Seder Song With Hand Motions

Well, it's been over five years since I uploaded my first and still most successful Youtube video. This song was not something I experienced as a child, but it's for children, so here goes.

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ATT Kesser Torah/Chicago Pirchei Boys Choir

The ATT Kesser Torah Boys Choir was the main group musical experience of my childhood. Every Sunday night, our fearless leader Peretz would plop down his little brown keyboard in the ICJA lunchroom and turn a fidgety group of boys from different schools into a pretty decent-sounding choir. Here's a video of us singing Kol B'Ramah at Chicago City Hall in 1990 - I was lucky to have the solo for this haunting and beautiful song.

lyrics (from Jer. 31):

יד ...קוֹל בְּרָמָה נִשְׁמָע נְהִי בְּכִי תַמְרוּרִים--רָחֵל, מְבַכָּה עַל-בָּנֶיהָ; מֵאֲנָה לְהִנָּחֵם עַל-בָּנֶיהָ, כִּי אֵינֶנּוּ.	14 ...A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuseth to be comforted for her children, because they are not.
טו כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה, מִנְעִי קוֹלֵךְ מִבֶּכִי, וְעֵינַיִךְ, מִדִּמְעָה: כִּי יֵשׁ שָׂכָר לִפְעֻלָּתֵךְ נְאֻם-יְהוָה, וְשָׁבוּ מֵאֶרֶץ אוֹיֵב.	15 Thus saith the LORD: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.
טז וְיֵשׁ-תִּקְוָה לְאַחֲרִיתֵךְ, נְאֻם-יְהוָה; וְשָׁבוּ בָנִים, לִגְבוּלָם.	16 And there is hope for thy future, saith the LORD; and thy children shall return to their own border.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Messiah

Everyone knows how Rudolph, mocked by all his reindeer buddies, got picked by Santa to lead his Christmas sleigh. But did you know the story has a hidden meaning?

Rudolph appears to be a parable for the life of Jesus, as told in the Gospels. Like Rudolph, Jesus was rejected by his peers, the other Jewish rabbis. Yet when the time came for God to reveal his chosen one, Jesus was the one he picked, just as Santa chose Rudolph to lead his sleigh.

The Bible uses a similar metaphor: The stone the builders mocked has become the cornerstone (Psalms 118:22).[1] This pithy saying gave hope to a battered Jewish nation, centuries before it was applied to Jesus. Perhaps Robert May, who invented Rudolph, understood the parable of the cornerstone, and decided to recast it in terms that would capture a child’s imagination.

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[1] The verse is found in Mark (12:1-12), Matthew (21:33-46), Luke (20:9-16), Acts (4:11), I Peter (2:7), Barnabus (6:4), and other early Christian sources. Its meaning in these contexts is a bit ambiguous, but in Acts at least it is clear that the stone is a metaphor for Jesus himself.

Jacob vs Esau: the Anticlimax

As a bar mitzva boy, I wasn't thrilled with my Torah portion, in which Jacob finally comes face to face with Esau, whose blessings he stole many years ago. Instead of a mano-a-mano fight-to-the-finish showdown, the two brothers simply cry and kiss (Gen. 33:4). Not much of a climax.

But then, Jacob isn't much of a hero. At best he's a crafty conflict-avoider, and at worst a cheating coward. His life is a catch-me-if-you-can of deceiving and being deceived, culminating in his sons' heartbreaking lie that Joseph was dead. Here, in a rare case where Jacob actually faces his fears, he finds that they were mostly in his head. Esau is happy with his lot, and has long ago moved past birthrights and blessings. One senses that Jacob has been punishing himself with worry all these years.

At the end of his life, Jacob complains that his life has been short and difficult (47:9). One is left wondering what would have happened if Jacob had chosen a different route, perhaps not tricked his father into giving him the blessing. Was it worth it? What if he'd cooperated with Esau instead of competing with him? The lesson I like to take away from all this is that life is short and love is precious. Give people the benefit of the doubt, and when in doubt, communicate. After all, a lot of our headaches are only in our head.

Rebecca's Camels, Ruth's Sheaves: Exploring Biblical Parallel

In yeshiva, I discovered that separate Biblical narratives often seem reminiscent of one another. A 'gleaningly' obvious example is the stories of Rebecca and Ruth. Two key phrases appear in both stories: (1) until entirely finished (Gen. 24:19, Ruth 2:21), and (2) Blessed is... God, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead (Gen. 24:26, Ruth 2:20). Both are tales of a young woman (na’ara in Hebrew) who leaves her family for marriage and becomes a matriarch of the Jewish nation. But is there a deeper connection?

Interestingly, there is a very specific parallel at a major turning point in both stories. In each case, a seemingly chance encounter guides the heroine to her eventual marriage to a relative. Abraham’s servant stands by a well and devises a test to decide upon a suitor for Isaac (that the girl should offer to give drink to his camels as well as himself). Not only does the first girl to come along do exactly as he describes, but she also just happens to be a relative of the family! Similarly, Ruth goes off to glean among the fields, hoping to find food for herself and her mother-in-law, and it just so happens that the field she chooses belongs to a relative of her father-in-law - a man that can fulfill her obligation as a widow by redeeming her! It comes as no surprise, then, that it is precisely these two “coincidental” events that provide the context for the two parallel phrases mentioned earlier.

Aside from having similar plotlines, do the stories share a common moral theme? Consider again the blessings uttered by Abraham’s servant and Naomi: Blessed is... God, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead. Why is God’s kindness so appropriate in these stories? The answer is obvious. Both heroines are portrayed as being exceptionally kind. Rebecca merits to marry Isaac because her heart is sensitive even to the plight of animals; Ruth becomes mother of kings through her tireless refusal to leave Naomi (and give up on continuing her husband’s line). For both women, it is their own extraordinary dedication to kindness, or chesed, that earns them special attention and guidance.*

Or in other words...

*My full analysis of these passages was published in 2001 as part of UPenn's Torah Journal. You can download it here.

Adam, Noah, and the Yosemitebear Mountain Double Rainbow

(Part of an occasional series on the weekly Torah portion.)

Probably what Noah sounded like, too.

Ask most people what Adam's curse was, and they'll tell you, to work for a living. But did you know that Adam's curse is over? Let's first take a look at the curse itself:

יז וּלְאָדָם אָמַר...אֲרוּרָה הָאֲדָמָה, בַּעֲבוּרֶךָ, בְּעִצָּבוֹן תֹּאכְלֶנָּה, כֹּל יְמֵי חַיֶּיךָ.	17 And unto Adam He said... 'cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.
יח וְקוֹץ וְדַרְדַּר, תַּצְמִיחַ לָךְ; וְאָכַלְתָּ, אֶת-עֵשֶׂב הַשָּׂדֶה.	18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the grass of the field.

Note that the land is cursed. Even after tilling, the land will not bring forth sustenance. This lasts ten generations, until baby Noah is named after the curse:

כט וַיִּקְרָא אֶת-שְׁמוֹ נֹחַ, לֵאמֹר: זֶה יְנַחֲמֵנוּ מִמַּעֲשֵׂנוּ, וּמֵעִצְּבוֹן יָדֵינוּ, מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, אֲשֶׁר אֵרְרָהּ יְהוָה.

29 And he called his name Noah, saying: 'This same shall comfort us in our work and in the suffering of our hands, from the ground which the LORD hath cursed.'

Noah, of course, has bigger things to worry about. But as the flood waters recede, his father's prophecy comes true and God forgives Adam's curse:

כא ...וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-לִבּוֹ לֹא-אֹסִף לְקַלֵּל עוֹד אֶת-הָאֲדָמָה בַּעֲבוּר הָאָדָם, כִּי יֵצֶר לֵב הָאָדָם רַע מִנְּעֻרָיו*...

21 ...and the LORD said in His heart: 'I will not continue to curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth*...

There you have it. We no longer have to work (as hard) for a living.

*man's youth is probably a reference to Eden and original sin. Milton would have a field day.