Why do we say, “Marriages are made in Heaven?”

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It’s the month of JUNE, and as the song from the musical “Carousel” says, “June is Bustin’ Out all Over.”  There is something so “ripe” about June. And, of course, in America June is “wedding month.” There are bridal magazines peering out at us from the racks at CVS, and no fewer than twenty-four wedding reality TV shows covering everything from destination weddings to honeymoon expectations, from chocolate fountains to wedding cake assembly.  How easy it is to lose focus on what really matters given the hoopla and hype of the average Jewish – American wedding.

How do you make holy this most intimate of Jewish rituals, the union of two people, two souls, two destinies that will merge with the recitation of seven blessings, some carefully chosen words repeated after the rabbi, and the gift of a gold band.  How can a couple deepen the experience?  I suggest dipping into the well of Jewish spirituality and mythology.

According to the Zohar, a mystical Jewish text, all souls are initially both male and female.  However when they are born into this world, the male and female parts of the soul go their separate ways, the male soul to dwell in a male body and the female soul to dwell in a female body.  If they are worthy, they will unite in marriage, restoring their original unity.  That is why a person’s loved one is called a soul mate, for together they form a single unit in every way: body and soul.

This myth answers the question of what God has been doing since he completed the creation of the world! He has been making matches, and each one is a difficult task, even for GOD! This makes God a shadkhan – a matchmaker. (Like Yenta in “Fiddler on the Roof”)  This myth also explains the Jewish concept of Bashert, in which it is believed that each person has a beshert or destined one, and that the match was made in heaven. 

This week I will have the honor of officiating at what is often called a “Renewal of Vows” ceremony.  (In the case of a Jewish couple, this isn’t quite right since the Jewish marriage service DOES NOT include an exchange of vows.) This couple has been married for forty years, and they will stand under the chuppah (wedding canopy) once again as a bride and groom.  I LOVE officiating at this kind of ceremony…whether it is forty, fifty or sixty years since the couple first walked down the aisle, with loving parents on either side accompanying first the groom and then the bride, to the chuppah.  These loving parents had prayed to God at birth and at Bar Mitzvah, to live long enough to bring their children to the wedding canopy and their prayers had been answered.

Watching couples who are making that return trip to the wedding canopy, be it forty, or fifty or sixty years later, it is obvious to all in attendance that God has once again, forged the perfect match, the perfect shidach, reuniting the two halves that were destined, intended, to make a perfect union.  Watching the glow that only seems to come with age, like a fine patina on a treasured piece of jewelry, the words of the Creation story are reflected in their eyes.

“The Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a fitting helper for him.”  So the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon the man; and while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that spot.  The Lord God fashioned the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman; and he brought her to the man.  Then the man said, “This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.  This one shall be called woman, for from man was she taken.”  Hence a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh.”

Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Rose

There is a Difference Between Counting Jews and Making Jews Count!

The Book of Numbers, which we commence reading this Shabbat, begins with a census.  There needs to be an accounting by tribe of men of military age if the Jews are to move forward and “take” the land that God promised them. (Your Sunday School teachers may have glossed over the gory battles the Israelites fought on their way to the Promised Land!) In case you are wondering, the total was about 600,000 men of military age.

Yep, we’ve been counting Jews for what seems like… an eternity! The Pharaoh in Egypt added them up and decided there were too many, so he enslaved them and ordered their male children to be killed. The Romans were busy counting Jews in the time of Jesus.  We know that Hitler methodically counted Jews, thanks to IBM, and he even gave each one a number.

We count Jews historically, geographically, denominationally, politically, and we can even churn out statistical information on Jews and disease!  Jewish Demography has evolved into a formal academic sub-specialty.  (I counted Jews back when I worked at the University of Miami.) Trust me, it was easier to count Jews back in the desert… fewer tribes, only one denomination – Israelite! Quantifying level of observance wasn’t an issue either as Moses and Aaron pretty much set the standard. You didn’t have to ask the Jews in the desert if they “self-identified” as a Jew… but you DO have to ask in America.

What about MODERN Jewish Demography? Let me hit you with some numbers:

World Wide Jewish Population

1939 - 16,728,000

1945 - 11,000,000

2012 - 13,746,100

Current Demographic Information – Israel and some Diaspora Communities

Israel                       5,901,100

United States           5,425,000

France                        480,000

Canada                       375,000

United Kingdom        291,000

Argentina                   181,800

South Africa                67,000

Australia                    112,000

New Zealand                 7,500

As they say, numbers don’t lie. And numbers are extremely important today, as Israel comes to grips with the reality that, not only are more Jews living OUTSIDE of Israel than INSIDE, but that the belief of the Zionist Founders of a massive and total immigration has not happened!  The “yearning” for Jerusalem… “NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM” – for many is a metaphorical desire…or maybe just a directive to call your travel agent and book a tour.  Many Jews in the Diaspora are content to live as they wish and practice Judaism as they choose to define it.

What we are seeing both in Israel and in the Diaspora, is a struggle to “commandeer” Jewish identity.  If Israel chooses to take the hardline Orthodox path of defining “Jewishness” in the State of Israel, then the Nation of Israel will, bit by bit, erode support of Diaspora Jews for the State of Israel.  We can already see this starting to happen here in the United States, where young Jews are forging their own Jewish Identity separate from the constraints of organized religion. We also see that many Jews in America no longer establish a strong emotional or financial bond with the State of Israel.

This past week, a special and very modern holiday was observed in Israel. It is called YOM YERUSHALYIM and commemorates the reunification of the City of Jerusalem in 1967. The IDF Paratroopers risked their lives that day and recaptured the Western Wall of the Temple, Judaism’s most holy and longed for place.  Very recently, six of those paratroopers returned to the Wall, this time in support of the rights of women who wished to pray, in their own way, at the Wall. As one of the paratroopers stated, “We liberated Jerusalem and the Wall for ALL Jews, not just SOME Jews.”

They say there is safety in numbers. How Israel chooses to forge a new relationship with Diaspora Jews is still unknown, but the status quo can only weaken the bond.  Jews of the Diaspora have always stood by Israel in times of trouble.  It remains to be seen whether they can stand by her in times of peace. For Israel to believe that she can count on every Jew, in the Diaspora, every Diaspora Jew must know that he or she truly counts!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rose

I CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP - Jerusalem court holds that women praying out loud in prayer shawls do not disturb the public order

You might have seen them on the nightly news, those Torah Readin’, Tefillin’ Wearin’, Tallis Totin’, Prayer Provocateurs … The Women of the Wall!

“In a groundbreaking ruling, the Jerusalem District Court upheld an earlier decision of the magistrate’s court that women who wear prayer shawls (“tallitot” in Hebrew) at the Western Wall Plaza are not contravening “local custom” or causing a public disturbance, and therefore should not be arrested. "(Jerusalem Post, April 25, 2013)

I’m not sure how long this new ruling will be upheld, but it is a nice start.  Up until this ruling, Ultra-Orthodox rabbis who have worked hard to ban Jewish women from wearing tallitot while praying audibly and from reading Torah publicly at the Western Wall, had had the law on their side.  So, every month, at the celebration of the New Moon, the Women of the Wall would arrive to pray, wearing tallitot and carrying a Torah Scroll.  And police would arrive, to “break it up” and cart the “perps” off to jail. 

The logic ran something like this: The area in front of the Kotel (Western Wall) is a synagogue. Since only Orthodox Judaism is acknowledged in Israel, the synagogue is, by default, Orthodox, and under Orthodox rabbinical supervision, the customs and traditions of the Orthodox should be observed.  That being the case, women must dress modestly, may not wear a prayer shawl, are not permitted to touch or read from the Torah.  They may pray, but their voices are not to stand out as a distraction.  And the sexes must be separated.

Me and the Kotel go back a ways.  Sure, I’d seen those old Ottoman prints, and the 1967 iconic photograph of Israeli Paratroopers who had just liberated Jerusalem.  You probably know the photo, three young, rugged faces, blackened from battle, looking up at The Wall.

Back then, it was 1969, the plaza before the Wall was a pretty empty space, except for Friday night, which brought out the Yeshiva boys in big numbers for singing and dancing. It was a simpler time. There were no “check points” or bag searches or metal detectors. A low, metal fence separated the men from the women… but we could see each other.  A woman stood, at the entrance to the “women’s side” with a basket of long skirts with elastic waists.  These were for both modesty and propriety. After all, a female tourist wouldn’t enter a holy Christian site without first covering her bare arms and SHORTS!

Back then the experience was so intimate.  One could touch the stone, literally “talk to the Wall” and to leave a message tucked in a crevice between two stones.  After my first visit, I walked over to the excavation next to the Wall, lowered myself down a ladder and started my first day of “digging” through the Ottoman Empire.

Things have changed since then. Now, there always seems to be a tumult at the Kotel. The Wall had been liberated, but for whom?  Gone are the old women pressing their lips to the stone in silent petition.  Replacing the holy aura is a phalanx of soldiers and police forming a security barricade. Military and medical vehicles line up awaiting the unthinkable. Peering down on the plaza are “billboards” carved in Jerusalem stone with signs for yeshivot, and ads for Bar Mitzvahs at the wall. The two ‘sides’ of the Kotel (His and Hers) are now divided by a taller, solid, barrier.  This doesn’t stop the Orthodox women from watching the men on the other side.  They simply line up plastic chairs and peer over the mehitza!

God Bless Israel.  If there wasn’t infighting and bickering I’d be worried that it ISN’T a Jewish State, after all, being divisive is what we do best!

But the truly dark side to all of this is that while we are bickering over the handling and “ownership” of what WE JEWS consider the undisputed spiritual home of the Jews, the Western Wall of the Temple, the rest of the world is being sold a different story.

According to the Palestinian National Authority, the Jews did not consider the Wall as a place of worship until the Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917.  The Palestinian Authority appointed Mufti of Jerusalem believes that the Wall belongs to Muslims alone.  In a statement made in 2000 he said “No stone of the Al-Buraq (the Muslim name for The Western Wall) has any relation to Judaism.  The Jews began praying at this wall only in the nineteenth century, when they began to develop [national] aspirations.”

In 2001 in an interview with the German magazine, Die Welt, (January 17, 2001) he followed up with this statement “There is not a single stone in the Wailing Wall relating to Jewish History. The Jews cannot legitimately claim this wall, neither religiously nor historically. The Committee of the League of Nations recommended in 1930, to allow the Jews to pray there, in order to keep them quiet. But by no means did it acknowledge that the wall belongs to them.”

As American Jews we may choose to distance ourselves and “tune out” the internal machinations of Israeli politics and religion.  But as Jewish Americans, we must be alert and “tune in” to international dialogues and policies that serve to contort the truth.

As the timeless joke goes – the old Jew prays at the Wall every day, three times a day, for 20 years.  When asked what this experience was like, he answered, “It’s like talking to a WALL.”

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rose