Purification

From the Chief Rabbi himself Jonathan Sacks, enjoy:

Rabbi Akiva said: Happy are you, Israel. Who is it before whom you are purified and who purifies you? Your Father in heaven. As it is said: And I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean. And it further says: You hope of Israel, the Lord. Just as a fountain purifies the impure, so does the Holy One, blessed be He, purify Israel.

According to Rabbi Akiva specifically, and rabbinic thought generally, in the absence of a Temple, a High Priest and sacrifices, all we need to do is repent, to do teshuvah, to acknowledge our sins, to commit ourselves not to repeat them in the future, and to ask G-d to forgive us. Nothing else is required: not a Temple, not a priest, and not a sacrifice. G-d Himself purifies us. There is no need for an intermediary. What Christianity transcendentalized, Judaism democratized. As the Yiddish dramatist S. Ansky put it: Where there is true turning to G-d, every person becomes a priest, every prayer a sacrifice, every day a Day of Atonement and every place a Holy of Holies.

This really was the parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity. At stake were two quite different ways of understanding the human person, the nature of sin, the concept of guilt and its atonement, and the mediated or unmediated relationship between us and G-d. Judaism could not accept the concept of “original sin” since Jeremiah and Ezekiel had taught, six centuries before the birth of Christianity, that sin is not transferred across the generations. Nor did it need a metaphysical substitute for sacrifice, believing as it did in the words of the Psalmist (Ps. 51: 17): “The sacrifices of G-d are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O G-d, you will not despise”. We are all sons or daughters of G-d, who is close to all who call Him in truth. That is how one of the greatest tragedies to hit the Jewish people led to an unprecedented closeness between G-d and us, unmediated by a High Priest, unaccompanied by any sacrifice, achieved by nothing more or less than turning to G-d with all our heart, asking for forgiveness and trusting in His love.

Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow

This is the 4th night I’ve spent in the hospital in a row, its Shabbat but I’m typing on my computer, sometimes the rules go out the window. There’s nothing technically wrong with me, I’m fine, or so I keep telling the woman I love. Nothing wrong with me that can’t be cured if only she would feel better. Its 7:49am we’ve been up all night, we thought we were getting out of here yesterday afternoon, we thought we were getting out of here this morning. But no, last night when we fell asleep I thought that she was getting better. I thought that I would wake up in the morning next to her and find that the pain was reseeding, that after four days of tests and no answers the pain would go away the same way it came, suddenly and without warning. But no, it came back worse than before, woke up my darling in the middle of the night, brought her to tears, had us both in tears actually. I feel helpless right now, the woman that I love, the woman who I’ve been talking with about baby names all week is sick and we still don’t know why. The doctors have been great, running tests, but the tests have been coming up empty. I had the worst dreams last night that I’ve ever had in my life, I don’t even want to repeat them but they involved doctors and emergency surgeries and horrible, horrible ideas. They consume me, I try to control them but still I’ve been crying at the drop of a hat, tears spring to my eyes without notice, I just can’t help it. Life is funny sometimes; it throws you curveballs that come out of nowhere. Growing up is hard, it makes you think and feel things that you never thought possible, for instance I never realized I was such an emotional person, never realized that I could be so in love with someone that it hurts me when she’s hurting. I posted this on facebook yesterday before Shabbat: I'd just like to take this moment to wish everyone Shabbat Shalom, there are times in life that help us understand what really matters in life and what does not. I feel blessed this week to have been given such clarity...now I'd just like to take my girl home and get out of this hospital, please g-d soon.

… As I was writing this the nurse came in and gave us some news, when the pain hit hard last night they scheduled a ultrasound, again it came back negative. But another test came back and it might be something, something not so serious. If it is this then it can be treated, I’m going to go pray now, its Shabbat this is usually the day that I unplug, that I let go of everything that’s has happened during the week. Now finally I might be able to plug back in, plug back into reality, to what’s real in this world.

If you’re reading this please take a moment to think about those who you love and say a quick prayer for the woman I love and for a refuah shlema (quick recovery) for B'reena Rachel bat Danit.

Shabbat Shalom

The shortest

The shortest prayer recorded in the Torah is the prayer of Moses when he discoveres that his sister Miriam has been afflicted with leprosy. He cries out to God from the depth of his being: "Please, Lord, heal her now."His prayer is as searing as it is simple, and it captures his anguish and his complete faith in God that his prayer can and will be answered.

I ask you now, Please g-d, heal her now.

Somethings never change

In honor of Yom Haatzmaut, Israel Independence Day

ISRAEL'S PECULIAR POSITION...by Eric Hoffer – Los Angeles Times May 26, 1968.

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it.
Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchman.
Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.
Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single one.
Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis.
Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms.
But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace.
Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
Other nations, when they are defeated, survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.
Had Nasser triumphed last June [1967], he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews.
No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on.
There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Blacks are executed in Rhodesia.
But, when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one demonstrated against him.
The Swedes, who were ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we did in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews.
They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troops in Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world.
If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources.
Yet at this moment, Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally.
We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us.
And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer [1967] had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war, to realize how vital the survival of Israelis to America and the West in general.
I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us.
Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us all.

the order

…if we were able to understand sufficiently well the order of the universe, we should find that it surpasses all the desires of the wisest of us, and that it is impossible to render it better than it is, not only for all in general, but also for each one of us in particular… Gottfried Liebniz, The Monadology

tiny, pretty and blue

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. - Neil Armstrong

fortune cookie wisdom

Writing is thinking on paper.

The guide

I consider the following opinion as most correct according to the teaching of the Bible and the results of philosophy, namely that the universe does not exist for man's sake, but that each being insists for its own sake, and not because of some other thing. Thus we believe in Creation, and yet need not inquire what purpose is served by each species of existing things, because we assume that G-d created all parts of the universe by His will; some for their own sake, and some for the sake of other beings (III:13) . . . Consider how vast are the dimensions and how great the number of these corporeal beings. If the whole of the earth would not constitute even the smallest part of the sphere of the fixed stars, what is the relation of the human species to all these created things, and how can any of us imagine that they exist for his sake and that they are instruments for his benefit? (III:14)

Moses Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed

fortune cookie wisdom

A different world, cannot be built by indifferent people. - from a fortune cookie