Blog

With the glow of the Chanukkah candles fading and the fireworks of the New Year dimming, we look towards 2019 with hope and the possibility for renewal. And yet, what is a new year beyond a date which lines up with a solar or religious calendar? One could argue that a new year is not so special; Jews have four throughout the Gregorian calendar! Like many holidays and rituals, I would argue, it is less about the holiday itself and more about the significance we imbue upon that date rather than any inherent value or symbolism there within.

I would like to propose we treat every New Year, religious or secular, as an opportunity. Too often, I take aspects of my life for granted. My health, my family, my perennially playoff-bound Los Angeles sports teams; I have grown so accustomed to these things, I sometimes forget to be grateful for them. Maybe this is why the Rabbis of old saw fit to instate four new year commemorations in our Hebrew calendar. They are as follows:

First of Nisan – The first new year’s day is the first day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, usually in the early spring (April). Nisan is considered the first month of the Hebrew calendar, though years are counted from the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month. The First of Nisan was considered the new year for counting the years of the reigns of kings in ancient Israel. It is also the new year for ordering the Jewish holidays. The month of Nisan is closely tied with the festival of Passover; and while Rosh Hashanah is seen as the anniversary of the creation of the world, the first day of Nisan is seen as the anniversary of the founding of the Jewish people when they escaped from Egypt during the Passover story.

First of Elul – The second new year’s day is on the first day of Elul, the sixth month of the Hebrew calendar, which usually falls in the late summer (August). According to the Mishnah, this was the new year for animal tithes. It was used to determine the start date for the animal tithe to the priestly class in ancient Israel, similar to how we use April 15th in the U.S. as tax day. Generally, this new year’s day is no longer observed, although the month of Elul does mark the beginning of preparations for Rosh Hashanah.

First of Tishrei (aka Rosh Hashanah) – Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year with which we are most familiar. It falls on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, which usually corresponds to the month of September. It marks the day when the Jewish calendar year advances and is seen traditionally as the date when the world was created. In ancient times, it was also used for calculating certain tithes, such as those for vegetables, and for calculating the start of Sabbatical and Jubilee years when land was left fallow.

Fifteenth of Sh’vat (aka Tu Bishvat) – Tu Bishvat is considered the new year’s day for trees, usually falling between January and February. According to the Torah, fruits cannot be consumed from trees less than three years old, and Tu B’Shvat was used as the starting date for determining the age of the trees. Unlike the first of Nisan and the first of Elul, Tu Bishvat is still widely observed as a minor Jewish holiday.

No matter how or where you celebrated the new year, I hope you will use it as an opportunity to reflect on the past. Give your goals and dreams a renewed fervor so that the same mistakes you might have made once or twice (or more), aren’t repeated again. January 1st is more than just an excuse to drink champagne and watch fireworks, it’s an opportunity to be mindful and grow. Happy New Year North Shore Synagogue!

This month, we find ourselves once again at the beginning of the Torah, our sacred story. Again, this year, we re-encounter our origin stories: Creation, Adam and Eve, the Great Flood, the Tower of Babel. After the world has been created, and destroyed, and then repopulated, we arrive at the narrative of the creation of the Jewish people, when God tells Avram to go forth from the land of his birth to the land that God will show to him. So Avram sets forth with his wife, Sarai, and with their nephew, Lot, wandering and migrating on this journey toward a promise – a promise of both land and of a future filled with many descendants and with great blessing. Our patriarch knows that he must travel with his family, and with the others who are a part of their extended family – not only for the sake of safety, not only for the sake of keeping his family and community together, but for the sake of engaging in a sacred pursuit together.

And yet, God speaks directly throughout the Torah portion Lech L’cha only to Avram. It is Avram who receives this message of a lifetime; it is Avram who will be a blessing, whose name God will make great. Avram somehow intuits that, though he needs the support of his community, he also needs to seek time alone, not only for his own sake, but in order to connect with God.

Reb Nachman of Bratslav called this kind of solitude for the sake of connection hitbodedut. He believed this to be the highest level of worship. True, he understood the power of connecting to others in one’s own community. And yet he also understood deeply the human need to be alone with God. He explained hitbodedut as follows:
“Such prayer should be in the language that you normally speak…In your native, everyday language, you can express all your thoughts, conversing with God and talking out everything that is on your heart…Even if you are completely removed from God, you should still express your thoughts to God, and ask [that God bring you back.]

Even if your words are blocked, and you cannot open your mouth to God, you can still prepare yourself to do so. Even getting ready to speak to God is in itself very good. Even though you cannot speak to God, you long and yearn to do so – and this itself is very good.

You can even make a prayer out of this itself. You can cry out to God that you are so far from God that you cannot even speak. You can ask God to have mercy on you and to open your mouth so that you should be able to express your thoughts to God.

…[This practice] is something that can be done equally by every individual, great and small alike. Everyone can observe this practice and reach the highest levels. Happy is the one who does so.”

May we all, like our ancestor Avram, seek out the opportunities to be alone with God, to express our thoughts and longings, to talk out everything that is on our hearts – or simply to be in silence, preparing ourselves to connect with God even when the words will not come. May this practice lead us to reach our highest levels. Happy may we be when we do so.

A television series titled, Picket Fences ran on CBS from 1992 -1996. I am dating myself for
sure, but it’s worth it. David E. Kelly, producer and writer of Chicago Hope, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal, The Practice and others also created this one.

Mr. Kelly writes wonderful dialogue with intelligent banter and entertaining plots. Picket Fences was his first show. In my opinion, the name itself coupled with the point of the various plots of the shows, learns it the title of his most brilliant look into the human psyche.
Picket Fences takes place in the small town of Rome, Wisconsin. Jimmy Brock, the main character is the sheriff of the town. His wife, Jill, is the town doctor. They have three children, a perfect house with a spotless lawn and, you guessed it, a white picket fence. As a matter of fact, most houses in the town have white picket fences and on the outside, their lives look perfect.

However, a lot happens in this town. As the plot centers around the sheriff and the doctor, most stories revolve around puzzling illnesses or crimes. Some more memorable episodes involve cows mysteriously giving birth to humans, a mass of murdered bodies found in freezers, and spontaneous human combustion. Mr. Kelly went to great lengths to prove that picket fences do not make a perfect community.

The white picket fence has become the symbol of the American dream. And yet our new vinyl siding, beautifully
maintained flower beds and white picket fences only give us a false sense of purity. Those expensive opaque blinds simply conceal our true emotions, our real-life blemishes – anger, disappointment, greed, gluttony.

A quick google search on picket fences comes up with “outdoor shower hiding behind a white picket fence.” People today believe that we can hide anything behind a white picket fence. And in the same way, we hide behind our outer appearances. Manicures, pedicures, make-up, expensive yet uncomfortable shoes, stiff yet
“flattering” clothing – we hide our flaws behind this structural equipment. And we spend way too much time working on them instead of working on the issues inside.

No matter how thick the siding, how white the fence, or how beautiful the flower beds; if the inside of the house has turmoil, it will seep outside. The family cannot maintain health on the outside, if, on the inside, there is pain. It is the same with our bodies. No matter how perfect the hair or make-up; no matter how muscular or
athletic, if the mind and the soul are in chaos, the body will cease to function appropriately.

I am not advocating ignoring your siding, lawn, fence, or bodily needs. On the contrary, I believe that sometimes cleaning up the outside can prompt a deeper cleanse. However, only tending to our outward needs is only doing half the job. In the book of Samuel, chapter 16 verse 7, God speaks to the prophet Samuel saying,
“For God sees not as humans see: humans look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.” We are not God, but we are commanded to be Holy. Parents teach their children to “not judge a book by its cover.” Judaism teaches the same in its own way – “Al tistakeil b’kankan, eileh b’mah she-yesh bo – Don’t look at the
bottle, rather, look at what is inside.”  Teachers instruct students to treat everyone fairly, not by what they wear or how tall they are. Clergy preach about equal rights for all regardless of race, ethnicity, or other outward signs. And yet, we all fall victim in some way or another to disbelieving what we ourselves teach. The more we fall apart inside, the more we attempt to gain control over the outside. The vicious cycle is soul-deadening.

We must strive to see ourselves as God sees us – from the inside out. Once we shine that light inside of us to an illustrious gleam, it will radiate such light and warmth, it will overshadow any broken boards of our picket fences, any dull pieces of old siding, any physical blemish we fear. God knows, our souls are pure, our faults are real and true, for we are only human. But to become divine, we must look inside, not out – for that is where the holiness lies.

We find ourselves living in a time rife with scientific conflict. It seems that there are camps that believe in global warming or do not. There are those who believe in vaccinations, and those who find them to be ineffective, or even dangerous. As we approach our most austere, contemplative time of the year, I would like to examine two great thinkers who challenged conventions and innovated how we view the natural spiritual world.

My first serious foray into philosophy was sophomore year in college. I remember reading Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy. In his third meditation, Descartes proved the existence of God. His ontological argument essentially stated that he knew himself to be imperfect, finite, and ephemeral. And yet, he could conceive of a perfect, eternal, immortal being which could create something else, like humans, and implant in them an awareness and consciousness. This seemed like a particularly dissonant idea when compared to The Description of the Human Body. In it, Descartes describes the body as a machine. Food was absorbed into the blood and fed the heart, which was the furnace of our body. Most of his writing was grounded in Rationalism and Foundationalism. I remember learning that his ontological argument for the existence of God was written to appease the church because so much of his writing was considered heretical. Surely, if Descartes had written his Meditations in 20th century America, he would not have had to appease the church. But because of the time and location in which he lived, his writing reflected something about himself and his environment. Descartes used his own belief system, his own style of arguing to justify the existence of God. And whether he really believed it or not, only he will know, but it certainly evolved into a popular argument for the existence of God.

Rambam, like Descartes, wrote the Mishneh Torah as a reflection of his beliefs, which were a result of equal parts nature and nurture. Rambam was raised as a traditional Jew. Proving God’s existence was never an issue. To Rambam God did exist. We know this because the first line of Chapter One of Fundamentals of the Torah states, “the fundamental principle and pillar of all science is to know that there is a First Being who has
brought everything that exists into being.” This is clearly a bold claim because if one were to refute it or disagree with it, the rest of the subsequent writing is null and void. To continue reading, to follow along with perfect faith is to accept that, “This Being is the God of the universe, the Lord of the entire world.” There is no room for questioning; Rambam makes his stance very clear, whereas Descartes started from scratch using  geometry and the ideas of perfection as a way to prove that God must exist. This implies that there is room to doubt the existence of God. Rambam does not give us that room.

Rambam continues with the following claim: “It is he who controls the celestial sphere with a power to which there is neither end nor limit, with a power that is never interrupted. For, the celestial sphere is always revolving, and it is impossible for it to revolve without someone causing it to revolve; it is God, blessed be he, who causes it to revolve without using a hand or physical force.” Rambam wrote this between 1170-1180 CE. It would be another 500 years before Galileo innovated the fields of Physics and Astronomy. What the reader  witnesses is Rambam’s personal theology which cannot be reconciled with the actual science of the effects of gravity because the discovery has not been made yet. However Rambam does make claims which were forward-thinking. The notion of the celestial bodies moving “without using a hand or physical force” is obviously gravity,
but Rambam likely does not know that. So the reader must make a huge leap of faith or completely buy into the first few lines of Rambam if they are going to follow his philosophical treatise. Rambam provides no deductive reasoning or arguments. It is his fervent belief in the existence of God which he knows to be true that the reader must also acknowledge to be true.

Another unique aspect to the philosophy of Rambam is how he does actually cite sources. Descartes would make his own observations and arguments, or he would cite the work of other humans. Rambam did not cite other Rabbis in this work, rather he cited God. And if we buy into his opening claim, then there is no need to cite humans when the divine, inalienable word of God is being used as a source. In chapter 1:8, Rambam uses
Deuteronomy, Joshua and Isaiah to describe God. Rambam uses quotes from the Torah and The Book of Prophets to justify his scientific claims. Simply put, Rambam’s logic is God is everywhere, and if matter cannot occupy the same space, God cannot be matter. He goes on to conclude, nothing is equal to God, thus, if God were physical, there would be no other substance like God. Again, Rambam does not go through the steps as
someone like Descartes would do. In Rational philosophy one cannot prove claims so quickly and easily. But Rambam’s case is different. We know that Rambam was writing to a specific audience. It was an audience with a similar background and upbringing as himself. So it is here we see the divergence of thought and prose that Descartes and Rambam possess. Descartes was trying to innovate and challenge, Rambam was trying to disseminate and teach.

Descartes’ work focused on the body and nature. Rambam also focused on the world around him. The difference lies in their philosophy of law. Descartes was originally going to be a lawyer but changed courses. Rambam was a lawyer and judge by trade. His epistemology was grounded in Torah which, again, comes from God. Thus, the interplay between laws, science, life, ethics and the philosophy which Rambam lived and wrote were completely interconnected.

The fundamental principle and pillar of all science is to know that there is some greater power than us which governs the universe. We cannot know what this power is. Whether it is a deity, conscious and sentient, or some other metaphysical force which we have yet to discover. But, I believe that there is something which operates the universe and all of its complexities.

It is plainly stated in the Torah that this force is God. And God is bodiless. Maybe God is the dark matter which occupies the spaces in between matter. Maybe not. If God were a physical substance He would be like other physical beings. Maybe we, all living creatures, are vessels in which fragments of this God dwell. Maybe not.

The Torah speaks the language of human beings. By this, I believe the Torah speaks truth and kindness and goodness. These stories, whether true or not, are rich with moral values and anecdotes through which we are reminded how to be decent human beings. As we approach the High Holidays, my sincere hope is that every one of us has the patience and focus to pursue truth and justice socially and scientifically.

Dear Fellow Congregants,

I hope during this High Holy Day season of self-reflection, renewal and new beginnings, this letter finds you and your family well.

As I pause for personal self-reflection on my first year as president and the many simchas we celebrated and
challenges we faced together, I want to offer my profound gratitude to our board and particularly our former presidents who continue to invest so much of their time, experience and energy in keeping our temple the beacon of hope, learning and charity it is today.

Under the leadership of our volunteer lay leaders and our dynamic and learned clergy team, Rabbi Jaimee Shalhevet, Rabbi Rachel Maimin and Cantor Kyle Cotler, we have accomplished many wonderful things this past year. In addition to traditional major Simchat Torah, Sukkot, Chanukah and Purim temple events we have broadened our community outreach programs bringing in Joshua Nelson and the Kosher Gospel Singers, Freedom Song, and the B’Yachad Shabbat experience, connecting with our community members with special needs. Mitzvah programs and opportunities for participation are ever expanding.

Our Nursery School is thriving under the leadership of our Director, Elizabeth Kessler and our new Religious School model is attracting many young families into our community. We are most fortunate to have an extraordinary Executive Director Jacquelynn Golub, who also doubles as our Religious School Principal and has an unending commitment to making this synagogue the best it can be. She is ably assisted by our Administrative Assistant Dawn Ruggiero. Please stop by to say hello.

To continue to build upon our strong foundation and an even brighter future, we rely upon the good will and generosity of each and every one of us. Membership dues only partially fund our rich mosaic of worship opportunities, educational programming, special events and Tikkum Olam/social action initiatives. Our Kol Nidre appeal is the largest and most important fundraising event we undertake each year. Please support North Shore Synagogue’s Kol Nidre appeal generously so that we may continue to be that special place many of us call our second home.

On behalf of my family and your North Shore Synagogue family, my best wishes to you, your family and friends for a healthy, sweet, and happy New Year.

L’Shanah Tovah

Scott Fisher