More Birkat Hachama resources

See http://www.blessthesun.org/ and the Birkhat HaHammah blog http://coejlblog.blog.com/4360537/ for a compilation of resources.

For a copy of the Cleveland communitywide celebration flyer see http://jrf.org/birkat-hahammah.

For traditional sources and the complete ritual service see www.berachot.org/halacha/24_birkathachammah.html#4.

For a Song for the Sun performed by Rabbi Shawn Zevit see &feature=channel_page">www.youtube.com/watch?v=629JxUYTlFk&feature=channel_page>&feature=channel_page. It's beautiful!

Calculate the timing for your local gathering for the ritual and education about solar energy at www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunrise.html.

Birkat Hachama: Blessing the Sun

This is the my April newsletter column, written for the Temple where I am a rabbinic intern:

How do you feel about the sun? Do you like it? Are you glad it’s here?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, take note: On the 8th of April this year, you will have a special once (or twice) in a lifetime opportunity to bless the sun in an official Jewishly sanctioned way! The holiday of Birkat Hachama will be here, and it’s a holiday that only happens once every 28 years!

Birkat Hachama is a special blessing made on the “anniversary” of the sun’s return to the position that it was in when the universe was first created. (The rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud, circa 500 C.E., determined when that was.) The Talmud says: “Our Rabbis taught: One who sees the Sun at its turning point should say ‘Blessed be the One Who effects creation’. And when does this occur? Abaye said every 28 years when the cycle begins again, and the Nissan equinox falls in Saturn, on the evening of the third day going into the fourth day.”

The full blessing they are referring to is as follows: Baruch atah adonai, elohanu melech haolam, oseh ma’aseh b’reisheit. Blessed are you, HASHEM our God, King of the universe, who effects the work of creation. This blessing is also recited on other occasions of natural phenomena, such as witnessing lighting, comets, meteor showers and even wondrous natural topography, such as great mountains, rivers and vast wildernesses.

For the day of Birkat Hachama, however, other passages and prayers are recited in addition to this blessing, largely from psalms and the prophets. The structure of the prayer service was set down in the Shulchan Aruch, a codification of Jewish law written by Yosef Karo in the 16th century. The service generally includes the following:

• Quotations about the sun from the Tanakh
• Four verses from the Tanakh, which spell out the Tetragrammaton
• Some of Talmud Berachot 59b
• Parts of Psalms 148 and 90
• The blessing recited on natural phenomena (Baruch Atah...ma’aseh b’reisheit)
• Psalms 121, 8 and 19
• The hymn El Adon al kol hama'asim (normally part of Shabbat services).
• Aleinu
• The Mourner's Kaddish

The Internet is teeming with creative Birkat Hachama services, which are roughly structured on this outline, but vary in the addition of other texts or songs. Jewish ecological groups in particular are seizing on this unique opportunity to teach about the ecological values of our tradition.

How can you observe Birkat Hachama? Here are some ideas:

* Download a service off the Internet and get together with some friends for your own potluck and service

* Join the Birkat Hachama group on Facebook: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20544854723

* Chabad has put together a handy website of information, which includes a “global event finder” where you can find a Birkat Hachama event near you.

www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/817861/jewish/Birkat-Hachamah.htm.

Given it’s from Chabad, my guess is they will only include Orthodox-sponsored events.

* Check your local Jewish newspaper for other events that might be happening in your area.

D'var Hanukkah: A teaching on Chag HaBanot

I’d like to share some new things I learned about the holiday of Hanukkah this year. As you know, if you were counting your candles, tonight is the 6th night of Hanukkah, which means tomorrow is, of course, the 7th night.

Does anyone here know about anything specifically special the 7th night … ?

Well, until a few days ago, I didn’t either. But it turns out that in some parts of the world, the 7th night of Hanukkah is its own special and distinct holiday. Let me explain …

It is true that Hanukkah is mostly a holiday about warriors and priests, Maccabees and Temple rituals. But in some parts of the world, the holiday has also become associated with special traditions concerning women and girls, via the story of Judith.

As an apocryphal book of the Bible, the Book of Judith has the same status as the Books of the Maccabbees, which tell the story of Hanukkah. But unlike the Maccabbees, which contain a full cast of male characters, the Book of Judith focuses on the heroic acts of one single woman.

This woman does one small but very important thing, and that is she tricks a military general by plying him with a bunch of salty cheeses, which prompts him to drink way too much alcohol and fall asleep. What the general had been planning to do was have an amorous role in the sheep tent with Judith before slaughtering all the Jews. Instead, the poor general wound up literally losing his head to Judith’s sword, and in that way, she was able to save the Jewish people.

In the middle ages, perhaps because of the arisal of anti-Semitism, Judith became a foremost Hanukkah heroine. Her figure was frequently depicted on menorahs, and the tradition developed of eating cheese dishes, to commemorate her clever strategy.

How did Judith’s story become entwined with the Hanukkah celebration? No one really knows. It might be because of the thematic connection between Judith and the Maccabees, both stories are about overthrowing a malevolent enemy army. Or it might also be because Hanukkah is the only Jewish holiday that includes a Rosh Chodesh – the monthly festival of the New Moon, and Rosh Chodesh is the quintessential women’s holiday.

In observant communities today, Rosh Chodesh is very much a living and breathing holiday. On that one day each month, women essentially get a Get Out of Work free card – they don’t have to do any work (at least in theory). It is said that this “holiday” is a reward for the fact that women did not give up their gold to make the golden calf.

Rosh Chodesh always falls on the 7th night of Hanukkah, which is tomorrow, and for women in North Africa, it became a kind of holiday within a holiday called Chag HaBanot, the festival for daughters. On this day, girls and brides received special gifts, and families retold the story of the book of Judith.

In countries such as Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco, a variety of customs surrounded Chag HaBanot evolved, which I recently learned about from some writings by Rabbi Jill Hammer. Unfortunately, because the Jewish populations in these countries have essentially died out, the traditions seem to have died out along with them.

One tradition was for women to come to the synagogue, touch the Torah, and pray for the health of their daughters. Mothers would give their daughters gifts, and bridegrooms would give gifts to their brides.

Another tradition was for old and young women would come together to dance, and for girls who were fighting to make extra efforts at reconciliation.

Often there was a feast in honor of Judith, where participants would eat cheese to remember Judith's subterfuge; and women might also take food from a ritual meal of Talmud scholars and give it to their daughters, to protect them from harm.

There was also a custom of passing down inheritances on Chag HaBanot.

While these traditions have largely gone by the wayside, I think we can use them as an inspiration or a genesis for new practices on the 7th night of Hanukkah. For example, we can use candle-lighting tomorrow as a chance to talk with our children or grandchildren about the contributions Jewish women have made to history – whether that heroine is Judith or Golda Meir, or even Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

At a minimum, since tomorrow is Shabbat and Hanukkah and Rosh Chodesh, I think it is three really great reasons not to do any work AT ALL. Drink some cocoa, take a walk, and make someone else do the cooking for a change!

The real story of Hanukkah

This is the third in a series of newsletter columns, written for the Temple where I am a rabbinic intern:

As the Bible’s favorite melancholist, Ecclesiastes, put it עת לפרוץ ועת לבנות -- there is a time to tear down and a time to build up (3:3). It’s a phrase that has crossed my mind many times in rabbinical school, where an inescapable part of the process seems to be learning that the “truths” we grew up with aren’t quite what they were cracked up to be.

In the first year of school, I learned the distinction between “law” and “tradition” (or minhag). Before that year, so many things that seemed sacrosanct, were, I found out, merely social customs that had evolved in certain parts of the Jewish world. This isn’t to say that traditions don’t carry weight, but the revelation opened up an entire range of choices that had never existed before – which is both freeing and frightening.

For years I had heard it was forbidden to name a child after a living relative. It turns out, that’s minhag, and minhag only among Ashkenazi communities. Sephardic communities consider it an honor to name a child after a living relative. What prayers we say during Friday and Saturday services are hugely dependent on minhag – so much so it can be challenging to lead services in liberal communities where people are open to experimentation. Figuring out which prayers you have to keep in and which are optional takes far more skill than the “traditional” mode of prayer where everything is done by rote.

The second year of school, during the second week of biblical history class, we were told that the Exodus may have never happened and that we didn’t emigrate from Egypt – the early Israelites were actually no different from Canaanites. Well, if that doesn’t constitute “tearing down,” I don’t know what does! Suffice it to say, we spent nearly an hour “processing” those tidbits of biblical scholarship and sharing how we felt about them.

Now, this year, in my rabbinic history class, we spent several weeks exploring the Hanukkah story, and learning all sorts of sordid details about the Maccabean heros that are conveniently left out of children’s stories.

The basics of the story are simple enough: The Maccabees were a Jewish liberation movement that won independence from the Hellenistic leader Antiochus. They founded a royal dynasty, called the Hasmoneans, and established independence in the land of Israel for about 100 years (164 – 63 BCE).

The details get a little more complicated. While it is true that Antiochus was issuing ever-stricter edicts against the Jewish people, his actions were actually a reaction against growing nationalism and insurgency by small bands of what might be called Jewish “traditionalists” – Jews opposed to the Hellenistic (Greek-influenced) behaviors of the majority Jews around them. Antiochus' crackdown was basically an attempt to quell disorder and inter-Jewish conflict. As one of my classmate’s put it: It would be like a group of orthodox Jews today starting an insurgency against liberal Jews, believing they are behaving “too American.” And the orthodox winning!

With the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty, a series of strict (and, we would believe) repressive laws were put into place against “progressive” (or Hellenistic) life. Worst of all, the Hasmoneans established illegitimate rule at the Jerusalem Temple, which caused conflict for generations.

“The Hasmonean experience was to have a profound impact upon Judaism in Judea and its environs,” explains Martin S. Jaffee in his book Early Judaism. “The bitterness spawned in the battle against Hellenism did not dissipate with the Hasmonean victory. To the contrary, as the Hasmonean dynasty wore on, it was routinely accused by outsiders to power of betraying the original ideals of the anti-Hellenistic revolution, of outdistancing even the ancient Hellenizers in diluting the pure essence of Judaism. Opponents could easily question the legitimacy of Hasmonean political leadership from two perspectives: as Kings, the leaders were not Davidic; as High Priests, they were not descended from Aaron through Zadok. From the mid-second century BCE and after … the Temple and its priesthood became a source of conflict… ."

So there you have it: the “real” story of Hanukkah! I think it illustrates beautifully why adult Jewish learning is so important. I love the children’s version, and would never want to change it – but look at how much richer and more textured the story becomes when we explore it as grownups!

Creative Explorations of Elul

One of my duties with my rabbinic internship at a Reform temple is to write a monthly column for the congregational newsletter. I plan to post them here, around the beginning of each month. If anyone enjoys them -- great!

Creative Explorations of Elul

I don’t know about you, but I’m busy. Between work, classes, family, children, cleaning, kvetching – it sometimes feels as if life is passing me by in a whirlwind, and I’m barely hanging on.

It’s like that for almost everyone these days – and then Elul arrives, and our tradition hands us yet one more thing to add to our “to-do” list.
“Contemplate!” we are told.
“Prepare to make amends!”
“Think about your life and where you’ve fallen short, and how you’d like to do differently in the coming year!”

It’s a valuable and deeply meaningful exercise. And it’s a mandate that sometimes makes me groan.

The 12th month of the Hebrew calendar, Elul, begins on Sept. 1 this year. Considered a time of repentance, Elul means search in Aramaic. It was given this name because it is a time to search our hearts in preparation for the coming High Holy Days.

Elul doesn’t receive much attention these days in most Jewish communities, and I think I know why: Time. Who has the time?

For many of us, we forget about the Holy Days until they are suddenly upon us, and then we are scrambling trying to find that flier that came in the mail giving the time and location for the Erev Rosh Hashanah service. The night already upon us, we hastily don some white clothes and race out the door. When we arrive (probably at least a few minutes late, truth be told), we pick up the Machzor, look up to the rabbi and chazzan and only then, for the first time, try to center ourselves and say: “Okay, here I am. Here is what I am here to do … .”

It’s a tough task to take on all at once. It’s kind of like jumping into a really cold lake – rather than easing yourself gently in, giving your body time to acclimate to the climate change, you give yourself a physical and psychic shock. It’s the same with the High Holidays. Jumping into long, all-day services centered on heavy, sobering themes isn’t for the light of heart, and doing so without any preparation at all makes it even more challenging.

There is good news, however. This year, you can do it differently! Elul lasts an entire 30 days (from the 1st to the 30th), so you have 30 days to carve out a small niche of time to ready yourself.

Toward that end, I wanted to offer a few online resources to help you on your journey. Whether you are a reader, a listener or a hands-on doer, hopefully you can find something here to help you prepare:

* The Jewish Heritage Online Magazine offers two beautiful poems by the famous Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, appropriate for the season: www.jhom.com/calendar/tishrei/rh_amichai.html

* Join Rabbis Richard Hirsh and Shawn Zevit in a 25 minute audio recording on Elul and Rosh Hashanah. Why is preparation during Elul important, and how can it change our High Holidays experience? What are some creative and alternative ways of preparing? Includes music and storytelling.
www.jrf.org/pub/hmsarchives.html, and click under the header “Rosh Hashanah”

* Nothing works better to bring families together than getting your hands dirty! Elul is a great time to plan an Erev Rosh Hashanah dinner with friends or loved ones. For recipes and ideas, visit:
Mimi’s Cyber Kitchen: www.cyber-kitchen.com/holidays/highholidays/recipes.htm
High Holidays on the Net: www.holidays.net/highholydays/sweets.htm
Recipe for round challah: http://judaism.about.com/library/food/blrhroundchallah.htm

* New clothes are often a special part of preparing for Rosh HaShanah, and taking your kids shopping for a special High Holidays outfit can help them appreciate the importance of the season. Then, by saying a berakha on wearing a new garment for the first time, we express our gratitude for the abundance in our lives:
Barukh Atah Ado-nai, Elo-heinu Meleh HaOlam, Malbish Arumim
Praised are You, Adonai, Our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who clothes the naked.

* Zichronot (remembrance) is an important theme of the season – both God’s remembrance of Israel, and our remembrance of those who are no longer with us. Elul can be a wonderful time to:
+ assemble those shoeboxes full of photos into albums
+ scan old photographs into your computer and write captions
+ trace your family heritage and make a family tree
+ make a remembrance box

May you have a rich and meaningful start to the season!

Returning women to the Hanukkah story

Mrs. Maccabeus
(sung to the tune of "O Hanukkah")
by Ben Aronin

Each Chanukah we glorify brave Judah Maccabeus
Who had the courage to defy Antiochus, and free us,
Yet it is not fair that we should forget
Mrs. Maccabeus, whom we owe a debt.
She mixed it, and fixed it
She poured it into a bowl
You may not guess, but it was the latkes
That gave brave Judah a soul.
You may not guess but it was the latkes
That gave brave Judah a soul.

The Syrians said: "It cannot be that old Mattathias
Whose years are more than 83 will dare to defy us!"
But they didn't know his secret, you see
Mattathias dined on latkes and tea.
One latke, two latkesAnd so on into the night
You may not guess but it was the latkesthat gave him the courage to fight.
You may not guess but it was the latkesthat gave him the courage to fight.

Now this is how it came about this gastonomic wonder
That broke the ranks of Syria like flaming bolts of thunder
Mrs. Maccabeus wrote in the doughPortions of the Torah then fried them so.
They shimmered, they simmered,
Absorbing the olive oil
You may not guess but it was the latkes
that made the Syrians recoil.
You may not guess but it was the latkes
that made the Syrians recoil.

Now these little latkes brown and delicious
must have hit the spot 'cause with appetites vicious
All the heroes downed them after their toil
Causing in our Temple a shortage of oil
One latke, two latkes,
And so on into the night.
You may not guess but it was the latkes
that gave us the Chanukah light.
You may not guess but it was the latkes
that gave us the Chanukah light.

Hag sameach!

Free download ... enjoy!

http://download.yousendit.com/D829767911E74A65


Ushpizin @ Geela Rayzel Raphael 1993

Welcome to our sukkah, come and be our guest
You'll eat, drink, and study, sit- enjoy your rest.

Chorus:
Ti-vu Ti-vu Ushpizin ee-lah-een
Ti-vu Ti-vu Ushpizin Ka-di-shin.

Welcome Father Avraham, G-d put you to the test
Bring your faith and hesed, join us as we bless.

Welcome, Mother Sara, Let your laughter ring
Bring your wisdom and your light, join us as we sing.

Welcome Father Yitzhak, in the afternoon you prayed
Bring a meditation, join us here today.

Welcome, Mother Rivka, we've heard your voice so clear
Come and bring your oracles, come and join our cheer.

Welcome, Father Yaakov, you wrestled through the night
Come and bring your vision, help us get this right.

Welcome Mother Rachel, you weap on our behalf
Come and bring us mandrakes, come and join our laugh.

Welcome Mother Leah, seven kids born to you,
Come and bring fertility, help us to renew.

Welcome Brother, Yosef, a colored coat you wore
Come and bring us happy dreams, sit with us some more.

Welcome Sister Tamar, a widows clothes you wore
But come and bring your cleverness, we'll greet you at the door.

Welcome holy Moses, you met G-d face to face
Come and bring your leadership, we've saved you a place.

Welcome Sister Miriam, you danced across the sea
Come bring your tof and timbrel, dance to set us free.

Welcome Brother Aaron, our glorious High Priest
Come and bring us holiness, come and join our feast.

Welcome brave Devorah, you battled brave and strong
Come and bring your torches, join us in our song.

Welcome Queen Batsheva, found your beloved true
Mother of King Shlomo, his wisdom came through you.

Welcome Melech David, you danced a mighty dance;
Its time for the Mashiach, its time we had the chance.

Welcome Grandmother Ruth, you chose to be a Jew,
Come and bring your loyalty, bring Naomi too.

Welcome Melech David, you wrote many psalms
Come and bring your etrog, myrtle, willow and palms.