Drashot

On this, our last Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah we read these words from Parashat Nitzavim: “See, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity.” (Deuteronomy 30:15)

Commenting on this verse, Rashi (12th Century Germany) writes, “if you do good there is life for you, and if you do evil there is death for you.”  In other words, the choices we make to do good or ill in the world impact our lives. Who do we want to be? This is the fundamental question of the High Holy Days.

In his comments on this verse, Ramban (Moses ben Maimon, 14th Century Spain) writes, “it is in their power to walk in whichever they desire, and there is no power below or above that will withhold them or stop them.”

Our sages believed that we have free will. It is up to us to shape our lives, for good or ill. Over the next ten days we have the opportunity to examine who we are, what we do, and the choices we make. Our Torah reminds us what’s at stake.

Let’s make these High Holy Days count.

   ~Rabbi Dean Kertesz

This week’s Torah portion contains a concise version of the Jewish master story, that each Israelite would recite when bringing their first fruits to the Temple for the ritual of Bikkurim, “My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt in small numbers and sojourned there; but there they became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. We cried to ADONAI, the God of our fathers, and ADONAI heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. ADONAI freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O LORD, have given me.” (Deuteronomy 26:5-10)
If this sounds familiar it should; it is the central narrative of the Passover Haggadah and the Seder. It is a story of enslavement and Divine intervention in history, leading to liberation. This narrative is the crucible in which Jewish values were formed.
But what were we liberated for? The next line gives us a clue, “And you shall enjoy, together with the Levite and the stranger in your midst, all the bounty that the LORD your God has bestowed upon you and your household.” (Deuteronomy 26:11).
Commenting on this verse, Ibn Ezra (12th Century Spain) wrote, “This means you are obligated to cheer them [the stranger] up with the fruit of your land.” In other words, we were liberated from slavery to welcome the stranger and share our bounty. As slaves, who have experienced oppression we are freed to demonstrate openness, solidarity, and generosity.
That is the world God wants us to help build. In this holy month of Elul may we find the internal commitment to live up to this challenge.

One of my teacher’s in Rabbinical school told me the story of an Israeli woman, well educated in Jewish sacred texts, who had rejected Jewish religious practice and was studying in an ashram in India. One day on a stroll with her guru, they came upon a wallet. Picking it up her guru put it in his robe saying, “finders, keepers.” The woman left the ashram the next day.
This week’s Torah portion explains the sacred duty of returning lost things to their rightful owner. “If you see your fellow’s ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your fellow. If your fellow does not live near you or you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home and it shall remain with you until your fellow claims it; then you shall give it back to him. You shall do the same with his ass; you shall do the same with his garment; and so too shall you do with anything that your fellow loses and you find: you must not remain indifferent.” (Deuteronomy 1-3).
To find something of value and take possession of it without making a good faith effort to return it is considered theft under Jewish law. A moral society is built on trust. Trust is built by people putting the interest of others above their own. When a server leaves an item we have ordered off the final bill and we don’t let them know, we are stealing. When someone avoids paying their taxes, especially a public figure, they are not being smart. They are stealing from all of us while corrupting themselves and society as a whole.
Theft and corruption erode the social fabric. That is why the Jewish woman had to leave the ashram. She could no longer trust her guru. As we continue to explore our behavior during the month of Elul, we should ask ourselves, have we taken advantage of others? Have we done our part to build social trust?

~Rabbi Dean Kertesz

The events of the past few years have reminded us, once again, that we do not have one system of justice in the United States, but two: one for the wealthy and another for everyone else. 

We are still reeling from the continued displays of violence against people of color by law enforcement. Even if individual officers are decent, often the systems in which they operate drive them to treat young or non-white citizens much more violently than older, white inidividuals, often with tragically fatal resuts. While individual drug dealers get harsh sentences, as they should, for their crimes, the Sackler family, makers of Oxycontin, and through the efforts one of the major contributors to the opioid epidemic in our country seem to have escaped any personal criminal charges and will emerge from litigation with their fortune more or less fully in tact. So it goes, demonstrating that we have two systems of justice. 

Our Torah teaches a very different value: “Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 16:20) Whenever a word is repeated in Torah our sages saw this as a demand to interpret the text. 

Commenting on this verse, Reb Yaakov Yitchak of Peshischa (19th Century Poland) wrote that the repetition of the word justice teaches us that we must pursue justice, justly. That is, we must employ just means to achieve just ends. 

Ibn Ezra (12th Century Spain) comments, “one should pursue justice whether one gains or loses.” In other words genuine justice transcends our personal interest. 

Finally, Rashi, the great 12th Century German Torah commentator writes, “The appointment of honest judges is sufficient merit to keep Israel in life and to settle them in security in their land.” By this he means that true justice, i.e. fairness that everyone can trust in, is what ensures social stability. 

We should remember this whenever we see injustice being done in our name. Are we doing everything we can to make sure that our society is pursuing just outcomes and doing so in a just manner?

  ~Rabbi Dean Kertesz

Judaism is, above all else, a religion that celebrates life. We are allowed to violate almost all mitzvot to save a life, a concept called pikuach nefesh. 

This week’s Torah portion begins with these words, “See, this day I set before you blessing and curse:” (Deuteronomy 11:26) and continues with a lengthy prohibition against idol worship and sanctions on the consumption of meat. 

It seems reasonable to ask what these prohibitions have to do with loving life. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg writes, “the Infinite God literally sustains all living by pumping vitality and energy into the fabric of universal life. No human creation, no finite force can sustain life.” 

Idolatry is the elevation of a deity, a person or a thing, to a place of reverence or worship. Whether it is nature, or work, or money, or a political leader who promises that “he alone can fix it,” when we make one of these the center of our lives we degrade life. 

History is full of false prophets, political leaders who promised paradise but led the followers to defeat and destruction, causing horrible degradation along the way. The Holocaust is the starkest example, but the world is full of leaders today who put their lust for power above all else. They create cults of cruelty and death. 

The restrictions on the consumption of meat connect us to God’s life sustaining love by reminding us that when we eat meat we have killed a living creature to sustain our own lives. Torah teaches us to take this act seriously. To not kill frivolously or without thought. We may eat meat, but we must understand what we are doing and do it with reverence. 

This week’s Torah portion reminds us to worship God and thus to cherish life … above all else.

  ~Rabbi Dean Kertesz

This week we have turned a corner in the Jewish ritual calendar: Tisha b’Av, the day we mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples is behind us. It is the lowest point of the Jewish year. 

We now begin a long, seven week ascent toward the High Holy Days. For the next seven Shabbats, we read special Haftarah selections of consolation. In two weeks, we enter the month Elul, which is traditionally spent in self-reflection as preparation for the Ten Days of Repentance from the beginning of Rosh Hashanah to the end of Yom Kippur. 

Repentance, or teshuvah, is essential to Judaism because our tradition does not expect perfection. Jewish religion understands that we are all imperfect, but we are also capable of growth and change. 

This is illustrated in this week’s Torah portion, where Moses relates the story of how Moses, in his rage over the sin of the Golden Calf, destroyed the first two Tablets of the Law. He then went back up Mt. Sinai and he goes on to say, “ADONAI inscribed on the tablets the same text as on the first, the Ten Commandments that He addressed to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the Assembly; and the LORD gave them to me. Then I left and went down from the mountain, and I deposited the tablets in the ark that I had made, where they still are, as the LORD had commanded me.” (Deuteronomy 10:4-5) 

But what happened to the first set, the broken tablets? The Talmud Yerushalmi relates, that the broken tablets were kept in the Ark along with the new, whole tablets and both remained with Israel (Talmud Yerushalmi, Shekalim 1:1) 

Like the Ark, which contained a shattered set and a complete set of tablets, we carry our weaknesses and our strengths, our imperfections and our goodness within us. As we enter this time of teshuvah we can learn how to embrace our brokenness to help us grow and become more whole. 

We will never be perfect, but we can become better people. That is the lesson of the two tablets.

A classic critique of religion is that it is an attempt by people to explain how the world, the universe and nature work, without the wisdom of science. Created thousands of years ago by people who lack the methods of modern science, it is therefore obsolete. But this is a classic straw man argument. The creators of religion, including Judaism, lacked the tools and insights of modern science, but they weren’t asking questions of how things work, but rather why things are. Questions of meaning rather than questions of mechanics. 

We see this at work in this week’s Torah portion, when Moses describes the revelation of Torah at Sinai: “The LORD spoke to you out of the fire; you heard the sound of words but perceived no shape—nothing but a voice. He declared to you the covenant that He commanded you to observe, the Ten Commandments; and He inscribed them on two tablets of stone. For your own sake, therefore, be most careful—since you saw no shape when the LORD your God spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire—not to act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness whatever: the form of a man or a woman, the form of any beast on earth, the form of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the form of anything that creeps on the ground, the form of any fish that is in the waters below the earth. And when you look up to the sky and behold the sun and the moon and the stars, the whole heavenly host, you must not be lured into bowing down to them or serving them.” 

In other words, God is not a thing; to see God as such is to misunderstand God. Rather, God is the source of morality and values – as represented by the Ten Commandments – the values and code of conduct that give our lives meaning and enable us to form societies. 

Morals, values, wonder: these are the reasons for religion.

 ~Rabbi Dean Kertesz

This Shabbat we begin the Book of Deuteronomy (Sefer Devarim) and on Saturday night we begin Tisha b’Av where we remember the destruction of the First and Second Temples. 

Deuteronomy is different from the other books of the Torah. It is Moses retelling of the story of the Exodus from Egypt, the revelation at Sinai and the nature of the covenant between God and Israel for a new generation that has grown up in the desert in freedom and did not directly experience the horrors of slavery or the miracle of liberation and revelation. 

Moses’ challenge, which he addresses in Deuteronomy, is how to inculcate this new generation and future ones, with the values of God and Torah. Thus, Deuteronomy is one long lesson in Jewish history and Jewish values. 

Tisha b’Av is an example of how we pass our historical experience down from one generation to the next. The destruction of the Temples happened 2,000 years ago for the Second Temple and more than 2,500 for the First Temple, and yet each year we remember them. 

We are living Moses’ desire in Deuteronomy. None of us experienced the trauma of the Temples’ destruction, yet we retell the story to each new generation and in this way pass on Jewish history and values. It is an ancient chain for transmission that keeps Jewish values and the Jewish tradition alive and vital. We must keep telling the story and teaching our values, if we are to fulfill our sacred mission of redeeming the world. 

~Rabbi Dean Kertesz

This week we end the Book of Numbers (Sefer Bamidbar). This section of our Torah chronicles almost the entire wandering of the Israelites in the Wilderness of Sinai, hence its name in Hebrew, Bamidbar (in the wilderness). The generation that experienced slavery and liberation has died off and a new generation of free people, whose life experience was forged in the desert, has replaced them. Their task will be to conquer the Land of Canaan and establish the ideal, model society that God has imagined for them. What is that society like?
This week’s Torah portion gives us a few clues. It is a society where vows are sacred and promises made must be kept. (Numbers 30:2-17) It is a society where the need for justice is tempered with mercy. Murder will be punished, but cities of refuge are also established. (Numbers 35:1-34) Where Israelites living in the Land of Israel and outside the Land of Israel, will be responsible for each other. (Numbers 30:1-33)
The Book of Numbers is an apt metaphor for the human experience. We are always wandering in the desert. Older generations pass away and new generations replace them. We work to create the ideal society God has imagined for us. Old ideas that were once acceptable, like slavery, racism, sexism, the explotation of other human beings and the exploitation of the Earth begin to fade away.
None of this happens without a struggle, sometimes peacefully and sometimes violently. Change happens ultimately, because we work to make change, to create a world where all human beings, women and men, all races, religions and ethnicities, can live lives of dignity and worth. As Rabbi Tarfon said: “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.” (Pirkei Avot 2:16)
The Book of Numbers reminds us that we are like the Israelites in the wilderness: still wandering, still struggling to create a world that will live up to God’s vision.

~Rabbi Dean Kertesz

We live in a time of profound problems. Climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, structural flaws in our society from racism, to sexism, to structural inequalities in health care, education, housing and employment all can feel overwhelming. Further, the forces of inertia, both economic and political, make these problems seem unsolvable. What can any one of us do to make a positive difference in our society or the world? 

This week’s Torah portion provides us with a way to look at the world without despair. The daughters of Zelophehad approach Moses with the request that they become the inheritors of his land because he died without sons and in ancient Israel the son inherited his father’s property. (Numbers 27:3) In this reading they can be seen as feminists arguing for the same rights as men. 

This reading is accurate, but there is another. In the next verse, the daughters say, “Let not our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son!” (Number 27:4) In this reading the Daughters of Zelophehad are making their request so that their father’s name does not die out. They want to keep his memory alive and inheriting his land is their means for doing so. In this sense, they are a link in a chain of transmission of Jewish memory and values. 

Commenting on this verse, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg (America, current) writes, “Tasks and goals unfinished in my lifetime may well be completed by those who come after me in the chain of life, especially if I have communicated the vision of tikkun olam and the importance of living for ourselves, but also beyond ourselves, for the realization of this covenant. Assuring the chain of life goes on—and with it the vision and promise of the covenant—is the validation of starting programs and living for goals that transcend me. ‘It is not incumbent on you to complete the task’ (Mishnah Avot 2:16). But if you grasp the larger purpose and ultimate goal of tikkun olam, then you will not feel free to desist from beginning the upgrade, the process of repair.” 

In other words, the way we tackle big problems is by doing what we can, and modeling for others. Each of us takes up the task during our lifetime and hopefully teaches it to our children – whether biological, adopted, or mentored – and in this way we work, across generations, to make the world better.

~Rabbi Dean Kertesz