Parashat Tzav (Leviticus 6:1 – 8:36)

Reflections on the Jewish Calendar – Rabbi Andy Vogel
This Monday evening, Jews will sit down at our Seder tables all around the world to tell our ancient story of the Exodus from our enslavement in Egypt.  Our liberation from slavery is the essential story of our people.  We retell it every year to teach the next generation – and remind ourselves – of both the suffering and exaltation we experienced, of both our despair while impoverished and our joy in becoming a free people.  In it, we tell story of basic human needs, connected to the real-life experiences (even if we can only imagine them) of our ancestors long ago.

The Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, has written that “Pesach is an intensely political festival.  It is about the central Jewish project:  constructing a society radically unlike any that had existed before and most that have come into being since.  It poses a fundamental question: can we make, on earth, a social order based not on transactions of power but on respect for the human person – each person – as ‘the image of God’?” (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s Haggadah, p. 5)  This essential Jewish question – and dream – is with us as much this year as any other.

May you and your dear ones experience joy and happiness, hope and liberation, on this Pesach holiday!

            - Rabbi Andy Vogel

Sinai Update – Week of March 18-24, 2007

Parashat Vayikra (Leviticus 1:1 – 6:1)

Reflections on the Torah portion – Rabbi Andy Vogel

Passover is less than two weeks away, and as we see how the supermarkets are filled with boxes of matzah, we begin to remember the meaning of this cracker laden with symbolism.  “This is the bread of affliction, which our ancestors ate in Egypt!  This year we are slaves, next year, we will be free!”  The matzah, which, near the beginning of the Seder, is held aloft and broken into two pieces, is a symbol of the brokenness of the world, and of the brokenness of the human experience, including the suffering of our people during our enslavement.  We note that all living involves some experience of breaking.

A 17th century Polish rabbi, Isaac Horowitz, noted that this week’s Torah portion, Vayikra, which begins to detail the rites of the ancient sacrifices, both of animals and of baked flour, alludes to this message of Passover.  Leviticus 2:11 commands the Israelites that “no [flour] offering shall be made with leaven, for you must not turn into smoke any leaven as an offering by fire to Adonai.”  Why does God want offerings of unleavened bread, of matzah?  Rabbi Horowitz interpreted the verse in this way: “We begin our life whole.  Along the path of life we become broken.  But the end is whole – we will become whole again.  There is hope.” 

             - Rabbi Andy Vogel

Sinai Update – Week of February 25-March 3, 2007

Parashat Tetzaveh (Exodus 27:20-30:10)

Reflections on the Jewish Calendar – Rabbi Andy Vogel

Is the story of Purim, which we celebrate beginning this Saturday night, “real”?  If we’re searching as historians or archeologists, all indicators point to an answer of “no.”  Biblical scholar Adele Berlin writes this: “We know of no Persian queen named Esther, or any Jewish queen of Persia, and we would not expect there to have been one.  Queens came from the noble Persian families, not from ethnic minorities.  Moreover, real kings don’t choose queens from beauty contests!”  Another scholar, Jon Levenson, writes: “The historical problems with Esther are so massive as to persuade anyone... to doubt the veracity of the narrative.”

But even if the Purim tale as retold in the Book of Esther never actually happened, we Reform Jews can still find great meaning in it for our lives today.  Not only is Purim a holiday when we celebrate, in somewhat ludicrous forms, our people’s ability to persevere and be faithful to our tradition through more than 3,500 years of persecution, bigotry and wandering, but it is also a time to be proud of the holy audacity of being Jewish, of being other, in today’s society.  Esther and Mordechai, our heroine and hero, dare to stand up for their people, its values and its freedom.  This Saturday night we proudly celebrate them as role models, Jews who are part of the wider culture, no less engaged by our religious and spiritual heritage.  Happy Purim!

            - Rabbi Andy Vogel