Korach's application for Clemency as transmitted by Robert Jaffe
APPLICATION FOR CLEMENCY
KORACH BEN ITZAR BEN KOHATH
BEFORE THE COURT OF HISTORY – YEAR 2024, original plea was 2021
I am Korach….Korach Ben Itzar, in the line of Kohath, in the line of Levi.
I am a Levite, one of the many Levites in the Bible who are known for their work in lieu of military service and who are unlanded by designation in the Bible.
We distinguish ourselves by loyalty to the Temple. And before the times of the Temple, to the Mishkan….the traveling Sanctuary of Divinity.
I am assigned, by virtue of my clan, to carry the Holy Objects of the Mishkan; and, as is my Blessing, to carry the Menorah of Gold. I am a Porter, in the line of the class of porters, whose eternal order of duties will never change.
I am born into my clan, my duty is, as will be the duty of my offspring, to carry the Menorah in its holy wrapping as part of the Holy Objects of the inner Sanctuary of the Mishkan, the dwelling place of Divinity. In the eternal Order, I carry, but never see, the holy Menorah, whose Light is also eternal. One could say I carry the Illumination of Creation on my back and shoulders, close to my heart.
I do not complain of this task; it is my Blessing.
I did speak out on one occasion where I spoke for the voiceless….those soldiers, chieftains of tribes and their families who were ordered by Moses , in the words of Divinity, to stand down from further duty….to live out their lives in the desert and die there…in view of the Promised Land across the Jordan River. For the record, Moses acted out of a deep caring for all of the community of the Israelites; and also out of his own deep connection with Divinity with whom he shared a lifetime of closeness.
So I did not speak out against Moses as a leader; nor out of jealousy of my first cousin Moses, son of Amram, my uncle.
No, I spoke to a notion of Justice that cried out to be heard. I was there and vividly remember the cries of anguish of the soldiers, begging to return to Egypt or at least die out in the desert; there were words of Fear. Fear, that most human trait, felt in the middle of the night, Fear of death, annihilation, fear that stalks the soul in the dark of night. The soldiers had forgotten momentarily how to deal with their fear….had forgotten their own bravery in leaving Egypt and directly facing their fear in facing the oncoming Egyptian charioteers.
I SPEAK directly to history…these were the same persons who a year earlier had faced fear and helped drive their community to freedom, liberation from slavery and to receive the gift of Torah. The fear that was overcome became the celebration of Passover and liberation from slavery.
Who was Moses to forget this? What right did he have, in the name of the Divinity, to condemn an entire precious community to live out their lives in the wasteland of their mistake? This generation that had known Sinai and more importantly the Gift of the Mishkan.
Savage night….savage decree.
So I spoke out and rallied against Moses and his Priests…and suffered the consequences. Surely what also motivated me was the insurgency of the Priesthood and their taking over the direction of the community…and that is the actual and true story. And look at how the Priesthood ended up. The priests in the counting house with Moses divvying up booty; that’s the actual story. Moses and his priests losing sight of the Light.
Why wouldn’t I speak up…only a few dared to join me. Fear ran through the camp. An unsuccessful military mission made the situation worse…and then silence spread over the camp with the realization of the decree of a slow death by attrition. So I spoke, I did speak. I have served out some three thousand years in historical infamy and every year when its time to read my story…it’s always about the Rabbis and the machlochet, the argument about my ego and need for aggrandizement rather than an argument for truth. It gets told over and over.
It’s never about the Freedom Fighters losing their nerve momentarily or of never being given a second chance….a chance at redemption.
Redemption, that most important notion of Forgiveness that runs through the Torah. Oh, the practitioners of the Golden Calf were given a second chance, Judah is given a second chance. Levi, our own Tribal seed, given a second chance for redemption through service.
The wild sons of Jacob, even his bed warmer, were Blessed; but not us. Lost were the persons who received the Light of Sinai and the Mishkan….an entire community who carried the original Light…condemned….they were the Holy Ones. Please consider what Israel would be like now had those persons been redeemed and enabled to bring their Light into the Promised Land. The Holiness Code, their own training ground in the Mishkan, was lost, rotting in the Desert.
And I spoke for them.
I now apply for Clemency as I approach my three thousandth year in infamy.
I ask this Court of History to understand why I did what I did. I ask this Court to nullify its Judgment of me as a traitor, a seditious rabble rouser whose narrative in our Bible is met with silent guttural disdain; my name a catch phrase for ill will and obloquy.
I am Korach, son of Itzar, son of Kohath. A Porter who brings his Message to this Court.
Respectfully submitted,
Robert Jaffe
On behalf of Korach
Copyright…..2021
Rabbi Seidel commentary
Some classical Reflections on Parshat Korach - from Rabbi Jonathan Seidel
If everyone is Holy - why do we have hierarchies? If Israel is a “nation of priests then why are some given the actual status of priest and not others? Are we not interested in the key question of the Korach gang? It certainly is relevant to the radical egalitarianism of the Aquarian Minyan where “everyone is a Rebbe” !!
And from Rabbi Shai Held, The Heart of Torah (JPS 2017) Commenting on Exodus and Numbers on this very issue of the special status of Priests and the prohibition and then mandate to wear Shatnez (a mixture of wool and linen) Rabbi Held, following Rabbi Jacob Milgrom comments:
“ A close reading of Exodus suggests a deep connection between Tzitzit and the High Priest’s vestments. Moses is instructed to “make for the High Priest a plate of frontlet of pure gold (Exodus 28:36) In Hebrew the plate is called Tzitz, which sounds like Tzitzit "; in fact the Hebrew word “tzitzit” can be translated as “little tzit” . The plate, Moses is told, is to have a woolen cord of blue (petil tekheilet) suspended on it “ (Exodus 38:37) similarly the tzitzit an Israelite wears must have a woolen cord of blue (petil tekhelet) as part of it. The tunic the High Priest wears, we learn, must be made of fine linen (28:39) and he thus prominently combines wool and linen in his priestly garments. Most striking, perhaps, are the words of Moses is instructed to engrave upon the High Priest’s plate (tzitz) “Holy to YHVH” These words call to mind the meaning of the tzizit as explained in parashat Shelach “Thus you shall be reminded to observe all my commandments and be holy to the Lord your God (kedoshim leiloheikhem) Numbers 15:40.
The explanation for all this, Rabbi Milgrom argues, is clear “The resemblance to the High Priest’s turban and other priestly clothing can be no accident . It is a conscious attempt by the Torah to encourage all Israel to aspire to a degree of holiness comparable to that of the Priests “ …..a stunning claim emerges from all this : the tzitzit that Jews don each day express a remarkable challenge and aspiration : We are summoned to be holy . Without being priests, we can partake of the holiness of the priests - even of the High Priest. The tzizit then are a physical sign of the Torah’s most fundamental call to the Jewish people : “you shall be a kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation” (Exodus 19;6) {note: the mandate, not the actual de facto situation} In light of this Korach’s challenge to Moses leadership begins to appear far less outlandish than it might seem at first glance. In confronting Moses and Aaron, Korach and his band announce that “all the community are holy, all of them” (Numbers 16:3) Are they not simply affirming what they learned from the laws of Tzizit ? Their challenge to Moses seems to make good sense: if every Jews is holy, indeed if everyone can don the uniform of a priest , then why are some assigned a higher status than others ? If the requirement to wear tzizit contains an implicit egalitarian thrust (we are all like the High Priest) then how can the hierarchy of priest and nonpriest be justified ? What is wrong with Korach’s challenge and why does it lead to such devestating consequences for him and his followers (16:31-35) Israeli philosopher who points out that Israel is summoned to be holy, not that Israel is already holy. Leibowitz argues that the mitzvah of tzizit, on the one hand, and the posture of Korach, on the other , represents two antithetical approaches to the Holy, separated by a vast and unbridgeable chasm: holiness as a challenge and a calling versus holiness as an established fact with attendant privileges . (The Heart of Torah, JPS 2017 Volume 2)
Hasidic Teachings - from Rabbi David Wolf Blank in his “Meta Parasha” Commentary from the 1990’s :
The Rabbinic condemnation of Korach resonates in new ways with the classical Hasidic masters and I’d like to share some of those teachings with you here. My predecessor Rabbi David Wolf-Blank brings a summary from Rabbi Chayim Halberstam of Tzanz (Divrei Shalom) and Rabbi Mordechai Yosef of Izbitz (the Mei Shiloach) on the Argument of Korach which picks up the theme of the contiguity of the end of Parshat Shelach on the Mitzva of Tzizit with the opening of the next parasha
“Korach brought a blue Tallit to Moshe Rabbenu and said ‘ Does and entirely blue cloak requre a blue thread on it’s Tzizit? If the whole nation is holy, aren’t we all Priests?”
As the world was being created, before darkness and light were separated between the light and the darkness and called light, day and the darkness, night) they were mixed up together, operating as a dark cloudy light. Or (light) and Choshekh (darkness) discussed and argued: “Is everything really circular, equal to everything else or can one thing be more important than other things? Which of us is more important than the other?” and related discussions and arguments. Korach (mistakenly) thought that his argument with Moses was the human form of these cosmic arguments . Korach wished to blot out all differences. He knew that in the time to come all the Tzaddikim would be dancing in a large circle around God (as it were) He thought that the time had come . But he neglected to remember that God had separated between the Light and the Darkness for a reason.
This world needs polarities and diversity in order to grow towards the perfection of the Time to Come, the time of Circle Dancing . If Korakh had won, the Tree of Life (and all Trees) would have only a needle-thin trunk with no facets, no differerentiation of the polarties of the sides . All people would be Priests but they would also be the same. We would exist in a much thinner, duller environment
In addition - we might also consider the classical commentaries, including the Hasidic masters who empasize that Korach was a “taker” based on first verse of the Parasha - “And Korach Took” - without a direct object - that he is unfit to serve because he is a “taker” and the real, honest to goodness, authentic priest is a “giver” . for all this, perhaps Korach’s punishment is just, albeit severe…is he eligible for clemency?
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Rabbi's Sukkot Reflections Fall 2023
Rabbinic Reflections on the World Parliament of Religions
Jonathan Seidel . Sept 11, 2023 - just before Rosh HaShana - A Jewish New Year message
Its Sept 11 once again and it’s part of my own history to remember the horrible attack on our country 22 years ago, in the year that many of our students were born. It was only on month since my family and I arrived to begin a new life in Oregon…In October of that year I was part of the planning committee to organize a memorial and interfaith service in Eugene dedicated to grieving and also to peace. I’d like to share a few words about my latest powerful and transformational experience in the world of interfaith/ interpath work.
This past month I attend 6 days of the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, held at the massive McCormick place conference center and I’d like to share some of my observations, extraordinary experiences and hope for the future with you here.
The World Parliament was established in Chicago in 1893 and saw the World’s first interfaith gathering on a global scale with thousands attending from across the planet. North Americans and many Europeans were treated to presentations by African, South Asian, Middle Eastern and Pacific religious teachers and leaders in a decidedly colonial expression of sharing that had lasting and large ramifications for Interfaith” movements. The Chicago gathering was the last for a hundred years (largely because of global conflict) and in 1893 once again the Parliament met in 1993.. It has met roughly every four years since and my first was in 2015 in Salt Lake City – hosted by LDS so graciously. This past August I chose to attend as a representative of the Oregon Board of Rabbis (of which I am chair) and as President of the Oregon Interfaith Hub, a local organisation which creates services and liturgical experiences and collaborates with statewide efforts for Justice on many fronts.
Some highlights of my week at the WPR
An excellent discussion of current Catholic – Jewish efforts towards combating anti semitism in North America presented by the New York Archdiocese and the
American Jewish committee. Perhaps people are not aware but that the overwhelming majority of hate crimes are directed against Jewish institutions…the session was sobering.
There were many moments of terrible decision-making opportunities: do I view a film on Gandhi’s wife and her work as an early feminist/activist in India? Or attend a session on Druidic spirituality, Christianity and psychedelics? (I’ll let you guess which one I participated in ) Or perhaps - do I attend a Sikh dharma and kirtan session or a session on Palestinian Christian activism against the Israeli occupation ? Most but not all sessions (how could everything be fantastic?) were exhillerating and refreshing …including many covering the matrix of science and spirituality. So hard to choose …
One of the most important sessions I attended was presented by two fellow Eugenians – “Swords into Plowshares” – a project based in UNESCO that is attempting to convince nations to donate 1% of their GDP to peace-making, resources for the impoverished, food justice and other social justice work that would make Dorothy Day and Abraham Joshua Heschel happy. There
is so MUCH we can do in converting small percentages of the enormous military budgets into assistance for health, food, education and medical needs on this planet – let alone to fund more alternative energy projects in light of the current quasi apocalptic climate crisis and emergency
Another inspiring and rather delightful event was attending “Langhar” the free lunch donated by the British Sikh community that fed thousands of us each day (and provided many opportunities for connection) The food was delicious as well.
Throughout the gathering of WPR I was thrilled to hear dozens of amazing speakers for peace and social justice, including a remarkable sermon-like welcoming presentation by the current mayor of Chicago, the honoring of Rev Jesse Jackson for a lifetime of service and finally the Cosmic Mass officiated by Rev Matthew Fox. In the latter ritual I was called up to offer the blessing over the wine and the bread. Matthew introduced me as a “stand-in” essentially for Jesus at the Last Supper (or Passover meal, depending upon which Gospel author you are following) a re-enactor of the Kiddush and Motzi. This
was followed by ecstatic dancing for another hour and 300 people of all ages were in the room having a post Covid great time ( Praise the Holy One that I didn’t contract yet another episode) Participating in this Mass was a first for me, and my initial voyage into this extraordinary moment of celebrating the Sacred Earth and celebrating the Divine both transcendent and immanent. A true catalytic interfaith moment for me .
It has been an honor to teach at UP and I look forward to speaking with you about future interfaith programing that affirms the integrity of continuing Catholic – Jewish and multiplex spiritual experience as we work together in Portland for justice and to implement the Mitzvah of healing the sick, protecting the marginalized, advocating for democracy throughout the world, protecting our planet from destruction and educating the next generation. From the Social Gospel taken from the powerful and empowering words of Jesus to the commensurate and congruent message of Tikkun Olam – each other and fixing the broken world, the imperative right now is upon us.
Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Seidel is currently the Minyan Rabbi-in-Residence adj faculty in the dept of Theology at UP, current chair of the Oregon Board of Rabbis as well as President of the Oregon Interfaith. He spends time between California, Oregon and the East Coast
Rabbi Diane Elliot's D'var Torah Rosh HaShana 5783
Cry Out and Awaken!
Rosh Hashanah 5783
R. Diane Elliot
Have you ever been awakened from a nightmare by a voice crying out in the night, only to discover, as you claw your way to the surface from the depths of the sea of sleep, gasping for air, heart pounding, that the screaming voice that woke you, was your own? That a voice, issuing unbidden from your inner depths, had pulled you back from the edge of whatever fearful tale your sleeping mind was spinning?
So does the commanding voice of the prophet Isaiah call out to us across the millennia, breaking through apathy and despair with words of relief and release: “Nachamu, nachamu ami, comfort, comfort, my people!”[1]—the very first words of the first of seven special haftarah readings marking what are called the Seven Shabbatot of Comfort.
Back in August, some seven weeks ago, these words launched the journey of teshuvah, of return, that has led us to this Rosh HaShanah eve. We begin our trek amidst the ruins of the Holy Temple on Tisha B’Av, that day of harsh remembrance, when we acknowledge and grieve utter destruction beyond comprehension—repeated losses of security and safety, of love and life and home—the flavors of loss that we as Jews know so well and that are now rampant in our world as war and political violence, hunger and climate disasters displace people from Pakistan to Ukraine, from Somalia to Guatemala.
There on Tisha b’Av, sitting year after year in the very ashes of our lives, we begin the journey home, the journey toward Rosh HaShanah, and the possibility of a new beginning. The prophet’s words, traditionally chanted on that first Shabbat after Tisha B’Av, soak like a healing balm into our shattered souls [sing]: “Naḥamu, naḥamu naḥamu ami….”
Isaiah’s next words cut through the numb silence of desolation and disconnection: “Kol koreh ba-midbar”––a voice cries out in the wilderness, a saving voice, an urgent voice, waking us from a seemingly endless nightmare of pain and loss––a voice that sparks in our souls the dream of teshuvah, the possibility of return to innocence, to sanity, to connection: “p’anui derekh HaShem, clear a way, a path for God! ki mal’ah tz’va’ah, for your time of exile is over.”[2]
Here we are, my friends––another Rosh Hashanah, we’ve made it! Thank God, we are here together to buoy one another up and to celebrate the turning of the year, the possibility of transforming pain, of lifting up joy, of expanding love, of reconnecting with Essence and making a fresh start. The theme that weaves through our prayers and songs, the yearnings of our hearts this year— “Awaken and Cry Out for Justice!”—calls us to a wider, more expansive kind of teshuvah, a generous teshuvah that extends beyond the repair of our inner selves and personal relationships and demands of us a commitment to people outside our circles of family and friends, to generations yet unborn, and to the larger unfolding of our world.
This is a time to wake up, the Sages tell us, to the truth of our lives, to strip the blinders from our inner eyes, so that we can see ourselves and the world more clearly, more truly, so that our voices can ring out strong and pure, calling out injustice and evil where we see it. “Uri, uri, shir daberi, wake up, wake up, utter a song! Kavod YHVH alayikh niglah, The Divine Presence is revealed over you!”[3]
So often, I find that it’s the very crying out—the voice of my own deepest self emerging, or the anguished voices of others—that triggers my awakening and knocks me out of complacency. Voices banging on the doors of my heart, “kol dodi dofek, pitchi li, open, open to Me!”[4]—the muffled moans of those who’ve been suffering quietly around me for generations, unnoticed; the voices of courageous truth tellers calling out lies and corruption; the cries of longing, grief, or joy issuing unbidden from my own throat; and sometimes, the conspicuous absence of voices—an empty schoolroom, once alive with the sounds of children learning and laughing, a silent garden, once filled with birdsong and the hum of bees. These sounds, even more than words, break through the constant noise and natter of business as usual. They jolt me awake, and point me in a different direction. Teshuvah.
Our Torah tradition is filled with such sounds, such voices that arouse and awaken, inspire and engender: “Kol damei ahiv,” the voice of the blood of Cain’s murdered brother, Abel, cries out to God from the very earth.[5] “Abraham, Abraham!”––an angelic call awakens our primal father, his knife raised to slaughter his son Isaac on the altar, from the trance of human sacrifice.[6] And the cries of the rejected Hagar and Ishmael, Abraham’s other son, cast out into the desert, dying of thirst, draw forth mercy from heaven and the gift of life-giving water.[7]
It is the groaning cries of the Israelite slaves, mired in degradation in a life-denying land, trapped in a nightmare of oppression, that set in motion our people’s epic saga of return, the Exodus, which leads directly to our being gathered here, together, this evening. For, our tradition teaches, the Israelite dream that became the Jewish people collapses time and space into “no before or after,” so we were all there too. God hears their moaning—our moaning—and remembers the covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, with Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, “Va-yar elohim et b’nei Yisrael, va-yeda Elohim, God saw the Children of Israel, and God knew.”[8] Even God has to be woken up.
What gives voice such power to awaken, to draw us toward compassionate action or, if misused and abused, to stir people to acts of violence and hatred? Perhaps it is that the voice, this shaping and vibrating and sharing of breath, makes our very soul, our neshama, audible. Is not voice itself, in our mythic and mystical canon, the very instrument of Creation? “And God spoke….” the world into being.
When we hear and feel the voice of truth, does it not also awaken the deepest truth in us, call us to action on behalf of the other, on behalf of our planet, in ways both mysterious and simple, deep calling to deep? And when I am paralyzed by fear, numbed by trauma, is it not the release of my voice, starting as a trickle and building to a raucous scream, that must crack the ice of dissociation to reopen the channels of connection?
I think of the voices, the distinctive timbres and rhythms, that have energized me, galvanized me, encouraged and called me to action: my 11-year-old self, thrilling to the ringing summons of a new young president, rousing a somnolent nation on his inauguration day, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country!” My teenage self, vibrating to the thundering conviction of a great black American preacher and civil rights catalyzer, declaring “I have a dream” and vowing to persist in truth-telling and nonviolent resistance until, in the words of the prophet Amos, “justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”[9]
More recently I’ve been moved by the tender, impassioned urging of a young Sikh—s-i-k-h—American civil rights activist, Valarie Kaur, exhorting us to breathe and push, to birth a new kind of love—love as sweet fierce labor, bloody, imperfect, life-giving—love that enables us to tend to our own wounds, so that we have the wherewithal to tend the wounds of our enemies, to see and hear them as human beings with stories of their own, to approach the other with curiosity instead of hatred, to see no stranger. This, teaches Valarie Kaur, is revolutionary love, the kind of love that, applied with sustained communal effort, can topple oppressive systems and, with time and persistence, bend the arc toward justice.[10]
And I hear the voices of the next generation: the powerful witness of Emma Gonzales who, as a 17-year-old survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting in Florida, spoke out just days after a disgruntled former classmate gunned down 17 students and staff and injured 17 more at her high school, decrying the inaction of politicians bought off by the National Rifle Association, shouting out over and over, “We call B.S.! We call B.S.”[11] And the choked, angry voice of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, addressing the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit in New York City: “How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words!”[12]
Empty words. How will we fill our words in the year ahead? Join our voices with those of our inspired leaders and our outraged neighbors, translate words into actions, small acts that, when taken together, will roll down like a mighty stream, cutting through the accreted layers of duplicity and cynicism, greed and racism baked into our society’s institutions?
How will we allow the voices of the suffering, the dispossessed, the murdered, the dying species, the Earth herself, to awaken us, energize us, and move us to become the eyes, ears, hands, and hearts of God that we were always meant to be? How shall we breathe through the fires of pain and refuse to let them harden into hate? How will we, in the ringing words of Isaiah, clear the path of God, make a straight road through the desert for our Godliness? What will you do differently this year? What can we do together?
I close with this excerpt of an invocation by James O’Dea, Irish-born activist and mystic, award-winning author of The Conscious Activist and numerous other works, a peacemaker who has conducted societal healing dialogues in war zones around the world and taught peacebuilding to a thousand people in 30 countries. He calls this piece “This Consecrated Hour”:
Do you not see them
the ashen ones
the gray ones
the starving orphans
the seduced innocents
the decimated specters of conflagration
all the beings trampled in degradation
crowding our collective shadow field?
Go find them
in this, this consecrated hour of human becoming
find your estranged, your lost and abandoned family
and embrace them into the vital marrow of your life.
Kiss them until the ashes of their betrayal
turn from gray to red
and the blush of love blows through
the One Soul, the One Life of All….[13]
What voice is calling out within you tonight? How will you answer? Let’s sit silently for a moment and breathe together.
[1] Isaiah 40:1
[2] Isaiah 40:3
[3] from L’kha dodi, piyyut sung during Kabbalat Shabbat service, quoting The Song of Deborah (Judges 5:12) and Isaiah 60:1
[4] Song of Songs 5:2
[5] Genesis 4:10
[6] Genesis 22:11
[7] Genesis 21:16-17
[8] Exodus 2:24-25
[9] Amos 5:24
[10] see Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger, A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, One World, NewYork, 2020.
[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jmO89T3G1w
[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAJsdgTPJpU
[13] hear the full interview with James O’Dea at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aunsQChqWWY
From Shelah to Korach. Pursuing Justice in Light of Post Roe v Wade (by Rabbi Jonathan Seidel)
Every Parasha is strong, always present to us and challenging. Last weeks Parsha which shows the painful lessons of the False Reports of the Spies having grave consequences…many more years of waiting to go into the Land, and a deeply disturbing punishment of the those in the Midbar who cannot enter, only the next generation…Its as if they went “nowhere” coming out of Egypt and are still enslaved in this speaking silence of the Wilderness…And this weeks news seems to suggest the same: we have moved backward into the slavery of illegal abortion, far worse access to women’s health care and the danger of being in a new wilderness after the demise of Roe v. Wade. Whatever your position might be about “Personhood” and yes, there are many Jews who consider abortion to be murder (not the majority by far) one must see this Conservative strategic move as a triumph of the Christian right wing. Do we really want to force 12 year old vicitms of Rape to give birth? Victims of incest? Women whose lives are endangered by pregnancy? We as Jews, as ethical Americans must allign with people of color who are far more endangered by the new Supreme Court ruling. This latest move, to my mind, which hints at further dark ominous decisions, provides further evidence of the March of the Conservative Christian Right wing and allied with White supremacy. We must fight back and question this decision decisively with action. The time of mourning is over and the time of “Hora’at Sha’ah” הוראת שעה (critical time) for women’s rights over their own bodies is here…I hope we can all question leadership right now, but unlike Korach, do it in the right way. Let’s find a way to get out there and protest, make our voices known and create the energy to force the President’s hand to help protect women’s rights. Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof…צדק צדק תרדוף lets pursue justice justly and and get going to find ways to save our country from the wave of gun violence and the assault on women’s rights. It’s the Mitzvah of the Moment and requires the courage of Caleb and Joshua.
The Minyan Then and Now
Travel with us through time with this slideshow spanning 4 decades.
How Did The Aquarian Minyan Get our First Torah?
How Did The Aquarian Minyan Get our First Torah?
By Reuven Goldfarb and Ljuba Davis
Ljuba:
I remember the events around the acquisition of the Minyan's Torah well. I brought my godparents Marie and Lew Winston to Barry and Debby's wedding and that was Marie's first exposure to the Minyan. When she found out that the Minyan did not have a Torah of its own she told me, "This is what I've been waiting for, finding the right community who would welcome a Torah as its own and really treasure it!" When she heard that there was a Torah available in SF we went together to look at it----and she fell in love with it!
Marie's parents were orthodox (from Tacoma, Washington) and her father was the rabbi of a little shul. Marie's mother donated a Torah to her husband's shul years before when Marie was a child and, as Marie had told me on numerous occasions, she knew that someday she would do the same thing - She just needed to find the right community for her to fulfill this mitzvah. For, though they were long-time sustaining members of Cong. Beth Abraham of Oakland during Rabbi Shulweiss's rabbinate there, Marie felt that CBA had many Torahs and was not in need of another one!
I have pictures of my 6 year-old daughter Sabrina holding one of the poles of the chuppah during the Torah's procession down Bancroft Avenue.
Reuven:
As I recall, Ljuba Davis invited her friends Marie and Lou Winston to attend Barry and Debby's wedding at the Brazil Room in Tilden Park on Labor Day in 1976. They were greatly impressed by the spirit of that event. Two days later, Ljuba and Leo hosted Sheva Braches at their home on College Avenue. At some point during the festivities, Marie announced that she wanted to donate a Sefer Torah to our community. She said that her mother had donated a Torah to a synagogue, many years before, and that she, Marie, had always harbored the intention of performing the same mitzvah herself.
She went on to say that she had visited many synagogues, but all of them were replete with Sifrei Torah and therefore had no need of an additional one. Our community however, despite its evident spiritual wealth, did not have even one. She was delighted, therefore, to have happened upon the Aquarian Minyan, through the offices of her good friends Ljuba and Leo, and thought that we were the perfect place for her intentions to manifest. She was prepared to spend her own money, earned from the spiritual counseling work she did, to purchase a suitable Sefer Torah for us.
Burt Jacobson, Sue Goldberg, Yehudit and I went shopping for a Sefer Torah for the Minyan. At the time there was a Hebraica/Judaica bookstore located in the Richmond District of San Francisco, owned by a sofer (a scribe), Rabbi Reisman, who had recently moved there, with his wife, from Brooklyn. He offered us two Sifrei Torah, and we chose the older one. He repaired it, obtained a pair of axle-trees and attached the scroll to them, included a new mantel, and placed it in our hands.
We held a welcoming ceremony at the Berkeley Hillel Foundation on January 22nd, 1978, the 14th of Shevat, one day before T"U b'Shvat, the New Year of the Trees. Our friend Arieh Lev Breslow, and a violinist performed at the event, and among the speakers were Rabbi Burt Jacobson and Rabbi Yosef Langer of CHaBaD. Marie and Lou formally presented the Sefer Torah to the Minyan, with Yehudit and I receiving this gift on behalf of the community. Afterwards a crowd of us carried the Torah, under a chuppah, in procession down Bancroft Avenue, with Sara Shendelman singing and playing guitar.
These are the highlights as I remember them. I'm sure that others who were present can add to these recollections.
Kavod laTorah!
Reuven Goldfarb, writing from Tzfat
May 5th, 2017 / 9 Iyar, 5777
Drash on Sh’lach L’cha
Drash on Sh’lach L’cha
By Abigail Grafton
We are at Numbers 14, verses 20-25: which opens with words we know from the Holy Days: selacti kidvarecha: I pardon you as you have asked. The terms of this pardon are that all the adults who have seen signs and wonders will wander until they die and their carcasses drop in the wilderness. That generation will not see the holy land.
That’s a tough pardon. That’s a disaster. Forty years wandering in the wilderness. What happened? What did they do?
What was HaShem so angry about?
HaShem had told them they were going to have the promised land (and please we are not discussing this in terms of modern politics). They may have listened, but they didn’t hear.
The scouts came back from the Promised Land terrified. They saw people 9 feet tall, saying “and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” Joshua and Caleb saw differently: nothing to fear here: a land of milk and honey, a people whose protection has departed them.
The people heard the frightened scouts. They were panicking: “We’re all going to die! Let’s go back to Egypt!” Except for Joshua and Caleb, they forgot, or lost faith in, HaShem’s promise.
Taking this story out of its antiquated trappings, I read it as an allegory about how we receive and process information.
There are the things we see in our world. The scouts brought back a single bunch of grapes so huge it had to be carried on a plank. That was physical evidence, but the frightened people ignored it. Then, there are our impressions of what we see. The scouts either did or did not see giants who did make them feel very small and scared.
There are the emotions of the people around us: the panicky crowd wanting to go back to Egypt; the calm certainty of Joshua and Caleb. We have a choice of whom to hear.
Then there is HaShem’s voice. The generation that came out of Egypt saw signs and wonders, they heard a voice, and still they forgot when they were frightened. Today, we still have the opportunity to hear and to remember.
We can hear God’s voice in words of wisdom, in beauty around us, and in other people. And we can hear it inside ourselves, in our inner silences and our deepest places.
Like our forefathers and foremothers we have choices. We can hear or not; listen or not; remember or forget; go with the mob or listen to the truth; and we still have the possibility of dying in the wilderness or living in the land of milk and honey. We can choose what to see, hear and remember, inside ourselves and outside, with our hearts and minds, and most of all with our skill of holy discernment.
Please come up to the Torah if you are interested in developing and using the skill of holy discernment.