Parshat Noach: Genesis 6:1 -11:26 By: Rabbi Denise L. Eger

With the election looming before us and all eyes cast upon what the direction of our nation will be, it is good to read the story of Noah once again. The second torah portion in Genesis is more than a story about the animals marching two by two into the ark of familiar childhood pictures. It is a story that offers us hope. It offers us hope because even in the face of cruelty and lawlessness and violence that seem to rule the planet the Divine Holy One finds a spark of righteousness in the person of Noah. In the end the promise of the rainbow filled the sky!

Noah is described as “blameless in his age”. He stands out as one who goes against the tide of corruption and brutality that marked his generation. The text says Noah was someone who walked with God. The sense of this is that Noah lived a moral life, a holy life especially in comparison with those around him. This spark of righteousness and justice helps Noah proceed to save the remnant of life, his family and the animals even in the face of a world gone mad. Noah listens to the call of God. Noah and his family and animals of every kind are saved and become the remnant to renew and replenish the planet.
This is not an easy task in any era or time. To walk with God as Noah did or to walk before God as Abraham did (Genesis 17:1) or to walk after Torah as described in Deuteronomy puts a person on the path of living a moral and enlightened spiritual life according to the teaching of the great Rav Kook.

In our own day and time it too seems as if there is enough cruelty and brutality to go around. How can we put ourselves on the path of living a moral and enlightened spiritual life so that we too can walk with God and walk after Torah? How can we rise beyond the violence that haunts our world—crime and war and abuse? How can we fan the spark of righteousness in our selves and in others?

It isn’t easy to march to the drum of holiness and morality. Especially when there are so many that drape themselves in the Bible and claim that their way is the only way.

In particular Proposition 8 on the California Ballot is a perfect example. Because those that placed Proposition 8 on the ballot are examples of the cruelty and brutality of our age. They think they are righteous in their generation but in truth they foster hatred, hurtfulness and seek to create a theocracy of our secular state. Proposition 8, which would eliminate fundamental rights of citizens, is holding our community hostage. The perpetrators of Proposition 8 claim they are the moral ones and wrap themselves in the so-called mantle of the Bible. But in truth they are living examples of misguided readings of the message of love and hope in the Bible. Have they forgotten the passage that urges us to “Love your neighbor as your self” (Lev. 19:18)?

Like Noah who walked with God and wasn’t afraid to go against the grain of his era—so too we must defeat Proposition 8 and stop the voices of hatred and discrimination that seek to drown out the truth with their lies. Like Noah in whom God found the spark of righteousness and holiness, we too must seek out the holiness in all of God creatures and yes, in gay men and lesbians. For that spark of holiness will help heal and transform our world for good.

Whenever I stand with a gay or lesbian couple or a straight couple at the wedding canopy- I can feel the divine sparks of light that they bring together to heal the world and create their family. We as a society must encourage that union of the divine sparks of love and passion and compassion by opposing such a cruel and terroristic proposition such as Proposition 8 that would eliminate the fundamental right to marry in our state Constitution. Proposition 8 is nothing more than domestic terrorism. We must oppose it with every effort of our breath. And oppose those who would foster such cruelty. Proposition 8 is unfair, unnecessary and wrong.

The call of holiness—the walk with God calls upon us in these final days before the election to do everything to defeat this unfair, cruel and hateful proposition. Volunteer in the remaining days of the campaign. Take off on election day and help defeat Proposition 8. You can sign up by clicking on www.noonprop8.com/actions/gotv.

And when we do Vote No on Prop 8 and defeat these forces of cruelty and hatred—the rainbow of hope will appear for us and it did for Noah in his day!

Simchat Torah/Parashat Bereshit: Genesis 1:1 – 6:4 By: Rabbi Denise L. Eger

This has been a season of new Beginnings. We of course, just celebrate Rosh Hashanah the beginning of the Jewish New Year. With sounds of the Shofar we ushered in 5769. Then ten days later we had another kind of beginning. Yom Kippur arrived to help us atone for our transgressions and errors of the previous year and to give us a new, fresh and pure start. By making teshuvah, by turning towards God and our fellow human beings with forgiveness and contrition we have begun the year with a new resolve to live our lives filled with holiness and faith. Then we have celebrated Sukkot, a week of celebrating the bounty and abundance of our lives. This acknowledgement is the beginning of a new outlook for us and our loved ones. The fragility of the Sukkah that still provides shelter from the storms of life reminds us of the fragility of our lives and the protection and peace we seek in our traditions and from God. This too is a kind of beginning for each one of us as we focus on the life of the spirit.

This week is yet another celebration of beginnings. We observe Simchat Torah which is the holiday of ending and beginning again the cycle of reading the Torah. With great dancing and celebration we rejoice in our Torah, symbol of our covenant with God at Sinai and a gift of love. As we read from the opening verses of Genesis we read of the mythic beginning of our universe.

Thus this coming Shabbat is Shabbat Bereshit, the Sabbath of Beginnings. In the span of a Jewish month we have had all kinds of beginnings: Spiritual and Practical and Torah related! Each beginning is helping us to start the year off right. And this teaches us an important lesson. Each beginning, each fresh start has many aspects to it. It is not simply at the practical level—a new year begins but it is deep and touches the heart, the soul and the mind. Just the same way we are to love God—with all of heart, all of our soul and all of our being.

As our year opened with many kinds of new beginnings, our Torah portion has more than one as well. In our parasha there are two stories of creation. There are two different versions. The first creation or beginning is the creation of humanity in general and the second creation story is the story of the first humans, Adam and Eve. The account of the events of creation varies in these stories. The order of creation is slightly different and of course the biggest difference is the focus on the story of Adam and Eve in the second account of creation.

But here too we learn that beginnings are not just one moment in time but a series of a starts and stops. For even Adam and Eve’s story is one of multiple beginnings. First there is just Adam and the animals. But then God creates Eve and so the beginning of the world has a different quality to it. And then Adam and Eve have a different beginning when they leave the Garden of Eve after eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Our parasha has multiple beginnings at the very beginning.

So we learn from this Holy Season and from the stories we read that we are always in the process of beginning. Beginnings don’t just happen at a single point in time but we are constantly beginning anew with each breath that we take. Beginnings happen at multiple layers in our lives and a fresh start is always possible.

In these troubling times that we live in it is good to know that we don’t have to be stuck or held down. Instead we learn from Jewish tradition that we have great opportunities for each moment, each breath, each day to be a new beginning for you and we give thanks in our morning prayers for awakening to each new dawn –so filled with potential for goodness and hope and the ultimate gift of love.

Happy Beginnings!

Sukkot By Rabbi Denise L. Eger

This week we celebrate our fall harvest festival of Sukkot. We interrupt the regular cycle of reading the almost completed Torah to enjoy the bounty of this special week. We wave the etrog (citron) and the lulav (palm bound with myrtle and willow leaves) in the four directions and up and down to invoke the Divine Holy Presence’s protection.

Similarly we are commanded to dwell in our sukkah-eat, maybe even sleep, and certainly we welcome guests into the temporary shelter that also reminds us of the Divine Holy Presence’s protection. We are protected from the elements and seek a place of respite, safety and hospitality in the sukkah.

Our sukkah is fragile. It is not a permanent structure. But like the Tent of Meeting our ancestors worshipped in during the days of wandering in the Sinai, the sukkah is a place that carves out for us an opportunity to commune with God, family, friends and the ancestors of our people. This is one reason we invite to our sukkah with special prayers the ancestors of our people like Sarah and Abraham, Rebekkah and Isaac, Leah and Rachel and Jacob, Miriam, Moses and Aaron, Devorah, and David, Hulda the Scribe. The custom of ushpizin-of invoking and inviting our communal ancestors into the sukkah helps to open our temporary homes to the connections of our past and the dignity, character and legacy that each one of these Biblical heroines and heroes shares with us. By inviting these spiritual teachers and ancestors into our sukkah we embrace the idea that we too can strive to learn from their actions and lives. When we invite these ancestors we hope that we can be blessed with the flow of generosity and hospitality that Sarah and Abraham modeled for us. We hope that we can like Rebekkah and Isaac express devotion and love. We hope and pray that we like Leah and Rachel and Jacob who gave birth to the 12 tribes of our people, have our families be a foundation of the Jewish people. We hope that like Miriam, Moses and Aaron, we can be called to spiritual leadership. We pray and hope by inviting Devorah into our sukkah that we can judge people fairly. We pray and hope by inviting King David into our temporary shelters we can sing to God sweetly as he did. And we pray and hope that like Hulda we can discover new things about our tradition just as she participated in the discovery of a “new book of the Bible” (see Kings II, Chapter 22).

Our ancestors help us measure our own lives. On Sukkot we give thanks for the bounty of our lives and for the gifts of our harvest both the physical harvest and the spiritual one!

In these frenetic days when the storms of the world batter us-we need a temporary shelter—a sukkat shalom-a tabernacle of peace and a place of safety and respite and welcome. The holiday couldn’t come at a better time. And if we look to our ancestors-perhaps too, we will find a way through the storms of life and take inspiration from their gifts.

I wish you a peaceful and joyous Sukkot. Chag Sameach.

Yom Kippur/Parshat Haazinu: Deuteronomy 32:1-32:52 By: Rabbi Denise L. Eger

Tonight we will begin the most holy moment of the Jewish Year- Yom Kippur. The torah readings we will explore on Yom Kippur Day and the Parsha for this coming Shabbat bring us a profound message that in these uncertain times can help us cope!

On Yom Kippur Day in the morning we will read a section that we heard recently chanted in our synagogues-from Parshat Nitzavim in the book of Deuteronomy only two weeks ago. The passages we read on Yom Kippur morning remind us that the covenant made with Israel at Sinai is eternal. It is made not only with those who actually experienced the desert wanderings but is made with “those who are not with us here this day.” (Deut. 29:14). This reminds all of us that this covenant is still in force and made with each one of us. The Jewish people no matter our station in life, wood chopper, or water drawer, rich or poor, children, wives and even the resident aliens in our midst are a part of the grand covenant our people.

This is such an inclusive message! The covenantal promise is not exclusive to a small elite of rulers but everyone can access it—even those who might not be Jewish. What does this mean to be reminded of this message of hope on the holiest day of the Jewish year?

It teaches us that our station in life, our status is not the determinant of the covenantal promise but our actions. The Torah portion reminds us that we shouldn’t follow our willful hearts or whims, or the idolatry of our time—but that the covenant that is given to us—even in contemporary times is not too hard for us to follow. It is a guide, a pathway to hope and peace, prosperity and life. We can choose to follow this covenantal blueprint for life – or choose adversity. But the Torah reminds us to always “Choose life”. This is what God wants for us, what our tradition wants for us and what we should want for ourselves! And when the world is so upside down it is good to have a map for how to live.

On Yom Kippur afternoon we will read from the section in Leviticus, Chapter 19 that teaches us how to execute and live this blueprint. It teaches us how we will choose life. It teaches us how to be and live holy lives through very practical, ethical and moral choices. Be fair in your weights and measures; provide for the poor; don’t put a stumbling block before the blind. Love your neighbor as yourself. These put into human terms the ways in which we will affirm the choice of our covenant and how to live it out daily. It reaffirms for us that idolatry is our biggest challenge and worst enemy. In our day and time that idolatry is the singular pursuit of money over meaning; the pursuit of sex without love and caring and the pursuit of pleasure at the risk of our health and wellbeing.

The Shabbat following Yom Kippur we will read the second to last portion in the Torah from the Book of Deuteronomy-Haazinu. This beautiful poem attributed to Moses is his last address to the people of Israel before ascending Mt. Nebo and looking over the Promised Land. The verses that open this portion form part of a very important prayer that is recited at a Jewish funeral known as Tziduk Hadin. “The Rock –God’s deeds are perfect all God’s ways are just: A faithful God, never false, true and upright. (Deut 32:4)”
This imagery of God as a rock repeats through out this poem. Moses reminds Israel of the strength of God and that they can depend on God’s strength and foundation as he will soon leave them. They have placed so much in Moses through the years. Moses now wants them to place their faith in the Eternal because through the years of desert wanderings God has fought for them and brought them to this moment of deliverance as they prepare to enter the Promised Land.

This message is important during a funeral especially because it is a time when life has shifted beneath our feet. Our world is turned upside down by the death of a relative. And if we can depend on the strength and foundation of the Eternal then the ground will seem secure. Just as the Promise was true for ancestors-we pray God will judge us with justice and kindness and compassion and help us too toward the Promised Land and the promise of eternal peace for our loved ones.

So too in these tumultuous times we are living. For many in the last months life has swirled and shifted around them. Jobs have been lost. The volatility of the markets makes people scared. There seem to be no end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the uncertainty of the days ahead makes us all a bit fearful and feeling like the ground is quaking beneath us. How comforting to think of God as the bedrock, strong and secure and helping us stand firm!

We are not measured by the cars we own, or the trappings we acquire. We are not our jobs or careers. To put our faith and identity in those is idolatry in our Jewish tradition. It is our challenge during this holy season of Yom Kippur and Sukkot to recognize that the true bounty of our lives is in the righteous and moral way we live. The true point of these holy days is to remind ourselves to live lives of integrity and goodness. This is what matters most.

Our challenge is to remind ourselves that our family and friends are the most important measure of our lives; neither the designer clothes nor the size of our home. But rather is our home filled with values of love and generosity, kindness (chesed) and compassion, love of our People and humanity. Then indeed we will come to know the Rock that is our God and that it is good—to choose life!

May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for goodness, sweetness, sustenance and blessing in the year ahead.