Counting letters in Psalms: From the Sefer Hasidim

A friend who is a rabbinical student sent me this quote from the Sefer Hasidim - and I feel seen!

"There were once two synagogues in a city and the hakham went . . sometimes to one and sometimes to the other. Then he prayed only in the smaller one. They asked him, “Why have you left the larger synagogue where both the many and the prominent pray?” He replied, 'In the large synagogue they hasten [the recitation of] the morning blessings and the Psalms ... but not so in the smaller synagogue. There they recite the morning blessings and Psalms slowly and I gain in this that, while I recite [the Psalm] slowly, I count on my fingers how many alephs there are [in each Psalm], how many bets, and similarly for each letter, and upon my return home I attempt to find a reason for each sum.'"

I was raised in a non-liturgical evangelical Christian tradition without liturgy, other than hymns. I even heard a Pentecostal classmate in high school say that the fact that there are two versions of the Lord's Prayer in different gospels is a sign that we aren't supposed to have written-out prayers, but should only pray extemporaneously from the heart.

However, my prayer personality is such that I need liturgy, fixed words, to be able to pray - for me, the extemporaneous prayer can only arise after praying the liturgy. And I find that praying the same liturgical texts day after day and week after week, getting to know them intimately, deepens my experience of prayer. Getting to know the prayer on the level of the letters makes complete sense to me. I love finding biblical passages from which phrases or even words from the liturgy are taken (and the Jewish liturgy is chock-full of them!) - it deepens my exeprience of the liturgy. I haven't necessarily gotten to the point of counting letters and learning the meanings - although gematria I have learned about particular prayers is illuminating for me and I have incorporated it into how I pray! - but maybe I will.

I love this passage so much!

Eino Ben Yomo, Shabbat, and Our Souls

Last night, I began learning about pots that are ben yomo [child of a day] or eino ben yomo [not a child of a day] (or, as the rabbi teaching said, yoymoy). Food that is fleishig, milchig, or treyf imparts a taste to the vessel it was cooked in, which is then imparted to food cooked in it - but once it has been cool for 24 hours or more [ein ben yomo], the taste is dissipated and, in many circumstances, if food in a different category was accidentally cooked in a clean pot, it likely does not acquire the taste of the previous food and is likely to be kosher. (However, the rules are complicated and there are differences of opinion, so consult a rabbi if this applies to you.)

On Shabbat, from candlelighting until Havdalah, about 25 hours, we remove ourselves from the outside world – and this is especially necessary this week. I would like to think that, after the 25 hours, the taste of the previous, likely spiritually treyf, things that have stewed within our minds will dissipate. Certainly, just as a pot in this category will likely need to be rekashered, the passage of time is not the only thing that needs to happen to fully cleanse us, but it is a great start.

Shabbat Shalom. May this cooling off period bring you peace.

A Reason for the Prohibition against Basar b'Cholov - Mixing Milk and Meat

Rabbinic tradition sees mitzvot as falling into one of three categories in regard to how rational they are. Mishpatim are rational and obvious – the mitzvot to not murder and to not steal fall into this category. Chukim, on the other hand, are mitzvot for which there is no rational explanation. Kashrut (dietary laws) are an example of this. Eidot are an intermediary category – they are commemorative mitzvot that are not immediately rational but commemorate an event in a way that does make easy rational sense. Eating matzah on Pesach is an example of this, since it commemorates the matzah the Jews leaving Egypt had to eat because they did not have time for the dough to leaven.

However, just because there seems to be no rational explanation does not mean that many in the rabbinic tradition did not seek to find them for the chukim. The Rambam (Maimonides) taught that all of the mitzvos, even the chukim, have a rational basis – although for the chukim, this is not readily discernible. He attempts to find such explanations for many of them and encourages others to do likewise and even holds that when human reason fails, it merely means that the rational basis eludes our limited reason, not that the chok in question lacks a rational basis. (I am indebted to Rabbi Isadore Twersky, zt”l, the Talner Rebbe of Boston, who taught about this in classes I took in divinity school as we explored Moreh Nevuchim, the Guide to the Perplexed.)

Basar b’cholov, the prohibition of mixing meat and milk, is a chok and several explanations have been advanced for why this is commanded. The Rambam said that it was prohibited because cooking a kid in its mother’s milk was used in idol worship. Others proposed that it was prohibited because of health concerns or because it was considered cruel – and the cruelty is the reason I had always assumed. The seventh Lubavitcher rebbe compared it to kilayim, planting different species of plants together – we are taught not to mix different types of food together.

In learning the halachot of basar b’cholov, another reason presents itself to me. It is perhaps a particular lesson about cruelty. Abusive parents, rather than nurturing their children, in the process of raising them, pervert the parental duty to raise their children to be their own person. Instead of giving them the tools (including ethical and religious values) to become healthy adults, they use the children to meet their own narcissistic needs, not seeing them as persons created b’tzelem Elokim (in the image of G!d) in their own right. This process of abuse is very destructive and harms the abused children in ways that last long into their adulthood and usually their entire lives. Sexual abusers turn their children into sexual objects, parents who rage turn their children into emotional and/or physical punching bags, narcissists attempt to destroy their children’s innate personalities in order to make them images of themselves. In all of these cases (and other cases of parental abuse), the nurture, symbolized by milk, becomes instead an instrument of destruction, symbolized by cooking the child and ending its independent existence by making it food.

By observing the halachot of basar b’cholov, may parents be more mindful to embrace their holy opportunity for nurture and reject abuse of their children.