Tonight is Rosh Hodesh Iyyar, the beginning of the new month of Iyyar. In the middle of counting the omer, day by day by day, Rosh Hodesh seemed to sneak up on me. It almost seems to be a missing month.

Every month has a theme, usually tied to the holiday of the month. For instance, Kislev with Chanukah is about light, Sh’vat, with Tu B’shevat the new of the trees is about growth, planting, trees. Adar is about joy. Nissan is about freedom. But Iyyar? What is it’s spiritual theme?

Maybe after the frenetic pace of Nissan with all of the Passover preparations and then celebrating Passover itself, it is about rest. Our calendar seems to do that with Heshvan as well. Right after all of the four fall holidays are celebrated, then comes Heshvan without any holidays. A chance to catch our breath. Maybe Iyyar is another chance to catch our breath.

This second month also has Pesach Sheni, a second Passover. For those who missed the opportunity to celebrate Passover on the 15th of Nissan, here is a second chance. It is a mandated make-up day. Lag B’Omer the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer is the 18th of Iyyar. And maybe that is why the month of Iyyar seems to get lost. We have had the frenetic pace of Passover and the daily counting of the Omer. Each week of the Omer has its own special flavor, its own attribute. This week is about tiferet, compassion.

On the first day of Iyar following the exodus, the thirsty Israelites reached a well of bitter water. Moses cast a rod into the water and it miraculously became sweet. God promised that if Israel followed commandments: “The diseases I have placed on Egypt I will not place upon you, for I am the Lord your Healer.” Mannah, the food that was a gift from God, began to fall during Iyyar. The Hebrew letters Iyyar form an acronym of I am the Lord your Healer, therefore Iyyar is an especially propitious time for healing.

Iyyar has another name in the prophets. It is referred to as Ziv. “Now it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.” (Kings I:6:1). On the exact same day, hundreds of years later, Ezra began the construction of the Second Temple (Ezra 3:8). So this is the month that the construction of the Temple was begun.  Maybe the theme then is about building.

In much more modern times, despite the omer being a period of semi-mourning, we celebrate Israel Independence Day, Yom Ha’atzma’ut on Iyyar 5 and Jerusalem Day on Iyyar 28. While these real historical events are worthy of celebrating, they seem to pull focus away from the traditional counting of the omer and our ability to number our days to make them holy.

So Iyyar is a time of healing, meditating on God and being ready for the revelation at Sinai. It helps to develop our mental and spiritual capacities.  It is about building, and about Israel. Tonight is Rosh Hodesh Iyyar and I am listening to the sound of birds and the sounds of men and the sounds of women all praying at the Kotel, at the Western Wall. The sounds are beautiful. Perhaps that is what we are building, finally. Beauty.

Last night we had dinner in Evanston at a lovely Italian restaurant. It seemed a little surreal. Small plates of pasta laden with black truffles or butternut squash, bruschetta with tuna, capers, lemon and fennel, gourmet Italian cheeses, good bread, roasted garlic. Good conversation. Time seemed to stop. We could have sat there all night into the wee small hours of the morning.

We were meeting with the organizer Amit Smotrich, for Chicago with American Jewish World Service. Our conversation covered easy topics like what to pack for the trip to Kenya. What the balance might be between hands on service projects, meeting with partners and government officials, and would we get to go on a safari. Serious life or death topics like 19,000 food insecure people in Elgin and why U-46 may not be able to provide school breakfasts any more. Really–while eating black truffle pasta!  How do we talk about peace in the Middle East without being polarizing?

How to pass the International Violence Against Women Act in the US House of Representatives when my sitting congressman voted against the domestic bill. Why the rights of women have been linked to abortion. Why in order to deliver poverty services in Africa with AJWS and its NGO partners you need to end violence against women. Duh! Check out their campaign. It is a no brainer and you can sign a petition to your own congress person supporting this action.

http://webelieve.ajws.org

Let’s be clear. I know a lot about the topic of forgiveness. It was a chapter in my rabbinic thesis. I got an A in the class Justice, Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Jewish and Christian Thought and I passed another class entitled Forgiveness. (that professor only graded such a topic pass/fail!).

Forgiveness is tough. It became really clear to me as I read Gated Grief. It became increasingly clear as I sat through the various presentations that were offered last week at the domestic violence conference specifically on this topic.

Today is not only the 12th day of the Omer but it is also Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. How can we forgive? Should we forgive? Can we ever forgive such atrocities? Simon Wiesenthal wrote a powerful book, the Sunflower, which wrestles with that very question. During the war when he was interred as a Jewish prisoner in a forced labor camp, he was brought to a dying SS officer who demanded precisely that–to forgive the SS officer for burning Jews alive in a synagogue. Wiesenthal spends the rest of his life wrestling with what he did. Read the book, it is important!

What I learned is that Jews and Christians, probably others have a way of using the words just slightly differently–and then expecting each other to understand. That is why I wanted people at the conference to wrestle with real texts of our various faith traditions. How I understand a passage may be very different than how someone else who is Christian understands the very same text.

We heard from the Baptist minister using the Holman Bible Dictionary that forgiveness is “an act of God’s grace to forget forever and not hold people of faith accountable for sins they confess; to a lesser degree the gracious human act of not holding wrong acts against a person.” Later in the day we heard the Merriam Webster definition: “To stop feeling anger toward, to stop blaming, to stop feeling anger about, to forgive someone for, to give up on resentment of or claim to requital.” Those are very different working definitions.

We differentiated between forgiveness, amends and reconciliation. And to be clear, according to that speaker, is “not forgetting, reconciliation, excusing, or tolerating abusive/controlling behavior. And it is NOT required. It is optional.”

Looking at the story of Luke Chapter 5:17-25 where Jesus heals the paralyzed man, we learn that it is really a story of healing and forgiveness. The Lutheran bishop suggested that forgiveness is really the freedom to move forward. However, he cautioned that there are really two outcomes of forgiveness. Reconciliation when the abuser admits his wrong doing, makes amends and his behavior changes so that the abusive behavior is not repeated. He has mended his heart and his actions. This enables a victim to eventually to set the offender free–but only once the offended one feels safe.  Another outcome is release, where the offender is confronted with the truth but he cannot or will not acknowledge guilt, feel remorse or change. The offended is set free from the responsibility to forgive. Maimonidies, the twelfth century Jewish philosopher would counsel a similar thing. The two who were together can now lead separate lives–maybe even from a different zip code.

Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go. And while I heard the theme song of Frozen which seemed so apt, it seems too easily said and not easily done. Hope of letting go of a better past. Hope of a better future. Getting rid of the if onlys. Getting rid of anger. Letting go.

The Lutheran bishop argued that there is a price of non-forgiveness. “No one gets to the Promised Land without leaving Egypt.” I would say, “We need to leave the narrow spaces of Egypt to reach freedom and the hope that comes with it.” That is the gift of Passover which we just celebrated. That is the gift of forgiveness.

I can buy into a lot of this. Until I listen to a survivor say that all domestic violence victims need to forgive or they have not fully healed. That made me angry. How dare she. She can speak for herself but cannot speak for all the women I have worked with. Until I remember the Holocaust. Simon Wiesenthal argues that according to Judaism only the wounded party has the power to forgive the offender. So Wiesenthal couldn’t forgive the SS guard. The only people who could were dead. We who survived am not obligated to forgive the Germans, and we certainly don’t have to forget what the Germans did. Then we are doomed to repeat what they did. And repeat the world seems to do. Breaking these cycles of violence seems to be almost impossible.

What then can we do? The question that Rabbi Harold Kushner asks is not why do bad things happen to good people but when. How do we respond when bad things happen to good people? What is our responsibility when we are free? If forgiveness makes us free, what are we free for? The Lutheran bishop argued compassion, justice, gratitude, outreach. I would concur.

We have a responsibility, those of us who survived, the Holocaust, domestic violence, other trauma, to be compassionate, to work for justice, to be grateful. To figure out what this thing called forgiveness is. To break the cycles of violence. To work for a world without genocide, without domestic violence. It is a daunting task.

When I think of Africa, I think about Darfur. I think about Sudan. I think about Rwanda. I wonder what my people’s cry of “Never again!” means. I think about ethnic violence in Kenya, in the slums of Kibera. Can we prevent another Holocaust? I think I must learn to speak out. Pirke Avot teaches, “Ours is not to ignore the task, neither are we free to ignore it.”

As you know, yesterday I presented at the conference on domestic violence. Too much trauma this week between preparing for the conference and Yom Hashoah and my trip to Kenya. But here comes Shabbat. And this Shabbat in particular. This Shabbat we read Kedoshim, the Holiness Code, the very center of Leviticus in the very center of the Torah.

So what is holiness? The text says, “You shall be holy because I the Lord your God am holy.” Chapter 19 then goes on to quote some of the most famous verses of scripture. It details how we become holy.

Holy means to set apart, to separate. We have lots of words we use with this root, kuf, dalet, shin. Kadosh, Holy. Kiddush, the prayer over wine that separates Shabbat from the rest of the week, Kaddish, the prayer that separates or demarcates different parts of the service, and kiddushin, marriage because when we marry we are set apart, one for the other and no other. Ironic, since one of the words for prostitute is kadasha, because she is living without the bounds of marriage.

So kedusha, holiness, has something to do with boundaries. Setting boundaries. Which is exactly what G-d does before the 10 commandments are given. G-d tells the Israelites not to come up the mountain, to set bounds around the mountain. Then they will become an am segulah (a treasured nation) and an Am Kadosh, a holy nation.

The Torah, a system of rules and laws is a boundary. It separates for us right from wrong. It is what allows us to be an Am Kadosh and an Or hagoyim, a light to the nations. The Torah is that light. Being that light is what God chose us for–after, according to the midrash G-d went to all the other nations first and each one rejected the terms in turn. Only the Israelites were will to do and to hear.

Our portion after telling us that we shall be holy, kadosh because G-d is holy, then goes on to tell us how to separate ourselves, how to distinguish right from wrong, how to live morally and justly, how to become holy. It is a balance between how to worship G-d and how to live with other people.

It tells us that this is for all the people of Israel, not just the priests, the cohanim. In the middle of the Torah, in the middle of Leviticus, the text breaks away from its instruction to the priestly class. This law is for all of us. It repeats some of the 10 commandments. Fear your mother and father, observe Shabbat, don’t turn to idols or make graven images, don’t murder, don’t steal don’t deal falsely with your neighbor.

But it extends beyond that to create a just society. Leave the corner of your field and your vineyard. Don’t oppress your neighbor or rob them. To not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind. Do not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds. Do not take vengeance or bear a grudge. Love your neighbor as yourself.

It is easy to type the words. It is harder to do them. When it says to Love your neighbor as yourself, isn’t that what Love Elgin Day is about. If we are observing Shabbat which we are, does that mean we cannot participate in Love Elgin Day?

If we don’t have a field or a vineyard how do we give the corners of our field to those who need them? Does the community garden fulfill that function? Is it enough?

If we have members who cannot hear or cannot see or cannot walk how do we remove the obstacles so that they can participate fully?

This last one we tackled in situ this morning. We brought the Torah down from the bimah so that everyone could have access that wanted, then we rolled the podium up the aisle. We brought the Torah to the people. One man cried because he hadn’t had an aliyah in 5 years and thought he would never again.

This action was creating sacred time and space, exactly what Shabbat is about. It was holy time. It was Shabbat at its best. And it was exactly the antidote I needed about my week about domestic violence, Holocaust and the slums of Kenya. May we continue to create holy moments, that way we will fulfill the promise that we are a holy people, am kadosh and a light to the nations.

Today I present at the annual domestic violence conference sponsored by the 16th Circuit Court Faith Watch Committee. In the mystical Jewish tradition each day of the counting of the omer has a unique quality. Today’s quality is tiferet of gevurah. These words are not easy to render into English. Beauty in discipline. Compassion in discipline. Or crown of strength. Yesterday was gevurah of gevurah. Strength of strength.

I’ve been thinking about that as I prepare my materials. I am helping the participants study texts about forgiveness. Forgiveness is frequently a stumbling block of healing from domestic violence. Forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgiveness involves letting go of some of the anger. Forgiveness does not happen all at once, but slowly over time. Forgiveness is not always possible nor is it always necessary. However, our religious traditions, almost all of them, require it. Or do they?

Are there any situations where forgiveness is not possible?

In order to prepare today’s materials I read more again about domestic violence and forgiveness. I read across Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. Sometimes the reading took me out of my comfort zone. Sometimes I wanted to scream. I needed to remember that like Judaism there is a range of opinion on forgiveness in each of the traditions I was researching.

In addition to my work on domestic violence I am reading Gated Grief about GIs who liberated concentration camps and On the Way to War. Too much trauma. Too much destruction. Too much anger. Too much silence. Very little forgiveness. In light of the Holocaust and other genocides, how can there be forgiveness?

Forgiveness takes strength. It takes compassion. It takes discipline. Forgiveness is healing, slowly over time. But only when the survivor of domestic violence or the Holocaust or a war is ready. Only if they feel safe. Only on their terms.

I had a friend in rabbinical school who every year hosted a party on the night after Passover. Not unheard of, right? First chance to eat bread, pasta, pizza, popcorn. People have their favorite post-Passover meal. One cousin even ships in pizza from Chicago to his office at the Department of Justice in Washington.

But my friend’s tradition is to host a Mimouna, a custom of the Moroccan Jews. In fact, after the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, this is one of five state holidays in Israel. The origins of this festival are shrouded in mystery. It may be named for Rambam’s father who either was born or died on this day. Maimon was important in the Moroccan Jewish community. He was instrumental in Muslim-Jewish relations. He kept the peace. Something we could use a lot more of, given the news out of Israel this week (every week?).  Bombs falling down on Israel from Gaza are never OK. But neither are tires slashed in neighborhoods of Jerusalem with graffiti saying that gentiles are the  enemy in Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Tires-of-34-vehicles-found-slashed-in-Arab-neighborhood-of-east-Jerusalem-346298

The Israel Religious Action Center hosted a Mimouna party both in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem, to get Israeli Muslims and Israeli Jews talking again. In recent weeks when peace talks have broken off and have been on again and off again and I think as of this writing on again but with bombs flying in the south of Israel and tires slashed in Jerusalem, I applaud IRAC for working for Muslim-Jewish relations. I applaud them for working for peace.

Or it could be that the word Mimouna comes from the Hebrew word, faith or belief, emunah, the idea that we should trust G-d. They suggests that it links the redemption from Egypt with the future redemption in the time to come. In the Talmud, it is written, “Just as they were redeemed in Nisan from Egypt, so too in Nisan they will be redeemed again.” Maimonidies himself thought that it was an Arabic adaption of Ani Ma’amin.

Or it could be that Mimouna comes from the Arabic word for wealth, ma’amoun, literally protected by G-d. As we start the agricultural year with Pesach at the same time we drop the liturgical prayer for rain, this makes sense.

Throughout northern Africa, Jews opened their homes to all to celebrate. Libyans made challah with a hard boiled egg in it (sound like Greek Easter bread? Lots of cross pollination!). Children dressed in native costumes of Berbers, people hosted potlucks with the Muslims bringing the flour that the Jews hadn’t owned during Passover so that Jews could make muffletas. Food included rich breads, milk, honey, butter.

At my friend’s house, there would be lots of rosewater. In any case, this tradition from Africa, northern Africa, enriches our understanding of Judaism.  This year there was also a Mimouna in Chicago hosted by AVODAH. Here’s how the organizer reflected on it. “Beyond the food and music, the celebration of Mimouna in the Chicago AVODAH community was an attempt to recapture the narrative of Moroccan Jews and use it as a bridge to build relationships with individuals across national and religious backgrounds. I am hopeful that as Jews pursuing social justice we can learn to revisit and tap into the richness of our histories, knowing that not only can they bring us joy, but also power to pursue the change we wish to see in the world.”

Mimouna makes me hopeful too!

My mother always used to play golf on her birthday. It was part of how she established whether she was still alive and how good her quality of life was. When she was younger it was always 18 holes and she walked the course. When my father was gone, it was nine holes, with or without a cart. Later she would drive a bucket, but she was still playing golf. Still later it was mini-golf with her granddaughter. If she couldn’t play golf…well, then…

For her, golf and her birthday were a touchstone. Even when she was in the hospital, she dreamed of golf. Heaven was a golf course and she beat my brother, an almost impossible task. So driven (pun intended) was she to play golf, that at her funeral, we actually threw a golf ball into the grave. Hey, she may need it there in heaven!

Today was the Boston Marathon. One year after the horrific bombings. I have been anticipating this day for a long time. It seems like an important anniversary, a yahrzeit. Anita Diamant, author of the Red Tent and founder of Mayyim Hayyim and someone I am proud to call friend said it so well. http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2014/04/15/yahrzeit-anita-diamant

But why am I affected? I don’t even live in Boston anymore. Because Boston is my city. Because I have run Boston five times. I lived in Boston for 30 years. I love that city. I love that race. I haven’t run it since 1987. Life intervened. I broke a leg. I had a kid. I was in car accident. Rabbinical school and business travel was its own kind of marathon. No matter where I was in the world, every year I sat on the couch and said, “I just want to run one more.” Usually I linked it to just showing Sarah that I really could do it. Last year was no exception. I sat on my couch, watching the start, saying, “Just one more.” Sarah said, “Why not?” and we began to make plans to run a tune-up race, the Disney Princess Half Marathon. We have now done that. Couch potatoes no more.

Today our day began with a run/walk. Together. 2.6 miles. 10% of the Boston Marathon. Only then could we watch. We watched it all. We cried. We laughed. We tracked friends of ours who were running for themselves. Friends who were running for charity. Friends who were running in honor or in memory of those who were so devastated by last year’s race. We planned other races we would like to do, separately and together. We made deviled egg ducks to look like the sculpture Make Way for Ducklings.

And we wore blue, me my Boston Strong t-shirt.

The Boston Globe ran a story on Sunday about marathoning and healing from trauma.http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/columns/2014/04/19/along-marathon-route-trauma-runs-its-course/jd3yEaAHKASjC77k3EruWL/story.html  I found it right on the money. And as a five time Boston Marathoner and a trauma survivor, I know every step they describe.

And here is the important thing. Boston survived. It is back stronger (and more beautiful) than ever. I have survived. I am back stronger (and maybe more beautiful than ever). Like my mother and her golfing, Marathon Monday has become a day to reflect on my life. I am still here. I am still a runner. I am still alive. Thank you Boston–even from a distance. Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha’olam, shehechianu, v’ki’imanu, v’higianu lazman hazeh. Praised are You, Lord our G-d, (my G-d), Ruler of the Universe who has sustained us (and me), and enabled us (and me) to reach this milestone.

Oh what a week. Eight Days a Week.

One: Sometime last Monday, while I was getting my hair cut, I had an epiphany. People who love to host Passover relish in the physicality of it. It always seems to involve moving tables and chairs, sometimes reversing living rooms and dining rooms. Why? Why do we get chained to the way we always do this holiday that is about freedom? Then when I was lamenting that my house didn’t look like Better Homes and Gardens, someone said something so simple, it was liberating. “The goal is not to look like Martha Stewart. The goal is to be in the middle. No one wants to go to Martha Stewart’s house. They would be afraid to put a glass down.” This comment made me relax. We want people to enjoy being at our house. It should be clean. It should be neat. But it doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be comfortable. Given this advice, our sederim were lovely.

Two: Our house were filled with guests for the seder. 16 this year. A total of eight of us spent the night. It seemed a little like camping. Maybe that is what the Israelites felt like when they were leaving Egypt. Somehow I doubt it. Even though some chose to sleep on the floor, this was a little more cushy than wandering in the desert afraid for our lives. Two of our guests were from Africa. One of our guests taught in Tanzinia and one recently returned from a safari there. The evening was rich with good food, even some African specialities, good conversation and all the traditional (and not so traditional) words and songs of the seder. Exhausting but worth every minute. AND the best part, I got to sit for most of it! Thanks Simon, Sarah and Jack!

Here is the recipe for Kachumbari,  Tomato and Onion Salad:

Three: Thanks to Risa Cohen. After years of studying my Bat Mitzvah Torah portion, 40 to be precise plus a rabbinic dissertation on it, Risa explained something I had missed. In Ashrei, it reverses rachum v’chanun to chanun v’rachum. Why? I thought there was great meaning in it. Maybe not. The Psalmist needed it as chanun v’rachum to fit the alef-bet order. She may be right. Part of the reason I love being a rabbi and I love Torah discussions is because of the learning from others. Torah discussions are “holy sparks flying.”

Four: There are deeper meanings of Passover. How wonderful to spend a morning helping make five new Jews. A mother who was already raising her children and her four children, met a group of three rabbis at the Community Mikveh in Wilmette. When they went into the water, they were friends of Judaism. When they came out of the mikveh, they were Jewish. Talk about rebirth, renewal and coming out of the narrow places. This is what Passover is all about.

Five: This week marks the 40th anniversary of my Bat Mitzvah. I remember standing on the bimah, reading the very words that I will read on Shabbat thinking to myself (long before we give this speech to kids) that I didn’t want the experience to end. For me, my Bat Mitzvah was only a beginning of a life long love affair with Judaism. Thank you, Rabbi Albert M. Lewis for setting me on this path and for being my rabbi, my teacher, my mentor for all these years! Al always said that each Bat/Bar Mitzvah student receives exactly the right portion for them. For me, he was right. This year, however, after writing my rabbinic thesis on the same passage, I was afraid I would have nothing new to say. My portion contains the 13 Attributes and has sustained me as Jewish leader (“Moses you look weary.”, the opening line of my Bat Mitzvah speech, a dialogue between G-d and Moses), as a Jew seeking to explain Judaism to Christians who think that the G-d of Israel is a G-d of vengeance and that G-d of the New Testament is a G-d of love, and is what ultimately led me to become a rabbi. Today as I stand on the bimah, I am proud of my bimah skills, skills that began 40 years ago. Even more so, I am proud of the compassion I have learned through the years and the ability to lead, plead, inspire, cajole a congregation to make the world a better place. Let us hope for at least another 40 years.

Six: I woke up singing a song today. A Beatles song. Eight Days a Week.  You might think that is odd for Passover, but strangely not. You see, Passover is an eight day week. For a couple of days now I have felt unsatisfied with the food we are eating. I am tired (already) of matzah. I am even tired of chocolate matzah. How is that even possible? I get up from the table and I am still hungry. Hungry for something. Maybe it is not food. Maybe it is that I am hungry for love. It seems this song with the lyrics:
Eight days a week
I love you
Eight days a week
Is not enough to show I care

is like my Bat Mitzvah portion and my haftarah portion, Song of Songs, meant to reassure people like me that G-d does in fact love us. Eight days a week. All the days of Passover. All the nights of Passover. All eight of them. Not just seven. Maybe that is why Passover needs to be eight days and not just the Biblical seven. Even longer. For a thousand generations. Forever. G-d loves us forever.

Seven: Easter Sunday morning we had religious school. Only about a third of our students showed up. That makes sense. Half our students are in interfaith families. What was surprising to me was how little our older students know about Easter. Sure, they knew about dyed eggs and Easter Egg hunts, chocolate bunnies and Easter baskets. Not one could tell the story of Jesus. Not one knew about Good Friday.  So I started Ruach, our assembly with a question. Why is this hard boiled egg here? They thought maybe my breakfast–and that was true. So I began to teach. For 30 minutes I taught about Easter and Passover, how one came out of the other. How many think that Jesus’s Last Supper was a seder meal. How Jesus was crucified (by the Romans), died and then on the third day was resurrected. How the concept of resurrection, coming back from the dead actually is a Jewish concept. My hope would be that we have equipped our children to be better citizens of the world, better citizens of this country.

Sunday afternoon was a real taste of freedom. We had beautiful spring weather. We ate lunch and dinner on our deck (and none could make us afraid). We played boggle. We cooked. We ate wonderful food and yes, now I have eaten and were satisfied. Even the dog loves his matzah. It’s his favorite holiday. (He even likes horseradish and chopped liver!). 

Eight: On the eighth night of Passover we had dinner with Simon’s cousins. We finally had time. We enjoyed a great, leisurely dinner of lamb and quinoa (always quinoa this year), Sarah’s chocolate covered matzah and perhaps even more importantly great conversation. There is always great conversation in that house. We talked about Kenya, about Kosher for Passover wine, about politics, about American Jewish World Service (long time supporters, those Adams!). We talked about mentoring and the role it plays in helping students succeed and how proud when one of our students graduates. And just as I had gotten up because I had to lead yizkor in the morning, about family stories. And maybe that is what Passover is about, telling those family stories, all the way back from “My father was a wandering Aramean” to where Jacob Adams was born in Pozen and the fact that he was a proud German Jew even if living in what we would call Poland. And then the stories of what the name might have been. Adams? Addam? Adom like the first human? Was there a split in the family? Does class and economical status play a role and how do we not pass these slights, these grudges onto the next generation? I didn’t want the evening to end. This is really what yizkor is about. Telling the stories. Making the evening different. The command to remember all the generations who went before.

Nine: Yizkor itself. After the deep experience of feeling free watching the Boston Marathon a year after the bombing, itself a kind of yahrzeit, I felt that yizkor itself was flat. Not so, said one member, who found it particularly moving. “I’ve never been to yizkor, but I woke up thinking (and singing) about my parents and my friend said that yizkor is so important so I came. I was very moved.” During yizkor itself, I was not so much, but putting away the Torah scrolls, when we got to Hashivenu Adonai…I found tears silently dripping down my face. “Renew our days as of old.” That is the hope, the message of yizkor.

So this year, for sure I can say, I did Passover–all of the rites, laws, customs (new and old) are done. As the wise child asks, “What are the testimonies, the statutes and the laws which G-d, our Lord, has commanded you?” You, in turn, shall instruct him in all the laws of Passover”. The questions were many and meaningful, the discussions long and important. I am still learning.  Is wild rice kosher for Passover? How do you kasher a stand-mixer? If you start Passover in one time zone and travel to another, which time zone do you end Passover? What is freedom? What are our responsibilities to make the world a better place?

But here is the thing. This year I leave Passover feeling lighter which is not a reflection of the scale. It is a sense of freedom and peace. This response to the end of Passover, to completing all of the seders, services, cooking and cleaning, surprised me. I think it is that I am renewed and ready for the rest of the journey. The question is…can I sustain the feeling?

Ever since I have announced my African project–and to be clear, really my Kenyan project people have been sending me articles, books, recipes, all kinds of things African. One of the things that I have enjoyed is learning about the Jewish communities in Africa.

The Chicago Jewish News recently posted an article about the Jewish Community in Kenya. http://chicagojewishnews.com/2014/02/08/discovering-jewish-stories/ It is a fascinating series of stories and I am excited to be meeting Jewish community there this summer. I know that the community was shaken by the recent bombing of the Westgate Mall. Some believe the attack was due to the Israeli ownership of the mall and some of the shops. It is a good reminder that wherever Jews and Israelis are it is prudent to be prepared and to be careful.

The Chicago Jewish News also recently had an article about the Jews of Uganda from JTA. http://www.jta.org/2014/03/23/news-opinion/world/in-rural-uganda-small-jewish-community-splits-over-conversion

This is an interesting community. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/africa_uganda0s_jewish_community/html/1.stm that I have followed for a long time.

I have enjoyed sipping their coffee from a unique collaborative between Jews, Christians and Muslims. Kosher, fair trade and organic, it is a model for all of us, and as its name implies, Delicious Peace, it tastes good!

I have enjoyed meeting members of the community when they have come to the Academy for Jewish Religion. I know some of the rabbis from the Conservative Movement including Rabbi Joe Prouser, Dr. Ora Horn Prouser’s (my AJR dean and advisor) who went to Uganda to help with the conversions. I was saddened to read in the article about a split in the community. Cue the jokes here about building two synagogues, one you never step foot in.

But on a more serious note, it is very sad that Jews feel the need to squabble over what is authentic Judaism. I watch these debates often enough here in the States. They are central to the arguments about the Law of Return in Israel and about who has access to the Western Wall. I was not expecting it here.

I have enjoyed the music of the Abudaya community. It is Jewish liturgical music with a upbeat African beat.  My Hillel rabbi, Rabbi Jeffrey Summitt was actually nominated for a Grammy for his recordings of Abudaya music as part of his degree in Ethnomusicology. Here is a sample: abudaya uganda music youtube And like my Ora has said, their music makes her happy!

To use a line from the Lion King. Hakuna Matatah! In the meantime, I will keep learning and keep preparing.

On the morning before the first day of Passover, several of us gathered at Congregation Kneseth Israel to study something in depth. Those of us who are first born are supposed to fast the day before the seder in recognition that our lives were spared when the Angel of Death passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt. BUT, if we complete studying something, then we are obligated to celebrate and we cannot fast. A legal fiction? Yep, but a nice tradition and one that forces me to study something. Studying something, mastering it, making it my own is part of what I love about being a rabbi.

This year I chose as the topic, Zipporah. Truth be told I am not sure that in an hour session and my preparatory work I am really done with this topic.

Who was Zipporah? The wife of Moses, daughter of Jethro the Midianite priest (cohen). Or daughter of Reul as one of texts names him. The mother of Gershom and Eliezer. She circumcised Gershom on the road to freedom. She is identified as the Cushite woman. Her name means little bird.

She only appears in three Biblical texts: Exodus 2:18-20 where Moses meets Zipporah at the well. Always at a well. Exodus 4:26 where Zipporah circumcises Gershom thus preserving the covenant and maybe in Numbers 12:1 when Miriam complains about the Cushite woman. None of these texts are particularly easy. Zipporah seems to play a bit part. So why do we care?

We care because Zipporah becomes a role model for us today. Daughter of a Midianite priest, she was not an Israelite, perhaps if she is a Cushite, she is even African, black skinned. Yet she is the one responsible for passing down the covenant, by taking matters in to her own hands and circumcising her son.

When reading all of the midrashim (yes, I did that amount of pre-reading first, plus a modern midrashic novel, Zipporah Wife of Moses by Marek Halter), we learn that Miriam was struck by leprosy by speaking out against her brother. The rabbis talk about it as gossip because she is questioning whether Moses is fulfilling his husbandly duties. Ultimately Miriam is told essentially to mind her own business. How many times have we had people wonder in our community if someone is Jewish, or Jewish enough, or can be attending religious school. My advice, based on reading these texts? Mind your own business! Eventually it will sort itself out (and it is part of my job as mara d’atra, master of the place, to help people sort it out for themselves!)

Studying these texts on the morning before Pesach was thrilling. There were two men studying to be Catholic priests from Africa. There two women who are married to non-Jews that are raising their children as Jews. One is in a bi-racial marriage. They broke into four groups and really wrestled with the texts. Holy sparks flying. It stretched all of us. And that is precisely the point of Torah study. To stretch us. To become G-dwrestlers.

One modern day sermon I read in preparation was my Rabbi Stephen Kahn, “For Officiating at Intermarriages: The Voice of Zipporah”. He describes sitting in his office listening to a Bar Mitzvah parent trying to prepare with her son on the phone. None of her family will be participating in the service. They are not Jewish and she has not converted. As he said, “Yet again I am confronted with the reality that this woman, who is sharing in the most meaningful way in raising her son to become a Jewish adult, is not Jewish herself. She tells me that she and her husband sit hour upon hour studying with him at home learning a language she had never been exposed to as a child herself. Taking on the commitment of v’shinatam l’vanecha, of teaching our children.” She is a modern day Zipporah.

He goes on to explain that for seven years he had chosen not to participate in interfaith weddings. But in looking at Zipporah and watching his congregation, he is changing his mind. “According to the midrash (teaching story), the rabbis suggest that God was angry with Moses because he had not immediately circumcised his son. Therefore, God sought to kill him. The midrash claims that had it not been for Zipporah’s dedication to the mitzvah (commandment) of circumcision, Moses would have died and the Jewish people would never have been savedOn a very deep level this small editorial note on Moses’ journey from Midian back to Egypt is filled with a very powerful message. That his non-Hebrew wife fulfills the mitzvah of circumcision is no small matter. After all, it is traditionally a commandment upon the father of a Jewish child. Studying this text has inspired me to make both the emotional and intellectual transition in my life.”

For me, I believe that in certain cases performing an interfaith wedding makes sense. I am not sure my congregation is there yet. But as I write these words on Erev Easter I am aware that we will have Hebrew School tomorrow and that only half our children will show up. The other half, fully the other half will be celebrating another holiday at their grandparents’ homes. Interfaith marriage is here to stay. Perhaps it is better to say it has always been here. Rebecca, Rachel, Leah, Pharaoh’s Daughter, Zipporah. Non-Jewish women. All were instrumental in ensuring that the next generation were part of the covenant. The research in Boston shows that if we are welcoming to non-Jewish spouses, rather than pushing them away, they become involved, invested, engaged. Some convert. Some do not. Many are instrumental in passing down Judaism to their children. Just like Zipporah. For me that is the take-away from my in-depth study of Zipporah. I am glad I had the opportunity.