WEBVTT

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Shabbat salam, everybody, it is the…

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First Soul Spa after.

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Passover, the ninth day of…

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from there.

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or revelations from Passover decision.

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Poppin' names…

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We'll take a moment to let those come.

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And as the names come…

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Healing from homelessness and spirit.

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are God eternal sovereign.

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Who sanctified us in God's midst of us.

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He commanded us to busy ourselves.

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We are making our way through the book.

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We have spent time

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sacrificial system, which is

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insurance offerings.

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We've talked about two states.

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of spiritual condition.

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to state, which in English is rendered as pure, but it's not about ivory soap.

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state, which is really about being charged up.

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tame or tuna.

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to see that play out.

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What Torah tells us is the death.

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And we're gonna take a bit of a different take.

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Zoom user, you are welcome all at home, Marcy.

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But Pamina Adelman. Edelman? Adelman? Who knows?

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someone like you read.

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Thank you, Delia.

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Edelman.

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Always changing. Changing always. Nothing stays the same.

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Prepare for the sharp turn, the deep drop. the meteoric rise. A child breathes, stops breathing.

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Breathes, stops breathing. The sacred offering is acceptable. The sacred offering is unacceptable.

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I know what God wants from me. I don't know. I know what I want from myself.

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I don't know. I laugh, question. I weep, question, laugh, weep, laugh, weep, laugh.

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Sometimes not much.

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Does this speak to anyone today?

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Let me just check out the screens again.

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And it's my birthday, Parsha. Thank you.

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Especially by the end of our discussion today, Ms.

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have, uh…

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sense to it.

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Sure. All right, we have 5 chunks of Torah this morning, so we need 5 readers.

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Would five people please unmute, and…

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Give us these paragraphs out loud.

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We'll see what pops for us.

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We're a small group today, so thanks to everyone.

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I can envision it. There we go.

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Can you make it just a little larger? Is it possible? I mean, I've a perfect. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

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Yeah, that helps… that does help.

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Aaron lifted his hands to the nation and blessed them. He descended from performing each Ola for sin.

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purgation and peace. Moshe and Aaron went into the tent of witnessing. Then came out and blessed the nation.

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And the glory of Yun-Hevav-Heh appeared to all the nation.

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Fire came forth from beforeh and consumed each. Ola, and fat parts on the altar.

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all the nation saw, shouted, and fell on their faces.

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Her own sons, Nadav and Abihu, each took his fire pan, put fire in it, and placed incense on it. And they, Corbanified before Yud-Heh Vava strange fire that was not commanded them.

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Fire came forth from before Yudhai Vah and consumed them, and they died before Yud-Heh Vavay. Moshe said to Aharon, this is what Yud-Heh Vave spoke, saying, In my close ones, I will be sanctified, and by all the nation I will be glorified.

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in our own silenced.

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Someone else, please.

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Moses called to Misael and El Safan, sons of Urziel.

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A call of Aaron and said to them, Approach.

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I'll leave your brothers from before the Holly of Holies to outside the camp.

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Moshe said to Aaron and to Elazar made them are his sons.

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Do not wild bear your heads, and do not tear your clothes, and you will not die, and anger not strike all the community.

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But you are kin, all the house of Isaiah will bewail the burning that you would have burned.

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Do not go out from the opening of the tent of witnessing, lest you die.

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For the anointing oil of Yud-Heh Vavatneh is on me.

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And they did, as Moshe said.

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He spoke to Aharon, saying, do not drink wine or intoxicant, not you or your sons, when you enter the tent of witnessing, so you will not die.

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It is the eternal law for your generations to distinguish between the holy and the ordinary, and between the tameh and the tahor.

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All right, deep breaths, everybody. That was a lot.

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So, what…

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Are we noticing this morning?

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What in here is saying, Darshani Midrashmi?

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Strange fire!

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Strange fire.

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Yeah, what is that? That's…

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There's nothing is defined here.

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What a strange fire, and why…

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Nobody wants to wait after that.

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Yeah…

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The word actually strange.

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So, Aish Zah.

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Ef Zora.

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Zahn.

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For foreign fire could also be?

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for me.

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Uh-huh.

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As in Avoda Zara, foreign worship?

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alien fire, sometimes it says.

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could be…

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Does it mean like outsider?

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Strange foreign alien outsider…

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unusual…

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weird, weird fire.

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It feels like it could be a band name.

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So…

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James, you're not… you're not speaking up from your, um… your mid-rush.

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And I'll speak it up from the spot I met, which I don't know if you're including in your future in our discussion this day.

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We hear you.

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Yes.

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Am I heard? Am I heard? Oh, oh, good, okay. Um… Because both say.

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it. Yes, it's a death that we mourn, but it was a, um… uh, unifying with Yud-Hey Vavha.

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I know it's… I know that's hard to take. I know, yeah, but yeah.

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Yeah, that's what happened.

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But that's what we say when someone dies. It's a blessing for them to be unified, and we miss them.

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So I'd like to also expound on that a little bit, Julia. My close ones, and I will be sanctified.

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Yeah.

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Um, so… I also have a very hard time with this. Some of it is very personal, because their mother is Ellie Sheva, and that's my Hebrew name.

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Hmm.

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And I, um… I really felt like I started to even write a poem or something about it, like, stunned, the first moment.

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One is stunned in the impossibility of it. And yet.

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Mm-hmm.

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It does say in one of the midrashes that I read, which made it much easier for me, I think.

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that. They were brought to God that their soul, their spirit, their desire.

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Um, was to… to do this. And I know we say in some things that, you know, well, they were drunk, or they weren't themselves, or something was going on, and, you know, sometimes we have to do that for false courage, right? So, if that is the case, maybe that's what they had to do, but.

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that they felt so strongly as sons of Aron, that they wanted to take part in the offering process.

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All right, so I'm…

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I'm… I'm hearing a lot of things.

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that they went and did it.

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their souls were brought to God. Maybe they wanted to draw near.

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a feeling of, this can't be happening, almost a silence in response to the horror of it.

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Um…

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Did they… did they want?

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What was it that they wanted to be doing, and is this what it was?

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that they yearned for.

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What else?

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I'll notice one of the phrases here that jumped out at me, because it's different from the translation that I was using last night at CBI, is…

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And Aaron silenced.

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What does it mean to say that someone silences?

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What's that about?

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What else is…

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Landing with us this morning.

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the silence of Aaron.

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I read this…

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almost as a sense of awe.

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When you have an encounter with…

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with the divine, as did Aaron and…

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Mondavian Vihu. Um…

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It overwhelms you.

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And just that… that experience itself…

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creates a sense of awe, but you just…

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What do you say? How do you respond?

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Right, what words even are there?

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Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's no… the English language is just not up to par for this one, or the Hebrew language, or the Aramaic language, or, you know, whatever.

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I was gonna say, what language is actually up to expressing this kind of experience?

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I'm, um…

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I'm seeing in the chat, Elijah and Metatron were brought to God whole.

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We may have experienced it as death, but it was actually a transition, so that's a…

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Death as transition.

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Oh, and the other… another thing I heard Cheryl mention earlier was maybe we say they were drunk as a way of…

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making this make sense to ourselves, that's sort of rooted in verse 8.

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Do not drink wine or intoxicants, so…

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Maybe what God is saying here is related to what just happened?

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Maybe it's not, we don't know, right? There's no…

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There's no because this, then that.

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I liked what you said, Cheryl, about that, that it gives us an excuse to say, oh, if you want to keep yourself safe, just don't do that.

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you know, it says, you know, how can we prevent this from happening to us? Just be careful.

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How do we keep ourselves safe?

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But I don't… Yeah.

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How do we keep this from happening to us?

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And then again, what does safe mean being in a body?

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Boy, that's a question. Well, Corinne, I see your hand.

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Yeah, what strikes me is that the paradox they come for an offering and it's kind of they are offered.

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This a fire consumes them because supposedly they did something wrong. I don't know. Shifting from a state of impurity to purity, then pur… it's, um… Back and forth.

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And, um… Like, drawing close seems to be kind of threat kind of danger. But at the same time it's a.

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threat, danger, awe, purification, all at the same time.

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James, I see your hand.

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One of the things that came up for me when I studied this

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is the question of unmediated approach.

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And…

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it kind of implies that there is some form of transgression, I realize that.

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But it isn't necessarily that…

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There are many forms of an unmediated approach to anything.

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Whether it's accidental, or…

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It's negligence, or it's even intentional.

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I mean, without that buffer, whatever it may be,

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And I think that we're kind of seeing that here, because…

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Mm-hmm.

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in the text, the interpretation is that there's this fire that's coming from

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from God, and…

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when they're coming to that fire,

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They're not going to it in quite the right way.

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And there's just no two ifs, ands, or buts about it.

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We can't survive it. And they're just like us, so they get engulfed by it.

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You know, they're drawn in by it because they're, you know, unmediated approach.

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Right. Oh, I am seeing… Rabbi David's typing in the sidebar. Is this a penalty? Is it a result? Is this…

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Is this just what happens when… with unmediated approach? Is this a punishment? Is it a…

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Torah doesn't tell us that either.

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We just sort of… we have these facts.

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Which has profound implications, right?

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implications for…

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of this. All of this, all of this, all of this, and what we believe…

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God willing to read about God.

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to God, and who's God relative to us.

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Rabbi David, we're getting a request to put the source sheet in the chat again.

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It's worth noting that we don't know why they did this either.

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Maybe it's a penalty.

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So, I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be a penalty. We don't know why what happened, because it's not told to us.

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You know, that's where we get the whole idea of, you know, they were drunk and so forth.

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Yeah, well…

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So, it may not be a… for all we know, it could be a reward.

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Right, right.

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Which is hard for us to swallow.

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And yet…

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But it goes back to what we think of death. What we think of life and death.

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By the way, we're often not told why things happen.

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You don't say.

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I'm just putting that out there.

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He did say.

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It's true.

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And yet we say, God, why did this happen to me?

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Rabbi David, would you put. Would you put by the penalty that maybe it's a reward because I don't think that is hard to accept. Rabbi Rachel, I think in this case, because we don't know what life.

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That is true.

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would yield to us. We do not know what was in the future for Nadav and Avihu.

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This may have been God's saying. Okay. I will take you.

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Okay, you want to come close? I will bring you as close as… right.

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There's also, you know, I, um, I want to distinguish between

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Yes. And fire is purification.

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fires purification. I want to distinguish between

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Was it a reward for Nadav and Avihu, and was it a reward for Aharon?

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And Elisheva.

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The parents probably experienced it differently than the kids did. Oh, who? Right, sorry, she's not even mentioned here.

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Ellie, Sheva, mother of these two boys who were just zotted by…

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fire from before God?

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Right?

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As a mother, I experienced this Parsha differently now than I did 17 years ago.

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Well, mothers.

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Can't help it! Right? Land differently.

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So there's that, too. I'm just… I'm…

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Naming that on behalf of anyone else in the room who has a kid.

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who might be looking at this thinking,

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Oh, God, what if that happened to my child?

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Susan, I see your hand.

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thinking about Cheryl and her Hebrew name, Elia Shever and I read a beautiful midrash about Elia Shever about how she… She was a beautiful person, and also allowed herself to mourn, and the midrash was by Ellen Frankl, and it was about her being surrounded by other women wanting with her, and uh…

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Mm, hmm.

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Susan, we need your address, we need to send you a check.

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Anyway.

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You… it is so delightful how you guys manage to prefigure some of where we are going today.

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Rabbi Rachel, that was an… but I think you were the one who brought it up. That was a new idea that.

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Mm-hmm.

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I'm trying not to go into the details and make this long, but maybe because I don't have children myself, but I'm now with a sweetie who has children and grandchildren, and one of them they had aspires for him being a professional. He got a baseball pitcher. He got a scholarship.

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Hmm.

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to a college, and, you know, and I watched him, and they said, you know, you might want to, like, do this exercise for your shoulders, it'll help, blah blah, blah. He got a shoulder injury now. This is, you know, and I'm like, oh, he should have listened to me. Oh, why didn't it, you know? And I went.

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What if he became a professional player and he had a horrible life?

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Fair point?

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Fair point.

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What if this happened?

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And what do I know? So I had to really let go of that. And that when you talked about what if this leaving their body now was saving them from who knows? I don't know.

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Beautiful. That's a beautiful, um, interpretation.

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Well, you kind of gave it to me. Somehow.

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Hmm, damn, I'm looking in the chat. We've got… oh, Vayikaraba, yep.

00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:39.000
Vaika Rabba preserves a tradition that Nandavanavi, who were in certain respects of greater spiritual stature than Moses and Aaron themselves.

00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:46.000
Wasn't the destruction of the impious, it was the consequence of unmediated encounter with the divine.

00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:51.000
Yup. And Rabbi David's pointing out, as

00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:53.000
readers as…

00:21:53.000 --> 00:22:00.000
people with an attachment to this text, we want to be able to say this is why it happened.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.000
That's just part of human nature.

00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:10.000
But, you know, but why was the car at… why was there a car accident?

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:12.000
Why was there a fill in the blank?

00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:14.000
What did I do to bring on?

00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:22.000
What do I have to learn from this? Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me why.

00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:29.000
So, just so folks are aware…

00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:31.000
to check out my columnist report.

00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:34.000
we saw this, if not.

00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:36.000
This translation.

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:40.000
is not the only translation out there.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:43.000
If you open up N…

00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:45.000
version.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:50.000
You will see in the number of translations.

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.000
Here is one of them.

00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:56.000
And this, I'll just clicked out.

00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:57.000
From Safari.

00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:04.000
from Safaria is the JPS translation.

00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:06.000
Fire came forth from God, and

00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:11.000
consumed them, thus they died by God's will.

00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:14.000
What? It doesn't say that!

00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:16.000
It does not say that.

00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:21.000
It does not, it does not say that.

00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:22.000
It does not say that. It does not say that.

00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:24.000
The verses…

00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:25.000
does. Not. Say. That.

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.000
And went forth, and went forth fire.

00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:31.000
From before God, and 18…

00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:33.000
Not from God.

00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:35.000
And ate them!

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:38.000
And they died before God.

00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:39.000
Or in the presence of God.

00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:40.000
not?

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:41.000
Be with me.

00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:46.000
Totally different from God sent a lightning bolt!

00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:51.000
But most translations say…

00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:56.000
And this is not just a little bit of grammar between friends.

00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:59.000
This is… did God send me?

00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:05.000
fire.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:06.000
Mm-hmm, leaf snake!

00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:07.000
Yeah. Here's the Hebrew.

00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:08.000
Before was Penne face of?

00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:10.000
I take say, and came forth.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:12.000
Age. Fire. Me.

00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:17.000
from weekday.

00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:18.000
God.

00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:21.000
or the presence of Yudhagen.

00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:27.000
And to call 8.

00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:31.000
Your voice is coming and going, Rick.

00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:32.000
Yeah.

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:33.000
So, so the Penne part is the face. Yeah, right.

00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:38.000
Yes, but leaf name also is written.

00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:44.000
I know, but I'm trying to understand the connection to, you can't see my face and… and… Live.

00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:45.000
That's… that's…

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.000
You can go there, so you want to see my face? Okay. Midrash, it Midrash. It doesn't say that.

00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:54.000
Yeah. All right. But Bene is in there.

00:24:54.000 --> 00:25:00.000
Rabbi David, you're frozen.

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:01.000
Is he frozen for anybody else?

00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:02.000
It's in there, maybe, not to call.

00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:03.000
Right, but to call 8.

00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:04.000
Tom said, by Yamutu.

00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:05.000
Heads are nodding. Okay, we're… we will hope for the best, and perhaps… oh, you back!

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:07.000
I am here, I am here, I am here, I am here, I'm sorry.

00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:09.000
Okay. All good.

00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:11.000
came, and they died.

00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:14.000
May before you and Ivante.

00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:17.000
Where is God's will here? Is it here?

00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:19.000
Do you see it?

00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:20.000
doesn't say God's will.

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.000
God's rule stated, it does not say.

00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:25.000
It doesn't say it.

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:26.000
The Hebrew has words for that. They're not in here.

00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:29.000
doesn't say it. Doesn't say it.

00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:32.000
Why would they take such liberties with the translation?

00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:34.000
Gosh, that's a good question!

00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:36.000
So, so, so here's the thing.

00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:41.000
I will say it until I am smirked in the face.

00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:45.000
translation is a Midrash. Every single one.

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:50.000
You can change the translations in Safaria.

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:52.000
pull up different translations.

00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:55.000
And if you look at the translations,

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.000
One or another, mid-rush, trying to make sense of this.

00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:02.000
Because some say God willed, some say…

00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:05.000
Uh, you're playing with fire, you're gonna get burned.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:07.000
Some say God penalized them.

00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:10.000
God, some say God rewarded them.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:15.000
Uh, some say, you know, and God is mourning along with the rest.

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:23.000
James points out in the chat, it is more tidy and useful as a moral teaching

00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:26.000
If we have here a translation that says, well…

00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:40.000
They acted against God's will, that's why they got zotted.

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:41.000
The…

00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:42.000
And what would we do if we don't know?

00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:43.000
Any midrash that says, we don't know.

00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:46.000
technology. Oh, here come all the hands.

00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:54.000
Yeah.

00:26:54.000 --> 00:27:00.000
I'm here having a moment of… Misery, commiseration with poor.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.000
Those are different words.

00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:11.000
Both. with.

00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:21.000
Aaron and to Elazar, and to Itamar. I'm sorry. Wait, who? Yes, no.

00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:27.000
Removed the thing. Hold on. I have to go back and find it.

00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:28.000
Mishael and Elsafan.

00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:36.000
To Uziel's sons, to the cousins. To Michelle and Elsafan, that they had to go and carry these.

00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:43.000
Bodies outside the camp, and they had to… lift them from the tunics.

00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:45.000
Right, so that's also not clear what exactly… I…

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:48.000
because…

00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:53.000
Is this, you know, picking them up by the cloth because you don't want to touch…

00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:54.000
What exactly is going on?

00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:59.000
I mean. or you can't. They could still be.

00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:00.000
Right?

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:01.000
We don't know. But yeah, their cousins had to bear them outside the camp.

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:04.000
We don't know.

00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:08.000
Just also remember where someone who has…

00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:11.000
Um, Sarat, someone who was Tamay,

00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:17.000
is sent outside the camp for a week, either to heal or as a…

00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:21.000
um, little vacation, or…

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:23.000
Who knows? But it's outside of normal.

00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:25.000
Yeah. Yeah.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:26.000
It ain't the spot on.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:28.000
Oh, Nancy says in the chat, what if all that was left is there to… right, what if they're going…

00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:34.000
And that…

00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:35.000
This is…

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:37.000
How could that happen with a fire? We're going to burn, you know, this is not… Makes no sense.

00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:38.000
Yeah, yeah. So what does this feel like?

00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:41.000
Well, there still may be body left, but you can't really touch it. It comes apart. You have to take the drink.

00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:46.000
No, but what about in the Buddhist understanding of the rainbow body?

00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:55.000
that if you leave your… just that all that's left is your hair and your fingernails, that they can lift it up by the tunic, because there really wasn't anything left inside.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:57.000
What are people… what are the emotions in the world?

00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:06.000
And then does that make them tame? And then they need to maybe stay outside the camp with.

00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:12.000
Their cousin's bodies. I it's I feel so bad for them.

00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:19.000
it landed with me last night that the week outside the camp could be a little bit like what we now experience as Shiva.

00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:20.000
Shiver.

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:22.000
a week outside of normal life?

00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:23.000
Oh, I love that. Thank you.

00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:31.000
where you're not responsible for doing your job all week, you just get to sit and feel, which is a mixed blessing, to be sure.

00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:35.000
But don't actually perform.

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:38.000
Don't do the things, just…

00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:41.000
Don't do tree and don't…

00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:42.000
Oh, they're dead!

00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:49.000
Because they're not dead. They… they… no, but I mean, they're not… they're not dead in the sense of people dying. God took them.

00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:50.000
And the people of Israel.

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:51.000
So, maybe that's categorically different.

00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:52.000
So you don't have to mourn.

00:29:52.000 --> 00:30:01.000
And… but your kin and all the house of Israel will bewail the safah.

00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:05.000
get there.

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:06.000
Now, let's look at this moment's patrons.

00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:07.000
Yeah, okay, forget that part, though.

00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:09.000
and put it over the words you don't want.

00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:12.000
This is hard, this is hard, this is hard.

00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:17.000
And remember, this is all in the context of Tuna and taqarat.

00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:22.000
Those spiritual states.

00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:23.000
Talk about being charged.

00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:24.000
Uh, being charged.

00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:41.000
Oh my god, Camel. I see Amy's hand.

00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:42.000
That's one of them with rushing, too.

00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:51.000
Maybe this was discussed because I apologize, I came in late, but, um… Maybe their own arrogance consumed them, that it wasn't God, and God actually had grief and witnessing this, that, um, they… I mean, because they really transgressed.

00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:53.000
Yeah…

00:30:53.000 --> 00:31:00.000
by what they did, and you destroy a community with transgression of that level.

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:01.000
I'm… I'm… I'm glad you said that, yeah. We…

00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:04.000
So there…

00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:12.000
Maybe they did something beautiful and got rewarded, and maybe they did something terrible, and…

00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:17.000
punished on, uh, or, or, or it was just a natural consequence, I mean,

00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:20.000
Maybe it was karma!

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:25.000
You know… you do yourself in.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.000
You know, obviously, we don't live in a world where we've.

00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:50.000
Most of us witnessed any micromanaging. you know, God set us on here and said you go boys and girls. And maybe that was there that their own arrogance in doing that consumed them.

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:51.000
So there's a meta question here.

00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:53.000
God was a witness to it.

00:31:53.000 --> 00:31:55.000
chat, um, when, when, uh…

00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:03.000
James raised it, but I think it belongs here to…

00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:09.000
Why?

00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:12.000
a enlarged list of choices.

00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:18.000
Responsible.

00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:20.000
responsible for this.

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.000
who's responsible.

00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:33.000
And if you're trying to build your imaging capability together,

00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:35.000
Not to blame God.

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:41.000
And so, the strong majority of

00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:46.000
Some of those have already come up, right?

00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:49.000
arrogant. Who do you think you are? The high priest?

00:32:49.000 --> 00:33:00.000
when you're trying to out-daddy-daddy?

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:07.000
the key. You're really playing games with this Lightning Storm, aren't you?

00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:12.000
list goes on and on.

00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:15.000
is some of where the classical Midrash goes.

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:17.000
We could spend…

00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:21.000
all day. Just looking…

00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:27.000
Various ways.

00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:32.000
that our ancestors had to blame Madonna.

00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:35.000
it would look like Don's capricious.

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:37.000
We can't have that now, can we?

00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:41.000
And sometimes it is unbearable to live with

00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:48.000
The thought of a capricious God. It is easier to blame ourselves or each other.

00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:51.000
than to say sometimes life doesn't make sense.

00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:54.000
So, who wants to invite Garaba, and you can

00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:58.000
know some of the ideas, and then you make a list of others.

00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:05.000
from Midrash.

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:13.000
Amy, this might be yours.

00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:20.000
Arcapara said in the name of Reb Yermira Ben Elazar.

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:35.000
The sons of Aron died for four reasons. The approach, the Kurban, the strange fire, and for not seeking guidance, one from the other. The approach they entered the ultimate presence.

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:42.000
The curban, the curbanified a Korban, they were not commanded.

00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:54.000
strange fire. They entered with fire from the kitchen for not taking guidance each took his fire pan, each deciding oneself.

00:34:54.000 --> 00:35:01.000
Not seeking guidance, one from the other.

00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:04.000
They did something they were told not to do.

00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:07.000
Instead of the fire of the altar, they brought

00:35:07.000 --> 00:35:12.000
fire from the kitchen when things are not the same thing.

00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:15.000
Each of them was arrogant. They, they, they…

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.000
just the individually,

00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:21.000
in the same place of what you're doing.

00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:26.000
And just to keep it quick, maybe they wanted to upstage Daddy, maybe they were drunk

00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:30.000
We saw that before. They were wearing the

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:36.000
I think my mother always told me that what you wear matters, and maybe she was right.

00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:40.000
Rabbi went to Lehigh holiday services in shorts and a ripped-up t-shirt.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:42.000
They went in without…

00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:45.000
Purifying their hands beforehand.

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:48.000
Another one is, uh, they, they didn't

00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:52.000
marry and have kids. And… but that's not a way to go.

00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:55.000
So… and we could…

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:56.000
There you go.

00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:03.000
One thing. from the kitchen. Really? Is that a put down for the energy of women?

00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:04.000
who knows?

00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:06.000
We can read it that way. We can read it that way.

00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:08.000
Um, I understand it more as…

00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:09.000
This is ordinary. Quote.

00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:10.000
One, yeah, yeah.

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:11.000
secular fire versus sacred fire.

00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:14.000
Yeah.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:18.000
But it's not a far leap to say, you know, hey, they're denigrating.

00:36:18.000 --> 00:36:24.000
traditional role of women. We are the women, where are the women, where are the women? Where are our…

00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:27.000
And how… and how do you eat or live without from the women and the kitchen?

00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:28.000
Oh, by the way…

00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:31.000
Or at least was out from the kitchen, for sure.

00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:32.000
By the way. Right.

00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:33.000
Right, exactly.

00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:38.000
So, we have all of these things, and this is

00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:40.000
Zoharic.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.000
And Zomar goes the other way, as James was mentioning.

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:47.000
rewarded their hearts were pure,

00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:51.000
transcended this life.

00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:54.000
Do we often feel that way when somebody dies? Not so much the people

00:36:54.000 --> 00:36:58.000
But…

00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:03.000
experience transcendence. The end of Zohar, our, uh…

00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:06.000
hero, that I shouldn't bargal high.

00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:09.000
And all the people

00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:12.000
His students come around him.

00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:17.000
tearing their clothes, and they're terribly upset, and they're

00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:21.000
Essentially, he says, shut up, what are you worried about?

00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:23.000
to my wedding.

00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:26.000
I'm going to marry God.

00:37:26.000 --> 00:37:32.000
The minute I stopped breathing, I'm marrying God. What are you so sad about?

00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:33.000
There's a difference…

00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:34.000
So…

00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:41.000
But he had a natural lifespan, didn't he?

00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:46.000
True, and there may be a difference between how it feels for the person who is

00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:53.000
Who dies, and for the people who are left behind, who are left to mourn.

00:37:53.000 --> 00:38:03.000
So, um, Blue Greenberg is a contemporary Orthodox feminist writer. She's married to a guy named Yitz Greenberg, who you may have heard of.

00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:10.000
Um… and they lost a teenaged child.

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.000
In, I want to say, a bicycle car…

00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:16.000
Child was on a bicycle.

00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:19.000
There was a car collision.

00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:25.000
And so she wrote this reflection in the wake of her own experience of being a parent

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:32.000
Grieving a child who was there one minute and gone the next.

00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:40.000
Can we have a few readers for Blue Greenberg?

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:49.000
What could have happened? We struggle to understand. Was this a punishment from God or a random accident?

00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:57.000
What crime could they have committed that was so hideous as to why death by flash fire?

00:38:57.000 --> 00:39:04.000
Perhaps they were acting out of enthusiasm and desire to serve.

00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:11.000
Perhaps they are overcome simply by the pure joy of being in the presence of God.

00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:18.000
And wished only to increase owe in the hearts of people.

00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:32.000
And even if they were guilty. of not following God's word to the last, did not thy father Aaron have credit in the storehouse of God's deeds?

00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:43.000
What's the last or punishment that could have been meted out on the scale?

00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:51.000
What was Aaron's response? Two simple words, Vayadam Aharon, Aaron silenced.

00:39:51.000 --> 00:39:57.000
The word viadam means more than he kept quiet.

00:39:57.000 --> 00:40:14.000
Aaron responded with a profound, shattering silence, a stunning silence, a shocked silence. He did not justify the cruel decree by blaming his sons and accepting their fate as punishment for their sins.

00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:27.000
Yeah, neither does he revolt or protest God's action. Total silence.

00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:57.000
Aaron's response is the profoundest human and religious response to the reality that there are times when good people die unjustly or are consumed in tragedies that seem to be arbitrary, shocking, without justification, and with nothing to ameliorate the pain and loss of those who love them.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:10.000
The Jewish laws of bereavement so exquisitely tuned to the needs of the mourners, stipulate that the Shiva visitor should not speak until the mourner speaks.

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:20.000
I had always thought that the point of the precept was to ensure that the conversation would flow to the place the mourner needs to reach it.

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:30.000
But I now understand that the halacha and joining the comforting visitor to hold back in silence serves a different function.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:36.000
to caution against offering a rationale for the decree of death.

00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:47.000
The deeper human religious response is to be silent, to live with the contradiction, and to affirm that we need not force meaning into tragedy.

00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:52.000
Sometimes the deepest response of love is to be silent.

00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:54.000
Mm-hmm.

00:41:54.000 --> 00:42:05.000
You know I I was thinking about this, and I don't know if if there were a tragedy. If I lost somebody.

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:11.000
Like that. I think I would wail, I would cry out. I would not be silent, but that's me. I mean, I…

00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:17.000
I don't think Blue is saying that the mourner must be silent.

00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:25.000
else… a piece of this essay that we cut out for space, she describes someone coming in and saying to her, well, you know,

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:27.000
He's in a better place now.

00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:28.000
Oh, yeah, right, no, no, no. I don't… I don't mean any of that.

00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:33.000
Which was clearly meant as a word of love and comfort, but it landed

00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:35.000
on her, like…

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:38.000
Like, like salt in a wound.

00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:39.000
Oh, totally.

00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:46.000
Right? It's the first thing that, as baby rabbis, we are taught never to say at a shiva or in somebody's hospital room.

00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:48.000
It'll be okay.

00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:51.000
We don't know that. Yeah.

00:42:51.000 --> 00:42:52.000
And now, and now they can look on hand.

00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:57.000
Yeah, right.

00:42:57.000 --> 00:43:27.000
Oh, yeah. Well, all of those platitudes, I guess they're platitudes. They're really hurtful. You know I I I totally hate them, and I don't ever use them, and I don't like people to use them, but to for Aaron to be silenced.

00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:33.000
I'm with you.

00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:35.000
I I just can't imagine watching your children. be burning, or whatever, not to scream. I just… that would be me, but I'm a very emotive person, you know? But I cannot imagine being silent. It just seems the antithesis to me.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.000
What landed with me this year, reading and rereading this, is that

00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:47.000
Yeah, I would be screaming. I would be screaming and possibly writing 10,000-word blog posts about all of my feelings.

00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:48.000
Because that's me.

00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:50.000
What do you mean, possibly?

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:51.000
Shut up.

00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:53.000
Mm-hmm.

00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:55.000
You watched me through the deaths of both of my parents, and that is pretty much exactly what I did.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:56.000
But I think…

00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:59.000
Hmm.

00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:00.000
If this isn't about the mourner. This isn't about the mourner.

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:02.000
But for some people,

00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:03.000
This is about us.

00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:04.000
I I think…

00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:08.000
But for Aaron, maybe what his neshama needed

00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:13.000
Maybe for him, there was comfort in staying quiet.

00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:17.000
Maybe that was what his soul needed.

00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:18.000
But here's the track. I think tragedy is the key word here.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:22.000
Maybe it wasn't worry.

00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:24.000
Right, this is not actually, like,

00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:32.000
It's a sudden… A sudden death. It's not like we're experiencing somebody who's ill.

00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:40.000
And is in the process of dying, this one has already died.

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:42.000
There isn't closure, that's true.

00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:43.000
Whatever, whatever, whatever closure means.

00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:50.000
There's no… you can't say goodbye. There's no closure. I've been through this. We lost a boy, wasn't quite 20.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:55.000
to a terrible, what I consider to be tragedy.

00:44:55.000 --> 00:45:04.000
And I remember at that time. So many people coming to the Shiva, talking to us, or bringing.

00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:22.000
food and just trying to help us through. That sudden experience, and yes, we cried, yes, we were very, very upset, no question. I mean, upset is not even the right word for this.

00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:30.000
Because a tragedy is a tragedy. It's not a normal… situation.

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:33.000
range of emotions in the world.

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:36.000
range of responses from

00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:40.000
You know, she's a mom who is experiencing

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:43.000
sudden death. Whether it's a sudden death,

00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:47.000
expected death. You know, why did this happen?

00:45:47.000 --> 00:45:52.000
is a question that is very human.

00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:55.000
Whether it happens in the context of this or something,

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.000
It's all of us all the time,

00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:08.000
between that, remember what this is about to, uh,

00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:15.000
Here, there was a hand.

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:16.000
Okay.

00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:21.000
Why can't they, um, silence be looked at as he's…

00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:24.000
errands in shock, and they're on the…

00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:27.000
I know words to say.

00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:29.000
Absolutely.

00:46:29.000 --> 00:46:32.000
One of them that metric responses.

00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:35.000
It was wise to say nothing.

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.000
emotionally, as well as one can be as centered as one can be.

00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:45.000
understanding that

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:48.000
Which is something that James had said early on.

00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:52.000
There were so many hands Amy and Cheryl.

00:46:52.000 --> 00:47:06.000
It just reminds me of what we say when we hear about a death. We say, Baruch Diana met. And when I learned that, it landed with me one way, and now I live with it another way, but.

00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:08.000
What do you understand those words to mean? Not everyone in the room may know them.

00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:13.000
It's…

00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:34.000
Blessed is the true judge. And when I first learned that, it seemed… It seemed like it demanded a lot of a person to be able to pull that out at that moment. The way I hear it now, it's more like.

00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:44.000
It's more like around silence. It's I got nothing, and I have to acknowledge this.

00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:45.000
Beautiful.

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:53.000
Suck.

00:47:53.000 --> 00:47:59.000
I have had some moments in my life. Where?

00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:04.000
Silence was the only way to move through the world.

00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:11.000
And it creates of. Silence pertains to vocalness.

00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:21.000
It does not pertain to emotions nor inner conversation.

00:48:21.000 --> 00:48:26.000
which in those moments. are very rich.

00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:31.000
You're very busy. I'm very thoughtful.

00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:36.000
Also meditative at times, but it does not mean.

00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:46.000
It's an outward silence we are seeing here. We don't know what is going like, I can imagine a midrash that.

00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:55.000
Everyone is silenced outside because. He's communing with God.

00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:00.000
principle of the crash that we have spent…

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:03.000
For some of us, it's all of last year talking about.

00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:08.000
There's this idea that we…

00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:11.000
tell stories to suss out and make me

00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:17.000
The excluding voice to the voices, to uplift

00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:21.000
And here we are encountering sort of singularity.

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:25.000
almost like a… I don't mean it to sound this way, but a black

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:28.000
Where… there may be…

00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:31.000
As much as we try to make meaning.

00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:34.000
it takes to give, even as we can

00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:42.000
And yet, we're about to give voice to the voiceless, because where is that we shut up?

00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:45.000
Women Torah commentary here is going to note…

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:51.000
there's not much that one can say here, but what was the reaction of Elisheva? The text does not record

00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:57.000
Her response to this tragedy. In fact, the text doesn't mention her at all.

00:49:57.000 --> 00:50:02.000
So here, from Jewish Women's Archive is a little collection of

00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:07.000
drawing on several different Midrash, so we can get a lot of places at once. Does someone want to read

00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:16.000
from the Jewish Women's Archive about Elisheva.

00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:46.000
Shuai on the day of the Tabernacle's dedication, as the Midrash explains, Elisheva had five joys more than other Israelite women. Her brother-in-law Moses was king. Her husband… Aaron was high priest. Her sons Nadab and Abihu, Eliazar and Ethamar were deputy high priests. Her grandson Phineas was anointed for battle. I'm sorry, Finikas was anointed for battle, and her brother Nachshon.

00:50:46.000 --> 00:51:02.000
was the chieftain of his tribe. Her great joy, unfortunately, was turned to mourning, for on that very same day, two of her sons, Nadav and Avihu, died when they sought to offer alien fire and will consequently consumed by fire.

00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:19.000
The divine justice laughed bitterly at this, as is stated in Ecclesiastes 2.2 of revelry, I said, it is mad, for man's joy in this world is not complete, and is always mixed, mahul, with sadness.

00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:26.000
Leviticus Rabbat 22.

00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:27.000
This was a big… all of… her whole family is part of this priestly system.

00:51:27.000 --> 00:51:33.000
That doesn't help.

00:51:33.000 --> 00:51:35.000
She's got all of this joy, and…

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:38.000
She's also got this grief.

00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:45.000
Asha says, quote,

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:46.000
That doesn't help, says Marcia.

00:51:46.000 --> 00:51:49.000
Yeah.

00:51:49.000 --> 00:51:52.000
Joy is always mixed with sadness. That's a…

00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:55.000
Think of every Jewish wedding, right?

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.000
moment of profound joy, and what do we do? We smash a glass.

00:51:59.000 --> 00:52:05.000
trip side, of course, also is true.

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:07.000
There's a reason that…

00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:10.000
It's called Food on the Roof.

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:15.000
That's right.

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:20.000
And maybe being able to hold both of those at once is…

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:22.000
our calling.

00:52:22.000 --> 00:52:23.000
Marsha, and then we'll jump in.

00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:32.000
What are they trying to do? I'm trying to figure out what all these writers are like twisting themselves like pretzels.

00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:57.000
And, you know, I'm flexible. Yeah, why are they doing that? And it's all on… to one side, it's not, like, going back and forth, which I could get to.

00:52:57.000 --> 00:52:58.000
Well, some of it also was, and, you know, we didn't

00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:00.000
But this is all, like, just trying to say, it's because of this, or because of this, or because of that, and they did this, or they didn't do this, and…

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:02.000
for this little heart piece here, um…

00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:07.000
This may be our fault in being incomplete.

00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:09.000
vendors here.

00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:12.000
How many of us, if we…

00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:14.000
go in there and say,

00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:17.000
They achieved transcendence.

00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:23.000
Yay!

00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:24.000
How many of us would be sure they did?

00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:26.000
They, the brothers?

00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:30.000
as people of mourning and dragging their…

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:35.000
carcassed bodies out of the camp.

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:40.000
Right? Process.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:41.000
Yeah.

00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:43.000
That's a process. That process go morning process to acceptance. You know, you have to go through it. That's that's part.

00:53:43.000 --> 00:53:48.000
Who's ever going to accept that in life? Okay.

00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:49.000
Yeah.

00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:50.000
No matter how long.

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:57.000
And yet… and yet we have to accept it all the time. Maybe not in this dramatic a fashion,

00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:05.000
But there is no human life that is not touched by

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:07.000
It's true.

00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:11.000
It's true, James.

00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:12.000
Paul and Frankel, maybe.

00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:17.000
So, I… I think that a lot of this depends on the maturity of the individual.

00:54:17.000 --> 00:54:21.000
Um, I mean, views on death…

00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:26.000
are going to vary not only culturally, but from one person to the next, depending upon

00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:34.000
their maturity, their… their role, if you will, like, you know, a mother, for example. Doesn't matter what happens, you know, she's gonna be upset.

00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:36.000
Um,

00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:40.000
And… also within the belief system.

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:42.000
Because, I mean, if somebody…

00:54:42.000 --> 00:54:44.000
transcends…

00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:50.000
then death isn't so much of a loss as much as an opportunity for celebration.

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:55.000
And I mean, you see that with… with a number of traditions, like, for example, Hinduism.

00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:58.000
Um, I mean, some of the… some of the greats

00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:04.000
they… they basically meditate and die in a meditative position.

00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:06.000
Um, and that's… I mean, that's something in…

00:55:06.000 --> 00:55:09.000
Sure, they're students and everybody misses them,

00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:11.000
But it's literally celebrated.

00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:14.000
Because it's such an accomplishment.

00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:15.000
Now, whether that necessarily falls into play here,

00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:17.000
What are you lying about? I'm going to my wedding.

00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:19.000
Right.

00:55:19.000 --> 00:55:24.000
Yeah, you know, still.

00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:28.000
And I think it's always something of a both-and.

00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:37.000
Um, and what, again, might have felt celebratory to the boys themselves in their moment of uplift into God's arms,

00:55:37.000 --> 00:55:41.000
Their mother can still grieve, or their father could still grieve.

00:55:41.000 --> 00:55:43.000
that they're gone.

00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:48.000
You know, I… you wanted to go talk to God, but I wanted you to stay here with me.

00:55:48.000 --> 00:55:51.000
is a legitimate human way to feel.

00:55:51.000 --> 00:55:54.000
Um, we've got… we've got some Ellen Frankel, and then…

00:55:54.000 --> 00:56:02.000
Um, we've got a bunch of goodies left to go. Delia, I see your hand, and then let's dive in.

00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:04.000
Alright, let's dive in. Um…

00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:13.000
David, do you want… should we do… the Frankel is long, what do you think?

00:56:13.000 --> 00:56:14.000
We have once again over-prepared.

00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:15.000
It's… no.

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:17.000
No, no, no, I think we haven't.

00:56:17.000 --> 00:56:18.000
All right.

00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:20.000
Let's just, let's just read it.

00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:23.000
I guess this is… this develops piece.

00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:26.000
Let's just get some readers.

00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:33.000
auditors ask, why does the Torah say so little about the dramatic deaths of Nadavana Bihu?

00:56:33.000 --> 00:56:48.000
All we're told is the two men were unexpectedly consumed by divine fire, that Moses offers rather insensitive words of consolation to his bereaved brother, as it is written, this is what Yudh-Hev meant when he said.

00:56:48.000 --> 00:56:57.000
through those near me, I show myself wholly, and assert my authority before all the people, and that Aaron remains silent.

00:56:57.000 --> 00:57:17.000
about their mother, Ellie Shever's response, we're told nothing. Why isn't she even mentioned here? Why is she, like Sarah at the Akedah, absent before, during, and after this trial by fire?

00:57:17.000 --> 00:57:47.000
Shiva answers, "What a terrible day that was for me. Being a woman, I was not permitted to draw near Aaron and his brother Moses consecrated the altar. Instead, I remained with the other Levite women, preparing food and readying ourselves for the festivities that were to follow.

00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:59.000
Then I heard a piercing cry from inside the tent of meeting. I recognized the voices of my two sons.

00:57:59.000 --> 00:58:12.000
But I did not hear the voices of our own Emil Sha. I waited, terrified, until one of the younger priests appeared from behind the curtain of the tent, his face ashen and taut with fright.

00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:17.000
They are dead, he told me, killed by the invisible hand of God.

00:58:17.000 --> 00:58:37.000
At first, I couldn't move. My ears refused to believe his words dead. On the day when we were dedicating a new house for Shekuma's presence to dwell in.

00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:48.000
As my two kinsmen bore my sons. Toward the outside of the camp, my grief finally shattered its bonds and broke free.

00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:53.000
I began to wail. And beat my breast.

00:58:53.000 --> 00:59:08.000
At the end, to follow after my sons, but Moses ordered the women to hold me back.

00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:24.000
All of the people shall observe a period of mourning, he announced, and all and all the house of Israel shall bewail the burning of burning that Yudh Vav have wrought. But Aaron together with.

00:59:24.000 --> 00:59:31.000
Elazar and Ijamar Aaron's two remaining sons, were they not my sons as well?

00:59:31.000 --> 00:59:52.000
These three shall not bear their heads, nor rend their clothes, lest they die and anger strike the whole community.

00:59:52.000 --> 01:00:08.000
What was I to do now? Was I allowed to mourn, and who would comfort me with my husband and two sons separated from me in the tabernacle? But whether God wanted me to or not, I chose to mourn. If I was to be forbidden entrance to the holy altar.

01:00:08.000 --> 01:00:24.000
Forbidden to accompany my dead sons outside the camp, forbidden even to seek comfort with my husband and two remaining sons, then I would not refuse the comfort of my community. And so the women put away their hand drums and did not perform the dance.

01:00:24.000 --> 01:00:54.000
that they had prepared for what was meant to be a day of rejoicing. I put on sackcloth and ashes and sat before them on the barren ground, and they sang a lament to my dead sons, and so I was comforted from my loss.

01:00:54.000 --> 01:00:58.000
She found comfort, maybe, in the morning.

01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:01.000
M-O-U-R.

01:01:01.000 --> 01:01:03.000
It's sitting on the ground.

01:01:03.000 --> 01:01:10.000
Putting on mourners clothes.

01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:15.000
A bunch of hands on the roof, and then Marshall.

01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:22.000
The idea that it should have been a day of rejoicing.

01:01:22.000 --> 01:01:25.000
And instead, it was a day of mourning.

01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:31.000
Seems to me a theme that kind of runs through Judaism.

01:01:31.000 --> 01:01:36.000
And I'm thinking about when…

01:01:36.000 --> 01:01:39.000
The people were celebrating…

01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:43.000
Um, at the splitting of the Red Sea.

01:01:43.000 --> 01:01:50.000
When all the Egyptians were killed, and God said, why are you rejoicing?

01:01:50.000 --> 01:01:53.000
my people…

01:01:53.000 --> 01:01:56.000
have been killed, and um…

01:01:56.000 --> 01:02:01.000
There's something about that idea of…

01:02:01.000 --> 01:02:08.000
trying to balance what humanity experiences on Earth between…

01:02:08.000 --> 01:02:26.000
tremendous sadness and the ability to rejoice, kind of finding that balance in Judaism.

01:02:26.000 --> 01:02:33.000
And is it? I'm so confused, very upsetting.

01:02:33.000 --> 01:02:51.000
It says… that Aaron and the two remaining sons shall not bear their heads, nor rend their clothes, lest they die, and anger strike the whole community?

01:02:51.000 --> 01:02:52.000
They perform functions.

01:02:52.000 --> 01:02:58.000
What is that?

01:02:58.000 --> 01:03:01.000
Remember, the COVID meeting made over…

01:03:01.000 --> 01:03:02.000
go to the cemetery.

01:03:02.000 --> 01:03:03.000
So there…

01:03:03.000 --> 01:03:10.000
Right, right, right. So… They're not going to mort.

01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:11.000
Apparently not.

01:03:11.000 --> 01:03:12.000
and say they're not doing more. It says they're not.

01:03:12.000 --> 01:03:18.000
Well, they're not going to mourn in the same way that everybody else does.

01:03:18.000 --> 01:03:26.000
Because of their role, they can't.

01:03:26.000 --> 01:03:27.000
Mm-hmm.

01:03:27.000 --> 01:03:30.000
Well, that sets up a long… Uh… appointment list for some therapist.

01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:36.000
Sure does.

01:03:36.000 --> 01:03:37.000
So…

01:03:37.000 --> 01:03:38.000
Oh my god, that's hideous.

01:03:38.000 --> 01:03:41.000
Being a rabbi, to be clear, is not the same as being a priest in this system.

01:03:41.000 --> 01:03:44.000
Not the same.

01:03:44.000 --> 01:03:46.000
Not the same. And.

01:03:46.000 --> 01:03:49.000
Classically, their…

01:03:49.000 --> 01:03:54.000
There is a tradition…

01:03:54.000 --> 01:03:57.000
Shiba comes immediately.

01:03:57.000 --> 01:04:00.000
for a festival.

01:04:00.000 --> 01:04:01.000
Suga is canceled.

01:04:01.000 --> 01:04:04.000
It's kind of cool.

01:04:04.000 --> 01:04:09.000
Some people have understood this to be

01:04:09.000 --> 01:04:15.000
That's nonsense.

01:04:15.000 --> 01:04:18.000
do the sitting on a box.

01:04:18.000 --> 01:04:22.000
stops.

01:04:22.000 --> 01:04:25.000
So let's not call it Shiva.

01:04:25.000 --> 01:04:35.000
Let's call it Schmiddle.

01:04:35.000 --> 01:04:37.000
formality of Shiva.

01:04:37.000 --> 01:04:43.000
And transition gives way to the festival.

01:04:43.000 --> 01:04:47.000
principle that people don't want.

01:04:47.000 --> 01:04:51.000
Jews are kind of messed up in some respects, but we do have to…

01:04:51.000 --> 01:04:55.000
The reason we do that, we do it is because I think this…

01:04:55.000 --> 01:04:58.000
And this has to be a leading to…

01:04:58.000 --> 01:05:02.000
in our wings to grieve in our ways.

01:05:02.000 --> 01:05:06.000
And say, okay, they've gone to God now, and that's it.

01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:10.000
For some people, that will be true.

01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:12.000
Reef doesn't top time.

01:05:12.000 --> 01:05:18.000
doesn't pay for company improvement.

01:05:18.000 --> 01:05:24.000
traditions and different spaces of time, and different ways to breathe.

01:05:24.000 --> 01:05:27.000
I think create an envelope.

01:05:27.000 --> 01:05:30.000
for that, that is wise and

01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:32.000
And it's the commonality.

01:05:32.000 --> 01:05:37.000
That can be very, very helpful.

01:05:37.000 --> 01:05:45.000
So the fact that I'm in a rush.

01:05:45.000 --> 01:05:52.000
says something really…

01:05:52.000 --> 01:05:57.000
to all the Tahira.

01:05:57.000 --> 01:06:02.000
takes time. Which takes time.

01:06:02.000 --> 01:06:06.000
There are a bunch of hands I'm seeing physically.

01:06:06.000 --> 01:06:08.000
actually, hands are just…

01:06:08.000 --> 01:06:18.000
expressions of…

01:06:18.000 --> 01:06:20.000
We are silent.

01:06:20.000 --> 01:06:23.000
Like, yeah.

01:06:23.000 --> 01:06:26.000
Let's get through the other texts.

01:06:26.000 --> 01:06:28.000
Do we want to do Panimit?

01:06:28.000 --> 01:06:34.000
We can do panino, or we can… I think we could leave this one as an exercise for the reader.

01:06:34.000 --> 01:06:40.000
I do think we should do Aviva Richmond, and then the, um…

01:06:40.000 --> 01:06:44.000
Let's do from here on.

01:06:44.000 --> 01:06:51.000
This brings us. Who would like to really need to?

01:06:51.000 --> 01:06:56.000
Moshe refuses to let Aharon see this as a punishment.

01:06:56.000 --> 01:07:01.000
Nadavana Vihu are not sinners. They wanted to come close to God.

01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:05.000
This was a sanctification, not desecration of God's name.

01:07:05.000 --> 01:07:15.000
And when Moshe tells Aharon and his sons to stay inside the Mishkan, it conveys that these deaths are not a sign of rejection and punishment.

01:07:15.000 --> 01:07:21.000
God wants to hold Aharon close, even in these tragic circumstances.

01:07:21.000 --> 01:07:39.000
When we feel we have really messed up like Ajaron in the golden calf, or when we face disaster like our own suddenly losing his sons, Shimini invites us to imagine what it looks like to stay inside the possibility of a relationship.

01:07:39.000 --> 01:07:55.000
Rather than run away. Just hearing the words, don't leave" offers a pathway toward hanging on and finding support. And an alternative to the kind of self-blame that might result in total alienation.

01:07:55.000 --> 01:08:04.000
A dozen to LSO's inner experience leads us into the turmoil of great joy and profound loss.

01:08:04.000 --> 01:08:16.000
One midrash describes the honor that encompassed Eleshas on this day as her close relatives rose to positions of great stature

01:08:16.000 --> 01:08:20.000
Ascribing to her the verse in Proverbs.

01:08:20.000 --> 01:08:25.000
She is closed with strength and parallel midrash.

01:08:25.000 --> 01:08:26.000
Mr. Lane.

01:08:26.000 --> 01:08:28.000
takes an entirely different turn.

01:08:28.000 --> 01:08:29.000
You missed a line. She is clothed with strength and splendor.

01:08:29.000 --> 01:08:36.000
Bye.

01:08:36.000 --> 01:08:46.000
She's closed with strength and splendor. She looks to the future cheerfully, yet a parallel midrus takes an entirely different turn.

01:08:46.000 --> 01:08:57.000
Casting a shadow on the glory and confident joy of Proverbs. It ascribes Talisha a verse that undermines joy entirely.

01:08:57.000 --> 01:09:04.000
Of reverly, I said, its mad of merriment. What good is that?

01:09:04.000 --> 01:09:08.000
the Midrash declares.

01:09:08.000 --> 01:09:09.000
And here's the…

01:09:09.000 --> 01:09:11.000
How mixed up is the joke?

01:09:11.000 --> 01:09:15.000
freedom of judgment played on Alicia. We saw this before.

01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:17.000
Her two sons were made officials of the

01:09:17.000 --> 01:09:22.000
when they went inside to use incense without permission. So that's another one.

01:09:22.000 --> 01:09:28.000
stuff. They were adopted from joy was turned into

01:09:28.000 --> 01:09:34.000
I would like to read.

01:09:34.000 --> 01:09:44.000
We could hold up one of these midrash Shim at the expense of the other, but we can learn more from living in the tension between the two.

01:09:44.000 --> 01:09:57.000
Rather than an optimistic naivete, the Proverbs Midrash can be seen as offering a complex response to Ecclesiastes' cynicism.

01:09:57.000 --> 01:10:04.000
Even though the attribute of judgment played a joke on Elisheva on that eighth day.

01:10:04.000 --> 01:10:14.000
Elisheva knows that ultimately she will rejoice again. Alicia reserves the confidence of the last laugh.

01:10:14.000 --> 01:10:19.000
A hard-won joy that is not ignorant of pain.

01:10:19.000 --> 01:10:23.000
For me, this is the e-car, this is the essence here. We don't…

01:10:23.000 --> 01:10:30.000
Say, one Midrash is correct and the other one is wrong, but we live in the tension between

01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:31.000
one explanation and the other.

01:10:31.000 --> 01:10:34.000
Mm-hmm.

01:10:34.000 --> 01:10:43.000
We live in the tension between what has been and what will yet be.

01:10:43.000 --> 01:10:45.000
I keep falling in love with

01:10:45.000 --> 01:10:49.000
Judaism about.

01:10:49.000 --> 01:10:51.000
that…

01:10:51.000 --> 01:10:55.000
Unitary.

01:10:55.000 --> 01:11:00.000
Because there is no…

01:11:00.000 --> 01:11:04.000
form of human wiring.

01:11:04.000 --> 01:11:07.000
Some of us need it.

01:11:07.000 --> 01:11:10.000
and comfort.

01:11:10.000 --> 01:11:13.000
to defend God.

01:11:13.000 --> 01:11:19.000
And to say that this is somehow

01:11:19.000 --> 01:11:21.000
My mother was out of suffering.

01:11:21.000 --> 01:11:27.000
Some of us have a different process. Some of us are wired.

01:11:27.000 --> 01:11:32.000
together as a community, how would we…

01:11:32.000 --> 01:11:34.000
We had one answer.

01:11:34.000 --> 01:11:36.000
to anything.

01:11:36.000 --> 01:11:45.000
But especially through this ultimate

01:11:45.000 --> 01:11:48.000
So, what I fall in love with.

01:11:48.000 --> 01:11:52.000
is what some in liberal tradition that drives us crazy.

01:11:52.000 --> 01:11:54.000
Because we have all…

01:11:54.000 --> 01:11:56.000
as we rush in, and they open like an apartment.

01:11:56.000 --> 01:11:58.000
warning it. And where am I?

01:11:58.000 --> 01:12:04.000
Am I here today? Am I here today? Am I here today? Am I somewhere else today? I might go anywhere today.

01:12:04.000 --> 01:12:07.000
Is it this? Is it that?

01:12:07.000 --> 01:12:08.000
Mm-hmm.

01:12:08.000 --> 01:12:12.000
You're driving me crazy. That's the tradition.

01:12:12.000 --> 01:12:13.000
Yeah, it is.

01:12:13.000 --> 01:12:19.000
locate ourselves with some place for us to go be.

01:12:19.000 --> 01:12:26.000
complete story. And so there's also, therefore, a trajectory

01:12:26.000 --> 01:12:31.000
Wherever we are, there's this next understanding.

01:12:31.000 --> 01:12:35.000
the person next to us has a different approach.

01:12:35.000 --> 01:12:41.000
to someone who's in restraints.

01:12:41.000 --> 01:12:45.000
I may need to fight within their time.

01:12:45.000 --> 01:12:49.000
Because we need to find it in ours.

01:12:49.000 --> 01:13:00.000
We had some time for conversation about that.

01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:06.000
What we have been given you, for what you have taken away, and for what we have left. Wow.

01:13:06.000 --> 01:13:09.000
That's beautiful. That's…

01:13:09.000 --> 01:13:12.000
very much like something that…

01:13:12.000 --> 01:13:16.000
He's often said at Jewish funerals, a line from Job.

01:13:16.000 --> 01:13:21.000
About blessing God who gives, and God who takes, and…

01:13:21.000 --> 01:13:29.000
God in all.

01:13:29.000 --> 01:13:30.000
Yeah.

01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:31.000
is when God takes place in hand.

01:13:31.000 --> 01:13:36.000
Blessed be the name of God.

01:13:36.000 --> 01:13:39.000
Do we want to look at the Michal Smart piece?

01:13:39.000 --> 01:13:43.000
This is… this is… this is lovely, and this is gonna be a visual, so if you've been…

01:13:43.000 --> 01:13:46.000
stepping away from the screen.

01:13:46.000 --> 01:13:47.000
a good time to come back in.

01:13:47.000 --> 01:13:52.000
In a moment, we're going to get a picture.

01:13:52.000 --> 01:13:57.000
Would someone like to… this is… this is…

01:13:57.000 --> 01:14:02.000
We found it to be.

01:14:02.000 --> 01:14:07.000
Speaking of our own faith journey. Rachel Goldberg Pullen told an interviewer who counted.

01:14:07.000 --> 01:14:13.000
Actually, let me stop for a second, because does everybody know who Rachel Goldman is?

01:14:13.000 --> 01:14:18.000
Rachel Goldberg, Poland.

01:14:18.000 --> 01:14:20.000
Mother of Hirsch.

01:14:20.000 --> 01:14:22.000
of blessed memory.

01:14:22.000 --> 01:14:26.000
I'm sorry, go ahead.

01:14:26.000 --> 01:14:37.000
This will probably sound strange, but I actually feel that the closest that I've ever come to feeling really feeling God is when Hirsch was killed.

01:14:37.000 --> 01:14:42.000
It felt so unbelievable that it could only be from God.

01:14:42.000 --> 01:14:57.000
She went on to recall her experience as a child viewing the famous painting by Georges Seurat, A Sunday on the Island of La Range Jat. It is the pointillest masterpiece that, if you look at it very closely.

01:14:57.000 --> 01:15:03.000
It doesn't make any sense. It's just a bunch of dots and chaos and blurriness.

01:15:03.000 --> 01:15:09.000
And when you step back, then you see this glorious tapestry of gorgeousness.

01:15:09.000 --> 01:15:14.000
But when you're very close in it, you don't see it.

01:15:14.000 --> 01:15:25.000
And I really believe, and maybe this is a survival tactic, maybe it's the lies we tell ourselves to keep ourselves okay. But I believe that there is a grand tapestry.

01:15:25.000 --> 01:15:30.000
I don't have the hubris to say that I understand the tapestry.

01:15:30.000 --> 01:15:40.000
But I'm faithful that it's there. And that's why I think that this indescribable blow that we're learning how to digest is also in some way.

01:15:40.000 --> 01:15:44.000
I don't know. Thanks.

01:15:44.000 --> 01:15:45.000
So here's the Surratt painting.

01:15:45.000 --> 01:15:47.000
kiss from God.

01:15:47.000 --> 01:15:54.000
along with a detail of a tiny piece of it.

01:15:54.000 --> 01:16:00.000
When you're up close, it just looks like dots.

01:16:00.000 --> 01:16:02.000
When you step back,

01:16:02.000 --> 01:16:06.000
It's the scene on the left.

01:16:06.000 --> 01:16:11.000
And the main thing that I want to say about it is this is not…

01:16:11.000 --> 01:16:13.000
prescriptive.

01:16:13.000 --> 01:16:20.000
I would never say, this is how you should feel about the tragedy in your life.

01:16:20.000 --> 01:16:24.000
Right? That's up there with… oh, they're in a better place now.

01:16:24.000 --> 01:16:28.000
And it puts a band-aid over the suffering.

01:16:28.000 --> 01:16:30.000
And we don't know whether

01:16:30.000 --> 01:16:35.000
She felt this way immediately upon learning of her son's death.

01:16:35.000 --> 01:16:39.000
Or if it took her a while.

01:16:39.000 --> 01:16:43.000
But this is an extraordinary way to be able to respond.

01:16:43.000 --> 01:16:45.000
to what, I think,

01:16:45.000 --> 01:16:49.000
to any of the rest of us, looks like an unspeakable tragedy.

01:16:49.000 --> 01:16:58.000
the death of her son in Hamas captivity.

01:16:58.000 --> 01:16:59.000
Save in the cold link.

01:16:59.000 --> 01:17:12.000
She's saving her life. He says, like… In the most miraculous… Aspirational lands, so… it just rips your heart open.

01:17:12.000 --> 01:17:14.000
Yeah.

01:17:14.000 --> 01:17:21.000
I'm not a mom. I have one, but I'm not one.

01:17:21.000 --> 01:17:24.000
Judaism is like, like…

01:17:24.000 --> 01:17:27.000
She doesn't clean up the company.

01:17:27.000 --> 01:17:29.000
She…

01:17:29.000 --> 01:17:33.000
in with the hearts.

01:17:33.000 --> 01:17:41.000
as, um, David Ingers said.

01:17:41.000 --> 01:17:44.000
cleaning the office to sit on the shelf.

01:17:44.000 --> 01:17:47.000
Any of that.

01:17:47.000 --> 01:17:52.000
Is it Judaism with…

01:17:52.000 --> 01:18:03.000
You just became silent.

01:18:03.000 --> 01:18:05.000
Sorry, my ears died.

01:18:05.000 --> 01:18:09.000
It is a Judaism that can get into it, a Judaism…

01:18:09.000 --> 01:18:13.000
It has dirty its fingernails.

01:18:13.000 --> 01:18:15.000
is robust enough.

01:18:15.000 --> 01:18:18.000
into the October 7s and the September 11.

01:18:18.000 --> 01:18:20.000
And the sparrows that fall.

01:18:20.000 --> 01:18:24.000
in the sky.

01:18:24.000 --> 01:18:29.000
With all of the human emotion that goes with it.

01:18:29.000 --> 01:18:36.000
Otherwise, it can't be where people are.

01:18:36.000 --> 01:18:42.000
And that's not Happy Clappy sometimes.

01:18:42.000 --> 01:18:44.000
Sorry, excuse me, 150.

01:18:44.000 --> 01:18:53.000
Sometimes life isn't happy-clappy.

01:18:53.000 --> 01:19:00.000
Thoughts, questions, reflections, where has this brought us this morning?

01:19:00.000 --> 01:19:05.000
I'll read our closing poem at the very tail end.

01:19:05.000 --> 01:19:13.000
Where are we at? What's in the room?

01:19:13.000 --> 01:19:18.000
Trusting what is and do good.

01:19:18.000 --> 01:19:24.000
sort of like Sorma Ra… well, I'll say tov, right? Turn from evil and do good, but…

01:19:24.000 --> 01:19:29.000
I like… I like trust in what is and do good.

01:19:29.000 --> 01:19:41.000
It's actually I forgot the Zen Jewish poet who re-translated trust in the Lord and do good to trust in what is.

01:19:41.000 --> 01:19:42.000
Could be Norman Fisher.

01:19:42.000 --> 01:19:43.000
I was gonna say, I mean, who else could it be but?

01:19:43.000 --> 01:19:49.000
And do good. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I knew I couldn't… Right. Thank you. Thank you.

01:19:49.000 --> 01:19:50.000
You know, Silver and Borstein's not enough of a poet.

01:19:50.000 --> 01:19:52.000
Goldman Fisher, right?

01:19:52.000 --> 01:19:56.000
Mm-hmm.

01:19:56.000 --> 01:19:58.000
So, we're in a pretty…

01:19:58.000 --> 01:20:01.000
subdue placed right.

01:20:01.000 --> 01:20:04.000
We're in a subdued place.

01:20:04.000 --> 01:20:07.000
That's okay. What do we do with it?

01:20:07.000 --> 01:20:13.000
But it's almost a joyously subdued place for me.

01:20:13.000 --> 01:20:17.000
joyously subdued.

01:20:17.000 --> 01:20:19.000
Subduely, subdue it.

01:20:19.000 --> 01:20:23.000
So deliberately joyful.

01:20:23.000 --> 01:20:24.000
What else is in the room?

01:20:24.000 --> 01:20:25.000
Yeah.

01:20:25.000 --> 01:20:31.000
Because this Judaism is also very authentic.

01:20:31.000 --> 01:20:34.000
create a sense of, um…

01:20:34.000 --> 01:20:37.000
Oh, you have to feel that way. That's what they're looking for.

01:20:37.000 --> 01:20:39.000
Yeah, we're not looking for anything.

01:20:39.000 --> 01:20:41.000
Other than you.

01:20:41.000 --> 01:20:44.000
Where are we?

01:20:44.000 --> 01:20:48.000
These are the lessons of Shemini.

01:20:48.000 --> 01:20:50.000
Whatever they are.

01:20:50.000 --> 01:20:57.000
That… that we're gonna lose everything, so that whatever is still here is so precious.

01:20:57.000 --> 01:21:01.000
rights, what has happened is the ground we're standing on.

01:21:01.000 --> 01:21:06.000
what we have to work with, and there is no other option

01:21:06.000 --> 01:21:07.000
Amen, brother.

01:21:07.000 --> 01:21:09.000
Truth?

01:21:09.000 --> 01:21:12.000
Jews have been pretty good at that for a few thousand years.

01:21:12.000 --> 01:21:14.000
Wisdom from the hospital bed.

01:21:14.000 --> 01:21:20.000
I see Susan, and then James.

01:21:20.000 --> 01:21:40.000
Yeah, I guess I feel the sense of profound loss, but also the importance of the process of mourning and working through it.

01:21:40.000 --> 01:21:43.000
James.

01:21:43.000 --> 01:21:48.000
I think Nachmanides is really informative here.

01:21:48.000 --> 01:21:52.000
Rabbi Nachman of Breslaw.

01:21:52.000 --> 01:21:54.000
Um, not just…

01:21:54.000 --> 01:22:02.000
through the whole, it's forbidden to despair, but the whole thing of what he says about heartbreak and despair and…

01:22:02.000 --> 01:22:05.000
And joy, and even on mourning in that,

01:22:05.000 --> 01:22:09.000
He nails it all the way around for everything we're talking about.

01:22:09.000 --> 01:22:14.000
Yeah. Um, when I teach that text,

01:22:14.000 --> 01:22:18.000
And I know that there are some tears in the room.

01:22:18.000 --> 01:22:22.000
I always caution.

01:22:22.000 --> 01:22:28.000
Nothing was the patron saint of Jewish. The Jewish patron saint of depression.

01:22:28.000 --> 01:22:30.000
He was not saying…

01:22:30.000 --> 01:22:32.000
At least in my understanding.

01:22:32.000 --> 01:22:38.000
that ye thou shalt never feel despair.

01:22:38.000 --> 01:22:44.000
I understand it to be saying is that, and to use his words, it is a great

01:22:44.000 --> 01:22:48.000
Mitzvah to be in joy, always.

01:22:48.000 --> 01:22:51.000
We must do all we can.

01:22:51.000 --> 01:22:53.000
To avoid despair.

01:22:53.000 --> 01:22:57.000
Except one hour a day.

01:22:57.000 --> 01:23:04.000
When we are to break our hearts before the Holy Blessed One.

01:23:04.000 --> 01:23:09.000
So, he was not saying, don't feel it.

01:23:09.000 --> 01:23:12.000
He was saying, give it a space.

01:23:12.000 --> 01:23:16.000
In which to fully fail it.

01:23:16.000 --> 01:23:18.000
So that you don't have to feel it all the time.

01:23:18.000 --> 01:23:20.000
Then, with as much sp-

01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:21.000
Make it 10.

01:23:21.000 --> 01:23:26.000
And then as much spiritual WD-40 as you can.

01:23:26.000 --> 01:23:29.000
Use all the tools to pivot from that.

01:23:29.000 --> 01:23:33.000
The rest of the day.

01:23:33.000 --> 01:23:39.000
My mother, of blessed memory, used to stay in gray skies are gonna clear up.

01:23:39.000 --> 01:23:42.000
Put on a happy face.

01:23:42.000 --> 01:23:48.000
And after she died, my sister and I agree that we hated that song.

01:23:48.000 --> 01:23:52.000
Because it always felt like she was saying, don't ever be sad.

01:23:52.000 --> 01:23:54.000
Just put on a happy face and you'll be okay.

01:23:54.000 --> 01:23:58.000
I don't think that's what Nachman is saying.

01:23:58.000 --> 01:24:06.000
What I love about Nachman is that he's saying, yeah, you gotta feel grief sometimes, you've gotta feel sorrow, the world demands it.

01:24:06.000 --> 01:24:13.000
Don't… don't pretend it isn't there, and don't get stuck in it.

01:24:13.000 --> 01:24:17.000
Feel it deep, and then let it go.

01:24:17.000 --> 01:24:23.000
And that's actually, I think, a much more difficult and fruitful spiritual move.

01:24:23.000 --> 01:24:25.000
Which is a little different in the context of active

01:24:25.000 --> 01:24:29.000
The loss, of course, of course, of course.

01:24:29.000 --> 01:24:35.000
And Susan was going, yes, that's right. Of course.

01:24:35.000 --> 01:24:37.000
But Shmi is…

01:24:37.000 --> 01:24:42.000
I think, is trying to tell us.

01:24:42.000 --> 01:24:45.000
that it's all fair game.

01:24:45.000 --> 01:24:49.000
The communitarian piece of it.

01:24:49.000 --> 01:24:58.000
that while for the immediate family, because they were calling in, were treated differently. But for the rest of Israel,

01:24:58.000 --> 01:25:02.000
El Salva is supposed to just sit there like a rock, forget it!

01:25:02.000 --> 01:25:05.000
We as a people are not going to allow that.

01:25:05.000 --> 01:25:09.000
And so we're gonna correct that.

01:25:09.000 --> 01:25:12.000
By a mid rush that brings her…

01:25:12.000 --> 01:25:17.000
Two men who sit with her, and they put down their tendons and the wind

01:25:17.000 --> 01:25:18.000
dancing, but not today.

01:25:18.000 --> 01:25:20.000
Uh, today!

01:25:20.000 --> 01:25:24.000
We're gonna sit, and we're gonna sing keynotes, we're gonna sing…

01:25:24.000 --> 01:25:26.000
And we're gonna give…

01:25:26.000 --> 01:25:35.000
to what for you is unvoicing.

01:25:35.000 --> 01:25:40.000
And maybe she reserved the ability to hold me.

01:25:40.000 --> 01:25:42.000
last laugh, but she with no pain amidst it.

01:25:42.000 --> 01:25:53.000
As I'm imagining it all to.

01:25:53.000 --> 01:25:55.000
That's the story of Shrie.

01:25:55.000 --> 01:26:01.000
That, um, you should eat this and don't eat that.

01:26:01.000 --> 01:26:04.000
on this journey of Tua and Tahara.

01:26:04.000 --> 01:26:06.000
Next week, we are going…

01:26:06.000 --> 01:26:10.000
This is everybody's favorite.

01:26:10.000 --> 01:26:17.000
It's crawling all over me.

01:26:17.000 --> 01:26:22.000
which is not leprosy. It's a spiritual sickness.

01:26:22.000 --> 01:26:24.000
Um…

01:26:24.000 --> 01:26:27.000
And there's some funky midrash out there.

01:26:27.000 --> 01:26:28.000
Oh boy, Arthur.

01:26:28.000 --> 01:26:30.000
BOTS. BUT!

01:26:30.000 --> 01:26:35.000
We want to take this opportunity to seed SBED an idea.

01:26:35.000 --> 01:26:38.000
After Shabbat, we're gonna send out

01:26:38.000 --> 01:26:41.000
to everyone on the list.

01:26:41.000 --> 01:26:46.000
Uh, some of the texts that we're gonna read.

01:26:46.000 --> 01:26:51.000
to try your own hand at mid-washing it.

01:26:51.000 --> 01:26:52.000
If you wash it.

01:26:52.000 --> 01:26:58.000
Hmm.

01:26:58.000 --> 01:26:59.000
Send it to us.

01:26:59.000 --> 01:27:01.000
send it to us.

01:27:01.000 --> 01:27:06.000
You never know what might happen to it.

01:27:06.000 --> 01:27:09.000
And see what voices come through.

01:27:09.000 --> 01:27:12.000
Indeed. Can we close with the poem?

01:27:12.000 --> 01:27:13.000
Yes, absolutely.

01:27:13.000 --> 01:27:15.000
bring it back up.

01:27:15.000 --> 01:27:19.000
Keeping on set, here it comes.

01:27:19.000 --> 01:27:28.000
So this one's new this week, written as a result of the text study that Rabbi David and I did in order to bring you the text study that we just had.

01:27:28.000 --> 01:27:31.000
She wasn't alone.

01:27:31.000 --> 01:27:34.000
I think… hope.

01:27:34.000 --> 01:27:39.000
The women kept company with Elisheva.

01:27:39.000 --> 01:27:42.000
Sat with her on the ground.

01:27:42.000 --> 01:27:46.000
brought her lentils and boiled eggs.

01:27:46.000 --> 01:27:49.000
Foods without edge.

01:27:49.000 --> 01:27:51.000
Maybe they sang rounds.

01:27:51.000 --> 01:27:55.000
Their voices, rising and falling.

01:27:55.000 --> 01:27:57.000
No one said,

01:27:57.000 --> 01:28:00.000
For the best.

01:28:00.000 --> 01:28:04.000
A child's death isn't.

01:28:04.000 --> 01:28:08.000
at least then, singing laments.

01:28:08.000 --> 01:28:15.000
She wasn't alone.

01:28:15.000 --> 01:28:16.000
May we all be not alone in whatever we're sitting with.

01:28:16.000 --> 01:28:23.000
Mm-hmm.

01:28:23.000 --> 01:28:28.000
The sword sheet is back in the chat box.

01:28:28.000 --> 01:28:34.000
Welcome back.

01:28:34.000 --> 01:28:38.000
Back to spring.

01:28:38.000 --> 01:28:42.000
flushed them out to all who are.

01:28:42.000 --> 01:28:51.000
stay on, and stop.