Minyan Replay with Rabbi Lizzi — Parashat Shmini

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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. Jews have a tradition of praying three times a day, and at Mishkan. We have a daily virtual minion at 8am Central to get your day started. folks join us from across the country and across the world as we begin each day with words and songs of gratitude, inspiration, healing and Torah. 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 I wanted to start with, with a chant Irene had actually suggested this one weeks and weeks ago. And I thought about holding off on it until we get to the month of Nissan, which begins next week. But then I thought, you know, at least for me right now, I have completely changed my orientation from the orientation of poram, to now thinking about Passover, because it's in three weeks. I mean, three weeks feels like a long time. But I feel like Passover requires preparation. And so the spiritual preparation, often for many people who who actually do the kitchen thing, you know, and like cleaning kitchens and getting rid of old cereal and old bread and old bagels and the stuff in the freezer, and whatever, you know, like the spiritual preparation part often is secondary to the physical thing. And we imagine that by going through the physical motions of preparing for Passover, inherently, we will somehow clean out the gunk or prepare emotionally to be sitting at the Seder table thinking big. You know, sort of the Exodus thoughts, you know, and having big Exodus conversations. And I thought, you know, there's no, it's not never too early to start that. So thank you to Irene. I don't know if she's on this morning, but for making the suggestion of this particular chance, what it reminds me of is the line in the beginning of the sea doer, if you open up, you know, any traditional sea door, you'll see at the beginning, it says her rainy Myka Bell ally meets vertebrae that have to learn Africa, mocha, and I hereby accept upon myself the mitzvah, the commandments of my creator, to love my neighbors, as myself have to have to learn Africa you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And this is put at the beginning of the sea door I can only imagine because the idea is we're about to go through a bunch of physical and verbal motions. Lest you think it's just about the physical and the verbal and not about what you internalize not about the message we take with us and what we do with it then in our life, let us remind you this is what it's about the half celeriac a mohawk loving people. So we're going to start this morning with this circle chant.

Circle around for free. Circle rather than for peace. For all of us in prison. Circle for release. circle for the planet. circle for each so for the children of our children, keep the circle whole circle around. Circle round four piece for us in breeze and circle for release. Circle four the planet. circle for each so for the children of our children. He the circle. Circle around for free to search around for please. For all of us in breeze and circle for release. circle for the planet. circle for each so for the children of our children. He the circle. Circle around for free. Around for peace. Love us in prison, sir Go for release circle for the plan

for the children Geetha circle

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share says beanie smile at best and Munna moda

Gaya

beanies Mattie. Beth femme

grateful as

long as I stay on me

Are you letting speak of

this soul you gave me your great faith in me. May I be grateful May I be

there assumedly be

there Shanhaiguan to anti virus and

the virus there

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they're fine Erica Rue their chi chef as I do be Nish batty there

and Mona

there's so many good intentions to start the day off with oh Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary. pure and holy tried and true and with Thanksgiving I'll be a living sanctuary for you. Can

you see the screen? I'm sharing? Yeah,

good. Okay. I don't know anything anymore. Yesterday, somebody told me Mercury's in retrograde, which I still don't totally understand. But I think basically means technology and other things don't always work the way they're supposed to. I'm going to transition into Barco now that we've had some morning warming up, spiritual warming up so if you're able to stand and face east and have in a mountain pose allowing your shoulders to relax your needs to feel loose

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dash into you nice Caroline O'Meara Oh, well, I don't know you'd say, her middle road

just looking at this last blessing here, we've talked about this before, that this blessing was the source of some debate among the rabbis. I'm going to I'm going to show you where it comes from the way that blessings work is there's always like a way of long blessings work because there's like an intro blessing and a conclusion blessing and they reinforce each other. And so for example, here after the bar, who blessing, the creation of everything, blessing is the one whose name is blessed and blessed. It is that one throughout all time, and then there's blessing for creation. Bless it, are you the Creator, and shaper of all things, peace and everything, right. But it begins with this light and darkness Yotsuya or shaper of light, are very harsh and creator of darkness. And so then you get down through, there's a lot actually of text which we don't have reflected here. But through all of the kind of it's like the body of the five paragraph essay, you know the evidence of Gods creating light and darkness. God's shaping hand in the universe, something like that. And here you see it again, how many era arts the lighting up of the world and everything in it, creating of everything a new every single day. And so then you get to the bottom to the closing sort of the conclusion paragraph of the blessing, which is connected to the intro paragraph that introduced you creator of light and darkness. So down here or had dash a new light? I'll see on tight here. Oh, new curveball, you're never supposed to introduce a new concept and the conclusion paragraph what I'll do inside here on Zion should shine Denise kulana Mahira little wrote, little row and let us be worthy of its light burrata. Dona yo, Sara Hmail wrote, it's like, bless it, are you the creator of the lights. So essentially, they went ahead and stuck with the theme of light in this Clute closing paragraph. But they snuck in something that appears to have been on their mind. It's like they just couldn't not mention the one place in the world where they were hoping a new light would shine. Here we are talking about the creating of newness and the creating a possibility and light and darkness and you know, blessing the creator of light, light, light, light, light. And then down here at the bottom, they just sneak in something that appears to have just been lurking just beneath the surface on their mind. Zion, right, and when they wrote this, of course, they were not they were probably not in Zion. They were probably somewhere else. Creating these blessings thinking about a place that they wanted to see a new light shine. And then of course, you know, the next blessing down here goes to love. You start talking about love. I'm just struck by the things that follow us wherever We go and that we try to compartmentalize and even if we're thinking about other things, and even if we're supposed to be thinking about other things, the theme is other things, our body is in a different place. And we just can't help ourselves, you know, from letting our mind go to that that place, or person or situation that is just preoccupying us. There's something unresolved about it, there's something unfinished, there's something that requires our attention, our love our light, somebody's light. And, you know, in meditation, one of the things they teach you is, you know, you're supposed to sit there, take breaths, clear your mind. But of course, you can't clear your mind. Because immediately the second you start trying things begin to rise to the surface. And rather than beating yourself up and going, Oh, I'm not supposed to think about that, oh, I was just supposed to be compartmentalizing that, oh, that's not what I'm supposed to be doing right now. You're just supposed to notice, ah, that appears to be what is on my mind right now. And you acknowledge it. And you say, I'll come back to you later, I'm going to go back to my breath. You know, and there's this kind of consistent coming back to the place where you intended for your mind to be with full loving recognition that our minds are basically not our own. We can't really control them. We can try, we can practice it's a muscle that we can continue to refine and build. And I feel like we do that here in prayer. We have, you know, theme after theme after theme blessing after blessing, light, love. I mean, truly, it's such a this is like the Jewish prayer services like one series of hippie words after the next like Love Light peace, infused with the things that have been preoccupying our ancestors for 1000s of years, and in fact preoccupy many of us to and I just want to acknowledge, right, that is true that is there. And it's there for me too. I don't know how many of you as well. I'd be curious to know, because I don't think this is true for everyone that everybody is preoccupation is the same, highly doubtful. But I feel like in a in a minion and in a community. One of the lovely things is you actually get to know other people's preoccupations, the things that keep people in the room up at night the things people are thinking about. The people people are thinking about the places people are thinking about, and directing our love and light to so as we go into our bash mafia Haftar I do want to turn our attention our love and prayer to the people in places who need love and light and healing. And so if you want to use this time and space to share the names of folks you're interested in thinking about oh, Susanna Darwin said I'm also interested in knowing what gets us up in the morning not just what keeps us up at night but what gets us up in the morning

all right, beautiful

so many names so many people so many places

don't i Oh, hey, you. Good. Tierra Terra Amata. Lane McCain. Lane. Ship at Harbor. Chabad. Aveeno, Merc aane lambed M Hu K. Kandahar nano to Landay No. Levine among Humaira Haim raasay Merlino the 10 bit the Bane the hi lovey, they're happy when they're happy have skill the schwa Mo who they love me the Schmoyer so came at Cody Bray, Talmud Torah Taha barehand any know that all right the I have basically bade mitzvah Tessa

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they die Don't ever they are key best shame. Go watch her God doll they had no no Smith

in the Smith I'll be sure to

go ahead and gather the four corners of your seat seat

if this didn't come through earlier I said the talus is this magnificent garment that we gather around ourselves. It has to be hole it has to have its four corners intact in order to put seed seed on it in the first place. But then seeds seed are definitionally fragmented, disparate, not hold not together. And so as we gather them, as we say these words are heavy AngelList Shalom. We gather ourselves in peace. We pray that all the fragmented pieces may on the one hand retain their integrity and their beauty in all of their independence and difference and yet at the same time, be brought together in love connected as they are by a single garment of destiny, as we all are.

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I did bring a little Torah to learn this morning. And it is 830 And so I want to do Caddyshack tome before we before we do any, any learning from the Parsha for anybody who might have to leave oh man, Judaism is so full of words and rituals, scrolling through them all here. This isn't even all of them. Alright, grab the kid the Chateau mourners Kaddish Who are we remembering this morning

okay

thank you my father David Rose. I'm just going to be these out loud world central kitchen workers Yeah, truly. Truly earlier. Dahlia also, just as she always does, included everybody in Israel and Palestine, hoping and praying for healing. And in this case, guess. Women died and died and untimely waves and unfortunate ways. Glen's mother Muriel Cornella Yes, Ricky that's nice. Anybody else? Is there anybody who would like to practice Kaddish this morning Okay, all right. Okay. You To go dalvey to Kadesh me Arabba the alma de rockery Tavia Amblyomma hoti, but Hi hon. Yamaha and Hyde Hall bait Israel back allow his Man carry them real I mean Ah me rob me more athlete with more on the ELMO he's Berra beach the back feet but are these remind me and I say it had RV it's alive yet halau Schmieder could share the whole the LM in Kobe or whatever Shirota touche Mahadeva Hemanta Demi Randy amavi unreal. I mean, he Schlemmer Rama mean she may have hygiene and cleaning they'll call you sir l ro name will say Shalom be Mohammed, who you say shalom, Elena Valco Israel, they'll call your Shayla name Rahman. Let me know now all of our memories be blessings. What I should have played this morning and still could play is the Indigo Girls song strange fire? Because that is what we read about in the Parsha. And in fact, in fact, in fact, I think I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it right now. Strange fire lyrics. Indigo Girls. All right, y'all. Before we before we hear this, it's important to actually know what the Indigo Girls were riffing on 30 years ago, or whenever it was, it's my least favorite portion. I wouldn't call it my favorite portion. I mean, it's it's a doozy. But any excuse to play and sing Indigo Girls. I know that's what you actually mean. Alright, so let me at least show you here. What, what we're working with in parshad shmini. So shmini refers to on the eighth day after seven days of preparation, and training the priests how to be priests on the eighth day Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel and began to instruct them in how to inaugurate the Mishcon. He said to Aaron, take a calf of the herd and a sin offering and a ram and a burnt offering without blemish, bring them before God and speak to the Israelites saying take a he goat offering through a sin offering a sin offering that's important to remember here, a calf and a lamb yearlings without blemish, right. He's teaching them how to make different kinds of offerings, a sin offering this kind of sin offering over this as a well being offering, that there are all kinds of different sacrifices that Aaron can be making on behalf of himself, his household, and also the people they brought to the front of the tent of meeting the things that Moses had commanded the community leadership came forward and stood before God. This is what God has commanded that you do that the presence of Hashem may appear to you covered, I don't I this is all important stuff because it is a prelude to the part that gets all the attention in the next chapter. It's really important, all of this ceremony and precision is about calling forth God's presence. And then Moses said to Aaron, come forward to the altar, sacrifice your sin offering your burnt offering make expiation for yourself and the people scratch, you know, scratch your chin. What like, why is Aaron making expiation for himself and the people and the ideas and then sacrifice the people's offering and make expiation for them as God has commanded. Aaron came forward to the altar, slaughtered his calf for a sin offering air and Sons brought the blood to him, he dipped his finger in the blood and put it on the horns of the altar. This is all so visceral for anybody who heard me talk last night about like sacrifices as you know, closeness to God, honestly, like the visceral illness, you have to feel something I'm in poured out the rest of the blood on the altar, like them and a bunch of stuff that's very, like, kind of, yeah, like the people who deal with now we're not that you deal with this. Now, we're not priests. They're like the, you know, the fishmonger or the meat person at the counter at the supermarket. But like the fat and the kidneys and their protuberance on the liver for the sin offering, you can actually almost feel how if you did all of this stuff and successfully completed the task, you would feel like, Whoo, yeah, I am. expiated I did a gross thing, and now I'm through it. In any case, Aaron does all this stuff on behalf of the people turns all of it into Smoke on the altar. He washes the entrails in the legs, turns it into Smoke on the altar. And next he brings forward the people's offering. And he took the goat from the People's offering slaughters it and presents it as a sin offering like the previous one. Okay, one after the next after the next on and on and on, the more and more and more you're watching as I'm scrolling through his, okay, and Aaron lifted his hands toward the people and bless them. And he stepped down after offering the sin offering the burnt offering and the offering of wellbeing. Moses and Aaron went inside the tent when they came out. They bless the people and the presence of God covered I don't lie in the presence of God appeared to all the people And fire came forth from God and consume the bird offering and the fat parts on the altar. And the people saw and they shouted, and they fell on their faces. What I liked about this is that it gives you both the kind of boring, old details of how sacrifices used to be made. And of course, you know, people don't do that anymore. And so we usually just kind of like skip through this part because it's a little grossed out by Martin. And, but then at the end, you see, the result is that the people are moved, they fall on their faces they shouting, you know that like this is ecstatic. Okay. And then we move into chapter 10. And now Aaron sons in the DaVinci, who each took his fire pan, put fire in it and lead incense on it. They offered before God, ah, Zara, alien fire some kind of strange fire, which had not been commanded of them as share Lhotse vital time. Right? Like we saw in the first part, Moses was very explicit about everything that was to happen. Nobody gave them these instructions. They just went ahead and did it. But it's a Aishe meal if natto niver to hollow time for me to live in they had an eye and fire came forth from God and consume them and thus they died at the incidence of God. And then Moses said to Aaron, this is what God meant by saying those that through those near to me, I will show myself holy and game glory for the people before all the people but you don't know her own and Aaron was silent. Not my favorite partial because it's very intense. Very confusing. And there are a lot of commentary writers that spill a lot of ink over what on earth happened here. So what I was going to bring you some of these Orenburg but before I do, before I do I want to know because we gotta sing. gotta sing. So anybody is welcome to join me in this. What I love about this as they imagine, no doubt and a vehicle coming forward not with insolence or with impatience or immaturity. They're making an offering of love

I come to you with strange fire. I'm making an offering I love being sad, sad, My soul is burned by the fire in my blood. I come with a softer answer to the questions that lie in your pie. I want to harbor you from the anger. Find a refuge refuge from the rat. This is amassing a message of love, love that moves from the inside out. Love that never grows to die. I come to you with strange spy

mercenaries of the shrine. Now why you want to speak for God with haughty eyes and lying tongs, hands that shed in a symbol. Now who deliver any power to interpret cavalry to gamble away our freedom to gain your own authority. Find another state of mine reach out and grab Oh. Strange fire burns with the motion of lie

when you learn to love yourself, you will dissolve all the stones that are cast. You will learn to burn the ice and sky to melt the wax man Ah and I said to have a gift of true really he is a snap will take you Hi. Oh I come to you with my offering. I bring him the stray This is a mass message love them moves from the inside out. Love them never grows. I come to you with strange.

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