Last week I asked my congregation a question. “What is the role that ritual plays in our lives?” The portion, Pinchas, teaches us how to observe the festivals. We read this one over and over again, as the maftir for each of the pilgrimage holidays and for Rosh Hodesh and then when it comes in rotation. It must be important. It teaches us how many sacrifices we must make for each of the holidays and for Shabbat. It outlines what we do for musaf, the additional offering made on Shabbat and festivals. What is this about? Frankly I have no intention of going out to the parking lot of the synagogue and offering a ram or two or three or four. I asked what the word for sacrifice is in Hebrew. I was told, correctly korban, which has as its root, to draw close. Because offering a sacrifice enables us to draw close to G-d. The word I was looking for however was avodah. Now avodah is an interesting root. It means work or worship or service or sacrifice. A person who offers an avodah can be an eved, a slave or a servant, one who works or worships or serves. We sing about it at Passover, “Avadim hayinu” and the modern Israeli song Zum Gali Gali, talking about the avodah of the chalutzi, the pioneers. But why use this word, avodah for a sacrifice for the chaggim, the holidays?
I think it is about the power of ritual. What is a ritual? People answered:
• Something that we do routinely.
• Something that draws us together.
• Something that grounds us.
• Something that floods us with memories.
• Something that is evocative.
• Something that uses all of our senses
• Something that marks liminal time.
What rituals are important to you?
• Morning routine, brushing teeth, getting dressed, eating breakfast, getting out the door
• Birthdays—candles, cake, special dinner, presents, singing Happy Birthday
• Bedtime routine—reading Good Night Moon, a cuddle, saying bedtime Sh’ma
• Exercise—packing the gym bag, planning when, what and how long, tracking, warm up, exercise, cool down, hydration
• Medications—One in the morning and one in the evening. How does this keep us closer to the Divine?
What about Jewish rituals?
• Shabbat—candles, wine, motzi, havdalah
• Rosh Hashanah—apples and honey, shofar
• Passover—Matzah, 4 cups of wine, 4 questions, family and friends gathered, same menu year after year
• Mourning traditions—Kaddish, shiva, hard boiled eggs, putting earth on the grave
Each of the holidays have their own rituals. And not a sacrificed ram in the bunch!
Why do we need ritual?
• Makes it easier to know what to do when to we don’t know what to do
• It is the kevah (structure) to the kavanah (intention)
• Brings us closer to others, closer to G-d
• Reminds us of our past, a nostalgia factor
• Allows us to feel in control, particularly after the death of a loved one.
It was a hard week. The congregation helped with the burial of a stillborn infant. Now it used to be that Jews didn’t mark this kind of tragedy. Now we have learned the importance of allowing the parents to grieve and to mark the event with Jewish rituals. As the rabbi, it was a difficult few days. However, it was helpful to apply traditional Jewish mourning rituals to this process. It was helpful to consult ritualwell.org to see what others have already done. I hope we brought the parents and grandparents some comfort.
There was a great article in Forbes magazine about the power of rituals in eating, grieving and business. It talks about some research being done at Harvard between the psychology department and the business school. They conclude: “Another experiment showed that observing a ritual is not nearly as powerful as performing a ritual. Participants who prepared a glass of powdered lemonade in a ritualistic manner (stir for 30 seconds, wait for 30 seconds, and so on) enjoyed consuming it much more than those who merely watched someone else prepare the lemonade. ‘With grief, the ritual leads to a feeling of control,’ Norton says. ‘With consumption, rituals seem to work because they increase your involvement in the experience.’” http://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2013/06/03/the-power-of-rituals-in-eating-grieving-and-business/
I picture at this season the ritual of the lemonade stand, a celebration of summer. And I remember the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel, “People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state–it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle…. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions. (Source: The Wisdom of Heschel)
He always wanted to be amazed, to experience wonder. Ritual helps us do that. It helps us celebrate. It brings us comfort. “How grateful I am to God that there is a duty to worship, a law to remind my distraught mind that it is time to think of God, time to disregard my ego for at least a moment! It is such happiness to belong to an order of the divine will. I am not always in a mood to pray. I do not always have the vision and the strength to say a word in the presence of God. But when I am weak, it is the law that gives me strength; when my vision is dim, it is duty that gives me insight” (Man’s Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954, pp. 64-68). Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolff, from KAM Isaiah Israel in Chicago talks about this tension between Keva and Kavanah in his article, a tribute to Abraham Joshua Heschel. http://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ritual/Prayer/Prayer_Music_and_Liturgy/What_is_Jewish_Liturgy/Intention/Keva_and_Kavvanah.shtml
Stan Goldberg, PhD (a member of the tribe, I assume) tells us it does two things and doesn’t have to be about religion at all. “Ritual is an important psychological event that has served, currently serves, and will continue to serve a basic need of life: It connects us with the past and grounds us in the present. Cutting oneself off from it, cuts oneself off from our history and forces us to stand alone in the present.” http://stangoldbergwriter.com/about/the-power-of-ritual/
The chief rabbi of Great Britain reflecting on the power of ritual and this portion teaches us what we probably already know. Being a champion is about “deep practice” as he calls it. They put in more hours than anyone else. He says that the magic number is 10,000 hours. That—roughly 10 years of deep practice is what it takes to reach the top in almost every field.
There is the old joke—how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice. So it is true for performers as well. Mozart the child prodigy, started practicing at three, became an accomplished performer at six but did not compose until he was in his 20s. Cue the music for Fiddler…at three I started Hebrew School, at 10 I learned a trade…Hebrew takes…practice too. Doing it over and over again.
Recent research has shown that ritual and practice help with brain function. As we master each new skill it reconfigures the brain, creating new neural pathways. Repeating an action over and over again making the connections in the brain speedier the more they are used. “Far from being outmoded, religious ritual turns out to be deeply in tune with the new neuroscience of human talent, personality and the plasticity of the brain. The great faiths never forgot what science is helping us rediscover: that ritual creates new habits of the heart that can lift us to unexpected greatness.” http://www.chiefrabbi.org/2011/07/23/credo-ritual-develops-habits-that-can-lift-us-to-greatness/#.UdgYeJX0Ay4
So that is exactly what this parsha is about. Repeating a ritual over and over again, helping us connect with the past, while being in the present, connecting with other Israelites and with the Divine, remembering when we all stood at Sinai and the mountain smoked, quaked and trembled. Helping us make amends, providing a structure and a formula that allows us to use all of our senses. I am still not going into the parking lot to offer a ram. I will, however, continue to find ways to balance the spontaneity of my heart in prayer and the structure, traditions, rituals that bring us comfort as we daven together.