Drash on parashat Emor

Emor translates to “say” and the first line of the parashat is:

Vayomer Adonai el-Moshe 

emor el-hakohanim b’ney Aharon

v'amarta aleihem: 

L'nefesh lo-yitama b'amav.

God said to Moses:

Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron

and say to them:

None shall defile himself for any [dead] person among his kin

Nefesh first appears in Genesis 1:20: haMayim sheretz nefesh chayah, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures.” Nefesh is translated as “soul” and chayah means “living.”

This same phrase is used in Genesis 2:7 when God breathes life into Adam.

In Emor, nefesh is used without chayah to mean "dead soul” or “dead person." The next word, yitama, means to become defiled. To defile something is to desecrate something sacred. In Jewish law, this is a spiritual state, not a physical one. Tum'ah is to be in a state of ritual impurity which restricts a person from holy activities, such as entering the Temple or consuming holy food. The rituals that return a person to purity, taharah, differ based on the source of tum’ah.

This first line of Emor is a negative mitzvah, the prohibition against Kohanim coming into contact with a dead body (with the exception for close family members). However, Leviticus 5:2 has established other ways that people become impure and, in Numbers 19 (Parasha Chukat), we learn that anyone who comes into contact with a dead body, or is in the same tent, or touches a human bone or a grave, becomes impure for seven days. Chukat also gives us instructions for purification: The law of the Red Heifer, one of the strangest stories in the Torah.

Briefly, a red cow without blemish that has never been worked is slaughtered by the High Priest; its blood is sprinkled seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting; its hide, flesh blood and dung are burned along with cedar wood, hyssop, and “crimson stuff”. The priest then becomes impure so another person must gather the ashes and deposit them outside the camp. That person also becomes impure.

A priest mixes some of the ashes with fresh water to create the water of lustration, which is sprinkled on the impure person on the third day and the seventh day. The person must then wash their clothes and bathe in a mikveh, and they become pure in the evening. 

This decree defies rational explanation and is considered beyond human understanding, but then it makes a dire warning: “Whoever touches a corpse and does not undergo cleansing, defiles God’s Tabernacle; that person shall be cut off from Israel.”

Other sources of tum’ah, in ascending order of severity, include:

• Semen Emission
• Childbirth (Yoledet): (7 days for a son, 14 days for a daughter)
• Menstruation (Niddah)
• Discharges (Zav/Zavah) other than semen and menstrual blood
• Skin Disease (Tzaraath)
• The Eight Creeping Animals: After Leviticus 11 defines what animals may be eaten, it then randomly lists eight animals whose corpses cannot be touched, including moles, mice, lizards, geckos, crocodiles, and chameleons.

Corpse contamination (tumat met) is considered the highest level of ritual impurity and is called avi avot hatumah (literally "grandfather of impurity"). The Mishnah describes several grades of tumat met: The corpse itself is the most severe; followed by anyone who touches the corpse; and then if that person touches anyone else, or food and drink, while they are still impure.

It would be very easy to dismiss this as public health dressed as religion: Corpses have diseases so requiring people to isolate and wash after contact with a corpse just makes sense, right? As far back as the 18th century BCE people were aware of contagion. The etymology of the word tum’ah is obscure but it reflects the idea that a defiling substance can be transferred from one person or thing to another, even if it is not visible.

But if this is for pragmatic reasons, why is the ritual so enigmatic? God repeatedly tells us, “You shall be holy for I am holy.” In Judaism, "holy" (kadosh) means “set apart” and ritual items have strict rules for their use. When we light the shabbat candles, we do not use them for light or warmth; when we wear tallit, blow the shofar or read the siddur, these are all treated with reverence. Similarly, for the Israelites to be set apart, to become holy, we also must have rules for how to live, as well as a way to return to a state of holiness.

In Jewish tradition, a human corpse is viewed as profoundly sacred—often compared to an "impaired Torah scroll"—retaining holiness even after death. The dead body creates the highest form of ritual impurity precisely because it requires special purification rites. And for those handling the body, death reminds us of our own mortality, it takes us out of the life-affirming nature of holiness, which in turn requires extreme steps for us to return. Tum’ah literally forces us to choose between life and death, and warns us that if we don’t make the effort to return to life, we are cutting ourselves off from God.

N.B. In copying this, all of the footnotes were stripped out, so apologies for not referencing my sources. 

Uber

I'm no longer working on Wednesdays so I thought maybe I'd do some Uber driving for pocket money, as well as to give me some structure and meet other people. I didn't expect it to be a get-rich-quick scheme but they say if you just work the rush hour you can make decent money, and I figured driving about 3 hours a week was reasonable. My car is also pretty banged up so I figured I could use some of the income to replace the bumper and fix the scratches.

I looked at the website for Uber drivers and it said:

It’s easy to sign up to drive using the Uber app. Here’s what you need:

1. Be at least 20 years of age
2. Have held a valid full NZ driver licence for at least 1 year
3. Have access to a vehicle that meets Uber's vehicle requirements
4. Be listed as an insured driver for the vehicle you will drive
5. Have a Passenger Endorsement card
6. Valid vehicle registration
7. Certificate of Fitness

The vehicle requirements said "must be a 4-door, 15-years-old or newer model with working air conditioning and 5+ seats." (My car is a 2014 Prius so I'm good until 2029!)

I thought I had all of those except the Passenger endorsement so I looked into that. Hilariously, they refer to a "small p" endorsement for taxi drivers and a "big P" endorsement for bus drivers. A "small p" endorsement costs NZ $224 for one year or $262 for five years* and you need:

1. A full NZ car licence for at least 2 years**
2. A medical certificate
3. Pass a background check  

I happened to have a GP appointment so I asked him for the medical certificate. I thought it was just a letter that said I didn't have epilepsy but it turned out to be a four-page form where he had to test my eyesight, go over all my medications, etc. Thankfully, even though the appointment ran over, he didn't charge extra. (That said, I made the appointment so I could get a 12-month prescription but while doing the medical certificate we both forgot and he gave me the standard 3-month prescription, so I'll have to see him again in 3 months...)

It said the background check is handled as part of the application, but the fine print said, "if you’ve lived in any one country (apart from New Zealand) for 12 months since the age of 14 you will need to provide to the NZTA a criminal history check for each country you have lived in." For the US, you submit an online application to the FBI and it costs US $18. For the UK, if you're in the UK it is £21.50 but if you're overseas it's.£70 (US $94)! I actually got a UK background check for my NZ citizenship application, but that was a while ago and I no longer have a copy.

OK, this is already starting to get expensive but I thought, when I apply, they'll know I'm American (from the accent) but not that I lived in the UK, so if I just provide the US background check I'm sure it will be fine. So I started to apply only to find I needed to submit my fingerprints in a very specific way, and basically the only place I could get that done was in the US.

But it just so happens I'm going to the States in a week! The website said I could get it done at a US Post Office but I decided to double-check: I'm staying in Vacaville but that post office doesn't do fingerprints. The closest post office that does it is in Fairfield, but only between 9am-2pm weekdays and 10am-11am on Saturday. (1 hour, I am not making that up.) Oh, and they charge US $50.

OK, so now I'm looking at $262 for the P endorsement and NZ $117 for the US background check. But it gets much worse.

Then I learned the Certificate of Fitness (CoF) above is different than the Warrant of Fitness (WoF) I have. The CoF is more stringent*** and can result in penalties! (ie. If you bring your car in for a WoF and the tread depth is below minimum, you fail. If you bring your car in for a CoF and the tread depth is below minimum, you fail and you may have to pay a fine!) You also need to file a "change of use" form, but it's unclear if there's a fee for that. I have no idea what the cost is for the CoF because not all inspection stations do this and those that do all say "call us" but AI says it's at least $175. (And it used to be every six months but they just changed it to be annually.)

So now we're at least $550 in the hole here. Then I checked with my car insurance and they replied: “Your policy does not cover any loss, damage, or liability arising from...carrying fare-paying passengers." I checked another insurer and they wanted $202 per month for commercial insurance. AI said the minimum I could expect is about $140 per month. It doesn't matter if you use it for 3 hours a week or 60 hours a week, the price is the same.

Then the final kicker: In the Uber fine print it says the vehicle "Must be in excellent working condition, with no cosmetic damage." So now I have to pay for the damage upfront! I don't have a quote but I can't imagine it being under $1,000. So now I'm in this for at least $4,000 before I've earned $1!

I then asked AI how much I might earn driving for uber for 3 hours per week and it said "approximately $60 to $100 before expenses." Let's assume I earn $100, spend $20 in gas and paid $15 in tax. After insurance ($140/month) and CoF ($175/year) I'd net $1,525/year, enough to pay off the $1,379 in fees and repairs and still pocket $146. That works out to less than $1 per hour.

And lastly, although I don't think there are any fees, it also says you have to complete driver safety education, purchase a child lock safety sticker, display a Small Passenger Service Licence Label in the windscreen a display a Transport Service Licence in the car. (You have to send a passport-style photo to Uber who then send you the latter.)

So I think this particular dream is dead. I know someone who does woodworking in his spare time and sells cutting boards at local markets on the weekend, so maybe I'll look into that...  

* Hard to imagine who would select the one year option to save $38, but the "big P" endorsement -- for large vehicles -- is the same price whether you want it for one year or five years! (And it's actually cheaper than the "small P" endorsement!)
** Yes, Uber says you only need a NZ license for one year and then says you must have an endorsement that requires you to have a license for two years...
*** As an example, if you have a hatchback vehicle then you may need to have a means to secure cargo so it doesn't hit passengers in an accident.

Life stages through the lens of relationships

My life stages have all coincided with different relationships. That was never the intent - I would have been very happy to have one relationship in this life - but it makes me wonder if this was all coincidental or if there was a causal relationship (and if the latter, was the relationship the cause or effect?)

In my teens, my best friend was a woman in her 50s. I know that sounds weird, but it wasn't. I had no interest in being a teenager -- I wanted to skip that phase and was desperate to grow up and be taken seriously, so for me this felt quite natural. However, the very thing that enabled that relationship is also what doomed it -- by the time I was 17, I had outgrown her and was ready to move on.

When I was 18, I moved in with a woman in her 30s. I adored her but I still had to deal with the actual transition to adulthood. I thought I could take a shortcut and skip university but I wanted a job in IT, and so I ended up working full-time and going to school part-time, which left very little time for a relationship.

For her part, she was not happy falling in love with someone so young, and I think that doomed the relationship from the start. I don't honestly know if I could have done anything to keep the relationship through that transition.

My next relationship started when I was 21, just as I was finishing school and settling into my career. Those were the salad days: Neither of us wanted kids, both of us were working, and I was no longer trying to grow up or be someone else. Those days passed in a blur of sunshine, friends and distractions. When we decided to move to rural Pennsylvania and open a B&B, I really thought our relationship was strong enough to survive that transition (otherwise I wouldn't have committed all of our savings) but I was wrong, and I walked away with practically nothing.

I felt like I was starting over so I decided to make it even harder by moving to another country. A relationship was the last thing on my mind, which is probably why I had my guard down and immediately fell in love. I was 38 and she was 35 and suddenly we were talking about having kids. I'd never wanted kids until I met her, and suddenly it was all I wanted. It was her desire to raise the kids Jewish that started me on the journey to convert to Judaism. That relationship was all about opening myself up, navigating a new culture and embracing change, but in the end she didn't really want a relationship with me. (If you thought I'd learned my lesson about protecting myself financially, you'd be wrong, and I walked away from this relationship with practically nothing, as well.)

Then at 44 I moved to New Zealand and was suddenly raising three kids. (My "pop-up family" as my wife used to say.) So that relationship was all about learning to be a father. My wife passed away and the kids are all now in their 20s, but they're still my pop-up family. Hopefully they will teach me about being a grandfather.

I'm sure there will be relationships in my future - I seem to fall into them - but I have no idea what they look like, or what I'll take away from them. What I can say is the adage, "the only common denominator in your dysfunctional relationships is you."

Parashat Tzav

[Drasha delivered 28 March 2026]

In today’s portion, we are warned of the consequences for eating fat or blood:

• 7:25 If anyone eats the fat of animals from which offerings by fire may be made to GOD, the person who eats it shall be cut off from kin
• 7:27 Anyone who eats blood shall be cut off from kin.

The first question is, what’s wrong with fat? Rambam¹ differentiates chelev (suet) which surrounds the organs and can be separated from the meat, and shuman (marbling) which cannot. Only chelev is forbidden. As usual, the Torah provides no explanation or justification, but various theories have been put forward, the primary one is that fat was considered the "choicest part" of the animal and therefore belonged to God. How do we know fat was the choicest part? Because in Genesis², when Pharaoh tells Joseph to bring his family to Egypt he uses the phrase “chelev ha'aֽretz.” meaning the best part of the land.

The prohibition against consuming blood is mentioned seven times³ in the Torah. At the time of Creation, humans were only allowed to eat plant life, not creatures with souls. Only after the Flood did G‑d permit the consumption of meat, admonishing Noah: “Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat… You must not, however, eat flesh with its life-blood in it.”

Rashi⁴ said that because blood represents the nefesh (soul or life-force) and that blood is placed on the altar to atone for the human soul, then blood is too sacred to be consumed as food. Rambam⁵ said that consuming blood could coarsen the human soul, making a person more cruel and less spiritually sensitive. Maimonides⁶ said the prohibition was partly to distance Jews from the idolatrous practices of surrounding nations who believed drinking blood would grant supernatural powers. (If that sounds crazy, please ask your Christian friends about Holy Communion.)

So how do you remove all blood from meat? The scientific answer is: Meat doesn’t contain blood – blood is contained in veins and arteries, and the shechita is designed to drain the blood before it is butchered. The red in meat comes from the protein myoglobin, which is different than hemoglobin in blood, but both bind to oxygen giving it the same red colour. That said, the “kosher” method of removing blood is to roast the meat over an open flame or soak it, salt it and rinse it. Liver must be roasted then soaked three times. Kidneys are also problematic but kosher butchers usually get around this by selling the hindquarters, including the kidneys, to non-kosher butchers.

As for the punishment, the term Kareth is translated as “cut off from kin” but it has been variously defined as dying young, dying without children, being denied a portion in the world to come or straight up being murdered. There are thirty-six⁷ laws whose punishment is Kareth including: eating chametz during Pesach, certain sexual violations, ritual impurities, a man's refusal to be circumcised or anyone who sins deliberately.

These are just two references in Torah which ties Judaism to food and from which we derive the laws of kashrut, meaning “fit [for consumption].” Others include:

• In Genesis⁸, after Jacob struggled with the angel: “Therefore, the children of Israel may not eat the displaced tendon, which is on the socket of the hip.” This is the sciatic nerve, or Gid Hanasheh, and it is why kosher butchers sell the hindquarters rather than try to remove this.
• In Exodus⁹: “You shall be holy people to Me: you must not eat flesh torn by beasts in the field; you shall cast it to the dogs.” The word the Torah uses for "torn by beasts," t'reifah, is the origin of the Yiddish word, t'reif. This is also why the food you feed your pet does not have to be kosher (but you still can’t give your pet chametz during Pesach).
• Also twice in Exodus¹⁰: “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.“ More on this in a minute.
• The next portion, Shemini, goes into details about what animals can and can’t be eaten.

In November 1885¹¹, a group of Reform rabbis met in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and explicitly called for a rejection of laws which have a ritual, rather than moral, basis. For kashrut, they wrote, “We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation.” They rejected the notion that food laws were divine commands or necessary for ritual purity and viewed them as a barrier to social integration with non-Jewish society.

Today, many progressive Jews have chosen to reinterpret, rather than reject, kashrut based on ethics, sustainability, and personal spiritual meaning. This is often tied to Tikkun Olam, or repairing the world.¹² This may include eating vegetarian, not buying battery laid eggs, focusing on sustainable food sources, or considering the animal and/or labor conditions of food producers.

This is not new. The twelfth-century commentator Rashbam¹³ (Rabbi Samuel ben Meir), believed the injunction against boiling a kid in its mother’s milk was not about mixing meat and dairy but instead was intended to teach tzaar baalei chayim, sensitivity to the pain of animals. As he wrote: "It is disgraceful and voracious and gluttonous to consume the mother's milk together with its young…. The Torah gave this commandment in order to teach you how to behave in a civilized manner."

One of the key tenets of Progressive Judaism is to find what is spiritually meaningful to you, and Torah recognises that what you consume – and its cost to the planet – must surely be one of the most important spiritual choices you can make. Rabbi Simeon Maslin¹⁴, past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, wrote, “I view our family dining table as a mizbei-ach m'at, a miniature altar…it is a sacred space which connects us to God and to the history of our people.”

Food for thought. Shabbat shalom and chag Pesach sameach.

---

1. https://www.sefaria.org/Ramban_on_Leviticus.3.9.1.↩
2. Genesis 45:18↩
3. Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 3:17, Leviticus 7:26, Leviticus 17:12, Deuteronomy 12:16, Deuteronomy 12:23, Deuteronomy 15:23↩
4. Rashi, Leviticus 17:11.↩
5. Nahmanides, Commentary to Leviticus 17:13.↩
6. Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, III:46↩
7. https://www.sefaria.org/Keritot.2a.1↩
8. Genesis 32:33↩
9. Exodus 22:30↩
10. Exodus 23:19↩
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_Platform↩
12. A Sacred Duty: Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal the World (2007) https://youtu.be/Y9RxmTGHZgE↩
13. https://reformjudaism.org/beliefs-practices/spirituality/civilized-diet↩
14. Ibid.↩

Chol Hamoed Eid Pesach

[Drasha on Chol Hamoed Eid Pesach, 4 April 2026]

Chol Hamoed means “the weekday of the holiday” and the Shabbat that falls during Pesach is Chol Hamoed Eid Pesach We’ve been reading from Leviticus but during Chol Hamoed Eid Pesach we go back to Exodus. Not to the parts about Passover, of course, but to just after the incident of the Golden Calf.

Moses says to God, “Now, if I have truly gained Your favor, pray let me know Your ways”¹ followed by “Oh, let me behold Your Presence!”²

God has so far spoken to Moses from a burning bush³, turned a staff into a serpent, brought about the ten plagues, freed the Hebrew slaves, parted the Sea of Reeds and “had come down upon [Mount Sinai] in fire”⁴ to speak to the Israelites. Moses has spent 40 days on Mount Sinai talking to God and God had written the first ten commandments on stone tablets. Yet only now does Moses ask to see God.

We can interpret this in two ways: Either Moses has established a strong relationship with God and wants to take it to the next level, or, despite everything that’s happened so far, Moses still does not trust God. There are arguments for both sides.

The verse before this portion, Exodus 33:11, says, “God would speak to Moses face to face [panim el panim], as one person speaks to another.” In Numbers, God tells Aaron and Mirian, “With [Moses] I speak mouth to mouth [Pe el Pe], plainly and not in riddles, and he beholds God’s likeness.”⁵ In Deuteronomy, after Moses dies, it says, “Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses—whom God singled out, face to face [panim el-panim]”⁶ These passages speak to a very close relationship and it seems natural that Moses would want to put a face to the name.

I had a similar experience in 2013 when I received an unsolicited email from someone I’d never met, a woman in New Zealand, a country I’d never heard of. (Coincidentally, I was on holiday in Israel at the time, though I was in the Negev, not on Mount Sinai.) After some back-and-forth emails, I said I wanted to have a video chat and she said, absolutely not, no way, not going to happen. I said something along the lines of I’d have to stop communicating because I didn’t want to be catfished by a 40-year-old guy living in his mom’s basement. She reluctantly agreed to a video chat and, long story short, I moved to New Zealand and married her.

But I digress.

As for Moses still not trusting God, remember at the burning bush, after God lays out the entire plan for freeing the Israelites, Moses says, “Please…make someone else Your agent.”⁷ God becomes angry, ignores Moses’ request and continues telling Moses what to do. That sort of bullying does not engender trust.

And when Moses accepts the task and is on his way to Egypt with his wife and sons, one night God seeks to kill Moses! Zipporah saves Moses when she takes a flint and cuts off her son’s foreskin.⁸ Not the sort of thing you see at a trust-building workshop.

Later, after God gives the Israelites manna, they cry out, “If only we had meat!” Moses complains to God, not for the first time or the last time, “Why have You…laid the burden of all this people upon me?” God replies rather testily, “[I] will give you meat and you shall eat…until it comes out of your nostrils”⁹ Then Moses responds sarcastically, “The people who are with me number six hundred thousand foot soldiers [alone]... Could enough flocks and herds be slaughtered to suffice them? Or could all the fish of the sea be gathered…to suffice them?” God responds just as sarcastically, “Is there a limit to God’s power? You shall soon see whether what I have said happens to you or not!” None of this speaks to a close collaboration between friends.

And the final straw was at Meribah, after Miriam dies and God tells Moses, “Order the rock to yield its water.” But Moses strikes the rock, twice. God reacts badly: “Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm My sanctity in the sight of the Israelite people, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them.”

Even at the end, when Moses pleads with God, “Let me…cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan,” God says, “Enough! Never speak to Me of this matter again!”¹⁰

Either way, whether Moses trusts God or not, he asks to see God and God partially agrees, saying “I will make all My goodness pass before you…. But you cannot see My face, for no mortal may see Me and live.”¹¹

As God does this, God says about himself, “God! God! a Deity compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin—yet not remitting all punishment, but visiting the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.”

From this narcissistic run-on sentence the sages derived the 13 attributes of God:

1. Compassion before a person sins
2. Compassion after a person has sinned
3. Possessing the power to bestow kindness
4. Merciful [helps people avoid distress]
5. Gracious [God saves people from distress once it has overtaken them]
6. Slow to anger [God is patient with both the righteous and the wicked. He gives people time to reflect, improve, and repent instead of punishing sinners immediately]
7. Abundant in kindness
8. Truthful (fulfilling His promises)
9. Keeping kindness unto thousands (of generations).
10. Forgiving iniquity [corruption of the heart],
11. Transgression [a willful sin] and
12. Sin [sin committed out of apathy or carelessness]
13. And pardoning. [If one repents.]

According to Maimonides, these attributes are not qualities inherent in God, but rather are methods of His activity.¹² In other words, God does not possess human emotions or passions, but these attributes outline God’s ways of governing the world.

Similarly, in the Talmud¹³ these are called derakhim (ways), which calls back to the beginning of today’s portion: “Now, if I have truly gained Your favor, pray let me know Your ways.”

Maimonides goes on to say that by imitating God's goodness we become, in a sense, agents of divine rule and providence. Perhaps we experience God’s presence through the goodness we create in the world.

These attributes are central to the S’lichot (prayers for forgiveness) and High Holiday services, often recited as a plea for divine mercy. The Talmud¹⁴ explains that God showed Moses a vision of Himself "wrapped" like a communal prayer leader, promising that whenever the people would sin, they could call upon these attributes to evoke mercy.

At a superficial level, we’d all like to “see” God, but I will finish with a warning from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

"I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "The Babel fish could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

Shabbat shalom and chag Pesach sameach.

---

1. Exodus 33:13 ↩
2. Exodus 33:18 ↩
3. Exodus 3:2 ↩
4. Exodus 19:18 ↩
5. Numbers 12:8 ↩
6. Deuteronomy 34:10 ↩
7. Exodus 4:13 ↩
8. Exodus 4:24-26↩
9. Numbers 11:4-23 ↩
10. Deuteronomy 3:25-26 ↩
11. Exodus 33:19-20 ↩
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Attributes_of_Mercy ↩
13. Sifre, Deuteronomy 49 [ed. Friedmann, p. 85] ↩
14. Rosh Hashanah 17b ↩

Losing it

A few days ago, I ran across an old receipt and for some odd reason I thought to myself, "Ten months ago I was a happily married man." At the beginning of February, we had just raised enough money to start the Enhertu treatment and the oncologists thought it would give my wife another year or two. It was the first optimistic news we'd had in a while and her death was the furthest thing from my mind. Two weeks later, she was gone.

Today, I went to a gym for the first time in 11 years. I've never been particularly fit but middle-age spread has hit me hard and I've ballooned to 96kg (211 pounds or 15 stones). In my defense, my wife was an excellent cook and, although she always made healthy meals, I always had two (or three) servings. On top of that, after she was diagnosed, she rarely had the energy to do any exercise and I happily chose to spend my time with her on the sofa. I always told myself I'd join a gym after she was gone. 

What I didn't appreciate was that, because I said that, joining a gym became emotionally tied to her absence. I thought about it often and I always found an excuse not to join--finances, time, commitment--but in the back of my mind I knew it was because it was one more tiny acknowledgement that she was gone.

Of course, I could have done a million other things to lose weight but I knew those were never going to happen. Last night a friend said she had been diagnosed as pre-diabetic and that was the wake-up call I needed. When I went in  to sign up, I don't think the person at the desk even noticed my anguish.

I'm already starting to forget the little things, like how it felt when she touched me. I know it was wonderful and calming and always full of love, and she stroked my head and rubbed my back and held me every day for eleven years, but I can't remember the actual feeling. All those little moment of us just being together, talking nonsense, making plans -- it must have been another person because I can't remember it. Sitting on the sofa with my hand on her leg - she always curled up so her legs were tucked against me - or the feeling of her hand in mine. I would give anything to feel these things again. 

The garden actually looks quite good; I think my wife would have been very pleased. The vegetable beds are really taking off and I've just planted clover as a walkway around them. (Last year we layered cardboard and mulch, which worked for a while, but it's a surprising amount of work. Plus the clover should attract bees which is good for the veggies, as well as the environment.)

My wife loved fairy lights and I used to have them in the bushes and strung overhead on bamboo poles. I had to take them off the bushes to do some trimming and never put them back, and I had to take them off the poles when the solar panels were installed and never put them back. I've just done a big trim so I really should put them back up. She would love that. 

Hushabye Mountain

Rae recorded a lot of songs on her iPhone. Most were religious tunes, but she recorded this with a note that she used to sing it to the kids when they were babies.

 

Lech L’cha - the journey of an everyman

[1 November 2025]

Last week’s portion ended with the list of descendants from Noah to Abram. It’s been between 368 and 422 years - and ten generations - since the covenant with Noah and Adonai has not spoken to anyone since. Yet, when Abram is 75, Adonai suddenly says to him: “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation…” Thus begins the Jewish story. Not with a world-ending flood, a burning bush, a host of plagues or a parted sea, not with an outstretched arm or signs and wonders, but with two words to an old man: “Go forth.” So who was Abram? All we know is he is a descendant of Shem, whom Noah blessed. All we know of the next nine generations are their names and ages. Abram isn’t rich, he isn’t wise, he isn’t a leader, he isn’t a prophet, he isn’t even described as “righteous” as Noah was. There is nothing special about Abram, and perhaps this is the point. Without vowels, lech and l’cha are both just two letters: Lamed Kaf. “Lech” is translated as “go” and so the Torah could just as easily be interpreted as “Lech lech” – “Go! Go!” That sense of urgency would change the entire interpretation of this parasha. Instead, the sages interpret the second word as “l’cha,” which doesn’t mean “forth” but “for yourself.” Rashi interprets this as Adonai telling Abram: "Go for your own benefit, for your own good: there I will make of you a great nation whereas here you will not merit the privilege of having children. “L’cha” can also be translated as “to yourself.” In other words, go fulfill your destiny. William Schecter notes this “hints at the internal journey Abram is about to take to an elevated spirituality.“ This divine call is an invitation to a spiritual journey, encouraging Abram to trust God, embrace the unknown, and discover his divine purpose and potential, which ultimately requires leaving comfort for sacred growth.” Abram’s name also hints at this journey: Av=father, Ram=high or uplifted. (Later it is changed to Abraham, meaning "father of a multitude.") There are many simple yet powerful words in Torah, such as hineini which we translate as "Here I am" but signifies being completely present in the moment. Sh’ma is translated as “hear” or “listen” but is the central declaration of Jewish faith. Amen can be translated as “so be it” but we use it as an affirmation of our beliefs, our hopes and our prayers. Vayomer Elohim is translated as “And God said” but it actually represents the creation of the universe, the ultimate example that words have power. Lech l’cha – “Go forth" – captures the entire human experience in two words: We must listen, and we must act. Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar writes, “Listening is an act of courage. We must be brave to hear that we are called to great things. It takes an open heart and a strong will to hear lech l’cha, to embark on a journey of [faith and] self-awareness and manifest your life’s purpose.” But back to my point: If Abram wasn’t special, why did Adonai choose to speak to him? Torah gives no answers. In Torah Or, “Rabbi Yitzḥak suggests: This is analogous to one who was passing from place to place, and saw a building with a [candle] burning in it” – a bira doleket – “and asked, ‘Is it possible that this building has no one in charge of it?’” Perhaps Abram was looking at the cruelty and injustice in the world and wondering if anyone was in charge, and, according to Rabbi Yitzhak, Adonai “looked out at him and said: ‘I am the owner of this building.’” Rabbi Nelly Altenburger says bira doleket can be interpreted as either “a palace full of light” or “a palace in flames.” She continues, "All Jews are called to come and try to put out the flames. When the world is catching fire, this is the time to listen to the small, quiet voice that reminds us to have hope, to do what is just, to be extra moral and extra compassionate, to go out of our way to try to stand together with those that are harassed, oppressed and attacked.” So remember, Abram was not special, he was just a man who chose to listen and chose to act. If we believe we have to be chosen before we act, we will never act. First, we must believe we have been chosen. And if you are still waiting for Adonai to speak to you, then you have not been listening.

References

Rosh Hashanah 16b
https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/354318.1
https://reformjudaism.org/learning/torah-study/torah-commentary/listening-our-calling (2021)
Bereshit Rabbah 39:1
https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/48403

Drasha Yom Kippur (2025)

The Talmud teaches, “Three books are opened on Rosh HaShannah: One for the wicked, one for the righteous and one for everyone in the middle, their judgment suspended until Yom Kippur. If they merit, through the good deeds and mitzvot that they perform during this period, they are written for life; if they do not so merit, they are written for death.”

By this logic, my wife should have lived forever. Instead, in 2020, she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. She was 51. Our youngest child was 15.

Every Yom Kippur, as we read Unetaneh Tokef, we wondered if this was the year she would die “by an untimely death,” and if repentance, prayer and righteousness really could avert the severity of the decree.

The answer is, they could not. She fought for five years – five very long yet also very quick years – and she passed away in February, one day short of her 56th birthday. She said at the beginning of the journey that all she wanted was to see the children become adults. Our youngest turns 21 in two weeks.

I knew, when I started this drasha, that I wanted to discuss this concept of judgement. This is the day of atonement, not the day of judgement. Leviticus 16:29 says nothing about judgement: “And this shall be to you a law for all time: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall practice self-denial; and you shall do no manner of work, neither the citizen nor the alien who resides among you. For on this day atonement shall be made for you to purify you of all your sins; you shall be pure before יהוה.”

In my search for answers, I found a drasha written by Rabbi Yerachmiel Shapiro in 2023. Rabbi Shapiro kindly gave me permission to use it, although I have amended it for brevity.

A Chassid went to the Baal Shem Tov and said, “Rebbe, I want to see Elijah the Prophet.” “It’s simple,” said the Baal Shem. “I’ll tell you what to do. Get two boxes and fill one with food and the other with children’s clothes. Then, before Rosh Hashanah, travel to Minsk. On the outskirts of town, right before where the forest begins, is a dilapidated house. Find that house, but don’t knock on the door immediately; stand there for a while and listen. Then, shortly before candle-lighting time at sunset, knock on the door and ask for hospitality.”

The Chassid did as the Baal Shem Tov told him. He arrived shortly before evening and stood in front of the door, listening. Inside, he heard children crying, “Mommy, we’re hungry. And it’s Yom Tov and we don’t even have decent clothes to wear!” He heard the mother answer, “Children, trust in G-d. He’ll bring you everything you need!”

Then the Chassid knocked on the door. When the woman opened it, he asked if he could stay with them for the holiday. “How can I welcome you when I don’t have any food in the house?” she said. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I have enough food for all of us.” He gave her the box of food, and they ate. Then he opened the box of clothes and the children all took clothes for themselves. He stayed all night, he did not even sleep, but he did not see Elijah the Prophet.

So, he returned to the Baal Shem Tov and said, “Master, I did not see Elijah the Prophet!” “Did you do everything I told you?” asked the Baal Shem Tov. “I did!” he said. “Then you’ll have to return for Yom Kippur,” said the Baal Shem Tov. “Go back, with another box of food, to the same house. Again, be sure to arrive an hour before sunset, and don’t knock immediately. Wait for a while and just stand in front of the door, listening.”

So, he went back to Minsk and stood by the door, listening. Inside, he heard children crying, “Mommy, we’re hungry! We haven’t eaten the whole day! How can we fast for Yom Kippur?” “Children!” said the mother. “Do you remember you were crying before Rosh Hashanah that you had no food or clothes and didn’t Elijah the Prophet bring you food and clothing and everything else you need?”

It’s a lovely story, and we should all strive to be Eliyahu Hanavi, but that is not my message today.

Today I want to ask, what about the thousands of poor starving families who don’t have Elijah show up with a big bag of food? How come they don’t deserve a miracle? How come their children have to suffer?

Today I want to talk about divine fairness and the High Holiday prayers, specifically Unetaneh Tokef:

We will observe the mighty holiness of this day. For on this day You sit in judgement, every human being passes before You and all their deeds are known to you. And You inscribe their destiny.

On Rosh Hashana it is inscribed and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, how many shall pass away and how many will be born, who will live and who will die, who will have a long life, and who a short life. But Repentance, Prayer, and Charity Avert the Terrible Decree.”

If you take this to its logical conclusion, every year all the wicked people should die, but many evil people seem to do just fine. They perpetuate wars and conflict, and they seem to succeed.

It is so often the most wonderful people who end up with terrible suffering that has no explanation. Could it be that they didn’t do enough teshuva, tefilla, and tzeddaka?

It’s clearly a flawed paradigm, but it extends to a bigger problem in faith.

We believe that God will protect us and take care of us. We believe that our good deeds should translate into reward and protection from above. When someone points out that this is often not the case, it can create doubt for us.

The most famous of Jewish apostates was Rabbi Elisha ben Abuya, who one day declared: Ein Din, V’Ein Dayan- There is not justice and there is no Judge. He became excommunicated and forever known in Talmudic lore as Acher- The Other.

Proverbs 3:12 states: “For whom the LORD loves, he chastens, and afflicts the son of Israel.”

The Talmud, in tractate Brachos, addresses the question of suffering this way:

If a man sees that he will be tormented by a curse, he should search his deeds. If he searches and does not find it, You should understand it to be the suffering of love, as it is said: "For whom the Lord loves He punishes."

Rashi comments: “God makes people suffer in this world even if they are free of sin in order to increase their reward in the world to come – so that they will receive more than their actions merit.”

So suffering can be because of sins, but it can also be from God’s love. There is divine math going on that we can’t see, and in the end, fairness will be maintained. Undeserved suffering in this world is a way to get an even better place in the world to come.

But at the end of the day, even this explanation by Rashi doesn’t sit well with me. It doesn’t explain the deaths or illnesses of children, it doesn’t explain the Shoah. To many Jews, faith often means not understanding God, but I need to understand. And I need to understand in my heart and soul, not just in my mind.

The most logical conclusion when a person is suffering is either, there is no God, or God must hate me, or the contradictory: “I don’t believe in God, because God did this awful thing to me.” And it makes sense: Who could believe in a God that is mean and spiteful?

The Talmud is offering another option: There is no good explanation, but remember God loves you and will never stop loving you. No matter what you go through, you are surrounded in God’s light. Our tradition teaches in numerous places that God is actually suffering with us when we suffer.

So why keep the faulty prayers that rely on a paradigm that we know doesn’t really hold up? Why don’t we incorporate the humble answer into our prayers. Maybe Unetaneh Tokef should say, “We don’t know why you choose who will live and who will die, but please, please, give us and our loved ones another year of life!”

One answer that I find beautiful is the reinterpretation of the terms life and death by the rabbis, also in tractate Brachos: “Tzadikim are called alive even in their deaths, and the wicked are called dead even when they are alive.”

With this approach, who will live and who will die takes on a radically new meaning. You can be sealed in the book of life and still pass away, and you can be sealed in the book of death whilst still alive. You may be breathing, but if you are evil, your soul is dead. Your contribution to the world is nothingness and destruction. But the righteousness of good and holy people reverberates for generations as light and love and holy behavior in their children and grandchildren. They are still alive.

The perspective shared in Unetaneh Tokef is essential to our faith and our survival as Jews. In fact all civilized society depends on it. Belief in the paradigm of reward for the righteous and punishment for the wicked is the foundation of our belief that God is good and fair. For the good of our psyche, for the continuation of faith, and for our society to hold up, we must hold tight to the belief that the world is good and that God is fair.

When Moses says to God, “Show me your Glory,” God replies, “I will pass All My Goodness before you.” This is one of the only times when God refers to Godself. And what is God’s self-definition? Not awesome power, not greatness, but rather, “Goodness”. You don’t even have to say, “I believe in God.” You could say, “I believe in Good” and I think it would mean the same thing.

So how do we believe in Good in a world that seems so bad, so often? We cling to the paradigm of divine fairness and goodness as the cornerstone of our faith.

It is exactly this reason, that when we lose someone we love, we say, “Baruch dayan ha'emet” – “Blessed is the true judge" – and why all the prayers at a funeral relate to Tzidduk Hadin- doing our very best to accept that God is still fair, God is still good. We will not give up on this life and close our hearts with darkness. At the moment when the pain is the worst, we are called to proclaim, I believe that the world is still Good!

This is how the Jewish people have survived, because we’ve never lost hope. We strengthen ourselves in faith, and never give up on our mission of mimicking the goodness of the Creator, by being good ourselves.

We wish each other a happy, sweet, healthy, prosperous New Year, and we believe it with all our heart, while at the same time knowing that whatever will come our way, we will never lose our gratitude for life, and the continued desire to make the world a better place for all of God’s children.

May we all be written and sealed in the Book of Life - for joy, for health, for nachas, for shalom, and may we all merit to see and believe that this world is filled with God’s Goodness embracing us and strengthening us with every breath.

G'mar chatima tovah.

Drasha Ki Tavo

 Devarim 27:11 - 29:8 (third triennial) 

Today’s portion includes one of the most visual and downright bizarre sections of the Torah: The Blessings and the Curses. Moses orders that, after the Israelites have crossed the Jordan, six tribes will stand on Mount Gerizim and six tribes on Mount Ebal, with the Levites standing in the valley between them. When the Levites shout a curse, the people on Mount Ebal respond “Amen” and when they shout a blessing the people on Mount Gerizim respond “Amen.” It’s a striking visual, but what does it mean?

The first eleven curses are actually laws, and the twelfth is a curse for those who were already cursed by breaking the first 11 laws, so really its a double-curse. This is followed by 15 verses of blessings for those who obey God and faithfully observe the divine commandments and 52 verses of curses for those who do not.

And some of these curses are really disturbing, such as: 

• “And as יהוה once delighted in making you prosperous and many, so will יהוה now delight in causing you to perish and in wiping you out.” 

• “יהוה will afflict you at the knees and thighs with a severe inflammation, from which you shall never recover.”

• “You shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but none will buy.” 

• “And she who is most tender and dainty among you, the afterbirth that issues from between her legs and the babies she bears; she shall eat them secretly, because of utter want.”

• “The life you face shall be precarious; you shall be in terror, night and day, with no assurance of survival.”

"Deuteronomy" is derived from the Greek term for "repetition of the law" and this portion reflects Leviticus 26, which includes: “If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit. You shall eat your fill of bread and dwell securely in your land. I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone. But if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments, if you reject My laws and spurn My rules, so that you do not observe all My commandments and you break My covenant, I in turn will do this to you: I will wreak misery upon you—consumption and fever, which cause the eyes to pine and the body to languish; you shall sow your seed to no purpose, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set My face against you: you shall be routed by your enemies, and your foes shall dominate you. You shall flee though none pursues.”

In 1943, a German scholar named Martin Noth argued that Deuteronomy, along with the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, formed a unified "Deuteronomic history" which were written during the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE to explain successes and failures as the result of faithfulness or disobedience. These blessings and curses can be applied to a person or to an entire society. They are also reflected in the story of Jonah, which we will read on Yom Kippur.

Walter Brueggemann notes that curses were often used to bind treaties in the ancient world: if you break your promises, these are the bad things that you can expect. Here, the curses are transformed from a political context to a theological one. “A self-conscious Israelite community may have borrowed a covenant form deliberately to offer its covenant with YHWH as a radical alternative to alliance with Assyria.” In other words, even after being defeated, with no land and no power, Deuteronomy was a middle finger to the victors, showing the Israelites would worship no one but God.

Amy Frykholm notes that in the middle of the curses, verse 47 provides a completely different interpretation: “Because you would not serve your God יהוה in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything, you shall have to serve—in hunger and thirst, naked and lacking everything—[your] enemies.”

“When we don’t live in joy and gratitude, when we become stingy and mean, the goodness of God becomes blocked and distorted—in us, through us. From the simple failure to heed joy comes deprivation—and deprivation spreads. The slavery from which you were delivered, the text says, will return to you along with all that came with it: the labor, the plagues, the suffering.”

She also notes that some of the first things to be blessed (and cursed) are “your basket and your kneading bowl.” “Humans took the elements of earth, water and fire and created civilisation…so if your blessings start with bread and the implements of bread, then you are very close to the essence of your civilisation. Such a blessing draws our attention to the mundane, to the basic work of survival within the human family. Daily actions and daily choices have consequences far beyond their seeming simplicity.”

The book of Joshua, the first book of the prophets, immediately follows Deuteronomy. In Joshua 8, after he slaughters the entire town of Ai and impales the king on a stake, he builds an altar on Mount Ebal. He then gathers the Israelites in the valley, half facing Mount Gerizim and half facing Mount Ebal, and reads the words of the blessing and the curse from Deuteronomy. I feel like Moses would have been disappointed.

https://www.walterbrueggemann.com/2001/10/01/deuteronomy-abingdon-old-testament-commentary/

https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/blessings-and-curses