YOM KIPPUR

5770

In Jerusalem, on the eve of the last day of Pesach, when Shirat Hayam, the Song of the Sea is sung in the synagogue, a group of Satmar Chasidim gathers for a special ritual. They stream into their synagogue, which has been emptied of all seats. The ceremony begins with a soft singing of Shirat Hayam. And then a space parts open in this packed hall, and the rebbe starts dancing through the crowd. As the rebbe dances, and the path continues to open through the undulating crowd, the singing gets louder and louder. This singing and dancing goes on for hours as they re-enact the splitting of the sea:  the dancing Chasidim are the waters making way for the rebbe who is the Jewish people.

But “re-enactment” is not the right word. The ceremony is really a re-living, a re-experiencing in the here-and-now, of the Exodus. For all intents and purposes, these Chasidim are leaving Egypt!  They are experiencing in the present what happened thousands of years ago…and they do that every year!   

While we might not do it as passionately, we also re-experience the great events of our history.

• At our s’darim, we eat the foods of Egypt, recline on our chairs and celebrate that we too have just been liberated from Egypt.


• On Sukkoth, we live in make-shift huts as we make our trek through the desert.

This is what our holiday ritual does for us:  it brings us to re-live the great events of our people so that there is no past-and-present, and there is no “us-and-them” – as if to say this happened to them but not to us – it is all us, and it is all now!  We left Egypt; We received Torah at Sinai; We wandered through the desert.

Nor is all this re-living happy. We have Tisha B’Av, the 9^th day of Av, when we sit on the floor, wear the clothing of mourning, fast, don’t shave, and chant the book of Lamentations in a wailing sound - to re-experience the destruction of the temple.

But this is not the only Jewish model of memory and commemoration. There are more ways to commemorate than by re-experiencing of the original event.

• The Torah reading for Yom Kippur says three times that the practices of the day shall be “a law for us for all time,” “chuqat olam” in Hebrew. But that is not what we do.  We no longer sacrifice animals, nor do we want to. We no longer believe in pronouncing our sins over the head of a goat; nor do we want to. And, with all due deference to the kohanim in the congregation, we no longer believe that anyone can take away our sins for us – nor do we want to.

Another model of Jewish memory is a process where the essence of the idea is preserved and all the external forms change.

• I was sitting with Moshe at the AIPAC conference last spring getting ready to hear Shimon Peres speak. On the screens all across the front of the room flashed pictures of past leaders of Israel:  there was Chaim Weitzman and President Truman; David Ben Gurion with Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy; Golda Meir with President Nixon; Yitzchak Rabin with President Clinton and Binyamin Netanyahu with President Obama.

Looking at this impressive array, Moshe leaned over to me and, speaking about President Peres, said, “He’s the last of that great generation.” 

Moshe was right:  Shimon Peres is the last of the generation of chalutzim, the pioneers who built the state. As I listened to Peres speak, I sat there wondering, “What do we owe this generation of giants?”  How do we keep their work alive?

• Must we do things exactly as they did? 


• Should Israelis go to Independence Hall in Tel Aviv every year and declare the State, broadcasting that declaration over the radio?

Israel does none of those things. Nor do Israelis dance in the streets of Kikar Tziyon in Jerusalem.

• We have our handful of sacred moments:  redemption, revelation, wandering and destruction – these we re-create; all the rest we adapt in order to keep them alive.

Rabbi Art Green, one of the leading American Jewish thinkers, said this:

• “If I were to give my kid exactly the same Yiddishkeit that my grandfather had in his shtetl in Lithuania, I’d be doing completely the wrong thing. Some people think what you have to do is just keep it exactly as it was, without changing it, and pass it down. I call it Judaism in formaldehyde. There won’t be anything alive in there.” 

I was raised with a healthy dose of Jewish guilt. In deference to my mother, that guilt did not come from her. It came from my grandfather who regularly told us what it was like coming to this country and getting established here. And he always ended his lectures with the words, “You kids don’t know how lucky you have it.” 

I struggle with the issue of what we owe to those who came before us:  what do we owe to the chalutzim who built the State of Israel; what do we owe those who died, and those who survived, the Shoah; what do we owe our personal ancestors whose lives were much more difficult than ours, and on whose shoulders all of us stand?  How do we keep their struggling, their sacrifice, their legacy alive? 

There is a well-known Midrash on the opening words of the Amidah – Eloheinu veilohei avoteinu – Our God and God of our ancestors. The Midrash says that each of us must have two foundations to our faith:  one that we inherit and one that we create on our own.

• We must preserve some things from the past and we must re-create them and make them our own. If we don’t do that, then our faith will be, as Art Green says, formaldehyde – a dry relic of the past.

What do we owe to those who came before us?  We owe them a commitment at least as passionate as theirs.

We do not owe them replication. We do owe them determination.

I believe we are living in an unprecedented time for the Jewish people.

• The Jewish people are not completely loved and secure throughout the world;


• Judaism is not understood or practiced as widely as it should be.


• Iran is a very serious threat to Israel and to all the rest of us.  

But we have never been as free, as prosperous, and as influential as we are right now – here in the United States, in Israel, and throughout the world.

• What do owe to those who built this Jewish world for us?  We do not owe them a replication of their world. We owe them hard work to make it more vibrant than it is today.


• What do we owe those who died and those who survived the Shoah?  We owe them that we will never be that defenseless again, politically or militarily.

To those who came before us, we owe them passionate life. We owe them that their work will be carried on; that we will pick up where they left off.

We can do both:  we can hang on to and relive the sacred moments of the past. And then we can move forward into life.

• This is what we owe to our parents and our heroes.


• It is what we owe to children and the future as well.

Hey everyone- busy week for everyone as we prepare for the big event on Sunday night-- the family Kol Nidre service! I'm really excited as we have some great content and look forward to making the Yom Kippur evening service into an interactive learning experience-- that is (and I'm not sure if it should be or not...) fun, yet still respectful and true to the spirit of the event.

Ruach is the word that comes to mind when Judy, the Rabbi, and the Cantor and I sit down to prepare these alternative services. We want to capture the spirituality and energy that can come from these events. To me there's nothing more spiritually unpleasant than sitting in a large room full of people who repeat liturgy without 1) understanding the personal meaning behind the words and melodies that our people have chanted for hundreds if not thousands of years; and 2) feeling a connection to the event. The liturgy and content of conservative services is deeply significant and has been to our people (and other faiths) for centuries.

The best example I could give is the Hashkiveinu prayer we chant every Friday night. The words, both in English and Hebrew, are beautiful and motivational-- yet most of us blindly chant the Hebrew without stopping to appreciate it. Same goes for Modim Anachnu Lach at the end of the Amidah-- these two prayers, at least to me, are the essence of Shabbat. I'll go into more detail on these after the High Holidays.

Anyhow (FO-CUS, Mr. Rob) back on topic -- we look to capture the same feeling and explore the deep meaning of the Yom Kippur liturgy and do it in a way that connects to us as 21st century families.

Class today was limited to 2 topics- and they're important: Atonement (and not just saying "Sorry"); and Hebrew reading including Mem/Mem Sofit and the vowel Chirik (long e sound). If you missed class this week you can download the homework by clicking on these links: Lesson 4a , Lesson 4b then printing the sheets.

REMINDERS: 1) YES there is class this Sunday!!! We will be learning some songs for the Kol Nidre service! Please attend!; 2) Class Shabbat and 3rd grade Consecration is coming up on 10/2. SAVE THE DATE! We will be leading part of the service.

We are very excited about starting this new feature to our website. The timing of introducing blogging, coming at the New Year, seems most appropriate as we reflect on the concluding year and look forward to the promise of what's ahead.
L'shanah tovah tikateyvu! A healthy, happy and prosperous New Year to all.
Look for blogs from our clergy, from teachers at our school and from a variety of others. If you have ideas about topics or bloggers, please let us know!

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PLEASE NOTE: If you want to see only one blogging thread (category), please select the category on the sidebar to the right under the heading "Categories". For example, select "Mr. Rob's Blog" to see only his entries.

ROSH HASHANAH I

5770

You know the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip sliding away. 

Slip sliding away; slip sliding away;

 

God only knows; God makes his plan;

The information’s unavailable to the mortal man.

We’re working our jobs; collect our pay.

Believe we’re gliding down the highway when in fact we’re slip sliding away.

Which one of us has not felt that way this past year?  Which one of us has not been touched by loss or insecurity, by sudden illness or other pain, that’s challenged us and shaken our moorings?

That same song writer wrote these lyrics some years later:

Well, I’m accustomed to a smooth ride

How many of us thought we were settled and secure only to find that the road was going to be a lot bumpier than we planned for.

We believed we were in control. We believed that if we did our homework and invested well; if we were diligent in our work and produced good results; if we were careful with our diet and took care of our health, that life would be good; that we could plan for a future that would go our way.

And then last year happened – and we found that all of our hard work and planning, our living prudently, could not always protect us.

On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed…

The fragility of our lives and our work was made clear to all of us this past year.

This is not the first time I’ve seen painful economic and personal struggle.

• I was a rabbi in Texas when the bottom fell out of the real estate market there in the mid-1980s. I’ll never forget the time a woman came to shul on Saturday morning – she was not a member of the congregation; I had never met her before – and she asked to see me after services. She told me that her husband was a commercial real estate developer and had lost everything. They were living on money from her parents. The couple had three children and the husband was thinking of leaving. He was ashamed that he could not provide for his family.


• I offered to see the two of them together. Struggling for words, I told her that all marriages went through dark times; that it was important to let her husband know that she loved him no matter what. I told her that I believed that, if at all possible, remaining in her marriage was most important for the well-being of their children and, hopefully, for them.


• I tried to get in touch with the woman after our meeting to see what happened, but she never called me back.

I have seen before these difficult times, and the desperation that can come with them. I remember the pain of the personal struggles and choices that must be made.

The climax of Un’taneh Toqef, the prayer I quoted before, is these words: 

But repentance, prayer and acts of tzedaqah

Annul the severity of the decree.

I’ve always wondered:  how do repentance, prayer, and acts of tzedaqah make the decree – the decree that life will be a roller coaster, the kind of roller coaster where we won’t be able to see what’s coming around the bend – how do they make the fragility of life any easier?

 

I understand these words as a contrast with the words that come right before them. The previous paragraph ends with the words “who shall be made poor and who made rich; who brought low and who elevated.”  And then we have the words, “But repentance, prayer and acts of tzedaqah annul the severity of the decree.”  What’s the connection between these ideas?   I think it is this:

As long as we measure the worth of our lives by who is rich and who is poor, who is elevated and who is low, then we leave ourselves open to being devastated by the bad times. If we measure the success of our lives by how much we have; how much of the world we’ve seen; we will be badly shaken by these times. We leave ourselves open to questioning ourselves and our worth as people. 

But if we use other standards for evaluating our lives – if we measure our lives by the amount of good we have done in the world, by how much we have made the world better because of our presence – through acts of personal change and prayer and tzedaqah – then the bottom lines of our portfolios and the personal sorrows of our lives become just a little bit easier to deal with. We can still say, “I have, and I am, doing good. I make a difference.” 

At the end of our Torah reading for this morning, after Abraham made a treaty with Avimelekh, the Torah tells us that Abraham planted a tree – the Hebrew word is “eshel”. As I’ve taught before, the rabbis say that this is a metaphor for the fact that Abraham opened an inn; that “eshel” is an acronym for “achilah,” “sh’tiyah,” and “linah.”  The rabbis teach that through his “chesed,” his generosity and his hospitality, Abraham brought others to the awareness and acceptance of God.

MIDRASHIC TEXT

Our worth as people is not measured by how much we have. Our worth is measured by the spirit we bring to the world.

My friend in Texas, Tank Rubinett, always said to me, “Marc:  it’s not how much you have, but how much you give that makes a difference.”

And we all have something to give. Whatever the condition of our spirits and our pocketbooks, we still have time and generosity and love to give.

Monsignor Higgins once said that if you want to take care of your own troubles, go take care of someone else’s, and somehow your own will not be so bad. (SEE RABBI NACHMAN). 

 

Our worth is much bigger than we’ve given ourselves credit for.

In Hebrew we say, “Gam zu ya-avor:” “This too shall pass.”  What will we do when this is all over?  How will we live when the Dow is back over 12,000?  Will we think that the smooth ride is back, that we can glide down the highway once again? 

There is a Chasidic tale about a rabbi who asks his master to tell him the one true way to serve God. The master answers that there is no one way to serve God. For one person serves God through fasting and another through eating; one through study and another through action. Each person must search for and discover his or her particular way and then follow that with all one’s heart.

In so many ways, Judaism teaches that each of us has a unique, individual spirit. We each have something that only we and only we can give to the world. If we’re going to measure our worth in any way, it must be whether we are making our contribution; whether we are expressing the unique gift that each of us has within us.    

To those of us who are hurting, the Torah reading for today teaches that God heard the cry of Ishmael “where he was,”  “b-asher hu sham.”  The Midrash says that God hears the cries of everyone wherever they are:  whatever place in life they are at. No matter how many or few mitzvoth you’ve done this year; no matter how many or few times you’ve been in shul this year, God hears the cries of people wherever they are.

This time of uncertainty will pass. But when that happens, the measure of our lives will be much more than how much we have. It will be the extent to which we express the unique gifts that all of bring to the world. It will be the extent to which all of us bring goodness and God’s name to the world.

No matter how bumpy the road, we all have something special to give. I pray that in bringing that gift to the world, we can bring some joy back to the world as well.

Hey everyone! We've now added Lamed and TWO (yes, two!) new vowels: Cholam (long "o") and Shuruk ("oo" as in "tool"). We try to have a rule to help us remember some of the tricky letters and vowels.. for example: Bet has a base and a belly button, Tav has a toe, and so on. Today we learned that "Lamed Looks Like Lightning".

The memory trick for the vowels is a bit difficult to put into words on the blog, but it involves either putting your hands over your head in the shape of an "O" like a basketball player asking for the ball "I'm O-pen!!" and Shuruk has the dot in the middle.. like the sound you'd make if you were hit in the stomach: "Oo!" Doesn't quite work well in print, but ask your child to demonstrate.

Homework is lesson 3a and 3b, due on Wednesday.

We practiced this today by doing a speed reading game. The kids were given 5-6 minutes to practice a line in our text book, then were given the opportunity to try and read it as quickly as possible. This exercise helps with quick recognition of phoneme groups. Kids aren't penalized for long times, but are rewarded for quick times and if they improve on their own performance week over week.

We also have 2 teaching assistants with us on Wednesday and Sunday. My son Ian and his 7th grade classmate Hayley Garron are starting to do one-on-one reading with each student. This will help us to challenge those who are a little ahead of the others, and will also give some extra attention to those who need the assistance. We hope to have everyone in class get at least one session per week.. we have a large class, but we will do our best.

We also talked a little more about starting life "new" in the new year... on Wednesday when we come back we'll talk in more detail about Yom Kippur, forgiveness (both getting and giving), and the difference between starting anew while not totally forgetting about past mistakes.

Shana Tova!!!

Hi everyone- we had a very busy day today! We started by reviewing our Hebrew letters and vowels. Shin, bet, and tav reviews got us ready to learn our next new letter on Wednesday... coming soon: Lamed!

We had our first prayer class in the sanctuary. During that session Ms. Sandler talked about the special blessings for Rosh Hashanah.

When we got back up to our class, we continued the conversation about the upcoming Days of Awe. Today's focus was on renewal: If we can start with a clean slate and do the last year all over, what we can do to make the world (or at least our homes) better in the upcoming year. I really emphasized the positive phrasing-- no "I won't do.." or "I'll stop doing..." and had them reword their ideas in positive terms "I will do this better".

Rosh Hashanah is about renewal and starting over. After we start fresh at the New Year, we spend the next 10 days working on making amends for what we did and focus on the "I won't do..". That will be the focus of discussion on Wednesday.

Lastly today we started our Israeli Scavenger Hunt book. This text is a great story about an American boy on his first visit to Israel. The first chapter had the kids locate Israel on a world map, and then look at the relative size of the country compared to its neighbors.

Remember to have your kids let me know if they attend services! They receive team points for coming to Shabbat services-- even if they are at another synagogue!

See you all on Wednesday!
Rob

I'm happy to say we learned 2 new letters this week- which brings our running total to 3! We now can read and write Shin, Bet, and Tav as well as the kamatz and patach vowels.

Homework is Lesson 2a and Lesson 2b in our workbooks.

We also talked about the importance of proper behavior during our afternoon service. Even though we are at Hebrew School, the service we conduct is a 'real' minchah service. We fully expect all of the students to act appropriately- which includes properly handling siddurim (in addition to costing the synagogue about $50 each they contain sacred text including Torah), treating adults with respect, and not disrupting the service.

Please reinforce this to them. I am trying to get them to understand that they can have fun and be goofy when appropriate, but that there is an expectation that they are now taking on more 'grown up' responsibilities by participating in a real service.

We also won't get to have a snack until about 5:30. Our service ends at about 5 and it takes some time to transition to the class, dole out the portions, and say blessings. If this is a problem for your child, please have them eat before coming to synagogue. As with the sanctuary, no food is allowed in the chapel and we ask that the students give their full attention to the prayers.

Thanks!

Hey everyone! Welcome to the official blog site for Mr. Rob's 3rd grade class at Rodeph Sholom in Tampa. In this space I'll recap the recent class activities and post links to homework.

Last week we learned the Hebrew rules: 1)right to left; and 2) up/down/over. We also talked about the phoneme combinations... all Hebrew sounds can be broken down into letter/vowel or letter/vowel/letter groupings. We practiced using these rules using English letters... students were asked to write at least five household objects using these rules.

In Torah study we introduced our book, Explorer's Bible Book 1. In the story of creation we talked about the "it was evening then morning the next day" and how that relates to how we celebrate holidays starting at sundown on the day before the holiday... and how G-d called all of his creations "good" after they were made. This is a key concept that we'll explore in more detail in the next few weeks. We are focusing on how G-d made us all good by default and it's up to us to make decisions that will either let us do good or evil throughout our lives.

In Judaics we carried the 'good' theme forward and talked a lot about the idea of Study/Charity/Prayer. We want them to understand why study is the most important of the 3 and how we are commanded to do all three...

Today (Wednesday 9/2) we learned our first Hebrew letter, shin. I was very impressed with how much of the letters the kids remembered from past years... they were able to read some of the words in our text book!! This is great! I challenged them to finish the whole alef-bet by the end of February.. if they can accomplish this timeline we'll have a party when we're done.

Homework tonight is Lesson 1a and Lesson 1b in our workbook. You can also access the pages online if your child misplaced it or if they weren't in class. I also sent home the Parent's Guide.. use this as a reference if your Hebrew is a bit rusty

Have fun, safe, and healthy weekend and see you on Wednesday!! (no Sunday school this week due to the Labor Day holiday)

Leni and I spent part of our vacation on the outer banks of North Carolina. In the local newspaper of Ocracoke Island, there were announcements for church services on Sunday. There was no such announcement for a Shabbat service. In fact, we saw little evidence of Jewish presence at all.

Services or not, we observe Shabbat when we’re on vacation. That means we have Shabbat dinner with Kiddush and Motzi and we spend no money throughout the day.

So on Friday afternoon we went grocery shopping, getting food to last us for the day. Our first problem was that there was no kosher wine to be found over which to say Kiddush. Fortunately, I remembered a text I studied in rabbinical school about how to do Kiddush without wine. One washes one’s hands before Kiddush, says the entire Kiddush but ends it with the blessing over bread instead of the blessing over wine. (This law was surely written either for Jews who were travelling or those too poor to afford the luxury of wine.) Leni and I got a package of small rolls over which to do our combined Kiddush and Motzi.

Being that it was vacation and we were in a small rented apartment, we had neither the tools nor the inclination to do a lot of cooking. We had found a take-out Thai restaurant with a lot of vegetarian options. So before Shabbat, we called in an order and I picked it up. Our dinner began with Shalom Aleikhem, moved to Kiddush and Motzi, and then to three dishes of veggie Thai food, which was pretty good. And it was Shabbat on Ocracoke Island, NC!

I think we Jews invented the idea that religion was portable. God, Torah and the mitzvoth are with us wherever we go. It would have been nice to be with other Jews for a Shabbat service. But we did not need that in order to be Jewish. We don’t subscribe to the maxim, “When in Rome, do as the Romans.” For us it’s just the opposite – and maybe this is a source of anti-Semitism – “When in Rome, be Jewish, even if there are no other Jews around.” We take our religion with us and we insist on practicing it even if no one else is.

On another point, I don’t think we slighted Shabbat in any way by having take-out food for dinner. I’ve suggested from the pulpit that some of our busy families do the same. Better take-out food eaten at home with the whole family than going to a restaurant where the sense of family-togetherness is harder to achieve. Home-cooked is great, but what’s really important is the family being together celebrating Shabbat.

Leni and I spent part of Shabbat on the beach reading and then we walked through town later in the day. When Shabbat was over, we went out to dinner.

Wherever we go, we look for signs of a Jewish presence. We’ve been to some very interesting Shabbat services. But even when we find none, Shabbat go with us. They always remind us who we are and what we believe in.

The DC Minyan is what might be called “Conservadox” in style. Men and women sit separately, where seating is divided equally down the middle of the room, but there is no physical mechitzah. The pulpit stands in the middle of the room between the men’s and women’s sections. The davening and Torah reading are full – nothing is skipped – and it’s all in Hebrew. They are done equally and skillfully by the men and women of the congregation. While there were several rabbis in the room, the services were led entirely by the members. The average age in the room, even including the dozen or so over-50s like me, was 30. There were two baby namings the Shabbat morning I attended.

IKAR is a minyan in LA that is Conservative in style. While DC Minyan used both Orthodox and Conservative siddurim, IKAR used only our Sim Shalom. Seating was mixed and a few parts of the service were abbreviated, similar to services at Rodeph Sholom. IKAR was more “rabbi-led” than DC Minyan. IKAR was founded by Rabbi Sharon Brous who is in her mid-30s. Rabbi Brous was not present the morning I attended, but the service was led by rabbinical students from the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism). Like the DC Minyan, the room was full of 30-somethings and young children.

A year ago, I read a study on what are called “emergent minyanim,” groups of committed Jews who are not joining conventional congregations but are forming their own minyanim instead. The members of these minyanim are predominantly young and Jewishly very well educated. Many went to day school, Jewish summer camp and have spent six months or more in Israel.

The study highlighted a few salient characteristics of the minyanim:  they do not own buildings; they avoid movement labels – they’re not affiliated with any of the major American Jewish religious denominations; and they put a strong emphasis on social action and community involvement. At IKAR, the main announcement was a protest rally about Darfur that the minyan was supporting.

What the study implied but did not say explicitly was that the majority of the members of these minyanim are products of the Conservative Movement. They are, in fact, the “best and brightest” of our movement. They are the most committed and educated young Conservative Jews; and the study showed that, when asked, they still identified themselves as “Conservative” – but they are not comfortable with the culture of our congregations.

With what are they uncomfortable? This is the hardest question to answer but here are some suggestions:

• This may sound silly, but at the DC Minyan and IKAR, you could count on one hand the number of men wearing ties. At DC Minyan, most of the women wore skirts or dresses; very few did so at IKAR.


• At IKAR there were about 125 people at the service; at DC Minyan, 200. At both minyanim, the people sat on the same level with the lectern which was either in the middle or close to the middle of the room. There is an informal and intimate feel to the minyanim. They are not in large rooms with permanent seating and raised pulpits.


• Both minyanim had very high degrees of member participation. The members organized the davening and put out the food for the Kiddush after the service.


• Both minyanim were involved in social action projects of the greater community, whether marching for Darfur or working on a Habitat for Humanity project, the members felt an obligation to do good beyond the Jewish community.

Here’s what I learn from my experiences at these minyanim:

1. In order to attract more committed younger families, our congregations must adjust their style so that we feel less formal. (This is why we’ve brought the lectern down to the floor in our sanctuary.)  While I believe in dressing respectfully for services, my guess is that it won’t be long before we adopt a “business casual” style for synagogue.


2. There’s a strong interest among young Jews to be involved in the greater community. We can see this as another sign of our success:  our children have learned from all those “mitzvah projects” done for their b’nei mitzvah that they have an obligation to participate in tiqun olam.


3. Those people who are writing obituaries for the Conservative Movement are wrong. Our middle-of-the-road, traditional and egalitarian, style is very much alive and well. We are succeeding in inculcating our children with our values and commitment. In many ways, what they are uncomfortable with in our congregations is a matter of style.

I was encouraged and energized by my experiences at these minyanim. I think we’ve got some work to do, but our basic message of marrying Jewish traditionalism with modernism works and is being adopted by our children. I think they can lead us into the future.

I read two weeks ago, at CNN’s online page, that Gilad Shalit, the Israeli corporal held by Hamas, would be released in a matter of days in a prisoner exchange. I was excited for two reasons. I was encouraged that there were back-channel negotiations going on with the Palestinians about Shalit and other difficult issues. I saw this as a small breakthrough.

More importantly, I hoped that Shalit, would finally come home. Pidyon Shivuyim, “redemption of captives,” is an important Jewish value. Pidyon Shivuyim grew out of the ancient – and not so ancient – practice of taking captives and selling them as slaves during times of war. We Jews have never abandoned our brethren in need and we’ve paid large sums to bribe officials in order to rescue fellow Jews. This value has been the basis for the lopsided exchanges that have taken place in the past between Israel and her enemies.

Unfortunately, those “days” came and went, and I read nothing more about Gilad Shalit. When I asked my “source” in the Israeli government, he said that one should ignore these reports; they pop up all the time. He had heard nothing about any prisoner exchange.

We don’t give up on fellow Jews who are held captive. Gilad Shalit will come home, hopefully alive. Until then, we must hope that some back-channel discussions are taking place and, when his release finally happens, it will be the first step on the road to a greater peace.

The prayers of the evening and morning services are a movement through a range of ways to feel God’s presence in our lives.  The liturgy begins praising God for His acts of creation, specifically the sun, moon and stars.  The change from light to darkness and darkness to light are the most immediate manifestations of God’s daily work of creation.  (This prayer is called “Orot,” meaning “lights” or “luminaries.”)  Then the service moves to praise God for giving us Torah and mitzvoth, which are understood as expressions of God’s love for the Jewish people:  as a parent gives moral instruction to a child, so too God shows His love for us by giving us moral instruction.  (This prayer is called “Ahavah,” meaning “love,” though it’s often referred to as “revelation,” God’s teaching His will to the Jewish people.)  Next comes the Sh’ma.

After Sh’ma is “G’ulah,” meaning “redemption” – a prayer that uses the liberation from Egypt as the paradigm of God’s acts of real, political redemption.  God defeats the forces of tyranny to bring freedom to His people.  This is traditional Jewish theology:  However long He may tarry, God is active in history, bringing destruction to the arrogant and liberation to the oppressed.

Here is the movement of our worship.  We see God’s presence in three broad areas of life:  the natural order; the moral order; and the political order.

Whenever I teach about the service, when I come to the “G’ulah” prayer, I use the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid, and peace in Northern Ireland as contemporary examples of God’s redemptive role in history.  I mention my hope for peace between Israel and her neighbors as an experience of redemption that would be little short of the messianic coming.

For the last week and a half, I was very hopeful that we might be witnessing another moment of God’s redemptive power in history.  I prayed that the regime of the mullahs might actually fall in Iran; that the people had finally had enough of their oppressive and destructive rule and might overwhelm the Revolutionary Guard with their spirit of hope.  We have seen these moments before in recent history – in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.  We had high hopes for China twenty years ago during the Tiananmen Square movement.

But today, while some protesters continue to march quietly in the streets of Tehran, their numbers are very diminished, and I fear this mass crying-out for free and open elections and for change will be squelched by an overpowering military.  God’s redemptive power has not yet reached the people of Iran.  They, and all their neighbors, Israel included, are still very much in harm’s way as the government will surely try to deflect attention away from its own oppressive policies and search for a scapegoat.

I don’t know if a government led by Mir Hosein Mousavi would have been any less threatening to Israel than one led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  But, ironically and tragically, I believe that the current situation in Iran is good for Israel.  The whole world can see the current regime in Iran for what it really is – a bunch of tyrannical thugs who will oppress their own people just as quickly as they will threaten to annihilate others.  Only the blind can now say, “We don’t have to take seriously the belligerence of Iran.”

What the U.S. or Israel should do now?  About that I make no policy prescriptions.  Though a rabbi once said that one of the Jewish lessons from the Holocaust is that when someone says they’re going to destroy you, you must take them seriously.  What “taking them seriously” specifically means in this case, I cannot say.

As with many pundits, I remain hopeful though not optimistic that God’s powers of redemption will yet be seen in Iran, bimheirah b’yameinu, speedily and in our time.  Until that happens, Iran’s government has shown itself as dedicated to its own power and willing to use any means to keep it.  No one can say to Israel that this threat is not real.