|
|
Post by louise on Sept 12, 2023 7:45:32 GMT -5
What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.
Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy
And for those of you who stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!
|
|
|
|
Post by louise on Sept 12, 2023 7:51:38 GMT -5
Counting down to Rosh Hashanah. I plan to study torah today and take a look at the services I lead - I know I have to add soemthing havadalah like in the second night ma'ariv because it is Saturday night - my rabbi sent me an MP3. Pretty much done with everything in the synagogue.
The parshah this past shabbat was jam packed with Moses’s final words to the Israelites, among them some of my favorite verses. We have looked at these before but I never tire of them and this is a good time to take another look:
For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. Deuteronomy 30:11-14.
I love this because it tells us we have the power to reach to God ourselves, to come to our own understanding. We do not need someone to intervene for us. Do these verses speak to you as well?
|
|
|
|
Post by gazelle18 on Sept 12, 2023 9:25:47 GMT -5
The idea that belief in one’s truth (whether it is belief in God, or sureness about a set of values, or fealty to a tribe) is accessible is very comforting to me. It means that a person can grab it, feel it, gnaw at it, and even shape it.
|
|
|
|
Post by peachymom1 on Sept 12, 2023 9:36:49 GMT -5
Yes! The idea that we can learn and do and understand - without needing advanced degrees or smichah or any other particular designation - is very human and realistic to me. Advanced degrees and smichah and learning in general are important and wonderful too, but any ordinary person can learn to take care of others and the world, and to be a mensch. And each person's relationship to the Source of Life is theirs alone.
An old colleague of mine was talking about a rabbi friend of his and exclaimed proudly, "He has a direct line to God!" I shrugged and said simply, "Well, so do you." This colleague was mortified that I would suggest such a thing. "But he's a RABBI! He KNOWS things!" to which I replied, "That's wonderful, you can learn from him, but he doesn't have any more of a connection to God than you do." He had a hard time grasping that idea and dismissed it from his mind, I'm sure, but I just couldn't let a comment like that pass. I have great respect for rabbis and teachers in general, but they're not intermediaries, just instruments.
|
|
lee058
This space for rent
Posts: 23,289 
|
Post by lee058 on Sept 12, 2023 17:16:01 GMT -5
Good evening everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE!
I have been extremely busy, and also have been having some health problems. I saw my doctor today and he is sending me to an orthopedist for my elbow. I'm supposed to get an x-ray and possibly a cortisone shot.
Peachy, I like the way you answered your colleague.
I hope to do some writing tomorrow.
Have a peaceful night, Lee
|
|
|
|
Post by hollygail on Sept 13, 2023 8:03:24 GMT -5
Do these verses speak to me? I once wrote an entire d'var Torah on exactly these verses which I delivered to my congregation. (A few years before that, at the b. mitzvah of one of the students who'd written his report on something other than about the weekly portion [which was N'tzavmim] and the rabbi said to me [from the other side of the sanctuary], "Holly, I know this is one of your favorites; do you have something you'd like to tell us?" or words to that effect. What did I do? I talked about the overall meaning of the opening verses, just off the top of my head.) The time I wrote the d'var on it was for the High Holy Days period. A few weeks later, one of the moms of a boy who wasn't yet my student (he may have been in 5th grade) came to me to tell me that her son stopped eating cheeseburgers (one of the examples I'd given of "hear"ing the commandments and "do"ing them) because of my d'var Torah. I had had no idea that kids even listened to the divrei (plural of d'var) at services!
|
|
