Tzitzis and Tefillin at Mincha on Tisha B'Av

I anticipated that it would feel weird and I would feel bereft by not wrapping tefillin and praying with a tallis at shacharis on Tisha B'Av - and I was right - the lack of gathering tzitzis from the four corners of tallis in the blessing before the Shema and holding them together for the Shema and into the blessing after indeed underlined the fragmentation the day mourns, including the fragmentation of oneself and the fragmentation of the relationship between G!d and the Jewish people.

But what I was not prepared for was the weird sense of alienation wearing the tallis and tefillin at Mincha would bring. The Shema is not recited at Mincha, and so the gathering together of the tzitzis did not occur - nor were any of the passages from the Torah about tefillin or tzitzis recited. Wearing them felt mostly empty and bereft of the meaning that recitation of these passages, gathering the tzitzis together, and touching the tefillin at their metion give to wearing them. So wearing them at Mincha helped ritualize the continued mourning, albeit more subdued mourning than the night and morning of Tisha B'Av.

Reflection on Kinah 41

 I gave this reflection at the South Philadelphia Shtiebel on Tisha B'Av, 5783, when Shtiebelers are invited to introduce different kinot

As many of you know, I was raised in a fundamentalist evangelical Christian home. I was taught that humanity is completely cut off from G!d and that all who don’t become evangelical Christians will experience eternal conscious torment in hell. My parents and churches taught that they and they alone had the truth – and all other religious viewpoints were not only wrong, but evil.

I rejected this view and majored in Judaic studies with a minor in Hebrew in college. I found several teachings in the Talmud that transformed my life, even as I remained Christian, ultimately becoming clergy, albeit a very liberal one who believed that other religions, particularly Judaism, taught truth. I attended my first Tisha B’Av service around that time, at the Temple on Peachtree, a historic Reform synagogue in Atlanta, and it was a powerful and meaningful service. The knowledge that the synagogue had been bombed during the civil rights era made it even more powerful.

Many years later, I found myself drawn to worship regularly in Jewish spaces, and I attended several more Tisha B’Av services, including the Zoom service from the Shtiebel in 2020 when the mezuzot were taken down from the first location on Passayunk, and I continued to be moved by the observance. But nothing prepared me for the Tisha B’Av service in 2021.

As we sat on the floor of Rabbanit Dasi’s home on 13^th Street, surrounded by burning candles, I found myself weeping, brushing away tears, hoping no one would notice. Despite all the study of the tragedies that befell the Jewish people over the millennia, only there, sitting on the floor, did it fully hit home. And a big part of the pain was the recognition that much of the horrific persecution of the Jewish people came at the hands of the Christianity I had been a part of my whole life. I had known this intellectually for a long time – but this was the first time I felt it in the depths of my soul. And I knew that even as I had been trying for my entire adult life to change the Christian church, to help rid it of its deep drive to persecute those who are different, that I could not make much of a dent.

And it shattered me.

The next day, Chaim Fruchter gave an introduction to this kinah, which laments the burning of 12,000 copies of the Talmud (among other sacred Jewish texts) by King Louis IX of France, at the urging of Pope Gregory IX, in a time before the printing press when manuscripts were precious. I became angry as I realized that many Christians – including many liberal Christian denominations – regard this wicked man as a saint – for example, he is the person “Saint” Louis, Missouri is named for and the Catholic Cathedral there is dedicated to him.

I finally decided to become Jewish earlier this year, converting a few days before Shavuot. There is so much of profound value in Judaism that nourishes my soul, and I have found, over the past several years, that being a part of the Jewish community enables me to thrive in a way I never did before.

But as a convert, part of the profound pain of the day for me is the realization that my ancestors and the religion they believed in – and that was my spiritual home for most of my life – is the source of much of the pain of this day. I mourn the loss of the Torah that was destroyed, in France and elsewhere.

May my mourning – our mourning - serve as a tikkun to help bring about geulah shleimah – complete redemption.

 

On being a glutton with a half-empty stomach

Powerful Tisha B'Av service tonight.

What hit me the hardest was Lamentations 1:11 - the Artscroll translation in the Tisha B'Av siddur I was using has this translation:

All her people are sighing, searching for bread. They traded their treasures for food to stay alive. "Look, HASHEM, and behold what a glutton I have become!"

The Koren Tisha B'Av siddur, which I also had with me, translated the last phrase instead as, "look how abject I have become."

The word in question, זוֹלֵלָֽה, which I looked up when I got home, could legitimately be translated either way - and the 2006 JPS Tanakh has "how abject" with a footnote saying it could be, with bitter irony, "what a glutton" and notes that the word is used in that sense in Proverbs 23:20-21.

The glutton translation resonates with me not only because of the bitter irony that can be read in the verse but also because it speaks to the experience of oppression, whether abject physical poverty or emotional or spiritual abuse. When one can only barely - if even that - meet one's basic needs and must give up the luxuries that give life joy to do so, one can begin to see the meeting of one's basic needs as gluttony, rather than as basic needs. One experiences this in emotionally abusive relationships, where one is made to feel guilty for wanting the bare minimum needed for emotional and spiritual well-being, as if one were asking for too much and were somehow selfish for wanting it.

May we all experience redemption and never be made to feel like gluttons when our stomachs are half-empty.

Multiplicity and Unity in the blessings before the Shema - and Tisha B'Av

 A couple of thoughts from davening this morning:

1. Tallis gadol and tefillin will not be worn at Shacharit tomorrow for Tisha B'Av but at Mincha. I have written before about how the act of gathering the tzitzis from the four corners of the tallis gadol near the end of the second blessing before the Shema and holding them together while reciting the Shema is very meaningful for me, because I feel myself integrating the different parts of myself into one whole that is an image and likeness of the Oneness of G!d that we proclaim in the Shema. I wonder if not being able to do this tomorrow morning will intensify the feeling of destruction and alienation of Tisha B'Av - that, just as we don't have the Beis HaMikdash to connect us to G!d - so we don't have tefillin and tallis gadol either, at least for Shacharit. I will report back (likely on Friday) whether this intuition proves correct.

2. The first blessing begins with a misquote of Isaiah 45:7, talking about G!d's creation of both light and dark, and peace/wholeness and evil (in Isaiah)/everything (in the prayer). We say with the seraphim from Isaiah's vision in Isaiah 6, "Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh" - and the seraphim have six wings. We say with the voice Ezekiel heard, "Blessed is the glory of G!d from its Place" - and the voice is accompanied by the sound of the four wings each of the chayot that he saw in the first chapter. And the blessing ends with the chatimah blessing G!d for creating the Lights - of which there are two great ones, in Genesis 1 - the sun and the moon. Six, four, and two - in contrast to G!d being One. The blessing seems to go out of its way to emphasize the multiplicity of creation in contrast to the Oneness of G!d. And then, in the second blessing, we pray to be gathered from the four corners of the earth - and it ends blessing G!d for blessing the people Israel with love - ahavah - which has the same gematria (13) as One - echad (also 13).

My thoughts during davening today.

Tefillin, Patriarchs, and the Nine Days

 

Pannullo, Tommie Spain

Over the past couple of years, I've internalized the sequence of the seven patriarchs associated with the seven lower sefirot - Avraham/Chesed, Yitzchok/Gevurah, Yaakov/Tiferet, Moshe/Netzach, Aharon/Hod, Yosef/Yesod, and David/Malchut - and I tend to think of them whenever a sequence of seven comes up, for example, in the Amidah. *

Over the past couple of years, I've internalized the sequence of the seven patriarchs associated with the seven lower sefirot - Avraham/Chesed, Yitzchok/Gevurah, Yaakov/Tiferet, Moshe/Netzach, Aharon/Hod, Yosef/Yesod, and David/Malchut - and I tend to think of them whenever a sequence of seven comes up, for example, in the Amidah. *

Since I've become Jewish and started wrapping tefillin, I have silently in my mind gone through the list of patriarchs as I wrap seven times around my arm, a name with each wrapping, as a way of counting but in a more mindful and spiritually resonant way.

Today, as I did so, the signficant losses each patriarch experienced loomed large in my mind- Avraham losing Hagar, Yishmael, almost sacrificing Yitzchok, and Sarah; Yitzchok almost being sacrificed and experiencing the heartache associated with his sons; Yaakov fleeing his home, losing Leah and Rachel, and being separated from Yosef; Moshe not being able to go into the Promised Land; Aharon losing Nadav and Abihu and not being able to mourn; Yosef being betrayed by his brothers and falsely imprisoned; and David losing Yonatan and Avshalom. (This list is not comprehensive.

And this experience immersed my more deeply in the Nine Days.

* I realize that this is a very masculine association - several proposals have been made to associate matriarchs with the sefirot, but it is not unifor. The one that resonates with me is Tamar - since my Hebrew name is Tomer Yitzchok - and she is associated with Yosef and Yesod - Yosef is the only man in the Torah described as HaTzadik - the Righteous - and Yehudah says that Tamar is tzadkah mimeni - more righteous than I. I think that those wanting to adopt this practice with matriarchs will likely find the practice revealing great insight.

Gathering the tzitzis from the four corners of the tallis

 

I have had the experience, since conversion, when gathering the four tzitzis together at v’havienu l’shalom me-arba kanfot ha-aretz, of feeling like I was gathering the disparate parts of myself into one, like the One in whose image and likeness every human being was created, whose Oneness is proclaimed in the Shema shortly after. The Shalom into which these are gathered is the oneness/wholeness/peace of G!d.

Today, as I was davening, I had an additional thought building on this. First, perhaps the four tzitzis/corners of the earth are the four levels of the soul – nefesh, ruach, neshama, chaya – that are being gathered as one to unite with G!d in the yechidah, the fifth level of the soul in the Shema. I know the four levels of the soul correlate with the four parts of Shacharit – brachot/korbanot, psukei d/zimra, Shema, and Amidah. So maybe they are also being gathered together in preparation for the Amidah.

And since I see the Amidah as a roadmap for a spiritual journey toward wholeness, maybe there is something about this inner self-unity that needs to begin before we are ready for the Amidah, for this journey. Of course, this coming together is referenced again in the very middle blessing of the weekday Amidah – ve’kabtzenu yachad me-arba kanfot ha-aretz. And maybe the Shalom of Ahavat Rabbah and the Yachad of Mekabetz Nidchei Amo Yisrael are the same thing, perhaps on different levels.

I’m sure others have drawn similar conclusions – but it is to these realizations that this embodied experience of Jewish prayer leads me.

Rosh Chodesh Av

 יוֹצֵ֥ר אוֹר֙ וּבוֹרֵ֣א חֹ֔שֶׁךְ עֹשֶׂ֥ה שָׁל֖וֹם וּב֣וֹרֵא רָ֑ע אֲנִ֥י ה' עֹשֶׂ֥ה כׇל־אֵֽלֶּה׃

I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create separation; I am the LORD, that doeth all these things. (Isaiah 45:7)

Chodesh Menachem Av Tov!

May we be zocheh to have all inauthenticity stripped and washed away so we may come face to face with the mourning we need to do in this time of sadness, so that we can move from the darkness of the pain of separation - from ourselves, from others, from G!d - to the light of shalom/peace/wholeness - from Tisha B'Av to Tu B'Av.

Wrapping Tefillin and the Thirteen Attributes

I had a realization about wrapping tefillin today - probably not the first person to notice this, but here goes.

One wraps the tefillin strap around one's forearm seven times. This creates 13 bands - the 7 strap indentations and the six bands between them. This correlates, in my mind, to the Thirteen Attributes of G!d - both the essential attributes in Exodus 34 and the Supernal Attributes in Micah 7:18-20. There are also thirteen blessings specific to the weekday Amidah (between the three opening blessings and three closing blessings always said) - which I also think of as correlating to the Thirteen Attributes.

So not only are the tefillin shel yad a sign on one's hand/arm - so are the marks left behind, serving as a sign of the Thirteen Attributes of the G!d we serve and which we are to emulate, being made in the likeness and image of G!d.

Isaac's Pet Donkey - How He Left His Father and Started a New Life

It might be helpful to familiarize yourself with the Akedah, Genesis 22:1-19, and the G'vurot blessing in the Amidah prayer in the Jewish liturgy prior to reading this.

In the Akedah, Abraham left the two lads with the donkey – the chomer – as he took Isaac off to be sacrificed. He returned to the two lads without Isaac – and they were there without the donkey. The donkey – the chamor – is chumra – stringency – and Abraham had saddled his donkey – his stringency – to be able to murder his son in the service of G!d. But he left the donkey – his stringency – behind to take Isaac up the mountain – and was able to hear the rachmanes – the mercy – of Hashem telling him not to murder his son. But Isaac was able to hear the call of G!d to take up the chamor – his chumra – his stringency – for himself - and left without Abraham, first getting the donkey and riding it off to the next chapter of his life.

It was only by adopting and riding the donkey that Isaac was able to leave the abusive situation he was in and find his own relationship with G!d – ultimately being able, when he went out into the field to meditate – and daven Mincha – that he was able to look up and see camels, gemalim – gemilut chasadim – acts of lovingkindness. 

May we find the gevurah – the strength – to adopt the chumras – the stringencies – that make space for meditating in the field and looking up to see the gemilut chasadim – acts of lovingkindness – we can do – lifting up the fallen, healing the sick, freeing the captives – to be like G!d.

Pinchas

No commerce on Shabbat - we accept the innate perfection within the world.

No commerce (insofar as is possible) during the Three Weeks - we accept the brokenness of the world.

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In this week's parshah, we have the brit shalom with the broken vav (broken wholeness) for PInchas; the note that the entire generation that left Egypt, apart from Yehoshua and Kelev, died in the wilderness; and, in the law of the musaf offerings for Rosh Chodesh, the sin-offering brought for G!d - which midrash tells is to atone for G!d's embarrassing the moon. A true meditation on brokenness. May we, like the daughters of Tzelafchad, push for a tikkun for the brokenness.