Shabbos BeMidbar

When the Shtiebel started in-person services last year in the pandemic,

They asked that people bring their own siddurim.

I brought my Chumash with Shabbes prayers in the back

(with Tehillim in my shirt pocket).

 

The rabbanit, when she met me in person for the first time, said,

“Tim, you have a lot of frum books!”

 

Now we have our own building and lots of siddurim and chumashim,

The people passing out the chumashim smiling that the gentile has his own

But I keep bringing my own.

This page is wrinkled a little from that Friday night service next to the Acme when it rained.

The Shabbes liturgy is easy to find from the finger-worn stains.

I know where to look for the Yigdal on Friday night where my siddur has Adon Olam

And where to find Adon Olam on Saturday morning at the end where the siddur has none.

 

The ribbon travels through the Torah portions each week, moving toward the back of the chumash

Like the Israelites wandering in the desert

Like the Shtiebel moving from place to place to daven – eight places in a year

Like my wandering from the Egypt of my parents toward a Promised Land I haven’t yet found

 

But I get my double portion of manna each week – my soul fed by the psalms and Torah and singing Etz Chaim Hi and friendship and words of inspiration and jokes – my body fed by the cholent and lox and kugel and egg salad - and the Dr Pepper I have introduced into the shul

 

Sometimes I read each word of the reading, not always understanding every word

Sometimes I am stopped in awe and wonder – or anger and discomfort – or curiosity and questions – over a phrase, a verse, a word

Usually, I stay in the week’s portion – sometimes I go elsewhere (do I really care about the details of leprosy?) – sometimes I go to multiple portions at once

 

But the page, with its square letters of Torah and round Rashi script letters of commentary, takes me on a journey outside of myself – and deep into the center of myself – and I know, wherever I am in the desert, I’m in

Exactly. The. Right. Place.

St. Louis and the Talmud

(I especially urge all of my Christian friends, particularly Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and independent sacramental Christians, to read this, particularly in preparation for August 25.)

For a little over a year, most days I have participated in a daf yomi, or daily Talmud, class through the South Philadelphia Shtiebel, an Orthodox synagogue in Philadelphia. The rabbis of the Talmud discuss a wide variety of topics and we in the class add our own questions and thoughts to the discussion. I find it very enriching and frequently find theological meaning in the text, despite not being Jewish myself.

There is a custom to celebrate completion of a tractate, one of the divisions of the Talmud that may take a few weeks or months to complete, with a siyyum, or feast. Since I started this during the pandemic, our practice has been to perhaps start a little early and each offer an observation or teaching from the tractate and then share a l’chaim, or festive beverage, on Zoom. However, in July, my friend Harold Chaim Fruchter, at the completion of the tractate we were studying, also completed studying the entire Talmud, since that is the point where he joined daf yomi seven and a half years ago. He and his wife Rena hosted a wonderful dinner at their home and he gave a short talk about his experience as we finished the class. It was a very joyous occasion.

A week and a half later, I experienced something very different in the observance of Tisha B’Av, the saddest day of the Jewish year, mourning the destruction of both the first two Temples as well as many other calamities that befell the Jewish people through the millenia. One of the characteristics of this fast day is the recitation of kinot, or laments written to commemorate various tragedies through history. Different people (myself included) were asked to give a reflection on a particular kinah. All of the ones I heard others give were profoundly moving, but the one that affected me the most was the one Chaim gave, on a lament over the destruction of over 12,000 copies of the Talmud in France by orders of King Louis IX, at the urging of Pope Gregory IX. The juxtaposition of his siyyum and his reflection on the kinah was quite poignant. I do not understand the blasphemy inherent in destroying a sacred work of this nature and I was horrified. King Louis also led two crusades, which resulted in much death and destruction as well, as well as confiscating Jewish property and expelling some of the French Jews.

But what horrified me the most was the realization that Louis is still regarded as a saint in both the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches, as well as by many in the independent sacramental movement. His feast is observed on August 25. He is regarded as a patron of the Third Order of St. Francis. To its credit, the Episcopal Church at least acknowledges his antisemitism and burning of the 12,000 copies of the Talmud, among other acts of violence against the Jews, in his biography in the liturgical book Lesser Feasts and Fasts. In both the modern Roman Catholic and Episcopal rites, the observance of the feast is optional. I hope and pray all churches may remove him from their calendars and cease to venerate him as a saint.

However, I would like to suggest to Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, independent sacramental Christians, and other Christians that this day be used as a day of repentance for Christian antisemitism and reflection on how Christians can combat this scourge, unfortunately still with us today. I would also like to suggest that Christians take the opportunity to learn from the Talmud, which has much spiritual wisdom to teach us, and to that end I offer one amazing teaching by the Talmudic sage Beruriah that has profoundly affected my spiritual life since I first learned it in college. When her husband prayed for vengeance against bandits who had robbed him, citing the last verse of Psalm 104, “Let sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more” – Beruriah said the reading should be “Let SINS disappear from the earth, and the wicked will be no more” – because they will have done teshuvah and no longer be wicked – and he did so and they repented. I have thought of this interpretation each time I have recited that psalm in the intervening 30-odd years! One excellent place to start to learn more is Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s (z”l) book The Essential Talmud.

May the shameful antisemitic legacy of King Louis IX be a lesson to all of us to abandon hatred, especially antisemitism.