L'dor V'dor: From Generation to Generation

This past Shabbat, we read the Parshat Matot (meaning rods) which tells the tale of Moses instructing the head of the tribes about oaths and vows. You can read it starting from BaMidbar (Numbers) chapter 30:2 till chapter 32:42. {Keep in mind that the Christian bible and the Hebrew bible arrange their books and number their chapters very differently.} So we read during this study about the many times in the Torah that treats women vastly different than men.

The man has only one verse dedicated to his oath taking: Basically, if a man makes a vow, its set. However, the next six (6) verses are all about how a woman can’t make a vow without her father or husbands approval. This is where we begin our chat.

For countless years, women have been treated differently than men. It dates back all the way, apparently, to biblical times. Women couldn’t pray with men, women couldn’t converse with a group of men, and so on. However, through all the Torahs many ancient laws, we must separate the then from the now. Today we must study Torah to enlighten our spiritual lives whereas our ancestors carried out the literal words of the Torah. Would you stone your child for back talk? Would you hang your neighbor for wearing cotton? The answer, I hope, is no.

Our ancestors were charged with a very rare and unique task; to keep B’nai Israel alive. Today, we are charged with keeping our WORLD alive. After the destruction of the Second Temple, ritual Judaism was destroyed too. We no longer needed to sacrifice the lamb for our wrong doings. Now we are charged with coming directly to G-d for our needs and confessions. No middle man needed. Our generation now has the task of repairing this broken world which our ancestors fought to keep alive. Our vows to the world should be kept to the best of our abilities so that we don’t end up like the planet Mars.

This generation is the only one we have and it should be sacred and protected. We must educate ourselves with the problems of the past so we don’t repeat them anymore in the future. Our world is a very precious one and it is the only one. Let us try to learn to understand the differences in the world, even if we don’t ever completely understand it. What a person believes, how a person worships or prays or how one lives one’s life shouldn’t be a concern of ours. Our own lives were given to us to perfect, not anyone else’s.

So let’s make our generation the generation of change. The generation that creates a more peaceful world for the generation to come.

Baruch HaBa B'Shem Adonai

 {Blessed is the Name of Adonai}

V'ahavtah L'rey-acha Kamocha: Love Your Neighbor As Yourself

I have many friends who feel religion is a pointless, mind-slavery waste of time. How could anyone worship a god who is vengeful and a vicious warlord? How can people believe in a book that is full of contradictions? And these friends of mine have every right to feel the way they feel. Especially after the many hate filled protests of Fred Phelp’s congregation or from Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss and his anti-zionist, anti-Israel, burning the Israeli flag beliefs. Why should my friend’s feel the need to believe in a god who can condone such ignorance and baseless hatred?

They shouldn’t. Because that god isn’t real. That god isn’t the god that is illuminated in love and peace. The One who grants peace to the high heavens and to us here is the one who is truly in existence. There is no such thing as ‘love hating’ anything. It would be a lie. It would be an oxymoron. Everything is created in the Divine’s image, B'tzelem Elohim, and everything is given the upmost respect from the Divine. We, as humans, pick and choose how to deal with our fate and our emotions. We, as humans, choose our actions and our worship. We, as flawed humans, carry out the positive or the negative. G-d just shows us the path. The Holy One, baruch sh'mo, is based solely in love and acceptance for all people, and that is the true meaning of the Divine. The Divine cannot not dwell in hate, ignorance or any variation of the two because we as humans are the ones who act on such evil.

And this brings about the next question: what about the events in the Bible that portray the Holy One to be a vengeful deity? Well, my rabbi once explained it like this: the bible is not true but it is truth. The events, the stories, the fables in the bible can’t be proven to have happened until King David. So it makes them not true. But the underlying principles, the concepts of the stories, the moral of each tale are what makes it truth. We all can relate to a personal Egypt in which enslaved us and then we were freed from. Whether it is drug abuse, alcoholism, self- homophobia, etc, we all can relate these sufferings to the Passover story. There’s a saying during this festival ‘What G-d did for me, when I came out of Egypt.’ The Divine showed us the way, and we freed ourselves with the help of the Divine. No one can prove that the world was made at the drop of a dime in 6 days but it gives us a guideline into a period where we work, satisfy others, or make a paycheck and a period where we relax and meditate and soak in our surroundings. The Unitarian Universalists church believes that the Christian Bible, or the Torah, or the Qu’ran or any other account of human experience, not to be either an infallible guide or the exclusive source of truth. They respect the sacred literature of other religions. They aspire to truth as wide as the world, they look to find truth anywhere, universally. And it is in this acceptance of all people, this respect for all religions, other than their own, that I see G-d. Because their love for their fellow neighbor shines through. In Judaism, the Nisim B’chol Yom: For Daily Miracles, there is a passage that shows me G-d and unity. “I am a Jew because in EVERY place where suffering weeps, the Jew weeps. I am a Jew because at EVERY time when despair cries out, the Jew hopes. I am a Jew because, above humanity, image of the divine Unity, the Jew places the unity which is divine.”

To love your fellow man as yourself is not so difficult to achieve but for some it is the hardest thing to do. If we look inside ourselves, cleanse the negative energy from our spirit, educate our ignorance and embrace the love that is surrounding us, we can achieve countless miracles in our lives. We can see love like we have never seen it before. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, “One day, ALL of G-d’s children, white and black, Jews and Gentiles will join hands and sing in that old spiritual song- free at last, free at last, thank G-d almighty, we are free at last.” It doesn’t matter what you believe, what you worship, or what you practice, as long as the love in your life shines through, all good things will come your way.

Baruch HaBa B'Shem Adonai: 

{Blessed is the Name of Adonai}

Baruch Haba: Welcome!

Shalom, chaverim! Its feels so wonderful to be back online and to share my thoughts, views and teachings with those that I love and pray for. You! I have reinvented myself to become a higher person than I am now. I have dedicated my time to the study of Torah and the way of Jewish life. It has brought me such joy, peace and tranquility ever since I have re-embraced my Jewish Heritage which dates back further than the Holocaust, thanks to Ancestry.com and my Aunt Vickie.

I am studying Jewish law/history in hopes to be ordained as a Rabbi before I reach the young age of 32. I am proud to belong to the people Israel, whos' name means “one who wrestles with G-d...and prevails.” For though we have loved humanity, we have never stopped wrestling with it, challenging the idols of every age. And though we have loved G-d with an everlasting love, we have never stopped wrestling with G-d nor G-d  with us.

I love my husband of 4 years; Garison Wash, my family and my faith, Judaism. Nothing has made me happier and more complete than anything in life. I am a Jew because, being a child of my people, I have heard the call to add my chapter to its unfinished story. I am a stage on its journey, a connecting link between the generations. The dreams and hopes of my ancestors live on in me, and I am the guardian of their trust, now and for the future.

I am fighting with the millions in hopes of Marriage Equality nationwide. I stand by the members of the gay community in the fight against homophobia, injustice and religious persecution. Being gay is not a sin. Promoting hate and bigotry and telling LGBT teens their lives don’t matter is. Being gay is not a choice. Using a religion to batter and beat and hurt is. Being gay is not wrong. Letting raging bigots use media to promote an agenda of fear and lies is.

So I hope you stick around for many wonderful and thoughtful blogs straight from the Aspiring Rabbi's mind.

Baruch HaBa B'Shem Adonai: 
{Blessed is the Name of Adonai},

Aspiring Rabbi Jack Wash