Yom HaShoah Poem 2010

Vhi Sh'amda: Egypt and Eastern Europe

A poem for Yom HaShoah 2010 by Matt Rutta

Delivered at American Jewish University, April 12, 2010

Last week we celebrated our escape from Egypt

    Today we mourn our inability to get out of Eastern Europe in time

In Egypt Pharaoh killed our newborn baby boys and let our girls live

In Eastern Europe the Nazis and their collaborators shot and gassed men, women, and children with no mercy

From Egypt marched 600,000 men of the Army of God

    In Eastern Europe Six Million were left behind

We marched triumphantly with our heads held high from Egypt

    We were lead from the concentration camps on Death Marches

In Egypt we built the Treasure Cities of Pitom and Raamses to hold the spoil of Pharaoh's wars

In Eastern Europe we built the gas chambers and crematoria of Buchenwald and Treblinka where we would meet our own demise

In Egypt Pharaoh set Egyptian taskmasters over us

In Auschwitz the Sonderkommando were Jews forced to turn against their own people for the chance to survive a little bit longer

When we disobeyed in Egypt, we were forced to glean our own straw to make our tally of bricks

    When we disobeyed in Sobibor the SS would shoot every third Jew

In Egypt we were like an appliance

    In Eastern Europe we

In Egypt we were forced to build the pyramids, the glorious tombs of the Pharaohs in Giza

    In Eastern Europe we were forced to dig our own mass graves in Babi Yar

Of Egypt we joyously proclaimed "In every generation people rise up to utterly destroy us but but the Holy One Blessed be He saves us from their hand?

    Where was the Holy one in Eastern Europe?

When we were liberated from Egypt we left so quickly that our matzah had no time to rise

When we were liberated from the Concentration Camp we were so malnourished that even eating the Bread of Affliction would overwhelm our distended bellies, killing us.

In Egypt we went from sorrow to great joy

    In Eastern Europe we went from sorrow to more sorrow.

In Egypt we joyously sang "Who is like you God among the mighty?" as we marched across the split sea.

In Eastern Europe we joyously sang "I believe in perfect faith that the Messiah will come" as we marched into the gas chambers.

In Egypt the slaves' greatest worry was when they would be fed

    In Eastern Europe it was not "when" but "if"

They missed the fleshpots of Egypt, with the leeks, the onions, and garlic that they ate free in Egypt

In the Concentration Camp it was a small bowl of rotten onion floating in polluted water

In 210 years we increased from 70 to 600,000 men

In 6 years we were reduced from 14 million to 8 million humans

Our experiences in Egypt three millennia ago are believed by many religions and most of the world's population

Our experiences 65 years ago continue to be denied by those who seek to destroy us again, devour Jacob, and finish the job

In Egypt we cried out to God and He heard our cry and saved us with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm

    In Eastern Europe we cried out to You! Where were You?!

You who guided us through the desert and protected us with a pillar of fire

    Our flame was almost extinguished

You are our Shepherd and we are Your sheep,

    And we were sheep to the slaughter

Had they only stripped us of our citizenship and expelled us from their land,

    Dayenu, it would have been enough

Had they only destroyed our stores forbidding us to sell to gentiles

    Dayenu, it would have been enough

Had they only stolen our property to take as their spoils

    Dayenu, it would have been enough

Had they only burnt our Torah scrolls

    Dayenu, it would have been enough

Had they only forbidden the observance of Shabbat by punishment of death

    Dayenu, it would have been enough

Dayenu! Mir Hoybn Shoyn genug! We've had enough!

Protector of Israel, protect the remnant of Israel, don't let Israel be destroyed, we who proclaim "Hear O Israel!"

You have heard our outcry too late, but You have returned us to the land you Promised us, the Holy Land flowing with milk and honey,

Now fulfill your promise, save us from the hand of those who every generation wish to destroy us and let us fulfill our battle cry of "Never Again!"

Redeem us and save us and let us dwell in peace!

Oseh Shalom Bimromav, Hu Yaaseh Shalom Aleinu V'Al Kol Yisrael, V'imeru… AMEN!

DVAR TORAH S3: Rosh Hashannah 5769: The Meaning of Life is a Life of Meaning

The Meaning of Life is a Life of Meaning

Rosh Hashannah 5769

Matt Rutta

Delivered before Congregation Beth Meier on Rosh Hashannah

“Hold fast to the spirit of youth – let years to come do what they may!” Emblazoned on the mantle of the fireplace in hallowed John Jay Hall, this is the toast of the Philolexian Society, my literary society when I was an undergraduate at Columbia. It translates into Hebrew as “L’chayim!” “To life!” is a very loaded statement, as we well know from Fiddler on the Roof, “If our good fortune never comes here’s to whatever comes”, “life has a way of confusing us, blessing and bruising us, drink l’chayim to life!”

Nothing captures the complexity of life like this past week’s Torah portion: The Rabbis mandated that Nitzavim always be read the Shabbat before Rosh Hashannah. Though one of the shortest parshiot in the Torah it repeats numerous times the importance of life: God places before us life and death, blessing and curse, good and evil. Choose life!

The ultimate philosophical question is, “what is the meaning of life?” “Why are we here?” Ma Anu? Meh Chayeynu? We ask this at the very beginning of Psukei D’zimra and it will be a central piece of the Yom Kippur liturgy. I believe that the answer lies in the second chapter of Genesis. “And the Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden, to till it and tend it”, today being traditionally the 5,769^th anniversary of this event. Be God’s gardeners and shepherds to make the world a better place. Though at first glance this may seem a good idea for the meaning of life, it is only the start: I believe it is the very next verse. “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die”. The choices of Nitzavim are here: The trees of Life, Good, Evil, and the threat of Death for partaking in any of them.

Now pay close attention because there will be a test on this: Adam and Eve had a major decision to make: Whether to eat or to not eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil:

If they don’t eat they will live forever in paradise and walk with God. They will never hunger with a guarantee of food and provisions forever, never get sick, never die. They will also never learn anything, never experience feelings or emotions. Ignorance is bliss. If they ate, on the other hand, they would be exiled from paradise, banished from the obvious Presence of the Lord. Their biological clock would begin to tick as they experience mortality, sickness, painful childbirth, barrenness. They will engage in backbreaking toil to attain bread (a successful harvest, food and rain are not even a guarantee). But they would feel emotions. Pain and sorrow, yes, but also love, happiness, and satisfaction.

True to my word there is indeed a test on this, in the form of an informal poll. With a show of hands, how many of you, if in the position of Adam or Eve would NOT eat from the Tree of Knowledge? How many of you would indeed eat from the tree?

If you tell a child they can have any food in the kitchen except for the cookies. “Don’t eat the cookies,” you scold. What is the first thing he is going to go for? The cookie! That is human psychology whether you are a child or an adult with or without the ability to reason. Eating from the tree was a natural choice.

As opposed to my Christian colleagues who call this the downfall of man and Original Sin, I actually find this to be one of the most positive events in History. I am firmly convinced that God actually intended us to eat from the Tree. The catalyst of human history is one honey-tongued serpent. If God is Omnipotent and Omniscient, then He must have placed the snake in that tree. God intended us to have a free will to make the decisions whether to follow or shirk His laws and ethics and not be his drooling Garden drones. There are consequences to our actions but we have the freedom to make these decisions.

We were removed from the garden which is eternally guarded by fiery cherubs lest we eat from the tree of life and live forever. So why choose life in these four options?

By eating from the tree we have already chosen Good, Evil, and Death (as the tree has given us both knowledge and mortality). There is only one more option we have not yet tried: Life. Now God finally gives us access to something which we have been denied since our expulsion from the Garden of Eden by locked gate, fiery cherub and ever-turning sword: The Tree of Life. We choose life by holding fast to the Torah, and the wooden Torah rollers are called Etzei Chayim. which we grab onto when taking an aliyah or lifting the Torah.

Torah is ultimate knowledge, it is everlasting life. It links us to our past. Most of our liturgical additions for the High Holidays focus on life: “Zochreynu L’chayim, Melech chafetz bachayim, v’choteveinu b’sefer hachayim lemancha Elohim Chayim”, “Remember us for life, O King who desires life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life – for your sake O Living God.” Throughout the liturgy of these Ten Days of Repentance our liturgy is rife with pleas to be inscribed in the Book of Life.

Even in death there is life. If, God-forbid, someone dies we don’t focus on their death but talk about their life and when we come together to recite Kaddish there is not a single mention of death, only life, because shiva, mourning, comfort, these are all for the living.

Torah is the Family Tree of Life. It records the names and deeds of our ancestors, men and women of piety who, through our study, live forever. How will the world remember us when we are gone?

When burying their dead, the Ancient Greeks would place an obolus coin under the tongues of the deceased so they could pay the fare to Charon to ferry them across the River Acheron on their journey to Hades. Jews however are not buried with trinkets nor vested in designer suits but in a disqualified tallis and simple white shrouds, a feeling which the white robe I wear today is meant to evoke. We Jews believe that we cannot take anything with us. Our legacy is rather through our deeds. Whether good or evil this is how we will be remembered.

We were created B’tzelem Elohim, in the Image of God. But how can we take this literally if one of the basic tenets of our faith is that God is non-corporeal? The medieval commentator Nachmanides says that we were made of two Neshamot, like all other animals we are formed of the dust of the earth, thus like all other animals we are mortal, need to eat, sleep, reproduce, but also have a free will. And we are also like the celestial beings made in the Image of God we are made with an immortal soul with the ability to reason and understand and that thirsts not for water but for God. An amalgamation of the two, we can be at once dust and ashes and heavenly. Unlike angels we have a free will.

And yet, It is not in Heaven. One of the most famous stories in the Talmud, and the unofficial theme of the Conservative Movement Bava Metzia 59b quotes Nitzavim. Rabbi Eliezer, convinced that he is right on his arguments, causes supernatural occurrences at his command, the movement of a tree, the reversing of a flow of a river upstream, the collapse of the walls of the house of study, yet all are rebuffed by Rabbi Joshua and the rest of the sages as meaningless. When a Heavenly voice cries out “Rabbi Eliezer is right! He’s always right”. Rabbi Joshua responds, “It is not in heaven’, for since the Torah was removed from the realm of God when given at Sinai, we no longer pay heed to heavenly voices. It is up to us to make our own decisions whether to continue the divine work of Creation or to destroy.

Our great philosopher and codifier of Jewish law, Maimonides records that the Jews that left Egypt recited a blessing over the manna: “Hamotzi Lechem Min HaShamayim”, “Praised are You Lord our God, King of the Universe who brings forth bread from the sky”. This blessing makes sense, in the desert God cared for us and gave us ready to eat manna. This parallels the blessing we say over bread: “Hamotzi Lechem Min Haaretz”, “Praised are You Lord our God, King of the Universe who brings forth bread from the ground”. Have you ever pulled ready-to-eat bread out from the ground? No! The process is extensive getting bread from the ground to your table. We plant seeds in the ground, which with the help of sun and rain eventually cause wheat to sprout. Humans still cannot digest the wheat at this point. It needs to be gleaned and harvested, threshed, milled, mixed with water and other ingredients, kneaded, baked, all before it can be eaten. So why do we thank God for pulling bread from the ground? We do God’s work when we make bread just as we do God’s work when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, help out someone in need, cry out against injustice. This is what it means to be made in the image of God. When Adam and Eve followed the advice of the snake and made that history-altering decision to eat from the tree, God said “now the man has become like one of us”. No longer do we eat the manna falling from the sky, but have become God’s partners in creation. So the meaning of life, my friends, is not merely to till and to tend, but to live. God wants us to eat from the tree.

May years to come bring what they may, but may this year be a year of health, love, life and peace. Shanah Tovah.

DVAR TORAH S3: Trumah (A Whole and Holy Heart)

Delivered before VBS Library Minyan 2/9/08. Embargoed until Motzei Shabbos. I ad libbed a lot but this is basically what I said... This is a handy tool if you agree I spoke too fast and part of the reason we were done 15 minutes before the Main Sanctuary got out...

To be delivered before VBS Library Minyan 2/9/08

SUMMARY: Welcome to Trumah, it is here we interrupt the narrative and begin the excessive laws and instructions to the Israelites in the desert which will be the major focus of the next book and a half of the Torah. It is in this portion where God begins to command Moses with the specific blueprint for building the Mishkan, the Tabernacle which will act as a movable sanctuary during their sojourn in the desert. We begin with the first ever synagogue appeal, where God Himself commands those of a giving nature “whose hearts so moved them” to donate gold, silver, copper, and various fabrics made from valuable threads and mythical beasts (one midrash in the Talmud defines the tachash skins as from a multi-colored unicorn. Our own Etz Chaim giant red chumashim translate tachash as Dolphin Skin. Where they got giant sea creatures in the middle of the Sinai desert I wonder to this day, something I find to be about as plausible as multicolored unicorns). We shall later learn that the fundraiser was too successful, something that never happens during synagogue appeals. Moses receives specific instructions on how to make the Tabernacle, Ark of the Covenant, Shewbread Table, Menorah, and how to design the curtains. Admittedly, it’s not the most exciting and it is, in fact, the first Torah portion in our cycle completely devoid of narrative, but as we will soon learn there are indeed diamonds in the rough.

DVAR: First of all, when I was asked to give a Dvar Torah on this week’s Torah Portion I immediately knew I was in trouble. Any of the Torah Portions since, say, May, would have been relatively easy to commentate. But from this point through the next couple of months, besides a Golden Calf or grizzly zapping story, we will be dealing with laws. Many many many laws. Many of these laws will be regarding Sacrifices or building edifices or fighting sin-induced skin diseases which have not been part of our culture for 2,000 years. So it is a real struggle to find something engaging within the specific instructions on how to build the Mishkan.

But among the tedious architectural instructions given in this parasha is something absolutely revolutionary that will change the course of the Jewish people.

וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם (Exodus 25:8), they shall make me a sanctuary and I will dwell among them.

Unfortunately, even the dearth of Midrashim I looked up for this verse are mum on the inherent floodgate this should open. But as my teacher Rabbi Brad Artson said at his lecture here on Wednesday night, “it is a mark of greatness to not recycle something dead rabbis have said, stringing together quotes, but instead offering previously unrevealed wisdom”. This Dvar Torah is an attempt at such revelation. I have never heard anyone comment on this verse, so this is a trial in uncharted territory.

Past attempts to centralize God have failed. In the Tower of Babel, the inhabitants of Babylon attempted to go up to the abode of God in the heavens. But now God desires a meeting point between Him and the Israelites, a structure through which the Children of Israel will have a very real and constant knowledge of God’s omnipresence and providence. He commands us to create a home on Earth, commanding us to build him a dwelling among the Israelites.

Ramban, Nachmanides, says on this verse that the place will serve as the house of a king and that God will dwell in the “Bayit” and “Kisei HaKavod” , “in the house and on the Throne of Glory that they will build for Him there. These parallel the same locations to God’s palace and Throne of Glory in Heaven, richly described in midrashic literature. But now we bring God down to Earth. We read a few minutes ago: רוממו ה' א-לקנו והשתחוו להדום רגליו, קדוש הוּא. Praise the Lord our God and prostrate to His footstool, for it is holy.” The footstool is the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, the meeting point where Heaven and Earth kiss. When the Ark of the Covenant is led into battle, the Israelites rout their enemies as God and His Celestial Host of myriads of angelic warriors join and obliterate our adversaries. We just said this very thing as we took out the Torah

ויהי בנסוע הארון ויאמר משה: קומה ה' ויפוצו אויבך וינוסו משנאך מפניך, arise God and cause your enemies to scatter and those that hate you to flee from before you.

These relics are a way of summoning God, a trend which will continue next week with the instructions to Aaron regarding the creation of the Priestly Garments. All these devices will be used to divine God or perform other supernatural tasks.

This week’s Haftarah from the Book of Kings similarly gives the blueprint of another Mikdash, Solomon’s Temple, the first Beit HaMikdash. It uses the same language as the Torah portion did.

וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹךְ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְלֹא אֶעֱזֹב אֶת־עַמִּי יִשְׂרָאֵל:

“And I will dwell among the children of Israel and I will not abandon My nation Israel.” The Ark of the Covenant, previously mobile, will now have a permanent home in the Holy of Holies, God’s eternal dwelling place. Something notable in this haftarah is that is in the aside quote “in the 480^th year after the Israelites left the land of Egypt”. I don’t think I have seen other references to the date of the Exodus from Egypt in other books besides the Torah. We are commanded to daily recall the Exodus and set our calendars from this date, and yet this is one of the few examples which actually follows this guideline. I feel that it is tying the two events together, the building of the movable Tabernacle of the Desert, and the Holy Temple in the permanent capital of Jerusalem, that 480 years passed between the constructions in the two events.

What happened to the Tabernacle? Some commentators go so far as to claim that identical cubit measurements placed the entire Tabernacle into the Holy of Holies in the First Temple, that it be a continuation of that place which Moses entreated God and in which Aaron and his sons ministered in the home of God. This is the continuation of a literal emanation of God on Earth.

But we, as Maimonidean Jews cannot allow ourselves to anthropomorphize God, that God needs a physical place to dwell‽ Ironically when King David asks to build the First Temple God rhetorically responds to the negative, “should you build Me a House in which to dwell?” I think it is vital to look at this metaphorically. There is a song that is traditionally sung at Seudah Shlishit, the third meal which is eaten late Saturday afternoon as the Sabbath wanes, a placid song known as Bilvavi, the melody slow, powerful, and emotional, I will now sing it one time through so you can get a feel for the emotion pulsating through these words:

בלבבי משכן אבנה להדר כבודו

ובמשקן מזבח אשים לקרני הודו

ולנר תמיד אקח לי את אש העקדה

ולקרבן אקריב לו את נפשי היחידה

“In my heart I will build a Tabernacle to beautify Your Glory, and in this Tabernacle I will place an altar for the rays of Your Splendor, and for the Ner Tamid, [the Eternal Light], I will take the fire of the Akeidah, [where Isaac was bound on the altar], and for the sacrifice I will offer to Him my unique soul.”

This is a powerful statement but certainly not literal. God wants to be a part of our lives but we need to let him enter. When we are standing at the Sea of Reeds, Charlton Heston famously yells, “The Lord of Hosts will do battle for us. Behold his mighty hand.” The actual quote from Exodus 14 is “Have no fear! Stand back and witness the salvation of God which he makes for you today, for the Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again. The Lord will battle for you and you will stand back!” Then the water parts and the Israelites enter, right? No! In the Torah, God responds by saying “why do you cry out to me? Tell the Children of Israel to go forward!” It takes a brave Jew named Nachshon ben Aminadav to walk into the turbulent waters up to his nose for the sea to split. Okay, so there’s a little Midrash here. God wants us to want him.

In the beginning of the Jewish people we needed a Mishkan or a Beit HaMikdash in which to offer of our substance to God, to bring ourselves close to Him. The word for sacrifice is Korban which also means drawing close. But how will the slaughtering of an animal and burning it on an altar bring you closer to God? The prophet Hosea suggests “instead of bulls, the offering of our lips” should suffice. We need to appear before God with לבב שלם, a whole heart, many of us also approach with a broken heart, which may be even more powerful. The offering of our lips will not suffice without our heart being in it. The psalmist wrote a phrase which we use to conclude our most important prayer, יהיו לרצון אמרי פי והגיון ליבי לפניך ה' צורי וגואלי, “may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to You Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

We have found a way over the past two millennia to survive without any sort of sacrificial service, that which will be the focus of most of the rest of the Torah and much of the rest of the Bible. Yet 2,000 years later, here we are as Jews, and no Korbanot. 480 years separatated the building of the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple. We too can count from this red-letter day. According to my math utilizing the traditional year of the Exodus 2448 Anno Mundi (corresponding to 1312 BCE), we are 3,320 years removed from God’s instructions to Moses and 2,840 from Solomon’s glorious construction project, and today we continue the tradition, in a slightly less literal way. We have moved into the synagogues and shtiblach and come together to pray. ועשו לי מקדש. Mikdash doesn’t need to be a place, it means holiness! Make for me holiness, commands God! Though we pray for it, we don’t need a Beit HaMikdash to feel the Presence of God. Though it might not be the best thing for a Rabbincal student to say, especially at a minyan, even the synagogue is not the be-all-end-all. Yes, it is ideal to be among a quorum of Jews, which the Talmud states brings down the shechinah. But God dwells within each any every one of us, and God implores us to make room for Him in there, to avoid impurity and allow holiness to abide within. God knocks at the door of our souls and we need to let Him in. As the aphorism goes, your body is a Temple. But a temple to whom? And do you allow your heart and soul to act as the High Priest? Let God in! וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם There I will dwell, within the sanctuary of your heart.

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