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

Purim begins Saturday night, February 27

Reflections on the Jewish Calendar – Rabbi Andy Vogel

Jews take the mitzvah of tzedakah seriously, even on Purim, the holiday of silly raucous upside-down behavior.  Even while Jews around the world are feasting, reveling in the bawdy story of Esther, which features an unlikely series of coincidences that result in the rescue of the Jewish people from Haman’s wicked clutches, it is a tradition to keep in mind the poor in our midst and to donate to them.  It is a mitzvah – a requirement – to give tzedakah to the needy on the day of Purim itself.  (Purim is this Saturday night, February 27 and Sunday, February 28.)  Even a poor person must give tzedakah to others.  There is a makhloket – a dispute, a friendly disagreement – among scholars as to what the minimum amount of tzedakah one is required to give:  some say just a small coin, others say enough to pay for an entire meal, but whatever the minimum, even on this craziest of days in the Jewish calendar, a Jew must maintain his or her sobriety enough so as to not lose sight of his or her overall responsibilities to those on the periphery of society.

This year, our congregation provides a number of ways you can give tzedakah in celebration of Purim (see below):  We are collecting boxes of macaroni and cheese (yum, and they make good graggers for the Megillah reading); we are collecting books to help in Haiti; we are collecting money for the Boston tzedakah collective Yad Chessed, which actually distributes food coupons to needy Jews on Purim day itself; we are collecting for our annual Birthday Wishes program that celebrates birthdays for children in homeless shelters; and we are even preparing for Passover with a food drive for Family Table.  Whatever way (or ways) you choose to perform tzedakah this Purim, know that you are fulfilling a great and important mitzvah that helps others, and is one of the core Jewish acts that our people has practiced as a holy deed for millennia.  May you have a wonderful, joyous, raucous Purim!

-           Rabbi Andy Vogel

Sinai Update – Week of February 7-13, 2010
Parashat Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1 – 24:18)
Reflections on the Torah Portion – Rabbi Andy Vogel
The current economic crisis that began with unethical lending practices by banks and mortgage companies may well have been prevented had our society been more attuned to this week’s Torah portion.  Among the many civil and criminal laws laid out in Parashat Mishpatim this week is one (Exodus 22:24) that regulates loans to the poor, and the 13th century Sefer HaChinuch (“Book of Education”) derives three laws about lending from it: one, that we must make loans to allow the recipients to become self-sufficient; two, that we are forbidden from collecting a debt when a person cannot repay it and so must wait until the time when they do have the means to repay; and third, that charging interest as a lender is strictly forbidden.  Later rabbinic authorities created a heter iska, a permission letter that allowed Jews to lend with interest, but the message is clear: if charging interest becomes oppressive to the borrower, it is impermissible by Jewish law.
   

A recent New York Times article (click here) reported last May that MBA students at Harvard recently made a pledge to accept upon themselves ethical restrictions in their business practices.  It is heartening to see people make a voluntary commitment like theirs.  But Judaism goes one step further: It requires, obligates us to behave ethically towards others.  As part of the Jewish covenant with God, these laws serve as an overarching restraint that is beyond the will of the people to self-regulate.  Our covenant with God requires that we seek beyond our selves, beyond our self-interest, to achieve the ideal of an ethical society that we are bound to create.
-           Rabbi Andy Vogel

Sinai Update – Week of February 1-6, 2010

Parashat Yitro  (Exodus 18:1 – 20:27)

Reflections on the Torah Portion – Rabbi Andy Vogel

While the history of Jerusalem has frequently been one of conquest – the Romans, the Crusaders, the Muslims have all sent armies to capture Jerusalem, and the Maccabee’s history, too, is about the wars against the Greeks in Jerusalem – a verse from this week’s Torah portion makes clear that God desires that the Temple have an alternate orientation.  Immediately after the Ten Commandments are pronounced, we hear this verse, “Make for me an altar made of earth… But if you make for Me an altar of stones, do not build it of hewn stones; for by wielding your sword upon them you have profaned them” (Exod. 20:21-22).  Rashi, the 11th century rabbi, interprets this requirement to imply that “the Altar was created only to lengthen the days of human beings, while iron tools shorten our lives.  That which shortens lives [a metal tool] shall not be waved over that [the Temple’s altar] which lengthens them.”

Israeli former speaker of the Knesset Avraham Burg emphasizes that the Binding of Isaac story heightens God’s desire to preserve human life.  After the Binding of Isaac, which occurred, according to Jewish sacred myth, on the site of the Temple, God seems to be announcing that “in My house, there shall be no slaughter of human beings, no shedding of human blood” (Burg, The Language of People [Hebrew], 2009, p. 181).  Jerusalem is intended as a place of the preservation of human life, and the Temple, the central organizing address of Jewish teachings, to embody the values of universal peace.  Holiness is never achieved through violence.

-           Rabbi Andy Vogel