I wrestled with what to say this weekend. As a congregation we were participating in Human Rights Shabbat together with 180 congregations around the globe. However, last week I had spoken about the topic because of the death of Nelson Mandela. As I discovered, there was still much to say…

“C.O.F.F.E.E. Coffee is not for me. It’s a drink that people wake up with, that it makes them nervous is no myth. Slaves to a coffee cup. They can’t give coffee up.”

.When I was a little girl and we lived in Evanston, we would go to the Old Town School of Folk Music periodically. There I was introduced to a wonderful singer/songwriter with a deep resonate voice, similar to Odetta who sang this song. I even have it on an LP. Remember LPs?

I never thought I would become a slave to a coffee cup. How did that happen? What does it mean to be a slave? People answered, being subservient to someone else, not having control, not having any choice, not being paid, not having any power, being oppressed.

Coffee is one of those things that we are enslaved to. And in the process of needing our daily cup of joe, we in turn enslave others. That’s what today’s Torah portion is about. It is a bridge between Genesis and Exodus, between Joseph enslaving Egyptians so that Egypt had enough food during a famine and then Pharaoh 400 years later enslaving Israelites. What happened here?

Pharaoh had slaves to build the pyramids. Southern plantation owners had slaves to pick cotton. Even John Adams, a northern states president had slaves. But that was long ago and far away. It doesn’t happen any more right? Think again.

Yes, there are modern day slaves, just like our portion is talking about. Does anyone know how many? (Guesses of 20 million, 26 million). About 27 million of them according to slaveryfootprint.org. When I took their survey, they estimate 49 work for me. They make my car, my running shoes, my body wash, my clothing, my gadgets. They make yours too. They even help make my chocolate and my coffee.

Children chained to looms in Bangladesh so we can have cheap t-shirts. CNN’s lead headline this week online that girls in one neighborhood of Cambodia are being sold into the sex trade. Most likely for people in the United States. Tomato workers in Florida who provide the tomatoes to many of our grocery stores and to Wendy’s who are not being treated fairly.

And then there is my beloved coffee—I work hard to find fair trade, organic, kosher coffee. These days you will find me drinking Green Mountain Columbian Fair Trade. Sometimes I drink Delicious Peace, a collective of Jews, Christians and Muslims in Uganda who grow fair traded, organic, kosher certified coffee. But what I buy is a drop in the bucket. When companies like Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds switch over to mostly Fair Trade as opposed to about 3% their buying power makes a difference in the life of farmers.

Why does all of this matter? What does this have to do with us as Jews, as Americans?  As one member pointed out, “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” (Deuteronomy 16:20). Every year at Passover we say that “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.” And because of that experience we are told that we have an obligation to treat the stranger, the widow and the orphan correctly. 36 times, double life, we are told to protect the stranger, the orphan and widow. That’s more than any commandment on kashrut, on Shabbat, on how to davven.

We are told that we have to work to free the captive wherever they are. We pray for their release in the G’vurot prayer and we work for it as we saw with Gilad Shalit and many others. The rabbis declared the redemption of captives to be a mitzvah of the highest order. Knowing that there are millions of people today who are enslaved, we cannot remain silent.

We have an obligation to treat workers correctly. We must pay them a living wage and pay them on time. We are commanded to not withhold the wages of a laborer overnight. We are taught that we are each created in the image of the Divine, b’tzelem elohim. This means that no person should ever be a slave to another.

We need to avoid buying goods that are produced unethically. The rabbis forbid buying goods that were known to be stolen, holding the buyers as responsible as the thieves. Today, we have an obligation to avoid buying those products that have documented human rights abuses in their supply chains and supporting independent monitoring of worker conditions.  This includes re-examining how we source kosher meat, where our Chanukah gelt comes from and what coffee, yes back to the coffee, we are drinking.

Jews were at the vanguard of organized labor. We started the labor movement. Names like Samuel Gompers, Emma Goldman, Sidney Hillman. They are ours. Bread and Roses, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, actions that helped establish the 40 hour work week, 8 hour work day, child labor laws, safer working conditions. We are proud of the contributions we made. And we may take some of them for granted these days.

One of the founders to this congregation, Rabbi Emil Hirsch, whose photo was prominently displayed on the Elgin Jewish History exhibit, was famous for calling his own congregants to task for their treatment of workers. He helped negotiate the labor contract for Hart Schaffner and Marx after Hannah Shapiro, led a walkout in response to a wage cut. 40,000 others joined this strike. With Hirsch’s help—or nagging, Schaffner eventually settled, including a 10% wage increase, a 54 hour work week and an independent arbitration committee to resolve ongoing labor disputes.

I never thought that I would be married to a Teamster but for 11 years we answered the question that the UPS ad asked, “What can Brown do for you,” very differently than the ads suggested. Brown provided health insurance, like we will most likely never see again, with free premiums and a 0 deductible, it gave us an education credit, it gave us stability, it gave us a pension. And when Simon was being bullied early on because he was deemed too slow and later because he was Jewish, the union went to bat for him and protected his job.

We can’t solve the poverty question or the slavery question here today. We can talk about the Universal Declaration for Human Rights, the anniversary of its ratification we celebrate this weekend. You have a copy of the 30 articles with you. I have taken each one and linked them with Jewish values and halachot. When we talk about modern day slavery, worker’s wrights and poverty, we are talking about human rights. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states: “Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.” Now there has been much written in recent years about trade unions and how they have been the downfall of the auto industry or how they mismanaged pensions. There have been attempts, starting with Reagan and air traffic controllers to break unions. Our neighbors to the north, in Wisconsin, thought they could do it at the state level. Perhaps some of you believe that in a free market economy unions have outlived their usefulness.

Has any one read the book, Nickeled and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich? My daughter read it as part of Sociology 101 in college and then made me read it. It was eye opening. The author, a journalist, went under cover to work in a restaurant in Florida, a Hotel maid in Maine and a Wal-Mart worker in Minnesota. She spent a year doing this. Could she make it financially without dipping into any of her own personal financial reserves. The answer was sometimes yes, sometimes no. Mostly no. When she was living in a hotel, it was because she didn’t have first and last month rent and a security deposit. She also didn’t have a can opener or a microwave or a refrigerator. She would go to the food pantry, get cans and then not be able to open them or heat them. It was easier and sometimes cheaper to swing through McDonalds.

These are current, very current events. Last week the news reported that McDonald’s workers walked off the job in an attempt gain higher wages. Last month a McDonald’s representative told a low wage earner to apply for food stamps. The families of fast food employees nation wide receive $1B in food stamps per year according to a study by the University of California Berkeley and the University of Illinois. This year McDonald’s tried to train its staff by teaching budgeting. It was a good idea but it received a lot of negative press when it showed needing to have a second job, charging only $20 a month for gas and having nothing in the budget for childcare or groceries, although it did allow for $800 in discretionary spending. http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/mcdonalds/budgetJournal/budgetJournal.php

While writing this sermon, I made it a point to call one of our members who owns 11 McDonald’s franchises. I began by thanking him since McDonald’s does use fair trade coffee and has worked with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to make sure that the tomatoes McDonald’s uses are grown and harvested in the most ethical conditions. This partnership was ratified in 2007 and amounted to McDonald’s needing to pay a penny a pound more, something Wendy’s still has not agreed to.

Our member reports that in Chicagoland McDonald’s did not see many workers walk off the job last week. His interpretation—unions face declining membership and underfunded pensions and need new members so they trumped up the story. He assures me that McDonald’s puts its people first and that is an especially big focus this year. His franchise pays worker’s health benefits not through the corporate self-funded plan and he believes that for those who want to advance, there are plenty of opportunities for training, education, jobs beyond the line workers. He contrasts it with WalMart, which he says are next to impossible to deal with. At WalMart the majority of employees make less than $25,000 and many of them are forced to rely on food stamps. One WalMart in the Cleveland area was setting up its own internal food bank to support its own workers. HR personnel are equipped to give out food bank numbers to WalMart employees. Will organizing solve all these problems? No. Will raising the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour work? Maybe. But not if that cost needs to be passed on to the consumer and the consumer stops buying $1.00 hamburgers.

Recently a CEO of another fast food chain took the Food Stamp challenge. Ron Shaich, the founder of Panara Bread attempted to live on the $4.50 a day. He found it was nearly impossible. http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/25/opinion/shaich-food-stamp-challenge/ He believes that this is all of our problem and that we must solve it. “Eighty percent of households that have problems putting food on the table include the most vulnerable — children, the elderly and the disabled…. Throughout my SNAP Challenge, I kept returning to the same questions: What kind of society do we want to live in? Do we want to live in a country that turns a cold shoulder to the problem of hunger, or one in which we work together to face it head on? We, in corporate America, must be part of the solution.”

If you think that this is only for poor families, people we don’t know here at the synagogue and never see, think again. In our own congregation, we have families that are not making it financially. Families that take from our community pantry because that is the only way they can stretch their food budge. Families that make impossible choices between heat, prescription drugs, rent or food.

The sponsor of Human Rights Shabbat, Truah, is an organization of 1800 rabbis. Its mission statement reads: T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights is an organization of rabbis from all streams of Judaism that acts on the Jewish imperative to respect and protect the human rights of all people. Grounded in Torah and our Jewish historical experience and guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we advocate for human rights in Israel and North America. T’ruah continues the historic work of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, which was founded in 2002 and renamed T’ruah in January 2013. – See more at: http://www.truah.org/who-we-are/mission-statement.html#sthash.HNEPSXAW.dpuf

Truah has worked effectively on issues of slavery and trafficking, on worker’s rights, on human rights issues in Israel both with Palestinians and Bedouins. I am proud to cast my voice with theirs.

So my question to you as a congregation—are we willing to pay a little more for our coffee, for our chocolate, for our tomatoes, for our olives. The sisterhood gift shop is already doing a good job. We sell fair traded kippot, like the one I am wearing today made by craftspeople in Guatemala and fair traded Shabbat candles from Africa. I exhort us to do more. To speak out. But not just to speak out. To take the next step. To be active. To be intentional. To take the slavery footprint survey. To commit to buying products for the synagogue and for ourselves that are fair traded. To make sure our own synagogue employees are treated equitably. To make sure that any of our employees are treated with dignity and respect, with a living wage that we pay as promised. To consider petitioning our elected officials to protect worker rights and to fight against trafficking.

Then when we read the text as we are about to do, of how Joseph was buried in Egypt and how the Israelites brought Joseph’s bones back out of Egypt, we will not be the oppressors, we will remember our legacy of being slaves, and of being set free. Chazak, chazak v’nitchazek.

Last week we continued to read the story of Joseph as the news was breaking that Nelson Mandela had died. I realized as I was putting my d’var Torah together that we needed to address what Mandela, King and Joseph teach us. All three were dreamers. All three were interpreters and implementers of dreams. All three were in prison. All three preached reconciliation, either by their words, or by their actions.

Joseph dreamed that everyone around him bowed down to him. Then he interpreted dreams while he was in prison, thereby qualifying him to be called upon to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams and as Lord Rabbi Sacks pointed out last week–implement the vision.

King was a dreamer. We all remember his “I have a dream”. When I hear the quote from Amos in our Siddur Sim Shalom, I hear it in the deep, resonate voice of King, “Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” (Amos 5:24) King was working on implementing his dream when he was gunned down far too young. Others have taken up his clarion call for justice. Both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were written on the conference room table of the Religious Action Center, the legislative arm of the Reform Movement in Washington DC.  We need to remain vigilant to assure that the hard fought equality becomes a reality and not just vision. We have that obligation as Jews.

Mandela was a dreamer too. He said, “I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.” and “A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.” He spent much of his time in prison writing and working to implement his vision of a world where his nation would not be divided by color and apartheid.

All three of these men went to prison. King famously wrote “A Letter from the Birmingham Jail” exhorting his fellow clergymen to continue the fight, that the time was right, explaining the four steps to non-violent protest. Mandela quipped that “In my country we go to prison first and then become President.” (to which some Illinois residents respond, in our state we become governor and then go to prison).

But for each of these men who spent time in jail, they learned something. They learned the power of forgiveness and reconciliation. Mandella has been saluted all week as a man of deep forgiveness. For saying things like, “You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.” and “Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.” “We forgive but not forgotten.” “If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.”

And he said as he was leaving prison after 27 years, “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” Would I have the strength to do that? I would hope so but I don’t know. None of us knows for sure. We can only hope–and model what Joseph, King and Mandela taught.

How does someone leave that sense of bitterness and hatred behind? How does one forgive without forgetting? What about the prison experiences of Joseph, King and Mandela allowed them to offer reconciliation to their enemies? to their brothers?

We looked at their actual words. I divided the group into three groups, one to study Joseph, one King and one Mandela. We read their actual words. We talked about what they teach us about dreams, leadership, reconciliation. The conversation was deep. The King group, reading excerpts of a Letter from the Birmingham Jail, did not want to come back together. We could probably still be talking about it!

In this week’s Torah portion, Joseph offers his brothers reconciliation. The very brothers that threw him in a pit, allowed him to be taken to Egypt as a slave and told their father that he was dead. So on Shabbat morning, we looked closely at the text. Some Christians developed something called “Liberation Theology,” the idea from Exodus that G-d wants us to be free–a dream shared by Joseph, King and Mandela, a hope that kept the African American slaves alive before the Emancipation.

It has been said that the book of Genesis is the story of our family–our patriarchs and matriarchs, the formative stories. And the story of Exodus is how we became a people. But the story of Exodus really begins in this week’s parsha. In Chapter 45 we are told that Joseph stood (nitzavim), like at the end of Deuteronomy when we all “Atem nitzavim kulchem” stood before…he cried out as did the Israelites under Egyptian yoke and he had everyone exit from his presence, hotzi’u, just as the Israelites exited from Egypt 400 years later. His sobs were so loud, when he revealed himself that the Egyptians who had exited could hear him. He embraced Benjamin, his youngest brother and wept.

One congregant pointed out the night before that we have become Judahites, not Josephites, because it is Judah who rescues Benjamin and would have been willing to take the fall for him. It is Judah who calls for reconciliation, not Joseph. I would argue however, that it is Joseph who powerfully acts out that reconciliation by weeping openly and supporting his brothers and father. Looking closely at the haftarah, we are given another image, of Judah and Joseph together, reconciled. Not only reconciled but as the text says “I am going to take the stick of Joseph–which is in the hand of Ephraim..and I will place the stick of Judah upon it and make them into one stick, they shall be joined in My hand.”

As I read these words in shul, I had goosebumps. I could not read these words of Ezekiel 19, without thinking about how Mandela used the World Cup Rugby victory in South Africa to heal a nation, how he brought the blacks and whites together and created one nation. I was reminded of watching the movie Invictus with my nephews just before they went to South Africa for the World Cup Soccer games. Part of the movie focuses on Mandela’s experience in prison and how the poem “Invictus”, by William Ernest Henley, inspired him and kept him whole:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever base god may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

The last stanza gets me every time. May we all learn to be the masters of our fate and the captains of our soul. May we become like Joseph, King and Mandela, able to dream, interpret dreams and rise to be great leaders. Mandela understood that he was not perfect. He was human: “I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”

Freedom does carry with it responsibilities. We learn that in the story of Exodus. We are reminded of that every time we sing Michamocha, every time we act out the plagues at a Passover seder by diminishing our joy of freedom by remembering the pain of the Egyptians with each drop of wine spilled.

One of Mandela’s mistakes may have been his oft quoted line, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” For him, this was the responsibility of that until all of us are free, none of us are free. However, from this statement, some people began calling Israel an apartheid state without having all the facts. Israel is not an apartheid state. Nonetheless,  I worry about human rights violations. Deuteronomy is clear on how to fight a war and fruit trees may not be cut down. Olive trees are fruit trees. A house may not be torn down–and that would include being bulldozed an all too frequent occurrence on the West Bank. Citizens may not be expelled as was suggested for the Druze. (That situation may have been defeated this week with the pressure of 800 rabbis, including me).

Nonetheless, Mandela’s statement was wrong and frequently taken out of context. And yet, two wrongs do not make a right. While Israel sent its president, its prime minister, Benjamin Nitanyahu should have attended. That would have given the world a powerful example of reconciliation. He, who bears the name Benjamin who reconciled with his brother Joseph, in this week’s parsha, missed a critical opportunity to work for peace and stabilize the region.

The funeral is now over. In the meantime, may we continue to learn the lessons of reconciliation that being in jail can teach. May we learn not to be bitter in our own lives. May we continue to work for an age where all people can dwell under their vines and fig trees and none will make them afraid. May justice roll down like water and righteousness as a mighty stream. And may Mandela’s life continue to be a blessing.

Yesterday lunch I was at my monthly meeting of the 16th Circuit Court Family Violence Faith Watch Committee. We were discussing our annual conference about domestic violence and faith. We decided that the focus of the day would be how faith communities discuss forgiveness when it comes to domestic violence. It is a tricky topic and one that I wrote part of my rabbinic thesis about.

Over time, survivors go through a process of forgiving themselves, their abusers, their communities that didn’t shield them and G-d.

Sometimes we in the faith communities don’t help. Some of us tell victims to forgive before they themselves are ready. Sometimes, we add the words, “You should.” “You must” or add pressure by saying G-d forgives those who trespass so we should forgive those who trespass, or turn the other cheek, or in the 16th century words of Rabbi Luria, added to many Jewish prayerbooks as part of the bedtime ritual, “I hereby forgive anyone who has angered or provoked me or sinned against me, physically or financially or by failing to give me due respect, or in any other matter relating to me, involuntarily or willingly, inadvertently or deliberately, whether in word or deed: let no one incur punishment because of me.”

That last one becomes one of those difficult texts. Really? Forgive someone who hurt me physically? Financially? Can I do that? Can anyone do that? Or is it just something we aspire to?

My job at the conference will be to do an interactive text study of some of those texts, across religious traditions. It is a job I am well suited for, as I jokingly remind people that I got an A in a course entitled, “Justice, Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Jewish and Christian Thought.”

It was in this class where I read extensively the words of Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela,  held in prison for 27 years for his activism against apartheid, against racism. Nelson Mandela who became the first president of a unified South Africa. Nelson Mandela who reached out to his enemies and invited them to his inauguration. Nelson Mandela who insisted on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Nelson Mandela who is known for sitting in that jail and forgiving his captors.

In Simon Wiesenthal’s seminal book, The Sunflower, On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, which we read for that class, Robert McAfee Brown acknowledges that “perhaps there are situations where sacrificial love, with forgiveness at the heart of it, can make a difference, and can even empower” (pp. 122-123). He cites Nelson Mandela and Tomas Borge as examples of men who have forgiven wrongs that many might see as unforgivable.

Mandela himself said in his book, Long Road to Freedom, “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” He is talking about forgiveness. In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech he said, “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. We forgive but not forgotten…Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.”

As part of the debate on the special report of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee he said, “We recall our terrible past so that we can deal with it, to forgive where forgiveness is necessary, without forgetting; to ensure that never again will such inhumanity tear us apart; and to move ourselves to eradicate a legacy that lurks dangerously as a threat to our democracy.”

Forgiveness is a difficult thing. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Forgiveness is not a one time thing. It is a process. Rabbi Harold Kushner teaches, “Since my husband walked out on us, every month is a struggle to pay our bills. I have to tell my kids we have no money to go to the movies, while he’s living it up with his new wife in another state. How can you tell me to forgive him?”   I answered her, “I’m not asking you to forgive him because what he did was acceptable. It wasn’t; it was mean and selfish. I’m asking you to forgive because he doesn’t deserve the power to live in your head and turn you into a bitter, angry woman. By holding on to that resentment, you are not hurting him, but you are hurting yourself.” Can a victim of domestic violence get to this place? Does he or she need to? Maybe for the reasons that Kushner cites. I would never tell a victim of domestic violence that they have to forgive their abuser. Until people feels safe, they cannot forgive.

Forgiveness is difficult. Forgiveness is complicated. Forgiveness happens slowly over time. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Forgiveness does not mean not pursuing justice. It is a softening, a flowering, a measure of healing–and only one measure. It is about putting the pieces of our lives back together and there is no one way to do that and no time line.

Nelson Mandela led by example. He led from the front and from the back when he needed to, as he himself said. Our job as leaders is to follow his lead.  I applaud Mandela for the courage that he displayed. I admire his leadership. May his memory continue as a blessing. May we all learn from his example.

A few weeks ago, a congregant, the chair of the VIsion Committee, presented me with a plaque she had purchased at a Hallmark Store. The quote, from Walt Disney himself, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” It was part of Clergy Appreciation Week. (Who knew such a week even existed!). Her comment was that because I am a second career rabbi, I inspire people just because I followed my dream. And while I am following another dream by running the Disney Princess Half Marathon for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, I don’t think she realized how big a role Disney played in my completing rabbinical school. One birthday celebration, at Disney, we watched Tinker Bell light Cinderella’s castle, while the theme from Pinnocio was playing, “When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.” However, it is not just wishing upon a star that make a dream come true. Frequently it comes with hard work.

We have been reading about Joseph the dreamer in our recent Torah portions. Joseph dreamed that the sun and the moon, the eleven stars bowed down to him, that eleven sheaves of wheat bowed down to him. Joseph interpreted the baker’s dreams in prison, putting him in a position to be called upon to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. That’s where we pick up our story.

One of the things that intrigued me about the interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams is that Joseph explained that they are essentially the same dream. Many of us have that experience, we dream a dream deep in sleep, wake up and dream another dream with the same theme. Our subconscious is making sure we get the message, finding another way to deliver the same idea. Freud and Jung had lots to say about that. Joseph was seemingly ahead of his time.

Rabbi Lord Sacks published a brilliant  d’var Torah explaining the importance of Joseph the dreamer, in terms of leadership. Not only did Joseph dream dreams and interpret dreams but he had the ability to implement the dreams. “No sooner had he told of a seven-year famine then he continued, without pause, to provide a solution.” For Sacks, that is Joseph’s greatest achievement.

As he pointed out, some people find dreaming impractical. He argues that it is one of the most practical things we can do.  “There are people who spend months planning a holiday but not even a day planning a life. They let themselves be carried by the winds of chance and circumstance. That is a mistake.” He reminds us that the sages said, “Wherever [in the Torah] we find the word vayehi, ‘And it came to pass,’ it is always the prelude to tragedy.” (Megillah 10b) A vayehi life is one in which we passively let things happen. A yehi (“Let there be”) life is one in which we make things happen, and it is our dreams that give us direction.

”

So the call of this portion is to lead a life without passivity. To pursue our dreams. To actively chase after them. Theodor Herzl, “the father of modern Zionism” taught us all, like Walt Disney, “Im Tirtzu, Ain Zo Aggadah. If you will it, it is no dream.” The word aggadah is translated here as dream, but our portion uses cholom as dream. Is there a difference between aggadah and cholom? Aggadah is also story, fable, myth. What Herzl is saying is that if you will something then it can leave the story realm and become reality. Again, it requires implementing the dream. It requires hard work.

The early Zionists knew this. They had a song (a new one to my congregation),

Dreamers Keep a Dreaming
What did we do when we wanted corn?
We plowed and we sowed till the early morn.
(Repeat)
Chorus:
For our hands are strong, our hearts are young 
our dreams are the dreamin’s of all ages long 
(just a-dreamin’ just a-dreaming along)

What did we do when we needed a town
We hammered and we nailed till the sun went down 
(Repeat) (Chorus)

What do we do when there’s peace to be won
It’s more than one man can do alone
We’ll gather our friends from the ends of the earth
To lend a hand at the hour of birth

Bridge:
We’ll plow, we’ll sow, we’ll hammer, and we’ll nail 
We’ll work all day till peace is real.

They worked. They plowed, sowed, hammered, nailed and worked for peace.

That dream of peace is real. The haftarah for the Shabbat of Chanukah from Zechariah talks about a vision of a menorah, ” The angel who talked with me came back and woke me as a man is wakened from sleep. ² He said to me, “What do you see?” And I answered, “I see a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl above it. The lamps on it are seven in number, and the lamps above it have seven pipes; ³ and by it are two olive trees, one on the right of the bowl and one on its left.” ⁴ I, in turn, asked the angel who talked with me, “What do those things mean, my lord?” ⁵ “Do you not know what those things mean?” asked the angel who talked with me; and I said, “No, my lord.” ⁶ Then he explained to me as follows: “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit.”

Debbie Friedman turned those words into a song, “Not by might, not by power but by spirit alone shall we all live in peace. The children sing, the children dream but their tears may fall and we hear them call and another song will rise…” This is the very song that I sang last year, exactly a year ago, the first night of Chanukah, as the unthinkable was happening in Newtown Connecticut, the town in which my college roommate lives. She is the mother of a young child, a first grader. He attends the other elementary school so he was safe that day. But I spent most of the afternoon on the phone with Lisa.

Newtown is a town I know well. I would stop many weeks on the way home from rabbinical school. Lisa and I would have sushi at Sennen or a quick Starbucks. It is an idyllic, quiet, bucolic town. The news of a mass shooting at Sandy Hook couldn’t possibly happen in Newtown, could it? The people of Newtown are still grieving. The recent report that came out was painful. There are no good explanations of why it happened. There can’t be. I applaud NBC who did not play the 911 tapes even though they were released yesterday. The families are exhausted. They want to grieve in private, not under a national microscope. They want to protect their children and shelter them and keep what ever childhood innocence remains. Let them have their space. They need it.

This is a vision, a dream of peace. Since Newtown there have been 30,000 additional deaths by gunfire. Rabbi Menachem Creditor wrote a powerful El Malei Rachamim in memory of the children and teachers of Newtown, http://rabbicreditor.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-newtown-el-malei-for-26-souls-and.html The rabbi in Newtown wrote this:

We dare to live again
By Rabbi Shaul Marshall Praver

The multi colored tulips show their joyous faces. 
Purple wild flowers unfurl their luster upon the countryside. The start of pastel buds are seen as impressionistic highlights adorning canvas. Upon closer inspection, remnants of dry fronds from years gone by are found supporting the luscious green virile buds eagerly making their debuts. 

Winter’s deep darkness is banished before the hope and vigor of spring. And while our tears and blood were shed without mercy, we dare to live again. 

We Kindle our love as a precious flame seeking shelter from a relentless storm. We caress light and welcome warmth of spirit from all places, creeds, and creatures. And in the absence of twenty precious children and six beloved teachers, we dare to live again. 

We know they would want us to walk upon the long island sound, allowing soft waves to slosh between our toes. We know they would want us to venture out into lush meadows and orchards feasting our eyes on the valleys below. 

They would say, “We have gone and what is done is done–so arise and celebrate the years we lived together.” They would speak like sublime winged angels exclaiming, “We are free to enter the garden of alluring fragrance.” They would tell us about fiery swords that briefly paused from their vigilance allowing them entry into a forgotten chamber of light. And those that dared to listen to their soft whispers would hear an accompanying plaintive voice emanating from the midst of the garden like a chamber of mist rising. 

Surely we would recall that a melody can embrace us as a welcoming spirit that delivers us to the source of beauty, bliss and splendor. And they would tell us, “we are like a tree arising from a broken seed. And if only you knew we were the tree and not the discarded seed, you would give yourself permission to live again.” 

And so–for them
We dare to live again! 
For them, We dare to love again!
and for them, light dares to shine again!

I would add we need to dare to dream again. Joseph taught us three things. To take the time to dream. To let our imaginations soar. To interpret and articulate our dreams. And then to find a way to implement those dreams. His words remind me of a poem in Gates of Prayer by Archibald MacLeish, one that brought me comfort after the death of my first fiancé killed by a terrorist bomb:

The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless they are heard in the still houses.
(Who has not heard them?)….

They say, We leave you our deaths,
Give them their meaning. 

I cannot say what the meaning of these 30,000 deaths are. It is not for me to say. As we close out Chanukah, the festival of dedication, I rededicate myself, I pledge to continue to work for a world of peace, a world where children are not afraid to go to school because of the fear of gun violence, a world where mental illness is treated appropriately and without shame, a world where we can each become the bright light of those Chanukah candles glowing in the windows. That is my Chanukah dream. Now I just have to implement it. What is yours?

There has been so much written about the mash up between Thanksgiving and Chanukah that I need to take a break and go back to the roots of Chanukah itself. Last week I attended a Chicago Board of Rabbis meeting. YES, I am now a fully inducted full fledged member. It took a year and a change in the bylaws but that is another story. Rabbi Michael Balinsky did a wonderful teaching. We looked a section of Gemara from the Talmud that asks the question, is it the lighting or the placing of the menorah that makes the mitzvah? He based on a teaching of Rabbi Itamar Eldar from Yeshivat Har Tzion who combines the gemara with some important Chassidic teachings. Thank you, Rabbi Balinsky for showing us the light!

First Chanukah is outlined in Masachet Shabbat. As a “newer” Jewish holiday it does not have a full tractate. It is not from the Torah but from much later Jewish history!

 “Come and hear, for Rabba said: If one was standing and holding the Chanukah lamp, it is as if he did nothing. Thus, we learn that it is the placing which constitutes the mitzvah. For a bystander, seeing him, would assume that he was holding the light for his own purposes [if he does not set it down].” However like most Talmudic arguments there is another opinion: “Come and hear, for Rabba said: If one lit the lamp inside and then took it [to place it] outside, it is as if he did nothing [that is, he has not fulfilled the mitzvah]. Now it makes sense if you say that the lighting constitutes the mitzvah, and hence there is a need to light in the proper place [i.e., outside], and therefore this person has not fulfilled the mitzva. But if you say that the placing constitutes the mitzvah, then why has this person not fulfilled it? [Because] here, too, an observer would conclude that he lit for his own purposes.” (Shabbat 22b)

So what does the Chassidic teaching add? They point out a tension between doing a mitzvah with joy and fixing the mitzvah in its time and place. Doing it correctly. We see this same argument in discussions of Jewish prayer–about kavanah, intention and keva, the set structure. The truth is we need both. What this teaching adds is around the word “kindling”, l’hadlik. As Eldar points out, “we hear the living, vibrant, dynamic element of life. It speaks of enthusiasm, movement, change and power. This is what makes life interesting, surprising, fascinating.” Placing on the other hand is “fixed and static. This is the calming element, reflecting composure and introducing quiet and tranquility into the never-ending rat race of life.”

For Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berechev, kindling the Chanukah lights, doing any mitzvah, is to allow us to arouse fervor in our souls and turn our hearts to G-d with love and wondrous desire. The joy of a mitzvah–and the main thing is to perform each and every mitzvah with love and great desire and with tremendous fervor. When we light the candles we are igniting that fervor. However, he cautions, much like Abraham Joshua Heschel when he talks about the need for structure in our daily prayers to help get us over the hump, “sometimes when a person’s heart and mind have become blunted, such that he is not able to perform a mitzvah with fervor and desire, he should not refrain, heaven fore fend.” He should perform the mitzvah in a state of “placing” even if he has no fervor.”

Sometimes the joy comes from the doing. The Israelites said standing at the base of Mount Sinai, “We shall do and we shall hear.” They committed to the doing before they even knew what they would be doing. The very act of doing can lead to joy.

We place other items to remind us of these very words–mezzuzot and tefilin and tallitot to name a few. Yesterday we had a great pre-Chanukah celebration at Congregation Kneseth Israel. In addition to our annual Latke Lunch, we also had a Chanukat Habayit, a dedication of the home, our spiritual home of CKI. After much work on the foyer and the mezuzah being off the door since last spring, we were able, in the spirit of Chanukah and rededication, nail the mezuzah back up and rededicate the building to our vision of life long learning, embracing diversity, meaningful observance and building community. It was great to hear our youngest students sing Sh’ma while our Machers responsible for the foyers reconstruction, hammered (pun, Maccabee means Hammer) the nails into the doorpost. There was a great deal of joy. And isn’t that the point?

Eldar goes on to point out that “R. Levi Yitzchak addresses one of the great innovations of Chassidut, if not its greatest contribution: “That the essence of man’s service [of God] in prayer and Torah and the mitzvot is to arouse his soul and his heart in fervor towards God, in love and wondrous desire.” Dr. Joseph Rosenfeld, the president of Congregation Kneseth Israel was making a similar point in his most recent HaKol (monthly bulletin) message. He said, “We have a responsibility to work on our joy…we have been chosen by G-d to be his people. Our songs, our wisdom, our duty to heal the world (Tikkun Olam)—these are great privileges bestowed upon us. We are really the Chosen People. Furthermore, you don’t have to be a great scholar to pray to G-d; to reach out and dialogue with the Lord. Spirit (Ruach) in English, in Spanish, or in Hebrew; with a timbrel or a lute; it all works if we believe that G-d loves us, and if we love Him. Thank you to the B’nai Mitzvah celebrants and their families for showing us the way. ” Check us out on Sunday mornings. The building, newly rededicated, is filled with joy, enthusiasm, passion.

Chanukah is an ideal opportunity to work on joy. The Talmudic rabbis set it up that way. In a discussion between Rabbi Shammai and Rabbi Hillel in Shabbat 21b about the proper way to light Chanukah lights, they wonder whether you should light eight candles the first night, seven the second etc OR one the first, two the second and so forth. Rabbi Hillel who argued that the candles should increase each night from the principle of “Ma’alin Ba’Kodesh ve’ayn Moridin, we increase with holiness and do not decrease” won the argument. The increased light increases our holiness and our joy.

 So light your candles. Even if you don’t feel it. The very act may cause you to rise in holiness and joy. And that is a good thing. A very, very good thing.

I woke up singing two songs this morning. One from my Girl Scout days, “The bright sun comes up; the dew falls away. Good morning, good morning, the little birds say.” The other from an old friend who is a songwriter. Bob Franke sings:

The thunder and lightning gave voice to the night;
the little lame child cried aloud in her fright. .
“Hush, little baby, a story I’ll tell,
of a love that has vanquished the powers of hell.
Alleluia, The Great Storm is over
Lift up your wings and fly. http://www.bobfranke.com/lyrics.htm

Here in Illinois it wasn’t like that on Sunday. When I got to Hebrew School early Sunday morning, students were already concerned about the weather. Their parents had discussed the possibility of severe weather, even tornados, with them in their carpools. The wind was kicking up. It was unnaturally warm, 62 degrees. Something was happening.  By 11AM I was getting text messages that tornado watches and warnings had been issued. I didn’t know about Peoria yet. Maybe something had been sited in McHenry County, the next county to Kane. Nothing for our part of Kane and Cook.

I visited each classroom and explained that the adults were watching the weather very carefully and that they didn’t have to worry. In the first and second grade class we made a rain storm (another old Girl Scout exercise) by clapping and snapping. We sang Ufros Aleinu and Ma Tovu, thankful for shelter.

I told the parents who were watching the hail fall in the parking lot that while there is a special blessing for hail (I swear I learned this in youth group but now can’t find it) there isn’t one for snow and that we have a unique opportunity to pray it.

In the 6th and 7th grade class we talked about the responsibility to take care of the earth, for us to exhibit the principle of Bal Taschit, to not destroy the earth (from Deuteronomy 20:19). The haftarah that is tied to that portion, Shoftim, says this in Isaiah: “For I the Lord your God — Who stir up the sea into roaring waves.” What does it mean when we say Yotzer Or, which praises G-d for forming light and creating darkness, for making peace and creating all things? How do we understand this verse in light of the typhoon in the Philippines? If G-d is good how does this make sense? Are storms stronger because of global warming? Would we rather call it climate change? Did the choices we make as a society contribute to all of this?

I admitted to the kids in that class that I don’t have all the answers. This week’s Torah portion was about Jacob wrestling, wrestling with an angel, a messenger, a man, himself, G-d. The text is not clear. What is clear is that Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, meaning G-dwrestler. So these are the issues that our pre-B’nei Mitzvah students should be wrestling with.

Elgin was spared. I have a congregant with a fence that was blown over and already repaired. Another with an outdoor trampoline that toppled. Lights flickered. Then went out. Then came back on. No serious damage. Not so in Peroria or Pekin. Not so in Washington and Coal CIty. Not so in New Mindon. Not so in the Philippines. Not so in Oklahoma last spring. Not so for those in Hurricane Sandy’s path, or Hurricane Irene, Katrina, Bob or Gloria. Not so over and over again.

I can’t explain why we have these natural disasters. They are part of the natural order. They do seem to be stronger. I do know that we have a responsibility to help those directly affected to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives. It was heartwarming to hear about families 140 miles away finding photos and bank statements and other things that had blown away and try to return them to their owners in Washington, IL.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said,

“Prayer invites God to let the Divine presence suffuse our spirits, to let the Divine will prevail in our lives. Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, nor mend a broken bridge, nor rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.” (As quoted in Gates of Prayer)

 

Prayer can calm us in the middle of the storm. After the storm, on a clear, bright morning like this, it is time for action and comfort. Here are a few ways to help:

For the Philippines:
http://www.juf.org/relief_fund/default.aspx

http://ajws.org/who_we_are/news/archives/press_releases/ajws_announces_first_round_of_philippines_grants.html

https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/onetime.cfm?source=AZD131101D01&utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&gclid=CO_pxIKs8boCFY5AMgodrXwAVQ&mpch=ads

For tornado relief efforts:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Washington-IL-Tornado-Recovery/361545887315736

The needs are changing hourly. Please check before donating or collecting goods which can be hard to distribute.

When I did find the time to look for that elusive hail blessing, I found the lyrics to a Debbie Friedman song I did not know. The Hail Blessing:

When the heavens and the earth were finished,
God’s creations sang on high
The heavens clapped, the mountains danced,
And tears fell from the sky.
The cold wind whistled furiously
And turned those tears to ice,
And snow and hail and crashing sounds
Started falling from the skies.
For the rumblings and crashing in the sky
For the mountains that dance with the heavens on high,
For the tears that fall and are touched
By the winds and by the cold,
We sing praises to the One of Being
Whose power and strength filss the world.
Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha’olam,
Shekocho u’g’vurato malei olam (2x)
Eish u’varad, sheleg v’kitor,
Ruach s’ara, osa d’varo.
Hal’luya…
Blessed is Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe,
whose power and might pervade the world.
Fire and hail, rain and vapor,
stormy wind, fulfilling God’s word

A good song to keep in our back pockets in case there is another storm.

What do Kristalnacht, Women of the Wall and this week’s Torah portion have in common? It turns out quite a bit. This past week we marked the 75 anniversary of Kristalnacht. The Night of Broken Glass, Shattered Glass. On the night of November 9th, 1938, Nazi Germany conducted an organized pogrom against the Jews. On that night 91 Jews were killed, 30.000 Jews sent to Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camps. 5.000 Jewish shops were looted, 191 synagogues attacked, bonfires made of Torah scrolls, prayer books and volumes of Jewish history, philosophy and poetry. It was really the start of the Final Solution that would lead to the systematic murder of 6,000,000 Jews. For me it is personal. I know people who were there. People who shortly thereafter fled Germany and are lucky to be alive. I treasure their first person accounts–and Susette Tauber’s mother’s plum cake recipe passed down from generation to generation.

I participated in two events to mark this occasion. One at Congregation Kneseth Israel where we wove readings appropriate into the event into our regular Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service. Hearing Schindler’s List music again like I did in Hamln Germany for yizkor on Yom Kippur, was haunting but not as haunting as reading of the names of the relatives of members of the congregation who died during the Holocaust. One family, the Kofkins, sent in 23 names. 13 of them were murdered on one day in 1942. Words fail.

The next night I trekked into Wilmette for the Illinois Holocaust Museum and JUF sponsored commemoration. A thousand people were there to hear music, stories and a panel discuss the relevance of Kristalnacht today. I learned a couple of facts I did not know. Every Chicago police officer near the end of their Academy training goes to the Holocaust museum because on the night of broken glass the police had been ordered to stand down and not protect Jews, Jewish businesses and synagogues. Chicago police will not be bystanders. I learned that Kristalnacht happened on the same night that Germans mark their surrender of World War I. We, in this country,  talk about the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month and mark that as Armistice Day, now known as Veteran’s Day but for Germans, it is November 9th. It is a day of great shame. November 9th is also the day the Berlin Wall fell. So like Tisha B’av or the anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride, there are overlays of meaning in German culture for Kristalnacht.

Last week was also the 25th anniversary of Women of the Wall. As a national speaker for Women of the Wall, an organization I have supported for 25 years, I trekked into Northfield for a Rosh Hodesh service. It was meaningful to be with a group of like-minded women who support a woman’s right to pray.

For 25 years, starting on Rosh Hodesh Kislev 1988, women have gathered together to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Their desire, to pray with tallit, tefilin and Torah. To be able to sing. To say the Sh’ma out loud. It has never been easy. There are those within the ultra-Orthodox establishment who have mocked, blocked, bullied, bruised, beaten and worse these women. Noa Frenkel was arrested in 2009. Later she was beaten at the Central Bus Station in Beer Sheva. Her crime? The tale tell signs on her arm of having lain tefillin. Anat Hoffman has been arrested several times. Last October she was arrested, strip searched and brutalized. Her crime? Singing the Sh’ma.

Singing the Sh’ma, reading Torah from a scroll, reciting Kaddish. For some men, these acts by women are anathema. Why? They violate the prohibition of Kol Isha, hearing a woman’s voice. Seems that in order to protect men from being aroused, a woman must be silent, not heard. Hagar cried out. Miriam sang with a timbrel in her hand, leading the women in prayer. Hannah prayed. The daughter of King Saul wore tefilin.

I travelled to DeKalb to speak to Congregation Beth Shalom to talk about Women of the Wall and I listened to their anger grow. How can this kind of persecution happen? How can some Jews do this to other Jews? What was the role of the police?

Why do I care? I care because I was brutally attacked in Israel as a young college student. I was told by the attackers, Israeli soldiers, that I was worse than Hitler because I didn’t live in Israel and wasn’t doing anything to help the Jewish people survive. The Orthodox establishment told me that the attack had been a punishment from G-d, telling me that because I was a woman I couldn’t be a rabbi. It has taken me years to heal, years to be able to speak about it publicly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1S3-c1ssrk

This week we read the portion that includes the rape of Dinah. This is not the story in the parsha that we usually tell our youth. We usually focus on the reconciliation between Jacob and Esau.  The Torah tells us that Jacob took his two wives, his two maidservants, his eleven children and crossed the Jabbok. But Jacob had 12 children. What happened to Dinah? Rashi tells us Jacob hid her in a box, in a coffin, to protect her from Esau. Then Jacob wrestles with an angel. His name is changed after fighting all night with that angel or a man or a messenger or himself, to Israel, G-dwrestler. It is an important, formative story.

But the very next story is one of the most painful ones in the Torah. But in the very next story, where was that protection for the wives, for Dinah? We learn about Dinah’s “encounter” with Shechem. Rape, seduction, consensual? Most translations call it rape. Only afterwards, does Shechem fall in love with her, speak tenderly to her and try to procure her as his wife. 

What is missing in this painful story is Dinah’s voice. Was she silent? Did she scream out? What did she think of her brothers’ reactions? From the text we simply don’t know. From the midrash we are told either it was a punishment for her father Jacob (three separate reasons) or it was her fault. Her fault? That is a blaming the victim mentality. However, in Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, Chapter 3 it tells us that Dinah wanted her beauty to be seen and so would wander in the fields to go out and see the daughters of the land. Shechem couldn’t help himself. He was like a man in the marketplace holding meat eventually attacked by a dog. Really? He couldn’t control himself? ‘I feel my anger rising.

We learn that the rabbis see Dinah just like every other woman, weak, because she was created from Adam’s rib which is a concealed, modest place and from that they deduce women should not go out in public (Gen. Rabbah 18:2, 8:2). Other places we are told she did not protest so she must have wanted it. Again, a blame the victim statement. It reminds me of domestic violence victims who tell me that if only they hadn’t gone to that party and talked to a strange man, their husband wouldn’t have beaten her. Really? These are attitudes that still persist in our culture. A culture that denigrates women. Even women who want to worship at the Wall.

Dinah was silent. Dinah was raped. Dinah’s voice was not heard. Not in the Torah and not in the subsequent commentaries and midrashim.

Anita Diamant, the founder of Mayyim Hayyim in Boston, was troubled by Dinah’s lack of voice. She wrote a whole book, the Red Tent, a modern midrashic work, which became a New York Times bestseller, to give Dinah a voice. A tremendous amount of research and creativity went into this novel. I still want the footnotes! It helps but it is still a painful story. I still come out thinking that Dinah was silent. Dinah was raped. Then Dinah learned to survive and make the best out of her life. She learned to love. She learned to be a parent. She learned to live.

The story of Dinah is repeated over and over again. Song of Songs 5:7 describes another woman lovesick, searching for her beloved at night in the city. Horrors, in the middle of this beautiful love poetry, another example of violence against women? “The watchmen that go about the city found me, they beat me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my cloak from me.”

The story of Dinah is repeated over and over again. The statistics are haunting. Today, one out of four women will be sexually attacked in her lifetime. One out of four. Some now say one out of three. That is more than women who will get breast cancer, one out of eight or nine. Why is it OK to talk about breast cancer and not sexual assault? Why have women’s voices been silenced?

Make no mistake, while the Orthodox have used halachic frameworks to justify their behavior, there is NO halacha that permits beating. Watching videos of these arrests are chilling. It is too reminiscent of the pictures of Kristalnacht. youtube women of the wall arrest How can Jewish men treat Jewish women, any woman, this way? Spitting, throwing chairs, drowning out prayer with whistles, beating. It is not right. It is not halachic. Period.

We do not live in Biblical Israel. We do not live in Nazi Germany. Jewish women have the right and the responsibility to pray. They are entitled to it according to the Talmud (Berachot 23a). In the name of the silent Dinah, I cannot be silent any longer.

Nightmares are real. One parent approached me on Sunday and said, “Could you please do something with my daughter. Tell her something that Judaism says about nightmares. Touch her forehead. Anything. Just make her go to sleep.”

I could hear her frustration so I took the challenge head on. I asked ALL the kids if any of them had had a nightmare. They ALL said yes. Even the adults. Then I asked them what they do about them. Some check under the bed. Some go get their mothers or fathers, sisters or brothers. Some leave a light on. Some keep a bottle of spray water next to their bed to ward off monsters. Some sing. Some say the Sh’ma. Most of them said that having some company is comforting.

I explained to them that the rabbis were scared of the night too. They added an extra prayer just for nighttime. Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shlomecha. Spread over us the shelter, the sukkah of Your peace. Four simple words. Those words make me feel better at night.  Perhaps there won’t be any less nightmares but now our children will have a uniquely Jewish tool to help cope.

One of those things that can go bump in the night is the tooth fairy. Not very scary but still on the minds of our kids, particularly the 1st and 2nd grade class. They are so proud when they lose a tooth. So again on Sunday I was asked, “Is there a blessing for a tooth?” To paraphrase Fiddler on the Roof, “Is there a blessing for a tooth? Of course!” In Judaism there is a blessing for everything. On RitualWell.org there is an entire ceremony for losing a first tooth. http://www.ritualwell.org/ritual/tooth-losing-ceremony

It suggests using this blessing usually used for seeing unusual creatures:

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu, Melech Ha’olam me’shaneh habriot.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the world who gives teeth to creatures.

This is not the literal translation which is more like, “who makes varied creatures.” But there is a pun in the Hebrew. M’shaneh, who changes, varies, has the same root as shain, tooth. This is the same word that shows up in the V’ahavta, “V’sheinantam l’vanecha”, to teach our children diligently. More accurately, to set their teeth on edge. Isn’t that what we are doing when we teach our children how to cope with nightmares and how to celebrate losing a tooth.

Teaching our children diligently, passing down the wisdom, the traditions, the prayers of our ancient tradition to the next generation is thrilling. Watching a child “get it.” it fun and inspiring. Watching them take these tools and apply them to live today in the 21st century with all its complexities is inspiring. In the process, they teach me much.

This weekend we mark Rosh Hodesh Kislev, the month in which Chanukah falls. The word Chanukah itself means dedication, because that is what the Maccabees did: they rededicated the Temple in Jerusalem and made it fit, proper, kosher, for Jewish worship again. The Maccabees fought for religious freedom, the privilege to worship as Jews as Jews see fit.

For 25 years a group of women have gathered every Rosh Hodesh at the Western Wall, the Kotel, the last remaining remnant of that same Temple that the Maccabees fought to preserve. Those women want the right to worship as Jews, as women, as they see fit. For 25 years I have stood with them, usually from a distance, and today I salute their work. Tomorrow they are expecting 700+ people to join them at the Kotel itself. I will be in Northfield at a Torah service held in solidarity.

Why is their work important? Because even this weekend, I was asked questions about why a woman would or would not cover her head or wear a kippah, how is a woman wearing a tallit not penis envy, how can a woman even be on the bimah?

For me, these are easy answers. What surprises me, but probably shouldn’t, is that we have to keep answering these questions over and over again. So here goes.

I wear a kippah to remind me that G-d is above. For me it is a sign of humility and it keeps me in check. It does not have to do with women’s modesty and the fact that I am a married woman.

I wear a tallit because in Numbers it says that all the people should wear a fringed garment. That morphed over time to the rabbi, then married men, then men over Bar Mitzvah age. I like the what Psalms says: “Bless Adonai, O my soul. Adonai, My God, You are very great, You are clothed in glory and majesty. You have wrapped yourself with a garment of light, spreading out the heavens like a curtain.” When I put on my tall it and encase myself in its soft, warm cloth, I wrap myself in that Divine light. It is one of the most powerful moments of my prayer. While I am not male, I am a rabbi, so it is a sign of my rabbinic office.

Women are expected, even commanded to pray. While exempt from positive, time-bound mitzvot, tefilah itself was not exempt precisely because G-d is described as Rachaman, the Merciful One. (Berachot 20b). There has been much written about this topic, in much greater depth than I can go into here. If people want or need resources I will be happy to provide them. But let me reiterate, no man has the right to harass, arrest, throw stones or chairs, spit on, hit or beat anyone, male or female for davenning. For any reason. That is not consistent with Jewish halacha. Period. That is why we need Women of the Wall. To continue to make this point. To continue to protect a woman’s right to pray. To be able to pray at the most holy site in Judaism. As it used to be. Without fear of reprisal. Just in order to pray, to have a conversation with G-d in the place where G-d is closest to us.

This was also the weekend in our congregation where we celebrated a Bat Mitzvah of a remarkable young woman. She is the daughter of an Orthodox mother who isn’t comfortable with women on the bimah. However, she allows her children to learn Judaism, to learn halacha and to make their own decisions based on that knowledge. With her mother’s blessing, my Bat Mitzvah student took on as one of her projects, writing a formal responsum on women’s head coverings. She then presented it to the ritual committee who discussed it at two ritual committee meetings. She drew extensively on halachic material on the Women of the Wall website.Teshuvah on Women’s Headcoverings and Talitot for Congregation Kneseth Israel Web

Her maftir parsha from Toldot spoke about digging wells, one of mayyim hayyim, fresh living waters and one of sitneh, hostility. Another reason for Women of the Wall has to be passing down our tradition as one of living waters that refresh the soul, not one of hostility, hate and fear.

As I stood next to my student, reading Torah on the bimah, I had goosebumps when she read the words mayyim hayyim. I was proud of her–and proud of her mother–who gave her daughter the space and the tools to learn and learned right along with her. He d’var Torah linking this all together brought us light as we move into Kislev.

So as we celebrate Rosh Hodesh Kislev with its focus on dedication and light, I rededicate myself to prayer–like that of our matriarchs, Hagar and Hannah, Miriam and Deborah.

We Jews are very good at praying the words on the page. We are used to the structure (the keva) and the order (seder) of the words in the prayerbook (siddur, some root as seder, order). In fact, we like the order. Some of us like the same tunes week after week. They are old familiar friends and they bring us comfort.

But we don’t have to pray with the prayerbook. We can pray the feelings of our heart. Sometimes we call this kavanah, intention. Sometimes people find this scary or just plain wrong. We should always use the printed word. The rabbis wrote them 2000 years ago, some of them, they must be right! And they are–but they are a reflection of the rabbis’ own kavanah, intention. Their own sense of wonder and amazement, fear and trembling, awe.

My class has been working on Ain Kamocha, the introduction to the Torah service. Ain Kamocha, None compare to you, O Lord. It answers the question, “Mi Chamocha” Who is like You O Lord? The 4th grade class has been working on Ein Keloheinu, “No one is like our G-d. No one is like our Lord. No one is like our King. No one is like our moshianu, redeemer or deliverer.” It too answers that question, Who is like You? with a resounding NO ONE! No god, no lord, no ruler, no redeemer.

Mi Chamocha was first sung by Moses and Israelites in thanksgiving right after they crossed the Red Sea, right after the waters of the sea parted. What would these kids say? “Wow!” “That was cool!” “That was amazing!” “That was awesome.” “Do it again!” “How did You do that?” “What just happened here?” “What happened to the Egyptians?” “We are safe now.” “We are free.” “Thank you G-d.” “Hallelujah.” One girl said she would have fainted. They got the awesomeness of this moment. Just like Moses when he first sang Mi Chamocha. And that is what real prayer is–the prompting our hearts to what is going on around us.

But this story isn’t quite over. We were still talking about Ain Keloneinu and relating it back to Mi Chamocha. We know the words Eloheinu, our G-d, Adonainu, our Lord, Malkeinu, our King, but what is Moshianu? What does it mean to be our Redeemer or our Deliverer? I said somehow it is related to G-d bringing us out of Egypt. One girl, 4th grade explained it. “I think about when a baby is delivered. The doctor is the deliverer.” It was one of those wow moments. I hadn’t thought about it that way before. G-d is the midwife to the Jewish people. They are coming out of Egypt, out of the narrow places, out of the birth canal. They are being birthed as a new nation. They are delivered so G-d is the Deliverer. That’s what redemption means.

Mi Chamocha and Ain Keloheinu will never be quite the same for me–or any of us who were present Wednesday afternoon for ruach. Then we sang Mi Chamocha. Teach the children to pray? Maybe it is the other way around!