28 Thursday May 2020
Posted in Important Moments, Jewish Festival
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In Judaism, shoes, or more specifically their removal, frame key moments.
We approach the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, by removing our leather shoes. Pilgrims would remove their sandals on approaching Har haBayit, Temple Mount. Moshe’s very first Divine encounter at the burning bush …read full article .
05 Sunday Apr 2020
Posted in Jewish Festival
Mah Nishtanah? Why is this night different…?
This year, this question doesn’t feel staged. It rings true and urgent.
This year, despite the variations in Passover customs across families, we are united in experiencing the seder through social isolation.
Our reference points for what a seder is, are shaped by our memories of seders past, which dictate what a real seder feels like.
So yes, this year it will be very different.
But will it even be a real seder?
Can we imagine a seder that feels authentic, without our extended family, friends or guests ?
But is there such a thing as the authentic seder, the real thing?
The mishnah (Pesachim 10:5) sums up the goal of the seder as:
In every generation a person is obliged to regard themselves as though they personally have been redeemed from Egypt.
The seder is a process of reenactment of the original story, largely focused on the haggadah, the moment in which we recall and retell our most important story.
But the haggadah isn’t just the retelling of our people’s journey from slavery to freedom, it is also an exercise in telling the stories of seders past.
We’re invited to do so by the haggadah itself, as it opens by narrating:
‘We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord our God brought us out’, but rather than continuing that story, it detours to reminisce of another seder:
‘R’ Eliezer, R’ Yehoshua, R’ Elazar ben Azaria, R’ Akiva, and R’ Tarfon were reclining in Bnei Brak…’
A story within a story: In this 1929 Vienna Haggadah, the artist recreates the Seder in Bnei Brak by imagining a gathering the five most prominent rabbis of that time: R’ Yosef Karo (Beit Yosef), R’ Jacob ben Asher (Ba’al haTurim), R’ Shlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi), and R’ Issac Elfasi (Rif).
The haggadah continues to weave stories and memories of other rabbis performing their seders; R’ Yehudah abbreviating the ten plagues into three sets of acronyms, R’ Gamliel capturing the essence of the seder by pointing to three symbolic foods.
And so, as we immerse ourselves in the haggadah’s narrative, we don’t find a linear, original story, but stories embedded with stories.
What the haggadah is doing is akin to frame story, a literary technique that enables us to access and connect to the main narrative through multiple side stories, or stories within stories, like a Russian doll.
The truth is that memories are themselves built in the process of retrieval. And while we may set out to retrieve the original exodus story, we can only achieve this by recalling our own stories and in so doing creating memories.
And so when we contemplate this year’s seder, rather than obsessing about how different and strange it feels compared to seders past, we can celebrate it in the knowledge that we are weaving another seder story into the rich stream of Jewish memory.
This year’s seder is certainly unprecedented, but in years to come, the memory of it, with its particular references, questions and symbols, will become an important chapter of the continually unfolding haggadah story.
Let’s write this chapter with all the joy and creativity we can summon.
Future generations will retell it with reverence.
14 Thursday Feb 2019
Posted in Important Moments
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‘Living with the times’, is a motto of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe zt”l that resonates with me. He suggested that every day we ought to find inspiration from a segment of the current Torah reading. So what are we to make of the confluence of Fashion Week in New York over the last few days and in London over the Shabbat in which we read the sedra of Tezaveh ?
London Fashion Week (LFW) takes place twice a year – in February and September, one of the big four international fashion trade events together with Paris, Milan, New York – where designers showcase their new creations to an audience of 5000 buyers and press. If you follow fashion, or have seen photos of what is presented on the catwalks you know that the new fashion collection that are presented are very creative but not really practical or even wearable for most of us.
So is it relevant to normal people, who are neither in the business, nor celebrities invited to grace the front row?
But before you are tempted to dismiss it as just shmattes, it is worth bearing in mind that the LFW alone generates between £40 -100 million in sales. And the global apparel market is valued at 3 trillion dollars, and accounts for 2 percent of the world’s GDP.
The Torah portion of Tezaveh presents God’s own debut as a designer, with a capsule collection specially designed for the kohen gadol, the high priest.
God is incredibly specific in detailing the exact fabric, the color, the size, and the method for constructing the eight pieces. In fact, the instructions take up about forty verses.
Why so much attention to the details of the high priest’s garments?
‘Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.’
(attributed to Mark Twain)
It seems that the high priest draws influence from the garments specially made for him:
וְאַתָּ֗ה תְּדַבֵּר֙ אֶל־כָּל־חַכְמֵי־לֵ֔ב אֲשֶׁ֥ר מִלֵּאתִ֖יו ר֣וּחַ חָכְמָ֑ה וְעָשׂ֞וּ אֶת־בִּגְדֵ֧י אַהֲרֹ֛ן לְקַדְּשׁ֖וֹ לְכַהֲנוֹ־לִֽי׃
‘And you shall instruct all who are skillful, whom I have endowed with the gift of skill, to make Aaron’s vestments, for consecrating him to serve Me as priest’. (Exodus 28:3)
It is not enough to simply be clothed, but the specifications and characteristics of certain garments enable us to carry out precise functions. There are some great examples:
Each of the fourteen layers in an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), otherwise known as a space-suits has a particular function: from a water cooling layer to regulate body temperature to one that regulates air pressure. We can also look at the gear that Olympians wear; fast swimsuits that give olympic swimmers an edge by reducing skin friction and drag of the body on the water. And what is it about being clad in tight fitting Lycra & Spandex that enables us to tackle exercise ?
Returning to the high priest, what special function did his elaborate outfit enable him to carry out?
Various commentators elaborate on the practical function of each garment, for example the bells sewn into the hem of his robe announced the kohen’s arrival. This is interesting, but not easily relatable to our own everyday life.
Here I’d like to turn to the Tanya, the handbook of Hasidut Habad. Its fourth chapter is dedicated to the topic of levushim, garments of the soul. It explains that our soul is our essence, and that part of us that strives to connect to God, through Torah and mitzvot, On its own the soul is all spirit and holiness, but cannot find actual expression, spiritual growth or connection to the Holy. It is only able to do so through physical expressions called levushim, garments. The soul has three levushim;
מחשבה thought – used to understand Torah
דיבור speech – to study the laws and details of mitzvot
מעשה action – to put the details of mitzvot into action
The levushim don’t merely cover up the soul, so that it is embodied, but are what enable it to function in the world. This reframing of the physical as a vehicle for the spiritual expression is a recurring theme is hasidut and one that I find very useful.
But to go back to clothes that hang in our closet, we all have some well worn favorites that we love. We may not be interested in keeping up with new fashion collections or even feel the need to change our wardrobe every season. We may be most comfortable when slip into our favorite cozy sweater. But is that a good thing?
Think back to a time you wore something different for the very first time. How did you feel? I know that as a young teacher, barely a couple of years older than my own students, wearing a structured suit jacket was just what gave me the feeling of competence and authority I needed.
Considering how our physical attire affects the way we feel, let’s imagine what we could achieve if we injected some creativity in our own soul’s garments. What could a Fashion Week for the Soul offer?
A different way to access Torah; perhaps through the mystical language of the Zohar, or the lens of philosophy. A new ritual, perhaps one that doesn’t feel routine can refresh our spiritual practice.
The new designs being paraded at Fashion Week can be easily dismissed as totally unrealistic for real people to wear, and thus irrelevant.
In reality, there’s a huge amount of creative boundary pushing in fashion design, these ideas eventually filter down to the ‘ready to wear’ market and change what the average consumer buys and wears, and very gradually, even how we view what we have been wearing until that point.
As we read Tezaveh over Fashion Week, let’s ‘live with the times’. Let’s step out of our old, comfortable, go-to wardrobe staples, and try out something we would normally dismiss. Let’s enable our soul to find new meaning in Torah and new expressions of holiness in our world.
10 Monday Dec 2018
Posted in Jewish Festival
Walking around a residential neighborhood on a winter’s night can be lonely experience. The streets are dark and desolate. Passers-by become anonymous and the sound of their footsteps intimidating. I usually walk at a fast pace, every fiber of my being intent on escaping the gloom.
On a recent visit to Copenhagen, I found myself cutting through a residential neighborhood, on foot, at night, on my way to the buzzier Nyhavn district. As I was walking, I noticed my pace was unusually relaxed. I felt a sense of warmth and coziness, which the locals call hygge. From every house and building on the street, large windows cast a golden glow. I was out on a dark street, but my gaze was drawn into luminous homes, where I could see individuals at work, children at play and families gathering to eat.
I found the windows of Copenhagen unusual, because as a Londoner, I am used to seeing homes with all curtains drawn, barely a blade of light escaping from the edge of a blind. Keeping their windows unscreened, the Danes projected a friendly warmth into the street, uncloaking the heavy darkness, and offsetting the loneliness of my journey.
Copenhagen windows
Hanukkah is a time for pulling back the curtains and setting lights at the window specifically dedicated to illuminating the outside. Now, in the final hours of Hanukkah, having watched all eight flames burn brightly at my window, I am considering how the Hanukkah lights can continue to transform the blackness outside, beyond the eight day. When stepping into the warmth and light of our own homes, we can quickly forget about the darkness and loneliness experienced by many. We draw the curtains and keep it out of sight, out of mind.
But what if, at the end of Hanukkah we hold off on drawing back the curtains?
Let our home shed light and warmth and transform the gloominess of our streets. Enjoying the coziness of our home, let’s keep a window clear and unshuttered, as a reminder to look out for those experiencing loneliness and isolation through transition, anxiety and uncertainty. The talmudic formulation of the mitzvah of Hanukkah as נר איש וביתו ‘a candle for each person and their home’ (Shabbat 21b) suggests the home as a particular anchor for our capacity to brighten the outside and light up the lives of others. So, as Hanukkah draws to a close, let’s take inspiration from the windows of Copenhagen. Let’s radiate light through our homes, practicing our own form of hygge, spreading warmth, comfort, and encouragement.
Copenhagen
11 Wednesday Oct 2017
Posted in Jewish Festival
Simchat Torah.
Will you step forward to dance with the Torah?
Will you remain content watching from the side-lines?
Will you self-consciously say ‘thank you I’m ok’ when invited you to join the dance circle or hold the Torah?
The Torah reading for Simchat Torah begins with Vezot ha-Bracha followed by Bereshit.
Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib of Gur (1847–1905) notes that the letterbet of Bereshit symbolizes Bracha, blessing, and so the Torah begins with blessing and concludes with blessing in Vezoht ha- Bracha, pointing to its essence: blessing.
God bestows the blessing as the ‘noten hatorah’ and the Jewish people in turn are a vessel to hold the blessing. This is what happens on Simchat Torah.
On a personal level, by putting our arms around the Torah, we turn ourselves into a container that holds it, both physically and spiritually.
On a communal level, as we join hands to form a dance circle, we unite create a larger container of love around the Torah.
In this way we turn the mystical words of The Zohar into reality:
Kudsha Beri-hu, veOrayta veYisrael chad
The Holy One, the Torah and the People of Israel are one.
Simchat Torah is an urgent invitation to enact this unity.
Will you take your rightful place?
30 Tuesday May 2017
Posted in Jewish Festival
The expressions Matan Torah and Kabbalat Torah suggest both a giving and a receiving of Torah. However, a riveting midrash (Tanhuma, Ekev 11) depicts a very different picture. It describes the tablets measuring six handbreadths in height and imagines God holding the upper third, Moshe holding the lower third with the middle third remaining in between the divine giver and the human recipient. Moshe then reached out and grasped the middle third, overpowering God as it were, drawing the tablets entirely into the human domain.
Inspired by this midrash, Rabbi Yerucham Leibovitz (1873-1936) who served as spiritual head of the famous Mir Yeshivah in Poland, suggests that the assumption that God simply gifts Torah to us is mistaken. We are meant to be more than passive recipients. We are encouraged to actively reach, if not overreach, for the Torah so that we can possess it.
I think this message is particularly relevant to women who too often assume a passive stance when it comes to Torah. They wait patiently to receive what others deem acceptable for them to receive, even when it is blatantly inadequate. The midrash indicates otherwise. When it comes to Torah there is no shame in demanding and grasping for more. On the contrary, it is through this hunger for greater access to Torah that Torah is truly honored.
This iconic image of Belda Lindenbaum z’’l holding the Torah aloft for hagba’ah encapsulates this message. Belda boldly staked her claim and pushed all barriers to bring Torah into women’s domain.
This Shavuot, let us all seize our share of Torah.
31 Sunday Jan 2016
Posted in Media, Uncategorized
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anorexia, BBC, body, body & soul, body-image, chastity, clean-living, faith, Orthodox Judaism, purity, religion, ritual, Torah, women
Last Wednesday night, instead of tuning into one of my long-distance classes at Yeshivat Maharat, I joined BBC Radio DJ and host Lauren Laverne for Late Night Woman’s Hour.
In a relaxed round table format we discussed what ‘purity’ means for women in the context of food, sex, religion and thought. Emma Woolf, who chronicled her experience of anorexia in her book ‘An Apple a Day’ spoke about the current obsession for purity in food, Shirley Yanez explained why she took a vow of chastity after a near death experience, and pundit Helen Lewis addressed the subject in the context of political ideas.
My contribution – the religious perspective on purity – was substantially shaped by a recent series of ‘Pastoral Torah’ classes at Yeshivat Maharat that focused on embodied spirituality. Click on the image below to listen to the program:
dinabrawer 