Sparking Joy
By Rabbi Lori Shapiro

Sara Berman lived. Born into a European world that no longer exists, she moved to the US, raised a family, got divorced and discovered her inner Marie Kondo before Marie Kondo was even born. Sara Berman’s Closet, currently on view at the Skirball Museum, proves that even the KonMari Method™ has its roots in a Jewish Grandmother, and is a standing altar to the fastidious ways of our foremothers.

At a recent event for the “closet opening,” Maira Kalman, Sara’s daughter and renowned New Yorker cartoonist and author, emphasized the significance of the closet as a form of personal expression. In an effort to reveal her authentic self, Sara began wearing only white, and spent the last three decades of her life simplifying her wardrobe, home, lifestyle, and closet. It wasn’t so much an act of minimalism, as it was a desire to remove the barriers that inhibited her authentic self from revealing its inner elegance.

At a time when our lives are filled with clutter – from our schedules, media, bills, social media friends, and more – how do we reclaim our authentic selves?

This week, we dedicate Torah reading Tetzaveh to Sara’s memory, as it contains the final verses of the pericope concerned with all matters of building of the Mishkan, the role of the Priests and the collections in their closets and pantries. Tetzaveh gives us an insider’s view of the maintenance of the Temple — how to light a menorah; how to make a ram sandwich; and how to organize the Temple closet. In its punctilious description of all things Temple oriented, we are reminded of the God Within the Details.

Indeed, like the redolence of the herbal  incense, I am reminded of Chanel Perfumes. Throughout my childhood, I remember visiting the grandmothers of my friends’ homes, and the ubiquitous presence of a large glass sculpture containing the golden liquid with its scent; it wafted throughout their homes. For a generation of woman, Sara Berman included, a signature scent was chosen in early adulthood and adopted for a lifetime. Like the incense offerings in the Temple, the scent brought with it a specific memory and meaning. Do you remember your Grandmother’s scent? In a life of clutter, we’ve lost our trail in a confusion of olfactory stimulus. Perhaps our national obsession with sparking joy through space clearing is an understated act of defiance against materialism and Search for God, akin to the simple instructions of how to light a menorah, how to dress as priests and re-introduce ourselves to simply and with simplicity enter into the Temples of our Lives. Perhaps in a world where we are all encouraged to “get out of the closet,” we need to also go back into them before coming out, and, like Sara, Maira and Marie, clean up our interior so that we can reclaim our essence and share it with the world, unequivocally, as we emerge beaming, blazing, shining menorahs of Human Light.

Inspired Hearts
By Rabbi Lori Shapiro

Dancing. It moves the body, uplifts the fallen neshama and clears the mind. Like the Sufi spinning in accord with the constellations, Israeli dance captures a small piece of the universe within a small space for a unique period of time. If Shabbat is a Temple in Time, as Abraham Joshua Heschel famously stated, then Dance is the Discipline of the Priests.

It is clear that we are called upon to be Dancers. In Hebrew, there are no fewer than 11 words for dance – Leap! (Dalag), Whirl! (Karar) and the catch all Dance! (Raqad). We should also Alats, Giyl, Pacach, Pazaz, Chagag, Mechowlah, Machowl, and Chiyl – Twist, Whirl, Circle Dance, Dance in Company, March in Procession, Jump, Leap, Skip, Spring, Hop, Skip, Spin under the influence of joy and triumph. Yes, we should dance…we should dance our tuchuses off.

And yet, for many of us, our sedentary society has created an exilic experience with dance. When presented with a dance floor, we feel dis-ease, resistance, malaise. It is as if the barrier of entry for such a flat plain were as high as Mt. Meron.

Well, it’s time to change all of that.

Open Temple is excited to partner with Israeli Dance Choreographer and Instructor David Dassa. David is a living treasure, and the son of living legend Danny Dassa. As David explained to me one recent morning at Zinque, “there are about five dancers around the world who make their living teaching Israeli dance, and I am lucky to be one of them.” David converts the uninitiated into an Israeli dancing machine, leaving community and joy in his wake. Just look at the photo, above.  Everyone dancing is smiling.

Open Temple’s core values are Creativity, Love and Truth. We believe that creativity engages all of us in something greater than ourselves. This week’s Torah portion is clear – every one of us has an offering of the heart that only we can give – and in exchange, we will experience Transcendence. The creation of a spiritual community is a covenantal relationship that promises to bring us to life. And at Open Temple, we do that – through the Art of Judaism, Music, Dance, Performance Art and the Word. Verse 25:8 in Parshat Terumah invites us to: “Asu li Mikdash v’shanti b’tocham” – Build for me a Holy Space so I may Dwell Amongst You.”

Open Temple continues to build this Holy Space as an open temple – in our hearts, in our homes, in our community. And through this opening, the Force of Life enters into us, animating us with the life force – what the Torah describes as Godliness – of what it means to be alive.  This same force opens our hearts towards acts of loving kindness, it activates the mind towards positive thought, it is the force of human potential for us to enact upon. And all that it takes is that first step.

Come, Dance with Us.

with love and Torah light,
Rabbi Lori

On the Road…
By Rabbi Lori Shapiro

T’filat HaDerekh, or “Wayfarer’s Prayer” is the prayer we say upon setting off on a journey. It is a prayer of comfort that acknowledges “Hey, G?d, I’m going on this journey and I want you to know about it…the rest is up to me.”  We ask for protection as we are about to leave the city limits and beyond.  It is said once a day, to be repeated after sunset if the journey begins at that time.

This week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, is one of the source texts for this prayer. In Exodus 23:20 God states:

הִנֵּ֨ה אָנֹכִ֜י שֹׁלֵ֤חַ מַלְאָךְ֙ לְפָנֶ֔יךָ לִשְׁמָרְךָ֖ בַּדָּ֑רֶךְ וְלַהֲבִ֣יאֲךָ֔ אֶל־הַמָּק֖וֹם אֲשֶׁ֥ר הֲכִנֹֽתִי׃

“I am sending an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have made ready.”

[pull record needle off of record and make skid sound]

“Uh – Angel?”

I recall a practical rabbinics class one winter day in 2005 when a colleague of mine presented a case of a congregant who only wanted to talk about angels. Our rabbinic supervisor responded, “well, you know that you can’t permit her at the synagogue if she is going to talk about angels. You need to tell her that she can not talk about angels and that if she continues to lead the conversation in that direction that she is not invited back.”

It was winter, but that was not why I felt chilled. I could not believe what I was hearing. If the Torah so clearly mentions Malach” – which is translated as a messenger, or angel – why couldn’t congregants discuss this concept, which has its roots in the Torah?  Or, even more radical – why can’t someone believe in a angels if they choose to?

“We are NOT the people of the book; we are the people of the interpretation of the book.”

These words echo in my mind. Ours is an interpretive journey. Torah is a state of mind, of interpretation, of intellectual and spiritual curiosity. Concepts such as angels, a pavement of sapphire in the sky, knowing through doing…” all of these ideas find their way into this week’s Torah portion.  Known as a list of “case laws,” Parshat Mishpatim is the hidden truth of Torah – read it literally, and it is a collection of dos and don’ts. Read it with interpretive power, and it sets the mind and body ablaze.

Look for angels in our lives…sensitize ourselves to fully inhale a sunset…break our hearts open each time we see a man or woman with a sign at a stop light.  The laws of Torah are to arouse our humanity and dignity; not stymie them.

Torah is to be interpreted, challenged, embodied and lived through our hearts, our hands and our ability to experience empathy.  And like the sapphire path above the Israelite’s heads at the closing of the Torah portion, the sky is the limit.

Fly, Angels.

Circles
By Rabbi Lori Shapiro

Ein Sof. Without End. All My Life’s a Circle.

Circles are 360 degrees – Double Chai for a minyan. And its circumference, while measurable, is also an endless roundabout caught in π. Circles are an endless fascination, and Torah, maintaining its analog appeal, “turns and turns,” like a wheel, “with everything inside.”

Literary Biblical scholar Avivah Zornberg in an interview with Krista Tippet reminds us of “one of the extraordinary, recursive references in the [Exodus] story. Over and over again, God says to Moses, Moses says to the people, ‘All this is happening so that you shall tell the story.’

It’s the Biblical Storytelling Circle Game.

“It’s so upside-down, you might say…” continues Zornberg, “Since it’s happened, all right, tell the story. Make sure people remember it. But that’s not the point. It’s not telling the story so as to remember what happened. It happened so as to be the stimulus for a meaningful story. And the stories will develop and change through time. And perhaps, in the end or along the way, you might find yourself telling a better story than what is actually written in the text. So long as there is some connection. So that what you have, for instance, on the Seder night, on Passover, is basically the commandment to tell the story of the Exodus, which doesn’t mean reading the Bible. It means — you know, it isn’t just opening up the Bible and reading.”

A Shammai Hanukkiah.
By Rabbi Lori Shapiro

The story of Hanukkah is a literary tel, formed over several millennia, its origins spinning through the Book of Maccabees I and II though Josephus, the Talmud, Maimonides and beyond; it’s a literal literary time machine.  And if each evolving civilization imprints its own addition to this tale, might we look around at our times and ask “what is our contemporary contribution to the telling?” Perhaps, this year, no matter is more important to illuminate than the Spirit of Machloket (disagreement).  Most famously preserved in the mental sparring of rabbis Hillel vs. Shammai, the rabbis of the Talmud respectfully preserved the minority opinion in matters of dissent.

When lighting the Hanukkah Menorah, aka the Hanukkiah, according to the House of Hillel, we begin with one light and increase the light each day until we have all eight illuminated. What if, this year, all of us reclaim the Shammai Hanukkiah; Hillel’s sparring partner and primary adversary. Perhaps this year, in addition to our beloved Hillel Hanukkiah (Shabbat Bavli, 21b), we follow Shammai’s teaching and begin with a blaze of all eight candles, symbolic of the great fires in our city, state and nation, and practice a Shammai reduction of the flame for eights nights as a meditation of our human condition – humbled in the face of nature’s power, our hunger for unity and the work it takes to become one?

This Hanukkah, Open Temple shares this tradition at our annual “Hanukkah on the Canal Parade” as we gather and dedicate ourselves to the search for light in times of darkness.  We hearken to the sounds of strangers and invite the Other into our hearts and homes as an eight night meditation of reduced light to guide our return; until a singular candle, representing all of us, together and alone, becomes our sole companion; a singular light, reminiscent of the mystery and promise of creation; all of us – One.

Compassion & Loving Kindess
A Meditation by Jordana Reim