In this week's Torah portion (Lech L'cha), God asks Abraham to enter into a covenant. God says, "Walk before me and be perfect (תמים)" (Genesis 17:1). Perfect? Really? How can God ask that of Abraham? How can Abraham possibly live up to that command?

There is a discussion about this passage in the Babylonian Talmud (B. Nedarim 32a), in which the rabbis say that Abraham "was seized with trembling" when he heard this command. Abraham's heart sank with guilt as he imagined that he must carry some terrible sin and stain within him that caused God to demand that he become pure. However, when Abraham then heard God say, "And I will make my covenant with you," his heart was filled with joy in the realization that perfection was, somehow, within his reach.

Perfection, you see, does not mean being without flaws, as Abraham first imagined. Rather, it means that we are willing to admit our flaws and to allow God to perfect them.

This is how the rabbis understand the ritual of circumcision. How, you might ask, is a man made better by permanently marking his flesh? Wouldn't the cutting of circumcision make him less perfect, less in the form that God intended for him? The rabbis answer this by saying that circumcision helps bring a man closer to perfection specifically because it points out flaws and acknowledges imperfection. If we were to depend only on our flawed selves to repair ourselves, we would be hopelessly and endlessly disappointed. It is only when we recognize that there is something beyond ourselves to which we owe reverence and hope for healing that we can find our highest selves. We can, by submitting ourselves to God, find a different kind of perfection.

In the same section of the Talmud, Rabbi Yitzchak says, “When you seek to conduct yourself perfectly, the Holy Blessed One deals perfectly with you." We human beings do not reach perfection, but we can do something even better: we can strive for perfection. The fact that we fail—again and again—does not diminish the merit we earn in trying. God sees our striving and treats us as if we were perfect. God perfects us, and this is why Abraham rejoiced. 

Have I mentioned that I'm a baseball fan? No, I mean, have I revealed that I am a huge, irrational and enthusiastic baseball fan? With the logo of my favorite team on the back of my car? It's true.

While I am a very partisan fan of my team (okay, it's the Boston Red Sox), I also am a lover of the sport as a whole. Last night, fans of the game were treated to one of the greatest contests in the history of the World Series. In Game Six, the St. Louis Cardinals were one strike away from losing the Series to the Texas Rangers in both the ninth and the tenth innings, yet managed to tie the game both times before winning it in the bottom of the eleventh inning and extending the Series to an improbable Game Seven tonight. In an era when so much reporting about baseball is focussed on the business side of the game, it was a moment to remind fans how much fun baseball can be—a joyful children's game played by grown-ups.

Baseball is a game of redemption. It is a game in which there is no clock to call a halt to the game, so no game is ever beyond the reach of being lost or won, even when it is highly improbable. The delicious thing is, the improbable does happen. Losers turn into winners in the most dramatic fashion. (I won't dwell on the plight of my own team, which had a full blast of "improbable" to take them out of the postseason this year. It does happen.) 

Sportswriter Thomas Boswell wrote about "How Life Imitates the World Series" in his book by that name, and it's true. What is also true is that we can learn about Torah by paying attention to baseball. No other sport, Boswell taught us, rewards close attention the way that baseball does. The positioning of the infielders and outfielders, the chess match between pitcher and batter, the lead of the runner off of first base, and the poetically imprecise evaluation of players in different situations are all part of the delicate flavors and sweet aroma of baseball to its connoisseurs. Baseball shows us how Torah wants us to live life joyfully—by paying attention to details, reveling in them and finding magic within them.

Baseball is also a game that changes our perception of time. It is played slowly and leisurely in the summer, when time is only a rumor. Baseball is a universe in which the past and the present are commingled. Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Sandy Koufax, Yaz and Pedro all play forever on the same field and our memories of baseball past become interchangeable with our hopes and expectations of the future. As Rashi would put it, "Ein mukdam u'me'uchar babaseball," "There is no before and after in baseball"—all that is true and beautiful exists in one ecstatic moment.

A game such as I watched last night reminds me how much excitement there is to be found in the delicate details—and that is what Torah is all about. The rhythm of the daily prayers, the appreciation of the world with each blessing, the hectic anticipation of Shabbat's arrival, the sweet and sad fragrance of its departure, are all Torah's training ground for appreciating the details of life. Creation, revelation and redemption all exist in one moment in Torah—the moment in which we discover how all is one in holiness.

It was a great game. Almost as great as Game Six of the 1975 World Series. Bernie Carbo's home run, Dwight Evans' catch, and, of course, Fisk's ball just fair over the Monster—ahh!—all are beautiful details of God's creation.

Here is a simple thought.

There are many different ways to experience the plays of William Shakespeare. Sometimes we experience the plays as audience members attending formal performances. At some point, most of us have studied Shakespeare as students of English literature. Most everyone knows Shakespeare as an icon of Western civilization—a symbol of culture and high art.

I have had all of those experiences with Shakespeare, but I have also had a taste of another perspective. I used to be an actor and I worked for a while (long ago) in the professional theater. So, let me tell you this:

In my experience, the people who enjoy Shakespeare the most and, I believe, who understand his writing the best, are the actors and actresses who perform his works. To them, the merit of Shakespeare's plays is not that they are a symbol of culture, a subject of academic study, or even as literary masterpieces. To the people I have known who perform Shakespeare's work for a living, the merit of his plays is simply this: They are good. 

Shakespeare's plays make for good theater. They are filled with delicious moments of discovery and the unexpected. They reveal the nature of human existence in ways that are funny and deeply moving. They are a pleasure to perform and, when they are done well, they have a powerful affect on an audience. Shakespeare's plays are good for no better and no worse reason than that they work amazingly well on the stage.

Now, I want to suggest that we can view Judaism the same way. 

Some people experience Judaism as a kind of performance they they attend a few times a year out of a sense of duty, propriety or sentimental attachment to their heritage. Some people experience Judaism as a lovely collection of stories, ethical teachings, and intellectual stimulation (even if they don't believe in it). Some people relate to Judaism mostly as an icon—the transmitted word of God handed down to us through the generations.

At some point, most Jews have experienced Judaism in all of these forms. I have to tell you, though, that, in my experience, the people who enjoy Judaism the most and, I believe, who understand it the best, are the people who live it. 

The true merit of Judaism is not that it is the holy word of God written by the hand of Moses and handed down to us across the ages. It is not that it is a fascinating and captivating subject of study. It is not that it is a treasured relic of the past that we must maintain for future generations as it has been maintained for us. Judaism can be described as all of these things, but it is much more.

The true merit of Judaism is that it works. It brings joy into the hearts of people who delight in it. Judaism delivers a sense of wholeness and meaning into the lives of the people who embrace it. It feels good. It makes you feel connected to the whole universe and it opens your eyes to the miracles that surround you in every moment. Judaism is good for no better and no worse reason than that it fulfills the deepest yearning of the human heart to experience the mystery within a mystery that we call life.

Think about it.

Last night, I participated in a Havdalah event for families in our congregation's preschool program. We called it "PJ Havdalah" because we invited kids and their parents to come to the synagogue in their pajamas for the ritual that marks the end of Shabbat on Saturday evening. We all came down into the well of the sanctuary, in front of the bimah, and celebrated a moment that marks the meeting of worlds.

The ritual of Havdalah has three symbols: wine to represent the joy and sweetness of Shabbat, spices to comfort us for the loss of Shabbat, and a braided candle lit with fire to symbolize the end of Shabbat and the beginning of the six days of work. Blessings are made over each symbol, followed by a blessing to sanctify the distinction between Shabbat and the rest of the week. Then the candle is extinguished in the wine and a new week is declared. (You can download a Havdalah service on the Resources page.)

The ritual is well known, but there are mystical origins to havdalah that are not often taught or understood. This is not just a ritual for saying goodbye to Shabbat. Havdalah is a moment in which we rehearse the divisions that separate the world of material reality from the world of spiritual reality. Shabbat is understood as a gateway to the supernal world and havdalah marks the transition in which the two worlds meet.

The spices we smell at havdalah do not just comfort us for the loss of a day of rest. They also cushion the shock from losing the extra soul that fills us on Shabbat. We learn of this extra soul from the passage in Torah we recite on Shabbat that begins, "V'sham'ru v'nei Yisrael et haShabbat," "The children of Israel shall keep Shabbat" (Exodus 31:16). The passage ends with the phrase, "Uvayom hashvi'i shavat vayinafash," which can be translated as, "On the seventh day [God] rested and was ensouled." This extra soul is within us just for Shabbat and departs from us when Shabbat ends.

We have two souls, one for our physical existence and one for our spiritual existence. Shabbat is the gateway in which we are so in touch with the world of spiritual existence that that second soul can even enter into and survive inside of our material bodies. It is a time when the world of ultimate meaning is so close to us that we can almost touch, taste, smell, see and feel it with our bodily senses.

The twisted havdalah candle also has mystical meanings. It is a torch made up of at least two wicks. The dual candle represents the duality of the material and the spiritual worlds. While the blessing is made over the fire of the candle, there is a traditional practice to gaze at ones cupped hand to observe the light of the candle glinting off the fingertips and the shadow cast by the fingers on the palm. The contemplation of light and dark reminds us of the distinction between the world that we can see around us and the hidden world of God's presence. 

The reflected light off of the fingernails has further symbolism.  According to the Zohar, when God created the first human beings, they were clothed in bodies of pure light. The soul of the human being shined visibly within this translucent body. It was only after they ate from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that Adam and Eve were given material bodies made of flesh. However, as a reminder of our original form, God allowed us to retain a single vestige of those original bodies. Our translucent fingernails are a reminder that, in our origin, we are beings of light. As Shabbat departs, we gaze at the light of the candle reflected in our fingernails to remember this truth about ourselves.

We are more than physical bodies, and the world is more than what we usually perceive with our physical senses. The world we live in is only complete when it includes the universe of meaning, connection, spirit and the hidden truth of divine presence. Havdalah is a moment to reflect on that universe and to claim it as an ongoing part of our glowing, spiritual selves.

I will openly and joyfully admit this truth about myself: I am a nerd. 

By "nerd," I mean that I delight in the meticulous details of a subject that most people find irrelevant, uninteresting or boring. Some people are science fiction nerds who think that it is crucially important whether it was Han Solo or Greedo who shot first, while the rest of us shrug our shoulders. I am a Hebrew grammar nerd who thinks it is important whether the first letter of the Torah has the vowel kamatz or a sh'va underneath it. By the end of this post, I hope that you will think that it is important, too.

So, let us start this story at the beginning. The first three words of the Torah are, "בראשית ברא אלהים" (B'reishit bara Elohim), which is often translated as, "In the beginning, God created..." That is the way that the phrase is translated in the King James Version of the Bible and in most other versions and translations. On the whole, it is not a bad way of putting it into English. However, this translation fails to convey a stunning fact about Hebrew grammar and the Bible. The very first verse of the Bible, the very first word, and the very first letter, contains what may be called a grammatical "mistake."

One thousand years ago, the great commentator, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (known as Rashi), observed that the word b'reishit cannot be explained grammatically in this verse. The vowel called "sh'va" is under the letter bet in the word b'reishit, which means that the word must be in the "construct state" (s'michut). This is the form of a noun that is the first part of a noun-noun pair. (We have noun-noun pairs in English, too, in words and phrases like "doorknob," "dining room" and "house-builder." However, in Hebrew, unlike English, there are complicated grammatical rules for creating such pairs.) Because the word b'reishit is in the construct state, it should be translated as "In the beginning of." If the text had wanted to say "In the beginning, God created," there would have been a simple way of saying that by changing the sh'va to a kamatz —"bareishit" instead of "b'reishit."

Rashi points out that in every other place in the Hebrew Bible that contains the word b'reishit (there are four more of them) the word clearly has this meaning. For example, in Jeremiah 26:1 we read, "B'reishit mamlechut Yehoyakim," "In the beginning of the kingdom of Jehoiakim." The form of the word b'reishit can only mean "in the beginning of...," and the word that follows it should be a noun that answers the question, "in the beginning of what?"

The problem—from a grammatical point of view—is that the word following b'reishit in Genesis 1:1 is not a noun. The next word is bara, a verb that means, "He created." A word-by-word translation of the whole phrase, b'reishit bara Elohim, would have to be something like: "In the beginning of God created." Obviously, that is not going to work as a translation into English because it doesn't make any sense in English.

How do we understand, then, the first three words of the Hebrew Bible? Why does the Bible begin with a phrase that is such an untranslatable, ungrammatical mess? Obviously, it is not just a "mistake." The unusual grammar of the first word of the Bible must have some intentional significance. 

When did God create the world? It was in the beginning of God created the world. The tautology makes no grammatical sense or temporal sense, but it makes great spiritual sense. The world was created, but it never stopped being created. The world has a beginning, but it is a beginning that has never ceased. 

The Torah begins by telling us that it does not exist in time the way other stories do. It exists in a suspended moment that cannot be pinpointed on a timeline. The difference between two little dots, or a little "T" shape, under that great big bet is the difference between a Torah that tells a conventional story and a Torah that tells a story that exists outside of time and within all time. 

"B'reishit bara Elohim." In the beginning of the beginning that is always beginning, God created the creation that is still.

The festival of Sh'mini Atzeret begins this Wednesday evening. The festival includes the celebration of Simchat Torah, the day on which we finish reading the last verses of the Torah and immediately begin reading from the first. Sh'mini Atzeret is also the festival on which we begin to pray for rain in the Sh'moneh Esrei (also called the Tefilah or the Amidah), the central prayer of Jewish worship.  A poetic prayer called "Tefilat HaGeshem," the "Prayer for Rain," is recited on this festival to mark the transition in the liturgy. Here is a contemporary version of the prayer.


As the last trickles of this year's Torah rise from Your well,
We prepare for the renewal of the endless rhythm.
Just as water cycles from ocean to cloud, from rain to river,
Your Torah travels through our lives, a life-giving flow.
Do not withhold the flow of Your water!

When we were a nation newly redeemed,
You parted the waters for us to emerge.
The birth waters spilled into the desert's sands
And we became Your possession, a nation born of water.
Do not withhold the flow of Your water!

By the waters of the Jabbok, Jacob became Israel.
He struggled with Your angel and prevailed.
So may we continue the struggle to know You
And cross the waters to find Your Presence!
Do not withhold the flow of Your water!

The waters of revelation continue to flow.
From ancient prophets to today's insights,
Your Torah still gushes to nourish our souls.
The ripples of Sinai still lap on our shores.
Do not withhold the flow of Your water!

O make us trees planted by the waters of Your Torah!
We will soak up Your truth to bloom flowers of joy.
Our leaves shine bright green, reflecting Your power,
As we immerse in the Mikveh of Israel.
Do not withhold the flow of Your water!

For You are Adonai, our God, who blows the wind and brings down the rain!