1. Shabbat Shalom

2. This week, we will observe the great black fast of Tisha B’Av. It is not only the day we commemorate the destruction of the Temple, but the day we commemorate many disasters which befell our people at this time of the year. The Midrash traces the beginning of this infamous day as the date that the spies returned to our ancestors in the wilderness, telling them that the land was a good land but that the Canaanites were too strong for Israel to be able to defeat them. That night, says the Midrash, the people cried because they would never be able to enter the Promised Land. God was said to reply to their wailing, “If you cry tonight without reason, I will give you a reason to cry on this day.”

3. It has always surprised me that many of the disasters that befell our people in ancient times on this day were attributed by our Sages to our own faults. We cried without reason, so God gave us a reason to cry. The first Temple was destroyed because of injustice, robbery and disrespect. The second Temple was destroyed by causeless hatred between Jews. To be sure, there are many troubles that we remember on this day that were not the fault of the Jewish People. We did not cause the Spanish Inquisition. We did not cause the Talmud to be burned in Europe. We did not cause blood libels, we did not poison wells and we did nothing to cause our people to be locked up in ghettos in Europe.

4. But the first three things that we commemorate on the fast of Tisha B’Av are disasters of our own making. The way we treated each other brought destruction to our nation and to our people. We often have to admit that sometimes, we are our own worst enemy. Our own cleverness and deceptions often backfire into disasters for our people.

5. If you don’t have a computer, you may not know that as Tisha B’Av approaches this year, we may yet have reason to cry again on this day. A disaster that once again will be brought about by our own people. Just a few weeks ago, I spoke about how the Haredim, the ultra-Orthodox in Israel are trying to force their own brand of Judaism on everyone, no matter if they believe in this extreme form of Judaism or not. This week may yet see the next disaster for Israel, one that Israel will bring upon herself.

6. Late last year, Member of Knesset, David Rotem drafted a bill for consideration by Israel’s Parliament that he hoped would help the Russian immigrants to Israel, who have been in limbo for decades, once and for all, resolve the issues of their Jewish status. They pay taxes in Israel, they serve in Israel’s army. They are an important part of Israel’s economy. But they have questionable ancestry to the Haredim of the Chief Rabbinate so they need to be converted to resolve these questions. There are tens of thousands of Russian Jews who are waiting for the Rabbinical Courts to formally convert them. Only a thousand a year ever get to the courts and this past year, in a dispute with the court, the Chief Rabbis revoked thousands of conversions because they felt that these converts were not observant enough to have a valid conversion.

7. To resolve this, MK Rotem, a member of Yisrael Beiteinu, the party that represents Russian Jews, introduced legislation late last year that would open more courts, so that the process of conversion would go faster and more Russians would have their Jewish status confirmed. The problem with the bill was that it put the final decision back into the hands of the Chief Rabbinate, the place where all this trouble started! In addition, it would mean that anyone converted outside of the State of Israel, would no longer be considered Jewish if they were to immigrate to Israel. This was a great change in the Law of Return and it basically was directed at the Conservative and Reform movements. It said to us that our conversions were not considered to be valid and our converts were not welcome in Israel.

8. Our movement protested this change as did the Jewish Agency in Israel as well as the Federations of North America. David Rotem came to the United States to talk with our leadership and to see if there could be a compromise on the issue. We made many recommendations but when Rotem returned to Israel, he reintroduced the bill without any changes at all! He not only did not hear our concerns, he clearly did not care about our feelings either. Only when we protested again, did Prime Minister Netenyahu pull the bill from consideration and assured American leaders as well as the Jewish Agency, that the bill would not be introduced again until there were serious negotiations and compromises that would address our needs.

9. This past week, out of the blue, Rotem again introduced this bill, this time with an amendment added by the Shas party that would make all conversions pass through the Rabbinical courts of the Chief Rabbinate and be subject to their “halachic observance” tests to confirm the validity of the conversion. Instead of helping the Russian immigrants who have been waiting so long, this would make their wait longer and much less fruitful. Rotem it seems does not think that there are enough non-orthodox Jews to really make a difference to him and to Israel. The real nasty part of this, though, is when the bill came up in committee, there were not enough Orthodox votes to pass the bill on to the Knesset floor. But Likud, the party of the Prime Minister, walked out of the room before the vote. This left the Orthodox with a majority and they voted and passed the bill with the tacit consent of Likud and apparently the Prime Minister as well.

10. Word went out and in an hour, 500 e-mails were sent to Prime Minister Netenyahu. Within 24 hours he had 8000 e-mails protesting the bill. Conservative and Reform Jews are not the only ones outraged by this bill. Natan Sharansky, the founder of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and the current chairman of the Jewish Agency demanded that it be removed from consideration. The Federations of North America is sending thousands of their own messages to Netenyahu demanding that the bill be killed. The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, the Jewish Week and many other newspapers have denounced this political move to appease the Orthodox parties at the expense of the unity of world Jewry. Our representatives have met with the leaders of other parties, like Labor and Kadima and have received much support and promises of action. We also met with the leadership of Yisrael Beiteinu but they don’t appear to care at all about our concerns and our anger.

11. Silent in all of this has been Prime Minister Netenyahu. Rabbi Steven Wernick, the Executive Director of the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism, our parent organization, wrote to us just two days ago, saying, “The primary focus of our efforts must be on Prime Minister Netenyahu. Because he is the leader of the government a clear and public statement by him in opposition to this bill is essential. His continuing to avoid a position amounts to tacit approval. Therefore all our efforts to contact him directly through key supporters and to email petitions and letters must continue through Wednesday evening.” Wednesday is the end of the current session of the Knesset. After that we will have time to do more to gather support to overcome this outrageous bill.

12. Rabbi Julie Schoenfield, the Executive Director of the Rabbinical Assembly wrote to Prime Minister Netenyahu and said, “Members of Knesset tell me this bill is too little too late. In Israel’s free and open society where extremists have given Jewish religion a bad image, many young Israelis don’t care whether a potential spouse is halakhically Jewish. The coercive ultra religious system is a total failure that spends tens of millions of NIS to yield only 1500 converts per year. Of those, 200 are Masorti, who receive no funding. The way to really “solve this problem,” is to have options for multiple streams and for the indigenous Israeli expressions that will only flower in a non-coercive system.” In other words, the conversion courts are an expensive waste of time and money for the State of Israel; what Israel really needs is a system that is open to the many streams of Judaism that exist all over the world.

13. In the long term, we have a lot of work to do within the political system in Israel. Rabbi Wernick noted, “Teaching Israeli leaders about Diaspora Jewry, and about Conservative Judaism in particular, must be a long-term goal. I am shocked by how little so many of them know about us.” It is one thing to want to serve the Israeli constituents who elected these leaders into the Knesset. But these leaders must not forget the rest of world Jewry, Jews who protect and defend the Jewish State from political enemies that exist in countries all over the world. Jewish Senators and Members of Congress have expressed to the Prime Minister their shock over this bill which could make support for Israel much harder in the US Congress if Israel should disenfranchise Israel’s supporters among non-orthodox Jews.

14. An editorial in the Jerusalem Post this week said, “ ‘Occupation’, Arab inequality, hateful infighting between secular and religious and even the gap between rich and poor in Israel have disenchanted many liberal Diaspora Jews, who feel that to blindly support Israel they must, as Peter Beinart recently put it, “check their liberalism at Zionism’s door.” Many are instead checking their Zionism. Now Rotem is offering another reason for Diaspora Jewry to feel estranged from the Jewish state.”

15. We all need to get involved in this affront to world Jewry and to Conservative/Masorti Judaism. What we are asking every Jews in America to do is to send an email to Prime Minister Netenyahu asking him to step in and kill this bill in the Knesset. If his party, Likud, does not support it, then it will be voted down. He appointed Natan Sharansky and the Jewish Agency to meet with Rotem and with world Jewish leadership to find a compromise on this bill. If it is to really help those who need it, these meetings should happen as soon as possible. The longer it waits, the more likely that Rotem will introduce the bill again, this time with even worse language.

16. If you are on the Temple Emeth email list, you should have gotten an email from us with a link to help you send a message to the Prime Minister. If you have email but are not on our list, go to our website, send your email address to our Administrator, Mariyln Mishkin and she will forward to you the link. It is important that you do this as soon as Shabbat is over. We need to let the Prime Minister know that there are hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world who are appalled by the Rotem conversion bill.

17. If you do not have email, or you do not have a computer, there is not enough time to send a letter. I suggest you go to the Library and ask to use the library computer and send your email from there. You can go to the Masorti website, http://www.Masorti.org and there is a link right at the top of their page. Click on the link and fill out the form so that your voice can join the thousands of others protesting this bill. There are cards in the Lobby with the web address of Masorti. If you don’t know how to do this, just ask the people at the Library to help you find the site and find the link.

18. This will be another disaster connected to Tisha B’Av if we don’t act to end this unnecessary bill that will cause a rift between American and Israeli Jews. The link between the United States and Israel must be strong and enduring. This bill will drive a wedge between Jews and make Israel’s political connections to the rest of the world dangerously frayed. Call your children and grandchildren. This is important. If we can flood the Prime Minister’s office with our protests, then this will be not a day of disaster but a new beginning as Israel will finally begin to understand the deep love we have for Israel that must not be neglected. All of our voices are needed. I ask you, on behalf of Jews all over the world, make your voice heard in Israel. Send your Email. Tell others to stand up and email Prime Minister Netenyahu. This week does not have to be the time of weeping and disaster. It can be the beginning of the redemption, the birth-pangs of the Messiah

19. The future of Israel and the fate of Israel truly rests in our hands. Speak up and let Israel know who we are and where we stand. May God be with us and with Israel in these days of danger and uncertainty and may we find reason to rejoice at this normally sad time of year … as we say AMEN AND SHABBAT SHALOM

1. Shabbat Shalom

2. There was a time when vows were an important part of society – in the days long before DNA testing, security cameras and CSI. Sometimes, the only way a community could have some closure in a situation where there were no witnesses or when there was no other way to determine who was right in a dispute, the only course of action was to have one or both parties take a vow that they were telling the truth. These vows were enforced with penalties for taking such a vow when they were made knowing that the vow was a lie.

3. There is also another kind of vow. It is a promise that you make to yourself. It is a kind of New Year’s Resolution on steroids. We make all kinds of promises to ourselves, to lose weight, to save money, to move to a better home, to get a better job, to give more to charity. Most of the time we either forget that we made the promise or we forget how really hard it is to keep these kinds of promises. A vow raises the stakes. It is a formal declaration to God that we are serious about making changes in our life and if we don’t then God will have the right to send down a divine punishment for our being either too lazy or absent minded to keep what we promised.

4. In either case, there is this notion that our words should have power in our lives. What we say should be connected to what we do. A vow taken is a promise that must be fulfilled. Today this whole notion seems to be quaint and archaic. Words don’t mean anything anymore. We see politicians make promises that we know the moment they make them that they will never be fulfilled. We view a steady stream of advertising that promises to remove our wrinkles, make our clothing cleaner and our teeth whiter. We don’t believe any of that stuff but the promises keep coming. Now we have the internet where anyone can say the most outlandish things and there will not only be people who believe what is said, they will forward the lie to hundreds of their best friends. In our modern world, words can no longer be trusted. If you can’t get the promise in writing, then it is not a real promise.

5. Yet, there are still people whose word is their bond. There are men and women who don’t say much but when they do, everyone knows you can rely on them to do what they say. I don’t know if anyone here remembers Congressman Sam Rayburn, the representative from Texas to Congress who died in 1961. He had a reputation for following through on the promises he made. In fact, one day, a reporter noted that Rayburn never wrote down what he was promising the people in his district. The reporter asked the Congressman, “How do you remember all the things you promise people?” Rayburn replied, “If what you promise is the right thing to do, you don’t have to worry about forgetting them.”

6. There is one area, however, where vows still play an important role in society. Wedding vows still carry a great deal of weight and power in society. When a couple promise to love and care for each other, that vow is an open ended commitment for sexual fidelity and unconditional support. In just a few more weeks, my youngest son will exchange vows with a woman he met in high school. My son may be young and idealistic, but he and his fiance are going into this relationship with their eyes open and their feet on the ground. They know exactly why they want to do this and they have every intention to being true to their promise.

7. Our society seems to not care anymore about the vow of being married. Fiction, movies, and gossip magazines feed us a steady stream of steamy affairs, philandering and exotic flings. If a space alien were to read almost any work of fiction or news, he would come to the conclusion that most married couples are not faithful to their wedding vows. It used to be that we would at least punish the politicians who could not be faithful to their wives, but today, that does not seem to be an issue. Former presidential candidate John Edwards was not vilified by the press by his unfaithfulness, but because the wife he was cheating on was battling cancer and he was, to say the least, not very supportive in her time of need.

8. Our parsha teaches that our words have to mean something. Our words have power and that power is a special gift from God. Just as God spoke words and through the power of speech the world was created, so too our words have the power to make our world a better place. Words can bring peace between two feuding friends or two warring countries. Words can call attention to the beauty and majesty of our world. Words can overcome feelings of depression or despair and bring out feelings of affection and love. Words, expressed in prayer and meditation can help us to understand our importance in the universe that God created.

9. Rabban Gamliel, one of the great sages of the Talmud, had a servant, a wise man named Tavi. One day Rabban Gamliel sent Tavi into the market place and asked him to bring back the greatest delicacy he could find in the shuk. Tavi returned that evening with a tongue. He told his master, “A kind tongue is one of the sweetest things in all the world.” The next day, Rabban Gamliel sent Tavi back to the market to find the worst food he could imagine. Tavi returned that evening with a tongue. Rabban Gamliel said to Tavi, “I thought you said that a tongue was the best food in the shuk?” Tavi replied, “When a tongue is good, there is nothing better, but when a tongue is bad, there is nothing worse.”

10. The power of words does cut both ways. We can use our words to build up, or we can use our words to tear down. Words can make things clear, or they can make our lives more confused. Words can help us aspire to greatness, or cut us down and destroy all hope. For this reason Judaism is very concerned that words be used constructively; we must use our words in a responsible manner so that we are not the cause of harm to someone else. As parents we know that our words can inspire our children to achieve great things but if we are mean and cruel, the best we can hope for is that therapy, healing words, will help restore their self esteem.

11. What applies to parents also applies to every aspect of our lives. Are we respectful with our words when we address clerks in a store or when we order a meal at a restaurant? Sometimes we are judged not by the way we treat our friends but by the way we address strangers. There are some who think that if they don’t complain, yell and demand in a store, then they will not get the best price. Sometimes this is true, but remember also, that bullying a sales associate in a department store or the wait staff at a restaurant will only cause resentment and anger in the very people you need to help you with your purchases. I was once told that it is very important to speak in a nice tone with those who check in your baggage at the airport. It is not unknown for travelers who give the counter staff a hard time to discover that their luggage has been diverted to a destination far from where they want it to be. I don’t know if it true or not but I can say that it always pays to be nice.

12. Finally, what applies to strangers applies even more to those that we love. Not being true to wedding vows is always a quick way to end a marriage. But speaking to our spouse either in anger or in a degrading manner probably is even more destructive to a good relationship. Nobody likes to be badgered or shamed in public. And yet, refraining from harsh speech in a marriage is not enough, we need to also add words of affection, tenderness and love. I know a story of a woman who complained to her husband that he never told her “I love you”. He looked up from his newspaper and replied, “I told you I loved you when we got married, if it changes, I will let you know.” This clearly is a man that needs to invest more words in his relationship.

13. The law of this country tells us that if something is important, if there is money involved, or if services are required, it is best to write it down and sign a contract. Contracts should be read carefully and if there are passages that are not understood, then we should get them clarified before we commit ourselves by signing our names. It is advisable to consult an attorney before signing any contract for anything important. We should not rely on words when the stakes are very high.

14. But if we decide to live our lives where our word is our bond, no matter if it is for our benefit or for something that could hurt us financially or personally, then we will raise our lives to a higher standard and we will find that our friends and neighbors will have the greatest respect for us. I recently spoke to a family after the death of their father. The son, who worked many years in his father’s business, said with a great deal of pride, “I never saw my father treat a customer or a vender harshly. He was always honest and fair.” There are few words we could add to a eulogy more honorable than these.

15. The Rabbis of the Talmud did not like vows. In every age, Rabbis advised Jews to be honest in all their words so that taking a vow would not be necessary. The Sages advised us to make a commitment and stick with it, without swearing in the name of God. We should not need a vow to remain committed to our words, we should be careful about what we say and about what we promise and always follow through on our word.

16. If we can make our words stand for something in the rest of our life, then our words of prayer on Shabbat will mean even more. If we use our words to make the world a better place, then our words of prayer will help us lift our lives and our hearts to even greater heights. Our siddur constantly reminds us that God promised Abraham that God would redeem Abraham’s descendants from slavery and bring them to the land God promised the patriarch. As God fulfilled God’s promise to us and to our ancestors, so too we should be sure to fulfill all the words that we speak, in the marketplace and in our synagogue. Let us use our words to make our world a kinder, honest and better world. A world in which our words bring us honor and bring honor to God as we say,

AMEN AND SHABBAT SHALOM

SHABBAT SHALOM

 In this week’s parsha, Pinchas, who zealously killed to defend God’s honor, is not to be prosecuted for his act of murder. While Moses and the other leaders where wringing their hands wondering what they were going to do, Pinchas put an end to the idolatry, killed the couple who had flagrantly brought sexual immorality into the precincts of the Mishkan and ended the plague that had threatened the entire People of Israel.

 The Rabbis are quick to note that without the intervention of God, Pinchas would have been guilty of capital murder. Orderly society cannot have zealots running around killing people in their religious fervor. In the Haftara that is read for today when it is NOT the first of the three weeks, Elijah the prophet has the same problem. He was zealous for God and had killed 400 priests of the idol Baal. Queen Jezebel, who worshipped Baal, was not happy and ordered Elijah to be executed. Elijah fled and after some adventures, ended up on Mt Sinai, angry that he had been zealous for God and now everyone wanted to kill him. He too wants the “brit shalom” the same exemption that Pinchas received for his zealotry.

When I was a little boy, our Rabbi had a hard time explaining to our class what Pinchas had done wrong. It was not the pagan sexuality that made my Rabbi uncomfortable; it was trying to explain why Pinchas was not a hero. In the face of all that was happening, only Pinchas took matters into his own hands. Like all the heroes in the movies, Pinchas didn’t wait for permission to do what he did. We children could see him holding his javelin as the two offending people entered the Mishkan and saying to them like Clint Eastwood, “Go ahead, Make my day!”

Today, we live in a world where these kinds of fundamentalist zealots carry bombs and seek to perform acts of mass destruction. Islamic zealots have been known to cut off the hands of thieves, kill women suspected of dishonoring their families and engage in wanton acts of destruction against other infidels and heretics to the faith. Christianity is also full of zealots, who shoot abortion providers to save the lives of unborn children. They defy the law that keeps the Ten Commandments off of the walls of our courtrooms, and those that keep religion out of our public schools. They even protest science textbooks that teach evolution over the Bible’s account of the creation of the world.

These threats from Christian and Muslim zealots, in my opinion, do not pose anywhere near the danger to Judaism as Jewish zealots. I have watched in horror over the last year as Israel has been rocked by scandal after scandal by those who would call themselves the most righteous Jews in the world. Over the years I have spoken out against their version of Judaism that has no place for anyone who is less religious than their community. I have been accused of Orthodox bashing, of not being fair to those who have a more observant lifestyle then I do. Who am I, they ask, to questions the motives of these super observant Jews/ what harm results from their zealotry?

This past year there has been much harm caused by these, self proclaimed “Haredi” Jews. Their actions now threaten the very existence of the State of Israel. Each day brings another outrageous action that undermines Israel’s government and pushes aside basic democratic principles. These Jews have come a long way from throwing stones at those who would drive in their neighborhood on Shabbat. Now they are willing to travel all over Israel, and all over the United States as well, to demand from everyone else, compliance with the way they view the world.

I have more examples of this than I can use in one sermon. Intel, the world’s largest manufacturer of computer chips has a major manufacturing plant in Israel. They have been the foundation of Israel’s computer industry for many years. The Haredim, however, did not like the fact that the plant was open on Shabbat. They massed in the parking lot of the plant and tried to break inside to force the plant to close for Shabbat. They dared the government of Israel to try and stop them.

The city of Jerusalem, to solve its traffic problems, opened a parking lot in the city. The Haredim shut down traffic and the lot for weeks because they thought it should not be open on Shabbat. They created an ugly riot beating up peaceful protesters at Jerusalem’s first Gay Pride parade. They have entered Reform and Masorti congregations in Jerusalem and tried to “kidnap” the Torah scrolls so that women and non-observant men would not handle them. There have been Reform and Conservative synagogues that have been firebombed. So far, the police have no suspects.

In Beersheva, a woman was standing at a bus stop when a Haredi man started staring at her. Pushing himself into her face, he demanded to know what the marks on her arms were from. She backed away, saying it was none of his business, but he kept getting in her face demanding to know what the marks were from. Finally she said they were from the tephillin that she wore for prayer that morning. Spiting obscenities, he began to beat the young woman who was only saved because the bus finally arrived. To this day nobody has been arrested for the assault.

Women praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, standing in the women’s section near the stones of the Kotel, put on tallitot and men from the other side of the mechitza began to throw chairs at them. They created such a riot that the police had to remove the women for their own protection.

There are tens of thousands of Russian immigrants to Judaism in Israel who are not Jewish enough for these Haredi leaders. For ten years now they have blocked these Russian Jews from affirming their Judaism and from converting to Judaism to remove whatever question there may be about their past. In the Soviet Union, they were Jewish enough to be persecuted and arrested, but in Israel, they are persecuted because they are not Jewish enough.

In this country, these self proclaimed guardians of the faith have taken control of the Young Israel congregations. They are threatening a synagogue in Syracuse, NY with closing the shul, taking their Torahs and taking control of the congregational assets because they dared to elect a woman to be president of the synagogue. The national leadership of Young Israel, in disregard for Jewish law that permits women some role in Jewish life, will now no longer allow women to serve as president, they can not hold services for women only and they cannot read from the megilla. The Talmud may permit this but these zealots say it is forbidden.

In Hewlett, NY, in the Five Towns area, an orthodox congregation invited, as guest speaker, Sarah Hurwits, a Graduate of Avi Weiss’s seminary in Riverdale, NY and the first orthodox holder of the title “Rabbah” (instead of Rabbi). A Haredi Rabbi wrote in the local secular newspaper that this speech was a disgrace to Judaism and to “real” Torah scholars and that the Jewish community would have something new to cry about this Tisha B’Av. The Rabbi of the congregation that invited Rabbah Hurwits, noted that in a time when Israel was being assaulted physically and politically, this was completely out of line. We cry on Tisha B’Av because sinat hinam, baseless hatred between Jews, brought about the destruction of the Temple, and now we see that same hatred will destroy us again.

This week, there were riots again in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Haredi parents wanted to segregate their children from Sephardic Jews who are not as observant as the Asheknazic Jews. The Israel Supreme Court ruled that this kind of discrimination and segregation is not permitted. The parents then took their children out of school lest they be “corrupted” by the Sephardic children. The Supreme Court ordered the children to go back to school. The parents refused and the court ordered the parents to be arrested. Riots broke out to prevent the arrests. The Haredi called the Israeli police stormtroopers and Nazis for obeying the court and the Haredi claimed that they did not follow Israeli law, but only the Law of God and Torah.

My all time Hutzpa Award goes to the Haredim of Spring Valley, NY who took money from the state of New York to provide affordable public transportation for those who lived in Spring Valley who needed to commute to jobs in New York City. These buses were provided to the town using taxpayer money. The town, run by Satmer Hasidim, then ruled that women could only sit in the back of the bus. The women took the city to court and the courts ruled that public buses could not have segregated seating, not for anyone. The latest headline from just last May said, “Hasidim fear a gentile company could take over the line and might run routes on Saturdays, fail to separate men and women riders, and stop giving discounts to yeshiva students. Can you imagine that? A bus line that takes government funds should be run for the sake of all those who use the bus, and not just the Haredi?

What was the reward of Pinchas for his zealotry? Moses and God make him and his children priests for all time. They don’t get to remain zealots, they have to become part of the establishment and learn to live by the rules. What is Elijah’s reward for his zealotry? Elijah, to the end can’t understand what is wrong with being a zealot, so God forces Elijah into retirement and the duty of ending idolatry is left to his successor, Elisha.

The Haredi claim that it was an act of zealotry for Baruch Goldstein to kill unarmed Muslims in prayer at the Cave of Machpayla. They claim it was an act of zealotry when Amir murdered Yizchak Rabin in Tel Aviv. Until these zealots understand that if they can not be a part of the rule of law and order, then they will suffer arrest and marginalization in the Jewish world. Israel needs to stop coddling these Jews, to stop slapping them on the wrist and letting them go home, to stop treating them like children who are just being children, and insist that they be held responsible for their actions. Their Rabbis must be arrested when they incite violence and those who riot should be held accountable for the damage they do. Until there is equal justice for the zealot and the non zealot, these outrageous acts will only get worse.

Israel does not need this kind of distraction when our very existence is in danger. But with the steady stream of Israelis leaving the state because of Haredim complicating their lives and the refusal of Americans to make Aliyah to Israel because the Haredim want proof that they are Jewish, this kind of zealotry will undermine all that we have hoped a Jewish State would be. It is time, once and for all, for all Jews to denounce this kind of zealotry, and for Israel to insist that they obey the rule of law.

May God protect us all, not only from religious harassment by gentiles, but may God protect us from religious harassment by Jewish zealots as well. May we soon know not only peace for Israel, but peace in Israel as well. As we say…. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.

Shabbat Shalom

In our parsha this week we see the effects of good propaganda. 12 spies go into the Promised Land and all 12 see the same sights, the good land, the rich soil, the strong cities and the local population. And yet they come back with different stories. To ten of the spies, the land is unconquerable, the cities are too strong, the people too powerful. Only two of the spies report that although things looked bad, Israel could still defeat them.

That night, the ten spies go through the Israelite camp spreading their point of view about the inhabitants of the promised land. They were giants and in their eyes we were mere grasshoppers that would be easy to crush. The invasion would be a disaster and there is no way we can win this fight. By morning, the people had heard enough; they gathered together and demanded that they be allowed to go to back to Egypt.

We can ask: how could two groups of people who see the same things have such different interpretations of the event? I see this effect almost every Shabbat. At the kiddush after the service someone always asks me how I can possibly feel one way about something when I said nothing about it at all. People hear what they want to hear. People see what they want to see.

I read the many different accounts of the confrontation between Israel and the boats trying to break the Gaza blockade. I read many articles in Ha’aretz, the Israeli newspaper, and I checked out what MSNBC, the BBC and the New York Times had to say. I usually figure that if I read enough accounts of what happened I might be able to identify what is propaganda and put together a reasonable idea of what really happened. I certainly came across a lot of misinformation and stuff that was clearly inaccurate and biased.

After much reading and reflecting, I came to the conclusion that the whole event was becoming a rather sad case of “He hit me first”. The initial accounts did not make a case really for either side. You can see people with clubs beating Israeli soldiers yet the “eyewitnesses” interviewed by the BBC said that there were only two and a half “wooden batons” on the main ship where the fight broke out. I counted a lot more than two and a half batons. The first Israeli soldiers on board were met with stiff resistance. The eyewitnesses claim that Israel shot first, before the passengers had to defend themselves but Israel contends it was only shooting plastic bullets and stun guns and that only when their soldiers were in danger did they pull out the pistols with real ammunition. The only thing we can know for sure is that there was chaos on the deck, and as a result a lot of people were injured and nine were killed.

It also seems to me that peaceful people do not swing bats at soldiers who are carrying guns. I know that today it seems to be the big thing in protests to taunt the police or legal authorities to provoke them into a fight. We have seen anarchists burn cars, break windows and push police officers to dare and stop them. This does not seem to be much different. Only this time the soldiers feared for their lives. Seven soldiers were injured and two have serious injuries that include stab wounds. It was this fear that brought about the order to start shooting, and it seems that nine of the people on board have died.

If there is anything else to this story, it will have to come out in an inquiry into the event. I am hoping that Israel will gather together some international observers and together examine those who were present that night. It would be good to see what kind of report they might produce. I know that many of these reports have been one sided against Israel which is why I think Israel should create the inquiry and then invite the others to attend. If it is done in an open and honest way, it could make a difference.

The things that bother me about this event are the way almost all the media outlets have covered the story. There is a blockade around Gaza. It is there for a reason. I have yet to see any commentator note why there is a blockade at all. Israelis themselves are a bit mixed about why they need to blockade Gaza, with some Israeli journalist treating it like the embargo on Cuba, a lot of noise but not really doing anything of substance. In case you don’t remember, the blockade was started after Hamas drove the PLO from power in Gaza and then refused to make any deals with Israel. As the rockets flew, Israel, and then Egypt closed the borders and allowed only humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. After a woman was caught trying to get a medical pass so she could go and blow up an Israeli hospital, the sick are no longer routinely given passage out of Gaza.

After Gilad Shalit was captured, it has been the policy of Israel to link lifting the blockade to his safe return home. I have not seen this mentioned at all. I should note that Shalit is being held without any rights or the ability to use the Red Cross to contact his family. The Red Cross quickly visited the prison where the members of the flotilla are being held, and there were visits by the ambassadors of the countries where the detainees are citizens. This is another example of how knowing the right questions can help us understand the news better.

It should also be noted, and one can see this if you read carefully, there were seven boats in the flotilla on the way to Gaza. All seven were told to stop. One boat did stop and was not boarded. Five of the boats, the smaller ones, were boarded apparently without incident. And a British passenger on one of those boats called the Israelis professional and not abusive, verbally or otherwise. All of the fighting and all the casualties were on the large Turkish vessel. These boats were towed to Ashdod where 50 people asked to be sent home and they went home. 680 others, who would not cooperate with Israel, have been arrested and were deported this week to Jordan or put on planes to their country of origin.

Those of us who support Israel have long been conditioned to believe that the only thing that matters to the Palestinians is military force. Every time they shoot at us, we have to shoot back. Every time they fire a rocket, we have to retaliate. If we fail to respond to any attack our enemy will see this as a weakness and will cause them to attack even harder next time. It is a sad fact that violence breeds more violence. But it can only work if we let them hit us first.

The problem for Israel is that they often think that any incident requires a military response. To a certain extent, the terrorists have forced us to do what really is not in our own best interest. Israel has to fight when fighting may not be the best course of action. As a result, it seems that Israel is constantly reacting with a very heavy hand to any provocation. In recent years it seems that Israel has constantly turned to war when a measured response might be more effective. This is not the first time that Israel has killed unarmed protesters. Certainly Israel does not desire civilian casualties. There just has to be a better way.

I know that there are some who disagree with me, but killing all the Palestinians, moving them to some other country or beating them into submission is not a long term answer. The cycle of violence realistically can only be changed diplomatically. That means Israel will have to talk with her enemies. Those talks have had some progress when it comes to the PLO and the West Bank. Hamas, on the other hand, refuses to talk. Hamas is an organization of fanatics who are prepared to die for their cause. To remove them from power will take a lot of finesse. We can see from the case of Iran that removing fanatics is not an easy proposition. I believe that there will come a day when the Palestinians will resort to non-violent confrontation, and when they do, Israel must have other options besides military options.

I am sure that Turkey and Israel will get back on track eventually. There are a lot of reasons for having good relations between these two countries. Turkey knows that many of those on the ship were associated with terrorism, a problem that Turkey has had for almost a century. Even with an Islamic party in power, Turkey too is fighting insurgency and terror in the country and in the cities. I have noted that nobody is talking about the identity of those who have died. It interests me to know if the dead were members of the fanatic groups in Turkey. It is hard for me to imagine that the hard core humanitarians on board took up clubs and knives to beat Israeli soldiers.

So where does this leave us? What are we supposed to do as Israel gets, once again, held accountable in a way that no other country is held accountable? First of all we need to speak up about why there is a blockade and what Israel is trying to accomplish. Second we need to point out that Israel is not opposed to humanitarian aide, and in fact provides such aide and that all the aide captured from the flotilla will be forwarded to Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu this week, said that anyone who has humanitarian aide to send to Gaza is welcome to send it, as long as Israel can check it to see that weapons are not being smuggled inside the shipments. Israel offered to forward this aide to Gaza even before the flotilla was stopped and the people on the flotilla refused to let Israel deliver it on their behalf. Israeli soldiers are not monsters. Israel is trying to do the best it can in difficult circumstances.

Any death in this war is a terrible death. Any death in any war is a tragedy. It should only remind us that we need to find a way to bring Israel and the Palestinians together, to end the constant state of war and to work together to end the terror of Iran and her agents in Hamas and Hezbollah. We need an agreement similar to the one that ended the terror in Northern Ireland. We need to insist that any organization that wants a place at the negotiating table with Israel needs to renounce violence and grant political recognition to all the other parties at the table. If Protestants and Catholics can do it, then the Jews and Muslims can do it too. The sooner we find a way to end this war, the sooner these tragic deaths will end.

Boycotts, Blockade running and Propaganda will no longer be necessary when both sides make the decision to make peace. Getting both sides to the table should remain our top priority and we should not rest until Israel is able to live in peace with all her neighbors. It is already too late for these most recent deaths. It is already too late for the hundreds of victims of terror in Israel. Every day should bring us closer to the day when those in Israel can sleep in peace. May God send that blessing soon.

Amen and Shabbat Shalom

Hag Sameach

My friends and colleagues call Shavuot the forgotten holiday. Even with the Yizkor service we don’t get as many in synagogue as we do for Pesach or Shemini Atzeret, not to mention Yom Kippur. If you were to go home and ask your Jewish friends why they were not in shul today they probably have no idea that today is one of the three major holidays on the Jewish calendar.

We live in a free country. There is all kinds of talk today about how people are opposed to government interfering with their personal lives. We don’t like our government getting involved in ALL of our private affairs. Whole movements in this country have revolved around telling Washington to leave us alone. From the beginning of this country, with the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania, to the Civil War to our Modern Tea Party Movement, citizens of this country protest or fight when they feel the federal government has become too intrusive in their private lives.

Judaism, has no trouble at all intruding into our private lives. After all, one of the four great freedoms in this country is Freedom of Religion, and Judaism tells us Jews just how we are supposed to be Jewish. It tells us what we can and can’t eat. It tells us when we can and can’t work. It tells us what is right and what is wrong and does not give us any vote in the matter, and it even tells us when we can and when we can’t have sexual relations with our spouse. I don’ t think you can find anything on this planet that is more intrusive in our private lives than our religion.

Maybe the reason that so many people are NOT here today is because they have chosen to forget the responsibilities that Judaism puts upon them. Just like the secular government, they don’t want Rabbis, Torah or even God to tell them what to do. They want to be completely in control of their own lives, or at least they want to have what seems to be control of their own lives. But when their lives spin out of control, they look to government and to their religion to help them get back on their feet. It would be easy to call this kind of behavior hypocritical, but I am afraid that it is just human nature. From the time of the biblical prophets, human beings have taken all the credit for the the good things in life and blamed God and authorities for all that has gone wrong.

What makes this intrusion in our lives by Judaism even more interesting goes back to the very beginnings of our religion. We were once slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. The despotic ruler of the land alongside the Nile River made sure that we knew our place in society, a place he made for us on the lowest rung of the social ladder. He told us where and when we were to work, he told us when and what we could eat. We had no control over what was right and what was wrong; we were told that we must do what the taskmasters said we were to do and we were to do it quickly without complaint. They told us when we were allowed to have sexual relations with our spouses and if we did not give birth to the right gender of child, then the unwanted boys would be thrown into the river. Anyone unhappy with this arrangement would feel the sting of the taskmaster’s whip.

God heard our cry of pain and rescued us from Egyptian slavery. God told us that nobody should have to be a slave like that. God redeemed us with a mighty hand, sending plagues so that the people of Egypt would know the kind of suffering we were enduring and be moved to let us go, and then at the Red Sea, the entire army that backed up Pharaoh’s iron hand, was destroyed in the blink of an eye. Why? Why did God do this for us? That was the reason we came to Mt. Sinai at this time of year 4000 years ago. God did not want us to serve Pharaoh in Egypt. God wanted us to serve only God. No government was to have the power to tell us what to do. We were to follow the laws and commandments of God, and that would be all we needed to live better lives.

In my class in Pirke Avot, that I teach each morning before Minyan, we find the saying of Rabbi N’hunya ben HaKanah, who teaches, “Whoever accepts the yoke of Torah will be spared the burdens of the government and the burden of earning a livelihood. But whoever throws off the yoke of Torah will have to bear the yoke of Government and the yoke of earning a livelihood.” What is Rabbi Nehunya saying? That if we want to stop paying taxes and no longer need to earn a living we should just study Torah and God will provide for us? Is this what he means? I don’t think so. The Sages in his day studied a great deal of Torah and they still had day jobs that provided food for their families and they certainly paid their taxes. What does he mean when he teaches that the yoke of Torah spares us the yoke of taxes and the yoke of earning a living?

I think Rabbi N’hunya is trying to teach us that serving God is not at all like serving a government nor is it related to earning a living. Our relationship with God is based on a covenant, a contract between God and the People of Israel. We agree to faithfully follow God’s rules and God is there, in good times and bad, to help give us strength, support and understanding about all aspects of our lives. God is very much like a large safety net, so that when disaster seems to be crashing down upon us, we do not fall, but we are supported and encouraged by our faith in God. Without God, life is a yoke we must carry. When we accept the yoke of God, however, we no longer feel that the rest of life is a burden at all.

Today we recite the prayers of Yizkor. It is a time when we remember those members of our family who may have died, but who are not forgotten. There are many Sages who point to our relationships with our family when explaining how to comprehend our relationship with God.

Family relationships come with responsibilities. The love and support we get from a brother or a sister, the love and protection that we receive from our parents do come with obligations. We look out for each other. We take care of each other when we are sick or in a time of trouble. Those of us who are married happily understand that joy in life is never complete until we share that joy with our spouse. The unconditional love that can come from children make their loss one of terrible tragedy. If we cry when we recite Yizkor for our family, it is not because the memories are terrible, it is exactly the opposite, we cry because the memories were so good. I remember a story about a man who cried bitterly over the death of his spouse. “Why do you cry?” asked a well meaning friend, “Your tears will not change anything, your crying will not help.” The man cried harder and responded, “That is why I cry, because my tears will not help.

I have said many times, that our tears are the price we pay for loving somebody. We cry over the death of one with whom we shared so many happy times because those happy times are over. I once came to a hospice room where a 97 year old lady was sitting in bed, and her 70 year old daughter was with her. The older woman looked at me and said, “I have lived my life for 97 years with no regrets. I have accomplished everything I set out to do and have had wonderful experiences throughout my life. I am facing death now with the serenity that comes from being at peace with myself. The only problem is my daughter here. Rabbi, please tell her that she does not have to cry after I am gone, because I am not sad at all about how I have lived my life.

I looked at this gracious lady and told her, “I think you need to mind your own business.” She looked at me shocked but I went on. “You may be content with your life but your daughter is going to miss you when you are gone, and every time she misses you she is going to cry and there is nothing you or I can or should do to stop her. If you would have been a mean and nasty mother your whole life, then I doubt your daughter would care. But you had to go be a kind loving and gentle parent and your daughter is going to miss you when you are gone.”

We make a mistake when we think that Kaddish or Yizkor is about the person who died. Our prayers for the dead don’t change their life or the fact that we still miss them. All these prayers can do is help ease the burden of our sorrow and help us be comforted for our loss. That God commands us to be here on the second day of Shavuot is not about God’s need to tells us what we should be doing every minute of our day, but God is helping us to understand that the same memories that cause us so much pain, can also be the source of great strength, courage and joy in our life. It is God’s way of embracing us in the dark moments in our life, to let us know that light and joy are never really far away. The burden of death is no longer a yoke we must bear because of the teachings God sends to us through the Sages and through the Torah. Our Judaism is not about law and ritual, our Judaism is about kindness and love.

Just as our parents tried to help us live better lives by sharing with us the lessons they learned the hard way in life, so too Judaism tries to share with us the combined wisdom of thousands of years of experience in dealing with the trials and tribulations in life. We like to think that our modern world is vastly different from the world of our parents, our grandparents and all of our ancestors. And it may be true. The ancient Rabbis did not know from computers, the internet, YouTube or hybrid automobiles. The ball point pen was not invented until after WWII. The Torah and Talmud may not know much about modern inventions, but it does know a whole lot about human beings; their emotions, their drives and all of our weaknesses. Our Sages put together a way of living that could help us be strong when we are weak, grateful when we are happy and united when we fall alone. No matter how sure we are that we are doing the right thing, if Judaism says that it is wrong, if the Torah teaches us that this is not the correct way to act in life, we better pay close attention.

Judaism does need to change from time to time. Living in an urban world was different from living on the farm. Living in exile was different from living in our own state. Women have taken their rightful place on the world stage and that is different from the patriarchal societies of the past. Judaism did have to adapt to accommodate these changes.

But we human beings still get up every morning and worry about how we will feed our family. We go to work each day and we watch the rise and fall of our investments. We still try to teach our children to be Menchen, We try to be a good child to our parents and a good partner to our spouse. We still want to be known as honest and dependable. We still are hurt when someone abuses our trust and blames their mistakes on us. We still want to do what is right especially when it is not at all clear what the right thing to do really is. We still want to know that our lives have meaning and that the works of our hands will make a difference. And we want to live the kind of life that others will remember even after we have gone.

We could be like all the others who are not here and pretend that it all doesn’t matter to us. That we are doing fine all by ourselves and we don’t need Judaism, Rabbis or even God to interfere in the way we live our lives. But we who are here for Yizkor today understand that the memories that we recall today, will also be the memories that our children will recall when we are gone. Our faith, our religion, our Judaism does not interfere in our life, it IS our life. And the yoke of everyday living is easier and lighter because we have chosen to take the yoke of Torah upon our shoulders. We have chosen to remember Shavuot. We have chosen to be here in honor of those we loved in life. And we have chosen to love God with all our heart and soul and might.

May we always be blessed with memories filled with love and may we be blessed with a life filled with faith in God, faith in Torah and faith in our fellow human beings as we say….. Amen and Hag Sameach

Hag Sameach

Today is the Birthday of the Torah. Every time I say that I kind of cringe inside. Judaism does not really celebrate birthdays. Beginnings are important, but there really is not ritual in Judaism to celebrate a birthday. I guess our first clue should be that the Hebrew birthday song is just a poor translation of the English birthday song. Even the idea of having a cake on a birthday is considered in some Jewish circles, a pagan act. No, we Jews are not big on birthdays.

We don’t know the day that any famous Jews were born because we just don’t care what day they were born. We commemorate the day that they died. We honor them for the books they wrote and the ideas they shared. But on the day of their birth, they were like all the other people of the world, full of potential but short on impressive deeds. It will be years before a person’s true nature will develop and be revealed. So what is the sense in celebrating the day of birth?

This applies all the more so when it comes to Torah. Torah was not “born” on this day. This is only the day that we human beings received the Torah from God. God had the Torah before the beginning of time. Before there was a world, God had Torah and Torah was used as a blueprint when God set out to create the universe. Before there was day and night, before there was earth and sea, before there was a sun or moon, before there was any concept of time at all, there was Torah. So how can Torah have a birthday? Today is just the day, after thousands of years, perhaps millions of years (remember there really is no way to know how “old” Torah is) that human beings received the Torah and from that moment on, the history of Western Civilization was born. So “Happy Birthday Israelite people, Judaism and Western Civilization.

The Sages of the Talmud taught us that the Torah begins with Creation because there are parallels between these two momentous events. The revelation of Torah at Sinai is a parallel event to the creation of the universe. The similarities are striking. Both Torah and Creation are the handiwork of God. Both are given to human beings to guide their lives and both are created with ten divine sayings. I talked about this last Shabbat when I noted that each of the ten commandments has a parallel passage from the Creation story. God spoke at Sinai and at Creation a total of ten times.

If we look at Revelation and Creation in a more mystical way, we see the similarities clearly. Creation starts with God, and immediately from the oneness of God comes the duality of our world; light and darkness, earth and sky, ocean and dry land, birds and fishes, animals and humans, female and male. We live in a dualistic world, everything seems to have its opposite. There is only one unity, one unbreakable unity, and that is God. Everything else has a right and a left, an up and a down, an open or a closed, or a front and a back.

Torah also begins with one God. The first commandment clearly teaches that there is only one God in the universe; no more and no less. While the creation story begins with the letter “bet” which represents the number two, revelation begins with the letter “aleph” which represents the number one. Only after the unity of God is revealed, do we begin to see the duality of the law. There are positive and negative commandments. There are distinctions between the holy and the secular. There are things which are Tahore/pure and things which are Tameh/impure from a ritual point of view. And most of all, the Torah makes a great distinction between God and humanity. God appears on Mt. Sinai and the people remain below, separated by duality that makes up human existence.

The lens of Creation is but one way of looking at the Revelation of the Torah. There is another way to look at Torah and it is found in our Haftara for today. The prophet Ezekiel has a vision while he is among the captive Jews in Babylonia. It is a vision so steeped in the mystical that it spawned its own mystical genre, Merkava mysticism, the mystic story of the “Chariot”. This is a very different revelation from the one at Mt. Sinai. God met the people of Israel at Sinai. In Babylonia, Ezekiel meets God as God departs the doomed city of Jerusalem. God traveled that day by chariot, a very strange chariot. First of all it had two wheels, each one set with another wheel inside of it. This wheel allowed the chariot to move in any direction. This chariot was pulled by four strange creatures that had four faces in its head, each face pointing in a different direction. There was a human head, a lion head, an eagle head and the face of an ox. Each creature had six wings and they could pull the chariot in any direction without strings; they obey instantly the thoughts and commands of God. This chariot could take God anywhere that God wanted to go, and that day, in that vision, God was seen leaving Jerusalem, dooming the city to conquest and exile.

We have two stories of Divine revelation. The first is when God arrives to meet the Israelites, the other when he leaves Jerusalem just before its fall. We read both of these today, on this first day of Shavuot. What is the connection? What is the deeper meaning of these stories of revelation?

The first thing we can learn is that Torah is not static. Torah is constantly moving. God is either arriving or departing, but either way, Torah remains with us. Take one example from our Humash, from the first five books of the Bible. Almost every chapter and every verse has something to teach us about how our ancestors moved from slavery to freedom. Every moment of triumph, every bump in the road is recounted with loving detail except for one item. We see our ancestors go down to Egypt as a family and grow there to become a great nation. We see the signs and wonders that forced the Egyptian Pharaoh and his army to capitulate before God. We see our ancestors leave the slave pits of Egypt and arrive at Sinai to meet God. We see them wander in the desert for forty years until it is time to enter the Promised Land. The only thing missing from the story is the arrival of our ancestors at their destination. Moses dies and is buried in the wilderness and the people mourn his death. But the Torah ends without the Israelites entering the land God promised them.

The lesson here is that Torah is not a destination, Torah is a journey. Torah is not about finding final answers, but in discovering God as we travel our path in life. The law that the Torah establishes from the first meeting at Sinai is called, “Halacha” “the Path”. Torah represents the signposts that we find along the way to help us navigate all the difficulties and tribulations of life.

There is no one path that the Torah offers us. There is not just one way. There are many ways and we travel them sometimes all at once. There is the way of translation, to read and study the words of Torah so we understand the stories it contains. This is a meaningful journey but it only scratches the surface of what the Torah can teach us. There is the path of Drash, the path of stories within the stories, the Midrashim the Sages used to fill in the gaps in the story of the Torah. Who are the people of the long genealogical lists of Genesis? Why did Joseph’s brothers hate him? What did Moses do as a child? What happened on Mt. Sinai that delayed Moses’ return to the people? Here we add a deeper meaning to the lessons of the text.

Then there are the things that the Torah only hints at. What kind of work is forbidden on Shabbat? There is a hint of this as our ancestors prepared to build the Mishkan in the wilderness. There are many married people in the Torah but there is not much to tell us what a marriage ceremony would look like, we only find hints of the ceremony in the Torah. Even some of the laws of Kashrut are only hinted about in the text.

Finally there are the secret meanings of the Torah. Those found in the Zohar and other mystical texts that uncover ideas about God, holiness and humanity. How can we aspire to dwell close to the divine? The answers are found in some of the deepest secrets of the Torah. In the end, it does not matter if one journeys on the path of plain meaning, Midrash, Hints or the secret meanings, all paths eventually lead us to God. It is not the results that are important, it is the journey we take to get there. We don’t need to read the text fast or slow. We don’t have to make sure that we have mastered every word. It is not about what we read nor about how long we ponder. Words and watches have no power here. It is not the results, but the experience of Torah where real Torah can be found.

Today we remember that all of creation came to be because of Torah. Today we remember that we began a journey on Mt. Sinai. We started what has turned out to be the longest classroom discussion in the history of humanity. A discussion that will never end because as long we have questions, Torah will be there to help us on our journey. Every moment of life has significance and holiness, if only we look to Torah, to our history, our literature and our Sages to help us recognize how God can be found all around us. Shavuot does not celebrate the beginning or the end of our studies, but it celebrates our journey through life, our journey through the world and our eternal search for God. From the beginning of time, it has been this search that has given our lives purpose and meaning.

Let us celebrate Torah today and every day. And may God always bless our studies with so that it brings us joy and fulfillment.

Amen and Hag Sameach