Rabbi Eleanor Steinman

So I tried Tuesdays are for Torah a few weeks ago and yesterday was just a fantastically busy day so I didn’t get a chance to post something.  It was a good day though.

I want to encourage you loyal readers to do something this week.  This week is Shabbat Shirah.  It is the special Shabbat when we read the story of the departure from Egypt and the people cross the Sea of Reeds.  When we read these words some of them are in a special tune to highlight the unique importance of this passage.  At Temple Sinai this week we’re doing a very special, music-filled service.  Services begin at 10am.  Both the youth and congregational choirs will be participating, too.  If you’re in Toronto you should come.  There will be babysitting for the youngest members.

There will be another blog post today.

As hopefully you know, there is presently a trial taking place in San Francisco, Perry vs. Schwarzenegger.  Here is a very thorough article about it from the New Yorker.  I hope that many of you, dear readers, are already following the trial on twitter at hash tag, #prop8 and if you aren’t that you might start now because it is extremely important.  If twitter isn’t your thing, you can also check NCLR for a daily update.  Oh and if you aren’t convinced why anyone should care, here‘s a great article.

I was away last week on a little family holiday to Puerto Rico.  I’m back now and ready for action.  Well once I do laundry and catch up on mail, email and all of those other things that seem to accumulate whilst away.  How is it that when one goes away on vacation it feels like s/he needs a vacation from vacation?

A few days ago, the world lost a hero. Miep Gies died.  Her obituary from the New York Times is here.

After the Bible, The Diary of Anne Frank is the most published book in the world (no you shouldn’t quote me on this).  Miep Gies is the person in the diary who reminds all of humanity of the power of one person to save the world.  When we tell of the horrors of the holocaust, all to often the tales of the Righteous Gentiles are not part of the narrative.

When you first heard of Miep Gies, what were your impressions?

May the memory of the righteous always be for a blessing…

My thoughts are with the people of Haiti who are now suffering with the aftermath of a devastating earthquake.  Reports coming out of the region are of devastation of the capital, Port-au-Prince.  Death tolls are on the rise.

The entire infrastructure of Haiti’s fragile government is in ruins.  The parliament building has collapsed, as have schools and hospitals.  UN officials have been killed, and the Catholic Church is reporting the death of priests.

The most urgent need is for money to supply the organizations on the ground doing the aid work with the supplies that they need.  There are many ways to channel money.  AJWS has a good track record of getting money to the right places in earlier disaster situations.  It is where I will be giving my donations.

This week we read the second Torah portion from Exodus.  Because I was away last week, I didn’t get to write much.  To begin this week, here is something from the URJ and Rabbi Laura Geller I found thought provoking, interesting, and right on the money.

It happened again this week–this time at the gym. Just as I was finishing my workout, someone called to me:
“You’re Rabbi Geller, right?”
“Right.”
“You know what, rabbi? I don’t believe in God.”

It is hard to know how to respond when that happens. Usually I mumble about giving me a call to discuss it. Other times, when I have more time, I ask the person to describe the “god” he or she doesn’t believe in.
Nine times out of ten it is the god that the person first met as a child, the one who looks like an old man with a beard who lives somewhere in the sky and knows if you’ve been bad or good. The person is usually surprised when I say: “You know, I don’t believe in that ‘god’ either.”
The more we talk, the more the person shares how for him, coming to synagogue only reinforces that image of a god. Even our prayer book, gender neutral as it is, seems to support the image of a powerful ruler, delivering us from oppressors and saving us from tyrants. While the words don’t actually say it, this god looks like a king or a powerful father.
I don’t believe in that god either.
This week’s Torah portion begins: “God spoke to Moses . . . . ‘I am the Eternal. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make myself known to them by My name YHVH.’ ”
Here, in the middle of the famous story of Moses and Pharaoh and the plagues is a theological discussion about God’s names. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have one name for God and Moses has another. But what is even more surprising is the fact that that the name YHVH had already been known to Abraham (Genesis 15:7) and Jacob (28:13).
Akedat Yitzchak, cited in Nechama Leibowitz, Studies in Shemot ([Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1981], p.133), explains: “From this it emerges that the text is a pointer not to God’s name but to God’s essence.” In other words, though this name of God had already been revealed to the patriarchs; what is new is the particular experience of God that the name connotes. For Rashi, that experience is of a God who fulfills promises, and it was only with Moses that God fulfilled the promise to redeem the people and bring us to the land of Canaan (Rashi on Exodus 6:2).
Cassuto, in his commentary to Exodus (cited in Studies in Shemot, p.139) suggests that El Shaddai is the God we experience in nature. No one is exactly sure what shaddai means: perhaps “mountains,” perhaps “breasts.” Could El Shaddai be a hint at a feminine description of God? (see The Torah: A Women’s Commentary [New York: URJ Press, 2008] p. 333). Some read the word as a play on El sh’ dai, “the God who is Enough” (see The Chumash, edited by Nosson Scherman [Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, ArtScroll Series, 1993], p. 319).
The question of God’s name was central in last week’s Torah portion as well. Moses noticed a bush that was burning without being burned up. He stopped, turned around and paid attention (Exodus 3:3). How many others had passed that bush but hadn’t turned to look? We don’t know. We only know that Moses paid attention.
So Moses found God in the Burning Bush. And when Moses asked God to tell him His name, God replied “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh; I will be what I will be” (3:13-14). Ehyeh is the future tense of the verb, to be.
So what is the name YHVH? It seems to be a version of the present tense. It seems to mean: “IS.”
To say God is “IS-ness” is a little different from saying that god is that old man in the sky with the beard.
Imagine how YHVH might be pronounced if we actually pronounced it? It is all sounds of breathing, breathing in, and breathing out. Imagine that one of God’s names is the sound of breathing, and then ask yourself: “How many times today have I said God’s name?”
How many times have you stopped and noticed? The psalmist says: “With every breath, we praise God” (Psalm 150:6).
The challenge is to pay attention, to notice that God is as much a part of us as breathing and as necessary as our own breath.
God appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in one way and to Moses in another. The second Torah portion in the book called “Names” (Sh’mot) reminds us that there is one deity with many different names.
Think about the “god” you don’t believe in. Is it that you don’t believe in God or is it that you are stuck on one particular name, one particular metaphor that doesn’t name your experience of God? Might there be a different metaphor, another name that opens up the possibility of encounter with a power grander than yourself, with a web that can connect every person to every other person?
Here are some others: God is the engine that powers the universe and God is the gas in the engine; God is the Internet server that links us all together and the universe is the hardware; God is the ocean and we are the waves.
We know how God appeared to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses because they were willing to notice. Are we paying enough attention to notice how God can appear to us?

Well loyal reader, thank you for not abandoning me completely.  After a wonderful time on vacation, as well as a fantastic PARR conference in Palm Springs (not necessarily in that order) I have returned to Toronto.  I had to time to catch up with old friends, see some family, make some new friends and do some great learning while I was away.  During the PARR conference Mark Pelavin from the RAC was the scholar-in-residence.  He raises some great ideas, provided new tools, and I’m feeling even more ready to come home and get to work.

I am taking a few days off and heading out-of-town.  When I return to the blogosphere, time permitting, I will be at a rabbinic conference in Palm Springs.

Thanks, loyal readers and happy 2010!

It was Chairman Mao Zedong who said, “women hold up half the sky.”

Thanks for playing!

Continuity and predictability is crucial in the world we live in today.  Last night, I watched the Kennedy Center Honors which were recorded several weeks ago.  Nothing about the show is a surprise.  Especially when you watch with veterans like me or my sister.  This year, JAS and I watched and were sending one another instant messages throughout, unless something is really good and then we pay attention to the show.  We make the same comments that our grandmother would have made.

“Couldn’t he have shaved?”  “Do you think their mother knows they’re wearing that?”

We are so in tune with the show after so many years we can predict which person will be honored next and this year, were even able to predict how they would do it and who might perform.  This year, we were pretty much right on.  We knew Matthew Broderick was coming on stage for Mel Brooks, we predicted gospel choir and large multi-racial choral groups for the final honoree, obviously Bruce Springstein.  We often complain when the opera stars don’t get enough stage time, which happened again this year, because rock and roll probably gets higher ratings than the immensely talented people performing arias.  This frustrates us to no end, though we still enjoy all of the performances.

JAS is known to cry.  This year proved no different.

See, the beauty of this award show is it is that predictable.  That being a loyal viewer (I even remember one year sitting in a luxury box at the Target Center during a Timberwolves game and watching, this was before they were good) can lend itself to some measure of consistency, at least in an award show that is taped and aired at the end of the calendar year.

NB~JAS named this post and wrote the first line last night at the end of the show.