Karpas And The Wait For Dinner

And now the fifth question – when do we eat? This question, a joke of course, should actually help us to focus on a vital Pesach theme: the extent of our ability to delay gratification for a higher purpose.

More than just a commemoration, every festival is intended to help us recapture a major event of Jewish history and internalise its message. As the Exodus was the moment of the founding of the Jewish people, Pesach is an opportunity to consider what it means to be a member of the Jewish nation. What character traits are we to inculcate and which areas of personal growth are we to spotlight at this time of year? What will we have gained from all the intense preparations, from the Sedarim, the vast expense and effort? If all we will be left with after Pesach is exhaustion and a few extra pounds to shed, will it be worthwhile?

The ability to delay gratification is a key determinant of adult human behaviour; it distinguishes us from everything else in the world. Animals are driven by irrepressible needs; hunger, fear, the urge to reproduce. Once a need arises, its fulfilment becomes paramount; all energies are channelled into its realisation. Babies are scarcely different; when little Jimmy is hungry, tired, cold or has a dirty diaper, nothing will divert him from screaming until he gets what he wants.

In contrast, adults have a sense of higher meaning and value, which can often be strong enough to enable us to delay realising our immediate personal needs in lieu of achieving something of greater overall significance. There are dozens of examples of this phenomenon, ranging from the simple decision not to eat another piece of chocolate, to complex life-choices in which personal needs are completely marginalised in favour of national or even world improvement. This is, of course, a function of the struggle between the physical and spiritual drives; while Judaism prioritises the harmonisation of the two, there are occasions in life when the higher, spiritual yearnings must overcome and sublimate the lower, physical needs. The extent to which we are capable of doing this determines just how successful we really are as human beings.

As popular psychologist M. Scott Peck puts is. ‘Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with.’ (The Road Less Traveled) I think that Jewish sources would view it quite differently. While initially there may be a sense that one is scheduling the pain before the pleasure, the capacity to do so is one of the most profound human achievements, one that transforms the ‘pain’ into purpose and possibly a higher form of pleasure itself.

While central to meaningful human experience, the ability to delay gratification doesn’t come easily. We don’t naturally graduate from childhood into mature and disciplined altruists. What we gain at adulthood is the capacity to control ourselves, but development in this area is a lifetime’s work. One need look only at advertising and the media to see that immediate gratification with no consideration for the consequences is very much in vogue. High-risk sports, sexual exploration and many other activities that focus solely on immediate gratification are as popular as ever. The descent into instant fun and the consequential move away from the development of quintessential human sensitivities is all too easy. And we have all experienced people consumed with physical needs of one sort or another – they are unstoppable until they have what they want. In position as major leaders, such people can quite literally destroy the world; they nearly have on a number of occasions.

The Jewish people are expected to be the world experts in the field of delaying gratification, when necessary, to achieve higher goals. All humanity was originally destined to be proficient in this area, as evidenced by the prohibition of eating from the fruit in the Garden of Eden. Seen through Kabbalistic eyes, God did not demand that Adam and Eve forever deny themselves the fruit, only that they wait to eat it until after the first Shabbat. Had they demonstrated their ability to postpone their desire to eat it in order to fulfil God’s will, they could have enjoyed the fruit legitimately. Instead, they were expelled from the Garden, forever changing the course of history.

As the nation of the Torah, the Jewish people are charged with the task of restoring, by example, this capacity to the whole of humanity. This began at the Exodus, the birth of our people. Our ancestors clearly demonstrated the capacity to wait for redemption, to tolerate the backbreaking Egyptian slavery, to put their dearest yearnings for salvation on hold until the right moment. Some members of the tribe of Ephraim had not been able to wait and had escaped before the appointed time; the Talmud records that they sadly died in the desert. Even when the time for deliverance seemed to be at hand, the Israelites’ ability to wait enslaved until God was ready for them was tested to the limits. No sooner had Moshe introduced himself to Pharaoh than the slavery deepened; the Jews were no longer given straw, yet were expected to maintain the same level of brick production. Just when they thought the end of the slavery was in sight, they discovered that they had to wait a little longer. When the Exodus finally occurred, the nascent Jewish people were already well-trained in the art of waiting.

Each Pesach, and especially on Seder night, we are afforded a unique opportunity to relive those crucial final moments in Egypt. The lessons learned there were so central to our national and personal mission that we must revisit them every year to ensure that we are attuned to our key Jewish responsibilities.

This message is most obviously expressed in the structure of the Seder. We begin the evening in much the same way that we would commence any Shabbat or Yom Tov. Kiddush is followed by hand-washing, in preparation for the meal. But instead of eating the matzah and commencing the delicious Yom Tov feast, there is disappointment in store. Each person gets a small piece of vegetable dipped in salt-water (known as Karpas), then the matzah is broken, as if to eat it, but then hidden away and the plate containing the Seder foods is removed from the table, to be replaced with story books! We are tempted into thinking that the meal is coming (the fifth question – when do we eat?); we are taken to the point when the food is almost in our mouths and then told that we will have to read the story of our ancestors’ miraculous escape from Egypt before we can actually have the meal. The Karpas makes matters worse, for it is a salty hors d’oeuvres; not only do we prepare for the meal and then take the food away before eating it, but we make the participants extra-hungry before doing so!

This is all part of a genius plan to ensure that the annual re-enactment of our redemption inculcates within us the same sense of priorities as the original Exodus experience. We have waited all day to start the Seder, we are hungry, delicious food odours are wafting from the kitchen and all the ‘let’s eat now’ switches have been thrown (Kiddush, hand-washing, hors d’oeuvres, breaking matzah). Pavlov would have been proud. Yet something much more important than food must happen first – recounting the story of the Exodus. Understanding our roots, the very fibre of our national being, the unfolding Divine plan for Mankind, God’s miraculous intervention in human history and the very concept of purposeful freedom – all of these must be achieved before we may begin our meal.

On Seder night, we sacrifice our need for immediate gratification (having rather cruelly stimulated it) to the noblest ideal; transmitting the wonders of Jewish history and our unique relationship with God to the next generation. This should inform our sense of priority in all our endeavours, throughout the year. We have seen that developing the capacity to delay gratification is central to the Jewish understanding of real achievement, defines us as a nation and contributes to rectifying the primeval sin of the Garden of Eden. If we finish this Pesach having learned, even a little, to delay our immediate needs long enough to pursue some of the majestic goals of Judaism, then it will all have been worthwhile.

Have a kosher, joyful Yom Tov and meaningful and uplifting Sedarim.

Based on a sermon for the first day of Pesach at Golders Green Synagogue, a version of this article first appeared on Jewish World Review.

Sleeping In The Sukkah

It might seem crazy, but there are people who sleep in a hut in the garden in October. We are familiar with the use of the Sukkah for Kiddush, family meals and even parties, but many Tabernacle enthusiasts go one stage further and camp out for the week of the festival.

Actually, the Talmud understands the main use of the Sukkah to be for sleeping. We are encouraged to teishvu k’ain taduru – live in the Sukkah in the way that we normally live in the house, which, of course, includes sleeping. Indeed, while a snack is permitted outside the Sukkah, one may not take even a short nap elsewhere. Of course, this only applies if the weather is dry; when there is enough rain to disturb the Sukkah-experience, one is not expected to live in it.

The Shulchan Aruch quotes this position on Sukkah-sleeping as normative. Its author, Rabbi Yosef Caro, lived in Sefat, where the autumn weather is generally clement. However, Rabbi Moshe Isserlis (Rama), the author of the Ashkenazi gloss to the Shulchan Aruch, lived in Krakow, where the climate is rather colder. He notes that only those few who are ‘scrupulous in observance’ sleep in the Sukkah.

In trying to justify the common practice, he points out that the weather is too cold! One is not required to remain in the Sukkah if it is appreciably uncomfortable. If, for example, the Sukkah is invaded by wasps, or (as has happened in Israel recently) the weather is unbearably hot, one is exempt from living in the Sukkah. The same applies to cold.

However, Rama’s preferred explanation is that married couples should live together in the Sukkah, just as they do inside the house during the rest of the year. For those with a prurient interest, the Be’ur Halachah rules that marital intimacy is permitted in the Sukkah. Since (at least in 16th century Poland), most families didn’t have a private Sukkah, sharing instead with neighbours, the lack of privacy made this impossible. Rama recommends building a private Sukkah to obviate this problem. This justification was by no means accepted universally; indeed it was roundly rejected by the Vilna Gaon.

Of course, even if one accepts Rama’s reasoning, in warmer climes (or even elsewhere, armed with a heater and sleeping bag) and especially with the advent of private Sukkot, not sleeping in the Sukkah is hard to justify. In fact, even in England and the US, there has been an increased interest in sleeping in the Sukkah, whereas in Israel it is extremely common.

It is worth noting that despite the halachic normalcy of sleeping in the Sukkah, members of some groups (Chabad, for example) follow the tradition not to, even in ideal circumstances. This is because they understand the intense, all-encompassing holiness of the Sukkah to be incompatible with the state of sleep. Conversely, other mystical thinkers consider sleeping in the Sukkah to be the ultimate surrender of even our subconscious to God’s care. Better hope it doesn’t rain!

A version of this article first appeared in the Jewish Chronicle. It is republished with permission.

Rebuilding Our Lives

A cynic once said, ‘a broygus is for life, not just for Simchas.’ It’s sad but so true - many of us are hopeless at re-forging damaged relationships. So often long after the original cause of the upset has ceased to be important and even after the hurt of the conflict has passed, we are still unable to bury the hatchet and repair the damage. I have come across examples in which neither family can actually remember why he or she is not talking to the other - it has just been like that for years. But the saddest moment of all comes if the parent, brother or friend is no longer there - we suddenly realise the stupidity and destructiveness of conflict, but can do nothing to repair the wrong. I have sat with mourners who, apart from their grief, are guilt-stricken over the failed relationship that they can no longer revive, the hurtful words that cannot be unsaid, the sheer futility of wasted opportunities and lost time that can never be recovered.

One of the great themes of the Days of Awe is forgiveness. The notion that God can forgive Man for his wrongdoing and enable us to start again with a clean slate, is fundamental to Jewish thought. Indeed, the Talmudic rabbis tell us ‘repentance presaged the world’ - which means that the opportunity to reset our bond with God as well as our relationships with each other, is a basic notion of human existence. It is something which God promises us, as an expression of His kindness, and one of which we must take advantage. It is particularly evident at this time of the year - for while, provided that we are sincere, God will forgive us for our wrongdoing whenever we approach Him, the period from Rosh HaShanah to Yom Kippur is especially suitable for re-establishing our connection with Him. God promises us that if we turn to Him during this time, He will make Himself accessible.

If this is true in the sphere of our relationship with God, then it is surely true in the context of our interpersonal relationships. An important part of our task as humans is to value the spark of the Divine within ourselves and in others. Now while the Torah describes this spark as the ‘image of God’ - as God is not physical, we can not look like Him in any real sense. If so, existing in the ‘image of God’ means that we are capable, at least to some extent, of behaving like Him! We all have the ability to fill our lives with meaning by emulating God. We know that God is merciful, kind, supportive and so must we be. In our context, we see that God is forgiving - He sets aside the past and is prepared to give our relationship with Him another chance. And if God can do it, so can we! This puts the whole issue of forgiveness in a different light. It should not be a terrible struggle for us to overcome our pride and apologise and thus set our family ‘broygus’ to rest. We see it as a challenge, because we feel that we are fighting our own egos, forcing ourselves to act against our better nature. The real truth is that God has great confidence in all of us, as he has enabled us to emulate Him. As such, we can forgive and forget just as He does and this, far from being an expression of weakness, is in fact a realisation of a truly great human characteristic. We see that the ability to forgive and start again makes us true to ourselves and the goals we set for ourselves as Jews - to come closer to God by emulating Him and in so doing, bring about a better and happier world.

It is now clear that while we should make every effort to repair our failed relationships whenever we can, the Yom Tov season is the best time in the year for so doing. If God is particularly forgiving at this time, we should also use it as an opportunity to forgive.

Of course, we must genuinely want to change and improve - paying lip-service to the idea with no real commitment is of no value at all. In fact, the rabbis have a rather graphic description of this phenomenon - they liken it to someone who wishes to dip into a mikveh to purify himself from contact with something unclean. But while he dips, he still grasps the unclean object in his hand! However much he dips, it will clearly have no effect on him at all. We must also approach the Yom Tov season with true resolve for improvement - just going through the motions or mouthing the prayers with no feeling will obviously have no effect on us. Likewise, when we apologise to others or indicate our forgiveness of them, we need to be sincere and to try to overcome one of the great hurdles in human relationships - the grudge. Forgiving means giving the other party another chance in a friendly context, not just letting them off lightly whilst still disliking them.

The Torah provides us with a remarkably simple tool to help us effect real improvement in our relationships. I can report from personal experience how effective it is and highly recommend it. It is to force ourselves to assist or help the person with whom we have fallen out. Even when we still dislike them, even if we are confident that they are in the wrong, the Torah sources advise us to grit our teeth and give of ourselves to them. And when we do, a remarkable thing starts to happen - we don’t dislike them any more! A bond starts to form, which will eventually enable us to re-establish the lost relationship. The Hebrew language explains this phenomenon - the word for love is ahavah whereas the word for give is hav. These two words have the same root meaning, because we only love when we give. This is because when we give of ourselves, we leave a little behind, and since we all love ourselves, the bond begins to form. We move quickly from giving to loving.

This year, let us focus differently on our responsibilities to improve our broken relationships. Let us recognise that we can actually emulate God Himself by expressing our forgiveness to others. It is not a display of weakness, but in fact, our greatest strength. And through our true resolve to better our lives and communities, God will surely bless us with a ‘shanah tovah u’m’tukoh’- a sweet and good year, full of meaning and happiness.

Of Rosh HaShanah And Monkeys

One of the most meaningful things we can do on Rosh HaShanah is to review what we are trying to achieve with our lives and whether we have met our goals in the past year. Perhaps we should also review those aims and perform a reality check. If we don’t do this on Rosh HaShanah, I think it’s safe to say that we will probably never will. There are many ways of achieving this, but my suggestion for this year is to consider the following.

It is clear that before the great flood, Man was intended to be vegetarian - he was not allowed to kill animals for food until afterwards. It seems that human nature was somewhat different before the deluge; perhaps more passive and contemplative than today. Actually, it was the act of killing animals that was prohibited – there are sources that suggest that Adam was allowed to eat carrion. Only after the flood were Noah and his family permitted to slaughter animals for food. The Torah strongly contrasts its authorisation to kill animals with the prohibition of killing people, which remains strictly forbidden. Man must not make the mistake of cheapening human life, although he may kill animals.

This is a rather interesting point, as these days, it is not uncommon for people to equate the value of animals and humans. A while ago, I heard a radio broadcast in which a Californian academic with quite impressive credentials noted that as monkeys have over 90% of the genes of humans, they should be accorded rights in the same proportion. By this he meant 90% of the healthcare facilities, social services etc. We may assume that in response, our simian friends will have to bear 90% of the responsibility of humans – i.e. taxation and service in the armed. Presumably, in the future, we can expect to share hospitals wards, army barracks and dole queues with monkeys. Criminal monkeys will serve 90% of the prison sentences of their human counterparts and will be required to attend 90% of their quota of schooling. It may also means that a human who steals a banana from a monkey will be condemned to 90% of the consequences of robbing a fellow human. An old joke comes to mind – a monkey that has escaped from its cage is eventually found in a library holding a Bible in one hand and Darwin’s ‘The Origin of Species’ in the other. When questioned about its behaviour it responds, ‘I am wondering if I am my brother’s keeper or my keeper’s brother.’

A thought occurred to me on this theme – since bananas share some genes with humans, would it not be logical to accord them say 30% of the rights of people? Where is the line? Some people might even prefer sharing a prison cell with a banana than a monkey, although I think we can assume that the monkey would prefer to share with the banana! I recall a conversation a number of years ago with a prominent academic who asked me if I would eat a monkey, were it kosher. I answered in the affirmative. (I don’t know if monkeys taste good, and many Hollywood adventure films feature the apocryphal monkey-brain feast, but that wasn’t the point). He said that the higher functions of monkeys are so sophisticated that it seems morally wrong to eat them. They are just too human. When challenged about chicken and fish, which he seemed comfortable eating, even though they express certain humanoid faculties (such as thought and pain), he acknowledged that drawing the line can be very difficult.

The Torah is unequivocal about this – the line is drawn between humans and animals. Of course, we are obliged to respect animals and be sensitive to their needs and pain, but there is a dimensional gulf between us and them. It lies in something I mentioned above – the notion of responsibility. What divides us from the animals (and thereby makes us human) is that unlike them, we can be altruistic, focus on the needs of others and if, necessary, delay our need for immediate gratification to achieve higher goals. Animals live deterministic lives; they feed, reproduce, run from danger and migrate in instinctively. We, in contrast, have the freedom of choice that allows every moment and experience to be invested with meaning. Monkeys may share 90% or more of our genes, but they share none of our potential and or capacity to change ourselves and our world. In this regard, there is no distinction between a monkey and the banana he eats. The only cogent place to draw a line is between the free-choosing and the deterministic; between we humans and everything else in God’s creation.

This notion helps us to formulate our life-goals at Rosh HaShanah. What makes us truly human is our capacity to live life in the presence of God, constantly aware that every action counts, that each thought and feeling is significant and can, quite literally, change the world. Regrettably, during the year we often lose this sensitivity, forgetting that we can dedicate ourselves to lives of altruism, focused on the needs of other human beings, tuned in to higher, spiritual concerns. Instead of a life in the spiritual fast lane, in which we transform ourselves and our world, we may favour the lazy and banal, relegating personal growth and the elevation of every experience to the bottom of our agenda.

Rosh HaShanah is the birthday of the world; as such it the annual chance to ensure that we are living up to God’s expectations for us and His creation. Do we deemphasise our needs in preference to those of God? Do we grab every opportunity to set aside our own desires to bring happiness other human beings? Does our behaviour in private reflect the same high standards as those we exhibit in public? These things define who we are; they not only distinguish us from the animals, but validate God’s decision to create the world in the first place. This is the theme of Rosh HaShanah – reawakening the God awareness in all of us that so fundamentally expresses the purpose of creation. So on Rosh HaShanah we crown God, paying homage to His majesty and limitless might through our renewed commitment to implementing His will with every act.

Let us celebrate our true human potential on Rosh HaShanah; may this be a year in which we take full advantage of every precious moment that God grants us.

A version of this article first appeared on Jewish World Review.

This Year, Throw Away Your Haggadah

Among the myriad laws of Pesach there is a rule that I find it very hard to persuade my congregants to accept! It is not some minutia of kitchen preparation, or even the amount of matzah they should eat at the Seder. Surprisingly enough, it is the requirement that they understand the story of the Haggadah while they read it. It seems such a simple idea – instead of struggling through the text, just about managing to get through it in the original, read the story in a contemporary English translation. Actually, the idea of reading the story of the Exodus in the vernacular is particularly interesting to a British rabbi, as it recorded in the name of the rabbis of the mediaeval rabbi of London. Now I use the word ‘contemporary’ with care, as there are many translations that are so out-of-date and archaic, that they are no use at all. One I saw recommends searching for Chametz with ‘a wax randle in the gloaming’, which, apart from the obvious spelling mistake, leaves the reader with the impression that he is about to engage in some wacky Victorian pantomime. Others are so full of ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ that they require translation themselves.

Why is so difficult to get those who are not fluent in Hebrew to read the story in a translation? Why would anyone choose to labour uncomprehendingly over the original text, syllable by syllable, instead of enjoying the drama and charm of the age-old story in a language that they can understand? Responses to this question vary. Some say, ‘we have always done it like this.’ Others feel compelled to use the Haggadah they received as a Bar Mitzvah present in the 1930s. Still others assume that it must be better to read it in Hebrew, even if they don’t understand it. At some level, I suppose they are right - for those who have a good grasp of Hebrew, it is preferable to read the Haggadah in the original; after all, Hebrew is the language of God and of the Torah and expresses nuances and concepts that cannot be fully translated into English. But these are entirely lost on the non-Hebrew reader. In fact, reading an unintelligible story loses more than nuances, it loses everything else too.

In reality, I think that there is more to this problem than Haggadot and Hebrew. It cuts to the heart of our own self-perception and attitude towards Judaism. Incredible as it may sound, for many people, part of the Seder experience seems to be the mystique of not understanding! Some people are actually troubled by the prospect of understanding and enjoying the procedure. Since their earliest recollections are of incoherent mumbling, this is how things must remain for evermore. Any endeavour to disturb this state of affairs is met with resistance. ‘It was good enough for my grandfather, so why isn’t it good enough for you?’ Surely some attempt to think through the long-term consequences of this attitude is called for. For whatever reason, previous generations were happy to accept that Judaism called for martyrdom – whether it was sitting through an unintelligible Seder, or tolerating lengthy, unrewarding Shul services. Younger people are simply unwilling and unprepared to do so. Worse still, many of us still expect youngsters to participate in this way and become frustrated with them when they refuse. It is hardly surprising that a generation that is well educated, advantaged and surrounded by exciting life alternatives, is also uninterested in a meaningless experience. Let us be honest – why would anyone participate willingly in a meaningless experience?

But the most destructive aspect of this is feeling comfortable with the unintelligible model. It permits us get away without a challenge - without allowing the real message of Pesach, and indeed of Judaism, to have any impact upon us. Happy with the meaningless, we have convinced ourselves that the experience has nothing to offer, and fulfilled our expectations by rendering it impotent; as such, it need not disturb our lives in any way at all. We have turned the Seder, without a doubt the most powerful educational tool in Judaism’s armoury, into a gun loaded with blanks. We have inoculated ourselves against the most exciting inspiration to creating a vibrant Jewish future that exists. It suits us to extract the teeth of the Seder by keeping it incomprehensible, for in that way, we will require no self-examination, no reconsideration of the way we impart Judaism to our children and certainly no modification of our Jewish lives.

This problem pervades every area of Jewish life, but at the Seder, the contrast between the reality and the ideal is most evident. Seder night this year is a perfect opportunity to begin the revolution. It is time to fully exploit the magic of the Seder - the original all-singing, all-dancing, multi-media inspiration. It is time to recognise that young Jews need meaningful Jewish experiences if they are to play any part in the Jewish future. It is time to turn the Seder back into a real event, with genuine communication between parents and children, and consign the mumble-through-the-text and dash-to-the-meal of the past to the waste bin of failed Jewish experiments. Throw away that old Haggadah.

Old Haggadot must be treated with respect. Please ask a rabbi how to dispose of them properly.

A version of this article first appeared on Jewish World Review

Win The Lottery Jewish Style

Beset by financial worries, Fred falls into a deep sleep after tossing and turning for half the night. He has a startling dream, in which he sees himself clutching a ticket for the National Lottery, waiting for the winning numbers to be announced. By the time the first four numbers have been called, all of which match those on his ticket, he is transfixed with anticipation, eager to discover whether he has won the jackpot. To his astonishment, as the last two numbers are revealed, Fred realises that he has become a multi-millionaire, wealthy beyond his wildest imagination. Just as he begins to contemplate the life of comfort ahead of him, he wakes up to harsh reality, bitterly disappointed to find that it was all a dream. Then Fred makes a decision – he promises God that should He turn this dream into a reality, then he will pledge one million pounds of his winnings to charitable causes. He is resolute in his promise and is convinced that God will help him to win next time he buys a ticket – after all, presumably God wants the million donated to charity!!

Does this seem if not a little humorous, vaguely familiar? Most of us have probably already spent several lottery jackpots…. in our minds!! We imagine the luxurious lifestyle such fabulous wealth could bring and calculate just how much we would need for our various purchases. We may even imagine ourselves using some of the money for charitable causes. Maybe we think that it is more likely that Divine providence will smile on us if we do.

Actually, our attitude to charitable causes is a good barometer of our spiritual well being. Judaism insists that our money and possessions are not actually ours, but the property of God that is on loan to us. In Hebrew, there is no way to say it is mine or it is yours. Instead, we say it is to me or it is to you. This indicates that our possessions are not truly ours, but merely associated with us; provided for our use, but still really God’s property. A great mediaeval Jewish thinker, Rabbenu Yonah, reminds us that in normal circumstances, when someone deposits an object or some cash with a friend, the recipient must care for it, but not use it. In contrast, God entrusts us with money and possessions, which we may use for our own purposes – indeed, we are supposed to use them for our needs. However, we must realise that as He is the true owner, God will only continue to entrust us with the money if we use it in accordance with His wishes. If we misuse the funds by lavishing more than necessary on ourselves, thereby neglecting the needs of others, we may find that the deposit is withdrawn.

The English word charity does capture the Jewish notion of generosity to the needy. Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, the 19th century German-Jewish leader, observes that the word charity denotes a dependence on the good will and sympathy of the benefactor; whether to contribute funds to a cause is entirely a matter of his own discretion. Not so the Jewish concept of tzedakah, which means not generosity, but righteousness. It is morally right and imperative that we donate a proportion of our income to appropriate causes; it is not a matter of personal choice, but an ethical absolute. This helps us to gain a sense of justice and to create a just society. We should view the opportunity to donate money to good causes not as an unwelcome drain on our resources, but as a chance to develop our moral sensitivities and a contribution to the achievement of goodness in the world by performing this vital mitzvah.

Let us return to Fred, the man who promises that he will make a large donation to tzedakah if God will enable him to win the lottery. Midrash Sh’mu’el, an anthology on Pirkey Avot, notes that even if Fred’s intention is genuine, there can still be no guarantee that God will fulfil his request. However, if he is not sincere, then God will certainly not allow him to win the jackpot. Better to remain poor than to be proven a liar!! I have a sneaking suspicion, that while many people manage on modest incomes, winning the jackpot would not give them access to more funds to distribute to tzedakah, because they would find plenty of new things on which to spend their extra money. Suddenly, the up-till-now undreamt of millions are ‘needed’ and no large sum is available for charitable causes. Put in Fred’s shoes, how many of us really would give that million to charity? I wonder. Maybe it’s better that we don’t win to avoid facing a challenge that we will fail?

King Solomon (Proverbs 10:2) tells us that righteousness saves us from death. This has many interpretations, but is generally understood to be a reference to what we call charity. Our tzedakah can literally save us from death. How so? We may suggest that one of the ways in which God determines our future is by assessing whether we are correctly using our lives and the resources that He has deposited with us. If we are, then we will be allowed to continue enjoying them, but if not, He may decide to withdraw them from us. Increase in our charitable activities can indeed prolong our lives.

When we stand before God this Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, we will declare that repentance, prayer and tzedakah remove the evil decree. (Musaf prayer) The truth is that we are already in the Shul, saying the prayers and repenting our misdeeds of the year past. Those two are necessary, but insufficient. We must also commit ourselves to greater generosity, more acts of kindness and perhaps most importantly, a revised attitude to the function of our own resources. Then we can be assured that we, together with all the Jewish people, will have the chance for a happier year ahead.

Shavuot And True Spirituality

Pesach has Matzah, Rosh HaShanah the Shofar and Sukkot the four species and the Sukkah, but Shavuot, which celebrates the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai, seems to be lacking in specific observances. It has been suggested that while the other festivals commemorate seminal historical moments through the observance of the Torah, Shavuot is about the Torah itself, and, as such, it needs no ceremony. Instead of the externality of ritual, Shavuot invites us to focus on the significance of the origin and ideology of the Torah system itself, and to admire its momentous impact on humanity. Sadly, perhaps as a result, it is the least understood and observed of the festivals.

In reality, the Torah does describe special observances for Shavuot, but they are restricted to the Temple era. One of them affords us a remarkable insight into the deeper meaning of Shavuot, as well as a glimpse of the Torah’s attitude to the use of the material world. Two distinctly shaped loaves of bread were brought to the Temple on Shavuot in a special celebration. This may seem of academic interest, except for the fact that most unusually, the Torah prescribes that they are baked from chametz – leaven, the villain of Pesach. Shavuot falls seven weeks after Pesach; the intervening forty-nine day period is known as the omer, during which the days that are counted in anticipation of the coming festival. It is understood that physical redemption, celebrated at Pesach, is only the start of a process that led to its goal – the revelation at Mount Sinai. As such, the spiritual journey starts with Pesach and climaxes at Shavuot. It is a matter of great interest that such vigorous efforts are required to remove chametz from the Pesach environment, yet the omer period concludes by placing leaven loaves in the Temple, the locus of Jewish spirituality.

This resolution of this discrepancy reveals a great deal about the significance that Judaism attributes to physical pleasure. Pesach, during which chametz is strictly forbidden, seems to represent the limitation of physical enjoyment, whereas Shavuot signifies its ultimate sanctification in the Temple itself. As such, the omer period, which bridges the gap between the two, offers an opportunity to develop from the radical position represented by Pesach to the more mature one offered by Shavuot. The extent of the role played by physical pleasure in religious life has been the subject of extensive theological debate throughout history. Some systems of thought adopt the position that religious achievement is only possible when it is divorced from material experience. Celibacy, cessation from normal life and even quite extreme ascetic acts are not uncommon amongst religious groups, which have concluded that these offer the only route to true spirituality. Judaism addresses this issue, but reaches a quite different conclusion. Abstinence is never an ideal, but in various forms, may sometimes be used as a very temporary device for achieving a higher goal.

Perhaps the most significant example of this idea is the observance of Yom Kippur, when, since the pleasures of food and marital intimacy are proscribed, one ‘afflicts’ oneself by disengaging from the physical world. Yet the Torah requires us to abstain in this way for only one day near the start of each year; this serves as a way of reawakening our spiritual lives at the year’s outset. This is not the ideal, but a powerful kick-start to spiritual growth. The mystical thinkers hint to this notion in observing that Yom Kippur, which we are accustomed to considering the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, is somehow inferior to Purim, the day on which we rejoice and imbibe alcohol to excess. The observance of Yom Kippur may be essential, but its self-denying nature means that it can never be more than a powerful, yet short-term instrument. In contrast, Purim, when properly celebrated, enables the Jew to reach the heights of ecstasy using the most physical means at his disposal, and hence articulates a Weltanschauung much closer to the Torah’s ultimate model.

It seems that the human tendency to become immersed in material pleasure must be addressed by a temporary emphasis on its ephemeral nature and thus comparative insignificance. This is achieved by a strong, albeit brief involvement in spiritual-only pursuits.

The process that leads the Jew from Pesach to Shavuot is now clear. The requirement to abstain from chametz on Pesach is reflective of the nascent moments of Jewish nationhood that the festival commemorates. A group of ex-slaves with the potential for spiritual greatness, yet still beset by the mentality engendered by centuries of deprivation, was likely to abuse the newly accessible pleasures of the material world. Thus at the moment of their national genesis, it was necessary to forbid the consumption of chametz, which represents selfish use of the physical world. Yet the goal is not the rejection of physicality, but its integration into the Divine system. The seven weeks that elapse from Pesach to Shavuot enable a personal transformation to take place, hopefully culminating in a mature attitude to the use of the material world. All physical pleasures may be used - indeed must be used, but in a context and within a framework. These are defined by the Torah, the guidebook to the meaningful use of everything. This, the purpose of the Jewish mission, could not be given to the embryonic nation when they left Egypt, but by Shavuot, they were capable of understanding and implementing it.

This concept is represented by the two loaves of chametz that were the focus of the Divine service in the Temple on Shavuot. The two loaves are said to represent the twin passions that drive so much of human enterprise – material success and sexual satisfaction. These ambitions, so frequently eschewed by religious systems, are brought, as it were, right into the Temple on Shavuot, assuring us that the elevated use of every physical experience lies at the heart of true Jewish living.

A version of this article originally appeared in the Jewish Chronicle. It is republished with permission.