PunkTorah

Independent Jewish Spirituality

What Is Shavuot?

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqrr-n_s2ug

Shavuot celebrates the revelation of Sinai and the giving of the Torah. It started as a harvest festival and has now morphed, as many holidays do, into something more cerebral and…of course…filled with glorious food.
This holiday is marked by a tribute to dairy. Why? Well, we’re not exactly sure. There’s mystical reasons, and historical reasons, but mainly it’s because the cultures of the time were producing cheese during this season, and so came the tradition of eating dairy on the holiday.
But Shavuot is more than just food. It’s a time when Jews engage in intense Torah debate all night long. Imagine tons of people, sitting around binge eating on cheesecake, drinking, reading and arguing. It’s rad.
The Book of Ruth is a big part of Shavuot as well. We read Ruth because Ruth’s coming to Israel took place around the time of Shavuot, and her conversion to Judaism is a great analogy for the Jewish people accepting the Torah. acceptance into the Jewish faith was analogous of the acceptance of the Jewish people of God’s Torah. It also helps that the Book of Ruth ends with the genealogy of David, and there’s a midrash (myth) that says that David died on Shavuot.
I hope you have an awesome Shavuot. I know I will!

Culturally Overlooked

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I think religion is interesting because for some people it’s terribly personal and for others, it is absolutely not. Living in a predominantly Christian society has been interesting. I, like many of you, was stuck in an elementary school class doing something that was not part of my Jewish culture. In the 4th grade, I had to write a letter to Santa Claus. Interestingly enough, he never showed up to my house to deliver the million dollars as per my request. To make matters worse, the Easter Bunny rejected my 100lb of chocolate request. In jest, as an adult I claim these two Pagan features of the Christian religion are anti-Semitic and do not want to share their goodies with Jewish kids. However, in my humor, there is some rage. In high school, I had to fight with my choir director. He repeatedly tried to make me sing about Christ and even threatened to fail me. I was appalled. I felt like there was this constant battle between church and state in my public education. And of course, it got so bad my parents had to follow up the issue with a Jewish stereotype and call a lawyer. I, now as an educator, do not allow any holiday parties. I do allow healthy discussion, but in no way do I allow judgment or ridicule.

I think the classroom has led to many misconceptions about what is appropriate in the realm of religious tolerance. In school, Hitler jokes and Holocaust jokes are not permitted, but it’s okay to dye Easter eggs. Clearly I see a difference, but the concept between hateful speech and ignorance is still a blurred line. What message are we sending? What does the Jewish kid do?

As we get older, we experience this naïve perspective, when a college roommate or an acquaintance makes a poor decision to express how okay one of these taboos is in a Jewish kid’s public school experience. We get Christmas and Easter cards and have holidays off because the government gives us those days, but we have to take off Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. I’ll work Christmas and Easter! What do I care?

Ultimately, with all this kvetching, I know I want better for my children (if I ever have any), or at least yours. I think we as a culture need to express that not everyone values the same holidays. It’s true we have many things that are flawed about our society, cultural awareness being one of them. I have not figured out how to solve the problem yet, but I am sure I can identify the scenario as it unfolded.

So for Jewish kid that sat upon Santa’s lap, but he never came…. For any Jewish kid who learned Christmas songs… For every Jewish kid who had to take a test in college on a Jewish holiday… For every kid who’s school took picture day on Yom Kippur….Remember, we can make a movement for cultural awareness, but we cannot be silent. One small stand at a time might make it easier for someone else.

Keep kickin’ it old shul and be true to the streets!

Yentapunker

Counting the Omer and You…

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Michael מִיכָאֵל

In the Torah, G-d commands us to count the days starting from the second day of Pesach until Shavu’ot. Counting these days is known as “Counting the Omer”. An “omer” was a unit of measurement of barley that was presented as a sacrifice at the temple up until the day of Shavu’ot (the Giving of the Torah). This is a traditional time of partial mourning commemorating a plague during the time of Rabbi Akiba, and weddings, parties, and dinners that include dancing are postponed. We also refrain from cutting our hair. On the 33rd day of the Omer, we celebrate a temporary break in the plague, known as Lag b’Omer, and the restrictions are suspended briefly.

Traditionally we “count” the Omer at night using a special blessing:

“Baruch atah A-donai E-loheinu Melekh Ha-olam asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al S’firat Ha-omer.”
(“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to count the Omer.”)
You then state the day of the Omer:
“Today is (the number of days) days, which is (number of weeks) weeks and (number of days) days of the Omer.”

The sacrifices made on Passover were of barley. The sacrifice made on Shavu’ot was of loaves of wheat. What is the significance of this? The Kabbalists tell us that the barley, a food normally consumed by animals, reflects our animal natures. Wheat symbolizes humanity, because it takes a person to make bread. The change to the sacrifice of  wheat demonstrates our interior growth from animal to person, from the slavery of Egypt to the freedom to participate in the redemption of the world.

So, what does this all mean to us now? Well, it can mean many things. Counting the Omer can be used as a tool of self reflection. We can take this time to recognize the miracle of the Exodus from Egypt, from the gift of our freedom. The Sages tell us that G-d freed us from slavery in order to give us the Torah on Shavu’ot, so this should be a time of preparation. Counting the Omer gives us the time to learn from the gift of freedom G-d has given us and incorporate it into our lives, to grow one day at a time, taking a spiritual accounting, to make sure that we are heading in the right direction, to look at what we are doing that is right or wrong and to try to make ourselves ready to receive the honor of the Torah.

Counting the days is another way of directing our mindfulness to the passage of time. Be aware of the days as they pass, count them, give them meaning. We have been freed from slavery, rejecting the confusion and idolatry (philosophically, literally, and spiritually) of our own Egypt’s and are being made ready to re-focus our lives.

Most of all, use this time! Don’t let it go! Instead of some celebration of a sacrifice in a temple that happened thousands of years ago, we can turn it into something meaningful to us today. Not a static set of days, but a process. There is no payoff without preparation.

I Love Pesach

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(Originally Posted On FrumSatire)

By Heshy Fried

I absolutely love long Jewish holidays like Pesach. I know that many folks can’t wait for it to be over, whenever someone says that on shabbos I want to smack them, you can’t talk about such holiness like shabbos and say that you want it over with already – why are you keeping shabbos if you hate it and don’t believe in it’s healing properties? But Pesach heartache is understandable, people just can’t go that long without pizza, can they? I surely can (I haven’t had milchigs in 2 months, I miss it dearly), yes it’s a royal pain to eat overpriced chocolate bars for energy on long distant hikes and bike rides, but I deal and I love Pesach in all of its 8 days of glory. I also work for a company that gave me off for all of Pesach, I could understand the pain that people have when they have to use up all of their vacation days for Jewish holidays, although they might want to have the thought that they wouldn’t have that job unless God wanted them to and therefore God knew they would have to give up their vacation days willingly to please him.

I used to hate the seder, I think it could be better, probably because most people don’t really do the seder right, they tell technical divrei torah which have nothing to do with telling the story of leaving Egypt and then they sing traditional songs while the people who can read super fast go about it on their own. I guess I wish sedarim were a bit more interactive and actually did make children ask question – because I have seen that maybe twice, it seems that children only ask questions because in yeshiva they tell you that children are supposed to ask questions.

Think about it, the story of the Jews leaving Egypt is probably the most kick-ass story in biblical Judaism, Chanukah, Shavuos and Purim don’t come close to Pesach, they don’t have as much action going down. I like to think that the story of the Jews leaving Egypt starts with the story of Yosef and his brothers, which could be made into a movie, simply amazing the drama of that story. Then the pharaoh getting all hard on the Jews, flip flopping his political views kind of like Obama on Israel and then we build the pyramids which are super cool, although using babies as stones isn’t cool. The plagues, holy crap people, I can’t believe that during the seder, the attention of the plagues is lost on a little dabbing of wine and proclaiming the plagues – we should talk about this stuff, it’s super cool and everyone out of yeshiva doesn’t talk about it for 2 months leading up to Pesach.

What I really want to know is what other plagues were there? I always hear about these midrashim that say there were a slew of plagues besides for the ten biggies. Did everyone’s clothing burn up in the middle of the marketplace forcing everyone to walk back home naked? Did the camels start eating people? Maybe they ran out of parking spots and everyone had to circle their camels for days just to find one.

“Let My People Go” is probably the most bad-ass line in the whole torah, it’s not even made up, it’s right there in the scripture, not some Charleton Heston line. Did you ever think about the fact that pretty much everyone was black in Egypt, wasn’t Moshe Rabeinu black, that means everyone was way cooler than we can even imagine.

The splitting of the sea, that alone is enough to excite any scientist into explaining the prevailing winds and how they must have blown hard enough to split the sea. I do love how non-believing scientists have tried to explain how splitting of the sea were possible in a book they view as mythological, do their endowments and grants fund mythological explorations? I remember sitting in ninth grade learning about how any Jew could reach into the water and pull out whatever they wanted, I was sitting in class daydreaming about walking on the sea bed, chugging a mountain dew that I had just pulled out of the wall of water and thinking about which Ben and Jerrys flavor I wanted to pull out next, as I was day dreaming I was wondering if the ground was muddy and if the Jews were all wearing Tevas or Birkenstock sandals.

I also look forward to Peach because to me it’s like having a bunch of shabbosim in a row. I know a lot of people don’t like the whole shabbos chol hamoid thing because they want to be able to hit p as many Boro Park carnivals, Lipa Schmeltzer shows and kosher circuses as possible. I wonder if the “things to do on pesach sections” in those free community advertisement books they have in heimishe establishments are cut down this year, although they usually include the same things every year. I can sum it up for you, you can go to the Liberty Science Center, Ellis Island, The Tenement Museum, The Museum of Natural History and Uncle Moishes Carnival on 13th avenue and 44th street.

Pesach has a shorter less physically intensive davening than succos, although I still love succos and it’s my favorite holiday for obvious reasons (outdoors nut and honey on challah lover here) I still like Pesach for its length, one of the reasons I dislike shavuos and Rosh Hashanah are their lack of length, the first day is always warm up and by the time you’re in spiritual high mode everyone’s making havdalah, I know that both Shavuos and Rosh Hashanah have the days leading up to them that are supposed to put us in that frame of mind – but I need a little more starting time. Of course Pesach has starting time because of shabbos hagadol (where I was this shabbos doesn’t even have shul on shabbos afternoon) and cleaning my car and apartment for chometz got me in the Pesach frame of mind hey isn’t that a Billy Joel song?

I am not one for spending holidays with family, mostly because my family lives in a place I find kills my spiritual state and makes me hate being religious, except before my dad got remarried and I would take him with me to my friends houses. Actually one of the things I dread about marriage is falling in love with a girl from a place that I don’t care for. The last two years I did Pesach with one of my best buds in Denver, he would set up all the meals so that we could get the best food and company at the same time – I am the same way with meal settings, there is a lot of detail that goes into spending shabbos or a holiday somewhere, it’s never simple. This year I am staying in Northern California and looking forward to my first two days in San Francisco, and the last two days in the Sierra Nevada near Tahoe where I plan to try out my hand at gold panning.

Vegetarian Gefilte Fish Recipe

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Here’s an excellent recipe for Vegetarian Gefilte Fish from our friend Melanie.

Thanks Melanie!

Vegetarian Gefilte Fish

* 6 eggs – 5 of them hardboiled
* 1 large onion chopped fine
* tablespoon oil
* 1 carrot
* 1 medium potato
* 2 teaspoons matzoh meal
* salt & pepper

1 – Saute the onion in oil until golden brown
2 – Puree the 5 hard boiled eggs with 2/3 of the cook onion
3 – Put the rest of the onion in a pot with 1 cup of water & bring to a boil
4 – Peel the carrot, cut into round slices, add to the onion water & cook for 1/2 hour
5 – Peel potato and finely grate it
6 – add the grated potato, matzoh meal, & uncooked egg, salt & pepper to the pureed egg-onion mix and stir well.
7 – with moist hands form 6-8 oval shaped balls from the mixture (should be gefilte fish shaped)
8 – Add the balls to the pot with the onion & carrot in it and cook for 20 minutes over low heat
9 – serve cold

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