about us as an ox licks up the grass of the field'" (Num. 22:2-4). Picking up on the Moabites' extreme fear and on the fact that Balak is first introduced without the title of king, 20th century commentator Haym Soloveichik explains that Balak begins as "a courtier who seized the throne by manipulating people's fear of Israel." Reading Balak in this way -- as a political strongman who asserts control over his followers by stoking fear -- we can hear a warning in the text: Be wary of leaders who traffic in fear-mongering and scape-goating; they are not to be trusted! 

2) From that place of fear, Balak is willing to use violence against his rivals. His "assassination attempt" on the Israelites doesn't require an AR rifle, of course; rather, his weapon of choice is a prophet with a reputation of success and a big arsenal of curses to draw on. The text is crystal clear, though, that God loathes Balak's attempt to try to silence one's enemies through such violent means.

3) Ultimately, the punchline of the story is that when Bilaam does open his mouth to say something about Israel, only blessings come out. He conveys this to Balak in line after line of oracle-like text, for example: "How can I damn whom God has not damned, How doom when the Lord has not doomed?" (Num. 23:8) and "No harm is in sight for Jacob, No woe in view for Israel" (Num. 23:21). The bottom line is that sometimes would-be curses can, in fact, be transformed into blessings. The world can be surprising; we cannot always know what's going to happen next. We may brace for a curse, but we should also stay open to the possibility that curses can give way to blessings at any time.

This week, we here in America have witnessed a violent assassination attempt and a political convention filled with scary rhetoric. At the time of my writing this message, it’s not clear which names will even be on the ballot in November’s presidential election. Indeed, these are wild times, filled with a sense of foreboding and anxiety for many of us. But, if we can take the messages of Parashat Balak to heart, we might take some comfort in knowing that fear-mongering and political violence will not win out in the end; our Torah has given us the ability to see through these tactics for thousands of years! While we may yet have to weather some hard and unpredictable times, as our modern-day story continues to unfold, ultimately, the power of blessing is much stronger than the power of the curse.

So may it be this year -- and may we work to make it so! 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

P.S. - The most famous line of the blessing that accidentally emerges from the mouth of the prophet Bilaam is "Mah tovu ohalecha yaakov mishkenotecha yisrael," "How good are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel." This line has been set to music countless times, and it's a song I associate with Jewish summer camp. Over the past couple of weeks, I had the pleasure of visiting a Jewish camp in Colorado (Ramah in the Rockies) where my youngest, Elisha, was a camper, and it's hard to imagine any setting in which the tents of the Jewish people could be deemed more beautiful and full of joy! This week, it's RLO's turn to visit Kavana kids at Camp Kalsman (see below!), and next week Rabbi Jay is off to summer camp! In total, we have Kavana kids attending a total of at least nine different Jewish camps this summer (perhaps the most ever) -- hurray! In honor of this week's parasha and to add a little camp flavor, we'll be singing Mah Tovu at tonight's Shabbat in the Park event -- please register quickly (by noon today) if you'd like to join us this evening. 

Mishpat & Chukkah

“This is chukkat ha-torah that God has commanded: Instruct the Israelite people to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid…it shall be slaughtered…the priest will take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting…Gather up the ashes of the cow and deposit them outside the camp in a pure place, to be kept for water of lustration for the Israelite community. It is for purgation.” (Bamidbar 19:2-9)

By all accounts, the ritual of the Red Heifer is a strange one. It involves a complicated procedure including sacrificing a cow, burning it to ash, adding in some herbs, and creating a ritual elixir from the mixture. This elixir is useful - it restores purity when someone encounters a dead body. But…what a strange ritual! 

Rashi comments: “Because Satan and the nations of the world taunt Israel, saying, ‘What is this command and what reason is there for it?!’, on this account [Torah] writes the term chukkah about it, implying: It is an enactment (gezeira) from before Me; you have no right to criticize it.”

In essence, Rashi says that when we see the word chukkah, we know (1) the law is definitely weird and hard to explain to others and even oneself; and (2) we still follow it simply because God said so.

In rabbinic literature, chukkah (or the related word chok) is contrasted withmishpat, literally “judgment.” These are two categories of laws. Mishpat refers to laws that any reasonable person could come up with rationally through thinking hard enough, while chukkah cannot be arrived at through intellectual means. We have to take God’s word for it. In other words, when the Torah tells us we must do something, sometimes we can understand why and other times the rationale is inscrutable. 

What’s at stake in understanding the reason behind a religious practice? As a strength, when we understand why we are doing a practice, we are more inclined to appreciate it and observe it. If I believe that giving tzedakah(charity) restores the dignity of humans in different economic circumstances and increases fairness in the world, even just a little bit, I am motivated to give tzedakah because I value those reasons. 

As a weakness, though, having a reason for a rule means you can challenge the rule for not being the best expression of that reason. If the reason for keeping kosher stems from a desire to minimize animal suffering (one of the various explanations I’ve seen), you could rationally argue that in our era, there are way better ways to minimize animal suffering, and in fact continuing kosher slaughtering practices actually causes unnecessary harm at this point. For anyone invested in the long-term endurance of a ritual, having a reason for it may actually backfire! Calling it a “because God said so” chukkahinsulates the practice from logical criticism. 

The 1885 Pittsburgh Platform, which launched a coherent early Reform Jewish movement, had this to say about kashrut: “We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation.” In other words, the original reasons for kashrut no longer hold! Saying we do something for a reason means that if the reason changes, or if there is a better way to accomplish that reason, our practice will change. In this way, you might imagine the early Reform movement as amishpat-elevating Judaism. 

On the extreme opposite of a Reform approach to Jewish practice, Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994) argued that “Halakhic observance as a way of life, a fixed and permanent form of human existence, precludes conversion of of religion into a means to some ulterior end. Most of the Mitzvoth are meaningless except as expressions of worship.” (Religious Praxis, p. 16) In other words, virtually the entirety of Jewish practice should be consideredchukkah! All that matters is that God said so, and no other reason is needed (or even possible). 

Most Jews and Jewish communities find a middle path between “here’s why we do this” and “we do it just because.” I’d be curious to hear from you where you place yourself in the spectrum! 

What do you do out of an innate sense of commandedness (whether by God, authorities, loved ones, conscience, even habit) without overthinking, and what do you do because a long, thoughtful process of rationalizing has led you there? What elements of Jewish practice are you curious to understand better? What might you be willing to jump into without knowing everything about it first?

May this Shabbat bring the right mixture of mishpat and chukkah, thoughtful exploration and the most wonderful stubborn persistence of ritual that you do just because that’s the way you do it. 

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Almond Branch Leadership

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” (Stephen R. Covey, renowned expert on leadership.)

Parshat Korach holds great wonders: for instance, after Korach assembles a number of disgruntled Israelites and challenges the leadership of his cousins, Moses and Aaron, God then opens a hole in the ground and hurls some of the rebels down to the underworld, before smiting the rest with divine fire. 

But right after this comes an even more astonishing moment. “The next day the whole Israelite community railed against Moses and Aaron, saying, “You two have killed God’s people!” (Bamidbar 17:6)

Not the type of response you hope for when earning the public endorsement of no less an impressive figure than God Godself. 

So great is the crisis of trust. 

Moses and Aaron have dedicated themselves to the people of Israel, and at great personal cost. Aaron lost two of his sons to an improperly performed ritual. Moses (according to the midrashic subtext) has essentially abandoned his family in order to be the leader the people need. I do not want to valorize sacrifice of this sort, but these details give us, the readers of the story, an awareness of just how much Moses and Aaron care for the people they lead. Indeed, in just a few more verses, God is ready to annihilate the rest of the people, and once again it is up to Moses and Aaron to save the people from destruction. 

Knowing the depth of Moses and Aaron’s integrity and commitment, it breaks my heart that the people empathize not with their leaders but with the duplicitous challengers. “You two have killed God’s people.” As if Korach and his band were on God’s side, as if God weren’t the one who had personally demonstrated divine disfavor. 

A part of me wonders if the very willingness of Moses and Aaron to sacrifice to be leaders signals some quality that the people become wary of. If Aaron remains silent as his sons die in service of the Eternal, if Moses pushes away the people closest to him in order to do his job, maybe they will remain silent and isolate themselves as people further away from them suffer and perish. Rather than the vice of nepotism, perhaps they embody the vice of ruthless ambition that destroys families in the name of success? If so, no wonder they find themselves in a crisis of trust in their leadership. If relationships matter, they matter at home and in public, in meetings and at dinner tables. Trust can’t be asserted, it must be demonstrated, and how people treat those closest to them reveals a lot about their character as leaders as well. 

How does this crisis resolve itself? How do Moses and Aaron regain a measure of trust? 

This story began with a challenge to their leadership. We don’t know to what degree Korach and company represented the quiet thoughts of others, but after Moses and Aaron defeat them through literal scorched-earth politics, we do know that the people bitterly complain about their leaders. 

By the end of the chapter, Moses and Aaron hold another event to establish the legitimacy of their leadership. Each tribal chieftain brings a staff, and they leave them in the holiest place in the Mishkan. “The next day Moses entered the Tent of the Pact, and there the staff of Aaron of the house of Levi had sprouted: it had brought forth sprouts, produced blossoms, and borne almonds” (Bamidbar 17:23). 

According to the biblical story at least, the best way to regain the trust of your people is not to focus on the opposition and do everything in your power to stoke fear and anger about how awful they are. Rather, it is to demonstrate the possibilities of growth. It is to make new flowers grow from what seem to be dead branches. A leader, above all, must be a tender of life, a steward of the forces of nurture and nourishment.

May we - in our families, communities, organizations, and political affiliations - grow trust through practicing almond branch leadership. 

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Happy birthday to us!: Hope and Optimism

Happy birthday to us! Happy birthday to us! Happy birthday, dear Kavana! Happy birthday to us!

This coming Monday, July 1st, is Kavana's 18th birthday, the anniversary of the date in 2006 when Kavana formally began its existence as an organization and this community was born. 18 years is a significant number for us, as 18 is the gematria/numeric equivalent of the word "chai" (spelled chet-yod, or 10+8=18), which means "life." This week, it also feels fitting to me that our community is hitting this milestone chai birthday as Jews everywhere read Parashat Shelach.

In this week's Torah portion, Moses sends a dozen spies across the Jordan River to scout out the land of Canaan. As the twelve spies return from this important reconnaissance mission, they divide themselves into two factions. Ten of them present to Moses and the Israelites a fundamentally pessimistic report:

“'We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we.' Thus they spread calumnies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, 'The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are of great size... and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.'" (Numbers 13:31–33).

In contrast, just two of the twelve spies (Caleb and Joshua) return with a positive, hopeful report: 

"And [they] exhorted the whole Israelite community: 'The land that we traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land. If pleased with us, God will bring us into that land, a land that flows with milk and honey, and give it to us... Have no fear....'" (Numbers 14:7–9).

According to the text, all twelve participated in the same mission and experienced the same land together -- Numbers 13:21-24 is explicit that they scouted from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, traveling in the Negev until they came to Hebron, and finding a giant cluster of grapes in the Wadi Eshkol -- so the core issue cannot be that they had completely different inputs. And yet, the two groups of scouts interpret what they have witnessed very differently. 

Torah commentators offer a range of views as to why the ten spies versus the two draw such radically different conclusions; most of their answers come down to the issue of underlying attitude and outlook. The ten spies who land on a negative report not only feel fearful themselves, but also manage to induce panic in the rest of the Israelites. (As we know well in the year 2024, it's easy for fear and despair to feel contagious!)

Behind Caleb and Joshua's report, in contrast, readers can feel a healthy dose of optimism, faith, and confidence. About this story, author Michael Eisenberg comments: 

"Optimism is foundational to many of the stories in the Torah, and is a critical component of the consciousness of the people of Israel since the dawn of history. Pessimism creates headlines, but optimism creates reality... The optimism the Torah directs us towards is to believe that change is good and that we have an opportunity to change situations, to improve and develop, and above all — to realize our collective vision and responsibility that has been assigned to us." 

In other words, the kind of optimism that Caleb and Joshua display is not delusional or pollyannaish; it acknowledges real-world challenges even as it asserts that change is possible. This brand of optimism stands in sharp contrast both to defeatism (the idea that nothing we could do could possibly make a difference) and to false optimism (the idea that the status quo is just fine, and nothing needs to change).

This message of Parashat Shelach rings particularly true to me this week, as it echoes with the history and underlying outlook of our beloved Kavana community on this milestone birthday. 

In 2006, Suzi LeVine and I set out to do something very special together. At the time, we had both heard lots of hand-wringing from Jewish leaders across the country who were worried that assimilation and intermarriage were eroding the Jewish future. In the Seattle Jewish community, the conventional wisdom was that because younger Jews (then, members of Gen X) were not affiliating with synagogues, they must necessarily be uninterested in Jewish life; we had also been told that the northwest quadrant of the city wasn't densely Jewish enough to be able to support a Jewish community. Even in the face of this pessimism, we sensed an opportunity: to build a model of Jewish community that didn't yet exist except in our inchoate vision: one that would be pluralistic, open and welcoming; vibrant and dynamic; at once authentic and grounded in tradition and also creative and playful; grassroots-y and cooperative in nature. And, we were seeing innovative new Jewish organizations begin to spring up around the country. Buoyed by Suzi's can-do spirit and an energy that snowballed positively as we begin to shop this vision around, we embarked... recruiting a dynamic launch team, securing support from a handful of "angel investors," and -- starting in July 2006 with our inaugural Shabbat in the Park event -- offering programming and drawing in would-be partners. We were not naieve or unaware of the challenges we might face in launching a new organization, but we were carried by some degree of faith, confidence, and optimism, and it paid off as more and more people began showing up to build robust Jewish life together with us.

Over the past 18 years, we -- and here I mean all of us together: partners, participants, donors, friends and family of the organization (if you're reading, I hope you count yourself in!) -- have built something very special. The optimistic spirit that helped to launch Kavana at the outset is still strong in us. Together, we have deeply touched the lives of thousands, helping to craft meaningful Jewish experiences, empower people to work towards a vision of a more just and loving society, forging a vibrant Jewish future together. As Kavana celebrates its 18th birthday this week, I hope that each of us feels a great sense of pride in being part of this fundamentally hopeful endeavor!

After an 18th year like the one the Kavana community has just lived through -- with October 7th and the war in Gaza, antisemitism on the rise and the threat of autocratic political leaders here in the U.S. and around the world -- there is certainly plenty of fuel for anxiety and fear. However, in the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, "To be a Jew is to be an agent of hope." He points out that the word "confidence" comes from Latin for "having faith together." Indeed, it is precisely in the together-ness of this community's vision that I find the inspiration to continue moving us forward.

Wishing us all a very happy and life-affirming chai birthday. (We are planning for a celebration and cake to follow, later this year!) To Kavana, I say: "ad meah v'esrim" ("to a hundred and twenty!"). 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

P.S. - Enjoy these throw-back photos to our first-ever Shabbat in the Park (we were doing yoga at Gasworks!) and to early board members checking out Kavana's then brand-new-to-us Sefer Torah (we were such babies!).

P.P.S. - Feeling inspired to send Kavana a birthday gift? Your support means the world to us. Click here to make a donation of any amount and help set us up well to continue doing our sacred work into the coming year with an optimistic and hopeful outlook! 

Two Days or a Month or a Year

“Whether it was two days or a month or a year—however long the cloud lingered over the Mishkan—the Israelites remained encamped and did not set out; only when it lifted did they break camp.” (Bamidbar 9:22)

What a strange way to wander - wait for a cloud to lift, and then move! See the cloud settle down, and then set yourself down for however long it lasts. What did it feel like to have so little agency over the rhythm of travel? Were some people itching to leave and feeling stuck when the cloud lingered? Were others just starting to feel stability again when the cloud lifted and change beckoned once more?

Malbim (1809-1879) comments on why the verse mentions two days: “So then they could finish setting up their tents. They would have been annoyed by troubling themselves to erect and [then immediately] break down their tents for a one-day stay.”

I’m charmed by Malbim’s confidence that a two-day encampment was logistically and psychologically easier than a one-day encampment. But it seems to me to highlight how destabilizing it must have felt to create a home knowing you could be moving out scant days later, or months or years later. To live each day embedded within impermanence… 

This reminds me of a classic story told about the Chofetz Chaim (1838-1933) who lived in the Polish town of Radin. Once a wealthy merchant was in the area and decided to honor the great sage with a visit. But when he entered this famous rabbi’s home, he was astonished to see it practically unfurnished and asked, “Where is your furniture?” But the Chofetz Chaim responded by asking him where was his furniture! The merchant explained that he was only passing through. And then the Chofetz Chaim explained that he too, was only passing through…

Live fully, but lightly. Life is a journey, home after home after home after home.

Malbim continues with a comment on a month: “In this case, imagine other complaints! If the place was favorable in their eyes, they would want to delay there for many days and would have been annoyed by traveling. Or if they could have been staying there a year, then imagine that they didn’t think the place was good and would have been annoyed to be stuck there for a full year.”

This intermediate type of stay either serves to prolong something enjoyable or to release them from being stuck even longer in an unpleasant situation. 

Here I think of childhood stages. Some days, I find myself impatient for my kids to grow out of whatever is feeling particularly challenging. Other days, I hold them tight as if a physical hug could pause the constant wiggling dance of change, so that I could savor this particular joy a moment longer before it fades into a memory. So much of a child’s development is invisible to us - until it isn’t. As if a cloud rests over whatever holy space inside them and then suddenly lifts, and now they can talk, and now they can make jokes, and now they wrestle with anxiety for the first time, and now they take on new responsibilities. 

A child is something else again. Wakes up

in the afternoon and in an instant he's full of words,

in an instant he's humming, in an instant warm,

instant light, instant darkness.

(Yehuda Amichai)

And of course, this isn’t just about kids, but also our parents and friends and pets, and our own capabilities at any given moment in life. We have what we have, we are who we are, for longer than a moment, and shorter than eternity. How do we hold tight and release wisely and gracefully?

For Malbim, the full year signifies the commitment of the Israelites to be present to the divine vitality in their midst. Whether they liked where they were or not, whether they yearned to linger or chafed at feeling struck, ultimately they paid close attention to that cloud over the holy space and followed its unpredictable signals to rest or to act. Because what was constant was the divine vitality in their midst. 

If you are feeling the weight of being stuck, may you find some release this Shabbat.

If you are overwhelmed by the pace of change, may you find some stabilizing rest this Shabbat.

For however long you have been part of the wider Kavana community, whether two days, a month, a year, or longer, let’s continue the journey together.

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Expanding Blessing

"And THVH (Goddess) spoke to Moshah, saying: Speak to Aharonah and to her daughters, saying: Thus shall you bless the daughters of Tisraelah: Say to them:
May Goddess bless you and protect you.
May Goddess’s face shine upon you and be gracious with you.
May Goddess’s face lift towards you and grant you peace.” (Bamidbar 6:22-26)

Last week, Rabbi Rachel wrote in her teaching about how the ancient sages valued the wilderness in which Torah was received - a place of non-ownership that allowed for open access to sacred wisdom. Torah, they imagined, was meant for everyone who thirsted to learn it and practice it. In the wilderness, no walls of possessive exclusivity could contain it. Torah is acquired in a place with no boundaries.

Not only is Torah uncontainable: you can’t exhaust it either. There are seventy faces of Torah, each revealing new facets upon closer inspection. Torah is acquired through an appreciation of infinite depths.

In the spirit of this Torah-fluidity-abundance, contemporary artists and scholars Yael Kanarek and Tamar Biala have spent years translating the Hebrew Bible into Hebrew, by regendering everything. They call this project Toratah (“Her Torah”).

“The experience of reading Toratah, especially for those accustomed to the language of the traditional Bible, is not simple. It describes female presence in all aspects of Biblical reality. This presence manifests vividly and by both destructive and restorative powers. The women of Toratah express a wide range of human behavior and agency usually ascribed to men: they murder, commit incest, and rape. They reign and judge. They are priestesses, prophetesses, warriors, founders of tribes and leaders of nations…

“Toratah builds a new cultural language, it enables us to extricate ourselves from the patriarchal language that functions as a cultural default. Toratah marks a new horizon for social and spiritual self-understanding… What does it mean for a girl to read that she’s made in the image of the absolute Creator Goddess? What is a boy to learn as he grows to understand his role as her helpmate and caregiver?” (You can read more here. It is worth mentioning that although the project does not focus on non-binary language, seeing the Torah regendered creates space to imagine what a gender non-binary Torah might look like as well.)

The priestly blessing in parashat Nasso is particularly important for the living tradition of Jewish practice. Once upon a time, (male) priests used these words to bless the assembled people. In fact, the oldest archeological evidence of language found in the Torah contains these words on two silver amulets, dating from over 2500 years ago. After the Temple was destroyed, men in the priestly lineage continue to this day in some communities to recite these words at particular moments in the prayer service. Additionally, some parents will offer the blessing to their children at Shabbat dinner on Friday night. And some rabbis offer the blessing at life cycle rituals for babies, b’nai mitzvah, and wedding couples. 

Here is a piece of Torah that has come alive in all sorts of ways. Rashi comments on “say to them [this blessing]” (Bamidbar 6:23): “so that everyone can hear it.” The blessing was always meant to arrive in a way that each and every person could hear it. Rendering it into the feminine instead of the masculine means the blessing expands, and we get a fuller glimpse of the Source of blessing and the folx who make up our community. 

Many of you already know a version of the priestly blessing that uses feminine language, blended with a Buddhist metta meditation, created by Chava Mirel and used widely in Kavana spaces. This Shabbat, let her words and the ancient and ever-renewing flow of blessing lift your spirits, comfort your hearts, and encourage your aspirations:

May we be filled with lovingkindnessMay we be well, healthy and strong
May we be safe and protected
May we be peaceful and calm

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

A Sweet Time of Year

Dear Yoela,

This week, we read Parashat Bamidbar and embark on the fourth book of the Torah (also called Bamidbar, meaning "In the Wilderness"). This is also the Shabbat before Shavuot, the ancient harvest festival that ultimately came to be referred to in our prayer liturgy as "z'man matan torateinu," "the time of the giving of our Torah. Our tradition derives a lot of meaning from the juxtaposition of these two ideas: wilderness (midbar) and Torah!

One famous midrash, from Mekhilta De-Rabbi Yishmael (Tractate Bachodesh 1:18) states:

"The Torah was given publicly and in an ownerless place. If the Torah had been given in Eretz Yisrael, people could say, 'The nations of the world have no share in it.' That’s why it was given in the midbar, publicly and in an ownerless place. So that anyone who wants to come and accept the Torah can come and accept it!"

In other words, because no one group "owns" the midbar, the giving of the Torah in the wilderness means that it is meant for and available to everyone. 

Another beautiful drash can be found in the Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 54a, where Rabbi Matna is cited as saying:

"If a person makes himself humble like this wilderness, which is open to all and upon which everyone treads, his Torah study will endure and be given to him as a gift [mattana]. And if not, his Torah study will not endure."

Just as the desert is humble enough to let people walk upon it, so too must we be humble, in order that our Torah will "stick."

Reading both of these midrashim, it's clear that our tradition urges us towards a posture of humility. When we learn Torah, we do so knowing that we are not the sole purveyors of knowledge, nor do we have a monopoly on the truth or know everything there is to know. In addition, it's also clear that our tradition understands "Torah" quite expansively. Torah means all sorts of learning: not only the revelation Moses experienced on Mount Sinai, but also the learning that we do in the world when we learn from and with other people. 

In this spirit, Kavana's Shavuot event this coming Tuesday evening will feature a range of teachers -- both rabbis and community members -- and a range of modalities -- including text study, discussion, singing. Of course, there will also be delicious desserts to share! We'd love to have you join us in this celebration of learning: please click here to register.

Finally, in our academic calendar rhythm, Shavuot also happens to correspond quite well to the end of the school year and to graduation season! This week, as we prepare for Shavuot and as all of Kavana's kids/family education programs wrap up for this year, it feels like a great opportunity for me to pause to thank the many teachers who have taught our children and families, including staff members Maxine Alloway, Liv Feldman, Jack Hogan, Rebecca Mather, Rachel Nagorsky, Sophia Nappa, Anaelle Oiknine, Noah Segal, Michael Taylor-Judd, Lon-Mari Walton, Morgan Weidner, Danial Zelinger, and Yoela Zimberoff. In addition, I also want to recognize our Director of Education, Rachel ("RLO") Osias, who has done a beautiful job of supervising this team and making it all happen! If you're interested in enrolling for the coming academic year, it's not too early to start exploring our full array of kids/family education programs (Tinker Gan, Prep & Practice, Moadon Yeladim, Havdalah Club, Middle School Program, High School Program) -- click here to check out the offerings, or reach out to RLO with any questions, and know that registration for 2024-25 will go live over the summer!

For now, I'll conclude for now with one of my favorite prayers -- "V'ha'arev na" -- which is part of the daily blessing for the study of Torah. It says:

May the words of Torah, Adonai our God, be sweet in our mouths and in the mouths of all Your people, so that we, our children, and all the children of the House of Israel may come to love You and to study Your Torah on its own merit.

Amen, Shabbat Shalom, and Chag Shavuot Sameach (the holiday is this coming Tuesday evening - Thursday evening),

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Acknowledging our Blessings, Even in Hard Times

These last couple of weeks have continued to be filled with dizzying news stories: videos of bloodied female IDF soldiers being taunted by Hamas, truly horrifying images and accounts out of a refugee camp in Rafah, and now of course a verdict in the Trump trial. Recently, a number of Kavana community members have asked me some version of how I am managing, on a personal level, through this intense and difficult time. I have typically answered that I'm acutely aware of the gap between how the world feels (like a great big dumpster fire, most days!) and what others elsewhere are experiencing, and my own personal life here in Seattle (where it's springtime, I have a job I love, my family is doing well, etc.). 

The truth, though, is that it takes work to stay grounded even (and most especially) when things around us feel so hard. One of the primary "spiritual technologies" we Jews have at our disposal is the tool of gratitude: the art of noticing and uplifting the small blessings that otherwise we might easily take for granted. Doing so gives us the fortitude to deal with the hard stuff.

This week's Torah portion, Bechukotai, is famously filled with both blessings and curses. The set-up is pretty straightforward. "If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments," says God, these blessings will follow; "but if you do not obey Me... if you reject My laws and spurn My rules..., I in turn will do this to you" (here's a link to the text of the parasha, beginning with Leviticus 26:3). I will note, as an aside, that I have never really bought into the reward and punishment theology of the Torah, at least not literally. I know all too well that "bad things can happen to good people" (as Harold Kushner framed it) and that good things can happen to bad people; this feels particularly obvious in wartime. I do see that actions have consequences (at times, it's clear how outcomes do stem from human decisions/ behavior), but sometimes life simply feels random. This line of theological questions is probably a much bigger topic for another day, but for now at least, I can offer assurance that in rejecting a literal reading of Bechukotai, I am part of a long line of Jewish commentators and thinkers who have struggled with the concept of Divine reward and punishment in Judaism's core texts.

That said, the blessings enumerated by the parasha do ring true to me as blessings. The first of these reads (Lev. 26:4):

וְנָתַתִּ֥י גִשְׁמֵיכֶ֖ם בְּעִתָּ֑ם וְנָתְנָ֤ה הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ יְבוּלָ֔הּ וְעֵ֥ץ הַשָּׂדֶ֖ה יִתֵּ֥ן פִּרְיֽוֹ׃

I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit.

According to our parasha, the produce of the earth and the fruit of the tree are prime examples of blessings. These are, of course, a basic building block of human life; without the earth bearing food, none of us could continue to live for very long. The Torah reminds us that we cannot take our food for granted. As an illustration of this, later in the same chapter (in Lev. 26:20), the text states the inverse in its list of curses: "Your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit." Our world is so filled with harsh realities, that there is always a very real possibility that things will not turn out well, that we will not always be able to reap our harvest. Parashat Bechukotai's blessings and curses remind us of the precariousness of life, and how fortunate we are to have what we do.

No one says this more eloquently, in my mind, than poet Marge Piercy. In her poem entitled "The Art of Blessing the Day," this is precisely the message that comes through in her stanza about a ripe peach (and if you like this verse of the poem, I cordially invite you to click here to read it in its entirety):

This is the blessing for a ripe peach: 

This is luck made round. Frost can nip 

the blossom, kill the bee. It can drop, 

a hard green useless nut. Brown fungus, 

the burrowing worm that coils in rot can 

blemish it and wind crush it on the ground. 

Yet this peach fills my mouth with juicy sun.

As Piercy is keenly aware, every single juicy peach -- every piece of fruit, every morsel of food that comes into our hands -- is the happy ending of a success story, and deserves to be received as a gift. To accept it as such -- even and most especially while acknowledging all that could have gone wrong, and just how easily things could have turned out otherwise -- is to live life inside "the art of blessing," that is, with a posture of gratitude.  

This time of year, I find it relatively easy to feel aligned with the spiritual practice of blessing food and understanding food as a blessing. Yesterday happened to be the first Queen Anne Farmers Market of the season. I walked from my office to the market in the late afternoon; after a cloudy morning, the sun had just come out in full force; produce stands were filled with neat rows of asparagus and garlic scapes, beets and strawberries. Surrounded by this bounty, and by so many people out to appreciate it and partake of it, I felt so deeply fortunate! (Incidentally, I will also mention that I think it's pretty cool that the agricultural growing cycle of the Pacific Northwest matches the growing cycle that the Torah has in mind. Both here and in the land of Israel, a rainy season is just coming to an end; in both places, the bounty of summer harvest is just beginning. The Jewish calendar markers of first fruits/bikkurim at Shavuot and the end of the harvest season at Sukkot also happen to correspond quite neatly to my beloved seasonal Queen Anne Farmers Market, which runs weekly from late May to mid-October.)

Returning to the bigger frame, I feel myself to be living inside such a sharp contrast, with a keen awareness of both the blessings and curses of this moment, of what I have and what others do not. I walk home from the market, feeling the weight of the fruits and veggies I'm carrying in my bag, while thinking about the suspension of operations at the Gaza pier and the debates over the Rafah border crossing, both of which have big implications for how much food aid will be distributed and consumed in Gaza (where of course very little harvest can be reaped this season). My gratitude for the blessings of my life, both large and small, catalyzes empathy within me, and a desire to contribute whatever I can from my corner of the world, as we continue to move through such difficult times.

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Counting Time: Parashat Behar

This week, we read Parashat Behar, a short Torah portion (of only a single chapter!) that, despite its brevity, is packed with wisdom. Leviticus 25 focuses on two big concepts, both related to the counting of time: the sabbatical (shmitah) year, whereby the land rests for a year in each seven year cycle, and the jubilee (yoveil), which features a proclamation of freedom and laws concerning the manumission of slaves every 50th year.

This parasha echoes in so many ways and on so many levels this year! I would like to share just a couple of ways that these key concepts feel relevant to me in this moment:

1) Sabbatical:

"When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a sabbath of the Lord. Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. But in the seventh year, the land shall have a sabbat of complete rest, a sabbath of the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of complete rest for the land..." (Lev. 25:2-5).

As you probably recall, last year around this time, I took my first ever professional sabbatical. Just this week, R&R (the organization that had provided generous grant funding to Kavana to support my 3-months off) released an evaluation of their pilot sabbatical grant program. You're welcome to click here to learn more, but in a nutshell, they concluded that in nonprofit organizations:

• Sabbaticals are transformative for those who take them, with a significant impact on well-being and burnout. They are powerful perspective-changing experiences and important for retention and productivity. 

• Sabbaticals strengthen organizations by deepening the bench of leadership at the staff level.

• Sabbaticals help build healthy boards by creating opportunities to think about staff wellness, deepen relationships between board and staff, and begin long-term succession planning.

• Sabbaticals create healthier and more effective ecosystems.

All of these findings ring true with our experience of sabbatical here at Kavana. Whether we are talking about letting land lie fallow (asParashat Beharadvocates) or encouraging an employee to take a break from work in order to return re-energized,sabbatical is a powerful tool all around.

This past weekend, Kavana's Annual Partner Meeting wasn't exactly a sabbatical, but it, too, served as an example of how we implement generative breaks in organizational work. Preparation for this meeting required the Kavana board to step back and reflect on what we've done together over the past year and how this work has moved our community forward. Taking a periodic pause in this way gives us a chance to lift up our heads collectively and gain perspective, celebrate our accomplishments and achievements, and then return to our work with renewed certainty that we are headed in the right direction. (That layer of meaningful reflection/pause, paired with the buzz of energy that happens when great people congregate and a bountiful snack table, certainly helped make our 2024 Annual Partner Meeting feel both pleasurable and productive!)

Parashat Behar forces us to think about these cycles in time, both short and long, and ensure that we take time to step back and refrain from doing, creating and dominating. The concept of sabbatical can and should be applied on multiple levels, as it has the potential to lead to greater health and well-being not only for land, but also for us, on a personal/individual level, and collectively for our organizations and communities.

2) Jubilee: 

"You shall count off seven weeks of years -- seven times seven years -- so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the horn loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month -- the Day of Atonement -- you shall have the horn sounded throughout your land, and you shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: each of you shall return to his holding and each of you shall return to his family..." (Lev. 25:8-10).

In his commentary on Parashat Behar, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks highlights the economic justice aspect of this Torah portion as he talks about the way that it provides “a unique solution to the otherwise intractable conflict between two fundamental ideals: freedom and equality.” He writes:

"Much of human history has illustrated the fact that you can have freedom without equality (laissez-faire economics), or equality without freedom (communism, socialism), but not both. The powerful insight of the Torah is that you can have both, but not at the same time. Therefore time itself has to become part of the solution, in the form of the seventh year and, after seven sabbatical cycles, the Jubilee. These become periodic corrections to the distortions of the free market that allow some to become rich while others suffer the loss of land, home, and even freedom. Through the periodic liberation of slaves, release of debts, and restoration of ancestral lands, the Torah provides a still-inspiring alternative to individualism on the one hand, collectivism on the other."

Rabbi Sacks lived in Britain, but reading his commentary this year, it feels like he is speaking directly to us in this American election year. What does it mean to live in a capitalist society that privileges individual rights, but also know that we must strive to take care of our collective needs as well? How do we uphold the principles of both freedom and equality simultaneously? In the contest between Republicans and Democrats at every level of government, there are very concrete differences when it comes to the two parties' visions regarding to the answers these questions and how to achieve the proper balance. Without making voting recommendations about specific candidates or parties (which Kavana cannot, as a 501c3), I wouldencourage you to read Leviticus 25 and think about the values that animate Parashat Behar's insistence on the Jubilee cycle, in particular.

Finally, the sabbatical and jubilee cycles of our Torah portion are tied together by a focus on counting. The idea that we are constantly counting -- numbering both our days and our years -- certainly resonates right now, as Jews worldwide are counting the Omer (today is day 31) and also the number of days of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza (today is day 231). May Parashat Behar's focus on counting cycles of time inspire us to make our time count! And may we live to see a world that benefits from cycles of rest, a world in which we can "proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants," and where freedom and equality can be upheld simultaneously.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Blasphemy, and "all those who have heard" it!

Buried at the tail end of this week's parasha, Emor, there appears a short story about a blasphemer -- that is, one who pronounces God's name in an inappropriate way and is then sentenced to death. The full text appears in Leviticus 24:10-23, which you can click here to read. Meanwhile, here is the narrative portion of the story only (I've removed some intervening lines of legal material):

"There came out among the Israelites a man whose mother was Israelite and whose father was Egyptian. And a fight broke out in the camp between that half-Israelite and a certain Israelite. The son of the Israelite woman pronounced the Name in blasphemy, and he was brought to Moses—now his mother’s name was Shelomith daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan—and he was placed in custody, until the decision of Adonai should be made clear to them. 

And Adonai spoke to Moses, saying: Take the blasphemer outside the camp; and let all who were within hearing lay their hands upon his head, and let the entire community stone him... Moses spoke thus to the Israelites. And they took the blasphemer outside the camp and pelted him with stones. The Israelites did as Adonai had commanded Moses."

I'm sure I have seen this story before, but it feels totally unfamiliar to me as I read it again this year. It's such a curious text, and one which evokes so many questions. (For example, this story leaves me wondering: How does the insider-outsider identity of the blasphemer feature into his actions and to the community's reaction? What exactly constituted his sin of blasphemy?: what was the content of what he said, the context, and his tone/intention? I'm also shocked by the raw violence of this community-must-pelt-him-with-stones death sentence! And why are laws inserted into the middle of the story, breaking up the narrative flow?)

I would love the opportunity to study this text together with a group of you and unpack all of this -- with a close reading, line by line and word by word -- some other time! At the moment, though, I want to draw your attention to one particular detail that has especially captured my interest this year. It's in the middle of the verse that reads: 

הוֹצֵ֣א אֶת־הַֽמְקַלֵּ֗ל אֶל־מִחוּץ֙ לַֽמַּחֲנֶ֔ה וְסָמְכ֧וּ כׇֽל־הַשֹּׁמְעִ֛ים אֶת־יְדֵיהֶ֖ם עַל־רֹאשׁ֑וֹ וְרָגְמ֥וּ אֹת֖וֹ כׇּל־הָעֵדָֽה׃

"Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and let all who were within hearing lay their hands upon his head, and let the entire community stone him."

"Let all who were within hearing lay their hands upon his head." What does this phrase mean and what are we to learn from it?

Most of the commentators seem to think that the laying on of hands is about affirming and emphasizing the blasphemer's guilt. Quoting Sifra (an ancient midrashic text), for instance, Rashi imagines the "shomim" ("those who heard" the blasphemy) saying to the blasphemer accusingly: "Your blood is upon your head; we do not deserve punishment on account of your death, for it was you yourself who brought it about" (click here to read this commentary). Similarly, in his "Modern Commentary on the Torah," Israeli scholar Adin Steinsaltz comments: "It is the witnesses' duty to designate him for punishment" (click here to view).

As I encountered (or re-encountered?) this odd story myself, though, I find myself reading this line almost oppositely! Just two weeks ago, when we read Parashat Acharei Mot, we encountered in Leviticus a text about the ancient Yom Kippur ritual. You may be familiar with the story there of the two goats (after all, we read it each year not only as we encounter it in Leviticus in our regular Torah cycle, but also as the Torah reading for Yom Kippur Day): one goat that is designated to be sacrificed, and another that is sent into the wilderness bearing the sins of all the people. I had the chance to study that piece of Torah recently with a Bat Mitzvah student (Elle M.) -- here is the verse in question (Leviticus 16:21):

וְסָמַ֨ךְ אַהֲרֹ֜ן אֶת־שְׁתֵּ֣י יָדָ֗ו עַ֣ל רֹ֣אשׁ הַשָּׂעִיר֮ הַחַי֒ וְהִתְוַדָּ֣ה עָלָ֗יו אֶת־כׇּל־עֲוֺנֹת֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְאֶת־כׇּל־פִּשְׁעֵיהֶ֖ם לְכׇל־חַטֹּאתָ֑ם וְנָתַ֤ן אֹתָם֙ עַל־רֹ֣אשׁ הַשָּׂעִ֔יר וְשִׁלַּ֛ח בְּיַד־אִ֥ישׁ עִתִּ֖י הַמִּדְבָּֽרָה׃

Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and transgressions of the Israelites, whatever their sins, putting them on the head of the goat; and it shall be sent off to the wilderness through a designated agent. 

As Elle and I discussed, in the Yom Kippur ritual, it is explicit what this laying on of hands means, and what effect this action has. When Aaron places his hands upon the head of the second goat, he transfers the sins and wrongdoings of the entire people of Israel onto the goat. When the goat is subsequently sent away into the wilderness, the goat carries all of these sins away, giving the Israelites a chance to start over anew from a place of forgiveness and with a clean slate. (Yes, this is precisely the origin of the concept of a "scapegoat": one who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others.)

Having examined this line of Acharei Mot so recently, I can't help but notice now that here in our verse about the blasphemer, the language is nearly identical. "V'samchu et y'deihem," "they [those who heard the blasphemy] laid their hands upon his [the blasphemer's] head" is exactly the same construction and indicates the same action as "v'samach et shtei yadav," "he [Aaron] laid his two hands upon the head of the goat."

If we understand our text (the blasphemer story) as being parallel to the goat story, what might this laying on of hands mean? Could our Torah portion be implying that -- while the blasphemer is the primary culprit (after all, it is he who is ultimately stoned) -- some degree of guilt and culpability also lies with "kol ha-shomim," "all those who heard" his blaspheming words?! What sin or wrong-doing have those-who-heard committed, such that they too need to undergo a ritual of atonement and/or purge what they have heard from themselves? In my reading of it, the Torah seems to be planting the idea that, even without saying a word themselves, "those who have heard" have somehow not only witnessed but also imbibed some of the toxic blasphemy that swirls around them. Some piece of blasphemy continues to live in them too, unless and until they can purge themselves of it!

Today, we find ourselves in a moment when terrible language -- ugliness and extremism -- is rearing its head. Perhaps it's not all "blasphemy" in a technical sense, but we are certainly feeling a rise in virulent speech all around us that, like blasphemy, is offensive, violating and ultimately dangerous! We can find examples of this toxicity in calls to violence coming from both extreme ends of the political spectrum, in conspiracy theories, in attacks on our democracy, through the repetition of lies and falsehoods, and through antisemitic language expressed both overtly and subtlely. As we move about in our lives at this moment in time, we can't help but hear these sound-bites, read the messages scrawled on mailboxes, and see the hateful graffiti and signs all around us. It is human nature that when we consume these messages with regularity, they lose their shock value and we become conditioned to them. What was once not normal becomes normalized; the Overton Window shifts, where violent language is concerned.

The story in our Torah portion focuses mostly on the blasphemer himself -- on his background, his action, and the (extreme) consequence he ultimately faces for his crime. But, reading this passage with a focus on the laying-on-of-hands helps to center "kol ha-shomim," "all those who hear." All of us, and our society as a whole, have the capacity to absorb some of the ick-factor and become tainted by inappropriate and awful language. We know well from our history that there is a direct connection between violent language and violent behavior. (I'm thinking, for example, of how the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin in 1995 emerged from a swirl of extremist rhetoric, how the "Jews will not replace us" chants from Charlottesville in 2017 helped fuel the shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh the following year, and countless other examples.) In an essay called "Shibboleth" (in the May 5, 2024 issue of The New Yorker), Zadie Smith makes the point that "in the case of Israel/Palestine, language and rhetoric are and always have been weapons of mass destruction." 

This rise in problematic language is happening in terrifying ways all around us. On the University of Washington's campus here in Seattle just this Wednesday, students and faculty woke up to graffiti everywhere. This included calls to violence ("Save a life, kill your local colonizer," "By any means necessary"), and even the street addresses of certain individuals scrawled on walls (invitations to go their homes and do what exactly?). In a letter to the campus community from UW President Ana Marie Cauce, acknowledged: 

"This morning our campus community arrived to their classrooms and work spaces to see offensive graffiti across multiple buildings all over campus, some quite clearly both antisemitic and violent, creating an unwelcome and fearful environment for many students, faculty and staff, especially those who are Jewish. Much to my dismay, given the relatively cordial tone of many of our discussions, the representatives also said the new graffiti is an intentional escalation to compel the University to agree to their demands." 

Cauce's letter lists some of the demands she finds most unreasonable and untenable, and draws clear lines about what UW will and won't do. I applaud her efforts to walk a fine line between encouraging free speech and making it clear that toxic hate speech (and also defacement of university property, violence, etc.) is unacceptable (and gosh, I sure wouldn't want to be a university president right about now!). The offensive graffiti has already been quickly removed from UW's campus. I am certain that it does not represent the views of all of the students who have been living in the on-campus protest encampment, many of whom, I have no doubt, simply want to see an end to the mass-casualty war in Gaza. Still, this week's Torah portion has me thinking not only about the few who may have put that graffiti there in the first place, but also about everyone who walked by it, who has seen the images in the newspaper or on social media, or who has read about it. I can't help but wonder what having taken in these hate-filled words has done and will do to the other protestors, to the rest of the students and faculty and staff on campus, to the Jewish community, and to the public at large.

It is hard to know what we can do when we feel the "temperature" of scary rhetoric rising. I certainly don't advocate taking the story in our parasha literally and imposing a death sentence on anyone! But, several ideas in our Torah portion's story of the blasphemer may help us arrive at some conclusions:

1. Offensive and hateful speech must be taken seriously. Whether it's blasphemy or incitement to violent action, we must use the tools at hand to call out dangerous language when we see and hear it. In our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our schools, and in the community at large, we need to be brave and normalize speaking up and speaking out when something isn't right!
   
   

2. The laying on of hands by "all those who have heard" reminds us that all of us are carrying some of this taint with us, even if unwittingly. Acknowledging this helps to make the invisible visible. Only by naming it can we begin to talk about this problem -- our societal desensitization to dangerous rhetoric, the shifting Overton Window -- and problem-solve together about how to address it.
   

3. The language of "kol ha-shomim" ("all who hear") and "kol ha-eidah" ("the entire community") emphasize that we are part of a collective. None of us can solve these societal problems alone, and none of us should even have to face them alone. It is critical to put ourselves in the company of others who also see and hear what we do and are willing to be in it together. At a time like this, community-building is more important work than ever!

As I've said before, we are weathering a hard moment in time, and it may well be the case that things are going to continue to get worse and harder before they get easier and better. Let us work together, honestly naming what we are seeing, reading, and hearing that horrifies us. Let us commit to calling out hateful language and rhetoric that paves the road to violence (the blasphemy of our day) to the best of our ability. Let us find strength and power in community. 

May our words bring us only closer to one another and to all that is holy and good in this world. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Towards Holiness: I and Thou

This week's Torah portion, Kedoshim, opens with a famous command to the Israelites: "Kedoshim tih'yu, ki kadosh ani adonai eloheichem," "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy" (Leviticus 19:2). 

I have always read this line as a topic sentence, and the many verses that follow as answers to the question of how to go about actually striving towards holiness. For example, Kedoshim commands us to revere our parents, keep Shabbat, not turn to idols, leave gleaning in our fields for the poor and the stranger, not swear falsely, not place a stumbling block before the blind, etc. From these examples, we can see that holiness is not relegated to holy time and space -- that is, we are not meant to aspire towards kedusha only on Shabbat and festivals, and not only when we enter into specific sanctified spaces; rather, holiness is something we strive towards each and every day, wherever we may find ourselves.

Building on this idea, as I re-read the opening lines of the parasha this week, I found myself struck by the plural formulation of the phrase "kedoshim tih'yu": "you (plural) should be holy (plural)." It feels like a very fair interpretation -- and perhaps the pshat (face value meaning) of the text -- to extrapolate from these two Hebrew words that the kind of holiness the parasha envisions is only possible in the context of community -- that is, kedusha resides in interpersonal relationships.

A single line of commentary in the Etz Hayim Chumash underscores this idea, citing the work of Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. "For Buber, holiness is found... in human beings recognizing the latent divinity of other people, even as God recognizes the latent divinity in each of us" (page 693).

In unpacking this line a bit more, I'll share that Martin Buber was an Austrian-Jewish philosopher (1878-1965). He is most famous for his 1923 essay on existence entitled Ich und Du (in German, of course) -- and later translated into English with the title I and Thou. The central idea of this work is that there are two fundamentally different kinds of relationships, which he represents with two different word pairs. He calls one the I-It relationship, and the other I-Thou (sometimes translated as I-You). Buber critiques the I-It relationship, which he claims is so ubiquitous in our modern society; to him, this phrase represents objectification in relationships: the way that we might treat other people functionally, as means to an end, failing to recognize their full humanity. The I-Thou relationship, on the other hand, is the aim for Buber: when we address another person as a Thou, we are indirectly addressing God. He writes, "When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them." In other words, interpersonal dialogical relationships -- the kind where human beings encounter one another fully -- is where holiness resides.

Buber sets a very high bar for interpersonal relationships. In fact, one critique of his philosophy of "dialogical community" is that it's incredibly challenging to imagine how we might ever be able to live up to this ideal in our day-to-day lives! What would our interaction with the cashier at the grocery store need to look like if we were to see them in their full humanity and encounter them as a Thou -- a reflection of the divine -- rather than as an It? What about our relationships with our co-workers, family members, the drivers we pass in traffic, the politicians on the other side of the aisle? I-Thou is a tall order, but then again, Parashat Kedoshim seems to purposefully open with a lofty aim: the command to "be holy." 

As we approach Yom HaAtzmaut this coming week, it's hard for me not to lament about how far we are from Israel's own founding vision of a state "based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel" (click here if you're interested in reading Megillat HaAtzmaut, the Israeli Declaration of Independence, in its entirety). Israelis and Palestinians are, in this moment, far from being able to see one another fully. So many obstacles stand in the way -- not least of which are the events that have brought us to this moment in time (and here, I'm talking not only of October 7th and the past seven months, but also many decades of strife) and terrible leadership. As we struggle to find a way to celebrate this milestone of Israel's 76th birthday with hope, I can't help but feel that the key to forging a holy society there lies in Buber's vision of the I-Thou encounter. That is, if people could meet and connect on a deep and human level, could imagine each other as being created in the image of the divine, could hold each other's pain and trauma, and could understand that relationship and dialogue and mutual support is the key to a shared future, then perhaps they might be able to bring a holy society into being. It's painful to feel an enormous gulf between what is and what could be. 

That said, if we hope that peace might someday be achieved through deep relational encounters, it is incumbent upon us to begin the work and to practice. We can begin by trying to achieve I-Thou encounters in our own lives, on a much smaller scale, and closer to home.

I feel incredibly fortunate that I am already surrounded by small examples of these efforts in my day-to-day work and life. Here a couple of examples:

Over the last couple of weeks, I reached out to the college students of the Kavana community to see how they are faring, and I've heard back from so many of them. I'm happy to report that their responses to my questions were sensitive and nuanced. As you'd probably imagine, they expressed the full political and ideological range that any of us might expect of Seattle-raised Jewish college students at this moment in history. In addition to detailed descriptions of the protests happening on their campuses and their assessments of their administrations' handling of protests, antisemitism and more (which varied, of course), many also sent me photos from Passover seders, videos and descriptions of their personal engagement in Jewish/campus life (from tefillin pics to keffiyeh pics!), and examples of art they had created reflecting on what this year has meant on a personal identity level. Most importantly, though, many of them relayed stories about engaging in meaningful dialogue and drawing on their Jewish values as they've tried to create openings for real conversation on their campuses. It's incredibly heartening to me to have these windows into their lives, and particularly meaningful during this week of Parashat Kedoshim to reflect on the ways that Kavana's young adults, having imbibed our community's foundational values, are now indeed working to build holy community in the world beyond.

Another example that is fresh in my mind comes from last night's Kavana Board meeting. The group was discussing our upcoming Annual Partner Meeting (a week from Sunday!): a springtime event that has come to be so prized among our community members that we often hear people say that this is one of their favorite events of the year! I believe that this is the case in part because -- in addition to conveying important information and sharing reports each year -- the board always builds in opportunities for dialogue, face-to-face conversations, and deep personal connection. This year, in particular, one exercise will have people connecting in a multi-generational "turn and talk" format, very intentionally working to forge community across difference, really seeing and learning from one another in a deep way a la Buber's vision of holiness.

This kind of intentional interpersonal encounter is precisely what we're hoping to achieve, as well, through Kavana's upcoming Processing Space on May 23rd. As described in the event blurb, "Kavana will curate a space where each of us can practice unraveling the complex swirl of our thoughts and feelings, articulating our personal reactions with nuance, and listening deeply and reflectively to others who may or may not share our views." (Click here to register for this event.) 

Other upcoming events in the broader Seattle Jewish community also provide opportunities to engage in true spiritual practice around these ideas. Next Tuesday evening, TDHS is hosting a program called: "A Debate for Heaven's Sake: Are Anti-Zionism and Anti-Israel Advocacy New Forms of Antisemitism?" Professor Kenneth Stern and David Bernstein, who hold divergent views, will engage with one another and with the community. Knowing that everyone who might attend will be bound to encounter at least some ideas with which they disagree, this event could be viewed as a chance to practice holy listening. And the following Sunday, May 19th, the Stroum JCC is hosting a workshop called "Speaking Across Conflict" -- offered in conjunction with Resetting the Table, and co-sponsored by the JCRC, etc -- designed to help participants safely explore differences and discover ways to creatively problem-solve and respond to escalating, charged and polarizing conversations. For anyone interested, this is a chance to gain foundational skills to facilitate deep, relationship-based conversations.

Finally, some of you may have seen the beautiful letter drafted this week by a large group of Jewish students at Columbia University who wanted to be able to speak in their own name. This is a deeply relational letter, addressing peers with whom they disagree; I appreciated its tone and approach as much as its content. In fact, Jewish Studies scholar Joshua Shanes takes issue with some of the content, but also managed to write a thoughtful response that serves as a beautiful model for how we might see one another and engage in debates and an exchange of ideas respectfully -- even and especially when we disagree -- in ways that recognize one another's humanity and dignity. To me, both of these writings contain some modicum of kedusha (holiness).

On this week of of Parashat Kedoshim, I want to challenge each of us to try to "be holy" by engaging in the deep relational work that Buber calls I-Thou. This might entail sitting face-to-face with another human being who we don't know well and asking questions from a place of curiosity (rather than to convince). This might entail engaging in a hard conversation -- teasing out points of disagreement respectfully -- while still listening deeply. This might entail trying to go through a week -- or maybe just a day or part of an hour -- with conscious attention placed on the idea that every other human being we encounter is a reflection of the divine, and that through our interaction, we have the potential to bring holiness into the world. Whatever your starting point, I suggest we each begin small and close to home, in the holy work of striving to see the hidden divinity in one another.

And then, from that small starting place, I pray that we may be inspired by the Talmudic principle about holiness: "ma'alin ba-kodesh v'ein moridin," that "we (aspire to) ascend in holiness, and never descend."

Wishing you a Shabbat Kodesh, a holy Sabbath, 

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Amos, the Z word, and Campus Protests

It's been quite a whirlwind of a week for me. I enjoyed the Pesach holiday immensely, but diving back into my inbox afterwards and catching up on news of campus protests has had my head spinning. If you are feeling exhausted or overwhelmed by the swirl of the news cycle, or if you don't want to think too hard right now about the topics of Zionism and campus protests, please feel free to skip this one... you have my permission to move straight into Shabbat mode!

If you are interested in entering into the swirl with me, though, I want to start from this week's haftarah*, which caught my eye. (*A haftarah is a reading from one of the books of Nevi'im/Prophets, chosen to pair with the weekly Torah portion.) The haftarah paired with Parashat Acharei Mot (by Ashkenazic Jews, at least) is Amos 9:7-15, which begins with the following verse:

"To Me, O Israelites, you are just like the Cushites—declares GOD. True, I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt, but also the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir."

This text seems to be saying: You (Israelites) are just like all the other nations: like the Cushites, the Philistines, the Arameans. Do not think that you are so special; you are "normal," and I'm going to treat you like I treat all the other nations of the world.

This is a stunning assertion: one that flies in the face of so many other core Jewish texts, which seem to promise that the people of Israel have a special and unique relationship with God, one that sets them (us) apart. That other notion appears in next week's Torah reading, Kedoshim, for example, in the famous words: "You shall be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy, and I have set you apart from other peoples to be Mine" (Leviticus 20:26). And strikingly, even the prophet Amos himself had expressed this opposite sentiment years earlier, when he said: 

"Concerning the whole family that I [God] brought up from the land of Egypt: You alone have I singled out, of all the families of the earth. That is why I call you to account for all of your iniquities." (Amos 3:1-2). 

So which is it? Are the Israelites to be considered just like all the other nations of the world, and held to the same standards? Or, are the Israelites singled out by God for a unique and special relationship, one that potentially holds them to even higher ethical standards? Amos seems to want to have it both ways!! 

Amos lived in the 8th Century BCE; he is one of the earliest Israelite prophets who railed against both the southern kingdom of Judah and especially the northern kingdom of Israel for their ritual and moral failings (at a time when the tribes of Israel had split into two factions under separate monarchies). But even that early in our people's collective history, we see this tension, endemic to our Jewish tradition, between whether we are to think of ourselves as "normal" or "special." 

A similar tension plays out in the history of modern Zionism,* and in conceptions of the State of Israel. [*Yes, I know that the word Zionism is loaded right now, but I want to talk about it anyway. Here, I am thinking specifically about the 19th and early 20th Century ideas that resulted in -- and continue to manifest in -- the modern State of Israel. It's important to note that there has never been a single Zionist ideology, but rather, multiple streams of Zionism, with tensions and competing ideas and ideals.] Today, I want to highlight and contrast two different ideological streams: political Zionism and cultural Zionism.

Political Zionism's core aim, in a nutshell, was to preserve and protect Jews. Theodor Herzl is often considered the founder of modern political Zionism; in the wake of the antisemitism he witnessed in the Dreyfus Affair, he envisioned giving the Jewish people a homeland where they could build a country that would function much like all the other countries of the world. (Keep in mind that he was thinking and writing in the late 19th century, at the height of nation-state nationalism.) This focus on "normalcy" -- on building a regular state that would protect regular Jews -- was picked up by leaders of the fledgling state decades later. David Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, is widely quoted as having said, "We will know we have become a normal country when Jewish thieves and Jewish prostitutes conduct their business in Hebrew." (What a vision... Jewish thieves and prostitutes!)

In contrast to political Zionism, cultural Zionism held that the point of Zionism was to preserve Judaism and its ethical standards. In this alternative Zionist vision, championed by Ahad HaAm and others, the state becomes merely a means to an end, and much less the focus. Instead of encouraging Jews to try to be a national group like every other, cultural Zionism centers a more ethical form of connection, an embodiment of Judaism's highest values and aims. Simon Rawidowicz expresses this sentiment when he writes that he doesn't want to see a nation of "goyim she-m'dabrim ivrit" ("non-Jews who speak Hebrew"). If the Jewish people's collective vision is to be just like all the other nations of the world, they will inevitably have the same problems and politics; rather, cultural Zionism strives for a higher ideal.

For many decades, we in the American Jewish community -- much like the prophet Amos -- have wanted to have it both ways, that is, to hold political and cultural Zionism together. We have wanted Israel to be "normal" -- in the sense of functioning and being treated like any other country in the world. And, we have simultaneously asserted that Israel is a "special" kind of nation, in that it embodies the ethical ideals of a diaspora Jewish community. No doubt you have heard both of these sentiments expressed -- both overtly and implicitly -- by leaders of Jewish organizations, over many years and decades and also specifically over the last seven months. 

This year -- in the wake of October 7th and as the War in Gaza has unfolded -- it has been increasingly difficult for the American Jewish community to hold both of these visions together. One way of understanding the dynamics currently playing out in the American Jewish community is to imagine that these ideologies are slowly disentangling from one another. One flank of the American Jewish community is clinging to a vision of political Zionism, which prioritizes the survival and self-preservation of Jews. This group asks: If Israel is "normal," then why is it being singled out for political protest? (Why is no one protesting about what's happening in Sudan, or the plight of the Rohingyas or Uighur Muslims in China?!") This pocket of the Jewish community -- which has moved increasingly to the right (often aligning with Evangelical Christians) -- believes that American Jews must defend the State of Israel and offer it unwavering support... that is, in fact, what it means to be Jewish today.

Another flank -- including many young people who were raised on the vision of ethical ideals and "tikkun olam" values that undergird cultural Zionism -- are advocating for the application of Jewish ethical ideals universally, including specifically to the Palestinian cause. Many of these folks have now consciously walked away from the terminology of Zionism -- calling themselves either non-Zionist or anti-Zionist Jews -- in an attempt to say that political Zionism's idea of a state that protects Jews first and foremost is simply not aligned with their universal, progressive ethics. In its most radical version, this far-left flank has increasingly applied this vision in a way that translates into abandoning or actively working against the State of Israel, as it champions the Palestinian cause.

Unfortunately, the campus protests have -- to a large degree -- played into the either/or thinking of how these two ideologies have come to feel like a black-or-white choice. (Certainly not all who have attended protests or counter-protests are at the poles I'm sketching out here, but those extreme voices, chants, signs, etc are certainly getting a lot of airtime and attention!) Meanwhile, a broad tent -- one that used to be called progressive Zionism -- has been increasingly pulled apart as our society has become more and more polarized (not only about this issue, but certainly here). As for me, I am finding toxicity on both far ends of the political spectrum... and I want to decry antisemitism on both the far right and on the far left, violence on both the far right and the far left. 

You probably won't be surprised to hear me say that through the protests and counter-protests, we are seeing what I believe to be a false dichotomy. As I've said before, I think we shouldn't have to choose between caring about Jews or caring about Palestinians (we need not pick a side, such that being pro-Israel means anti-Palestinian or pro-Palestinian means anti-Israel). We need not choose between commitments to our own safety as Jews, on the one hand, and to striving to uphold the highest of ethical ideals, on the other... in fact, now is precisely the time as a Jewish community to embrace a both/and approach. 

The backdrop I've offered here -- about the tension that has always existed between political Zionism and cultural Zionism -- is a partial explanation as to why the Z-word has come to feel so toxic in this moment. Different people are using the word Zionism in different ways as they either embrace or reject a “Zionist” ideology. Because these labels mean so many different things to different people, Kavana has always welcomed — and continues to welcome — people who use all of these labels and also none at all. 

While it has felt like the world is on fire — with violent confrontations between extremists dominating the news about the campus protests — I have been looking for camaraderie, for voices of sanity and pragmatism, for fellow travelers (regardless of label) who share my core belief that this is not a zero-sum game, and that the only way peace can be achieved is through Israelis and Palestinians embracing a shared future. It is not easy to reclaim this space, but I want to lift up some of the many voices that I've found to be thoughtful and interesting ones this week in particular:

• Rabbi Sharon Brous, my colleague at IKAR, has continued to be a beacon of light and hope during this time. Her sermon from last Shabbat, entitled "A Righteous Protest Calls for Collective Liberation," is a must watch! She also gave a beautiful interview on CBC's As it Happens yesterday about a powerful moment of unity she experienced at UCLA this week: click here to listen.
  

• For those looking specifically for Palestinian perspectives, I want to recommend this blog post from Mo Husseini, who lives here in the Pacific Northwest (h/t to Daniel Sokatch of NIF for sharing this with me); Twitter accounts like this one, about the UCLA protest, from Palestinian-American activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib; and the NYT profile of Issa Amro, a nonviolent activist in the West Bank (our 2022 Multinarratives Israel/Palestine trip had the privilege of meeting with him in his home in Hebron!).
  

• On the journalism side, the Forward has featured a number of interesting Opinion pieces this week. I also recommend Nicholas Kristof's NYT opinion piece of a couple days ago entitled "How Protestors Can Actually Help Palestinians."

I expect that this Kavana community -- with its wide range of views -- will have lots of thoughts about all of this (Zionism, the campus protests, and more!). I look forward to continuing these conversations with all of you, and over the coming weeks, Kavana will continue to offer program spaces where real dialogue and an authentic exchange of ideas can take place.

With fervent prayers for peace this Shabbat -- both on our college campusesand in the holy land -- and also prayers for safety, justice, liberation and hope for all Israelis and Palestinians. 

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Musings on Love: Shabbat Chol HaMoed Pesach

I hope you are having a lovely Pesach. I had the rare privilege this year of sitting around the seder table with both my parents and my children... which was quite meaningful and had me thinking even more deeply about the generational transmission theme I reflected on here last week. Meanwhile, the presence of these generations at my seder table also brought another key theme of the season to the forefront for me: love. Indeed, love is one of the dominant themes for Shabbat of Chol HaMoed Pesach, the Shabbat we enter into this evening, during the intermediate days of Passover.

Because of the festival of Pesach, this Shabbat we depart from our "regularly scheduled program" of the weekly Torah reading cycle (where we're currently in the middle of Leviticus) and instead flip back to the Book of Exodus to read 33:12-34:26. As our text picks up, the Israelites have already left Egypt, and have already made the colossal error of the golden calf. Now, Moses, standing at Sinai, says to God: “See, You say to me, ‘Lead this people forward,’ but You have not made known to me whom You will send with me. Further, You have said, ‘I have singled you out by name, and you have, indeed, gained My favor. Now, if I have truly gained Your favor, pray let me know Your ways, that I may know You and continue in Your favor. Consider, too, that this nation is Your people.”

As the story unfolds -- and I encourage you to read through it if you aren't already familiar -- Moses continues to express a desire to be close to God, to understand how God works, and to "behold God's Presence." Although he isn't permitted to see God's face, he does have an intimate experience of the Divine, as God passes before him while he is sheltered in the cleft of a rock. The Torah reading for this Shabbat is rich with the emotional actions that make up so many love stories: yearning, intimacy, mutual disclosure, and mutual commitment, to name a few examples.

As if to underscore the love theme, our tradition also has us chant the Book of Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs) on this Shabbat of Pesach. At face value, Shir HaShirim is very ancient (and racy!) love poetry, set in a lush garden. Lovers praise each other's physical characteristics, yearn for one another, play hide-and-seek with one another. I used to scoff at the fact that rabbinic tradition reads this biblical book metaphorically, as fundamentally being about the love relationship between God and the Jewish people (why, I wondered, couldn't they deal with the face value, that the text depicts a human love story?!). Over time, however, I've come to see the importance of this traditional lens, as poetry and metaphor often work a lot better than philosophical treatises for trying to "do theology," enabling us to articulate and share our experiences of and beliefs about God, including the mutual yearning and love we imagine.

Just a few weeks ago, a new book was released that I'm already certain will be one of the most important Jewish works of our generation and an enduring contribution to every Jewish library: my colleague and friend Shai Held's new book Judaism is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life. In the introduction to the book, Held makes the claim that "Judaism is built on the idea that God loves us and beckons us to love God back." Perhaps this seems obvious (after all, this is indeed the central idea of the prayers Ahavah Rabbah / Ahavat Olam and Shema), but in many ways, this book is Held's attempt to offer a corrective to the notion that Christianity -- and not Judaism -- centers the concept of love. [As an aside, if you're at all interested in this topic, I strongly encourage you to go to your favorite independent bookstore and purchase a copy; here at Kavana we are already planning that Rabbi Jay and Bruce's "Classics of Mussar" group will be reading and discussing this book together in the early fall!]

Coming off of my multigenerational seder experience, I especially appreciate Held's treatment of the family as a key setting for love. He writes that fundamentally, running a household is about creating a place where children can be surrounded with unconditional love. If our children are filled up with love there, we create the conditions that then allow them to walk into the world capable of love, able to put love into action (through acts of compassion, etc.). In Held's words, "an aspiration for what a Jewish home is is a school for love." (These concepts are explained at length in chapter 4 of his book, or you can click here to see a recent interview with Held at Harvard Hillel... scroll to the 45-51 minute mark to catch this part of the discussion.) 

This week, I have felt incredibly blessed... indeed, filled with the love that my parents have always surrounded me with, and mindful of the ways that as a parent, I am also trying to create a loving environment for my own kids. I am grateful, as I am keenly aware that not everyone is so fortunate to have grown up in such a loving and positive home; as Shai Held says in the interview linked above, "For many of us, our experiences of love were different. In that case, this [attempt to channel love] is repairing, creating an alternative." 

Over the past few days, I've also felt the centrality of intergenerational familial love as I watched a pair of new videos released this week: one created by Hamas of American/Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg Polin, and another, a response, filmed by his parents, Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin. Hersh's video ends with a message for his family: "I love you so much, and I think about you every day." And their video echoes that sentiment: "Hersh, we heard your voice today for the first time in 201 days, and if you can hear us, we are telling you: We love you, stay strong, survive." The mutual love the Goldberg-Polin family expresses is such a poignant -- and excruciatingly painful -- reminder that this Passover, we are all still residing in a world of brokenness and bitter constraint, yearning for redemption, on so many levels.

Switching directions for a moment, I also want to share that I believe that a spiritual community like Kavana can also serve as an extension of the kind of family and household that Held describes: a place where we can receive and be filled with love, and then readied to encounter the world as givers and conveyors of love. I received a note earlier this week from someone in the Kavana community who attended Rabbi Jay's Kabbalat Shabbat service last Friday evening, having gone specifically to say Kaddish in the wake of a death of a loved one. Abbe wrote: "After saying Kaddish, so many people came up to talk to me about E. Yes, I cried and it was hard, but it was also pretty amazing. I felt so 'held up' by everyone who was there... as if we were dominos holding/supporting each other from behind and the side. I was in the front and my heart and lungs were open to feel that connection that the community gave to me." This is such a beautiful description of what it can look and feel like to allow ourselves to be vulnerable with one another and to experience the love and support of community. Receiving love in this way makes us capable of transmitting love to those around us, and acting with love (chesed/compassion) in the world. What a lovely encapsulation of the true value of the work we do each and every day as we build this Jewish spiritual community together!

Finally, in a guest essay that ran in the NY Times Opinion section last week ("Passover's Radical Message is More Vital Than Ever"), Shai Held extends the concept of receiving and giving love to the holiday at hand. Of the Passover story, he writes: "We are meant to live with a sense of gratitude and indebtedness to the God who set us free." This, he argues, is what leads us to empathy for the stranger, and ultimately to the radical biblical mandate to love the stranger as well. In Held's words again: "To tell the story of our past is always also to internalize an ethical injunction for our present and our future: to love the stranger, for we know what it feels like to be a stranger — we know the vulnerability, the anxiety and the loneliness — having ourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt."

As we move into this special Shabbat of Chol HaMoed Pesach, I want to wish our whole community a Shabbat filled with love. May we each use this opportunity to recall just how loved we are and have always been (whether by God, by our parents, by surrogate family, by a romantic partner, by our children, and/or by our community). With keen awareness of the great love we have received and continue to receive, may we cultivate within ourselves a love of others so abundant that it will overflow and spread to those around us, extending to our family members and friends, to our neighbors and also to the stranger. 

May love help us bring our world one step closer to redemption this Passover.

Shabbat Shalom - with much love,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Embracing Both/And this Pesach (and, hear us on KUOW!)

The Shabbat we'll enter into this evening is nicknamed "Shabbat HaGadol," "the Great Shabbat" -- so called because Jews everywhere turn our attention towards Pesach! Indeed, here in the Kavana community, so many conversations in recent weeks have already been focused around the central question of how to approach the Passover holiday in this very fraught year.

The Haftarah for Shabbat HaGadol features the famous words of the prophet Malachi: "Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you... and he shall reconcile parents with children and children with their parents" (Malachi 3:23-24). Here, Malachi is leaning into one of the central themes of the Passover holiday: generational transmission. Fundamentally, this holiday, and particularly the seder ritual, pushes us to articulate and share -- from one generation to the next -- the central story of who we are as a people. 

But of course, there's not a single "right" central idea that needs to be conveyed (oy, how Jewish!). This week in Living Room Learning, we had a chance to dig into two key statements from the Haggadah's Maggid section, both of which contain the phrase "b'chol dor vador," "in each and every generation." They are:

1) Haggadah - middle of Maggid (after “our ancestors were idol worshippers")

וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְלָנוּ. שֶׁלֹּא אֶחָד בִּלְבַד עָמַד עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ, אֶלָּא שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר עוֹמְדִים עָלֵינוּ לְכַלוֹתֵנוּ, וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם

And it is this that has stood for our ancestors and for us; since it is not [only] one [person or nation] that has stood [against] us to destroy us, but rather in each and every generation, they stand [against] us to destroy us, but the Holy Blessed One rescues us from their hand.

2) Haggadah - towards end of Maggid (after Rabban Gamliel’s 3 symbols; before Hallel)

בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת־עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר, בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה ה' לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִּצְרַיִם. לֹא אֶת־אֲבוֹתֵינוּ בִּלְבַד גָּאַל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, אֶלָּא אַף אוֹתָנוּ גָּאַל עִמָּהֶם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְאוֹתָנוּ הוֹצִיא מִשָּׁם, לְמַעַן הָבִיא אוֹתָנוּ, לָתֶת לָנוּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֵינו

In each and every generation, a person is obligated to see himself as if he left Egypt, as it is stated (Exodus 13:8); "And you shall explain to your son on that day: For the sake of this, did the Lord do [this] for me in my going out of Egypt." Not only our ancestors did the Holy Blessed One redeem, but rather also us [together] with them did God redeem, as it is stated (Deuteronomy 6:23); "And [Adonai] took us out from there, in order to bring us in, to give us the land which [God] swore unto our fathers."

The first statement focuses us on the long arc of Jewish history, and the fact that in each generation, some "they" has inevitably risen up against our people. From here, we might conclude that Passover is fundamentally a story about our collective survival in the face of a hostile world. 

The second statement, in contrast, reminds us that each of us, personally, has an obligation to try to relate to the feeling of having been oppressed and redeemed. This concept is the animating force behind the Torah's repeated commands about not wronging or oppressing a stranger (in the negative formulation) and about loving the stranger (in the positive formulation), "for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (see Exodus 23:9, Leviticus 19:33-34, and many other biblical examples!). In this telling, the central story of Passover is that -- based on our own history of oppression -- we must root out oppression wherever we see it manifest in the world.

In the wake of October 7th and the events that have unfolded in Gaza, Israel, and around the world every day since, these two statements may tug against each other. Some Jews (depending on affiliation, generation, political leanings, etc.) may be tempted to embrace and champion one of these statements and to dismiss the other. But the placement of both of these ideas in the haggadah urges us to adopt a both/and approach: embracing tensions and paradox, and dealing with the messiness and complexity of a world in which both have some merit. (Yes, it's okay to care about both the rise of antisemitism and the plight of Palestinians, the safety of Jews in America and Israel and a wide range of other social justice issues. Passover can be about all of that and more!) This both/and approach also manifests in our food symbols, as we dip the green vegetable of spring into the salt water of tears, and eat the bitter herbs together with sweet charoset.

As to how to hold space for the hard but important conversations that may happen around the table at Passover, we also talked about that on Wednesday evening at LRL. There, I shared a set of guidelines for this year's seder compiled by Rabbi Amy Eilberg (who has a long rabbinical career in peace work):

• Speak in the first person about your experiences and opinions. 

• Share from a place of authenticity about what causes you pain and brings you joy. 

• Speak for understanding, not persuasion or agreement. 

• Agree to be awkward and know that your contributions will be received with care. 

• Give everyone at the table the benefit of the doubt. 

• Approach each other with curiosity. 

• Listen actively and generously. 

• Love each other.

I hope that some of you will find these guidelines to be helpful, as you approach your own seders.

Finally, if you are feeling some degree of angst or trepidation as we head into Passover, please know that you are far from alone! In fact, KUOW reporter Sarah Leibovitz produced a 15-minute radio piece that aired yesterday, entitled "Intergenerational Tension: How Seattle Jews are Considering Passover this Year." Click here to give it a listen (through the Soundside's Apple Podcast) or click here to listen and read (through the KUOW website)... and when you do, you may notice that mine is not the only voice from within the Kavana community (shout out to Tamara Erickson and Tracy Brazg!). To me, this only reinforces how special it is that we here at Kavana are working hard to hold open a wide tent of views around Israel, and to engage in real conversations grounded in our Jewish values and texts, even (and especially) across difference.

This year especially, may multiple generations sit around seder tables everywhere, expounding on our exodus from Egypt, and discussing what it means to be a Jew today! Wishing you a meaningful and joyous Pesach next week, and meanwhile, a Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Agency and Liberation, from Tazria to Arizona

Parashat Tazria begins by considering the case of "isha ki tazria," "a woman who is pregnant." After giving birth, the Torah says, a woman becomes ritually impure for a period of time and then must bring specific sacrifices in order to return to a state of ritual purity and be readmitted into the religious life of the Israelite community.

This section -- Leviticus 12:1-8 -- is a pretty technical text (on par with much of the Book of Leviticus in that way), and the details of the purity laws and word choices spark many worthy questions. Torah commentators wonder, for example, why the woman who gives birth is considered impure in the first place, why the duration of her impurity differs based on the sex of the baby, and why must she bring a chattat/sin-offering at all (does this imply wrong-doing?!). These are all important questions, and while our tradition is rich with answers and interpretation about these, none of them are what I want to focus on at the moment.

Instead, as I read this text of Tazria this week, my eye is drawn to the activity of the woman herself, the one who was pregnant and now has given birth. "On the completion of her period of purification, for either son or daughter, she shall bring to the priest, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, a lamb in its first year for a burnt offering and a pigeon or turtledove for a purification offering" (Lev. 12:6). I am struck that, just weeks after having given birth, a new mother is instructed to leave her home, to gather multiple animals, and to physically bring them to the Tent of Meeting. The text even allows for the possibility that she might not be able to afford all the requisite animals (Lev. 12:8): "If, however, her means do not suffice for a sheep, she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons..." It seems that she can determine for herself what she can afford, and make the swap in sacrificial animals at her own discretion if necessary. Her husband or the birth father is nowhere in sight in this text; no one else makes decisions for her or acts as her representative or her emissary. In short, the isha (woman) in our Torah portion acts with remarkable agency in undertaking a public mission on her own behalf. Through her decisions and actions, she alone exercises control over her own ritual status and earns her re-entry into the sanctuary and the Israelite community.

In the midrashic collection Vayikra Rabbah, the primary midrashic work on the Book of Leviticus, the ancient rabbis find a major hook in the phrase "isha ki tazria," "the woman who is pregnant." Onto it, they hang many many midrashim (the entire chapter of Vayikra Rabbah 14), which emphasize and expound upon the incredible miracles that lie behind human reproduction. The rabbis were not reproductive endocrinologists or obstetricians (and their understanding of biology and anatomy certainly leaves something to be desired!), but they did have some sense of just how many things had to go right in order for a pregnancy to occur in the first place, and just how many more things had to go right in order for any pregnancy to result in a live birth. They marvel at conception, the protection that the womb affords, fetal development, and the process of labor and birth itself. The midrashim reinforce the underlying understanding (which is ubiquitous across Jewish legal and textual tradition) that until birth, an embryo or fetus has the potential to develop into a full human life but meanwhile exists as an extension of a woman's body. They deduce that behind every human being who comes into existence (including, of course, each and every one of us!), there were not only two humans who played a role in this creation but also a third partner: God. 

In Arizona this week, the State Supreme Court ruled that an old 1864 law -- a near-total abortion ban (outlawing abortion in every case except to save the life of the mother) -- will once again stand as the law of the land. Historian and political analyst Heather Cox Richardson wrote this week about the context of this bit of Arizona's 1864 criminal code, which appears side-by-side with other laws seeking to curb many forms of male misbehavior: dueling, poisoning, maiming and more. Pointing out that this law was drafted by a single man and first became law at a time when only men could vote, she writes, "Written to police the behavior of men, the code tells a larger story about power and control."

Like many of you, I'm sure, I was educated to believe in the progressive sweep of history: that is, the core idea that over time, societies progress politically, culturally, or otherwise. In both the development of Judaism from ancient times to today and also within our American society, I grew up seeing evidence that human conditions, rights, and freedom generally improved over time. This was particularly true of women's rights, including reproductive rights. It has been jarring over the last handful of years to feel -- both in our American political realm, and also in some of the enacted expressions of Judaism we see -- that things are actually moving in the wrong direction: away from progress, freedom and expanded rights and instead towards increased tolerance of sexism, homophobia, patriarchy, racism, and xenophobia. Laws, as in Arizona, that restrict and constrain the bodily autonomy of women around fertility and childbirth are far from the only indicator of this, but they stand as clear and tangible examples that right now, some forces in our American society are pulling in the wrong direction.

It feels a little wild to sit here in the year 2024 and read texts as ancient as this part of Leviticus and its rabbinic midrashim -- all of which have previously felt archaic, quaint, and/or problematic to me -- and instead feel tempted to hold them up as examples or targets. And yet, that's exactly where my mind goes this week. Our parasha, which bears the name of the "isha ki tazria," "the woman who is pregnant," fundamentally instructs women to act with empowerment and agency. Its laws -- about how a postpartum woman is to gain re-admittance into the sanctuary and into the religious life of the Israelite community -- necessarily assume that she belongs there in the first place! Admittedly this is not the highest bar of equality I can imagine; however, shouldn't we expect at least this much of all 50 American states in the year 2024?!

May this Shabbat bring us one step closer to freedom and expansiveness, equality and agency for all... after all, this is our season of (collective) liberation! 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Approaching Nissan / My Story of the Past 180 Days

This Shabbat has a special name and function: Shabbat HaChodesh ("the Shabbat of the month") is the Shabbat that announces the new Hebrew month of Nissan. This means, too, that Pesach is just around the corner... the festival of sacred story-telling, collective identity, affliction and joy.

In honor of this special Shabbat and the arrival of the month of Nissan this coming Monday night/Tuesday, I wanted to take this opportunity to tell my own version of the story of this year (or at least one piece of it), from my vantage point as one of Kavana's two rabbis.

A year ago, as some of you may recall, I was preparing for my first ever sabbatical. This much-needed break happened for me in May, June, and July 2023; my fellow Kavana staff members all pitched in to cover my responsibilities in my absence. I had a glorious few months of down-time, filled with family, friends, and travel, and I returned to the office in late summer feeling quite refreshed... and with many ideas about how we might integrate all that we learned from my sabbatical time into Kavana's organization and being. First, however, August and September promised to be busy months, with the High Holidays and the launch of our busy program calendar. And so, there was lots that I looked forward to doing "after the chagim"... meaning, beginning the week of October 9th.

Of course, the "Black Sabbath" of October 7th stopped us all in our tracks. I'm not going to recount all the details of the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel here. I will, however, share that by that evening as the Kavana community gathered for Simchat Torah, it was already clear to me that my workload for the year was going to look totally different than I had initially envisioned. 

The Kavana community has weathered crises before (a financial downturn, the Trump election, Covid!), and we have developed strong muscles for caring for one another and for jumping into action. Quickly, though, it felt apparent to me that there wasn't a single communal crisis unfolding for us after October 7th, but rather many different crises. Kavana's community is diverse, particularly when it comes to relationships with Israel (there are folks with very strong ties to Israel and with weaker ties, a political spectrum that ranges from progressive left to centrist, etc.). During October and November, I had more one-on-one pastoral meetings than I can count, and tried to serve as a sounding board for members of our community who were reeling (as was I) in the wake of both the initial attacks and also the retaliatory war that Israel was beginning to wage in Gaza. Like so many of you, I was consuming news reports at all hours of day and night, not sleeping much, and totally caught up in the drama of violence that Palestinians and Israelis were experiencing half a world away (and yet so close to my heart!). On a programming level, Kavana hosted a few specific gatherings around current events (e.g. a "Sanctuary Space" for sharing, song, and art; a podcast discussion group), but mostly, our programmatic "response" happened in already-established settings (e.g. the addition of special poetry and new liturgy in our Friday night and Saturday morning services, the adjusting of Living Room Learning topics/texts to help us reflect on relevant topics like the roots of human violence).

In November and December, pastoral conversations of course continued, but a new chapter began on top of that. Kavana partners started reaching out -- first in a trickle, and then a steady stream -- to run "language" by me. This language came from corporate memos, nonprofits' statements, and emails from schools and departments about what was happening in the Middle East. Some of these communications tried harder than others to be balanced or nuanced; many made me cringe because they were woefully one-sided or had antisemitic undertones. Over Thanksgiving week -- as we all watched a ritual of daily hostage exchanges unfold during a temporary ceasefire "over there" -- closer to home, the Seattle Jewish community was arguing over multiple drafts of a City Council resolution about Israel/Palestine. Wordsmithing was the activity-du-jour... and also felt to me like an incredible time-suck; however, the critical role that Kavana played in serving as a bridge between the "organized Jewish community" and the progressive Jewish left felt incredibly important.

The winter and early spring months brought additional challenges and opportunities as well. As Harvard, Penn and MIT's presidents testified before Congress about antisemitism on their campuses, hateful graffiti and politics-in-classrooms surfaced as local issues too. Many high schools and colleges have been struggling with how to balance between free speech and the safety of Jewish (and also Palestinian, Muslim and Middle Eastern) students on their campuses. Questions about where Jews and antisemitism fit into DEI frameworks have arisen everywhere. At Kavana, a couple of small support groups formed, rather organically, as community members sought peer support around questions such as these. In March, the local Jewish community launched a new initiative (Call it Antisemitism) to invite allies to join with the Jewish community in standing up to prevent anti-Jewish harm.

Throughout the past 180+ days, the situation in Israel and Gaza has continued to devolve. I know -- because I'm still taking lots of walks and having coffee dates with many of you -- that I am in good company here in the Kavana community in continuing to feel a deep sense of anguish at the totality of this awful situation. My heart is with Israelis, an entire nation still reeling and feeling the repercussions of October 7th (nothing there is back to normal, even six months out). My heart is also broken over the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, who are experiencing levels of violence, hunger, disease and trauma that are hard to fathom. I (like so many Israelis) am angry with the Netanyahu government, whose actions seem to me to be endangering Israel and the Jewish people far more than contributing to their/our safety; I am embarrassed at the disregard the Israeli military has shown for protecting Palestinian civilians, journalists, and even foreign aid workers. (I recently contributed to a drive called "Rabbis for World Central Kitchen"... but no amount of support I might send feels like it could be more than a symbolic drop in the bucket in the face of such a black hole of human suffering.) Stepping back and looking at the broader geopolitical context is enough to make my mind spin.

As we enter into Nissan this coming week, we will turn the corner again towards yet another new chapter of our Jewish year. The stretch that takes us from Nissan and Passover to Shavuot contains within it all of the "yoms": Yom HaZikaron (Israel's Memorial Day), Yom HaAtzmaut (Israel's Independence Day) and Yom Yerushalayim (marking the reunification of Jerusalem in Jewish hands in 1967). In other words, this is a time of the year when the modern Jewish calendar forces our focus to be on our relationship with Israel. This year, of course, the events of the past six months will inform Kavana's programmatic approach. This year, more than ever, it won't be possible for me to mourn for fallen Israeli soldiers without also mourning for the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians who have been killed in recent months; to celebrate Israel's birthday without also reflecting on how 1948 is "the Nakba" ("catastrophe") in the eyes of Palestinians; to mark 1967 as the triumphant Jewish return to Jerusalem's Old City without also lamenting the start of an Occupation that continues to this day. 

Through the compound crises of the last six months, I am proud that we have managed to stay true to Kavana's core values. As a spiritual community, I'm grateful that we have been able to focus resources (particularly staff time and energy) on providing pastoral support to our people at a time of difficulty. As a pluralistic community, it's been critically important that we have continued modeling a wide-tent approach rather than drawing red lines. 

Now, building on the foundation of the work we have already undertaken, I feel ready to move forward programmatically this spring. I am so grateful to Kavana’s incredibly talented and hard-working staff, to our thoughtful board, and to key partners and lay leaders (so many of you!) who have helped to generate ideas about what kind of approach will feel most authentic for our community. We've decided to take a multi-pronged approach, developing a program series which will unfold over the coming few months (April/May/June). Hopefully this will allow everyone to find some pathway that feels interesting, helpful, and connective (without assuming that a one-size-fits-all approach will work for our diverse community). By creating new inputs and opportunities, we hope to help members of the Kavana community deepen their knowledge and understanding, and practice being in a community where substantive issues are discussed with nuance and where relationships are forged even across political difference.

Practically, here's what we're currently envisioning: a series of events this spring, through which, members of the Kavana community will have the opportunity to:

• engage from an intellectual/academic perspective. We will be hosting an Adult Ed session that takes a side-by-side approach to examining the very different Israeli and Palestinian narratives that were constructed around key historical events, as a backdrop to understanding current events and narratives.

• engage with personal narratives and accounts from individuals on the ground. We are setting up a Zoom session with the Palestinian and Israeli tour-guides who guided our 2022 Kavana-Mishkan trip (Emili and Karmit), where we can hear about what the last six months have felt like from their vantage points in the West Bank and Israel respectively and engage in an interactive Q&A session.

• engage in emotionally-intelligent group processing spaces. Kavana will curate a space where we can practice unraveling the complex swirl of feelings and articulating our personal reactions and thoughts with nuance, and also practice deep/reflective listening techniques.

• engage through the lens of Jewish ritual, wisdom, and liturgy. I will be teaching a Living Room Learning session in advance of Pesach where we'll delve into key questions for this year's seder; when he returns from parental leave, Rabbi Jay will be leading additional sessions on the Mussar of peace-building.

With regard to this whole program series, I ask that you stay tuned for details (coming soon!). Again, I want to thank the many Kavana partners who have served as sounding boards for me and the Kavana staff, who have stepped forward to generate and shape these ideas, and who are helping to plan and execute all of the programs described above. 

Lastly, I want to mention that there are also many events that have been pulled together by other local Jewish organizations. (Truly, we are fortunate to live in the Seattle area, where there is such a wealth of opportunities to learn and engage right here in our community!) Again, I do not assume that all of these will be of interest to or a fit for every member of the Kavana community, but I do believe that there's probably something on this list that will interest the majority of you: 

• Shir Nosatzki of the New Israel Fund (a leading Israeli activist for Jewish Arab partnership) will be speaking at Congregation Beth Shalom on Wednesday, April 10th at 7pm. The session is called Jewish-Arab Political Partnership Towards a Shared Future in Israel. (In addition, a Kavana partner who is involved in NIF will be hosting a smaller session with Shir the following evening, Thursday, April 11th. If you're interested in being part of this more intimate gathering and supporting NIF, please let me know and I'll put you in touch with the host directly.)
  

• Nadav Tamir of JStreet (the former Israel Consul General and JStreet Israel Director) will share his analysis on the unfolding war between Israel and Hamas and the potential long-term outcomes of this crisis at Temple De Hirsch Sinai before 6pm services on Friday evening, April 12th. Contact casey@jstreet.org for more details. (In addition, a Kavana partner who is involved in JStreet will be hosting a smaller salon-style session with Nadav on Sunday, April 14th. If you're interested in being part of this more intimate gathering for JStreet supporters, please let me know and I'll put you in touch with the host directly.)
  

• Uri Weltmann of Standing Together will be speaking at Temple De Hirsch Sinai on Saturday, April 13th at 11am about how the movement is uniting diverse communities around the fight for a ceasefire and hostage deal. His talk is entitled Where There is Struggle, There is Hope, and advance registration is requested.
  

• Dr. Rachel Korazim, a renowned teacher of Hebrew literature, will be offering a session called Poems for Our Days, featuring poems written over these past months from different parts of Israeli society, on Monday, April 15th from 8-9pm. Rabbi Jay and I heard her teach a few days again and we cannot recommend this session highly enough! Click here to register through host Congregation Beth Shalom.

It is my hope, of course, that all of these opportunities -- both the ones that Kavana will be setting in motion over the coming weeks, and the ones that other organizations are pulling together -- will feel supportive to the broader Kavana community, as we all continue to weather this heavy and fraught time. 

Meanwhile, as we look towards the month of Nissan, its core celebration of Passover reminds us that periods of oppression, darkness, and constraint always have the potential to resolve into expanse, light, and new possibility. This redemptive arc is part of our history and gives us hope now as we continue to fumble our way through this excruciatingly difficult moment. As we say in the Blessing for the New Month: "Yehi ratzon milfanecha... she’t’chadesh aleinu hachodesh haba l’tova v’livracha" - "May it be Your will that this new month will bring renewal for us, for good and for blessing." So may it be this Nissan!

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov (a good month),

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

How to Change Your Clothes

The biblical book of Mishlei (Proverbs) gives us an excellent piece of advice for navigating political and social issues right now:

“Don’t respond to stupid people in their foolishness or you’ll become just like them.” (Proverbs 26:4)

If Merriam-Webster needs a definition for “internet comments section,”  they need look no further. There are certain moments when trying to reason with someone is truly a foolish waste of time. Better not to amplify those voices at all! 

However, the very next bit of sage wisdom in Proverbs gives us precisely the opposite advice.

“Respond to stupid people in their foolishness, lest they think they are wise!” (Proverbs 26:5)

According to this second view, we cannot afford to ignore fools because their inflated and distorted sense of being right may snowball into something dangerous and unstoppable. Where silence might be interpreted as agreement or approval, we must register our opposition.

How do we know when to ignore and when to respond? The Talmud (Shabbat 30b) suggests we wade into the discourse when it is related to Torah, but not when it is about everyday normal stuff. In other words, let’s save our energy for the issues that really matter. 

Of course, right now it seems like everything matters. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the threat to democracy in the United States, the increasingly lived experience of climate crisis around the world (and you could effortlessly name at least a dozen more vitally important issues). 

Faced with an overwhelming justice checklist, the question of “what to do” may feel urgent, anxiety-inducing, and even impossible to answer. (Of course, you could just choose something and do it.)

Right now, I am drawn not to the question of “what to do” but to the very different framework of “who to be”. Given this perplexing and gorgeous world we live in, what character do I aspire to cultivate? Who might I become that would act from a place of more wisdom and love, even if I don’t know exactly what to do? And in what ways would the world look different if we each took that question seriously? I suspect there would be less angry fools claiming wisdom, and more humble fools seeking wisdom. 

In our Torah portion, Tzav, the text elaborates Moses’ instructions to the ancient priests. After a particular sacrifice, the olah where everything is burned to ash, the priest “shall take off his clothes and put other clothes on, and carry the ashes outside the camp…” (Leviticus 6:4).

On surface level, this seems like practical advice. Rashi says it is a “matter of decency so that he should not, through removing the ashes, soil the clothes he uses regularly (at the altar in his official capacity).” 

But a later Chassidic teacher, the Be’er Mayim Chayim, plumbs the spiritual depths of the text and reveals that changing clothes is about more than simply changing clothes.

“Clothes are the garments. One should strip off the unbeneficial thoughts and mental chatter that one has garbed oneself with until now…and from now on one should garb oneself with different clothes, clothes of holiness - you will wear garments of love and awe-of-God, as is fitting, as it is said to Joshua the High Priest: ‘Garb yourself in priestly robes’ (Zechariah 3:4).”

According to this teaching, changing clothes isn’t about making sure you don’t get your nice priest robes dirty, but that being a priest - a person aspiring to holy purpose - means cultivating inner traits like love and awe. 

The Beer Mayim Chayim imagines our mental and emotional habituation as clothes. My thoughts and my emotions are not me, just as my clothes are not me. And yet, clothes and character impact how I move through the world, how others see me, and how I understand my role and responsibilities. What would it look like to realize that, with some persistence, we are not straight-jacketed in painful and unproductive patterns but can change our soul-clothes? What would it look like to dress intentionally in love and awe (and perhaps all the soul-traits of our Mussar tradition)? 

What I like about this teaching, in contrast to the advice from Proverbs, is that it focuses on self-transformation rather than fool-confrontation. Every morning when you wake up, you have another day to try on love, to wear awe into the world, to don a humility cap or tie the laces on your patience boots. Whatever qualities of character you aspire to bring into your life may not always fit snugly, but remember to turn again and again to these garments, rather than the shroud of reactivity. 

When you do encounter a fool, the primary question isn’t whether or not you should get into an argument with them, but who it is you are trying to be in the first place. And maybe if enough of us wear clothes of character, it will become fashionable once again to encounter each other with love, respect, curiosity, and hope.

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Recommit this Purim

This time of year, the Kavana organization is abuzz and spring is in the air. Our programs are up and running at full-speed: Shabbat prayer services are beautiful and meaningful, partners are organizing social justice and adult learning events, kids are learning and having fun together, and of course we are looking forward to two incredible Purim celebrations this weekend! On the back end, March means that our staff and board have been busy with annual reviews and program evaluations, intentional growth work and multi-year budgeting. In a nutshell, we spend time each spring planning and recommitting in order to continue and deepen our work into another year.

If we were to play a word association game where I say the word "Purim" and ask you what it makes you think of first, I expect that I would hear a range of answers from members of our community. Words like joy, costumes, hamentaschen, megillah, Esther and Mordecai would probably top the list. If we went another round, perhaps we'd get to some broader themes like hiddenness and courage. And if we continued playing the game for a while, I imagine we'd eventually encounter some of the bigger, more difficult themes that have been rolling around in my head this year, such as Jewish vulnerability, sexual violence, and the limits of vengeance.

Even if we played for a while, though, I'm not sure we would ever naturally happen upon the word recommitment. And yet, this is exactly one of the ways our rabbinic tradition thinks of Purim: as a Shavuot-like holiday, a time for affirmation and for covenant renewal! The Talmud (in Shabbat 88a) says: 

The Torah was (initially) forced upon the Jewish people, as God held the mountain [Mount Sinai] above their heads… Rava said: “However, they accepted it later out of choice, in the days of Achashverosh, as it says (Esther 9:27): ‘The Jews kept and accepted all the words’."

The phrase of the Megillah that Rava is quoting here -- in Hebrew, "kiyemu v'kiblu" -- comes towards the end of the Purim story. By then, the Jews of Persia have already been threatened by Haman and have successfully defeated his plot against them, surviving to tell the tale. In context, it sounds like perhaps the Jews of "the days of Achashverosh" are taking upon themselves only the obligations to observe this brand new Purim holiday. Here is the verse from the Book of Esther again, with a slightly different translation of that key phrase and a little more context:

The Jews undertook and irrevocably obligated themselves and their descendants, and all who might join them, to observe these two days in the manner prescribed and at the proper time each year. Consequently, these days are recalled and observed in every generation: by every family, every province, and every city. And these days of Purim shall never cease among the Jews, and the memory of them shall never perish among their descendants. (Esther 9:27-28)

In the bolded phrase "kiyemu v'kiblu," Rava and his colleagues must have heard an echo of the famous statement made at Mount Sinai: "na'aseh v'nishma," "we will do and we will hear." (Both are double verb phrases featuring alliteration, and in both, the order of the two verbs feels counterintuitive, as action precedes obligation.) In the rabbinic imagination, Moses's covenant at Mount Sinai may indeed have been entered into under duress... after all, what choice did the Israelites have in the wilderness but to accept God's offer of Torah or perish? Here in the Book of Esther, though, because these words appear after disaster has been averted, the rabbis perceive a model of a more active opting in... not only to the laws of Purim, but actually to all of Torah. As a result, the Talmud is clear that what's at stake in the Esther text is a re-affirmation of the Sinaitic covenant in its entirety. (Indeed, this idea is so important that it appears in multiple locations in rabbinic literature -- see also Shevuot 39a.)

There's another thing I find interesting about "kiyemu v'kiblu" as well. This phrase contains an example of what's called a "kri u'ktiv" -- a word that's written one way by a scribe but, according to long-standing tradition, pronounced in another way when chanted aloud. The second word of the phrase is written וקבל ("v'kibel") -- as though it's a verb with a singular subject -- but is vocalized וקבלו ("v'kiblu"), as though there's a plural subject. This leaves it ambiguous whether the act of recommitment that happens in Esther chapter 9 was an individual or a communal act. And perhaps that ambiguity is purposeful, because in truth, the best answer may be both! 

This Purim comes at a difficult time, as our Jewish community experiences the turmoil of the world, and as so many of us also experience some degree of inner turmoil around what it means to be a Jew in this fraught moment. It's hard not to notice our own fear and vulnerability in the wake of Hamas's October 7th attack and the rise in antisemitism we've observed in recent months; it's also impossible not to feel awful about and ask serious questions about the direction of the Israeli government and military as we see the living conditions of Palestinian civilians in Gaza continue to deteriorate towards famine and ever more acute crisis. The story of the Megillah, similarly, holds complexity and tensions around Jewish identity and morality, vulnerability and vengeance, and yet, its bottom line is to call on the Jews of its era -- both individually and collectively -- to recommit, to reaffirm their connection to the Jewish people and to tradition, and to do so in a permanent, forward-looking way. 

So too must we, today. This Saturday night, the Kavana community will gather to hear Megillat Esther in the very same space where we gathered to celebrate Simchat Torah on October 7th (just thinking about this gives me chills). As we encounter the text of the Purim story anew, in light of that day and every day since, we will doubtless hear new echoes of relevance and new questions in this text. Especially in light of the trauma and turmoil of these last 5+ months, there is something incredibly profound about being asked to recommit at Purim, to the covenant and to our people. We need to do so individually, each finding ways to embrace our own Jewish identities and live out our values, and we need to do so communally, as we come together to observe, celebrate, and lament in community.

As the Kavana organization continues doing its spring cleaning and planning over the coming weeks, ever deepening our work and preparing us for another year together, it's comforting to me to know that in parallel, members of the Kavana community will be recommitting too... to Jewish identity, to our values and practices, to our shared traditions and mitzvot, and to being part of the Jewish people (generally) and this community (specifically). I look forward to learning where this recommitment will take us all, as we move through this spring and beyond together. 

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Purim Sameach, 

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Running and Returning

“And the living creatures ran and returned (ratzo va’shov) like the appearance of a flash of lightning.” (Ezekiel 1:14)

One of the most potent and least-known phrases in Jewish tradition is this line from the prophet Ezekiel, ratzo va’shov, “running and returning”. He was describing a vision of mysterious fiery angels in a scene that would become one of the core texts of later Jewish mysticism. Mysterious fiery angels - or, you know, most toddlers. Running and returning, flitting and flickering with divine spark energy. 

But what is the meaning of this running and returning? Ezekiel’s imagery leaves the action inscrutable. I want to offer three models of how you might understand and use the phrase ratzo va’shov, drawing on different layers of the Jewish tradition.

Model 1: Meditative Practice

“And if your heart is running, return to the place (haMakom).” (Sefer Yetzirah 1:8)

Playing on Ezekiel’s language, the mystical Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation) offers a meditative practice. Rabbi Jill Hammer, whose translation and commentary on Sefer Yetzirah is called Return to the Place, describes it this way: “Anyone who meditates can relate to the way that the mind runs away from the meditative focus (whether the breath, an image, a chant, etc.) and pursues its own mundane line of thinking. The work of meditation is to interrupt this obsessive inner monologue, pull the mind back and attend to the meditative focus… The phrase ‘return to the place’ is particularly poignant, since the word ‘Place’ in rabbinic Hebrew can also refer to God. To return to the place is to return to the Divine, who is the ultimate focus of attention. And, to return to the place is to return to where we left off—to come back to what we had intended to do. Finally, to return to the place is to become at home in the universe: to be situated in space, time, and body.”

Where is your Place? What does it feel like? How do you return there when your heart has started running with anxiety or distraction or simple busy-ness?

Model 2: Spiritual Yearning and Spiritual Purpose

Our next model comes from a much later text, the Tanya (or Likutei Amarim), written in the late 1700s by the founder of Chabad Chassidism, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady. The passage uses the phrase as found in Sefer Yetzirah to explore a spiritual dynamic of running and returning in a totally new way. 

“‘If your heart is running’ refers to the craving of the soul… when it  predominates and bursts into flame and glows in such rapture that the soul is consumed with a desire to pour itself out into the embrace of its Source, Who gives one life, and to leave its confinement in the corporeal and physical body to attach itself to Source. Then one must take to heart (literally: return to the heart) the teaching of our Sages, of blessed memory: “Despite yourself, you must live.” (Tanya Chapter 50)

In this passage, Shneur Zalman interprets the phrase from Sefer Yetzira seemingly the opposite of its simple meaning. Instead of bringing a distracted heart back to a higher place of focus, the Tanya teaches that if your heart is running with great yearning towards a purely spiritual existence, return to the world-as-it-is and do the messy work of making life sacred. 

The running is towards God, the returning is to our purpose on earth. We might see this as running towards retreat and escapism, running towards purity and ideals and theoretical abstraction. Then we have to bring ourselves back to ground, accept the imperfections of body and world, and get back to work on whatever it is we are here to do. 

When do you yearn for a sanctuary from the hard edges of life? What makes you wake up with (or to) a sense of purpose?

Model 3: Running and Returning as Life’s Journey

The previous models make an assumption that the running necessitatesreturning. In other words, if your mind gets distracted, you’ll need to return to focus; if your soul yearns for ideals, you’ll need to gently return to a level of pragmatism to keep working towards making them more possible. The returning is the key (not a surprise given the importance of teshuva, another form of the word, in Judaism). 

But what if the running is not just inevitable, but also worthy? A few nights ago I was chewing over the final verse of the book of Exodus and discovered a fascinating interpretation by the 19th century commentary Haamek Davar.

“For over the Mishkan a divine cloud rested by day, and fire would appear in it by night, in the view of all the house of Israel on all of their journeys.” (Exodus 40:38)

“On all of their journeys whether by God’s will or whether in tempestuous anger like after the incident of the scouts. In any event it didn’t alter the essential work of the cloud that was continually (there).” (Haamek Davar)

I felt like there was something essential to this remarkable insight that when the text says the pillar of cloud accompanied the Israelites on every last one of their journeys, that includes some ill-advised ones that caused God and the Israelites a lot of grief! What could it mean that a sign of divine presence and protection goes with the Israelites when they are moving in alignment with their higher purpose, and also when they are running away from it?

I shared this text with my wife, Rabbi Laura Rumpf, and she immediately responded: “Running and returning are in service of each other. Sometimes we are in alignment, following our true north, but being out of alignment is also in service because it is part of our learning, part of our journey. Life is rarely about ‘I was right, then I was right again, oh and then there was that other time I was right…’”

The first two models prioritize returning once we’ve started running. But Laura and the Haamek Davar helped me see running and returning as the life journey itself. In Ezekiel’s vision, the angelic creatures are actually calledchayyot, simply “living things.” A real life lived is just as much running as it is returning. Like the Israelites wandering in the desert, through successes and failures, through inspired choices and tragic decisions, we too might see the pillar of cloud is there, establishing a strange symbol of continuity. Wherever you are, this too is part of your journey. 

What torah, what wisdom, is written in this chapter of your life?

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Who is God?

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

So begins the story of the golden calf. Reading this English translation, it seems as if the people suffer from a shortfall of patience. Moses took too long… 

But the Hebrew is a little more interesting. The word translated as “was so long” is boshesh, which in almost every other circumstance means “embarrass, shame, confound.” The people see that Moses is embarrassing them! Or perhaps they project their deep insecurity onto his absence. Theabsence of clear and present leadership thrusts them into an unbearable existential worry, and so they turn to Aaron and ask him to replace their leader (Moses and/or God, it is unclear) with something tangible and static. The golden calf isn’t just a foolish misunderstanding of God, it is perhaps an intentional grasping for something that won’t disappear, won’t change, won’t abandon the people like they fear Moses has. The people see Moses’ absence and in their need to see something at all they make the golden calf. 

Moses himself suffers a crisis of wanting to see in another story later in theparashah. “Moses cries out, ‘Oh let me see your Presence!’ And [God] answered, ‘I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim before you the name YHVH, and I will grant the grace that I will grant and show the compassion that I will show…But you cannot see My face, for a human being may not see Me and live… you will see My back; but My face must not be seen.” (Exodus 33:19-20, 23) 

God tells Moses: Seeing Me isn’t possible. But you will hear My name, Yud Hey Vav Hey. 

When Moses first encountered God at the bush that was aflame, God told him that YHVH would now be the name the people of Israel should use. In explaining its significance, God says “Ehyeh asher ehyeh - I will be what I will be, I am that which is ever-becoming.” (Exodus 3:14) 

Moses’ task is to be an agent of the living Source of all Being, to bring the Israelites into relationship not with dead, static idols but with the unimage-able, irreducibly complex, ever-changing, animating force of everything, and the ethical call to live in right relationship as a unique part of the web of life. Naturally, both Moses and the Israelites are sometimes exhausted by the ongoing effort to expand their minds beyond the ego’s hungry eye and surrender to the impermanent flux of being. They want answers. They want ease - a full picture, even if a small and pale imitation of Reality. “For your own sake, therefore, be most careful—since you saw no image when YHVH spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire…” (Deuteronomy 4:15).

At the heart of these texts is the (often frustrated) human yearning to know the divine. Who is God? In the first episode of what promises to be a wonderful new podcast series from Rabbi Shai Held of Hadar, Answers WithHeld, he discusses exactly this question with Rabbi Avi Killip. She has a beautiful sense of what is behind the question when a child asks: Who is God? “You know, what I think is so amazing, and beautiful, and even inspiring by hearing these questions from kids, for the first time in particular, is seeing that first spark, that first inkling of what we hope will grow into a real, full, mature spiritual life… Why is it so scary for us when a child asks us who is God? And one of the answers is because it feels like maybe what they are asking is “How does the world work” or “Why do bad things happen” or [Shai Held interjects: “Am I safe?”]”

A child, like the Israelites at Sinai, builds a spiritual life around a kernel of existential not-knowing. Each one of us moves forward with a different mixture of curiosity, fear, embarrassment, and hopeful yearning. We build idols and life smashes them, and sometimes the broken image of what we thought we knew is painful. 

When, as adults, we ask who God is, the Torah offers insight into mature spiritual knowing of God. It is dynamic (ever changing like the divine name),reflective (when we glimpse backward like Moses does), and humbling(when we remember our inability to fully picture God and indeed each being). All of these practices - dynamic, reflective, and humbling - move us frommochin d’katnut (the normal, egocentric way of being) to mochin d’gadlut, a state of mind where we don’t grasp for permanence, we don’t try to perfectly predict the future but rather glean wisdom and comfort from reflective presence, and maintain the respect for other people’s perspectives that comes when we know we don’t have the full picture.

Shabbat shalom!