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How Should We Translate Pirkei Avot? Why Does It Matter?

Post author By Rabbi Barry Block
Post date May 20, 2019
1 Comment on How Should We Translate Pirkei Avot? Why Does It Matter?

A decade ago, Rabbi Dr. Andrea Weiss, now the Provost of HUC-JIR, taught me a new term: “gender-accurate translation.”

No, I was not new to ridding our liturgy and sacred texts of gender-based language. However, I had always thought of that process as changing the language of sacred texts, which would be more intrusive than correcting an error of the past.

Rabbi Weiss explained that our new Torah translations – in that case, in the Women’s Torah Commentary – would replace gendered language when the original text doesn’t specifically refer to a person or persons of one particular gender. God, for example, is explicitly without gender in our Jewish tradition; and yet, the inherently gendered Hebrew language refers to God exclusively as “He.”

Gender accuracy, done right, needn’t be noticeable, let alone jarring. None of our current CCAR prayer books refers to God with gendered language, and the English flows seamlessly.

At this season of sfirat ha-omer, counting the fifty days from Passover to Shavuot, from liberation to at Sinai, we read Pirkei Avot.

Many of us are familiar with Pirkei Avot, or at least some of its most famous aphorisms. For example: “Who is wise? Those who learn from everyone. Who is strong? Those who conquer their impulses. Who is rich? Those who are happy with their lot.”[i] Did you notice that this translation is gender-accurate? Other translations render: “Who is the wise one? He who learns from all men,”[ii] and so forth. Clearly, though, the lesson is valuable for everyone, regardless of gender, there’s no reason to believe that even the ancient rabbis intended their teaching to refer only to men.

In his new book on Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary, Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz writes that the title of the book “[l]iterally … means The Chapters of the Fathers[iii] The word avot may indeed mean “fathers.” However, the way a gendered language works, avot can also mean “ancestors.”

Rabbi Yanklowitz writes that we might understand the word even more broadly: “The Hebrew word avah (of which avot is plural) is found in Proverbs 1:30, meaning, ‘to lead through advice.’ Therefore, another way to understand the title of this work is The Chapters of Advice.”[iv] That latter title is descriptive of the book, chock full of Jewish wisdom but without halachah, which characterizes the larger work in which it’s found, the Mishnah.

I have often taught, surely not originally, that every translation is an interpretation. Since other options are available, those who translate the title “Ethics of the Fathers” are choosing to emphasize the gender of its authors. I typically refer to Pirkei Avot as “Ethics of the Sages.”

Why does it matter?

Honesty. All of Pirkei Avot is articulated in the names of rabbis – that is, men of a certain class and education. However, Pirkei Avot is likely replete with mansplaining, that is, women’s ideas repeated by and credited to men. No generation is without its wise women and men, but women of the Mishnaic period would not have been credited with their own ideas. Moreover, all the rabbis quoted in Pirkei Avot had mothers, and almost all had wives, who had doubtless imparted significant insight to them. We must shed any doubt that women’s words and ideas are included in Pirkei Avot. Therefore, the suggestion that the book includes only “Ethics of the Fathers” is simply false.
Respect. In a patriarchal society, such as one that gives voice only to men, women are undervalued. While our own culture is blessedly less patriarchal as that of Second Century Palestine, we would be wrong to insist that patriarchal influence has disappeared. When we unnecessarily and inaccurately credit only men’s wisdom in the past, we imply that men are the exclusive source of insight, even today. When we translate, we should open up the possibility that a sage could be a person of any gender. Doing so, we indicate that every person’s wisdom is equally valuable.
Inspiration. Women who are rabbis of my generation often speak of the first time they saw or even just heard about a female rabbi. Previously, they had never internalized the fact that they could become rabbis or religious authorities of any kind, even if they knew that regular ordination of women as rabbis had begun in 1972. While we cannot name women who were sages during the Mishnaic period, by translating Pirkei Avot as “Ethics of the Fathers,” we close the possibility that a woman could be a sage. Using an accurate English name of the book that isn’t gender-bound, young women and girls may see themselves as they should, fully included in the chain of Jewish tradition that stretches from Abraham and Sarah to Moses and Miriam to this very day.

When I was ordained, half of my classmates were women. However, at that time, only twenty-eight years ago this month, the HUC-JIR faculty did not include even one tenured professor who wasn’t male. This month, new rabbis are being ordained by a long-tenured rabbinic scholar who is the College’s Provost, and she’s a woman. For the next generation of rabbis – and, more broadly, of the Jewish people, increasingly even in some corners of the Orthodox world – the term “sage” may finally include women.

As we count the days from Egypt to Sinai, reading Pirkei Avot this year, let us assure that our language is honest, accurately reflecting the past rather than the way that the past presented itself. Let our words convey respect for every person, regardless of gender, as we continue to dismantle the patriarchy. And let us inspire every Jew, of every gender and of every coming generation, to lead us into a future filled with wisdom.

—

Rabbi Barry Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas.

[i] Avot 4.1.
[ii] Ibid., Sefaria translation.
[iii] Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz, Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary, New York: CCAR Press, 2018, p. xi.
[iv] Ibid.

Tags Omer, Pirkei Avot, Women's Torah Commentary

Ethics

Confidentiality in the Ethics Process

Post author By Rabbi Steven A. Fox
Post date May 10, 2019
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What is confidentiality in the CCAR ethics process, and how does it differ from other settings, such as pastoral counseling? Recently, several people—rabbis, participants in ethics cases, members of congregations—have asked questions about the nature of confidentiality in the CCAR ethics process. In particular, several asked whether the names of complainants, victims or witnesses are ever made public. The short answer is no: CCAR does not disclose publicly the names of complainants, victims or witnesses.

Confidentiality is often assumed to be a blanket non-disclosure. But in different settings, confidentiality means different things. For example, in a pastoral counseling setting, confidentiality goes to the heart of the congregant’s expectation of privacy between the congregant and the rabbi (or minister). In fact, that privacy even is recognized in the law as a “priest-penitent privilege” that prevents disclosure of those conversations except in special circumstances.

The goal of the CCAR process is to help rabbis and communities achieve their aspirational values that reflect the very best of the rabbinate and the community, including sacred and safe communities with rabbis who live up to their highest moral values. Confidentiality in the ethics process is designed to achieve these goals and allow an ethics committee to do its work in a way that is fair, protective, and safe. (As I have written about in other settings, the CCAR ethics process is an ecclesiastical process, not analogous to a legal trial court.)

The CCAR ethics process is one in which the CCAR determines if a rabbi has violated the Code of Ethics. Someone (an individual or a congregation) begins the process by filing a complaint with the CCAR against a rabbi. Then, the rabbi responds to the complaint, and the process moves forward. At this point, the process is confidential out of respect for the privacy and reputation of everyone connected to it—parties, witnesses, victims, and potential victims. But it is not secret.

There’s an important difference. “Secret” means that nothing is shared and everything is out of the public eye. By contrast, a “confidential” process is one in which information gathered during the process is not broadly disseminated except to others involved in the process so that the Ethics Committee can do its work to determine if a rabbi violated the Code of Ethics.

To achieve our goals, the CCAR does not publicly identify victims, witnesses or complainants at any stage in the process. We continue to respect their request for privacy throughout the process and even after it is concluded.

However, adjudications of Code violations that lead to public censure, suspension or expulsion of a rabbi are not kept confidential. In fact, these actions are publicly disclosed on the CCAR website.

The Code explicitly dictates what information must be disclosed and to whom. To begin the process, “complaints must be written and include the names of all parties involved.” (VI.B.1.) The complaint is shared with the rabbi. Thus, the names of the parties—the complainant and the rabbi—are disclosed to one another and to the Ethics Committee from the outset of a complaint.

While the CCAR Ethics process is ongoing, we ask that everyone connected to it honor the confidentiality of the process. Confidentiality better assures that the parties and witnesses will provide information and the victims feel they have a safe place to share their experiences.

Yet asking someone, such as a complainant or victim or rabbi, to respect the confidentiality of the process certainly does not mean that people, especially victims, should not talk with their immediate family or close friends about what they have experienced, and it does not prevent anyone from seeking spiritual, emotional, or professional support. We know that can be of importance to a person’s health and healing.

When it comes to complainants, witnesses, and victims, we may also need to protect them from fear of retaliation or humiliation in some instances. As written by one of the leaders in the field of clergy misconduct, “shooting the messenger is a common response to the revelation of unethical conduct.” (Is Nothing Sacred, Marie Fortune) This concern is another reason why we do not disclose publicly the names of the complainants, victims or witnesses.

The CCAR process continues to evolve and improve over time with the input of many people, including those of the rabbis, complainants, and victims themselves. We especially are proud that lay leaders have joined with rabbis in the ethics process: on the Ethics Committee which receives complaints and adjudicates; on Fact Gathering Teams, which gather information from complainants, rabbis, and witnesses; on the Ethics Board of Appeals, which hears appeals from an adjudication; and on the Ethics Process Review Committee, which proposes changes to the Code of Ethics.

CCAR members aspire to exhibit the very best of the rabbinic tradition. The Ethics Code and process reflect those aspirations.

—

Rabbi Steven A. Fox is the Chief Executive of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

Tags confidentiality, ethics, ethics code

Technology

From Star Trek to Paper T’filah: “Live Long and Prosper”

Post author By Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik
Post date April 24, 2019
No Comments on From Star Trek to Paper T’filah: “Live Long and Prosper”

Logical. Unemotional. Alien. As Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek television series, Leonard Nimoy found himself trying to bring depth and detail to a character that hadn’t yet been fully fleshed out; it was up to Nimoy to contribute much of what made Spock who he was—including the famous “Vulcan salute.”

Nimoy said that one day on the set, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry asked him to come up with a greeting to use when meeting the Vulcan matriarch, and into his head popped an image of the chazan in his childhood shul giving the “priestly benediction.” And with that, this ancient Jewish hand gesture was introduced to the world.

It’s the blessing by which Aaron blessed the people, the blessing that kohanim still say over worshippers in synagogues today, and it’s the blessing that my wife says over our children every Shabbat (and yes, she does the thing with her hands). “May God bless you and keep you,” she recites. “May God deal kindly with you, and be gracious to you. May God’s face shine upon you, and grant you peace.”

I’ve always connected to the Vulcan salute and the words that accompany it (“Live Long and Prosper”). Perhaps it’s because it seemed so obviously (to me) Jewish, and yet slipped under the radar of my non-Jewish friends. Whatever the reason, I used it to structure my papercut, “Live Long and Prosper,” which I made with cut-up Star Trek comic books.

Yeah, cut-up comic books. For those of you who missed my last post, that’s what I do: I incorporate cut-up comic books into my work, drawing parallels between comic book mythologies and religious traditions. So within the delicate cutaway panels of my “Live Long and Prosper” papercut can be found images of Nimoy as Spock giving the Vulcan salute, the U.S.S. Enterprise, and the beauty of comic book outer space. I also included parts of a chumash that had been headed for the g’nizah for ritual burial: words of the priestly blessing in Hebrew and English, side-by-side with the Spock and his crewmates.

The image is a representation of blessing and strength, and I’ve made it the starting point for the Paper T’filah Visual T’filah I designed for the CCAR. It’s my intention to anchor this visual liturgy in an image both immediately familiar, for multiple reasons–a mix of reverence and amusement, and a statement of intent: this service will boldly go where no one has gone before … and I hope you’ll go there with me.

My wife and I have made “Paper T’filah” an element of the “Paper Midrash” residencies that we lead around the country: worship and study and papercutting workshops that bring together contemporary art, pop culture, and scholarship. The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, and I couldn’t be more proud to have brought something new to their worship experience.

—

Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik is a Jewish artist living in Southern California. He cuts up comic books and reassembles them into work made of clean lines and patterns, sinuous shapes and sharp edges, large fields of color and small intimate spaces.

Click here to view a sample of Paper T’filah by Visual T’filah. It is now available for purchase on the CCAR Press website. For more information on how you can bring Paper Midrash to your community, email Isaac or visit his website.

Tags Art, artwork, Paper T'filah, Visual T'filah

Books

Employment, Partnership and Mutual Respect

Post author By Rabbi Jill Jacobs
Post date April 23, 2019
No Comments on Employment, Partnership and Mutual Respect

In celebration of the release of CCAR Press’s newest publication, The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic, we share an excerpt of the chapter that Rabbi Jill Jacobs wrote.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Eternal your God.
Exodus 20:9–10

The commandment to observe Shabbat simultaneously asserts the sanctity and value of work. Just as God worked for six days of Creation and rested on the seventh, human beings spend six days contributing to the world and one day enjoying the fruits of our labor. Pirkei Avot even demands that we “love work” (1:10). An early commentary on this text explains, “A person should love work and not hate work. Just as the Torah was given through the covenant, so too work was given through the covenant, as it says, “For six days you shall labor” (Avot D’Rabbi Natan 1, chapter 11).

While the Rabbis of the Talmud idealized a life immersed in Torah study, without the need to work, they also recognized both the necessity of work and its inherent dignity: “Skin carcasses in the marketplace and collect your wages, and do not say, ‘I am a kohein and a great man, and this is below my dignity’” (BT P’sachim 113a). Even the most important leader should not consider skinning animals—considered one of the most unpleasant types of work—to be below one’s dignity, if economic need demands.

*The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic*,

From the Rabbinic fantasy of a life devoted only to Torah study, and from Adam’s punishment, “by the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread” (Gen. 3:19), we might conclude that Judaism views work as a necessary evil. But this is not the only or even the majority view. God purposely leaves the world unfinished and tasks human beings with completing this world. That’s why we are commanded to work for six days, yet only to rest for one. As Rabbi Chaim David HaLevy, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Tel Aviv from 1973 to 1998, puts it, “In the Jewish worldview, work is sacred—it is building and creating and is a partnership with God in the work of Creation.”

If work is sacred, then the workplace must be treated as a holy place, in which everyone strives to make divinity manifest. According to one midrash, “Everyone who does business honestly, such that people feel good about them, is considered as though they have fulfilled the entire Torah” (M’chilta D’Rabbi Yishmael 15:26). Whereas we might be inclined to think of synagogues and other sacred spaces as being the sites of religious practice, our tradition asserts that workplaces, too, belong in this category. Therefore, employers must take measures to ensure that workers are paid fairly, are respected, and are ensured a workplace worthy of being called sacred.

This approach to the relationship between workers and employers emerges in a t’shuvah (legal opinion) of Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Chai Uzziel, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Mandate Palestine/Israel from 1939 to 1953, and HaLevy’s primary teacher. Uzziel writes:

Employers are obligated to behave toward workers with love and honor, and with goodwill and generosity. And the workers, for their part, act faithfully and give themselves fully to the work that they were hired to do. . . . The relationship between the employer and the worker needs to be a relationship of fellowship, as with an equal, and not a relationship in which one person is of inferior status, as such a relationship can lead to acts that are insulting or that induce shame.

These ideals sound beautiful, but how do we put them into practice? As always, the Jewish legal corpus translates these ideals into specific laws regarding workplace practices.

Jewish law and narrative text offer a series of specifics regarding the relationship between employers and workers, including requirements regarding fair and timely pay, expectations of mutual respect, and encouragement for workers to form unions and even initiate strikes when necessary. Ultimately, all of these details aim to create a workplace that lives up to the ideal, articulated by HaLevy, that our labor should feel like a “partnership with God in the work of Creation.”

—

Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the Executive Director of T’ruah:The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.

Tags CCAR Press, Employement, money, The Sacred Exchange

interfaith Passover Pesach Prayer

Tragedy and Transcendence: Opening Prayer for the CO State House in a Time of Holiness and Horror

Post author By Rabbi Joe Black
Post date April 19, 2019
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Rabbi Joe Black read this opening prayer for the Colorado State House of Representatives before they began their session on Wednesday, April 17, 2019.

Our God and God of all people:

This Friday night, Jews around the world will tell the ancient story of Passover. We will gather around our seder tables and experience the bitterness of slavery and the sweetness of freedom and redemption. On Easter Sunday, Christians will celebrate the potential to be reborn with hope and faith.

This is a sacred time – when we are reminded of both the fragility of life and the potential for renewal and redemption. Now should be a period of gratitude and introspection that helps us to see the best in all of humanity.

And yet, in the midst of these festivals of holiness and hope, over the past two days our state was suddenly and brutally thrust into a climate of terror and dread brought about by a heartbreakingly disturbed young woman who played out her demons as we anticipated the 20^th anniversary of the Columbine shooting.

The juxtaposition of the anticipation of these two sacred festivals with the ugliness and paralysis of potential violence reminds us just how little progress has occurred in the years since our innocence was shattered on April 20^th, 1999. We have become numb to the horrors of violence brought about by each new tragedy. For a parent to have to tell their child that it is too dangerous to go to school is an obscenity and anathema to the values that are embodied in this sacred chamber.

When messages of rebirth and redemption are overshadowed by fear, we must take stock in who we are and who we are becoming. We can try to write off each tragic incident as distinct and separate, but taken in an aggregate we have no choice but to acknowledge that there is a sickness in our nation that cannot be ignored. Whether it is caused by easy access to weapons of destruction or the political divisions that paralyze us, it is essential that we come together to bring about change – to strive to see the veracity and sanctity of all humanity – even if we disagree. If the deaths of innocents are not enough to move us to action, then what have we become?

May the messages of hope and rebirth symbolized by both Passover and Easter motivate all of us to see the holiness infused in every soul. As we anticipate this painful anniversary, may we be inspired to use every means at our disposal to ensure that the hopelessness and despair that we have been feeling these past two days will be replaced by a sacred determination to bring about healing and change. Only then will we be able to ensure that we are doing God’s work on earth.

Amen

—

Rabbi Joe Black serves Temple Emanuel in Denver, Colorado. This blog was originally shared on his personal blog.

Tags Passover, Pesach, Prayer

Immigration Passover Pesach Social Justice

Let My People Go

Over 1,000 men in detention. Fifty men sharing a dormitory room, sleeping on bunk beds seemingly made out of plywood and nails, topped with thin plastic “mattresses.” Men under constant surveillance, wearing prison uniforms, fed unappetizing-looking meals, and working as barbers, cooks, or custodians for $1 a day. Days spent mostly lying on their beds, with occasional outings to a cement yard topped with barbed wire. For most of them, they have committed no crime, only exercised their human right to seek asylum.

These are the conditions inside the New Mexico Otero Detention Center for migrants awaiting a hearing. It is run by the for-profit company Management and Training Corporation(MTC) which collects $100,000 of our tax dollars daily to house these men. There is one part-time physician and one chaplain for all of them. The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s office made a surprise visit to Otero in 2017 and “found evidence of the unjustified use of solitary confinement, unsanitary conditions and non-working telephones.”

The Torah tells us 36 times that we are to care for the stranger for we were strangers in the land of Egypt. Our freedom from slavery is celebrated every year at Passover, which begins the night of April 19. So when I see hundreds and thousands of people from Central America fleeing from violence and desperate poverty, coming to our borders seeking asylum, only to be locked up in detention centers or detained in the elements under a bridge, my heart aches and I am called to action.

This is why I joined HIAS and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights on a recent trip to El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico to learn what is going on at our border. I was not unfamiliar with the plight of migrants from Central America. Near where I live in Riverside, CA is the town of Adelanto, a desolate location in the high desert and home to another private detention center, this one run by the private company GEO Group. With the help of organizations such as the New Sanctuary Movement and Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, I had visited detainees there but was never allowed beyond the visiting room. The conditions at Otero were more upsetting than I had expected.

Under international and federal law, people have the right to request asylum. Asylum seekers are not criminals; many are people with legitimate fears of being killed in their countries of origin. Why are we treating them like this? Judaism certainly insists that we are all made b’tzelem Elohim, in God’s image. How do we as a country justify making a profit off those seeking safety by locking them up in private prisons?

As a rabbi, I take seriously our mandate to free the captive — those who are unjustly imprisoned. The people in these detention centers made dangerous journeys to arrive on our soil. As they await their trial, their detention can last months in these conditions. In El Paso, the rate of deportation following this ordeal is close to 97 percent.

On this trip, we also visited shelters in El Paso and on the other side of the border, in Ciudad Juárez. We met true tzaddikim, righteous people doing everything they can to provide a respite for those on these arduous journeys. At the nonprofit Annunciation House, for example, Ruben Garcia tirelessly places migrants released by ICE in a variety of shelters throughout the area. In fact, ICE would have to release over 600 people a day if Garcia did not provide them with these locations.

At this point, the shelters are being overwhelmed beyond capacity. The day we left El Paso, Customs and Border Protection had begun to detain migrants under the bridge connecting the U.S. to Mexico. We were horrified to witness crowds of women and children behind barbed wire, forced to sleep on the rocky ground outside.

What can you and I do to address this problem? You can support any of the wonderful organizations mentioned above. You can volunteer your time at one of the shelters, whether you live in El Paso or not. And you can bring these stories to your seder table, drawing the parallels between the journeys made by our own ancestors and those of today’s refugees. Let us adhere to Rabbi Hillel’s dictum: If I am not for myself, who will be? But if I am for myself only, what am I? And if not now, when?

—

Rabbi Suzanne Singer serves Temple Beth El in Riverside, California.

Tags asylum seekers, border, Passover, Pesach, Social justice

Passover Pesach

The Poor Bread

From The Passover Haggadah:

This is the poor bread that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Anyone who are oppressed shall come and eat, anyone who is in need shall come and partake of our Passover. Today we live in a world imperfect; next year may we live in a world redeemed. Today we are enslaved, next year may all be free.

This reading from our Haggadah remains one of my favorite pieces of Jewish liturgy. At the outset of our Seder, we focus in on the Matzah as a teaching tool, as a mnemonic of history, as an invitation to all who are hungry, and as a reminder of the deepest lessons of our liberation. We transform an unleavened slice of bread into a symbol of our commitment to end all oppression, to bring the freedom we enjoy to all the people of our world.

But why is it called “the poor bread”? Our CCAR Haggadah of my youth translated this difficulty away, rendering the Aramaic HaLachma Anyia as, “This is the poor bread, the bread of affliction”. Surely our Exodus narrative speaks of our oppression in Egypt, of harsh labor in mortar and brick, of genocidal edicts enacted by Pharaoh. Despite all that affliction, we also learn from Torah that our ancestors ate pretty well in Egypt: while in the wilderness, the Israelites bemoan the fish and fruit and foods they savored during servitude. If we eat Matzah to remember the haste with which we departed Egypt, why do we call it “the Poor Bread”?

Rabbi Yehuda Loew, the Maharal of Prague, asked these precise questions in his 16^th Century commentary on the Haggadah, called “Gevurot HaShem/The Power of The Name”. Loew starts off by likening the Matzah to poverty: just as unleavened bread is stooped lower than its peers and cannot stand tall, so too does poverty force people to lower their heads, preventing them from standing tall and proud. He hints that just as Matzah is missing in some ways the quintessential element of bread, namely leaven, so too are those forced into poverty deprived of the essence of a robust existence. That is quite a lesson to chew over for seven days!

The Maharal, however, isn’t satisfied with that explanation. Amazing, just as our Haggadah equates “the poor bread” with “the bread of affliction”, so too does the Maharal expand the interpretation of Lechem Oni. He imagines a situation in which the Egyptians, in order to oppress the Israelites even more painfully, forcefully fed them Matzah so that it might be stuck in their stomachs. The Maharal knew what many of us experience: the difficulty of digesting Matzah! He actually describes our weeklong intestinal discomfort as inflicting upon ourselves the same punishment Pharaoh meted out to our ancestors. On this interpretation, our festival of unleavened bread is an extended hunger banquet meant to connect us physically to the sensation of those oppressed and deprived.

In the end, however, the great sage of Prague rejects both of these interpretations he himself created! He ultimately explains that our matzah is “poor bread” because it is the opposite of “rich bread”, namely beautiful leavened bread covered with cream and jam. The Matzah, to the Maharal, stands as a stark reminder that while those who are poor do indeed eat, it is in marked contrast to the festive table arrayed before us. That is his last word on the matter of Matzah.

However, the last word shouldn’t be taken as the final answer. Rabbis actually do know how to answer a question directly; when the Maharal shares two answers only to reject them, he still hopes to deepen our learning. I believe he shares all these interpretation of Ha Lachma Anyia because—historically accurate or not—he believes the lessons of all are important.

Together, these takes on the Poor Bread teach us to be sensitive to the experience of poverty. Those oppressed by want are often forced to walk in humiliation, not in pride. Those deprived, even by force, of healthy and nutritious foods, spend their lives in real physical discomfort. Those whose needs are greatest cannot perhaps even imagine the luxuries of family and ritual and food we enjoy every night, and especially on the most different nights of Passover.

Our passage ends with the hope, “Today we are oppressed; next year may all be free”. Just as do so many other elements of our Seder experience, the Matzah—a la Maharal—is meant to put us in deep connection to that oppression so that we can rise from our Seder tables with an even deeper commitment to work for a world where all are free of the chains, sufferings, and deprivations of poverty.

—
Rabbi Seth Limmer serves Chicago Sinai Congregation and is on the CCAR Board of Trustees. Rabbi Limmer also is a contributor to CCAR Press’s forthcoming publication, The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic.

Tags Passover, Pesach, the poor bread

Passover Pesach

Opening the Door, Eyes Wide Open

Post author By Rabbi Barry Block
Post date April 18, 2019
1 Comment on Opening the Door, Eyes Wide Open

On Friday night, we will send the youngest among us to open our doors to the promise of perfect redemption. This year, though, that promise feels more distant than ever, even unattainable: Humans, far from being God’s partners in bringing salvation, continue to destroy the world.

We are taught, by the ancient rabbis in the Mishnah and also in the holy Quran: “One who kills a single human being is compared to one who destroys the entire world.”[i]

Hatred has annihilated God’s creation repeatedly.

On March 15, 2019, fifty human lives were snuffed out. Their crime? Being Muslims at prayer.

On October 27, 2018, eleven precious souls were taken from this Earth. Their crime? Being Jews at prayer.

On June 12, 2016, forty-nine human beings were executed. Their crime? Being gay men, or in the presence of gay men, at a night club.

On June 17, 2015, nine of God’s children were shot to death. Their crime? Being Black people at a Bible Study.

On September 11, 2001, nearly 3000 lives were taken. Their crime? Being Americans, or among Americans, at work or on an airplane.

And I have listed only a small fraction of these horrors in the current century.

In the last century, Pastor Martin Niemoller, in the wake of the Nazi genocide, initially imagined himself to have been among those who had resisted Hitler and his homicidal hatred. Then, he visited the Dachau Concentration Camp. At the crematorium, he saw the dates throughout which a quarter million victims had been incinerated there, 1933-1945. Niemoller recognized his culpability. He had not begun standing up to Hitler until 1937. Only then, Pastor Niemoller began to hold himself to account for the slaughter, in words that later became a famous poem:[ii]

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out –

Because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out –

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

If we are to send our children to the door with integrity, we must declare that we will never be silent in the face of hatred.

When they come for Muslims, we must speak out, because silence is deadly.

When they come for African Americans, we must speak out, because silence destroys the entire world.

When they come for queer folks, we must speak out, because silence is deadly.

When they come for immigrants, we must speak out, because silence destroys the entire world.

When they come for Republicans or Democrats, for Americans or Asians, for Christians or Jews, for country folk or city dwellers, we must speak out, because silence destroys the entire world.

Speaking out is powerful. The rabbis taught, in words also inscribed in the holy Quran: One who saves a single life is credited with saving the entire world.[iii]

As our young ones open the doors on Friday night, we pray that they do so with eyes that shine with the promise of a bright future. We who are adults, while smiling for our little ones, must open our eyes wide both to all that plagues God’s creation and to our power and responsibility to be God’s partners in salvation.

[i] M. Sanhedrin 4:5, inter alia in the Talmud. Also Quran 5:32.

[ii] Joseph Coohill, ”Martin Niemoller, ‘First They Came…’ – Quote or No Quote,” Professor Buzzkill, November 6, 2018.

[iii] M. Sanhedrin 4:5, inter alia in the Talmud. Also Quran 5:32

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Rabbi Barry H. Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas, and is a member of the CCAR Board of Trustees.

Tags liberation, Passover, Pesach, redemption, salvation

Passover Pesach

Discussion Starters from the Seder Plate

Post author By Rabbi Lauren Ben-Shoshan
Post date April 17, 2019
No Comments on Discussion Starters from the Seder Plate

Just in case Miriam hasn’t stopped by to replenish your well lately.

The Two Cooked Dishes

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Pesach 114b of the Babylonian Talmud mandates “two cooked dishes” (in addition to charoset and chazeret) be present on the seder plate. While Rav Huna advocated for the vegan options of cooked beets and rice, Rav Yosef insisted that each should be meat, one as a remembrance of the obligatory paschal sacrifice (usually interpreted as the shankbone) and the other, a voluntary commemoration our festive celebration (usually understood as the egg).^[1]