D’var Torah

I know we’re just starting to approach the season dedicated to teshuvah, but I have a confession to make. Here I am, your new rabbi, writing about the Torah portion in which we read the 10 commandments, and I have to admit that I’ve often had trouble with the whole idea of commandments, let alone 10 or 613.

I’m not saying I don’t try to follow them. – my issue is not with the content of the commandments. But our tradition teaches that God created us and called us “very good”. So why is our religious life built on commandments to ensure that we behave well? Does it not rob us of our self-confidence if we are always being told to “Be good!” when we already ARE good? Sometimes I read the ten commandments, and I feel a bit like a young child who is told to be nice before I have had a chance to show just how nice I really am. Of course, I know although we are good, we are also complicated, and we stray from our best behavior even when we know better, and the wisdom of the ten commandments is clear and deep. But I also believe that the core of Jewish practice is a path for the development of our inherent goodness, in the hopes that acting ethically will come naturally.

The ancient Rabbis taught that “with ten utterances was the world created.” (Avot 5:1) If we follow this idea for a moment, then we can make the connection: the One God who later gave us ten commandments first created the world through ten acts of speech. In other words, the ten commandments grow directly from the creation of the world, from the root of who we are, and maybe we are to hear the commanding Voice not only from the outside but also from inside ourselves.

Let’s look at one commandment to see how this might apply: the commandment to keep Shabbat. In the words of Isaiah:

If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your affairs on My holy day;

If you call the Sabbath ‘delight’, God’s holy day ‘honored’;

And you honor it, without doing what you always do;

Not pursuing your business, nor even speaking of it;

Then you shall delight yourself in the Holy One.

(Isaiah 58:13-14)

Here Isaiah teaches us that if we observe the mitzvah of Shabbat, through it we will come to know God. This is a pretty big promise. Rabbi Rachel Mikva asks, “How do we make the Sabbath holy?” “To sanctify Shabbat must be more than guarding against technical violations of the Sabbath, and more than thoughtlessly performing a few rituals. To sanctify the Sabbath, we must make it the essence of our being, the soul of our time. We seek in each moment to draw closer to God, and discover the powerful spirit of the day. Then we will know the true celebration of holiness. There is no greater thrill” (Rachel S. Mikva, Broken Tablets: Restoring the Ten Commandments and Ourselves, p44).

How can we make something the essence of our being, unless it IS already the essence of our being? Maybe Rabbi Mikva is teaching that we must spend Shabbat discovering the essence of our being, in order for that essence to be manifest in our lives and in the world. So, in observing the commandment to keep Shabbat, we come to know and to become more like the essence of who we already are.

This Shabbat may we each come to know more of the essence of who we are.

This week’s parashah is Devarim, the reading that always precedes Tisha B’Av.The 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, which falls on this Saturday evening and Sunday, marks the destruction of both the first and second ancient Temples and is traditionally observed by fasting and reading from the Book of Lamentations

I did not grow up observing Tisha B’Av. Many Reform Jewish communities have passed over this observance, not relating to the desire to rebuild the Temple nor to return to the Biblical worship practiced there. But while we may not mourn the ancient Temple itself, its destruction was accompanied by tremendous displacement and loss of life among the Jewish people. In addition, for some, Tishah B’Av has become a time to remember other times of Jewish suffering and loss, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

This year, we too live in a time of immense and intense suffering. Israelis, Palestinians, and all who care will long continue to mourn the lives so brutally taken on October 7, 2023 and in the devastating war that has followed it. And the words from Lamentations, describing Jerusalem after its destruction, are painfully resonant with the current news from Gaza:

“All her inhabitants sigh as they search for bread;

They have bartered their treasures for food,

To keep themselves alive.—

See, O Lord, and behold,

How abject I have become!

(Lamentations 1:11)

With our country and our Jewish communities both threatened by division and blame, our Judaism calls us not to allow that threat to be carried out, nor for it to prevent us from acting to save lives and show compassion for each other and for all peoples. At this moment, the complexity of this war and the long histories that have led to it must not be used to justify starvation and denial of access to medicine to the people of Gaza.

This Shabbat, the words of the prophet Isaiah are read as the haftarah: “Learn to do good, seek justice, aid the robbed, do right for the orphan, fight for the widow.”

What can we do from here to help? The New Israel Fund, a trusted funder of democratic institutions in Israel, is raising funds to provide humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza, following the lead of Israeli NGOs who are demanding safe passage of food, water, and medical supplies into Gaza. I encourage us all to give and to share this opportunity with others. You can give and learn more at this link:

NIF Humanitarian Aid to Gaza

May the coming holy day of mourning and contemplation help us to find healing and to share it. Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Julie