We leave the first week and Passover behind. This week’s focus is on Gevurah, It is about self-control and restraint. Pirke Avot teaches that one who is strong (gibbur, same root) is one who controls his yetzer, his inclination. I am reading Rav Hisda’s Daughter, the new novel by Maggie Anton who wrote Rashi’s Daughters. Just last night I was reading the part about controlling your yetzer. Rav Hisda points out to his students and his daughter that in the story of creation, yetzer, is spelled with two yuds when describing creating man. From this we know that human beings have two yetzers, a good inclination and an evil inclination. We can choose between right and wrong. We can distinguish the difference. When G-d formed animals there was only one yud.

Freedom comes with responsibilities. Sometimes I don’t want to choose correctly. That is exactly what this week is about, strengthening our desire to choose correctly.

Yesterday, the last day of Passover, we read in Isaiah the words for the Israeli folk dance, Mayyim. “Joyfully shall you draw water from the fountains of triumph….Oh shout for joy.” Then we abruptly changed pace. We read yizkor, the memorial prayers. Why do we do this on every major festival? Because our joy is always tinged with sadness. We miss the people who came before and this is a public acknowledgment of our pain. Because of this writing project I was especially aware of one line in the Yizkor service on page 188 in Siddur Sim Shalom. “As a parent shows love to a child, Adonai embraces all who are faithful.”

Today is also the day after the start of April. April showers bring May flowers. In our liturgy we have dropped the line “mashiv haruach umorid hagashem, You cause the wind to blow and the rain to fall.” In Israel at this season that is true. The rainy season is gone. The flowers appear on earth. The time of singing has come. Some congregations replace this phrase with a phrase for dew. Both are seen as a manifestation of G-d’s great mercy and lovingkindness. Water is important, especially in a desert climate. So today is Chesed b’gevurah. I encourage you to think about how water can be both strong and loving and a sign of G-d’s loving presence.

Tonight is the last night of Passover and the seventh day of the counting of the omer. It always makes me a little sad. There was a lot of work that went into preparing. There was a lot of chamatz that was cleaned out, both literally and figuratively. Today, a non-workday because it is a full chat, I spent working. Not on synagogue stuff but on house stuff. Things I had been putting off. I unpacked some boxes, through out several bags of trash, (how many extra pounds of stuff did we move from Massachusetts just because we didn’t have time to sort? This seems the reverse of what the Israelites went through when they left Egypt in haste.) organized and sorted. It was a liberating experience. So was finding a physician locally. Another thing I don’t have to worry about–and that is freeing. Have I finished the process? No, absolutely not. Neither were the Israelites completely free when they left Egypt. It took 40 years of wandering in the desert before they were truly free.

What were the highlights of Passover for me this year? Having Jack and 14 others for seder in our new home, surrounded by beautiful flowers, good conversation and great food. A very intriguing discussion about gun violence and whether it is a plague or not and what we can do about it.

Second night seder in my new shul with 55 people. Becky Albert made a great main course and I loved her appetizer–baby spinach, asparagus, blackberries and home made salmon gefilte fish. Yes, it was kosher!

The women’s seder. Kudo’s to Wanda Pietzle for organizing and hosting a fun and interesting evening. Again, more good food, more good conversation. Just the women.

My Passover scavenger hunt. No one recognized the frog sculpture. It is in Batavia overlooking the Fox River. But the real reward were the blooming snow drops. And the wise old owl in the tree. The owl made me miss my mother and the frog made me miss Dona, a good friend and regular reader of this blog and someone who collects frogs.

Writing the blog and given myself the opportunity to think deeply about freedom, about growth and about love. My Passover nap–what better definition of freedom.

Spending lots of time with Simon and Sarah. Entertaining. Chocolate covered matzah. Passover granola. Chopped liver. Matzah balls. Being creative with cooking. And not gaining any weight!

Michigan basketball. Are they really in the final four? Opening day of the Red Sox. Did they really beat the Yankees? Or was that just an April Fool’s Joke?

Planning lots of interesting and rewarding events for the shul. Just because Passover is ending does not mean we are done at the synagogue. Stay tuned for Yom Hashoah, Book Group, Shavuot, June’s installations.

Watching for signs of spring. Robins, crocuses up and blooming, the return of baseball and the street sweepers, the snow drops, the slow melt of the remaining ice and snow. We started Passover with flurries and ice still on the river and ponds. Now the water is flowing freely and there is no snow pile left in my driveway.

Today the mystical approach is malchut b’chesed. It implies a sovereignty of love. Love rules over all. Song of Songs, the extra reading for Passover puts it this way, “He brought me to the banquet table and his banner of love is over me.” If we understand this as an allegory between the Israelites and G-d, then G-d the Ruler of the Universe allows us to drink deeply of love and rules with lovingkingness and compassion. I know that I am blessed with love both from G-d, people around me, friends, family, co-workers and yes, even the puppy!  If I have really gained this insight  this Pesach then it has truly been a season of growth and renewal. May it be true for all of us.

Today marks the sixth day of the omer. Yesod b’chesed. Bonding of lovingkindness. Yesod is yet another tricky word to define. While it usually gets translated as bonding, it  also means foundation. Now Rabbi Zlotowitz used to tell a funny story about one of his professors who was German. He would start his class by saying, “Boychicks, today we are going to study the basement of Judaism.” He had confused the words in English for foundation and basement. We can chuckle, but if the basement is firm, the foundation secure, than love can grow and blossom. If the foundation is not solid, the building blocks not strong than love can wither. You need both, love and the bonding that goes with it to make it eternal.

Today, because it was a nice sunny day, one of our congregants built the frames necessary for our community garden. Without the framework we cannot plant in the raised beds. How many people do you think we can feed from our 8×8 plot? How much work, time, seeds, water and faith will this project take? But the building blocks and the foundation are now in place.

How do we do this in our own lives? What are the building blocks or the foundation of love? How do we bond? How do we get there? How do we make our relationships rock solid?
This week on Shabbat we read Song of Songs as the extra megilah of Passover. It has been my Bat Mitzvah “haftarah”. This week we sang a lot of it. Beautiful love poetry, an allegory if you will between G-d and the people of Israel. While it talks about young love and courtship,  it also talks about the foundation of love. Like the Torah portion for Passover it talks about hiding in the cleft or crevice or cranny of the rock. That’s where love sometimes hides. Sometimes it is where we find G-d. We need the Rock to be solid, so that when we can’t see G-d or feel G-d we still know G-d’s there. We need our relationships to be bound so that even when we are not feeling love we know that it is there. Then we will move into knowing, deeply deeply knowing that we are loved.

Today is the fifth day of the counting of the omer. We are still focused on love and lovingkindness, chesed. But today adds the sense of humility, hod. Today is hod b’chesed. Hod is another word that is hard to translate. It comes with a meaning of majesty and spender, prayer and submission. I’ve been thinking a lot about Rabbi Everett Gendler and how he was a role model for me. Not only did he teach about the omer with his concrete exercise of planting winter wheat or rye but he was the one who taught me that a rabbi needs to trust his or her board and not go to every meeting. He was the one who very much was a collaborative leader, working with a congregation and not just using his power and authority as the trained professional. He was the one who would say that a rabbi is someone who can move the tables and chairs (and turn the heat on in New England). He didn’t ask his congregants to do anything he wasn’t willing to do himself. Having that kind of a leader, who exhibited humility, we all grew. Having that kind of leader, we got to see his humility and his majesty. In May Rabbi Everett Gendler will be honored by T’ruah, the formerly Rabbis for Human Rights, North America with their Human Rights Hero award. I can’t think of someone more deserving. This is a man who marched with Martin Luther King, who has worked on Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation and who travels each year to work in India. He does all this in a quiet unassuming way. He does it because it is the right thing to do.
Hod, because it is about humility and submission is also about forgiveness. Think for a minute about who you might need to forgive. Being able to ask for forgiveness can be hard to do. It means being humble and admitting that we made a mistake and that we will try to not do it again. It takes courage. The rewards can be well worth it. Think about who you may need to reconcile with and how it might make your love stronger. For me it is usually about making peace at home. I should not take my husband and daughter for granted and too often do. So I will try to be humble today, and ask their forgiveness. Usually the hurts are slight and unintentional but they build up over time.
Today is also Easter Sunday. Yesterday we read the haftarah for Passover, Ezekiel 37 with its vision of the dry bones coming back to life. Last year, this weekend on the Hebrew calendar I got an excited call from a good friend and a teacher in our religious school. A Holocaust teacher. She had just heard these words for the first time and wondered why we read them Easter weekend. “Do Jews believe in resurrection?” Yes, I assured her. Take a look at the g’vurot prayer for example. Both the lines from Ezekiel and g’vurot are part of where resurrection comes from. There is a belief that when the Messiah comes, we will be resurrected during Passover. The question becomes whether this is for individual people or for a nation. On the exit gate of Yad V’shem, they use a verse from this very Haftarah, “I will put my breath into you and you will live again. I will set you upon your own soil. (Ezekiel 37:14).
I know that there are many non-Jewish readers of my blog, so for those of you celebrating Easter today, may it be a time of rebirth and renewal, a return to spring and a time when my people and your people can continue to work for the day of reconciliation, peace and harmony. Then we will have reached a time of hod b’chesed, humility in lovingkindess, when it won’t matter what separates us as much as what unites us.

Today is the fourth day of the counting of the omer. Last night we talked about omer at shul, we looked at the tender shoots of omer harvested just before Shabbat. We looked at one of my favorite verses, Or zarua l’tzadik. Light is sown for the righteous, joy for the upright of heart. The word for sown comes from the same root as seed. Light is planted for the righteous, righteousness comes before joy. It is a perfect verse for the omer. The themes of Passover continue to linger as we journey onto Shavuot.

During Ma’ariv Aravim, we found three words that can be connected with Passover, umsedar, G-d who orders the stars, lilah, night which appears in the four questions, and chosech, darkness which was one of the ten plagues.

After reading the “silent meditation” which includes a line about “the liberating joy of Shabbat,” I asked what freedom meant to each of us.
It was an erudite group. Someone spoke of Janis Joplin’s song, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” We thought maybe that was enough and we could all go home. Another saw freedom as the ability to choose your own prison. One quoted Franklin D. Roosevelt, freedom includes the four freedoms: “freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear.” Since Roosevelt saw four, I wondered why it is not included in more haggadot.

Still another quoted the poem Invictus (I had to look that up!), Freedom is the ability to be “the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” At which point our youngest davvener said, “Freedom is what he said, but he said it better.” When prodded she said that freedom is being able to choose what you want to do when you want to do it. I added that I learned that freedom really means the ability to take a nap. Slaves do not have that option. We talked about the word avadim, slaves in Hebrew, and how the word for work, worship and sacrifice come from the same shores, ayin, bet, dalet. Did the Israelites exchange slavery for serving Adonai? How does this change our opinion of what happened?

In shul today we read my Bat Mitzvah portion, which includes the 13 Attributes of the Divine. This portion has sustained me for almost 40 years. (Is that possible?) It is part of how I became a rabbi and then I wrote a thesis on it. Today in the counting is Netzach b’chesed. Netzach is used in L’dor v’dor, netzach netzachhim. It carries with it the sense of eternity. So this is everlasting lovingkindness. The portion talks about this topic a couple of ways. Moses doesn’t want to go back up the mountain. He is weary. This is a stiff-necked, stubborn people. He wants to make sure G-d has some skin in the game, after all they are G-d’s people, not Moses’s. And who is this G-d anyway? G-d reassures Moses that G-d will go with him and lighten the burden and give Moses rest. We all need that reassurance. The fact that G-d promises Moses gives me hope in my own life. After Moses is back up on the mountain, G-d’s presence passes before him and we learn that G-d is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness (chesed) and faithfulness (emet, truth), extending kindness (chesed) to a thousand generations. G-d’s lovingkindness is eternal and everlasting. This knowledge will probably sustain me for the next forty years…but it is a good thing that this is a parsha we read three times a year because I need that constant love and reassurance.

We Jews count days starting at night. There was evening and there was morning, the first day. Our holidays all begin in the evening.

The Full Moon of Passover

But I am a morning person. What can I learn at night? The Hagaddah gives us a clue. It is a usually a portion I am asked to read because people don’t want to trip over the old Hebraic names. “Once Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Akiva, and Rabbi Tarfon dined together [at the Seder] in Bnei Brak. They discussed the Exodus from Egypt throughout the entire night until their students came and told them: “Teachers, the time for reciting the Shema in the morning has arrived.” That would be my husband’s ideal seder, going well beyond midnight. There is so much to learn from the Passover story and all of the questions and their application to modern times. Last night I learned again with a group of women who had gathered to have a women’s seder. What are our unique roles as women? When we walked out we were able to see the full Passover moon.

We learn in Berachot when is the time to say the morning Shema? When you can distinguish between blue and white or even more finely between blue and green or when you can distinguish the face of your friend. Try it sometime, the next time you are burning the candle at both ends. Try saying the morning Shema right before dawn, right at first light.

The seder continues…”Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said to them: ‘I am like a seventy-year-old man. Nevertheless, I did not merit [to understand the reason for the obligation] to recall the Exodus from Egypt at night until ben Zoma interpreted the verse: “In order that you remember the day you left Egypt all the days of your life.” [The phrase] “the days of your life” refers to the days; [adding the word] “all” includes the nights. The Sages interpreted [the verse]: “the days of your life” refers to the present world; “all the days of your life” indicates the Messianic era.

There is another verse from Holocaust poetry from a wall of a cellar in Cologne that teaches,
I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love
even when there’s no one there
And I believe in God
even when He is silent

So that is the trick. Remembering that we are loved even when the sun is not shining, even when it is not clear how G-d is present or seems to be silent.

Night can be a scary time. A time when we feel more distant from the Divine. But night can be a time of growth and renewal too. When I am up in the middle of the night wrestling with something, tossing and turning, I remember something that my friend David Ferner, an Episcopal priest says, that it is G-d trying to get my attention in the middle of the night because I was not attentive enough during the day.” Then I usually and curse Dave because I know he’s right.

Today’s mystical interpretation of the 3rd day is Tiferet b’chesed, beauty in lovingkindness. Again we need to look at other translations. Glory, Spirituality, Balance, Integration, and Compassion are all other words I have seen to describe something that doesn’t translate well. If it is balance, then this makes sense, day and night need to balance, darkness and light. If it is glory, then there is a gloriousness of lovingkindness. Oh that we could understand that we are loved even when feeling it not.

On a very sad note, a colleague of mine, Rabbi Robert Freedman, was in a very serious car accident yesterday. A much beloved Hillel rabbi, Rabbi Jim Diamond was killed. They were apparently leaving a study session and someone was going much too fast and hit Bob’s parked car. Psalms says, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” I like to think it is about living intentionally and making every day count. Perhaps that is why we count the days of the omer. I hope that Rabbi Diamond’s family finds some comfort in how he made his days count and how many lives he touched.

Today is the second day of counting. Mystically it is seen as Gevurah b’chesed, discipline in lovingkindness. But another translation of gevurah is strength. It takes strength to be a Jew. It takes courage and lovingkindness. We need both. Courage does not necessarily mean being brave and racing into a burning building. Courage comes from the Latin cor and the French coeur for heart. It means something like the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Physical courage is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, death, or threat of death, while moral courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement.

We went on a brief Passover hike yesterday, wandering without knowing where we wanted to go or how long it would take us. We were rewarded by seeing some early spring flowers, just peaking through the still brown, dead lives. Snow drops I believe. It takes tremendous courage and faith to stick your head up and bloom at this season.  It takes strength and courage and discipline to stick your head up and say what needs to be said.

 
Tonight I will go to a women’s seder, an opportunity to gather around a seder one more time, this time to hear specifically about the role women played in birthing the Israelites out of Egypt. Some will tell the stories of their own mothers and grandmothers. The women of the Torah showed great gevurah b’chesed. Miriam, Shifra, Puah, Zipporah, Batya all spoke up when they needed to. Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel, Esther and Ruth, Deborah, all showed courage when confronted with challenges. Part of what allowed them to succeed is that they had discipline, the other meaning of gevurah. They knew when enough was enough, when to push back and when to take on more. I hope I have that trait.

Earlier this week I was told it takes courage to be a rabbi. I bristled when I was told that because I am not sure that I have anything special. I don’t see myself as especially courageous, just as me. But i join a long line of strong and courageous women. The matriarchs, Beruria, Gluckel of Hamln,  Marionbetty and Nelle.

How do you show strength, courage, discipline in love?

Tuesday night began the counting of the omer, the period between the second night of Passover and Shavuot, 49 days later. It is a journey, a process, mirroring the journey of the Israelites in the wilderness. There are lots of ways to count the omer. There is the traditional blessing, “Al Sephirat HaOmer” and then counting, “This is Day One of the Omer”. There are some lovely meditations written every year. Here are some of my favorites: I’ve got a beautiful collection of Omer-counting books here on my desk: Rabbi Yael Levy’s Journey Through the Wilderness: A Mindfulness Approach to the Ancient Jewish Practice of Counting the Omer, Shifrah Tobacman’s Omer / Teshuvah: 49 Poetic Meditations for Counting the Omer or Turning Toward a New Year, Rabbi Jill Hammer’s Omer Calendar of Biblical Women, Rabbi Min Kantrowitz’s Counting the Omer: A Kabbalistic Meditation Guide, Rabbi Simon Jacobson’s A Spiritual Guide to The Counting of the Omer.
Last year my lead teacher, Esther Kaufman and I made omer counters at a Junior Congregation Shabbat with the kids out of Kosher L’Pseach chocolate. I admit, it seemed a little too much like an advent calendar but the kids had fun. There is even an Homer Simpson Omer calendar with which kids of all ages can have fun
. http://homercalendar.net/Welcome.html.

But what is the Omer and why does it matter? Omer is a measure of wheat or barley that was offered in the Temple as part of the first fruits. My favorite way to count the omer, based on teachings of Rabbi Everett Gendler, is to plant winter wheat or rye at Sukkot. It comes up briefly and then lies fallow over the winter. Then each week of the Omer we harvest just a little bit to show how the earth renews itself and grows.
This year was no exception. The students at Congregation Kneseth Israel planted winter rye at Sukkot along with yellow tulips for our Yom Hashoah observance. I looked on Sunday. Nothing up yet. It snowed again, not much, just enough to make it look more like Chanukah than Passover. We counted the Omer at the Community Seder and on my way home I went out to see what was happening in the garden. And there they were, first tender little shoots. By the light of the beautiful full Pesach moon I could see them. They bring me hope.
Rabbi Katy Allen has another way of counting. This year she will be posting a picture of nature showing how the earth is marching towards spring. I already sent her a picture of crocuses trying to appear.
Every year I take on an omer project. Some years they have been simple–remembering to wear my seat belt or unpacking and sorting a box. Some years more complex, reading a certain book like The Gift of a New Beginning or Rabbi Jill Hammer’s Book of Days. This year I don’t have a specific one. I have decided to try to count every day and to live intentionally. Usually I write about this for Rosh Hashanah. Thoreau went to the woods to live deliberately. Even in his time, intentionality could get lost in the busyness of our lives. Certainly true in our time.

The mystics saw the counting of the omer as a way to reconnect with the divine. They divided the seven weeks into seven of the sephirot and spent time working on each one. is similar to what Benjamin Franklin did with his journal taking on a character trait each week. This week is about chesed. Today is chesed b’chesed. Chesed is a very difficult word to translate. Nothing quite captures it as Nelson Glueck wrote in his PhD thesis on this word. But it is something like abundant lovingkindness, unconditional love. Today then represents a double dose of lovingkindness and compassion. I admit this is a concept in my own life I struggle with. How do I know that I am worthy of being loved. How do I know that I am loved? The answer for me lies in my own Bat Mitzvah portion which we read on Pesach. Exodus 34 gives us the 13 Attributes of the Divine. Only two words appear twice. Adonai, Adonai at the beginning and Chesed. Every year it comes to teach me that yes, I can be loved. That G-d is a G-d of love and loves each and every one of us. My hope is that we can all find that love as we journey towards Sinai.

So every morning I will try to write something and see what comes up. Something already did in this writing.

This week 10 of us gathered for the siyyum for the Fast of the First Born. Those of us who are first born children are commanded to fast on the day before Passover in recognition of our gratitude that the Angel of Death passed over our houses in Egypt and spared our lives as first born children. Commanded, except, if we finish studying something, we are also commanded to celebrate the completion of that study, to have a siyyum. Now having a seder on an empty stomach is not a good idea, especially with four cups of wine….so we gathered. The congregation had not done one of these before and I had no idea who would show up. Most people are too frantically busy the morning before a seder. Finishing up chamatz, burning what remains, cooking, cleaning, cleaning, cooking. I like the Siyyum for the Fast of the First Born precisely because it forces me to take a break. It makes look at something in depth and it elevates my seder to another level. It is a great spiritual reward and a mark of people who are free, people who have time to study. It is a luxury. Tevye plays through my mind, “If I were rich I’d have the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray…I’d discuss the learned books with the rabbis seven hours every day…that would be the sweetest gift of all.”
Like most years, I didn’t have time. I got up really early to finish preparing. We would be looking at the women of the Passover story. Yocheved, Miriam, Shifa, Puah, Batya and Zipporah. I divided the group into pairs so they could study in chevruta, with a friend. Each pair took some of the midrashim then presented them back to the group. There were good in depth conversations. I came away learning or relearning some things.
Some people believe that Shifra and Puah, the midwives, were Miriam and Yocheved. I would prefer them to stand on their own. The rabbis really wrestle with whether they are midwives to the Hebrews, in which case they could be Egyptian, or midwives of the Hebrews in which case they were Israelites. Either way they were righteous. Their civil disobedience at risk to their own lives saved the Jewish people.
Although the Bible doesn’t tell us, the rabbis named the daughter of Pharaoh Baya, G-d’s daughter. Again we see them uncomfortable with her not being an Israelite. They teach that she repudiated her father’s evil ways and that when she went down to the river to bathe she was really immersing in a natural mikveh in order to convert to Judaism. As someone who worked at Mayyim Hayyim the community mikveh in Boston, this idea of bathing as mikveh intrigues me, but I prefer to leave her as a righteous gentile. Why are we so afraid of the other? Why can’t we allow them to be who they are?

Miriam, for whom I am named, gets mixed reviews by the rabbis. She is one of seven women prophets. She is the one who according to midrash, brought her parents back together, rescued baby Moses, and found the nursemaid for him (the baby’s own mother Yocheved), She also was outspoken, together with her brother Aaron, rebuking Moses for his relationship with the Cushite woman. For this she was punished with a skin disease. Her name means “Bitter Waters” and water is central to her life. Whether it is acting as a midwife, following the ark along the Nile, singing at the Sea of Reeds or finding water in the wilderness, we gain life through her actions around precious water. Why then bitter? I think I prefer “Rebellious Waters” as Marsha Mirken teaches in her book, “Women who danced by the sea.”

Finally Zipporah, the wife of Moses, is the one who circumcized her own son, when it would appear Moses forgot or didn’t get around to it. There is a complex scene where the anticedents are not clear that talks about the bridegroom of blood. Whose the bridegroom,  Moses? their son? G-d? An anger? Again, however, we see the fate of the Jewish people in the hands, sometimes literally, in women who were not born as Israelites. These women have a very important role to play.

While people were studying in chevruta, male, female, young and older, I was reading some of my collection of Hagaddot. I learned two new things. First, perhaps another explanation of the Four Cups of Wine is that they represent the Four Matriarchs. This was not in one of the women’s hagaddot or a feminist one.

The other quote was by Rabbi Naamah Kelman, the first woman rabbi ordained in Israel. She teaches, “Many do not know that the very first “interfaith” gathering actually occurred long ago at the Nile when Miriam meets the daughter of Pharaoh and together they save the baby Moses from the decree of death. Defying their destinies and also the male establishments, the Egyptian Princess and the Hebrew slave-girl-destined-for-leadership find sisterhood and seek justice together. They choose to affirm life in the shadows of death and enslavement. These role models found in my ancient tradition have been re-activated in the early 21st century as women around the world are increasingly stepping out and rising up to activism and leadership….Like Miriam and the daughter of Pharaoh who joined hands and defied authority, we can set our people on a journey to freedom and justice.”

Even after studying the texts, I still have one big question. Moses does not appear in the traditional hagaddah. We are told not by an angel, not by a seraph, but by the Holy One alone, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm were the Israelites freed from Egypt. Elijah makes a bit appearance, as a hope for the future. As interesting as these women are I wonder whether they belong in the Hagaddah.

I am glad that we had the chance to study the texts in depth. Then I went home and burnt the remaining chamatz, In a snow flurry. Spring may come sometime.

If you were up early enough this week, you could watch the pope be installed. It was fascinating. I wrote to Paul, our ritual chair, and told him he better be watching…we might learn something for our own installations in June.

Now how is this relevant you might ask? Why should we watch how the Roman Catholic world treats their highest leader? Because this week we read about the installation of Aaron and his sons as the high priests of Israel.

Now I am not sure I have liked the term installation. To borrow part of a line, “What are we? Dishwashers?” Rabbi Nehemia Polen, Professor at Hebrew College and one of the leading experts in Chasidim, says, well maybe yes but the wrong kitchen appliance. He likens the entire book of Leviticus to a reset button—on a garbage disposal.

Now hear him out. To our modern ears Leviticus may seem nonsensical. It is all about the priestly rite and animal sacrifice. We don’t do that any more, not since the destruction of the Temple in 70CE. The traditional musaf service yearns for a return to Jerusalem and a rebuilding of the Temple complete with animal sacrifice. Sacrifice, in particular the korban, was seen as the way to draw close to G-d. The word korban itself comes from the root to draw close. You know the word, Keruv. Same shoresh, same root. For some of us moderns, musaf is hard because I am not sure we want to return to a sacrificial system. That is not how we draw close to G-d. We are lucky because our prayer book, Siddur Sim Shalom, has an alternative musaf service, the part below the line that talks about how Shabbat instead of praying for a return to animal sacrifice. Some of you have told me that is the portion you davven. So again, why does this matter?

Polen teaches that it does matter. The Israelites were trying to reconnect with G-d. They had had a powerful and direct experience of G-d’s presence in the wilderness. First with the signs and wonders, that mighty hand and outstretched arm that helped them get out of Egypt. Then the parting of the Red Sea. Then the giving of the Torah at Sinai. As I taught last night, Mekhitla, one of the earliest midrashim explains that even a lowly bondswoman, free from Egypt experienced G-d directly, saw G-d, at the parting of the Red Sea. Isaiah and Ezekiel only had visions. Powerful stuff.

This week we will read that we should tell our children on that day what the Lord did for me when I went forth from Egypt. Each of us it see ourselves as though we went forth from Egypt, out of the house of bondage, out of the narrow straights. Each of us was at the parting of the Red Sea and each of us stood at Sinai, even the generations yet unborn.

Remember standing at Sinai. You were scared. You trembled. You shielded your children. The mountain quaked. It smoked. It seemed to be on fire. You took a bath and remained pure for three days. You washed your clothes. You were warned. Don’t go near the mountain. Don’t touch it. Moses went up on the mountain.

Let’s look at this installation rite now. Aaron and his sons immersed in a mikveh. They put on special clothes. They isolated themselves for 7 days. They sprinkled the altar with water. They made a sacrifice so there was smoke and fire, a pleasing odor to G-d. They had a basket of matzah. They were anointed with special oil and maybe most surprisingly with blood from the sacrifice. The people stood outside of the Tent of Meeting. All of the elements were there of the experience of standing at Sinai. Of having that direct, powerful experience of the Divine.

All of the senses were involved. Smell, taste, touch, sight, hearing.

It was a powerful experience. It brought Aaron and his sons back into the Presence of the Divine. It brought the people closer to G-d. It had all the elements of receiving the Torah at Sinai. It is Rabbi Polen’s reset button.

But what does this have to do with us moderns. How do we push the reset button? How do we enter the presence of the Divine? How do we draw close to G-d without sacrifices? Without this complicated installation ritual? People in the congregation answered by doing acts of love and kindness. By doing mitzvoth. By praying.

So the pope was installed this week. If you watched any of the coverage you would have noticed many of these same elements. It was very intentional on the Church’s part. He was isolated, set aside from the time the white smoke appeared, he wore special vestments, a special head covering, lots of gold, there were the elements of communion—bread and wine which Catholics believe are the Passover sacrifice. The pope is the Catholic’s Aaron. He has drawn close to G-d and like Aaron will represent the people to G-d as well as being G-d’s representative here on earth.

When there is big news story, often Jews ask, “Is it good for the Jews or bad for the Jews?” It is too early to tell, but I am hopeful. He had a good reputation in Argentina with the Jewish community. He was outspoken when 85 people were killed by the terrorist bombing of the headquareters of the Jewish federation. He was the first to sign a petition 85 signatures for 85 people. The Jewish community has seen his commitment to dialogue as recently as December when he was the first to light one of the Chanukah candles at Temple Emanu-El. But as they have said, for him it is not just about the photo op. “He’s got a very deep capacity for dialogue with other religions,” Rabbi Alejandro Avruj told The Associated Press recalling the moment. “He spoke of light as renovation, of the re-inauguration of the temple of Jerusalem 2,200 years ago, and the need to carry light to the world.”

At a meeting of Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu leaders, the new pope told the Jewish leaders, that Catholics and Jews are “bound by a very special spiritual bond,” and that he planned to continue the interfaith dialogue begun with the Nostra Aetate decree of the Second Vatican Council. He continued by saying that the “Catholic Church was “aware of the importance of the promotion of friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions. This I wish to repeat: the promotion of friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions.” Then, believe it or not, there was some joking. He turned to the Jewish leader sitting next to him, Rabbi Richardo DiSegni, the chief rabbi of Rome, and the pope said to him he had received a lot of information about DiSegni and that he knew he was very active on Facebook. It is a whole new world. His work will be difficult. There is much to clean up in the Catholic Church—the priest abuse scandal, its seeming disconnect between the people and the papacy on some modern social issues like abortion and birth control,

Tomorrow most of the Christian world will pause to mark Palm Sunday, the day they believe Jesus entered Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. We are busy preparing for Passover which begins Monday night. At this season in particular, where historically Jews were tortured, killed, by elements of the Catholic Church, where Jews had to have sederim in hiding, it would appear that the new pope is building on newer historical trend, that of working towards peace and understanding. Christians of many streams like to experience a seder. We have a group from a Lutherans coming to our community seder from Christ the Lord church. We have another group of leaders coming from FaithBridge. This will enrich our own understanding of our tradition. I am glad the new pope has come out so strongly for interfaith dialogue and understanding and that he has a proven track record in this regard. Yes, it matters what the pope does and says. Later, in our service, when we pray for the leaders of the world, let’s keep him in our kavanah. He will need help from all four corners of the world.