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Living in Jerusalem, studying religions and history…
What can be better in the world? I loved walking in the old city where I could experience and feel all the three monotheistic religions.
I was blessed to have friends from different religious denominations that always invited me and included me in their celebrations. The time when Christian Easter and Jewish Passover would be at the same time was extra special and fascinating to learn about our differences and similarities.
On a Good Friday afternoon, Christians in the Old City of Jerusalem traditionally remembers the hour of Jesus’s passing. Normally, during Easter and the Jewish Passover, there would be enormous amount of people in the Old City. It would be impossible to find a parking place, but walking in small alleyways of the city was a very uplifting experience. This year everything is different.
Like other holy sites, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, is closed to the public.
It got closed to visitors over a week ago. A few monks who live inside the church and monastery complex are holding limited prayer services there, but church leaders have stopped participating in them as a request from the police.

Most shops in the old city have locked their iron doors
Easter in Jerusalem is usually one of the busiest periods with all the different Christian communities holding their processions and ceremonies. I loved that this is the place where the Easter is celebrated twice: by Catholics and by the Orthodox community, each according to their calendar. But I spoke with my friends in Jerusalem and everyone is very sad, the famous Via Dolorosa, the way of the cross that thousands of worshipers usually walk, following Jesus’s path is quiet.
No one knows if the traditional Good Friday procession by the Franciscan order will go ahead. The Palm Sunday procession which signifies the start of the Holy Week has been canceled. While talking with my parents in Israel before our zoom seder, they told me that Israel imposed a curfew and banned travel between cities to encourage people to stay at home and to celebrate with their immediate family only. Looks like the same will be during Easter time .
It is a very difficult time for all the faith leaders to find strength in faith and in prayer, but I believe it can be done.

I managed to log in to my dear friend Lutz Ackermann service for good Friday now, unfortunately internet was not working very well, but during the time I could be at the service it felt very sad how the day was part of the scripture

Parsha Bo

This week we continue with the drama! In this Torah portion, G-d sends the eighth and ninth plagues, locusts and darkness, but Pharaoh still refuses to free the Israelite slaves. G-d tells Moses that the tenth plague will be killing all the firstborn Egyptians. G-d commands each Israelite home to slaughter a lamb and spread the blood on their doorposts, in order to protect their firstborns. After the death of the firstborn, Pharaoh demands that the Israelites leave.

In the Torah portion Bo, the Israelites are about to leave slavery in Egypt, but before they go, they are given laws so that they will remember the Exodus in future generations. Among those laws is the commandment to put on tefillin, or “prayer-boxes,” on one’s arm and head:

“And this shall serve you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead — in order that the Teaching of the Lord may be in your mouth — that with a mighty hand the Lord freed you from Egypt.” (Shmot 13:9)

“And when, in time to come, your son asks you, saying, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘It was with a mighty hand that the Lord brought us out from Egypt, the house of bondage.’ ” (13:14)

It is a mitzvah to put on tefillin daily during the week (not Shabbat or festivals.) The tefillin contain passages from the Torah which speak directly of this mitzvah, but these passages, four in total, also speak of the Unity of Divinity, the centrality of Torah, and remembering the Exodus. Note how the passages above specifically use the image of the “strong arm” or “mighty hand” for a mitzvah which ends up being bound, literally, to our arms.

The symbolism is unmistakable: just as we were liberated from slavery by a “strong arm,” so too should our own arms be devoted to equally sacred purposes. Of course, “a mighty hand” is never meant to be taken literally, but rather as a metaphor for how the Divine operates within the human heart to break bonds of servitude and bring forth freedom and justice. Ultimately, anthropomorphic language in our sacred texts isn’t really about G-d, it’s about us- it challenges us to embody the Divine qualities relayed in the metaphors and poetry. Thus, in putting on the tefillin, we become- if we choose- the strong hand of G-d in bringing forth redemption and mercy.

We all choose our own path of sacred service, becoming the hands of the Holy One according to our unique strengths and talents. How we serve is a matter of individual reflection; that we serve is imperative, should we wish to be fully human, embracing our capacity to do the work of G-d.

Shabbat Shalom,

(source Neal Levinger)

Twenty years ago I began my academic carrier at the Ben Gurion University in Israel.

I was always passionate about history, and I will never forget the first sentence that one of my professors told us; “ Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That is to say that, studying history is necessary to avoid repeating past mistakes.”

This saying comes from the writings of George Santayana, a Spanish-born American author of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it is so often true, that we are/ do learn from our mistakes, and as such learn from our past – but what if we can’t? – and thereby repeat the same mistake again and again….

Faced with a dark night of the Soul, many people treat it like an illness, like a depression. They may take medication or go into counseling looking for a cause, but will it really help? Perhaps they’d do well to search for the roots of such causes – in their past actions.

The phenomenon of the dark night of the soul describes a pattern that can happen to us. We all learned that King David cried to G-d and his pillow was soaked with tears, perhaps a depression that is linked to a crisis of faith, a crisis that comes when one senses the absence of G-d or gives rise to a feeling of abandonment by our creator.

Spiritual depression is real and it can happen to any of us. We do not always feel the presence of G-d, we can feel empty, tired and have many questions for our creator.

We all have memories and past experiences, we are blessed to have them, and they are most often helping us to shape ourselves and to be who we are today. As it is the beginning of the new secular year, the new decade, we look introspectively and see that even our worst days, weeks, months of our lives could actually became a blessing. They were perhaps for a lesson, one that taught us how to be better human beings that we are become. In our weekly portion Vayechi our patriarch Jacob actually has the opposite behavior- he ignores the lessons from the past. What does this teach us, regular mortal human beings?

As we are finishing the book of Genesis we learn that Joseph and his brothers have finally reconciled, and its ok to have families with acrimony or dysfunctionalities – we all have, and its ok to feel empty, but the blessing is to recognize the lessons of those questions and what path we ultimately choose – to stay in the mood of the dark night of the soul, or to learn the lesson that it is there to teach us..
Channukah

We always talk about Hanukah as an instrument to complete the commandments. I’d like to offer you a different point of view, and I will use a quote from the book of Proverbs “The human soul is the candle of G-d”

Let’s look at our chanukiya as a model of humanity. Let’s imagine that all these candles are human souls.

I presume you know that there is such an understanding- kosher chanukiya or not. I have thought about different meanings- perhaps smart, clever chanukiya or not.

Shamash our helper can be on the same level with all other candles, sometimes we see that shamash will be higher than other candles. In my opinion, this is an example of a clever chanukiya.

This helper- shamash gives itself to others. The candle lights all others flames, it looks like a very modest human being, that does work for others, the one that doesn’t ask for credentials when others perform all the great achievements.

This candle gives its light to others, it finishes its life earlier than others. We need to understand that in life – without these amazing people- our helpers behind the scenes we wouldn’t be able to achieve our great deeds and victories.

In Mishna Brura it says that on the first night we light the candle on the right. It might be my right, but it might be someone else’s left.

Each person has his or her right side, their truth and we need to respect that.

In the Talmud, in the tractate Shabbat, it says that one that lights the candles is giving a blessing and the one who is looking at these candles is blessed.

We are talking about the importance of the mitzvah, but we all have our own way, our personal relationship with the mitzvah and how we are pursuing it,

Chanukah is a festival that is not from the Torah, the rules of this festival are the subject of debates in the Talmud, one of those debates was very heated argument between the disciples of Hillel and the followers of Shammai over how to light the Chanukkah menorah. These two schools had many debates on matters of ritual practice, ethics, and theology which were critical for the shaping of the Oral Law and Judaism as it is today.

Beit Shammai held that on the first night, eight lights should be lit, and then they should decrease on each night, ending with one on the last night; while Beit Hillel said that one should start with one light and increase the number on each night, ending with eight. Beit Hillel’s rationale is that as a general rule in halacha one increases holiness, rather than decreasing

In general, Beit Shammai’s positions were stricter than those of Beit Hillel.

Shammai didn’t allow any compromises to be done but we know that our life is compromising in many respects.

Many of us know that almost always our tradition decided that Jewish practice follows the teaching of the house of Hillel.

Chanukah is a very “human” festival it occurred when prophecy had ceased and the canon of the twenty-four books of the Tanach had been closed. Therefore it belongs to the Oral Torah—to the predominantly human element of the partnership with G-d , this is why for this festival, it is not as such minor, as it is called in many Jewish books, but in fact the opposite.

Wishing us a meaningful festival.

Parsha Vayeshev

Genesis 47:29-31
29 And the time drew nigh that Israel must die: and he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt:
30 But I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their buryingplace. And he said, I will do as thou hast said.
31 And he said, Swear unto me. And he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s head.

Every time I am amazed how the weekly Torah portion echoes the current events of our life.This week Rona Ramon died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 54. Her husband, Ilan Ramon was Israel’s first astronaut and he died in 2003 when the Columbia Space Shuttle blew up on reentry, killing all on board, after space mission.
Ramon also lost her son Asaf, an Israel Air Force fighter pilot, who died in 2009 when his F-16 crashed in a training accident.
Ramon requested to be cremated to spare her family another funeral. Dery, the brother of Interior Minister Arye Dery, said he shocked to hear of her request and offered to hold a small, closed funeral without the family.
He said that cremation of Ramon’s body “would have severe Halakhic implications” and that Jewish law clearly states that even if someone requests to be cremated and not buried, “they are not listened to.”
If we are talking about tradition Rabbi Yehoram Mazor writes: “In the days of the First Temple, kings and dignitaries were burned and we have evidence of this in the Bible: the burial of Saul and his sons (1 Samuel 31) King Asa (2 Chronicles 16),
During the period of the end of the Second Temple period, we find evidence of the burning of bodies, for example, in the cemetery in Beit She’arim”

However, I don’t want to talk about the tradition and Halakha right now. The weekly portion teaches us to respect the last will of a person, even if it is difficult for us to fulfill it for one reason or another.
For many reasons, Joseph, the first minister of Egypt, was uncomfortable to fulfill the will of his father, but we do not see in the text or even feel, between the lines, not the slightest doubt about the duty that he has to fulfill the will of his father.
I think Rabbi Dery should re-read this weekly portion and learn how to respect other people’s worldview and their wishes. And this applies not only to their last wishes.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Vayishlach

20^th Century Israeli writer HaimNachmanBialik wrote: “Love surrounds us, and what is this – love?” We can discuss love in light last week’s portion Vayetzei and this week’s, Vayishlach. Last week we read about love between Jacob and his wives. This week we read about love between brothers, Jacob and Esau.

ParashatVayishlachcompletes Jacob’s family history. Jacob returns to the Land of Canaan with his wives, eleven sons, and a daughter. He meets his brother Esau and parts from him without coming to harm. Unfortunately, we also read about the ugly turn when Jacob’s daughter Dinah is raped and her brothers massacre the Canaanites in revenge. Toward the close of the parashah, Jacob’s last child, Benjamin, is born. He is Rachel’s child, her second boy and she dies in childbirth.

These events address the meaning of love. Many books, poems, movies, and songs have been written about love. Yet, we still are not clear about the definition of love.

One meaning of love mentioned in Torah, is in the story of the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:2). God tested Abraham’s love for his son, or perhaps, his love for God. This is the first time in Torah that asher ahavta—beloved—is applied to a child.

The first time Torah connects love between a man and a woman, occurs in this portion, in the story of Isaac and Rebecca: “She became his wife, and he loved her.” (Genesis 24:67)

Torah suggests that couples are married and then fall in love. In our times, the order is falling in love before marriage. It seems to me that Torah teaches family and children come first. Love has a lower priority. This might appear strange to us today. Personal happiness in marriage is not a primary theme that Torah considers.

One conclusion is that the ideal of Torah is not romantic love, the result of “chemistry” between people that suddenly emerges, and later matures. Love is a result of a long and sometimes difficult relationship, the blending of lives into a more complex family.

So what is love?

One possible answer, among a million answers to this question is: Love is the work of our soul.

Torah teaches us about different loves:

One kind of love is a parent for a child, as Abraham and Isaac;

another kind of love grows between a man and a woman, like Isaac and Rebecca.

What do these kinds of love share?

They are the work of our soul the merger of our love for other people and our love of God.

Parsha: Chayei Sarah

The last few days were incredibly busy ( will write some thoughts about it a bit later), but here is my take on this week’s portion.

Torah portion called “chayei Sarah” we read about the death of Sarah, but in reality, the portion actually discusses “her life.” I see the profound meaning of this paradox. Sarah’s social status and its impact on the future of her family and the people, was so great and significant, that not only did it not end at the time of her death, but in fact, it increased and strengthened subsequently to her passing.

Sarah’s physical death was turned into an intellectual path for Jewish life, it had a direct impact on events following her passing – her relationships became a role model for so many. Her relationship with G-d, with her husband, her son, and even with neighbors and people she met.

Sarah, our mother, was quite the “modern” woman. She led her life with a clear vision and purpose. She had the courage to follow her own convictions, no matter how progressive they were at the time. She led her life as a role model for women of her era . . . as well as our own. I somehow think Sarah could teach our modern Jewish woman a thing or two.

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