Minyan Replay with Rabbi Lizzi — Emor: Make Your Life A Work Of Art

Every weekday at 8:00 am, Mishkan Chicago holds a virtual Morning Minyan.  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-spring-2024/

****

For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

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, connects a little more with yourself with God with Torah with this community and with the world around you, wherever you are, whatever your timezone.

Nice to see everybody's little Hollywood square coming online, showing up here some heads of names. Nice to see everybody. I'm just going to jump right in. Cuz Life is short. And we've only got half an hour. I wanted to start here this morning. The classic tune from my childhood that maybe some of you will recognize, and if you do not, you'll hear it once through and then you'll begin to get it.

For anybody who's listening later on can't see the words on the screen. They say matovu Oh Halakhah Yakov, how good are your tents, Jacob but already by the time that the the evil Prophet is saying these words, Jacob's dead. So Jacob is a reference to the Jewish people sort of shorthand Mishkan otesaga Ye Surah Al your Michigans Israel all of your desert dwelling spaces all of you beautiful people out creating creating life creating dwellings creating a new society on the heels of on the heels of like a very traumatic past here you are wow it's so beautiful. The Prophet cannot help but say even though he was sent to go curse these Israelites he opens his mouth and this is what he says. And so these words were put at the beginning of the prayer service I'm imagining because we might feel like saying all kinds of things in the morning and we hope and pray that our mouths may be either trained or surprised into saying beautiful words complimentary words non critical words inspiring words words of affirmation and praise

Oh Ha

ha

Mishkan

you

these Can

you see

this.

Mishkan

Mishkan

to be Lahti?

ello

ah

Nene

Mishkan

yeah

Mishkan

yes throw away

the rest of those words, the amoeba Rojas Dukkha above a teta with your abundant grace. I enter your house.

The chef of Vashta Havana, la fille could Shahab erotica and I prostrate myself before your temple or before your sanctuary with a sense of awe. I just love this as a morning intention. Like waking up in sort of like the Mary Oliver poem says, you know, I know I might not know how to pray, but I know how to lie down in the grass.

I know how to look at this grasshopper. Yes, this one who's moving its little arms back and forth and eating some little piece of schmutz off the ground. I know how to do that I know how to pay attention. I know how to

look at the world. And that is my way of prostrating myself and noticing what's beautiful. And I therefore have I need to feel it. Look, I don't I have its own. I am my prayer. Not that I'm saying words that are prayer, but actually like my life. How I live is prayer.

So what am I praying with the way that I live? Later this morning, I'm going to be doing a funeral for someone who is kind of a Chicago icon. That because I'm not really in the art and design world I did not know is a Chicago icon. His name is Jason pixelmon. You can look them up.

And as I was thinking about texts that make sense

for somebody who loved and appreciated art, so much.

The words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel 10 days before he died, kind of like came to me. And Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel had a conversation with the news anchor, Carl Stern. This is back in the day. I don't know maybe some of you may remember Carl Stern,

on the television back when television was a big box, and had a big antenna coming out of it. Anyway, he asked, Rabbi has shown what do you want to tell the youth today? And Rabbi Heschel said

I want them to know that every deed counts that every one every person has the ability to make a healing in this world, and he said an overall

I want them to know that one must live one's life. Like it is a work of art.

One must live one's life like it is a work of art.

So

I put that out to you this morning. In what way will you make your day even this moment now what happens after you turn off the computer? Walk out of your house? How will you live this day as if it is a work of art?

Feel free to share in the chat if you want. If you have any good ideas on what that looks like for you.

As I go on

if you're able on your

on your side to sing Part B as I'm singing part A you will hear the harmony

cool Hi Michelle my

lately have a

cool Shana Taha laelia handle

o

Hanley

Hi, my

name oh yeah.

Her name

Those are the two parts

to share

Daliyah Lane

Hi yah yah

hallelujah

I'm just gonna read some of these out loud you know the people who hear this on podcast later don't get the benefit of our chat here. Not to be too literal but I'll be attending a drawing class this afternoon. That's okay. I think attending a drawing class counts as living your life like a work of art.

Difficult honesty and embracing the challenge of the journey. Beautiful, trying to find joy in every moment. Planting a hydrangea bush and pink roses that my family gifted me for Mother's Day love Maryam and hope it brings beauty and respite to wildlife in our very sterile manicured neighborhood. Men bring a little wildness out there. If you are able to stand

in body or just have the intention of standing up straighter, finding some spaciousness in your spine, some alignment.

Shoulders over hips over knees. Because of course when you bend your knees you're embodying the blessing, right the word for knees is the same Hebrew word for blessing.

So the action of bar who is intended to be done well prostrating yourself

very who at I don't I hum vara

rules had an eye

we learn by

I don't I have

Leo Danza.

I don't I No he No matter how you would sir over echo Shaco say Shalom Google Ray at a coal hammer era artillerymen they have Rahami move to vaniqa dash at the home to meet my savior he to light up the world and that happens with kindness every day you renew them and make them good these works of creation help us mirror your goodness. Help us to make things good all around us. Or Hi dash out do you have any scare who that I'm here our little roll? Viral Katana IOD Ser Jaime? Oh, bless it Are you the creator of all that illuminates?

I have Rabba halftime who I don't either. I'm not going to elevate Tara hamata Alina vino ha ha ha man Camera Camera Camera lane

but 10 Billy Beane with a heavy in LA huskily schmo a little more do that I met leash more of a less so look I am it's called the Red Toyota they are have

airing the to arrive to the data effectively bein all them it's fun

they know

fooling around

day

shame

her God told her no.

issue

I

Yeah, hi.

Go ahead and take the four corners of your seat seats if you have them available to you and if you aren't wearing the tallest just imagine grabbing the four corners of the talus that you can imagine yourself wearing

there haha the Ainu live Shilo man I

can't fault

it all Ollie saying no comment me you live here haha hired say mean Cal Poly a shorter towel van have a hard time Nicola mula Shan the carob tunnel the Shem crocodile celebrate a man who don't look out with the affair. They have

Rakatan I have a clarity I'm all you say.

They have

blessed are you the one who chooses us in love and through love to love

cover and close our eyes.

I say Georgia Shimma

Shimma

eastren

Don't

Don't lie.

Yes

there are hafta I don't know a

whole lot about ha ha No Shaha homebuilder Hi. There how you who had very high a share. I know he

haYom Alibaba Shinan Tam, the Vanessa with the barter bomb. The shifter hudway Taka we will ask the Father Dara Shaka Kuma extra time the Otalia Dasha the how you literature fourth Wainaina Kitab ta Zote beta SA, V Chaga.

To hear this third paragraph after the Shema yolmer Adonai Elmo Shelly more DAB Arielle Binay ser la I'm Marta la han su C city

I can favorite them the door time they're not new out seated. I can ask you to to Failla but hey Allah fer him let's see it will return moto scard temat COVID Volterra IRC tam o tom Velo tattoo Hooroo Ah ha ha hurry.

I share I timezone Lima hurry, Lima antes carova Asita medical Muto Tae Bo Hey Tim cuddle shame the loving fam. I nee I don't die either way.

I share Hautes at a time that's me try him. He oughta Sam that of him. And me. I do die ello hair hair hair

do me some of her now and do this as a healing prayer. So if there's anyone you're thinking about this morning,

people places in the world.

Friends Family yourself.

Go ahead and share their names. You can share them out loud or in the chat

Hana Bazzara Jackson. Aviva badass Sara Teresa Oh Thelma cliff and Laurie, Sherry M and Linda Gayle King for Israel and Palestine for Rachel sherry. Leah Meghan, Cindy Roberta Martin Jasper. Oh everybody in the minion everybody in the minion? Manuela Reiner Mira Walter Moshe

and Delia. Mark near love your dad Susan Oliver family. Daily Eric and Sintra.

Aaron backhauled. Neely, Chris Caroline Kelly. Natalie Tracy. Ross out there. They are a Joe Aiden.

Nathan, Danny Max Dalia. All right. You can continue to think about who and where you want to send that sense of expansiveness, sense of movement sense of progress. Slow though it may be

sensitive opening.

I like to add my names but my chats not working. I don't know why.

Thank you.

Oh Irene everybody on your devoted list you are so you are so devoted and making sure that everybody on your list every always gets a prayer so yes everybody on your list Oh Pat word My aunt is in the hospital in Cleveland battering sepsis My goodness okay yes may her immune system and the antibiotics and everything they're giving her

kick in and help her recover make a complete and speedy recovery refresh Lima to everybody

me ha ha

by the Madonna

me Come on

now Dharma

helo

no no

oh safe

Shri Ram

Shiva get

lash

Oh Do they need

oh

I don't name

NumPy Dan

Kumar Bayes Rottie

only one get up and help us OOF day

literally that's what it says and fulfill your promise you will die they use

you met you our ancestor

you are help and Savior

all in so many ways okay

God

bless it Are you the one who rescues a

bless it are we who are able to ask for help

able to reach out able to reach out to others

both in requests and offering love.

All right. I wanted to, as usual, do a little bit of learning this morning. And I couldn't decide between two different things. So I'm not going to do both during this recorded minion but for anybody who wants to stay around afterward, I'm going to do the slightly more in depth and

wonky like in the political sense of the word walk but like like nerdy thing

after after official minion is over.

And for the purpose of just a little bit of Jewish like a Jewish dive.

I'm going to I'm going to read from this book right now. Around the Shabbat table you've heard me read from it before

I feel like somebody might not be muted and so just make sure make sure you are I feel like I'm seeing or hearing some some weird interference maybe. Oh yeah, yeah, there it is.

We gotcha. Found you. We found you

are all good. Okay, so in this week's Torah portion and more,

there is one line. It says these are the special days of the Lord, the Holy gatherings which you should proclaim at their special times. This is Chapter 23, verse four, and then it goes on to lay out literally every biblical Jewish holiday in the order in which it comes. So I'm just going to read to you from this, and more introduces a list of the major holidays of the Jewish calendar. While the previous parsha Kedoshim. In the previous parsha could no shame the Jewish people had been instructed to become a holy people. Now they are instructed to recognize and observe holiness in time.

Prior to this week's Parsha, the Jewish people had been told to observe Shabbat, Rosh Hodesh, which is the new moon and Passover.

But now for the first time, we are told to observe all of the major festivals Passover Sheva, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur Sukkot, and the eighth day of Sukkot, which is considered an independent holiday shmini Atzeret.

Coming out of the book for just a second, it's actually really interesting to me, I've never noticed this before, that the first three holiday instructions sort of as far as they go in order, Shabbat, and Rosh Hodesh and Passover,

Shabbat has to do with marking every seven days, right? There's like a cycle of seven days like but the number seven is really important. It's the number of days of creation, it's the number of days in a week, it's the number of days that symbolizes like completion and wholeness. It's the number of weeks that go into the owner. It's the number of circles you do around you know, in a wedding, the number of circles the couple does around one another. But then also Passover is a seven day holiday. Like there's a biblical emphasis on things that are seven days and cycles of seven and weeks.

That like I you know, is in there, but I didn't realize that like Shabbat and Passover in particular.

Had that quality to them. Anyway. Okay, moving along. Although this week's parsha list the full roster of biblical Jewish holidays later in the Torah and the book of Deuteronomy, the list of holidays include only Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot. With no mention of Shabbat Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur war. The three holidays of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot thus seem to comprise a distinct unit and cycle of time.

What distinguishes what distinguishes Passover Shavuot and Sukkot from the other special days on the Jewish calendar, Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot are unique in that they reflect each historical, agricultural and national realities. Historically, these three holidays each reflects a significant event in the development of the Jewish people. Passover celebrates the Jewish people's exodus from Egypt. Sheva vote traditionally commemorates the giving of Torah on Mount Sinai and Sukkot recalls God's care for the Jewish people during our wandering in the desert. Okay. I like that he calls that historically. I would call that mythically but okay, historically, historically mythically

in like the most honorable sense of the word myth like capital and myth, okay? Agriculturally Passover is celebrated during the time of planting in the spring. Agriculturally, the Torah refers to this time as celebration of the month of Aviv. The springtime Shavuos is called the holiday of the first fruits be Kareem as it is celebrated at the time of the first harvest. Sukkot is celebrated at the time of the major harvest as the Torah says You shall observe the Feast of Booths for seven days in gathering your grain and your wine. So all of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot all had to do with planting and reaping harvest agriculture. Okay, and then finally on a national level, in Deuteronomy, all of these holidays are described as pilgrimage holidays hog, hog or Hajj in Arabic. The words are the same, being fully observed only in Jerusalem, these three times a year all of the males of course, because it's the Torah should appear before the Lord your God in the place that he will choose the holiday of unleavened bread, the holiday of weeks, which is travel out and the festival of foods, Sukkot these three holidays mentioned in Deuteronomy. Furthermore, the progression between these three holidays reflects a paradigm of growth in the relationship between the Jewish people and God. Passover, the first of these holidays commemorates the birth of the Jewish people, and they're beginning of their relationship with this higher power. The Passover Seder accordingly focuses on children, as we see from the four questions the four types of children and so forth. The seven week period between Passover and shedload represents the springtime of the relationship between God and the Jewish people. That is the period of our youth. Showboat represents God's betrothal of the Jewish people with the giving of the 10 come

Ironmans symbolizing an engagement ring. Oh, that's so funny. I had always learned that the giving of the 10 commandments was actually like a Ketubah like the written document that went with the marriage that was happening on Mount Sinai.

Finally, this relationship between a higher power God and the Jewish people reaches adulthood during the holiday of Sukkot, the sukkah symbolizes the Hapa. And the relationship between God and the Jewish people is consummated. With within this National Cycle of time, is woven another cycle of time, from Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur War, which reflects a process of individual growth and change. One opinion in the Talmud understands ref hashanah as commemorating the sixth day of creation on which Adam and Eve were created. And thus, on Rosh Hashanah, we remember the moment of the creation of the human being, and not a specifically Jewish historical event. The 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are referred to as the 10 days of repentance, signifying a process of personal individual introspection and growth. The 10 days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur War interrupt the National Cycle of events from Passover through Sukkot, when Taken altogether, the interweaving of these two cycles, forms and annual drama, of personal and national growth, and also of a particular kind of relationship and an understanding of God's relationship with the entire world.

And Passover and Shavuos. The Jewish people's relationship with God is created and developed yet before there can be ultimate national bonding. I love that I'm like putting air quotes around bonding because he just called it consummating the relationship, the wedding at Sukkot, each Jew has to focus and amend their individual life. Only then as individuals and as a nation, are we ready to culminate this relationship at Sukkot. Thus, it comes as no surprise that there is an obligation to rejoice on all of these holidays, that although on Sukkot, the culminating holiday of these two cycles, it is the only one that the tourists states, it is a mitzvah to cumberly to be completely thoroughly happy, the happy time somewhere, and you will be thoroughly joyful. He's got a bunch of questions here that you can reflect on. I'll just have one or two of them. Do you relate more to the national or the individual aspects of all our Jewish holidays? He's using national as like people who had national.

Let's see. During the rabbinic period, Hanukkah and Porom were added to the Jewish calendar. In the last 75 years, a number of new holidays have entered the Jewish calendar. We just celebrated or observed two of them over the last few days. Y'all had some oats and Yom Hezekiah, Rhone, also Yom Hashoah.

Have you found ways to make these days meaningful? Do they feel as meaningful as the biblical holidays?

And then finally, which holiday of the calendar is most significant to you? What custom of the holiday Do you appreciate most and why?

All right. That's our little that's our little learning for the morning from this week's Torah portion.

We'll cap off our learning with Khadija tome mourners Kaddish

Who are we remembering this morning?

Nathan pollack. Remember my mother Muriel corn blush? Muriel corn blasts?

David Rose

Yeah, he's it her anomaly Rafa. May their memories be blessings, sir. Anybody who wants to lead us in college this morning.

That'd be deleted. Thank you, Glen. And people can feel free to unmute you know, so that we can have that back and forth of your Hey, she may revise on such eats go to all the youth Kadosh ma Raba

Oh ma de bras era Tavi. I'm least my forte but if I want to do marathoner that's a year to fall beat your throat l but a lot of these mancha read the Maru a man man

eat by Rafi Stubblefield RV eat Romand VT and sa betta dar de la vie Talal she made up to shop for

Lai la mein call Bersatu the Shira TA to spa hot tub and FM at Iran beyond ma Diem ru I mean,

yeah, hey Slama Raba means Shama and the Hyeme Elena we'll call you sir LD mareel. M in me says Shalom de Roma boo yah says shalom, Elena we'll call you sir l they'll call you they say bail beam RU.

I'll close out with a prayer for peace here. Because we need it. Our world needs it.

And

we don't stop we don't stop praying for peace

we don't stop waiting for the better world to come the Messianic age though though it may tarry we still believe we still wait we pray

oh say a shot oh

wait you weren't gonna want to mute everybody just so it doesn't get messy. Thank you

Oh says shine on VM Rama. Who yeah I say shadow Lea No.

Both say shall

we say shallow?

Shallow

Yes.

Yes.

Moline Vallco. You see

ya say Shalom yes Isha Sasha

shadow Molina. They are call your

session on beamer Rama

who Yeah, I say shallow.

Boost session on memory.

Who say shallow

Oh session

shallow

shallow,

shallow, shallow maleeh

ya say shallow

Shan O'Malley

Yoshi

Amin

you've been listening to contact high a production of Michigan Chicago. If you were inspired or informed by this episode, please leave us a five star rating on Apple podcasts so that others can encounter our work. And if you appreciate what Mishkan is doing, I invite you to join as a builder or make a donation on our website at Mishcon chicago.org Shabbat shalom.