Comets, Meteors, and overcoming Vertigo

A few months ago, I had vertigo. For those of you who have never had it, it is a terrifying experience: the world is spinning, and you just need to close your eyes and hang on to something, so you don’t fall and hit the floor. There’s nothing you can do to stop the world from spinning.
Learning of the Earth being hit by a massive meteorite this past week, and almost being hit by a comet, was terrifying. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if the comet had hit? It is like vertigo—we are spinning around in space, uncontrollably, around other rocks also spinning around. Or like balls in a pinball machine, just being wacked around, maybe they’ll go the right place, maybe not. And we are tiny dustspecks on that pinball..
The midrash claims that in a very real way, the earth is the physical center of the universe. We read in today’s Haftorah about the Temple, which was placed in Jerusalem. The reason Jerusalem was chosen for the Temple was because of the rock under the temple, the even shtiyyah, the foundation stone on which the world was built. This stone plugs up the chaotic abyss, and forms the physical center of the universe. On this model, the earth is the only thing fixed, and everything else revolves around it.
In a physical sense, it is untrue; the earth rotates around the sun, the sun around the milky way, et cetera. There may not even be a \true physical center to the universe—you can pick an arbitrary point, like the 0,0 point on a grid in geometry; there is no x=0, y=0—it is a construct, you can put it anywhere.
And it can be dangerous to think we’re at the center of the universe. It leads to abuse of animals and the earth—think mountain top mining and fracking, or the thousands of retired lab chimps who need housing, and the government funding for that housing has run out. It leads to the offensive fantasy of non-Jews serving as our servants in the world to come. It leads to people thinking that tsunamis and earthquakes are punishments for some sin of the Jewish people, who are the only ones God really cares about.
Really, there is no center of the physical universe, no starting point. The starting point is really everything—what astrophysics calls the singularity, the entire universe being contained in this singularity at the first moment of the big bang, so every place was inside that singularity. It is what the Zohar calls the botzina d’kardinuta, the spark of blackness containing an infinite fire, but so infinitely small it cannot be seen.
So Jerusalem isn’t really the physical center of the universe, and it may be, like us, a speck whirling around on the outside of a pinball machine.
But spiritually, we need a center, and it’s a mitzvah to see ourselves in relation to Jerusalem. We need to choose where to put that center point of our grids. When are we at home? When we are away, how do we locate ourselves? For most of us, the center is our home, we go out and come back. But in Judaism, our center is Jerusalem. We davven facing Jerusalem: all Jews, facing the same way, radiating from that same point. We are all in exile, having been once in Israel, and hopefully returning. In the book of Esther, when it introduces Mordechai, he is described as being one of those who was exiled from Israel. We should never get so comfortable with being an American that we forget that we’re Jews in exile, that we are not in our true home. This is why we break the glass at the wedding. The Shlah says to leave our houses slightly unpained, a corner of the table unset, to remind us of this. This is a central part of Jewish identity, to orient ourselves spatially in relation to Israel.
It is also a mitzvah to orient ourselves Jewishly in time. The first mitzvah in the Torah is Rosh Chodesh, counting the jewish months. Keeping Jewish time. There is a wonderful story about a Jew who sold his cow to his non-Jewish neighbor, and the cow wouldn’t work on shabbes—it worked hard six days, but on shabbes just lay down and wouldn’t budge! The neighbor goes and complains, and the Jew explains to the cow that now that he is owned by a non Jew, he has to work on shabbes; and he gets up and works. The neighbor is so impressed that even the cow is so dedicated, that he converts to Judaism. Keeping shabbes is part of putting ourselves on a jewish rhythm of time.
Aryeh Kaplan cites a midrash which says the world is an eye, the ocean is the white, the land is the iris, Jerusalem is the pupil, and the Temple is the image on the eye (reflecting the supernal jerusalem). Based on this, he says that the Temple is a focal point, where our spiritual energies converge and “break on through to the other side.” Perhaps the veil between physical and spiritual is thinner there, or perhaps it is simply the power of our prayers converging at a single point. But Jerusalem is the nexus between the physical and spiritual realms. It is like a magnifying glass which brings all the rays of light together to a single point, and can even start a fire at that point. This is why we all davven facing Jerusalem.
It also goes the other direction: spiritual energy flows into the universe through Jerusalem, spreading to the rest of the world.
One interesting contrast between the torah and haftorah today is that even though the Temple is in a fixzed place, the tabernacle was not—so apparently, it is possible for this nexus to be somewhere other than Jerusalem. The Zohar says that whenever jews get together to davven, they form a mikdash meat, a miniature Temple. It also says the tablets symbolize our hearts, the divine spark at our core. So our communities and our own holy soul can also be that spiritual center point where we can burn a hole in the veil between heaven and earth.
In a physical sense, there is no center. We are a speck on a pinball hurdling through space, hopefully not hitting other pinballs. But having this spiritual center, knowing where we are in relation to Jerusalem, to our spiritual home, holding on to the spiritual center of our hearts and our communities, can gives us something we can lean on to, despite the world spinning around us.

Purim: To get drunk or not to get drunk...

Purim is around the corner, and I wanted to discuss one aspect of Purim which is often swept under the rug: the custom of getting drunk. Not just a drink or two, but getting plastered (I’m not saying I approve of it…). The Talmud says:
Rava said: It is one's duty levasumei, to make oneself fragrant [with wine] on Purim until one cannot tell the difference between 'arur Haman' (cursed be Haman) and 'barukh Mordekhai' (blessed be Mordecai)"
Rabbah and R. Zeira got together for the Purim meal. They got very drunk, and Rabbah got up and butchered R. Zeira. The next day, Rabbah prayed on R. Zeira's behalf and brought him back to life. A year later, Rabbah asked, "Would you like to have the Purim meal with me again this year?" R. Zeira replied, "We don’t rely on miracles." (Megillah 7b)
It’s not clear from this text whether one is supposed to get drunk (based on Rava’s statement) or one should avoid it (based on Rabbi Zeira’s experience), but the custom has come down through many sources to drink wine at the festive meal, and perhaps to get drunk.
The mystical explanation of this drunkenness is that Purim is a day which gives us a taste of the Ein Sof, the infinitely transcendent root of the divine in which good and Evil have not yet become distinct—total oneness. This is why (on one opinion in the Talmud) Purim is the one holiday which will be celebrated in the messianic era. Purim is a foretaste of that era, in which all is good. So getting drunk on Purim gives us a window into that future reality.
Practically speaking, there are plenty of opinions modifying Rava’s statement. Maimonides and the Maharsha say you should drink enough at the meal to fall asleep. R Abraham Gombiner says you should get so drunk you confuse the gematriya (numerical value) of arur Haman and Baruch mordechai; in fact, their gematriya is the same (502). How drunk do you need to be to get confused over that? And R Abraham Danzig (18c) poskined that we should not get so drunk that we neglect any mitzvot, such as washing our hands or making a blessing before eating. According to all opinions, we should never get drunk any other day of the year. If you do drink on Purim, you certainly shouldn’t drive; cars are like swords, and we don’t rely on miracles.
I look forward to celebrating Purim together this month, as well as joining together for all of the classes and services we have planned!

Building Pluralistic Community

I have been asked to lead an egalitarian ma'ariv tonight
wanted to talk about what this means for us as an organization

I have witnessed arguments: "we're conservadox"
"no,we're conservative"
funny thing: I have asked about the history

one person here over 20 years, swears:always traditional-orthodox w/mixed seating
one person was bat mitzvahed here, swears always conservative
reminds me of the joke
arguing over which way they faced for rosh hodesh
went to oldest member of synagogue
"that's how we did it"


we are not a conservadox one or an egal one
we are a radically diverse spiritual community
we have people along all places on that spectrum & on other spectrums

how do we serve such a community without compromising principles?

Warren last week compared it to a kiddush, where you put out something for everyone
it's a good metaphor. we have daily minyan, not everyone goes
we have tot shabbat, not everyone utilizes it
we even have members who don't come for shabbat services but come for other programs
and that's okay

the challenges are:
A. we can’t be all things to all people, but how can we different things to different people?
B. what are the boundaries?
C. if we are different things to different people, how can we still be a community?

A. how can we be all things to all people

Somewhat hard to offer diverse things even when they don't overlap
I do a lot of different programs for different people--this weekend, separate from services, I teach 3 classes. Being only 1 person, it's sometimes a lot of work, but doable.
gets hard when we have 2 kids services during the main service, I'm trying to be everywhere.

In this case, since there isn't currently a traditional saturday ma'ariv, it's not overlapping with or drawing people away from any other program.
One of the ideas that pops up here & there: try to have multiple services
but it’s a challenge to do in a community our size

One of the things I would like to do, that has been done successfully at Aish HaTorah, is offer parallel classes during High Holiday services.


friday night DUS originally did this, not enough for 2 minyanin
also: felt divisive

We wrestled with that issue this week in the Purim Planning committee-
The Kings Bay Y offered to cosponsor our Saturday night party
But they said our megillah reading would be way too advanced for their population.
If their people walk in to a traditional megillah reading, they won't
connect, they'll walk out and never come back no matter how many free events we put on, & how many flyers we put out.

They asked: could we offer a beginner's megillah reading for their families? They think it would be very successful, they'd be glad to promote it?
So we’re going to have 2 readings on Sunday; 800 traditional reading, and a family reading later in the day

I have heard the argument: "wait till we have the members"
we can’t just keep waiting
the way to get members is to offer something they can relate to.

As long as we only offer only one kind of service, it’s like only offering herring at Kiddush--we only bring in the people who like herring.

If we want to bring in new members, we need to diversify what we offer,
we need to meet their spiritual needs
instead of expecting them to come to us without us doing anything differently.

B. what are the boundaries?

Some people, at least privately, have expressed opposition, because they are in principle against egalitarianism. These people are consistent, and I respect that.
The question we need to ask, is: when a woman leads davenning, like anat hoffman reading torah at the western wall, whether or not you yourself would do it, is it good or bad?

When I was in Breslov, a rabbi, wearing black suit and hat, said a very surprising thing:
we don't impose one way of prayer, one way of dress
if we did, wouldn’t be service of the heart,
wouldn’t be breslov which if you arrange it is lev basar, a heart of flesh
each tribe had their own gate to prayer, their own way they served god

We still have ashkenazic nusah, sefardic nusah,yemenite nusah,nusah ha-ari.

The jewish community has always been diverse.

Besht: best key is a hammer--most important thing is, is my heart in it?

when anat hoffman leads davenning, it is a heartfelt expression of serving God. She is connecting to god through reading torah, through public prayer.

That is a good thing, even if you yourself don't do it.

The question is: can we tolerate a range of Jewish expressions?

I raised this issue with Ismar Schorsh. He said: this is what we mean when we say CJ is a pluralistic movement.
It confuses some people that the movement will offer multiple teshuvot on issues.
One teshuvah allows driving on Shabbat, one doesn’t
We (CJ) affirm the validity of traditional services and we affirm the validity of egalitarian ones

there can be a variety of legitimate approaches

not to say it's anything goes. There are approaches that CJ says are simply prohibited halachically.
I wouldn't let a group of cultural Jews hold Friday night pig-roast here..
we're not talking about a pig roast.

We are talking about people who are not ordinarily here on a saturday evening coming in and davenning, which is a beautiful thing.

3. what does it mean to be a community?

some communities are held together by uniformity
they believe the same, they davven the same, they dress the same
borough park: can tell what sect by the brim of your hat
can tell where you davven,how you vote, who your friends are

we're not that community, and we never will be.
If we were, I probably wouldn't be here—
my kippah wouldn't be right,
I dress too formally, to informally.

Sephardim: declare "hineni muchan....veahafta lereyecha"
because community is held together by love

love means: I care about you--I know about you, I get involved in your life
I invite you over for shabbes (something I'd like us to work on down the line)
I help you get out if you're homebound
I visit you if you're sick, or mourning--like the shiva we held for Annette
I try to help you solve the problems you face
I help you look for a job if you're unemployed,and I keep your spirits up.

This is why I care so much about the Hesed committee that Edie and Steve are trying to get off the ground,
because people who'd like to be here are stuck at home
because we have had members who go to the hospital, and nobody called or visited them
because we have a member who broke her hip and nobody here knew for over a month
because we need to become a community

And loving each other also means supporting our fellow congregants in having

their spiritual needs met
coming when they have a shiva
coming to daily minyan, even if you don't like the mehitza

supporting a childrens program even if you personally don't need it

I invite you to join me as we walk this path of envisioning, together, what kind of community we could be, and making that vision a reality.