High Holy Torah
September 23, 2009
The High Holy Days are aptly named. The opportunities for spiritual preparation in the preceding weeks—through special Haftarah readings and late-night Selichot services; the long hours spent at prayer in a full sanctuary; the imposing music; the rabbis’ white robes meant to suggest purity and even other-worldliness (okay, maybe that doesn’t do it for you, but it sure gives me a little lift, or at least raises the stakes); and especially the fasting—all are designed to evoke in us a spiritual high, a connection to something larger than ourselves, something that inspires us to our best versions of ourselves. Many of us, during this period, make commitments—New Year’s resolutions, if you will—to maintain that connection, to continue to walk in a path of spiritual light and enlightenment.
But then, so often, after the release of the break-fast and the return to our ordinary round of activities, not to mention all the errands and business that has built up while we were away and busy with holy-day activities, despite our best intentions, we forget. We drift back into old habits. Other priorities assert themselves. We lose our Jewish, not to mention spiritual, head of steam.
Now I will not pretend to know for everyone in our community what lights this one’s spiritual fire, what makes that one excited about being Jewish. There are many gates by which to enter the palace. But since I started down a didactic path in my message last month by exhorting all our families and especially our young people to try attending congregational worship services on a more regular basis, I’ll continue this month with another suggestion.
Not only do I invite you to attend services more regularly (whatever that means to you—if you are in the habit of visiting two days every fall, you might try a springtime visit; if you already come three times a year, maybe you’re ready for a bimonthly prayer fix), please consider this: if you’ve ever read from the Torah before, why not try doing it again?
This month, on Simchat Torah, our festival of Torah, we will salute our beloved teacher of Torah, Leona Glazer. Some of the students she helped raise to Jewish adulthood will read for us that night from Torah. We will all stand together, supporting the unfurled scroll on our outstretched fingertips. We will consecrate our youngest students into the study of Torah. Whether Torah for you means ancient tribal history or cultural identity or a Tree of Life or a path of righteousness or something else, the evening is bound to extend your holy-day buzz. So please come.
And then consider this: beginning this fall, I invite any congregant—and especially our teenagers—to celebrate the anniversary of a Bar or Bat Mitzvah by reading again the ancient words from the sacred scroll that you studied once so long (or not so long) ago. Every week the Round Table Minyan gathers for a quick and cozy hour of prayer and a Torah service. Some weeks a rabbi reads the Torah portion, other weeks a congregant. Anyone who chooses to read from the Torah will tell you that it is elevating, a thrill, in some way a moving experience. And some will tell you that I’m willing to help. A lot.
So who will take me up on this offer of a post-Holy Day High?
dlk@emanu-el.org
A Tribute to One of Our “Guardians”
September 23, 2009
A famous story from the Jerusalem Talmud tells of three rabbis who were sent out to survey whether or not the Jewish communities of the Land of Israel had appropriate teachers of Torah. When they came to a certain community and found no such teachers, they said to the members of the local Jewish community, “Bring us the guardians of the city.” The members of the community brought them the city police officers. They said, “These people are not truly the guardians of the city….” The local Jews then asked, “And who, then, are the guardians to the city?” The Rabbis said to them, “The teachers of Torah, as the Biblical verse states, ‘If God does not build the city, the workers have labored in vain.’” (Psalm 127:1)
The wisdom emerging from our traditional Jewish sources provides a seemingly endless supply of texts extolling the role that teachers of children play in the grand scheme of Jewish, communal life. As a religious culture that embraces Hebrew literacy as a fundamental opening to meaningful spirituality and moral living, it is no surprise, then, that the teachers of Torah are given such an elevated position. To a large extent, teachers are likened not only to parents (for they help fulfill the parents’ obligation of instructing children “diligently”), but even as partners with God. A remarkable text in the Talmud (Bava Metzia 2:11) goes so far as to suggest that if a person has two lost objects to return, one belonging to his teacher and one belonging to his parent, he should first return the object belonging to his teacher, because as the text reasons: “His parent brought him into this world, while his teacher brings him into the World to Come.”
On Erev Simchat Torah, our annual celebration of Torah will also provide us the opportunity to thank and honor one of our congregation’s most devoted and beloved teachers, Leona Glazer. For almost forty years, Leona has guided the Temple’s Hebrew school curriculum, and worked with our students as they not only learned the basics of Hebrew reading and prayerbook literacy, but also as they took their first, tentative steps in leading the congregation in worship from the bima. Leona has been blessed with the uncommon experience of teaching into the next generation of her students’ children, testifying and bringing to life the wisdom of the sages:
“Whoever teaches a child does not teach that child alone, but also the child’s children and grandchildren, and so on – to the end of all generations!”
Our entire congregation has been blessed through Leona’s decades of tenderly instructing our children in the knowledge of Hebrew and Jewish worship. And as expressed in the wisdom of our tradition, the generations to come will likewise benefit from her years of devoted service. It will be our honor to honor Leona on Simchat Torah this year, for she will always be considered among our most precious “guardians”.
