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Parshah Tazria & Itchy Skin Diseases

March 24, 2014 by Patrick Beaulier

ohgrosskid

Icky skin diseases consume most of our attention in this week’s Torah portion, but the cause and effect probably aren’t what you think.

Our parsha goes into great detail about a handful of different skin afflictions, collectively called “tzaraat,” all subject to inspection by the priests. (The theme is expanded in next week’s parsha to include similar afflictions in clothing and houses.) But while tzaraat is usually defined as “leprosy,” the details aren’t hygenic – in fact, the main consequence of tzaraat is “tumah,” being unable to bring sacrifices to the Mishkan — and this only when the tzaraat is in a state of flux (no pun intended). If you’re completely covered in it, the priest judges you “tahor” (pure/clean/) and that’s that, at least until the tzaraat begins to recede.

(When I teach this to 12-year-olds, I describe tzaraat as “spiritual cooties.” My teacher Rabbi Jack Gabriel tells me that expresses it nicely.)

Homiletically, our rabbis and sage have interpreted tzaraat as the consequence of lashon hara – otherly known as snark, gossip, trash talk – in that it makes us unfit to draw close to G?d. In light of the beginning of Genesis, when G?d created everything out of words, we see the importance our tradition places on speech (not to mention writing!).

These days, what with texting and pop-ups and the interwebs, words are a cheap commodity. It’s not always easy to see their sacredness; certainly not in the way of our Torah ancestors, for whom “closeness to God” was a spatial, rather than spiritual, concern. When words lose their sacredness, however, so do we. Snark is easy when sarcasm and creative character assassination are the coin of the media realm. But Jews don’t do things the easy way — we do them the meaningful way. For example: PunkTorah” can be re-rendered into funky Yiddish as “punkt orah” – a point of light. So let light flow from our mouths, and kindness from our words; and may these small actions help bring our banged-up world into holy and peaceful shalom.

Neal Ross Attinson teaches b’nei mitzvah students in Sonoma, California (AKA “Anatevka-among-the-vines”) and blogs at http://metaphorager.net. He feels uncomfortable without a pad and pencil.

Filed Under: Jewish Text (Torah/Haftarah/Talmud) Tagged With: convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, D'var Tazria & Itchy Skin Diseases, darshan yeshiva, online conversion, parshahah, parshat, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, this week's torah portion

Parsha Korach : Revolution Summer (Num.16:1 – 18:32)

June 18, 2012 by Jeremiah

 

Parsha Korach : Revolution Summer (Num.16:1 – 18:32)

For all intents and purposes Korach is the face for any Ancient Hebrew who took issue at some point with Moses’s style of leadership. Moses did not spend his formidable years like most Hebrews nor did he live an average Egyptian life. Moses was not one for public discourse and if you read between the lines may have had a hard time relating to those he was chosen to lead. Representative Democracy is not Hashem’s revolution His revolution is universal justice.

As a modern American I’ve only lived under the yoke of “crazy” liberals and ”a**hole” conservatives who only agree on time limited leadership roles. Competitive leadership is a machine running nonstop and with a presidential election in the United States a few months away that machine is running full force. This got me ah thinkin’ who exactly were Moses and Korach? I know who [Read more…]

Filed Under: Community Member Blogs, Jewish Text (Torah/Haftarah/Talmud) Tagged With: Circle Pit The Bimah, convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, D'var Torah, darshan yeshiva, jeremiah, korach, online conversion, Parsha, parshah, parshat, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier

G-d Is A Bloodthirsty Thirteen Year Old Boy With ADD (Parshat Matot)

July 20, 2011 by Patrick Beaulier

Sometimes reading the Torah is like reading a book written by a blood thirsty thirteen year old with attention deficit disorder. This week’s portion jumps, not so elegantly, from women taking vows, to killing the Midianites and stealing their stuff, then all of a sudden we’re diving up a bunch of land. The end, next chapter please.

And you wonder why more people don’t take the Torah seriously? It’s like cut-and-paste poetry. Once the story gets really good, G-d interrupts everything with a census or some obscure set of rules that makes no sense. Or it starts off really boring, and you give up half way, only to find out the really good stuff is toward the end.

The Torah doesn’t have a good beginning, middle and end. And it’s really not meant to, either. I think there’s three basic reasons for that.

First, the Torah is a reflection of life. And life doesn’t have a real beginning, middle and end. Sure, individual lives start and finish, but the legacy of humanity lasts forever (or at least until SkyNet and the Terminators finish us off). At any rate, Torah reflects life, and life is filled with low points, high points, boring, pointless interruptions, scandals, intrigue, and everything else…and sometimes the order of those things doesn’t make any sense.

Second, the Torah is a reflection of Creation. There’s a midrash that says that G-d looked into the Torah before creating the world. I like that. The Torah is flawed at times, and frankly, so is the world. Now, I’m not calling HaShem a crummy writer or a bad creator, but the world isn’t perfect, and if you read the Torah enough, you’ll find out that the Torah isn’t perfect all the time either.

Finally, the Torah is the reflection of the human soul…sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse. This week, we’re dealing with the souls of women and warriors, liars and hinderers, revenge-seekers and oppressors. Next week, the soul may change, and go in a new direction. But the Torah does us a huge favor and lets us see all sides of the soul. Hopefully, the soul doesn’t end either.

So what’s the bottom line? Don’t let the strange ups-and-downs of the Torah, the weird jumping back and forth from women-and-their-dads-to-blood-and-guts keep you from learning. Life, Creation, and the human spirit has its ups-and-downs, and its weird moments, too.

Filed Under: Jewish Text (Torah/Haftarah/Talmud) Tagged With: convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, D'var Torah, darshan yeshiva, matot, online conversion, parshah, parshat, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier

Is This All Made Up? (Parshat Chukat-Balak)

June 27, 2011 by Patrick Beaulier

Chukat-Balak is the kind of parshah that makes you think the ancient Hebrews were dropping acid while codifying the Torah.

The parshah in a nutshell, thanks to our bearded brethren at Chabad…with jokes and off-color commentary by Patrick Aleph:

After 40 years of journeying through the desert, the people of Israel arrive in the wilderness of Zin. Miriam dies and the people thirst for water. G-d tells Moses to speak to a rock and command it to give water. Moses gets angry at the rebellious Israelites and strikes the stone. Water issues forth, but Moses is told by G-d that neither he nor Aaron will enter the Promised Land.

The moral of the story is that even the greatest of leaders have a bad day. I love the fact that God puts up with every whiney complaint that the Hebrews through His/Her way, but the second that Moses gets angry, God punishes him. Totally. Unfair.

Venomous snakes attack the Israelite camp after yet another eruption of discontent in which the people “speak against G-d and Moses”; G-d tells Moses to place a brass serpent upon a high pole, and all who will gaze heavenward will be healed. The people sing a song in honor of the miraculous well that provided the water in the desert.

Here’s some insane Hebrew logic:

Idolatry is bad. God is the only God. However, if venomous snakes are attacking you, feel free to make an idol to them and you’ll be healed, Vatican Miracle-style. I think this might be the wrong religion?

Balak, the King of Moab, summons the prophet Balaam to curse the people of Israel.

Wow. Someone hates the Jews. Shocking.

On the way, Balaam is berated by his ass,

Hahaha…you said “ass”.

…who sees the angel that G-d sends to block their way before Balaam does. Three times, from three different vantage points, Balaam attempts to pronounce his curses; each time, blessings issue instead.

Balaam and I apparently have the same problem: we try to say one thing and the opposite comes out.

The people fall prey to the charms of the daughters of Moab and are enticed to worship the idol Peor. When a high-ranking Israelite official publicly takes a Midianite princess into a tent, Pinchas kills them both, stopping the plague raging among the people.

Murder is justified if it keeps people from gettin’ busy behind a tent. Unless of course you’re David, who had 400 wives and concubines. In that case, you’re a tzadik.

So you get the drift. All of the different elements of this Torah portion have a weirdly made up, hypocritical feel to them. And that’s totally OK with me. I can handle the fact that I am supposed to learn holiness from murderers, talking donkeys, and a God who has messed up priorities. None of this makes any sense. And guess what? Life doesn’t make sense most of the time.

Sometimes, you just have to follow the white rabbit down the hole and see where you end up. So turn on, tune in and drop out…you have my utterly non-rabbinic permission.

Filed Under: Jewish Text (Torah/Haftarah/Talmud) Tagged With: balaam, balak, chukat, chukat-balak, convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, D'var Torah, darshan yeshiva, online conversion, parshah, parshat, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier

Tablets (Parshat Ki Tisa)

February 16, 2011 by Patrick Beaulier

Ki Tisa:

Let’s put this in a more here and now frame of reference, complete with today’s slang. This week, we learn that Moses has a meltdown. He looks around, and the people are worshiping a Golden Calf? What the heck. Hello? Did anyone hear what Moses is saying?

He is trying to be a spokesperson for G_d, and people are just being blind. They have a contract with G_d. So, Moses is like “Oh no you din’t” and is trying to figure out how to get their attention. It does not matter what era it is, we will always find “our time” to be noisy with distractions, temptations and information that may or may not be wrong. Anyway, Moses is furious and needs to keep his job as spokesperson, and he breaks the tablets. OK finally, that gets the crowds attention. But what does this really mean? What symbols can we see here?

I see a few. First, the tablets are like a contract. The contract literally is broken, but the contract spirit is not. We are like the tablets. We may have hard times, and break, and like Moses, even with the best intentions we may fly off the handle, but our spirit is intact, and as long as we look inward, we can heal.

Also, we learn here about having dedication and passion. One really doesn’t get mad unless they have a vested interest or passion. Think about it. If you really don’t care about a job and don’t need the money, do you care if you get fired? No. You probably are not putting your full self into the job either. But if you love a job and feel wrongfully fired or laid off, you probably have emotion brewing, because you felt you put your all into it and you felt it was a part of you. So, when you see Moses with this action, it teaches that a little passion can go a long way. If you love what you do, if you love who you are, if you even try to stand by your beliefs, you’ll probably fare well in life, because your emotion is a result of your inner work, your passion.

Having a passion for Torah and the lessons within is the same. It may or may not always bring emotions upon first read, but if you start to look for the lessons, and how they represent your life you start to feel emotion; the Torah lives within you, it is a part of you. Like the tablets, there may be areas that are broken, but the spirit, the passion, lives.

A question to ask yourself: When is the tablet of your life, beyond the commandments but how you live your entire life, sometimes broken but still very much alive and intact? What keeps it intact?

By Michele Paiva

Filed Under: Jewish Text (Torah/Haftarah/Talmud) Tagged With: convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, d'var, darshan yeshiva, ki tisa, online conversion, parshat, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, Tablets, Torah

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