Reb Jeff

Purim: Who Knows?

3/8/2012

On the contrary, if you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another quarter, while you and your father's house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis.
-Esther 4:14 (JPS Translation)

My favorite verse in the whole Megillah comes after Mordechai tells Esther about Haman's plans and asks her to intercede before the king. Esther protests that she would risk death if she appeared before the king without being asked. Mordechai answers by telling her that this may be the very moment for which she has become queen.

The careful use of language here—the hedging of "perhaps" and the unnamed agency by which Esther has become queen—all point to Purim's hidden theme. God is never mentioned in the Megillah, but can be found between every line.

There is an Ashkenazic custom of writing a Scroll of Esther so that the word, HaMelech, "The King," appears as the first word of almost every column. In the literal story of Purim, "The King" means the dopey, drunken Achashveirosh. However, in the hidden story, the king at the top of each column is the King of Kings of Kings, the Holy Blessed One, pulling the strings and setting the story's course.

So it is in our lives. People say, "Oh, God," in moments of exasperation, anxiety or delight, and they think that they are just using an expression. Yet, the words betray a hidden presence. In the moments that matter most in our lives, we want to know that we are not alone in the universe. We want to know we have a reason for being here.

Mordechai says to Esther, "Who knows?," because God's presence is sometimes better left as a question than an answer. Perhaps God only peeks around the corners of our lives. Perhaps we are better off seeing ourselves as the agents of our own destinies, as Mordechai and Esther are portrayed in today's story. Purim is the holiday for celebrating our mastery of our own fate, and that's good. Yet, there is always that question—"Who knows?"—hovering unnamed at the top of every column.

Who knows? Perhaps you have a purpose, too.

Other Posts on This Topic:
Miketz: Deception

There Was a Young Lady from Shushan

3/7/2012

There was a young lady from Shushan
Who knew how to put the right moves on.
Haman plotted a ruse
For to murder the Jews,
But Esther defied that conclusion.

Purim tonight. Potluck dinner at 6:30 p.m. Purim Shpiel at 7:30 p.m.
Be happy. It's Adar.

The Dignity of the Rabbi

3/4/2012

Today, Sunday, our religious school had its annual Purim carnival. This is a mainstay of many congregations at Purim. The youth group organizes games and other entertainment for the younger kids and charges admission or a fee for each game. It is a fundraiser for the youth group that helps them pay for their programs and trips throughout the year.

I agreed to participate in this year's carnival by helping with a game in which kids throw shaving cream pies at Haman. And, yes, my job was to be Haman. There's a video clip above to attest to the indignity of it all.

(By the way, I was joking about "fifty bucks a throw." It was actually three dollars. This booth raised about $120 for our youth group. Not bad.)

I know that there were at least a few parents watching today who wondered, "Is it right that our rabbi should be doing this? What does it teach our kids that they can throw shaving cream pies at the rabbi—even in the spirit of Purim merriment?" Well, I have to admit that I thought about that, too.

There actually is a discussion in traditional Jewish law about this question. Are there activities that should be considered beneath the dignity of a rabbi?

The proof text that generally is used in this discussion comes from the book of Samuel. When King David brought the Ark of the Covenant to the City of David, there was a boisterous celebration with dancing, shouting, music and shofar blasts (II Samuel 6). When David's wife, Michal, saw her husband "leaping and whirling," she despised him for it. Michal was born a princess, the daughter of King Saul. She felt that to behave as David did was beneath the dignity of the successor to her father's throne.

When David came home, Michal gave him what for. She spoke sarcastically to him: "How well did the King of Israel honor himself today by exposing himself to the eyes of his subjects' slave girls in the way that one of the riffraff might expose himself!" (II Samuel 6:20).

David answered by telling Michal that he danced with the Ark in order to serve God. "I will dance before Adonai and dishonor myself even more and I shall bring myself low in my own eyes; but among the slave girls of whom you speak, I shall be honored" (II Samuel 6:21-22).

The Bible clearly has a negative view of Michal's reproach. It states that because of this incident she never gave birth. David, on the other hand, is viewed positively for his willingness to subvert his own dignity for the sake of honoring God. David knew that by lowering himself before God, he actually lifted up the way he was perceived. From this, Jewish legal scholars conclude that the dignity of a leader, such as a rabbi, is not compromised when his or her actions are seen as the fulfillment of God's commandments (See, for example, Bei'ur Halachah, Siman 250).

Now, I don't bring this up in order to say that I was as righteous as Kind David, or to suggest that I acted today to raise my prestige in the eyes of our congregation. The point I want to make is a more global statement about Judaism, rabbis, dignity and joy.

I want Jewish children to know that Judaism wants us to experience the leaping joy of the human heart. I think a rabbi can sacrifice a bit of his or her dignity if it helps to show children (and the child in all of us) that Judaism is more interested in celebrating God with ecstatic joy than it is in the solemn dignity of human beings.

Rabbis (including myself) can be a pretty stuck-up bunch. We display ourselves as spiritual exemplars and we believe that our behavior sets the standard for the community. We are mindful that the way we are perceived shapes the way that the Jewish people as a whole are perceived. I believe that all of this is right. Rabbis should live in awe of the responsibility to act accordingly.

Yet, there also is a need to lighten up a bit. If awe and dignity are all that people see in rabbis, they will assume that this is all there is to Judaism. We owe them so much more. A rabbi also has to be an exemplar of life lived with joy. What better opportunity is there for doing that than Purim?

Celebrate God by living outrageously, proudly and joyfully. Live with dignity, yes, but never forget that the purpose of dignity is not to aggrandize ourselves. Dignity is a good thing only to the extent that it helps us remember that our lives matter. We live every moment in the presence of an awesome God.

Other Posts on This Topic:
Counting from Freedom to Covenant: Nobility

Purim Ditty

3/4/2012

Purim Ditty

Welcome to Purim, holiest day of the year.
Sanctity and profanity merge in
A time so lost beyond the horizon
We lose the Name.

Haman and Mordechai now are drinking buddies,
Old pals who trade stories.
Meaning fades and concepts melt--
They were only windows, after all,
That peer into immeasurable truth.
There are no boundaries here.

After a few, the two stumble home,
Their heads spinning, adlayada.
They fumble keys, feed the cat,
And wake sober on Pesach,
Each in the other one's bed.

Welcome to Purim, holy of holies,
Fulfillment of the solemn cycle.
Miracle and revelation,
Sorrow and celebration,
Find strange completion
In this day of days.
All others we toss away to say
We finally have remembered to forget.

Other Posts on This Topic:
Imagine There's No Haman

Writing a Word of Torah

3/1/2012

I know that there are rabbis who do not love working with bar and bat mitzvah students. Tutoring twelve-year-olds is time consuming and it can be frustrating. I know that there are rabbis who do not have time to work with these students. In large congregations it is a duty that gets passed along to an assistant rabbi, to a cantor, or to someone whose sole job is to tutor.

I love it. I am blessed to have the time to do it.

I find the there is a certain wisdom in Jewish tradition of celebrating a major lifecycle event around the time when a child turns thirteen. They are just at the point when the world is beginning to make sense to them. As they enter early adolescence, they find that they are allowed to think for themselves, to form their own opinions, and to look for ways of being their own original person. It is a great thing to witness.

This is why my favorite part of tutoring young people who are about to become b'nei mitzvah (the plural of bar or bat mitzvah) is helping them to write a d'var Torah. This is the brief teaching they will offer at the service that relates to the weekly Torah portion. Kids of this age usually are thrilled to be able to say something that expresses a bit of their own personality. They want, so much, to be who they are, not just to reflect the expectations and projections of their parents and teachers.

The expression, "d'var Torah," literally means "a word of Torah," and it is an apt name for that small kernel of insight that a good d'var Torah is meant to convey. A d'var Torah is more than a synopsis of the portion, as it needs to have a flair of originality or a different perspective. It is not a sermon, but, perhaps the beginning of something that might become a sermon. In short, a d'var Torah is the perfect vehicle for twelve-year-olds to strike that brief, momentary pose in which they differentiate themselves from the rest of the world and show what it is they've got.

I find a predictable pattern, like the arc of a developing story, that students follow as they prepare a d'var Torah. They begin with excitement about some fixed idea they see in the Torah portion. Sometimes there is something that resonates with their sense of right and wrong, like Leviticus' declaration, "You shall not stand idle upon the blood of your neighbor," and they want to write about responsibility. Sometimes they are annoyed or angered by something in the Torah that they want to reject, like Exodus' death penalty for children who insult their parents, and they want to write about how judgmental adults can be toward children. Sometimes they just feel attracted to a powerful image, like the giving of the Ten Commandments or the parting of the Red Sea, and they want to write about how awesome God is. (Yes, they like to use that word).

The initial excitement about what they want to say leads to a great flurry of sentences that go all over the place. They get passionate and make bold, beautiful statements about how they see the world and how things ought to be.

And then I ask, "So what is this Torah saying about you? When has this Torah you're telling me about been a part of your life?" It does not happen every time—but it happens often enough—that the child looks at me with wide eyes as if to say, "Me? The Torah is about me? What do I have to do with it?" And that is when we really begin.

I ask them to remember an experience from their own life that relates to their fixed idea. I ask them to think about a time when they amazed themselves, or when they disappointed themselves. I ask them to put themselves into the text and tell their own story that illustrates what they see in the Torah—the time when they were the one who stood idly by another person's suffering, the time when they felt small because of someone else's unkind judgment, and the time when they felt transformed by God's awesome presence.

For an almost-thirteeen-year-old to capture such a moment from his or her brief life is enough. It is enough to make them feel that they have said something that is all their own, and it is enough to make them feel—for a long time, I hope—that the Torah is theirs, too. The moment of insight is followed by a few paragraphs of "thank yous" to their parents, to their siblings, to their teachers, to the cantor, and to the rabbi. That's enough for me, too.

I love to help those almost-thirteen-year-olds write their word of Torah. Of course, it is also because I myself love to write a word of Torah. But there is something wonderful about watching someone else do it, someone who is discovering it for the first time.

Other Posts on This Topic:
Funerals
Ten Thoughts About Being a Congregational Rabbi

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Purim: Who Knows?

There Was a Young Lady from Shushan

The Dignity of the Rabbi

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