Dear TBZ Community:
This week, I did something new, something I didn’t know I could do, something I had given up on. I blew shofar for the first time and I succeeded.
Blowing shofar was the only class in rabbinical school that I failed. We had a class called מיומנויות בית הכנסת (synagogue skills), taught by a long time pulpit rabbi. I learned several skills with him, but I was not able to learn how to blow shofar. He tried to teach me, I tried to learn. Eventually I gave up and he told me: just make sure to work in a community where there is someone who knows how to blow shofar. Lucky me, that has been the case (I even made sure to marry someone who blows shofar!). But yesterday at our weekly Eat, Pray, and Learn Wednesday minyan, there was no one who could blow shofar. So I said I would try. And lo and behold, I was successful! It worked, as if I always knew how to do it, and I felt so proud to gain one more new skill. Rabbi Moshe Aronov z”l, my teacher, would be proud of me.
Rav Tiferet encouraged me to share this story with our students on the first day of Beit Rabban, TBZ’s after-school learning program. I shared this story (in addition to a story I have been sharing a lot lately, that in honor of my 50th birthday this summer, I learned how to ride a bike!), explaining to our learners that the path of learning is one that never ends. We are lifelong learners, life long seekers.
The blowing of shofar felt so meaningful to me. We blow shofar every day during the month of Elul, to prepare for the holidays. It is a wakeup call for Elul’s month-long process of preparation and practice. We spend the month listening to the shofar, recognizing that being fully awake and ready for the year does not just happen in one day. Perhaps during this month’s journey we discover new learnings for each of us as individuals and as a collective.
At TBZ, we offer Ashkenazi (Jews descending from Eastern Europe), Sepharadi (Jews descending from Spain and Portugal), and Mizrachi (Jews descending from the Middle East) selichot services.
One of the piyutim (liturgical poems) that is sung during the Sepharadi and Mizrachi selichot, and which we learned with our scholar-in-residence Melila Helner-Esher last week, begins with the words: בֶּן אָדָם, מַה לְּךָ נִרְדָּם (Ben Adam, ma lecha nirdam, which means “Son of Adam/Child of Adam (Human!), why are you asleep?”).
The first stanza of the piyut reads:
בֶּן אָדָם, מַה לְּךָ נִרְדָּם, קוּם קְרָא בְּתַחֲנוּנִים
שְׁפךְ שִׂיחָה, דְּרשׁ סְלִיחָה, מֵאֲדון הָאֲדונִים
רְחַץ וּטְהַר, וְאַל תְּאַחַר, בְּטֶרֶם יָמִים פּונִים
וּמְהֵרָה, רוּץ לְעֶזְרָה, לִפְנֵי שׁוכֵן מְעונִים
וּמִפֶּשַׁע, וְגַם רֶשַׁע, בְּרַח וּפְחַד מֵאֲסונִים
אָנָּא שְׁעֵה, שִׁמְךָ יודְעֵי, יִשְׂרָאֵל נֶאֱמָנִים
לְךָ אֲדנָי הַצְּדָקָה. וְלָנוּ בּשֶׁת הַפָּנִים
You there, why are you still asleep?
Get up, cry out and beg,
Pour out words, ask for forgiveness from the Master of all
Your time is passing, don’t wait! Cleanse and purify yourself,
run quickly and ask for support from the One who dwells in Heaven.
Fear and flee from wrongdoing and evil – they are disastrous.
(To the One we say:)
Please respond to the loyal people of Israel who revere Your Name.
Justice, Adonai is on Your side.
We are left with shame.
This piyut (which has many different traditional tunes, you can listen to one here) speaks about waking up, standing up, not falling asleep, rushing into distancing ourselves from wrongdoing and transgression, and asking God for mercy. I hear it also as a call to avoid falling into numbness in our existence and in the ways we live, to embrace falling into the possibility of new learnings, big and small. A call to show up for forgiveness, show up without running away, show up without being indifferent to the world around us. Showing up, even when hard or painful, showing up to the New Year with all that we bring to it, showing up to hope.
While this piyut is a call to not become numb or indifferent to pain, it is also about finding ways to be awake in our world with purpose and hope. Between the polarizing news in our country, in Israel, and in the world and our own stories, our coping mechanisms can make us ignore what is happening around us. And that is understandable. We are tired of hearing about war and other acts of violence, or mass shootings, anti-semitism, racism, and rights being taken from minorities. We are tired of hearing about natural disasters and climate change and disease and and and…. we “turn it off.” And, yes, that is good and sometimes healthy. The opposite is also at times challenging, when we never stop. Shabbat, for example, is an incredible mechanism of healthy turn off and still being awake: Shabbat invites us to turn off our doing and acting in the world, with the aspiration to return to the weekdays inspired by Shabbat and ready to show up in the world and for the world.
What is the call then to be awake? How can we wake up in ways that are purposeful, intentional, and that allow for growth and possibility? And how do we make sure not to become indifferent, numb to pain and suffering?
In this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Ki Tetze, we read about returning an ox or a sheep back to its owner. Deuteronomy 22:1-4 reads:
לֹא־תִרְאֶה אֶת־שׁוֹר אָחִיךָ אוֹ אֶת־שֵׂיוֹ נִדָּחִים וְהִתְעַלַּמְתָּ מֵהֶם הָשֵׁב תְּשִׁיבֵם לְאָחִיךָ
If you see your fellow Israelite’s ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your peer.
וְאִם־לֹא קָרוֹב אָחִיךָ אֵלֶיךָ וְלֹא יְדַעְתּוֹ וַאֲסַפְתּוֹ אֶל־תּוֹךְ בֵּיתֶךָ וְהָיָה עִמְּךָ עַד דְּרֹשׁ אָחִיךָ אֹתוֹ וַהֲשֵׁבֹתוֹ לוֹ
If your fellow Israelite does not live near you or you do not know who [the owner] is, you shall bring it home and it shall remain with you until your peer claims it; then you shall give it back.
וְכֵן תַּעֲשֶׂה לַחֲמֹרוֹ וְכֵן תַּעֲשֶׂה לְשִׂמְלָתוֹ וְכֵן תַּעֲשֶׂה לְכׇל־אֲבֵדַת אָחִיךָ אֲשֶׁר־תֹּאבַד מִמֶּנּוּ וּמְצָאתָהּ לֹא תוּכַל לְהִתְעַלֵּם
You shall do the same with that person’s ass; you shall do the same with that person’s garment; and so too shall you do with anything that your fellow Israelite loses and you find: you must not remain indifferent.
לֹא־תִרְאֶה אֶת־חֲמוֹר אָחִיךָ אוֹ שׁוֹרוֹ נֹפְלִים בַּדֶּרֶךְ וְהִתְעַלַּמְתָּ מֵהֶם הָקֵם תָּקִים עִמּוֹ
If you see your fellow Israelite’s ass or ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it; you must raise it together
The text is clear: if you see an animal that doesn’t belong to you, that has gone astray, you can not ignore it and let it roam around, you must return it. And this does not just apply to an animal, but anything. We could call this the mitzvah (commandment) of lost and found. But the wording is so powerful, the use of the word lehit’alem (to ignore) speaks to our weakness as humans to ignore that which is around us, that which is supposedly not connected to us.
Rashi, the medieval commentator, explains the word “ignore” in the first pasuk (verse) and says:
והתעלמת. כּוֹבֵשׁ עַיִן כְּאִלּוּ אֵינוֹ רוֹאֵהוּ
Closes his eyes tight as though one does not see it.
This image of shutting our eyes to not see that which is around us, that which is going astray in front of us, is one we can relate to. Sometimes it feels there is no other way, because we are tired, because it is painful, because it is too much. But Torah and our tradition remind us that this is not the way we live in the world. We do not live alone, we live as part of society; our responsibility is to not ignore, but to wake up, to respond, to return, to give back, and to connect, even when it is difficult.
The commentator Kli Yakar explains the words הָשֵׁב תְּשִׁיבֵם (“you must take it back”) from verse 1, saying:
“Certainly, when the verse says, ‘you must take it back,’ it is teaching us that if you have the means to take them back, if they are not so completely astray, but rather it is possible for you to return that which has wandered away, then you shall return them to your fellow; you are obligated to try to see, in order to rescue them”
Elul is a time that reminds us to wake up! It is ok to close our eyes, sometimes, here and there. It is ok to take a deep breath and pause (actually, it is often necessary). But then our eyes must be open and our souls need to be awake to fulfill our need to do everything in our power, everything we can, to bring that which has been lost back. We must wake up to bring hope back, to bring humanity back, to bring kindness back, and to bring joy back.
May we merit listening to this call this month of Elul.
May God bring blessing and comfort to all of us and our loved ones. May we find strength, courage, and patience, and open our hearts with generosity. May all those who are ill find healing.
May the hostages soon be returned to their families and friends; may peace prevail and may the leaders of the world know to prioritize life. May those who are working for peace be granted strength and courage to continue their sacred work, and may we soon see peace and dignity for all.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rav Claudia