Sinai Synagogue

01/30/2023

Yesterday, Sinai welcomed over 40 participants from both Temple Beth-El and Sinai Synagogue for Judaism and Mental Well Being. Together we learned about mental health and Judaism, the lack of mental health support/infrastructure in our own community and the work that needs done to better our communities future. Kol hakavod to Rabbi Michael Friedland, Lizzie Fagen, Cindy Tachman and Andre Stoner of Faith in Indiana!

05/10/2022

Daf 26 of Megillah

05/10/2022

Chapter three of Megillah completed

05/10/2022

Daf 24 Megillah We are close to finishing the chapter
Daf 24 -

04/03/2022

Our latest Talmud class Megillah Daf 23

04/03/2022

Kay Wroblewski, our custodian, will be having surgery this week. The synagogue does not provide medical insurance for its employees and Kay does not have insurance. Kay has worked tirelessly for us, keeping our facility clean and attractive. She is a very welcoming presence to visitors and regular attendees. We’re hoping to give back a little of the sunshine Kay has given us throughout her years. Thank you.

You can help by going to this Gofundme page
https://www.gofundme.com/f/friends-of-kay-w?qid=38aacb11b670a3ec6a06b84e42a780a1

or go to the gofundme page and search for Friends of Kay W

Thank you

Hi friends! This fundraiser is to help Kay with some unforeseen medical expenses. Kay has worked tirel… Judith Falzon needs your support for Friends of Kay W

04/02/2022

Five Minutes of Torah from Sinai

Why no Hametz?

Kad HaKemach (The Flour Pot) composed by Bachya ben Asher (1255 - 1340), is a book of that offers through 60 chapters on various topics of theology and Jewish ritual how to live a moral life. The topics are arranged in alphabetical order as a kind of encyclopedia of Torah concepts.

Rabbenu Bahya finds a lesson about the meaning of the mitzvah system in Judaism in the rules regarding the prohibition of Hametz on Pesah . Not only are we not permitted to eat hametz but according to Exodus 13:7 "it shall not be seen and it shall not be found" in your homes. Making sure that one cannot see his or her hametz is an action step. That it not be found is an allusion to annulling it in one’s heart, it is an act of thought. Regarding mitzvot in general, there are 3 categories: mitzvot of speech, mitzvot of the heart and mitzvot of action, as it is written (Deuteronomy 30:14) "(The Torah should be) in your mouth and in your heart to do it". In the case of hametz one is to anul it in the heart, that is in our thoughts, corresponding to the mitzvot which are dependent on the heart, or rather in our thoughts. We also have to eradicate hametz from the house, corresponding to the mitzvot of action. And we say 'kol chamira', the nullification formula just before Pesah (this can be found in most haggadot at the front), corresponding to mitzvot of speech. In this way the 3 categories of mitzvot are fulfilled through the prohibition of chametz, teaching you that the prohibition of chametz incorporates all types of mitzvot.

Just as the tradition comes to instruct us to eradicate chametz and to check in the nooks and in cracks of the house, so too we are obligated to search and check the chambers of our inner being for negative intentions and thoughts. Just as bedikat chametz (checking for chametz) is not valid by sunlight, nor by moonlight, but only by the light of a candle, so too the bedikah, the checking of our yetzer hara, our evil inclinations, must be by the light of the neshama (soul) which is called 'ner' (candle), as written in (Proverbs 20:27) "the candle of Hashem is the soul of man, which searches the chambers of one's inner being”.

Rabbenu Bahya offers us a spiritual guide to the drudgery of cleaning our houses during Pesah to remove hametz. When we clean out the hametz, on a material level we are removing a prohibited food substance that we are not allowed to own, see, or find in our homes during Pesah. But at the same time we should use this external act to motivate us to internalize the cleansing out of negative traits and hateful or bitter thoughts.

04/01/2022

Five Minutes of Torah from Sinai

Why did the first born of slave women have to die?

Before the God tells Moses what to expect during the last plague: “Toward midnight I will go forth among the Egyptians, and every [male] first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the first-born of the slave girl who is behind the millstones...”
One can understand the punishment inflicted on Pharaoh, for it was he who ordered the murder of the Israelite first born. One might even understand if all those who benefitted from the slave labor and feasted due to the hardship of the oppressed were punished. One might argue that these deaths were a case of midah k’neged midah, measure for measure. But why should the non-Jewish slave women lost their first born? Were they not also part of the oppressed classes?
Rabbi Elazar the son of Rabbi Yosi HaGalili offered a response by offering a possible insight into the psyche of these fellow persecuted slaves: In the midst of the horrible and oppressive conditions for Jewish and Gentile slaves, the female Gentile slaves yoked to their millstones and watching the suffering of the Israelites said, “We are content to be enslaved as long as Israel is enslaved.”
Rabbi Elazar is recognizing a tragic flaw in human beings who suffer - instead of sympathizing and finding kinship with others who are mistreated by the exploiting classes, they are convinced that as long as another group is below them in the social hierarchy they can accept their exploited status. President Lyndon Johnson expressed a similar sentiment when he said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Rabbi Elazar’s understanding of the wide distribution of this plague is that it is a message to both the exploiters and the exploited. The exploiters suffer God’s wrath because justice demands that the cruel and the oppressor be made to pay for their crimes against humanity. But the exploited must also appreciate that victimhood is not a license to hate and denigrate others who are vulnerable, to seek solace in artificial ennoblement but rather to seek common ground, offer comfort and work to mitigate the suffering of all.

This is another lesson of Pesah to our people. The message should reverberate amongst us today as strongly as it did to our ancestors.

04/01/2022

Five Minutes of Torah from Sinai

Pesah - The New World Order

Pesikta d’Rav Kahana (“Sections of Rav Kahana”) is a volume of midrash arranged according to the Torah portions and haftarot read on holidays and special Shabbatot. It is one of the earliest midrashim, from the fifth or sixth century in Israel. Though quoted in medieval literature, manuscripts of the text were only discovered and printed in the late 19th century.

As we draw close to Pesah, this is a midrash taken from the section on the reading for the holiday of Pesah:

Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai said: We have found both nighttime and daytime referred to as “day,” as it is written: And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (Gen 1:5) Rabbi Joshua bar Rabbi Nechamah understood [the same claim] from this verse: Darkness is not too dark for You, night is as light as day; the darkness and light are the same.(Ps 139:12) Since darkness is the same as light to Me, only human beings consider it night. This is what is meant by the verse that states... On the day that I struck down all the first-born of the Land of Egypt (Numbers 3:13). Further on it says, on the day that I sanctified all the firstborn to Me (paraphrase of Num 8:17 ). On this basis one may conclude that it was on the very same day that the firstborn of Egypt died, which [God said], “on this day I have sanctified to me the firstborn [of the Israelites].”

The midrash seeks to explain why the verse in Numbers says that God struck down the Egyptians during the day when in Exodus it was midnight. For God night and day have no distinctiveness, God in incorporeal and these physical distinctions mean nothing. (So don’t think you are so smart and try to catch the Torah in a contradiction!)

But I am intrigued by the substitution implied at the end. Again using the word ‘day’, it suggests that during the same period of time two things happened - the Egyptian first born died, and Israel, God’s first born (Exodus 4:22), are sanctified. In this case I don’t think the midrash is suggesting that Israel was substituted for Egypt’s first born. It is not parallel - Egyptian first born were individual human beings, Israel is God’s metaphoric first born, all human nations are God’s children but Israel takes pride of place. Rather what I think the midrash is recognizing is that the Exodus was a change of the world order. Egyptian society, that placed humans in a hierarchical pyramid structure, allowing those on top to exploit those on the bottom was upended. A new order in which no human can claim divine status, no human has the right to exploit fellow humans, no human can remove the inherent dignity of another replaces that other order. That Egyptian society model still exists, one could argue, it is still the dominant model of human society. But the Exodus offered a new paradigm, one that inspires us to this day; we see it beyond the Jewish world - in the commitment of Ukrainian fighters preserving their national culture and nascent democratic society against Russian tyranny and authoritarianism. Pesach calls on us to believe in this new vision of human society and divine-human partnership and find the wherewithal to pursue it.

04/01/2022

Five Minutes of Torah from Sinai

Haman’s irrational hatred

Until Purim, the focus of Five Minutes of Torah from Sinai will be on the Book of Esther and midrashim from a compilation known as Lekakh Tov and the Talmud Tractate on Megillah. Midrash Lekakh Tov (“Good Lesson”), by Rabbi Toviah ben Eliezer, from Bulgaria, is a commentary on the Torah and Megillot incorporating literal explanations and elaborative stories, written in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. The title of the work alludes to the author's name, Toviah, in addition to his practice of introducing each portion in the Torah commentary with a short exposition on a verse containing the word 'Tov.'

Esther 5:6 But he (Haman) disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone; having been told who Mordecai’s people were, Haman plotted to do away with all the Jews, Mordecai’s people, throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus.

Said Rabbi Levi, This is analogous to a bird who made a nest on the seashore and the sea swept away its nest, and it said: ‘I will not move from here until the sea becomes dry land and the dry land becomes sea.’ What did it do? It would take water from the sea in its mouth and pour it on the land, and would take dirt from the land and cast it into the sea. Its fellow came and stood alongside it and said to it: ‘Idiot! Ultimately, what can you accomplish?’ Thus Haman sought to destroy all the Jews. So said the Holy One to the wicked Haman: ‘Idiot! I said I would destroy them, so to speak, and could not, as it is stated: “He said He would destroy them, were it not for Moses, His chosen one, who stood before Him in the breach to turn back His wrath from destruction” (Psalms 106:23) for I placed before them a good leader and savior, and now you think you can destroy them? In the end you will fall at the hands of Israel. For Israel is compared to a boulder ‘כִּֽי־מֵרֹ֤אשׁ צֻרִים֙ אֶרְאֶ֔נּוּ (Numbers 23:9) from the top of a mountain of rocks, I see them’ and the nations of the world are compared to clay “He will break it as a potter’s jug is broken” (isiah 30:14) and if a boulder falls on a pot, whoa to the pot and if a pot falls on a boulder, whoa to the pot. Likewise anyone who confronts Israel, whoa to them for they will get what they deserve (wording in Midrash Esther Rabbah).

A number of interesting points in this midrash. First, Haman’s hatred of the Jews is seen as foolish and irrational, just as most prejudices are. An old cynical joke says a liberal is a person who hasn’t been mugged yet. And of course whatever type of person mugs that liberal, the unstated part is that now this person will blame all societal wrongs on that type. Likewise, my grandfather’s and parent’s generation would never buy a German car, yet today Germany is probably Israel’s best friend in Europe. Ukraine was the source of the most vicious mass murders of Jews before Hi**er and today we are standing with Ukraine as a Jewish president leads his country against invasion. One has to be careful with one’s prejudice. The world is dynamic not static.

Also in the midrash, what does it mean that God castigates Haman for foolishly trying to kill all the Jews when God tried to do the same thing and failed? Is the midrash suggesting that even against God Israel is indestructible? The conclusion affirms that this is a very ethnocentric midrash that is confident in Israel’s ability to weather all challenges. Wishful thinking? An attempt to bolster a community that suffers from constant pogroms and seeks solace? Whatever the answer, best not to tempt fate.

04/01/2022

Five minutes of Torah from Sinai

Who was Esther, really?

Until Purim, the focus of Five Minutes of Torah from Sinai will be on the Book of Esther and midrashim from a compilation known as Lekakh Tov and the Talmud Tractate on Megillah. Midrash Lekakh Tov (“Good Lesson”), by Rabbi Toviah ben Eliezer, from Bulgaria, is a commentary on the Torah and Megillot incorporating literal explanations and elaborative stories, written in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. The title of the work alludes to the author's name, Toviah, in addition to his practice of introducing each portion in the Torah commentary with a short exposition on a verse containing the word 'Tov.'

“Mordecai was foster father to Hadassah—that is, Esther—his uncle’s daughter, for she had neither father nor mother.” Her name was Hadassah and Esther.

The Lekakh Tov brought these midrashic sources to explain her name. Rabbi Meir said her name was Esther but she was called Hadassah because the righteous are called hadassim as in the verse in Zechariah 1:11 where he has a vision of an angel “In the night, I had a vision. I saw a man, mounted on a bay horse, standing among the myrtles, hadassim, in the Deep”. Rabbi Yehudah said that her name was Hadassah but she was called Esther because she concealed (masteret) her words (about herself). In both cases the names Hadassah and Esther told us something significant about her - she was righteous and she followed Mordecai’s plan in order to win the heart of the King.

“When the turn came for Esther daughter of Abihail—the uncle of Mordecai, who had adopted her as his own daughter—to go to the king”
The Lekakh Tov says that what made Esther/Hadassah special is that she did not ask for anything like the other women. She was content to follow the lead of those in charge of this contest. She did not demand to know who would be attending them, nor what kind of clothes or adornments she would be given to wear. “She did not ask for anything but what Hegai, the king’s eu**ch, guardian of the women, advised”.

“Esther obtained favor in the sight of all those who looked upon her” (Esther 2:15). Rabbi Elazar said: This teaches that she appeared to each and every one as if she were a member of his own nation, and therefore she obtained favor in the eyes of all. What are we to make of this comment? In the TV show Parks and Rec, Rashida Jones (whose father in real life is, Quincy Jones, who is black and her mother, actress Peggy Lipton was Jewish) plays a character whom Amy Poehler refers to as “my beautiful friend of unknown ethnicity”. There is something alluring about those whose racial or ethnic make up you can’t determine at first glance. But it also seems to be a statement about the global Jewish character. We Jews are universal. We have lived on every continent, we are made up of every racial group, we speak hundreds of languages. Esther embodied that diversity and that is what made her so attractive and favorable. A wonderful resource to remind us of our global diversity is the website for B’chol Lashon which celebrates Jewish diversity - black Jews, Asian Jews, Latino Jews, and others.
https://globaljews.org/

The Lekach Tov also offers an explanation as to how Mordecai rose to power. In verse 2:11 we read, “Every single day Mordecai would walk about in front of the court of the harem, to learn how Esther was faring and what was happening to her.” But by Verse 19 and 21 we are told that “Mordecai sat in the palace gate”. How did he move from the court where the women lived to the palace gate? It was because of Esther. She asked the King, “The Persian wise men that you listen to suggested you kill Vashti. Why don’t you ever take advice from Jewish wise men? The King responded, “Are there any Jewish wise men left in the world?” She told him about her cousin Mordecai and immediately he promoted Mordecai to judge at the King’s gate, which allowed Mordecai to overhear the two eu**chs Bigtan and Teresh planning to kill the king. Mordecai spoke 70 languages including the Tarsi that Bigtan and Teresh spoke. When we say that God works behind the scenes, we don’t mean today there is a crisis and tomorrow there is a solution. The pieces are far more complicated than that to arrange. It might be a decision that is made years in the past that allows salvific acts to take place in the future. We can only try to do the right thing in the moment. That is our human limitation.

Be’chol Lashon (Hebrew for “in every language”) strengthens Jewish identity by raising awareness about the ethnic, racial and cultural diversity of Jewish identity and experience.