From the Rabbi
Rabbi Robert L. Wolkoff
Previous Messages
“Slaving To Be Free”
The book we use on Seder night is called a Haggadah,
which means “the telling,” but the most important
message of Passover — freedom — is beyond words.
Dear Members and Friends,
Great news! The Jewish people are celebrating Passover again, for the 3,300th time (approximately). Same table, same matza, same bitter herbs, same togetherness. Sounds routine, doesn’t it? So why do we keep doing it — Jews and many of our non-Jewish friends? Well, maybe there is something we like about routines? Or better, something we need? And not only that, we work so hard to make it happen. The book we use on Seder night is called a Haggadah, which means “the telling,” but the most important message of Passover — freedom — is beyond words. Perhaps this explains why everybody keeps coming back.
Imagine yourself working for a boss who says that one of his or her essential rules at the office is that you take breaks. To top that, the boss insists that you have fun on your breaks. Sounds great. Sign me up. Actually, I already have that job; it’s called being Jewish. Our boss demands, or rather commands, that we take weekly breaks. Essentially, our whole half-a-year spiritual journey from Passover until the High Holidays can be bracketed by Shabbat — from Shabbat HaGadol to Shabbat Shabbaton. Shabbat HaGadol (the Great Shabbat) is the Shabbat before Passover and Shabbat Shabbaton (double Shabbat) is Yom Kippur.
One of the explanations the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat p. 87) offers for why this Shabbat is called the Great Shabbat is because the Israelites left Egypt on a Thursday, which means that the eve of Passover was Wednesday night. Therefore, when God commanded the Israelites to take lambs and hold them for four days before slaughtering them, it was on Shabbat. (Exodus 12:3). What the Talmud is suggesting is that the experience of leaving Egypt begins on the Shabbat before, and is incomplete without it. The spiritual climax on the Jewish calendar, the double Shabbat of Yom Kippur, is rooted in that Shabbat in Egypt. The road to freedom begins within slavery, and we actively need to take a step.
It is the Shabbat in Egypt that sets us free, a Shabbat we pack for the journey in the wilderness and becomes every Shabbat we keep in perpetuity. It reminds us that we were slaves and now we are free and that freedom is the only thing worth being slaves to. From being slaves to Pharaoh, we become slaves to God — the boss who insists we should be free to take a break.
The journey we started on the Great Shabbat that will peak on Yom Kippur includes 26 Shabbatot. When you schedule your next vacation or weekend getaway on the North Fork, remember to include Tifereth Israel, too. Please designate a Shabbat or two to spend with us. To strengthen us and yourself. To quote a phrase I recently heard: “In terms of our salvation, we do not do nothing.”
Happy Passover.
—Rabbi Gadi Capela
“Dinner in Palermo”
A few weeks before my yearly pilgrimage to Israel, I learned that a few members of our congregation were planning to be in Italy, specifically in Sicily. So I decided to take a few days and meet up with them for dinner. We set the date for Thursday, March 17, in Palermo. I was looking forward to the dinner, but it was sandwiched between a sequence of events leading to it and back from it. As in many of life’s journeys, it was a sequence in which faith and reason were competing with each other.
Faith and reason are twin sisters. They are not identical twins, but they have many commonalities, and they love to hang out together. The twin sisters are ancient, having been here from the beginning, and they are still in our lives at all times and in every decision we make — from how we spend our mornings or to whom we will vote for President. For me, the faith-reason struggle started as soon as I landed in Rome, and went to collect the rental car for the drive to Palermo. I was asked to pay for extra insurance, which was double the price to insure the car. Everything has a time and place, and I didn’t think this was the time or place for that expenditure.
Traveling, especially for pleasure, is the desire and willingness to meet the unknown. We say Birkat HaDerkh — the Blessing of the Road — and we ask God to protect us from all evils, acknowledging that every journey holds unknowns. But the unknown is also the home of excitement and hope. We buy insurance for our houses, our cars, our children, our health, our retirement, and the list can go on… The insurance companies speak to our reason of course, but they also know we will never be able to insure our lives at every moment, everywhere. They also know there are times when the best insurance is faith. If you will, faith is insurance for the soul. Since I was already insured through the credit card, I was willing to risk the deductible and leave room for faith. After all, I wanted God to travel with me.
The way between Rome and Palermo includes some of the most beautiful places in the world, the best known being the Amalfi coast to the south of Naples. Depending on how fast you drive through the hundreds of dangerous twists and turns along this gorgeous strip of land, it takes about two hours to traverse. And again, there is a conflict between reason and faith. The drive through these mountains requires the utmost attention and eyes on the road. This is reasonable. But no less important is to lift the eyes once in a while to take in the beauty. Reason keeps us grounded and looking at the road; faith takes us up for the view, which makes it worth being grounded. Just as the body needs a home, the soul needs to hope. We need to accept the twin sisters that way. If we focus only on reason, we discriminate against faith. If we concentrate exclusively on faith, we leave no room for reason.
Recently, Europe experienced a series of terror attacks, and while I am writing this message, I am hearing the news about the most recent coordinated attacks in Brussels, where 34 people died — people simply on their way to work, on their way to school, or on the way to a vacation. If reason always wins, we will not travel or perhaps will not leave the house at
If we focus only on reason, we discriminate against faith. If we concentrate exclusively on faith, we leave no room for reason.
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all. The twin sisters, don’t have to compete against each other; they should accept that they complete each other. As we celebrate Purim, let us remember that this observance is about the unknown. The Rabbis tell us that the protagonist’s name, Esther, comes from the notion of hester — hiddenness. Esther is the only book of the Bible in which the name of God is hidden. To traverse Purim successfully is to understand that reason is important, and that we need to do our best to be ready for what might be worse. But at the end, we need to acknowledge and leave room for faith.
As we go through our lives on earth, our hands make reasonable decisions and actions, but then we have to leave the rest to the hidden hand in heaven to complete them. The mitzvah of Purim is Ad Delo Yadah (from the word Da’at) — until no knowledge — until one cannot distinguish between Haman and Mordechai or, in other words, two distinguishable entities. Purim is the only day we are encouraged not to be so reasonable. It is an opportunity to do the Tikkun — correction of the original sin. Sometime we must let go of the Tree of Knowledge (Etz haDa’at), even for just a moment, in order to experience God.
The dinner in Palermo was great. But whether you are on the way to dinner in Sicily or breakfast in Missouri, the important thing to consider is whether you used both faith and reason to navigate your way. As for me, after four weeks on a journey, I am ready to come back home and celebrate Purim together with all of you.
Safe journeys, and Purim Sameach!
—Rabbi Gadi Capela
“The Super Bowl of Life”
Dear Members and Friends,
Two months ago, I went to a football game — for the first time. Someone donated two tickets to the silent auction at our Journal Dinner-Dance, and my friend, Father Roy, won the tickets and invited me to join him. It was his first time as well. I had been to baseball games before, and even though the stadiums are shaped differently, here too, it was hard to ignore the massiveness of this arena. It was as though we were sitting at the ancient Roman Coliseum, watching gladiators in combat. It was a cold day but fairly sunny, and it seemed as though only a few of the 80,000 seats at MetLife Stadium were empty. It was the New York Giants vs. the Carolina Panthers. Yes, that historic game!
After a quick stop at the kosher hotdog stand, we were ready to take our seats. The black guy behind the counter was the only one at the stand not wearing a yarmulke so I assumed he was not Jewish. It didn’t prevent him from telling me with a perfect Yiddish accent, “They’ll be davening Mincha at half time.” When half time arrived and a third of the audience left without returning, it was not because they all went to daven Mincha, but because the score was 35-7 Panthers, who were undefeated the whole season. No one sensible thought the Giants stood a chance; nevertheless, hard-core lovers of the game were going to stick it out to the end.
At that point, we were deeply involved in the experience, not so much in the game but in a conversation about the game. As clergy, we are aware that houses of worship in America consistently struggle with declining attendance, and we were in awe of the huge crowd at the arena. What is it that makes all these people leave their houses on Sunday — a day of rest — deal with heavy traffic and parking issues, and pay a good amount of money to sit outside in the cold? All of this, just to watch a competition over a ball? There must be something more. Conversely, what are we missing in synagogues and churches?
In the recent movie Concussion, Dr. Bennet Omalu, the pathologist who kept finding brain damage in football players, was warned by his colleague not to make waves because “The NFL owns a day of the week — the same day that church used to own. Now it’s theirs!” The thousands who attended the game that day chose it over church. And the same can be said about the synagogue on Shabbat.
While we were having our philosophical discussion, somehow the Giants made a comeback. With a minute and 46 seconds left, they scored another touchdown and tied the game at 35-35. Wow, we are now jumping up and down and cheering for the Giants, hardly believing that the game actually pulled us in. I felt like a person who comes to synagogue or a class for the first time, out of curiosity, and by the end of the service or class is fully engaged. But still, the NFL and other secular activities seem to win the day. Perhaps we should look at ourselves.
In the opening of his book, God in Search of Man, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, acknowledged this disparity in 1955 when he wrote:
“It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion — its message becomes meaningless.”
The issues Rabbi Heschel pointed out essentially remove religious experience from the houses of worship. By avoiding vibrant and relevant discussions, those who attend services become spectators rather than participants. If we perceive people in the pews the same as those in the bleachers, we will continue to lose. If religious services become merely a show, then, of course modern day Roman-like arenas with gladiators are a lot more impressive.
Fortunately, at Tifereth Israel, we make a point to stay vibrant and relevant through energetic discussions, and we further engage with our neighboring houses of worship. We all understand that we are not spectators, but the main players in the Super Bowl of Life.
God bless, and please join us,
—Rabbi Gadi Capela
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