Dear Chevre (Friends):
After years of planning, the JCOGS cemetery project is moving into its final phase. In preparation for its consecration on Sunday, November 21, (see accompanying announcement) and in celebration of its completion thereafter, I am devoting several weekly columns to a discussion of relevant history, background and sources. I am proud of the informed and deliberate process through which the Cemetery Committee set ritual policy, respecting both Jewish traditions as well as the needs of our particular community. I would like to let you in on some of the important considerations we took into account.
As many of you know, historically, when a Jewish community established itself in a new location, its first priority was the requisition of land for the cemetery—even before the construction of a building for the synagogue. Why is that? Because Jews tended to be concerned more with their place in the eternal scheme than with their topical needs. They viewed themselves as a link in the chain of generations that extended far into the indefinite future. Someday, they themselves might disappear, but their markers would remain.
Although we of JCOGS did it backwards (by creating the building before the cemetery), we, too, think and care about our long-term future. Our motto ledor vador, “from generation to generation,” does not merely refer to the intergenerational composition of our existing congregation, which spans from toddlers in the religious school to the elderly. It also refers to members who will join us someday. By building this community, we are making our covenant “both with those who are standing here with us this day… and with those who are not with us here this day.” (Deuteronomy 29:11)
Indeed, our preoccupation with placing a permanent mark on the local landscape holds, if anything, even greater poignancy for us, because of our tarnished legacy from the past. Embedded in our cultural memory is the recollection that not too long ago, Jews were unwelcome in Stowe. In contrast, much of our pride today derives from the respect and appreciation we now garner within the wider community. Think of it! A hundred years from now, two hundred years from now, the Jewish cemetery with its weathered tombstones will proclaim in living testimony the existence of a proud and vibrant Jewish community in Stowe at the beginning of the twenty-first century, eclipsing and eviscerating the earlier memory of Jewish degradation. May it come to pass! For this reason alone, the completion of the cemetery will mark the completion of JCOGS.
(to be continued…)
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Lekh Lekha
Dear Chevre (Friends):
“Lekh lekha! Go forth from your native land, from your birthplace, from the house of your parents, to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1) First and foremost, Abraham was a wanderer. Abraham knew what he was leaving behind, but did he know where was he going? As Biblical scholar Aviva Zornberg notes, the indeterminacy of the journey is the most striking aspect of the command. Perhaps Canaan was not specified in God’s command because it was not Abraham’s final resting place. After all, throughout his life, Abraham was constantly on the move: back and forth among Shechem, Bethel, Hebron, and Be’er Sheva.
Self-transformation requires movement. The spiritual seeker never reaches the end of the road. As soon as one stops progressing, one stagnates and dies. Abraham’s eternal greatness lies in his ability and willingness to keep responding hineini, “I am ready,” to the call of God and to the call of his own inner urgings. In this, he endures as a model for us all. “Birth is a beginning and death a destination, but life itself is the journey—a sacred pilgrimage.” (Alvin Fine) May each one of us be blessed on our sacred pilgrimages.
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
“Lekh lekha! Go forth from your native land, from your birthplace, from the house of your parents, to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1) First and foremost, Abraham was a wanderer. Abraham knew what he was leaving behind, but did he know where was he going? As Biblical scholar Aviva Zornberg notes, the indeterminacy of the journey is the most striking aspect of the command. Perhaps Canaan was not specified in God’s command because it was not Abraham’s final resting place. After all, throughout his life, Abraham was constantly on the move: back and forth among Shechem, Bethel, Hebron, and Be’er Sheva.
Self-transformation requires movement. The spiritual seeker never reaches the end of the road. As soon as one stops progressing, one stagnates and dies. Abraham’s eternal greatness lies in his ability and willingness to keep responding hineini, “I am ready,” to the call of God and to the call of his own inner urgings. In this, he endures as a model for us all. “Birth is a beginning and death a destination, but life itself is the journey—a sacred pilgrimage.” (Alvin Fine) May each one of us be blessed on our sacred pilgrimages.
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
October 6, 2010: Keshet (Rainbow)
Dear Chevre (Friends):
An e-mail came into my inbox yesterday as Rabbi, asking me to urge my congregants to sign a pledge against gay bullying and harassment as a statement of religious commitment. It was sent by the Jewish social action organization Keshet (www.keshetonline.org), meaning “Rainbow Coalition,” in response to last week’s tragedy of the young man who hurled himself over the George Washington Bridge because his roommate allegedly videoed and broadcast over the Internet his intimate acts with another man. Many of us read the sensationalist news, shook our heads and said: “the world is going to seed,” and then went about our day.
Once, a long time ago, God said: “the world is going to seed”—as recorded in this week’s Torah portion: “And God saw that the earth was filled with corruption, that all human beings had corrupted their ways upon the earth. And God said to Noah: ‘I am about to blot out all human beings, for the earth is filled with violence through them.’” (Genesis 6:13-14) Of course, Keshet took its name from the well-known symbol connoting tolerance for diversity in American culture. However, Keshet also refers to the first Rainbow, the one that God set in the sky after the Flood, as a pledge that God would never again shake His head (figuratively speaking) in despair over human wickedness. We, too, must pledge not to shake our heads and not to remain idle. Please click on the following link and sign your name:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHU3YXBuanZLOHB3Rk9WeGVmc1RYYUE6MQ
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
An e-mail came into my inbox yesterday as Rabbi, asking me to urge my congregants to sign a pledge against gay bullying and harassment as a statement of religious commitment. It was sent by the Jewish social action organization Keshet (www.keshetonline.org), meaning “Rainbow Coalition,” in response to last week’s tragedy of the young man who hurled himself over the George Washington Bridge because his roommate allegedly videoed and broadcast over the Internet his intimate acts with another man. Many of us read the sensationalist news, shook our heads and said: “the world is going to seed,” and then went about our day.
Once, a long time ago, God said: “the world is going to seed”—as recorded in this week’s Torah portion: “And God saw that the earth was filled with corruption, that all human beings had corrupted their ways upon the earth. And God said to Noah: ‘I am about to blot out all human beings, for the earth is filled with violence through them.’” (Genesis 6:13-14) Of course, Keshet took its name from the well-known symbol connoting tolerance for diversity in American culture. However, Keshet also refers to the first Rainbow, the one that God set in the sky after the Flood, as a pledge that God would never again shake His head (figuratively speaking) in despair over human wickedness. We, too, must pledge not to shake our heads and not to remain idle. Please click on the following link and sign your name:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHU3YXBuanZLOHB3Rk9WeGVmc1RYYUE6MQ
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
September 29, 2010: I (We) Dropped the Torah
Dear Chevre (Friends):
You gotta laugh…or cry! Just as soon as the Tekiah Gedolah stopped sounding at the end of Neilah, signaling our attainment of complete atonement at last… and what happened?? I dropped the Torah. Never mind that only a few people saw it. Never mind that it didn’t fall on the ground, but slipped on its side in the ark. Never mind that it was an accident. (Of course, it was an accident! Who would drop the Torah on purpose?) Although the Talmud itself does not mention the case, most post-Talmudic rulings impose a fast as penance. What: am I supposed to fast again, on the heels of Yom Kippur?
Why did I drop it? I was tired. I was hungry. I was careless. I was hurrying to make way for Havdalah. There are no grooves for the Torahs within the ark, so they slip easily. To take my own cheshbon ha-nefesh for a second, my own moral inventory, the event is consistent with my general obliviousness of things entrusted to me. Those close to me are often faulting me for it: “you don’t pay attention!” To compound it, after the Torah fell, I was obsessed with the damaged rimonim, the silver ornaments, rather than with the act itself. “That,” said one person pointedly to me, “is idolatry” —and he was right on the mark. It is always idolatrous when I prioritize material concerns.
And, then, there is the social element of responsibility. It is axiomatic that the community is always involved in any public sin performed by one of its members—let alone by the Rabbi! For this reason, we recite the al cheit, the public confessional, in the plural. For this reason, too, the most stringent authorities require a 40-day fast, not just for the individual who dropped the Torah, but for everyone in the congregation. So I ask: as a community, to what degree do we show reverence for Torah and tradition? To what degree to do we inculcate reverence for Torah and tradition in our children?
The rationale for the form of penance is the general principle of middah ke-neged middah, “measure for measure.” Just as Moses ascended Mount Sinai without food or drink for a duration of forty days in order to receive the Law, while the Children of Israel waited below, so, too, the community should fast for forty days. Here’s what I propose for incorporating middah ke-neged middah into my personal, and our communal, atonement:
(1) I pay any costs for repair of the rimonim;
(2) we instruct our building manager to drill slots for holding the Torahs in place within the ark;
(3) we elevate the Torah physically, by dancing with it on Simchat Torah (this Thursday night, September 30, at 6 PM), in direct response to having dropped it last week;
(4) we elevate the Torah spiritually with a leil tikkun, a special Torah study session on the eve of Shavuot (Tuesday, June 7, 2011), for the first time ever at JCOGS.
It is instructive that I, and, therefore, we, sinned within seconds of the close of Yom Kippur. Sinning is perpetual. Fortunately, so is the opportunity for atonement.
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
You gotta laugh…or cry! Just as soon as the Tekiah Gedolah stopped sounding at the end of Neilah, signaling our attainment of complete atonement at last… and what happened?? I dropped the Torah. Never mind that only a few people saw it. Never mind that it didn’t fall on the ground, but slipped on its side in the ark. Never mind that it was an accident. (Of course, it was an accident! Who would drop the Torah on purpose?) Although the Talmud itself does not mention the case, most post-Talmudic rulings impose a fast as penance. What: am I supposed to fast again, on the heels of Yom Kippur?
Why did I drop it? I was tired. I was hungry. I was careless. I was hurrying to make way for Havdalah. There are no grooves for the Torahs within the ark, so they slip easily. To take my own cheshbon ha-nefesh for a second, my own moral inventory, the event is consistent with my general obliviousness of things entrusted to me. Those close to me are often faulting me for it: “you don’t pay attention!” To compound it, after the Torah fell, I was obsessed with the damaged rimonim, the silver ornaments, rather than with the act itself. “That,” said one person pointedly to me, “is idolatry” —and he was right on the mark. It is always idolatrous when I prioritize material concerns.
And, then, there is the social element of responsibility. It is axiomatic that the community is always involved in any public sin performed by one of its members—let alone by the Rabbi! For this reason, we recite the al cheit, the public confessional, in the plural. For this reason, too, the most stringent authorities require a 40-day fast, not just for the individual who dropped the Torah, but for everyone in the congregation. So I ask: as a community, to what degree do we show reverence for Torah and tradition? To what degree to do we inculcate reverence for Torah and tradition in our children?
The rationale for the form of penance is the general principle of middah ke-neged middah, “measure for measure.” Just as Moses ascended Mount Sinai without food or drink for a duration of forty days in order to receive the Law, while the Children of Israel waited below, so, too, the community should fast for forty days. Here’s what I propose for incorporating middah ke-neged middah into my personal, and our communal, atonement:
(1) I pay any costs for repair of the rimonim;
(2) we instruct our building manager to drill slots for holding the Torahs in place within the ark;
(3) we elevate the Torah physically, by dancing with it on Simchat Torah (this Thursday night, September 30, at 6 PM), in direct response to having dropped it last week;
(4) we elevate the Torah spiritually with a leil tikkun, a special Torah study session on the eve of Shavuot (Tuesday, June 7, 2011), for the first time ever at JCOGS.
It is instructive that I, and, therefore, we, sinned within seconds of the close of Yom Kippur. Sinning is perpetual. Fortunately, so is the opportunity for atonement.
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
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