April 25, 2015 6 Iyar, 5775 Omer Count: Day 21 Friday Night Mincha: 6:30 PM Shabbat Candle Lighting 7:29PM Morning Services: 9:00 AM Shabbat Mincha & Mussar – 7:15 PM Shabbat ends: 8:30PM Kiddush Levanah – Weather permitting Shul Announcements Tazria - Metzora Page 608 (Torah) Page 1172 (Haftarah) We Remember Toby Messer! Thank you to the Messer family for sponsoring today’s Kiddush in Memory of your mother and our Matriarch! Upcoming Birthdays & Anniversaries April Birthdays: Sima Hakakian (1st), Lauren st st nd Rosenberg (1 ), Gregg Russo (1 ), Ira Antin (2 ), rd th Ilana Fishbein (3 ), Sofia Korish (4 ), Geoffrey th th Lampel (4 ), Phyllis Yacker (4 ), Elyse Dickman th th th (5 ), Jonathan Ginsberg (5 ), Drew Levat (5 ), th th th Shaul Mizrahi (5 ), Ira Smith (5 ), Skip Levine (6 ), th th Beth Rems (8 ), Maureen Messer (9 ), Dana th th Schwarz (9 ), Alexander Brothman (11 ), Sunny th th Messer (11 ), Meryl Rehaut (14 ), Jodi Silbermann th th th (14 ), Jennifer Sloane (14 ), Daniel Goldman (15 ), th th Itai Hudes (15 ), Rebecca Brooks (16 ), Steven th th Gelb (16 ), Martha Moritz (16 ), Yehudit Svirsky th th th (16 ), Barry Yacker (16 ), Aidan Korish (19 ), Marcy th th Oren (19 ), Joel Spielman (19 ), Suzanne Hengen th th st (20 ), Aron Shalit (20 ), Hulelle Hudes (21 ), Steven nd rd Dickman (22 ), Rina Hollander (23 ), Lori Blitz th th th (25 ), Alex Gelbert (25 ), Uriah London (25 ), th th Joshua Charm (27 ), Joshua Weinstein (27 ), Bret th th Ratner (29 ), Linda Rosenbaum (29 ), Caren th th Strulowitz (29 ), Roz Krosser (30 ).. April Anniversaries: : Albert & Pam Dabah (1st), st Henry & Fran London (1 ), Paul & Ilana Fishbein th st (7 ), Lonnie & Zulya Moss (21 ). May Birthdays: Aaron Chevinsky (2nd), Marisa Kwoczka (2nd), Hank London (2nd), Sharon Smith (2nd), Javid Hakakian (5th), Ariel Scheer (5th), th Jonathan Bravman (6th), Debra Turitz (6 ), Paul th th Manis (7 ), Carl Rosen (8th), Pamela Gelbert (9 ), th Samantha Messer (9 ), Steve Levy (10th), Beena Levy (11th), Rich Rosenberg (11th), Bryce Zwickel th th th (11 ), Heather Cohen (12 ), Judith Heistein (12 ), th th Deborah Goldwasser (15 ), Tamar Winters (15 ). MFJC INFO ~ www.mtfjc.org Address: 1209 Sussex Tpk., Randolph 07869 Phone Numbers: Office: 973 895 2100 Rabbi: 973 895 2103; Rabbi’s Cell: 201 923 1107 Rabbi’s Office Hours: Mornings: Tues - Fri, 9-1PM; afternoons/evenings: 3-6PM; or anytime by appt Menashe East [email protected] Office Hours: M-Th, 10- 5PM; F, 10-4PM David Paris [email protected] This Week: April 25: Messer Family Sponsored Kiddush – In Memory of Toby Messer’s 1st Yahrzeit. April 25: Jr Cong, 1030AM April 25: Shabbat Afternoon Torah Study guest teacher: Rabbi Michael East April 26: Talmud study, 9AM April 30: Thursday Torah, 10AM Upcoming Events: May 2: Schmelkin Baby Naming May 7: Lag Baomer Bonfire and BBQ, 6PM, shul Parking lot May 9: We-Drash – Geoff Lampel and Janet Tammam give a duo-Drash for Parshat Emor May 9: April/May Combined Shared Kiddush, contact the office to be a sponsor. May 10: Mother’s Day May 16: Shabbat Chazzak & Shabbat Mevarchim for Sivan May 16: Yom Yerushalayim Melavah Malka, details tbd… May 17: Yom Yerushalayim cont… May 19: Rosh Chodesh Sivan; Traditional Minyan @ GRTWA, 820AM May 19: Last Day of Hebrew School May 23-25: Shavuot – sign up to teach a class for our all night learning May 25: Yizkor & Megillat Ruth – readers sign up… May 26: NY Mets Israel Appreciation night, 710PM MFJC SERVICE TIMES: Weekday – 6:45AM Weeknight – Upon Request (Yahrzeit) Sunday & National Holidays – 8:00AM Shabbat Services – 9:00AM Fri Eve: Summer – 6:30PM; Winter – Sunset Thank you to those who made donations in the month of March 2015! March 2015 Tribute Donations to MFJC Tributes In Honor Of Tributes In Memory Of Birth of Ethan Samuel Rosenbaum Hezy & Janet Cohen Harry S. Katz Marc & Anne Beacken, Ron & Lillie Brandt, Bernard Brothman & Marsha Hoch, David & Robin Leitner, David & Judi Paris, Jonathan & Jamie Ramsfelder, Lee & Linda Rosenbaum, Michael & Rochelle Zeiger Birth of Caleb Svirsky Hezy & Janet Cohen Harold Shuster’s 97th Birthday Gil & Jackie Mayor Joel Spielman & Leah Gruss’ Aniversary Eileen Spielman Noa Russo’s Bat Mitzvah Ron & Lillie Brandt, Jonathan & Jamie Ramsfelder Danielle, David, Tori & Skylar Podell Siddur Donation by: Michael & Dandy Podell Paul Fishbein’s Continued Good Health David & Meryl Rehaut David Tammam’s Continued Good Health David & Meryl Rehaut March 2015 Yahrzeit IN MEMORY OF: Abraham Waldman Adele Schwartz Benjamin Levine Blanka Majer Celia Krosser Doug Edgell Freda Messer George Okun Harold Welt Isadore Rosenfarb Jonas Reich DONOR Ned & Susan Waldman Steven & Helen Schwartz Ruth Levine Charles & Bozena Eckstein Ruth Levine Gabriele Edgell Estate of Toby Messer Charles & Madelyn Okun Martin & Ruth Welt Norman Rosenfarb Samuel & Bertha Reich Sarah bat Beniah Korish Michael & Rochelle Zeiger Muriel Wallach Gelbert Marc & Anne Beacken, Bernard Brothman & Marsha Hoch, Rita Karmiol, David & Judi Paris, Jonathan & Jamie Ramsfelder, Lee & Linda Rosenbaum, Michael & Rochelle Zeiger Siddur donated by: Steven & Helen Schwartz Gloria Rosenberg Marc & Anne Beacken, Ron & Lillie Brandt, Barry Ginsberg & Lauren Cooper, David Leibowitz, Gil & Jacquelin Mayor, Craig & Sharon Nessel, David & Judi Paris, Louis & Madeleine Pasteelnick, Arthur & Robin Shulman, Larry Weinstein & Beverly Zagofsky Siddur Donation by: Lee & Linda Rosenbaum David Yarosh’s 3rd Yahrzeit Donations to MFJC Siddur Donation by: Mark & Martha Moritz IN MEMORY OF: Kate Kirshenbaum Max E. Steinhardt Max Rehaut Nathan Desick Pearl Cohen Rachel Reich Rebecca Pressman Sarah Weber Shirley Shapiro Thomas Austern DONOR Caroline Kirshenbaum Israel & Linda Majzner David & Meryl Rehaut Robert & Susan Gaynor Robert & Susan Gaynor Samuel & Bertha Reich Estate of Toby Messer Caroline Kirshenbaum Stanley & Gladys Shapiro Gabriele Edgell There are many ways to honor a person, commemorate an occasion, or memorialize a loved one at Mt. Freedom Jewish Center Please call the office at 973-895-2100 with any questions. MFJC Youth Program Invites You to Celebrate Lag B’Omer Bon Fire BBQ and Festivities Thursday, May 7th @6:00PM BBQ @ 6:30PM @ Mount Freedom Jewish Center – 1209 Sussex Trpk, Randolph $5/person RSVP to [email protected] Caregiver Support Group Are you caring for a loved with Alzheimer’s or Related Dementia Disease? This group will offer: Emotional and educational support An opportunity to network with other caregivers DATES: Last Thursday of the month - May 28, June 25, July 30, August 27, September 24 TIME: 1:00 – 2:00 pm LOCATION: Mt. Freedom Jewish Center 1209 Sussex Turnpike, Randolph, NJ For more information about the Caregiver Support Group, please call 973-765-9050 There is no charge for this program. This group will be co-facilitated by: Alyson Kaplan, LSW & Alexandra Nagy, LSW, Jewish Family Service of MetroWest WEEKLY PARSHA By Rabbi Dov Linzer, Rosh HaYeshiva and Dean of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Parshat Tazria-Metzora | April 24, 2015 / 6 Iyar 5775 A Tzara'at Survivor The double parasha Tazria-Metzorah details the laws of tumah, any impurity that would require people to maintain their distance from the Mishkan. The primary focus is on the metzorah, a person afflicted with the skin disease tzara'at, and how he is to become pure. The parasha continues with cases of tzara'at that occur on garments and on a house before turning the focus back to people and their impurities: the zav, literally the "flow," a man with an unusual penile emission; a man who had a seminal emission; the niddah, the woman who has menstruated; and the zavah, the woman who has had an irregular flow of blood. The common denominator of all of these tumaot is that they develop from within the person; they are not contracted from the outside. Whether the condition is a skin disease or some type of flow, the source is in the person. Although less intense than the tumah of touching a corpse, the tumah of this week's parasha is more severe in one important way: it directly defines personal status. Such a person may not enter into to the Levite camp, or, after the wilderness period, the Temple Mount. A person with corpse-impurity, by contrast, can go up onto the Temple Mount. Tumah that comes from the outside, even if very intense, does not define the identity of the person to whom it transferred. We do not have a proper noun for a person who has touched a corpse; he is described only in terms of what he has done. In contrast, Tazria-Metzorah is filled with a cast of characters - the Metzorah, the Zav, the Niddah, the Zavah - defined by their status. Hence, they must keep their distance from the Temple, where the primary concern is to keep tamei things, and more specifically tamei people, out. We often define a person's very self by more readily identifiable traits. This can help us organize our reality, but it can also lead to generalization and discrimination My children have special needs, but these don't define them. I do not want them to go through life as "he is Asperger's" or even "he is autistic." These are conditions they have not adjectives and certainly not proper nouns. I want no one to forget - especially them - that, first and foremost, they are special, unique, wonderful people who are so much more than any particular condition they may have. When people meet one of my sons, they have to see them for who they are; if all they see is a label, they are not really seeing them at all. As we might expect, a closer reading of this week's parasha reveals that the Torah does not label people by their conditions. Take, for example, the man with an irregular flow. He is referred to as hazav.This could be translated as a proper noun: "the Flow-er," or "the Emitter." However, this approach is almost universally eschewed; most translators have understood that the word zav, as it is used here, is not meant as a name but a descriptor. The proper translation is, "the man who has a flow." This is his condition, not who he is. This is true for everyone in our parasha. There is the man asher teizei mimenu shikhvat zera, "who has experienced a seminal emission"; the woman who is bi'nidattah, "experiencing her flow"; and the woman who is "in her [irregular] flow" (Vayikra, 15:16, 20, 26-28). These are people in certain states, not people defined by their state. Because the tumah occurs to them directly they own their tumah more, and they are more distanced from the Mikdash, but this does not and should not define their identity. There is one exception to this rule. Although the person with the skin disease is mostly described just that simply, the Torah does, in one place, give him a proper name. At the beginning of Parashat Metzorah he is called the metzorah, a title used in very much the same sense as "the leper." This may be because, unlike the others, this condition is long-lasting, severe, potentially recurrent, and visible to all. It is thus more likely that a person may wind up being defined by it. This is often what happens with those who have cancer. Consider the following blog post: I had migraines for 25 years. Bad ones, that left me quaking in agony in a darkened room, moving only to vomit. Those migraines changed my life more than cancer did... Yet, I don't consider them a part of my identity. Not so with cancer. I have migraines, I am a cancer patient. I suppose the [intensity of the] treatment can help explain it... We can't keep it a secret, like those with high blood pressure can. We don't get to face our disease in private: we lose our hair and are thus outed as cancer patients. If we leave the house, we tell the world. It's also true that the fact that the disease can come back and strike at any time is part of the reason it never fully leaves your psyche. Notice how many of the characteristics of living with cancer parallel those of tzara'at: intensive treatment, the public nature (hair growing wild in one case, baldness in the other), the potential for recurrence. These traits can conspire to turn the disease into identity. I believe, however, that even here the Torah pushes back against this sort of labeling. It is ironic that the label metzorah does not appear when the person is diagnosed with the condition, when he is ostracized from the camp, or when he practices the public signs announcing his state. It is only assigned when he begins the process of purification: "This shall be the law of the metzorah on the day that he becomes pure..." (Vayikra, 14:2). It seems that the Torah is acknowledging that this state can become an identity and advising that it only be recognized as such in retrospect, once the condition can no longer outwardly identify who they are. In fact, one study has shown that people who self-identify as a "cancer survivor" are more likely to have "better psychological well-being and post-traumatic growth," this in spite of the same study's finding that "neither identifying as a 'patient' nor a 'person with cancer' was related to well-being." It would seem that after having lived through such a traumatic condition, it is healthier to see one's current state as a significant break from one's past state. If one 'had cancer' and now simply 'does not have cancer,' if there is significant continuity of identity from the period of disease to after, it may be harder to fully own one's new, healthy state. Perhaps the Torah is telling the person with tzara'at, resist letting this terrible disease define you when you have it. But when you are putting it behind you, then you can say that before you were a metzorah, and now you are no longer. Just as they may be helpful when the condition is a thing of the past, labels for people can serve a useful function in legal texts. Halakha and the rabbinic literature does in fact assign labels to people with these conditions: a woman with a flow, for example, is a niddah, a menstruant. Legal systems may need a convenient way of categorizing and grouping, but when dealing with real people with current conditions, labeling will always remain dangerous, reductionist, and dehumanizing. While the Torah focuses on how certain people can become tahor, how they can change their current state, we must acknowledge that there are people with lifelong conditions. These people can only talk about managing their condition, not treating it and certainly not curing it. We cannot further trap them in their condition by labeling them and identifying them with it. It is our responsibility as a society to ensure that, whomever the person and whatever their condition, we will always see him or her as he or she fully is, that we see the inherent purity that is each person's essence. Shabbat Shalom! Shabbat Shalom Parshat Tazria-Metzora (Leviticus 12:1 – 15:33) Efrat, Israel - “Speak to the children of Israel saying, when a woman conceives (tazria) and gives birth to a male … on the eighth day the child’s foreskin shall be circumcised.” (Leviticus 12:2-3) The Hebrew word “halacha” is the term used for Jewish law which is the constitution and bedrock of our nation; indeed, we became a nation at Sinai when we accepted the Divine covenantal laws of ritual, ethics and morality which are to educate and shape us into a “special treasure… a kingdom of priest-teachers and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6). The verb of the root “hlch” means “walk”; progressing from one place to another, and not remaining static or stuck in one place, as in the biblical verses: “Walk before Me [hit’halech] and become whole-hearted” (Genesis 17: 1) and “You shall walk [ve’halachta] in [God’s] pathways” (Deuteronomy 5: 33). This is important since scientific discoveries and social norms are constantly evolving, and it is incumbent upon scholars to consider these changing realities when determining halachicnorms, such as establishing time of death (no longer considered the cessation of the respiratory function, but rather now considered brain-stem death), which would allow for heart transplants. For this reason, the Oral Law was never supposed to have been written down – for fear that it become ossified. It was only because our lost sovereignty (70 CE), pursuant exile and almost incessant persecution might have caused us to forget our sacred traditions that the Sages reluctantly agreed to commit the Oral Law to writing in the form of the Talmud, declaring, “It is time to do for the Lord, they must nullify the Torah law” not to record the Oral Law (Tmura 14b). However, thanks to responsa literature, where sages respond to questions of Jewish law from Jews in every country in the globe, halacha has kept “in sync” with new conditions and new realities. I would like to bring to your attention a ground-breaking responsum published by the great Talmudic luminary Rav Moshe Feinstein in 1961, regarding the verse which opens our Torah portion. Reactionary forces opposed his ideas, burnt his books and harassed his household, but he refused to recant. The Hebrew word tazria in the above quote literally means “inspermated,” zera being the Hebrew word for seed or sperm. The rabbi was asked whether a woman who had been artificially inseminated, after 10 years of a childless marriage because of her husband’s infertility, could still maintain sexual relations with her husband. In other words: did the “new invention” of artificial insemination by a man who is not her husband constitute an act of adultery, which would make the woman forbidden to her husband? Rav Moshe responded forthrightly and unequivocally: “It is clear that in the absence of an act of sexual intimacy, a woman cannot be forbidden to her husband or considered to be an unfaithful wife …similarly, the child is kosher, because mamzerut (bastardy) can only occur by means of an act of sexual intimacy between a married woman and a man not her husband, not by means of sperm artificially inseminated.” The sage added how important it is for us to understand the deep existential need a woman has for a child and how our “holy matriarchs” all yearned to bear children “and all women in the world are like them in this respect.” If the mother does not know the identity of the sperm donor, it would not prevent the later marriage of the child (lest he/she marry a sibling), since we go in accordance with the majority of people, who would not be siblings to this child (Igrot Moshe, Even HaEzer, siman 10). This responsum opened the door for many single women who refuse to be promiscuous, or to take a marriage partner solely for the sake of having a child with him, but who desperately wish to have a child of their own and continue the Jewish narrative into the next generation. Especially given the obiter dictum Rav Moshe included, in which he explained the importance of having a child especially to a woman and specifically states that he would have allowed the woman to be artificially inseminated ab initio (l’hat’hila — since the woman asked her question after she had already been inseminated), this responsum has mitigated to a great extent the problem of female infertility. If a given woman does not have a properly functional ovum, her husband’s sperm can artificially inseminate a healthy ovum, which can be implanted within the birth mother who will then carry the fetus until delivery; and if a woman is able to have her ovum fertilized by her husband’s sperm but is unable to carry the fetus in her womb, a surrogate can carry the fetus until delivery. The question is to be asked: Who then is the true mother, the one who provides the fertilized ovum or the one who carries the fetus to its actual birth? Depending on the response, we will know whether or not we must convert the baby if the true mother was not Jewish. Rav Shlomo Goren, a former chief rabbi of Israel (and previously the IDF chief chaplain), provides the answer from our parsha’s introductory text: “When a woman is ‘inseminated (tazria) and gives birth…” The word “tazria” seems at first to be superfluous. Rav Goren explains that it took 4,000 years for us to understand that this word is informing us that the true biological mother is the one whose ovum was “inseminated.” Shabbat Shalom Israel’ s Birth Pangs This Shabbat, we read the double portion of Tazria-Metzorah. The opening of this portion deals with the laws of ritual impurity that follow childbirth. When the mother emerges from her impurity, the Torah issues a strange commandment - that calls for the new mother to bring a sin offering, a Chatat, and an elevation offering, an Olah which was totally consumed by the fire. (Leviticus, 12:6) Why must she bring these sacrifices? The sin offering, as the name implies, was brought on the altar when a person commits a sin. What sin does the new mother commit that she should be obligated to offer the sin sacrifice? The Midrash was concerned by this very matter. The students of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai approached their teacher in search of clarification to this problem. He replied that during the pain of labor the woman vows never to be intimate with her husband again, lest she face a recurrence of the suffering of birthing. But after the event, she regrets her vow and that is cause for her to bring the sin offering. (See Midrash Aggadah, ibid) The elevation offering, according to the Meshech Chochma, was synonymous with a holiday offering. When a pilgrim would come to the Temple for a festival, he would come after a long absence. So, he would bring an elevation offering of sight – Olat Rieeah – a person would not come to visit the face of God empty handed. The Olah offering in that context was a sacrifice of meeting. The new mother, in a similar vein, was prohibited access to the Temple because of her ritual impurity. Now that she has become pure again, she celebrates her return and her meeting of God, as though it were a holiday, with the elevation offering. (See his comments to the verse; Lev., ibid) The Jewish world celebrated the 67th birthday of the state of Israel this past week. And the themes of childbirth and sacrifice are relevant as we think about the State of Israel. The pain of labor, the moments of anguish before birth are feelings that millennia of Jewish people understood. The Jewish world, pre-statehood, suffered in myriad ways. The expectant mother knows a baby is coming, but the waiting and the pain is too much to bear. The Jewish people have always been expectant – we’ve been expecting the birth of a state and return to our ancestral home and a return to dignity for 2000 years. We pray those words 3 times a day in our silent prayer; we profess our faith in a redeemed future. These have ever been our core hopes. But waiting – waiting when the pain was intolerable and not knowing the exact arrival had caused a significant disenchantment; many foreswore affiliation to the tribe of suffering and the life of wandering. During the era of Statehood, we are still expectant. We are not yet in a redeemed state; if that weren’t painfully obvious every day we read the paper and listen to the news. Israel is a state that is always becoming. And our members lose faith. How can we be a light onto the nations when we are stumbling in the dark? But the birth pangs are reason for optimism. We must write no one off and we must send no one out. The return to the life of the holy is a elevating. We are meeting God with an intimacy and closeness, face to face, in ways that we never have before. This is the time to offer our thanks; this holiday – the birth of the State of Israel, is a holiday of reunion and return. The soul of Israel is reborn and the connection to the holy is alive. Shabbat Shalom Umevorach and Moadim L’Simcha Legeulah Shleimah, and a special Mazal tov to my sister and her husband, Avigayil and Reuven, on the birth of their first son – may he grow to Chuppah, Torah and Maasim Tovim… Rabbi Menashe East
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