Minyan Replay with Rabbi Lizzi — V'Zot HaBrakha

At our Virtual Morning Minyan on September 28th, Rabbi Lizzi  puzzled over the plight of Moshe at the end of the Torah. Why does the man who delivered us from bondage (and received the Torah itself!) not live to see culmination of that labor? Why does the narrative of the Torah leave off with Moshe dying before making it into the Promised Land? Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks may have some insight into this Mosaic mystery.

Every weekday at 8:00 am, Mishkan Chicago holds a virtual Morning Minyan. Our Thursday sessions are hosted by Mishkan's Founding Rabbi, Lizzi Heydemann. You can join in yourself, or listen to all the prayer, music, and inspiration right here on Contact Chai.

https://www.mishkanchicago.org/series/morning-minyan-summer-fall-2023/

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this half hour dose of weekly Jewish spirituality brought to you by Michigan's Thursday morning minion. Jews have a tradition of praying three times a day and at Mishkan. We have a daily minion at 8am Central to get your day started. folks join us from across the country and world as we begin each day with words and songs of gratitude, inspiration and Torah. If you miss us in the morning, join us here every week for the replay of our Thursday minion hosted by me Rabbi Lizzi Heitmann without further ado, I invite you to breathe a little deeper connect a little more with yourself with God with Torah with this community and with the world around you wherever you are whatever your timezone.

Hi, there chi. Ne man fun,

more fun.

When I first learned this tune,

I learned it on a meditation retreat, a Jewish meditation retreat with Rabbi Jeff Roth, who had studied with Rabbi Zalman Schachter, shallow me. And so he had particular words to this that are not an exact translation, an exact translation of courses acknowledge I do before you, the living spirit of the world, the King of the universe, that you have returned my soul to me and kindness, and your faith is abundant. Okay, that's the that's a literal, that's good. So, if you would translate this as is as follows When

I am who I am then I know I am you. When I am, who I am then I know I am you and I am who I am. Then I know I am you. When I am, who I am. Then I know I am you.

But you is like also capital, why are you so?

I am who I am then I know. I am God. When I am who I am then I know. I am God. When I am who I am. Then I know I am could say filled with God. When I am who I am. I know I'm filled with God Lear fine, NASA RU. Hi, there, chi moda Unni, they're fun NASA ru Si, their chi ne

ne

Take another deep breath, breathing into your belly, relaxing your shoulders, lengthening your spine

when I am who I am, I'm more connected to you. And I'm more connected to the source. When you are you, so are you. Alright,

well, you know what?

That's a good one. So, tomorrow begins the holiday of Sukkot. And it's one of the pilgrimage festivals. And so there's like liturgy strewn throughout the throughout the holiday. And some of its really wacky, actually really cool for Sukkot, because it's inviting in all of the supernal HPz and all the guests meaning like dearly departed long lost ancestors. You know, going back all the way to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and like, generations upon generations upon generations of Jewish Jewish heroes, sages, prophets, ancestors, male and female, but of course you can invite whoever you want into your Sucka so, so that's that's one of the cool parts of liturgy. Because there's some like weird Qabalistic and vocations for inviting them in and making them at home and and then there's this, which is usually set in the Moussaieff AMI di which is Galle Kofoed Matsuda. lino reveal the, the the majesty and the glory of Your kingdom to us. Which I love that this is part of the liturgy for all of the, for all of the festivals and Moussaieff because each one is so different and reveals God's kingdom, God's glory in really different ways. And right now in Chicago, it was raining last night. So it's kind of like wet and cloudy. And one of the metaphors for the succah is that it's clouds that the like the top of the sukkah, the natural roof, the natural fiber roof symbolizes clouds. The other day had covered the clouds of glory that follow the Israelites through the desert to shade them, you know? And so the idea that it's cloudy outside Wow, it was like no, no, no, no, like there is a silver literal silver lining around those clouds those clouds are God sheltering you from the heat, you know, and so it's an invitation this particular invitation to look for the majesty and the glory in the things that shelter us and protect us even the things that may at their first at their first glance appear like you know, not the Napa sunny happy rainbow shiny happy people version, but actually this is what we need. So

God let God lead gelei Garlic Garlic, garlic, a mouthful la a new guy

garlic info muscle alley new

garlic, garlic, garlic, garlic, garlic. Garlic can vote in my

lane. Oh gosh.

Golly, golly

golly gosh

Gali Gali Gali, Gali Gali, Gali?

Gali?

Gali Gali gather

la new Aye.

Aye Hi?

I am so this is

I love that you said this is an ear worms. How many time because I think one of the reasons to learn liturgy is so that you can take it with you. So that wherever you are, you can call on it. And so this in particular, what I was getting at earlier is this is a really good one for those moments. When you're wondering where is God in this exactly in this moment? Like not feeling it it doesn't feel like a blessing. So okay, Guy leg coven. Makoto Colleano reveal. Reveal it. You ask you demand and then you wait. And you listen?

My love I love that Megan when you were in the ER with a broken bone last week call Anisha Ma was your breathing exercise. That's so good. That's I feel like that's exactly that is exactly what this is intended for. And I'm sorry, you broke a bone and I hope it heals.

Hallelujah Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Yah yah. Yah. Yah, yah. Yah,

yah. Khalid el banco show Becky ouzo

Hallo Cara

Good luck

Hallelujah Hallelujah

to gush of love and never have been on my bed

nation klinische Ganesh to Hallelujah Hallelujah

Hallelujah

ai ai ai ai ai

want to invite you to stand

out yeah hey i hi yeah if you're able hi

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I'm gonna just take this right into our bar

will sound like this

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no no no you no matter how I share your tear or robot right Harsha Oh Sasha Lobo vorrei at tackle Hallelujah Hallelujah.

Hallelujah

bear ohata Adonai you'd say hi me oh

I have a BA hafta new why don't I let me know. I'm like a doll IV Tara hamata lien IV NUMA Kainuu by for Butina Shabbat hooba TLM daimoku K phi in Cainta Hyundai new Lamborghini Huracan man, I'm Ross Samara. clamavi you know

during the holidays, I don't for those of you who are heard one of one of my introductions for this for this prayer helped me make a connection that I had never really made before. Between this line I'm going to show you down here so alright, I have that Rob I have to I know you have loved us with a deep and abundant love our God. I'm like a doula Hamilton Elena viterra Hamilton Lena. Just great mercy you have heaped upon us. And you know, then it goes on to talk about let us learn and teach and pay attention and do and you know, like really be in relationship with active relationship with with me to vote through through love that I have that enlighten us through your meats vote, bring our hearts together, and then it says villone devotion to Lamba ed, and we will never be ashamed. We will then never be ashamed. And, and the connection was this connection between unconditional love and are the inverse relationship between unconditional love and shame. You know that one of the things that makes it hard for us to learn to do this thing that I have Ira by tells us that we can and should and, you know have permission to add or invited to do in love which is learn. Learning the thing that interferes with learning is if we feel like we're gonna get the answer wrong And then we're going to feel bad and embarrassed and maybe even ashamed. Like I should have known that. Now they're going to think I'm stupid. Or now they think that I can't learn or any number of things that people might think that you worry about. And so this prayer comes along to say, You're fine, you're great. You're amazing. God loves you. God loves you unconditionally. Your ancestors love you unconditionally. They pass this tradition on to you for you to be enlightened to be animated with love, like believe that you are loved and then villone devotion to them for Edie. There's no way you can you can sit in shame if you believe with your whole heart and every fiber of your being that you are loved. Just completely pervasively loved then you can get answers wrong and learn from them. So I want to invite us this day you know just a few days into the new year to believe that we are loved so much that we can make mistakes and we will be okay. We will survive we will learn we will grow we will be better and there's no reason to be ashamed we gather the four corners of our seat seat

Hello Claire BAM Louise throw away and I don't I I will clarify a moist row hey the ah ha have

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Yisrael Dona Ana we knew no I don't know

that I have to add a they don't I know haha the whole about ha ha NASA over home in Odessa. The high you who had a dream her a share. I know he admits that ha ha yo home on the VESA but she Nantahala Vanessa de bar bound? Does she have to have a Tasha will have to have their shows booked out of Omaha. Akshay tablet Oh to Alia Dafa how you litteratur fote been a nurse who could have time Zote beta over here

shot her hair

let's go into this healing

prayer hear me hum Oh Ha.

Go ahead and thread the names of the folks that you're thinking about this morning.

It was so nice at the holidays to see and to hear from some of the people that have been on my list who I don't see very often, who I think about a lot. Which is a privilege of having a community in which you know who people are and what they're wrestling with and what they're sick with. And so you can think about them, but then you also get to see them. So for everybody who's on your list this morning. You know maybe think think as we sing about how you might connect with them later just to check in on how they're doing.

Send them love at the very least. And that's in Chelsea, Roberta Sweeney, Karen Martin, Miriam Susan B. Cherry. Magan Danny Andrew, John being John J. And Megan. Rabbi Deborah shanafelt. Where I have a Tampa Sofia Yeah. Fiona davening team as well. embroil Roberta Martin Jesper Felicia Miriam J. Morris all the men and relatives and friends who need healing prayers and you will arrange your Suzanne for the mere Joe left Walter and Moshe oh my gosh the list goes on and I'm going to stop reading but I'm just glancing over all of them. Sending each one of them refresh Halima?

D fam

MO That le mando nein nein camo

then die about code that you don't wear writer he loved. Oh say file and no right to heal or setback. Share your shameful get that hashy spot Hi. Yes, ma'am, ma'am. At dawn Am

I and I and I I

throw away Umaga Ezra T Soro de massa die Berlin, Scott which is my room. I don't know, God. He's

sending reflash Leymah healing of body and spirit

to everybody you're thinking about this morning to everyone in this room

so, I was a little conflicted about which text to bring because I was looking both ad, I was looking at Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, because he's always just so smart and creative and says interesting things that I was looking at Rabbi shefa gold because she's so smart and creative, and says interesting things. And both of them focused in looking at this week's parsha on the death of Moses, which happens in this week's parsha so actually, just to give you a frame of reference for where we are, the Torah reading today is from the last parsha

of the Torah, but bomb.

Zipper ha Zota Raha share Bera BRAF Moshe, Isha Elohim at Vanessa Elif nemoto, this is the blessing which Moses, God's agent bade the Israelites farewell before he died. And then it goes on and kind of gives this big long blessing to all the different tribes. And I'm just gonna go through I'm just scrolling here so you can see lots of nice words, you know, but but but all the different tribes here we are blessing them that they may be upright that they may be protected and happy and safe. Oh, God, and you know what I like I hesitate to do the end because this is what we do on some historic this is what we do at the end of the whole holiday cycle when we read the end of the tour and then roll it back to the beginning that I'm going to I'm going to do it anyway just because I because we're here together and you know, it's okay. You can read the Torah out of order, you're still reading Torah. And Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eyes were undimmed. And his vigor unabated. And the Israelites bewailed Moses in the steps of Moab for 30 days, the period of wailing and mourning for Moses came to an end. And now your shuaa son of noon was filled with the Spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him the Israelites hated him doing as God had commanded Moses, below calm NaVi O ve Surah Al commercia, a Sharia doe Adonai Panem l per name never again to their arise in Israel, a prophet like Moses, whom God singled out face to face knew that word, ooh, like new with an intimacy face to face, with all the various signs and portents, and miracles that God had sent him to display in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh and all his courtiers and his whole country, for all the great and Great Might and awesome power that Moses displayed before all of Israel. Period full stop whitespace I kind of want there to be at the end at the end of the Torah. But there is not because it just continues in the next in the next book, which is the book of Joshua, which is not part of the like the whole mash the five books. It's like a whole separate section. Now we're into the you know, the new theme, the section which is like all of the historical stuff and all of the prophets. There's no the end, it's just this sort of, it's almost like a cliffhanger, but it's not a cliffhanger. Moses died, and nobody knows where he's buried. The end. Okay, so fun fact, the last letter of the Torah is Allah Ahmed and the first letter of the Torah. Anybody know? You can unmute? Yes, yes, yes, the first letter of the Torah is as is bet, which if you put the llaman and In the bet together that spells love, which means heart. So when you connect the Torah from the back to the front, and you just have it in a circle and you make this the center of your life you have a heart based life

and yes, Ellen I'm happy to put any of the tunes that I use earlier on slack on our Slack channel and for any of you who are here for the first time with us or are not aware that we have a minion morning minion Slack channel where we often continue the conversation started in minion or just post resources that were used in minion asked me how to join it later and I'm happy to get you into our Slack channel. It's a lovely place. Okay, anyway, we read to her, I'm gonna I want to make sure to do Kadisha tome for anybody who has to leave. And then for those of you who want to stick around to maybe learn a little bit from one of our resident in house sages that will do that. All right. Who are we remembering this morning? Whose name do we want to lift up? My mother Muriel Kornbluth?

So a ton I am positive you just said your father's name, but we didn't hear you. For some reason. I don't. I don't know why we're not hearing you. But we're not hearing you see my mom

still know who just said your mom. Oh Asher Ben Yakko vertifx kasi horna Libra ha yeah, Renee bank, John's mother, Luke and Szalinski.

All right.

May their memories be blessings

yields go down VT Kadesh shimmy rubber. Amen. Bow muddy rocky road Tavian leaf mahu Tabor Hi hon of Yamaha of Highgate hookbait is threatened but allow his man carry Emeril Amen. He rather live rock eat burapha estaba Vita RV drum amvi IDNA se Vita Darby it Olivia Halal shimmy dequeued Share, Like a lamb in Kobe or whatever. Shirota to Shehata, Vanessa Mata dummy run by Alma in row. Amen. Yeah, hey Schlemmer. Raba means Shamaya. Hyeme. And Lenovo. Alcocer. LV Maru. I mean, oh say Shalom. Roma. Whoo. Yeah, say Shalom. Alina. They'll call you sir. l. They'll call your show at Valve, emerald. And then, and then.

Every one of their memories be a blessing. Yeah, a time. I'd seen your face this morning. I was thinking it must be about a year. But I hadn't realized that. It was actually like this. This is his yard sign. I didn't realize that your dad died at this time of year with the High Holidays swirling around. I mean, I know it was a slightly different time of year. But Darn it, we are we cannot hear you. I don't know why, but we can't. All right. I'm going to do I'm going to do Unfinished Symphony from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. And thank you, Barry for pointing out yes, at the end of not just the not just the Torah, but every book of the Torah. We do. We do have our version of the end. We say hi, Zach, has Zach have a neat Kuzzik. You know, we should be strong, we should be strong and let us strengthen each other. So thank you. That's a good corrective. All right. So, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, writes, each year as we near the end of the mosaic books and Moses his life, I find myself asking, Did it really have to end this way? With Moses denied the chance to even set foot on the land to which he led the people for 40 tempestuous years, in the heavenly court? Could justice not have yielded to Mercy? For the few days it would have taken for Moses to cross the Jordan and see his task fulfilled? And for what was Moses being punished? One moments anger when he spoken temperately to the Israelites when they were complaining about the lack of water? Can a leader not be forgiven for one lapse in 40 years? I wonder also, in the words of the sages, is this the Torah and is this its reward? The scene in which Moses climbs a mountain of bow to see the distance to see in the distance, the land he would never enter is one of the most poignant in the teknaf there is a vast midrashic literature that turns Moses request, quote, let me cross over to the good land beyond the Jordan and quote into Hydra. Rama, with Moses mounting argument with Moses his mounting argument after argument in his defense only to be met by unbending refusal from heaven. enough from you don't speak to me of this matter again. Verse 26, why we wonder, this the man who 18 times and the Tanaka is called God's servant? No one else is described this way except Joshua, only twice, in his own obituary in the Torah reads, Never again did there arise in Israel, a prophet like Moses, why was he treated so seemingly harshly by God among whose attributes are forgiveness, and compassion? As we just said, many, many, many times throughout the High Holidays? Clearly, the Torah is telling us something fundamental. But what is it? There are many explanations, but I believe the most profound and simplest takes us back to the beginning of the beginnings. In the beginning, the race sheets, God created heaven and earth, there is heaven and there is Earth, and they are not the same. In the history of civilization, one question has proved the hardest of all, in the words of Psalm eight. What is humanity that You are mindful of us? What is it to be human? We are an infinitesimal Speck, in an almost infinite universe of 100 billion galaxies, in which 100 in each with 100 billion stars, we know that our lives are a bear microsecond against the almost eternity of the cosmos, we are terrifyingly small. And yet we are also astonishingly great. We dominate the planet, we have ever increasing control over nature, we are the only life form that known thus far capable of asking the question why. Hence, the two temptations have faced homosapiens since the beginning to think of ourselves as smaller than we actually are, or as greater than we actually are. How are we able to understand the relationship between our mortality and fallibility and the almost infinite in almost infinities of time and space? So, he goes on, there's, you know, a bunch of paragraphs I'm not I'm not going to read them all. But he basically says there are two temptations one of them is for human beings to act like God. The Egyptians believed the pharaohs joined the gods after death. The Romans believed that Julius Caesar, you know, was a god after his death. Other religions believe that human beings become God or our God. And this is this is problematic in so many ways, and leads to all kinds of, well, mostly people following leaders that end up abusing their power and hurting people. So okay, not in that direction. Although in the other direction. Voltaire spoke of humans, as insects devouring one another, like one another, like little atoms of mud. Stephen Hawking said that the human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a billion galaxies. Philosopher John Gray wrote, the human life has no more meaning than a slime mold. In homo Deus, Yuval Harare states, looking back, humanity will turn out just to have been a ripple within the cosmic data flow. Judaism is humanity's protest against both ideas. We are not gods, and we are not chemical scum. We are dust of the earth. But within us there is Breath of God. What is essential is never to blur the boundary between heaven and earth. The Torah speaks only obliquely about this it tells us that there was a time prior to the flood when the sons of God saw the daughters of man were lovely and they married whomever they chose. It also tells us that after the flood, humans gathered in the plane of Shannara and said, Come let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches Heaven and make a name for ourselves. Regardless of what these stories mean, what they speak of is blurring the line between heaven and earth, the sons of God behaving like humans and humans aspiring to live among the gods. When God is God, humans can be human, for separate then relate. This is actually the Jewish way. For us as humans humanity is at its highest when we are still human. We are mortal. We are creatures flesh and blood. We are born we grow, we learn, we mature, we make our way in the world and if we are lucky, we find love if we are blessed, we have children. If we age if we are blessed, we age, the body grows old. Even if the spirit stays young. We know that this gift of life does not last forever, because in this physical universe, nothing lasts forever, not even planets or stars. For each of us, therefore there is a river we will not cross a promised land we will not enter a destination we will not reach. Even the greatest life is an Unfinished Symphony. Moses's death on the far side of the Jordan could be a consolation for all of us. None of us should feel guilty or frustrated or angry or defeated, that there are things we hoped to achieve, but did not. That is what it is to be human. Nor should we be haunted by our mistakes. that I believe is why the Torah tells us that Moses sinned. Did we really have to include the episode? Did the Torah really have to include the episode of the water and stick the rock? Moses's anger? It happened but then the Torah have to tell us it happened. It passes over 38 full years of the 40 years in the wilderness in silence. It doesn't report every incident, only those that have a lesson for posterity. Why? Why not then pass over this to in silence, sparing Moses his good name. What other religious literature has been so candid about the failings of even its greatest heroes? Because that is what it is to be human. Even the greatest humans make mistakes, failed as often as they succeed and have moments of black despair. What made them great was not that they were perfect, but that they kept going. They learn from every error, refuse to give up hope and eventually acquired the great gift that only failure can grant, namely humility. They understood that life is about falling 100 times and getting up again, it is about never losing your ideals, even when you know how hard it is to change the world. It is about getting up every morning, and walking one more day toward the promised land even though you know you may not get there. But knowing you helped others get there. Moses writes in his law code that every human being can become righteous like Moses, my mom at ease, writes in his law code that every human being can become righteous like Moses, our teacher, or wicked like your mom, like you're a bomb.

This is an astonishing sentence. There was only ever one Moses, the Torah says so. But what my monitor is saying is clear. Prophetically, there was only one Moses, but morally, The choice lies before us at every moment to make a decision that will affect the lives of others, that Moses was mortal. That was the greatest leader who ever lived, and that he did not see his mission completed, that even he was capable of making a devastating mistake is the most profound gift we could be given. Hence the three life changing ideas with which the Torah ends. We are mortal, therefore make everyday count. We are fallible therefore learn to grow from each mistake. We will not complete the journey. Therefore inspire others to continue what we began has Zack Zack beneath Kuzzik you've been listening to Kontakt five miscounts podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a rating on Apple podcasts and help us rise in the Jewish charts. And if you appreciate what we do, I invite you to join as a builder or make a donation on our website Mishcon chicago.org Shabbat shalom.