Rabbi Neal's Weekly Commentary

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Pesach

Now, onto the business at hand- which is quite a bit, actually, since
with Pesach falling on Thursday and Friday, we have the unusual
situation of three “haftarah days” in a row- the first and second days
of Pesach, then Shabbat, also with a special reading for Pesach.
You’ll find all the relevant texts at the link below, but for today,
we’ll just look briefly at the haftarah for the first day of Passover.

This haftarah picks up where the Torah itself ends: at the beginning
of the book of Joshua (well, chapter 3, to be precise), with the
Israelites crossing the Jordan River and beginning their journey into
the Land of Israel. The text makes clear that Yehoshua [Joshua] is
truly the heir of Moshe [Moses]:

1) Just as Moshe was told to purify the people at Sinai, Yehoshua is
told to purify the people before they cross the river, which is
stopped up so they can walk across as if it were dry land. (This part
of the story is not part of our haftarah.)

2) Just as Moshe and the people make a Pesach offering and eating
matzah, so too Yehoshua and the people make a Pesach offering and
eating matzah.

3) Just as Moshe has an unexpected encounter with the Divine at the
burning bush, so too Yehoshua is surprised by an angel:

“Once, when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man
standing before him, drawn sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and
asked him, “Are you one of us or of our enemies?” He replied, ‘No, I
am captain of the Lord’s host. Now I have come!’ Joshua threw himself
face down on the ground and, prostrating himself, said to him, ‘What
does my lord command his servant?’ The captain of the Lord’s host
answered Joshua, ‘Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place
where you stand is holy.’ ” And Joshua did so. (Yehoshua/Joshua
5:13:-15, JPS translation)

The parallel with the burning bush is obvious: Yehoshua is told to
remove his shoes in recognition of the holiness of the place, and he
does so. (Cf. Exodus 3)

So our next question is: if the Bible goes out of its way to portray
Yehoshua as symbolically living out the key events in Moshe’s life,
why choose this text as the haftarah for people (that’d be us) who are
not leading the people out of slavery or into the Land?

To me, the story above, of Yehoshua and the angel, is so fitting for
Pesach precisely because it’s about encountering the Sacred when you
least expect it. Remember, when Moshe encountered the burning bush, he
was a fugitive, working as a shepherd, on the side of some unimportant
hill that could have been anywhere. Yehoshua, too, when he encounters
the angel, is just “near Jericho”- not expecting any great theophany,
not having any great dramatic moment (yet.)

This is the deeper meaning of the Pesach story: that we recall our
history precisely because it can be a symbolic template for our own
lives. We may not be leaders of armies or makers of great miracles,
but all of us are commissioned for a spiritual task, the unique work
of our lives. We may not be confronting Pharaoh, but all of us have
the capacity to be liberators, of ourselves and others who may be
stuck in a dark and dismal place. We may not be leading our people
across seas and rivers, but all of us have the opportunity to lead
others from darkness to light, from constriction to freedom, through
the power of our compassion and generosity.

Both Moshe and Yehoshua took off their shoes on holy ground not
because the ground was holy in itself, but because their experience
and renewed spiritual consciousness made that moment holy. That’s
what’s important: any ground can be sacred if we experience rededication and
uplifted vision there. Pesach is all about movement, growth, change and hope;
these things can start right now, wherever you are, because the place you are
standing is holy ground.

A happy and healthy Pesach to one and all,

RNJL

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Pesach

This weekend we don’t read a regular weekly Torah portion, because
Shabbat is the seventh day of Pesach, which is Yom Tov (a Biblical
holiday) and Sunday is the eighth day, the extra day observed by
traditional communities in the Diaspora. On Sunday, the reading
includes D’varim/ Deuteronomy 16, which reviews the “Shalosh Regalim”
[three pilgrimage festivals]: Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot in the fall.
Between Pesach and Shavuot [the holiday of "weeks" at the beginning of
the summer], we learn about counting the omer:

“You shall count off seven weeks; start to count the seven weeks when
the sickle is first put to the standing grain. ” (D’varim/ Deuteronomy
16:9)

The mitzvah of counting the omer is also found in Vayikra/ Leviticus
23, with a bit more detail given. The basic idea is the connection
between the beginning of the season for growing grain and the earliest
harvest in the Land of Israel. Pesach is a holiday that marks the
first growing things of spring and Shavuot is the holiday of the
“first fruits” of summer. The omer itself was a sheaf of new grain
brought to the ancient Temple on the second day of Passover; the
commandment to count until Shavuot links the two holidays as part of a
cycle of thanks for the blessings of the land.

In practical terms, you will note that the verse above talks about
counting “weeks,” while the verse in Vayikra speaks of counting both
days and weeks. Thus, when we count the omer, after the first week, we
mention both the number of days and the number of weeks. Each night we
count the new day (the new day beginning at sundown) by saying the
bracha [blessing] and the appropriate number of days and weeks. If we
forgot at night, we do count the next day without a blessing, and if
we forgot a whole day or more, we pick up again without any blessing
at all- this has to do with thinking of the complete counting period
as a mitzvah.

Early in post-Biblical Jewish history, the omer became a sad period,
with customs associated more with mourning than springtime, but
personally, I prefer to see the omer as orienting us towards two
important truths:

1) The natural world around us is in a constant state of change,
growth and renewal. Paying attention to each day of springtime attunes
us to the daily miracles of creation and the cycles of birth, growth,
harvest and renewal in nature.

2) Pesach is called “zman herutenu,” or “the time of our freedom,”
while Shavuot, 7 weeks later, is the holiday of “matan Torah,” or
giving of the Torah. To me, the omer reminds that our freedom must
have a purpose in order to be meaningful. We were not taken out of
Egypt only to be free from oppression, but to serve God by enacting
compassion and justice in the world. Counting our days from Exodus to
Sinai reminds us to use our freedom, every day, not for trivial
things, but for creating the society intended by the highest ideals of
Torah.

One can also find in books and on the internet detailed calendars for
doing particular exercises of introspection and contemplation each day
of the omer, but we’ll leave those for another day.

The mitzvah of counting the omer seems rather archaic in a 24/7 world
of linked internet calendars and constant electronic communication,
but perhaps that’s the point. We are all creatures of the Earth,
living with nature, linked to its cycles, which move on a different
schedule than email and text messages. Counting the omer makes us
aware of time in a deeper way, orients us towards the small beauties
of life, asks us to let the season unfold over days and weeks and
months until we are ready for the fullness of summer.

Counting the omer demands that we take just a few moments a day to ask
ourselves: for what have I used these precious days and weeks? What I
have learned, what have I seen, what have I taken in and what have I
given back?

Seen this way, the mitzvah of counting the omer is not only about
what’s growing in the barley fields, but what’s growing in the human
spirit.

A happy conclusion of Pesach to all,

RNJL

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Pesach

We’re in the middle of the Pesach [Passover] holiday, and you know what that
means (all matzah jokes will be disregarded at this point) – that’s
right, it’s time for the “dry bones” to get reconnected in the vision
of the prophet Yechezkel, or Ezekiel, as we know him in these parts.
I’m referring to the haftarah, or prophetic reading, that the ancient
rabbis chose for the Shabbat which falls during Pesach, which comes
from the teachings of the aforementioned prophet, Yechezkel, who
preached to the Jewish community in exile in Babylonia sometime after
597 B.C.E. In this passage, from chapter 37, Yechezkel is taken,
perhaps in a vision, to a “valley of dry bones,” where God asks him if
the bones can live again.

It’s a rhetorical question, given Who is asking it! God tells
Yechezkel to make a prophesy that the bones will live again, and lo
and behold, the bones get reattached to each other and are resurrected
to life while the prophet looks on in amazement. Again, it’s not clear
whether we are supposed to understand this as a vision or dream, or
whether the Bible wants us to believe this literally, but in either
event, the text tells us what the event is supposed to mean. In verse
11, God tells Yechezkel that the revived bones represent the “House of
Israel,” which will be released from its grave to live again- that is,
released from exile and brought back into the land of Israel to live
again as a nation.

OK, so far, so good, and it’s not that hard to connect a prophesy of
national salvation with Pesach, since we tell the story of the Exodus
from Egypt in order to strengthen our faith in future miracles of
liberation and freedom. Yet the Bible is full of passages and
prophesies which speak of hope for the messianic age, so there had to
be some reason why this particular text, with its fantastic images of
skeletons coming to life, was chosen as part of the overall set of
Pesach texts and teachings.

One answer from classic rabbinic theology is the idea of “techiat
hametim,” or “revival of the dead,” which has been understood to be
part of the hoped-for messianic age. In our day, many interpret this
idea metaphorically: that no matter how “deadened” one’s senses or
spirit is, and thereby alienated from from God, nature, or the human
community, one can always “come alive” through prayer, study, and acts
of loving-kindness. This widens the metaphor of the “dry bones” from
the life of the nation to the life of a person. This, in turn, fits
well with a similar widening in the meaning of the Pesach symbols,
from a story of national enslavement to a more personal narrative of
being freed from whatever is our individual bondage or “narrow place.”

So coming back to the valley of dry bones, perhaps we
can understand this image as complementing the story
of the Exodus from Egypt and reinforcing our faith
that when one seeks a “revived” life, no spiritual “hibernation” (it’s
springtime, after all) is too great to overcome. Even when our low
places may be as low as a valley of dry bones in their
graves, the Divine Presence can bring true life,
through a life of connection and service.

You might notice that the image of the bones coming to
life is itself a visual metaphor of connecting, which
is itself part of the path to spiritual healing. In other
words, both the Exodus and Yechezkel’s vision teach us
different aspects of the same truth – that renewal,
healing, and restoration to the fullness of
life are miracles which are present and possible for each of us, not
only at this time of year, but anytime we reconnect with hope and
love, practiced with community and in the Divine Presence.

Shabbat Shalom, and Hag Sameach [Happy holiday],

RNJL