Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller

Spring is springing in the beautiful Bay Area, and we were blessed with some rain, so grass and plants are especially green and flowers are bright with color. And on Monday evening, we commemorated Yom HaShoah with a beautiful ceremony of memory, lament and reflection on the terrible events of the Holocaust. We shared memories and stories from family and other loved ones who were murdered and others who survived – not only about their deaths but also about their lives.  

This coexistence can be both beautiful and confusing. As a child, I used to wonder if there was sunshine and green grass in the concentration camps. When I eventually visited some of them, I of course confirmed that there was. The camps existed on the same planet where we live, and so yes, the sun came up there too. 

The Torah reading this week, Tazria-Metzora, focuses at length on the skin disease usually translated as leprosy. Rachel Scheinerman writes, “tzaraat is not really a disease in the medical sense, though it produces physical symptoms. Instead, it’s a kind of spiritual ailment with physical manifestations. Tzaraat is hard to understand in part because there is no precise modern parallel. But arguably the best one we have is the experience of loss and grief.”

As in the Torah’s description of how to address tzaraat [usually translated as leprosy], in which people are isolated from their community during the course of the disease, when a loved one dies, we may feel we are out of step with the rest of the world, or that beauty and other parts of life which feel positive seem out of step with our grief. All of that is okay, but it would also be helpful if our “regular” lives left more room for the understanding that grief of all kinds is regular too. 

I look forward to seeing many of you this Friday for Shabbat Together. As we celebrate beauty and all that we are grateful for, let’s allow ourselves and others to acknowledge the fullness of the range of our experiences, sometimes talking about the hard parts, or just knowing that we do not have to carry them alone. 

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller

Huge thanks to everyone who helped to make our seder beautiful, delicious, and welcoming! It was wonderful to be with our mix of members and guests, including Jews and non-Jews who are part of our families and friend groups, as well as some of our elected representatives who joined us to celebrate and strengthen our relationships. 

As Jewish communities celebrated Pesach throughout the week, and spring flowers wowed us with their colors, the juxtaposition between these and the threat of catastrophically escalated violence against Iran by the US was stark. Even before that, the ongoing attacks on immigrants by federal authorities and numerous other breaches of law, human rights and basic decency by parts of our government have become simultaneously shocking and expected. It is hard to celebrate freedom in this context – I’m sure many of us felt it was almost wrong to do so, as if we were ignoring the context all around us.

But it is also vital that we do celebrate what freedom we have… by using it. The Haggadah instructs us to see ourselves personally as having been enslaved and then liberated, and our tradition teaches that every one of us was present at Sinai when we received the Torah, entering into a covenant with the Source of Life. What does that covenant call on us personally to do right now? Each of us has something to give that can lift us and others out of shock and into connection and action. 

One thing many of us can do together, in concert with hundreds of other members of the Union for Reform Judaism and our friends and allies is to actively work for a fair mid-term election. This will require many people to participate in helping people who are impacted by the current efforts to minimize voting among many constituencies. What might this look like? Let’s start thinking about it together. Please join me next Wednesday from 4-5pm for a zoom call with leaders of our movement as well as the Mayor of Minneapolis, inspiring musician Elana Arian and information about opportunities to participate in our movement’s Every Voice, Every Vote campaign. Click here to Register 

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller

As a child, I memorized the Four Questions by listening to a recording of another child singing them. I loved the rhythmic, repetitive melody, the sound of the Hebrew, and recognizing some of the words—matzah, chametz, lilah. But the closer I looked, the less it seemed to be a series of four questions, and the more it looked like one question with several parts, or maybe no question at all, but rather a description of the strange things that make the Seder different from a regular dinner party. Maybe you too have noticed this.

The purpose of the Four Questions, rather than a formula to be memorized, was – and is – to provoke real questions and thoughts that arise from the seder. They are part of the mitzvah of explaining the meaning of Passover to our children (found in Exodus 13:14). To fulfill this goal of provoking questions and fostering discussion of the vital themes of Passover, we can follow singing the traditional questions with asking new questions about freedom, oppression, courage, faith, justice, leadership, or any of the other timeless human themes that make the Exodus story so compelling. 

Framing our questions carefully can help avoid eliciting yes/no answers and instead spark real conversations. Here are a few examples:

• Moses had a speech impediment and was afraid to speak to Pharaoh. Why is this important to the story?
• The Torah teaches, “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress them, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22: 20). How can we cause our own experiences of injustice to lead us toward compassion and courage rather than bitterness or fear?
• What symbolic food or object would you add to the Seder plate to provoke questions about an liberation issue that’s important to you?

Wishing everyone Chag Sameach and Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller

Freedom implies expansiveness – the chance to spread our wings, both physically and metaphorically, or spiritually. So it can seem frustrating and confusing that preparing for Pesach, our Festival of Freedom, entails a cleaning practice that can feel more like a lengthy, even oppressive, chore. Over Jewish history, in many communities, the cleaning out of our homes to remove hametz [bread and other leavened specific grains] has turned into a full spring cleaning.

Sometimes, we have music playing, and I’m schlepping things in and out of the kitchen while feeling part of something hopeful, a combination of anticipating the renewed, clean space and looking forward to seders and the week of special foods we’ll have during the week. Other times, I find myself feeling resentful to be spending a sunny spring day carefully cleaning out cabinets and drawers, spending hours switching out dishware and kashering utensils. 

Rabbi Toba Spitzer teaches, “Passover is ultimately about freedom and new beginnings.  The exodus from Egypt is a birth story – the birth of the Israelite people, and of a new kind of society, covenanted in love and justice.  Passover is also a spring holiday, celebrating the first harvest and the new birth of the flocks.  So part of the practice of clearing out hametz is linked to this sense of beginning, of new possibilities – clearing out the old, to make room for the new.”

At the end of the process of cleaning and clearing, there is a playful, symbolic version of the removal of the hametz. Someone hides a few pieces of bread around the house, and others, often children, search for it in the dark, using just a candle and feather to search and remove the last of the hametz. So this year, I am wondering if I can keep this playful, symbolic version in mind as we do the actual cleaning. Can I imagine while wiping the crumbs out of drawers that I am doing something akin to searching in the dark by candlelight, the sense of playing hide and seek, of aiming to find something and capturing it, and of clearing out what is not needed to make space for celebration and creativity?  

Liberation includes both serious business and lighthearted play. May our preparations and our seders include this full range of thought, ritual, conversation and commitment to this core of our people’s story and culture. 

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller

The first word of the Book of Leviticus is one of a number of words whose letters stand out in a Torah scroll for being written differently than they usually appear. They are bigger or smaller than the letters next to them, or otherwise different. In the case of the word, vayikra, the aleph at the end of the word is very small compared to the rest of the word. 

Vayikra means “[GOD] called,” and the verse begins “God called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting…”  Many interpretations of the small aleph have been offered, but the prevailing teachings connect it with Moses’ humility. Moses’ combination of deep, honest humility with courageous leadership enables him to be in a relationship with God that even includes challenging and making demands of God. 

Humility can be a tricky quality to strive for – just the need to strive for it is based on the understanding that we may have learned a habit of seeing ourselves as better than others. In societies where people are ranked in so many ways, it is near impossible not to experience feeling both superior at times and also inferior to others at times. But these powerful feelings are still only feelings. They don’t make it true. Jewish tradition holds that we all have a spark of the holy, and we are all descended from the same first human, to teach that we share a basic equality of value. 

This basic equality can make us feel both small and great – similar to standing under the night sky.  With Rosh Chodesh Nissan being this Wednesday night and Thursday, the new moon will become fuller each night until Passover begins with the full moon on Wednesday night April 1st. I invite you to join me in going outside each night for these weeks, to see the moon (or at least the sky if the moon is not visible). May it bring us both light and the chance to reflect on our basic connection, beyond comparisons, with other people and all of life.

Moses then convoked the whole Israelite community… (Exodus 34:1). Reading closely, numerous biblical commentators have added their explanations of this verse. Here are a few highlights: 

• Rashi (11th c. France): [This occurs] on the day after the Day of Atonement, on which he had come down the mountain. 
• Rashbam: (12th c. France): The reason for convoking the whole community is] to get the half-shekel per head from them, and also to give them the commandments about the Tabernacle. 
• Nachmanides (13th c. Catalan): The convocation included both men and women, for they all contributed to the construction of the Tabernacle.

These comments frame important issues for us even now. Immediately upon receiving the Torah, the whole community is to gather together, to ensure that everyone contributes even a very small amount to the building of the sacred shrine which will hold and protect the Torah. And while some parts of the text refer only to the men, Nachmanides emphasizes that all are included in this holy opportunity. 

But it is the Bekhor Shor (12th c. France) who sounds the most like someone who might write today, explaining that the reason the entire community was gathered was “so that no one would be able to complain, ‘We did not have a chance to contribute, because we were not told until those who knew had already contributed everything necessary.’” When only a small group of people “in the know,” are privy to essential information and opportunities, other people are robbed not only of status but of the chance to contribute their talents, perspectives and resources. 

Next month the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) will kick off our Every Voice, Every Vote campaign, a non-partisan project to enable all who are eligible to vote to do so. As the current administration is implementing numerous insidious and calculated efforts to make voting more difficult for many people, this campaign is a vital way to fight for democracy. Please join me online for the kickoff to the campaign on April 15 at 4pm PT. Click here to register.

With prayers for peace and commitment to shared pursuit of justice, 

Rabbi Julie

This week, Jews across the world, even in Israel under a siege of missiles from Iran, celebrated Purim with parties and reading of the Book of Esther. This holiday in particular finds room for both gravity and lightness. The ironic plot twists and departure from seriousness through Purim shpiels, costumes and partying are designed for the release of long-held stress, particularly for a minority people with a history of persecution.

To turn from ancient Persia to our time, the news is full of the gravity of war, and yet some are celebrating, as a long-feared enemy has been killed. It is hard not to feel relief at the defeat of a man who has reigned brutally over the people of Iran and who has both threatened war on Israel and supported terrorism against it. Nonetheless, over and over, we learn that such relief is fleeting without systemic change, and that, in reality, stories like the Book of Esther end not with peace but in a cycle of ongoing violence and revenge.

This Shabbat we read of the Golden Calf, an idol built by a despairing people as a substitute for an intangible God, or perhaps for Moses, who is away from the people at length. We see the challenge to keep a longer view than what is immediately in front of us. On this point, let me share the voice of my colleague Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah, the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. She writes, “At the end of the Purim story…Esther calls on the king to annul his decree to destroy the Jews. The king claims that once a king’s decree has been issued, it cannot be revoked. Instead, the king issues a new edict, allowing the Jews to rise up and fight to defend themselves. The Jews do so, protecting themselves but killing 75,000 others in the process.

“The king’s response to Esther displays a complete and tragic failure of moral imagination. He cannot envision a different possibility, in which the safety of one people or another is not a zero-sum game. Likewise, today’s leaders fail us again and again with their inability to envision a future that isn’t dependent on violence and dominance.

“The only way out of this cycle is to come together across difference to imagine that different path together and build it.” The full text of Rabbi Jacobs’ statement is here:

I share this statement not because I think we must all agree on particular policies, or even on when violence should be considered right or wrong, but because when lives are at stake, it is a Jewish imperative to make such assessments with our best judgment, and this is part of that conversation.

With prayers for peace for the Israelis, Palestinians, Iranians and all those in other countries endangered by this war, and sympathy for the families of those lost.

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Julie

In this week’s parasha, Moses and Aaron are instructed regarding the ner tamid or eternal light. The Italian commentator Umberto Cassuto writes, “The word tamid is intrinsically capable of two interpretations: it can mean ‘continuously, without interruption,’ that is the lamps would never be extinguished either by day or by night; or it can signify ‘regularly,’ –  that is, the lamps would burn every night; on no night would its light be wanting…” In other words, “always” doesn’t necessarily mean “all the time”! 

For us, beyond understanding the original intent of the eternal light burning in the tabernacle, we can consider the difference between attending regularly to something that has symbolic meaning and making sure that there is no break at all in the status of that symbol. While at first, the latter might seem more powerful, the need to rekindle the light each night might create a more impactful raising of our awareness. 

Is there a custom that raises your awareness in a way that is important or helpful for you? Would it be more or less powerful if you do it more regularly? What would it be like to be responsible for a light always burning?