Hebrew Literacy Program

מִשְׁנָה אֲבוֹת פֶּרֶק ב.ג

The following was written by Reform Judaism in Israel…

Firing the Defense Minister at time of war, on the heels of his declaration that he intends to draft 7,000 ultra-orthodox haredim - is dangerous conduct which is completely unacceptable.

The time has come for the Government of the State of Israel to stop enabling evasion from military service, spitting in the face of those who serve & have been carrying the burden of the war on their shoulders for over a year.

Minister Galant has expressed within the government the voice of hostage families & the demand for equal sharing of the burden. Instead of advancing these critical issues during times of grave security threats to Israel, the Prime Minister has chosen to fire the Defense Minister & to deepen the schism within our people.

It is important to remember & heed the words of Moses to Gad & Reuven:

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֔ה לִבְנֵי־גָ֖ד וְלִבְנֵ֣י רְאוּבֵ֑ן הַאַֽחֵיכֶ֗ם יָבֹ֙אוּ֙ לַמִּלְחָמָ֔ה וְאַתֶּ֖ם תֵּ֥שְׁבוּ פֹֽה׃
“Shall your brethren go to war while you sit here?" ~Numbers 32.6

https://youtu.be/wkBtuxooN-M?si=uLI7BYbsIUC0bOa-

אדון הסליחות // Adon HaSelichot צילום ועריכה: טובה דורפמןעיבוד ושירה: אפרת אפטרשירה: טליה קינן, תמר הראל סנטיסעיבוד וקונטרבס: יהודה לבביקמנצ'ה: יערה באריגיטרה: אפרת אפטראולפן הקלטות: סך הקו...

I’ve been working on something for several months…& I think I’ve finally finished it. A book I’m hoping to have published sometime soon! This is the final word of the text which means “End” & the total number of pages (single spaced & double sided) are noted below. All Hebrew, no translation, no commentary.

Warning: long post incoming. Don’t feel obligated to read all of it.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם מַתִּיר אֲסוּרִים!
Praise are You Eternal our God, Master of Creation, who rescues the captives!

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם הַנּוֹתֵן לַיָּעֵף כֹּֽחַ.
Praised are You Eternal our God, who gives strength to the weary.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ שׁוֹמֵעַ תְּפִילָּה.
Praised are you Eternal, who listens to prayer. … And occasionally even replies.

Four Israeli hostages have finally been rescued in a daring operation in central Gaza earlier today. The rescued hostages are:

🎗️ Noa Argamani
🎗️ Almog Meir Jan
🎗️ Andrey Kozlov
🎗️ Shlomi Ziv

All four have been taken to hospital in Israel. They are doing well & having further medical examinations to be sure.

There are 120 people left in captivity.

Sharing below a prior sermon I gave to my congregation on January 12th 2024:

Torah: Exodus 6.2-9.35
Haftarah: Ezekiel 28.25-29.21

The Talmud Bavli tells us in Bava Batra 8b “פִּדְיוֹן שְׁבוּיִם מִצְוָה רַבָּה הִיא” that redeeming captives is a great mitzvah. Captivity is viewed by many Jewish scholars as worse than starvation or even death. Two days from now, it’ll be exactly 100 days since well over 100 people in Israel have been unjustly taken as captives by terrorists. One of those captives…if alive…took his first breath of life as a captive. Another one, if this person is alive, turned 1 year old. In the traditional morning prayers, whether it’s for weekdays, Shabbat, or festivals, the prayerbook says: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם…Which means “Praised are you Eternal One our God, Master of the Universe,” & then follows a series of various traditional blessings for daily life. One of those, stands out to me more than all others right now…מַתִּיר אֲסוּרִים “who redeems the captive.” Another one concludes by saying…הַנּוֹתֵן לַיָּעֵף כֹּֽחַ “who gives strength to the weary.”
This week, Jewish communities all around the world are reading the Torah narrative of the Israelites trapped in captivity as slaves to the Pharaoh of Egypt. Their hope of deliverance is about to be answered…but their spirits are so heavy & exhausted that they don’t even believe Moses when he arrives to inform them of their soon approaching freedom. A confrontation between emissaries (Moses in the Torah & Ezekiel in the Haftarah) & the unnamed Pharaoh of Egypt stands at the heart of both parashah & haftarah. Historically, the victory of ancient Israel is designed to compel Egypt to acknowledge God’s power. In both passages, judgments are promised & fulfilled. The liberation of Israel & (re)settlement in the Promised Land will be the ultimate celebration of freeing captives. Ezekiel transforms the prior confrontation with Pharaoh from the Book of Exodus into a timeless, cosmic battle.
Since the advent of the integration of Jews into the world outside of the insular Jewish communities, the words of the ancient prophets has become associated with certain “handpicked” unifying universal ethical messages found in their words which just happen to be in sync with the current ethics of the various generations. One can find these ideas in the messages of the prophets, but the prophets were also closely involved with the fate of their own people. Nowhere is this clearer than in Ezekiel’s opening words in this week’s haftarah.
Ezekiel (he lived sometime in the 18th century BCE) considered Israel’s exile from its homeland a sign of shame & embarrassment, not for the people…but for God! The Babylonian exile may have been warranted by Israel’s terrible past behavior. It may even have been a curative for Israel’s social & religious ills. Still, Ezekiel deemed it not as a public relations disaster for Israel but rather for God who would be viewed as incapable of caring for His people. Exile was a theologically irreconcilable option. Our ancient prophets explained to their original audiences that God’s majesty could only be established through the restoration of the people of Israel back to their land. Consequently, it was necessary to restore God’s people to their homeland even if they themselves were still unworthy. In such a case, God would also have to personally cure them of their ills in order that redemption could even be justified.
The ancient prophets demanded not only religious but also ethical, & moral excellence from Israel but much like Moses before him, Ezekiel, at the very least, understood that the expectation of perfection from human beings was unrealistic without some form of divine help. His preserved message was meant to be holistic. Moral life & being at home aren’t at odds. They’re a part of a normative package, albeit, in part with the help of God while we also do our part on our end. Judaism isn’t a passive religion. Reform Jews especially are strong supporters of not only praying with our hands holding our siddurim…but also praying with our own feet. We are all, when push comes to shove, pickers & choosers when it comes to leading our own lives...whether Jewish or not. Still, that doesn’t preclude a semblance of honesty when we make our choices. At least, it is clear to me exactly where the author of the book of Ezekiel…whoever he really was…stood on these questions.

Previously, I told the story about a journalist who interviewed an elderly man who prayed at the Western Wall in Jerusalem every day for over 60 years. She asked him what he prayed for. He told her, ”I pray for peace for all people, Jews, Christians, Muslims, people from the many other religions of the world, I pray for agnostics also, & even atheists too. I pray for all the wars & all hatred to finally stop. I pray for all children to grow up safely as responsible adults & to love others. Finally, I pray that politicians tell us the truth & put the needs of the people ahead of their own interests.” The journalist asked “How do you feel after doing this every day for the past 60 years?” He thought about it for a moment. Then with a sad look on his face he told her. ”Oy Vey…I feel like I'm talking to a damn wall!” The journalist asked him “What exactly do you gain out of this? Why do you continue to pray?” He looked her right in the eye & he said to her, “Honestly, I got באָבקעס ‘bupkis’…Yiddish for nothing. But I’ll tell you what I lost. I have lost my anger, my depression, my stress, & my anxiety. I’ve even lost the desire to end my own life. Every single time I’ve come to this ancient Wall, I could for a while forget about my troubles. Prayer isn’t meant to give us whatever we want. That’s ok. Even if we don’t get what we want, we can still be grateful for all that we have. Maybe, we should look instead at what we lose in the process. Perhaps in the end, what we end up losing during the journey, turns out to be the true gain after all.”

Sometimes, we really need certain difficult experiences to happen to us personally, in order to enable us to see the world & others through a different set of lenses…the way we should have been seeing…all along. I’ll end this D’var where I started…with 3 short things from the daily morning liturgy.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, מַתִּיר אֲסוּרִים, וְהַנּוֹתֵן לַיָּעֵף כֹּֽחַ, וְשֶׁעָשָׂה לִי כָּל־צָרְכִּי.
Praised are you Eternal One our God, Master of the cosmos, who frees the captives, who gives strength to the weary, & who provides for all my needs.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ שׁוֹמֵעַ תְּפִילָּה.
Praised are You, Eternal One, who listens to prayer…& who just may…even reply back!

~Christo Chaney [כָּלֵב דָּנִיֵּאל] �Congregation Sha’areth Israel - Lubbock TX

Yesterday, Thursday May 9th 2024, in the 929 Project the daily chapter was Psalm 23. I’ve been struggling with mental health issues more than usual. I don’t believe in coincidences. As I told a local community the last time I gave a presentation in their congregation: “Coincidence is just Gods way of remaining anonymous.”

In one of the images is a cropped screenshot of the Sefaria App. Psalm 23 with the Masoretic Hebrew text next to the Revised JPS (RJPS) Translation.

ברוך אתה ה“ אלוהינו, מלך העולם, שומע תפילה.
Praised are you Eternal One our God, master of the World, who hears prayer.

#הַבְדָּלָה

Many people know of the Text of Esther as “the Megillah” but it’s actually the final of 5 scrolls in the Tanakh called Megillot. This first one is the Song of Songs. Most often called the Song of Solomon based on a translation of the first verse. It’s still read by some Jewish communities on the Shabbat of Passover. It’s always been a very controversial text because of its graphic sexual imagery. Pictured here is the beginning of שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים in a project I’ve been working on for several months documenting all the Masoretic variants in the entire Tanakh.

The Psalms have been an integral part of Jewish prayer long before the first siddurim were ever developed. Many siddurim will note the traditional psalms many Jews pray for each day of the week. Today on the first day of the week is Psalm 24. The other psalms for the days of the week are listed below:

Sunday: 24

Monday: 48

Tuesday: 82

Wednesday: 94, followed (in many communities) by the first three verses of 95

Thursday: 81

Friday: 93

Saturday: 92

Also…Psalms for various needs:

For recovery from illness
6, 30, 41, 88, 103

For peace
46

When the Land of Israel is in danger
83, 130, 142

To express gratitude
9, 21, 57, 95, 116, 138

For help in troublesome times
16, 20, 25, 26, 38, 54, 81, 85, 86, 87, 102, 130, 142

An intimate plea for God's guidance
16, 19, 139

For teshuvah (repentance)
51, 90

On Rosh Hodesh (1st day of the Hebrew month)
104

When traveling on a journey
91

For a favorable judgment
7, 35, 93

For success
57, 112, 122

A fun fact: not all passages in the תַּנַ“ךְ Tanakh (Jewish Bible) are in Hebrew. A small amount of them are actually in Aramaic. Here is a list of all the Aramaic texts in the (mostly) Hebrew Bible.

Genesis 31.47 (2 words)
Jeremiah 10.11
Daniel 2.4b-49
Daniel chapters 3-7 (all)
Ezra 4.8-24
Ezra 5 (all)
Ezra 6.1-18
Ezra 7.12-26