Tu B'Shevat Parable

Talmudic Reflections for Tu B'Shevat

A man was journeying in a desert. He was hungry, weary, and thirsty. He found a tree whose fruits were sweet, its shade pleasant, with a stream of water flowing beneath it. He ate of its fruits, drank from the water, and rested under its shade. When he was ready to continue his journey, he said, "Tree, O Tree with what shall I bless you? Shall I say to you, 'May your fruits be sweet'? They are already sweet. That your shade be pleasant? It is already pleasant. That a stream of water may flow beneath you? Lo, a stream of cool water flows already beneath you. Therefore, I say, May it be God's will that all the shoots taken from you will be like you."                         Bavli Ta'anit 8a-b

Much like the man in the parable, we are on a journey through the desert. The Israelites found sustenance from God and faithfully collected manna from Heaven six days a week. It is not always easy to recognize the oasis in the desert; sometimes it appears to be a mirage. On this holiday of Tu B'Shevat, I pray that with God's help we can open our eyes to recognize the blessings in our lives and that like the well watered, shady fruit tree in the parable, that our saplings continue to enjoy and share those blessings.

May you and yours have a restful, and fruitful, and enjoyable New Year of the Trees.

Penn turns tables on BDS

  Last weekend while many of us were preparing to celebrate Tu B'Shevat and watch the Super Bowl, there was a BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel) conference on the U-Penn campus. Many of us were happy to hear Professor Alan Dershowitz speak last Thursday night about Israel's strong track record on human rights. In fact Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and she supports a robust press. In fact nowhere will you find more freedom of expression than in Israel.

     I want to thank my friends for helping to facilitate the live stream presentation of Professor Dershowitz interview on the large screen in our sanctuary. We would have attended the interview in person, had it not been sold out. In fact while 200 people, including 30 students, attended the BDS conference thousands of people heard Professor Dershowitz and 300 hundred student supporters packed the Invest in Israel Party the next day (at Smokes) where $5,000 was raised for the One Family Charity. In addition, 48 students hosted 800 guests for a Shabbat Dinner last Friday night featuring a D'Var Torah focused on Israel.

     Because the college campus environment is a place for the free exchange of ideas, that is where some of the most passionate debates about Israel take place. Even though the BDS movement's leaders were able to exercise their freedom of speech and slander Israel, the Jewish community lead by Penn Hillel and the Philadelphia Federation were able to tell the truth about Israel without resorting to confrontational debates. This might not be the case on another campus. Every university has its own unique culture and a constantly changing student body.

     In our religious school and Israel Forum classes we help our students to understand why Israel is unique and has a right to exist. We seek to become knowledgeable about Israeli current events and conversant with her culture, language, and history. That doesn't mean that we necessarily have to agree with every decision that the democratically elected government makes and that doesn't mean that we deny the Palestinians their culture or history. In fact we seek to peacefully coexist.

     One of the best ways that we can support Israel is by making friends, creating bridges of understanding, and finding common cause with our non-Jewish neighbors and with diverse peoples of other backgrounds. Please set aside the afternoon of March 25^th for our second annual Salute to Israel program at the congregation.  

Princeton Exhibit

This anti-Semitic drawing of helicopters and bombs painted with a blue Magen David falling on the mosque in Gaza went on display at Princeton in the student union building yesterday. Guess if there are pictures drawn by Israeli children sheltering in bunkers in Sderot included in the exhibit? Israel needs our support. Please make plans to attend our salute to Israel rally on March 25th from 2-4pm and help us contribute to another ambulance for Magen David Adom.

Be Happy

You may have heard Bobby McFerrin or the even more "laid back" Bob Marley singing, "Don't Worry, Be Happy."  But the "original" Hebrew song has been sung at Purim celebrations for years in Synagogues around the world.  "Mishenichnas Adar Marbim Besimcha," goes the snappy jingle, meaning, from the start of Adar our joy increases.  But did you ever wonder why we are commanded to Be Happy during the Hebrew month of Adar?  Rashi explains that just as our joy is reduced in the month of Av because of the destruction of the Temple and exile, our joy is increased in Adar because of our salvation by God, first on Purim and then on Pesach. (Ta'anit 29A). 

This Wednesday night from 4:30-7 PM we'll be reading the Megillah and enjoying the Purim shpiel from"Diary a Wimpy King" performed by our students.  Not to mention the goldfish, games, hotdogs, and hamentashen.  In chapter 9, the reason for our joy become clear.  We are told that we should transform our grief at almost being annihilated by Haman into rejoicing.  We are to make the 14th of Adar a holiday celebrated "in every generation, by every family, in every province and city.  It is a day of feasting and merrymaking; a time to send gifts to one another and presents to the poor.  These days of Purim shall never cease among the Jews, and shall never perish from amongst their descendants." 

Well now that we understand why we're to be happy during the month containing Purim, I'm left wondering what about the next month of Nisan?  We'll be slaving away cleaning and preparing for Pesach.  Songs of liberation aside, how shall we stay happy then, and the rest of the year?  Mary J. Blige gave us an answer when she crooned, "All I really want is to be happy."  She says that joy comes from loving someone, and receiving love in return.  To that Grammy worthy advice I'll add these two pearls of wisdom: Don't take life or yourself too seriously (so come in costume)  and always be on the lookout for things that make you laugh and smile (I guarantee you'll find this year's performance hilarious).

Hag Purim Samayach,
Rabbi Molash Niktolp

Mindfullness

In this week's parsha, Bo, God commands Moses to hold out his rod over the land of Egypt. God drove an east wind carrying a plague of locusts to all the crops in Egypt, which devoured everything green and darkened the land (Exodus 10:15). Pharoh, who was accustomed to ruling a country that served as the bread basket of the entire Middle East, now had to wonder where his next meal was coming from. Pharoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron saying, "I stand guilty before the Lord your God, and before you. Forgive my offense, just this once, and plead with the Lord your God that he remove this death from me." Because pharoh lived on the banks of the Nile surrounded by his agricultural lands, when he saw the locusts he knew immediately that he was doomed. However today, we are so far removed from the farm that most of us don't realize that this warm winter we're having means that certain insect populations will be flourishing this coming spring because we haven't had enough frosty nights to reduce their numbers. If you've ever been hungry, you know that we can't take food for granted.
On Wednesday when our students were leaving religious school, we saw the new moon of the Hebrew month Shevat rising over our fields, which reminded us that the new year for the trees (Tu B'Shevat) will be here in a couple of weeks. This gives us an opportunity to focus on the source of our food. We are all becoming more mindful of which foods that we eat are kosher, nutritious, organic, and harvested locally. At our Tu B'Shevat program we'll be saying our prayers to God and thanking him for the produce and fruits of the earth. Every time we put something in our mouth we have an opportunity to say a blessing. In addition to keeping kosher, many of our students have food allergies so we pay close attention to food preparation in our synagogue and school (sorry, Mr. Peanut). Recently I became a Rabbinic Fellow for Hazon, a Jewish environmental society (http://www.hazon.org/). If you go their web page you will find lots of suggestions for ways in which we can become closer to God through what we eat.

L'Chaim

I always thought of l'chaim as the classic Jewish toast and assumed that it meant to life, but it turns out it means that and more.  I toasted my family l'chaim last Saturday night over the Havdallah cup, before we went out for New Year's and then again over champagne later on in the evening as 2012 approached.  And tonight we will share a l'chaim as we always do at our 8:00 minyan when we raise our glasses and welcome the Sabbath.

It turns out the Ashkenazi Jews got the custom to say savrei maranan to which the response is l'chaim from the Sephardic Jews of the Middle East.  They in turn got it from the Jews of Spain in the Middle Ages.  In his 14th century Spanish prayer book Rabbi David ben Josef Abudarham sought to explain the province of the custom. He said that it was because Jews waiting to be executed would be given a glass of wine before their capital punishment  and we do not want to become condemned prisoners ourselves, and so we say, "to life."  Alternatively, Rabbi Abudarham hypothesized that in the Garden of Eden the forbidden fruit that Adam ate was a grape, and not an apple. After Adam ate the fruit of the vine, he was punished with mortality.  So we say "to life" before we drink as a counter measure to the Angel of Death.
While I appreciate these rather fanciful explanations, Rabbi Tigay writes in The Forward that the original source of the custom lay in ancient Babylonia, where the Jews spoke Aramaic and they said l'chayei instead of l'chaim. One Jew would raise a glass and in preparation to saying the blessing borai perie h'gofen, he would turn to his friends and say savrei maranan, "Gentleman, what do think? Is everyone ready for the blessing?" And they would answer with the archaic Talmudic expression, l'chayei. "Yes, alright fine." 

So as we prepare for this first Shabbat of 2012, let's lift our Kiddush cups and say savrei maranan... l'chaim. TO LIFE!

Jewish Continuity

 Jewish Continuity

What good was it if God blessed Abraham and Sarah "with all things" if they had no one to pass their spiritual inheritance down to? You could say they faced the first ever crisis of Jewish continuity. In last week's parsha we saw they had lost hope in ever having an heir, notwithstanding God's promise, "to make of them a great nation." Then, after he is nearly sacrificed on the altar, their prodigal son Isaac shows little interest in marrying or starting a family of his own. Perhaps part of the problem was that his parents forbade him from taking a wife from amongst the local Canaanite maidens, like his half-brother Ishmael did, and there were no Yiddeshe maidlach in the area. In sending his servant Eliezer abroad to find a wife for his scholarly homebody of a son Isaac, Abraham in effect created the world's first concierge dating service!
The Jewish community is as concerned today about the Jewish future as Abraham and worries about the same challenge:  how do you make a compelling argument for the value of particularism and tribalism in today's increasingly universal and pluralistic world?  Are these values, in fact, mutually exclusive?
Instead of answering this question directly I'll invite you to join me for the 25th Anniversary of Lou Balcher's YJLC, Young Jewish Leadership Concepts, at 5:30PM Sunday afternoon, December 11th, downtown at Congregation Mikve Israel. We can discuss the relative importance of our enduring Jewish values directly with GenY.

Yesterday our synagogue hosted all the congregational Rabbis and Jewish educators from the counties on both sides of the Delaware for an exclusive lecture and discussion (and bagel brunch) with Dr. David Bryfman, a Jewish internet maven. He did not just come to promote J-Date. Rather we talked about bringing virtual resources into the classroom, and sharing more values-laden Torah online. We'll be exploring the quickly changing ways we can engage our children and grandchildren in Talmud Torah and Jewish living at services this Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Shalom Plotkin

By the way...Care to guess the two most common queries on JewishLearning.Com? First, how do I mourn for and bury my loved one in a traditionally respectful way? That's actually another dilemma Abraham faces in Chayyei Sarah, and he buys a cave in Hebron called Marat HaMachpelah. What's the second most asked online Jewish question? The best recipe for hummus!