WEBVTT

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Shabbat Shalom, everyone. It is February.

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February 7, and if you are anywhere…

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Northeastern, or frankly, eastern half of the United…

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dates, you know that it is winter.

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But spiritually, we are on the spring runway.

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We are dedicating our learning today to the memory of Ted Cruz.

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Are there others for whom we are holding…

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prayer for healing, or for uplifting nerves.

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Um, healing for my granddaughter, Daniela. And my friend Jackie and my friend Edith.

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Thank you.

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My daughters, Hannah. And Raleigh, and my daughter-in-law, Trisha.

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Um…

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Thank you, Cheryl. Marcy.

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And, uh, blessed memory of my… Beautiful, beautiful, brilliant cousin.

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Ray, Denise, right?

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It's a heck of a day to be offering a brothel more at Sinai.

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We were all there.

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Yeah.

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So, for all of us who are here, and all of us who are here in heart,

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And to all who connect with us.

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This is for you.

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Blessed are you, autumn night, our God, eternal sovereign.

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who sanctified us in guides me to vote.

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commanded us to busy ourselves in words of Tova, Shabbat Shalom, everybody.

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What's not to love?

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Motion.

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It's his first…

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portion, both in charge of the new people.

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Completely. It is the first time.

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Anybody tells Moses what to do.

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His father-in-law, Jethro, says, hey dude, you're gonna burn out. Let's do it a different way.

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the piece that we're curating for you today is the appropriate

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to Sinai. Immediate moments right before God spoke all these words, saying,

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This Torah portion continues with…

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commandments themselves.

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And then the people kind of freak out.

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Because if a mountain spoke to you, what would you say?

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So we're gonna go there. We're gonna go to Sinai today.

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And rather than chunk it up into multiple sentences, each of these sentences is potentially so

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that I want everyone to have the opportunity to receive most of them.

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Without having to read them. But this will require

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for most of us to please read.

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So, I'm gonna do something a little unusual.

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call on you in the order in which you appear on my screen.

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Sentence by sentence, Susan and then James.

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said to Moshe. go to the nation and sanctify them.

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James and then Iris.

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Today and tomorrow, they will wash their clothes.

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They will be ready for the third day, for on the third day, Yudhave of He will descend before all the nation on Mount Sinai.

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Iris and then Debra.

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set encompassing bounds for the nation, saying. Do not ascend the mountain or touch its border. All who touch the mountain.

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Deborah and then Joan.

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will be deaded.

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stoned or shot.

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Absolutely, no, long blast.

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Joan, and then Cheryl.

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Moshe descended the mountain to the nation and sanctified the nation. They washed their clothes.

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Carolyn and David.

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He said to the nation, Be ready on the third day, do not approach a woman.

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David and then Linda.

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You're muted, David.

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On the third day, at break of morning, there was thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud on the mountain.

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And a very loud blast of the shofar.

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And all the nation in the camp,

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Let them and Rachel.

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Moshe led the people to greet God out of the camp, and they stood themselves at the base of the mountain.

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Rachel in Indiana.

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We'll come back to you, Rachel and Deanna… oh, Rachel, Rachel, Mendiana.

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Oh, I'm… yeah, so sorry. I am on an iPhone here. Pardon me.

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And…

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And… Mount Sinai was entirely…

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Entirely smoke.

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Thank you. And Nancy and I was entirely smoke, because Yodhi-Rav-Heh descended on it in fire.

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And smoke rose like smoke.

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like a kiln.

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I haven't.

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And the whole mountain trembled greatly.

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Deanna, and then Marcin.

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The voice of the shofar continuously grew louder.

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Moshe spoke, and God answered him in a voice.

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Mars is away from her computer and seems God spoke all these words, saying…

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Immediately, the tab command.

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Hey, Marsha.

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So, it's okay, all good, all good, all good, all good, all good, all good.

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Sorry, I didn't realize I was muted.

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This is a holy moment.

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Word to say it's a holy moment. The imagery says it's a holy moment.

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a lot here.

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Yes, we're in mid-rush space.

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What do you need?

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asks you to Mingrush.

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Yeah, John. Jon and then Rachel.

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I had never… heard of the preparation.

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For the giving of the commandments, because obviously I hadn't read this.

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Um, which… which makes it a more suspenseful when they're told.

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you know, prepare, and I tell them how to prepare.

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to receive them. So… Um, and there are rules to be followed before you can even receive them.

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And preparation is a good thing.

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Yeah, I'm Rachel in Indiana.

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Yes, and along those lines, I was going to say that on the third day, do not approach a man.

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As well, do not approach a woman. Let those be celibacy.

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That you not be distracted, that you stay very focused.

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Um, mystical moment.

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Now we're gonna need to get into that.

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Deanna and Iris.

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I'm so struck by the fact that they're supposed to do their laundry.

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I know whites!

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Like, what?

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Um, so I'm very curious about that.

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And, um…

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The part about do not approach a woman, possibly do not approach a man,

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Um, this is from another tradition.

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There's an Aztec tradition

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called the Danza de la Luna that I participate in every year. It's a big women's…

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Four-night ceremony, kind of like the Sundance in North America.

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And one of the things that we do to prepare is abstain from sexual contact for, I think, 21 days before.

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And the purpose of that is

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to bring all of our energy back into ourselves.

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So that we are completely…

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whole, really.

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not, um, dispersing it…

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or bringing other people's energy into your body.

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So, I don't know if that's relevant to this, but I'm throwing it in the pot.

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Iris, you're in next.

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Yeah, I was thinking about the purity aspect as well, which.

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a couple of us have already pointed out and expanded on.

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Um, but that's… that's the main feeling that I got from that, and also.

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There's mention to the third day, which I feel is.

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Um, it's significant because the third… three is… is, um, expressed in different ways.

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And I'm wondering about the significance of the third day being mentioned a couple of times here.

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Yeah, what's with the threes?

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keep it coming.

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Torah doesn't mince words.

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Yeah.

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trembled.

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Uh, Cheryl, you're in.

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I had to… I had two thoughts, um… In terms of the ritual purity of not engaging in sex.

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Um, it… it's been noted that that moment of orgasm is.

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the moment where we probably get closest to forgetting ourself and our ego.

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And, um… And so, this is to make it so that that happens with God.

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As opposed to, you know, so that dis… not dissipating.

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Um, that connection. Uh, and everything that Diana said.

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And the other thing that I was thinking was the blast of the shofar.

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And how high holidays, it's like to wake us up.

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And… So… you know, now that I… I attempt to blow the shofar.

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It's of… I'm… focusing a lot these days on breath.

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How breadth has created… God spoke. into being things, and how… Breath is creation, and in Kabbalah, you know, breath.

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makes the letters, and the letters make the world, the world, and.

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So, blasting the shofar, the breadth of that is sending something into being.

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for all of us, because sound… Taking in sound has a vibration.

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Um, so there's… there's all of that mixed in with it, and I'm not describing it all very well, but I'm giving the.

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bullet points.

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Yep, I'm gonna keep taking some notes here, Deanna, and then David.

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Um… just following up on what Cheryl said, the first part of what Cheryl said about the orgasm,

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I really like that.

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It made me think of how, in French, the word for orgasm is petite more, which is a small death.

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And if, in fact, we're supposed to save that until we're in contact with God, and we're hearing what He has to do,

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share with us the Ten Commandments.

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It makes sense, if you think about death and resurrection.

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or death, and being born into a new kind of self, maybe a higher kind of self. I like that very much.

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The other thing I love…

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is the drama…

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in which God engages to announce all of this. There's thunder, and there's lightning, and it's at the break of morning, which is a very dramatic moment in and of itself. I live…

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With mountains behind me, and I often watch the sun coming up, and it's very dramatic.

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And there's this heavy cloud on the mountain, and there's the blast of the shofar, and…

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Um… I can see why Cecil B. DeMille wanted to make a movie out of this, because it's very cinematic, in fact.

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So, uh, just want to point out…

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God's, um, penchant for…

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big drama.

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Well, in this case, yeah. Which begs the question…

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why we have other places… yeah.

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Well, because it's a bit… very, very, very big thing.

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that is about to happen.

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It's a very big, um…

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occasion…

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Um, I think it's an occasion of transformation for the people.

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Oh, yeah, that's so why?

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Why is it big?

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Yeah, why is it big? I mean, we've been acculturated with it being big Shabbat Show Meredith.

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We've been acculturated with the preps and the Ten Commandments being huge.

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Mm-hmm.

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And so, it may be impossible for us to imagine a world

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a midrash or a narrative in which it's not huge.

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It is… yeah.

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We stand for the Ten Commandments is a movie about the Ten Commandments. We've got all this art about the Ten Commandments.

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What does it warrant all this?

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You know, Moses says to the people,

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God has given me 10 things to say to you.

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But it emphatically wasn't fixed.

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You've got the voice, and Moses going up and down and up and down, you've got the physical

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rituals going on.

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Everyone's going to the laundromat in the desert, I don't know how, but they are.

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Right here.

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Because it carries weight.

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All that drama shows that it carries… what's about to happen carries weight.

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Yeah, yeah, and we also have things that happen in Torah which are not big.

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The burning bush was very quiet. It didn't consume anything.

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But that was a private viewing.

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This is a public viewing.

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This is public.

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Why does this have to be so popular?

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Yeah, just call it out, everybody, this is important.

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Because it has to have meaning for everybody. I mean, it's… it's… it's good. It's what's going to unite them.

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We are creating a people. Yeah.

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as a people.

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It's a good tool, but we're gonna get into that.

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It's a ketubah.

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It's a mystical experience that transforms consciousness, right?

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Yeah, this is a big…

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Right, right? There's a lot going on here.

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But first scares you to death.

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Yeah, and so all these… the things that you pulled out, the physical preparation, the sound,

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The trembling of, oh, there's thunder over here, I need to be…

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And it does a lot going on in our eyes here.

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And so it's going to be impossible.

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for us to look at these words.

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not deal with how big they are.

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Yeah, for sure. So many hands.

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Um, I'm gonna separate the Jones, uh, David Morrissey, Joan Ellen Ruth.

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Well, I'm curious about…

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the… we're indebted, if that's just…

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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I mean, is that just some peculiarity of Hebrew, or is there some significance to that?

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If there's significance to it, it seems as though

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This is one of those issues where… one of those times when instead of being violent and aggressive, God is

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is kind of maintaining

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deniability, you know, like, as though it just happens, and so he…

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It just happens. And yet, and yet Torah is telling us, and we, you know, we don't believe in the death penalty, people.

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As a people, we don't do the death penalty.

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We've made it impossible.

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For reasons. So…

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You might. They will be dead, made dead.

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They will surely be deadified.

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Not, I will kill them.

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No hand will touch them. They will be stoned or shot, animal or human, it will not live.

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Why?

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Must-know hand that touched them.

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Just within the four corners.

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There's no evidence that anybody actually was deaded.

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Well, no hand would touch them because… because then the pers… then that hand would also be violating the boundary.

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Right. Right. There's a ritual boundary here.

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Even in service of fulfilling the ritual boundary, nobody can violate the ritual boundary, because there's something so important.

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important that everybody be there.

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Everybody.

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Hey, Devil!

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Lord Sinai, I remember what you were wearing. This is really important.

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This is a critically important.

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James, I remember you were wearing, I always remember what you were wearing.

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And that's really…

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So, thank you, David, for bringing that up.

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That's huge.

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I think it's Marcy Jonah and Ruth.

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You said one thing.

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Just think of… just take one thing. earthquake.

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How much focus. Do you think you'll be able to have.

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If right now… everything starts shaking everywhere that we're.

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Zooming in from. And it's a trauma.

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And it's a wonder anyone remembers. anything, given the tremendous, I mean, that's a crazy LSD-type trip.

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And then the shaking? Please. That's, that's, I think that.

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Come, come close to me. I'm your God. I'm gonna freak you out.

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Trauma.

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:10.000
Trauma either. Brings people closer together.

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.000
Or it blows them apart like a bolt out of a blender.

00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:20.000
And this trauma… brought the people closer.

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:26.000
about an academic mission of religion would use is theophany.

00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:36.000
God showing up.

00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:38.000
Yeah.

00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:43.000
So there's something… if we impute to divinity,

00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:46.000
Then surely God needed

00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:51.000
that all of this will be kind of sense scrambling.

00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:53.000
In fact, I think one of you

00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:55.000
had a bat mitzvah around the store.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:02.000
And I won't use your name, but your initials are Marsha Salter. And…

00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:06.000
Right after the Ten Commandments, on the flip side of this, there's synesthesia.

00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:08.000
Where the Torah says,

00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:17.000
that they saw the thunder.

00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:19.000
They saw the thunder and light.

00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:22.000
Everyone seeped under the senses, got…

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:24.000
scrambled. And there's something really

00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:33.000
about a transcendent experience, or a spiritual experience that brings us beyond our own selves, that we might experience in the moment, this trauma.

00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:37.000
relative to what was…

00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:40.000
But if the only experience of this was trauma,

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:46.000
We would not be here.

00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:48.000
There's an AND good here.

00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:53.000
We need to be physically transformed, and sometimes that means de-anchoring from what has been.

00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:56.000
Sometimes by blowing it up.

00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:57.000
Yes, it did. It created in us.

00:20:57.000 --> 00:20:59.000
Yeah, brought us closer together.

00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:08.000
There's an us. There's Judaism because of this, this Christianity because of this, there's Islam because of this. If there weren't this, there wouldn't be any of that.

00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:10.000
Everything came from this.

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:17.000
This is another creation. This is another one of those moments. How many times did God say in Genesis 1, let there be?

00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:22.000
10. How many commandments are there?

00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:29.000
Energy Centers of creation becoming this Arthur.

00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:32.000
It's all creation, it's all creations and other creations.

00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:33.000
Yeah.

00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:34.000
Hmm…

00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:41.000
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Paul Joan Ellenworthy Iris.

00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:42.000
And then we're gonna move on. I think.

00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:48.000
Yeah, firstly, I've just experienced what you're talking about. I saw the wind.

00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:55.000
Now, clearly, I can see the wind, but what I just saw was huge… a huge.

00:21:55.000 --> 00:22:07.000
push of snow in the air. caused by the wind. So… what it's… what the message is, there's stuff there that you can't see, but you have just seen that it's there.

00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:15.000
And… and that applies here, too. Whatever happens that the people aren't making happen.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:21.000
shows that there are forces. And then, I'd want to point out, of course, the obvious number 12.

00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:30.000
This is all about setting. laws, set-encompassing bounds. And we are a people of the book, but we're a people of laws, too.

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:40.000
And that is shown by the Orthodox. Or by the non-Orthodox who choose to follow the rules.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:47.000
And so, when you make a group, as we've said before, when you want to make an entity of a bunch of people.

00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:54.000
You have to have. the bylaws.

00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:55.000
And in liberal tradition,

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:57.000
Good.

00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:00.000
We have some issues with the rules.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:03.000
Why would we want to belong to a club that would have that?

00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:06.000
That part of us as a member, do we really have to follow the rules.

00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:08.000
who died and left through God.

00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:11.000
Do we want God to be a lawgiver?

00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:14.000
All of that, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:17.000
Um, yeah, we're never going on Ellen Road.

00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:19.000
Uh… Iris Cheryl.

00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:22.000
Uh, I'm struck by…

00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:26.000
God orchestrating all of this.

00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:28.000
Um, excuse me.

00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:32.000
Even though Moses is…

00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:34.000
Speaking in God's name.

00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:36.000
God is really…

00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:38.000
Clearly, um…

00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:41.000
Laying out a map.

00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:43.000
As to what to proceed?

00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:44.000
There's some.

00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:48.000
And…

00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:52.000
A second point has to do with…

00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:54.000
Excuse me.

00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:59.000
I watched the installation of the New York…

00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:02.000
Cardinal yesterday.

00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:05.000
Um, I was looking at the…

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:10.000
a whole ritual of it, and I kept on asking myself,

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:15.000
You know, what does this have to do with the spirituality

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:18.000
That's being presented.

00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:23.000
And for me, there was some disconnect for that.

00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:26.000
Um, so, looking at…

00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:29.000
what we're talking about today

00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:33.000
There is a ritual being set up.

00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:34.000
Yes.

00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:37.000
And it kind of deepens my understanding

00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:40.000
About the importance of ritual,

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.000
And kind of changes my idea

00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:47.000
of my, um…

00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:51.000
Reflection yesterday on the installation.

00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:57.000
Um, what… what's important to look at, I think,

00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:01.000
And I think Jones has said this, is…

00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:04.000
Participating in ritual…

00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:16.000
Um, I group of people participating in Ritual brings that group of people together in a closer way.

00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:20.000
Yep, we are people of all sorts.

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:27.000
experience narrative, we are…

00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:33.000
We're physical, we're emotional, we're spiritual, we're intellectual.

00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:37.000
We're not only any one of those, or frankly, and primarily anyone

00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:41.000
Because one of the things that I appreciate about

00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:43.000
The Judaism, I know.

00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:46.000
is that it's all in. Not…

00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:49.000
Because it's a stern taskmaster.

00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:53.000
But because it recognizes that we're all at.

00:25:53.000 --> 00:26:00.000
And so, sometimes we need physical ritual, and sometimes we need emotion, and sometimes we need our brains, and sometimes it's all just…

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:06.000
You know,

00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:12.000
We come back into body and into words, and we make up our stories. Yeah, yeah, exactly that.

00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:18.000
I have totally lost track of where we are. Is it Iris and then Cheryl?

00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:23.000
No. I'm sure it will be meaningful either way, but… I don't know.

00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:29.000
Okay, Cheryl, and then maybe nobody, I don't know.

00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:30.000
Sometimes I'm loop.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:31.000
Iris, you're talking, just go. I'll go after you.

00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:32.000
No. Okay, true.

00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:33.000
Sorry.

00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:39.000
Oh, no, that's okay. I… I'm very touched by what everyone is saying, and of course by.

00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:47.000
the meaning of all of this, and. A couple of things that I feel are, one.

00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:52.000
There's 10 plagues and 10 commandments, as I think we've mentioned here before.

00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:53.000
Yep.

00:26:53.000 --> 00:27:02.000
So, there's a parallel aspect. And what you were saying too, Rabbi David, about, um, it's a new creation.

00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:09.000
So, I think that. We are crossing a threshold here.

00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:10.000
Yeah.

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:16.000
Um, you know, from… slavery and the hundreds of years we're in the desert, but this is.

00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:27.000
an opportunity where we were activated to. experience it differently, and all of the… as someone said this, cinematography kind of.

00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:32.000
aspect of it. Um… The synesthesia, certainly.

00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:37.000
kind of shakes us up. And one other part of that.

00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:45.000
Um, because, like, last night at my synagogue, we observed JDAIM, the Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month.

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:53.000
And some people who are living with a disability and a way to feel a part of Judaism instead of feeling.

00:27:53.000 --> 00:28:01.000
That, you know, for example, a rabbi couldn't be a deaf person because it wouldn't be kosher.

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:02.000
I…

00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:05.000
Um, but the… The aspect of synesthesia.

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:10.000
Helps them to see that they really were a part of the experience at Sinai, not just.

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:18.000
the physiological, sort of, you know, activation and. miracle of it, but that they could.

00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:22.000
see the thunder if they couldn't hear the thunder.

00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:26.000
So that's kind of a different… Um, perspective on it.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:33.000
And the other part, of course, is the covenant, and how meaningful that was.

00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:34.000
Yeah, yeah, that's… this is the first time I'm hearing the C word.

00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:37.000
So, anyway, I wanted to…

00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:45.000
Oh, yeah, that's what the most… the thing is the covenant.

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:46.000
Thank you. So, there's something covenantal going on here.

00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:49.000
Okay, thank you.

00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:51.000
We're probably gonna have to get into that.

00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:55.000
Uh, we're running out of room on the page, which is great.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.000
Uh, last comment, Cheryl.

00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:08.000
I had two thoughts. One, I think maybe be… maybe came from Midrosh, but the first is that at the… at 19, it says, Moshe spoke.

00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:20.000
And God answered him, in my Tanakh. It says, And Moses went down to the people and spoke to them.

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:21.000
Okay, so if you're looking at verse 19, this is one of the

00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:23.000
So that's kind of a different… thing, if… Yeah.

00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:29.000
moments where every translation is Midrash by a he.

00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:30.000
was that. Cole Hashem Far, the voice of the shofar.

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:37.000
Which is why we do this.

00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:40.000
Walking continuously.

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:43.000
Very loud. No shade with a bell.

00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:53.000
Bullshit, this is… we're putting this in… it's literally the future tense, but the whole thing is being covered

00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:56.000
We'll share the bar.

00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:58.000
He spoke vet hot.

00:29:58.000 --> 00:29:59.000
Elohim did not deliver.

00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:00.000
He spoke. Mm-hmm.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:05.000
No one here was listening to Moses. Authentavis spoke to them.

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:08.000
It does not say that. It doesn't say it.

00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:12.000
I don't see a direct object of people who speaking.

00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:14.000
You don't see an indirect object of who was listening.

00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:18.000
Oh, it just says the, which is, and God spoke.

00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:19.000
If that Yahweh Elohim and God

00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:22.000
And God.

00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:25.000
And answered,

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:26.000
Him.

00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:27.000
Yeah, I know.

00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:29.000
a call and a voice.

00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:32.000
That's it.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:33.000
Everything else.

00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:39.000
Okay, thank you. Yeah, so I wanted to know… Yeah, so thank you, that's very… because I think that's very important.

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:40.000
A little deeper between friends.

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:52.000
Um… Yeah, and the other thing was, and this is the part I said might have been midrash, but when we've spoken about this section in the past.

00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:53.000
Hang on! Hang on.

00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:55.000
The mountain rose and flipped.

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.000
We're gonna get there, we have to, this is…

00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:00.000
the wedding.

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:09.000
Which is kind of like God saying. Okay, I can't trust you because you're little kids, to not walk up to me and get deaded, so I'm just gonna get out of your way.

00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:11.000
Alright, there is so much here.

00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:17.000
Let's see what we can do in an hour.

00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:18.000
We're good. Alright. So, this is kept pulling…

00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:20.000
We've got it, we're good, we got it.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:26.000
acting as sort of zooming back and getting the whole scene that this is cinematic.

00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:29.000
Deanna, we've got the notion of something…

00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:32.000
really cinematic going on. It's big. Got it.

00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:36.000
We've got something covenantal going on here.

00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:45.000
We've got something all embodied thruster going on here. We've got something ritualized, and something about sex.

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:51.000
And something about laundry. We've got something about this moment creating a people.

00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:54.000
And therefore, there need to be

00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:59.000
And what is covenantalism, anyway?

00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:00.000
That's pretty much where we're going, well done.

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:01.000
Mm-hmm.

00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:04.000
Um, Rabbi Rachel and I

00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:11.000
curated a bunch of texts that they're gonna go and… so they're gonna get there, but maybe a little sideways.

00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:13.000
Alright, let's see what we do.

00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:16.000
The first thing we thought you would say.

00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:21.000
is don't approach…

00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:25.000
It really says that. Verse 15.

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:32.000
Moses said to the nation,

00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:36.000
Be ready. This was academy on the third day.

00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:38.000
I'll teach you how you shop.

00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:45.000
don't approach a woman.

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:48.000
before we even get into the texts.

00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:57.000
Who is saying it?

00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:00.000
Who is saying it?

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:01.000
houses.

00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:02.000
Moses. Moses is saying, don't, don't hear a woman.

00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:06.000
Moses.

00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:17.000
Wu said the Ten Commandments?

00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:18.000
Not that, not God through Moses.

00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:19.000
God through Moses?

00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:20.000
God spoke all these words saying. It was…

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:22.000
How is this?

00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:25.000
Really important. It was super important.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:28.000
But the Ten Commandments come from God.

00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:31.000
As opposed to emotion.

00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:33.000
Why? Because we don't…

00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:35.000
venerate motion.

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:37.000
Moshe is a servant.

00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:43.000
a mouthpiece sometimes, but this was direct revelation from

00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:50.000
So, Moses says,

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:53.000
And who gave me instructions?

00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:58.000
About what is supposed to happen.

00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:00.000
God gave the instructions.

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:01.000
So, God gave me instructions.

00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:04.000
5.

00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:07.000
God gave the Ten Commandments.

00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:12.000
Oh, shit. Freelanced.

00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:16.000
Mosia descends the mountain to the nation, sanctifies the nation, they wash their clothes,

00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:27.000
He Moses said to the nation, be ready on the third day, do not approach a woman. Did God say that?

00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:29.000
Just says, be ready on the third day.

00:34:29.000 --> 00:34:31.000
set encompassing nouns.

00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:32.000
Do your thing.

00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:34.000
I don't really know if God told him that or not.

00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:35.000
And look in the plain text, it doesn't say that. So now we've got a madrasa question, right?

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.000
Yeah.

00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:43.000
We've got a huge madrasha question. Hello, Rabbi Baron Blad, how are you?

00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:48.000
Good morning, friends! We didn't have a Minion, so services…

00:34:48.000 --> 00:34:52.000
finished early, and I thought I would come learn.

00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:54.000
Long Rainier Rancho.

00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:58.000
So we've had a beautiful conversation about complimentalism,

00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:03.000
And we were just getting into Don't Touch a Woman, and who said that, and why.

00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:06.000
Um, we've talked about…

00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:08.000
Everything from sex to…

00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:21.000
creation and peoplehood to the 10 impulses, to the 10 commandments, to the 10 plagues. There's a lot of beautiful stuff here, and we may never, ever get to anything here, Meredith.

00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:23.000
Sorry, okay.

00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:30.000
Um, what you just said, Rabbi, is what brought to mind for me

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:32.000
is the notion of bridging.

00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:37.000
Like, how do we… how do we bridge…

00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:43.000
The here and the now, the present, the very granular, earthbound stuff.

00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:47.000
with this stuff.

00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:48.000
Yeah.

00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:51.000
And that's all. I was just struck by the concept of

00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:55.000
Moshe as this sort of intermediary.

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:58.000
And I said, oh, well, maybe he's like a bridge.

00:35:58.000 --> 00:35:59.000
like, uh, you know…

00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:00.000
Well, here's a bridge. He has a bridge immediately after.

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:02.000
You know, how do we connect?

00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:03.000
Right? How do we connect the dots?

00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:05.000
Yeah. Immediately after the Ten Commandments.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:11.000
Immediately after the Ten Commandments, the people are gonna freak out, and they're gonna say to Moses,

00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:17.000
You go, you, you do that through you, because if God speaks to us again, we're gonna die.

00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:25.000
It's too much. Our circuits are going to be blown. So here's motion coming down, maybe he's freelancing, maybe he's not. Let's find out.

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:28.000
Of course, our ancestors could not imagine.

00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:32.000
that this was about freelancing.

00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:35.000
Washing, washi.

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:41.000
It's really important that everybody be at Sinai. We said we couldn't touch anyone to dead them.

00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:47.000
Because then whoever touched them also couldn't receive the revelation. And therefore, everybody had to receive the revelation.

00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:50.000
And so while she says, in essence,

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:53.000
You know, why, why? Because women

00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:58.000
need to do mikvah.

00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:00.000
And if they couldn't do mikvah,

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:02.000
They couldn't receive revelation.

00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:04.000
Of course not!

00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:07.000
That was a thing Mikva was… I was thinking about that. Was mikvah a thing?

00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:08.000
That was it.

00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:09.000
Oh, for sure, that was a thing. Big thing.

00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:10.000
That was a thing. That was a thing.

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:11.000
It's… and there's a lot…

00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:15.000
Before Sinai.

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:17.000
Um… yeah, I…

00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:18.000
It's in…

00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:21.000
You know, all those mikvah hunts in the desert, you know.

00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:26.000
Yeah, there's a… there's an exegetical principle that says there's no before and after in Torah, so even though we hadn't yet received the Torah that would tell us we have to do mikvah,

00:37:26.000 --> 00:37:31.000
Mm-hmm.

00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:37.000
The sages understood that the people somehow organically knew it and would have done mikvah.

00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:40.000
In order to be purified, in order to be ready to receive.

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:42.000
Which we've talked about.

00:37:42.000 --> 00:37:48.000
Right. They knew to wash their clothes, the people wash their clothes. Go wash your clothes.

00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:56.000
They knew, if you know you've got some big events coming, you're not gonna wear your dirty shirt.

00:37:56.000 --> 00:37:59.000
doesn't say, and some of you already added to the text,

00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:06.000
Don't go near a man.

00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:07.000
Stein solved it, yeah.

00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:13.000
Well, the concern seemed to be we might have already gone near… one might have already gone near a man.

00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:14.000
Right.

00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:16.000
And therefore be still Tame.

00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:22.000
And we're in a heteronormative context here, we've got to expand this for our purposes, and several of you were talking about

00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:25.000
of sex, and this is not about

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:35.000
you know, dispersing energy so as to center, unify, prepare yourselves to call forward the event.

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:37.000
So there's something about this, right?

00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:40.000
Why is it gendered?

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:42.000
Why is it gender?

00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:47.000
Who wants to read the women's Torah commentary?

00:38:47.000 --> 00:38:54.000
Moses' command before the revelation at Sinai not to go near a woman.

00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:58.000
And grammatically, masculine language of

00:38:58.000 --> 00:39:02.000
of the laws have prompted questions about the extent

00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:08.000
To which women were included in the covenant between God and Israel.

00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:11.000
This text cries out,

00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:14.000
Dasini interpret me?

00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:18.000
And so, invites readers, ancient as well as…

00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:22.000
modern. To grapple with revelation.

00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:27.000
The entire history of interpretation

00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:29.000
of our sacred texts.

00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:33.000
From the Mishnah to modern feminist.

00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:39.000
Misrash is empowered by Moses' audacious transformation.

00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:41.000
of God's worlds.

00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:45.000
Exodus 19, 9, 15.

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:48.000
Several's omniscient.

00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:50.000
like, external authority.

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:53.000
enhance authority to the reader.

00:39:53.000 --> 00:39:56.000
Yeah, that's troubling passage intact.

00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:02.000
powers all of us to read, interpret, and find meaning in the

00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:06.000
partial and its contradictions.

00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:11.000
Great, that answers the question.

00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:16.000
It restates the question.

00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:24.000
I don't actually think that it. States that women would be excluded.

00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:29.000
I think it's, you know, we know that there's a lot of.

00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:36.000
male-oriented writing. Um, however, women at this time, they did have.

00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:42.000
a sense and a place and an importance in the community and in families.

00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:48.000
Um, it was recognized. from everything we know historically.

00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:55.000
And, um, you know, this was… Maybe… later? Dare I say.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:03.000
Um, but… It doesn't exclude women. I mean, women also are abstaining from sex.

00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:04.000
So…

00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:08.000
Although, it doesn't say abstain from sex, right? What Moses

00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:10.000
It says, don't touch, it says don't touch a woman.

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.000
What Moses says God said,

00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:18.000
is don't go near a woman.

00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:19.000
And it's our later commentators who are saying, well, maybe this is about purity,

00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:24.000
Right.

00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:26.000
for everyone.

00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:27.000
But that's not what Moses said.

00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:29.000
We're gonna get into this now.

00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:31.000
of the comments that was made by a few of you.

00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:34.000
And I amplified it.

00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:37.000
is that it's so important that everybody be in

00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:40.000
Debra, I knew that you were wearing at Sinai.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:42.000
I saw you.

00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:46.000
It's so important that we all be in.

00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:50.000
Which really begs the question of fundamentalism and people and all that, so… so…

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.000
This little text that I see, Joe, in your hand is up.

00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:58.000
Turns out to be a very big deal.

00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:01.000
For the purpose of separating women out.

00:42:01.000 --> 00:42:05.000
It's really interesting that a tradition that sometimes does that

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:07.000
is now gonna bend over backwards.

00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:12.000
to do the exact opposite.

00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:15.000
is a costume now. Junk.

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:18.000
And then we're going to take a deep dive into Smart Rava.

00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:26.000
If they had… if they then had the notion of being.

00:42:26.000 --> 00:42:27.000
Yep.

00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:31.000
the terms tahor or Tameh. Right. If they then had those notions.

00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:40.000
Uh, and which they… which there exist today, then, um… That would… it would put women.

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:49.000
Um, you know, in the next room. Figuratively speaking, which is not where they should be to be receiving.

00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:55.000
uh, be receiving. God's commandments, the rules.

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.000
Um, and also. The idea of.

00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:06.000
perhaps creating another life at a time when there is a transition.

00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:15.000
when you don't yet know the rules means you could be inadvertently, at that time, in those few days.

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.000
be doing something that you discover afterwards you shouldn't have done.

00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:20.000
Interesting. Mm-hmm.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:26.000
So, take that off. take that off the table for the time being.

00:43:26.000 --> 00:43:31.000
Very quickly, because we've got some important stuff to get to, the Shmut Rabba.

00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:35.000
is now gonna titrate a whole bunch of things.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:41.000
you know, say to the children of Yaakov, say to the children of Israel, earlier in Exodus 19,

00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:45.000
You gotta tell the women of the major principles first.

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:47.000
Is that because…

00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:50.000
They're inductive thinkers.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:52.000
Or because they're not schooled in halacha.

00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:56.000
Which is an old way of saying they didn't go to Thader.

00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:58.000
Never mind, there was no such thing back then. Again, people are…

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:02.000
printing their own stuff.

00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:03.000
On the other hand…

00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:13.000
But it is a way of bringing the women in, right? It's saying, well, the children of Yaakov is the women, so tell them these things, and the children of Israel is the men, tell them those things, but both groups are getting revelation.

00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:14.000
Yeah, everybody liked that.

00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:17.000
So I think it's already better than…

00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:18.000
Anyone love that? No?

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:21.000
I don't like it, but… but it's already better than Moshe.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:26.000
Okay, 1, 2, another thing. Why do the women first?

00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:30.000
Because they're enthusiastic about doing mitzvot.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:35.000
Because women actually drive a lot of religious life, who knew?

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:40.000
Without getting gender essentialist here, let's look at.

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:43.000
Women are enthusiastic about doing Jewish? I don't… I don't see your point.

00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:45.000
Rabbi?

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:47.000
Brad on.

00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:50.000
what's going on here?

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:55.000
Another thing, so they will guide their children in Torah.

00:44:55.000 --> 00:45:03.000
actually the best way to create and propagate a people is to go through the women.

00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:08.000
Oh.

00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:09.000
Uh-huh. This is the same text, mind you.

00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:11.000
I actually like that one.

00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:17.000
These are not, like, different texts. This is the exact same text, and another thing, and another thing, and another thing.

00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:19.000
They were so…

00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:21.000
Riveted by this text.

00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:24.000
But they needed to make meaning of it.

00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:26.000
In a way that brought everybody in.

00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:31.000
Because it was so important that everybody be in this time.

00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:34.000
We've seen some texts that separate women.

00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:36.000
We might have subjugated women.

00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:42.000
This is the exact opposite now.

00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:47.000
And it's… having…

00:45:47.000 --> 00:45:50.000
Because there's something so elementary.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:55.000
About the everyone-ness of this.

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.000
And it transcends gender as such.

00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:04.000
Even though the text itself is explicitly gendered.

00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:06.000
Here's another one.

00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:10.000
Remember that whole Eve thing?

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:13.000
that whole, like, we're gonna blame Eve thing.

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:21.000
Which actually is more crystallological than anything else, and I came back into Judaism that way, but be that as it may.

00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:23.000
We better bring the women in first.

00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:25.000
God's told Adam.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:30.000
Donate the apple. Did God tell Eve?

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:33.000
There was no Eve.

00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:35.000
Adam told Eve.

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:41.000
So the women have to receive divine revelation directly, no less than the men.

00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:43.000
Because if they don't,

00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:46.000
If it's… if it's…

00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:48.000
Guys!

00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:49.000
We might not hear it right.

00:46:49.000 --> 00:46:52.000
won't be for them. We may not hear it right.

00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:56.000
What I'm hearing you say, Rabbi Rachel, is that we might not hear it right. If it came through men…

00:46:56.000 --> 00:47:01.000
No cosmic game of telephone. In either direction.

00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:06.000
Right? We all get it straight from God.

00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:08.000
take that in, everybody.

00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:11.000
It is really important that it be direct…

00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:16.000
Not mediated through Moses, not mediated through Rabbi David.

00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:17.000
not mediated at all.

00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:20.000
through Rabbi Rachel either, right?

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.000
It's… it's…

00:47:24.000 --> 00:47:30.000
Exactly. It's… it's gotta be unmediated, it's gotta be direct.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:37.000
to put it in a different way from services last night.

00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:40.000
You are the one.

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.000
To this I pray.

00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:47.000
engagement with God.

00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:51.000
direct engagement.

00:47:51.000 --> 00:47:54.000
Questions, comments, Iris?

00:47:54.000 --> 00:47:58.000
I think that's part of the. have an empowel relationship.

00:47:58.000 --> 00:47:59.000
Yeah, which are about to get to.

00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:03.000
Not that. Okay.

00:48:03.000 --> 00:48:07.000
in order to agree to something, like, so important.

00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:15.000
That we would hear it directly from God.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:16.000
Yeah, Meredith and Minoan Bruce.

00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:17.000
Yeah.

00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:18.000
Thank you.

00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:20.000
Um, this may be a really…

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:22.000
Silly question, but…

00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:25.000
Is this the first time?

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:31.000
When women are elevated and have the same status,

00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:34.000
As men in the Torah?

00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:39.000
I don't know, I just… I was just curious, because it… really, they're making a point of this now.

00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:40.000
That we're…

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:41.000
making the appointment.

00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:43.000
And we're really equal.

00:48:43.000 --> 00:48:46.000
But this moment in time.

00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:49.000
Is this the first time?

00:48:49.000 --> 00:48:53.000
Well, there's never needed to be, right? We never had…

00:48:53.000 --> 00:48:54.000
Hmm.

00:48:54.000 --> 00:48:57.000
This is the first moment of revelation.

00:48:57.000 --> 00:48:58.000
Hmm. Okay.

00:48:58.000 --> 00:49:03.000
Collective revelation, but your point stands, right? How… how…

00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:07.000
Final is, how telling it is that

00:49:07.000 --> 00:49:13.000
Notwithstanding, you know, male-centered Mideast stuff, notwithstanding that human

00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:21.000
and he, and Moses is a boy, and all the things. At the moment of revelation, immediately before the preparation for the

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:28.000
It's all gender equal for God.

00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:29.000
Possibly not for Moses.

00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:33.000
And that even when Moses and Pho knew a woman, the tradition is trying to write. The tradition is trying to, like,

00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:36.000
Pull that back.

00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:40.000
To me, it's very important that the mis…

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:43.000
translation here, if you will, or at least the…

00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:48.000
the problematic instruction is not coming from God, it's coming from Moshe.

00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:54.000
Who may be the greatest prophet that ever lived, but might also have had a blind spot somewhere.

00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:57.000
But it's human.

00:49:57.000 --> 00:50:03.000
The attempt to restrict revelation is not coming from God, it's coming from Moshe.

00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:06.000
And if you look very carefully,

00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:09.000
the Ten Commandments themselves, they're gonna say,

00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:10.000
individual. Not I and Yahl's God.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:13.000
Yep.

00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:16.000
Y'alls will not have any God before me.

00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:19.000
Yours will keep Shabbat, oh no.

00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:27.000
It's all the individual you, Joe, you, Linda, you, David, you, Deborah, you, Rachel, you, James, you Susan.

00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:30.000
individual. It's not written in the plural.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:33.000
And so it's important that each person be here.

00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:37.000
Is it on this Ellen Ruth Sheryl?

00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:41.000
I think we're going to want to move forward. We may even need to skip the Fire Books of Miriam.

00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:42.000
Yeah, we might.

00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:46.000
I'm confused… I'm confused.

00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:51.000
Um, there seems to be two different, um…

00:50:51.000 --> 00:50:54.000
interpretations going on.

00:50:54.000 --> 00:50:58.000
One that you were saying that

00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:00.000
God…

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:05.000
felt that they specifically had to talk to the women, so…

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.000
We want to have what happened with Adam and Eve.

00:51:09.000 --> 00:51:14.000
And then Rabbi Rachel was just saying that…

00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:18.000
Hmm, I can… I can clarify.

00:51:18.000 --> 00:51:19.000
I can…

00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:20.000
Maybe perhaps it wasn't God, or maybe leave that even the perhaps.

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:21.000
I… let me clarify that.

00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:26.000
And that… and that it was Moses saying that with kind of…

00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.000
Blinders on…

00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:29.000
in relation to…

00:51:29.000 --> 00:51:31.000
let me… let me quickly clarify…

00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:34.000
the environment that he…

00:51:34.000 --> 00:51:35.000
lived in and grew up in.

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:37.000
Please, please let me quickly clarify.

00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:38.000
Um, and just before I…

00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:43.000
Alan Race, Alan Royce, Alan Rose, Alan Ruth. She's trying to answer you.

00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:44.000
In Torah,

00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:47.000
I'm sorry, you know I can't hear.

00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:48.000
I know it's why I'm going with this.

00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:49.000
Okay. I'm trying to answer.

00:51:49.000 --> 00:51:52.000
In Torah, God says,

00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:56.000
Tell the people to wash their clothes and get ready.

00:51:56.000 --> 00:51:58.000
That's the actual Torah.

00:51:58.000 --> 00:52:00.000
Also in Torah, Moshe…

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.000
adds a line. Don't go near a woman.

00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:06.000
Those are both in the Torah.

00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:10.000
In midrush, there's one midrush that says, well, maybe…

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:17.000
Maybe it was for this reason, maybe it was for that reason. Midrash could take all kinds of explanations

00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:24.000
And we still have to reckon with the fact that Moses offered an instruction that was not a repetition from God.

00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:30.000
Does that make sense? God said, do this thing, and Moses said, do these two things.

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:32.000
So the second one…

00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:40.000
could have been Moses' addition, it didn't come from the mouth of God, it came from the mouth of Moshe.

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:48.000
I hope that helps.

00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:50.000
Um, I think Cheryl had a hand in that I want to get to Daniel Nevins.

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.000
I'm still at… I'm still on that.

00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:57.000
clear. It could be either or?

00:52:57.000 --> 00:53:01.000
Or say?

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:03.000
The… in the Torah,

00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:07.000
Relative, can you just scroll back up to the Torah text real quick?

00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:11.000
In the Torah text,

00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:15.000
Um, Moses says to the nation,

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:21.000
Be ready on the third day, do not go near a woman. Right? That's verse 15 here.

00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:26.000
But that was not in God's original quote in verse 10, God says,

00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:28.000
Tell them to be holy and wash their clothes.

00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:31.000
holy and clothing. That's what God says.

00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:34.000
Moses adds,

00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:37.000
Be holy, wash your clothes, and avoid women.

00:53:37.000 --> 00:53:42.000
So, God says two things. Moses says three.

00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:50.000
One way to understand it is that the third one, which is the avoid women, might have been

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:53.000
Moses adding his own views.

00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:58.000
It doesn't say that it was just Moses, but it's noteworthy that everything else Moses says here

00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:03.000
came from God, this is not repeating God.

00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:06.000
So either God whispered it to him when we couldn't hear,

00:54:06.000 --> 00:54:11.000
Or this was Moses adding an editorial comment.

00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:16.000
And therefore, the sages of our tradition after this bend over backwards to find a way of saying,

00:54:16.000 --> 00:54:22.000
Moses didn't mean Torah is not for women. He couldn't possibly have meant that.

00:54:22.000 --> 00:54:28.000
And so that's where we get the Shemot Rabbis, all of… here are all of these reasons why this couldn't possibly be

00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:33.000
Moshe being an accidental misogynist.

00:54:33.000 --> 00:54:34.000
Wow! That is a new…

00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:39.000
But in a way, Tower wasn't for women.

00:54:39.000 --> 00:54:44.000
And in the beginning, it was men that were studying it.

00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:47.000
And I keep on having this image

00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:58.000
of being at Mount Sinai, and you can't go near women, and all the women are, like, excluded somewhere. And I want to get that image out of my head.

00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:02.000
That is not the image that tradition is giving us.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:05.000
If anything, tradition is saying…

00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:12.000
Avoid the opposite sex for the 3 days leading up to Revelation, because before Revelation,

00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:19.000
Fair enough. Let's talk about this after 11.30. We have wait… we have stuff we want to get through.

00:55:19.000 --> 00:55:25.000
All right, very quickly, um… I would like to say that for Moses sanctify.

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:33.000
May include that little piece he added. God told him to sanctify them, so he might have added it for that reason.

00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:34.000
Hang on to that, Cheryl. We're gonna get to that, maybe.

00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:37.000
But more importantly.

00:55:37.000 --> 00:55:43.000
The problem I'm having, actually, is when we're talking about how we did not have laws.

00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:51.000
And, you know, we know that in Egypt, the Pharaoh did not remember Joseph, and all the way back, but Abraham.

00:55:51.000 --> 00:55:56.000
had a personal relationship. with God. And so, of… Pardon?

00:55:56.000 --> 00:55:59.000
Different from laws.

00:55:59.000 --> 00:56:07.000
Well, like… Laws are made when people don't, aren't righteously following the way to be in the world, right? It's like.

00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:08.000
That's…

00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:14.000
They need… they need the… the leashes kind of be, to guide them.

00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:15.000
Maybe.

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:23.000
Um, so that was my point, I guess, that we… they weren't named laws, they weren't written down, but there was clearly a way to be.

00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:30.000
um, spiritual and connecting to God. the divine.

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:31.000
This is huge. This is huge. Where should they have gotten that?

00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:36.000
I think so.

00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:37.000
Nobody talked to God but Abraham.

00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:40.000
Well, they were… connected.

00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:51.000
Well, you think he kept it to himself? Didn't he? Wasn't he, like, a guide and a leader, and… And his kids, and the women.

00:56:51.000 --> 00:56:55.000
Alright, we're gonna do some cutting here.

00:56:55.000 --> 00:57:02.000
Just to make some time, but Cheryl, you're raising something that's so important to covenantalism.

00:57:02.000 --> 00:57:06.000
Principle on which Judaism stands.

00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:11.000
as a doctrine, as something cohesive.

00:57:11.000 --> 00:57:14.000
My words are really…

00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:16.000
Right now, and so I'm being…

00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:19.000
Very careful in them.

00:57:19.000 --> 00:57:21.000
Is the premise?

00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:27.000
that a papal was taken out of slavery.

00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:31.000
How should slaves of hundreds of years?

00:57:31.000 --> 00:57:34.000
Hundreds of youths. Who had…

00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:36.000
instantaneous.

00:57:36.000 --> 00:57:40.000
religious tradition.

00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:44.000
Have something to carry on.

00:57:44.000 --> 00:57:48.000
And even if they could, even if they had something to carry on.

00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:53.000
After centuries of back-breaking identity-destroying labor,

00:57:53.000 --> 00:57:58.000
But we're gonna take your kids and throw them into the sea.

00:57:58.000 --> 00:57:59.000
You know, it's not a container, it's not even a critique.

00:57:59.000 --> 00:58:01.000
Yeah, I wasn't criticizing that by any means. All I was saying is.

00:58:01.000 --> 00:58:12.000
the comment… yeah, the comment that there were no laws.

00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:13.000
Short. Should work.

00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:15.000
When… how one lives one's life, one's life philosophy is a law unto oneself, and we did have that in Abraham.

00:58:15.000 --> 00:58:22.000
What I would offer, and I think we need to move on to covenantalism, and it flows directly from that.

00:58:22.000 --> 00:58:31.000
is this. I don't know about you, Rabbi Rachel, but I have never seen

00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:35.000
going to Talmud, or in Torah.

00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:37.000
anything.

00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:42.000
By which the people kept the commandments specifically.

00:58:42.000 --> 00:58:45.000
or had anything to keep.

00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:49.000
In Egypt, with the singular exception…

00:58:49.000 --> 00:58:52.000
of something that's come into the Passover Seder.

00:58:52.000 --> 00:58:55.000
imagines that even before there was a Shabbat,

00:58:55.000 --> 00:59:00.000
The people tried to honor Shabbat.

00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:05.000
Where you, like, grabbing individuals, are we using law in a particular way, and we didn't have a culture.

00:59:05.000 --> 00:59:06.000
We didn't have anything. We had nothing.

00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:12.000
Cheryl, I hear you to be saying that there's sort of natural law in the sense of people had ethics,

00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:15.000
Sure, but law with a capital L…

00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:18.000
Torah with a capital T.

00:59:18.000 --> 00:59:21.000
is a different thing.

00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:26.000
He had nothing to bind us together except the very fact of our ancestral tribalism.

00:59:26.000 --> 00:59:30.000
And the fact that you were all slaves to a pharaoh of Egypt.

00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:31.000
And now…

00:59:31.000 --> 00:59:35.000
We did promise that we would get… that we would share these Midrash this week.

00:59:35.000 --> 00:59:37.000
And so here we are.

00:59:37.000 --> 00:59:41.000
And now we stand at the base of a mountain.

00:59:41.000 --> 00:59:46.000
Is it at the basement amounts?

00:59:46.000 --> 00:59:49.000
Emotion led the people to greet God out of the camp.

00:59:49.000 --> 00:59:53.000
And they stood themselves at the base of the mountain.

00:59:53.000 --> 00:59:55.000
Here we go.

00:59:55.000 --> 00:59:57.000
walking between friends.

00:59:57.000 --> 01:00:00.000
and Moses.

01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:02.000
Exodus is the omnation.

01:00:02.000 --> 01:00:06.000
So lots of uploading to greet the God, to greet God.

01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:08.000
From the camp.

01:00:08.000 --> 01:00:12.000
And they stood themselves.

01:00:12.000 --> 01:00:17.000
But Takti Taha.

01:00:17.000 --> 01:00:22.000
If you are taking my Hebrew class, or you know any way what is…

01:00:22.000 --> 01:00:30.000
As a prefix.

01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:31.000
My hat. N.

01:00:31.000 --> 01:00:34.000
Yeah.

01:00:34.000 --> 01:00:36.000
How did the people stand in the

01:00:36.000 --> 01:00:42.000
base of the mountain.

01:00:42.000 --> 01:00:45.000
So this is gonna bug Rashi.

01:00:45.000 --> 01:01:00.000
Iris, Susan, you know, do that voodoo-doo that you do so well.

01:01:00.000 --> 01:01:01.000
That's a great new midrush that you just wrote.

01:01:01.000 --> 01:01:07.000
I think being in the mountain is because. It was emanating the presence of the divine energy, which is every…

01:01:07.000 --> 01:01:08.000
Yeah, uh, yeah, Susan John, we don't all have to speak here, I'm just, like, do we get what

01:01:08.000 --> 01:01:13.000
Thank you.

01:01:13.000 --> 01:01:15.000
The problem is here.

01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:24.000
I was also gonna say, isn't Takhtit under? Not at the base. Tahad is under.

01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:25.000
Right.

01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:27.000
Yeah. It's even worse than I'm making it, right?

01:01:27.000 --> 01:01:28.000
It's… this is bad, this is, like…

01:01:28.000 --> 01:01:30.000
Yeah.

01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:37.000
Well, thank you for being liberated from bone-crushing labor, let's put a mountain on top of you.

01:01:37.000 --> 01:01:39.000
And so this is gonna bug Rashi.

01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:43.000
Meredith, I love that. Immersed fully in the mountain.

01:01:43.000 --> 01:01:47.000
It's certainly fully immersed in the mountain, right? So, again…

01:01:47.000 --> 01:01:48.000
of Torah, look at this imagery.

01:01:48.000 --> 01:01:49.000
Yeah.

01:01:49.000 --> 01:01:53.000
There's this massive mountain being put on you.

01:01:53.000 --> 01:01:58.000
And here comes Rashi saying…

01:01:58.000 --> 01:02:03.000
Rabbi Rachel is doing the flight attendant instructions for…

01:02:03.000 --> 01:02:06.000
For the mountain arching over us like a roof.

01:02:06.000 --> 01:02:07.000
Yeah. That ends up.

01:02:07.000 --> 01:02:12.000
God bends the mountain into a… into a, you know, ceiling.

01:02:12.000 --> 01:02:14.000
This is Midrash.

01:02:14.000 --> 01:02:15.000
Thank you, Meredith. You got it.

01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:16.000
directly into Talmud.

01:02:16.000 --> 01:02:17.000
Hmm.

01:02:17.000 --> 01:02:18.000
You got it. So who…

01:02:18.000 --> 01:02:21.000
Like a sofa!

01:02:21.000 --> 01:02:22.000
Whoa, she writes.

01:02:22.000 --> 01:02:25.000
Like, like a sucker, right, this was the original sucker.

01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:26.000
Right?

01:02:26.000 --> 01:02:27.000
And this is the original one.

01:02:27.000 --> 01:02:28.000
Ah.

01:02:28.000 --> 01:02:29.000
this individual.

01:02:29.000 --> 01:02:30.000
That's wonderful.

01:02:30.000 --> 01:02:33.000
This is where we get the idea that we married God at Sinai, and Torah was our ketubah.

01:02:33.000 --> 01:02:37.000
This is the chuppah over our heads!

01:02:37.000 --> 01:02:41.000
Yay! And that's why Shop Worlds, when we reenact

01:02:41.000 --> 01:02:44.000
this. We are…

01:02:44.000 --> 01:02:47.000
God, the people of Israel collectively are.

01:02:47.000 --> 01:02:50.000
carrying God.

01:02:50.000 --> 01:02:54.000
By the way…

01:02:54.000 --> 01:02:56.000
I know Miranda and I almost sat.

01:02:56.000 --> 01:02:59.000
God says to Moshe, Lach El-Ha'am,

01:02:59.000 --> 01:03:01.000
I see where you're going.

01:03:01.000 --> 01:03:07.000
Don't go to the nation to keep Dashtam.

01:03:07.000 --> 01:03:13.000
What does Kidashtah mean? It literally means sanctify.

01:03:13.000 --> 01:03:14.000
He did.

01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:17.000
You made us holy.

01:03:17.000 --> 01:03:23.000
also is…

01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:24.000
Too holy and to marry are the same.

01:03:24.000 --> 01:03:28.000
The Holy Oneself into connection with someone else.

01:03:28.000 --> 01:03:31.000
Yeah. Do not be ordinary.

01:03:31.000 --> 01:03:33.000
So, if you are married, you've ever been married, you want to be married.

01:03:33.000 --> 01:03:37.000
married, uh, whether it's to God,

01:03:37.000 --> 01:03:42.000
or to a partner, or whatever this is about making…

01:03:42.000 --> 01:03:44.000
So, we're back at the mountain.

01:03:44.000 --> 01:03:47.000
We're back at the mountain.

01:03:47.000 --> 01:03:50.000
And it's been flipped over our heads like a slipper.

01:03:50.000 --> 01:03:54.000
And that's why the Ten Commandments then become our ketubah.

01:03:54.000 --> 01:03:57.000
Unless it's not a cuppa, maybe it

01:03:57.000 --> 01:04:01.000
We have a problem. Some will want to read Talmud.

01:04:01.000 --> 01:04:02.000
We have a problem, Houston.

01:04:02.000 --> 01:04:04.000
Where it begins, they stood themselves.

01:04:04.000 --> 01:04:05.000
They stood themselves in the bottom of the mountain.

01:04:05.000 --> 01:04:08.000
Yeah.

01:04:08.000 --> 01:04:13.000
Rabbi Avdimi Bar Hama Barr Hassa.

01:04:13.000 --> 01:04:19.000
said, The Holy Blessed One arched the mountain over them like a roof.

01:04:19.000 --> 01:04:21.000
And said to them,

01:04:21.000 --> 01:04:23.000
If you accept Torah,

01:04:23.000 --> 01:04:28.000
Excellent. And if not, there will be your grave.

01:04:28.000 --> 01:04:30.000
Rob?

01:04:30.000 --> 01:04:31.000
Oops!

01:04:31.000 --> 01:04:39.000
Rav Ahabar Yaakov said, From here there is a great caveat to Torah.

01:04:39.000 --> 01:04:41.000
Rava said,

01:04:41.000 --> 01:04:48.000
nevertheless, their acceptance of her was confirmed in the days

01:04:48.000 --> 01:04:51.000
of Ahashevarosh.

01:04:51.000 --> 01:04:53.000
Josh Farage has imploring.

01:04:53.000 --> 01:04:54.000
Wait, what?

01:04:54.000 --> 01:04:56.000
King Ahasuerus. So, right, so this is…

01:04:56.000 --> 01:04:58.000
Wait, what?

01:04:58.000 --> 01:05:05.000
So maybe it was a chuppa, or maybe God hung it over our heads and said, I'm gonna kill you with this mountain if you don't say yes.

01:05:05.000 --> 01:05:09.000
That would be a caveat to our acceptance of Torah in the sense of…

01:05:09.000 --> 01:05:11.000
Why, why, why lawyer? Why lawyer?

01:05:11.000 --> 01:05:12.000
Thank you, David, my lawyers, what's the problem?

01:05:12.000 --> 01:05:16.000
Yeah, why would that be problematic?

01:05:16.000 --> 01:05:19.000
I'm gonna make you do this thing at gunpoint.

01:05:19.000 --> 01:05:22.000
But that… you have free will, right?

01:05:22.000 --> 01:05:24.000
Say yes.

01:05:24.000 --> 01:05:25.000
Say yes or I'll shoot you.

01:05:25.000 --> 01:05:29.000
It's under…

01:05:29.000 --> 01:05:30.000
the greatest.

01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:31.000
Under duress. Great duress.

01:05:31.000 --> 01:05:33.000
You're welcome.

01:05:33.000 --> 01:05:37.000
Hang on a second. We are to the indirect.

01:05:37.000 --> 01:05:40.000
covenantal relationship with God.

01:05:40.000 --> 01:05:44.000
You are the one.

01:05:44.000 --> 01:05:46.000
Everyone's there.

01:05:46.000 --> 01:05:50.000
It's under duress. Wait, what?

01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:52.000
We have a problem.

01:05:52.000 --> 01:05:55.000
Maybe sometimes?

01:05:55.000 --> 01:06:00.000
It can feel that way, right? Midrash come out of human feelings.

01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:07.000
And what's the problem with covenant if it isn't voluntary?

01:06:07.000 --> 01:06:11.000
We've got a world of traditions saying…

01:06:11.000 --> 01:06:13.000
Everything is given.

01:06:13.000 --> 01:06:15.000
Everything is known, except…

01:06:15.000 --> 01:06:18.000
Our love of God.

01:06:18.000 --> 01:06:20.000
That's up to us. God can't…

01:06:20.000 --> 01:06:22.000
force that.

01:06:22.000 --> 01:06:25.000
What is the role of covenantalism?

01:06:25.000 --> 01:06:26.000
How much free will is built in?

01:06:26.000 --> 01:06:30.000
Meredith writes mutuality. Yep, you gotta want…

01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:32.000
to be doing it, otherwise…

01:06:32.000 --> 01:06:34.000
I see divorce in the…

01:06:34.000 --> 01:06:37.000
spiritual future.

01:06:37.000 --> 01:06:45.000
And that happens sometimes people leave spiritual community, people leave spirituality, period.

01:06:45.000 --> 01:06:49.000
Have you ever noticed that people who join Judaism?

01:06:49.000 --> 01:06:53.000
sometimes are the ones who are…

01:06:53.000 --> 01:06:55.000
most in.

01:06:55.000 --> 01:06:59.000
Because they made a choice to be. James is adding in the chat,

01:06:59.000 --> 01:07:00.000
Covenant with coercion is called domination.

01:07:00.000 --> 01:07:02.000
That's true of all.

01:07:02.000 --> 01:07:07.000
Right. That's not the relationship with God that we want.

01:07:07.000 --> 01:07:08.000
And so our people… go ahead, someone.

01:07:08.000 --> 01:07:13.000
Um, that's… That's true of all, um, conversion.

01:07:13.000 --> 01:07:17.000
Folks, you know, because you're choosing, because you're choosing.

01:07:17.000 --> 01:07:21.000
Right, exactly. And so here we are.

01:07:21.000 --> 01:07:22.000
Gotcha.

01:07:22.000 --> 01:07:28.000
But I have a… Um… It flew out of my mind. I'll let you know if it comes back.

01:07:28.000 --> 01:07:29.000
She'll come back, yeah.

01:07:29.000 --> 01:07:33.000
I want to look at the Purim connection, because Purim is up next on our docket, holiday-wise.

01:07:33.000 --> 01:07:36.000
Yeah, yeah. So, what…

01:07:36.000 --> 01:07:37.000
Yes, got it. Go.

01:07:37.000 --> 01:07:39.000
Oh, I know what it was. Sorry. Um, yeah, that, uh, in services.

01:07:39.000 --> 01:07:42.000
Hi, Sarah, you're welcome here.

01:07:42.000 --> 01:08:05.000
In services, we are told that, um. Not to have idols, because we are the image. We are the energy of God. We… We are God in that way, correct? So, with that knowledge, we're basically just saying that some of these people, if they're not accepting that.

01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:12.000
It's either self-hatred. Or such ignorance.

01:08:12.000 --> 01:08:22.000
That they don't get it. So maybe you could just say more about what you said last night about this, because it's not… I'm not saying it very clearly.

01:08:22.000 --> 01:08:25.000
But, um, yeah.

01:08:25.000 --> 01:08:30.000
Hang on to it for a moment, Cheryl. Let's… let's fix, let's solve.

01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:33.000
The exegetical column.

01:08:33.000 --> 01:08:36.000
And then we'll see what comes back, okay?

01:08:36.000 --> 01:08:40.000
Let's see what stays.

01:08:40.000 --> 01:08:43.000
So, Talmud is saying…

01:08:43.000 --> 01:08:45.000
It's a chuppah. Oh, no, wait.

01:08:45.000 --> 01:08:49.000
We're immersed in the mountain. Oh.

01:08:49.000 --> 01:08:53.000
There's this big wage being held over our heads, saying,

01:08:53.000 --> 01:08:59.000
Say yes, say yes, say yes. It's so important that we all be there.

01:08:59.000 --> 01:09:04.000
Say yes.

01:09:04.000 --> 01:09:10.000
And so our ancestors are expressing a fundamental concern about the nature of spirituality and equality.

01:09:10.000 --> 01:09:15.000
right between us and divinity.

01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:18.000
We've all experienced that sometimes.

01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:23.000
Do we feel equal to God? What is that… what do those words even mean? I mean, how heuristic is that? And at the same time,

01:09:23.000 --> 01:09:26.000
Does that mean that we're not free to…

01:09:26.000 --> 01:09:31.000
you know, give God one. We have to use the words in the book because they're given by people who are

01:09:31.000 --> 01:09:34.000
writing the words in the book, that's not what Nachman…

01:09:34.000 --> 01:09:37.000
talked about. That's not what Debbie Friedman's saying.

01:09:37.000 --> 01:09:40.000
Yeah, just… just, uh…

01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:44.000
You are the one for this I pray.

01:09:44.000 --> 01:09:48.000
And let my words come forth like water.

01:09:48.000 --> 01:09:52.000
No exceptions, no restrictions.

01:09:52.000 --> 01:09:55.000
Welcome, Sarah.

01:09:55.000 --> 01:10:00.000
And so, our ancestors are expressing something very fundamental about the nature of human spirituality,

01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:02.000
Now we've gotta answer it.

01:10:02.000 --> 01:10:05.000
And if it doesn't come from within the text,

01:10:05.000 --> 01:10:08.000
And if it doesn't come from ourselves.

01:10:08.000 --> 01:10:11.000
then we're not going to be able to answer it.

01:10:11.000 --> 01:10:14.000
what our people did.

01:10:14.000 --> 01:10:16.000
is they plugged in Quorum.

01:10:16.000 --> 01:10:21.000
Most of us know Torim as…

01:10:21.000 --> 01:10:26.000
Jewish Halloween.

01:10:26.000 --> 01:10:28.000
a little bit of misogyny turned upside down.

01:10:28.000 --> 01:10:31.000
a little bit of everything turned upside down.

01:10:31.000 --> 01:10:38.000
Hey, Esther, want to touch my scepter? I mean, it's right on the nose.

01:10:38.000 --> 01:10:41.000
Yet, the end of the book of Esther.

01:10:41.000 --> 01:10:46.000
To reach the part in red.

01:10:46.000 --> 01:10:49.000
figure out what the rabbis did with it and why.

01:10:49.000 --> 01:11:03.000
Who hasn't had a chance to read it, maybe wants to.

01:11:03.000 --> 01:11:13.000
Because Haman, son of Hamdah the Agagite. tormentor of all the Jews plotted to destroy the Jews and cast poor.

01:11:13.000 --> 01:11:16.000
That is, the lot to crush and exterminate them.

01:11:16.000 --> 01:11:26.000
But when Esther came before the king, he commanded, with this decree, Let the evil plot which Haman devised against the Jews recoil on his own head.

01:11:26.000 --> 01:11:34.000
So they hanged Haman and his sons on the tree. For that reason, these days were named Purim after the poor.

01:11:34.000 --> 01:11:41.000
Thus, on all the instructions in this decree. And what they experienced by it, and what befell them.

01:11:41.000 --> 01:11:52.000
The Jews raised and received. on themselves and on their descendants, and all who might accompany them to observe these two days as written.

01:11:52.000 --> 01:11:57.000
in their time from year to year. Never to disappear.

01:11:57.000 --> 01:12:08.000
These days will be remembered and observed. From generation to generation by each family, in every land, and in every city, so these days of Purim will never pass from amidst the Jews.

01:12:08.000 --> 01:12:11.000
And then memory will never end among their descendants.

01:12:11.000 --> 01:12:23.000
There, that solves the problem, nozzle tough.

01:12:23.000 --> 01:12:25.000
did not exist.

01:12:25.000 --> 01:12:27.000
in Torah.

01:12:27.000 --> 01:12:28.000
Not even to chronicka, by the way.

01:12:28.000 --> 01:12:35.000
Right. They're both much later holidays.

01:12:35.000 --> 01:12:37.000
Which itself is kind of fundamental.

01:12:37.000 --> 01:12:39.000
I thought God.

01:12:39.000 --> 01:12:41.000
chorus at the sacred calendar.

01:12:41.000 --> 01:12:44.000
some of it!

01:12:44.000 --> 01:12:46.000
Uh-oh.

01:12:46.000 --> 01:12:50.000
Some of it was us.

01:12:50.000 --> 01:12:59.000
So, are they raising… that crushingness… thing that we were talking about before that.

01:12:59.000 --> 01:13:05.000
Yeah, even more.

01:13:05.000 --> 01:13:06.000
They res…

01:13:06.000 --> 01:13:07.000
That… And then deciding… and then deciding to accept.

01:13:07.000 --> 01:13:08.000
Yes!

01:13:08.000 --> 01:13:09.000
They've received it upon themselves.

01:13:09.000 --> 01:13:12.000
On their own.

01:13:12.000 --> 01:13:17.000
Which is also language we use for receiving Torah.

01:13:17.000 --> 01:13:19.000
Absolutely.

01:13:19.000 --> 01:13:20.000
Making the choice. themselves.

01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:25.000
You know, I don't believe that Torah really says chosen at all.

01:13:25.000 --> 01:13:28.000
I think it's a mistranslation, but let's go with it for a second.

01:13:28.000 --> 01:13:31.000
We essentially chose to be chosen.

01:13:31.000 --> 01:13:39.000
We essentially chose the covenant that even if it were forced on us, we nevertheless accepted it at the time

01:13:39.000 --> 01:13:43.000
of the whole Esther-Morda, phosphorose came in thing.

01:13:43.000 --> 01:13:47.000
So if we hadn't really accepted it before, we accepted it again.

01:13:47.000 --> 01:13:50.000
Why is that important?

01:13:50.000 --> 01:13:54.000
Why do we care, aside from the fact that the next full moon is this?

01:13:54.000 --> 01:14:00.000
is poor. So it's well-timed. Thank you, Torah.

01:14:00.000 --> 01:14:03.000
Why is this important?

01:14:03.000 --> 01:14:08.000
This is all about who's there and under what circumstances.

01:14:08.000 --> 01:14:14.000
Because if you want to have a covenant. It's got to be both sides.

01:14:14.000 --> 01:14:22.000
Yeah. Yeah.

01:14:22.000 --> 01:14:28.000
It is a liberation.

01:14:28.000 --> 01:14:32.000
Lord God does not appear in the book of Esther, not once.

01:14:32.000 --> 01:14:35.000
the Protestant and Catholic versions.

01:14:35.000 --> 01:14:41.000
And there are different versions. Insert God. But if you look at the original Jewish version,

01:14:41.000 --> 01:14:47.000
God does not make a direct appearance. Ain't there.

01:14:47.000 --> 01:14:49.000
Not once.

01:14:49.000 --> 01:14:53.000
Which is maybe a way of signaling that…

01:14:53.000 --> 01:14:55.000
God is so…

01:14:55.000 --> 01:14:59.000
permeating the text and the story that we don't even need

01:14:59.000 --> 01:15:03.000
The words, because God is just

01:15:03.000 --> 01:15:04.000
care. God is…

01:15:04.000 --> 01:15:05.000
there. One idea.

01:15:05.000 --> 01:15:06.000
Yeah.

01:15:06.000 --> 01:15:11.000
Another idea is that the quorum is where we have to… Purim…

01:15:11.000 --> 01:15:14.000
We lift ourselves out of…

01:15:14.000 --> 01:15:17.000
everything out of this constriction.

01:15:17.000 --> 01:15:21.000
And a month later, at Pesach, once again, God lifts us out.

01:15:21.000 --> 01:15:22.000
Sometimes it's us, sometimes it's God.

01:15:22.000 --> 01:15:24.000
What is…

01:15:24.000 --> 01:15:29.000
Okay, the queen of the Jews, this is poor.

01:15:29.000 --> 01:15:35.000
trivia. Her name was…

01:15:35.000 --> 01:15:37.000
Hadassah!

01:15:37.000 --> 01:15:40.000
Yes! But we don't know her as Hadassah, we will…

01:15:40.000 --> 01:15:44.000
And we know her as…

01:15:44.000 --> 01:15:47.000
Esther, which sounds a lot like…

01:15:47.000 --> 01:15:48.000
Hester, with that.

01:15:48.000 --> 01:15:50.000
Yes.

01:15:50.000 --> 01:15:54.000
Esther funding, the spiritual condition of…

01:15:54.000 --> 01:15:57.000
the secreting, the concealment of the faces.

01:15:57.000 --> 01:16:01.000
that God is concealed in the book of Esther.

01:16:01.000 --> 01:16:04.000
Esther hurt her own identity itself is concealed.

01:16:04.000 --> 01:16:11.000
Because… they don't know she's jealous.

01:16:11.000 --> 01:16:14.000
that maybe God is playing the role

01:16:14.000 --> 01:16:17.000
Um, you know, the hidden hand.

01:16:17.000 --> 01:16:24.000
That, as Cheryl wrote in the text, maybe

01:16:24.000 --> 01:16:28.000
Maybe Esther is the indwelling presence of God.

01:16:28.000 --> 01:16:31.000
that may be the liberation through Haman.

01:16:31.000 --> 01:16:36.000
talk about holding a mountain over your head.

01:16:36.000 --> 01:16:42.000
was affected by God. He affected with me by God.

01:16:42.000 --> 01:16:46.000
Where is God holding a mountain over our heads?

01:16:46.000 --> 01:16:51.000
What God is doing is using liberation.

01:16:51.000 --> 01:16:54.000
As the glue of the covenant.

01:16:54.000 --> 01:16:57.000
And Iris just gripped her heart.

01:16:57.000 --> 01:17:01.000
what just happened, Iris?

01:17:01.000 --> 01:17:13.000
I feel very touched by this, that. Um, liberation… It's… it's our choice. It's like… Given contextually and invitation.

01:17:13.000 --> 01:17:21.000
But it's also our choice. To participating in the covenant, then we're choosing.

01:17:21.000 --> 01:17:28.000
liberation and to behave. to behave and live.

01:17:28.000 --> 01:17:29.000
Right.

01:17:29.000 --> 01:17:31.000
Um, our way of being in the world is, um… And live those qualities.

01:17:31.000 --> 01:17:32.000
Yeah.

01:17:32.000 --> 01:17:35.000
I also… thank you. I really was very touched by that.

01:17:35.000 --> 01:17:42.000
I'm also wondering, isn't there a connection between Purim and Yom?

01:17:42.000 --> 01:17:43.000
Yes, there is!

01:17:43.000 --> 01:17:44.000
And I'm trying to…

01:17:44.000 --> 01:17:50.000
Yom Ha Kippurim is the formal name for Yom Kippur, which could also be read as

01:17:50.000 --> 01:17:52.000
Yom… k.

01:17:52.000 --> 01:17:54.000
Hurim, a day like

01:17:54.000 --> 01:17:58.000
Purim, and it is said in our tradition that…

01:17:58.000 --> 01:18:04.000
After Mashiach comes, when the world is perfect, the only holiday that we will still keep is Purim.

01:18:04.000 --> 01:18:05.000
Yeah. Yeah.

01:18:05.000 --> 01:18:07.000
That's a whole nother class, though.

01:18:07.000 --> 01:18:08.000
Let's keep going.

01:18:08.000 --> 01:18:13.000
Let's, let's leave that also until after 11.30. So, so now, this is something about liberation.

01:18:13.000 --> 01:18:18.000
We've already been freed, literally, from Egypt now. We have to be freed.

01:18:18.000 --> 01:18:20.000
from bondage. That's going to involve

01:18:20.000 --> 01:18:25.000
and people, and collective identity.

01:18:25.000 --> 01:18:28.000
Everybody had to be in the women, the men.

01:18:28.000 --> 01:18:30.000
Everybody had to be in

01:18:30.000 --> 01:18:32.000
If Moses freelanced…

01:18:32.000 --> 01:18:37.000
That wasn't for the purpose of keeping them here, that was for the purpose of bringing them here.

01:18:37.000 --> 01:18:39.000
That was for the purpose of

01:18:39.000 --> 01:18:42.000
named… whatever.

01:18:42.000 --> 01:18:44.000
Sinaiites…

01:18:44.000 --> 01:18:47.000
Death was around that.

01:18:47.000 --> 01:18:51.000
And even if Sinai was held over our head, then we were

01:18:51.000 --> 01:18:56.000
Taktitahar.

01:18:56.000 --> 01:18:59.000
Even if it wasn't quite…

01:18:59.000 --> 01:19:03.000
Covenantal in the voluntary sense. If you've ever raised children

01:19:03.000 --> 01:19:09.000
Odds are pretty good. You know that not everything is voluntary, let's just face it.

01:19:09.000 --> 01:19:12.000
But as they grow up,

01:19:12.000 --> 01:19:19.000
They took it on themselves. They remitted that. They entered into voluntary covenant.

01:19:19.000 --> 01:19:23.000
Now the question, if that's for liberation, how is it done?

01:19:23.000 --> 01:19:29.000
Is it just, I'm God, you are not? Let's eat?

01:19:29.000 --> 01:19:32.000
A hint comes in Exodus 19.

01:19:32.000 --> 01:19:38.000
Deanna, hang tight with me. And Sinai was entirely smoke.

01:19:38.000 --> 01:19:43.000
Because God descended onto it.

01:19:43.000 --> 01:19:45.000
Picture that. I mean, just…

01:19:45.000 --> 01:19:47.000
get our brains around this.

01:19:47.000 --> 01:19:49.000
talk about cinematic.

01:19:49.000 --> 01:19:57.000
How does God descend if God? If God is not, you know, if God is not an orange, how does God descend onto Sinai?

01:19:57.000 --> 01:20:01.000
James writes, it's all part of the formative process. Okay, what's going on here?

01:20:01.000 --> 01:20:04.000
And the whole mountain is a little… trembling.

01:20:04.000 --> 01:20:10.000
Mount Sinai was entirely slow. How could Mount Sinai be entirely small? He just got done saying, it's a big rock!

01:20:10.000 --> 01:20:14.000
Did it turn to smoke?

01:20:14.000 --> 01:20:21.000
There's so… and what does this have to do with liberation?

01:20:21.000 --> 01:20:28.000
Can I just say that smoke maybe means that its edges were, like, you couldn't actually see it defined?

01:20:28.000 --> 01:20:30.000
Okay, on the shore. Sure.

01:20:30.000 --> 01:20:37.000
That's us really meaning into it, but the text itself actually doesn't say that. It was small kashalot.

01:20:37.000 --> 01:20:38.000
Yeah.

01:20:38.000 --> 01:20:40.000
Does it say… does it say kill?

01:20:40.000 --> 01:20:42.000
It does. It says it kills like the lake.

01:20:42.000 --> 01:20:44.000
I speak to that. May I speak to that very briefly?

01:20:44.000 --> 01:20:46.000
Please hang up!

01:20:46.000 --> 01:20:49.000
As someone who has made pottery,

01:20:49.000 --> 01:20:54.000
You need the kill, you need the fire, the enclosed fire of the kill,

01:20:54.000 --> 01:20:58.000
to harden the soft clay into something that is

01:20:58.000 --> 01:21:02.000
usable, durable, a vessel.

01:21:02.000 --> 01:21:06.000
Absolutely, there's something alchemical going on here.

01:21:06.000 --> 01:21:09.000
to transform us.

01:21:09.000 --> 01:21:11.000
I need to do a little bit of woo-woo with you.

01:21:11.000 --> 01:21:14.000
Got a little… Hmm.

01:21:14.000 --> 01:21:15.000
Rachel, you want to do it? Bring us through.

01:21:15.000 --> 01:21:19.000
Oh, no, go ahead, go ahead, I just, I was gonna say, I would love to get to Zolman…

01:21:19.000 --> 01:21:20.000
But I don't know if we can.

01:21:20.000 --> 01:21:23.000
Yeah, yeah, no, we can. We're gonna do it.

01:21:23.000 --> 01:21:26.000
We're gonna do it. We started a little late, bear with us, everyone.

01:21:26.000 --> 01:21:28.000
So, I'll gloss.

01:21:28.000 --> 01:21:34.000
the Aramaic translator of the time wrote this, and you're just translating directly the entire Mount Sinai was, as you know,

01:21:34.000 --> 01:21:36.000
Enveloped in smoke.

01:21:36.000 --> 01:21:39.000
Because literally, if I revealed…

01:21:39.000 --> 01:21:41.000
High descent.

01:21:41.000 --> 01:21:46.000
Reviewed by dissent.

01:21:46.000 --> 01:21:48.000
Mystics among us, this…

01:21:48.000 --> 01:21:51.000
makes sense.

01:21:51.000 --> 01:21:55.000
Non-mystics among us. This is a word.

01:21:55.000 --> 01:21:58.000
Salad.

01:21:58.000 --> 01:22:01.000
God cannot descend.

01:22:01.000 --> 01:22:04.000
Anymore.

01:22:04.000 --> 01:22:10.000
And, you know, this orange is God.

01:22:10.000 --> 01:22:13.000
What's happening, rather, is that some energy, some…

01:22:13.000 --> 01:22:15.000
some titration of infinitude.

01:22:15.000 --> 01:22:19.000
is moving into the finite.

01:22:19.000 --> 01:22:25.000
Because we just don't have words for that.

01:22:25.000 --> 01:22:28.000
And in response, the smoke is gonna rise up like the smoke of a furnace, okay?

01:22:28.000 --> 01:22:32.000
So what does it mean, just to clean up?

01:22:32.000 --> 01:22:36.000
For something to be entirely slow. I shall love.

01:22:36.000 --> 01:22:38.000
The safer you'd see, huh?

01:22:38.000 --> 01:22:43.000
Mystic books of ancient Judaism.

01:22:43.000 --> 01:22:47.000
It's gonna play a little game. A shun is the Hebrew.

01:22:47.000 --> 01:22:54.000
For smoking.

01:22:54.000 --> 01:22:57.000
This is actually an acronym.

01:22:57.000 --> 01:23:04.000
I'm sorry, is an acronym? Yeah, it's an acronym.

01:23:04.000 --> 01:23:06.000
Neffesh.

01:23:06.000 --> 01:23:09.000
I mentioned, entirely smoke.

01:23:09.000 --> 01:23:12.000
But this is the totality of God.

01:23:12.000 --> 01:23:13.000
Stateful witness to divinity.

01:23:13.000 --> 01:23:20.000
It occurs in 3 axes and 3 dimensions.

01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:24.000
space…

01:23:24.000 --> 01:23:29.000
change, which happens only in time.

01:23:29.000 --> 01:23:34.000
The axis of Nefesh, her soul.

01:23:34.000 --> 01:23:36.000
Divinity.

01:23:36.000 --> 01:23:38.000
of Sinai.

01:23:38.000 --> 01:23:41.000
is a spiritual singularity.

01:23:41.000 --> 01:23:44.000
in which space? Time…

01:23:44.000 --> 01:23:48.000
And so… you…

01:23:48.000 --> 01:23:54.000
And suddenly, all of our language goes…

01:23:54.000 --> 01:23:56.000
And some people go…

01:23:56.000 --> 01:24:02.000
And as we talked about in services yesterday, the first word, the first sound out of the

01:24:02.000 --> 01:24:06.000
mouth of God was…

01:24:06.000 --> 01:24:09.000
But the silence before that.

01:24:09.000 --> 01:24:16.000
I'm walking. Aye.

01:24:16.000 --> 01:24:18.000
That singularity.

01:24:18.000 --> 01:24:22.000
of space-time soul being as a becomingness.

01:24:22.000 --> 01:24:25.000
If we really get it.

01:24:25.000 --> 01:24:29.000
is deliberation.

01:24:29.000 --> 01:24:31.000
I'm gonna say it again.

01:24:31.000 --> 01:24:36.000
unification of space, time, and spirit.

01:24:36.000 --> 01:24:40.000
is deliberation.

01:24:40.000 --> 01:24:43.000
Where am I?

01:24:43.000 --> 01:24:48.000
track of time, because time lacks meaning. When we do so in soul space.

01:24:48.000 --> 01:24:50.000
The sunset that takes our breath away.

01:24:50.000 --> 01:24:53.000
Because…

01:24:53.000 --> 01:24:57.000
It's all soul.

01:24:57.000 --> 01:25:00.000
That is…

01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:02.000
the Sinai experience.

01:25:02.000 --> 01:25:06.000
It's both liberation and the revelation.

01:25:06.000 --> 01:25:08.000
And they are together.

01:25:08.000 --> 01:25:12.000
They can hear in each other. You cannot be…

01:25:12.000 --> 01:25:14.000
without being revealed to him.

01:25:14.000 --> 01:25:21.000
come together. The second you get that.

01:25:21.000 --> 01:25:24.000
And when we fall out of knowing that,

01:25:24.000 --> 01:25:25.000
Which we do every day.

01:25:25.000 --> 01:25:28.000
Life, which we do all the time,

01:25:28.000 --> 01:25:32.000
Liberation can become constriction.

01:25:32.000 --> 01:25:37.000
There's no revelation without interpretation, Judith Plaskett.

01:25:37.000 --> 01:25:42.000
the process of all of this, interpreting this, becoming this, being this, it is ongoing.

01:25:42.000 --> 01:25:45.000
How can it not be?

01:25:45.000 --> 01:25:49.000
We have this on us now.

01:25:49.000 --> 01:25:53.000
Words reverberating behind the silence behind that initial…

01:25:53.000 --> 01:26:00.000
I am.

01:26:00.000 --> 01:26:03.000
This was the precondition.

01:26:03.000 --> 01:26:09.000
For the Ten Commandments. This was the prep for the Ten Commandments. Everybody in

01:26:09.000 --> 01:26:13.000
Covenantalism. Sensus scrambled.

01:26:13.000 --> 01:26:18.000
Restoring some measure of volume tourism, it had to be.

01:26:18.000 --> 01:26:22.000
And coming out of it, ultimately understanding.

01:26:22.000 --> 01:26:24.000
That space, time, spirit,

01:26:24.000 --> 01:26:38.000
It's all one. Spiritually speaking, I know we experience that even for a second,

01:26:38.000 --> 01:26:41.000
Here comes all the hands.

01:26:41.000 --> 01:26:44.000
Welcome to Rabbi Rachel, you want to get dissolving.

01:26:44.000 --> 01:26:54.000
Um, what I would love to just read the Zollman piece to y'all so that we have it as the seal on what we're bringing forward, and then there will be much discussion of many kinds.

01:26:54.000 --> 01:26:56.000
Does that sound good?

01:26:56.000 --> 01:27:00.000
So, full disclosure, this… I wrote this down…

01:27:00.000 --> 01:27:02.000
After hearing it at 4 in the morning,

01:27:02.000 --> 01:27:04.000
The year that my son was one,

01:27:04.000 --> 01:27:09.000
at a Shavuot retreat where we were studying Torah all night, and Rav Zalman was teaching at 4.

01:27:09.000 --> 01:27:12.000
And here is what I remembered

01:27:12.000 --> 01:27:14.000
of what he said.

01:27:14.000 --> 01:27:20.000
Here, my son, the Musar, the self-improvement teachings of your father, but don't forget the Torah of your mother.

01:27:20.000 --> 01:27:21.000
It's from Proverb.

01:27:21.000 --> 01:27:27.000
I'm sorry, this was that whole male-female…

01:27:27.000 --> 01:27:28.000
Right, right.

01:27:28.000 --> 01:27:29.000
piece that we've been talking about all this time, and it does expression in Proverbs,

01:27:29.000 --> 01:27:30.000
Right.

01:27:30.000 --> 01:27:32.000
how he's gonna bring that through both of them.

01:27:32.000 --> 01:27:35.000
cleanup, I was far left from male, female, they all had to be there.

01:27:35.000 --> 01:27:36.000
keep going.

01:27:36.000 --> 01:27:38.000
Hear the musar of your father,

01:27:38.000 --> 01:27:45.000
And the Torah of your mother, this was his big theme, although he devoted from it and returned repeatedly.

01:27:45.000 --> 01:27:48.000
When I heard the phrase, the Torah of our mother,

01:27:48.000 --> 01:27:55.000
I immediately thought of how, over the last few decades, we've been adding women's voices to the tradition. Female halachists, female midrashists,

01:27:55.000 --> 01:28:01.000
The perspectives and stories of Jewish women, which were for so long absent from the recorded tradition.

01:28:01.000 --> 01:28:05.000
But Reb Zalman meant something deeper than just this.

01:28:05.000 --> 01:28:09.000
He talked about what he called masculine consciousness, which is punctive,

01:28:09.000 --> 01:28:12.000
formed of points on a line,

01:28:12.000 --> 01:28:17.000
And feminine consciousness, which takes slow change into account.

01:28:17.000 --> 01:28:25.000
To be clear, all of us can have both of these. I'm not saying Rabbi David has one kind of brain and I have the other, right? We all have both

01:28:25.000 --> 01:28:30.000
punctive and evolving forms of consciousness.

01:28:30.000 --> 01:28:33.000
In this era, we particularly need

01:28:33.000 --> 01:28:37.000
the evolving kind of consciousness, the quote-unquote feminine,

01:28:37.000 --> 01:28:42.000
An awareness of how our community's spiritual needs have shifted as we've changed and grown.

01:28:42.000 --> 01:28:44.000
We need the Torah of our mother.

01:28:44.000 --> 01:28:47.000
He spoke about Torah that comes down like rain,

01:28:47.000 --> 01:28:54.000
Which is wordplay, because Torah comes from a word for driving rainfall, and Torah that rises up like dew

01:28:54.000 --> 01:29:02.000
Do, in our tradition, is a symbol for grace, and he linked dew with the Torah of our mother, as well as the Torah of our mother planet.

01:29:02.000 --> 01:29:07.000
We need to receive and be open to the Torah of our Mother in this era.

01:29:07.000 --> 01:29:12.000
In order that someday we may be able to read both the black fire of the letters of Torah,

01:29:12.000 --> 01:29:15.000
And the white fire of the spaces between them.

01:29:15.000 --> 01:29:22.000
To see and to value both figure and ground.

01:29:22.000 --> 01:29:27.000
So, little wisdom from Reb Zalman on what it means that

01:29:27.000 --> 01:29:33.000
Torah is not just for one gender, or one component of us, it's for…

01:29:33.000 --> 01:29:36.000
the evolving whole of us.

01:29:36.000 --> 01:29:39.000
And therefore, so too…

01:29:39.000 --> 01:29:46.000
The divinity to whom we attribute revelation.

01:29:46.000 --> 01:29:48.000
It's important that Shekhena…

01:29:48.000 --> 01:29:53.000
showed up. It's important.

01:29:53.000 --> 01:29:58.000
That all of the senses were scrambled into one.

01:29:58.000 --> 01:30:01.000
that the space-time continuum

01:30:01.000 --> 01:30:03.000
reached a singularity.

01:30:03.000 --> 01:30:05.000
the tour of Star Trek.

01:30:05.000 --> 01:30:11.000
It's important.

01:30:11.000 --> 01:30:13.000
To the extent

01:30:13.000 --> 01:30:18.000
that sometimes… and it's easy for me to say this,

01:30:18.000 --> 01:30:21.000
sometimes, aspects of tradition.

01:30:21.000 --> 01:30:24.000
I've forgotten this.

01:30:24.000 --> 01:30:31.000
raised with it, that our laws and our practices don't necessarily reflect it.

01:30:31.000 --> 01:30:36.000
That's the aberration.

01:30:36.000 --> 01:30:41.000
What you're seeing here is Judaism 101, not in the respect of basic.

01:30:41.000 --> 01:30:45.000
their respective original.

01:30:45.000 --> 01:30:47.000
There was nothing here.

01:30:47.000 --> 01:30:49.000
to separate women out.

01:30:49.000 --> 01:30:52.000
Nothing. To the contrary.

01:30:52.000 --> 01:30:57.000
It was fortunately necessary.

01:30:57.000 --> 01:31:00.000
That we can all be all in.

01:31:00.000 --> 01:31:04.000
To the extent that we have departed from some of that.

01:31:04.000 --> 01:31:08.000
It is our task to fix it.

01:31:08.000 --> 01:31:17.000
to hear the Torah of our mothers.

01:31:17.000 --> 01:31:22.000
We have some bonus texts, we've got…

01:31:22.000 --> 01:31:26.000
some poetry. We've got…

01:31:26.000 --> 01:31:29.000
A spiffy little midrash about, uh,

01:31:29.000 --> 01:31:34.000
what Moses did with the commandment to avoid women?

01:31:34.000 --> 01:31:37.000
So, we're going to put this back in the text.

01:31:37.000 --> 01:31:38.000
In the chat box.

01:31:38.000 --> 01:31:40.000
the chat box.

01:31:40.000 --> 01:31:44.000
We are going to be with you next week.

01:31:44.000 --> 01:31:50.000
Both back, I believe. Um, of course, immediately after Sinai, what do you get?

01:31:50.000 --> 01:31:53.000
a bunch of laws.

01:31:53.000 --> 01:31:55.000
Back in the wildlands, Mishpatim.

01:31:55.000 --> 01:31:57.000
judgments.

01:31:57.000 --> 01:32:01.000
And so, we're going to go into all of that.

01:32:01.000 --> 01:32:04.000
make our way in the desert.

01:32:04.000 --> 01:32:09.000
Eventually, we're gonna kind of mess up those Ten Commandments a little bit.

01:32:09.000 --> 01:32:12.000
We'll learn what it's like.

01:32:12.000 --> 01:32:17.000
After the break-in. Because once you break it, it doesn't mean it's over.

01:32:17.000 --> 01:32:21.000
Covenantalism is not about one and done.

01:32:21.000 --> 01:32:24.000
It's about relationship.

01:32:24.000 --> 01:32:26.000
So thank you, everybody, for being here today.

01:32:26.000 --> 01:32:27.000
Thanks, Fred.

01:32:27.000 --> 01:32:29.000
For bringing your hearts to all of this.

01:32:29.000 --> 01:32:33.000
materials are back in the chat box as we've amended them.

01:32:33.000 --> 01:32:36.000
And thank you, Rabbi Rachel, for joining us.

01:32:36.000 --> 01:32:39.000
I'm gonna stop the recording, and we're gonna stay on.

01:32:39.000 --> 01:32:40.000
I know there's a bunch that wants to come, Shabbat Shalom, everyone.

01:32:40.000 --> 01:32:43.000
Good