by Jacques Abourbih

And ye shall take you on the first day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook, and ye shall rejoice before the L-RD your G-d seven days.

Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are home-born in Israel shall dwell in booths

Sukkoth is one of the most colorful holidays in our calendar. Last Sunday our Hebrew schoolchildren did a great job decorating our Succah. There was a great deal of excitement decorating it. The children decorated the wooden walls meant to be makeshift ones, with fruits and vegetables, and colorful naive portraits of our special Sukkah guests.

Chris and Roger brought boughs of cedar and tree branches from their garden — the earthy greens and yellows mixing with the reeds of the mats of our sechach, to make a vegetation ceiling through which we must see the sky.

There is always a sense of excitement for me at Sukkoth. I look forward to it more than any other holiday– despite the interrupting rains and cold winds we suffer in Sudbury during the Israeli harvest season.

The last time I was in Israel was in 2004, a few weeks before my accident. It was at Sukkoth and Simchat Torah. I cannot even begin to describe for you the crowds chanting and dancing at the Kotel and in Me’a Shearim on Erev Simchat Torah.

Sukkot

There were diverse Chasids wearing all colors of embroidered silk bekiche bound by an equally ornate gartel, the ubiquitous black hat exchanged for the regal shtreimel despite the sweltering heat. Young IDF soldiers, gentile tourists recognizable by the black paper cone kippah perched awkwardly on their heads, secular Jews electrified by a spark of remaining Jewish identity awakened by the contagious enthusiasm of the wild crowds—all mingled together. They brought alive the celebrations of the Holy Temple—past glories and future hopes. One night we set our differences aside and we were one happy people.

How do we translate for the gentile world Hag ha-Sukkoth? Is it Feast of the Huts or is it feast of the Tabernacles? A moot point that drew R. Akiva and R. Ishamel into arguments.  The Talmud recorded these for us. (B.T. Sukkah 11b)

R. Akiba maintains that the Succah represents the actual temporary huts or booths our ancestors had to set up in the desert.

R. Yishmael argues that the sukkah expresses the clouds of Divine glory, the rays of Divine Splendor, which encompassed the Israelites during their wanderings.

R. Akiba would call it the Festival of Huts (or Booths) and R. Yishmael the Festival of Tabernacles (Divine Sanctuary).

And this dispute is not merely a theoretical one! So, what are we experiencing in our sukkah? Is it the makeshift huts of our wanderings through the various deserts of our exiles – despite which we nevertheless managed to survive – or is it the majestic and impregnable Divine fortress of protection and spirituality, which encircled us throughout the desert experience? Is the sukkah a hut or a tabernacle?

Perhaps the deepest meaning of the sukkah is that true joy and comfort stems not from a fancy palatial residence replete with expensive oak furnishings and chandeliers, but rather from love and togetherness, as I experienced it that night at the Kotel in Jerusalem.

As the Talmud teaches, “When our love was strong, we could lie on the edge of a metal implement and there was sufficient room; now that our love is no longer strong, a bed of sixty cubits is not large enough.” (B.T. Sanhedrin 7a).

Some practical information for the upcoming holiday of Rosh HaShannah – September 18th in the evening to the 20th at night, 2009

Candle Lighting

• We light at least two candles and recite the following blessing:

“Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-hei-nu me-lech ha-olam, asher ki-deshanu be-mitzvo-tav ve-tzvi- vanu, le-hadlik ner shel Shabbat v’shel Yom Tov”

and immediately follow with the blessing of sheʼhechianu:

“Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-hei-nu me-lech ha-olam she-heche-ya-nu ve-ki-yi-ma-nu ve-higi-a- nu liz-man ha-zeh”

• We light candles on the second night of Rosh HaShannah and make sure not to do so until stars are visible in the night sky [or the time equivalent]. The same two blessings are recited as on the first evening of Rosh HaShannah.

• It is customary to light a “ner neshama” – a candle that is to remain burning throughout the holiday. This custom is not only for those who wish to do so in memory of a deceased relative.

Rosh HaShannah is two days and you may need to use the existing light of one candle to light another so that it will last to the end of the second day. One of the practical uses of this candle is to provide a flame to light the Rosh HaShannah candles on the second evening.

Greetings

• On Rosh HaShanah, it is customary to greet one another with blessings and good wishes of “Leshana tova tekatevu v’etachetemu” or in english “May you be inscribed for a good year!”

Shofar Service

• This year the first day of Rosh HaShannah falls on the sabbath. We do not blow the shofar on the sabbath but we will be able to hear the shofar blowing on the second day of Rosh HaShannah. The custom is to blow at least 100 sounds from the shofar during Rosh HaShannah but the main mitzvah is to hear at least thirty of those sounds on Rosh HaShannah. Therefore, we ask everyone to be as quiet as possible and try to keep the children as quiet as possible during the shofar blowing service.

Tashlich

• On the second day of Rosh Hashanah after the afternoon prayer, we go to a lake, river or sea (preferably a body of water that has fish), and recite the Tashlich prayers, wherein we symbolically cast our sins into the water and leave our old shortcomings behind us, thus starting the new year with a clean slate.

If one is unable to perform this ceremony on Rosh HaShanah, one may do so until the last day of Sukkot (this year, October 9, 2009).

Please feel free to contact Scott Goldstein if you have any questions or if you are interested in any additional information. Scott.Goldstein@gmail.com (705) 585-3000

May the new year bring peace, prosperity and a world filled with laughter and love.

The last embers of Sovereignty

The fast of Gedaliah

by Jacques Abourbih

In his most famous philosophical book, “I and Thou”, published in 1923, Martin Buber focuses on what makes an authentic relationship. Its key concept is a dialogue that involves the concrete circumstances of two participants and assumes their interchange has the presence of G-d as its foundational relation. This essay is about Buber’s “I and Thou” model of dialogue. However, this time it is a dialogue with oneself; and it is about what it means to be Jewish before G-d today.

Gedaliah ben Achikam is a not a household name. Yet Gedaliah has an enormous symbolic meaning in Jewish history. So much so, that our Rabbis declare the day after Rosh Hashanah a day of fast commemorating the death of Gedaliah.

So, who is that Gedaliah exactly? More importantly, what relevance does his story have for us in the 21st century?

He is a governor of Judea who is murder something like 2500 years ago. After the destruction of the First Temple, the majority of the Jewish people are exiled to Babylon. The conqueror, Nebuchadnezzar, eventually eases some of his harsh restrictions and allows some Jews to remain in the Land of Israel. He even appoints a respected member of the Jewish community, a Jew named Gedaliah to administrate the territory. Gradually, more Jews who have escaped from the horrors of the war into neighboring countries begin to return to their homes in Israel.

Gedaliah is realistic about the limitations of Jewish sovereignty. He understands that for their own self-preservation, the Jews in Israel need to work with the authorities of the nation who have conquered the land.

However, this modus vivandi is intolerable to some Jews. A man named Yishmael ben Netaniah, spurred on by jealousy and foreign influence, ignores the King of Babylon. On the third of Tishrei, Yishmael treacherously kills Gedalia as well as many other Jews and Babylonians.

By all measures, the murder of one more or one less governor or king in history is insignificant. Yet, what makes this banal event so momentous that we commemorate it with a fast?

In the aftermath of Gedalia’s murder, the Jews feared reprisal from the King of Babylon. Many think of fleeing to Egypt – a move akin to jumping from the frying pan into to the fire. They turn to the prophet Yermiahu (Jeremiah) who had secluded himself in deep mourning following the tragedies that befell our people.

For an entire week, Jeremiah pleads with God for an answer. Finally, on Yom Kippur, G-d answers. Jeremiah reveals G-d’s will for the Jews to stay in Israel. G-d’s plans to make the Babylonians act mercifully toward the Jews, and before long, all the exiled Jews would be permitted to return to their own soil. However, Jeremiah continues on, if the Jews decide to flee to Egypt, the sword from which they are running would eventually find them there.

Unfortunately, the prophet’s words do not penetrate, and the people refuse to believe. All the Jews remaining in Israel packed their bags and went down to Egypt. They even kidnap Jeremiah and take him with them! Now the destruction of the Jewish nation is complete; the Land of Israel was completely barren and desolate.

You can guess what happens next. A few years later, Babylon conquers Egypt and tens of thousands of Jewish exiles are completely wiped out. The lone survivor of this massacre is Jeremiah. His prophecy has become painfully true. In commemoration of this tragedy, our Sages declare that the anniversary of this dark page of our history would be a day of fasting. This day is the third of Tishrei, the day immediately after Rosh Hashanah.

Maintaining a Jewish identity today means striving for authenticity within a Jewish sensibility without giving up living in this world. To be authentic the individual grasps his own self and concrete circumstances with the larger sense of being a God-created-Jew.The fast of Gedaliah is above all about a dialogue with oneself. At the heart of this introspective dialogue is a critical analysis of the relationship between our two worlds.

I would argue in favor of an integrated approach to these two worlds, the Jewish one and the secular one. They are not mutually exclusive. The goal should include tangible values, as well as moral, ethical, spiritual and other non-tangible and not necessarily quantifiable ones that we as Jews can derive from both. There are countless examples of Jews today who have successfully integrated both worlds, permitting living in the secular world and preservation of Jewish identity today with forsaking it.

Submitted by Emily Caruso-Parnell

Source: Kolel.org – http://www.kolel.org/pages/holidays/5765_RHS2.html

Whom do I Fear

by Rabbinic Intern Irit Printz

(Sermon – Rosh Hashanah 5765)

The story of the Akedah:

Be kind to your soul

by Jacques Abourbih

With Rosh Hashanah just around the corner, I thought I would revisit the story of the Akedah with reference to the significance of Torah Mitzvot and their relevance in contemporary life.

On the second day of Rosh Hashana, the Torah reading is the story of the akedah, or the binding of Isaac. One of the most famous and challenging stories in the whole TaNaCh, it goes something like this, at least if you have my subject in mind: God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. So what did Abraham do? He did not reply, “But I’m not the kind of father who is able to sacrifice his son. Maybe you should give that mitzvah to one of the Molech worshipers down the street. Every bone in my body resists your commandment that I sacrifice Isaac. I’m not ‘oriented’ toward child sacrifice. In fact, I think it’s a mitzvah not to kill one’s own child. No?”

Nor did Abraham protest: “I have no other heir. Preparing Isaac to be a forefather is my entire life’s work. You’re asking me to cancel everything I thought my life was about.” He didn’t say that either. He obeyed G-d’s ultimate Mitzvah, no matter how terrible performing the Mitzvah of the Akedah would be for him.

Instead, Abraham replies, “Hineini,” which means, “Here I am,” and he brings Isaac up the mountain, prepares to sacrifice him, and in the end G-d makes it all okay. I marvel at that story every morning as I recite this passage during Shachrit prayers, just as if I read it for the first time.

Now, over the centuries there has been a tremendous amount of commentary, creativity, energy and debate over just what the Akedah means.

Let us take as a starting point this statement by Rabbi Strassfeld: “The clearest place where the tradition’s voice is overruled is when we have concluded that the tradition is out of step with contemporary moral values.” The idea that we should avoid following one of God’s Mitzvoth because society is not oriented that way is inconsistent with my understanding of Torah beliefs.

One example is the laws of divorce. A Jewish woman is not considered divorced unless her husband hands her a Get (bill of divorce).  Without the Get she becomes an Aguna. The term translates literally to mean ‘anchored or chained’. It is a halachic term for a Jewish woman who is “chained” to her marriage because her husband’s whereabouts are unknown or a husband maliciously refuses to grant her a get. Admittedly, this is an untenable situation for a Jewish woman who wants to remain Torah-true. Yet the Torah has no exception for them. However, our Rabbis did not remain insensitive to her plight. They went to extraordinary lengths to get around the stringencies of this Torah law, including permitting beating up a recalcitrant husband. Today in Ontario, by law, a husband who refuses to give his wife a Get cannot obtain his half of the couple’s assets. There are myriads of other examples relating to help an agunah.

The Judaism I believe in – and Abraham believed also when he obeyed G-d – is that life is primarily about G-d and what G-d wants, not what I want. As I see it people who choose to overrule Torah commandments simply because these commandments do not conveniently fit contemporary norms have lost their connectivity with G-d. Are they still truly part of the twosome described so poignantly in verse 6:3 of Song of Songs: ani l’dodi v’dodi li – “I belong to my beloved and my beloved in mine” -?

Shanah Tova.

The Month of Elul and Teshuva

by Jacques Abourbih

Based on Tomer Devorah (“Palm tree of Deborah”)

By Rabbi Moshe Cordovero on the Attributes of G-d

Today is the second day of Rosh Chodesh Elul.  Throughout this month, it is customary to do Tashlich. This can be done at any time—not necessarily on the afternoon of Rosh Hashananh as we customarily do it in our community since Isaac Abitbol and I revived this ritual some 25 years ago.

Why Taschlich on the banks of a body of water that must contain Fish? The Midrash says that we, like fish, are helplessly caught in the net of life. Tashlich is the symbolic disentanglement from that net holding us prisoner of ourselves.There are three Hebrew synonyms: “Selichah,” “Mechilah,” and “Kapparah,” all related to the idea of Teshuvah. Each represents a higher level of Teshuvah.

The word Teshuvah usually translated as “Repentance” is a word that really does not have meaning in Judaism. It is more a Western world concept borrowed from Christian tradition. The word Teshuvah literally means “Returning”—just like the curve of the Shofar whose curve reminds of the “bent back” on the road to Teshuvah, according to our Rabbis.

Even the sounds of the Shofar echo the conscious-stricken human voice and symbolize the hard work it takes to make Teshuvah: Tekiah a deep moan, Teruah, a wavering sob and Shevarim, a broken groan. These different sounds, according to folklore, special angels tenderly carry on behalf of the congregation to the very presence of the Divine throne on the days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

“Selichah,” translated as “forgiveness” is the first step that must be taken if someone has committed a transgression, whether it be against G-d or against Man. To ask for forgiveness is to say to the injured party, “I am sorry for what I did; I sincerely regret having done it, and I will never do it again.” The injured party‘s response is to believe that the petitioner is sincere and “open the door” for him or her to “come in.”

The Talmud requires that an individual, during the month of Elul and before Kol Nodrei must ask Selichah of others whom he/she wronged three times.  A person who refuses to do this is considered a cruel person. But a person who refuses the request of the petitioner is judged by the Talmud even more harshly.

The next level is “Mechilah,” usually translated as “wiping away”, is the response to the request: “Can we put our relationship back on the level which it was on before I sinned against you?” A positive response to this is difficult, but still within the reach of the human being.

“Kapparah” is usually translated as “atonement,” as in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This is the response to the person who says, “My conscience will not let me live with myself, because of what I did to you and to our relationship.” It is the most difficult thing to admit. To respond positively to this is beyond human capacity. It is only G-d Who can reach inside a person and say “Be comforted! We can do this together”.

“Kapparah” is the climax of this three-part process, and the highest level of Teshuvah.

Yet, It is within reach only because of the Divine spark in each of us—our Neshama.  Neshama is that little atom of G-d within each of us that makes us “in Our image, in Our likeness”.

I learned this poignant lesson from my own father and teacher Saadia bar Yaacov Z”L.

My aunt Victoria and he had not spoken for months following one of those usual prosaic frictions that arise in the best families. On Erev Yom Kippur, my father reached for the phone and called my aunt Victoria. As they spoke, I could hear her sobbing at the other end.

Is there anyone you need to call on this month of Elul?