When we lead seders, do things that make the children ask questions. The Talmud says, "Why do we remove the table? -- ... so that the children may perceive [the unusual proceeding of removing the table] and enquire [why]. Abaye was sitting before Rabbah when they saw the tray taken up from before him. He said to them: We have not yet eaten, and they have already come and removed the tray from before us! Rabbah said, "You have exempted us from reciting, 'why is this night nice different.'" (B. Pesahim 115b) 
Go ahead, shake things up at your seder! Make the children ask what's going on!

What is "The Bread of Affliction?" We will hold up the matzahs and begin the seder, "Lo, this is the bread of affliction." Meanings:
1. It's a pun: In the Talmud, Samuel says it comes from the word "to answer (onim)": and we are about to recite the four questions, which are said near the matzah. It's the Bread of Answers! 2. It's the bread of affliction from Deuteronomy 16:3, "For you departed Egypt in haste." 3. (My personal favorite) This is a trait of the Passover, which is like a trait of the flower offering of the poor. (Lev. 5:11-13), (Perush Kadmon, a 9th-10th century commentary and 14th century Hasidei Ashkenaz) 4. Compared to the Omer offering, the Omer is 1/10 of an ephah (Ex. 16:36) which is considered the amount of a hallah offering in the sanctuary, the amount of a meal offering of the poor.
So when we hold up the Bread of Affliction and ask others to join us, in Aramaic, the language of the people, we are saying: We are going to answer questions of what we are doing this evening, why this night is different from all other nights; we left Egypt in haste and poverty, fleeing affliction; our matzah is like the offering of the poor to God, and in our humility we too approach God in thanksgiving.

Leviticus:  Sifra  March 7, 2014
The first week of reading Leviticus, the Book of Holiness. The Rabbis call it Sifra: The Book. It depicts our human struggle to connect to the ineffable yet ever-present divinity in our lives. It's not some Freudian crutch, but the awareness of the Wholly Other, the Sacrality of human touch, a child's birth, an inexplicable love, the sacrifice of self for the other. We experience the sacred even when we cannot explain it. And so we worship, each in our own way, because God's presence touches each of us differently, and the authentic response has billions of faces but only a single heart. Shabbat shalom.

Purim 5774

Saturday night we read the Megillah. It's a profound psycho-drama. Words cannot, and perhaps dare not, adequately express the calamitous cataclysmic destruction, like a tsunami on a quiet beach. We'd scream in anguish and cry in despair. But rather than dwell on the angst, we wipe out the name of the genocidal Haman, scoff at the buffoon king, Ahasuerus, and cheer the beautiful heroine, Esther. We escaped by God's grace -- this time! We dare not descend to the depths of despair; and besides, we triumphed! But hidden within the playful expression lies the angst of not controlling our own destiny.

Purim is not a child's holiday really. It's as adult as you can get.

In Holocaust commemorations, in our tragic need to explain the incomprehensible, we conjure the Hitlerian demon and vanquish satan by honoring our survivors and their descendants. But Purim admits that no human being can rationally confront or explain such horror. Reading the megillah is superior to xanax. We scoff at our deepest fears, reminding ourselves that we hung Haman on his own gallows.

The real solution is reading of the story in community. The Jewish community coalesces in the Book of Esther. Consider the end of chapter 9, to which few pay attention:
These days of Purim shall be observed at their proper time, as Mordecai the Jew--and now Queen Esther--has obligated them to do, and just as they have assumed for themselves and their descendants the obligation of fasts with their lamentations.

Let's party together Saturday night in the Beth Torah sanctuary, we Jews. Haman and Hitler are dead. We're alive! May it always be so! And let us hang on to one another, for the definition of a Jew is: a person whose history and destiny are the history and destiny of the Jewish people!

Sermon For VaYikrah, the first Parashah (Portion) in Leviticus

Jews historically visualized the world as a partnership.  Do you take from the business and not give something to your partner?  Of course not; not if you want the business to survive.  You take what is yours and give something to the partner in order to express thanks for his role as well.  I used to have a pear tree in my back yard which I did not plant, and which yielded weeks of fruit without an ounce of labor.  In biblical times they returned to God sacrificially some of the fruit.  God gave our ancestors animals, which they domesticated and raised for food, and they sacrificed some back to God to show their appreciation.  In giving up something, in depriving themselves of physical property, they demonstrated a spiritual reality: the presence of God in partnership with us in the universe.

            You cannot profess that God exists and then ignore that reality in every action.  If God exists, then God must make a difference in our lives.  Otherwise, what does it matter?  Assumedly, God’s real existence enables us to live by better values, to counter our human inclination to self-absorption and raise ourselves above the animal level closer to the existence of the divine.  To do that we must regularize our partnership.  You cannot live acknowledging God once in a while and expect that to influence our lives.  We cannot live simply saying once a year, "I will help the poor, to acknowledge God in my life."  Instead, every day, every decision must testify to God’s existence.  When you take a pear off the pear tree you say, “… borei p’ri ha-etz.”  “Praised are you Lord our God King of the universe who creates the fruit of the tree.”  The natural question for us should be every moment:  what would God want me to do here?  What do I do when I eat it?  What do I do when I drive my car?  Do I yell at the guy who just cut me off with his car, or not?  Do I give money to that poor person asking for help, or not?  What would God want me to do here and now?

Last week I was driving north on Nall, going to the DMV to get my license changed. Driving, I noticed a lady I swear was at least ninety years old, outside in her cleared driveway, wearing what looked like a bathrobe, holding a snow shovel and looking at the snow between the end of her driveway and the street.  Clearly, God was presenting me with an opportunity.  I drove another block, thought about it, made a u-turn, and pulled into her driveway.  She was smiling, like somebody came to visit.  She says, “Who are you?” I said, “Nobody in particular.” She said, “You live nearby?” I said, “Not far away.”  I said, “You going to shovel the snow?”  Now, understand, at this point this grandma was leaning on her car trunk in the garage because she could hardly stand.  She said, “I got to be able to get out.  My grandchildren are coming over later to do it.  But I might have to be able to get out.”  But she was standing with the snow shovel.  So I got my morning exercise for 5 minutes and cleared the snow piled up between her clear driveway and the street.  And ever since I have been thinking about this sweetheart of a lady, and gift to me of her smile, and the nice conversation, and making my morning worthwhile. God gave me an opportunity to give back for all the pear trees God has bestowed upon me in my life. 

Leviticus is not only about thanking God for the pear trees, it’s also about responding to the nice old lady.  We think of sacrifice as giving up something. But it’s giving up something physical to receive something spiritual.  It’s what makes life a blessing.

God touches your life every single day. The question is, "Can you see it, respond to it, and glean the blessing from the moment?"

This speech was delivered at the Equality Kansas Rally on February 25, 2014, in opposition to Kansas Bill HB2453, which explicitly protects religious individuals, groups, and businesses that refuse services to same-sex couples.

Look around you! Look where you are standing! You are standing at the State Capitol in Topeka, Kansas. In less than 3 months, on May 17th, it will be exactly 60 years since the Supreme Court of the United States decided that school segregation is illegal and against the Constitution of the United States. 

My God, people: have our legislators learned nothing?  How long will God tolerate our stubborn insistence rebelling against God’s word: Human beings are created, every one of us, in God’s own image?

I am Mark Levin. I am a Jew; I am a rabbi; and I am a founder of the Mainstream Coalition.

I am here today as an American, the land of the free and the home of the brave.  I know what preserves our freedom. It’s the rule of law.

I remember segregated schools. I attended racially segregated schools. How dare people in Topeka, Kansas, 60 years after Brown vs. the Board of Education, argue that religious exclusionists have a right to exclude citizens from equality? Many churches argued that blacks were inferior human beings, and did not have the right to be educated with whites, as the local Westboro Baptist Church argues that God hates gays today.  Really!  Our legislature wants to side with the Westboro Church? 

What protected those African American families, the 13 families and 20 children who sued the Board of Education for equal rights under the law? What integrated our schools and brought African Americans and whites together: equality under the law!

“NO JEWS OR DOGS ALLOWED.” That sign kept my father out of the public swimming pool where I as a child swam 30 years later. My father was routinely called a Christ-killer; only one anonymous phone-caller ever dared call me “a damn Jew.” Between dad’s childhood and mine came the Nazi murder of millions of Jews, gays, lesbians, and Roma. American soldiers fought the Nazis. The Nazis murdered Jews. Therefore suddenly in the public mind Jew-hater meant Nazi. Auschwitz killed the Nazi brand because it taught where hatred leads.

In my father’s childhood, businesses discriminated by religious belief. In Johnson County the City of Leawood excluded Jewish and African American home ownership. Blacks could not swim in my childhood pool in Baltimore because they were considered inferior to whites. All this murder and hatred was religiously justified.

Fashions change. Hatred remains. The Nazis made hating Jews unfashionable, at least overtly in polite society. But the law forbids Americans to turn their religious hatred into refusal to do business. Society demands that if you are open for business to anyone you are open for business to everyone.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally ended discrimination in public accommodations against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities, and women. Restaurants had to serve blacks, no matter how much a religion justified hatred. But now, some Kansans again seek to get the law to permit their religious hatred of other Americans. We’ve walked this path before.  Have we learned nothing from hatred and bigotry?

Christians and Jews both believe in a God of love. Genesis teaches that all humans are created in God’s own image. For those who believe that there is to be divine punishment of actions you consider to be a sin, then let God take care of it. God commands God’s people to love the image of God: every human being

We do hold something sacred as a nation and a people: it’s called the Declaration of Independence of the United States of American:  We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

We are the mainstream in Kansas.  We are the truly religious, who value God’s creation.  Let segregation, bigotry, and hatred cease. Let us rise to the love that God commands for all of God’s creatures.

WHICH IS GREATER, STUDY OR ACTION?

Babylonian Talmud Kiddushin 40b:

R. Tarfon and the Elders were once reclining in the upper story of Nithza's house in Lydda, when this question was raised before them: Is study greater, or practice? R. Tarfon answered, saying Practice is greater. R. Akiba answered, saying Study is greater, for it leads to practice. Then they all answered and said: Study is greater, for it leads to action.

The previous page of Talmud (Babylonian Talmud Kiddushin 40a) provides more information:
We learnt: these are the things the fruit of which man enjoys in this world, while the principal remains for him for the future world, Viz.: honoring one’s parents, the practice of loving deeds, and making peace between man and his neighbor, while the study of the Torah surpasses them all. (Parallel texts occur in The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan, chpt. 40, and Mishnah Peah 1 :1.)

A more extensive list appears on page 285 of Gates of Prayer, at the beginning of Shabbat worship. This section immediately follows the blessings for Torah study at the beginning of worship. Thus, we learn that study and worship are equivalent in our tradition, and study forms a part of our daily worship. This is incorporated as a section of study following immediately after study blessings. The question is implicitly raised in our worship of which activity is more important, study or deeds.

It would appear from the Kiddushin text that study is more important than actions. However, in Babylonian Talmud Baba Kamma 17a we find, “the importance of the study of the law is enhanced by the fact that the study of the law is conducive to the practice of the law.” (The Talmud, Seder Nezikin, vol. 1, Soncino, p. 75) Since the purpose of study is practice, it would appear that practice is more important.

Our texts up to this point were written before the year 500 c.e. Turning to the Talmud commentators, we have two Tosaphists from the 12th century commenting on our Kiddushin text. In Baba Kamma we are told that King Hezekiah (II Chronicles 32) was honored after his death because he fulfilled the commandments, not because he studied the commandments (which he must have done). Therefore, actions are more important. The Tosaphist concludes, “We learn from this, that a person who has not studied yet and who comes to decide whether he will study first or take action first, we say to him ‘study first,’ because ‘an ignorant person cannot be pious.' (Pirkei Avot) But for a person who has already studied, action is better than study.”

French twelfth century tosaphist Rabbi Isaac ben Samuel the Elder wrote, “Study brings to action; that is to say that one who knows the Torah does the mitzvot and completely fears sins; but he who does not know Torah is not reverential, as they say, ‘a boorish man does not fear sin and an ignorant man is not pious.’ (Pirke Avot 2: 6)” He goes on to say that a person who studies acquires the qualities of goodness that improve his character.

There are several stories in the Jerusalem Talmud that it was already decided at a meeting in the upper chamber of Beit Arum in Lydda that study is more important than deeds. All of the stories have to do with burying the dead. Rabbi Abahu sent his son to study in Tiberias. Later he sent a messenger to discover what his son was actually doing. He found that his son was terminating his studies to go bury the dead. He sent his son this message, “Have we no dead here in Caesarea that I have to send you to Tiberias to bury the dead?” Clearly these rabbis preferred study to practice. (Added to the citation of the story in this commentary, a story in Jerusalem Talmud Pesahim 3:7).

Questions that could be generated from this text include:
What is so significant about the question IS STUDY GREATER OR PRACTICE?

Why might R. Tarfon have suggested that practice is greater?

Why might R. Akiba have reasoned that study is greater?

Do you agree with the rabbis conclusions? Is study greater, or practice?

Adultery, divorce, seduction, non-consensual sex, alcohol, marijuana, suicide, anger, lies, infidelity, incest: a litany of modern sins. We witnessed August: Osage County last night at Avila University. I say "witness" in the religious sense. August: Osage County is a highly religious modern drama/dark comedy. Religious in what sense you ask? 

In this portrait of family disintegration and collapse, a Cheyenne Native American woman, Johnna Montevata, stands as witness to the spiritually vacuous American family. With success in the arts (the father is a successful poet), and financially stable, the family nonetheless has no spiritual core. The Cheyenne housemaid, by contrast, although an impoverished orphan, attaches her life to family and tribal values as she wears a traditional amulet bearing her umbilical cord around her neck. The amulet symbolizes attachment to mother/ parents/tribe/traditional values, of which the American family is devoid. The play demonstrates that as individualism triumphs and Americans construct our own self-absorbed values, the family disintegrates. August: Osage County stands witness to the spiritual/moral impoverishment of modern American society, and it's inability to create a moral ground on which to build a humane life.

Erika Radcliffe-Potter Intfen is just terrific playing the role of Mattie Fae Aiken in this marvelous Avila University production.